Nick Gillespie:

Welcome to Intelligence Squared. I'm Nick Gillespie, Editor-at-Large for Reason Magazine and I'm guest moderating the debate here at the Comedy Cellar in New York City. We're here to debate the question, is America too obsessed with race? But first, we're gonna ask your opinion on this question before we get into the debate itself. And then later, after everything, we're gonna come back to you and see if your stance has changed at all. To do that, I'm gonna ask you to applaud to show your opinion as it stands right now. Yes, no, and undecided. So please clap loudly if you think yes, America is too obsessed with race.

Now, clap if you think no, America is not too obsessed with race. All right.

And then, finally, clap if you are undecided. All right.

So it sounds like clearly, many people here, the, the plurality at least, thinks America is too obsessed with race. Some are undecided, and a few more than that think we are not obsessed enough with race, which another way to put it.

Okay, now let's meet our debaters. Arguing that yes, America is too obsessed with race. Cohost of The Fifth Collum podcast and the co founder and executive producer of the media company, Free Think, Kmele Foster. Kmele. All right. Please. Thank you, Kmele. Okay. And arguing no, America is not too obsessed with race, activist, community organizer and former Chief Executive Officer of the New Georgia project, Nsé Ufot.

Okay, we're gonna get right to it. Uh, we want each of the debaters to take a few minutes to explain their basic position. Kmele, you are up first. You answer yes, America is too obsessed with race. You've got four minutes to tell us why.

Kmele Foster:

Great. Well, I'm delighted to be here. I don't know how funny this debate will be. Um, I may t- make, uh, odd attempts at humor from time to time, um, and I'm already burning my time, but I w- I wanna tell you something because I'm feeling a little self-conscious about it. But if I get it out there that I maybe won't feel so weird anymore. I shaved my entire face last night-
Audience

(laughs).

Kmele Foster:

... for reasons I cannot explain. Um, and I feel really weird about it. I'm like this huge fifth grader.

Audience:

(laughs).

Kmele Foster:

Um, so this is very strange and awkward.

Nick Gillespie:

I, I think we can assume that Nsé has won the debate.

Kmele Foster:

Nick, please don't take my time. Please.

Nick Gillespie:

She's in your head, rent free.

Kmele Foster:

Please don't take my time.

Nick Gillespie:

Please-

Kmele Foster:

Supreme overconfident.

Nick Gillespie:

Is America-

Kmele Foster:

Supreme overconfidence that allows me to burn the clock like that.

Nick Gillespie:

Is America too obsessed with race?

Kmele Foster:

And I'll tell you the reason why. Nick, you are still taking my time.

Audience:

(laughs).

Kmele Foster:

The, the reason why I feel like I can do that is because it seems like the proposition that we are discussing tonight already presumes that we all know that America is definitely obsessed with race, right? It's kind of in there already. And to the extent that's true, I mean, I sort of already won and I feel like I could almost walk out of the room at the moment. But you came for a show, so I'll try to give you somewhat of a show. Um, at a minimum, if we were in a country where, uh, the, the, the, the populace was too obsessed with race, we might expect to see certain kinds of things. Um, we might expect to see a populace that believes things that aren't necessarily moored in facts, but are rooted in hysteria.

We might expect, for example, to see not so much consistent levels of concern, but these spikes of concern, animated by hysteria and whatever the cu- current politics of the moment are and whatever media controversies are s- playing out. And speaking of media controversies, we might expect to see a national press that is often times taken advantage of by hoaxsters and fraudsters that is often engaged in sensationalist rhetoric and pushing narratives that are consistent with what their expectations are about what the story ought to bear out, and eventually we would be reminded that, oh, facts kinda sorta matter. And this story doesn't actually work in the way that we were told.

And since we do, in fact, see all of those things, and I can give you a couple of quick illustrations of that. Um, Ferguson, Missouri. Hands up don't shoot. Michael Brown. We're all familiar with this story. I suspect most of you also know that "hands up don't shoot" is not a think that happened. There were two separate, uh, uh, uh, federal justice department investigations into this shooting and it was determined that what was expected, what was told to us that happened there, didn't, in fact, happen.

Um, I can give you another example. Jussie Smollett, who was an actor from Empire who, uh, staged his own attack in one of the most profoundly absurd ways imaginable. I mean, he hired these two guys to attack him in the, on the, in a street on Chicago, in Chicago at 2:00 in the morning. The first thing that should've told everyone is that you had MAGA supporters who were just wandering around Chicago at 2:00 in the morning on one of the coldest nights of the year. And no journalist asked any thoughtful questions about this before putting the man on television over and over again to share this ridiculous story.

Um, and third, I think it's also appropriate to pay attention to something like 2021 Atlanta police shooting, when we're in a Comedy Cellar, so I'm not gonna talk ab- not Atlanta police shooting, but the spa, um, shootings, um, that we saw, which animated a great deal of concern about, uh, uh, uh, white supremacist violence targeted at Asians. The narrative about that was well established before there was any evidence to support that conclusion at all. And as it turned out, that wasn't what happened. It was a young man who was an evangelical extremist who was motivated to lash out in violence. And what we were told in the beginning was, well, we don't need to know whether or not this was racist violence. Most of the people targeted were Asian, so that makes it Asian, Asian, anti-Asian violence. And when it turns out that there was some other factors involved, we were confidently assured that it doesn't matter whether or not the facts are different. What we need to focus on is the fact that certain racial minorities are concerned.

All of these things, I think, are great support and evidence for my case. Um, but I will allow, uh, my... Well, I'm, I'm gonna stop there 'cause I'm almost at time, and allow my opponent to, uh, to weigh in on this.

Nick Gillespie:

Okay. Thank you very much Kmele Foster. Nsé, let's hear from you.

Nsé Ufot:

Yeah. Um, good evening everyone. Listen, I'm the only daughter of a conservative Christian pastor and a conservative Christian politician. So I'ma tell you that brevity is not my ministry, but I'm gonna stick to the four minutes-

Audience:

(laughs).

Nsé Ufot:

... unlike Kmele, right? So, if I may, uh, I'd like to start by telling you what we're not gonna talk about tonight. And what we're not gonna talk about tonight is your feelings. Your feelings or mine. What we're gonna talk about tonight are facts, right? So, throughout the course of this debate you will hear disturbing facts about the institutions, both public and private, that we interact with regularly; institutions that provide essential services to our populations. Um, they provide us access to education, healthcare, housing, safety, et cetera. And you may scan your memory for your own sort of interactions with these institutions and you may conclude that these institutions are neutral actors, and that the people who staff them are not ideologues, uh, who are trying to cause harm. Um, that they're civil servants and corporate workers and non-profit workers just trying to get through the day and get their jobs done.

Um, to you, it may not feel like, again, that harm is being caused to a significant portion of the populations. Um, and that even the efforts to demand that Black Lives Matter to teachers, to cops, to anesthesiologists, to baristas, um, that that's nothing more than a collection of demands from unreasonable young people, woke activists, uh, that's just dividing our country, right?

However, I want you to know that while your feelings and my feelings are important, they are not facts. With respect to tonight's question: Is America too obsessed with race? Even if I were to hop into my semantics bag, right, and, uh, give you the literal or take the literal definition of obsession that speaks to a pathology, right? And it mea- uh, and it speaks to a persistent disturbing preoccupation with an often unreasonable idea, uh, or feeling/being controlled by a powerful continuous idea or feeling. I would argue that America is obsessed with the accumulation of capital. I would argue that America is obsessed with and fetishizes growth. And that it ignores race, racism, and racial disparities in our institutions to the detriment of the quality and longevity of Black lives.

If I take the colloquial, like, OMG I'm obsessed, like, I love this thing. I care about this thing. I wanna see the success of this thing. If you were to take that definition of too obsessed, still the facts leave me no choice but to argue the negative.

Take the broad field of medicine for example. A meta analysis of 20 years of medical studies covering many, many peer reviewed, statistically significant sources, found that Black patients were 22% less likely than white patients to receive any pain medication. White doctors implicitly prefer white patients, falsely viewing them as more intelligent and more likely to follow professional advice. 40% thought that Black patients' skin is thicker. 12% thought that their nerve endings were less sensitive than white patients. And that has a marked and measurable impact on the quality of medical care that Black Americans receive. Uh, it is consequential and it is scandalous. Um, if you're really dedicated to science this makes absolutely no sense. If you're really dedicated to the Hippocratic Oath this makes absolutely no sense.

And even when you control for race, uh, no I'm sorry, when you control for income, when you control for family dynamics, when you control for address, or you control for education level, that Black women are still three times more likely to die in childbirth in this country than white women. So we're talking about 18 deaths per 100,000 live births for white women, and 56 deaths per 100,000 live births.

And again, we're talking about Beyoncé Giselle Knowles, we're talking about Serena Williams, we're talking about tons of Black women in this country, so we cannot pretend like race isn't an issue in our country number one. And our country is not too obsessed with it because if it were, the professionals who staff the educational institutions, the professionals who staff, uh, you know, th- our safety services, the professionals who staff our healthcare institutions, would absolutely take these disparities seriously.

And lastly, I'm gonna say, it's the criminal legal system. It's the civil legal system. It's the healthcare from insurance and payments and to the quality of care that people re- uh, receive. It's employment, it's housing, it's political representation, it's education, and it's sentencing. And there's data that supports it all.

Nick Gillespie:

Okay. Thank you.

John Donvan:

More from Intelligence Squared US when we return.

Welcome back to Intelligence Squared US. Let's get back to our debate.

Nick Gillespie:

Kmele, I'm gonna go to you first. Nsé pointed to a series of very disparate outcomes in healthcare. Um, is that a sign that there is a great deal of racism or discrimination at work that we are not taking into account enough when we talk about our policies and our culture.

Kmele Foster:

Well, I think what the question does, um, and, and quite frankly what the presentation by my opponent or advisory for this evening does, um, is frame this issue as easily and in an unqualified way explains simply by positing, oh, look. There are two different races here, or different racial groups, they have different outcomes, therefore race explains everything, end of story. The fact that there happen to be various disparities between groups of all kinds in the Americas, um, is something that is routinely and c- and conveniently overlooked by people who are interested in those simplistic narratives.

I would say that whether it's education or healthcare or economics more broadly in terms of wealth, concentrations of wealth, um, in terms of, uh, rates of income, that in general, it is nearly always the case that there are other competing factors that matter. We're talking about people who live in different places. We're ta- on average. We're talking about people of different ages of on average. We're talking about people who have different rates of marriage, um, different rates of out-of-wedlock childbirth, different rates of employment. They major in different things when they go to university.

What accounts for all of these various differences? And what accounts for the differences amongst people who are des- described as, or identify as Black in this country. We see profound disparities between white people of different kinds and sorts, whether they be people who are of Italian descent, or whether they be people who are of Irish descent, or whether they be people who are of multi-generations here in the United States. All of those disparities exist as well, but another example of our obsession with race is that we narrowly and almost exclusively talk about one, disparities that disadvantage Blacks, and never the ones that favor Blacks.

Um, and two, we never talk about any of the various differences between these pop- within these populations, which are often times as dramatic, if not more dramatic than the exis- than the disparities that exist between-

Nick Gillespie:

Okay.

Kmele Foster:

... um, let's say whites and Blacks.

Nick Gillespie:

Let me go to Nsé. Uh, uh, to pick up on what Kmele is saying. What about the disparities within Black Americans? You mentioned, uh, Beyonce and Serena Williams. Are they really not getting superior healthcare of superior economic standing in American because they are Black?

Nsé Ufot:

They both almost died in childbirth.

Nick Gillespie:

Mm-hmm.

Nsé Ufot:

Like, they both have been very vocal about their birthing stories. They both have been very clear about the substandard medical care that they receive. You control for address, you control for age, you control for income, you control for family status, right? You control for education. And race is still the determining factor. And again, what we're talking about is people's lives. We're talking about institutions that should be committed to providing excellent service. And that we have identified challenges to them providing quality care or quality services across the, the spectrum of their constituents. That is a problem.

And so, I would say that ignoring race is leading to, again, impacts that have, that impact, negatively impact the quality of Black American's lives as well as the length of it.

Kmele Foster:

It's, it's, I think it's, it's the height of absurdity sug- to suggest that Serena Williams or Beyonce Knowles wouldn't receive not just superior t- care to most people, but the most superior care imaginable. The fact that they had certain kinds of adverse outcomes could speak to some sort of implicit secret bias that lies deep in the hearts of the horrid, um, medical professionals who are working for them that are secretly racist against them, but buy all their albums and love them deeply, um, or, it could be that they just had bad outcomes.

You said we were gonna traffic in facts, but instead, you've actually posited a bit of obvious and explicit speculation about what led to their bad outcomes. Those are bad outcomes.

Nsé Ufot:

Just because you say things don't make them true, right?

Kmele Foster:

No, literally, it's literally still speculation.

Nsé Ufot:

I literally gave you facts and data. I'm sorry.

Kmele Foster:

That's speculation.

Nsé Ufot:

We are in a room full of witnesses.

Nick Gillespie:

Okay. Um, Nsé, is there any way to disaggregate the non-racial factors, uh, in, when you're talking about this?

Nsé Ufot:

Absolutely. It, it, it's, in fact, is what is a mark of the studies that I'm citing. Again, the meta analysis that we're talking about is 20 years of studies.

Kmele Foster:

Mm-hmm.

Nsé Ufot:

And so, you can aggregate, you can do a comparative analysis based off of where people were born, where they actually live. Uh, again, their income levels, all of those are features of this study because they have p-provided, again, marked, noticeable, measurable differences based off of people's race, number one. Um, and number two, they're peer reviewed articles and statistically significant. Again, not your feelings and not what your friends on Twitter think.

Nick Gillespie:

Uh, Nsé can I come back to you? Uh, Kmele mentioned that there are moments where, uh, Blacks are actually given advantages in America-

Nsé Ufot:

Such as-

Nick Gillespie:

... do you agree with that?

Nsé Ufot:

I, I would like for him to explicitly-

Nick Gillespie:

Uh, uh, Kmele, will you, uh, what-

Nsé Ufot:

... say what they are.

Kmele Foster:

That isn't what I said, actually.

Nick Gillespie:

Okay, please.

Kmele Foster:

But it's fine.

Nsé Ufot:

No, that is absolutely what you said.

Nick Gillespie:

Talk. Yeah.

Kmele Foster:

No, it's actually not what I said. I said we don't talk about the places where there are disparities that favor Black people. I believe that's what I said.

Nick Gillespie:

Okay, yeah, sure.

Nsé Ufot:

Okay, so what are they? What are they?

Kmele Foster:

So-

Nick Gillespie:

So, what, uh, give an example.

Kmele Foster:

... but there, but there will certainly be some. I mean, there would be some in areas like, um, in athletics, yeah? And in the same, broadly, we would certainly say that. There would be certainly be-

Nsé Ufot:

Are you looking at the owners? So you're talking about the people on the field versus-

Kmele Foster:

Certainly the pro-

Nsé Ufot:

... the entire industry?

Kmele Foster:

Certainly the performers, yeah. You think that's in- you think that's unimportant.

Nsé Ufot:

I don't think it's unimportant. I think that you picked the smallest group of employees-

Kmele Foster:

I don't know that that matters at all.

Nsé Ufot:

... in the entire NFL system to highlight.

Kmele Foster:

I love, I love this sleight of hand here.

Nsé Ufot:

It's not the sleight of hand.

Kmele Foster:

The sleight of hand is, initially-

Nsé Ufot:

Those are numbers, friend.

Kmele Foster:

... there's no indus-

Nsé Ufot:

They-

Kmele Foster:

I'd love to be able to finish.

Nick Gillespie:

Okay, hold on. You'll each talk.

Kmele Foster:

Initially, the, the suggestion is that these things don't exist. Then when I point out the ones that do exist, you say, "Oh, they're too small. They're not, they're not important enough. But as I said before, I think that the issue here is that we are far too focused on race, narrowly in these contexts. I don't think it's particularly important whether or not Blacks or whites are doing well in one area or another. I think if we're actually going to talk about the things that are consequential and matter, like in education for example, talking to me about the disparities between Black and white students isn't nearly as important about, as talking to me about the disparities between students who succeed, or the differences between students who succeed in general, and the students who fail in general.

If the concern is narrowly about whether or not Blacks are failing at the same rates as whites, then there is a wonderful Harrison Bergeron esque solution that could be brought to bear, where we force a number of white students to fail, or we take away programs that are geared towards helping students who are, perhaps gifted and talented and we don't allow those kids to fly as high as they could because they're of the wrong race and background.

I think there is something materially different than ta- between talking about the actual substance of some sort of deficiency in our services, and focusing narrowly on disparities between groups. I think those are two different things and they lead to you different outcomes.

Nick Gillespie:

So, uh, Nsé, can I ask you to address if, if we focus on race and we use race as the determining factor to explain why, uh, people from this group do better than people from that group. Is there a way to help, say, reading scores among people who are poor performers?

Nsé Ufot:

If it is your ambition, it, and if it's your aim to provide quality services, to make sure that the medical care that you're providing, to make sure that the education, like the sort of, the, the journalism, the stories that you're telling. If you're committed to doing a good job, and it has been brought to your attention that a particular portion of the population that has a particular identity, like to just say people, everybody from Mulberry Lane is experiencing disproportionate outcomes when they interact with your institution, are you gonna tell the people from Mulberry Lane, well the people over at Cherry Lane, you know, don't have the greatest experience either, or are you going to seek to address what the, is causing those disparities?

Like, why are you so committed to being bad to Black people (laughs) when there is clear- like when you have choices.

Kmele Foster:

I thought we were gonna have a good-faith conversation here.

Nsé Ufot:

How is this not a good-faith conversation?

Kmele Foster:

Because the supposition in what you're saying is that somehow, a person who has my concerns is not interested in helping people or is interested in obscuring the fact that Black people are having this disproportionate outcomes.

Nsé Ufot:

Unless-

Nick Gillespie:

The... Okay.

Nsé Ufot:

... uh, uh, to be completely honest-

Nick Gillespie:

So (laughs).

Nsé Ufot:

... to be completely honest, I'm much less concerned about your position and much more concerned about the professionals and people who Black folks are coming to and seeking professional services. So, when we're thinking the tax dollars that we pay to keep our community safe, right? And you, you invoked the name of Michael Brown, and regardless of if "Hands up don't shoot" is what was uttered at the time of his untimely death, a grown ass man police officer was armed and killed a kid, and a community lost-

Kmele Foster:

Do you know the rest of the facts?

Nsé Ufot:

... a son. And so-

Nick Gillespie:

Uh, hold on.

Nsé Ufot:

If people are asking why is it that Black boys, unarmed Black citizens are more likely to die as a result of police violence, do we not owe it to ourselves and the, and the America that we're trying to build to take that question seriously and try to address it and try to answer it. To j- to come up with interventions that can provide, uh, sort of equity and equality in access to what we've built, what we've worked for. Why is that not a worthy endeavor?

Kmele Foster:

It's, I think there's, there is, again, and I wanna make, try to be very clear about this so there's not any concern about what my, you know, ulterior motives or again, someone like me who has these kinds of perspectives, might, um, have their, the ulterior motives, if not me in particular. It's imperative to really underscore this. If the concern is about the disparities, then one can't say the concern is about how we fix the problem. If we're only looking at the cosmetic aspect of some sort of deficiency, whether it be in healthcare services or in education, and we say, "Oh, well it's Black people." What are the mechanisms? What are the dynamics? What are the factors that are actually contributing to these bad outcomes?

Like, if, if there are fundamental issues there, one has to actually be curious about the details. And, at the most granular level, we know the things that help children succeed in education. Reading books at night, for example, can help you succeed. Fewer hours spent watching television can help you succeed. I cannot un-Black you or un-white you in order to flatten the universe of outcomes.

And I think, since you brought up Mike Brown again, we can return to that story. It's, it's worthwhile to pay attention to what the Justice Department, the Federal Justice Department, under the Obama administration, actually has in their report about what happened in that incident. Mike Brown reached into an officer's car, punched him in the face, and apparently tried to take his firearm. The first shot was discharged in the vehicle. Hit Mike Brown in the arm, uh, in his hand. These are the facts. The fact that he didn't throw his hands up and surrender immediately; that he actually assaulted a police officer, and was killed while the p- police officer was trying to take him into custody, like that ought to matter.

And I'm not saying that it, it makes it okay that he died in that circumstance, or that I revel in the fact that he died in that circumstance. What I am saying, however, is it hardly suggests that what we're looking at here is an example of white police officer predatorily going out, down and hunting a Black man down. His race is inconsequential. The specific facts of that case, however, are hugely consequential, as I said, with the rest of this sort of broader-

Nick Gillespie:

Yeah.

Kmele Foster:

... universal concern.

Nick Gillespie:

Um, Nsé, can I ask you to, uh, address directly Kmele's, uh, opening, uh, point, that the willingness, the credulity of the press and of many people in the media to believe the worst of white people in, in these circumstances, or white police. Does that at all make you concerned that we might be always looking for racism as the answer, rather than not taking it seriously enough?

Nsé Ufot:

Well, I reject the premise. Like, the idea that white people are like constantly under attack or that the media wants to believe the worst about white folks, feels like a stretch, right? So, I mean, I'm thinking, as you're talking about Mike Brown, I'm thinking about the young man that went into a church in South Carolina, at b- uh, Mother Bethel and gunned down like 20 people, who welcomed him into their service, who was taken out alive, and like they brought him a cheeseburger. And so, my thing, and there are tons of instances-

Nick Gillespie:

Hmm.

Nsé Ufot:

... of white aggressors who have, like mass shootings, who walk away alive. And so, I reject the premise that somehow, uh, white people get a raw deal with mainstream press.

Nick Gillespie:

Hmm, yeah.

Nsé Ufot:

What I will tell you is that there's several biases that we see in press, right? So, if we're talking about sort of the status quo bias, right, which we're familiar with, which is, it is what it is; the change that we seek is too hard. It's gonna be reported as, this is a thing, this is America, get over it, right? I don't necessarily believe that. I think that, again, this country is worth saving. This country's worth fighting for. I love this country. I am a patriot. And I want it to love me back. And I want the institutions that I invest in with my tax dollars to not cause me harm, and people who look like me harm.

Nick Gillespie:

Okay. Thank you. Uh, Kmele, is there anything that can convince you that race is a major factor, if not the major factor in outcomes?

Kmele Foster:

Sure. I, I'd say if we lived in a very different country than the one that we live in (laughs) I'd probably be open to that perspective. But the reality is, that we live in a country where we know that the United States has been characterized in a bunch of different ways. Um, it's fair- fairly typical to run into people who will talk about the white, uh, white supremacy as kind of the animating force, um, that has shaped America throughout history. But America is also the most incredible and remarkable machine for the creation of wealth of people of any background in the history of mankind. Like, that is also true.

And it seems appropriate to acknowledge that fact when we're talking about these various issues. And the reality is, any specific, any specific issue or problem that we maybe want, maybe wanna try to get a better understanding of, the specific issue is going to matter a great deal, and I suspect there might be places where I, and my debate partner here, would actually agree that racism is, uh, a genuine factor. But in the places where we often talk about this, like police involved shootings, for example, there's a question that skeptic magazine asked in a poll in 2021, or at least it was part of a poll that they did, but it said, "How many unarmed Black men were killed by police in 2019?" And overwhelmingly (laughs) every single group, from very liberal to very conservative overestimated by a factor of 10 the number of Black people, unarmed Black men who were killed by police. Um, nearly 50% of people who were very liberal and 38% of people who identified as liberal, overestimated by a factor of 100 times.

What we're talking about here is, um, a question of whether or not, uh, about like 10 people a year, unarmed Black men are killed by police a year, or in some instances, there, think, people thought that something like 10,000-

Nick Gillespie:

Hmm.

Kmele Foster:

... people a year were killed by police.

Nick Gillespie:

So what is, what is the, what's the import of that?

Kmele Foster:

Like it matters that the polling, the polling suggests that people are animated by hysteria; that they believe, uh, absent facts here, that something like 100, or 1,000, or 10,000 unarmed Black men a year are being killed by policing. When, when, in that 2019, the data that was available to us-

Nsé Ufot:

What's the right number?

Nick Gillespie:

Yeah, and-

Kmele Foster:

The number, the number-

Nsé Ufot:

What's the right, what's the appropriate number?

Kmele Foster:

... the number is under 100. There are under 1,000-

Nsé Ufot:

Now, what's the appropriate number of unarmed Black people to be killed?

Nick Gillespie:

All right.

Kmele Foster:

Oh, no, no. Well-

Nick Gillespie:

Yeah.

Kmele Foster:

... this is what's important. My conviction is that every single person killed, unarmed, while they're engaged with law enforcement, and even anyone who's killed armed engaged with law enforcement, that those-

Nsé Ufot:

'Cause the Second Amendment's still a thing.

Kmele Foster:

... shootings, that those shootings ought to be investigated thoroughly and independently and transparently.

Nsé Ufot:

100%.

Kmele Foster:

What doesn't happen, however, is we don't actually get around to talk about that sort of thing-

Nick Gillespie:

Okay. Can I-

Kmele Foster:

... when we're obsessing over the race of the people involved in those shootings at either end of the barrel. I mean, if we talk about police shootings, those numbers have been flat. Um, I'm not saying that that's a good thing or a bad thing, even with all of the extraordinary concern, um, in recent years. What has ticked up as a result, in some instances, of, uh, of hysterical activism is like homicide rates. And that's something that should concern all of us.

Nick Gillespie:

Okay. Nsé, how do you respond to that? If, if the number of police shootings, uh, Blacks, unarmed or armed has been flat over the past decade or 15 years, does that change your perspective at all?

Nsé Ufot:

Not even a little bit. Um, I think that one, I have the radical belief that there should be no police shootings, right?

Nick Gillespie:

Mm-hmm.

Nsé Ufot:

When I think about my broadest, most wildest imagination of what it looks like to protect and serve my family and my community, I, I don't think about the acceptable number of-

Nick Gillespie:

Mm-hmm.

Nsé Ufot:

... unarmed people that are murdered by the state.

Nick Gillespie:

I asked, uh, Kmele whether or not he could think of a world in which he would say race is a dominating factor in, in outcomes. Is there a way that you could think about it where race is not the primary factor that explains disparate outcomes across racial or ethnic groups?

Nsé Ufot:

Absolutely. Uh, that's why I'm here. That's why I agreed to do this debate.

Nick Gillespie:

Okay.

Nsé Ufot:

I don't waste my time.

Nick Gillespie:

What has to hap- what has to happen for that, for you to get to that point, or-

Nsé Ufot:

So, listen-

Nick Gillespie:

... for America to get to that point?

Nsé Ufot:

... you know, I'm from the South, and they say that you cannot fix what you haven't faced, right? And so, in order for it (laughs) to happen we have to face it, we have to have honest conversations. We cannot ignore data, uh, for convenient narratives that fit our worldview.

Nick Gillespie:

Okay. Thank you. That concludes our discussion session. Next, we're gonna have members of the audience come up and ask questions. This is you. Give a big hand to Nsé and Kmele.

John Donvan:

More from Intelligence Squared US when we return.

Welcome back to Intelligence Squared US. I'm John Donvan. Let's get back to our debate.

Nick Gillespie:

Uh, okay. Sir, your name and your question.

Gene Epstein:

My name is Gene Epstein.

Audience:

Epstein.

Gene Epstein:

Uh, my question is how, how would you integrate into a view of white people that they overwhelmingly voted, uh, twice a Black guy into the White House; they overwhelming invited a Black guy to the mayoralty of New York City; that, uh, they vote mayors in, they vote chief of polices in. How do you account for that?

Nsé Ufot:

There is something that was seductive at the time about, uh, you know, America's first Black president and wanting to prove that, you know, we can overcome the ills and the awfulness of America's past. The broken clock is right, you know, twice in an election cycle.

Kmele Foster:

My only add that, perhaps, the most popular democrat in America, um, is, a woman named Stacy Abrams, who I believe my, my opponent has some relat- fa- familiarity with.

Nsé Ufot:

She's not-

Kmele Foster:

It's interesting, it's-

32:39

Nsé Ufot:

... it's Joe Biden and then Kamala Harris and then Stacy Abrams.

Kmele Foster:

... as, uh, as in the last couple years, and I'd say that Stacy probably is among the most popular in the country. A lot of people don't even want Joe Biden to run for reelection at this point.

Colin:

Hi, my name is Colin. Where do we want to place our efforts? Is it in equity, where we sort of force the outcomes that we want to see, or is in equality where we offer the opportunities to everyone so that everyone has the same chance regardless of race?

Nick Gillespie:

Okay.

Nsé Ufot:

I'm gonna say, get you a country that can do both, right? Like, get leaders that can do both. Like, that's, it, it, it feels as if that's a false choice, a false dichotomy; the idea that we have to choose between investing in equity versus equality that we have to consider access to opportunities as well as the actual income, that sounds healthy to me.

Nick Gillespie:

Okay. And, um, Kmele, you referenced Harrison Bergeron.

Kmele Foster:

Mm-hmm.

Nick Gillespie:

The story by, uh, uh, Kurt Vonnegut-

Kmele Foster:

Mm-hmm.

Nick Gillespie:

... uh, where the way that the government kinda makes sure everybody is equal is by making sure anybody with an advantage has a disadvantage put on them. Do, do you worry about equality versus equity?

Kmele Foster:

I, I most certainly do, probably for different reasons than the questioner, um, or at least with somewhat, uh, I'd offer a refinement. Equality under the law is something that is of great importance to me; uh, a law that is no respecter of persons. Um, and equity, however, is something that's a little bit more nefarious. Um, and I, I think it's interesting to look at, um, uh, uh, say, a, a race neutral law, like a prohibition on murder, and the fact that if that prohibition on murder is applied in the most honorable way possible, because Blacks find, are, are under, in the unfortunate circumstance of being both the principle victims and the principle perpetrators (laughs) of certain kinds of violent crime.

It would be disproportionate relative to their share of the population, with respect to how frequently they were prosecuted for homicide. Does that make a prohibition against homicide, which is sort of facially inequitable in that respect, um, at least in its operation, does that make it somehow discriminatory? Or is it possible that the best rules are in fact ones that are race neutral; that are in fact ones that allow us this, this basic principle of equal protection under the law? I would say that-

Nick Gillespie:

Can I ask-

Kmele Foster:

... that, that is obviously better.

Nsé Ufot:

You need both. And I have an example of why you need both.

Kmele Foster:

But you simply can't have that with respect to murder prosecutions.

Nsé Ufot:

And that's fine. I have another example. Like, we are more than just like prosecuting murders (laughs), as a nation, right?

Kmele Foster:

This is, this is true.

Nsé Ufot:

So, when I think about, for example, in Georgia, they have this law, it's called the Exact Match Law. And the idea is, if your name and information on your voter registration form doesn't exactly match what is on, in this, um, social security database, uh, then you're purged from Georgia's voter roles automatically. And so, the problem is that, on its face it's race neutral, right? Like, your information doesn't match, you get purged. You go back, you register again, it's fine, right? The problem is, is that what we were noticing is that women and fems are six times more likely to be purged than men; that African-Americans, uh, or Black Georgians are eight times more likely to be purged; Latinos and, um, Asian-Americans are six times more likely to be purged. Why is that, you ask? Because, one, I don't know how many people here are married, but if you're a woman, you gotta change your name. You gotta change your name at the bank, you gotta change your name with the government, you gotta change your name with your employer, you gotta change your email name, and all those systems don't talk to each other, so they don't update at the same time. Number one.

Number two, with, with respect to ethnicities, it's naming. So, if, I mean, Georgia's one of those states where if you are, uh, under correctional control, you are not allowed to vote, right? The problem is that, because again of how aggressive this race neutral law is, say there's one Victor Hernandez, right? One Victor Hernandez is currently serving in a state institution. He's currently a guest at the State of Georgia. But why are the other 1,100 Victor Hernandezes on the voter roles purged and groups like ours have to sue to get them back on because instead if finding the right Victor Hernandez, you just purge them all.

Kmele Foster:

So, this may, in fact, be a bad law. But I'd have to imagine that there'd be pretty huge disparities with respect to how the law is impacting people who happen to be, say, newly married in the scenario that you offered before, versus people who are unmarried or haven't been married at all. How huge is the disparity there?

Nsé Ufot:

It's very huge. I just gave you the data.

Kmele Foster:

I suspect it might have... Well, well, you actually gave data for people who are-

Nsé Ufot:

Purged.

Kmele Foster:

... of different races. But I'm saying with respect to the people who are newly married, I would suspect that-

Nsé Ufot:

It's, it's six times.

Kmele Foster:

... the law, that the law is dysfunctional in that particular context as well. It may also be, uh, hugely problematic for elderly people who are perhaps registering to vote and, and have certain issues. In which case, that would be bad for, say, Republicans. It sounds like this is probably a bad law. Part of the issue with talking about these things with respect to race is it becomes uniquely polarizing and charged, we would call that say, a racist law, when in fact, it's just a bad law. And there are plenty of examples of why it's a bad law, and lots and lots of great reasons to get rid of it. So in our-

Nsé Ufot:

And this is why I'm advocating for it.

Kmele Foster:

... advocacy, we should focus on that.

Nick Gillespie:

Question. Yeah.

Nsé Ufot:

And ignoring that it has a disproportionate impact-

Kmele Foster:

I didn't, I didn't suggest not ignoring it. And we should, we should-

Nsé Ufot:

... and we agree that it's a bad l- we agree that it's a bad law.

Kmele Foster:

... go further.

Nick Gillespie:

This is the place where there, this is a place where there is a-

Kmele Foster:

Yeah.

Nick Gillespie:

... agreement on bad, bad laws should be fixed.

Kmele Foster:

(laughs).

Nick Gillespie:

Next question.

Colin:

Thanks guys. Sorry, my fault.

Nsé Ufot:

And the way that we found out it was bad law is because it was hurting Black voters.

Kmele Foster:

I just, I just gave you a bunch of other ways that it could hurt people.

Nick Gillespie:

Okay. Very good. Next, next question.

Speaker 8:

So, um, just for context, I'm, I'm a child of the 80s, and you mentioned Dr. King and I grew up on his statement that we all know by memory, that we need to judge each other by the content of our character and not by the color of our skin. I have a young son, and he's in school, and, um, we talked about implicit bias before, but now there seems to be explicit bias, and, and teaching kids that they're different because of the color of their skin, and, and te- and segregating, you know, white and Asian kids as maybe oppressors verus other children who are the oppressed. And I wanna know whether you a-agree that that's a good thing to basically explicitly put bias into these childrens' minds?

Nsé Ufot:

I mean, I love that people invoke Martin Luther King. I mean, I grew up in Atlanta. I'm an Atlanta public school graduate. But, the c- the colorblind notion in the "I Have a Dream" speech, and like, even the "I Have a Dream" narrative, right, was free-styling. That, in fact, it probably should be called the "Bounced Check" speech, which is what he was writing about, right? Which is the idea that America owes a debt to its Black citizens and that he refuses to believe that America is broke; that there is an opportunity that they, right now they lack the will in order to invest in outcomes that are equal for all of its citizens. That that was the theme of the speech. "I Have a Dream" is beautiful rhetoric that captured the country's imagination and made people feel good, right, but the theme, read the text of the speech. It is the Bounced Check speech, right? And what America owes to its Black citizens.

Kmele Foster:

Uh, I mean, I would a- I would actually say that we do have, uh, a sort of, uh, bastardized, uh, conception of King that is very popular amongst the American consciousness today, that he was less radical than he was, um, in fact. And, and even in the way that we talk about it, and evoke that, that, um, very prominent phrase about the content of our character. I would certainly say that is an ideal and, and a value that many Americans hold, but it's hardly, uh, sort of fully captures the sentiment of Dr. King.

But I do wanna address specifically the question that was raised about the concern for young people who are in schools. Um, and, and I do think it's fair, Nick, your characterization of, um, uh, kind of colorblindness being something that's caricatured as even an aspiration. My concern always comes back to whether or not it's possible for us to actually have some sort of overconcern about race. And I can appreciate why some people worry that we don't talk about the issue enough. What I can't bring myself to appreciate is why someone never ever enters, why it never enters into the conversation that it's possible that we might be pushing children to think too much about race.

Um, when Sesame Street, for example, decides, well, we're not going to do color bl- colorblindness, we're gonna teach kids to be color-proud. And this is kind of the aspiration of their programming. I have to have questions about that. I don't raise my children to be color-proud. My children have p- will hopefully have pride in things that they achieve, and things that they accomplish, but they won't be so concerned with trivialities like how they happen to look or the color of their skin. I think that is preposterous. We don't want to cultivate race pride. That isn't, uh, that shouldn't be a value that is lionized in this country. I think that's, uh, subversive.

Nick Gillespie:

Next question.

Speaker 9:

Do you believe systemic racism exists? Yes, or no.

Nick Gillespie:

Okay. Thank you.

Kmele Foster:

Define systemic racism.

Speaker 9:

There's certain systems in place that disproportionately advantage some folks more than others. In this American state, white people are at extreme advantage systemically through policies. Do you believe that is true?

Audience:

Yep.

Kmele Foster:

You define it, I'll define it.

Nick Gillespie:

Yeah.

Kmele Foster:

Systemic racism-

Audience:

Mm-hmm.

Kmele Foster:

... basically seems to suggest that if a law or an institution is in place, and there are these disparate racial outcomes between groups, that this, in fact, is a repre- example of systemic bias. Anyways, that's the one I'll use (laughs). And in general, it is certainly possible for there to be disparate racial outcomes as a result of policy. But the notion that white people are fundamentally, constitutionally advantaged by all of the policies that are in operation in the country is a profound oversimplification. People are individuals. They come from profoundly different backgrounds. Alighting that fact, or obliterating that fact in order to, to, to sink into this part- preposterous mire about race, where we insist that people can only be understood with respect to their epidermis and their appearance; that their relationship to the state can only be understood with respect to their race and their appearance, I think is a preposterous and profound error. The world is complicated. It is true that racial dis- that these racial distinctions can perhaps contribute to biases that may exist in the system, to disparities that may manifest themselves. My lips are so dry (laughs)-

Audience:

(laughs).

Kmele Foster:

... but ultimately, I think what we actually have to pay attention to here is whether or not we are getting the full spectrum of what is creating these problems. My concern isn't ignoring anything, it is acknowledging the broader context so we can fix problems. I don't care if the next student enrolling in a bad school is Black or white. I only care if they can be successful. And you can't convince me that the most important thing to consider when considering the, the possibilities for a child is whether or not they are white or Black. My two children look something like me. Their likelihood of being successful is very, very high. It is ridiculous to suggest to them that they are somehow disadvantaged or to, to the society at, at large that they-

Nick Gillespie:

Thank you, Kmele.

Kmele Foster:

... ha- should have special regard and concern for them.

Nick Gillespie:

Okay. You, we are now going to have brief closing remarks by both of our debaters. Uh, Nsé, Kmele went first so you get a minute and a half for a closing statement. Sell it that America is not obsessed, is not too obsessed with race.

Nsé Ufot:

Again, when one thinks about the things that we are obsessed with, that we invest time, energy, attention into, um, it does not in any way feel like America is obsessed with addressing the racial disparities that have been proven to exist. And so, I said at the beginning that I wasn't gonna talk about feelings and I was gonna stick to the facts. And the fact of the matter is that when you evaluate the outcomes and you control for several factors like race and gender and family style, whether or not two parent household, et cetera, and income, and zip code, that it is often more likely than not that race is a predictor of people's experience and outcomes in more reliable ways than their gender, than their zip code, than any of the other things that make up their identity.

And people who are trying to get us to move away from that fact or ignore that fact, don't actually want to see progress. No one is saying, "America is super racist and we haven't made any progress." The fact that I am a foreign-born Black woman, mouthy as f- up here in a room full of white people talking about the limitations of our country, but the opportunity for it to be better is evidence of progress. And, I'm not gonna sit here and let you play in face when I'm looking at people who share my experience, who share my identities, people that I love, people that I would move the world for, who have real life experiences, you're not gonna play in their faces and tell them that this is not what they're experiencing; that this is not what they're seeing. And all I'm saying is, listen to the people who are telling you that they have been impacted. Listen-

Nick Gillespie:

Thank you.

Nsé Ufot:

... to the people that have, tell you that they have been harmed.

Nick Gillespie:

Thank you Nsé Ufot. Kmele, closing statement.

Kmele Foster:

I feel like I, I feel like I just had my closing statement a moment ago. Um, I, I will say very, r- maybe briefly, we were promised that this would be a debate on the facts. In fact, we have talked a lot about feelings. We talk about listening to people and listening to them talk about their experience as though that is some sort of tangible evidence. Even the last question that was (laughs) offered a moment ago, um, was one that was rooted in the, the notion of offense and injury and feeling and grievance. And I a- I will say again for the second time, I'm not suggesting that we ignore anything. I'm, I'm suggesting that we are ignoring a broad spectrum of things when we narrowly focus on race.

That, that seems to be an undeniable fact. And as I mentioned earlier, we are coming off of some of the most profound and dramatic protests in the history of this country, nationwide protests about race. The, the new presidential administration that was sworn in in 2020, 2021, um, was one that introduced an entire regime of equity focused policies in the United States of America. To suggest that this isn't at top of mind, it was the very first thing the President did when he was sworn into office. If that is the c- circumstances scenario that we live under right now, one can't say that we ignore this. One can't say that we don't talk about it frequently enough. It's there. It is in your face, and it is obviously the case that basic things, concepts like racism, like white supremacy, have been fundamentally redefined over the course of a couple of years.

Equity is a word that didn't even exist in our lexicon until s- a little while ago in the current way that it's used. All of those facts have to be acknowledged-

Nick Gillespie:

Okay.

Kmele Foster:

... and it is very difficult for us to talk about this without acknowledging (laughs) the fact that, of course, we are obsessed with race. It is undeniably true and one can't be too obsessed with something. To the extent you're obsessed, that's the problem.

Nick Gillespie:

Okay. Thank you Kmele Foster. Thank you Nsé Ufot. We're going back to the, to the audience again to see if you may have shifted your stance on the question: Is America too obsessed with race? So I'm going to have you applaud to show your stance, yes, no, and undecided. After having heard this debate, please clap now if you think, yes, America is too obsessed with race.

Okay. And now clap now if you think no, America is not too obsessed with race.

And finally, finally, clap if you are still undecided or if you are undecided.

Okay. It sounds like the, uh, by the, the clap, uh, signals that things have not changed all that much.

Audience:

(laughs).

Nick Gillespie:

Fewer people seem undecided. I wanna thank Kmele Foster. I wanna thank Nsé Ufot. This concludes our debate. I wanna thank everyone here at the Comedy Cellar for keeping such an open mind while listening to this debate. Thank you very much for coming out tonight.

John Donvan:

Thanks everybody for tuning into this episode of Intelligence Squared. You know, as a non-profit, our work to combat extreme polarization through civil and respectful debate is generously funded by listeners like you, the Rosenkranz Foundation, and friends of Intelligence Squared. Intelligence Squared is also made possible by a generous grant from the Laura and Gary Lauder Venture Philanthropy Fund.

Robert Rosenkranz is our chairman, Clea Connor is CEO, Lia Matthow is our Chief Content Officer. Julia Melfi and Marlette Sandoval are our producers. Andrew Lipson head of production. Damon Whitmore is our radio producer. Ravon Baker is events and operations manager. And Gabrielle Iannucelli is our social media and digital platforms coordinator.

And I'm your host, John Donvan. We'll see you next time.