A Geek History of Time - Episode 258 - Ben Sisko the Father with Kokayi Nosakhere Part I

Episode Date: April 5, 2024

Okay, so there's there there are two possibilities going on here. One, you're bringing up a term that I have never heard before. The other possibility is that this is a term I've heard before, but it involves a language that uses pronunciation That's different from Latin it and so you have no idea how to say it properly an intensely 80s post-apocalyptic Shlock film and schlong film, you know, it's been over 20 years, but spoilers Okay, so so the Resident Catholic thinking about that. We're going for low Earth orbit. There is no rational blame it on me after. And you know, I will.

They mean it is two o'clock in the fucking morning. Where I am. I don't think you can get very much more homosexual panic than that. No. Which I don't know if that's better. I mean, you guys are Catholics. You tell me. I'm just kind of excited that like you and producer George will have something to talk about

That basically just means that I can show up and get fed I'm going to go to the bathroom. This is a Geek History of Time. And I'm Ed Blaylock. We're sorry. Can we wine? Sorry. I'm keeping this. My brain is not. No, no.

Please don't. No. Come on. In three I'm keeping this. This is staying. My brain is not. No, no. Please don't. No. Come on. All right. In three, two, one.

This is a Geek History of Time. Where we connect nerdery to the real world. My name is Ed Blaylock. I'm a world history and English teacher here in Northern California. And the most notable thing that's happened to me lately is I spent five days locked in my own guest room because I contracted COVID. And so I got to spend most of get time in the yard While my wife and son were away at school and work during the week But I was here at home and I did not check my work email

because I shouldn't have to yeah, right and and and then Literally came back to work to find out that the following day I had an observation that I had been notified about on Friday related to a curriculum that I'm piloting this year. And so that was a little bit of a how it's her head moment. But yeah, so that's been just extra special kind of fun. It's been a hell of a week being back to work after that. So that's what I've been up to. How about you? Well, I'm Damian Harmony.

I'm a US history teacher up here in Northern California at the high school level. And just these last few weeks, my daughter and I rewatched Lord of the Rings, the Peter Jackson version. And this is all in preparation to get her ready for the rotoscope cartoon version, because I'm going to.

Why do you hate your own child? Well, you've heard the shit that she said to me. She's but Yeah, but like I'm a terrible dad like I'm a bad dad No, but we've been watching the the Lord of the Rings stuff and you know, okay I don't know the guy's name. I think it's Denethor the guy who eats tomatoes Yes, okay. Yeah yeah so first off the movies hold up by the way just in case anybody was wondering so 25 years later and they're still

really good yeah but he's eating tomatoes and he's like juicy and grimy and he has Pippin sing to him and Pippin is is he like clearly outkicked his coverage. He's pledged himself without really thinking it forward because he's Pippin and he never does things in a way that's not difficult because as we know Pippin ain't easy. But also, look on your face, but also Pippin starts singing this beautiful song as the Rohim are riding to their doom, right? And my daughter turns... Oh, they're not the Rohim? I have to interject. It's not the Rohirrim. They haven't shown up yet.

Oh, okay. Who are they? It's the Knights of Gondor. It's the cavalry of the city of Gondor. Okay, I just thought it was a term for horsey guys. But okay, so the Knights of Gondor are riding to their death with Den-Thor's Faramir, right? Yes, yes, his only favorite son. Yes, his non-favorite. And he's riding to his doom, and it's this beautiful scene, and it's juxtaposing this beautiful song sung by Pippin.

And Julia turns to me and she says, Dad, what is that song? And I said, I don't know, let's find out. And I hold up my phone with the Shazam app, which was one of the best purchases I ever made like 20 years ago, it feels like, and I hold it up and it records it and I just start laughing my ass off because it tells me that the name of the song is They call me shit bag by rectum blaster So the whole thing's ruined and Julie's like what and I show her and she's falling over laughing and now we're laughing our Asses off at this really sad scene at one of the more tragic moments in the entire

trilogy. Like, but how could you not? Right, so then I'm like, how did it miss that wide? And so tonight for dinner I was like, I'm curious what they actually thought the song was. And so I said, you know, I told the Alexa to play, they, they call me shit bag by Reckham Blaster. It didn't play. Um, you know, I'm sorry, I don't know that song. It was like, okay, let me find it on YouTube. So I dial it up on YouTube and sure enough, it comes up and it's the same cover art. I don't know if it'll, it'll show you, but itheveled looking yeah, she looks like she's just had sex like it's the JBF hair You know like it zoom that in for you. Okay, you see that like that's that's yeah

That wasn't that wasn't the read I got on it. Oh, it totally got I got Hikikomori hasn't left her house in like You know six months. Well, if you'd ever get on top, Ed, you might see hair like that. Um, but more to the point, the finger came out. Wow. So I type it in, that album cover comes up and I'm expecting some of the worst f*****g music that we can all laugh about. It's the scene from the movie. can all laugh about. It's the scene from the movie. It's the audio of Denethor eating tomatoes and it's Pippin singing.

It's like the opening and then they segue into a musical. I was like waiting for it. I'm like, okay, okay. Now they're gonna... It's the whole thing. So one of my recommendations tonight, I'm doing it at the top of the show, is they call me shitbag by rectum blaster, and you can hear Pippin singing beautiful music. It is so confusing. Who the fuck?

We're gonna sue somebody. I hope not. I hope that that stays. I hope that stays like like data finds that in the 2400s and there's like a little girl on a planet that's like been destroyed and she's listening to they call that they call me Shitbag and it's just Pippin singing like that's that's my hope Wow. Oh, yeah Okay anyway, we have a guest who has already walked away twice at two of my puns and is really clearly wondering what the hell he's doing here.

Sir, would you mind introducing yourself before you leave? Because I say, because this is about to be the first time that your audience has access to my personality, I thought that it would be good on me to give them fair born. I am what you call a ticker. I add energy to just about anything that I do. So as we have this three way dance tonight over the subject matter of Star Trek, which I did research within my family to prepare for this interaction today. I would like to tell your audience that my name is O-I-E. I'm the best there is, the best there was, the best there ever will be,

and I'll be like that for life. If you don't believe me, ask me, get it out, tell ya. Ed, you didn't know? Your ass better call somebody. Exactly. You know, I was hoping that we have retired the Attitude Era or the Nitro versus Raw Era, but obviously we have not in the current events of Pro Wrestling, but I don't want to date this podcast, you know. But it's one of the more beautiful days of this life where for once everybody in the pro wrestling world is mad at the Rock along with me. Yeah.

Amen to that. And we're not even covering tonight the episode where he fought against Seven of Nine. So, you never saw that? Well, I'm getting back into the theater. Oh, so and then having time to pursue anything outside of the you know, the best thing to be watching, which would be rags. outside of the best thing to be watching, which would be rags. I have to keep up with pop culture in binges. So I'll get back into it.

Yeah, it's a Star Trek Voyager episode where 709 fights against the rock where he's wearing some prosthetics. So yeah, I figured I figured there had to be rubber forehead involved. Yeah, yeah. Yes, that seemed to be a mainstay of the 90s. Boy howdy. So tonight's episode comes from a discussion that I as a dad had with a few other dads,

and then recognizing the work that I do as a teacher and the folk guy that I have. So the title is, it's a short one, it's kind of based in my knowledge of 1800s autobiographies. Commander and then Benjamin Sisko was a positive single black father figure on TV that had to be snuck in on a science fiction show because mainstream America wasn't willing to see it otherwise. Part one. So that's the title. But okay, yeah. Yeah. So, and I brought Koki on because he loves Star Trek. We have a mutual friend who also enjoys Star Trek with us and Koki can also bring several perspectives about wrestling that I have since forgotten. So there's gonna be all kinds of fun that we can get in here.

And I just want to start off by mentioning that the Cosby show and Good Times are often touted as some of the first TV that has positive black male father figures, and I don't disagree. I would like to positivity and tied a nuclear family to that positivity. And that doesn't take from its value at all, but it is a wrinkle that deserves acknowledgement that wealth was a defining feature of the Huxtables. And at the other end of the economic spectrum, Good Times, you had John Amos' character as a very positive father figure as well, and he ends up getting killed off, off screen, in a car accident in Mississippi at the end of season three of Good Times.

And this is partly due to the fact that John Amos and Esther Rowley had called out the negative stereotyping that had been seeping into the show via J.J. Walker's character, making sure that they had him say dynamite every single episode, for instance. Interestingly, the mother character, Florida, now a single mom, played by Esther Rowley, also ended up leaving the show a season later to remarry. So you had on good times, you had a good father figure who ended up absent by virtue of his death. And then you had an absent mother figure

as the children were growing up and they were raised by others. I also just wanna give a bit of a history here real quick. So there's other TV shows that were contemporaneous with Deep Space Nine and I'll get to those. But historically, I just want to ask everybody here, has anybody ever heard of the Daniel Patrick Moynihan report from March of 1965 through the Office of Planning Policy Planning and Research in the United States Department of Labor. I recognize Daniel Patrick Moynihan as a name.

Okay. And I think I've heard reference to the report. Mm-hmm. But beyond that, I don't remember any details. All right. So the name of it contains a word that's kind of outdated, but it's used as a legal term. So I'm just going to substitute it for black,

but it is the color of a crayon in Spanish. And it's called the Black Family, the case for national action. And despite our documents being historically important, the meaning is the same. So I don't feel uncomfortable substituting because I don't need to repeat that word 60 times on a podcast.

Yeah. Yeah. Now in this 1965 report, the following claims were made. I'm going to assume that they were done in the best good faith that a liberal in 1965 could have made. but I'm also going to point out that I think there's a tremendous whiteness on the lens that they use to make their comparisons and worries known.

Here are some quotes and Kokai, please jump in with any commentary or clarification that you want to provide or ask. First one, 36% of black children are living in broken homes at any specific moment. It is likely that a far higher proportion of black children find themselves in that situation at one time or another in their lives. This is from the Moynihan Report in 1965. Soterios Johnson Did they provide any kind of footnotes or any kind of like how they calculated that figure? No, a lot of it's taken from census data from the 1960 census. But then he sends, there are a lot

of people who went out and interviewed for this report. But a lot of it is a collation too. Okay. And this is Department of Labor? Yes, Department of Labor that put it out. He himself was the Assistant Deputy Director of the Department of Labor, I want to say. It's like three steps down from the Secretary. No, I'm sorry. He's the Assistant Secretary of Labor. So he's second in command of the Department of Labor at this time.

And this is 65. 65. And this is 65. 65. So this is after Kennedy has been killed. And Johnson has wrapped the Civil Rights Act of 64 in the Kennedy martyrdom shroud and got him pushed through. Right. Johnson has lost the South at this point. Yeah.

And Goodridden's... When was the Department of Education founded? I'm trying to remember. 1979. Okay, so DOE didn't... Did not exist. ... didn't exist yet. Yeah. And Health and Human Services.

HHS was late 67, I want to say, but I might be wrong. Okay, because that was part of Great Society, right? Great Society, correct. Late 67 I want to say okay because that was part of great society society Okay, so so at this point the Department of Labor just for context the Department of Labor is the one cabinet level department that would be looking at humans social social Structure yeah, you know Sociology kind of questions like this. So, okay

Yeah and actually it's I'm glad you brought that up because I never would have thought like That would be an impetus for creating those other positions, but I think you're absolutely right Um, you know, just like the department of urban planning. Um, yeah, or housing housing urban development. Yeah Um like it yeah, I I didn't realize that that that kind of shed some light as to why Francis Perkins ends up being the first female Cabinet secretary as Department of Labor. Yeah, so Okay, so that that claim is made. Um, I Question that in a lot of ways Just because the term broken home isn't a defined one other than to beg the question of saying

A non-nuclear family is thus defined as broken like there's nowhere where it says that but that seems to be the de facto definition Yeah, well, it's it's what I what I think is interesting is they're looking at You know the the household circumstances, you know, the household circumstances, you know, family circumstances of this huge swathe of the population. And they're not comparing apples to apples. They're comparing them against a standard that in their own heads being a bunch of you know, Ivy League educated

You know well-meaning but clueless white intellectuals Mm-hmm in in government positions. They are norming The you know picket fence, you know 2.5 children, right? You know suburban white family living, which had become the norm. Yeah. I doubt that. I, I, it, it was a complete fiction. So the 1950s, the way that European America was looking at itself was

complete fiction. Yeah, that was, That was part of the problem. So the standard that you guys are talking about is completely artificial. Maybe the problem that I had with any of the reports coming out of the 50s or the 60s was the fact that they were going into a community and looking at it from an academic, anthropolophic, how you say that word anthropological like the legs of anthropology and the techniques

like this David Attenbaum and they would do these news reels as if outside looking in like it was a fishbowl. And that was always confusing to me. Because- Like a pretended objectivity. Yes. As if that's a valid. Like it could be duplicated over and over again.

Yeah. When the conditions for maintaining that, it doesn't exist. So you got this fabric, go ahead. Oh, I was gonna say, and not only do those conditions, like when they did exist, they were dependent on the rest of the world starving to death and us exporting to them.

And then, you know, a military industrial complex building up and building that wealth and cooking the books as to who could live where and who could get what jobs. Absolutely. And then self-generating the compliance of those who were practicing segregation, those who were creating these outcomes to where 36%, as you said, of the households were quote, unquote, broken, but that the reporting, which then especially language, is really as if that's happening naturally as the result of

choices, not the result of public policy and person, it was person to person. Segregation wasn't reinforced by the federal government, it was reinforced by neighbors. These people, regular people who prevented you from going through the front door of a business or the front door of a service provider, you had to go through the back door. I mean, unless someone who was extraordinary like Frank Sinatra

decided to utilize a lot of social capital to get you through the front door, you sit there and had to have conversations strategically with certain celebrities as to how much of their social capital are they going to share or give up. I mean, the Morehand Report did not do, it communicated to a larger audience,

but as far as like any movement in the black community, all it did was confirm what people had been saying for quite some time. I mean, Dr. King with the True America speech, he ran off the same or similar percentages of data, with the data being just inert like that, because no one was able to utilize it in order to impact the crowd. Because right after 6.5, you get the Black Panther Party coming to forefront.

And their achievement of 50,000 grocery bags every Friday was of greater significance than any piece of paper that was coming off of Government Inc. Oh yeah, and they actually instituted policies that were aimed at addressing the actual local problems at the local level Whereas this like you said talked about it in kind of a false Objectivity a look what we happened upon not look what we are completely complicit in creating and and on and on

Yeah, there's so many problems with the Moynihan report But at the same time, what happened, and I'm not speaking to its validity, I'm speaking to the people who then took it, treated it as though it were valid, and then ran with it from there. Like that became their dominant narrative because it was the one that they were comfortable with adopting. It's the classic example of begging the question. So yeah, here's another one. I pulled several quotes from it

because a lot of it ties into the television that would show up from about 65 until we get to Deep Space Nine, which by the way, Deep Space Nine is set in the 400 years into the future for a reason like you can't talk about contemporary us but you can put it in the future and it's okay but and and we've talked about that before um where uh i just hit my mic where sci-fi and comic books are in many ways ghettoized.

And I mean, and Ed has made this much better than I, there are literal walls put up in people's minds, containing it in a space so it can't get out, you know? And sci-fi does, it gets that treatment. And I think a lot of it has to do, I think it goes back to this Moynihan report, because this becomes the guiding narrative for anybody who becomes a writer for television.

And they have to fit that narrative so that when you have a very special episode, it can be the white people telling the black people why the black people are actually the racists, and making us all very comfortable on who's the boss afterwards. So here's, here's another quote, nearly a quarter of urban black marriages are dissolved. And remember, every time you hear me say black, there's another word that

it used. Correct. Um, nearly a quarter of urban black marriages are dissolved. Which, okay. Well, if they're right around the corner to completely dissolve it by public policy. Right. Nearly a quarter of black women living in cities who have ever married are divorced, separated, or are living apart from their husbands. I'm going to throw a flag on that play right there. from their husbands. I'm going to throw a flag on that play right there. My family, we are not black. My family fit that model for about six months when my dad moved back to San Francisco to work to bring us back to California from rural Florida. Well, it's also true that

the United States or the intelligentsia here does the same thing for every other population that gets squeezed depending on what the public policy is that we're talking about. So poor white people are treated no differently than poor black people when it comes down to how do we have this conversation? conversation. The biggest problem that the modern era after television came into being did was shorten the range of choice for communication. Because most of us are trained through capitalism to make the best choice of the options that are available. But right now, all conversation is limited to an approved or not approved way of talking about it,

like you said, so they're gonna give you the standard of the Morehand Report, so you can at least create a space where we can imagine the solution, because if I can see it, then I can start moving towards. So now media becomes an appropriate way to get that across. And he started figuring that out with television, especially after JFK mastered it. After it was mastered.

So it makes sense that they would utilize it. My, because right now I'm feeling like I need to take notes and I definitely want to because I'm loving how deep you're able to go with the history of it. So I might start asking some important questions just because drawing out of it, especially with the memory of the United States of America, like Borgman said, is the United States of Amnesia. Amnesia, that's right. The context gets lost as soon as they don't remember high school history. Which, by the way, high school history usually ends with, and we won World War II.

Right, it doesn't even get all the way through. Or the march, and everybody really liked his dream, and he died for our sins. You're welcome. And that's it Wait a minute. Wait. Hold on. Yeah, and it starts with it starts with like, you know, Teddy Roosevelt was great and it's like that's that's how the curriculum tends to go. Wow. Yeah, it's yeah, I've gone hell or for starting a little earlier like King Philip's War. The one thing I want to real quick, one thing I want to piggyback on in what you were saying Damien about, you know, that statistic, what I think is interesting is that idea of, you know, this we're going to look at this particular

group of people and we're going to say that 25% of these married women are either, you know, have been divorced or separated or, you know, living apart from their husbands for what was it six months? No, that was my fam. Okay, okay. And that was an agreement made between my mom and dad to better our circumstance. But we would fit into that paradigm. It's just living apart at any time.

