On this episode of Our Body Politic, Karen Attiah, guest host and Columnist for the Washington Post, speaks with labor journalist Kim Kelly about the past year in labor movements in the U.S. Then Karen talks with journalist, activist and documentarian Rokhaya Diallo about the anti-racist protests in France. We round out the show with part 2 of Farai Chideya’s conversation with Former U.S. Capitol Police Sergeant, Aquilino Gonell about his new book, “American Shield: The Immigrant Sergeant Who Defended Democracy.
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This is Our Body Politic. I'm Karen Attiah, columnist for The Washington Post sitting in for Farai Chideya. On this show, we're looking at the power of movements, and we're starting with the recent labor strikes in the United States. This year, we've seen unprecedented labor victories across all different kinds of industries. We definitely had a hot strike summer, the Writers Guild of America and Screen Actors Guild went on historic months long double strike. Then hotel workers went on strike. And as hot strike summer became hot strike fall, United Auto Workers went on strike. Health care workers went on strike. The list goes on and on. Now we're going to dive deeper into some of these wins and also connect them to the history of labor organizing in the United States. Joining me is labor journalist Kim Kelly, author of the book Fight Like Hell: The Untold History of American Labor. Kim, thanks so much for joining us.
Kim Kelly [00:01:53] Thank you so much for having me.
Karen Attiah [00:01:55] So all of these strikes. Was all of this just a matter of timing or do you feel like there's a deeper reason that so many unions happened to go on strike in the same year?
Kim Kelly [00:02:06] There's always the potential for a union to go on strike given when how the contract negotiations are going and when their contract is up. But whether or not they want to whether they feel strong enough, whether they feel hopeful enough to strike, that's a horse of another color. And I think, as you mentioned, we've seen this wave of strikes over the past few months and really the past few years, it's become very apparent that workers are not afraid to stand up for themselves and not afraid to ask for. Now really demand better. I think there has been a little bit of a sea change in just the kind of possibilities that workers see for themselves. I merely mentioned the UAW strike, which I believe just got ratified by, I think, 64% vote. There are some historic wins in that contract. And that's a pretty new big thing for the UAW. This was happening because they had this new president. They had this kind of reform militant attitude that they didn't have five, ten years ago. And that's being reflected in a lot of these more established unions and some of the newer, younger, maybe even hungrier unions. We're seeing like Starbucks workers at Amazon and Medieval Times, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Like everyone's on strike. It's cool. Labor winter, I guess.
Karen Attiah [00:03:20] How much do you think covered the pandemic and not like disruption to our lives played in what we're seeing with labor unions and striking today?
Kim Kelly [00:03:31] I think it's such a huge factor. I mean, going back to those earlier days of Covid, we had this moment, this very brief moment where we had the essential worker discourse, where folks who are always doing this incredibly important invisible child labor, they got a little bit of attention. Maybe they got some extra protection they should have had the whole time. Maybe they got a little bit of a raise that they should have had the whole time. And for a couple of months, it felt like we were kind of in this together. And then it all went away. And those folks were left thinking, well, I mean, I'm still helping keep the world running, right? Like nothing changed about my job. I still have to go in every day. But there's still a deadly pandemic and everyone kind of forgot about me. And on top of that, even folks that weren't in these more public facing jobs, the, quote unquote, essential worker jobs, we have that little cushion from the government for like a quick minute. The stimulus. Right. The stimulus checks that for the first time in many workers lives, they had a little bit of a cushion. They could take it be they could maybe pay off some bills. They could maybe look for employment somewhere that fit their needs better and valued them more. There was this kind of brief, shining moment that led a lot of people to realize the value of their labor and of their lives. And you can't put that lightning back in the bottle.
Karen Attiah [00:04:54] There are things about life and death issues that help us gain a lot of clarity really quickly about what's important and what matters. So speaking of the various strikes that we were talking about, I want to focus on the Hollywood strike. So moving to California, a big sticking point in the Hollywood strikes was the use of artificial intelligence. So these unions are some of the first to win protections around the use of AI. Can you talk a little bit more about like the bigger significance of these protections for people who don't work in Hollywood?
Kim Kelly [00:05:31] My union, the Writers Guild of America and Sag-aftra. We're kind of on the vanguard of this because these are the first round of jobs, high profile jobs that are really at risk of this robot take over. Some of the things that the studio has wanted to do were just so egregious, like scanning a person's likeness and using that in perpetuity. Like having Dame Maggie Smith doing Downton Abbey 36, 40 years from now like that just struck people as like, well, that's ridiculous. And I know I have seen some rumblings that, oh, well, that's A.I., That's like a tech thing. That's a Hollywood thing. That's not going to impact my job. But the robots are coming for you too, baby. You know, like once bosses, once the CEOs, the corporate kind of ringleaders realize like, oh, we can use this emerging, still not well understood technology to replace a worker, even if it's done poorly, even if it puts more work on the existing human workers. We're going to try it. I mean, I'm a veteran of the digital media wars, so I remember the pivot to video like that for same, right? Like that was a moment where there is this shiny new technology propped up by Silicon Valley and all these tech geniuses who are like, Oh, this will make things better. And all my friends lost their jobs. And this is the thing I think that we really need to internalize as we talk about A.I., is that it's not just certain professions that have to be concerned about the use of this technology. It's something that is, I think, flexible enough that it could impact a massive range of jobs, whether you're working at a supermarket or you're a journalist or you're working in a coal mine. It's kind of the same thing we saw with the rise of automation. I think it ties into the way that gig work, quote unquote, has taken over huge swaths of the American workforce. Like, just because it's easier for someone, it doesn't mean it's good for the workers.
