(((My Fellow Americans))) #89: Laura Briggs

DISCLOSURE

FULL TRANSCRIPT TEXT

00:19
i’ll be
00:20
buried in my grave
00:26
before i become a slave
00:32
that is what i heard them say
00:39
way back in the days i’ll be
00:42
buried
00:43
[Music]
00:54
but it seems like since that day yeah
01:01
we have solely changed
01:15
i’ll be buried in my grace
01:28
that is
01:42
[Music]
01:50
but it seems like since that day
01:54
[Music]
02:06
change
02:12
[Music]
02:21
and now oh from beautiful myrtle beach
02:24
south carolina you’re watching my
02:28
fellow americans with your host
02:31
spike cohen yes it’s me yes
02:37
yes thank you so much thank you for
02:40
joining us
02:41
keep clapping keep clapping
02:44
clap for the february miracle how would
02:47
we know
02:48
that you wanted the february miracle if
02:51
you didn’t keep clapping
02:53
welcome to my fellow americans i am
02:55
literally spike cohen we have a really
02:57
uh fantastic guest tonight uh talking
03:00
about
03:01
unfortunately a very painful but also
03:04
oddly fascinating subject of of child
03:06
separation
03:08
uh and family separation and and what we
03:10
can do
03:11
to stop it and keep families intact i
03:14
think it’s a really cool conversation
03:15
and i appreciate you for joining us uh
03:17
tonight this is
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08:00
thank you so much joe davi and i’d like
08:02
to thank leble
08:03
for this delicious purified drinking
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water
08:07
ultra pure drinking water that is both
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oxygenated with ozone it is bpa-free
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coming into
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08:24
these are all characteristics that i
08:27
also share
08:28
although i don’t know if i’m oxygenated
08:30
with ozone
08:31
but i am bpa-free i am non-carbonated
08:35
i’m i don’t know if i’ve been certified
08:37
as kosher but i am kosher
08:39
ish and i also am made in the usa
08:42
so in a way i mean i already am 70
08:46
this or 60 whatever percent water we are
08:50
i am that percent of this because this
08:52
is the water i drink
08:53
but also i am this as well
08:59
i’m gonna think that out a little bit
09:01
more later bulupinaka
09:06
oh that’s delicious you’re going to see
09:07
me chugging this what this water is so
09:09
good
09:09
shout out to tara on turks’s momentum as
09:11
always folks
09:12
my guest tonight is an author historian
09:15
and professor
09:16
she is the chair of the women gender and
09:19
sexuality studies program
09:21
at the university of massachusetts
09:23
massachusetts amherst
09:24
i can’t even say it right uh her newest
09:26
book uh is uh
09:28
my dad’s gonna be upset of me because
09:29
he’s from massachusetts most of my
09:30
family is actually from massachusetts
09:32
her newest book uh is taking children a
09:35
history of american terror which
09:37
talks about the long and sordid history
09:39
of institutionalized
09:40
child kidnapping in america ladies and
09:42
gentlemen my
09:43
fellow americans please welcome to the
09:46
show my next guest
09:47
professor laura briggs laura thank you
09:50
so much for coming on the show i greatly
09:52
appreciate it
09:53
thank you for having me absolutely this
09:56
is a very interesting subject to me
09:58
um it is heartbreaking what is happening
10:01
and what has happened
10:02
as it relates to uh just the the
10:05
disregard for the
10:06
uh for for the the sanctity of the
10:08
family that is shown so often by
10:10
government i
10:10
really appreciate an opportunity to talk
10:12
with an expert about this subject
10:15
well um um i can’t say i’m happy to talk
10:18
about it
10:19
i wish that it were not the case and
10:21
yeah i wish that
10:23
people were not continuing to experience
10:26
the loss of children um for reasons
10:29
having to do with
10:30
racialized terror but nevertheless
10:33
i’m anxious to talk about it well i i
10:37
i join you in that and folks be sure to
10:39
comment with your
10:41
thoughts and questions muddied admins
10:43
are standing by to tell you if you are
10:46
right or wrong now laura uh
10:49
i i always ask whenever i have a guest
10:51
on uh that i’ve not talked to before i
10:53
always ask
10:54
what is it that got you interested
10:56
initially
10:57
in this subject of you know just child
11:00
uh
11:01
taking children and family separation
11:03
what was it a a moment
11:05
that happened that that struck you or
11:06
did just sort of your your overall
11:08
studies bring you to it
11:10
what brought you to this subject well
11:13
i’ve been writing and thinking about
11:16
reproductive politics for about
11:18
20 years and in
11:22
um 2017-2018 when we
11:25
started hearing about
11:29
the child separation of those who were
11:31
applying for asylum
11:33
um at the border and separating children
11:37
from
11:38
canon caregivers i was
11:42
devastated and not at all shocked
11:46
the um i wrote a book that came out in
11:49
2012
11:50
called somebody’s children and it’s the
11:52
very last
11:54
um chapter in that book i’m saying
11:57
you know the next thing that we’re going
11:59
to look at
12:00
is going to be the separation of
12:03
children
12:04
from migrants and
12:08
people crossing the us border and
12:11
i couldn’t you know i wrote that
12:13
thinking well if i write it down that’ll
12:15
stop it right
12:16
and of course it’s a naive hope nobody
12:19
pays that much attention to historians
12:21
but
12:21
um it was shocking and devastating
12:26
yeah it is absolutely devastating and
12:28
the thing is
12:29
no you’re you’re writing it isn’t
12:31
necessarily the one thing that’s going
12:33
to cause it all to end
12:34
but if we don’t talk about it if we
12:36
don’t make people aware of it
12:37
then the likelihood of it happening is
12:39
even is even less of it ever ending so
12:41
it’s good that you’re doing this now you
12:43
mentioned
12:43
the uh the immigration the separations
12:45
that are happening at the border people
12:47
coming here to seek a better life and
12:49
and you know
12:50
one of their their first initial
12:52
instances of being there is to have a
12:54
government
12:55
uh separate their families put their
12:56
children in cages uh
12:58
uh often to have difficulty reuniting
13:01
with their families we we just heard
13:02
that there are families reuniting that
13:04
have been separated since 2018
13:06
um i can’t even imagine being separated
13:09
from my family by government having not
13:11
even committed a crime but
13:12
this air these uh family separations
13:15
which
13:15
unfortunately are not you know unique to
13:18
the trump era
13:19
but this is really just the most recent
13:22
example
13:22
of government tearing children from
13:25
their families with with zero regard for
13:27
the for the integrity of that family can
13:29
can you
13:30
tell us i mean obviously not the entire
13:32
history but
13:33
can you tell us where this started in in
13:35
this country
13:37
so one of the most striking things as
13:41
people were beginning to
13:42
talk about what was happening at the
13:45
border
13:46
was the real difference between
13:49
people on twitter like hillary clinton
13:51
and democratic politicians who are like
13:53
oh this is an america and racial justice
13:57
activists who are like oh my god this is
13:59
so much america
14:01
um this isn’t the first time by any
14:03
stretch of the imagination
14:05
so we first started hearing in this
14:08
country about
14:09
the separation of children from
14:13
canon caregivers in the 1830s and even
14:17
before that
14:18
in the 1790s in the context of
14:22
enslavement um it’s separating
14:26
children from their mothers in
14:27
particular was one of the
14:30
ways that slave owners enforced
14:34
compliance terror helping
14:38
people to understand clearly what their
14:40
position was
14:41
as children that they didn’t even have
14:45
the right to somebody who cared about
14:48
them looking after them
14:50
and subsequently it was
14:54
a tactic used in the context of the
14:57
indian wars as the united states
15:00
stretched an
15:01
empire across the u.s continent or the
15:04
continent we now think of is the us
15:06
right and the um
15:10
and as the as the wars ran
15:14
on through the from the 1830s all the
15:16
way through the 1890s and didn’t seem to
15:19
end
15:20
the army got the idea that if
15:24
you took the children particularly of
15:27
indigenous leadership tribal nations
15:29
leadership
15:30
and put them in faraway boarding schools
15:34
that you had a unique power
15:37
of leverage over those tribal nations
15:40
right and you could pass on
15:44
to the children um english
15:47
and you could integrate them into u.s
15:50
society rather than into their tribal
15:52
communities
15:54
that isn’t exactly what happened of
15:56
course tribal nations
15:59
continued and indigenous languages
16:02
continued
16:03
but nevertheless that was very much the
16:05
dream of
16:07
the army as it essentially went from
16:10
holding people holding indigenous
16:12
children and adults together in prison
16:14
camps
16:15
to essentially um creating prison camps
16:18
that
16:19
were called boarding schools and
16:22
go ahead so so basically the
16:24
homogenization of american society even
16:27
if it means
16:27
destroying entire lineages and families
16:30
in the process
16:32
that was very much the vision
16:35
is if only you could assimilate
16:38
indigenous people into
16:40
indigenous children into sort of the
16:42
dominant society
16:44
make them christian make them speak
16:46
english then they would
16:48
lose what one report called the tribal
16:51
and clannish
16:52
organization that um positioned them
16:56
in um hostile opposition
16:59
to the um anglo society
17:03
wow and it’s important to realize that
17:07
that was not
17:08
a life that was not ages ago there are
17:11
very much
17:12
people still alive and walking among us
17:14
who
17:15
attended boarding schools or who were
17:19
the
17:19
chil who are the children of people who
17:22
attended boarding school supporting
17:24
school experience
17:25
is still a significant part of
17:28
indigenous communities
17:30
but so too is what essentially turned
17:33
into the next
17:35
phase of child taking um
17:38
in the 20th century the
17:42
the taking of kids in the middle of the
17:45
20th century
17:46
from both book and indigenous
17:49
communities as kind of a
17:51
cure for poverty as
17:55
and they would and
17:58
the entry and of large numbers of kids
18:02
into the us foster care system
18:05
that actually really got its start
18:08
in um in the context of the civil rights
18:12
movement and the fight over
18:13
desegregation the important thing
18:16
about desegregation that we always
18:19
forget
18:20
is actually that it was a children’s
18:23
crusade
18:24
school desegregation was about children
18:27
and
18:29
the work of civil rights marches and so
18:33
on
18:33
was often carried forward by children
18:37
and the more
18:41
white white supremacists sought to
18:44
discredit the black community that was
18:48
um that was demanding an end to
18:51
segregation
18:52
they focused on the children of single
18:55
mothers they focused on
18:57
welfare and saying that everybody was a
18:59
welfare cheat
19:01
and so they sought to take away their
19:03
kids
19:05
and the size of the child welfare system
19:08
doubled in the 1960s
19:11
as as children were
19:15
taken from black families and at the
19:18
same time
19:19
we saw the taking of children from
19:22
indigenous communities
19:24
as the as the effort
19:27
and renewed effort to end
19:30
in conflict between indigenous
19:32
communities and anglo communities was
19:35
to move people to cities so that they
19:39
would be
19:39
um so that they would be close to where
19:42
the jobs were and
19:43
distant from um from reservations and
19:47
native communities
19:48
and that’s actually what that’s actually
19:50
what led to the creation of the american
19:52
indian movement was the
19:53
this policy uh that was in earnest in
19:56
the 40s and 50s
19:57
to basically end reservation life and
20:00
force the uh force the natives into the
20:03
into communities that they had never
20:04
belonged to
20:05
ironically on land that was once theirs
20:07
but into these you know inner city
20:09
communities
20:10
to get jobs but it really was just to
20:13
destroy
20:13
who they were now a question about these
20:16
and these are two different policies
20:17
that are both rooted in
20:19
or at least appear to be rooted in kind
20:20
of this white man’s burden
20:22
fallacy that you know the real problem
20:24
with these these you know lesser
20:26
cultures or lesser races
20:28
is that they just aren’t approximate
20:30
enough to whiteness
20:31
and that the answer is to basically
20:32
remove them from what they know
20:34
and and but that i guess that’s my next
20:36
question so
20:37
if they are removing them so for example
20:40
with the
20:41
with the uh the so-called indian
20:43
residential schools or the or the
20:44
boarding schools
20:45
with the removing of uh children from
20:48
black families especially black single
20:50
parent families
20:52
what was the end goal were they then put
20:54
with white families were they just
20:56
made to be put through foster care like
20:59
what what actually happened to these
21:00
children that were being removed who
21:02
were
21:02
who was taking care of them right
21:05
initially the goal was to
21:07
place them with family members so
21:10
it wasn’t so much that they had that
21:13
the white segregationists who were
21:16
enacting these policies
21:18
had a clear vision that they it like
21:21
with
21:21
residential schools that they were gonna
21:24
um
21:25
assimilate these african-american kids
21:29
into white families
21:30
on the contrary they didn’t think very
21:33
much about what was going to happen to
21:34
black kids their goal was to terrorize
21:37
um to terrorize black communities
21:41
and so a lot of the discussion
21:45
early on was you know all these welfare
21:48
moms
21:49
are just welfare cheats having these
21:52
extra kids so that they don’t
21:55
so that they can get a bigger check
21:56
right right um
21:58
and i mean we’re we’re seriously talking
22:00
about 30
22:01
checks um and so
22:04
they were you can’t support anybody on
22:07
that
22:08
but the idea was
22:11
that they would just relinquish their
22:13
kids to
22:15
um to family members or
22:18
they would move out of the community so
22:21
you see in the cont in mississippi it’s
22:24
a slightly different conversation but
22:26
the
22:27
idea that single mothers who
22:30
had illegitimate children it was all
22:33
about sort of
22:34
illegitimacy was a key word in this
22:36
conversation
22:38
um then if there was a mississippi built
22:42
to
22:42
sterilize mothers who had illegitimate
22:45
children black
22:46
and with the idea that it would be black
22:48
mothers and
22:49
mostly black mothers right they
22:52
no actually pretty much exclusively
22:54
though the legislative debate was really
22:57
clear
22:57
like that this was about black mothers
23:00
and they said you know when the
23:02
cutting starts as a almost a quote
23:05
um when the cutting starts the negros
23:07
will head for chicago
23:09
so if you could drive them north simply
23:12
by terrorizing them right that’s pretty
23:14
much
23:14
what the south had been doing for a
23:16
generation with lynching
23:18
with um the sort of
23:22
blowing up of houses and churches and
23:25
black businesses and the
23:27
the dynamite campaigns of the ku klux
23:30
klan
23:31
and it was similar with taking children
23:36
if you could just scare a handful of
23:39
people
23:39
into believing that the consequences
23:43
of rebelling against the white power
23:45
structure
23:46
and demanding an end to segregation was
23:49
just not
23:50
worth it it was just gonna bring fire
23:52
down on people’s heads
23:54
then the belief was that they would stop
23:57
that this
23:58
um breaking of the social contract by
24:01
demanding decent schools and decent
24:03
housing
24:04
um would by black civil rights activists
24:08
would end
24:09
so it was basically the cruelty was the
24:12
point
24:12
it was get them so scared that they’ll
24:14
just leave
24:15
in a similar way that some of the
24:17
cruelty that has happened at the border
24:19
part of the point is to try to deter
24:21
people from even coming here
24:22
in a similar fashion it was to say okay
24:25
just just get out you know if you don’t
24:27
want this to happen to you
24:28
go move somewhere else we don’t want
24:29
basically we don’t want your your kind
24:31
here so it sort of served
24:33
two purposes one was as agitprop against
24:36
the civil rights movement towards
24:37
you know talking to white people saying
24:39
well you know these people can’t even
24:40
take care of their families that’s why
24:42
we’re having to do this
24:43
to take care of their children but also
24:45
to let those those you know
24:46
communities of color know yeah we we
24:49
don’t want you here and we’ll destroy
24:50
your family
24:51
until you until you leave this is it’s
24:53
it’s it’s absolutely
24:54
i mean it’s it’s like you said it’s not
24:57
surprising uh
24:58
when people you know it is interesting
25:00
to watch kind of
25:02
i guess mainstream liberal culture say
25:04
this is not the america i know and it’s
25:06
like well
25:06
then you don’t know much about america
25:09
unfortunately
25:10
and uh you know this isn’t about hating
25:12
america but let’s be honest like this is
25:14
this is very much part and parcel of
25:16
american policy
25:17
actually the times when it hasn’t
25:19
happened have been the departures
25:21
from american policy now this actually
25:23
correct me if i’m wrong
25:24
but this happened this started
25:27
especially in communities of color
25:29
even before the founding of the united
25:32
states during the period when slaves
25:33
were still being imported and then even
25:35
after that when slavery importation
25:38
ended
25:39
and there was the breeding of slaves
25:40
some of this happened as
25:42
if not even necessarily as a policy of
25:45
cruelty
25:46
but just as a policy of treating people
25:48
like livestock where they would
25:50
basically
25:51
auction off or split up families because
25:54
you know
25:54
this because the mother was bought by
25:56
this you know this
25:57
owner and the children or the father was
26:00
bought by
26:01
this owner you know is that correct that
26:03
it was
26:04
basically they were put on a chopping
26:05
block the same way that like a litter of
26:07
animals would be put
26:09
right one of the um one of the herds of
26:13
chattel slavery is
26:14
that it turned people into objects and
26:17
made
26:18
children available to as property that
26:22
could settle debts be passed down
26:25
through inheritance
26:27
but that made profit for people
26:32
and one of the things you were talking
26:33
about is that there have been
26:36
both liberal and conservative
26:38
justifications for this
26:39
right there’s been the we should
26:43
assimilate people to white culture and
26:46
we can do that through taking their
26:48
children which
26:50
you know is a is the sort of thing you
26:52
can only imagine about a group of people
26:55
who are racialized or who are
26:58
um impoverished in such a way that they
27:01
you hold them differently in your mind
27:03
right
27:03
right i would never say to you you would
27:05
never say to me
27:07
as like people who respect each other oh
27:10
i’m gonna take your kid because like
27:13
that’s gonna
27:15
give your kid a better opportunity right
27:18
right right in the in in the absence of
27:20
one of us
27:21
abusing our children or something like
27:23
that if it’s just looking at you and
27:25
saying oh i don’t think that the way
27:27
you’re living is up to my standard so
27:29
i’m just gonna take your kid from you
27:31
because they’ll live a much better life
27:32
with me right yeah right
27:34
even if it’s that i don’t have indoor
27:36
plumbing or i’m just barely getting by
27:38
like
27:38
right now it’s not a solution to poverty
27:42
in the way that say programs that enable
27:46
people to have decent housing and food
27:48
are to take their children
27:51
and and then there’s the the
27:54
other rationale which is just terror
27:58
yeah yeah so it it so it is it is the
28:00
dual
28:01
the dual purpose of uh propagandizing
28:04
these communities as
28:06
basically being unfit to take care of
28:08
themselves that’s why we have to do this
28:09
to them
28:10
but also with the wink wink to that
28:12
community of no we know what we’re doing
28:14
to you is terrible and if you want it to
28:16
end
28:17
get away from us you know get get out of
28:19
our get out of our land and go somewhere
28:21
else because we’re just going to make it
28:22
worse
28:23
um so this let
28:26
the the indian residential schools uh
28:29
we could probably do an entire
28:30
conversation just about this
28:33
i i uh last year when i was campaigning
28:35
for vice president um i went across the
28:38
country including
28:38
uh into a lot of communities in the
28:40
southwest which were very heavy with
28:42
natives
28:43
and there were some there who i don’t
28:44
know if i met anyone who actually was
28:47
in one of these residential schools but
28:49
i did meet people who talked about how
28:51
their parents
28:52
and grandparents were in these
28:53
residential schools
28:55
are you able to tell us just sort of a a
28:58
i guess
28:58
a a brief synopsis of what it was like
29:02
being a i guess kind of going through
29:05
the timeline of being a child
29:07
who is you know removed from their
29:09
family and put in one of these schools
29:12
and what that actually looked like to
29:14
them like sort of
29:14
i guess sort of a a compressed a
29:16
condensed timeline of what that would
29:18
look like as a child going through that
29:21
yeah we have some particularly
29:23
horrifying accounts from the 1920s and
29:26
30s
29:27
um that tells stories of rampant
29:30
epidemic disease
29:32
in residential schools like living in
