HEFFNER: I’m Alexander Heffner,
your host on The Open Mind,
and I’m honored to welcome today
to our broadcast an activist,
humanitarian, a minister,
and a scholar, Nyle Fort
at Princeton University.
He joins us today. Welcome.
FORT: Thank you for having me.
HEFFNER: Nyle, first, I know
that you yourself had COVID.
I want to ask you about your
health, how are you feeling?
FORT: I’m not 100 percent,
but I’m much, much better.
I have my taste back, which
is probably the most important
thing after my smell back
and I’m back to working out.
So I feel good.
Thank you for asking.
HEFFNER: That’s
a relief to hear.
I’m glad you’re getting
better, if not in a
hundred percent condition.
You have been so eloquent and
poignant in your commentary on
this crisis and the humanitarian
and religious awakening.
I wondered if we could
just start there.
How would you characterize, if
the response to the pandemic
has been a kind of awakening,
how would you define it?
How would you describe
it for our viewers?
FORT: Well, I love the way that
Arundhati Roy describes it, a
writer wrote “The God of Small
Things” recently wrote “The
Ministry of Utmost Happiness”
a novelist and activist.
She described it in a recent
essay as a portal, talking
about the pandemic as a portal.
And part of why I like that
is that it suggests that there
is no going back to normal.
There’s no going back to normal.
It’s going to lead us somewhere.
And the question one is
where is it going to lead us?
And two is what are we
going to bring with us?
So she has these amazing lines
at the end of the essay that
talks about, are we going to
carry the carcasses of our past:
the wars, the guns,
the exploitation of the earth
through that portal with us
and essentially recreate what
we already had or are we going
to walk lightly on the earth?
Are we to carry less baggage?
And are we going to come
into this new world with
the excitement about
possibly building and
transforming the world?
And so I love that
analogy of a portal and I
think that it’s dead on.
HEFFNER: If you were to answer
that question, Nyle, reimagining
this next stage of human
existence, what is a realistic
aspiration that can achieve
the ideals that we have not
been able to achieve in recent
decades and even centuries?
FORT: Sure.
I’m, I actually want to take
a step back before we get
into what’s realistic or not.
And I actually think that
what’s so remarkable about
this moment is that it gives
us an opportunity to completely
re-imagine what it would be
like to live into the world.
What it would look like for us
to not have to work to live.
We have so many people who
are currently unemployed.
So many people who
are struggling to eat.
We have so many children who
are struggling to receive
their education because they’re
hungry or because they’re
crowded in dilapidated housing.
So what would it look like
one for us to back away from
what’s realistic, but to
think about what’s possible.
In the heyday of slavery, it
was not realistic to think
about black people being
born outside of plantations.
And so we have to remember that.
We have to remember that
the best of what’s happened
in the world did not happen
because it was realistic.
James Baldwin says that
I know what I’m asking
of you is impossible.
But then he said, the impossible
is the least that we can demand.
And I think in a world that’s
marked by so much oppression
a part of what happens is, is
that it limits our imagination.
I’m reading this really cool
book called “The Body Keeps The
Score” and it’s about trauma
and the body and the mind.
And it talks about how
people who are traumatized
oftentimes have this assault
on our imagination on thinking
about what might be possible.
So I actually want
to start there.
I want to think about
what does a world look
like, where everyone has,
what they need to thrive?
What does a world look like
where no child not only goes
hungry, but has the opportunity
not only to go to a decent
school, but to experience the
world where they can go to
the park and not be killed by
a police officer like Tamir
Rice was or can walk down the
street like Michael Brown did
and eventually attend college,
which he was supposed to do
two days later, or who can
sleep on their auntie’s couch,
like Aiyana Stanley Jones in
peace and not be raided and
eventually shot and killed at
I believe, seven years old.
And then beyond that,
how do we think about
thriving and flourishing?
I don’t want to fight
for a world where
we’re just making it.
I don’t want to fight for a
world where my kids or our kids
just don’t get killed by police.
I want a world where they
can thrive, where they can
imagine, where they can think
about what’s possible, and
actually act on that without
being so bombarded with
questions of police brutality.
So bombarded with the fear
of not making it home safely.
And so I want to
think about that.
Now, in terms of what’s
realistic --
HEFFNER: Well, you,
you said what’s humane
ought to be realistic,
FORT: That it ought to, but, but
in reality we’re fighting
against hundreds of
years of history.
We’re not only fighting against
what happened to George Floyd.
We’re not only fighting against
what happened to Brianna Taylor.
We’re fighting against
hundreds of years of
oppression, racial oppression,
class oppression, gender
oppression, so on and so forth.
And I think that’s a
remarkable thing to remember
when we ask these questions
of what‘s realistic.
Well, you know, we’re dealing
with hundreds of years of
oppression and a lot of
people want us to figure that
out in a couple of minutes.
And I think that that’s unfair.
And I think that we should
have the room and space
to experiment, to play,
to try, to fail, to get
back up again, and to keep
asking these same questions.
HEFFNER: As someone personally
affected by this pandemic and
seeing communities across the
country, but in particular,
the disproportionate effect on
black and brown communities that
also ought to factor in, into
what is realistic and what is a
humane public policy that values
each human life the same way.
But the, the reality of this
pandemic and COVID is that
we don’t have equal rights.
We don’t have an equal
right to healthcare.
So I wonder personally
how that factors into your
assessment of what we should
be driving towards now?
FORT: Sure.
With that said imagination
needs to be coupled with
will and needs to be
coupled with strategy.
And so I don’t want to make
it seem as if imagination
alone is what we need.
It’s a crucial part
because it actually lets
us know what’s possible.
It lets us know what’s possible.
Those of us who are interested
in changing the world,
people also have imaginations
that are quite cruel.
People imagined black
people in slavery.
So that’s a side note.
But we do need to think about
what it takes to actually
actualize our dreams.
And I think activists are
doing a remarkable job at that.
They’re thinking through,
for example, what does it
mean to have safety in our
communities without not only
police violence, but without
the role of policing at all,
which in many ways is designed
to collect, to protect public,
to protect private property
and manage inequality.
And so we see activists, we see
protestors, we see community
people trying to figure
out exactly how to do this.
Another example, in the midst
of people who are struggling
to eat, who are struggling to
make ends, meet, struggling,
to feed their children,
struggling to have education
for their seven-year-old or
their high school student,
we have all of these mutual
aid groups that are popping
up all across the country.
And that is a very real life
example of people who normally
do not have the resources
at scale to do what the
government could do are still
figuring out ways to protect
one another to care for one
another, to learn each other’s
names, to build relationships
that are not predicated
on exploitative labors.
I don’t have to meet you just
because we happen to work
at the same job, but I get
to meet you because we live
near each other and because
we have a common interest in
taking care of one another
and each other’s families.
So I think there’s some
very practical steps
that do need to be taken.
I think this experience
has showed us the fault
lines of democracy.
Bernie Sanders campaign I
think was really hitting
the nail on the head when it
was emphasizing health care.
So we just notice how ridiculous
our healthcare system is as
soon as this pandemic hit, I
mean much, much before, but
it became utterly apparent
when you don’t know where you
can get tested, if you can
get tested, you don’t know if
you’re going to get charged
for getting tested or for being
inputted into the hospital.
And so we have all of these
questions that I think again,
is allowing for us to think
through how can we build
a different kind of world.
What does it mean again, not
to have to work, to live?
What does it mean
to have leisure?
A lot of people are
struggling in this moment,
but also spending more
time with their families.
What if we could do that outside
of the context of a crisis?
What if that could also be
a right that we all enjoy?
HEFFNER: When you talk about
the right to health care and
the systemic inequity you’re
lasering in on the structural
realities pre-pandemic, and
how much of that was manifested
in those responses to the
pandemic that were so inadequate
for certain communities?
And, how do you see that, that
historical perfect storm of
the police brutality further
exposing manifestly just the
ludicrousness of inequality?
FORT: Sure I mean, one
way that I’ve described
it is that in one way the
pandemic is unprecedented.
We haven’t seen something
like this, I believe in
over a hundred years.
But on the other hand,
it’s all too familiar
in its consequences.
And so there was a whole
story that was being told
that death is the great
democratizer; that the
pandemic somehow democratized
misery and suffering.
But now if you’ve been paying
attention to any of the data
you know, that that’s utterly
not true, it’s a complete lie.
Death is not the great,
great democracies.
In fact, I think it’s
at the moment of death
that we actually see the
fault lines of democracy.
We see not only who dies
more and who dies younger,
but we see how people die.
And so I think we really
need to be honest that this
was really a train wreck.
But as Arundhati Roy says
in The Pandemic is a Portal
that train had already been
moving towards disaster.
And so we see that in
every major institution
of American life.
We see that in housing.
So we have an eviction crisis
that is really on its way.
I mean, it’s already begun,
but it’s really on its way,
an eviction crisis, of course,
we have an incarceration
crisis, which is not just
about numbers, but it, which
is also about the qualitative
experience of what it means to
be inside of a prison, which
is probably the most inhumane
place to be during a pandemic.
It’s impossible to
quarantine in a prison.
And then you couple that with
the lack of PPE, you couple
that with the rise of depression
rates, you couple that with
all these other things.
So you’re talking about
housing, you’re talking
about incarceration; we’re
talking about food insecurity.
What does it mean to not have
enough money to feed your
family or to feed yourself?
Of course, we can
talk about employment.
Not only are we losing our loved
ones, but we’re also losing
jobs, black people, working
class people, latinx people were
disproportionately affected in
every area of American life.
And those were
the preconditions.
Those were the preexisting
conditions, even before
the pandemic struck.
So what the pandemic did is it
revealed for some but confirmed
for others, what this country
has always been about, but
it’s also laid bare, I think
not only what’s wrong with
this country, but I think
what could be turned right.
Again, I think we see clearly
that we would need a new
healthcare system if we truly
believe that everyone mattered:
black people, working class
people, poor people, women.
I think that we could see
that it matters that we
have quality education.
So now we have black children,
working class children,
otherwise who are falling
back in their education
even more than certain
other students, even though
we’re all falling back.
So again, I think that
you’re absolutely right.
I think people like Arundhati
Roy and so many others
who been really screaming
that, hey, y’all this isn’t
new in its consequences,
even though it may see new
and, and how it’s arrived.
HEFFNER: It may also not be new
in the deliberate malice on the
part of an administration that’s
denied critical services to
the populations most suffering.
And I just want to ask you
as a scholar and a spiritual
leader, if it’s important that
we define this as what it is.
And, you know, I don’t know
what the correct term is, but
I think when it comes to the
negligence of authorities, both
at the state level, in New York
where I’m recording this and
nationally, when it comes to
the federal government, there
has been a malignant negligence
that can be described fairly as
homicidal and even genocidal.
And I don’t know if it’s
important for us to take the
step to define it that way, but
I want you to tell us if it is.
FORT: Sure.
I mean, I think that it’s like
saying that the sky is blue.
It’s like saying
that water is wet.
If you just open your eyes and
you’d be honest about what you
feel we know that we are under a
misleadership that in many ways
does not care, not only about
black people, but almost anyone
other than his own interests.
And it’s not just Donald Trump,
it’s governors and other
establishment politicians across
the country who are governing
their states in ways that are
completely inhumane, that are
cruel, that are killing people.
And so blood is
actually on their hands.
It’s funny how we are; some
people are pointing to the
young people, having parties
and pointing to protesters
and things like that.
And really in reality, those who
have the most power, oftentimes
are I think left off the hook.
And I also want to
say that it’s awesome.
It’s so important.
You know, it’s easy to point
at Donald Trump as the sum
of all of what’s wrong with
our country and our society.
That’s easy to do.
He’s an easy monster to point
out and then put our blame on.
And while obviously there’s
so much blame there.
And while obviously it’s really
important to tell the truth
about the monstrosity and the
cruelty of his administration
and his presidency I think
it’s also important to remember
that not only is Donald Trump
not the only the issue,
it’s not only the
Republican Party.
So you have a Democratic Party
that in many ways has been
complicit with the suffering
of working class people, poor
people, black people, and the
most vulnerable in our country.
So I talked about incarceration,
well incarceration was
exacerbated and expand
it under Bill Clinton
in the mid nineties.
And you have the Crime
Bill in 1994, which in
many ways, intensify and
expanded the carceral state
while, while shrinking and
in many ways, eviscerating
the social safety net.
So you have a moment under a
Democratic presidency where
you’re ending welfare as we
know it, and you’re using
the prison system to try to
solve all of the inequality
that you’ve also created.
And so we need to remember
that; we need to remember
that under Obama, there
were more people deported
than any other presidency.
Now, so we can’t let the
identity or the party of certain
politicians getting the way
of us telling the whole truth.
And so I think it’s really
important to critique Donald
Trump, obviously, I think
it’s really important to
critique white supremacist
governors who essentially
believe that white people,
especially property owning
elite white people matter more
than everyone else, but I also
think is extremely important,
especially now when you have
people reminiscing on the good
old days of George Bush, which
is just absolutely ridiculous,
who led us into the Iraq War.
We need to tell the truth
about the whole thing.
And so the scariest thing in
this moment isn’t Donald Trump.
To me, it’s the urge to
return to normal “quote
unquote” because normal
is what got us here.
Normal is inequality.
Normal is racism.
Normal are people like my nephew
who are right now incarcerated
for 10, 20 years for essentially
being black and poor.
That’s normal is.
And so I’m really nervous
while I’m excited I’m also
nervous that the sort of
loud racism that we see is
making it difficult to hear
the quiet racism that happens
every day under the Democratic
Party, under folks who are
even not white, some black
politicians and otherwise.
HEFFNER: Nyle, how do we
incrementally improve the
mortality fatality morbidity
situation, the public health
situation in a way that is
cognizant of what you just said?
FORT: Yeah, well, I won’t
pretend to know the one, the
10-step program of how to keep
people alive in this situation.
I won’t pretend to know that.
I mean, HEFFNER: But you‘re
concerned about folks being
desensitized to the grave and
equities that were exposed here.
And so far we haven’t gotten
the body count under control.
I mean, especially in black
and brown communities,
but across the country.
So I just wonder if you have a
vision, and I do want to lean
into your spirituality for a
minute, if you have not at this
moment in a subsequent question,
but how we get to a vision that
is cognizant of the current
reality and wanting to avoid the
return to the previous reality.
FORT: Sure.
I mean a part of it is that
numbers can be quite abstract.
You know, so while we don’t know
the exact numbers, which I think
actually is extremely important,
data is extremely important.
Sociology is
extremely important.
It makes sense of
a messy terrain.
It helps us tell broader
stories about social groups and
all of those types of things.
I think that’s extremely
important, but let’s not forget
numbers don’t have names,
numbers don’t have stories,
numbers don’t have heartaches.
They don’t have
children, they are data.
They, they try to tell
us a broader story.
So I think a part of what it
means is that to not become
desensitized to the death
toll and to the number of
cases is also to remember
that these are real people.
They have names, they have
family members, they have
dreams that many of which
have been dashed and deferred.
So I think it’s one important,
HEFFNER: Yeah, to my knowledge
now there’s not a memorial
commemorating the souls lost in
the 1918 pandemic, at least not
one visible in DC or New York.
I’m sitting here very near
the Irish hunger monument
to those who perished during
the great famine, of course,
the World Trade Center.
That is one way we
will never forget.
And that should, ought to
be first on the agenda here
with the legislature and the
governor’s office because New
York failed its constituents.
And, and frankly it failed in a
more astronomical magnitudinous
way then before the national
pandemic plagued communities
and every single state.
And so I hear you, and I think
that both where you are in New
Jersey, presumably, and where
I am in New York, we need to
dedicate monuments and memorials
to the memory of those who
perished in this pandemic.
FORT: I couldn’t agree more.
I’d actually like to
speak to that a bit.
So my dissertation, I’m writing
a dissertation on African
American grief and particularly
the way that mourning, acts
of public mourning shape
contemporary black activism.
So I’m looking at things like
the movement for black lives
and thinking about how all
of that really is a response
to loss, not only the loss of
life, but the loss of history
and all of those things.
And so I think you’re, you’re
hitting the head on the nail.
I think that’s extremely
important and it’s not just
how many people are dying,
but is this how we as a
nation respond to our dead,
who gets statues, who gets
memorials, who gets three
funerals, one of which is in
the rotunda in Washington, D.C.
and then also, how are
those stories told?
So someone like Dr. King
is a great example, Dr. King
is remembered by everybody,
you know, he’s remembered
in black churches, he‘s
remembered in black homes.
He’s also remembered
in the White House.
His birthday became a
holiday under Ronald Reagan,
the same president who he,
eviscerated black communities
during his presidency, right?
The same president who
rolled out and continue
the War on Drugs, right?
And so I think it’s really
important to think about that.
And King, in that sense,
his memory becomes a
site of contestation.
Do we remember just the second
half of “I Have a Dream” or
do we remember that first
half where he says America
has a blank check and it keeps
coming back insufficient funds.
Do we remember the 1967 Dr.
King who stood up in a church
called Riverside and spoke out
against the war in Vietnam?
HEFFNER: Around the
corner in close proximity?
FORT: Around the corner.
So how we remember it,
not just who we remember
becomes critical, but I also
want to say this memorials
are extremely important.
Monuments are
extremely important.
They articulate who
and what we care about.
They say a lot about what
we value and in that sense,
they’re deeply political,
but they can also become
simply representative.
They can stand in for the
much harder work of actually
ensuring that Black Lives
Matter on a policy level,
on an institutional level.
So I go to Princeton University.
Princeton recently changed the
name, or is replacing the name
of the Woodrow Wilson School.
And that’s thankfully
to student activists,
I got to campus in 2015.
This was on the heels of the
Ferguson rebellion; Student
activists were rising up on
campuses all across the country.
And so it took five years
for the administration to
pay attention to something
that student activists were
organizing around for at
least at least five years.
So they’re going to
change the name of the
Woodrow Wilson School.
And some people are
going to applaud that.
And they’re going to
say that was a step in
the right direction.
But many of us who are
more concerned with an,
a transformation and not just
a representation, I think
are asking important, deeper
questions like, okay, you
can change the name, but will
you change the nature of the
school --
HEFFNER: Precisely.
FORT: Go ahead.
HEFFNER: No, no.
I was just going to say the
third reconstruction, if that
is the period we’re entering,
it cannot be merely symbolic
or cultural reparations in,
in some status, it has to be
an elevated societal footing.
And that’s what I want to close
on now that this notion that
there was no successor to King
in shepherding the economic
justice message in the way
that Lewis, John Lewis, rest
in peace, he powered on when
it came to voting rights,
but there seemed to be an
absence when it, when it came
to the fundamental economic
equality and that question
in materially achieving it.
And I just want to close with
your thoughts on this question
of the Third Reconstruction and
the pursuit of economic justice
and, and what was ostensibly
a missing link between King,
Lewis, and their successors, not
to say folks like William Barber
and others are not championing
just causes, but materially,
it hasn’t arrived yet.
FORT: Well, I mean, I want to
think about particular kinds
of formations, like the Black
Panther Party who in many ways
is seen as, as Keeanga Yamahatta
says the civil rights movements‘
ghetto little cousin, which
means we sort of write them off.
I mean, the Black Panther
party was obviously a socialist
organization who was anti-
capitalist, who was interested
in this economic question.
And part of, I think, why
they get written off, beside
the fact from, you know,
they were carrying guns and
sort of reduced to that, was
the threatening relationship
between economics and race.
And so they were forming
alliances with people like
the Young Patriots with
groups, groups, like the
Young Lords who were latinx
Puerto Rican, nationalists,
and white communities of
talking about this sort of
solidarity around class.
Of course you have groups
like the Comprehend River
Collective who are also
interested in socialism
and socialist projects.
So you have a long
tradition, even post-King
who were interested in
transforming the economy.
I mean, part of the issue of
course is resources, is people
really I think, you know,
getting the type of political
education that’s important,
you also have the rise of the
black middle class, after King.
You have the rise of the black
political leadership class,
which culminates in Obama.
And so you have all
these different dynamics
that are a bit different
than 1964 and 1967.
And people were, I think,
challenging those things
and really with dignity and
decency, trying to figure out
how to get free around this
question of both class and race.
HEFFNER: Nyle, we’ll have
to have you back very soon.
I hope you’ll join me on
the podcast to continue this
conversation later this week.
Thank you
for your time today, Nyle.
FORT: Thank you for
having me. I had a great time.
HEFFNER: Please visit
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