Karen Attiah [00:07:26] In your work, in your research, have you seen that when new technologies, is there a cycle, I guess, to like when new technologies are introduced that there's then more of labor movement activity?
Kim Kelly [00:07:40] I think it's very much just part and parcel of the march to progress. Heavy air quotes, right? We get this technological advances that seem like they're good. They seem like they're making things easier and they're there to make things a lot tougher for the humans that are meant to use them and be replaced by them. So I think about things like longwall mining and coal mines, underground coal mines. This is a technological advancement that made it possible to mine so much more coal that it had previously. Like once took two weeks to mine. You can now do in 24 hours. And that was good for the mine owners. But that's very, very, very bad for the miners. That's why we're seeing in part why we're seeing an epidemic of Black lung in Central Appalachia right now, because the technological advancement is doing too good a job for the bosses, not the workers. And there's been this centuries of. Of activism and labor action among miners and coal miners, particularly in this country, fighting back against those kinds of things. But, yeah, I think people are people are smart workers. They're smart. We can we can smell when something is off. And I think there's a reason that you're seeing organizing and strikes and more renewed militancy in this moment where technology is kind of infusing every piece of our lives more and more and more even down to like automated grocery store kiosks like that should be someone's job. And there are a lot of unionized grocery stores that have been causing a ruckus the past couple of years. Like it's I think it's really just part of the whole dance between labor and capital. Right. Like some new shiny toy comes out, somebody with a bunch of money thinks, oh, that's worth like 3 to 400 workers. I have to pay healthy surance for. Let's give it a try, see what happens. I'll be fine either way and then it's not fine. And then they get surprised that people are unionizing and going on strike. Like if you don't value a worker's humanity, if you don't give them the dignity, respect and wages and care they deserve, they're not going to have any more loyalty to you than you have to those robots.
Karen Attiah [00:09:55] 100,000%. The contracts that unions are landing on have been massively historic in more ways than one. So United Auto Workers have been able to win serious concessions from major automakers like Ford and Stellantis. So basically, the masses are losing and they're losing badly. Right?
Kim Kelly [00:10:17] Isn't it fun?
Karen Attiah [00:10:19] Do you think that that's going to mean fewer strikes in the next years?
Kim Kelly [00:10:24] Oh, no, that's just going to inspire more people. That's one of the things that's so exciting about especially the UAW wins and the UAW contract because they really showed what's possible. Not only do they get the big raises, they got a lot of the material things they're asking for. They straight up bullied an automaker into reopening a whole closed plant like this. They scare them into bringing electrical battery vehicle manufacturing into the master agreement, which is going to have a huge impact on the ongoing and upcoming hopeful just transition. And they show that it's possible to push for more than anyone else thinks that you deserve just because you know that without your labor, nothing gets done. And I do have to give a lot of credit to Sean Fein, the new president of the UAW, the first ever elected by a direct member vote, which really matters. You know, he's been really pushing this idea that I think is accurate and good that this is you know, it's the working class against everybody else. He's not afraid to say class war. And if you're more of a lover than a fighter, that's fine, too. It's all about collective action and caring for your fellow workers across industries of supporting each other, showing up on picket lines, you know, cheering. When somebody wins, you know, send us some pizza to the picket line, you know, boycotting Starbucks when you're asked. Not just because while you can do whatever you want, but, you know, listening to what workers ask for, you know, that's important, too. I think we're going to see a lot more activity because we've just had especially these big, high profile examples, we've seen what is possible. Like, if anything, this is going to make life so much worse for the corporate CEO types that have been profiting off of our labor for centuries. You know, again, like the bottle, it's only going to get worse for them and way more fun for us.
Karen Attiah [00:12:22] So I want to talk about Starbucks. So Starbucks workers have been engaged in a multiyear effort to bargain contracts with the company. So according to recent rulings, Starbucks has violated labor law more than a hundred times during this process. Is Starbucks a unique example as far as employers go, or are you seeing a lot of companies getting like this aggressive with unions?
