229 w/ Jeffrey Sachs - 'How to be a Dictator, Anti-Woke Hypocrisy'

• New Views
• Demographic Considerations
• What Seems to Be The Problem Officer?
• The Honorable Minister
• Vaccine Rollout
• Careful Reporting
• Post Trump News Cycle
• The Flagrancy
• Predicting Apocalypse

Recorded Dec 17th, 2020

Published Dec 19th, 2020

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Look, you asked for it. Fifth fan favorite (ed - we really don't understand you people) and Mother Jones editorial director Ben Dreyfuss (né Gould) is back. And the results are wonderfully shambolic. But seriously: make sure the kids are in bed before press play....

• Ben is 'on leave' from Mother Jones
• Why Ben's editor blocked him on Twitter (and you should too)
• No ice in Hawaii, no avocados in Wisconsin
• The worst movie Ben's dad ever made (Or was it the best?)
• Why everyone in DC hates Facebook
• Why people read dumb articles on Facebook
• Ben starts a Substack. Obviously.
• What Ben learned about Donald Trump in the suicide ward
• Manipulating people on the internet
• And so much more...

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'The Toad style is immensely strong, and immune to nearly any weapon. When it's properly used, it's almost invincible.' - Five Deadly Venoms

• Way Out Of Line
• The Incredible Asshole Machine
• Related Controversy
• A Stolen*** Election
• Obama 💘 Cops
• Welcome to Murderapolis
• A Civil War, A Tent Revival
• Han Obviously Shot First (Probably Doesn't Matter)
• Bothsidesing: Maybe Not a Bad Idea
• Revivalist vs Redistributionist
• American Pie

Recorded Dec 3nd, 2020

Published Dec 4th, 2020

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An issue with the mics. An inspired fix. A nearly aborted dispatch manages to slide into your feed just in time for the stranges Thanksgiving in decades.

• A Rolling Start
• When Moynihan Met Oprah
• Coup d'é HAHAHAHAHA
• 'I Told You'
• Salvaging the Culture
• Crisis of Authority
• Covid Masks
• Murder Rates
• Generational Divides
• Calling it Quits
• It's A Job, Ain't It?

Recorded Nov 24th, 2020

Published Nov 26th, 2020

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Guest: Glenn Greenwald @ Co-Founder, The Intercept

• The Move to Substack (https://greenwald.substack.com/)
• The Marvelousness of the Fifth Column
• The Job Market
• The Reply to Critics
• The Blow by Blow
• The Culture
• The Hunter Biden Laptop Situation

Recorded Oct 30th, 2020

Published Nov 19th, 2020

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Guest: Jason Stanley @ Author, 'How Fascism Works', Professor of Philosophy @ Yale.

• The Answer
• Extremely Online, Prospective Hypocrisy
• Cancel Culture
• No Tellin
• Trump's Blacketst Swan
• But He's a Fascist
• Critical Race Back and Forth
• Pretty Good (for a Black Guy)
• Covid

Recorded Nov 12th, 2020

Published Nov 14th, 2020

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• What Election?
• The Perils of Watching Cable News
• What You Talkin Bout Welch
• The Got'Damn Polls
• Anticipated Unrest
• Black Woman Stabbed, By Black Lives Matters Supporters?
• What Happens to the Media
• What Happens to Republicans
• What Happens to Democrats
• Stereotypes are Fine Now
• You People Aren't Supposed to Vote That Way
• Woke-spiracy
• Fighting Them on The Beach

Recorded Nov 4th, 2020

Published Nov 5th, 2020

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• Bannon's back. The New York Post isn't.  
• Don’t talk about Hunter!
• Are we living in a Techno Fascist Reich?
• Regulate, regulate, regulate
• The unforeseen consequences of deplatforming?
• Qanon inflation 
• To the gulag, go!
• Russia, Russia, Russia
• Which New York Times editor does Matt call 'a loathsome toad'?
• FYI: Political journalists cannot cover “politically driven events”
• Debate, debate, debate
• Coherent on Corona! 
• But also full of shit!
• And Corona reporting is still awful 
• Mad Matt on a Mendacious Media 
• Are people still wiping down their groceries?
• WHATS UP TWITTER WORLD, IT’S THE JUICE
• Jeff Toobin, American Hero / OJ, not guilty
• Maybe an election-night Zoom thing?

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• Moynihan's Old, New House
• COVID... is Fake?
• Siri, Do Black Lives Matter?
• Dueling Town Halls
• Everyone is Awful, Even You, (But Not Really)
• The Brief And Highly Overrated Return of Respectability Politics
• Politics of Bullshit
• Foreign Bodies
• The Revolt of the Public
• Darkest Totalitarian Hellscape

Recorded Oct 18, 2020

Published Oct 20, 2020

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Guest: Damon Root @ Reason Magazine, Author, 'A Glorious Liberty: Frederick Douglass and the Fight for an Antislavery Constitution'

• Trump Makes His Pick
• How Republicans Will Be Disappointed
• Court Packing And Other Shenanigans
• Historical Context, Oppressing People of Color
• COVID Rumors
• Debate Night Dog Whistles
• What Trump Really Means
• Vote by Mail (But Throw Out the Ballots)
• The First and Only Lady

Recorded Oct 1, 2020

Published Oct 3, 2020

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NOTE: This dispatch was beleaguered by technical and logistical challenges. The audio actually turned out pretty good (all things considered), but the entire thing was very nearly scrapped. Those challenges contributed to a delayed-release — and because the world has gone quite mad —the news cycle is evolving rapidly. 

All the same, still lots of very relevant (even prophetic) stuff in this dispatch, but it was recorded before the Breonna Taylor Grand Jury announcement that inspired a night of protests, riots, and violence. 

• Home Improvement
• Latinx, Things You Must Know About The Cuban
• Trust the Process
• Debate Preview
• RBG
• Hypocrisy and Norm Evisceration
• Who to Blame
• A Loss of Faith, A Looming Election Hellscape
• About that TikTok Deal
• We Choose Violence
• 1619 Lies, Bullshit, Stealth Edits, Motivated Reasoning
• If The Schools Already Suck, Can 1619 Make Them Worse (or better)
• National Patriotism Curriculum
• All My Critics Are Racist, Which Is Terribly Convenient for Me

Recorded Sept 20, 2020

Published Sept 24, 2020

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Guest: Steve Kornacki, National Political Corespondent @NBC News / MSNBC

• Making TV News During a Pandemic
• Doing Your Own Makeup
• Last Man in Midtown
• We're All You Tubers Now
• It'll Be a Blow-Out, Or It'll Be Close
• Polls You Can Trust
• Black Voters, Impeachment, Collusion
• State of the Parties
• State of the Union
• State of the Media
• Paper or Plastic

Recorded Sept 11, 2020

Published Sept 13, 2020

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Guest: Nancy Romemelmann, journalist and author of To the Bridge: A True Story of Motherhood and Murder

Moynihan is back from Kenosha, and Nancy Rommelmann returns for an update on the goings-ons in Portland.

• On the ground in Kenosha
• On the ground in Portland
• Media Malpractice, Self Deception
• DC, Rochester, What's Next
• Biden v Trump
• *Worse Than Useless Facts*
• Details That Matter
• Going Full MAGA

Recorded Sept 5, 2020

Published Sept 6, 2020

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w / Tina Nguyen (White House Reporter @ Politico)

• Watching the RNC
• Trump's on Twitch
• Nasty Emojis
• The Fire Next Time (Kenosha Edition)
• 'What's the big deal? Your insurance will pay for it?'
• Total Failure of Political Leadership
• Matt Welch: Snowflake?
• Marines in Portland? 
• Libertarian Enough?
• Leaping to Conclusions, Outright Lying
• Independent Investigations
• Jacob Blake: Things We Don't Know
• Kyle Rittenhouse: Things We Don't Know

Recorded Aug 31, 2020

Published Sept 1, 2020

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w / Coleman Hughes

🤫

Recorded Aug 21, 2020

Published Aug 23, 2020

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We can't believe it. Neither can you. It's our 200th episode!! (Well, not including the thirty-plus, subscriber-only Patreon episodes, which are looser, bawdier, and even more problematic...so stop freeloading and subscribe!). In celebration of this momentous anniversary, we called up our old friend Andrew Sullivan, fresh from his separation with New York magazine and joining from his Provincetown whirlpool, to discuss:

- Daddys, bears, and pervs...oh my!

- Andrew has a conversation with some younger gays

- A generation without tragedy

- BTW: No one actually says LGBTQ+

- And you're not suppose to like being oppressed

- Why did Andrew leave New York magazine and what is the 'mysterious miasma'? 

- Sully starts his own thing, quickly realizes he was underpaid

- The drunk brilliance of old-school British journalism

- FWIW, Andrew didn't write The Bell Curve

- The anti-Sullivan fatwa issued by a former employer

- Michael Kinsley's two rules of writing 

- The future of magazines, the future of media 

- Why you should read, listen to, and befriend people with bad ideas

- Kmele, Kamala, and the prostitutes

- Andrew convinces us to...change

Recorded Aug 13, 2020

Published Aug 14, 2020

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• Drugs You Should Try
• Heroine, A Black Drug?
• Black People Are All The Same
• Voter Fraud, by Mail
• Selecting A VP
• Cognitive Tests (Person, Woman, Man, Camera, TV)
• Scare Tactics
• Suburban Lifestyle Dreams
• The State of New York
• FBG Duck
• New George Floyd Video
• The Trouble With China
• Facebook vs TikTok
• Blazing Saddles

Recorded Aug 6, 2020

Published Aug 9, 2020

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Guest: Nancy Rommelmann, journalist and author of To the Bridge: A True Story of Motherhood and Murder

Nancy Rommelmann, friend of the Fifth and former resident of Portland, Amerikkka, returns from the ramparts of the revolution with news, anecdotes, and a glimpse at our glorious future. Alis volat propriis. So we asked our very own Lady John Reed just what the hell is happening in the insurrectionist precincts of the Pacific Northwest...

• Nancy doesn't recognize parts of Portland
• What everyone is getting wrong about the protests/riots/federal intervention
• Wait, where is the Portland PD?
• Shares in a homemade body armor business are trading higher today...
• Why you're not hearing that amazing, hilarious, enlightening conversation we had about the secret app
• (It's because the SD card ran out of space and no one noticed...)
• We return after our tech screw up--much, much drunker--to talk history vs. journalism
• No one arguing about colonial history knows anything about colonial history
• It sort of falls apart around this point...
• And by the way: stop telling us what we should care about

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Glenn Greenwald,

Co-Founder @ The Intercept

Author, 'No Place to Hide'

Thomas Chatterton Williams

Contributing Writer @ New York Times Mag

Author, 'Self Portrait in Black and White'

After a little internet drama related to the Harper's Open Letter, Kmele got together w/ Thomas and Glenn to discuss.

• Why we needed 'A Letter on Justice and Debate'
• Why Glenn isn't a Signatory
• What is Cancel Culture
• Do we really need to talk about this RIGHT NOW
• Evangelism or Excommunication
• Hypocrisy and Healthier Conversations

Recorded July 24, 2020

Published July 27, 2020

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We haven't unlocked a Patreon episode since way back in February. But we (Moynihan) were feeling generous, so here's a paywalled bonus episode from July 13, liberated for all of you cheapskates. You're welcome.

If you want a new subscriber-only episode every week (plus slurring live Zoom calls, lost episodes, mail bag episodes, a community of like-minded psychos, etc), subscribe here!

--------------

For only the second time since the Bat Flu, the lads are back in the same room...and back at the Stupid Table™ in Williamsburg. The energy! The booze! The crosstalk! Kmele singing! Yay! It's an hour and half bull session covering the most important debates in America. Zum beispiel: 

- Moynihan's new CNBC show 'Stock Monstah Dood!'

- Getting psyched about--and possibly auditioning for--a show Kmele loves but has never seen

- Kmele is Mr. 2X. Moynihan is Mr. Angry Irishman Driver

- Understanding the core of the anti-racist project

- Matt's formative moment as an 18-year-old journalist

- The privileged people who hate really privileged people

- Yes, the lads talk about the endless LETTER WARS

- Kmele rants about a Jo Jorgensen tweet

- What does it mean to be anti-racist?

- If they win, we will all will end up living in a joyless world

- Back to Bay Ridge (and coming upon a pro-NYPD protest)

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w/ Josh Szeps (né Zepps), ABC Australia and host of the Uncomfortable Conversations podcast.

Josh-o's back and the dingo has his baby! Australia's most listened-to radio host joins the Fifth from his COVID-free compound in Sydney to talk nonsense about:

• Paul Hogan (obviously)
• How the Aussies handled the COVID
• That story about our friend who resigned from the Times
• 'Cancel culture,' right and left
• 'Good Morning ya' ****s!'
• Armageddon the shit out of that rock
• Are we becoming a totalitarian hell hole? (Probably not)
• Viacom race theorist Nick Cannon on masked singers, Mariah Carey, and the Rothschilds.
• Matt knew a Nazi

Recorded July 15, 2020

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Two-plus hours with our favorite German, Herr Yascha Mounk, contributing editor at The Atlantic and founder of Persuasion, a publication dedicated to promoting and defending the 'values of a free society.'

The lads discuss that Harper's letter on cancel culture, signed by Kmele and Yasha (and Salman Rushdie, Martin Amis, JK Rowling, et al); the attempt to cancel people who signed a statement opposing canceling people; how everyone's still a fascist; the painful absurdity of Robin Diangelo; a Matt and Kmele fight about Trump's Mt. Rushmore speech; the dangers of the populist right; El Chino; and so very much more.

Recorded July 8, 2020

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w/ Wesley Lowery Correspondent @ CBS - '60 Minutes in 6'

Lowery Wrote A Thing:

'A Reckoning Over Objectivity, Led by Black Journalists' (NYT) - June 23, 2020

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/23/opinion/objectivity-black-journalists-coronavirus.html

Welch Raised Some Objections:

'Journalists Abandoning 'Objectivity' for 'Moral Clarity' Really Just Want To Call People Immoral' (Reason) - June 24, 2020

https://reason.com/2020/06/24/journalists-abandoning-objectivity-for-moral-clarity-really-just-want-to-call-people-immoral/

Some Twitter Drama Ensues.

The Parties Agree to Settle Things Directly.

...And now, here you are. All caught up, ready for the fireworks (literally + figuratively).

Recorded: July 2, 2020

Published: July 6, 2020

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w/ Jacob Siegel, Senior Writer @ Tablet

'The New Truth' (June 22nd 2020)

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/new-truth-rationalism-religion

'Journalists Abandoning 'Objectivity' for 'Moral Clarity' Really Just Want To Call People Immoral' (6/24/2020)

https://reason.com/2020/06/24/journalists-abandoning-objectivity-for-moral-clarity-really-just-want-to-call-people-immoral/

- The Lisa 'Left Eye' Lopez of Journalism

- The Great Fireworks Conspiracy (continued)

- The NYT Slack

- All The Smoke

- The New Truth

- Rhetorically Invincible

- White Fragility, The Message of the Cross

- Moral Clarity

- World Heritage Sites

- The Wages of Sin

- Ethical Journalism

Recorded: June 25, 2020

Published: July 1, 2020

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w/ Jane Coaston, Senior Politics Reporter @ Vox

• Some Sports Stuff
• TickTock Swiftboats
• Tulsa
• Trumps Party
• What Comes Next
• Immigration + Visas
• The Coaston Plan
• More Black Lives Matter Talk
• But What About....
• Unbundling the Police
• Liking the Neighborhood Cops

Recorded: June 23, 2020

Published: June 25, 2020

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w/ David French, Senior Editor @ The Dispatch and Columnist @ Time

• Help With Your Down Payment?
• A Busy Day For SCOTUS
• 2A, Qualified Immunity (Part I), Expanding Civil Rights
• Thought Crimes
• On Racism (and Anti Racism)
• The Worst Dinner Party
• The Censorship Impulse
• Gone With the Wind, Song of the South
• The Lost Cause... Myth?
• What Northerners Really Want
• Still in Love w/ Daisy Duke
• Anti-racism Must Be Anti-race
• Walk Humbly, Seek Justice, See the Humanity in Your Ops
• Qualified Immunity (Part II) -- Why Qualified Immunity Matters

Recorded: June 15, 2020

Published: June 16, 2020

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w/ Olivia Nuzzi, Washington Correspondent @ New York Magazine

• An Unprecedented Movement
• Defunding the Police... Or Just Abolishing Them
• Canceling Most Things, Razing The Rest
• Moral Clarity in the News Room
• Trump on the Campaign Trail, Biden's Strengths
• Why Trump and Rudy Can't Stop Talking to Nuzzi

Recorded: June 10, 2020

Published: June 12, 2020

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• A Brief History of Right Now
• Punk Police
• It Might Actually Be Legal
• Black on Black on Black
• Bending the Knee
• NYT Civil War
• Essentialism in Practice
• Law & Order
• Passover
• MLK on Riots

Recorded:6/4/2020

Published: 6/6/2020

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Kmele facilitates a follow-up conversation on race, racism, and anti-racism -- this time, in the midst of a global pandemic and increasing social unrest. You can find the first installment in this series of conversations here: http://wethefifth.com/episodes/121

GUESTS /

Glenn Loury

Professor of the social sciences and economics at Brown University

Thomas Chatterton Williams

Author, 'Self-Portrait in Black and White: Unlearning Race' and 'Losing My Cool'

John McWhorter

Professor of Linguistics, Philosophy, and Music at Columbia

Coleman Hughes

Fellow at The Manhattan Institute

Contributing Editor at City Journal

Recorded:5/22/2020

Published: 6/1/2020

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She wrote a column in the New York Times. She failed to mention her favorite podcast. She mentioned other podcasts. She texted us asking if she could come on the show to apologize. We agreed. Bari Weiss, the genial and gentle bête noire of woke culture, is back...hat in hand, asking for Fifth forgiveness. But she sticks around to discuss lots of other stuff:

- We are all Stasi agents now

- You're both Karens!

- A murder in Minneapolis

- Whose more powerful? Jack Dorsey or one of your senators?

- Should corporations be fact-checking politicians?

- Matt explains Section 230

- Moynihan rants about journalists being annoying

- A guest appearance from Nellie Bowles

- A really bad piece about white people and spices

- Kmele squeezes in some China/Hong Kong talk

- And some good news from Spencer!

Recorded: May 27, 2020

Published: May 28, 2020

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Balaji Srinivasan (@balajis)

Investor + Entrepreneur, Former CTO @ Coinbase, Partner @ Andreessen Horowitz

Conor Friedersdorf (@conor64)

Staff Writer at The Atlantic, Founding Editor of The Best of Journalism

- How Startups Think About Failure + Survival

- Pandemics, Panics, and Journalistic Incentives

- Forging Societal Truth

- Why the US Failed to Take COVID Seriously

- Why Journalist Hate The Valley

- Believing Half of What You Read

- Epistemology Algorithms 

- A Feature Set for Fixing Journalism

- Looser Arguments

Recorded: May 14th 2020

Published: May 25th 2020

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w/ Ethan Strauss Writer @ Athletic, Author 'The Victory Machine: The Making and Unmaking of the Warriors Dynasty' (2020)

- Getting Political

- NBA vs China

- Bad Deals and Bad Economics

- The Incomparable Michael Jordan

- 'What is Best In Life'

- Resuming the NBA Season

- Pissing off Kevin Durant

Recorded: May 13th 2020

Published: May 17th 2020

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w/ Rep Justin Amash US Congressman (Michigan's 3rd Congressional District) and 2020 Libertarian Presidential Hopeful

U.S. Representative for Michigan's 3rd congressional district since 2011, and currently serving as the first Libertarian Party member of Congress. Amash diagnoses what's wrong with America's politics, parties, and legislative process. And he makes the case for why he's ideally well suited to fix.

Recorded: May 4th 2020

Published: May 6th 2020

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w/ Glenn Greenwald Co-founding Editor @ The Intercept, Host @ 'System Update'

A once in a century pandemic is producing unique and daunting challenges to civil liberties around the world. What are the necessary compromises? Where are the non-negotiable red lines? And what are those mysterious bright lights people have been seeing in the night sky? (The last one is easy: visitors from another galaxy, here to share their advanced technology with us... for a price).

ALSO:

- Avoiding a Hot War w/ Red-China

- COVID in Brazil

- Reading the YouTube Comments

- Logging Onto CompuServe to Own The Conservatives

- A Kinder, Gentler Greenwald

- Russia-Gate Revisited

- Why FISA Was Always Bullshit

- 'Just the Tip' Socialism

Recorded: April 30th 2020

Published May 2nd 2020

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w/ Jonah Goldberg Editor-in-Chief @The Dispatch, Host @ The Remnant Podcast

President Trump has an inspired idea for arresting a global pandemic. It involves ultraviolet rays, disinfectant washes -- and Welch seems convinced that it also has something to do with 'butt stuff' -- which, honestly, it wouldn't be the strangest thing you've heard all day.

ALSO:

- Jonah on Political Homelessness

- Define 'Prevaricate'

- Presidential Ineptitude and Slothfulness,

- How Shitty Henchmen Keep America Safe

- Why The CDC is So Popular

- Trump Punching is Boring

- The Most Dangerous Debate

- On Tucker Carlson

- The Best Rescue Package

- Georgia: Open for Business (or something)

- Funding Lockdown Protests  

- The Limits of Mitigation

Recorded: April 23rd 2020

Published April 25th 2020

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Kmele Foster, Zaid Jilani (@ZaidJilani) and Coleman Hughes (@coldxman) discuss the cacophony of concern about blackness+ racism in the midst of a once in a century global pandemic.

RELATED POSTS:

'Do COVID-19 Racial Disparities Matter?' - Coleman Hughes

https://quillette.com/2020/04/13/do-covid-19-racial-disparities-matter/

'Don’t Racialize the Pandemic' - Zaid Jilani

https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/04/coronavirus-race-fight-pandemic-dont-get-bogged-down-racial-categorization/

Recorded: April 14th 2020

Published April 20th 2020

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