1 00:00:01,501 --> 00:00:03,870 The following content is provided under a Creative 2 00:00:03,870 --> 00:00:05,238 Commons license. 3 00:00:05,238 --> 00:00:07,474 Your support will help MIT OpenCourseWare 4 00:00:07,474 --> 00:00:11,544 continue to offer high-quality educational resources for free. 5 00:00:11,544 --> 00:00:14,080 To make a donation, or to view additional materials 6 00:00:14,080 --> 00:00:18,051 from hundreds of MIT courses, visit MIT OpenCourseWare 7 00:00:18,051 --> 00:00:24,657 at ocw.mit.edu. 8 00:00:24,657 --> 00:00:27,460 MICHEL DEGRAFF: So you think that the ultimate reason 9 00:00:27,460 --> 00:00:29,095 for these policies is racism? 10 00:00:29,095 --> 00:00:32,298 So rasicm on its own is the driving factor? 11 00:00:32,298 --> 00:00:34,567 Because there's been arguments that perhaps the racism 12 00:00:34,567 --> 00:00:39,858 itself is a result of other factors, like economic control. 13 00:00:39,858 --> 00:00:41,274 Think in the case of Haiti, right? 14 00:00:41,274 --> 00:00:42,842 Or the Caribbean in general. 15 00:00:42,842 --> 00:00:44,144 So what came first? 16 00:00:44,144 --> 00:00:47,247 Was it the racism first, or then the need for slaves, 17 00:00:47,247 --> 00:00:50,717 which in turn triggered racism? 18 00:00:50,717 --> 00:00:53,953 NOAM CHOMSKY: It's a complicated story. 19 00:00:53,953 --> 00:01:02,662 I mean, racism grew partly out of the Enlightenment. 20 00:01:02,662 --> 00:01:07,033 If you go back to the 16th century, say in Europe. 21 00:01:07,033 --> 00:01:10,270 We're talking about Europe now. 22 00:01:10,270 --> 00:01:15,208 There was the beginnings of the age of exploration, 23 00:01:15,208 --> 00:01:17,377 exploring the world. 24 00:01:17,377 --> 00:01:21,314 The Spanish going to South America and so on. 25 00:01:21,314 --> 00:01:24,186 One of the things that was happening 26 00:01:24,186 --> 00:01:29,277 was that Europeans-- recall that you go back a little further, 27 00:01:29,277 --> 00:01:31,257 to say St. Augustine. 28 00:01:31,257 --> 00:01:34,727 It was widely believed in Europe that nobody could 29 00:01:34,727 --> 00:01:37,197 live south of the equator. 30 00:01:37,197 --> 00:01:39,666 For one thing, they would be standing upside down. 31 00:01:39,666 --> 00:01:40,934 That would be impossible. 32 00:01:40,934 --> 00:01:42,435 So the idea that there were actually 33 00:01:42,435 --> 00:01:45,604 people there was kind of novel, anyhow. 34 00:01:45,604 --> 00:01:51,077 But as the age of exploration continued, 35 00:01:51,077 --> 00:01:54,481 Europeans were finding creatures of a kind 36 00:01:54,481 --> 00:01:58,751 that they had never seen before, like orangutans. 37 00:01:58,751 --> 00:02:02,388 And Africans-- blacks and so on. 38 00:02:02,388 --> 00:02:04,057 And there was a crucial question. 39 00:02:04,057 --> 00:02:07,760 Remember, these were deeply religious societies. 40 00:02:07,760 --> 00:02:11,164 You either had a soul or you didn't have a soul. 41 00:02:11,164 --> 00:02:12,732 That's critical. 42 00:02:12,732 --> 00:02:17,237 So the question arose, which of these creatures have souls? 43 00:02:17,237 --> 00:02:21,007 Can be converted to Christianity and saved? 44 00:02:21,007 --> 00:02:23,376 That was the dominant issue. 45 00:02:23,376 --> 00:02:27,947 And was there a distinction between, say, orangutans 46 00:02:27,947 --> 00:02:30,683 and black natives who they saw? 47 00:02:30,683 --> 00:02:31,885 How do you distinguish them? 48 00:02:31,885 --> 00:02:33,186 Can you distinguish them? 49 00:02:33,186 --> 00:02:38,124 And there were all kind of debates, including language. 50 00:02:38,124 --> 00:02:44,364 In fact, one of my favorite comments was by Louis Racine. 51 00:02:44,364 --> 00:02:47,200 He's the son of the famous dramatist who 52 00:02:47,200 --> 00:02:51,204 argued that apes did have language 53 00:02:51,204 --> 00:02:53,940 and they were more intelligent than humans. 54 00:02:53,940 --> 00:02:56,309 And he had a proof, actually. 55 00:02:56,309 --> 00:02:59,279 He said the proof is they don't speak. 56 00:02:59,279 --> 00:03:01,548 And it's a good argument. 57 00:03:01,548 --> 00:03:03,183 He said, they don't speak because they 58 00:03:03,183 --> 00:03:06,219 know that if they spoke, we would turn them into slaves. 59 00:03:06,219 --> 00:03:07,687 MICHEL DEGRAFF: Wow. 60 00:03:07,687 --> 00:03:09,522 NOAM CHOMSKY: So therefore, they keep quiet, 61 00:03:09,522 --> 00:03:12,525 but they're really smarter than we are. 62 00:03:12,525 --> 00:03:17,030 But that's the kind of argument that was taken seriously. 63 00:03:17,030 --> 00:03:21,301 So what came first? 64 00:03:21,301 --> 00:03:22,936 What does it mean? 65 00:03:22,936 --> 00:03:30,143 The all integrate-- Take right now the racism that's surfacing 66 00:03:30,143 --> 00:03:33,079 is in considerable measure a reaction 67 00:03:33,079 --> 00:03:38,296 to the neoliberal policies of the last generation, which 68 00:03:38,296 --> 00:03:42,522 have simply undermined a very large part of the population. 69 00:03:42,522 --> 00:03:45,825 In fact, for a majority of the population, 70 00:03:45,825 --> 00:03:49,095 conditions have stagnated or declined 71 00:03:49,095 --> 00:03:54,267 during the period that began basically with Reagan. 72 00:03:54,267 --> 00:03:56,836 So just take a look at the numbers. 73 00:03:56,836 --> 00:04:02,075 So in 2007-- that's right before the crash. 74 00:04:02,075 --> 00:04:04,777 And if you go back to that time, there 75 00:04:04,777 --> 00:04:10,083 was great euphoria among economists and intellectuals 76 00:04:10,083 --> 00:04:13,152 about the wonderful economy that we had. 77 00:04:13,152 --> 00:04:14,454 Everything had been solved. 78 00:04:14,454 --> 00:04:15,922 There's no more problems. 79 00:04:15,922 --> 00:04:19,559 Great moderation, perfect, and so on. 80 00:04:19,559 --> 00:04:21,661 1979. 81 00:04:21,661 --> 00:04:26,032 Real wages for American workers were actually lower 82 00:04:26,032 --> 00:04:30,870 than they had been in 1979 before this grand experiment 83 00:04:30,870 --> 00:04:32,605 was initiated. 84 00:04:32,605 --> 00:04:34,340 And you see the same in Europe. 85 00:04:34,340 --> 00:04:37,510 Now, that's a large part of the reason for the anger, 86 00:04:37,510 --> 00:04:41,481 the contempt for institutions. 87 00:04:41,481 --> 00:04:43,616 The fear, and so on. 88 00:04:43,616 --> 00:04:46,019 And a lot of it shows up in racism. 89 00:04:46,019 --> 00:04:49,188 The racism is kind of an underlying phenomenon, 90 00:04:49,188 --> 00:04:53,326 but it surfaces when you have to blame somebody. 91 00:04:53,326 --> 00:04:56,029 And there's very interesting work on this. 92 00:04:56,029 --> 00:04:59,799 If you haven't seen it, there's a really fine book 93 00:04:59,799 --> 00:05:04,470 by a sociologist named Arlie Hochschild. 94 00:05:04,470 --> 00:05:06,739 I forget exactly what it's called, 95 00:05:06,739 --> 00:05:13,413 but she's a Berkeley University of California sociologist 96 00:05:13,413 --> 00:05:15,548 comes from a liberal background. 97 00:05:15,548 --> 00:05:17,617 She really wanted to understand, to see 98 00:05:17,617 --> 00:05:19,819 if she could understand what has always 99 00:05:19,819 --> 00:05:23,456 been regarded as a strange paradox, 100 00:05:23,456 --> 00:05:26,125 that the people who are suffering 101 00:05:26,125 --> 00:05:33,266 the most from these neoliberal policies 102 00:05:33,266 --> 00:05:36,269 are the ones who most support them. 103 00:05:36,269 --> 00:05:37,770 It's very striking when you look. 104 00:05:37,770 --> 00:05:40,773 We saw it in the last election, in fact. 105 00:05:40,773 --> 00:05:44,089 The people who voted for Trump-- the working people-- 106 00:05:44,089 --> 00:05:46,665 are voting for their class enemy who's 107 00:05:46,665 --> 00:05:49,892 kicking them in the face at every opportunity. 108 00:05:49,892 --> 00:05:51,517 And the more he kicks them in the face, 109 00:05:51,517 --> 00:05:53,519 the more they support him. 110 00:05:53,519 --> 00:05:55,655 So what's going on? 111 00:05:55,655 --> 00:05:57,023 And it's very widespread. 112 00:05:57,023 --> 00:06:01,260 She went and lived and she picked an ultra-red county 113 00:06:01,260 --> 00:06:02,695 in Mississippi. 114 00:06:02,695 --> 00:06:05,898 The Bayou area of Mississippi. 115 00:06:05,898 --> 00:06:09,535 And she went to live there for, I think, five or six years. 116 00:06:09,535 --> 00:06:13,106 And just integrated herself into society. 117 00:06:13,106 --> 00:06:15,942 Got to know the people. 118 00:06:15,942 --> 00:06:17,110 Had respect for them. 119 00:06:17,110 --> 00:06:19,579 And she should, instead of contempt. 120 00:06:19,579 --> 00:06:21,575 She became part of the society. 121 00:06:21,575 --> 00:06:22,949 And she got to understand the way 122 00:06:22,949 --> 00:06:24,550 they were looking at things. 123 00:06:24,550 --> 00:06:26,586 And the way they were looking at things, 124 00:06:26,586 --> 00:06:32,258 she describes with an image that they accepted as accurate. 125 00:06:32,258 --> 00:06:36,129 The image of people standing in a line. 126 00:06:36,129 --> 00:06:38,197 So we're all standing in line. 127 00:06:38,197 --> 00:06:41,234 Behind us are our parents and our grandparents. 128 00:06:41,234 --> 00:06:43,034 And they worked hard. 129 00:06:43,034 --> 00:06:44,670 They did everything the right way. 130 00:06:44,670 --> 00:06:45,838 They're religious. 131 00:06:45,838 --> 00:06:47,240 They're conservative. 132 00:06:47,240 --> 00:06:49,475 They had families. 133 00:06:49,475 --> 00:06:51,411 Each generation gets a little better. 134 00:06:51,411 --> 00:06:53,079 That's the American way. 135 00:06:53,079 --> 00:06:55,648 But all of a sudden, the line stalled. 136 00:06:55,648 --> 00:06:57,150 We've stopped. 137 00:06:57,150 --> 00:06:58,885 Now, there are people ahead of us 138 00:06:58,885 --> 00:07:02,255 who are shooting into the stratosphere. 139 00:07:02,255 --> 00:07:03,389 Multimillionaires. 140 00:07:03,389 --> 00:07:04,257 But that's OK. 141 00:07:04,257 --> 00:07:06,092 That's the American way. 142 00:07:06,092 --> 00:07:09,195 The problem is the people behind us. 143 00:07:09,195 --> 00:07:11,964 The federal government, its role is 144 00:07:11,964 --> 00:07:14,801 to take those people who are behind us, 145 00:07:14,801 --> 00:07:19,238 who don't want to work, who are worthless, and so on. 146 00:07:19,238 --> 00:07:21,441 And the federal government takes them and puts them 147 00:07:21,441 --> 00:07:27,447 in front of us with affirmative action programs, and soup 148 00:07:27,447 --> 00:07:29,549 kitchens, and things like that. 149 00:07:29,549 --> 00:07:31,751 I mean, it's all a complete fantasy, 150 00:07:31,751 --> 00:07:34,620 but this is the way people see the world. 151 00:07:34,620 --> 00:07:38,157 And you can understand why they see the world that way. 152 00:07:38,157 --> 00:07:39,926 These are people who heard Ronald 153 00:07:39,926 --> 00:07:43,029 Reagan, an extreme racist incidentally, 154 00:07:43,029 --> 00:07:48,201 give his disquisitions about welfare queens driving 155 00:07:48,201 --> 00:07:51,826 in limousines to the welfare office-- black, of course-- 156 00:07:51,826 --> 00:07:53,773 to pick up your hard-earned money. 157 00:07:53,773 --> 00:07:58,211 They're just saturated with that kind of stuff from talk radio, 158 00:07:58,211 --> 00:08:00,646 from Fox, everything they hear. 159 00:08:00,646 --> 00:08:03,316 So these people behind us are being 160 00:08:03,316 --> 00:08:06,886 pushed by the federal government in front of us. 161 00:08:06,886 --> 00:08:09,589 And we're stalled. 162 00:08:09,589 --> 00:08:11,757 Well, they are stalled, but it's not because 163 00:08:11,757 --> 00:08:14,126 of those people behind them. 164 00:08:14,126 --> 00:08:17,591 And you take a look at that amalgam 165 00:08:17,591 --> 00:08:19,799 and you can see why these people hate the government. 166 00:08:19,799 --> 00:08:22,134 We don't want the government, even though the government 167 00:08:22,134 --> 00:08:23,236 is keeping us alive. 168 00:08:23,236 --> 00:08:24,737 In fact, if you look at it, they're 169 00:08:24,737 --> 00:08:27,673 getting more subsidies from the government than anyone. 170 00:08:27,673 --> 00:08:30,643 Like Mississippi is subsidized by New York. 171 00:08:30,643 --> 00:08:34,347 It's the way transfers take place. 172 00:08:34,347 --> 00:08:35,982 But these are all kind of hidden. 173 00:08:35,982 --> 00:08:37,616 You don't see the subsidies. 174 00:08:37,616 --> 00:08:40,886 What you see is these people behind us 175 00:08:40,886 --> 00:08:46,893 who are maybe getting some Medicaid, 176 00:08:46,893 --> 00:08:49,795 let's say, something like that. 177 00:08:49,795 --> 00:08:52,098 That's what you see. 178 00:08:52,098 --> 00:08:57,970 A well-designed doctrinal system, propaganda system, 179 00:08:57,970 --> 00:09:00,873 can focus your attention on that. 180 00:09:00,873 --> 00:09:04,076 I think we're going to see more of that. 181 00:09:04,076 --> 00:09:10,516 Trump, his promises about bringing jobs back, obviously 182 00:09:10,516 --> 00:09:12,118 not going to work. 183 00:09:12,118 --> 00:09:15,688 What happens when his constituency recognizes 184 00:09:15,688 --> 00:09:18,324 that they're just getting kicked in the face? 185 00:09:18,324 --> 00:09:21,494 Well, what's going to happen is scapegoating. 186 00:09:21,494 --> 00:09:23,663 It's going to be necessary to turn 187 00:09:23,663 --> 00:09:27,300 their attention to somebody who's doing that to them. 188 00:09:27,300 --> 00:09:29,669 The Jews, the Muslims, the immigrants, 189 00:09:29,669 --> 00:09:31,971 the blacks, whoever it may be. 190 00:09:31,971 --> 00:09:34,307 And that could lead to a really ugly period 191 00:09:34,307 --> 00:09:37,043 unless there's some reaction, strong reaction. 192 00:09:37,043 --> 00:09:39,478 And the reaction ought to begin before it takes place, 193 00:09:39,478 --> 00:09:41,847 not after it takes place. 194 00:09:41,847 --> 00:09:44,517 But you can see what's very likely to happen. 195 00:09:44,517 --> 00:09:47,720 And there's plenty of examples in history, 196 00:09:47,720 --> 00:09:49,956 like the Nazis for example. 197 00:09:49,956 --> 00:09:52,792 Plenty of examples in our own history. 198 00:09:52,792 --> 00:09:54,460 Many. 199 00:09:54,460 --> 00:09:58,164 Race riots back in our own history are often like this. 200 00:09:58,164 --> 00:10:00,166 Take, say, the Irish. 201 00:10:00,166 --> 00:10:04,370 When the Irish came in the late 19th century, 202 00:10:04,370 --> 00:10:08,441 they were regarded as black, dark-skinned. 203 00:10:08,441 --> 00:10:11,010 They were treated like blacks. 204 00:10:11,010 --> 00:10:14,347 There were signs in Boston restaurants saying, no dogs 205 00:10:14,347 --> 00:10:17,116 or Irish, things like that. 206 00:10:17,116 --> 00:10:23,889 They finally whitened, became integrated into the society. 207 00:10:23,889 --> 00:10:28,094 But the racist treatment of Irish was miserable. 208 00:10:28,094 --> 00:10:30,496 In fact, there are some hidden stories there, 209 00:10:30,496 --> 00:10:32,531 which aren't so pretty. 210 00:10:32,531 --> 00:10:35,835 Like take gynecology. 211 00:10:35,835 --> 00:10:39,538 Gynecology was developed by professors at Harvard Medical 212 00:10:39,538 --> 00:10:40,673 School. 213 00:10:40,673 --> 00:10:44,176 Their pictures are up on the walls and so on. 214 00:10:44,176 --> 00:10:45,478 How did they do it? 215 00:10:45,478 --> 00:10:46,979 Well, you had to experiment. 216 00:10:46,979 --> 00:10:49,749 So who'd you experiment with? 217 00:10:49,749 --> 00:10:52,385 People who were good subjects. 218 00:10:52,385 --> 00:10:55,955 Black women, of course, and Irish women. 219 00:10:55,955 --> 00:10:57,923 They were the experimental subjects 220 00:10:57,923 --> 00:11:03,562 who were used to develop the modern scientific understanding 221 00:11:03,562 --> 00:11:05,164 of gynecology. 222 00:11:05,164 --> 00:11:08,634 This kind of thing just runs all through history. 223 00:11:08,634 --> 00:11:12,104 Everywhere you look, you find one or another aspect of it. 224 00:11:12,104 --> 00:11:14,507 And getting back to Michel's question, 225 00:11:14,507 --> 00:11:17,076 I don't think there's a chicken/egg issue. 226 00:11:17,076 --> 00:11:20,513 They all interact. 227 00:11:20,513 --> 00:11:22,648 MICHEL DEGRAFF: One other place where they interact 228 00:11:22,648 --> 00:11:25,084 is with language, right? 229 00:11:25,084 --> 00:11:28,454 So you mentioned the one drop rule. 230 00:11:28,454 --> 00:11:32,491 In Haiti now, when you look at, say, the politics there. 231 00:11:32,491 --> 00:11:34,427 Let's say it's put on a zenith. 232 00:11:34,427 --> 00:11:38,030 And you can see how based on the way you speak, what you say 233 00:11:38,030 --> 00:11:39,365 is being discarded. 234 00:11:39,365 --> 00:11:43,102 And we could call it the one accent rule. 235 00:11:43,102 --> 00:11:47,873 So if you shoot any creole phonemic pattern 236 00:11:47,873 --> 00:11:49,975 in your French, then you're discarded. 237 00:11:49,975 --> 00:11:51,744 And I think that's also true in the US. 238 00:11:51,744 --> 00:11:53,412 So in the US, there was this famous case 239 00:11:53,412 --> 00:11:56,048 of Rachel Jeantel, when she was testifying 240 00:11:56,048 --> 00:11:59,952 in the trial of Zimmerman, who had killed Trayvon Martin. 241 00:11:59,952 --> 00:12:03,689 That's how the Black Lives Matter movement got launched. 242 00:12:03,689 --> 00:12:06,826 And she was discarded by the jury. 243 00:12:06,826 --> 00:12:07,960 Why? 244 00:12:07,960 --> 00:12:11,897 Because she spoke with black English accent. 245 00:12:11,897 --> 00:12:14,934 And she was judged to be untrustworthy. 246 00:12:14,934 --> 00:12:16,736 And the jury never mentioned the testimony. 247 00:12:16,736 --> 00:12:19,238 And she was a star witness for the trial. 248 00:12:19,238 --> 00:12:22,074 So there is a linguist at Stanford, 249 00:12:22,074 --> 00:12:25,377 John Rickford, and one of his students 250 00:12:25,377 --> 00:12:27,980 who wrote a beautiful piece, actually showing 251 00:12:27,980 --> 00:12:30,316 how because of the way she spoke, 252 00:12:30,316 --> 00:12:36,155 what she said was given no credibility by the jury. 253 00:12:36,155 --> 00:12:39,158 And this is why I think that perhaps one could think 254 00:12:39,158 --> 00:12:43,929 of race alongside language as one of these tools 255 00:12:43,929 --> 00:12:47,700 that you can use to create this illusion of hierarchies. 256 00:12:47,700 --> 00:12:49,101 And maybe you're right. 257 00:12:49,101 --> 00:12:52,972 The two might reinforce each other, but perhaps 258 00:12:52,972 --> 00:12:57,977 this push for economic control and imperialism 259 00:12:57,977 --> 00:13:00,880 in the case of the Caribbean colonization and slavery, 260 00:13:00,880 --> 00:13:04,450 they become enlisted by these larger forces 261 00:13:04,450 --> 00:13:06,852 to impose these hierarchies. 262 00:13:06,852 --> 00:13:09,855 If you go say in French, the [french] 263 00:13:09,855 --> 00:13:11,357 that the French came up with, which 264 00:13:11,357 --> 00:13:18,297 we saw coming back up with Marine Le Pen, for example. 265 00:13:18,297 --> 00:13:23,002 NOAM CHOMSKY: We've all seen that in our own experience. 266 00:13:23,002 --> 00:13:26,505 When I was in college, one of my fellow students 267 00:13:26,505 --> 00:13:29,742 was one of the rare black students, who 268 00:13:29,742 --> 00:13:37,383 had managed to develop not just a straight American accent, 269 00:13:37,383 --> 00:13:39,752 but an elite to American accent. 270 00:13:39,752 --> 00:13:41,253 So when he talked over the phone, 271 00:13:41,253 --> 00:13:43,055 you thought you were talking to a Harvard 272 00:13:43,055 --> 00:13:46,292 professor, or an Oxford professor, or something. 273 00:13:46,292 --> 00:13:47,760 We brought him to MIT. 274 00:13:47,760 --> 00:13:49,395 We appointed him, in fact. 275 00:13:49,395 --> 00:13:53,499 But when he came, he was staying in our apartment 276 00:13:53,499 --> 00:13:56,068 while he was looking for a place to live. 277 00:13:56,068 --> 00:14:02,007 And he would call places that were for rent around Cambridge. 278 00:14:02,007 --> 00:14:03,909 And they'd say, sure. 279 00:14:03,909 --> 00:14:04,612 Come over. 280 00:14:04,612 --> 00:14:06,278 But as soon as he went over, it suddenly 281 00:14:06,278 --> 00:14:07,746 turned out that the place had just 282 00:14:07,746 --> 00:14:11,183 been rented five minutes ago. 283 00:14:11,183 --> 00:14:13,485 But over the phone, he was fine. 284 00:14:13,485 --> 00:14:16,355 But not in person. 285 00:14:16,355 --> 00:14:20,092 The picking up of a fake acc-- it 286 00:14:20,092 --> 00:14:22,661 shows up in many strange ways. 287 00:14:22,661 --> 00:14:25,564 So for example, at Harvard in the early 1950s, 288 00:14:25,564 --> 00:14:28,534 there was a wave of Anglophilia. 289 00:14:28,534 --> 00:14:31,604 And people-- men, of course. 290 00:14:31,604 --> 00:14:34,707 No women-- dressed in English clothes 291 00:14:34,707 --> 00:14:37,109 and affected British accents. 292 00:14:37,109 --> 00:14:40,012 And if you kind of just listened and walked around, 293 00:14:40,012 --> 00:14:42,514 you might have thought you're maybe in Oxford, 294 00:14:42,514 --> 00:14:44,250 not in Cambridge. 295 00:14:44,250 --> 00:14:46,785 But these things happen all the time. 296 00:14:46,785 --> 00:14:49,255 They can be very pernicious when it's 297 00:14:49,255 --> 00:14:56,595 a part of the population that's vulnerable and deprived 298 00:14:56,595 --> 00:14:59,498 and under external pressures for other reasons. 299 00:14:59,498 --> 00:15:03,569 Of course, African Americans, as I said, it's 400 years. 300 00:15:03,569 --> 00:15:06,170 It's not something sudden.