Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to okay f Daily with
Speaker 1: Meet your Girl Danielle Moody. Recording still from the Brooklyn Bunker.
Speaker 1: But apparently COVID is over, so I don't know why
Speaker 1: I'm still here. I need to re enter into society, folks.
Speaker 1: Let me start out with giving you some headlines that
Speaker 1: I find absolutely troubling. And it's only Tuesday. So here's
Speaker 1: what happened yesterday. Yesterday news report comes out and Jen
Speaker 1: Saki talked about it in the White House briefing that
Speaker 1: Joe Biden is potentially making a trip to Saudi Arabia
Speaker 1: to go and sit with MBS Mohammed bin Salam. You know,
Speaker 1: the murderer, the murderer, the man who murdered Jamal Kashogi,
Speaker 1: cut up his body into multiple pieces, and whose family
Speaker 1: still was just able to bury why an empty casket.
Speaker 1: So Joe Biden finds himself after referring to Saudi Arabia
Speaker 1: as a pariah after you know, the Trump administration doing
Speaker 1: nothing about the murder of Jamal Kashogi because we know
Speaker 1: that MBS's friends and besties and WhatsApp text message buddies
Speaker 1: with who exactly. Jared Kushner. So here's the thing that
Speaker 1: got me. Why is Joe Biden making this trip to
Speaker 1: the Middle East potentially, well, because he needs to go
Speaker 1: shuck and jive in order to get some oil, because
Speaker 1: our gas prices are skyrocketing. Right And you know, while
Speaker 1: folks want to attribute this to what is being done
Speaker 1: in Russia by cutting off Russian oil, understand that America
Speaker 1: does not get a most of its oil from Russia.
Speaker 1: You would think that right now, dear friends, would be
Speaker 1: an opportunity for us to consider putting what is that
Speaker 1: piece of legislation, Oh, that's right, the Green New Deal
Speaker 1: back on the table as a way for us to
Speaker 1: actually start to forecast into the future our future needs
Speaker 1: as a country, which is around sustainability and renewable energy,
Speaker 1: not continuing to dig into the ground for a depleting
Speaker 1: asset that is now skyrocketing and why people go to
Speaker 1: fucking war. So, folks, here's where I am with this.
Speaker 1: The Green New Deal, if you all remember, was trashed
Speaker 1: by none other than guess who, our friend, Senator Joe Mansion,
Speaker 1: King Cole. Why did he trash the brand new Deal? Well,
Speaker 1: because he's King Cole, and the dirtier our oil reserves
Speaker 1: can be the more money that he gets in his
Speaker 1: pockets from his lobbyist friends that want to keep pushing
Speaker 1: coal and keep pushing oil. The reality is this, we
Speaker 1: are running out of that energy source, which is why
Speaker 1: we have turned into innovative renewable energies like wind, like solar.
Speaker 1: And you would think that instead of continuing to put
Speaker 1: our money energy into things that are depleting, and we
Speaker 1: could look at the situation that is unfolding right now
Speaker 1: in Russia and the fact that they are the second
Speaker 1: largest oil producer two countries in the Middle East, and
Speaker 1: they have the ability to either turn the faucet on
Speaker 1: or turn it off depending on who they like and
Speaker 1: what they want at that time. So this is an
Speaker 1: opportunity for us to start to be investing in renewable
Speaker 1: energies in a way that we haven't. And it's a
Speaker 1: because of what money in politics. It's because of big
Speaker 1: oil and big coal that are continuing to put money
Speaker 1: in the pockets of folks like Joe Mansion right and
Speaker 1: many others who decide to put our future needs ahead
Speaker 1: of their present desires to be rich. Right, that's the situation,
Speaker 1: and so here we now have Joe Biden going hat
Speaker 1: in hand to the Saudi Kingdom to bow before a murderer, right,
Speaker 1: somebody who does not believe in democracy, who does not
Speaker 1: believe in accountability, who loves to be as chummy as
Speaker 1: possible with America's own fascist regime, who will come back
Speaker 1: to power in just a handful of months. And we're
Speaker 1: not thinking outside of the box now. Folks will say
Speaker 1: to me, well, Danielle, we are in a state of crisis,
Speaker 1: so we have to deal with the crisis at hand
Speaker 1: and then we can think to the future. Folks, this
Speaker 1: is the same rope a dope that motherfucker's have been
Speaker 1: telling us every single time there is a mass shooting,
Speaker 1: every single time that there is a killing in the
Speaker 1: streets of an unarmed black person, it's never the time
Speaker 1: in that moment to deal with the issue at hand.
