Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to wok F Daily with
Speaker 1: Meet your Girl Danielle Moody, recording from the Home Bunker.
Speaker 2: Folks, I'm coming to you.
Speaker 1: Today from a place of struggle, from a place of
Speaker 1: feeling complicit in the compartmentalization that we do as citizens
Speaker 1: of this country, where we acquiesce to the little that
Speaker 1: we get from our government and justify the wrongs that
Speaker 1: are committed in our name or committed truly in the
Speaker 1: name of capitalism, greed, and patriarchy. But we do so,
Speaker 1: and then we tell ourselves. I feel that at well,
Speaker 1: change takes time. Change is slow, justice is slow. The
Speaker 1: arc is long, but it bends towards justice. Is everyone's
Speaker 1: favorite quote from Martin Luther King Junior. And today I
Speaker 1: don't know. I am speaking to you as I prepare
Speaker 1: to head to Washington, DC to attend a Pride event
Speaker 1: at the White House, and I was trying to decide
Speaker 1: whether or not I was going to share publicly that
Speaker 1: I was going to attend the Pride event at the
Speaker 1: White House. And then I realize that if I'm keeping
Speaker 1: it a secret, or I'm just not sharing it in
Speaker 1: the way that I share most of things that I
Speaker 1: do around work, then that means something deeper. I woke
Speaker 1: up this morning and was really wondering whether or not
Speaker 1: I was going to go. And there are so many reasons.
Speaker 1: There were so many reasons that I talk about on
Speaker 1: this show. But when I received the news that Representative
Speaker 1: Jamal Bowman lost his primary race to APAC, backed basically
Speaker 1: of Republican Light George Latimer, who was endorsed by Hillary
Speaker 1: Clinton among other Establishment Democrats, is pro Israel, which means
Speaker 1: to me, your pro genocide. I was disgusted because this
Speaker 1: is what special interest groups with a lot of fucking
Speaker 1: money and a lot of fucking power do. They thwart
Speaker 1: the will of the people in order to advance their
Speaker 1: own interests. That race had nothing to do with the
Speaker 1: district that Bowman has been representing. It had nothing to
Speaker 1: do with the people in that district. It had everything
Speaker 1: to do with using power and influence to silence those
Speaker 1: that you don't agree with on an issue that honestly
Speaker 1: everyone should agree on. Humanity right, how we navigate war, right,
Speaker 1: the rules of a fucking engagement. But APAC, along with
Speaker 1: establishment Democrats, sent a powerful message through Bowman's loss, which
Speaker 1: is shut up and get in line, and if you don't,
Speaker 1: we will dispose of you. And so I struggle with
Speaker 1: going to a pride event at the White House while
Speaker 1: children are starving, while an entire group of people, millions
Speaker 1: of people have been run off their land, blown up, beaten,
Speaker 1: raped and tortured, all in the name of security and safety.
Speaker 1: And I posted on social media that you are never
Speaker 1: going to convince me that any of those acts are
Speaker 1: about securing safety for any one group of people. And
Speaker 1: so I have very little pride in this moment. And
Speaker 1: I reached out to a friend of mine who was
Speaker 1: running down all of the things that the Biden administration
Speaker 1: has done for the queer community, the inclusion of queer
Speaker 1: kids in Title nine, the protections that Biden is trying
Speaker 1: to put forward, all of which frankly, can be rolled
Speaker 1: back right like as soon as Donald Trump would assume
Speaker 1: the White House, all of these executive orders, all of
Speaker 1: these advancements are gone. And so what does it mean
Speaker 1: to have pride in this moment? I really don't know.
Speaker 1: I know that my initial reason for wanting to attend
Speaker 1: the White House Pride event was because, in my heart, folks,
Speaker 1: I honestly believe that this may be the last one,
Speaker 1: and I want I wanted to experience the White House
Speaker 1: with my friends, with my community for potentially the last time.
