This week, Farai speaks to the filmmakers of a new documentary The Big Payback Erika Alexander and Whitney Dow along with a key voice from the film founder and executive director of FirstRepair, Robin Rue Simmons. The film follows the growing movement for reparations for centuries of government policies blocking Black wealth. Then in the “Our Body Politics Presents…” series, we feature a conversation between “This Day in Esoteric Political History” podcast hosts Jody Avirgan, Nicole “Niki” Hemmer, and Kellie Carter Jackson with special guest Jelani Cobb, New Yorker writer, about the evolving language used to describe Black Americans. Plus, in our weekly segment, Sippin’ the Political Tea, Farai speaks to Mutale Nkonde, CEO of AI for the People and Kelsey Butler, equality reporter for Bloomberg News about the growing presence and impact of disinformation online and how the government could effectively intervene and curb it.
Farai Chideya:
Hi folks. We are so glad that you're listening to Our Body Politic. If you have time, please consider leaving us a review on Apple Podcast. It helps other listeners find us, and we read them for your feedback. We are here for you, with you, and because of you. Thank you.
Farai Chideya:
This is Our Body Politic. I'm Farai Chideya. Reparations for the intergenerational loss of wealth due to slavery and subsequent government policies, undermining black wealth and health have been in and out of the public eye for decades, but they have heated up with the racial reckonings, following the murder of George Floyd and other people lost to state violence. And now legislators at the local state and federal level are all making moves. Some of those moves are still in play and some of them are quite concrete. So a decisive step came last year when the city of Evanston, Illinois approved the nation's first program to give reparations for black residents funded by a state tax on cannabis sales. Elsewhere, a California state task force recommended comprehensive recommendations for government actions and laws that resulted in the loss of black owned land among other things. And here on Our Body Politic, we recently spoke with representative Sheila Jackson Lee, who's been spearheading a national bill, H.R. 40 to research reparations.
Speaker 2:
It is the umbrella to lack of voting rights. It is the umbrella to lack of healthcare. It is the umbrella to poor education.
Farai Chideya:
It was first introduced three decades ago, and now some supporters are urging President Biden to sign an executive order if the bill cannot pass the Senate. The Big Payback is a new documentary premiering this month at the Tribeca Film Festival, and it follows bills over the past few years through the public's heated debates around race. Joining me now are the documentaries co-directors Erika Alexander and Whitney Dow, as well as former Fifth Ward Alderman for the city of Evanston, Illinois, Robin Rue Simmons. She is now the executive director of a nonprofit first repair for local communities considering reparations. So Erika, let me start with you. Why this story?
Erika Alexander:
So I think like a lot of people, when I started this journey, I think I mistook reparations in the movement as this personal admission or apology for payment to black people or descendants of slaves and proof of that moral debt toward me and/or any African American. And it took a while to be educated about it by those who were committed, one of them obviously Robert Rue Simmons and Sheila Jackson Lee, and many of the grassroot organizations in it, but why now? Because the debt resides within the fabric of America and they owe us. That is the bottom line. They owe us for how we built America and they never gave us that apology or any renumeration for that. So we carry on the work to try to get this social justice for African Americans in our lifetime and whether we do or not, or live to see it, it's a worthy subject and a worthy issue and a worthy mission.
Farai Chideya:
So Robin, when you heard from Erika and Whitney, what did you think about the idea of being part of a doc?
Robin Rue Simmons:
When I heard from Erika and Whitney, it was in 2019. We were in the height of having passed the legislation in November, heard from them in December as we prepared for our town hall. And I thought, of course, anything that we could do to bring exposure and awareness to what we're committed to in Evanston and how that might inspire other communities to do something similarly. And I think that the outcomes are going to show exactly how complicated the reparation conversation is, how complex the work is legislatively, how difficult it is to operationalize it, how emotional it is, how the black community is finding it hard to feel really satisfied because of how much harm we have endured. I have so much appreciation for both Erika and Whitney in using their platform, their skill set, their resources, their partnerships, to amplify the work of reparations to really be a tool for teaching and training and advocacy and learning.
Farai Chideya:
Whitney, I was really fascinated reading up a little bit about you that you've done so many different films that explore race and structural issues of equality. And you also, according to your website, teach narrative theory at Columbia University's Grad School of Architecture, Preservation, and Planning. And it strikes me that so much of this story that you're telling here is also about land and place and presence. How do you make sense of the story of the land?
