TRIGGERnometry - Will Young People Rebel Against Wokeness？ with Inaya Folarin Iman

00:00:00.000 Hello and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster.

00:00:07.860 I'm Constantine Kishin.

00:00:09.180 And this is a show for you if you want honest conversations with fascinating people.

00:00:14.420 We have a brilliant guest today in our socially distant studio, as you're about to see.

00:00:19.640 She's the director of the Equiana Project in IFL.

00:00:22.060 And Iman, welcome back to Trigonometry.

00:00:23.880 Thank you for having me again.

00:00:25.040 Yeah, it's good to have you back. It's been nearly a year.

00:00:27.520 I introduced you as a director of the Equiano Project, which didn't exist the last time we interviewed you.

00:00:32.460 What has been going on with you in the last year?

00:00:35.700 Yeah, it's been a really, really crazy year, obviously.

00:00:38.080 A lot of people first really heard of me significantly when I kind of intervened to an extent in the kind of identity politics debate that was going on kind of early last year.

00:00:47.860 And then August, I kind of launched an organization called the Equiano Project, slightly in response to the kind of Black Lives Matter protests,

00:00:54.660 but kind of a broader desire to kind of hopefully move the conversation forward in regards to kind

00:00:59.620 of identity politics and things like that. So we had our first event, which was attended

00:01:03.560 and guest speakers like Trevor Phillips and Catherine Burble-Singh and Aisha Akembi has

00:01:08.480 also been on this show and it was really fantastic. And since then, we've been kind of going into

00:01:13.040 schools and speaking to people about how we can respond to many of these really important issues

00:01:18.220 about kind of colonialism and history and race and identity, but from a more kind of humanist,

00:01:23.100 universalist perspective that's not kind of driven ideologically solely from a kind of narrow lens

00:01:29.080 of identity politics and kind of race consciousness and that deeply kind of politicized narrative of

00:01:33.880 race. So that's really where it's been at and hopefully lots of new exciting projects on

00:01:38.860 freedom of speech and a lot of these important conversations. You definitely moved the

00:01:42.800 conversation forward when we had you, Aisha and Zubi in short succession. We then got kicked out

00:01:48.360 of our last studio. So things are moving in the right direction. Thank you for your help.

00:01:54.540 No, I think, I think it has been really positive. I think, you know, in the beginning of the

00:01:58.220 conversation, I think a lot of people were thinking, where is it going to go? But what

00:02:01.700 we've really seen is so many people from a genuine diversity of backgrounds, ethnic minorities in

00:02:06.680 particular, that are saying that a lot of this conversation doesn't represent them. And actually,

00:02:11.200 just like any group of people, regardless of your background, there's real ideological and

00:02:15.620 political diversity and that that fundamentally needs to be heard if we are to kind of really

00:02:19.620 delve into these these questions so i think it's not been as bad hopefully a year later is move

00:02:25.200 forward so you think it's actually calmed down a bit now or do you not think that we're gonna

00:02:30.900 we're gonna see another eruption i think it's a really difficult one i mean i mean two years ago

00:02:36.300 i i think very few people would have predicted whether that was kind of covid or even black

00:02:41.260 lives matter and i guess the nature of kind of society is is the kind of spontaneity that emerges

00:02:45.980 with it but i think what has happened now which seems very different to last year is that there

00:02:50.620 seems to have emerged many different organizations now in response to a lot of these movements so if

00:02:55.880 something does happen there's a kind of infrastructure a social solidarity in place to

00:03:00.880 be able to respond to it and kind of um and bring forth the kind of voices that have a different

00:03:05.860 perspective on these issues so i think that in terms of the kind of uh the kind of knowledge

00:03:10.300 about the kind of complexity of the issue that it's moved forward.

00:03:13.260 But there are still so many challenges.

00:03:15.500 I think that, for example, you know, one of the things

00:03:18.280 that have now arisen in regards to this conversation very recently

00:03:21.340 has been the kind of conversation around kind of big tech censorship.

00:03:24.820 So we still have many significant challenges

00:03:27.620 in order to kind of open the conversation

00:03:29.740 around many of these complex issues.

00:03:32.080 So there's still much more to be done, I think.

00:03:34.200 And the obvious question, I suppose, would be,

00:03:36.360 given that your project deals with schools.

00:03:40.020 We're seeing in America now, particularly,

00:03:42.180 and as we know, whenever they get something, we get it.

00:03:44.620 We used to be five years later, now we get it two weeks later,

00:03:47.520 is critical race theory.

00:03:49.360 Can you explain to people what that is?

00:03:52.600 Yeah, so I think a lot of people over the last year

00:03:55.760 have attempted to make sense of this kind of theory

00:03:58.880 that has often come to shape the conversation about race.

00:04:01.700 I mean, Helen Pluckford and James Lindsay are very famous

00:04:04.340 for kind of problematizing that the nature of that theory and it is very complicated but i think if

00:04:09.540 it's actually what's interesting about it is actually quite logically consistent if you accept

00:04:13.680 some of the premises of it so obviously it it kind of posits that um racism is kind of ever present

00:04:20.060 embedded in um every element of society and so as helen pluckrose mentions it's not kind of did

00:04:25.280 racism happen in a given uh interaction is how did racism manifest itself and so you know people

00:04:31.980 are split up into uh the oppressor versus oppressed and thank you for looking at me

00:04:37.140 yes she focused entirely on you from the moment that she said how did racism manifest itself

00:04:43.640 and she just went i raked it straight out it's all right he's used to it yeah it's all right

00:04:50.940 it's the voice i know it's the voice you've got a delicious shade of gammon there as well

00:04:56.880 you know what it's such a pleasure to have a human being back in like face to face that we

00:05:04.560 just enjoy messing around but you're making an important point which is this is a system

00:05:09.140 that presume that racism happens whenever people of different races coexist in the same space

00:05:14.760 exactly and you know and your your the legitimacy of your voice depends on your positionality where

00:05:20.560 you stand in relation to dynamics of power and privilege and each individual is made up of these

00:05:25.420 kind of competing intersections of different interlocking systems of oppression whether

00:05:31.400 that's your race your gender your sexuality one of the things I find so challenging about this

00:05:36.900 this theory and it is a theory it's not fact it is you never become a full human being you know

00:05:42.540 and what I mean by that is human beings are never seen in their totality they're always kind of

