Only if it doesn’t take away family time from you brother. And, one question I have for you. Any more unraveling in the future? This particular podcast is my favorite!
you have a gift - I was just wrapping up the day's tasks and was looking for a new book or podcast to listen to, and 2 minutes into my search this email pops in.
As a MH clinician I can say your Epstein episodes were excellent. Bought and read The Franklin Scandal by Bryant due to you. Downloaded the FBI recently released Finders files. Working in child protection last few years. Heart was breaking reading about that nefarious group. FBI may slightly have a chance with near total personnel reform, but Kennedy was right...the CIA needs to be smashed to smithereens and the ground salted (my touch).
One of the most interesting aspects of this story, of the 60s radical groups more broadly, is the lack of extreme violence perpetrated by white radicals vs. the actual extreme violence perpetrated by black radicals and how it’s remembered today.
The media and academia tend to paint a rosy picture of 60s radicals, the picture being upper class “intellectual” terrorism done by student types like Bill Ayers, Mark Rudd, and Bernardine Dohrn. There is little to no mention or celebration, beyond maybe Assata Shakur whose infamy is really only relegated to a single moment, of black radical groups and their bombings and cop killings.
That violence was much more brutal and far more ideologically driven yet largely forgotten with the mainstream narrative being co-opted by the hasbins of the Weather Underground, who want you to believe the late 60s violence was a righteous restrained moral crusade funneled through a coherent political view when it was closer to a bunch of sniveling, drugged up college kids with no understanding of the basic reality of the world they were living in while the black radicals were out attempting in earnest the whole “revolution” thing.
I think part of it is that there is an understanding in the media and academia that violent revolutionaries may be celebrated by the young but are generally tolerated at best by the general population. Sure the summer of mostly peaceful but fiery protests galvanized a lot of angry young people, but most of the country sat at home and shook their heads at the stupidity of it. But you better believe those images stick with people when they go to vote on things like prison reform or when they are listening to grievances being aired by black communities. Basically I think academia and the media are afraid that if they bring historical black violence up that while it may be celebrated by a small proportion of white radicals and by angry young black people it’s mostly going to result in more racism against blacks, a fear that I think is pretty reasonable, there’s a reason we have MLK Jr Day and not Malcom X Day.
Also if history tells us anything it’s that the target of violence matters. The Salem Witch Trials ended because the people involved got too big for their britches and went after the political elite. The treatment of the rioters in DC in June of 2020 compared to the “insurrectionists” of January 2021 is another great example. A single armed protest at the capitol by black radicals in California was enough to shove gun control into overdrive but no one cared when they were carrying in their own neighborhoods. As long as the target of your violence is other proles it will be mostly ignored. You can burn down every inner city neighborhood in America and most people especially the government won’t care, accidentally blow up a townhouse in a rich neighborhood and it matters.
It’s the same reason they make saints out of black men killed by police, regardless of their actual behavior or character but never discuss the innocent victims of gang violence, especially in Chicago. The media is happy to portray poor black people as victims of a terrible system who need rescuing but dare not admit that often victims become victimizers.
I think they are very aware that they can raise up these old white radicals as revolutionary heroes and appeal to younger radicals while the general public will roll their eyes and go on about their business, complaining about rich white kids with too much money and not enough sense. They start raising up black radicals as revolutionary heroes and the public remembers the summer of 2020 (which was overwhelmingly due to those same white rich kids), they start noting the Chicago death toll with interest, they start looking at crime statistics and then they vote for Rudy Giuliani.
I have a slightly different take.. I believe there is an MLK day because that assassination was shifting to a "Racist guy killing a Blackman for wanting equality"
Malcolm X wanted a world for black Americans where they could control their own destiny, where they could create their own economies, harvest the fruit of their own labor, and gradually earn their way into an awakening of real change in their communities!
Much like the former immigrants before them.. he understood that the lawless inside the black communities were holding them back, he preached reform of character while also condemning the racists who clearly didn't want anything to do with his vision... and he didn't feel he needed their approval either... especially the Governments, liberal jews/whites either!
