Become a
sustaining member of the Commonwealth Club for just $10 a month. Well, hey there. Welcome to today's virtual program
of the Commonwealth Club. My name is Joshua Johnson. I'm a journalist and host of the upcoming
podcast, The Night Lights, which you can find at night
light show dot com. Before we dove
in, the club would like to again thank the Bernard Shaw Foundation
for supporting today's Good Lit events. And this is going to be a great live event
because I am looking forward to talking about the book step
from the beginning, presented in a way that history books are rarely seen
but probably should be seen more often. At least one of our guests is a name
that you should definitely know. The other isn't a name
you're going to know real well, especially the more we dig into this book. First, let me introduce Dr. Ibram X Kendi and Joel Christian Gill. They are the authors of Stamped
From the Beginning A Graphic History
of Racist Ideas in America. Joel Christian Gill is an award
winning cartoonist and a historian. He is the chair of the Masters of Fine
Arts and Visual Narrative Program at Boston University. He's also the author
of the acclaimed memoir Fight One Boys Triumph over Violence. It was cited as one of the best graphic
novels of 2020 by The New York Times and was the winner of the 2021 Cartoonist
Studio Prize. Professor Gill, welcome.
Glad to have you with us. Thanks for having me. Also with us today is Dr. Ibram X Kendi. He is the Andrew W Mellon professor
in the Humanities at Boston University and the founding director of BU's Center
for Anti-Racist Research. If you're not familiar with that term anti-racist, we'll get into that
a lot in the hour ahead. Back in 2022, Time magazine named Dr. Kendi, one of the 100
most influential people in the world. And in 2021,
he was awarded the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship will be
commonly called the Genius Grant. Dr. Kendi, it's
good to see you again. Welcome. Good to see you. How are you? I'm very well. And I'm glad to discuss this
graphic novel. It explores the history
of how racist ideas have shaped American life
and what we can learn from the past to build a more equitable,
anti-racist future. I've got plenty of questions. I promise I will not spoil the book. For those of you who are watching,
because I'm really digging it. And I think there's so much in this, I,
I don't want to give the whole thing away. So we'll try to do as much as we can
to give you a clear idea of what's in it. But not spoil some of the real deep gems
that are in the book. Still,
whether you've read the book or not, and whether you read stamped from the beginning,
the original text that this is based on. You may have some questions either
about this text or just about the nature of how we talk about race, racism,
anti-racism, and the imagery and ideas
underlying all of that. First of all, Professor Kendi, let me begin with you
and this idea of being an anti-racist. I think that idea is foundational. Before we can talk about anything else,
we know generally what racism adds. I think we know what it is
to consider yourself not racist. But you've introduced this idea
over the last few years of being anti-racist, not just I'm
a nice person, I'm not a racist, but affirmatively
calling yourself anti-racist. What is anti-racism? Well, I think it's important
for us to understand being anti-racist
as the actual contrast to being racist. And so if a racist idea suggests, for instance, that a particular
racial group is superior or inferior to another racial group as we document
in our book, then anti-racist ideas suggest the very opposite,
but that the racial groups are equals. If a racist policy is leading to inequity
or injustice between racial groups, then what's the opposite of that? A policy
that's leading to equity and justice. Or if an individual is upholding
a structure of policies that are leading to inequity and injustice,
that person is being racist. But if a person is pushing for a structure
that of policies, that's going to lead to equity and justice for all people, that person is being anti-racist. And. And so I've been trying
to really allow people to recognize that the term not racist
has historically been used by people who were being racist
to exonerate themselves and even deny the ways
in which their ideas and policies are racist,
while to be anti-racist, in some cases actually to acknowledge
those times were being racist. So we can be better. So we can grow. Professor Gill This is a graphic novel
adaptation of Step from the Beginning. Talk about the power of doing this through
imagery instead of just through prose. There's a lot of cultural imagery
that's referred to in stamped from the beginning that I think people will see
in a very different way once we read this. But why adapt this into a graphic novel? Well, comments are a sneaky way
to teach people something. Right. So when you think about the idea
of the shared visual language that we all sort of adhere to, if I were to tell everybody
in the audience, anybody watching to draw a house,
everybody draws the same mouse, right? They draw a square with a rectangle and maybe put some smoke
coming out of the chimney. Everybody draws the exact same house. And we do that because of that
underpinning that some bottle, I think, was a couple of French
philosophers called semiotics. Right. This language of how we how the signs
and symbols work and those signs communicate it
on a subconscious level. So there are often times when you see
a character, you pour yourself into it. So it builds a little bit of empathy. I always say comics are empathy machines,
so you build or you have some empathy with that character. This is why when we see a smiley face,
we recognize it as ourselves as opposed to recognize it
as the other, you know, like the the most. In 2015, the newest word of the year,
the most word of the year was the Alamo. Right. And it was a smiley face. And everybody no one has ever asked
for a smiley face, that yellow smiley face to be the color of their skin,
because we all recognize that it's part that it's a it's a it's
an abstraction of what we are. So drawing comics to tell these stories
does something that prose alone does it. First,
it reaches a large amount of people. It reaches a much broader
amount of people who may not pick up a 579 page history tome,
but would read a comic. Right. For example, my grandmother, who passed
away last year at the age of 90, never. I don't think she ever read novels,
but I'm sure she read com. She read my comics at least. And if she were still here,
she would be reading this book right now while she was taking her dialysis. Right. So I think that that's the that's
what I think connects us to those things. And know, one of the things I think
is really interesting is that I think I was a teenager
before I realized Charlie Brown was white. And it was because of that simplicity
of who he is and how he's drawn. He's basically a smiley face. And because of that,
we put ourselves into him. And it creates empathy. And we know that it's creating empathy
and we can tell because they keep banning them. As we get into this book. Professor Gill,
I just want to pick up on one thing that you were getting
at in terms of these cultural images. I think that another value of this
is a graphic novel, at least from reading the book,
is that so many of these images, like you said, like Charlie Brown,
are just kind of so ingrained culturally. We think nothing of them. They just kind of are there. They're just kind of the background
noise of life. And because they're so ubiquitous,
we never take a moment to go, What is that? Where did that come from? We don't even know how
to look underneath the surface, because I think a lot of these people
may not even know what to look at. And this gives us a chance to sort of
look behind the images
we've taken for granted for so long. Am I hearing you right, Professor
Gates? Yeah. And I think that those I think that
those images, you know, have ability to communicate in ways that we don't
necessarily think about the best comics. When you read the best comics, you're you don't think I'm looking at pictures,
I'm reading words. Right.
You're absorbing it all at the same time. No one's ever stopped and thought,
oh, I'm reading a comic. Right. Because if you do that,
then you failed at making comics. Like at that point,
you're no longer making comics. You're making, you know, clothes
or you're drawing pretty pictures. And I think the best comics
sort of combined those things,
that is you no longer thinking about them. So when reading those,
you're absorbing things. So those images are creating like
this is when you when you write, you are entering into a contract
with somebody. Who else is the reader? Right. You're you're gearing you're giving them some information and
you're not not making them dumb, right. Or acting like they're dumb. So with comics,
it's a little bit step further, right? Because I need Joshua Johnson to take what happens in the gutter between panels
and fill in that space. And because of that active participation
that you take it, it's more and greater. It's more powerful.
You feel it a little bit more. Before I go back to Professor Kennedy used an art term
gutter to find that term. What do you mean?
Just let us know what you mean. That's the space between the two. Two panels. So between each panel,
there's a gutter. And that's. That's the space
I actually call my classroom at B.U. the gutter,
because that's where the magic happens. So, okay. Josh, I know these terms to. Okay, I just want to give up
and let's just get out of doing that. I've got to come out of the gutter.
That's not what your brother planned. Speaking of terminology, I should just say
just so that we're all on the same page, because there's lots of different people from many different walks of life
and many different sensitivity levels. This conversation is going to deal
with themes of race and racism in a very candid and very honest
and historically accurate ways that may include the usage of the
so called N-word. I am not going to censor our guests today,
but I think it's fair to let you know, you watching that we are having
an unfettered conversation about race and racism in America. Something to think about if there are children within earshot
and you want to be mindful in terms of how you have this conversation with them. But we are going to have an unvarnished
conversation about these things. And I think that's part
of the beauty of the book. Professor Kennedy, including just the title, stepped
from the beginning early in the book, you get into a lot
of historical depictions of many, many historical figures,
including Jefferson Davis, the president of the so-called
president of the Confederacy. Talk about that idea
stamped from the beginning and why that is a strong enough idea
to be the title of the book. Well. Well, Jefferson Davis, as you stated, was would become the president
of the Confederate States of America. Before that, he was a senator from
from Mississippi and a major enslaver. And he was a major defender of,
you know, of slavery. And he was also an articulator of racist ideas in the floor of the U.S. Senate. To give an example on in 1860, his fellow
senators were considering a bill that would have provided funding to
educate black people in Washington, D.C. He rose up in opposition to that bill, and in his opposing speech, he said the inequality between the black and white races
was stamped from the beginning. And in many ways, as we show in this in this in this book, that racist ideas were stamped
from the beginning of, you know, of the United States,
indeed, of of British colonial America. And we document the history across time. Just looking at the artwork from here
and I'm digging the artwork. This is such a beautifully drawn book
and it's also fun to read. It is not it's not a drag. It's a really interesting read. But the quote that she put from him
is The inequality of the black and of the white and black
races was stamped from the beginning. Racial inequality is the will of God as marked in decree and prophecy as confirmed by history. Professor Kennedy One of the big themes of the book is that
racism was not just viewed it as well. I don't like those people
and that's the way it is. There were many different ways
in which racists justified racism and called it faith and called it science
and called it law, but wrapped this logical framework around virulent racism
as a way to kind of make it seem like, Oh yeah, this is the only way
it could possibly be. Indeed. And before the Civil War,
one of the leading secular theories articulating black inferiority was
what was known as probably Genesis. It was this theory
that each race was created separately. Each race had its own creation story. It suggested that, at least
in the biblical sense, we were not all descendants of all white Adam
and Eve as other racist theorists who. Romano Genesis made the case. And so Polly Genesis, like Jefferson
Davis, typically made the case that that black people were created before Adam
and Eve when the animals were created. And indeed, in his speech in which he said
the inequality of the White and black races
were start from the beginning, he would
then go on, on the floor of the U.S. Senate to make a case for how and why blac And I just camp out on that for a second. When I read that in the book,
I was like, What? I'm sorry. What? There's one out of many white folks,
and we just kind of came out the lab. We were just an experiment,
like, prerelease. It's just. It's just. So while the depth of the ways
in which racism was justified. And Professor Gill, your task
in putting this book together was finding ways to articulate it. I think without caricaturing it
every time. And some of them are just straight up like caricatures
because the ideas are insane. But there's also a visual language
to the book. Even the way that the speech bubbles are colored and shaded,
some of them are in regular clear text. Some of them almost have like a black background that looks like
it's dripping like you had to that like just to show the rottenness
of these ideas. Talk about how you came up with the visual subtext,
the visual language of this book. Yeah. I mean, when when, you know, it wasn't so it wasn't just like me
reading the book and sort of adding to it. Like, I went back and read the
Congressional Record in which, you know, Jefferson Davis actually said this,
which is actually bananas. But going through this whole thing, I was wanting to make sure that
because comic speaks in that language I was talking about, right? So comics speaks in this language
that I wanted people to immediately teach you how to read this
in the first couple of chapters, so that when you saw icons
or you saw imagery or you saw things that were popped out,
you knew that this was something that that was important. And so early on, it was immediately
one of the ideas that I had, because those racist ideas
are so prevalent. I mean, there's, you know, like that idea
that, you know, black people are start from the beginning
as inferior is still a common thing. Right. Like,
you know, you hear, as Powell clearly talked about, these sub oppressors
actually saying it like Tim Scott. Right. These sub oppressors
who go out to the world and say, well, you're not oppressed
because they've gotten some power. So they come out. But those ideas are still out there,
right, that you're making some decisions. So I wanted to make sure
that we always kept. I wanted you to be able to open up a page
and go, Oh, there's a racist idea. There's a racist idea.
That is a racist idea. And see how prevalent and especially when
you know that even some, you know, W.E.B. Dubois has racist ideas, that there are other people
who we actually, you know, profoundly think are in, you know, like we we we help
we hold a high esteem of. Right. Who actually create racist ideas. And I think it's a it is a an indication or an indictment of the system
that we all hold racist ideas. And I think in order to it's it's
almost like that Catholic idea, like you, in order to be a good person,
you have to practice being good right. In this the exact same thing when when,
when thinking about anti-racist, anti-racist ideas, you have to fight
against all of those things. We've been taught those things,
all those racist ideas throughout history in society. From the time we were, you know, in third
grade to, you know, in and kindergarten until now. Like, you've got to look back at these
things and go, oh, these are racist ideas. So I wanted to pinpoint those. And it's
almost like sticking a pin in it, right? I wanted people to be able to look at that
and go, Oh, that's a racist idea. This is a racist idea. And I think that's the beauty
of what comics does, is that it takes that information and it
and it encapsulates it in a way that you automatically see it like,
you know, once you see that one time, you don't have to think to yourself,
Oh, this must be a racist idea. You just know it is. And I think that's what I'm trying to do
when I'm talking about those things and sort of dig
into some of the history as well. We are speaking to Dr. Ibram X Candy and Boston University
professor Joel Christian Veal, both of Boston University. Their new book is called
Stamped From the Beginning A Graphic History
of Racist Ideas in America. Happy to take your questions and thoughts
and stories about racism, racist ideas, or how we have the conversation
about race in American culture today. It's not identical to what's happened
in the past, but it sure does rhyme. And one of the things that comes out of
this book are all the rhyming moments from some of the things we see today and
many of the things we've seen in the past. Before I come back to you, Professor
Kendi, I want to get into the structure of the five historical figures
that you chose to focus this book around. Some people may know, some at least
I did not know until I had read this book. But I just want to camp out
on the introduction for just a second,
because it's it's really like you got to add it to, you know,
you got an edit pop out on page one. I'm going to try to do a
dramatic reenactment of the introduction. It's like you're looking at a TV
and there's an image of a white woman being held aloft on the shoulders
of a group of young black people. And then you see
the text of the announcer is voiceover, and the voiceover reads, We now return to
today's afterschool special. Beauty among the Beasts. The Heartwarming Story of Karen
White, played by Cassie Blanca, a beautiful young woman who saves
a group of poor black ghetto kids. Costarring Gary Coleman
as the cute and sassy Sams little. Brought to you by Citizens for a law
and Order to reelect Ronald Reagan. And should we sugar spokes. Part of a complete breakfast. That's page one. And I'm reading it up. What are we getting? What is this about? Debate. I wonder, Dr. Kennedy, how you two had the conversation
about the tone of the book? Because you're right. Like, I think if you show somebody
like this much book and say, educate yourself, they're going to be like
maybe another time and back off. This was a real I was not ready for this
to be the beginning of the book. I, as a black person, expected
the book to be a little bit more serious. But the humor in it like, okay,
I don't exactly know what this book's going to be from chapter four,
whatever it's about to be. Talk about what you've learned over the years, Professor
Kennedy, in terms of tone and style, when you talk about things that are as big
and scary as racism and race. Well, first, let me just say that I think this the this the humor in many ways, the critical humor is is is one of the beautiful elements
of the book that I think, you know, Joel was able to introduce this year is sort of a masterclass of finding that balance between sort of humor and sort of a criticality
and even storytelling. But I've learned over the years
that human beings are human, right? So we we need a variety of emotions
no matter what we're talking about. Right. And and even if we're talking about a heavy subject,
like the history of racist ideas. Yes, people recognize it's heaviness, but they need some lightness
in in parts of it. If not most of it. And that's a way in which
they can get through that heaviness. And so in many ways,
the lightness, the humor becomes almost like the road for people
to get through this history, you know, in a in a, you know, in
learn from it and be engrossed by it. You tell this story through five historical figures
Cotton Mather, Thomas Jefferson, William Lloyd, Garrison, W.E.B. Dubois and Angela Davis. Why did you pick those five? Let's just start with Cotton Mather. Why can't. Why is he the first figure that
you wanted us to see the story through? Well, Mather lived from the 1660. He's in Boston
to about the 17th in the 1720s. And during that period, really, which was obviously the colonial era, its fearless theologians really dominated science or,
quote, intellectual activity. And so the principal thinkers
were theologians, and he was the most influential American theologian during the colonial era,
particularly during that era. And he also wrote on and spoke
about slavery and race. And and so he was at the center
of some of the most important early debates about race. So I thought it was important to
to place him, you know, as as a as a character,
since he was at the center of these early debates
that we were going to portray. He also you you and you, Professor Gill, as well,
go to some lengths to portray him as something of a golden child,
a guy who believed very much that he was sort of imbued by God
to say the things that he was saying with the sort of a righteous religiosity
that was just bulletproof. And because there was no real movement to meet that that belief system, that was just kind of understood
and accepted. There was no kind of way
to give to give push back for that. And I am
I kind of hearing his story, right? Yeah,
I think I mean, in every era of history, there was always people who are opposing
views who were saying things that were the opposite
of what these people were saying. This is why that whole argument of like you can't criticize people
because they were people of their time, when there's always somebody in that time
who's, you know, waving the banner of like, this is wrong. And but it's not unlike I mean, you know, Cotton Mather was the
you know, the was the guy from the 700 Club that just
died that he was that guy of his age. Right. Pat Roberts. He was Pat Robertson. Right.
