The Unbearable Whiteness of Being

Jonathan Metzl: If you are white and live in a red state, and your politicians were people who blocked Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act, or were very, very pro gun, those policies were as dangerous to you as, Um,

living in a house with asbestos or second hand smoke. So they were literally health risks.

Sarah Jones: Hi everybody. Welcome to America Who Hurt You, the pod where we talk in many voices about politics, our trauma, and how we can heal them both. I’m your host, Sarah Jones, and I’m here with a few co hosts, Rashid,

Rashid: What’s good, America?

Sarah Jones: Narita,

Nereida: Hola, it’s me,

Sarah Jones: Lorraine,

Lorraine: Hello there, everybody.

Sarah Jones: and Bella.

Bella: Amazing. Hi, everyone.

Sarah Jones: And by now, you know, they’re not exactly co hosts. They are my characters from my one person shows and my sell by date who are based on my real family and

Bella: of family, you guys, I finally did my 23andMe. I was hoping for like at least some kind of diversity, you know, but it turns out I am like even whiter than I thought. Just like pure European.

Lorraine: Bella, so you’re European. That’s nothing to be ashamed of. Other groups get to be proud of their background. Why shouldn’t we?

Nereida: You shouldn’t feel ashamed just because you’re white. But Lorraine, you realize when you mention other groups like people of color being proud, we’ve had to do that because of racism telling us we’re inferior.

Rashid: True facts. This whole country was built on white privilege, you feel me? And matter of fact, it’s so important to some white people, they can’t let it go even if they life dependent on it.

Lorraine: Well, maybe that was true in the past, but nowadays it seems like the people of color have all the advantages, and white people are being pushed out.

Bella: Lorraine, I thought we blocked her Fox News subscription.

Sarah Jones: Unfortunately, she’s not the only white person who feels this way. Lorraine, we’ve talked about this. Media bias can make it sound like people of color have taken over, but just because you see more black and brown faces in ads does not mean systemic racism has gone away. Sadly, by many measures, it’s getting worse.

With attacks on DE& I, diversity, equity, and inclusion, bans on teaching the real history of racism, and it goes on and on. But get ready for this. One of the most surprising groups being harmed by white supremacy and its violence is white people themselves. From voting against policies that could improve their health to supporting gun laws that put their own lives at risk.

Many white folks seem fully committed to drinking the Caucasian Kool Aid, no matter how bad it is for them. But, in happier news, our guest today is educating folks about all of this in hopes that it can help not just white people, but everyone. Jonathan Metzl is an acclaimed physician, sociologist, and author of the groundbreaking book, Dying of Whiteness, How the Politics of Racial Resentment is Killing America’s Heartland.

 And now Jonathan’s new book, What We’ve Become, Living and Dying in a Country of Arms, takes the conversation even further by looking at a racist mass shooting in Nashville, Tennessee, and reexamining how we as a nation should address gun violence. Let’s get into it. 

 

Jonathan Metzl: Hey,

Sarah Jones: thank

you?

for doing this. Great

to see you. 

Jonathan Metzl: my honor, it really is.

Sarah Jones: So just to dive in, we’re looking at our country and this legacy of whiteness, right? We’re seeing one overwhelmingly white political party in the lead up to a historic election. And yet, as you point out in your book, it’s, it’s hard to even talk about, right?

 I’ve, I’ve interviewed people and I even have people in my own family who, when you ask them, you know, what are you, they’ll always ask me what I am, right?

White folks are, what are you? What’s in there? But if I turn it around to them, Oh, I’m nothing. I’m just white. Or, you know, you’ll, you’ll get these varying, whiteness is a thing. It isn’t a thing. What is it? Can we talk about it? It felt like in 2020 we could, and maybe now we can’t, like, kind of post, you know, George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, and now we’re into, you know, DE and I, for some people’s, stands for we didn’t earn it. And I think, wow, that is a study in whiteness right there. I want to be like, y’all stole the country, had other people build it for you, but we didn’t earn it. So, I know you understand all of this, at so many levels and how it drives violence, you know, particularly gun violence.

What is kind of the story of whiteness 101?

Jonathan Metzl: Well, 1st, let me just say 

 I think that’s a great starting point right now and I’ll say that it’s been kind of a process for me. I mean, when I wrote dying of whiteness, that book came out 2019 2020 and it felt like America was at a particular moment where we just didn’t know how to talk about whiteness and there was kind of a hunger for how do we have this conversation. So I’ll just start at the beginning for me, which is that I’ve got two books really that focus on whiteness. And Dying of Whiteness was a book that was basically saying, Hey, the system’s not working for anybody. It wasn’t trying to make anybody apologize for who they were.

 it wasn’t trying to say you need to. Give away all your worldly possessions. What I said is we’ve created this crazy system where life expectancy is falling for everybody, including for the demographic majority group. And so let’s come up with a system that works better for everybody. I have a lot of data and that book I show that, for example, if you are white and live in a red state and you’re.

Politicians that run your state were people who blocked Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act or overturned, public education or were very, very, very pro gun.

Those policies were as dangerous to you as, living in a house with asbestos or secondhand smoke or not wearing a seatbelt.

Um, so they were literally health risks. And so the first project that I did was really like, Hey, look, this structure is not working.

Sarah Jones: And it’s funny, even as you were sharing about, you know, this idea of people were starting to catch on, right? Or people were hungry for a conversation about whiteness that they hadn’t been able to have before, that they, you know, weren’t using the term or, you know, that there was awkwardness or, like I said, a sense of, Oh, we’re nothing. Right. I wanted to say that’s true for a broader, you know, wider mainstream white audience, right? Because among Black people and people of color and, you know, sort of more traditionally marginalized communities, Whiteness was front and center.

We could talk about it. Like that word was, you know what I mean? We were very clear, like, Oh, white folks are doing what white folks do. You know, for us, it’s sort of like, yay, thank goodness. You who areable to reach those white audiences, right? Cause if I write a book dying of whiteness, people are going to be like, put her in that book someplace where we don’t ever have to find it. Whereas I think you, 

 say, Hey, this is what I’ve found. This is what I see. I’m a white guy,And I’m here to maybe translate for those of, you know, the white community who aren’t as ready for that.

question or that, that conversation at all.

Jonathan Metzl: so I’ll say that when my book first came out, you know, you would think Dying of Whiteness would be like the most problematic title and all these things but actually the It was the opposite.

A lot of people, when that book first came out, said, you know, we knew something was up and we just didn’t know how to talk about it. And even when that book came out, I ended up going back to pro gun community. So I interviewed, um, I ended up speaking on Fox news on ministry television, kind of right wing Christian television.

And so there was, there was this moment of kind of like, let’s just figure out a way forward here. and certainly it’s a, it was a sample bias of like who, who wanted to talk to me in the first place but I will just say that, you know, it felt like we were breaking a barrier.

before,

It was kind of like, how can we talk about this constructively?

That’s how I felt in 2020. and I’ll just say it’s felt more difficult over time, um, because politics of race have gotten more contested. even my book title, 2020, won all these awards and now I get all this blowback and I’m just like, dude, where you been?

The thing’s been out for four years.

And so it feels like something’s been happening, a kind of tribalizing narrative where what used to be a relatively easy conversation. Now, for me, when I talk to white audiences, they feel accused.

I think

it doesn’t feel as constructive as it used to. When I talk to other audiences it’s just there’s a tension now about this issue. And, and it’s frustrating because even for the same project, even for the same book, I feel like, I mean, maybe that’s the nature of the beast, but it feels like we’re in, we’re in our camps right now.

Sarah Jones: Right. And I’m really hearing you that there’s tension now, maybe for, you know, I don’t want to make it binary, but both groups.

 meaning white and non white and then within white folks, they’re not a monolith either. Right. So

as, you know, you’re not only a, researcher and an author and a speaker. You also, you know, didn’t just go through medical school.

You actually went through the training of critical race theory, right? Like you really have a comprehensive public health understanding of how things like whiteness more broadly and deep ideas of identity politics and fear. You understand all of that at such a deep level.

And when I think about the history. you know,the OG examples of dividing races and using that to create policy. how do you see that history and how it maybe threads through to now?

Jonathan Metzl: Yeah.I’m a structuralist. And so I don’t. I don’t talk about good or bad people.

I talk about structures that 

either reward cooperation or they put us in competition with each other. 

And part of my frustration, I mean, certainly, of course, there’s a history in the, in the recent book, what we’ve become is really, it’s a story about a naked white male mass shooter, um, who kills young adults of color.

And where did that come from? just the history of who could carry a gun in the United States that we’ve got

 250 years of basically carrying a gun as being a privilege of whiteness.

and so the original point for me in both of my books is actually after the Civil War, um, when there was a moment called Reconstruction.

Exactly, exactly

And I talk about kind of how Du Bois and other people write about this moment, 

Initially, black and white people in the South were working together, um, initially, And I just think like how different our country would 

be now if we would have had cross racial alliances and different kinds of landowners we could have rebuilt the south we could have given land and opportunity to previously enslaved people

Sarah Jones: Didn’t we have like more black folks in Congress then, than like until like 1970 or something? Right

Jonathan Metzl: it’s crazy. And so the reason I think this is important is because there was a moment of fissure where we were like, man, we just killed millions of people in our country for this idea, this idea of racial hierarchy. 

Sarah Jones: Right. It’s like a fork in the road. Like a moral 

Jonathan Metzl: I mean there were a lot of really poor ass white people and there were newly freed slaves who had nothing and so they were incentivized to work together and Du Bois basically coins this term The wage of whiteness.

He says, um, there’s no material gain to being white. In fact, it’s probably bad for you for in terms of, you know, if you join forces with the newly freed slaves, you could extract more concessions from elites. You could get land, you could do all these things.

Sarah Jones: could improve your life overall

Jonathan Metzl: Exactly, 

 he calls it a psychological wage. And so in a way, there’s this psychology of we become tribal and then we’re like, nope, nope, we’re not going to go there. And there are moments where just everything feels thrown up for grabs. And those are, for me, are the moments where we, um, where we can kind of remake these wrongs in a way And unfortunately, we’ve seen this, we saw it after George Floyd, we saw it during the pandemic, all these moments where like everything’s up for grabs.

 I don’t know, but we keep living that history. And so for me, 

after the Civil War, is really for my work,

one of the key moments.

Sarah Jones: Ah, so powerful. 

Part of what this sparked for me, and I know you’re going back to the 1800s and that is such a salient, right? People are literally putting their bodies and their health.

It’s like, Nope, I would rather hold on to this identity of whiteness that at least puts me higher in the hierarchy than, you know, putting this in huge. air quotes, you know, welfare queens and quote unquote Mexicans. And it’s like, wow, these narratives that drive our politics are so powerful they defy the impulse to live, right?

Like I would literally rather die than not hold onto my white privilege. 

For me personally, I grew up, you know, being very clear that proximity to whiteness made me safer. I had people treat me differently and treat me better when they saw my mother or they, you know, thought, Oh, she’s, she’s not too black. And these are painful things to say out loud, but it helps me get into the psyche of somebody who’s like –.

Um, you know what, if I’m poor, at least I have my whiteness might be all people have it. I’m so curious about how that connects up with, as you said, even when you said the phrase, you know, a naked white. male shooter shooting people of color. Nakedness really brings up for me this idea of like the emperor’s new clothes, right? I want to know how that factors into like the fear that also is, you know, connected to the gun piece

Jonathan Metzl: Well, the gun piece, I’ll just say first, because it’s such a beautiful question, thank you, the gun book, what we’ve become is about one such moment. It’s about the Nashville Waffle House mass shooting that happened in 2018. Um, it was like 2. 30 in the morning and there were, there was a Waffle House full of young adults of color who are out celebrating and in bursts, this naked white man with an AR 15 kills four amazing young adults.

It’s injures for others, traumatizes the community really forever as, as this happens. 

And for me it was a moment of decision because as I track what happened. I mean in the book I just say how did this guy was from Illinois just like Kyle Rittenhouse and other people who have come from Illinois with AR 15s.

And so I say How did this guy get there and how did his gun get there? And it turned out that part of the story was he had been in Illinois, but he was drawn to Tennessee because of our terrible gun laws.

In other words, anybody could carry a gun and this guy wasn’t allowed to carry a gun in Illinois because he had been arrested by the FBI and all these things. But the minute he came to Tennessee, anybody could carry a gun because we have open carry and we didn’t have any of the laws that that would have applied.

And so the story for me is we had almost pornographically extreme example of what our gun laws do, our terrible gun laws. Um, but it was a moment where we could have said, okay, look, we never want this to happen again to anybody. And so we’re going to tighten the ship a little bit. Because what I found was Because of our open carry, this guy was going around telling people he was going to be a mass shooter basically, but nobody could do anything.

And I’m like, this is, this is insanity. And so we could have either said, we’re going to change course. This is our rock bottom moment. Or we’re going to liberalize our gun laws so much that we make sure that this thing happens again because this shooter doesn’t represent the pathology, he represents a much bigger category which is people whose rights should not be infringed.

And unfortunately and predictably we chose the second path and that’s why I call the book What We’ve Become. And so for me, that’s the frustrating thing is it was never more clear as I talk about in the book about how we could have prevented shootings like that.

But our entire legislature made the decision that validated his rights. And so what I say in the book is his naked white body is what poets call an objective correlative. He’s a symbol of the system, even when he’s Such a pathological extension of it.

Sarah Jones: I, you know, this, I remember the shooting you’re talking about and , even in a situation so violent and horrific and traumatizing, this narrative about freedom and his rights, right, his rights to do what he did. Brings a community or at least a political, you know, power. structure together to say, we’re going to double down, in fact. And the idea that for people of color, for, you know, women, for, marginalized groups or folks who are traditionally on the other side of that violence, for us, it’s kind of like, or I’ll speak for myself. If black people open care, you know, if I walk into a Walmart with an AR 15, I’m getting tackled to the ground. it’s that even the laws aren’t evenly applied, right?

This is all this kind of mythology around freedom, but it’s selectively applied to white folks. I don’t, I guess what I want to get at, Jonathan is, I don’t know how to make it make sense. Like we have this election coming up and you say this elsewhere, it’s not about how many people have to die. there’s this bigger ideology that I think so many of us don’t understand about freedom. And whiteness, even though we don’t call it whiteness, right? We call it American values. We call it make America great again. It goes back to the, uh, what is it?

Stand your ground. Yeah. Laws and it’s like second amendment and I should have all my rights. They’re all bound up together in this psychology. Help us doc. How do we unpack this for people?

Jonathan Metzl: Well, I’m going to say one more super bummer thing, and then we can talk about how to fix it, if 

Sarah Jones: great. Yeah. One more bummer. One more. That’s all we got room for.

Jonathan Metzl: Because unfortunately it’s even worse. It’s even worse. And the reason it’s even worse is because we’ve passed these laws that basically , I mean, anybody can buy a gun right now, um, for the most part.

Not everybody can carry a gun, and so part of the story I say is, um, as you’re saying, if a white man with a gun and a black man with a gun walk into a Wal Mart, One is like, hey, how can we help you? And the other is tackled and arrested and shot and things like that. So there is kind of a cultural ethos of who codes as a patriot and who codes as a criminal, which I talk about a lot in the book.

But the other issue, and this is the bummer part, and I apologize, is that gun sellers, they’re arms dealers. They don’t care. They just want to sell guns.

And so , after George Floyd, for example,on social media feeds, black and brown Americans were seeing messages of, uh. You don’t want to be unarmed when the cops come, or maybe the cops won’t come, or this could happen to you. So they sold tons of guns to black Americans, um, because they were a great market and because this is crisis capitalism, basically.

And then when black Americans got guns, then they turned around to the white Americans and they said, look, all these black people have guns. 

So then they sold more guns to white people. and so in a way, on one hand, getting armed has been a dream of black political thought since Malcolm 

X and, and,

Yeah, Black Panther is a guy named Robert F. Williams who wrote a book called Negroes with Guns in South Carolina in the 50s.

And the idea was having a gun would level the playing field. Um, but what I show in the book is actually that’s not true because the notion of an armed black person who there are many, many black gun owners are among the fastest growing group of gun owners now, but that’s used to sell guns to people who already 

have plenty of guns.

Sarah Jones: like right, like white people 

Jonathan Metzl: And so, in a way, we’re in a market now, and which is not a market that you usually see in, uh, call it peacetime.

In other words, these kind of strategies are used in military conflicts. And so, another reason I call the book What We’ve Become is that We’ve grown accustomed to a level of trauma for everybody.

I mean, white Americans are dying of gun suicide too. We’ve become traumatized in ways that soldiers are, but not ways that civilians living their lives should have to be.

Sarah Jones: And I, you know, I was struck by like learning that

 

 you point out Something that I think as people of color, it can be very easy to forget that as you say, the trauma of whiteness is real.

That doesn’t privilege it above our trauma because, it’s like the whiteness is horrible and then it leaks and you know, it’s toxic to us, but it’s also toxic to the white folks who are performing whiteness as , you have said, Like, how do we stop this kind of insanity and the profit motive? That’s the other thing. Like, The NRA, I feel like their stock is up. And if I weren’t a better person, a good, decent person, I’d go buy some. 

Jonathan Metzl: So first it’s not just like there are distinct white and black forms of trauma. There are also so many other examples where we’re just like in the same system that we’re all kind of traumatized.

 And unfortunately, I think as more communities, Get guns, we’ll, we’ll see more kinds of mass shooters, more kinds of gun suicide. And so, so much of this is not having really regulations about how you have a gun, how you keep a gun, which I’ll just say, I mean, I, I come from a military family. I live in Tennessee.

I was born on an Air Force base. I’m not anti-gun at all, but I will say every other country. Pretty much has gun laws about those, those things. And they have a lot less of this kind of thing. We’re really by ourselves in terms of just get all the guns, get all the guns yourself, but those moments of, um, you know, is, is there a gun there?

Now I argue in my new book, I don’t blame movies or video games. I, they’re good reflections, but it’s, I mean, think about all the people who watch video games versus who go shoot somebody. It’s like. 10 billion to three or something like that. So it’s not like there’s anything causal, but I will say that’s a moment where we can see we’re all in the same boat.

As an example, like, remember that great Idris Elba show, Luther?  It’s a UK cop show. And you know, Idris Elba will like, chase the bad guy for like an hour. And finally, at the end of the show, he’ll like, find the bad guy. And then he’ll whip out his Billy club and his handcuffs. And even me, I’m like, just shoot the dude, man.

Cause we’re so conditioned. So it’s like, , that’s it. He just handcuffed him. He didn’t like blow him away or something. So we’re all part of this narrative. And again, I don’t think, I don’t think changing that is a thing, but I mean, even me who studies guns, I’m like, just shoot the dude, man. You know?

So it’s, it’s kind of like, it’s part of our. It’s part of what we’ve been trained to see, which is not normal. , I’ll put it that way 

Rashid: What’s good, Jonathan? My name is Rasheed. Yo, it’s an honor. It’s an honor to meet you. Um, Yo, your work is mad interesting, and I’m not gonna lie.

It’s a part of me that’s like, all right, you talking about white people, their life expectancy is going down. I don’t know, I know it’s sad and they, they voted for it. They self, I’m like, dude, you, I mean, you know, shooting yourself in the foot. It’s like a whole other level. Talk about the NRA, they be shooting themselves in everything they got.

How am I supposed to feel sorry for them? You know what I mean? Like for real. It’s like y’all doing it to yourself is impacting the rest of us, too. You so, you know, determined to not be like me that you would rather

just fuck it up for, excuse me, just fuck it up for everybody else you know what I mean?

Jonathan Metzl: How, how do you deal with that? Like, how do we, how do we deal with that? Cause I want to help the situation, but part of me is like, let me just get some popcorn and watch these dudes just keep fucking shit up. Well, let me say, Rashid, that, um, that’s an outstanding question. I mentioned before that I’m kind of what you might call a structuralist, which is to say that America tries to tell us that we’re all in different tribes and American capitalism, part of it, benefits by not having us find common cause. In other words, all the work I do is like, It’s crazy that we’re competing when we could be collaborating.

And this is an exact example where it just shows that we are all connected. And so as much as we live in a moment where I think the motto for a lot of people is,

… F… A… 

Rashid: Fuck around and find I knew it was coming. I was like, let me get to it. But I wanted to let you get to it, but I want to find common ground and fuck around and find out. Yeah.

Jonathan Metzl: Okay. So everybody thinks like, Oh, this is a moment where like your bad shit catches up with you. And we want that. Like that’s social media is gratifying that way. Like, Oh, you pulled this shit and look what happened to you. But unfortunately in all the work I do, I find that that’s, that’s great on social media in the real world.

Systems that don’t work for one group don’t work for all the groups. And so I’ll give one example. In Tennessee, when I did my research on rejecting the Affordable Care Act, white Americans had dramatic falls in life expectancy first, but then everybody had falling life expectancy. It wasn’t just white Americans.

And the reason was because people were getting really sick before they went to the doctor. And then they went with like end stage kidney failure or lung failure or something. And they went to the ER. If you don’t have a federal health system that’s supporting your system. All the money goes to ERs and then everybody’s health care fell.

So even though white Americans life expectancy fell, so did black Americans, so did Latino Americans, so did everybody else. And so, um, that was one example of what I write about that either we all rise together or we fall together. There’s a fantasy that we can create a system that just works for my group.

 

In all my work, I show that it’s a fantasy to think, um, guns the same thing.

Um, that, uh, in a way, trends that started with white Americans as black Americans started buying more guns, they started seeing more gun suicide. Um, there’s something called deaths of despair, opiate addiction and deaths that started with white Americans, and then it then now the numbers are racially equal.

And so white Americans pay the price for the system that they have, I think, a social responsibility to fix. But I think it’s also the case that it’s just a fantasy when you think about like big systems like education, healthcare, safety, we’ve got to kind of work together. And if that’s not the case, then unfortunately, We all go down the tubes together, even though again, the social media narrative doesn’t, doesn’t play it that way sometimes.

Sarah Jones: Okay. Well, I, hi, Jonathan. My name’s Bella. So first of all, I totally understand like where you’re coming from. Like I’m white. As well. Um, and it used to be super, like, I was, like, so awkward about it. I’d be like, no, no, no. And then Sarah Jones was like, you know, like, use your privilege to, like, talk openly about these things.

and I guess I want to know from you, like, your research and your many books and like, like your, all of your work are trying to help people see the reality 

But like, what would you say now so that people don’t have to say, why didn’t we listen to Jonathan? Like. you know, if you could help people listening to this, like make, you know, dinner conversation that’s different or like, can, is there like some matching funds that like will help? Like, can we just like grab the NRA and like tie them up somewhere? Like, not, I’m not saying I would ever do that. I totally would. But like, you know what I mean? Like, how can we like actually do something right now? And what do we do?

Jonathan Metzl: Certainly we have a pretty clear choice right now about the two different paths to go down. Um, and so one is very, for me, regressive and one is still Fighting about and talking about our uncomfortable differences, but also at least we’re on the same path. And so number one is get everybody you can to vote, because what we see in the system is that there was this great movie about Cambridge Analytica that came out about five years ago.

It’s this disinformation company. And what they realized was in the old world of disinformation, it was like You know, don’t vote for your opponent, vote for my guy. And what Cambridge Analytica realized in about, oh, 2015, was that the trick isn’t to get people to vote for your guy.

It’s for them to think that the system is not working, and they should just sit this one out. And so, There’s so much money trying to get people to think that their vote doesn’t matter, that they need to burn down the whole system, that is a sculpted message.

And so part of the story is to mobilize voter networks, fighting back against kind of a learned helplessness which is like, I don’t know, like I’m a Jewish American and, uh, I have friends who are on all sides of Believe me Gaza right now, and I still have to think we’re all part of the same team in this bigger picture thing because if I don’t think that it’s that thing of like, oh, your friend is not your friend, your friend is your enemy, and you should sit this one out.

And I know that that is a message that is not true. And then for me, Can I tell a quick story? Just really quick. when the Affordable Care Act was first being debated, 

they had this idea that if your city. all got together and lowered your ER visits, lowered your systolic blood pressure, increased your, the parks, the bike lanes. And it wasn’t just your block. It wasn’t just your tribe. It was, you had to go to the other block and meet with other people and say, Hey, we want to build some bike lanes.

Let’s all work together. And so the idea was let’s build what’s called social cohesion or social capital. And they said that if Everybody works together to meet those metrics. The entire city would get a tax break, which everybody wanted. And so they were rewarding people. And it didn’t matter if you were racist or not, it didn’t matter.

We’re anti white or not. It didn’t matter if you were whatever, because the whole idea was kind of like the Delta Frequent Flyer program or something like a totally fake economy, but we’re going to get people to see the material gain of working together, no matter what their opinions are.

And I always thought that was so brilliant. Unfortunately, that was, of course, the first thing that got left on the chopping block, because I think the GOP, when they were going after it realized the minute people start working together, on different blocks, that’s when people really bond and that’s what all the literature on health insurance shows, that health insurance doesn’t just improve health, it improves social cohesion among groups because everybody feels like we’re all working together.

If I’m healthy, it lowers the cost for everybody. And so in a way to me, that’s always the model in my mind for what people should think about, which is I may or may not agree with somebody about a whole host of issues. But I think about the structure, if we’re all working toward that same goal, it’s kind of better for everybody, which I know is kind of a 40, 000 foot way to think about it.

But to me, it’s better than trying to convince your crazy uncle or something like that. If 

Sarah Jones: I love, I love having crazy uncles. I’m right there. And it makes me think of kind of the opposite of, you know, how when you’re in school, it would be like one person did something bad. You’re all getting detention. This is like, if everybody just pulls together and you all do a good job on this project, we all go to the amusement park, right?

It’s sort of that. And I have to just bring one last friend out because what you shared is so powerful to her.

Lorraine: HI there. Nice to see you, Jonathan. My name is Lorraine. I have to tell you, when you said I’m Jewish, I’m also Jewish and Sarah, part of her family is Jewish and part of the, you know, we don’t all come from the same anything.

Everybody’s different. Sometimes there’s fighting, but when I hear you, it’s so Clear how divide and conquer works. They’re more sophisticated about it now than they’ve ever been. And if they can get you to believe that your neighbor is dangerous, or this other one is, you know, uh, you have to stand against them. And that’s all you focus on with your narrow vision. The next thing you know, they can take everything right out from under. All of you. And you’re busy pointing the finger at each other. So I won’t go into more details, but I just want to say you’re a mensch and I’m grateful for what you’re sharing with people, because it is a terrible time where everybody’s divided. I don’t agree with Sarah. about what’s happening in the, I won’t, we can’t even say it, poo poo poo, we won’t say anything. But the point is, if we want to still have a democracy at all, I believe in what you said. We have to focus on the bigger, what did you say, 40, 000 feet? I don’t know, drones and AI, I don’t understand any of it.

Jonathan Metzl: Well, I mean, thank you so much. I mean, you know, these issues are hard. These issues are, um, I use the term before polarizing crisis and a polarizing crisis is something where we have a life or death crisis, and then people realize that they feel differently about it. And we’ve had, think of all the polarizing crises we’ve had.

I mean, COVID all of a sudden you realize that your own, life partner, maybe. People got divorced because one person was for a mask and another person was against a mask. Like it’s really deep. It’s really personal. Um, George Floyd was, was a polarizing crisis. Now Gaza is a polarizing crisis, but it’s important to always remember that is humanity.

We’re living in a really difficult, essential time. And I’m not trying to say, I mean, don’t get me started about Middle East politics. I’m actually very deeply involved in it and I’ve been writing about it a lot, but I will say, so it’s not like you don’t. I have an opinion because, oh, kumbaya, I’m not saying that, but I’m saying it’s important to remember that there, that there are real vested interests in dividing 

us and ultimately that gets us to the wrong place.

And so I think that’s, that’s really got to be the message is keep pointing to the structures that are the structures for the common good. But thank you. That was a lovely question.

Sarah Jones: Oh, well, I’m grateful and I have to say more hopeful. Then I was before this conversation. So you are a bonafide miracle worker. Cause I came on, I was like, Oh God. And it’s like, you know, this is what we need. Thank you so much. Thank you for your work.

Jonathan Metzl: Well, thank you so much. And I’ll just say, um, toward, just toward the end of the last book, I have a bunch of kind of here are 10 action items I think people can do at the end of what we’ve become for how we can change the narrative about guns. But I think they’re generalizable about everybody for everything.

And so I’ve been thinking a lot about this too, because there is just so much strength. The strongest thing we can do together now is to come back together and show the strength of our. Yeah, the, our coalition is very powerful if we, if we let it be.

Sarah Jones: I love that. And where is the best place for people to follow you? And you know, where do you like to engage most? Give us all of that.

Jonathan Metzl: So my, um, my website is just www. JonathanMetzl. com. And I, I’m all my stuff’s there, you know, um, the artist form really known as Twitter. I’m on that a lot and Instagram and, and whatever, but just through my website has a lot of connections and, um, or just, you know, give me a call.

Sarah Jones: Perfect. I love it. Well, we’ll be following you and thank you again so much.

Jonathan Metzl: .

Same. Thanks so much.

Rashid: Yo, I ain’t seen that coming. I kind of feel sorry for white people.

Lorraine: Oh, that’s very nice, Rashid. And I feel sorry for you too, sweetheart.

Rashid: hold up Lorraine.

Lorraine: not in a racist way. I mean, I understand what you kids have been saying, and Jonathan, I mean, that’s why I mentioned the divide and conquer. You all have taught me that.

Bella: Adorbs, Lorraine, even though you still sounded like hella racist just like right at the beginning there. 

Rashid (Laptop): All them times in history when we could have came together from reconstruction to, to that, um, 

affordable care act, right? But instead, they stayed dividing us and this shit got worse. I’m like, what if we got another shot in November?

Sarah Jones: Rashid, you sound so different after this one conversation.

Rashid: real, for real. You know the way white people been wilding out. I was thinking about hitting up a gun range myself. But then Jonathan was talking about the NRA got white people buying they guns scared of us Then they got us buying they guns scared of white people. I’m like meantime y’all running away with the bag Nah, I ain’t the one or the two

Sarah Jones: I feel you, Rashid. And that actually brings me to this week’s prompt. Honestly, this is a hard one. Jonathan’s research just breaks down how some white folks are being manipulated to vote against their own interests, and they have been for centuries. All this time, it’s been the people in power making them believe that minorities are the real threat. So, part of me wants this prompt to be about empathy and understanding that this desperate clinging to white privilege hurts white people too. But regardless of why some white folks are so susceptible to this illusion of white supremacy, I also know how much pain that rhetoric and those policies have caused all of the rest of us.

And I don’t just want to let white people off the hook for that. So, what is our prompt? Is it about finding room in your heart for the pain everyone is feeling? Is it about recognizing the impact that racial hierarchy has had on all of our lives? Maybe the prompt is for you to decide. I really want to hear from you. How did this conversation make you feel about whiteness, whether it’s your own or if you’re a person of color, your proximity to or distance from whiteness and how that impacts your own racial identity for all of you. Does whiteness make you feel safer? How does it feel knowing that so many white Americans are being hurt by the same racist policies hurting people of color? Does it piss you off even more? Does it give you more space for compassion? Since this pod is about acknowledging that on some level, we are all approaching this political moment from a place of pain and fear, trying to protect ourselves and our loved ones. I want to be clear that when we’re reacting from racialized fear, we are repeating a cycle of trauma as old as this country. So for me, Yeah, compassion is the goal. And I’m comfortable saying that’s the official stance of America who hurt you. But I want to know from you all, after this conversation, where do you land? I can’t wait to hear what comes up for you. And if after you do this prompt, all you can do is lie down. That’s all right. As long as you get up in time for November.

America, who hurt you was created by Sarah Jones and sell by date LLC. Don’t forget to follow rate and review the show wherever you get your podcasts. You can keep up with the pod and share your prompt responses at yes. I’m Sarah Jones on Instagram and tick tock and all the social places. America Who Hurt You is a collaboration of Foment Productions and The Meteor, made possible in part by the Pop Culture Collaborative. Our host is me, Sarah Jones. Our producer is Kimberly Henry, with editorial support from Phil Serkis. Our executive producers are me and Cindy Levy. Our audio engineer is Sean Tao Lee. Our logo was designed by Bianca Alvarez. And our music is by Coma Media.