WTW2 part 2

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:16 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Serious Inquiries Only. And today we're going to be hearing the second half of that monster episode on Where There's Woke. Go find this podcast by searching Where There's Woke anywhere or by going to patreon.com/wherethereswoke. Thank you so much, and here we go. Now I want to track the flow of argument, how Barbaro and Powell and have, Oluseyi have traced it for you. Now they are saying, Well, the pushback to Oluseyi's article is Webb was the head of NASA when this guy was fired, who was gay for being gay, and he should have known or he should Have stopped it or something like that. Now that's that's their summary of where this went next. Like that's a new attack, according to what you've been told. And now we'll go down the road of that argument.

0:01:03 Clip: NASA. And what does Hakeem say about that? Hakeem points out several things. One is there's no particular reason to think that Webb would have known about this. This was not a top employee at NASA. NASA is a very large federal agency. But even more to the point. The head of federal agencies take directions from above. There was an executive order signed by President Eisenhower. And it was enforced for the next 20 years, saying that openly gay Americans could not work for the federal government. It was not a NASA policy. It was a federal government-wide policy that applied to every federal agency that was wrong-minded. It was wrong minded. I 100 percent. It was wrong. And there are bad actors and we know their names. And James Webb is not among them. So the relevant context is that Webb may or may not have known about this firing. There's no evidence he played a role in it and that the firing more or less followed the law of the land. Yes, he would have literally had to disobey a executive order by the president of the United States.

0:01:54 Thomas: I have so much to say about this in part two when we dig into the actual case he's talking about and the evidence, but let it suffice to say for now that already, just having listened to this the first time, I'm very certain this is another false dichotomy. Either you fire everyone who's gay or you violate a federal law. Well, I've worked in government. There's a lot you could do. Paperwork gets lost. You disagree. No, I don't think don't think they are. I talked to him. I don't think he's gay. There's plenty, plenty you could do. And furthermore, I really want to note something. Now in this argument, note that Oluseyi is saying, ah, he wouldn't have known. Director wouldn't know. No evidence he knew wouldn't known. Well, that's a far cry from I'm 100% fucking certain that everything, every accusation against him is false.

0:02:41 Thomas: Now we're in the territory of at best, there's not evidence. Short of uncovering a document that says I have confirmed, I do hereby confirm that James Webb does not know about what I'm doing right now. What you're finding is just not evidence, so it could be he could have had his hand in this, and there's just no memos that survived or that were written down, you know, knows what percentage chance that is, but it's not zero. It's probably pretty significant. This is a long time ago. Who knows? Say So Like I just want to note like there's the, definitely some uncertainty there, even just taking this podcast at its word. Let's continue.

0:03:14 Clip: They didn't admit that he didn't do what he was accused of. They just said, oh, what Hakeem does not understand is that Web was complicit because he was in management. And this gets to this broader critique of Hakeems work. That James Webb had a responsibility at various places, both when he was at the State Department and when he was at NASA, to speak up for gay rights and to speak up for Gay Americans. And that if he failed to do so, he had failed morally. That he had failed in his moral obligation to history.

0:03:41 Thomas: Okay. Wait, really? I mean, again, I kind of doubt that they would be saying he had an obligation in the 50s to stand up for gay rights, like wear a fucking pride flag. I would be surprised if they're making that claim. Just, just again, on first listen, I would imagine they would make the claim like, well, he should have found a way to not do this evil thing. Like he should, he could have have easily found a way to fudge it or to not, or to like, you know, protect people. I kind of doubt, now that this podcast has turned me incredibly skeptical with some of the terrible reasoning it's already shown, I kind of doubt that they would have said, yes, he had to stand up for gay people. Like that's not, that just strikes me as making a stronger claim than I would have, than I bet these people are making.

0:04:27 Clip: So this is intriguing. This criticism of Hakeem's research is that whether or not Webb himself... Did any of the things he'd been accused of doing, which Hakeem has found he didn't, the fact that, as a reader, he did more to stop him makes him more worthy of condemning. Yes, exactly.

0:04:43 Thomas: All right. First off, note, again, the paper of record, it's being reported as fact that, yeah, Hakeem found he didn't do any of the things he's being accused of. That's just, he just says, again, when it's Trump on a tape saying, "I know this is illegal," the guy's like, "well, I don't, okay, I don't want to say that he knew it was illegal, but like, I mean, prosecutors would probably say that." You think about how much hedging there is in that. But here we have, we have not heard from the other side. We have no idea what the fucking entire list of arguments from the other side is. We have no real idea, really, like what Hakeem researched and the nature, and he's not a trained historian. We don't have any word of, like, did he do a perfect job? And this is Michael Barbaro just saying, like, like in parentheses.

0:05:32 Thomas: And, Oluseyi has found he didn't. It's not, Oluseyi argues he didn't. It is not Oluseyi contends or thinks or whatever. It's, no, Oluseyi has found that he didn't do these things. And then once again, we get the most condescending, annoying fucking thing in the world where we set up a straw man argument, but with an incredibly fake seriousness. You've set that up all seriously. It must be a very serious, accurate representation of the other side.

0:05:58 Clip: There's a word in historiography, presentism, which is this idea that one can apply the the moral lens of our current day to past events. I mean, it's raised around our civil war. It's raised around any kind of really urgent, certainly the civil rights movement. In this case, it would be applied to James Webb and saying, look, in 1949, 1950, when you're at the State Department and gay employees, or potentially gay employees because no one quite knows who they are, are coming under attack, that you should have understood this as a moral civil rights issue and stood up and said something and resign if you needed to. Let

0:06:42 Thomas: Okay, this is where I have to just remind everyone what the fuck we're talking about here, this is fucking insane. Lest we all forget, we are talking about the naming of of a fucking telescope. I imagine that's gotten lost somewhere here for some of you. We are talking about, and you know what's never mentioned in this show? How did they decide to name it the James Webb Space Telescope? Is that normal to be named after an administrator? What are other things named after that are big, important science thingies? How was that process? How did that go? Who decided that? When? When was it decided? Correct me if I'm wrong. I don't hear any of that. And the reason I bring it up now is, again, I guarantee you, this is not an accurate fucking representation without even knowing, without even looking it up. This can't be an accurate representation of the other side.

0:07:30 Thomas: Because I know that if someone has decided to name an incredible space telescope, like significant, like one of the biggest of science in ever, someone has decided to name it after somebody who was, you know, quite possibly a piece of shit, really, the argument is going to be like, only have one of these fucking telescopes, like if it's a close call, if it's even anywhere in the realm of like, yeah, he might have, been responsible for firing people for being gay. Why don't we just find someone better? What we are talking about is naming one thing after a person. There are, I don't know if you know this, a lot of people, and there have been a lot really cool people through history. And again, just if you would ask me on the street before any of this, me, hey, who should we revere by naming very, very important things after them?

0:08:18 Thomas: Like things that are like super unique. There's only one of them or two of them, a handful of them in a century. Who should we reserve that to? I'd say, well, that, that better be someone really fucking amazing. You know, that bit better be somebody who's done something really significant in many ways. We're talking a science thing. Okay, well, I would think that could be like an amazing scientist, by the way. I don't know, someone who discovered something fucking incredible, like life-changing, altering the course of science discoveries, maybe. That would be one thing. I don't know, or, NASA has kind of a checkered history and obviously the country has kind of a checkered history. I do know there is a movie recently about some black women who just like were amazing, but were kept out of ever rising very far. And we're, you know, we're in segregation, all that stuff. I bet there's going to be a lot of those Hidden Figures throughout NASA history.

0:09:03 Thomas: Maybe there's somebody who was marginalized by NASA back in the day. It would be cool to honor them just because, like, hey, um, we're trying to undo some of the sins of the past here, because this person was trampled over at the time and it's really unfair. Like, they should have had a much better career, they should have been, you know, like, I bet you there's a billion of those. Even if it's a science thingy, it's, you know, it's a humanity thingy. This is something that, and I think they said this, this data is going to be used everywhere, everywhere, and it's going to be in every, you know, paper, in every journal. They'll be citing the James Webb Space. This is a worldwide thing, essentially. I know it's ours, it's mine, it's America, America's, USA, USA. I, look, I know it's the United States that's launching the mission and all that, but like, could see picking, I don't know, a universally beloved historical figure or something.

0:09:49 Thomas: I know, those are somewhat rare, but somebody inspiring, somebody who at the very least did something so good that even if their character wasn't amazing in all respects, it doesn't really matter. Like that's, we get, people are human. I understand. There's no saints who literally never did a wrong thing, but there's plenty of people in history who you'd be like, yeah, this, this person stood up for a very important thing at this time when no one else was, you know, things, real Real accomplishments that were hard to do. And now we get this burden flipping that no one has acknowledged at all, where, no, no. You would need to prove that he was over and above the bigotry of the time period. Like if he's just par for the course, like if he was just normal amount of bigotRY following orders, then it's fine. He gets, he gets the telescope because he, he's bought it.

0:10:37 Thomas: It's, he has the rights to it or something. I don't know what, like, again, you could just change the name. Here's the question for a part two. Have NASA ever had to change the name of anything? Has that ever happened? How did that go? Was it hard? Did it matter? Those are questions that I think would be pretty good context for a New York Times reporting piece on this. But I guess we'll have to rely on some podcaster to cover it.

But think about that burden flipping. And therefore, so I'm betting just as a listener here that what they're probably saying, now that I know, by the way, I know from a few minutes ago that there's no fucking way Barbaro and Powell are accurately representing the other side's arguments. I just know that just not having looked anything up. I know that from them saying the counterargument was you can't do this because you're straight, that's, there's no way that's real.

So this has tipped me off that there might be more bad faith. And so I, if I had to guess at this point, I would say, well, maybe they're saying like, look, we're revering, we're, the who we choose to give this great honor, this huge, massive honor

0:11:37 Thomas: Better be pretty great, and they better be, it'd been somewhat like, yeah, maybe if James Webb had been a civil rights icon and had, like, fought against firing gay people and personally saved the careers of some gay people. Well, that'd be fucking great. Yeah. All right. That'd be cool. Like, that's how I'm imagining. Now, now that I knows Barbaro and Powell are full of shit on this, that's what I'm imaging probably happened here. Now listen to this part. This is, oh my, just listen to this.

0:12:00 Clip: Let me give an example. There's professor at the University of New Hampshire, Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, a well-known physicist.

0:12:08 Thomas: By the way, is she impressive? A frankly very impressive person? What's her background? Does she come from a hardscrabble upbringing? Was it amazing that she even became, if, oh no, we don't know anything about her and you barely told us anything. Okay, yeah.

0:12:19 Clip: She's been very critical of Hakeem, and she argues that James Webb, fact, had a choice that, as she wrote, he could have been a radical freedom fighter and simply refused to serve in the Truman administration.

0:12:35 Thomas: So this is where I have to chime in with, some of the research I've done. This is a bit of a spoiling of part two, but I cannot help it because this is fucking journalistic malpractice. You've just been led to believe, after being disproven at every turn, now Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, he, as names, by the way, Chanda's gender, but, but uses she, her pronouns from everything I'm seeing online.

The way he characterized is Prescod-Weinstein's argument is like, she's followed along this whole time as Oluseyi has just, she's like, well, okay, let me think, what now, let me see if I can shift these goalposts. Well, he could have resigned to be a freedom fighter. And again, are reporting, this, you is a reporter, the same level of reporter who refused to say that Trump knew what he was doing was illegal, even though he's caught on tape saying he knew what he was doing is illegal.

And like, they are leading us to believe that this person, Prescod-Weinstein, just constantly burden shifting to the point where now she's asserting that no, he could have been a freedom, radical freedom fighter, though she thinks that people back then would have to see the future. It's just set up like this person's an idiot, and, and because, because this is set up that way, it is so egregious how this is set up. I had, like, one of the first things I researched in this was like, okay, did she really say that?

Because that, like that would be, again, it would be one of those times where it's like, oh, it looks like a woke person I agree with on everything is making a terrible argument. Like, and I'm always ready to say that, by the, that, it way, I'm doesn't threaten my worldview to say, oh, looks like that one person on the progressive side made a shit argument in that instance. I have no problem with saying that's fine. Fine. I could call that out all day. So I was curious, but I was like, well, I know this person, they're, they're an astrophysicist.

0:14:15 Thomas: They're very smart. That would seem like a weird, transparently goalpost shifting argument to make. So, I had to check how he substantiates that. And fortunately, in his New York Times article, because this broadcast episode, again, May, is actually based on an article that was written in December 2022. So for some reason, I don't know if they just needed content that day. They take a five month old story about an even older story. And they're like, let's put this up on the main podcast, the flagship fucking podcast of record. And And fortunately I can refer to that article and I can track down what, how he's making this claim. Had to, and check this out. We're presented that she's responding, well, he could have resigned. And they specifically are using that as evidence of goalpost shifting. So very, you better be very accurate. You are the one holding the megaphome.

0:15:01 Thomas: You are not interviewing, at least on the podcasts, the other side at all. You were only representing their arguments, and you are the New York fucking Times. If If you are going to introduce them as having set up a very obvious straw man goalpost shifting shit argument that anyone can see from a mile away is shit, despite you're doing the faux serious tone about, "Oh yes, oh, I'm intriguing," but no, we all, that's transparent. That obviously was a bad argument the whole time. Boy, you had better be really fucking accurate if you're going to do that, right? If you're a New York Times report and you are the you one giving the other side's arguments and you are saying, "Yes, this was a clear goalpost shift," it better be clear as fucking day. Otherwise that is so intellectually dishonest, journalistical dishonest. Here's all I can find in the article.

0:15:48 Thomas: Dr. Prescod-Weinstein wrote, and that's hyperlinked, "That if Mr. Webb had been a radical freedom fighter, he would not have served in the Truman administration." Already, that's a very different statement. That's someone saying, well, if he had been a radical freedom fighter, he would not have served in the Truman administration. That's not someone saying, "Oh yeah, here's what he should have done back then. He should've resigned to be a radical freedom fighter." Seeing that's a very different statement, don't you think? And so I click on the blue there to click on the hyperlink, and it links to a tweet. The tweet, which is part of a very long chain, says, "The desire to exonerate a dead white guy who was in the thick of federal governance during the McCarthy era should give you all pause." Like, seriously, if he had had been a radical freedom fighter, he wouldn't have been in the Truman administration.

0:16:34 Thomas: Learn some history. That's different from how he's characterizing it. Again, he has very much characterized it as this is yet another step in the goalposts moving. Well, he could have resigned and given up his whole career. That's what he could've done. Well, I'm reading the tweet, which is the only proof anywhere of this summarization of Chanda's. And what I see is someone saying, you keep trying to prove this guy was some radical freedom fighter. For example, when Oluseyi was saying he was amazing in the 60s when he fought the desegregation. And she seems to be responding to that kind of attempt to clean up or launder this guy's reputation. And she's pointing out like, I doubt that he was a radical freedom fighter. Because he wouldn't have been in this administration. Like, picture it's 50 years from now and we're arguing over what, I don't know, something Betsy DeVos did.

0:17:23 Thomas: Or you could pick a less charged example, maybe like Rex Tillerson or something, somebody where, I don't know. And, and one side's like, no, he was actually great. Look at this. And someone's like, look, if he was a radical freedom fighter, he wouldn't have been in the fucking Trump administration. Like, he never would have been there. He wouldn't been somebody Trump picked. That's what she's saying. You could disagree with that. But to summarize it as, oh, yeah, well, he could resign. That's what he could have done. That's not even fucking close. That's not even close. Especially if you're setting up this obvious straw man shit argument and assigning it to her and saying, saying, look at how bad this shit argument is. That is so irresponsible.

0:18:01 Clip: So how should we think about an argument like that?

0:18:04 Thomas: Translation, how should we think about this completely obviously shit argument that we just assigned to someone who isn't here to defend themselves? How should we think about that shit argument we just made up?

0:18:15 Clip: Well, the problem is that if you talk to historians, including some very prominent gay historians who've studied this period, I mean, there was not a gay rights movement at that time.

0:18:25 Thomas: Folks, I know I'm a broken record at this point, but this is the New York fucking Times. And they're really going to let someone get on their flagship podcast and say there was no gay rights movement at that time? With a lot of charity, maybe you could say there was no mainstream gay rights that this normie would have known about, I guess, maybe? But come on. I mean, gay people have been around, let me check my historical notes, forever, obviously. I feel like, again, there's so much of this podcast I didn't even have to do research. Now, I did, of course, but like so much of it, just think about it for a second and be like, that can't be right. Could that be right? Could there really have been no gay, no gay rights movement? I, you might feel like I'm nitpicking, but come on. I wouldn't, on my podcast, let me say, well, there was no gay rights, but I might say, gay rights movement was lesser known at this point. Hedge a little.

0:19:20 Clip: Presentism in this sort of a case is seen as asking people to anticipate where history is moving in a way that is simply kind of beyond their ken at that, that time, in 1949, 1950, to have expected essentially someone to intuit that there would be a gay rights movement that would arise in, in the next two, three, and four decade and come to flower is reasonable. Michael, no.

0:19:45 Thomas: Take a minor thing, isn't it weird how when he said, you couldn't expect someone in 1949 or 1950 to anticipate the gay rights movement. Well, wait a minute. I thought we had already shifted to in the 60s when a gay man got fired. Hadn't we already shifted? Oh, isn't it a little convenient that when you want to make this point about how no one could have known, you pick the furthest back year that we're talking about, when he was at the State Department, and not when he was at NASA, the thing we're now talking about? That's a little inconvenient.

0:20:13 Clip: Matter matter what intellectual framework you subscribe to when it comes to James Webb, it feels like what has happened in the case of Hakeem's research is that an original critique has been transformed and changed. And in a sense, the goalposts have moved. First, the accusation was that he did something very wrong. That was disproven. And

0:20:30 Thomas: That Was Disproven just says it, totally just asserts it. So we're to believe that's fact.

0:20:34 Clip: So the critique transforms into he was complicit. So how does HakeEM start to think about that? Mean, Hakeem finds himself frustrated, frankly, at this shifting of the argument from one thing to the next to the next. They started with, he initiated it, he's a homophobe, then they pull back to he's complicit, then they get a hint of something. It's never quite clear where this ends. And at some point, Hameem, a scientist, a man who loves to research, starts

0:21:02 Thomas: What are the other people? What's the other side? Do they like research? Are they scientists? I. I want to just put back fresh in your mind. The guy refusing to say that Trump knew something was illegal. I don't, I don't want to speculate on, and it just contrasts this with what you're about to hear.

0:21:15 Clip: Hakeem, a scientist, a man who loves to research, starts to realize, you know, facts are probably not going to be the end of this. You know, there's not going be one finding, one set of facts that is going to put this to rest. So sometimes the truth of the data is so obvious, but because of politics or some other reason, people will claim that they don't see what is obvious.

0:21:39 Thomas: Are you kidding me? They are, they're just reporting as fact. So, Oluseyi, the scientist who likes research, he has found that they're just not going to, they're just going, no, not listening, not listening. And like facts aren't going to work, like they're not receptive, you're just reporting that the other side is not receptive to facts. Literally, I'm not exaggerating. They go on. This is being reported. This isn't anyone's opinion. It's not even say Oluseyi thinks this or Oluseyi. I mean, you know, he's frustrated. And so he feels as if there's no, he

0:22:07 Clip: Starts to realize, you know, facts are probably not going to be the end of this. You know, there's not going be one finding, one set of facts that is going to put this at rest.

0:22:17 Thomas: He starts to realize not, he starts to like feel just kind of emotionally feeling like, ah, there's nothing I can do. He started to realize,

0:22:25 Clip: Sometimes the truth of the data is so obvious, but because of politics or some other reason, people will claim that they don't see what is obvious. And

0:22:35 Thomas: Boy, you better be really really sure you're reporting that accurately. If you're the New York Times and you're not an opinion person and you are reporting, you are letting this guy spout off and you are agreeing with an endorsing. Yeah. So the other side is just a bunch of assholes that like won't listen to facts. Like on one side, we have this researcher dedicated to knowledge, truth and knowledge. And the other site, they just like won'T even listen. Like they don't, it doesn't matter. For one, the issue's settled, as I'm reporting to you as a reporter for the New York Times. Don't know if I mentioned that the issue is settled and the other side doesn't care. They just don't care about facts. Holy shit. You would bet. Have they ever said that about Republicans? Seriously, I mean, maybe, but like how, how often in the Trump era do they get up here and say, yeah, you know, they just believe this wrong thing. That's definitely wrong. And you can't convince them otherwise.

0:23:21 Thomas: Strongly doubt they made anywhere near as strong a claim. And that claim would have been true. They could have said, I think they should have said that. Yeah. These people believe a wrong thing and they're wrong and they're not open to changing their minds. That's actually true. I actually don't have a problem with reporting that if it's fucking true, but it was true about Trump supporters. And I, I highly doubt they ever use that strong language. It's not true here, spoilers at all. And they, and they're just reporting it without even hearing from the other side. At least they had the decency to interview a coal miner or two back in the Trump era. We don't even hear from them. And we are, we're just being told they're closed to facts. They're immune to it. They can't even, you can't reason with these fuckers. There's no, it's impossible. They're idiots. We're just being told that by my reporter, it's unbelievable.

0:24:04 Clip: That's why this episode feels very relevant to our current cultural moment. And there is, I think, indisputably, a growing tendency by progressive forces in our culture to revisit the past with disapproving eyes. It often comes from a place of justifiable anger over a historical wrong, but at times it can seem uninterested and pretty unforgiving of the values that existed in the past. And it can be dismissive of the facts and the nuances that don't conform to the ultimate judgments of those who disapprove of it. Does that feel right? Yes. I see this all the time in my writing and reporting

0:24:13 Thomas: I think indisputably Fucking, what, Jesus Christ, again, when does this come up? This comes up because there's a death squad that's like taking descendants of figures in history and saying, we would like to execute these people because of what their ancestors did. And no, I don't care that that was the mores of the times, we're doing it anyway. Is that the context, or is the context, hey, there's a fucking statue, statue honoring a horrible person, let's take that shit down? Because those are very different things, very different things. And the way you would approach those are very different, if you're in a discussion of history, a history class, and you're like, yeah, well, what do you think about the choices this person made? Well, I don't know, back then, you know, the times, they believe this and they thought this and it's complicated, blah blah, okay, you could have difference in opinion on that, and people I are perfectly capable of recognizing the framing of history and like what was going on back then.

0:25:35 Thomas: But what they're usually doing in every case that I've ever heard of, of this is saying, Hey, can we not name this holiday after a genocidal maniac? Can we not named this fucking monument after that? Can we not put up a statue of this guy? Cause they suck. And that's a very different standard. God, I cannot believe the bad faith in how they've set that up. People or woke people who are really fucking tired of slave owners having statues. You don't have to make statues. You don't learn history from statues. Didn't we figure this out? We went through this, I, like, don't know, three, four years ago, whatever it was, like all these arguments were made. We know all these. Yeah. People were like, oh, you're going to forget your history. No, you don't. That's not, these are monuments. These are things that it honored them. That's not history. They're still in history books. Like a museum could have like their things, their papers, their book.

0:26:24 Thomas: You don't need a statue honoring them, a plaque saying, look at this fucking guy, he's great. That's very different thing. And no, if we're talking about naming the endeavor in a century after someone, yeah, I'm not going to be very tolerant of arguments of, well, you have to understand at the time they all hated gay people and wanted them to die. Okay. I Then let's not name it from anyone from that time. Sounds like that time fucking sucked. Let's pick someone from, I don't know, any other time, or pick someone who didn't go for the horrible mores of the time. There are plenty of people who are anti-slavery during slavery, can find that. If you're going to honor someone, you can find those people and be like, all right, let's put their name on it, cause they were, think of how awesome it was to be ahead of your time on that, that's that's an achievement worth honoring, that's the framework in which we're looking at this.

0:27:10 Thomas: Some, like, they all got together one day to judge historical figures and we're like, nah, fuck that guy, what, he kind of was just going along with the, what was happening at the, nah, fuck him, he should have known better, not nobody's doing that, like, what?

0:27:23 Clip: And in talking with Hakeem, he confronts, in a sense, a conundrum, right. I mean one the one-hand, it is enormously frustrating, to see facts ignored or perhaps shunned aside. On the other hand, as he talks about himself, he gets it. He gets this sense of pain and aggrievement as you look back at history and make try to sense of history.

0:27:35 Thomas: Yeah. Fucking condescending. On the other hand, he gets why these assholes are wrong and won't listen to facts. He empathizes with it. Really? Or is it that he's not listening to what they're actually saying and they have better facts and he's not listening? Could that be it? I'm just, that's a possibility. We don't know because it's not reported on here.

0:27:58 Clip: You know, when I first saw this, I thought about what if it was me? What if I lived in my town and there was this Confederate statue when this dude, not only was he Confederate, he was like an overseer and a murderer of African people who were enslaved back then. This is what I think my whole life. And now this white dude in community goes and does the research and says, hey, you know what? Turns out it wasn't that guy. He didn't do that. And as a matter of fact, he saved the lives of hundreds of Native Americans. I would be in no hurry to unhate that guy, right? If all this time I thought that dude was that evil person, even when I found the truth, I still would feel some kind of way. That's a natural feeling. I get that.

0:28:31 Thomas: Oh, I'm glad we're empathizing with this side that we've firmly established is just 100% factually wrong. You cannot argue with my characterization there, that is just what we are to believe. And so, holy shit, I hope when I do this research that better be ironclad, wouldn't you think?

0:28:46 Clip: Up happening next in Hakeem's story? It takes a decidedly nasty and personal turn. He is offered a job at George Mason University and there is an accusation. What I heard people were saying was that I had sexually harassed a woman at my university. I was at Florida tech, and that in my federal grants that I received, that I had absconded with federal money, that I'd stolen money. Tax stations are made in a roundabout way on Twitter and

0:29:13 Thomas: Good, glad, once again, we got one side of a Twitter feud again on the podcast of record, good.

0:29:17 Clip: And in a phone call to another physics professor at George Mason University, who properly takes them to the administration of George Mason. And George Mason, in turn, gets in touch with the Florida Institute of Technology. It's very important to note that there is no there there. Florida Institute of Technology had investigated these accusations a couple of years earlier and reinvestigated those, found nothing there. I spent a good three weeks of reporting time trying to track down these allegations, talking to many former students, and I could find nothing. And nor did Florida Institute of Technology, nor did George Mason, which went ahead with its hire. And in fact, Hakeem Oluseyi is now a visiting professor at George Mason.

0:30:10 Thomas: Now he's dead? Him? Oh, wait, no, he was fine and he just got the job, is the end of that, what?

0:30:19 Clip: I have to point out something that I'm sure occurred to you, Michael, while you were reporting this, which is at this point in the story, you're looking into the reputation of someone who was attacked after looking intothe reputation of somebody who else who wasattacked. And perhaps all these attacks are coming from the same set of sources. This

0:30:36 Thomas: Very important, and perhaps all these attacks are coming from the same set of sources, so now we are to believe, and this is not mere like hinting at, that's pretty direct, are to believe that they, he went through this series of arguments, he's had the facts the whole time guys, he's he's everything is right, and he's he's tries to, hey, please listen to me, I have the undisputed facts, and they're like, we don't care about your facts. No, but really, ah, well, he, he could have quit, he should have resigned his job, actually. Ah, you keep moving the goalposts. Oh, yeah? Well, now we're going to make false allegations about you. Isn't that... Definitely what we're led to believe here?

0:31:11 Clip: Is the politics of personal destruction that accompany so many disputes these days, where one challenges the consensus around a particular issue, and it's not enough to argue with that, to say, no, no. You're wrong because of X, Y, and Z. You need to take that person down. And personal reputations are destroyed. It's an unfortunately common aspect of intellectual debate these days.

0:31:35 Thomas: Lest you thought I was exaggerating... not... He's specifically tying those allegations to the other side here. He's saying it'S NOT ENOUGH to argue with him. You have to take him down. They accompany these debates because of it. So we are pretty firmly given the impression that like maybe, I don't know, Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, maybe some of the other people he's mentioned. I think that's the only name he's really mentioned on the other side. Are we to believe she did this? Are we To Believe just someone associated with the other site of these arguments did this to Oluseyi? Seems like that's a pretty clear assumption here.

0:32:11 Clip: We know how this story ends, of course. The James Webb Space Telescope is up in the skies. We know it is named the James Webb space telescope. But has NASA itself ever officially weighed in on this entire saga and debate about Webb and about his past? Yes, they have. Their in-house historian did

0:32:31 Thomas: Oh, they have an in-house historian? That's weird. Why wouldn't that have been the first person they went to, rather than Hakeem Oluseyi? That's odd. Huh.

0:32:38 Clip: Their in-house historian did a quite complete report that essentially ratified everything Hakeem had found. Now, the report's very careful. History's complicated, right? We can't know with 100% certainty what James Webb really believed in his heart, but the report goes through every accusation against him, and the historical record just doesn't back those up.

0:32:59 Thomas: Once again, every accusation against him. So, I sure hope they went through, you to the best of their ability, every accusiation that was relevant here, that was plausible, that people on the other side made. You, this is very strong language, they're saying there's no evidence, totally cleared, exonerated.

0:33:14 Clip: So where is Hakeem right now in his career and

0:33:19 Thomas: He's dead, you see, they got, they killed him, poor guy, he's totally ruined.

0:33:23 Clip: Has any of this in his mind changed his life, changed his trajectory? I think when one goes through a crucible like this, and and it was a crucible for Hakeem in his telling, it certainly has left him with a sense of of precisely how fraught and charged our cultural moment is. But when I've asked him, if you could go back knowing what you know now, would you still do this? Yeah, I'd definitely do it again. I mean, you know, there's not a regret for having looked into this. I think he feels that he did what he felt he had an intellectual obligation to do, which was to look at these charges as clearly as he could and come to some conclusions. That turned out to be right. That turned out to me right, yes. I

0:34:06 Thomas: Turned out to be right, to emphasize one more time how much they are just endorsing this view. Yep, that turned out to be right, just saying it one more time, turned out to be right, hundred percent right, he's right, he's the right one, he's the one who's right, he was the one is right, the other side, who the fuck knows who they are, and they suck, and they don't listen to anything.

0:34:22 Clip: Yes. I had no personal connection to James Webb. There was nothing that made me want to exonerate Webb, there was nothing that made me feel like I could somehow gain an advantage from doing this. If anything, I knew that there was only a downside. There was nothing in it for me, period. But once I found out the truth, I was now bound to reveal that truth. It's my duty. It'S my responsibility. My honor could have it no other way.

0:34:45 Thomas: He's just, he had no personal motivations in this, everyone, he was just a noble truth teller who suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune in order to make the truth known, because he is an obligation to the truth. Did they tell us what the other slide was? Where are they, people who feel an obligation to the truth, are they truth tellers, are they researchers, are they scientists, are they from a hard scalp, no, don't know anything the fuck about them.

0:35:07 Clip: You know, in reflecting on this whole saga, you have to imagine that there are other consensuses, that's the right word out there, that aren't right. You Know, other moments where lots of people think that a James Webb, someone like that, did wrong.

0:35:22 Thomas: Sorry, what are are they just pumping out telescopes, just massive, James Webb took 20 fucking years or whatever, are we just cranking those out, would there be a a bunch of other of these situations? This is a very specific situation, burdens of proof, and not just burdens of truth, but the things you are wanting to prove or disprove are very different depending on the context. I mean, I hope that much is clear, but just in case it's not, if I'm in a court of law, I'm putting someone on trial, and I am saying, did you murder Murder, Johnson? It is perfectly good, in fact, it's how justice should work, to say, you know, even though there's some evidence here, it needs to be beyond a reasonable doubt. It has to be, it's got to be beyond a reasonable doubt, because you don't want to make that mistake. Cool, defendant is exonerated, he goes outside, and the Nobel Prize committee calls him, and they're like, you won the Nobel Peace Prize, and people are like, wait, what, what, what for, what? And they'll like, well, you see, there's no evidence that he didn't kill that person.

0:36:20 Thomas: Like, yeah, but look at all the evidence that he did. Like, there was, yes, it wasn't beyond a shadow of a doubt, but like, he was there, he had the bloody knife. Yeah, there's no video of him doing it, but like, we're gonna honor this guy with, with a, by Nobel Peace Prize happens every fucking year, this telescope is once in a maybe lifetime. Telling me the same standard of proof applies, that, just, and you just keep pointing back to it. By the way, they don't make any better argument than that. They're just, yeah, look, there's no evidence that he killed Ned Johnson, there's just not quite any, we can't for sure say, but it wasn't established. Yeah, but he shouldn't be getting the Nobel Peace Prize. What are you talking about? Find someone who did a positive good thing.

0:36:57 Clip: But there isn't a Hakeem-like figure devoting the time and, in this case, reputational cost to challenging those narratives because it's just not worth it for them, as we can see. And so, in that sense, it strikes me that Hakeem's story is inspiring, right? The lengths he went, the years he devoted to it, the risks he was willing to tolerate. Or it's a kind of extreme cautionary tale because who wants to endure all of that just to correct the record for some dead guy, right? Absolutely, and in fact, in my reporting, I talked to many physicists who did not want to go on the record talking about this. They said to me, you know, Hakeem got it right and I ain't going there because if I go there I'm going to get attacked. And one hears this, frankly, all the time in academia and

0:37:32 Thomas: Frankly, You know, when I mentioned that language that perfectly mirrored the intellectual dork web and all that, this was the biggest example. This was word for word. People, uh, who I was listening to, like, as I established last episode, the skeptics, Sam Harris, all those people, when they started completely forgetting, going after any religion, to just going after progressives and SJW's, is probably what they called them at the time, or the regressive left, or all that. This is what they said. They said, like, oh, it's horrible out there, it's, it's professors, college students are the worst, they're saying quietly, I don't want, they don't want to talk out loud, they're saying quite to me, they're saying like, it's horrible out there, like you don't even, you know, like, I, I don't, I can't even say anything or I'll get fired. They're, they're telling me there's lot of, they're all, they're not telling me that.

0:38:27 Clip: I know that there are those, you know, a number of very prominent, you know, liberal scholars and activists who say that this doesn't happen. But I'm just saying, like, I'm in those conversations.

0:38:38 Thomas: I know there's people with actual, you know, like degrees and stuff that are saying I'm full of shit, but like, man, I've like, I promise, yeah, I don't doubt, Michael Powell, that the kinds of people you choose to talk to are probably intellectual dork web type people who will tell you that because that's their bias. You probably interviewed Jordan Peterson, who probably, I don't know if he still has a faculty spot, I don't think he does, but there's an equivalent who still has a faculty spot. He's like, yeah, no, this is, this, it's impossible, the cancel culture is for the kids, they're out of control. Yeah, man. But then a bunch of people who actually have credentials are like, yeah, but that's, that's someone with kind of an ax to grind, that's not really representative of what's going on. But now it's just reported breathlessly, is an adjective they use a lot with this.

0:39:27 Thomas: This is breathless, 100%. This whole thing is breathlessly reporting how great Oluseyi is, how obvious it is that he's right, and how the other side has absolutely no fucking idea and they don't listen to facts.

0:39:39 Clip: And when you say is happening, what you mean is a form of fear and self-censorship that makes people fear articulating the truth. Yes. So to that view, right, Hakeem Oluseyi is either an inspiring tale of an intellectual who stood up for what he believed in and what he had found, or he's a cautionary tale, as you say, of where you don't want to go. Right.

0:40:02 Thomas: Because after all, this podcast was made in memory of Dr. Hakeem Oluseyi, who died by stoning. What happened to him? Let's revisit. There were those allegations that Michael Powell tells us were 100% bogus. I can't verify that, I have no, because that's not even information that the public has at, at all. I'm sure he somehow tracked down maybe a victim, but like, we have no information on that. And furthermore, we were led to believe that maybe even Chanda Prescod-Weinstein herself was the one who phoned in these things. There was a comment made on Twitter, they say. And here's what it says in the article, he's little more careful, they're a little bit careful in the podcast, maybe because in the intervening five months, a bunch of people were like, what the fuck are you, this is so irresponsible. In the article, it says said, as word circulate in academia that Dr.

0:40:50 Thomas: Oluseyi might win an appointment at George Mason, he heard from a professor at a different university who claimed that Dr Oluseyi had mishandled a federal grant and sexually harassed woman. Dr. Dr. Plavchand said that he reported these accusations to Soon, Florida Tech officials were combing through records and thousands of emails. They found nothing to substantiate these charges, according to Hamid K. Rasul, a physics professor at Florida Tech and former dean who took part in the investigation. George Mason went ahead with its appointment in the fall of 2021. Wow, all of immediately after. Talk about timeline. They, I'm just realizing now they crunched timeline of how this happened. Five years felt like five minutes. And then they expanded the timeline of this abusive, horrible situation he went through to that's within a year.

0:41:36 Thomas: Within a year, all this happened, and he not only was accused of something apparently falsely, but it was cleared instantly. And he got that job within the same year. Interesting. On, listen to this though. On Twitter, Dr. Prescod-Weinstein has pushed some of the same accusations while not naming Dr. Oluseyi directly. Quote, "It continues to be the case that academic institutions play past the harasser," end quote. She wrote an availed reference to Dr. Oluseyi in August, 2021. And this past November, she questioned on Twitter why journalists have not asked why he left his last job. Dr. Prascott Weinstein did not reply to three emails asking for more information.

I'll just once again say that if you're going to strongly imply, if not just outright tell us, that Chanda Prescod-Weinstein is essentially responsible or part of a group who are responsible for, in a fit of hysteria after, you know, being proven wrong so many times and having to keep moving the goalposts, then they just spread false allegations. If you are going to have us believe, believe that, you better be fucking ironclad in your proof. And, uh, he has no proof. And Prescod-Weinstein says on Twitter, yeah, unfortunately, there are a lot of men in science my tweets could have been referring to. So it's pretty irresponsible to just assume she was talking about Oluseyi and therefore that that must have been the reason these allegations were made.

0:42:58 Clip: So to that view, right, Hakeem Oluseyi is either an inspiring tale of an intellectual who stood up for what he believed in and what he had found, or he is a cautionery tale, as you say, of where you don't want to go.

0:43:11 Thomas: This next part, again, I had already, I was already so fucking mad, listen to this next part and I'll try not to throw something.

0:43:17 Clip: Now, the other way to think of this entire story, Michael, is that the people who are mad about the Web telescope from the start were making a larger point, and that a factual error here and there, a reputation that maybe gets trampled, isn't ultimately as important as communicating a message about fairness and equality within an institution like the State Department or NASA. And that you don't make omelets without breaking eggs, you don't change the world without occasionally bruising people. Yeah, I suppose if you're not the egg being broken, that's perhaps a more comfortable position. But I think it's fair to say that we venture into dangerous waters if we say that, well, truth can be sacrificed for a greater good. It seems to me, in looking at the life of Hakeem Oluseyi, you see the downside risk pretty profoundly. Thank

0:44:08 Thomas: Somebody say that Yeah, because he's dead, by the way, they killed him, stone to death. Oh wait, no, hold on, wait a minute, he just got that job the same year and it's fine. I mean, honest guy, I keep making the joke, but like, they talk about him as though he died, like, like, this is a cautionary tale, boy, the cost, the tolls, the whatever. And I will grant, look, from personal experience, I will grant that it sucks if people are dragging you online, sure. But like, he got the fucking job. They investigated, which you should do, and they're like, there's nothing here. And I can't speak to that, but if that's what they found, that's where they found. And then he got the fucking job. I don't, like, what are you talking about? Do we have any idea if Prescod-Weinstein has been harassed, if any of the other people have been harassed? I bet they have been. They usually are way more than the powerful people. Do we know anything about that?

0:45:01 Thomas: What about the cost to their careers? What have they done? What about their reputation? Do we know anything about that? Or are we just crying over someone who literally had nothing happen to them besides some people were mean? And I just have to say that last part, it just fucking kills me. How could Barbaro sit there with a straight face and say, well, you know, again, trying to explain why these fucking idiots are wrong and don't care about facts. I'm just brainstorming, just spitballing. What if if as they were, down the reputation of James Webb knowingly falsely doing that, what if they're actually making a different point? They're like, eh, who fucking cares about facts? It's more important that, you Know, we communicate a message of fairness and acceptance. Can't tell you, and I shouldn't have to tell you how intellectually fucking irresponsible that is.

0:45:47 Thomas: I would be saying that's intellectually irresponsible if it was like a center-right podcast that did it and was characterizing the other side as that, I'd like, well, you're being fucking unreasonable, what are you talking about? Nobody thinks that. This is the New York Times. This is the New York fucking Times. And they're just going to sit there, and the same podcast where they refuse to say that Trump knew the thing he's saying in a tape, he knew, they're going to just tell you that the entire other side just doesn't care. Not only do they not care about facts, they're gonna try to explain like, why I wonder why these people just don't fucking care about facts, oh, I know, it's probably because they're making a different point because they're just like, don't give a shit about facts. And they're like, who cares because really we just want to communicate fairness. One, no one thinks that, you were, you are talking about a position that no one holds. Absolutely no one hold that position. Zero people.

0:46:36 Thomas: What you might be talking about, you might have heard someone say, well, yeah, I mean, there could be some risk we're wrong here, but like, what's the, what's the risk? It doesn't matter that much. Like, it's more important to try to sure that the person we're naming this fucking telescope after is not a piece of shit. Like, I think we should be pretty certain of that. So like, yeah, okay, it's maybe it's a little fuzzy, we don't know for sure that he was bad, but like, why don't we just find someone where there's no gray area? Nobody, that position, what, what they, they actually hold, and I guess I could tell you this without even having researched it, they actually think is, hey, no, we do think he's a shitty guy, we have other facts that, like, you can disagree with him if you want, you're free to say you disagree with our interpretation of the facts, we have an interpretation of the facts and it's that he was complicit for the following reasons, and he was a bad guy for the the following reasons.

0:47:27 Thomas: Is just not engaging with that because Oluseyi is the one with the mic and Michael Powell is a shameless fucking anti-woke advocate, they are the ones with the megaphone saying, yeah, I wonder why these people don't give a shit about facts, it's so weird, I'm trying to figure it out, they just don't care, like it's the whole other side, there's, you know, like I just quit even trying because I don't, cares about facts really, or do they really disagree with your interpretation of the facts, and by the way, maybe they're right, is that what's actually happening. It's incredible, I can't, this is so, this is shitty journalism, really, really, really shitty journalism, and it's a problem, it's really bad. Also love this idea that, like, wow, who knows how many poor dead white men victims there are. If there's not a saint solely dedicated to facts, like Oluseyi, to help us, what will we do?

0:48:17 Thomas: We could be wrong about everything. Maybe every consensus ever is wrong because of this one guy who we interviewed, who told us one side of a Twitter fight. Maybe everything I know is wrong because of that. What are we to do? And they're like, yeah, no one's, who's going to defend the long dead white man? Who? Oh no. If only there was, was, you know, like the biggest news network that did that all day, every day. If only they had that.

0:48:41 Clip: America's Maoist revolution against offensive statues didn't take long to move beyond his monuments to the Confederacy. Christopher Columbus is now a target for some reason. In WELL, SINCE THE RADICAL LEFT NEVER TAKES A VACATION FROM HATING ON ALL THINGS AMERICAN, TODAY WAS THEIR ANNUAL HATE ON CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS DAY. NOW, THIS WAS THE TAKE FROM THE ENDEARING FOLKS OVER AT SALON. I DON'T UNDERSTAND THE ADGELATION THAT SOME ITALIAN AMERIANS CONTINUE TO BESTOW ON CHRISTAPHER COLUMBS, WHO, AS HISTORY DEMONSTRATES, WAS LESS A HERO THAN A THUG EXPLOITING AN INSLAVING INDIGENOUS PEOPLES. A BETTER, MORE SOBER ASSESSMENT COMES FROM ZUBER SIMONSON IN THE NATIONAL CATHOLIC REGISTER WHO ASKED, ARE WE THE BENEFICIARIES OF HIS EXPLORATION GOING TO LAW TO MAN FOR HAVING A CONVICTION, AMBITION, AND COURAGE? OR SHOULD WE BLAME THAT MAN FOR ANYTHING THAT WENT WRONG AFTERWARD, INCLUDING EVENTS FAR BEYOND HIS CONTROL OR EVENTS THAT HE HADN'T BEEN THERE FOR WITHOUT EVEN TRYING TO CONSIDER HOW HIS TIMES WERE DIFFERENT from our own and

0:49:30 Thomas: Boy.

0:49:43 Thomas: Those sure sound like a lot of the same fucking shit arguments that we just heard. I mean, look, he had conviction when he, you know, enslaved those people, he did it with grit and fortitude, and who are we to judge, like we're not going to appreciate the people he enslaved for us, come on, ungrateful people. Yeah, no, we have plenty of people to defend the status quo, this is DARVO, reverse victim and oppressor, have the people with a megaphone giving only their side on the podcast of record saying, who will defend the definitely problematic white men from the definitely accurate accusations that they sucked, who will spread had misinformation about how they didn't actually suck. Um, that's all of Fox News. That's all of mainstream society. That is the norm that's out there. Everybody does that. The, it's progressives are the, the, the small group of people trying to stop doing that.

0:50:30 Thomas: This victim mentality that these these two white guys have on this podcast. They're still, Oh, wow. Who will, who will do it? I mean, just look at what happened to Hakeem Oluseyi, after all, he stood stood up for James Webb and he was killed. By the way, rest in peace, this podcast Oh wait, no, sorry, he's completely fine. Once again, I keep forgetting. He's 100% fine. Nothing's happened to him, except a few angry tweets. So here's the neat little bow they put on this. Let's listen to this very carefully, everyone.

0:50:58 Clip: Telescope is up in the skies. We know it is named the James Webb space telescope. But has NASA itself ever officially weighed in on this entire saga and debate about Webb? And about his past. Yes, they have. Their in-house historian did a quite complete report that essentially ratified everything Hakeem had found. Now, the report's very careful. History's complicated, right? We can't know with 100% certainty what James Webb really believed in his heart, but the report goes through every accusation against him, and the historical record just doesn't back those up.

0:51:35 Thomas: So what they don't tell you here at all was that this was a long agonizing process for NASA, and they left people hanging for a long time. They gave a stalling statement for a long time, we're looking into it, we're looking into it, we'll have, we'll a a full report for you, we're looking into it, we have a full report because people were concerned, hey, figure this out. And for the most part, they were satisfied with that. Like, okay, cool, yeah, look into it and issue us a full report of your decision. It surprise you to learn that they were just going to go ahead and stick with James Webb, the contract historian who they were working with had to literally not even started yet? Would that surprise you? In fact, ironically, same day of the announcement was the day he was scheduled to start his research. Would, and then you might be thinking, well, Thomas, how could you possibly know that?

0:52:21 Thomas: How could you know when they started the research and that process and how that went? Well, would it also surprise you to learn there were some FOIA requests that revealed tons of internal emails from that reveal how stupid this was, how botched it was, how they definitely knew the truth and were just going to fucking do it anyway? Geez, wouldn't you think some of that would be relevant? I think it is. So next time on Where There's Woke, we dig into the history, what it actually says, and and those those emails. Because goddammit, I read 900 pages of internal NASA emails, and I'm going to make you listen to what I have to say about it. And if you think it's bad now, if I at all convinced you how bad this reporting was already, just wait until I share the actual facts all this.

0:53:10 Thomas: That's next time on go to patreon.com/wherethereswoke. And you can hear a nice bonus with Eli Bosnick on the Elevatorgate video. It's so funny. We go through that whole video that I covered a little bit of. We do that whole thing. So make sure to pledge and there's all kinds of bonus goodies.

0:53:33 Thomas: Alright, that's the end of that mammoth part one, really looking forward to part two, it's gonna be so cool, delving into those emails that requested, there's so much there, it's just, there's no end, there really is no end to how disappointed I am in the New York Times for this horrible episode and article, but it's also interesting, uh, to delve into the history, can't wait to tell you more about that, even just apart from the bad coverage, the history is interesting, and how, and how do you think about James Webb is kind interesting. Now, I'm not a historian, but I can certainly report on the actual history a lot better than the Michael Powell person apparently. So that's all coming, coming up in the part two. Not sure when that will be out, it's yet another massive undertaking. But when it does come out, you'll find it on Where There's Woke. So search that out at patreon.com/wherethereswoke. All right, thank you so much for listening. See you soon.