Clint Smith: Make America What It Set Out to Be

I was pretty melancholy, I was melancholy, I was also pretty negative about America and I'm about

“to drop this on you guys on your holiday weekend and I claimed that a good job at moments of”

lifting my spirits but I want to carry out my obligation to you and yours and offer a little bit of uplift about this great country of ours, following that big soccer win last night over Bosnia and Herzegovina. I want to read two items for you. The second, if you're a long-time

bull or podcast listener, you've probably heard before but it's always nice to refresh it.

It's one of my favorites. It's a letter from Thomas Jefferson to the Mayor of Washington DC saying that he's too sick to go to the 50th anniversary of the declaration. So the 1826 version of the event that will be holding on the mall this weekend. History or trivia nerds will know that Jefferson ended up dying on the 50th anniversary of the declaration and so this letter from him to Roger Waitman is one of his last

writings and it's extremely poignant and I used to torture my staff with that back then worked on Republican campaigns on the 4th of July morning to try to get them in the right mindset

for celebrating our nation so I'm going to read that one to you. The first bill in the newsletter

yesterday shared some comments that Gerald Ford made on the 200th anniversary of the declaration and unlike our meglamaniac president, Gerald Ford used the occasion mark the occasion to go to a naturalization ceremony and talk and welcome the newest Americans on the 200th anniversary and talk about the importance of immigration. I'm going to read both of these back to back because I

“think they say something important about our country that I want to leave you with before we get to”

claim. Here's Gerald Ford at 200. I'm very proud to welcome all of you as fellow citizens of the United States of America. I invite you to join fully in the American adventure and to share our

common goal and our common glory. You've given us a birthday present beyond price, yourself. The

Patriots of 1776 wanted to build in this beautiful land a home for equal freedom and opportunity, a haven of safety and happiness not for themselves alone but for all who would come to us through centuries. How well they built is told by the millions upon millions who came and are still coming. Immigrants came from almost everywhere, singly and in waves, such transfusions of traditions and cultures as well as of blood have made America unique among nations and Americans a new kind of people.

We offered citizenship to all and we've been richly rewarded. That was Gerald Ford on 200. Here's some Jefferson again on the 50th, explaining why he won't be able to be there to celebrate and lamenting that. I should indeed, with peculiar delight, have met and exchanged their congratulations personally with the small band, the remnant of that host of where these, who joined with us that day and the bold and doubtful election we were to make for our country

between submission or the sort and to have enjoyed with them the consolidatory fact that our fellow citizens after half a century of experience and prosperity continue to approve the choices we

“made. May be to the world what I believe it will be to some part sooner to others later but finally”

to all the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves and to assume the blessings and security of self-government that form which we have substituted, restores the free right to the unbounded exercise of reason and freedom of opinion. All eyes are opened or opening to the rights of man. I find these things paired together on the 50th and the 200th to be particularly beautiful

about our experiment because it's talking about two related things that are happening. Ford is talking about those who are coming to the country and still want to come because we're offering this freedom to them. We're offering them opportunity. We're offering them escape from tyranny and Jefferson to waitmen is talking about how he hopes this is our export that all of the world will follow in America's example and that some sooner and others later while the opportunity

to burst the chains of oppression. Obviously, the context there for Jefferson is tough because not everybody in America had burst the chains at the time of the 50th but it was about this aspirational hope that everyone will be able to be free. Everyone will be able to secure for themselves

and all the rights that are enshrined in our founding documents. And that this American moment,

“this American founding is not the end of something. It was not the end of a war. It was not”

just beginning of the country. It was the beginning of the sea change where everyone in the world over will start to have their eyes open to the opportunities of freedom and in that way America is special because we're the ones to hopefully set the world in that path. And I like this because right going back to the Jefferson letter, the notion that to some parts sooner to others

later, but finally to all, that is the promise of America, the finally to all, that eventually

some point through enough work and through enough dedication and through enough commitment that everybody will be able to not have equal outcomes but will have equal rights, equal freedoms, equal opportunity to live as they choose to live and to be themselves and to worship as they wish and to speak as they wish and to not have the thumb of some autocrat or some monarch or some king upon them. And so with Ford and Jefferson together it is, Ford is this welcome sign saying

we want to invite everyone into this bounty and Jefferson is offering this statement of purpose that

we want to export it all to you as well. And that is what America is about. We're failing.

We're failing when Jefferson wrote that letter. We're probably failing worse now than we were when Ford was at that naturalization ceremony. So we probably backtracked in the last 50 years. But fundamentally, like America is like this idea, this promise. JD Vance and these fuckers want to try to make it about something else. They want to try to turn us into Hungary or India or Brazil or any other country around the world where being a member of that country is because of who your

ancestors are, what your religion is, or because you grew up on this certain plot of land. Like that's not what our country is. It isn't. Our country is about the promise and the creed that has put out in those documents and that that is something that everyone should have. The opportunity to experience that everyone should have the opportunity to be a part of. Whether it be because they've come to our land in the hopes for that opportunity,

whether it be because we have tried, failed a lot, tried to project out to the world what the benefits are of this style of government, what the benefits are of self-government. And that is something that's still worth projecting and still worth fighting for. It's still worth arguing for and it's a beautiful thing about our country. So, you know, the celebration down there on the mall. Fuck it. I don't think anybody's going to be sitting there on some AI podcast

100 years from now, waxing the stalljick about whatever nonsense Donald Trump has to say tomorrow night, but what is underneath that is still good if we do our part to nourish it and fight for it.

“And that's what we'll do. We'll get back here on Monday next week in the meantime. I don't know.”