00:05:47.420 competing identity categories and so this makes it very difficult to have a meaningful conversation

00:05:52.060 it's not human being to human being it's not this idea that we all have empathy and that means that

00:05:57.160 we can at least if not we've if we've not experienced direct discrimination we can at

00:06:01.380 least imagine what it might feel like and that's our human empathy that the thread that unites us

00:06:06.620 all regardless of our identity category and so you could never fully transcend that according

00:06:11.160 to this theory we're always just in this constant loop of kind of competing power dynamics and i

00:06:17.060 don't think that's a context for human beings to fully exercise their agency and transcend the

00:06:22.620 kind of identity categories and political abstractions assigned upon them. And so,

00:06:27.000 you know, again, the Equiano Project hopes to really re-articulate that universalist perspective

00:06:32.160 of Martin Luther King, Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, and a long tradition that goes a

00:06:37.260 long way. And do you think we're at risk of this being introduced into schools? Because I know

00:06:42.060 there's been you know there's a there's been the issue with Eton and you know and firing that

00:06:46.740 particular teacher but do you think we're at risk now this being introduced into state schools up

00:06:51.280 and down the country? I think it's already become incredibly institutionalized I think

00:06:55.760 for example we see it in the corporate world with the whole kind of diversity and inclusion

00:06:59.880 and and this kind of seeing people as you know constantly a threat to one another that needs

00:07:06.380 to be micromanaged and all of these kind of diversity trainings there's an entire industry

00:07:11.300 now and I think understandably you know most people I think we've come a long way as a society

00:07:16.200 find racism to be abhorrent and if there's a kind of group of people consistently saying that it's

00:07:20.860 embedded in society and it and it's you know so pervasive then understandably you know people

00:07:26.020 feel that they want to do something about it and so the challenge is now as I kind of alluded to

00:07:30.180 earlier is ensuring that and increasing the kind of platforms for people that have that different

00:07:34.680 perspective okay by all means put forward the critical race theory perspective I don't believe

00:07:38.640 it should be censored or removed but as long as we understand that it is one lens for looking at

00:07:43.640 things and there are multiple and I think that's I think what um for example the kind of Kemi

00:07:47.840 Badenoch um statement where she talked about kind of teaching it as one um objective truth is really

00:07:53.420 the problem as long as you're um demonstrating it along a wide range of views can we then I think

00:07:57.960 get closer to the truth you have to ask the question as well like I'm a former teacher

00:08:02.400 everyone can now drink uh but when we kids are struggling with their literacy with their numeracy

00:08:08.480 is this really the thing that we should be using less than time for shouldn't we teach me about

00:08:13.200 geography history etc etc well absolutely i think um i mean one of the subjects that i'm really

00:08:19.140 interested in is the kind of subject of kind of freedom of speech which is a kind of fundamental

00:08:23.180 basis of democracy and one of another issue that's been really strong amongst younger generations is

00:08:29.160 a kind of suspicion towards freedom of speech or any time we think about freedom of speech is often

00:08:33.740 consistently framed in relation to spreading hate or attacks against minorities and the kind of real

00:08:39.300 kind of virtue and meaning of that has become distorted in the conversation and that's something

00:08:44.360 that I think is fundamental to young people's cultivation of their own sense of individuality

00:08:49.260 and agency and so fixating over race on a generation that may well be the most open-minded

00:08:56.400 towards different racial groups than previous generations, perhaps in history, I think is

00:09:02.600 a really distracting thing. I think there's way, way, way more issues. I mean, particularly in the

00:09:08.540 pandemic that young people are facing right now. I mean, having their kind of educational life

00:09:13.240 decimated is one example. And I don't think that fixating on racism amongst young people is a very

00:09:21.200 productive thing to focus on. Do you think a big part of this is technology? Because one of the

00:09:25.520 things I have been aware of recently is that the power of technology is so great. And as we record

00:09:32.100 this, this whole GameStop thing is happening, right? Where essentially a bunch of ordinary

00:09:36.980 people have worked out that if you use technology to band together, you can be really powerful.

00:09:43.620 And of course, the powers that be want to shut that down. Do you think a big part of this whole

00:09:48.120 attempt to restrict what people say is that modern technology is so powerful that, you know,

00:09:54.760 one person saying something can turn into a thousand people saying something and before you

00:09:59.180 know it half the country believes something that isn't true let's say right do you think that's a

00:10:04.000 lot of a lot of the reasons that there's this fear about freedom of expression i think that's a really

00:10:09.060 good question and i think there's a lot of truth in it i think um i think we kind of forget that

00:10:13.540 we haven't had social media for a very long time and actually something so revolutionary like the

00:10:18.640 ability to instantaneously communicate with the entire world and kind of spread that message to

00:10:24.020 the world has transformational effects. And I think we are still navigating that territory and

00:10:29.280 kind of figuring out what that means. And I do think it absolutely does have very real consequences.

00:10:34.140 So, you know, as you just alluded to, you can say something that may be false, particularly in a

00:10:40.520 situation of crisis that we're dealing with. And I think people do have legitimate concerns about

00:10:44.840 what the consequences of that might lead to. But I guess the question is, how do we really respond

00:10:49.480 to that. And I think part of our kind of drive to restrict and to stifle is a kind of lack of

00:10:56.020 confidence in our institutions, in our civic society, to be vibrant enough and intellectually

00:11:02.000 rigorous enough and dynamic enough to be able to actually challenge those things. So our

00:11:08.000 instinctive response is to just censor it. But obviously, as we've seen, that doesn't work. I

00:11:13.440 think it's one of the oldest statements, tricks in the book that if you do censor something,

00:11:18.480 it doesn't stop people from believing it you know you can kind of put your head in the sand you can

00:11:22.860 ignore it but people still hold those views and I think that when people are not allowed the space

00:11:29.240 to be able to express them to you know allow their idea to really be refined against the views of

00:11:35.660 other people then I think you know as many people as have said it often moves underground and I think

00:11:41.360 that's a much more kind of dangerous situation and I think that a much more confident and civic

00:11:46.920 life will actually want those views to be be out there and for us to be able to respond to that

00:11:51.180 and and you know i think it's really hard at the moment because again with the kind of lockdown

00:11:56.340 conditions we don't really have a public square in the same sense so you know what that means is

00:12:01.940 that the way we can experience people in a much more multi-dimensional way such as you know going

00:12:07.100 to the pub or going to a kind of event with lots of people and debating isn't there so the only

00:12:12.140 domain really we have now to really experience even a fraction of another human being is through

00:12:17.580 these kinds of uh these channels these social media channels so by removing people you're

00:12:22.140 essentially unpersoning them you're saying there's no domain in the public square in the digital

00:12:27.240 public square that exists and for for you to actually express yourself and i think that that

00:12:31.900 can um arise much more kind of dangerous consequences broadway's smash hit the neil

00:12:37.880 diamond musical a beautiful noise is coming to toronto the true story of a kid from brooklyn

00:12:43.700 destined for something more featuring all the songs you love including america forever in blue

00:12:49.040 jeans and sweet caroline like jersey boys and beautiful the next musical mega hit is here

00:12:54.940 the neil diamond musical a beautiful noise april 28th through june 7th 2026 the princess of wales

00:13:02.020 Theater. Get tickets at murbush.com. So what did you make of the consequences of the attack on the

00:13:10.760 Capitol or whatever happened, right? The consequences of that, where you start with

00:13:17.540 the president of the United States being banned from the platform that he uses to talk to people.

00:13:23.520 Then Parler gets its servers taken down. Then, as I mentioned, GameStop, you get these people

00:13:31.200 trading and that gets called hate speech, the forums get shut down and whatever. It seems like,

00:13:37.780 and my view isn't that you've got these nefarious people like sitting there in a

00:13:42.980 smoke-filled room, whatever. It just seems like these kids really have got these massive

00:13:49.600 corporations through which we all communicate in their hands. And they've suddenly got, oh my God,

00:13:54.920 like I have so much power. And that's probably quite scary to them and they don't know what to

00:13:59.720 do and they've got you know sam harris came out and thanked jack dorsey for banning donald trump

00:14:04.520 so you've got well if sam harris is telling you to ban stuff like how do you hold that line exactly

00:14:10.040 i think it's incredibly difficult i think that these are really really um complex questions and

00:14:14.740 i think that we're in a climate right now where we have kind of narrative warfare so if a kind

00:14:19.620 of event happens and i think many people like douglas moore have spoken about this if a kind

00:14:23.260 of event happens there's um instead of relying on again traditional media to kind of tell us the

00:14:29.420 close to the impartial truth of the events, we have all of these narratives that emerge.

00:14:34.520 And these narratives are often purely kind of ideological in reading. And so it just becomes

00:14:39.320 a kind of battleground between whose narrative is going to really dominate. And so a lot of these

00:14:45.280 kind of big tech companies essentially have to end up choosing which narrative aligns most to

00:14:50.040 many of their values. And a lot of the time they are this kind of corporate liberal values. And

00:14:54.520 many of those people are saying actually, you know, censor disinformation, censor hate speech,

00:14:59.760 if you don't do this, then you're part of the problem. And I think they genuinely are in a

00:15:05.200 kind of difficult situation. But I do think, you know, I absolutely do believe that they

00:15:09.820 kind of bear a lot of responsibility for, I do think that there are incentive structures,

00:15:15.380 within social media companies that kind of exaggerate the kinds of things that you're

00:15:21.840 exposed to in these kinds of echo chambers. And as I said, when we are in a situation where the

00:15:27.060 kind of digital public square is these social media companies, then I think it makes that

00:15:31.460 situation much more difficult if you are not being exposed to lots of different viewpoints.

00:15:35.980 And so I think they are in a difficult situation. And I'm not sure that I don't know if the answer

00:15:40.240 is going to be in these social media platforms, because ultimately, you know, for example,

00:15:45.720 with Twitter, it's just kind of one tweet that you send. That's not a full experience of a kind

00:15:51.180 of human being that's not a full way to kind of understand one another i think is is unlikely that

00:15:56.520 um that the social media companies are really now going to be the domain um the current ones at

00:16:01.820 least twitter where we can really um have an open climate for for different ideas i think we i think

00:16:07.300 we need new things now i think that we need to start creating new spaces new open spaces um where

00:16:13.200 no topics um are off limits where um are kind of based off of shared values not necessarily kind

00:16:19.460 of stale terms of service and where we can genuinely have conversations with with people

00:16:25.160 from from different ideological backgrounds in a much more fuller and richer way not not just

00:16:30.780 just in the form of a kind of message or a tweet and i think that that's where um i think that the

00:16:35.340 space is really open now for for much more spaces um like that in the digital arena do we need 3d

00:16:40.860 reality yeah we do i think that's what you need yeah exactly i mean it's a great point that you

00:16:47.840 made but isn't part of the problem now with lockdown in that these companies have become

00:16:52.320 ever more draconian if you look at someone like youtube they've basically said that if you put

00:16:56.860 any form of content criticizing lockdown or whl guidelines or policies you're going to get struck

00:17:02.640 off i i think they're playing i agree with you i think it's become absolutely worse i think we're

00:17:07.340 in a really really dangerous kind of perilous situation where there's almost there's very few

00:17:12.000 spaces now where where um if it's not being overtly censored there's a kind of pernicious

00:17:17.520 culture of kind of self-censorship and where people don't feel comfortable speaking because

00:17:22.160 of fear of the consequences and that's you know what what has been spoken about in the past cancel

00:17:26.660 culture where this is not a this is not an imaginary threat that a lot of people would

00:17:30.400 like to believe it's a real threat for people like for example nick buckley you know who

00:17:34.620 thankfully um was able to get his charity back that if you do veer away from the orthodoxy

00:17:40.280 then there is a real and pernicious threat that you could lose your livelihood.

00:17:44.620 And I think that if we're in a situation now where big tech companies that are unaccountable, unelectable and incredibly opaque in terms of their policies have the power to remove people's livelihood, then that's a fundamental free speech issue.

00:17:57.360 And I think that we are in a very dangerous situation. Absolutely.

00:18:00.340 And do you think we could possibly go along the Poland route, which has effectively said that they're going to fine these social media companies if they take down content which doesn't contravene Polish law?

00:18:11.400 I think that that is a possibility. You know, I did look into that and I think that's a very, I think that we'll have to see how that actually transpires.

00:18:18.420 I think that, again, the challenge is that, and I do think there's definitely a role for the state and a role for a kind of top down response.

00:18:25.820 But I think that the kind of state intervening in a lot of these issues seems quite problematic and complicated for various reasons,

00:18:34.720 because freedom of speech not just has to be protected from a kind of legalistic perspective, which is absolutely important, but it also has to be believed in people's hearts.