Speaker 1: And I feel selfish in wanting to do that. I
Speaker 1: feel complicit in the violence, in the greed, in the
Speaker 1: dehumanization that is happening. But honestly, I just I find
Speaker 1: myself today at a loss.
Speaker 2: We are waiting.
Speaker 1: By the time that you listen to this, the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court could have decided that Donald Trump is immune and
Speaker 1: presidents are immune from persecution for crimes committed while in office.
Speaker 1: They're taking up a case that they will hear whether
Speaker 1: or not trans youth and trans people should receive the
Speaker 1: medical treatment that they need to live full and complete lives.
Speaker 1: If your life has never been on the line, if
Speaker 1: you have never waited with anxiousness and dread as a
Speaker 1: group of unelected black robes decide whether or not you
Speaker 1: are worthy, you are part of a privileged class. I
Speaker 1: just feel like everything around us is crumbling so quickly.
Speaker 1: It's like trying to hold water in your hands, and
Speaker 1: everything is just seeping through the cracks everywhere. Power, privilege,
Speaker 1: and whiteness are winning. And so what does it mean
Speaker 1: to just want to pretend for two hours that we
Speaker 1: are safe, that we are okay, that we have the
Speaker 1: means to ride out this dark tempest that we're in.
Speaker 1: I don't feel celebratory. I don't feel hopeful. And I
Speaker 1: know that my ancestors experienced far fucking worse, and there
Speaker 1: are people alive right now that are experiencing the unimaginable.
Speaker 1: So what do we do?
Speaker 2: I don't know. I don't know.
Speaker 1: We are set to celebrate as a country our independence.
Speaker 1: It seems laughable, it seems ridiculous. But do we continue
Speaker 1: to celebrate small incremental victories, small incremental change moments while
Speaker 1: continuing to toil for the greater good? But if this moment,
Speaker 1: if this primary loss by Bowmen is foreshadowing, this is
Speaker 1: why Biden is making the decisions that he's making. They
Speaker 1: spend twenty million dollars to oust a progressive black man
Speaker 1: from office, They'll spend billions to do that for the presidency.
Speaker 1: And so the politics, the dark, fucking evil politics that
Speaker 1: are at play, it's just a lot. And it's like,
Speaker 1: do we allow this administration to continue the political maneuvering
Speaker 1: that they're doing because they know that a pack and
Speaker 1: other APAC backed organizations and foundations and super wealthy billionaires
Speaker 1: will oust him. Because at the end of the day, folks,
Speaker 1: Joe Biden's going to be fine, right, He's a wealthy,
Speaker 1: white powerful man in America. If he doesn't regain the presidency,
Speaker 1: he'll be fine.
Speaker 2: He'll live out his you know, sunset years.
Speaker 1: Okay, it is the rest of us, and it is
Speaker 1: the horrendous non choices that we are really being dealt.
Speaker 1: It is hard, hard pills to swallow when you recognize
Speaker 1: that you are backed into a corner and the only
Speaker 1: way to get out is to fight our way out
Speaker 1: with everything that we have. Because these people, their pockets
Speaker 1: are bottomless, their lies are endless, their power and reach
Speaker 1: no no bounds. All we have left is the community
Speaker 1: that we built, that we continue to nurture and lift
Speaker 1: up and push forward.
Speaker 2: So today I.
Speaker 1: Am headed to the White House to remind myself in
Speaker 1: many ways what is at stake, and to try and
Speaker 1: get the courage, the faith, the resilience to continue pushing forward.
Speaker 1: The months ahead just feel so insurmountable, but it is
Speaker 1: always impossible until it is done. Coming up next, my
Speaker 1: conversation with our friend, our in house doctor, doctor Jonathan Metzel.
Speaker 1: We talk about a recent piece that was written by
Speaker 1: the Surgeon General on naming gun violence in this country
Speaker 1: is a public health issue, which is exactly what Jonathan's book,
Speaker 1: whose latest book, What We've Become, is all about, is
Speaker 1: how we need to reframe and how public health may
Speaker 1: not be the framing that is needed. That conversation is
Speaker 1: coming up next, folks. You know that whenever we have
Speaker 1: the opportunity to sit down with our in house doctor,
Speaker 1: doctor Jonathan Metzl, we are always always thrilled and honored.
Speaker 1: And I will say, dear friends, I know Jonathan lied
Speaker 1: to you last week when he said that this week
Speaker 1: we were to talk about rainbows, puppies and sprinkles, But
Speaker 1: unfortunately wrong country for that. We're not in Finland, Norway
Speaker 1: or someplace else that seems nice and safe.
Speaker 3: Let me say one thing about this. I appreciate that.
Speaker 3: You know. It's funny because like I'm in New York
Speaker 3: for the summer and I have all these Fox News
Speaker 3: watching friends or people I know in Tennessee or something
Speaker 3: like that, and when they're here I'm in New York,
Speaker 3: They're like, oh my god, you know you people must
Speaker 3: be having tires burning in the streets and like you
Speaker 3: must be at the barricades every day or something like that.
Speaker 3: And so I do think there's a rule for like
Speaker 3: cheerful conversation. And I've been tweeting. Actually I've been walking
Speaker 3: on New York and like take like, I walk down
Speaker 3: my block the other day and there was there's this
Speaker 3: thing called like Opera in the Streets or something, and
Speaker 3: they had a stoop. They had a concert on the
Speaker 3: stoop where they were like these beautifully it's just incredible
Speaker 3: opera voices, singing arias, and like everybody was out there
Speaker 3: with like their kids and their families. And then I
Speaker 3: walked another block away and there was a steel drum concert.
Speaker 3: They were doing like all these covers on steel drum
Speaker 3: and everybody was dancing. So I've been tweeting like here's
Speaker 3: what Fox News doesn't show you. It's just like how
Speaker 3: great it is here is there?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's just like and I appreciate that you do
Speaker 1: that because anytime that I see somebody like tweet something,
Speaker 1: I mean, you're saying that these are you like your friends.
Speaker 1: But I'm like, anytime that I have somebody that tweets
Speaker 1: that I see that tweets something stupid about New York.
Speaker 1: I always tweet like a picture like from where I am,
Speaker 1: like if it's at the park, or if it's like
Speaker 1: walking and passing like eighty seven strollers like on you know,
Speaker 1: like it's just it's so I'm like, I'm I would
Speaker 1: be more terrified to spend the summer in Tennessee and
Speaker 1: I would ever be to spend the summer in New York.
Speaker 3: It kind of works because I remember we talked about
Speaker 3: this with Tennessee, and like in Tennessee there's like I
Speaker 3: have friends who DJ'ed Bonnerou last week and there's like
Speaker 3: a fun concert happening tonight, and like it's just funny.
Speaker 3: How like we lived through these stereotypes which make us
Speaker 3: like yeah, fear each other, and it's so manipulated. I mean,
Speaker 3: I can't say this too much, but I know some
Speaker 3: people at one of the very conservative media outlets, and
Speaker 3: I know them like socially. I mean, I don't know
Speaker 3: that like we're not friends or anything. But we were
Speaker 3: out of reception a couple of weeks ago with some
Speaker 3: of the Fox News hosts, Oh my god, and they
Speaker 3: were like yacking it up and everybody was like getting
Speaker 3: along and stuff like that, and then it was in Chelsea.
Speaker 3: Everybody went out with like everybody's strollers, like acuge group,
Speaker 3: people went for dinner, went for drinks, and then the
Speaker 3: next day they were on Fox News saying it's a
Speaker 3: hell hole. I'm afraid to like walk outside my door.
Speaker 2: Like let me tell you something.
Speaker 1: You are better than me because I cannot break bread
Speaker 1: with thine enemy like that. That is not a part
Speaker 1: of my personal wook of religion.
Speaker 3: I cannot do it and stuff like it's funny. There
Speaker 3: used to be this thing called Politicon. It was this yeah,
Speaker 3: and it was great. I used to love speaking at
Speaker 3: that thing. I don't think they do in person anymore,
Speaker 3: but it was my favorite thing because like you'd be
Speaker 3: on stage with like every wacket doodle in the world.
Speaker 3: And the funny thing was like there was a panel.
Speaker 3: We did a gun panel, and there was another panel
Speaker 3: on healthcare or somebody else or something like that. And
Speaker 3: if you go in the green room at Politicon, like, oh,
Speaker 3: there's you know, I'm just making this up, but I
Speaker 3: mean and culture yaking it up with like the MSNBC
Speaker 3: host and Joy Read is like talking to like Sean Hannity,
Speaker 3: like it just kind of felt like in the back
Speaker 3: and there used to be this cartoon on the like bugs,
Speaker 3: funny kind of cartoon where like the member, the sheep,
Speaker 3: dog and the wolf would like they'd like get to
Speaker 3: work in the morning. They'd be like, hey, Sam, how
Speaker 3: are the kids? And then they'd clock in and they'd
Speaker 3: beat the crap out of each other for eight hours
Speaker 3: and they'd clock out or something like that. And that's what
Speaker 3: it felt like like in the back room. Everybody was
Speaker 3: just like a normal person. But the market we've created,
Speaker 3: the market rewards people like hating each other, So there
Speaker 3: is a huge market for people thinking.
Speaker 1: But here's what I'll say about that market piece, and
Speaker 1: then I want to transition to the article. I do
Speaker 1: think that there was a time again, and I think
Speaker 1: that that time is well pass gone. I think that
Speaker 1: time was probably fifteen twenty years ago when there was
Speaker 1: more camaraderie in terms of the industry around journalism and media.
Speaker 1: And I think that what has happened is Fox News.
Speaker 1: I think that what has happened is this decision, conscious
Speaker 1: decision that Rupert Murdoch made that was just like they're
Speaker 1: the enemy, right, because I don't ever believe that Democrats
Speaker 1: and you know, quote unquote, because I can't even call
Speaker 1: MSNBC progressive media because it's not. But I think that
Speaker 1: there was a time when mainstream media didn't see each
Speaker 1: other as the enemy. It was Fox News that did
Speaker 1: that and so so out of that spin, then you've
Speaker 1: created this US versus them mentality, and that's what feeds
Speaker 1: their audience, because what they don't want to feed their
Speaker 1: audience is any semblance of the truth, which is that
Speaker 1: to the point of the article I'm about to bring up,
Speaker 1: is that we have more in common than they want
Speaker 1: us to believe. Like, we have more in common and
Speaker 1: want a lot of the same things, but it does
Speaker 1: not serve those in power. It does not serve the
Speaker 1: one percent. It does not serve those systems to bring
Speaker 1: people together. There is more money and there is more
Speaker 1: power for them in divisiveness, and that is what they
Speaker 1: feed on, having turned our politics into a game of
Speaker 1: sport as opposed to like a conversation around ideas. So
Speaker 1: that being said, you, my friend, are featured mentioned in
Speaker 1: a New York Times article that came out in the
Speaker 1: Health section today entitled Surgeon General declares gun violence a
Speaker 1: public healthcre isis doctor Vivek Murthy is calling for a
Speaker 1: multi pronged effort to reduce gun depths, modeled on campaigns
Speaker 1: against smoking and traffic fatalities.
Speaker 2: So what he says here and.
Speaker 1: Then I want to give you an opportunity to give
Speaker 1: your points, Jonathan, But essentially the Surgeon General has said
Speaker 1: this in the article quote, I've long believed this is
Speaker 1: a public health issue. When talking about guns, this issue
Speaker 1: has been politicized, has been polarized over time. But I
Speaker 1: think when we understand that this is a public health issue,
Speaker 1: we have the opportunity to take it out of the
Speaker 1: realm of politics and put it into the realm of
Speaker 1: public health. You disagree on this point. You've written a
Speaker 1: book right which we've talked about what We've Become, that
Speaker 1: talks about reframing this very idea. So set up why
Speaker 1: you disagree with this stance of guns being a public
Speaker 1: health issue.
Speaker 3: Well, thank you. First let me say I do think
Speaker 3: think that by every sense of the word, guns do
Speaker 3: represent a threat to life and well being and health
Speaker 3: that needs public health intervention. So I'm not saying, oh,
Speaker 3: we should not do this. I think we should do
Speaker 3: this right, and there are important ways that calling it
Speaker 3: a public health crisis brings research, and it brings authority,
Speaker 3: and it brings all these ways that we can think
Speaker 3: about addressing this. But for me, the framework really falls short.
Speaker 3: That's the whole argument of my book. And I think
Speaker 3: there are three main ways that I kind of go
Speaker 3: crazy when stuff like this happens. To be honest, not
Speaker 3: again that I don't support it. I mean, if you
Speaker 3: just look at gun related injuries and deaths, it's over
Speaker 3: fifty thousand a year, which is a man made pathogen
Speaker 3: killing that many people in this country and injuring many
Speaker 3: many more. Is something we need to intervene into. But
Speaker 3: there are I think three problems that I talk about
Speaker 3: in the book. Number one is that we convinced America
Speaker 3: that cigarette and faulty seat belts and all these things
Speaker 3: were health risks that the prevention model would work in
Speaker 3: that regard. And so, for example, if you go into
Speaker 3: a into a restaurant anywhere in the country and somebody
Speaker 3: lights up a cigarette, the whole restaurant's going to be like, no, dude,
Speaker 3: you know. Second, if you get into a car and
Speaker 3: somebody doesn't like click it or ticket or whatever, you're like, hey, man,
Speaker 3: we're not driving until you put on that seat belt.
Speaker 3: So we convince people of this, but we haven't done
Speaker 3: that with guns. To understate greatly, I've interviewed so many
Speaker 3: gun owners, and they don't see guns as health risks.
Speaker 3: We failed to convince them. They see guns as protection,
Speaker 3: as protectors, protectors of their family. And that's for a
Speaker 3: bunch of reasons. One is just decades of messaging from
Speaker 3: the NRA, but also the racial history of the United States,
Speaker 3: which coded gun ownership as a privilege of whiteness, and
Speaker 3: so guns carry these different, very historical emotional symbols. And
Speaker 3: so for those reasons, gun owners the people who are
Speaker 3: going to be impacted by any gun policy, not only
Speaker 3: do they are not convinced by the prevention model, they
Speaker 3: kind of feel exactly the opposite, that public health is
Speaker 3: coming for their freedom and liberty, and so just calling
Speaker 3: it a health frame it reinforces the stereotype that often
Speaker 3: non gun owning liberals have, But it doesn't speak to
Speaker 3: the people who are the people who're trying to convince
Speaker 3: to kind of follow the rules that we're convincing. And
Speaker 3: so part of the story for me is, if you
Speaker 3: really want to address guns, you have to address what
Speaker 3: it means to carry and own a gun. You have
Speaker 3: to address the history of whiteness and relationship to gun ownership.
Speaker 3: You have to do all these other factors. You have
Speaker 3: to build out infrastructures and cities to make them safer.
Speaker 3: And we've talked about two weeks ago here and so
Speaker 3: in a way, just for me, the public health frame
Speaker 3: is very limiting. It doesn't do any of those things.
Speaker 3: And so a bunch of liberals, you know, like me,
Speaker 3: cheer and say, finally the Surgeon General is doing a
Speaker 3: report on this. But it's important to recognize that that
Speaker 3: convinces people very often who are already convinced and to
Speaker 3: really intervene here. Its guns are. They're a much bigger
Speaker 3: problem than a public health from there a democracy problem,
Speaker 3: they're an electoral problem, they're a regional problem, a racial problem,
Speaker 3: and public health just doesn't do any of those things.
Speaker 1: When I hear the numbers kind of that were lifted
Speaker 1: up in this reporting, which is that the rates of
Speaker 1: firearm mortality for young people in America is nearly six
Speaker 1: times the rate in Canada, nearly twenty three times the
Speaker 1: rate in Australia, nearly seventy three times the rate in
Speaker 1: the United Kingdom. The Surgeon General's Advisory said that the
Speaker 1: last decade we have seen that unintentional gunshot wounds in
Speaker 1: the cases of children and adolescents, around three quarters of
Speaker 1: the firearms used were not stored and locked. We know
Speaker 1: that the CDC has come out and said recently that
Speaker 1: gun deaths is the number one cause of deaths for
Speaker 1: children in this country. So when the veach murthy, doctor
Speaker 1: Murphy says we need a multi pronged approach, can the
Speaker 1: public health peace be a part of that multi health
Speaker 1: prong or are you saying that no, it can't be
Speaker 1: a part of it. It shouldn't be a part of it
Speaker 1: at all, because it doesn't have the range essentially to
Speaker 1: be able to address the very important points that you
Speaker 1: brought up.
Speaker 3: Well, I of course think, of course there should be
Speaker 3: a public health prong. Of course I went there to
Speaker 3: be safety, and especially in the more preventable causes of
Speaker 3: gun death like mass shootings are very hard to predict
Speaker 3: and prevent, but like gun suicide, if somebody has a
Speaker 3: gun available within fifty nine minutes of having a crisis,
Speaker 3: the rates of gun suicide go up. Child shootings go
Speaker 3: up if people don't lock their guns in safes, all
Speaker 3: these kinds of things. So there are many things that
Speaker 3: I think public health is useful for. So it's not
Speaker 3: like I'm anti public health, but I can say that
Speaker 3: even if we had universal public health tomorrow, we would
Speaker 3: still have many of the same problems that public health
Speaker 3: does not address because guns are not just a health problem.
Speaker 3: That's kind of the argument of my book that guns
Speaker 3: really are a democracy problem. And I say that because
Speaker 3: the NA has used the gun issue to seat lifetime judges,
Speaker 3: you know, thirty five year old judges who have never
Speaker 3: heard a case in some of these appellate courts. They
Speaker 3: use the gun issue to hijack our democracy. And so
Speaker 3: while we were rallying importantly for public opinion shifting around
Speaker 3: public health, the NRA was using the gun issue for
Speaker 3: a totally different agenda, which was anti democracy. And so
Speaker 3: while we were rallying to get to this point about
Speaker 3: public health, their strategy was using the gun issue to
Speaker 3: eat judges, to overturn elections, to overturn the will of
Speaker 3: New York voters, and the Bruin case and the rule
Speaker 3: of you know ore again. Virginia, Ohio, there's a long
Speaker 3: list of voters want things in place about gun safety.
Speaker 3: But because these judges are radicalized, they're overturning not just
Speaker 3: gun laws, they're overturning women's reproductive rights and germandering and
Speaker 3: voting and all these things. So guns were a tool
Speaker 3: that was about power for the right, and the public
Speaker 3: health model was like, let's just all get together and
Speaker 3: save some lives, and that's great. I'm one hundred percent
Speaker 3: before that. We have way too much gun injury and death.
Speaker 3: But if you don't see the bigger agenda of what's happening,
Speaker 3: you could have a warning on every gun in America
Speaker 3: and you'd still have the bigger problem, which is that
Speaker 3: while we were marching about gun safety, the other side
Speaker 3: was using the gun issue to seat judges across the
Speaker 3: country and Supreme Court judges and all these things. So
Speaker 3: for me, the public health frame just doesn't go far enough,
Speaker 3: and we have to as we embrace public help. I
Speaker 3: just think we have to recognize the limitations because you're right,
Speaker 3: all that data about us versus the world, it's unconsortable.
Speaker 3: But it's also true that it's injury and death data
Speaker 3: will not show you the bigger real problem for me
Speaker 3: about guns, which is about, you know, you want to
Speaker 3: understand what gun politics lead to. Read Project twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3: That's that agenda. Read what people are saying about if
Speaker 3: Trump loses the election, what they're going to do, all
Speaker 3: these kind of things. Guns are not just a health problem,
Speaker 3: They're a democracy problem. And to me, that's kind of
Speaker 3: what all my research points toward.
Speaker 1: Does that make sense, Yeah, no, it makes total sense.
Speaker 1: And I think that where my cynicism lies is that
Speaker 1: I am no longer believing that people can be convinced
Speaker 1: that guns are a real issue in this country. Like
Speaker 1: I think that those of us who have won to serious, necessary,
Speaker 1: aggressive gun reforms have just been met with a multi
Speaker 1: billion dollar gun lobby, have been met with politicians that
Speaker 1: we know are bought and paid for with their A
Speaker 1: plus plus ratings from the NRA, And so I don't
Speaker 1: necessarily believe that any convincing of the population which their
Speaker 1: positions and their desire to see change is not going
Speaker 1: to happen with politicians who's gerrymandered districts and a lobby
Speaker 1: that has bought the federal bench. So I'm just like,
Speaker 1: meet my cynicism with possibility right now, I guess is
Speaker 1: the point is what I'm gonna ask Jonathan, because I
Speaker 1: don't see it.
Speaker 2: Can you meet it with passive? Well, it's like really quiet.
Speaker 2: Everybody just never happened, you know.
Speaker 3: Again, We've talked about this a lot. I think that
Speaker 3: in a way we just didn't see what we were
Speaker 3: up against in a way, in a way, public health
Speaker 3: immediately jumped into the fore when nobody else did, which
Speaker 3: is super super important, but it just it wasn't the
Speaker 3: answer to the threat we were facing, right, which is
Speaker 3: that the right recognized that for two centuries in this country,
Speaker 3: only white men could carry guns, and that that was
Speaker 3: a symbol of a right given to white men that
Speaker 3: wasn't given to other people, and carrying a gun in
Speaker 3: public meant whiteness.
Speaker 1: In a way.
Speaker 3: You know, from pre colonial America on down, that white
Speaker 3: men could carry guns to suppress Native or Indian uprisings,
Speaker 3: then slaves running away and all these kind of things.
Speaker 3: The clan rode the night ride night night writers were
Speaker 3: trying to disarm black people who had guns. Black codes
Speaker 3: across the South. So there's a long history of what
Speaker 3: it means to own and carry a gun, which ain't
Speaker 3: about health. It's about power and privilege. And so yes,
Speaker 3: guns are killing and entering way, way, way too many people,
Speaker 3: but guns symbolize power for a lot of people, and
Speaker 3: so calling it a public health problem is not going
Speaker 3: to convince people if it's not also tied to electoral
Speaker 3: reform and judge reform and anti jerimandering efforts and all
Speaker 3: these things. And I guess I'm saying this because the
Speaker 3: right recognized this. They recognize that they had like the
Speaker 3: perfect symbol of what it meant to be a white man.
Speaker 3: You know, nobody's going to take this away. The government's
Speaker 3: not going to take this away, and they have amplified
Speaker 3: this for decades now. And is calling it a public
Speaker 3: health problem going to address that? Or is it going
Speaker 3: to convince the people who are already convinced and marginalize
Speaker 3: the people who are who don't agree with it. And
Speaker 3: so the question is, I don't know for me that
Speaker 3: polarization is the is the bigger problem. I'm not you know,
Speaker 3: in the book, as you know, I talk about a
Speaker 3: lot of ways I think we can address this that
Speaker 3: aren't linked to public health, right making communities safer, creating
Speaker 3: job and green programs, and all these kind of things,
Speaker 3: like looking at the ways in which we can actually
Speaker 3: make public space safer. That's always my answer. I'm a structuralist.
Speaker 3: But you know, again, I hope this does good. I
Speaker 3: really do hope this does good. I'm not rooting against it.
Speaker 3: I'm just saying that I have a whole book of
Speaker 3: counter argument evidence, which is not an answer to what
Speaker 3: you're saying. But I just think that if we don't
Speaker 3: address these bigger issues, we're going to just keep being
Speaker 3: in the same feedback.
Speaker 1: Lop And I guess that that's where the cynicism is,
Speaker 1: and that's where like the frustration, you know, it's like
Speaker 1: my anger, my rage vacillates to cynicism, and like not apathy,
Speaker 1: but just a lack of possibility that we are going
Speaker 1: to see anything change in our lifetimes. I mean, when
Speaker 1: you see a classroom of children, kindergarteners whose names were
Speaker 1: just read out recently at the high school graduation that
Speaker 1: the Newtown children should have been at, but we're murdered
Speaker 1: in classroom and there's no change that happens in this country,
Speaker 1: then like I feel like we've just lost right. And
Speaker 1: I think then that's why so many people will then
Speaker 1: turn around, they will pick up their own guns and
Speaker 1: be like, well fuck it. If I can't beat them,
Speaker 1: we can't beat sent into them. We can't show them
Speaker 1: the you know, And maybe we just should have begged
Speaker 1: those parents to show the bodies of their children, as
Speaker 1: mam Ma Atill did with em at Till's body, right, Like,
Speaker 1: maybe that's what we need because otherwise, you know, you
Speaker 1: have the right calling folks crisis actors and just you know,
Speaker 1: disregarding the lives of our children.
Speaker 3: Well, but also, let me just say that you need
Speaker 3: a long term strategy, right In other words, people, you
Speaker 3: need a long term strategy. If calling this a public
Speaker 3: health crisis more will lead to judges, honestly will it'll
Speaker 3: lead to judges. If it's enough of a wedge issue
Speaker 3: that it'll lead to that, then there is a long
Speaker 3: term strategy, right if exposing the violence, like you're saying,
Speaker 3: we'll do this. But I just think the problem is
Speaker 3: people act like public health is common sense, and that
Speaker 3: is not the case for me. I think if it's
Speaker 3: not tied to a long term strategy in the American
Speaker 3: zero sum political situation, it's just got to lead to
Speaker 3: reproducing the problems and so if public health is tied
Speaker 3: to electoral format, anti gearmandering and all this kind of thing.
Speaker 3: But the issue for me is when I talk to
Speaker 3: public health people a lot of times I'm like, oh, no,
Speaker 3: that's politics. We're a political and I'm like, dude, this
Speaker 3: is a political issue, and so it's got to be
Speaker 3: you know, if this leads to more political engagement that
Speaker 3: is about the judiciary, then count me in one hundred percent.
Speaker 3: It's more just when people start calling public health common sense,
Speaker 3: that's I think we're being into trouble because it's not
Speaker 3: common sense for the people you're trying to convince to
Speaker 3: follow your rules.
Speaker 1: All right, my friend, we will leave it there today
Speaker 1: and pick it up again next week.
Speaker 2: Always always appreciate.
Speaker 3: Week as a restaurant and movie week.
Speaker 1: So it's going to be a bunch of sad documentaries.
Speaker 1: All right, Appreciate you, my friend.
Speaker 3: Bye, everybody.
Speaker 2: That is it for me today.
Speaker 1: Dear friends on Woke af as always, Power to the
Speaker 1: people and to all the people.
Speaker 2: Power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.