Kim Kelly [00:12:49] This isn't really a new thing. It's just that people are seeing this more it's getting more visibility because the Starbucks campaign, it's been I mean, it's been kind of magical in a way. Like it's giving people a lot of hope. It's led by young, diverse workers who aren't afraid to, you know, be political, to be outspoken, to ask their communities for help. Starbucks is one of those companies that I think most people have probably interacted with once or twice, if not once or twice a week. You know, there are kind of a headliner deal. And the way that the C-suite is reacting to this unionization effort, like that's not atypical at all. You know, unfortunately, this is kind of what has been playing out behind closed doors in a lot of industries, a lot of companies. These folks just have kind of more of a spotlight on them because, frankly, Starbucks Workers United is really good at social media and really good media outreach. Other unions should be consulting with them, honestly. But this kind of tension and that sort of just animosity, it wasn't it doesn't have to be like that, but that's just sort of where it's ended up. And you see some of these corporations like Tesla, for example, that are just so virulently and publicly anti-union that like the owners, will threaten workers. Like if you unionize, you're out of here. That's illegal. But when you are at one of these companies that has so much money and so much influence on the U.S. government and is perhaps real cozy with various politicians, like it just gets kind of ugly. And that power that the workers are supposed to have runs up against a blockade. Because when you have more money than God, it's a little tougher for justice to prevail. I mean, look at what's happening with Amazon, too. That was on labor unions and trying to get a contract for ages. The Amazon itself has pulled out so many stops to union bust and mess with the union and just scare people out of it. Like I was in Alabama. I saw a lot of it with my own eyes. Years ago, before this even popped off. It's just an indictment on the strength of our labor laws and the political will of our leaders and just the the ugly behavior of some of these incredibly wealthy corporate CEOs that are just personally offended that workers might organize and question their, you know, patriarchal paternal leadership. It's very it's very gilded age, in a way. Like, how dare you? I'm a nice boss. I'm a cool Boss.
Karen Attiah [00:15:25] I'm a nice overlord. Actually, speaking of labor laws, what do you make about this White House, the Biden administration and their performance, their rhetoric on labor issues so far?
Kim Kelly [00:15:37] Do you by no means have to hand it to them, but labor is, I think, probably the only area in which the Biden administration has actually made a lot of positive improvements. I think it's been huge that Jennifer Abruzzo is now the general counsel of the NLRB.
Karen Attiah [00:15:55] The National Labor Relations Board, just for clarity.
Kim Kelly [00:15:58] She's been behind a lot of these newer rulings that are really having, like, pro-worker rulings that are having an impact. They're very much pro-worker, but they're also very underfunded. They're understaffed. That's the case throughout the entire Department of Labor, Really. Especially MSHA, the Mine Safety and Health Administration. They need so much more money and so much more support than they're getting to deal with this Black lung epidemic. But it's such a complicated thing, right? Because that is helpful and that is good. But then we see things like the railroad strike that wasn't and I think Biden lost a lot of goodwill among labor's rank and file, especially when the government stepped in and basically broke a strike. That's not what a historically pro-union president would do, like if it's going to disrupt the economy. That's what strikes are for. That's how you win. Big Brother doesn't step in and say, no, no, no, no, no, no. You all got to get along. That's not part of the deal. But yeah, I think he lost a lot of goodwill on that. And then on the flip side, you have Biden going down to walk a picket line with the UAW. I think the first sitting U.S. president to do that, which is a kind of a big deal, like just showing that, you know, I think that was a big deal personally, because no matter where you are on the political spectrum, having the president show up to support your strike in broad strokes, that's a pretty big deal. Right? And if you're watching that, if you're a worker seeing that and think, oh, okay, so if the president is down with this, maybe I can talk to my coworkers about our wage inequality. So maybe we can talk about our boss that everyone hates. Maybe we can talk about some things going on. Because something that I've realized after talking to workers for years and my reporting for the book and everything is that a lot of folks just don't know that they're allowed to unionize. They're allowed to talk about their wages, they're allowed to fight back. And even if it was just a PR stunt in a lot of regards, seeing that I think was very helpful. So it's a mixed bag for sure, but it's certainly better than what we've had in the past. Well, it's pretty good, comparatively speaking, we'll say.
Karen Attiah [00:18:14] Speaking of your book, I would love to talk more about your book. I'd love to know about the history you chose to highlight and fight, like how the untold history of American labor and maybe even just a little bit about your motivations, your own personal journey, and even become interested in writing about the history of labor.
Kim Kelly [00:18:35] I see it as sort of like a people's history of labor in the US. That was the original subtitle I wanted when I said it was too long in focus and specifically on the history of women and Black and brown and Asian and indigenous workers, disabled workers, sex workers, prisoners, immigrant workers, incarcerated workers. Basically many of the groups of workers that I personally don't feel like have gotten as much attention as they deserve in more mainstream labor histories. And of course, it's different from academic histories. Like those guys have it on lock, right? I wrote it for us. You know, for people who have a little bit of time on the bus or in the break room and they will sit down and read a little something. You know, I try to make it very accessible and as fun as I could. Given how bloody and brutal so much of our history has been in this country in terms of the long running war between labor and capital. And I tried to make it inspiring. Basically, I wanted to take the opportunity I had and build on some of the work I've been doing at Teen Vogue with my column No Class, where I also get to write about these connections between current labor issues and the historical precedents and to show how they all kind of come together. Because I'm a big history nerd and I wanted to write a book that could have been useful to me when I first got involved in Labor because I didn't plan any of this. I've spent most of my life in the music business as a heavy metal journalist and a gig promoter and a roadie. I only ended up in this labor world because I was lucky enough to be, well, right place, right time. I was working at Vice back in 2015 and I happened to get hired right before we launched a union drive and I got super, super involved. I was already involved in other political organizing in the city of New York at the time, and it totally made sense to me, like, Oh, okay, be in a union fight, fascism, great. And I got super involved to the point where it started showing up in my writing and now I was the heavy metal editor. So most of my job was like, you know, interviewing Corpse Grinder and doing record reviews of like, obscure black metal things. But I started trying to find ways to slip workers rights and labor. And because I was so interested and I started freelancing more. I started writing for Teen Vogue about labor and just kind of made this little slow pivot because that's where my attention was. Like, Heavy metal is fine, it'll be there. I still have some toes in. You know, But I started putting all my attention on labor to the point where by the time I got laid off in 2019, I figured, You know what? I'm not quite sure what a Labor journalist's life looks like, but I'm going to give it a shot. And a year later, I started writing this book. So, so far, so good.
