On the twenty-fifth anniversary of September 11th, 2001, we remember the 9/11 attacks and how they changed the course of American history. We also reflect on how we are at the end of an era.
00:05:03.220There isn't the feeling of superiority that enables one to do that.
00:05:06.920There isn't the feeling of there being a future and America being chosen by God and being superior to all the lesser nations that used to be there.
00:05:16.680And which used to incentivize you to massacre Native Americans or whatever.
00:05:22.200I'm not saying that's a good thing, but it was a sense of your own importance and superiority.
00:05:38.440It's the change from a feeling that you're the best people in the world that are blessed by God with a special mission to a feeling that you're nothing and you're nobody and you're not important.
00:06:36.360And I think they correctly perceived it as a toxic brew.
00:06:42.500And the fact that those kinds of things are so dominant, as opposed to an American exceptional narrative, is remarkable.
00:06:53.580Well, I don't find it remarkable at all.
00:06:55.580I mean, it's an ideology of humiliation.
00:06:58.260So it's an ideology which compels you to say things which you know aren't true as a means of indicating its power over you and the power of those who are the authors of the ideology over you.
00:07:24.760Whereas these things aren't true and it's like putting down the things that do inspire you and having to say that you're rubbish, you're no good, you're awful, you're sinful.
00:07:34.280And the only way that you can, you could never find, you've never removed those sins, but you could, like a sort of Catholic church, you can go through occasional cycles of repentance and get your sins washed away a bit before they come back again.
00:07:47.400And you do this forever, but the sinfulness and the evil of you being white will always be there.
00:07:53.140And it must be there because it cannot be the case with any of these problems, these inequalities or anything to do with genetics.
00:08:41.800You had Gnosticism, which was a very, very dominant ideology, very, very influential, which had even aspects of non-heretical Christianity.
00:09:18.340And she talks about, if you've read her book, she talks about it almost like a Damocene conversion where she realized the sinfulness of her own whiteness.
00:09:29.500So although she is white like you, dear reader, and it's aimed at white people, she's a better white person than you because she's had this realization.
00:09:38.220She's had this epiphany of her own, like she's seen the face of God, who's black and lesbian, and she's aware of her own sinfulness and you're not.
00:09:50.600And come along with me on the journey of my book and you will have the epiphany as well.
00:09:54.680Do you think to extend this theological frame, do you think that a comparison could be made between total depravity and the critical race theory ideology or white fragility?
00:10:11.020D'Angelo is a little bit different than CRT, but they are kind of of one kind.
00:10:15.740But there's this sense of total depravity that it's a notion no one is sinless.
00:10:22.140Not only were you born in sin, you bear Adam's curse, effectively.
00:10:28.380But you have, you know, each of us have, even after we woke up, even in the short time that I've been awake this morning, I've lied.
00:10:38.520I've wanted, I've had sexual lust in my heart.
00:10:41.980And that in some ways that this anti, the, the, the, whatever we want to call it, white critical right studies or whatever, that it's, it's actually kind of deeply Protestant on some level and, and, and could even be kind of compared to Calvinism.
00:10:59.940Yes, I think, I think it is, I don't know if you, yes, sort of.
00:11:06.240I mean, with, with, with Calvinism, you have this idea that the key thing about Calvinism is there's an elect.
00:11:20.480Yeah, they're the, they're the good whites.
00:11:21.580But it's, it's not, it's not some, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, um, oh goodness me, what's his name, that Dutch theologian?
00:11:29.000It's Arminian, that's it, in the sense that, in the sense that it's not, it's not predestined.
00:11:33.880All of you can, um, if you have your epiphany and realise your true racism, um, be saved from the evil of whiteness.
00:11:43.000But the problem is that most of you don't seem to understand that you people think you aren't racist.
00:11:48.200There is this structural racism in which all whites unconsciously participate.
00:11:52.320And one way in which they participate in it is by disagreeing, um, with what D'Angelo is doing.
00:11:59.120Uh, by simply by disagreeing with D'Angelo and saying she's wrong, they are attempting to maintain their dominance within the racial hierarchy.
00:12:05.760So they either have to accept the gnosis, uh, that D'Angelo has to offer, or they are, they are, they are, they are, they are failing to understand that deep down they are racist.
00:12:17.040It's like in Monty Python, only the true Messiah denies his divinity.
00:12:20.800What kind of chance does that give me?
00:12:35.760You know, it's funny, um, I, uh, this wasn't exactly what I was planning on talking about, but I think this is a very interesting discussion.
00:12:43.260I remember about 10 or 15 years ago speaking with the, uh, idiosyncratic and rather grumpy blogger named Lawrence Oster.
00:12:56.520Were you ever aware of him or have you become aware of him?
00:12:59.460Um, he was a, uh, very, very shrill blogger and, and highly prolific.
00:13:07.720Um, and he started to attack me, although I guess everyone attacks me.
00:13:12.760So that doesn't really single him out.
00:13:14.760But, um, I actually had lunch with him one day and it was very interesting.
00:13:20.400And he said, he, he said that he was on a bus at one point in New York City and he was surrounded by non-white people.
00:13:31.460And again, he, he is Jewish and was, um, fervent about his Jewish identity, but he also identified as a white person as well.
00:13:39.380Um, and I believe he's like one of those that converted to Catholicism or something in his deathbed or something like this.
00:13:46.680But, um, he, he said, I was on this bus and I was surrounded by people.
00:13:52.760Some were speaking Spanish and they were Puerto Rican.
00:13:54.860Many were black and they were talking to each other.
00:13:57.200There were maybe an Orthodox Jew over here and so on.
00:13:59.720And he kind of saw all of these people and he basically said effectively, it's okay to be white.
00:14:07.340And there was a kind of level, he just talked about it in a very genuine manner.
00:14:10.820There was a kind of level of reflection that he had where he accepted who he was and then could actually move forward with it.
00:14:19.520And I, I feel like with, with people like D'Angelo and company, it's almost like there, there are two paths that you can take.
00:14:28.820Um, if you're living in 1950s America and, um, the, there are really race isn't really something that is pressing on you outside of certain circumstances.
00:14:46.120Granted, there was some ethnic, uh, bigotry and rivalry.
00:14:50.440And obviously there is the African question, which has been important in America for, since it's beginning.
00:14:57.400Um, but if you were growing up in a small town in Ohio, um, race isn't ever present.
00:15:05.560And thus you don't really reflect on it.
00:15:08.440And I think people are kind of reflecting on their identity and in a, in a way that might actually be very positive going forward.
00:15:18.040And so is D'Angelo and she's kind of taking this path towards self overcoming and repentance and, uh, uh, redemption or so on.
00:15:29.640But that actually is a path that everyone has to take at some point, almost to give her too much credit perhaps, but everyone ultimately has to reflect on that in a way that they didn't have to reflect on that.
00:15:43.740Even myself growing up and, you know, being in Dallas, I can remember going to Highland park in the eighties.
00:15:51.100It was basically like a simulacrum of the 1950s, little burger joints and, uh, milkshakes and baseball card shops.
00:16:00.860And so it was the widest damn thing you could ever imagine.
00:16:04.680And we kind of protected ourselves from, from reflecting on it.
00:16:24.660And what she's telling them is, no, you are racist.
00:16:27.280Um, you, you, you, you actually are extremely racist because you have an inherent racism and all kinds of little things that you do and that you contribute to it and take part in make you racist.
00:16:48.460But by doing so, then you could argue she's simply upping the ante and, and having them, and having them say, Oh God, yeah, I thought I was saved.
00:16:59.420I'd better be even more anti-racist, even more than I already was.
00:17:02.900And I already was the kind of person that would, you know, dismiss someone out of hand and say stupid things like, Oh, well, don't you know that racism is a social construct?
00:17:11.020Um, I already have that kind of idiot and I'd better be even more of an idiot or else I'll feel terribly, terribly bad about myself and I won't be able to cope.
00:17:17.620So I think she's just making it worse, um, by, by, by, by, by, it's, it's a runaway anti-racism in which she is taking part by saying, I am, I am even more anti-racist than you by virtue of my realization, which then makes people, uh, further signal it, um, until you get to pulling down statues and, uh, uh, just the idea that anything white is evil.
00:17:41.900And then beyond that, I don't know what, I mean, I'm waiting.
00:17:44.640If there was another revival like there was in 2020, as I said to you at the time, I'm waiting for a white suicide cult, uh, or suicide cults of white, but you know what I mean?
00:17:54.340A white suicide cult based around whiteness.
00:17:56.540Um, and I didn't think that's a coincidence either, that suicide cults are often a white thing.
00:18:01.560I don't think that's at all a coincidence.
00:18:04.160Because, because of the sense of guilt that white people have, because of the sense of group conformity that they have, because of the extent to which they can be indoctrinated, because of the, the neuroticism level that they have that is, and so on, that is not combined with, uh, being highly ethnocentric.
00:18:20.280And therefore they can be taken out of it, which is the way, or we call these demons out, and therefore you end up with these suicide cults.
00:18:25.840Yeah, I mean, suicide is the ultimate expression of conscious will, in a way, in the sense that you are overcoming even your, your instinct to survive, which might seem to be the most powerful instinct.
00:18:39.180You are gaining control in perhaps the most powerful way possible.
00:18:44.620Um, but, yeah, okay, so we got off on a interesting tangent there.
00:18:52.080Uh, I think I might just leave that where it is.
00:18:54.540This will be a rambling podcast today.
00:19:09.540I, I remember with my parents, everyone had a story of where they were.
00:19:14.620When JFK was assassinated and, and even if it's, it was a mundane story, like I was, you know, eating breakfast and I saw it on television.
00:19:23.960It, it, it, it was something that was just burned into their memory.
00:19:27.140Do you have something like that with regard to 9-11?
00:19:33.440Well, yes, but there's a difference between the reality, reality and podcasts.
00:19:38.060So you're going to have to tell the audience.
00:19:39.880Oh, well, there was this thing at Durham University called the Milk Ground.
00:19:43.100And they would, they would come there and they would get people from elite universities.
00:19:47.380And they would try and get them to get a job in, in finance, basically.
00:19:50.380They would try and get people in finance.
00:19:52.700And so one of the, and the holidays at Derby University were between, uh, the end of June and the beginning of October.
00:19:58.800And so, um, at the end of my, um, second year, the, the, the, the Milk Ground were there and, and they offered, um, this company that had offices in New York.
00:20:09.760And so, um, and so they would pay for you and you'd have like a hot summer holiday of working, not very well paid.
00:20:16.440And they'd pay all your expenses and stuff.
00:20:19.300So that's where I was on September the 11th, um, 2001, working in New York.
00:20:23.640Um, and, um, and I wasn't, um, I was, I was working as a, um, I was working as, as a journalist, as a, um, well, it's funny.
00:20:32.800Cause I was actually at a flight school, uh, I was working as a journalist, as a, uh, work experience as a journalist for a local newspaper in London.
00:20:44.880And, uh, this is 2001, so it's amazing to think it, but there was no internet yet in that newspaper.