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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning, everyone. Let's begin today on the Supreme Court. You know that place where there are exactly nine justices and their turns last their whole lives? Well, on Friday in case you missed it, President Biden announced that he's appointing a commission to study whether those things should change.

Now, many of that Democrats were outraged that Mitch McConnell when he controlled the senate refused to hold the confirmation process for Merrick Garland when President Obama nominated Garland when Justice Scalia died in 2016, with Obama having almost a year left in office. That allowed President Trump after his election to name Scalia's replacement, but then McConnell did hold the confirmation process for Amy Coney Barrett when Ruth Bader Ginsburg died with just weeks to go before last year's election.

Democrats feel like at least one Supreme Court seat and possibly two were stolen by McConnell's hypocritical double standard with huge implications for everything, for justice in America in so many ways, hence pressure to add justices, limit terms or otherwise correct the unfairness, but of course, it's hugely controversial. Even Justice Breyer, one of the "liberal votes" on the court on most things, has cautioned against things like this recently, and that's not even the main reason that there is also a movement right now with the slogan Breyer retire. What is right? What is fair? What are the political ramifications? What do justice and injustice really look like here?

We'll talk about that, and more now with this week's Monday morning politics guest, Dr. Jason Johnson, professor in the School of Journalism and Communication at Morgan State University, a political contributor to MSNBC, and The Grio and host of the Slate podcast A Word With Jason Johnson. The latest episode is about a major victory for Black farmers. In the COVID relief package, billions of dollars in aid. The farmers call it fairness. Some Republicans call it reparations. Hi, Dr. Johnson, always good to have you with us. Welcome back to WNYC.

Jason Johnson: Hey, Brian, good to speak to you this morning.

Brian Lehrer: I'll bite on you r podcast to start. First of all, in the spirit of A Word With Jason Johnson, Black and farmer are words that most Americans don't think of in the same phrase very much, who and how many? Where are we talking about?

Jason Johnson: Well, we're talking about all sorts of different parts of the country. Some states have upwards of 6,000 individuals who are considered to be Black farmers, you've got Black farmers who are not just people who have huge swaths of land or dairy. Black farmers actually includes new emerging businesses like weed and soybeans and things like that. Historically, Black farmers have been routinely discriminated against, not just in terms of land being stolen from them by graft and violence. Black farmers have been robbed by the federal government. They are taxed and have been taxed throughout time just like every other business, but very seldom received the government-insured loans, the protections, the irrigation projects, and things like that, that other farmers have.

The COVID relief package actually had a huge billion dollars, huge sum of money that will hopefully be distributed properly back to these Black farmers and bring them back from the brink of extinction. That's why this is really important. It's interesting because there are Republicans out there who say, "Oh, my gosh, this is terrible. This is reparations." Well, yes. What's wrong with that? [chuckles] There should be reparations.

If you have a group of people who've been paying into the federal government in taxes for centuries and weren't getting back the resources that they paid into, of course, they deserve reparations.

Brian Lehrer: Right. In fact, that was going to be my next question, because the framing of your episode, I was reading that language from the episode page that the farmers call it fairness, some Republicans call it reparations, that makes it sound like reparations is a dirty word rather than a form of fairness. What are the politics of that?

Jason Johnson: Well, the politics of it are that on the positive end, I spoke to John Boyd, who's head of the National Black Farmers Association. He talked about the fact that we've got more African-Americans from states with large farming populations on committees of influence than we've ever had. You've got Raphael Warnock, you've got Cory Booker doing farming policy, you have all sorts of people who are involved in the past who weren't before, and that's a good thing. You actually have advocates out there.

Specifically, I asked him about Tim Scott. He said Tim Scott doesn't do much not surprising.

Brian Lehrer: Black Republican senator from South Carolina.

Jason Johnson: Yes, but what this would look like is millions of dollars to help ensure or help Black farmers pay back loans. Loans that farmers routinely have to take out, that are usually insured by the federal government, but consistently get denied to Black farmers, which has caused them to lose land, lose property, or have to get into, for lack of a better, we're almost sharecropping Lend-Lease deals with banks, that slowly bleed them dry. That's what this will look like positively in the future.

What I asked him, I said, "Look, you've got Vilsack, who's in charge of the Department of Agriculture. He didn't do a great job the last time he was in this position, but John Boyd seems to think that Vilsack will do a little better this time around because the need is so urgent." He used a great metaphor. I said, "Well, if this money is distributed properly, what does the state of Black farmers in America look like in 2023, or 2024?" He said, "Look, Black farmers are at a place of almost extinction."

If the federal government says, "Hey, look, the Black bear or the bald eagle is almost extinct," the way you see that you've made progress is if in two or three years, there are more bald eagles, if there are more Black bears. He said, "The goal shouldn't be just to save Black farmers, but for the number of Black farmers to increase." Again, with things like soybeans, and in particular marijuana, there's a real chance for growth and Black farming and access to land and resources in the future.

Brian Lehrer: Interesting. Before we transition back to the Supreme Court and other things. Is it clear enough to you how this discrimination has been able to take place? Like presumably, many people would think, if you have loans or grants or anything else that are available to farmers in America, they wouldn't be certainly on paper by race, they would be by size of farm, what you're growing, things like that. How did these become discriminatory?

Jason Johnson: Well, there's several ways. One, you can simply have regional directors who have a tremendous amount of power, and they choose just not to help Black farmers. It's happened. At a more systematic level, you can, let's say, the federal government says, "We're going to provide or we'll underwrite loans for farms that have been able to show a profit for the last 20 years." The Black farmers are like, "We've never been able to show a profit for the last 20 years because we've constantly been discriminated against in getting access to these loans. We're always in this bad debt ratio," Well, then you get blocked out.

Because of past discrimination, you're made disqualified from current discrimination issues. Or for example, you might have a, "Well, look, we'll provide you with-- the federal government will insure your loan or backup your loan, as long as you can show three different banks that will loan you money." Well, if you're an African-American farmer, hell. If you're just a regular African-American working adult, bank discrimination is very common. If you can't show up with three different banks that could potentially offer you a loan, then may be the federal government says, "You're too much of a risk, we're not going to give you any money."

You end up being trapped at the nexus of several different systems that routinely have discriminated against African-Americans, and even if now, it looks like it's race-neutral. The result always seems to be a negative consequence for Black people. It's like voting rights laws. Well, we're just saying that nobody can vote on Sundays. How is that specifically disparaging to Black people? It's like, yes, but why is it only seem to hurt Black turnout. That's what we've seen in farming over the decades.

Brian Lehrer: Interesting that you put this in the context of marijuana farming in the contemporary world because what we are talking about right now in New York State, which just pass recreational marijuana legalization, is the fact that there's supposed to be an advantage given to people from communities, largely Black communities, that were the biggest victims of the old marijuana laws to get the licenses to run dispensaries and things like that, yet in other states that have tried that it hasn't really happened because there aren't that many people in the Black community with the capital to invest in those dispensaries or other businesses.

They're trying to correct that in New York State with grants and loan funds and things like that, but it's interesting that you put this in the context of opportunities for illegal marijuana growing, and the discrimination based on capital availability in the past.

Jason Johnson: Oh, Brian, I'm glad you [unintelligible 00:10:13] even deeper than that. I just wrote a piece for The Grio. I got exclusive quote from Jay Z, the rapper Jay Z as most people know, is probably one of most famous New Yorkers you got.

Brian Lehrer: I've heard of him.

Jason Johnson: Yes, heard of him. The most famous New Yorker who hasn't run for president yet. [chuckles] I got a piece from him in The Grio where he was congratulating the state for legalizing marijuana. I talked to the parent company, which is a larger corporation that has this monogram brand of marijuana, and we have this discussion that, "Look, the state can say that 40% of the funding for marijuana sales will go into disadvantaged communities."

One, 40%? 40%, that's it? Given how many Black people and brown people were thrown into jail for these previous laws, not to mention the fact that if you don't include Black and brown people in the supply chain. It's one thing to have famous rappers be at the head of boards. I'm not saying that's not a good thing, because oftentimes, you need to have somebody in the room. It's one thing to have a brand that is named after Wiz Khalifa, or Jay Z, or Snoop Dogg.

It's something else entirely to have a Black farmer in upstate New York, where she has land, and she gets loans and she gets protection, and she gets access to environmental tax pay cuts, tax cuts and things like that, to grow marijuana because that means that no matter what happens with the business, her land will always have value.