Karen Attiah [00:21:29] And then you see these explosion and strikes and inactions that you're well placed at the right time to be doing what you’re doing.
Kim Kelly [00:21:37] The timing I am not mad about.
Karen Attiah [00:21:39] Right. Right. Speaking of journalism and stories, I'm curious sort of what's on your radar in terms of stories, labor stories that are not getting the attention that you think they deserve.
Kim Kelly [00:21:54] I'm really interested in the strip club workers organizing what we're seeing on the West Coast, shout out to Star Garden and to some other folks who are starting to get some things going out there. I think that's really important. I'm also trying to figure out how to spend more time covering some of these strikes that been going on for a long time but haven't gotten as much attention like the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Those folks have been out for like a year. Or Medieval Times workers in California. You know, there are workers in Kentucky at Amazon who are right now fighting on behalf of the immigrant workforce there that are being denied translation and being discriminated against. If there's always something going on, there's so much happening all the time to the point where it's almost overwhelming because it's my I feel like my duty and my privilege to be a labor reporter right now to report on these things. So it's a wonderful and stressful time to be covering labor. And I'm just so excited for every new campaign, every new strike, every new person that gets involved, that joins a picket line or even just joins in on bullying a union buster on Twitter. You know, it all. It all counts. And I might be a Pollyanna and might be a little Kumbaya about it, but I just I just know we're going to win eventually. And this year, this past couple of years, it really gives me hope that we're on the right track.
Karen Attiah [00:23:24] I love that. Kim Kelly, labor journalist and author of the book Fight Like Hell: The Untold History of Labor in America. Thank you for joining us today.
Kim Kelly [00:23:33] Thank you so much for having me. Solidarity forever.
Karen Attiah [00:23:41] We travel next to France, where there's a different kind of movement taking place. This year marks the 40th anniversary of the 1983 March for Equality and Against Racism.
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One of the first anti-racism protests in France. The historical march came after a wave of police violence that year. And unfortunately, 40 years later, racism and xenophobia are still threaded into French society. This summer, after a police officer in a Paris suburb shot and killed 17 year old Nahel Merzouk. Thousands of people across the country of France protested against decades of anti-Arab and anti-Black police discrimination.
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The protesters are shouting Justice for Nahel. The house death to many was a reminder of the long history of colonialism and the discrimination that has resulted from it. To understand more about the anti-racist movement in France, we speak with journalist, activist and documentarian, Rokhaya Diallo. Rokhaya, thank you for joining us.
Rokhaya Diallo [00:24:49] Thank you, Karen, for having me. Hi. Hi there.
Karen Attiah [00:24:53] I want to start off with the protests in June that happened in France. How have the reactions and the conversations been around the killing of Nahel?
Rokhaya Diallo [00:25:05] Yes, actually. So Nahel Merzouk was a 17 years old teenager who was shot dead by the police. And the first report of the police was saying that she was violent and it took a video to prove that she wasn't doing anything. And if he was shot inside his car. And I think that people were angry because Nahel was French. His parents were French. And also my family was originally from North Africa, from Morocco, an edgy area. And so obviously wasn't he wasn't a twice. And the fact that so many young people told them said that they could have been Nahel, they could have been killed in the same way. And had the police lying about the reason why they were killed, it really outraged them. And that's the reason why they just came, you know, started uprisings all across the country because, you know, the march started 40 years ago and still today nothing has really happened to prevent police brutality.
Karen Attiah [00:25:58] The protests were often compared to the 2020 George Floyd protests here in the U.S. But in a Guardian article, you called the comparison naive. Can you tell me about your frustrations with the comparison here?
Rokhaya Diallo [00:26:11] The thing is that ever since something related with racial violence happens in Europe, people tend to compare it to the US, forgetting the fact that the United States were created by Europeans who actually were at the origins of the racial theories. So in France, we actually didn't have to wait for George Floyd to be murdered to understand what is brutality. 40 years ago, a young man named Toumi Djaïdja was hit by police bullets. He was shot by the police. He survived and half surviving police violence. He decided to march with a group of 12 people from Marseilles in the south of France until Paris. And the march took six weeks. And it was the first national anti-racist march, and they gathered 100,000 people. So it was originated by the fact that a young man was shot by the police. And the only reason why he was able to march is the fact that he survived the violence. But many people in France still don't know about that march. I was hosting an event to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the march, and most of the young people have never heard about the march, and they didn't know the name of Toumi Djaïdja the man who was shot by the police in 1983. And in France, if you pick the example of a metro station or a street of a train station, you will have them named after the king, after Rosa Parks, after Nelson Mandela. But you will hardly find any place named after someone who was struck by French racial violence.
