Race and Democracy

[00:00:00] Peniel Joseph: Welcome to race and democracy, a podcast on the intersection between race democracy, public policy, social justice, and citizenship.

[00:00:22] Okay family. We are back. It’s been a little while on this latest episode of race and democracy, I’m joined by, uh, somebody who I deeply admire, um, a friend and a nationally globally recognized scholar on education. Dr. Shaun Harper. Who is university professor at the university of Southern California. He’s also the founder and executive director of the USC race and equity center.

[00:00:49] Dr. Harper has published 12 books and is author of more than a hundred peer reviewed articles and other academic publications. He has received honorary degrees from numerous places, including Georgetown university. And he is really the leading. Scholar on race and equity in the United States. So it’s really, uh, privilege he’s here today talking to me, but he’s also doing, uh, William C power’s keynote, Shaun Harper.

[00:01:19] Welcome to race and

[00:01:20] democracy.

[00:01:21] Shaun Harper: My brother. It’s great to see you. Thanks for having me.

[00:01:24] Peniel Joseph: Well, I wanna get down to it because. I never like to date the show. So I’m not gonna say the date we’re in, but certainly the year we’re in is 2022. And we’re having so many controversies about critical race theory. What is it?

[00:01:38] How is it affecting K through 12 education? But I live in Texas now. I’m a native new Yorker transplanted to Texas and Texas, Virginia, Florida. These are some of the leading states that have banned the teaching of black history by, oh, I. But by labeling it CRI critical race theory. So I wanna get down in terms of what can we, what can we do about this banning of really black history?

[00:02:06] Um, especially, this comes really just two years after the racial and political reckoning of 2020 George Floyd, Brian Taylor.

[00:02:14] Shaun Harper: Sure. Well, first off, let me just completely disrupt your norms that you’ve established. I am unapologetically going to date this episode. Uh, this episode is occurring during the week that your amazing book, the third reconstruction was.

[00:02:32] I am loving the book so far. Congratulations. Thank you for writing it. Thank you. It is such an important contribution. I’m glad it’s out. I want everybody and I mean everybody under the sound of my voice to rush out and get it and read it and share it and engage with others about it. So, Hey, thank you.

[00:02:51] All right. What, what should we do? I think several things, black folks first and, and foremost must continue to insist. On an accurate and full teaching of America’s racial past and present. I’m gonna come back to the and present part. I think that’s important. Look, I think that we obviously need our Latinx brothers, sisters and gender queer coalition members, Asian American, and Pacific Islander folks to stand alongside us indigenous folks and lots of white people to also stand up for the teaching of the truth.

[00:03:32] I don’t know, like, I think it’s gotta be us, us black folks that, you know, really flex our collective muscle and, you know, speak in a unified voice of high expectation that, you know, the truth about us and what. Has been done to us and what continues to happen to us? The good and the bad, right? I’m not talking about just domestic terrorism.

[00:03:55] I’m also talking about black joy, black love black music, black artistry. as well as the continuation of structural and systemic racism and the ways in which it plays itself out in some really grotesque, uh, very violent ways, um, in, in black communities, all of it, right? So black folks, we, we gotta be on the front lines of our articulating that high expectation to educators and to our elected of.

[00:04:26] Peniel Joseph: And, you know, Shaun, how does that story look because I’ve become, and, and this is connected to writing the third reconstruction, the deeper I get as a scholar and I’m 49. I turned 50 this year. Um, the more I think of myself as a storyteller. Right. What kind of stories should be? We, we be sharing because I think one of the pushbacks, um, that has been successful in creating fear and anxiety by one mislabeling black history histories of the Holocaust histories that make people feel white, people feel uncomfortable as critical race theory where critical race theory is not that something taught at law schools that basically just exposed how systemic racism was to the legal system in our legal history.

[00:05:08] But some of the push. Is it it’s gonna make white people feel bad. White children feel bad. What should we do to alleviate that pushback? Because I, I fear that black history has now become at least in the K through 12 sphere. And it’s, they’re, they’re coming for us in higher ed, too successfully smeared as critical race theory, something that’s very, very negative something that’s gonna make your children feel bad.

[00:05:34] Your white children feel

[00:05:35] Shaun Harper: bad. Yeah. Let’s start here. I appreciated your acknowledgement. That critical race theory was born outta critical legal studies and brilliant law scholars like Derek bell and Kimberly Crenshaw and Richard Delgado, you know, were among the, the foundational architects. Right. But let’s be clear.

[00:05:57] C R T is just barely taught in our nation’s law schools, the top ones and the rest of them too. Right. So there’s that if, if the place where it was supposed to be taught, uh, is not the place that’s teaching it. Well, we’re surely not teaching it to third graders. There’s very little evidence. I’ve seen none.

[00:06:16] As a matter of fact, I have publicly and repeatedly called for a list of 50 K12 educators, 50, anywhere in America, they ain’t even gotta all be in the same school or in the same district, or even in the same state. Just find me 50, who are teaching critical race theory to K-12 school children. I’ll. I’ve been waiting and waiting and waiting.

[00:06:38] No one has produced a list of 50. Why cuz it ain’t happening. Right? What instead is happening is everything that has something or anything to do with race is being. Very Laly lumped into this thing that is misunderstood as, as critical race theory. So there’s that now about the white kids feeling bad?

[00:07:02] Bless their hearts. Listen, I’m in the south. I’m from the south. So listen, I, I, are you very familiar with the, with the shade that underlines the bless your heart, right. Shaun, where are you from? I’m I’m I know where you’re from, but I. I am from Thomasville, Georgia, a racially segregated small town, uh, in deep, deep, deep Georgia.

[00:07:23] We not talking Atlanta, we not talking in the suburbs of Atlanta. We’re talking right on the Georgia, Florida border. It was really the birthplace of my intellectual curiosity about race, racial, inequity, racial politics, and racial injustice. Mm-hmm because I saw it firsthand mm-hmm in the way that it played itself out in.

[00:07:45] Very segregated hometown. So I appreciate you allowing me the opportunity to establish my Southern credibility too. This isn’t just like some liberal from California. Nah, I’m from the south that lived there for 22 years. Okay. Listen, let’s get back though, to white children feeling bad. Do we have any evidence of that?

[00:08:02] I’m a person who studies things. Quantitatively through surveys and qualitatively through interviews and focus groups are white children telling us that they’re feeling bad. Some

[00:08:14] Peniel Joseph: of their mothers are making that claim and their parents in these town halls that were very highly publicized. We never saw the other side.

[00:08:21] We never saw black mothers saying that they. They, they, they needed this history and this was very good for them, but we saw CNN and other places, Fox news, MSNBC. These were long lines. Mm-hmm long lines and the parents were

[00:08:34] Shaun Harper: making that claim. Yeah. The parents, I wanna talk to some 10 year old, white girls, and I want to hear from them firsthand that they feel bad about themselves.

[00:08:43] Actually. I don’t want to. I don’t expect to hear that. What I expect that I will hear from 10 year old white girls is that they wanna be taught the truth, that they don’t want to be deceived. They don’t want to, you know, have a bad thing that has happened and continues to happen to people who are different from them.

[00:09:03] Be. Swept under the rug and, you know, they don’t wanna be lied to that’s what I fully expect. 10 year old white girls would say to me, but let’s, let’s test it out. If there is a program officer at a foundation or a very wealthy philanthropist, who’s listening to this episode who would like to give me money to study, you know, white children and their perspectives about being lied to, um, I welcome that financial investment into my research agenda.

[00:09:29] Let me also say, let me also. Ain’t it a privilege to be shielded and protected from feeling badly. Imagine how black folk and other people of color who are on the receiving end of these racial injustices and inequities and racial violence. Imagine how we feel. Yeah. And I’m not on some, like an I four. I like.

[00:09:59] You know, we feel bad. Well y’all should feel bad too, but ain’t it a privilege for some folks to be shielded through an entire campaign, a coordinated campaign from feeling badly. Let me be a responsible educator here. The folks that I know who teach about race. In schools, we not talking critical race theory are just talking about like, just straight up racial moments in the United States.

[00:10:33] Those teachers, some of ’em are white by the way, those teachers, I don’t think it’s their agenda to make children feel badly. That’s not, that’s not the project. The project is to teach the truth. Yeah. I’ll say one last thing about this shielding school children. White ones and children of color alike from the truth about America’s racial history is not new.

[00:11:03] I’m thinking about the incredible work of Jim banks. Mm-hmm and now professor emeritus at the university of Washington, professor banks did an analysis of textbooks, social studies textbooks in elementary and middle schools. I. Perhaps even high schools and he specifically analyzed the depiction of slavery in those textbooks.

[00:11:34] Spoiler alert. One of his findings was that slavery got so little air time. So it, it, it was such a abbreviated really we’re talking a paragraph or two amount of coverage in, in textbooks. There’s that? But I think the more compelling, perhaps the more compelling finding of his was whenever there were illustrations of enslaved Africans here in the Americas.

[00:12:03] They were always happy, smiling. Wow. As if their enslavement was a joyful, joyous time. Hmm. I do not want to Rob our ancestors of the joy that they had to manufacture for themselves. Despite the terrorism that they were enduring. But let’s be honest about the terrorism itself, right? They didn’t have smiles on their faces as they were being whipped, as they had to pick cotton.

[00:12:43] As family members of theirs were being lynched. That wasn’t a, a, a, a, a, a joyful time, but yet in the textbooks, when, and if there are illustrations depicting slavery, That’s what it looks like. So I think that that is, and professor banks has also reached its conclusion that that was intended to shield school children from the honest truth about.

[00:13:16] That domestic terrorism. And

[00:13:18] Peniel Joseph: how can we tell, how can we give them the honest truth? Because I wanna in terms of a conversation, I want to go out too, because you do so much consulting, you do a bunch of stuff, uh, for companies and different things. And I think a lot of what you’re doing is trying to share a story, craft a specific story that you then give people access to.

[00:13:38] But so often as we’ve seen in American history through these periods of reconstruction, there’s a backlash even against an inclusive. There’s a backlash, even against the story that says, look, we’re gonna talk about racism. We’re gonna talk about inequality, but also like you suggest we’re gonna also talk about the good.

[00:13:54] We’re gonna talk about the victories, the successes, the times we’ve overcome, even if it’s more brief than we want to admit. Right? So something like Selma to Montgomery, that is a moment in American history. The March on Washington, there’s a moment, but then there’s a day after, right. That, that moment. And so I want you to talk about that in the sense of what can we do to push back.

[00:14:19] It seems as if. It’s not even just scenes because I, I, I have been discussing this when we think about, I think these reconstruction versus redemption narratives are, are sort of at the core of it, you know, and obviously you’re a reconstruction, but we could see this pushback, you know, pushback against 16, 19 project, but you consult, you do all these things.

[00:14:41] What can we do? Like how can. Have that reconstruction narrative that, that narrative, that supports multiracial democracy be that consensus building narrative. And again, for a time, it was, I think from 63 to 2013, that’s how you get Barack Obama. That’s how you get me. And you really, you know, we, we couldn’t have existed 1900 to 1950 and had this kind of success.

[00:15:05] Not, not at all this school. Wouldn’t have, let me in as a student, let alone a teacher between 1,919. You know, I don’t know how USCS history is, but I know this history

[00:15:17] Shaun Harper: so much to, to unpack their, all of it. Good. Let me start here by saying that my approach, as I work with corporate executives and elected officials and leaders across industries within and outside of education.

[00:15:40] I try to help them reconcile. If you will, they’re espoused and enacted values. I’ve not yet met a leader. I’m sure they exist, but I haven’t met them. I’ve not yet met a leader who says I don’t care. Nothing about diversity, equity and inclusion. In fact, they often almost always say the exact opposite. Oh, that’s so important.

[00:16:06] It’s one of our highest values and so on. Well, if you’re gonna say that so publicly and repeatedly, well then you can’t say, but we’re not going to grapple with our realities as a part of that. It’s a contradiction. Right. So I try to help them first off through data, evidence and research, understand what those realities are.

[00:16:32] Mm-hmm what are the lived experiences of your employees of color? What are the perspectives of your customer’s clients and constituents? Who are people of color? What do they say about you? You oughta know that, right? Wouldn’t wouldn’t you wanna know that if you’re gonna be over here declaring that DEI is such a important value of yours and, and, and the companies.

[00:16:55] So there’s that, there’s the reconciling of the espoused espouse and enacted. I also attempt to help leaders understand the benefits of giving. DEI broadly and racial equity specifically the time and attention that they deserve. And I try to also help them understand, right? Like how this is gonna help your business be better.

[00:17:26] You talk about wanting to compete globally, globally, outside the us. unless we are talking about Europe is very different in terms of, uh, how brown and how diverse and how African it is. And so on you say you wanna do business in Africa. Well, you gotta have a workforce that, you know, better reflects the continent.

[00:17:53] You wanna do work in Asia and expand into Asia with your partnerships and your products and services. You gotta understand the cultural context of Asia and Asian people, including Asians here in the Americas. So, you know, like the business professor in me helps make the business case in ways that sometimes is, you know, compelling enough to get folks to, to, to behave differently.

[00:18:20] Here’s the last thing I’ll say, I’m not a person who engages in fear mongering. , but I am a person who is very matter of fact, in putting in front of leaders, here are things that have happened elsewhere in companies that are in your same industry with the same number of employees that you have. The companies that are just as old as yours here are tragedies racial crises that have happened in these other companies.

[00:18:55] What makes youth believe that you’re immune from these kinds of things happening here? Mm-hmm and they will often say, wow. Yeah, we have just such good people here. Well, they got good people over there too. Right? Like you are putting. your business at risk by avoiding its racial realities by not knowing what they are.

[00:19:24] You put yourself at at, at risk in ways that, you know, we’ve seen other companies or communities, you know, sort of fall short and be embarrassed and lose millions of dollars. So on and so forth.

[00:19:37] Peniel Joseph: Now, I, I wanna, um, talk. Really what the totality of what you do and how that’s changed in the last two years.

[00:19:45] Especi. You know, because you, you know, especially since George Floyd, because so many of us who are in this space, and I can only imagine for you, that’s why I want to talk about it because you run a very, very successful equity center. You’re, you’re an education professor, but you’re also a business professor.

[00:20:00] Um, you’re a consultant, you’re a public speaker. Uh, you’re a mentor, a leader in many, many different fields. You were these things even before 2020, but certainly. In the last two years, these things got magnified two and a half years in an unprecedented scale. So how’s that impacted your approach. And I want you to tell us what are, what are some opportunities you see, but really challenges too, because people made so many promises in 2020, and I’m sure you were in at a very high level on some of these promises.

[00:20:34] And I want you to. Yeah, just discuss that, you know, and even, you know, me and you are both sports fans, so, so I’m a big sports fan. I grew up in New York city. I’m still a Nick fan yeah. And don’t, don’t make fun. I’m, I’m a, I’m a giants jets fan. I’m a Yankees fan. And when I, I grew up as a Yankee fan where we didn’t win anything from 79 to 95, um, Derek Jeter’s one of my favorite players, but I started off loving Dave Winfield and Reggie Jackson.

[00:21:04] Right. Don Mattingly. So, um, I want you to talk about sports too, and how this impacts sports because too often, and I’m a big pop culture fan. I love the movies. I love music. I love all of it in certain ways. I thought that’s what I was gonna write about when I got my PhD. And I just write about other things for the most part.

[00:21:24] I still have time though. I want to talk about all of it. Yeah. How’s that impacted you both on the leadership business side, but

[00:21:31] Shaun Harper: also. on that other side too. Let me start with a major shout out to my team at the USC race and equity center. Honestly, the work that I do would be largely impossible without them.

[00:21:52] Those 28 full-time employees who enable us to work with K-12 schools and districts, colleges, and universities, as well as companies. businesses, agencies and firms. So one of the things that we have done over these past two years, since the murders of Brianna Taylor and George Floyd and AAU Arbery, we have been able to hire more people and expand our bench at the center.

[00:22:20] You know, we’ve more than doubled in size. For example over the past, you know, three years. Um, so, you know, we’ve had to scale up to be more helpful, to more places. So there’s that another thing that has happened for me individually, which has been really very, very, very exciting you’re right. I was working across these industries and spaces before summer 2020, but you are right.

[00:22:52] It’s been on and popping since turned as the, as the young people would say exactly turned turned. It has been really turned since the summer 2020. I have learned more in these past two years than I have at any other moment in my life and career. Yes. Organizations and people who lead them, hire me to come and.

[00:23:18] Advise them on their strategy, help them with their racial problems, assess their climate and study the experiences of their employees. So they, they hire me because of my subject matter expertise, but in every one of those engagements, I learn so much and it’s been really exciting to simultaneously be a subject matter expert and a student.

[00:23:45] And, you know, I bring that learning back to my classroom. In a real time. Here’s what they’re doing in the streets. In, in real businesses, in real universities, in real K12 schools, here are the things that they’re really grappling with. So it was never. Like just conceptual abstract and theoretical entirely for me at any point in my career.

[00:24:11] But I will say right now though, that it is like so practical because it’s informed by what I’m learning in real time. And my students are benefiting in terms of their preparation they’re benefiting. I could say with the highest degree of confidence that I am preparing. Equity minded students, both in the ed school and in the business school, the MBA students that I teach, I am preparing them to lead in, you know, 20, 22 ways in response to 2022 equity problems and, and realities.

[00:24:46] That’s exciting for me. It’s fun. You know, like at a certain point, I don’t know. Present company excluded. Of course. But I imagine that some professors may ask themselves, like, do I still have it? I feel like I still got it. I very much got it. I’m in my prime time right now because my teaching is so enhanced.

[00:25:05] And so too, it’s my research. You asked about sports. This is great. Let me for the record. Say that I am with the sparks angel city, the women’s soccer team, the Los Angeles football club, the Lakers, the Dodgers, and the Rams I’m with all the LA teams. All right. I like to win. I like teams that win you don’t clearly.

[00:25:27] Um, obviously that’s so there’s that Yankees have

[00:25:31] Peniel Joseph: 27 titles, 28

[00:25:33] Shaun Harper: title. . Yeah. Um, yeah, giants have a few too. So we got some way to do

[00:25:40] Peniel Joseph: the Knicks have two, but we have not won since 1973.

[00:25:43] Shaun Harper: So I get it. Yeah, that was two years before I was born. Um, that was a long time ago. Wow. Such a long time ago. All right.

[00:25:49] Sports. I published a report in February, 2020 through the center on racial justice in professional sports in. I start by acknowledging all the things that these professional sports teams and leagues were doing in 2020, following George Floyds and Brianna Taylor’s murder, they were spray painting in racism in the end zones.

[00:26:22] They had Brianna Taylor stickers on players, jerseys and helmets, you know, even. even the national hockey league even they were doing, which is, which is surprising. Yeah. Right. I mean, they’re known for many things. Yeah. Not anti-racism anti-racism ain. One of them. No, even they were doing the things. Right.

[00:26:43] So. All of that was happening. That performative activism, all of it was happening in 2020. So in February, 2022, I asked what’s up with the stuff that y’all was doing during that time. Where is it now? Yeah. And where is your continued investment into the dismantling of systemic racism? They were all using their, their platforms during that time to write these statements in summer 2020 about systemic racism.

[00:27:22] Now y’all, didn’t think it like. Got cured like that quickly. Yeah. Right. So, so there’s, there’s that, I, I just think that professional sports teams and leagues have a responsibility. Yeah. Certainly given their, their reach and their massive fan markets, they have a real, a real opportunity. So in that report, I give them lots of guidance on how to, how to leverage.

[00:27:50] Their their influence and

[00:27:52] Peniel Joseph: what, what are some of the in their report? Cause I’m, I’m definitely interested, interested. What are some of the recommendations in terms of to continue it into 2022? What are the, what are the

[00:28:02] Shaun Harper: recommendations? Uh, man, people gotta go and read the report, give us a, it is publicly available on the USC race and equity centers website.

[00:28:11] Uh, that’s my way of saying that. I can’t even remember, like right off the top, like what some of them are, but they’re all in the report and there are, there are many of them numerous, and I swear, I wrote them. There was, I didn’t have a ghost writer nothing’s ever been ghost written for me. So have they followed the, these recommendations though?

[00:28:29] Well, let me say major shoutout to major league soccer. Oh wow. And to the national women’s soccer league last week, we. Had a survey that went out literally to every professional soccer player in those two leagues. Yeah. You know, asking players about racial justice and their, their racial justice sort of, uh, engagement.

[00:29:01] During summer 2020 since summer 2020, we’re ascertaining from those players. Well, what do you think it is that these teams and leagues should be doing in the name of racial justice? You know, I’m really proud of that work. Um, especially proud of the collaboration with just Morrow, who for 12 seasons was a megastar in major league soccer.

[00:29:26] He now works in a leadership role, um, at Toronto FC. Justin and I are, you know, such amazing collaborators on, on that work. So what I’m hoping will happen is that through the work that we’ve started with the two soccer leagues, the women’s and the men’s, we’ll be able to then expand that to other leagues, uh, and, and teams.

[00:29:49] So that’s just one thing. Here’s what I can tell you that I do in the report. I have like a page and a half. Of questions that professional sports leagues should ask themselves. They’re literally questions. If you’re gonna say that you are committed to racial justice, ask yourself these questions, right.

[00:30:18] As individuals, as well as, as, uh, organizations, those questions demand a real grappling with. The, the reality that we’ve dropped a ball. Yeah. Since summer 2020. Yeah. I wrote a piece in Forbes three weeks ago. I read that piece and it was titled pro sports teams are dropping the ball on racial justice.

[00:30:46] It’s because I, I, it’s not a belief. it’s because they are, when we do a relative comparison between two years ago and now, all right.

[00:30:57] Peniel Joseph: Um, This is sort of like nearing the end of our conversation. What are the things that make you tick? Um, you know, both as a scholar, as a consultant, as a person, what are the things that inspire you?

[00:31:11] Because so often one of the things I’ve done over the last couple of years since Briana Taylor and George Floyd is read a lot more on, um, black folks and wellness black folks. Um, and you know what it, what they’re doing. Make themselves well against sort of the trauma of the every day, right? Uh, because even people who are, have access in our elites face trauma, um, and, and a lot of times people think they, don’t not trying to compare their trauma to somebody who’s incarcerated or somebody who’s who’s, who’s facing even a, a different specific set.

[00:31:48] Circumstances, but they do face trauma really day to day wealth. Doesn’t prevent you from trauma. Nice home. None of it. What are the things that inspire you? What are the things that keep you going? I think of you as somebody, who’s an optimistic leader, I’m in that boat in terms of that optimism. So what are some of the things that.

[00:32:07] That make you hopeful and that can make you continue to do what you’re doing. I love how passionate you are about this. Especially the student and expertise side, saying that, Hey, you do have very specific knowledge, but you’re still a student. I feel the same way that gets you jazzed. And also the teaching you’re still in the classroom and all the synapses are firing.

[00:32:29] So you’re a dope teacher. The dope research. Public speaker, the whole thing takes, but what’s keeping

[00:32:34] Shaun Harper: you going. what’s keeping you going. Yeah. Beyonce makes me tick. Yes. Right? Yes. And brings me so much joy. Renaissance is just giving me my whole life right now. Listen, man, this is just, I’m just being honest.

[00:32:51] I just got the book a couple days ago and I’m. You know, I’m, I’m not, not even a third into it, but the third reconstruction is making me tick because it overflows with brilliance and, you know, meeting your brilliance on the pages of this book and your others inspires me to be. Even more brilliant. Right?

[00:33:15] Not in a competitive way, but in a like iron sharpens iron, like I see you. Yes. We see each other kinda way that makes me tick nine hours of sleep every night makes me tick that my,

[00:33:28] Peniel Joseph: my wife feels the same way. I I’m lucky to get to get eight, although I try to go 10 to six every night. So nine hours.

[00:33:35] Shaun Harper: That’s great. Eight eight is admirable. I respect eight. Okay. Nine but nine hours, nine hours. That is my form of self care. Okay. Recognizing that my body has always required lots of sleep. So I give it what it, what it requires, because that then enables me during my waking hours to be the best, most useful version of myself.

[00:33:59] Young people inspire me. Yeah. As you know, I’m a black gay man. Yeah. Most young people that I interact. I’m not just talking about the ones in California, mostly young people think that homophobia is stupid. Like they don’t get it. They’re like, wait, this is so dumb. What a shift generationally. Yes. They inspire me.

[00:34:23] Yeah. If we teach them the truth. About America’s racial past and present many more of them will also think that racism is stupid and that racial inequity is stupid and that they will then grow up to be much more aware of these things and will use their platforms and positions and power and privilege to fight against those things.

[00:34:46] Okay. One last thing that inspires me, I live in the world of evidence. I’m a research. There’s evidence of the impact that we are having at the USC race and equity center as a collective mm-hmm . I also see right before my very eyes, I don’t even have to, sometimes I don’t even have to survey people or interview them or anything.

[00:35:11] I could see the change happening before my very eyes. As I work with companies and organizations and universities and school districts who are benefiting from. the strategy that we’ve co-developed with them, the tools that I’ve given them, the advice and, and so on, and the data that I’ve furnished for them that inspires me because frankly it confirms I’m not wasting my time here.

[00:35:39] I’m not running around in circles and nothing’s happening. I see. Evidence of things happening right before my very eyes that are observable, but then also that are measurable and we measure things in the center that I lead. So that inspires me to, to keep going and to attempt to be as useful as a person, as useful of an American as I can be.

[00:36:09] In my ongoing relentless pursuit of racial justice and racial equity. All

[00:36:15] Peniel Joseph: right. And my, my final, uh, question is like, what, what gives you hope right now in 2022? Is there anything on the horizon that’s giving you hope in terms of, for the equity work that you do hope in any space? And that could be, you know, it could be a television show.

[00:36:31] It could be, you know, going to church, it could be your grandmother, your mother, it could be anything.

[00:36:38] Shaun Harper: the work you and I do demands hope. Otherwise there’d be no reason to do it as I think about what remains of 2022. And certainly as I think about the years ahead of us, one thing that gives me hope, I think that there.

[00:37:04] Increasingly is growing impatience with incrementalism summer 2020 was such a powerful moment in time. And the movement for black lives such a powerful movement. And I thought during that time, okay, this is it. This is the, the point at which we’re going to overthrow incrementalism and, you know, really go for big enduring sustainable change.

[00:37:31] That moment kind of came and. But I’m convinced that. There will be other moments. Hopefully those other moments are not in the aftermath of the murders of unarmed black people. I don’t want that to be always the, the catalyst for these kinds of moments and opportunities, but I am hopeful that. As you and I and others continue to raise consciousness and to teach the nation about its racial realities.

[00:38:06] I respect your stance for sure as a historian, but also those injustices aren’t just in the past. I mean, there are things that have happened in the past hour that have been violent. against black and brown and Asian American folk and indigenous folks. So I think that as we continue to raise the consciousness and teach the truth, I’m hopeful that more Americans will accept the responsibility to do more with that truth and not in an incremental kind of way, but in a massive major, like fashion.

[00:38:52] What a terrible response to your question? Um, no, no, that’s

[00:38:55] Peniel Joseph: good. I mean, I think I wanted us to think about hope and leave the conversation because I think I’m still very hopeful. I think we’re still in this period of reconstruction. I actually think that since 2008 and it’s not, it’s not over. And I think we’ve seen both the progress and juxtaposed by the backlash.

[00:39:15] Um, and we continue to. Uh, and it’s not just elections, it’s just in our day to day. It’s how our institutions are responding. So I’m, I’m actually still very hopeful. I’ve been talking to my friend, Shaun Harper. This has been a fantastic discussion. Uh, Dr. Shaun Harper. Is university professor, one of the few at university of Southern California, for people who don’t know university professor is the highest level of endowment that you can have really at, at any, any university.

[00:39:45] He’s also the founder and executive director of the USC race and equity center, uh, which has a massive portfolio. Has their hands in so many different pots. from K through 12 to businesses consulting leaders. Uh, he’s been the recipient of so many different honors, including an honorary. Uh, from Georgetown university, really one of the, the, the best people, uh, in the world, um, leading the fight on race and equity, both in schools and education, but also in business and other fields, it’s really been a pleasure and a treat we’re really honored to have him as our guest.

[00:40:20] Dr. Shaun Harper. Thank you so much.

[00:40:22] Shaun Harper: The pleasure’s been all mine and again, congrats on the book.

[00:40:25] Peniel Joseph: Oh, thank you. Thank you. That that’s really meaningful coming from you. Thank you. Thanks for listening to this episode and you can check out related content on Twitter at Peniel Joseph that’s, P E N I E L J O S E P H, and our website CS R D dot L BJ dot U texas.edu.

[00:40:50] And the center for study of race and democracies on Facebook as well. This podcast was recorded at the liberal arts development studio at the college of liberal arts at the university of Texas at Austin. Thank you.