Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to Okay at Daily with
Speaker 1: Meet your Girl Danielle Moody, once again recording from the
Speaker 1: Brooklyn Bunker. Folks, I want to thank you all so
Speaker 1: much for your kind messages and notes while I was
Speaker 1: on vacation, finally taking my own advice and getting some
Speaker 1: much needed rest and vitamin d um. I also really
Speaker 1: loved the fact that you guys enjoyed the content that
Speaker 1: I left behind for you while I was away, particularly
Speaker 1: the Dinner for One episode, which seemed to spark a
Speaker 1: lot of conversation. And I'm really happy about that and
Speaker 1: we will be sure to have Lauren back on the show.
Speaker 1: But what a fucking week to return to my God,
Speaker 1: So let me kick things off with starting my thoughts
Speaker 1: on the oscars. Okay, so, folks, um coming up later
Speaker 1: in the show, I have a guest on, a new
Speaker 1: guest that has not been on the show before, and
Speaker 1: so I'm really excited to bring you their perspective. Kara
Speaker 1: Ready is the director of the Disability Association for Journalists
Speaker 1: and has worked in a variety of newsrooms from CNN
Speaker 1: to NPR, MSNBC and others. And I wanted to have
Speaker 1: Kara on the show because you know the incident that
Speaker 1: occurred at the Oscars. And if by now you don't know,
Speaker 1: I don't know where you have been. But so let
Speaker 1: me give you a quick remix. During Chris Rocks I
Speaker 1: guess set conversation his joke set, he decided to make
Speaker 1: a very, in my humble opinion, disrespectful joke about Jada
Speaker 1: Pinkett Smith, Will Smith's wife, Will Smith, and Jada Pinkett
Speaker 1: Smith were there at the Oscars. Why because Will Smith
Speaker 1: was nominated for his Best Actor role in King Richard,
Speaker 1: which he would later win that night after he smacked
Speaker 1: the shit out of Chris Rock on national television for
Speaker 1: making a joke about Jada Pinkett's hair. Now, let me
Speaker 1: start to preface something right off the bat, which is this,
Speaker 1: if you are not from the community that is the
Speaker 1: butt of a joke, you don't get to say whether
Speaker 1: or not something should just roll off of people's backs,
Speaker 1: or whether or not they should just laugh at their
Speaker 1: own pain, in their own trauma. The fact is this,
Speaker 1: Jada Pinkett Smith has been very public about her battle
Speaker 1: with alopecia, a immune disorder that has people's hair fall
Speaker 1: out right and for some people who I've seen on
Speaker 1: social media. It has shocked me, frankly that people are
Speaker 1: just so cavalier with saying losing your hair is not
Speaker 1: a big deal. First of all, you can go so
Speaker 1: far back into the fucking Bible, if that is your
Speaker 1: religion of choice, where the woman's hair, women's hairs talked
Speaker 1: about as their crown and their glory and all of
Speaker 1: these things. We can also go back into history to
Speaker 1: talk to you about the ways in which black women's hair,
Speaker 1: body demeanor have been policed over the course of history.
Speaker 1: I can't think of a time when black women's hair
Speaker 1: hasn't been the subject of somebody's joke, commentary, or abuse. Right,
Speaker 1: And for Chris Rock, a man who actually did an
Speaker 1: entire fucking movie entitled Good Hair talking about the politicization
Speaker 1: of black women's hair, to make that joke at Jada
Speaker 1: Pinkett's expense made no fucking sense. So do I condone violence, No,
Speaker 1: But do I understand it apps a fucking lutely. I
Speaker 1: do what I have said to Will Smith to tarnish
Speaker 1: or to you know, distract people from your historic win
Speaker 1: the first time ever for a long overdue Oscar. Yeah,
Speaker 1: wasn't the best choice. Right, You could have used the
Speaker 1: opportunity during your acceptance speech to fucking roast Chris Rock, right,
Speaker 1: and that would have been acceptable and okay. But you know, folks,
Speaker 1: here's the thing too. You never know what people are
Speaker 1: battling with and what they are dealing with and what
Speaker 1: will push them over the edge. And that is just facts. Again,
Speaker 1: am I condoning violence? No, But I also say that
Speaker 1: if you've been paying attention over the past couple of years,
Speaker 1: the Smiths have been in the news for a whole
Speaker 1: host of things, and they have also been the butts
Speaker 1: of many jokes, even when they're trying to be their
Speaker 1: most authentic selves. Share their vulnerabilities, share their indiscretions, to
Speaker 1: open up conversations about open marriages, entanglement, all of these things.
Speaker 1: They have brought it to their Red Talk table conversations. Right.
Speaker 1: Will Smith sat there while Jada Pinkett Smith was talking
Speaker 1: about her entanglement, her affair with a much younger man.
Speaker 1: We made memes about his pain. Right. So again, I'm
Speaker 1: not condoning violence, but you have to understand that there's
Speaker 1: only so much that people can take. And also for
Speaker 1: those people that want to say that, oh, because of
Speaker 1: their wealth and because of their fame, again, they should
Speaker 1: just allow things to roll off their back and turn
Speaker 1: the other cheek. Give me a fucking break, right, because
Speaker 1: what we have seen over the course of the last
Speaker 1: several years, as we've had more open conversations about mental health,
Speaker 1: about depression, about anxiety, particularly in these COVID times, during
Speaker 1: this pandemic, where mental health and those conversations have been
Speaker 1: at the forefront, you know, to just dismiss people's feelings
Speaker 1: and their emotions because they have money, to me, makes
Speaker 1: absolutely no sense because there are many celebrities that have
Speaker 1: used their fame and their platform to advance conversations that
Speaker 1: wouldn't have happened without them. And so again my problem
Speaker 1: with what went down is this, I find it very
Speaker 1: difficult to laugh at jokes at the expense of other people,
Speaker 1: particularly people from marginalized communities. Alopecia, which is not something
Speaker 1: that I know a whole lot about, But thanks to
Speaker 1: the very openness of Congresswoman Ayana Pressley, thanks to the
Speaker 1: openness of Jada Pinkett Smith, I have learned more right
Speaker 1: about this immune disorder, about how it affects women, particularly
Speaker 1: when society has wrapped up our femininity and our value
Speaker 1: by what grows out of our head, and particularly for
Speaker 1: Black women who have either had to iron their hair,
Speaker 1: their hair weave their hair in order to meet European
Speaker 1: expressions of beauty. Right, as a black man, Chris Rock
Speaker 1: should have fucking known better than to talk about a
Speaker 1: black woman's hair, particularly one that is actually suffering from
Speaker 1: a health disorder. So to make the comparison to a
Speaker 1: movie where the woman in the movie Gijan made the
Speaker 1: choice to cut off her hair as opposed to what
Speaker 1: Jada Pinkett Smith has been dealing with, was just absurd
Speaker 1: on its face, right. But my other issue is with
Speaker 1: people's lack of fucking nuance and to understand the layers
Speaker 1: and the complexities that were at play, right, Because to me,
Speaker 1: there is also something else that many people have been
Speaker 1: talking about, which is this toxic masculinity. Right. Why does
Speaker 1: love right or defense of a woman have to look
Speaker 1: like violence? Right? Why did Will Smith feel the need
Speaker 1: to get it up out of his seat to knock
Speaker 1: another man out, which he didn't. He slapped him, open
Speaker 1: hand slap, Because let's be honest, if Will Smith actually
Speaker 1: wanted to cause real damage to Chris Rock other than
Speaker 1: his ego. He could have right, but he did not,
Speaker 1: so that was also a calculated decision. But again, we're
Speaker 1: talking about the issues of emotions and masculinity and toxicity
Speaker 1: and what a man should do in defense of his
Speaker 1: woman and all of these things, and not taking into
Speaker 1: consideration all of the different layers and the nuances that
Speaker 1: were at play is just, I don't know, intellectually dishonest
Speaker 1: right at this point. And so you can see more
Speaker 1: of my thoughts at Zora Magazine, where I wrote a
Speaker 1: piece entitled in Defense of Black Women, And what I
Speaker 1: did is start out with a very well known and
Speaker 1: very well quoted speech from Malcolm X from nineteen sixty two,
Speaker 1: right with regard to the fact that the most unpre
Speaker 1: unprotected right and lack of care for person in this
Speaker 1: country is the black woman. And you can't point to
Speaker 1: something and tell me otherwise. So I'd love to hear
Speaker 1: your thoughts on my piece, But now I want to
Speaker 1: make the transition to talking about somebody else's wife, who
Speaker 1: should actually be in the fucking news and who should
Speaker 1: be on everybody's fucking lips and is not because we
Speaker 1: are so invested in the slap that we are not
Speaker 1: looking at who is slapping the shit out of our
Speaker 1: fucking democracy right now, which is, Oh, I don't know
Speaker 1: the Thomas is. So let's transition to this married couple
Speaker 1: while I was on vacation, Clarence Thomas's wife, right, Jinny Thomas.
Speaker 1: It was brought to the attention of the world. Not
Speaker 1: only was Jinny which I can't stand that fucking name,
Speaker 1: like I want to change the car into Jinny now
Speaker 1: because of her. But anyway, I digress. Jenny found herself
Speaker 1: at the insurrection on January sixth, and she said that
Speaker 1: she was there in support of her president. Now, one
Speaker 1: would assume that a sitting Supreme Court justice should not
Speaker 1: have their spouse right be at any type of political rally,
Speaker 1: let alone one that is based on a fucking lie.
Speaker 1: And you would assume that if your husband or your
Speaker 1: wife is a sitting member of the Supreme Court, then
Speaker 1: the Constitution wouldn't be something that is foreign to you, right.
Speaker 1: But as it turns out, Jenny Thomas wasn't just at
Speaker 1: the insurrection, She wasn't just at the rally listening to
Speaker 1: the speeches, but she actually helped fund the buses of
Speaker 1: the protesters who would later shit in the Capitol building
Speaker 1: and steal right and try and, oh, I don't know,
Speaker 1: thwart our entire electoral process. An overturn an election that
Speaker 1: sounds like, what's the word I'm looking for, Oh, a crime.
Speaker 1: It sounds like a fucking crime that the Department of
Speaker 1: Justice you would think would be active in investigating. But still,
Speaker 1: as of yet we hear crickets from Merritt Garland's fucking
Speaker 1: Department of Justice. Now, riddle me this. Justice Thomas was
Speaker 1: also get this, ladies and gentlemen, the soul vote against
Speaker 1: Donald Trump releasing his correspondence during the insurrection. Now we
Speaker 1: should all be wondering why was that? Why was Clarence
Speaker 1: Thomas so against the release of that information? Could it be,
Speaker 1: as it turns out, that Jenny Thomas was doing back
Speaker 1: and forks, back and forth text messages between herself and
Speaker 1: Donald Trump's chief of staff Mark Meadows, who was also
Speaker 1: actively writing statements and letters to the Department of Justice
Speaker 1: to get them to overturn or at least put out
Speaker 1: some type of statement that would lead us to believe
Speaker 1: that the election was fraudulent, and then Donald Trump would
Speaker 1: quote unquote take it from there, folks, the amount of
Speaker 1: fucking evidence that is staring Merrick Garland's Justice Department in
Speaker 1: the face, the amount of information that we have received
Speaker 1: from the over five hundred people interviewed by the House
Speaker 1: Commission on the insurrection. Now we see reports that they
Speaker 1: would like to write the House won six Commission would
Speaker 1: like to request an interview with Jenny Thomas. And I'm
Speaker 1: thinking to myself self, if this were the other way around,
Speaker 1: and Democrats had caused an insurrection where Democrats had their
Speaker 1: followers be a part of the killings and the abuse
Speaker 1: of police officers, right, that Republicans would not be requesting
Speaker 1: so nicely for an interview. That instead, oh, I don't know,
Speaker 1: they would do the same type of aggressive shit that
Speaker 1: they did with Benghazi, which turned up with zero indictments,
Speaker 1: but that they would make it known to the world
Speaker 1: what exactly was happening Democrats. On the other hand, though,
Speaker 1: I'm looking around and I'm saying, how much more fucking
Speaker 1: information do we need here from Merrick Garland to act
Speaker 1: like he has a goddamn spine? How much more do
Speaker 1: we need to know to understand that our Supreme Court
Speaker 1: is fucking compromised? Right? That our Department of Justice seems
Speaker 1: to be compromised, and that there is no push or
Speaker 1: emphasis coming out of the Biden administration to actually do
Speaker 1: any fucking thing about it. That once again, here we
Speaker 1: have more money and resources and energy going to Ukraine
Speaker 1: and preserving their democracy and none of that same energy
Speaker 1: going to preserve the United States. Now let me say
Speaker 1: this because while I was away, I did a post
Speaker 1: on TikTok, which, by the way, folks, I'm on the
Speaker 1: TikTok's now, so go and follow me. But I did
Speaker 1: a post on ti talk saying that, you know, in
Speaker 1: response to Biden's speech in Poland, which he then had
Speaker 1: to walk back once again and apologize for saying that
Speaker 1: there needs to be a regime change in Russia and
Speaker 1: that Putin needs to be removed, which, by the way,
Speaker 1: every fucking person on this planet believes. But as we know,
Speaker 1: words that come out of the mouth of the President
Speaker 1: of the United States carry more weight. But here's also
Speaker 1: the reality. Do you know how many fucking regime changes
Speaker 1: that the United States has orchestrated over the last two
Speaker 1: hundred and plus fucking years A lot, so for us
Speaker 1: again to feign shock and outrage like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: people should be decided, be able to decide their own leaders. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll talk to the people of Haiti, of Venezuela, of Columbia,
Speaker 1: of Nicaragua, all of the places where the United States
Speaker 1: has gone in and put in their own fucking presidents
Speaker 1: and prime ministers in order to better right position themselves
Speaker 1: in geopolitical world, in the geopolitical world, and in warfare. Right,
Speaker 1: look at what happened in Afghanistan, look at what's happened
Speaker 1: in Syria, in all of these places, I mean the
Speaker 1: lists of the ways in which the United States has
Speaker 1: stuck its nose in other people's business. So for there
Speaker 1: to be feigned outrage that the United States could never
Speaker 1: or would never just once again shows us that the
Speaker 1: history that we are teaching our children and have been
Speaker 1: taught ourselves has been based in the overall gaslight right,
Speaker 1: which is to say that America is beyond reproach, that
Speaker 1: we are all the good guys going around the world
Speaker 1: to preserve democracy, and that it doesn't have anything to
Speaker 1: do with the advancement of our own capitalistic interests. Folks,
Speaker 1: it's exhausting. The bullshit is exhausting me. It's why I
Speaker 1: needed to take a vacation. And even as I'm listening
Speaker 1: to people say that, oh my god, the president, those
Speaker 1: nine words that he said, those nine words were a travesty.
Speaker 1: And I'm listening to Republicans. Republicans have the audacity to
Speaker 1: say what exactly that, Oh my god, Presidents shouldn't say
Speaker 1: things that people find offensive, when in fact, you hold
Speaker 1: up Donald Trump, who won couldn't put together a cohesive
Speaker 1: sentence if he had a gun to his head, but
Speaker 1: also has said some of the most offensive shit, namely
Speaker 1: wanting to tweet out potential nuclear war to North Korea.
Speaker 1: Do people not remember that? Right? But again, America's memory
Speaker 1: is like that of a gnat. Folks, Here's the thing.
Speaker 1: Clarence Thomas needs to be investigated. Jinny Thomas needs to
Speaker 1: be investigated. Mark Meadows needs to be investigated. John Eastman
Speaker 1: is going to be investigated because a federal judge has
Speaker 1: said that he needs to release over one hundred emails
Speaker 1: right that are that are still sitting over four hundred
Speaker 1: days removed from the insurrection on this motherfucker's laptop. My
Speaker 1: question is about this sense of urgency, is about the
Speaker 1: clock that we are on as we count our way
Speaker 1: down to midterms, and in all honesty, Democrats have nothing
Speaker 1: to show. The last thing that I will say for
Speaker 1: today is that President Biden also released his budget. And
Speaker 1: when I tell you that, the only thing that I
Speaker 1: needed to see in that budget that almost made me
Speaker 1: turn absolutely green and want to vomit is the increase
Speaker 1: in funding, increase in funding for police and the military
Speaker 1: from previous budgets. So when Joe Biden found himself saying
Speaker 1: we don't need to defund the police, we need to
Speaker 1: fund the police during his State of the Union, oh
Speaker 1: he meant that shit because he's giving them more of
Speaker 1: our tax dollars to kill more of us. Right, there's
Speaker 1: no police reform bill. We didn't get rid of qualified immunity,
Speaker 1: but we're giving them more money so that they can
Speaker 1: go around and play g I Joe and kill us
Speaker 1: without any accountability or responsibility. So to the very people,
Speaker 1: the black people that put Joe Biden's ass in the
Speaker 1: White House, that was, sir, a giant fuck you. So
Speaker 1: if you think that folks aren't going to return the
Speaker 1: favor in twenty twenty two and twenty twenty four, you
Speaker 1: are absolutely fucking tripping and Here's the thing that I
Speaker 1: will say. I tell people to vote all the time.
Speaker 1: I will absolutely vote, and I will vote for Democrats,
Speaker 1: but let me be very clear, I understand people who won't.
Speaker 1: Coming up next my conversation with Kara, I really really
Speaker 1: hope that you take some really good nuggets away from
Speaker 1: that conversation and let me know in the comment section
Speaker 1: what you thought about the Oscars fiasco and how you
Speaker 1: are feeling now a couple of days removed, folks, I
Speaker 1: am very excited to welcome to woke f for the
Speaker 1: first time, Kara Ready, who is the director of Disay
Speaker 1: of the Disabled Journalist Association. Kara, I am really happy
Speaker 1: to talk to you today. You know, removed from the
Speaker 1: OSCARS twenty twenty two. Who knew that it was going
Speaker 1: to provide such fodder and layered conversation given the alto
Speaker 1: physical altercation between Will Smith and Chris Rock Um after
Speaker 1: Chris rock made what I will use in quotations as
Speaker 1: a joke UM about Jada Pinkett Smith, Will Smith's wife,
Speaker 1: Um and her hair and her appearance, UM saying that
Speaker 1: she looks ready for g I Jane two, Um, I
Speaker 1: want to talk to you, particularly about what were your
Speaker 1: initial reactions, uh, if you were watching it live or
Speaker 1: you saw it you know, um via you know after
Speaker 1: after the fact via video like I did, um what
Speaker 1: were your thoughts? Uh? And how how did it land
Speaker 1: with you? So I have a I have a history
Speaker 1: with Chris Rock actually, um, he's He's known to me
Speaker 1: as someone who is willing to throw out ablest jokes, jokes,
Speaker 1: quotation marks without like no, with no feeling or thought
Speaker 1: about it. So when whenever I see him on screen,
Speaker 1: I'm always like, oh oh, and then he did it
Speaker 1: and I was like, oh oh, Because you know, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of people that are like, well, no one
Speaker 1: knew he had she had alopecia. Well, does not knowing
Speaker 1: someone have alopecia make it okay for you to comment
Speaker 1: about their physical appearance? Why is that an okay position
Speaker 1: to have? First of all, disability, We don't know a
Speaker 1: lot of people are invisibly disabled a lot. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: so we have no idea what people are dealing with.
Speaker 1: And so if that's all you can do is make
Speaker 1: fun of the way people look, then like where is
Speaker 1: the camp? Where's the skill? And you know, I've been
Speaker 1: in comedy circles. I did the improv circuit, and I
Speaker 1: had a lot of improv bros say to me, don't
Speaker 1: you don't understand. I'm like, right, because when I'm on
Speaker 1: stage with you, you always want to make fun of
Speaker 1: my height. I'm a dwarf. Make fun of my height
Speaker 1: because it's easy for you. And usually it's the guys
Speaker 1: that aren't that funny yep, who immediately were like, I'm uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: I'm not landing jokes. I know what will I know
Speaker 1: what will land a joke? I'll make a midget joke
Speaker 1: because she's right here and you know, and people are like, well,
Speaker 1: it was just off the cuff, But why is not
Speaker 1: always what comes out of his head off the cuff? Yew?
Speaker 1: Does that say about you and your talent and people? Kara,
Speaker 1: you don't know, you don't know. I do actually know,
Speaker 1: and I've had I had a conversation with him into
Speaker 1: the mall and a mall once because he texted or
Speaker 1: he tweeted. Right after Hillary Clinton got the nomination in
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen, he tweeted something, well, now a lesson being
Speaker 1: midget can be on the ticket now that we have
Speaker 1: a woman. Now I'd already had a problem with him
Speaker 1: because in his Bigger and Blacker special he said that
Speaker 1: Stevie Wonders should be allowed a pet midget to walk
Speaker 1: him around. So this is someone that literally comes for
Speaker 1: people and their appearance and their their disability. And so
Speaker 1: when I went to him and said hey, yo, I
Speaker 1: ran into him in the mall, just randomly it was
Speaker 1: and I just was like, can I speak to you
Speaker 1: for a saca? Because this is what this does. And
Speaker 1: he kind of just acted super surprised that anyone would
Speaker 1: confront him on that, and then kind of just kept saying, well,
Speaker 1: I'm old and in my fifties, I can't change if
Speaker 1: people are laughing, it's funny. And you know that actually
Speaker 1: explained to a lot of what happened on Twitter last
Speaker 1: night was the people were like, you guys are being
Speaker 1: too sensitive. Amanda Steels came out and said, if you
Speaker 1: guys can't take a joke, then what's up for you?
Speaker 1: We got to be solidarity with black people. Well, black
Speaker 1: people of the second highest rate of disability in America,
Speaker 1: So who are you who are you being in solidarity
Speaker 1: with if you can't acknowledge disability and blackness and how
Speaker 1: disability is a core is a core tenet of blackness
Speaker 1: in America, Like, if you can't acknowledge that, then you're
Speaker 1: not in solidarity with black people. You're in solidarity with
Speaker 1: this very thin view of blackness. And I have a
Speaker 1: problem with that. You know, it's there are so there
Speaker 1: are oftentimes right where comedians say things right. The point
Speaker 1: of comedy in a lot of ways, right is supposed
Speaker 1: to be to bring into conversation good comics. Let me say,
Speaker 1: to bring into conversation issues that we struggle with talking
Speaker 1: about right without there being some type of punchline. And
Speaker 1: you know, I had a similar type of conversation and
Speaker 1: have had similar type of conversations after Dave Chappelle's stand up.
Speaker 1: Right and Dave Chappelle's stand up is targeting and targeting
Speaker 1: of the trans community. And you know, it's always the
Speaker 1: people who are not the targets and the butts of
Speaker 1: the jokes, who feel that they have the space and
Speaker 1: the place to be able to tell those other people
Speaker 1: who are harmed. Right. And when I say harmed, I
Speaker 1: don't just mean upset feelings, because upset feelings are also valid,
Speaker 1: but words we know can turn into violence. Right. We
Speaker 1: had a former twice impeached President of the United States
Speaker 1: make a joke as a candidate about a disabled reporter, right,
Speaker 1: who was then jostled about at one of his rallies.
Speaker 1: Because people take those quote unquote jokes, right, and they
Speaker 1: use them as a reason to dehumanize other people. Because
Speaker 1: without to me, without the context, right, without the understanding,
Speaker 1: and frankly, without really what it means to be a
Speaker 1: true ally to a marginalized community, you don't get the
Speaker 1: opportunity to make jokes that are harmful that can turn
Speaker 1: into actual physical violence. And the fact is that you know,
Speaker 1: the harms that words have are can cut way deeper
Speaker 1: than a physical knife, right. And these are the things
Speaker 1: that I you know, I am a big believer that
Speaker 1: there are just that it's laziness, right, Like I think
Speaker 1: that Chris Rock is a I do believe that Chris
Speaker 1: Rock and Dave Chappelle are brilliant comedians. I do believe
Speaker 1: also that they are completely problematic at times, and that
Speaker 1: without that, without people really checking them and really offering
Speaker 1: conversations as to why this is okay? Right, Like, you've
Speaker 1: begun the list of people that you can readily make
Speaker 1: fun of, right without their being consistent pushback has shrunk, right,
Speaker 1: Like it is no longer acceptable to make fun of lesbian,
Speaker 1: gay bisexuals. Oh, but you can still make fun of
Speaker 1: trans people, right because you know less than twenty percent
Speaker 1: of the population is made up of trans people, So oh,
Speaker 1: we feel that's okay. You can make fun of people
Speaker 1: with physical disabilities, or emotional disabilities or mental disabilities, because oh,
Speaker 1: it's it's easy. Right. We can talk about bipolarism, depression
Speaker 1: and make these make these conversations because it's low hanging fruit.
Speaker 1: To your point, what do you think is then the
Speaker 1: responsibility of journalists to have more of a nuanced conversation
Speaker 1: as to why, as to why what we witnessed, you know,
Speaker 1: at the Oscars and what we have seen before, whether
Speaker 1: it be on comedy specials or stand ups or what
Speaker 1: have you are problematic. So I'll just every newsroom I've
Speaker 1: ever been in has been superablest, and I will just
Speaker 1: say that out loud, and newsrooms need to start first
Speaker 1: checking themselves and looking around and understanding that if you
Speaker 1: don't know, if you have a disabled colleague, then you're
Speaker 1: probably in a really ablest room. I'm not saying there's
Speaker 1: not disabled people in there. I'm saying that there's people
Speaker 1: that are afraid to disclose, which means they're also not
Speaker 1: asking for accommodations because they're afraid for their jobs, which
Speaker 1: means you are penalizing and punishing people. And people are
Speaker 1: doing things to their bodies that maybe they shouldn't be
Speaker 1: doing because they're afraid they're going to lose their job.
Speaker 1: So then start there right. Then The second spot is
Speaker 1: is if you are in that space, how in the
Speaker 1: world are you going to cover this? If you if
Speaker 1: your colleagues can't even tell you that they're disabled, how
Speaker 1: are you covering this? And so I saw I had
Speaker 1: a lot of my journalist friends on my page upset
Speaker 1: because I took the position of no way, And you know,
Speaker 1: this guy's been problematic for a reason. I am not
Speaker 1: condoning slapping on stage in a national setting. That's not
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, right, It's not what I'm saying. But
Speaker 1: what I am saying is when you reap that kind
Speaker 1: of violence, when you put that kind of violence in
Speaker 1: the world, violence will come back at you. And that's
Speaker 1: what happened. And no one can seem to hear that
Speaker 1: what he said was violence, and that violence and like
Speaker 1: people are like, it's just words. No, it's not, because
Speaker 1: as a person who has Dwarfism, when I go on
Speaker 1: the subway, I have to look around to see who
Speaker 1: has it in their head that I'm not really human,
Speaker 1: which he basically has said a lot is that we're subhuman,
Speaker 1: that we're not really full of people. That were jokes.
Speaker 1: So if you're putting that in the water, other people
Speaker 1: who are less informed than you take that, take that
Speaker 1: and run with it, and then there's violence. There's physical
Speaker 1: violence perpetrated on you. But no one seems to want
Speaker 1: to make that connection. And so journalists never make that
Speaker 1: meshing because they first of all, they don't see it right. Second,
Speaker 1: because it's not around them. Even when I was in
Speaker 1: the newsrooms were super violent to me, and like I
Speaker 1: would have people come up to me and be like, oh,
Speaker 1: you persevered, you persevered. I'm like, you let me sit
Speaker 1: in it, and you said nothing. You just let me
Speaker 1: sit there. While I was being told I wasn't that bright,
Speaker 1: I shouldn't make it past assistant because I couldn't be
Speaker 1: put on screen because that would be exploitation. If you
Speaker 1: put a dwarf on screen. You guys watched that visibly
Speaker 1: watch that but pretend like it didn't happen and don't
Speaker 1: notice it. So why am I going to listen to
Speaker 1: you talk about this issue when you haven't investigated your
Speaker 1: own ableism. So the word that journalists need to do
Speaker 1: before they start reporting on this stuff. First of all,
Speaker 1: they need to hand the mic toism disabled journalists and
Speaker 1: have them cover it. Second of all, they need to
Speaker 1: go investigate their own ableism in a real deep way,
Speaker 1: the way that newsrooms have started to investigate racism. But
Speaker 1: guess what, racism and ableism intersect all over the place.
Speaker 1: So if you're investigating racism but you're not investigating ableism,
Speaker 1: you're not doing the work. And and how are you
Speaker 1: covering people disability? Disabled people make up twenty six percent
Speaker 1: of the American population, twenty six percent the people that
Speaker 1: have the highest rate of disability or Native Americans and
Speaker 1: black people. What does that say that you aren't covering
Speaker 1: disability in a real, real substituent way, but you're covering them,
Speaker 1: You're covering the protests, But meanwhile, fifty percent of the
Speaker 1: people are that are killed by hops are disabled. That
Speaker 1: all of the names that you know in your head,
Speaker 1: like Sandra Bland had epilepsy disabled, George Floyd had a
Speaker 1: drug problem. That's a disability, right, Um, I can't even
Speaker 1: like Eric Garner had diabetes and heart issues, all disabilities.
Speaker 1: We don't talk about that. We just talk about black guy,
Speaker 1: black woman, this, that and the other. But why why
Speaker 1: are prisons full of disabled people? When we talk about
Speaker 1: the school to prison pipeline, I rarely hear how that
Speaker 1: how the school to prison pipeline actually functions. It functions
Speaker 1: by using disability as a weapon. But we never talk
Speaker 1: about that. We just talk about the black boys and
Speaker 1: the black girls that get whatever. We don't talk about
Speaker 1: the actual system that creates this problem. Why are thirty
Speaker 1: to of our prison populations disabled? You know? And it's
Speaker 1: you know, you say this right, you're saying these numbers
Speaker 1: which are so incredibly jarring, the statistics. And then I
Speaker 1: think that the President's budget was announced this week, and
Speaker 1: do you know that he gave you know, trillions of
Speaker 1: more dollars to the police, right to the police and
Speaker 1: to the military above and beyond. Right, then is ever
Speaker 1: called for or they're even requesting? And I think to myself,
Speaker 1: you know, when are we going to have the consistent
Speaker 1: conversation about why money to police does not help people, right,
Speaker 1: that it adds to harm. That instead of sending police
Speaker 1: for a you know, mental health issue and breakdown, which
Speaker 1: are a lot of the reasons why people are called, right,
Speaker 1: they haul there, you know, they call the police because
Speaker 1: you know, somebody is having a mental health crisis. And
Speaker 1: then the next thing we hear about that person is
Speaker 1: shot dead, right or strangled or need on or what what,
Speaker 1: whatever the case is. And we're saying, you're sending these officers.
Speaker 1: It's not a crime. These people need actual help and
Speaker 1: that's not what police do. And yeah, I said it,
Speaker 1: that is not what they do, right, And so you know,
Speaker 1: you you then we say, you know, as Democrats, oh
Speaker 1: well we need to support the Democrats. And I'm like,
Speaker 1: they're the ones that signed off and created the crime bail, right, Like,
Speaker 1: So when when we look at these things and we
Speaker 1: talk about harm, I really want us to have expansive
Speaker 1: conversations about what harm looks like, right, and how we
Speaker 1: contribute to these harms because you know, right now, you know,
Speaker 1: following this this Oscar's incident, the hashtag trending is I
Speaker 1: stand with Chris Rock. That's what's trending right now on Twitter. Right,
Speaker 1: And I'm thinking to myself, So you stand with the
Speaker 1: public humiliation and abuse of a black woman. That's what
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, right, Like this is this is what you're
Speaker 1: standing by. Nobody's saying, Chris Rock, oh, be canceled this,
Speaker 1: I'm saying, learn a goddamn lesson. Like you said, you
Speaker 1: put out, you put out violent words, You put out
Speaker 1: violence into the universe. Best believe in karma when you
Speaker 1: do things like that. I do not condone violence. I
Speaker 1: don't condone violence in any shape or form. But like
Speaker 1: Chris Rock said in one of his stand ups, I
Speaker 1: understand it. I understand where it comes from. Right, And
Speaker 1: I understand that the possibility of watching your wife, as
Speaker 1: will Smith may have over the last however many years
Speaker 1: from her diagnosis, of watching her lose her hair a
Speaker 1: woman man who is in the public eye, who is
Speaker 1: an actress, and your beauty standards are held above everything else, right,
Speaker 1: and then watch that struggle privately, and then watch it
Speaker 1: ridiculed publicly for other people's entertainment. It's one time too many. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Also in a room full of her peers, in a
Speaker 1: room full of her peers, in front of a national audience.
Speaker 1: Why like, why did you need that? What was it?
Speaker 1: And I remember having this conversation with him and he
Speaker 1: just kind of didn't get it. And someone said to
Speaker 1: me when during the discourse last night, well he's disabled too,
Speaker 1: and I said, yeah, he is, which makes it worse.
Speaker 1: It doesn't make it and it's not an excuse. You
Speaker 1: don't get to say, oh, well i'm disabled, so or
Speaker 1: I didn't get it because my disability didn't make me
Speaker 1: get it. And it's now people have talked to you,
Speaker 1: people have said things to you about it. You can
Speaker 1: get this. You're a smart dude. You this is not
Speaker 1: don't blame don't blame this on your disability. And he hasn't.
Speaker 1: He literally hasn't, so I'm not saying that he did.
Speaker 1: But there's other people coming out trying to use disability
Speaker 1: as a weapon, yeah, to not clear this up. And
Speaker 1: I just it's it's upsetting to me that the black
Speaker 1: community just really no, I'm not saying all the black community,
Speaker 1: but there's a large portion of the black community. It
Speaker 1: just is kind of like, I don't know what you're
Speaker 1: so upset about. And we're never gonna be free until
Speaker 1: we talk about are all of our oppressions? There were
Speaker 1: some leading black journalists saying awful things on Twitter last night, yep, yep,
Speaker 1: awful stuff like like can you really call that a disability?
Speaker 1: Losing your hair? Like why, first of all, why are you?
Speaker 1: Why are you questioning someone's disability? Like if your lights
Speaker 1: getting black? Like and I know we're not supposed to
Speaker 1: do this, but I'm black, so I can do it.
Speaker 1: But like people questioning lights getting black? People me like
Speaker 1: are you really black? It's like, where do you Why
Speaker 1: is that your duty to gate keep m You're sitting
Speaker 1: there gate keeping this this woman's disability. You have no
Speaker 1: idea what she's gone through. And she doesn't need to
Speaker 1: tell you that either. No, And I think you know
Speaker 1: what comes up you know as well? Is you know
Speaker 1: when the late actor Chadwick Boseman died, right before his death,
Speaker 1: the amount of comments that were made about his appearance,
Speaker 1: the amount of jokes that were made, and then lo
Speaker 1: and behold to come and find out, Oh no, it
Speaker 1: was cancer. Right as to why he looked the way
Speaker 1: that it did. Oh now, everyone's so apologetic, So why
Speaker 1: not just provide people with grace and assume that whether
Speaker 1: they are rich or not, that we don't need to
Speaker 1: make fun of people because we have no idea what
Speaker 1: they are carrying. We have no especially, I would say
Speaker 1: Kara too, in this particular moment that we are living
Speaker 1: in of just trauma and history and all of these
Speaker 1: things that are happening, that like, we owe it to people,
Speaker 1: to ourselves and to them, to have more grace, to
Speaker 1: have to show more integrity and more dignity than we
Speaker 1: are seeing across the board, let alone own from those
Speaker 1: that we put on huge platforms because of their skill
Speaker 1: and their artistry and all of these things. Right, it
Speaker 1: is a it is a trickle down effect. So last
Speaker 1: question for you, you know, is there is there a
Speaker 1: positive spin to have to this? Is there an opening
Speaker 1: for more of a conversation to be present? I hope? So,
Speaker 1: I really do. Um. It's it's really complicated though, because
Speaker 1: all of this happened sort of publicly, right, and so
Speaker 1: black people were trying to figure out, We were trying
Speaker 1: to figure out in our own conversations like how to
Speaker 1: deal with this, And then you have why people inserting
Speaker 1: themselves being like I have an opinion and you're like,
Speaker 1: like to stay out of this for a minute. Um,
Speaker 1: it's I hope that it it. It is an opening.
Speaker 1: I think that this issue is so wrapped up, you know,
Speaker 1: as a kid, and like, I don't want to make
Speaker 1: this all personal, but as a kid being raised in
Speaker 1: a black family when you're disabled, some of your relatives
Speaker 1: are like, just shake it off, don't don't worry about that,
Speaker 1: keep it moving, blah blah blah. Because that's that's what
Speaker 1: we teach each other. It's just can't worry about all
Speaker 1: the opression. You just gotta keep rolling through it. But
Speaker 1: that's what I'm hearing a lot on Twitter, is like
Speaker 1: just push through it, or she should have just pushed
Speaker 1: through it, or why couldn't she just like whatever, because
Speaker 1: we all have this and we all got to move around,
Speaker 1: and it's no, we actually need to dissect this. We
Speaker 1: need to we need to slow down and talk about
Speaker 1: all of these statistics and talk about what that means
Speaker 1: and what that means for us and our culture and
Speaker 1: what that means so that we can fix or rise
Speaker 1: past this oppression. And like, we can't stop pressing ourselves,
Speaker 1: but we can stop oppressing within our own community. And
Speaker 1: when people talk about solidarity, they have to really mean it,
Speaker 1: and solidarity doesn't mean shut up because we have to
Speaker 1: praise that one successful guy. It's like, well, no, if
Speaker 1: that successful guy is doing harm to a large portion
Speaker 1: of our population, we need to check it. That's part
Speaker 1: of what solidarity is about. And I hope that we
Speaker 1: can finally like understand that solidarity isn't actually being quiet
Speaker 1: and not criticizing. Solidarity is making space and criticizing within
Speaker 1: our community so we can be better and be together
Speaker 1: to fight the larger issue of oppression. Yeah, Carol, ready,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for making time to join wokate
Speaker 1: f daily and I hope that you will come back again.
Speaker 1: There are many more conversations for us to have. Really
Speaker 1: apreciate you. Thank you so much for the opportunity that
Speaker 1: is it for me today. Friends on woke a F
Speaker 1: as always, dear friends, Power to the people and to
Speaker 1: all the people. Power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.