Tressie McMillan Cottom
Appearances
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
You know, I have often said, you know, with a little bit of hyperbole, but I think there is also a serious grain of truth in there that the only thing that has ever made meaningful change anywhere in the world is a powerful story.
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
I think there is something to Dr. King's ability to articulate these complex, structural, interwoven, at times contradictory, yet complementary forces in a cohesive story that does not foreclose on thought or action. And this part is key to me. There's a certain type of storytelling about what is affecting us, right? you know, think peace culture.
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
But there's a certain way that we can do these explainers about why things are the way they are. That, you know, you get to the end of them, you've read them, or you go to see someone speak and they do their thing. And at the end, you have no idea what you were supposed to do with that information. You may even have an emotional response if they're very good at what they do.
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
I'm reflecting on a lot of things this year, which actually surprises me. I have not found Donald Trump's reelection to be a moment that requires a lot of deep personal reflection. Trump and Trumpism is exactly what it looks like. But on the Martin Luther King Day, I am thinking a lot about what has changed because I do think it matters a great deal for us to be clear eyed about such things.
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
But there is another level of storytelling that is both gift and skill. I think we can focus too much on King's remarkable gifts, of which they were many, but downplay, as we often do when we are talking about Black people, the extreme amount of preparation and skill that had to meet those gifts to do that. And I think that is a...
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
A once in a lifetime, a once in a generation, a once in a millennia, I'm not sure, type of meeting of person to the moment that I think we look back to, particularly in times like these, when we are trying to do exactly that. Tell a story about all of these things that are happening that I think you understand intuitively are interwoven.
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
We know that Gaza has something to do with why Flint doesn't have water. Right. We understand that the fires in L.A. have something to do with the climate change displacement that is happening there. across the most populated continent on Earth.
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
We have some, I think, intuitive sense that those things are interwoven, but have a very difficult time telling a story about how that doesn't send us into the depths of despair, that doesn't strip us of agency. And I think we looked at Dr. King because he had an ability to tell a story in a very similar sort of historical moment that did not foreclose on acting.
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
did not foreclose on our accountability to do something, to be engaged, not just in the discourse, but to take up the discipline of actually building power and capacity to change things. And it's not that I don't think we have those people today, for the record.
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
I think we have people with the same gifts, but not the time and the protection and the investment they need to do that other part, which is to develop the skill for it. But King had both. And so we continue to look to him.
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
I think we can slide into hyperbole and say, you know, this country is racist, has always been racist and will always be racist. And there's a certain level of what like people in my field will call abstraction or a certain bird's eye view where that is true. But I think it's really important for us to also observe the ways in which that is not true.
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
And I think there are a lot of ways in which that isn't true. But it also then becomes all the more urgent to me to consider what I think Martin Luther King's legacy would have us consider, which is how is it possible for there to have been so much change, some of it positive, some of it what we might call progressive change.
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
Well, that's at the heart of what Make America Great, America First isolationism is, which is this idea of That you can imbue our current economic order, which Eddie so beautifully lays out there as one not just about morals, but about the sort of material landscape of extreme extraction and wealth on one end.
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
and this growing, yawning, indecent level of inequality, instability and insecurity, not just on the other end, but on the other end and encroaching to the middle, which I would argue is the crisis that we find ourselves in, which is that people who have for a very long time seen themselves as middle class are realizing that they are working class at best.
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
And that crisis of identity and position opens people up to a lot of demagoguery. So that's like the sort of like economic material landscape that we find ourselves in. And so there is a reason that a politics of nationalism nation first would look like a reasonable solution to a lot of people. I like this term, it's called like folk economics.
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
And that's this idea that really economics, running a state apparatus, especially one as powerful as the United States is a really complicated, complex endeavor, right? And yet every two or four years, politicians come out and they turn to the American public and they talk about the US budget like it is balancing a checkbook, right?
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
How many times have we heard that, well, you pay your bills when you sit at your kitchen table, America needs to worry about her bills first, right? We reduce all of this complexity, militarism, by the way, you know, the vast cost and expense of running a vast network of military operations across the world can't actually be reduced to a family's checkbook, right? Right.
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
But that sort of folk economics gets people to think about the nation as their kitchen table. And so the thing about the kitchen table is everybody can't sit at your kitchen table. These are some of the first decisions you actually make about who is welcome. And who is not?
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
And so it invites us to think about what is effectively a moral relationship to wealth and resources that the state is responsible for as really just being about our preferences and how much money we have at the end of the day when we balance the checkbook. That's been the neoliberal promise ever.
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
that if you think about this country like you think about your personal checking account at the end of the day you will be better off than where you started or certainly that your children will be better off than where they started and that is not at all how that works right we actually have to make these big decisions about what our national values are relative to the rest of the world and our responsibilities to each other and that means you sometimes spend a lot of money on something like education
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
And yet for there to still be this baseline of white animosity, the urge to do the sort of political reclamation that we see happening with Donald Trump's reelection. And how can we finally, hopefully develop the capacity to hold both of those truths, contradictory yet complementary ideas like the ones I think Martin Luther King absolutely understood and really tried to
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
Or health care that won't actually balance in a checkbook at the end of the day, but will mean fewer sick and dying children. And that is a moral value.
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
Tressie, why did you choose that clip? I chose this one because I think it goes to the issue that I raised at the beginning, the idea that we are going to have to hold contradictory and yet complementary ideas together.
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
to develop a language around for everyday people, which I think is one of our upcoming challenges, by the way.
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
at the same time, and that Martin Luther King, the status memory project, has worked very hard to flatten out those contradictions, whereas Martin Luther King, the actual person, the strategist, the organizer,
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
the philosopher, the scholar understood quite clearly the pragmatic nature of moral claims that this focus on content of character, as beautiful a line as that is, by the way, it is not the sum total of our responsibility to ourselves, to each other, or to Martin Luther King's memory.
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
Martin Luther King's memory is best served when we deal with the contradictions and the nuances that he understood so well, which is that there is nothing dirty about participating in politics. None of us have the privilege of being moral purists in that sense, but also that changing law without a moral claim will just lead to
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
to more laws that double down on the existing cumulative effects of racism and classism and sexism and all of the others, right? That you do have to do both and that none of us can afford to think that we live above the fray. The fray is where the people are. The fray is where we work out what our morality is. And we do that in part because
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
by concerning ourselves not just with people's hearts, or I might say one's racist bones, which I suspect live next to one's heart, that that is not just a product of heart and bones, right? That is a product of hard work, of not just electoral politics, but yes, also electoral politics. And if the mess did not scare off Martin Luther King, it probably should not scare us off either.
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
Tressie, last word. Could not agree more. You know, we have made the case here, as I think is often made, that history is cyclical. History repeats itself. I like to think of history as a spinning top that even as it moves forward, it wobbles and the interior of it is going round and round. So sometimes progress does feel like turning in circles. Right.
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
And that our commitment to a transactional hope that when we do the hard work, when we go out to vote, when we sign a petition, when we march, that there has to be an immediate return to those actions to justify taking yet another action.
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
is one of the ways that the neoliberal order that Eddie has spoken about so eloquently here that so many of us are suffering through, convinces us to divest from the things that matter to us. You do the thing that matters, whether it feels like you are moving forward or not, because the thing about history is that you really don't know where you're standing Until it has passed.
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
That's why in the moment we are supposed to be guided by something more, something bigger. Morality, accountability, responsibility to ourselves, to our values, to one another. And that this is not the first time we've been called to do that. I take a lot of comfort in that. You know, Eddie says that's the reason why he chose that speech, because it so mirrors our current moment.
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
I actually take a lot of comfort in the fact that we have been here before and we've not only survived it, we have figured it out. And so I think that we will continue to figure it out. But we probably need to give up the transactional nature of our hope and do the thing that needs to be done because it needs to be done. That's our responsibility to history.
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
Thank you. Cannot thank you enough, actually. This has been really edifying in a moment when I'm finding few things that do that for me. So thank you.