I'm going to probably have some beers and sausages and hang out with my family and friends here in New Orleans. So, we'll see you all back here on the podcast on Monday. Up next, it's Clint Smith. Please fucking awesome. So, please stick around for that. Happy folks, Joy.

Hello and welcome to the Bullard podcast. I'm your host Tim Miller. Happy third of July.

I guess we're celebrating fourth of July on the third of July today. I am excited for today's guest, especially chosen for this holiday. He's a staff writer at the Atlantic. His books include the poetry collection above ground and the best selling. How the word is passed, a reckoning with the history of slavery across America. It's my guy Clint Smith. Welcome back to the show, man. Good to see you. It's good to be here.

Think if I had your brother since then and you had my brother. Yeah, and he dropped me stuff some apo and you weren't going to get to at the end. So, just do you had any other sibling pairs or

“are we the first one? I believe the Smith siblings are the only ones. Correct me if I'm trying”

to think if there's any other who that would be. So, Kudos to you. All right. We're out of here. It's talented family. I've got to get your sister. What I want to start with is you to recent

War. You interviewed a bunch of people. Some of the basic facts here is at the Pentagon. He has

“blocked or delayed the promotion of 12 plus black and female senior officers, pushed out several”

of them. You removed the portrait from the art gallery of chapy James. The first black

American to be promoted to four star general. You know, this is one of the things with the beginning. Start to raise your eyebrows a little bit at some of the choices, but the trend line is not subtle. It's not subtle. No. And, you know, for the story I interviewed over two dozen currently enlisted and retired officers, civilian and members of the military. And it was interesting because what a lot of them are experiencing is the sort of cognitive dissonance. We're on the one hand. They

are a cutely aware of their own history. And they are aware of the fact that, you know, oftentimes they're like second, third, fourth, fifth generation. And their family to serve in the military. They've got folks going all the way back to the Civil War. Like formerly enslaved people who fought in the Civil War, then people who fought in segregated units in World War 1 and World War 2, people who were, you know, one day fighting for civil rights in the U.S. and then the next day

fighting in Vietnam. And so there's this long tradition of recognition that black Americans

have often fought for a country that hasn't always fought for them. And in many ways, look for a

country that's often purposely antagonized them. And so that sense of history gives them this sense that like, all right, it's bad now, but our ancestors have been through worse. My grandfather's been through worse. My dad has been through worse. And still, it's incredibly difficult to exist in the current paradigm, where you are being inundated with messages, explicit and implicit, rhetoric, policy that is telling you that you don't deserve the position that you're in and that you are

not worthy of ascending to certain high-ranking offices within the military, that the only reason you're in the military, or the only reason you're in these high-ranking positions, where have been considered

for them, you know, the suggestion from Secretary Hegsev and his A's is that it's because of a

affirmative action, it's because of D.I. it's because of Joe Biden's quote-unquote "woke military" and that is a really difficult environment for people to be. And so there's this back and forth of should we stay, should we go and people making different sorts of calculus about what the right thing to do is? Well, let's tease it out. He's not to exist with Gerald Curry, if somebody just did decide to retire and kind of you talk to him about that very question.

How are they thinking about this? I mean, this is one of those questions that is, you know, I've had some, you know, FBI folks on here and people DOJ, this is a tough question

“across the government, right? It's like, do I work for a government that I believe to be corrupt?”

Is it better to have people of responsibility in these positions or not? That's one of the ways on a lot of people, like this ad's kind of an additional layer to it when, you know, the secretary is just being polite and racialized and, you know, these decisions. Yeah, you know, I think that one of the factors for many people, and I think this is probably the case within the federal government as well, but in the military after 20 years, you get a pension that you

receive for the rest of your life. And that's important for all members of the military to be clear, and that's a huge incentive for so many of them to stay on for extended periods of time. This is why so many people in the military have such a long 10 years. Because once you get past 20 years, even if you get to 25, 30, 35, you get paid more and more, the longer you stay. But it's hard to overstate the role that the military has played in the providing an opportunity for black upward social and

economic mobility in ways that are kind of singular in the sort of intergenerational configuring of the American professional infrastructure, right? Like it's a huge thing that has happened is that there are so many generations of black folks in the military because it has been such a reliable mechanism by which to achieve, you know, and I send, you know, to a different economic socioeconomic statuses. It's like actually the irony about it's like actually a meritocracy.

Right. No. In the other part of this is, you know, one of the things that people I spoke to brought up is this idea that because the military is such a, has been such a singular place in that way. A lot of the folks have come from really poverage to working class backgrounds, and the military

“has made it so that they are the economic sources of stability for their entire family, right?”

Not just like their kids, their partner, but like their extended family. And so, you know,

the stability that the military is afforded who are trying to make calculus about whether to stay

or to go with a recognition that the calculus isn't just about, you know, what red line is except going across or how much is racism and my willing to experience, but also like this job

“is what allows me to support, you know, many, many people beyond myself. And so I think that's”

another layer that is added on to the sort of complexity. And, you know, Gerald Kerr, who you mentioned part of the reason he decided to join was because he joined the Air Force was because he saw his cousin when he was a kid in Fort Knox and just saw his house he lived in and saw his pristine uniform and it represented a sort of stability that Lieutenant Kerr earned for himself and that is

one of the things that led him into the military in the first place. Yeah, obviously some of the

folks here to talk to, you know, couldn't go in the record because of, you know, they're in the military or just, it's just not, it's outside the tradition of the military to kind of pop off about something like this. That said, I'm kind of curious when it was, you know, just you guys on background to like how much bitterness there was about it like with the vibe was about it. I mean, to me, I just can't imagine these guys like working their whole career serving Iraq, Afghanistan going

under war zones and having like a weekend talk show co-host clown, you know, making these types of decisions. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of animus toward Secretary Hexette, understandably, you know, I mean,

