They Smile In Your Face feat. Corey Robin | Chapo Trap House
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- Опубліковано 4 чер 2023
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Episode 738 - They Smile In Your Face feat. Corey Robin (6/5/23)
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Art/Animation by Emily Halaka @emilyhalaka
Today we’re joined by Professor Corey Robin, author of "The Reactionary Mind" and "The Enigma of Clarence Thomas," for a conversation all about one of the most powerful reactionaries in the world: Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. We discuss the origins and contours of his conservative ideology, and how they reflect the development of race, class, law, power, conservatism and liberalism over his lifetime.
You can pick up "The Enigma of Clarence Thomas" here: us.macmillan.com/books/978162...
#chapotraphouse #chapo
I see you got the message from my lawyers Mr.Chapo. This episode is over an hour long as I asked for. Keep it up or you'll hear from my lawyers again Mr.Chapo.
that challenge is of DUBIOUS LEGALITY
Thank you for fighting for us. The last episode sucked and this one was fantastic. You're really doing God's work, or Yahweh, as your lawyers would probably say.
Goooooooorka!
@@julymagnus493 nah lawyers are atheists and satanists 👺
Get em rusty
You have to be sliding an open briefcase stacked with money across a desk and laughing maniacally to get caught with a bribery or corruption charge in this joke of a country.
even then, conservatives will cope and make up a story to exonerate them. see january 6
It’s pretty common for ethnic nationalists of all stripes to be open to relationships with women of other races. Like the alt right fetishes Jewish women, Latinas, and Asian girls all the time. The real thing they take issue with is women of their own race having sexual encounters or relationships outside it.
Exactly. It's good old misogyny. These men want access to as many women as possible. The only option they want for women, is those racist men.
@@Praisethesunson It's also not always the case that race purity (in their wierdo ethnonationalist context) is compromised by male heads marrying women of other ethnicities, sometimes it's seen as expanding the race/diminishing others. Source: balkan lul
I would also add that he may not view his relationship being a major deal since he never had children with her. To a lot of people against interracial relationships or flings often make an exception if there are no kids from it.
"segregated communes, integrated bedrooms," i've heard it called before
it's a pretty common trend in these spaces, something about fearing and also personally desperately wanting to fuck the Other
Uncle Clarence Tom Sowell X just practices the dark side of black girl magic
A true sorcerer in the Yakubian arts.
Will is such an Upper East sider intellectual kid - the most excited he get is about gossip. "How does Clarance Thomas fuck"
It's fascinating how boring and stupid the evil of Clarence Thomas is.
A real Sambo; if you will...
@@joshuamarx8209no
@@GoblinGuard yes
@@GoblinGuard Moron, read Uncle Tom's Cabin and tell me this asshole isn't an exact copy of the novel's character Sambo.
I feel like Thomas's beliefs are just a string of personal excuses for him being a hate filled prick who never met anyone he didn't want to see pay for something.
Me when I'm feeling like a third worldist 🐸
The real joke is the idea black nationalists were ever of the left.
@@supermarx stfu next you’re gonna say black nationalism is just like white nationalism did ya forget about self determination?
I dont see the "god felix is so unfunny" guy. Can someone do a wellness check on him 😢
His therapy has been working. Felix's humor has been less forced lately, so no need to diss him. Only haters whine about everything. #makeKarensrightwingagain
I consider myself deputy "Felix is unfunny" guy and I'm worried about him
I don't get fake internet niceness, just say you're glad hes dead lol
Oh so he’s like a hotep guy that’s Christian instead of Muslim
@@sisyphus1326 i’ve been hearing him out he’s made his position very clear with his rulings. I just assumed he was your average black conservative but the black separatist roots were new info to me. But considering how old he is I should’ve known
Kanye is a Christian hotep
Even more disgusting and pathetic, except he's got authentic power.
For those who are enjoying this look at Thomas' viewpoints, I can't recommend enough a video by F.D Signifier: "The REAL Faces of Black Conservatism". It's a long video; even longer than this one. But FD goes into the ideology of people who think similarly to Clarence Thomas and why they think that way. I think it's a good companion to this Chapo episode.
F.D.'s video was chad shit. Good to understand the nuance of how reactionary culture can get into the oppressed. Hell just seeing this mindset reminds me of my father (poc father, white mom). That cynical futility is especially a moment that hits too close to home.
Thnks for the recommend. An hour in, lot there I hadn't considered.