When he got back from Mecca he knew his mission was broader than the scope he was given by NOI... yet he wouldn't budge when the FBI came to him wanting him to turn over on Elijah Muhammed... no... instead the FBI went to the NOI and turned them on Malcolm X... and the movement died... reform with it, and the vision of independence with it.
After Malcolm died, the FaraCON's of the world and the Jesse Jackasses took over and the distant past of Booker T Washington and Malcolm X(i see them as 2 pioneers trumpeting a similar message under 2 distinct identities one of Christian flair the other of Islam) were cast in the waste bin of history...
Ita easier to deal with an MLK or a E.W. Dubois then it is with a radical who wants lasting legacy defining change.
So those 2 are the "winners" of their times and eras... thats just my opinion though
The fact that to most Americans MLK Jr represents peaceful protest and change and Malcom X represents violence I think plays the biggest role. Most people do not have the nuanced view of Malcolm X or history that you have. Most of the white middle and lower class Americans that I know who lived through that time have a pretty simple view of it: MLK Jr a good and peaceful martyr, Malcolm X a violent revolutionary who got what he had coming. That’s the attitude of people alive during the time, I can promise you if I asked every single student in my local rural high school less than 1% would recognize the name of Malcolm X, they would probably assume he was a boxer or maybe a rap artist. So I don’t think that understanding is going to be corrected any time soon. A day to celebrate a man of God who pursued peace and was martyred by a racist is a pretty easy sell to Americans, a day to celebrate a Muslim whose name was synonymous with violent revolution and was killed in what was seen as a form of gang violence is a very different proposal. MLK Jr represented all that white Americans wanted to see themselves as, Malcolm X represented everything they feared.
I watched the Malcolm X movie when I was 12... prior to that I wrote a research paper on him in school... I think we were doing political figures from the 60s... my dad said do it on Malcolm X based on my choices...
I was utterly fascinated with him! I saw him as a Pancho Villa type which the stories of Zapata and Pancho Villa were very relevant to my household!
So a misunderstood revolutionary was a cool figure to me.. As I got older the more I read about him saw him on interviews the more I liked what I read and saw! The more I broadened my understanding of the 1930s-1960s timw frame the more I understood what he was on to...
Its unfortunate we never got to truly see his evolution
You clearly got a better education in history than I did. We never made it to Reconstruction. Honestly I think the affinity to misunderstood revolutionaries is somewhat of a gendered thing. Young (and not so young) men see the excitement of being a revolutionary, living to see your glorious success or giving your life to a cause you think just against imaginable odds sparks something in a man. Women are much more practical in that aspect. Living as the widow of a misunderstood revolutionary is rather less exciting and glorious. Villa’s multiple women spent years arguing over his estate and they were better off than most women in similar situations. Malcolm’s widow died after her grandson (who she took in after her daughter was arrested for conspiring to kill Farrakhan) set fire to their apartment. The same grandson later died over a bar tab in Mexico. Not a lot of glory in that. I would imagine that living with a defeated revolutionary is even more difficult than living as the widow of a revolutionary.
As an adult (41) I see the benefits of a simple life... and so do my kids... and yes stories like Crazy Horse(just a different example from the subject matter and still relevant) are pretty exceptional and these "Heroes" die.... justly and unjustly...
Such is the reality of the heroes journey.. whether in the physical or in the mind (such as the archetypes) death is what the hero gets... for growths sake... of the the community or the person.
And sometimes the death result is the death of the movement and the person... whole communities.
Thats the crazy thing about leadership... it can enhance the development of community and the individual or it can corrupt and destroy both.
