Episode 278 - After Black Lives Matter: Part II (w/ Cedric G. Johnson)

Really liked Sol's reaction, but Mr. Ngumi gave the game away: "....he has the advantage of not being a card-carrying Conservative on the Right." It is hilarious to hear this R. wing counterinsurgent trying to sound Left by inserting the term "class." Class and race are like left and right ears on the same tiger - you die under the same fangs. He even outs himself in the conversation, s t r e s s i n g that he is talking pure abstraction, outside (& far from) concreteness.

surrander 2000

So... is The DeBrief now ancient history?

Great conversation, but the Springer thing was fake.

Brie- I’m in Philly and Helen Gym was a complete mess, that’s why she lost. Helen Gym was not a socialist she was the typical virtue signaling progressive who would have turned out exactly like Squad. Her campaign did nothing to create coalitions, all she did was create enemies by being rhetorically alienating. She brought out celebrity endorsements and the majority of her base was i came from the suburbs white progressives. Gym’s husband also works for a pharma industry in which she refused to recuse herself on a bill about opioid distribution in the city that’s plagued by an opioid epidemic. She was a smarmy finger wagger that could not connect with anyone outside her own galvanized base. She had quite a few hypocritical stances. She would have turned out exactly like AOC and the like. High and mighty on Twitter but fuckall and unlikeable in action. Parker won, yes because she’s a Black woman in a city that’s majority Black and Black women make up the strongest aspect of the Democratic voting block. But also because Parker had inroads with the strength of Black Union leaders in Philly. She was the only candidate actually from Philly and could resonate with the particular issues that the AA community is dealing with ESPECIALLY in terms of the gun violence that’s particularly committed by teens and young men. It wasn’t that the city wasn’t ready for Gym, because her biggest challenger, Rhynhardt was seen as a more pragmatic progressive who was able to move past her because she didn’t focus her campaign around alienating hyper liberal rhetoric but her policies were generally the same. Helen Gym was just a bad candidate. Another well off progressive cosplaying as the working class champion. Parker spent time in the establishment and was able to supersede the rich real estate mogul, the rich grocery store chain owner, the pragmatic progressive and the smarmy progressive candidate not based on funding or money but because she “paid her dues” and got most of the unions, clergy and working class Black neighborhoods behind her. Helen Gym was un relatable and unlikeable. But many other Black progressive candidates won. So it’s really about authenticity and relatability. Helen Gym plays academia identity politics which, idk how we continue to have this conversation over and over, is not relatable to the majority of voters.

Excellent conversation, I was having a lot of fun by the end as well

Michael Martin

Still felt it was a healthier convo. …Just folks sometimes having the convo that often falls in between the most-obvious perceptual cracks is cathartic and part of an introductory process. And it allows us all to scrutinize this stuff even further. Still well worth my five a month, considering the amount of dreck I can get for free in podcast convos nowadays. As much as I’m frustrated by so many progressive interactions and convos—this ain’t one of them!

Kamili Feelings

A great episode! Prof. Cedric Johnson provides an interesting approach to tackling these issues and it is inconvenient to the Left but can be tolerated since he has the advantage of not being a card-carrying Conservative on the Right.

Nathan Ngumi

Cedric think he's slick, he tries to conflate two issues to sneak class into police bias: how and why policy target black people, and the financial readiness with which people are able to mount a legal defense to criminal charges. Can't tell if Brie doesn't catch this or just let's it fly on purpose.