“I think the, the brazenness with which he disregards the service of these, you know,”

thousands and thousands of members of the military across these branches is not something they

felt like they would ever have to experience and certainly not experience from the person who is in charge of the military, right? It's one thing to experience this on an interpersonal level from a commander, you know, or racist, you know, lieutenant or whatever the case may be on a sort of, you know, one off of that. But for the, for the head of the Pentagon to be sending down these, these messages to be, you know, flying in generals and admirals from all across the world in order

to tell them that they can put hands on their subordinates, right? And to the for them to then hear that and think about what implication that's going to have for the units that they're a part of, where the thing that has prevented, you know, otherwise wildly racist incidents from transpiring is that there's a level of accountability from the top. But now there's no accountability from the top. In fact, there's a sort of blank chat, so to speak, there's been written,

where it's like, no, do whatever you want to do and you won't be fired, you won't experience consequences. And so there's a lot of anger, there's a lot of despair, you know, one of the guys I talked to talk, say he said, like, was everything I fought for in vain, you know, like this is not, this is not what I signed up for. At the same time, one of the things that was recurring in these conversations was the idea that a lot of these folks were like, I don't fight for

headset, like I didn't sign up to fight for headset, I didn't sign up to fight for Trump, I didn't sign up to fight for America as it is, what I've signed up to fought for was the Constitution. Like, I've signed up to defend the Constitution and what the Constitution is, particularly in the black historical tradition, is as Dr. King talks about it. It's a promissory, no, a promissory

“document. It's a document that represents the aspirations of what America can be. And so I think”

part of the Black military tradition is this recognition that you are often fighting for the aspirational version of what America can be and not necessarily what it is at the moment. Yeah, it's got to be a little bit more of a bitter pill to swallow when, you know, that's, he's such a joke or two. I was like, be one thing if it was a racist who is a good, good military general that rose to the ranks and you know, demonstrated themselves and

like, that's not what this happened in here, you know? Well, that's the other thing, you know, like, I can't get in hip, hip Seth head, but like, one thing that came up over and over again was this sense from people of them wondering, like, why there was such a particular venom directed toward Black service members and women to be clear. And, and wondering if it was, if at some point in his career, Secretary Hegzeth felt as if he was passed over for a promotion

at the expense, you know, it, with at the expense of somebody else or or because somebody else, you know, who he deemed to be less qualified, who may have been Black, who may have been woman, who would have been, somebody other than a white man and perhaps was that a catalyst for the level

service. Clean this slide, like, yeah, you know, you're the, this is the generosity of spirit that

you showed and how the word is passed, too. As you got to meet these races, something must have happened to this guy. I don't know, Pete Higgs is a fucking ass clown, but yeah, okay. Yeah, he also might have been passed over. Let's try. This episode is brought to you by the New York Times, you know, when I call them the failing New York Times, it's just love, we love the New York Times. Here's why Clayton and I were having this conversation about how the administration's trying to

rewrite history and whitewash America's 250th and one of the things we spent a few minutes talking about, well, something that I took a reporter, my guy, Michael Bender is doing work out in the fields,

“a bunch of time to uncover. I, you have to do real work, real reporting, put effort into a”

put time into it, you got to verify, you have the resources to do it. Like that is something that is

valuable and it is needed for a liberal democratic republic. And it's something that we're doing a little bit of here at the bowl work, but it's different and nature than podcasting and being independent and media for me to have things to flat my jaw about. It's important that there are other people out there that are doing the work, verifying, getting the facts right. It's not just our friends of the times, it's folks at a bunch places for publica, your local paper. Anywhere reporters

are working a beat, a guy Jonathan Cohen right here, he's working a beat. They're the ones that got the facts find a story and I do worry that in this world where all you people are sending

“me Instagram reels from random people out in America, shouting their opinions about things,”

was no editing, no fact judging. I worried something that we're missing and that we're losing a little bit off. So I appreciate the times that they're doing it when Clinton, I talked about that matter group that went after Smith College for DEI, except a trans person at their graduation. We were lying on reporting the times and I was replying on their reporting the times this week we had Maggie on talking about what was happening behind the scenes in Trump White House. We're

going to continue to do so. Journalists like Michael Bender like Maggie spend weeks, months and even years, cut those stories together to keep us informed. I appreciate it wherever you seek it out, nationally, locally, support fact-based reporting. What do you tell us about? Because I had not

“heard of general chapy James, right? It's my ignorance, but it was interesting the degree to which”

the taking down his picture affected some of the folks you talked to. Yeah, it was huge. To be honest, I wasn't familiar with chapy James before working on this project either. So general James was

a the first four-star general in the military served in the air force and you know he helped

train soldiers to speak the airmen during World War II. He served in Korea and in Vietnam as a fighter pilot. It was an incredibly decorated fighter. There's also this moment where he's in Libya and has this showdown with Omar Gaddafi when Gaddafi is like this young rebel and there's the cool happening. And Gaddafi drives the military vehicle up to the gates of the U.S. base. And in this very dramatic showdown, chapy James like closes the gate before Gaddafi can get in.