Karen Attiah [00:27:46] So basically, you're saying there's no Toumi Djaïdja streets or big memorials.
Rokhaya Diallo [00:27:53] There is no school, no street, no place, No. There is nothing that was named after him. And the thing is that he's still alive and he's very eager to speak about what happened to him, how he built with other people, a movement from very little that really was amplified nationally.
Karen Attiah [00:28:10] You mentioned Morocco and Algeria, and I feel like we can't really have these conversations without discussing France's colonial history, a history which France claims that it is reckoning with and grappling with. Can you speak more about that?
Rokhaya Diallo [00:28:27] Yes, of course. You cannot speak about police brutality in France without speaking about the 17th of October in 1961, because on that day it was during the war against Algeria. The Algerians were in Paris, they had a curfew so they couldn't go outside. And some of them decided to protest against the curfew in Paris and they were killed by the police. They were thrown into the Seine River, hundreds of people. We don't have the official number, but many Algerian family are still crying about their death.
Karen Attiah [00:28:59] Records of the massacre were destroyed. So there's no clear accounting of the number of victims. But historians agree that at least 48 protesters were killed. And some estimate the number of victims was as high as 200. Some of their bodies were thrown into the Seine River.
Rokhaya Diallo [00:29:16] And it's something that took decades to the French government to acknowledge and recognize the fact that the police has decided to throw Algerians in the Seine River in the middle of the streets of Paris because there were only peacefully protesting about the fact that they didn't have the right to express themselves during a war for the freedom of the country.
Karen Attiah [00:29:35] There's a well-documented history of this discrimination, of colonialism, of violence. And yet France upholds this notion of universalism and colorblindness. Can you explain what Universalism in France means?
Rokhaya Diallo [00:29:53] Universalism is, in theory, a beautiful idea from the philosophies of the Enlightenment and the idea that as human beings, we all have the same value and we basically belong to the same humanity, which in theory, everybody agrees. But the thing is that Universalism, whenever you say, you know, I'm treated this or that way because, you know, I'm queer, I'm Black, I'm a woman. You will face someone saying it's not universalist to say that because we are all the same, we all French citizens. And what I hear the most nowadays is the fact that either you’re Universalist or your woke and you import theories from the US.
Karen Attiah [00:30:38] I will say I have also been accused of trying to import Wokeness into France as an American agitator. But the funny thing about France and and thinking about Universalism and race and America is that France has also enjoyed cultivating this image of itself as being a nation of high culture, of the Enlightenment, of secularity and all that. But I would also say that for Black people in the US, especially, France has this image of being this racism free utopia, a place where Black American artists and writers and entertainers can go to escape America's racism. Specifically when it comes to race. Why is this image of it so when it comes to Black people so important?
Rokhaya Diallo [00:31:33] Yes, I think it's a very dangerous narrative because, of course, France was welcoming for many African-Americans. James Baldwin, Chester Himes, Nina Simone, Josephine Baker, who became French, actually, she died as a French citizen. But at the same time, when Josephine Baker was celebrated as an incredible dancer and performer, France was still a colonial power. Like, my ancestors were oppressed at the same time, they didn't have the right to be French, full citizens in the same way. You know, there was still a forced labor in the colonies until 1946. So there's always been a double standard. If you come today to Paris as a Black American, you will not be treated in the same way as I am. And in a reverse way, if I go to the U.S., when I go to the U.S. with my French accent, my Blackness is kind of hidden by the prestige of my country, which is France. But for people who come from the U.S. to France, Black people, they are treated in a way that they wouldn't be treated in the US. Still there. I think that they should be careful in how to depict their experience because, you know, going to the U.S. with my accent, I wouldn't go back to France to say that, you know, the US are paradise for Black people because I know that it's my Frenchness which protects me from being mistreated in the same way as Black Americans. And even James Baldwin wrote about Algerians. He wrote about racism. But people tend to forget the fact that he saw what France could do to people who were colonized subjects.
Karen Attiah [00:33:12] Absolutely. And speaking more about your experience and yourself, I mean, you were born in Paris to Senegalese parents, and you've written a lot about how people have asked you where you're from. How has this affected or inspired even the work that you do today?
Rokhaya Diallo [00:33:30] It's actually how I really realized how difficult it was to be French and not to be white at the same time, because I was born and raised in France, in Paris. And I was constantly asked where I was from, implying the idea that I came to France. I'm really proud of my heritage and of the fact that my family's from Senegal and The Gambia. But I've never experienced living in another country. And today, as a public figure, whenever there is a controversy about my work, what I can read is that I should go back to my country. So it's like I'm under the impression that my identity is very fragile. So it's very difficult because you don't have so many representations of people of color in the media, and that doesn't really help people understanding that many, many French people are not white and many of them are Muslim from many different religions.
Karen Attiah [00:34:24] Yeah, I wanted to get into that because on top of all of those layers, you are also Muslim. And most recently there's the ban for the abayas, which are the long full dressings. Why do you think in France there's such a focus, a target, on Muslim girls and women?
Rokhaya Diallo [00:34:43] I think it's always about controlling people who are from colonial descent, whose ancestors were colonized. It's interesting to know that during the colonization in Algeria, the wives of the generals who were settlers in Algeria organized public ceremonies to unveil women publicly, and they actually created posters to promote the public unveiling because being unveiled was echoing the idea of assimilation. And I think that to be French, to be fully fresh, you need to to look a certain way. And as a French Muslim woman, you shouldn't wear something that ties you with your religion. And the fact that we have had so many laws and decrees to basically, you know, track anything that could be Muslim on women's bodies to me is so racist. And it also has to do with sexism, like the idea that you body should be visible and accessible, accessible because we are a country in which seduction is something very important. It's supposedly part of the culture. And I've heard many men commenting on the abayas and the veil with the idea that we can see, we can see those women, and it shouldn't be that way.
Karen Attiah [00:36:04] So a lot having to do with the entitlement to gaze upon women's bodies as they see fit.
Rokhaya Diallo [00:36:11] Exactly. Exactly.
Karen Attiah [00:36:13] So Rokhaya, you and I have worked at The Washington Post, but I've seen from afar how you've been treated online and in the media. So can you tell me about what's been going on with you recently?
Rokhaya Diallo [00:36:25] Yes. So I just had two trials back to back because one of them because of some someone targeted me with, you know, insulting my work. And I responded and he sued me. And it's just one of the examples. But I've been in the middle of so many controversy. Sometimes I just watch on TV and I see a debate on race, feminism or immigration, and I see people, you know, naming me as one of the reasons of why there is such a cultural clash in France today. So since I'm one of the few people of color to be visible, it's very easy to target me. There was an article about a comedian and he invited me on his podcast. And generally it's a very like mainstream media. The Journalist said that he invited someone else who is an MP who happens to be Black, and he said, Me, like she confused me with someone.
Karen Attiah [00:37:18] Sorry, I have to laugh. I want to make a joke about how Universalism must mean that all Black people look alike in France.
Rokhaya Diallo [00:37:26] That's so Universalist.
Karen Attiah [00:37:30] How do you continue to to have this strength and the hope, I guess, that things could possibly change.
Rokhaya Diallo [00:37:38] I have to admit that sometimes it's very, very difficult, especially when, you know, you're invited to debates that are so silly about, you know, how Muslim women should dress to go to school. It's too long. It doesn't look it's like it's like I don't even know how it's possible to publicly discuss the outfits of of teenagers and to think that it's okay. But yeah, I'm grateful also to people like you who've been supportive to my work from from the U.S. for for a while because it really protects me because having institutions out of friends backing me and supporting my work, it makes it more difficult, you know, saying that my work, you know, doesn't have any any value required.
Karen Attiah [00:38:20] Rokhaya Diallo, journalist and anti-racist advocate, thank you for joining us today.
Rokhaya Diallo [00:38:27] Thank you so much, Karen. Thank you.
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Karen Attiah [00:38:38] Welcome back to Our Body Politic. I'm Karen Attiah sitting in for Our Body Politic host and creator, Farai Chideya. A few weeks ago, Farai spoke with former U.S. Capitol Police Sergeant Aquilino Gonell about his experience defending the Capitol on January 6th. And his book, American Shield: The Immigrant Sergeant Who Defended Democracy. Now we're bringing you part two of that conversation. Farai asked Sergeant Cannell to share how he saw race play out in the attack that day. Let's listen.
Aquilino Gonell [00:39:09] The way I saw the racism is was mainly from the attackers and from the mob. Like, I knew we had officers from our police force who is very diverse, both from the Metropolitan Police and also Capitol Police. What I didn't expect was the mob. The people attacking us are mostly white and the way that they portray us was like or the whole event was well, during 2020 when the whole world hated you we had your back therefore you should let us pass. In a sense, that's what they were telling us. Like as if it was something transactional that we knew well. They did bad things. So now let us do this thing, this one, one thing, one tiny thing that and we'll be good, we’ll be even. No that's how it worked. We took an oath to protect everybody inside the building, whether they are Republican or Democrat or independent and or ideology. And I think as I speak in the book about it is there were a lot of white officers there that did their job. There were a lot of Black officers did their job. I cannot speak about what somebody else that were not in front of me or next to me at one entrance and say, well, look, he removed himself or he let those people in or not, because there, I don't know their rationale. Do I agree with some of the things that happened, all the entrances or other places? No, I don't, because ultimately we knew the building. We were charged to protect the building. And to me, that's why I did what I did. I stood there at the entrance when some of the… all of the officers really go inside to do their job. But I didn't. I felt compelled to remain at the entrance in the tunnel for hours to one get direction two to perhaps in my own rationale, I was like, well, if I leave here and they don't see Capitol Police, MPD probably going to leave or let these people in. I'm not saying that that's what they were going to do. I'm saying that that's what I thought at that time and I didn't want to give them the satisfaction to say, well, only us defended this entrance, only us were there. Capitol Police left. I'm not saying that, but I'm saying is that's what I was thinking. That's what I did. And that's why I stayed there for hours.