In Thomas's view, individual freedom and rights are determined by how deep one's pockets are. One is only as 'free' as one can afford. That is NOT freedom, that is tyranny. He views human liberty and rights as commodities, to be acquired and administered through the medium of capital, bought and sold. This strongly contradicts his life's lived experiences, with regards to the oppression, slavery and murder of his ancestors. There is a deep pessimism, self-loathing, and resentment. One is reminded of the historical trauma some Jews probably felt, being forced to hose down the bodies of their kin in the camps. To really put it into perspective: Stephen meeting Django for the first time.
That’s the long run attitude of bourgeois society. He is thinking as intended…
@@JDMPhil87 yup, he's helping perpetuate a morally and ethically bankrupt system, its allowed him to exert his bourgeoise resentment onto other groups of people, now he's cracking the whip.
Rights are commodities. There is no such thing as god given rights, anything can be given and taken. Be in a near death experience and you’ll realize this
@@condor237 horseshit, atomized take. Humans and their rights aren't commodities, they are universal. The defense of them is required in the face of tyranny, that's the prime example of a near life experience, sacrifice. The pathology you've employed here appears to justify tyranny, slavery, exploitation and its agents. Capitalism is as it does, and what it does is destroy everything around and within it.
@@technologic21 Yeah the suburban slobs in the West gave up on any kind of human solidarity a loooooong goddamn time ago. It's fucking nuts.
I love that they point out how stupid the criticism of him not asking questions was.
The "Planned Parenthood is a Margaret Sanger plot to kill black people" were common conservative Facebook memes in like the late 2000s
Corey in the House, the Trap House with El Chapo that is
How was he born into poverty with a grandfather who made good in fuel oil and property ownership?
Cause grandpa didn't like to share and beat conservative shame into Thomas.
@@Praisethesunson I see. You’d think the take-away’d be “Gosh, capitalists are cruel and belligerent” or “fuck me, money makes people weird”. Anything but “I’d like to make my living softening the legal exposure of people like gramps”. The essential strangeness of CT is staggering.
Because his only customers were incredibly poor black people
Thanks for having Corey Robin on again
Fantastic discussion guys, thanks for putting it up.
Am I the only one that thinks driving your RV to a beach is normal but camping in Walmart parking lots is bizarre? He is so abnormal Thomas doesn’t even realize visiting the beach on holiday is the most normal thing possible, making a safari of Walmarts is weird AF
A lot of people with RVs stay in Walmart parking lots because it’s just a free place to spend the night. It’s not too uncommon or weird honestly.
@@Gum_Cuzzler fair enough. I live in Sweden so I guess that's why I think it is weird.
@@Gum_Cuzzler That's like saying people being homeless isn't uncommon and weird. It's not, but most people don't *chose* to be homeless. Choosing to be homeless would be 'bizarre'. That's the point. Most people don't stay in the Walmart parking lot because they want to, it's because they can't afford to stay anywhere else. Thus, *choosing* to stay in a Walmart parking lot *for a vacation* is utterly bizarre.
@@bigbrother787 I mean, spending the whole vacation in a walmart parking lot is definitely weird but spending a night or two isn’t . I’m just saying for people who live or trip in vans and RVs spending a couple nights in Walmart parking lot when you enter a new place before you get the lay of the land isn’t weird.
@@Gum_Cuzzler that's not what he's saying, he says he prefers the Wal-Mart parking lot to the beach. The truth is you stay for the night, locking everything up as tight as possible, then in the morning you leave. Saying you enjoy Walmart parking lots is more indicative of having never actually stayed in one.
I’m going to make taco mix and enjoy burritos and tacos for the next few days. Already have ground beef.
Hell yeah king 👑
Inspiring
This brotha is crazy.
Thomas' philosophy is such a cold, lonely, angry, petty one.
Affluence (power) can lead to inflammation in the frontal lobe..
Its like ptsd, another inflammatory condition related to autoimmune function, but affects hardwired empathetic responses. You see similar degradation in substance abuse.. the way these conditions manifest is arbitrary, not to mention practically infinitely variable.
Plenty of dots to connect through neurology and primate studies to elucidate the predictability of sociological outcomes.. as well as how bullshit we all are; things are mundane and we dissent from that.
Legit thought that was Herman Cain
Good show. Black nationalism is different in America because there was never any national identity to strive for. Garvey rode on a wave of new African history that was popular at the time, but also real in the division of Africa colonies after ww1. He was neutralized by the state not because he opened some businesses in Harlem, but for the threat of labor organizing in the Carribean. Islam became the next thing because it offered a historical narrative. When the NOI became a business and malcom went against that, we know what happened.
