Ezra Klein gives you a chance to get inside the heads of the newsmakers and power players in politics and media. These are extended conversations with policymakers, writers, technologists, and business leaders about what they believe in and why. Look elsewhere for posturing confrontation and quick reactions to the day's news. Subscribe for the anti-soundbite.
It’s so frustrating when right-wing, white people (I’m white, btw) believe that we can…POOF!, have a reset and make all humans equal. This is impossible because Race 1 had the privilege of owning property, borrowing money to start businesses, as well as vote while Race 2 was literally the property of Race 1 and added to their wealth. Race 1 received government reparations for the loss of their property when Race 2 gained their freedom. Race 2 was denied their reparations of 40 acres of farmland and a mule to till the fields so they had no way to feed themselves. Farming was all they knew. Who owned all of the farms? Race 1, who allowed free Race 2 to work for them for basically nothing. Race 2 could not earn enough money to buy land and this was illegal anyway. Race 2 was not permitted to own land so they couldn’t borrow money against that land to start a new business or buy more land. Race 1 passed their businesses and property on to their children/grandchildren/great grandchildren who could also borrow money, expand & grow the family business, accumulate even more property. Race 2 had nothing to pass on to their children / grandchildren. Now, what does wealth or EQUITY get Race 1 besides an inheritance? It buys stability, SAT tutors, private coaches, a back door into prestigious colleges that funnel their kids directly into high salaried, executive careers or often political positions. Wealth / equity sets their kids up for success and even multiple failures may not deplete this equity. These kids attend good schools, they can party through college, flunk classes over & over, possibly transfer to another college but they still end up w a degree or a position within the family business. Their parents are legacy graduates who learned how to network with other legacy grads, business owners, politicians. They’ve taught their kids how to network. They can also afford drug rehab again and again and again. Drugs don’t discriminate. What happened w Race 2? They received no inheritance (property, business, money). They have no stability., no equity. Their children are frequently moved from rental house to run-down rental house. These parents work one, two, & even three part time, low wage jobs. I know families that do this. Their kids are left home alone and often unsupervised because day shift positions are a luxury that’s rare. Their kids attend under funded schools w low SAT scores. There is possibly a drug issue that can’t be overcome due to lack of healthcare / rehab. These kids qualify for the PELL Grant & HOPE scholarship or achieve the rare athletic scholarship but they cannot fail and they aren’t prepped for college courses so they often drop out. Some get a technical school certificate and work in a low healthcare position that still doesn’t pay a living wage but most end up in retail restaurant jobs that are part time, low wage, no healthcare. It’s a cycle Race 2 can not break out of without every star aligning perfectly. This isn’t an issue that specifically blames 21st century, race 1 for Race 2’s challenges. It’s about two races that had different starting positions in life and I don’t understand why Race 1 begrudges Race 2 because they want that same advantage. White people are so offended when reparations are brought up but we aren’t being BLAMED for the past. Reparations have literally nothing to do w us! It’s about supporting equal starting positions for all of us. Research the Tulsa Massacre to get a better understanding of why Race 2 could not progress and gain equity.
Humans are 2 things, the things that set us apart: 1) We are great exploiters; 2) We are the great deniers. Cultural Meatheadism - If we can get rid of it, we can improve fundamentally; we can become a viable species. - and a small side effect: no more Meathead Viruses...
Ezra Klein talks about how "Identity politics put Trump on Power" and then has Jessica Valenti on his podcast. Ezra, shut up, you are the reason I wanted Trump to win, you scumbag.
The ultimate question is.....Why do we over-value and more greatly compensate (monetarily) people doing management jobs and jobs that directly make money? Why should a hedge fund manager make exponentially more money than a wetlands ecologist? Answer.....They shouldn’t!
The parallels to the dominant, invisible belief in the validity of governmental authority (statism) is uncanny. Yet this connection is all but absent from the public discourse. Tax policy is discussed incessantly, but the fact that taxation itself is **slavery** by another name is wholly ignored. Do we have the courage to address this oversight publicly?
i do commend you for at least keeping this video posted and not disabling the comment section with that meat advertising in the middle of a veganism conversation. good to see the discourse hasn't been too cruel yet. i think your honesty about the matter is refreshing but i wish you would clip that ad out and re-post it without the ad. thank for your consideration
Why should we accept being made a minority in a country that we founded? America was not created by latino's and everybody else, it was created by people from Europe. That doesn't nees to change, that doesn't make it better. Why? Becuase who moves to white countries? Brown people. Not the other way around. Whites don't flee in masses to brown countries becuase they know their own countries are better. This means that those demographics benefit off of white society, not the other way around. Ezra Klein, you're Jewish like me but you are still of majority European DNA. Now you look at the majority of Jewish noble/pulitzer prize winners or even famous Jews the majority were of European ancestry. . . Ofcourse when a people find out that their own country is turning into something else, they won't like it. Why should Europe turn into the middle East? Why should the US turn into Mexico? Why can't Mexico stay Mexico, and the US stay the US? Why do white people need to beacome a minority?
@anon Wrong. It was built and pioneered by anglo Americans. Then immigrants that came from Europe that had to endure hardships that modern day Mexicans can't even imagine. Whites came here by choice blacks were forced to come here and work. Who died in all the wars? Majority whites. So yes this is a white country. You are against the treatment of the nativive Americans. What do you propose? That we should have just moved into their villages and outbred them like what latino's are doing now? Or you are against a more advanced civilization cultivating the land and creating(mostly by white people) this country? I am sorry you are against America. And I am sorry you hate white people. Brown people move to white countries not the other way around. They benefit off of European culture, not the other way around. Go compare crime statistics from ethnic countries to white ones. You really believe whites commit more crimes? Get real. You've just been indoctrinated to believe whites no longer desreve their own countries, which happen to be the best on Earth. You are an anti-white racist. Sad.
In some ways, our species' social and cultural behaviors are a handicap. The only reason humans eat animal products is because they have for a very long time.
Excellent content Ezra! I just discovered these podcasts and am now devouring the content while working. Love the work you're doing over at Vox. Keep it going!
I love that you're taking about this, it is the greatest moral injustice of human civilization today, and hearing that you're Vegan greatly increases my respect for you. That being said, listening to you read an ad in the middle of this video about buying eggs milk and burgers was quite jarring and put me off listening to the rest of it.
"The number one thing you need to do … everybody listen to this today, is to break your habits of contempt , to catch yourself when you’re about to express contempt … eye-rolling, mockery, sarcasm, particularly when you’re on social media."" It is encouraging in the extreme to hear two such deeply informed men, coming from very different perspectives, able to engage in true civil discourse -- reaching for their points of agreement while still acknowledging where they disagree. The takeaway point here being that we SHOULD be engaging in 'competitive conversations' with those who differ deeply from us, WITHOUT EXPRESSIONS OF CONTEMPT, and in so doing can find find at least some rapprochement between those of profoundly different viewpoints. These two have a 'private, long-running conversation' that informs BOTH by exposing each to the others' perspective and information either one might not otherwise become so well aware of, leading to more fully-formed opinions and opening areas of overlap upon which they can (shocker) agree. This, as compared to well-known shows that purport to offer face-to-face conversations between two people holding different positions, in which they merely engage in badinage and cynically seeking to prove the other wrong, and themselves right, contemptuously, rather than (1) truly searching for commonality, (2) acknowledging and incorporating objective, well-sourced factual points, even when those facts don't initially fit their individual narratives, and (3) actively working to weld together that information as a gestalt, discarding the disproven dross, in at least SOME common directions. Me, well ... I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall for all their private conversations on economic topics -- hmmmm, perhaps we could persuade them to have such conversations publicly on a regular basis?
Also, I would like to see someone go to Africa and say "Look we are trying to ethnically cleanse this country".... boy wouldn't that be a heated conversation. For some reason, a mostly white country becoming "ethnically cleansed" it is looked at as a good thing.
why would you go to africa for more genocides ? Americas are land of native americans . whites in europe were only 40Million in population during imperial times and 60Million native americans but now over 1 Billion whites in europe only + americas + austrolasia etc but onlu handful of native americans left . so stop doing hate propaganda .
Heres some things to consider that people worry about. 1) Why is the focus and big push to import 'replacement' people instead of discussing solutions that allow citizens to have families the size they want? Americans, especially whites, generally dont have kids they dont feel they can afford. So why is there is no effort to promote and support allowing them to have more kids? 2) With your 'browning of America article', yes it concerns whites. Tell me, which 'brown' country would you like to be more like? Because as you import these people, here will become more like the places they came from. Most people dont want the US to be more like any South or Central American country, so why shouldnt that be a concern and whats preventing that from happening? 3) So imagine, just for a minute, that you are wrong. That this wholesale importing of poor people does ruin the country and especially bad for white people, where do white people have to fall back to? People from South and Central American countries can go back to their countries. White people dont have any where else to go back to. This is it. We have no fall back country. White people are the minority in the world. 4) Why is it only white countries need diversity? Theres no push to diversify Mexico, any South or Central American country, any african or middle eastern country. If diversity is inherently good (which its not), why is there no demand for other countries to diversify as well? Why is this only focused on white, western countries? 5) When you focus on 'diversity' you are inherently divisive. Those words share roots for a reason. Diversity, by definition, focuses on the differences and itself creates an 'othering' by saying we are not like you. This focus will destroy the country. Our motto, e pluribus unum, 'out of many, one' exists for a reason. It says DESPITE our differences, we are the same and we can come together on the shared items. But when you focus on diversity, you ignore any commonalities, in fact you make them irrelevant. But you cannot have a country if we have nothing that keeps us together. The identity politics that focuses on diversity is detrimental to the country and any hope of cohesiveness. 6) Diversity itself is not inherently good. It can be good, but its no guarantee to provide value. If you have 2 groups competing, one is 4 people of same race, background, ethinicty etc and they need to compete against a group consisting of a BLM Activist, a Nazi, Racist, and a hasidic Jew, which group is going to succeed? Which is more diverse? The answers to those questions will not be the same group and diversity not only provided no benefit, it was probably detrimental. And, the obvious, diversity always focuses on superficial items, never on diversity of thought or people who dont fit the lefts idea of what each of the diverse groups should think or be like.
Great post!. A few years ago, the political scientist Robert Putnam published a paper showing that greater diversity led to lesser trust within groups and more social isolation. To stay on the good side of political correctness, he guessed that over time, it will all work out. But there's no evidence or reason to believe that. <a href="socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.com/2016/09/robert-putnam-on-negative-effects-of.html">Robert Putnam on the Negative Effects of Diversity - Sep 12, 2016</a> Multiculturalism (i.e., cultural diversity) is the ideology that nations are stronger when they pursue ever-increasing internal differences in culture (e.g., values, customs, attitudes, beliefs, goals, practices, language). On the face of it, this is absurd. In reality, a policy of ever-increasing diversity is a policy of national suicide. Diversity is not a strength, and at high doses, it is fatal.
Jason Prate : Actually South and Central American countries are already very diverse, except, of course, if you arbitrarily defines that any person that speak Spanish is a same race, which is preposterous, but it is what Americans do. Not that there is an obligation for countries to be diverse.
What happen to the good ole days when Jews, Italians, Polish and Irish Catholics were threatening is great nation of white people? The same paranoia was back then as it was now. the only difference is those “other people” are now white. Who woulda thunk
why would you go to africa for more genocides ? Americas are land of native americans . whites in europe were only 40Million in population during imperial times and 60Million native americans but now over 1 Billion whites in europe only + americas + austrolasia etc but onlu handful of native americans left . so stop doing hate propaganda .
Excellent discussion. Though I really wish Ezra and Susan would have come to the conclusion that what we're witnessing in Trump, his associates, and his Republican enablers, most especially Mitch McConnell, is a profound level of deep-seated corruption unseen in the modern political era. Our political system, while it may have faults, was not designed to overcome two, if not three, branches of government succumbing to the intense amount of political corruption and detestable party-before-country ideology that's occurring. This is a dire moment for democracy in the United States.