Whitney Dow:
Well, it's sort of interesting the word plot is both a plot of a story and also it's how we define land, right? It's has this sort of interesting crossover and how we think about what we define as things. And what was great about being in Evanston is that Evanston is a microcosm of our country. That it's really a story about a community trying to grapple with its past and come up with a way to address these injustices. And I hope that in the context of the film, people can see that different pieces of this location are representative. It's not just people who are for reparations, there's black people for reparations and there's black people who are against reparations. There's white people that are for reparations, white people that are against reparations. So what was really a gift to us is having the debate, taking place in a way that was very accessible and having people that could give voice to the constituencies that are in this debate across the country.
Farai Chideya:
Robin, I grew up in a couple of places, the upper west side of Manhattan and then moving to Baltimore. And the Baltimore experience I had was a super full-on complicated, but beautiful intergenerational legacy story of the work that my grandparents put into raising children and grandchildren and to the community. And I love how in this narrative, you talk about your grandparents and your parents and being rooted in community. So what does Evanston mean to you as a human being who has been raised there and has raised children there and what is the point of reparations to you?
Robin Rue Simmons:
Although we have called for reparations because of the historic wrongs in Evanston... Evanston, specifically the fifth ward of Evanston, the west end, is the Evanston that I most identify with. And it is my village. I have so much gratitude and pride in the community that we are collectively. And so I have been born and raised in the Fifth Ward, so much appreciation for my experience that I returned to raise my children here and now a grandson here in the same neighborhood attending a neighborhood school. So reparations for me in Evanston, I believe that we all share that it means we want to enjoy the same livability, the same level of justice, the same quality of life that our white friends and neighbors here do in town. We want our neighborhood that is segregated to have the same access and opportunity, level of service, and community amenities that our white friends and neighbors have.
Robin Rue Simmons:
And we want justice. We want repair, not just equity and a path forward, but we want the city of Evanston to make right on their wrongs that are responsible for our racial segregation today. We're seeing it happen through the process of reparations. And many of us understand that it is going to take a collective effort for reparations to be realized in Evanston, but even in our legislative initiative, we know and all agree, that that alone will not be enough, that other institutions and partners will have to join. It's repair. It's justice. It is reconciliation, but it needs to be tangible and measurable and far beyond an apology and acknowledgement.
Farai Chideya:
Erika, when you hear Robin talk that way about her community, her rootedness, her service, where did you enter this story? Where did you get convinced that this was something worth spending months, years of your time on and what are you hoping to get out of it for the world?
Erika Alexander:
I didn't grow up in a city. So the story of my life and how I come to even be identified as a black person is a little bit different because we all know that often black identity is caught up in other people's perceptions of you. And I'm from Arizona. I was born in Winslow, Arizona. I was raised in Flagstaff. Both my parents were orphans. Not everybody comes from the density of a city to even be able to acknowledge how they're being in the world or how people are reacting to them. But I did know being for a very poor background, the struggles of my family, my father, who was a preacher, a Pentecostal preacher, and then turned into Lutheran. They sent him to the Lutheran Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. That's how we got there. And suddenly, they told us and told me in school that I was young, gifted, and black, I'm like, who knew?
Erika Alexander:
And there's this anthem that we are singing, a National Negro Anthem. But then I started to see the different ways that the world was acting upon my family, not just that my mother who studied so hard to get a master's degree and then could not find a job and they wouldn't hire her, but also, the way my father passed away at 52 and his medical issues and the way he was treated inside of hospitals and all sorts of other things. And my mother being a non-traditional student and not being able to have access to loans that other people might have. And what could I do to change that? So I started to think about creation. I started to think about how I could create a different version for myself or roles for myself. So I come at it in so many ways. One of the things that I tell you cemented it for me and radicalized me was my activist work and being an advocate.
Erika Alexander:
I was, for 10 years, the most traveled surrogate for Hillary Clinton. I worked very hard in that campaign for the types of programs and legislation and policies that I thought would not only help my community, but help America. And then suddenly after that, seeing the emergence of Trump and the loss of John Lewis. So the opportunity to do this with Whitney Dow and the opportunity that came up to watch in real life. Robin Rue Simmons, who had become a leader in this space and was a young buck compared to some of the OG visionaries, we're talking about from Frederick Douglas to Callie House. Again, Queen Mother Moore and James Forman, N'COBRA, John Conyers, all these people, we were going to be able to see through her path what it looked like. And we were glad she let us in, so that's how I came in through many doors.