Du Bois ended up a communist in exile because he was constantly rebuked by white instituions. I can imagine a similar fate for Thomas if a few things go differently for him, and vice versa.
watched the first 10 minutes or so of like an hour-long Thomas Sowell video not knowing who he was a while ago, and you can tell he spent a little time in the Marxist tradition because he starts with bits and pieces of a dialectical materialist framework but then comes to the conclusion that capitalism is the liberating force anyway
Some of the Sowell clips that go viral are shockingly racist
He's a national socialist. That's what they do
@@ultravioletiris6241noooo you misunderstand him. He thinks the "degeneracy of black culture" was absorbed from poor scots. He's a pure classist sir.
@@thomaspollack7451 The notion of "degeneracy" as a cultural phenomenon in isolation is a fascist concept. Leftists understand that societies are shaped by the economic realities that lie under them as a foundation
@@akumakorgaryep.and educated fascists have class first politics
Wow, Thomas' vision is so dark, I actually kind of feel sorry for him....He actually is a victim of internalized hopelessness...A victim who aims to spread misery to others, wittingly or unwittingly, but still a victim.
Plenty of victims don't become sociopaths with the deaths of millions on their hands.
I found myself feeling oddly sympathetic towards him too. Behind every monster there's often a tragic backstory.
"A young Jedi named Darth Vader, who was a pupil of mine until he turned to evil - helped the Empire hunt down and destroy the Jedi Knights..."
24:46 🗣️
Boohoo sad black man 😂
East coast sigma grindset kings in this comment section
the similarities between thomas and kanye west are pretty interesting
Thomas is the institutionalzed form of black nationalism, racism and injustice. He's right at home alongside the white nationalists that permeate the swamp. Nothing brings people together more than mutual hatred. Two peas in a pod.
Afro pessimism is a new word to me. I thought I was just seeing reality lol
it’s a great description of these ideas. i hear these arguments all the time by old heads and never knew how to put it to words
@@dangerousd1312 my old heads just say they’re Jamaican not American and America hates black people. Make money and return home kinda thing
Afro pessimism? Lmao they have to make up new academic terms for black people being sad 😂
@@condor237 I kinda get it tho. It’s like black people have a materialist reason to be more pessimistic towards American politics compared to other groups. A white supremacist could be just as pessimistic but they’re complaining from a more unfounded place
@@sisyphus1326 I feel like I’ve been hearing different versions of it since I was born
Black identitarian thought was right wing and Thomas is still right wing today. Not much change
It’s always very funny seeing comments from the people here who clearly never had public radio in their lives 😁
I just want to smoke to new Chapo
cheers
Excellent to know that the children are the future of this country.
to quote sonic youth i believe anita hill the judge can rot in hell
"uncle Thomas" copywrite that immediately please
Great stuff
The wolf, the fox, and the lap dog
Watch out parking in Wal-Mart parking lots. That may not be the free benefit that Thomas sells anymore.
This is all overthinking it. Thomas got his. After you sell your soul, then your only comfort is excuses about how you had no other choice because that’s the way the world works.🤷♂️
That 'painting' Harlan Crow commissioned just captures this perfectly, ironically. Just a bunch of fat cats sitting around divvying up the country. And if Thomas wasn’t a SC Justice, he wouldn’t be there.
Yep, some lib professor over thinking people that want to just be rich and shit on other people.
@@Matt-ru5rw Socialism is not about flattening and simplifying motivations into a flat friend/enemy distinction.
@@keithjackewicz8423 Thanks, while you circle jerk about not flattening the motivations you can be flaccid for 60 years like Chomsky. Useless would be the black and white wording of it.
26:00 The high schooler's name is Cedric Jennings. Ron Suskind wrote a whole book about him.
Champagne sharks had this guy on YEARS ago
16:48 Thats literally true though. Wage labor won out against slavery in the civil war. That's the whole reason the war happened to begin with. Not that we should celebrate modern capitalism though
first, i’m really fucking gay
Kinda sus dude?
Deuteronomy, givе my ass a lobotomy
That's sodomy, diggin' deep, archaeology
My theology, I like to know that Hе's watchin' me
Fulfill me up like a prophecy, put the fear of God in me
damn, I'm smarter than Supreme Court Justice, who would have thought.
still broke though, he is better at securing the bag, can't beat him at that
The man climbed up the ladder to grab to bag. Then kicked down the ladder so no one else comes after.