Okay. I, who have a far more bourgeois background than you do, my father was a naval aviator and would be gone on cruise for six months at a time. Right. Um, and my mother got treated like shit on more than one occasion out in public because people assumed she was a single mom in like 1978, 1979, like just being fucking rude. Right. Um, you know, and so, so we fit into that mold. Like just being fucking rude You know and

so so we fit into that mold and like My you know same same as you were saying, you know, that's that's not that's not an issue of of You know any kind of choice that's that's or you get what I'm saying. Yeah. Yes. that's what I'm getting around to. It's painted that way. It's painted as this terrible moral depravity. It's a crisis point, you see. Yeah, well, and the other thing that occurs to me is, this is 1965, and they're saying 25% of black women have been divorced or gonna get divorced or whatever and all I can think of is oh man

You must have just lost your shit in the late 70s early 80s because because Everybody fucking got divorced. Well, you remember who you have to thank for that in 66. Yeah, no, right Reagan one Well, you remember who you have to thank for that in 66, you know, I'm a ray gun One the one good thing he did a bitch ever did. Yeah. Yeah, so Kukai we did several episodes on GI Joe the cartoon As it turns out Ronald Reagan is the reason why we have no fault divorce here in, California And that was copied by the rest of the nation.

He was the only thing he did right and he did it for of course the most broken reasons. Of course he felt hurt by his marriage to Jane Wyman and so he wanted no one else to feel that hurt so he was like yeah it's fine and then of course yeah Right, so just like the Hall of Incompetence with the cartoons, you know, they fail, but they stumble forward falling, they succeed, but they fail and they get their success through to failure. So, well, that's good. I'm glad that he was able to open those doors. That's great.

And I'm glad that Reality King knocked on those doors. That's great. And I'm glad that reality king and not on those doors. That's great. Yeah. So, and now, of course, you know, the party that loves to crow about what a fucking hero he was is now desperately working in several states to try to undo that. True. Because how do you sustain the community if you don't have the basic unit of the nation? So you got to then come up with a different way of ordering things. So I can see how art is completely influenced by current events. And that was an element of a conversation I had with my uncle about because he's the Trekkie in the family. So I got in contact with my uncle and I was like, yo, I'm about to have this opportunity to have this conversation. And so it was about an hour and a half, you know, and we went to Pluto. Nice. And so, like, one of

the keys one of the insights that he gave that I'd like to share and we may be able to apply is who are they writing? Meaning when it comes down to this, you know, the franchise, when it comes down to Pottenberry and everything that he was trying to portray, like the moral plays over and over, which I have questions when it comes down to what is the conflict that he's pointing towards? And a lot of it has to do with the frame

that he's working from, which is like saying the Mohan havin' pork. But who is the audience? who's receiving these stories? What can they understand? What can they absorb? Because now the question I have at the studio level, that's the first one, because I don't know, at the studio level, what are the pressures that they're having to get the numbers, the eyes, the tuning, the viewers, the investment into the program? What are the standards that they're working with to the point where it even gets on the

air? Like, I know you talked about some of in previous episodes, some of the trials and tribulations that he went through starting at 61, Gene Rottenberry, on just getting the idea on the broadcast, on screen. Right, right, because like there was complete resistance when it came down to dealing with a multi-ethnic stat. Yes. Then how do you present them, you know, in a way that the audience can understand,

not reject, but where you don't have any engagement. Well, with Roddenberry, he especially seems to have been writing to justify why he stopped being a Baptist at the age of 10. I think on some level, his efforts to do the writing he did was, if no one's accepting my stuff, then I'm going to make sure that I justify myself to myself. And in many ways, he is writing for that 10-year year old to make him okay with rejecting Southern baptism in Texas. Wow I would not have known that. Yeah also he also knows that he's kind of protected by Lucille Ball when he starts writing the Technicolor Star Trek not where everybody's wearing beige, but where they're wearing all three colors.

Also he liked having sex with anyone he wanted to, and therefore he saw the future as this post-racial utopia where such things would be possible. See, that was the part that brought me the most interest, like the purpose of what it is that he's attempting to create as far as the environment to have these conversations. Now, I also, you know, like you saying that it was a completely contained environment, sort of like our scripts and everything, but the ship in a bottle. So, you know, cause you got play like limitations for sets.

So it's very old Hollywood in that it's very sustainable play like limitations or sets. So it's very old Hollywood in that it's very sustainable because you don't have, once it's built, you don't have to keep investing into different locations or special effects. I mean, that's why we talk about the rubber mats where they're just working with the head because that was, it was cheap. It was cheap.

Easiest to film too, yeah. Right, so the standard that the studio, what were they? I mean, what were the metrics? What was the standard for a show being successful or not? So there's the Nielsen ratings. And remember, the original Star Trek is only on the air for three years. And in its

Second year they were close to canceling it and they didn't and then the third year they did and It's really the showrunner whose name I forgot Because that was a different episode, but I only remember enough for one episode But the showrunner did a lot of the legwork because it was a labor of love for him. Roddenberry was kind of off doing as many different people as he could at that point in his office. Under the looking the other way gaze of Major Barrett, his wife. It's a wild story how driven by his libido Roddenberry was.

And keep in mind, he used to be a cop, and he loved westerns. And Star Trek is 100% a western, just in a different way. And so in many ways, the structure was the same. And that's I think one of the reasons why it was acceptable to people as a narrative piece. And he did have, however, while you had a multi-ethnic cast, at the same time the main black character on that particular iteration was in many ways a mini skirt wearing secretary for for the captain. Yes. So there there are layers of this is an acceptable role for a black woman and at the same time Whoopi Goldberg would later on say that's the first I saw myself on screen and it's sci-fi that did it and you know representation 100% matters and

same thing with Sulu he was essentially hato for the enterprise and at the same time a lot of young Asian men grew up watching okay I'm on the screen now and and so representation still matters so he gets I I like to say that Roddenberry got way more credit than he deserved because of how parched the entire environment was of any of the things that he then is credited for doing, where I don't think he did them as consciously as he pretended to later. I, that's true for most of the genius moments that we have in American history. So I agree with your analysis of the representation and everyone said that.

I mean, literally from that generation because you didn't have any public right presentation like that. I mean, you did in sports and you did in music and you had in art but when it came down to yeah white white white so to have any kind of color and it to be timed with color television works. Now do good question because I know I think it shifts but definitely by the time we get to Deep Space Nine, but you guys remember the original color scheme? So it was like Blue wait a minute didn't didn't spark that blue on yeah, so science and medicine had blue

command Uh had what I used to call tan, but I found out later that it was supposed to be a greenish gold What I used to call tan, but I found out later that it was supposed to be a greenish gold Well, it was actually it's even it's even funnier than it was supposed to be green But because of the way the lighting worked it came off looking gold, right? Apparently the 60s had trouble with green ever because the Hulk came out green because they screwed up gray. Yeah, they just Green is just not an easy color for the 1960s evidently. Yeah, apparently.

And then red back then was operations and security. And then those things flipped in the next generation and that's been kind of the standard ever since. So. Got you, because I thought of next generation as the reboot to reboot for my generation. Yep, and mine too. Yeah, for Gen X, right?

Because the Western formula, because that was, how was the continuous see? That's the question that was for me, because each of them, each of the iterations are set environments like that. It's close to the ship in a bottle that they can get. Oh yeah. Yeah, they don't deviate from that. No. So then it was like, okay, when it comes down to the roles, like you guys were breaking down where Uru is the secretary, you know, your communications man and everything.

Does that cross over to the other iteration? Because in the reboot, you don't have a Vulcan, but you have an android. Yeah, and you have a Klingon. Yeah. And, yeah, I mean, you have... And by the way, it's known within the first few episodes that Uhura has at least 11 languages under her belt. At one point, she actually speaks Swahili to a black engineer who's in a jumpsuit, and he speaks Swahili as well.

You have... So it's acknowledged that she's a linguistic genius. who's in a jumpsuit and he speaks Swahili as well. So it's acknowledged that she's a linguistic genius. So her intelligence is written into the script. Her presentation might be look at her legs and she's constantly at a desk taking messages for the captain. But the story that gets written around and through her is that she's fourth in command on the ship. She has control of the con on more than one occasion during

the series. That's right. And she is a genius when it comes to languages. So those things are written in. And that's Roddenberry sneaking those little things in. He absolutely does do that. It's one of those credit where it's due. It just, I want to make sure that I'm only giving the credit that he's earned. Oh, I understood. Yeah. I I also see that he does a very big departure. You again, even though they're using the Western formula from Flash Gordon. Yep. From an imagination of it still being in the frame of World War One and World War Two. Yes. And then the swords. But you know, Sam, So it's like, okay.

But the ray gun, the whole fiction idea of what the future looks like, this one is way more realistic. Right. But it still duplicates the main frames that they would recognize. So like another question that came up was, what was Star Trek an escape from?

