Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to wok F Daily with
Speaker 1: Meet your Girl Danielle Moody recording from the Brooklyn Silarium. So, folks, um,
Speaker 1: I want to take some time today to pick up
Speaker 1: where I left off on yesterday's Woke Wednesday with my
Speaker 1: conversation about Whoopie Goldberg and her recent suspension from ABC
Speaker 1: given her comments about the Holocaust. Now, I really am
Speaker 1: having a lot of issues with this desire to silence
Speaker 1: people and instead of using comments as a teachable moment
Speaker 1: and putting people like Whoopee Goldberg in the same category
Speaker 1: as a Marjorie Taylor Green or Joe Rogan and other
Speaker 1: people on the far radical right who are anti Semites,
Speaker 1: who are racists, who are the tools of white supremacy.
Speaker 1: And the problem that I have is in this country
Speaker 1: we are at a critical juncture right which you all know.
Speaker 1: The desire to ban books, band discussion, band curriculum, to
Speaker 1: suppress votes, to shut women up, to take away their
Speaker 1: ability to choose. All of these things that are happening
Speaker 1: are connected. And the problem that I have is that
Speaker 1: what the right wing consistently does is that they create
Speaker 1: these issues. There's much ado about nothing. They use black people,
Speaker 1: people of color, people from multiple marginalized groups as their
Speaker 1: bad ram, which is the case with Whoopee Goldberg. Did
Speaker 1: Whoopie Goldberg misspeak when she said that the Holocaust was
Speaker 1: not about race? Yes? Do most people believe that the
Speaker 1: Holocaust was more so about faith in religion than it
Speaker 1: was about race. Yes, because that's actually what we're taught, right.
Speaker 1: We don't have a very broad understanding of race outside
Speaker 1: of the context of American racism, which is white folks
Speaker 1: over here, black people and then the group of POC right,
Speaker 1: the POC blob that we put over there. And so
Speaker 1: there was an opportunity and continues to be an opportunity
Speaker 1: not to suspend Whoopee Goldberg as if she had said
Speaker 1: something or spreading lies or misinformation in a vindictive, manipulative,
Speaker 1: cruel and intentional way, as opposed to let me, as
Speaker 1: you know, the executive producer of The View or the
Speaker 1: network of ABC, model for America, how we have difficult conversations,
Speaker 1: how we don't see each other as the enemy or
Speaker 1: as the villain, but instead can see this as an
Speaker 1: opportunity to expand conversations about anti Semitism, about the about
Speaker 1: the construct of race, right, and how we how it
Speaker 1: is used, how it is used as a tool for
Speaker 1: a white supremacists to be able to pit, marginalize and
Speaker 1: oppress groups against each other while they reign supreme right like.
Speaker 1: And so when we are seeing right now these what
Speaker 1: is happening in Virginia with junkins Virginia and the desire
Speaker 1: to ban curriculum it under the guise of parental control,
Speaker 1: but it is what is it at its core, the
Speaker 1: ability to erase and whitewash history and present white people
Speaker 1: the Christian faith in a particular light while ignoring, demeaning,
Speaker 1: or just fully invisibilizing everyone else who had a part
Speaker 1: in the American story right, in creating the American narrative. Right,
Speaker 1: White people don't own that. Right, Christian people don't own that.
Speaker 1: And so here we have this situation that has been
Speaker 1: in my humble opinion, and I will use my co
Speaker 1: host on democracy is washahat Ali, which if you're not
Speaker 1: listening to Democracy Ish, which comes out today on all
Speaker 1: of the podcast platforms, you should. It's a weekly conversation
Speaker 1: that I have with the brilliant washahat Ali, And he said,
Speaker 1: you know what, white supremacy wants is for those of
Speaker 1: us that are melanated, those of us that pray different,
Speaker 1: love different, look different, of these things, to be the
Speaker 1: sidekicks in our own story. Right, that we have no backstory,
Speaker 1: We have no real connection to the fabric of America, right,
Speaker 1: other than being there for white people's entertainment, right, or
Speaker 1: to be their scapegoat, or to be a combination of
Speaker 1: the two. And so I think that this cancelation is
Speaker 1: not something, let's be honest, that probably a majority of
Speaker 1: people from the Jewish faith wanted, right. It was an
Speaker 1: overcorrection by ABC based on the hysteria that was created
Speaker 1: by the radical right as a way to pit I
Speaker 1: believe black people and Jewish people who have had a
Speaker 1: tenuous historical over relationship against one another, and get this,
Speaker 1: guess who gets to win? The white supremacists, right, because
Speaker 1: while we are busy attacking each other, they're reigning supreme.
Speaker 1: You know. The other thing that has come up is
Speaker 1: this conversation around well, look at Joe Rogan and how
Speaker 1: come he's not canceled blah blah, Because the radical right
Speaker 1: does not give a fuck, right, they don't care if
Speaker 1: their people are anti Semitic. They don't care if the
Speaker 1: people are. As a matter of fact, it bodes better
Speaker 1: for them with their red bass and their racist bass
Speaker 1: if they hold up these people as martyrs. Like they're
Speaker 1: looking at Joe Rogan, the one hundred million dollar podcast
Speaker 1: man and saying, oh, they're trying to cancel and silence him.
Speaker 1: He has tens of millions of listeners who are listening
Speaker 1: to the bullshit lies that he is spreading about a
Speaker 1: global health pandemic. He is actually a day danger to
Speaker 1: society at this critical juncture. Right, And yet you have
Speaker 1: Whoopee Goldberg being placed in the same bushel as these
Speaker 1: people that are actively trying to mislead people, to misguide them, right,
Speaker 1: that are actively or rating such horrific stereotypes, right, that
Speaker 1: are leading to the rise in anti semitism and hate
Speaker 1: crimes across the board. And so it's like, why can't
Speaker 1: we have these conversations. Why can't we walk and choo
Speaker 1: gum at the same time. Why is having a misstep right,
Speaker 1: not an opportunity not to punish people, but to teach them.
Speaker 1: And how are we if we're not truly understanding who
Speaker 1: our allies are and who the villains are then, how
Speaker 1: are we fighting this war that the radical right is
Speaker 1: waging against common sense, against truth, against facts right, and
Speaker 1: against everyone who doesn't subscribe to their scarcity white supremacist,
Speaker 1: violent ideology. I'm so confused, folks. And I'm just like,
Speaker 1: and by confused, I mean just pissed off, like I'm
Speaker 1: tired of the bullshit. I really am. I find it exhausting.
Speaker 1: And when I saw Whoopi Goldberg's name trending, I was
Speaker 1: just like, oh my god. She couldn't possibly have said
Speaker 1: something like horrific, right, could she? After all of these years,
Speaker 1: all of this knowing, all of this learning, and when
Speaker 1: I read it and heard it, and again, I am
Speaker 1: not part of the aggrieved community, but I can say,
Speaker 1: as an educator, right that there is an opportunity to
Speaker 1: model conversation right for the purpose of expansiveness and to
Speaker 1: really hone our critical thinking skills as opposed to just
Speaker 1: erasing conversation from the jump set right. Because here's what happened.
Speaker 1: You have a school district in Tennessee which is looking
Speaker 1: to erase the Holocaust from history right from their curriculum.
Speaker 1: What kind of adverse effect is that going to have?
Speaker 1: For these generations of students that will not learn about
Speaker 1: this atrocious period in our history. The not knowing right,
Speaker 1: the purposeful under education and mis education, is going to
Speaker 1: have long term effects on our country. And I don't
Speaker 1: just mean it in the oh, well, we won't know
Speaker 1: about each other. I'm talking about it to our workforce,
Speaker 1: to our ability to be globally competitive. Right. What happens
Speaker 1: when you take away critical thinking, when you don't teach it,
Speaker 1: when you don't teach young people to question, and now
Speaker 1: you hold up others as an example as to why
Speaker 1: you even can't have missteps or ask questions, And then
Speaker 1: what does that do? It allows people to have false
Speaker 1: ideology and false beliefs, right, that are based on stereotypes,
Speaker 1: and just keep them quiet talking to other people that
Speaker 1: think like them, as opposed to exposing them to a
Speaker 1: different way to think, to an expansive philosophy, to a
Speaker 1: deeper understanding of what race actually is and the construct
Speaker 1: and how it has been used as a political tool, right,
Speaker 1: and a violent tool. I just I'm so sick and
Speaker 1: tired of this country. And you know, one of the
Speaker 1: reasons why I had I went into the classroom was
Speaker 1: for this reason. How are we building up a global
Speaker 1: citizen tury? How are we expanding and strengthening the minds
Speaker 1: of tomorrow to become the leaders and the innovators and
Speaker 1: the changemakers right like and the representatives? What does what
Speaker 1: does our country look like? With all of this whitewashing
Speaker 1: and bubblegum education. It's not going to bode well. Coming
Speaker 1: up next, folks, I get into conversation with columnists at
Speaker 1: The Grio, returning guests Michael Harriet to talk about his
Speaker 1: article about Joe Rogan and white boys right and what
Speaker 1: it is that they're able to get away with and
Speaker 1: the conversations that they have that the rest of us
Speaker 1: do not, and whether or not right we should be
Speaker 1: looking to eradicate these people as opposed to figuring out
Speaker 1: how to understand them if there is an understanding to
Speaker 1: be had. It's an interesting conversation that we that Michael
Speaker 1: and I get into, and I'll be excited to hear
Speaker 1: what you all think, So please do let me know
Speaker 1: in the comment section, or tweet me out or hit
Speaker 1: me up on Instagram and tell me what you think
Speaker 1: of the conversation. And you can check out Michael's writing
Speaker 1: at the Grio, The Grio dot com, g Riio dot
Speaker 1: com friends, I am very happy to welcome back to
Speaker 1: wok F Michael Harriet, who is a columnist at The
Speaker 1: Grio and wrote a piece on January twenty first entitled
Speaker 1: the Problem with the Joe Rogan and White Boys. Michael,
Speaker 1: welcome back, and your article hit a lot of nerves
Speaker 1: with a lot of folks and spoke a lot of truth.
Speaker 1: Why is Joe Rogan such a problem? Like? What? Why?
Speaker 1: Other than the fact that he is, you know, thee
Speaker 1: hundred million dollar man for Spotify, he is considered one
Speaker 1: of the most consequential, if not the most consequential podcaster
Speaker 1: on the globe. Um and yet he spreads so much,
Speaker 1: so much misinformation? What is What is your major gripe
Speaker 1: with him and and his followers, who I don't even
Speaker 1: think are as bright as he is. Okay, Well, first
Speaker 1: of all, I wouldn't say that I had a gripe.
Speaker 1: Uh no, I no, no, no, I say I say
Speaker 1: that I have a gripe with Joe Rogan. That's why.
Speaker 1: But I won't put where I do not not. You
Speaker 1: go ahead, well, I'll say that that there is a
Speaker 1: problem with Joe Rogan and I know it seems like,
Speaker 1: you know, people on the Internet will say, well, that's
Speaker 1: just clear bait or that's just you know, somebody trying
Speaker 1: to be hyperbolic. But I really feel like most of
Speaker 1: the problem with Joe Rogan is that he is a
Speaker 1: white dude. Right. So, so when like, first of all,
Speaker 1: let me preface it was said, like, I've listened to hundreds,
Speaker 1: literally hundreds of episodes of Joe Rogan. If you know,
Speaker 1: I'm not a Spotify subscriber. If I was a Spotify subscriber,
Speaker 1: I would probably still be listening to Joe Rogan because,
Speaker 1: you know, as someone who writes about right wing issues
Speaker 1: and racism, I don't think you could write about anything
Speaker 1: if you don't carefully examine and listen to the other
Speaker 1: side without an open mind. But that's not why I
Speaker 1: just I just found him interesting. But even when he
Speaker 1: added people who I didn't agree with on his part,
Speaker 1: guess I will still listening to. And ultimately, what I
Speaker 1: think Joe Rogan is is he's a very curious person,
Speaker 1: right And his podcast is him sitting down with you know,
Speaker 1: someone who he finds interesting and talking to him for
Speaker 1: like three hours. Right, So a lot of times. Many
Speaker 1: of the people who he finds interesting are people who
Speaker 1: are toxic, right. And you know, when you think about
Speaker 1: Joe Rogan, he is a UFC commentator. If you know
Speaker 1: his backstory, you know he was into Tae Kwon Doe
Speaker 1: since he was you know, like a little kiddy. Is
Speaker 1: a pretty liberal person if you you know, listen to
Speaker 1: him a lot. But I think him and a lot
Speaker 1: of people in his audience. You know, if you look
Speaker 1: at the demographics of his audience, and it is predominantly white,
Speaker 1: predominantly young white males, and a lot of those people
Speaker 1: when they have that you know, that affinity for being edgy, right, Um,
Speaker 1: he is a comedian who's known for being edgy, being
Speaker 1: you know, aggressive. A lot of those people are susceptible
Speaker 1: to white supremacist is the same group that like the
Speaker 1: what we used to call the right recruits from, like
Speaker 1: white supremacists, that's who they recruit because they have this danger, uh,
Speaker 1: this this edginess to them that they court danger. You know.
Speaker 1: There there's a friend of mine who is a poet
Speaker 1: who talks about like black people don't need to ski
Speaker 1: down the side of a volcano because we could just
Speaker 1: drive our car pass the police, right, right, right, but right,
Speaker 1: And it sounds like a joke, but in a sense
Speaker 1: like that's the same kind of of danger that they
Speaker 1: lack in their lives that they coat. They it gets
Speaker 1: their heart pumping, you know. And so when you listen
Speaker 1: to Joe Rogan, he will invite these people on who
Speaker 1: have ideas like uh, you know, like uh Graham Hancock,
Speaker 1: who is so called Egyptologists who believes that the Pyramids
Speaker 1: are over five thousand years old. He thinks they're they're
Speaker 1: accurate data is twelve thousand years old. Adds to a
Speaker 1: lot of archaeologists, and they're you know people. He will
Speaker 1: have people on who are just comedians, some of them
Speaker 1: are just as friends, and some of them are people
Speaker 1: who experiment with you know, I tried ayahuasca because of
Speaker 1: Joe Rogan after listening to Joe Rogan, right, and so
Speaker 1: so it's a bunch of disparate interesting stuff. But when
Speaker 1: he gets to talking about race, he really doesn't know
Speaker 1: what he talked he's talking about, and again it's because
Speaker 1: he is a white dude. Right, So you can play
Speaker 1: along or tamper with these toxic ideas and examine them
Speaker 1: in the public view while millions, tens of millions of
Speaker 1: people are listening. Because if you say something wrong, it
Speaker 1: don't affect you, right, right, Like, It's just like to him,
Speaker 1: you know, racism is no different than a pyramid in Egypt, Right,
Speaker 1: it is okay, it's something that interests him, right, and
Speaker 1: he has a lot of different interests. Well, when you
Speaker 1: listen to him talk about race. One of the reasons
Speaker 1: that I had to stop listening to him is because
Speaker 1: not knowing what he talks about, it perpetuates this idea
Speaker 1: to his listeners because just like you know, one of
Speaker 1: the reasons people are now holding him accountable is because
Speaker 1: of COVID. So we will have just regular people on
Speaker 1: who kind of sound smart talking about COVID, and it'll
Speaker 1: be misinformation or disinformation. Well, you know, there are hundreds
Speaker 1: of scientists out here now who are talking about COVID,
Speaker 1: who are giving out the right information. But his listeners
Speaker 1: might not necessarily hear somebody talk that correctly about race. Right,
Speaker 1: So when he says, for instance, and this is the
Speaker 1: exact reason I stopped listenings, I had to turn them off.
Speaker 1: One day, as he was talking about the lawsuit at
Speaker 1: Harvard where Asian students sued Harvard for discrimination, and he
Speaker 1: said that, you know, it's racism, and I was screaming
Speaker 1: at the radio, no, like you don't understand what racism is. Like,
Speaker 1: what they're arguing is that the system that Harvard has
Speaker 1: in place, they adhere to that system, but they it's
Speaker 1: not benefiting them like it benefits white people. But the
Speaker 1: truth is, right, a private institution can structure its submissions
Speaker 1: policy right. And Joe Rogan would know that though, right,
Speaker 1: Joe Rogan would know that when you are considering admitting
Speaker 1: someone to college, and because these Asian students, you know,
Speaker 1: they you know, they alleged that they are being kept
Speaker 1: out of Harvard um to admit like affirmative action, black people,
Speaker 1: hisspatic people. And I want to show them that. You know,
Speaker 1: when you talk about who letting the best students in, right,
Speaker 1: you can't calculate that by SAT scores, right, because the
Speaker 1: study show, like there's a mountain of data that shows
Speaker 1: that the people who earned the most money score the
Speaker 1: best on the SATs. It doesn't really have anything to
Speaker 1: do with how much you know. In fact, students with
Speaker 1: high incomes and whose parents are college graduates tend to
Speaker 1: score the most. It's it's more of a marker of
Speaker 1: how much your parents earned than work. Yeah, it's more
Speaker 1: of class, right of class, and and and access. And
Speaker 1: Asian Americans are the highest earners in America, not excluding
Speaker 1: white people. They earn more on average than white people.
Speaker 1: And the fact is that the most American children, Black children,
Speaker 1: attend schools that are underfunded, most of them. It's like
Speaker 1: sixty six percent of Black children attending majority black schools,
Speaker 1: and majority of black schools are underfunded, are underfunded about
Speaker 1: about two thousand and six and two thousand, two hundred
Speaker 1: and sixty six dollars per student. So you can't discount
Speaker 1: that when you're talking about the best students, right, Right,
Speaker 1: these schools, Black schools generally don't have the resources to have,
Speaker 1: for instance, ap biology program or at ap us history program.
Speaker 1: So you're judging them on a sliding scale, right where
Speaker 1: it is really about money. And we know that the
Speaker 1: SAT doesn't prett predict success in college, right, it just
Speaker 1: predicts the success for the first year. Right, So you're
Speaker 1: you're when you're talking about racism, and this is a
Speaker 1: good example, you're not you don't know what you're talking about.
Speaker 1: You haven't considered all of the factors, because you've got
Speaker 1: to consider this, right, is if a student from a
Speaker 1: majority black, underfunded school gets a thirteen twenty on the
Speaker 1: SAT and an Asian American student gets a fourteen hundred
Speaker 1: on the SAT while attending the best school, the best
Speaker 1: having them being able to afford the best test prep,
Speaker 1: then who is the better student, right, the one that
Speaker 1: had most to overcome and in order to get in
Speaker 1: order to get even remotely close to the score that
Speaker 1: you got easily, right. And it's just like your breakdown
Speaker 1: of that is so important because when we have these
Speaker 1: like arbitrary fifty thousand foot conversations, particularly around college entrance,
Speaker 1: all of those other factors are not taken into consideration
Speaker 1: when we're talking about being quote unquote well rounded, right, Like,
Speaker 1: what is what does that actually mean? So to me, yes,
Speaker 1: that student, the black student at the underfunded school that
Speaker 1: managed to get a thirteen twenty when statistically that was
Speaker 1: going to be like a moonshot, should be the one
Speaker 1: that's lavished with all of the things. Because if you
Speaker 1: were given even half of what the Asian student had
Speaker 1: or the white student had, then that shows me that
Speaker 1: you would be able to leap over them by leaps
Speaker 1: and bounds. Right If if you were watching an Olympic race,
Speaker 1: and you know, the white kid won and the black
Speaker 1: kid was like point zero two seconds behind them, but
Speaker 1: then at the end of the race, after the finish line,
Speaker 1: you realize that the black kid had waited fast on
Speaker 1: his back, then you could all you could say that
Speaker 1: the white kid won, but he wasn't the fastest runner. Now,
Speaker 1: if you were trying to choose the fastest runner versus
Speaker 1: the person who got to the finish line first, those
Speaker 1: are two different things, right, And then you know there
Speaker 1: are so many more things, Like you can't talk about
Speaker 1: education and a silo, right because you have to also
Speaker 1: consider this even if you're not talking about private schools
Speaker 1: like how like Harvard, when you talking about public institutions, Well, Alabama,
Speaker 1: for instance, I attended college at Auburn University, of the
Speaker 1: largest public institution in Auburn, it's four percent black, right,
Speaker 1: So Alabama it's twenty seven percent black. So what that
Speaker 1: means is you're taking all of those black people's tax
Speaker 1: money and giving it to white kids. Right. And you're
Speaker 1: not just doing that in the college, but because you
Speaker 1: do that on the the K through twelve level. You
Speaker 1: can say, oh, man, we just want the best students
Speaker 1: when we get to college, because you gave all of
Speaker 1: the money to the white kids, right, and you and
Speaker 1: you have to consider those things, and you have to
Speaker 1: there's like too many factors to consider to just call
Speaker 1: just to reduce it down to a simple idea a racism.
Speaker 1: Joe Rogan doesn't know these things. But if you don't
Speaker 1: include those things, all of the people listening will say, man,
Speaker 1: they're just letting black kids in because they are black.
Speaker 1: They don't get they don't achieve as much as the
Speaker 1: white students. And there is really that perception. And the
Speaker 1: reason that perception exists is because people they've heard that
Speaker 1: so many times. And then you don't even consider the
Speaker 1: fact that, aside from the educational aspects of it, right,
Speaker 1: and the achievement aspects of it, right, there's the studies
Speaker 1: that show that the people who get in to Harvard
Speaker 1: and Ivy League schools to the biggest loopoles or what
Speaker 1: they call a LDCs. Right. So there's athletic scholarships, legacy students,
Speaker 1: children of faculty and staff, and what they call a
Speaker 1: dean's exception. Right, People, the dean those that have a
Speaker 1: lot of money. Right, those people are disproportionately white. And
Speaker 1: I know you're thinking, well, you know, athleticships, but when
Speaker 1: you think about athletic scholarships, people don't realize that you're
Speaker 1: not really talking about black. White kids get most of
Speaker 1: the athletic scholarships. You got football, basketball, and that's it.
Speaker 1: The tennant scholarships, the golf scholarships, the baseball scholarships, the
Speaker 1: gymnastics scholarships, the soccer team scholarship, all of those are
Speaker 1: going to the white kids. Defensive scholarships at schools like Harvard,
Speaker 1: those are going to the white kids. So the people
Speaker 1: who are really displacing the Asian American students are the
Speaker 1: rich white kids, right, who already have the resources. And
Speaker 1: so talking about this specific topic in a silo, which
Speaker 1: Joe Rogan would do, he doesn't understand and I and
Speaker 1: that's the point of that conversation is when you compare
Speaker 1: it to COVID, right, he doesn't. He doesn't know what
Speaker 1: he's talking about. With COVID. Joe Rogan's was not a doctor.
Speaker 1: So when you invite somebody on to have this conversation
Speaker 1: with Joe Rogan about OVID and they also are not
Speaker 1: a doctor, and they also have this point. But the
Speaker 1: listeners hear a smart person using big birds to talk
Speaker 1: about this this topic that they've thought a lot about,
Speaker 1: then they assume, oh, I heard it, I learned it
Speaker 1: from Joe Rogan. Right, So is it is it, Michael,
Speaker 1: that all of the people, the doctors, the medical professionals.
Speaker 1: I'm just just on this point. Nobody asked for Joe
Speaker 1: Rogan to be removed from Spotify, right, because that that
Speaker 1: is like a huge misnomer. What they asked for was
Speaker 1: a disclaimer before and after the program to essentially highlight
Speaker 1: the fact that much in the same way that I've
Speaker 1: been calling for, you know, the FCC to do with
Speaker 1: Fox News, this is for your entertainment, right, This is
Speaker 1: not for your education, This is not for your betterment.
Speaker 1: And I wonder if, like, is this is this the
Speaker 1: point point to where we are and why he is
Speaker 1: different than let's say, A Howard Stern was thirty years
Speaker 1: before him, right, that like it, it was very evident
Speaker 1: that A Howard was for entertainment, that did the shock
Speaker 1: jock thing, that did all of these things. But he
Speaker 1: wasn't out there sitting down casually having coffee with the
Speaker 1: leaders of the Proud Boys. He wasn't sitting down and
Speaker 1: talking about in vectorm ingesting horse medication. He wasn't talking
Speaker 1: in the midst of a pandemic telling people not to
Speaker 1: actively pursue a vaccination that would keep them well. And
Speaker 1: so is it the fact that we don't we can't
Speaker 1: remove every Joe Rogan from the universe, but that we
Speaker 1: should have a disclaimer, and that would make it better.
Speaker 1: I think a disclaimer would help, But again, Joe Rogan's lists,
Speaker 1: I don't know how mudget would help, because Joe Rogan's
Speaker 1: list really believe that he is quote unquote addressing something
Speaker 1: that you won't hear on the mainstream news or from
Speaker 1: the mainstream media, or that the mainstream media is keeping
Speaker 1: away from you, right Like, just like they believe that
Speaker 1: the you know, the academic world is keeping from you.
Speaker 1: They won't tell you how old the pyramids really are, right,
Speaker 1: They won't tell you that mushrooms won't hurt you. They
Speaker 1: won't tell you that weed is not an addictive drug. Right. So,
Speaker 1: if you hear the stuff about the pyramids, and you
Speaker 1: hear the stuff about mushrooms, and you hit the stuff
Speaker 1: about drugs, and it is for Joe Rogan's intellectual curiosity.
Speaker 1: And then the next program is about COVID or the
Speaker 1: next program is about black people. Then it seems as
Speaker 1: if that he is exploring a topic that has been
Speaker 1: purposely hidden from you. And I don't know how much
Speaker 1: a disclaimer would help, because they would believe they would
Speaker 1: his listeners would automatically say, yeah, that's what they made
Speaker 1: him do. So you because they're censoring him, yeah right,
Speaker 1: not even censoring, like because they don't want you to
Speaker 1: know the real truth, right, They want to make you
Speaker 1: believe that he's just exploring these topics because but it's
Speaker 1: not real, so they put that disclaimer. But we know
Speaker 1: it's real, right, I just I mean, then what are
Speaker 1: we doing? Do you know what I'm saying? Like if if,
Speaker 1: if you can't you can no longer move people out
Speaker 1: of their very narrowed thinking, because they have found a
Speaker 1: voice and a hero in this man, right, and they
Speaker 1: identify with him, and they feel community and connected with him.
Speaker 1: And we're out here trying to fight against the global
Speaker 1: health pandemic, try to fight against the rise of white supremacy.
Speaker 1: And you have no friend or no favor in this person,
Speaker 1: then what are we to do? Like because if it
Speaker 1: if it isn't about the disclaimers and the calling for
Speaker 1: more truthful information or to diversify your guest lists or
Speaker 1: what have you, and there's still this desire to get
Speaker 1: you know, to somehow bring these people out of this
Speaker 1: like cultish like thinking, and that's not going to happen,
Speaker 1: then what like what are we doing? What do you
Speaker 1: think is there is there a solution or is it
Speaker 1: just just to let these people very much go with God? Well? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think, you know, for I think there's always been
Speaker 1: a Joe Rogan in American history right or throughout history,
Speaker 1: whether it is you know, people who believe in white Jesus,
Speaker 1: or people who believe that if you allow black kids
Speaker 1: to go to school with white kids that they'll pass
Speaker 1: along diseases, or they'll rap the little white girls, or
Speaker 1: they hold the kids back right there, They're always been,
Speaker 1: They've always been these people who uh just just spread
Speaker 1: misinformation to appeal to a large white audience. Right, whether
Speaker 1: it's Billy Graham or Russian Limbaugh or you know, there's
Speaker 1: a million names we can we can sit right, Um,
Speaker 1: So I don't know. I think it's on us to realize, Oh,
Speaker 1: there's always gonna be a Joe Rogan, right. Um, I
Speaker 1: don't know if you know, if it's if we can
Speaker 1: sense to him because because the internet exists, right, like
Speaker 1: he was Spotify gave him all that money, but he
Speaker 1: was doing this long before Spotify even existed. He was,
Speaker 1: you know, one of the original three or four podcasts, right, So,
Speaker 1: I don't I don't even know. Sometimes there are sometimes
Speaker 1: times there are no answers, right, yeah, problems right, Like,
Speaker 1: I don't know if there is an answer to a
Speaker 1: lot of the problems that we face today. I think
Speaker 1: what people can do is exactly what you're doing talking
Speaker 1: about them. Let people know that, oh, you know he's crazy,
Speaker 1: right or you know right or some of the stuff there.
Speaker 1: He said he has no idea what he's talking about.
Speaker 1: But I don't think that there is a solution where
Speaker 1: we are going to stop Joe Rogan from reaching people,
Speaker 1: or to bake the people who believe Joe Rogan realize
Speaker 1: that they need to do some because I mean, that's me,
Speaker 1: I'm going to do my own research. Is the reason
Speaker 1: we are even here, right, So, So I don't know
Speaker 1: if there is a clean solution to it. I just
Speaker 1: think we just got to talk about it, and somebody's
Speaker 1: got to say it, you know. I think that, you know, Michael,
Speaker 1: that is so very true and very real, and I'm
Speaker 1: sitting here and I'm thinking, I'm just like, yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe there isn't the clean solution, a solution, the right
Speaker 1: solution to a lot of the things that we are facing.
Speaker 1: And so then the question is where does that leave us?
Speaker 1: Does it just leave us in conversation, does it leave
Speaker 1: people wanting to stick their heads in the sand and
Speaker 1: just forget about it because there is no solution, and
Speaker 1: so whatever happens will happen. Or do we figure out
Speaker 1: in conversation with one another how to mitigate, you know,
Speaker 1: the pain, the cruelty, the frustration, the sadness that we're
Speaker 1: faced with on a day to day basis. I think
Speaker 1: a part of it is, like I am have been
Speaker 1: thinking about writing this piece for a long time about
Speaker 1: you know, even before this Joe Rogan thing rose up
Speaker 1: about you know, voter suppression and police brutality, the and
Speaker 1: with the idea of what if this is just who
Speaker 1: America is, right, like they've always suppressed black voters, police
Speaker 1: in America have always disproportionately killed black people. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: there's always been racism and white supremacy in America, and
Speaker 1: maybe this is who America is like. And instead of saying, man,
Speaker 1: I wish I could figure out a way for me
Speaker 1: to stop it from raining outside, maybe we just gotta
Speaker 1: star every time we got to go outside. We just
Speaker 1: gotta have an umbreast. Right, So we just got to
Speaker 1: know that when we go outside, it's probably going to rain, right,
Speaker 1: And you know, there's going they're going to be racist
Speaker 1: out there. They're going to be there's going to be
Speaker 1: misinformation out there about every disease, right, Like you I
Speaker 1: can remember remember when people thought only gay people got aged, right,
Speaker 1: And we know that's not true now, right, But there
Speaker 1: are still a lot of people who believe that, like,
Speaker 1: if you got age, you must have been you know,
Speaker 1: messed up. And so sometimes it's necessary to put the
Speaker 1: right information out there and the counter it. But you
Speaker 1: do that on the margins knowing that, like, we will
Speaker 1: never stop people from being racist. I don't believe that
Speaker 1: we will ever stop white people from being racist in America.
Speaker 1: I don't think we'll ever stop because it's it's too
Speaker 1: much of an advantage, right, Like, we know that part
Speaker 1: of the reason why Republicans do the things that they do,
Speaker 1: it's not because they believe black people are inherently lesser
Speaker 1: than white people. That's part of it, But part of
Speaker 1: it is it's just one of political advantage, and it's
Speaker 1: expedient to disenfrestize black people because we vote for the
Speaker 1: opposite part. Right. So I don't even know if there's
Speaker 1: a solution except for us to recognize that, oh, this
Speaker 1: is who America is. Right, Like, if you got a
Speaker 1: cousin who steals out of your pocket book every time
Speaker 1: they come to your house, right, you can keep trying
Speaker 1: to find a solution to say, oh, man, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: watch you, or but maybe you should just hide your purpose,
Speaker 1: right right, Oh, I know you're you're right, You're right.
Speaker 1: Maybe yeah, yeah, you can't watch them all the time.
Speaker 1: You can't necessarily always try and change behavior. You can't
Speaker 1: always try and recourse people because we have over centuries,
Speaker 1: over so many goddamn years. Yeah, maybe you just carry
Speaker 1: an umbrella and hide your purse. Like maybe that is
Speaker 1: because you know I say that, you say that, and
Speaker 1: you know it sounds funny, But it's so like otherwise
Speaker 1: I feel crazy. Right, Otherwise it's the craziness of trying
Speaker 1: to write an impossible thing to write, right, do you
Speaker 1: know like you would need it? You need a time machine? Right?
Speaker 1: And not only that, right, but it is trying to
Speaker 1: fight crazy with logic, right, Like you can't talk down
Speaker 1: somebody who believes that, like black people are inferior to
Speaker 1: them because they were born their ancestors were born or
Speaker 1: a certain part of the planet. Right, let them go
Speaker 1: with God. Right, Because if you believe, for instance, that
Speaker 1: black people were forbidden from there were whole legislatures that
Speaker 1: had to write laws that stopped black people from learning
Speaker 1: how to read. And then after slavery, black people built
Speaker 1: all of these institutions to educate them themselves. And then
Speaker 1: black people sent their children to be spent on by
Speaker 1: white people to get an equal education. So if you
Speaker 1: believe that black people don't value education, for instance, there
Speaker 1: is no way that I can talk you down out
Speaker 1: of that illogical, stupid thing that you believe. Right, There's
Speaker 1: no way to fight that kind of elligic. So what
Speaker 1: the only thing there is to do is to, like
Speaker 1: I said, put on a raincoat, hide your prose because
Speaker 1: you know that those people are out there, they're going
Speaker 1: to steal the money out of your pocket book. Michael Harriet,
Speaker 1: let me tell you something. The gems that huge drop
Speaker 1: on a regular basis. I'm like, wow, yeah, put on
Speaker 1: a raincoat. I really yeah. It's like it's it's it's
Speaker 1: a weight lifted off it really, it really is. I
Speaker 1: think that we really need to think about it and
Speaker 1: think about what we're trying to do, what we're doing,
Speaker 1: what we're in conversation for right, and do what what
Speaker 1: can be done and and leave the rest. I genuinely
Speaker 1: appreciate you your writing and the time that you take
Speaker 1: um to join woke FU. Please tell folks where they
Speaker 1: can find you and where they can read more about
Speaker 1: all of these things and really sit with the questions
Speaker 1: that we discuss today. I write for the Grio. I'm
Speaker 1: a columnist at the Grio. I also write a five
Speaker 1: monthly column for the Guardian, and you can find me
Speaker 1: on all social media at Michael Harriot as H E
Speaker 1: L H A R r IoT to RS one. T
Speaker 1: appreciate you, thank you so much, and I hope that
Speaker 1: you will join us again. Of course, that is it
Speaker 1: for me today. Friends, here on Woke f As all ways,
Speaker 1: power to the people and to all the people power,
Speaker 1: Get woke and stay woke as fuck.