0:00

Hello, you're listening to a preview of

0:02

a premium episode of Blocked and Reported. If

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you want to hear the whole thing, which

0:06

involves Katie telling me a crazy story of

0:08

this sort of charitable gardener and there is

0:10

an assault, as in putting salt on her

0:12

garden, it gets really crazy. You're going to

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want to hear it. If you want to

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hear it, go to blockedandreporter.org where for just

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$5 a month and up, you can become

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a premium subscriber. Thank you and hope

0:23

you enjoy the preview. Katie

0:30

Herzog, how is it going? Well,

0:32

you sound crackly again, Jesse. Well,

0:34

you know, what

0:37

am I supposed to do? Okay, I'm new to this. I

0:41

am not boring people with any more of my

0:43

microphones. My travel laptop,

0:45

not working with this mic and multiple,

0:48

not only were there multiple attempts to buy

0:50

new mics from Best Buy that failed, I

0:52

borrowed a mic from a hardened fascist, an

0:55

Asian fascist, which is the worst kind of

0:57

fascism. This will be resolved by

0:59

our next episode because I'm just getting another mic, finally. You

1:01

said that last time, but yeah, if people

1:04

can hear the little crackling behind Jesse's mic,

1:06

we apologize. He

1:08

apologizes. It apparently could

1:10

not have been helped. There should be, I think

1:12

maybe a children's book about Jesse and the travel

1:15

laptop, all your various troubles. I thought you were

1:17

going to say like a children's mic, like a Fisher Price

1:19

microphone I could use. You could use that.

1:22

Just on off. People might have noticed that

1:24

we are starting this show a little differently today

1:26

because that is our new theme song. Our new

1:28

theme music is playing. We're going to start playing

1:30

it under all our episodes because the response to

1:32

the theme song was so popular. People love it.

1:35

Okay. A couple things. This is

1:37

the last, the

1:39

original theme song. You just found it.

1:41

Yeah. And it was by something called

1:43

like, what was the, do we know the name of the group? It's

1:46

not a group. It's the group didn't make that

1:48

Jesse. It's like one dude like plinking on a piano. It's

1:51

like barely a human. In this case, we get like,

1:53

I like the new music, but it's by an actual

1:55

name band. So we can't, I don't want to talk

1:57

shit about it. I think people. Our

2:00

listeners are a simple

2:02

folk with simple needs and they're used to

2:04

the, I have a Pavlovian response to the

2:06

old bar party because it makes me think

2:08

of having to talk to you

2:10

and I get all panicky. I think a lot

2:12

of our- It makes me nauseous. It makes me

2:15

nauseous. It's horrible. I think you

2:17

guys will get used to the new one, but

2:19

we'll see how the, is

2:21

it fair to say we'll see how the feedback goes? Do we

2:23

care about the feedback? Do you not care about the feedback? We

2:26

can wait the, I don't know how this works

2:28

in statistics, but we can wait the feedback from

2:30

the people versus the feedback from us. Not

2:34

equally, I would say 10 to one. The

2:36

people count as one. I think each of us is worth 2,000 bar pot lists.

2:41

Yeah. I'd

2:43

say I'm worth 3,000, you're worth 2,000 because I picked

2:45

the new theme song. I think

2:47

we should be clear for negotiating

2:49

purposes. We are open to the other critique

2:52

we got the last episode about the

2:54

sign-offs. The sign-offs mostly are because Katie has

2:57

a weird disorder where she freaks out that she can't

2:59

come up with a sign-off and then she worries too

3:01

much about it when no one cares. That's

3:04

not true. I think it's cheesy. That's why. I

3:06

think it's cheesy. There was way more feedback. There was

3:08

way more feedback about the lack of the sign-offs in the media. God,

3:11

no accounting for taste. Well, the more important thing is

3:13

that nobody's mad that we're opening our relationship. I don't

3:15

think that's true either. There were a few people mad, but they're

3:17

going to deal with it because we're going to have an amazing

3:19

host. Did you, I can't believe we got- Nick

3:21

Fuentes. Who did we get? Richard

3:24

Spencer and Nick Fuentes doing a panel. Oh,

3:27

speaking of panels, Jesse, before we get started

3:29

with the actual episode, I want to talk

3:31

briefly about something that happened this weekend. I

3:33

left my house this weekend. Whoa, that's weird. I

3:36

know. I went to a,

3:39

there was this like, the local

3:41

PBS station in Seattle had a little

3:43

festival. It was called the Cascade Ideas

3:45

Festival. I decided, I

3:47

do this every year where I'm like, look,

3:49

I live like a fucking hour boat ride

3:52

from Seattle. I'd hardly ever

3:54

go into the city. I have to start

3:56

actually going into the city and doing cultural

3:58

events instead of just about how

4:00

nothing ever happens. So we

4:02

decided to go to this PBS festival and

4:04

they had a bunch of different panels. Like

4:06

actually the real reason I wanted to go

4:08

is because Meghan McCardall was supposed to be

4:10

there. She ended up not being

4:12

there, but they had some good speakers. So she found out you were

4:15

going and then she didn't go. Yeah, exactly.

4:17

Shadi Hamid was there from the Washington Post. So there

4:19

were a few panels that I wanted to see. They

4:21

had some big names like Malcolm Gladwell was there, Tom

4:23

Hasecoats was headlining. So we got

4:25

there and I had plans to go to a couple

4:28

panels and I was looking at the program and I

4:30

sent you a photo of it because on the very

4:32

front page there was a land acknowledgement. A

4:34

land acknowledgement that was also broadcast on

4:37

the walls behind the speakers. And this

4:39

land acknowledgement wasn't just like

4:41

a regular land acknowledgement and also

4:43

had a line about how land

4:45

acknowledgments have like been done from

4:47

time immemorial and this is not

4:49

corporate pandering. I'm butchering the exact

4:51

quote, but it was something about

4:53

that. Like natives really do

4:55

this. We're not just doing

4:57

it because it's cool. Natives really do this. Wait,

4:59

natives do this? That's what it said. Well, I

5:01

mean, it didn't do that. So like after

5:04

the Iroquois scalp and torture their enemies

5:06

and occupy their land, they would be

5:08

like, we are standing on their land.

5:10

I'll just quote you directly. It is

5:12

important to note that this kind of

5:14

acknowledgement is not a new practice developed

5:17

by colonial institutions. Land acknowledgement is a

5:19

traditional custom dating back centuries for many

5:21

native communities and nations. So

5:24

it's not a white people thing, it's a native thing.

5:26

You might think that would be cultural appropriation, but I

5:28

guess we're not doing cultural appropriation anymore considering all of

5:30

the white people running around with Kaffias on it. Anyway,

5:32

that's not what I wanted to talk about. What I

5:34

wanted to talk about was, so I

5:36

went to two panels. One of which

5:38

was the New Yorker. Do you ever listen to the

5:40

New Yorker Critics podcast? No. It's

5:43

fine. Nomi Fry is on it.

5:46

I like her, she's funny. So it

5:48

was her and her two co-hosts. They were

5:50

all three interviewing another staff writer for the

5:52

New York Times. His name is Patrick Raiden

5:54

Keefe. He's a great writer. He does a

5:56

lot of true crime stuff. So

5:58

we'll be talking about the role of empathy. in his reporting

6:00

process and how after doing this

6:03

for decades, he has come to

6:05

the mind-bending realization that

6:07

life isn't black and white and even

6:09

people we might consider evil have some

6:12

good qualities, things like that. Oh, so he's

6:14

a fascist. Right. So this

6:16

guy who has spent time with murderers and has

6:18

himself actually solved, he solved the cold case. Great

6:23

writer. He's writing about empathy and nuance and

6:25

things like this. And I also

6:27

go to a panel that was so Lindy West,

6:29

you know who Lindy West is, I take it.

6:32

Yep. So she's very well known, very

6:34

well loved in Seattle. She was a writer for The

6:36

Stranger. She was writer for Jezebel, The Guardian. She

6:39

wrote the book and then the TV

6:41

show, Shrill. And

6:44

Lindy, she has a new podcast that she

6:46

hosts with her best friend. It airs on

6:48

KOW, one of the

6:50

local PBS stations. By the way, is

6:53

her best friend Megan something? Yeah. Megan.

6:56

Yeah. I've had I've had. I'm not surprised. I don't

6:59

remember a lot. Oh, just like a very,

7:01

very Thatcher Hayes, I think. Yeah. I heard

7:04

they have something in the pipeline. That's pretty amazing. Anyway,

7:07

not the podcast. They have an

7:09

ep. I heard through the grapevine that

7:12

there's an episode they're doing about someone

7:14

who chronically faked

7:16

having a cancer diagnosis and

7:19

was like in progressive spaces and they're doing like a mystery

7:21

episode on it. Or maybe they already have, but I'm not

7:23

going to listen to the podcast. Anyway, That does sound pretty

7:26

interesting. Yeah. Can we do that first? Fake

7:28

having a cancer diagnosis. Do the episode. By

7:34

the way, that's what people with cancer sound like.

7:36

I know for a period. I have

7:38

cancer. Yeah, we'll do it. Okay. I'll do

7:40

it. We'll scoop them. Was this about

7:42

the, there was a writer for a TV show.

7:44

Was it about her? Was she the one who...

7:47

If memory serves, I

7:50

Don't want to get into details, but I'm

7:53

connected to one of these people via social

7:55

networks. And I Just heard about this crazy

7:57

case of someone who apparently just like worked

7:59

in progressive. The juices and just completely

8:01

faked having a cancer died. Why?

8:03

Haven't we done this show yet? I hadn't heard

8:05

about it until I heard that Lindy was presided.

8:07

Know what? Lindy West and make it that? her?

8:09

he's if that's her name I don't remember, I

8:11

just from her on twitter shovels are I didn't

8:13

know they were friends. I do know the had

8:15

apologize as sense. Oh gods. Also, Lindy

8:18

West did an amazing what I thought was

8:20

an amazing thing of contacting her cruelest troll

8:22

and my turning him into a human being.

8:24

Yeah, I thought that was so valuable like

8:26

that. Yeah, what we should be doing is

8:28

we should be lights. Find the worst people

8:30

explain what made them so bad. Yeah, so

8:32

many was that was a that must turn

8:34

into an episode of this Maximise but this.

8:37

This. Is why I wanted to talk you. So.

8:39

At this at this panel the slide

8:41

podcast recording which are like I went

8:43

to mostly because I wanted to see

8:45

how other podcasts would do a live

8:47

show and I'm pleased. To report as we

8:50

have no idea how since. Please or

8:52

for it was sucking terrible I learned

8:54

it was so that alert a couple

8:56

things about this for what you need

8:59

to know your audience so you might.

9:01

I don't know this, my pillow controversial,

9:03

but one might think that the sorts

9:06

of people who would it turns and

9:08

ideas as sponsored by the local Pbs

9:10

station might be of a certain age.

9:13

Or the old. Old old people.

9:16

And so their gimmick for

9:18

the slideshow involved. The.

9:21

Real Housewives like they were talking about Real house

9:23

was nobody fucking knew who they were talking about.

9:25

sorry but like I was the youngest person on

9:27

the on it down by far nobody knows about

9:30

said I was one thing I learned. Played.

9:32

Your Audience! So when we do

9:34

we're doing of the keynote for

9:36

Fire at the Fire Student Conference.

9:39

It's proposal relatives.

9:42

Yes I we will be wearing can see

9:44

is at that conference although it's fire it's

9:46

Florida maybe on I guess that was a

9:48

good learning experience. but the thing I see

9:50

one is talking about was that their panel

9:52

was about whether they're live show is about

9:54

the supreme court. So. they're talking

9:56

about these supreme court justices and there

9:59

And the way that they talk about

10:01

them, people like Amy Coney Barrett, evil,

10:05

they keep talking about how they're bad

10:07

people, specifically because of their

10:09

feelings about abortion.

10:12

And it just to me, it was like, I

10:15

am pro-choice. I think

10:17

that you should actually be able to murder your

10:19

kids after they're born. I really, I'm like very,

10:21

very pro-choice. You're into like

10:23

seventh trimester abortions. I'm into, yeah, for

10:26

sure. How many trimesters

10:28

are there? Three?

10:31

Three? Try a little harder to understand

10:33

language, Katie. Come on. I think

10:35

you should be able to poison your children when

10:37

they're, especially when they're in high school. That's fine.

10:39

But their entire explanation for why these justices would

10:41

rule the way that they did when it came

10:44

to abortion was that they were bad people. And

10:46

to me, it takes very

10:49

little leap of the imagination

10:51

to think, oh, maybe

10:53

they just really think that abortion is

10:55

murder. No. Like it's...

10:57

Well, okay. Okay. They

11:00

know the reason, they don't really think

11:02

abortion is murder, maybe, because they

11:04

don't... No, they do think abortion is murder.

11:06

Then why aren't they calling for people to be arrested

11:08

or imprisoned? Some of them are. Okay.

11:11

The crazier ones. No. I

11:13

mean, go talk to any, like I know that you don't

11:15

know any Christians, but you could probably find some if you

11:17

like go to New Jersey or something. It's crazy. I

11:19

could go to the outer boroughs. Yeah, go to

11:22

the outer boroughs. Go ask

11:24

a Christian, why are you opposed to abortion?

11:27

It's not hard to find these people. Like

11:29

read what they say. They genuinely think that abortion

11:31

is murder. I'm doing the thing

11:33

where I'm like, I'm drowning in nuance. I

11:35

hate this thing where the... Okay. The

11:38

two things are they're evil or men trick

11:40

them into being pro-abortion. That's yet like the

11:43

patriarchy. Neither of those is true. I'm not

11:45

sure they actually act as though they think it's murder. Maybe they

11:47

say that. But yeah, the point is I don't even disagree with

11:49

you. I'm just trying to start a fight because I missed you.

11:51

To me, it was just a very interesting moment

11:53

to hear the guy who has actually spent

11:55

time with murderers be like, everybody has shades

11:58

of gray. Nobody is all good. Nobody

12:00

is all bad and then to hear Lindy West

12:02

and her friend be like no if you are

12:04

pro-life you are a bad person You are evil

12:06

that that is it. That is it. It's just

12:08

it's They

12:10

really do they tell you this believe them when

12:12

they say this they literally think it's murder Yeah,

12:15

I am I first of all I didn't

12:17

mean to butcher her name I think I

12:19

called her Megan Thatcher trays Megan. It's making

12:21

a hatcher maze. I'm now looking at her

12:23

messages to me Oh, she's that you've DMed.

12:25

No, we've tweeted. I think

12:27

I did the old in 2020 I

12:32

She was mad at my work and I asked

12:34

her what she was mad at I'm not going

12:36

to go back and revisit every trash thing You've

12:38

written about trans people though I have read that

12:41

and I've seen your pathetic attempts to claim that

12:43

your work is not transphobic So I'm not interested

12:45

in debating you on the topic either. She's a

12:47

real fan of nuance. You can tell that one Mm-hmm.

12:50

She seems like a good person. Anyway, the

12:53

PBS festival is pretty fucking bad. I

12:56

Like it's just so much more

12:58

comforting to be like well, is it

13:00

more comforting? So what how many Americans are

13:03

vaguely generally half of the entire portion about

13:05

a hundred fifty million? 160

13:09

I guess you could say they're they're all

13:11

diluted they're all confused but our political beliefs

13:13

are not driven by emotion right or Stupidity

13:17

or conformity our random

13:20

Completely unique 2024 views

13:23

on sex and gender and everything else that they just

13:25

happen to be the right one tomorrow That's it. Right?

13:27

I mean and even people who say that they

13:29

are pro-choice Ask

13:31

a my dad used to do this ask a

13:33

classroom full of people Ask them

13:35

if they're pro-choice or pro-life ask them if

13:37

they're pro-choice under all circumstances And

13:40

then you can ask them questions that will make them

13:42

rethink that like for instance What if the

13:44

baby will be really ugly like for instance? Are you

13:46

pro-choice when it comes to? Aborting

13:49

babies on the basis of sex or

13:51

if the baby will be Hitler for example, all

13:53

right You're making it stupid, but

13:55

there's just no everyone is everyone is

13:57

it like everyone but Most

14:01

of the vast majority of Americans do not have

14:03

radical views on this. Right. Even

14:05

just like exceptions for rape and incest

14:07

or ugliness, stuff like that. Yeah, exactly.

14:09

Alright, what are we talking about today? You're

14:13

doing most of the talking. I wanted to talk

14:15

a little bit about the Zadie Smith piece from

14:17

The New Yorker, but then you have a story

14:19

about, I don't even want to

14:22

risk a spoiler. It's

14:26

going to be so good. No idea what it's about. It's

14:28

going to be so good, Katie. I don't want to even

14:30

describe it at risk of spoilers. Alright, why don't we

14:32

do Zadie Smith? Alright, I don't want to go

14:34

too deep into this. I just found it interesting. She

14:38

wrote an essay in The New Yorker called, Shibboleth

14:40

in the campus protests over the war on Gaza.

14:42

Language and rhetoric are, as they have always been

14:44

when it comes to Israel and Palestine, weapons of

14:47

mass destruction. It's been getting a lot of attention

14:49

online. There was one part of it that really

14:51

annoyed me. I'm curious if you're annoyed by it

14:53

too. She does

14:56

this self-flagellating thing where she highlights the

14:58

bravery it requires for protesters to put

15:00

themselves on the line to prevent injustice.

15:03

She argues that even though certain forms of

15:06

protest like throwing soup on paintings or whatever,

15:09

these forms might seem pointless or performative

15:11

to skeptics, but they, quote, represent a

15:13

level of personal sacrifice unimaginable to many

15:15

of us. She continues, I experienced this

15:17

not long ago while participating in an

15:19

XR climate rally in London. Do

15:21

you know what that is? Oh, Extinction Rebellion. When

15:24

it came to the point of the proceedings where

15:26

I was asked by my fellow protesters whether I'd

15:28

be willing to commit an arrestable offense, one that

15:30

would likely lead to a conviction and thus make

15:32

traveling to the United States difficult or even impossible,

15:34

I'm ashamed to say that I declined that offer.

15:37

Turns out I could not give up my relationship with New

15:39

York City for the future of the planet.

15:41

I just about managed to stop buying plastic

15:43

bottles, except one very thirsty and was trying

15:45

to fly less, but never to see New

15:47

York again. What pitiful, ethical creatures we are.

15:49

I am. Looking at

15:51

the first hurdle, anyone who finds themselves rolling their eyes

15:53

at any young person willing to put their own future

15:56

into jeopardy for an ethical principle should ask themselves where

15:58

are the limits of their own commitment. Also,

16:00

whether they've bought a plastic bottle or

16:02

booked a flight recently, a humbling inquiry.

16:05

I found this like just annoyingly,

16:07

performatively self-flagellating because like, I don't

16:09

know what dumb, extinction rebellion

16:11

shit she was doing, but it could just be

16:13

the case that it would have

16:15

made no real difference and it isn't worth

16:17

giving up potentially a lifetime of travel, right?

16:20

Whatever they were doing, I'm pretty sure

16:22

it didn't change anything. It used to

16:24

be their modus operandi. I

16:26

mean, like you see

16:28

these dissidents in like, I don't know,

16:31

Myanmar type places who get exiled and

16:34

they get exiled because they're trying to fight

16:36

against the military dictatorship, for example. In

16:39

that situation, they've sacrificed a lot, but they've

16:41

sacrificed a lot to do something good. I

16:43

think like this essay

16:45

of Zadie Smith ended up being really nuanced, but she just sort

16:47

of, I think she conflates

16:49

all these different forms of protest and we just,

16:52

we need to look at these in a context dependent way. Yeah, I

16:54

mean the other thing is that a lot of the people

16:56

who participate in these sort of direct actions are very young

16:59

and I hope this doesn't sound too condescending, a

17:01

little condescending is fine, but not too condescending. Young

17:05

people don't often have

17:07

a good grasp of their own futures

17:10

and you can see that not just in the context

17:12

of protesting, but like smoking.

17:15

These typically young people who start

17:18

smoking because they literally don't think

17:20

that they can, they feel invincible,

17:22

right? That was my experience when I was

17:24

18 to 35, 39 actually. And

17:30

so this idea that young people have some like

17:33

foresight and they're taking these brave stands, I

17:36

think it's also possible that they're just kind of stupid and they

17:38

don't think bad things are going to happen to them. And I

17:40

saw this, like I saw a video of this, this

17:42

protester at one of the schools this

17:45

week who has now been suspended from campus

17:47

for three years. She can't graduate. Her whole

17:49

family was supposed to come for graduation. Now

17:52

she's not graduating and she seemed

17:54

absolutely bereft because

17:56

it seemed like it hadn't actually occurred to her that there

17:58

was going to be consequences for her actually. There's

18:01

been a really interesting subplot with the

18:03

college graduation things and people arguing online

18:05

over whether we should care. I mean,

18:08

there's this one idiotic person who basically

18:10

told kids, it doesn't matter if you

18:12

don't graduate from your school, all employers

18:14

look at is the name

18:16

on the resume, which I think is just not

18:19

true for prestigious jobs. I think they absolutely care

18:21

if you graduate. But also, now that some great-

18:23

Do you think they check? Because my advice to students is to

18:25

not go to college and just say that you did. Do

18:28

not listen to Katie. Yes, I think if

18:30

you start a job and it's found out

18:33

you didn't graduate and you said you graduated

18:35

or it will also stand out on a

18:37

resume if you say attended without BA or

18:39

whatever. But I think there's-

18:41

You gotta lie. I think there's a

18:43

really interesting class element here. Were you when,

18:46

or I should say if, you graduated

18:49

college, what do you remember about your

18:51

graduation? Were you excited for the

18:53

ceremony? I didn't go. Yeah, exactly.

18:56

Yes. I literally moved across the

18:58

country on the day that I graduated. I didn't go. Exactly.

19:02

I remember my college graduation. I remember joking around

19:04

with my friend. We actually had a cool speaker,

19:06

Christiane Amanpour. It was hot. It

19:09

was not fun. It took forever. That's

19:11

because I'm from a family of people

19:13

who went to college. You're from a

19:15

family whose parents literally were professors. I

19:18

think for first-generation college students, a

19:21

college graduation ceremony is a massive

19:23

deal. That diploma is a big

19:25

deal. I don't know where my diploma is. I'm

19:27

going to go online. Brianna Joy Gray said, I

19:29

think she said she lost her diploma or didn't

19:31

know where it was. I'm in the same boat

19:33

because it becomes a normal thing going to college.

19:35

She went to Harvard. She went to a real

19:37

school. Right. It becomes this normal thing. I

19:41

do think it's sort of unfair

19:43

to first-generation college students and to people like

19:46

us who aren't assholes who value this to

19:48

rob them of these ceremonies. I think they

19:50

matter a lot, especially like immigrant families. Yeah.

19:53

Obviously, there's a huge class element here. I

19:57

also think that probably there aren't that many

19:59

first-generation students graduating from Columbia,

20:01

places like Columbia. Places like Columbia, public

20:03

universities more so, yeah. OK, anyway,

20:05

the part I like the most, I'm

20:07

just going to read this one passage from the Zay Smith thing. She

20:10

writes that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is, quote,

20:13

in fact, perhaps the most acute example

20:15

in the world of the use of

20:17

words to justify bloody murder, to flatten

20:19

and erase unbelievably labyrinthine histories, and to

20:21

deliver the atavistic pleasure of violent simplicity

20:23

to the many people who seem to

20:26

believe that merely by saying something, they

20:28

make it so. So she goes

20:30

on to say that if you just treat Hamas as

20:32

nothing but a terrorist entity, nothing to talk

20:35

about here, that provides you that pleasure of

20:37

oversimplifying. Or if you talk about the Zionist

20:39

colonialist state, that gives you that pleasure of

20:42

oversimplifying. If you say, we must eliminate Hamas,

20:44

as though that's all there is to it.

20:46

And I really like the way she pointed

20:48

out that both sides are just retreating to

20:51

these shibboleths and these catchphrases. I

20:54

mean, she wrote this, for example. The person who

20:57

uses the word Zionist as if that word were

20:59

an unchanging and unchangeable monolith, meaning exactly the same

21:01

thing in 2024 and 1948 as it meant in

21:03

1890 or 1901 or 1920, that

21:08

person does not so much bring definitive clarity

21:10

to the entangled history of Jews and Palestinians

21:13

as they successfully and soothingly draw a line

21:15

to mark their own zone of interest and

21:17

where it ends. So what she's

21:19

basically saying is this is a form

21:21

of virtue signaling and sort

21:24

of thought-terminating cliches.

21:26

And I thought this was

21:29

a really useful point and it annoyed

21:31

me how many, of

21:33

course I'm not surprised at this point, but

21:36

like online among other academics. I

21:38

mean, did you see any other response to

21:40

this or were you too busy watching Meghan

21:42

Margaret Thatcher Hayes or whatever? Yeah, I

21:44

saw a bunch of people mad about this, which was not,

21:46

I didn't expect to like wake up on a Monday

21:48

and see people screaming about Zadie Smith on the internet. Also

21:50

everyone, she's not gonna hear you. She's not on Twitter. You're

21:53

screaming into the void. But her

21:56

piece is very nuanced and she ends the

21:58

piece sort of saying. like now is the

22:00

time when you expect me to like put my stake

22:03

in the ground and say which side I'm on and

22:05

she refuses to do that and I think that's like

22:08

maybe it's a little bit of a pussy

22:10

move but I totally appreciate that because you

22:12

can be you can

22:14

be conflicted about this whole thing yeah you of course

22:16

you know you can be like I personally I'm on

22:18

the side of less murder well that's kind of harder

22:20

on both sides release the hostages and stop killing children

22:22

like that seems like

22:25

the side that everybody should be on yeah just a

22:27

couple of responses I don't want to get too deep

22:29

in this but Zadie Smith's essay

22:31

has confirmed a feeling I've had every single

22:33

day of my life so many people feel

22:35

compelled to write about or debate what Palestine

22:37

is and what Palestinians are the irony being

22:40

they have no idea what they're talking about

22:42

we are real people human beings so that's

22:44

how the essay was described here

22:46

by somebody asshole on Twitter professor

22:48

here's what Zadie Smith one of the lines from

22:51

Zadie Smith's essay she says it's a great relief

22:53

to say quote there is no such thing as

22:55

a Palestinian people as they stand in

22:57

front of you so she's literally like people like

23:00

they don't reach it now this next quote

23:02

is more important because I want some reader feedback

23:04

on this have you heard the name Priam

23:07

Vada Gopal no

23:09

she's a professor of post-colonial studies at

23:11

Cambridge I tweeted about what I'm about to

23:14

read you and I got so many

23:16

responses people seem to really think we

23:18

should devote a segment to her she seems

23:20

amazing here's what she said to understand

23:22

Zadie Smith you have to understand Cambridge and

23:24

its special brand of self-regarding gaslighting I

23:26

am NOT quite sure why people are

23:28

shocked or surprised this is the price of

23:31

admission into elite white literary and institutional

23:33

circles so wait did you say that she's at

23:35

Cambridge yeah this is a professor

23:37

of post-colonial studies there saying that this

23:39

is the price okay so does it not apply to

23:41

her the price of admission it sounds like she's

23:43

in the club it's almost like she hasn't

23:45

thought this through she's also basically calling

23:48

Zadie Smith like sort of an auntie Tom this

23:51

is the price of admission into elite

23:53

white literary institutional circles this professor is

23:55

a trip someone pointed me the past

23:57

tweets like I resist urges to

23:59

nique cap white men every day, so

24:01

no, I am the hero." And then

24:04

I'll say it again, white lives don't

24:06

matter as white lives. And she has

24:08

this history of complaining

24:10

about her treatment. She complained

24:12

about University of Porter's like

24:15

calling her madam instead of

24:17

doctor, and she like made a

24:20

whole thing about it, and apparently she's just constantly accusing

24:22

everyone of everything. So if there's

24:24

interest in a segment on her, I immediately got

24:26

that bar pod tingle that we should do a

24:28

segment on this woman. So if listeners think we

24:31

should send me an email with your favorite highlights,

24:33

and maybe I'll start to look into that. But

24:36

yeah, that was the Zadie Smith thing. Good

24:38

essay, although I didn't agree with all of

24:40

it, and a characteristically deranged response. My

24:42

favorite part was people on Twitter. That's

24:44

it. That's all you get. If you want to

24:46

hear the rest, go to bloctorimport.org and become a

24:48

premium subscriber. Thank you for listening.