Welcome to the British Library and to Feminist Loose Ends. This is the event that marks the end of the library's big exhibition Unfinished Business, The Fight for Women's Rights. And we're going to have a discussion of that marathon piece of work, along with a sharing of two very exciting new books on that subject. I'm B Rollat of the Cultural Events team. Let's meet the panel. First of all, I'd like to introduce you to Polly Russell, Hi Polly. Polly's head of the Eccles Centre for America's Studies at the British Library, but she's here in her capacity as the lead curator of the exhibition. So she's going to kick off her curatorial boots and tell us what it was really like. You might also know her from her History Cook column in the FT, great piece in the current FT magazine, and she also presents on BBC Two's Back in Time. So Food and Feminism. What else is there, Polly? Next is Raphia. Hello, Raphia. Raphia Zakaria is a lawyer, human rights activist and author of, among other things, Against White Feminism. This isn't the real cover. The real cover is very much more beautiful because it's a review copy. The actual book comes out in the UK on the 9th of September and we're putting a pre-order link onto the platform so that you can pre-order the book now. Raphia is currently a research scholar at the Colin Powell Centre for Civic Leadership at City College, New York. We're also joined by Alison Phipps. Alison's been a scholar, activist in the movement Against Sexual Violence for over 15 years. She's currently Professor of Gender Studies at Sussex University, but soon to be moving to Newcastle University to be Professor of Sociology. So I'm glad to catch you in between and she takes a talk about this book, Her New Work, Me Not You, The Trouble with Mainstream Feminism. We're also going to be hearing later on from writer Shelly Mitchell of The Outsiders Project, more on her soon. But first, Polly, can I come to you? What is Unfinished Business? What is the exhibition? So Unfinished Business, thanks so much. This is just wonderful to be able to talk about the exhibition with you and Raphia and Alison. I'm really excited to have a conversation because what this exhibition is about is a landmark exhibition at the British Library, which was trying to connect the current moment of feminist activism and engagement with women's history with a longer history of that. And because it's trying to tell a really big story, it's really ambitious, it's slightly different from other exhibitions that have taken place in this kind of subject area where they've tended to focus in on, for instance, women in suffrage or women in work or a specific area of a women's rights story. This is trying to tell a big ambitious story and so because of that, there are of course gaps. I think of it like a mosaic in a way. You could rearrange this story in different ways, you could tell it in different ways. It's not definitive, but it's a kind of invitation into a big conversation and that's what we wanted to do. And from the very start, from the get-go, there were some sort of concepts which were sort of at the core of the way we were thinking, although lots of it changed in our three years of planning, a couple of things really... Three years! Three years, three long years, and another year if you add on the Covid chaos. So yeah, it's been a long time. But one of the things that was kind of central to our conceptual thinking was this idea that there never has been and there never will be one sort of woman, that what it means to be a woman has always been contested, it's meant different things, experiences of varied, experiences of progress, but also experiences of oppression and freedoms take place at different times for different women. So this was never going to be a kind of chronological story or a positivist story, which is just of progress, but it's a version of a story that you could tell it in different ways, but the point is it's about a kind of complexity. The second thing is that for space reasons, we had to focus on the UK and kind of 19th century onwards, we would love to have told a story which was much more able to tell a story of the world, because this is not just the UK story of course, but because of Britain's colonial links and also links of slavery, we were able, and also the British Library's collections, we were able to draw in stories that connect to the rest of the world. So it is sort of UK in a broad sense of that. It's got 150 objects in it, that was selected from a long list of probably about 700, which was torturous to choose. That is horrible. It sounds like picking your favourite kid. It was like choosing a favourite. In fact, choosing a favourite kid will be easier, I think. I know because I've got three. And we organised this massive story into three sort of overarching sections, body, mind and voice, in recognition that those are the areas over which women have historically and continue to struggle for agency and freedom and the sort of right to live a fully realised life. And then each of those sections is broken down into three more. So there's nine sections altogether. So for sake of argument, the body section splits into image, biology and autonomy.  So for instance, in the section on protest and partnership, we have women for refugee women. In the sectional work, we have United Voices of the World Union in biology. We have Bloody Good Period, who campaigned for periods, the end period poverty. And we asked each of them to curate their own cases so that they were telling their own stories of their own activism. It's very much a myriad entity, isn't it? When you go in, and apologies for anybody that's not in London, but when you enter it, and there are two more weeks of the exhibition, the first thing you meet is a sort of mix of voices and that's deliberate, isn't it? Yeah, we really wanted the, we did not want it to be kind of mausoleum-like and sort of reverential as a space. We wanted it to be loud, colourful, disruptive, joyful, but we wanted people to feel angry and happy in a sense to kind of reflect the story that we were trying to tell as well. So it really is quite kind of in your face in terms of sound and also in terms of what you see as well. That's right. And I should also add there are two more weeks to see it. It's free on Tuesdays if you're in London Town, but for viewers that are joining us by the Living Knowledge Network, which is the British Library's friends and relatives around the country, there is also a travelling version that continues on beyond the end of the exhibition, so it does have an onwards life. Because how does it fail, Polly, to bring something together that is so precious? It's such a snapshot and to know that it comes apart again. Well, I don't even, I haven't got a metaphor for it yet for what it feels like. It's been an amazing project to work on, we've worked with some fantastic partners, amazing, an amazing advisory board of sort of academic citizen researchers, activists. As you say, it's the work in the library, the kind of exhibition in the library is just kind of one part of that work, so it is a kind of centerpiece, but then there's the Living Knowledge Network, which went out to 22 libraries across the UK where they, we sent them panels and then they supplemented them with their own kind of exhibitions and events that were related to their own kind of areas, events and histories. We've done an amazing website with digitizing objects from the exhibition and then telling all sorts of kind of histories and stories around that from like the history of women in cycling to disability, activism to so many different working parts and then of course the pandemic hit. What was the impact of that and also what did that mean in terms of the relevance of the exhibition? Yeah, it's a really, I think it's been really interesting.  It's been, it's not just the pandemic, it was changing even before the pandemic, you know, so three years ago, four years ago is a different, it's a different country to today. If you think about some issues, I mean I'd say something like when we started, for instance, there was a much less historical attention around trans issues than there is now. On the other hand, I think people, a broad audience are more accepting and understanding of trans issues now, so you know that's just one example of how the landscape has changed. So this is, you know, there's never going to be finished business, that was a good thing about doing this exhibition. It was always unfinished, it was always in flux, but it's absolutely true that COVID, you know, it closed down the exhibition, so it closed us down in one sense, but it absolutely thrust into the limelight many of the issues that the exhibition is trying to highlight and the issues of kind of structural inequality, a recognition that, you know, freedoms are never, never have been experienced equally and, you know, everyone will know that COVID impacted disproportionately on women because they bear the burden of care work and domestic work and precarious jobs, and that that especially impacted on women of colour for who are more likely to work in that sector. And then, so we had COVID and then at the same time, you know, Black Lives Matter also heightened this recognition of taking into the need, the imperative to take into account Black Lives and diverse lives as a kind of absolute insistence on that. And so it feels to me like since we reopened, audiences have come in a sense with more open minds or perhaps more of a sense of the urgency of the issues that are being discussed in the exhibition. And how do you, I mean, how do you actually see that as a shifting dynamic? How then do you see the role of feminism in the public domain? Is it a snapshot or is it a process? Yeah, I mean, I really, really want to hear what Rafaia and Alison have to say about this because it seems to me that both of them have really talked to you in just a moment. Absolutely about feminism in the public realm, you know, and their work is like deep analysis and then also kind of solutions and how we can think about moving forward. So I don't want to talk about the role of feminism. I'll talk about our role and a case study, which I think is unfinished business. And, you know, I think it's really crucial to think about who needs to come to the table to do public culture. And in the case of unfinished business, you know, that was a mixture of our internal teams, expertise within, you know, on the marketing or exhibition teams or curatorial teams, but then also working with, you know, advisors, you know, people who could campaigners, nonprofits, citizen researchers. So it's kind of bringing into that conversation as many people and voices as possible. You know, it absolutely came out of a commitment to gender equality, to highlighting structural inequalities and a kind of commitment to women. But it was very much shaped by an idea of public culture, both shaping, shaping debate, but debate shaping public culture. And I think in the way that feminism makes you live your life differently, it makes you think about history differently, it makes you do curation differently as well. And I think it's unsettled for us or forced us up against to get any idea that, you know, the curator or the library as the expert is the definitive answer into something. Actually, it requires us to kind of give up and seed space for different stories and to let the subjects of history speak for themselves and to allow for sort of different and divergent views. So I think that's what we've tried to do. And I think I want to turn now to Raffia, if I may, Raffia. Polly's just explained the reasoning behind why the exhibition was limited to the UK facing history of women's rights, but you're in your book, which I just want to bring up on screen again, against white feminism. You're very emphatic about the need to look outside of European and American perspective. Can you tell us why did you write the book? Here's my book. Sorry for being muted and thank you B and Polly for giving me the chance to be included in the discussion. And I think be your question about why I ask, you know, or why I make such an emphatic case for that feminism is to be found elsewhere is because as someone who grew up in Karachi in Pakistan, you know, I received a very patchy and contested version of my own history. So I think when I grew up and as a scholar, the decolonizing work that is essential for, you know, millions of people like myself women, especially to recover their own history is to provide them with the access to, you know, the sort of epistemic collection that the British library represents.  But before we, before I go any further, I wanted to point out why I find Polly's perspective so interesting. My book against white feminism begins with the story of a different exhibition. You know, and it looks, that exhibition in particular is the World's Fair of 1893. That was, that took place in Chicago. And this is a time when women did not, women American women did not yet have the vote. And the sort of startling thing that happened or the kind of curveball that came to these women was that the men who were leading the Columbian exhibit exposition said for the first time that there could be a special exhibit devoted just to women. And this was going to be called the Women's Building. And so began the task of this board of women, the lady managers, they were called, and their effort to sort of encapsulate and then present, you know, what the achievements and the skills and talents of American women were. And the point, of course, being to show to America and to the rest of the world just how modern the country was and how forward looking it was. But of course, you know, if you look in the story of that exhibition, I'll just move on to like how it ended up, what ended up being the result of this exhibition. First of all, there were tremendous squabbles here, right? Within figuring out what represents America, this question of what represents America. And now, even though Black women had been freed by this time, they were no longer slaves, they ended up almost being completely erased from this building that had thousands.  These are thousands and thousands of different things that were in this exhibition. It was a pure battle, wasn't there, in the running of it? Oh, there was a tremendous battle in the running of it.  But then there were budget cuts, and this woman's job was one of the jobs that was cut. So you ended up at back at square one where, you know, once again, there was nobody to curate these exhibits, and that was then used as a reason to leave out those exhibits, right? So in the end, there were no, and so I begin with this story so that if a Black woman, a contemporary Black woman, or a woman like me, a brown woman from the subcontinent, tries to look for herself in the story of this world's fair. Black women would have to look in the Haiti Pavilion because that's where African-American activist Ida B. Wells was told to be, and she was distributing a pamphlet called Why the Coloured American is Not in the World's Fair of 1893. And if there was a woman like me, we would be found in this sort of human zoo that had been created, you know, which had exhibits from South Asia, it had exhibits from Africa, and the people, the brown women or the Black men, were told to sort of enact the most sort of exotic and savage version that existed in the American mind. So, you know, on the back of one souvenir book, if someone went to this exhibition at the World's Fair, was that they could rank the women in order of beauty, the women of this pavilion, so they could literally go stare at these women and then rank them, you know, based on what they thought were women that were pleasing to look at. And I begin with this, this story because it's a question of, you know, how much have we managed to change the narrative? And, of course, it's very, very, it's very hopeful to hear, you know, both UB and especially Polly and the effort that went into this exhibition. But the question, of course, is that, you know, women like me are still not able to control the story of of our own telling. Even as I sit here, you know, we were talking earlier about where I was and I mentioned that I was in Indiana. And here in Indiana, at this very moment, there are pending, there is pending legislation that would ban books like mine because what this book tries to do is to tell the story of feminism through the perspectives of the men who were erased from the story of feminism. And by that definition, it belongs to, you know, a category of books that teach critical race theory. And critical race theory right now is in the process of being banned in at least 20 legislatures in the United States. So, so this is an embattled book from, from the get go. And of course, it's not just the United States, you know, while this book is being published in the UK, you know, I expect it will not be published, for instance, in France, where critical race theory is once again being banned, you know, with the sort of tacit approval of the Macron administration. So, so this is an embattled topic because the question is how do I get back the epistemic material that made up my history?  I have not seen 700 objects about women in the subcontinent back when I was in the subcontinent. Because, like I said, you know, the other, the other woman that stars in the first few chapters of this book is Gertrude Bell, for instance. What did Gertrude Bell do? Well, one of the things she did is that she dug up a good part of the Middle East, got all of those artifacts, and took them to the UK.  Yeah. There's a key phrase that lets out there, and it's about controlling the narrative. And I think that's a really important theme throughout your book. And one of the areas I was really excited and interested by was your study of NGOs, of global NGOs, and of international journalism. Can you tell us a bit about that, about empowerment and wood-burning stoves and this theme of controlling a narrative? Could you talk to that, please? Right.  But of course the problem is that within these NGOs, within the politics of the boards of these NGOs, within the understanding of how campaigns are structured, it is entirely focused towards the donors and the consumers of these campaigns. And the donors... I'm sorry to burst in, but I'm just conscious of the time limits that we've got. And there's some such powerful examples of it. I wonder if you could give one that illuminates. I think one powerful example that you definitely should take away from this is, you know, deals with the war in Afghanistan. And it involved a journalist who went to Afghanistan and she had no background in Afghanistan, but she was sent there by the New York Times. And one of the things that she did is that she learned that the Taliban had banned schools. And when she found out that there was a secret school that was being run by certain people in Afghanistan, which were who were hiding from the Taliban. So she goes to this secret school and what she does is she hides a camera and with this camera, this hidden camera, she essentially takes pictures from inside the secret school. These pictures are then published in the New York Times and this woman wins a Pulitzer eventually for her work in Afghanistan. So all of this happens without a single person asking the question of, oh my god, you gave away the identities of people who were running a secret school. What on earth would happen to them once their identities are outed? Nobody asked this question. And I'll stop with just this. That in itself is completely unethical and a bad journalism, but the wider framework is what you're illuminating with the missing part being that it's the people who are in that story that should be describing the narrative and that's the point that comes again and again. Yes, and there are different sort of arguments that are used to cover it up in that okay well I'm giving this news to the Americans and that's what they're interested in or I'm presenting this exhibit to the French or the British and that's what they're interested in. But the cumulative result of all of those sort of individual concessions that are made by people in power is that you have a situation in which brown and black women are at the front lines fighting all the feminist battles. I mean the secret schools after all were being run by Afghan women and but there are nowhere in the narrative so it's sort of you know an all encapsulating narrative of white and western supremacy and nobility, particularly moral nobility and you go around the world searching for what bits and pieces of news can be used to bolster that idea, bolster this idea of at first colonial benevolence and now sort of aid-centered benevolence in that you know first we save the world by sort of you know giving people the railroads and the English language or whatever and now we're saving the world by giving them food aid. We're burning stoves. Right oh yeah and stoves please. But I'm conscious of the time running by and there is some there's a part of the but well much of it's very personal you've put yourself in it and there's a point where you reflect on conversations with women where you felt the pressure to talk about performative sexuality to kind of prove that you're not on a oppressed Muslim woman. I just found that so striking and I wondered if you wouldn't mind reading out that that short section. I think I don't I don't have that that that section pulled up in front of me but I do want to speak about this idea of performing you know whether it's a kind of a sex positive image of sexual liberation or whether it is performing this idea of that I'm one with the gang you know I'm not I'm not going to say anything that's going to make white people look bad in a very pointed sense and you know I mean and that just that just comes from the ranking of cultures where white and western cultures are at the top they're most sexually liberated and hence empowered because that's the equation that if you're sexually liberated that's the sum total of empowerment and you're not subject to the sort of dark and medieval type of ideas that per pervade other cultures and the other cultures are always cultures that are formerly colonized and yes and so if you are going to play with the big girls it is very much considered that you know that I should say oh you know if people are talking about all you know the bad date they had over the weekend that I'm going to chime in and give a story of my own somehow or or or talk about you know various sort of the various ideas of sexual intimacy I mean that's all part for the course because it's part of performing whiteness I mean the point the largest point of this book is that in order to be considered feminist in the world today I have to perform whiteness I have to adopt the language the means the content of conversations the epistemology the narrative of a white woman and that's how I have to present myself and also what's happening there that that sense that you have to sort of prove your credentials and prove you right because I'm almost a woman I'm not wearing a hijab but I have in the past and the issue just really becomes is that everything I do is an interpretation for what my politics might be so if I'm not wearing the hijab then I'm you know I have a greater chance of being a the the cool Muslim that's not sort of a concern with issues of spirituality or covering my hair or whatnot and and then you know I can go further and talk about how sexually liberated I am and that's going to get get me even more points in terms of like my my efforts to become white essentially and you know the the book is just about the fact that this has got to stop feminism is in a dire place is is is at a crossroads I would say in the world today a lot of black and brown women are are absolutely aware of everything that I've just said but have no means of escaping that they have no means of establishing I mean two white women without sort of saying that the white women who are doing the work of reaching out are somehow um you know disingenuous so um so that so so that's what we've got and it's uh I mean I would say with a very particular and specific appeal to the British Library because it has the capacity far far more than probably any other institution at which I will present this book to change this narrative and to provide you know people who are doing this decolonizing work with this with the spotlight that in the past has been afforded to narratives of colonization that are based on you know retaining this sort of glorified version of history um you know I think borders and divisions can be erased I mean we're having this virtual conversation from we are there's there's there's so much to unpack here Raffi and I'm very very sorry to jump in but so many things that you've said speak to what Allison is also writing about feminism's in a bad place this has to stop Allison's book me not you the trouble with mainstream feminism does go to some really uncomfortable places Allison it's I'm going to just jump right into some of the really chunky stuff um prison as angry dad now I've read a little bit about castle feminism from Lola Femi and and how that informs the feminist debate prison as angry dad can you can you tell us what that means Allison sure um I mean I think this refers to the relationship that white feminists have with the patriarchal system so we know it oppresses us but we want it to protect us anyway so this is kind of a macro version of what Susan Griffin called the patriarchal protection racket which is the threat of stranger rape that pushes us into the arms of our husbands or our fathers or the other family members who are more likely to abuse us um and at macro levels this protection racket mainly targets bourgeois white women so our fear of sexual violence which shapes our behaviour and makes this kind of docile subject of capitalism drives us into the arms of the castle state and it enables other kinds of violence in the service of capitalist accumulation so protecting white women has enabled violence against colonised and enslaved men it justifies contemporary border regimes and it legitimates the criminal punishment system that kind of puts away unwanted populations so angry dad is the system and we have a relationship with the system which sort of replicates an abusive heteronormative family dad might be scary but we're dependent on him as well and I think white feminists can be quite infantilised in our relationship with the castle state and that's something that we need to understand and sort of work on it does need work um I notice that you really annoyed the daily male with this idea not that that's hard to do but um for people that aren't familiar and haven't read into into some of these ideas and you pick on a really good example there was legislation um Raphael I don't know if you've heard about this but a couple of years ago there was attempted legislation around something called upskirting where people put a phone up your skirt and you know when I know I've got teenage girls it's rife in secondary schools and for people were like yeah make it a crime this is terrible they should face consequences and yet you you're sort of subverting that entire instinct aren't you but it's a very hard thing for people to let go it's very hard and I think we saw that as well after the murder of Sarah Everard didn't we you know who was raped and murdered by a policeman but still kind of mainstream white feminists were calling for more power to the castle state for street harassment to be made a crime for misogyny to become a hate crime and it's almost like we kind of can't let go of this idea that safety means the castle state we're so deeply attached to it and I think that's what the book tries to do it tries to sort of go underneath and explore where those some of those attachments come from and of course as white feminists we've always been kind of very deeply attached to white supremacy that was that was connected to my next question question which is can you talk about feminists and the far right yeah I mean in the book in in chapter six I basically talk about trans exclusionary and anti-sex worker feminism I want to kind of distinguish between anti-sex work feminism and anti-sex worker feminism because I think you can have a critique of the sex industry which I do but still be very much pro kind of sex workers rights and in chapter six of the book I kind of explore how these these types of feminisms tend to come together and they exacerbate kind of what I call the political whiteness of feminism which is to do with not only centering the experiences and narratives of white women but also a kind of deeply threatened kind of positionality which is very much about the victimised body which is always kind of implicitly coded as white and a will to power which we kind of find quite easy to notice in white men but in white yeah well I mean we can we can see very easily how white men you know in powerful positions or reactionary white men kind of exercise this will to power but we don't notice it as much in white feminism and I think that's because in white feminism it's exercised by proxy through the punitive power of the state and I argue that in trans-exclusionary and anti-sex work feminism these kind of dynamics become quite extreme and they become so extreme that anti trans feminists in particular are prepared to ally themselves with far right groups to kind of promote that anti trans agenda and we've seen this very much in the UK but also over in the US as well with groups such as kind of hands across the aisle and I think white women have always been prepared to ally ourselves with authoritarian white men while our own interests are at stake you know look at our role in colonialism and empire as Rafia talks about in her book and as you cover in the exhibition Polly look at all the white men who white women sorry who voted for Trump and perhaps to ally with these authoritarian men they have to suppress the knowledge that these men are not their friends and will abuse them themselves kind of given half a chance that the anti trans feminism in particular seems so single-minded in its kind of focus at the moment I mean I do wonder as well if this is really about keeping all the others out because you mentioned the Daily Mail and I was kind of castigated in the Daily Mail by trans-exclusionary feminists about my abolitionist stance or my prison abolitionist stance and in that they kind of expressed horror at ideas that have been expressed by black feminists for almost two centuries if not longer so I do notice it when they said them well I don't know I'm sure they did notice it but there's something about kind of that horror that just arose and I don't know whether it was because a fellow white woman was saying it or because I'm a trans-inclusive feminist and it kind of all got caught up together but I do wonder if the single-minded obsession with trans women is really about keeping all the others out because of course the idea of real womanhood is a deeply colonial project which was used to oppress enslaved women colonised women as the science of sex and the science of race were co-constructed as you say very much in one your book roughly but also in the unfinished business book which is marvellous so I think this really is a border control project. I'm going to add though that to that trans rights the heat of the well just the heat around it is is curiously geographical in that it just isn't happening in other parts of the world so it's very white-centric in comparison to say India. Yes yeah I mean there have been recent recent discussions in India where some prominent kind of quite privileged feminists have made anti-trans statements and but the the kind of lines and I'm not an expert on this but the lines of kind of demographics seem to be going in in a similar way in that it's the feminist the more privileged end of the spectrum who are more likely to be anti-trans and certainly in the UK and I think in the US as well it's very much been a white and middle class project because I think I think it was something you said right at the beginning Polly you know there is no one kind of real woman there are many different kinds of women and I think that if you are part of a group that already recognizes that then the trans you know the trans issue becomes somewhat different you know I mean the people who are able to feel comfortable with the idea of real womanhood are people like me you know white middle class. Examining those responses and understanding why they are there's a very brilliant piece by the writer science writer Angela Saini in Prospect at the moment on this exact theme and she examines this this this inability to respond as as perhaps being culturally determined to the extent that you know we find it hard to accept what we've never seen she says yeah there's one thing that I wanted to pick up on I found your book really exciting because sometimes you're writing about whiteness and you're being it and sometimes that's really uncomfortable for you and for the reader and it's just like oh so naturally the uncomfortable bit is the one I want you to read there's a section on it in early on in the book would you would you mind sharing that with us please. Of course sure okay I'm ambivalent about writing about whiteness I'm concerned as some readers might also be that in critiquing whiteness from within I'm trying to absolve myself of my own I'm worried that I'm trying to be one of the good white people who perform what feminist scholar Sara Ahmed calls a whiteness that is anxious about itself and see that as anti-racist action and deep down that might be the case whiteness is wily white supremacy is so embedded in our psychies that we end up doing it even while we claim and believe it is what we oppose you are entitled even invited to make up your own minds about my motivations but regardless of why you think I've written it I hope you find something in this book of value and if not I'm happy to be told I'm wrong knowledge is always partial and we learn through dialogue with one another we do and can I just ask where are all the royalties from the book going oh they're all going to projects focused on sexual violence which are led by black women and I've already been able to make some donations which is lovely well from plastic well keep buying it everybody please do buy these books on on the platform here you can also submit your questions via the platform if there's any questions you'd like to put to my brilliant panel I want to move on now to a very special performance we're going to take the personal and the political all the way with a performance from the writer Shelly Mitchell Shelly went through rehab 10 times got clean in 2016 it's fair to say she is not afraid to put her own life on the page and since 2019 she's been performing with an organization called the Outsiders Project they're an arts organization that was set up to show that people who have been sidelined from society can write perform and create work of outstanding quality and worth Shelly Mitchell reads her poem Spenser and the Stairs Spenser and the stairs in the only Jamaican pub in Luton you stood among the cannabis smoke pork you had you look like a short chaff version of Jimi Hendrix you asked about a pound and I knew I had to have you you stood a foot shorter and 20 years older than me you winked and said I'm not afraid of heights although the smallest person in the room in my mind he became the largest but heights didn't matter that night on the stairs in the higher-ice flats even two steps up you towered over me I didn't see it coming my face connected with the bottom of your Dr Martins you made animal noises I made out the words slutt my legs gave way first but it was the crack of my jaw and the concrete that vibrated throughout the tower rock I lay motionless a trick I'd learned I lay rid of the pain and held it close I tasted rust and blood but I laid perfectly still I sensed your face next to mine before I smelt the rum and anger I hoped you still loved me fear and pistol by nostrils and my head cried blood over the stone steps the floor began to shift in soft waves beneath my eight stone body your footsteps faded away after a parting gift to a kick to the face my eyes stayed shut I drifted time flew like water and I remember no more hospital nights rise me from unconsciousness my secrets hidden well beneath my black eyes I tried to make jokes with the nurses but the only punchline was my fat swollen face I find an abandoned wheelchair away from the doctors and make my way to a payphone I hold my breath until you answer and then I tell you I'm sorry writer Shelly Mitchell reading her poems Spencer and The Stairs and Shelly is part of the outside of the project so many massive questions flow from this reading the first of which is around violence and even a deeper internalized violence which means that the writer apologizes at the end. Alison can you respond to this in the context of your many years working around understanding of sexual violence? Sure I mean I think that's incredibly moving that piece incredibly affecting I almost feel I don't you know I don't have anything to say yet I haven't kind of managed to formulate anything yet but of course that is an incredibly common dynamic that somebody wants to describe sexual violence to me as a process by which somebody else puts their hate inside you and I think that that is a really good kind of description for how it can make you feel and how deep the shame can go and you know at the end when Shelly says sorry I was almost waiting for that to happen because that is so so common. One of the other questions that comes out of this for me is the question of class and when we talk about the evolution of white feminism self-centering feminism corporate feminism savanna feminism all of these things towards intersectionality this is a missing and very elusive part of the debate. Rafiq is that something that you can respond to? Yes and in my book I do you know speak at length about the redistributive aspects that are essential within a sort of revived feminism that is more staunchly and more significantly focused on you know on on on solidarity. So yes I see that but at the same time you know like to me as a brown woman when I when I see what you know when I when I heard her poem and how poignantly it was expressed I also think about the women that I've worked with in you know I've been a lawyer at a domestic violence shelter and you know and the added burden that my black and brown clients who were at the shelter faced in that they felt that their case of of domestic violence and abuse was not going to be it was it was almost like on one hand it was the issue of their own safety right and and getting the police to listen to them and their own credibility but on the other hand it was like almost like a substantiation of a larger societal prejudice that black and brown men are responsible for all the violence particularly intimate partner violence in society and what you know Allison talked about in terms of you know this the protection of white women and I think that that is an important thing to consider even where we consider the the passage of legislation relating to sexual violence sexual assault to prevent certain prevent sexual assault we you know we there's no provision for the fact that for a particular victim the same law might mean something quite different from you know from from what it might mean for a white woman um and I think that's a very valid point but I do want to stick to the idea of class because class is something that you know does does travel across races as well and Polly is there anything that you wanted to add into that debate at this point I mean clearly uh Rathia and Allison have got firsthand experience of working with domestic abuse uh survivors and I I don't so you know to speak to that poem is really hard for me and I found it find it very affecting I suppose this kind of the only things you know I would say about the kind of quest for the intersection of class and and race is that they're not you know they're not necessarily they're not in competition with one another they're they're they're in conversation and they're structuring one another is how I would understand in fact I'd look I suppose to Lucy Dilap's recent book Feminism's a Global History where she talks about um the necessity to sort of look at charting our sort of passionate painful strategic coalitions but also contestations and differences across racial and class lines so it's not to and and that seems to me to be really important and in the exhibition I I you know I hope we paid attention to and again I say all the time it is not the definitive exhibition there are things we could have done differently there are other stories to tell but to try and pay attention to some of those complicated intersections I think yes and Raffia to return to the point you made about about say for example victim the victim of assault being treated completely differently from the get-go and through the judicial process is completely valid the question I was kind of driving at around classes is more on the sort of representational front and I'll share Alison very interestingly when I invited you onto this panel you said I don't do all white panels and you know that's a really positive action um how would theoretically though how would one extend that idea to you know how fantastic if it's a fully diverse panel but can you prove that the people that are there aren't all got PPEs from Oxford got the you know descended from Rajasthani royalty whatever it may be what question would you even ask what I'm driving at is it's so much harder the class yeah so much harder so much harder and you know I mean I say I don't do all white panels that's something I've made a choice to do because I I can't go around banging on about white feminism and then be somebody that that doesn't all white panel it's not to criticize that I just no no no extend on it of course yeah but it's I mean I know it's a very imperfect I mean Rafi as you say in your book it's not about representation and you can't kind of run every event saying I'll have one of those and one of those and one of those and one of those you know I mean that would just be pointless so I think I I don't know what the answer would be to extend it apart from to just think about it as as much as you as you possibly can and of course if you're if you're speaking about a subject then certainly make sure that you have people who have experience of that subject whether that's kind of class inequality or sexual violence or sex work or or whatever um but yeah it's it's very difficult and representation is not the answer is it um it's it goes deeper than that it's about the ideas which is the point that rafia makes about controlling the narrative and who's the person yes rafia I want to add that what I'm talking about is you know and towards the end of the book I deal very particularly be with your question and that is is that in our current framework we have an inordinate emphasis on recognition or representation rather and no emphasis on redistribution and the fact is is that both of those are essential if we are really looking at creating a feminism that is about justice so that you know justice cannot just be about me being I don't do all my panels either um but uh but it cannot just be about having me or any other brown or black person on a panel it has to be thicker than that even as a philosophical concept it has to have a dimension of redistribution and that requires uh sort of making state policies intersectional in terms not just of who they put up and who's represented but also in terms of who gets what and that is sort of I mean you know it seems kind of an idealistic far away goal at this point but that is you know the ultimate sort of end for these these uncomfortable conversations that we're trying to have the best of intentions about about these issues about the erasure about silencing about not being on a certain kind of panel and not being a certain kind of curator so ultimately you know it's going to have to be more than that sort of very thin idea of tokenism or thin idea of representation it has to be more um some questions are coming in there's one for you Alison and I'm gonna and apologies to the questioner Francis um but we're very short on time so I'm just gonna say can you answer this one really quickly but it's someone who challenges the idea or questions the idea that feminists who are concerned about trans activists are not necessarily opposed or anti-trans can you can you address that is a complex debate and the questioner points out it doesn't help to point the finger at other feminists in a public place can you can you answer that sure um I mean I don't is that a question or is that just a comment for me um what's the question what's the question have you talked one to one with feminists trans people or non-binary people who are concerned about the trans activists of course of course I mean I do think there's a there's a big difference between having a conversation about difficult issues and having this very toxic debate which tends to be playing out in the mainstream media mostly the right wing media and social media about trans issues I mean what I would say is that to have a conversation you have to kind of start from a place of mutual respect and in the debate as it is playing out online I don't see much respect coming forth for trans people's identities and trans people's rights um I would also say that the platforms that prominent trans exclusionary feminists are now kind of being published in the Daily Mail, The Spectator, The Times, Unheard, Spiked um are not platforms that I would give any credence to in terms of having a constructive conversation so I'm happy to have a conversation with anyone who wants to have one with me about any issues within feminism and actually I recently wrote a letter on my blog to gender critical feminists there you go check out check out the blog everybody take it out check it out there's another question Rafia I'd like to direct this one to you please and it's from Cara Cruikshank who asks about the situation of women in Afghanistan with the troop withdrawal um what ideas or vision can can can support these women Rafia you know wow that that's a tough question but it's a timely one you know just yesterday I was looking at an interview that Gloria Steinem gave in November 2001 when the US was marching into Afghanistan and you know she expressed hope that the US would you know somehow be able to produce peace and produce democracy in Afghanistan and of course we've all seen the seen the result of that and you know I think that in terms of what can be done I think nothing can be done until white feminists recognize that supporting the war in Afghanistan and imagining this top-down feminism through which you are going to bomb this country and suddenly it was going to become feminist is an utterly bankrupt idea and it's a lethal idea and and and and also recognize that when interventions like that happen no matter the the noble intentions that might precede them the result of of it is is always the same which is that you completely annihilate local feminisms indigenous feminisms and you completely you know make the idea of empowerment uh sort of entangled with bombings and entangled with neocolonial domination and that's where I've gone very contested term in your book isn't it actually I wonder if then if I may you know condense what you've just said into an answer for for our for our audience member read afghan women rather than other people writing about them perhaps is that something you'd in terms of a recommendation uh I think the recommendation needs to be to unravel this idea that you can take feminism and export it to other countries uh I I think even the idea of read afghan women has kind of been I don't know um it's it's been misused within the american context by you know all sorts of american women going over there and then saying well we're telling their stories when really they're telling the store their own story um so so I would say um you know pushing to this idea of of of knowing that you can never you can never export feminism which currently I would say is white upper middle class feminism western feminism to you know whether it's afghan women or any other sort of women um that idea like let's just put it to rest and bury it today well you can start by buying the books everybody in the audience for sure and there's one more question and polly I'm going to give it to you and then we're going to say goodbye because we're almost out of time it's a really easy one polly how do we achieve feminist goals practically when we have to operate within a patriarchal state you can do that in a minute polly I'll tell you well here's one way for you Barney, Raffia and Alison's books because they are fantastic pieces of intervention challenge and they are practical they are full of brilliant examples uh they are yeah fantastic so I've that there's a place to start I think to know that it's the longest revolution to coin Juliet and Mitchell we're chipping away at the granite hard face of patriarchal capitalism um there's been progress there's been some progress for some women but I think when you think about as Alison and Raffia makes so clear when you look at intersectionality it's much harder to make that claim with racism so rife so to think about the progress is that some women have made but many women haven't and to think about you know where is where does the work need to be done where does the conversation need to be had keep moving keep chipping away and I'll say welcome time by these books come to the exhibition if you possibly can um and thank you for joining this free British Library event if you feel like donating to the British Library it's right here on the platform and we're also very happy to hear feedback about what you liked what you didn't like what you'd like to hear more of please do get in touch last of all huge thanks to my brilliant panel Polly Russell, Raffia Zakaria and Alison Phipps also Shelly Mitchell thank you very much from the Outsiders Project and my lovely producer Jonah Albert see you all next time bye


All right, good morning cyber traders welcome on back here this Tuesday July 5th great to see all of us live inside the cyber group room Grant Chuck we had laid it just before dev You heard of Mike Nina Henry mark and mark had a nice trade on the Yes, QQQ earlier right mark markets are falling off at least heading into the market open today Great to see all this just on social media as well Facebook live and YouTube quick little housekeeping notes begin folks Especially for those of us not in cyber group here I'd be mentioned this inside our live trading room before we started this meeting But Fausto was out all week. He had mentioned that you know at Friday at the end of last week He's on vacation with his family.  So, you know, I look forward to it There is a lot to you know talk about here for this morning and not so much in terms of the overall activity Actually a little bit quite the opposite. So, you know to begin a little free game for all of us on social media You know, I actually talk a lot more about this in our phase two stock course. I did this probably two cycles ago I talked about this exact point So we're coming off July 4th. I hope everybody enjoyed the July 4th weekend for those that celebrated for those that You know celebrated Canada day. I hope you had fun on Canada day on Friday for anyone else in the respective countries That celebrated their independence. I hope you had fun Now that said though, we know we knew going into the end of last week that things Weren't going to be as active and surprisingly enough it provided a better opportunity than we expected You don't want to have higher expectations on a day like the day before for which July weekend Well coming off of the three-day weekend or even four-day weekend Perhaps it's to say that, you know, a lot of us are antsy a lot of us are looking to get back into the Routine, you know, a lot of us here whether you're in the trading room or not a lot of us are trading full time You're here most days out of the week. If not most hours out of the day Especially with Monday being off. I'm sure everyone's antsy to get back into, you know, trading mode back into their normal routine Let's yank the leash a little bit folks. Let's yank the leash because you know, that's where I say We're not gonna expect to see as much volume or volatility Coming off of what July weekend, right? So, you know, everyone's excited to get back I personally am, you know, just with the day off yesterday. I didn't know what to do No, I had a couple of barbecues, obviously, but just being so out of routine I wanted to get back into the saddle today, you know, right back into the trading room this morning But I only charted Neo you're heading into the market open. That's it Maybe I'll chart UVXY if the markets continue to fall off UVXY VIX ETF Which is pushing up really nicely right now up over 5% so far. So, you know, granted there could be opportunity today Don't get me wrong But let's not force anything out there folks I know a lot of us are here most hours out of the day, which means you're gonna be available to try and trade Always think, you know, what gives me personally the best opportunity to make money I mean, you should always be thinking that at every point throughout, you know, the market day But even coming or especially coming off of a holiday weekend just on a slower week slower day I would even think more of that. So, you know, I'll take what I can get but I'm not gonna look to, you know Force anything out there.  So that's a good, you know reason to take a break from trading anyway and just attend our live webinar inside the cyber group room for all There, you don't need to click any links Especially to any of our new trial members joining us here inside our live trading room right now If you could hear my voice inside our live trading room, stay right there. You have access at 11 o'clock Eastern time this morning So if you have any questions specifically for, you know, what we do in an insider trading room Any of our call outs anything that you've seen from, you know The trading room as long as you've been in it email Let me know any questions that you have and we're gonna break all these questions down as a group Coming up at 11 o'clock Eastern time and perhaps we'll cover a couple of the moves that we'll be calling out once the market does open But again today being Tuesday, we do have our trader stock workshop lined up for 11 o'clock Eastern time this morning All right, so with that in mind folks Let's just go right from top to bottom here one of our new members Kevin and it had called out Lyt I just asked, you know, innocently earlier. Hey, let's take a look at the stock and it was a good call And right after I turned to it it really started to make a strong push So it's not just that it moved up as to why it was a good call But Kevin called it out like really like right here when it was beginning to make the push So it was worthy being called out It was trading a lot of volume at that point probably around like half a million shares Maybe a little bit more at that point in the morning So that's definitely enough for us to look at as a potential stock to watch for this morning So ever since that call out well, it had pushed up pretty nicely, right? So I'm gonna put this on our list to begin But I'll repeat what I had mentioned to Kevin here just earlier inside our live trading room And the move that we had on Friday with this stock was a good You know example of that when the volume dies off normally, so does the stock, right? Once the volume peaked and started to decline That's when the momentum died off on this uptrend and with that this thing just fell apart So history normally has a tendency to repeat itself not all the time but a good amount of the time So, you know just be wary of that heading into the market open here heading into after the opening bell So could call for right now. Hopefully there's a lot more left to this trade given that I mean, hey just back last week on Tuesday it ended up or Wednesday It was it ended up dropping off like 88% it was a crazy move from like, you know 45 Bucks all the way down to like four three bucks. I think it was All right, so this goes on our list looks pretty good now as we go to the top of the gainers list for right now We have the RBCN trade here at like 69 Should be good on social media for all this live inside the trading room Let me know if you can hear me loud and clear For all this social media a quick moment here. I do apologize. We'll get everything up and running in just a moment I feel like this is becoming a daily So a quick moment just setting things up for all of them inside the live trading room. All right folks We should be good now. Let me know if you can hear me loud and clear inside the live trading room Unfortunately, this is becoming a tradition now Deb says garbled mark says cutting in and out still I may have to just work with this folks. So I'll post the list coming up pretty shortly I do apologize for that Just give me a quick moment and we'll run down this list quickly and then I'll post the list for all this I do apologize, but RBCN here for right now It's a buyout the news out on the stock is a buyout So, you know, the interesting part about this is that this stock was listed as a buyout at $20 per share It's like 16 bucks 15 50 now even so that seems it leaves me I think that there's a chance that this could continue to a small degree after the open Don't hold your breath waiting for 20 Because Milton just wrote in the in the chat board earlier Now is the part that I didn't mention at first, but mark wrote the news earlier on the stock It's a buyout an acquisition, but it's for 45% stake of the company as Milton S wrote inside our live trading room So, you know, I'm still sketchy about putting this on our watch list probably as sketchy as my audio is right now But let's see what else is moving out there folks We have a bunch of cheapies on the top the gainer side for right now I normally look to skip over these so unless many of these are really making like You know great looking push on the chart. Let me know But we'll try and sit down this list here pretty quickly. Just give them the tech issues OCFT I had on our pre-market list listen I knew going into the pre-market things were slow, right? There was nothing out there at 8 o'clock There was nothing out there at 8 15 8 20 Well with this it's beginning to push up a small amount after like 8 15 it flattened out There's a chance for this to pop. I mean, it's up 12 13 percent You know in pre-market this morning, so it's more of a level one stock the OCFT trade I'll put on our watch list here, but I'm not like super thrilled about it I need to see a lot more out of this trade in order for me to like actually be a lot more interested at this point Same to be said for blue apron. Unfortunately, this one had pulled back I'd called this out right around that 8 20 time when it had broken over a 450 But with that it ran up volume started to die off as you can see there Well, you know, hey, it's still like relatively active. It's up 11 percent It is like kind of starting to drop off a small amount You know, I'll put this on our list again I'm not like drooling over it right now The thing about this trade that I do like is that it is a potential short squeeze type of stock If the stars could align the stock took a huge hit back from mid last year end of last year But even more so I mean since it's IPO this thing has just been dropping and dropping So, you know should the stars align maybe this could really get you know make a nice push But you don't want to rely only on hope right markets have been dropping off so far in pre-market So, you know, we're not gonna say that about too many of these trades that are on the gainer side right now Cold natural gas ETF, you know, it's up a little bit. I'm not really too particular about the ETFs Unless they're showing really good direction. So with that, I mean, hey I'll be more inclined to focus on UVXY out of all of them this morning up over 5% VIX ETF It's on a great trend. This, you know, we know at least has great liquidity Now hey, if you don't have book map, I wouldn't suggest for you to trade this Even if you do have book map if you're not used to trading this, I would rather look at LYT I'd rather look at just, you know, maybe one of your side list stocks if you could short it But otherwise though, this is you know, pretty active in pre-market here up, you know 5% or more. It's at the highs on a good direction. So with the markets dropping off This could be a better day to at least follow SQQQ or UVXY at least So with that, let me hop on over to the losers list I would show the spy chart here too, but I know that would freeze up my platform a small amount with the tech issue Early this morning. I just wanted to make sure I could expedite this meeting here QNRX, this thing is cheap. It was down big. I just wanted to look at it But I should have looked at the price here. This thing we're not gonna trade Let's see anything else. She's a lot of stuff hard to borrow on my platform Damn near everything was hard to borrow from trade station this morning. So it looks like they actually Took their stretching off a lot of these trades really so I'm just trying to sift through these Really briefly here just to see if there's anything that's down big. That's more of a familiar name Deutsche Bank. Yes, but Deutsche Bank doesn't really trade well as a day trade Mark says M tech moving on pre-market news perfect. This looks great right on the top of our watch list This goes it doesn't mean it's guaranteed to continue But on a day like today where we don't have much to begin with, you know I've seen this pop after nine o'clock a beautiful move. It's more of like a Level two stock we'll call it for right now could even be level one But you want to see more volume on this trade because volume promotes volatility So you really want to make sure this can get a good squeeze at least once the market does open So the news out on M tech I'll briefly just copy and paste from Benzinga For all this YouTube and Facebook live and all this inside the trading room M tech shares trading higher after they announced purchase order from Spacel or space cell for the development of a video recording streaming and imaging processing solution So that doesn't really lead us too much, you know exactly aside from the headline there I'll just copy and paste that for all this in YouTube All right should be good one more time for all this inside the live trading room geez I haven't had that two times in a row like that one day. So M tech is out saying briefly Hey, this right away goes on our list Hopefully this will look to continue once the market does open But otherwise again as we just kind of continue through the loser side as the markets were fallen off In pre-market, maybe we could just check out some sideless stocks. Otherwise, like Neo AMC the airlines or cruise lines Actually to begin really briefly. I saw a CCL down over four and a half percent.  I Didn't want to show the spy because I thought that was going to freeze up my chart, but really briefly Really markets having dead cat bounce just yet really no bounce really whatsoever tiny off 376, but that's it You know, hey CCL could be a pretty good trade once the market does open looks like this is making a little bit Of a sharper dead cat bounce for what it's worth Check out my Neo trade nothing too special about Neo here heading into the open. So Now you can say the same about a lot of different trades here like this like AMC Airlines like American Airlines or save which ran really nicely I believe from Friday afternoon Not a whole lot doing on them folks. That's it So these will just remain on our side list. Nothing special about them So, you know, if we happen to see a lot of sell-off once the market does open There could be some great short opportunities But otherwise I would focus on Blue Apron for right now the M tech trade Lyt and the OCFT trade All right, I'm gonna just make sure I'm good to go for all this live inside the trading room Just gonna jump off and actually reset everything so I'm good to go I apologize for all this on social media Facebook and of course for all this live inside the trading room fingers trust Won't have any more tech issues across the week. But again, Fausto is out across this week He's on vacation with his family So I'm gonna be subbing in for him all this week at least for all this on Facebook live and YouTube any questions that you have Feel more than free to send over my way. I just send an email over to Josh at C2 trading calm That's my personal email always like to post that at the end of these streams If you wanted to join us inside our live trading room Feel more than free to do so by going right down to the link on the blue banner below right there to get yourself started But for John for Alex for Grant for Lita Nina and all this just there live Again, just another reminder traders talk is this morning our weekly workshop will continue at 11 o'clock eastern time But hey, hopefully this is just the con before the storm Hopefully a really nice bounce when the market opens But if we don't get that then hey, it could still be a pretty good Uh, you know morning in terms of shorting stacks. So, you know, I just look forward to it I'll talk to all of us coming up here at the opening bell Come a cyber group member today Just click the link below and receive all these amazing products and a world of knowledge for just nine dollars


Chow2 adiox at ZiF67 is a novel nanomedicine designed to deliver oxygen and hydrogen peroxide to cancer cells for enhanced chemo slash chemodynamic therapy. It works by breaking down in the acidic environment of tumors, releasing the fentanyl catalyst Code II Plus and the chemotherapy drug Doxorubicin, DOX, which are then able to penetrate deeper into the tumor. Once inside the tumor, the Code II Plus reacts with water to create hydrogen peroxide, which can then be used to oxidize the Code II Plus to form more toxic hydroxyl radicals. This combination of treatments has been shown to be effective at killing cancer cells while minimizing damage to healthy tissue. This article was authored by Xudao Gao, Yin Jin, Kuan Gu, and others.


Okay, listen, Adriana and that Uber, right there pulling away, I'm gonna tell you right now. I got some stories for you from my Uber driver. What are you doing? What are you doing? Are you painting? Dude, this guy never stops working. Yes, and then we got this. Details, bro. Dude. Details. You're so soft and squishy. Yeah, because it's 97 degrees in here. Okay. Let's use the, really we're painting those. Is that really a thing? Come on, man. Look, look, he's archiving his. The duck camos. The life about, I love it. Oh, here we go. There they are. There's a bird handle. Boom, boom, that one. All right, it's time. It's time. Clef, getting some work done. I like it. Boom. Nice.


This is Think Tech. I'm Jay Fidel. It's 5 p.m. on a given Wednesday. We have we have John David and here from HPU history professor to take us down the path of history to understand things we would not otherwise understand. Welcome to the show. We love having you here, John. Hey, it's good to be here. Thanks for, you know, having me on and yeah, it's good to do a show. You know, we need to do a show now to talk a bit about the elections are over right now. The kind of the political lines have been redrawn and I think it's an interesting time to do a little what I would call contemporary history and actually look. Not so much for historical perspective by going back to the deep past and, you know, drawing lessons from it, but actually look at the last 40 years of politics and look at the way that American political system has shifted over time.  I've seen a lot of history. Okay, when I, you know, I studied the American Revolution, you know, the political crises of the late 18th century, the rise of abolitionism and the battles and the violence that that included the secessionism and the Civil War. And even Abraham Lincoln's interregnum, right, the time, the very long time actually it was actually much longer than today, because of course the President was inaugurated on March 4. Even that was actually, believe it or not, it was the threat of violence hung over that whole thing, a lot more than even what happened in 2021 so because mostly it wasn't violent, there was the violence, of course, on January 16, but other than that it was a lot of lawsuits, right, and a lot of protests. Even, even this is interesting, even the supporters of Lincoln, Lincoln, you know, took this long train trip before he got to Washington DC, he started, I think on February 8, and went to, to Cincinnati and Cleveland and Buffalo and other these, and, and Columbus and all these, all these kind of Midwestern states that had been kind of the bedrock of his support. And he was nearly crushed to death in Buffalo by his adoring crowds. So, sometimes the violence is completely inadvertent. I mean people really, it was actually a stampede in Buffalo and people got hurt in the process so that didn't happen this time around thankfully Joe Biden was not, you know, crushed under the crowds we didn't have crowds because of COVID and because of security concerns so. And I think, you know, a discussion about where we might be headed what this particular time looks like. And what are the changes what are the, what's things. Yeah.  It points up that you know the transfer of power inherent in a democracy is central. It's like they say, you know, Congress and representative government and the capital that's central but, but even more critical to it is the transfer of power peaceful transfer of power.  There's been really no issue about the transfer of power. We really have to look way back to find a time when there was an issue. But reality is this reminds us the whole affair reminds us that we really have to preserve a peaceful transfer power we cannot tolerate what happened on January 6. It's too risky. You know, I personally I felt the bullet whiz by my ear. I think the country felt the bullet whiz by our ear. It could have just as easily gone the wrong way. If anybody had been, you know, assassinated, if they had, in fact, stopped the vote, take it over the capital, or any length of time, our entire system would have been threatened. And really the question is whether it is still threatened by the events that follow. We're not I keep saying we're not out of the woods. Congress is Congress.   And we're going to find next Wednesday that they they exonerate him in that Senate trial that's a five. There's going to be no conviction.  Yes, something that has to be marked in history. Yes, so, you know, I, I'm a little more kind of, I'm not quite so I don't feel quite so negatively about the current situation. Yes, the insurrection could have been much worse. On the other hand, you know, they kind of got what they planned for that there wasn't they clearly wasn't a deep plan to take over the, the, the Congress and the capital was more kind of, you know, primary types and true believers who just kind of on an impulse stormed in there was maybe a little bit of planning there was some, you know, talk about weaponry and stuff but they're you know, they could have done a lot of things to plan this thing so part of me thinks, you know, if that's the best they've got, then they're really not a huge threat to the Republic to the survival of the Republic but, but yes we definitely we have to take it seriously. I think that one of the, you know, the, the long term impact of this because this is, you know, this has never happened before and, and this is going to stay in the political memory of, you know, both Democrats and Republicans so one of the long term impacts I think is that the Republican Party has got a lot of explaining to do for a long time.  But this was beyond politics. As you pointed out this was about the political system itself it was beyond any political issue right it was about the, the sustenance the survivability of the political system and therefore, I think this will stick with Americans and it's going to be quite frankly reflect badly on the Republicans because there's you know the Republican president inside of this mob to this interaction so. So that I think actually in the long run is going to play in the favor of the Democrats. Let me sketch something out for you, Jay. So, but this is what I think has happened in let's take the long, long view and then we can dig into various spots of this and we can talk politics and debate it. The, so the long view is that since the 1980s, the Republicans have been, or let's say conservatives have been dominant in this country. They still compose, you know, they're about 35% of the 34% of the public and liberals are about 26%. So now liberalism has grown in popularity in recent time, but it's still behind conservatives so we've been living with this conservative paradigm for about 40 years. But I would argue that the conservative paradigm has begun, he began to come apart in in George W. Bush's presidency, started to come apart because he mishandled. Well, the whole Iraq war was just a fiasco and we know that you know when he left the White House is his approval ratings were in the range of you know like 25%. So it was, you know, it was a bad moment and of course, what we get then is we get this kind of change candidate out of that and you know in Barack Obama and so what we can say about Obama's Obama, maybe in some ways underperform, maybe early on, when he could have, he had a chance he really had a chance to move the electorate. He didn't move the electorate into the Democratic category as much as he could have because he was maybe a little too conventional. He went to Washington with the goal of kind of okay let's all get along right there's no blue and red there's just Americans.  I like Obama but look, it's not kumbaya there it's about how politics is played and I think, I think Obama kind of he was young he was inexperienced. I saw that inexperience in his attempt. Let me give a specific example. Obama spent, maybe, almost six months trying to convince Republicans that they should sign on to some version of the affordable care app. And he spent six months and lots of political capital believing that that this had to be done in a bipartisan way. What did he get for it. Nothing. You got nothing for it. So they had to in the end they had to do with Democrats only wasted a lot of political capital kind of got behind the eight ball.  It's, it's kind of the value of its exaggerate. And that's not to say that people shouldn't get along. But in politics politics is, it's about leverage. It's about being able to appeal to various, you know, constituencies with your policies. And it's really it's never about saying nice things because, except for an occasional, you know, really brilliant speech, and Obama had a few of those actually. It's, it's really about, you know, what you can get done. It's kind of the art of the doable so so Obama had more. I would compare Obama's opportunity to that of Franklin Roosevelt. And Obama's problem is he was reading books on Abraham Lincoln, not Franklin Roosevelt. Now, Joe Biden, and his administration, they're reading books on Franklin Roosevelt, and I think that's the right choice. I still think that this is a moment where where this is a kind of a Rooseveltian moment where where the electorate can be there's a fungibility in the electorate you talked about a transformative moment but I do think there's a fungibility there's a, there's a softness in in the electorate and I think the electorate can be persuaded to move. And that's what Roosevelt did in the 1930s with his policies. And I think the Democrats still have that chance to make that happen.  I think what's going on is the end of that conservative political system the Reagan type political system, really begin down with Obama. And we see now that I think for a while at least we're going to see some political parity between the parties and that's, that's one thing that has happened in history and political system as well but at least for the moment the Democrats have the upper edge and the upper hand, and if they can, they can embrace this relevant Rooseveltian moment and push forward with policies that appeal to, you know, to working people to social progressives, to environmental progressives that they can push if they're successful with those type of policies then they've got a chance to move a majority of Americans into their category.  I mean what you what you have now is a very strange thing I know you can, you know, you can comment on whether it has existed before but you have one party that wants to serve the public, whether they're, you know, finding best ways to do that or not. It's very clear that they want to serve the public. The other party wants to serve themselves, whatever that is and it's kind of learning tunes right now. They want to perpetuate their power they want to stop the Democrats for any achievement whatsoever. It's a very odd, you know, it's a very odd configuration. And, and I, and I suggest that that in order to go forward and continue on democracy and sort of We, we find ourselves rediscover ourselves and create a new world that works in our democracy. We're going to have to see a big change in the Republican Party that change may be coming. But it may not be coming to me. You know the thing is you take a pathological person. Let's say, let's say Trump, for example. If he gets away with something, it's going to be more than likely that he's going to try it again. So take a pathological party, which is easy to connect the Republicans with with the Trump pathology. And they go and they break into the capital. They don't succeed, but they learn, they learn. And so, you know, you can kind of expect they're going to try this kind of stuff again. Of course, the Democrats can learn to they can learn how to prevent this from happening again. But you have this ongoing tension between the possibility of the pathological result and the result of trying to, you know, correct that. And to me, it's not clear that, you know, that we, the capital is now safe. It's not clear that our elections are still safe. It's not clear that, you know, that we are still safe with all those Second Amendment assault rifles in the street. So I think we're still at a balance point. That's why I was, I was telling you about the Ahus at the top of Montelor. You know, you get to one Ahu for navigation. You don't know where the next one is until you get to the first one. Right. We don't know the success of our democracy here until certain things get done. And one of them has to be right now the next Ahu wherever it is has to be the clarification of the Republican Party because right now it is a total loser. It's all negative. It's all Trump. It's all pathological. And I think the country stands in the balance. I don't know, you know, and Biden is an admirable guy. Initiatives are admirable. His attitude, his kindness, his gentleness, his destructive approach to things admirable. But query can he function in the framework the founders established for when the other side, which is going by definition, have a balance of power with them. I have no intention of cooperating. Now this happened with Obama too. Their approach was trying to stop Obama from achieving anything. He's a black president. We have to show that he doesn't count. And they spent four years doing that and in many ways they succeeded. Now they could do the same thing. And that would really be terrible as far as the person industry is concerned. The one we want to be confident of our government who believes that he is part of it is part of him is serving him and so forth. So I think the next navigational point and the critical one it seems like it's a critical one every day. The critical one is that Republicans have got a shape up. Yeah, so let's talk Republican Party. So yeah, I mean, so you're right. I mean, the Republicans have been the party of no for, you know, for a decade, maybe a little more than a decade and, and, you know, this this refusal to cooperate has not hurt them until now. And now they're, they're going to be hurt if they don't do anything you can see. So, so let's take there's a, there's several things we need to say about the Republican Party but let's just take what's happening right now in the Senate with this, the COVID bill. So the Republicans were really they wanted to destroy this they would have never come forward with with any kind of a counter offer right. They, their, their, their concession speech was in their counter offer. It's like, we need to do something to appeal to people who are really hurting out there so they're making all the kinds of concessions right now. Part of it is that Trump drove the Republican Party in a different direction. Conservative limited government, you know, control over budgets while the Republicans have never had to haven't had control over budgets for, you know, Reagan, and then George W Bush, and now Trump for the last four years. The problem is that the Republican Party has kind of lost some of its values and that kind of core of conservatism has really trumped, really began to tear at that conservatism, because he wanted a government that could, you know, that was very powerful, not a limited government but a very powerful government. And he was willing to, you know, to spend any way that he needed to to kind of to bribe American people into voting for him. So, the Republicans have that's that's problem number one is that their core their core of conservatism is was actually under assault for four years now. You know, Trump spun lies and spun lies so it wasn't always clear but now Trump is not spinning lies and and the Republicans are having a hard time with with you know well we have to, you know, we can't spend money and all of the sudden we can't spend money now that the Democrats are in control but, like I say this this counter proposal indicates that the Republicans are they're on shaky ground in terms of their values. That's one thing I offer another thought on that john. They offered one third of what Biden has been pushing. And it's very clear.  And the 1.9 trillion was not unreasonable. And if it was a little too much so what there are people out there starving huge number of people putting children starving. They come up with one third of what Biden is asking for. And there's no justification. It's like numerology.  They throw the other side, and they throw one third on the wall without any justification or explanation. They're just trying to get you down. And I do not believe I'm sorry I sometimes I want to believe that Susan Collins is okay, but she disappoints me every single time. I think they were just playing, they were playing the Democrats and I give Biden very high marks for blowing that off and saying no, it wasn't sincere I'm not negotiating with you, you're way out of the field of reasonable. So yes, they made an offer, but it was a stinky offer. And if it was an offer that a good lawyer saw, crossing his desk in response to his offer, he would say, take a walk, not too mad, which is exactly what Biden did and good for him. Right, so, and this is what Obama did not do in 2009 right, he should have done this he should have been a little tougher with them. He was not. The other problem that the Republicans have is that the Civil War is commencing within the Republican Party. And they're going to try to hold this line right okay as you as you mentioned as you mentioned before the show. So, you know the Q and on supporter Marjorie Green is she apologized today for her, what she termed her past support for Q and on I don't think that's going to cut it. Now the Republicans, you know, have attacked her, their parts of the Republican Party that think she's fine. You know, so there's a kind of, you know, you, you don't really know exactly how many Republicans are in that camp, but there there is a kind of the kind of the crazy camp of Republicans which is sizable actually it's either a sizable minority might even be in the Republican Party at this point. But so, so you've got this, which is distracting and damaging Republican credibility you've got the Arizona GOP censured their own governor and attorney general. So, so you've got the Republican Party beginning to fight itself. And that's a that's a sure recipe for, you know, splits and and weakness in a party so. Well, what on the last show I think was one of these I think it was the last show I said look one of two things can happen that either the Republicans go down Trump Lane, they continue to go down Trump Lane, and they become a true minority because it's there's some other issues there with Trump that we'll talk about in a second, or people like McConnell decide you know what we got to take back the party from the crazies. And there's going to be war because it's not like Trump is going to go away. It's not like it's the problem is with Trump you can't split the difference. It's his way or no way that's the way he's always been so that's, that's not possible to just kind of say well, we'll be nice to Trump but we're going to be, we're going to return to the kind of normal party of conservatism and, and you know we're just not going to just get ignore this radical segment. The problem is the radical segment is big. Estimated 35% of the voters of American voters think that voter fraud was significant in the last election. Okay, and they're almost all in the Republican Party. And so that's, that's probably 50%, it might be more than 50%. I mean, it might be 70% of Republicans, there have been polls that have shown this. This, this actually matches almost exactly the percentage of Americans who wanted Obama impeach 35%.   So, there's, they're going to have to make a choice here in the beginning, you're beginning to see that choice being made Mitch McConnell I think believes that he can pull the party back together. He can go around the edges, criticize somebody here or there, and then the party comes back together but I think, you know, the Trumps the Trumpers that they're not going to put up with. They're going to go after anybody who opposes them in any way. One is, you know, history always moves forward. I think that we had back Balkan years ago, he's the dean of constitutional law at Yale, and I said to him, can we can we go back to the way it was before Bush. Can we just return, you know, to free Bush day because push push at the time seemed objectionable. Now, which looks like a nice guy. You don't understand it always moves forward. Everything that happens contributes to the stream of I'm familiar with the stream of history going forward. So yeah, Trump is built into our history, right. And January 6 is built into our history. We have to cope with that the country, you know, has it as part of its memory now. This is very this is troubling, because we can't get away from it so quickly and you say that Trump will continue but I'd like to offer you possibilities on it. Number one is Mitch McConnell win, and he exercises from from the party, this will the Republican Party never going to succeed with you. And you're, you know, it's you're always saying Trump or, you know, Trump is Trump is my way or no way. So it's you're a mess and you're creating a problem for me for the party for for the power of the conservative move in the country. So you're out. And he wins. Let's say he went and Trump has to go away at that point. Trump successfully formed the Patriot Patriot Party. And I wanted to ask you about this since that came up because I wanted to ask you, you know, how successful have these splinter parties been. Could Trump succeed in building the third party. The other possibility is Trump. Trump just goes away. Is it possible that Trump could just go away. He doesn't have Twitter. My question is this sort of my question about about push. No, could it be that we return to a time when all of this sort of fades away and we go back to a more rational, kinder, gently, or America. Is that possible here, or has Trump screwed it up in such a way so that we can never return. No, so, so it's, it's not just Trump. Let's talk about Trump but it's not just Trump that's that's creating change in the United States it's actually a black lives matter. It's a protest culture. It's a leftward shift of the Democratic Party that they've been able to do with the leadership of Joe Biden, the classic moderate and centrist now is actually implementing policies that are more progressive. So this is why the Roosevelt example is much better than the Abraham Lincoln example because that's what happened to Roosevelt Roosevelt was pushed. He responded to immense difficulties, and he became more progressive, because he had to solve problems and Joe Biden takes the same approach.  Of course, Trump's concerned. The thing about Trump is that he still got political capital in the Republican Party. He does not have much political capital in the country. And yeah he's been defanged because he's off of Twitter and Facebook. The pure charitable trust did a really solid polling about what happened to Trump's popularity after the insurrection. And the bottom dropped out of it I mean his he was in the height, height 20 so he was comparable to George W. Bush at the end of his tenure. It might have popped up a little bit since then but so from kids from might be finished as a national leader as somebody who can command, you know, 4748% of the electorate. Probably finished in that regard because of the insurrection, but the movement is not finished.  And it might be you know might not be 35% might be 25%.  So, as far as going away. I'm not so sure that he's just going to go away. And maybe if if Mitch McConnell does win and McConnell's of course a much better strategist and Trump. So he'll he'll take advantage of Trump's mistakes he's not going to go, you know had in hand to visit Trump at Mar-a-Lago. And it's possible that Trump would do something drastic like form a third political party which which would be, you know would be, it would doom the Republican Party at that point, because Trump would have a much more going political party because he would be four years in the presidency. He's, he loves the organizing part, you know, going to rallies and stuff. And if he formed his own political party he would be much more effective than for instance a Ross Perot. Ross Perot ran as an independent in 1992. And, you know, he did well he got almost 20% of the vote and provided it really provided a victory for Bill Clinton. But, you know, Trump's got more, he could get, you know, 30% of the vote. That makes me to my last question to you, which I've been thinking about lately through you have to. So the likelihood is that Trump will be, I don't want to say exonerated, but he'll be acquitted at this trial next Wednesday. It's a possibility maybe remote. It sort of depends on what what McConnell wants to do. And whether in the next week there are dramatic changes under the blanket with the Republican Party. And so, maybe he'd be convicted, maybe he'd be removed. I mean, permanently. That would that would be really terrific. My question is, what happens next Wednesday. How does that affect that trial. Okay, they or nay. How does that affect all of what we've been talking right you know it's, it's a little unclear to me because the lawyers that Trump hired and then fired. Those were lawyers who are going to put forth the argument of election fraud right and continue to push that the elections ill legitimate and therefore, you know all the rest of this doesn't matter because Trump should still be president and there wouldn't be any direction and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you know these these kind of the conspiracy theory approach now he let those people go. And yet the new folks came in and they seem to be pushing a similar line and you know the Republican, the Republican leaders including McConnell have have signaled very clearly that what they want is for the Trump team to argue look this is. a constitutional impeachment because he's already left office. And that's, of course that's not true. The Senate has actually impeached former office holders before never a president but the president is an office holder like any other so. It's not completely clear if Trump does take the approach that this is all fraudulent and you know and the conspiracy theory approach, there might be a few more Republicans wanting to convict. Because that's what you know they've made their wishes clear that hey you can clear this and we'll just, we'll just kind of patch you on the back and send you on your way. If you argue that this was this is unconstitutional period end of argument. So, we'll have to see it's it's not clear to me, but if he does go down the route of the conspiracy theories then, then the Republicans they have to choose again right this is, this is Marjorie Green all over again right, and Mitch McConnell might have to get up and say those are lies those are lying lies and I'm voting to convict or, or what do they do then. See this is that the public and Republicans have they've lived under a guy who couldn't tell the truth from the broad side of a barn. And now they somehow have to squeeze these liars out of out of their party. And, you know, Marjorie Green might have apologized for now but let's see next time you know let's be sincere. So, okay, but the question is, if he is acquitted that presumably that would leave him in better condition to run again to form up, you know, to have influence within the Republican Party. You know, other options, if he is convicted presumably that will leave him with fewer options and maybe that's the end of the Trump era. If he is convicted I mean, you know, I don't have a clear feeling that one way or the other gives us a pass to the next hour. Yeah, I think I can, I can almost guarantee this that we have not seen the end of Trump ism. Not by a long shot not when 35% of the electorate still wants to go that route. It's susceptible to that route. So, you know, it's like, maybe it's the best way to see it is that, you know, we peaked I think Trump's political leverage and power has peaked. I think he's on the downward slope. But, you know, we can see see a little ways ahead. The continuation of Trump ism yes, the damage to the Republican Party yes, the inability of Trump to really I don't think if he runs for president again he's, he's not elective. Republicans have this terrible dilemma.  So the somehow they have to get outside of that. And Donald Trump does not lead them outside of that so that the Republican Party is on the hot coals right now they have to actually, they're going to jump around. They might survive as a party. Actually, we'll see I think under McConnell's leadership they've got a pretty good chance of surviving as a political party you know all political parties disappear eventually. We saw a lot of this now but we of course the Republican and Democrats have been around for a very long time. But at a minimum, almost guarantee you that the Republican Party is weakened by this. And indeed, at the same time it's a funny association a funny connection that as the Republican Party is weakened so has democracy. So, so has the country. We feel so fragile now, because it isn't working quite right they should be collaborating in Congress. We shouldn't be believing lies over. We have things things in our midst that are very hard to reconcile with with a rational government. Anyway, John, it just seems to me that the role of the historian has changed to know they say the change happens faster now. The role of the historian happens faster to it's not that you can dwell on things that happened, you know, 100 years ago or 200. The historian has to connect the dots from yesterday and tomorrow. It's different. You feel the pressure. No actually I feel energized by it. I mean the role of the historian is so much more important than it was 10 years ago. We can be navigators actually historians can so I actually, I've never been happier. I've never been happier having you on the show. Thank you so much, John David. I look forward to our next discussion together. Good. Take care.