Speaker 1: We're either told that we're playing Paul. We're told that
Speaker 1: it's not about race. We're told, oh no, we can't
Speaker 1: talk about renewable energies because we have to deal with
Speaker 1: the immediate oil crisis and the crisis at the pump.
Speaker 1: When is going to be the right time, When is
Speaker 1: there going to be an opportunity for us as a
Speaker 1: nation to say that what we've been doing and what
Speaker 1: we've been relying on is no longer working. So what
Speaker 1: comes next. My fear with this administration, which has been
Speaker 1: my fear before Biden became President of the United States,
Speaker 1: it was when Biden was candidate Biden that he was
Speaker 1: at that time not my number one, two, or third
Speaker 1: choice to be president of the United States. He was
Speaker 1: my number five. And why was that? It's because I
Speaker 1: believe that Joe Biden, while a good person, right, with
Speaker 1: good character, all well and fine, but I believe that
Speaker 1: he is a man. He is a politician from a
Speaker 1: long forgotten past. And how do I know that? Because
Speaker 1: when Joe Biden became President of the United States, he
Speaker 1: thought that, by virtue of his whiteness and the last
Speaker 1: forty years that he had spent in the Senate, that
Speaker 1: he was going to be able to sit down with
Speaker 1: the folks like Mitch McConnell, right, and just hash it
Speaker 1: out over a stake dinner America's future, not recognizing that
Speaker 1: that Republican Party that he had grown up with no
Speaker 1: longer exists. They're a motherfucking cult. And so here's Joe
Speaker 1: Biden instead of coming out of the gate pushing voting
Speaker 1: rights and voting rights alone as a way to secure
Speaker 1: our democracy from our homegrown fascists that are trying to
Speaker 1: move us in the direction of the Putins of the world.
Speaker 1: Instead of doing that, what did Joe Biden find himself doing, Oh, bipartisanship. Bipartisanship.
Speaker 1: We're going to pass an infrastructure bill so that I
Speaker 1: can show America and the world that I can work
Speaker 1: with people who literally try to hang their Vice resident
Speaker 1: on the steps of the Capitol. It makes no sense
Speaker 1: and it makes no sense for us. Instead of putting together,
Speaker 1: I don't know, an emergency task force, instead of saying
Speaker 1: that while we are dealing with this immediate crisis, this
Speaker 1: administration is going to be putting billions or tens of
Speaker 1: millions or hundreds of millions, you know, maybe taking that
Speaker 1: surplus that the Pentagon did not ask for in their
Speaker 1: budget and putting it into renewable energy and clean energy
Speaker 1: resources that are woefully underfunded, so that at some point
Speaker 1: America can start acting like it is in the twenty
Speaker 1: first century. Instead of operating like the good guy from
Speaker 1: Scranton who still believes that there's a bunch of folks
Speaker 1: going to work at construction sites with hard hats and
Speaker 1: a hard lunch pail. Folks, we have got to find
Speaker 1: a way for us to be able to move forward.
Speaker 1: And this move to Saudi Arabia, it ain't fucking it.
Speaker 1: It is not it. And what is troubling me. What
Speaker 1: is troubling me is that one it shows that America
Speaker 1: is in a desperate situation. Right. Desperation is never how
Speaker 1: you go into a negotiation. That's just plain facts. With
Speaker 1: whether you're talking to your partner, your spouse, your child,
Speaker 1: your boss, Desperation is never the way to go into
Speaker 1: a negotiation. But America is desperate because you are seeing
Speaker 1: gas prices around the country that are at four five, six,
Speaker 1: seven eight dollars. I saw in certain areas, and of
Speaker 1: course those are the insane price gougers. But here, folks,
Speaker 1: if we had been making a push, an actual push,
Speaker 1: to renewable energy, to electric cars, to investing in our future,
Speaker 1: we wouldn't still be dealing with the dictators from our
Speaker 1: fucking past. All of these things are connected and they
Speaker 1: drive me insane because I feel as if when I
Speaker 1: saw that headline that I'm like, oh, Biden is not
Speaker 1: set up for this time. He is not set up
Speaker 1: for this moment right, because I am finding that this administration,
Speaker 1: while they have very good intentions and I believe are
Speaker 1: filled with some really good people, are still believing in
Speaker 1: the better angels of the demons that they are facing
Speaker 1: each and every single day, which brings me to the
Speaker 1: world of Disney. So another story that came out this week,
Speaker 1: and I got to tell you remember a couple of
Speaker 1: weeks ago on Woke Wednesday, when I said, do you
Speaker 1: know that the biggest evil that is leading the way
Speaker 1: in our culture war and our political war and the
Speaker 1: fight for our democracy is money in politics? And what
Speaker 1: I said during that work Wednesday is that you have companies, right,
Speaker 1: and moguls who give money to both sides of the aisle.