Gaddafi gets out of his vehicle. He puts his hand toward his holster where his gun is, chapy James almost Western style like grabs his gun first pulls it out on Gaddafi and tells him he better not move his hand and touch the gun in his holster. And Gaddafi very slowly sort of withdraws his hand and walks back to the vehicle and drives off. And it became part of sort of military mythology. They called him the Black John Wayne. And so this is somebody who has

like a very renowned military pedigree and he had his portrait hanging in the air force gallery in the Pentagon. And in the early days of the Trump 2.0 it was taken down. And that was a really hurtful to a lot of the folks who I spoke with because general James portrait in many ways sort of symbolized the possibility of upward mobility for Black officers within the military, right like his portrait being there was a sort of daily reminder every time they walked past it like this could

be possible for me to. And when it was taken down it very much felt like the very opportunity to ascend to the sort of position that chapy James had ascended to was also taken away, right? Like their move and the other part of it is that's interesting. His like chapy James was by no means

he was a Reagan publican, Ronald Reagan loved him. He called him like a model soldier. He said

that he was a hell of a pilot. He just a few years ago they named a bridge after him, disant to signed a building name and bridge after him in Florida. And so this is somebody who had he lived. He had a heart attack not long after he retired from military, but had he lived. He was considered as someone who could potentially be a running mate to a Republican presidential candidate. And so that added dimension of it. Almost ironically made people

even despair more so. Right. Because it was like this guy's not good enough. Like this guy, he this is a Republican. Like he's he is the almost prototype of what you would think. The military certainly a Republican administration in their military for service members would want. And certainly, you know, he was the case for previous administrations. And so the fact that a Republican black general was taken down from the walls. People were like, well, if this guy's not good enough

for them, there's no chance for me. People wouldn't think if you know they're taking down Jesse Jackson or whatever. It's like I get that, you know, right. It's really to another article of you working on recently, which was an interview with Lonnie Bunchhoods up the Smithsonian. I had Maggie Haverman on Wednesday show. I talked about her book regime change. It was a

section of it that struck me. And obviously there's like so much happening in the first year,

that's horrible. I kind of walking in on what happened at the Portrait Gallery. Like it's some level feels a little. You know, like it doesn't have the gravity and weight of the other crimes against humanity happening from the Trump administration. But I was pretty struck just by kind of the whole, you know, conversation about how like Trump's underlings and people around him, like really work and obsessed with these exhibits. I'm like wanting to get them fixed. And he tells

the story. She recounts the story about a bunch of tells about where Trump visited the African magazine history, museum, and like he seemed to not care at all. I tried to talk to you about how

“they love him in the Netherlands. And they were like, I think I was looking at an average slave ship or”

something. So, you know, he bunches is kind of hanging on to this job. Then I'm getting firing the woman at the Portrait Gallery. But, you know, he is sticking around at least for now. I'm you interviewed him recently. Like, just tell us about him and kind of why he's sticking around. Is he got a pension too? I was like, if I was that guy, I'd be like, give me the fuck out of this job. Yeah. I think they, you know, part of the reason he's sticking around one,

he's the founding director of the National Museum of African American History and Culture. Right? And so, you know, he, he built this museum when there was no collection. There was no staff. There was no art. There was no building. There was no site. We didn't know where it was going to be. It was just an idea. And he was selected to bring this idea to fruition. And he spent, you know, more than a decade of his life engaged in this project. And now it is one of the most popular

museums in the country, you know, and is one of the focal points of the National Mall. And so,

“you know, then he obviously ascended to the position of Secretary. But I think his history with”

this Smithsonian as the founding director of National Museum of African American History and Culture before that as a curator at the National American History Museum. He has a lot invested in this institution. I mean, this institution has been his life. You know, since he was a young young historian coming through through the ranks. And I think that he is also, he's a kind of singular figure. I mean, he, most people would tell you he is the most renowned and celebrated

public historian in the country. One woman I talked to said that he was the, the Beyoncé of museums. They're like, you walk through hotels with him during conferences and people are like following him, trying to take selfies and, you know, telling the getting his autograph. It's, it's, it's a, it's pretty astonishing. But he, he is so, he represents, I think, because of his pedigree,

because he has been a curator, because he is the first historian and first Black person to

“serve in as Secretary of the Smithsonian. He's uniquely suited to, to defend it. And I think that”

he feels a deep amount of personal, a deep personal sense of responsibility to, to stand up and make sure he's defending it. And he's, he's trying to navigate, you know, as, as diplomatically as one can ensuring that he is protecting the Smithsonian and, and standing up to this administration,

because Trump has attacked the Smithsonian a lot, right? Like, he's come very directly at Smithsonian, so they talk too much about slavery. They talk too much about the sad things in America.

They're too woke, et cetera, et cetera. But he's never attacked Lonnie by name, as far as I know.

“Like, there's been no true social post about Lonnie. And so in some ways, I think,”

I think the president, as much as he despises what the Smithsonian is doing, or it's being told to despise it by people around him. I think that he, he kind of likes Lonnie. Like Lonnie is a likable guy. And, and I think when you're learning about this lunch, we're Trump's talking about how it, like Lonnie's worried the Trump's going to start raving, you know, ranting and raving about the black trans statue of Liberty or whatever, and steady just like wants to show off the, the Shandaliers

and talk about how he wants to get rid of Delos Airport and make a Trump airport. Yeah. I mean, and that's the thing about Trump. You know, as there's the

sometimes a disconnect between the bluster and the public performance of a certain,

you know, Bellacose brazen personality, which isn't say that that's not a part of it. But like, but it looks different when you are oftentimes one-on-one with him. And I think a lot of people who reporters certainly a lot of my colleagues at the Atlantic experience this directly, where the way that Trump talks about them online versus how he talks to them when

“they're in person is pretty different. And I think for for somebody like Lonnie, you know,”

he went into that lunch thinking that like, that it was going to be over for him, right? Like, was he going to make it out and still be the Secretary of the Smithsonian? Were they going to come in and magnify the entire institution? And instead, you know, Trump wants to talk to him about Shandaliers and curtains and like which color, you know, the type of wish that he used gold or silver to ornament his new ballroom. So it's the cognitive distance that he's experienced has been

something. Trump just really, if only Fred had hugged a more, you know, he could have been the gay theater queen and interior designer. I think he could have been happy. You know, look at you extending the same generosity and thought that's been an app that you're just trying to figure out their lifestyle and story. That's been an artist's narrative. No, he's probably no path to a healthy Trump. Like everybody, we're taking back the fourth at the bowl work,

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yet a third group to borrow from the Simpsons. We all run in our fourth July sale. Right now,

it's happening this weekend and you get a full year membership for everything we offer on our website for just 86 bucks, 14% off because of this holiday, this flag, this country of links to all of us, not one party, not one person. I got my fourth July playlist, epic and I'm given that to you for free. All right, we're putting that in the show notes right here. $0 for the fourth of July playlist, $86 of value from that playlist and all the other

reporting commentary we're doing here at the bowl work and the sale runs all the way through this weekend. Come join us. The bowl work dot com slash July four, that's the bowl work dot com slash July four link in the show notes to the offer and the playlist. So like this decotabier, between like Trump online bluster and then in person that gets managed by Lonnie, like it's hard to do outside of that, like within the broader mega apparatus and like when it comes to this DEI stuff,

you know, there is now like a whole cottage industry that has been built up like around Trump to go after an attack these programs. This is a story earlier this week by my guy Michael Bender in the time. So I'm going to read a little bit of it to you because it just shows kind of the extent of this. This other story starts to complete the prompt and a federal civil rights investigation into gender policies at Smith College. Smith College, a lot of down gender discrimination

having there was not file best student, a graduate or anyone affiliated with the college. The originated from defending education, a conservative parents' rights group, the organization targeted Smith after learning one of the school's graduation speakers was Dr. Rachel Levine, a transgender physician and retired four star admiral. And I guess they saw the speech online and were like we should go after Smith College now. This was just kind of one anecdote

and you know there are 100-plus examples of this. And you know this is like a full-out campaign and attack this app here and just from this wonder of defending education but you know there are other examples of that all around the country and stuff you kind of monitor and cover and just like what's your sense of the scale of this and how much of a claw back there's going to be when we you know turn to the clock into twenty twenty nine. You know what's interesting is

is I was doing this reporting for the military story. It's not only the case that

been signed off by the military by these thorough extensive military boards to become you know

“a general's become an admiral to to get a different star. It's not only that headset”

is chopping people off the list because they're black or because they're women or because they're queer. It's also that his aides go and do a lot of research on these people who are put up for promotion and they do these sort of thorough online searches using AI to try and find instances in which anybody who's been put up for promotion has at any point said anything positive about diversity, equity and inclusion about LGBTQ rights about feminism about black history and and then those

things are presented to headset and they're used as justification to prevent you from getting the

promotion that you deserve and the thing that people need to understand is that like the military

isn't making these decisions on a whim right like there's a very thorough vetting process that happens by which members of the military high ranking officers themselves and part of these military boards are looking at every part of your record, every part of your character, every part of your education, every part of your service and determining whether or not you deserve to be promoted and whether or not you are in a role that is commensurate with your skill set.

And so when they promote people it's typical you know previous administrations that secretary of defense is going to trust that process which has been in place for many years and largely just

sign off on it and so it's pretty unprecedented to this degree that the secretary of defense

would start like saying no to so many people and disproportionately having those people be black people and women or people who have said anything in support of black people and women and any point and then inevitably what happens is you begin to fill the high ranking spaces of the military

“with people who look the same and think the same and in the context of the military I think that's”

not only a moral issue it's also a question of like oh you're actually making the military like a less effective force you know you're preventing the military from being the healthy ecosystem of diverse viewpoints and perspectives that is needed you know what if the military to do the sort of work that it does across the world and all sorts of different national ethnic and geopolitical context and if you have people in the room who only have one point of view or one set of experiences

then you are are decimating the the health of this institution to be able to effectively do its work yeah and to your point on that at the end like the military seems like the worst possible organization to try to go after the hei and it's like that as you're saying like there is a huge do specifically want people who are representing different cultures and understand different cultures because of the nature of the work the military does I do just kind of steel man in the argument

though just you know is there not any kind of movement any type of ideology or policy can go overboard at times like is there not anything to the fact that in some of these organizations they created the i organization that maybe did some good things about identifying to people the hei or but then also to kind of continue existence have did their it ends up doing a lot of make work kind of nonsense and silliness like makes people roll their eyes or maybe isn't efficient or

I get that money can be used better actually going to hire a black soldier professor or something

“rather than having another department head at college and I think this is part of hei says”

you can be part of war two at the amount of money going to kind of overhead versus people in the field like what what do you say to kind of the like non-racist like would just more legit critique on the grounds of like efficiency and fairness I think a good faith argument for thoroughly vetting programs to ensure that they are doing the work that they should do and that they set out to do is a good thing right like and I think that you know nobody you know certainly in the context

the military federal government you know people don't want their taxes going to initiatives that are ineffective or that feel wasteful the issue is that there was no meaningful attempt to to analyze or to go in and figure out what's working and what's not or to have a set of conversations to do again a sort of like thorough unpacking of like what are these the i programs that out to do but also the thing is like the i it's just

is as my colleague Adam Sirwer has written extensively about recently is that like we have

a federal government we have an administration and executive branch that is fundamentally interested in like reconstituting Jim Crow in many sectors of society that would have felt hyperbolic to me a few years ago out of been like look man like I don't know like they're doing some bad stuff

“but like new Jim Crow in the you know but I think if you look at the policy if you look at”

the rhetoric if you look at what they are actually doing they are trying to create a federal infrastructure a military infrastructure a C-suite infrastructure that does not believe that black

people are capable of the the intellectual capacity to serve in positions of power and authority

and they want to remove and/or prevent black people from having access to these opportunities and that is like a central part of their program that is the central part of what they're trying to do and so yes there are bad die programs in the same way that there's bad like you know HR programs there in the same way that there's bad surely there's some pointless military units actually some soldiers doing things like that you know and so yeah so I just think that the ultimately like

“what this is and this is how the military story is tied together with the Smithsonian story and”

my work you know and thinking about public history and slavery in this country America is a place that is done a lot of good for a lot of people America is also a place that is on a lot of harm to a lot of people America is a place that is provided unparalleled unimaginable opportunities for millions of people across generations in ways that

their own ancestors could never imagine and it's also done so at the direct expense of millions

of millions of other people who have been intergenerationally subjugated and oppressed and both of those things are the story of America but what you have is in administration that does not want to account for the totality of America's history and the contradictions and the tensions and the complexities that lie there in you have an administration that only wants to tell a very particular and very narrow story about what America is and it wants to tell that story in order

to justify the ability to create a new society in which certain people are in charge of other people who speak directly like that white people exist higher on the totem the proverbial totem pole than their counterparts and that that is understood as the sort of natural order of things because because what happens is if you don't understand American history and you don't understand the reason one part DC looks one way at another part DC looks another way you begin to

assume that the reason that certain people live in certain communities or in certain conditions is because that is the natural order of things rather than recognizing that it's something that has been done to people or that resources have been extracted from people and so and if you failed understand that history that shapes the current landscape of inequality then the current landscape of inequality just again seems like it like the sort of natural order of things.

So that takes us to where we are today. You said you're traveling going to some of America 250 events. Well, how are you processing you know where we're at today and the backsliding we've done recently

“and you know I think that they're probably going to be some Americans out there that are”

just gleefully not really contemplating these the historical weight of what's happening and just enjoying fireworks and hot dogs and there's some research for that. I guess if you're listening to this podcast right now you're not one of those people so I'm wondering how how you're kind of thinking about it and you know what you'd say to people who are struggling with trying to grapple with where we're at on this anniversary. You know we were we were just talking about how

America's place has done a lot of good and also a place that's done a lot of harm a place that's provided a lot of opportunity and a place that has intentionally prevented people from having any opportunity. It's interesting you know I had the young readers' addition of how the word is passed

tours and the way we were talking about it you know when I'm sitting with them in their classrooms is that like I'm somebody who has done things in my life that I'm proud of and I'm somebody who's done things in my life that I'm not proud of because I'm human and I make mistakes and what I try to

teach my children or how I try to be in community with people is not that you pretend as if you never

made a mistake or pretend as if you never did anything wrong what you try to do is you acknowledge your mistake you recognize the thing you did wrong and you try to learn from it and address it so that you can become a better version of yourself in the future and if that's the standard I hold myself to if that's the standard I hold my children to if that's the standard these middle schoolers hold themselves to then why would we not hold our country to the very same standard right like

we we recognize that America is a lot of different things to a lot of different people

“and in order to understand what the less 250 years have been I think you have to”

accept that that this 250 years has looked very different for lots of different people and that we are celebrating in many ways one iteration of you know America's birthday but some would say you know that America in fact should have a different birthday and it should be 1965 right because that's not actually that that is actually when you had black people and a wider range of citizens who were able to more fully participate in the democratic process and if the goal of

America is to be this sort of singular multi-racial, multi-ethnic, multi-faith democracy in a way that

has never existed in the history of the world at this scale certainly then then our job is to

to acknowledge like what it takes to to to get there and and then we are 60 one now and so I mean or rather retirement age by the time Trump gets almost there you know we should just gonna hang it up you know it was a good try we did at 65 years I do think the like the aspiration

“of America is a noble one and I think it is a remarkable one again like there's there's no where else”

on earth that is tried to do what we are doing right that is tried to with this many millions of people of this many millions different backgrounds to build a country and sustain a country and sustain peace in a country that has people with so many different facets of their their identity and to do it in a democratic way can I be a downer can I just be the downer I know I see the Republican and I should be like the flag where where I've heard your foot further down is my favorite holiday

as a kid and yeah it's it's become melancholy I wish it wasn't so I don't know man Canada seems to be doing it are like and it's not quite at the scale of us but there are many millions of people in Canada there are black people age and people brown people they believe it's a it's a new and that's a new thing for Canada right like I mean what is true is that the level of immigration that Canada has the sort of the extent to which Canada is a multiracial democracy is is a pretty new

thing for them certainly relative to us I mean they the and they don't have our history right like they don't have this history of enslavement they don't have the same history of immigrants

“of so many different backgrounds having been in this country for so long and and I think Canada's”

great Toronto's one of my favorite cities shoutouts Canada there's our continuous one great right now love watching them in the world cup but I think that what America is trying to do at our best in spite of what we have done to so many people is an effort is a goal that I'm proud to be a part of even if I recognize how far we are and how in many ways we're backsliding from where we want to be but you know they think I think about those all the time because

I obviously I wrote this book on the history of slavery and the thing I tell people and I think

about this all the time is you know first since late people came to the British colonies that

would become the United States in 1619 slavery didn't end formally until 1865 but from the moment in slave people arrived on these shores they were fighting for freedom they're fighting for emancipation

for freedom never got a chance to experience it for themselves but they fought for it anyway

