Congresswoman Tlaib talks about The Squad’s role and how grassroots activism is shaping the future of the Democratic Party. Infectious disease expert Dr. Celine Gounder, a member of the Biden Covid-19 task force, offers insights into two promising vaccines. Scholar Robert P. Jones discusses the intersection of religion and politics, and bestselling author Yaa Gyasi tells us about her new book, her Ghanaian roots, and removing the stigma around mental health.
Episode 9 Rundown
2:42 Representative Rashida Tlaib on how she continues to fight for her constituents despite working in a polarized Congress.
4:28 Representative Tlaib reminisces on her upbringing in Detroit and how her community was so accustomed to inequality, they didn’t realize they had the short end of the stick.
9:12 When talking about The Squad, Representative Tlaib says it’s all about the grassroots support, and how that supports the progressive policies she champions.
13:14 Dr. Celine Gounder dives into the goals of President-Elect Joe Biden’s Covid Task Force.
15:05 Dr. Gounder breaks down the challenges that low-income and rural communities will have distributing a Covid vaccine.
21:12 Learn about how experts like Dr. Anthony Fauci envisions the rollout of the vaccine in our weekly Covid update.
22:28 Lonnae O’Neal of ESPN’s “The Undefeated” investigates the intersection of race, sports and health in America.
25:00 The distrust of the medical system among the Black community dates back decades, O’Neal explains.
27:03 Errin Haines of The 19th shares her take on current events as a political contributor for Our Body Politic.
27:53 Haines says the division between those who trust and those who don’t trust election results speaks to a wider disenfranchisement of Black and brown voters.
30:29 The Biden-Harris administration has a plan to put people in historically underrepresented communities into his cabinet, Haines explains, but where are the Black women?
32:23 Robert P. Jones, CEO and founder of The Public Religion Research Institute, gives listeners some insight on the influence of religion on how people vote.
37:17 Jones breaks down the cultural divide we are seeing in the country, “It really comes down to this big question of who is America, who gets to be an American, what does an American look like?”
41:45 Yaa Gyasi talks about writing, her Ghanaian roots, and finding her identity in America.
46:20 Growing up, Gyasi recalls her parents finding community in the church and explores the topic of finding community in her book.
Farai Chideya:
Thanks for listening and sharing Our Body Politic. As you know, we’re new and we're creating the show with lots of input from listeners like you. So I want to ask you a small favor: after you listen today, please head over to Apple Podcasts on your phone, tablet, laptop, or anywhere you listen, and leave us a review. We read those because your ideas matter to us. Thanks so much.
This is Our Body Politic. I'm the creator and host Farai Chideya. My family has epic Thanksgivings. Every year, my aunt makes a lattice crust cherry pie from fruit from her own tree. Last year my cousin made one turkey in the smoker and another in the oven. Family flew in and drove in from around the country. But this year, my mother and I will be eating together a few miles away from my cousin, trying to avoid the pandemic robbing us of our health and our lives. One recent survey found 40% of Americans are still planning on group holiday dinners.
Now, I'm not here to make you feel bad if you're one of them, but I am here to say please be as safe as you can. One of my friends spent 40 days on a ventilator and another 20 in rehab because of COVID. She was able to come back to her family and go back to work but not everybody is so lucky. This week we bring you Dr. Celine Gounder, newly appointed to Biden's COVID-19 Task Force.
Dr. Celine Gounder:
We're really doing our best, trying our best to keep everybody safe and healthy, to re-establish trust in science, to re-establish trust in the public health community.
Chideya:
Later in the show we talk politics including the impact of religion on our vote plus love, loss and migration with author Yaa Gyasi.
Up next, representative Rashida Tlaib on the battles inside the Democratic Party and how she fights for her district.
Let's start with a look at the political chessboard. The Democrats won the White House this year but lost seats in the House of Representatives. Some powerful democrats are pointing fingers at the squad, all of whom were first elected in 2018. All women of color and all of whom were re-elected this year.
Even the Trump campaign which is still sending out emails is fundraising off of the squad. Rashida Tlaib is a founding member of the squad which also includes representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar and Ayana Presley. Tlaib represents Michigan's 13th District which includes Detroit. She's one of the first two female members of the Democratic Socialist Party to serve in Congress. Representative Rashida Tlaib, welcome to Our Body Politic.
Rashida Tlaib:
Thank you so much for having me.
Chideya:
First of all, I'm just thrilled that you were able to make time for us. I can't imagine all the to do list... You probably have one rolling out the door if it were on paper. But tell me what your top priority is as we approach the new year and the new administration.
