WEBVTT 1 00:00:02.160 --> 00:00:05.839 Meaning a live man like this man letting butterfly flapping 2 00:00:05.879 --> 00:00:07.960 and wing dig down in the forest. Man, it gonna 3 00:00:07.960 --> 00:00:11.320 cause a tree fall, letting five thousand miles away. Man, 4 00:00:11.560 --> 00:00:12.160 nobody seen it. 5 00:00:12.240 --> 00:00:17.679 Nobody else might see. 6 00:00:18.000 --> 00:00:20.480 You don't need to know many. 7 00:00:19.839 --> 00:00:22.039 Luck you followed the other story and. 8 00:00:22.120 --> 00:00:25.480 You got directed like that. That's wain man. Don't blackly 9 00:00:25.559 --> 00:00:28.280 dang on the panel man, no matter. Man. 10 00:00:36.119 --> 00:00:38.679 All right, George Bagby, Welcome back to the Jay Burton Show. 11 00:00:38.679 --> 00:00:39.200 How are you doing. 12 00:00:39.960 --> 00:00:42.719 I'm doing great. It's good to be back. Thanks for 13 00:00:42.759 --> 00:00:43.200 having me. 14 00:00:44.359 --> 00:00:48.159 Yeah, I'm very excited to have you back. Uh. As 15 00:00:48.159 --> 00:00:51.280 we were discussing off air, this episode is sort of 16 00:00:51.320 --> 00:00:54.079 a you know, a continuation or a you know, further 17 00:00:54.560 --> 00:00:58.039 exploration of what we spoke about last time now several 18 00:00:58.039 --> 00:01:01.079 months ago. But I assume everyone is familiar with you. 19 00:01:01.240 --> 00:01:05.000 Obviously will allow time for filling at the end, but 20 00:01:05.640 --> 00:01:07.239 would you like to introduce our topic for today? 21 00:01:08.159 --> 00:01:16.280 Indeed, yes, we talked previously about controversies in classical schools 22 00:01:16.640 --> 00:01:21.959 and some of the priorities there that I found myself 23 00:01:22.079 --> 00:01:26.680 in conflict with. Initially, it was a great surprise to me. 24 00:01:28.879 --> 00:01:35.480 The Lady Gaga episode, the controversies about sexual ethics, which 25 00:01:36.280 --> 00:01:39.760 I didn't think was necessary to go very far into. 26 00:01:39.959 --> 00:01:42.760 I thought that I had I thought I had the 27 00:01:42.879 --> 00:01:46.359 parents on my side. Certainly it turned out I didn't, 28 00:01:47.359 --> 00:01:52.400 and there was more of a There was more of 29 00:01:52.560 --> 00:01:58.280 an element there of wanting to be respectable and not 30 00:01:58.719 --> 00:02:02.079 saying controversial things that would get you in trouble with 31 00:02:02.159 --> 00:02:07.239 the left that I didn't appreciate at that time. I 32 00:02:07.280 --> 00:02:10.599 thought that we were pushing back against the modern world 33 00:02:11.199 --> 00:02:16.039 in modest and vague ways. I wasn't there to throw 34 00:02:16.159 --> 00:02:20.479 bombs or anything. I wasn't trying to stoke any controversy. 35 00:02:20.639 --> 00:02:26.639 I was paying lip service to basic sexual morality. In 36 00:02:26.680 --> 00:02:32.280 the context of teaching Dante, one of the things I 37 00:02:32.319 --> 00:02:37.599 did was I explained the image in Dante of the 38 00:02:37.639 --> 00:02:46.400 barren sand where the usurers and sodomites were marching around 39 00:02:46.599 --> 00:02:53.120 tilling barren earth forever in hell, and that this was 40 00:02:53.120 --> 00:02:57.840 a kind of fraud. And I was explaining the images, 41 00:02:58.400 --> 00:03:04.319 so the image of usurers, they're making something infertile into 42 00:03:04.360 --> 00:03:10.120 something fertile. They're turning money which does not naturally reproduce 43 00:03:10.840 --> 00:03:18.120 like animals and agricultural crops naturally reproduce because of their nature. 44 00:03:18.479 --> 00:03:23.879 They're turning money into something fruitful, and so they're punished 45 00:03:24.360 --> 00:03:28.479 in the barren sand that does not bring forth any fruit. 46 00:03:29.759 --> 00:03:36.960 And likewise, the sodomites are forever running tilling the sand 47 00:03:37.039 --> 00:03:40.919 with their feet because in their lives they had turned 48 00:03:41.000 --> 00:03:46.960 something meant to be fruitful, which is sex, into something barren. 49 00:03:48.199 --> 00:03:54.039 And so we see this kind of thing recapitulated endlessly 50 00:03:54.199 --> 00:03:58.360 in Dante. You know, the gluttons are constantly eating too 51 00:03:58.479 --> 00:04:04.680 much and vomiting in Hell, and they're surrounded by rotting 52 00:04:04.759 --> 00:04:08.560 food and such, and sometimes those images are extremely easy 53 00:04:08.599 --> 00:04:12.039 to understand, but the barren sand was more complicated, and 54 00:04:12.080 --> 00:04:15.120 so I went in some length on that to explain 55 00:04:15.680 --> 00:04:19.560 what Dante meant. It turned out to be. It turned 56 00:04:19.560 --> 00:04:25.000 out to be very controversial just to explain it. I 57 00:04:25.040 --> 00:04:28.959 even had my dean come talk to me about it, 58 00:04:30.079 --> 00:04:33.000 and I thought that I had won honor for the 59 00:04:33.079 --> 00:04:37.439 school by going into that. I had even given a 60 00:04:37.519 --> 00:04:45.279 lecture at a conference about that instruction about teaching sexual 61 00:04:45.319 --> 00:04:53.120 moras in the context of teaching literature, because it's a 62 00:04:53.199 --> 00:04:57.800 major element. It's something that everyone's talking about in their 63 00:04:57.839 --> 00:05:02.920 own time. It's in pol politics, and my whole presentation 64 00:05:03.120 --> 00:05:08.160 on that occasion was how to do this innocuously and 65 00:05:08.240 --> 00:05:14.600 also its importance. Funny enough that particular lecture I had 66 00:05:14.600 --> 00:05:18.959 an interesting member in the audience, Rod Dreyer, was actually there. 67 00:05:19.319 --> 00:05:21.600 It was it was the very first time I'd ever 68 00:05:21.680 --> 00:05:30.279 encountered him. But anyway, I after seven years of that 69 00:05:30.480 --> 00:05:35.439 first teaching job, my contract was not renewed. That was 70 00:05:35.480 --> 00:05:40.959 a moment of incredible crisis for me because it was 71 00:05:42.399 --> 00:05:47.319 a reconsideration of teaching as a career. Would I what 72 00:05:47.360 --> 00:05:51.720 would I do if I wasn't going to teach? And 73 00:05:51.920 --> 00:05:56.160 I decided to leave the area. I went and took 74 00:05:56.160 --> 00:06:00.560 another job with someone that I knew and trusted to 75 00:06:00.639 --> 00:06:04.399 do more or less the same thing, and got myself 76 00:06:05.000 --> 00:06:11.399 rank in a new school, and I found elements there 77 00:06:11.480 --> 00:06:16.040 that I was totally accustomed to. Thankfully, it wasn't my 78 00:06:16.199 --> 00:06:22.920 teaching responsibility, but this was also an interesting element in 79 00:06:22.959 --> 00:06:28.639 classical schools just generally, the civil rights narrative from the 80 00:06:28.720 --> 00:06:34.759 nineteen sixties is a particular focus where it doesn't necessarily 81 00:06:34.839 --> 00:06:40.639 need to be of Martin Luther King's Letter from Birmingham 82 00:06:40.720 --> 00:06:46.600 Jail has become a standard, and this is taught in 83 00:06:46.959 --> 00:06:51.600 rhetoric classes. It's not taught in a historical context. It's 84 00:06:51.600 --> 00:06:54.839 not taught in an American history course, modern history course, 85 00:06:54.920 --> 00:06:59.480 not necessarily anyway, it's a standard in the rhetoric class. 86 00:06:59.560 --> 00:07:07.879 So they analyze the argument and it's it's famous and 87 00:07:08.800 --> 00:07:15.160 taught in like junior high as a standard piece for 88 00:07:15.279 --> 00:07:20.639 intense investigation, and they're working on it rhetorically. They're analyzing 89 00:07:20.800 --> 00:07:26.720 arguments and such. But it is part of the inflated 90 00:07:26.839 --> 00:07:31.839 role of Martin Luther King and his legacy, so that 91 00:07:32.279 --> 00:07:37.839 he is he's taken as a secular saint. And that's 92 00:07:38.160 --> 00:07:42.160 an element that's very widespread. And I encountered that yet 93 00:07:42.199 --> 00:07:50.519 again at my new school. Political salvation story, and that's 94 00:07:50.560 --> 00:07:57.399 a very important American narrative. It figures very large, and 95 00:07:57.920 --> 00:08:01.160 I think that one of the reasons it's there is 96 00:08:01.199 --> 00:08:08.680 to win credibility for Christian schools in America. Moreover, it 97 00:08:08.759 --> 00:08:12.920 is one of the essential beliefs of practically all the 98 00:08:12.959 --> 00:08:19.920 adults involved in the school. They've they've all that they've 99 00:08:19.920 --> 00:08:22.920 all put an awful lot of stock into the narrative. 100 00:08:23.480 --> 00:08:27.040 But that wasn't that wasn't my role at my first 101 00:08:27.040 --> 00:08:30.560 school or my second school. I never had that on 102 00:08:30.600 --> 00:08:36.720 my on my syllabus. It wasn't in the classes that 103 00:08:36.759 --> 00:08:40.919 I taught, but it's interesting to note that that's that's 104 00:08:40.960 --> 00:08:45.240 a standard, and that that ended up coming back later. 105 00:08:47.159 --> 00:08:49.600 I was given a special role at my new school. 106 00:08:49.840 --> 00:08:54.799 I was given the role of reviewing the history curriculum, 107 00:08:55.200 --> 00:09:03.200 specifically the history curriculum for anti European bias, for the 108 00:09:03.320 --> 00:09:11.559 needless assaults on European heritage in America in particular. Now, 109 00:09:11.559 --> 00:09:15.440 that proved to be an extremely challenging assignment because you 110 00:09:15.799 --> 00:09:21.080 basically just have to go back into old textbooks to 111 00:09:21.159 --> 00:09:26.799 skirt that kind of narrative. But my work in that 112 00:09:27.279 --> 00:09:30.320 was not so important as the fact that I was 113 00:09:30.440 --> 00:09:36.960 given that task. So one of the things I did 114 00:09:37.000 --> 00:09:41.039 do is I taught modern literature, and particularly American literature. 115 00:09:42.279 --> 00:09:45.399 I still remember the morning that I began teaching The 116 00:09:45.399 --> 00:09:50.120 Great Gatsby for the first time, and I went to 117 00:09:50.240 --> 00:09:57.080 my favorite diner, a really old diner, and had the 118 00:09:57.120 --> 00:09:59.799 Great Gatsby with me and had my notes in such 119 00:10:00.159 --> 00:10:03.279 and I and I was reflecting. I think I wrote 120 00:10:03.279 --> 00:10:06.840 a letter I frequently did when when I went to 121 00:10:06.919 --> 00:10:10.799 the diner very early in the morning before I taught, 122 00:10:12.320 --> 00:10:15.440 and I was reflecting on how I felt like I 123 00:10:15.480 --> 00:10:19.600 had really made it as a teacher that I was 124 00:10:19.639 --> 00:10:24.360 teaching The Great Gatsby in high school. I felt like 125 00:10:24.440 --> 00:10:28.799 I had really really achieved a landmark in my career 126 00:10:29.600 --> 00:10:33.000 by doing that, and that was that was very satisfying. 127 00:10:35.039 --> 00:10:38.840 But I also taught Flannery O'Connor, who I really love. 128 00:10:40.519 --> 00:10:42.879 We had a tremendous amount to cover in that class, 129 00:10:43.440 --> 00:10:46.440 which was a challenge, but we were reading everything that 130 00:10:46.519 --> 00:10:50.759 rises must converge. So if you don't know this story, 131 00:10:52.200 --> 00:10:54.679 I was. I was talking to Pete Kenyonez about this 132 00:10:54.799 --> 00:11:03.360 story just recently and recapitulated the platform. The story involves 133 00:11:03.679 --> 00:11:07.240 a man named Julian, a young man who's taking his 134 00:11:07.360 --> 00:11:12.039 mother to the doctor. And his mother has gone through 135 00:11:12.279 --> 00:11:17.639 all of the sit ins and bus protests and such 136 00:11:18.240 --> 00:11:24.159 in the South from that period, and she's very worried 137 00:11:24.399 --> 00:11:30.919 to ride the bus with black people. She's very concerned 138 00:11:30.960 --> 00:11:37.360 about public transportation, she's concerned about her safety. Made newly relevant, 139 00:11:37.399 --> 00:11:44.759 perhaps just in recent times. Julian his response to his 140 00:11:44.879 --> 00:11:55.279 mother is fury and resentment. He hates her scruples and 141 00:11:55.360 --> 00:12:00.519 for all of her her so called backwards opinions about 142 00:12:00.600 --> 00:12:05.639 civil rights, which manifest in the short story. She is 143 00:12:05.759 --> 00:12:12.600 very kind. She's an old woman in poor health. She 144 00:12:14.519 --> 00:12:19.159 talks to the black people on the bus. She's totally 145 00:12:19.200 --> 00:12:24.120 respectful to them, though she voices her misgivings with her son. 146 00:12:25.639 --> 00:12:30.759 She gives a black child a nickel, insists on doing 147 00:12:30.799 --> 00:12:38.840 so as an emblem of patronage, which the girl's mother 148 00:12:39.759 --> 00:12:47.799 resents in anger and knocks the nickel out of the 149 00:12:47.840 --> 00:12:56.440 old woman's hand. But her intentions are all benevolent, and 150 00:12:56.480 --> 00:13:01.039 it's clear that that's so, whatever her opinions might be, 151 00:13:01.159 --> 00:13:06.399 whatever we might think of them. The narration is very 152 00:13:06.639 --> 00:13:11.279 clear that Julian is the one in the wrong. He 153 00:13:11.320 --> 00:13:15.639 wants to make an example of his mother. He's responding 154 00:13:15.679 --> 00:13:22.120 to her very angrily, bitterly telling her that she's going 155 00:13:22.279 --> 00:13:30.279 to she's going to embarrass him. Curiously, Julian tries to 156 00:13:30.320 --> 00:13:33.960 interact with the black people on the bus to show 157 00:13:34.080 --> 00:13:37.960 his own political opinions, and he has no idea how 158 00:13:38.000 --> 00:13:41.039 to talk to them, and they look at him as 159 00:13:41.080 --> 00:13:46.279 if he's weird, he's out of line. He doesn't succeed 160 00:13:46.320 --> 00:13:50.519 in interacting with them, whereas Julian's mother seems quite comfortable 161 00:13:50.519 --> 00:13:57.720 with them. In interacting, and she has she has more rapport, 162 00:13:57.919 --> 00:14:01.720 seemingly is able to get along, at least until the 163 00:14:01.759 --> 00:14:05.240 final scene where the angry mother knocks the nickel out 164 00:14:05.240 --> 00:14:10.039 of her hand. Well, when that final confrontation takes place, 165 00:14:10.559 --> 00:14:15.639 now they're on the sidewalk and Julian berates his mother 166 00:14:15.960 --> 00:14:19.200 in public and says, now you're going to see how 167 00:14:19.240 --> 00:14:23.440 things really are. Now you're feeling the embarrassment I've always 168 00:14:23.440 --> 00:14:27.919 wanted you to feel. We live in a new era 169 00:14:28.399 --> 00:14:32.799 now where everyone is equal, And in the midst of 170 00:14:32.840 --> 00:14:38.440 his berating her, she collapses on the sidewalk and dies 171 00:14:38.559 --> 00:14:44.879 of a stroke. So it's one of these very compelling 172 00:14:44.919 --> 00:14:52.399 Flannery O'Connor stories where we see we see conflict of 173 00:14:52.919 --> 00:15:00.000 sin in an individual and it manifests in some revel 174 00:15:00.080 --> 00:15:06.679 litory moment which should be a moment of repentance. This 175 00:15:06.840 --> 00:15:11.399 is one of the great themes in O'Connor, and O'Connor 176 00:15:12.240 --> 00:15:16.120 marks at the very end of the story in Narration 177 00:15:17.200 --> 00:15:21.600 that Julian is now entering a new world of pain 178 00:15:22.159 --> 00:15:27.840 and repentance. So she's putting a punctuation point at the 179 00:15:27.960 --> 00:15:36.159 very end in her inimitable brief style. But she's also 180 00:15:36.279 --> 00:15:43.559 pointing about the whole You know, she's indicating the point 181 00:15:43.559 --> 00:15:47.600 of the story in the narration, in these tiny little 182 00:15:47.679 --> 00:15:50.679 remarks in the narration, where it's clear what's going on 183 00:15:50.799 --> 00:15:54.720 according to the narrator. Well, I was teaching this in 184 00:15:54.840 --> 00:15:58.480 my high school class, and my students responded in a 185 00:15:58.559 --> 00:16:05.720 very unexpected way. They were all against Julian's mother. Several 186 00:16:05.759 --> 00:16:07.440 students are saying, she. 187 00:16:07.600 --> 00:16:17.759 Deserves it, these racist opinions, They deserve public humiliation, punishment, 188 00:16:19.639 --> 00:16:22.120 and this is the point of the story, that she 189 00:16:22.279 --> 00:16:25.000 needed to die. 190 00:16:25.159 --> 00:16:29.240 And I was pointing out the remarks in the narration. No, 191 00:16:29.360 --> 00:16:31.879 you're not getting what O'Connor is talking about here. This 192 00:16:32.000 --> 00:16:35.399 is actually something much more complex. The point of the 193 00:16:35.440 --> 00:16:41.120 story is not backwards racist opinions, deserving to have to 194 00:16:41.159 --> 00:16:47.480 be publicly humiliated and excoriated and such. The evil in 195 00:16:47.559 --> 00:16:55.480 the story is in Julian. And so that led to 196 00:16:55.480 --> 00:17:03.440 something much bigger. I brought a a selection of quotes 197 00:17:04.079 --> 00:17:10.599 from black American authors to the class and I distributed them. 198 00:17:11.880 --> 00:17:18.000 And my inspiration for that handout, which predated Flannery O'Connor 199 00:17:18.039 --> 00:17:24.200 and teaching literature in that mode. My inspiration was a 200 00:17:24.240 --> 00:17:28.599 book by Robert pin Warren called Who Speaks for the Negro, 201 00:17:29.599 --> 00:17:33.200 which he published in the sixties. And what Robert Pinwarren 202 00:17:33.240 --> 00:17:35.359 did was he traveled around the country and he talked 203 00:17:35.400 --> 00:17:38.960 to Martin Luther King, he talked to Malcolm X, he 204 00:17:39.039 --> 00:17:46.200 talked to James Baldwin. He talked to black educators in universities. 205 00:17:47.160 --> 00:17:51.119 And the point of his book he asked them all 206 00:17:51.160 --> 00:17:54.200 the exact same questions, and he wrote a whole book 207 00:17:54.240 --> 00:17:58.440 of his interviews with them. And the whole point of 208 00:17:58.440 --> 00:18:01.279 his book was they all had different ideas about policy 209 00:18:02.039 --> 00:18:05.519 in the Civil Rights era. None of them had the 210 00:18:05.559 --> 00:18:10.640 same vision. So that is what I distributed to the class, 211 00:18:12.240 --> 00:18:14.960 and I said, you all think you know what's right 212 00:18:15.319 --> 00:18:20.599 with the Civil Rights era, but what did Black Americans 213 00:18:20.599 --> 00:18:27.599 think of this? And among the quotes are black nationalists 214 00:18:27.960 --> 00:18:33.359 who say they need an independent country, a homogeneous racial nation. 215 00:18:35.039 --> 00:18:40.160 Among them are opponents of desegregation, like Zora Neil Hurston, 216 00:18:40.799 --> 00:18:47.119 who says, the Native Americans don't whine about their social 217 00:18:47.119 --> 00:18:51.839 status in America. I take the side of the Indians. 218 00:18:52.400 --> 00:18:56.519 I don't want anyone forcing someone to associate with me. 219 00:18:57.359 --> 00:19:00.000 They should associate with me because I'm a compelling person 220 00:19:00.079 --> 00:19:05.359 and they like me. That's that's what Zaora and Neil 221 00:19:05.440 --> 00:19:08.559 Hurston said, And of course you've got Malcolm X and 222 00:19:08.880 --> 00:19:11.960 MLKA and all the rest. And the whole point of 223 00:19:12.000 --> 00:19:16.400 the of the handout was not this person's right and 224 00:19:16.440 --> 00:19:19.559 this person's wrong. The whole point of the handout was 225 00:19:20.119 --> 00:19:23.759 there are a lot of different opinions here, you know, 226 00:19:23.960 --> 00:19:26.759 if we're interested in what they think about the situation, 227 00:19:27.720 --> 00:19:33.359 we'll note here there's a great variety who speaks for 228 00:19:33.519 --> 00:19:40.759 the negro Robert Penn Warren's evocative question. Well, I ended 229 00:19:40.799 --> 00:19:44.279 up having conversation with the faculty because the whole thing 230 00:19:44.519 --> 00:19:53.319 was about it was about Julian's mother and the glee 231 00:19:53.559 --> 00:19:57.599 that certain students had with her death in the story, 232 00:19:59.279 --> 00:20:03.839 and I talking to my colleagues about this and saying 233 00:20:03.880 --> 00:20:08.039 that I found it quite disturbing that they would gang 234 00:20:08.119 --> 00:20:10.720 up on an old woman in the context of the 235 00:20:10.759 --> 00:20:13.559 story and say she deserves to suffer and die and 236 00:20:14.000 --> 00:20:22.160 inhumiliation and not getting the point of O'Connor's O'Connor's tale anyway, 237 00:20:22.359 --> 00:20:32.960 But I circulated my handout that was, in retrospect a mistake, 238 00:20:35.240 --> 00:20:41.559 because there was a there was a scandal soon after 239 00:20:41.599 --> 00:20:46.880 that which I'm not going into but the result was 240 00:20:47.559 --> 00:20:54.640 a new atmosphere of paranoia, of a very unsettled time. 241 00:20:56.039 --> 00:20:59.279 We had a great many faculty meetings, faculty and staff 242 00:20:59.359 --> 00:21:09.440 meetings in which the school's stance on race became the 243 00:21:09.480 --> 00:21:18.680 primary concern of the board. So it turned out I 244 00:21:18.759 --> 00:21:27.319 had enemies after the Flannery O'Connor situation and my efforts 245 00:21:27.359 --> 00:21:30.240 to try to explain the story and talk about the 246 00:21:30.279 --> 00:21:35.039 Civil Rights era with a completely hands off sort of approach. 247 00:21:35.160 --> 00:21:37.240 I wasn't there to say what I thought was right 248 00:21:37.319 --> 00:21:42.200 in the Civil Rights era. The whole point was what 249 00:21:42.279 --> 00:21:45.079 did black Americans have to say about it? And those 250 00:21:45.079 --> 00:21:49.240 were all names that anyone would have heard of, you know, 251 00:21:49.319 --> 00:21:56.079 these weren't obscure people on my list of quotes. But 252 00:21:56.160 --> 00:22:01.799 the controversy it led to this paranoid investigation into the 253 00:22:01.839 --> 00:22:10.519 beliefs of various faculty members, and I was singled out. 254 00:22:10.960 --> 00:22:13.079 So there were two things that led to me being 255 00:22:13.240 --> 00:22:16.640 singled out so far as I know. The first was 256 00:22:16.960 --> 00:22:23.440 the handout. The second was my special role in history 257 00:22:23.440 --> 00:22:31.279 curriculum to root out and replace anti European bias in 258 00:22:31.359 --> 00:22:35.839 the curriculum, needless hostility to white people in the curriculum, 259 00:22:36.000 --> 00:22:46.960 the history curriculum. Soon after this whole investigation commences, I 260 00:22:47.119 --> 00:22:54.039 realize how serious the matter is. Board members start meeting 261 00:22:54.079 --> 00:22:59.880 me after my last class and pull me aside into 262 00:23:00.720 --> 00:23:06.119 the into the work room, a private space, and I 263 00:23:06.240 --> 00:23:11.279 get really incredible questions from them. The first sign of 264 00:23:11.319 --> 00:23:16.079 trouble is a board member of pulling me in. I'd 265 00:23:16.119 --> 00:23:19.920 met him before, but we'd never had a conversation. And 266 00:23:20.440 --> 00:23:23.000 he's also a father in the school, you know, his 267 00:23:24.279 --> 00:23:29.200 children attend the high school. And he says, yes, I'm 268 00:23:29.279 --> 00:23:35.319 here to ask you. Are you a racial segregationist? And 269 00:23:35.359 --> 00:23:40.839 I said no, what would what would give you that inclination? 270 00:23:42.240 --> 00:23:47.960 What would give you that idea? And he said that 271 00:23:48.079 --> 00:23:53.119 he had been told that I was. And I found 272 00:23:53.160 --> 00:23:59.839 that very interesting, especially considering we had one black student 273 00:24:00.519 --> 00:24:09.119 in the entire K through twelve program and she was adopted. Like, 274 00:24:11.880 --> 00:24:17.079 we don't believe in segregation, but is it to facto segregation? 275 00:24:17.440 --> 00:24:22.559 Any critic would say it was. But that's not the statute, 276 00:24:23.200 --> 00:24:27.720 that's not the policy, that's just how it ended up. 277 00:24:29.839 --> 00:24:32.920 So I didn't mention any of that. Of course, that 278 00:24:33.960 --> 00:24:39.119 had grounds to bring up later, but I said, no, 279 00:24:39.319 --> 00:24:44.799 I don't espouse that I don't propose that I'm a 280 00:24:44.880 --> 00:24:51.000 teacher and I'm explaining things I had been given a 281 00:24:51.400 --> 00:24:53.759 history class. I was teaching American history, and this was 282 00:24:53.799 --> 00:25:00.319 American history too, So it began with Reconstruction, and I 283 00:25:00.359 --> 00:25:06.240 was distributing readings and questions primary sources from Reconstruction. I 284 00:25:06.359 --> 00:25:10.920 had edited things for a history reader and handed them 285 00:25:10.920 --> 00:25:16.160 out to the students, and they brought questions that I 286 00:25:16.240 --> 00:25:20.720 had written for class discussion and confronted me with them 287 00:25:22.519 --> 00:25:26.759 and saying, well, what are you trying to say about 288 00:25:26.839 --> 00:25:31.000 civil rights in the reconstruction Europe? And I said, I'm 289 00:25:31.039 --> 00:25:39.119 trying to motivate conversation about it. What are you preferring here? 290 00:25:39.279 --> 00:25:43.319 This was a subject of argument at the time. How 291 00:25:43.359 --> 00:25:49.839 to affect citizenship for the freed slaves? What was the 292 00:25:49.839 --> 00:25:54.079 best way of going about that? Are their notable differences 293 00:25:54.799 --> 00:25:58.559 between the freed slaves and the white citizens of the 294 00:25:59.599 --> 00:26:06.680 post war or South. This, it seems to me to 295 00:26:06.720 --> 00:26:09.960 be perfectly reasonable, and I don't have any brief for 296 00:26:10.039 --> 00:26:13.359 it other than that. But they were offended by the 297 00:26:13.400 --> 00:26:18.359 tone of some of my questions. They also looked into 298 00:26:19.000 --> 00:26:23.880 the poetry recital for my history class. I had chosen 299 00:26:24.480 --> 00:26:31.359 Donald Davidson's Tall Men an excerpt from it now, just 300 00:26:31.400 --> 00:26:35.400 so you can appreciate, this was the point on which 301 00:26:35.680 --> 00:26:39.279 I got confronted privately by a board member. Soon after 302 00:26:39.319 --> 00:26:44.319 this controversy began. The line that they found so offensive 303 00:26:45.079 --> 00:26:50.599 in The Tall Men by Davidson was, shall I say 304 00:26:50.640 --> 00:26:54.839 the praise of men bright honor? The songs of my 305 00:26:54.960 --> 00:26:59.039 own race and the ways of fighters are something read 306 00:26:59.079 --> 00:27:03.680 in a book only, or graven only in stone, and 307 00:27:03.799 --> 00:27:11.400 not in the hearts of men. So Davidson is reviewing 308 00:27:12.200 --> 00:27:18.039 Davy Crockett and Andrew Jackson in his poem. His poem's 309 00:27:18.079 --> 00:27:23.200 title The Tall Men, he refers to many times referring 310 00:27:23.200 --> 00:27:26.759 to the founders of the state of Tennessee, and also 311 00:27:26.880 --> 00:27:32.039 reflecting on modern ways and how easy our modern life is. 312 00:27:32.160 --> 00:27:38.359 We glide effortlessly over the pavement, you know, gently tapping 313 00:27:38.400 --> 00:27:44.480 the gas pedal. We sit beneath air conditioning in office towers, 314 00:27:45.079 --> 00:27:50.640 where our ancestors were carving out civilization in the wilderness. 315 00:27:51.279 --> 00:27:57.440 We're fighting the Indian nations. We're watching their loved ones 316 00:27:58.240 --> 00:28:03.400 massacred and fighting for their place in the new world. 317 00:28:05.519 --> 00:28:08.279 And so he's drawing a contrast there and then saying, 318 00:28:09.519 --> 00:28:12.200 are the ways of my ancestors something we only read 319 00:28:12.240 --> 00:28:15.519 in a book or is it something that's in our being? 320 00:28:18.400 --> 00:28:27.319 Are we essentially organically connected to our ancestors who founded 321 00:28:28.119 --> 00:28:34.640 our place in America? And he offers a lot of 322 00:28:34.720 --> 00:28:39.000 good material for historical reflection, which I've always resonated with. 323 00:28:39.359 --> 00:28:43.440 I've always been a fan of Donald Davidson. But the 324 00:28:43.680 --> 00:28:49.039 board members decided they were going to cancel the poetry 325 00:28:49.200 --> 00:28:53.279 recitation right at the end of the semester, after everyone 326 00:28:53.279 --> 00:28:57.160 had already memorized it. They singled it out as offensive 327 00:28:58.640 --> 00:29:03.119 and it used the word race. The songs of my 328 00:29:03.200 --> 00:29:07.920 own race and the ways of fighters are engraved not 329 00:29:08.039 --> 00:29:11.119 on stone only, but also in the hearts of men. 330 00:29:13.519 --> 00:29:19.119 They found that highly offensive, and once again I was 331 00:29:19.160 --> 00:29:23.240 pulled aside. I was asked if I was a racist, 332 00:29:24.240 --> 00:29:27.920 and I said, no, it rather depends on what you mean. 333 00:29:28.000 --> 00:29:31.079 But I wasn't going to I wasn't going to address 334 00:29:31.119 --> 00:29:36.240 that under the circumstances. I denied it, and they said, well, 335 00:29:36.279 --> 00:29:40.279 you gave your students this poem to memorize. And one 336 00:29:40.319 --> 00:29:42.920 of the board members, this was a couple of men 337 00:29:43.359 --> 00:29:46.640 that pulled me aside on that occasion one of the 338 00:29:46.640 --> 00:29:50.839 board members said, well, I looked him up on Wikipedia 339 00:29:51.079 --> 00:29:54.720 and he was a racist. Why were you giving them 340 00:29:54.880 --> 00:30:01.920 racist poetry? And I I offered my brief for the 341 00:30:02.000 --> 00:30:11.599 tall Men now the name of my press, a tribute 342 00:30:10.799 --> 00:30:18.240 that resulted in pulling the poem from recitation, and then 343 00:30:18.400 --> 00:30:23.079 I got a very interesting assignment from the board. Now 344 00:30:23.160 --> 00:30:30.039 I believe this was something that was specially decided. I 345 00:30:30.079 --> 00:30:34.599 don't think that it was. I don't think this was 346 00:30:34.640 --> 00:30:38.039 something that everyone was required to do, is what I'm saying, 347 00:30:38.240 --> 00:30:41.799 though I don't know that for sure. I was given 348 00:30:42.359 --> 00:30:47.599 a statement on race that was written by a third party. 349 00:30:49.559 --> 00:30:57.480 The board had found a statement for Christian schools about 350 00:30:57.759 --> 00:31:05.039 civic nationalism, the idea that this was something adaptable and cultural, 351 00:31:05.519 --> 00:31:10.759 nothing intrinsic. The statement went well out of its way 352 00:31:11.480 --> 00:31:20.200 on ostensibly Christian and Biblical grounds to conclude that race 353 00:31:20.480 --> 00:31:28.079 is an Unchristian concept and that anyone that thinks race 354 00:31:28.359 --> 00:31:37.839 exists has anti Christian priors. I was asked to write 355 00:31:38.279 --> 00:31:43.319 an essay in response to this statement and also to 356 00:31:43.440 --> 00:31:55.559 affirm its conclusion. I demurred artfully wrote an essay exhibiting 357 00:31:56.759 --> 00:32:04.839 all of the instances of national differenentfernces, tribal affiliations, ancestry 358 00:32:05.640 --> 00:32:12.839 mentioned in the Bible, and saying this statement being being 359 00:32:13.359 --> 00:32:21.720 emphatically Christian in its effort couldn't mean contradicting the Bible 360 00:32:22.559 --> 00:32:28.759 on matters of ancestry and inheritance and national characteristics, or 361 00:32:28.839 --> 00:32:32.440 even the creation of the nations of the world at 362 00:32:32.480 --> 00:32:37.720 the Tower of Babele. Those are all explicit in Christian 363 00:32:37.759 --> 00:32:43.200 belief and in the Bible itself, So the statement cannot 364 00:32:43.240 --> 00:32:48.319 mean that. The statement instead means that the topic of 365 00:32:48.400 --> 00:32:54.599 race has been dangerously politicized and Christians should avoid the subject, 366 00:32:55.039 --> 00:33:01.200 which I try to find some quality ways to assent to. 367 00:33:02.079 --> 00:33:04.880 This is too dangerous to talk about. People that talk 368 00:33:04.920 --> 00:33:08.839 about it are destroyed and everyone knows that. So for 369 00:33:08.880 --> 00:33:13.440 the sake of the institution, we avoid those subjects, is 370 00:33:13.440 --> 00:33:18.960 what I wrote. Well, the demur was not satisfying to 371 00:33:19.000 --> 00:33:22.319 the board, so we had an interview. They called me 372 00:33:22.359 --> 00:33:25.039 in for a special meeting with the board members to 373 00:33:25.200 --> 00:33:29.640 talk about the statement. Now, the people that gave me 374 00:33:30.240 --> 00:33:35.799 this statement were considering making it the official statement of 375 00:33:35.839 --> 00:33:38.759 the school and putting it on the website. This civic 376 00:33:38.839 --> 00:33:47.079 nationalist statement about race, a statement that they had never 377 00:33:47.200 --> 00:33:51.440 considered that they themselves had not written. They did not 378 00:33:51.720 --> 00:34:00.160 know the issue. So I went to the meeting. The 379 00:34:00.200 --> 00:34:04.359 meeting or the statement was all based on the assertion 380 00:34:04.960 --> 00:34:10.880 that race is a social construct, that it is man 381 00:34:10.960 --> 00:34:16.519 made in fact, that any differences that we might notice 382 00:34:16.559 --> 00:34:20.559 between people are differences of nurture and not of nature. 383 00:34:23.159 --> 00:34:27.679 And they said that the belief of anyone that claims 384 00:34:27.679 --> 00:34:31.280 to be a Christian, that believes that there are differences 385 00:34:31.400 --> 00:34:36.360 between the nations of the Earth is outside of the 386 00:34:36.440 --> 00:34:42.119 Christian communion in a serious way. That's what the statement said. 387 00:34:42.639 --> 00:34:46.280 So I went to the meeting, and I was prepared 388 00:34:46.320 --> 00:34:50.960 to talk about what I had written, but I decided 389 00:34:51.000 --> 00:34:55.960 to start the meeting with questions to the board, which 390 00:34:56.000 --> 00:35:02.400 turned out to be all that was necessary. First, I 391 00:35:02.440 --> 00:35:08.199 was well aware that the civic nationalist position is one 392 00:35:08.239 --> 00:35:14.480 of the key targets of the race critics of the time. 393 00:35:15.079 --> 00:35:21.159 So Ibram Kinsey and Robin DiAngelo and Tom Nahasi Coats, 394 00:35:22.079 --> 00:35:28.199 they all excoriate the civic nationalists because they all believe 395 00:35:28.239 --> 00:35:32.119 that race is real, and they believe that races are 396 00:35:32.159 --> 00:35:40.039 divided into two groups, oppressor races and oppressed races. Therefore, 397 00:35:40.719 --> 00:35:46.480 everyone must note who is being oppressed and who the 398 00:35:46.519 --> 00:35:51.159 oppressors are, and anyone who refuses to do that by 399 00:35:51.199 --> 00:35:57.599 taking a civic nationalist stance are, according to them, the 400 00:35:57.639 --> 00:36:03.440 worst racists of all and deserve primary focus for attack. 401 00:36:06.679 --> 00:36:10.440