Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to WIKA F Daily with
Speaker 1: Me Your Girl Daniel Moody recording from the Brooklyn Bunker, Folks,
Speaker 1: I want to start out by saying a deep appreciation
Speaker 1: to all of you who listened to the show, who
Speaker 1: listened to yesterday's work Wednesday, who have been sending me
Speaker 1: notes and dms and encouragements and commenting on patron and um.
Speaker 1: It has been a really challenging couple of weeks in
Speaker 1: this country for me in particular, for black people, for
Speaker 1: queer people, for bipoc people, for people with uteruses. It
Speaker 1: is just it's too fucking much, and I am really struggling.
Speaker 1: And so I'm just going to be transparent about that
Speaker 1: fact and that I don't know what is going to
Speaker 1: happen in the next couple of weeks, let alone the
Speaker 1: next couple of months. As we make our way to midterms.
Speaker 1: Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi are offering nothing in terms
Speaker 1: of their leadership except for more finger wagging, more thoughts
Speaker 1: and prayers, and more bullshit about what it is that
Speaker 1: they can't do. I've never heard a party say how
Speaker 1: much they can't do something than Democrats. Never hear Republicans
Speaker 1: when they were in the minority, ever say that they
Speaker 1: can't get something done. They block shit, they throw wrenches
Speaker 1: in everything, And when Democrats are in the minority, they
Speaker 1: just go along for the get along, hoping and praying
Speaker 1: that then the big bad bully will be nice to
Speaker 1: them when it's their turn. Wake up, they don't give
Speaker 1: a fuck. Chuck Schumer and a pressor is like, oh,
Speaker 1: right now, more than ever following this Texas massacre, we
Speaker 1: need bipartisanship. Shut up, like, are you stupid? Do you
Speaker 1: not get who you were dealing with? These people don't
Speaker 1: give a fuck about bipartisanship. They don't give a fuck
Speaker 1: about the Constitution. The only thing in the Constitution that
Speaker 1: they care about is the right to bear arms. They
Speaker 1: don't care about civil rights. They don't care about kids.
Speaker 1: And I wish that you would just fucking say so, oh,
Speaker 1: I know that in their hearts, But no, you don't.
Speaker 1: I don't know how many times people have to show
Speaker 1: you who they are? How many times this Republican Party
Speaker 1: has to show you who they are? Greg Abbott in
Speaker 1: his bullshit press conference that he gave yesterday one or
Speaker 1: two as my friend Wajahat said, Chicago this incident. Oh, well,
Speaker 1: look at Chicago and they're gun violence. They have laws
Speaker 1: on the books, and people still get killed ya from
Speaker 1: guns that are coming in from out of that fucking city.
Speaker 1: You want to tell us that teachers need guns, and
Speaker 1: this classroom, this school, Roba Elementary needed more doors, and that, oh,
Speaker 1: the shooter clearly had mental health issues. It's not as if,
Speaker 1: first of all, Republicans give a fuck about anybody's mental
Speaker 1: health because you don't fun health insurance and you voted
Speaker 1: sixty six times to try and fucking overturn it, not
Speaker 1: to provide anything better, just to get rid of it
Speaker 1: all together. So you want to talk about mental health
Speaker 1: and lay everything on mental health, but then do absolutely
Speaker 1: nothing about that. You want to talk about how you're
Speaker 1: the party of family values, how you're the party that
Speaker 1: cares about babies, and that you're pro life. No, what
Speaker 1: you are pro aar fifteens. Greg Abbott has seen at
Speaker 1: least according to Beta of Rourke, five mass shootings in
Speaker 1: the state of Texas. And do you know what he did,
Speaker 1: not a fucking thing. What he did instead was decided
Speaker 1: to allow Texas to be the easiest state in the
Speaker 1: country for you to get a gun in you don't
Speaker 1: even need to do many training, you don't need to
Speaker 1: need a background check, you need nothing. You can walk
Speaker 1: into the state of Texas as the fucking shooter did
Speaker 1: by two ar fifteens over the course of twenty four hours,
Speaker 1: four hundred nearly four hundred rounds of ammunition and not
Speaker 1: near fucking red flag go up. But Abbott wants to
Speaker 1: sit there at a press conference and say, let's not
Speaker 1: politicize the issue, but you are passing policy to ensure
Speaker 1: that Texas is ground zero for as many mass shootings
Speaker 1: as possible. But the people of Texas, you'll keep voting
Speaker 1: for this motherfucker. Vete Work interrupted his bullshit narrative and
Speaker 1: said you were doing nothing, that you have blood on
Speaker 1: your hands. He was escorted out by police people saying, oh,
Speaker 1: this is not the time. Tell me when the fucking
Speaker 1: time is, because it surely isn't in the in between
Speaker 1: between anybody's mass shootings, because then we've all moved on
Speaker 1: to another crisis. Ten days, folks, ten days between Buffalo
Speaker 1: and Texas, And do you know what happened in between
Speaker 1: those Sandwich historic massacres? Multiple shootings across the fucking country.