Tlaib:
We're in the middle of a pandemic, I represent the third poorest congressional district in the country. My main focus is making sure our families are safe and they're able to take care of their families and their communities. I'm pushing for reoccurring payments, not just one time payment. Our folks are truly hurting right now. We need to make sure that we have a COVID relief package that bails people first, is centered on our people, on our schools, on our communities, on our real mom pop small businesses.
Tlaib:
We also have to truly think about the future that every person wants. No one wants to be left with inadequate health care and a medical bill that sends them into debt and poverty. So if we approach issues with holistic vision that puts people first, I know we'll be successful. I know it will help not only stimulate the economy which is a priority to many of my colleagues but also really truly take care of the people that sent us here.
Chideya:
Take me back to a time where you first really started to understand the power of the law, the power of government.
Tlaib:
I grew up in southwest Detroit. For folks in Michigan they know what I mean when I say to them, I thought that smell was normal. That everybody around me has asthma, respiratory issues, high rates of cancer in my community. If you look at that community, which is predominantly Black, predominantly immigrant, low income, the fact that that community looks like that, but if you go outside of that community you will see thriving communities. You see clean air, you will see schools that are very well funded.
For me, I have truly understand that the systems right now are truly broken. That systematic racism truly does exist. For Black and brown communities to have this very, very different experience than other communities. But again, we can organize and outwork the corporate greed, out work the injustices and we do it by continuing to march, continue to speak out. Just inspire again folks to say we deserve better.
Chideya:
You have introduced the Justice For All act. Tell us about the goals and the purpose of that.
Tlaib:
When the Civil Rights Act was passed in its true intention by advocates, those that lost their lives for the civil rights movement in our country, much of that was to push back against direct civil rights violations, discrimination for many of our Black communities, our vulnerable communities. And so this is a bill that would help us restore the original intent. I know Justice For All Civil Rights Act is about allowing disparate impact to be a threshold that we can use to show discrimination and show that it's negatively impacting communities of color.
Chideya:
Right now, the Democratic Party has at least two factions, probably more as parties tend to do in a country this big with only two major parties. I've been struck that not only have you and your colleagues in what's called the squad, been attacked, but it even includes some criticisms from people of color. I'm thinking of representative Hakeem Jeffries who said, "Do we want to win? Do we want to govern or do we want to be internet celebrities?" And that seemed to be targeted mainly at your colleague, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, but what do you make of the tensions within the Democratic Party right now and the criticism that you and colleagues of like mind are getting?
Tlaib:
I think it's really important to know when folks say we need to win, but are we really winning when poverty is increasing? Are we really winning where you have cities like in Detroit where people during a pandemic still don't have access to water? While we're watching our communities literally die because they have no access to testing or health care system that's for everyone. It is important that we understand what does it mean to win? Does it mean to get the number of folks in there, then what do we do with that? What do we do with the majority?
We watch how those that support Medicare for All are winning their elections, those that are promoting $15 minimum wage increase are winning their elections. Those that are saying, "Hey, we deserve clean air and clean water." They're winning their elections. The ones that continue to try to silence me or devalue the importance of districts like mine, need to understand that it is not helpful to be able to say, you can come into the space and advocate for Black folks. You can come in into the space and advocate for those that have seen their loved ones die of cancer. You can come into this space and speak up for the district that elected you. I am equally elected like every single one of my colleagues. I ask them to focus on their district, focus on elevating the voices of their district and I will continue to do the same. I feel like if we truly are rooted in our communities and our districts and focus on direct contact with our residents and stay close to the pain and the hurt, you will win.
Chideya:
Now the squad, which has originally been viewed as you, Representative Ocasio-Cortez, Omar and Presley seems to be expanding. You've got incoming representatives, Jamal Bowman, Marie Newman, Cory Bush, Mondaire Jones, do you feel that you have an expanded squad and what does that mean if so?
Tlaib:
Congresswoman, Ayanna Presley, always says our squad is big. What she means I think from that is before we got elected, the squad was the movement workers. The folks on the ground, it was the nurses, the teachers, the construction workers, the homeless person that said enough, I served my country I'm a veteran, I come home with no opportunities, no opportunities for jobs, no opportunities for home ownership and so much more. So our squad and our movement is really the people on the ground. But now we're running for office and we're winning.
People can see themselves being part of what's happening in Congress, that they can see this as an extension of the movement work in the streets. Shirley Chisholm used to say, the first African American woman ever elected in the United States Congress, if there's not a seat at the table bring your own chair. I've altered that and said, I don't know if it's about bringing your own chair if it's maybe about shaking the table and taking someone else's chair that hasn't done much to elevate people out of poverty, hasn't done much to stop the oppressive policies that we see again holding so many of our neighbors back.
