Speaker 1: Native Lampod is a production of iHeartRadio in partnership with
Speaker 1: Reason Choice Media.
Speaker 2: Well come, well come, well come, well come, well come come.
Speaker 3: Let's be real.
Speaker 4: Like the same white people that were poor in seventeen
Speaker 4: seventy six when they said we the people, but if
Speaker 4: you aren't white, rich and own property, you can't vote.
Speaker 3: Those same white people are the ones that are out here.
Speaker 4: Fighting against the democracy, fighting for president that didn't actually
Speaker 4: fight for any of their rights, fighting for a president
Speaker 4: that also picked up they're checks and their taxes, fighting
Speaker 4: for president that didn't give them health care, fighting for
Speaker 4: a president then give about their education. They're out here
Speaker 4: literally fighting against their own interests.
Speaker 3: That is what they're fighting for.
Speaker 4: And at this point I think the only thing they're
Speaker 4: fighting for is white supremacy. Is too uphold white supremacy
Speaker 4: because they don't have shit that we don't have shits.
Speaker 3: They don't have shits. The only thing they have is
Speaker 3: their white skin.
Speaker 1: All right, everyone, welcome home.
Speaker 5: This is a Native Lampod Mini pod and we are
Speaker 5: thrilled to be joining today by an incredible hero. Young
Speaker 5: people make waves, and she is no exception. We witnessed
Speaker 5: her unlawful arrest in DC just a few weeks ago,
Speaker 5: as DC continues to be under occupation by the federal government,
Speaker 5: and I got to tell y'all, this particular young lady
Speaker 5: is someone who I was like, now, this is who
Speaker 5: the ancestors are speaking through, and I just really want
Speaker 5: to commend you for your courage, for your bold voice,
Speaker 5: and if any, we want to welcome you home to
Speaker 5: Native Lampid.
Speaker 3: Are so happy to have today. Thank you so much
Speaker 3: for having me. I've seen all of you on TV
Speaker 3: various times, so excited to be here.
Speaker 5: We're very grateful to share space with you. I would
Speaker 5: love if you would be so kind to just share
Speaker 5: what happened when you were detained and what your experience
Speaker 5: was in being detained by these officers who did all
Speaker 5: the things including pepper spray you, if any please talk
Speaker 5: about your experience and what other young people are going
Speaker 5: through in DC right now. Well.
Speaker 3: Uh, first of all, I was out doing cop watch
Speaker 3: with an organization called Harriet's Watter's Dreams. They're also in
Speaker 3: partners with three DC. UH, So what we were doing
Speaker 3: was lawful and legal. We've done it for years. My
Speaker 3: experience with the Metro Transit police that detained me specifically,
Speaker 3: one officer named Sergeant Dial was that I was singled
Speaker 3: out from the rest of my group and I was
Speaker 3: brutalized and arrested. When I was pepper sprayed, they like
Speaker 3: subsequently poured water like all down the front of me,
Speaker 3: so like the pepper spray kind of like spread down
Speaker 3: to everything that you could imagine. So I was kept
Speaker 3: in multiple police cars for hours. They took me to
Speaker 3: the hospital. They didn't do much, but I was arrested
Speaker 3: at ten I didn't get processed until six am. And
Speaker 3: throughout all that time, I was handcuffed with my hands
Speaker 3: by my back, either in a police car or at
Speaker 3: the hospital for a few hours, and I was getting
Speaker 3: pepper sprayed over and over and over again throughout the night,
Speaker 3: like anytime I sweat or cried or anything like that.
Speaker 3: And also the whole front of my clothes were wet.
Speaker 3: So yeah, it was I don't know, I feel like
Speaker 3: mentally very different. I've been doing this work for a while,
Speaker 3: it's not my first time being arrested. It's my first
Speaker 3: time being arrested in about five years. But yeah, this
Speaker 3: one was like very different, and it might be because
Speaker 3: of the context of everything else that's going on with
Speaker 3: young people, with undocumented people, with documented people who migrated
Speaker 3: to this city, who are being snatched off the streets,
Speaker 3: never to see their families again. You know, I was released.
Speaker 6: The next day.
Speaker 3: I was in a lot of pain, but I was
Speaker 3: released the next day. People's lives are being changed by
Speaker 3: the ways in which the Trump administration, Janine Piro being
Speaker 3: our new ag and also our mayor really just kind
Speaker 3: of not really doing much of the way of like
Speaker 3: actually fighting this.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, people from DC get sent all over the country
Speaker 3: when they get incarcerated. There's no state prison, and there's
Speaker 3: no then we have like about thirty five hundred beds.
Speaker 3: There's nowhere to hold all these people, so they end
Speaker 3: up getting sent anywhere that they can fit them. And
Speaker 3: this will be black people disapportionately that are impacted in
Speaker 3: the district by this.
Speaker 1: Aphene, can I ask you. We spoke about Mayor Bowser
Speaker 1: and how she's interacted with the Trump administration. We spoke
Speaker 1: about it on last week's episode of NLP, and I
Speaker 1: noted in conversations I had in person with people and
Speaker 1: in a lot of the com that some people were
Speaker 1: taken aback by our response and pushed back a little
Speaker 1: bit and said, listen, Mayor Bowser is in a very
Speaker 1: difficult spot. You know, why would we criticize this black
Speaker 1: woman mayor who's doing the best that she can. And
Speaker 1: they thought we were a little insensitive and perhaps naive
Speaker 1: uh to the position that she's in. And just so
Speaker 1: you know, our position was, if you're not going to
Speaker 1: win with Trump, and why not be a revolution. I'm
Speaker 1: just curious what you might say to people who have
Speaker 1: that pushback for us, and maybe even you, I would.
Speaker 3: Say that even up until this occupation, Mayor Bowser, throughout
Speaker 3: this entire year has been taking tiny steps or big
Speaker 3: steps depending on what you're what you're thinking about, towards UH,
Speaker 3: the Trump administration and being in line with their agenda.
Speaker 3: You know, home rule is a very sensitive topic. Even
Speaker 3: if they they could institute a control board and not
Speaker 3: even have to repeal home rule, and they the institute
Speaker 3: control board in Congress, and our autonomy would essentially be cooked.
Speaker 3: I understand that fear, but you know, everything that Trump
Speaker 3: asked for the mayor to put in our budget to
Speaker 3: like get repealed, it happened. Sanctuary city status. She tried
Speaker 3: to repeal that through the budget. That is not a
Speaker 3: budget item, so our council stripped that out. She also
Speaker 3: wanted to do away with rank choice voting that was
Speaker 3: a democratically voted on ballid initiative. She wanted to do
Speaker 3: away with tip wage worker raises. That was another democratically
Speaker 3: voted on ballid initiative that was voted on twice. Over
Speaker 3: seventy percent of the city wanted to see tip wage
Speaker 3: workers get a raised, and the city council they partially
Speaker 3: funded rape choice voting, they didn't fund it fully like
Speaker 3: there was like they said they were going to, and
Speaker 3: they completely did away with I eight two, which is
Speaker 3: the tip the raise for the tip wage folks. So,
Speaker 3: I mean, it's it's kind of hard for me to
Speaker 3: feel sympathy for her, especially at this time with my
Speaker 3: history of like organizing against her, protesting against her, like
Speaker 3: even meeting with her, talking with her. Muriel has never
Speaker 3: been interested in like justice or like the interests of
Speaker 3: working class people or addressing them or the material conditions
Speaker 3: of people that live in Ward seven or eight, like
Speaker 3: where the blackest part of the city. She's never been
Speaker 3: invested in that. So I'm genuinely not surprised that she's
Speaker 3: acting this way now, and I really feel like if
Speaker 3: people have like issues with people criticizing her, they really
Speaker 3: need to look back at her record in the way
Speaker 3: that she has presented herself as a mayor, as a
Speaker 3: black queer person, as you know she says she is,
Speaker 3: she has not been. She has not legislated like a Democrat.
Speaker 3: I'll just say it like that.
Speaker 1: Well, because I'm going to pass the mike to you, Andrew,
Speaker 1: But just because it's people who don't live in DC
Speaker 1: may not be as familiar with d C home Rule.
Speaker 1: So just for our viewers and our audience, d C
Speaker 1: Home rule is shorthand essentially for legislation that passed in
Speaker 1: Congress in nineteen seventy three that gave the d C
Speaker 1: residents some autonomy before that when President Nixon was in office.
Speaker 1: Before that, essentially Congress controlled d C and so you know,
Speaker 1: they would appoint commissioners and appoint the member of Congress here,
Speaker 1: a d C home rule allowed for elections here, even
Speaker 1: though d C is a place where there is taxation
Speaker 1: without full representation in Congress.
Speaker 2: So sorry, Andrew, No, no, it's like they had a
Speaker 2: territorial governance, you know, structure, what century are we in
Speaker 2: here in America?
Speaker 6: And that's partly why, you know, for those of us
Speaker 6: who visit d C or go there for work, you
Speaker 6: see that statehoods for d C, you know, plates and
Speaker 6: the advocacy around that. It is bigger than a number
Speaker 6: of states that are represented by two US senators in
Speaker 6: the US Senate. They got more population. Yet Eleanor Holmes
Speaker 6: Norton is a delegate, uh, non voting delegate to the Congress.
Speaker 6: Except for very special situations, I think she can count
Speaker 6: for quorum. But that's about that. That's about the whole
Speaker 6: of it. I just I want to salute you Sis
Speaker 6: for the courage, frankly by what you've been standing on
Speaker 6: quite fearless, and actually I don't think any of us
Speaker 6: are without our levels of fear. But you absolutely present
Speaker 6: quite fearlessly, I think, giving cover and also permission for
Speaker 6: the people who want to be with you to be
Speaker 6: with you. I would, I would. I'm stepping back from
Speaker 6: just sort of this current situation. I'm actually curious sort
Speaker 6: of where did this get seated? Where are you from?
Speaker 6: Where did you grow up? Like what what put you
Speaker 6: on this path? Because I think there's something to be
Speaker 6: taken from that and to be shared, you know with
Speaker 6: our listeners around how you got to this this moment
Speaker 6: that you've been built for.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so you know, I'm an armie brad. I was
Speaker 3: born in Germany, so we did a little bit of
Speaker 3: moving all over the country Baskett most of my time
Speaker 3: really in Maryland. You know, I had like a very
Speaker 3: I had a childhood with a lot of stuff, and
Speaker 3: I lived in the neighborhood with like really like all
Speaker 3: we always lived in like really well resourced neighborhoods. I
Speaker 3: was a cheerleader for like twelve years. I played lots
Speaker 3: of instruments when I was younger. So like, I feel
Speaker 3: like I really got an opportunity to fully like self determined,
Speaker 3: and that has really lended to like the way that
Speaker 3: I imagine myself as an advocate, an organizer and like
Speaker 3: quote unquote like political figure. And my entry point into
Speaker 3: the movement was the George Floyd uprising. Before that, I
Speaker 3: was like a full time college student. I was doing
Speaker 3: I wanted to be a policy advisor, so I was
Speaker 3: doing political science. I wanted to go to law school,
Speaker 3: you know, do like campaign work and stuff like that.
Speaker 3: And Yeah, then the George Wood Uprising happened, and pretty
Speaker 3: much my entire life change from there, like I got
Speaker 3: pulled into like just more radical organizing spaces. My first
Speaker 3: organization was Fruiting Friders d C. From there, I started
Speaker 3: working for the Movement, working with the Movement for Black Lives.
Speaker 3: I got a job of working families party and like
Speaker 3: I've just done, I've done like a lot of different
Speaker 3: organizing congressionals, AM electoral organizers with congressional campaign in Maryland,
Speaker 3: legislative work, legislative advocacy in Maryland, the state of Maryland.
Speaker 3: And yeah, now I work for an organization called their
Speaker 3: Budget Coalition, So I do budget equity work in DC.
Speaker 3: Which is also why like my view of Muriel is
Speaker 3: very it's deep in the line items like girl, your
Speaker 3: your budget tells the story what your priorities are, and
Speaker 3: time and time and time again, like this is what
Speaker 3: has been. So I don't know, I think there are
Speaker 3: many different things that push me to where I am
Speaker 3: like now, and like my level of political thought. I
Speaker 3: read a lot. I have a lot of really great mentors,
Speaker 3: most of them are black women shout out. So yeah,
Speaker 3: like I don't know, I'm really grateful, I'm really blessed,
Speaker 3: And yeah.
Speaker 5: I love that Andrew did that, because I do think
Speaker 5: that there's always a story that we have that anchors
Speaker 5: who we become, the missions we fulfill, the purpose in
Speaker 5: life that we that we chase. So I'm so grateful
Speaker 5: for your upbringing and for the courage it birthed in you.
Speaker 5: But I also love what you said at the end
Speaker 5: about budgets. I worked for the Congressional Black Caucus coming up,
Speaker 5: and my forever boss, Congressman Cleever, used to say, your
Speaker 5: budget will tell you where your heart is, and that's
Speaker 5: the reason why the CBC would always introduce an alternative
Speaker 5: budget to tell people where their heart should be. But
Speaker 5: on this same issue, when the CBC was founded, they
Speaker 5: had sixty one recommendations they took to Richard Nixon. In
Speaker 5: those recommendations was DC statehood. In the nineteen seventy two
Speaker 5: Gary and Deanna National Black Political Convention, in that agenda
Speaker 5: was statehood for DC. The Black Papers process that we
Speaker 5: just went through with State of the People, there is
Speaker 5: a DC statehood paper for people who, just like Tip
Speaker 5: mentioned earlier, may not understand DC home rule and it
Speaker 5: why it matters. Can you speak to a little bit
Speaker 5: about why this is a fight for the whole of
Speaker 5: us and not just for the residents of DC.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, DC is an experimenting ground for like all the
Speaker 3: things they want us try to spread throughout the country.
Speaker 3: Because of our lack of statehood, you know, there are
Speaker 3: some ways where, especially even if you think about our
Speaker 3: budget process, like the mayor proposes are budget, the Council
Speaker 3: legislates the budget, votes on the budget, and then the
Speaker 3: Congress approves our budget most of the time. Most of
Speaker 3: the time, as for the most part, they've never really
Speaker 3: intervened with our affairs, but then we saw congressional interference
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty three with our criminal code. We've also
Speaker 3: seen some congressional interference around like our marijuana laws and
Speaker 3: like our ability to have shrooms recreationally, with things that
Speaker 3: were also voted on democratically thro valid initiative. So the
Speaker 3: issue of statehood for DC is so important because DC
Speaker 3: is no longer necessarily a majority black city. It's a
Speaker 3: polar plurality black city. It's about forty three to forty
Speaker 3: six percent black now, and it's also being rapidly gentrified.
Speaker 3: It's and a lot of that is because, like the
Speaker 3: Mayor does some she does some work throughout the year,
Speaker 3: but the Council really only has like seventy days to
Speaker 3: really look at a budget proposal in DC, and that's
Speaker 3: what's legislated in the Home Rule Act, So they only
Speaker 3: have seventy days to like really try to create an
Speaker 3: environment where transformative change could happen through a budget. And
Speaker 3: it's like severely stunted. So who you are mayor is
Speaker 3: in d C is very important because of that, and
Speaker 3: because we don't have like senators, we don't have like
Speaker 3: you know, we don't have real voting members in Congress.
Speaker 3: There are many things that directly affect DC. DC pays
Speaker 3: the highest federal tax rate that we don't actually get
Speaker 3: a real say on. So not only are we bearing
Speaker 3: the brunt of like the most like the cruelty of
Speaker 3: whatever administration is in office, we are also like not
Speaker 3: able to fully represent ourselves as a district and as
Speaker 3: a city state whatever, you know. And there's seven hundred
Speaker 3: thousand people in the district of the District of Columbia,
Speaker 3: So we're bigger than a couple of states, Like we
Speaker 3: have bigger populations in a couple of states.
Speaker 1: That thank you so much, thank you, go ahead, I
Speaker 1: just wanted to say thank you Lafi for joining us.
Speaker 1: We really appreciate your time and just all the information
Speaker 1: you provided and look forward to seeing your future work
Speaker 1: and activism. So we appreciate it.
Speaker 6: I think, I know you got to bounce. But last thing,
Speaker 6: we love to leave people with something and something to do.
Speaker 6: What what would look like support for you all and
Speaker 6: your movement work in d C from people across the country.
Speaker 6: What does support look like? What would you admonish us
Speaker 6: to do well?
Speaker 3: I would say number one, like, definitely talk to your
Speaker 3: representatives about statehood. Statehood is a national issue for DC,
Speaker 3: and DC should be the fifty first state, So that's
Speaker 3: number one. And I would say number two for people
Speaker 3: that live in black cities like Chicago, like Oakland, Atlanta.
Speaker 3: He ain't mentioned it yet, but a mean places like that.
Speaker 3: This is a time to really get deep into like
Speaker 3: the quality of relationships that you have. We need to
Speaker 3: beginning to know each other. We need to be building
Speaker 3: relationships of trust. We need to be organizing in a
Speaker 3: way that will position us to act courageously and collectively.
Speaker 3: And yeah, like we can do it. We do have
Speaker 3: the power to do like to to do something this
Speaker 3: is not happening to us. We can stop this. Uh
Speaker 3: and yeah, like, it's just you have to be able
Speaker 3: to be a part of that collective responsibility and take
Speaker 3: up that mandate of being an active part of the
Speaker 3: revolution of the culture whatever whatever you want to call it.
Speaker 6: Just be an actor. Yeah, I love that, love that.
Speaker 6: We know you've got a balance. But thank you so much,
Speaker 6: and we wish you well.
Speaker 3: Oh sure, well, thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Thank you guys for tuning in. A Feenie is so great.
Speaker 1: I can't wait to see what's in store for her
Speaker 1: and what she has more specifically in store for us.
Speaker 1: And again, if you like this conversation, A lot of
Speaker 1: people don't know the politics of the nation's capital. So
Speaker 1: even if you don't live here, if you're one of
Speaker 1: the cities she named, please drop this in your group, chat, spread, review, subscribe,
Speaker 1: all of that. Not just to build an audience, but
Speaker 1: to build community at a time such as this. So
Speaker 1: we're inviting you all into a space where you have
Speaker 1: a seat at this table and you can participate in
Speaker 1: this conversation. So please be sure to spread this conversation
Speaker 1: and start your own community work, and hopefully Afeenie can
Speaker 1: offer you some guidance here this conversation I hope can
Speaker 1: offer you some guidance here. Thanks for tuning in to
Speaker 1: this mini pod, and welcome home y'all. Native Land Pod
Speaker 1: is a production of iHeartRadio and partnership with Resent Choice Media.
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