Campbell Conversations

On this week's episode of the Campbell Conversations, Grant Reeher speaks with Sara Bronin, an expert on zoning policy and an architect and lawyer. Bronin is also a professor of City and Regional Planning at Cornell University and the author of the book, "Key to the City: How Zoning Shapes Our World."

On this week's episode of the Campbell Conversations, Grant Reeher speaks with Ronald Feinman, the author of, "Assassinations, Threats, and the American Presidency: From Andrew Jackson to Barack Obama."

Program transcript:

Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. We're about to head into a series of election related programs, so today, I'm changing the subject. Two guests, who have been on the program in the past to talk about their respective books, are back with me today to talk about a new book they've written together. James Charney and Noah Charney have coauthored, “The 12-Hour Film Expert: Everything You Need to Know about Movies”. Dr. James Charney is a practicing child and adolescent psychiatrist on Yale University's medical school faculty and he's the author of, “Madness at the Movies: Understanding Mental Illness through Film”. Dr. Noah Charney is an art history professor at the University of Ljubljana and specializes in art crime. And among his many books is, “The Collector of Lives: Giorgio Vasari and the Invention of Art”. James, Noah, welcome back to the program, it’s good to see you both.

James Charney: Thanks for having us.

Noah Charney: It’s good to see you too.

GR: Well, so congratulations on this book. And before we get into the book itself, there's just something, it's not a question, I just wanted to say it. I wanted to tell you both I was very touched with your acknowledgments and where you each write while you're grateful for the other. It was a very nice tonic, particularly these day, so thank you for that. And James, I'll start with you. A basic question, why is it important to have a deeper understanding of film rather than just watching them and saying, I like this, I don't like it. What do we gain with a deeper understanding?

JC : I think to understand how something works to affect your emotions and affect your level of interest and to be kind of tuned in to the mastery of the better films, and helps you kind of kind of distinguish between a film that might be a casual entertainment and one that is going to be that thought provoking or touch you in a more personal way. And so I think watching a movie just for the fun of it is wonderful. But very often, I think it's often better for you to go back and watch it the second time and at that point start noticing some things, the kind of things that we point out in our book.

GR: Well, on that note, you've convinced me to go back and re-watch a movie that stayed with me for a very long time, ”Memento”, because you trace the lineage of that back to Citizen Kane, which is a movie I'm very familiar with. So I'm very keen to go back and do exactly what you just said. On the book itself, Noah, the two of you, you divide up your lessons into subject based categories like Comedy, Western, Suspense and so on. And when I first thought of this topic before I actually saw the book, I imagined that the two of you might have more abstract topics like using dialog, flashbacks, using spoken narrative, special effects, that kind of thing. So just explain why you made the choices that you did in terms of dividing the book up in the way that you the two of you did.

NC: Well, the idea was to have the one-stop book for anyone interested in a deeper appreciation of film. So it's not meant to be in that zooming level of detail for any one of the particular genres or subcategories of things that we could study when we look at film, but meant to be that first gateway drug, shall we say, if you're interested in the subject. So the way we divided it is largely by genres, and but we didn't have time to include every genre in the book, not enough space. But I think people search by genres. If you go on to Netflix, for example, the categories are based on genres and I think it's the way that most people tend to think about movies, but they don't necessarily know what goes into the genres, even if they know what they like.

GR: Now, that makes sense. And so, well, I'm going to use the host's prerogative here, and I'm going to pick a couple of the subject areas that are in your book that I like, though I like them all, but some that I tend to spend a lot of time watching. And James to come back to you, the Westerns, what are the essential things that our listeners ought to know about Westerns?

JC: I think the most essential thing is that it is one of the first and most popular genres of movies going back to the silent age. And that there was a fascination with the whole concept of the ever expanding frontier and there's a lot of mythmaking about the Western and many of the myths are reinforced and played with in the in the best movies. And it was only probably not until the mid-1960’s that that there was an attempt to correct some of the myths of the West, particularly in terms of attitudes toward Native Americans and this whole sense of a certain grandeur about the lone outlaw kind of taking the law into his own hands.

GR: Has there been a, it seems to me the newer Westerns that I've been watching, whether they're series on Netflix or an actual movie itself, they've changed it seems to me, the way they think about the characters, but I'm having a hard time sort of putting it into words. What’s your sense of, has there been some sort of a tectonic shift in Westerns?

JC: I think there has. It's gone in fits and starts, and I'm not exactly sure where it is now, but definitely in the late sixties and early seventies, there was a sense of revising the story of the West and understanding that the white settlers and ranchers were not necessarily the good guys with the Native Americans being some version of evil and savage. And yet that was the message that many, probably for the first 30 or 40 years of the movies was what the stories were about. So that change happened in the late sixties and has been carried over. But it's also interesting that at a certain point the Western lost popularity and there are significantly fewer of them except lately on a lot of streaming services. All of a sudden Westerns are a thing. I'm not exactly sure why that is.

GR: Yeah. I'm thinking in particular of the, sort of the Kevin Costner series, there's like three different versions of it now. There's a prequel series to the other series.

JC: So, I'm not at all embarrassed to say I haven't seen any of those. (laughter)

GR: (laughter) Okay. Well, you can only watch so much. You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm speaking with Noah and James Charney. The father and son teamed up to write, “The 12-Hour Film Expert: Everything You Need to Know about Movies”. So, Noah, I don’t know, maybe I was just sort of assuming each of you would have an expertise on one or the other. So don't take this as an insult, but I wanted to ask you Noah, what's the essential thing about film noir that I should know?

NC: It's a wonderful genre for someone like me, who is a professor of art history, because it has a very specific esthetic. And when we look at films and genres, they're usually things that are about them that have been established by early masterpieces of the genre that help set the tone for what comes. And then we come to expect those elements in newer versions of films within that genre. But the expectation of them doesn't detract from the fact that we like them. So if you have ‘meet cutes’ in romantic comedies, it happens in every romantic comedy, but that doesn't detract from it. If you have, you know, a gun-slinging shootout at high noon in Westerns, we expect that to happen and the expectation can be part of the fun. In film noir, we have a really dramatic aesthetic, lots of chiaroscuros. So just looking at a film, not knowing the film, a still, you can probably tell if it's film noir. They're often in black and white, even more modern ones. And they look at the dark underbelly of the world, particularly postwar world wars, involving espionage. We can expect that there will be dirty dealings, that there will be double crosses and things lurking in all those wonderful shadows we see.

GR: Interesting. So to follow up on that and maybe slightly different topic, but I suppose one might think of this film as being, have one foot in the film noir, but a smaller question, but one of my favorite movies is Alfred Hitchcock's, “The Birds” and I notice that the two of you put that in the category of suspense rather than horror. I remember seeing it as a kid and I thought of it as a horror movie. Tell me why it's a suspense movie instead.

JC: Oh, that's a good question. It's a suspense movie because it is, at least for me, a wonderful demonstration of a master of suspense in Hitchcock. And moment after moment I find suspenseful rather than terrifying. But you know, go figure. There are moments that are as scary as any horror movie. But I think the best of that movie is the moments where nothing is happening. But you're anticipating something terrible about to happen.

GR: Yeah, those crows aligning on the telephone wire line. Yeah, yeah I remember that.

NC: Maybe the distinction, Grant, that comes to mind with films like that, a lot of the genres bleed into each other. So you can even have, like, horror comedies about zombies and whatnot with slapstick elements, but with, “The Birds” the question, I think, is whether the thing that you're watching it for and that you come away with is the moments of suspense where nothing's happening, but you're anticipating it. And then there brief moments of violence or whether the violent action is the thing that's driving it, in which case that edge is more of the horror.

GR: That's true, yeah. If you think about Hitchcock movies, the actual violence is really short compared to everything else, right, right. Well, let me go back to the thing I mentioned before, and Noah, I’ll stay with you. Tracking “Momento”, seeing “Citizen Kane” in that movie maybe not many of our listeners have seen “Memento”, but it was relatively popular. Track that line, that lineage for me.

NC: Well, I think the main thing that comes to mind is manipulating time and the idea that there are flash-forwards and flashbacks and the audience is not entirely clear what's happening when and where to fit it into the timeline. And “Memento” is very clever in that the whole thing goes backwards. So we're seeing the end of the film first and then the penultimate scene to the first scene. “Citizen Kane” is an early example of using elements that are bouncing around in time, also bouncing around in terms of where shots are located, things happening in the background of shots that are important. But we are looking primarily at the foreground, and it forces you to study the shot deeply. Again, this is my art history background, I like when a film makes you look closely rather than just passively feeding you whatever it has to offer. So “Citizen Kane” is an early example of a lot of things that would become staples of more artistic direction.

JC: If I can just add something to that because I think, Noah, that was that was very impressive, I like that. But the other thing about “Citizen Kane” is that it is one of the very early examples of unreliable narrators in that you're having, people are interviewed and each one has a different take on Kane and none of them are the right one. Each one is one different person's perception. And I think that is also something that's central to “Memento”.

GR: That's interesting. You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm talking with James Charney and Noah Charney. They are father and son, they’re both academics and they've combined to write, “The 12-Hour Film Expert: Everything You Need to Know about Movies”. So Noah, I'll ask you this question, the writer Joseph Campbell, made famous this notion that there is a common narrative arc of the hero's journey, which Campbell argued, you know, it goes across time, it goes across culture, you see it everywhere. And you can obviously see it in films, too. I mean, we talked about Westerns before, I think you can make the argument they fit in that. But, you know, I'm thinking of “To Kill a Mockingbird” the arc that Atticus Finch travels or “Star Wars”, you know, the arc that Luke travels. And you've written, Noah, about mythology in art. So I just wanted to hear your reflections about that, Campbell myth of the hero and how it fits into movies.

NC: Well, it's absolutely true. And there have been a handful of authors who have talked about how there's a finite number of stories that exist for us humans. And every story fits into one of a number of general categories. And we have things like a hero’s quest or a homecoming. And within those stories, they can be divided into acts. And understanding the basic superstructure that is in play in honestly, most film scripts, there's a three act structure or a five act structure, depending on how specific you want to get. And the three act structure is roughly divided into a half hour each. The first half hours establishing character and setting the scene, the time and place, the rules of the world that you're in, if it's sci-fi or fantasy, for example. Then there's the complication that launches the story at about the half hour marker. And then the middle part is the hero trying to figure out how to get out of the pickle that they're in or complete the quest. And then the final third is leading up to a climactic end that should in some way change the protagonist in a meaningful way that gives us some satisfaction. And this structure goes back to ancient Athens. People were writing plays using this format, and it seems to work for us humans. But I've also written about, the article of mine that gets the most mail is something I wrote for The Atlantic called the “Sitcom Code”, which is breaking down sitcoms into minute by minute formulae that works amazingly with almost every sitcom you could ever watch. And so this formula, from a writer's perspective, makes it easier to plug and play. And okay, what's the twist here, who are the characters? And it's the kind of thing that once you know to look for it, you can never un-see it. But to me, it makes it that much more interesting.

GR: That's interesting. So, James, I've got probably the hardest question I'm going to ask you, saved it for the father. What's the difference between a really good movie and a great movie?

JC: That is a hard question. A lot depends on who's watching and when you're watching. I think a great movie stands above time. In other words, it isn't, it may be about a particular time, it may be about a particular situation, but there's something about it that's elemental and that speaks to you not only depending on when you've watched it, but also in what mood you're in when you watch it, who you watch it with, and when you watch it again ten years later. A good movie may be terrific now and may and may wear not so well over time. I guess that's the difference.

GR: Yeah. I'm thinking of like, to put it, that I would put in the great movie category movies like “The Godfather” and “Goodfellas”. You know, it's just they're about different moments in time, but they're, yeah.

JC: Yeah, I would agree with those, yeah.

GR: Interesting. Interesting. So obviously, there's a question I want to ask you is how the two of you got along, father and son writing a book? Because I mentioned at the outset, it sounds like you obviously got along pretty well and you were able to at least publish the book. But tell me about that process. What were the biggest disagreements about? How did it go?

NC: Well, the process was really seamless and a lot of fun. And my father had finished his previous book, “Madness at the Movies” and it looked like he could use a hobby so, (laughter) you know, maybe we should do a book together. And I have a small series with the same publisher called The 12, or fill in the blank, I have, “The 12-hour Art Expert”. Coming out shortly is, “The 12-hour Author” about writing. And the, “12-hour Film Expert” seemed like something that was of interest to both of us. So first we made these lists, and some of the things I think for readers is the most fun is we have a film menu at the back of the book.

GR: I saw that, yeah.

NC: With recommended films in different genres that are not written up in the main text but are also worth considering. And so first we needed a big master list, and that's the fun part. And I had grown up watching lots of these classic films because back in the day my dad had on VHS cassettes, if we remember what those are.

GR: Oh yeah.

NC: I recorded about a thousand movies, recorded off the TV, skipping the commercials by pressing pause as much as possible, and I had seen most of them with him growing up, so I had a grounding in the films he liked, and that made it easier to find common ground.

GR: Yeah, that's interesting. And James, that must have been a labor of love.

JC: Well, it was a labor of love for me, and it was a labor of love to be able to share it with Noah and with his mom. And, and it is a labor of love sharing it with the grandkids.

GR: If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media and my guests are Noah and James Charney. So, Noah, if you had to pick one movie that you think is the best movie that most people have never heard of, and let's take it, most people in America. So there may be a movie that's famous someplace else, perhaps. But what do you think is the best movie that that we haven't heard of on this program?

NC: I have an art historian’s answer for you that's probably “Mirror” by Andrei Tarkovsky. Now Tarkovsky is a Russian filmmaker who is beloved of film studies majors, and nobody else has heard of him. And his films are very slow, they're almost like looking at very beautiful slide shows, but I absolutely love it. And if you're interested in art history, there are all of these references that you could play with the films he made. He only made, I think, eight films total. The most famous ones are “Nostalghia”, “Stalker”, “Solaris”, which was remade by George Clooney and a Hollywood version. And he's absolutely amazing, but he's a bit of an acquired taste, you have to be in the right mood for it. But if you're interested in artistic films, it doesn't get any better.

GR: Yeah, I think I've heard of “Nostalghia”, but I hadn't heard of “Mirror”, so I'll add that one to my list. James, this is a question about films in America, because you wrote a book about using films to, what do they reflect about what we think and what we know and can know about mental health. So, James, if I came down to Earth from Mars and I asked you for one movie, one film to best understand America, what would you recommend for me? I'm asking you the tough ones, I guess.

NC: Yes, you are. One film that represents America, (recording reflects a misspoken titles and crosstalk, followed by the answer) “The Best Years of our Lives”. I think it is it's a wonderful portrait of a middle-America at its best.

GR: Yeah. And it's got different classes in it, and it's got tragedy and hope mixed together. Very powerful. Yeah, that's, I like that answer. So we've got about, oh, I'd say five and a half, six minutes left and I wanted to do something a little different at the end and I'm glad we have some time for it. I want to ask you a series of relatively brief questions. You do have enough time to kind of give me a reason why. So it's not a pure lightning round, but it's kind of like a lightning round. And actually, given the time we have left, I may throw in mine, too. Now, I'll put in the dilettante's perspective here. But first of all and James as well, Noah we’ll start with you because, Noah what's the most important movie that's ever been made?

NC: The first one that came to mind was “All the President's Men”.

GR: Wow.

NC: And that was, that's my instant reaction because it's so good. But it also, it's important because it shows that we can't just be automatically beholden to authority. Sometimes we have to shake things up and ask deeper questions.

GR: Interesting. James, what would you say is the most important movie ever made?

JC: I think I don't know. I'd say that's a hard one. It would be hard for me to pinpoint the important film.

GR: Well, my mind went to the negative rather than the positive, I guess. And I was thinking of “Birth of a Nation”. But I don't know what the two of you would think about that.

JC: You know what, that was on the tip of my tongue. And for some reason, I was reluctant to say it. Yes, “Birth of a Nation” in part because it is an absolutely brilliant film about a very bad series of ideas and concepts and in many ways, it can stand as a warning to be to be wary of something that is brilliantly presented, but may have an underpinning of something that is dark and worrisome.

GR: Well, James, I'll stick with you the next one. Best film ever made?

JC: Well, then we're in the category of favorite film because every one of us has a best film. My favorite film of all is, “Singing in the Rain”. It's the film that puts me in a happy place every time I see it. It's the best antidepressant I know better than Prozac and it's a perfectly made film. I mean, the perfectly made film that people will point to is, “Casablanca”. And but that's, you know, that's a heartfelt drama. But if I want to put a smile on my face, “Singing in the Rain” is it.

GR: Noah, I have a feeling you're going to have a different answer on that one. What do you think is the best film ever made?

NC: There is a correct answer, which is, “Casablanca”. That's the one that gives you an A+ in class, because it's often used as the exemplar of the perfect film, from script to acting to casting, you name it. And I think it probably is from my perspective, too. But my favorite film is, “Airplane”, which is totally silly and ridiculous. And I've seen it probably several dozen times. So that has nothing to do with anything, but Casablanca is the correct answer you are looking for.

GR: I think in my top three, there's a film like that, and it's “This is Spinal Tap”.

NC: Oh, that's a classic.

JC: That's great, that's a great movie.

GR: So, Noah, next one. What's the worst major motion picture ever made? One where there was a significant amount of investment in it and it just was really awful.

NC: The first one that comes to mind was, “Waterworld”.

GR: Yeah, I thought of that.

NC: Because it famously had this enormous budget and it was just dreadful. And it lost a huge amount of money. And it was famous for being a total failure. So that's probably the one that I'm most people would say. I'm not sure if that's the A+ answer, but I'll give you that one.

JC: There's an interesting kind of caveat about that, which is very often a film that people think is an absolute disaster, I'm thinking of “Ishtar”, which is another film that people, at the time it came out it was the ultimate failure, written by and directed by Elaine May. And now people are starting to give it a second look and all of a sudden 25, 30 years later, they're saying maybe this may be a great film.

GR: Yeah, I thought it was, I enjoyed it. I thought it was funny, very funny at times. So the last one of these and we've only got about a minute left, James, you already said what your favorite movie was, so now I'm going to say, what's your second favorite movie after “Singing in the Rain”?

JC: My second favorite movie is another musical, I love musicals, “Yankee Doodle Dandy” for the same reason, starring James Cagney, a patriotic movie that he did to undo his gangster image and to go back to his roots because he was a vaudeville tap dancer before he was a movie star. And it's a biography of George M. Cohan, a superstar of the turn of the century at the beginning of the 20th century, who wrote music and was a triple threat. He wrote music, he directed he wrote scripts and he danced.

GR: Wow.

JC: James Cagney did all of those things. And again, there are numbers in there that just immediately make me smile.

GR: Well, Noah, in 15 seconds only. What's your favorite movie?

NC: “Manhattan” by Woody Allen. I absolutely love it. So that's the one I would point you to if “Airplane” has been checked out of the library.

GR: Well, we'll have to leave it there. That was James Charney and Noah Charney and again, their new book is, “The 12-Hour Film Expert: Everything You Need to Know about Movies”. If you like movies as much as I do, you'll love the book. Thanks for both of you for making the time to talk me.

NC: Grant, thanks so much for such a good interview. It's hard to balance with two people, so thank you.

GR: (laughter) My pleasure.

JC: I really enjoyed it. Grant, thank you very much.

GR: I did, too. You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.

Program transcript:

Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. Issues of race are once again front and center in this November's presidential election. My guest today on the Campbell Conversations has coauthored a new book arguing that the lines of division on this topic have been changing in important ways. Rogers Smith is a political science professor at the University of Pennsylvania. And the title of his book, written with Desmond King at Oxford University is, "America's New Racial Battle Lines: Protect versus Repair". Rogers, welcome back to the program, it’s good to see you.

Rogers Smith: Great to be here, Grant.

GR: Well, thanks for making the time. And let me just start with a very basic question about the book. You know, to me, the racial battle lines feel pretty familiar in a lot of ways. So explain how they have changed, do you think.

RS: It's important to understand that throughout American history, there have always been dominant racial issues that have defined different eras. Slavery versus anti-slavery, pro-Jim Crow segregation versus anti-segregation. But those divisions were resolved, at least as a matter of law, in the 1960’s with the civil rights laws that ushered us into a new era of racial politics in which conservatives no longer championed racial segregation. But they did insist that we should embrace colorblind public policies, some out of a sincere conviction that this is what our principles should be, others because they recognize that colorblind policies were a barrier to something conservatives had always feared. Just because whites had committed injustices against blacks and other people of color throughout US history, conservatives feared that there would be a push to privileged people of color over whites, and so they urged colorblind public policies to prevent that. Now, many liberals felt that we needed race conscious policies to integrate all of America's institutions. And the battle between conservative, colorblind positions and liberal positions championing race conscious measures like affirmative action and majority minority representative districts, that went on through the late 20th century and into the early 21st century. Now something has changed. Our argument is that conservatives over the last couple of decades, especially perceive the left as more militant, seeking not just integration of American institutions, but more radical transformations. And so they don't talk about colorblindness very much. They talk about the they do sometimes in litigation, but their political discourse is about the need to protect more traditionalist, conservative Americans, especially white Christian Americans, against what they see as a radical left. And on the left, it is true that many civil rights champions came to feel that integration into existing American institutions wasn't enough. There was too much systemic racism in American institutions, and they needed more dramatic repair to achieve racial equity in one way or another. And so, instead of colorblind versus race conscious measures, we see the modern debates as a battle between those who want to protect traditionalist Americans against those who want to repair the systemic racism they see in American institutions. And that's a much more polarized clash.

GR: Right. Yeah, no, it does sound that way. So when you say repair, I immediately think of reparations. And that's something that you talk about. And obviously reparations have become a pretty loaded term. You just say there's very polarized debate over this. When we talk about reparations, what exactly are we talking about?

RS: Well, one of the findings of the book is that we're talking about something different than we did historically. I should note that in polls, most Americans oppose reparations. And that's why many champions of racial reform trying to undo systemic racism, talk about racial equity initiatives are not reparations. But the shift in meaning of reparations is that, whereas at one time it signaled plans to provide one-time cash payments to people to make up for damages, harms they had suffered like a tort remedy in law. That's not what the people championing reparations now mostly mean. What they mean instead is that we should have a set of initiatives to transform many of our economic, educational, political, cultural and social institutions so that they provide more extensive opportunities for a wider range of Americans. And that means that, like the racial equity people, the people who talk about reparations now are often talking about combating systemic racism as they see it and not on one time cash payments.

GR: So I want to just ask you this question flat out, and I know it's more complicated than this, but the way you were describing the protect side earlier, is the protect side racist?

RS: Frankly, some on the protect side are racist, just as there has been racism in America throughout our history. And it is also true that there are those on the protect side who, while having no animosity or prejudice against people of color per se, nonetheless feel that proposals from the left will be damaging for the country and will also disrupt many traditional systems, institutional practices, ways of life from which white people disproportionately benefit. And so you can say that, you can debate whether that's racism or not. It is my belief that it's legitimate to preserve many of the aspects of American life that have privileged and continue to privilege white people. I should note also that on the protect side, there are many who see traditionalist Christianity as under attack. And these are overwhelmingly white traditionalist Christians and many of them interpret attacks, or criticisms of whites as also criticisms of Christianity. There is a resurgent movement to recognize that this is a white Christian nation. Marjorie Taylor Greene hands out bumper stickers saying she's a proud Christian nationalist. And the Protect Alliance has blended in many ways the concerns to protect traditionalist whites with concerns to protect traditionalist Christians. The latter position, of course, has broader public respectability and appeal. But again, even those in the Protect Alliance will present the two things as closely linked.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm speaking with University of Pennsylvania political scientist Rogers Smith. With his coauthor, Desmond King, he's recently published, "America's New Racial Battle Lines: Protect versus Repair". So you have an appendix where you list the different organizations of different types. You break out different types that the two of you think are in these two categories. And in the protect organizations, you've got conservative organizations that a lot of people would recognize like Federalist Society, Freedom Caucus in Congress, the American Enterprise Institute, a high profile think tank. But then you've also got the Ku Klux Klan and the Proud Boys. So, I don't know what that question is I want to ask here, I guess I’m trying to figure out, like, were you trying to be provocative with that? Because you know people are going to be looking at that and seeing the parallel that you're drawing and get pretty upset.

