Social Justice - A Conversation

Professor Charles Stanton and third-year law student Blanca Peña discuss the symbolic destruction of the East Wing of the White House, criticizing the lack of consultation with historians and the public. They highlight the broader implications of the administration's actions, including the government shutdown and the failure of Congress to act independently. The conversation touches on the moral and societal issues, such as the treatment of immigrants, the impact of propaganda, and the need for empathy and critical thinking. They emphasize the importance of historical education to prevent repeating past mistakes and call for a more united and informed society.

What is Social Justice - A Conversation?

Social Justice - A Conversation

Announcer 0:00
You're listening to local programming produced in KU NV studios. The content

Wesley Knight 0:06
of this program does not reflect the views or opinions of 91.5 jazz and more the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education.

Charles Stanton 0:18
Good evening. This is Professor Charles Stanton. I'm a professor of Boyd School of Law,

Blanca Pena 0:23
and my name is Blanca Pena. I am a third year law student at the Boyd School of

Charles Stanton 0:26
Law, and this is Social Justice a conversation, a conversation. Well, good evening, everybody, and welcome back, Professor Charles, with my cohort. Blanca Pena, to bring out some hopefully hopeful news among all the bleak tidings that seem to be surrounding us in our country over the last few weeks, last few months, I wanted to talk, as we get started in our program today, about something that I really saw as kind of a symbolic warning to us and and that was basically the the arranged devastation of the East Wing of the White House. I when I heard about that they would that the President wanted to do some renovation on the White House, I didn't find it really alarming, because, of course, there's been numerous renovations on the White House. Going back to its history, the White House actually had been burned to the ground during the War of 1812, the British, the British destroyed it, and it had to be rebuilt. And then over time, various presidents, including President John Kennedy, added to the White House. And they, they did, they did various they did various improvements. Well, anyway, I saw a picture, I guess, a few days ago about basically everything was just like leveled in the east wing. And I was thinking to myself, oh boy. I said, that seems like a kind of a harsh thing to do. What kind of, what kind of planning went actually into, into the idea that you would, you would want so much extra space, or you would, you would renovate it to an extent that we wouldn't remember the White House as it was. And what was, what was interesting to me was usually, usually with historic sites. When they, they remodel or renovate what have you, there's all kinds of people that are called in, historians, interior designers, peoples who specialize in dealing with classic structures and stuff like that. And the answer to that question was that they didn't consult anybody, basically, they consulted a bulldozer and they basically leveled it. And I think that's symbolic. I think there's a great symbolism there that, you know, a building is knocked down, which was, which was a historic building, but the part of the building that was knocked down was part of the building. That's our house. It's not it's not one person's house. It's our house, all of us, regardless of creed, color and national origin, gender, ethnicity, etc. And I'm amazed that, you know, there wasn't, there wasn't more reaction to this from the public as to, you know, whoa, what's going on here?

Blanca Pena 3:10
Yeah, I do agree with you and that that's definitely a symbol. It's to me, it symbolizes the country will never be the same after this administration. The White House will never be the same after this administration. And I saw this clip during one of Caroline Levitt's press, yeah, one of her, one of her press briefings with all of the with all of the news people there. And we had a woman who asked her, you know, what kind of, who did you consult? Right? Kind of, what you were talking about, who did you consult? What kind of oversight is there with decisions like this, and Caroline, kind of, you know, as she does, she deflects and she says, like, well, other presidents have done it before. But something that I think is very important to mention is that the the news woman who was asking her the questions, was saying, well, presidents have remodeled, and they have renovated, but they have never demolished. A very significant part of the White House like this is something very different. And as always, she didn't, she didn't answer the question. And it's, again, it's like he just does and does and does, and who's to stop it? I really, I couldn't tell you, but it's devastating. I've been to DC a few times. I've never done any of the tours or anything. I've never been in the White House, but I can imagine how painful that must be to people who genuinely loved going there, you know, people who are historians, because also, like, I don't know how you feel when you go to museums and stuff, right? But I always feel so moved and touched, and I love thinking about our history and even even like, silly things, right? Like, when I go to a concert or something, and I'm waiting for the artist to come out, I'm like, Oh, my God, they're in the building, you know, like, and so I think about that sometimes in museums, like, for example, the mob Museum here in Vegas, right? It's like, I love going there, because it's like, wow, this used to be the courthouse and so many crazy things happened in here. I just feel. So much because I appreciate our history, and now we lost a very significant part of of the White House, and it's not even worth it. It's a it's what a ballroom for a bunch of rich people to go and celebrate themselves and give speeches and kind of massage each other's egos. That's all that. It's really for. It's like it'd be one thing if he was building and mind you, I would probably still be against demolishing any portion of the White House, but if it was something for the people, if it was something worthwhile, but it's not, it's another continuous ego stroke for him.

Charles Stanton 5:32
And yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. What's pathetic to me is how you have these people who work for him, who obviously lack any sense of self respect, that are, that are constantly fronting for this man, instead of just, at some point, just just, just tell the truth, you know? And I think, I think that's systematic of what's going on in the government. You know, we're talking about the shutdown now, the endless shutdown, and, you know, completely directionless government, no no direction from the executive branch, the complete standstill in the legislative branch and basically the Supreme Court, who basically doesn't seem to Want to get involved in anything that's going to put their stature or status at risk. So, so, so you have that, and then what you also have, you know, tying into that on a less you know, architecturally symbolic level is, is the question of the shutdown and how it almost seems to be the new mantra of the Republicans who are in the Congress. When asked about when the shutdown is going to end, some of them actually let the cat out of the bag and say, well, the shutdown will end when the president tells us to end it. And I'm saying to myself, whoa, wait a minute now. You are supposed to be an independent branch of the government. You are not you are supposed to be a co equal branch of the government. You're supposed to have initiative, and you're supposed to have free will, and you're supposed to have all the authority that you were given when you were elected to those offices, including the oath that you took to serve the people who you represent. But it's obvious that you are not fulfilling that duty. It's obvious now that you're made, you're basically stooging. But what's even worse about it, though, is that to actually come out and say, like, you know, we're not going to do anything, he has to tell us to what to do. Well, what are you? Are you a servant? Are you a slave? Do you have any independent thought? But then, but then, if you, if you really think about it, if you really think about it, there's, there's an enormous precedent for this, and the enormous precedent for this is when, during the time when both Kamala Harris and Donald Trump were running for office, there was an opportunity in this country, a great opportunity, to finally pass a comprehensive immigration bill, a comprehensive immigration bill where, which had gone into, which had gone into a committee of Republican senators and Democratic senators and people of both parties in the legislative branch. Kamala Harris had worked on this for months, you know. You know, I always find it funny when they say, well, we didn't know what she did, or we don't know anything about her well, right? You know, that's just totally bogus, right? But the thing was, they had something that could have been voted upon, and we would have avoided, we would have avoided all the chaos and misery of what we have to that today, but because people lack the intestinal courage to do anything about it, and they basically said, Well, he told us that we can't, we can't pass the bill because, you know, it would deprive him of a campaign issue. Then, if that's the case, what are you doing in the Congress? Yeah, what is your purpose? What were you elected for? You're elected. You're elected to, to serve the people and and as I, as I made the point in the last episode, you know, we talked about that the Congress people are supposed to be our servants. Well, their servants are right, but they're servants of him, yeah? And whatever he wants to do, they will do his bidding,

Blanca Pena 9:05
yeah? And that's, it's, it's ironic that they label themselves as being the patriots of the country and American. Everything that they're doing is totally un American. It's, it's the complete opposite of what they were there to do. They are an autonomous branch who should be able to make their decisions under the powers that they were vested and they, like you said, are kind of just bowing down to the one guy. And it's, it's disgusting. It's like, not even they don't only say that when, you know, once the President lets us, we'll, we'll kind of fix this thing. They also just turned it into another game of dividing. I don't know if you've seen I went on the White House website yesterday, and at the very top it says, like the Democrats have shut down the government. And then there's a clock that's counting every second that the government has been shut down, and it's told it's disgusting. I can't even these people like at its very core. These people are supposed to be adults. Take away the titles, right? Take away the vanity and everything. They are supposed to be adults. They are supposed to have their frontal lobes developed, and they don't act like it. They're acting like children, literal children. And oh my gosh, I hate talking about her, but Caroline, the other day, she finally told the truth, and I'm gonna tell you what it was they had asked her, and I don't remember the specific question, but essentially hitting on, what is the President's current priority? And she said it was the ballroom. The ballroom, the ballroom is the President's current priority, not the shutdown, not the fact that Israel has once again violated the cease fire that they were supposed to have, not the immigration crisis, not the fact that people are about to lose so many federally funded benefits. It was the ballroom. And I'll give her, I'll give her a little bit of credit for telling the truth for the first time ever in her life. But it's, it's still very disgusting and disappointing, and I I can't bear to witness it. I wish I could close my eyes and then cover my ears, but yeah, and I wish people would be more willing to educate themselves, like that point you made about people being so lazy about educating themselves, about Kamala. And a part of me can acknowledge that education is a privilege, and even having the time to invest yourself into politics and into the history, it takes time, right? And I can imagine how hard it could be for someone who's living paycheck to paycheck, probably has health issues, is dealing with relatives, family members, loved ones who are also going through things like I I try to be as empathetic as possible, and I try to see things from their perspective on how they might not have the mental bandwidth or the capacity to be really down in the dirt the way you and I are able to to be in. But it's again, it goes back to a conversation we had a few weeks ago about how we have everything in the palm of our hands with our cell phone, like it's really not that hard anymore to learn things, yeah, and people still choose to to live in their own truth. Yeah.

