Transcript
A (0:00)
I don't want to make light at all of the depth, the intensity of racism in American life, and we are seeing it. But we also ought not underestimate countercurrents. We have to take into account the abolitionist crusade. We have to take into account the second Reconstruction. We have to ask ourselves, well, how have things changed in America? And, well, have things changed in America? Yes, things have changed in America. I mean, in my life, every day I see change in America.
B (0:41)
And now the good fight with Jascha Monk.
C (0:49)
One of the things that I found really irritating in the debate about critical race theory a few years ago was the claim made by many defenders of these ideas that this ideology really was not particularly controversial, that all it entails was, as the name might suggest, thinking critically about the role that race plays in American history and society. And the reasons why I found that frustrating is that it both seems to me that CRT is actually quite radical and quite interesting legal theory, and that even though I have some serious concerns about that tradition, I do, of course, think that we should think critically about the role that race plays in American history and society and the law. Well, my guest today is somebody who is the living proof of that point. Randall Kennedy is one of the most prominent law professors in the country. He serves as a Michael R. Klein professor of Law at Harvard University. And he is somebody who in many books over the course of decades, has tread that line, has interrogated interestingly and critically the role that race plays in American society. While being a prominent critic of critical race theory. He's somebody who understands the deeply skeptical view that many Americans, like his own father, who grew up in the segregated south, have about the ability of America to make progress on race. And yet he himself insists that we have, for all of our imperfections, made very significant progress, progress in that realm. He understands why some people might be impatient with the universal norms and laws and values that liberals say will help us to make progress, and yet insists that it is precisely the universalist convictions of civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King that have allowed us to overcome the deepest injustices of American history. And so, in this conversation, Randall and I talk about the realm of theory. We talk about personal things and his own personal story and the story of his father, and about many applied questions about, for example, how to think about affirmative action or about gerrymandered districts that are meant to ensure black representation by creating not always geographically contiguous districts in which African Americans represent a majority of voters. In the rest of this conversation, we touch on a few more of these topics. We talk about, for example, the low trust that Americans have in the system and that American political parties have in each other, making it really hard to get to solutions which otherwise would be rational. Helping to explain, for example, why I have to show voter ID in Germany or other countries in Europe, but in the United States this is a very contentious topic. We talk about how it is that people who are interested in racial progress should fight for anti discrimination laws, but also recognize but ones that are overly demanding may then lead to backlash, which actually holds us back. To listen to this part of the conversation to support the work we're doing here to stop hitting these annoying paywalls in which I ask you to subscribe and you're not able to listen to the rest of the conversation, Please go