RS: We're not trying to be provocative we're trying to be empirically accurate. These are members of a coalition, and every coalition has diversity within its ranks. Its members don't agree with each other on every position, but they do agree on the overarching goal of the coalition and all those groups you mentioned do see a liberal or progressive or left movement in America that they regard as radical and dangerous and as something that they must defeat. And they do work together to a certain extent. The Ku Klux Klan did champion Donald Trump's candidacy in 2016. While he disappointed them to a very little degree, they're still on his side. And Donald Trump is the champion of the Protect Conservative Alliance now, as his speeches and his policies have made abundantly clear. Donald Trump did invite to Mar-a-lago Nicholas Fuentes, who heads the America First Foundation and who has said that the nation must not lose its white demographic core. So, now that's a position that many in the American Enterprise Institute, for example, would repudiate. But nonetheless, if you ask them, are you going to be on the side of the Protect positions more generally against the calls for systemic transformations of American institutions that the Repair Alliance wants, they're firmly on the Protect side.

GR: So, something that has concerned me and that I've thought a lot about and I wanted to get your reaction to it, given of all the information that you provide in the book and the research that you've done. But some of my students, echoing what they've heard, I think, from some political leaders and activists on the repair side, claim to me that we are in the midst of a backsliding that is going to return us, is in the process of returning us to the 1950’s or the 1960’s when it comes to this issue. And yet, at the same time we have a black woman who's in a dead heat race for president right now against the gentleman that you were just invoking. So I have to say, you know, I grew up in Virginia in the 60’s. I don't have any sense that this is where we are at present or are heading to. I mean, it's a frustrating conversation for me to have and I wanted to get your take on that. Is there a hyperbole there that maybe isn't helping and is causing some of the reaction or am I missing something important? Help me sort through this.

RS: I would say that there are certainly people in the modern conservative movement, in the Protect Alliance on racial policy issues that we talk about who do want to return us to the America of the mid-20th century. And for them, that's what the slogan, “Make America Great Again” means. I don't think that's likely to happen, it's not feasible in the 21st century to go back to the mid-20th century. And while there are some in the Protect Alliance and its right wing fringe that are openly white supremacists, that is not, in our view, the center position of the Protect Alliance. And it's not the most likely program or outcome. What is more likely, we indicate at the end of the book, is a scenario in which if conservatives regain the kind of national power that they had after the 2016 election, they might push more in the direction of what they and we call multicultural conservatism. It is a set of policies in which whites are not actively privileged, although many institutions that have long advantaged whites stay in place and people of all ethnic, racial and religious backgrounds are welcomed into the American political community, so long as they support conservative economic and social policies. So you can have conservative South-Asian leaders, as we did, competing briefly in the presidential campaign this time. You can have conservative black leaders, as we did like Tim Scott of South Carolina as we had competing. It is not the racial conservatism that precedes the civil rights era. You're right, there were transformations in the 1960’s. But it is also not a program that is designed to undo what people on the left see as the pervasive systemic racism of American institutions.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm talking with Rogers Smith, a political scientist at the University of Pennsylvania. He’s recently coauthored a book with Desmond King titled, "America's New Racial Battle Lines: Protect versus Repair". And we've been discussing his book, so many people who are sympathetic to some of the things that you're writing about argue that if the focus was on economic class rather than race, you'd do probably 90% of the repair work racially that you're trying to do, but you wouldn't generate nearly the same level of political backlash and resistance. And at the same time, you might also be able to appeal to White working and middle class families who are, first of all, really struggling and second of all, feel left out of the government's attention. They're part of that Trump coalition, or some of them are. So you could substantially repair without threatening the Protect in that in a rhetorical way, I guess. Why isn't the class based approach the smarter and better way to talk about this?

RS: Well, we do note at the end of the book that an approach that foregrounds class concerns along with racial concerns is probably the most promising path forward for liberals and folks further to the left. But it is one that those Americans have had a hard, who see themselves in back in those camps. They've had a hard time coalescing around those kinds of positions. And there are several reasons for that. One is that class appeals themselves are very controversial. We often say that a movement that emphasizes it's going to address the economic concerns of all Americans will have broader appeal, including to the white working class. And that's an argument that has some power, but it is also true that strongly class oriented movements in American history have met with fierce opposition and repression so it's not such an obvious winner. The second thing is, that you said it might do 90% of what the repair side wants, that's much debated. Many think that because economic initiatives which claim to be universal never really are, that they, in fact, might only perpetuate the levels of racial inequality in material terms that we continue to experience in this country. And so they doubt that it will actually work to deal with the most serious problems in most disadvantaged portions of communities of color in this country. The third thing is that the many Americans that have been discriminated against want that experience to be recognized and acknowledged. And what the class approach doesn't provide is the recognition that they have been unjustly treated, that their contributions have been undervalued and obscured and they want that recognition and respect. And that's why the most promising path forward for liberals and those on the left is probably to combine programs that do address the economic needs of all Americans, including white workers who have been hurt by neoliberal policies, both parties in the 20th century, but also include some programs that are designed to respond to the distinctive needs of African-Americans and other minorities in the country.

GR: So I appreciate the way that you answered that at a sort of a systemic and policy level. And you can dismiss this question if you think it's not fair, but I just continue to try to wrap my mind around this. Can you give me an example of a type of person of color who would suffer from a genuinely class based approach? I mean, I'm trying to conjure up in my mind sort of a group of people that get left out and I have a hard time doing it.

RS: Well, for example, one form of reparations that's actually underway in America today addresses housing. And some 20 cities in the country now have reparations missions. And rather than, again, just giving out single checks, they are concerned to try to address specific kinds of institutionalized problems in their communities. Evanston, Illinois, the first of these reparations commissions has begun distributing checks, but only for housing and provide other kinds of housing assistance to black residents in Evanston because it has a history of discrimination in real estate practices and in mortgage provision for black residents in Evanston. Now, housing is a huge problem throughout the country right now. And you can say we could have a big initiative for affordable housing, but it probably wouldn't be massive enough to address everyone in need. You can say that we're going to conduct it on a nondiscriminatory basis, but it might still leave a lot of black families who have not acquired homes, not acquired the wealth, the equity of home ownership because of practices of discrimination in the past and present, they might not get included in those housing programs unless there's a conscious effort to make sure they're included. That's the argument, anyway.

GR: Now I have to have a shout out to the Maxwell School there. Steven Hagerty was the mayor of Evanston when that was being put forward and passed. If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media and my guest is University of Pennsylvania professor Rogers Smith. The conversation that you and I are having is happening in the context of a presidential race in which I think racial themes are pretty obvious and prominent, even though the candidates may not be emphasizing them overtly. And I'm just wondering how you see it fitting in to the presidential race here in 2024 and how the outcome could affect the things that you're concerned about in this book?

RS: Well, in some ways it's ironic that the candidacy of Kamala Harris has moved racial policy issues out of the center of what the candidates are talking about. Donald Trump has to be very careful about how he talks about racial issues if he's not going to appear to be firing up racist opposition to Harris. He's already stumbled into that and done badly with his interview with the black journalist’s organization where he questioned Harris's blackness. That clearly didn't play well with really any constituency. Harris has made the deliberate choice not to feature her racial or gender identities. She waved away the question in the recent CNN interview. She is emphasizing economic programs more than anything else. But at the same time, everyone knows that she is a racial progressive. And if you look at the platforms for the two parties in 2024, the Republican platform emphasizes that they're going to ban teaching critical race theory and they're going to fight efforts to teach about race or to transform public monuments having to do with our racial history in ways that they think amount to indoctrination of woke ideologies. And on the Democratic side, they say that the nation has never fulfilled its promises. They support the creation of a federal commission to study reparations. Both parties are still adopting these clashing policy positions and whoever wins will have an effect on which program gets carried forward in the future.

GR: We've got about a minute left, I’ve got one last question for you. It's a little bit different than all the others, more personal, if I could. But you, like me, are an old white guy.

RS: Getting older!

GR: (laughter) You've got a Harvard Ph.D., you've had tenured faculty appointments at two Ivy League schools and with a name like Rogers Smith, it seems like you could have just stepped off the Mayflower. So, why have you devoted such a large portion of your life to this topic?

RS: I was born in Spartanburg, South Carolina, not far from the birthplace of John C. Calhoun, the leading champion of slavery in the antebellum era. And my family then moved to Springfield, Illinois, the hometown of Abraham Lincoln. We visited South Carolina often during my youth, which was in the midst of the civil rights era. And it became clear to me that the clash over racial justice was a central part of the American experience. It was a central part of my family's experience and so it's been central to the work I've done for most of my career.

GR: All right. We'll have to leave it there. That was Rogers Smith. And again, his new book is titled, "America's New Racial Battle Lines: Protect versus Repair". It's a good and provocative read. You can agree with it, disagree with it, but I think you'll find it engaging. Rogers, thanks so much for taking the time to talk with me, I really appreciate it.

RS: Thank you, Grant. I've enjoyed it.

GR: You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.

Compensation for college athletes for their name, image, and likeness (NIL), along with the transfer portal, has upended college football and created a new, uncertain world. This week, Grant Reeher talks with sports journalist Armen Keteyian about the book he co-authored, called "The Price: What it Takes to Win in College Football's Era of Chaos."

On this week's episode of the Campbell Conversations, Grant Reeher speaks with Seth David Radwell, whose experiences include being the president of e-Scholastic and CEO of The Proactiv Company. He's the author of the book, "American Schism: How the Two Enlightenments Hold the Secret to Healing Our Nation."

Program transcript:

Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. My guest today is Mary Chung Hayashi. She's a former California State Assembly member and the author of a new book titled, “Women in Politics: Breaking Down the Barriers to Achieve True Representation.” The book weaves together her own life and political experiences with the stories of women in political leadership positions. Ms. Hayashi, welcome to the program.

Mary Chung Hayashi: Thank you so much, Grant. I am so honored to be part of your show today.

GR: Well, that's very kind of you to say, and we're delighted and honored you have the time to speak to us. So, let me just start with a very basic question about the book. How did you get the idea to write this book at the time when you did?

MH: Well, when I was in the legislature, I served with, you know, just incredible women legislators. And often their personal journeys are not told, you know, in the press or there's, because of term limits in California, we only have a certain number of years to get to know each other and so I really wanted to showcase these role models. And so I decided to interview 17 women and one man documenting their personal and professional journeys toward leadership.

GR: Great, great. And so, you were born and you grew up in South Korea. I'd like you to tell me a little bit about your own immigration experience, if you would, because that's something you talk about your book.

MH: Yes. Really, many women, you know, travel different paths and different journeys. You know, the women were interviewed in the book and I really wanted to, you know, talk about my own sort of personal experience immigrating to this country when I was 12. And losing my older sister to suicide that same year before coming to this country and using that sort of personal experience and trauma to advocate for mental health issues. And that was well documented in my first book, but in my second book I talk about basically dedicating my life to advocating for mental health causes, like so many other women in the book who talked about their own pain and own adversity, barriers to leadership that, you know, they forge ahead and defied the naysayers who told them they couldn't achieve their ambitions. And so I did talk a lot about sort of my own, you know, experience growing up in Orange County and, you know, my parents were very traditional and didn't expect girls to go to college or have a career. And so yes, and I thought I was like, so different. But after interviewing these women for the book, I realized many of us have a lot of commonalities in terms of using our own personal background to advocate for others.

GR: Yeah, I want to get into some of the things that you have advocated for as a member of the legislature, but also more generally, because you did that before you got into the legislature and you've done it since. But I just wanted to ask one thing, intriguing that you said, you know, you discovered similarities in the stories. So it sounds like maybe writing the book kind of had a therapeutic effect on you in addition to in addition to just, you know, putting the book out and telling the story of leadership.

MH: Yes. Because when, you know, like in traditional Korean culture, women are to be seen but not heard. And, you know, we're raised to be respectful and silent, “good girls”. You know, and this meant keeping my thoughts and opinions to myself. And so, you know, when my older sister died by suicide when she was 17, we were unaware that she was struggling with depression because those types of things were not discussed in our family. And I began to understand that my sister couldn't seek help because we were taught to keep our personal problems to ourselves. Well, when I started interviewing these women who I served with and some who I didn't know very well at the time I interviewed them, like the California U.S. Senator Laphonza Butler. I had interviewed her when she was the president of the EMILYs List and then she was appointed to the U.S. Senate. And I had worked with her professionally, but personally I didn't know her that well. But talking with her and better understanding sort of her background and her personal struggles that, you know, many of us, regardless of your immigration status or family background, many of us sort of share that, you know, that good girl sort of upbringing and the values that we're told. The new generation of women, I think have been raised with a better message. That, you know, rather than being taught to be a good girl, they were told to, you know, it's okay to speak up and you can be a leader. And they're actually encouraged to do so. But many of us, including myself and women who I interviewed for the book, you know, we were we were taught to not take credit for things that we accomplished. And we should be careful about, you know, bragging too much about our qualifications. We're supposed to downplay our achievements. And a lot of those sort of messages that we grew up with were very similar. Not just Korean women, but American women experience the same sort of upbringing and those messages.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm speaking with Mary Chung Hayashi. She's a former California State Assembly member and the author of, “Women in Politics: Breaking Down the Barriers to Achieve True Representation.” So I wanted to ask you a story about just a little bit later on your life story. But first, it occurs to me, give us the title, give our listeners the title of your first book, because I think some of them listening are going to be interested in and maybe checking out that one, too. So what's the title of your first book?

MH: You're so kind, thank you. It's actually out of print. But it's called, “Far from Home: Shattering the Myth of the Model Minority” of Asian Americans. And it's, you know, it's a sort of autobiography about Asian-American health status in the United States. Like many of us don’t speak up, or because of our cultural issues, we often suffer from diseases and illnesses that are completely preventable. And so applying those sort of cultural barriers and values, that sometimes we hang on to could be very harmful. So a completely different book, but it does have a lot more information about my personal journey.

GR: Oh, okay, great. And don't worry about it being out of print, that's what Amazon is for, to go find those. I buy out of print books all the time. So I wanted to know, though, how your interest in politics developed specifically because, you know, you come over and you're in this completely new country and you've had this traumatic experience. So, when in your life does your interest in politics develop and how does that happen?

MH: Well, I had an opportunity to work for a legislator and when I wrote my first book, I had just completed my tenure as the executive director of a nonprofit that I founded. I founded a national nonprofit organization called the National Asian Women's Health Organization. And I was 26 years old, completely naïve. I didn't know what I was doing, but I just wanted to find out what had happened to my sister and really wanted to learn more about mental health and advocate for mental health issues. And so after I completed my tenure, I wrote this book. And around that time I had an opportunity to work for an amazing legislator, Assembly member Darrell Steinberg. He's the only man that I interviewed for my book. He's in the mentoring chapter because so many women who were interviewed, had male allies and mentors who helped them and guide them along the way. And I just thought that it was important to highlight their contributions and their partnerships because a lot of the mentoring messaging, you know, lean-in messaging really has to do with, you know, if you're a woman, you have to help another woman. But it's like, well, what about the other 50% of the population, and they are examples of like Darrell Steinberg, who has been an incredible mentor to me. Well, when I worked for him, he authored this amazing statewide ballot measure called Proposition 63, and he advocated and put it on the ballot for the voters to tax millionaires to fund mental health programs. And so I had an opportunity to work on that measure, and we passed it with literally, like no money because we're going against millionaires. And so many people have that personal connection to mental health. They know somebody who's been impacted by it, they know somebody who, you know, maybe not immediate family, but a friend who suffered from mental illness. And so we passed this ballot measure and that was just such an incredible experience for me. And I decided, I said, Darrell, is this what you do every single day? Because if this is the kind of impact you can make, I want to do this, I want to pursue public service. And that really inspired me to run.

GR: Interesting. So when you run for public office, I wanted to ask you both, I guess, for when you ran and when you were serving. Did you encounter any resistance or preconceptions based on your gender or your ethnicity? Or maybe a combination of the two because you've been speaking about Asian women and expectations of Asian women. I'm just wondering, once you were pursuing public office, did you run into that and how did you deal with it?

MH: Yes. And, you know, how relevant this conversation is right now, right? Given that we have the first you know, black woman, South Asian woman running for president of the United States. But, you know, women are often penalized for being ambitious and strong. And, you know, no matter what we do, it feels like we begin, you know, at such a significant disadvantage. Because when you announce for your candidacy, voters are sometimes suspicious because we're not supposed to be ambitious and seek leadership positions. And so for me, you know, I, because I was the first Korean-American woman to serve in the California legislature, many of my colleagues have never really seen an Asian person.

GR: Well, let me stop you there. I have to confess, I did not know that and I'm astonished at that. Maybe I'm exhibiting my own preconceptions here, but, California is such a richly, its current culture today is so richly informed by Asian-Americans. I can't believe that after the 21st century, you were the first one, my goodness.

MH: Yes. And I get this question a lot, you know, because people outside of California, sort of view California as very, this progressive forward thinking, and we are in many aspects. But out of 4400 state legislators who have served in the California legislature, only 192 have been women so far.

GR: That’s amazing.

MH: Yes. So that's, I mean, that was, as you know, last year. And I'm sure that number will increase because for the first time we'll have parity in the Senate, state Senate. But going back to my own experience, you know, just working sort of in that environment, I didn't really realize it at the time, but after I left and had some time to sort of reflect on my service in the legislature. You know, people often described me during my tenure in the state assembly as aggressive and very competitive. Whereas, you know, my male legislators who, chaired this business and professions committee before I did were applauded as strong committee chairs. They would say, well, he had solid opinions and they were brilliant policy experts. But when I express my opinion and sometimes they were controversial, you know, they described me as aggressive. And so Asian women are often expected to be submissive and grateful, like that's our stereotype. And so we often navigate much narrower expectations of what it means to be likable for professional women. And so women already, you know, start at a significant disadvantage in politics, as I mentioned, because we're supposed to be likable and qualify to run for office. But for Asian women, we are penalized when we present a counter to this stereotype, this submissive and the grateful stereotype. So I do think that there are many lobbyists and other legislators who had difficulty sort of figuring out, like why is she not submissive and quiet like so many Asian women who I’m used to? (laughter) I mean, I laugh about this, but, you know, Boston Mayor Michelle Wu gets confused with another activist named Beth Wong. And I was confused with another colleague, Fiona Ma, who's our current state treasurer, our next lieutenant governor, hopefully. And people would still call me Fiona because there were only two of us. And it's like, well, there's only two of us, how can you confuse us? But they did for six years.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm talking with Mary Chung Hayashi. The former California state legislator is the author of a new book titled, “Women in Politics: Breaking Down the Barriers to Achieve True Representation” and we've been discussing the topics that her book raises. So I wanted to ask you, you've already talked about this in the first half of the program, and I know it's a sensitive topic, but one of the reasons I think that, from my reading that you wrote the book, was the loss of your sister and how that informed your emphasis in your public life on mental health issues. I just wanted to ask you to elaborate a little bit more on that. If you could talk about kind of the transitioning of taking a personal experience into a publicly oriented effort.

MH: Yeah. Well, thank you for that, because, you know, I lost my older sister to, you know, suicide when she was 17, which led me to a lifetime of public service and mental health advocacy. So this is a very relevant topic. And like I mentioned previously, one of the goals of writing this book is to inspire other women to write their own path and to see that we do not have to be controlled by our backgrounds, ethnicities or family histories. Because when, you know, just not even talking about my own sort of nonprofit that I started when I was 26, but fast forward to my time in the legislature and running for political office. It was very difficult, you know, for me to call people for money. Because that's something that, culturally, we're not supposed to do. You know, public speaking. Speaking about why I want to be a voice for the voiceless and representing children's issues and the underserved communities, you know, whose interests may have been overlooked. And right now, like mental health, even (to a) certain extent sexual harassment, those types of issues are very public and women candidates talk about those issues very comfortably. But when I was a candidate in 2006, I can't say that, you know, many people thought that was a great platform. And so I think that women who are willing to share these types of personal, painful stories in a public way and use that experience as their platform to create positive change, I think is very, very courageous and is somewhat necessary. And I think it worked really well for me not just in the political sense, but being able to use my own voice to sort of advocate for, you know, women, Asian women through the nonprofit, but also in the legislature. So I actually think that personal histories and family backgrounds could be a plus. You know if women are willing to sort of use their leadership journeys and their personal journeys and share the lessons that we've learned, I think it can really help overcome the challenges as a woman and to have an opportunity to make a difference in the lives of others.

GR: That's a really interesting combination and reflection. If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, and my guest is Mary Chung Hayashi and we've been discussing her book titled, “Women and Politics: Breaking Down the Barriers to Achieve True Representation.” So you talked about the fact that the book is based in large part on interviews that you did with mostly women. And I was just wondering, out of all those conversations, is there one conversation that has stayed with you more than all the others?

MH: One of the women interviewed, Amanda Hunter, she's the executive director of the Barbara Lee Family Foundation, and they do a lot of research with focus groups about women in politics. And she gave it a name to this sort of one focus group finding that she did when she asked participants to envision a leader, many of them envisioned a man, and she called it an imagination barrier. And so, you know, and it's like, when I was growing up in Korea, I didn't see women in leadership roles. And so it was really hard for me to envision that I can do something. And believe it or not, it was actually Connie Chung when I was growing up in Orange County who I saw on TV. I thought, wow, you know, here's an Asian woman, smart, and she's on TV. I mean, not that like I was, you know, looking for fame or anything, but just to see her on television really made me realize, oh, maybe, you know, I can do something with my life. And people used to call me Connie when I was growing up in Orange County, and I was flattered. But then when I got older and I reflected on that, I thought, wait a minute, it's because I didn't know any other Asian person when I was growing up, so not such a flattering comment. But anyway, I think that Amanda Hunter's sort of research shows that women and girls need to see role models. And so the book is really you know, they're all role models and not because of the titles they hold, but because they overcome incredible adversary challenges, barriers. And, you know, they pursue leadership and they run for office and they win even when they face criticism and pushback. I mean, that's why they're role models, because they defy their naysayers. And I think that with what's going on at the national level, you know, definitely that imagination barrier has definitely been broken down.

GR: Yeah, that's exactly what I want to ask you about next was, and what you're saying is right on that point is, you know, what do you make of the importance of Kamala Harris’s status as the Democratic nominee for president? I mean, you're linking it directly to this imagination issue. But what do you make of the importance of it beyond that?

MH: Well, I think it's I think it's going to change the trajectory of women in politics forever. I mean, just the fact that we have a woman, you know, it looks like she will get the nomination of the Democratic Party to be the first woman of color to be nominated for president. And I think will really be a turning point for women and, you know, research shows that voters’ perception of her as a leader declines when the media mentions a woman's appearance in any way. And I talk a lot about this account of like sort of a likability double standard. And whether the commentary is positive or negative, the mere mention of her appearance draws voters’ attention to the fact that she's a woman, reminding them of their unconscious bias that women cannot be leaders. And yet with all of this sort of, you know, racist and sexist sort of attacks on her, she's actually pulling ahead, so I'm very encouraged. And I do think that she whether she wins or not, I think that her running and taking on, sort of the establishment and these sort of very sexist comments head on, I think all of her actions that we've seen so far will have an incredible impact breaking down that imagination barrier.

GR: We've only got a couple of minutes left. I wanted to squeeze one last question in, and it goes back to something that you mentioned and that stunned me which was the numbers on the California legislature. In preparation for this interview, I did some of my own calculations and if we look back from today at the presidential and vice presidential nominations, we look at both of those of the two major parties, Republican and Democrat, we look at the last 18 years. It's a really remarkable story if you just look at it statistically, I was struck by it. So there's 24 slots total available, and four of them in the last 18 years have been held by women. Four of them have been held by people of color. And as you just pointed out, one of those is both of those things and one of them was a Mormon. Now that's not parity for women, but it's a completely different story from our history leading up to that If we think about presidential and vice presidential nominees. Up to that point 18 years ago, there was just one woman and one Jewish man that was it.

MH: Wow.

GR: So, I guess my question to you with one minute left, and I'm sorry to make you squeeze it into one minute is, do you think we're at a tipping point now? Given where we are, do you think we're at a tipping point?

MH: Oh, absolutely. I think that the, you know, I was just asked by a reporter if America is ready for a black woman president, you know, Asian woman president. And I thought it was kind of an interesting question with many layers. And it's like the answer is, of course. And we are, I think, you know, at sort of this major historic milestone when we've had Barack Obama and, you know, the first black president and many you know, Hillary Clinton as the woman candidate. But I think we're here and I think we are ready to elect Kamala Harris as the first female president of the United States. And this will be, I think, you know, a major milestone for all of us and all the women who come before me who paved the way for what is possible today.

GR: Well, we'll have to leave it there. That was Mary Chung Hayashi. And again, her new book is titled, “Women in Politics: Breaking Down the Barriers to Achieve True Representation.” But I also want to say it's exceptionally readable and covers a lot of different ground. So I think a lot of our listeners will be interested in it. Ms. Hayashi, thanks so much for taking the time to speak with me, I really enjoyed the conversation.

MH: Thank you.

GR: You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.

Program transcript:

Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. My guest today is Fred Fiske. Fred spent his career in print journalism, including writing editorials for the Syracuse Post-Standard. He's here with me today because he's recently written a biography about a Syracuse businessman titled, "The Grocer Who Sold McCarthyism: The Rise and Fall of Anti-Communist Crusader Laurence A. Johnson." Fred, welcome to the program.

Fred Fiske: Thanks for having me.

GR: Well, glad you could make the time. So let me just start with a really basic question, just how did you get the idea to write this book?

FF: It came to me right after I got to Syracuse because I read about this guy. The headline for the article was, “The Butcher of Syracuse” and that got my attention. And what got my attention after that was the guerrilla tactics that this grocery supermarket magnate, a supermarket chain owner, adopted for his stores where he put up signs warning about communist actors on TV he'd point with an arrow to, the idea was to point with an arrow to like Swanson's peas and say, “Buy Swanson's peas and support Stalin's little creatures.

GR: (laughter)

FF: Or he'd have a survey, say, “If you want to kill our boys in Korea, then buy Ammident toothpaste. If you want good American toothpaste, buy Ipana or Chlorodent”.

GR: Wow.

FF: And sometimes he'd sweep products off the shelf and put up a sign saying, “I no longer carry Royal Crown Cola because they employ Lloyd Bridges on their TV sponsored show. I will return the bottles to the shelf when he is no longer employed”.

GR: Wow. Okay, that's fascinating stuff.

FF: That got my attention.

GR: Yeah. And kind of goes against basic business, you know, how to grow your business, but we'll get into that a little bit later. Let me start first, though, I want to ask you a question about Johnson's background without, minus his anti-communism activism, if that's possible. So just give us an idea of this this guy, like how he grew up, how he became successful as a grocery store chain owner. Give us that story first.

FF: Yeah. You ask yourself, I ask myself as a liberal, as a liberal who probably wouldn't have fared too well during the McCarthy era myself, when they were trying to screen and blacklist liberals. Why am I interested in this anti-communist extremist activist? And I think he's a very important figure in popular culture and certainly one of the most important people to come out of Syracuse. He started very humbly. He was from a farm family and farm background in Wayne County, west of here and he was orphaned by age 16. And he had an uncle who tried to help him along, but he basically had to make his own way as a teenager. And he farmed for a while but he always loved the old country store as a crossroads of culture and commerce and democracy. He was very patriotic. And he gradually built his business, he was pretty much self-taught, self-made man, built a supermarket chain in Syracuse. Very successful. Not ambitious, but he did find, and he helped kind of invent the cash and carry market. Up to that time. It had been pretty much over the counter off the shelf. And his idea was to have the customers come in and pick their items and go to the checkout counter. And he pretty much invented all these things. So he was actually a very astute merchandiser and commercial businessman. And so he built up this thriving business. And then right after the Korean War started, his daughter helped persuade him to join the anti-communist ranks.

GR: Interesting. And so, tell me a little bit about the anti-communism and how that develops. So his daughter got him interested in this and then how did he develop those views?

FF: Well, Eleanor was called the Molly Pitcher of the Blacklist by one of the writers of the period. And this was because her husband was a Marine reservist, called up to active duty in Korea in a mortar company. And he was right in the thick of the worst battles fighting in ‘51. And when she was with her father watching TV in the living room and there was an actor who had, I suppose you could say, suspect association she turned to her father and said, you know, you have a Red right here in your living room? And things like this really offended Johnson that we could still be supporting people with communist connections while the war in Korea was going on, we were fighting the communists. And so he took up the banner. And he had a lot of allies in Syracuse, too. He had the veterans groups full of these returning soldiers from World War Two and later from Korea and Syracuse was strategically placed in Central New York, close to markets close to New York City. And he developed relations with what (you would) call progressive professional communists in New York, including Vincent Hartnett. And drawing on sources from the anti-communist movement in Washington, fueling the Red Scare with their hearings in the House and Senate in the federal government. They put together this booklet called Red Channels, which listed nearly 150 actors. And his focus was on TV broadcasting and the actors who were performing on there because he and his allies were concerned that they were promoting un-American views on television and their propaganda was going to perhaps undermine American democracy. And so he became very, very active in that. And you're right, it did start to affect his business after a while because he kind of forgot about everything else.

GR: Well, what other kinds of things did he do in the store other than, you know, the drawing the arrows to people and taking Royal Crown cola off shelves? Pretty, pretty extreme. Were there other things that he did in his store, if I walked into a store, what would I get?

FF: You'd be a puzzled shopper some days, I think. I mean, the people didn't really get what he was up to, and he did it again and again, Grant. He did it, there was campaign after campaign. He took on Swanson's and Borden and Kraft and Schlitz and the major sponsors. And the thing is Grant, that he terrified them. All he had to do was threaten to do a poll in the store saying, you know, buy this product and support Stalin's little creatures and the sponsors would say, no, no, no, no, no, don't do that! We'll put pressure on the advertising agencies and they did. And the advertising agencies put pressure on the studios and the studios put pressure on the networks. And like as not, the performers got booted off and their careers really got damaged, a lot of them. And we're talking about, I don't know, you want to know who they are, I mean, Jack Gilford and Lloyd Bridges and Uta Hagan and Joseph Cotten made a pilgrimage to Syracuse to plead his case.

GR: Really? So these are A-list people at the time.

FF: Yeah, some of them really were. Kim Hunter, Judy Holliday, and a lot of lesser known actors. They really got hurt.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm speaking with Fred Fiske, the longtime former editorial writer for the Syracuse Post-Standard has written a new biography titled, "The Grocer Who Sold McCarthyism: The Rise and Fall of Anti-Communist Crusader Laurence A. Johnson." So on that last point you were talking about that, you know, it does seem like, unless I'm missing something, this guy really had outsized influence on the media and society, given his relative profile in the grocery industry. So how do you account for that, if that's true, how do you account for that? What was his secret to have so much leverage?

FF: Well, it certainly is true. And I think part of the answer is that he was so well known in the grocery industry because he had been such an innovator. I mean, supermarkets were all over the country by 1950. And when he started in 1920, there weren't any. And he started developing them and, and he made a name for himself in the industry. The industry gave him numerous awards for his innovations and also for his anti-communism. So he had, he had their ear, he had the ear of the industry. And that was, that was really key because everything in 1951 depended on, you know, in TV broadcasting depended on the advertising, it was just explosively profitable at that time. Syracuse happened to be a TV town, which means before the Korean War there were two TV stations, WHEN and WSYR in Syracuse. It was one of the few cities that had them before the slowdown during the Korean War, when all the resources had to go into war production and so TV advertising was already a big deal in Syracuse. He had these ready-made allies in the veterans groups. He even formed one out of, from his employees, called the Veterans Action Committee of Syracuse Supermarkets and they were key allies. And whether or not he actually put up all of these signs in the store, all he had to do was talk to these sponsors and they would they would go after those actors because the tenor of the times, Grant, we weren't doing much around 1951, but there was a Red Scare out there. And it wasn't based completely on fantasy. There were plenty of spies in America and there were plenty of people who the Soviets thought they had in their pockets. And the House and Senate were compiling these dossiers and the Federal Archives were full of this information. It seemed very well documented if you want to put it that way, although there was definitely a major flaw in that argument, which is that if you're talking in the House or the Senate or in a federal courtroom or in a federal office, you're immune from libel suits. You're immune from being held accountable for what you say in that sense, you can't be sued legally. But when you're relying as a private citizen activist on Red Channels, the Blacklist booklet, which has those same citations, you're no longer protected.

GR: Interesting, interesting. So I'm curious, did this gentleman, Johnson, did he get the attention of Senator Joe McCarthy? Did they ever meet?

FF: Yeah, if you look on the first, I think it's in the introduction, there's a picture of them together. They met at Hinderwadel's Grove in Syracuse. When Joseph McCarthy came to town, he sued the Post-Standard, by the way, at one point for libel.

GR: McCarthy or Johnson?

FF: McCarthy.

GR: McCarthy, okay, okay.

FF: And he came to town for depositions and for examinations before trial. And at one of those occasions, he was greeted by the veterans and hosted at a clambake at Hinderwadel's Grove and Johnson looks pretty uncomfortable. He looks, you know, he looks rather ill at ease like he doesn't know what to say. They were not intimate, but he certainly admired the Wisconsin senator. He was not a leader in any sense, I mean, he ran his is grocery business and he was a leader in the grocery industry, the retail shopping industry. However, he never took a leadership position in any anti-communist organization or never ran for office or never looked for the spotlight. He was never one to make long speeches. So I think he was he was not very comfortable being in these august circles with McCarthy. But he was thrilled.

GR: Yeah, I bet, interesting. You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm talking with Fred Fiske. He's recently published a biography titled, "The Grocer Who Sold McCarthyism: The Rise and Fall of Anti-Communist Crusader Laurence A. Johnson" and we've been discussing his book. So you kind of intimated this a little bit, I think, right before the break. But my understanding is Johnson's career as an anti-communist sort of came to a head with a with a big court case. Give us the background on that.

FF: Year after year from 1951 on, he was able to pursue this campaign with devastating effectiveness. Some would call it, I mean I think it's one of the most effective private merchandising campaigns in (the) political history of our country. And the Red Channels document that he used has been called the most effective blacklist that we've ever had. And so I mean, in total hundreds of actors were affected by this whole movement and Johnson was one of the leaders of it. In 1956 he took on a new target, John Henry Faulk, who was at that time a TV personality and just breaking. He had hundreds of appearances on game shows and he had a radio program and he was just about to start a TV program when the anti-communists took him on. He'd been very active in AFTRA, the labor union for show people, and he was part of a slate that ran against the anti-communists. There was sort of an anti-communist majority on the board of AFTRA and these middle of the road people with Faulk, their most outspoken member, won election to AFTRA’s board and this brought him to the attention of the anti-communists. And they put out a sheet of seven or eight suspect associations from him, never accusing him of being a communist, but citing the Daily Worker and citing House committee reports, I think. Very official looking. And then they started putting pressure on sponsors. And what happened to Faulk was just a crime. I mean, he lost, eventually his contracts. Within a year he was unemployable in show business. He ended up trying to be a bond salesman, that didn't work. He finally ended up in Texas trying to run an ad agency, wasn't a very good advertising agent. Oddly enough, he was a great merchandiser. He was a super salesman for his network, for CBS. He would go out to stores and sell product. I think he and Johnson would have gotten along great because he was also very interested in American folklore, just like Johnson was. So they had some things in common, but he was the Eugene Debs side and Johnson was the William Jennings Bryan side. So they took him on, and Johnson, who would make these trips to New York, started visiting advertising agencies and putting pressure on them to get rid of John Henry Faulk. And it worked until Faulk took his friends’ advice and went to look for a lawyer and he found Louis Nizar, who was a celebrated attorney, just a showman and a wonderfully effective lawyer in New York City. And he took on Faulk’s case and they sued for libel in 1956. ’56, you know, think about that. That's five years after he started and two years after Joe McCarthy, you could say, got his comeuppance. The senator in the Army-McCarthy hearings was kind of discredited. And by ‘56, he was near the end, he'd really gone downhill. I think Louis Nizar sensed an opportunity here and he told John Faulk, I think, presciently, he said, this is going to take a while, but you're going to win. And it sure did, it took six years to come to trial in 1962 and the trial was remarkable. It wasn't just about John Henry Faulk and Red Channels and Laurence Johnson and his allies, it was about the whole blacklisting phenomenon. It really put the whole process on trial. And in fact, John Henry Faulk wrote a book about it later, “Fear on Trial” about the trial and it was made into a TV movie and Louis Nizar was played by George C. Scott.

GR: Yeah, I think I may have seen that as a kid. It's ringing a bell, yeah.

FF: William Devane played John Henry Faulk. But oddly enough, there was no Laurence Johnson in the film because he never appeared at trial. By this time he was in his 70s and he pleaded ill health. And I don't know if I want to put in a spoiler about what happened at the trial, but it was pretty dramatic.

GR: Okay, we'll leave that for listeners to buy the book. But let me ask you this, I don't know if I'm ruining it, you can just say I'll take a pass on this. But I did want to ask you how Johnson's life ended.

FF: He did plead ill health and Louis Nizar wasn't having it and so he said, let's have two doctors examine you, one for our side and one from your side. And so Laurence Johnson’s doctor said he had this esophageal problem and a trial could really put him over the edge. And Louis Nizar's doctor, who was a gastroenterologist, said, that's nonsense, he could do it easily. And Louis Nizar just left it at that. Let the jury draw its own conclusion. And right near the end of the trial, Johnson was found dead in a motel room like five miles from the courtroom. Died of pretty much natural causes. He took his meds and then and that had a problem while in his sleep and died in his sleep.

GR: Wow.

FF: So that's how his life ended. And by that time, I think he knew things were not going well at the trial. So it was a kind of a sad end.

GR: Yeah, but the other gentleman's life was ruined. If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. And my guest is Fred Fiske, and we've been discussing his new book about the anti-communist crusader Laurence A. Johnson. So I had some questions here at the last part of our program that are kind of bigger picture. Obviously, you had a fair amount of historical knowledge of this era before you started writing this book. You know, your experience with the paper and just otherwise your education, you knew quite a bit about the time period. I was curious, in the course of writing this did you learn something about our history that you didn't know before that really kind of struck you and stayed with you?

FF: I learned that Laurence Johnson came out of a long tradition of fear of the other, of demonizing the stranger or the marginal, the radical. I mean, it goes back to the Alien and Sedition Acts in the 1700s. I mean, that's before we were even really organized. And right through the 1800s with the Know Nothings and the anti-Masons and on, you know, the Civil War and the Ku Klux Klan and people who just were afraid of these big groups in society. And in the 1920’s there was an anti-immigrant push and there were red scares in the ’30s. And all around, Johnson, there was evidence that that there really was a problem in America at that time. I mean he didn't have to be making anything up. I mean, a lot of the stuff that he was looking at was made up. And Grant, what I also realized is that it's going on now. I mean, it never really stops.

GR: Yeah, I wanted to ask you.

FF: ...fits and starts, you know. 50 years ago, we had book bans, and now we have efforts to ban books. We have another anti-immigrant scare going on with the illegal migrants. We have pushback against being woke, if you will. We have pushback against DEI. I mean, these are becoming epithets today. We have pushback back against LGBT+ rights. And so there's there are these cultural wars that get fueled by government, by government agents and government hearings and the political process. And I think you just have to accept that it's kind of part of who we are and that's really why I wanted to study this guy. I said, what is it about us that creates people like Laurence Johnson? Well, they've been with us all along, and they probably still will be. And I think that understanding Laurence Johnson, this patriot, this well-meaning idealist who trampled on civil rights, you know, of due process and free speech and association, we understand him a little better we'll be able to cope with these challenges when they come up today and tomorrow.

GR: And it's, in a lot of ways he's really, he's a tragic figure. You know, and you kind of intimated that they're talking about his death and, you know, you don't want to feel too sorry for him, we only have about a minute left, but in the process of writing this, did you get some empathy for this guy that you weren't expecting?

FF: Yeah, I really respected him. I don't know if I would have liked him. I can't impugn his motives. He never made any money off of this, he spent money on this. He jeopardized his business for this. And keep in mind, he never fired anybody. He never actually ruined anyone's career. That was done by CBS and ABC and the ad agencies and the agents who wouldn't touch these actors. Johnson was just a private citizen. He wasn't even the leader of a group, and he was just acting on his patriotic ideals. But yet that's the kind of idealism that can wreck the country.

GR: Well, it’s a real fascinating set of contradictions and paradoxes, but it's a very, very interesting book. I highly recommend it to anyone who's listening. It would make a great summer read, and it's a nice blend of something that happened in Syracuse, but as you and I have been discussing, has implications for the entire arc of American history. So that was Fred Fiske, and again, his new book is titled, "The Grocer Who Sold McCarthyism: The Rise and Fall of Anti-Communist Crusader Laurence A. Johnson." Fred, thanks so much for taking the time to talk with me, very interesting.

FF: Oh, it's been great.

GR: Thanks. You've been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.

Program transcript:

Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations. I'm Grant Reeher. My guest today is Melanie Littlejohn. Last December, Ms. Littlejohn was named as the president and CEO of the Central New York Community Foundation, she brings to that position a wide array of previous experience in the private and nonprofit sector, including a long career with National Grid and its Corporate Social Responsibility program. Ms. Littlejohn, welcome to the program.

Melanie Littlejohn: Thank you, thank you.

GR: Well, we're glad to have you on. So, let's just start with some real basics. I'm sure that most of our listeners have heard of the Community Foundation but they may not be, you know, totally up to speed on it. So, let's just start with you giving us a basic overview of the foundation and what it does.

ML: Sure. Grant, I think one of the things I love talking about is the Community Foundation and what it does because it's still in many ways a mystery to people. But in essence, what we do, we take donors dollars and we invest it to do the most good in our community. So we also help donors with their philanthropic ambitions, where would they like to contribute their dollars to make a meaningful impact, and then we also take the investment from those donor’s dollars to deploy very widely on things like our priorities: LEAD (LeadSafeCNY), literacy, scholarship, equity. And it's a powerful moment. And then we support nonprofit organizations who are doing unbelievable work across the region.

GR: So, okay, thank you. So if I were to give money then to the Community Foundation, what I'm understanding of what you're saying, is then you would sort of take that money and make decisions about where it should go and put it together in a pool, do I have that right?

ML: So let me clarify. So, you're a donor and you say, I would like to open up a donor advised fund and here at the Community Foundation, because I want to support, just pick an organization, I want to support the Salvation Army.

GR: Okay.

ML: And I want to support my alma mater, I want to support elementary school education. And so you give us the list of who you want to support and then annually, on an annual basis, we invest that fund so that it just continues to grow.

GR: Okay.

ML: And then we give, so the portion of your fund that's invested, you then allocate to those organizations that you outline. And then when we look at the whole investment pool, a portion of what we then do is set community priorities that are born out of data like LEAD, and then we try to tackle and create impact in those areas by working with organizations or funding organizations that are doing work to address that priority. We invest in priorities as a result of data. You know, my team looks at data and we collect and share data on a wide range of elements for the Central New York region. And as we identify issues, we begin to tackle them through supporting those organizations that are in place to tackle these very issues. And some of those really result in, oh goodness, measureable and meaningful impact in the region.

GR: Okay, great, thank you. So my understanding is when you first came on board, you held a series of listening sessions in the community. It was this past spring to get a better sense of the needs and the concerns I was just wondering if what you learned from that, what conclusions for you that came out of that experience?

ML: You know, that's been one of the most powerful experiences I've had in my work career, because when you go out to people and you do it in a way that you are clearly focused on listening, people share. And so what I heard from, goodness, over 400 people over five different listening sessions, and I still do them, but they're much smaller now. But the themes are very, very consistent, no matter where I go. It's focused on housing and dealing with the housing crisis. It's focused on child care in all forms and facets of child care. It's focused on workforce development, transportation, health care. And one of the other issues that just kept bubbling up was that around mental health, and mental health specifically as it relates to our young people. And I've heard just tremendous, tremendous feedback. But I also heard this whole important notion of collaboration and partnership and compassion and commitment. Those sessions were absolutely powerful.

GR: And I seem to remember a few years ago, prior to you joining the foundation, that the foundation pledged itself to a greater emphasis on social justice, diversity, and as I recall, from the time communities of color and communities that were in distress. Tell me, why was that? Why did the community foundation make that change?

ML: Sure, sure. And I don't know if it's as much of a change as it was as a pronouncement.

GR: Okay.

ML: So when I think about, again, I say a lot of what we do was data informed. And when we looked at data and let's just use LEAD, because LEAD is one of the most pronounced ones that really had us leaning in on the equity lens. You know, the populations or the people who are at the highest end of lead poisoning are black and brown residents in in Onondaga County specifically. And it's also focused on high concentration of poverty and unfortunately, you know, our numbers are still our numbers, right? We have the highest concentrated levels of poverty for black and brown residents. And then we also go and we looked at some of our historical information through the 15th Ward, which has the highest level of lead poisoning. And then if you overlay, say, a redlining map, you see all of the exact same footprint. So, you know, we said, you know, this is a community that, Central New York community cares about driving impact and cares about driving change. I know I talk to people all day long who want us to rise to our highest and best selves in everything we do, including the issues around equity and race. And so the foundation leaned in on that and continues to do, and it was also shortly after the murder of George Floyd that we have to look at things even that give us consternation. We got to look at them in the eye. Because if we look at them in the eye, we know how to deal with it and we deal with it as a community. And don't think the work isn't easy. It is never easy to talk about things that make us wiggle in our seats, ever. But when you do it thoughtfully, and you do it inclusively bringing and inviting in feedback and engagement, we all get better, right? We all begin to get better. And so that's what that DEI and equity lens is about and it’s about all voices, right? Because we do recognize all voices matter, but we also wanted to put a specific light on where we have some warts. Let's get them done.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm speaking with Melanie Littlejohn. She's the president and CEO of the Central New York Community Foundation. So are there new initiatives that the foundation has been taking recently that you are particularly excited about that you could talk to us about?

ML: Sure. I think our ongoing work in literacy, right? Is critically important, it’s foundational it’s a part of the ecosystem. I can't talk about workforce development without talking about reading, right? I think about our pipelines in all of our schools, right? And we have to ensure that all children specifically have the ability to read and comprehend information. So literacy continues to be foundational to drive impact. LEAD and the eradication of lead, the foundation actually just, we committed another million dollars to our efforts to get to the eradication of lead. 26% of children in 2018 being tested positive for lead - unacceptable. We're at 11% now because we've leaned in what we got to keep leaning in to ensure that we are doing everything that we can to eradicate lead poisoning. Because that as well is a part of the ecosystem because lead impacts children's ability to read, learn, and it just has a ripple effect, so we are at the heart of it. And then our scholarship, you know, Say Yes, 15 years of Say Yes. And we continue to see how Say Yes changes the lives of people in this region and what a heck of a calling card to the city of Syracuse. If you're buying a house in the city of Syracuse, guess what? If you do when your child goes Syracuse City School system, you can get a scholarship, how terribly important. And then the last thing, Grant, is how we're leaning in and partnering through all of this coalition work, doing what I call the Micron Moment.

GR: Yes. I wanted to ask you about that later, but yeah.

ML: Super, super important. It's a moment and we've got to get it right.

GR: Yes.

ML: And what I absolutely adore is watching the level of collaboration. I've been in this community about 35 years, and what I have seen in the last 2 to 3 specifically has been absolutely tremendous. We get we get we have some big hills and valleys, but collaboration. So that's what we're up to at the foundation.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm talking with Melanie Littlejohn. Since last December, she's been serving as the President and CEO of the Central New York Community Foundation. So I wanted to ask you, something came to my mind as you were giving the answer to the last question and you were talking about the things that the Community Foundation has been doing in particular that you think are most important or you're most excited about. And, you know, you were mentioning helping with literacy and literacy with young people, the problems with lead poisoning and lead exposure in Syracuse. Those are important things, but one of the thoughts I had, it's not a criticism of the foundation, but it's a reflection, when I hear that I think, well, isn't that what a responsive government would be doing? And so my question to you is, does the community foundation and other foundations like it kind of, fill in for where government either falls down or has gaps? I don't know if you have thoughts about that.

ML: So I think ironically and importantly, there's so much work to be done in this space that is enough work for everyone to do, right? So, when I think about working with Onondaga County and the city of Syracuse on the whole lead initiative, they have been responsive. They have fueled and supported so many of the initiatives that we're seeing because, you know, I said we started at 26%, we’re down to 11% in the city of Syracuse. The number is still unacceptable, but there are so many different partners, including nonprofit partners, it's community. We did this process that I'm extraordinarily proud of, is for participatory budgeting. And we took the problem of lead poisoning and we worked with the residents of the 15th Ward, Southside Brighton area. We worked with community based organizations, government officials and we did this working session. It took a few months to say, all right, here are the dollars. We want to give a grant of $150,000. How would you deploy it so that we can get to the eradication of lead? Where should it go? What would be most meaningful, most impactful that could drive the greatest degree of change. And the community and all of these partners, and they worked hard, and it wasn't easy, but they worked. And there were four or five organizations that bubbled up as we liked their work and what they're doing and we think it's innovative and it would be impactful. And then ultimately, one did get, the Syracuse Doulas got the large grant. It's because what they wanted to do was to begin to plant seeds with moms. Because most people, believe it or not, you don't think about lead poisoning in your homes, just don't think about it, who thinks about it? Or if you're renting and you go from one location to the next, you don't think about it. So we really had to lean in on the education and outreach as well as our continued work around replacement of doors and windows. The places that lead is most prominent.

GR: And you mentioned Micron a little bit earlier and I did want to ask you about that. Obviously, you know, it's going to be transformational for not only the community, but the area and you know, maybe the state. Has the community foundation been part of the discussions in the planning around Micron? Are you at these tables with, you know, Syracuse University and government officials and Micron officials? Because Micron has been, there's been both a push to see commitments from Micron and then also, you know, Micron, I think, has been pretty open about saying, you know, we want to help and we want to get involved. So it seems like the Community Foundation would be one place they might want to go to figure out how, best way to do that.

ML: Sure. So in two ways, prior to me coming here, obviously, I've worked during and with the Micron attraction process, which was powerful. And certainly, you know, my former employer is absolutely critically important because you got to, you know, power this massive site, which they're actually doing a phenomenal job working to make that happen. But then the second piece is, I had a wonderful opportunity to co-chair a community engagement committee along with Tim Penix. And then 15 community leaders from different backgrounds came together to launch this community engagement process on behalf of the governor and on behalf of Micron, to really get the voice of community so that what we're trying or aiming for that everyone can participate in this moment. We were looking at the right thing. So it was a 13 month process that we did this and we engaged over 13,000 residents in various forms, whether it was town hall meetings, surveys, smaller round tables. We engaged the voice of the community and again, you will not be surprised of all of the things that people said were important. And matter of fact, we just released two weeks ago that Community Priorities document that outlines what was said and what will be focused on. But here's the thing, Grant…

GR: Let me ask you one thing, because that sounds important. Where can people find that document?

ML: They can find that document, you can either go right to the governor's website at newyorkstate.gov.

GR: Okay.

ML: You can go to (www.nyscec.org) and we'll get you the link to maybe you can post them.

GR: That sounds like a great idea. Yeah, go ahead and complete your thought, I'm sorry. I just wanted to make sure that…

ML: No, no, it's important, I'm glad you stopped me. And it has both the executive summary as well as the full 160 page report in terms of the voice of the community. So I'm still the co-chair of it and a matter of fact, tomorrow will be our first meeting that we will have with community based organizations who might be interested in applying for a grant that relates to some of the priorities that were identified in the Community Priorities document. So we're stepping through here’s how you access the portal, here's what it looks like. And so that piece becomes really, really important. And so we are involved in all of the coalitions and all of the work to really get up on all of the priorities to make impact. But what I like people to know, yes, this is a document that was sparked by Micron coming into this community, but we were very careful to name this report. This report is the Central New York Community Engagement Committee, it belongs to all of us. All organizations in this community, big or small or otherwise, this is your document. People of Central New York, this is your document. Yes, we're going to meet the Micron moment and Micron has been a good partner stepping up. But this isn't just a Micron responsibility, right? So I want everyone to know this is your document. Figure out how you want to bring it to life, figure out where you want to lean in to make things happen.

GR: If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media and my guest is Melanie Littlejohn from the Central New York Community Foundation. So we've got about 4 minutes left or so and there are two questions I want to make sure I have time to ask you. I'm going to ask you the bigger question first, and you could talk about this the whole time, but just remember that I want to come back and I want to squeeze something else in. So the first one is, have you begun to develop your idea of future visions for the Community Foundation, you know, both on a sort of like realistic short term scale, but also, you know, thinking big about the future? Or is it too early in your tenure for you to be doing that?

ML: No, I think, you know, I have the benefit of having a tremendous team that really helps me think through what are those core issues and things that we really need to lean into. I have the voice of community, whether it's through my listening sessions or this Community Priorities document. But I think the biggest piece for me is really having to demystify philanthropy, that we're all philanthropists, we all give in one way or another. So really trying to continue to build the culture of philanthropy and whether, I want to really foster: just give. Give time is giving, compassion is giving, writing checks and giving of your treasure is giving. But in this season, I want to create the everyday philanthropist.

GR: Ah, I like that, everyday philanthropist, I like that phrase. So this last question is more personal, and I'm hoping that you will feel comfortable enough to talk about it, we've got a couple of minutes left. I know that the Community Foundation is apolitical and nonpartisan, so I want to make that clear before I ask this question, make it clear to our listeners and to you. At the same time, you're a woman of color and it's looking like the Democrats as we are speaking today, it's becoming a certainty, almost a certainty that the Democrats are going to nominate Kamala Harris for president. She would be the first woman of color to be a presidential nominee from either of the two major parties. So she's making history and she could make more history if she wins. So I just wondered if you had any personal thoughts or feelings about that.

ML: You know, I know a little something about being a first, right? And the pride, Kamala, Vice President Kamala Harris, for me, as having been a first in my career, she reinforces for me the immense pride. The immense pride that I know what she did to get there, right? You know and understand how hard she has worked to be her best self, to be the leader that we know she is. And I'm sure she's got some bumps and bruises and some war scars, right? But I'm filled with this sense of pride because my granddaughter could wake up and understand I, too, can be a president. I, too, can run for office, right? That's what this moment is about, it's bigger than politics.

GR: Yeah.

ML: It's about the power of possibility.

GR: Well that's a nice place to end it. That was Melanie Littlejohn. Ms. Littlejohn, thanks so much for taking the time to talk with me, I really appreciated the conversation.

ML: Thank you, Grant.

GR: You've been listening to the Campbell conversations on WRVO, public media conversations and the public interest.

Program transcript:

Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. My guest today is Wawa Gatheru. Ms. Gatheru is the founder of Black Girl Environmentalist, a national organization dedicated to empowering black girls, women and nonbinary people across the climate sector. In 2019, she was named the first black person in history to receive the prestigious Rhodes, Truman and Udall scholarships, all three of them. Since then, she's received a number of young leadership recognitions and awards. Ms. Gatheru, welcome to the program.

Wawa Gatheru: Thank you for having me. I'm excited to talk with you today.

GR: Well, we're excited to have you. Let me just start with one thing, we know already that you're very smart, I think I just proved that. Where did you win all these scholarships? Where was your undergraduate experience?

WG: Yeah, so I'm a proud alum of the illustrious University of Connecticut, Storrs. That's where I did my undergrad.

GR: Excellent, okay. And you did the Rhodes Scholarship, was the one you chose, which makes perfect sense. And I think the Truman was one that you get sort of while you're an undergraduate, is that right? You were able to receive that scholarship at Connecticut, right?

WG: Yes. So the Truman Scholarship is a public service scholarship so it's awarded to undergraduate juniors that have shown exceptional promise in the space of public service and have a track record and hopefully will continue to carry that on throughout the rest of their career.

GR: All right. So the Rhodes is the one everyone's heard of. And what did you study at Oxford?

WG: So I studied major society and environmental governance. So that was a masters where we really focused on environmental governance and have the opportunity to understand what that looks like from a global perspective, it’s very insightful.

GR: Well, perfect for what you're doing, so great, okay. So, briefly tell me how and why you started this organization, Black Girl Environmentalist.

WG: Yeah. So the idea of BGE, Black Girl Environmentalist, was definitely seeded throughout my experience in the environmental space. I was 15 when I really knew in my heart that I had found my calling and I knew that I wanted to dedicate my life to climate solutions. And throughout my time as a young person navigating the climate sector, I had an incredible experience obviously, I'm still here. But there were many instances that reminded me of the leadership crisis that our space really suffers from and even though people of color make up nearly, I think, 40% of the U.S. population, we rarely see a 12 to 16% green ceiling of representation and that is definitely seen and felt when you're in environmental or climate rooms. And so I kept asking myself the question, if we know that communities of color, people of color and women of color in particular, are experiencing the brunt of environmental injustices in our country and abroad, why is it that we're not adequately represented in climate leadership? Why is it that the next generation of climate leaders don't look like a representation of the United States? And so that was a big tension point throughout my journey. And when I completed my master's at Oxford and fall of 2022, I was confronted with the possibility of spending a year turning what, at that point was an Instagram page and Instagram community, into a functioning, fully operational nonprofit that could attempt to address this very unique pipeline and pathway issue in the climate sector. And so I decided to, instead of accepting a job offer that would have provided me financial security, spend a year dedicated to spreading the word on BGE, building out our programing and fundraising. And I told myself that if I wasn't able to fundraise enough to hire myself, then at least two people full time within a year, I would essentially go back crawling to whoever would take me for a job, and I'd keep the organization as an Instagram page. And somehow we were able to do that and we're still going strong with full time staff.

GR: That's great. So, a follow up question on that, but just to underline something that you said at the beginning about the field being dominated by white people. You know, I've had a number of folks on the program in the years that I've been doing it to talk about environmental issues and you prompted me to go back really quickly and think, and they were all white. So you are the first person of color to be on this program to be talking about environmental issues. So it just kind of underlines your point there. You said that people of color bear the heavier brunt of environmental injustices and problems. Could you say a little bit more about that because when I think of some of the environmental concerns, you know, global warming and everything, I don't necessarily think of them in those terms, so help me better understand that.

WG: Yeah, so I mean, there's so many different ways that we can look at this. The origins of the climate crisis in a formal environmental course, we really look at the industrial revolution as being the starting point of the climate crisis particularly, and the rapid increase of greenhouse gases and the way that we really see our economy industrialized in this very specific way and how that launched the US in particular into an era of wealth and really solidified it as one of the most wealthy nations in the world, if not the most wealthy. But I would say, if we took from a historical perspective, the climate crisis did not begin there, right? The Industrial Revolution didn't pay for itself. We think about the abolishment of slavery and what a tectonic economic shift it was. It required the US to really launch itself into a new economic system that did not remove itself from a system of exploitation. So we went from a system of exploiting black and brown bodies to continuing to exploit black and brown bodies, not in the same way, but still doing so while also exploiting the land and our resources at a level that we have not been able to keep up with. And a lot of environmental strands can really trace the legacy of chattel slavery, colonialism, imperialism as being huge, grounding fundamental systems that have led us into this crisis. And because those systems are born out of exploitation, the climate crisis and staying true to its origins and roots, does not impact us all the same. I often say the climate crisis, even though we're all in the same storm that is a climate crisis we aren't all in the same boat, meaning that the climate crisis is a threat multiplier. It does create a lot of new problems for people, and it certainly impacts all different types of people. But depending on your social status, socio-economic status, race, gender, et cetera, your relationship with it is different. We often talk about climate change as being a threat multiplier. And, you know, when we dive into that term, it really means that the climate crisis intensifies all existing social threats. So even if the climate crisis wasn't in the picture, right, we understand that there are communities that tend to be poor. There are communities that have been targeted by systemic inequalities. There are communities that are more likely to experience poverty, and then when you bring the climate crisis on top of that, those issues grow larger. And the gaps between those with and those without continues to grow. And so people of color tend to be on the end of the have-nots when the climate crisis is brought into the mix, again that gap continues to grow larger. A really good example is heat. Right now, we're still in a heat wave. It's kind of crazy to think about, right? We're at day six, I think, to summer. And we are already seeing headlines of people losing their lives to heat. But the thing is with heat, heat does not impact us all equally, right? When we think about the very real legacy of redlining even though redlining is illegal, we still are living out the ramifications of these racist policies. There is research that shows that previously redlined communities that are still predominantly black and brown and low income are actually hotter than communities that weren't previously redlined. And that's because redlined communities were designated for a lot of concrete infrastructure. Warehouses highways, lack of green space. And then if you look at communities that weren't previously redlined and were able to access investment, there's a lot of green space. There is a lot of canopy cover, there's a lot of infrastructure that mitigates extreme heat. And because of that, we can quite literally see that a neighborhood that was previously redlined just a couple of blocks from a predominantly white community that wasn't previously redlined, people are experiencing heat very differently. And that's just like a real tangible example. But, you know, even if we bring in pregnant people into the mix, right? We already have a black maternal health crisis, we already know that black mothers and their babies are disproportionately impacted by our broken health care system. But heat really, really impacts pregnant and birthing people and their babies. And so if you add that on top of the mix, right, a black mother and a black baby in a community that was previously redlined, that is low income, that is hotter, is going to experience that heat differently than a white mother in a neighborhood that wasn't previously redlined, has canopy and tree cover to mitigate extreme heat and likely also has better access to health care in ways that the black mother doesn't have.

GR: Yeah, I could see how the threat multiplier there comes into it. And my mind went to something further back in time when you were talking about this, which was the differential impact of Hurricane Katrina.

WG: Right.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm speaking with Wawa Gatheru, the founder of Black Girl Environmentalist. So, what would you regard as your organization's biggest success so far, other than building it, obviously, which was a challenge. But now, you know, now that it's built, what's the thing that you would point to with the most pride?

WG: The thing that I would point to with the most pride is, you know, building it, I would say. And the reason why is I don't think people realize how dire philanthropy is for the climate space. Climate is the least funded issue item out there, which is really scary when we think about organizations, groups that are leading on climate solutions that are simply not able to scale and don't have the capacity to do so because of funding. And youth climate organizations are in a really, really interesting predicament and which constantly, we're told, you are the future, you're going to save us from ourselves. And then simultaneously we receive .76 percent of climate philanthropy of the very little there is, we receive .76, and most of that funding is located within the United States. So, we are an organization that is primarily focused in the United States, right? And even then, there's a disparity where my fellow brothers and sisters that are leading incredible work elsewhere are really not getting any funding. So the fact that we were able to raise enough capital to have full time staff and to be able to lead programing, in and of itself is great, but it certainly has been a burden in navigating. But very specifically, I would see our Hazel and Johnson Fellowship program is something that I'm very, very proud of. It initially launched just a couple of months ago. It's a summer program where we have placed 14 current college students or recent graduates at leading environmental organizations for the summer where they are receiving financial support, mentorship and professional development at a scale that really isn't normal in our space. Unpaid internships are thankfully becoming less and less popular, but there is still an issue around college students or recent graduates being able to access these internships or summer opportunities that are really, really critical and being able to obtain your first early career job. Because, A, if they are paid, they don't always tend to be able to correlate with the high costs of living. Two, if you have to relocate, many of the places that are very popular for internships are very expensive already. And the other issue is that students may not know how to really leverage the experience if they're in there. So with our fellowship, all the partner organizations are paying our fellows at least $18 an hour, and only one fellow is actually receiving that, most of them are receiving at least $20 an hour, up to $25 an hour. On top of that, Black Girl Environmentalists, our organization has equipped the bills with a $5,000 living wage stipend to support those fees as well. We are providing them weekly professional development, 3 hours a week, where we get to introduce them to different topics that are pertinent to where they are in the early career journey, and then also expose them to other things that could help them as they develop, as well as partnering each of the fellows up with the mentor. And we're finishing up the summer with an in-person retreat in Washington State, where we'll be able to really share about the experiences that folks had over the summer. Folks will get to connect in person or be able to plan ahead for how our alumni program can continue to support these individuals. It's been a really, really incredible journey to see the program start from an idea into this pipeline that is being recognized and where folks are participating from all over the country. We have HBCU students, we have state school students, we have Ivy League students, students that are utilizing this platform to really get their foot in the door. And our partner organizations are just incredible. We have everyone from Bloomberg Philanthropies, Beyond Petrochemicals Campaign, Harvard's Salata Institute, The Climate Trust, WWF, Rare (Environmental), across disciplines from renewable energy to environmental justice to policy. And we really wanted for folks to be able to have a wide selection of what type of discipline they wanted to get into, as well as start off in a place that can really help bring them to the next level.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm talking with Wawa Gatheru. She’s the founder of Black Girl Environmentalist, a national organization dedicated to empowering black girls, women and nonbinary people across the climate (spectrum). I just wanted to mention before the break you were talking about your fellowship program, and I just want to give you compliments here because I run an internship program at Syracuse University, but the way you've thought this through, inserting the mentoring into it and the big meeting afterward where people can compare their experiences, that's really nicely done. I just want to say good work on that.

WG: Thank you.

GR: What's been your biggest challenge so far outside of building the organization? I wonder whether it was getting people of color more interested in this or what's been the thing that's been toughest to get around for you?

WG: Yeah, you know, it hasn't been that last point. And it's so interesting because I think there is this narrative around people of color that sometimes we believe as well, like as people of color where it's like, oh, like, black folks don't go outside or don't go camping or don't care about the environment, or people of color don't do those things, when in reality it's not true. Like, we have polling that shows that people of color overwhelmingly do care about climate action, do care about how, for example, political candidates are talking about climate change. Actually, more than our white counterparts. In fact, Latin communities are the most concerned about environmental protection than any demographic. So it's always so interesting that when we think about environmentalism, it typically isn't that communities of color that again, arguably do care the most. I find that the issue or the biggest burden that I've had to face in the past several years with BGE and then overall is combating that narrative. And then also really combating that narrative and really asserting why an organization like this is so important. I tend to get a lot of questions about why I focus on what I focus on. People ask, why women? Why black women? Why black girls? Why not stick it to the tree? That's one I get a lot. You know, like race has nothing to do with climate action or climate protection, why exactly are you being divisive? And so I find that a lot of my job is to, specifically when it comes to overcoming narratives, is to really provide a historical grounding into the ways in which people of color have always been involved in our stewardship, have always been environmentalists, and remind folks of that continuing legacy. And then also to share that history with other folks of color and other black folks, because it's always been, again, this moment of a feeling of tension that I have experienced. But as I continue to meet more and more and more black girl environmentalists, I hear the same thing back. Where so many other people also have this lived experience of being like, this is so strange, like at home, we always recycle and like we always talked about how important it was to take care of the planet, we always understood that protecting the planet always meant protecting people, too. But the prevailing narrative has left us out. And so it's been a burden, but then it's also been an opportunity to connect with other people and build community over the fact that so many of us have been exposed to this narrative and yet, in the midst of it, have continued to persevere and continue to really take up space and really show the movement at large that in order for the climate movement to be successful, we need a movement made in the image of all of us and one that speaks to everyone.

GR: If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, and my guest is Wawa Gatheru. She's an environmentalist and she founded the organization, Black Girl Environmentalist. Now, your constituency, as you listed on your website and elsewhere, is black girls, black women, but then also nonbinary people. So I just wanted to ask you why that was part of your focus. Do you see some sort of natural connection between the issues of bringing those first two groups into this conversation and the last one, nonbinary?

WG: Yeah, ultimately, right? Marginalized groups, folks that are made marginalized by our prevailing systems, we experience not just the climate crisis, but a lot of other issues differently than other groups, right? And it's really interesting because if you look at data or information that we have around gender, it very clearly points the fact that women of any race experience climate change with disproportionate severity because enforced gender inequality makes us more susceptible to escalating environmental stressors. At the same time, we know that women, when women are in positions of leadership in the environmental space or at large, we see better conservation outcomes when women are taking up space in national parliaments. We actually see more robust climate policies come through. So that's very, very clear in the research. But what's so interesting is that gender expansive nonbinary folks aren't even included in the research. There is a huge gap in the literature around how gender expansive and nonbinary folks and other gender minorities are experiencing the climate crisis and environmental hazards. And that in and of itself says everything that I need to know, right? If folks aren't even being included in the research, in the metrics, aren't being validated as a demographic, then of course, you know, of course, they're experiencing these things at disproportionate levels because they're not even being understood as people with lived experiences that need to be recognized. And so Black Girl Environmentalist as an organization, we are trying to make sure that black folks that have been left out, black gender minorities that have been left out of environmental leadership, out of environmental narratives, out of being understood as leaders of today and tomorrow, we are reconfiguring what that is. We're saying no, that we are leaders were leaders today we are leaders tomorrow, and we are creating opportunities for these folks to be seen, to be invested in, to build community. So for me, it's a very natural progression and it's a very natural part of our community.

GR: I get a sense of what your organization does and you mentioned the fellowship program and developing leadership and focusing on these groups. What's your long term hope or vision for this movement or organization?

WG: Well, to be honest, my long term hope / vision is that we won't have to exist (laughter). Like ultimately, right? All of us in the climate space, no matter who you are, no matter what your race is, we are trying to solve the climate crisis, right? So a long term goal is that we solve the climate crisis and that folks that have dedicated their life to climate solutions can focus on something else. My dream, if I wasn't in climate, I would have been a jazz singer, that's what I wanted to do my whole life. But, yeah, the climate crisis kind of got in the way of that dream. So maybe one day you'll find me out in some smoky bar singing Amy Winehouse, because we solved the climate crisis. As an organization, right, the goal is that we have a climate movement made in the image of all of us. I want for a black girl to be able to look at the climate space as a viable option for them and not to be deterred because they are going into workspaces or going into rooms that don't look like them and don't recognize how the climate crisis is impacting their communities most directly. And so if we get to that point, then I'd be happy to close the doors on BGE and have us focus on other things, but we're not there yet. And ultimately, our goal now really is to continue to create these pipelines to continue to cultivate communities and ecosystems of care for our members to build alongside each other, to build community, and for folks to know that the green economy space, that climate space is for them, and that there is room for them and that they are needed for the viability of our movement.

GR: I don't want to sound too pessimistic, but I'm going to guess that the climate problem and environmental issues are going to remain challenges beyond my lifetime for sure, but also probably throughout yours. So I don't know whether you're going to get to the jazz singing or not (laughter).

WG: You know, I think maybe there's some future I can do both. But for now…

GR: Okay. I have to ask you this question as a young leader. You may not like it, but I'm going to ask it anyway. President Biden, he's instituted some policies that environmentalists have applauded, and they've involved some fights. At the same time, though, among young people, his age is creating unease and lack of enthusiasm. And of course, that, you know, obviously came to a head with a debate performance. What do you, as a young leader make of the age issue in this regard?

WG: That's such an interesting question. And the way that you posed it…

GR: ...You’ve got to answer quick, I'm sorry.

WG: Ah, it's a big question, right? Because I think there is this narrative around young climate organizers or activists feeling some sort of resentment towards older generations. And I think that is a totally incorrect narrative. It does not speak to how movements work, right? Like, I am in this movement because of older people that have taken me under their wing and have quite literally paved the path for me and I'm on their shoulders. I think this question about President Biden and his age and his performance, I think it's a valid one for people to have. I personally am not focusing on his age when it comes down to me being someone that would vote for him. I'm voting off of climate and reproductive justice and so that's where my vote is. Again, I do think that while it's a valid conversation around the lack of representation of young people in our political system and the energy that we bring, oftentimes because of our youth, I do feel like are some ageist narratives that are going about that, take us away from the issues that we should be focusing on. There are things that we can critique for sure, and age can be one of them. Personally, that’s not my number one deterrent right now.

GR: Okay, we’ll have to leave it there. That was Wawa Gatheru and again, her organization is Black Girl Environmentalist. Ms. Gatheru, thanks so much for taking the time to talk with me, I really enjoyed the conversation.

WG: Thank you for having me.

GR: You’ve been listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, conversations in the public interest.