And outside powers and influences can take out the leadership (for good or for evil)
I did have great history teachers and my father loved history so these kinda podcasts and content are amazing to my soul
Darryl, this was spellbinding. I couldn’t stop listening. The narrative reads like the best novels I’ve ever read-yet this is non fiction. I remember the fear in New Orleans, working as a student at the VA Hospital downtown, staying overtime because of the sniper shooting from the Howard Johnson hotel by Mark Essex. (Side narrative: there was also a horrific murder of one of the nursing students in my class who made an emergency visit to a patient in the public health rotation without her partner: not much protection to go with partner, to housing project where Essex lived, since both were small women and both would have likely been killed. It shut down home visits in LSU nursing school. Essex not involved in the death, but this was his dangerous housing project: Fisher, torn down after Katrina). I would not visit any patient, in any neighborhood since that incident: permanent stress from decades ago. Very scary time.
You know, that’s a gap in my learning. I’ve come across them in other books (about Latin America, about terrorism and counterinsurgency, etc), but can’t say I really know a whole lot about the conflict.
Daryl thank you for explaining things in such a way that my dumb ass can understand it ! You have opened my mind and radically changed the way I think ! Thank you !
Thanks man. You do a great job of picking songs at the end of your shows. I bet your subscribers would enjoy a playlist of your favorite music on Spotify.
MartyrMade Story Hour > Drag Queen Story Hour
Why not both? Darryl reading in drag
Keep it up and you'll get a midnight visit from Jocko.
Make it a tradition! “Fireside with Darryl”
Only if it doesn’t take away family time from you brother. And, one question I have for you. Any more unraveling in the future? This particular podcast is my favorite!
Recording this week
Second best news I had this week!!
Yes! Had a lot of house painting to do recently and went through 5 or 6 of your old unravelling episodes. My favourite podcast, nothing comes close.
Nice!!
Agreed, family first. “The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath...”
you have a gift - I was just wrapping up the day's tasks and was looking for a new book or podcast to listen to, and 2 minutes into my search this email pops in.
Read Days of Rage. Excellent.
New subscriber. Working through your material.
Really wonderful solid work.
As a MH clinician I can say your Epstein episodes were excellent. Bought and read The Franklin Scandal by Bryant due to you. Downloaded the FBI recently released Finders files. Working in child protection last few years. Heart was breaking reading about that nefarious group. FBI may slightly have a chance with near total personnel reform, but Kennedy was right...the CIA needs to be smashed to smithereens and the ground salted (my touch).
CIA delenda est.
I’d like to hear Darryl read his favorite ancient mythological and traditional stories from ancient cultures all over the world.
Oh, I like that idea. Especially since many of them are so short.
I never knew Eldridge Cleaver converted to Christianity and became a Republican who supported Regan. Now THAT is quite the metamorphosis.
That guy was crazy haha
One of the most interesting aspects of this story, of the 60s radical groups more broadly, is the lack of extreme violence perpetrated by white radicals vs. the actual extreme violence perpetrated by black radicals and how it’s remembered today.
The media and academia tend to paint a rosy picture of 60s radicals, the picture being upper class “intellectual” terrorism done by student types like Bill Ayers, Mark Rudd, and Bernardine Dohrn. There is little to no mention or celebration, beyond maybe Assata Shakur whose infamy is really only relegated to a single moment, of black radical groups and their bombings and cop killings.
That violence was much more brutal and far more ideologically driven yet largely forgotten with the mainstream narrative being co-opted by the hasbins of the Weather Underground, who want you to believe the late 60s violence was a righteous restrained moral crusade funneled through a coherent political view when it was closer to a bunch of sniveling, drugged up college kids with no understanding of the basic reality of the world they were living in while the black radicals were out attempting in earnest the whole “revolution” thing.
The most violent thing Weather ever did was blow three of their own up, a day which should be a national holiday.