Speaker 1: There have been, according to CNN, two hundred and twelve
Speaker 1: mass shootings this year. We are in May. There haven't
Speaker 1: even been two hundred and twelve days in the fucking
Speaker 1: calendar yet, but that's how many mass shootings we have
Speaker 1: had in America. This is a uniquely American problem, this
Speaker 1: love affair with guns and violence and white supremacy. I
Speaker 1: have no faith. I have no faith, and I have
Speaker 1: no hope that anything is going to change. Yet anything
Speaker 1: is going to get better. As a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: I am pretty certain, pretty sure, and pretty certain that
Speaker 1: shit is going to get a lot worse. We can't
Speaker 1: get through two weeks without hearing about a another historic
Speaker 1: mass shooting. Nineteen children from grades two to four went
Speaker 1: to school on Tuesday. They didn't come back home. And
Speaker 1: we are telling parents and caregivers in this country to
Speaker 1: just suck it up that there is nothing we can do.
Speaker 1: No rephrase that there is nothing the leaders in this
Speaker 1: country want to do. Governor Abbott is leaving that press
Speaker 1: conference and head it over to Houston to be one
Speaker 1: of the headline. It's for the NRA where guess what.
Speaker 1: The NRA rally has decided that they're not allowing guns
Speaker 1: into their own fucking rilly, Well, why is that? I
Speaker 1: thought guns were safe in the hands of good people,
Speaker 1: and I thought that all you brought into the NRA,
Speaker 1: we're good people. So why can't you have fifty thousand
Speaker 1: guns there for all fifty thousand participants. Why not let
Speaker 1: them bring in two three a person turn it into
Speaker 1: a full on shootout. Oh no, but they're banning guns there,
Speaker 1: But you can't ban guns across the country. You want
Speaker 1: to ban it for your protection, but not the protection
Speaker 1: of children and those that want to worship, or go
Speaker 1: to the grocery store, or go to the fucking movie theater,
Speaker 1: or leave their homes safely. This country is so fucking sick.
Speaker 1: And the thing is is that we are all complicit
Speaker 1: because if you don't vote, you voted for a massacre.
Speaker 1: If you did vote and you voted Republican, you voted
Speaker 1: for a massacre. This system is broken, This ship is
Speaker 1: no longer working. And how I am feeling is what
Speaker 1: I said yesterday on woke Wednesday. The system needs to
Speaker 1: be brought to its needs. This country needs to be
Speaker 1: shut the fuck down. What happens if everyone decides that
Speaker 1: they are not going to work anymore. What happens if
Speaker 1: there is a massive boycott organized ain't nobody work in.
Speaker 1: Teachers are not going to school across this country. Your
Speaker 1: kids will not be going to school. What happens if
Speaker 1: all the nurses and doctors decide that they are not
Speaker 1: going to work. What happens when all the police say
Speaker 1: that they're not going to go to work. When the
Speaker 1: grocery store clerks say, hey, you know what, this job
Speaker 1: is too dangerous? Am I going to get how zard pay?
Speaker 1: Shut it the fuck down. That's what needs to happen
Speaker 1: to America. I would love to see what members of
Speaker 1: Congress would do on both sides of the aisle. The
Speaker 1: cult and then feckless democrats would do if Americans decided,
Speaker 1: you know what, we're fucking done. Democracy is supposed to
Speaker 1: be about the people's power, So we have the power
Speaker 1: to unplug this shit and plug it back in. When
Speaker 1: you have some fucking sense and decide that you can
Speaker 1: actually institute policies that are going to be for the
Speaker 1: betterment of this country and not its obstruction or its demise,
Speaker 1: it is time for us to begin the plan to
Speaker 1: unravel this system that is no longer working. America is
Speaker 1: broken and the reality is we're the only ones that
Speaker 1: are going to be able to fix it. Coming up next,
Speaker 1: welcoming back to the show for the first time in
Speaker 1: a very long time, doctor Britney Cooper, who and an
Speaker 1: associate professor at Rutgers University. Brittany has been the subject
Speaker 1: of many a documentary including In Her Mother's Garden, including
Speaker 1: Who Is Pauli Murray? Among others. She's also an accredited
Speaker 1: author and a truth teller, and she will lay down
Speaker 1: some gems in this conversation that left me speechless, that
Speaker 1: actually left me invigorated for the first time in a
Speaker 1: long time. She said this, they are going to kill us,
Speaker 1: We are going to war with white supremacy. But the
Speaker 1: reality is is that they cannot kill us all, and
Speaker 1: so we need to go out fighting, fighting for the
Speaker 1: future generations, just like our ancestors, for freedom that they
Speaker 1: would never see. Take a listen to this conversation with
Speaker 1: our friend doctor Britney Cooper, Folks, I am super excited too,
Speaker 1: I guess welcome back after so many moons, so many
Speaker 1: moons and crises, the wonderful professor doctor Brittany Cooper, who's
Speaker 1: attended professor at Rutgers University in the Women and Gender
Speaker 1: Studies Department. And if you have not seen multiple documentaries
Speaker 1: in Her Mother's Garden Paul Murray's documentary Brittany, you are
Speaker 1: everywhere and doing everything and have been for quite some time.
Speaker 1: We are living in We'll let me say this for myself.
Speaker 1: I have never felt the way I feel right now
Speaker 1: in America as a black queer woman. I feel scared.
Speaker 1: I feel a sense of fear and urgency that the
Speaker 1: series of shootings, murders, the rise of this radicalized Republican
Speaker 1: white supremacist party. What are you feeling and have been
Speaker 1: feeling in this time, Because you are so connected to
Speaker 1: the truth telling of our stories as black women, as
Speaker 1: black people, what are you feeling these days? You know,
Speaker 1: I feel distressed and exhausted, and I'm not sure how
Speaker 1: we get off of this track as a country. And
Speaker 1: I think that part of the challenge we face is
Speaker 1: precisely a crisis of truth telling and who we're going
Speaker 1: to how we're going to tell our own stories, and
Speaker 1: who we're willing to listen to to sort of let
Speaker 1: guide us. And so I think we're in a battle
Speaker 1: royale between different stories about what this place is, what
Speaker 1: its past is, and therefore what its future is. And
Speaker 1: right now, quite frankly, I don't think that those of
Speaker 1: us will on the side of justice are winning. But
Speaker 1: I don't think that it isn't because we're trying. I
Speaker 1: think it is because in part we don't do a
Speaker 1: good job of assessing what the stakes are. So I
Speaker 1: think that we're continuing to try to fight with like
Speaker 1: reason and severity in a world where the other side
Speaker 1: has decided that rules don't matter, that ethics don't matter,
Speaker 1: that it's just a brazen power grab. And I can
Speaker 1: appreciate the moral struggle of that. Right, if you become
Speaker 1: like your enemy, then what distinguishes you? And yet I
Speaker 1: think that there is so much more ground and territory
Speaker 1: for us that doesn't require us to then use power
Speaker 1: for negative ends. And I think that we have to
Speaker 1: keep in mind that the goal is justice and that
Speaker 1: we have to be fierce fighters and defenders of that,
Speaker 1: and that can't just be about discourse and online battles.
Speaker 1: It really does have to defeat to the pavement kinds
Speaker 1: of work. Right now, you know when the League decision
Speaker 1: Brittany came out, Now, a couple of weeks ago, and
Speaker 1: I read through it. I had said to folks before,
Speaker 1: I said, these Republicans are not playing games, okay, And
Speaker 1: I said Donald Trump became president. I said, marriage equalities
Speaker 1: on the chopping block. I said, school desegregation is on
Speaker 1: the chopping block, women's rights. You know, all of these things.
Speaker 1: Folks kept telling me, don't be so hyperbolic, Danielle, this
Speaker 1: guy is not gonna fall. Everything is cyclical, right, you
Speaker 1: see by virtue of what was laid out in the
Speaker 1: draft decision, what they are looking at and what they
Speaker 1: are coming for. Tell us what use foresee following the
Speaker 1: finality when this decision is now final, what you foresee
Speaker 1: for Black America, black women that is at stake for us.
Speaker 1: So it's very interesting the folks who say, oh, this
Speaker 1: is cyclical. The thing to remember about cycles is things
Speaker 1: are cyclical. I think that when Trump got elected, folks
Speaker 1: had a narrative that he was like Nixon, and many
Speaker 1: of us were historians and who work in history, said oh, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: this is not a twentieth century playbook. This is a
Speaker 1: nineteenth century playbook. And so I just like to remind
Speaker 1: folks that after the Reconstruction period in the US, which
Speaker 1: was the period after the Civil War. During Reconstruction, black
Speaker 1: people could vote, they could hold national office, We had
Speaker 1: black senators, you could ride on, desegregated transportation, many of
Speaker 1: the civil rights that we understand coming after the sixties.
Speaker 1: But there was a generation of black people in the
Speaker 1: eighteen seventies that experienced the world in that way and
Speaker 1: then had it all ripped away from them in a
Speaker 1: period of about fifteen to twenty years. Right, that's what
Speaker 1: I see. I see these guys playing a nineteenth century
Speaker 1: playbook in which they want to go back and do
Speaker 1: all of the things. They want to restrict. They want
Speaker 1: to restrict women and childbearing people's right to control their
Speaker 1: their reproductive autonomy. They want to strip the vote away
Speaker 1: from us. They want to go back to this sort
Speaker 1: of American exceptional narrative you know, about American greatness, wherein
Speaker 1: you know, racism was merely a blip, and it is
Speaker 1: not a thing that that children are taught about, and
Speaker 1: all of it is designed to sort of control the
Speaker 1: narrative about who the country is. Because these folks have
Speaker 1: decided that racism and sexism and classism are not the problem,
Speaker 1: but Rather, it is those who fight against those things
Speaker 1: that are the problem, and it is our willingness to
Speaker 1: tell the truth about them that is the problem. One
Speaker 1: of the scariest things about the leaked decision is that
Speaker 1: we have to remember that when Rovie Wade was decided,
Speaker 1: it wasn't decided it as a woman has a right
Speaker 1: to an abortion. It was decided as a woman has
Speaker 1: a right to privacy in making sound medical discision with
Speaker 1: her doctor. The problem with this privacy versus public thing
Speaker 1: is that I think we're not talking enough about the
Speaker 1: assault on private rights, because privacy is every Look. This
Speaker 1: is also the way that this country terrorized gay folks
Speaker 1: by saying you couldn't you know, this is how the
Speaker 1: country came into the bedrooms of gay people right and
Speaker 1: criminalize gay sex right. And so when you keep the
Speaker 1: right to privacy, you protect intimate space. When you take
Speaker 1: it away, then everything becomes on the chopping block. It
Speaker 1: doesn't just become about being able to give birth. It
Speaker 1: also becomes about intimate relations. It also becomes about search
Speaker 1: and seizure and the ability of the police to come
Speaker 1: into your house and do anything they want. And I
Speaker 1: think part of the challenge of this moment. Last thing
Speaker 1: I'll say is that one of the reasons that we
Speaker 1: struggle in the messaging on the left about this is
Speaker 1: because you have black folks who say, well, how is
Speaker 1: that different than before They've been restricting abortion. The police
Speaker 1: have been doing anything to things right, but there's a
Speaker 1: difference between the de facto actions of the law and
Speaker 1: what is on the books. If the books give them
Speaker 1: the right to do these things, then there's no recourse whatsoever,
Speaker 1: at least when they're going against the law, there's a
Speaker 1: basis for us to fight back. Without that, the gloves
Speaker 1: are off and they can do anything that they want
Speaker 1: to do, which is what they have been asking for
Speaker 1: license to do. The Damage Report with John Idarola is
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Speaker 1: Plots of Slights Political Gabfest. As another election season accelerates,
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Speaker 1: There has not I've been asking this question, and I'm
Speaker 1: going to ask it to you. Has there been a
Speaker 1: time or a place or a country where you have
Speaker 1: seen them lose democracy and gain it back within you know,
Speaker 1: within a generation. Absolutely not not not that I could immediate,
Speaker 1: not that comes to mind. And look and this is why,
Speaker 1: you know, when when when there were black folks online,
Speaker 1: right if the you know when Putin invaded Ukraine and said,
Speaker 1: what does this have to be? You know this happens
Speaker 1: to you know, black folks on the continent all the time.
Speaker 1: What does this have to do with us? And my
Speaker 1: thought was, yes, the country has been racist in its
Speaker 1: global foreign policy. That doesn't change the fact that if
Speaker 1: a Western democracy can be invaded and basically shut down
Speaker 1: by a fascist madman, a fascist madman that our last
Speaker 1: president was deeply in bed with, right, come on, a
Speaker 1: significant portion of this country would give him another shot
Speaker 1: to go back to those very policies again. Then what
Speaker 1: we're looking at is a prelude to what the MAGA
Speaker 1: movement in the US wants to make happen in this country.
Speaker 1: Ukraine for them becomes a marker of what they would
Speaker 1: like to see us do, even when they won't acknowledge
Speaker 1: it because they don't want democracy. If democracy doesn't mean
Speaker 1: white supremacy anymore, how do we battle a party that
Speaker 1: has thrown out the constitution, that has no rules, that
Speaker 1: has no allegiance to anything other than power and white supremacy.
Speaker 1: And if we can't do it with facts and truth,
Speaker 1: because the whole of the country could care less. You
Speaker 1: have twenty five percent of the country that is in
Speaker 1: glee mode right now. They are excited. They are looking
Speaker 1: at you know, the terrorists in Buffalo and Kyle Rittenhouse
Speaker 1: and Dylan Ruth as a blueprint. Right. You see a
Speaker 1: Wisconsin in man in just got ten years in jail
Speaker 1: for throwing acid on a Latino man because he said,
Speaker 1: you're going to replace me? Right, So, if you have
Speaker 1: this party that is escalating in their violence and are
Speaker 1: saying we have no rules, and then a tepid Democratic
Speaker 1: party that believes that they are operating still in this
Speaker 1: closed door, bottleless scotch smoke filled handshake, white man deal world,
Speaker 1: how do we battle through that? Yeah? You know, And
Speaker 1: I tend to take two approaches, right. The first is
Speaker 1: that I think that the democratic parties, such as they exist,
Speaker 1: have got to have bolder solutions, in more creative approaches.
Speaker 1: So we've got to stop worrying about what they're going
Speaker 1: The thing that that's interesting about Democrats is they continue
Speaker 1: to govern for future in which they're not empowered and
Speaker 1: the Republicans never do right. So the Democrats say things like, well,
Speaker 1: we can't be bold because if we do this, then
Speaker 1: when they get back in power, they're going to do
Speaker 1: it too. Yeah. Well, create a world in which their
Speaker 1: ability to get back in power cannot happen outside of
Speaker 1: fair and square means they don't have power. Because look,
Speaker 1: you know, I just like to remind people we have
Speaker 1: had what six presidential elections in the twenty first century
Speaker 1: two thousand, two thousand and four, two thousand and eight, twelve,
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen, twenty twenty. In five of those elections, the
Speaker 1: Democratic candidate won the popular vote in five of the
Speaker 1: six elections, and yet somehow right you ended up having
Speaker 1: a democratic, i mean a Republican president in three of
Speaker 1: those elections, even though they only won the popular vote
Speaker 1: in one. That tells me something about the country. The
Speaker 1: country actually is not voting for right wing policy. They
Speaker 1: are voting for more liberal policy, and yet liberals continue
Speaker 1: to govern as if they don't have a mandate. Republicans
Speaker 1: govern as though even when they continue to lose the
Speaker 1: election and by the numbers, as though they do so.
Speaker 1: If we governed like we had a mandate, Biden would
Speaker 1: go ahead and pack the court. Yes, I hear the
Speaker 1: folks who say, what happens if we just get into
Speaker 1: a court packing scheme. You pack the court with people
Speaker 1: who then support the kinds of jurisprudence that make it
Speaker 1: less necessary to need a packed court in the future. Right,
Speaker 1: do you use your executive power. We've already taken the
Speaker 1: gloves software executive power is concerned, So use it for good.
Speaker 1: We already know the other side is going to use
Speaker 1: it for evil. Our job is to use it to
Speaker 1: try to balance the tables and to create the kind
Speaker 1: of power structure in which then we can actually we
Speaker 1: can actually put some stops to some of the voter
Speaker 1: suppression and other things. The other thing that we have
Speaker 1: to have, though, given the tepidness of the Democratic Party,
Speaker 1: is robust social movements. That's the only thing you can
Speaker 1: do when you have to rise up against governments that
Speaker 1: do not serve your interests. And so I think we're
Speaker 1: going to see more and more forms of protests. I
Speaker 1: think we've seen a decade of it, and I think
Speaker 1: that part of the challenge for us is to not
Speaker 1: get tired and to try to stay clear for me.
Speaker 1: The challenge of protest movements is that then they tell people, well,
Speaker 1: don't vote because nothing changes, and it's like, I don't
Speaker 1: agree with that, right, I am a radical. I think
Speaker 1: like the government is a ship show in many ways.
Speaker 1: And I also think like, if you don't have a
Speaker 1: government coordinating, for instance, your pandemic response, then you arrive
Speaker 1: at a world where one in every three hundred and
Speaker 1: thirty black people has died of COVID in two years,
Speaker 1: one in every three hundred and thirty in the country period. Right,
Speaker 1: that is not something that social movements can solve by themselves.
Speaker 1: You need good government to solve that problem. And you
Speaker 1: need social movements to keep on upping the stakes and
Speaker 1: the anti so that good government knows where its compass
Speaker 1: is and what it's agenda should do. And we've got
Speaker 1: to be able to balance both of those things. And
Speaker 1: part of the challenge we have across the board is
Speaker 1: that we can't get to a common narrative that is
Speaker 1: both experience. It's enough for us to have lots of
Speaker 1: points of view and then a kind of a ground
Speaker 1: that says, all right, we've considered all of this, here's
Speaker 1: how we're going to move forward. I think that those
Speaker 1: things are possible. Right now, I think the ground is
Speaker 1: super muddy, and I'm not sure yet how we're going
Speaker 1: to solve that particular roll. You know, when when you
Speaker 1: look at history, Brittany, as a student, as a professor,
Speaker 1: as a doctor of history, and you said earlier you
Speaker 1: had about ten twenty years of reconstruction where black excellence
Speaker 1: was able to excel without the obstacles of WoT, the
Speaker 1: overt obstacles of white supremacy. I'll say then, following that
Speaker 1: was a century of Jim Crow? Yes, do we? I mean,
Speaker 1: is it even conceivable for us to have a century
Speaker 1: of Jim Crow in this version of America? Right now?
Speaker 1: Because what I and I asked that question because what
Speaker 1: I see is the only direction that this is headed
Speaker 1: in is violence. I do not see that. I don't
Speaker 1: I don't see us voting our ways our way out
Speaker 1: of this. I do not see us marching our way
Speaker 1: out of this. Ye, So please tell me what you
Speaker 1: see following what would have been perceived. I guess the
Speaker 1: Obama years were what our eight little mini years of
Speaker 1: of reconstruction, our eight little window years of seeing ourselves
Speaker 1: in the house that enslaved African our ancestors built, and
Speaker 1: then now what we're supposed to sit quietly down for
Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty years of Jim crow Esquire. Yeah. Look,
Speaker 1: one of the biggest issues of this moment. You know,
Speaker 1: I've been saying since twenty eighteen. Oh, I don't see
Speaker 1: how we get out of this without violence. Part of
Speaker 1: the reason here is like one place where I think
Speaker 1: if we're going to change this, that hasn't happened. I
Speaker 1: think the Biden administration is missing a critical thing. They
Speaker 1: had to figure out how to regulate and break up
Speaker 1: the right wing media ecosystem. Come on, because that is
Speaker 1: the thing that is seen in all of this, this
Speaker 1: radicalization of people on the right. That's the thing that's doing.
Speaker 1: It's Fox News, it's news Max, it's all the YouTube channels,
Speaker 1: it's eight Chan, it's all of the you know, Reddit right.
Speaker 1: There is not a concerted effort to you know. And
Speaker 1: part of the problem is the Biden administration and all
Speaker 1: of us who are liberal modic keeps saying freedom of speech.
Speaker 1: Freedom of speech, yes, but not freedom to impose whatever
Speaker 1: violent consequences as a result of that speech on anybody
Speaker 1: that you want to. And so the problem, of course,
Speaker 1: is that freedom of speech becomes about white folks ability
Speaker 1: to see the ground of the country with all kinds
Speaker 1: of terrorism to at the expense of the rest of us.
Speaker 1: And we don't have a you know, an expense of
Speaker 1: enough discourse to understand what we really mean when we
Speaker 1: say that speech ought to be free right, or that
Speaker 1: you ought to be able to speak freely in the public.
Speaker 1: So if if we cannot as a country figure out
Speaker 1: how to break up the ecosystem and recognize that half
Speaker 1: of the country has been brainwashed into foolishness, and white
Speaker 1: people really think they're under attack, and that's why they
Speaker 1: don't think that they need to play by the rules,
Speaker 1: because they believe that they have been victimized. They emotionally
Speaker 1: are invested in this narrative of grievance against them even
Speaker 1: as they perpetrate against us. Then we are going to
Speaker 1: end up in civil war because you cannot have you know,
Speaker 1: two groups of people but both fearful of one another
Speaker 1: and one group heavenly armed and brainwashed, and it not
Speaker 1: leads to violence. And the thing we're gonna have to
Speaker 1: figure out on the left is the right wants to
Speaker 1: relitigate the civil war. They think that this time around
Speaker 1: they can win. And what is not clear to me
Speaker 1: is I think they could win because they have more
Speaker 1: guns than the rest of us. Yes, I don't know
Speaker 1: what to do about that, given that I don't believe
Speaker 1: in guns, like you know, I mean, I'm in the country.
Speaker 1: If you know, you're look at we're on zoom. My
Speaker 1: parents have guns in the background of this picture. So
Speaker 1: you know, I come from Southern people who believe in guns,
Speaker 1: but not in like automatic weapons and things like that.
Speaker 1: So what do you do if the other side is
Speaker 1: heavily armed? They are gunning for a fight. Dylan Roof
Speaker 1: and then Peyton Gendren, those boys, those young men wanted
Speaker 1: to set off a race war. That's what they keep
Speaker 1: trying to stir. And at some point they're going to
Speaker 1: be successful. And then what are we going to do
Speaker 1: if we're sitting ducks for all of this stuff? And
Speaker 1: so you know, I feel violence in the air. I
Speaker 1: have been saying that. I am already thinking about you know,
Speaker 1: where will I where will I run to when you know,
Speaker 1: when this goes down? And what kinds of skill sets
Speaker 1: will I need? And you know, and I will say
Speaker 1: to you Danielle It, I'm I am an optimist, so
Speaker 1: like you say that I am, I am an optimist
Speaker 1: because you know, because the other thing about studying history, though,
Speaker 1: is that our ancestors never stopped fighting. That's the thing, right,
Speaker 1: even the black women who you know, I write about
Speaker 1: these black women who came who were born into and
Speaker 1: came of age during reconstruction and the end of reconstruction.
Speaker 1: So there, so the Ida B. Wells is a person
Speaker 1: who as a young person could ride on desegregated transportation
Speaker 1: in her twenties and thirties, and by the time she
Speaker 1: got to be a young thirties married mom, all those
Speaker 1: rights went away. So when we think about like who
Speaker 1: we are as thirty forty fifty somethings watching it he
Speaker 1: snatched away, we should think about somebody like Ida B Wells.
Speaker 1: That was her context, was that she grew up thinking
Speaker 1: the world was one way, and then and then came
Speaker 1: into adulthood and all of a sudden it was a
Speaker 1: different way. And I think she becomes a model for us,
Speaker 1: her and her colleagues and comrades about they just kept saying,
Speaker 1: we tell the truth, we fight, we fight, we fight,
Speaker 1: we confront, we agitate, we dun't back down, and I
Speaker 1: to be well said, And you know, Winchester Rifles should
Speaker 1: have a place of honor in every black home, you know.
Speaker 1: And I think that she has to become the model
Speaker 1: for how we think about this moment because she and
Speaker 1: her peers are the only other group of black folks
Speaker 1: who live in this moment. Parents born into slavery, they
Speaker 1: had a war, they got rights, and then they saw
Speaker 1: those rights legally stripped away, and then they had to
Speaker 1: rebuild a world where they could get rights again. So
Speaker 1: our people, I'm hopeful because while enraged and disheartened, I
Speaker 1: know that our people have actually lived through a version
Speaker 1: of this, having everything given and having everything taken away.
Speaker 1: And their response was, U, MS are not gonna get
Speaker 1: away with this. We will fight you until the day
Speaker 1: that we die. And if that is the place that
Speaker 1: we have to sit and struggle, my hope is that
Speaker 1: we will just recognize it and be here together. And
Speaker 1: they might kill many of us, but they can't kill
Speaker 1: all of us, and that has to it. It is
Speaker 1: not sufficient, it is not deserved, but that too is
Speaker 1: the truth, right, that they cannot kill us all. And
Speaker 1: if they cannot kill us all, then everybody has to
Speaker 1: fight like hill. Damn doctor Brittany Cooper, let me tell
Speaker 1: you something. I would go back to school to be
Speaker 1: educated by you. You would you would be worth the
Speaker 1: loan debt to be re educated by last quick question
Speaker 1: for you. I know that you're on sabbatical, but what
Speaker 1: do you tell your students who are living in this moment?
Speaker 1: When I was taking political science, when I was majoring,
Speaker 1: the world was hopeful. I wanted to be a part
Speaker 1: of that change. What do you what are you telling
Speaker 1: them now? I'm you know, I look, none of us
Speaker 1: has the none of us has the privilege or the
Speaker 1: right to just lay down and take it. We come
Speaker 1: from people who were enslaved, who were dragged here against
Speaker 1: their will. Why do we think that this thing that
Speaker 1: we're about to go through in America is the worst
Speaker 1: thing that black people have ever been through? What do
Speaker 1: I look like telling the folks who my people, who
Speaker 1: are in slaved not far from where I'm sitting right now,
Speaker 1: that because white folks are showing themselves to be who
Speaker 1: they've always been, that I want to lay down and
Speaker 1: take it, you know, or that there is nothing to
Speaker 1: hope for. I try to have the hope of the
Speaker 1: ancestors that got up every day, the ones who were
Speaker 1: born into slavery and never saw freedom and yet made
Speaker 1: it because we're here. That to me is like I
Speaker 1: literally just strip it back. I say that I come
Speaker 1: from people who never saw freedom, and yet somehow I'm here.
Speaker 1: And so how dare I decide in my deep despair
Speaker 1: that there is nothing worth fighting for? And the other
Speaker 1: thing that I say to my students is and these
Speaker 1: are the tools that are gonna help you change it.
Speaker 1: The reading, the studying, the community, the connection, the claim
Speaker 1: charity about the problems. The reason that folks are fighting
Speaker 1: so hard against higher education and against teaching proper American history,
Speaker 1: which they call critical race theory in schools, is because
Speaker 1: there is something that white folks and those who are
Speaker 1: committed to this fascist part, not all white folks, but
Speaker 1: those committed to this project of fascism and white supremacy understand.
Speaker 1: And what they understand is that an educated citizenry is dangerous.
Speaker 1: And so I try to help my students to understand
Speaker 1: this is why they don't want you to have it,
Speaker 1: So you better come forward and get it with all
Speaker 1: that you've got. And then if you do that, then
Speaker 1: you will have the space to figure out the ways
Speaker 1: in which to use it. But all we have before
Speaker 1: us in the absence of freedom is fight, and that
Speaker 1: is something. It is not what we should have, It
Speaker 1: is not what we deserve, it is not what we
Speaker 1: are owed. But it is the agency that we have
Speaker 1: to make a difference. And either we're gonna use it
Speaker 1: or they're gonna kill us. And so you ain't gonna
Speaker 1: kill me without be fighting. So I'm gonna have to track.
Speaker 1: And this is and standing reading these books, getting these ideas,
Speaker 1: speaking truth the power. Those are all sins of fight
Speaker 1: and they matter. Amen, Doctor Brittany Cooper, please come back
Speaker 1: to will gay f again. I needed this fire, this energy,
Speaker 1: this like moment of honoring our ancestors through this conversation.
Speaker 1: I so deeply appreciate you. Thank you. Get a behind
Speaker 1: the scenes look at Comedy Central's The Daily Show on
Speaker 1: Beyond the Scenes, an original podcast from the Daily Show
Speaker 1: with Trevor Noah. Every week, host Roy Wood Junior goes
Speaker 1: deeper with the notable guests and experts from the Emmy
Speaker 1: Award winning series. Together, they use comedy to tackle current
Speaker 1: topics from gentrification to gun laws, and take a closer
Speaker 1: look at how and why these topics matter. Listen to
Speaker 1: Beyond the Scenes from The Daily Show with Trevor Noah
Speaker 1: on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get
Speaker 1: your podcast, New episodes every Tuesday. That is it for
Speaker 1: me today, folks, on this very exhausting Thursday. I wish
Speaker 1: you grace and peace. Power to the people and to
Speaker 1: all the people. Power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.
Speaker 1: Get a behind the scenes look at Comedy Central's The
Speaker 1: Daily Show on Beyond the Scenes, an original podcast from
Speaker 1: The Daily Show with Trevor Noah. Every week, host Roy
Speaker 1: Wood Junior goes deeper with the notable guests and experts
Speaker 1: from the Emmy Award winning series. Together, they use comedy
Speaker 1: to tackle current topics from gentrification to gun laws and
Speaker 1: take a closer look at how and why these topics matter.
Speaker 1: Listen to Beyond the Scenes from The Daily Show with
Speaker 1: Trevor Noah on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast or wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcast, New episodes every Tuesday.