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Brian Lehrer: It's the Brian Lehrer show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. When Joe Biden was inaugurated six weeks ago yesterday, he listed four main priorities for his administration; the pandemic, the economy, climate change, and racial injustice. On the ladder, he said this just a few days later.

Joe Biden: Those 8 minutes and 46 seconds that took George Floyd his life, opened the eyes of millions of Americans and millions of people all over the world. It was a knee on the neck of justice, and it wouldn't be forgotten.

Brian Lehrer: Yes, he promised to weave equity and justice into the fabric of the whole of government, not just certain agencies. A few minutes later, in that same address, he said this.

Joe Biden: I believe this nation and this government need to change their whole approach to the issue of racial equity.

Brian Lehrer: Change their whole approach, a big promise on an ongoing 400-year-old issue. Few days later, Georgetown Law professor and racial justice advocate Paul Butler cited those quotes in a Washington post-op-ed, that was kind of a first-week report card for Biden on the topic, it was called On Racial Justice, Biden is Off to a Decent Start. Let's Hope it Keeps up.

We've invited Paul Butler to come on with us a few times over the next few months with his take on how much Biden is keeping it up as a way of not letting racial justice conveniently fall by the wayside as other demands and other politics arise. We'll also touch today on how the big lie of the stolen election might now be resulting in new limits on Black Americans' voting rights, given republican power and state legislators and the courts.

Again, Paul Butler is a Georgetown Law professor. He's also a former federal prosecutor. He's a Washington Post contributing opinion writer and author of the book Chokehold: Policing Black Men. Hi, Paul, we appreciate you doing this with us. Welcome back to WNYC.

Paul Butler: Hey, Brian, it's great to be here.

Brian Lehrer: To set the stage, the first line of your op-ed on January 28th, was that Biden was starting out on racial justice as more ambitious than President Obama ever was, or felt he could be. Would you lay out that basic premise for us?

Paul Butler: He's got more space than Obama ever felt like he had. President Obama famously said that he couldn't pass laws that say I'm just helping Black folks. Obama mainly relied on a colorblind approach to advance racial justice. He would always say that a rising tide lifts all boats. The problem is that many Black folks and Native American folks never had a boat, to begin with, but Biden isn't saddled with Obama's concerns about not wanting to favor African Americans or looks like he is.

In his victory speech, Biden told African American voters, "You've always had my back, and I'll have yours." He was the first president to say white supremacy in an inaugural address. As you've indicated, he said that that racist ideology is one that we have to confront, and we have to defeat. He's more ambitious than President Obama was or felt like he could be and the expectations are correspondingly, extremely high.

Brian Lehrer: In January you wrote, "Biden is off to a credible start. First by undoing some of Trump's most egregious policies on race." Want to remind us of what some of those things from Trump were that Biden undid early on?

Paul Butler: President Trump had established a 1776 Commission, which encouraged schools to teach US history, discounting the role of white supremacy. On his first day, President Biden rolled that back. President Biden ordered the Department of Housing and Urban Development to beef up its anti-discrimination enforcement, which has lagged under the Trump administration.

President Obama had banned private federal prisons, Trump reinstated them and now Biden has re-imposed the ban. I think about that HBO show that I watched earlier this year, The Undoing, it was called. That's how Biden has started with regard to racial justice. He's undone a lot of the harmful policies that President Trump put in place.

Brian Lehrer: Paul, now that you got that pop culture reference in, I'm going to ask you an open-ended question here in just a second, which is, do you have any headlines on what he's done since those early undoings which go back to January undoing Trump? Listeners, you get to do this too, with Paul Butler for a few minutes. If you are someone concerned with racial justice as a political priority, how's Biden doing so far in your opinion? What are you watching for to see if he's doing as much as he might? 646-435-7280.

What would he have to do to live up to Paul's first review of him as having the promise to be our first woke president? He used that word in the piece in his first days as president in January starting out that way, 646-435-7280. 646-435-7280 for anybody who wants to weigh in with a little bit of your six weeks and a day report card for Joe Biden, on racial justice, and what you're looking for him to do next. 646-435-7280, or tweet @BrianLehrer. Paul, that open-ended question, do you have any headlines on what he's done since?

Paul Butler: Brian, we have to appreciate the arc of this man's journey with regard to racial justice. For most of his long career, Biden has been, I think, a profoundly decent man, but for most of that very long career, he has not been a leader on race. Indeed, sometimes his political ambition has veered off course, as when he opposed busing to achieve school integration. Kamala Harris famously reminded him of that, in a debate where they were competing against each other for the Democratic nomination. Biden used to brag about his role in passing the 1994 crime bill, which we now understand is a leading cause of mass incarceration, and race disparity.

To go from that to being the first president to talk about systemic racism. As he did a couple of weeks ago to say that white supremacists are the greatest threat to our national security. Wow, has he come along way? Would that this country and would that most white folks could emulate that journey? He started out that first week really well, I said in the piece, another reference to pop culture, the question should always be, "What have you done for us lately?" That's Janet Jackson. [chuckles]

When we think, okay, the undoing was the first week. What's next? We had, of course, the Senate impeachment trial. The President, I think appropriately has been focused on his appointments, and also defeating the pandemic. We know that all of those have profound racial consequences. I haven't seen as much specific attention on racial justice, but I'll give it not so much up a pass as a couple more weeks let's say. We know that Merrick Garland is likely to be confirmed as Attorney General this week.

Garland is another person who's hard to read in terms of his leadership on racial justice as a federal judge. That hasn't been part of his portfolio, but we also know that he led the prosecution of the Oklahoma City farmer, and he's said that when he's confirmed, if he's confirmed, that he'll make understanding what happened on January 6 a priority, his first line of business. We know that that was all about white supremacy. We know that that domestic terrorism creates a major threat to the safety and well-being of people of color. Even though he hasn't explicitly been focused on race, I think I'm willing to give them a little bit more time.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take a phone call. Mary in Union County, you're on WNYC. Hi, Mary.

Mary: Yes. Hi, good morning. Nice to talk to you, and Mr, butler. I would like to see Biden get rid of the filibuster. I like for the Democrats to have some backbone, just like the Republicans, they don't give two cents about what you think about what they do. Get rid of the filibuster, so he can move his plan ahead and go big. I think that will help the senators in the next election. If I could throw this in about-- maybe this is not the time to throw something in about Cuomo, but I like to see him stay in office. I wish that the Democrats would stop throwing the party under the bus. The Republicans don't do it, but the Democrats is always throwing their people under the bus. Biden should go big get rid of that filibuster later for those Republicans because they would do the same thing.

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Brian Lehrer: What do you say on Cuomo? Just curious, what you would say to some of our other callers who say, the Republican Party won't, so the Democratic party needs to be the one that does set a standard on the unacceptability of certain kinds of male boss behavior.

Mary: What I saw last night when I think Cuomo, and I'm no fan of Cuomo, but when I saw him, I think he was at the party, he put his hands on the girl's face. I don't know if he kissed her on the cheek or the lips. It was a friend of his wife. Listen, you know what? Somebody said yesterday, you're young, you're attractive. It's a compliment, get over it.

If they're doing something that you feel uncomfortable with, there's nothing wrong with saying, "I don't like that. I don't accept that." If they do it again, then you can complain, but this way of saying, "That's not me. I don't like it," and I think they'll appreciate it. Stop crying. These young girls crying. This was something that happened back in 2019 to compliment when a guy look at you.

Brian Lehrer: Yes. Mary, thank you very much. She said these young girls, so more evidence that this is a generational divide on this at least in part, but I don't want to get too sidetracked on either side of the Cuomo discussion right now, but it was interesting that Mary brought it up. To her main point, at least one main policy point that she brought up, Paul, do you see the filibuster as a racial equity or racial justice issue?

Paul Butler: Indeed, I do. We know that its history is that it's been deployed by white supremacists to exclude people of color, and especially African Americans from the ballot box. It's been used to try to prevent civil rights bills like the Voting Rights Act, the most successful civil rights bill of all time.

I think the comparison that the caller made to Governor Cuomo is instructive in some way. I'm not thinking about the sexual harassment allegations, but looking at Governor Cuomo as a traditional white Democrat. He's progressive on some issues, but on a lot of racial justice issues, and especially in criminal justice, he's not progressive. For example, he's not been supportive of bail reform laws in the state, not as supportive as he should have been. With regard to the dire problem of the pandemic in state prisons in New York, he's been behind the curve. In that sense, he's not been all that different from a lot of other white Democratic progressive leaders.

What's different about President Biden is this sense that he's going to go bold, and that sense comes from statements that he's made, like the one that you played at the beginning, where he said, this nation and this government need to change their whole approach to the issue of racial equity. That's not just having Kum Ba Yah moments on Martin Luther King or Black History Month. That's bold policy initiatives, things like ending the filibuster supporting that since he can't do that as president, but he could certainly support that move.

One of the members of the squad, Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley, said a couple of weeks ago that if President Biden really wants to go bold on race, he should cancel all student debt. That would be a racial and gender justice intervention because African American women carry more of that debt than any other group.

Brian Lehrer: It's a perfect example, I think of a policy or a policy area that many people, especially many white people might think of as race-neutral. Cancel student debt because we think of the whole generation that's saddled with student debt, but when you scratch below the surface, it's disproportionate, and so it becomes a racial equity issue, right?

Paul Butler: Everything becomes a racial equity issue. I think that President Biden gets that. For example, if we think about climate change, Gina McCarthy, who's his national advisor on that issue, says that that's a racial justice issue. It's a racial justice issue because it exacerbates challenges in communities that have already been left behind. We know that in terms of environmental justice, that communities that disproportionately suffer pollution and poisoning from chemical sources are often communities of color. Biden isn't going to just have the Justice Department and be part of his anti-racism initiatives. His plan is to embed anti-racism in every single government agency.

Brian Lehrer: Charles in Manhattan, you're on WNYC with Paul Butler. Hi, Charles.

Charles: Hey, Brian. Thank you so much. It's a great honor. I'd like to say to your guest, that I think Biden is a political rockstar, I liked him back during Anita Hill. I think he's been prepared for this moment better than anyone. He worked under a Black president. He's well prepared. I think that he should create a task force to go after these white supremacists because it's a poison that we allow to exist. Just like the Ku Klux Klan, there's still a chapter of that.

I heard the other day in the news they said in Germany, they're actually surveillance now white supremacists. They're tapping their emails, they're tapping their phone calls, and I think that we got to set an example because this poison we let go created what happened on January 6th.

Brian Lehrer: Charles, thank you very much. Paul and we're going to run out of time soon, but how do you see the two things intersecting? Because in a way, tell me if you disagree, but sometimes I think when we talk about white supremacy, we're using the same phrase for two different things. One is the explicit white nationalists, like some of those who stormed the Capitol, and the other is what's baked in, intentionally and often unintentionally, to policy all the way down the line, kind of like we were talking about student debt. Status quo and student debt reinforces white supremacy in that whites come out with a supreme wealth and income. How do you see the two things tying together if you accept the premise?

Paul Butler: Yes. I think that that's exactly right, Brian. We can think of white supremacists as the Klan, the first domestic terrorist. We used to think of that explicit violent racism as something that was back in the day that we as a nation have overcome. Now especially after January 6th, we see that that's clearly not the case. That violent white resistance to civil rights, to gender justice, to LGBT equality is still an important factor in US politics.

At the same time, when I think about the criminal legal process and policing issues, we have bad apple cops, so we can think of those as the equivalent of white supremacists, but we also have discrimination in anti-blackness baked in the system. That's the systemic part, and there I said the problem isn't only bad apple cops, the problem is, the system is working the way it's supposed to, and we look at all of the protections for police officers who commit violence, or selective arrests against people of color. Both of those have to be part of this fight for racial justice.

If systemic discrimination is baked in, that means that it is part of the law. It's part of our policies. Biden's absolutely right when he says we have to rethink what government does and how it acts. Again, that's extremely creative, it's extremely ambitious. He's got his work cut out for him, and we're going to be watching extremely closely because the stakes are high. This isn't only about racial justice, this is about democracy. It's about the sustainability and future of the American experiment.

Brian Lehrer: We're happy that Paul Butler has agreed to come on with us a few times and monitor that progress. Paul Butler is Georgetown Law professor. He's also a Washington Post contributing columnist, former federal prosecutor, and author of the book. Oh, there it is, Chokehold: Policing Black Men, and you are here for a book interview but I forgot the title for the moment. Chokehold: Policing Black Men. Paul, we appreciate it so much. Talk to you next time.

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