‘A’ for Apostate

In the microcosm of right-of-center news, we have been blessed with two great writers by ...

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In the microcosm of right-of-center news, we have been blessed with two great writers by the name of Robert George. This podcast sees Jonah talking to one of them. No, not that one, the other one! They talk about what it’s like to work for two of the most spirited publications in New York (the Post and the Daily News), and take a trip down memory lane to their time as pundits in the last dominant years of live TV.


Show Notes:

–Robert’s author page at New York Daily News

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  1. Avatar photo
    Victor Clairmont

    Happy for any corrections. My point is it is a lot more impactful for black Americans. In the black church, we see massive amounts of wonderful mothers with no fathers, not cohabitating (from working in black churches in NJ)

    And yes, not a monolith, as Caribbean culture will happily attest to. Even African culture is very different from Black American culture. Beautiful in their own unique ways.

    But voting wise there are legitimate reasons in the past 60 years why the black votes swings heavily democratic. War on Poverty, JFK, to name a few.

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    Angie

    I enjoyed it...

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    1. ROBERT

      I did as well!

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  3. ROBERT

    I always learn something from these podcasts. But the learning from this one seems more profound than others: insight into the perspective African Americans have of the federal government.
    I've always known the group placed great importance on certain federal programs. But it never sunk in how repeatedly, throughout the history of the US, the federal government has rescued them from local oppression. The federal government abolished slavery- even went to war with resisting states, hired African Americans when local governments and private businesses would not, and pushed through the civil rights laws. Even in the face of fierce state and local opposition.
    I never gave real thought to this historical perspective within this minority population. It helps explain a lot!
    I've often heard the phrase, most often used by conservatives, "this decision should be left to the states to decide." Considering the history, that has to be the last thing an African American wants to hear.
    I realize I'm making a broad generalization. But I think we can all agree that we are far better off that Abraham Lincoln disagreed with the notion that the question of slavery in new states should be left to the states to decide. An idea that I understand was pushed hard by his in-state rival Stephen Douglass.
    Great guest with profound insight.

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  4. Jon Sindell

    Perhaps you could spend less time in future episodes on personal reminiscences and get to substance more quickly? I bailed before you ever got around to discussing substance.

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      6Million$Jonah

      Jonah, I specifically disagree with Mr. Sindell’s complaint. I love the insubstantial and tangential, in fact it’s my favorite part. Bump if others agree!

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  5. Cecilia

    I really like hearing anecdotes about Jonah's early (and current) days as a pundit on TV; his insights into what motivates talking heads is very interesting.

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    Adam

    Genuinely thought for a second there that Jonah might not have known which Robert George he'd invited.

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  7. Avatar photo
    Victor Clairmont

    So Jonah, love ya, but I feel like Robert George and you are doing what conservatives do all the time here. You look at the charts and data, and extrapolate from it, and proceed to come to a conclusion, when you are missing the so much more of the picture that the current data you are looking at, does not provide.

    Stick with me, this is long. Sorry in advance to anyone reading this.

    After the Civil War, the black community goes through a massive transformation. Due to the advocacy and work of the two most prominent blacks in the 19th century, Booker T. Washington (autobiography Up From Slavery and head of the Tuskegee University) and the greatest black statesmen Frederick Douglas (autobiography Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas), they argue on self reliance, independence, and that by showing their worth to the white man, that they could not only do the same work but do it better, they would achieve racial equality and respect (to be fair, towards the end of his life Douglas swung on some of his ideas).

    This movement (of course there are others but these are two that most people will recognize), would be responsible for creating Black Wall Street going into the 20th century. You must also note, the black community is highly religious (still is even with high crime rates, story for another time). Preachers, from the pulpit across America, preached this idea as they are the most educated among people that normally had a tough time accessing education.

    At the beginning of the 20th century, W.E.B. Du Bois writings begins to change the trajectory of the black community (he overlaps with Booker T Washington, but Washington died way earlier in Du Bois life and Du Bois lived a very long time). Specifically his essays, "The Souls of Blackness". In it, he argues for civil agitation (sound familiar?). He co-founds the NAACP to do this and believes that Pan-Africanism, the belief that African descent had common interests and should work together in the struggle for their freedom, starts. He specifically rejects the Booker T. Washington narrative, that the white man would ever see blacks as equals through hard work. Thus, agitate the law for change.