Chideya:
I can't help but note that you and Representative Ilhan Omar are the first two Muslim women to serve in Congress, yet another huge change for a congress that hasn't always been representative of the nation. Both of you have faced huge blow back for that. How do you deal with it? How do you deal not just specifically with Islamophobia but just with the stress of doing this job?
Tlaib:
Ilhan Omar gave me the nickname mama bear. I know it's because I'm the eldest of 14, I consider myself the big sister, the protector. People can come after me but they'll come after my sister, they'll come after my district, they'll come after my family. She lovingly calls me Mama Bear. I remember coming up to Sister Ohan and I said, "Are you okay?" Because she was being targeted by the media. This was early in our term. She looks right at me and says, "Rashida, I survived war, I can survive this." At that moment, I realized our lived experiences is giving us the strength to continue to fight. That we know that we're opening up doors for so many future Ohans and Rashidas that can now see themselves in this institution.
They may not have been ready for myself and Ohan but we're going to make sure that they're ready for the next generation. What I love about our election, both of us, we got elected by majority non Muslim district. That always surprises people. I tell them, fellow Americans who did not share our ethnicity or our faith, gave us their vote and said, "Please go represent us." If that's not a moment of light during this time of darkness in our country, I don't know what it is. But it inspires me again to work even harder for much many of folks in my district that continue to believe in the possibility of someone like me representing them.
Chideya:
Representative Tlaib, thank you so much for joining us.
Tlaib:
Thank you.
Chideya:
That was Representative Rashid Tlaib of Michigan. Coming up later this hour.
Dr. Celine Gounder:
Communities of color have lack of trust in the health system so I think that does require patience in terms of communication and it will require reaching out to members of the community to empower those people. I think that's how you Garner trust is to really bring people in.
Chideya:
You're listening to Our Body Politic.
Dr. Celine Gounder is a medical rock star. She's an epidemiologist, infectious disease specialist, filmmaker and host of two podcasts, American Diagnosis and Epidemic. The child of an Indian father and a French mother. She was just named to President Elect Biden's coronavirus task force along with several other people of color. The task force includes a focus on race and ethnicity as it impacts the pandemic. Welcome, Dr. Gounder.
Gounder:
It's a pleasure to be here.
Chideya:
Tell me one thing you want to accomplish now that you've been appointed to President Elect Biden's COVID-19 Task Force. If you only could do one thing well, what would it be?
Gounder:
I think to re-establish trust in science, to re-establish trust in the public health community, for people to understand that we're really doing our best, trying our best to keep everybody safe and healthy. I just hope that we're successful in doing that.
Chideya:
We've got these two vaccines that seem to have promise and efficacy, Moderna and Pfizer. Can you just break down what we know about them and what the road ahead is.
Gounder:
So they're both based on the same technology. It's actually a newer technology that we have not used in vaccines before. But it's very exciting, seems to be highly effective in the case of both vaccines. They are a little bit different in particular as relates to how they need to be stored. So the Pfizer vaccine requires deep freezing while the Moderna vaccine requires more typical freezing and refrigeration and is stable at those temperatures for a month.
Chideya:
How do you think these questions about storage will affect distribution to low income communities and rural communities?
Gounder:
Yeah, so let's take some of these categories one at a time. So you have geography, you have communities of color, and then you have socio economics. In terms of rural versus urban, rural is definitely going to be a challenge because you don't have big academic hospital centers. You don't have big hospital systems. You don't have the same penetration of the big retail pharmacy chains like CVS and Walgreens and others that can also provide vaccination. So you're much more reliant on the family doctor in these rural areas and these are not doctors offices that have deep freeze capacity.
They don't necessarily have the tech systems, the tracking systems to be able to figure out who needs to be called in for a vaccination, who's gotten one dose but needs their second dose. To do outreach to people who are not in their practice already. And so that is going to be a challenge in these rural communities to figure out how to help the providers who are already stretched very thin. With respect to communities of color, we've already seen disparities in terms of testing where proportionally there have been fewer testing sites per population and in communities of color versus in wider wealthier communities.
We certainly do not want to see that disparity replicated when vaccines get rolled out. But another challenge is, and for very good reason, communities of color have lack of trust in the health system. It's something I see on the wards when I care for patients at Bellevue all the time. I think that does require patience in terms of communication. It will require reaching out to members of the community to ask them about their concerns, to figure out who they listen to and respect and to empower those people. To have them be at the table with us making plans and decisions.
I think that's how you garner trust. Is to really bring people in and have them be a part of the process where they're really running the show for their own communities. Then finally, the Biden Harris team is very committed to making sure that everybody who wants to get vaccinated will get vaccinated for free. That's not just about the vaccine itself. It's all of the other costs that go around with that. The cost of the nurse and the doctor. The doctor's visit. All of that needs to be free. So that is definitely something we're going to be addressing so that everybody even if you don't have insurance has access to this vaccine.
Chideya:
So I want to end on a personal level. I want you to tell us a little bit about your family background and also the backstory behind your last name since you hit the Indian press as well as the American press.
Gounder:
At the time that my dad left India, people were still by and large using their caste names as their last names. So names like Chatterjee, Bannerjee, Mukerji, Murthy, those are all caste names just as is Gounder. But recently when the announcement of the Biden Harris advisory board came out, people in India were super excited. I think that was by and large the reaction. They were excited that Vivec Murthy, Atul Gawande and I all of whom have families from India, have roots in India are on the advisory board. They were super excited that Kamala Harris is half Indian herself. So they took tremendous pride in that.
Gounder:
But there was a small but vocal group of people from Tamil Nadu in particular who objected to my use of my caste name as my last name. I think it's an important reminder about some of the inequities, some of the power dynamics that are embedded in something as simple as your name.
Chideya:
Yeah, well I am really looking forward to all of the different levels of competency you're bringing to this job, medical competency, communications, cultural competency. Thank you so much for joining us.
Gounder:
It's great to be here. Thank you.
Chideya:
Dr. Celine Gounder is an epidemiologist, medical journalist and a member of the Biden COVID-19 Task Force. Coming up.
Errin Haines:
I think that there is a real conversation happening on the other side of this election about what the Black women who really propelled Joe Biden to his victory, what they are owed in terms of power.
Chideya:
You're listening to Our Body Politic. Each week, we take a couple of minutes to update you on the latest COVID news, especially as it affects people of color. As we heard from Dr. Gounder, there's promising vaccine news. Clinical Trials show vaccines from Moderna and another from Pfizer and BioNTech are more than 90% effective in preventing COVID-19 symptoms. Both vaccines require two doses spaced weeks apart before the patient is protected from illness.
It's not clear yet how long that protection will last. These trials still need to be peer reviewed. The news couldn't come soon enough. Now more than a quarter of a million people in America have died from COVID-19. Dr. Anthony Fauci says that if the Food and Drug Administration approves the vaccines quickly, distribution could start as early as late December. It would go first to the medically vulnerable, like the elderly or those with underlying health conditions and to frontline health care workers. But how fast things move depends on the Trump administration's willingness to work with the incoming Biden administration. Here's Dr. Fauci on The Today Show.
Dr. Anthony Fauci:
Transitions are very important to get a smooth, as I use the metaphor, essentially passing a baton without stopping running.
Chideya:
Meanwhile, cases in the US are topping more than 11 million this week. With 1 million people testing positive last week. Dr. Fauci says that means there is no time to wait for a vaccine to get the virus under control.
Fauci:
The fact that help is on the way should spur us even more to double down on some of the public health measures, to be able to use the combination of a vaccine and public health measures to turn this thing around.
Chideya:
As we head into Thanksgiving next week. Families are weighing the risks of getting together and relying on COVID test to make sure it's safe. But some tests give false negatives and experts say testing alone is not enough. Dr. Scott Gottlieb is former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration here he is on Face the Nation.
Dr. Scott Gottlieb:
I think you still need to be very careful if you're going to be exposing younger people in a broader group to older individuals who are vulnerable. If you do do that, make sure they're wearing high quality masks, try to get an N95 mask and have them wear it the whole time. Try to keep people separated in distance where you can.
Chideya:
New research from the CDC shows that cloth face masks protect the wearer from getting infected, not just from infecting others. Mask do work and we all just need to wear them. Also, several states have rolled out COVID alerts for your phone that will tell you if you've crossed paths with someone who's tested positive. Check with your local health department to find out whether one is available in your area.
At ESPNs The Undefeated, journalists turned the pandemic into an opportunity to talk about race. Lonnae O'Neal is a senior writer for ESPNs, The Undefeated. She's been reporting on the intersection of race, sports and health in America.
Lonnae O'Neal:
So ESPN The Undefeated did a poll in conjunction with the Kaiser Family Foundation. The major takeaway is that Black people were particularly vulnerable to all the effects of the pandemic. The economic effects, health effects, certainly every index where people have been affected by the coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic, Black people were that much more vulnerable than white people certainly and among the most vulnerable in the entire population.
