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- This is One-On-One.

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(upbeat music) - Hey, everyone, Steve Adubato.

One of the really great things about this job is that you get to talk to people who are really smart and thoughtful, and when you had them on in the past, they come back, it's even better.

And that's the case here with Professor David Troutt, Distinguished Professor of Law at Rutgers Law School in Newark, and also the author of a compelling new book called "Reckoning The Racial Reckoning: From Backlash to Accountability after George Floyd."

David, great to see you again.

- Nice to see you, Steve.

Thanks for having me.

- The book has a powerful title.

Describe why that is the title.

- So the point of the book was really to give my answer to the question of what happened to the so-called racial reckoning of 2020, what went wrong, and what remains of the idea of racial justice in the United States today?

So it's a bit of a postmortem evaluation of that period, as well as some evidence for the arguments that I try to make about what might have been done differently, and then something of an analysis of where we are now.

- Professor, give us one concrete example of what could have or should have been done post the George Floyd murder, killing in front of everyone's eyes, what could have and should have been done that was not?

- Well, you know, I think that the moment of racial reckoning was somewhat spontaneous.

It arose out of an unprecedented epidemic, where Americans found themselves in a position they'd not ever been in before.

And it was responsive to a lot of stuff that was percolating in Black lives for some time, and then came to the fore in the midst of this COVID epidemic that was, at the time, as you may recall, in the spring of 2020, disproportionately taking Black lives and then came George Floyd.

So the trigger for all of it was really quite unexpected and unusual.

And so it's not surprising that the direction that the so-called reckoning would take might in hindsight seem a little bit off.

And where I think it went off was its focus so much on one kind of reckoning, and that is awareness reckoning.

A lot of sort of personal disclosure about the experience of inequality, but not followed by a second type of reckoning, which we ordinarily expect, and that is accountability.

You know, in the legal system, for instance, when you sue somebody for injuring you, either intentionally or negligently, you have to prove that they wronged you, but then, you're able to get damages for what you did.

So there's both awareness and there's accountability.

We never really moved to accountability.

So if we had done that, say in either racial health disparities or police brutality beyond the indictment of the officers involved with George Floyd, or if we had really addressed the racial health gap or the systemic racism in wealth that people were talking about, it would've been different.

But it was those kinds of steps that we failed to take, and that, of course, the backlash hit.

- You know, it's interesting, in thinking about this, professor, I'm trying to make sense of this and I'm going to put something out to you and you'll react to it and respond to it.

To what degree do you believe post-George Floyd, the election of President Trump, what impact do you believe President Trump and his presidency/policies have impacted this so-called racial reckoning, as well as race relations?

- Dramatically and apocalyptically, I mean, if I can say that without sounding hyperbolic.

It's, the coming of Trump, you know, some would argue that the coming of Trump was foreshadowed by the coming of Obama.

And others might argue, well, the coming of Trump Two was foreshadowed by the racial reckoning.

I don't know that that's quite true, but I do know that there is a relationship, and it was certainly a strategic relationship, where the Trump administration and many conservatives in the Republican Party were able to use the racial reckoning opportunistically in order to, - How so?

How so?

- to advance an agenda.

Well, what you begin to see in the backlash, right, for the first two years or so, it was pretty much impossible politically to make arguments against DEI, to make arguments against Black Lives Matter.

But of course.

- Affirmative action?

Affirmative action?

- Well, affirmative action has been under siege almost since, - Okay.

- since it was- - But connect DEI to George Floyd.

- Well, the short answer is that DEI has become associated with Black people and their seeking racial justice.

And so rather than condemn Black people outright, you condemn DEI, and everybody understands what the meaning, what the message there is.

But this to me has been strategy.

I mean, on his first day in office, Trump declares two executive orders that go after DEI, falsely claiming DEI to be unlawful.

And then goes on a campaign over the last year or so to eradicate anything associated with DEI, where you have a very clear demonstrable, disparate impact against Black workers, organizations that do work that might in some ways be regarded as helping Black people, et cetera.

So the whole conflation of Black rights or of any sort of a sensitivity to racial inequality from the perspective of the Black community becomes closely associated with DEI and then DEI is vilified.

But that campaign started earlier than Trump Two.

If you'll recall, there was the attack on critical race theory.

And that was mostly a localized fight that was happening primarily in Southern states that reached, that bubbled up to Southern legislatures.

It was very much a strategy.

It was an orchestrated strategy to begin at the grassroots to turn people against the idea of Black Lives Matter and anything associated with it was often called woke, and it was connected with all kinds of things on the left.

And so they all kind of got pushed together.

But remember, the consistent strain was the idea that black people, that white people were being targeted for unfairness, that a new generation of racial injury was occurring, where whites were now the grievant and this was, and things like critical race theory and DEI were responsible.

And so this had great political traction.

The Republican Party recognized that this could be used to great effect.

It could be ginned up.

It could be very sensationalized.

And so, you know, by the time Kamala Harris runs for president, you don't hear the Democrats talking about any of this.

But Trump is talking about this and Project 2025 is talking about this.

And sure enough, you know, just a year ago when Trump comes into office, we hear all this anti-DEI stuff that is really not resonating with the public.

It wasn't something that was demanded.

It wasn't debated during the presidential election, and yet, here we are.

- You use the term reckoning.

I'm gonna play devil's advocate.

Let's talk about racial resentment.

I'll be more specific.

A lot of talk about what President Trump's policies are about, what the Republicans are about, MAGA, et cetera, et cetera, as it relates to DEI, as it relates to whites feeling aggrieved, right, is there any part of you as an academic, as a professional, as a scholar, and as a human being who happens to be Black, that can understand that there are millions, because Donald Trump didn't do it alone, millions of Americans who happened to be white who were worried about their children, their children's opportunity, their perception that their children's opportunity, whether it be in college admission or jobs, whatever it is, that they're potentially, or in reality as they see it, being hurt.

And so therefore there's a racial resentment that is built up, which only pulls people further apart.

Make any sense to you?

- Yeah, it makes sense in the sense that I too- - Meaning can you understand it?

I'm sorry for interrupting, David.

Can you understand it?

- I probably understand it differently.

I understand that it exists.

I understand that it is sincere.

I understand that many people who hold that view can point to some very specific things in their lives, - Right.

- which are probably shared by most of us, the economic uncertainty, the inability to sort of plan for a future, to share the expectations- - Fear, fear.

How about fear?

- Upward mobility.

- And fear.

- And certainly fear.

They picked the wrong scapegoat.

Their causal analysis is off, and they've been sold in okey-doke, and that okey-doke has been sold to white voters for a very long time, where the boogeyman in their lives most responsible for creating this fear.

- By the way, the okey-doke is a boxing term?

Can I go with that?

- Yeah, the okey-doke is when you're really, you're sold an argument that, - Yes.

- this is the point, right?

Because it's.

- It's a fake out.

It's a fake out.

- It's a fake out.

It's misdirection, right?

And unfortunately, culture war has always been a way to sell certain arguments politically to white populations in this country.

I mean, historically, that's always been the case.

That's been true since even before emancipation, right?

It was true across the South, during and after slavery.

- It was true in 1968 when George Wallace ran for president.

- Absolutely, right?

So if we were to stop and just ask, what are the kinds of economic concerns about a prosperous future that many white families have, we'd see that they were very much shared by almost all families across the United States.

Inequality in this country has gotten significantly worse since 1980.

So many of our basic ideals about the American dream, about mobility have really been tossed aside and turned upside down by a system that has just really not been responsive to many of the kinds of incentives that we thought if we just followed them would work in our favor.

So there's tremendous frustration across the board, I have no doubt.

In fact, I run a research institute that at Rutgers Law School called Clime - That's right.

- that focuses on inequality, so I deeply understand the concerns of most American households.

Where I think they're wrong is if they looked empirically at these allegations of racial injury in their lives, they would see that first of all, white people are not suffering disproportionately.

And if to the extent that they are suffering, they're not suffering at the, because of the gains by Blacks.

They simply aren't.

And so much of the book is spent talking about three areas in the racial reckoning moment, racial wealth, the racial wealth gap, racial health disparities, and policing, you know, where there's just reams and reams of literature showing that Black people have continued to suffer, even in 2026, demonstrable inequality along some very identifiable, objective variables of wellbeing.

- President Obama being president for two terms and being seen by millions, not by everyone, but by millions of millions of Americans as, even if they disagreed with his policies, that he was someone who carried himself as a president we could all be proud of.

To what degree do you believe the Obama presidency helped improve race relations or make them worse?

- I thought the Obama presidency did a lot more than it has been given credit for, and yet has been, so much of the benefit in race relations has been very deliberately undone.

I mean, clearly the short answer is that the Obama presidency was a moment of true racial awakening in this country, in which we crossed an unfathomable milestone and paid an unbelievable price for it.

Not because folks suddenly came to their senses, but because it energized an opposition that was racially motivated.

I mean, it's very.

- Hold on a second.

Hold on a second.

Are you, I'm sorry, David, are you saying that the Obama presidency, while historically significant because millions of whites voted for Obama, you seem to be saying it paved the way for 2016 and Donald Trump?

- Oh, absolutely.

I mean, I think the racial politics of the Trump administration, of the first Trump administration, as well as the second, is very, very clear.

I think that the perceived threat that Obama represented and the idea of Black intellect and Black power has animated a lot of the Trump agenda, at least strategically.

Whether the Trump agenda was going to be the Trump agenda, you know, in terms of pro-business and cutting taxes and doing the kinds of things that the Trump administration has consistently done through policies is really one thing.

But strategically, by making the arguments in a kind of an explicit anti-Obama way, it's been a very important selling strategy.

- The Louisiana redistricting case.

Without going into the weeds, Louisiana, a case was brought from Louisiana, by Louisiana to the United States Supreme Court.

There are folks in Louisiana who believe that race should no longer be considered as a factor in redistricting and creating congressional districts in a state.

There were 435 members of the lower house, the House of Representatives.

Every state has a certain number of representatives based on population.

It's supposed to be done every 10 years.

You know what's happening.

Started in Texas, in California, everybody's redistricting.

In Louisiana, they brought the case and said, "We shouldn't have to redistrict.

We shouldn't have to create districts based on the Voting Rights Act of 1965 with race as a factor to attempt to create a significant degree of Black representation in Congress, because race shouldn't be considered."

And the Supreme Court six to three said, "Yep, you're right.

No longer can race be considered, unless you can point to a specific impact that racial factors have in hurting Black people."

And there's going to be redistricting taking place that loses a significant number of African-American members of Congress.

What do you believe the impact of this will be?

- I think the impact will be devastating.

It'll be on so many levels.

I mean, I think the initial impact will be that political gerrymandering, which has been blessed by the Supreme Court as constitutional, will take the place of racial gerrymandering to favor white voters, and across the South, that means the GOP.

I mean, people always talk about the loyalty of Black voters to the Democratic Party, you know, approaching 85, 90%.

The loyalty of whites to the Republican Party across most southern states approaches 85 to 90%, right?

So we're talking about a region of the country where the parties represent the races.

And so to politically gerrymander in a way that allows for Republican majorities across these states is to disenfranchise Democrats, is to disenfranchise Black voters.

So I think that would.

- How, is it by breaking up black?

If there's a group, is it by taking a Black population in a state like Alabama, Louisiana, Tennessee, whatever, and chopping it up, so that a smaller and smaller percentage of African-Americans will be in a particular congressional district so it's much harder, not impossible, but much harder to elect someone who happens to be African-American defacto reducing representation in the lower House?

- Absolutely, yeah, it's vote dilution.

So rather than Black voters being able to pool their votes for a candidate of their own choice, that is to say one who is from their community, responsive to their community, spends time in their community, promises to deliver for their community.

- By the way, we're not saying every Black person votes for a Black representative.

We talked about President Obama receiving white votes, but to say that race is not a factor in how people vote is ludicrous.

- Right.

- Pick up your point, professor.

- It's simple math, right?

If the Black voters in your district represent, you know, 50% of the district, you have to respond to their concerns.

They are also, they tend because of segregation, residential segregation patterns, they tend to be geographically concentrated, right?

So if instead you slice up that geographic concentration and make it so that only 13% of your constituents are Black, then you have to give very, a lot less attention to that particular part of your district.

And you're really better, if you want to be elected, to focus much more on the needs of the rest of the district, which may be at odds with that.

So it's just really a simple game of dilution, where.

- So hold on, Supreme Court does this, does that mean it's over, professor?

Because the Supreme Court is the law of the land.

There's nowhere to go after that A, and B, what impact on policy, the kind of policies we're talking about in this reckoning?

- Yeah, I mean, that's a question for a political scientist, you know?

I'm really not exactly sure what we can.

- From a legal point of view, that's it.

- As a legal matter, yeah.

As a legal matter, what the Supreme Court has managed to do through Louisiana versus Callais and through Shelby County, the Shelby County opinion and one or two others is really to eviscerate the very meaning of the Voting Rights Act, which I just want to say to your viewers is really one of the singular statutory accomplishments in the American legislative history.

I mean, it is one of the crowning achievements of American democracy.

- Explain to folks why, professor.

- Because most people don't understand that the majority of African Americans in this country did not gain the franchise until 1965.

I mean, it's just, it's, you know, people tend to think- - When the Voting Rights Act was passed.

- When the Voting Rights Act was passed.

People tend to think that with emancipation came the franchise.

- Right after the Civil War, but that did not happen.

- Right after the Civil War.

And it's just not true.

I mean, and so this is a very important part of our history.

This is not Black history.

This is American history.

This is the history of American democracy and making sure that with citizenship comes the right to vote.

And the fact that it wasn't actualized until Congress finally passed the Voting Rights Act in 1965, you know, when many of us were children, right?

I mean, this is not ancient history.

When many of us were children goes to show just how critically important this was for America, as an experiment in American democracy, but also as a triumph.

The idea that, you know, just two generations later, the Supreme Court would effectively turn this, the doctrine underlying this on its head and suggest that equal protection was never meant to do these kinds of remedial things to put this country back into the position it should have been in at its inception is just mind-boggling.

- Professor, before I let you go, given, again, the title of the book and go check it out is "Reckoning the Racial Reckoning: From Backlash to Accountability After George Floyd," given everything you said here, given everything that is in your book, are you optimistic, or how optimistic are you that this reckoning combined with improved race relations is even doable?

Got a minute left.

I should not have asked you that with a minute left, but go ahead.

- I'm always hopeful, as I argue in the book, so much of racial inequality is experienced close to home at the local level.

So much of racial equality and our race relations can be perfected at the local level among our local institutions, educational policy, housing policy, law enforcement policy, health policy, all those things are very local.

However, I would be remiss if I didn't acknowledge what a terrible time this is for race relations.

This country has really gone in the wrong direction, certainly through federal policy.

The weaponization of executive agencies to somehow go after this notion of white grievance and to make the notion of racial discrimination strictly about reverse discrimination, when there's almost no evidence of it happening, is the sort of thing that will take many years for us politically and legally to undo, but that's now the challenge before this next generation.

- Professor David Troutt, Distinguished Professor of Law at Rutgers Law School in Newark and author of this compelling book, "Reckoning the Racial Reckoning."

Professor, thank you for an important, compelling, and very candid conversation.

Thank you, David.

- Thanks for the opportunity, Steve.

Good to see you.

- Always, same here.

I'm Steve Adubato, thank you so much for watching, and we'll see you next time.

- [Narrator] One-On-One with Steve Adubato is a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

Funding has been provided by PSE&G.

NJ Transit.

Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey.

Newark Board of Education.

The New Jersey Economic Development Authority.

New Jersey Sharing Network.

The Fund for New Jersey.

RWJBarnabas Health.

Learn More at RWJBH.org.

And by The New Jersey Education Association.

Promotional support provided by Meadowlands Chamber.

And by New Jersey Globe.

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