    By 1920, the Ku Klux Klan is at the height of it's power. By 1921, one of the worst tragedies happens in black america: white southern racists, jealous of the millionaires (adjusted to our income) coming from the black community, burn Black Wall Street to the ground in Oklahoma.

    https://daily.jstor.org/the-devastation-of-black-wall-street/

    Booker T Washington's vision has a massive setback (He's long dead by now). So Du Bois writings finds more of a foothold, believing that blacks cannot become equals through hard work in the black community (Du Bois and Booker hated each other). It's why many of the black intellectuals and artists at this time (such as Langston Hughes), became very favorable to communism over our republicanism and capitalism. Here we start to see a rejection of black 19th century ideas, for 20th century pragmatism. The black church is caught in the crossfire, as the idea of a hard work ethic resounds with black protestant (the majority of blacks in America are still protestant), but they see a lot of problems that they are not sure how to overcome.

    Fast forward now to the 1950's and 1960's. The Reverend Martin Luther King, clearly influence by Booker T Washington, Douglas, and W.E.B. Du Bois, moves into the civil rights narrative. Believing in agitation, Dr. King adds something else in, which many people would not have expected: The organizational methods of Mahatma Gandhi and how he peacefully protested against the English colonial power, and won.

    This clicks with Dr King, because he understood what Gandhi himself admitted: That his bloodless revolution in India would not have succeeded unless he were appealing to the minds of a christian nation. (By the way, after Gandhi's assassination, Dr King fund raised later in his life just to go on a pilgrimage to India and follow in the footsteps of where Gandhi trod, his admiration for him resounds throughout Kings writings)

    So now you have a path forward not just for Rev Martin Luther, but the black church also, not just civil agitation, but bloodless civil rights, following in the footsteps of Jesus saying, "My Kingdom is not of this world, otherwise my servants would fight." (John 18:36) Self sacrifice, and being persecuted for truth without violent retaliation, takes off in the black christian church.

    But there's an opposing problem: The Nation of Islam and Malcolm X (And also Elijah Muhammad but story another time on that). They too have read W.E.B. Du Bois, and they go a step further. Not just civil agitation, but the white man is always going to be racist. They use the Quran to justify their ideas instead of the christian Bible that most black protestants used since slavery days. Afterall, a Muslim would laugh in your face if you would not defend yourself. Muhammad did historically subjugate the middle eastern tribes. We want our own schools, our own power, our own separate but equal status. In fact, Malcolm in 1963 he gives one of his most famous speeches literally called in 1963, "Racial Separation", outlawing the very same concept (funny, white racist want racial separation too). Malcolm X, before his assassination by the way, begins to change his views to more of Dr. Kings ideas. Except the nation of Islam kills him. Black churches are divided between the two. Historically, Malcolm and King had an agreement to stay away from each others rallies. Just like Du Bois and Booker T hated each other (their letters still survive to this day), their followers couldn't really co-exist without fighting. It's hard to have the Black Panthers and Civil Rights leaders at the same rally.

    JUMPING ahead now to present day (I know I am skipping a lot I can't put it all here). So the consensus most people would agree to, is civil rights won out against Malcolm X's racial separation policies. As black churches in America preach MLK's version vs Malcolm today.

    Except if you read modern black thinkers. You would think Malcolm X won the argument from the grave.

    Ta Nehisi Coates specifically cites Malcolm and the Black Panthers as his hero's. He definitively sides with not just with W.E.B DeBois civil agitation, but Malcolm X's diagnosis of white america and thinks that Luther was wrong (and Gandhi) with his non violent movement. He rejects the christian black church ideas.

    Dr. Ibraham X, another heavyweight black writer, believes that there is Liberation Theology, and Individual Theology (I will get into this specifically another time if anyone's interested). Long story short, he believes there is structural racism and the Booker T Washington model (Individual Theology) is wrong and Liberation Theology (More using Jesus to civilly change society, appealing too to the black church) is correct. He also quotes Malcolm X ad nauseam in his book Stamped from the Beginning about Malcolm being right about the current state of America.

    The debate going on in the black community, and the white community, is the same debate that was going on in the early 20th century. And most people, black and white, don't realize it. They don't realize the two competing visions in america, the intellectual and historical forces behind them, and this is why, as much as I love data, everyone is just missing the point.

    This is why when someone says "The police was created as a means to hunt slaves" or "structural racism" exists, these idea's did not just pop up in a vacuum. They were allowed to germinate over decades of uncontested historical analysis and it is why so much of what black intellectuals speak of today seems so foreign to America. These ideas existed before, but no one realizes it.

    Add to that, that in the black community they try and reconcile the two visions of America. You cannot. One must triumph, the other must fall. You cannot have systemic racism and reparations, and reconciliation. Pick one.

    God I need a drink. Did anyone even read this? I think I am annoyed. If you read this, thanks. Feel free to disagree. Lets not view the world through blackness or whiteness. Just view it through humanness please. Ignore my spelling errors.

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    1. ROBERT

      Very interesting historical background. I was not aware of this narrative and I'm glad I read it. Despite its length, I think it ended too early. I feel as if you were about to make a strong case - for something. Perhaps it's there, but I missed it. Please continue.

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        Victor Clairmont

        If people are interest sure, but it’s a huge amount to send out. I haven’t even touched on the the pre-civil war problems or why the Black Community both loved federal Government help (President Grant, was touched on in the podcast and also JFK) and both love and hate it today. Also how African and Caribbean Americans have a more traditionalist view as opposed to modern American blacks in the current movements.

        Jonah touches the ice on this podcast, but it’s actually an ice burg going very, very deep. And the ice burg is cracking in the year 2020.

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        1. ROBERT

          Perhaps in another format. Thanks for the initial post and the response. Are you a scholar? Have you previously written a paper or book? Any site we can go to view your work?
          I'm intrigued.

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            Victor Clairmont

            I studied at Westminster Choir College in Princeton NJ. Don’t laugh, my specialty is music. Focus on voice performance and German Liebeslieder (Schubert mostly and big Goethe fan. You will remember him for writing Faust. Lots of music set to his poems).

            I am also an Elder in my denomination, and most of the heavy lifting comes from there in understanding black academia. My church is a Haaitian/Jamaican Church in NJ.

            I have helped with my Pastors and Elders with research for their works, but I am planning to either throw up a website or do a podcast because there is a lot of misinformation out there.

            And honestly, there’s just a lot people who do not know about history in Africa, the Caribbean, and the West and how they are intertwined in the problems we have today. Most people do not know there were two major slave trades: The West African Slave trade with 12 million sold out of Ghana. (2 million die in transport, 2 million come to North America, 8 million to South America) and then there’s the East African slave trade of Zanzibar which was 17 million that were sold to the Middle East and India.

            Let that sink in.

            Any papers forthcoming I will let people know if they are interested. Currently though, I am just working.

            But I don’t find people interested in this type of research much, because well...it doesn’t fit a narrative very easily.

            Also, as a millennial I live and die by spell check.

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      Angie

      I appreciate the effort

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      6Million$Jonah

      I read it and got a lot out of it. Thanks for taking the time to write it, Victor

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      1. ROBERT

        The picture by your name - i think that is your name -is it anime? One of my sons is a huge anime fan - he refers to it as obscure anime. I think that means high brow anime - he won't confirm either way. Our book shelves are bulging with books thick and thin. Are you Japanese? I should ask son to look at your symbols before actually asking you? He can recognize it when he hears it- due to hours of watching English subtitled anime videos. Not sure he can pick it out in print.

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          Angie

          It is not actually anime, ( I don't think so, I don't follow it, though I am aware of it) , I think whoever designed just has that style..I am a big Disney fan, and a lot of their pictures look like this, but, some don't...and no, not Japanese...about 3/4 Italian ethnically...

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          1. ROBERT

            Hi Angie,
            Perhaps I'm am confused. Do you have two accounts? Or do you know the person who has the animated blonde male with an angular face by their Asian symbols?
            I recognized your allegiance immediately- Disney. Minnie Mouse, correct? I apologize if I created confusion here.
            3/4 Italian? Meaning you? Good to know. I'm far more boring than that - English with some amount of Scandinavian. But all of that was Americanized away generations ago. My family's been here long enough to have an ancestor that allegedly fought in the war of 1812.
            Italian Please tell us all that you can cook. I request Florentine Steak for The Dispatch subscriber potluck. I can cook pretty well but my specialty is cranberry granola. I'll have to work on something more appropriate for that kind of event! Perhaps I'll get brave enough to attempt one of my late mother's famous pies!

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  8. Avatar photo
    Tracie

    Something worth considering when we discuss the Floyd video with our black friends and acquaintances is that the horror of it is more personal for them. A Hatian-American co-worker suggested that I watch the entire video, and I told him I couldn't. He kept saying "Nine minutes!" in an incredulous way that demanded a response. (Yes, I'm aware that the precise duration was 8.46min. Close enough.)

    When JG brought it up he had nervous(?) laughter, which punctuates his speech as heard on podcasts on a lot of subjects, but it's also an emotion in this case I have some empathy for. I'm not sure how to react to the Floyd video or discussions of it. I know it's upsetting/appaling, but I note that the reaction of the black people I know tends to have a different tenor.

    Robert George's reference of Floyd's screaming for his mother is a part that I've noticed more black people mention, both in media and amongst people I know. The denial of Floyd's humanity by Chauvin appears more deeply felt, more tragic, more familiar, more deeply sad when discussed by black commentators, especially older ones.

    My reaction continues to have a strong element of: "Did that really happen?" and all the emotions that go with an initial trauma.

    I agree with JG that many "progressives" seem intent on wasting the opportunity to make real change by denying the broad agreement that Chauvin committed murder, of some legal degree. However, I don't think we can quite share the emotional space that black Americans are living in at this moment.

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    1. Avatar photo
      Victor Clairmont

      The reason why it resonates so much is because in our minority communities, the father runs out. The mother is the one struggling to work, struggling to balance church, and struggling to feed their family.

      Do you ever wonder why gang bangers and even the most thuggish in their communities love their mothers? Why In black culture if you insult a grown black mans mother he wants to tear your head off? Why the amazing rapper Biggie Smalls makes a song “Hey Mama” (and when he dies leaves her 40 million in wealth) and 2pac writes “Dear Mama”? Why there are so many Yo mama jokes that are actually really insulting?

      It’s because even when the gang dealer is selling drugs to white people, he’s doing it because his mother was the only one who cared enough to love him when his father ran out. And the only one to try and keep him on the straight and narrow. It’s why he will bring money home to his mama and protect her viciously.

      70% of blacks have a mother, but no father.

      That’s why it resonates. Because mothers are one of the only good things for young black men with no future in education in inner black cities. A black mother instinctively wants to always protect her child. So he protects her.

      I don’t know Mr Floyd, but I guarantee that he wanted his mother because she was one of the best things in his life. And he just didn’t want to disappoint her by not seeing her again.

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        Tracie

        Regarding:

        "I don’t know Mr Floyd, but I guarantee that he wanted his mother because she was one of the best things in his life. And he just didn’t want to disappoint her by not seeing her again."

        No, you didn't know Mr. Floyd. None of us really knows anyone's mind, and certainly not the mind of a dying man speaking his last words. There is an impassable gulf there.

        My reply was was referencing a difference, as I perceive it, in how my (more or less) white-identifying self is processing this collective trauma, and how people I know in life and whose voices I hear on media, who I categorize as black are experiencing it.

        We are all guilty of racist and otherwise lazy, categorical thinking. When we examine an individual statistics and categorizations are only so helpful.

        For instance, I have three Hatian-American co-workers. Two of them have been married to each other for +30 years and have an intact family with children and grandchildren. The other is about my age, has been married for +20 years, has two kids in college. Based on my experience, I'm prone to conclude that Haitians are hard-working, family-oriented immigrants. I know three.

        Nothing I see on TV, or any statistics you supply me is going to change my mind about 'Haitians' because my every day experience is more powerful.

        My co-worker, who has a strong creole French accent, looked at this video of this Houston-born, black man in Minneapolis being slowly killed by an impassive looking white police officer and appears to have experienced it with a strong element of 'That could be me.'

        When I watch the video of Floyd and the testimony of his brother in Congress, I see the deference to authority that southerners are brought up to have. (Grew up in Texas.) In the Midwest, I don't say Sir and Ma'am to police who stop me on the highway, but if I got stopped in Texas, I suspect I would revert to it.

        I don't want to start calling names on this forum, but please don't reduce the last words of a man begging for his life to a statistic +rap lyrics.

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        Julia

        I saw plenty of black people (including my husband, children and in-laws) who grew up with married parents and are not connected in any way to gang life or culture with whom the deaths of George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery and others resonated deeply. It is also not correct to say that 70% of blacks have no father. 70% of black children may not be living in a home with their married biological parents, which is indeed a tragedy, but that does not mean none of them have a meaningful relationship with their fathers. I think we have to be very careful not to view the black community as a monolith and solely through the lens of dysfunction.

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          Victor Clairmont

          Happy for any corrections. (Accidentally posted this twice I think) My point is it is a lot more impactful for black Americans. In the black church, we see massive amounts of wonderful mothers with no fathers, not cohabitating (from working in black churches in NJ)

          And yes, not a monolith, as Caribbean culture will happily attest to. Even African culture is very different from Black American culture. Beautiful in their own unique ways.

          But voting wise there are legitimate reasons in the past 60 years why the black votes swings heavily democratic. War on Poverty, JFK, to name a few.

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            Julia

            I think I understand your point. (Our family has always attended black churches, and yes, we have married couples, blended families, single mothers raising children, grandmothers/grandparents raising children, but also single fathers and non-custodial fathers who are involved.)

            Where I disagree is that I do not think the issue of absentee fathers is a significant factor in why most black Americans responded with a greater depth of emotion to GF's death (and cry for his mother). Most black men (including middle class and wealthy black men) watched that and thought "That could have been me" and most black women watched and thought "That could have been my son/husband/brother/father." Most white people just don't see it that personally.
            If a white stockbroker gets killed in a car jacking, no one says "what about all the hillbillies that killed each other at the trailer park last week?" but when a black man is killed by police, lots of people rush to the "black on black" crime, as if every black person regardless of class and education is vulnerable to gang violence. But middle class and wealthy blacks are vulnerable to police brutality, even if they do "everything right." (I am going on a limb here and guessing that the black friends Tracie is referring to are not Crips or Bloods.)

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            Victor Clairmont

            And I was mixing up the Monyaham report:

            When Moynihan wrote in 1965 on the coming destruction of the Black family, the out-of-wedlock birth rate was 25% among Blacks. In 1991, 68% of Black children were born outside of marriage. In 2011, 72% of Black babies were born to unmarried mothers. In 2015, 77% of Black babies were born to unmarried mothers.

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        2. ROBERT

          Very, very good reminder- on multiple points. Thank you for stating this. Broad generalizations are far too easy and are the lazy person's approach. If read my posts you'll find I'm indeed often quite lazy.
          We all need feedback! Thank you.

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      3. ROBERT

        Indeed Victor. It's father's day, so I'll say that my greatest life accomplishment is remaining in love and staying with the mother of my two sons. It's pretty easy since she's a wonderful woman.
        I am among the luckiest men to ever live: I've not spent one second on this earth without a strong, kind, intelligent, and loving woman in my live. My mother for the first 22 years handed off directly to my wife for the next 34+ and counting. My mother and father were married 61 years until her death a few years ago.
        Talk about privileged - of any sort - that's me. I'm grateful every day.

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      Julia

      I remember when the Covington Catholic kid was caught up in that weird moment how so many white conservatives looked at him and said "He's just a child! He could be my child!" and felt such deep compassion (for a kid who was treated terribly unfairly, but was not physically harmed). That's how so many black parents felt with Trayvon, Tamir, etc. except of course those children died.

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        Tracie

        Sorry I'm not more articulate in my response. That's a very good example.

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        Tracie

        Yeah.

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    Pastorfbt

    Jonah, when your keycard doesn't work - someone may be trying to tell you something 😉

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