29:35
the time of covet it’s actually much
29:37
easier to understand
29:39
um disease just ripped through these um
29:42
these boarding schools these barracks
29:45
um of children being dramatically
29:48
punished for
29:50
um for things like running away
29:53
or failing or speaking an
29:57
indigenous language their hair was cut
30:00
um so that they looked like little
30:02
victorian
30:03
ladies and gentlemen or boys and girls
30:06
they were
30:07
segregated by sex which was rarely a
30:11
practice
30:11
um in indigenous communities
30:14
and so separated from brothers and
30:17
sisters and neighbors
30:19
um and that
30:23
they were frequently illiterate which
30:25
tells us something
30:26
about what is boarding school right we
30:28
think yeah i was gonna say what’s the
30:30
point of the boarding school if they’re
30:31
not yeah right
30:32
right that it wasn’t educational and
30:36
they were they were working um probably
30:39
in violation of child labor laws
30:41
in order to support the institutions
30:45
some of them were state-run institutions
30:47
and some of them were
30:48
religious institutions run by
30:52
protestants catholics and um and mormons
30:55
as well
30:56
and then um
31:00
in the 1930s we have accounts from
31:03
the navajo reservation in northern
31:06
arizona
31:06
of children literally being roped like
31:09
cattle
31:10
and packed into trucks we know that
31:14
sometimes families hid their kids
31:18
something happened though in the um in
31:21
the 30s and 40s and 50s which is
31:24
that boarding schools got a lot more
31:25
native teachers
31:27
and that changed their character in
31:30
significant ways
31:32
and you know they’re kind of two stories
31:36
that historians tell and one of them
31:38
about the boarding schools and one of
31:39
them is the story of terror and the
31:43
desire to separate them from indigenous
31:46
communities
31:48
and then there’s the story of survival
31:51
right the american indian movement was
31:53
born in boarding schools
31:55
and native teachers helped people
31:59
figure out how to be men women
32:02
adults through and indigenous adults and
32:06
inter intertribal conversations
32:10
took place that forged indian identities
32:14
or native identities that were
32:16
different from just the identities of
32:18
tribal nations
32:21
so i think that the boarding school
32:24
experience in some ways was really mixed
32:27
as
32:29
it became for some people a strategy for
32:31
learning
32:32
and going on with their lives
32:35
but we also have reports from
32:38
psychologists
32:39
talking about high rates of
32:43
alcoholism anxiety
32:46
mental illness in the wake of the
32:48
boarding school experience
32:50
that it’s higher than average that
32:52
people suffered in boarding schools
32:55
there was also um there are also reports
32:58
of rampant sexual abuse in boarding
33:00
schools
33:01
so go ahead no no no i want you to i
33:05
want to let you finish on this point
33:08
so because native survival ran through
33:11
the boarding schools
33:13
and native survival is also
33:16
the story of the united states we don’t
33:19
want to
33:20
just remember them for their horrors but
33:23
also for the ways
33:24
that people made something else of them
33:28
well they had to out of necessity in
33:30
order to be able to survive
33:32
they coped as they could and so there is
33:34
that
33:35
not a silver lining but there is that
33:37
story of the survival that happened
33:39
out of that but at the same time
33:40
obviously we don’t want to glorify that
33:42
or
33:42
or or lionize that when the reality is
33:45
they were surviving an incredibly
33:46
horrific and traumatic thing and and
33:48
you know one of the things that struck
33:50
me is we talk about the fact that people
33:52
who are abused
33:53
are often exponentially more likely to
33:56
end up being abusers because that’s
33:58
that’s what they know and obviously by
34:00
the time once they’re adults they have
34:01
to be responsible for that
34:02
but we know that the data the data shows
34:04
us that when someone is abused
34:06
they are more likely i maybe shouldn’t
34:08
say exponentially but much more likely
34:10
to commit abuse when you see widespread
34:13
systemic abuse of an entire
34:15
multiple generations of children
34:17
obviously that’s going to end up working
34:19
its way towards those children becoming
34:21
adults
34:21
and often now dealing with the the
34:23
second-hand trauma
34:25
of that event or or causing second-hand
34:27
trauma from that event
34:28
in the course of abusing people and
34:30
things like that especially if they also
34:32
are dealing with the fact of having no
34:33
real prospects
34:34
um you know we talk about uh people like
34:36
leonard peltier
34:37
and uh and russell means with the
34:39
american indian movement uh who were
34:41
fighting not just against
34:42
uh this attempt at erasing native
34:45
culture
34:46
but often we’re also fighting against
34:47
the so-called tribal governments which
34:49
are really just
34:50
puppet regimes of the of the bureau of
34:52
indian affairs and the federal
34:53
government but
34:54
you know i so i guess you know my my my
34:57
question to you
34:58
on this is uh
35:01
we’ve talked a lot about the the fact
35:03
that this there’s obviously a
35:05
racial bend towards this
35:09
but this isn’t something even though it
35:11
has overwhelmingly and often
35:13
exclusively been used against
35:15
marginalized and minority communities
35:17
the fact is white people or particularly
35:21
uh unwed white mothers were not spared
35:24
either uh can you talk to us a little
35:25
bit about
35:26
the the uh i forget the term but the the
35:29
basically the homes for
35:30
unwed women which were largely uh you
35:33
know
35:33
mostly targeted towards white women or
35:35
at least in certain certain states and
35:37
communities can we talk about that a
35:38
little bit
35:39
sure unwed mothers homes is the term
35:42
you’re looking for
35:43
yes and um or sometimes they were called
35:46
florence crittenden homes
35:48
um and the um
35:52
so
35:55
especially impoverished white women
35:59
have also been targeted by the foster
36:01
care system in the state system that
36:04
separates the separates children from
36:07
their
36:08
from their parents and severs parental
36:11
rights
36:12
but the um unwind mother’s homes were a
36:15
little different
36:15
in the sense that in the middle of the
36:18
20th century
36:19
the 50s 60s and 70s the um
36:24
the the effort to sort of
36:27
um rescue white girls and rescue their
36:31
reputations
36:32
make it so that they can return
36:36
uh that they can have a pregnancy
36:40
and get go away somewhere so that their
36:43
friends and family don’t know about the
36:45
pregnancy
36:46
and return and still be marriageable um
36:50
was was the goal of the unwed mother’s
36:53
homes
36:54
and the children would be placed in
36:56
adoptions
36:58
one of the things that
37:01
that is painful about that history
37:06
is the extent of compulsion that social
37:09
workers
37:10
exercised to get those young women to
37:14
relinquish their children and sometimes
37:16
that their mothers and fathers did
37:18
as well these days um the
37:22
middle-class white girls who have that
37:24
experience are actually
37:25
the products of conservative christian
37:28
households
37:30
they still very much exist
37:33
and but the interesting thing or the
37:37
um the poignant thing is that
37:40
by the middle and late 1970s
37:43
as it became marginally
37:46
possible for a single white woman to
37:51
support their children they stopped
37:54
relinquishing them
37:55
in very big numbers for adoption
37:58
and many people attribute that
38:02
shift mistakenly i think to
38:05
the rise in abortion it was it happened
38:08
before abortion became
38:10
legal throughout the country that this
38:13
rates of placing kids in adoption
38:16
um why babies dropped him dramatically
38:21
girls of color were largely unwelcome
38:24
in unwed mother’s homes because the
38:26
unwed mother’s home sort of depended for
38:28
their economics
38:29
on placing on the adoption fees
38:33
for placing those babies so they were
38:36
baby mills
38:38
um in many ways yes and
38:41
they didn’t think that they could get um
38:44
that
38:45
they could get the same fees for
38:46
children of color
38:48
and so sometimes you see like the
38:51
national urban league trying to create
38:54
spaces
38:55
so that to respectable black girls can
38:57
place babies in adoption
39:00
um without having to suffer the
39:03
um the consequences of what in the
39:06
middle of the century people would have
39:08
said you know a tragic mistake
39:10
a one-time mistake right
39:13
this is so and what’s what’s
39:16
incredible about this laura is that this
39:19
is all based on maintaining a lie
39:22
the whole concept of purity culture
39:26
for lack of a better word is supposed to
39:28
be you know well
39:29
we want to keep our mostly our women but
39:32
basically our our young ones
39:34
targeted mostly towards women because
39:36
it’s obviously their fault uh but you
39:38
know
39:38
we want to keep our our women our girls
39:41
pure
39:42
so that they can you know save
39:44
themselves for
39:45
the man that they were intended for
39:46
basically uh or if you want to look at
39:48
it more in a more egalitarian way that
39:50
our children are kept pure for their
39:52
eventual spouse that they’ll be able to
39:54
enter into holy matrimony having not you
39:56
know sinned against
39:58
god or or whatever fornicated or
40:00
whatever and yet
40:01
when someone violates this
40:04
when someone you know has a child out of
40:07
wedlock
40:07
their answer was to erase it and and to
40:11
basically pretend it didn’t happen
40:13
by putting the girl in a home and
40:15
basically like you said coercing her and
40:17
her and her family
40:18
to uh uh to to give up the child
40:22
um for adoption and then it turned into
40:24
a racket
40:25
so now they’re doing it now they’re
40:27
they’re they’re making money from it
40:29
i’m sure they they’ve convinced
40:30
themselves that this was you know well
40:32
we’re just you know keeping these girls
40:34
respect but they’re not they’re not
40:35
keeping them respectable
40:36
they’re propagating a lie of of of
40:39
purity
40:40
while simultaneously creating a baby
40:42
racket
40:43
how how long approximately did this go
40:45
on you said that it it kind of fell
40:47
apart in the in the 50s and 60s
40:48
how was this like like a 20-year thing
40:51
like how how
40:52
many generations were affected by this
40:54
well
40:55
you can still find places like that all
40:59
over the south in particular
41:01
um and the unwed mother’s homes now
41:06
are a little different in that they
41:07
might have
41:09
more um more married women more older
41:12
women
41:13
but the other thing is as you were
41:16
you were sort of struggling for
41:18
non-gendered language
41:20
and i would actually very much use
41:23
gendered language to talk about yeah for
41:25
this one yeah you
41:26
kind of have to yeah yeah yeah because
41:29
what they were really trying to do was
41:31
create families with fathers
41:34
right if that’s why you know that’s why
41:37
all this stuff about if she just gets
41:39
married it’s okay even if she’s
41:41
14. um and
41:45
so the whole thing about a shotgun
41:47
wedding is of course
41:49
the outcome of an illicit pregnancy
41:53
but if we think about sort of the middle
41:56
of the 20th century it’s a period when
41:58
illegitimate children so-called
42:00
illegitimate children
42:02
had all sorts of legal disabilities
42:05
this was also part of what was at stake
42:08
in the south in the 50s and 60s and
42:11
calling black babies or black children
42:14
illegitimate is that they could be um
42:18
they could be banned from schools they
42:20
um
42:21
and obviously they could be banned from
42:23
government programs and that was the
42:25
point
42:26
um so we see
42:30
[Music]
42:31
large numbers of girls in
42:34
unwed mother’s homes through the 1970s
42:38
but
42:38
there are girls and women in
42:42
unwed mother’s homes are um
42:45
uh today right now
42:49
so this is it may not have the same
42:51
level of of prominence that it once had
42:54
but this is still a thing that’s very
42:55
much going on
42:56
and still for the same reasons this idea
42:58
of maintaining purity
43:00
within those circles that still are
43:02
putting such a a premium on on such a
43:04
thing
43:04
again by being total lying hypocrites
43:07
about the whole thing we’re going to
43:08
maintain
43:09
purity by lying about the fact that this
43:12
poor girl has already
43:13
dared to have sex outside of wedlock and
43:16
and
43:17
and and and dared to end up or probably
43:20
didn’t know any better end up getting
43:21
pregnant as a result of it we’re just
43:23
gonna hide the whole thing
43:24
you know we could probably go into a
43:26
whole other thing about how this
43:28
reflects on
43:29
you know the pro-life movement i think
43:31
wherever you fall
43:32
i know i’m thinking that exactly as
43:34
you’re saying this or that we can talk
43:36
about
43:37
1996 in the welfare reform debate
43:40
oh there’s oh there’s many different
43:42
places we go i think wherever you fall
43:44
on the uh on the abortion debate i think
43:47
we can all agree
43:48
that no one can truly call themselves
43:50
pro-life in any manner of the word
43:52
while simultaneously supporting or not
43:54
at least having an equal amount of
43:55
outrage
43:56
towards the idea of of compulsively and
43:59
coercively
44:00
separating uh mothers from their
44:02
children and putting them in foster care
44:04
where they are likely to suffer abuse
44:06
and all sorts of other terrible things
44:08
and that’s in that very often corrupted
44:11
system
44:12
uh in order to preserve a lie about
44:14
purity
44:15
it is just it is just mind-boggling to
44:17
me you know when i when i when i say
44:19
that these subjects are fascinating
44:21
it’s in the most horrific way possible
44:23
that it’s
44:24
it’s if you were reading it as a
44:26
fictional tale you would say wow that’s
44:28
amazing that someone would come up with
44:29
this
44:30
but these actual people have been and
44:32
are
44:33
being horrifically harmed by these
44:35
things and it is terrible now
44:37
laura another thing that i encountered a
44:39
lot um
44:40
because you know what we’re talking
44:42
about is the tale of what often happens
44:45
with centralized power systems which is
44:48
that they
44:48
use their most cruel techniques and
44:51
their
44:52
their worst harms often against those
44:55
who are the least
44:56
able to protect themselves against it
44:58
because predators tend to go
44:59
after the easiest prey so the poor
45:02
communities of color gender and sexual
