Footnotes for

Don't Label Me

How I interpret my sources may not be how you do, so feel free to challenge my perspective — and to do so with grace. If you motivate me to rethink my view, and convince me to revise it, I’ll update the footnote in question and credit you. To start, click the icon called “Disagree?”

Chapter 32:
Lily in the Field: Many-Sighted, Many-Sided

* “A being is a ‘net of interactions,’ as the physicist Carlo Rovelli eloquently puts it.”

Source: Carlo Rovelli interviewed by Krista Tippett, “On Being” podcast, March 16, 2017, 9:16.

* “Neanderthals are people, too.”

Source: Yuval Noah Harari, “We Went from Hunter-Gatherers to Space Explorers, But Are We Happier?NPR, February 7, 2015, 0:33-1:18.

Chapter 33:
We the Plurals

* “I was an action movie hero who first appeared on-screen at the age of three months.”

Note: The plural referred to here is Bruce Lee.

* “I’m an Iranian student who lives a few miles from the White House…

Note: The plural referred to here is Mohammad Mehdi Nayebpour, a good friend of mine.

* “I’m a teenager who invented the app, ReThink.”

Note: The plural referred to here is Trisha Prabhu. In a conversation on February 14, 2018, Trisha told me that her favorite subjects at school are history and English.

*We’re white guys in Appalachia.

Note: I met these gentlemen at the University of Virginia-Wise on September 24, 2014.

*I’m an improve artist born in Pakistan, raised in Britain, and living in Bro Brooklyn.

Note: The plural referred to here is Nadia Parvez Manzoor.

Chapter 34:
Friends on Opposite Sides, Part 1

* “He died under mysterious circumstances that can be linked to the known tactics of the Ku Klux Klan.”

Source and note: Donna Ladd and Kate Medley, “Fighting Back In Klan Nation,” Jackson Free Press, March 21, 2007.

Via text, Genesis adds: “My grandfather’s name was Rev. Clyde Briggs. He was the pastor of several churches, an educational reformer and a WW2 vet. My family believes he was poisoned, which was not an uncommon way for the KKK to take out community leaders quietly. Read the Jackson Free Press article [link above] and you’ll see what I mean.”

* “A photo of Gen’s protest made national news and incited apoplexy.”

Source: See this video produced by the Moral Courage Project.

* “‘As he later told me, ‘I’m a Christian.'”

Source: Phone interview with Louis McFall on April 21, 2017.

* “‘If you’re unwilling to listen to someone’s point of view or empathize with where they’re coming from, you’re not really adding anything new to the table.'”

Source: “Confederate Pride, White Supremacy, and My State Flag,” Moral Courage Channel, March 14, 2017.

Chapter 35:
Learning without Agreeing

* “‘When you see the Mississippi state flag,” Genesis asked Louis, “how does it make you feel?'”

Source and note: Genesis Be and Louis McFall in conversation, Biloxi, MS, March 1, 2017. Unless otherwise stated, all quotations in this chapter come from that conversation.

For an edited video of the conversation, see “Confederate Pride, White Supremacy, and My State Flag,” Moral Courage Channel, March 14, 2017.

* “Jay Rosen, a prominent scholar of media, thinks journalists should admit their part in amping up our egobrains.”

Source: Jay Rosen, “The Ezra Klein Show” podcast, October 18, 2018, 56:00-57:14

* “Better to be part of the decision-making than shutting ourselves out of it…”

Source: Phone interview with Louis McFall on April 21, 2017.

* “Genesis looks at the flag and sees torment and terror…'”

Source: Ibid. All quotations in the rest of this chapter come from my April 21, 2017 interview with Louis McFall.

Chapter 36:
Lily for President?

* “Mark Lilla, a political scientist, explains the advantage you’ll be trotting in with.”

Source: Mark Lilla, The Once and Future Liberal: After Identity Politics (New York: HarperCollins, 2017), p. 113.

* “Taking it to the courts ‘was an essential tactic in the early years of the civil rights movement’…”

Source: Ibid.

* “Lilla rightly points out that we’ve become rusty at building consensus, ‘the most secure foundation for any social policy.'”

Source: Mark Lilla, The Once and Future Liberal: After Identity Politics (New York: HarperCollins, 2017), p. 114.

Chapter 37:
Social - No, Sociopathic, Media

* “Stirred by his perspective, I updated my status to read, ‘3 minutes of Carl Sagan worth listening to — no matter what one’s faith or lack of it.”

Source: My post on Facebook.com, June 26, 2013.

* “Lack of faith?”

Source: Jeff Cowen’s response to my Facebook post, June 26, 2013.

* “He says that we ‘start to care about the abstraction of the network more than the real people who are networked…”

Source: Jaron Lanier, You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010), p. 17.

* “‘People degrade themselves in order to make machines seems smart all the time,’ Lanier explains.”

Source: Jaron Lanier, You Are Not a Gadget: A Manifesto (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2010), p. 32.

* “As Lanier asks, ‘Did that search engine really know what you want, or are you playing along, lowering  your standards to make it seem clever?'”

Source: Ibid.

Chapter 38:
Sassy but Classy

* “Shortly after your mamas got married, I tweeted some photos from the wedding and asked my tweeps, ‘Which pic is your fav?”

Source: My post to Twitter.com, May 26, 2016.

* “Here’s how our dialogue went down…”

Source: My exchange with @Karachiwally on Twitter.com, May 27, 2016.

Chapter 39:
About Those Trolls...

* “Better to breathe and ask ourselves: Am I being more defensive than dignified?”

Note: In taking this step, you’re not just breathing; you’re pausing to ask yourself a question, which in turn slows you down. This is a good thing. As we’ll see in a future footnote, intentional breathing decelerates the rush of blood and thereby helps us to move past the impulsive part our brains.

* “‘When there’s absolutely no trust,’ Genesis says, ‘it’s very hard to have conversations that don’t get heated or violent or abusive or abrasive.”

Source: “Confederate Pride, White Supremacy, and My State Flag,” Moral Courage Channel, March 14, 2017.

* “As Genesis explains, ‘To hear Louis say that he believes in me even though he disagrees with some of the things I say? That’s beautiful.'”

Source: Ibid.

Chapter 40:
Lily in the Field: Run!

No sources or notes for this chapter.