Randall Kennedy: The N-Word - History of Race, Law, Politics, and Power | Lex Fridman Podcast #379
- Let's imagine you have a Black rapper who invites people on stage, and let's suppose they invite
a Black person on stage and they're perfectly
happy when the Black person is full out with their lyrics. They invite a White person on stage. The White person is doesn't
really sort of mystified, but it comes on stage and full out with what the rapper says,
including the infamous N word. And then the Black rapper gets mad. Imagine the White comedian
who satirizes that pokes fun at that, and in poking fun at that
says the infamous N word. Am I angry? No, I'm not angry. Not angry at all. - The following is a conversation
with Randall Kennedy, professor at Harvard Law School, and author of many seminal
books on race, law, history, culture, and politics, including specifically
on affirmative action, criminal justice, policing and the topic explored
extensively in this conversation, the single most powerful word and slur in the English
language, the N word, with a hard R at the end. Randall has written a book
with this word as the title "N word: The Strange Career
of a Troublesome Word." Please be warned that
Randall uses this word throughout this conversation deliberately and skillfully to discuss its power and its role in the history
of the United States. I don't intend to shy away
from controversial topics like these, and I'll work hard to handle them thoughtfully and thoroughly with respect and with empathy, often with several guests
who have very different perspectives on the topic. In the end, I believe in the power of
long form conversations, the heal divides, by furthering understanding
of human nature, of human history, and the full diversity
of the human experience. This is Lex Friedman podcast. To support it, please
check out our sponsors in the description. And now, dear friends,
here's Randall Kennedy. You wrote a book whose
title is the "N-word," spelled out with a hard R at the end. So let's start with the
history of this word. What is the history of the N word? - The word you're referring to is nigger. The book that you're referring to is "Nigger: The Strange
Career of a Troublesome Word." The word dates back to
the 16th, 17th century. It's got a long lineage in other words. Basically Latin, basically Spanish, basically NIG, Black in
various formulations. We don't know actually how
the term became a slur. So there were words that
were close to N-I-G-G-E-R that were used in various ways. For instance, N-I-G-G-U-H was
used, N-I-G-G-U-R was used, and sometimes it was used
in a way that seemed to be just purely descriptive. We do know that by the early 19th century, it had become a slur, it had become a derogatory word about which people complained, but exactly how that came
about, not altogether clear. - So it's been 20 years since
you've written the book. What wisdom have you
gained about this word since writing the book and maybe having to interact with people, having to read, having to see, having to feel the response to the book? - This book has generated
a lot of controversy. I thought it would, it's probably generated more controversy than I had anticipated. It has certainly generated more different sorts of
experiences than I had anticipated. So, for instance, I did not think that writing this book would prompt people to ask me to be an expert witness in cases. And over the past 20 years, I've been an expert witness in
a number of different cases. I've been an expert witness
in case in a murder case, in various cases of assault, I've been an expert witness
in cases involving tort cases, intentional infliction
of emotional distress. I've been an expert witness in
a number of employment cases. I had not anticipated that, nor had I anticipated the extent to which people would get in
trouble for using my book. Every year there are
teachers who are suspended or who are fired because they will excerpt a chapter of my book. Let's imagine and this is not, I'm not imagining things
this has happened, that's a teacher is
teaching, for instance, the Mark Twain's, "Huckleberry Finn" the word nigger appears in
that book over 200 times. The teacher trying to be
earnest, trying to be sensible, trying to be serious, will
excerpt a part of my book to acquaint students with
the history of the word and maybe the history
of controversy involving the use of the word in
this particular novel, the teacher will give it out,
hand it out to the teachers, hand it out to students, and there have been a number of teachers who've been suspended or
worse because of that, students will get upset, go
home, tell their parents, their parents will storm to the school and say that this is terrible. The teacher is using the word
nigger in an offensive way. And oftentimes, administrators will basically abandon the teacher. And whenever this comes to my attention, I'll write the superintendent of schools, or I'll write the principal, or sometimes I'll write an opinion editorial piece for the local newspaper. But every year there are
teachers who are disciplined for using my book. I had not anticipated that. - And what is the nature
of the letter or the op-ed that you write on why they
shouldn't be disciplined or if they to the degree they
should be or shouldn't be? - There has not been one case. There's not been one case
that has come to my attention in which it was even remotely sensible for the teacher to be disciplined. And what I say is that, number
one, frankly, I go through, what I write is almost
a synopsis of my book. Number one, this is an important
word in American history. It is a word that is explosive. That's why people get so upset.
It's a word that's volatile. It's a word that has typically
been used in a terrible way. It's a word that is part of the soundtrack of racial terrorism in the United States. So people ought to know about this word. I mean, if you're interested
in knowing the real history of the United States, if you're interested in
knowing about lynching, if you're interested in knowing about the way in which Black
people have been terrorized in the United States, you
need to know this word. You need to know that history. So you need to know why it is that people are upset about the word,
but it doesn't end there. You have to know that. And if you know that, then that knowledge should
equip you to be careful. It should equip you to
know the range of context in which this word appears. But again, it doesn't just end there because especially young people, you tell that to young
people and they nod. They read, they understand that. But then, but then what? But then they turn on their
radios and they turn on, they listen to Spotify, they listen to some of
their favorite entertainers. They listen to Dr. Dre, they
listen to the Ghetto Boys, they listen to Snoop,
and they listen to NWA. What do they hear? They
listen to standup comedians. They listen to Dave Chappelle,
they listen to Kat Williams. What do they hear? They
hear the word nigger or nigga being used in
a lot of different ways. And so they need to
know about that as well. What are people doing? How does one explain the
fact that Dick Gregory, Dick Gregory was a comedian, activist friend of Martin Luther King Jr. A true activist. I mean, he had a flourishing
career as an entertainer that he abandons in order to struggle for racial justice
throughout the United States and including the Deep South. How does one explain the fact that he wrote several memoirs,
but his first memoir is called "Nigger." A Memoir. How does one explain that? How does one explain Richard Pryor? I mean, Richard Pryor's best
album is "That Nigger Crazy." Well, was Richard Pryor trying
to put down Black people? How does one explain that? One can only explain that by
getting deeper into the word, by understanding that, yes, this is a word that has been
used in a derogatory way. This is a word that has been
used to put people down. This is a word that has been
used to terrorize people. You gotta know that. But you also have to
know that this is a word that has also been put to other uses. There are artists, there are entertainers who have used this word,
like Dick Gregory used it to put up a mirror to American society and say, look at this word, and look at the terrible
way in which it's been used. We don't want you to look
away. No, don't look away. We're not no euphemism, no
asterisks, no N word, no nigger. Now, we want you to look at that, and we want to talk about that. James Baldwin. There was a documentary
about James Baldwin a couple of years ago,
highly lauded documentary. The title that was given
in this documentary was, "I Am Not Your Negro." That's not what James Baldwin said. Anybody can talk, go to YouTube right now. Take a look. James Baldwin
said, "I am not your nigger". And then he went on to talk about that. Well, you know, James
Baldwin wasn't, again, he wasn't starting to cover up anything. He wanted people to face
the facts of American life. And it seems to me that
if you're a teacher and you want to have your
students face the facts about American life, well, you've got to grapple
with the word nigger. Now, lemme just quickly say,
teachers have a tough job. And if we're talking about students, of course there's a
wide range of students. Am I saying that one ought to give my book to kindergartners? No, kindergartners are probably
not ready for such a book. Third graders probably,
no, not third grade. If we're talking, however,
about people in the 10th grade, do I think the 10th
graders can read my book? Yeah, sure absolutely. 11th graders, 12th
graders, people in college. There are people in college,
there are people in college, there are people in law schools. Teachers in law schools
have been disciplined, because the word nigger has
come out of a teacher's mouth. Why? A couple of cases recently, teacher would be reading a court opinion. The word appears in the court opinion. The teacher pronounces the word. Ah students get up, leave in
a huff report, the teacher. There's some instances in which teachers have been under those circumstances
have been disciplined. In my view, that's bad. And people ought to say it's
bad, it's bad pedagogically. And frankly, in many of these instances, it's not only bad, it's stupid. And I don't mind saying that. I think that some of these instances in which teachers have been
disciplined, absolutely stupid. People say, well, the teacher
used the word, excuse me, use the word? It'd be one thing. It'd be one thing if a
teacher looked at a student and called the student nigger. Get outta here nigger. That'd be, you know, fine
discipline that's teacher. That's bad. But that's not what's going on. None of these are cases in
which you have an individual who is a stranger to another individual. And this word just sort of comes out. No. What we have here is a class involving a person who is a teacher, interacting with students,
talking about subjects in which it would be
perfectly understandable why this word would emerge
as a subject of conversation. Now, under those circumstances, it's somehow wrong for a
teacher to utter this word. In my view, the answer is no. And you know, I said that 20 years ago. I say it even more emphatically now. - Still, it is one of
the most powerful words in the English language. And there's a kind of responsibility that we as humans should have with words. With statements. That word, if not used skillfully,
if not used competently, even when just read
from a legal transcript, can do more harm than good. - I agree with what you say,
yes, words are powerful. Words do matter. And so, I am certainly not
suggesting that people be lax, I'm not suggesting that
people be irresponsible. It's precisely because
words matter, however, that we need to be willing to face words and grapple with words,
and talk about words, and talk about the history of words precisely because words matter. And among other things, it seems to me it's
important to understand that words can mean different
things in different contexts. It's not the case that a word means the same thing in every context. The word discriminating, sometimes it's a very bad thing
that person discriminates. And again, intonation of
voice means something. If I say that person discriminates, and I'm obviously being disapproving, implicitly what I'm saying is that person distinguishes between things
on an unjustifiable basis, and that's a bad thing. On the other hand, that person
has discriminating taste. Oh, that means something very different. That means that the person differentiates in a way that shows that they understand the difference between
excellent, good, and not so good. And we think that that's a good thing. So words can have different
words can mean different things in different contexts. It seems to me that that's something that actually we ought to recognized. We ought to recognize and talk about. - Well, some words enter this
territory of being a slur. And it seems like when they cross the line into being a slur, there's
the number of contexts in which it's okay to mention it exponentially decreases, right? - No, I'm gonna resist that a little bit. Because the whole idea
of slurs, slurs change. Yankee was a slur. Yankee was a slur in 18th
century United States. Slur today New York Yankees. I'm a Yankee fan, I'm a Yankee. Queer, and this is in my lifetime. There was a time, that you queer and people would really run away from it. And that was a bad thing. And then, thank goodness,
gay Liberation Movement. Gay liberation Movement, basically, we're not
gonna run away from this. We're gonna grab this quote slur, and we're going to affix it to ourselves, and we are going to repurpose it. Now, the word queer is
again, can it be a slur? Yeah, it can be a slur.
Doesn't have to be. And it seems to me that
it's important for people to know about how a word,
a symbol in some context, can be a slur in some
context doesn't have to be. So the whole idea of what's a slur, that's a complicated
idea in and of itself. - That's very complicated. If I may say almost fascinating
how language evolves, but if we were to kind of have
a minute by minute evaluation of the most powerful intensely
slur like words in the world, I think the N word with
a hard R at the end, which is the title of your book,
is number one on that list. - Well, I probably, so, and of course, one of the reasons why I wrote a little book about it. - Yeah but it hasn't, even since you wrote a
little book about it, it seems like it's maintained
its number one status. You mentioned queer, it's
maybe was in the top 20, I don't know, for a while. And now it's sliding
into the top thousand. And the N word is at the top. - You're absolutely right. The origins of this
book, I clearly remember I was at my office and I was
thinking about lecture topics, and I get invited to give
lectures from time to time. And I was thinking, well, what might make for
an interesting lecturer? And all of a sudden the
word popped into my mind. Now, this is a word I've
grown up with this word. I mean, there's never
been a time in my life when at least in my conscious life, in which this word's been absent. I mean, in my household, for instance, in my household, my
parents are Black people. My parents were refugees
from the Jim Crow South. I was born in the deep
South, South Carolina. In my household, I heard
the word nigger used in every possible way. I heard it used as a slur. I also heard it used
with respect to people who were praised. My father, I clearly remember
my father, whom I revere. That's the smartest nigger in the world. That's the bravest nigger in the world. That's the baddest nigger I know. He wasn't putting people down. This is the way he talked. And I grew up hearing
this word in various ways. And so I was thinking to myself, God, where did this word come from? And one of the first things I did, I clearly remember just
jumping up outta my seat, running up to the library,
Oxford English dictionary. When did this word
first appear in English? Was the history of the word? And then what really sort
of grabbed my attention is I get my computer going, and I asked the computer system give me every case,
every federal court case in which this word appears,
thousands of cases. And then I said, "Oh my goodness, and then this is really interesting." And then I started just cataloging
all the different cases. There came a point, I'd say probably about a month into this, I compared the number
of times nigger came up with other sorts of slurs. So for instance kike, K-I-K-E, longtime, derogatory word for Jews. How many times has this word come up? There was a time in
which the word appeared, but nothing like the infamous N word, nothing and then I what about wet back? What about, and then I just
let me just take a look at all the other slurs. Nothing came close, not even
remotely close to nigger. And I think it has something
to do with the uniqueness of the color line, particularly as it pertains
to African-Americans. I think that the fact that
nigger sort of occupies such a unique status among slurs, I think that's a reflection
of the unique stigma that has been imposed
on African-Americans. - It's hard to know
the chicken or the egg, why one word is able to
so distinctly and clearly encapsulate this struggle between races that is throughout American history. I mean, they didn't
have to probably be so, but it came that to be that way. - It became that, not
only that, not only that, but of course the nigger
spurred other slurs. So Arabs, sand niggers, the
Irish, the niggers of Europe, women, the niggers of the world. - John Lennon even has a song. - That's right. Well, I think Yoko Ono,
I think had something to do with that song. So, I mean, it is a slur
that has spawned other slurs. And again, that's why as
you indicated a moment ago, this is a quite unique term. - But are you conscious? Are you deliberate in
you saying this word? So let me just say from
a personal experience, maybe my upbringing, where I
came from in my daily life, I don't think I've ever
heard that word with a hard R said as often. You clearly in my life
said I've heard it today more than I have ever
heard in my entire life. And I think there's a few people who listen to this that
will be listening to this. And it would be very uncomfortable, I would say, not in a bad
way, probably in a good way. I'm uncomfortable now, and I am almost introspecting and trying to figure out
why am I uncomfortable. And I think even the title of your book is making me think that, just looking into my own mind
and trying to understand, wow, words of power and why
does it have so much power? But are you deliberate in that action? And by the way, not only are the people
listening to this sweating, this will be on YouTube in part. And YouTube the people on the
other side will be sweating. What do we do with this? - Yeah, well, am I
deliberate? The answer is yes. And let me unpack that a little bit. First, that's right. I
mean, am I deliberate? Yeah. I deliberately wrote a book called "Nigger:The Strange Career
of a Troublesome Word." And was that deliberate? Yeah,
that was quite deliberate. - But the title could
have been N word versus- - The title could have been N word, sure. The title could have been
in the title could have been a book about a word that
causes pain to many people. I could have named it that, there are many titles I could have used. Did I want a title that
would be provocative? Did I want a title that would grab people? The answer to that is yes. I'm a writer. I want people
to read what I write. Was I being sensationalistic? Well, I mean, if you want
to put it like that, yes. I'm not embarrassed to say that. I mean, I'm sure that
when people write books, they think really hard about their titles, and they try to get a title that will grab people's attention. I know people respect people very deeply, who never, as a matter of
principle, never utter this word. And I've talked with
people, I've had people say, "I read your book, let's talk about it. But let's be very clear.
I'm not gonna use the word." I've had many conversations with people who've asked me not to use the word. The first time this
came up was a book tour. It was 20 years ago when the
first book first came out. And I was on one of these call-in shows early in the morning. Time came to call in seven o'clock. I call in at 5:07, right before I go on, the host of the show says, "Oh, by the way, we have a strict policy here at the station. We never use this word." And I said, "Well, gosh, I wish you had told me this earlier. Does this mean then that
you're never going to pronounce fully the title of my book?" And she said, "That's right." And I had to make up choice
right then and there. Am I gonna go on or am I not? - [Jack] What'd you do? - I went on and I abided
by the station's rules. And fine, we had a
perfectly fine conversation. And there is a place for euphemism. The American language is
a very supple language. There are lots of words that one can use. I do not get angry with people who don't, they say, as a matter of principle, they're not gonna use the word fine. I understand where they're coming from, and often I will defer to their wishes. All I say is I want people to understand where I'm coming from. I'm not just using this word willy-nilly. There's a pedagogical reason. There is a reason for why
I'm saying what I'm saying. There is a reason why I use the word. - Can you make the case why
using the word is a good idea? And can you steel man the
case why it's a bad idea? Maybe you've heard from some critics. Who said that you saying
this word out loud is actually causing a lot of harm. Not like harm because
people's feelings are hurt, but increasing the amount of
racism and hate in the world. - Yeah, critics, let's
start with the critics. One, again, going back to when
the book was first published, I remember going to the
first bookstore I went to, and I talked about the book, had a very talked, asked questions. And the last comment wasn't a question, but the last comment was
made by an elderly Black man. I called on him and he said, "I've listened to what you've had to say, and I appreciate what you've had to say." But he said, "But I remain unconvinced
and I remain unconvinced, because when I was coming up, this word was used to put
me in the back of the bus. And this word was used to
prevent me from voting. And this was the word that was used to justify me never
being called as a juror. So to me, this word has only one meaning. It's a terrible meaning. I'm never going to use the word. It hurts me when I hear
people use the word, especially those who
don't know anything about really about the history of it." And he went on to say,
"I think that your book, though well-intended, is probably going to
be seen by some people as giving them permission
to use the word." And then he stopped. And I thought that
there was a lot of power behind that gentleman's comment. I think that what he
said is probably correct and so far as there are
probably some people who read the book. There are probably some people who are listening to our
conversation right now who will think that I'm
giving people permission to use the word. I have said that I'm not, I want people to understand the word. I think that there is a burden that comes from whenever you utter a word like this. But that's a critique. And I think there's
strength to that critique. I'm not gonna say that
that's a ridiculous critique. I think that there is something to that. And by the way, I should say, and that's why I would say
to anyone that's right. If this word comes out of your mouth, you are taking on real responsibility. So for years, it doesn't
happen so much now, but I'd say for about the first five years after this book was published, I would get an email at least once a week, and it would begin like this,
"Dear Professor Kennedy, I read your book and I'm
calling to ask you a question." And as soon as I saw that I knew what the question was gonna be, and then would what the person
would say is the following, I like rap. And I knew what was coming. "I like rap. I'm White and I have Black friends, and we listen to rap and
we're driving in the car and we're listening to the song. We we start humming
along and singing along, and my Black friends sing along. And when nigga or nigger
comes up, they sing, and I don't know what to do. Is it wrong for me to sing along?" This happened so often that
I'd say about the 10th time I got in such an email,
I wrote a form letter 'cause I didn't want to
just take up time writing, sort of crafting letter
after letter after letter. So I wrote a form letter, and
basically what I said was, listen, number one, I'm
flattered that you're asking me, but number one you should
have a conversation with your friend. Number two, no matter
what your friend says, let me put something
else for you to consider. Let's suppose for the sake of discussion that your friend says,
"Oh, doesn't bother me. I know where you're coming from. We're just enjoying the music." I don't think that this
is a racist utterance, coming outta your mouth. Let's suppose that your friend says that, that doesn't end matters. Because let's imagine the following. Let's imagine that you are in a theater and you're waiting for the film to start, and you're just talking with your friends or singing with your friends, or just kicking back with your friends and they're talking about
nigga this or nigger this, and you say it, you the White boy say it. And the next thing you feel is a fist, a big fist in your mouth
that has been launched by a person that you did not
see who was right behind you. All this person saw was a
White person saying nigger, and the next thing pow. That's not some sort
of overheated scenario coming from some law professor's mind. That is a very plausible scenario. So you have to be worried
about lots of things, including mistake. So my advice to you is be prudent. I would stay clear the word unless, unless you're very certain and
unless if you're called on it, you feel you're in a
position to defend yourself, defend what you're doing. But the prudent thing
would be to stay clear. - There's so many questions
I wanna ask there. One is about the violence
and the legal aspect of that. It's very interesting you
raised that in the book, but I do wanna bring up something I probably disagree with you on, which is you say that there's
not a significant difference between the different
variations of the N word. The one or maybe maybe you don't. I just listened to a
bunch of your interviews. So there's the version with ER at the end, version with a GA at the
end, and then GRO at the end. These are all different versions. And I feel like in that
list of powerful words, I feel like there's a distinction. I feel that the number one spot
is the one with the hard R. And I don't know, maybe
you can try to shed light, but I feel like the one that ends in GA is really far down the list
in terms of modern culture. So this is, we talked about
the evolution of the words and the word queer, for example. It feels like because
maybe because of rap, because of comedians, because
of it's become much more, it lost so much of its power. Oh, you don't think so? - No, I think there's a difference
between nigga and nigger. I mean, people make a
distinction between them. And I think that to the
extent that lots of people make a distinction between them, I think just as a sociological
fact, they are different. I think that people who
get upset, if somebody, especially White people, so
if a White person says nigger and they're sort of criticized about it, and they say, "Well, I didn't
say nigga, I said, nigger, believe me, I think most people, most people who are mad at them
are gonna stay mad at them. Now you raised the word, so and, I would put in a very
different category than negro. - [Jack] Educate me here. - Well, yeah, sure, I'm happy to. Negro is a also controversial,
it's also controversial. But negro has never been
viewed by a substantial number of people as a derogatory term, at least with the same amount of animus, the same amount of, it's a
very different kind of word than nigga or nigger. I mean, after all, I mean,
negro, Martin Luther King Jr. All of his great oratory negro. You read the work of the
great W.E.B Dubois, "Negro." You read the work of my boss. For for instance, I use the word negro. I use African-American,
Black Afro-American, but I also use the word negro. Now, there are some people
who get really mad at me because when I use the word
negro and so for instance, there's students who've
gotten really quite exercised, and they'll say, I'll be giving a lecture, and I a hand will go up,
I'll call on somebody and they'll say, listen,
are you using the word negro in its purely because of
the historical time period that you're using. So is that why you're using it? Or are you using it in your own voice? And often I'll say, "Well,
I'm using it in my own voice." And I'll say, "Well, I'm offended." We think that this is that's
old timey. It's derogatory. When this first came up, I said, "Let's pause for a moment and I'll take that under advisement and let me look into this." And I ended up writing an essay about it, an essay about the history of the terms that Black people have used
to describe themselves. And it's a long list, Black,
colored, Afro-American, African-American, Negro, et cetera. So I go through all that and I said, now let me just tell
you, I know for certain, when I started using the
word negro, often in writing, I can date it. 1983, the summer of 1983 is when I started using the word negro in my professional life as a lawyer. And I did it for a very specific reason. I did it because my boss
demanded that I negro capital in. Now who was my boss? My boss in the summer of 1983, was Associate justice of the
United States Supreme Court, Thurgood Marshall, known
as Mr. Civil Rights. Now it seems to me, you are telling me that this
word is so out of bounds, that this word is derogatory. Nobody should ever use this word. Does the fact that Thurgood Marshall demanded that I use this word, does that complicate things a little bit? And so I think that people,
again, ought to know more. I mean, I've encountered students
who don't know very much, but who want to lecture me on word usage because they know three
sentences about current fashion and hold it, hold it by
the way, I push it further. I sometimes use the word colored and then some people
really don't like that. Colored, well, there's an organization still very much alive in
American life and law, the National Association
for the Advancement of Colored People, the NAACP, they haven't changed their name. And as far as I'm concerned,
it's a wonderful organization. There are people who have
used the word colored. That's what my grandmother used, colored perfectly fine as far as I'm concerned. So again, there are
lots of different words that one can use. You can use different formulations. I understand that people
have different preferences. Fine, I have my preferences at least know where I'm coming from. - Still words have power