I think part of it is that there is an understanding in the media and academia that violent revolutionaries may be celebrated by the young but are generally tolerated at best by the general population. Sure the summer of mostly peaceful but fiery protests galvanized a lot of angry young people, but most of the country sat at home and shook their heads at the stupidity of it. But you better believe those images stick with people when they go to vote on things like prison reform or when they are listening to grievances being aired by black communities. Basically I think academia and the media are afraid that if they bring historical black violence up that while it may be celebrated by a small proportion of white radicals and by angry young black people it’s mostly going to result in more racism against blacks, a fear that I think is pretty reasonable, there’s a reason we have MLK Jr Day and not Malcom X Day.
Also if history tells us anything it’s that the target of violence matters. The Salem Witch Trials ended because the people involved got too big for their britches and went after the political elite. The treatment of the rioters in DC in June of 2020 compared to the “insurrectionists” of January 2021 is another great example. A single armed protest at the capitol by black radicals in California was enough to shove gun control into overdrive but no one cared when they were carrying in their own neighborhoods. As long as the target of your violence is other proles it will be mostly ignored. You can burn down every inner city neighborhood in America and most people especially the government won’t care, accidentally blow up a townhouse in a rich neighborhood and it matters.
It’s the same reason they make saints out of black men killed by police, regardless of their actual behavior or character but never discuss the innocent victims of gang violence, especially in Chicago. The media is happy to portray poor black people as victims of a terrible system who need rescuing but dare not admit that often victims become victimizers.
I think they are very aware that they can raise up these old white radicals as revolutionary heroes and appeal to younger radicals while the general public will roll their eyes and go on about their business, complaining about rich white kids with too much money and not enough sense. They start raising up black radicals as revolutionary heroes and the public remembers the summer of 2020 (which was overwhelmingly due to those same white rich kids), they start noting the Chicago death toll with interest, they start looking at crime statistics and then they vote for Rudy Giuliani.
I have a slightly different take.. I believe there is an MLK day because that assassination was shifting to a "Racist guy killing a Blackman for wanting equality"
Malcolm X wanted a world for black Americans where they could control their own destiny, where they could create their own economies, harvest the fruit of their own labor, and gradually earn their way into an awakening of real change in their communities!
Much like the former immigrants before them.. he understood that the lawless inside the black communities were holding them back, he preached reform of character while also condemning the racists who clearly didn't want anything to do with his vision... and he didn't feel he needed their approval either... especially the Governments, liberal jews/whites either!
When he got back from Mecca he knew his mission was broader than the scope he was given by NOI... yet he wouldn't budge when the FBI came to him wanting him to turn over on Elijah Muhammed... no... instead the FBI went to the NOI and turned them on Malcolm X... and the movement died... reform with it, and the vision of independence with it.
After Malcolm died, the FaraCON's of the world and the Jesse Jackasses took over and the distant past of Booker T Washington and Malcolm X(i see them as 2 pioneers trumpeting a similar message under 2 distinct identities one of Christian flair the other of Islam) were cast in the waste bin of history...
Ita easier to deal with an MLK or a E.W. Dubois then it is with a radical who wants lasting legacy defining change.
So those 2 are the "winners" of their times and eras... thats just my opinion though
The fact that to most Americans MLK Jr represents peaceful protest and change and Malcom X represents violence I think plays the biggest role. Most people do not have the nuanced view of Malcolm X or history that you have. Most of the white middle and lower class Americans that I know who lived through that time have a pretty simple view of it: MLK Jr a good and peaceful martyr, Malcolm X a violent revolutionary who got what he had coming. That’s the attitude of people alive during the time, I can promise you if I asked every single student in my local rural high school less than 1% would recognize the name of Malcolm X, they would probably assume he was a boxer or maybe a rap artist. So I don’t think that understanding is going to be corrected any time soon. A day to celebrate a man of God who pursued peace and was martyred by a racist is a pretty easy sell to Americans, a day to celebrate a Muslim whose name was synonymous with violent revolution and was killed in what was seen as a form of gang violence is a very different proposal. MLK Jr represented all that white Americans wanted to see themselves as, Malcolm X represented everything they feared.
I watched the Malcolm X movie when I was 12... prior to that I wrote a research paper on him in school... I think we were doing political figures from the 60s... my dad said do it on Malcolm X based on my choices...
I was utterly fascinated with him! I saw him as a Pancho Villa type which the stories of Zapata and Pancho Villa were very relevant to my household!
So a misunderstood revolutionary was a cool figure to me.. As I got older the more I read about him saw him on interviews the more I liked what I read and saw! The more I broadened my understanding of the 1930s-1960s timw frame the more I understood what he was on to...
Its unfortunate we never got to truly see his evolution
You clearly got a better education in history than I did. We never made it to Reconstruction. Honestly I think the affinity to misunderstood revolutionaries is somewhat of a gendered thing. Young (and not so young) men see the excitement of being a revolutionary, living to see your glorious success or giving your life to a cause you think just against imaginable odds sparks something in a man. Women are much more practical in that aspect. Living as the widow of a misunderstood revolutionary is rather less exciting and glorious. Villa’s multiple women spent years arguing over his estate and they were better off than most women in similar situations. Malcolm’s widow died after her grandson (who she took in after her daughter was arrested for conspiring to kill Farrakhan) set fire to their apartment. The same grandson later died over a bar tab in Mexico. Not a lot of glory in that. I would imagine that living with a defeated revolutionary is even more difficult than living as the widow of a revolutionary.
As an adult (41) I see the benefits of a simple life... and so do my kids... and yes stories like Crazy Horse(just a different example from the subject matter and still relevant) are pretty exceptional and these "Heroes" die.... justly and unjustly...
Such is the reality of the heroes journey.. whether in the physical or in the mind (such as the archetypes) death is what the hero gets... for growths sake... of the the community or the person.
And sometimes the death result is the death of the movement and the person... whole communities.
Thats the crazy thing about leadership... it can enhance the development of community and the individual or it can corrupt and destroy both.
And outside powers and influences can take out the leadership (for good or for evil)
I did have great history teachers and my father loved history so these kinda podcasts and content are amazing to my soul
:) appreciate the comments exchange!
Zapata is my favorite revolutionary. He's one of a very small number of good socialists...there are no good communists.
I had to pause at 1:14 when you broke character. Damn that was funny.
Correct. Now I finally know what the man's laugh sounds like.
Darryl, this was spellbinding. I couldn’t stop listening. The narrative reads like the best novels I’ve ever read-yet this is non fiction. I remember the fear in New Orleans, working as a student at the VA Hospital downtown, staying overtime because of the sniper shooting from the Howard Johnson hotel by Mark Essex. (Side narrative: there was also a horrific murder of one of the nursing students in my class who made an emergency visit to a patient in the public health rotation without her partner: not much protection to go with partner, to housing project where Essex lived, since both were small women and both would have likely been killed. It shut down home visits in LSU nursing school. Essex not involved in the death, but this was his dangerous housing project: Fisher, torn down after Katrina). I would not visit any patient, in any neighborhood since that incident: permanent stress from decades ago. Very scary time.
Hey Darryl, this question is off topic, but have ever read much on Shining Path and Peru’s inner conflict?
You know, that’s a gap in my learning. I’ve come across them in other books (about Latin America, about terrorism and counterinsurgency, etc), but can’t say I really know a whole lot about the conflict.
Daryl thank you for explaining things in such a way that my dumb ass can understand it ! You have opened my mind and radically changed the way I think ! Thank you !
Cooper could never top the coal miner ep.... OH. SHIT.
What’s the song at the end?
Inner City Blues by Marvin Gaye
Thanks man. You do a great job of picking songs at the end of your shows. I bet your subscribers would enjoy a playlist of your favorite music on Spotify.
I knew it was Marvin! Great selection, as always.
I recently rewatched ‘Fort Apache, the Bronx’. I couldn’t help linking some of the plot lines and imagery to some of these episodes.
Excellent work. Who’s picture is that on the thumbnail of this episode?
Drawing of Joanne Chesimard (aka Assata Shakur)