Program transcript:

Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. The Trump administration has declared war on DEI programs, and it has had reverberating effects throughout higher education, government and industry. My guest today has written a new provocative book on the topic of diversity efforts, and it's titled, "Who Pays for Diversity?: Why Programs Fail at Racial Equity and What to Do about It". Oneya Fennell Okuwobi is a sociology professor at the University of Cincinnati. Professor Okuwobi, welcome to the program and congratulations on this new book.

Oneya Fennell Okuwobi: Thank you. And thanks so much for having me.

GR: Well, we really appreciate that you made the time. So let me just start with a very basic question. I presume, unless you work at the speed of light, that you did the research and writing for this book before the Trump administration's current war on diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, especially on higher education. So I guess what I want to know first, is how and why did you get the idea to write this book when you did?

OFO: Oh, that's a fantastic question. Yes, I've been working on this book for many years, as authors do. And honestly, this book came out of some of my experiences. I talk in the book about how even though I'm studying diversity in churches, in universities and in corporations, I have experiences in all of those realms. And so this book really began when I was talking to pastors of color, working at churches who were newly diverse. And those churches were attempting to bring in staffs that more accurately reflected the populations that they were hoping to attract as congregants. But these pastors were having curious issues in terms of feeling like they were being brought in to display a black or brown face, but not really being listened to. Some were experiencing health issues or issues with their family because of the hostile environments that they were encountering. And hearing their stories, I started to discover there's something really wrong with, not the idea that these churches want to be racially diverse, but the ways that they were going about it, especially in reference to their employees. And it made me wonder, is the same thing pervasive? Is it happening in other venues? Which is why I added the venues of corporations and universities to get a more holistic picture.

GR: Okay, very interesting. And specifically, how did you go about researching it? You just said, you know, where you were looking. Was this was this based on talking to a particular sets of people? How did you go about getting your information?

OFO: Yeah, so this was an interview study, I talked to 60 employees across 53 different workplaces. Again, examining basically the equivalent of entry level managers within the church as universities and corporations. So in the university setting, that would be the assistant professor level and churches that would be anybody who wasn't, had clergy. So getting an equivalent understanding of what it is like to be an entry level management employee of color in these venues.

GR: And so let's get right to the core of at least the first part of your book, which is diagnosing the problem. I mean, what are the main things that you think that the diversity efforts as you looked at them, have been getting wrong? What are they not doing right?

OFO: Yes, so the issue has been, most diversity efforts have focused on benefiting the workplaces. And in order for those benefits to accrue to the workplaces, employees of color have been paying a cost in order for workplaces to get the benefits of being able to say that they are diverse. And there are three main costs that I outline in that first section of the book. The first is heavy work burdens. So anybody listening has probably had that experience of seeing a diversity photo where you basically got one of everyone in the photo. But then imagine you are working at a hospital and you are the one black doctor at that hospital. That means every time there is a photo, a video, something else, you are being dragged in to be able to represent diversity. And that was one of the real stories of somebody that I talked to. So those heavy work burdens can be being brought into photos, being brought to meetings, being placed on committees, any additional work that is required for the workplace to be able to benefit from saying that it's diverse. So that's the first. The second cost of diversity that I talked about comes in two flavors. The idea is threatened legitimacy, and there's threatened organizational legitimacy, which basically means you're questioning the rightness of your employer's actions. We often talk about diversity as window dressing, but somebody has to dress those windows and the people dressing those windows can see the difference between what's being portrayed on the outside and what's happening on the inside and that creates feelings of guilt and conflict in them. The second flavor of this threatened legitimacy is threatened personal legitimacy, where employees of color who are being brought into workplaces proclaiming themselves as diverse, are being questioned about their own qualifications. Being called with that barbed insult, ‘diversity hire’. Because the real reasons why diversity is important are not being talked about. And then finally, there's something I call subjugated identity, where employers of color are being forced to put their identity into such a way that their workplace can market it as part of their diversity package. Think of this as being identifiably non-white enough so that the workplace can benefit from seeming diverse, but not so non-white that you make your white colleagues uncomfortable. And the employees I talked to dealt with these costs day in and day out for years and years.

GR: Well, I've got a couple of questions for you that come right out of that I have to say, just on what you've said. You know, I work in an academic environment like you do and one of the things I've noticed over the years, and my university at least up until a few months ago, I don't know what language it's using now, but we have used the language of diversity hires and diversity hiring initiatives. But when I see colleagues come in who are, particularly African-American, most specifically, but also just non-white more generally, they get a very heavy student advising load from the students. You know, and so, because our student body is much more diverse than our faculty. And so I can see the dynamic that you're talking about, that's very interesting. You're listening to the Campbell conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm speaking with the sociology professor Oneya Fennell Okuwobi and we're discussing her new book, it's titled, "Who Pays for Diversity?: Why Programs Fail at Racial Equity and What to Do about It". So I want to stick with, maybe I'll stick with higher education, but I'm curious if this is something you encountered in the other areas that you looked at as well. And I'm going to quote a former colleague here, not a white male, by the way, but this person used to refer to DEI as, and this is their words, the ‘DEI industrial complex’. And it does seem at least that in higher education, when we look at the level above the faculty in particular, we look at administration, it does seem like it did spawn almost like a new category of administration and infrastructure in the administration. I don't know if that's an element that you look at or how this is going to affect things in any way.

OFO: It's not a pervasive element that I look at. But one of the things that I did find is that the faculty members I talked to, in fact, the employees more generally that I talked to who had a diversity office or diversity officer above them, saw often that those offices didn't necessarily focus on what the employees needed, that that open line of communication wasn't there. And so even though these offices and these officers existed and were important, their impact wasn't necessarily felt by the employees and they felt like more open lines of communication could be important. At the same time, the employees recognize the constraints that those officers and offices were working under, that they were not necessarily empowered to make the changes that would have to be made in order for the employees to be having an equitable work experience.

GR: I see. So the bottom line then, it sounds like what you're saying is the people who end up paying, to use the title of your book, “Who Pays for Diversity?”, is the employees, the diverse employees.

OFO: That's exactly right.

GR: Okay. So one of the issues that also has struck me, at least from my experience in higher education and I wanted to get your thoughts about this, is that, and again, it depends on sort of what element of diversity the initiative or the new hire is supposed to speak to, but especially ones that I think have come from outside the United States more than others fit this, is that those folks can often be from quite elite backgrounds, if we're just looking at economics. You know, that they're not, that we associate these efforts I think oftentimes with, you know, speaking to historical disadvantage and current disadvantage and current discrimination. Is that any kind of common pattern that you saw in what you were looking at? That there could be, kind of if you looked at it through one lens, there's diversity in one way, but then if you look at it through a more pure economic lens, it becomes a lot murkier. I don’t know if that question is making sense.

OFO: It is, and let me know if I'm answering it. But even as I look at race and racism, which is the focus of this book, even folks from elite backgrounds can experience racial discrimination and can experience the shadow and the costs that get put on them because of diversity. So even having an elite economic background does not exempt you from that. And so it's important to understand that these costs continue and have been pervasive because of the ways diversity has been structured. It's also true that the majority of folks that I talk to in my book were born in the U.S., even though I do talk to some employees that were 1.5 generation. And we see that there's a lot of advantage and recognition of racism that happens by the second generation, even if somebody is from an international background.

GR: This may be more of a feature, I guess, perhaps in academia. Well, tell me more about the way that that works, though. I'm curious to hear more about, you know, someone who is elite in some ways, but then is being treated as less than in other ways. Is there is there a particular way that that dynamic feels or works?

OFO: Yes. And I don't want to go too far into this because it's not necessarily the main idea here. But basically, when somebody, what I argue in the book basically is that the ways that diversity is framed is creating a level of disadvantage. So let's say that you are from another country, but you were brought in to a workplace that focuses on diversity. You may still encounter these heavy work burdens of having more students to advise than your counterparts, of being brought into specific photos or specific dinners or specific meetings in order to paint that picture. You may still encounter people who say that you don't belong here, despite your qualifications, you may still feel like you cannot be your entire self at work. So those things can still happen to you regardless of socio-economic status in which you grew up.

GR: Yeah, and now that I think about it as I'm thinking about our conversation in the moment, I think we're sort of headed toward a heated agreement here because your whole point is that these hires are brought in to help somebody else.

OFO: Yes.

GR: And to help the institution. And so therefore, they can experience these differences even. Okay, all right, I'm with you now.

OFO: When you talk about paying for diversity, the costs are pretty steep. When I looked at the experiences, again of these employees I spoke to, fully nine out of ten of the pastors and the professors I talked to were experiencing emotional and physical signs of stress. And that can be anywhere from having symptoms that mimic strokes to having anxiety attacks, insomnia, headaches. And they attributed these things to what I call the costs of diversity. For corporate employees it was a little bit better, more like three out of four. But still, that's a steep cost for these employees to pay in order to make their workplaces appear diverse.

GR: Yeah, it sure is. You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, I'm Grant Reeher and I'm talking with Oneya Fennell Okuwobi. She's a sociology professor at the University of Cincinnati and the author of a new book titled, "Who Pays for Diversity?: Why Programs Fail at Racial Equity and What to Do about It" and we've been discussing the book. So as you said before, at the beginning of our conversation, you looked at universities, churches, corporations. First of all, does one of those sectors do better than the other, and is one worse? Or are there patterns, shared patterns of the ones that do better than others?

OFO: Yes, absolutely. So when I looked at the employees that were reporting the fewest adverse effects, surprisingly in some ways it was the corporate employees. But it's not necessarily for a great reason. The reason being is that corporate employees don't often see their work as a calling in the same way maybe a professor or a pastor might. And so they didn't necessarily expect to be respected as people. And so they maybe had some defenses up against what they were experiencing. For pastors, this idea of calling really loomed large. In addition to the fact that when you are working in a ministry profession, your entire family is involved. So not only do you work at a church, but probably your family attends the church, probably your social networks are connected. And so if you are being commodified for your presence, that commodification extends throughout all the aspects of your life rather than 9 to 5. For professors, I think the reason why the costs of diversity were higher is similar because assistant professors are often across the country away from their family, and their social networks are having to build new social networks. And that can be difficult when you are being commodified for the purpose of displaying diversity.

GR: Yeah, that makes perfect sense. So I don't know if this is pushing you too far, but you're talking about commodification and the institution kind of thinking of these folks almost as a selling point or a product. Am I going too far to say it kind of smacks in some strange way of slavery in a way? I mean, one can see a line of connection, at least in an abstract level here.

OFO: I don't think it's going too far. Of course, we don't want to minimize in any way the horrors of slavery, but the idea that there is a profit, a capital that exists in certain bodies that can be used by others, and in this case, predominantly white people and white institutions is a direct line from thinking about chattel slavery till today. I'd also love to extend that in a way to say that, you know, even though this is a special case of commodification, in some ways all workers are subject to commodification. And so I want this to be a spotlight on a particular sort of costs that workers pay for benefits to their workplaces that is not fairly compensated. But I hope it as a starting point to look at other ways in which that happens to all workers. So I would both narrow it and make it more historical and wide net and bring that idea into the future.

GR: That's an important point. So, okay, so how do we make this better? What recommendations do you have for institutions that are saying, look, we want to have some kind of DEI effort, maybe we'll call it something different now, but, you know, we'll get to that in a minute. But how can it be done better?

OFO: Yes. So what I talk about in the last chapter of my book is making these things more employee focused. Honestly, a lot of the diversity efforts have said if we focus on diversity, if we play the numbers game and get enough representation, eventually we'll get to racial equity. And I argue that the only real way to get to racial equity is to focus on racial equity. So instead of saying, let's get up the numbers of, you know, black professors at the university, let’s instead listen to the black professors at the university and see what is it that they need to have an equitable experience to their white counterparts. Part of that is support with students, which could in part be solved by numbers, but it could also be solved by perhaps giving additional credit for service work when it comes to tenure files, which is something perfectly in universities’ control. It might come down to looking at rates of receiving grants and understanding the racial disparities in receiving grants and making sure that faculty of color have what they need to be able to execute their work. It might look like if you're going to have to drag folks into pictures or videos, A, don't, but to the extent that you do, make sure that they get other time in order to continue to pursue their work so their time for research is not eaten up. So looking at those very real disparities and then doing things to correct them.

GR: Well, what you just said makes sense, but it leads directly into the next couple of questions. That I wanted to ask you. And the first one is, okay, so how do you do what you just said without incurring backlash along the lines of, well, this is just more affirmative action extended throughout the entire evaluation process. I mean, we've got a current presidential administration that's declared pretty much open warfare on this whole notion. It sounds almost like you're saying we need to really almost double down on it in some ways. How do you deal with that?

OFO: I am saying we need to double down on that in some ways. I also recognize that it's not legally possible in all places, but it is legally possible in some places. And I believe a key to limiting the level of backlash is to change the sort of messaging we've done around diversity. With diversity, the messaging has been, there's a benefit to all people by having people from diverse backgrounds, different viewpoints come together and talk about things. And if that's the real benefit, then it's no wonder that there's a backlash against that now, because you might decide, I don't want that benefit, I actually don't want any folks who disagree with my viewpoint around, I don't need that. But the real reason why these programs were put in place in the first place was to correct past and continuing discrimination and disparities. And so getting back to the messaging of let's educate all of the employees about the past and continuing disparities and our specific workplaces role in those disparities and how the things that we're doing corrects for those things. And by the way, I do believe that as we are assessing what employees of color need, we should be assessing what all employees need because there are lots of good ways to put in place corrections that don't just help employers of color, that help everyone, again, have a more equitable experience at work.

GR: If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and my guest is a sociology professor, Oneya Fennell Okuwobi. So what do you, I'm going to put you on the spot here if you don't mind, but, so what do you make of the Trump administration's efforts to battle DEI and all of these really high profile conflicts that we've seen, particularly in higher education, but we've also seen very large corporations make significant changes in what they're doing in response to perceptions of concerns about the Trump administration, I mean, there's a lot going on here in this field, what do you make of it?

OFO: Well, quite frankly, nothing positive do I make of it. It is an effort, not just at eliminating DEI, but at rolling back civil rights altogether. But I do want to recognize the ways that this effort has been enabled by the ways that we have not continued to speak about continuing racism that exists in our society. The idea that, for example, hiring discrimination has not gotten any better since 1989. If the majority of people knew that, perhaps they wouldn't care. But we at least need to give them a chance to know what is going on and not cover it up. And so that people have a chance to look at these policies, look at this rhetoric and reject it wholesale.

GR: Well, we've got about two or three minutes left and I wanted to ask you a question that I'm sure I'll have a follow up or two on, but I want to make sure that we get a chance to talk about it. And it's more personal, I hope I can ask this, but you know, you are a faculty member of color and you've got this book out, and there it is in the flesh, in paper that somebody could hold up if they wanted to say, oh, here's another, you know. How, I mean, you've sort of put yourself out there right now and how are you experiencing that? Do you have any concerns, do you have any worries that, you know, the University of Cincinnati is going to be, oh, no, we've got this person that's got this book out right when it's under attack, you know, that kind of thing?

OFO: Yeah. You know, it is true. I have put myself out there. I will say my university has been nothing but supportive of me and my scholarship and I hope that will continue. But I think it is a message to all of us in academia, all folks who are involved in activism, if we don't stand up for what is right now, who will? And so that might involve and entail some personal risk. But if I take personal risk to make sure that employees of color can hear the message that you're not alone and we see the cost that you are paying and you are not responsible to pay them any longer, I have to, now that I know what I know take that risk because that message needs to get out.

GR: And lastly, and just about a minute left so I have to really ask you to give a very concise answer here, but there's been a lot of difficult conversations between faculty and students in the last few years. I imagine you've had some, too. What do you say to your students who are concerned about these kinds of things and looking at, I mean, this is really all they've known politically, I mean, they're that young, this is all they've known.

OFO: I have a lot of hope for our students. I have conversations in the classroom every year, honestly, that make me hopeful for what we will see. And I think that there are enough sources of information and understanding out there that students are gravitating towards that will allow them to make, hopefully, more informed decisions in the future that will lead us away from the path that we're on now.

GR: Okay, well, we'll have to leave it there. That was Oneya Fennell Okuwobi and again, her new book is titled, “Who Pays for Diversity?: Why Programs Fail at Racial Equity and What to Do about It". If you become frustrated or exhausted by the current debates over DEI and are looking for a new framework and a new way to see this, this would be an interesting read for you. And if you are looking for this book, on Amazon, I want to just say that professor Okuwobi’s last name is spelled o k u w o b i. Professor Okuwobi, again, thanks for making the time to talk with me. I really learned a lot from this conversation.

OFO: Glad to do it.

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

David Lay Williams, professor of political science at DePaul University talks about his book, "The Greatest of All Plagues: How Economic Inequality Shaped Political Thought from Plato to Marx".
(transcription is forthcoming)

Program transcript:

Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I’m Grant Reeher. Last week I spoke with a writer who had a new book out on the foods of upstate New York. Today, we stay with food, but we move very far from that in many respects. My guest is John Sanbonmatsu. He's a philosophy professor of Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts and the author of a new book titled, “The Omnivore's Deception: What We Get Wrong about Meat, Animals and Ourselves”. Professor Sanbonmatsu, welcome to the program and congratulations on this new book.

John Sanbonmatsu: Thanks so much, I'm delighted to be here.

GR: Well, we're glad you could make the time. So, as our listeners are about to discover, this book is very provocative, I think it's fair to say and it has an intriguing title. So, “The Omnivore's Deception…”, break that down for me, what is the omnivore's deception?

JS: Sure. Well, my book is really about our exploitation of animals and the food economy. And the three modes of deception, really, that I talk about in the book are, well, first, the fact that the meat, eggs, dairy and fish industries hide from consumers, the incredible mass violence that undergirds this system to get food on our plate. The second mode of deception really is the, a kind of whole discourse that's been developed in the last 20 years for so-called humane meat. The enlightened omnivore, kind of dating back to Michael Pollan's book, “The Omnivore's Dilemma”, which we might talk about. And that is simply a myth, you can't have these animal products without causing enormous suffering to animals, no matter how small scale the agriculture is. And then the third mode of deception is simply self-deception. We engage in what the philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre called bad faith, which is to say we deceive ourselves and we want to believe we can have our meat and our conscience, too. And I make clear, I hope to my reader, that we can't.

GR: Well, you anticipated one of the questions I wanted to ask you when you talked about smaller scale, sort of, you know, local sourcing kind of things. Well, I'll ask you that right away, I mean, what is the problem with paying attention to the scale, if you’re an eater paying attention to the scale and the method of raising animals? You know, you focus on locally sourced, smaller, non-industrial scale animal growing operations, where's the problem there?

JS: Yeah. You know, it's thanks largely to animal advocates that the public is aware of what we call factory farming or intensive industrialized animal agriculture. And the animals in that system, which by the way, that's 99% of where our products come from, food animal products, 99%. And it's horrible, it's horrific the way animals are treated in that system. But what people don't realize is that the critique of our violence against the animals for use in food dates back 3000 years. They'd been ethical vegetarians during that whole period. You know, Leo Tolstoy, the great Russian novelist wrote, he was an ethical vegetarian, he wrote an incredible critique about a slaughterhouse. So, really, my book is examining the underlying relations of domination and violence in all forms of animal agriculture, including smaller scale, which is, by the way, not scalable. You can't feed 10 billion human beings, you know, with pasture raised animals, we’d need several additional earths. But my focus, so I do talk about the environmental problems at lengths in my book, but really the focus is on the ethical question of what gives us the right to subject defenseless, sensitive beings to violence.

GR: Well, and you also talk about, I believe, some of the health implications for humans and the way that our diets are currently constructed. Just give us a quick overview, and others have written about this, obviously, what are the health problems with how we currently eat animals?

JS: Yeah, well, it's interesting. When I talk about these issues in class, because I teach ethics at the college level, you know, students, naturally, they think, well, we can't live without animal products, we can't live without the protein from animals and so forth. And what's ironic about that is that practically every scientific study, and I'm talking about studies in The Lancet and JAMA and you know, top medical journals, show that in a plant based diet is actually superior in like every category compared to an animal based one. I mean, in terms of lower rates of heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, even longevity, vegans live longer than so-called omnivores. And so there's just these sort of scientific facts. But leaving that aside there, I mean, there's just a whole slew of problems for us health-wise and epidemiologically. For example, 75% of all emerging diseases are zoonotic in origin. That means that the diseases that are afflicting our species and that have in the past have come from other animals. Most of those diseases historically have come from exploited animals, smallpox, cholera, Spanish flu, even AIDS. These all developed out of human food exploitation, exploitation of animals for food. So it's, and now of course we have the H5N1 virus, avian flu and the WHO, well, 20 years ago, excuse me, warned that if that thing becomes transmissible between and among humans, it could kill 150 million of us. So that's just an example of why it's even in our own interests, and again that's not the basis of my book but I do talk about this, it's in our interest to stop this too.

GR: And what about the impact on the environment? That's another concern that drives a lot of people to vegetarianism. You'll meet a lot of vegetarians that say, I am this way because I'm concerned about the environment. I have a colleague, I think, who's primarily driven by that.

JS: Yeah. You know, the first sentence of my book in my introduction, I talk about that, that, you know, occasionally you'll hear people say, well, I've cut back on meat or I tried vegetarianism once for the environment. And I'll tell you, I don't like that (laughter), I don't like that at all. As I explain, because it's like the person who says that they, in my experience, they often say, well, I don't do it for the animals, you know. It's like, well, if you care about the animals, you must be some kind of nutcase, right? The fact that we're killing, conservatively, 80 billion land animals every year, mostly birds and mammals, and up to 2.7 trillion marine animals every single year, each animal of which, you know, is an individual with thoughts and experiences, emotions and so forth. The idea that we should want to spare them a violent death at our hands, that just drives people crazy, right? So the environmental issue is crucial because what people don't understand is that this confluence, as I discuss it in the book, between capitalist development on the one hand and human supremacism or speciesism on the other, the confluence of these systems in the food economy is the greatest ecologically destructive force on the earth, right? So people are familiar with global warming. Well, global warming is not the biggest environmental problem on the Earth today. That would be mass species extinction, right? So, we're experiencing the greatest mass species extinction event in 65 million years. Global warming is part of that problem, but it isn't the only thing driving it. So we're talking about the death of all the animals on the earth. Birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, even invertebrates, like insects, scientists refer to it as the insect apocalypse. You know, honeybees are being devastated. Crustaceans, horseshoe crabs, who are on the earth hundreds of millions of years before the dinosaurs are being wiped out. This is the 50th anniversary of the movie Jaws, which I saw when it came out as a boy.

GR: So did I.

JS: Yeah. And I'll tell you, when I asked my students how many humans are killed by sharks every year, they always get that right, which is about ten to 20 globally. And when I asked them how many sharks are being killed by humans, they say, well, I don't know, 2000, 500? It's actually 100 million every single year. And all of that violence is put out of sight and out of mind. But it's literally tearing up the web of life on our planet. So, yeah, I could go on and on about it, but it's, it's something that people have got to start paying attention to because we're dooming our own species because of this system.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm speaking with the philosophy professor, John Sanbonmatsu. And we're discussing his new book, it's called, “The Omnivores Deception: What We Get Wrong about Meat, Animals and Ourselves” and it argues for the total abolition of the animal economy. So let's get to what I think is probably the heart of your argument and where your passion most lies and that is the moral concerns. And you've already spoken to them in several different ways, but the moral concerns about raising an animal to kill and eat it. How would you crystallize that that argument that you want to make?

JS: Well, you know, there's, any system of power or dominance has to be continually reinforced. It's not like it's one and done. You know, you don't just set up a system for, whether it's human slavery or, you know, racism, a kind of racial hierarchy or gender hierarchy. You don't just set that up and then it just goes on, on its own, it has to be continually reinforced. So all of us are raised from birth to, with the idea that there are these classes of animals who simply don't matter and it doesn't matter morally how many of them we kill. It just, they're irrelevant, you know what I mean? Which is why, as I said, we can kill billions and indeed trillions of animals every year without it even disturbing anybody. But here's the thing, most people listening to your show probably have lived with a cat or dog. I mean, that's statistically the case. And if you live with a cat or dog, you know that they are unique individuals. They have personalities and temperaments and emotions. They have different relationships with different people. You know, they have different quirks, they have a kind of biography and you can see them go through the stages of life that we do, the playful kitten and then the kind of, you know, the limping elder cat who you know, tolerates the juvenile you've just introduced into the house and so on. So we know that our cats and dogs are individuals whose lives matter and who deserve our respect and are worthy of our love. Well, let me tell you, everyone should be disturbed by the fact that chickens, pigs, goats, sheep, oxen all these animals that we think of as stupid, irrational, dirty, they are no different than our cats and dogs at all. I mean, scientifically, ecologically there's just a ton of research on this. Scientific American has published articles on chicken intelligence, there's empathy in pigs and so forth. So if you think that every time you sit down to a meal, you are eating the body of some, you know, richly endowed creature like a cat or dog with sentience, with subjectivity, then you might begin to understand why this is a moral issue of the first order.

GR: And at the risk of sorting out my animals, anthropomorphically, I can readily see the appeal of the argument that you're making for cattle, sheep, pigs and chicken. But what about something like fish? I have a friend who's very tuned in to the kind of concerns you're talking about. He describes himself as a pescatarian. So what's the problem with fish?

JS: Yeah, it's funny. You know, I remember like, many years ago, I'd go to someone's wedding or something, and the caterer would put chicken in front of me after having heard I'm an ethical vegetarian and think, well, if you eat chicken, though, right? So the idea that chickens are animals would not compute. And similarly, I've met a number of people over the years who call themselves vegetarians but they eat fish. It's very bizarre because the signs that we're finding with fish, it's just fascinating. Fish do better at some forms of cognitive reasoning than primates, including the great apes, including humans. They have memories, they have emotions. Now, the thing is, as mammals, we're just not equipped well to perceive the feelings or thoughts of fish, right? Because they don't have the facial muscles that we have. So we think of them as silent, gaping, animate objects, I guess, right? I mean, I went fishing as a kid and you bring the, oh, and now the fish is flapping on the dock. It doesn't occur to us, well, that fish is now suffocating to death and is experiencing the same trauma and stress hormones that we would as mammals if we were drowning. But that is the case. And this is just, now certainly there's still a lot we don't understand about fish cognition. And the fishing industry is always funding studies to prove that fish don't feel pain and so forth. But I mean, it's just a silly argument because evolutionarily, how can you have a sophisticated organism that's going to survive, like the Greenland shark lives up to 400 years, I mean, there are fish that live a really long time, who can't experience pain? So, yeah, so I think we've got to stop writing off entire classes of beings as worthless because they aren't worthless.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I’m talking with John Sanbonmatsu. He's a philosophy professor at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts and the author of a new book titled, “The Omnivore's Deception: What We Get Wrong about Meat, Animals and Ourselves” and we've been discussing his book. Well, you lay it out in the first half of the program, I think very well, your main arguments for why we need to eliminate the animal economy. Who are some of the main sort of voices out there that you are trying to correct or take issue with?

JS: Well, you know, I go after a number of different folks in a certain sense, but centrally I'm concerned to refute arguments developed by the very popular food writer Michael Pollan. In his book, for example, “The Omnivore's Dilemma”, that book had an enormous cultural influence over the way Americans view our relations with animals, particularly in food. It's still, just took a look the other day, it's like 20 years later, it's still in the top ten bestsellers on food policy, it's part of the state mandated curriculum in middle and high schools in different states around the country. I couldn’t possibly exaggerate the influence that book. And, you know, without taking too much time, Pollan's arguments ended up creating kind of intellectual scaffolding for this myth of the enlightened omnivore, you know, locavorism and so forth. All this idea that we can raise animals, quote, humanely, kill them with compassion and so forth. And so I show the problems with those arguments as well as similar arguments by Temple Grandin, another very popular apologist for the animal system, Barbara Kingsolver, the acclaimed writer. And if you examine their arguments, they're not only wrong, but they are intellectually dishonest and sadistic. There's this undertow of violence and sadism against animals in those works.

GR: So let me throw out some potential challenges or problems with this that I thought of and see what you have to say about them. And the first one is very Syracuse oriented, I don't expect you to be an expert on Syracuse, but we have in Syracuse a real overpopulation problem with deer. And it creates a whole lot of problems, creates problems on the roads, it creates problems in people's properties and the ticks and so on. If we stopped all hunting, for example, that would probably make those problems just worse. So how would we deal with an overpopulation of deer and Syracuse if John Sanbonmatsu was running the program?

JS: Yeah, well, first, I just want to note that the one species that is causing the greatest damage on this planet is actually us and no one talks about culling us. No one talks about culling real estate developers and capitalists and all the folks who are…

GR: Fair enough, fair enough.

JS: I mean, if you look at the ecosystem of Syracuse and you compare human impacts on the environment in terms of consumption of goods from China and blah, blah, blah, with what the deer are doing, it's, you know, no contest. So it's very interesting to me that communities, the first thing they do is reach for the gun. Like, okay, this, first of all, this is a problem for whom? It's for motorists? Well, don't forget the highways and the roadways were put through the living habitats, the living spaces and homes of all of thousands of different species and then they are supposed to get out of the way. So that's number one, there's structural violence against animals built in and the starting point is always, let's assume that all these animals lives are disposable, interchangeable, what do we do with this problem? That's number one. Now, in terms of the Syracuse issue, it's true. I don't know the specifics, but I've looked into this in other cases, there are alternatives, okay? First of all, one reason that deer and other populations are increasing is because humans have, through hunting, just killed all the predators, right? So there is no ecological balance to be restored. Secondly, there are nonviolent alternatives. There's birth control, there's relocation. And I'm not saying that those are easy alternatives either but in my having examined the planning process at the local level in some communities, there's a big hunting lobby and these folks want to kill the animals. And so they bring in experts from, you know, the NRA or hunting lobbies in order to promote their agenda. And the problem is that state wildlife officials are hunters. And, you know, it's run by these agencies are actually not ideologically neutral. They're run by the same constituency. So I think that if we start, in my book, I say, look, why don't we have a different mode of address with the other beings we share the planet with? Let's approach them nonviolently for a change. You know, we've tried this other approach which is to treat their lives as so much disposable garbage. Why don't we instead view them with respect and go from there? And so that's what I would say is like, what if we have a paradigm shift and we say, okay, those deer are as important to us as our own cats and dogs or even, you know, other humans and how can we live with them in harmony, you know, without violence? That's what I would say.

GR: Yeah. I just, not to sound snarky, but I'm thinking of when you mentioned predators, you know, if I were a deer, if that makes sense, I'm not sure I'd rather be killed by a pack of coyotes taking me down or a hunter killing me quickly, but I get your point. It's a different way to think about this. If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and my guest is the philosophy professor John Sanbonmatsu. So I want to get to some how do we get there type of questions, because I've had many guests on this program who make arguments that are, you know, hard to imagine becoming completely successful politically, policy-wise. And as a political scientist, you know, I am sympathetic to much of what you are saying, but I also really can't see what you are arguing here getting much traction in contemporary America or the world. Do you have a political strategy attached to this argument that you could briefly put forward? Or is that is that sort of outside of your lane?

JS: You know, it's a fair question and a really important one. The short answer is, I don't have a concrete you know, I don't have a blueprint for social change. In my first book, “The Postmodern Prince” I talked about some of the obstacles to thinking about strategy and long term change on the political left. And there are a lot of reasons why it's hard to imagine an alternative to this system that we're living in. But, you know, as a philosopher and thinker, I'm really trying to first of all, you know, before we can get to the question of strategy, in a sense, we have to understand what the problem is, A, B, we have to understand and agree that this is a problem like morally. And so if we want to survive on this planet, let me put it this way, if we want to survive on this planet and if we want to be able to look ourselves in the mirror and not see a kind of monster there, then we have to rethink our relations with the other natural beings, you know, of the Earth. Certainly I'm promoting veganism but I'm not, I don't, but, you know, I've been a vegan for over 30 years and things and animals are being killed in greater and greater numbers. Per capita, meat consumption is up. There's been a whole kind of political reaction against animal advocacy, just as there's been political reaction against women's rights and civil rights. So the thing is, and you know this, that historically slavery existed, persisted for thousands of years in human culture. It was accepted almost everywhere. No one thought that that system would ever be ended. And then, of course, there was racial slavery, you know, European racial slavery that began, you know, five centuries ago. No one thought that would ever end and it has ended. And maybe now not to get into, you know, there still existing slavery, but at least not legally. Women into the 1970’s, that was the first time it became illegal, thanks to feminist efforts, illegal for men to rape their wives in the home, conjugal right was simply part of standard English law for a thousand years or more. So change is possible and I think that there's a way in which by, when we say, oh well it's impossible for everyone to give up the animal economy, it becomes a self-confirming prophecy, clearly. And so I wrote this book to try to intervene against that self-serving fatalism, that, which again I call self-deception where we say, oh, well, there's no real, we can't do anything about it, it's too big a problem. But the problems we face are really kind of out of hand, right? I mean, global warming and species extinction, not to mention fascism rising everywhere around the world and the liberal capitalist democracy waning. You know what I'm saying? So these, that's a cop out, though, to say, well, these are very big problems and what can we do?

GR: Well, we've got about 2 minutes left or so and I want to try to squeeze two questions in. So this will be kind of your lightning round, if you will, a couple of quick answers to these and they're both tough questions, so I apologize for that. But you already mentioned something about the political moment we're in that there's a lot of backlash against different things right now. And I'm wondering about whether given the layers of backlash that we're seeing, that what you are saying right now is going to be heard by a lot of people as kind of an instance of political correctness on steroids, is there a way that you've thought about diffusing that in terms of how people are going to hear this? Quickly, if you could.

JS: Yeah, I mean, people think that the question of animals and meat is at best a trivial one, right? Or at worst, it's political correctness on steroids. But this is, it's always been the case historically that any challenge to an established system of power and authority, you know, the people who are questioning it, whether it's slavery or women's subordination to men, are viewed as zealots and crazy people and so forth. And what I argue in my book is that this is the most important issue of our time, if you look at it. And I think that if people give my book a chance, they will, by the end of it, they'll agree with me. So, yeah, just ask people to keep an open mind and read the book.

GR: Okay, and my last question, just a few seconds left, I want to be very honest with you, I want to tell you something you probably already knew about me. I'm not going to do what you're telling me to do (laughter). I'm not going to become a vegan. I recognize the arguments for it, but it's probably not going to happen. But if I were to do just one thing short of that, what would it be? Would it be to avoid highly tortured processed animals of a certain kind of meat? What would be the one thing you'd want me to do?

JS: One thing I'd ask you to do is to recognize that what you're doing is wrong. The argument in the book is that you can't get humane meat or better sourced or, that's the whole point of the book. And if you can live with yourself knowing that what you're doing is causing horrific suffering and violence to helpless beings who deserve better, that, you know, that's a personal choice that you or I or whoever make. Not you, but, you know I'm saying, if we choose that.

GR: I get you.

JS: But that is the situation, it is all or nothing.

GR: Okay, well, I will tell you this, you have got me thinking about something I wasn't thinking about before. So that was John Sanbonmatsu and again, his new book is titled, “The Omnivore's Deception: What We Get Wrong about Meat, Animals and Ourselves”. And it may not change your habits, but it will challenge them and it will certainly maybe change some of your assumptions. John, a very provocative book, to say the least and I can agree that (this is a) very important argument that you're making.

JS: Thanks for having me.

GR: You bet. 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 June Hersh. She's a writer and a speaker who has in the past written about the Holocaust and food history. And she has a new book out now on the food of Upstate New York. It's titled, “The Flavor of Upstate New York: Iconic Dishes, Delicious History and Reinvented Recipes”. June, welcome to the program and congratulations on this new book.

June Hersh: Thank you so much, Grant. And thank you for having me.

GR: Well, it's a pleasure having you. So I want to start with a very basic question, because I'm sure, just as I said that, our listeners are starting to think about specific foods. And so what would you say, if you were just giving a list, what would you say are the four or five greatest hits of the dishes and flavors of upstate New York, just rattling them off?

JH: Well, you know what, what I love about the food of upstate New York is it's very representative of the different immigrants and the groups that inhabit that region. I love that because food history is really what drives me. I love to know the why to what we're eating. And I think that the food of upstate New York is really very illustrative of that aspect of food. So I love a dish like chicken riggies because it represents the best of Italian culture and the resourcefulness of how they brought, you know, their flavors to New York and made it pretty simple and was good for a budget. I think salt potatoes is genius. It's basically creating a mashed potato in a fabulous salty covering. And again, it came out of the ingenuity of Irish immigrants who needed to stretch a dollar and we're digging up salt anyway and kind of make it work. The college influences in upstate New York are everywhere. And I don't think it's seen any more clearly than in the garbage plate, the best antidote to a frat party hangover. And so I think that is definitely one of those dishes that define the region. And then I would say one of my favorites represents the German influences, and that would be beef on weck. I love a French dip, but when you add that pungent, fruity caraway seed to the roll, you've added such extra deliciousness to it. So those are among my four favorite upstate hits that I think represent the culture of upstate New York.

GR: That's great. I want to come back to at least one of those later. So, but let me ask you this, maybe a tougher question. If you were forced to pick the most emblematic, the most iconic dish of upstate, what would it be and why?

JH: I would probably say if I was to pick one, it would probably be the garbage plate.

GR: Wow.

JH: And that would be because it represents, even though it is by no means the most popular and for some, it's completely off putting, but because it has so many different elements in it, I think it really represents the confluence of, you know, ingredients that represent the region. So you have hot dogs in it and you have beans and you have macaroni salad and you have French fries and you have all of these different elements coming together. Isn't that really what Upstate New York is all about? It's really bringing together all these very different cultures and backgrounds and heritage and somehow making something interesting, inventive, a tad quirky, you know I call it a culinary curiosity. But that, to me is what I discovered about upstate New York. It's not what you always expect. And so I think the garbage plate is it is very unexpected dish of food.

GR: And so you mentioned that that one has perhaps a more limited appeal beyond the area, let's flip it around. What is the upstate dish that you think has been taken up and become the most popular elsewhere, across the country, maybe even around the world? Is there an upstate dish that, you know, you can find almost anywhere?

JH: Sure. Well, without question, and you know, a lot of food history is really food law. And you don't know where that boundary is between fact and slight exaggeration. So, of course, we have the hamburger, which many take claim that it took place at the county fair and that's where they ran out of a certain meat and they made ground beef and they made a hamburger and certainly that is a ubiquitous food. But I would have to ere on the side of two dishes because I'm torn. One, my sweet tooth would tell me the sundae, the ice cream sundae, which really did very likely originate in upstate New York when a pastor went to a local drugstore and they wanted to make something special for him on Sunday after church and they added some cherries and some whipped cream and a little bit of syrup, and they created the ice cream sundae. They changed the spelling because they did not want to offend church goers on Sunday to come up with such a frivolous name of a dessert and somehow watered down the message of the importance of that day of rest. The other one is I love the foods that have come out of Saratoga and the club sandwich, which again, is reported to have come from that region and definitely the potato chip. Who doesn't like a good crispy potato chip? So I think the club sandwich with a side order of potato chips is pretty much a mainstay. Anywhere you go, you can order a club sandwich with a side order of chips. And that's going to represent food of upstate New York.

GR: So you're really blowing my mind here because you've selected all these things that are extremely well known. When I was thinking of that question myself, I was not thinking big enough because I thought you were going to tell me Buffalo wings, because you can find those anywhere. But these are much more you know, standard dishes. So, it's fascinating.

JH: Yes. And I what I like about them is people don't realize their provenance, they don't realize where these foods originally came from. That's what I love discovering and finding out. Oh, what was the origin of that dish? Really? The potato chip in Saratoga really was an invention of an African-American chef who worked at a hotel there at a hotel restaurant. And supposedly Vanderbilt did not like the potatoes he was served with and out of frustration, they very thinly shaved the potatoes and just threw it in a vat of hot oil and served these to him and they became a hit. And so, you know, you look at something like that and you say, look how that just came about, that's just, it's fascinating. And it's again, like you said, it's something that everyone eats everywhere. It was immediately embraced and it definitely came out of Saratoga.

GR: And then you also have, you know, pleasing this uber-wealthy person and then creating something that is totally, you know, plebian in its attraction.

JH: Correct, yeah.

GR: I like that piece too. Well, you may have already sort of hinted at this, but, and I don't know whether this question really has an answer, but is it possible to say what drives the nature of upstate cuisine? It sounds like ethnicity is a big piece of it. I was just wondering, is there anything about the place itself? You know, like the, I don't know, the snow the cold or anything that you think would have an influence on the nature of the food that's been produced here?

JH: Sure, without question. Because the food originated, if you go back to the first New Yorkers, you had the three sisters. You had the beans that were so very important because they thrived on the land where the Native Americans, where the Iroquois tribe, you know, planted its roots. And so those foods were indigenous to the indigenous people. And that's really, I think a hallmark of the food of upstate. A lot of places take New York City, I wrote a book called, “Iconic New York Jewish Food”, it's got fabulous food in it. It has all of the wonderful things that we love about New York food but they are not necessarily in New York because of anything New York City contributes to them other than the people. So a knish, it's not grown in New York.

GR: (laughter)

JH: Smoked salmon, it doesn't swim necessarily in our waters. And so it was derived by the people, whereas the food of upstate New York was derived from the resourcefulness of the people using the land, using what they had to work with. So you start with the Iroquois and they had the three sisters and the beautiful beans and then you go to the Finger Lakes and we have these fabulous wines. You go to Albany that had an abundance of sturgeon and you look at the land and you look at the trout fishing that takes place, and you look at grape pie, which came from the Concord grapes, and you say, what drove those dishes? Well, it was the resourcefulness of the people who were there who had the wherewithal to take what the land was giving them and turn them into delectable, iconic foods. Very different than most other regions. Chicago Pizza has nothing really to do with the ingredients that come from Chicago, but the foods of upstate New York are driven by the ingredients that are grown in that region.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm speaking with June Hersh, and we're discussing her new book titled, “The Flavor of Upstate New York: Iconic Dishes, Delicious History and Reinvented Recipes”. So the question I just asked about what drives the upstate cuisine is related in a way to a different topic of your other writing and speaking about food that I wanted to ask you a couple of questions about. And as I mentioned at the outset of the program, you've written and you've spoken very widely about the Holocaust and food history. And one thing struck me right away is that that combination seems very paradoxical in some ways, in that food is often considered a lighter and a happier topic. I mean, you're obviously very happy talking to me about food right here in this program. But the Holocaust is about as serious and as heavy as it gets. So I just wonder if you could reflect on how those two fit together. Do they, you know, is it an awkward fit? How do you how do you manage that?

JH: No, it's actually a seamless fit. And it fit in so many different ways in the context of the food with connection to the Holocaust, but more specifically with Holocaust survivors, really helped shape their ability to survive because food became a link, whether they were partisans fighting in the woods, whether they were unfortunately interned in a concentration or in a death camp, or whether they were refugees in another region. The food was their link to their best and happiest times. I heard from every Holocaust survivor I spoke to, most specifically the men even more than the women, that food was the connection to the mother that they lost in the Holocaust. And so their ability to preserve that food memory and to continue that thread that wove through their childhoods and carried them through this awfully traumatic time, but brought them forward into survival, becomes so very strong. It's not a fragile, tenuous thread, It is an incredibly strong thread. And so food in the Holocaust and Holocaust survivors is a link and it takes them from tragedy to triumph. And so talking about food is just, it's a way to bring them to happy times, it's a way to get them through the difficult ones and it's a way to ensure that their legacy and their family's history and culture and that the Jewish people, what we've been imbued with for centuries continues. And so food is a perfect vehicle for that.

GR: Yeah, no, that makes perfect sense. So you must, you obviously have collected some very powerful stories on this topic. And I was just wondering, when it comes to the food connection, that you have one favorite one that you could tell us briefly, I mean, I'm sure you could take the rest of the program talking about it, but is there one you can pick?

JH: You know, I wrote the book originally in 2011. At the time it was called, “Recipes Remembered: A Celebration of Survival”. It's been reinvented and rebranded as, “Food, Hope and Resilience”. And what remains is that every recipe in that book represents somebody’s the best version of a dish and not the dishes that you expect, not the typical Ashkenazi dishes, the matzo ball soup, although they're in there, and brisket and kugel and all of those, of course they're in there. But what's represented, which is what I love, is the cooking traditions of the diaspora and how a Dominican, a Jew who found themselves in the Dominican Republic made arroz con pollo, and that was her iconic Jewish dish. Or one who found herself in Milan because she wanted to gain passage to Palestine, Israel, as it was called at the time, that she gave me a recipe for semolina gnocchi. And you just say, how is that a Jewish dish? Well, it was a Jewish dish because it was prepared by a Jewish Holocaust survivor as she was waiting to make aliyah to Israel. So when I think of what is my favorite dish from that, every one of the dishes is connected to one of my survivors, and it would be like choosing my favorite child. But I will say that there are dishes that I make again and again. And whether they're my favorites or not, they seem to represent, for me, the stories in the book. There is a lentil soup recipe from a Sephardic survivor, part of my culture is Sephardic. My grandfather's family was expelled from Spain and they ended in Greece and so that represents that part of my heritage. And I think it's one of my favorite recipes for that reason. And it is so easy and so delicious and so practical. And I think it has every factor in it that represents the Sephardic community and the Greek community during the Holocaust, because it's inexpensive, it's fast, it's nutritious, it's hearty, it's sturdy and it's a very practical dish and they are very practical people, so I'll go with that.

GR: You're listening to the casual conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm talking with June Hersh. She's a food writer and speaker and the author of a new book titled, “The Flavor of Upstate New York: Iconic Dishes, Delicious History and Reinvented Recipes” and we've been discussing her book. Well, I want to leave the topic of food and Holocaust and come back now to upstate. And I intimated this before when I was talking about the potato chip, but it seems to me that the iconic dishes of upstate New York seem on the whole to be very accessible, unpretentious, one could even say working class. And I was just wondering, does upstate boast any signature dishes that would be considered high cuisine that you might find in a top restaurant in New York City, for example?

JH: Well, I would say that if you look at the dishes that were made like Chicken French, which is really, you know, chicken française, it was a riff on veal française, but it was, became a very iconic dish in upstate New York. So much so that the chef that I guess innovated it, he didn't invent it, he actually wrote an entire book about ‘Frenching’ food and how to turn it into that. And that's definitely something that you would find in an upscale restaurant, probably one that actually has a tablecloth on the table as opposed to most upstate dishes, which I think are best eaten on a slightly worn wooden table that maybe has a nice little wobble to it. I also think when you go back to some of the restaurants in New York like Delmonico's and the Waldorf and some of the really high end New York restaurants, they co-opted some of the upstate inventions, one of them being Thousand Island dressing. And you know, when you think about it, you say, oh, well, Thousand Island dressing, that's not a big deal. But believe it or not, it became a real taste sensation at the high end New York hotels. And they, it was the dressing and the condiment of the day. And so you look at something is as simple as that. And actually, it elevates a lot of foods and you found it in the very best restaurants. It was considered haute cuisine.

GR: Okay, so the other thing that seems to me when I sort of add them all up is a lot of the dishes also seem pretty heavy. You know, like chicken riggies, salt potatoes.

JH: Yep.

GR: Are there any signature dishes of upstate that we might say, this is on the lighter side, this is a light dish?

JH: Well, if you can consider Utica greens as being kind of good for you and a little lighter, I'll go with maybe. (laughter) But for the most part, these are, as you said and I agree and not that they are still today, but their origins were for working class people, they were very practical foods. These were resourceful people who took their backgrounds and interpreted it in dishes that were accessible and easy and also encouraged beer drinking because they were very salty foods. And the tavern and the barkeeps they were very shrewd. They knew that if you were going to serve food at your bar, you want to make sure that they are not thirst quenching but they really make you want to buy a beer or two. And so I'm going to say, no, they are not for the most part. A lot of them are light on the wallet, but they are definitely not light on your waistline. I would not look to upstate New York food as health food, although you can certainly prepare some of them in more healthy ways. You know, you take spiedies for example, that's really just a wonderful skewer of grilled chicken, nothing too heavy about that. And, you know, put that with a salad or some of the fabulous cheese and apples and you pair that together. I mean, that's just lovely and light and delicious, wash it down with a Riesling, I think you have a pretty perfect Sunday lunch. But yeah, I'm going to say they’re stick-to-your-ribs food for the most part.

GR: So you mentioned Utica greens, that's probably my favorite upstate dish. I mean, maybe if calories and fat weren't an issue, I might say Buffalo wings. But anyway, I have a confession here, this is an upstate confession.

JH: Okay.

GR: You mentioned small potatoes at the beginning. I have to say, I am not getting those. I mean, just explain briefly if you could, what I'm missing there because I like a good mashed potato, I like, you know, a golden potato, baked. But I've never quite understood the hype over those.

JH: Really? See, and the first time I made them, I said to myself, well, how is that so different? I usually toss a little salt in the water when I boil a potato. But the product of salt potatoes, it really is completely different. And I think what happens is, is that when you put this copious amount of salt, I mean, it's like half a cup of salt to a pound and a half of potatoes. I mean, that's a lot of salt when you put that in it chemically, you know, from a scientific standpoint, changes the way the water boils and so what it really does is it cooks the potato from the inside out rather than the outside in. So instead of the outside getting soft in the inside staying firm, the inside gets creamy and the outside, and I think the trick to salt potatoes is when you take them out of the water, you have to let them sit because you have to let the salt complete its destiny and you have to let it dry out the skin, leave it's salty crust outside. So that when you, and I almost eat them not piping hot because I really like them to sit and I have a recipe in the book for salt potatoes. And again, I'm looking at the recipe and it looks like, well, that's pretty easy, it's salt and water, potatoes. But then you put butter on it and you pour this melted butter on it. I think it's everything that I love about a good potato. It's got the crust like a baked potato, it's got the interior like a mashed potato. I don't know, I think it's luscious, try it again.

GR: Yeah, I'm doing it wrong. You've given me the key here, okay, and I understand the concept now, so I will try it again.

JH: And listen, you're in Syracuse. It was the Salt City! I mean, for goodness sakes, you’ve got to make a salt potato.

GR: So we have about 3 minutes left, and I want to squeeze in two questions, if I could. So, the second one is longer, so we'll be really quick on the first one, just a few seconds on this. Just out of curiosity, you're obviously an expert cook. When you were trying to make an upstate dish, what's your biggest flop you've ever had?

JH: So my flop was baking grape pie because the first time I did it, I didn't, you've got to pinch them and slip the grapes out of their skins and I mistakenly threw the skins away. I didn't follow my own directions. And I read about it again and again and again, the skins is what gives it the fabulous texture. So I now made these and I boiled down the grapes, but I didn't have enough skins in there. I wasn't going to pull them out of my garbage, so I had to make it again and this time I was very careful. I added the skins and it gave the jam the perfect texture, so it all held together, happens to be delicious. If you have never made it, try it. It's like eating Manischewitz jam. That's what it is.

GR: And my last question is, if I'm lucky enough to be coming over to your house for dinner and you were making me a complete upstate meal of your own personal favorites, what would that menu look like?

JH: All right. So I'm going to offer you quickly two options. I love doing breakfast for dinner. I think breakfast for dinner is one of my most fun things to eat.

GR: Okay, I'm going to interrupt real quick and connect you back to your Holocaust discussion. You just connected me to my mother because she would occasionally make us breakfast for dinner when she ran out of ideas.

JH: Oh, exactly. It is definitely a mom hack, there’s no question, breakfast for dinner.

GR: So what would it be?

JH: So, my breakfast for dinner would come from the Borscht Belt because I grew up going to the Catskills on a very regular basis. Proceeds from the sale of the book benefit the Catskills Borscht Belt Museum, so it has a very special place in my heart. And I would make you a plate of cheese blintzes with sour cream on the side. You would have lox in the cream sauce and pickled herring in the cream sauce. You would absolutely have thinly, perfectly sliced smoked salmon. And I would probably then bring in maybe like a lovely champagne similar to what used to be grown because we were the, New York was the champagne capital of the world. And I would make us a fabulous mimosa with champagne from there. I would absolutely have to have cheese from the Hudson Valley because that's perfect. I'd get foie gras from the Hudson Valley and I would make like almost like a chop liver paté with it. And we would spread that on some crackers and we would have ourselves a little feast.

GR: Yeah. And it sounds like that is a breakfast that leads directly to a nap (laughter). Well that sounds wonderful, we'll have to leave it there. That was June Hersh. And again, her new book is titled, “The Flavor of Upstate New York: Iconic Dishes, Delicious History and Reinvented Recipes”. June, this is a fascinating book, it's got so many different components to it. The history, the stories, the actual recipes, really nice work. Thanks so much for taking the time to talk to me about it.

JH: Thank you, have a delicious day. It's my absolute pleasure.

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. The Democratic Party primary for Syracuse City Mayor is Tuesday, June 24th, with early voting starting on June 14th. Concluding our interviews with all three of the candidates in that primary, my guest today is Syracuse Common Councilor Pat Hogan, he's also its President Pro Tempore. Councilor Hogan represents the Second District and was first elected to the council back in 2005. He is also chairman of the Greater Syracuse Land Bank and he's board chairman of the Onondaga Industrial Development Agency. Previous interviews with Deputy Mayor Sharon Owens and common councilor Chol Majok can be found on WRVO ‘swebsite on the Campbell Conversations page under the local programing tab. But today, it's Councilor Hogan’s turn, and Councilor Hogan, welcome to the program.

Pat Hogan: Thank you, Grant.

GR: Well, it's great to have you here. We really appreciate you making the time. So, let me just start with a couple of questions I think you could answer super quickly just to give our listeners a full sense of the other positions that you hold outside the council. What's the, or the first one inside the council, what's the significance of being the president pro tempore of the council, what does that mean?

PH: Well, right now, the significance is, as I’m the acting president the council, but I'm an elected member that has a vote. President Hudson, unfortunately, has been ill and I've taken over running the council.

GR: Okay, all right. So essentially that reflects that you are the leader of the council, is that fair to say?

PH: Yes.

GR: Okay, all right. And then equally quick, what does the Onondaga County Industrial Development Agency do? What's your role there?

PH: Well, spur economic development, and I think we've been very successful for it. I’m the board chairman, you know, along with some other members of the board, we review proposals from different developments asking for economic benefits that the IDA can give them.

GR: Okay. And obviously, I think it's fair to say that the county executive, the mayor, you folks on the agency, you know the state hit a home run with Micron. We'll come back to that, but yeah, okay, great. So let's get into the questions about the mayor's race. So first of all, could you just briefly give us your overall vision of the city that you have for the next four and possibly eight years?

PH: Well, I think it's a city full of great opportunities and we just have to seize upon them, you know, and recognize what our virtues are and what we're facing as far as issues. I think we have a great city, as far as it's still an affordable city. It's a walkable, accessible city. It has a lot of great neighborhoods in it and I think we should play upon those virtues. On the other hand, we have issues. We have an aging infrastructure, we have a lack of housing, it's a real issue and we have poverty. I think we have to act aggressively to mitigate all those issues, to be a city like we were once, the foremost tier two city, probably in the country.

GR: Yeah. I want to come back to a couple of those things you just mentioned a little bit later, but let me stick with these other questions for now. So how do you think your policy emphasis as a mayor and the initiatives that you would take would be significantly different from what we've seen with the Walsh administration? What would be the shift that people could anticipate?

PH: I have a way more active and aggressive stance on almost every issue. I think this, the last seven years have been sort of in limbo a lot. A lot of times that council and some of the, I'm sure some of our citizens are not sure where the policies were. I'll have definitive policies that will take the city forward. One, for instance, we're going to address the bureaucracy that exists in zoning and codes that prevents people from starting businesses, especially folks who are new to this country, our immigrant folks. It's a maze, it's worthy of Czarist Russia. It's very, very difficult in order to generate tax revenue that, as a city, we have to generate tax revenue and businesses do that.

GR: Well, on that point, you know, I have heard that in many different mayors’ races over the time that I've been in Syracuse, I've been here a little over 30 years, so I've heard different candidates say that. So I gather from that that it is a long standing, perennial problem. But how would you go about streamlining the coding in the zoning?

PH: Well, you know what? We did rezone, it came through my committee, first time since 1967. But, zoning is one thing, but the implementation of zoning and codes, that's the issue. I have a definitive idea how I would handle that, I've been involved in it for many years. I've been on the other side advocating for business folks all the way through the city and citizens too. I would make it, I'd be a hands-on mayor and I would directly run the codes and zoning the first three or four months until we get things straightened out.

GR: Interesting, okay. And then you mentioned that you would be more aggressive, you think, than Mayor Walsh. But more generally, how would you characterize this in terms of both policy and leadership style? What are the most important differences between you and the other two Democratic candidates in the race? What are the most important differences between you and Chol Majok and Sharon Owens?

PH: Well, Chol has been on one side, you know, he's been a legislator. I benefit from my experience, you know, I was a deputy commissioner of a city department for 34 years there. I also worked in the school district, working with kids who had behavioral and academic issues. I have direct experience on many of the issues that are facing the city. For instance, when we talk about education, you know, education is one of the tripods of, you could say, legs of a chair that we have to address as far as poverty goes. You have education, you have jobs, and you have to have housing. As far as the education goes, I have a community school strategy. I would like to extend the hours of the city schools, probably one in each council district. They have a community school program where we not only would provide safe spaces for the children to play in, but also be plugged into the school district. And we did this before, find out what their weaknesses are and bring volunteers, tutors and mitigate those great weaknesses.

GR: On the schools, you know, there's been conversation over the years about the mayor's office kind of taking over the school district, and you obviously have some experience in the schools. Do you have any thoughts about that going forward?

PH: I think we have to look at everything. That was a discussion that took place a lot under Mayor Miner. I wouldn't advocate that. And so obviously I would want this to be like sort of a public thing that we would have, make sure that everybody be involved in it. Our neighborhood organizations and of course, the teachers union and present school board and the superintendent. But I think we have great schools, we have terrific schools. Our issue with the schools is we’ve only got 50% of the kids going, we have an absenteeism rate of 50%. We have to find a way to energize kids to get to school. And I think there's all sorts of social issues that obviously you have older kids taking care of younger kids, we have people working two jobs, especially in challenged neighborhoods. But I would put together a task force and look at that. I'm up to Fowler quite a bit, I'm up to, I've been in Corcoran. We have great programs. We have we still have an issue with discipline, I'll be frank with that. But I think we have to realize that a lot of kids don't go to schools to avail themselves of these programs.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm speaking with city of Syracuse Democratic mayoral candidate Pat Hogan. Well, a couple of questions now, maybe a little more sensitive, a little less pleasant. But I want to ask you to respond to some of the criticisms that I have read about you and your campaign in recent months. And first one, you probably know where I'm going with this one, concerns the city's budget, and it got quite controversial. I want to ask you a question or two about that. And I want to go through a quick background if our listeners have heard the previous two programs they’ve heard this before, but just to bring everybody up to speed on this. So, Mayor Ben Walsh proposed a $348 million budget. It involved a 2.2% spending increase and a rise of about 2% in the property tax rate. It also drew on the city's general fund, which was essentially the city's savings account to cover the remaining deficit. The council rejected that proposed raise in taxes, lowered the budgeted spending by about 2.4% or $16 million, and the mayor vetoed some of those changes. The council overrode those vetoes in unanimous votes. All right, you were leading the charge from the council, I think, on the budget, fair to say you were the leading negotiator there. Looking at it from a distance, it's hard to believe that the mayor's race didn't factor somehow into this back and forth between you and the mayor on the budget. Why, first of all, why was the council so concerned about the increases this year? Previous years, they seemed to be okay with similar increases, what was the difference?

PH: Well, we live in a fluid part of American history right now. We have a person in Washington who isn’t a fan of cities. One of the things that remains for us is we always have a structural deficit where, for your listeners, we just don't have enough revenue in order to pay our bills, basically. We do have a cash fund balance and this budget would have withdrawn $27 million, which we all thought was way too much money to draw, especially as we look into the future. As far as being part of the mayor's race, is the vote was 9 – 0, there’s not 9 people running for mayor. This budget was dead almost on arrival. The mayor had a conversation with me about the budget, a two minute conversation the day before he dropped it on us. It was one of the most fiscally irresponsible budgets I've seen in 14 years. I don't think you could raise, it comes from the culture of raising taxes rather than managing departments. I was part of the department, so the councilors put together a plan and implemented the plan that basically cut the departments across the board by 7% except for the police and fire, and that was 5%. Some of the departments actually are going to get more money next year, are going to get more money next year than they'll spend this year. It's part of that where, every budget is a projection. We looked at everything solidly and we were disciplined about it and we passed a budget that benefits the city of Syracuse and their citizens, and they won’t have a tax hike.

GR: I wanted to ask you a question, too, about the process. You mentioned the mayor not really fully consulting prior to proposing, formally delivering the budget to the council. There was some criticism that I have read about the council and your lack of openness and time frame with your changes in terms of the mayor's office not reaching out, trying to find compromise. Tell me a little bit more about the process from your end.

PH: Procedurally, it remained the same. We get the budget on April 8th, we have to make a decision by May 8th. We interview every bureau, every department. We had 27, I think it was 28 department head meetings. These are all open meetings to the public, people could view them. We asked our questions, we went over the budget. We decided to bring in Bonadio, which is an accounting firm that actually does the audit at the end of the year every year in the city budget. We brought them in in the beginning to give us a little more clarity. I thought that worked out great. They pointed out some things that we had already considered and then we, procedurally, it was the same thing we've gone through before. We're in a very compressed amount of time and all of us agreed on what we needed to do in order to save a tax hike and also to put us in a good fiscal standing for the future.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm talking with Pat Hogan. The Syracuse City Common counselor is running for mayor and he'll appear on the ballot in the Democratic primary on June 24th. All right, well, just to continue with the theme of the questions before the break, some of the criticisms that I read, get your responses to those. Also, I think the Post-Standard dinged you a little bit in your capacity as chair of the Onondaga County Industrial Development Agency on Micron's Draft Environmental Impact Statement and it connects to my question about the budget in that it has to do with process. And the criticism was sort of the timing, apparent lack of openness. The report had not been released to the public, despite being submitted last December. My understanding is that report is now set to be released on June 25th, which, looking at the calendar is the day after the primary. So I can see, you know people looking at this might be like why aren't we seeing this a bit earlier? It's such an important issue. It is part of Micron's calendar of trying to get the operation going. Why the timing on this?

PH: Well, we wanted to make sure it was done. And I sit in, those meetings, the environmental assessment, and it wasn't done. And in a situation like that where you're dealing with state regulations and federal regulations, a big project like that, you certainly have to cross every T and dot every I. Because if there was a mistake, that could really delay things down the road. That was impressed upon us and everybody who was in those rooms. It was released prematurely. My understanding there's some things that will be different in the final releasing of the report. And it was, you know, sort of an unfortunate thing, it was sort of leaked to the press. But I think we're going to be all set to go and this is a big project and we wanted to make sure we’d done everything right.

GR: Okay, all right. So I want to come back to some of the things that you mentioned at the outset of our conversation. And you talked about one of the things that you want to focus on is, of course, the problem of poverty and concentrated poverty in the city of Syracuse. And it's concentrated in a lot different ways geographically, racially. What are some of the ways that you plan to really get at that, that's such a big problem? You mentioned the three legs on the stool, the education, the housing and the job opportunities. But can you speak a little bit more about how you could really try to chip away at that?

PH: You know, it’s almost a person to person basis, family by family basis. I mean, we talk about childhood poverty, but it’s essentially family poverty. I found that out when I worked in the city schools. You know, housing is a big issue and housing we have to, you know, I think we have to really go to the state and like ask them to release, sort of soften the rules as far as the extension of LIHTC tax credits to municipalities. Right now, you only get about two per locale. This helps financing affordable housing. I have a big project that’s going up just a five minute walk from my house is a former Syracuse developmental center area. We're going to 550 units of affordable housing up there. The costs are enormous to build housing now, not only labor and material, and we need help from the state government. If we can get help from the federal government, that's great. But we have to advocate and I'm a politician, we have to get a coalition together to advocate for more housing. As far as the educational part, we have to transition to more what jobs are available. I think the city school district is starting to do that very well. We have a career academy at Fowler, we have a welding program at Corcoran, showing kids that there are other ways, obviously, to support their families down the road. But we have to get the kids in school. To be an electrician, right now, I know a lot of people in IBEW 43, they’re figuring that they’re going to need a thousand electricians to build Micron. And you're probably going to need 300, 400 when it gets up and running. But you have to, in order for our kids to qualify for these jobs, to be an electrician, you have a fundamental understanding of algebra and you have to be to school at least 9th grade, 10th grade. You’ve got to know what you're doing. And I think we have to have a total emphasis on that, to train these kids. I know Micron is going to help us out on that. They're definitely looking to, they don't need kids with the college degree, they need kids who are trained in the proper things. And then, you know, the jobs will be available. I know people, we'll get calls from all over the country, people looking to move here. And as part of that, I believe there's five to six neighborhoods in the city of Syracuse that will be looking at the demographics of Micron that will be especially attracted to some of the people coming in. And I think we have to like, promote them. We have to promote, we want to build the population of the city.

GR: And one of the things that you do here, you did not mention, but I wanted to get your thoughts on it, was on the issue of poverty and opportunity is transportation and the importance of being able to get to these places, to get to the educational opportunities, to get to the jobs. What are your thoughts about that?

PH: You know, Grant, that's great you mentioned that because that’s part of the environmental assessments, is how are we going to get people there? You know, we were successful with the Amazon project. My understanding is the busiest bus route in Central New York is from downtown Syracuse to Amazon. They’re all entry level jobs, but they're also, you know, you got insurance, you know, you make like $35, $40,000 and they're good about promoting people I know it's a tough work environment sometimes, but you're absolutely right. There will be part of getting people to the jobs, through public transportation, Centro is already on board about that. But that is a great question because, you know, where I grew up on the near West Side and South Side, I mean, my grandfather worked at the car plant in south Fowler, I can't think of the name of it now, but, you know, people walked to work in those days, now we have to get them to work.

GR: If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media, I’m Grant Reeher.

PH: Grant, that was the Franklin Motor Company.

GR: Oh, Franklin Motor Company, okay.

PH: That's right. I know I’d come up with it.

GR: It was okay, it was a little bit delayed, that’s all (laughter). I'm Grant Reeher and my guest is Syracuse mayoral candidate Pat Hogan. So a couple of questions here at the end, and they get at, again, some of the things we've already been talking about but I want to put them in a very specific context. That the taking down of I-81 and the redevelopment of the East Adams Street area, prior to the Micron announcement that was going to be the biggest development opportunity for the city. What at this point are your biggest priorities for that effort and also your biggest concerns? I'm wondering maybe whether that would be not following through at the federal government level with some of the assistance, but anyway, go ahead.

PH: I think it'll put more than a little pressure probably our Syracuse police department, doesn't really have a traffic division. I think we got to manage that properly inside the city when everything's down. A lot of the folks, unlike me, a lot of the folks who advocated for the 81 to come down, never drove through Syracuse without 81 being up. My father always showed me how to get around the city without using 81. I think the big thing for the city is to maintain control of the 14 acres of property that 81 stands on right now. The state has been not really good at peddling public property. We have been good, making good use of it. Those 14 acres, I look to knit the university finally together with downtown, you know, we properly develop them. I look for affordable housing basically there and maybe some retail shops and things like that that are allowed under our zoning. But that is going to be a transformative thing. But once again we're going to have to manage it right and I plan to manage it so it benefits all the neighborhoods in the city.

GR: Well, briefly if you could on this next question, follow up on that. One of the things that I always have been worried about, and I've said this to multiple people from different backgrounds who come on the program talking about the city, is the actual transition process in terms of transportation. We're already seeing some of the fallout from this. But my concern is that you'll have several years where there will be, for lack of a better word, a lot of sort of transportation pain involved in this. Do you have any plans for mitigating that?

PH: We're going to need help from the county sheriff's department. You know, the city police department, right now, has 36 vacancies. We're going to need manpower. I'm sure that there's a traffic plan, but manning that traffic plan and implementing that traffic plan, we might even have to reach out to the state. I have the same concerns. I worry about traffic sort of jumping on all those north-south arterials west, you know, to try to get around the city. And it'll be a learning curve and we're going to need every facet as far as every media organization, digital media, everything to let people know how they can get around the city. It's going to be a huge undertaking.

GR: And here at the end, a question about Micron. You've already talked about the opportunities that this is going to create for the area. That seems clear and it also seems pretty clear it's going to be completely transformative in a lot of different ways. You're an industrial development guy, you think a lot about this kind of stuff. What are your biggest worries? What are your biggest concerns about Micron coming in here?

PH: That we're going to be able to fill the jobs and all those benefits spread evenly across all our neighborhoods, all our neighbors, especially the challenged neighborhoods. This, you know, when the factories moved after World War (II), in the 60’s, that devastated a lot of those neighborhoods, some of the neighborhoods I represent. This time we can get have a resurgence in those neighborhoods if we are cognizant of what we need to do in order to give our people the best chance to work at Micron.

GR: Do you have any concerns somehow that it will change the fundamental nature and character of Syracuse as a unique location? I mean, one thought I have is that it will do a lot of great things, but in a lot of ways we might end up feeling like a more generic place. I don't know if that question makes sense.

PH: You mean we won't be a college town anymore?

GR: Or we won't feel distinctly upstate, we won't feel distinctly Syracuse, you know? You will lose your accent, you know? (laughter)

PH: You know what, Grant, I was thinking this the other day, as I go to neighborhood meetings across the city, we are blessed we have like, all these unique neighborhoods that all sort of like exist their way. And they all, like, unite and, but I mean I don't think this will change the character, this might even enhance the character of Syracuse. I can't imagine this will change the character of Syracuse, except for, you know, our noted cynicism that we're really good at sometimes. But, you know, you say something about Buffalo up in Buffalo and you're going to get a punch in the snoot. But you say sometimes in Syracuse and sometimes people agree with you. You know, I mean, we're just like that. But I think we have some great neighborhoods in the city. And I think people who come from other cities, this happens all the time, I hear this all the time, people who’ve moved here, love it. I mean, they love Syracuse and I think they're going to be citizens for life. But sometimes we let our own, our cynicism get a little bit.

GR: You know, I've got some neighbors that just moved in across the street from New York City and it's an epiphany for them about the ease with which they can do different things. Well, we'll have to leave it there. That was Pat Hogan and again, the Democratic primary for mayor in Syracuse is June 24th. Early voting starts on June 14th. Councilor Hogan, I want to thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me, I really enjoyed our conversation.

PH: Thanks, Grant.

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. The Democratic Party primary for Syracuse City mayor is Tuesday, June 24th and early voting starts on June 14th. Continuing our interviews with all three candidates, my guest today is Syracuse Common Councilor, Chol Majok. Councilor Majok is a Councilor-at-Large representing the entire city, but he was first elected as a councilor from the Third District. He previously worked in Mayor Stephanie Miner's administration and in 2022, he ran for the Democratic nomination for Congress in the 22nd Congressional District. My interview with Deputy Mayor Sharon Owens can be found on WRVO’s web site, wrvo dot org on the Campbell Conversations page under the local programing tab. Next week I plan to have Common Councilor Pat Hogan on the program. But for today, it's Councilor Majok. Councilor Majok, welcome to the program, it’s good to see you.

Chol Majok: It is great to be here. Thank you for having me.

GR: Oh, well, thanks for making the time. Let me just start with a very basic question. And if you could be brief on this one. I know you could speak for quite a long time on it, but briefly, what's your vision for the city of Syracuse over the next four and possibly eight years?

CM: Well, my vision is with the hope that, you know, when I get elected is to leave this city better than I found it. That is the overall overarching vision. Now that can, I have, I do say this in my vision that I will lead Syracuse into a future where families thrive, neighborhoods flourish, and opportunities are accessible. That is in a nutshell, of what I intend to see this city when I take over and when I leave it, that our families are doing better, that our neighborhoods are safer and opportunities in all neighborhoods, people can have accessibility to those opportunities regardless of economic background.

GR: Okay. And thinking about the last eight years of the Ben Walsh administration, how do you think your emphasis on policy and what initiatives you would take might differ from his and in what ways?

CM: Well, Grant, I'm a true believer in that, you know, in order to move a community forward and to move a city forward, we have to look at our assets. And our assets in this sense are the people. What has happened with Syracuse is that poverty has beaten down this community, that the value of people is under the struggles and the problems. And when a community is dealing with something like this, it becomes a leadership problem. And leaders need to figure out how do you equip people to do for themselves? You know, as somebody with a large experience in workforce development, equipping people to do for themselves, I am the right person for this for this job to be the mayor. Precisely because Syracuse is in this space where Micron is coming, Amazon is already here. And when you talk about Micron and Amazon and many other better paying jobs, they are outside of the city, right? And we need to be able to first do two things, equip people with the right skills, number two, be able to have reliable transportation where people can access those. People talk about changing poverty and challenging poverty to be able to challenge poverty, yes, government policies are great, but if we want to uproot poverty, we have to equip people. We have to equip people to do for themselves that include fathers, mothers, guardian, people and residents in the community. I'm raising a young family and raising a young family to be able to successfully raise that young family, you cannot subtract economic from that equation. And being able to get the right economic tools in my belt to raise that family, I need skills. I need to be able to get to those jobs, and that's where my skills and talent come in. I have a business development experience and talent development experience, which is what this city really need when you look at the future of it, that's what really this city needs. Yes, we can talk about housing, housing is great, we need housing, but we also need to talk about sustainability. Without the right skills to really manage oneself economically, you can't sustain housing. And that's where my skill and talent become essential in equipping people to do for themselves so they can sustain those housing and be able to sustain tax base in our city.

GR: You mentioned your background in workforce development as part of the toolkit that you would have and being able to do that. I was also thinking of your own personal story. I mean, you came here to the United States with nothing and here you are running for mayor. Do you think that that gives you a particular perspective on this issue?

CM: Absolutely, absolutely. I just had a fundraiser this weekend, Professor Reeher, had a fundraiser this weekend and was put together by New American Leaders. And I'm saying that to say I didn't realize how much of an impact I have made, especially to disadvantaged communities, especially those that came in the same background as I am, refugees and immigrant and struggling people, until I saw a number of leaders that said, Brother Chol, what you have done here is something that would outlast us as a generation and will lead into the next generation, right? And that in itself, when you are grinding, when you are working every day and you when you are trying to do your best, you don't look at how far you have come. But people who have lived like you are looking at you. And this race is not just about me, Professor Reeher, it's not just about me. It is about everyone that have lived like me, people with struggle, people who have came to America to seek second chances in life. And America has embraced them and offer them those opportunities to transform their lives. They are looking at me and they are saying, Chol, if we can come to America, pay taxes, revitalize neighborhood, why can we not leave city hall? So this is a fight for every single person, every marginalized community and every struggling person, irrespective of race and gender.

GR: Do you think that that is the most important thing that differentiates you from the other two Democratic candidates? This background, this is what separates you from Pat Hogan and Sharon Owens?

CM: Well, I have a couple of them that separate me from that. Yes, I have the ability to relate to a lot of the city residents here, as when I came, I was not born here, but I grew up here. I went to city school district, a graduate right there. I grew up in the most impoverished neighborhood in the city, Brighton neighborhood. And we have not had a mayor with my background or a candidate with my background that have ran at this level. So yes, there is that differentiation that people, I can relate to people more than the other candidate, that's one. The other piece is, is that as a candidate, I'm coming in with executive training. I'm not just talking about one of those trial and error kind of training that I have seen with other candidate where they make mistakes. I have theoretical knowledge, I've been trained, I’ve applied it as well. So I'm coming equipped more than most mayors in the executive office. I have legislative experience at the state level and then at the city level. That differentiate me between Pat Hogan and Sharon Owens, right? And I am at this point between all the candidate, I am the only one who have been elected at-large, citywide. We have ran a successful citywide election. So when it come to later to Republican, I'm the only one who know how to run election and wins election. So that's the other part of the party. Accountability, you know I'm going to be different because I'm going to take accountability. My record has shown that anything I do, I take accountability for it. Something that I’ve seen, Deputy Mayor Owens and the current administration rarely take accountability for. For example, the advanced I.T. situation that we are dealing with, that is a looming fraud in our city. Second, the Blueprint 15 that Deputy Mayor Owens share and never to accountability for. I'm going to take accountability and people are looking for accountability, Professor Reeher. So that's what really differentiate me a lot with my opponent and we don't have time but I would have went in with a lot as well.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm speaking with city of Syracuse Democratic Mayor candidate Chol Majok. Just for our listeners, you mentioned experience at the state level and what you're referring to there is your previous work for state Senator Dave Valesky, right?

CM: And Marty Golden as well.

GR: That's right. Marty Golden, that's right, got it.

CM: Two state senators.

GR: I forgot about the first one, yeah. So I want to ask you a question about the most recent city budget, because that became quite controversial and you were at the center of that along with your two opponents. So, Mayor Ben Walsh proposed a $348 million budget. It involved a 2.2% spending increase and a raise of about 2% in the property tax rate. It also drew on the city's general fund, which is, you know, essentially the city's savings account to cover a remaining deficit in the budget. The council rejected that proposed raise in taxes and lowered the budgeted spending by about 2.5% percent or $16 million. The mayor then vetoed some of those changes that the council made, and then the council overrode those vetoes in unanimous votes. I think I've got that all right. So my first question for you is, watching the way this unfolded, it's hard to believe from a distance that this mayor's race didn't factor into that back and forth in some way. Just explain briefly if you could, why was the council concerned about the increases in the budget this year when you folks were fine with similar increases in previous years?

CM: Well, the short answer to that, Professor Reeher, is that since 2020 we have $123 million that we could play with and we could push around and be able to balance our budget with.

GR: And that was from that was from the COVID money, right? Is that what you’re talking about?

CM: COVID money, absolutely. We have COVID money, next year budget we will no longer have that COVID money. And, and people who are intimate with our city budget knows that we don't generate enough from tax base to be able to cover our expenses. Number two, a basic economic formula is that you don't spend what you don't have. And as a city, and I have said it repeatedly, and I had some people, I rubbed some people the wrong way, I have said it, if the council have to be the adult in the room to really balance the city budget, then so be it. And at this point, Professor Reeher, what is really pushing the council, and you can see people have said that is political, it’s not political, it's unanimous. Nine of us, only two councilors are running for council so far for mayor, only two councilors, right? And all nine councilors voted unanimously to reduce the spending the city is experiencing. So the short answer to that, Professor Reeher, we just don't have it. And it is irresponsible and fiscally unsustainable to continue to spend the way Mayor Walsh has spent city resources. Mayor Walsh has raised our budget by over $100 million since he has been in the office. The city just does not generate enough to be able to sustain that much recklessness, we just don't. And if as councilors, we have to look out for the best interests of our city and constituent, then that's what we were elected to do. We will do our job. And I applaud all my fellow councilors for doing their job.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm talking with Chol Majok. The Syracuse City Common Councilor is running for mayor and will appear on the ballot in the Democratic primary on June 24th. So I have a second question, as I mentioned about the budget, and it's about the criticisms that have come, and they've not just come from the Walsh administration, they've also come from outside observers about the lack of openness by the council regarding these decisions about the changes. That there wasn't an apparent attempt in advance to reach out to the administration, say, hey, you know, this looks like too much, we have a problem. Why did the council operate in what appears anyway to be more out of the public's eye in this regard?

CM: So we as council have been accused of politicizing and being secretive, in which it is very surprising, very surprising to councilors. Because what the council has done is what they have always done, right? And there is never a time after a month-long budget hearing, there has never been a time where councilors go back to department head that are managed by the mayor to ask them of their opinion as to what, how we are going to adjust our budget. Now, Professor Reeher, let's make this correction. There's a difference between executive level of government and legislative branch of government. There are two different, and there is nowhere that I have seen the legislators have to go back to the executive to consult them as to what to do. Otherwise there wouldn't be no difference in branches of government. We have done our job just like we have always done in previous years. Nothing was different. Now, in the past five years, like I said earlier, we had ARPA money so we were flexible with the mayor and his spending. This year we cannot allow that. And as councilors, we have a responsibility to make sure that when we deliver that budget that it is to the best of our ability. Three hundred and almost fifty million dollars, it's a large budget. And as councilors we needed to do right by our constituents. That's why we hired the same auditor, the same auditor that was hired by the mayor to look at the city budget. Why was it a problem for us to use them to be able to really vet the process? Now, let's not make no mistake, there is a $27 million deficit, $27 million deficit. The council was able to only take out $16 million of it. There's still a deficit to be addressed. Rather than the Mayor Walsh and Deputy Mayor Sharon Owens worrying about that, they are worried about why the council took time to really vet this process. They are worried about our process and they are not worried about the $14 million deficit that they have to address. That is to me, that's where the constituents should be spending their energy, not the process the council took to balance the budget.

GR: Okay, now I want to come back to something that you spoke about in the first part of our conversation. You spoke very powerfully about your background and what that brings to the campaign and what you are representing for the city and how this is a bigger campaign than just about you, and I want to follow up on that and link what you said to more national issues. And so, you're an immigrant to this country, you have this powerful story about your history as a refugee from South Sudan, often called the Lost Boys. You were one of the Lost Boys and made this amazing journey. And our country right now is in a pivotal moment when it comes to how we deal with and think about immigrants and immigration. This is a conversation that's happening across the country. Do you think that your campaign is somehow importantly linked or has a meaning to that in certain ways?

CM: Well, Professor Reeher, you know, Syracuse and upstate, especially upstate New York here, has a long history of being trailblazers, being inclusive, being a welcoming community. And that is undeniably our history. And at these times, the time that we are in with the federal government, it is shameful. And there are people that I have talked to that have said, Chol, they come to me and apologize and said, Chol, this is not who we are as a country. We are a country that embrace immigration, a country that embraced otherness, a country that embrace the world. This is not who we are. And when I hear that, Professor Reeher, it just give me more energy to want to run. Because immigrant in this country at this point are being beaten down by our government. And they need some space where they can be uplifted and folks like me running is a testament to that uplifting. You know, a good statement that Syracuse, New York, can give to immigrant and to our values is electing people like myself. It is a statement that we see you immigrants, we see you refugees. We see you, those that are coming from broken worlds and see Syracuse as a space where they can get second chances. When I run, Professor Reeher, I am running to be able to uplift those voices, those voices that our federal government is pursuing to beat down. And New York, Syracuse, New York is going to stand, as it always have done, to be able to make sure that we stand by those that come from broken worlds and are here seeking second chances in life. And our message to them, yes, you are embraced, yes, you are welcome, yes, you are listened to and yes, you will be here and this is your home.

GR: If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and my guest is Syracuse mayoral candidate Chol Majok. You mentioned Micron earlier, I wanted to ask you a question about that. Obviously, there are amazing opportunities for the city of Syracuse and the broader community, even the whole state of New York here from this Micron mega microchip facility in Clay. Do you have any, and would you bring into the office, any major concerns or worries about that development?

CM: I have a couple of them. I am excited, just like anybody else in this community, to have Micron in our community. Very excited, because the opportunities that Micron is going to bring are going to be great. If it is managed well, we will see a level of economic innovation that we have not seen for a long time. So that to me is exciting because as a young father, as a man that is raising a young family, I can see my daughters and my sons and myself and my wife being able to look at Micron as a gateway to uplift ourselves out of poverty. So many other families, so many other individual and household in the community, it’s exciting. Now, a couple of things that are concerned for me. One, I know that Micron is going to come with their own people and the few that are going to be left, few position that are going to be left to be filled. This is a city, if we go in the same pace and the same direction that we are going in, those jobs are not going to reach city residents, they are going to go to suburban people. If the rate we are going is the way we are going to go without the change of leadership, those jobs are going to be grabbed by suburban people, for a couple of reasons. First, skills level. Our skills level at this moment, Professor Reeher, is atrocious. We need to upskill people, something we have not done. And this is where somebody like me, who has a workforce development experience, would be able to see through that and be able to give people to there. Few opportunities that they would be able to reach our city, this is the second part. Few opportunities that are going to reach this city, right? Maybe I’m going to be challenged by transportation factors. As you know, Micron is going to be far away from the city and transport portion at this moment is one of the most challenging, challenging barrier for our city resident to uplift themselves out of poverty. We have an address that BRT is coming in 2026. But BRT is, unless if they change the route with the right leadership, BRT is not going to go outside of the city limit. So skilled issue is going to hinder people from Micron, and I have a plan and the skill and the ability to get people there, right? Transportation is going to be a factor. And some of the things that we as a current leadership is doing nothing with. So I'm going to change those. And if Micron is going to be for our people here, those need to be addressed head on.

GR: So we've only got a couple of minutes left, so you'll have to be brief on these, I apologize. But I have heard you in the past and you've done it on this program, speak very eloquently about America. And what it means to you and your experiences. What are you telling your children right now about America?

CM: Well, one of the best thing that I tell my children is that, you know, you are in America. America is the only place that I have been to. America is the only place where a child of a janitor can sit on the same table as a child of a president. America is the only place you can do that. And I always tell my children, regardless of the circumstances, you don't have to be your condition, you don't have to live your conditions. And I always tell refugees, I said, just because you came as a refugee does not mean you have to live like a refugee. America is the only place I know that can allow a refugee to come in as a refugee with no English. Get a doctrine and run for a mayor of a major city. America is the only place you can do that. And I said, regardless of the struggles, regardless of the struggle, you cannot take away the fact that America can create dream far beyond your imagination. I always tell my children, Professor Reeher, take opportunities, regardless of the obstacles. Always remember, you always have a chance to take that chance, just like your father has.

GR: Now, last question. You've only got a couple of seconds for this one, I'm sorry. In 2022 you ran for Congress, in 2023 you ran for Common Council-at-Large, successfully. In 2025, now you're running for mayor. Do you just love being a political candidate?

CM: Well, Professor Reeher, you know, this work is all passion, it’s all passion. And as you can see, you know, in 2022, I ran for Congress because I saw that I was going to be redistricted out of my seat. And I have passion for this work. So I tried it and then it didn't work, and I knew 2023 came up. I had to keep my seat. I had to stay in politics, that's why I kept running. And I got elected. And at this moment I see that I am the most qualified candidate, I got to take it. And there is a room for my experience and for the candidate of my caliber. So I'll do it and I'm excited to do it, people are excited to see me do it and let's go from here.

GR: Okay, I’ll have to leave it there. That was Chol Majok. Again, the Democratic Party mayoral primary in Syracuse is June 24th, early voting starts June 14th. Counselor Majok, thanks so much for taking the time to talk with me. And I just want to say on a personal note, regardless of the outcome, you are inspirational in your story, and so I do wish you well.

CM: Thank you, thank you for having me. Like I always said, my vision for the city of Syracuse is to lead Syracuse into a future where families thrive, neighborhoods flourish, and opportunities are accessible.

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 Aran Shetterly. He's a writer and editor and the author of a relatively new book on the Greensboro massacre in North Carolina titled, "Morningside: The 1979 Greensboro Massacre and the Struggle for an American City's Soul". Aran, welcome to the program and congratulations on the new book.

Aran Shetterly: Thank you. Great to be with you.

GR: Well, it's good to have you. So a really interesting book and an interesting timing on it, too. Let's just start with some basics for our listeners. Remind all of us what the Greensboro Massacre was.

AS: Well, we all need to be reminded because it's sort of left our public consciousness in a lot of ways. So in 1979, a multiracial group of activists was organizing in the mills in Greensboro, North Carolina. They were trying to bring black and white workers together. And these were still some of the largest textile mills in the whole world. I mean, Levi's dungaree jean material was made there for over a hundred years. And they were having trouble bringing people, white and black people together in those mills and felt that the Klan was perhaps, the Ku Klux Klan was perhaps interfering with their work. And so they decided to have a march to talk about why it's important to bring workers together, that they would have more power to advocate for better hours, better health care, better services, better pay. And they called it ‘Death to the Klan’ and they put up these posters. And they were organizing on November 3rd, 1979 setting up, putting up the sound truck, putting up posters, singing some freedom songs. And all of a sudden, a caravan of Klansmen and neo-Nazis drove up to the start of the march, picked a fight, started shooting, killed five of these activists and injured another ten, drove off, and no one was ever held criminally responsible for what happened. And when I found out about this, I thought, wait a minute, how do I not know about this and what is this story? I need to go deeper.

GR: Interesting. So one of the things that struck me, looking at your book and then what you just said to me right there, the name of the event in the march was ‘Death of the Klan’ and from what I've read, the marchers were chanting ‘death to the Klan’. What did they mean by that? And I know that, we'll get to this a little bit later, but some of the folks that that were charged pointed to that as kind of the notion that the antagonism was going in both directions.

AS: Yeah. I mean, that's a great question and some ways, the antagonism was going in both directions. But what they really meant was death to racism, death to an ideology that separates people in the way that the Klan has done. And that's, you know, later and after all the trials and after everything that took place, the leader of this march, Nelson Johnson, would say, I really regret that we didn't say death to racism, because that's really what we meant. And instead, the title made it seem personal in a way that they didn't really intend it to be.

GR: Right. And so you mentioned that no one was ever ultimately held criminally accountable for this. But there were people arrested, there were people caught, correct?

AS: Correct. And there were, I mean, almost by chance, though, because one of the curious things about this event was that the local police had decided to take a low profile approach. So they were out of sight, they weren't actually near where the marchers were. And yet they had an informant that was telling them that the Klan was actually going to show up that day and that they had guns. So it was a bizarre and very faulty, if not deliberately faulty decision that came from the top of that department. So at the last minute, some police swooped in and arrested 12 of these Klansmen, most of the shooters. And they were then tried in a state murder trial, then a federal criminal civil rights trial. And then finally there was a third trial, which was a federal civil trial.

GR: Okay. And were there any guilty verdicts or liabilities that were ultimately meted out here, even have a civil kind or no one was ever held accountable in any way?

AS: The third trial was really the most interesting trial, because the plaintiffs, you know, the activists were able to hire their own lawyers. And so instead of having the district attorney, prosecutors doing the state murder trial or the Justice Department lawyers doing the federal criminal civil rights trial, they had their own lawyers who could present the evidence and the arguments in the way that they wanted to. And not only that, there was this incredible judge. No judge in North Carolina would hear the federal civil trial. And so a judge from Richmond named Robert Merhige came down and camped out in Winston-Salem, North Carolina for six months and heard this trial. And Merhige was this incredibly fair judge who had also been responsible for integrating schools in Virginia in the early 1970’s, among other things, and admitting women to the University of Virginia. And he refused to let the jury in that civil trial be all white. The previous two juries had been all white. And there was one black man on that jury in the civil trial. And at the end of the day, there was a judgment in which Klansmen, neo-Nazis, the informant for the police department and Greensboro Police Department officers were found jointly liable for death. And as far as I know, that's the only judgment like that in American history that's held Nazis, Klansmen and police together jointly liable.

GR: Was there any money that ultimately got awarded to any families?

AS: A fraction of, you know, what they'd asked for. And they actually awarded the money only to one of the families who had suffered the death of one of their family members. And it was the only member who had not been a member of the Communist Worker's Party, which is what a lot of these activists were part of. And so it was a curious and somewhat political decision on the part of the jury to award $350,000 about to that one family. But what is interesting is what the activists did is they took most of that money back and put it into a fund that they have used then for decades to fund civil rights work at the grassroots level around the South.

GR: Interesting. You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm speaking with Aran Shetterly, and we're discussing his new book, it's titled, "Morningside: The 1979 Greensboro Massacre and the Struggle for an American City's Soul". So you mentioned there, right before the break the Communist Worker's Party being principal organizer of the labor action and the protest. So that has to change the dynamics of all of this. And this may be an overly simplistic question, but is this something about communism and anti-communism? Or is this something about race and racism or about labor more generally? I mean, how do you disentangle those things as a historian and a writer when you're trying to unpack what's going on back then?

AS: That's a great question, actually. And the thing is, at some point, you really can't. There's sort of like this Möbius strip, right? You're not sure which side you're on when you're trying to describe this at times. It’s particularly the animosity toward, right, that's being directed from the Klan and the Nazis. So what happened was, and this was one of the reasons they were acquitted in the first two trials, the state murder trial and the federal criminal trial, was that their defense lawyers very cleverly wrapped them in the flag. They said these are patriots, they weren't acting out of racial animus, they were going after communists, and you send them halfway around the world to fight communists in Vietnam and here they are trying to protect the United States from communism and you're going to hold them accountable? And, you know, there's something to that argument, right? It's like, well, it's okay to go fight it around the world, but here they're protected? It's a little confusing. And so, I mean, I don't believe that's right, but I'm just saying I can understand why it causes conflict in the minds of the shooters and the jury. So, yeah, that was a big part of what happened. What's interesting is that Judge Merhige even said, you know, you can't really disentangle these two things, race and communism in this trial. And what he meant by that is that a lot of times civil rights activists were being called communists when they weren't, you know? And anyone who was advocating for equal justice, for true equality, for full participation in our democracy would often get called a communist. And there have been all these witch hunts through our history. So in a way, whether they call themselves communists or not, the Klansmen, the Nazis, because of what they were advocating for, the labor justice across racial lines, we're probably going to consider them communists anyway.

GR: So you are pretty sure, and the way that you're talking to me today also suggests this, that the juries got this wrong, that that the folks that were on trial were the ones that did the shooting, were the ones that did the killing. And how do we know this? I mean, this may seem like a dumb question, but why are you so sure?

AS: Well…

GR: The cops grabbed them right away, like almost in the act? I mean, what would be the reason why, hey, we didn't get the wrong person? It seems like a silly question, but I just want to make sure.

AS: Yeah. What's very interesting is these trials were quite complex, to be honest with you. And what was clear was, the people prosecuting the trials were a little uncomfortable prosecuting in a sense, on behalf of people who called themselves communists. And so they made some decisions that compromised their ability to really prosecute the trial well. And the thing is, is that the marchers had a parade permit, they had a legal right. They'd gone to the police department, they'd gone to the city. They had a legal right to march that day. So when the FBI came in to investigate, they opened their investigation and it turned out this was the third largest FBI investigation in our nation's history at the time, they opened their investigation as a civil rights investigation because the marchers had gone through the proper channels and had their freedom of speech protected to march and to say whatever it was they wanted to say that day. The Klansmen and Nazis who drove up had no such permit. They were just confronting this march out of the blue. And so that really becomes down to, this was not sanctioned on both sides. It was it was sanctioned on one side and then ambushed by another side.

GR: Okay. And so the trials happen, in almost all instances these folks are not held accountable, except for this one instance that happened, you know, several years later, the civil trial.

AS: Right.

GR: How would you characterize what's going on in Greensboro between the end of these trials? And 2004, which is when is the sort of the positive part of your book, the Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission was established. What is life in Greensboro like on this issue during that time?

AS: Well, this is why I call it really a, you know, a struggle for an American city soul in some ways. I mean, this was an incredibly divisive event that fractured Greensboro in a lot of ways, as these tragic events tend to do in our communities. And, you know, the very first thing and, you know, as a sort of investigative journalist-historian, what I get drawn to when I hear that the mayor at the time, the minute the shooting happened, says this has nothing to do with Greensboro, essentially. Don't even look here, you know, it's just some extremists who happened to pass through our city, I think, wait a minute, let's see what this has to do with Greensboro. But you have a big section of Greensboro’s residents who followed that mayor and believed this didn't have anything to do with us, you know? And we shouldn't even be talking about this, you know, we need to just sweep this under the rug and move on. And, you know, a lot of people in the city were traumatized by this event, but they weren't given the ability to process it, to talk about it. The justice system couldn't process it and come out with a verdict that anyone really trusted and so it festered. And the people, you know, who were the activists got blamed essentially for what had happened. Oh, you called it ‘Death to the Klan’, you baited the Klan in here, and they became pariahs in the city. And so there was a lot of pain and trauma and healing that needed to happen and still does, to be honest with you. It's a long process to recover from events like this.

GR: Yeah, I want to pursue that a little bit more when we come back from the break. You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm talking with Aran Shetterly. He's a writer and editor and the author of a new book titled, "Morningside: The 1979 Greensboro Massacre and the Struggle for an American City's Soul" and we've been discussing the book and the issues that it raises. So right before the break, we were talking about the Greensboro Truth and Reconciliation Commission. How did this commission get established?

AS: So it's interesting, in a way it starts with art. A woman named Emily Mann wrote a wonderful play called, “Greensboro, a Requiem about the Massacre” and it was performed in Greensboro. And all of a sudden, people were able to start conversations about what had happened that they hadn't been having for at that point, almost 20 years. And coming out of that, Nelson Johnson, who's at the center of my book, who had become by then not a communist anymore, but a pastor and a remarkable activist, he continued, you know, being an activist his whole life, he just died this past February and truly a tremendous loss. But he saw this and he thought, wow, conversations can be had and when they're had, there's a healing aspect to that. And so he they started talking about this, and it was, happened to coincide with an American foundation that was interested in seeing if the South African model of a truth and reconciliation process could actually work in the United States. And so they came and said, we'll fund this. Let's see if we can you know, make something happen. Now, the city of Greensboro wanted nothing to do with it. And so what ends up happening is actually a pretty remarkable achievement to my mind, of Greensboro civil society. NGOs, churches, business leaders come together to put on a full scale truth and reconciliation process. Bishop Desmond Tutu visits Greensboro twice, members of the commission in South Africa participated fully in helping organize and structure this commission. And they held two years of basically studying what had happened and having open forums in which people who were participated or connected to it came to talk, including Klansmen and police officers and these activists and lawyers and judges. Quite a remarkable process that ran from 2004 to 2006 and produced this incredible report that basically laid out the history as they saw it, of what had taken place that day on November 3rd, 1979 and issued a whole set of recommendations for the city of Greensboro to try to prevent something like this from ever happening again.

GR: Wow. Let me interrupt there because I just heard you say that Klansmen or former Klansmen were part of this too. How did they generate that kind of trust across the board? I can see how you'd get one side or the other side, but my goodness, how did they thread that needle?

AS: Well, I think they tried to tell people that they were not controlling in the least what they said, they were going to invite them in to tell their stories. And what's interesting about that is two Klansmen came. One was reflective in a very interesting way. He said, you know what? I grew up in the South, I grew up with stories of the Confederacy. We had a frying pan that we said, you know, saved my grandfather's life because a union bullet hit it. And, you know, I eat my fried eggs out of that frying pan my whole, growing up. And he said, so, you know, I believe those ideas, if I had grown up in New York City, he said, maybe I would have been a communist.

GR: Wow.

AS: The other Klansman said to a shocked audience that was shocked into silence, God guided the bullets that day. So you saw that one was open and possibly changing to some degree in his mind, and the other one wasn't, but hugely informative to people listening about where things stood.

GR: If you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and my guest is the writer Aran Shetterly. So you mentioned that the commission made recommendations and those were directed in part towards avoiding something like this in the future, making things better. What were the, can you summarize the recommendations?

AS: Well, there were a bunch. There were a bunch about sort of economic equality, to be honest, and fair housing, about equal pay, about, you know, issues that, you know, sort of fester in communities and lead to tensions that eventually can explode. There were also recommendations around the police force in establishing an independent oversight commission, right, to look at police actions. That's been something that's been much more difficult to truly achieve in Greensboro. But I have to say that Greensboro, you know, has made some progress on a bunch of these recommendations. It's not perfect, but they are sort of moving in that direction. In fact, you know, I was impressed when my book came out that the first conversation I had in Greensboro was led by the director of the Human Rights Office for the City. And we had over 200 people who came and she asked great questions about this history. So, you know, the history, it's opening up.

GR: I have to confess, I know a bit about North Carolina and where its politics have been in in recent years and how it is changing dramatically in terms of, you know, who it votes for, for president and that kind of thing, or at least the some of the internal politics of different congressional districts, but I don't know these individual towns all that well. So tell me tell me where Greensboro sits in North Carolina today.

AS: Greensboro is in what's called the Piedmont, it's the foothills. And so it's not far from Durham and the triangle area, which we think of as Durham, Chapel Hill and Raleigh. And it was a city that had big aspirations. You know, it thought it could be the Charlotte, essentially, of North Carolina at one point. But the banks decided to relocate to Charlotte, and that's what made Charlotte, you know, this massive city is the banking industry. So Greensboro had a troubled transitioning from the textile mills and run essentially as a company town of the mills into this modern era. But it has five colleges and universities there, including the state's flagship black university, North Carolina A&T, which has had a played a huge role in terms of the city's activism and the way the city has had to deal with the issues that it's been confronted with.

GR: So it sounds like it's within a transitional state. It's kind of a transitional town, and…

AS: It's a transitional town.

GR: Being both sort of a piece of rural, but near what we would think of as the liberal epicenter of North Carolina.

AS: Exactly. I think that's actually very well put, that it sort of struggles between being sort of a more liberal town and a more reactionary town and where the center is in that, just like the rest of us are trying to figure that out.

GR: Well, I have to apologize, I'm only giving you about 3 minutes to wrestle with this last big topic. But I wanted to ask you the obvious question here at the end of, are there lessons for us where we are now as a country politically, or otherwise that you think come from this event and its aftermath and the commission? I mean, what should we be thinking about in terms of where we are nationally and what you've taken a deep dive into historically and bringing it up to the present?

AS: So, two days ago I got a text from a Greensboro police officer who I talked to while I was doing this research, and he said, Aran, can you talk? I said, sure. And he called me up and he said, I'm in tears. I just finished your book, and he said, and I feel so ashamed that I bought the line, the story that Nelson Johnson was to blame for that massacre and I'm so sorry that I never got the chance to meet him. And so one of the things that I feel like I've learned over and over, and that was a powerful example of it, is that if we try to sweep these complex histories under the rug, they don't go away. You know, they fester, they continue to caused division in our society and we really need to face them and process them. And it took that guy courage not just to read the book, but then to call me up and actually tell me how he felt. And I really appreciated that courage. But one of the things that we talked about, and this is interesting, is he had been, after he left the police force, he was a private investigator for Oliver Stone on the JFK assassination movie, his JFK movie. And so this cop said, you know, I see a line from JFK to Greensboro, he said, when we don't openly discuss these traumas and tragedies, when things feel like they're hidden, we lose faith in our government. And I think, honestly, that he's on to something that without the accountability, right, of who was to blame for what happened in Greensboro, really accountable and held accountable for it, who is to blame for these different things, we end up where we are today with cynicism and a leader for whom there's no accountability or barely any accountability. We're struggling to find it and clawing that back is difficult. So I think that's something that we can take away from this.

GR: And maybe thinking of the future, perhaps some sort of variation of the way that Greensboro dealt with this is something that will be I thinking, about ten, twenty years from now, who knows.

AS: Absolutely. In 2020 in the depths of COVID, the Greensboro City Council held a Zoom meeting in which they apologized for the city's complicity in the murders that day, that the police department should have been there and they weren't. And it was a very powerful moment. And that's the kind of reckoning we need with all sorts of aspects of our history, I think.

GR: Well, we'll have to leave it there. That was Aran Shetterly and again, his new book is titled, "Morningside: The 1979 Greensboro Massacre and the Struggle for an American City's Soul". And, when you search for that book, I want you to note that Aran is spelled A R A N. Aaron is really interesting book, and thanks so much for taking the time to talk to me about it.

AS: Thank you, Grant, really enjoyed it.

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. The Democratic Party primary for Syracuse City Mayor is Tuesday, June 24th, with early voting starting on June 14th. My guest today is one of the three candidates contesting that primary, Syracuse City Deputy Mayor Sharon Owens. In addition to serving as deputy mayor in the Ben Walsh administration, Ms. Owens is also the board president of Blueprint 15, which is helping to lead the effort to redevelop the East Adams Street area following the tearing down of interstate I-81 in the city. Note that I also hope to have the other two primary candidates, Chol Majok and Pat Hogan on the program prior to the primary. But for now, Deputy Mayor Owens, welcome back to the program, it's good to see you.

Sharon Owens: Good to be here, thank you for having me.

GR: Well, thanks for making the time, I really appreciate it. So I'm going to start with just a very general question. Do you have a vision for the city of Syracuse over the next four and perhaps next eight years that you could articulate?

SO: Yes, absolutely. We, our city is entering into a moment, and my campaign is called, “Maximizing the Moment”, where we're going to see some transformational things happening for our city and in the region. But specific to the city, the I-81 project really is humming around the city, you can't move anywhere without seeing that. It’s going to be transformational for how our community looks and feels. The next job and the next mayor is going to be absolutely keeping this city moving and open for business. And so I'm prepared for that moment for our city with 81, particularly with Micron in particular, and the economic opportunity for our city. You know it's no secret in the nineties when New Process Gear, Carrier, G.E., Miller Brewery all started closing down, we had a really strong and thriving middle class, particularly for people of color, who were able to send their kids to college. And those kids came back to Syracuse, and many of them with a college degree, still worked in those factories because they were great paying jobs. And we really missed the ball when we transitioned and those jobs started leaving that there was no plan moving forward. And here comes Micron with another economic opportunity for us, a new industry for us. And I'm really proud of the work I'm doing to really prepare not only for the 81 work, but for Micron work. Our individuals and our community to be prepared to have that opportunity for that work. So the vision for our city is to absolutely keep growing. We're on a trajectory, I think we've done a great job in this administration to really work on our infrastructure. You have to have a growing city that's based on solid infrastructure. We've been doing that, whether it's roads, sidewalks, lighting, working on our water pipes and the like. What my vision is, is really to improve the human condition as we move forward with the growth of the city, because we can grow and grow and grow, but if our human condition is not keeping pace, then we're missing the mark again. And I'm just committed not to missing the mark of a moment of growth with a city that leaves people behind.

GR: I want to pick up on a couple of the things you mentioned there a little bit later in our conversation. But let me focus in on, you mentioned some accomplishments of the Walsh administration there that you are part of and I wanted to ask you some specific questions about how you would be different or similar to that, and the first one is leadership style. How would you characterize your leadership style, and in particular, do you think it would be different from Mayor Ben Walsh? Everybody is a different person, how would you characterize your leadership style?

SO: Well, I think my leadership style is based on my experience. I mean, people ask the question of what makes you different from Ben Walsh? Well, we're clearly two very different people. He's a fortysomething white man, and I'm a 61 year old black woman with the experiences that come with being a 61 year old black woman. And so my perspective on life is a little different than his and just experience. But we have the same principles, which I think is important for leadership. Leadership for me is steeped in a 40 year career of executive leadership in managing people, places and finances. And so I'm coming in with that on the ground experience of how do you, identify problems, how do you find solutions, how do you work with people, how do you collaborate? And that is my style. If I am the person in the room who thinks I have all the answers, then that room is not effective, that room is not full and I need to make sure I have other voices in that room. We have very similar styles. I have a little bit more fire in me, I think. I've learned a lot from Ben Walsh in when to release that fire and when to knock. And so I've learned a lot from him in that. His campaign was, “Rise Above”, and sometimes I'm like, Mayor, you're being a little bit too nice on this one. And so, but I have been the collaborator. We have come through a time in our community where we weren't working together and we were suffering from that. And I think through my experience with the Walsh administration, I understand that collaboration is the best way to move forward. I will continue that collaboration. I'm doing it now on a day to day basis. When I complete this conversation with you, I go back to work, and that work is about collaboration, initiative, developing, working for the city, the residents of the city of Syracuse.

GR: You know, you mentioned being a black female. And I wanted to ask you, perhaps a sensitive question about that. I was going to do it later, but I'll do it now because you brought it up. When Stephanie Miner became mayor, she was the first woman mayor of any of the big five cities in the state. And those would be New York City, Albany, Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo. When it comes to black mayors, only Albany and Syracuse have not yet had black mayors, and that's despite their large non-white populations. I have to say, I was surprised by this. And I would have thought that this is something that would have been a priority for the Democratic Party in Syracuse a little while ago. And maybe it's just that the stars haven't lined up, I don't know. But do you think that race is important in this election, sort of given the times right now, and should it be?

SO: When I talk to individuals in the community, they are excited about the prospect of Syracuse moving into a space of electing someone of color, particularly an individual, black individual, black female. Many of those folks are still smarting over the federal, the national election with Kamala Harris. I run, and I mentioned my black female, who I am, because that's who I am. And I'm proud of being black, being a female, being a mom, being a mother of a son with a disability, being just the individual who fell in love with the city and stayed here. My qualifications are my qualifications, but I stand in full pride and understanding of the significance of my being a woman and being a black woman running in this race.

GR: Okay, all right. Back to leadership styles and thinking about the Walsh administration. A couple of questions related to that. First of all, I would never expect you to throw your boss under the bus, but is there anything that stands out to you during the past eight years with Ben Walsh that you wish, with hindsight, the administration could have had a do over on?

SO: There are a couple of things. One was, I kind of, I think we're getting some momentum now on the housing authority issue, where we're looking really to be able to close on some significant progress over the summer. We have been kind of, I and others in the administration had kind of seen some concerns we had about capacity and ability for the existing staff of the housing authority to take on such a matter. Now, this is across all the housing, the reformation plan of the housing, it's a billion dollar project. None of us have done anything like this. So to bring, it would be critical to bring in all the capacity necessary to do it. And we were just not seeing that willingness to bring on the help needed to do it and thought that it was really putting the progress in jeopardy in, I think the urgency that we have seen lately from the mayor, I would have pulled that trigger a little sooner. About two years ago we saw it coming. And so there was urgency. He was very clear, been very clear from, you know, late last year into early this year. That should’ve happened probably two years ago.

GR: Okay. And then I'm thinking about your two opponents in the primary, Pat Hogan and Chol Majok. In terms both of not only leadership style, but also policy priorities. What are the most important differences between you and the two of them?

SO: I think that for me, I have been engaged throughout this city and not just, you know, focused on particular neighborhoods or particular populations, but my engagement has been in, basically because of the work that I must do right now, it's been engaged across the city. It is ironic to me that one of my opponents in particular always talks about my lack or our lack of transparency. And I think we've been the most transparent administration with dashboards and information, particularly when it came to ARPA funds. We have dashboards, how we're spending money, how we plan to spend money. This recent budget situation we've been through is clearly not transparent. So to speak about my lack of leadership and transparency I led the Reimagining Policing Initiative under the former governor. There was the executive order for reimagining policing after the murder of George Floyd. Mayor Walsh turned to me and said, Sharon, you’re going to lead that process. Now remember, all municipalities that have governance over law enforcement, DA, county, city, municipalities all around us had to engage in a plan of how they were going to move in looking at how policing happened in their communities. Mayor Walsh turned to me and said, you lead that charge. The county looked to me, the DA's office looked to me and we initiated what had to be a dozen community meetings for transparency to make sure that the community's voice was heard through that process and created a dashboard to ensure that people knew exactly what our plan was going to be. While all municipalities had to participate, quite frankly, many municipalities phoned it in. But we did not, our community would not allow us to. And when we talk about my style, it is very much focused to going into the community and hearing their voices, because that's where I come from. Boy, of the 40 years I've been working in Syracuse, 30 of them have been on the ground in neighborhoods. And that is the aspect that I bring to City Hall, I have been bringing to City Hall and will continue to do so as Mayor.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm talking with Sharon Owens. The Syracuse City Deputy Mayor is running for Mayor in her own right, and will appear on the ballot in the Democratic primary on June 24th. So, Deputy Mayor, you mentioned this recent round with the budget process before the break and I did want to ask you a question about that. The issue of the city's budget, it's become quite controversial in recent days and weeks. It's a moving target that's being determined as we speak and you and I are talking on Wednesday May 21st. I wanted to ask you a couple of questions about that and I'll try to be as brief as I can but I want to provide some background for our listeners. So just as background, and correct me if I don't have something right here, but my understanding is the Mayor proposed a roughly $348 million budget. It involved a 2.2% spending increase and a raise of 2% in the property tax rate. It also drew some money from the city's general fund. And the city's general fund is essentially its savings account to cover the remaining deficit of that budget. The general fund is estimated to be at around $120 million at the end of the fiscal year. That's compared with $50 million when Mayor Walsh first took office. I believe a lot of that money came from the support for COVID that was provided to cities from the Federal Government. But anyway, the council rejected that proposed raise in taxes and lowered the proposed budget spending by 2.4% or about $16 million. I know it's a lot more complicated than that, but is that basically correct so far?

SO: All the marks.

GR: Okay, great. So my first question for you is, how unusual is it for the city of Syracuse to dip into its general fund, sometimes it's called a rainy day fund, to cover a budget? You know, it's something that hardly ever, ever happens, is it something that periodically happens? I mean, how weird is this?

SO: No, it is unfortunately a reoccurring need of the city because of the cost to run the city versus the revenue we're able to generate. Again, Grant, the major sources of revenue for the city of Syracuse are sales tax, which we saw some increase in. But it's trending to level off and property tax. And again, you know, when you look at the whole pie of property in the city of Syracuse, 48% of those property owners actually pay taxes because as in most cities, you know, hospitals, educational institutions, which are all important economic drivers are tax exempt. And so there's always been a gap in that revenue versus the expenses to run the city. And so that is why that rainy day fund is important to be able to fill that gap. And as you mentioned, when we had come into office, there was $50 million there and through wise use of those ARPA funds and other revenue generating opportunities, it's at $120 million. And so no, that is not an unusual occurrence to dip into that fund.

GR: Okay. And do you think that the budget as proposed by the mayor, gets it about right? Do you have any big issues with it?

SO: I mean those increases that you mentioned, when we look at the increase, it was about an $8 million increase from the previous budget. I'd like your listeners to understand that many of those costs are not controlled by the taxpayers or city government. It is pension costs that are rising, it is insurance costs that are rising. So those costs that, those are costs that we do not control. There are other costs that included positions that we wanted to bring on, initiatives we wanted to bring on. For example, we've heard from our business community that our permitting process just takes too long. So we responded with outsourcing, that permitting to professional firms who can do, who have state licenses to do building reviews. And so we have about six of those, we put that money into the budget so that we can continue to outsource and get that turnaround much faster than what we can do with a couple of staff people. So we didn't arbitrarily add positions in order to just, you know, bring on positions, but it was to increase the efficiency. You know that we have started this red light with the school busses, the red light enforcement, so people are not passing school busses or school zones. But from a legal perspective, when you are identified by those cams there has to be a adjudication process to ensure that it was you, it was your car and give you an opportunity to dispute that. That takes people to do. And so while it appeared that the council was in favor of these red light initiatives to protect our students and our children, they're cutting the very mechanism by which we would be able to enforce it. And so that's kind of where we stand, you know, and in their cuts of 16 million, I heard from many people who have been in city government for a long time and a cut of that magnitude is unprecedented. I think, Grant, the thing that was most egregious to me was, yes, we had hearings, but Joe Cecile or Mike Monds, did not hear in a hearing that they were going to cut 3.5 or $2.5 million. But before you had your vote, you could have very easily picked up the phone and said we are going to cut $3.5 million. Chief Cecile, what is going to be the impact of that and how can you help us get us to that number? None of that happened, and I think that is the most egregious because our department heads in our departments are readily available for any ask, particularly of councilors, but not to get a phone call before that vote was the most troubling part of it.

GR: So, this is a tangled question but I want to try to simplify it as much as I can here. And just to see, I have some other things I want to ask you about some other issues, so maybe if you can just be really brief here.

SO: Sure.

GR: I would assume that it is not an unreasonable assumption to think that the city's budget situation is likely to get better as Micron unfolds. Would you agree with that?

SO: It is our hope that it, particularly because of sales tax, if we can generate more housing that could be taxable, yes.

GR: Okay, all right. So one last question on this, and we've got about 7 minutes left, I want to save some time for other things. But it does seem to me that there are obviously some political questions suggested by the context of this budget issue. You're the mayor's deputy, you're running for mayor, the other two Democratic candidates are both on the city council, one of them is acting as the council president. I'm trying to see a possible political angle here and the one that I can discern is that they can try to say that, hey, look, the administration wanted to raise your taxes, but we stopped that, or I stopped that. Frankly, I could see that working in a general election, I'm a little more perplexed about how it works in the Democratic primary. But do you think that what is going on is election oriented at all? And if it is, can you state in a sentence what you think the intended message is?

SO: I would hope that it's not, but I don't know how it's not politically motivated when the first public response from Pat Hogan in particular was not from him to the press as a councilor, but it was to him to the press from his political campaign. It was a press release from his political campaign. You have not seen that from me. My job is Deputy Mayor.

GR: Okay. I want to come back to the beginning of our conversation and the fact that, you know, the very tagline for your campaign is to keep, you know, what is it, keep moving forward?

SO: “Maximize the Moment.”

GR: …and maximize the moment. I've been thinking a lot about that, actually, and I wanted to ask you a question about it. It seems to me that, both the redevelopment of the East Adams area and Micron, they're both great opportunities and huge opportunities. But I've also worried about just the degree of disruption that both of them are going to bring. And it would seem to me that whoever the new mayor is, they're going to have to manage that disruption very deftly. And if you could just say a few more words about that, I would be very keen to hear them.

SO: Absolutely. I started our conversation by saying that the next mayor's, you know, one of the priorities is going to be keeping the city moving, keeping the city functioning. Because the, what's going to be happening with 81, you can see it along Erie Boulevard. Not only just what's happening with 81, but we're doing our own infrastructure work and multiple sides of the city. This is the most I think anyone in Syracuse in a long time has had to deal with, traffic detours, and it is construction. So my priority is conversations around businesses on those corridors, how people are going to get out to work, what are going to be the routes for children on busses and traveling and walking during that time. It is going to be critical for this next mayor, and I have the existing, I meet with the DOT on a regular basis. I was just on the panel with that team regarding the environmental impacts and how we can protect people as they move towards the next project, which will be Almond Street. So I'm very much in the weeds when it comes to the day to day implications of communicating to our community. Syracuse, this is all going to be worth it. Our city is going to look and feel completely different, especially for the I-81 project. And for Micron, we cannot talk about poverty seriously until we're able to get people work that increases the household incomes of the people there. Not only individuals, but all individuals in a household. That's how we address poverty.

GR: Yeah, and that was actually right leading into what will probably be my last question for you, is the Micron opportunity is huge. You mentioned these other companies, Carrier, Crucible, I don't know if you mentioned that one or not, but, you've mentioned several others. And this is bigger than all of them. And so, what would be your biggest worries about that? I know what your biggest hopes are, but what are your biggest worries? Is it that this happens and poverty keeps getting more and more isolated and concentrated in a way? I mean, what do you worry about?

SO: What I worry about is what I work the hardest against. And it is to ensure that we're preparing people in the city of Syracuse for these jobs. I have always said to individuals in the rooms that we have to demystify what the jobs actually are. You know, these big fabs are big clean rooms with, you know, and OCC is looking to train individuals right now. So it's not complicated, many of those jobs are not complicated. So how can we prepare people? My biggest fear and worry is that we cannot miss the mark on this and leave folks behind in this amazing opportunity. And it's not just Micron, it's all the residual opportunity that's going to happen too. And we have to get the transportation right to make sure we can get people to Micron and other industries that are going to be opening up in our community. And so that is critical as well. I can not not hope, I'm just a hopeful person. That's what's driven me and my whole life. But I'm also very sober about what are the challenges we have and how we have to address them. And instead of pointing my finger and complaining about the challenges, I get down and I roll my sleeves up and try to address them.

GR: Well, we'll have to leave it there. That was Deputy Mayor Sharon Owens. Once again, the Democratic Party mayoral primary in Syracuse is June 24th, and early voting starts on June 14th. Deputy Mayor Owens, I want to thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me. I really appreciate it.

SO: Thank you so much for having me. Always a pleasure.

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

Program Transcription:

Grant Reeher: Welcome to the Campbell Conversations, I'm Grant Reeher. My guest today is Eric Heinze. He's a professor of law and humanities at Queen Mary College in the University of London. And he's the author of a new book titled, “Coming Clean: The Rise of Critical Theory and the Future of the Left.” Professor Heinze, welcome to the program and congratulations on this new book.

Eric Heinze: Thank you very much, Grant, it's an absolute pleasure to be with you.

GR: Well, we're really glad you made the time. So, but before we get into some of the arguments that you make in the book, I just want to take a few minutes at the beginning to make sure that you and I and our listeners have a shared understanding of a couple of terms and I'm going to take them right from the title of your book. First of all, just briefly, what's critical theory?

EH: Yeah, you might say that critical theory is the academic or more intellectually driven branch of what would broadly count as progressive or leftist politics. Having said that, right, there's never been any such thing as a unified left, right? Or as a unified kind of theory of progressive politics. And there is never been anything like a unified critical theory. Particularly today, what we refer to today as critical theory is a loose umbrella term to encompass many different kinds of writing and thinking and discussion that have been going on now for the better part of a century.

GR: Okay. Then how would you define the left? Because I know it can mean something different in Europe, for example, than it does in the United States. So although in some ways we're looking more and more like Europe, but what how are you using the term ‘left’?

EH: Yeah. And there again, my aim with these terms, left progressive, critical theory, my aim is not to define any of them, right? And, you know, to say these thinkers count and these don't, I take a completely different approach. What interests me is, rather than generalizing about everybody, is above all, to try to identify some of the dominant strands of thought that I think have very much driven leftist politics, leftist activism and what goes on in the universities as well, right? So it's more about just kind of identifying a couple of influential themes, topics, tendencies, and really trying to unpack them and see what works with them and what doesn't.

GR: Okay, and let me throw something back at you and see if you would agree with this, then. When I hear those terms, what I normally think of, first of all, is concerns about inequality and in particular concerns about economic inequality and an effort to understand what generates it, what are the limits on political efforts to change it? And then as a kind of an addendum to that, I would say earlier leftisms were more concerned about class inequality, whereas more contemporary leftism seemed to be more concerned about ethnic or different kinds of identity inequality. Is that all fair, in your view?

EH: I think it's, yeah, it's a very important characterization, right, because again, we know that we're only talking about trends and tendencies, right? Obviously, you know, you can still find people who stick to the, you know, to the very Marxist idea that really is just about, you know, economics and class. But then, as you say, on the other extreme, we have all sorts of identity politics, which, you know, often doesn't necessarily highlight economics and then everything in between.

GR: And so, all right, so what's the central problem then that you're trying to address in this book? What do the critical theorists have to come clean on?

EH: Yeah, yeah, exactly right. If you look at what you and I have just discussed so far over the past few minutes, I think a lot of your listeners will know that, you know, simply looking for, you know, things that the left hasn't done very well or should have done differently or things that it's omitted, there's nothing new about that. And that's not really the crux of my book, right? And in particular, the crux of my book is not to start picking through this particular type of identity politics, right? And to say, well, you shouldn't talk so much about X, you should talk more about Y, it's not that at all, because I think a lot of people do this and some of the very interesting ways. That's not my project. I would define it in a somewhat different way, right? If we look at the kind of culture wars that we've witnessed in recent years, right, you have these people, critical theorists, people on the left, right? Who, in various ways insist that we need to take a very critical view of centuries of Western history. Then you have people on the far right who simply negate that by, they simply want to dismantle and destroy it, right? They want to get rid of DEI, they want to get rid of queer theory, they want to get rid of postcolonial theory, right? And so you have these two extremes, you know, which simply define each other, right, at the far ends. And what I want to do is just break out of that, you know, almost verging on a cliché of a culture war. And I tried to do it like this, one of my arguments is that probably the single most important achievement of the left over more than a century does not lie with any particular politician or set of policies, but rather lies with, first of all, fundamentally shifting what it means to think about justice and injustice, what it means to argue about them, right? In other words, the left does not always win on these questions, as we know, right? The conservative and far right forces are as strong as ever, right, and have always, you know, had their, you know, they have always been more or less strong over the past century. So it's not that the left always wins, but it's very much the left which has defined the terms of the debate, the way, the things that are considered to be important if you're talking about justice and injustice. Now, this entails a second thing, which I think is probably the most important of the left's achievements, again, as opposed to any politician or policy. Which is that leftist thought over the past hundred years or so has fundamentally redefined what history is, right? I think if you look throughout the world, go back as far as you like. Sure, you can find many of societies where from time to time it was considered important to, you know, look over past mistakes and consider how things can be done better, there's nothing new about that. What the Western Left has done over the past century or so has fundamentally redefined the very meaning of history, not as the high deeds of great men, you know, from Alexander the Great, right up through, you know, Winston Churchill or whoever your favorite is, right? But rather, history suddenly now becomes an exercise in collective self-scrutiny. History becomes a kind of duty, right, a kind of a moral duty that all of us should collectively, right, understand ways in which the West over centuries has perpetrated mass injustice, right, along the lines of capitalism, colonialism, racism, patriarchy, heteronormativity, right? And that this should be the fundamental way in which we understand our culture. This, I think, is unprecedented throughout humanity, right? And it's something I admire. Again, the far right response would be that this is where we've all gone wrong, right? That this is the downfall. And I say quite the contrary if you care about democracy, right? Democracy is best and works best precisely when we're deliberating in a serious and critically minded way about deep and structural problems and injustices, right? And so on these two points, the meaning of justice, the meaning of history, I think my book lavishes praise on the left. The problem then, is that this injunction, that understanding injustice, that understanding history has to be an exercise in collective self-scrutiny, is something that the left for decades now has constantly taught the rest of us to do, but has not been doing itself. And many people on the left are amazed or outraged or disgusted or simply laugh when they hear me say this because they genuinely think that they do this, right? They say, oh, yes, you know, of course, you know, we think about mistakes we've made and, you know, we don't support Stalin anymore and we don't support Mao anymore, right? And so they really do believe that they have been engaged in collective self-scrutiny. And so what I do in the book is I say that this notion of collective self-scrutiny or what I call memory politics, unfolds in two steps, right? The first is, you know, kind of hashing out some sort of agreement on a historical record and even that can be very controversial, right? But what characterizes leftism and what characterizes critical theory is the second step, which is that these histories cannot simply remain locked in textbooks and lecture halls. They need to be disseminated to the broadest possible public through film, through documentaries, through television, through radio, through cultural events, through museum exhibitions, through training programs. Again, I don’t, unlike the far right, I don't attack any of that, I support it, I say keep doing it. But it is that step two, that we have never seen from the left when it scrutinizes its own history, right? So all of the rest of us have to go from step one to step two, but when the left is looking at its own history and all stops at step one. It says, yes of course, you know, Stalin, terrible, Mao, terrible, Pol Pot, terrible, but where are the training programs? Where are the films, the documentaries made by the left, right? In order to show us what collective self-scrutiny is, instead of just telling the rest of us to do it with whatever our political commitments may be. This, in my opinion, has been the number one problem of leftist politics. It's not you know, that Kamala Harris forgot to say A or B, right? It's not that at all, right, it's far deeper. It's far more fundamental and it goes back much further in time.

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm talking with Eric Heinze. He's a law professor at Queen Mary College at the University of London and the author of a new book titled, “Coming Clean: The Rise of Critical Theory and the Future of the Left”. And we've been discussing the work and the issues that it raises. Eric, I want to dive a little more deeply into some of the things that you were saying. One of the things was this issue, and it reminded me, as you were talking and also when I was looking at your book, I was reminded of this. This issue surrounding the former Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn regarding anti-Semitism in the Labor Party and the way that the Labor Party reacted to those charges, or those concerns. And there were some things that were brought to light and made public about conversations that folks were having that concerned some people. And one of the things that struck me is anti-Semitism used to be associated with the right. Lately, it seems to be, have become more of a problem for the left. Certainly, in the United States, it was a problem for the Democrats in 2024. So I'm just curious to get your thoughts about is that kind of, does that illustrate what you're talking about there, in some ways?

EH: Yeah, in a number of ways. One of the things I try to show in the book when I examine this problem of leftist anti-Semitism in Britain, is to show that even people on the left who claimed, and I think their intentions were good, I think their heart was in the right place, right, people who claimed to care about this problem of anti-Semitism and wanted to kind of dig into it, come clean about it, right? In the book, I note one journalist in particular just because I thought this was so symptomatic of the problem, namely that this particular journalist, a young but very prominent Guardian journalist by the name of Owen Jones. Now, a very strong supporter of Jeremy Corbyn, a very stern critic of Israel, therefore, you know, nobody could accuse me of, you know, of sources that were maybe too sympathetic to Israel. I don't think anybody criticizes Israel more than Owen Jones, you know, pretty much on a minute-to-minute basis if you look at his Twitter feed. And so I said, okay, then I'll look at his account, you know, because he's certainly not going to make up stories of anti-Semitism. And indeed, I checked all the stories that he reported. And so on the one hand, a harsh critic of Israel, but on the other hand, someone who did want to, as I say, come clean about anti-Semitism. And here's the problem, right, so in many ways, I praise him because at least he went much further than many. Many just wanted to hush it, to deny it, say it's all a plot by Mossad and so forth. So Owen Jones, on the one hand, a harsh critic of Israel, nevertheless, at least, you know, was upfront, right, that there have been many incidents in a short period of time that we need to reckon with this. But then the question is, well, how does he reckon with it, right? Again, better than most and yet there are still real problems, right? So if you look at Owen Jones’ other writing on things like racism, poverty, LGBTQ people, women and so forth, he very commonly characterizes these problems as, and often literally uses the words: systemic, structural. And even if he's not using those words, it's clear that this is how he's analyzing these problems, whether, again, he's been doing this for years and I cite several examples and you can find many more, he writes a lot, right? And so these problems are always systemic, structural, built into the very fabric of how Western society or certainly British society has been operating for a long time. Then all of a sudden he said, okay, now we're going to take leftist anti-Semitism seriously. But he never analyzes that as systemic or structural on the left. All of a sudden, it's just a bunch of mistakes and what's incredible is that he himself recites case after case after case, again, in a very short period of time, right? And yet each time he then explains it as, oh, it was a mistake and, you know, Corbyn really should have reacted a bit sooner or should have used different words or, you know, should have told such and such an adviser, right? It all just becomes, you know, a bit of, you know, sort of juggling the chairs on the, you know, on the deck of the Titanic, right? In no way does he either use the word or more importantly, use the concept of structural or systemic injustice.

GR: Or something that's baked in in a particular way because of the history and because of the struggle.

EH: Yeah, it's all the big oops, it's all just a big banana peel. And the reason I go into this is because, again, this we get this too much from the left and forgetting about the anti-Semitism, right? You know, oh, you know, the USSR, oh, well, that wasn't real socialism, as if it wasn't just a big mistake, right? You know, Mao, well, that wasn't the real socialism, right? And you know, no, right, if they are right, that structural injustices are, as you say, embedded, built into the very fabric of what Western society has been for centuries, then how is it that many of the leftist own commitments so easily come free of that past? Either we're all embedded in our past, or we can all just wipe our hands and walk away from it. But the idea that the left is constantly wiping its hands and walking away from it, right, while the rest of us have to keep rehearsing, almost ritually rehearsing it, it just doesn't make any sense.

GR: Well, let me… Yeah. Go ahead. Finish your point, I want to ask you a question.

EH: Just to give a very quick example of that, right, in case some people, you know, think again that I'm being unfair. You know, just look at a university campuses, right? We’ll have things like, you know, Women's History Month and Gay History Month, LGBTQ History Month and backwards, and that's good. Again, I don't want to dismantle that, keep it, right? Give me one example of, I don't know, Socialist History Month. And again, I don't mean done by the far right. I mean done by leftists and done in the same way. Yes, this is also an example of how liberationist and egalitarian and indeed socialist discourses were massively abused not to create that kind of society, but in fact to create just the opposite, which is precisely the critique of Western liberal democracy. I don't think you could name maybe one campus, and that's a problem.

GR: Yeah. Well, if you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and my guest is the law professor Eric Heinze. You know, you're saying all these things, and I'm constantly thinking of George Orwell, you know, as someone who was willing to do that. I mean, if you read “Homage to Catalonia,” he's willing to do it, you suggest, and certainly “1984” goes in that direction too. I don't want to take up the whole rest of the time with this, but I have a quick story I want to relate to you to get your reaction to it. So I'm going to put you maybe in the role of psychotherapist here for a minute, you can send me your bill when we're done. But I was in a, several years, few years ago, a DEI training at my school, and it was being led by a gentleman whose name I won't use, but we got into it. And the idea of this conversation, it was on Zoom, was that it was about, I don't know, 50-60 people, and it had professors at all different ranks. And, you know how the system works. So I was a full professor, there were full professors there. There were associate professors who are ultimately wanting to be full professors and there are assistant professors who are scared that they won't be tenured, right? And so, all right. So we're going to have a conversation about identity and race and inclusion and all of this and at the beginning of this, I brought up what I perceived to be a problem is how, because it was billed as an honest conversation, no judgment, honest conversation, I said, how can we have an honest conversation given the gross inequalities of power that exist here on this Zoom call? You've got assistant professors, you know, supposedly discussing these things with the people that are going to decide whether they're going to stay or get fired. How’s that going to be an honest, open conversation? Well, immediately I got turned into by the leaders of this as sort of the bad white guy in all of this. Like somehow this point that I was bringing up as a challenge to what we were doing had something to do with my race and my gender, maybe my age too, I don't know. But it was, it just seemed strange, was like, hey, I'm the one talking about let's think critically about the power relations that are in this room. And the reaction was sort of, oh, no, this can't possibly be the case here. And it reminds me very much of what you're talking about.

EH: Yeah and it's tragic. In fact, getting back to your reference to someone like Orwell, I mean, one of the points I tried to make in the book is that, again, the problem is not so much with what I call step one of memory politics. You can find many important thinkers throughout the history of the left who were willing to call out abuses, that's not the problem. And again, many people reject what I say because they think that I don't know this, right and they think that I just want to rehash all the terrible things that Stalin did, right? But the problem again is, where is step two? And I think the story that you just told also illustrates that. It's this kind of, oh, but we don't need to do this.

GR: Right.

EH: Because if they thought they didn't need to do it, they would do it, right? Again, if it's not so hard to put on, as I said, you know, Women's History Month, LGBTQ History Month, Black History (month), whatever, right, why is it so hard to do the self-criticism that they insist that all the rest of us have to do? As I say in my book, don't tell us, show us.

GR: Yeah.

EH: If collective self-scrutiny is the way to do history for those who care about justice.

GR: So what is then, we’ve got about 4 minutes left and I've got sort of two questions I think will completely occupy us here. But you've given me a sense of what the prescription is, you know, how does the left get out of this trap? And it's don't tell us, show us, engage in this kind of thing. Is there anything that you might add to that as your recommendation for how we go forward?

EH: Yeah. I mean, again, I don't think it's hard to do. I think that critical theorists and leftist thinkers, they've always had the tools, yeah? And so let's just take a quick example before we wrap up, right? You know, again, a lot of critical theory has been about looking at some of the foundational norms of Western liberal democracy, individual freedom, civic equality, economic opportunity and showing how law and politics in society were actually structured to use these as just defying ideologies to entrench the opposite, to entrench unfreedom for the people at the bottom, inequality, lack of opportunity. Again, that's good, this is the genius of critical theory, keep doing it. But what about doing that same analysis with, again, the leftist discourses of liberation and egalitarianism and indeed socialism that again, much of the left was at the very least lending legitimacy to and often zealously supporting for more than a hundred years, right? If it's not hard to do it with liberal democracy, then it's not hard to do it with many of the regimes that the left has also, again, at least lent legitimacy to over the past hundred years. So the tools are there, it's only a question of will. Are we willing to subject ourselves to the same scrutiny that we insist that everybody else needs to undertake?

GR: So, final question on that point. You mentioned the word regimes, so, you know, the Academy is one of these regimes, obviously. And so what I wanted to ask you about, I wanted to take this back to the United States and make it very current, and that is do you think then the problems that you're describing here, do they give President Trump and American Republicans, more generally, enough of a kernel of truth when they go after higher education on the grounds of viewpoint diversity, ideological intolerance and so on? I mean, you know, they're going way over the top, one might argue, and how they're reacting to this and we would be, you know, right to point that out. But at the same time, does the academy and does the left by extension, not do itself a great disservice by not at least acknowledging that the kernel of truth there, before they make that critique? And only in a minute I'm giving you for this, I'm sorry.

EH: Yeah. And that kernel of truth will only seriously be acknowledged when its roots, its causes are acknowledged. And I don't think the left has really understood them, right? And this is why, again, you know, people think that I just want to rehash again the history of Stalin and Battle and all the rest. No, it's not about that at all. My book, it's not about history, it's about memory. They're not the same thing, right? I'm not reproaching the left for denying facts of history, I'm reproaching them for the ways in which they do memory politics, the very one-sided and self-contradictory ways in which they do it.

GR: Well, we'll have to leave it there. It's a fascinating book, and this has been a fascinating discussion. Again, you can send me your bill for the therapy, but that was Erik Heinze. And again, his new book is titled, “Coming Clean: The Rise of Critical Theory and the Future of the Left.” Very, very provocative, very interesting book. Professor Heinze, thanks so much for taking the time to talk to me. I really, really enjoyed this.

EH: Thank you, Grant. It was an absolute pleasure for me.

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. As expertise and the exhortation to ‘follow the science’ become politically weaponized, my guest today is Dennis Patterson. He's a Law Professor at Rutgers University and he's also a Law and Legal Philosophy Professor at Surrey Law School in Britain. Together with Rutgers Law School Professor Jacob Hale Russell, he's written a new book. It's titled, "The Weaponization of Expertise: How Elites Fuel Populism." Professor Patterson, welcome to the program and congratulations on the new book.

Dennis Patterson: Well, thank you so much for having me, I appreciate your time.

GR: Well, we appreciate you making the time. So let me just start with a little introduction for you and our listeners about why this book caught my eye, a couple of reasons. First of all, it taps into a set of concerns I've had about elites in the academy in recent years and also, as it happens, I've just finished teaching a course on democratic theory, that's democratic with a small ‘d’. And one of the issues that we discussed was the role of expertise, just how far it can and should take a society in making political decisions and what kinds of decisions we ought to be willing to cede to these subject area experts versus weighing the value trade-offs for ourselves. So I'm very, very keen on what you have to say here. We'll get into the details of your book as we work our way through the issue but I want to briefly, just to start out, just ask you a very basic question. What prompted you and your colleague to write this book when you did?

DP: Well, Jacob and I have had written and had written four articles during the pandemic. We started off shortly after the first wave of COVID with an article in an online publication called Stat News. And the thesis of that article was stop blaming the ordinary American for failing to follow the rules, because, and take the virus seriously, because, in fact, they are and they are doing what they're told. And so if there are problems, the problems lie elsewhere. We then went on to write a couple of more articles. The one that got the most attention was a piece called, “The Mask Debacle”, and that was about three years ago. And our basic thesis there was that the pandemic had, the management of the pandemic had evolved into basically political theater. And the whole idea that anyone was, quote, “following the science” or any science struck us as implausible. Because if you looked at blue states and red states, the regulations that they had were largely political, not driven by any kind of scientific metric. You see, our fundamental focus is not on who got things right or wrong in the pandemic, everybody makes mistakes, it's the way we talk about this. And our thesis has always been that the elites, the technocratic elites who manage the economy and culture, are basically engendering the populism that they claim to decry. And I would go so far as to point to the reelection of Donald Trump as an example of that. Neither one of us is a Trump supporter by any means, but, you know, it's just, you cannot denigrate people day in and day out, tell them their opinion is worthless, that their values and aspirations don't count for anything, and then expect them to just fall into line. That's not going to happen, it didn't happen. And unless things change, it'll just keep occurring. Anyway, that's how we got into it.

GR: Yeah, certainly not a good way to appeal to voters. So we'll work our way through some of these and I particularly want to investigate, probably in the later half of our conversation, about how what actually fuels the populism. But let me break it down first in terms of what's going on with this notion of expertise and experts. You write about an age of what, very provocative phrase, an age of mindless expertise, just say a little bit about that.

DP: Oh, well, we have a passage in the book where we recount the number of times the word expertise appears in the pages of the New York Times. And until about five years ago, it was just like every other word, and then it just explodes. And now we have experts for, you know, everything from drugs to picking a spouse to buying a car, what books to read to your children. I mean, it's just, we really do valorize expertise and we're in some ways that are obvious and important, like science and health and ways that are, you know, absurd, like the best birthday cake for a two year old and things like that.

GR: (laughter) I missed that one. So do you think that when it comes to that phenomenon, proliferation of notion of expertise, that we're living in an age that's different from the past? When I was thinking of the time about 120 years ago or so where there was a real revolution in this notion of professionalism, everything became more professionalized and self-styled professionalism. Do you think something's going on that's unique to our age right now?

DP: I do, I do. And I think it's basically this, but it's also very cultural and it's not across the board. I think that people like us who are, you know, credentialed, educated, tend to believe that the only thing that really matters in any discussion of policy for example, our facts. And if we just get the facts right, everything else will just sort of take care of itself. And one of the messages of our book is, is that, this just ain't so. You can you can have lots of facts but the question remains what to do with them. But we have, I mean if you look at just, you know, popular culture, like, I don't know, Malcolm Gladwell and then somebody more sophisticated like Dan Kahneman, there's all this emphasis on the cognitive and understanding the world and it's basically empirical. And we love to, and Americans love a clean, neat scientific solution to everything, it's cultural. And of course, science is absolutely fantastic at providing solutions. But one of the things that the pandemic did was it really raised the question just how far can we go in making decisions about how to live with just facts? And the answer was, not too far. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say the general public's trust in the public health complex is at an all-time low. Now, if that's true, and I see this all the time, that's the claim, the question is why? What happened during the pandemic to make things that bad?

GR: You're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and I'm speaking with Law and Legal Philosophy Professor Dennis Patterson, and we're discussing his new book. It's titled, "The Weaponization of Expertise: How Elites Fuel Populism". I want to pick up on exactly that last point that you made there, because, and I suppose that you and I, as you just said, you know, we're credentialed, we might qualify as elites in our society this way. There's this sense I think that the elites, by and large in our society tend to think, and maybe I'm going too much by what I'm hearing from my colleagues, but tend to think that we are living in an age where expertise and factual knowledge are just being discounted and dismissed out of hand.

DP: Yeah.

GR: And it also seems to be the case that for these elites, that that discounting is also linked to democratic backsliding in their minds. That there's almost a causal relationship there. So it sounds like you would agree with that premise that the expertise and factual knowledge are being discounted and dismissed, is that correct?

DP: No, I don't think it's correct at all.

GR: Oh, okay, explain that then.

DP: So one of the themes of the constellation of issues that you mention is that we allegedly live in a post-truth environment where, you know, everybody has alternate facts. You believe, you have your truths and I have mine and so the idea of an objective reality around which we can coalesce is an illusion. Now, there's plenty of social, this topic is a bit controversial, but there's a lot of social science data to support the proposition that we don't live in a post-truth environment. And in fact, for example, the internet is constantly blamed as, internet and social media are blamed as the means by which people acquire beliefs that are false. And then they lead to, you know, the undermining of democracy et cetera, et cetera. In fact, a lot of empirical evidence points to the proposition that social media does nothing worse than reinforce what people already believe. And so if they are getting misinformation, it's coming from another place. And I also want to point out, as Marty Makary made this point during his confirmation hearing, the government was the primary source of misinformation during the pandemic. The need to close schools, social distancing, closing down the economy, masks. All of the non-pharmacological intervention that the government pushed were ineffective. This is a fact. And yet everybody was told you had to wear a mask, your kids had to stay home, it was it was just all wrong. So, so much for expertise, facts and the truth. Now, are there vaccine deniers? Of course, of course. There are flat earth people, and there are all kinds of people who believe things that are just obviously false. But it's not the vast majority of people out in the public domain. Most people believe things that are, by and large, true. They try to follow the rules as best they can, but they also question, sometimes rightly, the dictates and the mandates of government. And I think that's going to happen more and more. Now, the way the pandemic was managed, the way it was talked about, the derision that was delivered to people who deigned to question what the government was doing, this has all backfired now. And so you want to know why we have more populism? This is in part the answer, because, you know, one of the ways I characterize our book is and I'll speak just for myself here, we're basically diagnosing a pathology, a one that you and I are very familiar with from the faculty lounge. And that is, you know, condescension, right? If you don't have the credentials that we have, you're not worth talking to, right? Second, technocratic paternalism. The idea that facts determine everything. And if you would just shut up and follow what we tell you to do, you'd be fine. And finally, intellectual tyranny, that any dissent is going to be suppressed. I mean, look at the attack on the Great Barrington people, Fauci and Collins trying to tank them, you know, with articles and such. The Biden administration’s suppression of people on Twitter and Facebook. I mean, this stuff just can't go on. And again, it turns out these people were by and large, correct. They certainly weren't wrong, right? I mean, the Great Barrington people, they were on to something, focused protection was just as plausible. And of course, my favorite example, right, where did the virus come from, a wet market or a lab, right? Remember when Trump suggested it came from a lab? Everybody said he was a racist. I never understood why it was racist, like, why a wet market is less racist in a lab, but okay. But that aside, right? And now it is at least plausible, if not more, that the virus came from a lab. In fact, it might have been a lab, you know, that received funding from the United States government. So maybe, you know, we don't know the facts about that yet. But the point is, is that we can't even talk about a thesis like that without it being completely politically polarized.

GR: You’re listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher, and I'm talking with Dennis Patterson. He's a Law Professor at Rutgers University, also a Law and Legal Philosophy Professor at Surrey Law School in Britain. And he's the author of a new book titled, "The Weaponization of Expertise: How Elites Fuel Populism” and we've been discussing the book. I want to come back to something that you mentioned, this idea that, you know, the facts drive everything. And not only that, but if you question them in any kind of way, among these, within these elite cultures, the academy being one, that you are immediately kind of dismissed, and also that the conversation becomes very polarized. This is something that I have experienced and I've talked to other guests about and I wanted to get your thoughts about it. It seems to me that there is this blending of partisanship, political polarization, and this sense of science and ways that you've been discussing it in this strange way that very immediately in any kind of conversation that's about policy, things do get put in these polarized camps. And not only if you have a, what would normally be a legitimate question to ask, if you even ask that question, one of the moves that gets made is, if you're in the academy, you're put into a Republican camp and immediately suspect, you know, even questions something to even ask probing follow up. Is that something that you're getting at here in this?

DP: Well, we're not only getting at it, but we're getting it. We had we had colleagues who read some or all of our book.

GR: Yeah. I wanted to ask you about your reaction you're getting from your colleagues, so go ahead. I’m glad you bring it up.

DP: I mean, some people said you guys sound like you're Trump supporters. Which, my reaction was like, the book is written in English, what do you mean? Like, you know, how can you possibly say that after… And the answer is because you deigned to question the mantle of authority. So, for example, to give you a very, very concrete example of life during the pandemic. So Rutgers had a policy where everybody in a classroom had to wear a mask. And this went on for, I think, it went on for two years. In the last semester the edict was, and this was after like Penn and lots of other local schools had abandoned masks, Rutgers kept it. And there was one guy who would send out the emails say(ing), you have to, wearing a mask as mandatory. And I said to him, I wrote him an email and I said, let me get this straight. The students sleep together, eat together, recreate together, they only have to wear a mask when they come to the classroom, what science supports that? Never got an answer. And it turned out that there were some people in the AAUP, the union, my age, your age, right, who wanted all the students to wear masks because they were worried about getting a virus. Now, of course, all the teacher had to do was wearing N-95 properly, and they would have been fine. But this is the kind of problem that I experienced because I could never get an answer to this question. And then I would ask my colleagues, why do you think this book has a Trumpian tilt to it? Well, because you're criticizing the government's handling of COVID. And I said yeah, but I mean, you know, first of all, everybody in Sweden was supposed to be dead by the end of the week and it turns out their death rate was no worse than any other Scandinavian country, please explain. I mean, they just, it's a kind of a mindset that if you just, look, I've been an academic for 35 years. When I started out, you could question anything, you could demand an explanation of anything. Now, if you raise a question about the plausibility of a fair number of policies, you are ostracized.

GR: Right.

DP: That is a real phenomenon. It's not just you know, what fire and other people are reporting. I mean, I can tell you from the front lines, people don't want to raise questions. Now, when you're my age and my seniority, you don't care.

GR: (laughter)

DP: I mean, I couldn't care less what you think. I mean, what's the Dean going to do, fire me for asking a question? No, you know, none of that's going to happen. But it's not as interesting because, you know, there's only sort of one point of view. And for the younger people, they don't want to say a word because they're afraid of saying the wrong thing.

GR: Well, that's a whole ‘nother can of worms. I will say that I had a day in my class this semester, and the students brought it up, where there was a very honest conversation about the concerns that they had about, in a sense, falling out of line with some of the other classes that they were taking.

DP: Well, you know what's interesting about that topic...

GR: Well, I'll just say some of the stories were for me, they were hair raising. They were worse than I thought.

DP: But tell me why. You know, because in my, I just finished teaching populism again. The students report that they're worried about other students commenting on them. Is that your experience?

GR: No, these students were worried about their grades and the faculty. And my experience at Syracuse, every place is different, is that the students aren't that bad with each other. Now, is a there is a subset, right, who's very vocal and very doctrinaire. But for the most part, the students are pretty open and pretty eclectic and tolerant. It's, their report is concerns about the faculty. And this is particularly since this most recent election. You know, I'm a political scientist, I think about this a little differently. And I don't want to take too much of the time that people want to hear from you. But in the dynamic that you're talking about, one of the things that seems to me that's going on is, let me make a specific example with Fauci, for example. I think the mindset is, Trump is criticizing Fauci, therefore, I cannot criticize Fauci.

DP: Right.

GR: That's the driver. And that's where I think, like, I would put the partisan piece up front. Let me ask you this question. And if, by the way, I should say to my listeners, if you've just joined us, you're listening to the Campbell Conversations on WRVO Public Media. I'm Grant Reeher and my guest is the Law and Legal Philosophy Professor Dennis Patterson and we're discussing his new book, “The Weaponization of Expertise…”. I've got a few writers on the program that have written in a similar vein to you. They're not making your specific argument, but they're concerned about different aspects about academic and intellectual culture, thinking and political assumptions. Musa al-Gharbi is one of them I've spoken with, wrote the book, “We've Never Been Woke”. I get the sense that there is now a growing recognition of this as a problem that includes your arguments among a group of elites that cut across different political ideologies. Like you say, you're not a Trump supporter, and it's growing. Is your sense that even though there is this backlash, there's starting to be some wind in the sails of folks that are questioning this?

DP: Couple of puffs, a couple of gusts of wind, but I'm not I'm not sure that things are going to change that much that quickly. One thing that I think has gotten better is the, it has gotten better on the left, and that is the cancel culture atmosphere. But now Trump is filling that void trying to do the whole thing from the right. And so net / net, things are pretty much where they’ve been. But I don't think any conservative on an American campus is suppressing the speech of their more left wing colleagues. But certainly the opposite has been true for decades. You couldn't criticize anything without being ostracized. And so I do think that there is, that in a sense, and I just sense this in the faculty lounge, that people are now of a view that we just, there is nothing about which everyone agrees. And so we have to hear the dissenting voices. Now, I think it'll be a cold day in hell, at least at Rutgers, before there's a space made for somebody who questions some of the more fundamental aspects of our institutional ideology, but hope springs eternal.

GR: Do you think that a more productive conversation about the problems that you are identifying here can happen once Trump departs the White House after that particular polarizing figure goes away? That maybe the conversation in the faculty lounge and elsewhere can begin to go forward?

DP: I would say no, but, and I'm not a pessimist by disposition. I mean, I may have Irish heritage, but I'm not melancholic at all. But I'm a realist and, look, I mean, people just, I'm at a law school that takes social justice as its number one institutional commitment, that's not going to go away quickly. I'm more interested in producing students who can pass the bar and be successful lawyers. That's my number one priority. So can we talk about it? Sure, we do talk about it now. I think people are polite, but, you know, I don't think much is going to change.

GR: Well, let me jump in if I can, just because we only have about half a minute left or so. I can't leave the conversation on this. Do you see a way out then? I mean, your final chapter is giving political judgment a chance. What do you mean there? In 30 seconds, get us out of this morass.

DP: Well, it starts with it starts with the recognition that your interlocutor is not someone who proceeds in bad faith, that in fact, people have different views of the world. It's like the old, you know, the old liberal political ideal that my conception of the good is something that I get to decide, not you, not the state. And so people have different competing conceptions of the good. If you cannot proceed in a respectful conversation where you take the other person seriously, you let to make their argument, you don't make ad hominem arguments about them, that's the sort of thing that I think we need to do. And I think in some ways that aspect is getting a bit is getting a bit better. Because Trump is such a polarizing figure, that no one really wants to be associated with that temperament. And it's all about temperament. If you evince disdain for people, no conversation as possible. So just at that very basic level, respect for your interlocutor is a great place to start.

GR: Well, we'll have to leave it there. That was Dennis Patterson and again, his new book, written with Jacob Hale Russell is titled, "The Weaponization of Expertise: How Elites Fuel Populism." Professor Patterson, thanks so much again for taking the time to talk with me and really appreciate you writing this book.

DP: Thanks.

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

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