Farai Chideya [00:41:47] Yeah. And you stayed there through multiple injuries. Let me talk about the aftermath of these attacks. You were injured multiple times, and I'm sure there were many levels of trauma that you endured as you had to think through what had just happened. I understand that the fiancee of Brian Sicknick, Officer Brian Sicknick, who passed away after suffering strokes following the attacks on the Capitol, that that his fiancee tried to help you out with some of the money she received from a charity. Tell us about that, if you are able to, and also what it was like to recover from the attack on the Capitol and the injuries you suffered.
Aquilino Gonell [00:42:32] I mean, after the attacks, I was dealing with multiple injuries. The physical, the financial, the mental, and also the moral injuries. Because at the end of the day, I did what I did. I did the right thing. I did what was required of me. And yet those people continue to say that or alluding to like I was the bad guy of the story when they call these people peacefully hugs and kisses. Well, no, I was I didn't get injured because some people hugged me too tight or kissed me too… or were rushing to greet me. I got injured because I defend the Capitol, I did my job. And when… when I was home after the inauguration, I should have savings in my account. But over the months and months of recovery, I was now making the same amount of money that I was making while I was on my normal job. My normal position. And at one point I was struggling with just $1,300 and I reach out to people, I need some help, including Capitol Police, and they were dragging their feet. And I, one day Ms. Garza I’m thankful for her. Now I didn't open up to her because I wanted anything from her. I was just …she happened to ask me how was I doing? And I completely divest everything because I was frustrated. So immediately she offer to help me with some type of assistance, I begrudgingly accepted. I refuse… I go what the hell are you doing, especially because you are going though your own grieving yourself.
Farai Chideya [00:44:24] And that's officer Sicknick's fiance.
Aquilino Gonell [00:44:27] I can;t accept this, you know you are going through your things you probably have a lot worse because you lost your partner. I didn't speak up to you because of that, but she refused to take it back. So I, I swallowed my pride and took it. But I think a lot of things could have been done differently, both from the department and the public as well, too, because at that time, we were not receiving a lot of guidance on what things were available for the officers who were injured. I reverted back to my military trauma therapist that I had, and it took me a while to get the department of labor to prove my case, but I took a while for myself to do it out of pocket because I knew I couldn't wait for them. I think as a person who has suffered PTSD for many years after coming back from Iraq, I had noticed some of the sentence that would trigger me. And I… I knew I recognized them, that I have those things. So I didn't want to wait to get it worse. And then when January 6th happened, those symptoms were retriggered again, but more harsher because now I had two trials have come up from the military and also trial from January six. So I immediately called for my therapist and due to Covid, I had to wait, you know, to stop what eventually he got it approved and I got worked out.
Farai Chideya [00:46:10] You know, I thank you so much for talking about this because I think so many people suffer trauma in different ways sometimes in their family of origin. You know, things happen in families when people are kids and adults sometimes in the course of doing work, whether it is serving in the military or in the police force or in other fields. And a lot of people don't deal with it head on. And it's very brave of you to deal with it head on and also talk about it. So I thank you for that. And you also spoke about what you went through in the first public hearing of the January 6th House Select Committee. So this tradition of speaking out, what what do you hope it does? What was it like to testify that day?