and they have power to hurt. And there's a lot of reasons that I could see to
justify the use of the word in its full form as you're saying, when in this conversation
is you're using it, one of them is perhaps
fighting for the freedom to be able to use those kinds of words. So let me ask you about
the freedom of speech and the censorship of the word. Should they use the van word be censored, for example, on social networks? So we can come up with different places. We can say university campuses, maybe in op-eds or I don't know,
but I think social networks currently is a very interesting place. There's a lot of conversations
that are happening on them. There's the ability, the
technical capability to sentence, to remove the ability of
people to use the word. Do you think they should be allowed to use the word on Twitter, for example? - My response is, it all depends on the way in
which the word is being used. If the word is being used to intimidate, if the word is being used to terrorize, then no, along with lots of other words, by the way, I mean, I could use the word I suppose, gentlemen. I mean, I'm sure that I
could conjure up a way in which that word could be
used in intimidating way. So would I be happy if
there was a technology that always blanked
this word, N-I-G-G-E-R. I would be against that. For one thing, it would erase
the name of one of my books. And I think that the book actually has a lot of useful information
and make some useful points. And by the way, let's imagine a world in which there was a
technology that blanked every time N-I-G-G-E-R appeared. What would that do to novels by James Baldwin, by Tony Morrison. What would that do to the
speeches of Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr. What would that do to the
comedy albums of Richard Pryor, Kat Williams, Dave
Chappelle, what would that... If one sort of plays that out, would one want to have all of those blanks in important literary and
political performances? No, I don't want such blanks. What I want, I would
want the word to be there and for people to understand
how to deal with this word. And by the way, you've used
the word hurt and awful lot. So let's talk about hurt. I think we need to be more careful with the way in which we deal with hurt. Because people can be justifiably hurt. You can have justifiably hurt feelings. And if somebody has
justifiably hurt feelings, I then think that we
should turn to the person who has hurt those feelings and say, "You have acted wrongly
because this person's feelings are justifiably hurt in
relationship to what you've done." On the other hand, there are
people who have hurt feelings, and frankly, it's unjustified. So just imagine the following. Let's imagine that I give
a talk about the greatness of Martin Luther King Jr. And then let's imagine
that a Ku Klux Klansman comes up to me after my talk and says, "Oh, you have now hurt my feelings." What am I supposed to apologize? Am I supposed to be regretful that my talk about the greatness
of Martin Luther King Jr. Has hurt the feelings of the Klansmen? No, my response is gonna be, you need to reevaluate your feelings because actually your feeling
of hurt is unjustified. And no, there's no apology coming from me. - But there, there's a kind of line, and perhaps the gray area, and maybe the word hurt has been overused. 'Cause if you try to avoid
hurting a small fraction of society that is mentally weak in a way where everything hurts them, that's the wrong way to build a society. But if we flip that upside down and say, trying to maximize the
amount of love in the world, and think about decisions we make in terms of the language you use to try to maximize the amount of love, and not just short term, but long term. And that's where freedom
of speech is very powerful, because it's a short
term painful thing often, but long-term beneficial
thing, just having freedom. And so there is where the
question of the N word starts to come in. How do we think about
its use on the internet, on college campuses in
a way that maximizes the amount of love and compassion and camaraderie in the world? - I think that's good. And I would associate
myself with your vision. How can we maximize love? No, I love that. I think that's great. So let's take that on. I doubt that the way of doing that is to erase the infamous N word. I doubt that the way of doing
that is to say to people, we understand that your
feelings are really hurt, and we're gonna do all that we can to avoid this symbolic action. Maybe this word or maybe this symbol. We're gonna do all that
we can to suppress it so that we can have a
more loving universe. I doubt that that's the way to do it. I think a better way to do it, I think a better way to do it would be to fully educate people, including educate people such
that you see that over there, that is the uniform of the Ku Klux Klan. I want you to be educated
about the uniform of the Ku Klux Klan so that you can look at the
uniform of the Ku Klux Klan and know what it's about. You're not terrorized by it. You don't see it and sink to your knees and start wailing and crying. You don't see it and
say, "I'm traumatized." No, you don't do any of that. You see it, you understand it. If somebody asks you about it, you're fully prepared to talk about it. It seems to me that that
attitude, that poise, that strength, that knowledge, would be a better way of equipping us to have a more loving world. And by the way, just so you know, I would say that about the Swastika, I would say it about the infamous N word. I would say it about all of the things that we're talking about. It would be better for
people to be educated so that they are not traumatized. - So to you, the N word should not be removed from Huck Finn, "Adventures of Huck Finn," or from the works of James
Baldwin or Tony Morrison? - Not at all. In fact, it seems to me
that the, the bulldozeration of these great artists, literary work is, as far as I'm concerned,
highly objectionable. Highly objectionable. - When is it okay for a
White man to say the N word with a hard R? - Well, here we need to
focus on the word say. Is it ever okay for anyone, Black, White, pink, yellow,
I don't care, red, orange. Is it okay for anyone to use this word in a way to put down
people, to terrorize people, to intimidate people? Answer no. And I'd say that Black
person I've seen, I mean, by the way I've seen
Black people use this word to try to intimidate, put
down other Black people, bad. So I'm against it with a Black person, White person doesn't matter. On the other hand, imagine a White person who is giving a lecture on the
history of American racism, a lecture on the history
of American racism. And in giving that lecture quotes, the White racist politicians who until fairly recently
in American life, used the infamous N word. So imagine a White history professor giving a lecture about the
history of American racism, and says, "In 1948, this is what so and so
running for the presidency of the United States said." And then quotes a paragraph or two in which the infamous N word is featured. Is that bad? No, that's not bad. No, that's not bad. It sounds like a perfectly good lecture, and I'm glad that you put
the infamous N word in there so that we can see that
as recently as 1948 people who were running for the presidency of the United States openly use the word that does not bother me. I'll say this too. Now, somebody says,
"Well, nice job, Kennedy, but you've limited it to overhear, you've put it in an academic setting. What about other settings?"
It does not bother me. Let's imagine somebody who's a comedian, a White comedian who is
satirizing word usage. Let's imagine a White comedian who is satirizing our current practice and wants to poke fun at the way in which, let's imagine you have a Black rapper who invites people on stage, and let's suppose they invite
a Black person on stage and they're perfectly
happy when the Black person is full out with their lyrics. They invite a White person on stage. The White person is doesn't
really sort of mystified, but it comes on stage and full out with what the rapper says, including the infamous N word. And then the Black rapper gets mad. Imagine the White comedian
who satirizes that, pokes fun at that. And in poking fun at that
says the infamous N word. Am I angry? No, I'm not angry. Not angry at all. - What if in the process of satirizing that comedian's not very funny? - You say that bad joke,
you were not funny. I don't object to the use
of the infamous N word. I just say, "You're not very funny." - But because there's a line
when the joke is not funny, it just seems like the comedy is used as a cover to actually
say something hateful. It's an interesting thing about comedy. I feel like the funnier you are, the more you can get away with. And that's something to do
with the thing we said earlier, which is when you use
words that have power, you should do so with skill and competence and the responsibility those words carry. - Again, the cases that
I'm most familiar with are the cases involving
teachers, professors, academic. And it is said sometimes,
"Oh, why do I object?" I object. Sometimes people say, because
I suspect that this teacher just wanted to say the word and that all of this
is a cover, a pretext. In my sense of it is, no, I
don't think it's a pretext. If it's pretextual, that's bad. But in my experience,
I have not seen that. I don't believe that
that's what's going on. - I agree with you on that. But sometimes I do see people
that kind of have this flying towards the light desire to say something controversial and edgy. And they don't realize that
there's a responsibility there. There's a skill that
you shouldn't just say, I mean, actually when
comedians first start out, they'll sometimes go into that territory. They'll say edgy stuff
that's totally not funny. And then you realize this is not, like the edgier, the thing, the more skills required to really serve. Like if you're cooking as
a chef, a poisonous fish, there's a responsibility on how to cook the thing so you don't poison the people eating it. - I would agree. But to get back to your question, let's imagine that
somebody produces a new set of Lenny Bruce albums. So Lenny Bruce was White. Lenny Bruce used the
term nigger in his sets. - Sure did. - Question, would I want
Lenny Bruce's albums now to be purged of the infamous N word? My response, absolutely not. - As another follow on sort
of question, what you think, I've seen interviews you've
done about this particular book, the title of those interviews
on YouTube and elsewhere would use the full word. What do you think about that? Should I use this word in the title? - In my view, the answer would be yes. Again, are there are people,
I've been on interviews, I've been on stage with people who had a different conclusion reached, and I respect a different way again. There is a place for euphemism. Again, it all depends. I'm not offended. Let's imagine that you posted
this and you had asterisks instead of spelling it
out, would I be offended? No, I wouldn't be offended. I would prefer the full spelling, but I would understand
where you're coming from. Would it offend me now?
I wouldn't offend you. - Well, here's the weird calculation is which version of the word in the title, as silly as that is, brings
more love to the world. It's hard. And basically
your answer is, I don't know. Your answer is kind of you
have to do it and find out. - I'm not sure I, again, in
which there's certain questions we're not really going to know. There's no sociologist who's
gonna be able to tell us that. So what do we do then? Then we go to secondary very positions. And my secondary position
is, I don't know, one thing that I hold onto, however, very strongly is
the virtue of openness, the virtue of transparency,
the virtue of freedom. And I feel as though, if I'm
holding on to those things, if I'm trying to engage
in a serious conversation in which I'm trying to make
other people understand me, and I'm listening carefully to
other people, I feel at ease. I feel at ease. I feel this is going to
eventuate in something positive. And, I feel okay. - You are at Harvard. You're one of the most respected people in the history of Harvard. That said you did write a
book with the N word in it. And you also have a lot of opinions that challenge the mainstream perspectives on race from all sides. Hopefully we'll get to
talk about some of them, but what's your view on Harvard and universities in general and speech? Did you feel pressure from any direction on first of all, the title of this book, the content of the book, and
in general, your views on race? - Yeah, I am very laudatory
of Harvard University. I've been at Harvard since 1984. I think it is a wonderful place to work. In the various positions I've taken, in particularly with respect to this book or all my other books, what
has Harvard University done? Harvard University has done nothing but provide support,
sustenance, encouragement. I think that people get
down on Harvard University. I would say to anybody,
imagine the following, imagine that the ethos
of Harvard University became the governing ethos of
the United States, overnight. Tomorrow we would wake up in a much better United States of America. I've been supported by Harvard University, I think well of Harvard University. That's not to say that I
don't have criticisms of it, but by and large Harvard
University, more than by and large, overwhelmingly it has provided me, and I think it overwhelmingly
provides my colleagues with a work setting in
which they can do their work without fear. And that's a good thing. Are there certain aspects
of Harvard University about which I'm critical? Yeah, sure. - By the way, I think a few
people rightfully wrongfully would disagree with you, that if the ethos of Harvard University took over the country,
it'd be a better place. But there's a lot of interesting
ways to break that down. 'Cause it's Harvard,
there's not one ethos. There's a lot of things going
on that are very interesting. But one of the things that's happening is the disproportionate and
a kind of aggressive growth of the administration
versus faculty and students. I think the power of university should always be with the
faculty and the students. That's where the beauty is. That's where the flourishing happens. And the more you have kind
of rules and bureaucracy and all this kind of stuff, the less powerful the university is. - I think that at my university and at many universities that's right. There's too much bureaucracy,
too much regulation. And are there dangers
to freedom of expression at my university and
at other universities? Answer, yeah, there are, there are. So, and this has really hit home for me. There was was a period of time in which I was getting off of, I had gotten off of all boards. I was just doing my work. Forget it. I'm just gonna do my work. I'm not gonna be on associated
with any organizations. In the last five years, that
has changed quite dramatically. I have gotten on various,
I've reassociate it myself with various organizations, mainly organizations
involving academic freedom because of what's going
on, on university campuses. Again, I have been, at
least thus far, thus far, this hasn't pinched me where I live. But- - You mean in the space of ideas. - In the space of ideas,
in the space of speech, in the face of teaching. I haven't been pinched, but
I am concerned about things. So for instance, let's
imagine that you're applying for a job, you wanna be
an assistant professor, or let's suppose that
you're seeking a promotion. And in on many university campuses, you are asked to give a DEI
statement in which you say, "One of the reasons
why you should hire me, or one of the reasons
why you should promote me is because I'm going to
advance the DEI ambitions." - Diversity, equity, and inclusion for people who don't know, this is the general set of programs that most universities now have. - Yes, that's right. So you've gotta sort of basically what you're being asked to do, whether they say it explicitly or not, they don't say this explicitly, but this is what is up, what you're being asked to do is to say, "I'm down with the diversity,
equity and inclusion ethos, program, policy, campaign, and here's what I've done that shows that I'm down with this
program, and therefore I'm okay. Well, a lot of what I do
would fit very comfortably within that. But let's suppose that I didn't, you suppose I didn't like this. And by the way, there's
certain aspects of the DEI, industry that I don't like. You mean to tell me that I'm being judged at an academic institution? Let's suppose I wanna be a chemist. Let's suppose I wanna be a physicist. Let's suppose I want to be, I don't care, a critic of literature. I oppose this program. I don't think this is the way in which higher education should be going. Should I have to on pain of relinquishing my ability to be hired? Should I have to sign onto this? Just suppose and let's change it around. Let's not make it a DEI campaign. Let's make it a make America
great again campaign. What would we think then? Let's suppose it was something that said, instead of it saying
DEI, let's make it say the advancement of American
capitalism as we know it. We want you to be down with that. What have you done that shows us that you believe in the advancement of capitalism in America? Would I be happy about?
