John and I are back again for one of our twice-monthly tête-à-têtes, our final conversation before the semester begins and we’re once again immersed in campus life. John is soaking up the last of the summer in his Catskills bungalow, and I’m here in Providence. I hope you’re all enjoying the long Labor Day weekend, spending some time with friends and family, and, of course, carving out an hour to dig into this TGS episode.
We begin by discussing the recent controversy over a statue commissioned by the City of Philadelphia that pays tribute to the great black abolitionist Harriet Tubman. It was sculpted by a white man—does that matter? John and I are gearing up for the new school year, and we talk about pre-lecture anxiety (and John’s lack thereof). John then lets me in on his writing process for his New York Times columns, and I give him a little pushback on one of his recent pieces. My recent conversation with Carol Swain has generated some controversy here at the Substack. John seems a bit befuddled as to why I had her on to talk about the 2020 election. And finally, John makes an out-of-left-field prediction about the fate of Donald Trump.
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0:00 Can a white man tell Harriet Tubman’s story?
9:59 What the fall semester has in store for Glenn and John
17:25 How John makes the sausage at the New York Times
22:55 John: We now memorize rap lyrics instead of poetry
36:18 Is wokeness on the wane?
42:12 What John just doesn’t get about Carol Swain
51:46 A Democrat by any other name
56:50 John makes a wild prediction about Trump
Recorded August 31, 2023
Links and Readings
The Philadelphia Harriet Tubman statue
John’s NYT piece, “Two Languages Walk into a Bar”
John’s NYT piece, “How Hip-Hop Became America’s Poetry”
Oliver Anthony’s song, “Rich Men North of Richmond”
Jason Aldean’s song, “Try That in a Small Town”
Sabrina Salvati’s YouTube channel
Carol Swain’s recent TGS episode
Carol Swain’s book, Black Faces, Black Interests: The Representation of African Americans in Congress
Dinesh D’Souza’s film, 2000 Mules
John McWhorter – Whose Election Narrative?