Sunday School 6/6/21: Extra Credit

Let's dive in to the Extra Credit with Chuck Todd and his interviews with Senators Mark Warner (D-VA) and Roy Blunt (R-MO) on Meet the Press. Warner was first, and was asked about cybersecurity. To a large degree, he echoed the thoughts of Sen. Angus King (I-ME), who was featured in yesterday's Sunday School. And so did Blunt - there wasn't a lot new there. 

The conversation around Blunt's opposition to a January 6th commission was interesting. He said he was never in the "I'll support it if it's bipartisan" crowd; rather, he felt that "we know what we need to do here" and that a commission would slow that effort down. There's a two-committee bipartisan report coming out next week, and, "we, I think, are going to be happy - I think you're going to be really pleased with the report you see." 

Blunt is "concerned we're losing faith in the election system" and "it's important to have a bipartisan belief that the election system does what it's supposed to do," and he was "pleased to see" that Sen. Joe Manchin (??-WV) also thinks "we need to move forward on election reforms."

Blunt said he "really can't analyze" whether Former Guy believes the nonsense he spews, but says that he had the right to take it to court. The courts didn't buy the argument, 

and so, we moved forward, and we continue to move forward. I do think President Trump is an incredibly popular figure in our party, certainly a political figure in my state. I'd like to see him get focused on the 2022 elections. There are plenty of things for Republicans to be talking about besides the election process itself...

Boy, if this is how the Rs define moving forward, we're in a boatload of trouble if they regain the majorities in the midterms.

Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was on Face the Nation with John Dickerson; cybersecurity came up there as well. She sees the international community pulling together to address the issue, including asking countries like Russia to provide intelligence and law enforcement support. It's a test, she says, to see how involved the governments might be with the criminals perpetrating the attacks.

On the insurrection and a commission, she says we "somehow need to look into" what happened, that "it was a terrible stain on our democracy," and that our "really terrific system...was tested on that day."

... And so, we have a tradition of these citizens, these elders, if you will, of the country to help us through times like this. The problem right now is there isn't enough trust in Washington to get this done in a way that everybody will- will trust the process. We do need to know what happened on January 6.

Dickerson pushed back, pointing out that the Rs blocked the commission. Rice said the problem is, there's not enough trust in Congress,

because we have constant discussions about how am I going to simply push you aside and do what I want to do. So let's just recognize that we are not in 2004 when the 9/11 Commission was constituted and worked and try to find a way to get to a set of answers about what happened on- on January 6th. I would prefer that this were not the case, but maybe we have to think about ways to do this outside of our electoral bodies.

And on how we teach American history, including the Tulsa Massacre, and the things that led to the civil rights movement, and yes, also American exceptionalism, Rice started her answer with this:

American history was in part shaped at its very beginning by this birth defect of slavery. Do I wish that the anti-slave forces had won out? Absolutely. But they didn't. And then we had after the Emancipation, we had a Reconstruction which gave way to Jim Crow.

She said she was eight before her family could go to a restaurant or to the movies, and she was 12 before she ever had a white classmate. 

So, yes, I know America's troubled past and that troubled past continues to have an impact going forward on how we see each other. When I hear the talk about structural racism, it really gives me pause and it gives me pause because it doesn't tell me what to do.

She's talking about things like medical outcomes for people of color vs. whites, which she said "clearly are still disproportionate." And how our education system "is really serving poor kids and minority kids very badly." And how minorities and the poor don't have the choice to move to a better district, with a better house, or go to private schools like people of means can.

I want kids to know about Tulsa. I also want them to know what that Black community did to overcome that horrible massacre. I want them to know about '63 in Birmingham, but I want them to know that the mayor of Birmingham today is a Black man who grew up in a poor community. So I want them to see the forward progress of America as well on these issues. And I want us as a country to do it together because I don't want this to be black against white, my weaponization of my identity against yours.  

Dickerson asked for clarification on structural racism, asking if it's "not that it doesn't exist, but that the term itself doesn't get you as far as you would like?" She said she's stopped using the term "because I don't know what it means anymore," and that it's become a barrier.

Do I think that there are impacts of race that are clear in American life? Absolutely. But, you know, the other problem with it is it sounds so big and impenetrable, as if we have to jettison the system somehow. And with all of its problems, having been all over the world and having seen how people deal with difference, I will tell you that America deals with difference better than any country I've ever visited. 

And that's at least the third time in a past couple of weeks that I've seen someone say that we're better than the rest of the world when it comes to this kind of stuff. And yet, I can't imagine Condi Rice saying that 'being better than some really awful people' is good enough for America - can you? 

See you around campus. And, by the way, I hope you're vaccinated.