Response to Glenn Loury & John McWhorter: Should a White Artist Be Chosen for a Harriet Tubman Monument? - Part 1

Thank you for tuning into Healing Race. In this video, we respond to a discussion between Glenn Loury and John McCourter about a Harriet Tubman statue commissioned in Philadelphia that was awarded to a white artist. Lauer and McCarter critique responses from some black people who say that black Americans should be the one to tell their own stories. Is the story of Harriet Tubman only a black story, or should it be owned by all Americans as American history? Is it possible to tap into a common humanity whereby we can tell each other's stories in an authentic compelling way? Has enough trust been built with the black community such that white creatives can tell black stories through public works of art? And what does it look like for such trust to be built? Let's get to those conversations now. Enjoy. In viewing that clip, what resonated with you? So in viewing the clip, what resonated with me are both sides of that tension. Right? So you have on one side people saying, this is a part of our cultural heritage. It's a part not just about cultural heritage, but a key figure within the narrative, the story of black people in America, which carries with it all sorts of feelings. Right? So that's on one side. And so it feels some words you used were in our in one of our previous conversations, it feels in bad taste, right, to not, appreciate the feelings that members of the black community would have. That's one side. Right? No strangers to bad taste. Yeah. And there's and there's the other side of me that says, that resonates with what Lowry and McWhorter said in terms of is this not something that we actually would appreciate in the previous time? The fact that a white person would step up and, create something as a as a monument to a figure that meant a lot to the black community for all sorts of reasons. Right? So I can understand both of those both of those feelings and appreciate and appreciate where they're coming from. I don't know how to resolve the tension between that, but those are things that hit me. Black people have had these memorials to slavery before. Right? And I do and I'm being glib for a reason. So I because I watch a lot of documentaries, and I was watching one by this British historian talking about the US civil war and hasn't really ever ended. And in one of the segments of her documentary, she featured the memorial statue to Lincoln, not the one at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC, but another one in another city that's much smaller. And this is supposed to be, you know, the great communicator, the great whoever, and he's liberated these people. It shows Lincoln standing erect upright with one hand raised like this. Let's say his left. His hand down like this, his right, in a domed fashion Yeah. Over the head of a black man who's crouching down the end in chains. Yeah. And we're like, okay. So this is some memorial to this great liberating and this great liberation. However, you're presenting the people who were very instrumental in fighting for their own freedom. So we weren't just sitting on farms, like, okay. We were gonna be free. We were literally out there fighting with white people for our own freedom, fleeing from the south, and go joining union troops to free ourselves. We've we earned our freedom, which is why it incenses me when people say, we just sit around and we're not we're not worthy. We get all this special treatment. Nobody just sat around and got shit. We earned it. We fought for it, number 1. Number 2, when you say white person's gonna create a memorial of Harriet Tubman, one has to wonder, and I like alliteration. You'll hear that a lot in my conversation. One has to wonder, is this gonna be another Lincoln situation with his hand over a black man going, oh, free me, like this? So I understand the group of people that that had criticism, feeling that that that, you know, commission should have gone to an African American artist. I feel there are 2 conversations at work at here, and one influences the other. The first conversation is one of sentimentality. How do you feel about this non-African American person receiving this commission and doing this statue? And then there's a contextual conversation with respect to art. Because I have to wonder I wonder a few things. Number 1, do people know how art is created and how, and how it's analyzed? How critics analyze art, number 1. And number 2, do they know how artists, you know, grow into evolve into successful careers? So let's tackle the first one first. So how art is created and analyzed. So and after having taken our art history course in the Louvre, I have a formal education in this. So you have the subject matter, and you have the artist, and you have the artist's relationship to that subject matter. And when you look at the acts of Harriet Tubman and what she did, she was literally reminding me a lot of the holocaust actually as I meditated and reflected on this. She was literally smuggling people out of slavery into the land of freedom, coming and going several many, many, many times, many, many times. Not only is that a brave and heroic act when you think about it. And I thought and dear friend, I think of you because there that means there are African Americans who are alive today whose ancestors were a part of that smuggling act, whose lineage begat, and they didn't necessarily die as they could have in slavery because Harriet had the courage to miss Tubman had the courage to smuggle them out. There are people there are literally that that all of that is true. So that means there are African Americans today who can trace their existence in Canada, maybe in some of the Northern United States because, wow, my relative was smuggled out through the bravery and their number 1, their fearlessness and the bravery of Harriet Tubman. And when you when you look at it in that context, the relationship to the subject, the acts in the life of Harriet Tubman, that's our subject, with these a v black people are stronger probably from an African American artist than it would be from a white artist. So I hear their critique, and I hear their sentiment because number 1, because of that alone. When you look at what was done and who it was impacted, and then some African American people would be the direct beneficiaries of that act. Number 2, the career of an artist. Art is all populated and evolves through patronage. Right? You need someone to take up you to become your patron, to take up your cause, to champion your work. When you do that, they're doing what? My econ degree. Creating a marketplace for your work, especially if you're not picked up by the gallery system. So we all know about the glamorous galleries in New York, all over in the parties and dealing wheeler dealing art. From what I hear, I am not artist. I work in tech, but I hear it's especially difficult for artists of color, especially black ones to get picked up via that system. And this is an amazingly public work, who your name is gonna be on this, and everyone's gonna know it. So this is a huge opportunity to grow and evolve and exposure since I'm looking at for people to watch my podcast as an artist. Right? And I just inject humor into things because it's how I deal with pain. Yeah. Yeah. But as an artist. Right? And because of that, I'm like, I hear these people. It would have been great for the commission to be won by an African American artist and think of the exposure that would have given them. However, I do hear the counterargument because we do live in a world we're trying to push toward equality. And you can't necessarily say white folks don't apply, even though that was said to us for years. Yeah. And everyone wants to move toward this world of, you know, meritocracy, meaning the best one won out. For me personally, my feeling is I would have liked to have seen it done by a black artist for all the reasons I've stated before. Yeah. However, if you're gonna move toward a world of egalitarianism, assuming that the process was egalitarian Right. Then you have to reconcile that sometimes there will be major works that contribute to African to an awareness of African American culture that are not done by African American people. Yeah. But for me, I would wanna see the African American artist get the commission and the interesting things that person would have done given the bravery of the act. I mean, she would have been when you read that, because I haven't read the biography, but there's an incredible biography of the life of Harriet Tubman. And she was like the best spy in the US has ever had. The amount of time she came and went. I mean, and them white folks were trying to catch her, and she couldn't get her. Right? Couldn’t get her. Now imagine the sense of pride I feel in that. And now we're talking about me, Andre Thomas. I feel in that. Then here you this this woman was literally wonder woman against this in this powerful, crushing institution. And how many times did she evade capture, and she rescued families and got them to freedom. Now it was up to them to choose what that freedom would look like, etcetera. That's where she transitioned after that. But she said, I'm gonna this is not right, and I will not stand for what is not right. And she literally put her life in harm's way so that now generations of those people who were rescued, who were who escaped, can now live and thrive in whatever lives that they're doing right now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I can understand and empathize with him? Your grandfather thrived when he had children, and my dear friend Todd was born. All of that that had, and I told you this before, and I really want you to get this because I really understand what Hitler was going after. He was trying to literally eradicate the planet of Jews so that they literally would not or barely exist anymore. That means the whole point was that so that you wouldn't be born. The whole point of some of this stuff is so that maybe I wouldn't be born. Or if I were born, I would be born into such crushing institution that I had no agency. And because of these brave people, the people in your grandfather's life and American slavery context, this talk of Harriet Tubman, we are privileged to exist. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, I relate to all that, Andre. I relate all to all of it. Let me let me share let me share the less personal first because it's, because I just wanna do a quick agreement with the idea of the process. Right? And I wanna relate it to context. So you said you know, you gave the example of this this Abraham Lincoln Memorial that that lacked context. Right? I know. Yeah. No. I mean, I can I think I might have seen it, but I black man is like this? So Lincoln's hand is over him, and the black man is like this looking up. Yeah. Yeah. And so if the process of creating that memorial, at the very least, had black voices No. No black voices advocated for demeaning position like that. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. That's not what I'm saying, Andre. Listen. Hear me out. If in the in the choosing of what the memorial was going to be or how it was going to look, there were black voices being consulted, you have to imagine that such a monument was not created. Right? Mhmm. That was created without context. And even if full stop. That was created without context. And at the very least, having people who could provide context there in in informing what a memorial could and should look like is important. And, of course, the larger piece that you're saying is someone who had the experience of being liberated would have a closer relationship to what was shared, and therefore is more likely to be, attentive, attuned to context. So I hear all that. So bringing in that to process, process should allow for clear context to be to inform the decision. I'm on a 100% agreement. I don't know what the process was in Philadelphia, but I am a 100% agreement around that. And what I'll say is in in kind of the more personal vein, and this gets to the one of the larger questions that that that, you know, Glenn Loury and John McWhorter raised is the story of Harriet Tubman only black history? But here, no. Guys, its American history, but we were the beneficiaries of it. Yeah. Okay. So I'm not That's what I mean by the time. Just raising their question and raise it, baby. Because I have an answer for it. Yeah. So it is American history, but there's a particular strong relationship which you shared. She wasn't liberating white folks. She was liberating us. Yeah. Yeah. And I hear that. And the thing is that monument is going to send messages through time. Right? Not to just present-day folks. It's gonna send messages through time and not to just black people. It will send to black people, which is why context is important, but it'll also send to other people. Let me let me share some personal well, conversation we had in the past that relates as well as some personal relationship. Landon, in sharing his story of how he learned about history generally and about black history, talked about these biographies that he read. And the way that he talked about Harriet Tubman in particular, he talked about Jackie Robinson. He talked about others. You could just see that the story of Harriet Tubman in particular made a profound impact on him, that that was something that resonated deeply with him. I say this because he's never gonna have the relationship to Harriet Tubman that black people have because he was never the beneficiary in the same intimate way based on a deeply troubled and painful history. I get all that. There are tons of people I've admired through history that have zero to do with African American culture. I'm just sharing that there is going to be a relationship. I held I held a memorial for queen Elizabeth the second when she died. This black man held a memorial. All of them when the queen died, all of my friends started texting me, Andre, are you okay? I said, I'm okay. Yeah. Because they I love their queen. I am not a British citizen. No way we connected to that country, but I admire what her majesty tried to navigate. I say all this to say is I understand what you’re the argument you're bringing using Lanham as the example. Yeah. And I let me be even stronger and more intimate about that. I don't know if you know this about my grandmother. When she was put into work camps in her local town, first of all, they obliterated her and other others' families, and then they were put to work. Mhmm. And she happened to strike up a relationship. No. I don't mean an intimate relationship. I mean, of, of, you know, friendship or relationship with some of the guards. Some of the guards took a liking to her Mhmm. And they offered her a way out to escape. And she had formed a relationship or at least well, I'm assuming she had a relationship, but also developed a fondness for a mother daughter, maybe because she lost her mother. Right? And she yearned for that and saw this this this relationship still there and having a future. She told the guard she wouldn't go unless they went with her. Mhmm. She put, not in the same way that Harriet Tubman did, but put her life at stake for the rescue of another Jewish family. In this case, the mother when she escaped, which was a troubled escape, so she so they connected her and this mother and daughter with people on, I'm assuming, the wagon, and they were going to some town that was a safe haven. They, at some point, got off the wagon because they said it was a bathroom break, and they just took all of their stuff. Now I don't know if the guards were in on that, or if it was just the guards who trick I mean, the drivers who tricked the guards. Left in the wilderness alone. They were left in the middle of nowhere. None of their stuff. None of their stuff. They somehow made their way to this town, and she went searching everywhere Mhmm. Or anything of that got stolen. And the only thing she could find, you could imagine the feeling that she had that she expressed when she shared this with me or even the moment itself was the one picture that she had of her mother and father Mhmm. Which was probably the most important thing in there. Right? Talk about symbols. Right? There happened to be a kind of underground railroad that was started in that town where they would send people like my grandmother, and she became part of it Mhmm. With a little piece of paper that was the ticket for another family who was in a town that was under threat of the Nazis coming to liquidate. And so people from this town would go to a town, give this ticket, take the family, and bring them to the to this this town where she where she also escaped to. And she did that. And I can tell you more about the story there and the dangers and whatnot. This is all to say that that I particularly feel a strong relationship to a story like a Harriet Tubman. Right? Because it connects me to my grandmother's story and to my grandmother's own courage. Right? I'm just bringing Would you trust a non-Jew to tell your grandmother's story? Like And I was about to say if I'm like well, I guess I couldn't say. I was about to say if I made a movie of your grandparents' life, you would trust me with that. This is a broad friendship. Yeah. You know, like, I mean, because that's I didn't know I did not know that about your grandmother. Thank you for sharing it. It's incredibly apropos. And so my question is, like, would you trust someone who was not a direct beneficiary to, you know, to tell that story. Because as black people, we don't necessarily have that trust. And when have white people ever built work to build that trust with us where we could end it off to? So no. I my heart is incredibly close to this concept. It really is. And I guess mine is just mine is just more open. If I saw and this is again where process, I guess, matters. If I saw that there was some creation of, let's say, my grandmother's story, I would just be happy that it was out there. If it was done in a way that was compelling and true to form, let me give you let me give you a couple of examples. We should write a screenplay about your grandmother. Like, that's a movie in and of itself that people need to. Grandmother was I mean; both my grandparents were. My grandmother, I mean, my grandmother, I mean, this is a little more in the area of love, but when after she met my grandfather who was selling Where did they meet? They met they met in the Ukraine, which was not the Ukraine at that time. Oh, that's right. Yeah. Yeah. So my grand my grandfather was selling on the black market because he couldn't do anything else. Right? So he's selling, like, soap and things like that. It's alright. One of the towns where he sold was my grandmother's town, and that's how they met each other. They were introduced. They met each other, fell in love. My grandfather was put in prison, because of selling on the black market. And he tells the story of coming to my grandmother's town. And where my grandmother lived, they were like, he was going to see her, and they it was surrounded by people who were ready to put him in jail. Oh, wow. But she he gets put in jail. She, I don't know how she got this job, decides that she's gonna go sweep the floors in the prison so that she could see my grandfather and sneak him food so that he doesn't starve in there. So she goes, takes bread, whatever, doing the sneak some food, doing those the sweeping. And at some point, I guess that got all Your mother knows this about her parents? I actually she she's the one she told me this story. Oh, your mother told me. Yeah. Yeah. No. I told incredible thing to hear. Yeah. So she, at some point, advocates for to the guards for them to let go of to let my grandfather out. Early release. Early release. Early release. And they say no. She says, then put me in there with him. And they said, we'll let him out. Right? Their grandmother was ride or die. She was ride or die. She was so anyway mister Moshe. So my point is, like, I It's okay, Todd. You can let the tears come. I'm a I'm a I am I'm never gonna have the relationship that you have to Harriet Tubman. Right? Landon is never gonna have the relationship you have or probably not the relationship I have because I at least have an analogous story. Now maybe he does. I don't know what his story is. Mhmm. But the point is and the point I think they're that that Glenn Loury and John McWhorter are trying to make is can't we touch into a common humanity? Is it being that is that possible to touch into a common humanity and appreciate that? And let me give you some examples because I really like I was really pondering this heavily. And I started to think, what are the things that made a difference to me in thinking about racial relationships? One of them is in the America context, and one of them is outside the American context. So one of them, I think I've shared with you before, one of my favorite movies is remember the titans. Right? I don't know if you've seen the movie, but the basic the basic storyline of the movie is forced integration in the south. It's true story, by the way. Forced integration in the south. This white football previously white football team with previously white coach, okay, has to be integrated as part of the integration. So you have the white players and the black players, plus they get a black coach and a white assistant coach who was one of the previous coaches. Yeah? And so this black coach comes in. He's got a coach that's now forced the integrated team that was forced to be integrated. And it's the story of the conflicts that they had in that integration, but the breakthroughs they also had. It's a powerful story. Like, I mean, really powerful story. And I every time I see it, I get brought to tears. There's this moment where so he takes so I think the coach's name is Herman Boone. He decides they're gonna go do, you know, a boot camp, you know, or whatever they call football camp prior to the season, somewhere totally, like, not around their town. They're going they're going elsewhere. So it's just them having to, you know, bond with one another, and they're still fighting it out. Right? And there's a white captain and a black captain or at least a white leader and a black leader. I can't remember if they were chosen captains yet. And he, Herman Boone, forces them to get to know each other. He forces them all to have their, like, at least 15-minute conversation, right, to get to know each other. And at some point, these captains have to get to know each other. And they, you know, they yell it out. Right? You know, you're not, you know, holding the white people accountable. You're not doing that. You know? They're yelling at each other about the ways that they each have fallen short. Well, the next practice, what happens is one of the things that got brought up by the black captain was you let that white offensive lineman, you let him or whoever it was, you let him slide every time. You know he's letting people through to the running back was black to tackle him, to hit him up. You know he's letting them through, and you do nothing. So in the next in the next practice, he the white captain decks that white player. Like, just decks him. Right? And there's this, like, moment of pause. Right? And he goes over or maybe the black captain comes over and says, you know, strong side, weak side, side, whatever they, you know, whatever words they use in football. And they have this moment of bonding where he then or maybe the next play is the black captain then tackles the black running back in a in a really hard way. Right? And they're just showing that they're stepping up, and they're holding their own groups accountable. And it's this moment where things just change. The dynamics change. Anyways, why am I telling this whole story? It had a profound impact on me. They form a friendship. To the end of time, it reminds me a lot of us even though we didn't play football together. But I am a huge football fan, and the cowboys play at 3:45, and that's my team. So just be mindful of time, David. We will be mindful of time. I spent all my Sundays watching the NFL. My point is this this this was a very moving movie for me as a white person. And you told it in a moving manner, and that's cool. Listen. Listen. White people. My way and check. I had to like in thinking about this, I had to check. It was directed by an Israeli American. Mhmm. He created this piece that made an impact. I looked at Hotel Rwanda. Okay? Because it's another one that had a major impact. The director and cowriter of the script was an Irish American who went through the troubles. Right? These are people who didn't experience either of these things, but each of them had some relationship, some way to touch the humanity of the story. And through that common humanity, we're able to tell it in a way that and hopefully, they well, I know in the Hotel Rwanda, there was interviews with, mister, I forget what his name is. The hotel It had to have been this character played by Don Cheadle. Correct. Yeah. So I know that they gained context there. My point is I just feel there is a way to touch each other's experience and channel that in a creative endeavor in a way that that can be contextualized and that the people who are gonna see that I say it depends on the subject. It depends on the subject. Would you trust this Israeli American to make a movie about black-on-black love? No. Because how when have you experienced black on black love? Never. Political black American artists were to step up and create a memorial and, to Jewish holocaust survivors here in the United States because they were so moved by the story. How do that wrestle and settled in your heart? Yeah. And so that's why that's why I mean, clearly, I resonate with some of what Glenn Lowrey and John McWhorter said because I shared something. You know? You asked me a similar kind of question in a previous conversation. So in in reflecting on this on this video, I asked myself an even more specific question. I asked, what if someone else who wasn't Jewish did the Schindler's List movie? And I just I wouldn't care, personally. Now Spielberg happens to be a pretty amazing director, so he did it in a very compelling way. And, obviously, he feels an ownership of that story, and he's gone on to do many things since, in that area, recording actual people's stories. Right? But if someone who wasn't Jewish created a kind of monument, you know, or a an expression, a symbol to, a created a you know, had a creative expression of the telling of the story of the holocaust that was that was poignant and meaningful and captured the essence of, the feelings about it, I would just applaud the create I would just enjoy and appreciate the creation. I honestly personally wouldn't think about, who the creator was, which was kind of one of the questions they elevated. Right? And that's you, but what about the Jewish community? I do think a good number of people would feel the same way I would feel, which is some action, any you know, an action to elevate the story by someone who's non-Jewish would be seen would be appreciated because, you know, in some sense in in some sense, you kinda want non-Jews to elevate it. Right? Away, just so we get to set the scene, I categorically disagree with you but go ahead. Yeah. And the reason you kinda want that is because you want people to take up the importance of your story. It's the same reason that the black community might want allies. You know? It's for me for me, where it comes from, you know, part of where what I see the value in is it relates to when you say, you know, where does responsibility lie? Responsibility lies very much in your mind with the white community. And so if responsibility lies in the white community to push forward changes of attitudes, and ultimately policies, what are the tools that they can and will and should use, to move forward change. Right? And one area is the area of creativity and creative expression. In fact, that's some of the most impactful. Schindler's List made a difference because it was it was creative. It wasn't someone getting up on a on a on a pedestal, at the at a podium and just, you know, sermonizing. Right? It was it was something that through entertainment could capture people's hearts in a different way. So, anyways, those are some of the thoughts that that that that I feel. Again, I don't I don't I don't really know. I can't think of an example where I where I would be able to know how people in the Jewish community would feel, about someone who's non-Jewish doing something like the Schindler's List. But I know how I feel, and my sense is some broad part of community would feel similarly while some would critique. So I disagree I disagree with you. I personally feel that the Jewish community would feel a sense of ownership of that narrative, and its telling and the ways in which that telling is imparted to the world. So I think even though they could be a minority voice, although I don't believe they would be a minority voice, I think it'd be a loud minority voice of people who would say, if you're going to create some sort of moving memorial to holocaust survivors living in the United States, which is the scenario that I presented, it needs to be done by a Jewish person. And because we need to tell and contextualize, our stories. Let's hearken back to the original topic of discussion, the Harriet Tubman monument in Philadelphia with such a public commission that is a huge opportunity for an African American artist to be recognized and known. And, like I said, just the optics of the situation with Baer, it would be nice for it to go to an African American artist, especially since in that medium, and I'd say the medium of sculpture, that we have not necessarily been the most patronized or taken up or given that or given that, opportunity. So I for me, I'm coming from the perspective of an opportunity, right, to really launch and catapult a person's career. So two questions. If so to put the opportunity aside for a moment, because that seems to be a big a big piece for you, and I understand that piece. So let's just put it put it aside for a moment. If there was a process let's say that this process and, again, I don't know what they did in Philadelphia, but let's say that this process was that people anonymously submit ideas for creations of this statue and that the people making the decision were some sort of well rounded, including ample participation from black members of Philadelphia, had to come together and critique, discuss, decide on which one most represented what they wanted to get across about the story of Harriet Tubman. Right? And that what struck people was one that was created by a white person. So I disagree. So I'm gonna stop you right here because I already disagree with your premise. When you use the word anonymous because anonymous would not have been my process. Thank you for watching this episode of Healing Race and stay with us for a scene from our next video. If you wanna see more conversations like the one you just watched, please subscribe to our channel, share this video with friends and family, and like and comment on the video below. If you'd like to be a guest on one of our episodes and have an open, real conversation about race, email us at guests at healingracehow.com. And if there are topics you think we should cover, we'd love to hear them. So please email your ideas to topics at healingraceshow.com. As always, thanks for your support. We look forward to continuing the conversation with you. Now here's a scene from our next healing race. There is a point in time where, you know, in a in a in an empathetic way, in a patient way even, I feel the need to say, the past is the past. Yes. There are current like, you brought up the article. There are still people trying to spout these narratives about Jewish people, but we still live in a different world, and we're not in the we're not in the holocaust right now. And I wanna say, listen. I will probably cry every time I tell my grandparents' story. I'm not saying to get rid of your you know, that you we gotta be these, like, unemotional people who don't feel connection to history and to story, but I also know that I that I, at least in my own in my own sense, in my own right, and for and for and for the rest of my Jewish community, I don't wanna be stuck in that. I don't want us to be stuck in People are walking in the synagogue and shooting them up. You're still stuck in it. There are still in the synagogue and shooting them up just because you're Jewish. True. True. But there is an importance in acknowledging the difference of degree. Right? I accept that. We're not in Egypt. We're not in Germany. These things still happen, and they're still they're still threats. I'm not gonna disown that, nor would I do it, of course, for the black community because I'm not black, first of all, so I don't experience it. But even in understanding some of the parallels, I would never discount the threats that still exist. I do think that there still is validity to the encouragement that I feel John McWhorter is trying to give of don't live in that space. I feel like that's what he's trying to say. Don't live in that space. Yeah. You know, at certain points come to remember that, you know, the way we were persecuted in Egypt, you know. Come to remember that, yes. But don't have this be a mantra that you carry around with yourself on a regular basis. Saying is at the same time; you go tell the bigot the same goddamn thing. Don't live in a space of hatred. Don't live in the space that Jews are your problem. Fine. I accept what you're trying to say. Say it, baby. But then you go tell that motherfucker the same goddamn thing, and then there we go. To watch the rest of that episode, go ahead and click the video below me. To see a different compelling healing race episode, you can click the video below me. We look forward to seeing you in the next video.