Black Lives Matter is working

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Sean Rameswaram: Black Lives Matter is working. According to data from a survey group called Civics, support for the movement has risen more in the past few weeks than it has in the past few years. A majority of Americans now say they support the movement and it shows just about everywhere you look. Confederate statues are toppling NASCAR has banned Confederate flags at races Newspapers are holding editors accountable for tone-deaf and even dangerous opinion columns Tina Fey is pulling the blackface episodes of 30 Rock from streaming services Why did those exist in the first place? Cops got canceled after 30-odd years Tech companies are walking back their plans for racially biased facial recognition technology that would help police track suspects. Officers are actually getting arrested and fired for killing black people. Chokeholds are finally being banned. Schools are getting rid of armed police officers. Mitch McConnell is talking about police reform. Even our famously racist president signed an executive order on police reform. I could go on, but you get it.

Sean Rameswaram: Today on the show, I'm going to talk to Adam Serwer from The Atlantic about why Black Lives Matter is having a lot more success the second time around, and how the movement can sustain itself as our attention invariably shifts away from racial justice.

Adam Serwer: We started with what's different this time. What surprised me the most is the shift in white public opinion. I think when you go back to 2014, 2015, and the riots and protests in Baltimore and Ferguson in reaction to black men killed by police. A majority of Americans are not supportive of Black Lives Matter. But I think the George Floyd video is obviously very affecting, but it's also coming at a time when, you know, a lot of people are out of work or if they still have jobs, they are underemployed. We've all been staying at home in the midst of a pandemic. I think there's just like a lot of factors that led to this eruption, The main one being this accumulation of evidence that what black Americans are saying about their experience with police is true to a degree that it's difficult for much of white America to say, yeah, there's no evidence for this. And it's not just violent videos this time, right? It's Amy Cooper in Central Park.

Adam Serwer: There is an African-American man. I am in Central Park. He is recording me and threatening myself and my dog. And I don't want to single out Amy Cooper, but it felt like that video struck a very different, though important chord for the country. I think the significance of the Amy Cooper video is that she expresses overtly something that is sort of only expressed as subtext, which is that a lot of people think that the police exist to protect white people from black people. And historically, for most of its existence in the United States, the police were expected to enforce the borders of the color line. So in a way, I think what was affecting about that Cooper video is that she says explicitly, I'm going to tell the police that an African-American man is threatening my life. And in saying that, she expresses an implicit understanding that she knows that the man she's talking to, Chris Cooper, could possibly be subject to violence, possibly fatal violence, if the police come under the belief that she, a white woman, is in danger.

Adam Serwer: That's why that video was so shocking to people, because it's not just a matter of, you know, I think when people use the phrase white privilege, they think of it as an unconscious thing. But he or she is overtly leveraging her social status against a black man who obviously was not threatening her in any way. Would white America have bought in on Black Lives Matter this time around if it weren't for the fact that so many people are at home, So many people are underemployed. So many people are seeing these videos and thinking about them in a way that they might not have had the time or the opportunity to do, you know, six years ago. I mean, I don't know the answer to that. But I will say that, you know, when you're talking about unemployment, when you're talking about COVID, these are also problems like police brutality that disproportionately affect black and Hispanic people. So the George Floyd video is coming not just in a time of rising unemployment, not just in a time of pandemic, but at a time when those phenomena are disproportionately affecting the people who are also disproportionately affected by police brutality.

Adam Serwer: And I think that there is a kind of shock and anger producing factor of that that shouldn't be undercounted. What is having the buy of far more white Americans on Black Lives Matter this time around mean I think it really significant It indicates a tremendous shift in the political identity of white Americans And I think, I'm sorry, my cat is here. That's okay. What's your cat's name? His name is Eggsy. Hi, Eggsy. He's very happy to be here. So I think the protests indicate that a substantial number of Americans, in particular on the left have internalized the principle of anti-racism as part of their political identity. I don't know how long that's going to last. I think historically, you know, the demands of the protesters are so reasonable that it's very, they feel like they shouldn't be killed by police. That's just eminently reasonable and hard to take issue with. Historically, you know, what has happened in the past is that when civil rights protests start to reach more material concerns, integrated schools, housing, jobs, that there tends to be a backlash. So I think we'll see what's going to happen and where this goes. But I do think that when you look back at the history of civil rights protests, there has never really been this much white support for what people are going out and doing. I mean, obviously, Martin Luther King is kind of a secular civic saint in the United States, but he died, you know, having, being very unpopular among white Americans. And there's this sort of retroactive retconning of what, of American public memory to make him a popular figure who united the country, but in fact, he was very divisive. So I think it's too early to know what this shift portends for American politics, but it is absolutely a And it is absolutely significant.

Adam Serwer: For those who don't remember, I mean, how deft were the ears that Black Lives Matter fell on last time around, at least politically? You have to remember that Donald Trump was in part a backlash against Black Lives Matter. Well, you see them marching and you see them on occasion, at least. I've seen it where they're essentially calling death to the police. And that's not acceptable. Whether you like them or don't like them, that bill is not acceptable. But I've seen it and you've seen it. The perception that he tried to put forth was that Obama had handcuffed the police. He was indulgent of the protesters and rioters and this needed a strong hand to be put down. And in fact, Donald Trump's election was substantially aided by the backlash to the Obama era oversight of police departments, which resulted in the police unions going all out for Donald Trump.

Adam Serwer: So just to give a little background on this, in the aftermath of the Rodney King beating, police reformers tucked into the 1994 crime bill, a provision that allowed the Civil Rights Division and the Justice Department to oversee local police departments and make sure that they were not violating the Constitution in their policing practices. Now, the purpose of that, because we have about 80 years of government commissions and reports and evidence showing that police brutality against black Americans is a catalyst for urban unrest. The thought was, if you can prevent police brutality, you can prevent the unrest. And the Obama administration had a more aggressive program of policing police departments than any previous administration. They initiated more of these investigations than any of their predecessors. And there was a big backlash from that from the police unions. I mean, If you just want to look at Minnesota, the president of Minneapolis Police Union, Bob Kroll, who is a big Trump supporter, said the Obama administration and the handcuffing and oppression of police was despicable. And once Donald Trump took office, one of the first things his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, did was say, we're not going to do these investigations anymore because they're bad for morale. Morale has gone down. And what that did was it not only blinded the federal government to whether or not local police departments are misbehaving, but it basically gave police a green light to say, look, you can do whatever you want and we're not going to interfere. Which is something that Trump said overtly in his rhetoric and which was now expressed as policy.

Adam Serwer: Remember, Hillary Clinton also had the mothers of the movement, the mothers of men and boys who had been killed by police or had been killed in circumstances involving stand your ground laws. My name is Geneva Reed-Veal. Gwen Carr. Lucy McBath. Maria Hamilton. My name is Sabrina Fulton, and my son was Trayvon Martin. And there was a backlash to that, too. I mean, before the last few months, it was considered really politically dangerous to criticize police in the way that we're seeing them criticized today. Because of that shift in public opinion, now you're seeing people like Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell or Senator Tom Cotton, people who are very conservative, acknowledging the existence of racial discrimination in policing. And I think some credit to that probably goes to the effort that Tim Scott, the senator from South Carolina, who is African-American, has put into convincing his colleagues that this is a real problem. I mean, he's spoken out about it many times. He's talked about how he's been stopped by Capitol Police for no reason.

Adam Serwer: But I would have to say that bigger credit goes to the fact that white American public opinion has shifted so significantly that even the Republicans who have to acknowledge it to acknowledge the feelings of their own constituencies. White America is finally on board with Black Lives Matter Now, the name of the game is making sure the country doesn't just forget that Black Lives Matter. That's after the break.

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Sean Rameswaram: Adam, let's talk about the impact Black Lives Matter is having on the country right now, starting with policy. President Trump signed something. Will it do anything? The president's executive order on policing is meaningless. It's cosmetic. It doesn't do anything. And that makes sense because the police unions are strong supporters of the president. He went out of his way to earn their support. And he has run his presidency essentially with the rhetorical position that the police can treat people however they want to treat them. I said, please don't be too nice. Like when you guys put somebody in the car and you're protecting their head, you know, the way you put their hand. Like, don't hit their head, and they've just killed somebody. Don't hit their head. I said, you can take the hand away, OK? So the president is not going to be a meaningful check on abuses by police. On the federal level, neither party is really willing to move as aggressively on this as activists would want. I wouldn't, you know, I'm a journalist. I wouldn't purport to tell activists what their goals should be, but neither of the proposals that have been put forward in Congress are particularly aggressive. But the issue is also that there are thousands and thousands of police departments in the United States and sheriff's departments. So a lot of reform is going to have to happen at the local level where police unions have a tremendous amount of power and influence, even in purportedly liberal jurisdictions.

Sean Rameswaram: I mean, you look at New York City, Bill de Blasio ran as a police reformer. And he's the only one who will end a stop-and-frisk era that unfairly targets people of color. Bill de Blasio will be a mayor for every New Yorker, no matter where they live or what they look like. And I'd say that even if he were my dad. A few weeks ago, he was defending police officers who were ramming their cars into protesters. I saw a lot of restraint under very, very difficult circumstances. In part because the backlash from the police unions was so powerful that he essentially conceded the fight to them. So there's basically two levels that this is going to have to take place on, on the federal level and on the state and local level. And both of those are going to be a tremendous challenge for activists, regardless of who's in office. But I think Democrats tend to be more receptive because they have a large black constituency that is genuinely concerned about police brutality.

Sean Rameswaram: Was this a missed opportunity by the president, though? I mean, he clearly cares more about reelection than anything else these days. he could have perhaps scored a win here with his relationship with police, right? He could have used his relationship with police to benefit the demands of all these protesters right now and actually maybe brokered a deal. It's obvious that the Trump administration believes that there is a segment of black men voters who are soft supporters of the Democrats and who might be able to be won over to the president's side. The problem is, is that the president has an ideological belief in the virtue of police violence. I mean, go back decades to the ad he took out calling for the execution of the Central Park Five who were falsely accused of a crime they didn't commit. And when the city awarded the men a settlement in 2014, Trump wrote an editorial in the Daily News calling the settlement a disgrace. Trump said he still considers the men, again, exonerated by the criminal justice system and by DNA, scientific evidence, guilty. And in addition to that, because the police are such prominent and important and significant supporters of his, he would have to defy a constituency that has both ideological and personal resonance for him. And I just don't see it happening. So instead what are we left with We left with 50 state fights for reform and hundreds or thousands of local fights too Yeah I mean look these fights are already happening I mean, activists have already been electing progressive district attorneys who have pulled back on enforcing things like marijuana possession laws. So, you know, in terms of how they can wield this public support for more significant changes, it's obvious that there is a groundswell of support out there for the idea that this is a problem that needs to be fixed.

Sean Rameswaram: This week, it's Robert E. Lee. I noticed that Stonewall Jackson's coming down. I wonder, is it George Washington next week? And is it Thomas Jefferson the week after? You know, you really do have to ask yourself, where does it stop? Another local fight I want to ask you about is the fight to bring down Confederate monuments, to ban the Confederate flag at public gatherings, or to remove it from, you know, state houses, and to rename parks and military bases. I guess that's less local, but named after Confederate soldiers. It doesn't feel quite as immediate, perhaps, as the fight to reform police departments or defund police. But is this the golden opportunity to finally get that done? Like once and for all, perhaps?

Adam Serwer: I just want to clarify that I think you should be able to wave the Confederate flag at a public gathering all you want. You have a First Amendment right to be an asshole and no one should be able to take that away from you. Why do you carry that flag? Because this is my heritage. My family fought to save their farm under this flag. Who was working that farm? My family. Who was working the farm? They were poor. Do you know how much a slave cost back then?

Adam Serwer: The public display of the Confederate flag in a political context basically disappears until the civil rights movement. It rises again, so to speak, as a way to express defiance of integration and civil rights. But when you're talking about memorials and statues, these are things that belong in museums. These memorials and statues come up not right after the Civil War, but late in the 19th century and early in the 20th century. as sort of monuments to the victory of the South over Reconstruction and the re-imposition of white supremacy. It has been suggested that we should rename as many as 10 of our legendary military bases, such as Fort Bragg in North Carolina, Fort Hood in Texas, Fort Benning in Georgia, and the list goes on. The army bases that are named after Confederate generals, I mean, there's just no whitewashing this. These are men who betrayed their country in defense of human bondage. And after the war, some of them became terrorist leaders. They opposed black suffrage. It is ludicrous that we name U.S. Army bases after men who served in an enemy military in a conflict that killed more Americans than any conflict in American history to date.

Adam Serwer: And how did that happen? They are an expression of the South's political, of the white South's political power. And the American military is almost half non-white at this point. You know, you are recruiting for communities that have been historically subject to and oppressed by the doctrine of white supremacy. It's actually quite ridiculous. My administration will not even consider the renaming of these magnificent and fabled military installations. Our history as the greatest nation in the world will not be tampered with.

Adam Serwer: And so all told, does it mean that that fight, the fight to rename military bases, take down statues, is going to be just as tough as the fight against police unions in the coming weeks and months? Look, I mean, I think in both cases, you're sort of battling a long legacy of American history. The veneration of the Confederacy is the result of one of the most successful, decades-long propaganda campaigns in American history. to convince Americans that the war was not actually about slavery, that the South did not actually rebel in defense of the institution of human bondage. And these backlashes that are happening against these monuments and these symbols right now are part of a phenomenon of public memory catching up to the reality of American history.

Adam Serwer: So the similarity between both cases is just in that Americans are reckoning with their genuine history of racial discrimination. And I think it's not clear how far we're going to go in trying to rectify that. But it is very clear that perceptions have shifted. I guess I worry a little bit about our attention spans. A majority of Americans feel like this is an important fight right now. But for how long? Well, look, there's a lot of time left between now and November. and we've already had a pandemic, an economic collapse, and a nationwide uprising against police brutality. I just would not make any predictions about what's going to happen next. But I think that whether or not the protests continue in the intensity and volume that they have been going on for for the past few weeks, I think that there is a shift in public opinion that may prove to be durable, and we'll just have to see.

Sean Rameswaram: Adam, thank you so much for your time. Appreciate the conversation. And thanks to Eggsy for his patience as well. Thanks for having me.