Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to ok F Daily with
Speaker 1: me your Girl, Danielle Moody pre recording from the Home Bunker, Folks,
Speaker 1: I am very excited to kick off wok f's Cookout
Speaker 1: week by bringing on some of our favorite past guests
Speaker 1: to have a conversation this week on liberty, on freedom
Speaker 1: and justice and what that means to them and what
Speaker 1: it means to us in this country right now as
Speaker 1: we are celebrating the July fourth Independence holiday this week,
Speaker 1: you know, and you will hear from me later in
Speaker 1: the week for my solo episode, but I will tell
Speaker 1: you as we kick off this week that I, like
Speaker 1: many Americans, like many Americans that are people of color,
Speaker 1: that are queer, that are from marginalized communities, have a
Speaker 1: complicated feeling when it comes to celebrating the fourth of
Speaker 1: July or acknowledging the fourth of July. I think that
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways, America likes to have it
Speaker 1: both ways right where we want to celebrate our founding
Speaker 1: fathers and breaking away from the oppression of British rule
Speaker 1: and not wanting to pay taxes and wanting to be
Speaker 1: religious zealous and coming to this new land and creating
Speaker 1: a never before seen democratic government at the same time,
Speaker 1: right at the same time, the founders of this nation
Speaker 1: came to occupied land, murdered, raped, and tortured the indigenous
Speaker 1: population that welcomed them, try to enslave them, but they
Speaker 1: knew too much about the land, so they would later
Speaker 1: develop the Transatlantic slave trade to bring in enslaved people
Speaker 1: in shackles who would then build their dream. And so
Speaker 1: when I think about the truth, right, which is what
Speaker 1: we've been denied throughout our K through twelve education system,
Speaker 1: and only if you went to a liberal arts college
Speaker 1: would you then maybe have gotten some glimmers of the
Speaker 1: truth right for your credit that you needed to graduate.
Speaker 1: You might have taken a more in depth history of
Speaker 1: the United States. But other than that, you're pretty much
Speaker 1: walking around with your head filled of fairy tales and
Speaker 1: whitewashing of who the founding fathers were, how this nation
Speaker 1: came to be, and on whose backs that happened. And
Speaker 1: I would love to say, well, it doesn't really matter
Speaker 1: how it all started, It matters how it ends. You
Speaker 1: know that old adage, Well that's not actually the truth,
Speaker 1: because we continue in this country to elect politicians that
Speaker 1: create policies that have steeped in the vestitudes of slavery
Speaker 1: and Jim Crow, of racism and discrimination that we have
Speaker 1: never actually dealt with. So when we get to this day,
Speaker 1: this week of celebration for millions of Americans in this country,
Speaker 1: the questions that we need to ask I pose to
Speaker 1: my guests this week. They are important questions that are
Speaker 1: worth unpacking, and not just this week during America's quote
Speaker 1: unquote independence, but really every day as we forge a
Speaker 1: path in an increasingly authoritarian, fascist environment where we are
Speaker 1: fighting to hold on to the idea of democracy. But
Speaker 1: if we're really honest with ourselves, democracy has only been
Speaker 1: experienced by the white few. So coming up next, I'm
Speaker 1: very excited to welcome back to wok F Daily my
Speaker 1: friend the Reverend markin Thompson, who is the host of
Speaker 1: Make It Plain, to get into a conversation about how
Speaker 1: he thinks about this holiday as somebody that has spent
Speaker 1: their career fighting for civil rights and justice and has
Speaker 1: been shoulder to shoulder with some of the many greats
Speaker 1: that you know. I hope that you enjoyed this conversation
Speaker 1: between Mark and I, Folks. I am excited to welcome
Speaker 1: back to wok F daily after a very long time,
Speaker 1: too long in my humble opinion, the Reverend Mark Thompson,
Speaker 1: host of Make It Plain, Mark, it is fourth of
Speaker 1: July week, the week that America, or better yet, I
Speaker 1: should say, white Americans celebrate the independence of America from
Speaker 1: British rule. And I don't know about you, but I
Speaker 1: have had a very complicated relationship with the fourth of July.
