Peniel E. Joseph, author of "The Third Reconstruction: America's Struggle for Racial Justice in the 21st Century," joins us this week to discuss how the era from Barack Obama's election to George Floyd's murder compare to the post-Civil War Reconstruction and the Civil Rights Movement. Joseph argues that this period constitutes a third reconstruction, but Democracy Works hosts Chris Beem and Candis Watts Smith aren't so sure he's right about that.
Joseph is based at the University of Texas at Austin, where he holds the following titles:Associate Dean for Justice, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Barbara Jordan Chair in Ethics and Political Values, Professor of History and Public Affairs, and Founding Director of the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy. His career focus has been on "Black Power Studies," which encompasses interdisciplinary fields such as Africana studies, law and society, women's and ethnic studies and political science. He is a frequent commentator on issues of race, democracy and civil rights.
Episode TranscriptChris BeemFrom the McCourtney Institute for Democracy at Penn State University, I'm Chris Beem.
Candis Watts SmithI'm Candis Watts Smith.
Jenna SpinelleI'm Jenna Spinelle, and welcome to Democracy Works. This week, we are talking with Peniel E. Joseph, who is Associate Dean for justice, equity, diversity and inclusion, and the founding director of the Center for the Study of Race and democracy at the University of Texas, and also author of the book, the third reconstruction, we had Dr. Joseph on campus earlier this semester. And this is a interesting argument that he's making here and really sets up some bigger conversations about eras in history and how we think about when one era ends and another begins and, you know, even taking it back more fundamentally, like are we in a third reconstruction? He argues that, yes, we very much are and devotes the whole book to making that argument.
Candis Watts SmithI think that there is a consensus certainly that the first reconstruction happened around the end of the Civil War, and extended through, I don't know how some people would say 1877, others with extended a little bit longer. But in that era, we essentially have a massive reimagining of the American political landscape, where previously enslaved black folks, black men, may have gone from an enslaved person, to a congress person in the matter of a couple of years. It was an era that I think we actually don't talk enough about, because it was such swift and almost unimaginable change in a short amount of time, that increase the quality of citizenship that enhanced what we think about as democracy in the United States. And there was a for many people an effort to work toward a multiracial democracy. So for me, I think it's important to note that there are both bottom up and top down components of, of that era. And so by bottom up, I mean, you know, black folks, abolitionist, black and white, and others, other people who really wanted to expand the scope of democracy, you know, kind of did their work on the ground. And then there was a top down element, a policy element largely through the federal government, through Congress, who created a monumental set of policy changes that drastically reshape the country, we have the reconstruction amendment, the 13th 14th 15th amendments, I think that a reconstruction era is marked by a widening of democracy, enhancement of citizenship, and I think really, is a full step toward this kind of thing that we call multiracial democracy, or fully inclusive democracy. I think those things all have to happen in order for us to call something a reconstruction.
Chris BeemRight. And so you have that, and you have, you know, hope and achievement on the part of African Americans, former slaves, and, you know, part of American history is that those hopes were almost entirely dashed. And that all those things that happened, all those changes that were made, or almost all systematically undone. And so you, you know, you went back to not just Jim Crow, but you had redlining in the north. And, and I mean, these things are, you know, these things are just so there's no two ways about any of this. And so that leads to, you know, the civil rights era, or what he calls the second reconstruction.