“because they knew that someday someone would and I think all the time about how my life is only”

possible how my children's lives are only possible because of generations of people who fought for something they knew they might never see but who fought for it anyway because they knew that someday someone would and I think about what is my responsibility right I think about what responsibility is there's that bestow upon me does that bestow upon my kids to try to build this sort of world and build this sort of country that we might not see ourselves but to try to build it anyway

to try to be part of the project of making it what it's set out to be even if we don't get to reap the benefits of it and they're so we're all chipping away at this wall and you don't know if the wall is six inches thick or six thousand miles thick but what you know is that the more you chip away at it the less the people who come after you will have to chip away and I think that that's part of what sustains me in moments like this where things feel hard and when things feel as if

they're not moving in the way that we want them to in moments where it feels as if progress is fleeting I remember that I am part of a history that I am part of a tradition of people who gave their lives and who fought over the course of their lives to build a sort of country that they knew they

wouldn't see and to build it for people they knew they would never meet but to do it anyway and so

“that's you know that's what I think about you know my fourth of July is Juneteenth and that's what I”

think about when when Juneteenth comes around and I think about it again a few weeks later when July fourth comes around because and I think it's appropriate that they are in close proximity to one another because I think Juneteenth to me is a reminder of what the fourth of July can be or should be and yeah it's just work man we just got put in the work you start your turn a little something to me I'm not ready to wave my little many American flag yet but it feels pretty good I'm getting there

I'm curious about the kids book I haven't read the kids version of how the word is passed but you know you're talking about this conversation with the middle schoolers just does kind of make me wonder and that a lot of people probably have these kind of conversations with kids this weekend you know I mean Trump's gives us a big speech on the fourth of July night in the fireworks and you know if I was a parent and DC you're trying to process like how to talk to the kids about

that if you or they hide it from them I'm just kind of wondering like this is heavy stuff I mean for people who didn't read the book I you know you're going to kind of these old plantations and and speaking to ancestors and talking about speaking to like Confederate reenactors and and trying to grapple with the legacy of this a couple hundred years later or I guess over a hundred years later and um like how is that different like when you're talking to the younger people like

how do you frame it in a way you know that gets a good reaction out of them that that you feel

“like is is valuable I think that for kids the the idea of like the both and in this of America”

the duality of America is one that feels very easy to digest it's the grownups that come and mess everything up right like it's the kids are like yeah America's done good stuff and America's done bad stuff like today do you do you do you do you say in the edges down of it I think you talk about things in the way that's developmentally appropriate right like I sure and I think about this with my kids all time right I got a nine year old in the seven year old and I don't

want it to be the case that my children you know are never introduced to you know really difficult

topics until they are 16 years old I think that that would be failure but when I talk to them you know especially like they they are children who are the descendants of enslaved people they are the descendants of Nigerians they are the descendants of pilgrims and so they carry within them like a lot of the the sort of dynamic stories of what makes America what it is and so you know it's important for us to talk about in history of colonialism that created the civil

war that led their grandmother to come from Nigeria to America it's important for us to talk about the fact that my grandfather you know they're a great grandfather who we just visited in New Orleans

world they live in to remind them how recent these parts of history are and you you again

you know my nine year old can talk I can talk about it with him in a way that I have to be more mindful of when my seven year old as each kid is different each age is different

“and so you I wouldn't say it's like sanding the edges necessarily but I think it's knowing”

knowing who your kid is knowing who your audience is and and trying to get a sense of what way you can introduce the subject matter to them without overwhelming them it's tough and I get eight year old and and you know I do think it's interesting that you talk about that about the ways that your kids have all that you know this difference tough within them because I was just been challenged for me I was white kid growing up in Denver and so white suburbs and you know I've

learned about Rosa Parks and I learned about Martin Luther King and it feels like something that is from another world right I kid has it felt to me growing up like it's something that had no impact on me at all or my family and like it I wasn't tall as older than I even like that didn't like really I realized it was like oh wait that happened in the sixties like my parents were a lot you know what I mean I could feel it's black and white it just like feels like such history

and count of that to living in the ones my daughter growing for none of them's being black with all the history of that being everywhere around us you know being at a school where you starting to learn that stuff you're like oh wait those were my people you know that that hadn't just suffered through that I don't know it's just something that I feel like kind of I'm going

through it the first time with her and trying to figure out how to to be constructive and be positive

“while also being honest you know we as parents I think have to be mindful of the various constraints”

that we have like the both the opportunities that we have and the constraints we have in the way we talk about these things right so like I am the descendant of enslaved people and can speak to that history in a way that is deeply personal in a way that I cannot speak to what it means to be an immigrant from Nigeria right like but my wife can speak to my kids about her mother's experience you know and what it means to to be a child who has to walk from Nigeria to Cameroon

on her brother's back as as a as a young girl to escape a war that killed millions of people what it means to not know when you're going to get your next meal what because of my subjectivity like there's a way that I can speak to that but it's also shaped by my proximity to that experience or not so I think for any parent you know part of it is figuring out like to what extent are we bestowing information on our kids or verse 2 what extent are we also being like we're on this

learning journey together right a lot of things with my kids I'm like I don't know like let's figure it out and we're going to learn you know whether it's about history or whether it's about something

“happening you know that's that's more personal I think there is power in in parents having the humility”

to be like I'm still learning about this too and I'm still trying to figure this out also and when we're just kind of bestowing around trauma on them for no reason I thought it'd be fun you did the show crash course black American history on YouTube I did and just you know to honor the 250th I'd be fine I picked two out of the blue blue blue blue that that I thought we're interesting okay and and we're going to quiz you see how good your memory has been a little it's been

on my shows videos yeah oh man yeah I'm going to quiz you on your own show so watch out how do you do scripts to be immortalize you they were like well they were like 11 minutes like 10 minutes or something you only need to pull from that that brain of yours like 45 seconds of facts like I'm just looking to wrap it fire fast on two of your crash I want you to crash course mate if you fail it's okay I mean you know you seem like you're a straightest dude I might need to re-washed

to be right I'm just going to put a disclaimer here we go surely chisel are you asking me who she is yeah just I want you to crash course mate what I hope you crash your brain oh I am crash course

and you I love crash course it into a verb surely chisel was the first black woman to run for

president as a democratic nominee and I guess she wasn't the democratic nominee but she was the first person to to be in part of that primary and she's she's a the sort of in many ways considered a sort of four mother for for so many black women in politics she was incredibly progressive in her policy stances she you know many ways people say that she laid the groundwork for come layers to run for president and and I think there's still a lot of lessons that people pull

from her in terms of her advocacy for for the poor she's very involved in food stamps and trying

had the social support she needs and and just really believed in building the social safety net