@@Praisethesunson He didn’t just kick the ladder down he bombed the ladder and bombed everyone building another ladder
@@Praisethesunson well to be fair he kinda bypassed the ladder with affirmative action and he's been bitter about it his whole life
Sounds like James Brown conservatism. He loved his Georgia Bulldogs, folks.
Vince Dooley's junkyard dawgs baby
@@campfortson4387 You know what I'm talmbout
Which is frankly, the coolest form of conservative
46:00
No audio in the video. Fix it please
Thanks, fixed! You guys are great 👍
No watch the train for an hour
God Felix is so unfunny, oh wait
🙂
The reason Thomas discourages black high scool students from attending prestigious schools is not, as Robin claims, because Thomas has concerns about liberal softcore racism. It's because Thomas knows those students are likely to lean Left politically and he doesn't want who he sees as his rivals to be empowered with a degree from an elite school. Taking what Thomas says about his motivations on face value is a critical mistake in trying to understand him.
How is it not a critical intellectual shortcoming to fail to grasp the importance of the political sphere? Black, white, capitalist, socialist…Whatever the nature of the cohort, failing to activate in political spaces by political means puts that cohort at a disadvantage. The idea that black peoples can somehow operate effectively as capitalists without political capital and without political acumen is so absurd, one would think it embarrassing to give voice to it. It’s like telling somebody “just sail. Pay no attention to the ocean, it’s currents, the weather, your ship, it’s fittings, your charts, destination…”. I refuse to accept that Thomas really believes in this ridiculous concept.
It doesn't have to make sense. It serves the interests of the existing power structures. So that brand of BS is allowed
The Irish tried to get the middle class lifestyle through politics and it took them a long ass time. The Italians got the middle class lifestyle by ignoring politics and going into business.
@@genericyoutubeaccount579 I’m not sure that’s accurate. Boston’s machine politics were pretty much an Irish enterprise, and for a while every cop on both coasts was an Irishman. As for Italians, the black hand was as much a political organization as the DNC for a looooong time. I think both Irish and Italian nationals used politics to their advantage as regards class struggle. Also, I’m not saying it’s impossible to for black folks to succeed in business without a political interest to back their play. I’m saying for Thomas to suggest / believe that blacks should turn their backs on politics and just seek capitalist means to secure the future is ignorant at best. If white capitalists and black capitalists are competing for market share, and white capitalists cultivate political capital to bolster their ascendancy where black people don’t, the white people are going to win the market by legislating to destroy the black people. Don’t take my word for it. Like the man said: “Look out any window”.
@@genericyoutubeaccount579 yes "business"
If you split the money evenly poors will stop shoplifting.
I won't
@@thomaspollack7451 we got security footage of you stealing DNA at the sperm bank 🏧 you're going straight to prison Mr Pollack.
They wear $2k shoes while shoplifting. I don’t think money is the problem
@Condor I don't think I've ever met someone that spent 2k on shoes. But even assuming for a moment that your bare assertion is true, what is the problem in your opinion?
Ya maybe they stole the shoes hey
slightly better than the Goop interview, amirite?
Questionable.
First not gay
Suuuure
@@thomaspollack7451 "and don't call me surely"
"ya know"
294 times
Some good points, but they dont address the fact that you cant fix a flawed system from the inside.
That would be giving in to cataloging as a distraction.
You are also arguing from a flawed position by rationalizing the personal feelings of others.
These are the product of decades of middle ground fallacy utilized to push national economic interests.
Everything we "talk" about is just a distraction from our refusal to deal with our addiction to affluence.
Thus your paralleled dueling from left/right football politics due to their connecting fundamental flaw.
Cornell West and the People's Party 2024!
Hell yes
@@undeniablyfunk5497they're taking donations and volunteers. This will be my first to do either and I'm so fucking hype
It’s pavement pounding time!
And as a little personal treat this will help force the fake leftists in our lives to admit that they were always just Dems who talk too much :)
They have no ballot access. Good luck paying into a grift
I imagine the hosts all blushed when the guest correctly called out the “do it because you’ll lose” left wing moralism considering they made that exact speech multiple times during the bernie campaign
Just so you know, admitting you're wrong does not make you a weak or unintelligent person
It's not that it's pointless to have morals be a part of your political movement, it's just that it's not going to capture as many people as one might naively hope when self interest is the prime motivation.
When they made that threat on the skullduggery podcast, it felt like they jinxed something. The DNC knew that Bernie’s base weren’t going to just disengage from politics that easily.
Read a comment that says you don't get into his wife so I won't bother listening
Based Clarence Thomas
This isn't the right take on Clarence Thomas. Sorry. Ultimately it doesn't predict his actions or reconcile them and you can just dismiss that and call him an enigma. It's a good effort in that it focuses on Clarence's personal history vis-a-vis race, but ultimately it is way too generous to Thomas's character and motivations. Thomas takes the same basic orientation to society as Obama, and neither of them are anything much more than extremely cynical nihilists who became that way because that is how the inescapable hopelessness of being black in America manifests itself in many of those black men who happen to be born with brilliant minds. Neither Obama or Thomas actually have ideological beliefs. They are just playing their avatars. They are trying to optimize what they can get for themselves and the reactions they can get by way of their manipulations like the main character at the end of The Stranger. Both of them gave up on this society sometime after college after getting a taste of real life as a black men in a prison of white perception of them in lieu of a physical prison.
You really don't think this take at all is a way of reconciling or considering this cynical nihilism in the broader context, and how specifically it could be formed? I mean you think that waving your hand and going "eh it's just cynical nihilism" is a great insight, or?
i really don't know how you listen to the episode and come away with this. it couldn't be more obvious that clarence thomas _did_ have very strong ideological beliefs and things like that don't go away overnight, it's a historical development like any other. you can dismiss most things on the grounds of pure cynicism but leaving it at that is just intellectually lazy
@@yevheniyamachnovsky3472 How am I waving my hand when I positing how he arrived at cynical nihilism? While I don't consider mine a great insight I think, unfortunately, it helps to be black to see it. And I'm not one of those people who seeks to preserve some cultural divide between black and white people. I'm pro cultural appropriation which I see as the main benefit of living in a diverse society. I don't see a substantive difference between black people eating Asian cuisine and white people wearing dreads. I'm absolutely not saying it's a black thing and you can never understand, but I do think I have a little insight here which is somewhat rarefied but still shareable.
And I know that by identifying myself as a black person it instantly devalues what I am saying in your mind which, ironically, supports my point. There is posited some kind of promised land for black people which they can get to if they run this intellectual gauntlet. Like if you pass the tests of merit one of the rewards is some segment of white people will see you as equal and you will be granted some social mobility. What actually happens if you get there, however, is a "reward" you get is a vantagepoint on American racism that sees it take on the character of like a Mandlebrot or fractal graph, like the closer you examine it the deeper layers of racism and this never ends. Thomas (and Obama) looked at this and said ok white people are broken, but they run everything, so eff it.
I was trying to be measured in my critique of Robin, but actually it's absurd to think anything Thomas is doing is driven by an unbroken connection to his black militant youth. Thomas is a living troll. He doesn't believe, at all, in anything he is doing and makes that clear to those open to hearing it. He hates black people. He hates white people. He is the end boss in the game Racism, which in his mind is better than being a player in that game and his way of acknowledging that it can't be beat.
@@ILoveEvadingTax In my experience, and this agrees with academic studies on the subject, the consistent thing about people is the strength of their beliefs, not the beliefs themselves. Recall that the author explained how Thomas made a drastic change in beliefs among entering school when encountering that new environment. He simply did that again when he got into the real world. I'm saying that cynical nihilism is Thomas's belief system, explicitly. Nihilism isn't having no beliefs. It's believing in not having beliefs. Thomas believes that white people have constructed a social world where beliefs don't matter and he curses himself for ever being so stupid in believing in the white fabrication that they do matter.
@@Will_Moffett, thoughtful comment. Thank you.
How do you "not get into" his wife? The existence of their marriage refutes 80% of what they're talking about.
Disagree, tons of white supremacists fetishize asian women or whatever. Slave owners regularly proved your point wrong sexually assaulting their slaves also.
the thoughts "our peoples are eternal enemies, who must be separated from one another if we are to thrive" and "oh man the thought of fucking one of them is so hot" have always been close to one another. 'arab porn' was not a category before 9/11, and there's a reason the English have always been nauseatingly horny for the French
How?
@@xalrath the English are horny for the french for a different reason. It isn't because of the taboo but because the English are pretty repressed sexually and the french are comparatively sexually liberated
nah look at dr umar
just started but clarence sounds very influenced by garveyism
First. Also I’m gay
Not first bro damn that must feel pretty bad
and my
@@glorpfruncus2180 eh whatevz
Stav would be proud of you
i'm a big fan