Charles Stanton 11:57
Well, it's, in a way, it's like the land of make believe. There's a lot of people in this country who are who are denialists, I think, to be honest with you, you know, I guess we would consider ourselves progressives, but you don't even have to be a progressive to not be able to evaluate what's going on now we are facing in this country, when we've been talking about this since the since the fourth season started, of some really horrific problems that are headed down the path for us that we have a limited shelf time to try to address them, because once, once this thing goes down, once this thing goes down, where there's the defunding of Obamacare, there's the defunding of Medicaid, there's the defunding of snap and all these other things. As my mother used to say, The chickens are going to come home to roost, and it's going to be, it's going to be a calamitous it's going to be a calamitous situation for this country, for the elderly, for the poor, and pretty much for everybody else too. You know, one of the promises that were that was made when this man was elected, was, ah, we know we got inflation. We're going to bring the prices of everything down. Do you see the prices of everything being brought down? I don't see it. What I see is the prices keep escalating and the prices keep going up. I mean, and that, and that's and that's just one aspect of it. But if you're going to the store and you're seeing these things, there's some duty, or some obligation, to inform yourself about what the reasoning is behind it, and then to use your voice to, you know, to oppose it and try to change it. Yeah,

Blanca Pena 13:30
I don't think enough people have been affected just yet, and I think that's why there's not a lot of movement in Unity. Because from how I see it, it's like people won't really go out of their way to fix issues that don't pertain to them, right? Like, when it comes to the immigration stuff, people love to tell themselves, Well, you know, I'm a citizen. I was born here. This would never happen to me. I'll just let everything else happen to all these other people. Yeah. And then it came out that also US citizens were being targeted by ice and and that kind of, you know, perked up some ears, but it still wasn't enough. I think people it's unfortunate to have to say it out loud, but I really don't think people will care unless it starts affecting them directly. I saw this other podcast. It's more like pop culture. Basically, it was, it was Kim Kardashian saying that she doesn't even know what the price of a milk gallon is, right? And she said she, she in passing, kind of said something like, oh, you know, I wish I knew what these things cost, but I just don't, like, after, after a certain amount of money that something costs, then she'll know, like, the very expensive things, like the yachts and the cars and the houses, but the everyday, day to day groceries, she doesn't even know the price of it, right? And there are people, many, many people who have to budget to buy a gallon of milk and a carton of eggs because they like, they barely make enough to be able to afford that and and that's why I think rich people don't, don't stand up for, for the rest of you know, the country, because it doesn't affect them. And. And it's, I think until someone, or I think until the majority of the population is affected, nothing is going to change.

