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tv   Velshi  MSNBC  February 7, 2021 6:00am-7:00am PST

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counting. and president biden pledges to push ahead with covid relief but says he's willing to negotiate on who gets help. will democrats agree to a plan that sends relief checks to fewer americans than trump did? "velshi" starts now. ♪♪ good morning. it is sunday, february the 7th. there are two days until the start of the second impeachment trial of the failed former president for incitement of insurrection and we continue to learn more about his attempt to destroy american democracy and how close he came to doing it. the "new york times" reports, the failed former president almost brought disgraced former lieutenant general and convicted felony michael flynn back into the government as either chief of staff or even, get this, director of the fbi. the same fbi michael flynn lied to about his secret back-channel
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contacts with russian officials. not only that, flynn is a devote conspiracy theorists, he's put forth outlandish views in december when he advised the failed former president during a cable tv interview and days later during a meeting at the white house to invoke martial law and rerun elections in swing states won by joe biden. that man was nearly one of the most powerful people in the united states government right around the same time the failed former president was heavily pressuring republican officials in select states to commit voter fraud and overturn results of the election. imagine georgia republican officials instead of showing courage and standing up with him, going along with that lie. how very close he came to destroying american democracy. at least 17 senate republicans are needed to admit the truth that this individual who is residing at his tropical golf
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resort is not fit to serve as the commander in chief, that donald trump directly incited a violent group of his followers to try to overthrow the u.s. capitol. something those insurecting admitted they were doing. they were following his every word as this new video shows. >> donald trump asked everybody to go home. he just put out a tweet, it's a minute long. he asked everybody to go home. >> at the same time much of the republican party across the country appears to be digging deeper into the depths with donald trump even after he led them out of power and into the minority. yesterday less than two weeks after arizona's gop voted to censure john mccain's widow, former senator jeff flake and the current governor, the wyoming gop voted to censure liz
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cheney, the third-ranking in the house gop leadership for accepting reality and voting to impeach the failed former president. and the nebraska gop is set to vote to censure republican senator ben sasse for having the gal to criticized former failed president. what was that republicans were saying about free speech, about being silenced and muzzled. the resolution the wyoming republican party put forth is filled with lies and conspiracy fiction such as the siege of the capitol being instigated by antifa and blm radicals. in another statement devoid of reality, one of the individuals backing the measure said we need to honor president trump. the republican party needs to put her, meaning liz cheney, on notice. he has that entirely wrong. it's his dear leader donald who has been put on notice. his second impeachment trial starts in two days. joining me now kimberly atkins. the co-host of the
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sisters-in-law podcast. the best-named podcast i've seen in years. she's an msnbc contributor. her latest piece for "the boston globe" dives into obstruction which should very familiar. kimberly, what unfolds this week? what actually happens? this is a trial that is even clearer than the last impeachment trial of donald trump. senators are saying they'll listen to the evidence. but in fact it seems that political considerations may trump legal considerations as it relates to republican senators. >> i think that's exactly right, ali, and what we will see is, as you said, a very clear presentation of a trial. it shouldn't last more than a week. unlike the first impeachment trial which took place involved the ukraine which is a faraway place, trying to explain to someone what quid pro quo was or
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not. this unfolded before americans' eyes in reality and the jurors are witnesses to what happened because they were there. they were there when this violent insurrection took place at the u.s. capitol and they heard or either in realtime or soon after the words that came out of the president's mouth that preceded it. so the case is very straight forward. it's the politics, as you said. i was struck watching your piece last hour about myanmar and what's happening there and joe biden condemning it, condemning people for trying to punish an elected leader. that's something that we usually condemn when we see it other countries. here we're seeing republicans punish members of their own party for failing to demonstrate enough fealty for their leader, donald trump. and that fear is likely going to play the biggest role if the
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republicans in the senate fail to convict on what seems to be a very clear case of incitement by donald trump. >> it's interesting you mention that. on far right sites, you see a lot of people who might have been the kind of people who were at that insurrection talking about how myanmar got it right. maybe that's what we need to have here in america. i want to talk about other objection that's going on. senator lindsey graham had refused to hold a hearing for merrick garland, the incoming attorney general. where do we stand on that? >> so it will probably be weeks before there is a senate-confirmed attorney general in the united states which is really remarkable given that joe biden was inaugurated back on the 20th of january and needs to set up a government that has been decimated. so many of the departments were decimated by the loss of personnel in the trump administration including the justice department. you also had a justice department where we've discussed many times had become
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politicized under attorney general barr. so you need to have a new attorney general come in, set the agenda, try to restaff, try to refocus the justice department when it has so much to do in terms of criminal justice reforms, also prosecuting the folks who took part in this incitement that's going on, but that's going on without a permanent leader in place. and the republicans delayed before turning over the gavel and control to democrats in the senate and as a result also failed to set up a confirmation for merrick garland. of course he's used to waiting for a confirmation hearing. he spent a lot of time in 2016 doing that. but the american people -- there's work that needs to be done on behalf of the american people and this is impeding that from happening. >> not only is there work to be done, but as many of your sisters-in-law have said on this show, there's work to be done in rebuilding the department of
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justice, the morale in that department is very low after the trump administration. great to see you again. kimberly atkins is "the boston globe" columnist. defense secretary lloyd austin, the first black american in the role is taking aim at domestic extremism existing within the ranks of america's military. he's ordering demanding officers and supervisors to take one day within the next two months to lead discussions focusing on, quote, the importance of our oath of office adding we will not tolerate actions that go against the fundamental principles of the oath we share including actions associated with extremists. joining me now, james clyburn of south carolina. he's also the chair of the select -- subcommittee on the coronavirus crisis. congressman, good to see you. thank you for being with us this morning. i want to start with you on the -- we have a lot to talk about. let's start with the relief bill. what's the timeline for this relief bill and how do you think
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it's going to go? do you think it's the kind of thing that's going to have some republican support or are democrats going to go this alone? >> first of all, thank you very much for having me. i do believe we'll get some republican support. i think this program is exactly what is needed at this particular juncture. the president has told us that he's not going to sacrifice the americans' need in order to get republican support, but i'm hopeful that we'll get some. i've talked to a lot of them that i know who would love to support this. but i think those who believe that we ought to target these resources a little better have an argument to make. and i think the president has decided that he will listen to their argument on this. but not to cut anything but redirect them so it will help those most in need. that's what we ought to be
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doing. i chair the select subcommittee on the coronavirus and i can tell you we have had some instances where people got funds who should not have gotten them. and we've revealed some of that. and to the extent through our republican colleagues would like to focus on that, since they didn't during the trump administration, we will let them focus on it now. >> it sounds to me like you think that this idea of some bipartisanship can actually work. joe biden has said there's some things he won't compromise on. but it does seem at least those ten senators -- or 11 senators who came to the white house the other day, did seem to be working in good faith. do you believe that to be true? >> yes, i know some of them. i know some of them pretty well. i know senator portman. i think he's a guy who really believes in trying to find common ground. i do not know others as well as
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i know him. but from their reputations, i think they would like to find common ground. and finding common ground is not capitulating. i don't know why we should give up on trying to find common ground. we should. that's the way people would like for us to operate. but also people do not want us to capitulate. and so we aren't going to do that. we will continue to try to find common ground. >> representative clyburn, i want to ask you, you tweeted out about black history month. you said, i want to reflect on the shoulders we stand upon and those who paved the ways for us, that includes eight black representatives from south carolina. it's on their shoulders which i stand so i may serve today. you often talk about this because of your connection to the civil rights movement and the history of your state which has been very grim at points. you are celebrating the fact that you are the ninth.
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>> yes. i am the ninth. a lot of people tend not to realize that reconstruction over the last 12 years and every congress -- black congressman from south carolina served since reconstruction. several of them got elected during reconstruction. but every one of them served post reconstruction. so after 1877, people like robert smalls, a lot of people know robert smalls and his role in recruiting 40,000 african-americans to fight in the civil war. were it not for those 45 black soldiers fighting on the side of the union in the civil war, a lot of historians believe that war would not have been won. and so black people can go all the way back to
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postreconstruction and to prereconstruction in order to see the contributions we've made to this country. that civil war really ended -- or started the beginning of reconstruction and black soldiers fought in that war and made the difference, according to a lot of historians. so i try very hard, as i go through life, to get young people to understand we all stand on somebody's shoulders and we will do good to give homage to those shoulders upon which we stand. >> i enjoy having you on the show because we can get a little sunday morning history out of you which is always good for my viewers. good to see you, sir, congressman jim clyburn, democrat congressman from south carolina and the chair of the select committee on the coronavirus crisis. joining me now is the chair of the house financial services committee, maxine waters of
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california. congresswoman, great to see you again. thank you for being with us. let's talk a little bit about impeachment. this is a matter dear to your heart. you might have been one of the first people calling for the impeachment of donald trump even before the last impeachment. what do you think is going to happen this week? >> well, first of all, i know that our impeachment managers are going to do a terrific job. if you take a look at the briefs that they've already exposed somewhat, you will see that they have the information, they have the facts and they have connected the dots and they're going to make a great presentation. i know that the president lost some of his attorneys who refused to buy into the argument that there had been election fraud and he was really elected president. and so at the last minute, he's gotten these attorneys and they're going to try and put together a defense for him that's going to be weak. it's not going to be good. they're going to attack people like me and they're going to try
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and say that we have done rallies and we've said things that have incited others, but none of us have been involved in what this president has been involved with and i think we're going to see that the planning or the invasion of our capitol started some time ago with these domestic terrorist groups and none of us have been involved in any of those kinds of activities. but they're going to try it. and then, of course, they're going to try to use the argument that it is not constitutional. that you cannot impeach a president who is no longer the president. but it's going to be weak. it's going to be flawed. and the american people are going to see that they don't have a -- and so i don't know what the republicans are going to do, unfortunately. many of them are so --
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>> i've lost the audio of maxine waters. i'm going to ask my director -- we have lost the audio, unfortunately. we're going to try and get maxine waters back. i want to talk to her about what she just said, donald trump's defense attorneys are actually going to invoke her and others and things that they have said to say that they too were invoking rioting or violence. that's not actually the case. and i do want to ask my director if he's got that. if he can play that for my audience so we can hear what it is that the defense -- donald trump's defense is going to use as it relates to maxine waters. >> let's make sure we show up wherever we have to show up and if you see anybody from that cabinet in a restaurant, in a department store, at a gasoline station, you get out and you create a crowd. and you push back on them. and you tell them that they're
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not welcome anymore anywhere! we've got to get the children connected to their parents, the children are suffering. >> i think we've got maxine waters back. congresswoman, sorry about that. i was able to play that clip that you were referring to from june 23rd, 2018, where you're asking people to confront republicans at department stores, gas stations and restaurants and tell them they're not welcome. that's the stuff that donald trump's attorneys say proves that you and others are doing the same thing donald trump was doing on january 6th and in the days before that. what's the difference? >> they're going to try it but nothing any democrat that i know of have ever said or acted in the way the president of the united states has acted. people must realize this president was out to destroy our democracy if he could not be president. he sent those people, those
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domestic terrorists to the capitol to take over the capitol. even they are saying so. they're saying they were invited by the president. the president was rallying them right before they went. he told them to be tough. he told them to take back their government. and so nothing equals that. yes, i defended those poor children in cages that the trump administration has left there separated from their parents and there was a movement at the time where restaurants were denying members of his administration, of his cabinet and saying you guys should speak up for the children. and so that does not in any way equal what this president has said and what he has done. as a matter of fact, the republicans should be afraid not only about the destruction of our democracy, but if they continue to support him and allow themselves to be guided by him, they're going to have to
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live with a president that dictates to them every vote they can take, every vote they cannot take, he's going to be in their primaries, they will be owned by this dishonorable human being. and it's that's how they want to live, if they would rather be owned by the president who in fact tried to destroy our democracy in order to stay in office, then they don't deserve to be elected. and so no matter what he says about me or nancy pelosi, cory booker or anybody they're going to point to, it won't work. it won't work at all because nothing matches the way this president has tried to destroy this democracy. >> so let me ask you because this is what they're going to say. can you say that you have not glorified or encouraged violence against republicans? >> absolutely, i can say it. as a matter of fact, if you look at the words that i used, the strongest thing i was was tell them they're not welcome. talk to them. tell them they're not welcome.
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i didn't say go and fight. i didn't say anybody was going to have any violence. and so they can't make that statement. >> maxine waters, thank you for being with us as always. next time we have you on, i hope we're going to be able to talk more policy about some of the stuff on the financial services committee because we need to get down to business about getting things right for the american people. good to see you. maxine waters, democratic congresswoman from california and the chair of the house financial services committee. 11 republicans voted to remove marjorie taylor greene from her committees. but given what has been revealed about greene, why didn't all of them vote that way? it speaks volumes about the current state of the gop. we'll break it down next on "velshi." ♪ after we make grilled cheese, ♪ ♪ then we're eating grilled cheese. ♪ ♪ because it's time. ♪ ♪ yeah. ♪ ♪ time for grilled cheese. ♪ obsession has many names. this is ours.
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riddle me this. a couple is two people, a minion is ten, a jury is 12. what do you call 11 people? in the case of 11 house republicans who joined the 219 democrats in voting to remove georgia congresswoman marjorie taylor greene from her committee assignments you call it a good start with a very big caveat. the resolution punishing greene was barely more than a page long. house rules require members of congress to reflect on the chamber and pointed to greene being removed for conduct she has exhibited. that conduct including supporting violence against her fellow members of congress and
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embracing conspiracy theories about 9/11 and mass school shootings as well as advancing a theory on junk physics that included the use of jewish laser beams to set forest fires in california. despite all of that, nearly every republican in congress voted against stripping greene of her committee assignments. only 11 found it within themselves to do what was right and remove her from the education and labor and budget committees to which she was assigned. keep in mind, it never should have reached this point. removing a member from committee is something reserved for the party's leader, in this case kevin mccarthy. he's dreaming about winning back the house in 2022 to be bothered with hurting the current bag of antidemocratic cats. there's a bigger issue here and one that we must contend. marjorie taylor greene's idiocy is low-hanging fruit.
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if they can't get this one right, how can they get the hard stuff right? marjorie taylor greene was literally the easiest vote nobody should ever had to take and yet the majority of republicans in congress got it wrong. that would be depressing if it wasn't so frightening. last november nearly 156 million americans voted in the presidential election. it tells us that americans are invested in the country and in their futures and whether you agree with his policies or not, the winner of that election, joe biden, is known for reaching across the aisle to get things done. that's a tough thing to do even when congress and the senate aren't as divided as they are now. seeing 11 members of congress, these 11 members who put politics aside in this politically charged instrument in which we now live shouldn't be noteworthy, but it is.
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president biden and his democratic colleagues on capitol hill are ready to charge ahead with their nearly $2 trillion covid relief bill and the need for aid grows more urgent by the day. last week 780,000 americans filed initial unemployment claims and it's no secret that the pandemic-induced recession continues to affect people of color with these groups baring the brunt of the higher unemployment rates. the numbers highlight challenges for lawmakers, bridging the racial divide within our economy. joining me now is kai wright, the most of the united states of anxiety on wnyc and a contributor to 400 souls, a election of essays that reflect on african-american history. good to see you.
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thank you for being with us. >> good morning. >> what's your takeaway of the opportunity we have here to sort of fix system racism in the way we deal with things while we're in the middle of this pandemic? >> it's interesting right after the election, you know, we had a bunch of call-ins on our show where we asked that question. what i heard time and time again that i actually agree with deeply is that the first step is going to have to be a lot of honesty about the political conversation we're having, you know. and thus far, it does seem that the biden administration is prepared to have that kind of honest conversation and it's about acknowledging, you know, when you look at our history from 1619 forward, we have to acknowledge that not everybody is equally invested in the project. that there's not a -- on the
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idea we want to put into our constitution following the civil war. the first thing is being honest about that. you can't negotiate towards something if not everybody agrees on the goal. i think that's the first big step. we have to be honest that not everybody wants to see racial justice in the united states -- >> this is interesting. i'm intrigued about that. i agree with you. but i wonder to what degree the last year and the social justice movements have caused some people who thought about it passively or maybe not at all realized that it's real. did that -- in your opinion, are more people invested in it than they were a year ago? >> i think certainly demonstrably. but i think one of the challenges is, we talk about our politics when we talk about the way americans are divided. we don't mean the residents of -- the people who have called the united states home. we mean the electorate, right? and those are not the same things. and i think the vast majority, i believe, maybe i'm naive, i
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believe the vast majority of americans of all races actually want to see a multiracial society with shared opportunity and universal citizenship and the ideas that are in our 14th and 15th amendment, but a meaningful minority don't. and those people hold an outsized amount of power in our democracy because of the way it's been designed. that's what i mean about being honest. we have to be honest about that, right, as we start to move reforms through the senate, we have to be honest about that the senate is not actually a democratic institution. it doesn't reflect the majority opinions of the united states. it was built to maintain a minority opinion in the united states. so there's just some honesty that we have to get to. >> yeah, you write in your essay that white supremacy became the norm in america because white men who felt threatened wrote laws to faster and codified laws to maintain it. they can maintain it with the same intention today if we allow it. what does not allowing it look like to you, kai?
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>> well, i think it's -- it looks like many, many things. i think it looks like the movements we saw this summer, to your point. i think it looks like importantly, you know -- americans of all races, but certainly white americans not growing tired with the fight. one of the lessons from our history -- there are two lessons in our history, the ones i have in the essay that say, you know, racism and white supremacy didn't come by accident. it came with intention and great care and great effort over many, many decades and centuries. racial justice will only come with the same intention and care. and what we've seen in our history is that white americans have grown tired of the struggle. they'll have these moments like we saw in 2020, but will then grow tired of the conflict that comes with that. one of the things that not allowing it looks like is that everybody can't grow tired, can't say, well, we got this far. there's been a change in the federal government. we'll just let the biden
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administration do whatever it is they're going to do. you have to then continue to hold the biden administration and the democratic party as accountable to racial justice as people were prepared to hold the trump administration. >> but it's circular, right? if you argue that many people think that racial injustice and racism is happenstance and it happened to be a by-product of how we came to be versus the 1619 project which describes the ways in which it was codified, it describes the way that southern states were built on prison lease labor, they were forced to catch runaway slaves and enforce that forced labor after slavery. unless you re-read your own history, you don't get a chance to see that was deliberate, we're going to have to deliberately undo it? >> yeah, one of the things that the last year in our country's
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life did was help more people see it that way. it was help more people see the intention behind it. you were talking earlier in the show about the republican party's vote on marjorie taylor greene. the fact that there were only 11 republicans in the senate who were willing to say that this -- these ideas are outside the bounds of appropriateness for political discourse i think was revelations for a lot of people and there have been a lot of moments like that where more people were able to say, this didn't just happen. more than 300,000 people died of covid not just because, but because we made choices to allow it to happen and how much was that tied to who those people were, to the racial disparities that you laid out? so, yes, i think there are more people who are willing to hear the history that we're writing in a book like "400 souls" and that is a hopeful moment we're in. >> it's a great book.
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i love the fact that i can describe it's 80 or 90 essays. you don't have to -- just read little bits. thank you. i think the covid example really does make a lot of sense. 463 people are dead. they didn't have to be dead. they're dead because of choices. that's a compressed timeline that we can see this. over 400 years, it's harder to see. i appreciate the work you've done in putting this book together. kai wright is a contributor of "400 souls" and a host of "the united states of anxiety". more on our history next on "velshi." on our history next o "velshi. sing cadet for world war ii. she was only 17. bring your family history to life like never before. get started for free at ancestry.com
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former first lady michelle obama said in her 2016 dnc speech, quote, i wake up every morning in a house built by slaves. the history of the united states is brief and slavery was abolished 155 years ago. it wasn't just the white house that was built using slave labor, by the way. the building that serves as the united states capitol was built and rebuilt using slave labor after its sacking in the war of 1812. most northern states had abolished slavery by 1804, it had its fair share of symbols
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erected. the trinity church in new york, the clergy rented enslaved people. many of our forefathers were enslavers, thomas jefferson's entire property was built and run by enslaved people. and slaved people helped build our intellect centers. many schools with storied histories were built by enslaved people including harvard university's law school and the university of north carolina. it was maintained by slave labor until 1865. poor recordkeeping and indifference by early historians makes it impossible to know every contribution to these buildings, but there's no doubt about how they got built. for sr 7 moisturizers
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america celebrates black history month every year. there are 400 years worth of struggles of african-americans and the sad reality is, the struggle continues today. not only is there a broken policing culture centered around systemic racism in this country, but also an education system that fails to teach america's racist history. what a child learns depends on where they live and whether their teachers are prepared to teach them the truth. children in schools in chicago and washington, d.c., uses resources that reframes slavery. but in arkansas and iowa, there are moves to forbid it. what would this country look like if the nation as a whole taught antiracist values in school? my next guest is an antiracist scholar, dr. ibram x. kendi. he gathered writers to use
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different perspectives to tell the story of black america. the book is called "400 souls." in it he says in part, quote, racist power kept constructing black america over 400 years. but the antiracist power within the souls of black folk reconstructed black america in the same way we're reconstructing ourselves in this book. we reconstructed them, became we, to allow i to become me. the introduction written by dr. kendi sets up the importance of the journey. the word community is the best word to encapsulate black history, to be black in america is almost never to be treated like an individual. dr. ibram x. kendi joins me now. the editor of "400 souls." good to see you again. thank you for being with us. in your book you write we shall
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overcome, we shall overcome some day. there's no better word than me. the emphasis on me starts in the earliest pages of this book. tell me more about that. >> thank you so much for having me on and, you know, we're excited. the other co-editor of this book, we're excited to have this book out in the world because these 90 writers in many ways reflect and in many ways are sampling of this incredibly diverse community known as black america. and what i mean by that is, one of the oldest racist ideas is this idea that black people are monolith, that we're all the same. that when you see a single black person acting negatively, you're actually viewing millions of people acting negatively, not a single black person. and so this community of writers, we're able to really show the true diversity of this
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community and if we're writing a history of the community, why not bring together history of community to do so. >> you write in the book on the writers of the 400-year journey, collectively the choir singssur struggle, of death, of life, of joy, of racism, of antiracism, of creation and of destruction. you refer to these 90 writers as a choir. and they are all people descended of enslaved people in america. what's the significance of so many writers telling this story? >> well, historically, history, whether american history, whether african-american history, has typically been written by a single person. oftentimes a man. and so you have a man trying to write the history of a large and diverse community, which includes women. and so we decided as 2019 was
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approaching, you know, again, why not completely rethink how we write history by bringing together a number of different writers, older writers, younger writers, indeed descendants of enslaved africans of the united states, light skin black folks, dark skin black folks. a true community that reflects, you know, black america. >> dr. kendi, stand by. i want to talk to you about how this makes its way into education curriculums and how it's not just a black history month thing. stay with me. i'll be back with you in just a moment. i may not be able to tell time, but i know what time it is. [whispering] it's grilled cheese o'clock.
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there's a saying that tomorrow is never promised, but for the african-american community, that wasn't the only thing not guaranteed. dr. ibram kendi writes he's surprised the black community thrived and survived even when life was deprived. only slavery and racism seemed to be promised. back with me is ibram kendi. it is kind of amazing that, for generations, nothing good was promised. what did your exploration of 400 years of african-american history tell you about how people that oppressed, that punished, that devalued were
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able to survive and thrive? >> i think this really speaks to why keisha blaine and i decided on the title "400 souls" for this text because in many ways, when you think of soul, you think of something that's almost sort of supernatural. that's almost a miracle. and in many ways, black folks are deeply human and have always been deeply human. but at the same time, what african-americans have been able to overcome over the course of 400 years, in many ways, is a miracle. and i think this book speaks to and really tells so many stories of ordinary people doing extraordinary things. and i think that's what really makes this book so beautiful. >> the deeply human part is interesting because slavery was based on the idea that black people were not actually human at all, let alone deeply human. one of the quotes from the book,
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from your part of it is the 20 negroes stepped off the ship and saw british faces they didn't know. they didn't know their lives would never be the same. they didn't know they would never see their community again. i contrast this with news out of places like mississippi and iowa and arkansas where there are bills proposed to ban certain lessons, including the type of thing that you're writing about or the 1619 project. this country has survived on the ability to wash over and erase black history. this is a new fight. this is a brand-new thing. when this history was not front and center, people didn't have to put laws in to push them off. but now it is, and now they do. >> precisely because, i think what the american people are trying to figure out is why is it that black people are dying at twice the rates that white people are from covid-19? why is it that black people are
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disproportionately incarcerated and impoverished? there's only two answers to that question. either there's something wrong with black people or there's something wrong with our history of policies and practices. and those who are behind those policies and practices, they're not going to want everyday americans to know that history. they are instead going to want americans to continue to think that there's something wrong with black people, and there's nothing more divisive in our politic for us to think that there's something wrong with another group of americans. but that's what we've been taught. and we're trying to teach a different history. >> kai wright made a point to me earlier that what has to happen is that white people need to not get tired of this struggle. they'll ride the wave for a little and then say this is too much. how do we stop that from happening? how do we make sure if there's some momentum to this because of the social justice protests and george floyd that this is
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allowed to continue? >> i think if there's anything we learn or should learn from african-american history, from american history, from certainly 400 souls is that there is no progress without pain. and we know that from our own lives. when we go have a serious illness and we have to go through treatment, as i did when i had to battle stage 4 colon cancer, we're not going to get treated. we're not going to be able to heal without pain. and so some americans, certainly some white americans, imagine that we can heal this country without pain, and that's just not possible. >> dr. kendi, thank you for joining me today. a professor and founding director for anti-racist research at the boston university. he is the co-editor of "400 souls" which we will be featuring all this month. that does it for me. catch me here next saturday and sunday mornings from 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m.
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and you can now listen to the velshi show podcast. look for it wherever you get your podcast. stick around. "the sunday show" with jonathan capehart begins right now. ♪♪ 48 hours. that's how long before the senate begins the second impeachment trial of donald trump. house majority leader steny hoyer, senator richard blumenthal and congressman hakeem jeffries are here with a preview. president biden is pushing ahead with his covid relief bill. we'll talk specifics with senator tina smith and congresswoman sheila jackson lee. and tampa, florida, mayor jane casser will be here to talk about a super bowl sunday like no other. i'm jonathan capehart, and this is "the sunday show." on tuesday,he

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