11/23/21 11/23/21 [captioning made possible by democracy now!] god amy: from new york, this is democracy now! >> the year 1619 marks -- virginia. from a little about water amy: nikole hannah-jones on her new book "the 1619 project: a new origin story."

it is based on the groundbreaking new york times series about legacy of slavery in united states. we will talk about the project -- it symbolized --

all that and more, coming up. welcome to democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. a jury in brunswick, georgia, is set to determine the fate of three white men charged with hunting down and murdering 25-year-old black jogger ahmaud arbery. lawyers for the defense made closing arguments monday. a nearly all-white panel of 12 jurors and three alternates is set to hear a rebuttal from prosecutors today before beginning deliberations. defense attorney laura hogue, who represents greg mcmichael, the former police officer, blamed arbery's own actions for his death. and she drew outrage over these comments. >> turning ahmaud arbery into a victim after the choices that he

made does not reflect the reality of what brought ahmaud arbery to satilla shores. in his khaki shorts with no socks to cover his long dirty toenails. amy: hogue's comment drew audible gasps from the courtroom. ahmaud arbery's mother, wanda cooper-jones, got up and briefly left the trial. she later condemned hogue's remarks. >> she described ahmaud as his long legs and his dirty long toenails. that was beyond rude. regardless of what kind of toenails he had, what size lexie had -- gs he had, that was still my son and my son actually

proffers like. amy: taken together, gregory mcmichael, travis mcmichael and william bryan face nine counts that could see them sentenced to life in prison. in yemen, the saudi-led military coalition has launched air raids on the capital send with -- sanaa, with reports of massive explosions in the city's northern neighborhoods. saudi officials said they targeted houthi military sites in retaliation for the rubble drone attacks on saturday including a major oil hub in jeddah. the latest violence comes after thousands of people marched through the streets of sanaa monday protesting u.s. support for the saudi-led military coalition. >> we took to the streets today to denounce the military escalation carried out by america, the economic blockade, and the continuation of aggression stuck week that we joe biden took office, he would keep his promises of stopping

the war in yemen and open the airport. it turned out all of that talk was a lie. amy: in washington, d.c., a bipartisan group of senators has introduced a bill that would block the biden administration's planned sale of $650 million worth of weapons to saudi arabia. republicans rand paul and mike lee joined independent senator bernie sanders as co-sponsors. in a statement, senator paul said -- "by participating in this sale, we would not only be rewarding reprehensible behavior, but also exacerbating a humanitarian crisis in yemen." the united nations warns the saudi-led invasion of yemen and naval blockade has led to the worst humanitarian disaster in half a century with millions of step away from starvation. u.s. coronavirus infections and hospitalations are continuing to rise even as covid-19 continues to claim more than 1000 lives per day. cases among children are up 32%

from two weeks ago, representing about eight quarter of all u.s. infections. on monday, top infectious disease expert dr. anthony fauci called on everyone five and older to get vaccinated, warning the thanksgiving holiday could trigger a dangerous winter sur unless people take measures now to slow the spread of coronavirus. meanwhile, the white house said monday 95% of federal workers have met a vaccine mandate, covering 3.5 million u.s. government employees. the cdc added germany and denmark to a list of high risk destinations amidst a massive surge of covid cases across most of europe. in occupied east jerusalem, israeli soldiers shot dead a palestinian man after he killed an israeli settler and wounded three others sunday. the confrontation took place in the al-aqsa mosque compound, the site of recent attacks from israeli police. in a statement, hamas said the palestinian man was politically

affiliated with the armed resistance movement in the gaza strip. israeli forces immediately raided the refugee camp where he lived in retaliation and arrested several of his family members, including his daughter. in el salvador, president nayib bukele has announced plans to build the world's first "bitcoin city" in the eastern, coastal region of la unión. bukele said the city would be financed by cryptocurrency bonds and would harness geothermal power from a volcano. many opponents say a bitcoin city would likely lead to further displacement and other catastrophic impacts on local communities. this is salvador's president speaking sunday. >> residential areas, commercial areas, museums, entertainment, bars, restaurants, airports, sports, rail -- everything

related to bitcoin. amy: bukele's announcement comes despite massive opposition to bitcoin in el salvador, which is also the first country in the world to declare the cryptocurrency as legal tender. meanwhile, several civil society organizations critical of bukele's government were raided by the salvadoran national police monday. the widespread raids targeted feminist, humanitarian aid, and other social justice groups. in wisconsin, police say the man charged with plowing his suv into a parade of christmas revelers was involved in a domestic disturbance just minutes before the attack, which killed five people and injured 48 others. waukesha police chief daniel thompson on monday identified the driver as 39-year-old darrell brooks of milwaukee. >> the suspect was taken in custody a short distance from the scene and we're confident he acted alone. there's no evidence this is a terrorist incident. amy: brooks has a criminal record that includes arrests for

sexual abuse, battery, and domestic abuse. he was arrested earlier this month, accused of running over the mother of his child with a vehicle in a gas station parking lot on november 2 and released on $1000 cash bond just five days before sunday's deadly assault. the house panel investigating the january 6 capitol insurrection has subpoenaed five more allies of former president trump, including long-time republican operative roger stone. at least six people who were part of the mob that entered the capitol reportedly worked as security for stone and were linked to the far-right oath keepers militia group. also subpoenaed was alex jones, the far-right conspiracy theorist and infowars host. this month jones was found liable for damages in lawsuits brought by families of the 20 children killed in the sandy hook elementary school massacre. for years, jones spread false reports that the shooting was a government hoax and the victim'' families were paid actors, resulting in online harassment and death threats for sandy hook families. for the first time ever, the u.s. has been added to a list of

backsliding democracies. this year's annual report from the international institute for democracy and electoral assistance cites voter suppression in many u.s. states, runaway political polarization, and former president trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election. meanwhile, a united nations human rights expert has denounced republican voter suppression efforts, saying partisan gerrymandering and new restrictions on voting are undermining democracy by denying communities of color an equal right to vote. this is fernand de varennes, the u.n. special rapporteur on minority issues, speaking monday. >> it is almost attorney where minority a part of his right to vote has been nied in many areas and parts of the country and this cannot be a positive development cant be consistent with the fundamental values of democracy and ceainly it does

not need to be consistent with the ited states international human rights. amy: president joe biden renominated jerome powell to serve as chair of the federal reserve. he was first appointed to the post by former predent trump in 2018. mr. biden: when our country was hemorrhaging jobs last year and there is panic in our financial markets, east -- his steady indecisive leader should help stabilize the parties and put our economy on track to a robust recovery. amy: powell has refused to a knowledge the climate crisis and has a record of weakening wall street regulation. massachusetts democrat warren has called him a dangerous man to head up the fed. new york state assembly has found overwhelming evidence that former governor andrew cuomo engaged in sexual harassment while in office. the investigation, which took eight months to complete, largely corroborated a damning report by new york attorney general letitia james finding

cuomo sexually harassed at least 11 women. cuomo resigned in august even as he continued to deny the allegations. and the state of florida has officially exonerated four african-american men falsely accused of raping a white woman near groveland, florida, in 1949. two of the so-called "groveland four" were brutally murdered as a result of the false accusations. the case is now seen as a racially charged miscarriage of justice emblematic of the jim crow south. carol greenlee is daughter of charles greenlee, who was sentenced to life in prison over the false accusations. she spoke to democracy now! in january 2019, just after florida republican governor ron desantis granted posthumous pardons. >> my nieces, my nephews, my brothers, my sons all carried

this cloud over them. it has lifted that cloud from being carried by innocent children, innocent family members. and i feel that a chain has been broken. it felt like the door of justice swung open and the nightmare ended of torture, wicking up at night to the pain of what had happened to my father. amy: and those are some of the headlines. this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. coming up, pulitzer prize-winning journalist nikole hannah-jones on "the 1619 project." stay with us. ♪♪ [music break]

amy: this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman in new york, joined by my co-host juan gonzález in new brunswick, new jersey. hi, juan. juan: hi, amy. welcome to all of our steners and viewers from around the country and around the world. amy: we begin today's show with nikole hannah-jones, the pulitzer prizewinning reporter who covers racial injustice for "the new york times magazine" and creator of the landmark 1619 project, which reframes u.s. history by marking the year 1619 when the first enslaved africans arrived on virginia soil as the country's foundational date. this month, two new book she co-edited are out. "the 1619 project: a new origin story" and adaptation for children, titled "born on the water."

it was on the 400th anniversary of the first enslaved africans landing in colonial virginia in 1619 that "the new york times magazine" launched the project as a special issue in 2019. it has now been expanded as an anthology of 18 essays, along with poems and short stories that examine the legacy of slavery, dedicated to the more than 30 million descendants of american slavery. many argue the 1619 project has changed how history is taught and discussed in the united states. just last year, then-president donald trump announced his proposed 1776 commission at the national archives museum in washington, d.c., last year, in direct response to the 1619 project. pres. trump: critical race theory, 1619 project, and the crusade against american history is toxic propaganda, ideological poison that if not removed will

dissolve specific bonds that tie us together. it will destroy our country. that is why i recently banned trainings into this prejudice ideology fm the federal government and ban it in the strongest manner possible. amy: many states have banned the teaching of the 1619 project and -- as part of the right-wing attacks on critical race theory in schools. earlier this year, the university of carolina at chapel hill, where nikole hannah-jones went to graduate school, initially denied her tenure last year even after it was unanimously approved by the faculty. the board typically rubber-stamps tenure for professors who win such approval from their peers, and it reversed the decision after protests from alumni, faculty, and students and ultimately offered nikole hannah-jones tenure. but she declined and instead

announced she would join the faculty at howard university, one of the country's most prestigious historically black universities, and help launch the center for journalism and democracy. tonight, nikole hannah-jones will visit her high school alma mater in waterloo, iowa, where she will talk about her two new books with her former teacher reverend ray dial, who was the teacher who first introduced her to the date 1619 as the year a ship carrying enslaved people first arrived in what is now the united states. she writes that when she first read the date, it appeared to be glowing three-dimensional numbers rising from the page as an exhilarating revelation started to sink in. nikole hannah jones, welcome back to democracy now! and congratulations on your new books as you join us from des moines on the way to waterloo. can you talk about that moment in high school? what the difference i school teacher makes? >> absolutely. thank you for having me on.

my teacher changedy life. he is the teacher who introduced to how vast black history was, even though we had not been taught hardly any of it. he is the teacher that introduced me or suggested that i join my haskell newspaper and write the stories i wanted to see. i opened the preface for the 1619 book with that because that was a transformative moment for me. i had no idea black americans had been here this long, that we had a lineage that went back on us as long as the english people . and that number stood to me for any erasure and really made me understand at a young -- 15 or 16-year-old that the history are taught is not necessarily the most important thing for all there to know, but was summit has determined what we should

know and there's so much more out there. particularly, the marginalized communities. that never gets into the history we tell ourselves and that history is -- that erasure is powerful. juan: could you talk about the project itself, comprised of 18 essays and 36 poems, works of fiction? talk about your decion to use this format to tell the story. >> so the 1619 project: a new origin story, the book, is an extended version of the original published in 2019. all of these original essays in that first project have all been significantly expanded. en we have added eight additional essays written by a range of some of the nation's most renowned historians from dr. carol anderson to margaret jones to dr. dorothy roberts,

dr. martha jones, sorry, and they're covering a range of subject areas such as in the removal of colonialism, citizenship, creation of race, second amendment. so it is getting a broader understanding of how the legacy of slavery dates our modern society. in addition, we have also doubled fiction in the original project and what we call the literary timeline. we asked some of the great american writers to reimagine all of these periods in american history involving black people and race, and to write it from a black perspective. that is the most profound parts of the book most up the thd aspect of the book, the archival photos that launch every essay. the photos are regular black people, not famous people, from the beginning of photography all

the way until a couple of years ago. it is a way of forcing the reader to pause and consider the humanity of these 31 descendants of american slavery to really focus that everything you're going to read about, all of the brutality, violence, plus the resilience and left, happened to real people. i think the format is beautiful and powerful and i hope people will get a great deal from it. 1 at the core of the book, link the past the present, could you talk about how we continue to see the legacy of slary and current u.s. institutions where the government itself, the education, housing? >> absolutely. the entire president is the legacy of slavery was not

managed along with the institution of slavery in 1865. slavery is one of the oldest institutions in our society. the english settled jamestown in 1607 and by -- 12 years later, there engaging in african slavery. that is 150 is before they even decide they want to become their own country. thatlavery shaved everything -- nearly everything. a country that would ultimately be established. we have an essay on citizenship which talks about the 14th amendment and how the reason we have birthright citizenship in the u.s. where every person born on this soil has any automatic citizenship is because black americans generationally were not citizens of this country even though they were born here. after the end of slavery, they pushed hard for a constitutional amendment that would guarantee them citizenship. so we can thank black americans

for that. he talks about the creation of race and how these ideas come inrent race and one race is inferior to another and on every single form that we have for the government would have to choose a race, including our birth certificate, death certificate, and that is also a legacy of 1619. we have an article that talks about the second amendment by dr. carol anderson and argue our obsession with guns -- we have more guns than on most any society in the world. and we have the highest rate of gun violence and that is also a legacy of slavery. the second amendment, while we like to think of it as being -- allowing citizens to form militias and ward off government tyranny, it also was allowing them to form militias to suppress slavery.

enslaved people were constantly rebelling. why someone like philando castile, who is a legal gun carrier, can be killed for carrying a gun and whether or not like people really do have the right to bear arms. every single essay in the book really makes a modern connection . slavery has influenced our society in so many ways, but we have visible -- we have invisiblelized that. the narrative of 1776 does not explain the insurrection on the capital in january. it does not explain a white police officer feeling he could kill a man in front of witnesses and would not have to worry about facing any consequences ll stop and it certainly does not explain why we have a political party right now that is trying to state minority

rule. that is a legacy of 1619. amy: your work has become the target of right-wing backlash. last year trump administration threatened to pull federal funding from schools that used the 1619 project in the curriculum. tennessee's education commissioner penny schwinn recently signed an emergency measure to regulate the topic of race and gender in classrooms that includes financial penalties for educators who violate the law. this is after tennessee's republican governor signed a law prohibiting critical race theory from being taught in the state's schools. then you have other states, including north dakota, tennessee, florida, idaho, and taxes that have passed similar laws. this is texas republican governor greg abbott signing into law the "1836 project" earlier this year. the name is a reference to the 1619 project and marks the year texas seceded from mexico. >> the 1836 project per month

patriic education about texas and ensures the generations to come understand texas values. amy: you and others responded to the project by highlighting the fact that texas had fully legalized slavery in its constitution and was guilty at the time of lynching black and mexican texans. if you could talk about this movement around the country, what it means for history of the united states, that for what children and everyone learned. >> yes. one, i think it is quite revealing that the argument is if we teach a truer history that reflects the facts of what happened, that that will raise children not to love their country. i think that's has a great deal about what we actually think about how much this country is lived up -- if patriotism has to

be based on propaganda that really diminishes and tries to erase from memory the difficult parts of our past, isn't a genuine patriotism. we should all as americans be deeply, deeply concerned about these anti-historyaws. because what they're attempting to do is control our memory and control our understanding of our country. when texas ceded, it was to for a slaveholdinrepublic. if you don't teach that, children are not able to understand all of the inequality they have today. timothy snyder, the historian, is a historian who studies authoritarianism. he talks about how these laws we're seeing passed across the country, including in my home state of iowa where i am now, trying to pass an anti-1619 project law that failed and came back and succefully passed

into critical race theory law which has educators in the state that launched my career where i was educated, afraid to teach the work i have done. what they do is en you start to see these memory loss, start to see nations that are port authoritarianism. the idea of banning books, the idea that policies will use the power of the state to prevent the teaching of ideas that they do not like is not incidental, amy. i know you know this. there also passing laws to make it harder for citizens to vote. they are passing laws that pl back on democracy. passing laws that make it harder for women to choo their own reproductive health. all of these things are related. whether you love or hate the 1619 project, we should not be accepting the society where the state has the power to control what text we learn from and what

ideas we can understand. and more important, how we understand the truth about our country. amy: when you won the pulitzer prize for commentary your introductory essay to the 1619 project last year, you wrote -- "ida b. wells and i were awarded the pulitzer on the same day. how can i not believe that the ancestors intervened on this moment? i will sit in the truth of how she, how they, cleared a path for me, how they endured so that i and the #1619project could be." ida b. wells was formerly enslaved and went on to be a crusading anti-lynching journalist. she received a special posthumous pulitzer citation for her outstanding and courageous reporting. you are the co-founder of the ida b. wells society for investigative reporting. can you talk about her pioneering role and what this meant to receive a pulitzer on the same day so many years later? >> absolutely.

i have long said and claimed ida b wells as my godmother. she was the first example of a black woman during the -- doing the journalism i nted to do. i did not know living examples of black women investigative report is when i was young, so she was a pioneering investigative journalist who really brought lynching to a global audience. she would go into town where a black man or woman had just been lynched and she would interview people and she would document. she was one of the early data reporters because she started to collect data on how many lynchings were occurring, the reasons given for the lynchings, and what her reporting showed. she was in true intersection a

woman. she was a suffragist and had to fight both for women's right to vote and against racism within the suffragette movement. she was a civil rights activist. she was a cofounder of the national association for advancement of colored people where she had to fight against gender discrimination as a black woman. in so many ways, she was this pioneering woman to find for civil rights and equal rights across many fronts. and she was a woman largely reviled by white -- i have in my twitter bio, nasty minded philanthropist because that is where "new york times" called ida b. wells. i take great strength from knowing the attacks on me and attacks on my work are really just part of a lineage of what

happens when black women and black women journalists dare to challenge power and authority. so to receive the acknowledgment for this work about the black exrience on e same day that ida b. wells, who like so many never received the acknowledgment they deserve, was deeply gratifying because i do my work in service of them. juan: nikole hannah-jones, i went to go back to your mentioning the preface of your initial exposure to african-american history in a high school class with mr. ray dial, and you will be talking with him this evening, how he initially exposed you to the history that had never been given to you previously, but this would happen sometime in the late 1980's. i guess the fact you had a class at all was no doubt due to the struggles of black and brown

people from prior generation. i am old enough to recall some of the struggles of the 1960's and 19 avenues, particularly, for example, in 19 avenues seven -- in 1977, the abc miniseries "roots" played on national television based on alex haley's book, premier to record audiences across the country. act and basically there were three television networks. it created a similar national debate over race to what the 1619 project has done for this generation. but within a few years, came the reactionary reagan era and capitalist america ait has reatedly throughout its history began to rebury all of those lessons so that another generation had to resurrect it, as you and others have done now in recent years. i am wondering how you feel this

time will be different in terms of not reburying this history in another few years? >> clinic correct the record, not quite that old. i was in highchool -- ju: ok. >> is a sensitive subject when you get to beat a woman my age. there a a couple of differences. one, clearly, we are in a moment of backlash right now. we know in the 1980's, reagan really tried to do some similar things to what we are seeing now, that there was a conservative backlash against the teaching more inclusive and honest histories. we are saying that as we speak, this is what we're talking about. we are seeing a wave of actual

laws acrosthe country that are trying to censor how we can talk about racial inequity and the history of racism, and really, the history the people who are not white in general stop i think we have to be very concerned about the echoes of history and what that means because otherwise, we will have to keep relitigating this path again and again and see this perpetual backbiting. the difference now, though, we just have more democratic access to information. there aren't 23 new stations anymor there are people able to get out information and access information they did not have before. i am doing my work not from a small publication somewhere, but from "the new york times." it is not possible i think what powerful people to completely erase the knowledge that folks

are getting. in fact, would not be seeing all of these laws being passed in millions of americans were not embracing this and wanting to learn more and really wanting to confront the truth of who we are. juan: specifically, about this resurgence in the greater attention now to antiracism occurring in corporate america, occurring any university campuses -- on university campuses, ministers and corporate leaders recently talking about diversity, equity, and inclusion. they even have a new acronym on their list. all kinds of research projects, foundation funds, plans to diversify staff, yet most of these institutions continue to pursue exploitative connections to the mass of black and brown communities around them. what is your view the pitfalls

of this current type of focus that we have to be vigilant? >> ok, so if you follow me on twitter at all, you know i would never use the word "willss." it is -- "wokeness." what i will say is one thing i do have in common with conservatives on this is i do ink -- not race, not for the reasons they say. it is extremely superficial. that all of these corporations that last year when black lives matter, all of these institutions, including congress , who were saying this is going to be a transformative moment, they did a lot of performance.

dei training and training your square on instagram black, that is performance. if it go more than your out, what kind of change do we see at these institutions? the answer is, almost none. i tend to not really be that interested in those trainings. i do not think there are harmful like the rank would have you think and i don't think they are harming individuals or making individuals feel they don't have a right, but i do think in general they are ineffective in many organizations use tm as a shield against having to do the actual work. amy: nikole hannah-jones, you write about your dad in the introductory chapter. we started in waterloo. let's go there again. you talk in the end of the first chapter of "the 1619 project" by

saying -- john "we were told once by virtue of our bondage we could never be american, but it was by virtue of our bondage that we became the most american of all." can you talk about your father and your feelings about him flying the american flag outside your childhood home and what you came to understand? >> sure. my dad was born on a cotton plantation to sharecropping family in mississippi in 1945 at a time when black people had virtually no rights of citizenship. mississippi was nearly a complete apartheid state. he was a black man who did not get full rights to citizenship in this country until he had lived into his 20's. of course, the full right to citizenship did not come with equality.

when i was a teenager and my dad was a military veteran, black people served in the military at the highest rates of all racial groups, and he was very prouof his service. he flew a flag in our front yard. it was probably 15 feet but in my mind, it was 100 feet tall and i did not understand why this black and -- man would display his patriotism so hourly. it seemed almost demeaning to me to show such our pride in a country that did not show him with basic to eddie. i work through this in an essay on democracy, which is the opening essay for the book, literally talking about the parallel role black americans played in democratizing the country. for centuries, work to force the country to live up to its founding creed. i came to understand my dad's

pride was not in that kind of patriotism that amicus is optional and america is the greatest nation in the world, but a pride in saying our ancestors blt so much of what ma this country prosperous. our ancestors blood is in the soil. they fought every war most of our ancestors are the reason we have the semblance of democracy we have and one has a right to take that heritage from us. it goes back to that line you just read. black people were not given citizenship in this country until the passage of the 14th amendment, or not given the right to citizenship until the passage of civil rights bills in the 1960's. and yet because black people were the only forced immigrant in this countryforced to lose our language, our connected your

home country, any other emigrants can bring food from the country come a clothes from the country, they can write to family members, go back to visit. black people had that completely erased, which means this is our country. we are a product of the new world in a way that no other group of people are. and i wanted us to be able to claim the heritage of the land we built. juan: nikole hannah-jones, you are a much decorated journalist. you won many words. yet you say that media are failing at the time people needed the most. can you tell us how and why that is? >> this program is called democracy now! and i think our democracy is in danger. if you look at the report that came out yesterday that listed

the united states as a democracy backting for the first time, if you look at the more than 150 scholars of democracy who have signed open letters saying we are losing our democracy, our democracy is erodi. if you look at the fact republicans are passing laws so intensely gerrymanderg their favor, they can maintain power for decades without winning the majority of the votes, a wave of butter restriction laws that we have not seen since jim crow, and yet the political reporting -- not all of them, clearly, but too many of them are still reporting on this as if we're just engaged in normal horserace politics. they'rerying to report from nor that legitimizes a political party that is making it clear they don't believe in democracy. i am very concernedbout that. as a black journalist, as a

journalist who comes from the tradition of journalism that could never tend to be objective, could not pretend all of our institutions will hold in the face of authoritarianism, i think we are ill-prepared for the moment we are in. i think too many political reporters have too much faith in our political system and there is no evidence to back up that faith. i just hope before it is too late, enough of us get an understanding that we can't cover what is happening in our country right now as politics as usual. and you cannot dismiss these columns -- scholars who are raising the alarm. we have to do better. we know reporting the price is the firewall of our democracy. i do not think it is holding right now. amy: as we wrap up, i want ask about this moment that you're talking about. yet the inquiry into the riot, the insurrection of january 6

been led by house panel any of the three trials of the rittenhouse trial that just wrapped up, not guilty on all counts for kyle rittenhouse, killed two people and critically wounded a third. you have the charlottesville white supremacy trial, and you have the jury in brunswick, georgia, now that is determining the fate of three white men, including a former police officer, georgia d.a. indicted for protecting him, but these three white men charged with hunting got and murdering 25-year-old ahmaud arbery. so we are in the closing arguments now and a nearly all-white panel of 12 jurors and three alternates are hearing the rebuttal from prosecutors today. yesterday the defense attorney laura hogue, who represents greg mcmichael, the former cop, claimed -- blamed arbery's actions for his own death. >> turning ahmaud arbery into a

victim after the choices he made to stop -- does not reflect the reality of what brought ahmaud arbery to satilla shores. in his khaki shorts with no socks to cover his long dirty toenails. amy: that drew a gasp from the courtroom. ahmaud's mother left the courtroom briefly. can you comment on what she has said and what these trials are about? >> you know, even for someone doesn't tend to get shocked by the way that black americans can be humanized in the legal system and society at large, that was just a shocking, shocking moment.

what we are seeing -- i really do hope the viewers and listeners will get "the 1619" because what we are seeing is laid out in the book. this idea that black people are a separate and distinct group of humans who are inherently suspiciousthr presence is a lethal weapon. so even if you have three armed men who are chasindown an unarmed person, that that is legitimate. the idea that random white citizens have the ahority to stop and question a black person and if that black person does not comply, they canse lethal force -- that is a legacy of the slave patrol, whi jeopardizes all white americans with the ability to question and stop and detain like people.

all we're saying, charlottesville, the insurrection on the capitol, george floyd, the rittenhouse trial which goes to a long legacy of white people who fight for black lives will receive the same for justice that black people receive -- i think we have to decide if we're going to grapple honestly with our country or not. the kind of defining tension, the defining divide of american life begins in 1619 with the introduction of african slavery. even our very democracy, the idea that we are the oldest continuing democracy in the world, was predicated on excluding black people, predicated on a democracy that for the first 100 years -- i'm sorry, 200 years, was a democracy of white men.

and now that we have a democracy that includes all kinds of people of color and women, our democracy is very frail. i think we are in scary times. we are in times where it is going to require a great deal of courage on behalf of our fellow americans. i am, frankly, just not seeing enough of it. amy: nikole hannah-jones, thank you for spending this time with us, pulitzer prize-winning journalist covering racial justice for the new york times magazine and creator of the landmark 1619 project. she is the coeditor of "the 1619 project: a new origin story" and the adaptation of the 1619 project for children, titled "born on the water." best of luck tonht in waterloo. next up, world renowned dissident and link list noam chomsky on president biden's

foreign policy. stay with us. ♪♪ [music break] amy: this is democracy now!, democracynow.org, the war and peace report. i'm amy goodman. we ended today show with noam chomsky. nermeen shaikh and i had a chance to speak with him on monday and asked him about his assessment of president biden's foreign policy. >> well, the trajectory is not optimistic biden has pretty much picked up

trump's foreign policy. eliminated some of the more gratuitously savage elements, and the pace of -- case of palestine, for example, trump was not satisfied withust giving everything wh you want, offering noing to the palestinians, just kicking them in the face, even if you had to go beyond the true due to this savagery --

gratuitous savage he, like cutting off thlifelineor palestinians to be minimal their survival in the israeli hunting back in gaza. even tha biden removed those things. on iran, he made some verbal moves toward overcoming a crime of u.s. withdrawal from the agreement but is insisting on perpetuating trump's position that it is the responsibility of iran, the victim, to move toward a harsher agreement because the united states pulled out of an agreement that was working. the worst case is the increasing provocative actions toward china. that is very dangerous. i now there is constant talk of what is called the china threat.

what is -- we have to move expeditiously to limit the china threat. what exactly is the china threat? that question is reallraised here -- really raised here. it is discussed in australia, a country at is right inhat call of the dragon recently extinguished statesm, former prime minister paul keating, nasa from the australian press about the -- an essay from the ashley and press, concluded realistically the china threat is kind his existence. the u.s. will not tolerate the existence of a state that cannot be intimidated the way europe can be, not follow u.s. orders

the way europe does but pursues its own course. that is the threat. we talk about the threat of china, we're talking about the alleged threats at china's borders. china does plenty of ong things, terrible things. you can have many criticisms. but are they a threat? is the u.s. support for israel's terrorist war against julian people in gaza -- 2 million people in gaza were children are being poisoned because under one million children are facing poisoning for nontradable water? is that a threat to china? it is a horrible crime, but it is not a threat to china.

serious abuses thathina is carrying out our wrong, can condemn them, they arnot a threat right at the same time australians teaching of the military correspondent highly knowledgeable did an assessment of the relative military power of china and in their own region of china and united states and its allies japan and australia, laughable. a simmering now being -- a simmering now being replaced by even more lethal once. a submarine can destroy almost 200 cities anywhere in the world

with its nuclear weapons. china in the south china sea has four old noisy submanes which cannot even get out because they're contained by superior u.s. and allied force. in the united states is sending a fleet of nuclear submarines to australia -- [indiscernible] which have no stragic purpose whatsoever. they will not even be in operation for 15 years, but they do insight china almost certainly to build up its leading military forces, increasing the level of confrontation. there are bigger problems that

can be met with diplomacy and negotiations. the regional powers taking the lead. but the right measure is not increasing provocation, increasing the threat of an accidental delopment which could le to devastating, even terminal, nuclear war. but that is the direction of the biden administration is following, expansion of the trump ograms. that is the core of their foreign policy programs. amy: professor noam chomsky. he will be joining us on our 20 for the anniversary on the celebration december 7 at 8:00 p.m. eastern time with credit to break, angela davis, arundhati roy, winona laduke, and more. visit democracynow.org for details.

that test it our show. the warmest of congratulations on the amihan. democracy now! is looking for feedback from people who appreciate the closed captioning.