Chenjerai Kumanyika
Appearances
It's Been a Minute
What's more "American" than the right to protest?
Well, so many of these executive orders and actions aren't legal and they don't stand up in court. So what Trump is really doing here is actually performance, right? I mean, he wants to create a sort of spectacle and performance that's so compelling to his audiences that no one even cares about the law or the First Amendment. But, of course, Trump is good at this, right?
It's Been a Minute
What's more "American" than the right to protest?
We didn't meet this guy because he was a legal expert. Most folks met Trump because he was performing a kind of silly reality show or being like a kind of— rich but cartoonish business person, right? So, like, he understands performance, and unfortunately, it's not just performance, right? There's a real cost here.
It's Been a Minute
What's more "American" than the right to protest?
Yeah. I mean, I think every right that I have that the vast majority of Americans have in this country is because people protest. At times, people challenge the law. Sometimes people broke laws as part of civil disobedience. And it's interesting because that aspect of protest is what sometimes people who are really proud to be American is usually what they're bragging about.
It's Been a Minute
What's more "American" than the right to protest?
The problem is that protest also challenges whoever is in power at that time. And so there's always an incentive to put protests down.
It's Been a Minute
What's more "American" than the right to protest?
Well, historically, the way that this has played out is that people who are often fighting to make America a more robust democracy are cast as some kind of internal enemy. And that internal threat often has to do with people's ethnicity, their immigration status. I mean, there's a long history, right?
It's Been a Minute
What's more "American" than the right to protest?
It's not just like when you hear Trump sort of saying that there's an internal enemy, which he was saying on the campaign trail.
It's Been a Minute
What's more "American" than the right to protest?
He's tapping into a long history of rhetoric that does that.
It's Been a Minute
What's more "American" than the right to protest?
Well, we could go all the way back to the 19th century and look at, you know, the different like European ethnic groups who were fighting on the labor front. We could talk about the civil rights movement. We could talk about Claudia Jones.
It's Been a Minute
What's more "American" than the right to protest?
I mean, in all these cases, the government cast these people as actually the danger, even though now most of the things they were fighting for are like uncontroversial.
It's Been a Minute
What's more "American" than the right to protest?
Again, one of the things that, you know, those who are patriotic, you know, brag about is that America is a place where you can do some things, you can say some things and are supposed to have some freedoms to say some things that you can't say other places, right? And that's been crucial to securing certain kind of rights.
It's Been a Minute
What's more "American" than the right to protest?
And it's funny, you know, I think personally about, you know, my father, right? My father was worked with an organization called the Congress of Racial Equality. Yeah, CORE, one of the major civil rights organizations. And my father was participating in a protest against police brutality. He handcuffed himself inside a police station.
It's Been a Minute
What's more "American" than the right to protest?
And a couple of weeks later, the police commissioner at the time, Michael Murphy, said that he was dangerous, had sinister motives and a lust for power. What he was basically saying was this kind of protest is protesting the wrong way. We're cool if you do it the right way.
It's Been a Minute
What's more "American" than the right to protest?
But it turns out when you look at history from then until now, no matter how you protest, it's considered the wrong way if you're challenging the status quo.
It's Been a Minute
What's more "American" than the right to protest?
Yeah, I would just say that, you know, historically, when you've seen this kind of oppression in America— It definitely has a chilling effect. It's scary. People get hurt and detained. But I mean, going all the way back to slavery, you actually see groups of people coming together around it as well. Right now, what's happening is I'm actually seeing people come together in the streets.
It's Been a Minute
What's more "American" than the right to protest?
People who formerly disagreed over certain things are saying, this is too far. This, I can't abide. Like a galvanizing moment. This galvanizing and not just protesters, right? Artists, right? educators, journalists, people from all sectors of life are saying, we're not going to take this. And so there are those who support it.
It's Been a Minute
What's more "American" than the right to protest?
But when I'm there with people across all these differences, right, that have divided us, and I'm seeing them actually take to the streets and find their ways, whether big or small, to protest, I'm like, this is the America I want to be a part of.
It's Been a Minute
What's more "American" than the right to protest?
Yeah, yeah. So excited to be here.
It's Been a Minute
What's more "American" than the right to protest?
Yeah. I mean, recently, though, also, anti-Semitism and the conservative movement has been one of the engines that has fused and put new energy, energy of young people into the conservative movement. I remember being in Charlottesville where there was huge swastika flags and people explicitly saying, you know, all kinds of anti-Semitic things, replacement theory.
It's Been a Minute
What's more "American" than the right to protest?
And remember, these are the people that Trump kind of defended, right? He said among them were very nice people. And I think in the space of a lot of these protests, I was actually seeing something beautiful, which was, as Rick said, Jewish rituals, seders and all kinds of other things happening in the space of protest against this war. Right. Right.
It's Been a Minute
What's more "American" than the right to protest?
And also seeing Palestinian and Muslim students welcoming Jewish rituals. You're seeing like this tremendous, profound interfaith collaboration that's happening in the protests. And then that's the thing that gets attacked as anti-Semitic.
It's Been a Minute
What's more "American" than the right to protest?
There's always been this tension, these different ways of defining what it means to be American. One tradition is keeping people out of being American, keeping black people, you know, Asian Americans. A lot of the immigration laws were initially formed around them. keeping Latino and, you know, other folks out of being American. That's one tradition.
It's Been a Minute
What's more "American" than the right to protest?
There's another tradition, though, that says that's actually what can make this country strong. If we constantly push to be inclusive and so that, you know, Mahmoud Khalil can be at his Ramadan in this country, that's what makes us stronger. And I would simply say that all three of us, the reason we can be in this position now is because of that second tradition.