Speaker 1: They give money to Democrats and they give money to Republicans.
Speaker 1: So why so that they always have somebody that is
Speaker 1: going to be in their pocket, right, And so you
Speaker 1: can't just give money to one side because our pendulum
Speaker 1: political pendulum, swings back and forth, back and forth. So
Speaker 1: come to find out that after death Scantists passes the
Speaker 1: Don't Say Gay legislation that Disney one of the biggest,
Speaker 1: biggest employers in Florida was mum silent on the topic. Right,
Speaker 1: So the heiress of Disney comes out and calls out
Speaker 1: the company for not taking a stand that Disney is
Speaker 1: supposed to be, you know, the most accepting, loving, fun
Speaker 1: loving place on earth, and that should be for all people, right,
Speaker 1: regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity. Well, now,
Speaker 1: after they have been called out publicly, come to find
Speaker 1: out that their tepid response is this that they give
Speaker 1: money to both sides of the aisle, and they are
Speaker 1: not behind any one piece of legislation, but that as
Speaker 1: a whole, yes, they do support politicians, Republicans and Democrats
Speaker 1: who are on differing sides of the issue. What that
Speaker 1: boils down to is, I want to have my cake
Speaker 1: and eat it too. I don't want to offend anyone
Speaker 1: who is in charge, and so I'm just going to
Speaker 1: spread out my money and hope that you all don't
Speaker 1: pay attention to who I'm giving my resources too. Then
Speaker 1: they want it to come out and tout the fact
Speaker 1: that this multibillion dollar industry, this multi billion dollar company,
Speaker 1: gave three million dollars to LGBT organizations. So what we
Speaker 1: should just shut the fuck up then, because Disney, a
Speaker 1: multi billion dollar organization, gave three billion and three excuse me,
Speaker 1: three million within m spread across how many lgbt Q
Speaker 1: organizations And does that counter out the millions, right, the
Speaker 1: tens of millions that you gave out to Democrats and
Speaker 1: Republican politicians. You know, folks, Sometimes I just I want
Speaker 1: things to make sense, and I realize that the more
Speaker 1: that you pay attention, the less sense at all actually makes.
Speaker 1: And I find this really frustrating, right because we as
Speaker 1: people are supposed to matter. Our voice and our vote
Speaker 1: is host to be more valuable and more important than
Speaker 1: companies and corporations. But that can't absolutely that can't be
Speaker 1: the case, right, absolutely not. How could it be because
Speaker 1: we're not providing the tens of millions of dollars to
Speaker 1: fill the coffers and the political action committees of politicians
Speaker 1: on both sides of the aisle. So who do you
Speaker 1: think that they are ultimately listening to? Are they listening
Speaker 1: to their constituents or they're listening to their donors. And
Speaker 1: this is the same thing that we know to be
Speaker 1: true about companies. Do you care about the consumer or
Speaker 1: you care about your shareholder. We all know the answers
Speaker 1: to this question. So I'm confused about how we have
Speaker 1: to continue pretending that the problem, the source, right, of
Speaker 1: all of the issues with regard to our body politic
Speaker 1: right now is in capitalism and our addiction to greed.
Speaker 1: If you were to remove money from the situation, right
Speaker 1: and go back to a place where you capped the
Speaker 1: amount of money right that politicians could receive from companies, right,
Speaker 1: and that you cap that out so that there was
Speaker 1: a level playing field, so that I'm not only having
Speaker 1: my eye on who can provide me millions, right, fucking
Speaker 1: Joe mansion and your yacht and your fucking Maserati that
Speaker 1: you drive around in a state where I think that
Speaker 1: the average the average income is like under thirty thousand
Speaker 1: dollars a year, but you're popping your collar living on
Speaker 1: a yacht, like make it make sense. But those people
Speaker 1: have voted this man back in power at all levels,
Speaker 1: right for the last four decades. The point being is
Speaker 1: that we need to interrogate what is at the source
Speaker 1: of our troubles, right. It isn't just that we are
Speaker 1: hoping that these companies will be benevolent. It isn't just
Speaker 1: that we're hoping that our politicians have morals and shared values,
Speaker 1: because we know that those things are not true. But
Speaker 1: the point is for us to realize, Wait a minute,
Speaker 1: who am I voting in? Where do they get their
Speaker 1: money from? Right? How am I supposed to have a
Speaker 1: voice when they are getting their resources from the NRA,
Speaker 1: from big oil, from big coal, from big pharma like
Speaker 1: Kirsten's cinema. It's so incredibly infuriating to me because every
Speaker 1: time that we take a step forward in this country,
Speaker 1: we take like seventeen thousand steps backwards. And it's why
Speaker 1: we never get anywhere. Why we have Democrats still applauding
Speaker 1: at the same pieces of legislation that they haven't passed
Speaker 1: in ten years. But somehow this year, with a fifty
Speaker 1: fifty split in the Senate, it's going to be the
Speaker 1: magic year that we're going to actually get things done. No, No,
Speaker 1: that is not happening. And now I want to transition
Speaker 1: to a couple of conversations that I had at the
Speaker 1: end of last week and yesterday with folks on the
Speaker 1: Philadelphia station WRUD and then also over in Chicago at
Speaker 1: w v O N. These are two of the last
Speaker 1: remaining black run, black owned radio stations in the country. Now,
Speaker 1: I went on because I go on these networks at
Speaker 1: least once a month to just give a rundown on
Speaker 1: the things that people need to pay attention to. This
Speaker 1: past week, I went on in order to talk about
Speaker 1: the Ukraine and the potential of World War three and
Speaker 1: the fact that Putin is now in control of the
Speaker 1: largest nuclear power plant in Europe, and that should we
Speaker 1: this is the question that was being post Should we
Speaker 1: put racism right? The racism that is being experienced by
Speaker 1: African immigrants and other immigrants of color who are also
Speaker 1: alongside with their white counterparts trying to flee war and
Speaker 1: certain death. Should we put the racism and the discrimination
Speaker 1: that we have seen now finally find its way into mainstream,
Speaker 1: if only for a brief segment, on hold, because quote unquote,
Speaker 1: we have bigger fish to fry. This goes back to
Speaker 1: what I just said earlier. When is the right time
Speaker 1: for us to talk about racism? Think about this? When
Speaker 1: the when is the right time? Is it when over
Speaker 1: three hundred voter suppression laws are rolled out across the country,
Speaker 1: particularly targeting black and brown people. Is it when jerrymandering
Speaker 1: is set up? Is it when we noticed right back
Speaker 1: in was it twenty twenty or twenty twenty one, I
Speaker 1: don't know. The years blurred together when Texas had their
Speaker 1: big snowstorm, you know, the one that Senator Crews decided
Speaker 1: to hop on a plane and go to Cancoon while
Speaker 1: his constituents were literally freezing and were out of water.
Speaker 1: But there, when the power did start to come on,
Speaker 1: it was very clear in what neighborhoods and where it
Speaker 1: was going on, which was in none of the highly
Speaker 1: populated black and brown neighborhoods. They remained in the dark,
Speaker 1: without electricity, without heat, right in these frigid temperatures. It
Speaker 1: wasn't the right time then to talk about race and racism.
Speaker 1: Apparently it was the right time for that brief summer
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty to talk about race and racism and
Speaker 1: systemic racism at that particularly within the police department, when
Speaker 1: we all collectively watched George Floyd lose his life, not
Speaker 1: lose his life, excuse me, had it stolen from him
Speaker 1: right as he was suffocated to death by Derek Chauvin.
Speaker 1: So if these acts, these major acts of war of violence,
Speaker 1: right are not the opportunity for us to talk about
Speaker 1: the underlying issues than when is the time? Because for me,
Speaker 1: there was no better time to talk about global anti
Speaker 1: blackness and the fact that in all honesty, there is
Speaker 1: no place for black people right in throughout the diaspora
Speaker 1: to be safe because whether or not you get accepted
Speaker 1: into foreign elite institutions in order to do study. And
Speaker 1: you think in that time, as many of these African students,
Speaker 1: did you know, I am enjoying my time in the Ukraine.
Speaker 1: These people are lovely. Everything is great until push comes
Speaker 1: to shove, and then you're told to get the fuck
Speaker 1: off of a bus and walk twelve hours to a
Speaker 1: border to be met by white border officials who are like, no,
Speaker 1: not you, not you, not you, black person, brown person.
Speaker 1: You get into the separate line and into the back
Speaker 1: of the bus if you're allowed on the bus at all,
Speaker 1: while we go ahead and tend to the blonde eye,
Speaker 1: to the blonde hair, blue eyed folks that are fleeing.
Speaker 1: So I was on these radio stations and one of
Speaker 1: the gentlemen that I was on with said, and he's
Speaker 1: a black man. David Seaton, one of the stars of
Speaker 1: the Buchanan and Seaton Show on wv O N in
Speaker 1: Chicago said that he did not believe that this was
Speaker 1: racism that we were seeing play out, that he believed
Speaker 1: that it was nationalism that was playing out instead. Now
Speaker 1: I pushed back against that because to me, one, there
Speaker 1: is no difference, right, there is no way that you
Speaker 1: look at what is happening in the Ukraine or what
Speaker 1: was happening in mainstream media what continues to happen where
Speaker 1: they are going through and showing you these stories of
Speaker 1: people that are fleeing, children that have no home, people
Speaker 1: that are sleeping in subway stations, folks that are trying
Speaker 1: to get out, and you're showing this perspective of for
Speaker 1: the public to invoke empathy. But what Aim and Mohadeen
Speaker 1: had said on MSNBC over the weekend is that if
Speaker 1: you were to look at the world map, we have
Speaker 1: a global refugee crisis in Syria, Afghanistan, Yemen, Ethiopia, Ukraine,
Speaker 1: Venezuela like it isn't just in Europe. And so if
Speaker 1: we can't have honest conversations one about coverage and then
Speaker 1: two about racism versus nationalism, then what are we doing
Speaker 1: and why why do we find ourselves contorting ourselves into
Speaker 1: all of these different machinations in order to say that
Speaker 1: something isn't racism when we know obviously that it is.
Speaker 1: So the question then was posed to me, and I
Speaker 1: want to pose it to all of you, and you
Speaker 1: tell me in the comments section what you think about this.
Speaker 1: The question was, Danielle, if war breaks out in America right,
Speaker 1: which you know I have said is a definite possibility,
Speaker 1: and that Ukraine is foreshadowing not for us to have
Speaker 1: an outside foreign invasion, but for us to have these
Speaker 1: homegrown fascist white supremact cells do what they did on
Speaker 1: one six all over cities around the country, right, just
Speaker 1: like they did in Michigan, to take over state capitals,
Speaker 1: to take over Washington, d C. In the way that
Speaker 1: Ottawa was taken over in Canada. These things can happen.
Speaker 1: So he said, Danielle, if this were to happen in
Speaker 1: the United States, and the United States is prioritizing American
Speaker 1: citizens to get out of Dodge, is that wrong? And
Speaker 1: I said yes, right, because here's the thing. No one
Speaker 1: is checking passports right of these people when they're coming
Speaker 1: on to the buses in the Ukraine and they're saying
Speaker 1: you you, and you get off right, they're making the
Speaker 1: assumption based on skin color, which is what I'm assuming
Speaker 1: America would do. It would be white people first, not
Speaker 1: women and children. White people first, and then everyone else
Speaker 1: gets to be crabs in a barrel for how they're
Speaker 1: going to get off of the Titanic. That's exactly how
Speaker 1: it would play out in America and how things have
Speaker 1: always played out. So I'm confused about how we want
Speaker 1: to pick apart nationalism right versus racism when we know
Speaker 1: that in America in particular, there is no fucking difference right,
Speaker 1: because you remember that Donald Trump's entire mantra and Trumpism's
Speaker 1: entire mantra was about making America great again. The underlying
Speaker 1: real mantra make America white again. Somebody brought up another
Speaker 1: interesting point over the weekend, and I never really thought
Speaker 1: about it, And I know we're going to be having
Speaker 1: a conversation later in the month with my friend Danielle
Speaker 1: Campamore from the Today Show. Today's show writer an abortion
Speaker 1: activists to talk about abortion and where we stand, which
Speaker 1: is not in a great place. Being as how. One
Speaker 1: of the other things that transpired at the end of
Speaker 1: last week was Florida's bill to ban abortions after fifteen
Speaker 1: weeks when a majority of people with US says don't
Speaker 1: even know that they are pregnant. Right, And they make
Speaker 1: no exceptions, not for incests, not for rape, not for anything,
Speaker 1: not for human trafficking. Right, And you are trafficked and
Speaker 1: you are pregnant because you've been repeatedly rape in Florida,
Speaker 1: they do not care. Republicans in Florida are making The
Speaker 1: Handmaid's Tale look like a Disney show. Okay, So the
Speaker 1: reality that we are facing, and this was the thing
Speaker 1: that was posted on Twitter, and I think that it's
Speaker 1: interesting is that anti abortion laws are not that are
Speaker 1: crafted by these white men, are not really for black
Speaker 1: and brown people. This is what was said. This is
Speaker 1: not what I'm saying. This is what was said to
Speaker 1: me on Twitter, is that it is to the underlying
Speaker 1: reason for anti abortion law is to do what force
Speaker 1: white women into birth. Because the numbers the white population,
Speaker 1: as we know by through the demographic shift that is
Speaker 1: going to take place in twenty twenty fifty, depending on
Speaker 1: what metrics you're using, their numbers are dropping. So how
Speaker 1: do you preserve or bolster the number of white children,
Speaker 1: white people being born? Well, you enforce a um anti
Speaker 1: abortion policy. Now, I have argued the opposite actually, which
Speaker 1: is that who anti abortion laws hurt are black and
Speaker 1: brown people because they are, by comparison to their white counterparts,
Speaker 1: coming from more low income backgrounds. So while white women
Speaker 1: can say, Okay, I need an abortion, I can hop
Speaker 1: a plane, get on a bus and go a couple
Speaker 1: of states over. I can call out of work right,
Speaker 1: or because I work from home, I can make the
Speaker 1: arrangements that I need in a state where I will
Speaker 1: have access to That is all about access and about wealth.
Speaker 1: So for me, is our anti abortion policies really steeped
Speaker 1: in white supremacy? I would say that there is a
Speaker 1: deep possibility right that one of those check marks and
Speaker 1: checkpoints is in fact to bolster up right the white race. Now,
Speaker 1: I want to go back to Donald Trump for a moment,
Speaker 1: because if you remember, and I know that we all
Speaker 1: are trying desperately hard to forget, but if you remember
Speaker 1: when Donald Trump was president and he referred to African
Speaker 1: nations as shiitthhole countries, and he said that you know,
Speaker 1: why can't we get you know, grants from good places
Speaker 1: like Norway, right, which, again blue eyes, blonde hair. It's interesting, right,
Speaker 1: who America decides to open its doors to in terms
Speaker 1: of immigration and who it doesn't, who they have empathy for,
Speaker 1: and who they ship back home. And again, this is
Speaker 1: not one party or the other, because what I reminded
Speaker 1: folks of over the weekend is that it was Joe
Speaker 1: Biden who emptied out the refugee camps where thousands of
Speaker 1: Haitians who were fleeing both the earthquake disaster that struck
Speaker 1: killed thousands of people on top of that, COVID ravaging
Speaker 1: the country, on top of that the assassination of their president.
Speaker 1: So folks in desperation by in mass were fleeing to
Speaker 1: the shores of the United States. But then under a
Speaker 1: Democrat administration, we're not given the opportunity to seek asylum. Right.
Speaker 1: They weren't even held to say, okay, we're going to
Speaker 1: process these people. No, they were all picked up. The
Speaker 1: areas that they had camped out in were cleaned up,
Speaker 1: and then those people were disappeared, presumably put on some
Speaker 1: cargo planes and dropped right back off to where they
Speaker 1: had come from. Do you think that that would have
Speaker 1: happened if they weren't from Haiti? Do you think that
Speaker 1: that would have happened to any other group of refugees. No,
Speaker 1: it wouldn't have. And I think again, we didn't decide,
Speaker 1: as in the mainstream media, to go in and do
Speaker 1: real investor litigation into what is happening in Haiti and
Speaker 1: why people are fleeing and what responsibility the United States
Speaker 1: has to bear for the current political and economic climate
Speaker 1: of the country. No, we didn't go and do a
Speaker 1: series of investigative reporting and show families and talk to people. No,
Speaker 1: because we don't care. Because when we see areas of
Speaker 1: the world right that are inhabited by black and brown people,
Speaker 1: the assumption is made on just exactly what was said
Speaker 1: on BBC, CBS and others. Well, you know, they don't
Speaker 1: have Starbucks, they don't have Instagram like we do. You know,
Speaker 1: these are middle class people, so we must empathize with them,
Speaker 1: because it's not Afghanistan or Syria where we just expect
Speaker 1: people to live a certain way. They said the quiet
Speaker 1: part out loud, and I will say the quiet part
Speaker 1: out loud, which is that we don't actually care, regardless
Speaker 1: of political party, about people who flee war, famine, drug cartels, right,
Speaker 1: unless they look a certain way and that certain way
Speaker 1: is white. And one of the things that I was
Speaker 1: said to said to me was it's impossible for us
Speaker 1: to care about everything right. That is impossible for us
Speaker 1: as global citizens to put our attention to everything in everywhere,
Speaker 1: and it's impossible for mainstream media to do so. My
Speaker 1: pushback again is that if we are going to be
Speaker 1: picking and choosing, why can't those that we are empathizing
Speaker 1: with have brown skin sometimes? Why can't we also tell
Speaker 1: their story? Why can't we look for the shared humanness
Speaker 1: that we all have regardless of what our homes and
Speaker 1: our communities look like. That's the thing that gets me
Speaker 1: about the situation in the Ukraine's watching these reporters say, well,
Speaker 1: they look just like us. So because people in Yemen
Speaker 1: and Afghanistan and Ethiopia don't look like the quote unquote
Speaker 1: mainstream we can't empathize with the plight of a mother
Speaker 1: with children on her back, leaving everything that she knows
Speaker 1: in order to flee genocide. We as parents, as humans like,
Speaker 1: can't empathize with that because we don't share the same
Speaker 1: Starbucks and soul cycle routine. Like I'm just fucking confused, right,
Speaker 1: and I find it disgusting. And so again I will say,
Speaker 1: there is no right time to talk about systemic racism.
Speaker 1: There is no time right time to talk about anti blackness.
Speaker 1: Right it is genuinely when it is unfolding on such
Speaker 1: a large scale that we can't turn away from it.
Speaker 1: So for me, there's no time like the present. And
Speaker 1: is it because I believe that it's going to be
Speaker 1: ever eradicated? No, I don't, But I believe that you
Speaker 1: can place accountability and responsibility on people to do better.
Speaker 1: You can hold those that abuse and oppress people to
Speaker 1: the highest of standards and make examples of them so
Speaker 1: that people begin to think twice. But we don't do
Speaker 1: that because again, we move and operate under the assertion
Speaker 1: that some people are deserving of empathy and sympathy and
Speaker 1: others just are not. And we need to interrogate why,
Speaker 1: why have we allowed that to be the case? Why
Speaker 1: is that okay should not be and whether or not
Speaker 1: you know? And here was another thing that was said
Speaker 1: about the African immigrants or African students as a whole
Speaker 1: fleeing Ukraine was well, why didn't Nigeria, where a lot
Speaker 1: of the students are from, why didn't Nigeria as a
Speaker 1: country get itself together to get the people to get
Speaker 1: their country men and women out of harm's away. And
Speaker 1: you know, again I said, I agree. I agree with
Speaker 1: the fact that there was miscalculation on the part of
Speaker 1: the Nigerian government. But at the same time, why is
Speaker 1: it always the onus on the oppressed as opposed to
Speaker 1: the oppressor, Like and there was another conversation about being
Speaker 1: able to insulate ourselves from racism, like if Nigeria had
Speaker 1: just stepped up and took care of their people, then
Speaker 1: they would not have experienced the racism, and so they
Speaker 1: should have insulated their people from white supremacy. There is
Speaker 1: no insulation from the matrix of white supremacy. It literally
Speaker 1: is everywhere. There is no way to steal yourself against
Speaker 1: anti blackness, right because I would say to you, oh,
Speaker 1: just stay in your home, but you can be shot
Speaker 1: dead and there. Right. So the assumption again that if
Speaker 1: we that to me, boils down to respectability politics, if
Speaker 1: we just dressed the right way, act the right way,
Speaker 1: then somehow we can insulate ourselves from the abuser. And
Speaker 1: that is false, That is a lie. And I really
Speaker 1: want us in this moment as people who care about
Speaker 1: other people to not let this shit slide and say, oh, well,
Speaker 1: we have bigger fish to fry. There is always bigger fish, right,
Speaker 1: There's always something else. And the fact that we keep
Speaker 1: sweeping anti blackness and white supremacy under the rug is
Speaker 1: how we are at the place and point that we
Speaker 1: are in American history and life. The same tactics are
Speaker 1: being used with different technologies and tools, but the goal
Speaker 1: is still the same to keep those black and brown
Speaker 1: people on the bottom, trapped at the bottom, so that
Speaker 1: life can be easier and more comfortable for white people.