45:05
minorities religious and ethnic
45:06
minorities immigrants
45:08
indigenous people all of the groups that
45:10
we would expect
45:11
to be the ones that are the most
45:12
disproportionately harmed by these
45:13
things often
45:14
are and to that end when i was going
45:16
around the country i often spoke with
45:18
uh parents particularly mothers but
45:21
often
45:21
actual two-parent households as well uh
45:25
usually you know below the poverty line
45:28
who would come to my event because they
45:30
wanted to talk about
45:32
uh abuse by cps children’s protective
45:34
services or
45:35
dss department of social services the
45:38
different names in different states but
45:39
they would tell me these
45:41
i want to say unbelievable stories
45:43
except i heard them so often that
45:45
i can’t use the word unbelievable to
45:47
describe them
45:48
stories of cps workers just making up
45:51
things
45:51
uh stories of cps workers uh
45:54
uh you know uh making uh threats illegal
45:58
threats
45:58
uh and and going across state lines
46:01
there was one person i spoke with where
46:02
cps workers actually illegally went
46:04
across state lines
46:06
uh took her children went back across
46:08
the state lines with her children
46:10
and at the last i heard she’s still
46:12
fighting that uh in court and they
46:14
crossed multiple state lines
46:15
to seize her children even though she
46:17
was no longer a resident
46:18
of the state where that cps agency was
46:21
and yet all the same she has been for
46:23
several months
46:24
fighting that uh ha i i’m not sure
46:27
how much your your book touched on this
46:30
particular thing
46:31
but this is an example of
46:32
institutionalized child kidnapping
46:34
every bit as much as the things we’ve
46:36
talked about do you do you know
46:37
is there anything you can expound upon
46:39
that and and where we stand with that
46:41
right now
46:43
yeah absolutely there’s nothing more
46:45
dangerous than somebody who thinks
46:46
they’re rescuing a child
46:48
right um yeah the way that state actors
46:51
social workers
46:52
um get involved in
46:56
really terrifyingly coercive activities
46:59
because they think they’re rescuing a
47:01
child
47:02
um but i wanna i wanna also
47:05
say something a little different which
47:07
is
47:09
there are at least two traditions in the
47:12
united states
47:13
that have operated around these
47:16
questions and one is one we’ve been
47:18
talking about the taking of children
47:20
but there have also been generation
47:23
after generation
47:24
activists to have fought back against it
47:27
and two things leave me much more
47:30
optimistic
47:31
than i was even when i wrote the book um
47:36
a year ago and that is one
47:39
is the mobilization last summer er
47:42
by black lives matter movement for black
47:45
lives
47:47
which in their um in their new vision
47:50
statement the 2020 vision statement
47:52
has really articulated a critique of
47:55
the foster care system as central
47:59
to the politics of state coercion and
48:02
racialized state coercion um
48:06
organizations like the movement for
48:07
family power in
48:09
brooklyn have taken national leadership
48:12
around these questions
48:14
and the other thing that
48:17
has changed is that immigration
48:20
activists
48:21
i think can take a lot of credit for the
48:24
election of
48:25
joe biden and the biden administration
48:29
seems to have not yet forgotten that
48:33
i hoped i hope not i mean
48:36
there’s the i’ve been reading the
48:40
executive orders as they’ve come out
48:42
from the biden administration
48:44
the deportee the deportation ban
48:48
um the ban on taking children the
48:51
and the uneasy relationship between the
48:54
biden administration
48:55
and the and its own agency its um
48:59
um ice ice yeah yep
49:02
ice has continued to deport
49:06
children and babies since the biden
49:08
executive order was issued
49:11
um now 10 days ago and day before
49:13
yesterday they
49:15
um ice sent out a deport deportation
49:18
flight um to haiti where
49:21
um which is you know one of the craziest
49:24
places you could send
49:25
children and infants to right now in the
49:29
midst of a lot of political violence
49:32
right but the um
49:36
but the election of the biden
49:38
administration has
49:40
provided new avenues for immigration
49:42
activists
49:44
to demand a different kind of
49:46
accountability
49:47
not just around the taking of children
49:50
and babies
49:51
but around immigration in general
49:55
i mean one of the things that we can
49:57
remember from
49:58
the slavery period is that anti-slavery
50:01
activists abolitionists
50:04
focused on the taking of children from
50:06
mothers
50:07
as a way to describe the horrors of
50:10
slavery in general
50:12
and i think we can in a parallel way
50:15
we can look to the taking of children
50:18
from asylum seekers
50:20
as a leading issue that has
50:24
brought a lot of attention to what’s
50:26
happening to
50:27
immigrants in general because of course
50:30
the trump administration was not the
50:32
first to take the children of immigrants
50:34
it was
50:35
the george w bush administration
50:37
separated them and put them in detention
50:39
even the reagan administration
50:42
although a much smaller number and
50:46
so there’s been there’s been a lot of
50:50
pushback
50:51
now against not only the
50:54
the deliberate separating of families
50:57
but the
50:59
the kinds of activities for which
51:01
separating families is an inevitable
51:03
byproduct like deportations even of
51:06
adults right
51:08
um or the ways that the migration system
51:13
lets in a very small number of workers
51:15
in particular
51:17
leaving families behind in home
51:19
countries or the use of immigration
51:21
detention
51:23
for people who’ve done nothing wrong
51:26
right or who have had their activities
51:30
criminalized
51:31
in um by saying that simply crossing the
51:35
border
51:36
is a crime um when it wasn’t 50 years
51:39
ago
51:40
right well not not only was it not a
51:42
crime but even now
51:44
they were there was this sort of uh uh
51:46
odd illegal gray area of
51:48
because there seemed to be some uh
51:50
disagreement between different orders
51:52
and laws as to whether
51:54
you could seek asylum in any area even
51:56
if you were technically illegally
51:58
crossing
51:59
um and hopefully you know one thing that
52:01
i’m i’m hopeful on and yes
52:03
we are talking about the vice president
52:04
under deporter in chief barack obama who
52:07
still has the record for
52:08
number of deportations during his time
52:10
in office
52:11
but i do hope that as a result of the
52:14
repulsion of seeing what happened during
52:16
the trump administration
52:17
that if that either uh joe biden does
52:20
deliver on promises to reform
52:23
immigration or if he does not
52:25
that uh that simply not being uh donald
52:28
trump
52:28
isn’t enough and that you know that the
52:31
activists who helped him get into office
52:33
will hold him accountable i i’ve been
52:35
asked a lot
52:36
uh by you know by by mine and joe
52:38
jorgensen’s supporters you know is there
52:40
any silver lining
52:41
to trump to to biden winning the
52:43
election and and i say you know there’s
52:45
most things that that biden is proposing
52:48
i am diametrically opposed to
52:49
one of the few things uh that i am hope
52:52
very hopeful
52:53
that he’ll actually follow through on is
52:55
what we’re talking about with
52:56
immigration i i share that hope with you
52:58
as well
53:00
well i think the question about
53:02
elections is not
53:03
so much is how do you choose the enemy
53:07
you want
53:08
right and as between the trump
53:11
administration
53:12
which were where you could win and still
53:15
lose
53:16
so for example the question of whether
53:19
you could
53:20
as you were just raising it whether you
53:22
could seek
53:23
uh whether you could cross the border to
53:25
seek asylum
53:27
and you know immediately turn yourself
53:29
into a border patrol agent and say i
53:31
have a
53:31
fear of um persecution or death in my
53:34
home country
53:35
and so do everything right under
53:38
the international asylum system the
53:42
us thoughts apparently and still be
53:44
criminalized
53:45
that was the trump administration and
53:48
then you’d and then
53:49
immigration lawyers went to court and
53:50
said this is ridiculous this can’t
53:52
this isn’t the law but you can’t do this
53:55
and they would lose
53:56
and they would continue to do it right
53:58
the court said
53:59
that’s so with the biden administration
54:02
you have
54:03
a separation between people who might
54:06
have been neighbors
54:08
um some of whom are um
54:11
characterized as illegal immigrants and
54:13
some who are characterized as
54:16
asylum seekers and now asylum seekers
54:19
can cross and ask for an asylum hearing
54:22
but um immigrants who cross
54:26
are at serious risk of being
54:29
criminalized
54:30
yeah yeah and yeah i i do i am
54:33
i am i’m not sure i’d say i’m optimistic
54:35
i am hopeful
54:36
uh it does bother me seeing the already
54:39
seeing the change in some media
54:41
uh agencies when they report on on
54:43
things that you know that the surge
54:45
of of of of of uh of uh
54:48
expected unaccompanied minors and
54:50
families that are com or
54:51
unaccompanied minors meaning people that
54:53
are coming with a guardian other than
54:55
their their parents
54:56
um who are who are coming to the borders
54:58
and suddenly the camps and cages are
55:00
being referred to as overflow facilities
55:02
i
55:03
i’m hopeful that there will be that this
55:05
is not going to just be
55:07
you know putting a uh you know putting a
55:09
a a happy face
55:10
on uh strikingly similar policies i hope
55:13
there is a a real change when it comes
55:15
to this
55:15
i also hope that we eventually address
55:17
the fact that and again we could do a
55:19
whole other show about this
55:20
the fact that so many of these people
55:22
are coming to flee political instability
55:24
that is happening as a result
55:25
of the war on drugs and other uh uh in
55:28
uh in infringements and intrusions on
55:31
the
55:32
political processes of other countries
55:34
by the us government but that
55:35
again whole other subject uh but i i do
55:38
i i do hope that there will be some
55:40
some light shine there but you know
55:42
before you know kind of wrapping this
55:44
up uh what are some solutions i mean i i
55:48
think one
55:48
obvious solution it’s not a fix-all but
55:51
one obvious solution
55:52
is we need to end immunity for bad
55:54
actors in government we talk about
55:56
ending qualified immunity for police
55:59
officers but we also need to be ending i
56:00
believe
56:01
absolute immunity for judges for
56:03
prosecutors for cps workers
56:05
for agents in agencies that are refusing
56:08
to uh
56:09
to comply with just the basic
56:10
constitutional recognition of people’s
56:12
rights
56:13
it’s not a fix-all but i think it does
56:15
help what are some other solutions that
56:17
you see
56:18
to make sure that this ends and that
56:21
and then it never either never happens
56:23
again or is much more difficult for
56:24
something like this to happen again so
56:26
that children aren’t
56:27
continuously being separated as a matter
56:29
of policy from their from their families
56:32
we need to stop pouring money into
56:36
the foster care system every time the
56:38
foster care system
56:40
super screws up and something awful
56:43
happens a child dies
56:45
the instant response is we need to put
56:47
more money into the system right yep
56:49
yep um and we
56:52
also need those children who are
56:56
surging the unaccompanied minors they
56:59
have parents and relatives in the united
57:01
states
57:02
yes and that’s why they’re here
57:05
and we need to recognize that u.s policy
57:08
since at least clinton
57:10
of militarizing the border has done more
57:13
to separate families
57:15
than any policy of
57:19
of trying to terrorize asylum seekers we
57:22
need to
57:23
talk about democratic solutions
57:27
that give due process and
57:30
power and rights to immigrants who
57:34
are being who have been recruited for
57:38
generations to do the work of the united
57:40
states
57:41
to do the work of picking crops of
57:43
building
57:45
of building houses doing construction
57:48
work
57:50
and recognize that they too are entitled
57:53
to
57:54
have families and we’ve got to stop
57:57
imagining that we can build an
57:58
immigration system
58:00
that can recruit labor but not bring
58:04
families within their families right and
58:08
we need to stop immigration detention
58:11
that
58:12
is essentially about
58:15
criminalizing people who did nothing
58:18
substantial wrong we have the us senate
58:22
has and the congress has criminalized
58:26
everyday behavior
58:27
on purpose as a way of terrorizing
58:30
immigrants
58:31
so if you um so
58:34
working when working while undocumented
58:39
giving a false name to a police officer
58:42
have been turned into felonies only for
58:44
immigrants we need a
58:45
separate we don’t need a separate legal
58:48
system for immigrants we need to treat
58:50
people
58:51
as we need to stop using citizenship
58:55
to separate people that’s exactly what
58:57
was done um
58:58
during the period of slavery and to many
59:01
people
59:02
who even those who opposed slavery what
59:05
did they see as the end
59:07
end point after slavery they were going
59:09
to deport
59:10
all the african and african descended
59:12
people who were working here
59:14
and we’ve simply recreated versions of
59:17
those laws in that system
59:19
in relation in respect to immigration
59:22
we need to respect tribal sovereignty
59:25
and
59:25
tribal efforts to build
59:28
[Music]
59:30
build child welfare systems and fund
59:32
them
59:34
make the things that treaties demanded
59:37
available
59:38
decent housing decent food
59:42
opportunities to provide social services
59:45
through
59:47
through the structures of tribal nations
59:50
yeah i you know
59:51
interestingly enough this is pretty much
59:53
every single thing you stated was
59:55
in what joe and i part at least on these
59:57
subjects what joe and i just ran on
60:00
last year that you know we need to not
60:02
just hold bad agents
60:03
bad actors in government accountable we
60:06
recommended either
60:07
fully opening the borders returning to
60:09
the original us immigration policy which
60:11
was that
60:12
it wasn’t the government’s business who
60:14
came or left from the country
60:16
unless they were coming from militant
60:17
purposes uh or at the very least
60:19
returning to something like the ellis
60:20
island policy
60:21
where you basically just gave your name
60:23
your country of origin and that kind of
60:25
stuff
60:25
rather than treating people as presumed
60:27
criminals treating them as
60:29
presumed additions welcome additions to
60:32
the american tapestry even if that
60:35
wasn’t necessarily what the intention of
60:36
the policy was
60:37
using that as an idea like you said
60:39
respecting people being able to have
60:41
families
60:42
uh you know when it comes to the subject
60:44
of you were mentioning uh
60:45
tribal sovereignty i spoke to so many
60:48
people when i wa
60:48
when i spoke to natives because i i will
60:50
admit i wasn’t as
60:52
well versed on that subject as i as i am
60:53
now having spoken to them
60:55
and and i would say you know what is it
60:56
that you would like to see from the
60:57
federal government
60:58
and they would say you know what we
61:00
don’t even care about you know the
61:02
programs we were promised
61:03
just let us use our land as we wish
61:06
without having the bureau of indian
61:07
affairs
61:08
spend years before they even respond to
61:10
a request to be able to
61:11
build a new addition to our farm or or
61:14
add livestock to our
61:15
to our you know or or sublet our
61:18
properties or
61:18
you know or something like that but if
61:20
we do it without permission having
61:21
someone come and destroy it within a
61:23
matter of days you know just
61:24
let us use our own land and respect the
61:27
sovereignty that we were promised
61:29
so anyway i i you know this is like i
61:31
said we could we could spend hours
61:32
talking about this but i
61:33
i agree with you i think that that you
61:36
know to whatever extent you know
61:37
government can claim the right to even
61:38
exist in the first place
61:40
it needs to be existing to protect the
61:41
lives and rights and and and well-being
61:44
of the people
61:44
under it and the property of the people
61:46
under it not trying to weaponize
61:48
uh any kind of policy much less a policy
61:50
built around
61:51
really bad notions about racial or
61:53
ethnic superiority and things like that
61:55
so
61:56
uh laura you have been a fantastic guest
61:58
before i let you go i just want to give
62:00
you a chance
62:01
uh to say anything that you feel like
62:03
you didn’t get a chance to say
62:04
if you have any kind of upcoming uh
62:06
speaking events or books or anything you
62:08
want to plug this is your time to do so
62:10
your website anything else that you want
62:11
to
62:12
promote you have as much time to do so
62:14
uh professor laura briggs the floor
62:16
is yours
62:20
of the things i’m really excited about
62:22
is
62:23
an upcoming symposium um in march
62:27
called strengthening bonds and it’ll be
62:30
a kind of wonky event lots of lawyers
62:32
but also lots of activists
62:35
talking about how to
62:38
how to build something other than the
62:41
child welfare system
62:42
and how to build a system that supports
62:46
families in really different ways
62:48
not terminating people’s parental rights
62:51
and that’ll be
62:52
march 17th i believe in at
62:56
columbia university so people should
62:58
look for that
63:00
okay so march 17th in columbia
63:03
university and it was called what again
63:04
strength
63:05
what was it called strengthening bonds
63:07
strengthening bonds
63:08
do you know of a website or anything for
63:10
that or if someone just looks for
63:11
strengthening bonds they should be able
63:13
to find it
63:14
i should be able to find it but i can um
63:17
we’ll get we’ll get that for the notes
63:19
yeah yeah we’ll get that we’ll put that
63:20
in the show notes
63:21
so strengthening bonds uh march 17th at
63:24
columbia university
63:26
well again laura thank you so much for
63:28
coming on
63:29
this was i hate to use the word
63:32
fascinating to describe something that
63:33
is so horrific
63:34
and destructive but this is an
63:36
incredible subject
63:38
i think if americans knew uh more about
63:41
this that people knew more about what
63:42
was happening
63:43
uh that i think they’d be even more
63:45
outraged at the things that are
63:46
happening and i i do hope
63:48
if nothing else comes positive out of
63:50
this administration
63:51
that there’s at least some change when
63:53
it comes to immigration and i would love
63:54
to see a greater respect for
63:56
the uh the the the lives and rights of
63:59
the individual and especially as it
64:01
relates to
64:02
the integrity of the family so laura
64:03
thank you again so much for coming on i
64:05
greatly appreciate it
64:06
thanks for the conversation i really
64:08
appreciate it it was terrific thank you
64:11
and folks thank you for joining us for
64:14
this episode of my fellow americans
64:16
i told you that this would be both
64:18
heartbreaking
64:19
and fascinating um there are certainly
64:21
many things that we can do to hold our
64:23
elected officials accountable
64:25
to try to solve this problem so that we
64:27
don’t continue separating families and
64:29
this was a very enlightening discussion
64:33
on how we can work towards that together
64:36
so be sure to join us
64:38
next week uh next monday for another
64:40
episode of spike cohen’s
64:42
culture of winning uh where i speak
64:44
where i interview
64:46
elected libertarians to talk about how
64:48
they got elected so we can build a
64:49
blueprint for getting libertarians
64:51
elected across the country
64:52
my guest this uh this coming week is
64:55
chris powell
64:56
he is the newly re-elected bethany
64:58
oklahoma city council member
65:00
uh and he is uh not only did he get
65:03
reelected
65:03
he crushed it he got like 74 of the vote
65:07
so he absolutely monkey stomped that
65:10
election that’s a new electoral term
65:12
that i’m gonna use from now on monkey
65:14
stomp
65:15
he was a liberty he didn’t just win he’s
65:17
a libertarian monkey stomper
65:19
and we’re gonna talk about how he did
65:20
that monkey stomping and build a
65:22
blueprint for monkey stopping
65:23
uh by libertarians across this country
65:26
i’m gonna stop saying monkey stopping
65:28
now
65:30
monkey’s topping uh and then join us
65:32
next uh tuesday
65:34
at 8 pm for another episode of the muddy
65:36
waters of freedom
65:37
where matt wright and i parse through
65:39
the week’s events like the cheery little
65:40
20 20 wonder boys that we are
65:42
and then join us right back here next
65:44
wednesday
65:45
same spike place same spike time 8 pm
65:49
eastern for another
65:50
amazing episode of my fellow americans
65:52
folks
65:53
thanks again for watching i will see you
65:55
soon i’m spike cohen
65:57
and you are the power god bless guys
66:04
[Music]
66:14
[Music]
66:16
oh
66:18
[Music]
66:44
[Music]
66:47
[Applause]
66:58
my
66:59
[Music]
67:06
[Music]
67:12
slightly like-minded indeed the life
67:15
i’ve lived brings light to kindness
67:17
all you need is a sign put a cease to
67:20
the crimes
67:21
put an ease to the minds like mine
67:23
sometimes darkness is all i find
67:25
you know what they say about an eye for
67:27
a night in a time when the blaster blood
67:28
who am i to deny with ground when a
67:30
loved one dies
67:31
i recognize that body outside with the
67:33
hoes in the body that was alive
67:35
now find out how but you never know why
67:38
it ain’t even make it to the news at
67:40
night it didn’t even
68:03
[Music]
68:10
tell me why
68:29
a change
68:38
[Music]
68:41
we will make a
68:50
change
68:55
[Music]
69:09
you