Speaker 1: And you know, while on this show, we had a
Speaker 1: really in depth conversation around the Juneteenth holiday, which I
Speaker 1: also have issue with the federal government of the United
Speaker 1: States making June tenth the holiday, but yet banning curriculum
Speaker 1: that would talk about said holiday. So I just want
Speaker 1: to open up with how are you feeling and how
Speaker 1: do you feel about the fourth of July as a whole?
Speaker 2: Well, good to see Danielle, me to be with you
Speaker 2: as always, and let me just say that the fourth
Speaker 2: of July is usually recognized on my show making playing
Speaker 2: with the reading in its entirety of Frederick Douglas's speech
Speaker 2: What to the Slave is the fourth of July? It
Speaker 2: takes I guess over an hour almost two hours for
Speaker 2: me to read it. That I do it every year,
Speaker 2: and those who would like for me to call him
Speaker 2: on the phone and read it over the phone for
Speaker 2: them for two hours. Feel free off of that to
Speaker 2: friends and family like no, why.
Speaker 1: They don't do you got to do is sit and listen?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, no, that's two things all for friends. I'll
Speaker 2: need to read the whole Frederick Douglas speech over the phone.
Speaker 2: If you want to set up a personal zoom, we
Speaker 2: can do it. We can do it right here, right now,
Speaker 2: if you like.
Speaker 1: Because I have done this. I have done this on
Speaker 1: my show on my show as well, because I had
Speaker 1: been inspired and I would tell people as I was
Speaker 1: doing it that I was inspired by you. I was
Speaker 1: also inspired. Roland Martin had done it on his show
Speaker 1: where he would get a bunch of different folks to
Speaker 1: read pieces of it and plug that in on his show.
Speaker 1: But I was inspired by you.
Speaker 2: But it's different. He does different people. It won no
Speaker 2: group with French Douglas. He did it his own.
Speaker 1: Wait, he didn't have the commodoors.
Speaker 2: He did it much right, that's right. So I do it.
Speaker 2: The two things I offer people, you know, just as
Speaker 2: personal gifts. I'll either read that speech over the phone
Speaker 2: or I can actually perform the entire porgin best opera
Speaker 2: over the phone, seeing all the parts. So whatever whatever
Speaker 2: you want, like, I can do that for you. So
Speaker 2: this is the tradition that we often engage in, and
Speaker 2: I think it's important. What's interesting is people are always learning,
Speaker 2: and as often as I've done it, people are still
Speaker 2: surprised by what they hear, and it's like a renewal.
Speaker 2: So just as much as holidays and annual events are
Speaker 2: for celebrations, they're also reminders, really benchmarks for what we're
Speaker 2: dealing with and what's going on. Not a soul marched
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty for a Juneteenth holiday, not one single soul. Yep.
Speaker 2: Somewhere along the way, a deal was cut to I
Speaker 2: guess play. I guess they thought they would play everyone
Speaker 2: by offering this holiday. But I don't think that's the fact.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's nice, we'll take it, but that ain't
Speaker 2: what we want. We still do not have freedom, liberty
Speaker 2: and justice in this country, and and right now it's
Speaker 2: is if we're up against another group of people who
Speaker 2: happen to be white nationalists who feel the same way,
Speaker 2: which is absurd. It's absurd, and that's problematic because what
Speaker 2: that says is that their demands somehow have weight or
Speaker 2: significance enough to overshadow ours, and they shouldn't. They do
Speaker 2: have free they Donald Trump was president, nobody that did
Speaker 2: not not happen. But have we seen as African Americans?
Speaker 2: Is June teenth really our freedom day? No? Because we're
Speaker 2: even There's a story came out the other day. I
Speaker 2: got to find this into I might find before we
Speaker 2: hang up, because I want to quote it. Do people
Speaker 2: know that even after June nineteenth in Dalveston, Texas, even
Speaker 2: beyond that, there were folks still enslaved in up here
Speaker 2: on the east coast in New Jersey, Okay. So the announcement,
Speaker 2: the belated announcement, did not change the conditions of what
Speaker 2: we're dealing with, and they still haven't changed, because the
Speaker 2: vestiges of enslavement still exist, particularly with police violence. We
Speaker 2: just celebrated the one year anniversary of Jalen Walker's ascension,
Speaker 2: shot forty six times by the Akron police. Ninety bullets
Speaker 2: they shot six point seven seconds. Not a single officer
Speaker 2: charged or disciplined. We just asked the DOJ to get
Speaker 2: involved in that case. We saw our sister down in
Speaker 2: Florida who was shot by a neighbor, ye under that
Speaker 2: so called castle doctrine, and we are still subject to lynchings.
Speaker 2: We still have mass incarceration, We still have issues with employment,
Speaker 2: I mean unemployments. Employment's gotten better, but it's not where
Speaker 2: it ought to be. Where is the access to capital
Speaker 2: for our own businesses? Where is the access to resources
Speaker 2: for us to have owned homes in a middle class
Speaker 2: country that where wealth is built upon property ownership, We
Speaker 2: still don't have that. We still are not free, and
Speaker 2: firmative action under threat, voting rights still under threat, So no,
Speaker 2: we ain't free. What to us is the fourth of
Speaker 2: their lives.
Speaker 1: There's a video that is going around Mark two of
Speaker 1: a white woman who says, you know, the blacks they
Speaker 1: have a month, they had a president. What do we have?
Speaker 1: I think that June? Because she was being asked about
Speaker 1: what her feelings were on Juneteenth, and she said that
Speaker 1: she thought Juneteenth was bulls because the blacks have everything?
Speaker 1: What do the whites have? The clip has gone viral
Speaker 1: because it was just so obscene. And I recognize though
Speaker 1: that this is what white people who are indoctrinated into
Speaker 1: the Republican cult, who follow Magadam and Donald Trump. This
Speaker 1: is what he has them believe they are the aggrieved.
Speaker 1: Their lie, it's woe is me. And so when we
Speaker 1: are back in this space where it's like they scream
Speaker 1: white power and then they're like these fragile snowflakes that
Speaker 1: can't walk past let's say, a rainbow display and target
Speaker 1: without destroying it. They are these people that are screaming
Speaker 1: about their power. But then like, can't you know, can't
Speaker 1: imagine Juneteenth as a national holiday. So I'm like, how
Speaker 1: do we rectify their lie? As you're saying, because I mean,
Speaker 1: you've been doing this work a long time, and I
Speaker 1: got to say, Mark, I feel like we are on
Speaker 1: a backslide of all backslides. It's not just our democracy
Speaker 1: that's backsliding. It's the acceptance, it's the appreciation, it is
Speaker 1: all of the incremental gains that I feel like the
Speaker 1: black community has had, that queer community has had are
Speaker 1: all being clawed back. And so I'm like, how do
Speaker 1: we rectify this lie? Do we just continue combating it
Speaker 1: or is there something else that we are missing?
Speaker 2: So, first of all, we were good until you said,
Speaker 2: I've been out here a long time, all right. I
Speaker 2: was at a Juneteenth event and do you know that
Speaker 2: you had the nerve to introduce your brother saying I've
Speaker 2: been on the battlefield for forty years. Then somebody ran
Speaker 2: an article since you were, somebody ran an article talking
Speaker 2: about how something I did thirty years ago. None of
Speaker 2: that is possible. I'm not even thirty yet, so I
Speaker 2: don't even know how. So you're going to take that back,
Speaker 2: edited out the thing, y'all check it out, take that
Speaker 2: out that whole long time. STI let's be clear too,
Speaker 2: it is not that complicated. The reason white women you
Speaker 2: described and other people make these statements, Danielle is because
Speaker 2: social media allows it and encourages it. As we talked
Speaker 2: about before, the algorithm promotes conflict and foolishness. But think
Speaker 2: back before you had that, people didn't make those caps.
Speaker 2: So this she goes viral and everybody's talking about it.
Speaker 2: We had one president out of forty five forty six presidents,
Speaker 2: all right, and several of those presidents raped enslaved black
Speaker 2: women and had children by them. One such president may unconfirmed,
Speaker 2: even being an ancestor of mine. We're trying to find
Speaker 2: that out. So my family name, my grandmother's family name
Speaker 2: is is Poke. For some reason, all right. So the
Speaker 2: point is that people can say all that stuff, but
Speaker 2: it's not real. And yes, we are getting pushed back
Speaker 2: in every way when it comes to anything we think
Speaker 2: we have gained, yes, and it's so bad. What's left
Speaker 2: from the first black president? What do we have to
Speaker 2: show for it? Other than the Affordable Healthcare Act? But
Speaker 2: other than that, again, affirmative action has been under threat.
Speaker 2: You know, we have to brace ourselves every time something
Speaker 2: goes to the Supreme Court. Women's bodily autonomy, that's not
Speaker 2: a white woman's issue. The roots of women's loss of
Speaker 2: bodily autonomy was during the period of enslavement, and that's
Speaker 2: where it was codified and ratified. Some African Americans legal
Speaker 2: scholars have even said the thirteenth Amendment is the argument
Speaker 2: to have women's bodily autonomy restored. There is nothing that
Speaker 2: has happened here in this country. There has been no
Speaker 2: benefit that white America has gained. There has been no
Speaker 2: success that white America has achieved and enjoyed that was
Speaker 2: not upon the backs of our enslaved ancestors and beyond,
Speaker 2: because even after you get out of the period of enslavement,
Speaker 2: and I just want to I got this thing. I
Speaker 2: found this article. Apparently New Jersey. It was December eighteen
Speaker 2: sixty five where they were still enslave. And it wasn't
Speaker 2: until January twenty third, eighteen sixty six that the Governor
Speaker 2: of New Jersey signed the constitutional amendment to enslaver in
Speaker 2: the state of New Jersey. So let's be clear by this.
Speaker 2: So we need another holiday January twenty third, That's what
Speaker 2: I'm saying. The holidays alone, don't get it. They're symbolic,
Speaker 2: But Juneteenth wasn't the end, all right. Having said that,
Speaker 2: knowing what we know and knowing how often our rights
Speaker 2: are subject to review or as Chief Justice robbers would
Speaker 2: it started when they first goutted the Voting Rights Act sunset,
Speaker 2: there's still much more to be done, and we can't stop, y'all.
Speaker 2: We this Fourth of July holiday must be used as
Speaker 2: a way to organize and galvanize really every day of
Speaker 2: the year. We have a sacred obligation to do segregation.
Speaker 2: Jim Crow White folks benefited from that. Our inability to
Speaker 2: even be in the process that built the middle class,
Speaker 2: homesteading gi Bill, all of those things, Our inability to
Speaker 2: be there to reap those benefits from those programs is
Speaker 2: what lifted the white middle class up. Now, what Bishop
Speaker 2: Barber would say is that in rebuilding Doctor King's Poor
Speaker 2: People's Campaign, which is very important, we have to deal
Speaker 2: with poverty and the majority of white of people in
Speaker 2: America who are in poverty are white. The middle class
Speaker 2: is no longer real middle class. It is a working class,
Speaker 2: a working poor. Most of us live in paycheck to paycheck.
Speaker 2: So what's up with that? America is a mess because
Speaker 2: not only are the provisions that built the original middle class,
Speaker 2: not only are they obsolete now and need to be
Speaker 2: reinvented or renewed or resurrected. We as African Americans never
Speaker 2: were in that mix, so we were never caught up. Right.
Speaker 2: So white folks are behind financially economically, we're two or
Speaker 2: three times behind them. And that's why America cannot get
Speaker 2: past the place that it's in these cultural, ideological exclusivity
Speaker 2: and racist debates. All right now. Our America's industry's greatest commodity.
Speaker 2: I was talking to somebody that I've guess what, y'all,
Speaker 2: I'm doing some international stuff. You know, I got to
Speaker 2: expand it's not the UN talking to people people said me,
Speaker 2: how come we have high speed trains? And y'all know,
Speaker 2: I said, ignorant and trifling because this country is not
Speaker 2: trying to do that. What would that do for the
Speaker 2: folks need jobs? White folks need jobs?
Speaker 1: Yep?
Speaker 2: What would it mean to build that kind of infrastructure?
Speaker 2: How many jobs would that create? How many businesses would
Speaker 2: have to be built around high speed rail stations? Talking
Speaker 2: presidential now, y'all, I'm not running president, but I'm saying,
Speaker 2: why am I thinking about that? And nobody else is
Speaker 2: trying to do that? And they're supposed to be the
Speaker 2: ones who have this American exceptionalism and American dream. All
Speaker 2: of that is a myth. This is about holding on,
Speaker 2: in James Baldwin's words, to the last white country the
Speaker 2: world will ever see.
Speaker 1: You know what's interesting the other and I'm so glad
Speaker 1: that you brought up the UN the other day. I'm watching,
Speaker 1: you know, some videos about infrastructure in Japan, right, and
Speaker 1: I'm looking and I'm saying, Japan and China they're living
Speaker 1: in the future, right, Like you're talking about you know,
Speaker 1: four D built boards and high speed trains everywhere that
Speaker 1: are like at what would be the regular rate is
Speaker 1: what our excella first class looks like. But that's just
Speaker 1: like their baseline for their high speed trains that go
Speaker 1: all over the country. Right. And I'm sitting here and
Speaker 1: I said, howly is it that these people, these countries
Speaker 1: even look at the United States and say that we're
Speaker 1: quote unquote power and a force, Because all you have
Speaker 1: to do is take a plane, ride over here, walk around,
Speaker 1: go into our subway stations, take a bus, take a bridge,
Speaker 1: and you're like, we're hanging on to nineteenth century beginning
Speaker 1: of the twentieth century infrastructure, right, but saying that we
Speaker 1: are a world power. And I'm just like, I purposefully
Speaker 1: believe Mark that the reason why we don't move forward
Speaker 1: with real aggressive buildout is because what why Americans want
Speaker 1: in this country is a permanent underclass, right, Because that's
Speaker 1: how capitalism, that's how white supremacy will continue to move
Speaker 1: is if there is a permanent underclass, people that are
Speaker 1: under educated or not educated at all, people that are
Speaker 1: desperate and going on paycheck to paycheck. Right, you can't
Speaker 1: imagine and be living in and thinking about futurism if
Speaker 1: you can barely like afford what is in front of you.
Speaker 2: No, you're absolutely right, and that is what is shameful.
Speaker 2: You mentioned the Asella. The Acella, y'all, is like it
Speaker 2: is not even a high speed train. They just take
Speaker 2: out some stops, Yes, exactly. Urnament is different from the
Speaker 2: regular train. So you're right, there's a need to keep
Speaker 2: people confused and subjugated. We invite people. Also another important
Speaker 2: speech for people to listen to you, not just Frederick Douglas,
Speaker 2: but what doctor King said at the end to the
Speaker 2: march from some of Montgomery and the need for this
Speaker 2: underclass and the need to keep the black and white
Speaker 2: underclass fighting yep with each other, yep. And that is
Speaker 2: what is still going on. And America is even more
Speaker 2: of a mess now because look, you got a president
Speaker 2: with over thirty counts, thirty felon accounts, yep, for committing espionage. Now,
Speaker 2: nowhere in the history world has anyone ever been acquitted
Speaker 2: when they've been charge of espionage. And nowhere in the
Speaker 2: history world has someone not gone to jail. Correct I
Speaker 2: liken this too. See we're still in America under the
Speaker 2: throes of racism and white supremacy. So what happened during segregation, well, no,
Speaker 2: we can go back before that y'all saw django, right,
Speaker 2: and Samuel Jackson, who should have won an Oscar for
Speaker 2: playing the quintessential Uncle Tom playing Clarence Thomas and movie
Speaker 2: What did he say when when jang on them showed
Speaker 2: up and they go, well, where's he gonna sleep? Sleep
Speaker 2: in bed? Who's gonna burn the sheets? Right? That's what
Speaker 2: he asked on the porch. That really happened. Lena Horne
Speaker 2: used to tell stories when she would perform at venues
Speaker 2: and stay at fancy hotels, they had to burn the
Speaker 2: sheets after she left. So when people talk about the
Speaker 2: first black president, y'all got us back for that. You
Speaker 2: didn't burn the sheets in the White House. Maybe you did,
Speaker 2: but you're burning down the country. Come on, the country
Speaker 2: is soiled. The country is a metaphor for the sheets
Speaker 2: they used to burn during segregation when we slept in
Speaker 2: the sheets. So you're gonna burn down the whole country.
Speaker 2: We now know that that Trump didn't just boycott the inauguration,
Speaker 2: the traditional ride alongside the incoming president with the outgoing president.
Speaker 2: He laid back in the cut at the White House
Speaker 2: to pack boxes yep, to take tomorrow lago with him. Now,
Speaker 2: what do you do with classified documents? Anybody else, any
Speaker 2: one of us eat white folks. LL y'all, let's take
Speaker 2: some with us. What we're gonna take. Just take some china,
Speaker 2: some silverware, or some paintings. I mean, that's nice. We
Speaker 2: put that in the house, or sell it hot whatever.
Speaker 2: Nobody takes classified documents. I can't find a white person
Speaker 2: who takes classified doctcause what do you do with them?
Speaker 2: What do you do with classified documents? Nobody will see that, Hey, Danne,
Speaker 2: what you're doing for the fourth House? Of these classified documents? No,
Speaker 2: you can't sell them unless you are in the professional
Speaker 2: espionage industry. You don't know anybody. I don't know anybody.
Speaker 2: Just ask anybody listening, do you want does anybody know
Speaker 2: anybody who would know who to sell classified documents? To
Speaker 2: know all the people in that industry. Know you have
Speaker 2: other countries that potentially have had our allies, your US allies,
Speaker 2: not our allies. But because ain't mine us allies who
Speaker 2: potentially have had operatives lives in danger or taken out yep,
Speaker 2: because of what Trump stole. YEP. The grand the jury
Speaker 2: on this case is going to probably have to go
Speaker 2: into a skiff. That's how deep this is yep. That
Speaker 2: has not happened with another president before them, another president's
Speaker 2: hanky panky, like Richard Nixon. He stopped the Vietnam Peace Accords,
Speaker 2: all right to hurt Lynd Johnson because he thought it
Speaker 2: was gonna run against him in sixty eight. But that's
Speaker 2: burning the country down, that is destroying it. Trump is
Speaker 2: willing to destroy the country over this debate, and this
Speaker 2: could be the first time. They say it might even
Speaker 2: have to result in Biden pardoning Trump because you just
Speaker 2: can't have a president go to prison over the espionageac well,
Speaker 2: why not. But if you allow that to happen, if
Speaker 2: you allow him to be excused, then you're burning the
Speaker 2: country down. So this is really where we are, yep.
Speaker 2: And it's a very very dangerous place us to be.
Speaker 2: And don't think for one minute other countries aren't looking
Speaker 2: around the world saying what is happening. People worried about
Speaker 2: a coup.
Speaker 1: In Russia, and I'm like, there's been a coup that's
Speaker 1: been underway in the United States for the last seven years,
Speaker 1: and it's not making the same kind of headlines.
Speaker 2: And it might be worse than a coup because the
Speaker 2: coup is straight up you have the protagonists you had here.
Speaker 2: It's sort of a soft coup and you don't see it,
Speaker 2: and so it just kind of gradually and you look
Speaker 2: up and it's done. But it is. It's and and
Speaker 2: Elon Musk and Twitter help it with what Twitter has
Speaker 2: been doing, and the people has been promoting, all the
Speaker 2: algorithms help it with the people that they promote. So
Speaker 2: America is in a in a in a bad place,
Speaker 2: and people need to wake up. The hope for America
Speaker 2: lies once again, the salvation of America lies in continuing
Speaker 2: what doctor King was doing. When they took him out.
Speaker 2: They took him out for doing it. But we need
Speaker 2: to get back to that.
Speaker 1: Reverend Mark Thompson, as always, you bring such clear, stellar
Speaker 1: analysis and questions that we all need to be reckoning
Speaker 1: with because we are not in a good place. We're
Speaker 1: not in a good place as a community, We're not
Speaker 1: in a good place as a country, We're not in
Speaker 1: a good place as a globe, as global citizens. And
Speaker 1: I think that it is upon all of us not
Speaker 1: only to reflect on this week, but to reflect overall
Speaker 1: who are we and where are we headed? Because if
Speaker 1: we don't like it, we're the only people that can
Speaker 1: change it, and that is the absolute truth. My friend.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for making the time for WOKF.
Speaker 1: I always appreciate you.
Speaker 2: Thank you for having me happy fourth of their lives folks.
Speaker 1: That is it for me today. Dear friends on Woke
Speaker 1: af AS always, power to the people and to all
Speaker 1: the people power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.