Speaker 1: I'm not making this up, folks. It's the reason that slavery,
Speaker 1: the slave trade was started. All these white folks. They
Speaker 1: didn't want to do the work. They didn't have the
Speaker 1: power or the numbers or no. They wanted lives of leisure.
Speaker 1: So it's easier to bring in people, say that they
Speaker 1: are subhuman, work them to death because for you, their
Speaker 1: equipment and not human beings. Right, so that you could
Speaker 1: be comfortable take that same frame of thinking and apply
Speaker 1: it to today's world. Right, it hasn't changed, and it's
Speaker 1: because we've never interrogated it, we've never challenged it, we've
Speaker 1: never held people accountable or companies accountable for how they
Speaker 1: have abused black and brown people. And so no, folks,
Speaker 1: there is never a quote unquote right time. It is
Speaker 1: always the right time to do the right thing. And
Speaker 1: I just think that we have moved so far away
Speaker 1: from that that it's so much easier to blame everybody
Speaker 1: else than what is sitting right in front of us,
Speaker 1: you know, which brings me to the really troubling story
Speaker 1: right now of Britney Griner, who is a WNBA player
Speaker 1: who the world just learned over the weekend has been
Speaker 1: detained in Russia for the last month. And why has
Speaker 1: Britney been detained Because Russian officials are saying that there
Speaker 1: was some vape containing THHC containing marijuana found in her
Speaker 1: luggage as she was being moved through security, and so
Speaker 1: they detained her. No one knows from when, no one
Speaker 1: knows where she's being held. And now Brittany Griner, w
Speaker 1: NBA player, has become a political pawn in this larger
Speaker 1: geopolitical fucking war games that are being played right now.
Speaker 1: And I fear for her. Why do I fear for her?
Speaker 1: She's a black woman, and she is an out black
Speaker 1: lesbian in a country that has had killed the gay bills,
Speaker 1: right with a dictator who is turning on his own
Speaker 1: fucking people and has arrested thousands upon thousands of people,
Speaker 1: going to send them into somebody's work camp because they
Speaker 1: are protesting his war of aggression with their neighboring country
Speaker 1: where they have family and friends. I worry for her
Speaker 1: because what is this administration going to do? Her, along
Speaker 1: with several other Americans, have been in Russian prisons for
Speaker 1: years and right now we're not on speaking terms with
Speaker 1: this maniac. So what is happening to Brittany Griner? What
Speaker 1: will happen to her? We do not know because until
Speaker 1: this past weekend, no one even knew, aside from her
Speaker 1: family and her teammates, that she had been detained. I
Speaker 1: think that we are going to hear more of these stories.
Speaker 1: There are going to be more pawns in this larger game,
Speaker 1: and I am very concerned. I am very concerned about
Speaker 1: her safety, about her emotional well being. And that is
Speaker 1: a story that we are going to continue to follow
Speaker 1: here on Woke af That is it for me today. Friends,
Speaker 1: As always, power to the people and to all the people. Power,
Speaker 1: get woke and stay woke as fuck,