He was Pat Robertson. Joel Osteen. He was you know, T.D. Jakes. He was like that guy. Right. Of the time. So. And he would just say stuff, right. And and because you're
in this position of power and, you know, most people were as uneducated,
it just sounded like he would just make stuff up
like the Negro Christianized. Right? Like this whole thing is just, like,
made up of whole cloth. Like, everything is made up,
but at the same time, like,
he's just making up these random things. And so, of course,
you know, a life of privilege that he had geared with, the way
in which he was raised, like the the foundational ideas
of Princeton, Brown, Harvard and Yale are racist ideas. And until we sort of dismantle
those in a lot of ways, the same way people are dismantling
the church is as deconstructing the church as well. But until we start,
we start dealing with that. Those ideas are going to keep coming up. And so, yeah, Cotton Mather was, you know,
the they were the forefront of thought. Right. Most of the time we hear
when we hear science, when we talk about that period in time,
those people are the ones that dominate. And I think Cotton Mather thought I mean,
he thought he I mean, he thought he walked on water. Right. He was told that, you know,
he was told that he is the chosen one. He was the youngest person
to go to Harvard. He was of these to like his family
founded Harvard. Like he is like the worst rich kid
you could think about. Right? Like
think about that kid in class, right? That was like my dad gave the money
for the college, right? He is that kid like times ten. I hear what you're saying in terms of him
being able to imbue these ideas into these institutions
from their inception. I think that's what we mean
when when you hear something like this institution was founded on
racist ideas. That's not a dig
like you can point to the founders and the ideas
and draw a very direct connection. Which Professor Kendi continues,
I think to take shape in the second section
about Thomas Jefferson, because that begins
to get into the Enlightenment, the expansion of science as a means for
making life and governmental decisions. And you point to a number of the areas
in which the sciences are used in new ways to justify these ideas,
including some scientists who are foundational
in our understanding of everything. I mean, Carl Linnaeus,
who formed our system of like naming animals, calling
something like a Homo sapiens or, you know, feline domestics for the house
cat or whatever the name is. Even he created
these hierarchies of different races that are not based in what we now
understand about genetics. So we kind of went from this religious
species to when science rose. It immediately
applied to these racist beliefs as well. Indeed. And it kind mather made the case that though we all though we may be different in body. In other words,
black people are physically inferior and worthy of enslavement
because they have a distinct body. We are all equal in soul
and all souls are white. So black people should be ministered to. And he challenged enslavers who said no. But by to your point, by the 1700s,
particularly by the mid 1700s, that, of course, was the age
of this European Enlightenment. And of course, Enlightenment thinkers
like Linnaeus and even American thinkers who were inspired by them, like Benjamin
Franklin and Thomas Jefferson, were one of their primary intellects. All activities was classifying
the entire world, but more specifically
classifying humanity. And so it was during
this period that the quote, black, African, white, European, red, American and yellow Asian, you know, emerged. And and not only those
racial classifications became hardened, but there was also characteristics
Linnaeus attached to black people, particularly inferior
characteristics relative to white people. And those characteristics were later
articulated by Thomas Jefferson. And I just wanted to be clear
for the people in back who may not have thought
this was entirely made up, this was science
that was made to fit the theory or fit the the dogma, not science that emerged
like, see, we prove this thing. We knew we were right all along. Like some of this was just whole cloth,
right? Well,
you had people like Linnaeus and others who were classifying human beings
in Africa and Asia and the Americas, and they had never been to Africa, Asia
or the Americas, or they were classifying them
from a European perspective. Right. Or they were classifying
them to justify colonialism, to justify this idea that Europeans were bringing,
quote, civilization and Christianity to these inferior, barbaric peoples,
which, of course. And so I think it's important
and we it's important to recognize the relationship
between enlightenment thinkers creating this massive hierarchy,
human hierarchy and European explorers and settler colonialists, subjugating people of color,
particularly in this case, black people. I think it's also really important to like
think about it in terms of like this is like they were
they were taking these ideas and they were basically applying
stupid logic to the things, well, if this is this,
then this must be this, right? So if we are
if we have gunpowder and giant ships, then those people in Africa with their,
you know, different ways of living must be inferior
because of that. And then you add on to that the
the monetary gain of capitalism. And then it becomes like we have to. So like these people are saying it, it's almost like
I'm going to come up with an idea and then the capitalists, like, I think that's a really good idea
to use this so that I don't feel bad or that I can use this
to make the argument that I could subjugate a person. And I think that that continued like that, like those ideas,
those those those continuing ideas. The idea that we should administer
to black people so is no different than people saying, Well,
why don't you just be American, don't don't be black,
I'll just be American, right? It's the same sort of ideas are just
regurgitated and changed over time. That also comes up in some of the
early stories where there is this mix of and this I have to admit,
like one of the things that I took from this book was having a more nuanced view of some of the black luminaries
that I grew up knowing. Like I knew about the debate
between Booker T Washington and W.E.B. Dubois, who's one of the five kind of key
stone figures who tell the story through. And I knew about his idea of the town
to death, but I think it's also helpful to see the real nuance in
how even some of the names that I had to know for the Black History
Month quiz every February had a mix of ideas
that we now would call anti-racist and others that were more assimilationist,
where it was like, you know, black people who are luminaries
saying we can aspire to be like whites. I mean,
you tell the story of Phillis Wheatley. It was a slave girl, wrote poetry and there was a trial to determine
did she actually write this? And sure enough, she did. But you include some of the lines in there
that clearly have these assimilationist ideas. For example, on page 63,
you quote one of her poems which reads, Some view
our sable race with scornful eye. Their color is a diabolical dye. Remember, Christians,
Negroes, black as Cain and Cain and Abel, remember
Christians, Negroes Black is. Cain may be refined
and joined the angelic train. Professor Kennedy, before
I get to some questions from our audience, talk about that, about the interlocking nature of anti-racist and assimilation
first or anti-racist and various
kind of appeasing ideas. It was never cut and dried
from the very beginning. It wasn't. And this is the reason why
this is a book about ideas and and knowing that the same person can hold conflicting ideas. The same person can hold racist
and anti-racist or assimilationist and anti-racist ideas. But I think to explain
the distinction between segregationist and assimilationist and anti-racist ideas, which we document this almost three way debate is segregationist
and assimilationist, both conceived of whiteness
or white people as the standard and segregationists would make the case
that black people are incapable of becoming white, thereby civilized, thereby human assimilationist. We're like, No, black people are capable
of becoming white, of being refined, of being developed,
of being civilized and anti-racist. We're like we
we shouldn't have a single standard that all humans should should quote,
aspire to be, that we should have multiple ways of,
you know, of of being in the world. So. So anti-racist would say that
black people aren't just created equal. They are equal. And and so that's
the sort of three way debate. And so you had assimilationist
who were even black, who internalized the idea of white people as being the sort of norm or the standard. And then they attempted
to be just like white people and made the case
that black people were capable. So like in the case of the title
of the 10th essay by the Boys, in that essay he argued that
a certain segment of black people have have have assumed
the best of European civilization. And we are the talented 10th. And and I think that's an indicator
that's a that's an example of we are talented because we have done
what Europeans have done as opposed to we are just as talented as any other group
because we're just as human. You could also call that like W.E.B. Dubois is pound cake lecture. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a little Bill Cosby
caricature in here at the top that I was like,
oh, that's that's that might be too soon. That's still hurt. Speaking of which,
the in here is kind of it's incredible and it's great in terms of the way
that some of the caricaturing works and some of the, you know, just the the really intense
imagery regarding the nature of the book. Let me get to some questions
from our viewers. Again, thanks to those of you
who have sent questions in, they're great. I'm going to try to get to
as many as I can in the time we have left. One person asked and maybe Professor Gill,
you could start with this one. Can you talk about the collaboration
process between the two of you while working on this book? Were there times of disagreement or
conflict, and how did you overcome them? Professor Gill
I don't think there was any conflict. Dr. Kennedy was gracious to
like what I say a lot of the times, and I think is the best way to describe
it is like for me to thank Dr. Kennedy for letting me
put fart jokes and his history down because for the most part, like,
if like for example, I'll just give a really, one
really good example when writing about Dr. King, when we got to the March
on Washington, I was drawing this panel, this Martin Luther King's given his
I Have a Dream speech. And he says, I have a dream that one day
white girls will post a picture of me on their Instagram or I have a dream that conservative
politicians will misquote me in order to win political arguments and at whatever
happened, like the universe, kismet. At the same time, Dr. Kennedy had just written In the Air and in the Atlantic a situation
about the misrepresentation of Dr. King. And so, like,
I texted him that image that I had drawn, and it's just like this weird thing
that was happening. So for the most part, he gave me the free
rein to go and do things. And if I thought if there was something
that was like over the top, because I am over the top patrol,
like I admitted, we talked about it, but it wasn't like I wasn't like, you know, like there's a lot
the only line in the sand that I drew ever in this whole process was the force
ghost jokes that I put in there. Because their force goes whenever anybody
comes back, I make them a force ghost. So like, it's like, thanks for ghost Martin Luther King
or thanks, Forrest Ghost Leo the African. You realize
they have that aura around them? Yeah. So they're like, a little bit like Jacob
Marley and. Yeah, yeah. So like that. I think that's the only one that I'm like,
Let's keep that one, please. But for the most part was just I tried
to be as accurate as I possibly could. So like legitimately copying and pasting from the book in places
so that I could get the text. But when it came to like writing
the dialog and, and the jokes and stuff, it was just, it was, I had free range,
which was, which was incredible. It's unlike any other process
that I could ever. I've worked with art writers before, and this is
so much better than any other process. Let me start with you, Professor Gillis. Someone else asked, can you talk a bit
about how you got into drawing or being a cartoonist? How did you study and perfect your craft? I didn't perfect my craft. I am perfecting Mac as we go along. You know, like if you stop learning,
then you stop growing. I started I got my MFA in painting,
but as a kid I wanted to be a cartoonist. I always tell people that comics was
the thing. Comics was my high school girlfriend. We spent every day together. I was going to we were we were going
to make beautiful children together. And then I went away to college and went away to college,
and I found I fell in love with painting. And then, like I left my college
girlfriend, I fell in love with painting. We had a couple of kids.
It didn't work out. And then one day in a coffee shop,
I saw comics again. And we've been happily married ever since. That's the way I describe it. But so comics
was the thing that I wanted to do. And but ultimately I am a storyteller. And so when my paintings were failing to tell stories,
I went back to the idea of drawing comics. And for that, what I did was
I got myself a library degree in comics and a library degree is
when you have a library card and a will. And I just went and learned everything
I could read the entire canon and just practiced it. So if anybody out there who wants to be a cartoonist,
there's a lot of ways to do it. The first thing is to start
drawing comics. There's
nobody stopping you from doing that. Or you can go study with Joel that you. You could
you could. Indeed, you could, indeed. Professor Kennedy,
let me put the next question to you. One of our viewers writes, I'm a white
millennial man who lives in the Bay Area. It's been difficult to speak with older
white generations of the urgency around our world today. What are some strategies
to convey this urgency, if I may add on to the question, I wonder if part of the challenge is imbued in some of the cultural images
that you deal with. You talk in the book about things
like Tarzan and Planet of the Apes and other stories that are so much
a part of our cultural canon that have these really intense
racial underpinnings. And I think once you reach a certain point and again, I'm saying this as a person
who's not in these generations, it can be harder to kind of
I keep looking back and go away. I live my entire life
with no problem with this whole thing. And now you're telling me
I spent 70 years, 80 years supporting something
that was racist from the beginning? La, la, la.
And it's it's just hard to hear. I wonder if maybe generationally,
it's it's a it's a process of giving people permission to look behind the curtain and see a man
when they spent their whole life just thinking it's the wizard. Indeed. And and and so I would I would
really try to meet this is for anyone. But but certainly we're talking about
older people. I'd try to really meet them
where they are. I really try to figure out
what are the things that what are the issues in society that they personally are passionate about
or even what are the problems they are angry about and and
and not the made up ones. Right. But the real ones. Right. And just you have to sort of distinguish
because you have people who are who are actively seeking to conserve racism by making up problems
and distracting people. But I suspect they're they're real issues
that they're concerned about. And and and learning those
and thinking about those. It's likely
there are some racial or racist elements to those problems
that you could essentially guide them to. So you're meeting them where they are.
They're talking about an issue. They're already passionate about. And now they can see the ways
in which racist policies or even ideas have actually led to
or reinforced the very problem that they recognize
and that they are outraged about. So it's just so important.
Can you give me an example of that? So let's say, for instance, they are enraged about the climate crisis
and in their mind, you know, this is it's you know,
this is the climate crisis. There's no racial, quote
unquote element to it. Well, there's two ways to do it. There's a way to talk about how the very elected officials who are denying the climate crisis
or and therefore refuse choosing to make significant changes
because of those denials, are the very elected officials
who are likely denying racism. It's the same group, right? Or the ways in which the people who have been elected into those positions to deny the climate crisis
and not move on it were typically elected through racist
ideas, through manipulating people into believing
that people of color were the problems. That's just one one example. That I can give another example
because I think it's this is a really I think this is one that we hear a lot of,
which is black on black crime. Most, most criminologists and sociologists agree that crime is is a
is an opportunity situation. It is because of proximity. Right. It's because you're in a neighborhood with so most crime among black
people happens among black people. Most crime about it's
white people happens among white people. Why do we still have proximity crime
for black people and white people? It's because of segregation. So pointing out this idea that all black
people still live in a predominantly one place and our white people
still live in a predominantly one place, is an indication of the structural systems
that put us in those places in the first place,
which which perpetuates these ideas. Right. And so people forget. So when you hear these people yelling
about what about black on black crime, say, yeah, black on black crime is
it is about proximity, right? And because most crime is is based on
where you live, then you're actually pointing out structural racism
when you point out black on black crime. Let me get to a few more questions. In the time we have,
I want to make sure we get to this one, particularly
because of what's been going on with educational policy
in the last few years. Professor Gil, maybe you start with this
and then Kendi I'll let you jump in. The viewer asks. I'm grateful. There are academics
like you releasing more books and resources to address
the issues of racism with children. How else can we address
the issues of racism with children? Professor Gil, let's hear from you
and then Dr.. Well, there's a book called How to Raise
an Anti-Racist that you could look at there are having difficult conversations with with children specifically. One of the things that I think
is really interesting is that a lot of the things
which is a fascist talking point about like protecting the children,
it becomes one of those. It's like it's in the like list of fascist
talking points, right? We have to protect the children we're considering to protecting
white children from feeling uncomfortable about the connection with those people
who did these things and the the colonial human traffickers
like those types of individuals. Right. Well, why would you why would you want
your child to be connected to that other? Because the only way to connect through
that is whiteness. And when children take up the mantle,
when when they're there are white people and then there are people
who happen to be white. And when they pick up
that mantle of whiteness and connect themselves through history,
through culture, through anything else with those individuals, that's when that's
when they're going to feel bad. So there's part of
this is don't teach your teachers, especially little kids, not to not to connect themselves
to this idea, because the idea of whiteness is different
from the idea of blackness. Blackness was forced upon us. E pluribus unum, right out of many one
black people were many different peoples
forced one category white people in America where there is
no there is no real white people. And the only way you have
that is in opposition to black people. Because when you take poor white people and you put them in a place
where there's predominantly white people, that the aristocracy sort of
do the exact same thing to those poor white people
that they would do to poor black people. So there's no connection.
There's no sort of community
that's created because of that whiteness. And so, first of all, I would say disconnect yourself
from the idea of whiteness. Like tell kids like, yeah,
you happen to be white and you recognize that there are privileges in that,
but you are not those people. And that
and because those people are white, does not mean that you are them
number two. In order to understand how our history works,
we have to understand where it came from. And by constantly arguing
that we shouldn't talk about it just means that we won't be talking
about it and we won't fix those problems. And I think that's really important
and read how to reason anti-racist. Professor Carney, before you answer,
I feel like one of the benefits of talking to children about racism is children are very receptive to stories. And I think the story of America, if you lay it out right, a child's
mind can just grasp it and it's easy. It'll click like you have characters,
you want a conflict to explain that there are people
who are trying to help one another. I mean, it's we
we we teach through narrative. It's Sesame Street, right? You set up a situation
and you impart a value. I think what scares a lot of parents
is what happens when the story is over and your kid is laying in bed. And, you know, I've had conversations with white parents about this, too,
in terms of talking about racism, where they're afraid that their kid
is going to run into their bedroom and say, Mommy, I had a nightmare,
that I hurt my black friend and the parent is ill equipped, right? They're afraid to be in that moment alone
when your book is not at their bedside or where they're, you know, their friend
who's willing to talk about this is not there. And all of a sudden, in an instant,
they have to walk their children through an adaptation that they are
still adapting to themselves. How do they deal with that? I'm happy you mention that
because it is a difficult process to ideally ensure that our our children are learning racist ideas,
I should say learning anti-racist ideas. At the same time, we're unlearning racist ideas. So like, it's a hard thing to navigate, you know, as a as a parent. And but it's possible, right? Because the more we teach them anti-racist
ideas, the more we learn them ourselves. But what we're also speaking to
is us as adults, recognizing
how hard it is to unlearn racist ideas. And for us to say, you know what,
I don't want my kid to wake up when they're 30 or 50 or 70 and be like,
Whoa, like, how did I ever come to to think this way
about other groups of people? And it's so hard to not think this way. I've been trying for years. No, I want my child
to not have to go through that struggle. You know, but to the question,
the only thing I would also add is really navigating the child
through experiences. So navigating the child
to different cultural spaces so they can see different cultural groups
and see those different cultural groups as equals, allowing them to to go to a, you know, a food pantry
and talk to them about why is it if this is case that the people who are coming here
are disproportionately people of color and and explain to them,
because they're likely to ask that it's not because
there's something wrong with them. There are larger rules
that are leading to this. So I think we have to take our children
out into the world so that they can explore audience things,
so they can ask questions, so we can be prepared
to have those conversations. So we're not literally lecturing them
all the time. And typically,
I know when my seven year old asks questions, that's when she's most likely
to listen to my answer. When the question comes from her. Before I get to our next few questions,
I know we've got just a few minutes left. It sounds like, Professor Kennedy, that
we need to give ourselves a little grace in terms of how we deal with this
and just allow it to be hard. Just acknowledge
that it is difficult and do it anyway and give ourselves some grace
to deal with the difficult. I mean, as a in Joel mentioned my book
How to Raise an Anti-Racist. That was one of the themes I consistently
and constantly talked about my struggles doing this with my daughter
despite all my training and expertize. So if it's a struggle for me,
I know it's going to be a struggle, you know, for everyone
because this is hard work. But but we have to do it to protect our children. Let me stick with you, Dr. Kennedy. Another question from one of our viewers. Was there any image that Joel Drew
that particularly moved you or surprised
you on how it was interpreted? So there were numerous images
that that that moved me. And in I'll just mention one
since we already talked about it was that those the opening image,
you know, of the of the image of Karen White,
which I think is is extremely relevant, you know, to our time because and I think
that's one of the beauties of comics. Let me just say
and I'm almost jealous of Joel because he can tell a whole story
through an image. Right. We as writers, we have to we have to write
a whole paragraph or a whole chapter when just the term Karen
White says says all that needs to be said. We are winding down. I do want to get to one
or two more questions if I can. I will plant the seed for a last question. It's traditional
for the Commonwealth Club to ask speakers what their 62nd idea
is to change the world. So I'll let you percolate on that
in the background. As I ask one more question,
starting with you, Professor Gill, the viewer asks,
What is the best piece of advice that you've received
either personally or professionally? Professor Gill Personally or professionally? Be kind to yourself,
I think. Don't give the world the responsibility of being kind to you. We're often really hard on ourselves,
just artists and people in general. We are very self-critical
and somebody told me once that if you don't take care of yourself,
treat yourself like a three year old in a lot of ways. Like if a three year old made a mistake,
you wouldn't starts cursing at them and calling them an idiot. You'd be like, That's okay, baby,
let's just do it next time, right? And I think that's
what you have to do for yourself, because we we often spend too much time
being critical of ourselves. And I think it's really important,
especially artists and creatives of any sort,
you have to be kind to yourself. That's got to be hard, though,
as a creative. I know just as someone who works,
as someone who works in a different kind of creative profession
that does not create being natural. Being critical is not the same
as not being kind right. Like it's just not they don't
they are not the same thing. And I think we have the idea that critical
means to be negative, but it doesn't. For example, if I had a booger on my nose
and I said, How do I look today? You would say,
you need to blow your nose, right? That's not being that's
that's being critical. You criticize the way I look. You said you gave me some opinions
on how to fix it and I fixed it and I move forward
going out into the world. That's how all criticism should be. It should be about making it helping
somebody be better. It's not just about hearing yourself talk
or tearing somebody else down. And you should do that to yourself too.
When you're self-critical. It should be making try to.
How do you make it? How do I make these hands better?
How do I make this composition better? Not this composition is trash. I should just go throw myself away. It's not like that. It's more about like
how you take care of yourself, basically. What about you? Best piece of advice
you received either personally or professionally? I think that finding a balance between humility and confidence is has been
probably the best piece of advice. And so I think what that means
and this adds to to Jill's point, to even when you achieve
or you're successful, you don't necessarily gloat or think that you're the best thing
since sliced bread. You approach success
with a love of humanity, humility, and you approach failure with confidence
that, okay, this is a single act. I'm going to keep striving. I'm going to keep growing. And I think both that
that sort of humble confidence allows us to both succeed and fail
with grace. Another viewer asks,
Thank you so much for this discussion. Taking into account the divisive world
we live in today, how do you hope we carry your books findings forward
to meaningfully enact change? Professor Kennedy,
how would you answer that? I would really just say that there are despite the divisiveness,
there are a number of people who are serious who are open minded
and more serious about understanding their world, understanding their history,
transforming the society. And so and that even includes
people who are open minded, but they have different viewpoints. So to me, it's really introducing the book
to open minded people, whether they agree with you, you or not, and allowing that
the magic of the book to to, you know, its empathy machine,
as Joe calls it, to do its work. Professor Gill, what about you? This is this ties into the 60 seconds. How do I change the world? I think stories are important. You know, when you
when when when a civilization is gone and we unearth a civilization,
what we find are their stories,
their art and their stories. And that's what we have to carry. Then when you have a conversation
with you and one other person, what you exchange are stories
where you grew up, how you live,
what you like with that television show. All of those things
you exchange those stories. Stories, I believe,
are the building blocks of humanity. And I think that those little bits
and pieces that we share with each other over a cup of coffee in a bar
or just standing in the line at the DMV, those little bits and pieces of humanity
actually build empathy. And I think when we are more empathetic
to other people and understanding where they come from
and where they are, which is what Dr. Kennedy says, meaning people where
they are meeting people where they are. And I think, you know,
the original translation of of what the golden is that
we get it wrong. We always say do unto others
as you have others do unto you. And I'm not religious,
but the original translation is do unto others as they would have them done
unto themselves right and understanding that
moving forward so meaning someone with they are where they are
sharing those personal stories. And you know, studies have shown that personal stories actually change
more more opinions than facts and figures. If you are somebody who is queer
and you and you run across somebody who is like anti,
if you a personal story in conversation with them on a less heated level,
you can actually change their mind. I mean, we've all had those people
in our lives that were devout racist until they met that guy at work
who helped them or, you know, are, you know,
like any of any other thing. Right. Any other of those isms. Right. And I think that's important to empathy
and to build that empathy one person at a time. Sometimes, like I'm a macro level, I'm
a troll, right? I'm going to make people angry. But on a micro level,
I'm going to talk to people and I'm going to have a conversation
so that I can teach people like so I can teach them
and share that story. And when all else fails, hug people. Because hugging people always helps now. So
you keep describing yourself as a troll. And my brain was like, Oh, no, he's not. Look at this book. It's so wonderful. And the other half of my brain was like,
You just met his brother. You haven't seen him on Twitter
just laughing that word for it. Just dismiss what he said
and then let it be what it is. We have 5 minutes left. I wanted to get to two more
quick questions. I know you just gave your 60 seconds idea
to Yale. Professor Kennedy,
one more question for you. There are so many loud talking heads out
there perpetuating the ideas of racism. Is there someone in particular
that you would want to send book to? Laughing? Because I have some ideas. That hold it, hold it. The professor can be like,
because I know you got ideas. That's why I am Professor Kennedy. Who would you what's in this book? There? So it's a hard question for me to answer
because I would want to send it to someone who is loud and and indeed racist,
but also maybe open minded so that they will truly read it
and reflect on it. And I think the problem is most of these
loud folks, they know they're wrong. They're they're they're propagandists. And so I say that almost a dodge the
question because no one is coming to my I don't know Joe and your buddy. So I mean most of you most of my most of
my ideas are just like trolling ideas. Like I would love John McWhorter
to read the book. I think. John McWhorter. I knew. I knew. That's why
that's why I put it to Professor Kennedy, because I was like, okay,
I know what it's going to go. I know there are a few people who I think, you know, like in meeting
like and maybe even politicians meeting them on a one on one level as opposed to what they do on
television is completely different than when you meet them
on a one on one level. But I think that there are people
who I think would read it and and have some understanding. But but but they won't. But but the current climate
won't allow them to say that they you know, and it
and I'm not talking about and in there there are a lot of black conservatives
that I wish would read this book. But the problem
with a lot of those black conservatives, not the people who have come
to these ideas through through different means as opposed
to, you know, just basically reappropriate
and becoming sub oppressors like Clarence Thomas or Candace Owens or any of these
other people who basically deny. But there are some people who and there's
a guy whose name I can't remember right now, but I would consider like that
somebody who I think it could and who I think should read it. And I can't think of his name.
So it's kind of pointless. But I mean, there are people
that you want to be sort of like, like Doctor
Kennedy said, like open minded. But the problem is, is that the people who and I guess it would mostly be regular
people that would be like the ones that are open minded, that are not interested in those ideas
and don't have the power. Don't, don't they're not beholden
to this power structure that they have to hold up. Right. Because if you know, Candace,
someone wrote this book and changed her mind
like she would lose her entire base. She would lose all of her money. Right. If you know that woman from the Prager,
you were to read this book, she would also like all of these people,
these conservative, you know, grifters, you know, if they were to read it,
they would lose something. So it's more about like that. And it's like your cousin who is like,
I don't know, like that sort of makes sense. Like,
give him that book. Right, right, right. I call that like sort of like, you know, but
you have all these really fond memories. But when he starts talking about this
stuff, it's just like, that's stupid. Like, give him that book right? I think it's those kind of people
that I would focus on. I wonder if, Dr. Kennedy, to give you the last word,
if that dovetails with your 62nd idea to change the world. But why don't you give us that idea
and then I will wrap it up. You get the last word, sir. Well, we I think we we live in a world of all sorts of inequality,
of course, racial and class and gender and ethnic and national and obviously sexuality. And and I wish that we as human beings were able to equate difference and and recognize that these inequities are the result of oppressive structures,
of bad laws and policies, as opposed to continuing
to believe the myth that there's something wrong
with that group on the lower end of those those disparities
and almost sort of blaming the victims. I mean, if we were as human beings
to really embrace our differences and and really equate across difference
and really say if there's inequality, it's because there's something bad about
our structure as opposed to our peoples. I believe we'd be able to really
revolutionize our world. The book is called Stamped From the Beginning A Graphic History
of Racist Ideas in America. Professors Abraham, XTANDI and Joel
Christian Gill, both of Boston University. Gentlemen,
this has been a great conversation. Thank you both very much. Thank you. Courage, everybody, to pick up a copy of Stamped
at the beginning at your local bookstore. And this is just one of the many programs
that come from the Commonwealth Club. If you'd like to watch more
or if you'd like to support the club's efforts in making both in-person
and virtual programing and visit them online at Commonwealth
12 dot org slash events until we meet again. I'm Joshua Johnson. It is so much for making time for us.