Charles Stanton 15:05
Unfortunately, well, I tell you, I've observed, you know, through videos and through the internet, when you you mentioned the immigration situation, and I have seen, I have seen how these encounters have been handled. And I have seen people being terrorized. I have seen the minister who was praying, and he was shot with these whatever, whatever these projectiles were. And I say to myself, you know, regardless of your economic stature, regardless of your race, regardless of your color, regardless of all those things, there should be something in a person. When you see something like that, that something inside of you rebels against what you're seeing, that I think should be irrespective of money or wealth or power or anything. And I think the problem that we're dealing with in many ways in this country, and I hate to put it in as blunt away as I'm going to put it, but our country is morally asleep, and they are allowing all these really onerous things to be done to people treating them terribly and being proud of it. And there's always been and always will be, racism. You'll never stop racism. That's, you know, even if we implemented every possible thing we could do to stop it, you're never going to fully stop but in this situation where I have seen so many things regarding how people you know, regarding the immigrant situation, have been treated, if that doesn't, if that doesn't bother you, if that doesn't affect you, then the then the problem, I think, is far greater than even what we've, we've talked about, I think it's really about a lack of moral awakening, really, that we're seeing. Because how else, how else could you see they were, they were talking about the and I saw, I saw some of the video what happened in Chicago, where they terrorized all these people who were living in this apartment complex. They had children and everything. They were holding people at gunpoint. The people are out in the street at 233 o'clock in the morning. I mean, this is, this is not, this is not what America should be about. There's something there's something radically there's something radically wrong that's going on here that goes way beyond even the actions of what, what's what we're seeing, but the psychology, the philosophy, the Stephen Millers of the world and all these people who basically believe now that they have a free reign to terrorize a group of people who don't look like them, and I have to say, I have to say, and I don't, I don't say it. I don't say it happily or with any without with any enthusiasm. The failure, primarily of the Supreme Court, to allow profiling, and all the rest of these things has done, has done an enormous amount of damage to our stature in the world and and our quote, unquote, self respect quotient that we're supposed to have in this country. And what's, what's equally frightening is you have these, you have these people in the court who are completely removed for the reality of 2025, America, and they're sitting there, and, you know, everything is good, and they're just, they're just completely disinterested in what's happening in our country, as they were, as they were disinterested when they gave up, they created The immunity opinion, and I'll tell you, it really, it really makes you wonder about the fitness of these people. Because, you know, it's one thing to say that you're going to grant immunity to the president, but it's an even more, more onerous thing to say you're going to get grant immunity to this particular kind of president whose track record has shown how dangerous that could be and now we're seeing it. Yeah,

Blanca Pena 19:02
I expect this kind of behavior from the people at the top. Honestly, I don't think there's ever really been a time where it's that privileged group of people who really does any change. Because why would they change a system that benefits them? What's really jarring to me is people like, like me, right? Like other Latinos, other, you know, black and brown people who support that group of people. That's That's what gets me more honestly, because it's not that it's super surprising, but just seeing videos of ICE agents and hearing them speak, and they have a Spanish accent, or looking at them and you know, they're obviously wearing their masks because they're cowards, but seeing the parts of their face that you can see, and I look at them, and I'm like, these people are obviously Latino, or Hispanic, like some, some kind of of country in those in those places. And that always gets me the Latinos for Trump, even LGBTQ people for Trump. It's such a like, it's almost like you're stabbing yourself in the back thinking like that. And I think the. Issue with those people, in my opinion, is that they, they think that if they join them, that they are, they are with them, you know, like they are with the powerful. They are with the elites. But I think what they fail to realize is that that group of people will never see them as part of their group. They might, you know, they might use them as tokens, like, oh, yeah, I have, I can't be racist. I have a Hispanic friend, or, like, my Hispanic friend doesn't think that I'm wrong. So, you know, I'm I'm okay in what I feel they might be used as that, as a nice little token or accessory, but they will never be truly accepted. And I mean, I've met people who are from other countries, and they come here, and they, for example, pride themselves on coming here, quote, unquote, the right way, right? And they shame everybody else for the life experiences that other people had. And it's just, it's really annoying for a lack of a better term, because just because things played out one way for you, it doesn't mean that everybody else deserves less than you or is less than you. Yeah, it's, I wish we were more united in that front where, where we can even if, you know, for example, the system worked for me, right, that I don't then climb the ladder and then pick it up from behind me. It's my duty to keep it there, hold it steady and let other people come up. Yeah? But unfortunately, people are just too selfish to even think about doing that. Yeah,

Charles Stanton 21:21
well, I think that's I think what you said is absolutely true, absolutely. I agree with that completely. I think it's appalling, though, you know, when you analyze all the things that have happened and so few people have empathy, so few people have compassion, so people have an understanding of how these people are being treated, and life goes on and you're good with it. Somehow, there's something wrong there, though there's something, there's something in the dynamic of our country that needs to be addressed. It goes beyond Donald Trump. It goes beyond Stephen Miller or any of these people. It's a fundamental lack of humanity that we're seeing, and I think a lot of that has to do with the society and the world which we live in today, where we have a society, in many ways, which is about me and what I need and what I want, and as long as I get what I need and I want, that's okay. Now the fact that all these people are suffering, all these people are having, you know, all these problems and everything, that's their problem. But the fallacy in a society that's that's supposed to function well, is, no, no, you're a little bit confused. It's not their problem. It's your problem too. Because they are human beings, and they are people who have stories, and they are people who have lives, and they have many of these people, these faceless people that they want to support, have had a lot to do with the growth and the success of this country that seems to be always forgotten by the people who, because they judge a person by the color of their skin, never, Will, never, will adhere to. But as you say, there are people who will never change that will agree upon, but there's a whole bunch of people who could change. But you got to open up your mind, and you got to open up your heart, and you got to open up your eyes to actually see what's going on. Yeah, and then face that don't just, you know, blow it off all the time.

Blanca Pena 23:22
Yeah and yes, immigrants are very helpful to this country and to society. But even if they weren't, they still deserve the same human respect. Like, absolutely, it's like we are not numbers. You know, it's really frustrating having to convince people that we're humans too, and we are. We are more aside from our economic contributions and and everything else that that immigrants and people like me do, it's, it's it, I don't know. I think adding on to your point about people being selfish, I think they are also very susceptible to propaganda. And I didn't think that that would happen anymore going, you know, through the school system and learning about propaganda from Nazi Germany. I remember looking at certain posters or certain slogans, and I would I remember looking at those things and being like, wow, how do people fall for that? Like, it is very blatantly disgusting and racist and prejudicial. Like, how, how does, how did this work? And I remember thinking to myself, how does this poster rile people up enough to where concentration camps were normalized, like, That's how far they went. Yeah, yeah. But we're seeing it now. Yeah. And it's working these people that that don't care, or not only don't care, but they're, you know, the few, or, I don't know if it's a few or a lot. I can't even tell anymore, the group of people who actually want, like these people, these immigrants or these people of color, to be hurt. They are living proof that propaganda still works. Because, you know, you you heard them talking about the shutdown and saying like, Well, it's because the Democrats want to give undocumented immigrants federal funds and benefits, which is not true, and we've had that discussion here already, but it's insane. Saying to me how they can hear something like that and one not question it, because, of course, they don't have critical thinking, but they accept it as truth, and they get mad at it, but in the same breath, they can learn that Donald Trump is asking for close to $300,000 from the government because of the DOJ stuff, and they don't bat an eye. They don't bat an eye that billionaires get all these tax cuts, they don't that. And I that the people actually hoarding all the money and making a joke out of taxpayer money is not the people of color. It's it's not these people that they are being told that it is, and it's just, oh my gosh, I almost want to bang my head on a wall, because it's like, how can you be so mad? You know that these people who are barely making it by are, quote, unquote, taking all your resources, yeah? But then you don't have the same energy when billionaires or Israel take it from you, yeah? Proudly too.

Charles Stanton 25:53
Yeah. No, it's, well, a lot of it has a lot of it has to do, though, with the history of our country, the racism that's that's always been. Yeah, it's never, it's never been, it's never been eradicated. You know, they had a very interesting article one of the papers I was reading about how they're, they're trying to restore the Confederate statues. Well, what purpose would you have to restore the Confederate statues, except to basically lionize the people who are keeping people in bondage? I mean, what would be the purpose there? But people, you know, it's a funny thing. When we talk about, you know, they want to end affirmative action, they want to end diversity, they want to end equity, they want to end inclusion, but what they really want to end is the teaching of the history of our country. Yeah, that's their that's their greatest fear is that people become educated and people know exactly some of the things that went on. And the point of this is, the point of this is that when you teach and they're just they're always saying, Well, you don't want to embarrass the students who are white, or whatever a competent teacher does never, never does that a competence. What a competent teacher does when you teach your students is you're throwing these things out as to what happened. You're teaching you're teaching not to vilify students who had nothing to do with it. You're teaching students to show the error of the past and what people did and to make sure that you can create a society where those things won't happen again. That's the purpose of history. That's why these things are so important, but they're terrified of it.

Blanca Pena 27:22
I read this thing that said, we wonder why America is repeating history. The reason why is because the true and accurate history wasn't taught.

Charles Stanton 27:30
Of course. No, of course, yeah, oh yeah, yeah. There's a very interesting. There's a very interesting, if you get a chance to see it, folks of a debate at Oxford. This was back in the 60s, between William F Buckley Jr, the conservative, and James Baldwin. And you got to check it out. You got to check it out because you'll say to yourself, Wow, that was like almost, almost 60 years ago, and you're hearing the same stuff. It's just repeats, repeats. But I think, I think that, you know, as we, as we close down our programs tonight, I think the country, the people in political power who hopefully are not totally corrupt, I think they need to really evaluate carefully what the future is going to be and what the ramifications are going to be if we keep doing the same thing.

Blanca Pena 28:20
Yeah, so kind of a crazy note to leave on, but for all of those who listen, thank you so much. We'll see you next week and take care. Thank you and good night. You.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai