Social Justice - A Conversation

Unknown Speaker 0:00
Hi, I'm Charles Stanton. I'm on the faculty of the Honors College of UNLV. And the Boyd School of Law.

Unknown Speaker 0:07
Hi, I'm Lana weatherald. I'm a third year law student, and welcome to social justice, social

Unknown Speaker 0:11
justice to conversation conversations. Yes, Hi, I'm Charles. And we're gonna start our show off today with sort of an interesting situation in the state of Texas. As you may know, both the Attorney General and the governor of Texas are up for reelection. And it's a very interesting situation in Texas, Texas, of course, being our biggest state, one of our most populous states, has a very unusual political system. A system basically where it seems that you can avoid actually interacting with people and still win elective office. Very interesting article today in The Wall Street Journal, regarding the race for attorney general. And of course, Paxton, of course, is the attorney general in the state of Texas. He's a gentleman who's under indictment, and who and he has also been cited by the Bar Association that a formal complaint has been filed against him. Regarding his involvement in the attempt to overthrow the election, the Attorney General is rarely seen campaigning. And in that same league is the governor of Texas, who also is rarely seen campaigning. And it's very, very interesting because the in olden days, the essence of politics was interaction with the public, you know, getting around going out to rallies and different stuff, and meeting the people basically, most of the time, hopefully, people that supported you, but on numerous occasions, probably people who oppose you. But there was a discussion, there was a various viewpoints of opinion interchange. And that sort of is what made campaigning something that was exciting and American. And now today with the advent of television and social media, plus the huge budgets that the candidates have, particularly Republican candidates in the state of Texas, you really don't have to meet anybody. You can basically sit in the studio if you want to, like we're doing today, and basically proclaim whatever it is that you want to proclaim, without any questioning without any challenging. I think it's something that really is a great contrast to the two Democratic candidates in the state Beto O'Rourke, who was running for governor and Ms. Garza who was running for Attorney General, where they're running all over the state basically going into almost every every town village Hamlet principality that they can. And yet that involvements in interacting with the people of the state doesn't seem to be benefiting at all, because basically, they're both clearly behind in the polls. And I'd like to, you know, get Lana's perspective on this.

Unknown Speaker 3:12
Yeah. So I think what's happening in Texas is sort of happening all over the country, right, you see a we're moving away from boots on the ground, we're moving away from canvassing, we're we're moving away from having people that you know, support, you make those phone calls and knock on doors and that sort of idea of winning an election by spreading your knowledge through channels that are not just money driven. And by actually doing the work, we've sort of gotten away from that. And I think people don't feel the same connection to the candidates that are running for office in it at the local level, even, you know, at the national level, I think there is a fundamental distrust because these people are, like I say, not knocking on doors, not making phone calls, what are they doing, they're paying for massive media blitzes. They're paying for you know, Twitter ads to come up on very particularized sets of coming up for very particular eyes, sets of people they're paying for Facebook ads to come up are very particular eyes sets of people. These are not, you know, you don't want to say these are not free and fair elections, right, because these are usually done within the bounds of the law. But this is what we've created, we've created sort of a monster where we don't have elections, as we once did. And social media is part of it. But money is just as much a part of it. If you can afford all the ad space, you are going to win the election and it becomes so much more about money than it does about what beliefs are and how many people in your community actually trust you. So what's happening in Texas, here with the Ag I think, is just a symptom of a larger problem where we do not fundamentally view or handle elections in the way that we once did.

Unknown Speaker 4:43
Yeah, I think it's interesting too, because in the sense that it gives almost people immunization or immunity, because in the case of the governor of Texas, we're still waiting for the final word or the ultimate word or what The truth as to what actual actually happened in Uvalde. And he's basically avoided basically campaigning and avoiding people questioning him. He really doesn't do interviews in the sense where you have people who are independent or not connected to the Republican Party. And in the case of the Attorney General, aside from the fact that, you know, he's been indicted, and he's also been sanctioned, possibly going to be sanctioned by the legal community there the question of as his role as number one law enforcement officer in the state, should he not have been more active? Or should he not be more active now as to getting a conclusory report on actually what happened that day. And it's interesting, in contrast to beto O'Rourke and Garza, how they've been going around and trying to get this issue finally settled for the public. And yet, it's also interesting and how I think that people in so many of these states, they're in such a tribal atmosphere, that in certain cases, it doesn't seem to matter. What the what my guy did, or my gal did, as long as they are Republican, or in the other case, Democrat, I'm gonna give them a free pass. Right? It

