Can We Talk About It? with Debi Ghate

As protests raged across the country in 2020 following the killing of George Floyd, radicals clad in black clothes and face masks emerged on the scene to stoke the chaos and incite violence; foot soldiers for a shadowy network known as Antifa. While its roots stretch back to World War II Nazi Germany, much public confusion remains today regarding Antifa’s philosophy and intentions. Join Kyle Shideler, a senior analyst for the Center for Security Policy, and CWTAI host Debi Ghate, for a fascinating discussion about the origins of Antifa and its plot to establish a global communist state through anarchy, violence, racial division and the elimination of mainstream politics in America and elsewhere.

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The raging debate over racism and social justice is highly complex and there are no easy answers, “but if we’re not permitted to have a robust conversation about them, we will not fashion good social policy,” said David Bernstein, founder of the Jewish Institute for Liberal Values, on the most recent episode of “Can We Talk About It?” Bernstein joined host Debi Ghate to give his perspective on the race debate and discuss the consequences of dividing society into oppressor and oppressed, the relationship between discouraging conversation and polarization and his campaign to get back to Martin Luther King’s vision of a colorblind society.

Recorded in front of a live audience at Philanthropy Roundtable’s annual meeting in Colorado Springs, this episode of "Can We Talk About It?" features businessman and self-described “independent thinker” U.S. Congressman Byron Donalds Representative for Florida's 19th congressional district. Donalds talks with host Debi Ghate about how he rose from poverty to prosperity, why Congress is so polarized, what rapper Monebagg Yo can teach us about political decision-making and what critical race theorists get wrong about American history.

How do we end America’s new fascination with the failed and dangerous ideologies of communism and socialism, especially among our nation’s young people? For Wes Kemp, it’s all about education. Kemp became a passionate advocate for capitalism as he rose from the loading docks of a major trucking company to become its CEO. Now he teaches the “logistics of capitalism” to aspiring business leaders. Join Host Debi Ghate as she talks with Kemp about his fight to dispel the myths about capitalism while extolling its virtues.

Before nine Black students took their first steps inside Little Rock Central High School in 1957, testing the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education ruling for the first time, the most important educational institutions for Black students in the South were the 4,977 Rosenwald Schools co-founded by philanthropist Julius Rosenwald. According to Robert Stanton, the vice board chair of the Julius Rosenwald National Park Campaign, these Rosenwald schools should be memorialized as national historic sites, just like Little Rock Central High School, so no one can forget their importance. This week, Stanton, who also served as head of the National Park Service, joins Debi Ghate for a conversation about his childhood in segregated Texas, his career in the National Park Service and the courageous parents who pushed for desegregated schools and educational excellence for their children.

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Threatened by a group of men outside a comedy club, Erik Weyant fired two shots in the air from his legal handgun to scare them off. No one was harmed, but Weyant was arrested for aggravated assault and given a choice. He could accept a plea bargain for three years in prison or fight the charges and risk Florida’s mandatory 20-year sentence. Weyant lost in court, but he kept fighting from prison and ultimately won his freedom. Hear his incredible story and what it tells us about the need for criminal justice reform.

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Links of interest:
“The Vanishing Trial” focuses on four individuals who were forced to make that excruciating choice.

Do prosecutors hold too much power in our criminal justice system? Is their job like the job shown on “Law and Order”? In this episode, Alissa Marque Heydari, deputy director of the Institute for Innovation in Prosecution, joins host Debi Ghate to share her experience as a line prosecutor and her vision of the criminal justice system. They’ll discuss the range of decisions made by prosecutors in a system that relies so heavily on plea deals, plus the shift from incentives based on conviction rates and plea deals to a broader range of sentencing options outside of prison.

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Watch any late-night comedy show, and one state receives the brunt of the jokes more than the rest: West Virginia. For many people, the state is synonymous with rural economic disadvantage, and unfavorable media coverage to this end dates back more than a century to the Hatfield-McCoy feud. This week, Cardinal Institute Executive Director Garrett Ballengee joins host Debi Ghate to discuss the misconceptions Americans have about West Virginia. They'll explore the successes and opportunities in West Virginia, as well as the Cardinal Institute's work to reduce restrictions to opportunities for West Virginians and to shift conceptions of the state.

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In the flood of information on social media, both opinions and statements of fact are shared freely, accurate and inaccurate alike. When a false statement of fact about an individual damages his reputation, however, it could qualify as libel. This week, UCLA law professor Eugene Volokh, founder of the Volokh Conspiracy blog, joins host Debi Ghate to discuss what qualifies as libel, both civilly and criminally, the state of free speech in the university, and the ethical and moral considerations of public discourse within legal limits.

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When students and alumni raised concerns with the Rye City School District (NY) about their treatment as students of color, the school district responded by launching a task force, involving an organization that affirmed race-based programming to "settle the debts we owe for our overdue national sins." In this week's episode Julie Killian, mother of five children, former elected official and active member of her community, joins Debi Ghate to discuss the petition to remove the organization from the project and to create a task force committed to fighting bigotry rather than encouraging it, as well as the realities of inclusion in secondary schools for students of all skin colors.

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