Candis Watts SmithWhich I think also has similar elements, similar elements through the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the 1965 Voting Rights Act, I mean, ostensibly, we could maybe put it in the 1968 Fair Housing Act. So there is a top down set of sweeping federal policies. These are watershed moments, huge policies that, again, reshape American politics and the polity. And there's also the bottom up challengers, right, the Freedom Riders, the protesters, the Fannie Lou Hamer as the, you know, the reston's the, you know, a Philip Randolph, so on and so forth. That kind of everyday people who resisted any quality The and work toward what eventually became like one of our most important pieces of legislation, right, the 1965 Voting Rights Act. So, you know, for me, I think these are really important models. And I would be, how do I say elated? I think if we had a similar set of policies that came out of the Black Lives Matter movement, the me to movement, the second wave of Black Lives Matter in the wake of George Floyd. And I'm not. I don't think that we've seen that. I don't think we've seen the bottom up part. But I don't. I'm not sure. No, I'm certain that we haven't seen the top down. Right. We don't have I don't think we have all of the elements quite yet to consider ourselves to be in a third reconstruction. I think it might be. I think that Professor Josephs proposition is one that I think is worthy of considering what are our criteria for a reconstruction and to know, when we have experienced one or maybe even if we're on the brink of one.
Chris BeemWhen was the Rutherford B. Hayes, that election was 1878? Is that Yes, 1817. That was the terrible bargain that's basically gave the South the right to re institutionalize, you know, segregated society, you know, an oppressed society in order to get routes over behaves elected. But I mean, that's another point right? That Peniel says, is constitutive of these eras, that you inevitably have this kind of counter reaction, that anytime you have this movement towards greater equality, you're going to have people perceive that as illegitimate as a threat. And as a step away from the true American ideals.
Candis Watts SmithI think that we should talk about this more after we hear from Pinnacle's conversation with Jenna, but I think one of the things that we can agree on for sure is that progress is not linear. And that we almost expect a back and forth we expect a debate a constant and present debate between people who value and want to work toward multiracial democracy, and those who seek to maintain a racial order with white folks on top, maybe, specifically, white Christian males on top, who knows. But for that, I really think that the book is helpful and kind of outlining this pattern that we see and may continue to see.
Jenna SpinelleYeah, that's well put canvas. And I think it does set us up nicely to go to the interview, where we talk more about these historical eras and about some of those markers, and also this idea of redemption and all these sorts of things. So without further ado, let's go to the interview with Peniel Joseph.
Jenna SpinelleWelcome to Democracy Works. Thanks for joining us today.
Peniel JosephThank you for having me.
Jenna SpinelleSo just to help orient listeners to your book, the third reconstruction and the history that you cover in it, can you walk us through the demarcation, dates, events, all that kind of stuff for the three reconstructions that you Oh, absolutely.
Peniel JosephSo I argue in the book, that third reconstruction that we're going through three periods of reconstruction right now, or we've gone through three periods of Reconstruction in American history. The first is 1865 to 1898, the second is 1954, to 1968. And the third is 2008, to the present.
Jenna SpinelleAnd so you write a lot about Barack Obama's election in 2008, as the start of this third Reconstruction period, I wonder if given what you know and studied about the first two? Did you know in real time, or close to real time that this was the start of something here or kind of how did that unfold to determining that period as the third reconstruction?
Peniel JosephYeah, no, I felt the arrival of Barack Obama was a watershed period in American history, but I think it took those other pivot points, I had the four pivot points as Obama's election, the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2013, the rise of sort of white nationalism, ethno nationalism, Make America Great Donald Trump in 2016. And then finally, 20, and all of the really swirling racial political juxtapositions and reckonings that we we experienced that year, but also since then;
Jenna SpinelleThroughout each of these three periods, you frame them as a battle between Reductionists and Reconstructionist. So, tell us who those those camps are and how they've they kind of buttheads throughout these three periods.