If all entertainment is an escape. Go ahead. From the Cold War. Yeah. The threat, the threat of impending nuclear annihilation. Yeah. For, for we've talked about it in earlier episodes, but at that, at that point in the Cold War, like when, when we all came up and, and I don't know how old you are in relation to Damian,

I was born in 75, you know, he likes to mock me because, you know, he's never lived in a universe without Star Wars. That's right. And the old jokes never stop, you know he's never lived in a universe without Star Wars and the old jokes never stop you know but but for our generation for all three of us we we were born from parents who who had grown up in the in the era in which you threat of the Cuban missile crisis was a defining moment in their experience of international relations. And so by the time we came along, the doom, big letters,

doom, of all of that had faded into the background a little bit. And we grew up with that, like from literally from the time we were born, you know, none of that was new. The idea that, you know, we have this many nuclear weapons and the Soviets have, we thought, this many plus X nuclear warheads and, you know, between us we can destroy the world, you know, 20 times over. And that was just, okay, well, you know, it's can destroy the world you know 20 times over and that was just okay well you know it's tuesday shit i gotta do my math homework like but for folks who were adolescents or young adults you know the the target age group for star trek at the time that it was on um seeing a universe 400, seeing humanity, you know, 400 years, 300 years in the future was a sign that no, we are in fact going to survive this, we

are not going to destroy ourselves. And that was and and that was critically important. You know, my mother, as a small child had literal nightmares, recurring nightmares about the Reds showing up and torturing her father. And she didn't even know who the Reds were. In her subconscious, in her dreams, they were monsters. They were these weird camel-like creatures that were, you know, bright red. But she

knew that the reds were were a constant threat. And she grew up with that being this thing that oh my god, we all have to be terrified of this. And so that's what they were trying to escape. You know, another thing that there was an attempted escape from was internal strife in the United States. I mean, one of the, and I highlighted this, I think it was episode 94, but I highlighted this in the Roddenberry episode because they used footage from the Detroit riots where the National Guard came in and shot at people.

They used actual footage of that for one of their episodes. In 1966, there were, you know, Watts had happened the previous year, and there were over a hundred riots. And there was a study done then that was kind of piggybacked on, backed onto Moynihan. And so there's a lot of existential questions of people who, it's so funny,

it's they keep asking, why is there such a problem with this community without actually doing the work of, what are we doing to create this problem? Like they're only setting the timer once the explosion happens, not before. Correct. Yeah. And so yeah, go ahead. So to me, with that being reflected in the story choices, okay, because one of the stories that are available that the audience can absorb, because you can run ahead with the vision.

Because that's what he'd already done. He's given you the environment, you have the multi-ethnic cast, and we're going on these adventures. The adventures replicate in that first series, like you said, those three years, 66 to 69, and the animated series. Don't forget the cartoons. I really liked it. The Johnny Quest-like cartoon, right? It was called colonialism. It was the ancestors. We're boldly going where no man has gone before, but every planet they come to, the aliens have already populated.

Right. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. It was like a Because it was to seek out new life and new civilizations So the exploitation was missing from the rhetoric, but the objectification was still 100% there Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely except for when they tried to do the

Comedy crossovers like when they did the do the comedy crossovers. Like when they did the triples, the problems with triples, I remember being a kid watching that episode, saying, why is this? They spend money on this? Why did they spend money on this? This one, it'll fill our episode. What in the world are we talking about?

But I mean, like, the kinds of stories that they were able to tell, okay? I mean, because they're limited by what the people can absorb even as they push the envelope. I keep saying that because it tends to create like a form of tension between the studio and the creator that they can't express fully what it is that needs to be expressed,

even as the tension is boiling that everyone's trying to escape from. So where we can practice what the possibilities are in this realm of fiction, the series does the best it can does the best it can. Right. With the limited. Right. So then when they do the reboot, there isn't the need to combat that existential threat. You're right. It's different in 87. It is. They attempted really hard to make the Ferengi the number one bad guys. And that fell flat in a lot of ways. Completely fell apart. And honestly, the show... I mean, Patrick Stewart said famously that he did not unpack his bags for the first six weeks because he is for sure that it was going to get canceled.

Yeah. And if you watch the first season, which I'm presently doing with my children, I can see why it was going to get cancelled. Like, like, I see why that was a fear because the episodes I mean, it's well, and it's part of it is because Roddenberry is still alive. Yeah, that series, the next generation accidentally does good stuff in in season two. And then in season three three it starts to kind of find its feet. But Roddenberry at this point had spent so long believing his own hype that he thought...

Smelling his own fart. Yeah, living his own kayfabe. Yeah. So I think that the streak continues here, Ed. How many episodes in a row have I mentioned kayfabe? Oh, I've lost count. It's just such a useful concept. It really is, especially in the world that we live in. But believing in his own K-Fabe to the point where he deliberately wrote out of the episodes, like, no, there should be no conflict between the characters. There should be no conflict where they go because the future will be better and it's like Gene

um that doesn't make for compelling TV especially if you're going bottle to bottle yeah like like beyond that have you met people well and I think there's his failing is that he objectified people from the jump. Again, his objection to baptism, the Baptist religion, was that he wasn't the Godhead. That was his objection. Like, why are we worshiping him? So I have the same question for the second iteration that I have for the first, which is, for the second iteration that I had for the first, which is what was the limitation that the, what was the standard that the studio was looking to say that a show was successful or not?

What was the metrics? Well, in this time, the show wasn't on network TV. It was on syndicated channels. So you had more flexibility there. You had more leeway. Roddenberry was a legend by this point in a lot of ways. So letting him go forward with it was not as big a misstep to most people's minds. And it wasn't perceived as as much of a risk.

Exactly. So it filled an hour. Yeah, where what else are we going to do? Are we going to run, you know, Laser Force or something like, you know, how are we going to do this? And it was 87 and the one of the things that ran into was a writer's strike. Oh, yeah. So yeah, it's it's

there's a lot of fun history that happens in the beginning of TNG and then and then Roddenberry passed away and by season four okay yeah because violence comes in and plot comes in yeah real meaningful yeah the the phrase that that is that exists over it, TV tropes, is actually codified by Star Trek, the next generation. It's growing the beard, is when the series gets out of it's awkward, oh shit, this is bad phase,

and it actually like finds its footing and gets better, because it's like, oh hey, Riker grew a beard, and like everything got better. You know? Riker grew a beard because of the writer strike It was literally the writer strike things longer and so he showed up and he's like well You know, I don't need to shave yet because we're not gonna start filming and then one of the production people was like keep that Yeah, that's why Riker has a beard. Yeah, that's amazing background. That is absolutely amazing.

Yeah background. So this standard for success, still at the studio level. It is an eyes eyeballs. Yeah, and and also the so it's 87, 88, right? So it's the tail end of Reagan. It's this, the economy was juiced for people who were making money, cocaine was going down in use though, and all of these things are happening.

And so don't get overtly confrontational in your politics. and all of these things are happening and so Don't get overtly Confrontational in your politics and at the same time if you watch season one, which I have been of Star Trek that season Yeah, um's, it's, the, the tone of it is there are several episodes where there's like three or four lines where they're just like, well, of course they still use currency. They're a backward culture. You know, we've grown beyond such things as, you know, a scarcity economy. I mean, it's absolutely critical of capitalism. It's absolutely critical of religion. It's absolutely critical of

Nationalism there are so many throwaway lines of like, oh, yeah, these people will do this I can't believe people still do that. Well, you know our history has shown 400 years ago. We were this stupid once too It's just over and over. Oh, yeah true indeed Yeah, so It's just over and over. Oh, yeah. True indeed. Yeah. So I do remember that next generation expanded the world, meaning the Federation is established. Yes. And there are various conflicts that are already in effect. Okay, Romulus.

Romulus are kind of sneaking back into the story in season one, you see them in about season three, actually as the main antagonist by this point. Yeah. They tried with the Ferengi didn't work. Yeah, right. So so gives opportunity for the telling of different stories, different kinds of stories, because you've got to have the imagination. You also see growth when you get Jordan, because now you have a more complex black character. They take his eyes away from him, which I thought was interesting, but then make some crossover,

because without the crossover appeal, then I'm not gonna have the investment, like you said, to have plot that is engaging. Now I did love the expansion of the world because then that gives more logic to the external conflicts so that you can have the more Marvel-like internal conflict that's interesting and juicy. So I'm saying that to build up to Cisco.

Oh, we're still pages before we can get to Cisco. Oh, gotcha, gotcha. No quibble, no quibble, no quibble. But I don't mind. No, no, no, no. Go, go, go, go. Let's keep going at this. Back to 1965.

So here's another quote from the Moynihan Report. Nearly a quarter of urban black marriages are dissolved. Nearly a quarter of black women living in cities who have ever married are divorced, separated, or living apart from their husbands. I said those. The rates are highest in the urban Northeast where 26% of black women ever married

are either divorced, separated, or have their husbands absent. On the urban frontier, great choice of words there, the proportion of husbands absent is even higher. In New York City in 1960, it was 30.2%, not including divorces. So we're starting to see, there are, and I've long believed there are different family models,

period, right? You can be a mom and dad and not be married and still do a good job of co-parenting and you can have an economy ripping families apart as it does necessitating dual income households, necessitating multiple households coming together, but this speaks as though it's a crisis point degradation. But there is this next part that at least there's some, hey, let's compare to the rest

of the United States as well. And he says, although similar declines occurred among white females, the proportion of white husbands present never dropped below 90% except for the first and last age group, so the people at the oldest and the youngest. And then it goes on, nearly one quarter of black births are now illegitimate, and the definition of illegitimate is essentially your parents were not married at the time you came out and then they speak to illegitimacy rates amongst all they say both black and both white and black illegitimacy rates have been increasing so it's nice that they're actually

pointing out that this is not just black families that this is happening, but the feeling that I get from the entire report having read the whole thing, the feeling I get from this is that he is saying that black people are the canary in the coal mine, is objectifying in a way that is very 1960s academic. You're being a good liberal, and I say that with all the disdain that it deserves, in that you are saying, look at these poor people. If we don't act soon, we could end up like them. Instead of, let's examine what the norms are culture to culture, and let's actually have some self like there. There's a layer of self reflection. Yeah,

there's a layer of I went to the res and look what these people are doing. Right. You know, without without the analysis that they're on a reservation that they're not supposed to be on. Right. This is an artificial environment. Yeah, you know, and it's, again, it's, in many ways I could see this as being an indictment of redlining and when you get into President Johnson's State of the Union address,

he does mention a lot of those things as being tied to this and it could be that the scope of this wasn't allowed to go into that because you you absolutely you know section off the data and stuff like that but here's both white and black illegitimacy rates have been increasing although from dramatically different bases the white rate was 2% in 1940. It was 3.07 percent in 1963 Now I will just stop down for a second White people made up close to 80% of the the population at that time So to go up by

1.07 percent is going to be millions and millions and millions of people is going to be millions and millions and millions of people. In that period, Black rate went from 16.8% to 23.6%. So the jump was higher, but it's a population that's only 13% of the nation. Actually, at that time, I think it was closer to 15%. But so the jump is higher, but you're gonna see, it's kind of like if you're making $100,000 a year and you get a 10% raise,

and I'm making $16 an hour and I get a 20% raise, I got a bigger percentage raise, but I only went up to 18, 20. You went up to 110,000. One of us is gonna be able to drive farther, you know? So, and then the number of illegitimate children per 1,000 live births increased by 11 among whites in the period from 40 to 63, but by 68 among non-whites.

So they're grouping everybody together, but they're also, this is a report on the black family through his eyes. And the study does admit something though, although in its own lens, it says, quote, there are almost certainly a considerable number of black children who, although technically illegitimate, are in fact the offspring of stable unions. And I really like that he points that out because it is a self-reflective piece of this idea of illegitimacy might need to be deconstructed

and countenanced and interrogated. And also, just because a baby is born to two people who aren't married doesn't mean that they're not a stable union. That kind of cooks the books a little, but and I'm glad that he admits that, or he at least is facing that. Then he also says though, quote,

on the other hand, it may be assumed that many births are in fact illegitimate, are record, sorry, it may be assumed that many births that are in fact illegitimate are recorded otherwise. Probably the two opposite effects cancel each other out and I think that's lazy as hell. Well when you are looking at the subject matter as subject matter that's what you're gonna get and they weren't able to gain enough trust within the community

to see how the community coped with the public policy. Right. Because there are a lot of contact between parents and children that had to go off the books. Because whatever you guys, whatever we do, you're gonna penalize us. So why am I gonna show you what it is that I'm doing so that my child can see their up? Well, and saying that, like for instance, having a grandma living in the house helping to raise the child, seeing that as any kind of a negative is like, no, that's a community strength. True. One that I think honestly should perhaps be subsidized because I don't like anybody doing free labor. But either way, like that is a community strength and you are measuring it as though it's a

deficit because the white lens is mom, dad, 2.5 kids, no grandma. You go visit grandma. Correct. She doesn't live there. And that was fiction. That was a new idea. That was not how most people had grandma. Right. She doesn't live there. And that was fiction. That was a new idea. That was not how most people had lived. Right.

It was an aspirational fiction. It was, they were all trying to do that. Yeah. And it was set as, okay, you got the GI Bill, you can now do this and we're gonna set up neighborhoods. And that's the other thing, is they're not looking at what apartment living is like. They're not looking at, and again,

could be the scope of this report, can't take that into effect, but it's one of those, how are you gonna measure how things are without taking those things into effect? Like, I need to see a more holistic approach there, because redlining is 100% a thing even though the GI Bill you know. So here's another in the District of Columbia the

illegitimate rate for non-whites grew from 21.8% in 1950 to 29.5% in 1964. I found that in reports made in the 1950s and 60s, Washington DC was to them what Chicago is to Mike Huckabee. It's the place where you say instead of saying where black people are. Because if you look at the percentage of black people living in Washington DC at that time, you know. Now here's more of that analysis which seems to have, in many, I think they fired an arrow and then painted the target after they hit to make it look good. And if I'm being generous, I'm going to say that I noticed a trend or if I'm being generous, I'm going to say that they noticed a trend and tried to explain it, but they didn't necessarily do the work to interrogate it.

They said, quote, a similar picture of disintegrating black marriages emerges from the divorce statistics. Divorces have increased of late for both whites and non-whites, but at a much greater rate for the latter. In 1940, both groups had a divorce rate of 2.2%. By 1964, the white rate had risen to 3.6%, but the non-white rate had reached 5.1 percent which is 40 percent greater than the formerly equal white rate. So there was no equality happen. Right. It wasn't an equal rate. Right. People were being laid off twice as fast as the white people. people so economic grief tearing the families apart is not equal. Right. So the pressures to, like you said, pull the families apart, but also like the need to stay together and the need to tack on other family members to help it stay together to keep the kids healthy and safe and all that is so much greater.

There's a curve here that is not being interrogated. Now, you could say that they are pointing to it and saying, see, now can we do something? And there is some evidence of that because Johnson focuses heavily on several of these points in his State of the Union address in 65. So it could be that this study did exactly what it was supposed to, but I still, it still feels very much I shot an arrow into the air and then I painted the target around where it fell Another quote almost one-fourth of black families are headed by females Okay cool

This is a problem why right I would say this is a problem because Women at that time were making roughly 50% of what men were making Good point purpose On purpose. On purpose. Yeah, it's cheaper labor. They're not being unionized. And here's the other thing. I'm a big union guy.

Unions had long been a block to black people. They were not allowed into a good deal of the unions. I think the AFL doesn't integrate until around this time. I could be wrong, I might be off by 15 years, but unions did not do a good job. I remember there was a vote in 1900 or so, where not Samuel Gompers, but the one who actually did things. The one who was in jail,

ran for president from jail. Help me out. Debs, Eugene Debs. Thank you. Yes. Yeah. Debs, it's the United Railroad workers. And there was a vote that they had. And it literally came down to a vote. It was like 94 to 96 that they didn't integrate. And Debs had been like, you guys have to integrate. This is the only way to do this, is to do this.

And they're like, whiteness matters more than economic prosperity. True, unless you have a, like, Scottsboro boys, where you got something tangible, that is a blatant fascist act, then they can organize around that. Because otherwise, like you said, with the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters,

we're able to unionize, and you had the black versions of the farm workers, they were unionized, but they did it in the name of segregation so that the bargaining was layered and the owner class could keep pitting the factions against each other because look, they'll work for less and if you guys keep fighting with me, I'll just go deal with the Mexican. And it was just horrible. Yeah. And it depressed wages. Every study done has shown that these things are not good moves economically for any unions,

and yet there they were. So yeah, all of that could absolutely be part of the pressures of that plus redlining, that plus who gets the money for the GI Bill, really, who gets to live where, and all these things. And so here's another. As a direct result of this high rate of divorce, separation, and desertion, a very large percent of black families are headed by females. While the percentage of such families among whites has been dropping since 1940, it has been rising amongst blacks. So, again, it's,

these are the things that you're going to see in forming television as we go on. The percent of non-white families headed by a female is more than double the percent of for whites, fatherless non-white families increased by a sixth between 1950 and 1960, but held constant for white families. So that's nearly 17% just because I don't like fractions for increases. I need to actually see percentages. So that's roughly 17%. There's a little bit of bad editing,

bad writing or bad study here or why not all three? Quote, it has been estimated that only a minority of black children reach the age of 18 having lived all their lives with both of their parents. Once again this measure of family disorganization is found to be diminishing amongst white families and increasing amongst black families. Again, like you're setting this, like you said, this fictional set of values and then measuring everybody against it and lo and behold, the one that you set as, okay, this should be the gold standard is not the one that you're studying right now and

you're judging them by that and calling it a crisis. And the thing is it's one of those you might be getting it right for the wrong reason. You know there's there's no denying I mean King was talking about the two Americas he was talking about the need to organize poor folk he was talking about all kinds of things like that because those are very legitimate needs and that they do fall 100% unevenly on black families much more than white families. But to discuss it as a degradation gives it a moral character that seems internally blaming. And then it goes on to look at the existence of public assistance amongst black community tied to this phenomenon that they're studying.

So lo and behold, look who needs more public assistance. And again, I'll let you take your pick if it's bad writing, bad editing, or bad study, but the majority of black children receive public assistance under the AFDC program at one point or another in their childhood. So that means that 51% of black children are getting AFDC help at some point from 0 to 18. Now that could just be that AFDC had a bumper crop of a year and doled out more money to a lower threshold. That could mean that your husband died and you needed help for a month to cover the bills and then you went on. That could mean any number of possibilities, all of which also hit white families too. In fairness, the study is about black families, but still.

Go ahead Ed. black families. But still go ahead. It could also be that, you know, this is a sign perhaps that this is a population that is facing systemic issues that are forcing them into a situation where more of them require assistance than what you are defining as being the norm. than what you were defining as being the norm, you know, by, you know, othering this population from the jump with this study. I would also say that you could call it assistance at this level, but when you do farm subsidies for white families, you're not calling it assistance. Oh, no, no. You're calling it assistance. Oh, no, no. You're calling it policy. Like I take huge issue with this is assistance when it's for this reason, but when it's this stuff, it's just tax returns. It's like you, you cooked the books and the laws to give like public

monies to these people moving into this segregated place. And then when prices rise and now you need to give not even equal money to these people over here, you're like, well, that's assistance. And I'm like, what the hell? Yeah. So, all right. So this could, again, like I said,

be at any point in their life for any duration, still counts no matter what. Quote, at present, that could be free lunch programs, by the way, that they're trying to pilot to see if it works. Truth, yeah, truth. Yeah, I mean, it could literally be anything. It could be anything that the FBI decides to do

because they're afraid of the Black Panthers. It could be anything that the FBI decides to do because they're afraid of the Black Panthers. Yeah, so at present 14% of black children are receiving AFDC assistance as against 2% of white children. I'm gonna stop right there. There are so many more white people on the door according to those numbers. Yeah. Now I again, percentages absolutely matter. And if you're going to point to unequal stuff falling on people, yes, this is absolutely worthy of study.

And again, I just keep coming back to, okay, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe the scope and sequence of this thing. But this becomes the dominant narrative. Yeah. And the harm that will come from this works its way into TV and becomes the stories that we tell ourselves in our segregated neighborhoods. Yes. Back to the thing. Eight percent of white children receive such assistance at some time as against 56 percent of non-whites according to an extrapolation based on HEW data. I could

not find what HEW meant. Housing something welfare? Maybe housing and equity a welfare? I don't know. Housing and education welfare? Yeah. Are they counting the reservation? 56% is how? It is. And that's the thing. Yeah, if anybody's living on a reservation they automatically count for this But everything right everything every government program social safety net everything and here's another thing If you incarcerate people does that count as well? Because that's gonna cook the books too Because that's gonna cook the books too And it's gonna come in as a positive because you're into the area cuz it's positive cash flow right I mean RFK talked about this. He's like GDP ain't shit GDP should not be the measure because

It you know GDP counts as positive the people who are paid to clean up the asphalt after an accident. Yeah. Um, the, the biggest hero of American policy, if you're going by GEP is a cancer, pay a terminal cancer patient undergoing an expensive and lengthy divorce. That is asinine. That is insanity. That is an accurate description too. Like, are we really trying to look at like, amperage in the economy? Right.

Like, flow through the circuit? Is that really what we're looking for? God, that is so dark. Oh my God. But it's accurate. But it's true. And I'm getting it from P.J from PJ O'Rourke who got it from somebody else but it's 100% correct. Wow. I mean you know my problems with PJ O'Rourke but that fucker could write like. Yeah. And on this point he's not wrong. Yeah. Oh, that hurts. All right. So the AFDC program deriving from long-established mother's AIDS programs was established in 1935 principally to care for widows and orphans, although the legislation covered all children in homes deprived of parental

support because one or both of their parents are absent or incapacitated. This is part of the report. parents are absent or incapacitated. This is part of the report. In the beginning, the number of AFDC families, aid to families with dependent children, by the way, in which the father was absent because of desertion was less than a third of the total. Today it is two thirds. HEW estimates that, quote,

that between two thirds and and three-quarters of the 50% increase from 1948 to 1955 in the number of absent father families receiving ADC may be explained by an increase in broken homes of the pop in the population. You're maybe um explained by the bureaucrats coming and enforcing black men not being in the house. Right. If you want these resources, you cannot live with your boyfriends.

If you want these resources, you cannot have your grandpa coming over eight times a week in order to play with the children. That looks like you guys have a relationship and that's, you know, that's not civilization. All of the strategies in order to keep the community together with this public policy happening are counted against the community. Right. Yeah. It reminds me of Jefferson's talk about how native people need to farm. Get out of here with that dog's eye. Exactly, that was crazy.

So you want me to act like you? This is the Jungle Book? No. Yeah. I just talked about that with my students actually about how Jungle Book was blackface. Yes. And, you know, the thing that I get,

right now I'm teaching sixth grade and I keep getting asked by my students You know were the ancient Greeks were the Romans were these people were were they racist? And the response I keep I keep coming up with is well Not in the way we think of it, but in a lot of other ways yes, mm-hmm Because because they they didn't care Nearly like at all. They didn't care about skin color or physical features They were cultural chauvinists

True an Athenian anybody anybody who was Greek, but not an Athenian was like well, okay? You're a redneck, but whatever the fuck okay, right? You know, you're civilized if you were a Macedonian you were civilized but barely like, you know Come on, if you were anybody who didn't speak Greek you were a barbarian Right because the word barbarian literally comes from them making fun of other languages you are you talk like Barbara Barbara Barbara Literally literally where that comes from. Yeah. And then and then the Romans, like you could be North African or Berber or Germanic or whatever. None of that mattered as long as you spoke Latin

and lived in a city. And ancient Greek. Yeah. Yeah. You lived in a city and Mm-hmm, and you espouse Roman values, right? Like if you did that you were a Roman if you didn't do that. Well, okay No, you just don't fucking get it like come on You're you're you are a lesser creature and and these policies and And this there's the way they're talking about the people that they're studying

manage to embody both forms of racism at once. Like we're going to define these people based on these physical characteristics as a racial group because, you know, America's original sin is white supremacy. We're gonna do that. And then we're also going to criticize them for not meeting up with the, I love what you said about it being fictional earlier, the fictional standard of, you know, two parents living in a nuclear family without the extended family there. And we're gonna build policy around, well, in order to get this aid you have to not have this going on, you know,

because this is this is for you know, and as you were reading that it also struck me that they literally use the term desertion by the father. Yes, repeated like like anytime like anytime the father is absent. It's it's it is it is some kind of dereliction of duty. That is a moralizing that is an intensely moralizing form of language that like, yeah, I mean,

I'm not surprised to find that in a government report from that era, but I feel like the government shouldn't be making those kinds of judgments. It also agreed with everything you just said, because it comes across to me as a limitation of the imagination. They cannot conceive of anything else, but they're writing it down through the lens that they can perceive it through, which more of a, which is more of a reflection

of them and the common society than it is the subject matter. To call it a subject matter, even on that front. But to call it a subject matter. Yeah, no, 100%. Yeah. And again, the truth be told, every subculture in America is being treated this way. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Go ahead. Yeah, definitely.

So there's a 1960 study of aid to dependent children, specifically in Cook County, Illinois, and this stated that, quote, the typical ADC mother in Cook County was married and had children by her husband who deserted. His whereabouts are unknown and he does not contribute to the support of his children. She is not free to remarry and has had an illegitimate child since her husband left. Almost 90% of the ADC families are black. This was the study in 1960. Again, I cannot speak to any of the controls that it had in place or anything like that.

It's just one hell of a thing to say. There's no control. There's no command. But what I the phrase that like jumped out at me, like jumped out of the bushes with knives in either hand at me was she is not free to remarry right because it was you said 1960 60 yeah yeah because it was 1960 and abandonment was not a legal grounds for divorce well you'd have to find them to bring him to court you see so it's it's yeah like you can't like you can't have it yeah yeah but but well but you know we need we need to

look at what's wrong with this community rather than what's wrong with the system that we're building around that part right there fuck? Like, so she's not free to remarry. Why isn't she free to remarry? Chet? I almost want to, like, picture who they got to go around and get this data. What did they look like?

Mary Poppins. I like the good faith that you're showing about that they went around to get this data. Yeah, there's there's that number one my sweet sweet summer child number two The picture I have in my head is he looks like a very thin tie. Yeah Bree Bree

Emotional breakdown like the morning he went into work before he got fired Kirk Douglas and falling down or got you. Michael Douglas, Michael Douglas and fall. You know, yeah, crew crew cut, you know, horn, horn rim, you know, black, black glasses, white shirt, skinny black tie. Okay, probably a flannel flannel suit jacket. Sure. Because it's like,annel suit jacket. Sure. Because it's a 60s.

Like Digbert? Yeah. Yeah. You know, like, what did these people look like? I'll tell you what they looked like. So here's... They looked like the 60s were technocrats is what they looked like. Yes.

So here's the steady expansion of this welfare program as of public assistance programs in general can be taken as a measure of the steady disintegration of the black family structure over the past generation in the United States, which is one hell of a conclusion to draw. And I get how they got there in the same way that I can see that when folks who don't use foil

when they're factoring properly got to their answers. Like, oh I get how you got there. You didn't go first outer inner last. You clearly went inner last first outer. Like, so I see your logic. It's just really tortured. Yeah. Yeah, I can see precisely where you made the mistake. It makes sense in your head. Right. We get mistake and make sense in your head. Right. Get how it made sense in your head. Yeah, not right, but we get how it makes sense in your head. You see the pathway. Yeah, we can we can see the train of thought what what gets me about the kids.

It makes as much sense as the logic behind the Katie Vick storyline. It's like, okay, I get how you got there. But but maybe climbing into a casket to have sex with Kane's girlfriend isn't the best move. Not not good. Not a good idea. Maybe not the best. Not even in this fictional world. Yeah. Right. But sorry.

Go ahead. But the part again that, you know, jumped out at me with advantage and try to backstab me out of that out of that whole sentence was steady decline or disintegration was even better than decline Disintegration of the black family did they say over the last century? They said let's see disintegration of the black family over the past generation over the past generation Okay, so so 45. Yeah, okay

Yeah, um, so so we're we're not going to talk about the context in which like any and all of The the people that they were studying got to Cook County, Illinois in the first place, like the great, the great, you know, the migration, the social circumstances they were coming from, you know, from before they, they moved on a great migration and the generations before them. Like we're not going to talk about the context in which family structures existed within black society in the United States because of the fact that like within in 1960, I won't say it was still within living memory, but it was still only three generations away four generations back that they were literally considered property under the law

in significant port. Like you're gonna you're gonna sit here and say, well, you know, over the last generation, this has been, you know, disintegrating. Like, let's talk about the issues that have been inflicted on these people. And it was like two generations back. It was 1960, it's two generations back. Yeah. Yeah. Like, you are you high? Okay, so there's there is, I want to say, if you do this math, and let's let's pretend for a second that all of this math lines up and it's correct. And then you say see, now let's

reflect and then everybody genuinely reflects, and there's a policy made and stuff like that, cool. But unfortunately, we are talking about a society, as you'd said before by quoting Gore Vidal, that wants to forget yesterday before yesterday was over. So now you have all this data, and most people will be like, oh, look what they're doing to themselves. It's like no, you missed it completely.

And they've already turned the page and they're already down there. Because they're looking for ways to dismiss their role and their complicity in the system that has driven families apart. And like you said before, Kokai, like driven all the families apart and hold them to this imaginary standard. Like, so in in a in a sane world, this actually might have

been useful and helpful. True. This wasn't that. So Moynihan meant well, I will say he meant well, bless his heart in a non-Texas way, but intent does not Trump impact. And his lens was clearly not a clear and objective one. It was a pretended one with Vaseline. Um, and according to him, the black family was careening toward quote, complete breakdown. Uh, especially those in blighted inner cities So yeah here's something I'd like I'd like to ask all all all of the doomsayers who always talk about oh my god

disintegration of the of the family like you know and all now now we've got you know conservatives and and you know Everybody further than that right on the spectrum, lamenting, you know, how, how the West is falling and like, like, okay. So if you, if you posit that, um, families of whatever, whatever kind are on a path to word, you know, disintegration and the destruction of the family. What are you picturing human relationships and communities are going to end up looking like? What is this doomed scenario that you have? I have an answer. Okay. The way to fix this is forced birth. And the way to fix this is forced birth specifically of white women.

Because then you have taken care of the concerns of the replacement theory dipshits, and you have taken care of the concerns of the people who thought Teddy Roosevelt was right when he said is every woman's duty, every white woman's to have four children. So or or that's what he said. Because he was worried about Italians. Who weren't white. So that's right. Because yeah. So I think genuinely because if you again look to policy right you look at policy and what are they trying desperately to restrict reproductive freedom any and all because if you do that then women will be put biologically because then you can you can say well they're having children so now we can pass laws to protect them in quote marks to protect their biology and now you've put them back in a subservient role wherein they're broodmares for the state and you are having enough children that there are enough white people to keep the

demographics where these people stay in power. I think that's your endgame for you Ed, quite honestly. That and husbanding weapons if it all does break down. And then those are the accelerationists So none of them by the way will learn how to stitch or Or garden or anything like that, but that's okay Historically, they've never liked doing that work themselves. They're gonna find someone else to do it for them at gunpoint So so from then, from 1965 until 1985, the rate of unwed child birth or bearing, child bearing that was unwed tripled across the board for all groups. And you might

notice that that lines up neatly with the no fault divorce that we brought up earlier and the removal of a lot of social safety nets for folks nationwide in the 1980s. And like I said, I covered this in the GI Joe episodes. So by 2000, William Bennett, noted conservative writer, wrote a book called The Broken Hearth. And in it, he said, quote, it is unmarried fathers who are missing in record numbers who impregnate women and selfishly flee Abandoning alike those who they have taken as sexual partners and whose lives they have created They traduce generations to come and disgrace their very manhood and in 1995 just go back five years earlier, which is two years after the debut of Deep

Space Nine, David Blankenhorn wrote in Fatherless America that unwed dads, quote, never signed on to anything. They never agreed to abide by any fatherhood code. They do not have, they have never had any explicit obligation to either their children or to the mothers of their children. So essentially they were hit and run-run experts only interested in sex according to these two guys. So this narrative

absolutely just continued as what's wrong with dads, hit it and quit it mentality and stuff like that. And at the same time you have people doing their damnedest to limit a woman's ability doing their damnedest to limit a woman's ability to manage her own biology and have sex for fun. And so you've got like these equal pressures going on on both ends. And it's not just these guys who are critical of Absent Fathers, by the way,

who are buying into this largely skewed narrative. This honestly reminds me of a story that's popped up recently, which was a retread of a story that popped up last year, and that is retail theft. And it's a lie. It's a goddamn lie. There's businesses that are claiming like, oh, we've lost 50% of our profits in retail theft. And it's like, you've lost five.

Shut up. Yeah, it's a load. It's an absolute load of shit. Especially like if you what I love doing is comparing the number that actually happens due to retail theft Let's say it's let's say a big-ass company loses five million dollars to retail theft They pay 30 million in fines over wage theft So like and that's just the fines that they're paying and they haven't stopped doing wage theft Which means that the fine is just a service fee

so they can keep doing wage theft. But they've got everybody looking at their dangling keys over retail theft. This feels like that. Right. Yeah, because it is that. Well, so here's a speech from 2007 in South Carolina. Quote, there are a lot of men out there who need to stop acting like boys, who need to

realize that responsibility does not end at conception, who need to know that what makes you a man is not the ability to have a child, but the courage to raise a child. Any guesses as to who said that in 2007 in South Carolina? No Cosby? No, you're close because it is respectability politics. No, Ed, you got a guess? Obama? Yes, on the campaign trail. I'm so disappointed, but I'm not surprised. Cliff Huxtable rises again. Right. Because that's what like good liberals are willing to vote on.

It's that kind of stuff. It's palatable to anybody who's grown up with this as your dominant study, right? Yeah. Yeah. Granted, but it doesn't take it to account the social forces again, because between 1965 and 1985, you've got heroin and crack. It starts flowing through the black community on purpose. However, if you're in Miami and you're able to get to Cuba or a Hispanic, you know, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, then you could be one of the cocaine cowboys, right, and make all kind of money come to California, turn over and make all kind of money turning into assets and real estate and then

you've got it laundered and born about your business. You don't see anything comparable to the numbers that they are talking about until opiate addiction gets in rural white America. Yeah. Yes. Central Valley, California, the Ozarks, Kentucky, the Rust Belt, all those places. Yeah, absolutely.

Now he's not giving a speech about that because that's complex and that's not going to excite white voters who would otherwise have gone for John Edwards or Hillary Clinton. Reflections of themselves. He's got to come up with a vote. Yeah, absolutely. And that's why he was the first post-racial candidate. And that's his claim. And it's because because people because that's how you get the white vote. Yeah, what Nikki Haley is doing right now. Yeah. I got to make it palatable to you. And the the the signature of that that this is a reflection of you, that this is what we believe

you will accept and we're watching you accept it as I do it So even though we're talking about me doing it you're still accepting it because that's the only Pathway into your brain that exists. Those are the only doors that will open That's horrible. The reason for that is the tv that we grew up and our parents grew up watching, which I think was informed by this study. Yes. In fact, multiple studies have come out since the 1990s, coinciding with Benjamin Sisco doing his parenting on screen, that have highlighted the fact that parental involvement of unwed fathers is actually notably high in the first five years of a child's life. Two longitudinal studies were done or reported on rather in 1998 and 2000 that showed specifically that in large cities a vast majority of non-marital fathers were present at the time of the birth

and said that they wish to remain involved in the child's life. And this was taken directly from the fragile families and child well-being survey. I mean, even with a name like that. to remain involved in the child's life. And this was taken directly from the Fragile Families and Child Well-being Survey. I mean, even with a name like that. Oh wow, that's a beautiful name. Yeah. This survey is of a nationally representative cohort of non-marital births in large cities,

and it found that nine in 10 children born to an unwed father were not subject to hit and run father's indifference, but welcomed into the arms of someone who said he was committed to quote, being there for his child. Eight in 10 of the mothers of these children also said that these fathers had been very supportive during their pregnancy. So these things are lining up and almost all fathers who were there planned to stay involved.

Now according to these studies, what does tend to correlate with fathers is the tapering off of their involvement. That correlates with the mom finding a new romantic partner or the dad finding a new romantic partner. And unfortunately, because we don't do therapy well and because we don't think of children first, I understand how that happens, you know, because there's territorialism.

I would also point out that over-policing in a carceral state designed to keep people impoverished through a number of institutional pressures might have something to do with those numbers too. You think? Yeah. Now according to the 2020 census for black families, 37.9% of children lived with married parents in 2020. 3.4% of black children lived with unmarried parents. So that's, now you're in 40% have their parents, both parents in

the home. 46.3% lived with their mother only as primary domicile. 4.5% only lived with their father only as the primary domicile. Note that these do not say how involved the parents are. Right. Yeah, strictly physical custody. Correct. Now, at least that's something we can look at, right? So what those numbers don't account for is that even in families where the child lives with their mother only, that doesn't mean that their father isn't present.

True. Yeah. And vice versa. And it doesn't mean that the OK, you live, you live with your dad's out of the picture. That doesn't mean a stepdad or the mom is unmarried to this person who has raised you since you were two. Yeah. Or an uncle or a grandfather or. Right. You know, and the other way around too.

Just because you're living with dad alone doesn't mean that his partner hasn't raised you since you were two doesn't mean that he's not living with his sister or his mom or his aunt or their you know, and I say he's living with cause I'm, I would be living with someone. But you know what I mean? Like it doesn't mean that these situations didn't, those don't get measured in this particular thing, which again, scope and sequence, but you know what? We could have asked these questions.

Yeah. So that's- No, they couldn't have. Yeah. That's what we've been talking about. Yeah, you're right. They don't have the imagination to ask those questions. They're looking at you're coming in like David Attenborough.

Yeah. And I think a large reason for that is because who controls the stories controls the culture and the stories were told on television since the outset of TV. And so that's what the studies led led me up to And I actually think this is a perfect place to stop because in the next episode we can get into the depiction of black people on TV and Then get into the depiction of black fatherhood on TV. So okay, we've done all the work now We get to do the fun. So at this point, I'm gonna hold off on Ed, what have

you? Well, actually, no, let's let's share out what we've gleaned from this. What are some things that stick by Ed, you first and then Koki? Man, what what sticks with me is the repeated, no, repeated is the wrong word. The consistent and unflinching and unchanging failure of government surveyors study people, whoever it is, who's going out and creating these reports to shed the, uh, uh, shed the other ring of, of the, the subjects of their study. Cause in, in every, in every circumstance, and I don't know if this is just an artifact of the kind of statistical analysis that winds up being done with this stuff, you know, or if it's or if it is all rooted in failure of imagination, which I think is definitely a huge part of it. I don't know how much of it can be blamed on what, but like, you know, look at, look at the statistics maybe,

but then also look at who, what, what are the, what are the contextual issues surrounding these things that you're reporting on? What, what is the lived experience of the people that you're studying, you know, rather than just defining Who these people are and and making moral judgments, which is the other thing that just keeps pissing me off Uh based on based on the the compare the inherent comparison you're making of them to some imagined norm you're making of them to some imagined norm, you know, look at, look at what are the lived experiences? What is the totality? What is the holistic situation that you're looking at? Yeah, or just do a better job of framing your question of what is your operational framing?

Interrogate that first and make sure it's sound before you jump in because you're going from the what's wrong with black people as as the theme. Yeah. And and never mind examining you know if you want to be a bean counter be a bean counter that's fine make sure your questions are bean counter questions that yeah like you can't do both yeah you know that's that's, that's, that's my biggest, that's my biggest takeaway in the thing that kept making my teeth itch. You know, when you were, when you were talking about this was just like, why, why you keep doing this? Sure.

So yeah, and I'm, I'm... Okay. Yeah. Okay, what do you got? Oh, it didn't pick you up. Oh, there you are. Now say something. Yeah, okay. What do you got? Oh, it didn't pick you up Huh? Oh, there you are now say it again similar similar in that the frame is just It's the David Attenborough viewpoint the crocodile hunt

We're coming in and we're treating Citizens of the United States of America as if they are lab rats, like they're in a contained society, contained environment. They're the ship in the bottle. And I can look at it like a tomato, and it's not, it's not an artificial laboratory. So it was more of they are unable to engage in the identity crisis of this is a reflection of the United States of America. This is not a scientific study. Yeah.

What do they do with that? Like you said, they keep turning it into public policy, blaming the victim rather than looking at the structures that are creating the victimization or taking into account any of the trauma or doing a true count, like you're saying, of the various elements that are at play at any given time to compensate for the failure of the, you know, to compensate for the public policy creating the conditions that they have to work around.

Yeah. Yeah. I think also when this is what guides policy policy, policy becomes there's a layer of like you said, blaming the victim, there's a layer of moral means testing, we will never give you enough to actually fix the problem that we have discovered somehow exists, we will only give you enough to be able to blame you further. Right, it's the middle genetic sticks that sustains the identity crisis. Because that's what it is, it's the identity crisis of if you do not exist, that means

I don't exist. So I'm going to keep making sure that these systems are in place. Yeah. And I don't see them. I'm completely blind to the systems that I'm counting. Yeah. That I'm figuring out how to measure. What I, I had this talk with a friend of the show, Teo actually, who did diversity in dragons. Remember all those episodes ago.

He said that the funniest thing about structural white supremacy is it's the ultimate out card for white folks, because we can just throw up our hands go, okay, it wasn't me it was the structure, I'm sorry. And instead we want to benefit from that, but pretend that it doesn't exist. Yeah. Instead, we want to benefit from that, but pretend that it doesn't exist. Yeah. Not all. Pretend that it doesn't, like, it's not happening and it never has been. Right. And even when we talk about the past, we're talking as if it never happened and it's not happening.

Yeah. How that's able to do that. The white racial innocence is an amazing state of mind that I see that people are able to achieve. I would love to understand that. Yeah. Yeah. And I especially love to understand how somebody like Nikki Haley can buy into it.

Oh, it's a survival technique on that front. You get access to resources, you get access to a microphone, you get access to the distribution of your message. But when you're watching someone struggle to communicate to you, and you know because of the national conversation that they're doing it on purpose, that they don't believe it about themselves, they're smart enough to know the truth. They change their name on purpose, they change their hair on purpose, they change how they dress on purpose to appeal to you, but you don't believe it's a con. But the person that is conning you

is able to keep the cave fave and you're okay with the cognitive dissonance. Don't manage it yourself instead of having them help you manage it in any way, shape, or form. It's self-fulfilling and self-repeating. It's a perpetual motion machine. Yes. So, all right. So let's see what people are reading. Ed, well, actually I'll start. I'm going, I'll go around the horn.

Me, Ed, and then Koki will finish with you each time. So I am gonna recommend actually, nothing Star Trek yet, because we didn't get to it. I'm gonna recommend Disillusioned by Benjamin Harrold. It's got a longer title. It's something like Five Families and the Unraveling of America's Suburbs and it talks about how it's a qualitative study and it talks about how in many ways the bill that comes due for the

people who grew things so quickly never hits them because they've moved on by that point and then they turn around and blame other communities for moving into their neighborhood and making it worse and so it's a it's a it's a it's a good one give it a give it a good read. I heard an interview with the author by friend of the show, Beowulf Rocklin, and it was a good study. So that's what I'm going to recommend. Ed, what do you got?

I'm not actually going to recommend reading. Your intro talking about they call me a shit, actually made me think of, uh, club, Avi day, profundis. Oh, um, and I want to highly recommend them to anybody who is not familiar. Um, they have, uh, done interpretations of poems out of, um, the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings in a very, very resonant, very beautiful, deep,'s remarkably moving in many cases. Highly recommend it. Again, they're Clamavi de Profundis. You can find them on YouTube. Cool. And Kokae, what are you recommending for people to give a gander to? Either read or watch. They can read it. They can access it. And I believe that it's available over Amazon now. The Negro in our history by Dr. Carter G. Woodson, it is Black History Month and he is the originator of Negro History Week,

which he started on February 7th, 1926. It turns into Black History Month, thanks to Marlonna Karenga, in 1978. So the Negro in our history is his 1922 textbook. And it's the first one that's available to Black families to receive in the United States of America, because we had to create some scholars, some actual historians. So he's one of the first waves of those who I will look up to. So the book is a good snapshot of how Black people saw themselves in 1922.

Wonderful. Thank you. Awesome. All right. Ed. Is there anywhere you want to be found? No, I remain a shadow in the warp But we of course collectively can be found on our website at wubba wubba wubba dot geek history time comm We can still be found on I guess I'm gonna call it X As geek history of time and we can be found on the Amazon podcast app the Apple podcast app on Stitcher and Spotify wherever it is that you have found us because you have since you're hearing my voice right now please take the time to give us the five star review that you know

we deserve, especially Damien for putting himself through watching the first season of Star Trek TNG. And please make sure to hit the subscribe button. How about you, Damien? Where can they find you, sir? If you are in the Sacramento area on March or on May 3rd or June 7th or July 5th you should come on by to the Comedy Spot downtown on J Street at 9 p.m. bring $12 and come and watch Capital Punishment the pun tournament that has taken the international scene by storm and hold on as tight as Pecos Bill did to Slufoot Su's shoe. But in all honesty, it's a great show. It's been going on for eight years now.

Very proud of it. Very happy for it. And God, it's a great way to spend an evening. So bring friends. Kokai, how about yourself? You can find me at my email which is Royal Star 907 because I'm a community organizer. I live in Eugene, Oregon and the dates that are currently coming up because it's Black History Month, I'll be at the local radio station on the 15th to have a conversation about what Black History Month means in 2024. And that's KLCC. And then in the community, I'll be at Black Cultural Initiative on the 24th of February where we'll be doing an African American cultural exchange.

So there are some local populations of African persons who are going to connect with us at the black cultural initiative in order to share food as well as the continuity of what was brought and Distributed over generations by Africans and African Americans Awesome. Very cool. Okay, well, thank you, Kokai, for being here. Look forward to you on the next episode when we actually, and this is a very Damien episode kind of thing to do,

spend at least one doing nothing related to the topic and then suddenly pay it all off on the next topic. So, yeah, looking forward to having you back for the next episode of that. For Geek History of Time, Kokai, thank you so much. I'm Damian Harmony. And I'm Ed Blalock. And until next time, engage.