Speaker 1: All media.
Speaker 2: All right, y'all, here we are politics with prop You
Speaker 2: already knew because you obviously have clicked play at some point.
Speaker 1: Today's a special one.
Speaker 2: We do this series called Terraformers, and which was, according
Speaker 2: to the surveys we took, was like the least like
Speaker 2: types of episodes.
Speaker 1: I was like, y'all don't want to meet people actually
Speaker 1: do it good, you know. But I'm like, I don't
Speaker 1: care what y'all say. You're gonna get this work right.
Speaker 2: So so every once in a while we try to
Speaker 2: bring in people actually doing.
Speaker 1: Real work out here, you know.
Speaker 2: And somehow, I don't know how we got connected. I
Speaker 2: just got an email that said, y'all need to holler
Speaker 2: at Maris and I was like, let's holler at Maris
Speaker 2: so working families party, right, okay, ladies and gentlemen to
Speaker 2: the block, Mariics Mitchell.
Speaker 3: You know, it's good to be with you, bro, It's
Speaker 3: good to be here. Many glad to be with you
Speaker 3: in your audience for real.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, So glad to have you here.
Speaker 4: Man.
Speaker 2: This is unique, Like, like the reality is I have
Speaker 2: never said yes to a candidate that wanted to be
Speaker 2: interviewed on the show. I've never said yes to anybody
Speaker 2: that's part of a party, Like I've never said yes
Speaker 2: to that, you know what I'm saying. Some of that
Speaker 2: is because like I don't know you cuz you're we're
Speaker 2: saying like you're not gonna use my name? You feel
Speaker 2: me like I work real hard for his name, I got,
Speaker 2: you know what I'm saying. So you know, it's it's
Speaker 2: very rare that like I you know, won't be given
Speaker 2: out from co signs like that, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: Most of the people we've we've had on the show,
Speaker 2: I've either known personally or have been a fan of
Speaker 2: for a long time, you know what I'm saying. So
Speaker 2: this is really a first you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 2: because I think ground, Yeah, what you're doing is unique.
Speaker 2: So for y'all that don't know this young man is
Speaker 2: is is the head of a major political party.
Speaker 1: And I'm gonna say major because you major homi uh.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: And we did an episode last year which is basically
Speaker 2: about like it was like political parties here are like
Speaker 2: ordering at like a Jamaican restaurant to where it's just like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, ah, like you know, like your actual order. What
Speaker 1: you walk in there? Do you actually ordered? They ain't
Speaker 1: got yo?
Speaker 3: Say let me let me get a patty pati done?
Speaker 4: Yes?
Speaker 1: All right, all right, let me you already know? All right?
Speaker 3: Son?
Speaker 1: Peace? All right, son peace? What's done?
Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying, Like, you're not gonna have
Speaker 2: have So I just got to settle with whatever you willing,
Speaker 2: whatever's left.
Speaker 1: Like that's what I feel like voting is here.
Speaker 3: You know that's really that's a really good analogy. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you got to settle and you're confused. It's like, why
Speaker 3: are they mad at me? Like I'm trying to I'm
Speaker 3: in your establishment. I'm trying to understand.
Speaker 2: First of all, you wrote it on the menu. You
Speaker 2: said this was an option. You tell you it's not
Speaker 2: an option.
Speaker 1: Okay, substitute the sweet potato fries? What if? I'm like,
Speaker 1: what if? On like sweet? How come I can't I
Speaker 1: can't get the tots? Nah? No, this is how the
Speaker 1: menu will, just how the menu work. It's like, well,
Speaker 1: damn okay.
Speaker 2: So having viable, you know, third, fourth, fifth party options
Speaker 2: has been something that's been a blaring problem since you know, really,
Speaker 2: like I mean, whether were talking like wigs or like
Speaker 2: ter or less democratic republic, like finding a viable option
Speaker 2: has you know, is just kind of like it's built
Speaker 2: into the batter, you know what I'm saying. So so
Speaker 2: it's been a difficult thing. So what you're doing is
Speaker 2: really a herculean lyft number one, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 2: and then a number two like really it's I mean,
Speaker 2: it's necessary. So that being said, let's hear some of
Speaker 2: this math here. So first of all, like who are
Speaker 2: you right? Where you from? And like if you can,
Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure you've practiced this plenty of times. But like,
Speaker 2: what was that catalyst that was like all right, fam,
Speaker 2: I'm getting in this? Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, Okay, So
Speaker 2: who am I? I mean, I feel like whenever I
Speaker 2: get post that question and there's so many ways I
Speaker 2: can answer it. I mean, I'm definitely a child of
Speaker 2: the eighties. Okay, I'm definitely a child of the eighties.
Speaker 2: I grew up on the East Coast.
Speaker 3: I grew up in a in a different there's a
Speaker 3: you know, there's another long Beach. I grew up in
Speaker 3: a long beach on the East Coast, the New York one. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 3: Long Beach, New York, the Second Beach.
Speaker 2: Yeah, sorry, I'm sorry, it's just unnecessary shade.
Speaker 3: Oh Man, Yeah, listen, oh Man. But you know, I'm
Speaker 3: a I'm a child of the golden era of hip
Speaker 3: hop word.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: My cousins were hip hop artists, So I got to
Speaker 3: I got a front row seat of witnessing this very
Speaker 3: very special time in hip hop in the late eighties
Speaker 3: to early nineties to mid nineties that was really beautiful,
Speaker 3: and that that has really shaped my life, shaped my
Speaker 3: politics in any way. Yeah, you know, I'm I'm somebody
Speaker 3: who was raised in a family of black people that
Speaker 3: understood the assignment. So both of my parents, they're working
Speaker 3: class folks.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: My mom is a retired registered nurse. My dad was
Speaker 3: a retired electrician, worked underneath trains, you know, and they
Speaker 3: both worked long hours, but they would make sure every
Speaker 3: weekend or every other weekend, we'd go to the black bookstore,
Speaker 3: you know, and we would get to choose a book.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: And so I didn't realize looking back, I see how
Speaker 3: foundational that was for me. I'm somebody who you know,
Speaker 3: there's an event that took place that we need to
Speaker 3: always bring up, the move bombing you know Philadelphia, right
Speaker 3: where our country out bombed, bombed us. This isn't re memory,
Speaker 3: This isn't this isn't Black Wall Street.
Speaker 1: We were alive. This is recent memory, right.
Speaker 3: And so I'm in a family that my dad always
Speaker 3: brought up the move bombit. He's like, you can't forget that,
Speaker 3: I mean.
Speaker 1: And so I was raised.
Speaker 3: I was raised with a certain level of consciousness, and
Speaker 3: I really took to it, and I wanted to be
Speaker 3: part of the stories that my parents told me about
Speaker 3: about Martin, about Malcolm, about all of these folks, not
Speaker 3: just in the US, but in the diaspora. To talk
Speaker 3: about Marvy, they'll talk about all these folks. And so
Speaker 3: that was just in the air. You know, my dad
Speaker 3: is from a small island nation, Grenada. But the cool,
Speaker 3: cool thing about Grenada is that in nineteen seventy nine
Speaker 3: to nineteen eighty three, Grenada was an independent black socialist.
Speaker 1: Repuber Yeah right, yeah, So.
Speaker 3: That was normal to me, the idea you could have
Speaker 3: self determination and you could decide on your own and
Speaker 3: you could even be in a tiny little island nation
Speaker 3: and still be upright and say whatever you're talking about
Speaker 3: over there, like I know, you're the big bad superpower.
Speaker 3: We're gonna move in our own way, right, So that
Speaker 3: is when people ask who I am, how I'm raised?
Speaker 1: Is all those things.
Speaker 3: It's you know, being a black child in the eighties,
Speaker 3: growing upcoming of age, no matter where you lived in
Speaker 3: the country. This was during the drug war, y, so
Speaker 3: it meant getting pulled over by the police times that
Speaker 3: you could even understand for all types of situations that
Speaker 3: made no types of sense. So it's like being faced
Speaker 3: with those contradictions. It meant it meant living right next
Speaker 3: to the trap house and watching people people come like zombies,
Speaker 3: you know, day and night, you know, back and forth.
Speaker 3: It meant my mom working as a detox nurse, so
Speaker 3: she's treating folks, you know, who have multiple chemical addictions.
Speaker 3: So it's like I'm a child of all of those contradictions.
Speaker 3: I just I live with those things. I was radicalized
Speaker 3: in different moments of my life, you know. I was
Speaker 3: I have the good fortune to be able to go
Speaker 3: to college, and I went to Howard University and that
Speaker 3: was a transform experience. And two things happened at Howard
Speaker 3: that like to this day, I remember, like yesterday. So
Speaker 3: one of the gifts that I got was Stokely Carmichael,
Speaker 3: who was also Kwame Terray. He spoke at Howard when
Speaker 3: I was at Happy I got to see him speak,
Speaker 3: and I mean it was is mind blowing.
Speaker 1: I think this might have been his last year of life.
Speaker 1: Wow and wow.
Speaker 3: He said a lot of things, but he said one
Speaker 3: thing in particular, the state in my mind.
Speaker 1: He said he was he was at the end.
Speaker 3: He's a organizers at the end. He invided people to
Speaker 3: join his organization. Yeah, the All African People's Revolutionary Party. Right,
Speaker 3: it's like, join our organization. But he was like, look,
Speaker 3: you may not agree with our politics, but he was like,
Speaker 3: what I'm telling you is that we as a people
Speaker 3: need to be organized. So if you don't align with
Speaker 3: our organization, join another. I rather have you join. And
Speaker 3: he's like, I disagree with them, but I'd rather have
Speaker 3: you joined the Urban League. Yeah, have you joined. I'd
Speaker 3: rather have you join, you know, the NAACP. That's better
Speaker 3: you not joining us and joining them is better than
Speaker 3: you leaving this audience and not being part of an organization.
Speaker 3: And so I remember that to that day and left
Speaker 3: and I was like, man, I'm yeah, I'm going to
Speaker 3: be an organizer.
Speaker 1: That's what I wanted. It was like a religious experience.
Speaker 3: And the second thing that happened to me and Howard
Speaker 3: is that one of our classmates was killed by the police,
Speaker 3: and wow, and why that was powerful is that and
Speaker 3: Howard University, you have every single type of black person
Speaker 3: from all.
Speaker 1: Over the world. You got.
Speaker 3: Regular sh regular black folks from the US, every region,
Speaker 3: every part. You got black folks from the Caribbean, from Africa,
Speaker 3: from wherever. You got like people like me who came
Speaker 3: up working class. You got black elite people who you know,
Speaker 3: who their great grandparents have high degrees from college.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: You got every type of black person.
Speaker 3: And the thing that that I think was so radicalizing
Speaker 3: for so many of us was that when our classmate
Speaker 3: was killed by the police, by an undercover police officer,
Speaker 3: it was a.
Speaker 1: Reminder that none of that matters. Don't matter.
Speaker 3: Bro, none of those distinctions matter. It doesn't matter at all. Right,
Speaker 3: And so whatever type of black person you think you are, right,
Speaker 3: you need to understand the assignment that we that it's
Speaker 3: our duty, it's our duty to organize around one agenda
Speaker 3: so that we could defend ourselves from that type of violence.
Speaker 3: And it's not just the state violence against police like that.
Speaker 3: It's all the different economic violence, whatever. And you can't
Speaker 3: escape it. Your degrees can't can't allow you to escape
Speaker 3: your blackness. Your whatever you got in your your bank
Speaker 3: account can't allow you to escape your blackness, none of
Speaker 3: those things. And so the quicker, you know that, the quicker,
Speaker 3: you could develop a strategy for survival. Let's go from
Speaker 3: the society, man bro.
Speaker 2: There are so many similarities in our upbringing, the listeners know,
Speaker 2: but like for this, it was like, so I'm the
Speaker 2: I'm I'm from Los Angeles, but I'm I'm the child
Speaker 2: of a black panther. So for for us, like the
Speaker 2: same thing, like the books we had to write my
Speaker 2: dad book reports, so like you know right, so I'm
Speaker 2: like I'm writing him book reports on black authors, black writers,
Speaker 2: black inventers.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: Uh My, I had no like cartoon like posters on
Speaker 2: my wall. It was the ten buck two road, it
Speaker 2: was the Five Kingdoms of West Africa. You know what
Speaker 2: I'm saying, Like that's what like so like and he
Speaker 2: would rent, he would you know back when you go
Speaker 2: to library and rent movies, you saying, So he would
Speaker 2: rent like black films know, like, so, you know, when
Speaker 2: it was time to do the country report in sixth grade,
Speaker 2: I did mine on Ethiopia, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: You know, and speaking of Grenada, like my.
Speaker 2: Father even in passing mentioned moving there, you know what
Speaker 2: I mean, because he's black panther, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: Uh and so yeah, So having that just being in
Speaker 2: the gulage of understanding. I remember we had to do
Speaker 2: a person's report in seventh grade. I did mine on
Speaker 2: Nat Turner.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: That little school was like uh.
Speaker 1: Wait, you know I'm saying like I was like, what, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: what I don't see what you talk about?
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 2: I grew up in the sort of the borderlands of
Speaker 2: the Black and Mexican specifically neighborhoods out here. Uh you know,
Speaker 2: we obviously have a broader Latino population, but where I
Speaker 2: was at, like this is Mexican, you know what I'm saying. So,
Speaker 2: like just the solidarity around suffering people. I was like,
Speaker 2: you in the same hood I'm in, you know what
Speaker 2: I'm saying, Like, so, you know, we just didn't I
Speaker 2: ain't see the I don't understand what the you know
Speaker 2: what I'm saying, Like, what what's the problem, you know.
Speaker 2: And then even more interesting was getting to college having
Speaker 2: two things. It wasn't for me, It wasn't stokely. It
Speaker 2: was Angela Davis. So Angela Davis came and spoke in
Speaker 2: my school and she had mentioned like ending prison and
Speaker 2: I was like, what, like I remember, and I'm again
Speaker 2: my father was a pat. So I was like, wait
Speaker 2: a minute. Now, I was like, you know, and again
Speaker 2: I'm from La. I'm like some of y'all y brother
Speaker 2: in jail, aint Nelson Mandela. Now like I mean, like,
Speaker 2: you know, like that's what I was thinking. I was like,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean, but that germ of like actually,
Speaker 2: there's another way to think about this, and I was
Speaker 2: like what. And then second was this thank you know
Speaker 2: for us. It wasn't a death. It was this Filipino
Speaker 2: girl named Irene Dudler, who I talk about all the
Speaker 2: time because I she was a couple of grades above me,
Speaker 2: but I had a huge crush on her. But anyway,
Speaker 2: I mean she I think she teaches at like s
Speaker 2: F State. Now she's a homie. She already knows. But
Speaker 2: like I was like, yeah, yeah, no, you know, we
Speaker 2: you know, we all grown folks now. But like I
Speaker 2: remember she was like she shaved her head and she
Speaker 2: moved to the Philippines to fight against the Dutertes. No yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: to fight against the revue the senior, to fight against
Speaker 2: the revolution. I was like, first of all, I didn't
Speaker 2: know anybody that was not black that was a revolutionary,
Speaker 2: you know what I'm saying. But she was like, yo,
Speaker 2: I'm moving and I was like what, Like that's an option,
Speaker 2: you know what I'm saying. Like so that those two
Speaker 2: things for me, I was like, Okay, it's more than
Speaker 2: just knowing my history, like this we need to do.
Speaker 2: And it's crazy like how hip hop played such a
Speaker 2: role here because for us, it was like the Lahmurt
Speaker 2: Park village where like you know, blowed and a lot
Speaker 2: of just a lot of like that was like our
Speaker 2: Harlem if you will, where it was like this is
Speaker 2: where like black art, excellent renaissance of a working class
Speaker 2: you know what I'm saying, Because you have the UCLA
Speaker 2: stuff that was like we're that's that's UCLA, you know
Speaker 2: what I'm saying. Like I'm like, this is like at
Speaker 2: a street level, because like Lamur Park is really in
Speaker 2: between two very legendary like crib hoods. So you have
Speaker 2: like the forties and then you have the roll in
Speaker 2: sixties that are a little bit further down.
Speaker 1: Lamurt Park's right in between, you know.
Speaker 2: So to be in this neighborhood where like we are,
Speaker 2: it was kind of I can't think.
Speaker 1: Of any particular like real.
Speaker 2: Problems that happened at Lamurt for some reason, at least
Speaker 2: in my memory, it was like, you know, these are
Speaker 2: the Sunday drum circles, you know, making rest, you know
Speaker 2: what I'm saying, Like it was just like black area
Speaker 2: that like yeah, you just wasn't a It wasn't a
Speaker 2: thing there, you know what I'm saying. This is where
Speaker 2: we get to be ourselves, you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: And that's where like our hip hop scene came from.
Speaker 2: As you were talking, man, I was like really blown away,
Speaker 2: Like how many parallels?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 1: I gotta send to this.
Speaker 4: All right?
Speaker 2: So my next thought is this, like I told you
Speaker 2: before we started recording, but as a reminder, like you know,
Speaker 2: our show is rather educational, like in the Cornerstone premise
Speaker 2: again is like if you understand growing up, we'll use
Speaker 2: the term working class because you know, color mute terms
Speaker 2: like urban or or stuff like that, Like, well, I
Speaker 2: I personally use the term like like if you grew
Speaker 2: up in our inner cities because I am personally because
Speaker 2: I am trying to expand it to.
Speaker 1: Poor folks. You know what I'm saying, Like I'm like
Speaker 1: all of us.
Speaker 2: If you grew up any like don'tkay if this was
Speaker 2: like if you was in Toadsuck Arkansas.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean?
Speaker 2: And like me, Ma and Nim, you know worked at
Speaker 2: the sawmill. Your uncle you'll you know your uncle Billy
Speaker 2: Ray got a finger missing, Like you actually understand politics,
Speaker 2: you know, they just use different terms. And I found
Speaker 2: that when you approach something in in terms of like
Speaker 2: I believe that even though I'm also college educated, that
Speaker 2: you ain't.
Speaker 1: No, I'm not any smarter than you, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean.
Speaker 2: I'm just gonna I just think you you just weren't
Speaker 2: in interested in the things I was interested in. So
Speaker 2: when I just say, if I just give you the game,
Speaker 2: like hey, this is what that means? I like, we
Speaker 2: we talked to I think it was two weeks ago
Speaker 2: on the show, Like we'll use the Democrats for example,
Speaker 2: like if you have just said, what the Department of
Speaker 2: Education does you know what I'm saying. Rather than being
Speaker 2: like we need to keep it, we'll just say what
Speaker 2: they do, you know what I'm saying, Like if you
Speaker 2: just say, hey, they're not they don't write curriculum.
Speaker 1: Gee, Like you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: They don't. They don't hire, they don't fire. They just
Speaker 2: make sure that your little poor school that ain't got
Speaker 2: no reading teacher, and why your baby can't read, they
Speaker 2: just make sure that that school has somebody that'll teach
Speaker 2: your baby to read.
Speaker 1: It's just that's all I'm saying, Like you try to
Speaker 1: get rid of it. Like I'm just saying, like.
Speaker 2: You know how, you know how your baby got bad
Speaker 2: eyes and they making them sit in the back of
Speaker 2: the thing, and sitting in the back of you was like,
Speaker 2: my my baby can't see the screen. Okay, Well you
Speaker 2: need an IEP that says that you need to place
Speaker 2: my child in the front of the in the front
Speaker 2: of the thing, and you need an RSP teacher that's
Speaker 2: gonna help you. But you know what, you just killed
Speaker 2: that funding because that comes from the Department of Education.
Speaker 2: So if you just explain it, yep, you know I'm
Speaker 2: saying that, like I don't have to tell.
Speaker 1: You what to think about.
Speaker 2: I'm just saying, oh, yeah, yeah, you know, you know
Speaker 2: me mall can't get her medicine now because you just
Speaker 2: removed the law that said that that kept the price.
Speaker 1: You just voted to remove it.
Speaker 2: So with that, I'm obviously trying to onboard people into
Speaker 2: the political process, right, Yeah. So I'm wondering a couple
Speaker 2: of things for you, Like, so, how did y'all come
Speaker 2: to the conclusion that, like the best way to do
Speaker 2: this is to start a party rather than just grassroots organizing.
Speaker 2: And then what things have like kind of worked for
Speaker 2: recruitment for that.
Speaker 3: Well, let me let me tell you a story that
Speaker 3: might help. I'll make that happen. And I couldn't agree
Speaker 3: with you more. The thing that keeps people out of
Speaker 3: knowledge often is is understanding the vocabulary of the language
Speaker 3: of that you know, what I'm saying, and and and
Speaker 3: a lot of times people gate keep a certain type
Speaker 3: of knowledge. It's just based it's just based on vocabulary,
Speaker 3: but they gate keep it by suggesting that the folks
Speaker 3: who aren't in that realm lack the expertise, the specialized knowledge,
Speaker 3: the intelligence to be able to even understand it. You know,
Speaker 3: and like people do that with politics, people do that
Speaker 3: with economics, people do that with so many things.
Speaker 1: Like and like, you know, I went to I went
Speaker 1: to college.
Speaker 3: Some of it was about learning how to think, but
Speaker 3: a lot of it was just learning vocabulary for for sure,
Speaker 3: for specialized sort of gate keep type. Ye, specialized knowledge,
Speaker 3: that's all it was. It's like, yo, that's what that means, right,
Speaker 3: And so yeah, when you look at what we're losing
Speaker 3: day to day, a lot of it has to do
Speaker 3: with the fact that nobody kept it plane, yes, and
Speaker 3: just communicated to the people what any of these things
Speaker 3: were about. Yes, So of course people are not going
Speaker 3: to value things that nobody ever leveled with them on
Speaker 3: what they were in the first place. And so I
Speaker 3: just wanted to like, I couldn't agree with you more.
Speaker 3: And to me, that's that is the actual role of
Speaker 3: a political party, you know, that is one of the
Speaker 3: roles of a political party. And by that measure, both
Speaker 3: parties are failing the American people. Both Republicans and Democrats
Speaker 3: are failing the American people just on that base thing,
Speaker 3: which is being able to communicate to the peace people
Speaker 3: in a language and culture that the people could understand.
Speaker 3: What's going on.
Speaker 2: That almost gave me the chills, bro, because like, what
Speaker 2: a bar that. You're like, well, you're not even doing
Speaker 2: the definition of what you exist for.
Speaker 1: The basic one of the basic roles.
Speaker 3: And I'll I'll say more about that, but you know,
Speaker 3: there's people who really nerd out on this subject. They
Speaker 3: talk about the difference between a thin party and a
Speaker 3: quote unquote thick party or a rich party experience, and
Speaker 3: they say that the Republicans and Democrats in the United
Speaker 3: States are basically thin parties, parties that are not offering
Speaker 3: yea on your day to day very much for people.
Speaker 3: But you know, every few years when they want votes,
Speaker 3: you'll get a lot of glossy mail. You'll get digital
Speaker 3: ads if you're watching you know, YouTube, if you're watching
Speaker 3: whatever you're watching, you'll get TV ads. You know might
Speaker 3: be it right, And so that might help you understand
Speaker 3: how I got to the place where I'm like, oh,
Speaker 3: you need to build a party. So I started off
Speaker 3: as a as a grassroots organizer. Like I said, when
Speaker 3: I left college, I went back home to New York
Speaker 3: and I started working in a very very small, underresourced
Speaker 3: grassroots organization and we worked on all types of issues.
Speaker 1: It was, it was just one issue.
Speaker 3: We worked on making sure that big companies didn't pollute
Speaker 3: working class communities, especially working class communities of color. We
Speaker 3: writ to make sure that education money got to not
Speaker 3: just wealthy school districts that could afford it because they're
Speaker 3: able to have a tax base that allows them to
Speaker 3: have things right and property taxes. But you know, maybe
Speaker 3: you know working class neighborhood like Wine Dance.
Speaker 1: Wine Dance on Long.
Speaker 3: Island, one hundred percent of the students are black. When
Speaker 3: I was working on those campaigns to get more money
Speaker 3: into that school district and other school districts like it,
Speaker 3: the graduation rate was in.
Speaker 1: The thirtiesh So that means.
Speaker 3: Basically, if you are working hard and you're doing all
Speaker 3: the right things, and you're sending your child to that school,
Speaker 3: chances are your child will not graduate.
Speaker 1: Yeah, only three out of ten is good. You're doing
Speaker 1: everything you could do as a parent.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, everything that this country says you're supposed
Speaker 3: to be doing, you're doing, and chances are your child
Speaker 3: will not graduate.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: So, so we did a lot of work to try
Speaker 3: to change those things. And what I realized is, you know,
Speaker 3: and I'm really proud of the work that we did.
Speaker 3: But I realized that at a certain level, the grassroots
Speaker 3: organizing that I was doing.
Speaker 1: We would hit a wall. Yeah.
Speaker 3: That wall was the elected officials that even when we
Speaker 3: brought it to them, they did not want to hear us.
Speaker 3: And it was because they were listening to and they
Speaker 3: felt accountable to the real estate lobby or the pharmaceutic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know.
Speaker 3: And so that got that got me involved in elections
Speaker 3: because I was like, we need to take them out, right,
Speaker 3: And so so that got me involved in elections. We decided,
Speaker 3: all right, let's get new elected officials. And you know,
Speaker 3: at the time New York the legislature was run by Republicans.
Speaker 3: We had a Republican governor, and they weren't they weren't
Speaker 3: hearing any of that. And so we were like, all right,
Speaker 3: we're gonna flip the the legislature from Republican to Democrat.
Speaker 3: Once we do that, boom, And we eventually did that,
Speaker 3: and we we learned that once you flip from Republican
Speaker 3: to Democrat, it's not going to be a game changer
Speaker 3: because so many of those Democrats are listening to the same.
Speaker 1: Lobbyists, same.
Speaker 3: Right, Yes, so we were like, Yo, they were talking
Speaker 3: all this good stuff about educational equity and racial justice
Speaker 3: to da da dada where they didn't have power, but
Speaker 3: now they have the power to do something, and now
Speaker 3: they're like, it's like they have.
Speaker 1: Amnesia and they're not right. Okay. So that was a
Speaker 1: huge lesson.
Speaker 3: So lesson number one, when I was working on the
Speaker 3: very very grassroots level with parents and teachers and students,
Speaker 3: the power of grassroots organizing, it's undeniable, but there's barriers,
Speaker 3: and those barriers are political. And the way that you
Speaker 3: overcome those political barriers. Lesson number two is by getting
Speaker 3: different people into office. Lesson number three. Who those people
Speaker 3: are matter. It's not just the or R next to
Speaker 3: their Who those people are matter? Right, Okay, fast forward,
Speaker 3: fast forward, because I'm being those people, right and I'm
Speaker 3: feeling frustrated year after year after year. And in the
Speaker 3: midst of that, Michael Brown is murdered in Saint Louis, right,
Speaker 3: And it's hard to explain where I was at in
Speaker 3: my mind at the time, but it was like I
Speaker 3: felt appalling in that moment, and I picked up the
Speaker 3: phone and I reached the Organization for Black Struggle in
Speaker 3: Saint Louis, and you know, we had a good conversation.
Speaker 3: The organizer I spoke to and I was like, look,
Speaker 3: I'm in New York right now, but I will get
Speaker 3: on a plane and support whatever you're doing, and I
Speaker 3: will follow your lead and I will recruit others and
Speaker 3: you know, maybe I'll go for I'll go this weekend
Speaker 3: and you know, and they were like boom, come through.
Speaker 3: And it was life changing, life changing what I saw
Speaker 3: on the ground in Saint Louis. I saw every type
Speaker 3: of black person that yeah all together.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I got to do it because I come from music.
Speaker 2: I got to do a benefit concert around that time too.
Speaker 2: And when you witness, like first of I had no
Speaker 2: idea like Ferguson was the Sundowntown.
Speaker 1: But then like once you.
Speaker 2: Witness, yeah, this full strap, full like social stratification of
Speaker 2: black people, like all in one space, it was like,
Speaker 2: oh this is yo, it's different.
Speaker 1: Yeah, life changing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like you know, from the from very very very
Speaker 3: young people you know with science hands up, Mike Brown, yeah, people,
Speaker 3: church folk, yep, the people in the civil rights organizations,
Speaker 3: the people in the street organizations, yeah right, everybody, but
Speaker 3: you know, the everybody.
Speaker 1: It was like something I never could have imagined.
Speaker 3: And so I was like, whatever the people, whatever, the
Speaker 3: working class black people who were willing to take these
Speaker 3: risks on these streets are doing, I'm gonna support it, right,
Speaker 3: And so I basically stayed in Ferguson and in Saint Louis.
Speaker 3: I left the work that I was doing in New York,
Speaker 3: and I was able to see the rise of the
Speaker 3: movement for Black Lives. Yeah, from that ground level, maybe
Speaker 3: a week or two after Michael Brown was murdered to
Speaker 3: it becoming an international so the right and so what
Speaker 3: I saw, and this will get to why I'm like, okay,
Speaker 3: political parties, what I saw was, Wow, social movements have
Speaker 3: the power to call questions at the level of society
Speaker 3: where everybody question that the social movement is calling. Everybody
Speaker 3: has that on their lips, right, And I saw that
Speaker 3: Barack Obama was like Ferguson, what's going on in Ferguson?
Speaker 3: But you know, to you know, man, I was in
Speaker 3: Tanzania and this this brother in Tanzania was like, tell
Speaker 3: me about fergus It was like that, right, Yeah, Now
Speaker 3: social movements could call the questions social movements and protest movements,
Speaker 3: they could surface these contradictions, like big contradiction in this
Speaker 3: country that we have ignored violence against black people.
Speaker 1: Now we're dealing with it.
Speaker 3: But but social movements don't necessarily have the power, and
Speaker 3: protest movements don't necessarily have the power to answer the
Speaker 3: question and resolve the contradiction. So you ask the question
Speaker 3: and then the most organized forces are able to answer
Speaker 3: the question. And generally, under this system, the system of capitalism,
Speaker 3: the most organized forces tend to be companies, corporations, organized capital.
Speaker 3: So so Taser International, which they produced the Taser, and
Speaker 3: they produce they produced non lethal weapons, right they they
Speaker 3: they're made. They had a product body cameras, right yeah.
Speaker 3: And this was before body cameras have become now they're very,
Speaker 3: very popular. They were like the answer to these killings
Speaker 3: like Mike Brodcamera boom, and their logic was the mainstream
Speaker 3: logic of the day. If you put the body cameras
Speaker 3: on these cops, they're gonna be self aware of the
Speaker 3: fact that they're being recorded. They're not gonna, you know,
Speaker 3: commit these heinous crimes against people. BA Bob easy And
Speaker 3: it became the answer. So what did I learn from that?
Speaker 3: I learned that we need the We need everything. We
Speaker 3: need the ability and the grassroots like I saw to
Speaker 3: be able to bring people together on our issues. Like
Speaker 3: I saw in in Windage. We need the ability to
Speaker 3: elect people who actually are about that business. I saw
Speaker 3: that we need the ability to protest because we've got
Speaker 3: to call the question. We've got to surface these big
Speaker 3: problems in our society. And if we stopped there, we're
Speaker 3: gonna alley oop the ball to companies and corporation because
Speaker 3: under the system, under the system of capitalism, every problem
Speaker 3: requires an answer, and so every problem becomes a market
Speaker 3: for a company.
Speaker 1: Right, right, And so a couple of gems. Man, Yeah,
Speaker 1: so when.
Speaker 3: You surface a social problem, that becomes a market for
Speaker 3: a company. So you protest and you make a social problem.
Speaker 3: There is a some probably white man in some office
Speaker 3: somewhere right who is looking at that social problem and
Speaker 3: trying to figure out how he can market to it.
Speaker 1: How do I monetize it? You, how can I monetize it?
Speaker 4: But the.
Speaker 2: Real quick, the sinister propheticness of the idea of the
Speaker 2: Taser company also making the body cam that it's the
Speaker 2: same you know, like how America funds civil wars and
Speaker 2: we actually fund both sides of the civil wars, like
Speaker 2: this is it's so sinister anyway?
Speaker 1: Go on? Yes, And so I read like that was
Speaker 1: my experience.
Speaker 3: I was like, wow, So, even when our protest movements
Speaker 3: work at the highest level, we're going to throw up
Speaker 3: a ball, which is this organic, authentic calling from the street,
Speaker 3: and they're gonna slam duckt and make profit off of it.
Speaker 1: How can we correct that? And my thing is like, well,
Speaker 1: we don't have.
Speaker 3: The billions of dollars that they have that allow them
Speaker 3: to have lobbyist city level, the county level, you know,
Speaker 3: so that they have all of these capacities to be
Speaker 3: able to be like boom, we got a solution for you.
Speaker 1: We got a solution.
Speaker 3: But if we're able to take government, because government has
Speaker 3: a lot of capacity, Government actually has a lot of resources,
Speaker 3: has a lot of staff. If we people could govern together,
Speaker 3: then we could have a protest movement on the outside
Speaker 3: calling calling the question, and then we get people who
Speaker 3: are aligned with that, with that social movement on the
Speaker 3: inside governing and then being able to deliver an answer
Speaker 3: and and so. And the vehicle the organization that focuses
Speaker 3: day in and day out on governing is a political party.
Speaker 3: That's what political parties are. For political parties small and large.
Speaker 3: They wake up every day, the political parties put their
Speaker 3: pants on and they have this they have this audacious
Speaker 3: idea that the ideas in their head to be the
Speaker 3: ideas out in the world. Wow, that's what political parties believe.
Speaker 3: And that's the difference between a protest movement. Protest movements
Speaker 3: are protesting the power. Political parties seek to be the power.
Speaker 3: And so that's why that's why I focus so much
Speaker 3: on building party power. It's not because I think grass
Speaker 3: who's organizing isn't powerful. It is powerful. It's not because
Speaker 3: I think electing individual elected officials is powerful. That's critical.
Speaker 3: It's not because I don't think protest is powerful. I've
Speaker 3: been on the ground floor of a protest movie.
Speaker 1: All of those things are important.
Speaker 3: But if we don't focus on governing, then what will
Speaker 3: end up doing is calling a question that our class
Speaker 3: enemies will answer. You know, the billionaires, all of the
Speaker 3: people like Elon Musk. Yeah, they will answer the question,
Speaker 3: and I don't want them to answer the question.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they answer it wrong because we said the
Speaker 2: government's corrupt. He said, Okay, Like right, I'm going to
Speaker 2: fix corruption.
Speaker 1: Okay, hold my beer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, basically like I got you. Didn't you say you
Speaker 2: wanted me to root out corruption?
Speaker 1: Yo? Listen, we got to.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I'm like furiously in my head taking notes on a
Speaker 2: few on so many things that you said that I
Speaker 2: wanted to come back to. And you kind of answered
Speaker 2: the next question, which was like, well then why not
Speaker 2: just why choose work within rather than just burning it
Speaker 2: down and starting over?
Speaker 1: And I think it kind of already kind of answered that.
Speaker 3: But one thing I want to say a little bit,
Speaker 3: a little bit about the burning down thing, because I've
Speaker 3: had the honor of having political mentors. Yeah, political mentors
Speaker 3: of all stripes, and political mentors who were around and
Speaker 3: very political during the late sixties, yeah, the early seventies,
Speaker 3: all the way up to the early eighties. And you know,
Speaker 3: you're you're a child of a black panther, so you know,
Speaker 3: people who were active during those times, they were.
Speaker 1: About that life, Like who were about that life for real?
Speaker 1: For real?
Speaker 3: Yeah, And the people who have mentored me that came
Speaker 3: through those experiences, they do not romanticize, No, they do
Speaker 3: not romanticize any of that type of activity. It is
Speaker 3: serious business. So I'll just I'll say that right, Like,
Speaker 3: there's a lot of people who cosplay Revolution.
Speaker 1: Not for sure. Yeah, it's like, all know, if you
Speaker 1: know what you're asking for.
Speaker 3: And in my experience, people on the internet cosplaying Revolution
Speaker 3: nine times out of ten they are not about that life.
Speaker 1: And I say that based on having.
Speaker 3: Deep relationships with people who were about that life and
Speaker 3: if need to, would be about that life.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know.
Speaker 3: And the thing is when you say burn it down,
Speaker 3: I want people to be very specific, right because you know,
Speaker 3: when you think about black people in our position in
Speaker 3: the society, you're talking about burning down.
Speaker 1: Let's use the analogy of a house.
Speaker 3: Yeah, all right, cool, But what happens if you and
Speaker 3: your people are in an accessory apartment that is a
Speaker 3: basement apartment in that house.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the door's locked.
Speaker 3: Yeah you want you want to burn this joint? Like, listen,
Speaker 3: I'm about that, but listen, you want to you want
Speaker 3: to burn it down while we're in it?
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're in the basement. Yeah, that's what you know.
Speaker 2: That's what the hummies say, Like they're like, well, that's
Speaker 2: really gonna hurt us more?
Speaker 3: Yes, Like, yeah, I want us to be really clear
Speaker 3: about what we're talking about. It's like, I mean this
Speaker 3: this goes back to I was talking to somebody about this.
Speaker 3: This is during the election, and people are like, man,
Speaker 3: we're going to teach the Democrats the lesson and so
Speaker 3: we're not gonna vot so we could teach them a lesson.
Speaker 1: And you know, if they lose, they're going to learn
Speaker 1: their lesson.
Speaker 3: I was like, who, let's be specific. I want you
Speaker 3: to be specific about about the consequences, right, because when
Speaker 3: you say the Democrats, you're probably talking about the people
Speaker 3: inside of the Democratic Party apparatus that have the power.
Speaker 3: These people are very, very wealthy, very very privilege. You're
Speaker 3: probably talking about the consultants that sell TV ads and
Speaker 3: sell digital ads, and like, these people are very wealthy, right,
Speaker 3: win or lose, these people will continue to be wealthy
Speaker 3: and to.
Speaker 1: Still make seven figures and go back to their mansions.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yes, win or lose, Like nothing is really going
Speaker 3: to happen to them. Are you talking about Joe Biden
Speaker 3: and his family, You're talking about common They're gonna.
Speaker 1: Be oh hey yeah right.
Speaker 3: You on the other hand, yeah, you on the other hand,
Speaker 3: if MAGA and Trump and these oligarchs take to office,
Speaker 3: and they do half of what's in Project twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: Five, you're going to feeling. So so when we talk
Speaker 1: about what are you ging them a lesson? Yeah? And
Speaker 1: and you know, burning it down.
Speaker 3: I want us to be really specific about what we're
Speaker 3: talking about and have a strategy. That's all I'm saying,
Speaker 3: Like what what we really yeah? And what are we
Speaker 3: gonna rebuild?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: No, I think like I think that, Like you know,
Speaker 2: as a parent, it's like, all right, your kids like
Speaker 2: walking along a brick fence and you're like get down,
Speaker 2: get down, or are you're gonna be like now let
Speaker 2: them fall?
Speaker 1: They gonna learn?
Speaker 2: And it's like okay, ah, so you're gonna watch your
Speaker 2: child get a concussion and then take them to the
Speaker 2: hospital Like who's learning here?
Speaker 1: Or are you just like you know what? Let me go? Yo?
Speaker 3: I mean like yo, absolutely, if you said something really important,
Speaker 3: really important, you said rebuild Because and as a as
Speaker 3: a son of a panther, what you know is that
Speaker 3: the Panthers were about building a new society. Yeah, that's
Speaker 3: it's like, yeah, that's what they were about. They were
Speaker 3: about building.
Speaker 1: That's what I was. Yep.
Speaker 2: That's like when I say it I'm like, I think,
Speaker 2: which is something you suggested. I think burning down is
Speaker 2: different than a controlled demolition. And if you've ever built something,
Speaker 2: there are things you have to tear down, but it's purposeful,
Speaker 2: Like I'm thinking about how it's coming down, what parts
Speaker 2: were taking down, what needs to be salvage, how we're
Speaker 2: replacing the new lumbers already here, Like you know what
Speaker 2: I'm saying. So I'm putting this down and putting this in.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying. So yeah, but like me,
Speaker 1: I want to I want it in a few minutes.
Speaker 1: I got left.
Speaker 2: I want to go back to a few things you said,
Speaker 2: which is like the functions of a political party. I
Speaker 2: think one thing that kept really frustrating me during the
Speaker 2: DNC was when they said we're going to read from
Speaker 2: Project twenty twenty five and then proceeded to not read
Speaker 2: from project and just say it's gonna do this to you.
Speaker 2: And it's like, fam just like if just read, if
Speaker 2: you would just read what it says, if you just
Speaker 2: let people say, look, this is what it says, then
Speaker 2: go do you understand that? And then be like okay,
Speaker 2: now these are the implications of that. But I'm pretty
Speaker 2: sure you heard it because you just this is what
Speaker 2: this is what they said they gonna do. I don't
Speaker 2: understand what you're so surprised about. They said they gonna
Speaker 2: do this. And then when Trump goes, I don't know
Speaker 2: these people, and then you go, oh, word, well it
Speaker 2: looks like the forward.
Speaker 1: Was endorsed by jd Vance wrote the forward.
Speaker 2: Ye, so either you'll know what's happening in your own
Speaker 2: house or you lying so like, I don't understand what
Speaker 2: Like if.
Speaker 1: You just say that you know what I'm saying, I
Speaker 1: think we'd be in a different place.
Speaker 2: So then yeah, So then the other thing that I
Speaker 2: think you brought down, you brought really together for people
Speaker 2: is the reality of of the both and in that
Speaker 2: I talk about like a lot of times on the
Speaker 2: show too, like people in the streets having actual political
Speaker 2: power in the sense that like if you shot a
Speaker 2: text and was like, hey, we're gonna be on seventh
Speaker 2: in line today and then a hundred people.
Speaker 1: Show up, you feel me you have actual political power.
Speaker 1: You don't have to.
Speaker 2: You don't have to, You're not astroturfing nothing like, you
Speaker 2: really have the pull.
Speaker 1: But what did it take for you to do that? Well,
Speaker 1: you had to be outside. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: So you have been outside for years for people to
Speaker 2: be like, Okay, so when you say we sliding, we sliding,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean. So so, but I can't
Speaker 2: bring I can't so I can't go into anybody's like
Speaker 2: legislative office and be like I want you all to
Speaker 2: do this, because they gonna be like, who is you?
Speaker 2: And then if you like, who am I? Okay, watch
Speaker 2: this dude, boom, it's a dread heads in the lobby
Speaker 2: right now.
Speaker 4: You feel me.
Speaker 1: It's like, that's that's who we are. You feel me.
Speaker 2: But at the end of the day, I don't care
Speaker 2: how many dreadheads are in the lobby. If the brother
Speaker 2: that runs that organization is paying my mortgage like that,
Speaker 2: he putting food in my children's in my children's mouth,
Speaker 2: I don't care what you say.
Speaker 1: You bring it. Bring all your homies, yo.
Speaker 2: Say, like, look, I belong to them, you know So
Speaker 2: I think the both and of like, you can't just
Speaker 2: try to get people elected because first of all, you
Speaker 2: can't elect them if you ain't got the cred, you
Speaker 2: know what I'm saying. But once you got the cred,
Speaker 2: you got to be able to take it somewhere, you
Speaker 2: know what I'm saying. So I think that you you,
Speaker 2: you really put the two pieces together in a way
Speaker 2: that like I have yet to hear hear anybody anybody do.
Speaker 1: So I got like three minutes with you.
Speaker 3: So my last question is like, oh, man, in this
Speaker 3: our work by so quick man, you need to fast
Speaker 3: for part two for show bro We're doing this again.
Speaker 3: So look, I'm like, all right, everybody ain't starting a
Speaker 3: political party, you know what I mean? Like you said,
Speaker 3: we work in families.
Speaker 2: It's like, ma gi, like fools can't do their laundry,
Speaker 2: let alone go organized.
Speaker 1: Like it's still a pile of laundry sitting in the corner.
Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: We still gotta work on your daughter's a little animal project,
Speaker 2: like talking.
Speaker 1: About talking about rebuild a political party. You feel me?
Speaker 2: So I guess what I'm asking is like, where can
Speaker 2: somebody who is working like that?
Speaker 1: Where can they start? What are some like easy pieces
Speaker 1: they could do? Okay, So.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna give people the advice I got from Stokely
Speaker 3: Carmichael comment.
Speaker 1: Take notes. Everybody take notes. Okay, your job.
Speaker 3: Is to find an organization, right, and so if you're
Speaker 3: listening to me, you could join the Working Families Party. Yeah, right,
Speaker 3: you could actually join. It's easy. We try to make
Speaker 3: it easy for you. You could go on our website. You
Speaker 3: could text my name Mo Moe to three zero four
Speaker 3: zero three and you'll get a text back. We'll plug
Speaker 3: you in right now. People have different levels of time
Speaker 3: and responsibility, So if all you have is a few minutes,
Speaker 3: then you could go on our social media and just
Speaker 3: read because, like I said before, part of the job
Speaker 3: of a political party is to explain to the people
Speaker 3: what is going on, and you could learn everything that
Speaker 3: I know. There's a lot of misinformation, disinformation. Everything on
Speaker 3: our channels is validated, real information for working people to
Speaker 3: understand the day to day, right, So that's number one.
Speaker 3: If you just I just got a few minutes, go
Speaker 3: on any of our social media so that you could
Speaker 3: learn and stay up on what's going on, right, and
Speaker 3: we will come election time give you our voter guide
Speaker 3: so you'll know how to vote for the candidates who
Speaker 3: align with Working Families issues. If you have more than
Speaker 3: a few minutes, if you have an hour, you could
Speaker 3: actually join from wherever you're from.
Speaker 1: You could join a phone bank, you could join.
Speaker 3: We have political education where we're talking about all types
Speaker 3: of things. We have these welcome gatherings that we do
Speaker 3: everything that are virtual, so you could connect with other
Speaker 3: people around the country who, like you, want to be involved.
Speaker 3: But yo, you listen, you got yeah, the laundry, I
Speaker 3: got that laundry pile too.
Speaker 1: Everybody has, right, Okay.
Speaker 3: If you got a little bit more time, right, there's
Speaker 3: not only could could you begin to phone bank, like
Speaker 3: for example, we're calling congressional leaders all around the country
Speaker 3: to get them to push back against Elon Musk, trying
Speaker 3: to take our money, trying to take our data. Right,
Speaker 3: if you got a little bit more time, We're encouraging
Speaker 3: everyday working people. You don't have to have degrees, you
Speaker 3: don't have to run for office, and so we whole
Speaker 3: now you're talking, we're recruiting one thousand working people around
Speaker 3: the country to run for local office. So if you
Speaker 3: have more time, and you might be thinking, well, I'm
Speaker 3: talking to you because I know if you're dealing with
Speaker 3: trying to trying to pay off medical debt, trying to
Speaker 3: get your kids to daycare, trying to make sure that
Speaker 3: your kid has a good education in a school that
Speaker 3: may not you know, try try trying to be president
Speaker 3: and try to figure out how to.
Speaker 1: Make that IEP work for your yeah yeah, all that stuff.
Speaker 3: Well, then you you know enough to be able to
Speaker 3: to govern.
Speaker 1: On the local level.
Speaker 3: You should be in school board, you should be on
Speaker 3: the city council, you should be on the school board.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: So we will support you, and we will train you
Speaker 3: up to do that right, and we also train you
Speaker 3: to support others to do that right.
Speaker 1: And because we don't have billions of dollars, but what we.
Speaker 3: Do know is that people power has always changed the world,
Speaker 3: and so we're building this people power together.
Speaker 1: So we go from a few.
Speaker 3: Minutes, yeah, right, to several hours to all right, I'm
Speaker 3: gonna actually be a part of the change and run
Speaker 3: for we go through all of that.
Speaker 1: I love it.
Speaker 3: Whatever you want, whatever whatever capacity you have, however you
Speaker 3: want to start, will meet you there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, beautiful.
Speaker 2: I even love like you said, back to Stokely's game
Speaker 2: of like, look dude, and if it ain't us, oh yeah,
Speaker 2: clock in with somebody, tap in with somebody. When we
Speaker 2: interviewed h I don't know if you know Bamboo up
Speaker 2: up in the bay, but he's an amazing organizer up
Speaker 2: there runs beat rock music, amazing rapper. But that was
Speaker 2: one thing that like kind of the same thing. He
Speaker 2: was doing this revolutionary hip hop stuff. And then somebody
Speaker 2: was like, but have you joined an org? Like who's
Speaker 2: who's your big hommies? Like who are you checking in with?
Speaker 1: Where is this?
Speaker 2: Where is it going? And he was like yeah, you know,
Speaker 2: and like so that's that's the reality, you know, I
Speaker 2: have mine. I'm part of a nonprofit Search for Common Ground,
Speaker 2: Like I'm checking in with like I have to check
Speaker 2: in you know what I mean?
Speaker 3: Yeah, And that is to me the primary wherever you are,
Speaker 3: find your organization. Yeah, find your organization. We are for everybody. Yeah,
Speaker 3: so you know, I don't I don't begrut you if
Speaker 3: you if you look into WFP and you're like, ah,
Speaker 3: that may not be it may not be for you,
Speaker 3: but find an organization.
Speaker 1: That's powerful.
Speaker 2: Brett, thank you so much for your time. If you
Speaker 2: could drop the ad symbols and then I'll let you go.
Speaker 1: Okay, absolutely, let me drop those joints right now at
Speaker 1: working families and.
Speaker 2: At working families. I'm a verbally, but I appreciate you, Okay.
Speaker 3: It He was like yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, So you
Speaker 3: can find listen, you can find Working Families, party at
Speaker 3: Working Families, and you can find me everywhere at Maurice
Speaker 3: WFP on all social media platforms, the social media platforms
Speaker 3: that are currently owned by the fascist lawyers.
Speaker 1: It is so frustracked, so frustrating.
Speaker 2: It's like, yeah, I'm gonna put this video about how
Speaker 2: to change the world and chant down Babylon on this
Speaker 2: Babylon built site.
Speaker 3: I'm just like, contradictions are so intense, but which is why?
Speaker 3: Which is why? And this is something I'm gonna start
Speaker 3: talking about more. Why we need to we need to
Speaker 3: have a future vision, right because we have to do
Speaker 3: the work now stop them now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we can't keep doing this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but we can't keep doing this because we need
Speaker 3: to build the information platforms of tomorrow that allow us
Speaker 3: to be more connected because there their information platforms are
Speaker 3: designed to divide us so that they did its working,
Speaker 3: oh like working.
Speaker 1: Because yeah, you got my man.
Speaker 3: You know, you got my man you know in farm
Speaker 3: country thinkingm his enemy.
Speaker 4: Yeah, like yeah, like.
Speaker 2: What I'm trying to say, Yeah, yeah man, man, correct,
Speaker 2: thank you so much.
Speaker 1: I appreciate your time. Man, This has been dope.
Speaker 2: So yeah, follow the hummy, get involved somewhere.
Speaker 1: All right, y'all, all right, y'all, pace, all.
Speaker 2: Right, now, don't you hit stop on this pod. You
Speaker 2: better listen to these credits. I need you to finish
Speaker 2: this thing so I can get the download numbers. Okay,
Speaker 2: so don't stop it yet, but listen. This was recorded
Speaker 2: in East Lost boil Heights by your boy Propaganda. Tap
Speaker 2: in with me at prop hip hop dot com. If
Speaker 2: you're in the Coldbrew coffee we got terraform Coldbrew. You
Speaker 2: can go there dot com and use promo code hood
Speaker 2: get twenty percent off get yourself some coffee. This was mixed,
Speaker 2: edited and mastered by your boy Matt Alsowski killing the
Speaker 2: beat softly. Check out his website Matdowsofski dot com.
Speaker 1: I'm a spelling for you because I know M A.
Speaker 2: T T O S O w s Ki dot com
Speaker 2: Matdowsowski dot com. He got more music and stuff like
Speaker 2: that on there, so gonna check out. The heat Politics
Speaker 2: is a member of cool Zone Media, executive produced by
Speaker 2: Sophie Lichterman, part of the iHeartMedia podcast network. Your theme
Speaker 2: music and scoring is also by the One and Overly
Speaker 2: Mattowsowski still killing the beat softly, so listen.
Speaker 1: Don't let nobody lie to you.
Speaker 2: If you understand urban living, you understand politics. These people
Speaker 2: is not smarter than you. We'll see y'all next week.
Speaker 1: M