A Conversation with Historian Daina Ramey Berry About the Financial Value of Black People's Bodies During American Slavery

Daina Ramey Berry is the guest on this week's episode of The Chauncey DeVega Show. She is an associate professor of history and African and African diaspora studies, and the George W. Littlefield Fellow in American History, at the University of Texas at Austin.

Professor Berry is the author of the new book The Price for Their Pound of Flesh: The Value of the Enslaved, from Womb to Grave, in the Building of a Nation.

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On this week's podcast Professor Berry and Chauncey discuss how the monetary value of black enslaved people in America was determined from the cradle to the grave, the selling of black people's bodies (both alive and dead) to medical schools, the barbaric practice known as "womb insurance", the saga of Nat Turner's skull, the many ways that black human property fought back and resisted their dehumanization by white society, and how chattel slavery ultimately built American empire. Professor Berry also shares what it was like to work as a historical consultant on the recent "Roots" TV series.

In this week's episode, Chauncey announces the launch of the official Patreon page for The Chauncey DeVega Show. 

Chauncey also ponders the musical stylings of the "raw dog" lothario Donald Trump and the new details about his affair with a Playboy bunny. Chauncey also explains how Cambridge Analytica helped to manipulate Trump's ignorant, gullible racist human deplorables by data mining and focus groups--and yes, by singling out the viewers of Duck Dynasty and The Walking Dead.

At the end of this week's podcast Chauncey shares a story about the African-American and white descendants of a white slave master who gathered together at his plantation to reflect on their "shared" "family" history.

This episode with Daina Ramey Berry can be downloaded from Libsyn and also listened to here.

The Chauncey DeVega Show is available on Itunes, Spotify and at Stitcher.

A Conversation with Dedrick Asante-Muhammad About How the Racial Wealth Gap is a Threat to American Prosperity and Democracy

Dedrick Asante-Muhammad is the guest on this week's episode of The Chauncey DeVega Show. He is Senior Fellow, Racial Wealth Divide at Prosperity Now and one of the principle authors of the much-discussed report, The Road to Zero Wealth: How the Racial Wealth Divide is Hollowing Out America’s Middle Class.

Dedrick has also held senior leadership positions with the NAACP and the National Action Network.

On this week's podcast Dedrick and Chauncey share their personal reflections on race, family, and upward mobility, how class identity is incorrectly depicted in American popular culture as well as the perils and allure of TV programs such as Blackish and The Cosby Show. Dedrick also explains how the racial wealth gap is a threat to American prosperity (and democracy) for all people on both sides of the color line.

In this week's episode, Chauncey advises caution for all the Democrats who are celebrating a win in the Pennsylvania special election and warns the public to not buy into the silly narrative that Donald Trump is somehow weakened by all of the supposed "chaos" in the White House.

During this week's podcast Chauncey also reads a story about the working poor and a wonderful woman who worked for Disney World and could not afford a proper place to live--she was found dead in the car which served as her home.

At the end of this week's podcast Chauncey shares some fun and bizarre stories about a gang of little people who robbed homes in Boston and how a man tried to seduce a gorilla named "Big George" at a zoo. And of course, Chauncey laments the end of Toys R Us.

This episode with Dedrick Asante-Muhammad can be downloaded from Libsyn and also listened to here.

The Chauncey DeVega Show is available on Itunes, Spotify and at Stitcher.

Hillary Clinton told the truth: Trump's voters are backwards and stuck in the worst parts of America's past

Hillary Clinton has a problem. She tells impolitic truths at inopportune times. During the 2016 presidential campaign she described a large subset of Donald Trump's supporters as being "a basket of deplorables." She was correct. Donald Trump is an authoritarian petite-fascist who is also racist, ignorant, greedy and corrupt. He may be a traitor in cahoots with Russia and is certainly a misogynist and serial liar who brags about sexually assaulting women. Anyone who would vote for such a person is in fact deplorable. Moreover, anyone who continues to support Donald Trump after witnessing his behavior as president is deplorable in the extreme.

Over the weekend while at a conference in India, Clinton let slip another truth about Trump's voters and the 2016 presidential election. Democrats, she said, "do not do well with white men, and we don’t do well with married white women. And part of that is an identification with the Republican Party, and a sort of ongoing pressure to vote the way that your husband, your boss, your son, whoever, believes you should."

She continued by saying that "all that red in the middle" of the nation, where Trump and the Republicans tend to dominate, was deceptive because "what the map doesn't show you is that I won the places that represent two-thirds of America's gross domestic product. So I won the places that are optimistic, diverse, dynamic, moving forward." Trump's campaign, she said, "was looking backwards" by playing to white voters who "didn't like black people getting rights" or women leaving the home and getting jobs

Republicans attacked Clinton's latest comments, of course, as an example of how the Democrats are supposedly "isolated," "elitist" and "out of touch." Some of her fellow Democrats piled on with complaints that Clinton is being "unhelpful" by "re-litigating" the 2016 presidential election instead of looking to the future.

These voices of protest have provided little if any evidence to disprove Hillary Clinton's central thesis. Why? Because the facts are on her side.

America the not so great and exceptional: Miserable, lonely, and unhappy people elected Donald Trump

The 2016 American presidential election is a political corpse. We continue to pick it apart in an effort understand how a manifestly incompetent, proudly ignorant, racist and sexist demagogue like Donald Trump could have possibly defeated Hillary Clinton, and what this portends for the country.

More than 15 months after the ignominious day when Trump won the White House, what have we learned?

We know that racism, nativism and white victimology were crucial motivations for Trump's voters. We know that white identity politics disguised as anger about the economy, globalization and "elites" also propelled Trump's victory.

We know there is a crisis in faith among the American people regarding our democratic institutions; a majority of the American people do not consider civic literacy a virtue.

For several decades authoritarianism has been increasing among Americans, and this is especially true for Republicans and right-leaning independents. These voters were drawn to Donald Trump because they share his authoritarian values.

We know that Russian efforts to undermine American democracy by manipulating low-information voters -- especially Republicans and others immersed in the right-wing echo chamber -- were remarkably effective.

We know that Trump and the Republican Party used voter suppression and other techniques to prevent nonwhites, especially African-Americans and Latinos, from voting. This did great harm to Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party.

Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by a huge margin. However, her campaign did not expend sufficient and necessary resources in several key battleground states, including Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin. This resulted in a "black swan" effect where Trump snatched victory from the jaws of defeat.

There is another variable, little discussed, that also helps to explain Trump's rise to power and the fanatical support he enjoys from Republican and other right-leaning voters.

A Conversation with Melvin Goodman About Being a Whistleblower at the CIA

Melvin Goodman is the guest on this week's special fundraising month episode of The Chauncey DeVega Show. He served in the Central Intelligence Agency for 24 years as an intelligence analyst where he specialized in U.S.-Soviet relations.

Dr. Goodman is also the author of several books on national security and international relations including the most recent Whistleblower at the CIA: An Insider's Account of the Politics of Intelligence.    

He and Chauncey discuss what likely transpired with Donald Trump and Russia's efforts to undermine the 2016 presidential election, the so-called "deep state", Putin's real plans, and how Trump's failures will help China's rise to become the world's dominant power. Melvin also reflects on the nuclear perils of the Cold War and how America would be a much better place if the misadventures in Iraq and the Middle East had been avoided.

In this week's episode, Chauncey continues to document Trump's and the GOP's war on the American people and is sickened by the professional smart people in the so-called "liberal news media" who laugh at the Great Leader's dangerous antics. Chauncey also shares a story about sexual psychology and Trump's alleged pee pee fetish. At the end of this week's podcast Chauncey is bored by the 2016 Oscar's and decides to share some white supremacist movie reviews about The Shape of Water and other Hollywood films.  

This episode with Melvin Goodman can be downloaded from Libsyn and also listened to here.

The Chauncey DeVega Show is available on Itunes, Spotify and at Stitcher.

One of the World's Foremost Experts on Mind Control Believes That Donald Trump is the Leader of a Political Cult

Steven Hassan is the guest on this week's special fundraising month episode of The Chauncey DeVega Show. He is one of the world's foremost experts on cults and mind control.

Steven Hassan is the author of several bestselling books including Combating Cult Mind Control: The #1 Best Selling Guide to Protection, Rescue, and Recovery from Destructive Cults, Releasing the Bonds: Empowering People to Think for Themselves, and Freedom of Mind: Helping Loved Ones Leave Controlling People, Cults & Beliefs.

He and Chauncey discuss how Donald Trump is a political cult leader and if it is possible to free Trump's followers from his thrall. Steven also shares his thoughts on the power of social media and advertising over free will. He also offers up some information that may be new to many people: as a child Donald Trump was raised in a church whose leaders used mind control techniques against their followers.

In this week's episode, Chauncey highlights how Trump's White House is corrupt and likely a criminal enterprise. The most recent example? Jared Kushner receiving hundreds of millions of dollars in loans from Citibank and Apollo Global Group. Chauncey also connects the dots between Trump's abuse of power as a means to make money from the presidency, the latest revelations about Kushner and the conflict between Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and General Smedley Butler's warnings about war profiteers and other gangster capitalists.

At the end of this week's podcast Chauncey also wonders if the ammosexuals who go to church to get their AR-15 assault rifles "blessed" are somehow related to the underground mutants that worship a neutron bomb in the movie Beneath the Planet of the Apes.

This episode with Steven Hassan can be downloaded from Libsyn and also listened to here.

The Chauncey DeVega Show is available on Itunes, Spotify and at Stitcher.