Randall Kennedy, Harvard Law professor and author of a collection of essays entitled “Say It Loud! On Race, Law, History, and Culture” joins us for the full hour to talk about his views on race, class, corporatism, Clarence Thomas, the “n-word,” racial optimism versus racial pessimism, and much more.
Randall Kennedy is the Michael R. Klein Professor at Harvard Law School and Trustee emeritus of Princeton University. He is the author of Say it Loud! On Race, Law, History, and Culture, For Discrimination: Race, Affirmative Action, and the Law, The Persistence of the Color Line: Racial Politics and the Obama Presidency, and Sellout: The Politics of Racial Betrayal.
One of the things that racism has done throughout American history… it’s been very effective as diversion. Diverting people from looking at their circumstances and focusing on something else. Focusing on these other people. Very often, these other people of color. And pointing a finger and saying, “That’s the problem over there.”
Randall Kennedy, author of Say It Loud: On Race, Law, History, and Culture
In the last election, there was a real fear as to whether there would be a peaceful handover of power. And, of course, it wasn’t really altogether peaceful. January 6th happened. And you’re talking about impunity, well look at that. There was an attempted insurrection. Some of the little people are being prosecuted. But… are the bigger fish going to pay the cost? Are the bigger fish going to be held to account? The answer is probably, and very unfortunately, sadly, disgracefully, the answer is no. Our country is in peril.
Randall Kennedy, author of Say It Loud: On Race, Law, History, and Culture
Here’s a newspaper [the New York Times] that has neglected all kinds of brutal exploitation in the city itself. Its metropolitan page on Sunday is a farce– it’s thin and it doesn’t really tell you what’s going on in New York City. What the developers are doing. What the payday loan racketeers are doing. What the areas of food deserts are doing. What the lack of adequate health care, the lack of adequate police protection in poor areas, for example, the discriminatory distribution of firehouses [are doing]… and on and on and on. And so, I’m saying, “What’s the New York Times doing?” They’ve got this slick insert– the magazine, maybe 100 pages– selling clothing and other accessories that no one but the top one or two percent could even afford.
Ralph Nader
Randall Kennedy on Race: “Say It Loud!”