00:18:43.840 And I think that that's really one of the other challenges that I think is also contributing to this current climate, where actually the kind of real embodiment of free speech, the kind of spirit of confronting ideas and challenging them in many spaces still hasn't been fully actualized.

00:19:02.680 And so as much as there could be legal protections, if it's not fully believed in, then we'll still have that, as John Switmill describes, the kind of the tyranny of prevailing opinion.

00:19:12.140 That's a really good point because I guess the only way to change this

00:19:16.380 in the long term is to change the culture, which is what you're saying

00:19:19.000 and I imagine what you're trying to do with the Equiana Project,

00:19:21.960 to get in there at a younger point and try and explain to the kids

00:19:26.460 what that's all about.

00:19:29.280 But in the meantime, I mean, I used to have quite a libertarian mindset

00:19:34.840 when it came to these big tech things, but I think we've seen now,

00:19:38.800 you know, you talk about these new spaces.

00:19:41.640 Parler tried to create one, didn't end so well, right?

00:19:45.260 Do you see what I'm saying?

00:19:46.140 So I don't see how that gets fixed without government intervening

00:19:50.620 and whatever else it might be.

00:19:52.340 Well, so this is, you know, another thing that has been something

00:19:56.260 that I've been really working on for the past year now.

00:19:59.720 And I think that I don't think, I do think there's definitely a role for government,

00:20:03.480 but I do think there's got to be a collaborative kind of civil society response.

00:20:07.560 And I think, for example, the stuff that Trigonometry are doing are amazing

00:20:09.940 in terms of facilitating these conversations but I think civil society also has to play a really

00:20:16.060 significant role in kind of pushing back against this to kind of cultivate this um this bottom-up

00:20:20.660 response and so there is a project as well um that with the free speech union and the battle

00:20:26.300 of ideas charity that myself and a lot of other young people have actually been working on for

00:20:30.300 nearly a year now and it's launching um called free speech champions and I'm really really excited

00:20:35.980 about this project because it's a kind of nationwide initiative in order to kind of

00:20:39.940 encourage free speech and very much from the bottom up focus on kind of younger people

00:20:45.060 and I think that there are real kind of practical material ways that we can do this so for example

00:20:49.940 one of the things that we're doing is cultivating a group of called free speech champions the

00:20:54.980 champions themselves are these young people between the kind of ages of 18 to 30 that

00:21:00.180 really believe in free speech from a kind of diverse range of perspectives that go out

00:21:04.140 into kind of schools, universities and these places to kind of spread the message about why

00:21:08.660 it's important and hopefully bring more young people together. But not just that,

00:21:13.660 providing the information, the resources, the kind of everything that's needed to actually

00:21:18.820 really campaign for it. So, for example, one of the things that we've done on the website

00:21:22.320 is to have a guide to how to set up a free speech society, how to campaign for free speech on campus.

00:21:28.440 Because I think that when we think about free speech, it's such a big topic. But I do think

00:21:33.120 there's lots of little things that people can do collectively to really actually start to change

00:21:37.860 the culture and i think it is it is a legal question and i think there was a thing in the

00:21:42.680 express recently of priti patel perhaps wanting to do something with the hate speech laws but there

00:21:47.520 has to be something and very much from the bottom up and creating those spaces whether online or in

00:21:53.060 it in the actual rural public square where people can't there are no forbidden topics so people can

00:21:58.120 really express themselves because i think that's the kind of fundamental prerequisite for for real

00:22:03.100 human agency, for really exploring the kind of depth and scope of our humanity. Because I think

00:22:08.200 without it, you know, social and human progress, you know, is incredibly diminished. So there's

00:22:13.680 possibilities out there. And I think a collaborative endeavour with people across the political

00:22:19.600 spectrum, you know, in the form of kind of free speech champions, to really push back against

00:22:23.820 this, I think could really be the start of something quite significant.

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00:24:03.320 He knew that bit off by now.

00:24:06.500 I can't believe I'm actually saying this, but I'm going to say this.

00:24:09.500 Do you not think...

00:24:10.820 Yeah, it sounds, again, my voice,

00:24:13.400 but do you not think that the label free speech

00:24:17.340 has actually been tarnished to the point that immediately when people hear it they go oh it's

00:24:23.320 just some you know right-wing bloke you know with a swastika who just wants to drop m-bombs

00:24:27.720 yes i it is it is really unfortunate and i think you know one of the things about the kind of

00:24:32.520 culture wars that has been really frustrating is that a lot of people think you know people in the

00:24:36.840 culture wars want to weaponize free speech but you know in my view i think free speech has been

00:24:42.240 more a victim of the culture wars than a weapon of it. And so I think it has to be reclaimed.

00:24:49.000 You know, I don't think that we should be able to, they should be able to cede linguistic

00:24:52.440 territory where we're not able to use the language that is widely understood to express

00:24:58.460 concepts that are also widely understood. And I think when we cede that linguistic territory again,

00:25:03.340 then we're in a much more difficult position to push back against it when we don't actually have

00:25:07.940 the words to really describe it and so free speech um you know it's not a dirty word it's a

00:25:12.740 is a fundamental bedrock of a kind of free and open democratic society and we should be really

00:25:17.680 confident in articulating that such an obvious point but the fact that you have to explain it is

00:25:23.160 is kind of mind-blowing in a way no it absolutely is and so you're going into schools you've been

00:25:27.660 working with these kids so how do they perceive free speech so they see it as something that

00:25:31.620 should be celebrated or a tool of white oppression or whatever it is yeah so that's the free speech

00:25:35.940 champions and project it launches on the 1st of february but even before that um you know i i was

00:25:41.180 going into schools and speaking about free speech and what's been really interesting and i think

00:25:44.760 there was also some research that was done about it which was that um you know when you actually

00:25:50.000 articulate the arguments about free speech and people are much more um compelled by them just

00:25:56.160 kind of saying you know believe in free speech you know it's really important does it's not that

00:26:00.160 convincing because i don't think the kind of substance of the meaning has really been

00:26:03.220 conceptualize and really grasp but when you really um you know explain the fact that for example

00:26:08.080 social movements the world over um free speech has been essential for them to actually challenge

00:26:13.640 the institutions and that were kind of subjugating them by articulating their suffering or or it's

00:26:19.460 necessary for the kind of the challenging of orthodoxies and rigidity um and so it's there's

00:26:24.900 something incredibly radical about it or you know greg lukionov talks about free speech as the

00:26:29.420 eternally radical idea and young people that are often you know wanting to to both in some senses

00:26:35.440 be conformist but also be perceived as the kind of new radicals I think that actually when free

00:26:40.400 speech is articulated in a way that um it's not you know something you know dull or boring or

00:26:46.000 inevitable it's actually something that we have to fight for every single day because in many

00:26:51.000 senses it's against all odds and so I think going back perhaps to those kind of core foundational

00:26:56.820 principles and rediscovering I think a lot of these kind of heroic stories and the kind of

00:27:03.560 traditions of the past and thinking about what it was about the past that needs to be interrogated

00:27:08.980 but really re-articulated for the present day and positioning ourselves in that historical

00:27:14.140 trajectory I think is really compelling to a lot of young people and so I think I think there's a

00:27:19.640 lot of scope for it. Do you think it's also quite fertile ground because you know you have the

00:27:24.580 people in their 20s who are uber woke, very liberal,

00:27:27.340 don't want to upset, don't want to be offensive.

00:27:30.340 And do you think you're going to get a reaction from the generation below

00:27:32.860 who are like, fuck that, I'm going to say what I want,

00:27:35.260 almost as a rebellion?

00:27:37.100 Oh, I think that, I really hope so,

00:27:39.280 because I think now the climate has become so restrictive.

00:27:43.720 There's so many taboos, there's so many,

00:27:46.000 you can't say that, you shouldn't say that,

00:27:48.200 you can't offend these people.

00:27:49.360 I think that's exhausting.

00:27:50.240 I think it's really exhausting to be,

00:27:52.080 I mean I'm soon not going to be a young person in a couple years but I mean the young people that

00:27:57.240 have completely grown up on social media where you know from a very young age you know they're

00:28:03.440 comparing themselves to other people you know there's all of these new labels and terms I think

00:28:07.740 that there's I think hopefully a new generation will begin to reject that rigidity as this kind

00:28:13.700 of orthodoxy it is very much the dominant culture now and so it's not something new or edgy to be

00:28:21.080 vulnerable and highly offensive and paternalistic. It is actually something incredibly conformist

00:28:28.120 and boring. It'll be interesting to see what you find when you roll the project out across the

00:28:33.960 country, because we do keep hearing this narrative now that the next generation are really not work

00:28:40.100 at all, which is interesting to me. That sort of makes logical sense that it would be that way,

00:28:45.580 but you kind of need to see it happening, don't you? Yeah, I think it is the territory of the

00:28:51.040 space of the project right now it is very it's like it's like a baby you know it's very new and

00:28:55.880 I'm really excited to see where it's going to go but I really encourage like you know young people

00:29:00.840 that are really interested and curious and open-minded and wanting to explore to kind of

00:29:06.380 join the project and find out more about it because I think that there's there's a lot of scope and I

00:29:10.540 think that I think it is possible that that people younger especially having grown up in perhaps you

00:29:16.360 know having come to adulthood or come to maturity in in a kind of covid situation that may well be

00:29:22.280 the the most uh one of the most restricted when it comes to liberty that that any of us may have

00:29:27.440 ever experienced that um you know what are the possibilities that kind of lie beyond this moment

00:29:32.700 and how do we navigate that and i so i think that i think a lot of young people hopefully would be

00:29:37.240 asking those questions that surely this isn't inevitable surely we don't have to accept the

00:29:42.040 the premise that um human beings uh must be uh under such stringent restrictions whether that's

00:29:49.200 you know from an institutional level but from a kind of cultural and ideas level

00:29:53.720 um inevitably it's interesting well i mean the kids obviously are not going to learn any math

00:29:58.780 so at least they'll learn about free speech right now won't they

00:30:01.180 have you ever been abroad and felt out of place because you didn't speak the language

00:30:07.880 No, because I voted Brexit. Brexit means Brexit.

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00:31:13.660 forward slash play use our code trigger and enjoy babble i'm curious you mentioned the institutions

00:31:20.640 and this is something francis and i've discussed quite a bit it seems to me like what we're really

00:31:25.160 talking about is different facets of the culture or different fronts perhaps on it and the the

00:31:30.780 organizations that you've been involved with through the free speech union and now the free

00:31:35.660 Speech Champions Project, they seem to me like institutions that are waging that battle.

00:31:43.080 Do you think the answer here inevitably has to be institutional? Because so much of this,

00:31:48.820 what you might call woke stuff, has become institutionalized in the media, in government,

00:31:54.840 almost everywhere now, in education, of course, that you have to fight fire with fire, or you

00:32:01.240 have to fight institutions with other institutions? Yeah, no, I think that's a really good question.

00:32:05.660 And I think that I think a lot of people do think that the kind of the institutions have become beyond repair, have become corrupted.

00:32:11.820 But I'm not so sure, because I think that ultimately the institutions are fluid insofar as they're made up of people.

00:32:20.220 And so if the people that encompass or animate those institutions, their views shift or their views become more open, then I think by definition, the institutions themselves should.

00:32:32.820 And I think, you know, we've gone through worse things as a society, you know, whether that was, you know, the Cold War or even previously that have really kind of challenged and forced us to question who we are as a society.

00:32:45.620 And so I think I don't lose faith in those institutions because a lot of them have a very long history, whether that is in the media or various cultural establishments.

00:32:57.060 But I do think there is space for new ones based off of different values that are much more confident in articulating them.

00:33:05.380 And I think that's really one of the elements, people that are confident in standing up for these things and are not afraid and are willing to withstand, unfortunately, sometimes the assault that happens.

00:33:17.120 And so I think I don't give up on the institutions that exist, but absolutely new ones that are much more authoritative in their defense of what they believe to be true and their values is absolutely needed.

00:33:28.780 And the free speech union is one of those ones that is making a really positive impact.

00:33:32.080 Well, right. That's what I was going to say. What I mean is I'm not so much for tearing down

00:33:35.820 the BBC or whatever. You know, I'm not obsessed with that.

00:33:38.720 You're not judging by your Twitter.

00:33:41.040 No, I've held the line. I've held the line on the BBC. I think they've gone in the wrong

00:33:45.020 direction, but I still think they're important. But something like the Free Speech Union is not

00:33:49.820 an alternative to the BBC. What the Free Speech Union does is it allows people who have spoken

00:33:56.100 their mind in the wrong place at the wrong time to not have their life destroyed. You know,

00:34:01.520 counterweight which helen plucked rose just launched you know we've just had her on the show

00:34:06.460 again things like that where you're creating an avenue for people to be able to express themselves

00:34:11.760 freely and be protected from the consequences of the existing prevailing orthodoxy you know

00:34:18.840 i i completely agree and i think that's been one of the reasons why it's been so hard for a lot of

00:34:23.160 people who who do disagree with what's going on but have not necessarily stood up because of the

00:34:27.900 lack of solidarity and i think that you know it's always going to be throughout history and presently

00:34:32.440 a minority of individuals individuals that kind of rise up to the level of being able to kind of

00:34:37.540 withstand for example toby is one of them you know he's experienced you know so much and he's he's a

00:34:42.220 kind of fighter but not everyone's like that and not everyone necessarily should be like that because

00:34:46.440 there's different ways of approaching this conversation and one of the things again with

00:34:50.420 free speech champions is is um bringing together other young people that can provide support and

00:34:55.820 solidarity and and encourage and really delve into these ideas together in a really deep and

00:35:00.600 and and kind of profound way and so when you have those spaces as you mentioned like counterweight

00:35:05.380 that um you know creates uh forms of bonds and solidarities with people that are around a kind

00:35:10.280 of common cause then again that that gives people more confidence to do things and so i think it's

00:35:15.620 a process i think it's absolutely um i think you know last year a lot of people a lot of us kind

00:35:21.820 of perhaps weren't necessarily as prepared as we could for the challenges that have kind of come

00:35:26.420 about but now a year later there's much more of a vibrant kind of civic community that are wanting

00:35:32.340 to do something and to stand up. And isn't this partly just as well a basic fundamental which is

00:35:37.620 not kowtowing to bullies? Yeah no I think so I think you know that when people think that there

00:35:44.580 is no there's not going to be any consequence or there's not going to be a response then they are

00:35:49.740 empowered to kind of bully people and I do think you're I think that the word bully is a very good

00:35:56.180 one and I think you know Douglas Morey I think in an interview in Trigonometry actually mentioned

00:36:01.460 this about related to the gender debate which is you know how people are kind of often there's

00:36:07.640 something demoralizing about people being compelled to lie and how in some senses that

00:36:13.500 kind of reduces our own kind of sense of our own humanity as we're not able to fully participate

00:36:19.100 in kind of shaping the conversation and the world.

00:36:22.340 And I think that anyone that encourages people

00:36:24.960 to keep quiet, to keep their mouth shut,

00:36:27.520 is doing very destructive things

00:36:30.240 and messing with things I think they very much shouldn't.

00:36:34.140 It's a powerful point.

00:36:35.520 It is.

00:36:36.140 When Douglas talked about it,

00:36:37.440 he was quoting Solzhenitsyn,

00:36:38.920 that's what he talked about,

00:36:40.000 that every time you lie,

00:36:41.440 it has an impact on the whole world.

00:36:42.980 No, absolutely.

00:36:43.580 And you know that, you know.

00:36:45.760 Yeah, you feel it.

00:36:46.400 And that's what's so dangerous about it.

00:36:47.580 Exactly, and you feel it.

00:36:48.640 And then you contribute, yeah, to creating a society that is ultimately dishonest because people are not speaking what they believe to be true.

00:36:55.640 And what would you say to somebody who's like, look, OK, this is dishonest, what I'm saying, but it's the kind thing to do.

00:37:02.660 If we do that, we don't hurt someone's feelings. We don't distress them, which is the counter argument to this.

00:37:08.340 Yeah. So I think that there's two things I'd say. I think that we've moved away from the realm of politeness.

00:37:12.360 You know, this isn't this isn't we're not talking about people being nice to each other and polite.

00:37:15.900 I think the overwhelming majority of people in their everyday interactions are polite.

00:37:20.200 I think what this is, is a very, is a stifling and pernicious pressure to not say anything, even if the consequences are even negative.

00:37:31.560 And so I think that that is a different thing. But also, in some sense, you know, there's a price for freedom.

00:37:38.060 And I think that even though I do articulate the kind of positive case for free speech, you know, the phrase, you know, the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.

00:37:45.900 Because actually, there is something dangerous about freedom, there is something actually quite scary. I mean, why would you want to hear what somebody else thinks? Because that might fundamentally challenge everything that you believe, or the identity or the narrative about the world that you've come to construct about yourself. There's something incredibly confronting about that. And so I think there is a price, you know, freedom of speech and freedom isn't always, you know, sitting around tea, hearing, having lovely conversations.

00:38:12.580 sometimes you will be exposed to the alarming to the to the scary to the intimidating to the

00:38:18.020 offensive but that exposes us to the real reality of our humanity which is both incredibly evil and

00:38:25.300 incredibly good and we should want to rise to confront um that real reality and but there is

00:38:31.240 indeed a price for that and just going back so if i just finish this with the free speech champions

00:38:36.200 isn't that a real challenge you're going to face because a lot of these kids they're very

00:38:40.140 mollycoddled they're the most mollycoddled generation they want to be wrapped up in

00:38:44.040 cotton wool they don't want anything to challenge them isn't that going to be very difficult for

00:38:47.760 your project I think that um I think it could be but I would say that um I'm not so sure how many

00:38:55.220 young people really are like that I think that there is a kind of minority that dominate the

00:39:00.880 conversation about um you know creating cushions around everything and safe spaces and trigger

00:39:06.040 warnings and no one should um be offended but i think i do think a substantial um kind of amount

00:39:12.340 of young people are either indifferent or or actually very curious uh and so are perhaps

00:39:18.480 waiting for or would grab at the opportunity if it was in a way that was done that they believe

00:39:23.660 perhaps reflects and their values to kind of um really engage with these ideas so i think um

00:39:29.260 i'm not sure i agree with them the the kind of view of young people that is like that i think

00:39:34.620 a minority are that often dominate the conversation. But I think given the right space

00:39:39.380 and the right circumstances, I think as any generation, young people could rise up to

00:39:44.980 the level of actually confronting these challenges and really engaging in these conversations.

00:39:49.200 We have a lot of young people who watch the interviews we do and live streams. That's

00:39:53.280 how you know they've got irresponsible parents. But I was going to ask you, do you think this

00:39:59.180 technology question has been bugging me and I'm just thinking out loud here. Do you think

00:40:03.460 maybe people like us are being a little bit naive

00:40:06.880 because there is so much information now

00:40:10.640 on the web, right?

00:40:15.120 That you are not, no matter how intelligent,

00:40:18.540 how well-educated you are,

00:40:19.700 you're not capable of processing

00:40:21.640 all of the information available,

00:40:23.680 even on one issue.

00:40:25.440 Whatever issue you take,

00:40:26.660 you cannot physically read every article in The Guardian

00:40:29.600 and every article in The Spectator

00:40:31.420 and every article in between.

00:40:33.460 about that issue and so no matter how hard you try to to be open-minded and to listen to other

00:40:39.740 points your natural biases are always going to draw you into back into that echo chamber

00:40:45.320 do you think maybe we're just like you're very optimistic i am very naturally optimistic him

00:40:51.300 not so much right it's worked out great for him for last year and a half really has calls himself

00:40:57.240 foster dhammas now i've been right i've improved right on everything he's enjoyed it uh and i've

00:41:03.680 not been able to say anything about it but do you think that people like us who are naturally

00:41:07.580 you know fundamentally optimistic about society just massively underestimate how powerful technology

00:41:14.620 is and what a powerful impact it has on our brains it has on our behavior it has on everything

00:41:19.580 so i think um a couple things so that's why i think it's been really unfortunate seeing um the

00:41:25.380 way in which a lot of the mainstream media, so to speak, has actually moved to be much more

00:41:30.680 partisan or less sticking to that kind of impartiality. Because I do think as much as I

00:41:38.120 might critique a lot of the things of the legacy media, I think it absolutely has a fundamental

00:41:42.640 role to play. And I think it's really important to be able to kind of rise above a lot of the

00:41:48.400 kind of conflicting narrative warfares that go on and actually present that information in a way

00:41:53.900 that is as close to the truth or as close to the truth as it reveals itself to them as possible.

00:41:58.840 And I think that if we do have and if those institutions do actually reconnect with their

00:42:04.760 fundamental basis, which is to actually provide solid, reliable information, then I think that

00:42:10.760 that is a really, really strong thing as a society. But I do think I agree with you in terms of the

00:42:16.820 way that the power of big tech, I absolutely do think that. But I think that the response to that,

00:42:22.280 as i alluded to earlier is um a robust civil society and we don't have that we just have

00:42:28.520 one element now where everything is digitized in the sense that um you know with the with the kind

00:42:33.480 of conditions at the moment where everything we get is through the internet everything all of our

00:42:37.800 communication is through the internet all of the even school university everything is there and i

00:42:42.660 think that we we need to have a counter to that which is real which is physical which is dynamic

00:42:48.140 which is interactive, which is away from any of those conversations.

00:42:51.720 And so I think that when this is balanced, the kind of civic life,

00:42:56.040 then that kind of works in a kind of good dynamic motion with technology.

00:43:00.000 But when it's just only technology, which ultimately is controlled

00:43:03.700 by private corporations, then there's no accountable power.

00:43:07.240 So I think that the building of civil society and the public square again

00:43:10.840 will be a counterweight to that.

00:43:13.840 I was going to ask you something else.

00:43:16.680 That's sort of your job, mate.

00:43:17.800 Yeah, it is. Good point. I'm going to do my job right now. You were in America covering the

00:43:24.380 election somewhat. What do you think will be the impact of a Biden presidency on all the things

00:43:31.500 that we're talking about here? Yeah, I mean, I was very, what that was another really interesting

00:43:37.700 thing about going into America due to the kind of, as I mentioned, the lack of public square,

00:43:41.480 because when I was there, it was really hard to know where it was going to go. You know,

00:43:45.840 I had no idea because you had no real feel of what people were thinking because there wasn't

00:43:51.460 much going on at the time. And I think, you know, I had many of the worries on a kind of personal

00:43:56.080 perspective that kind of many people described in terms of the kind of rise of kind of institutional

00:44:01.920 capture and the kind of fusion of kind of the political institutions with the already shifting

00:44:07.560 culture of kind of wokeness in the kind of cultural establishment. And that being institutionalised

00:44:13.380 in politics was something that was really kind of worrying to me. And I've also been, you know,

00:44:17.080 quite, I think Biden's hired a lot of big tech kind of CEOs and things like that. So that's a

00:44:22.460 kind of very close relationship. But ultimately, you know, I think I wish him, I wish him luck.

00:44:27.960 I wish that he, I hope that he heeds the calls that a lot of people have said,

00:44:33.440 in terms of railing this in, but I'm very worried about it. I mean, we've already heard about,

00:44:38.420 you know equity um and you know them prioritizing uh racial groups in the kind of vaccination

00:44:45.480 program and so if it does continue down um that line of you know ravid identity politics then i

00:44:53.080 think the divisions that we've already seen will only um continue and on top of that you know

00:44:58.480 biden as much as he you know frames himself and many people frame him as a kind of new lovely old

00:45:04.840 old man face to the darkness we've experienced. You know, he is very deep into the kind of

00:45:12.060 institution, the old kind of political establishment of America. You know, we're

00:45:16.980 talking, you know, he's been a politician for about 50 years or more, very much part of the

00:45:21.880 military industrial complex and all of that kind of foreign policy network from decades ago. And so,

00:45:28.180 you know, I worry that the divisions will continue. And I also think I understand a lot

00:45:34.280 of people's concerns about the kind of extreme elements of of the trump supporters but i think

00:45:39.200 um i don't think the response is this kind of ramping up of the kind of domestic terrorism

00:45:44.900 rhetoric um which is in some senses feels um like uh some of the very same problems which led to

00:45:52.340 uh the kind of pre-2016 conditions which led to the reaction um in embodied in trump and so unless

00:45:59.680 people get serious about um really trying to understand the reasons why so many people

00:46:05.100 voted for perhaps a candidate that doesn't fit the kind of traditional um conception of a

00:46:10.160 politician then i think we could be in for a very um a much more negative road and as you know in

00:46:16.940 britain as we mentioned earlier you know we we often experience the blowback of american kind

00:46:22.880 of cultural hegemony and so it's in our interest to um encourage um real meaningful unity not just

00:46:30.820 unity in its rhetoric but unity in the sense of taking a broad range of american citizens

00:46:36.600 concerns genuinely seriously and you use the words equality and equity i mean these are words that

00:46:42.200 are bandied about i don't think a lot of people would actually know the difference what is the

00:46:45.840 difference between equality and equity and why is one positive and one negative so i think i think

00:46:51.740 jordan peterson articulate articulates it quite well in the difference between equality of outcome

00:46:56.220 and equality of opportunity so equality of opportunity is what we is the kind of liberal

00:47:00.820 idea of equality where you um you don't differentiate you know everybody has the

00:47:05.680 opportunity so for example go into uh for example uh an elite university um and and if they get the

00:47:12.700 grades you know regardless of your background then you have an equal opportunity against another

00:47:17.060 person to get in and and we strive towards achieving that it's more of an ideal than

00:47:21.820 obviously an exact reality and the quality of outcome which is essentially equity which is

00:47:27.500 that you know you take for example the proportion of a of the population by race and all um

00:47:33.760 institutions must um fit exactly at the kind of elite level the top level of those institutions

00:47:39.900 regardless of how many people from that background apply in some senses let's get some jews in the

00:47:44.660 like i'll be the one dude statistically not playing for west ham thank god oftentimes you

00:47:54.260 know regardless of if they even have the grades yeah yeah um and and again you know that is the

00:47:59.060 undoing of the very hard hard fought for kind of equality of opportunity which was seeing people

00:48:04.620 primarily as individuals not as members of competing identity categories and i think that

00:48:10.240 will only kind of foment the sense of resentment um that some feel that there's not fairness across

00:48:17.040 the board and so i i'm strong well there's not the desire for fairness that's what i think

00:48:21.940 that's what will put a lot of people off it's deliberately discriminatory by its very nature

00:48:27.180 absolutely and i think this is a similar thing you know again going back to kind of even free

00:48:31.040 speech how i think resentment builds when there's double standards right you know and i think when

00:48:35.900 people feel like you know it's not being applied equally then that's when that division and

00:48:40.660 polarization starts to increase because i think i think we all have an instinctive sense of fairness

00:48:45.500 and not just the people that are victims of the unfairness i think the people that are exploiting

00:48:51.080 the way that it's unfair are again playing with things that often have a very dark backlash

00:48:57.160 and so i'm a big believer in equality of opportunity i'm not not equity as such i mean

00:49:03.160 coming back to your previous point as well about Trump and Biden and all of that, I think one of

00:49:07.040 the things people massively underestimate, and neither Francis or our big Trump fans by any

00:49:11.280 stretch of the imagination, got a lot of flack for saying so. But the reality is that the only

00:49:18.320 reason, in my view, that Biden won was coronavirus. If you take that out of the equation, it's not

00:49:23.880 like people suddenly went, you know what, wokeness is great, right? That didn't happen.

00:49:28.320 No, exactly.

00:49:28.780 So those resentments, not only are they still there, as you say, quite likely to be exacerbated by some of these policies.

00:49:36.040 Absolutely. And I think, you know, even just what we said about double standards, you know, what happened in Capitol Hill, as many people across the political spectrum, which has been quite striking, has actually condemned it.

00:49:48.460 And we didn't actually see that. A lot of the violence in the kind of summer last year wasn't always kind of universally condemned.

00:49:55.420 she's so diplomatic you put that so gently it wasn't always you know he was never condemned

00:50:01.840 by anyone yeah anyway sorry carry on but you know people aren't stupid you know they see that right

00:50:09.680 and and you know and we're not talking about um you know someone being rude on twitter we're

00:50:14.780 talking about real world violence that led to people dying you know that is horrendous and

00:50:20.200 and if people are not if there's not a sense that there are that as you said it is being applied

00:50:24.900 equally and and people are and it's only based off of political lines your your decision to

00:50:30.340 condemn then i i think you know i think that that's a recipe for deep deep deep division and

00:50:36.060 so i think you know the democrats have an opportunity here and i'm not going to wish

00:50:39.340 them negatively you know i want the country to do well um but um i i i worry that um you know

00:50:46.540 there's a lot of hubris and um and or a lot of ignoring um the the the real uh uh reasons why

00:50:54.240 we've got to this point as a society so i hope that they really do heed those calls but um you

00:50:59.620 know as as everyone the the it's been very unexpected all of the changes that have happened

00:51:04.380 in the last couple years so we don't know we'll see well a nice conciliatory message to end the

00:51:08.680 show on uh before we ask you our last question just tell everybody if the young person or indeed

00:51:13.700 if they're an older person how they can get involved and support the free speech champions

00:51:18.000 project which are launching yes go to freespeechchampions.com if you're a young person

00:51:22.640 applies to become a free speech champion if you're anybody join join the free speech network and we

00:51:27.360 want to work collaboratively you know across the country and even beyond to really uh manifest a

00:51:33.360 much more open and free inquiry and a promotion of free speech so please check the website

00:51:38.480 freespeechchampions.com fantastic and we always uh end with the same question which is what is

00:51:43.380 the one thing we're not talking about that we really should be that's a good question um i think

00:51:49.960 one thing we're not talking about is i think that this is the same one that i actually said last

00:51:55.100 time i was here but we're still not talking about so it's fine i think the answer i think the similar

00:52:00.580 one that i said last time it is agency i think the view of human beings whether that you know

00:52:05.820 is covid or even long time before that as kind of weak and vulnerable and and um and and you know

00:52:11.860 unable to deal with the realities of life um is a very different view of the human subject to the

00:52:18.640 heroic stories of before and i think human beings are capable of much more and and great things and

00:52:23.860 we should uh we should champion that i think that's a really important point actually because

00:52:28.260 i don't think it's true to say that human beings aren't weak and vulnerable in certain circumstances

00:52:33.520 but does it empower you to think of yourself in that way right and that is that is such an

00:52:39.200 important thing because your mindset affects then your reality absolutely you know it's a really

00:52:44.240 good point so we will start talking about it now that you mentioned it twice in our follow

00:52:48.160 thank you so much for coming back thank you for having me and thank you for watching we will see

00:52:52.740 you very soon with another brilliant episode like this one and they always go out 7 p.m uk time

00:52:57.780 take care and see you soon guys

00:53:14.240 Thank you.

TRIGGERnometry - February 17, 2021

Will Young People Rebel Against Wokeness？ with Inaya Folarin Iman

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