Wokeness vs. 'The Void'

Kehinde Insults Candace Owens, Russell Referees

This week I respond to an interview Russell Brand did with Candace Owens three years ago called Populism—Will It Go Left or Right? It was a really wild ride with a barrage of banter and sparks flying! At one fiery point in the debate, Russell shouts, “Kiss me!” No point went unchallenged or answered and, although Russell stated that he disagreed with everything she said, the electricity of two smart people exchanging real ideas was palpable. They joke, they joust, they hold hands, and they start designing an alternative system together.

As I was preparing where I agreed and disagreed with Candace, I listened to the next interview with Kehinde Andrews called White Psychosis in which he states the following about Candace:

It was interesting to hear the position laid out so forcefully but also to hear so much nonsense. I’ve never heard so many half-truths and then real conclusions that don’t make any sense based on the truth…. I’d say dangerous because you have some legitimate beefs … but how you get from that to let’s support neoconservatives, Trump—who’s clearly racist—capitalists … that it’s all about individuals, conservative values, all about Trump and whiteness, that for me is dangerous.

Kehinde agrees with Candace that Trump was a better president for black people than Obama but that doesn’t mean he was a good president. Coming back to Candace, he observes:

We’ve stopped doing the hard work intellectually. Studying used to be part of organizations. You couldn’t be part of the Black Panther party … unless you were reading, unless you were discussing things, unless you were having proper, meaningful conversations about politics. That’s been replaced with people like Candace Owens who just look at a couple of things on YouTube, read a bit of a book on Milton Friedman, and then say they’ve got a political philosophy.

Kehinde was currently writing “The West is Built on Racism” saying that all the people colonialism killed were black and brown. The children who are dying now are black and brown. Russell jokes that as a white person, he looks for another narrative because otherwise he’s with the baddies. Kehinde chuckles and clarifies that you need a revolution because you can’t trust people who benefit—mostly white people but all people in the West—to end that system. “If we want to end it, we need to end it ourselves.” He continues:

Coming back to Candace Owens … I talk about White Psychosis … we have to protect ourselves from the reality that we live off dead children, this is the system that feeds us. … The best example of the psychosis of whiteness I’ve heard was Candace Owens sitting in this chair last week, talking completely contradictory about everything, doesn’t make sense, wrapped around a bubble and when you try to talk to her about simple things, it’s like you’re talking to yourself, right? And that’s what happens to us when we integrate into these systems, we become the same.

So what’s Kehinde’s background? In a Guardian article entitled I’ve Had to Fight, he says his parents were Black activists in the UK, his mother was a university graduate who was half-white, half-Jamaican and his father dropped out of “the underfunded school system, which seemingly had no interest in the career prospects of Black boys.” He instead became a founding member of a Black Unity organization that established black bookstores, hostels, nurseries while his mother worked in Race Relations for the government. Kehinde was sent to a school with a good reputation in a predominately white neighborhood, which is where he had to fight—with his own desire to be white. This identity crisis led him to go to pubs and sing anti-Irish chants, and even listen to country music—Garth Brooks!—when he really fell down the rabbit hole.

For two decades he’s taught in a university that “needs to be dragged into handing their rich resources—their buildings and funding—to Black Studies.” He concludes:

The battles, the scars. I’ve just had to fight. I’m always fighting. I’ve probably done permanent damage to my mental and physical health establishing this Black studies course. Honestly, since launching the degree, learning to navigate through extreme levels of stress and bouts of depression has become part of the job description. I would think of it as a failure if, in the next five years, I haven’t left the university. In five years, if you find me still here, tell me I’ve sold out.

Russell asks what would bring us together? Kehinde says we should all care about black children dying but capitalism says we benefit by it. “I look like these children so this should elevate me beyond my location. Everyone should care but that’s not going to happen.… It’s about love for black people. There are more reasons for people to be like Candace Owens but I’m saying we should be better than that.”

Russell asks, so what’s the plan? Kehinde answers, we have to treat the disease, the political and economic system. Build a mass organization across the global black nation to build connections so we have true political power—Black Unity chapters (like his dad). The underlying principle of this movement could be ‘let’s not have impoverished children.’

Russell asks: You’re saying this could be achieved by identifying with your race. … Do you have more sisterhood with Candace Owens as a black woman than me as a white man?

Kehinde: Stokely Carmichael said, ‘Every negro is a potential black person’ but after hearing Candace Owens I’m not sure. No, it’s not a genetic thing, it’s a hereditary thing. Candace Owens, as far as I’m concerned, is gone, she’s off on a plantation somewhere. We don’t have to take everybody, alright?

Russell: What sacrifices are you willing to make?

Kehinde: The sacrifice I should make is to leave the university and start this movement but I’ve got four kids and a mortgage. … Like Candace Owens, why is she so fervent in her ridiculous delusional beliefs? Because she has to protect herself because deep down to acknowledge the actual reality … would completely and utterly destroy her [platform]. Her job is to be the black face on white racism. <laughs>

Russell: I didn’t say that to her.

Kehinde: Woulda gone down well <both laugh>

Russell: If you woulda met her, she’s charming.

Kehinde (getting back to his sacrifice): I hope that in a few years the movement is enough that I can leave my job and not make as much but be comfortable. I don’t need to be wealthy, just pay the bills and feed the kids…. You can’t rely on me because I have far too much to lose. That’s why you need the masses who don’t have anything to lose…. People like Candace Owens are dangerous because they’re speaking to those people but with nonsense, giving them crazy crazy ideas … I’ve got nothing to say to her, there’s nothing to be gained, it’s like an empty void, talking down a hole, you may as well go and talk to yourself outside. That’s the level of rationality you’re going to get.

When Russell asks if other races have the same problems, Kehinde replies, “The Irish had it bad for a bit and then they became white. The worst oppression was always reserved for people who were outside Europe.”

Russell ends by saying, “We’ve talked for 75 min which isn’t as long as I talked to Candace Owens but frankly you’re not as beautiful <both laugh>

Let’s start to unpack this with Russell. He tells Kehinde that Candace is charming and beautiful. In the intro, a listener says he found the sexual tension a tad distracting and Russell says, “You found it distracting … imagine how we felt in here, in the chamber!” He says that those who don’t like Candace will like Kehinde because he says things about her that Russell won’t repeat.

Russell is an equal opportunity flirt, as I talk about on his bromance with Luke Kemp. I think flirting makes the world go round and I love that Russell is profligate with his compliments. But when Kehinde is calling her contradictory, wrapped around a bubble, an empty void, like talking down a hole, belongs on a plantation, crazy crazy ideas, dangerous nonsense, irrational, ridiculously delusional, and a black face on white racism, all Russell can say is that she’s charming, sexy and beautiful. That’s not defending her but himself—like he was taken in by her feminine wiles, to which Kehinde wasn’t exposed.

And in a subtle point, Kehinde always uses Candace’s full name, something you’d never do in a conversation with a person. There’s no other Candace he might be referring to. So why? It’s a way of making someone into an object, an other. They’re not a person but a brand. If Kehinde was in the room with Candace, saying these things to her face, he’d be rude, a bully. But he can get away with the insults because she’s not a real person. She’s a representation of what he rejects.

Listening to the Void

Now let’s look at where Candace’s points differ from Kehinde:

Rich People are Not Bad

Candace talks about growing up poor and not knowing she was poor until she went to a friend’s suburban house and saw that everyone didn’t live like her. She shared a room with her sisters, and five of her nine uncles were in prison at some point in their lives. There are two reactions to that, she says, you either hate rich people or you want to become one. She decided to learn how to be successful. When people become rich, she asserts, it doesn’t make others poor, it makes them employed. Russell asks, “Do you hate anyone” and Candace answers, “No, hate’s a weird emotion because you harvest it internally. If you hate, YOU hate. They’re okay, they don’t feel that.”

Schooling is Not Essential

I like to say I’m self-educated because you don’t learn anything in school. You learn how the government and society want you to function. … I was kicked out of the house at 14. … I was always pushing back behind arbitrary authority, I was always a critical thinker my entire life. As a kid, at 8, I was always reading fiction novels, Dean Koontz, Norah Roberts, I was a total dweeb. When I was older I was reading Milton Friedman, Thomas Sowell…. He’s a black economist who makes you understand that they’re manipulating you. They make you think that because of the color of your skin, you’re behind and that isn’t true. He goes through world history and exposes the fallacies. And if you start from nothing and want to get ahead in life, you have to abandon these emotional arguments.

People are Not Racist

As a teenager, some boys left Candace racist voicemails that became a local scandal, with a front page article denouncing it as a hate crime. She disputes this, saying that behavior can be racist but that doesn’t mean the person is, especially when they’re just a mixed-up kid. Behavior changes but labels just keep it from changing. No one wants to know why they did it, that they had their first beer, that a 14-yr old who’d never met her was given a phone, that technology allows things to be done that someone would never do to someone’s face. It’s easy to be mean when there’s no real person there. (ahem, Kehinde)

Welfare is Not Good

Candace explains how “the welfare system goes against the human spirit because people want to work. We want to be valuable, we want to create. … The biggest problem facing the black community is father absence, that’s being incentivized by our government. The single motherhood rate was 23% in the 1960’s before welfare programs were implemented to 74% now in the black community. That’s because they literally will give a mother more money from the government if the father doesn’t live in the home.”

Ending Black Oppression

Candace says, “We agree that blacks are economically depressed, what we disagree on is the solution. People need to abandon a victim mentality… the oppression Olympics: I deserve more because I’m more oppressed than you. Black people were outpacing white Americans in the 1950s under Jim Crow in terms of economic growth until we implemented the welfare programs. Under Donald Trump it’s been the lowest unemployment rate there’s ever been for black Americans with a 400% increase in black-owned businesses.” Candace emphasizes that she’s not a Republican but an independent who votes for the candidate, and voted for Trump as anti-establishment.

Capitalism vs. Socialism

Russell says that capitalism just got the biggest bailout in history, and they agree that the banks shouldn’t have been bailed out, they should have let them go under. Candace says rich people are the easiest to sell on socialism because they feel guilty about their wealth…. Russell thinks there should be government help for addicts and anorexics, which Candace sees as the role of parents and the community. Candace asks Russell if he goes around the block to see if everyone’s had breakfast before he eats. She’s against monopolies and the globalists who control the system but that’s .0001% of the world and they want socialism. In the US, 85% of taxes are paid by the top 10%.

Slavery Pain and Reparations

Candace says that everyone was a slave at some point in their ancestry and asks Russell if he feels his slavery pain. She asks how far back Russell wants to do reparations. Roman empire? Or does it just end with black Americans?

Love and Government

Russell says we need to create systems that are reflective of our kindness and Candace answers, “You’ve blended in your mind that politics and goodness and Oneness should go together. Hell, no. There’s no such thing as a good government…. You’re admitting that government is corrupt and yet you think government is the solution….” Russell protests that he’s not a liberal, he’s an anarchist, and where they disagree is on compassion and love. Candace asks if he wants to give out hugs. When asked for the solution, Candace says limited government and free markets. Russell wants to live within systems that encourage collective and communal values. Candace retorts, “When the government comes and demands that you give up your money, that’s theft…. Americans give $500B to charity and when you lower taxes, we give more.”

Designing a New System

They spend a lot of time debating what a new form of government should look like, and agree it should be decentralized, encourage meaningful jobs and businesses, have taxes for things the community benefits from, and strengthen families. Russell ends by asking Candace, “When new ideas come, as they will, will you welcome them?” Candace answers, “I’ll be the first person to open my loving arms and says, ‘Come here, new idea that’s going to fix everything!’”

New Idea That’s Going to Fix Everything

The new idea that could unify Russell and Candace might be called community capitalism, and is in my book, How to Dismantle an Empire. The critical question is who owns the capital, which is the right to issue loans against real property. I reserve this right for public banks owned by local governments, which would create a revenue stream of new money that’s diverted only from the .0000001% of bankers.

Every community would be able to design their own policies to use this local money but I recommend they model it first. The objective should be making it circulate as many times as possible within the community, creating new goods and services, before it’s exchanged for dollars and sucked out.

Kehindeville can have all the white people give their portion to the black people for reparations. That should last one cycle. Russelltopia can help those with the greatest needs. That might last two. Candaceland can let competition play out until the resources are monopolized and the land is fracked. That might last longer but be more permanent.

My own ideas on how to design a system of reciprocity would fill a book—tentatively titled How to Build a Commonwealth. They include subsidies for locally produced food, education, home repairs and wellcare. I think a maximum wage would help trickle-down, like a lid on a pan of popcorn. And all ways that money is made from labor should belong to the individual while all ways that money is made from money belong to the community. That’s a start to my utopia.