It's different if you have a Black trucking company that specifically has trucks that have the lights that keep marijuana plants safe if you're moving them across the country. These are the places that African-Americans are often locked out of, and that's where your generational wealth can come from. Yes, all of these things are connected. Again, if the right pressure is applied, then that is the future of farming for Black people in an area where hopefully we'll see some of these resources going.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, we were going to start mostly on the Supreme Court with just a word about Jason Johnson's podcast on Black farmers, but this got so interesting that we taken it for about 13 minutes so far. If there happened to be any Black farmers listening right now, call up and tell us something about your story, if you feel like it, that might be relevant to this. I know on a New York City radio station, we don't have many farmers of any color listening most of the time, but just in case, what the heck, we invite you to be included this morning.

646-435-7280. 646-435-7280. Just to make the transition to other Biden stuff, how do you see the Black farmer's provision of the COVID relief bill, in the larger context of the Biden push for more economic equity and racial justice generally?

Jason Johnson: I think it's an example that Biden is actually coming through with some of his promises. We also saw last week that the budget he just submitted to the Senate just has a huge swath of money in there for MSI Minority Serving Institutions and HBCUs Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Joe Biden is looking after the constituents and the coalition's that put him into office. Has he appointed all the best people? Are we thrilled about Vilsack for agriculture? Are we thrilled about Merrick Garland? No, we're not. Are we happy about Vinita Gupta and some of the other people that he's put in the Justice Department? Yes, we are.

I will say this, having been obviously a clear critic of Joe Biden as I was of everybody else, is he as radical as I would like him to be? No, but is he realizing that because of COVID, we have got to throw some money into investing in transforming the country. He does seem to get that. If you had asked me a year ago, is Joe Biden going to be that forward-thinking? I wouldn't have necessarily thought he was.

Pushing for infrastructure, which everybody has talked about for years, but pushing for infrastructure at a point where we have been off the roads for a year and some of us may never be coming back, it's actually a really good idea. Now is the time to actually push for infrastructure, and that's the work that helps people from top to bottom. When you talk about the internet, that's everything from college kids learning about computer engineering right now, in the classroom, out of classroom, and online to shovel-ready jobs.

I think Biden gets it. We'll see if enough members of Congress get it. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema get it, but he seems to get it right now.

Brian Lehrer: We'll take a break and then we'll talk about Biden's commission to study changes to the Supreme Court with Dr. Jason Johnson. Stay with us.

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. As we continue on Monday morning politics, the segment with Dr. Jason Johnson, professor in the School of Journalism and Communication and Morgan State University, a political contributor to MSNBC and The Grio, and host of the Slate podcast, A Word with Jason Johnson. We were talking about his latest episode, which is about billions of dollars in aid for Black farmers and the COVID relief bill.

Now, let's turn to the Biden commission to study potential changes to the Supreme Court. That's exactly what he campaigned on, I believe. No promise to enlarge the court, but a promise to study the idea. I see the Biden condition has six months. Who's on it, Jason, and what questions will they actually ask?

Jason Johnson: Here's the thing I think everybody needs to understand about where Biden was and what the language is behind this commission. After what has happened with our last two justices, and you mentioned this at the beginning. You heard Merrick Garland, who Mitch McConnell basically said, "I'm not going to do my job. I'm not even going to hold a hearing on Merrick Garland because we're in the same year as an election in 2016." Then they turn right around, they push through Amy Coney Barrett, and then in between, you have Brett Kavanaugh, who thousands of thousands of pages of documents of his past legal behavior was denied to Democrats on the committee.

There was a sham investigation into allegations he had been a sexual harasser and/or abuser and/or attempted rapist at times has passed. It's not just one or two, you had three different massive miscarriages of norms, to put it simply, let alone justice for the last several supreme court justice. Many people are concerned about not just having a six-three conservative court, but also having a court that seems destined to be routinely undermined by whatever the political leanings are of the Republicans in the Senate at the time, heaven forbid they take control again. That's the context here.

Biden has said he's against what we call court-packing, which is really just a pejorative way of saying court reform. He has now put together this committee that's going to say, "Look, let's study the problems." Can we have a fair and equitable supreme court if we have one party that refuses to negotiate in good faith? Can we expand the supreme court? Is there some magical thing about having nine people on the court? No, we can have a larger court, we can have a court of 12 people, we can have a court of 15 people, we could have a court of 30 people on the Supreme Court.

Look, if the United States can expand the NBA playoffs, right? If you can expand the NFL season after 40 years, I don't see why you can't make the Supreme Court bigger.

Brian Lehrer: You know that obviously, one is much more weighty than the other, right? The Supreme Court and the long history, I realize it's not in the Constitution, but the long history of there being nine justices, it's not like changing a sports playoff schedule.

Jason Johnson: True. Yes, and no one wants another game of the Jets. [unintelligible 00:18:27] [chuckles] The concern is that and this was proposed about 40 or 50 years ago, that a president would basically just try to expand the Supreme Court whenever they got a ruling that wasn't in their favor. That's what this commission is going to look at. Can we expand the Supreme Court without just making the same problems? Can we look at what has led us to this point?

I will say this, and there's great writing on this in the nation by Elli [unintelligible 00:18:56], is one of my favorite writers, he's also a good friend, talks about the necessity of this. There's been books written about it. I think at a bare minimum, what needs to be evaluated, and I hope the commission at least has a [unintelligible 00:19:09] report on this is, if you have a situation where the head of the Senate, which is what happened with Mitch McConnell in 2016, there should be a constitutional obligation to at least have a vote. That is what I think is at the core of this.

The fact that Mitch McConnell refused to even hold a vote on Merrick Garland because he just didn't feel like it, is an absolute abdication of his duties as a member of the Senate. We can't have of the three branches of government, the executive, the legislation, and the judicial, you can't have the judicial basically a stool with only two legs, because one other part of the government doesn't want to do their job.

If we had a situation where there was a vacancy on the Supreme Court, it went down to eight instead of nine because someone died, and the President of United States just said, "Yes, I don't feel like picking a replacement." That would be a problem as well. You can't just leave the Supreme court at eight eight, because you don't feel like looking for somebody on LinkedIn and that is essentially what we have now with the Senate. I hope that issue alone or amongst others is looked at by Biden's commission.

Brian Lehrer: Let's take a phone call on this, Charles in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, Charles and I will say Kate in Salisbury Central New York hang on. She said she's married to a black farmer. We will get to you Kate, but Charles in Manhattan you're on WNYC. Hello?

Charles: Thank you, Brian. I live in a building with a Supreme court justice that just retired from the appellate court that's in New York, on 25th Street in Madison. I just feel that when Clarence Thomas, and I'm [unintelligible 00:20:47]. He should have never been confirmed. They did it because it was a kangaroo court. Bush didn't get his first pick. He played golf and Clarence was confirmed.

He should've never sat in front of Al Gore and Bush because of the chat, because actually Baker ran the same from Florida back to Washington and he knew that the judge in Florida was going along with Al Gore.

Brian Lehrer: I don't want to spend too much time relitigating the Bush versus Gore Supreme court case. What does it have to do, Charles, with, I think your point is not going to be about increasing the size of the court, but term limits, right?

Charles: I think so. I think they really need to look into these justices and put a time on them because they could just lose it as an individual or somethings can come up and you can't do anything about it and then I can confirm it's a done deal. Anyway, thanks for your time. Thank you for having your guests. He's really quite unique.

Brian Lehrer: Charles, thank you very much and keep calling us. Dr. Johnson, that's another thing in this study commission's portfolio looking at term limits for Supreme court. Justice is not just enlarging the court, right?

Jason Johnson: I completely agree. In fact, if I could wave a magic wand, I would make three reforms. Number one, I would expand the court from nine to 12 based on the appellate courts. We have, I think, 12 appellate courts. Now we used to only have nine so it's an easy way to expand it by three. Number two, I would put in term limits of anywhere from 20 to 25 years, just do a study on the average amount of time that somebody actually spends on the bench, use that as an average.

Number three, I would make it a constitutional amendment that if there is an opening on the court, that the Senate is required to have a vote within 90 days. If the Senate can not find or cannot approve a presidential appointee within eight months of that position being open, the president is allowed to just put somebody on the court who will stay there for a year and then they'll have to go through the process again. We can't have a system that's just absolutely dysfunctional because party recalcitrance.

Brian Lehrer: The caller was talking about a retired New York state judge. Of course, a judge at any level of any court is allowed to retire at any time. Supreme court justice has a lifetime appointment, but doesn't have to stay until she or he dies. Are you aware of the prior retire movement?

Jason Johnson: I am. I mean it's fine and it's cute, but here's the issue, forcing people into retirement isn't going to solve the problem. One of the things that the John Birch society and the right-wingers are very good when it came to Bush and when it came to Trump is, they would pick not just right wing justices, but they picked young people. I swear, if Trump could have gotten away with it, he would have picked a judge with like a third year in law school. Just to make sure that the person was going to be on the court for the next 65 to 75 years. Fine. Briar will retire.

On average, most presidents get at least two, if you serve two terms, you probably get one or two justices that you get to confirm anyway, but that doesn't solve the problem. Putting in a younger guy or a younger woman for Briar, isn't going to solve the overall problem that the court is rigged in favor of one party if they decide that they want to operate in bad faith, like the Republicans have under Mitch McConnell.

Brian Lehrer: For people who may be confused by this, why would progressors be calling for a relatively progressive justice to retire? It's because currently, obviously a Democrat is in office and could replace him with somebody who's younger, who would be on the court for a long time, rather than take the risk that left some Progressive's frankly angry at Ruth Bader Ginsburg. You don't usually hear about progressive being angry [unintelligible 00:24:30], but for not having retired while Obama was in office.

Then we see what happened under Trump and that was a conversation when she was getting old, she was getting sick and people were calling for Ruth Bader Ginsburg to retire while Obama was still president.

Jason Johnson: This is the thing. Whether it's Ruth Bader Ginsburg or Briar now, or I'll even take it to Joe Biden and people saying, "Oh, will Joe Biden run again or will hand it off to Harris." Have you ever met any powerful, influential political person who voluntarily steps down? Never, never. People spend their whole life. There's only nine spots available in the Supreme court and you can keep the job for life. Almost no one is going to step down from that position voluntarily unless they are physically incapable of doing so.

I swear by all the totally, a lot of Supreme court justices would be perfectly happy and a weekend at Bernie's situation where you just carry their corpse in there, just so they can keep their names on the mantle. No, no one is going to voluntarily retire. Your options are to either morbidly wait for people to pass, which is kind of insane or change the system so that we're not expecting people's human rights to depend on whether or not somebody is going to live. That is a very dysfunctional way for our government to operate where we're basically waiting out the clock to see if people have a right to marry who they want to marry, vote whether they want to vote or live where they want to live.

Brian Lehrer: Hearkening back to our previous conversation with Dr. Jason Johnson earlier this hour, Kate in Salisbury Center, New York, you're on WNYC. Kate, I thought I knew the state pretty well, but I actually do not know where Salisbury Center is, would you enlighten me?

Kate: It's right at the edge of the Adirondack Park, and if you're familiar with little falls, New York, then we're about probably 10 miles from there.

Brian Lehrer: Got you. Hi. Cool.

Kate: I'm white, but I'm married to a Black farmer. He's Afro Caribbean and I'm from a Mennonite background. We both have kind of agricultural paths. One of the things that really resonated, Dr. Johnson, and what you were saying was about Black farmers looking into growing marijuana because for us when we started, well, we found out that starting a farm is one of the hardest things you can do. We had to try multiple product lines before we could actually figure out the one that worked for us.

I have to say that was probably two or three years of, I don't want to call it wasted effort because we learned, but it was very expensive and it was very intensive. What we finally found out is that specialty product lines seem to do the best from a profit margin perspective. We settled on raising peonies, if you're familiar with that flower. We sell out every year and they work for our land.

One of the things that I've been consistently thinking about, I'm so glad you did this segment is, if there are existing farmers who want to retool or Black farmers who want to get into farming, how can we connect them to some of these less well-known specialty crops that I think has huge markets associated with them. Oftentimes don't require as much capital as you would need to get into something like commodity crops or even livestock, which we tried for awhile.

I don't know. I think it's more of a question than a statement, but I feel like that's where a lot of the profit is, and I'd really like to see more Black farmers getting into that.

Brian Lehrer: Is she testing the limits of your agricultural knowledge, Dr. Johnson?

Jason Johnson: No, this is actually right up my alley. It's an awesome question and it's an awesome [unintelligible 00:28:23]. No, I'm really happy about this because this is what the new bill, this is what the COVID relief Black farmers money is supposed to be able to help people to do. It's supposed to be able to help people transition out of less profitable, lower profit farming into new and dynamic areas.

For example, look in the 1970s when you had maybe white farmers in Georgia saying, "Hmm, I'm looking at where things might be going. I might want to move out of tobacco and I might want to work in this and move into sorghum or something else like that." They got loans to make those kinds of changes in the '70s and the '80s and Black farmers were denied that. You're exactly right. The opportunity to make these switches is where this money comes in and Black farmers weren't allowed, and weren't given the government support to innovate.

I would suggest reaching out to John Boyd and the National Black Farmers Association of America. That's who I interviewed. They are really good at connecting Black farmers with the resources from the small business association and this new COVID relief money to make these changes happen.

You're exactly right. It's that sort of innovation, it's that ability to be quick and nimble that will allow Black farmers to succeed and its opportunities they've been denied in the past, but will hopefully be available now or more available heading forward.

Kate: Oh, that's great.

Brian Lehrer: Kate, thank you so much for your call. You've enlightened a lot of downstate listeners about [unintelligible 00:29:52]. Please call us again.

Kate: Thanks so much.

Brian Lehrer: We'll take one more on this topic, Maria in Sunset Park Brooklyn, I know where that is. Maria you're on WNYC with Dr. Jason Johnson, hi.

Maria: Good morning. You better know where that is. [crosstalk]. Good morning. I am listening and it's the first time, Dr. Johnson, that I hear you speak. I know of your name, and I'm just so happy that I tuned in just in time. My question is about the-- Is it a question, is it statement first? We have in Sunset Park been introduced to a wonderful and growing group of farmers, mostly from Mexico as people of color who have their great traditions of farming that many people in New York city, through the farmer's markets have come to know.

I was thinking, in so many other ways where Latinos or indigenous people, and African-Americans have come together to support each other and move forward. What do you think about all this wonderful things that are so on point that you have expressed about what our government needs to do and must do for Black farmers? That they include, Black farmers being first, because they are the ones that have been the most neglected and abused. That there is some confluence of those two groups to move up together or move out of the situation they're in.

Brian Lehrer: Also, Latino, also indigenous. Dr. Johnson.

Jason Johnson: Yes, I think that's incredibly important. Here's some advice that I got from John Boyd, from the National Black Farmers Association, he said, "Look, we have all sorts of people screaming about how we spend money in the military. We have people screaming about all sorts of other budgetary issues. You've got Mayor Pete now, secretary of transportation, Pete so people are tweeting about transportation all the time and infrastructure. If we want those sorts of changes to happen, we have to start paying attention to agriculture."

You have to start saying, "Look, there are Latino farmers as well, going through these experiences." You have to start saying, "There are Latino farmers. There are Asian-American, they're AAPI farmers going through these experiences as well." Everybody has to yell and jump up and down and scream and make sure Vilsack knows that he can't just float through this job like he did before.

I want to make this really, really clear to everybody out there who's not a farmer. For the people who, hey, maybe you have your garden in Brooklyn. There is something in your backyard where you peppers or mint or something else like that. The reason that this ends up mattering is not just because it makes you feel good when you live in a city, but it's about the cost of our food. If we are denying Black farmers, Latino farmers, AAPI farmers, the opportunity to innovate and grow and make healthier, more efficient and wider arrays of food, then that means everything gets eaten up by four or five large agribusiness companies.

That means that your peppers are more expensive. Your oranges are more expensive. It also means that if there's ever any massive crop difficulties, if there's some issue where there's a huge drought and it knocks out Conagra is this or something else like that, then we all end up suffering. This country benefits from having thousands of farmers independently, who can provide us food because it's a national security issue and it's a cost issue. That's why everybody should be having access to these kinds of issues, loans, innovations, and everything else like that because farming is the lifeblood of food and life in this country.

Brian Lehrer: Maria, thank you so much for your call. We'll start our new Manhattan-based agriculture in the news weekly segment here. Before we run out of time, Dr. Johnson, let me touch briefly on another couple of topics before you go. I'm really curious to get your take on Amazon. The warehouse workers in Bessemer, Georgia, mostly Black, I gather, rejected the unionization in a two to one vote that was announced on Friday. Amazon campaign against it hard. As some of our listeners know, some say they campaign dirty.

The core message in either case being the union is just trying to get you to pay dues. We already pay a $15 minimum wage plus health insurance in a state that only requires 7/25 an hour. I'm curious how you see this outcome in labor power, nationally terms or in racial equity terms or anything else because conservative say, "Don't disrespect the workers intelligence here by suggesting that they were too stupid to understand their own situations or Amazon's corporate communications versus the unions went over their head." What was your response? What would your response to any of that be?

Jason Johnson: I'm not surprised. I'm a Gen Xer and some of these workers are Gen Xers, maybe young boomers or something else like that. We forget how radical and how much fighting went into creating and sustaining unions in America. It's not easy and most people are convinced that if they go it alone or if they fight or if they do their jobs well, then that's all that they need. Unions are like insurance, no one likes paying insurance until your house burns down. Then you're happy that you have it.

Unions operate the same way. It's not surprising to me [unintelligible 00:35:56] right to work state like Georgia with an employer that pays you much more than the average job does in Georgia, that people like, "I don't see any reason to have a union." Now, I promise you this, in three years’ time, if Amazon decides to cut back on healthcare, if Amazon decides that they're going to, I don't know, expand the workweek to nine days a week or something ridiculous, whatever kinds of things that Amazon can get away with, those same workers may look back on this decision and say, "Oh crap, we don't have anyone to speak for us collectively."

Unions keep you from having to picket. Unions keep you from having to negotiate on your own if you don't necessarily have a position of strength. Unions keep you from being discriminated against. If everybody down there gets replaced by people on special travel visas coming in from Mexico or coming in from Sri Lanka.

I'm not surprised at the decision. I don't think it's because people are dumb. I think it's because most Americans as a tradition do not realize the value that unions brought to the table, that the idea that being paid $15 an hour, it ain't something that corporate America came up with out of the kindness of their heart. It's because of unions pushing and forcing a minimum wage upon so many countries throughout this country.

Brian Lehrer: Finally, before you go, I want to acknowledge the death of DMX whose death was announced after Friday show so we didn't get to mention it last week. I see you retweeted Chris Rock on this and I'll read that tweet because Chris rock and he wrote, "So sad such an amazing person and artist. Last time I saw him, we just talked about our kids all day. If anyone out there has a friend or family member that suffers from addiction, don't judge, just show them love and support. Childhood trauma is real."

Would you like to talk about your own take on what made DMX important to the world or a great artist or whatever your take is?

Maria: Not only Chris's tweet, but also one of my favorite people, Leslie Jones did a great tweet with clips from SNL to one of DMX's songs What They Really Want. I can tell you that there are precious few people, precious few musicians who completely changed how you appreciated music. I can tell you as a kid, that when a DMX song came on, when a DMX song comes on today, it is the thing that makes every-- he made the kind of music that made you start dancing with a bartender and there's not a lot of people who can do that.

DMX made the kind of music that the restaurant staff, everybody dancing, you couldn't help but tap your feet and move but also, he had a style. He had a sadness. The musicians we love are the ones who take, it's just like the comedians. It's just like George Carlin, it's just like Chris Rock. The comedians and musicians we love are the ones who take their pain and pour them to their music unapologetically.

He is a man that I think a lot of us have said, we hope he finds the peace now in transition that he couldn't find in life. Chris Rock is exactly right. He dealt with abuse, he dealt with violence. He dealt with being in foster homes. He dealt with drug abuse. This is a man who was in a lot of pain and poured that pain into music that absolutely transforms our life and it's sad and disappointing.

Brian Lehrer: We'll go out with an iconic DMX track, Rough Riders from 1998, number 79 on VH1's list of the top 100 hip hop songs of all time and we thank Jason Johnson from Morgan State, The Grio, MSNBC and host of the slate podcast, A Word With Jason Johnson. The latest episode is about Black farmers. Jason, thanks as always.

Jason Johnson: Thanks, Brian. Appreciate it.

 

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