Chideya:
She says that poll reflected differences in perception of how the race of those dying affected the federal response.
O'Neal:
One of the key findings of the study was that 66% of Black people felt that if it were white people who were disproportionately falling ill and dying, that the federal government and the national response would be stronger. 72% of white people, however said the federal and the national response would be the same if it were white people who were the face of COVID and getting more sick. I found that to be just a stunning statistic but completely indicative of the divide around race in this country. The attitudes, the lived histories, the literacy around the ways that race has always and continues to shape the response to every other institution in American society, including this public health crisis.
Chideya:
O'Neal also said the Black community distrust the American healthcare system because of decades of medical racism.
O'Neal:
People always talk about the Tuskegee syphilis experiment, which, as we all know from the 1930s to the 1970s, meant that Black men who were infected with syphilis were not treated even after treatments became available. There's a bone memory in Black communities of people who went into the hospital and didn't come out. There is the hyper experimentation on Black bodies. Henrietta Lacks, right. That's another one. If you dig into the history of medical racism It's grizzly.
Chideya:
This history O'Neal says helps explain why 49% of Black respondents said they would not take a COVID-19 vaccine. Despite all of this though, O'Neal says Black respondents to the poll remained hopeful.
O'Neal:
A majority of Black people despite the distrust, despite the mishandling of the pandemic, despite the lived history of unconscious bias and systemic racism and all these things that the poll finds that Black people over index and believe to be true, they're still hopeful that this moment represents an opportunity for change. That it represents an opportunity for America to be confronted very starkly with the inescapable facts of racism and the ways that that has devastated this society. It offers an opportunity to either live up to the American ideals or to imagine something greater. That's a world where Black people are not disproportionately dying.
Chideya:
That was Lonnae O'Neal, senior writer for ESPNs, The Undefeated.
Here for our regular segment, Sipping The Political Tea is Errin Haines, editor at large at the 19th and political contributor at Our Body Politic. Hi, Errin.
Errin Haines:
Gobble, gobble.
Farai Chideya:
Oh my gosh, I am so tired. I mean, I feel like I have lived this entire political season in dog years. I feel like it's 2050 and 1850 at the same time.
Haines:
Oh, my God. Also it is midnight at four o'clock in the afternoon and that is not helping me. I feel you 1,000%.
Chideya:
Yeah, but we're here because this matters and it's just such a pleasure to talk to you every week about the relatively crazy state of politics. Speaking of which, it feels like we're living in denial these days when it comes to the pandemic and the election. What's going on in your mind about the ramifications of denial?
Haines:
Really what I'm thinking about a lot these days is too many Americans have spent much this year avoiding the reality of the pandemic. Now they're avoiding the reality of the election results. This is important because it's not just about President Trump and his actions. This is about what voters are willing to accept. There was a Reuters poll this week that said 73% of those polled agreed that Joe Biden won the election. But then when they were asked specifically about whether Biden had rightfully won. Republicans show that they were suspicious about how Biden's victory was obtained.
52% of Republicans said that Trump rightfully won. Terms like rightfully won or rigged elections and legal ballots are really code words about who can participate in this democracy. We're really talking about Black and brown Americans in places like Wayne County, Michigan or Fulton County, Georgia, right? This behavior really sends a message that their votes don't count. Just in the same way that the way that people are responding to this pandemic suggests that the safety and survival of the Black and brown people who we know are being disproportionately killed in this pandemic don't matter.
Chideya:
Yeah, you started with a friendly gobble, gobble. At the top of the show I talked about how I'm really going to miss my family this Thanksgiving. But it's going to be me and my mom, and I'm grateful to be with her and a guinea hen which I ordered from a fancy place online instead of a turkey because when you're having two people who wants a whole Turkey.
Haines:
Absolutely.
Chideya:
How are you going to celebrate?
Haines:
Look, I'll be here in Philadelphia, I definitely ordered my Thanksgiving dinner although I may break down and cook a thing or two for comfort. But I think this is also really a chance for us, for those of us whether we are gathering at the table safely or whether we are celebrating a little bit more isolated. It's a chance to be grateful to those frontline workers. To the election officials who made this in the words of our own federal government, the safest election in the history of the country. So many of those people, especially our women... These are folks that we need to be giving things for. Is really the heroes of our society and of our democracy.
Chideya:
Yeah. Finally on a traditional hard politics topic, what about the transition team for the Biden Harris administration, I've been peeping. What have you seen?
Haines:
Well, I mean, it is starting to take shape. They were pretty quick to note that they've got these agency review teams that have a majority of women representation. About 40% of the folks involved with those agency review teams are folks from what they say are historically underrepresented communities, the LGBTQ communities. Communities of color, the disability community. I certainly am interested to see a more specific breakdown of just who those folks are. To see how many, for example, how many Black folks are on those agency review teams. Because I think that there's a real conversation happening on the other side of this election about what the Black women who really propelled Joe Biden to his victory what they are owed in terms of power. Right?
Chideya:
Yep.
Haines:
It doesn't just stop with the historic role of Madam Vice President Elect Kamala Harris. A lot of open questions as this administration and this new government continues to take shape but it's definitely something that I'm keeping an eye on.
Chideya:
Well, Errin thank you so much.
Haines:
You got it. Happy holiday.
Chideya:
That was Errin Haines, editor at large of the 19th and our political contributor here at Our Body Politic.
Coming up next.
Yaa Gyasi:
I started to recognize that there was a place for me in this story. I think there's a place for all African immigrants, all Black immigrants in this country to understand Blackness as a diasporic thing not just as, us versus them.
Chideya:
We have been breaking down the vote this year through all kinds of demographic lenses. Today we turn to religion. Robert P. Jones is the CEO and founder of PRRI, The Public Religion Research Institute, a nonprofit, nonpartisan, organization. Jones says for decades, including the 2016 and 2020 elections, that the majority of white Christians voted for Republican candidates. Christians of color and the religiously unaffiliated have voted primarily for Democrats. Demography is not destiny but it's bringing changes to the future of politics. To tell us more, Robert P. Jones Welcome.
Robert P. Jones:
Hi, thanks for having me.
Chideya:
In 2017, you wrote about the high turnout of conservative white Christians for Donald Trump. But you also argue that Trump's rise to power is in your words, the death rattle of white Christian America. So how do you explain that?
Jones:
I still think that's true. It's a little delayed at the ballot box and I've sometimes talked about this as the secret Republican time machine that Republicans have at their disposal. Here's what happens is that actually during the Obama tenure as president, we moved from being a country that was majority white and Christian to one that was no longer majority white and Christian. So in 2008, when Obama ran for president, the country was 54% white and Christian.
That's all white Christians together. Protestant, catholic, orthodox, nondenominational. That number today is 44. The group that gets I think a lot of attention during electoral season is white evangelical protestants, for example, have gone during that same period from 21% of the population back in 2008 to only 15% of the population today. However, here's the big asterisk. That's true in the general population. But we haven't quite caught up to that reality at the ballot box.
The reason for that is that white Christian voters tend to turn out at very high rates relative to most other Americans. So for example, even though they're only 15% of the population, they are still a quarter of voters because of higher turnout. So if you go back and you look back in terms of demography, the last time white evangelicals were a quarter of the population was before President Obama. So we're running the demographics of the country in 2020 match the demographics in the ballot box actually pre 2008. Is what I mean by this delayed thing. We haven't quite seen these demographic realities show up quite yet at the ballot box.
Chideya:
I have to tell you about a couple that I interviewed in 2016. They are white, evangelical christians. Even though they really disliked Donald Trump they voted for him because of the Supreme Court and abortion. Knowing how people vote is only one part of the picture. You had this latest report dueling realities. How should we think about political polarization right now?
Jones:
Yeah, well there's no doubt we titled the report Dueling Realities, because we do see these very stark divides between the political parties. I mean, I'll start with the thing that is at the top of almost everyone's list and that is the pandemic and we're in the midst of the curve going back up here. We found that, for example, among Republicans that the coronavirus pandemic didn't even make the top three of their of list nor did it make for what you mentioned, this white evangelical couple. Nor did it make the top of the list for white evangelicals.
The one thing that the country agreed on actually is a little bit ironic, because it's the one thing is dividing us. That was the fairness of the presidential election. So even the thing that everybody cited as a priority is itself something we're divided about. But other than that, and the coronavirus, health care, those things were at the top of most other religious groups list.
Chideya:
We're in a phase now where even the election has a long tail, the resident of 1600, Pennsylvania does not accept the results of the election. He's mobilizing his supporters. Aside from electoral politics, what do you think we need to know about an era of culture war and how these different factors like religion and race affect that?
Jones:
Yeah, I think that, we have used this term in the past, and let's say if we were having this conversation a decade ago what everybody would assume we're talking about was abortion or same sex marriage. That's what people used to mean by the culture war. I think if we're going to continue to use the term, we certainly have to redefine it. I mean, that's not the debate we're really having today. I mean, the fishers are absolutely about identity and race and racial justice and religion.
It really comes down to this big question of who is America, who gets to be an American, what does an American look like? And this old framework that America is a white Anglo Saxon protestant country is what is dying. I think that that's also what's causing such a visceral reaction, particularly among white Protestant Christians as they see themselves being de-centered from this older narrative that was never really compatible with multiracial, multi religious democracy with our basic principles of our country.
And so I think this passing from the scene of what I called in my last book, the end of white Christian America. The passing of that cultural and political juggernaut. I think we are experiencing these... You can call it a death rattle. You could also think of it as the labor pains of something new being born into the world that we're... It's both a death and I think a new life and this painful struggle for something new to be born and a new way of thinking about America that I would argue is actually more compatible with our basic principles than this older pattern ever was.
Chideya:
Well, Robert P. Jones, thank you so much. Appreciate your time.
Jones:
Thank you, so glad to be with you.
Chideya:
That was Robert P. Jones, founder of the public religion Research Institute and author of White Too Long, the legacy of white supremacy in American Christianity.
I want to keep hearing from you our listeners, those of you on terrestrial radio and on our podcast. You can call 929-353-7006. That's 929-353-7006. To leave us a voicemail on our platform, speak, or go to farai.com/OBP and scroll down to find a Google forum to respond in writing. This month the prompt is, imagine if women of color trusted the society around them and felt truly free. What would you do if you felt truly free and financially secure?
We're going to be using your input to shape the segments we bring you on Our Body Politic. The number is 929-353-7006 or write to us at farai.com/OBP. Next week, I'll be talking to the women who lead the guild of future architects for the second in a series of conversations about how we envision our future.
Sharon Chang:
We're often told that history is written by the victors or that history tends to repeat itself. So conventional wisdom might tell us that we should learn from history when thinking about the future. But it's a lot more than just learning. What are we learning? I would argue that history requires imagination.
Chideya:
We've received a lot of answers from listeners to our prompt on speak and we're sharing those with the guild.
Listener:
I would like to tell you what I would do if I felt totally liberated, and if I trusted the society around me. I would expand my business and I would integrate childcare as part of my business plan for employees.
Chideya:
I'm also asking the guild about specifics like what does housing and care taking look like that's equitable and accessible.
Kamal Sinclair:
I interviewed a woman named Skawennati who is the founder of the Indigenous Futures Lab in Canada, who is herself Mohawk, Iroquois woman. She said right now the statistics are that if artificial intelligence is used equitably, we will have enough housing, healthcare, food and education for every person on the planet with people working four hours a day, four days a week.
Chideya:
I've been asking you what you do if you felt truly free and financially liberated? How does that help us create a shared freedom and liberation? Listen to Our Body Politic every week. We're on the radio and wherever you find your podcast.
My next guest is author Yaa Gyasi. Born in Ghana, she moved to the US at a young age and grew up in Illinois in Tennessee before settling in Alabama where her father was a professor at the University of Alabama in Huntsville.
Her new book is Transcendent Kingdom. Its main character, Gifty, struggles to make sense of the addiction and mental health problems tearing her family apart. She turns to both science and faith for answers. It's my pleasure to have Yaa Gyasi on Our Body Politic. Welcome.
Yaa Gyasi:
Thank you so much for having me.
Chideya:
So I was really taken with your book on so many levels. I'm a science nerd, a pre med, who became an English major and I'm also someone who has a family member who dealt with both mental illness and addiction topics that you cover in the book. You get really deep into the science of addiction which is something that your main character, Gifty, studies as a scientist. Can you tell us more about Gifty?
Gyasi:
Sure, when we meet her, she's a sixth year doctoral candidate in neuroscience at Stanford University. She studies something called the neural circuitry of reward seeking behavior. Basically, she studies things like addiction and depression, mental illnesses where in addiction person or a mouse. In the case of what Gifty researches continues to seek reward even when there is great risk involved or in depression where a person or a mouse does not seek reward even when pleasure is possible. So she's looking at the spectrum of reward seeking behavior.
Chideya:
Gifty is someone who is incredibly controlled on the outside and yet you really get into her somewhat chaotic and very complex inner narrative. In what ways is she liked you and in what ways is she different from you?
Gyasi:
I think the way that she's most like me is that I also grew up in a church that's quite similar to the one that Gifty grew up in. I grew up Pentecostal in a church in Huntsville, Alabama that was predominantly white. I think the isolation of that experience is one that I know very well and one that Gifty works throughout the novel. Gifty, as you said, is quite controlled. I think, more controlled than I am. But I think she was steeped in the you have to be twice as good to get half as far narrative of Black respectability which is something that I also know quite well. This idea that she says nothing but blazing brilliance will be enough to prove your worthiness. So I relate to that as well.
Chideya:
Your exploration of belief is really... That was also something that drew me in so deeply. Gifty says, I used to believe in a God lens, and then she talks about switching to a science lens and then both belief systems seem to fail her. It strikes me that in America right now, we have a failure of a different type of belief system that believe that our political system is stable. So how do you personally deal with the failure of different belief systems as a person? How do you bring that into your work? That question.
Gyasi:
Yeah, that's a great question and something I think I'm certainly thinking about a lot these days. I'm sure most Americans are thinking about a lot these days as we do start to witness the crumbling of our infrastructure. I think the writing helps. I think the writing is for me, one of the ways that I am able to create order out of the chaos of the things that I experience and see around me. It provides me some amount of clarity even when clarity is itself always in the distance, never to be completely had.
Chideya:
It makes me think so much about America today. Diverse, complex, divided, sometimes unkind and gossipy. I guess just thinking about the chit chat about the main family that happens in this faith community that was mostly white. That definitely becomes a whole exploration in this book. Just again really provokes me to think about where we are as a crossroads. What do you want people to get from those sequences in your book?
Gyasi:
Well, I think one of the reasons that my family was drawn to faith community when we arrived in America was because it's one of the most explicit ways that you can create community. There's this built in network of people who believe in similar things that you do. So even though ultimately Giftys church lets her and her family down, I think one of the things that I take from my own experience in the church was that outside of university, or outside of school it was one of the few places where I could gather in community with a large group and experience something akin to intimacy, to closeness. I think that's just a great gift that faith communities can give.
Chideya:
Being born in America and having travelled to Zimbabwe on and off starting when I was four years old, made me understand how very American I am. Moving from New York to Baltimore, at a young age made me understand the caste system that surrounds being Black in America. You described yourself as somebody trained to be not Black but not white either in terms of relating to this nation. How do you think about your identity these days? Especially with the rising number of Africans and people with African parents in America.
Gyasi:
When I was younger, we lived in Huntsville, Alabama, which is actually a pretty racially mixed city. But it's also an incredibly segregated one. We lived on the white side of town. I think because my parents were so incredibly focused on making sure that we were instilled with a sense of ourselves as Ghanian and once we left the house we didn't have very many other Black people around us, it created this bubble where and I felt, for much of my childhood as though I was straddling the line between race and ethnicity and not really sure how to identify, how to describe myself and how to experience my race and ethnicity.
It wasn't until I got to college and started to meet with other Black people, started to take classes that interrogated American racial history that I started to recognize that there was a place for me in this story. I think there's a place for all African immigrants, all Black immigrants in this country to understand Blackness as a diasporic thing. Not just as us versus them. That was really useful for me.
Chideya:
Just last question, what do you want people to walk away with after reading Transcendent Kingdom which has so many strong themes and strong characters and a strong narrator?
Gyasi:
I grew up around people who didn't really talk very much about mental health, both the West Africans in my life but also I think in the south, my church community. People who were given to either brushing it under the rug or silencing it entirely or discussing mental health issues as something that one should just give to the Lord. One of the things that I really hope that this book offers people, especially Black people is a chance to remove some of the stigma that surrounds issues of mental health and addiction to understand that these issues are health issues and that there's no shame in dealing with any of the issues that I talk about in the book. So that's what I'd like people to get out of it.
Chideya:
Gyasi, thank you so much for joining us.
Gyasi:
My pleasure. Thanks for having me.
Chideya:
Gyasi is the author of Homegoing and Transcendent Kingdom. Thanks so much for joining us on Our Body Politic. We're on the air each week and everywhere you listen to podcast.
Our Body Politic is presented and syndicated by KCRW, KPCC and KQED. It's produced by Lantigua Williams & Co. I'm the creator and host Farai Chideya. Juleyka Lantigua-Williams is executive producer. Paulina Velasco is senior producer. Cedric Wilson is lead producer and mixed this up episode. Original music by Kojin Tashiro. Our political booker is Mary Knowles. Michelle Baker and Emily Daly are assistant producers. Production assistants from Mark Betancourt, Michael Castañeda, Zuheera Ali and Virginia Lora.
Funder Credit:
Funding for Our Body Politic is provided by Craig Newmark Philanthropies, and by The Jonathan Logan Family Foundation, empowering world-changing work.
CITATION:
Chideya, Farai, host. “Rashida Tlaib on the Future of the Democratic Party, and Yaa Gyasi on the Power of Faith.” Our Body Politic, Diaspora Farms LLC. November 20, 2020. https://our-body-politic.simplecast.com/