Unknown Speaker 6:25
doesn't matter that they've been facing indictment for seven years, right. This is my person, and this is my champion, and this is what's going to happen. And then, you know, you mentioned even if they they may not know, you know, this may not be something that they're aware of, I'm not sure if you add us to the you know, the average citizen in Texas, do you know what's happening with your attorney general that they would be able to answer that, honestly, or know that that he's facing indictment. And I think that comes from a lack of maybe the other side, not campaigning properly against him. If that's not public knowledge, that's not common knowledge, or maybe it just comes from, hey, we don't want to want to keep these kinds of things under wraps, because they do sort of threaten the idea of one man can be immune from. And we talked about that a lot, the last show, but but now here we are, again, we're just we're showing sort of that these politicians can become immune from their bad acts. And that's, that's frightening. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 7:13
yeah. Well, certainly, you know, we're in a situation, I think, in our country, where, in a sense, there are a lot of attacks on democracy. There was an article in today's New York Times referring to more versus Harper. It's a case that's going to go before the Supreme Court. And the the, basically, the gist of the case, is this, whether the final word on elections in any state will ultimately be decided by the legislature, or will it be war will be decided by the courts. And there's a number of States Attorney General, who signed on to this. Friends of the court plea before the Supreme Court, that don't want the courts to have the final word. And I think in our highly politicized time, that's pretty, pretty scary. Because it was only really the fact that the judiciary, both Republican and Democrat, because there were a lot of Republicans who heard these cases as well, who finally validated last, the last presidential election. And now I think if it's going to be thrown into the legislature, you're really seeing the erosion of people's right to vote and more than people's right to vote, the right to vote in and of itself means nothing, if it doesn't count. Exactly right. Just the net, put the nail right in the woods there. That's exactly right. And, of course, we're seeing that all across the board in, you know, a lot of the candidates who are running for office, particularly in the governorships are basically saying that they're not going to commit to honor the results of the election, even before the vote is started or anything. And it's almost in a sense like that the election, the right to vote is beside the point.

Unknown Speaker 9:14
Oh, absolutely. And I think we started seeing this six years ago, in 2016, when they're in, you know, this was on both sides, where they started to admit that there may have been some Russian interference. And then we saw, of course, in 2020, with the fundamental distrust of what happened in our election. So the door has been opened here. We can start to, and we have started to build fundamental distrust in our electoral system, and then what happens things like this, the idea that then we should well pass this on to a more responsible body in the court system, shouldn't we? Well, look at 2016 Look at 2020 It's not right. It is very scary, but the door has been open now for six years. So I'm almost shocked that we haven't seen something like this sooner, especially in the wake of 2020. But you're 100% right. If you are a voter, be concerned and start I'll start making sure that everything as far as your plan is in place, make sure that you are not being vote. You're not being moved to a separate polling place, make sure that all of your addresses and things are up. There's no reason you should be turned away at the polls because God forbid, your voice. Your vote may not count for nefarious reasons. Make sure it's not on account of something you have control over.

Unknown Speaker 10:18
Right? Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Lana. And it's also interesting, the the candidates that the parties are running, that it used to be that people who ran for office needed to have experience in the justice system or experience in the legislature or experience in the court system. And you have people running now who on their face are totally unqualified to be to be in running for statewide office or running for the Senate. I mean, if you look at the governor governor's race in Pennsylvania, if you look at the Senate race in Georgia, these two follows I mean, they have no qualifications, right,

Unknown Speaker 11:04
you're running, they're held up as men of the people and they're, they're a part of the of your community. And but what matters here is that you do need real life experience. And these are not the sorts of of situations where you, you want someone inexperienced in these seats, and and It shocks me that we are able to buy into this narrative that these individuals are just, you know, they're one of us, they're one of our committee, we don't want one of us sitting in one of these jobs as as crass as that may sound, we want the best in the brightest here. And to not even have the bare minimum qualifications to hold that post and still be considered as a legitimate candidate, if not, the potential winner is horrifying.

Unknown Speaker 11:40
Yeah. And I think what's also very, very interesting is that there used to be in the various states, there used to be debates, you know, mostly sponsored to the League of Women Voters or other organizations. And now you're seeing a lot of candidates who will not agree to debate.

Unknown Speaker 12:01
Absolutely. And they know they'll get beat, right. They know that their inexperience will show that their lack of education on these real issues will show. And then it's just viewed as well, we don't want to give them to the majority of these people to the media, we don't want to have them, you know, possibly be viewed in a book. But what it really is, is a test. I mean, what it really is, is these people cannot muster up the strength to pass the test of being challenged, or live and being challenged on on the things that they need to know about, in which it should really, it should scare people that we're not seeing televised debates for local elections like we used to. Why is that? I think you should do some deep digging into why can't these supposedly people that are going to hold a high, esteemed offices, why can't they answer questions about the things that will be facing them every day at work? That should be easy enough, huh?

Unknown Speaker 12:50
Yeah, I would I would think so. But the other thing that I that I that I noticed too, which I think is interesting, is I think I think it's inexperience. Yes. I think it's lack of knowledge. Yes. But I also think that there is there is an element of this, that is almost that we're above being questioned. Yeah. That we have us we have that we have the way. And anybody who challenges us or criticizes us as an infidel. It's very, it's very interesting when you see some of the rallies that these people have. And there's no like, even thought or conception, that there's anything debatable about what the candidates are doing. But the essence of the essence of good politics, the essence of a democracy, is that these ideas are kicked around between the various parties or individuals themselves. And that seems to be that seems to be going out to that basically, the you having a situation where you're getting unqualified people, a lot of times talking about conspiracy theories. And it has resonates with a lot of people. And, you know, I don't I can't exactly answer why that is, but it's certainly not helpful to getting the most qualified people in office. No, no, no,

Unknown Speaker 14:15
not at all. Not at all. Okay, so we are about halfway through the program here. And I think it's time to shift gears to maybe a little bit more exciting of a topic, certainly, certainly dark and certainly something that needs to be addressed. But it's the it's the middle of the NFL season we're getting going here. And you know, as as the NFL is progressed, certainly diversity has become a benchmark 70% of NFL players are African American, right. But then when you look in positions of power within the NFL, and you look at head coaches and you look at owners, those numbers start to become almost in diametric opposition to the numbers we see with players. There are very few African American coaches, very few African American owners, and when they do get in those positions, they are held to a completely different pandered. So I would like to take some time because football is a passion of mine to talk about this sort of racial disparity that we've been seeing within the NFL and why that is. You know, I think it comes from for many reasons, right? You don't want one of America's premier industries to all of a sudden be predominantly African American. Right? That's, that would be against what so many have largely Republicans, but I would even venture to say some Democrats would feel some sort of way about that. But then this that's not, I mean, it's fundamentally wrong. Because at the end of the day, Africans, Americans are more successful at the sport. And then you see, a lot of these black coaches are more successful than their white counterparts, but are again, held to completely different standards.

Unknown Speaker 15:44
Yeah, though. Yeah. I mean, it's really interesting how the black coach in America, even the one that's hired, seems to have a very short shelf life. So in other words, the guy who was the coach of the Miami Dolphins, Brian Flores, Yahoo, they wouldn't like the last seven or eight games of the season, he was fired. So as far as a productivity standard is that you can be a coach who's white, and you can get two, three, sometimes four seasons, out of, you know, basically being unsuccessful. And you can have a black coach, who is who is successful and has the potential for greater success. And they, and they get rid of him. I think the ownership has a lot to do with it. You know, I think that's a that's a big factor that they don't feel comfortable with having minority minority coaches. The idea of the Rooney Rule was supposedly, that we're going to, you know, broaden diversity, get more people of color as coaches. And, you know, that was that was the idea. But the rule really hasn't worked out really that well, because it's something where basically, they go through a process by basically the process that they go through. At the end of the at the end of the line. They know who they're going to hire already, but they have to go they they grudgingly probably goes through with it. But I think that I think that there's a there is a very weird dichotomy and judgment between when when when a black coach, or black, GM, not as successful as a white coach, but it has the all the trappings of becoming successful. I think there's a different way of judging them. And I think it's interesting, I think the NBA situation, just to drop in on that for a second is very, very interesting. You know, when the Los Angeles Clippers had their franchise changed over to Steve Ballmer, the guy who was one of the big parties in Microsoft, because the owner basically had made all kinds of racist comments. Everybody thought that that was setting a new standard for behavior. And now basically, you've got the guy from the Celtics from the well from the Celtics and the sons. Yeah, I mean, the guy from the sons of course, Sarver, he, he finally said, Well, you know, I'm going to sell the team, I'm going to sell the women's team, and I'm gonna sell the men's team. But I think if he hadn't, if he hadn't done that, he would have stayed on he, you know, he would have done his year of probation, or purgatory, or whatever you want to call it. But it's really something that like, I don't understand, like the, the thinking of the NBA in the sense that you have, basically, a majority of African American players on the team. And you have a guy saying all kinds of racist stuff. And in addition to the fact that he also was involved in being derogatory toward women. And they try to excuse the behavior or they try to avoid really facing it. And they say, well, we'll suspend them for a while and a

Unknown Speaker 19:25
year which in the grand scheme of things is nothing you know what I mean? It just mind boggling that that that was handled that way and that there was never a public apology. You know what I'm saying? That this was something that was just well it should be expected Oh, there scar, he was always kind of an affair. Really. This is an NBA owner and in the NBA holds a special place in the heart of the culture, right. A lot of what the NBA does ends up becoming a popular popular culture. I mean, the NBA has a stronghold and not only for the African American media, the community writ large and for this guy Be espousing those nasty, horrendous beliefs and then for the son's, you know, front office, to not come out and even make some sort of statement to completely disavow the things he was saying I don't, that was handled very poorly. But this is not the first instance of major league sports handling incidents like this incredibly poorly, but you have to think about who the vast majority of that fan base is. But just it's still, you'd think we've come to the point, especially given that the vast majority of players are African American, not necessarily the case in the MLB. But certainly the case in the NFL in the NBA, that this is how we handle racial issues. Still, you know that it's some T shirts, and it's, you know, some things on this. And then when the guy really comes out and shows Rachel vitriol, we do absolutely nothing. I will suspend him for a year. No, I mean, I'm glad he's gone now. And I'm glad he's out the door. But that was the answer. That was the original answer. mortified?

Unknown Speaker 20:50
Yeah. Well, it's also interesting, you know, the case with the guy who was the coach of the Celtics. And I find that hard to believe whatever, whatever his transgressions were, that this was not something that that did not exist in the organization.

Unknown Speaker 21:09
And I will say very plainly, you know, obviously, he's an NFL coach, but in the NFL in the NBA sort of do play by different rules here, but Bill Belichick. I mean, nasty stuff. Yeah. If he was caught doing that nothing would have happened. You know what I mean? It's it's a stark comparison with what I think happened with the Celtics coach with what have happened, if the same were to have happened to a white coach. I don't think they would have been held to the same standard at all, like we had discussed a little bit earlier with the NFL, and not to see what he did wasn't shameful. And, but but that was shocking that the level of vitriol much like Tiger Woods did for you know, simple adultery, the level of vitriol that these athletes these superstars who are in their community and actually receive for minor transgressions in the grand scheme of horrible transgressions done by major league sports is interesting. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 21:57
well, I'll just I'll just on this subject, I'll just end on this note. And that is the game has grown so big though. Yeah. You know that when we were kids and we watched the game, the game is enormous. And the the television popularity of the game but more than the television popularity of the game, it's the gigantic, you Mungus increase in gambling and embedding that really, in a sense almost dwarfs the sport. That's how extensive it is. And the interests of all the major players to keep things going to keep you know, you have Draft Kings you have fans old you have probably a lot of other sites I never heard

Unknown Speaker 22:43
right. Well, every major casino now is running a mobile sports book, right? So Casino. Caesars has a mobile sportsbook, MGM has a mobile sports book. So these are all doesn't matter where you live. I mean, even in Las Vegas, where DraftKings doesn't operate in FanDuel doesn't operate? Well guess what? You'll download the Caesars app and you'll still bet from there. So and this is a state by state by state slowly but surely, they're all passing laws. You know that Greenlight mobile, mobile gambling and sports gambling writ large? So I think you're 100% right, this will become sports, we'll go beyond just, you know, a cultural moment. And we'll go beyond you know, just didn't like a camaraderie thing. And it will become an economic stronghold more so than it already is more. So as much money as involved in sports. Now. You're 100%. Right. And I think we need to start considering taxing some of that sports betting revenue. I know a lot of states have, but that's not always the concern. And I think, yeah, the money that's going to come into play with sports in the next two, I'll even go five years is going to be unlike anything we have ever seen. Yeah, it's not like just betting on horses 50 years ago, this is something I mean, you can bet on this. What second something will happen. You know what color uniform though? It's insane.

Unknown Speaker 23:50
It is kind of insane. If you really if you really stepped back from it. And you know, there are there are people who you know, there are people who can gamble responsibly. But it really it really is a temptation to a certain point when you can gamble, like who's going to get the first first now, who's going to count? I mean, these are things that and it must be it must be an enormous moneymaker for the organizations that that do this because the odds are almost against the you know, against the better, of course. Yeah. Yeah. So I wanted to talk before we before we leave you today on a very interesting article that was in the Wall Street Journal, having to do with voting the voters they did a survey of the voters and the United States Democratic and Republican regarding regarding the question what they asked them two questions. One question was, Do you still consider America the greatest country on Earth? And the other question was, Do you believe If by hard work alone, regardless of your race, you can become successful. And it's very fascinating. The numbers are very fascinating because of the of the voters that they polled who said they were, you know, Democratic 61% said they agree that America was the greatest country on Earth, versus 91% of the Republican voters. As to the dense of, you know, hard work alone being, you could be able to be successful just on the dint of hard work alone, presuming that all races are equal 85% of the voters who Republican said, if you work hard, you're likely to get ahead in America 53% of the Democratic voters said that they didn't vote that that was the it was only 53%. So you know, when you when you look at that you see like, a really divided, really divided country. And I just wanted to get your thoughts on Atlanta visa vie, you know, the disparity in those numbers is like, kind of glaring. And I have my own, I have my own, what shall we say? Theory on it? I'd love to hear what you have to say,

Unknown Speaker 26:15
you know, I'm curious who that who definitely who was pulled in this, because I'm not sure that nine out of 10, Republicans would say, especially in Joe Biden's America that this is the greatest country in the world, so I'm very curious as to who they pulled with this. But you know, what, I do think there's a level of patriotism that the Democratic Party could learn from the Republican Party. And maybe if we had a little bit more pride in what our country was, and or at least is capable of doing, people would be willing to go put more boots on the ground and be willing to actually make those changes that we need so desperately. So So yeah, this is scary in a way, but I'm not super surprised. I think the Republican Party is one of them have known patriotism, and known for nationalism and known for support of whatever it is we're doing. And if we're number one, I you know, that this doesn't doesn't shock me in any way. But I think what it should do is force the Democrats like, Well, why? Well, if we're not the best country in the world, what am I doing sitting around in control of the House, Congress and the presidency not doing anything about it? So and as far as working hard, you know what it is? It's a tough call, right? Because I think it, it comes from it comes from a place where certain certain locations are dependent on what what your lot in is in life and who your parents are, as you're allowed in, in life, how you look is your lot in life. So again, it's who were these people that were polled. But I like to believe that if people work hard, they they can always get where they want to be in America. And I think that that I'm you know, I might be getting ahead of myself and saying that, but I do believe that to be true. Shocking that more Republicans believe they're the greatest country in the world. But then less Republicans believe that if they work hard, they couldn't get ahead in America. I think those those two things don't really make sense. But hey, so with that, I think we're coming to the end of our conversation here. And sorry to end on such a dark note. But I do believe that if you work hard, you can get head ahead in America, right? I mean, look at me, I'm sitting here in law school right now talking to a professor and I didn't come from much so I think I think there's some truth to working hard and getting ahead in America. I am from Tampa. So I just want to say a quick minute. Prayers out to everybody and hope you stay safe out there in Tampa, Florida in the wake of en en thank you guys for listening. Thank you. Thank you for listening to our show. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us at weather one that's w e t h e l one@nevada.unlv.edu. Or to contact Professor Charles Stanton, contact him at CHA R L E S That's Charles dot Stanton, s t a n t o n@unlv.edu.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai