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Social Justice - A Conversation
Unknown Speaker 0:00
You're listening to locally produced programming created in K you envy studios on public radio K, u and v. 91.5.
Unknown Speaker 0:14
Hi, I'm Charles Stanton. I'm on the faculty of the Honors College of UNLV. And the Boyd School of Law.
Unknown Speaker 0:21
Hi, I'm Gabriella Tam. I'm a fourth year accounting student. And welcome
Unknown Speaker 0:24
to social justice, social justice, our conversation, a conversation.
Unknown Speaker 0:34
Everybody, welcome back to our second show of the new year. And I'm joined, of course by my partner, Gabriella Tam. And we have a whole bunch of interesting and sometimes disturbing news bites that we want to share with you this week. And I thought would throw it over to Gabriella to start off with the situation with the Attorney General in Texas and what's been going on in that case?
Unknown Speaker 1:06
Yes, I read about I was just, I, I don't even I sorry, um,
Unknown Speaker 1:18
it's just like, shocked. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 1:20
it's just like,
Unknown Speaker 1:21
you don't know what to say? Yeah, basically, something's you know, what's what's what's fascinating about it, of course, is the fact that Texas, as we all know, is a Republican state. And this is a gentleman that was under indictment for a number of years. Anyway, they decided in the legislature of the state of Texas, to remove him, for obvious reasons. Yeah. And the Texas legislature was divided into two bodies, the first body voted like 121 to 20 to remove them. And the vast majority of the people who voted to remove them were Republican. Yeah. So. So obviously, there was something really wrong with with what this guy was doing. Yeah. So anyway, they brought it over to the next body to actually bring the formal impeachment proceeding. But the problem there was that they needed two thirds vote of all the voters, and they couldn't get the two thirds vote, because only a couple of Republicans would even vote to find him guilty on only one or two charges, so they are no charge, could they get two thirds of a vote. But the thing that struck me, you know, reading this information about this case, and I'm sure it struck, Gabriella, as well as the fact that all the people who complained about them, were people who worked from Republican people who had gone to the authorities about things that he was doing that were completely improper. And somehow they gave the guy a pass. So so the question is, why did they do that? Why did they basically give this guy no punishment for what he had done? What What's your theory about it?
Unknown Speaker 3:26
I feel like there's there's something brewing there. Like, I feel like, maybe someone's gonna be like, oh, like, We saved you like, so you have to do this for us.
Unknown Speaker 3:41
Yeah, yeah, sure. Sure. Sure. Absolutely. I think that's really true. I think that there's a lot of people who are part of the Magga movement, who you know, support support the ex president. And they made this a loyalty test, basically, that if you vote against this guy, and you vote to convict him, then in the next election, we're gonna have somebody to run against you in the primary. You know,
Unknown Speaker 4:10
yeah, I saw that. I think like, the ex president said, like, oh, like, yeah, if it wasn't for me, like, he would be impeached. I was like, oh, oh, it's all because of you. Okay.
Unknown Speaker 4:22
Yeah. Yeah. But it's amazing how these people have this, like, loyalty to this man. Yeah. It's like a cult. It it is definitely like a, like a cult. It's, it's, it's a cult of belief, but it's also a cult of fear. Because they're afraid of him. They're afraid of the supporters that he has. Yeah, in a state like Texas. Yeah, where they can where they can vote you out of office very quickly. But it's a shocker. It's a shocker. Yeah, I know. And I think it's reflective in a lot of ways of our country. We and our political system. And I think a lot of people are losing faith. Yeah. Because when you see a case like that, where there are there's so much evidence brought back even brought by people who were supposed to be allied with them. And you just let the guy off. It's not it's not a good thing. Yeah. So we can we can segue into talking also about President Joe Biden and his his support for the United Auto Workers, which he's been very, very strong on. And it's really an interesting situation, because the auto workers want really huge raises. Yeah, the biggest raises that they've ever had. And while this is all going on, you have the whole question of what is what is the future of automotive production? And the we know that the future, of course, is electric cars? Yeah. So the question is for the workers, how do they prosper in that kind of an environment? Because of the fact that the number of parts for an electric car are much less than that of a regular car? Yeah. So you have a question of layoffs, obviously. And then as far as the paying of competitive salaries, a lot of the other car manufacturers are going to undercut on on on wages, versus Detroit. So you'll see like, I'm sure Tesla would not pay the workers, the wages that GM Ford and Chrysler would pay. But then the other part of it too, is though, which it's important also is, you know, in many places in the country, people don't make a living wage. Yeah. And they're underpaid. And, you know, you have people who are at the heads of these corporations, who are making 10s and 10s and 10s of millions of dollars every year, chief executives, chief executive officers, yeah. And then a lot of the money that the corporation is taking in is used to buy back stock to please the stockholders. But it's the workers really to make the thing run. Yeah, exactly. You know, and he's, he's been very strong with that. I've come to believe that the reason that a lot of the people on the right, don't want Joe Biden has nothing to do with the fact of his age, they don't want Joe Biden because Joe Biden has a very progressive agenda. You know, the guy's like 82 years old, or whatever he is, but his agenda, if you think about three things that he's done, he's he's backed up the workers on this, which no President really ever did. He's been very much involved in the Medicare thing, trying to get Medicare, to negotiate with the drug companies, about affordable prices. And now the third thing that he wants to do, which is another big thing, that which which industry is against, he wants to crack down against emissions, particularly, particularly, having to do with the cement industry, and the building industry. So all these home builders and only suppliers of these materials to the home builders, they're all against that. So all the people who are really against what Joe Biden is doing, are the corporations. Yeah. And of course, you know, they're trying to say, well, you know, he's, he's, he's enfeebled. He's, he's this, he's that. But that's not the real reason. They're just using that as an excuse.
Unknown Speaker 8:46
Would you say that? Like, they're scared that he's trying to close the gap between like, upper class and like, like, lower class?
Unknown Speaker 8:55
Oh, yeah.
Unknown Speaker 8:56
Oh, absolutely. And they don't want that to happen.
Unknown Speaker 8:58
Oh, yeah. Well, that's that's absolutely true. I think that you make a very fine point. No, it's, there have been there's a hierarchy. There's a hierarchy of in our country. I think the great mistake or illusion, or delusion that people are suffering from, is that, you know, people who are migrants or people of color, are taking away the jobs of the white middle class. Yeah. And these people are the enemy of the white middle class, the enemy of the white middle class and the black middle class and the Asian middle class and the Hispanic middle class. Is not that the enemy is the people who are running the corporations at the top. And you don't have a fair division and a fair distribution of income. That's the problem. But they have sold this thing Magga has sold it and the Republicans have sold it. Yeah. As making these people the enemy. Yeah, I mean, you take a city like Las Vegas here. So many of them People in the service industries and doing you know, roofing work and gardening work and everybody. Those are basically migrants a lot of those people. Yep. But they're doing the essential work that has to be done. So why should they be villainized? Though? See, that's the whole thing about Yeah, yeah. But that's that's their, that's their MO see them, the MO of these people is to divide and conquer. It's not to have people really focus on what issues affect the both of us. The black middle class, the Latino middle class, the Asian middle class, the white middle class, they're basically all in the same boat. Yeah, trying to, you know, try and make payments, trying to keep their homes. The interest rates have gone up so high. Yeah. So you know, buying things through credit cards, or your mortgage, and everything has gone up very high. And they're trying to get by, and all the while these people are raking in like billions of dollars. Yeah. So you know, it's just
Unknown Speaker 11:00
so interesting that like, they like they they split, like the people that are lower than them up, like what you said, like divide and conquer. They're literally splitting us up instead of they don't want us to unite,
Unknown Speaker 11:14
though. I said, Well, that's it. I've always, you know, in a previous class, when we were talking about women's film, I always said that, I always thought that that was their game plan. Yeah, that. And I thought that one of the mistakes that was made by the progressive movement, was the lack of unity between all the different groups that were offended. Yep. I think the LGBT people or transgender people, people of color, women, all should be united in one movement, one movement to bring forward these issues. But one voting movement as well, is that you'd have this this group of people who were tired of the status quo, and they wanted they wanted their rightful place at the table, which they don't want to give them. You see, and a lot of that is a lot of that, of course, is is it's not just monetary, it's, it's prejudicial as well. Yeah. Me lies people just, they don't like people who don't look like them. Yep. And that's really what it is. Whether they be Asian, Black, Latino, whatever it is. That's their philosophy. Yeah. So as a result, digging into everything they can, so keep that keep us separate. keep us separated. Exactly. Right. Yeah. So so so that's so that's very, very true. So you want you want it to say a few things about Northwestern University? Oh, I hear this.
Unknown Speaker 12:39
Yeah. When I first I like I was reading an article and it just kept going and going, Oh, it was like, Oh, my gosh, so many people have come out about like all these like coaches and like all the hazing that's happening. And I was like, oh, when does this like when does it end when it ended? Like, I think the last time the article was updated was like August like 14, which is like, still pretty recent, to be honest. Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 13:04
yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, certainly all the lawsuits that have been filed will unveil some of what happened. The problem you have in these cases, unfortunately, is the reluctance of a lot of people to come forward to testify. Yeah. Because of, of the particularly despicable things that were done to them. Yeah. And the shame that people feel, actually for things that were not at all their fault. Yeah. But you know, and it's interesting, because, you know, from having some experience in this in this in this field, that's one of the problems with abusive women. It's, it's, it's a lot of what a lot of it is, that when people file complaints when women file complaints, they're not, you know, listened to and, and they're not taking it seriously. But it's also in a sense, the shame that a person feels that they have to come forward and discuss these intimate things. Yeah, with strangers, and, you know, reveal something so intimately personal personal, that happened to you. That was so bad. We had we had done a movie the brave one last semester with Jodie Foster. And that was a perfect example because a woman you know, nobody wanted to listen to her and, you know, etc. What's interesting, of course, now, is that the northwestern case, is highlighting one of the hidden major segments of sexual abuse, and that's abuse of men. This was always a thing that was rarely mentioned, you have Northwestern University, you have the the wrestling scandal at Ohio State University. You have the football scandal with the University of Michigan. You know, so this is not something that's uncommon. Yeah. And I think this case is going to lead to a lot of other revelations at other places, not just Northwestern. Yeah. But you it makes you wonder, like, what kind of monitoring system? Do the universities and the athletic programs have to protect? The athletes?
Unknown Speaker 15:38
Yeah. I feel like it's, it's also interesting, because I feel like universities are so big on sports like they want. There's like some universities who will like put everything into their athletic programs. But then why does it stop at monitoring them and see what is going on? On the inside? You know? Yeah,
Unknown Speaker 16:02
yeah, sure. Oh, yeah. Well, absolutely. I guess we were talking before the program started. I had done a lot of sports coaching, when I was younger. How do they screen these people? Yeah. That's the other thing. You know, you have, you know, in this case, the man was a respected coach.
Unknown Speaker 16:25
And, and he was there for a while
Unknown Speaker 16:27
there for a while, and all these other universities wanted to hire him. But your first your first duty, whether you're a teacher or a coach, is to your st. Your students. Yeah. Primarily, yeah. It's interesting how it mirrored it mirrors the church scandals, too. Yep. You know, and how people would trust their children, to go to CES, go to a certain school, belong to a certain church, or in athletics to be an athletic team. And you don't really think about that? Well, now you do think about it as a parent, because all these things have happened. But the prevalence of it, that there's so many of these cases, and you say to yourself, oh, where where did they find these people? Who are supposed to do this? How do they evaluate? And? And obviously, they don't evaluate them? Well, yeah. And then I think a lot of it is also people don't want to know. Yeah. See, that's the other problem that you have. And I think I think what's interesting is now, I think it was always going on with women. Yes, always. There was always a prevalence of cases and women's sports in the university, and we're seeing it all the time. But now that it's happening to men, you're gonna start to see, I think, a lot more scrutiny of all these things. Which, which the women will benefit from as well? Yeah, well, they're really going to start to look at these people and say, Listen, you know, we got to really be careful. You know, when we hire somebody, we want to make sure it's not just winning games. We want to make sure that the people who, you know, go to the university, our student athletes, that this is a safe place. Yeah. You know, because if you don't have that, you don't have anything.
Unknown Speaker 18:30
Yeah. But I feel like it's kind of it's kind of sad that it, they're just now starting to scrutinize like, who they're hiring and stuff, like it should have, it should have started when, like, all these women are coming out with cases. And so yeah, but it's good. But it's also like sad in its own way. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 18:50
Well, well look at the Boy Scouts as another example. I mean, the Boy Scouts were considered, you know, the Boy Scouts, Boy Scouts, like, it was like the apple pie, and, you know, et cetera, et cetera. And then they find out that they, this was rampant stuff. It was 1000s of cases. And you say, Well, where were the authorities? You know, I mean, the movie, the spotlight movie really focused in on that with the Catholic Church where, you know, they knew about it, and they were told about it, and the police were told about it, and the law firms were told about it, but nobody wanted some lame thing. And the thing that gets me is if you if you as a society, don't stand for the protection of children matter. You got a problem. There's something there's something wrong there, you know, but it's, it's money though. Yes, money, you know, it's like well, the next thing we're going to talk about tonight is you know, a situation with all the injuries in the football, the NFL and all these people getting hurt. And it's by nature a violent game, but the fact that they have astroturf instead of grass, and you know, all the complaints that have been made from the players, that the stuff is unsafe. What an interesting thing happened to me a few years ago, I had gone. So one of the games, I was actually in Pittsburgh, and I had gone on the field before the game. This was during December, I will tell you, that it was like concrete.
Unknown Speaker 20:33
Yeah, cuz they like they put the actual turf like over like concrete, right?
Unknown Speaker 20:38
Pretty much. Yeah. And so you had you had the frozen weather. You had you had the thing. So you can imagine you can imagine when one of the players was hit, he would normally be getting the shock and the concussion of being hit, falling on a substance basically, that was was hard, very, very hard. Yeah. And the, you know, the guy for the guy for the Jets, who they spent tons of money on. He's really out for the season, he only played like three plays. Hey, I bought, but this is what the end. And the end of the tragedy of it is, of course, is that they know that it's not safe, but they don't want to spend the money to do it. See, that's the that's the crazy thing. Like they're making so much money in the NFL. I mean, literally, they've never made more money than they're making now. Yeah, with the gambling and all the sports betting and everything. So make the environment as safe as you can fix the fields. So the players have more protection. They don't want to do it. They don't want to do
Unknown Speaker 21:51
it, like doesn't make any sense to me. Because they have like they have the players. They have people who want to, like play, but they don't care about their safety.
Unknown Speaker 22:01
No, no. Well, I wouldn't. I wouldn't, I wouldn't say all them. But I would say in a lot of these sports. The player gets forgotten. Yeah. You know, you see hockey sometimes when you watch the hockey games, and there's a lot of things that go on in hockey. We have players and they know who all these players are far better than I do. Who are out who are out to hurt you. Yeah, I mean, it's not about the game. You know, I played hockey when I was younger. It's not about just playing the game. And, you know, it's sort of like the UFC in a sense. Yeah, take it to another extreme where, you know, it's not enough to defeat the person you want. You want to hurt, really hurt that person. Punch them and do X, Y and Z. But, you know, I don't know is that is that well, that's a reflection of the society though. Yeah. I mean, you know that, you know, I always talk when I when I was a kid, I used to go to see the boxing matches with my father. And I, you know, I got a chance to meet Muhammad Ali and people like that. It was different. Yeah, it was different. I mean, they fought but they shook hands after the fight. Yeah, the person was down there went down. I could not imagine Muhammad Ali or Joe Frazier as will continue to punch. Yeah, you know, but I did some people want to see it, though.
Unknown Speaker 23:28
No, that's what I was gonna say. Yeah, like people like pay to see like, yeah, people get really badly injured. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 23:34
What do you why do you think that is, though? I,
Unknown Speaker 23:39
I, we talked about it, like, last semester about I think I said, like, I, I think like, is it I wonder if it's because people can't do this in like real life. Like, you can't go up to someone, like, straight up, just drag them, you know, but it like, I wonder, is it because they have so much anger within them? Yeah, yeah. No, and they can't take it out on someone or like, they can't find like the way or like the means or whatever. Yeah. So they resort to?
Unknown Speaker 24:12
Like, it's my carry. Yeah, like, yeah, exactly. Yeah, sure. Absolutely. Absolutely. No, you're absolutely right. Well, let's let's, as the pioneer said, as we knew, we near the end of the trail to talk about to talk about Jan winter here. And of all the things that have happened in the last week or 10 days. This to me as a music aficionado I'm working on. I'm currently working on a book about music right now. And I read the magazine for years. His comments in this interview in the New York Times, truly left me dumbfounded. Basically, he was saying that he wrote a book about you know, several of the art Study. Do you know John Madden and Pete Townsend, you know, Bruce Springsteen and all that, which is fine, that these are people that he knows. And, you know, you can write a book about whoever you want to write a book about. But then he was asked why he didn't have any black artists or female artists. And he basically starts talking that the black artists and the female artists were not articulate. And they didn't they weren't part of the Zeitgeist and all this crazy stuff. Yeah. And I'm saying to myself, like, where does that come from? Where did was that? Dynamic?
Unknown Speaker 25:37
Where did that thought, like, start for him?
Unknown Speaker 25:39
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And, you know, I mean, with all the people that he knew in the music industry, and I wonder today, how these people who they who they profiled, and how these people who hit who they answer you, what they will be thinking, Yeah, I mean, you go into somebody's, you go into somebody's business, and you don't want to somebody's you know, enterprise, and you know, to be promoted, or, you know, you're a singer or whatever you are. Yeah. And you presume, like that the people are, you know,
Unknown Speaker 26:15
they support you or like, they're, like, somewhat interested, interested.
Unknown Speaker 26:19
And then the basic like, like, like your nothing. Yeah. Whoa. And I think I think it also like, like, is a harm to the people who read the magazine, because, you know, you're reading this magazine, as I've read the magazine for years, it goes back many years. And then you say, Well, what was that about? Yeah. Did they really have? Did they really have any belief and faith in any of these people? Yeah. Was it just about making money? Exactly. And had nothing to do with, you know, trying to expand people's horizons? You know, they've had, you know, like, especially with with people of color, you know, that they had all these different black artists and women artists and Asian artists. And the person reads that they said, Well, I must be I must be inferior than because the man puts together a book. And he's basically saying that
Unknown Speaker 27:16
we're not Yeah, like, we were just not like them. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 27:20
Yeah, it was just so bizarre. And they got rid of him right away, as well as they should. I mean, they didn't waste any time. But I wonder, among the people who even got rid of them. Whether some of the people who got rid of him had known about this for a long time. That's the other thing. Because he have a board of people, and they must talk between. And you wonder why, wow, you know, this was a secret to everybody that this man felt this way about this viewer? I just don't understand that. But it is it is it is a proof of the aphorism you really don't know people. Yeah, that's what it is in life. You know, there's the person that you see. And then there's then there's another person, maybe sometimes two or three other person. Yeah, you know, but he did a he did a, I think he did a lot of harm. In doing that, he really did. I mean, he, he basically, he really, really bagged the magazine. Yeah. I mean, I don't know how you would go forward him and publishing the thing. Yeah. Because, you know, especially and the harm to the young people, the young artists, the aspiring artists, both male and female, or transgender, gay, whatever, that we're gonna want us to be in this field. Yeah. And looked up to this person. And they say, Well, he's not this is that this is not what I want to do. And I can imagine how much how painful it must be. Imagine, like a person who was last month's issue. And they're, you know, they're gonna be going on sewer and everything like that. And the guy goes, Did you hear what the guy said? Was the magazine publisher that you're, you're not articulate. It's crazy, you know. So, it's been a great show this week, and we're on and we're on in the evenings during the week. Last Monday, maybe this Monday again, we'll be on around 630 on Monday night, but it's been a great pleasure to talk to you and Gabriella.
Unknown Speaker 29:28
Yes, it was. It was a good, I think good chat today.
Unknown Speaker 29:32
Yes, it was. So I want to thank you all for listening. And hopefully we will see you next week and until then, be safe and be peaceful.
Unknown Speaker 29:41
Thanks for listening. Good night. Thank you for listening to our show. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us at tangi one that is T A N G one at UNLV thought nevada.edu. Or to contact Professor Charles Stanton at charles.stanton@unlv.edu See you next time
Transcribed by https://otter.ai