Podcast: Breathing While Black with WaPo's Karen Attiah

TRANSCRIPT: Breathing While Black with WaPo's Karen Attiah

Karen Attiah :

Anti-blackness in this country is pervasive. It's like oxygen. It's in the air, you don't even notice it, but we're all breathing it.

Ian Bremmer:

Hello and welcome to the GZERO World Podcast. Here, you'll find extended versions of the interviews from my show on public television. I'm Ian Bremmer, and today, I'll look at why the death of a Black man at the hands of police in Minneapolis has sparked a sea of protests around the world. To help me is a woman who says Western media would've covered America's unrest much differently if it were happening somewhere else. Karen Attiah is global opinions columnist at the Washington Post. Let's begin.

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Ian Bremmer:

Karen Attiah, global opinions editor for the Washington Post. Wonderful to have you here on GZERO World.

Karen Attiah :

Thanks Ian for having me.

Ian Bremmer:

So much to get into. I guess, let me start with something you wrote recently saying that in two months, many corners of the world have gone from fighting over toilet paper to fighting against racism and white supremacy.

Karen Attiah :

Yeah, I mean, I think, and first of all, I mean, it just has felt like such a time warp from the concerns that we had just three or four months ago around the world. I mean, coronavirus was a global phenomenon, to now, this global phenomenon of really challenging the narratives around power, around race, around privilege, around violence and brutality. And so, I think, obviously, what sparked this wave really, the George Floyd murder in Minneapolis around Memorial Day, and to see it spread not only across the nation, but across the world. I mean, to look at, here, a lot of the issues around sort of racism tend to focus on police brutality as a locust. But if you look at protests in the UK, in Germany, in Belgium, and you're seeing that, ultimately, at the end of the day, if we look at the trajectory and the history of these issues in the United States, I mean, it was Europe that started the transatlantic slave trade.

Karen Attiah :

America is the country that had slavery and the brutality on its shores, but really, it was an export. Slavery was an export from Britain. And so to see these protests, particularly against what we saw, the statues of slavers in Britain coming down, we're seeing renewed protests even against those who were the architects of colonialism. And so I think it's this global system, this global ideology of even the construct of race, even what it means to be African, to be Black, to be enslaved. It's a real reckoning with this system that the world, for the most part, or at least the sort of transatlantic world has lived with for the past 400, 500, 600 years.

Karen Attiah :

And I think, very often, Americans, we tend to think just very locally, very sometimes insularly. But again, I mean, this is not only reckoning with this history, but I think a lot of other countries are looking to the US for inspiration, to rise up against the issues in their own countries. So really, this is a fundamental shaking of a world order, I would say, a racial world order.

Ian Bremmer:

Yeah, and I'm glad you put it in terms of where this came from because we in the United States, so frequently, anything has to be put through a lens of a people that frequently have never been outside their own country, don't even have a passport. And so obviously, if there are demonstrations about Black Lives Matter in Europe, it must be all about us, right? It can't be about them. And so, as you've seen them, and there have been in Paris as well, in Amsterdam as well, I mean, there's lots of European capitals and that have been around for a lot longer than the United States. I wonder, how much of this you see is about American police, law enforcement, racism, as opposed to local issues happening right now in their own countries?

Karen Attiah :

Well, in many ways, the global is local, right? So let's take Jim Crow and that system of reconstruction, knowing that in Nazi Germany, the Nazis actually looked to how Black Americans were segregated and treated as a blueprint for how they treated Jews in Germany. We know that apartheids in South Africa, right, and not just those systems of segregation and of oppression, but also the fight against them was global. We saw that the US, there were pressures for sanctions and boycotts to try to end apartheids.

Karen Attiah :

And I think with the power of social media and with the power of technology, we are able to see not only these protests sort of locally in real time. I mean, I've loved to see the photos and images of protestors, I mean, all the way from New Zealand doing chants, supporting Black Americans, and supporting not just Americans. I think what people are, what's different about this moment is it feels, at this point, it's not just Black Americans carrying the burdens of kind of overthrowing a system of oppression that, again, has very global roots. As somebody who grew up in the States but has reported from abroad, has family in Africa, I really hope that we can really see the global kind of implications and underpinnings of what we're fighting against.

Ian Bremmer:

Now, I want to ask you a tough question because this is obviously an enormously important issue. It has deep and structural roots, and what's happening right now in the US and around the world has truly historic scale. It's also happening during a pandemic. Given important this issue is, and given how dangerous this pandemic is, how do you begin to approach the fact that, how do you communicate that? How do you deal with that? How do you relate with that? Or is your position just this is too important, pandemic is going to have to just wait?

Karen Attiah :

The fact that people are out there willing to risk their lives in terms of the pandemic, a pandemic that kills because you're in contact with people, that connection, closeness is dangerous. And yet, it's that connection and it's that closeness and it's that solidarity that is driving this conversation, is driving change and is driving reform. So to your question, I think it means that people feel it is that important that they really are, especially in the US, I believe you know we're inching at the 115,000 have died mark, and people are still taking to the streets. And the coronavirus itself, it's this parallel virus that we're dealing with at the same time. And it's just a reminder of the inequalities that I think everybody collectively is tired of. So, it's scary.

Karen Attiah :

I mean, to a certain extent it speaks to the righteousness, I believe, of a cause that people are willing to march for, march in honor of a man, or justice for a man who couldn't breathe, in an environment where we have a virus that will rob you of your breath, right? And there's something that is deeply powerful about it, but deeply sad that we could not get this virus under control, that people have to do this where we can't get tests, where we can't get... We have cops that are giving back grenade launchers back to the government. And we have teachers and healthcare workers who are wearing plastic bags in order to protect themselves, couldn't get PPE, personal protective equipment. And I think what is happening now is Americans are just seeing our priorities are so out of whack, so completely out of order that finally we're like, "Something needs to change."

Ian Bremmer:

So do you feel now, with what's happening in the country and around the world right now, that priorities are actually changing, and changing in a way that you would consider to be appropriate? Or do you have the skepticism that it's a few weeks, but we all know, and as soon as people get back to work and as soon as the demonstrations are over, we're going back to the way it was. What do you say to that?

Karen Attiah :

Yeah, I mean, as we speak today, we're all reeling from the news of Rayshard Brooks, the murder in Atlanta. We saw Rayshard pleading sort of with the officers just to let him go, just to let him walk home. It's almost like he knew, he understood that he just wanted to go home. His daughter's birthday was that weekend, and I think that just renewed the frustration, renewed the anger. You saw footage of the Wendy's where he had had the cops called on him, being burnt down. And I think it's just, there is a sort of generational exhaustion right now.

Karen Attiah :

But Ian, you asked me how I feel? I'm angry. I wish it didn't have to be that a man, I would say, gets tortured to death for eight minutes on film for us to believe that this is a problem. But what I will say is it's not just, again, it's not just police brutality that people are pushing up against now that are trying to uproot. You see now, it's this system-wide reckoning. So you're seeing the conversations about discrimination in the publishing industry, Black authors and writers not getting the resources and pay for successful books similar to white authors. You're seeing the reckonings happening in newsrooms across the country, where Black journalists are speaking out about their experiences and speaking out about the shameful, in my opinion, lack of diversity in our media organizations.

Karen Attiah :

So the conversation about defunding police, it's a conversation about representation in fashion, in Hollywood, in culture. It is a systemic reevaluation, or at least a systemic conversation, and I personally believe it is important that people's conversations are happening even at a personal level. Even what we're talking about at the dinner table and at the workforce, I've had, and even for me as a daughter of African immigrants here, hearing my parents speak about race and the reality of this country differently, right, that it's not just enough to go to a great school and work really hard and put your head down and name your kid Karen, just so that you know don't seem foreign or you seem white on paper, that it's not enough.

Karen Attiah :

And that anti-Blackness in this country is pervasive, and it's like oxygen. It's in the air. You don't even notice it, but we're all breathing it, right? And so, I feel, I'm glad that the burden is shared in terms of those conversations. And in terms of white people and non-Black people talking to other white people and non-Black people about race, about racism.

Ian Bremmer:

Do you think, I mean, as we look at this also incredibly politicized environment, incredibly divided environment, do you see this as an issue that is becoming significant in the election itself? I mean, obviously two 70-plus-year-old white men, not the easiest way to promote this conversation. How do you react to what we're looking at in November?

Karen Attiah :

People made the argument that Trump's election, at least in part, was in backlash to Obama and to the very visible progress of an African American rising to the top levels of society. And I wonder if some of what is happening is partially a backlash to what has been unleashed during the Trump years so far. I mean, we've just seen, I think between, I mean, police brutality, all those issues were happening since America. Period. Full stop. And we had this illusion that electing Obama meant we were "in a post-racial society". And then here comes Trump basically flying in on the wings of racism and xenophobia, and seeing how we were told that Trump, "Oh, the institutions would save us from him." That he would be reigned in by the generals, by the courts, that he wouldn't be able to do what he promised he would do in terms of the border walls, in terms of bans on Muslim majority countries coming into the States.

Karen Attiah :

And we saw how far he got with many of those policies that were just outright promoting, making America great again by making America very white again through policy. So, I think in a lot of ways, Trump has not been able to really influence this cultural conversation right now. This is an instance where the people's movements on the ground are leading. Right now, it's almost as if we're looking to see where those conversations go, where the wind is blowing, the idea that defunding the police is becoming this national conversation, when a couple years ago, that would've been completely radical.

Ian Bremmer:

Well, again, Biden has said publicly that he opposes it, so a part of the reason I mentioned.

Karen Attiah :

Right. So he opposes it, which will set him at odds with, again, what people are thinking through. And I'd be interested to see, I feel like we are in the very early stages of this conversation. We've seen the gamut of, Biden has said, "We need a ban on choke holds." Right? And people are like, "We already did. We already had this ban." It's not like the cops are saying, "Hmm, I wonder if what I'm doing is legal before I go in and choke this guy out." I mean, I think the politicians are probably waiting a little bit. It was just last year that Nancy Pelosi, when she was asked at a town hall about Black Lives Matter, that she kind of gave the, "Well, all lives matter." Right? And then we saw, what, last week or so, kneeling and Kente and Black Lives Matter. I mean, now, that is...

Ian Bremmer:

Mitt Romney out in front of the White House as well.

Karen Attiah :

Right, Mitt Romney. Yeah, exactly. And again, I wish there were more.

Ian Bremmer:

One of the whiter guys out there.

Karen Attiah :

Right.

Ian Bremmer:

I mean, you know.

Karen Attiah :

Wish there were more from both sides of the aisle, but as far as the election goes, I mean, it's forced the conversation in a very, very, very, very big way. And so, I think the conversations around policing are being held by the people, frankly. And I mean, we've seen Trump still pander to law enforcement. I mean, that sort of tragic parallel on the day of George Floyd's funeral, Trump and company were meeting with police, or law enforcement. I mean, Trump has made very clear his allegiances and it's not to the Black community.

Ian Bremmer:

You wrote pretty movingly about when your father recounted the moment he learned of Emmett Till's death when he was a teenager in Ghana. I'm wondering how he, how they, your parents, relate to what's going on now differently than you do.

Karen Attiah :

Yeah, I feel like... So, with Trayvon Martin, that was in 2013, the killing of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman, and then Ferguson happening the next summer in 2014. And I had actually just started at the Post in 2014. And seeing the images out of Ferguson really struck me at a very deep level in terms of just the realities of this country and the reality that racism at its sort of ultimate conclusion means death, means Black death. It means the permission to use force because Blackness is a threat. And we, growing up here, again, I think so many immigrant families from the Caribbean to Africa, we are just taught that, well, just work hard. Culturally, we have differences.

Karen Attiah :

And of course, I grew up in the south part of Dallas, which is heavily Black, but middle class or so. We just didn't really talk much about these things. On the occasion if, maybe I think, I remember once hearing about my brother being called the N word at soccer practice. My mom just said, "Oh, I took care of it." And that was it. We never really had longer discussions. And there was always this illusion, I would say, that again, you just go to the right schools, you speak a certain way. Respectability politics, right? You dress a certain way and you'll be able to move more easily.

Ian Bremmer:

So accept the melting pot as an ideal, and that's the way your parents largely accepted, thought about it, brought you up?

Karen Attiah :

Yeah. But I think now, I'm realizing that there was probably a lot that they were holding inside about their experiences of being Black here, and their experiences of being Black here but then also not quite. Always identifying with the struggles of Black Americans, even though in the reality, Black Americans fought and struggled and died for the ability for my parents to come and become professionals here in this country. My mom was telling me, she'd never told me about this before, but that my dad, my dad was a doctor. He's retired now. If he was coming to and from the hospital and going fast, he'd sure to have his lab coat nearby or his white coat, or his stethoscope nearby just in case he gets pulled over, just in case he can tell them or prove to them, "Hey, I'm a doctor. My life is valuable." And it's that, they never have spoken to me about that before.

Karen Attiah :

And I think it's similar to Black students who go to college, or who don't go to college, who have to prove that they don't deserve to be mistreated. Nobody deserves to be mistreated at all regardless of your class, your station, and nobody does. But there's, at my alma mater, I remember the Black male students making sweatshirts at campus, I went to Northwestern. Making sweatshirts saying, "I go here." Just in case they would be questioned. It's almost like the age-old system of having to carry ID papers around with you as a Black person in this country or living under apartheids. And so, I feel like they are coming to a realization of the price of being Black here.

Ian Bremmer:

You did say, and it was a hopeful thing, that many outside the United States are not just looking at the US and saying, "I hate everything about that system," but also seeing the grassroots movement and being inspired by it, and a grassroots movement that is by no means only the Black American community participating in it.

Karen Attiah :

What I have always liked to say is that America's a developing country, right? In many ways, if you look at the true essence of democracy or the meaning of democracy, I think we should really think about, it wasn't until Black people, all people have gotten the right to vote, to move and to work on an equal, or at least the semblance of an equal playing field, that America finally comes into what it says that it is, which is freedom and equality and a voice for all of its citizens. And so then, if you think about it, that didn't happen until, really, the '60s. It's very recent.

Karen Attiah :

And so, in a lot of ways, I think, I mean, I think, it should be a very humbling moment for America. I think maybe, I mean, this is why I like to play around with this conceit in my writing, writing as if we are looking at America, as if we are from another country, right? And I think that America is a unique social experiment in many, many, many ways. I mean, to move from a slave holding economy to a democracy, a multi-ethnic democracy, is a unique experiment that the entire world has been looking to for such a long time. As much as it is a bit of a perilous time, in the sense of there are people dying from the coronavirus, perilous in terms of even the protestors who have been met by force, people who are risking their jobs to speak out even about racism, I think this is a struggle that needs to be had and a necessary struggle for our growth.

Karen Attiah :

I feel like this moment is very pregnant with promise for just imagining differently. And it might not get all the way to the level of, I mean, whatever sort of will happen, but I think we are reimagining what community means, what it means to lead. And I think, to a certain extent, I don't feel like we are looking to our politicians right now to lead. They're reacting to what the conversation is being pushed toward, literally. People are pushing over statues of white supremacists and enslavers on the Confederacy.

Karen Attiah :

We are fundamentally reevaluating the narrative of who we are as a country, from the Civil War to civil rights to Obama, Trump era. It's like, who are we? Who were we? We're litigating history. We're always re-litigating history, but now, it's in the forefront. And it's also like, who do we want to beat? And what are we willing to do to get there? And for now, we've seen people are willing to be in the streets in the middle of a pandemic facing tear gas and bullets and curfews in order to push for a different America, and that should be hard to ignore. It should be.

Ian Bremmer:

So Karen, you brought Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi columnist who was killed, executed in the Saudi consulate in Turkey, to the Washington Post. Also, question of just basic human justice and dignity, how do you think about that background for you personally, given what's happening right now?

Karen Attiah :

People ask me how I'm dealing with this, and I keep thinking about back in late 2018, dealing with Jamal, who I'd worked with for a year, Jamal Khashoggi, dealing with his cruel and shocking murder. And then in the aftermath, just, I guess, doing anything I could, really, to try to push for accountability and justice and awareness that this had happened to, that the state of Saudi Arabia had murdered a man in a consulate abroad. I remember, when it came out that Jamal's last words before he was strangled to death was, "I can't breathe." I couldn't help but make that connection to, at the time, Eric Garner, the Black man in New York who was killed by a police officer, who was also choked out. And he also said, "I can't breathe."

Karen Attiah :

And here we are now in the aftermath of George Floyd's murder. He was killed by a knee on his neck, also saying, "I can't breathe." And we saw that in the case of Saudi Arabia, and we're still trying to push for any sort of accountability in the case of Mohammed bin Salman, the Crown Prince, who the CIA determined was responsible for Jamal's killing. And then here we have a system in the United States, where getting an arrest, much less a conviction for a police officer who murders or kills a person in the United States, is extremely difficult, and just speaks to these questions of impunity and these questions of cruelty, really.

Karen Attiah :

And so, to me, I link the two because, again, they're fundamentally about human dignity and the fact that people who live in oppressive societies, they often talk about it. They feel like they can't breathe, they can't speak, they can't be, they can't... In Jamal's case, he couldn't write. He felt like he was suffocating in Saudi Arabia, which is why he came to United States, only to find out he still wasn't safe. And so, similar to, as I said earlier about being Black, and you think that if you're respectable, if you have the right accoutrements, the right degrees, if you talk to the officer nicely and try to deescalate, you think that that will protect you. And it's not the case if you're going up against a force that does not value your life as a human being.

Ian Bremmer:

Karen Attiah, thank you very much.

Karen Attiah :

Thank you, Ian.

Ian Bremmer:

That's it for today's edition of the GZERO World podcast. Like what you've heard? I hope so. Come check us out at gzeromedia.com and sign up for our newsletter, Signal.

Announcer:

This GZERO World podcast is brought to you by Walmart. At Walmart, we appreciate the trust our customers put in us to provide access to healthier, affordable food for their families, to make their lives easier by serving them when and how they want, and by investing in the communities where we operate. Learn more at corporate.walmart.com.