Aquilino Gonell [00:47:20] I mean coming out and speak publicly about what have what you have gone through is not easy, especially for me. And as I say in the book American Shield, I have always been reserved. I always have been keeping things quiet. I think if it had not been because January 6th, nobody else will have known who I was, who I am and what I had done for this country. So because after my testimony, people were making a story about me. Who I was, what I had done, what I had not done, what they alluded I committed because at first people were saying, well, he killed this lady. Or he took this lady and tried to hide the body at somebody else. Now, we tried to help that lady. And so I wanted to be in my story right, I wanna tell people what I did to help not only my colleagues to defend the capitol, but also at the same time as we were getting attacked by the rioters, that we even tried to help their own injured people, they’re own wounded. And speaking out to me helped me a lot to heal somewhat. I spoke to my physical therapist, my psychiatrist, and it took me a while to accept that. But after I did speak out the first time publicly that kind of like lifted a weight that I was carrying because for many months after January 6th, I was carrying that I wanted to speak up. I was, as I was alluding earlier for months, the week after I saw the article in the Washington Post, I wanted to speak up, but out of concern for my family, my wife. I decided to go against her concerns. But I knew that I had to speak up because of things that happened not only to me, because I had a story to tell, because I wanted to tell. And for somebody like me who swore an oath to protect the Constitution, devoted half of my life to protect this country. Remaining silent was not an option to me. So it was a matter of time for me to convince my wife or tell my story whether she'd like it or not. Because of some point I was like, it is driving me crazy. It is emotionally draining. And the last straw was when Mitch McConnell was, I think Harry Dunn, Fanone, Ms. Garza, and with Sydney mom were going from office to office throughout the Capitol, tried to convince the Mitch McConnell and Republicans that what happened should be investigated. And Mitch McConnell decided to ask for political favors rather than find out the truth. To me, that was like inconceivable. I told my wife, look, I know you want me, don't want me to speak, but I need to speak because maybe they don't believe these guys. I’m a military person. I'm a supervisor. I had the injuries. I had the pictures, the videos and I have a lot of things that happened to me then nobody else knows but myself. And that way, was getting to me. I think if I had not gotten the help, if I had not spoken, I probably would have been been one of the statistics, kind of like the other officer who died by suicide. I’m not saying that lightly. I'm saying I was in a bad place because when I find out that they voted against the bipartisan commission that we're trying to be set up, I completely broke down in rage and I wanted, I wanted like look at these *****. I risked my life for them. And this is how they pay. They say that they support the police and they don't, because if they did, they will want to investigate this. If they did, they would have had put this guy away politically and banned him from running for office. And look what, look what's happening now. Hostages. If I feel like somebody had done, wronged me, I'm going to put them in jail, everybody needs to be put in jail. This is coming from the leading candidate, United States for, to become president. And, and like I said, the country itself right now is in a bad, heading in a bad direction with those type of comments. And we need to do everything possible to to prevent him from, from becoming a president. However, saying that, that means all the people need to get their skin in the game, especially those elected officials who were the target of the mob, because at some point they want us, the police officers, to testify in court. Well, they were the target. Tell them, the court, how you felt when you were threatened. How you were being hunted down room by room, and what you did. You barely escaped it. We survived it. And yet none, a lot of those elected officials, they don’t want to take part in the litigation to ban or disqualify the former president in Colorado, Michigan and other states that they should. I'm being asked to do that. And I’m like no. Somebody else need to do that. I already risked a lot. I has done a lot of things, sacrificed for this country. And I think all the people, people who are in a position of power to do something, they should do it as well.
Farai Chideya [00:15:06] How are you doing personally at this point?
Aquilino Gonell [00:15:08] I'm doing a lot better. I mean, during my recovery, I was home after the inauguration and watching things played out, doing some of the work that I needed to do from home. Kinda like it was eating me alive. I wanted to be at work. I wanted to be with my colleagues, with the same people that I, that I, fought with me, and I felt comfortable with. And I couldn't do that. I couldn't do that because I was injured, I was recovering. I had two surgeries, one on my right foot, one, my left shoulder. I had the mental health therapy. So, in a way, looking back a year after, almost a year after leaving the Capitol, being away from the Capitol has been healing emotionally because I think if I were there still working and I run into some of these Republicans who continue to downplay or deny what happened or has said certain things like that was a tourist visa or they behaved peacefully. Well, I ran into some of them before I left and they didn't have the courage to even say, hey, how are you? How are you doing? How’s your family? I'm sorry, or anything like that.
Farai Chideya [00:16:34] Aquilino Gonell, author of American Shield: The Immigrant Sergeant Who Defended Democracy and former U.S. Capitol Police Sergeant, thank you so much for joining us.
Aquilino Gonell [00:16:44] Thanks for having me. I hope you guys enjoy the book. It was written by myself and Susan Shapiro, as well. Thank you.
Farai Chideya [00:16:54] Thank you so much, Sergeant.
Karen Attiah [00:55:01] Before we wrap up. The show is for you and about you. So we need to hear from you. What issues matter most to you and your community? What do you want to hear us talk about? Tell us what's on your mind by leaving us some voicemail at (929) 353-7006. That's (929) 353-7006. Or share with us on social @OurBodyPolitic. There's much more of our show online. And hey, we also have premium content from our guests for our Patreon subscribers that you won't get on the show, but trust me, you'll want to hear it. You can join the OBP party by signing up through Patreon.com/OurBodyPolitic.
Thanks for listening to Our Body Politic. We're on the air each week and everywhere you listen to podcasts, check us out on Instagram @OurBodyPolitic and click the link in our bio. You can also find our polling @living-data.com.
Our Body Politic is produced by Diaspora Farms and Rococo Punch. I'm today's host Karen Attiah. Farai Chideya Nina Spenceley and Shanta Covington are executive producers. Emily J. Daly is our senior producer. Bridget McAllister is our booking producer. Andrea Asuaje, Ann Marie Awad, Natyna Bean, Morgan Givens, Emily Ho and Monica Morales Garcia are our producers. Amelia Schonbek is our fact checker. Our associate producer is David Escobar. Our technical director is Mike Garth.
This program is produced with support from the Surdna Foundation, Ford Foundation, Katie McGrath and JJ Abrams Family Foundation, Craig Newmark Philanthropies, Meadow Fund, Democracy Fund, Heising-Simons Foundation, Schusterman Family Philanthropies, Open Society Foundations, The Henry L. Luce Foundation, Compton Foundation, Harnisch Foundation, Pop Culture Collaborative, and from generous contributions from listeners like you.