Episode 1219
Toward New Afrika / Edward Onaci
Aug 25 2020
These sort of lost stories of manufactured evidence supporting racist ideas and policies, almost all of them were revealed to be hoaxes either at the time or shortly thereafter, even with people admitting to what they've done, and yet retained an enormous amount of power…Why were some people so quick to believe these things? Why did they resist the debunking? A kind of appetite and a market for a soothing idea to either make you feel better about a position that you're in, to make certain white America feel better about its policies, and to endorse new policies to reestablish a status quo. People who are creating these hoaxes are really often not creating, but responding to a desire for a reassuring false idea.
Philip Kadish joins us to discuss his new book, The Great White Hoax: Two Centuries of Selling Racism in America from The New Press. "The Moment of Truth" with Jeff Dorchen follows the interview.
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Aug 6 2020
Posted by Matthew Boedy
Welcome to the Moment of Truth: the thirst that is the drink.
Reading the journals of others, I’m always struck by the way their strengths in one area make up for weaknesses in another. “I wasn’t interested in the majestic mountain ranges, but the old volumes in the village’s small library held me in their thrall.” Or, “My brother’s studies of the classic works of Linnaeus held no interest for me. I lived for the rush of wind as I schussed down the berg.” Or, “I never could get the hang of archery. No, for me, all joy burst forth from the sea as I landed a fish for supper.”
I could never do that memoir schtick. For one thing, I’m too dishonest. And for another, for every weakness of mine, instead of a strength in another area making up for it, there’s an additional weakness. For example, “I never liked other kids much, and they didn’t like me, but at least I had some science fiction to read, which bored me a little less, but was small consolation for a lonely life as child pariah.”
“Oh, blah blah blah, Jeffrey, who wants to listen to you read your creative writing assignment?” I had a boss who used to complain about people’s creative writing assignments being read on NPR. That was the only good thing about my boss. See, I was born one morning when the sun didn’t shine. I picked up a shovel and I went to the mine. I hauled sixteen tons of number nine coal and the straw boss said, “Well bless my soul.”
That’s one thing I like to pretend. That I worked in the mines. That I had one fist of iron and the other of steel. The getting another day older and deeper in debt part, well, that I don’t have to imagine. That happened this morning, as it does every morning.
Yep, that’s why I voted for Trump. Because he said he was going to open the mines back up, bring coal back. Not cuz I’m racist. I mean, I am racist, but let’s be honest: Obama made it hard not to be racist, with his audacity to be black and president at the same time, presiding while black, defying the laws of white physics. And white people invented physics, and don’t you forget it. I mean, can you imagine a bunch of Black people achieving a fake moon landing? They’d never get that hoax off the ground. You know why? Because their Jesus doesn’t have German science on his side.
It’s... read more
Aug 5 2020
Jul 30 2020