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
Oh, yeah, absolutely. I think there's something to the American story that we even find ourselves here in this moment, that a man whose campaign draws from the worst racial repertoire of American history in modern, complex times is
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
as the head of state, is by default in charge of, at least in this moment, this year, the enshrinement of King's public memory, the public memory project that the state does for Martin Luther King.
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
I think it points out something that is important for us to relearn if we have forgotten it, to learn for the first time if we're new here, and certainly to keep in mind as we move forward in the next four years, which is that the state project memorializing Martin Luther King was never about who Martin Luther King actually was.
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
It was about an idealized version of the king the state was willing to accept after he had been murdered. This is as much a memory project of reminding us, by the way, of the high cost of working against the American investment in oppression and inequality as it has ever been about memorializing Martin Luther King, the actual, who I would call an organizer, a mobilizer.
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
I would maybe even go so far as to call him what they called him during his time, because I don't think it's an insult, which is to call him radical. Certainly, I think a radical philosopher and a radical thinker. And the fact that that is not the king that we remember. Instead, he has been frozen in time as the Martin Luther King of the quotables, quote,
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
and of the excerpts from a speech that seems to memorialize United States of America as an always perfecting project, when Martin Luther King, in actuality, believed no such thing. He believed in the power of people to shape this nation, certainly. But that's not the memory project we've undertaken.
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
And perhaps the juxtaposition of seeing Donald Trump preside over the official state memorialization of Martin Luther King will remind us of our responsibility to remembering King as he actually was, which frankly should be a people's project as he was a philosopher and an organizer of the people.
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
Yeah. I'm a sociologist and we have this concept called anomie, which is the sense that something about social norms have started to break down. And that to me feels like the sort of bigger response that I'm feeling from a lot of black Americans in this moment.
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
I think that when you look across the landscape of corporate America's retreat from even cosmetic displays of diversity with the attack on diversity, equity, and inclusion programs, the all-out attack on access and fairness and I think really our most successful system of social mobility that this country has ever built.
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
I don't think that that is an accident and people feel despondent watching universities, their legitimacy is just sort of being dismantled in front of our eyes. And something seems to have broken down
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
in our social norms, not that they've ever been perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but they seem to have, I think, a level of friction that feels dangerous and makes a lot of black people in this moment feel vulnerable. And I think that what we are seeing here is more severe than just a temporary emotional state. of apathy and anger.
Fresh Air
MLK, The Organizer & Radical Thinker
I think this is also us doing some delayed grieving for what could have been had the state and so many corporate interests not turned so viciously against Black Lives Matter.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
To be able to observe something accurately doesn't mean you diagnose it properly. Yes, that's what I mean. Right. He is the only politician out there right now who says a thing is a thing.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Yeah, because you hate who I hate. As long as you're not a Boston Celtics fan.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Oh, yeah. And if you have the issue, we don't have it. Yeah. You care about immigration, so we can't. That's my thing.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
That doesn't mean. This is why I need Tressie around.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Oh, your belief, like what you actually cared about?
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
It was extremely popular, but maybe not for all the right reasons.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Oh, that would be amazing.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Oh, it's taken on a lot of the contours of English class based racism. I think for the same reason. Yeah. Class became so important to the Democratic Party. Because they are trying to serve the interests of a donor class who has a lot of money while keeping the interests for their identity, we're progressive, we're liberals, aligned with working class, poor people, minority people, immigrants.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
So to reconcile those two things, right? Think about who you have to be to have both of those things exist for you simultaneously. You got to be delusional in kind of the same way that English people are who will tell me to my face. we don't have racism here. We do have class, but we don't have racism.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
As if these are two entirely distinct, but you have to believe that when you have this like really structured class system. You have a monarchy. That's right. You have this really formal system of immigration, right? And I think the Democrats have oddly kind of a modified version of that for much of the same reasons. Their class politics right now do not align with, With their race politics.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
And so you get a lot of people who make do with that for the same reason everybody went nuts over their results to the quiz. I mean, you think about who the typical New York Times reader is. Daily show employee, perhaps. And what they realize is that they have accepted a lot of casual racism and policy. Yes. Yes. Yes.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
And one of the things that Donald Trump did really well that they still don't have an answer for is he pointed out the hypocrisy of that.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
In the way that you and I always experienced it because we were always the black people vis-a-vis the Democrats. So we knew it was hypocritical. But for him to point it out and do it so effectively is part of the reason why I think they are spinning out.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
We love that data, by the way, as sociologists say, which we I'm talking about sometimes. We love the OKCupid data because our personal lives are the only place left in this culture where we feel safe being racist, classist, elitist and ableist. Because we say what? It's just our preference. I can't help who, you know, gets me going.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Car sales show? No, I didn't see that. Oh, yeah. Only thing I was missing was Vanna White.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
That's right. To sort of like catfish Republican men. No, I didn't hear about. Right. So there was this thing they would go, OK, you know, you're never going to be with somebody hot like me again unless you change your politics. And so they would like pretend to be Republicans to out them to find out where they were on January 6th. They make the romantic match, right?
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
You got to have that part. Very, very hot.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Yes. Because they are apparently, according to the data, as you know… They are at a disadvantage on apps, conservative men. They all complain about it. Nobody wants to date them. Then January 6th happens, and I think this started as someone said they recognized a guy they thought they saw on one of the apps once in the videos. Oh, my goodness.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
So the women start going on and going, yeah, yeah, yeah. I know that guy. I've seen that guy. And so they were catfishing them, pretending to be conservative or interested in conservative men. And then the chat would go, yeah, so where were you last week? That is so interesting. And it like outed like three or four people.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
They were very clear about that.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Let me tell you why.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
She was like, why don't we eat the apple?
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Male's basic nature being lying, though.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Yes. But there's only one man in the garden. I would think that Adam was too stupid to think through the logic of, hey, apple could be good. Right? Like to get to that conclusion. That's what I'm saying. I'm just saying. Now, I'm not sure that Eve convinced him so much. She was like, yo, I'm going to try the apple. And he's like, not without me, you ain't.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Because I do think there's a basic nature here that we're talking about.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Are we on the same algorithm? I think so, yeah.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
A return to conservatism.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Oh, I think that's we talk about economic anxiety. You guys are talking about that. And I agree. I think we totally misdiagnosed like that whole economic anxiety argument. And the case with women, I think, is a perfect example of how we misdiagnosed it. Yes, people are anxious. That doesn't mean that they should be anxious. What people are responding to is perceived loss, not real loss.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
That's why you're like, what do you mean? They're rich. They're not economically anxious. Yeah, they are. It's just not real. Yeah. That's where I think the gender piece becomes really prevalent. Because what I am seeing happen, same, women in my life who were all pussy-headed out about me, right? They were throwing pussy hats at me. And they were like, we got to go.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
I had to have on a pantsuit for Hillary, right? I'm with her. I'm with her. And today, you know who they are with? A dude in a fleece vest and khakis. It's like they look at, I think, they are looking accurately at a post-war reality, a world where truly the United States government is the most powerful force in the world still. And it has declared war on women. Go back home.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
We want you out of work. We want you out of schools. Too much, too far, too fast. And I think you look at that and you go, I'm hitching myself to the thing that provides some cover for Right. And I think that performing conservatism, even if it's just in how you look, everybody's getting the haircuts now. The natural hair movement.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
The shift from the liberal haircut, by the way, to the conservative haircut.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Trevor, honestly, you will.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Done. Folks are going back to the blowout. Relaxers. And the relaxers. That's why they were mad when the science came out and said relaxers might be causing cancer. Yeah. Because the transition had started. And I think it's the same reason, the same thing for Black women, by the way. We have been at the forefront of, like, economic progress for women. That sort of generational forefront, right?
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Black women, women writ large, outpacing men in education, going to college. We're almost at parity in the most male fields worldwide. law and medicine, right?
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Okay. Yeah. Black women had already exceeded black men, but white women were now coming forward. I mean, we were almost at parity. And now you see this like hostile sort of response to women. And I think you start going, if nothing else, let me look the part. And again, I'm not sure any of that's conscious.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
I think as you look around and the aesthetics, for example, of the Trump administration are really clear. Blonde. Blonde. As blonde as you can get it. And I think that you take that as a cue for this is what we do now if you want a little bit of safety. Absolutely.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Can I just say about stay-at-home girlfriends, I'm an oxymoron of that. Pushes my buttons in a particular kind of way. Tell me more. What is a girlfriend? A stay-at-home wife is only allowed to be a stay-at-home wife with the benefits of it, however marginal its benefits are, because the state says he owes you the money. Yeah. If you a girlfriend.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Who is going to make the sucker give you the money? But that's what I'm saying.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
I see these young girls, and I feel like I'm turning into an auntie, but I see these young girls, and I'm like, who raised you?
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Get the bag. Yes! Do you know what people's grandmas did for you to be able to get the bag?
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
That's what's supposed to happen.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
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What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
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What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
That's hilarious. And we ran it into the ground. That is hilarious. And yet she can't fathom the idea because that was her point, by the way. She was like, I don't have anything to do when we're in the car because I don't have a smartphone. Yeah. So you look out the window. I looked out the window for 20 years. But the concept, and I just don't think the brains are prepared.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
And I do think that a lot of what we see at sort of a societal scale is that chronic anxiety.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Yeah. Everything should happen. I should be able to predict everything. You know, the total fear of any risk. Missing the bus. No big deal. You missed it. You waited for the next one. Now it would be considered like some major.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
I am so sorry to say this. Like, I am so sorry you asked me this question because I have an answer. I've thought about it so much and it is not a good or fun answer. But yes, I don't want to be dystopian. I actually don't think it'll be like, you know, I don't think it'll be the type of revolution that maybe some of us imagine and hope for. And I don't think it is like a complete, you
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
But I do think it will take the firsthand experience of the loss of a functioning bureaucratic state, of the type of security. I don't think we understand how much like emotional security we get from knowing the government works, from not having to worry about whether water is coming, for not having to worry about whether when you call 9-1-1.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Oh, we should maybe quarantine you. Oh, I'm the problem. That's my takeaway here.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Yeah, but he doesn't say it's all digital. No, it's all computer, like your grandma. It's all computer. Yeah, they put computer in car.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
It was a Republican utopia. Yes.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Yeah, that's right.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
And people can see it firsthand. The American sickness, though, is that they would look at that story and go. the solution isn't more taxes. The solution for me is I need to become that rich guy. Yeah.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
That's the American disease. That we look at that and what we diagnose, again, back to like the wrong diagnosis. It was like, oh, if I want the state to work for me, I just better become rich. Now, everybody cannot, of course, be rich, which is why we created governments. But what we don't understand, I think Texas is a great example of this. Texas is like, again, one of these
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
you know, utopian political realities for people who believe in, like, the core tenets of the GOP's political platform. But it only works because everybody around them is not a Republican utopia. Wow. You need the government to be somewhere. And so you can only be a state like Florida. You can only be a state like Texas that says, we don't use the federal government. See us?
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
You know, big F you to the federal government. Well, yeah, you know that because all of the rest of us, however— fund it and keep it going and you draw from it and you still need it, right? People learn that during COVID. We saw it firsthand. The thing about this country is our need for ongoing amnesia about how vulnerable we are keeps us from doing the right diagnosis.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Yeah, you look at that and go, the rich guy was able to get Private firefighters. And you go, okay.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Yep, that's the man with the nuclear codes for you.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Do you know who's sitting somewhere right now going, are you kidding me? It is Hillary Clinton. Do you remember when they made fun of her because she couldn't work the soda machine in a convenience store?
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Yes, campaign trail. So, you know, America, you know, being a regular American. So they go to like a 7-Eleven. And I always felt sorry for her because I do think those machines actually are overly complicated. And I really felt a rare moment of deep empathy for Hillary Rodham Clinton because she was like, she's got her cup, you know? And it used to be a physical thing. You'd press that lever.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Well, that's not no more. You know that thing now that spins your cup and it does and you mix and flavors and all that. And she was overwhelmed. And they acted like that woman had lost her mind.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Yes. Now Donald Trump can get in a car and say computer.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Oh, Howard Dean. Howard Dean.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Yeah, because, baby, you've seen the tablet. You know the idea. That's what I mean. Yeah.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Like he's just doing it. He's doing it. And he said he's going to do it.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Okay, but to be fair, as a black American, I love that one. Let me just tell you, the number of times I've heard an old black woman say, they dying like they ain't never died before. And I thought, okay, well now that one, I can kind of get with. People are dying who have never died before. Never died before. Yeah, that one. Yeah, we have a deep funeral culture where I'm from.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
And I was like, I could see that one popping off. But think about Donald Trump or the moments like you. I'm a little obsessed with these moments where he's clearly revealed. And I think a lot about why didn't that work? Why didn't that work? Because the great story to me of Donald Trump is, you know, he's New York's version of a country bumpkin. Yes. He's not a Manhattanite.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
He was never accepted here. That's what a lot of his grudge is about. He learned, however, that if you just win enough, they will at least give you a ticket. He knows he's not invited because they like him. But, you know, he learned that. And I think he just got still. And I hate all the psychological explanations. Why? Why do you hate them? Oh. Because I just think it's very American of us.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Because you're a sociologist. Yes, that's part of it. This is absolutely professional envy. But because psychologists keep winning and I'm not sure they have all the answers. You know what I'm saying? But I also think it's like very American of us to think that, oh, it's only true if he really meant it. If there's something deep inside. Oh, okay.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
And I'm like, it doesn't matter whether he means it. It matters that he does it. And I'm like, you know, I don't really care if it's because he's insecure. Lots of people are insecure and they still don't do horrible things to people. So I think we can kind of over-rely on psychology to excuse away bad behavior. Yeah. especially in politics.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
I'm like, does it really matter if he really hates trans people? Like, why are we so obsessed?
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
That's exactly right.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Yes, it's the billionaire problem.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
No, I've never thought of it that way.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
And it changes your whole personality. I'm like, this guy has a trip. I've never thought of that.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
That's my Kanye thing. Oh, that's your theory.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
I can't believe I never thought of that. He displays all the traits. The violence, the, yeah, the unpredictability.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
So my thing on that is I think this might be a division of labor problem, which I mean, like, does everybody need to understand it to condemn it? Right. The behavior. It may just be that, OK, there are people who will puzzle out the how and the why. And then the rest of us, I think it takes a little humility to say, hey, I don't do that. I don't know anything about it.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
But I do know that he said this thing that I find abhorrent. And so that's enough for me. I think the problem is there are too many people who feel like that. They can diagnose. So for them that I need to personally understand before I can act.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
He's chronically online. Yes, he is. Let me tell you what the through line is for me that resolves, I would say about 80% of this for me. And I'm like you, I've spent a lot, a lot, a lot of time thinking about this. And kind of like holding that voter up in like perverse fascination, like what's happening there.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
I strongly agree. His political instincts are out of this world.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
We act like he is reckless to an unfathomable degree. But I have seen him, sometimes cakewalked up to a line that you would assume he would cross. Yeah. And he doesn't.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
Is that what they're doing?
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
That's a follow-up question I had personally.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
And I do think your point gets at it, Trevor, which is I'm not sure that understand is the right word. I don't think you need to understand to act.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
That's the difference. But his diagnosis feels right. Yes. That is what I think, by the way, has cut across class and across race. Yes. This is what, like, my great aunt is 91, 92 years old. And she goes, no, you are right. He is right. There are a lot of people out there who shouldn't be here.
What Now? with Trevor Noah
American Amnesia with Tressie McMillan Cottom [VIDEO]
So remove them. That seems like the most straightforward solution. Now, removing them means violating the Constitution, you know, violating human rights. Not having enough planes. Right. There are all types of complications to that. But remove them resonates deeply with a lot of people for whom observing the problem is the diagnosis of the problem. Yes. Yeah. Remove problem.