Speaker 1: Native Land Pod is a production of iHeartRadio in partnership
Speaker 1: with Reasoned Choice Media.
Speaker 2: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome was that was that
Speaker 2: was of good afternoon, everyone, everyone's, everyone's. I should say
Speaker 2: thank y'all for joining us for our solo pod. For
Speaker 2: those of you all who have been rocking with us
Speaker 2: on this for a couple of for a couple of
Speaker 2: weeks or months, I should say, you know that we've
Speaker 2: been trying to organize this, these particular lives to be
Speaker 2: around well. The process of organizing, how do we movement build?
Speaker 2: How do we how do we bring together people with
Speaker 2: share belief systems who are either excited or agitated by
Speaker 2: the same thing, get us on common accord and uh
Speaker 2: define a clear objective and go after it. And over
Speaker 2: the last couple of weeks, I've been personally involved as
Speaker 2: an alumni of Florida and Universe City and as a
Speaker 2: former member of the university's board of trustees, involved in
Speaker 2: the pushback effort at Florida and M University, which of
Speaker 2: course is the largest single campus HBCU in the country.
Speaker 2: I would argue probably responsible for the production of more
Speaker 2: of Florida's black middle class than any other singular institution.
Speaker 2: But together with our other HBCU partners, the others being
Speaker 2: private throughout the state, and obviously brothers and sisters at
Speaker 2: PWIS as well, you know, I've come together to really
Speaker 2: have significant impact. And of late the university has been
Speaker 2: in an effort to find a new president. Not an
Speaker 2: uncommon thing. However, what does strike uncommon in this situation
Speaker 2: has been the really heavy hand of the far right
Speaker 2: in this state, and frankly, i'd argue, maybe suggest in
Speaker 2: this country to really want to take over the helm
Speaker 2: of Florida m University at every level, wholesale university president,
Speaker 2: chair of the university's board of trustees. You know, we've
Speaker 2: already heard them speak out loud about their efforts to
Speaker 2: purify these campuses, to get rid of certain books, to
Speaker 2: extinguish a way, a certain curriculum, And honestly, I fear
Speaker 2: that in this situation, everything they have already told us
Speaker 2: out loud, everything that they think about us from DEI,
Speaker 2: which they are the masters of right, didn't earn it
Speaker 2: all the way down to what we've seen happen to
Speaker 2: our museums, our books. The Librarian of Congress, who was
Speaker 2: accused by the White House Press secretary of putting improper
Speaker 2: books at the at the Congressional Library, which by the way,
Speaker 2: collects two copies of every single book that has ever
Speaker 2: been copywritten in this country. That's as job. But leasing
Speaker 2: books out to young students that are inappropriate just a
Speaker 2: quick correction, a matter of secretary. The Library of Congress
Speaker 2: does not have an interface with the public subs that
Speaker 2: they can books. They can't check them out, can't get
Speaker 2: a card and go and take books off the shelf,
Speaker 2: take them home and read them. Okay, you have the
Speaker 2: local public library. That's not what the Library of Congress's
Speaker 2: job is. Let's look that up, especially when you're speaking
Speaker 2: from the perch of the presidential podium. That being said, y'all,
Speaker 2: I digress. This is a real serious matter, a serious topic.
Speaker 2: And whether you are a alumnus of an HBCU and
Speaker 2: alumnus of FAM, a supporter of those institutions or support
Speaker 2: specifically at Florida a m university, if you care about HBCUs,
Speaker 2: if you care about the future of the contributions that
Speaker 2: black folks make in this country writ large period, then
Speaker 2: you've got to be paying attention to what's happening when
Speaker 2: they go after again the largest single campus HBCU in
Speaker 2: the country in the top one hundred rated by Princeton
Speaker 2: Review Time magazine. All of the evaluators who put us
Speaker 2: in good company with some of our private HBCU partners,
Speaker 2: really at the top of the heap, and our recruitment
Speaker 2: and retention, graduation and then placement of black people from
Speaker 2: all parts of the world in this country. That process
Speaker 2: at Florida am University has consumed a lot of us
Speaker 2: because we don't just see it as a candidate that
Speaker 2: has not qualified for the position. We see a candidate
Speaker 2: and not qualified for the position. Yes, that was forged
Speaker 2: into a list of finalists of which she was not
Speaker 2: an initial part of. But we also see the play
Speaker 2: behind the play, and even if the candidate that they
Speaker 2: selected is not complicit with it. You've heard of the
Speaker 2: term useful idiots and those of folks who may pursue
Speaker 2: a mission and may not be aware of the mission
Speaker 2: behind the mission. I don't know what it's true about that.
Speaker 2: I don't know what's false about it either, but I
Speaker 2: do know what I hear from Trump. I do know
Speaker 2: what I hear, and I've seen from DeSantis. I know
Speaker 2: that their leadership style is that of a totalitarian leader,
Speaker 2: a dictator of some sort, a strong man, and that
Speaker 2: they both frankly have the same Achilli's heel, which is,
Speaker 2: while they project an image of strength, all powerful, all knowing,
Speaker 2: all seeing, I know very specifically into Santis case, he
Speaker 2: really is a four year old throwing a temper cancer
Speaker 2: when he doesn't have his way. There's some thing strong
Speaker 2: about that. There's nothing strong about strong arming people, using
Speaker 2: the weight and power of the government and taxpayers resources
Speaker 2: to beat people into complicity. See that they do what
Speaker 2: you want them to do well. I've invited a few friends, experts,
Speaker 2: folks who have a relationship with Florida University but are
Speaker 2: expert in other places as well. One of my yes,
Speaker 2: maybe having a few technical problems, so we may bring
Speaker 2: her in a little bit later. I hope Monica is
Speaker 2: able to join us, but right now I want to
Speaker 2: invite on doctor Kanisha Grant, tenured professor at the Howard University,
Speaker 2: a graduate of Florida a M University, a former student
Speaker 2: government vice president at the Campus of fam you Uh,
Speaker 2: and a dear, dear, dear personal friend. Doctor Grant welcome.
Speaker 2: Hopefully we can bring a guest you go, guess you go.
Speaker 2: Hey there, Doc, welcome.
Speaker 3: Hey, hey, thank you for having me. I'm so happy
Speaker 3: to be with you.
Speaker 2: I appreciate that you see. Normally, my good friend doctor Grant,
Speaker 2: as you know, she does the Christian Amanpour and she's
Speaker 2: Al Jazeera and she's doing all the international things. But
Speaker 2: like all good rattlers, when we hear a call, we
Speaker 2: show up. Uh, and we show up ready for it
Speaker 2: to go down.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 2: And Kanisha, I'm so sorry, doctor Grant. I just want
Speaker 2: to I want to one thank you for making time
Speaker 2: to congratulate you. She is one of the youngest tenured
Speaker 2: professors at Howard University and is again continue to give
Speaker 2: back to the College of Love and Charity. But Knisian,
Speaker 2: you know this well. Fam You told us to fight
Speaker 2: and win whatever the battle be. That is in ol
Speaker 2: al Mamria, which we both know well. So the battle
Speaker 2: is upon us. Tell me, in your own words, what
Speaker 2: about this presidential search process and where we are in it,
Speaker 2: which you can bring people up to speed on which
Speaker 2: I've not done yet. That gives you the greatest degree
Speaker 2: of concern heartburn, not for yourself, per se but for
Speaker 2: the future of the institution.
Speaker 3: There are so many answers to that question. So first
Speaker 3: let me say thanks for being out and happy to
Speaker 3: be here, Thank you for inviting me. I can be
Speaker 3: Kindichians today. I don't have to be doctor Grant. I
Speaker 3: mean the world is about slip up. No, I mean
Speaker 3: like called Mekindicia. But in terms of what is I
Speaker 3: think wrong, I come to this as a scholar. I
Speaker 3: come to this as a person with a PhD.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: I come to this as a person who is considered
Speaker 3: being in university leadership. And so the thing that strikes
Speaker 3: me first as a function of my lived experience, is
Speaker 3: that an individual who's wholly unqualified to be an academic,
Speaker 3: to be leading an academic institution, to be leading academicians,
Speaker 3: would think that they could just show up and do
Speaker 3: the job. That an academic institution is no different than
Speaker 3: any other institution. I think it's the thing that I
Speaker 3: find most defensive. I show up at Howard University every day,
Speaker 3: and I show up to fight for fam you today
Speaker 3: with the understanding that academic institutions are not corporations. They
Speaker 3: are different, They are set apart. They are places where
Speaker 3: we create new knowledge there are places where we shape
Speaker 3: the minds of young people. There are places where you
Speaker 3: have space to think, where we are supposed to be
Speaker 3: trying to make the world a better place. They are
Speaker 3: not corporations. My students are not my customers. And so
Speaker 3: the idea that this person would show up with a
Speaker 3: clear without a clear understanding of what academia is, what
Speaker 3: we're doing, what we're about, what we value, what we
Speaker 3: care for, I find problematic as a scholar, but then
Speaker 3: as a rattler, as a person who bleeds orange and green,
Speaker 3: who believes that like who I am is powerfully and
Speaker 3: positively shaped by Famiu's role in my life, I am
Speaker 3: pissed off that this person would show up with a
Speaker 3: lack of understanding about our culture, about what family means
Speaker 3: to us personally, about what it means to the state,
Speaker 3: about what it means for upward mobility for people in
Speaker 3: the state of Florida. But the people on this stream
Speaker 3: right now, you and I are first generation college graduates,
Speaker 3: right and in your particular case, the people who come
Speaker 3: behind you end up getting baccalaureate degrees because that's what
Speaker 3: college does. The people who come after you generally do
Speaker 3: better as a result of your having participated. And so
Speaker 3: I think the things that frustrate me are the deep
Speaker 3: lack of qualifications, the deep lack of understanding, not to
Speaker 3: mention the issues around process. How did this person get
Speaker 3: to be in the pool of finalists is a question
Speaker 3: that I have as a person who knows how search
Speaker 3: committees work. Why is it the case that Florida is
Speaker 3: a place where government is supposed to be in the
Speaker 3: sunshine and Florida and them, it's supposed to be a
Speaker 3: public institution, Yet they have these presidential searches set up
Speaker 3: in a way where you can't know anything about what's
Speaker 3: happening until it's almost finished.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 3: So these kind of inconsistencies are the things that are
Speaker 3: under my skin, in addition to the fundamental misunderstanding of
Speaker 3: what we are doing at a place like Famue.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Canisia. You mentioned something I think we should deepen
Speaker 2: into because a lot I've seen a lot of folks
Speaker 2: say or call and text and ask how did this
Speaker 2: happen at fam You like, what is going y'all sleep
Speaker 2: at the wheel? What's going on? And I try to
Speaker 2: explain to them what you just alluded to, which was
Speaker 2: in the quest to really control all instruments of the state.
Speaker 2: The government has gone against the will of the people,
Speaker 2: which said we want sunshine, We want to know every
Speaker 2: if we elect you in or if you serve the
Speaker 2: public in a public position, a public facing position paid
Speaker 2: for by my tax dollars here in this government, what
Speaker 2: you do in that position, the negotiations you have, who
Speaker 2: you communicate with, how you communicate with them. That all
Speaker 2: becomes available for the public to scrutinize, to make sure
Speaker 2: that everything is on the up and up, to reduce
Speaker 2: corruption and the kind of grip that you see happening
Speaker 2: when people don't get to see what's happening behind the process.
Speaker 2: It used to be when a presidential search process opened
Speaker 2: in the state of Florida, everybody knew it. You saw
Speaker 2: candidate applications as they were rolling in quite literally. And
Speaker 2: since the days of Rohnda Scientis and the few years
Speaker 2: of Rick Scott as governor, we've seen a shutting down
Speaker 2: of that process. They have decided to close the process
Speaker 2: from the public until the committee that has been assigned
Speaker 2: to vet the candidates come out with their set of recommendations.
Speaker 2: And what a number of universities have done in this
Speaker 2: state is they've gone through that secretive process and then
Speaker 2: the committee produces one name, one name that they would
Speaker 2: recommend for consideration out of god knows how many applicants,
Speaker 2: and the public has no clue what happened behind those
Speaker 2: closed doors and how we got there. In our case,
Speaker 2: typically the process has been to produce three names from
Speaker 2: that process. In this case, family produced how many names
Speaker 2: from their search committee?
Speaker 3: It was four? And originals about how we got to
Speaker 3: those four?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 3: So originally the idea that that was that there were
Speaker 3: three candidates, that these candidates were traditional candidates, individuals who
Speaker 3: have higher education experience. And then word is that suddenly
Speaker 3: there was a fourth candidate, a non traditional candidate, I
Speaker 3: think is the language that they would use, who was
Speaker 3: added to this set of three kind of standard issue
Speaker 3: candidates that we would expect to see in this kind
Speaker 3: of search. And so then the question becomes, well, how
Speaker 3: did that happen? And why is that person there? And
Speaker 3: what purpose does this person serve? And if we had
Speaker 3: three and then we ended up with this extra person,
Speaker 3: how do you go from being the extra person to
Speaker 3: the whole president? Right? Make that make sense? And so
Speaker 3: I want to like Okay, I work in an academic exstitution.
Speaker 3: I know what it means to be looking for a
Speaker 3: job while you have a job, and that's kind of tricky.
Speaker 3: So to the extent that they want to make the
Speaker 3: case that maybe we shouldn't tell a lot about the
Speaker 3: presidential Search Committee because we don't want to discourage people
Speaker 3: from applying. Maybe, right, But I think there can be
Speaker 3: some space between this person submitted an application, or even
Speaker 3: here are all the names of people who submitted applications
Speaker 3: and nothing at all. Right, Like, I'm not suggesting that
Speaker 3: every bit of everything and every conversation necessarily needs to
Speaker 3: be open to the public. I understand what confidence confidentiality is,
Speaker 3: but I think it's also the case that we can't
Speaker 3: go from just knowledge that a search is happening to
Speaker 3: here are the finalists. There has to be some way
Speaker 3: to do something in between.
Speaker 2: You know, you're saying going from you know where the
Speaker 2: confidential process is. Well, I don't know about y'all, you
Speaker 2: all on the viewing end, but I am pretty new
Speaker 2: to hearing that a public search process, that a public
Speaker 2: of a entity like a university can conduct a search
Speaker 2: process and require the members of the committee who are
Speaker 2: part of the Presidential Search Committee to sign non disclosure agreements.
Speaker 2: They NDA's that I guess supposedly are legally binding. We're in.
Speaker 2: They can't talk about the process. So the reason why
Speaker 2: doctor Grant Canisha mentioned we don't know how this sports
Speaker 2: person got there. What we do know, and it's on
Speaker 2: the record. They were not one of the three that
Speaker 2: were recommended by the search firm. They were not one
Speaker 2: of the three shortlisted candidates who the search identified as
Speaker 2: qualified to move forward to take the time and attention
Speaker 2: of the President's Search Committee to then interview that those individuals.
Speaker 2: So the fourth candidate who was added, and again we
Speaker 2: don't know what the motivations were, We don't know who
Speaker 2: made the motion, how it was seconded, what the debate
Speaker 2: consisted of, any of that. They then elevate out of
Speaker 2: it as the fourth candidate in the process, and when
Speaker 2: it becomes our view of it, the only unqualified candidate,
Speaker 2: not by just our assessment. I trust doctor Greenston's assessment
Speaker 2: because she is an academician. She understands the academies of
Speaker 2: the nuances of within the academy. But this is clearly
Speaker 2: unqualified based off the job description that you the board
Speaker 2: of Trustees advertised when you were recruiting candidates. So how
Speaker 2: do you go from advertising these criteria to a candidate
Speaker 2: who doesn't possess the collective of that criteria, to that
Speaker 2: candidate then being your recommendation for president. Matt ask you
Speaker 2: your reaction. I know you listened like I did to
Speaker 2: the presidential search interviews that were made public. When you
Speaker 2: heard the candidate Marbat Johnson say, I always knew in
Speaker 2: my profession, at some point in my career that I
Speaker 2: wanted to go sunset in academia, and so I knew
Speaker 2: I was going to round my way back to this,
Speaker 2: and so it is all fitting. And I'm thinking, Wow,
Speaker 2: if I knew I was gone, if this was a
Speaker 2: thing I wanted to settle up on before I die,
Speaker 2: I want to go into academics. I'm thinking I might
Speaker 2: do some things to put me on that trajectory. Tell
Speaker 2: me if you envisioned yourself Kenisha as a president one day,
Speaker 2: what steps might seem just base level basic things you do.
Speaker 3: Well, You might move to Syracuse from Florida and live
Speaker 3: in the snow for five years working on a PhD
Speaker 3: so that you could be credentialed in the way that
Speaker 3: scholars are credentialed.
Speaker 2: You might Syracuse University at or PhD.
Speaker 3: Sorry and Andrew was at the graduation, and so you
Speaker 3: might also though, like let's say for some reason she
Speaker 3: decided not to get a PhD. I have issues with that,
Speaker 3: but I maybe could find a way to get past it.
Speaker 3: Maybe if you wanted to be a leader of a
Speaker 3: university one day, you would immerse yourself in higher education things,
Speaker 3: which she argued a little bit that she did, but
Speaker 3: it was like, this is mostly about your work in
Speaker 3: K twelve. That work is really important work. There is
Speaker 3: no way to discount it. Period. Yes, but K twelve
Speaker 3: work is not higher ed work. It's two different things.
Speaker 3: And so I think if she wanted to be involved
Speaker 3: in higher ed as a leader in higher ed, it
Speaker 3: might be useful to just be around, right, like if
Speaker 3: you are in Florida and you are from Florida, and
Speaker 3: I think she talks about like loving Fami you in particular, Well,
Speaker 3: why we don't know you? You know, like I don't
Speaker 3: have no pictures of you at the Classic, I haven't
Speaker 3: seen you at the Orange Bowl, Like what is happening?
Speaker 3: Why don't we know? If you love fam you so much?
Speaker 3: Where the pictures are you at Buday, Like, we don't
Speaker 3: have any evidence to support these claims that she's making
Speaker 3: about being truly interested in higher education or even being
Speaker 3: truly interested in fam You.
Speaker 2: It's also possible if you have a full time career
Speaker 2: that you could take up in that jump ship. You
Speaker 2: could learn the academy from you know, again, you don't
Speaker 2: have to be a PhD most institutions to be an
Speaker 2: adjunct professor. You can come in. She's a specialist as
Speaker 2: a lobbyist. She is very good at lobbying. I've worked
Speaker 2: with Marvel before in that capacity around broadband issues, and
Speaker 2: I salute her in that work. However, my opposition is
Speaker 2: completely and totally rooted not in a friendship, in an
Speaker 2: affiliation and what we may have done together as it
Speaker 2: relates to various projects of import but whether or not
Speaker 2: you meet the expectations that I would have for my
Speaker 2: alma mater, the university where I was an SGA president,
Speaker 2: where I served on the board of trustees, where my
Speaker 2: sister went behind me and graduated and went on to
Speaker 2: get our law degree. Like, you got to come very
Speaker 2: different for that conversation than you do. If you're asking
Speaker 2: me about whether or not I'll write a letter of
Speaker 2: recommendation for your appointment to the twenty first century innovation
Speaker 2: and technology and gigabytes of Internet access or whatever that is.
Speaker 2: Those are those are just those are just different things.
Speaker 2: And so I know that we can be alarmists sometimes,
Speaker 2: you know, when we get really egged up on our end.
Speaker 2: But if you were to draw this to its fullest conclusion,
Speaker 2: what would you And I know you're an academician, so
Speaker 2: you're not in the field of speculation. But if we
Speaker 2: could play for a moment, knowing what you know about
Speaker 2: Rond De Santis, governor of Florida, Knowing what you know
Speaker 2: about Donald Trump and the policy se is pursued up
Speaker 2: to this point, Knowing what you know about Rick Scott,
Speaker 2: the former governor of the state of Florida now US Senator.
Speaker 2: All three Republicans, all three have engaged with this candidate
Speaker 2: Marca Johnson, and have in the case of Rick Scott
Speaker 2: in both Rondo scientists made appointments of her to various
Speaker 2: boys and commissions. Knowing that if we were to put
Speaker 2: it out there, they type, you know, she's their type girl.
Speaker 2: What could you imagine might be in the making or
Speaker 2: fam you with that kind of background and what and
Speaker 2: what we know about what their supports looked like for
Speaker 2: our institution. And I'm hearing doctor Grant that a Tony
Speaker 2: Monica is in the waiting rooms. I want you to production
Speaker 2: to go ahead and bring Monica out so she can
Speaker 2: join us as as Kennicius substances the question.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so you're right that I am a scholar and
Speaker 3: not a strategist. But at the same time, the work
Speaker 3: that I study is about how politics changes over long
Speaker 3: swats of time fifty years in most instances, And so
Speaker 3: when I think about this, I think that we can't
Speaker 3: think about it as what's happening today, but we have
Speaker 3: to think about ourselves as being located in a long
Speaker 3: strategy and feel how you want to feel about the
Speaker 3: Republicans but they're masterful strategists, and feel how you want
Speaker 3: to feel about Marvel. But at this point it's not
Speaker 3: about her anymore. This is about understanding the bigger thing
Speaker 3: that's happening here. So to answer your question directly, what
Speaker 3: I think is happening is their attempt to fundamentally reshape
Speaker 3: the society as a whole and black people in it.
Speaker 3: So we go back. I want to remind people paying
Speaker 3: attention or the viewers here that some of this might
Speaker 3: seem disconnected. But I would say starts with the attack
Speaker 3: on critical race theory.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: Critical race theory is actually an idea that comes out
Speaker 3: of Harvard Law. That is like a thing that you
Speaker 3: only deal with in law school. But you know those
Speaker 3: words because they made you know those words, and you
Speaker 3: know those words because they use them as code language
Speaker 3: to get people to stop thinking about what's happening in history.
Speaker 3: I'm thinking about what's happening in history when it starts
Speaker 3: to repeat it. So we're not gonna know that this
Speaker 3: has already happened because we haven't read the history. So
Speaker 3: put that in your mind, and then next to it,
Speaker 3: I want you to have this idea that fam You
Speaker 3: is a place where a person like me, single parent, household,
Speaker 3: first generation goes on to get the highest level of
Speaker 3: education possible. Right, Like, there is no indicator when I
Speaker 3: walk onto the campus of fam You for the first
Speaker 3: time that my life will ever be what it is today.
Speaker 3: Fam You is a life changer.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: Family is a place where you can go and be
Speaker 3: a new person. Does this set of people who are
Speaker 3: seeking to change society. Seek to have me replicated over
Speaker 3: and over again. Andrew Gillen replicated over and over again. No,
Speaker 3: they don't want that, right, So I want you to
Speaker 3: not know your history. I want it to be the
Speaker 3: case that you don't have the ability to change your life.
Speaker 3: I'm always yelling at you to pull yourself up by
Speaker 3: your bootstraps, but God forbid, I actually give you some bootstraps, right,
Speaker 3: and you not only pull yourself up, but you pull
Speaker 3: your family up behind you. I think this is a
Speaker 3: bad about dismantling who we are as a people. I
Speaker 3: think this is about sending Black people backwards. And I
Speaker 3: think this is about undoing institutions that have anything to
Speaker 3: do with making us better. And I think Marva is
Speaker 3: maybe a happy messenger for that, and maybe not. I
Speaker 3: think she might think that she's doing great things, but
Speaker 3: I think that she is a symptom of a broader thing.
Speaker 3: And we have to be less concerned about her now
Speaker 3: that she has gotten well, now that she's at this
Speaker 3: point in the process, yeah, and more worried about, Okay,
Speaker 3: what's the bigger thing that's happening that we might have been,
Speaker 3: we might have missed, or might not have been paying
Speaker 3: attention to.
Speaker 2: That's powerful me. Monica Harris Williams. I want to all
Speaker 2: the names right. I introduced you before you were you
Speaker 2: were with us, so that the audience familiar with you.
Speaker 2: I want to just drag you right on into this.
Speaker 2: Maka is an attorney also by by training and profession.
Speaker 2: And I had just left the question with Kanisha on
Speaker 2: what might we derive from people like Rick Scott, Donald Trump,
Speaker 2: Ron de Santis appointing this woman, bringing her into the fold,
Speaker 2: What what what could we possibly derive from that as
Speaker 2: a signal of what their plans may be for the institution.
Speaker 2: And I want to now lean, you know, sort of
Speaker 2: lean on you around this question of what is the
Speaker 2: as you understand it, where we are in the process
Speaker 2: her selection by the Board of Trustees, a condition I
Speaker 2: covered already. You know this, this very trunk created process
Speaker 2: that keeps the public out into their very last minute.
Speaker 2: Everybody's calling us, texting you, asking us, how do we
Speaker 2: let this happen? And fam you it's a fate of
Speaker 2: complete She is the next you know, the thirteenth President,
Speaker 2: thirteenth and unlucky number. Even hotels admit the thirteenth floor anyway,
Speaker 2: So how do we get here and how do we
Speaker 2: let the doors fly open here? Can you please, for
Speaker 2: the record straighten where we are in the process. Number one,
Speaker 2: Monica that there's some steps remaining. And then two, if
Speaker 2: I'm not a rattler, if I'm not a fam you
Speaker 2: and maybe I didn't go to college, why is this
Speaker 2: important to me?
Speaker 4: Yeah? So, first of all, thank you for the patients
Speaker 4: and for inviting me.
Speaker 5: So I think where we are in the process is
Speaker 5: the Border Trustees has tentatively approved her to be the
Speaker 5: thirteenth president. Now it's contingent upon them negotiating her employment
Speaker 5: contract because there's a salary involved in that. There's some
Speaker 5: other things that are involved in that too, and so
Speaker 5: there's a negotiation of her employment contract that has to happen.
Speaker 4: And then once that's.
Speaker 5: Negotiated between the Border Trustees and her or her attorney. Arguably,
Speaker 5: based on the statute, the state of Florida can only
Speaker 5: where the university system can only provide tw hundred and
Speaker 5: fifty thousand dollars towards her salary. So the remaining amount
Speaker 5: of that money has to come from an alternative source. Right,
Speaker 5: So the statue from our recollection is pretty vague on
Speaker 5: what that alternative source is. Typically it comes from the foundation.
Speaker 5: And so once that is approved, and once the contract
Speaker 5: is negotiated, it will go to the Board of Governors,
Speaker 5: and the Board of Governors will either say yes or no.
Speaker 5: Typically they're probably going to say yes, they will interview,
Speaker 5: they will interview her. I've not seen a situation where
Speaker 5: in this new process where the Board of Governors has
Speaker 5: said no to the Board of Trustees or particular universities
Speaker 5: selection of a president. I could be wrong, You're probably
Speaker 5: more okay, So I would say that that's probably other
Speaker 5: than the negotiation of her employment contract. That's the next step, right,
Speaker 5: So there are some additional steps that have to go
Speaker 5: along before she's permanent.
Speaker 4: So I hear a lot of people saying.
Speaker 5: She's the thirteenth, she's the thirteenth, she's the thirteenth selected tentative.
Speaker 4: New subjected, Yeah, tentatively.
Speaker 5: Because there's a lot of other steps that have to
Speaker 5: go along the process.
Speaker 4: And so go ahead.
Speaker 2: Don't go to that second question that I asked you,
Speaker 2: because I want you to further on this one. I
Speaker 2: want you to further on the Board of Governors does
Speaker 2: not typically disagree with the board of trustees from a
Speaker 2: university and their recommendation for their president. But in this case,
Speaker 2: I want you to just illuminate how active this board
Speaker 2: of governors has been up into including the day before
Speaker 2: the vote. Something very interesting happening in the process. Can
Speaker 2: you bring us a speed on that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so if you all recall, for those who have
Speaker 5: not been really kind of paying attention to the process.
Speaker 5: Any board of member of a board of trustees, for
Speaker 5: any member of the any university in the state university system,
Speaker 5: a trustee must be confirmed by the Senate. There was
Speaker 5: a trustee that was there tentatively, Ernie Ellison, who was
Speaker 5: there during the selection process, and I think what happened,
Speaker 5: from my understanding, is that Trustee Ellison, mister Ellison, questioned
Speaker 5: the process, the selection process in terms of how miss
Speaker 5: Johnson elevated to the four finalists. There was some questions
Speaker 5: about perhaps there was not necessarily impropriety, but there were
Speaker 5: some questions and conversations about how it is she got
Speaker 5: to be one of the four. And he apparently made
Speaker 5: a motion.
Speaker 2: It did not pass, but to hold the process, you
Speaker 2: need to stop this process.
Speaker 5: The process correctly. Did they stop it or to you
Speaker 5: know undo it. He just said, let's pause it, which
Speaker 5: is right to take a look at it, since there's
Speaker 5: so many questions and to eliminate any notion of impropriety
Speaker 5: or look of impropriety.
Speaker 4: Let's take a look at this process.
Speaker 5: And just pose it for a second, just to answer
Speaker 5: the questions that are out there in the public sphere.
Speaker 5: People didn't like that he was not confirmed by the Senate.
Speaker 4: So the day.
Speaker 5: Before the vote, the Board of Governors selects a person
Speaker 5: to become onto the trustee board.
Speaker 2: He's pulled off the board. He comes off in the
Speaker 2: middle of this process.
Speaker 4: Right, correct.
Speaker 2: And then and.
Speaker 5: Then so he's pulled off the board. The Board of
Speaker 5: Governors selects another person, appoints another person to be on
Speaker 5: the Board of Trustees, who also happened to also be
Speaker 5: on the selection committee. Right, He's let's the vote happened
Speaker 5: on Friday. He was appointed on Thursday afternoon. There's been
Speaker 5: no confirmation from the Senate. Right, so you're appointed on date,
Speaker 5: you're pointed on Thursday, you on the board on Friday,
Speaker 5: and you have the opportunity to vote. Because there's apparently
Speaker 5: a loophole in the statue. And you know, I've been
Speaker 5: kind of looking at this to figure out whether or
Speaker 5: not his vote was legitimate vote, because you do have
Speaker 5: to be confirmed by the Senate. So there, to me,
Speaker 5: there's a I'm gonna use shadiness in my opinion and
Speaker 5: my estimation. I don't think they would do that with
Speaker 5: any other university in the state university a system. To
Speaker 5: be frank, I think it's questionable how someone can become
Speaker 5: a trustee on day one and vote for the next
Speaker 5: president on day two. Would arguably you've not sit on
Speaker 5: any of the interviews. I will suggest that you have
Speaker 5: not paid attention to any of the things that have
Speaker 5: happened throughout the process of the week, and so kind
Speaker 5: of like coming in blind and saying, yeah, I'll pick
Speaker 5: that person. And so I think people have a right
Speaker 5: to question the process from the beginning to the end,
Speaker 5: question whether or not there's been some undue inappropriate influence
Speaker 5: from other people relative to that particular trustees and other
Speaker 5: trustees of the eight that voted for her. So there's
Speaker 5: a lot of questions, a lot of red flags yellow
Speaker 5: flags for me throughout this whole process, and so people
Speaker 5: have a right to be extremely concerned about what's going on.
Speaker 2: So I want to. I appreciate you bringing us to
Speaker 2: speed on that. So y'all got it, got a new
Speaker 2: board member the day before the board in full is
Speaker 2: to select who they want to be the next president
Speaker 2: of the university. Now, I just want to pull back
Speaker 2: with our remaining few minutes and I'll invite Lolo in
Speaker 2: to address any pressing questions. Is we talk very specifically
Speaker 2: about FAM you and I'm sure there are people here
Speaker 2: who are not family graduates maybe could care less about
Speaker 2: their atlas, but they may themselves being to graduate and
Speaker 2: therefore are are listening, and they may not be at all,
Speaker 2: but are just curious about this conversation. I want you
Speaker 2: all each Monica, you'll go first, just to enlighten us
Speaker 2: from your perspective, why should anyone around the country care
Speaker 2: about what's happening as it relates to this process.
Speaker 5: I think the first for me, if you are a
Speaker 5: graduate of an HBCU, particularly a public HBCU, this should
Speaker 5: be very concerning for you.
Speaker 4: FAM.
Speaker 5: You is the largest arguably public HBCU in the country,
Speaker 5: and so if MAGA, if they're able to manipulate the
Speaker 5: process to do what they've done with us, to me,
Speaker 5: that would suggest that there are smaller universities that should
Speaker 5: be on guard. I mean, you saw what they did
Speaker 5: to Harvard, and Harvard's a huge private institution, right. I
Speaker 5: think for me, it's kind of the dumbing down of America.
Speaker 4: Right. If your goal is to eliminate.
Speaker 5: The workers, the people that are on the ground, the
Speaker 5: people that are undocumented workers, and you're shipping them out.
Speaker 4: Somebody has to do that work, right.
Speaker 5: If someone's going to do that work, the way you
Speaker 5: get those people to do the work is you ensure,
Speaker 5: in my opinion, that the folks are not college educated
Speaker 5: or you're not leaning them towards the college education track.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 5: I'm not going out to pick blueberries for eleven dollars
Speaker 5: an hour. I'm just not doing that, right. The folks
Speaker 5: that are at HBCUs, who are getting at education are
Speaker 5: not going to do that. But if you dumb down America,
Speaker 5: you come in, You control what's being taught, what people
Speaker 5: are allowed to say, challenging the First Amendment, people's a
Speaker 5: right to gather and protest. It looks a lot like fascism.
Speaker 5: I know that's a little boogey word that everybody's kind
Speaker 5: of throwing out there, but it's starting at the university level.
Speaker 4: It will actually started at the K through twelve level
Speaker 4: in Florida.
Speaker 5: I think you know where Florida is, everybody else goes.
Speaker 5: And so I think, and I said this before Project
Speaker 5: twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2: You saw it.
Speaker 4: People who are in Florida saw it before it went national.
Speaker 5: And so what I would suggest is you need to
Speaker 5: kind of keep your eyes open because if they can
Speaker 5: do it in Florida, they will absolutely.
Speaker 4: Do it anywhere they want.
Speaker 5: And the goal, in my estimation, is to control what's taught,
Speaker 5: to control speech on the university level. Universities or places
Speaker 5: where people have the ability to exchange thought, to have
Speaker 5: discuss We may not agree on everything, but it's a
Speaker 5: place where you can engage in free thought, free thought
Speaker 5: and discussion without any punishment. Generally speaking, the goal in
Speaker 5: my mind is to limit that or to stop eliminated
Speaker 5: or reduce it significantly where you're just kind of creating
Speaker 5: these cutting paste folks that kind of go, yeah, go
Speaker 5: along with whatever it is you're saying, and just kind
Speaker 5: of regurgitating the nonsense and information that's provided to you.
Speaker 5: So it's scary. I think that we need to be
Speaker 5: on extreme high alert. And I think that Florida is
Speaker 5: a chess case for where everything else is going to go.
Speaker 2: I appreciate that.
Speaker 3: Again, I agree with most of what Monica said. I
Speaker 3: think she's sitting in nails on the head. There's a
Speaker 3: story that we could tell about what's happening to fam you,
Speaker 3: in part because it's happening to fam you and that's
Speaker 3: what we care about. So yes, but I think there's
Speaker 3: a broader story that we could tell about black colleges
Speaker 3: in general. But I would tell a story about like
Speaker 3: black institutions in general. So we talk about black college,
Speaker 3: we talk about black church. If you're listening in You
Speaker 3: and the Links and you in D nine and all
Speaker 3: of these kinds of things. Like, it is the case
Speaker 3: that these places exists because we were in a society
Speaker 3: in which we were segregated, and we had to go
Speaker 3: off and make our own space and all of this
Speaker 3: kind of thing. So we have done that, but as
Speaker 3: society of all, we did that and did other things.
Speaker 3: But these places that we created that we own have
Speaker 3: been safe places for us to think, to organize, to live,
Speaker 3: to be. And so what does it mean for folks
Speaker 3: to come in and undo this kind of safe space?
Speaker 3: I think to the extent that I'm worried about anything.
Speaker 3: It's about like where this ends? Today? Has spam you?
Speaker 3: Is it the ame church? Tomorrow? Are they going to
Speaker 3: start telling adultas that the Deltas can't? I don't know,
Speaker 3: march about stuff like where does this end? Would be
Speaker 3: the question that I have. And I think to the
Speaker 3: point that we are kind of alluding to, but that
Speaker 3: I want to be very explicit about. This feels like
Speaker 3: an attempt to reshape society. And I would say it
Speaker 3: feels like trying to be friendly, but like they have
Speaker 3: been very clear that they seek to reshape our society. So,
Speaker 3: if we're going to make America great again, which America
Speaker 3: are we making it great?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 3: Are we making it great like the America where I
Speaker 3: was enslaved?
Speaker 2: Is it great?
Speaker 3: Like the one where I didn't have access to abortion?
Speaker 3: Is it great? Like the one where I was even
Speaker 3: further disenfranchised than I currently am?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 3: Which one are we trying to get back to? And
Speaker 3: so I think that we have to take these things
Speaker 3: as a note that they're coming for us. And they
Speaker 3: start with the educated negroes, but it don't end there.
Speaker 3: It's everybody that.
Speaker 2: They get it that's real, you know, the only other.
Speaker 2: So a few quick responses. One, when you talk about
Speaker 2: who they came for. First, we know that when first
Speaker 2: generation black folks go, they get their degrees. Oftentimes they
Speaker 2: turn right back around. They're paying rents and mortgages, intuitions
Speaker 2: and mentoring cousins, siblings, and friends on what it means
Speaker 2: to change your life. That you and I came up
Speaker 2: right next to each other cause you saw the same
Speaker 2: stuff I did. You experienced the same stuff that I did.
Speaker 2: And guess what, I made a choice to do it
Speaker 2: different this day, and this is how it's turning out.
Speaker 2: And you can make the same choice. My older four
Speaker 2: brothers didn't go to college because they weren't smart, the
Speaker 2: avenues weren't there, and they didn't necessarily pursue them. When
Speaker 2: I did, what happened the same. My two behind me
Speaker 2: did the same damn thing. And one of the board
Speaker 2: chair at Florida and the board chair Hopeful, Devron Gibbons
Speaker 2: is I've noticed going around basically talking in audiences that
Speaker 2: are not us, basically slamming family alumni about what alumni
Speaker 2: giving levels are right if you meant that in love
Speaker 2: and in charity and in friendship with the institution that's
Speaker 2: your vice chair of the board and hoping to be chair.
Speaker 2: You wouldn't go to disparate audiences that aren't us and
Speaker 2: talk that up. You would find a loving way to
Speaker 2: communicate it. So even black folks can be co opted
Speaker 2: and take on the majority white man perspective of treating
Speaker 2: our institutions in US very paternalistically like they are the deciders.
Speaker 2: They know better, and pity, pity, pity, pity, pity you
Speaker 2: the reason they come after those who excel in this
Speaker 2: society and chop the heads off first, because the effect
Speaker 2: that we have on those who we're in close association
Speaker 2: with can then also be cut off. Donald Trump has
Speaker 2: given no apologies, neither has Rohnda Santis about the insecurity
Speaker 2: they have with their children having to compete with us.
Speaker 2: You see, they've been sold alive for so long about
Speaker 2: being better, set apart, excellent in all ways, with no
Speaker 2: competition and no comparable in close distance, and then reality
Speaker 2: it me right. Then they meet you, and they meet Lolo,
Speaker 2: and they meet Monica, and the story continues, and then
Speaker 2: that life starts to be peeled apart because in competition
Speaker 2: and the cream rises We're going to rise. Period. That's
Speaker 2: why we are the way we are at FMU and
Speaker 2: other hbc us because we are taught to believe that
Speaker 2: we can do wherever and be wherever our mind and
Speaker 2: our effort will take us. Lolo is in here, and
Speaker 2: I want you, Lolo, to let us know if there's
Speaker 2: some questions with our final five minutes that we've got
Speaker 2: together that KG is going to speed through. And I
Speaker 2: don't want to shut.
Speaker 6: Up, I do have so Whitney Scott and Allison Smith
Speaker 6: asked something there is like a similar question. Whitney says,
Speaker 6: I am alone. How can I get involved? I'm ready
Speaker 6: to get my boots on the ground to protect the
Speaker 6: future of Van You and a lot of people said
Speaker 6: the same thing, like what are the next steps?
Speaker 4: What can we do about that?
Speaker 2: That's where we were going to actually wrap what was
Speaker 2: gonna be on next steps, But KG, I want you
Speaker 2: to go directly to that. We've already let folks know
Speaker 2: that while the process is along, that it is not complete,
Speaker 2: and that means that there are other things that can
Speaker 2: be done. What would you want people to do leaving
Speaker 2: this if they want to take action?
Speaker 3: So the first thing I want people to know is
Speaker 3: that they're like ratlers thinking about this, and so you
Speaker 3: at home, you're thinking about it. You stressed out, me too, girl.
Speaker 3: But I'm calling my ratler friends to see what we
Speaker 3: can do. And one of the things that I will
Speaker 3: ask Whitney in particular to do is go to Keepers
Speaker 3: of Flame eighteen eighty seven dot com into your information of.
Speaker 2: The Flame eighteen eighty seven dot com and we'll also
Speaker 2: include in the show notes.
Speaker 3: Yes, and so as soon as we have a worked
Speaker 3: out destination for you a thing for you to do,
Speaker 3: we are going to email you. And when I say
Speaker 3: as soon as, I mean like check your email. We
Speaker 3: will be in touch soon this week, within the coming day.
Speaker 2: Is it is it? Is it free? Is it too free? Okay? Okay,
Speaker 2: in the.
Speaker 3: Coming days, we'll have something to tell you. Certainly they
Speaker 3: can do it this week.
Speaker 2: Yes, But if you're going to that website, you can
Speaker 2: enlist your name and your email addressing, contact information, and
Speaker 2: that's how you'll you'll the informational filter. Yeah.
Speaker 3: And the other thing is that I want to say
Speaker 3: that I have been in conversations with people who are
Speaker 3: like ready to cut their spite their face. Bam, you
Speaker 3: is my house. That's my yard. That's not Marve's yard,
Speaker 3: that's not Ron Desant's yard. And if you want to
Speaker 3: come from my yard, you're gonna have to come through me.
Speaker 3: And so I'm not about to not send money to
Speaker 3: take care of my cousins in school because Marva's there.
Speaker 3: I'm not about to not go to homecoming because Marva's there.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna go to homecoming. And when Marve started talking,
Speaker 3: I might, you know, turn around and not, you know,
Speaker 3: have something say to Marvor. But I'm gonna go to
Speaker 3: my homecoming. She's not gonna run me out of my house,
Speaker 3: all right, She's not gonna run me away from my foundation.
Speaker 3: And so the other thing that I would say to
Speaker 3: Route is who are paying attention? Is you could be
Speaker 3: mad at the governor, you'd be mad at Marva, but
Speaker 3: don't take that out. That's our house, that's our yard.
Speaker 3: We defended at all costs, and they have to do
Speaker 3: what we say do, not the other way around.
Speaker 2: That's real, Monica, You're back in this. I want we
Speaker 2: were just sharing what could people do? And I think
Speaker 2: KGI wrap that well. So I want you to take
Speaker 2: this next question, lo Low, if there is one more
Speaker 2: that we may have time to hit before.
Speaker 6: So the last question. We had a few more, but
Speaker 6: I think you all did a really great job of
Speaker 6: answering them. The last question would be why does this
Speaker 6: even matter? And I've seen a lot of people in
Speaker 6: the comments, people are talking about them being nervous about
Speaker 6: this happening that their HBCU Tennessee state in general, I
Speaker 6: mean in particular. So if you all wanted to answer
Speaker 6: or talk to that question.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Monica, you want to hit that the threat that
Speaker 2: appears to be. Well, there was the question which is
Speaker 2: why does it matter? Which I think you all kind
Speaker 2: of hit on a little bit two questions back. But
Speaker 2: if you're at an HBC and you're worried about this
Speaker 2: coming down your street, what do you say? I mean,
Speaker 2: I think you just have to stay vigilant.
Speaker 4: I think Kenisian mentioned it.
Speaker 5: One of the things I really tell alumni is HBCUs,
Speaker 5: particularly public HBCUs, we cannot just solely rely on state dollars.
Speaker 5: We've got it as alumni, give back and give back consistently, right,
Speaker 5: That's the first thing. Secondly, you just have to kind
Speaker 5: of stay involved and engaged. You can't just be engaged
Speaker 5: once a year during homecoming. You have to stay engaged
Speaker 5: and stay vigilant consistently throughout the year. The third thing
Speaker 5: I will say is a lot of this has to
Speaker 5: do with and people hate to go back to this,
Speaker 5: people got to vote. Some of this has a lot
Speaker 5: to do with the fact of who's in office. Like
Speaker 5: in Florida, the person, the person that makes these decisions
Speaker 5: and placing these people on the board of trustees is
Speaker 5: the governor.
Speaker 4: The board of government, the board of governors.
Speaker 5: The governor puts those people in positions, puts those people
Speaker 5: in those positions. The folks on the board of trustees,
Speaker 5: the governor appoints those individuals.
Speaker 4: So a lot of this kind of goes down.
Speaker 5: I know people hate to say that, but you got
Speaker 5: to stay engaged in your alumni you have and your
Speaker 5: alumni association, stay engaged, and you with your school and
Speaker 5: give back consistently, increase those give rates.
Speaker 3: And then you got people have to vote.
Speaker 5: I mean, bottom line, And I know people hate when
Speaker 5: you say that, but that really is what this is.
Speaker 5: But but for but for with the governor that we have,
Speaker 5: things could look a lot different.
Speaker 3: I just leave that there.
Speaker 2: That's real. That's real. I wouldn't be moderating this panel
Speaker 2: had it looked quite different. And I'm joking, but I
Speaker 2: will say this there might well quite serious. I will,
Speaker 2: I would, I would. I would only add to what
Speaker 2: Monica said that in this day and age, the reason
Speaker 2: why you have to care about what is happening at
Speaker 2: FAM you is because they chose the largest single campus,
Speaker 2: HBCU to try to infiltrate from MAGA first. And it's
Speaker 2: their belief. And by the way, if you watch Trump
Speaker 2: at all, if you watched the sentence at all, it
Speaker 2: was the first thing this net is did. He punched
Speaker 2: Walt Disney World. Trump gets in office, he punches all
Speaker 2: of us, right, Ain't nobody left safe? And the reason
Speaker 2: they do that is if you take out the biggest,
Speaker 2: baddest thing you see on the block, no disrespect to
Speaker 2: anybody else, then everything else falls falls like the house
Speaker 2: of cards. And so know that this is them perfecting
Speaker 2: the strategy of what it means to not just get
Speaker 2: into Harvard, into Columbia and destruct those institutions because the
Speaker 2: kids can't get it. But it is to come now
Speaker 2: for black folk who you already think nothing of, You
Speaker 2: already say we don't earn what it is that we've got.
Speaker 2: You already think that we're not worth the time that
Speaker 2: is spent or the resources that are allocated. So now
Speaker 2: let's just figure out how we start to you know,
Speaker 2: take those away too. Look, y'all, over the course of
Speaker 2: history we have to learn from it. Cinicians already alluded
Speaker 2: to this. We had slavery, we had emancipation. After emancipation,
Speaker 2: we had reconstruction. Right, things started to look better, at
Speaker 2: least they said they were going to be better. And
Speaker 2: then what did they do? They caught it back and
Speaker 2: we had Jim Crow. And then we have, you know,
Speaker 2: the answer to Jim Crow, where we then get equality
Speaker 2: laws and amendments of the constitution that make us more
Speaker 2: full and more hole in the eyes of the law.
Speaker 2: And guess what, y'all, We then go on to elect
Speaker 2: a black president and then a woman nominee, a black
Speaker 2: woman to come to have the audacity to pursue the
Speaker 2: position as well. And now this society, based off its
Speaker 2: majority's actions, are in full cell panic. And we're going
Speaker 2: back to the take back. You make a game and
Speaker 2: you get a clawback, and this clawback now is coming
Speaker 2: up all of our avenues, all of our avenues, Kanisha.
Speaker 2: As we round out right now, I want you to please, please, please,
Speaker 2: because this is a large part about organizing, is when
Speaker 2: you get a setback as big as the one that
Speaker 2: was delivered to those who care about fam you and
Speaker 2: his future with the Board of Trustees deciding as it
Speaker 2: did to elevate Marva to the Board of Governors as
Speaker 2: its next president. That's a big, big setback. But contextualize
Speaker 2: a setback when we're thinking about a war, right, so
Speaker 2: a battle of a president or of any battle that
Speaker 2: you're in, and contextualize that in the scope of a war.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I will say I think two things, one
Speaker 3: on fame you and then maybe one more broadly. The
Speaker 3: first is that the rallies, as we say, will strike
Speaker 3: and strike and strike again, and so it's three strikes,
Speaker 3: it's not one strike. And so you have to remember always.
Speaker 3: So first of all, we have feelings, right, and so
Speaker 3: feel your feelings right, you're mad, you jumping up and
Speaker 3: like you want to punch the all whatever. You are
Speaker 3: allowed to have your feelings. But after you let your
Speaker 3: feelings pass through, then it's time for work. And so
Speaker 3: we did suffer a major setback. But This is a
Speaker 3: battle in a larger war for our university, for the
Speaker 3: soul of Famu, and for I would say, the whole society.
Speaker 3: Education is a piece of a bigger thing. And so
Speaker 3: once you get your emotions out, I think you have
Speaker 3: to take a step back and realize, Okay, this is
Speaker 3: a small piece of a bigger thing. Let me attack
Speaker 3: the bigger thing. How do you eat an elephant? An elephant,
Speaker 3: You eat it bite by bite, right like. You can't
Speaker 3: get overwhelmed. You can't drop out because something went badly
Speaker 3: or went wrongly. You have to keep at it. One
Speaker 3: of the things that I tell my students at Howard,
Speaker 3: and one of the things I say often is I'm
Speaker 3: reminded about Melissa Harris Perry, who was talking one day
Speaker 3: about the movement, and she talks about how it was
Speaker 3: the case that individuals lived and died enslaved, lived and
Speaker 3: died as enslaved people, and every day they woke up
Speaker 3: and fought, never knowing when freedom was going to come.
Speaker 3: You have to carry your water, you have to carry
Speaker 3: your ball down the field. Maybe freedom will come for
Speaker 3: you while you are alive. The people who got emancipated
Speaker 3: didn't know emancipation was coming. They didn't have Twitter, they
Speaker 3: weren't on TikTok, they didn't have a way to know
Speaker 3: that it was about to happen. But they got up
Speaker 3: and fought anyway. Some of them got up, fought, lived
Speaker 3: and died with nothing. And so happened that some of
Speaker 3: them got up, fought, lived and saw the other side.
Speaker 3: And so if my ancestors, you know, we're in the
Speaker 3: fields of Georgia, slaving away right in Chris County, who
Speaker 3: am I today to say that I'm too tired to
Speaker 3: fight for the institution that has changed the life of
Speaker 3: this same family from Chris County, Georgia. I can't do that,
Speaker 3: and I would suggest that you can't either. And so
Speaker 3: today we're talking about FAMU, but we could be talking
Speaker 3: about what's in the library at your local elementary school.
Speaker 3: We could be talking about heads start funding for your
Speaker 3: baby and her daycare. We could be talking about any
Speaker 3: number of educational things that are not just about college,
Speaker 3: but that are about making life better for people. And
Speaker 3: if we got to fight to make sure that these
Speaker 3: babies are okay, I think that's a worthy fight that
Speaker 3: we can deal with. It ain't enslavement and if they
Speaker 3: can do it in this slavement, surely we could do it.
Speaker 3: Here's for mmm.
Speaker 2: Girl, that's a word you just preached, You preached, and
Speaker 2: you were closing on that, yall. I want to welcome
Speaker 2: everybody home who decided to tune in. Know that we're
Speaker 2: going to stay on this not only because it's failed,
Speaker 2: but we will continue to project out so that all
Speaker 2: of us get to see ourselves in this picture. If
Speaker 2: you don't see it clearly, we want to make it
Speaker 2: clear for you, for those HBCUs that are afraid of
Speaker 2: what's coming down the tracks.
Speaker 4: For you.
Speaker 2: We got to get in communication and coordination and in
Speaker 2: contact with each other because the battle. Know this, if
Speaker 2: we do what we're supposed to do and hold our
Speaker 2: ground and keep fighting until there's no longer breath in
Speaker 2: our bodies. But so long as we have it, we
Speaker 2: will fight. Let me tell you, they'll think twice about
Speaker 2: the next time that they want to come after us. Right,
Speaker 2: So the lesson is going to be the shot of
Speaker 2: the bout has come from them. And now we got
Speaker 2: to sink the ship. And when we sink the ship,
Speaker 2: that means that ship ain't coming for you at least
Speaker 2: no time soon so y'all help us sink this ship
Speaker 2: right now, because whether you know it or not, we
Speaker 2: all in the boat together. Man, We are all in
Speaker 2: this together. Lolo, thank you very much facilitating the question,
Speaker 2: kg dtr Grant, Kenesha, all the names, all the things,
Speaker 2: all the fields. I love you like my little sister,
Speaker 2: because you are and I am so proud of you
Speaker 2: and the knowledge you dropped today extremely extremely important and powerful.
Speaker 2: Y'all are going to hear from her again because we're
Speaker 2: bringing her back to talk about her book on Natal
Speaker 2: Damn Pod. Thank y'all, welcome home. This has been an
Speaker 2: episode of.
Speaker 3: Our mini pod on organizing, Stay connect and don't forget
Speaker 3: to meet us here into the next Monday or the monday, not.
Speaker 2: This upcoming but the one after every other. All right, y'all,
Speaker 2: take care of peace.
Speaker 1: Native Land Pod is a production of iHeartRadio and partnership
Speaker 1: with Reason Choice Media. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or where ever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.