WEBVTT 00:01.767 --> 00:03.697 We're at that moment. 00:03.700 --> 00:08.670 Pardon me a second here. 00:08.667 --> 00:12.667 You know, I always find it shocking that you, 00:16.600 --> 00:18.100 you get to spring break, and you come back, 00:18.100 --> 00:19.400 and you're like, "Oh my god, six more weeks. 00:19.400 --> 00:20.900 How am I going to survive?" 00:20.900 --> 00:23.900 And the next thing you know, we're at the last week of 00:23.900 --> 00:25.100 class, the last lecture. 00:25.100 --> 00:29.000 And since it is the last lecture, 00:29.000 --> 00:31.270 I want to do a quick survey of the course, 00:31.267 --> 00:37.267 and this is truly a quick survey of the course through 00:37.267 --> 00:39.297 a whole host of keywords. 00:39.300 --> 00:43.070 This is not meant to sum up the entire course, 00:43.067 --> 00:44.867 and I'm not saying that all these keywords are going to 00:44.867 --> 00:47.697 help you understand your final paper or ace, 00:47.700 --> 00:49.370 you know, the in-class exam, for those of you who are 00:49.367 --> 00:51.697 going to be taking it. 00:51.700 --> 00:55.370 But they, I think, will--they are there to spur 00:55.367 --> 00:58.497 more reflection and thought about critical moments, 00:58.500 --> 01:00.600 themes, ideologies for the class. 01:00.600 --> 01:04.000 And then I do want to bring us up to our contemporary 01:04.000 --> 01:06.970 moment and wrestle for a little bit about some of the 01:06.967 --> 01:08.097 lessons, discussions, ideas from the past, 01:08.100 --> 01:09.400 and how they resonate in our present time. 01:09.400 --> 01:10.400 So--is this working? 01:10.400 --> 01:11.400 Excellent. 01:11.400 --> 01:12.400 Okay. 01:12.400 --> 01:13.600 So it should--unless you're coming to the class for the 01:13.600 --> 01:18.870 first time today, not pre-frosh, 01:18.867 --> 01:24.867 who might be here, but people in the class, 01:27.400 --> 01:30.070 if, if I have to linger over citizenship, 01:30.067 --> 01:33.767 I wish you much luck for the end of the term. 01:33.767 --> 01:36.367 Citizenship is one of the, the fundamental issues that 01:36.367 --> 01:38.197 I've been talking about throughout this course, 01:38.200 --> 01:41.770 whether it's the active attempt to deny citizenship 01:41.767 --> 01:43.897 in the, in the pre-emancipatory moment and 01:43.900 --> 01:45.600 the post-emancipatory moment, 01:45.600 --> 01:48.870 or whether it's just the various ways individuals, 01:48.867 --> 01:54.597 state actors, ideologies have worked to police who 01:54.600 --> 01:57.500 could belong and not belong in the American pantheon. 01:57.500 --> 01:59.600 Representation, I'm talking about it, 01:59.600 --> 02:04.600 how--I, I mean, think about it in the way that we use 02:04.600 --> 02:08.000 cultural symbols to represent other things, 02:08.000 --> 02:11.770 the ways in which different ideologies of the self, 02:11.767 --> 02:13.467 in terms of racialized self-representation, 02:13.467 --> 02:15.197 ethnic, sexual orientation, gender, 02:15.200 --> 02:18.770 all of these things representing a whole body, 02:18.767 --> 02:22.097 as it were, of political positions and ideologies. 02:25.500 --> 02:27.770 One of the great things that is there through the 02:27.767 --> 02:29.497 beginning of the course and all the way to the present 02:29.500 --> 02:33.670 day is really the wrestling and the balance between 02:33.667 --> 02:35.897 where does one's rights as an individuals run 02:35.900 --> 02:37.300 into--[Student Sneezes] Bless you--run, 02:37.300 --> 02:39.900 run into larger issues dealing with the social 02:39.900 --> 02:43.800 fabric, individual liberty versus social equality. 02:43.800 --> 02:45.600 And you can certainly translate that into, 02:45.600 --> 02:49.270 metaphorically, into states' rights versus federal rights 02:49.267 --> 02:50.267 as well. 02:50.267 --> 02:56.767 This is a major thing that we've been talking about, 02:56.767 --> 02:58.967 I've been trying to impart to you the last couple of 02:58.967 --> 03:01.067 lectures, certainly, but it's been there throughout 03:01.067 --> 03:06.067 the course, the great divide between the rhetoric of our 03:06.067 --> 03:08.197 political leaders or our political activists, 03:08.200 --> 03:11.100 politically engaged people, and what social reality is. 03:11.100 --> 03:14.670 This is certainly an important thing to wrestle 03:14.667 --> 03:18.667 with, think about, in the last twenty or thirty 03:18.667 --> 03:21.767 years--well, gosh, now thirty or forty years, 03:21.767 --> 03:24.567 in our post-civil rights movement era. 03:24.567 --> 03:27.897 But how can we talk about race as it's lived on the 03:27.900 --> 03:30.600 ground, and not--as a politician or activist? 03:30.600 --> 03:34.670 How can I talk about race as it's lived on the ground 03:34.667 --> 03:36.767 without being tarred, correctly or incorrectly, 03:36.767 --> 03:38.797 as being racialist or racist in my thinking? 03:42.400 --> 03:45.600 Dealing with issues of leadership of course, 03:45.600 --> 03:46.600 and uplift. 03:46.600 --> 03:48.070 These come together, certainly if you think back 03:48.067 --> 03:50.867 to earlier part of the course and the complicated 03:50.867 --> 03:55.097 politics, often class politics and gender 03:55.100 --> 03:58.770 politics, all woven through with race politics, 03:58.767 --> 03:59.997 about what does uplift mean? 04:00.000 --> 04:02.470 What does it mean to lead the race? 04:02.467 --> 04:05.297 Uplift them to what, uplift them from what? 04:05.300 --> 04:07.500 Uplift them, but so far. 04:07.500 --> 04:10.400 These are all these kinds of things we talked about. 04:10.400 --> 04:13.000 Chronologically speaking, mainly I talked about them 04:13.000 --> 04:15.000 at the turn of the century going into the twentieth 04:15.000 --> 04:17.000 century. 04:19.300 --> 04:22.470 Part of uplift, part of uplift is respectability, 04:22.467 --> 04:24.467 people acting in a respectable fashion, 04:24.467 --> 04:27.497 but that's certainly not a phenomenon that limits 04:27.500 --> 04:29.400 itself to the late nineteenth century, 04:29.400 --> 04:30.700 early twentieth century. 04:30.700 --> 04:32.500 I mean, think of the images of the civil rights 04:32.500 --> 04:35.570 activists that we saw, that, that we've grown up with: 04:35.567 --> 04:38.367 you know, young men and young women having to dress 04:38.367 --> 04:42.797 in a certain way, comport themselves in a certain 04:42.800 --> 04:43.800 fashion. 04:43.800 --> 04:45.900 Think of the stories I talked about with the 04:45.900 --> 04:48.300 Little--Little Rock Nine or the, 04:48.300 --> 04:52.100 the men who integrated the Woolworth's lunch counter in 04:52.100 --> 04:53.770 Greensboro, North Carolina, and started the sit-in 04:53.767 --> 04:55.267 movement. 04:55.267 --> 04:57.397 Think of the way that Martin Luther King had to present 04:57.400 --> 04:59.800 himself, felt the need to present himself, 04:59.800 --> 05:03.070 the test case individuals who end up--their cases go 05:03.067 --> 05:04.967 up to the Supreme Court. 05:04.967 --> 05:08.367 They had to reflect or embody the kind of values 05:08.367 --> 05:10.167 that they felt the nation could understand. 05:10.167 --> 05:13.297 These are the most respectable people, 05:13.300 --> 05:16.200 and how can we deny them their citizenship rights? 05:19.067 --> 05:20.997 Gender, of course, and its see--and its seeming 05:21.000 --> 05:22.000 invisibility. 05:22.000 --> 05:23.000 Throughout the course and its readings, 05:23.000 --> 05:29.300 I know in sections as well, issues have--of, 05:29.300 --> 05:31.970 of gender have been ever present. 05:31.967 --> 05:34.167 They're always present, and in some weeks more 05:34.167 --> 05:38.797 explicitly than others, but the way in which women's and 05:38.800 --> 05:41.100 men's rights or, quote, "sensibilities"--I use that 05:41.100 --> 05:44.300 term very gently in a fully loaded fashion--shift how we 05:44.300 --> 05:50.870 deal with individual rights, social equality, 05:50.867 --> 05:52.867 certainly, who can be a citizen? 05:56.000 --> 05:57.100 Thinking of things on the ground, 05:57.100 --> 05:59.270 you have the migrations, the Great Migration 05:59.267 --> 06:00.897 her--happening in the early part of the twentieth 06:00.900 --> 06:05.000 century, the much larger migration as far as numbers 06:05.000 --> 06:09.570 happening in the 1940s and 1950s, 06:09.567 --> 06:11.667 and coming along with the relocation of African 06:11.667 --> 06:15.297 American bodies is also the relocation of African 06:15.300 --> 06:19.370 American culture, forms of cultural expression, 06:19.367 --> 06:22.797 politics, organizing logics, traditions, 06:22.800 --> 06:26.300 and also resistance, and unrest, 06:26.300 --> 06:28.200 and riots, and bloodshed. 06:28.200 --> 06:34.800 At different moments in the course I talked about 06:34.800 --> 06:37.800 cultural politics, whether the Harlem Renaissance or 06:37.800 --> 06:40.700 the New Negro Renaissance, and introduced the idea, 06:40.700 --> 06:43.600 at least for this course, about the belief by many of 06:43.600 --> 06:45.470 the leaders of the Renaissance that practicing 06:45.467 --> 06:47.167 cultural politics in this way, 06:47.167 --> 06:52.767 talking about exceptional cultural talents of the 06:52.767 --> 06:58.167 race, was absolutely a politicized act. 06:58.167 --> 07:01.597 That by recognizing the cultural gifts of black 07:01.600 --> 07:05.800 people in the world, think to the connections, 07:05.800 --> 07:08.970 the complicated connections, to African cultural roots, 07:08.967 --> 07:10.697 but by talking about the cultural gifts of African 07:10.700 --> 07:16.270 Americans, the nation would understand these people have 07:16.267 --> 07:18.797 made a contribution and they needed to be recognized in 07:18.800 --> 07:20.670 such a way and have their citizenship rights 07:20.667 --> 07:21.667 respected. 07:21.667 --> 07:22.997 Certainly throughout the course, 07:23.000 --> 07:25.700 we've been talking about political radicalism, 07:25.700 --> 07:29.700 but, you know, keep in mind this is chronologically 07:29.700 --> 07:30.700 contingent. 07:30.700 --> 07:34.170 The NAACP were a bunch of crazy radicals--The leaders 07:34.167 --> 07:39.267 of the NAACP were a bunch of crazy radicals in 1909, 07:39.267 --> 07:41.467 always espousing middle-class norms, 07:41.467 --> 07:43.697 but still radicals. 07:43.700 --> 07:45.100 By the time you get to mid-century, 07:45.100 --> 07:47.800 they aren't necessarily the radicals, 07:47.800 --> 07:50.900 you know, and they're trying to silence people like 07:50.900 --> 07:55.300 Rob--Robert Williams, saying blacks need to arm 07:55.300 --> 07:56.300 themselves. 07:56.300 --> 07:59.770 It's like, "We can't have that in our association." 07:59.767 --> 08:02.167 And then by the sixties and seventies, 08:02.167 --> 08:04.597 you know, they're yesterday's news as far as 08:04.600 --> 08:06.300 the young radicals are concerned. 08:06.300 --> 08:08.400 What is radical is contingent upon time and 08:08.400 --> 08:09.400 place. 08:09.400 --> 08:12.000 Certainly when you think about the civil rights 08:12.000 --> 08:13.900 movement in particular, as I, 08:13.900 --> 08:18.070 you know, remember, I slowed down the pace of the course 08:18.067 --> 08:20.697 dramatically, because the iconography of the civil 08:20.700 --> 08:22.770 rights movement is so powerful, 08:22.767 --> 08:25.097 it's one of the defining characteristics of our, 08:25.100 --> 08:27.400 of our modern--I mean modern in the last forty years, 08:27.400 --> 08:29.900 let's say--of our modern conception of what it means 08:29.900 --> 08:31.700 to be an American. 08:31.700 --> 08:36.000 It means that we all supported Martin Luther 08:36.000 --> 08:37.100 King, after all. 08:37.100 --> 08:43.070 We all overcame, you know, the struggles that people 08:43.067 --> 08:46.597 with a less sharp vision created. 08:46.600 --> 08:49.200 Well, the fact is, that's all a myth. 08:51.467 --> 08:53.497 There's only a minority of a minority who were on the 08:53.500 --> 08:55.700 front lines with King and other people, 08:55.700 --> 08:58.600 and of course, King being iconographic himself and 08:58.600 --> 09:00.600 many other people involved. 09:00.600 --> 09:02.600 And there's profound resistance, 09:02.600 --> 09:07.200 individual, institutional, cultural, 09:07.200 --> 09:08.700 to change in the movement. 09:08.700 --> 09:13.070 But the iconography gives us a kind of simplified notion 09:13.067 --> 09:17.967 of the civil rights history that does a disservice to 09:17.967 --> 09:19.497 all the real struggles on the ground, 09:19.500 --> 09:21.500 and all the complications that come along with being a 09:21.500 --> 09:23.500 human being. 09:28.100 --> 09:30.600 Talk of the triumphs of--I mean, 09:30.600 --> 09:32.470 two great iconographic moments were the signing of 09:32.467 --> 09:35.597 the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. 09:35.600 --> 09:38.100 Moments where it seems that African Americans finally 09:38.100 --> 09:39.570 had their full rights as citizens. 09:39.567 --> 09:43.697 But you need to understand, this might connect across 09:43.700 --> 09:45.600 the way to political rhetoric versus social 09:45.600 --> 09:47.200 reality. 09:47.200 --> 09:50.970 So you can pass all the laws you want to pass, 09:50.967 --> 09:52.667 but unless you enforce those laws, 09:52.667 --> 09:58.297 it doesn't mean anything. 09:58.300 --> 10:02.100 So the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts were 10:02.100 --> 10:04.900 signed and ushered in a, a new day for all American 10:04.900 --> 10:05.900 citizens. 10:05.900 --> 10:07.070 There's no minimizing that fact; 10:07.067 --> 10:08.697 it did. 10:08.700 --> 10:10.100 But you also have to look at enforcement, 10:10.100 --> 10:15.670 you have to wrestle with the phenomenon that, 10:15.667 --> 10:17.297 say, the Supreme Court in Brown v. 10:17.300 --> 10:19.370 Board, saying "we need to end, 10:19.367 --> 10:22.697 end segregation with all deliberate speed." 10:22.700 --> 10:25.000 And these things are still tied up in court cases, 10:25.000 --> 10:27.000 to this day. 10:28.300 --> 10:32.800 Enforcement being very critical when it comes to 10:32.800 --> 10:34.800 citizenship rights and the law. 10:37.200 --> 10:39.300 Heading more towards our contemporary moment, 10:39.300 --> 10:43.000 of course, where we've been for the last four weeks of 10:43.000 --> 10:45.000 the course--no, I'm sorry, last two weeks of the 10:45.000 --> 10:47.900 course--with greater focus is post-civil rights 10:47.900 --> 10:49.400 America. 10:49.400 --> 10:54.000 What does it mean to be post-civil rights? 10:54.000 --> 10:56.070 Historians are actually actively debating this right 10:56.067 --> 10:59.767 now, wondering if we ever got to a post-civil rights 10:59.767 --> 11:05.297 moment, and also wondering, did the civil rights--and 11:05.300 --> 11:08.400 I've already mentioned this in the course, 11:08.400 --> 11:09.400 did the civil rights movement begin, 11:09.400 --> 11:11.100 say, in '54? 11:11.100 --> 11:13.100 Can you actually identify the beginning? 11:13.100 --> 11:15.000 Did it end in '68? 11:15.000 --> 11:18.600 Can you identify an ending, actually? 11:18.600 --> 11:20.600 So, we all use the phrase post-civil rights, 11:20.600 --> 11:21.600 I mean, I use it as well. 11:21.600 --> 11:24.870 But we need to understand that it's loaded with 11:24.867 --> 11:25.867 complications. 11:25.867 --> 11:29.567 It's a highly nuanced term that's never thought about 11:29.567 --> 11:34.367 in a nuanced way or used in a nuanced way, 11:34.367 --> 11:36.367 except for you guys after this class. 11:38.267 --> 11:39.767 Racial symbolism has been there from the very 11:39.767 --> 11:43.097 beginning, the founding of this country, 11:43.100 --> 11:45.000 before the founding of this country. 11:45.000 --> 11:49.700 It is a phenomenon that exists as long as people 11:49.700 --> 11:50.700 have eyeballs. 11:50.700 --> 11:55.000 Now, it is a defining characteristic of this 11:55.000 --> 11:57.000 country. 11:58.300 --> 12:00.700 It's--John Hope Franklin, the historian I mentioned in 12:00.700 --> 12:03.500 the last lecture, who headed up the President's 12:03.500 --> 12:09.000 commission on the, the National Conversation on 12:09.000 --> 12:12.500 Race, you know, said this is America's original sin. 12:12.500 --> 12:16.900 This is the scar that really defines the country. 12:16.900 --> 12:18.670 Angela Oh disagreed with him to the, 12:18.667 --> 12:20.597 to the extent to which he thought--she thought that 12:20.600 --> 12:23.000 that was a really useful way of thinking about things, 12:23.000 --> 12:26.170 but the fact is, as I mentioned in the very first 12:26.167 --> 12:27.867 lecture, that--arguing you cannot understand American 12:27.867 --> 12:30.397 freedom, one of our most core values, 12:30.400 --> 12:32.670 without understanding slavery. 12:35.300 --> 12:36.800 And you can't understand slavery without 12:36.800 --> 12:38.570 understanding its racial dynamics. 12:38.567 --> 12:43.897 Of course, racial symbolism carries forward till today 12:43.900 --> 12:46.070 and that's what I'll actually be talking about a 12:46.067 --> 12:47.397 fair amount in today's lecture, 12:47.400 --> 12:48.400 about just that. 12:48.400 --> 12:51.670 And, in fact, as I think about it, 12:51.667 --> 12:55.797 this used to be the last keyword I'd have on the 12:55.800 --> 12:56.800 screen. 12:56.800 --> 12:58.300 There's many other words I could pick and choose, 12:58.300 --> 12:59.800 but I thought this was a nice way to get into the 12:59.800 --> 13:02.100 lecture on racial symbolism. 13:02.100 --> 13:04.300 But now we've got this one to deal with, 13:04.300 --> 13:06.600 "post-racial." 13:06.600 --> 13:08.170 What does it mean? 13:08.167 --> 13:10.297 What can it possibly mean? 13:10.300 --> 13:13.670 I mean, the, the, the, the simple answer is that we've 13:13.667 --> 13:16.367 now come to a place that as a country, 13:16.367 --> 13:20.297 we've elected an African American President. 13:20.300 --> 13:22.070 Who that we is, is contingent, 13:22.067 --> 13:25.167 of course, and even an African American President 13:25.167 --> 13:27.967 is contingent, of course. 13:27.967 --> 13:30.467 But now that we have done this great thing, 13:34.900 --> 13:39.200 we can now get past this great burden that has--that 13:39.200 --> 13:43.800 we have of being consumed with racial politics, 13:43.800 --> 13:45.500 everybody. 13:45.500 --> 13:49.700 And, goodness, I'm forgetting the talking head 13:49.700 --> 13:53.770 that said as much, but after Barack Obama's election, 13:53.767 --> 13:54.967 it's like, "Look, African Americans, 13:54.967 --> 13:56.897 basically you've got nothing else to complain--I don't 13:56.900 --> 13:58.500 want to hear any more whining." 13:58.500 --> 13:59.500 Who was that? 13:59.500 --> 14:00.500 Somebody here knows this. 14:00.500 --> 14:03.600 It wasn't Chris Matthews. 14:03.600 --> 14:06.870 He thought for a second he was going to be able to 14:06.867 --> 14:09.597 forget Barack Obama's black, for about an hour, 14:09.600 --> 14:10.600 he was that--that was a triumphant moment for him. 14:10.600 --> 14:12.700 I'm forgetting who it was, but it was actually a quite 14:12.700 --> 14:15.100 famous comment that, "All right, 14:15.100 --> 14:16.700 you have nothing else to complain about. 14:16.700 --> 14:20.400 You've, you've got your guy in office." 14:20.400 --> 14:21.800 What does it mean to be post-racial? 14:21.800 --> 14:23.670 I actually had a conversation about this the 14:23.667 --> 14:27.497 night after Barack Obama was elected. 14:27.500 --> 14:31.400 I was in Commons--Calhoun was in renovation then--and 14:31.400 --> 14:33.070 there was one other student. 14:33.067 --> 14:34.597 I was getting there late, and there was one other 14:34.600 --> 14:36.100 student from Calhoun in the section, 14:36.100 --> 14:37.200 so I sat down across from her. 14:37.200 --> 14:40.100 I'm like, "Wow, this is quite a remarkable moment, 14:40.100 --> 14:41.100 isn't it?" 14:41.100 --> 14:43.700 And she said, "Professor Holloway, 14:43.700 --> 14:46.900 we just, you know, we, of our generation (which is a 14:46.900 --> 14:48.800 reminder of yes, I was twice her age), 14:48.800 --> 14:52.670 you know, we don't think about these things this way. 14:52.667 --> 14:54.697 We're post-racial." 14:54.700 --> 14:57.500 And, you know, I don't want to overburden the race, 14:57.500 --> 14:59.300 but this is an African American student I happened 14:59.300 --> 15:00.970 to be sitting across from. 15:00.967 --> 15:02.797 And she goes, you know, "This is something that your 15:02.800 --> 15:04.600 generation (thanks, once again, 15:04.600 --> 15:07.300 for reminding me I'm twice your age) that you guys are 15:07.300 --> 15:08.500 all con--consumed by." 15:08.500 --> 15:10.200 And the--What she wouldn't know is, 15:10.200 --> 15:12.770 you know, I don't remember any of this stuff. 15:12.767 --> 15:14.997 I was too young for that consum--consumptive moment 15:15.000 --> 15:16.500 of the civil rights era. 15:16.500 --> 15:18.400 That's the moment of my birth. 15:18.400 --> 15:21.300 So she was like, "We just don't talk about these 15:21.300 --> 15:22.300 things. 15:22.300 --> 15:23.300 We don't think about these things." 15:23.300 --> 15:25.700 And I walked away from that conversation thinking, 15:25.700 --> 15:28.100 "My god, she's actually right." 15:28.100 --> 15:29.970 That we don't talk about these things and we don't 15:29.967 --> 15:31.997 think about these things, but is, 15:32.000 --> 15:33.500 is that what it means to be post-racial? 15:33.500 --> 15:36.600 And if it does, I'd say we're actually in a whole 15:36.600 --> 15:38.600 bunch of trouble. 15:39.700 --> 15:43.800 Is it a generational change, or is it something a little 15:43.800 --> 15:44.800 more complicated? 15:44.800 --> 15:46.100 And I'll argue that it's more complicated. 15:46.100 --> 15:52.270 So that was the night--the day after Obama was elected, 15:52.267 --> 15:53.597 and then of course he's inaugurated. 15:53.600 --> 15:56.970 And it was fascinating to me, 15:56.967 --> 15:58.567 I mentioned this once before in the lecture, 15:58.567 --> 16:00.097 that this--I mean inaugurations, 16:00.100 --> 16:02.670 regardless of who's taking office, 16:02.667 --> 16:05.997 pretty phenomenal moment, and a moment I get very 16:06.000 --> 16:08.270 patriotic about, even if I don't like the person who's 16:08.267 --> 16:09.497 taking office. 16:09.500 --> 16:10.900 The peaceful transition of power, 16:10.900 --> 16:12.900 it's an astonishing thing. 16:14.500 --> 16:15.970 But as the--and the, and the inauguration, 16:15.967 --> 16:18.297 I mean the pomp and circumstance and all the, 16:18.300 --> 16:21.700 you know, the symbolic weight of the moment is, 16:21.700 --> 16:23.700 I think, really quite powerful. 16:25.000 --> 16:26.800 This inauguration was really quite different. 16:26.800 --> 16:28.770 It was texturally rich in a way that an--other 16:28.767 --> 16:30.997 inaugurations weren't, and this from somebody who 16:31.000 --> 16:33.000 studies the African American past. 16:35.667 --> 16:37.867 You have Aretha Franklin singing "My Country, 16:37.867 --> 16:40.297 'Tis of Thee." 16:40.300 --> 16:41.600 You know because I've offered the prompt, 16:41.600 --> 16:42.800 I think that's kind of important, 16:42.800 --> 16:45.300 for reasons I'll let you explore. 16:45.300 --> 16:46.800 You have Reverend Joseph Lowry, 16:46.800 --> 16:48.700 a leader of the Southern Christian Leadership 16:48.700 --> 16:51.100 Conference, one of King's inner circle, 16:53.767 --> 16:56.797 gets up to offer his prayer. 16:56.800 --> 16:59.800 And a fascinating thing happens, 16:59.800 --> 17:00.800 sort of after the fact. 17:00.800 --> 17:03.200 From the first moment he gets up there and, 17:03.200 --> 17:05.400 and starts talking, I'm like, 17:05.400 --> 17:06.870 "Wow, this is really powerful. 17:06.867 --> 17:08.567 I know exactly what he's doing. 17:08.567 --> 17:12.797 He's reading, narrating, the first words of the, 17:12.800 --> 17:17.800 quote, 'National Black Anthem.'" And what was 17:17.800 --> 17:22.570 astonishing to discover is that in a way that I, 17:22.567 --> 17:24.897 I just sort of found amazing, 17:24.900 --> 17:26.600 in a sense that I was so close to the topic, 17:26.600 --> 17:30.400 I didn't think that others didn't get what was going 17:30.400 --> 17:32.100 on, but that the inaug--that, 17:32.100 --> 17:35.800 that many people, white Americans, 17:35.800 --> 17:37.400 and other Americans, different types, 17:37.400 --> 17:39.170 and certainly some black Americans as well, 17:39.167 --> 17:42.567 had no idea what he was talking about, 17:42.567 --> 17:44.697 when he was reciting the lines to "Lift Every Voice 17:44.700 --> 17:47.270 and Sing." 17:47.267 --> 17:49.797 And it made it clear to me, is that that inauguration, 17:49.800 --> 17:51.300 from a textual point of view, 17:51.300 --> 17:53.370 was experienced in very different ways. 17:53.367 --> 17:54.897 There's the obvious point of view: there's a black 17:54.900 --> 17:57.470 President, you know, overwhelmingly--overwhelming 17:57.467 --> 17:59.797 majority, a supermajority of African Americans voting for 17:59.800 --> 18:03.200 him, a, a mixed bag depending on different 18:03.200 --> 18:06.000 categories beyond that, of who voted for Barack Obama. 18:06.000 --> 18:08.000 So it's the obvious way in which the inauguration's 18:08.000 --> 18:09.100 experienced differently. 18:09.100 --> 18:11.200 But from a textual standpoint, 18:11.200 --> 18:13.900 and the way in which the inauguration was really 18:13.900 --> 18:18.800 quite historically minded, was really quite something, 18:18.800 --> 18:21.370 and the way that that history was experienced or 18:21.367 --> 18:25.197 acknowledged differently, that many people basically 18:25.200 --> 18:29.970 didn't understand the subtext of Aretha Franklin's 18:29.967 --> 18:33.397 performance, or the subtext of Reverend Lowry's 18:33.400 --> 18:36.000 performance, or even the night when Obama was 18:36.000 --> 18:38.600 elected, at Grant Park in Chicago, 18:38.600 --> 18:42.470 his invocation of words that are sort of central to the 18:42.467 --> 18:44.897 civil rights movement heritage, 18:44.900 --> 18:47.300 quotes Martin Luther King, but never references King. 18:49.600 --> 18:52.500 It's really quite something, actually, 18:52.500 --> 18:57.900 the way in which Obama or his inner circle are making 18:57.900 --> 19:00.500 all of these connections often to the African 19:00.500 --> 19:04.400 American past, without referencing it. 19:04.400 --> 19:06.900 Maybe that's post-racial, I don't know. 19:10.167 --> 19:13.297 Now when Obama was running for office, 19:15.500 --> 19:20.100 so two years ago, in this course at the one of the 19:20.100 --> 19:21.400 very first lectures, I was saying, 19:21.400 --> 19:23.870 you know, "Look, I'm not going to talk--"--you know, 19:23.867 --> 19:26.467 Hillary Rodham Clinton and, and Barack Obama were 19:26.467 --> 19:28.297 shaping up to be the major contenders for the 19:28.300 --> 19:30.470 Democratic Party, the nomination, 19:30.467 --> 19:32.597 and I told the class, "Look, I know this is rather 19:32.600 --> 19:33.600 important. 19:33.600 --> 19:34.600 Of course it's important. 19:34.600 --> 19:37.000 It's an historic elec--election for the 19:37.000 --> 19:38.000 Democrats no matter what. 19:38.000 --> 19:40.600 I'm not going to talk about it at the beginning of the 19:40.600 --> 19:41.600 course. 19:41.600 --> 19:42.600 I'll talk about it in the last lecture." 19:42.600 --> 19:43.600 What I wasn't telling the students is like "when 19:43.600 --> 19:45.070 Hillary Rodham Clinton will probably heading--be heading 19:45.067 --> 19:47.097 towards the nomination, and Barack Obama will have 19:47.100 --> 19:48.200 dropped out." 19:48.200 --> 19:50.400 In my head, it's what I was thinking. 19:50.400 --> 19:53.270 Thinking of the history of, of, 19:53.267 --> 19:58.467 like the "Angry Hands" advertisement with Harvey 19:58.467 --> 20:00.997 Gantt and Jesse Helms, I frankly presumed it was just 20:01.000 --> 20:02.800 a matter of time when we started going to the ballot 20:02.800 --> 20:07.270 boxes and the, the voting booths that, 20:07.267 --> 20:10.497 although people were curious and excited about this 20:10.500 --> 20:14.870 eloquent junior senator, that when it came to 20:14.867 --> 20:19.197 actually casting the vote that--I thought that Hillary 20:19.200 --> 20:21.200 Clinton would basically run away with it. 20:23.500 --> 20:26.070 And then Obama goes on what was an eleven state tear, 20:26.067 --> 20:27.267 something like that, crushes the history of what Jesse 20:27.267 --> 20:28.267 Jackson had done. 20:28.267 --> 20:32.797 And I'm realizing during the course, 20:32.800 --> 20:34.200 like "Oh boy, I've got to rewrite the end of my 20:34.200 --> 20:35.200 course." 20:35.200 --> 20:36.870 This is act--something, something different is 20:36.867 --> 20:39.697 happening here. 20:39.700 --> 20:45.470 And then, as we are heading towards spring break, 20:45.467 --> 20:46.667 that moment of, you know, "Boy, 20:46.667 --> 20:48.697 we're all so tired and we've just got to struggle through 20:48.700 --> 20:50.600 the last six weeks of the course, 20:50.600 --> 20:56.600 then the news starts to break about Reverend Wright, 20:58.767 --> 21:02.367 Obama's pastor in, in Trinity Church, 21:02.367 --> 21:05.297 Rev--Reverend Jeremiah Wright and his racial views, 21:05.300 --> 21:07.870 a church that he'd been leading for a long time and 21:07.867 --> 21:09.867 Obama had gone to. 21:11.500 --> 21:12.600 And what happened next was actually, 21:12.600 --> 21:13.600 I thought, rather predictable. 21:13.600 --> 21:14.970 There's lots and lots of hot air, 21:14.967 --> 21:17.497 all sides of the political--all spots in the 21:17.500 --> 21:22.070 political spectrum weighing in about Reverend Wright's 21:22.067 --> 21:24.297 racism, or his racial honesty, 21:24.300 --> 21:27.000 and everything in between, and where--what's Obama 21:27.000 --> 21:28.400 thinking? 21:28.400 --> 21:29.400 What happened after that was, 21:29.400 --> 21:31.800 I thought, quite astonishing though. 21:31.800 --> 21:34.500 Obama gives his so-called race speech in Philadelphia, 21:34.500 --> 21:37.400 "A More Perfect Union," that two years ago in the 21:37.400 --> 21:40.900 edition--actually, even last year, 21:40.900 --> 21:42.300 I believe, in the edition of the, 21:42.300 --> 21:45.100 the Manning Marable reader--was it even in last 21:45.100 --> 21:46.100 year's edition? 21:46.100 --> 21:47.470 No, it wasn't there yet. 21:47.467 --> 21:48.797 They, they re-purposed the book, 21:48.800 --> 21:50.800 and that's in the documents now. 21:53.800 --> 21:59.370 Now there was the expected repudiation of some of 21:59.367 --> 22:01.497 Wright's views in Obama's speech. 22:01.500 --> 22:02.870 People expected that. 22:02.867 --> 22:06.597 But, remarkably, there wasn't an apology. 22:06.600 --> 22:08.600 It's kind of astonishing. 22:15.100 --> 22:20.070 Obama addressed in his speech Wright's ideas, 22:20.067 --> 22:23.797 as one would expect, distanced himself from some 22:23.800 --> 22:25.900 of them, but he gave a lecture really, 22:25.900 --> 22:29.500 and I think lecture is the appropriate word, 22:29.500 --> 22:32.170 on the scar of race throughout American history. 22:32.167 --> 22:36.697 It was an acknowledgement that everyone had to be more 22:36.700 --> 22:40.100 honest about racism, everyone, 22:40.100 --> 22:42.800 about the racism they express or feel, 22:42.800 --> 22:44.500 and that they had to recognize that race was 22:44.500 --> 22:47.200 often used as a veil, as it were, 22:47.200 --> 22:49.970 to mask other issues. 22:49.967 --> 22:51.997 Think back to Du Bois where, you know, 22:52.000 --> 22:53.670 people who were black hid behind a veil, 22:53.667 --> 22:55.797 or put--society put a veil in front of them. 22:55.800 --> 22:57.370 Obama's talking about a different way, 22:57.367 --> 23:01.497 that race is the actual veil that's shielding, 23:01.500 --> 23:06.270 hiding, obfuscating other issues. 23:06.267 --> 23:09.197 Obama also said that there were lingering scars that we 23:09.200 --> 23:12.070 as a nation had to admit to. 23:12.067 --> 23:15.597 We had to admit to all of this and recognize that the 23:15.600 --> 23:16.770 feelings were still very real, 23:16.767 --> 23:22.697 and that Wright's views made sense, 23:22.700 --> 23:24.900 even though they might sound repugnant to many people, 23:24.900 --> 23:27.600 that they made sense to many people as well in the 23:27.600 --> 23:28.870 African American community. 23:28.867 --> 23:32.367 And that if we're ever to get beyond any of this, 23:37.167 --> 23:40.297 it was time that we actually be honest about this scar, 23:40.300 --> 23:41.600 and how we can make a better world. 23:41.600 --> 23:43.900 It's a powerful speech. 23:43.900 --> 23:47.070 I was actually on spring vacation and really trying 23:47.067 --> 23:48.067 to be on spring vacation. 23:48.067 --> 23:49.997 I was in Florida with my family. 23:50.000 --> 23:54.270 And I knew that he was going to give this speech, 23:54.267 --> 23:56.397 but I also knew that I had, you know, 23:56.400 --> 23:58.600 rented a boat that I was going to--by goodness, 23:58.600 --> 23:59.870 I was going to take that boat out, 23:59.867 --> 24:01.797 and so I was going to miss the speech. 24:01.800 --> 24:04.000 And I get, we get back after the day, 24:04.000 --> 24:06.570 and there's messages on my email, 24:06.567 --> 24:08.897 email and my voice mail, from different reporters 24:08.900 --> 24:09.900 wanting comment. 24:09.900 --> 24:12.600 I'm like, "Oh, guess the speech actually was 24:12.600 --> 24:14.100 well-received, or controversial, 24:14.100 --> 24:15.100 or something." 24:15.100 --> 24:16.570 I didn't know the first thing about the speech. 24:16.567 --> 24:18.197 Then I start seeing--looking at the email more 24:18.200 --> 24:21.000 carefully--or the headlines, I'm sorry. 24:21.000 --> 24:23.200 "The most important political speech in the 24:23.200 --> 24:24.200 nation's history." 24:24.200 --> 24:25.300 "The most important speech since Gettysburg." 24:25.300 --> 24:27.370 "More important than 'I Have a Dream.'" I'm like, 24:27.367 --> 24:30.197 "Oh my, what the heck did this man say?" 24:30.200 --> 24:32.070 I've got to find out. 24:32.067 --> 24:34.597 So right away I go to C-SPAN, 24:34.600 --> 24:36.100 and they already have it posted. 24:36.100 --> 24:38.600 So I, I watch, listen to the speech, 24:41.000 --> 24:47.570 and what I found so astonishing in this--I mean, 24:47.567 --> 24:49.967 I already told you the things I thought were 24:49.967 --> 24:52.097 important about it, but a major reason that it was 24:52.100 --> 24:58.600 astonishing is that our national discourse on race 24:58.600 --> 25:02.800 is so impoverished that they didn't know how to handle a 25:02.800 --> 25:06.600 very honest and rich speech that's full of complication 25:06.600 --> 25:07.600 and nuance. 25:07.600 --> 25:10.200 People didn't know what to do with it, 25:10.200 --> 25:12.700 and certainly didn't know what to do with it from a, 25:12.700 --> 25:14.900 a politician running for something. 25:14.900 --> 25:16.500 Who gives a speech like that when you're running for 25:16.500 --> 25:18.500 office? 25:18.500 --> 25:22.100 The fact is, race is easy at its surface. 25:22.100 --> 25:28.100 It's--allows us to ignore more complicated realities. 25:32.900 --> 25:38.900 It allows us to engage in simple coding of behaviors, 25:43.300 --> 25:45.700 of people, of types. 25:48.300 --> 25:49.800 It's a social convention, essentially, 25:49.800 --> 25:54.400 that, that is in each of us, racial thinking. 25:54.400 --> 25:57.100 And I'm not ab--I'm not absolving myself of that 25:57.100 --> 25:58.200 either. 25:58.200 --> 26:00.470 I'd be a liar if I were. 26:00.467 --> 26:04.097 What I want to do for the rest of the lecture is talk 26:04.100 --> 26:09.300 about how race is used, something historically, 26:09.300 --> 26:10.300 certainly. 26:10.300 --> 26:11.800 It's all grounded in history, 26:11.800 --> 26:13.800 but also bringing it up to the contemporary moment. 26:13.800 --> 26:19.800 I don't want to, I don't want to overburden the 26:22.300 --> 26:23.300 importance of the speech. 26:23.300 --> 26:24.970 It was, I think, an important speech, 26:24.967 --> 26:30.967 certainly, but I want to build off of sort of the way 26:30.967 --> 26:33.897 we can use moments like this to think historically, 26:33.900 --> 26:36.500 and with nuance, and also about our contemporary 26:36.500 --> 26:37.500 moments. 26:37.500 --> 26:39.500 So I want to look, talk about how race is used. 26:43.200 --> 26:46.900 Now we know from other moments in the course, 26:46.900 --> 26:49.300 but also on Monday's lecture specifically, 26:49.300 --> 26:50.800 that race is used to criminalize. 26:50.800 --> 26:52.400 I mean, this is something I've made quite plain, 26:52.400 --> 26:53.800 and you have--I don't have it today; 26:53.800 --> 26:56.570 it would just be repetitive, but in the case of O.J. 26:56.567 --> 26:59.997 Simpson, certainly with the Time magazine cover and 27:00.000 --> 27:03.300 darkening his features to make him look more like a 27:03.300 --> 27:04.900 criminal. 27:04.900 --> 27:07.470 Race is used in that way, okay, 27:07.467 --> 27:10.867 but in this case, thinking about the way that race is 27:10.867 --> 27:12.667 the veil that hides other things. 27:12.667 --> 27:13.797 O.J. 27:13.800 --> 27:15.900 Simpson's race allows us to ignore the fact that we're 27:15.900 --> 27:19.800 talking about a really wealthy man in that case. 27:19.800 --> 27:22.870 Was it about a superstar and his ex-wife? 27:22.867 --> 27:24.697 Was it about a black person and his--and a black man and 27:24.700 --> 27:27.300 his white wife, ex-wife? 27:27.300 --> 27:30.200 Or was it about someone with a lot of power, 27:30.200 --> 27:33.370 cultural capital and money, and someone who doesn't have 27:33.367 --> 27:35.367 it? 27:36.367 --> 27:39.497 Race would, I mean, we got so fixated on race in that 27:39.500 --> 27:42.900 trial, we ignored the class dynamic. 27:42.900 --> 27:45.000 And I only linger on this for a half second, 27:45.000 --> 27:48.400 because at the same time, I think in California, 27:48.400 --> 27:52.300 a rather similar set of circumstances transpired 27:52.300 --> 27:56.600 with a black man and his white wife. 27:56.600 --> 27:59.370 He did not have money. 27:59.367 --> 28:01.397 Curious sets of, you know, evidence, 28:01.400 --> 28:02.400 abuse, and whatever. 28:02.400 --> 28:04.400 The guy was put in jail and never heard from again. 28:06.100 --> 28:09.000 Can't ignore the role that money plays in a situation 28:09.000 --> 28:12.070 like that, but race allows us to walk around it. 28:12.067 --> 28:13.067 Race is used in that way. 28:13.067 --> 28:15.297 It's used to distract. 28:17.367 --> 28:19.197 It's used, of course, to sell products, 28:19.200 --> 28:23.600 and these are some images that you may 28:23.600 --> 28:25.800 remember--things like them from Ethnic Notions very 28:25.800 --> 28:29.800 early in the term, being used to sell Cream of Wheat. 28:29.800 --> 28:33.500 It says here, "Maybe Cream of Wheat ain't got no 28:33.500 --> 28:34.500 vitamins. 28:34.500 --> 28:35.870 I don't know what them things is. 28:35.867 --> 28:38.297 If they's bugs, they ain't none in Cream of Wheat, 28:38.300 --> 28:40.370 but she's sho' good to eat and cheap. 28:40.367 --> 28:43.097 Cost bout 1ยข fo' a great big dish." 28:43.100 --> 28:45.100 Sung by Rastus, which is one of the, 28:45.100 --> 28:48.600 the caricatures of the, the happy servant, 28:48.600 --> 28:50.800 the loyal servant. 28:50.800 --> 28:53.800 Now Cream of Wheat isn't sold this way now, 28:53.800 --> 28:55.000 but in the early 1970s, it had just moved away from 28:55.000 --> 28:57.870 this. 28:57.867 --> 29:04.167 I remember, this was when I was eating Cream of Wheat. 29:04.167 --> 29:07.367 Certainly, you know, the vernacular dialect had 29:07.367 --> 29:11.997 disappeared at that point, but Rastus Anonymous was 29:12.000 --> 29:14.000 still there, selling Cream of Wheat. 29:16.067 --> 29:22.067 More famously, you have Aunt Jemima: pancakes, 29:26.567 --> 29:29.797 southern cooking, the matron, 29:29.800 --> 29:33.800 the, the mammy figure, with her natural knowledge of how 29:33.800 --> 29:34.800 to take care of people. 29:34.800 --> 29:38.800 As you head into the 1980s and nineties, 29:38.800 --> 29:40.300 people think, you know, "This might be a little 29:40.300 --> 29:42.000 dated, this, you know, Aunt Jemima figure. 29:42.000 --> 29:43.900 Maybe we should revisit it." 29:43.900 --> 29:47.900 And they did, and so Aunt Jemima lost the do-rag, 29:47.900 --> 29:49.370 and the, you know, the handkerchief, 29:49.367 --> 29:50.367 and the other conventional dress, 29:50.367 --> 29:54.997 got an up-do. 29:55.000 --> 29:56.870 You can't see on the pic--the, 29:56.867 --> 29:59.397 the, the quality of the image is poor--a nice set of 29:59.400 --> 30:02.200 pearls, so when she comes back from work, 30:02.200 --> 30:04.870 like she can still make great pancakes for you, 30:04.867 --> 30:09.297 but, but she got updated, she got professionalized. 30:09.300 --> 30:12.700 People were getting a little bit queasy about the 30:12.700 --> 30:19.400 lingering vestiges of what many people felt was the 30:19.400 --> 30:23.200 racism being used to peddle pancakes. 30:23.200 --> 30:28.070 And I'll be honest, I mean I grew up with Aunt Jemima in 30:28.067 --> 30:30.497 the house, and for the love of god, 30:30.500 --> 30:31.500 I didn't understand why. 30:31.500 --> 30:33.700 I mean, I didn't have the words or the education then 30:33.700 --> 30:36.400 to really understand what, what I was feeling, 30:36.400 --> 30:38.900 but something I found really--it kind of bothered 30:38.900 --> 30:39.900 me. 30:39.900 --> 30:42.300 And I was not a little Malcolm X running around, 30:42.300 --> 30:43.670 you know, trying to, you know, 30:43.667 --> 30:44.997 beat down the man and do these things. 30:45.000 --> 30:47.470 It just didn't feel right, but I didn't know why. 30:50.600 --> 30:52.400 Then my family switched to Vermont Maid, 30:52.400 --> 30:54.300 which is loaded with all kinds of other kinds--you 30:54.300 --> 30:55.900 know, it's, it's all bad syrup, 30:55.900 --> 31:00.000 frankly, but, but--and I don't know what Aunt Jemima 31:00.000 --> 31:02.570 pancakes taste like, because I don't eat them anymore, 31:02.567 --> 31:05.597 but I know people do swear by them. 31:05.600 --> 31:06.600 But if you don't want pancakes, 31:06.600 --> 31:07.600 maybe you want rice. 31:07.600 --> 31:10.900 There's Uncle Ben. 31:10.900 --> 31:13.200 Growing out of the same tradition of Rastus and Aunt 31:13.200 --> 31:14.800 Jemima, loyal and happy servant, 31:14.800 --> 31:19.070 and they're all smiling, right? 31:19.067 --> 31:23.767 Well, Uncle Ben has been peddling rice pilaf, 31:23.767 --> 31:25.297 basically, a whole variety of rice products, 31:25.300 --> 31:31.400 for the longest time, and then the ad people started 31:31.400 --> 31:32.800 getting a little nervous about Uncle Ben and thought, 31:32.800 --> 31:35.470 "Maybe this is not really--let's distance 31:35.467 --> 31:36.467 ourselves from Uncle Ben." 31:36.467 --> 31:39.597 And so he disappeared from the packages. 31:39.600 --> 31:43.000 Then about five years ago, he reappeared. 31:43.000 --> 31:44.600 I think, I think Proctor and Gamble, 31:44.600 --> 31:45.670 they own pretty much everything, 31:45.667 --> 31:47.067 decided, you know, "It's time. 31:47.067 --> 31:48.067 I think we can do this. 31:48.067 --> 31:49.897 I think we can have a more historically rich and 31:49.900 --> 31:52.300 nuanced understanding of Uncle Ben." 31:52.300 --> 31:53.800 And so much like Aunt Jemima, 31:53.800 --> 31:57.900 Uncle Ben got a job. 31:57.900 --> 31:59.800 And I did not check before today's lecture; 31:59.800 --> 32:01.270 it was certainly the case last year. 32:01.267 --> 32:03.467 If you go to--and don't do it now, 32:03.467 --> 32:06.697 I mean half you guys...But, if you go to Uncle--you 32:06.700 --> 32:08.200 know, Google Uncle Ben, you get the website. 32:08.200 --> 32:10.700 It's a beautiful website. 32:10.700 --> 32:12.670 You walk into the CEO's office and guess whose 32:12.667 --> 32:13.667 office? 32:13.667 --> 32:14.897 It's Uncle Ben's office! 32:14.900 --> 32:16.200 He's no longer Uncle Ben, though, 32:16.200 --> 32:18.300 he's just Ben. 32:18.300 --> 32:20.500 Still doesn't have a last name. 32:20.500 --> 32:22.600 The first name being a very important tradition of, 32:22.600 --> 32:29.170 of southern social hierarchy is that black men and women 32:29.167 --> 32:31.167 are always talked to by their first name, 32:31.167 --> 32:34.067 whether it was actually their first name or not, 32:34.067 --> 32:36.297 you know. 32:36.300 --> 32:41.270 So Ben is, Ben--it's, it's not CEO Gates; 32:41.267 --> 32:42.267 it's just Ben. 32:42.267 --> 32:46.097 And the website, it is, it was really quite a work of 32:46.100 --> 32:48.100 art, but in the version five years ago, 32:48.100 --> 32:50.100 you could walk around his desk and open up the day 32:50.100 --> 32:52.570 planner, and it would talk about him, 32:52.567 --> 32:55.197 "wink, wink,"--and I'm very closely paraphrasing--having 32:55.200 --> 32:57.000 libations with the southern sen--southern, 32:57.000 --> 32:58.270 southern senator. 32:58.267 --> 32:59.967 You know, "this is the way we do business, 32:59.967 --> 33:01.297 or something like that. 33:01.300 --> 33:05.200 I thought, "Wow, so somebody thought it was 33:05.200 --> 33:07.170 appropriate--"--I mean, they'd already given Ben a 33:07.167 --> 33:08.167 big raise. 33:08.167 --> 33:09.167 He's the CEO. 33:09.167 --> 33:10.167 They thought it was appropriate, 33:10.167 --> 33:16.397 though, to harken back to a tradition of good old boys 33:16.400 --> 33:19.400 and behaving inappropriately, 33:19.400 --> 33:22.700 and now CEO Uncle, Uncle CEO, 33:22.700 --> 33:24.300 is one of these boys. 33:24.300 --> 33:27.600 I mean, think back to Birth of a Nation and the story of 33:27.600 --> 33:29.000 the black Reconstruction governments, 33:29.000 --> 33:31.370 and they're eating chicken legs--oh no, 33:31.367 --> 33:33.897 turkey legs, and drinking, and taking their shoes off. 33:33.900 --> 33:35.500 It's in that same kind of tradition. 33:35.500 --> 33:37.570 That's kind of astonishing. 33:37.567 --> 33:41.467 I went back last year, that thing's gone. 33:41.467 --> 33:42.997 The rest of the site is still there, 33:43.000 --> 33:45.200 but that part is gone. 33:45.200 --> 33:46.500 So someone raised a fuss. 33:46.500 --> 33:48.000 I mean, when, when they brought Ben back, 33:48.000 --> 33:50.000 there was a whole bunch of, like "Wow, 33:50.000 --> 33:51.500 this is a crazy idea." 33:51.500 --> 33:54.600 But still Ben is--at least, at least through last 33:54.600 --> 33:56.200 year--I didn't check the website last night, 33:56.200 --> 33:58.670 and I don't shop for Uncle Ben's, 33:58.667 --> 34:00.967 so I don't know if he's still smiling at us in the, 34:00.967 --> 34:01.967 in the aisle ways. 34:01.967 --> 34:04.897 I suspect that he is. 34:04.900 --> 34:09.370 Now this is--corporate makeovers are not limited 34:09.367 --> 34:11.867 just to the African American experience. 34:11.867 --> 34:15.997 There is a campaign to freshen Betty Crocker, 34:16.000 --> 34:19.100 the face of Betty Crocker, and you see her through the 34:19.100 --> 34:22.200 ages from 1927 until she ends up, 34:22.200 --> 34:23.600 well, looking like a wise Latina, 34:23.600 --> 34:26.070 perhaps, in 1996. 34:26.067 --> 34:32.767 And when, when, when this makeover came about, 34:32.767 --> 34:33.867 there was a lot of discussion, 34:33.867 --> 34:34.867 like wow. 34:34.867 --> 34:36.867 I mean Betty Crocker didn't say, 34:38.300 --> 34:41.970 you know, what ethnic identity she was supposed to 34:41.967 --> 34:42.967 have. 34:42.967 --> 34:43.967 She was just Betty Crocker. 34:43.967 --> 34:44.967 People think that looks like, 34:44.967 --> 34:46.967 you know, a very professional Latina. 34:46.967 --> 34:48.297 And heck if you look at the demographics of this 34:48.300 --> 34:50.800 country, that may be a smart marketing trend, 34:50.800 --> 34:52.670 going, going ahead a couple of decades. 34:52.667 --> 34:54.697 So race is used to sell things, 34:54.700 --> 34:57.770 absolutely, and this is just barely the tip of the 34:57.767 --> 34:58.767 iceberg. 34:58.767 --> 35:01.497 It's still being used to sell things. 35:01.500 --> 35:04.900 Race is also used to suggest progressive commitment to 35:04.900 --> 35:05.900 equality. 35:05.900 --> 35:08.670 University, University of Wisconsin, 35:08.667 --> 35:12.167 year 2000, put out a magazine for something like 35:12.167 --> 35:15.467 "Bulldog days," frankly, for their version of it, 35:15.467 --> 35:16.467 "Badger days," I don't know. 35:16.467 --> 35:17.467 I'm making that up. 35:17.467 --> 35:19.797 But, but this was a brochure they'd hand out, 35:19.800 --> 35:22.500 a magazine, talking about all those great things that 35:22.500 --> 35:24.370 Wisconsin, University of Wisconsin, 35:24.367 --> 35:25.867 has and does. 35:25.867 --> 35:27.897 Exactly the kind of thing you would expect from a 35:27.900 --> 35:29.900 university. 35:29.900 --> 35:33.600 I've absolutely no quarrel with the content of the 35:33.600 --> 35:35.600 magazine. 35:37.300 --> 35:42.900 So that's the image, that's the copy of the image, 35:42.900 --> 35:45.900 and if you look, follow the--my mouse, 35:45.900 --> 35:47.770 you see all of these happy students at probably a 35:47.767 --> 35:48.997 football game. 35:49.000 --> 35:53.700 And then you see him, a happy African American 35:53.700 --> 35:55.100 student at a football game. 35:55.100 --> 35:56.670 That's, that's great. 35:56.667 --> 35:57.667 Here's the real image. 35:57.667 --> 36:00.367 He's not there. 36:03.267 --> 36:06.197 Now, you have to go back ten years. 36:06.200 --> 36:09.300 Photoshop was very new, okay. 36:09.300 --> 36:11.800 This was just being rolled out. 36:11.800 --> 36:13.900 And the idea--now we--you've grown up with--I mean, 36:13.900 --> 36:15.900 everything is Photoshopped, right? 36:15.900 --> 36:17.900 It wasn't in 2000. 36:19.600 --> 36:23.900 This was a new technology, and so they took--someone 36:23.900 --> 36:24.900 who was looking at the magazine said, 36:24.900 --> 36:27.200 "You know, it's funny, because the light's all 36:27.200 --> 36:29.400 coming from a certain angle here, 36:29.400 --> 36:31.970 but it's coming from a different angle over here. 36:31.967 --> 36:34.197 And, you know, it just kind of--just the, 36:34.200 --> 36:36.600 the biometrics don't seem quite right, 36:36.600 --> 36:38.900 and someone slipped the actual--this is what the 36:38.900 --> 36:39.900 cover is. 36:39.900 --> 36:42.170 Now actually, I have a friend I recruited from the 36:42.167 --> 36:44.197 University of Wisconsin, Professor Blackhawk. 36:44.200 --> 36:46.400 Some of you may know him. 36:46.400 --> 36:48.070 He actually brought--and I meant to bring it today, 36:48.067 --> 36:52.797 I forgot--one of his friends at Wisconsin is still there, 36:52.800 --> 36:56.070 and gave to him to give to me the actual copy. 36:56.067 --> 36:57.597 I mean, I actually have one of these things. 36:57.600 --> 36:58.700 It's very cool. 36:58.700 --> 37:01.900 And then here's the real image. 37:01.900 --> 37:04.400 Now this young man, as it turns out--and this was 37:04.400 --> 37:08.000 taken at, at, like a student bazaar. 37:08.000 --> 37:10.670 He was a very happy University of Wisconsin 37:10.667 --> 37:11.667 student. 37:11.667 --> 37:13.097 He was a student leader. 37:13.100 --> 37:14.100 He was engaged in all kinds of things. 37:14.100 --> 37:16.400 There's no doubt that he was enthusiastic about being at 37:16.400 --> 37:20.100 Wisconsin, but the fact is, he wasn't there at that 37:20.100 --> 37:21.100 moment. 37:21.100 --> 37:22.500 And you can see, they actually turned the face in 37:22.500 --> 37:25.800 the opposite direction, did all of these different 37:25.800 --> 37:26.800 things. 37:26.800 --> 37:31.670 Now Wisconsin is not trying to say black folks aren't 37:31.667 --> 37:32.667 welcome. 37:32.667 --> 37:33.667 They're trying the opposite. 37:33.667 --> 37:37.297 "Look, there's a black person at the football game! 37:37.300 --> 37:38.300 We are a school that--"--I mean, 37:38.300 --> 37:39.900 and, and, it does not, it's not a diverse school. 37:39.900 --> 37:43.800 It's not a diverse state, but they are really trying, 37:43.800 --> 37:45.400 in this publication at least, 37:45.400 --> 37:48.700 symbolically, to try to do something different. 37:48.700 --> 37:51.300 Race is used in socially progressive ways, 37:51.300 --> 37:52.700 even if sometimes accidentally. 37:52.700 --> 37:56.900 This is a statue at North Carolina A&T in Greensboro, 37:56.900 --> 37:59.400 very close to Woolworth's where the sit-in movement 37:59.400 --> 38:02.270 began, and this is a representation of the four 38:02.267 --> 38:04.497 men who are now university heroes. 38:04.500 --> 38:07.900 And if you go to downtown Greensboro, 38:07.900 --> 38:10.000 which was, after the textile mills closed, 38:10.000 --> 38:11.770 there's nothing in downtown Greensboro. 38:11.767 --> 38:14.597 My grandmother lives nearby, so I was driving around and 38:14.600 --> 38:17.300 come across--you can't see here--February One Street. 38:17.300 --> 38:20.270 I mean, "That's a weird name for a street, 38:20.267 --> 38:21.997 and it turns out it's right at the intersection of the 38:22.000 --> 38:23.200 Woolworth's building. 38:23.200 --> 38:26.800 And Woolworth's building--oh and there's placards in the, 38:26.800 --> 38:30.600 in the ground, representing the four men walking there, 38:30.600 --> 38:32.370 and this is the, the Woolworth's building, 38:32.367 --> 38:33.897 the site of the Woolworth's building, 38:33.900 --> 38:35.800 that the city fathers wanted take--they wanted to 38:35.800 --> 38:37.600 eliminate the history of the Woolworth's building and the 38:37.600 --> 38:39.070 sit-in for the longest time. 38:39.067 --> 38:41.697 It's an embarrassing part of Greensboro's history. 38:41.700 --> 38:43.170 Preservationists said, "You've got to save this 38:43.167 --> 38:45.567 thing," and then people got together and, 38:45.567 --> 38:47.867 for years, were working on building an international 38:47.867 --> 38:49.667 civil rights center and museum. 38:49.667 --> 38:53.267 It took well over a decade and they actually just 38:53.267 --> 38:59.467 opened up this February, on the fiftieth anniversary of 38:59.467 --> 39:00.467 the sit-in. 39:00.467 --> 39:03.097 I haven't been to it yet, but I'm looking forward to 39:03.100 --> 39:04.100 going. 39:04.100 --> 39:05.100 But, so, what does this matter? 39:05.100 --> 39:06.770 How, how is race being used here? 39:06.767 --> 39:09.167 There is nothing in Greensboro any more. 39:11.300 --> 39:14.570 Southern cities, now that industry has gone, 39:14.567 --> 39:17.467 are re--trying to rebuild their downtown cores by 39:17.467 --> 39:19.997 creating heritage sites. 39:20.000 --> 39:22.500 A place of social, and political, 39:22.500 --> 39:25.000 and racial shame is now being turned into--and the, 39:25.000 --> 39:26.800 the New York Times review said it's a fantastic 39:26.800 --> 39:31.400 museum--a place to draw in tourist money. 39:31.400 --> 39:32.500 Birmingham is the same way. 39:32.500 --> 39:35.200 The, the attack dogs that Bull Connor released, 39:35.200 --> 39:39.200 had released, to go after the student pro--the, 39:39.200 --> 39:41.200 the, the protestors, you know, 39:41.200 --> 39:43.100 at the park, there--it's now a memorial. 39:43.100 --> 39:45.900 You have the, the, the, German shepherds frozen in a 39:45.900 --> 39:47.900 very modernistic pose. 39:49.300 --> 39:52.000 People travel throughout the South in bus rides, 39:52.000 --> 39:54.000 sometimes organized by universities, 39:56.100 --> 39:57.570 to witness these places. 39:57.567 --> 39:58.997 There's a lot of money at stake. 39:59.000 --> 40:00.000 Race is being used. 40:00.000 --> 40:06.800 It's used in a conflated way to honor and to sell a 40:06.800 --> 40:07.800 product. 40:07.800 --> 40:09.500 This is an image that needs no narration. 40:09.500 --> 40:11.200 You know, it's King at the "I have a--"--March on 40:11.200 --> 40:12.200 Washington. 40:12.200 --> 40:18.300 An advertisement, "Before you can inspire, 40:18.300 --> 40:21.500 before you can touch, you must first connect." 40:21.500 --> 40:27.000 It's by Alcatel, a wireless phone service in 2001, 40:27.000 --> 40:29.800 and a suggestion. 40:29.800 --> 40:31.300 You know, even whether it's Photoshopped or just a, 40:31.300 --> 40:34.800 you know, created image, that if only King had a good 40:34.800 --> 40:38.800 cell phone service, we'd have something different. 40:38.800 --> 40:41.170 Now you all grew up after, I guess, 40:41.167 --> 40:43.967 "Forrest Gump" was out, but this was very controversial 40:43.967 --> 40:46.497 when it came out, very popular but controversial, 40:46.500 --> 40:48.200 with historians, like "What are you doing, 40:48.200 --> 40:50.100 you know, playing around fast and loose with history 40:50.100 --> 40:51.700 like this?" 40:51.700 --> 40:53.570 As Forrest Gump--this was, they leave characters all 40:53.567 --> 40:57.997 over the place, and wondering what--how history 40:58.000 --> 41:01.700 would have been different, you know, 41:01.700 --> 41:06.100 in this case, had King had a different product, 41:06.100 --> 41:07.370 and just as Forrest Gump was, 41:07.367 --> 41:08.867 you know, there at all these places, 41:08.867 --> 41:12.097 you know, changing history quite by accident. 41:12.100 --> 41:14.100 Americans are really bad historians, 41:14.100 --> 41:16.400 so professional historians get anxious when they see 41:16.400 --> 41:19.800 something like this, even though it may be clever. 41:19.800 --> 41:22.500 Now King is certainly a political football, 41:22.500 --> 41:25.070 whether it's the California Civil Rights Initiative or, 41:25.067 --> 41:26.497 you know, progressives, conservatives, 41:26.500 --> 41:28.500 they all use King. 41:29.600 --> 41:31.200 In the Oakland school district--goodness, 41:31.200 --> 41:35.700 about, I want to say seven or eight years ago 41:35.700 --> 41:37.900 now--there was a major debate about Ebonics. 41:37.900 --> 41:39.870 The question is, Ebonics, would it be recognized as a 41:39.867 --> 41:44.697 form of American dialect, and if it was--English 41:44.700 --> 41:49.600 dialect, and if it was--there would be actual 41:49.600 --> 41:52.700 institutional support for helping these kids who speak 41:52.700 --> 41:55.300 Ebonics, nonstandard American English, 41:58.167 --> 42:00.397 to help them with extra support and tutoring, 42:00.400 --> 42:03.370 you know, in Ebonics vernacular, 42:03.367 --> 42:05.197 as a way to be--eventually mainstream them. 42:05.200 --> 42:09.970 Clear representation of King, 42:09.967 --> 42:11.997 you know, "I has a dream," that would be, 42:12.000 --> 42:13.800 you know, King if he were speaking in Ebonics. 42:13.800 --> 42:16.270 And the text is very small down here and it says, 42:16.267 --> 42:17.267 "Does this bother you?" 42:17.267 --> 42:19.497 (This is from, [clears throat] excuse me, 42:19.500 --> 42:20.500 October '98. 42:20.500 --> 42:21.500 I just have the date here, I'm sorry, 42:21.500 --> 42:23.300 '98.) "Does this bother you? 42:23.300 --> 42:24.400 It should. 42:24.400 --> 42:26.300 We spent over four hundred years fighting for the right 42:26.300 --> 42:27.500 to have a voice. 42:27.500 --> 42:29.000 Is this how we'll use it? 42:29.000 --> 42:30.900 More importantly, is this how we'll teach our children 42:30.900 --> 42:32.000 to use it? 42:32.000 --> 42:34.300 If we expect more of them, we must not throw our hands 42:34.300 --> 42:35.970 in the air and agree with those who say our children 42:35.967 --> 42:37.567 cannot be taught. 42:37.567 --> 42:39.167 By now you've probably heard about Ebonics, 42:39.167 --> 42:42.267 aka, aka black English, and if you think it's become a 42:42.267 --> 42:43.997 controversy because white America doesn't want us 42:44.000 --> 42:45.400 messing with their precious language, 42:45.400 --> 42:46.400 don't. 42:46.400 --> 42:48.200 White America couldn't care less what we do to segregate 42:48.200 --> 42:49.300 ourselves. 42:49.300 --> 42:51.800 The fact is, language is power and we can't take that 42:51.800 --> 42:53.800 power away from our children with Ebonics. 42:53.800 --> 42:55.200 Would Dr. Martin Luther King, 42:55.200 --> 42:57.000 Malcolm X and all the others who paid the price of 42:57.000 --> 42:59.400 obtaining our voice with the currency of their lives 42:59.400 --> 43:00.400 embrace this? 43:00.400 --> 43:01.900 If you haven't used your voice lately, 43:01.900 --> 43:04.200 consider this an invitation." 43:04.200 --> 43:06.500 African Americans gathering together to purchase this 43:06.500 --> 43:09.470 advertisement, railing against other African 43:09.467 --> 43:10.897 Americans and blacks and whites, 43:10.900 --> 43:13.070 of course, on both sides of the line, 43:13.067 --> 43:17.497 about who can speak for the race and what that race is 43:17.500 --> 43:18.500 going to say. 43:18.500 --> 43:21.600 It's a contemporary history, race, 43:21.600 --> 43:26.100 this is a satellite image of Katrina washing ashore. 43:26.100 --> 43:29.200 Now there's a lot to be said about race and Katrina. 43:29.200 --> 43:30.400 I don't have time to do that, 43:30.400 --> 43:36.400 but I want to show you two images from the moment and 43:38.700 --> 43:43.170 talk about the way that race factored into it. 43:43.167 --> 43:44.697 We all know, of course, you go to, 43:44.700 --> 43:46.000 you know, Yahoo! 43:46.000 --> 43:48.100 web pages, you know, any sort of web pages for 43:48.100 --> 43:50.300 breaking news, and they have a scroll of pictures, 43:50.300 --> 43:51.970 and here's two hundred pictures from a certain 43:51.967 --> 43:53.197 event and you can hit the next one, 43:53.200 --> 43:55.870 and the next one, and the next one. 43:55.867 --> 43:58.797 And they all have a little bit of script, 43:58.800 --> 43:59.800 very short description. 43:59.800 --> 44:00.800 Now there are journalistic practices about what the 44:00.800 --> 44:02.470 photojournalist is supposed to say, 44:02.467 --> 44:05.167 the photographer, to describe what he or she is 44:05.167 --> 44:06.797 seeing. 44:06.800 --> 44:10.170 There are standards about what constitutes finding 44:10.167 --> 44:14.297 something, what constitutes stealing something or 44:14.300 --> 44:16.400 looting something. 44:16.400 --> 44:18.800 So I don't know the facts of these two pictures, 44:18.800 --> 44:22.470 about what the, the photographer saw, 44:22.467 --> 44:26.797 but this image runs, and it shows two white people 44:26.800 --> 44:29.670 having "found" food in Katrina. 44:29.667 --> 44:31.667 And, you know, there's carrying bags like orange 44:31.667 --> 44:32.797 juice or groceries, something like that, 44:32.800 --> 44:34.870 in that bag, floating along the way. 44:34.867 --> 44:38.067 Two people who found food. 44:38.067 --> 44:40.267 The next image, as it happened, 44:40.267 --> 44:44.867 was this one, a citizen who, who "looted" a store, 44:44.867 --> 44:51.397 carrying a, a, a twelve pack or twenty pack of Pepsi, 44:51.400 --> 44:53.600 and who knows what in the bag. 44:53.600 --> 44:56.600 The fact is, he may have looted a store. 44:56.600 --> 44:58.900 The fact is, they may have found the food. 44:58.900 --> 45:01.270 I'm not disputing this, okay? 45:01.267 --> 45:04.297 I'm not engaging it, but the pictures ran right next to 45:04.300 --> 45:10.570 each other, and we are all so hardwired to presume that 45:10.567 --> 45:12.897 the person writing this sentence, 45:12.900 --> 45:16.200 or the editor putting together, 45:16.200 --> 45:18.770 has tripped over a racial fault line, 45:18.767 --> 45:21.997 that they can't see anything but a criminal in this 45:22.000 --> 45:24.970 image, and a citizen in the previous one. 45:24.967 --> 45:26.767 And this was part of the rhetoric of, 45:26.767 --> 45:28.897 of Katrina, certainly in the way it was reported in the 45:28.900 --> 45:30.200 news. 45:30.200 --> 45:32.370 Black and brown people are talked about refugees, 45:32.367 --> 45:33.497 although they were citizens. 45:33.500 --> 45:38.770 But a reason I point to this is to talk about the way 45:38.767 --> 45:43.697 that we are consumed with thinking about race, 45:43.700 --> 45:46.370 to a point that we become quite blinded by it. 45:46.367 --> 45:48.497 I don't have the time for it right now, 45:48.500 --> 45:50.100 but let me encourage you to go to, 45:50.100 --> 45:53.900 go to YouTube and put in "Mike Myers, 45:53.900 --> 45:56.200 Katrina and Kanye West," or just "Katrina and Kanye 45:56.200 --> 45:59.400 West," and you'll see more of what I'm talking about: 45:59.400 --> 46:04.200 race being used to heighten our emotions, 46:04.200 --> 46:08.600 used in ways that either are clarifying or destructive, 46:08.600 --> 46:11.700 depending on your point of view. 46:11.700 --> 46:13.500 Race is very much past and present. 46:13.500 --> 46:16.300 Even in our "post-racial" age, 46:16.300 --> 46:18.700 we have controversies like this one in the New York 46:18.700 --> 46:24.700 Post: two cops having blown apart a chimpanzee, 46:24.700 --> 46:26.400 "We'll have to find someone else to write that next 46:26.400 --> 46:29.070 stimulus bill." 46:29.067 --> 46:32.097 The artist saying, "I had no racist intent at all. 46:32.100 --> 46:35.000 It was just, you know, it was an attempt at humor, 46:35.000 --> 46:37.200 talking about, you know, the bill was so crazy, 46:37.200 --> 46:38.800 it must have been monkeys sitting in a room." 46:38.800 --> 46:43.000 You know, there's a phrase about--where you put a 46:43.000 --> 46:44.000 hundred monkeys in a room, you get Shakespeare 46:44.000 --> 46:45.000 eventually that--working typewriters--but, 46:45.000 --> 46:46.700 but that this is what he was going after. 46:46.700 --> 46:48.700 He may have been absolutely honest, 46:50.500 --> 46:52.200 but the way that this was perceived, 46:52.200 --> 46:54.770 with the long history of connections between African 46:54.767 --> 46:58.997 Americans and apes, and the fact the president is behind 46:59.000 --> 47:02.600 signing stimulus bills, that the--and there's a history 47:02.600 --> 47:07.900 of New York police, cops, shooting unarmed black 47:07.900 --> 47:11.670 citizens, or attacking in other ways, 47:11.667 --> 47:15.197 that somebody in the editorial process in the New 47:15.200 --> 47:16.900 York Post missed the boat entirely. 47:16.900 --> 47:18.500 Did not see that this might have been wildly 47:18.500 --> 47:21.770 misinterpreted if the artist had no racist intent. 47:21.767 --> 47:28.767 There was no confusion about the intent here. 47:28.767 --> 47:30.667 Emails sent out by the mayor of Las Alamedas, 47:30.667 --> 47:33.197 California, talking about, you know, 47:33.200 --> 47:35.400 now that Obama's elected, we're going to have a 47:35.400 --> 47:39.000 watermelon patch on the White House front lawn. 47:39.000 --> 47:41.170 What does this image accomplish, 47:41.167 --> 47:43.497 aside from the mayor apologizing and stepping 47:43.500 --> 47:44.500 down? 47:44.500 --> 47:48.200 You know, is it satire? 47:48.200 --> 47:52.770 Sure, it's satire, but is it also a Rorschach test of how 47:52.767 --> 47:54.097 you have someone like, looking like, 47:54.100 --> 47:57.300 Barack Obama taking office, and people don't know what 47:57.300 --> 47:59.300 to make of it, don't know what to do? 48:03.800 --> 48:05.200 Now we talked about in this course, 48:05.200 --> 48:08.700 at the very beginning, racial symbolism, 48:08.700 --> 48:10.000 you know, the money we carry in our pocket. 48:10.000 --> 48:13.000 You know, and again, it's not showing up well, 48:13.000 --> 48:14.000 but, you know, John C. 48:14.000 --> 48:15.970 Calhoun in the corner there. 48:15.967 --> 48:19.397 Let's not believe that this is past history. 48:19.400 --> 48:22.070 Let us recognize the Republican Women's Group in 48:22.067 --> 48:24.297 I--Inland, California sent this out in the newsletter, 48:24.300 --> 48:27.500 of Obama bucks. 48:27.500 --> 48:31.100 He's got a watermelon, the Kool-Aid, 48:31.100 --> 48:33.100 a bunch of ribs and KFC. 48:35.067 --> 48:37.597 This is our current state of affairs. 48:37.600 --> 48:42.100 Race is used in, in the American landscape, 48:42.100 --> 48:48.100 in our "post-racial" age, to get us through circumstances 48:48.100 --> 48:51.900 that we don't want to call them as being say 48:51.900 --> 48:55.500 class-driven, or driven by gender anxiety, 48:55.500 --> 48:57.300 or driven by political anxiety. 48:57.300 --> 48:59.970 Oh, it's all going to be coded in racial ways. 48:59.967 --> 49:01.667 But because, you know, we don't want to be seen as 49:01.667 --> 49:03.097 racist, we can't talk about it. 49:03.100 --> 49:05.770 We can show it, but we can't talk about it. 49:05.767 --> 49:06.967 So I really want to end then, 49:06.967 --> 49:09.597 and just bear with me a couple minutes, 49:09.600 --> 49:11.300 we've gone through this entire course 49:11.300 --> 49:14.200 thinking--sharing a history of social, 49:14.200 --> 49:16.500 political, intellectual, cultural history, 49:16.500 --> 49:18.000 of the different ways citizenship has been 49:18.000 --> 49:21.100 wrestled over, the way race has been used. 49:21.100 --> 49:23.470 The TAs, I hope you will actually join me in giving, 49:23.467 --> 49:25.297 giving them a round of applause for helping us 49:25.300 --> 49:27.970 through this way and through these incredibly interesting 49:27.967 --> 49:29.967 and, and, and vexed conversations. 49:29.967 --> 49:30.967 Congratulations. 49:30.967 --> 49:36.197 Thank you so much for your help. 49:36.200 --> 49:39.070 Now I always do something a little bit unusual here. 49:39.067 --> 49:40.667 Are--Freshmen, are there freshmen here? 49:40.667 --> 49:43.397 Raise your hands. 49:43.400 --> 49:44.770 Stand up, please. 49:44.767 --> 49:47.597 Yes, stand up. 49:47.600 --> 49:49.500 Stand up for goodness' sakes. 49:49.500 --> 49:51.100 I'm out of time, I don't--I've got to be quick 49:51.100 --> 49:52.570 about this thing. 49:52.567 --> 49:54.967 This is one of your last classes of freshmen year, 49:54.967 --> 49:56.667 and I hope that your experience here has been 49:56.667 --> 50:00.297 exciting and wonderful, and I also hope that people will 50:00.300 --> 50:02.870 join me in congratulating you in navigating 50:02.867 --> 50:05.667 which--what has been a horrible year at Yale for 50:05.667 --> 50:07.097 all these reasons we know. 50:07.100 --> 50:09.400 And I hope that you will leave this year armed to 50:09.400 --> 50:10.900 become a better citizen at Yale. 50:10.900 --> 50:13.300 So congratulations, freshmen. 50:13.300 --> 50:18.200 Professor Jonathan Holloway: Sit down now. 50:18.200 --> 50:20.000 Seniors here? 50:20.000 --> 50:21.470 Stand up. 50:21.467 --> 50:24.197 Stand up. 50:24.200 --> 50:25.470 I know, because I walked over with Julia. 50:25.467 --> 50:27.167 This is one of your last classes at Yale. 50:27.167 --> 50:28.167 You're going to get a lot of people congratulating you. 50:28.167 --> 50:31.167 I'm not congratulating you at all. 50:31.167 --> 50:34.997 A lot of people are going to be telling you how great and 50:35.000 --> 50:36.100 wonderful you are. 50:36.100 --> 50:39.470 Oh, in the back, can you step over one foot because 50:39.467 --> 50:42.067 you're blocking the camera right there. 50:42.067 --> 50:43.067 There we go. 50:43.067 --> 50:44.067 People are going to tell you how wonderful you are, 50:44.067 --> 50:46.567 and you are wonderful, but the fact of the matter is, 50:46.567 --> 50:47.897 you now have a responsibility when you 50:47.900 --> 50:49.300 leave here, I think. 50:49.300 --> 50:50.670 You may disagree with everything I said. 50:50.667 --> 50:52.797 That is actually quite fine with me, 50:52.800 --> 50:54.700 but I hope that you will engage what I said, 50:54.700 --> 50:56.170 and what the TAs have said, and what you said in 50:56.167 --> 50:58.367 section, that you will understand it's incumbent 50:58.367 --> 51:01.297 upon you to make this a better place, 51:01.300 --> 51:02.600 to make it, in Barack Obama's word, 51:02.600 --> 51:04.400 a more perf--perfect union. 51:04.400 --> 51:05.900 And you've been armed with the history, 51:05.900 --> 51:08.400 even if you disagree with it, 51:08.400 --> 51:11.600 a history that I hope will make you think and challenge 51:11.600 --> 51:14.000 others when they start spouting off in the most 51:14.000 --> 51:15.700 unpredictable, or maybe predictable, 51:15.700 --> 51:16.700 ways. 51:16.700 --> 51:20.470 So I want to congratulate you personally for being 51:20.467 --> 51:22.197 here, sticking through it, getting through Yale, 51:22.200 --> 51:26.400 and I hope everyone else will congratulate you as 51:26.400 --> 51:27.400 well. 51:27.400 --> 51:28.400 Congratulations. 51:28.400 --> 51:29.400 Professor Jonathan Holloway: Sophomore, 51:29.400 --> 51:34.000 juniors, I ain't got nothing for you guys. 51:34.000 --> 51:37.470 [Students laugh] So I really raise the closing question, 51:37.467 --> 51:39.297 the question that animates this lecture: how is race 51:39.300 --> 51:40.300 used? 51:40.300 --> 51:41.600 And I simply want to ask you, 51:41.600 --> 51:42.600 how will you use it? 51:42.600 --> 51:44.900 Thank you very much. 51:44.900 --> 51:46.900 Thank you.