Peniel JosephYeah, so Reconstructionist we'll start with them, you know, Abraham Lincoln in November of 1863, at Gettysburg, right right outside of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, he delivers his famous address where you really the most important parts of that addresses where he talks about the soldiers who they are honoring at Gettysburg, gave their last devotion for so that a new birth of freedom could begin in America, which, which is really important. So reconstructionists are supporters of multiracial democracy. And and in a very important way, I would say that Reconstructionist are also especially at the radical end supporters of what we're now calling intersectional. Justice. So it's a multiracial democracy that doesn't leave anybody behind, you know, people who are disabled or women or folks who are trans and queer immigrants, you know, whether you're Muslims or Jews or Christians or secular. So it's that. And so Reconstructionist really think about the Civil War. And the emancipation is legacy of of what I call, or what Dubois called abolition, democracy, redemption, just our supporters, you know, yes, they are supporters of white supremacy. But they're supporters of a lost cause, which is very, very important because it provides a kind of ballast for white supremacy. And it provides a kind of language white supremacy in a way that a lot of times you don't have to talk about race. That's why it's so important. So in a lot of ways redemption, just, you know, yes, they are white supremacist, but it's also bigger, bigger than that, because it's encapsulated in a in a story and in a narrative that really can fold into different religious beliefs, Christian beliefs, it folds into notions of tradition and honor. It folds into notion of heritage, where loss causes, they want to continue the power relations of the antebellum south. And at times, they do so in a colorblind way, at times, they do so in ways that are very explicitly racist, but at times, they do so in ways that are actually not explicitly racist, but the outcomes are always about racial disparities and racial oppression. So in a lot of ways, since 1865, those two and this was one of the neat parts about writing the book was sort of making that argument, but showing it to that really, since 1865, every single problem that we're thinking about whether it's environmental justice, or things like tax policy, and zoning, and racial integration or segregation in public schools and neighborhoods, it's it's connected to those poles, those Reconstructionist versus redemption is poles. And then within those polls, there's disagreement, and there's debate, and there's conflict. So within the redemption is polled, there, there, there are disagreements. And then within the Reconstructionist, polls, you have radical Reconstructionist, you have mainstream Reconstructionist, you have those who are more conservative. So it's very interesting, and I talk about that throughout the book. But I think just for the general audience who I want to read the book, I wanted them to understand how the terms reconstruction and redemption really are impacting their lives today.
Jenna SpinelleYeah. And would you put economics into that mix as well. So, you know, redemption is who might be in favor of things leaning toward reconstruction, but only in as much as it doesn't disrupt the economic status quo, those kinds of things.
Peniel JosephAbsolutely. You know, so, you know, redemption is a lot of times don't want federal intervention, unless through that federal intervention, they can secure more power and more benefits for themselves at the expense of the black population, you know, and we saw that through the New Deal we see even today with what's going on in Jackson, Mississippi, and the water crisis in Jackson and people trying to set up special sort of police districts in Jackson and Washington DC and and other places. So it's very interesting that the economic orientation of this is key, because reconstruction, at its most radical was about redistributive justice. And you know, the idea of 40 acres and a mule the idea that formerly enslaved newly free black people were going to be able to have land and have them political and economic power was was really key.
Jenna SpinelleAnd so going back to Obama, where would you place him on that spectrum of reconstructionists that you described earlier?
Peniel JosephYeah, I think Obama is the mainstream reconstructionists. You know, and I and one of the things I tried to tease out with Barack Obama, is that Obama, in contrast, the Black Lives Matter activist, was a believer, an advocate of American exceptionalism, right. And, and American Exceptionalism is usually told to us as a story of sort of an imperfect union, trying to become more more perfect. So we have had these problems and we fixed it, women had the right to vote. We, you know, the civil rights movement, we have an eight hour Labor Day we, you know, whatever sort of challenges, we fix it, you know, I push back against American exceptionalism and make the argument that it's really based on too big falsehoods are lies. The first is that black people are not human beings. And that's how you can get racial slavery, which, you know, there's so many great books. Dubois is Black Reconstruction, Eric Williams, capitalism and slavery, but then newer works like the half has never been told by Edie Baptists are empire of cotton by Sven Beckert, Ebony and Ivy by Craig Wilder. The pound for their price of flesh by Dinah Ramey Berry, there's many, many great books on slavery and sort of capitalism now. And what you see is that the reason why you needed the lie that black people weren't human beings and James Baldwin and other people say the same thing is that that was the only way you could justify producing all the wealth, because the supply chains that slavery sets up, and we've seen this in the university reports at Harvard, Georgetown, UVA, Brown University, is that it sets up a supply chain that's global in scope, that implicates north, south east west, that implicates us when we're opening up new lands in California and what becomes Oregon and, you know, so everybody's implicated in racial slavery, Providence, Rhode Island, all the ports, Providence, New Orleans, you know, they're, they're all implicated. So what's so interesting about American exceptionalism is based on that those two lies, the first lie is that black people are not human beings. The second line is that the first line never happened. So no one wants to talk about it. No one wants to talk about which is why you see the pushback against the 1619 project and anti racism. And I think what Obama does is try to split the difference. What he does is that the only reason he can be a believer in American Exceptionalism is because of the second reconstruction, because whereas the first reconstruction, redemption, just or last causers, white supremacist, they win that narrative war, and the physical political war, in the second reconstruction. Reconstructionist actually win the narrative war, and for a time legally and legislatively to so from 63 to 2013. I argue there's this racial justice consensus in the United States, it's imperfect, we're gonna see the rise of mass incarceration, we're gonna see resegregation, but it does provide the biggest acknowledgement and enforcement of multiracial democracy, you know, politically, socially, economically in American history, and that's the time period that you see more women get more access to our politics, to our elite schools to wealth, more more black people, more more Latin X indigenous Asian American Pacific Islander, just queer folks, just the whole gamut, right. And so the reason why Obama makes the speech in so July 27 2004, at the Democratic National Convention, there's no blue states, no red states is that within the context of American exceptionalism, forged between 63 and 2013, America is working for him. He's a mainstream Reconstructionist. And even within the paradigm of Neo liberal democracy, and by Neo liberal, we're just saying, a top down vision of democracy, where wealth is redistributed, upward instead of downward. And you see the professionalization and the privatization of public spaces, the military technology all goes upward, and all goes to special interests. And that becomes the status quo. So within the context of neoliberalism, instead of having a social safety net, like the new deal for everyone, both in the United States and globally, what you do is have private philanthropy, it's much less capacious in its ability to actually effectuate change for working people, for poor people, for people incarcerated, but that is the logic of neoliberalism. So Barack and Michelle Obama are firmly Neo liberals. That's how they've got the Netflix deals. That's how they've made their wealth. Black Lives Matter our radical Reconstructionist. And so where they're pushing for is a redistributed democracy in a way that you United States has never seen before that goes beyond the New Deal that goes beyond the Great Society. Right? And that's why there was such tension in that relationship. Right. And so I think Barack Obama is a very, very important figure. But I think, you know, when we think about radical Reconstructionist, from 1865, all the way to the present, they're interested in something far more expansive, and capacious than, you know, President Obama could even conceive of, because they're coming from a different tradition. They're coming from the tradition of folks who, who wanted redistributive democracy in 1865 and 1866, in 1867. And felt that that was a possibility,
Jenna SpinelleAnd speaking of Black Lives Matter, you also write in the book that the movement combined Malcolm X's vision for radical dignity, and Martin Luther King's vision for radical citizenship. If I noticed that correct me, please tell me if I didn't, but I wonder if you could say more about that the ways that that black lives matter, called back to that second Reconstruction period.
Peniel JosephYeah, you know, in a lot of ways BLM did so through demonstrations, they did so through the language of all black lives matter and not leaving people behind. So they sort of went back and they, they, they went forward, there was the movement for political self determination. There was this critique of white supremacy and structural racism and oppression that Malcolm X talked about, there was something global to it in terms of it's inspiring folks all throughout the world, in terms of protests. And in terms of King they were they were practitioners of nonviolent civil disobedience, starting in 2013. So they had sit ins at highways and restaurants, and they had massive demonstrations, but also smaller, more localized demonstrations. So in a lot of ways, BLM, you know, the dignity piece for Malcolm was this idea that all people are born with human dignity. And citizenship is just external recognition of dignity. And so in a lot of ways, BLM called for both, you know, they call for both citizenship and dignity. When you read their policy agenda, it included really capacious, redistributive justice for people who are immigrants, including black immigrants, because when we think about immigration, we usually think of just Spanish speakers and brown folks. But we don't think about Afro Latinx folks and people from Africa and other, they really called for dignity for working class and poor women, especially black women and women of color. For those who are incarcerated, they really call for a defunding, and an abolition of prisons, policing and punishment, which is really important, because there's so many billions of dollars spent on building up systems of punishment at the expense of educating people at the expense of feeding them make the expense of giving them good housing, all these different things. So I think that they were very good in that. And, you know, they criticize the president, the first black president to even as I write in the book, they were also inspired by him, you know, so a lot of those folks had become activists, because of 2008. And then they were, they were criticizing him because he became the functional face of this kind of American Empire. That was that was marginalizing them, but at the same time, using the fact of his presidency, as an example of progress.
Jenna SpinelleYeah. And as we move into the 2016 election, you you write about conversations you had with folks on the more radical end of that spectrum about, you know, voting for Hillary Clinton or not. So what what were those arguments? Like?
Peniel JosephYeah, they were tough arguments. I mean, I think a lot of people later on had me a Copas. But I think that, you know, I think that folks who are on the left, and who think of themselves as progressive, progressives, are fallible, they're human beings. So you know, as somebody who's been in politics for a very, very long time, you know, they make mistakes, they at times have vanity and ego and different stuff. So I think that what happened there was that people, they weren't keeping their eyes on the prize. They weren't thinking about Supreme Court justices. They got into a personal battle about Hillary Clinton. And because she had said super predator and the the many mistakes that she had made, and they weren't thinking collectively and strategically and empathetically about, you know, who was going to get hurt? If she wasn't president? You know, some of them might have thought she was eventually going to be president. So their vote didn't matter. But yeah, I call people out on that, because I think that that's a that was a failure. And certainly, it's not just the left because it's all the people who voted for Trump and different stuff. But for people who make a claim of having progressive values, you know, there's over a million people voted for Jill Stein. I think many of them would like to vote back. What happened because of those votes is people died because Have those votes and children were separated from their parents because of the those votes and so many other things. So I do think that's a that's a problem. That's that's a big problem. When we, when our politics are just abstracted to the point where we're not really caring about human beings anymore. We're just sort of performing politics.
Jenna SpinelleAnd, you know, you alluded to before there's there's a kind of spectrum of Reconstructionist ideas. And I hear in some of it this kind of sense, like, well, can we just go back to that period, you described when we had the kind of racial consensus, you know, from the end of the Civil Rights on I guess D? I mean, do you hear that as well, or some of these things? Like, you know, it was good enough the way it was? And we don't really want to push any further beyond that?
Peniel JosephOh, no, I mean, I think we have to push but I think you want you need a restoration of the consensus, the consensus, I think, dates from John F. Kennedy's June 11. Race speech in 63, all the way to the June 20/25, Shelby V holder decision. And so I think you need a restoration of voting rights. I also think that having a president who's open racist, hurts you, you know, so you need some equilibrium within the Republican Party where, and that hasn't occurred yet. But I think Ron DeSantis is an open, bigot and racist with the anti dei stuff that he's doing. So I just think that until we get equilibrium back in the two parties, where both parties would be pro democracy parties, it's going to be very, very, it's going to be very, very difficult.
Jenna SpinelleAnd is that you also write that, you know, black dehumanization is the essence of American democracy, and it must be phased in forever to change it. But it is restoring that equilibrium that you just mentioned, like a necessary precondition to even starting to get back to tackling the the black dehumanising.
Peniel JosephWell, I think you can do both, I think you can do both. And it's necessary to do both. So I think you have to push on both fronts. But I just think effectively, one of the things that we've lost is any kind of consensus in our politics, right. So even somebody like George W. Bush, who I don't have, you know, hagiography over Bush and the war in Iraq, and sort of the outcome and and the impact and expense of that and loss of lives and damage to the country's credibility. But rhetorically the fact that he was a supporter of voting rights, even with the 2000 election, and everything keeps a certain equilibrium that we've we've lost for the foreseeable future, right. So there has to be, and I think the equilibrium we need needs to be better than the one we had before. So it's not even going back. It's like moving forward into a different place.
Jenna SpinelleAnd, you know, would, I guess, of the three reconstruction periods, or maybe just just the first, like, Where was the kind of high water mark for the equilibrium? Or if you think of it that way? And I guess I also, you know, thought as I was reading your book, like, how much were the second and third reconstructions about just even getting back to the baseline of power and humanity that black people had in the first?
Peniel JosephYeah, you know, I think I think in the second reconstruction, by the time you get the Voting Rights Act, and the Civil Rights Act passed, and 6465, you sort of get up. It's a rhetorical high point. But I think the high points really come in the 1970s and 80s, in the 90s. And then certainly with Obama, because it takes a long time for those changes to filter, filter in and even play. Mississippi has the most black elected officials in the country, but they still never have had senators or governors. And they have a tough time in Mississippi, right? So sometimes representation is not enough. So I think the high water mark of the second is going to be when you start to see a rise, at least according to some data in the numbers of people who are in the black middle class and upper middle class and elites rise of this black political class and economic class who are able to make away right, and then you know, you see Douglas Wilder and, you know, Douglas Brook is the first black senator in the 20th century. Carolyn Moseley, Braun Obama. So I do think that there are some high point and even you know, cultural figures like Oprah Winfrey, Michael Jordan, very, very important, LeBron James, and those high points would not have occurred without that second reconstruction. Right. So they they wouldn't have hurt sports were segregated, you know, politics were segregated, the whole country was was segregated. So I think that's, that's usually important.
Jenna SpinelleAnd we'll end here at the end of the third reconstruction you You say that, you know, you choose hope you choose kind of a hopeful vision, a hopeful story, as you were just saying, I wonder if, despite everything you talked about in the book and everything we've talked about here, what what gives you hope right now? What are you looking to?
Peniel JosephWell, yeah, I mean, over the last three years, I mean, there was upwards of 25 26 million people out in the streets, in the aftermath of George Floyd breonna, Taylor, there was, you know, millions of dollars given to antiracism. There, you know, 1000s of school teachers who want to teach the 1619 project, some of them were doing so. So there's a lot of people who are doing a lot of good things, politically, you know, on multiple levels, whether we're talking about economically, environmental justice, anti racism, folks who are queer, who are immigrant trying to stop the rise in anti semitic hate crimes and anti Asian American Pacific Islander crimes, domestic violence against women, I'm in the weeds of all these things that are happening both in Austin, Texas and nationally. So there's a lot of great work being done, trying to close down economic income gaps, wealth gaps, entrepreneurial and investment gaps, transform the system of mass incarceration, you know, in sort of an abolitionist take on everything from incarceration to poverty, right. So those are all really good. And so I think that we have to even as we're aware, very realistically, of the challenges we face, we have to also keep in mind of some of the progress that actually has been made the reason why the backlash against anti racism has been so big and so capacious in 37 states, passing or considering, you know, anti CRT laws, anti woke acts, is because there was so much headway made in such a tremendously short amount of time. That was really revolutionary in a way. There's a great new book called elite capture, Oh, yeah. Which looks at ways in which, you know, elites have transmogrified assumed really taken over aspects of both identity, politics and politics to liberate us all. That being said, I still think that, you know, those of us who believe in human dignity and citizenship and what Martin Luther King Jr, called the beloved community, I still think we can win. And I think you can have, you know, we should be pushing for radical inclusivity, radical hope on so many different fronts. And we should be sharing our stories with with other people, right? So we have to be able to say that two things can be existing simultaneously, there's this big backlash against racial justice and economic justice and intersectional justice, but we also have the most people in American history who want all those things, those two things can be simultaneously occurring. And I think that gives me hope, because you actually have more people now who want to see multiracial democracy and who are Reconstructionist whether they know it or not, whether they agree with every last single thing you agree with or not right, because part of it, we have to be strategic in terms of having coalition's The Coalition is not based on somebody agreeing with everything. I Peniel, Joseph believing it's all of us sharing specific shared values, or on one or two, three big things, and seeing what we can do to get those big things done. So all of that gives me hope.
Jenna SpinelleYeah, and we didn't even get to you tell your own story beautifully in the book. I hope listeners will will pick it up and read more about your journey and about all the history that you tell. We'll link to it in the show notes. Well, Joseph, thanks for joining us. Thank you.
Chris BeemCandis, I just wanted to mention one moment that Neil talks about, and he actually talked about it in his talk at Penn State as well. And, and it was not a speech that I knew. And it was the John F. Kennedy speech of June 11th 1963. So before the really the civil rights movement has, wow, the Montgomery bus boycott is happening. You have some he's actually responding to the desegregation of University of Alabama, but anyways, early in the civil rights era, and I was just really impressed with with that speech, I'd never seen it before. And it really does kind of lay out this one frame, at least of this reconstruction movement, which is that, look, you know, America is grounded on ideals, you know, that all men are created equal, is pretty fundamental to what it means to be an American. And John F. Kennedy is saying, Guys, we're not living up to this. We are We are failing in this fundamental way. And he does it in a way that is just in terms of our politics right now. It's a moral. It's a decent, and it's a a responsible argument. It's not trying to beat anybody over the head. It's just trying to make this case for people who I don't think are very open to it.
Candis Watts SmithOh, certainly, I think also, you know, watching that and listening to it, I think one of the thing that JFK does here, and he uses the word commitment, we should have, you know, he talks about having a commitment about remedying the types of discrimination that black folks faced, and housing and employment income, lifespan, education and voting. And he calls for the courts to uphold that commitment. And he calls for Congress to pass legislation. And he also noted that, what the courts do, and you know, he's the president, so the executive branch, and the judicial branch and the legislative branch all have to work in concert, to move us forward. And we need a change in the hearts and minds of Americans and have a shift toward human decency. And so, again, I think that this component, right, he kind of outlines, we need a bottom, we need a top down movement from the government to create policies that will shift the way that we work in the United States. And we also need a bottom up response, we had it from, you know, civil rights protesters and leaders and allies, but also needed it from average white Americans who needed to take part who needed to support the project in order for it to work. So And on some level, we got those things. And that's why we call it a reconstruction. Pineo offers the election of Obama as a third reconstruction. And for me, I thought that I think that's ironic, for many reasons, the least of which is that Obama is shown to have been the president who spoke the least about race than any other president. And so there is not for me. The, this the central components and criteria of reconstruction due to the Obama election.
Chris BeemYeah, I mean, you know, I'm thinking about this in terms of, you know, kind of my friends who are left to me, will always complain about what they didn't see, or what they're not seeing from politicians. And I'm always like, you know, with with Obama, you know, his, like every other politician in the world, his primary objective was to get reelected. And if you done any of the things, that the, you know, the votes that were left of him, the folks who were looking for a reconstructive moment in American history from him, that would not have happened. And I don't think there's I don't think that's a controversial thing to say. And so, you know, the idea that you would, I mean, I think you can look upon the election of the first African American to the highest office in the United States, as an a, you know, a seminal moment and, you know, a nation changing moment. But is it reconstruction? That's a different question. And I don't know that I think I'm inclined to agree with you that it's that it, you know, at least up to this point, we don't see it.
Candis Watts SmithSo I can say that one of the things I think is really helpful about this book is this, there's reconstruction eras, and then there's, you know, redemption eras, but Peniel also talks about reconstructionists. And redemption is and essentially kind of having like these dual ideologies, one of which is about creating the steps toward and actually seeing a multiracial democracy come to life. And then you have a group of people who do not want that. And so I think, on some, what I'm describing is the war between those visions that we're seeing play out in real time. I think that those kinds of thinking about reductionist and reconstructionists as ideological perspectives I think is helpful and I think that that we can point to, in our just everyday news, whether we are in a particular era, I think it's hard to know, without the luxury of time, in hindsight,
Chris BeemThat's fair. I also I mean, I also think that he would argue that, you know, that that kind of, of fighting between the redemption and the reconstructionists is a, you know, a feature of an era of a Reconstructionist era. And so the fact that we're seeing this, and we're seeing it so stridently, you know, is evidence of a third reconstruction.
Candis Watts SmithOr it could just be that we're in a redemption moment from the second reconstruction.
Chris BeemExactly. I would find that persuasive. And in the book, he talks about this meeting of Obama and some early Black Lives Matter activists, and just how much they were talking past each other. And my argument would be that, the reason for that is because there are two different fundamentally different perspectives on on what the what the endgame is here. And so for, for a number of advocates, the objective of a Reconstructionist is to, you know, redeem the American ideals to make it to make us genuinely an equal democracy and a democracy where everyone has the same kinds of freedoms and the same rights that everybody else has. And so that is the agenda of the Reconstructionist movement to make those real, to make them genuine. And then there's another frame within this, you know, black reform or black, you know, a movement among African American people for freedom inequality, that argues that the American experiment is grounded in racism. And all these ideals are therefore properly understood to be lies, and that the only way forward is to take down this edifice of allies move, you know, cut it all back to the studs, and build it back again, better.
Candis Watts SmithSo the way that he dices it is to say that there are different kinds of reconstructionists there are radical Reconstructionist. There are mainstream reconstructionists, which I think he claims that Obama is, I think he has one other category, like moderate Reconstructionist. Should they be lumped in the same group? Well, I mean, I guess we're talking about difference in kind difference in type, right, that if your foil is the redemption is then yes, they belong in the same group. If we were just going to focus on them, well, then yeah, the differences are, are fundamental, because they speak to not just I think they may have the same goal. But see if fundamentally different necessary paths toward getting there. Right. Right. Some people are really right, like you said, are in the belief that we can work through what we have, we can use the constitution for, you know, to bring us to the promised land, and other people are sure that the Constitution is the reason why we are in the quagmire that we're in. So I think that both of those groups are, you know, if we had a situation where your race, your gender, your sexuality, or religion did not predict your life outcomes and opportunity structure. If we could live in that world, I think both of those groups would be happy. But how to get there, I think is one of the major points of disagreement.
Chris BeemAnd so I mean, I feel like we've we have come to, you know, articulating what we think is, you know, a series of unanswered questions that we have with this argument. But I also think that both of us think he has laid out categories and ways of framing what we're seeing right now, that is really useful for figuring out what needs to happen, how we get there. Would you agree with that?
Candis Watts SmithYes. I think that one of the things that I enjoyed about this book is that it really did get me to thinking about what I thought a third reconstruction could look like. That for me, it would be One that we are seriously talking about legislation on policing, that we are seriously thinking about the John Lewis Voting Act, that we are seriously. I'm not just expanding Medicaid, there are 10 states that still refuse to do so. But to maybe have universal health care and universal pre K. I mean, those would be and not to mention, thinking about wealth inequality and campaign finance. I mean, there's a thing, right, that I think would enhance our democracy, and not just representation through elections. But all in all, I think, what I could say, and I think what we both agree on is that we hope our listeners will engage with penaeus work critically as we know they can.
Chris BeemRight, right. And that's the gift that every author gives us a chance to do that, and we're better off for it. So thanks, Jenna, for a terrific interview. Thanks for to Peniel for coming to campus. For democracy works. I'm Chris Beem
Candis Watts SmithAnd I'm Candis Watts Smith. Thanks for listening.
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Democracy Works: Is America in a third reconstruction? - WPSU