“of America to take care of those who have the lease all right there's a girl”

I picked this one because I I did not know anything about baird rust and like until a grown adulthood which was pretty embarrassing to me as gay man what's I first learned about him like I went on a big rust and deep dive and you did one of these on another guy that I learned it's part of that deep dive which is Philip Randolph and Baird Rustin and the March that they were planning before the king March so crash course was on that.

Baird Rustin was really among most amazing civil rights leaders in American history he was

in many ways a sort of guide a sort of mentor to Dr King he helped Dr King conceive of and make sense of and implement his plan of nonviolence through the civil rights movement he took the lessons from from Gandhi from India and helped to to create the infrastructure of the civil rights movement in the 50s and 60s he is also someone who helped as along with April Randolph

“to plan the march on Washington and people I think take for granted like how much of a”

of a lift that was right like to plan all like you know the food the the bathrooms the to get the permits to find the speakers to do I mean like it was it really really good to stay so these places where is it like yeah 100% and for like hundreds of thousands of people and he did all of this and and obviously created the what is in many ways the sort of seminal moment or one of the seminal moments in civil rights history but he as as you alluded to

was a gay man and because of that he was often pushed back both metaphorically and literally behind many others because at this time many civil rights leaders thought that it would undermine the civil rights effort if a queer black man were at the forefront of those efforts and it's and it's really a shame because he he was a remarkable person and he was really he was similarly was deeply invested in ensuring that America created not only the conditions for black people

to be successful and to have the opportunity to achieve social mobility but also you know as mirrored in many ways by Dr. King's evolution on economic rights you know was was deeply invested in ensuring that he was creating the conditions are working to the conditions for the working class as a whole to a cent right to create you know the sort of human dignity and economic dignity that was necessary for people to to live a sort of meaningful life you know this could have been

history podcast this was an end it you're I promise you apple talman wrote me this as you imagine you're all through your for all through New Orleans um your brother when he comes to visit he calls me out here you were the sense seems like you were here last week you didn't call me but that's

okay I feel he's on her next time he said this uh Clint never had a left foot in soccer uh and the

only had one move stop stop go so stop stop go as it says it says it says it says it says it says it says it says about slow slow fast that's all you need I don't need scissors I don't need you know these runaldo moves is runaldient sometimes you're just the basket and you just go slow you go slow and then you go fast do you kind of do you have a world cup projection for us we're taking the comments and the team you pick might have lost by the kind of affairs but yeah uh so I lived in

Senegal for a little while um and that place is so near and dear to my heart it means a hugely transformative experience for me and I I love how they play you know I've I love them since the part of what it inspired me to go there was the 2002 World Cup where they beat France one zero and what is still one of the the greatest upsets in World Cup history this was right after

“the France with the defending world champions um and uh you know I always remember that goal”

pop a pop a boobachof and they'll haja jouf and and those guys Andre camera an amazing team

and and now they've got like a really good squad they they snuck through to the knockout stages but I think if they get going they can make a run they might have lost by the time this place on Friday as we're taping you can go watch the second half they're up one out right now against Belgium are they up one zero I just look um there we go France has got a pretty easy I mean France is have you been watching me I don't I don't soccer you know you don't soccer but

even people who don't soccer soccer during the world yeah that's true like taping yeah I fall asleep to it you know which is nice it's a it's a good the background noise it's two things British announced

difference sort of experience when you do tell them Linda okay let's try to tell them Linda I

“don't I I appreciate how excited people get about it I had an emergency a sister fly at an”

aspect people don't want to hear my travel nightmare story ended up having to take a car down all the way to Denver is long drive and that the driver was from Ecuador and so bro is excited

and to Ecuador lost last night to Mexico but I feel like it's totally briefed on all of the

South American teams because it was the very long drive so I shout out to that guy I kind of I'm up to speed on Mexico I'm out to America I'm aware but Paraguay the Argentina and okay and now

“Ecuador's out so I'll be monitoring so I'm rooting for Senegal I think it'll be France because”

they're just stacked and then you know we'll see what our boys from the US do can't lose to Bosnia all right Clint Smith man I appreciate very much thanks for doing this I hope was invigorating for the audience and you know after this they can just just go have a little whatever you know tell me and saw the kids some barbecue right like what are you are you going to enjoy yourself do you have any journey joy I'm not a I'm not a I'm not above the hot dog you know like I'm not give me some good

“dogs some good links some ribs some wings I mean I love I love a cookout and I think you know”

July 4th is another opportunity to cook out and you you sit as you hold that dog in one hand and that rib in the other hand you say you know these are culinary metaphors for for our country you know just a little crispy covered in carbs and and delicious I love them all right I

appreciate your time as always do holiday next time through town and we'll see you soon everybody else

we'll be back here on Monday I'm not gonna watch this fucking speech tomorrow so but if it's crazy you may I'll get to it on Sunday night and we'll give you guys a little recap of the craziness on Monday and look forward to seeing everybody there hope you have a good weekend Clint we'll see you soon right now I mean thanks happy for the joy I'll see everybody on Monday the board podcast is brought to you thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper

associate producer Ansley Skipper and with video editing by Katie Lutz and audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown