This week on the What’s In it For Us? podcast, our hosts Dr. Christina Greer and Elie Mystal discuss Trump’s second impeachment, the prison uprising in St. Louis, and indoor dining across America during a pandemic.
It’s no doubt 2021 started out with a bang and continues to push the unpredictable dial forward. Amidst everything we don’t know and have yet to know, the question always on our minds is: what’s in it for us?
“The fact that this is a white supremacy insurrection started in the name of Donald Trump was a point that should have been made repeatedly during the trial,” Mystal to Dr. Greer.
The acquittal of Trump is as unsurprising as it is political negligence. Both Mystal and Dr. Greer pointed out that similar to the first impeachment, the second impeachment, “which was more organized,” still did not call witnesses to stand.
Many Democratic politicians responded to the lack of witnesses with statements like, “No more witnesses would have changed Republicans’ minds,” which was inconsequential because the trial was not meant to convince Republicans, but to reveal the illegality and misbehavior of Trump’s actions.
“White people fundamentally do not understand white people,” says Dr. Greer.
What we saw on January 6 is what many experts refer to as a riot, while what we saw over the summer is what Dr. Greer would call “an uprising.” The St. Louis uprising has legitimate foundations as incarcerated people have become sort of “forgotten” during this pandemic, Greer remarks.
To compare the white supremacist January insurrection to the prison uprisings is unfounded. The “stressors” incarcerated people are under are not the same as the insurrectionists, who are stress over the loss of white supremacy. American prisons are steeped in “human rights violations,” according to our hosts, and these uprisings have legitimate importance in our national and global stages.
“They can’t make arrangements to see funerals because it is the punishment of poverty in many ways. If you’re really that pressed about the war on drugs, you go to a dorm of a private school,” jokes Dr. Greer.
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Lastly, Dr. Greer points out that so many people, specifically white people, think that they can’t be free. From wearing a mask to indoor dining, the “I have to leave the house” and “I have to attend that” energy is bewildering and entitled, our hosts argue.
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