Farai Chideya:
That's co-directors of The Big Payback documentary, Erika Alexander and Whitney Dow and former Evanston, Illinois Alderman, Robin Rue Simmons. Coming up next more of our talk with The Big Payback's co-directors and Robin Rue Simmons. Plus, on Sippin' the Political Tea, how women of color navigate and fight disinformation on tech platforms. That's on Our Body Politic.
Farai Chideya:
Welcome back to Our Body Politic. If you're just tuning in, we've been talking about The Big Payback, a new documentary mapping how Evanston, Illinois became the first city in the nation to issue reparations for slavery. The doc follows Robin Rue Simmons, a former alderman for the city, and now executive director of the nonprofit first repair. We are also speaking with big payback co-directors Erika Alexander and Whitney Dow, and their film also covers the push for reparations at the federal level. The doc premieres this week at the Tribeca Film Festival. Here's more of our conversation.
Farai Chideya:
One of the things, Erika, I was struck by in this documentary is how you contextualize people like Queen Mother Moore. Maybe you could just talk a little bit about who she was manifesting in the world, how she linked through the historical questions of economic, racial justice and how you're resurfacing these different conversations?
Erika Alexander:
They've been having this conversation for several decades, obviously since reconstruction. And we are just part of that flow. I think by having and looking back at what Queen Mother Moore might have had to endure and Callie House, how she went to jail and they accused her of trying to commit mail fraud, she was trying to build the pension for ex-slaves, is astounding. How they had the presence of mind to think that way. We were trying to find interesting ways to connect and bring their voices forward because they're not dead. They're within us. And they live within the DNA of our blood, but also within these systems that they've been trying to destroy and rebuild. Now, here we are in a modern space and there's so many people who are afraid to even talk about it, to those people who had and walked those paths and see what they did, and also to give us confidence and the strength to move forward. There's a lot of anger and stress built around this conversation, but it really just is about justice.
Farai Chideya:
So Whitney, you and I talked a little bit about how white people show up in this film. And as someone who has spent my whole career interviewing people of different races and places, I was really struck that you found some good white people if I can just say that to show up in the film of different types, people who wanted reparations, people who didn't want reparations. One of the white people who shows up is from South Africa. I've spent a lot of time in South Africa observing the complexities of racial identity there. And you have the longtime Evanston resident, Nina Kavin, co-founder of the group Dear Evanston, talking about what she owes and what she fears.
Speaker 7:
Being white, it is so easy to put up a yard sign and not really even understand the issues or understand what that really means.
Farai Chideya:
How did you choose all the people you spoke with?
Whitney Dow:
Nina, who's in the film, Nina Kavin, is someone who we met the very first night we're in Evanston. And she was really an active voice in trying to recruit white people to the cause of reparations. The other person that you're talking about is John Foley, who's this white man who's against reparations. And I thought it was really important to find someone who was able to speak about reparations in a very, very direct way against reparations, who really represented what I consider the mainstream white view. Oh, this is all in the past. It has nothing to do with me, just talking about it makes me uncomfortable. One of the frustrating things being a white person listening to this conversation, when you mentioned all the people that were involved in reparations movement, Queen Mother Moore, Callie House, John Conyers, there's no white people, right? Since Sherman's Special Field Order 15, the 40 acres and a mule, that he was sort of the last big white reparations advocate.
Whitney Dow:
One of the things that's really complicated and frustrating for me about being a white person in this discussion is how terrified white people are over engaging it head on. And I would say we have the simplest job, right? Our job is not to determine what reparations should be. The injurer doesn't get to tell the injured what the repair is. Our job is simply to advocate for it. But I really hope when white people watch this film, they see that they're missing in it in a big way, and they need to find places to insert themselves into the movement, into the conversation.
Farai Chideya:
Robin, you have made a move to start your own organization that is focused on the equity issues around reparations. Tell us about it.
Robin Rue Simmons:
In June, I launched a first repair to continue informing, sharing, collaborating on local reparations, to continue convening local leaders and working together while we all work really hard to support H.R. 40. And we are hopeful to see its passing or signing into executive order by President Joe Biden because ultimately there is no amount of local initiatives that will get us to the justice that we demand in America. We will need a federal reparations plan.
Farai Chideya:
Whitney, what do you want to see happen from all this work you've put into The Big Payback?
Whitney Dow:
I hope that the film will inspire local communities to look at their history, look at their place and begin to normalize the discussion and make this idea of reparations as something that is just good policy and part of being part of the community of America.
Farai Chideya:
And Ericka, we've talked a little bit about your journey to tell stories about what America and the world needs to hear in order to grow and evolve. What do you want this work of yours to do?
Erika Alexander:
I want the work to help people see better. That song I can see clearly now the rain is gone, remove the rain, remove the clouds and see what's ahead. And I believe that this is an urgent call to create the type of America that they said that they wanted to create for all Americans. And it starts with repairing the harm done to the descendants of enslaved Africans. And I think that has to do with karma. I think that has to do with energy. And I think if we do not do it, we are all lost.
Farai Chideya:
Robin, you have a grandson. If you look forward into your grandchild's life so that that grandbaby is your age now, what would you want to have changed?
Robin Rue Simmons:
By the time my grandson is an adult, I would expect that multiple generations of our family will be repaired through Evanston reparations, the state of Illinois, congressional reparations, as well as other institutions that have harmed our community. And I hope that by that point in history, it is significantly measurable, that there is incredible impact because I think Erika just said, this is an urgent call and we are seeing benefits roll out in Evanston. But our hope is that this film and the movement that is really in momentum will accelerate in the coming future and will have more repair.
Farai Chideya:
Well, that's a beautiful place to leave it. Thank you so much, Robin.
Robin Rue Simmons:
Thank you.
Farai Chideya:
Thank you, Whitney.
Whitney Dow:
Thank you so much, Farai.
Farai Chideya:
And thank you, Ericka.
Erika Alexander:
Thank you, Farai.
Farai Chideya:
That's co-directors of The Big Payback documentary, Erika Alexander and Whitney Dow, as well as the former Fifth Ward Alderman for Evanston, Illinois, and founder of the organization First Repair Robin Rue Simmons. You can watch the film in theaters and online as part of the Tribeca Film Festival, where it is debuting. The debate over reparations is in part a debate about what kinds of actions and lessons we're supposed to bring into today from history. The podcast This Day in Esoteric Political History often brings these lessons to the fore. So we're continuing The Our Body Politic present series with their interview with Jelani Cobb, New Yorker staff writer and Columbia journalism professor. Cobb looks at the changing language around black Americans, specifically the debate about whether to capitalize the B in black, not to mention the W in white and whether capitalizing the B is really a step forward for black people. This Day in Esoteric Political History is hosted by Jody Avirgan and historians, Kellie Carter Jackson and Nicole Hemmer. Let's listen to Jelani Cobb on the questions around historical precedence in language and capital B.
Speaker 10:
The New Yorker updated their style guide. Are they capitalizing black?
Jelani Cobb:
We are. And I understand the decision, the logic of the decision that went into that, but I'm one of those people who is personally opposed capitalizing the B in black. And it is because we typically reserve status of proper noun for things that exist, the categories that exist and race doesn't exist. And so in capitalizing black, as opposed to it being a modifier or an adjective, we've now turned it into a discrete category, which tends to point to race or to treat race as an actual identity. And so that's an argument that is popular with grammarians and no one else because if I raised that at my family reunion this summer, I'm going to tell you that my old aunties are going to be like this boy has lost it. You know?
Speaker 9:
So I'm also in the process of writing another book. And I noticed that half of my chapter is black lowercase. And then the other half is sprinkled black uppercase. And I'm like, "You need consistency." But I feel like... My training was at Columbia and I trained under Barbara Fields, who was a stickler for language. And she let all of us know that black was an adjective and that we shouldn't make it a proper pronoun. And you would never say too talls walked into a bar, that doesn't make sense. And that when we turn black into an adjective or an adjective into a pronoun that we rob people of their humanity, we rob them of the ability to see them as people.
Kelsey Butler:
It's also interesting that we are seeing this debate with black, which is the same debate that happened with Negro, which means the same thing. And when we looked at the word Negro being written with a lowercase N, which it was for a very long time, in that instance, now the word black, having a lowercase B, is not tied to any direct attempt to stigmatize people of African descent, but the lowercase N in Negro absolutely was. And so you see that the turn of the 20th century, people arguing for the capitalization of the N in the word Negro. And so we are really having this grammatical conversation, but is much more a philosophical conversation about who we are and what kind of terminology best connotes proper respect for our humanity.
Speaker 10:
A lot of these changes happen in eras where just there's bigger conversations about race breaking out. It's not surprising it's happening now, and it's not surprising a lot of changes happen in the sixties, but any thoughts on that, on the shift in the sixties in particular, and it seemed like a pretty contested shift from Negro to black to African American?
Kelsey Butler:
It's interesting, I think that that transition from colored to black was meant to be a matter of self-determination because black was so derogatory as a term prior to that. It was considered an insult if you've referred to somebody as black, then in a way that's not entirely distinct from the way that queer went from being a pejorative to being a term that people would apply to take and reorient and use and as a form of nomenclature that they felt people feel empowered by. The same thing I think happened with black in the 1960s. I think it became a standard for... They needed a new word to summarize this new consciousness that was emerging.
Speaker 9:
There's something that I've also noticed that the [inaudible 00:25:38] so that oftentimes when I'm talking to other black people that are Jamaican or Haitian or Nigerian, there is a need to distinguish between the two groups. People have always been like, "Wait, what's up black American?" And I'm like, "Someone that's black and lives in America."
Kelsey Butler:
People would say, "I'm not black, I'm Jamaican, or I'm not black I'm Trinidadian." And the west Indian person saying that was making a statement about nationality and the black American person saying that was making a statement about race. At the same time, I'm mindful that there is a dialogue that people utilize when they're trying to make cultural pathology arguments about black Americans, where it's important to say, "Well, the children of black immigrants do really well on these standardized tests or they're disproportionately represented at the Ivys" or any of those things. And so it's duplicitous in the way that people can be grouped together or pulled apart, according to what's most politically advantageous.
Mutale Nkonde:
One thing that I'm I'm curious about is whether there is a political vector to this around Black Lives Matter as a response to police violence, that you have all of these gradations and communities and all of this diversity in communities, but when you are being looked at through the lens of law enforcement, you're all black.
Speaker 10:
Can I take us to December 1998 where in Chicago, Jesse Jackson gives a press conference and proclaims that black people no longer want to be called black people. They want to be called African American, which you can share your thoughts on Jesse Jackson deciding to do that, but also certainly a significant moment and actually really breaks out a really big conversation. But a lot of older, I would say, black Americans dismissed this and said there are more important things to have conversations about, but what do you make of that?
Speaker 9:
I mean, this is also when you get to see a lot of name changes. So when I think about the Journal of Negro History becoming the Journal of African American History, but I still wholeheartedly believe that a lot of people see them as synonymous and interchangeable. And I know I, for one, use African American and black, not so much colored, but I use these words all the time. And I don't think much about it when I do it.
Kelsey Butler:
Well, what's funny that I use these terms in very distinct contexts. If I am writing a report about diversity or something, I will say black or African American. If I am talking to my friends about other black people, I refer to us as colored and Negros. And so, but it's meant ironically and affectionately. And so if I'm going someplace and I'm like, "I don't know, are any Negros going to be there or will I be the only Negro?" You know? I would say it like that, but it's kind of a kind of inside joke.
Speaker 9:
Can I bring up another political moment? When Donald Trump was on the campaign trail and started referring to black people as the blacks? I also noticed that people would do the same thing as a jest, like, "Oh yeah, the black's this or the black's that." But then I also feel like I have to push back in my students' papers when they say things like blacks. I'm like, "No, black people, black residents, black citizens. Let's be more specific." But I noticed that this kind of slippery or sloppy language has also weaved its way into the public vernacular in ways that I'm not always comfortable.
Kelsey Butler:
You almost never hear anything humanizing that comes out of putting an article in front of an ethnic group. If you say the Jews, there's like a 99% or something anti-Semitic is going to follow that or the blacks, it's not like the blacks are awesome. It's going to be something that's really not going to be great once you have the article in front of black.
Speaker 10:
Let's come back to the capitalization of black. Maybe I'll ask you to make a prediction. Is it going to stick 10 years from now? Will that be the standard?
Kelsey Butler:
Unfortunately, I think so. I think that once we make a move like this, it's harder to move backward or to go back to the status quo.
Speaker 9:
Yeah. I agree. I think we're on a slippery slope toward capitalizing black, white, brown, all ethnicities.
Farai Chideya:
That was This Day in Esoteric Political History. It's hosted by Jody Avirgan and historians, Kellie Carter Jackson, and Nicole Hemmer. You can find out more at thisdaypod.com and wherever you get your podcast. Coming up next, our weekly round table Sippin' in the Political Tea gets into disinformation, black Twitter and the Elon Musk take over with Kelsey Butler, a quality reporter for Bloomberg and Mutale Nkonde CEO of AI for the People.
Kelsey Butler:
Why would you not have protections for women, for young people, for people who are disabled? When we develop policy with keeping the least safe in mind, we develop policies that make everybody safe.
Farai Chideya:
You're listening to Our Body Politic. Each week on the show we bring you a round table called Sippin' the Political Tea. Joining me this week is AI for the People CEO, Mutale Nkonde. Welcome back Mutale.
Mutale Nkonde:
Good to be here again, Farai.
Farai Chideya:
And we've also got a quality reporter for Bloomberg, Kelsey Butler. Hi Kelsey.
Kelsey Butler:
Hi. Thanks for having me.
Farai Chideya:
So this week we have plenty to talk about. We are chopping up disinformation, black Twitter and freedom of speech. So let's jump right in. So the Supreme Court recently blocked a Texas law that prevents social media companies from censoring or blocking posts based on political viewpoints. While social media companies have argued for the need to moderate their platforms, the Texas conservatives say that the moderation infringes on their freedom of speech. Mutale, this is a case where something can be a utility that's not run by the government. What I mean by that is that a lot of times people think of something like Twitter as a public utility, but it's not publicly owned. How do you make sense of the Supreme Court ruling and its implications?
Mutale Nkonde:
So surprising because usually I'm a regulate tech girl in many conversations, but I really, really did welcome this decision principally because it was based on flawed reasoning. The reason I say that is that there was a report that was released in December of last year, 2021, from Twitter's transparency team that found that the platform actually amplifies tweets that have right wing news sources in them, way more than left wing news sources. And that whole decision was based on this assumption in Texas, that it's some type of left leaning platform that is open to hippies and Black Lives Matter. And that the data just does not bear that out.
Farai Chideya:
Yeah, that is absolutely fascinating. And it was a decision that had a really interesting ideological mix of supporters for the majority decision. This wasn't a one side only type of decision. And Kelsey, how do you make sense of this?
Kelsey Butler:
Well, I think it's definitely really interesting and I think it's one of these cases of terminology being used improperly. The law is supposed to keep social media companies from engaging in viewpoint discrimination and Texas Attorney General, Ken Paxton, basically says, "We don't want to quash conservative views from the public square." But what it really is opening the door for is not allowing platforms like Facebook and Twitter, which already have their problems from basically saying this is hate speech and that, I think, is very concerning and potentially dangerous.
Farai Chideya:
And Kelsey, I'm going to stick with you going into Twitter. There's this other question of black Twitter. So for example, Amnesty International found that 1 in 10 tweets mentioning black women is abusive. That compares to 1 in 15 for white women. And of course, gender, a huge factor, as well as race and the intersectional questions of how abuse is needed out online. So Kelsey, what kinds of discussions do we need to be having about online abuse and online content moderation?
Kelsey Butler:
There's research to back up the fact that there is a lot of abuse that's directed at women, at women of color, at other underrepresented groups. And I think it's really a question of what do we do on an app that a lot of people rely on for work myself included for whatever they need to do in order for organizing or other types of things where people are allowed to spread a misinformation, harass and abuse others, and then just come right back and do that just a couple weeks later? And one interesting thing was the Center for Countering Digital Hate did an analysis of people that sent abuse to high profile women like Kamala Harris and Lizzo, and a lot of the people that directed that abuse went on to reoffend. And when they did, they were using expletives and targeting women of color in particular. So we know that people don't just do it one time and then leave it at that.
Farai Chideya:
Yeah. And Mutale, how do you make sense of the misogynoir and other abuses online and what the right path is next on Twitter specifically?
Mutale Nkonde:
So if we think about misogynoir, which is the way black women are attacked specifically on and offline, we also have to think about Twitter and the fact that black women, who consider themselves online feminists, have been hunting down campaigns since around 2014, that originated on 4chan. So when we hear this language of free speech and free speech absolutists, we're also hearing the language of the abuse of the people who are traditionally weaker, being allowed and being actually empowered. The other thing is that it is a misunderstanding of this idea of free speech. We have the freedom to criticize our government. What we don't have is the freedom to use speech in such a way that it incites violence and insights terror on weaker people. Unrelated, but kind of this in the same vein, we're already seeing how white extremist violence that starts as conversations online rhetoric can lead to the shootings of 10 innocent black people when they're shopping. That same type of violence is going to be enacted on women if we follow this path.
Farai Chideya:
What should we be looking for knowing the pros and cons of how these platforms operate, what should we be looking for from social media engagement, Kelsey?
Kelsey Butler:
So I think you made a great point that social media can be used in so many different ways. And we talked a lot about some of the abuse, some of the harassment that can be directed at people, but I do also want to talk about some of the positives. The Black Lives Matter movement really grew because of social media usage. There's also, in my reporting, I talked to April Reign who created the Oscars so white hashtag, the changes that we've seen at the academy awards from that.
Kelsey Butler:
So there's certainly room for joy and change and exciting things, even just watching an award show together and all kind of tweeting about it, making fun of it. So I think what the social media apps need to do is make sure that they create venues for that joy and those kind of positives, but also that people are being platformed in the same way. We've reported on this in our newsroom a lot, how black creators on TikTok are not pushed forward as much as white ones. That is a money story. If you're not getting as much engagement, you're not making as much money in the app. So the apps need to make sure that they're equitable in the way that they bring stories to the top.
Farai Chideya:
Yeah. Mutale, what are your thoughts on what we should be looking for in cultivating?
Mutale Nkonde:
Yeah, so I'm a member of the TikTok Content Advisory Board. So many of the things that come through in our meetings are these questions around shadow banning that Kelsey brought up or at least those are many of the questions that I bring forward because I'm very, very concerned about how black people operate on Twitter because I have a seat at that table, but social media generally. And one of the things that I always think about in social spaces is that if we're going to take them online, then we have to take them with the assumption that we are going to protect the most vulnerable on that platform. And that's really a big question that is around the metaverse. Why would you not have protections for women, for young people, for people who are disabled, for people who are from marginalized groups? And I think that when we develop policy with keeping the least safe in mind, we develop policies that make everybody safe.
Farai Chideya:
You are listening to Sippin' in The Political Tea on Our Body Politic. I am Farai Chideya. This week, we're discussing disinformation, black Twitter, and freedom of speech with Mutale Nkonde, AI for the People's CEO and Kelsey Butler, a quality reporter for Bloomberg. Let's drill in even more on disinformation. And also the risks to women who are playing key roles in fighting it. After relentless attacks from the right and far right, the Department of Homeland Security paused the development of its disinformation governance board and its head resigned. The Washington Post, Taylor Lorenz, put it that the attacks followed a disinformation playbook, which she says "it starts with identifying a person to characterize as a villain, attacking faceless institutions is difficult, so a figurehead almost always a woman or a person of color is found to serve as its face." And Mutale, what did you make of the attacks and the administration's decision to pull out someone who was very credentialed and who came under fire immediately?
Mutale Nkonde:
I was absolutely horrified in the interest of full disclosure and Nina Jankowicz that we're referring to as somebody that I've worked with over the years on The Hill. And the thing that was so sad in her particular case was it was a lack of communication from the department to let people know what this board was going to do. It was the disinformation board, I believe that kind of created this information vacuum. What her actual job was, was to coordinate already ongoing work so the Department of Homeland Security is still doing this work and then come up with universal policies.
Mutale Nkonde:
And so in her stepping down just a couple of days before we've already referenced Buffalo, but then we also had the shooting in Texas. We've since had a shooting in New Orleans very recently, the spate of shootings, one in Tulsa, Oklahoma, her job would've been actually to coordinate those responses or as we get into hurricane season, coordinate misinformation that comes up around where to send money if people's roofs blow off. That's often where false information comes in. And then the other part was it really displayed to our adversaries how ill-equipped we are to handle this problem, which is a national security threat.
Farai Chideya:
Yeah. Kelsey, what do you make of this quickly exited attempt to put someone in place to deal with disinformation on a holistic level and the pushback to that?
Kelsey Butler:
The irony, I don't think is lost on anybody that a board that was supposed to be targeting disinformation became at the center of a disinformation campaign, but Mutale made a great point, which is just the vacuum of information allowed people on the right in this instance to stamp the board and the efforts with their own brand, their own terminology, comparing it to the Ministry of Truth in 1984. So by doing that and getting that kind of branding terminology out there first, it's a pattern that we often see in these kinds of situations and that kind of stuff is red meat to a lot of these people's followers. They post it and then all the other people that are watching just sees on that person.
Farai Chideya:
It strikes me that one of the things that we have seen in government over the years is that fundraising to be elected to office is a heavy lift. And the tech industry has put a lot of money into various candidates. Mutale, as someone with a lot of experience on Capitol Hill, how do you make sense of generally, and this is across the aisle left and right, the relationship between the tech industry and government and how it may have shaped the kind of roll up to the moment that we're in with disinformation?
Mutale Nkonde:
It's extremely worrying actually, Farai, how much we think about this revolving door between staffers and then tech policy departments. So I was on The Hill in 2018 when Mark Zuckerberg first gave testimony. And what was really interesting to me was that there was a former Republican staffer sat behind him, a former chief of staff for Nancy Pelosi was also in that row. And then other much more junior staffers that were coming from off The Hill and the strategy in their hiring is that they're going to have Republican and Democratic staffers because they really want to understand what those next strategies are going to be.
Mutale Nkonde:
And there are certain committees and offices that they will hire from depending on the lawmaker's interests. So people that maybe work for Ro Khanna, potentially, allegedly, I don't want to get sued, would be people that would want to be recruited because Ro Khanna is really creating this brand for himself on The Hill as being somebody that wants to regulate the tech industry. And what is better for you as a tech company to have that person that knows those tips, tricks, and strategies that he might try and employ.
Farai Chideya:
Yeah, absolutely. And there's been a lot of discussion about what does it mean to have a revolving door between private industry and government and under what rules that happens, but going to another topic that is hot because there's just so many things here. I think I want to end on facial recognition. It's another case where it's a powerful technology and biases and discrimination do show up in it. There are bands that have existed on facial recognition that are being rolled back by local governments. California, Louisiana, and Virginia are slated to allow the technology to return. In part, this is responding to rising crime rates. And I guess the question is people of every race and income are worried about rising crime. Crime is rising. This is real. That's one reason that Eric Adams is Mayor of New York city is the fear of crime certainly got him a lot of voters, both in communities of color and among white voters. Mutale, what should we be looking at, pun intended, with facial recognition?
Mutale Nkonde:
I think with facial recognition, we have to first admit that this is not a viable crime fighting tool. We already have three cases that we know of where black men have been misidentified as being at a scene of a crime, gone through booking systems. One that AI for the People are in conversation with right now in Detroit, ended up spending 10 days in jail because he couldn't afford bail and then losing his job and then having to mount a defense. So while crime is rising and this idea... Adams talks about this all the time, this idea of precision policing seems like a fit. There is no discussion about using a technology that actually recognizes people. That facial recognition is not the one AI for the People have just been on a task force in Massachusetts, along with the NAACP where we've been looking at police use of facial recognition. And we successfully, along with the ACLU and others, were able to argue that municipal police forces should not be able to use this or associated technologies and we need more of that happening at the state level.
Farai Chideya:
And so Kelsey, bring it home for us. Any thoughts on facial recognition?
Kelsey Butler:
Well, I think we know that policing disproportionately affects in a negative way communities of color. I think that this is just another tool in the toolbox that we certainly have to watch for the dangers there. And it's something that people should be really making sure they're keeping tabs on. There's so many things that we've talked about today. There's a lot to keep track of, but technology is one important piece of the puzzle in how underrepresented groups get treated.
Farai Chideya:
Well, thank you so much, Kelsey.
Kelsey Butler:
Thanks so much.
Farai Chideya:
And thanks, Mutale.
Mutale Nkonde:
So good to be in conversation with you always, Farai.
Farai Chideya:
Absolutely, feeling is mutual. That was Mutale Nkonde, AI for the People's CEO and Kelsey Butler, a quality reporter for Bloomberg.
Farai Chideya:
Thanks for listening to Our Body Politic. We're on the air each week -- and everywhere you listen to podcasts.
Our Body Politic is produced by Diaspora Farms. I'm the executive producer and host, Farai Chideya. Our Co-executive producer is Jonathan Blakely. Bianca Martin is our senior producer. Traci Caldwell and Bridget McAllister are our bookers and producers. Emily J. Daly and Steve Lack are our producers. Natyna Bean and Emily Ho are our associate producers.
Farai Chideya:
Production and editing services are by Clean Cuts at Three Seas. Today's episode was produced by Lauren Schild and engineered by Archie Moore.
Farai Chideya:
And thank you to This Day In Esoteric Political History, part of the Radiotopia network, hosted by Jody Avirgan, with historians Nicole Hemmer and Kellie Carter Jackson, and produced by Jacob Feldman and Brittani Brown. You can find out more at ThisDayPod.com and wherever you get your podcasts.
Farai Chideya:
This program is produced with support from the Ford Foundation, Craig Newmark Philanthropies, the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies, Democracy Fund, The Harnisch Foundation, Compton Foundation, the Heising-Simons Foundation, the BMe Community, Katie McGrath & JJ Abrams Family Foundation, and from generous contributions from listeners like you.