No, I would say this is no, well, no, with respect to these, as far as I'm concerned
with the DEI statements. Oh, here's another one. I just learned and in fact, I mean there's certain
things that are happening, and I must say, I mean, I'm in academia, but it's news to me. I didn't know know until
relatively recently about positionality statements. So these are statements in which
somebody writes an article, let's suppose, I write an article and it's not enough for me
just to submit my article to some law review or to some,
some other sort of journal. No. In addition to me
submitting my article, I've got to give a positionality statement in which I say whether
I am gay or straight, or what have you, in which I say my race, in which I say my nationality, in which I say my stance toward
this ideological position or that ideological position. - [Jack] Interesting. - What? - Is this becoming a kind of a standard? - I don't know how widespread it is. I know there was a night,
a very good article in the New York Times a couple of days ago about these positionality statements. And in fact, that's what
sort of tipped me off. Somebody had told me there's a law review at my home institution, and I had a friend who sort
of mentioned this offhandedly and who said, "Well,
I submitted an article to this journal and I was
a little bit taken aback insofar as they did have
me fill out a questionnaire in which I was required to
state my race, state this, state that, state the other. And as far as I'm concerned, well, what does that
have to do with a proper assessment of somebody's work?" This concerns me. I'm concerned about the fact, a little while ago, you
mentioned the word negro, I was talking with colleagues
a couple months ago and somebody mentioned that this word had come up in their class. Because what had happened was one student was reading from a Supreme Court decision, and the word negro was
part of what they read out. And another student held up his hand and said to the student who was reading you should be careful because I find the word negro offensive and you need to be careful
about even saying a word that would be offensive to
someone and this person. And then the teacher was, what should I say in those circumstances? What should I have said? And I volunteered, and
I said, "Well, guys, that's really interesting 'cause see if that had
come up in my class, I would've said, well, frankly, I don't even see what the big deal is 'cause I used the word negro. And Harvard University
is not on some island that is apart from everything
else that's happening in the world. If these things are
happening in other places, if they're happening at Stanford, if they're happening at Yale, if they're happening at Columbia, they're gonna happen at Harvard. But thus far, and I am
most especially experienced in life at Harvard Law School. Harvard Law School is an open environment in which ideas are tested,
and they are tested fully. And it's because of that, that I say I have been fully
supported at Harvard Law School feel that it is an excellent
place in which to do work. I'm a fan. I am a fan, and
I'm not embarrassed to say it. I am a fan of my workplace,
Harvard Law School, very happy to be associated
with Harvard Law School. - Zooming out in general in education, there's something called
critical race theory. Can you comment on what are your thoughts about this kind of perspective
on race and race in America? To the degree that it's becoming a part of the education program. - Okay, so the first thing I wanna say- - what is it? - Well, the first thing I wanna say about critical race theory
is that critical race theory has become a term. So I'm gonna put quotation marks around the term critical race theory. In a minute I'll talk
about critical race theory without quotation marks. But to begin with, I wanna talk
about critical race theory. Because the reason why people are talking about critical
race theory so much now is because politicians, mainly Republican Right Wing politicians, have created a boogeyman,
critical race theory with quotation marks around it. They have created a boogeyman, and they have tried to
make it seem as though this boogeyman believes all sorts of ideas that Americans should loathe
and that Americans should fear. And they've created this
boogeyman and they've created it, and they've done a very good
job of creating the boogeyman. And they have mobilized
sufficient, public support, such that, there are a number of states that have passed laws prohibiting the teaching of so-called
critical race theory. Now, the first thing
I wanna say about this is that this campaign, these
laws, these various policies telling teachers, don't teach
this and don't teach that. And you can't use this book,
you can't use that book. This is a frightening
encroachment on freedom, freedom of speech, freedom
to learn, freedom to listen, freedom to read. That's terrible. And it's one of the
most frightening things that has happened in American
life in recent memory. So that's the first thing I wanna say about so-called critical race theory. Now, now I'll say something, I'm gonna take the quotation marks off of the term critical race theory. Critical race theory is a sort of you could have a nice conversation about actually what it is. One way of viewing it is to say that, well, critical race theory
is a community of ideas that comes from a community of people. The community of people would
be people in legal academia. In the period starting and
probably the middle of the 1980s, it would be associated with
people like Derek Bell. It would be associated with
people like Kimberly Crenshaw, people like Charles Lawrence,
people like Richard Delgado, people like Mary Matsuda. And these are folks who held, they articulated a couple of propositions. One of their propositions
was that liberal race policy was insufficient. They would say that the racial policies of a person like my old
boss, their good Marshall, the liberal racial
policies were insufficient to grapple fully with the pervasiveness and the depth and intensity
of American racism. Their basic claim. And I think by the way,
it was a good claim. Their basic claim was that
American racism is more central, more deeply embedded in American life than most people perceived,
including liberals. And I think there was a lot of
strength to that proposition, but then they also took
on some other propositions with which I was in very
strong disagreement. So I think it's perfectly
fine to say that racism is a force in American
life that is deeper, more pervasive, more
stubborn, more resilient than I think people often, often
understand, often perceive. But then some of the folks,
in critical race theory push further. One of the propositions
that some of the people in critical race theory
took was the proposition that America was doomed
to always be a country that would be governed according to the dictates
of White supremacy. Derek Bell, who was a colleague of mine, and a friend of mine, took that position. He talked about the permanence
of racism in American life, and he took the position
that the various changes that had been wrought in American life were really, mainly cosmetic. They didn't amount a whole, a whole lot. I mean, Derrick Bell took the position, the second reconstruction,
the civil rights movement. Well, yeah, it made changes,
but at the end of the day, Black people were still, a
after the second reconstruction, were still in a position
of almost, I don't know. Some of them would even say Neo-slavery. Well, I think that's ridiculous. The second reconstruction changed a lot. And as for Neo-slavery, Neo-slavery, what are you talking about? A Black American was
president of the United States between the years 2008 and 2016. I mean, what are we talking about here? There's been a tremendous change, and I think people ought
to understand that. Now, am I saying that
everything is Peachy Keenan and all right? No, the United States is
still, to a very large extent, still a pigment autocracy. But that doesn't mean that a
lot hasn't changed a lot has. So I disagree with certain
tenets of critical race theory and have been very outspoken
in my disagreement. There's another one, by
the way, I need to mention, because we've talked so
much in our discussion about freedom of speech, freedom to teach, freedom of listening. Another big problem that I've
had with some of the people who talk of themselves as
critical race theory people, has to do with their
attitude towards freedom, freedom of speech, some
critical race theory people think that the American legal system is wrong in the latitude that it gives to what
they call hate speech, or the latitude that it gives to what they would view as racist beliefs. Some of the people who
associate themselves with critical race theory
think that racist beliefs ought to be expunged with the
aid of state power if need be. Well, I'm against that. And I think we are at a
moment a an ironic moment in which actually it's the right wing that has embraced some of the ideas that were championed by Some of the people who call themselves
critical race theorists, they say, "Oh, we ought
to expunge hate speech." Well, the right wing is saying
this critical race theory that's hate speech, so let's expunge it. And so, again, I've been very outspoken in my criticism of some of
the illiberal dimensions of critical race theory. So I've been a critic of certain features of critical race theory. I have applauded certain
features of critical race theory, critical race theory,
there's some aspects of it that I think have been useful. There's some aspects of it that I think have been
profoundly wrong, edited. So that's where I am. And I certainly, and above all, I certainly am against
any efforts to remove it from the intellectual universe. It is a part of our intellectual universe. People ought to know about it
and people ought to debate it. And people ought to be
free to make up their minds to conclude what they will about the strengths and weaknesses
of critical race theory. - And we'll talk about the pessimistic and the optimistic perspective on race in history of the 20th century in America. I think you have very
interesting perspectives there. But before that, I'd love to
look at the current moment, and you had a conversation
with Glenn Lowry and John McArther, and from
there it became clear to me, I think John made clear how important to the conversation about race is policing in today's society. That that's where a lot
of African Americans feel is sort of the
pinnacle of racism sits. The people that believe there's
still racism in America. There's still a lot of racism in America. That's where it is. So, to what degree do you think there's widespread institutional
racism in policing? - Yeah. well, my first book, was a book called "Race
Crime and the Law." And- - [Jack] 1997. - 1997, wow. (laughs) - [Jack] Time flies.
- Time flies. Unfortunately, unfortunately, the impetus behind that book stands, that book was propelled by
a sense that with respect to the administration of criminal justice, African-Americans feel deeply aggrieved, and they feel deeply
aggrieved with good reason. And they feel deeply
aggrieved with good reason in at least two dimensions. On the one hand, on the one hand, African-Americans suffer
from under protection. And in fact, in that book, the central theme of that book was that Black Americans
suffer from under protection. If you take a look at the broad, the sort of the broad
trajectory of American history, and ask yourself in what way have Black
Americans been most oppressed? Well, take a look at
the antebellum period, period before the abolition of slavery, before the abolition of slavery the locales where most
Black people resided, namely the slave states. In a lot of those areas, question, was there a crime called the
murder of a Black person? Answer, for a long
period, the answer was no. There might have been a tort, so if a White person killed
the slave, killed a slave, that person could be sued
because they had injured the property of another
and would have to pay money for that. But had they committed a crime? Answer no. In the antebellum period, were Black women protected
against the crime of rape? In most states, the answer was no. There was no such crime. Let's go to after, slavery
is abolished, thank God. Slavery is abolished. Then
let's see what happens? So we hear lynching. From 1890 until let's say 1930. Well, in 1890, there was probably, I would say there was probably on average a lynching every day in the United States, well over 300 lynchings. It goes down, that was
the case in the 1890s, probably the first decade
of the 20th century. And then it starts going down. What was lynching about? Lynching was about Black
people being executed outside the law. Did the legal system do
anything about that? Answer no. You show me cases in which
people were prosecuted criminally for engaging in lynching. You come up in most
places with a null set, Black people suffered the
under protection of the law. Do Black people still suffer the under protection of the law? The answer is yes. And people talk about the
Kerner Commission report, 1968 Black people were asked,
with respect to the police. What's your main complaint? In many places, the main complaint was, we don't have police protection. When things happen to us,
when our houses are burgled, when our businesses are
encroached upon by robbers, when our businesses are
robbed, when we are assaulted, nothing happens. The police protect White
people. They don't protect us. Under protection. Our society right now, if you
take a look at the statistics, who is most liable to be raped, robbed, the victim of assault, what
have you, Black people. I mean, and it's not even
close. Under protection. So that's one way in
which the administration of criminal justice harms Black people by not doing what government
is supposed to do, which is protect us. 14th amendment, equal protection. I underline protection of the law. So that was a big theme
of race crime in the law. Now, second thing, second, and this is a thing that
gets most attention, and it's important, I think that the under protection story does not get enough attention. But then there's a second story. The second story is that Black
people have, historically, and still today, Black people are subjects of invidious racial discrimination when it comes to police action. So walking down the street,
walking down the street, you have a Black person
who's, let's say 20 years old. You have a White person
who's 20 years old, and let's make them men both
just walking down the street. And the question, attitude of
the police towards these two. An attitude is a complicated thing. It can show itself in various ways. It can show itself in a look. It can show itself in who gets the look Black person's walking down the street or running down the street, White person's walking down the street or running down the street. What happens with respect to the police? Let's suppose that who
gets the second look? Who is followed? Who is
detained for a moment? - Well, some of it is
just on a small tangent, I apologize to interrupt, but attitude is an interesting
one because a lot of it, a lot of the interaction
doesn't show up in the data. So, detained, for example,
starts showing up in the data, but before then, the second
look, the third look, the first look, this
is where the gray area of conversation happens, because- - [Randal] Very much so. - Culture and society happens in the stuff that doesn't
often show up in the data. - Yep. So I'll tell you. This really came home
to me several years ago. I was in New York City, and it was at a time when
there was a lot of discussion over the stop and frisk, stop and frisk, basically racial profiling on the street. I was in Harlem, I'm
walking down the street, and frankly the police
weren't bothering me. I'm just walking. No, no, the
police weren't bothering me. But I'm of a certain age. I did notice though, I
was looking at the police and the way that the police attitude, it had to do with body posture. It had to do with, that's
right, who got a second look? I noticed, I'm walking down the street, I'm walking in Harlem there
are White people in the street, most of the people though
were Black, some Hispanic, the level of contempt,
the level of animus, the level of unfriendliness
that was pouring off, the cop, the police,
they didn't say anything. Nope, they didn't detain,
they didn't say anything. It was palpable. I could feel the attitude that was being directed
at the young Black men. And the thing is, see, the thing is, it's not as if this doesn't matter. It matters because the way I saw it, these young Black men knew,
they felt the contempt that the police were shedding, and this was gonna have a consequence. The consequence it was gonna have is, let's imagine that the police did say, "Excuse me, what are you up to?" Now, if you have been
feeling this contempt? If you feel like the officer
who is asking this question doesn't like you, doesn't
know anything about you, but just doesn't like you on site, you might answer in a certain sort of way. You're not going to give the
cop the benefit of the doubt and basically think, well,
policeman's just asking me this, probably just trying to
make the neighborhood safe. Well, if that's your feeling, policeman's just asking me this, trying to make the neighborhood safe. Well, officer, the reason
why I'm here is such and such and thanks for your service. That's one response. Another response is, I'm
not gonna tell you anything. I'm not gonna tell you anything. I know that you don't mean me any good. I'm not gonna tell you, tell you anything. Am I free to leave? And then the cop having heard
that then says something back, after five minutes, what do you have? You have an altercation on your hand. And I felt that, and that is part, and you're absolutely right. That's not written down. It doesn't get to court. It's there. But it's an important part of street life. It's an informal part of street. - And it has ripple effects
because that young Black man will probably talk shit about
that cop later that day. So the narrative persists, and then the cop will also talk shit. And then there's these narratives. And I think the contempt
it's such a powerful thing. - It's so hard to disentangle, because you're absolutely right. The young man, let's suppose
that the story ends well. - [Jack] Right. - He's gonna go and he is gonna
be talking with his friends, and he is gonna say, "Let me tell you what
just happened to me." And his friends are gonna say, "Oh, yeah, that doesn't surprise me. Let me tell you what happened to me." And you know, for two hours this goes on, the anger, the feeling of humiliation, the feeling of agreivement grows. It's disseminated. And that's part of what we have. But that's an important
part of what we have. But we have it's even worse than that because then you ask the question, what about things we do know? I know this from my teaching. This was brought up, there was
a lawsuit in New York City. And notice I didn't say, I
didn't say Birmingham, Alabama. I didn't say Atlanta, Georgia. I didn't say Tallahassee, Florida. I didn't say, the deep
south. I didn't say Montana. I didn't say Idaho. New York City, cosmopolitan place Metropolis. In New York City, the
police were challenged with respect to their policies. A judge wrote a very lengthy opinion, and the facts were rolled out. And the facts were
really quite horrifying. There were Black men who had
been stopped many, many times. It wasn't just once over
and over and over again, under circumstances in which they ought not have been stopped. And this has real consequences. It doesn't just show up
here, though, of course, it also shows up in other places with respect to the
administration of justice. And we still have a big problem. Now, you mentioned the
police, if you asked yourself, who are the state agents
that are most consequential? The police, I mean, you
walking down the street, what other agents have guns on them? What other agents are
authorized by the law to shoot you under certain circumstance? It's the police. The police are the most
consequential agents of the state that most people interact with. - I mean, there's to push
back a little bit though of consequential in a physical sense. But if we return to the power of the psychological sense of contempt, I would say store clerks
and stuff like that can also be a source of- - They're not agents of the state. - Right. But if we look at the
landscape of contempt, which throughout the 20th
century or the bus, right? You can experience the
same kind of contempt in other aspects of society. But yes, the cops have consequences. - I would still put the police, the policemen or the police person is the person walking down
the street with a gun. - [Jack] Gun, yeah. - And if you think about
the way in which the law, the extent to which the
police are authorized to use their force, the police
have extraordinary authority. You're driving your car
and you're speeding. The police can arrest
you right then and there and take you to jail. That's an extraordinary power. - But they also have, because of that, the leverage just one human to another, they have more leverage to be an asshole and to show contempt to you. - [Randal] They certainly do. - To lean into the lesser
aspects of their nature as all humans can, just to be
an asshole, to show contempt. You had a bad day. They have the more freedom to do that. - Yes, and that's why,
that's why police officers are very important. I recognize, I mean, I
know police officers, they have a very difficult job. A very important job, very important. Again, remember what I talked
about under protection, I want the police to protect me. I want the police to protect
me from the rapist, the robber. So the police, I'm with the police. We need good policing but
we need good policing. And for good policing,
we need accountability. And one of the scandals, one of the just absolute
scandals of American law is the extent to which the
police are not held accountable. It's absolutely remarkable. The degree to which American law fails to properly hold police accountable. They have an important
job, a difficult job. I want them to be very well
paid, as far as I'm concerned. Police should make more money. They should be given the
importance of what they do. They should have more
respect, more prestige, more money with all of that. They should be held accountable. And the way things are now,
they're not held accountable. And every day we see the
consequences in our newspapers or just talking with people. - So what do you make of
the different perspective on this to bring up a person
that I'll probably speak with Heather McDonald, who wrote a book called "War on Cops," and
will often bring up the stuff that does show up in the data to show the disproportionate amount of homicides committed
by African-Americans. And we'll also justify racial profiling on that basis in stop and frisk programs. And we'll also bring up things
like the Ferguson effect, saying that because of this pushback and all the stuff we've
been saying about police, in those areas, the police will step back and crime will increase. - I was in one debate with her, and one of the things that I said is, it was a debate that was sponsored by the Federalist Society,
Conservative legal group. These were Conservative law
students at Harvard Law School, and she made a presentation
and they asked me to respond. And one of the things that I said was, when we're talking about the police, I'm disappointed with the reaction of some my Conservative colleagues,
and I would consider her to be one of my Conservative colleagues. Because what are some of
the important precepts of Conservatives? One very important
precept of Conservatives, limited government, limited government. Would a conservatives
talk about the tendency of government to overreach itself and governmental agents
to overreach themselves? And I say, "You're right. You're right, right on." Why is it that you somehow forget that when you're talking about the police. When you're talking about the police, you seem to be unaware of this tendency that is so much in your
consciousness in other places, but now when you're
talking about the police, you make it seem as though
other people are being paranoid when they talk about
the danger of overreach. We need to be very careful
about the danger of overreach. Another thing with respect to the police, what do Conservatives,
transparency in government, you're right. You're absolutely right we need
transparency in government. So why is it that so often when we're talking about policing, why is it that conservatives
actually embrace police unions and are the enemies of transparency? Why is it that you want
to prevent the citizenry from knowing that officer so-and-so there have been 10
incidents in the last year in which citizens have complained
about officer so-and-so. Don't you think that the
citizenry ought to know that? Why is it that you want
to keep that under wraps? So overreach, transparency, the tendency, or the problem of
governmental agent corruption. Why is it that those sorts
of things are forgotten about when some Conservatives? By the way, not all conservatives,
not all conservatives, there's some conservatives who have stuck and appropriately so to
their guns and have said, A, we need to make sure that
the police stay in their lane. We need to make sure that the police do not overstep constitutional bounds. We need to insist on transparency. There are some conservatives
who have taken that line, and I salute them. But there are a lot of Conservatives, and I would say Heather
McDonald is one of them who all of a sudden become
just totally uncritical status when they're talking about the police. - So the overstepping overreach, the lack of transparency, of course, we see this kind of stuff in foreign policy as well. Which is starting military conflicts. And a lot of the supporters, at least with the Iraq
and Afghanistan wars were Conservatives and hawks and so on. So there's a lot of hypocrisy
in terms of principles and so on. But maybe one question is, in this discussion about
racism and policing, there is a lot of cops
that might listen to this and feel like their profession's
not being respected. They're not being heard, not being respected to the difficulty of the problem they're facing and- - [Randal] Can I just interrupt, Jack? - Yes. - Remember a few moments ago, I mean, if I were in charge of things, if I were in charge of
things, I'd pay police more, in fact, much more than they receive. I do. Police have a very difficult job. Extraordinarily difficult job. I mean, for one thing, sort
of maintaining the law. The law, that's a very
complicated thing. The law. That's not an easy thing. I mean, I teach law, I spend a lot of hours
with very smart people trying to understand
the law, very difficult. So here we expect people
to understand the law at the same time that they
are grappling with people, some of whom are violent. It's very difficult. I respect police officers, and I said, we need police officers. You did not hear me say, by the way. So let's get down to brass tack. You did not hear me say
defund the police, did you? In fact, to the contrary, I said, defund, actually, I want more
funds for the police. I want to hold them accountable. I understand the difficulty of their job. I respect the police. I want
people to respect the police. I also want the police
to respect civilians and demand that they do. I am not a police abolitionist.
Far from it, far from it. Again, we need good policing. For good policing. We need good people. - To what degree? It's almost philosophically,
maybe, practically, do you think police should
be doing racial profiling, profiling in general? It's a very difficult
philosophical, moral human question. - Yeah. So first thing we need to do, and here we get back to the
early part of our conversation because we focus so much
on first part of a word. Here we have another word profiling. Question, what is racial profiling? Now, here we have in the weeds, we have people talking past one another. I've been in conversations with
police officers in debates, and we talk past one another because we are defining racial
profiling very differently. If you ask, I've been in conversations with police officers and they say, "Oh, I'm totally against
racial profiling." And then I say, "Well, sir, what do you mean by racial profiling?" And here's what they say, "Racial profiling is when police officers act against somebody wholly
on the basis of race." That gets rid of the issue because most police officers don't act against anyone
wholly on the basis of race. You could have the most
racist police officer, and that police officer is
not going to act adversely against the 90 year old Black woman walking down the street with a cane, okay? So if you define racial
profiling that way, you're getting rid of the issue. The issue is, the proper issue is this, should the police be able
to act against someone taking race into account as a factor? So let's imagine that a Black
person who's 25 years old is walking down the street right next to a White
person who's 25 years old. Some people would say, you know what, under those circumstances, it's okay for the police
officer to give two looks at the Black person and only one look at
the White person, why? Because the statistics tell
us that the Black 25 year old, there's much more risk
of that person acting in an unlawful way. If you take a look at crime statistics and ask the question
with respect to homicide, with respect to robbery, with
respect to various crimes, is there a difference
between the White 25 year old and the Black 25 year old? With respect to certain crimes, the answer is in certain places the answer is, yeah, there is a difference. And there is a greater risk
that the Black 25 year old has engaged in various
forms of criminality. Under those circumstances, what do I say? Should the police officer therefore be allowed to take action
vis-a-vis the Black person as opposed as against the White person? My answer is no. I'm fully willing to concede, let's concede for the point
for the point of discussion that there is more risk, there might be, there might be, but for
reasons of constructing the sort of society I want, we should not empower agents of the state to act towards certain people in a way that's adverse to them. Let me try to break this down
in a little different way. Let's talk about what happens when you want to get on an airplane. 911 wasn't all that long ago. It was a while ago, but it
wasn't all that long ago. And this very issue came up with the respect to the
profiling of Muslims. And there were some people
who said, well, geez, in the aftermath of 911, profiling of Muslims makes sense. No hard feelings, but
you know, the 11 people who were on those
planes, were all Muslims. Now, there is a rationale. You could just simply
say, "It's not prejudice, it's not animus, it's not invidious. It's just, the facts take us this way." Well, the facts never take us this way. There are facts, and
then there is our choice of how we want to respond to those facts. Now, you could respond by saying, "Well, we perceive
Muslims to be more likely to do bad things on an airliner." You could respond in that way. On the other hand, you could say, "No, we want a society in which
people do not have to grapple with prejudice on the
basis of their religion or on the basis of their race." And to deal with that,
we are gonna demand, we're gonna demand that
agents of the state acts towards people in the same way. And so if that means that
everybody getting on the airplane before they get on the airplane has to open up their luggage
and it slows things down, but everybody has to
open up their luggage, I would prefer that over a system in which we focus on
people who are Muslim. And one of the reasons, and I'm gonna bring this back
to our, does the racial thing, one of the reasons why
I wanna insist upon that is because if we all have
to open up our luggage, what that means is we are all paying a tax for more security, and we're
all likely to ask ourselves, do we want to pay this tax? Whereas if we focus simply on the Muslims and allow the Muslims to be the only ones who are sort of paying the
tax, we'll foist that on them. Same in the Black person,
White person, 25 years old, walking down the street. Do we want to impose a racial
tax on the Black 25 year old? Some people would say yes. I say, "That's a mistake. Black people aren't stupid. They know that they're paying this tax. It is a violation of, it seems to me, the rules that we ought to
have to govern our society." I say spread the costs, make the police deal
with everybody the same and don't allow a situation to develop in which a group of
people can accurately say, we are paying more of a cost than these other people over here. - So it's a better avoiding profile is, while it may have costs on
security in the short term, in the long term, it's the
embodiment of the principles that all men are created equal. So it has a much bigger benefit in representing the fairness. That is at the core of the
ideals of this country. - [Randal] Yes. - Let me ask a big philosophical question. Why do you think there
is racism in the world? - Oh, now, okay fine,
you've asked me a question which I throw up my
hands, and I don't know. - Will there always be,
why is there tribalism? Are humans always finding
this way to divide ourselves? And how bad of a problem is that? - It's a huge problem. I mean, I'm not gonna
pretend that I know enough to grapple in a satisfactory
way with such a question. I mean, to really grapple
with that question, one really has to have a
very broad knowledge base in which they can make comparisons. I mean, the world's a big place. Now, from the little bit
I know about the world, and I read as much as I can. I've been, I'm a very
privileged character. I mean, I live in a university, so I'm reading constantly
and listening constantly. From what I gather, the
problem of divided societies is a problem that is worldwide. And it seems as though human ingenuity is such that humans will find
something to divide over. It might be texture of hair,
it might be complexion of skin. - [Jack] Politically ideology. - Political ideology. If the texture of skin is
the same, it'll then be, well, you wear these sorts of clothes. You speak in this sort
of way, you believe this. Whereas I believe that, I mean, it seems like a human ingenuity is such, humans will find some way of
distinguishing themselves, and then they seem to want
to embellish the distinction. It's not just a distinction. It's not just, you believe
this, and I believe this. Okay, that makes the world interesting. Let's talk about what you
believe and what I believe no, it's usually associated
with you believe this, I believe this of course,
my belief is superior to your belief. And I wanna put you down. And
now we're headed towards war. - The interesting thing is, if I were to step outside
of this whole thing, from an alien perspective, visiting earth, I think America is one of the greatest, if not the greatest countries in the history of human civilization. And I think that the line
between White and Black, the racial struggle is the thing that in part made it a great nation. There's something about the division and the way you alleviate that division through the struggle for human rights that makes for a great nation. And so it's interesting that the division is almost the fuel for the greatness for our discovery of what
it means to be human, what it means to be or
what justice means of. And it's interesting that it seems like there's the struggle that
you're elucidating now, but that struggle itself is our search, a man's search for meaning
and justice and freedom. - I think there's something to that. As you were speaking, I
was immediately thinking of the person who most jumped to mind was the great, Frederick Douglass. So, I mean, here you have
a person who, in my view, is one of the great people
in the history of the world. And one of the things that ironically enabled him to become one of
the great people of the world, he was born into slavery. His overcoming was the very thing that in a sense made him
this larger than life figure. And I think there's something to you, I will say this because a minute ago you mentioned optimism and pessimism. And I'd say in the last few years, my feeling about the
United States has changed. And it's changed in a somber
way for most of my life, for most of my life, I've
been in the optimistic camp with respect to my view of
American race relations. The optimistic camp. That's the camp that
believes we shall overcome. That's Martin Luther King's camp. I mean, Martin Luther King,
hours before he is killed. I've been to the mountaintop, I might not get there with you, but I've glimpsed the promised land. That optimism Frederick Douglass
would be in that tradition. There would be other people, wonderful, good people who
would be in that tradition. - Would you, sorry to interrupt, put it in the pessimist camp. Would you put Malcolm X in the- - Oh in the pessimistic camp? The pessimistic camp is
the more interesting camp. I mean, ideology. I mean, it's the more interesting camp because in the pessimistic camp you have, I mean, if I was gonna
list some of my pessimists, pessimist number one, Thomas
Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson, the author principal author,
"Declaration of Independence." He was also the author of "Notes
on the State of Virginia." And he said, in "Notes on
the State of Virginia," basically, we shall not overcome. He talked to, he said, "The
Black people will always know that their fore bears were enslaved, and they will always be resentful of that, always be aggrieved by that." Jefferson did not think
that we would ever have in the United States a
multiracial democracy. He was very critical of slavery.
Now, he was a hypocrite. He had slaves, he sold slaves. He was terrible in that way. But he did understand
that slavery was horrible, but he did not wanna free the slaves for a variety of reasons, but in one reason was
because he thought that it would be impossible to have a society in which Blacks and Whites
were equal neighbors. He was thoroughly pessimistic. Another pessimist, Alexis de Tocqueville, thoroughly pessimistic. So who were some of the other pessimists? Abraham Lincoln, pessimistic. That's why he was so
interested in colonization. He basically said, I don't like slavery, but Blacks and Whites are not gonna be able to share the United States. Maybe the best we can
do is just put Blacks, ship Blacks someplace else. - Can you elaborate on that? I think people would be surprised to hear, that you will put Abraham
Lincoln in the pessimist camp. - Oh Abraham Lincoln's
thoroughly pessimistic. He believed he was was anti-slavery, but he did not believe
that Blacks and Whites would be able to share the
United States together. And he was always very interested, therefore, in colonization,
even during the Civil War, he was interested in
maybe all Black people, would all Black people be interested in maybe going to Panama? Would they be interested
in going someplace else? Because Lincoln was aware of
how racist White people were including himself, and he did not think that Black people and White people would be able
to share the United States. Now, there's the Black
nationalist tradition. You mentioned Malcolm X before Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey, my father was
a thoroughgoing pessimist. His view was the United States was born as a White man's country. It's going to remain
a White man's country. And that's the way it is. He
was thoroughly pessimistic. - You mentioned, just a
brief aside about your dad, that when you moved to South
Carolina to Washington DC and you asked him why his response to you was because either a
White man was going to kill me or I was going to kill a White man. So he saw race as an important line that divided people in the United States. - He certainly did. And he thought that the line, my father had passed away
before Obama was elected. I would've loved to
have talked with my dad. - What do you think he would've said? And you've written, you wrote a book about
the Obama president. - I did. I did. What would my father has said? My father would've been delighted. My father would've been
happy about his election. I do think, though, I do think that my father would've said, "I'm happy that Barack
Obama has been elected. Hold on to your seats. Let's see how the White people respond." - So he would've predicted Donald Trump. - I think that my father,
I think that in 2016, I think that in 2016. - He would've said, "I told you so." - Yes, yes. I think that in 2016,
my father would've said, "All of you people who were talking about, I don't know what's happened to America, and how could this have happened?" And, I think my father would've said, "This is America, being America. And what has happened is that America has been put off kilter by a Black family being in the White House. It has deranged millions of White people. And now this is coming home to Ruth." So I think my father would've absolutely said in 2016, "I told you so." - In 2016, as you're saying, is the reason that you have
at least dipped your toe outside of the optimist camp
into the pessimist camp? - I want to be careful here. And I don't wanna- - Don't give up on the optimist camp. You are right I don't want to
give up on the optimist camp. My optimism has definitely been dampened. It has definitely been tested. I am certainly, I am not as
triumphalist as I once was. I am not as indignant as I once was in my criticism of pessimists. But at this moment, as we speak, am I more in the optimist camp than I'm in the pessimist camp? I'm still probably more
in the optimist camp. My optimism has been dampened. But as I speak, I have to
say the following things. And I'd say the following
things with my father, but again, whom I revere, great man. But if my father was sitting here with us, I would say, "Listen, pop, it's absolutely true that
the country is more racist than I had thought, that is true. It's also true, pop,
that the Vice President of the United States, as
we speak, as a Black woman, as we speak, it's true that
the Secretary of Defense, now, Secretary of Defense, the Secretary of Defense is
the head of the Pentagon. The Secretary of Defense knows
where the button is, okay? This is not a small out the way thing. The Secretary of Defense is a Black man. There are a slew of Black generals. There have been Black
secretaries of state. There are Black people who are
the heads of police forces. There are Black mayors, there are Black people who are the heads of our some of our foremost foundations. There are the president
elect of Harvard University is a Black woman. And we could go on and on and on and on. When I was growing up, when I
was, let's say 10 years old, we got a magazine, Ebony
Magazine, every month. And in Ebony Magazine, you could turn to the middle of Ebony and they would have Black first, the first Black person to do this, the first Black person to do this. You could read Ebony and frankly, I could tell you all of
those fir I knew their names. Now I read stuff, the leading cadet, the chief cadet at the United
United States Naval Academy. I'm reading, I'm reading, then
I see a picture, Black woman. I didn't know that back in the day. I would've known that. Now, has the United States changed? Yes. Is there racism? Yes. Is it a substantial
force in American life? Regrettably, tragically, yes. Has the United States changed? Yes. And again, if we want to go international, the United States is not the only country that is a country that has
wrestled with deep division. You think about, I don't
know, think about India. Think about the United Kingdom. Think about practically
any large nation state. They've all grappled with divisions. If one asks about the United
States and the race question, and one puts on the table that in 1865, now when I talk with
students, I say, 1865, they think, oh my God, isn't
that when dinosaurs roam? No, it wasn't when dinosaurs roam. 1865, frankly is not all that long ago. In 1865, the great mass of Black people in the United States had
recently been released from chattel slavery. The great mass of Black people in the United States in
1865 were illiterate. Now, I mean, it's an
absolutely extraordinary story. And so one of the difficulties
I have at this moment is wrapping my head around two stories that are in such tension with one another. One is the continuing story of racism, which is an awful story. But the other story is a story that is encapsulated in the
title of a great book of history by John Hope Franklin, from "Slavery to Freedom." And those are two
stories in American life, and it takes an awful lot to put your mind around both
stories and I'm trying to. - Well, as an optimist, I think you put more value
to the overcoming side of the story, the overcoming of hardship, the overcoming of slavery,
of discrimination. Well, since you mentioned the
literacy from, what is it, 150 years ago, let me ask
you about affirmative action. You wrote a book on the topic, Titled "For Discrimination: Race, Affirmative, Action, and the Law." First, what is affirmative action? And maybe we could talk
about what your view is it on it today. - Sure, well, affirmative action refers to racial affirmative action. 'Cause there's various
sorts of affirmative action. I mean, you can have
affirmative action for veterans. You can have affirmative
action for in-state residents. Let's suppose you have a school, the university of blah, blah, blah. And we're gonna give a reach
out a hand to boost help people who live within this state, or we're gonna have a boost for veterans. We're gonna have a boost for women. We're gonna have a boost for
men in certain circumstances. Well, the type of affirmative action that gets most attention and
that's worth noting as well. There's sorts of affirmative action. But when you say affirmative action, the type of affirmative
action that immediately people are thinking about
is racial affirmative. - Seems like race is at the core of this American
experiment, though, part of, in every part of its culture. - Bingo. You know, why is it that
there's various ways in which institutions reach out to help various sectors of our population. Why is it that this is the one that generates all of
the pulling out of hair and gnashing of teeth? We can put that to the side for a moment. Racial affirmative
action refers to efforts in which institutions, reach out to provide assistance
to racial minorities. Now, the reaching out can
happen in different ways. A light form of affirmative action might be reaching out
in terms of recruiting, making a special effort to
make sure that young people, let's say in racial minority neighborhoods know about your college. That's recruitment. On the other hand,
racial affirmative action might take a stronger form
and might take the form of saying, okay, we have a competition and we think that there will
be too few racial minority kids who do well enough in this competition to be admitted to our school. So what we're gonna do is we
are going to, in various ways, give a boost to the minority kids. If it comes down to, you have two kids, they both I don't know,
have 99 on the test, there's one place left. We only have one spot left, two kids, one's a Black kid, one's a
White kid, they both got 99. We're gonna give it to the Black kid, why? Well Black kid, all there
is to it, the Black kid. And maybe our theory is that Black people have been done wrong in the United States, and we want our institution to
contribute to making amends. That might be a theory. Another theory might be
we think that we'll have a more interesting student body, we'll have a better student
body, a more better discussion if there are more Black kids on campus. And unless we make a special effort to bring more Black kids on campus, our student body will be
overwhelmingly monoracial. We'll just have White
kids, few Asian kids, a few Latino kids if there
are no Black kids here, I don't know it'll be lacking an important aspect of American life. Some sort of the
so-called diversity story. So any, there are various theories, some are grounded, like I
said, in repairative justice. Some might be granted
in distributive justice. So for instance, when people say nowadays, we want a cabinet, we want a
team, we want a student body that looks like America. That might be a
distributive justice theory for why you want affirmative action. Unless we reach out and give
a boost to certain groups, they won't be here. And we want a campus
that looks like America and we won't have a campus
that looks like America unless we give a special
boost to, I don't know, the Latino kids or unless
we give a special boost to Black applicants. So reparative justice,
distributive justice, or third diversity. We just want to have an
interesting student body and to have an interesting student body. We want kids from a wide array of places. We think that that'll
make for a better campus, more interesting campus. Those are three justifications,
all of which, however, are justifications for in a competition giving a special boost to some
people based on their race. - So what's your sense? Can you make the case
for affirmative action and can you make the case against it? - Yeah, I can make the case for and I can make the case against. The case for, I won't
spend much time on this. Like I said, there are
three main justifications. Your audience should know that one, the justification that actually led to affirmative action, is a justification that you
don't hear about in the courts because the courts have said that, that justification is insufficient. So the real justification
behind affirmative action was in the late 1960s, in the aftermath of the
Civil Rights Revolution, in the aftermath of the
civil rights movement, there was a feeling that, well, okay, fine, we're not discriminating against Black people anymore. But Black people have been disadvantaged by the discrimination that
has been put upon them. And this discrimination
that was put upon them has disabled them. And so they go into
competitions and it's unfair. Yeah, they score less well
on the standardized test. But surprise, surprise, what the heck? They went to schools in
which they got the leavings of the White folks. The White folks gave the
Black folks the old textbooks. That's what the Black kids read, the White kids read the newest
textbooks, on and on and on. So reparative justice, we're gonna try to repair the scars left by past racial injustice and so it's sort of an effort to overcome the vestiges of past misdeeds. That was one justification
for affirmative action. And frankly, I think
that's the justification that has always been the
predominant justification, whether people owned up to it or not. But that's one justification. The distributive justice
justification is there, like I say, people, we
want an integrated America. We want an America that
looks like America. In that justification, legitimacy
is sometimes mentioned. So for instance, people
will say things like, well, if we're gonna, in the armed forces, you can't have an armed forces in which the sort of the
people on the ground are, you have a lot of people on the ground who are people of color, but none of the people calling the shots. None of the generals, none of the colonels are people of color. No and that the people on the ground are not gonna stand for that. So for purpose of legitimation,
for purposes of buy-in, we need to have a situation in which people get the sense that even if they're sort of low down, they're still part of the story. They're part of the team. So that's part of the
sort of I don't know, distributive justice notion. - Do you think there's power to that? I mean, do you think there's
value, there's correctness to that kind of idea? - I think there's some. - Because for the application process for different universities, I think that there's
probably a driving narrative. The justification for
well affirmative action. I don't know where we put DEI efforts because they overlap, but they're
not perfectly overlapping. - The reason that the school, so yeah, as you know, there
is a case will know about it. It'll be announced
sometime in the next month. Well, month and a half. It's a case of the Supreme
Court of the United States in which the affirmative
action program at Harvard and the affirmative action program at the University of North
Carolina are being challenged. Most people think, including me, that the Supreme Court
of the United States is going to limit, if not totally seek to
abolish affirmative action. So this is a very burning issue. As things currently stand, my university and other universities embrace affirmative action
on the third ground, the diversity ground. And what they say is, we need affirmative action
because affirmative action is good for pedagogical reasons. Now, frankly, do I think
there's something to that? I think there's a little something to that with respect to some subjects. I don't think that's
what's really going on for the most part. I mean, if that's what's really going on, why don't we have more foreign students? Why isn't there a greater effort to bring in more foreign students? Why isn't there a greater
effort to bring in more, I don't know, religious fundamentalists? Why isn't there a greater
effort to bring in? And you could just name various groups that are you hardly
ever see them on campus. - So you don't think this kind of effort of driving towards diversity
is rigorous enough? - I think it's often pretextual. I think frankly the real reason
has to do with the belief. And I think it's a good belief. I associate myself with the belief it's just that because of the legal rules, the authorities can't
say this belief out loud, but it's still the case
that a lot of institutions want to help American society
overcome its racial past. That's the real animating force. Now, this thing about, we'll have better classroom
discussions, some discussions. I mean, you know, with some
subjects, yeah, listen, I'm an I ignoramus when
it comes to physics. My sense of it is however, that if you're talking about physics, you're talking about physics. And frankly, it doesn't much matter in terms of mastering physics, what the demographics of
that classroom are like. Well, you either know
physics or you don't. - The interesting thing I've noticed doing this podcast is
one way it does matter. It's really lonely when you do a thing and you don't see somebody that looks like you doing that thing. And it's such a seemingly stupid thing. Why does it matter if
there's another person that looks like you in
this very shallow sense? But it seems to matter to people. And when I talk to, for
example, women on this podcast, a lot of women reach out
saying how inspiring that is. And that's interesting, right? Like I think we're still human and we see people that look like us. And this kind of narrow shallow definition of diversity still matters. - Okay, well, I think
you've made a good point. And maybe so, so let's
go back to the physics. I mean, let's suppose
that under one scenario there's a classroom and
a kid sticks his head, a Black kid sticks his
head in the classroom and doesn't see anybody else Black there and has to make a quick decision and says, "Eh, nah, this ain't for me." Versus they stick their
head in the classroom, they see a smattering there
Black people in the classroom, they say, "Let me try this." And then they try it and it turns out they're Albert Einstein. So, to that extent I can
see under that scenario, maybe it does matter. So, I'll have to recalibrate. Still, those are the three
leading justifications for affirmative action. You asked me where do I stand with respect to affirmative action? Oh, no, before we get to
that, are there criticisms? The answer is yes. There are criticisms
of affirmative action. Affirmative action is a policy like, any policy, any policy is gonna
have some downsides to it. And affirmative action is no different. Does affirmative action
have some downsides? Yes, it does have, have some downsides. So what are they? Well,
let me mention a couple. One, stigma, stigma. So if you have an institution
that says that it reaches out to give a boost to certain
people on a racial basis, they're gonna be people who observe that and who were gonna be
thinking to themselves. If so and so is here and they
were given a special boost, doesn't that mean that
they were not as proficient as the other people who were here and who did not have that boost? So if they are not as proficient, that means that they might not be as good, they might not be as up to snuff. Is that part of our
affirmative action world? Yes, it's part of our
affirmative action world. Yes, I'm a professor
at Harvard Law School. One of the subjects I teach is contracts. Actually, that's probably the
subject I most enjoy teaching. I think I most enjoy writing
about racial conflict and the legal system. But as far as teaching, I
most enjoy teaching contracts. Well, on that very first day. On the very first day
when 80 students come, they're, especially, they
know first year students. They're nervous. I show up. I'm quite sure that
there's some students there who are thinking, okay, well is this guy as
good as my other teachers? Because I know that
institutions like Harvard have made a special effort to bring in people like this guy Kennedy. Is he as good? Well, I mean, I'm sorry. If you have an affirmative action regime, people are gonna think that. And are they crazy to think that? No, they're not crazy to think that. No, that's a perfectly logical
thing for somebody to think. Does it have an effect
on me as the teacher? Yeah, it actually does
have an effect on me. Sure. I'm aware that some
people are thinking that it doesn't make me shake in my boots. Am I aware of it? Yeah, I'm aware of it. Does it have an effect? Yeah, it probably does have
an effect. It probably does. It probably makes me redouble my efforts because I don't want
anybody to think justifiably that I'm less able than my colleagues. So, it's funny, when I was growing up, my father used to tell
me over and over again, Randy, tie, tie, you lose. Okay, brother, let me just tell you that. And he was telling me that because when in an earlier
time, tie, tie you lose. It was if it's even, and
there's a choice to be made, the White person is gonna
get the benefit of the doubt. Now, under affirmative action,
there's been a switcheroo. Oftentimes it's the Black person who gets the benefit of the doubt. But I'm still in a situation which- - Have to work hard. - Yes to avoid the stigmatization. That is imposed by affirmative action. But is that stigma there? Yes. It's there. It is there. I'll tell you another
way in which it comes up from a student's point of view. I'll never forget this. It was in my second year of law school. It was in tax class. We had a very famous tax
teacher, wonderful tax teacher. On the very first day of
class, Professor Becker, wonderful man, wonderful
teacher Boris Becker. Called on the very first person he called on was a Black student. I remember this as if it were yesterday called on a Black student and
it was a Black woman student. And I remember when he called on her, I remember just, I felt as
if the room got quieter. Really, I felt as if the room got quieter. And I know there was a
real tenseness within me. He didn't call on me 'cause
he was going on somebody else was a Black woman student. And I felt different. I felt as if I was somehow at issue. I felt as if my place,
I felt as if my status was some small degree at issue. - In the positive
direction of the negative. - Just at issue.
- [Jack] At issue? - And so now the, all of this
is happening really quickly. He calls on the student,
happening like in seconds. And she responded and she
responded really strongly. It was clear. He asked her a question. She answered the question,
she answered the question, I mean, very strong,
comprehensive, wonderful response. Now you might say, "Okay,
well, smart student. Okay, fine, next." After class, after class, I went up to her and I
clearly remember this. I said, "That was great, thank you." Why? Because I'm a Black student, predominantly White
institution, Yale Law School. And I felt some of again,
affirmative action, I felt some of the burden of
this affirmative action stigma. - So it was almost like a thank you for showing that we belong here. - Yes perfect. Boom. Yes, that's exactly what the situation. And by the way, I wasn't, the only one, I wasn't being idiosyncratic. I wasn't the only one. There weren't many Black
people in that class, but all of us. And we laughed about it
later, we laughed about it. But that was there. So there's the stigma issue. And some people have made a lot of this, some people have really made
a lot of the stigma issue my attitude towards a stigma issue. Yeah, it's there, it's, you know, again, it's part of the situation, but I think that the benefits
outweigh the burdens. But is that a burden?
Yeah, that's a burden. What are some others? Resentment. Resentment in society. And in the fancy schools, and by the way, remember when we're talking
about affirmative action, most colleges and universities
in the United States, there is no affirmative action issue because they're not selective. Hell, they'll take anybody who
if you can pay, come on in. It's only a fairly small set
of schools that are selective. But of course, those are
the most elite schools. Those are the schools that
people most want to get into. And that's one of the
reasons why we have all this, fighting over those schools. Now, how many millions of
people are there in America who have applied to various
places they didn't get in? And what do they say? The White person who applied
to Harvard, applied to Yale, applied to Columbia, apply
to Georgetown, apply to NYU. You could go didn't get in. What do they say I would've gotten in? It hadn't been for that
racial affirmative action. They're resentful. Well, should they be resentful? No, they shouldn't be resentful,
but they are resentful. Does that have a consequence? Yeah, it has a consequence. It has a consequence on how
they act towards other people. It has a consequence on how
they vote. It has a consequence. And that's something. Are there things? Yeah. And in my book, I go through various, I think that there is a
certain sort of denialism that has accompanied the
affirmative action debate. So because Black people like myself want to avoid the stigmatizing burden of affirmative action, there's some people who to
deal with that have said, "Oh, actually there is no difference between the beneficiaries
of affirmative action and the other kids,
there is no difference." If the affirmative action kids got, let's say a 500 and the
other kids got a 750, that doesn't make any difference. That's just BS. They're, you know, the only
reason the kid who the 550 kid didn't get 750, is because the test asks all sorts of biased
culturally biased things like what is a yacht? Well, sorry, yes, there is a difference. There's a 200 point difference. Does the difference matter?
Yes, the difference matters. And by the way, if you don't
know what a yacht is not, you can know what a yacht is
without owning a yacht, okay? And there's this denialism
that I think has really seeped into not just into various conversations. - That can have a slippery slope effect that's beyond just this. - Yes. And we see it in various ways. So, this attack on testing, it's not like I'm holding the
some tests are not good tests. I think we should be
skeptical of everything. But there are a lot of tests that yeah, they tell us something all right. They tell us who knows what. And there's some people who are really, dead set against testing because they're dead set against anything that might show a gap. Well, I think, by the way are there gaps? Yeah, there are gaps. And what we need to do is
be cognizant of those gaps and do things to make it
so that if there's a gap, if you're deficient, no
shame in being deficient. Heck, I'm deficient about a lot of things. Let's learn so that I catch up. But I think sometimes there've been people who've been afraid of even
acknowledging the gaps. - Of course, there's, I
guess, a colleague of yours, Michael Sandel with,
with "Tyranny of Merit." There's interesting, rigorous
ways to kind of challenge ways on the flip side of that, where obsessing with
merit can go wrong also. - Yes. You mentioned Michael Sandel. He's a wonderful colleague, and he is a wonderful friend. I've known him a long time. I think he makes very important
arguments about meritocracy. I disagree with some of the points that he makes about merito- - You do. So you lean towards the
importance of meritocracy. - I think that me, yes. I think that there are
values in meritocracy, extremely important. That in fact, the movement from feudalism, the movement from status,
the idea of I don't care who your father or mother was. I don't care from what
part of town you come from. I don't care what your last name is. I don't care what your
color of your skin is. Show me what you can do. And then somebody sits down, okay, I'll show you what I can
do? And they show it. You're in. I think there's a lot to that. And the impulse to sentiments behind that, I resonate with that. I think that there's a lot there. What I wanna do is I want
to get rid of those features in society that deprive
people of the what you need to develop yourself. Sometimes those are psychological. Sometimes it's you're not around people who've done things that give you the idea that you can do things. I wanna get rid of that. But the idea by the way of distinguishing, this is excellent. And the people who are
excellent, they're here. And then there are people who are good. Are they excellent? No,
they're not excellent. They're good. I'm not gonna close my
eyes to that distinction. - And highlight that distinction, and yet at the same time maintain a sense that their basic worth
as a human being is equal. - Yes. So to was it run DMC? What other rap groups? No, we're all written
down on the same list. We're all written down on
the same list. Yes, we are. So I wanna recognize our
fundamental humanity. I think that one can recognize
our fundamental humanity. And one can also recognize,
as far as I'm concerned, that we all collectively should make sure that we do all that we
can to prevent people from sinking below a certain
level and being in misery. I'm all for that. But I wanna be careful
about some of the attacks that I hear on meritocracy. So some of the people, including, again, I have all the respect in
the world for Michael Sandel. He talks about the
arrogance of the winners. Okay, I don't want the winners
to be arrogant that's right. Luck has a lot to do with things. You didn't have any control
over the circumstances in which you were born into. You were lucky that you were born healthy and that you were born
with a well-working mind. You didn't have anything to do with that. That was pure luck. There's some people who
don't have that luck. So don't be Mr. Big stuff, okay? So I'm, you know, I'm against
that sort of arrogance. I'm entitled as if I
taught myself how to read. No, you didn't teach yourself how to read. There was people who did
all sorts of things for you, and you don't even know it, okay? So, I wanna get rid of the arrogance, have decent humility I'm all for that. At the same time, I wanna be careful about
the problem of envy. I wanna be careful about
the problem of resentment. I wanna be careful about, I've heard so let's not give a trophy to the person who wins the
race because to give a trophy to the person who wins the race will make the person who
they defeated feel bad. No, no, no no. I don't want that. I wanna give a trophy to the
person who wins the race, because I think it's a good
thing to valorize the best. - Yeah. It's a a kind of celebration of this whole human project that we're on. It's celebrating the best. You mentioned your father several times so let me just linger on that. What have you learned about
life from your father? - I've been just such a lucky person. I mean, I feel like I've just lived an absolutely charmed life. And I live, I mean, the work
that I do is what I love doing. I would pay to do what I am paid to do. I mean, it's great. And I've been fortunate in so many ways, and one way in which I've
been fortunate is my parents, my parents, Rachel Span
Kennedy, Henry Harold Kennedy, my mother, born in
Columbia, South Carolina, my father from New Orleans, Louisiana, they were refugees from
the Jim Crow South. They were people who put
their all into their children. I have an older brother
of a younger sister. All three of us know
beyond any controversy that we were loved and
dearly loved by our parents. And they were great people. My father, very interesting
man, very independent minded. He was perfectly willing
to go his own way. And I learned much from him, including, I learned things from him, even when I ultimately disagreed with him. So, for instance, again, to
go back to his pessimism, yeah, he was pessimistic,
thoroughly pessimistic. But he was also willing
to change in certain ways. In fact, both my parents, I mean, one of the most important things that happened to my parents was that I'd say when I was,
let's say 10 years old, I was born in 1954. So in 1964, in 1964, I think my parents would've
taken the position that you definitely never
under any circumstances trust a White person. If a Black person trusts a White person, that person is a fool. Do not trust White people all right? They are not to be trusted. And it's the highly unusual one
who is not prejudiced, okay? So White people are not to be trusted and by and large are gonna
be your enemy, all right? So let's just face that. That's was their point of view. I'd say that I'd say that 10 years later, that point of view had been
leavened somewhat, I think. And you say, "Well, what
happened in those 10 years?" Well, certainly in my
life, one of the things that happened in, in those 10 years is, I was a student in various schools and I had a series of teachers. I've had wonderful Black teachers, I've also had wonderful White teachers. And my parents paid attention
to who my teachers were and how my teachers treated me. And I think that they were affected by the way in which
there were White people who really helped me and were on my side and were thoroughly on my side. And I think that that experience changed my parents in their general view. They were skeptical yeah, but the possibility of a White person, genuinely being the
friend of a Black person, that became alive to them. And I give them a lot of credit 'cause they were adults. And for an adult to
change, that's a big deal. But my parents did change. - In that transformation that was inspiring to
you was formative to you in terms of joining the optimist camp? - Hugely. And the school, I mean, again, I said a moment ago how
lucky I've been, heck. I teach at Harvard Law School, I attended Bayle College, Oxford, I got my law degree from Yale Law School. I got my undergraduate degree
at Princeton University. Those are some pretty good schools. They all were, they all were. The most important school,
however, that I attended. The school that made the most difference in my education was my high school. St. Albans School. St.
Albans School for Boys. And at St. Albans, I
encountered a cadre of teachers. And by the way, St. Alban's, when I went to St. Albans,
all these teachers were White. All of these teachers, there was one, the head of athletics, very important man, very impressive man,
Brooks Johnson was Black, otherwise White teachers. And these teachers made a
huge difference in my life. And I can call their names,
boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. The greatest of them all was a man by the name of Jack McCune. Yep, we called him Gentleman Jack. Gentleman Jack McCune and- - What subject did he teach? - He taught me history. He was my advanced
placement history teacher, but John F. McCune and
we shared a birthday. John F. McCune was a
fabulously good teacher. And we developed a deep
lifetime friendship. I was with Mr. McCune
the day before he died. And he was a White man. And I've had other teachers some of whom have become
colleagues of mine, Sanford Levinson. Sanford Levinson was a
teacher of mine at Princeton. He's become a colleague of mine. I mean, frankly, it would
be impossible for me to... I can't make some sort
of blanket condemnation of White people with
Sandy Levinson in my life. I mean, it would be seriously
John F. McCune in my life, with Eric Phoner in my life, with my colleague Martha
Minnow in my life, my colleague Cass Sunstein
in my life, impossible. - That speaks to the power
of teachers and mentors. - [Randal] Oh yeah. - And you're that to a lot of people. - Well, Listen, I would
be absolutely overjoyed if there was a student who thought of me in the way that I think
of Gentlemen Jack McCune. If that's the case, just one, just one, if that's the case, I'm overjoyed. - That's a life well lived. What do you think of Martin
Luther King's I have a dream? Do you still share that dream? - I think that Martin Luther King Jr's, I have a dream speech is
one of the great speeches, not only in American history, but in the history of the world. There's a tendency now for people to sort of poo poo that speech. I think unfortunately the
speech, has been embraced by advertisers and corporate America. It's been heard so many
times that it's sort of, has been made to suffer from
what some people might view as over exposure. - It's so unfortunate. I mean- - [Randal] It's too bad. - When especially when Hollywood rolls in. They did that with John
Lennon's, "Imagine." Recently, which I think is one
of the greatest songs ever. And the Hectors and actresses
ruined it by trying to like, sing along and do this kind
of cliche Hollywood thing. - It has, but people have
tried to make it into a cliche. The fact of the matter
is, it's the sentiment. The sentiment behind, I have a dream. Yeah, I'll associate myself with that. And anybody wants to see
some great oratory go watch. And, Martin Luther King Jr, I mean, he gave several great speeches. His first speech, the first speech that he gave
as a civil rights leader, the Holt Street Baptist Church, 1955, at the beginning of the
Montgomery Bus Boycott, which was virtually an
extemporaneous speech, was one of his greatest. And he was, I think 26 years old. Great. His last speech, his mountaintop
speech. Great speech. But I have a dream I love it. I will associate myself
with those sentiments any day of the week absolutely. - So there's still, he hope for
a deep, kind of multiracial, a deep unity in the 21st century. - I have that hope. And I think that the sentiments
that Martin Luther King Jr expressed in August, 1963, that represents the best of American life. And I think, do I wanna see
that come to pass? Yeah. I wanna see that come to pass and we'll work to push that project along as far as it'll go. - Well, thank you for carrying his spirit of optimism forward. The spirit of your mother and father, thank you for all the
amazing work you've done. And thank you for just this conversation. It's a huge honor. This is awesome. - Thank you. Really appreciate it. - Thank you. Thank you, Randall. Thanks for listening to this conversation with Randall Kennedy. To support this podcast, please check out our
sponsors in the description. And now let me leave you with some words from Martin Luther King Jr. "Darkness cannot drive out
darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate,
only love can do that." Thank you for listening and
hope to see you next time.