Well, everybody, welcome back to another Adobe Illustrator tutorial. I'm going to show you how to cut an object out from inside of another one, just like I've done here. This is a cutout. This is not two shapes on top of each other. Let's start from scratch. Here we go. I've got my Apple logo here loaded in, and I've just dropped it in. The next step, I'm going to go up to Edit, and I'm going to go to Copy, and then I'm going to go to Edit, Paste in Front. So now we've got two logos stacked on top of each other. And when I'm holding out on the selection tool and moving it, you'll see here that that is the case. The next step is you want to hold down the Shift key and make sure you select one of the edges, and you just want to drag it proportionally. So this makes it a proportional reduction. So we're going to cut the same shape out of the same shape. So that's all we're doing. So now, because they're both black and it's kind of hard to see, you'll know I'm moving it around, but you can't exactly see where I am. So what I'll do is I'll just drop it there. It's probably not correct, but I'm going to hold down the Command key or the Control key on a PC and press the Y button. This gives us the outline mode. And now I can just sort of drag this to where I want it. So let's say something like that. What do you see? It says Center. That's good. That's what I want. So we've seen it in the outline mode, Command or Control, and then press Y, depending on if you're on a PC or Mac. And then presto. The last step is you want to make sure you've got the selection tool and just select everything that you want to do the cutout in. Open up your Pathfinder right here and then just go Minus Front. And then this is now a new shape, and it moves, so it's all one shape. And it's not at two shapes on top of each other. That's how you do a cutout. Thanks for watching.


I want to start with, I guess for lack of a better word, two vignettes. One, and it really is lack of a better word, vignette is actually a series of statistics. You don't need to keep them for your notes, but I want you to understand them from an impressionistic point of view. These, this is a tallying of the state of segregation in 1951. It's a random point in time in the South. In May of 1951, the state of Texas did not allow interracial boxing matches. Florida did not allow white and black students to use the same editions of textbooks. In Alabama, a white woman was not allowed to take care of a black male patient. North Carolina required separate washrooms in its factories. South Carolina required them in its cotton mills. Four other states required them in their mines. In six states, and here's a, I'm going to be reading a list of, in numbers of states, they're overlapping in different combinations, I'm quite sure. In six states, white and black prisoners cannot be chained together. In seven states, parks, playgrounds, bathing and fishing and boating facilities, amusement parks, racetracks, pool halls, circuses, theaters, and public halls were all segregated. Ten states required separate waiting rooms for bus and train travelers. Fourteen states required black passengers to ride in the back of buses and street cars. Some other combination of 14 states segregated railroad passengers on trips within their borders. Some other combination of 14 states required mental, segregated mental patients. Some 17 states required segregation of public schools. Four other states permitted the practice if local communities wished it, and in Washington, do you see the customer prevailed for nearly 90 years? In 11 states, and this one I find is actually breathtaking for the absurdity of all of this, or maybe even the passion for all of this. In 11 states, or 11 states operated separate schools for the blind. So even if you could not see each other, you could not be in the same space if you were white and if you were black. Thorough going segregation across many different lines, many different vectors of how you operate as a citizen in the world. Now, that's 1950-51. I want to read to you an excerpt from the memoir Warriors Don't Cry by Melba Beals, who was one of the, would become one of the Little Rock Nine who'd desegregate Central High School. We'll actually be talking, I'll talk a little bit about Central High School in Monday's lecture. We're actually chronologically not getting up to that point in today's lecture. But I want to read to you an excerpt from 1954, of events that happened in 1954 to help underscore, undergird the extent to which the kind of higher level organizing and political work and legal affairs, that'll be the bulk of today's lecture, to underscore the way in which these things really made themselves manifest on the ground. So Melba Beals writes very early in her book, reflecting back when she was, I believe, 12 years old. She's walking back home from school on the day that Brown v. Brown v. the Board of Education decision had been announced.  Don't take any shortcuts, just go straight home. As I entered the persimmon field, I sank deep into my thoughts. But a few steps past the big tree at the front of the path, I heard a rustling sound. I stood perfectly still, looking all around. I didn't see a soul. Suddenly as I came near to the end of the field, a man's gravel voice snatched me from the secret place in my head. You want a ride, girl? He didn't sound at all like anybody I knew. There it was again. That stranger's voice calling out to me. Want a ride? Who is it, I asked, barely able to squeeze the words out. I got candy in the car, lots of candy. I crept forward and then I saw him, a big white man, even taller than my father, broad and huge like a wrestler. He was coming toward me fast. I turned on my heels and fled in the opposite direction, back the way I had come. You better come on and take a ride home. You hear me, girl? No, sir, I yelled. No, thank you. But he kept coming. My heart was racing almost as fast as my feet. I couldn't hear anything except for the sound of my saddle shoes pounding the ground and the thud of his feet close behind me. That's when you started talking about niggers wanting to go to school with his children and how he wasn't going to stand for it. My cries for help drowned out the sound of his words, but he laughed and said it was no use because nobody would hear me. I was running as fast as I could. The lace on my shoe came untied and my feet got tangled. As I hit the ground, I bit down hard in my tongue. I felt his strong hands clutched my back. I bolted up struggling to get away. He pulled me down and turned me on my back. I looked up into his face, looming close above me like the monster on a movie screen. I struggled against him, but he was too strong. He slapped me hard across the face.  Instead, I felt him squirm against me, and then I saw him taking his pants down. In my house, private parts were always kept private. I couldn't figure out what he was doing, but I knew it had to be bad. I scratched and kicked and thrashed against him with every ounce of strength I could muster. His huge fists smashed hard against my face. I struggled to push him back and to keep the dark curtain of unconsciousness from descending over me.  A voice inside my head told me I was going to die, that there was nothing I could do about it. White men were in charge. Someone comes to a rescue within about four or five seconds of this moment, before she's actually raped. One of her classmates, she didn't really know that well, knocks her out of her head with a brick, and she's able to escape to safety. Thus begins her journey towards becoming one of the Little Rock Nine. These are the memories of a 12-year-old. Now, I want to set that stage about systemic segregation and the ways in which people were in, I mean, from my personal perspective, driven mad by the Supreme Court, Section 54, to sort of underscore, for lack of a better phrase, the intensity of the moment, a period of profound ambiguity in this country, and a period of profound change for blacks as well as whites, conservatives as well as liberals. And over the course of today's lecture and really Monday's lecture, we're going to start canvassing the ways in which, bless you, the ways in which this period of incredible unstability in the United States has made, it was felt on many different levels in different ways. So much of today's lecture is context, for much of it for going across the 1940s up to Brown v. Board. Now, I ended the last lecture before the midterm talking about A. Philip Randall Smart on Washington Movement, his bluff with FDR, FDR's issuing of Executive Order 8802 and the creation of the FEPC. I was trying to cram a lot of things into the lecture to give me two minutes to talk with the FEPC very quickly and move us into the 1940s. The FEPC, Fair Employment Practices Committee, held high profile hearings in major cities about segregation in defense industry factories. But it was essentially powerless to do anything except for embarrass the companies and the factories that are continuing these practices. Now, in terms of so literal change, the FEPC is not doing much, as it turns out. But again, since we're wrestling with, I've been talking about the tension between the symbolic and the real, at the symbolic level, the FEPC contributes to the, to Black's reorientation away from notions of, you know, systems of white patrons. They have to rely on white patrons to make ends meet. But they could turn to the federal government instead. With the federal government. And I started talking about it with the, the Black Cabinet through Marion Anderson's concert in Easter Sunday, 1939. The federal government is now standing in, in complicated ways, certainly, but still standing in and keeping an eye on the quality of Black life. Well, here we are in 1941 and 1942. The U.S. is now involved in the Second World War. And as you'll remember from going back to the First World War, as the U.S. is about to get involved, and W.E.B. Du Bois called on African Americans to close ranks, but then called on them to return fighting. You have Black soldiers enlisting in terrifically large numbers. You have a lot of the same kind of troubling dynamics about training Black soldiers, their treatment abroad, positive by foreign troops and foreign citizens, negative by U.S. troops, and you have the treatment coming home that is scandalous. The Pittsburgh Courier, along with Chicago Defender, the two most important Black newspapers of the day. The Pittsburgh Courier, aware that the same dynamic might repeat itself, that is, you know, Black soldiers fighting for citizenship rights and being denied them. In February of 1942, begins a campaign. It is a publicity campaign. It is nothing beyond that. It becomes very popular. It's the double V campaign, double V, two Vs, that there would be victory over fascism abroad, and victory over racial discrimination at home. This is just like Du Bois' call, we return, we return from fighting, we return fighting, okay? But 23 years have passed. It's the same call. It's the same agenda. That's the important thing to understand. Now Randolph Bluff's FDR into signing this executive order, and Randolph realizes he has an important opportunity here to make something out of this bluff, and this March on Washington Movement becomes an organization. Not just one person trying to organize a march, but it actually becomes its own grassroots organization, the MOWM is no easy way to say it. The March on Washington Movement embodies a certain set of tactics, and they are, for lack of a better phrase, racial tactics. Randolph, as you already know, is an anti-communist. He was deeply concerned about white communist infiltrating the National Negro Congress, and when it happened, he broke from it. And he saw that the March on Washington Movement was a way, he kept it all black, I should have said that first, it was an all-black movement. He saw by keeping it all black, it would reduce or even eliminate the chance that the Communist Party will infiltrate the organization, since the Communist Party was predominantly white. But Randolph was very clear, since we're in a time of war, to go to great ends to make sure his movement was not considered black nationalist, although it's all black, it's not black nationalist. And Randolph declares, and I'm quoting here, we condemn all dictatorships, fascist, not seen communists. We are loyal, patriotic Americans all. But if American democracy will not defend its defenders, if American democracy will not protect its protectors, if American democracy will not give jobs to its toilets because of race or color, if American democracy will not issue, ensure equality of opportunity, freedom and justice to its citizens, black and white, it is a hollow mockery and belies the principles for which it is supposed to stand. The March on Washington Movement is all black, it certainly welcomes white support but not within the organization itself, and it is profoundly patriotic as far as its assertions are concerned. On the ground, the March on Washington Movement engages in mass nonviolent direct action, a blend of Gandhi's tactics and Randolph's experiences with labor sit-down strikes. It believes in small direct actions, you know, going into one region or, you know, a part of the country with small and highly symbolic acts of resistance. You know, it has a sort of a hodge pod of groups operating under its banner doing different things in different places but all embracing an all black agenda and all black constituency mass nonviolent direct action. There's another group that's founded in 1942, a year after the March on Washington Movement, that embraced this secular, that embraced a different agenda from the March on Washington, a different organizing agenda, pardon me, from the March on Washington Movement. It was interracial civil rights organization called the Congress on Racial Equality, CORE, Congress on Racial Equality, an offshoot of the pacifist fellowship of reconciliation. CORE was founded in 1942, its director was James Farmer, and one of the principal organizers was a man named Baird Rustin, someone we'll hear more about in the next couple of weeks. CORE and the March on Washington Movement were two of the main groups operating in the 1940s to educate blacks to use nonviolent direct action. So they shared that strategic logic. CORE was interracial, March on Washington Movement was all black. The March on Washington Movement built its base on the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car, Porter's Maids Union, using Randolph's organizing skills and really tried to reach out to lower class blacks as well. CORE was significantly smaller than the March on Washington Movement, and it was focused on essentially the demographic you represent, college age student, highly educated, interracial, and essentially elitist. CORE's mission statement says that it has one purpose, to eliminate racial discrimination, and it has one method, interracial, nonviolent direct action. And that CORE's style was to test, to negotiate, to confer, and then to sit in. Test, negotiate, confer, and sit in. Now, I'm going to move away from these two groups rather quickly, but I wanted you to understand these different organizing logics, although they're sharing the same strategic mode of engagement. Understand they're happening in the 1940s as well, because as I hope to make clear through this lecture and through much of the next couple of weeks lectures, it's very critical you start to re-periodize the Civil Rights Movement. The kinds of things that I just mentioned here, I hope that you will recognize from your basic high school American history class talking about the Civil Rights Movement, that famous moment between 54 and 68 at the most, okay? The strategies of sort of the high theater of the Civil Rights Movement, roots go back to the 1940s and beyond with direct connections and direct lineage of sorts of resistance. You need to understand this. It's rather important. Now, what's happening in the 1940s? What's the scene in which the Martin Washington Movement and CORE are operating? The country is in transition. It's in war. As I already mentioned, the Great Migration happening in the first two decades of the 20th century. There's another migration happening now that dwarfs the Great Migration of African Americans, many of whom are following defense industry jobs out west and in the north. Essentially, the black population you know of in Los Angeles is there because of defense industry jobs and factory jobs during this period of time. This is the moment over the next decade when African Americans move from being predominantly a rural population, I think it's about 40% at that point, to over 50 or 55% urban. So it's a transition, profound transition for African Americans as far as demographics is concerned. Now with this migration, like the first Great Migration, you have crisis. Pressure for housing, cultural styles, political battlefields. 1943 is a spectacular year for crisis. You have race rides happening in the summer of 43 and 47 different cities. One of the most famous is the Zoot Suit Rides in Los Angeles, which involved not blacks in this case, but Mexicans and Mexican Americans and white Navy, I think it's Navy, I'm pretty sure it's Navy. Members of the Navy attacking Los Angelinos who happened to be Mexican for straying across racial and social lines. The worst riot happens in Detroit a mere 10 days before a Martin Washington movement convention in Chicago. The riot and all of its violence color the Martin Washington movement in Chicago, a convention in Chicago, and so militant race leadership is seemed as too provocative and un-American. And really people can deny the fact that blacks actually were beginning to get jobs in these factories, because factories are so desperate for workers. You have migration, racial violence, the country at war, the Martin Washington movement agitating, making some headway in far as its long-term goals, but also having a narrower range in which it could operate, because, you know, appearing un-American is the last thing you want to do at this moment in time, is something Randolph himself articulates. Meanwhile, membership in the NAACP skyrockets as the organization appears to be a more moderate and reasonable location for civil rights agitation than the all-black Washington-Washington movement, even though it's making it's a pro-American stance, and more moderate than this upstart core that people don't really know what to make of yet. So you have now, by the mid-1940s NAACP becoming turning into this moderate organization by outward appearances, where it was on the edge of sort of the avant-garde when it was founded, for the first decade or two decades of its existence. Things were shifting. Things shift fundamentally in 1944 in a legal case, Smith v. Allwright, that outlaws the white only primary. And I have to apologize, I have to go really quickly through a lot of these things, because I lost a lecture by the midterm. So I'm not going to get into the details. But in the Smith v. Allwright case, the white primary, white primaries are now outlawed, and now liberal groups, broadly defined, start going after a whole set of different means of exclusion of preserving, essentially, an all-white vote. Groups start going after literacy tests that were at the point of absurdity where a registrar could actually ask somebody how many bubbles are there in a bar of soap as a way to exclude them. People knew they had to act in terms of trying to expand the right to vote, or access to the ballot box, ballot box, by just looking at Mississippi. In Mississippi, you have over 350,000 blacks who are eligible to register, register to vote. Mississippi has a huge black population. And of that 350,000, only 2,500 managed to vote in 1946. It's an all-white vote. Because of all the various ways in which Mississippi registrars and voters are being told to eliminate the black vote. In fact, very famously, Senator Bilbo from Mississippi, who's a virulent racist, would go around organizing registrars and voters of before an actual election night, telling them all these different ways in which you can eliminate the black vote. And said, you know, and if worse comes to worse, you all know the most effective strategy is the night before the election. And you know what I mean. I mean, essentially calling for them to rally the clan to eliminate black vote. Again, the country's in under incredible stress because of these transitions going on. Between 46 and 48, at the presidential level, some more radical changes are happening. FDR had died in office already. Now, Harry Truman is the president. And he's fighting for his political life. The Democratic Party is on the verge of being split. Recognizing that there is incredible dissension amongst the Democratic ranks, other Democrats are very unhappy with the trends in what's happening in the country, supported by the federal government, that entity that blacks saw as a place of salvation.  So now there's no more publicity campaign machine to sort of embarrass factories into employing African Americans and practicing non-discrimination policies. Truman lets Congress kill the FEPC, but knows he needs the black vote to win election. It was clear when FDR got elected in 1944, it was clear that the black vote is what got him into office, and Truman can't lose it. So Truman raises the stakes after killing the FEPC, and appoints a distinguished panel to serve as the President's Commission on Civil Rights, which would recommend, over time, more adequate means and procedures for the protection of civil rights for U.S. citizens. In October 1947, it issues its report called to secure these rights, a landmark document. To secure these rights, define the nation's civil rights agenda for the next generation. The Commission noted the many restrictions on blacks, and urged that each person, regardless of race, color or national origin, should have access to equal opportunity in securing education, decent housing and jobs. Among its proposals, the Commission suggested anti-lynching and anti-poll tax laws, a permanent FEPC, and strengthening the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice. The Commission went much further than southern Democrats ever imagined they would dare to go, further than Truman thought they would actually go. But he called this commission together, and so he had to face a choice, what to do. So in February of 1948, Truman rolls the dice, and calls for the implementation of the Commission's recommendations. Southerners immediately threaten the filibuster, and Truman, unable to secure support from Congress, or action from Congress, moves ahead using executive authority. And among other things, he bolsters the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, appoints the first black judge to the federal bench, naming several other blacks to high-ranking administrative positions, and most important on July 26th, 1948, he issued the executive order of abolishing segregation in the armed forces, and ordered full integration of all the services. The executive orders that go out of this array of changes are 9980, 9980, establishing fair employment practices in the federal government. And the next one immediately, so you can see it's gone a tear, executive order 9981 establishes the President's Committee on Equality of Treatment and Opportunity in the Armed Forces, the decree that leads to the desegregation order to the military. Now it's the order. The military takes its sweet old time desegregating, but the orders issued in 1948, growing out of this Truman's political move, to sort of clarify the mess of the Democratic Party, make it known to African Americans that he was going to support them, the Democratic Party would support them. But was it enough? Henry Wallace, who had been a former Vice President of FDR before he got booted, very progressive and challenges Truman from the left. The real challenge comes from the right, within the Democratic Party, let me be clear. Truman's support for a strong Silver Rights platform for the Democratic Convention that was coming up is opposed by conservative Democrats. And they say, if you bring this platform to the Commission floor, we will leave. Truman bought the platform to the Commission floor and conservative Democrats from southern states bolt and form what is probably known as the Dixiecraft Party with Strom Thurmond as his presidential candidate. The Democratic Party is split and it's quite unclear what's going to happen now. What happens is that Truman wins by a Harris breath. And again, without Black support, he never would have been elected to full term as President. Now that's what's happening on sort of the high political stage throughout the 1940s. Let me quickly, Canvas was happening, it's still politics of course, but in the legal arena over this period to help you understand another element of this shift happening in the country on these issues. And what I want to give you is the legal history of Brown v. Board of Education. That's where this is heading up to. The legal history begins at Howard University Law School. I already mentioned before the National Negro, the New Negro Alliance, excuse me, formed in 1933, relied upon law school students and law professors at Howard University Law School to argue its case that eventually becomes the Supreme Court decision in 1930. Got my notes. I'll just guess 37, I'm blanking right now. But the battle begins at Howard University Law School. Excuse me, I lost track for a second. There we go. Charles Houston, the attorney who also spearheads a citizen's campaign for Marion Anderson's concert. He's brought in to head at the law school in the late 1920s to bring it up to fully accredited status. He starts hiring professors of law, some of the great legal jurists of the next 20 and 30 years, 40 years, would actually start at Howard University Law School as professors. And they would train that first cadre of civil rights attorneys, in fact the first civil rights law class in the country was taught at Howard during this period. The most famous student during the period, this early 1930s, is Thurgood Marshall. Thurgood Marshall, a native of Maryland, wanted to go to the University of Maryland School of Law, but by practice blacks would not admit it, so he had to go to, he ended up going to Howard University. And at that very small law school with some very intense faculty goes through sort of a boot camp for several years and comes out with the kind of legalized training with special attention to civil rights cases. Marshall scores his first major court victory along these lines in 1935 in a case called Murray versus Pearson. In this case, a guy named Donald Murray was not allowed to enter the University of Maryland because he was black. Raymond Pearson, the president of the University of Maryland, so it's the student versus the president as far as naming conventions, Murray versus Pearson, said that Murray could obtain separate but equal training at the Princess Anne Academy, also in the state of Maryland. However, the Princess Anne Academy did not offer a legal degree, which is what Murray was actually trying to obtain. Making a long story short Marshall and his mentor are now increasing the colleague, Charles Houston, who's now the head of the Legal Defense Fund at NAACP, argued the case up to the Supreme Court and the court declares that the University of Maryland, because it did not have a separate and equal facility for teaching law, had to let Murray in. Okay, that's 1935. Based on the success of that case, Houston brings Marshall over to NAACP and they start traveling from Southern Courthouse to a Southern Courthouse, Southern Courthouse filing lawsuits for black students and teachers. In 1938, in a case, these are Supreme Court cases, by the way, Gaines v. Canada. Lloyd Gaines is the plaintiff and Canada, who is, I'm missing the first name here, it's the last name of the registrar of the University of Missouri. So the case is called Gaines v. Canada. It's a student versus the registrar of the University of Missouri. The University of Missouri refused to admit Lloyd Gaines, African-American, to its law school, because the school was only for whites. It was common in Missouri for the state to send black students to neighboring states for courses to study, not offered by Missouri's black schools. Since Missouri did not have a separate but equal law school for blacks, the Supreme Court declares that Gaines had to be allowed to attend the University of Missouri law school. So you have, in Murray v. Pearson, there's no separate institution offering a law degree in Maryland, so you have to admit Murray into the school of law. In Gaines v. Canada, University of Missouri, the idea of shipping a student out of state, which is not just a Missouri practice, by the way, a lot of southern states did this, was ruled unconstitutional. The state had to provide state-funded, separate but equal legal facility. Now, I mean, one might ask, why would a state even, you know, provide these fellowships, scholarships to get students to get educated at law school if not in their own state? The thinking was, you got them out of the state, they would stay out of the state. So the South was trying to export black legal, potential legal talent to northern places, mainly, to get that problem out of their state. They'd pay for them to leave. Supreme Court says you can't do it. That's 1938, if I didn't mention that. Houston and Marshall keep plugging away, filing the lawsuits, poking at the system. In 1946, they take on the case of a woman named Ada Cipul. In 1946, Cipul had applied to the University of Oklahoma law school and was denied because of race. And in 1948, the Supreme Court finally rules that Oklahoma had to provide instruction for blacks equal to that of whites. So this is now, they're not following, they're not breaking new ground, they're following a precedent that was there in the Donald v. Murray, bounded by Gaines v. Canada, so they can't ship her out someplace else. So Oklahoma says, all right, well, we're going to comply. We're not going to admit her to our law school, to the white law school, we'll build a law school for her. And so in a few months time, the State of Oklahoma creates the Langston University School of Law, located at the state capitol. Thus requiring further litigation to demonstrate that the law school was inferior to the University of Oklahoma's law school. I mean, the lawyers were claiming, you cannot build a law school in a few months, and it was just done in a few months, designed to educate blacks in the state and suggest that it's even near equal to what the University of Oklahoma's already established law school provides. You don't have the resource, they don't have the access, they don't have the training available to them. So further litigation in Susan in 1949, Oklahoma, the University of Oklahoma decides to admit Sipul, thus breaking the color line for the school of law there. Sipul becomes not just the first black woman or black to integrate the University of Oklahoma law school, she's the first black woman to attend an all white law school in the entire south. The law school admits her and gives her a special chair. Well, that's nice, it seems, right? Well, the chair's marked colored and it's roped off from the rest of the class. She was in the same classroom, but in a roped off section of one. Now as it happens, her classmates and teachers actually welcome her into the classroom. The resistance is coming from someplace else, institutionally or governmentally. Stories abound and Sipul would support this, that students shared their notes with her, studied with her, helped her catch up on material if she happened to miss some of it. Sipul had to eat in a separate section of a separate and chained off and guarded section in the law school cafeteria and white students would crawl under the chain, any with her when the guards weren't around. Her lawsuit and tuition are supported by hundreds of small donations and she would recount later, she believed she owed it to all the people who supported her that she had to make it. Now actually, if you look up on the website, and I imagine one or two might do it right now, even though I hope you don't, at the University of Oklahoma Law School is named for a Sipul now. This is also generational change of another kind of order. In any event, the important thing about all these different cases, these three sort of landmark cases, is they shared some things in common. They're all about law schools. They're all about law schools. Marshall and Houston believed that they had to find test cases that would create the greatest chance of sympathy from judges and eventually Supreme Court justices. And so they fought by bringing to their attention, to the judge's attention, people who wanted to be like them, study the law, and people who, and this is important, and I'll speak more about it on Monday, who were astonishingly good students. They had to be perfect students by bringing incredible students in front of them who are trying to become lawyers.  We need to find some other way around it. So that's one part about it. It's just about access to law schools. Now, what is also probably even more important, not even probably, definitely more important about these legal cases, is that none of them challenged Plessy v. Ferguson. All of them are articulated upon the grounds of, there is no separate but equal institution for these black plaintiffs to attend. In Maryland, in Missouri, in Oklahoma, in each of those cases, they're saying there's no separate but equal institution. Oklahoma tried making one, it wasn't equal enough. It was separate, but not equal. So these, this is a nice and slow and gentle, I mean, according to them, approach to try to break down segregation in higher education. Based on the success they're meeting with the law schools, they start going after graduate schools. So professional schools into graduate schools and then they start, I mean, basically the writing is now on the wall. People see this. They realize the trajectory of these attorneys is heading sort of downward in a sense, hierarchically, and the next battlefield is going to be secondary and primary schools. Southern states recognize this and feverishly start trying to improve black schools, which were horrible. I mean, the statistics are kind of shocking about how poorly funded these schools were. You know, only use textbooks, no transportation. Southern states try, start trying, pouring money into these schools, trying to improve them so they could actually survive a test of separate but equal. But they're so bad they can't catch up. So the attorneys, the NAACP attorneys, start focusing now on elementary and secondary schools and challenging the very principle of segregation and education. That segregation on racial lines was unconstitutional. As they're going around setting up these test cases, there are five cases all happening at the same time that rise to the Supreme Court's attention. The Supreme Court bundles them together for cases in South Carolina, Virginia, Kansas, Delaware and District of Columbia. They bundle them together under Brown, the father of two girls integrating, trying to integrate schools in Topeka, Kansas. This is one case representing many other cases. The Attorney General of the United States actually calls for the end of segregation, but the reasoning is revealing. He wrote that racial discrimination furnishes grist for the communist propaganda mills and it raises doubt even among friendly nations as to the intensity of our devotion to the democratic faith. He's not talking about, hey, we need to educate our citizens. It's like this looks bad on the international scene. It's embarrassing and it's affecting negatively our potential to make change around the world. Cutting to the chase, Brown versus the Board of Education makes it to the Supreme Court and the ruling is offered in May of 1954. Earl Warren, the very new Chief Justice, writes the opinion for unanimous court. This says the separate education of facilities is an inherently unequal. Therefore, we hold that the plaintiffs and others similarly situated from the actions that have been brought up, brought, I mean this is the bundling, are by reason of the segregation complained of, deprived of the equal protection of the laws guaranteed by the 14th Amendment. Separation of the races in facilities is inherently unequal based on equal protection clause in the 14th Amendment. Now, very quickly a few words about Earl Warren himself because it's actually fascinating. He's a, while these cases are being bundled and brought up through the system, he's not the Chief Justice. He's appointed to that position, he's not even on the Supreme Court. He's appointed to that position after the Chief Justice Fred Vinson dies. Someone, jurist, legal historian, thinks he's probably going to go against Brown. Eisenhower now the President of the United States, appoints what others thought a mere politician to the Supreme Court, thus angering other associate justices who thought they were going to be the next Chief Justice. And Warren would actually go on to become a great mediator on the Court using his political skills and becomes on, becomes a great civil rights jurist, someone Eisenhower would call the greatest mistake of his presidency, appointing Warren to the Supreme Court. Now, Warren himself did not have a sterling civil liberties record. In fact, it was pretty horrible. When he's the Attorney General of California in 1942, he led the move to detain and then inter-Japanese-Americans. And as he told a conference of his fellow governors in 1943, his first year as governor of California, if the Japs are released, no one will be able to tell a saboteur from any other Jap. We're now producing approximately half of the ships and airplanes of the country on the Pacific Coast to cripple these industries or the facilities that serve them would be a bloody, a body blow to the war effort. We don't want to have a second Pearl Harbor in California. We don't propose to have the Japs back in California during this war if there is any lawful means of preventing it. This is one of the great civil rights justices speaking before he is elevated to that position. So people doing some basic cycle analysis, armchair cycle analysis saying, Warren is trying, I mean, is horrified in retrospect over what he did in the moment of war, what he felt was right at the time, to deny citizenship rights to so many people, and was trying to sort of cleanse himself. Now there's much more to be said about Brown versus Board of Education, legal court case. But this part is important to know in the sense that Warren comes in out of the blue, it probably changes the future of the decision. If you look at Justice's opinions leading up to Brown, it seemed at best there might be a split in the court, if not a denial. But Warren said, no, we are going to be active, essentially, and it must be unanimous, and he basically browbeat the Associate Justices to line up behind them to offer this ruling. A watershed moment thus closing the door on the constitutionality of separate equal, articulated in Plessy B. Ferguson at the end of the nineteenth century. Now, the Supreme Court says that this is unconstitutional, segregation in education. But how are you going to change it? This is probably one of the most, this may be the most cruel but important part of Brown v. Board of Education is that it's remanded back to local districts to figure out the best play, best way to desegregate. The schools, South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi governors threaten to abolish public schools as a result. What does close all the dam public schools? Because the Supreme Court is only talking about public places of accommodation. A year after Brown is articulated it comes back with what people call as Brown II. When the Supreme Court sends these cases back to the local, since the case is back to the courts of origins and in deference to local customs and familiarity says that these things should proceed with all deliberate speed. One of these wonderfully vague, damningly vague Supreme Court edicts. All deliberate speed. Many people thought like really quickly. Other people thought let's deliberate for a long time. Speed after all is really quite relative. There are many other immediate ramifications or responses to Brown v. Board and it's ruling in 1954 and 55. We began a lecture with one of them with Anna, excuse me, Melwood Beals. As a young girl about to be raped because the Supreme Court had enraged this white father that is going to change the way the world looked for him. We'll talk more about other ways of resistance in high political theater and gothic violence in the wake of Brown v. Board when we pick up on Monday. Thank you.


و أقول في القرآن ما جاءت به آياته فهو الكريم المنزل و أقول قال الله جل جلاله والمصطف الهدي و لا أتأوله باب و التوبة مفتوح الهدوء و تراني بقية الله سبحانه وتعالى و هناك 2 سطوحين where the repentance is closed and you can no longer repent and if you do repent it will not be accepted from you the first one is طلور الشمسي من مغربها the sun rising from the opposite direction and the nafs reaching the collarbone those 2 situations if you repent your repentance will not be accepted other than that the doors of repentance are open and الله سبحانه وتعالى opened it for us بمنه و قراني and he did this because of his generosity and his kindness الله سبحانه وتعالى and الله سبحانه وتعالى he commanded us in the Qur'an to repent he even promised us that if we do repent that he will accept our repentance مهما عظمتي الظنوب however big the sins that we've done it doesn't matter the quantity of sins that you have done الله سبحانه وتعالى is mercy and he's forgiving is bigger than your sins always remember that my beloved brothers and sisters your sins are not as big as the mercy and kindness الله سبحانه وتعالى الله سبحانه وتعالى he said الله سبحانه وتعالى he said turn to him turn to your Lord and surrender to him this is a command from الله سبحانه وتعالى it's we have been commanded to repent we have been commanded to turn back to الله سبحانه وتعالى in another ayah الله تعالى وتعالى he tells us الله سبحانه وتعالى is the one that accepts the repentance of his slave ويعفو عن السيئة and he forgives you for your sins and your shortcomings الله he accepts your repentance his mercy is bigger than your sins also الله سبحانه وتعالى he set us in another verse there is not a person who does any sins oppresses himself go against Allah's commands falls into the prohibitions of Allah سبحانه وتعالى and asks for forgiveness and comes with authentic comes with genuine repentance except that person will find Allah Allah very merciful and kind and forgiving today if you do a crime in this world you've got a criminal record that will stick with you for the rest of your life if you've done a robbery and you go and you apply for a job that criminal record will stick with you forever wherever you go people will watch judge you based on that as for Allah سبحانه وتعالى he forgives you for it when you repent he forgives you for it الله تبارك وتعالى was talking about the nasara in the Qur'an and a great crime that they have committed the Christians they said the concept of trinity لقد كفروا الذين قالوا إن الله وما من إله إلا إله واحد وإن لم ينتهوا عن ما يقولون لا يمثل للذين كفروا منهم عذاب ونقلين آفتنا ودل الله سيد آجي منهم تدوى أفلا يتوبون إلى الله ويستغفرونه والله وصور الرحيم هل لن يتبعون من هذا من this statement of this why should why are they not repenting and shirk is the greatest crime there is no crime greater than committing shirk أن الله تبارك وتعالى is saying to them أفلا يتوبون إلى الله ويستغفرونه والله غفور الرحيم are they not going to repent to Allah are they not going to turn back to Allah سبحانه وتعالى for verily الله تبارك وتعالى is what غفور forgiven رحيم very merciful if الله سبحانه وتعالى is saying that to a people who have committed shirk have gone against the commands of Allah سبحانه وتعالى then what do you think of a person who has done less than that in another ayah الله تبارك وتعالى he talks about the people of the trench أصحاب الأخدود those who built the trench or they built the ditch and what they did is they threw the believers inside that ditch to burn them and Allah سبحانه وتعالى he mentions them in a صورة and in there he says إن الذين فتنوا المؤمنين والمؤمنات ثم لم يتوبوا فلهم عذاب جهن موالخم عذاب حلق those who put the believers men and women they put them through trials and tribulations they have physically hurt and tortured the believers ثم لم يتوبوا and they didn't repent الله تبارك وتعالى they committed these deadly crimes they have done these evil acts and they didn't repent for them is what فلهم عذاب جهن موالخم عذاب الحلق for them is the punishment of the Hellfire so they punished them and burned their skin ألمام الحسن البصري والرحمة الله he said look at Allah's kindness and generosity قتلوا أولياء they killed the allies of Allah و هو يدعوهم إلى التوبة والمغفرة and Allah is calling them to what He's calling them to repentance He's calling them to forgiveness they killed his allies they killed the believing men and women مع ذلك الله تبارك وتعالى is what He's calling them to repentance He's calling them to asking forgiveness يحان وتعالى وولدس القرآن from giving up in repenting الله تبارك وتعالى told us and commanded us not to give up and to always believe that Allah will accept our repentance الله تبارك وتعالى يسالم القرآن قول يا عبادي التي ناصرف على أنفسهم لا تقنطوا من رحمة الله إن الله يغفلوا الدنوبة جميعا إنه هو الغفور الرحيم الله ستقول يا عبادي اصرفوا سيديين من تسرفوا وقاموا باستخدامهم They went outside the boundaries that were set for them قل يا عبادية الذين أصرفوا على أنفسهم They transgressed They went outside the boundaries that were set for them قل يا عبادية الذين أصرفوا على أنفسهم لا تقنطوم الراحمة الله Don't give up on the mercy of your Lord Don't give up on Allah's mercy لا تقنطوم الراحمة الله Never give up Never think to yourself that Allahهو سبحانه وتعالى will forsake you But rather what you should believe is that Allah is there يريد الله أن يتوبع عليكم Allah wants to accept your repentance الله تبارك وتعالى wants to take it from you سبحانه وتعالى قل يا عبادية الذين أصرفوا على أنفسهم لا تقنطوم الراحمة الله إن الله يغفروا جنوبة جميعا الله سبحانه وتعالى تقنطوا جميعا كيف كبيرا كيف كبيرا الله سبحانه وتعالى سوف يتوقف from you عبد الله بن عباس قمت على هذا العبر قال من آية الثائبات الله من التوبة بعد هذا فقد جحد كتاب الله عز و جل عبد الله بن عباس قال anyone who places in the hearts of the people he puts in the people's hearts the feeling of he placed in the people's hearts the feeling of giving up and he says to them with your sins you might as well give up Allah is going to forgive you anyone who places yet in the people's hearts and tells the people guess what I don't think Allah is ever going to forgive you your sins definitely is going to take you to hellfire who do you think you are Allah is going to punish you anyone who places that in the people's heart بعد هذا after this verse قول يا عبادية الذين أصرفوا على أنفسي من التقنط للرحمة الله after this verse فقد جحد كتاب الله عز و جل this person has done جعود to the book of Allah سبحانه وتعالى and جعود it means to disbelieve in the book of Allah our stubbornness يعني this آية is clear و لذلك at the poet he said و مما زادني فخرا وتيها و كتب أخمسي أطأوا فرية دخولية تحت قولك يا عبادي و أنسى يرتاح مدالي نبيا one of the things that Allah has been joy to the person's heart and really makes them happy is when they read this verse قول يا عبادية الذين أصرفوا على أنفسهم is that Allah still referred to us as he slaves he said قول يا عبادي my slave and the attribution here is Allah تبارك وتعالى honoring you ناقة الله Allah is saying my slave he attributed you to himself at a time when you're committing sins at a time when you're transgressing he's saying to you يا عبادي my slave my slave Allah referred to the Prophet صلى الله عليه وسلم as a slave at times of great significance at times of great significance the Prophet was referred to as a slave الله تبارك وتعالى he said سبحان الله الذي أصرى بعبدي the night of Isra and Me'araj a night of great significance Allah referred to the Prophet as a slave when the Quran coming down to the Prophet as a slave Allah referred to him as a slave الحمد لله الذي أنزل على عبد الكتاب و لم يجعل له عي وجاء when the Prophet stood up to give دعوة إلى الله to stand up to give دعوة و أنه لما قام عبد الله يدعوه كاد يكونون عليه لبدا يعني الله رفع to the Prophet as a slave at time momentous time great glorious moments Allah is referring to him as a slave and you committing a sin Allah is referring to you as his slave honouring you at that moment this is to place in your heart hope don't give up your sins إن شاء الله تعالى will be forgiven for you just make sure that you come with its conditions and what is needed from you and to always remember that the doors of repentance is always open and I'll expand on some some issues that need clarification in the episodes to come be with me الله الكريم anything I might have said that was wrong or incorrect is from me الشيطان أنا الله and his messenger are both free from it سبحانك اللهم وبحمدك أشهد أن لا إله إلا الله أستغفروك و أتوب إليه السلام عليكم if you're enjoying these videos and you'd like to keep up to date with all of the courses we're going to be running make sure you head over to amauathome.com


Good day, May 40th here. So I was just listening to an article from New York magazine on Why is everything at Walgreens behind a locked door? and It's talking about the current wave of shoplifting and It had the observation that every booster so apparently a booster is someone who steals on a regular basis then Sends sells the stolen goods to a fence to someone who then sells it usually online and So this observation in the New York magazine article was that every booster All right, it was a drug addict so let's just Save her for argument sake that every booster is a drug addict Then it seems like it would be appropriate to talk about shoplifting and the like they're primarily in terms of sick or You know well that these people are addicts if they weren't dealing from from stores and they'd be doing something else heinous to to feed their habit and so Maybe not looking at things through the moral lens, but looking at things in terms of Sick and healthy versus moral and immoral. Maybe that would be appropriate So normally I'm type of locust looks at shoplifting things. Oh, that's highly moral. That's terrible How can anyone do that? That's immoral but maybe the psychological therapeutic 12-step approach of looking at this kind of behavior as sick versus healthy Maybe maybe there's something to that if that works. All right my my moralistic Judaic Anglo heritage wants to say moral immoral, but if it's if it's more accurate to talk about Second healthy, I mean if it's more useful if that's getting more down to the to the nub of what's going on Then who am I to argue against it? So I had a good night's sleep last night. It is currently those day afternoon January 19th 2023 here in Sydney 416 p.m. And At a good night's sleep last night and I want to explore the Royal National Park Which is a national park about 20 miles south of Sydney. There's about an hour and a half usually by public transport, so Many of the attractions not so easily accessible if you're just going to take public transport down there So I wanted to get down to Otford Which is on the way to Wollongong and it's fairly close to the beach I heard it's a nice 12 kilometer walk to Burning Palm Beach and Anyway, because it was raining and drizzly or morning. There's the electricity went out on the line So our train had to stop at waterfall, which is about five miles shorter Six miles short of Otford. So I've got out there found a trail just started pleasing trails exploring trails and So I got up early I'd left the house before 7 a.m. And I was still like pumping with adrenaline There's like a light drizzle coming down as I'm tackling the open trail about 9 30 a.m And then because I had a good night's sleep It's just kind of interesting to watch the trajectory of my willpower and my thinking so it's kind of a cool day here It's about 63 degrees here. It's about about 18 17 degrees Celsius so As I'm blazing down this unfamiliar trail, there's absolutely no one around hiking I hiked for Two and a half hours before I saw a single person And it was interesting just to see my willpower and the acuity of my thinking just like steadily drop as I became more and more fatigued so for the first 30 to 60 minutes I was like powered by enthusiasm powered by Excitement powered by the unfamiliar here. I am exploring this national park. There's absolutely no one around Am I going to run into a serial killer? And I sent a ping of my location to a family member so that you know, at least they'd know where to find the body And then after about an hour of walking And we're talking terrain that's up and down. It's not just you know walking Uh Notice a little fatigue starting to set in and the excitement level, you know dropping And the willpower kind of dropping and And I noticed that my thinking was no longer in enthusiasm mode. Wow, this is new and exciting and this is brave And I'm blazing a new trail out of waterfall And I had no idea that this is where I'd be today But kind of looking around and you know seeing the bars drop on my phone. So I can't live stream my adventure and the bars dropping on my phone and The fatigue's heading in and the willpower is dropping and dropping and dropping and so that's kind of steadily how it went Through through the morning Then I made made it to a waterfall about 11 a.m And I went to like the edge of the waterfall and I was like, whoa, that's a long way down And there's absolutely no one around. I haven't seen anyone for two hours So I I scoffed down my five protein bars And then I get I noticed like the willpower's coming back And a bit of the old enthusiasm coming back and the thinking's getting sharper and clearer And then I see a suggestion to it to another hike. It's only about three kilometers, but it's labeled hard And everything's wet. All right, it's been drizzling all morning. So I'm kind of pushing my way through this wet vegetation and I've been fired up by my lunch. So you always get more willpower usually after a meal. So I finally pull out my DG Gimbal thingy and start recording videos. There's not enough bars to go live So recording videos and I almost make it down to this watering hall and I see a couple so I start my Streaming start my video recording and put all my stuff away go down to The waterhole and there's a couple and the bloke is from El Salvador Anyway, his parents are El Salvador and his parents and extended family came to Australia in 1989 On refugee status and apparently there's a whole El Salvadoran community in Sydney In the western suburbs and in Brisbane. I didn't know it I didn't think I'd seen an El Salvadoran or a Mexican or Central American during my whole Two months three weeks here in Australia But apparently there's a whole community and he's never Almost never experienced any racism or pushback from from Aussies He's a gym owner He's a gym owner and his girlfriend's a public school teacher. He teaches health. So they're a very fit couple and I you know, they they brought out the goodies like they opened up like sliced oranges and grapes and I was just They said they didn't want to carry it out and uh and went for a swim in the watering hole. So it's like 60 degrees out all right, it's about about 16 degrees Celsius 60 degrees Fahrenheit But I go for a swim in the watering hole because it's just such a classic place Fresh water watering hole And then as they're making their way back apparently civilization is only about an hour away On this new direction. So they asked me how how fast of a Walker are you and boy these two people were fit. I mean I could not keep up I mean they were just blazing trails But here I am back in Kudji and uh On the good side, right? I might stay here in Australia. You know, I haven't been paying for a hotel all right just been Bludging up people. I know the downside is I often have to be out of the out of the unit for like Eight ten hours at a time So I'm waiting for the text that says that I can go back in the unit. I could warm up I can take a hot shower Can get cleaned up because I've been doing all my hiking in my in my thong so Nothing, but we're in thongs the last uh Last week or so just really enjoy kind of the freedom my shoes are really worn out And so the thongs just really enjoy the freedom. So I've been yeah hiking in thongs And it's not so bad, right? Not so bad. It's very pleasant And it's cold here. So look no one is out and about so If it was a warm day, this would be absolutely filled with people because it's summer holidays So most school kids are off from About december 15th until the beginning of february So let me know if there's like too much wind distorting the audio quality and I'll just Wrap it up for today go on a walk about trying to get some warmth back into me and Wait for the text which is I can return to the unit And I can return to feeling like a mensch have that nice hot shower Haven't had a shower today. Did did go for a swim in the watering hole I had been listening to a lot of misha's all podcast so he does the eureka podcast And he's got a really good twitter account eastern european jew lives in sydney 32 years old got two three kids really smart jewish wife Who's that wanted to be jewish like a lot of people and this is his Conversation with with raseeb khan. So the the blogger who specializes in genetics here He's talking about genetics and the history of the jews State in spain and we'll get into that So they show up in the netherlands now Some of the people that went to the netherlands they had connections actually with people in the Ottoman empire So from a chinese perspective, all right all the abrahamic religions must seem really similar.  They might be an atheist.  You got korean, you know christian churches in los angeles and filipino christian churches and You know west african christian churches.  So prior to the 1960s there was a strong pressure in australia and in the united states to assimilate to the dominant mainstream culture And so jews maybe up until the 1950s in australia They often didn't want to be known as jews. They would choose every other euphemism like We're australians of the mosaic persuasion or We're australians that just happened to you know worship in a hebrou temple or What are the israelite, you know Their organizations it would rarely say jewish. They'd be like hebrew this or israelite that or mosaic this So i'm not sure i don't think it was the same way in the united states But in australia up until about the 1960s Most jewish organizations didn't seem to want to go down as jewishers like hebrew mosaic israelite right so When there's a bigger price to pay for not being mainstream Right then people tend to start hiding. Can you hear the the crashing of the ocean waves in the background? Can you hear the the wind is distorting the audio quality in the ottoman empire? So these families the sofatic families had networks all over the place And in much of northwest europe, they were the first jewish communities So the sofatic jews used to be the elite jews So i'm not exactly sure when the ashkenazi jews became the dominant jews I think probably 16th century. So my monadies were sofatic. I believe rashi was sofatic But if you were to to tabulate say that 100 most influential jews of the past Say rabbis of the past 300 years Probably no more than like two of them would be sofatic And yeah, if you were to make a list of the top 100 jews of the past top 100 rabbis of the past 300 years I don't think even one would be miss rachi. So maybe any two Which is about you yusuf would be sofatic 98 99 percent would be ashkenazi You spell their jews. I think the 1250s or something, you know, a lot of us have to do with black death and then also Monarchs were intended, you know that right?  So a lot of the early jewish communities were sofatic So in spain itself there were still crypto jewish communities most of them assimilated So, you know, montaigne the philosopher had partial jewish ancestry So until I got to ucla at age 21 I'd never consciously met a jew but I'd worked with a jew That I find out later in the news department at k high k hill radio And so I'd probably been around other jews But they just never spoke about being jewish because I grew up in these rural areas where There were more homogeneous and so there was less of a celebration of multiculturalism Yeah, I guess paternal grandfather was born a jew Something like that or a conferso family St. Teresa of Avila also came out of a family with conferso origins They were excluded out of large sections of spanish society but allowed in others So the you know the purity of blood rules for spanish mobility and the spanish elite come out of the fact That there were so many confersos and also some mariscos There were certain times in spanish history where it was perfectly fine to be jewish and You know jews could you know mix the highest most elite levels And then times change and jews are persecuted or driven out So There is within christianity and islam like a latent strongly anti- jewish element because If there was an anti- jewish element, then why would you need christianity or islam? All right, obviously you're going to have a new religion But in large part grew out of Judaism All right, you'd have to you know sustain Reasons why you're not jewish why you have developed something beyond Judaism So there is an inherent, you know hostility in christianity in islam, which may or may not be expressed And so depending on circumstances That anti- jewish element can come to the fore Also backgrounds who are coming into spanish society But it looks like from the genetic and the genealogical evidence A lot of these conversos So it's kind of interesting sitting here in australia because if i'd stayed in australia It's highly unlikely i would have ever converted to Judaism because it's you know much less of a possibility in In australia because australia has much more of a homogeneous culture And so the idea of converting to Judaism just wouldn't be on in australia But in america where we celebrate multiculturalism and diversity And also jews are a much more influential and larger part of american life than they are in australian life, so We're talking jews are What about 100,000 200,000 in australia? So we're talking about Way less than 1% of the australian population Is jewish In america jews have comprised up to 3% of the american population So proportionally There are about 20 to 30 times as many jews in united states as there are in australia So jews have 20 to 30 times the influence on the cultural reach economic reach political reach In united states as compared to australia So as i just look around here and i enjoy australia's homogeneous society high levels of social cohesion and social trust I also have to be kind of humbled if i'd stayed here I probably would not have converted to orthodox jews and crypto jews They went disproportionately overseas because the inquisition was weaker in the new world It was weaker in asia and so this is a place where they could go for opportunities so Moving to the united states say from england. I it was about It was about a 20 20 to 30 day voyage Hey, holly good to see you. How are you? So moving the united states from england and say that the 17th 18th century Easier to seek status as a new jew in la than in australia. Yeah Yeah, much easier to convert to jews in united states than i assume would be in australia be kind of unthinkable in australia but moving to the united states from england 17th 18th century it take about 20 days 25 days by sail While sailing to australia it would take 80 to 90 days. It's the tyranny of distance And then when when you started getting faster and faster ships, okay, it'd be the difference between five or 10 days from england to new york versus you know 40 40 days 50 days to to australia So we're much more remote here. It's just enormous Country and so you know the further you have to go right the less likely you are you are to do it That's why so many more immigrants move to the united states other than australia and also with conversion You know the more difficult it is the more challenging it is The more It takes you out of your habitual ways, you know the less likely you are to do it So I think one reason that my conversion stuck As opposed to many comments to judyism is that it's psychologically very amenable to me.  I mean david brook's second wife, right? She converted to judyism.  I don't know, but I know You know women have converted to judyism to marry a jewish man Then after the marriage ends and the children leave home. So after 25 years living living as a jew living As a traditional orthodox jew They will completely walk away from that Because the primary reason they did it was for the marriage and then to raise the kids And they're coherent home then once the kids go and the marriage goes They no longer see no sufficient reason to be jewish Asia and so this is a place where they could go for opportunities Because their opportunities were restricted in spain And I think this is actually analogous to what you would see in europe in the 19th and early 20th centuries When a lot of australian juice left for the west they So there's such a high quality of life here in sydney But if your burner is primarily burning on ambition Right if you want to get away from tall poppy syndrome You want to just be or you can be if you really want to go for the gusto Then the most ambitious australians are very likely to move to the united states The west they left for america they left for england Because their opportunities were restricted like they could only go so far unless they became totally christian right And so there is a fair amount of circumstantial evidence of cultural revivals in parts of the new world Uh in particular villages and domains kind of out of the way like in weird places like in the mountains of ecuador You know, so when jews move say from poland to germany their Judaism changes significantly Right it becomes more assimilated they get more secular education They develop better relations with the non-jews than they Suffered say in poland Uh jews move from germany to england it changes again Usually in a more assimilated direction When jews move from from england then to new york it changes again Uh when they then move from new york to california it moves again So the geography and culture that surround jews or any minority group muslims too i'm sure Right are going to be profoundly affected by the geographic location and the culture in which they Operate so you know la jews are a very different type than say new york jews Right much more assimilated and much less ethnic much less religious Uh compared to new york and new york say compared to Eastern europe All right night and day It's like in the mountains of ecuador, you know, they have so far to jewish practices They didn't know it was so far to jewish practices until you know subject There's no inherent reason why you cannot maintain Judaism in the mountains of ecuador But Judaism is one of those things that can't really practice a line. You have to be part of a community And community needs like a kosher butcher It needs A mikvah so that married women can dip once a month and Before they reunite with their husbands.  Okay, get away from those institutions And you will naturally just start assimilating so The most traditional the most orthodox jews live in melbourne overwhelmingly sydney jews are entirely far more assimilated far more secular So I can listen to someone who is like driven to synagogue And then castigating other jews for not, you know, being sufficiently rigorous about keeping kosher so for for an orthodox synagogue in in los angeles or New york, I mean the idea of like publicly announcing that you drove there to synagogue that just wouldn't be on Because overwhelmingly orthodox jews don't don't drive But sydney is much more assimilated but compared to Brisbane like sydney is traditional. All right, brisbane jews are far more assimilated than sydney jews so The further you get from traditional community traditional communal institutions like the more likely you are to assimilate Also, jewish tourists or anthropologists or scholars showed up. They're like, these are clearly jewish practice And then you get the dna and the genetics are like, yeah, these people are about like 10 to 15 percent so far to jewish Like they're meant for the end of you write about colombians and how they've had with that So people aren't also just their genetics. So you can take, you know, pure ashkenazi genetics Transfer transfer those people to aquador and the Judaism is going to steadily diminish and you know, they're going to intermarry and The genetics will be changed by the new culture and environment that they're in So falashian jews from Ethiopia, right?   See jews aren't racist. Israel's not racist. Zionism isn't racist We just discovered celebrated imported 120 000 African jews and uh Falashian jews haven't generally assimilated into Israeli life They seem to have all the same problems that african-americans have in america All right, they listen to rap music. They have high rates of crime low rates of educational attainment Very high rates of poverty enormous rates of living off government assistance not exactly breaking academic and cognitive records So overwhelming leaf lashian jews from Ethiopia haven't assimilated into israel Don't usually marry regular, you know ashkenazi israelis So you take ashkenazi jews and falashian jews, especially nothing in common But there are your largest words of like rural columbia that are like 10 percent jewish or or something like that Which is amazing when i was in um costa rica, um, and i um, yeah I went to the to the local ashkenazi synagogue kind of kind of curiosity and it's actually a beautiful synagogue in san jose and you know, I went to um to dinner with some of these families homes and You know, they've got very uh, you know, they're very well aware of that dynamic in costa rica They're called maranos in costa rica. We have these kind of So michael fermento. Wow what a adventurous and torturous path that he's been on like a downward spiral in the past 15 years he moved to columbia and he's I think he's jewish by genetics but doesn't Doesn't seem it doesn't practice much judeism and but he went went to a synagogue in columbia and They someone invited him home just kind of as an obligation, but he felt very You know disconnected from the the jewish community there so When people, you know extend hospitality to you by by obligation you can't Can't really expect any further bonds to develop from that. Crypto Jews basically go costa rica and doing the same things I imagine the stories replicated across the the latin and the last world and the new world I was just reading a book fire and blood by um, uh ferenabracha I'm probably just pronouncing his name, which is the story about uh, you know, the history of mexico basically And he talks about the inquisition waning waxing waning in terms of strength in in mexico Depending and there was one event with some privilege you jewish noble family Were a little bit too aggressive with their, you know, pro-jewish Prostitutizing and they basically burned him in the square As a result, but that was kind of the exception to the rule I think attempt Yeah, so if an individual's christianity waxes or if they're Islamic identity waxes, and they're more likely to have negative views of outgroups All right, and so when there was christian fervor and there was a minority jewish The individual you know celebrating their Judaism. Yeah, that's not going to go over to I mean you see this with with gays who are really into their gay identity That they have all sorts of derogatory terms for street people Be a lot more a lot more relaxed. I think I remember reading with the portuguese I was surprised at the number of um conversos among the conquistadors as well I think the gamma from memory was uh, was a jewish convert and the like so you're kind of seeing this Both in terms of all the conquistadors launching and the everyone kind of trying to find, you know A new home is seeing probably disproportionate number of uh, so someone who converted to Judaism And just empathizing then with with these uh jews who converted to christianity There is something of a sense when you convert of Being homeless in two cans, right? You haven't like fully established yourself in your new identity But you've largely lost your old identity. So Many of the people that I grew up with You know, they found it horrifying when I converted to Judaism and just like completely ended you know that that relationship and You then step into this new world of Judaism And it will be a reflection of your psychology So if you're like a self-doubting person if you're an anxious person if you have a lot of tendencies to fear And you want to do I really fit in here? Does anyone like me? Does anyone care for me? Do I belong? So yeah, I've had some of that when I was going through those down periods of my thinking You know just express a selfies of being my Jewish identity and As I uh, whined to my therapist one day about synagogue. I said Sometimes I sit there and wonder does anyone you know care for me? And he had the greatest rejoinder said would you do you care for anyone there? So when I'm happy in myself and I feel like I've been going in a good direction in my life And I naturally tend to care about other people and you know fear and anxiety Concern about my identity tend to tend to diminish but when I'm like struggling in life Then you know the fear and the anxiety comes to the fore and caring about other people no longer seems to Be be a high concern, but when I when I'm happy, you know when I'm feeling good that I'm naturally Concerned about other people and I naturally want to be helpful and generous and kind Which then helps me to connect with other people and build those identities and connections and you know a sense of community So yeah, I see Outside of me what's going on inside of me. I've converted converted Jews following the expulsion Yeah, yeah, I mean, you know they went where opportunity was and where they could make the most of their talent So you know hindsight this all makes sense, but yeah, I mean that's true for people generally We go where there's opportunity We grow towards the sunlight we grow towards what gives us attention What gives us a feeling that we're doing something that we're good at like, why do I live stream? I feel like I'm good at it. I enjoy like the repartee with the chat You know otherwise I could be pumping weights right now or they're working on my internet commerce business or Their marketing or we do what we're good at we grow in the direction of our talents So we have genetic talents And then we have often instigating events in life that make us realize. Hey, you know, I'm really good at this I really enjoy this and so we just do more and more of it So why do people do what they do? Because they're good at it and they enjoy it and their opportunities are The issue is as I think allude to it in my sarcastic piece, you know, some Western anthropologists in the 20th century were like Oh, well, you know, this is actually because they don't like being indigenous And they want to like, you know identify a source of ancestry. That's pure. So yes So like what they're saying like I think a lot of Jews will find this funny Then like some in parts of latin america. It's like if you're jewish that means you have no indigenous or african ancestry Yeah, you're pure with blood Yeah Yeah, status status that's that's like The great driver of people that gets the like the least attention in polite conversation Like who is going to come out and admit how much they strive for status And who's going to come out and admit that they're choosing clothing choosing friends and choosing work Choosing accommodations They're choosing a car They're choosing hobbies They're choosing books that they're reading choosing podcasts choosing political affiliations Uh newspaper magazine subscriptions in large part based on their desire to achieve a certain status But uh very few people can be open and honest about how much driving The status dominates their lives, but it's an inherent part of life You know, and so and like that might be true But uh now the genetics actually does confirm that they do have jewish ancestry. So it's not just made up, you know So, um, there was a period of the 20th century where if you read the scholarly literature, they're like, oh, these are this is obviously just Fabulism, uh partly driven by like just myth-making and mythology and it's not just purely myth-making mythology There's like a real kernel of deep truth there that there were just proportioned number of sub-artic jewish people that So what's interesting is to discover like what what is sacred to you You know, it may not be obvious And so you'll you'll find out what's sacred to you by what gets you upset So for example black lives matter and support for black lives matter, you know, that gets me upset So this is surfing blouse. No, I like long sleeve t-shirts. So that's what this is. It's a long sleeve t-shirt. So I often notice You know, I live in LA and often It's a little too cool to just wear a t-shirt But it is too warm To wear a sweater. So what do you wear when the temperature is say between 62 and 70 degrees like I do not like being cold Like I would rather be a couple of degrees too warm than to be cold So I find like a long sleeve t-shirt just essential So when I'm working in office buildings, all right, they've got let's say they've got the thermostat at 70 degrees or something Just wearing a dress shirt. I feel cold. So A dress shirt and a very classy long sleeve t-shirt like this I think is just the Just the clothing statement I want to make to achieve, you know, the appropriate level of social status so It's hard to find a really classy long sleeve t-shirt A lot of them don't look good, but I think this is No, I think this is kind of Kind of flattering it, you know demonstrates the the tremendous physical brute strength that lies just underneath this Shear fabric. So I think it's sending out the right message Well, that went to the new world and we're involved in the spanish and portuguese colonial efforts and also You know, as I mentioned on my piece about safari jews, uh, they've been in north america You know, they've been the united states of america the greatest country in the world, you know But uh, uh since 1650, you know, okay, so when he says here Look for fishing shirts, mate. Okay. Thanks for the tip So when he says united states of america greatest country in the world, all right, he's not talking spiritually or morally Culturally he's talking just in terms of brute power Now america is the most dominant country financially militarily culturally Right, just in terms of brute power United states has been like the greatest country in the world Many decades. So united states effectively became the richest country in the world in the 1880s And it effectively became the most dominant military power in the world after 1945 Culturally america also became the most dominant cultural power after probably the 1940s So germany was the most dominant cultural power up until about 1932 Germany was also the dominant academic power in the world until about 1932 After 1940s america's being the dominant power in the world culturally And in terms of academia almost all the world's greatest universities are in the united states The dutch period a safari jews have and they were the dominant jewish community During the revolution they're the jewish community That created the first synagogues the george washington addressed in terms of like, you know praising them for their religion and their beliefs And saying that they're welcome in this country the tolerant country They were the dominant jewish community culturally probably up until like the 1860s or 70s at the earliest Even though german jews, you know jews from europe central europe german jews because like the eastern european jews really didn't come until later Were probably numerically dominated by the 1840s. So far the jews like amelazarus who wrote the poem that's associated with Statue of Liberty And then also david yuli was a senator i believe from florida and then jude p benjamin i think you Okay chat says paper clips might have helped paper clips might have helped what? What do you want me to do with the paper clips, mate? Louisiana, uh, you know, I think one of them was half safari. The other one's full safari in the 1850s These are the most these are the first political jews in the united states in terms of jewish men of politics Right, and they're safari jews.  So we do that which we're good at we do that which we excel at we You know we wield power when we have the power when we don't have power We're just a tiny Tiny tiny minority then you know, we're not going to try to throw weight around politically Same with muslims when muslims are less than two percent of the population Of a country they're not they don't tend to be politically active or politically disruptive but as the percentage of the population climbs then Then these minority groups start becoming much more assertive. So there's never been a country Where jews comprise say five percent of the population or more and the country just hasn't been torn into By uh, quote unquote anti-semitism or just simply group conflict Because when jews can comprise say five percent or more of a population then they can effectively form a nation within a nation So too with muslims whenever muslims attain five percent Or more of a given population Then there's tremendous cultural conflict because muslims then form a nation within a nation and they become increasingly assertive So tiny defenseless group does not tend to be Assertive, but when you have a growing group that starts to dominate whole communities It will become much more assertive and distinctive End of politics right and there's so far to jews. Uh, then we have supreme court justice Benjamin Cardoso in the 20th century We think in the united states of like, you know jews and judaism as like germany poland russia eastern europe And that's demographically true, but so far to jews. We're here early and the further back you go The more they are a thing in terms of like the history of jews in the united states It's um, it's fine. Just in the way early a week.  It's like If you take say the most influential the most famous the highest achieving the richest 100 jews of the 20th century You'd find that 98 percent would be ashkenazi And just in the way early we talked about this kind of safari jews Going to morocco and absorbing the ancient jews of morocco in a similar way You've kind of got a story about safari jews being on the ascendancy in say new york and in the u.s And then ashkenazi coming in and kind of just culturally You know dominating you see this they're waxing and waning across the across the world in different And so that's not a uniform story. So what I find Really interesting about your your pieces. Um, you know a lot of jewish Ascendancy is basic basically comes down to hitching, you know the wagon What's the translation of which word mate? Which word do you want to an ascendant? People at the time so they send it with the ottomans and then You know the kind of ottoman jews descendant with the ottoman kind of empire and then jews happen to be In in brazil and then made their way to new amsterdam and now new york and happened to kind of arise with an ascendant us and then it kind of works the other way where you've got You know forgotten jewish communities that basically disappeared in the east because they they failed to kind of You know ride those currents And so do you want to kind of Pay a picture of that the kind of ascendancy and then the kind of disappearance of various jewish communities Which are kind of which people don't focus on as much Yeah, well, I mean so for example the islamic world obviously had a lot of jews before 1956 I think uh, you know a lot of the expulsion state to the 50s, you know at whatnot So these jewish communities for you know before Probably I mean before 1500 almost certainly the majority of the jews in the world lived in either spain Or the islamic world the vast majority, right? So these were communities that had certain status and they also as I said earlier So they served as go-betweens up until about like a thousand a day or so There's this friday night jewish community those probably originally based on a version So I'm thinking about nathan coughness's depot hypothesis used to explain jewish influence So much of its high average jewish IQ part of it is geography Part of it perhaps is a particular temperament that there are some personality types that are more likely to achieve success in the world And then I think a large part of jewish influence would be that they're located in the united states So united states is the dominant great power in the world And so jews in the united states they are they are going to punch above their weight in terms of World cultural economic Influence because they're part of the most powerful nation in the world So jews are particularly concentrated in new york city Which is I often had talked about as the greatest city in the world So if you're a large substantial part of the greatest city in the world You're very likely to punch above your weight in terms of economic cultural and political influence Their trade networks went all the way from idli into china And so you know during the period the high tide of islam Jews were you know, we would call them a subaltern community But they had a role and as demies they were protected even once if they paid tax And so obviously they were subject to periodic persecution But in general they were tolerated and they used that toleration to their you know benefit Whereas you know europe in the early middle ages the late dark ages Let's say between like 750 and 1100 or so was kind of a backwater early So ashkenazi jews really only developed in the past thousand years So we don't have any evidence of like ashkenazi jews 2000 years ago But I think most recent theories is that some jewish traders moved from iraq to idli and then they reproduced with italian women And And then they moved north into germany so ashkenazi means I think from From germany But that's that's the like the origins but they only came to It's a prominent starting in about the 13th century and by By the 15th century the majority of ashkenazi jews Which were in europe for earning their living via white collar means which is absolutely extraordinary A hundred or so was kind of a backwater Ashkenazi jews they were doing their thing, but really they're only important in hindsight You know rashi's he's brilliant, but if ashkenazi had not become like 80 90 percent of the world's jewelry by the 20th century I don't think rashi would be as important, you know, honestly as compared to some other rabbis What's fascinating that oh whoops, so maybe rashi was ashkenazi not safari, sorry My mind is is a towering figure in Judaism obviously and he's safari And he and so which which I didn't fully appreciate I think yeah, yeah so jewish descent used to be Patrilineal through the father in ancient times And then in all the chaos around 2000 years ago with the romans the two wars with the romans A lot of jewish women got raped and so the town muted rabbis changed jewish descent to matrilineal But apparently 2,500 3,000 years ago was patrilineal Then during times of rape mass rape of jewish women Jewish descent was changed to matrilineal through through the mother So you're jewish if you're born of jewish mother or if you convert through An established Orthodox Jewish local, which is what I did Yeah, yeah, and so he he was you know his own his whole life story was about decline also So, you know, uh, the Sephardic golden age, you know the ornament of the world Actually, it was you know earlier. It wasn't it wasn't in 1492 like by then There'd always already been waves of massive persecution of mass-conforced conversions a century earlier The jewish community of 1492 was rough. It was a rough community A lot of people were already conversos were already like, you know, descended from jews So I often get the question what does Judaism say about X and Judaism says so many different things about X Okay, so certain time period is just patrilineal descent And then a different time period is matrilineal descent Then we get the rise of reformed Judaism in the past 200 years which uh Which uh went back to Either patrilineal or matrilineal descent So either of your parents is jewish then your jewish is according to their reform conception So like doctrine the messiah, you know all sorts of different You know perspectives within the jewish tradition of how jews produce a systematic theology like the Protestants So Judaism was approximately 3 000 years old before it produced its first work of systematic theology Which was the 13 principles of jewish faith according to my monotheists So christians were already killing each other over systematic theology in the in the first 200 years So right from the birth of christianity they were producing systematic theology In the first 300 years of christianity like all sorts of different creeds Judaism was approximately 3 000 years old before it produced a systematic theology and then it's largely been ignored Right jews almost never talk about theology.  So there are various rabbis who are propounded systematic theological concepts Just doesn't hold any weight Our Judaism is practice. So when christians talk about God, they talk about it God in terms of systematic theology When jews talk about God, they'll talk about God in terms of stories And you know, it's really really brilliant phase Was near the end of the Umea caliphate of spain of the 900s into 1000s There are some persecutions of some of the typhus states these Islamic principalities But one thing about like, you know, political fragmentation is there's opportunities for groups like jews that are escaping persecution There's always like some place that will like take you right and so there's a period of philosophical inquiry engagement with the outside world So that's one thing about the Sephardi jews that uh, no, there's not always a place that someone will take you such as during the 1930s, right?  They were engaged with muslims with christians in these islamic states And so they were So during periods where the outside world is friendly and amenable to jews jews are going to be much more likely to Engage with the outside world when the outside world is hateful towards jews jews will turn with them And so they were part of the culture of iberia as opposed to simply like a sealed off ghetto culture Which to be frank is what the ashtonazi were for most of their history in northern europe And so as someone like mama 90s, uh, he introduced aristotelian thought, you know into the mainstream of jewish thought And theology and that's because he himself was educated as a man of the world and not just a jew You know, he was he was a child of alato Okay, the unit is open. I can go take a hot shower and feel like a mensch again. Bye. Bye