Speaker 1: What's Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. Suprema Supremo
Speaker 1: Role Canthum s.
Speaker 2: Upremo Supremo role called Supremo Sun Sun Supremo role called Supremo.
Speaker 1: Suck Suck Supremo role.
Speaker 3: There's new delaying. Yeah hear what I'm saying. Yeah, Abrams
Speaker 3: in twenty eight. Yeah, and I'm not playing roll president.
Speaker 2: Primo Supremo role called Supremo Supremo role call.
Speaker 1: My name is Fante.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I'm showing love yeah to Stacey Abrams. Yeah,
Speaker 4: first black woman go ro call Supreme su su subrivo,
Speaker 4: roll down Supremo Supremo.
Speaker 1: Role car Supreme. Yeah, and we're the freshest. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: Sugar Steve. Yeah and I approved this message.
Speaker 2: Suprema so Supremo roll call Supremo Supremo role called.
Speaker 5: It's like yeah with Stacey a Yeah, and we're all
Speaker 5: about to listen. Yeah, so what she got to say?
Speaker 4: Roll call Supremo Supremo, roll call Supremo Supremo role call.
Speaker 6: My name is Stacey.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 7: I tried to win. Yeah, it didn't happen the first time. Yeah,
Speaker 7: so I'm doing it again.
Speaker 2: Supremo roll called Suprema, I need an airhorn. Primo roll call, Supremo, Supremo.
Speaker 2: Roll call, Supremo, Supremo, roll call.
Speaker 4: Yo, you made a better guest verse than some musicians
Speaker 4: will thank you very much.
Speaker 3: That was Yeah, that was That was definitely top five
Speaker 3: in the six year history. Everyone's like, oh, I don't know. Oh, yes,
Speaker 3: I am Michael Jackson. Okay, so, ladies and gentlemen, we
Speaker 3: are being given the honor of having a sit down
Speaker 3: with the human being that I credit for literally holding
Speaker 3: our democracy in place. You know, I'm trying not to
Speaker 3: be a hyperbolic or that extra pressure, but you know,
Speaker 3: I'm speaking facts right now, and much like my beloved
Speaker 3: state of Pennsylvania, Georgia is going to be a fight
Speaker 3: to the finish, and you know, for the two percent
Speaker 3: of you that have your head in the sand, November
Speaker 3: eighth is a crucial date for not only Georgia, but.
Speaker 1: For this country and for history.
Speaker 3: I feel like it's our due diligence to offer our platform.
Speaker 3: And yes, like normally this is a platform for musicians
Speaker 3: and artists like or whatever, but I think it's our
Speaker 3: due diligence to give our guests today the platform because
Speaker 3: I often feel like people who listen to us often
Speaker 3: like people who are creatives, they're sometimes, you know, very indifferent,
Speaker 3: or I hear like, well, you know, I'm beginning the
Speaker 3: political stuff or whatever, or they just simply feel like
Speaker 3: maybe the trickle down effect won't affect them that much
Speaker 3: than it already has. And I can't stress to you
Speaker 3: find folk enough that, Yeah, I know there's fatigue, and
Speaker 3: you know, but we have to fight this good fight.
Speaker 3: And I'd rather us be fatigue than to be lying
Speaker 3: on our backs and then wondering what happened months after
Speaker 3: the fact. And I believe in our guest today because
Speaker 3: she is about that action. And you know, it's like
Speaker 3: the wild West out here, and it's time to get serious.
Speaker 3: And I want, yeah, I want you people to take
Speaker 3: time out to really get yourselves familiar if you aren't
Speaker 3: already with the person. Yes, and I said in my verse,
Speaker 3: I do believe that, you know. First of all, I
Speaker 3: believe in her affirmation that yeah, she is going to win.
Speaker 5: But you know, I believe that President.
Speaker 1: I'm talking to the future president right now not to
Speaker 1: put a pressure on.
Speaker 5: You, but that fix Georgia.
Speaker 6: First, let's work on this job.
Speaker 1: Yes, Yeah, one, one step at the time.
Speaker 3: So you know, our guest today running for governor and
Speaker 3: I just found out will successfully be the first African
Speaker 3: American governor ever. We're still dealing with first female yeah yes,
Speaker 3: first female black governor in the United States, and future potus.
Speaker 1: Let's have it. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Stacy Abrams.
Speaker 6: Thank you so much for having me, Am.
Speaker 5: We made it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, it's weird because you know, I know
Speaker 3: that you know, living a life in which you're trying
Speaker 3: to correct history and right wrongs and whatnot. And you know,
Speaker 3: I often feel as though like introductions like that do
Speaker 3: nothing but add more pressure to the person than it
Speaker 3: already is. But just in general, I want to know
Speaker 3: for you, not how exhausting is it, but just on
Speaker 3: the every day of knowing that pretty much most of
Speaker 3: us are looking at you specifically to you know, at
Speaker 3: least hold this country in place as the adhesive that
Speaker 3: we want it to be, because if it doesn't happen,
Speaker 3: then a lot is going to change. But I mean,
Speaker 3: just for you in general, like I'll offer you the
Speaker 3: platform to answer this question, like why do you feel
Speaker 3: that you're qualified to be the person to.
Speaker 1: Save us.
Speaker 7: There is an urgency that I feel every day, in
Speaker 7: part because of what I know about what the world
Speaker 7: can be and what I know about what it is.
Speaker 7: I grew up with five brothers and sisters. My parents
Speaker 7: were working poor, but they took us out to volunteer
Speaker 7: because my dad's succinct way of saying it was having
Speaker 7: nothing is not an excuse for doing nothing. But what
Speaker 7: that grounded in me and what my mother, who would say,
Speaker 7: you know, no matter how little we have, there's someone
Speaker 7: with less. Your job is to serve that person, is
Speaker 7: that It's not just about material. It is about it's
Speaker 7: about advocacy, it's about efficacy, it's about access. And when
Speaker 7: you've seen people who should have had but were denied,
Speaker 7: if there is any degree of empathy in you, you
Speaker 7: feel compelled to do something well.
Speaker 1: For me.
Speaker 7: It's a systemic issue. I grew up in Mississippi. I
Speaker 7: came of age in Georgia. I've lived in Texas. I
Speaker 7: went to the North but it was cold, so I
Speaker 7: came back. But we're in the North, so I was
Speaker 7: born in Wisconsin. I barely remember that. Oh yeah, I
Speaker 7: remember cheese curds and cold. And then I went to
Speaker 7: law school in Connecticut, so I went to Yale, and
Speaker 7: in both places, their challenge is everywhere. But in the
Speaker 7: South we've been gaslighted into believing these are permanent issues,
Speaker 7: and I know it's not. So I know that the
Speaker 7: South not only has something to say, but we can
Speaker 7: demonstrate a capacity that we have been fooled into believing
Speaker 7: isn't our right. And as someone who's gotten people to
Speaker 7: listen sometimes, I'm really good at asking people to do things.
Speaker 7: I'm pretty good at organizing stuff. My responsibility is to
Speaker 7: keep pushing until I can't push any further. And so yeah,
Speaker 7: I appreciate the plout. It's I see myself more as
Speaker 7: an avatar for all the other people who are trying
Speaker 7: to do this work but don't get the access I've gotten.
Speaker 7: I'm louder than a lot of people, and I'm more
Speaker 7: relentless than many because I don't know how not to
Speaker 7: do this. I don't know how you sit still when
Speaker 7: you see the issues before us. And I know that
Speaker 7: democracy is how I mean you use the right word.
Speaker 7: It's the adhesive, but it's also the toolkit. And so
Speaker 7: for me, this heart has to be done. And if
Speaker 7: not me, then you know.
Speaker 3: Who Okay, so I'm one of those people who's definitely
Speaker 3: guilty of you know, I'll watch MSNBC or something, shake
Speaker 3: my head like somebody I do something like if anything.
Speaker 3: I think in the last three years, I was the
Speaker 3: king of Man. I was somebody with da da da
Speaker 3: da da, and then I find that I'm the person
Speaker 3: that's called to do that.
Speaker 1: For you, what was the pivotal moment, like back when
Speaker 1: you were at Yale and I'm uman right before that? Yeah, right, okay, Well.
Speaker 3: I mean back when you were in college where what
Speaker 3: were your lofty goals in life?
Speaker 1: Like are you imagining.
Speaker 3: That some fifteen sixteen years later that you'll be in
Speaker 3: the position that you are now or were you just like, Okay,
Speaker 3: I'm gonna be a lawyer or da.
Speaker 7: Da da da, or I had like twenty seven majors
Speaker 7: in college. I was physics and philosophy, with a minor
Speaker 7: in theater. Oh finds out. I liked star Trek, but
Speaker 7: not differential calculus. And when you can't stay awaken in pistemology,
Speaker 7: it's probably not the thing to do when there are
Speaker 7: only four people in the classroom. I like acting, but
Speaker 7: not enough to make it my life's work, and so
Speaker 7: I flitted through a bunch of other things, but what
Speaker 7: was the through line for me was activism. The pivotal
Speaker 7: moment for me when I realized that it wasn't just
Speaker 7: an inherited property from my parents, it was part of
Speaker 7: my DNA. When the Rodney King decision came down in
Speaker 7: nineteen ninety two, I was a freshman at Spelman. I
Speaker 7: organized students to protest. They locked down our campus. I
Speaker 7: was at the AUC and if you if you know Atlanta,
Speaker 7: they locked down I twenty so you could not get
Speaker 7: off of the interstate and come to to the University center.
Speaker 7: So Spellman, Moorhouse, Clark Atlanta, Morris Brown ITC and More
Speaker 7: School of Medicine. And then they tear gassed us. They
Speaker 7: tear gas the entire area. And this was under a
Speaker 7: black mayor, and.
Speaker 5: This is Spelman, and that's even deeper, like wow.
Speaker 7: But the schools were juxtaposed next to some of the
Speaker 7: oldest housing developments in the nation. And so the issue
Speaker 7: was we weren't, you know, elite students and poor communities.
Speaker 7: We were all black, and we were all basically accused
Speaker 7: of the same anger. And the problem was the protests
Speaker 7: were real because the pain was real, and so I
Speaker 7: helped organize students. Actually got into an argument with then
Speaker 7: Mayor Maynard Jackson. He won the argument, but because you
Speaker 7: couldn't argue and I was like, my cleanest tea shirts
Speaker 7: are my nicest jeans.
Speaker 6: But he still won.
Speaker 7: But he later hired me to work in the newly
Speaker 7: created Office of Youth Services.
Speaker 3: Okay, let me ask something, because you know, I did
Speaker 3: not go to college, like immediately got a record deal
Speaker 3: and had a career. Always wanted to know when we
Speaker 3: protest on a college campus, like what's the goal? Especially
Speaker 3: when like the issue is three thousand miles away in
Speaker 3: Los Angeles, Like how does that trickle to?
Speaker 6: So two things.
Speaker 7: One, what Rodney King's with a Verdict was evocative of
Speaker 7: was the lack of justice from police. And that was
Speaker 7: happening in Atlanta, that was happening in Georgia. And part
Speaker 7: of it was where poverty exists, where racism exists, you
Speaker 7: were going to find police misconduct. And there was also
Speaker 7: the larger issue of simply the evidence of our eyes
Speaker 7: being denied. Those things well, Rodney King was emblematic of
Speaker 7: it was but he was only one example. He was
Speaker 7: the first example that got caught on tape. But people
Speaker 7: have those experiences everywhere, and that's why it was so inflammatory.
Speaker 7: The protests I organized. We started this moment we watched
Speaker 7: we marched from the AUC all the way to City Hall.
Speaker 7: So to your point, I didn't go to a college
Speaker 7: where protesting at the college made a license because we
Speaker 7: all pretty much agreed the most effective protests leave the
Speaker 7: safe spaces and go into the public spaces. So we
Speaker 7: made sure that march went past the housing projects, went
Speaker 7: past the liquor stores, all the way down to city Hall.
Speaker 7: That's how I ended up getting into the Teta tet
Speaker 7: with the mayor. But to your point, there are some
Speaker 7: campuses where protest on campus is it's effective because if
Speaker 7: you're at Harvard, you're talking about billions of dollars in
Speaker 7: economic influence. If you're an AEC, the numeric, the monetary
Speaker 7: and effect is the smaller, but the salutary effect is
Speaker 7: bigger because you have people who may have been conditioned
Speaker 7: to think that they were the exceptions to the rule,
Speaker 7: who have to remind themselves that they are part of
Speaker 7: the same fabric that people don't ask you, they don't
Speaker 7: investigate did you go to Spelman, Why are you in
Speaker 7: the auc Why are you in southwest Atlanta? They just
Speaker 7: see someone who looks like something they've been taught to
Speaker 7: be afraid of or taught to disregard. And this is
Speaker 7: true for a lot of different communities of color. It's
Speaker 7: true based on your economic situation and where protests comes in.
Speaker 7: As protest moves beyond the space that you inhabit, and
Speaker 7: it tells the rest of the world you've got to
Speaker 7: pay attention.
Speaker 1: It's a bullhorn exactly.
Speaker 3: So do you consider that moment your first footprint in
Speaker 3: political action?
Speaker 7: It was my parents will tell you, because my mom
Speaker 7: and dad were in grad school here in uh in Georgia.
Speaker 7: They had moved back to Mississippi at and I gave
Speaker 7: out my phone number to tell people, you know, during
Speaker 7: the protest.
Speaker 6: I'm like, if you're if you want to join us.
Speaker 6: I didn't think through the.
Speaker 7: Fact that I was giving my parents home number out, know,
Speaker 7: and and they pointed that out to me later on
Speaker 7: as the phone started to ring. But for me, it
Speaker 7: was it was it was both in a moment of
Speaker 7: empowerment but a moment of ownership that I wanted to
Speaker 7: be a voice for people who didn't know they deserve
Speaker 7: to be in that march. They didn't know that they
Speaker 7: deserved to have better And who'd been lulled into thinking
Speaker 7: that because you had leadership that looked like you, that
Speaker 7: they shared all of the same issues that you shared.
Speaker 7: And that's just never true. That that notion of monolithic
Speaker 7: power is just not real. And so even within spaces,
Speaker 7: I mean, Mayor Jax is extraordinary mayor, but in this issue,
Speaker 7: when it came to youth poverty, he had not done
Speaker 7: what I thought needed to be done.
Speaker 6: So my job was to push that.
Speaker 7: And so for me it was it was a moment
Speaker 7: of reckoning, Like did I actually believe the things I
Speaker 7: was saying when I was safely on campus?
Speaker 6: And turns out yes I.
Speaker 3: Did so at the time, were you like student body
Speaker 3: president or like I don't know what the president's system
Speaker 3: is for college?
Speaker 1: Not like I used to be president in my ninth
Speaker 1: grade class, but I mean, like for you, So I wasn't.
Speaker 6: Then I eventually did.
Speaker 7: I was at that point, I was just an annoying
Speaker 7: freshman in college who was and you were a freshman
Speaker 7: I was my freshman.
Speaker 3: Year, So how did you, like, isn't it hard for
Speaker 3: a freshman to get the respect in the I was
Speaker 3: relentless and were people like afraid of being suspended or
Speaker 3: kicked off campus or yes.
Speaker 7: So one thing that happened part of I kind of
Speaker 7: short short headed the story. But it was a few
Speaker 7: phases when they were tear gassing the campus. This is
Speaker 7: before social media, this is before cell phones, and this
Speaker 7: is when you only had the television stations, the broadcast stations.
Speaker 7: So I organized students in my dorm to call all
Speaker 7: the broadcast stations. They were lying saying that we were
Speaker 7: running amok. I'm like, no, we are angry in protest
Speaker 7: both on the campus and out in the community, but
Speaker 7: this isn't a riot, and they were miscommunicating what was happening.
Speaker 7: So I had a bunch of friends call all the
Speaker 7: stations and flood the stations. And the stations got wise
Speaker 7: to us and said, well, who's calling, and so I said,
Speaker 7: just tell them you're me. So you had like seventy
Speaker 7: five Stacy Abrams is calling and that that amplified my voice. Again,
Speaker 7: didn't think through the consequences when they sent the police
Speaker 7: to come and get me to take me to this event.
Speaker 7: I wasn't being arrested. But I was invited to the
Speaker 7: simulcast because all of the television stations in Atlanta came
Speaker 7: together because this was a crisis, and so the mayor
Speaker 7: was there and I was invited as one of the
Speaker 7: students to be there, and so that sort of that
Speaker 7: lifted my platform a bit more than I expected.
Speaker 5: I ask, I'm so curious, just on as a student
Speaker 5: as we're in this Spellman moment, I'm curious, did you
Speaker 5: what was your full experience was in college? Was it
Speaker 5: all work and no play and activism or but at
Speaker 5: a pivotal time in Atlanta period like alymp post Olympics maybe,
Speaker 5: so I was right before the Olympics, right before okay,
Speaker 5: right before the Olympics. So can you talk about like
Speaker 5: what kind of student you were in that way, like did.
Speaker 1: You have fun social life?
Speaker 6: Because I was a nerd and I'm an introvert. So
Speaker 6: I heard this.
Speaker 5: That's why I was surprised. Firstman year you went all
Speaker 5: out and started.
Speaker 1: Well, I was that was happy supreme right, A bunch
Speaker 1: of nerds and introvis. You mentioned Star Trek, So that
Speaker 1: was the.
Speaker 6: Well next generation was out?
Speaker 7: So yes, your peak card girl, the card Jane Waite
Speaker 7: like I do the whole universe see turn.
Speaker 5: Out card is everything?
Speaker 3: Like lu Luke who is Jean luc Every day I
Speaker 3: find the this person I've known for thirty plus years
Speaker 3: good even though she's still nineteen.
Speaker 2: Good.
Speaker 7: So I this is probably the best example. When I
Speaker 7: became student body president, part of your job is to
Speaker 7: make sure that they are social activities. I got two
Speaker 7: of my best friends. I created a position called the
Speaker 7: Social Activity Coordinator, so I wouldn't have.
Speaker 6: To go to parties.
Speaker 5: So you wouldn't have to go.
Speaker 6: Yeah, So I would set up the parties.
Speaker 7: They would I would come at the beginning to say hi,
Speaker 7: and I would come at the end to make sure
Speaker 7: nobody stole anything.
Speaker 6: Otherwise I was back in my dorms.
Speaker 5: You would not go to Everybody was trying to get
Speaker 5: to go out, and you were like, I have meaningful
Speaker 5: things to do.
Speaker 7: I never went on spring break. What well, why would
Speaker 7: you pay money to go sit in somebody else's hotel.
Speaker 7: I mean, like I was, I had a dorm, I
Speaker 7: could read anywhere, like.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you said something, and I think you know.
Speaker 3: I try to pull as much personal inspiration information from
Speaker 3: our guests that come on this show, but I'll ask
Speaker 3: you yes, sir, because I feel like the one small
Speaker 3: task that I'm holding myself back from actually crossing the
Speaker 3: line to where you are, despite the fact that I'm
Speaker 3: hosting my own podcast and.
Speaker 1: Do other things.
Speaker 3: How do you get over the fear of speaking, because
Speaker 3: I've seen you speak before it, you know, for an introvert,
Speaker 3: you project well, I guess it's the acting help.
Speaker 7: But so, yeah, I grew up in the church, so
Speaker 7: we had to do you know, Easter programs, manicipation, proclamature programs.
Speaker 7: Never liked any of it. I'm afraid of you had
Speaker 7: to read all of the stuff right right, you name it,
Speaker 7: we did it. My fear isn't public speaking. I'm reticent
Speaker 7: about being around lots of people. So when I was
Speaker 7: in high school, I joined the debate team. I had
Speaker 7: a psychosomatic case of laryngitis because it occurred to me
Speaker 7: that I couldn't be I wouldn't be debating by myself,
Speaker 7: that other people would see me do it. And suddenly
Speaker 7: my voice didn't work. And went to see the nurse
Speaker 7: and she's like, there's nothing wrong with you. Yeah, And
Speaker 7: that's when I also learned what psychosomatic because what psychomedia
Speaker 7: look like.
Speaker 1: Artist often do that.
Speaker 3: And that's often an issue on the show, like when
Speaker 3: people self sabotage their progress or whatever.
Speaker 7: Well, I had to get over it because I was
Speaker 7: going to fail the class if I didn't. Actually, you
Speaker 7: have to speak. But the way I get past it
Speaker 7: is that it's not about me. It's about what they
Speaker 7: need to hear. It's about what people need to know.
Speaker 7: I can get past the You can't sublimate it, but
Speaker 7: you can work around it.
Speaker 6: And I think you do that.
Speaker 7: You do that, you find yourself in public spaces speaking,
Speaker 7: You give yourself a script, you give yourself an objective.
Speaker 7: And for me, the objective is changed. It's getting people
Speaker 7: the things they need. And if my discomfort gets them
Speaker 7: to what they need, then I'm willing to do it.
Speaker 7: It is never fun, I have never I don't enjoy it,
Speaker 7: but I'm good at it. And the consequences of inaction
Speaker 7: to me are worse than the consequences of action. And
Speaker 7: so for me, the cost benefit analysis is, you know, Stacy,
Speaker 7: stop having a laryngitis and go ahead and do your job.
Speaker 3: Okay, speaking of inaction, and let's cut to the chase here,
Speaker 3: November eighth is coming up. Yes, and you know, I know,
Speaker 3: specifically my specific demographic, which is black men means.
Speaker 1: Ye and yeah nineteen.
Speaker 3: First of all, I'm very shocked at the statistics that
Speaker 3: we I mean, I'm I'm shocked, and I'm not shocked
Speaker 3: because I know that we're the first to complain about
Speaker 3: something and really the last, you know, to really want
Speaker 3: to do the groundwork, if you will. So you know,
Speaker 3: I'm finding out that black men vote the least or
Speaker 3: probably feel the least represented, or you know, and I know,
Speaker 3: I got many uncles and cousins and friends. Ain't nothing
Speaker 3: going to happen and they ain't run for us, or
Speaker 3: they the FEDS or they the ops or whatever. So
Speaker 3: for you what you're facing in Georgia, and that will
Speaker 3: subsequently affect because you know, if KIMP does remain in power,
Speaker 3: then I know that laws are going to be implemented.
Speaker 3: I'm already pissed about this whole, Like we can't give
Speaker 3: water to people or aid to people.
Speaker 1: So just in general, like use this platform to explain
Speaker 1: to us what is at stake?
Speaker 7: So you said, how does that happen and what's at stake?
Speaker 7: We have a governor who ran his first campaign on
Speaker 7: rounding people up and pointing weapons at people and saying
Speaker 7: that he was a politically incorrect conservative, he was a
Speaker 7: trump conservative. And then people because he didn't commit treason
Speaker 7: once in twenty twenty, he didn't commit treason by he
Speaker 7: did what every other governor in American history has done,
Speaker 7: and he certified the election. He's been given praise and lionized. See,
Speaker 7: and that's part of the challenge. The memory is short
Speaker 7: and we are and so he gets credit. Now what
Speaker 7: people are aren't paying attention to. And this goes to
Speaker 7: the issue with so black men have Let's be clear,
Speaker 7: they vote, but it's the vote share. So vote share
Speaker 7: is the proportion you have in the population versus the
Speaker 7: proportion you have in turnout. Black women have the highest
Speaker 7: vote share. We vote our numbers. The next group is
Speaker 7: white women, the group after that is white men, then
Speaker 7: black men. So the issue is not that black men
Speaker 7: don't vote, it's that their power in their vote is
Speaker 7: under so they fight below their weight class. And so
Speaker 7: the goal that I have is not to say that
Speaker 7: black men, no one and no one should suggest that
Speaker 7: black men don't vote. It's that they don't they fight
Speaker 7: below their weight class, and if black men fought their
Speaker 7: full power, it changes things. But there are legitimate reasons
Speaker 7: it doesn't happen, especially in Georgia. Georgia had at one
Speaker 7: point the fourth highest incarceration rate in the nation, and
Speaker 7: it was predominantly black men. And Georgia, like Florida, nearly
Speaker 7: permanently franchises black men, and those who aren't permanently disenfranchised
Speaker 7: are flooded with so much misinformation they don't know they.
Speaker 6: Have the right to vote.
Speaker 7: Then you have communities that when you have generational poverty,
Speaker 7: generational stereotypes, and generational disa investment, no government doesn't work.
Speaker 7: You've seen people who look like you get elected and
Speaker 7: do nothing. But the reason that often is true is
Speaker 7: that we tend to elect in Georgia and in the South,
Speaker 7: we elect black people at the local level. And we
Speaker 7: know we finally started to make some progress at the
Speaker 7: federal level, but state government is the intervener that stops
Speaker 7: many good things from happening. Governors matter, especially now. Right
Speaker 7: standred Ground was signed by a governor. That's why Trayvon's
Speaker 7: murder went unavenged. The treatment of black women as parasites
Speaker 7: through the social safety net that happened under a governor
Speaker 7: in Wisconsin. Mass incarceration did not start with the ninety
Speaker 7: four crime billets started with three Strikes Are Out, which
Speaker 7: was signed by Governor Pete Wilson. In California, Jim Crow
Speaker 7: never had a single federal law. It was all state
Speaker 7: governors in nine southern states. And so we legitimately, especially
Speaker 7: black men, legitimately protest the lack of delivery. But we
Speaker 7: don't understand that the delivery system is the state, not
Speaker 7: the local government. In the state of Georgia, the governor
Speaker 7: decides how much money get spent. The governor sets the budget,
Speaker 7: the governor signs the laws. In the city of Atlanta,
Speaker 7: in two thousand and three, I helped write the first
Speaker 7: living wage law for the state of Georgia. The Mayor
Speaker 7: of Atlanta as signed that law. By the following January,
Speaker 7: that law was illegal in the entire state. They made
Speaker 7: it illegal for a local government to pass a law
Speaker 7: for living wages. On call scheduling hurts a lot of
Speaker 7: black men who want to be a part of their family.
Speaker 7: Hurts a lot of people. But you're on on call scheduling,
Speaker 7: you want to be able to plan your day.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'll say, what is that.
Speaker 7: The Secretary of State, the person currently a Secretary of
Speaker 7: State as a state legislator, passed the law that says
Speaker 7: that no one can, no local government can require that
Speaker 7: on call scheduling actually respect the humanity of a person working.
Speaker 7: The governor Brian Kemp, in the midst of COVID, passed
Speaker 7: the law saying that you couldn't sue your employer for
Speaker 7: not protecting you from COVID. Didn't do a thing to
Speaker 7: demand that you could access to PPE, but he did
Speaker 7: make it impossible for you to file a lawsuit against
Speaker 7: the when he reopened the state, when they forced you
Speaker 7: back to work, they could make you come to work,
Speaker 7: but it didn't have to protect you when you got there.
Speaker 6: That's this governor.
Speaker 5: So that's why I'm confused in states, because.
Speaker 7: Most people don't understand they all they know is that,
Speaker 7: well he reopened the state. Yeah, thirty eight thousand people
Speaker 7: are dead.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 5: I was literally having this conversation with because I was like,
Speaker 5: I want to have a conversation with some young folks
Speaker 5: that actually live here. And I was talking to two
Speaker 5: young folks behind the camera and we were talking about
Speaker 5: Georgia is a little is different in the sense, and
Speaker 5: they're from Chicago and Detroit respectively, and now their residents.
Speaker 5: But speaking to a I spoke to Rego Wade yesterday
Speaker 5: and I said, I don't understand why the polls say
Speaker 5: that things are closed. When y'all was here, y'all saw
Speaker 5: not even I mean COVID that's nice, but we saw
Speaker 5: with the injustice that happened to Stacey in twenty eighteen.
Speaker 5: And he said to me, he said, yeah, but politicians
Speaker 5: always cheat, And I was like, well, yeah, but that
Speaker 5: was the whole world watched it, and it was just
Speaker 5: a matter of fact, like Georgia kind of. I felt like, Okay,
Speaker 5: you know what this is. This is some Georgia excuse
Speaker 5: my language, shit in a way, some South shit where
Speaker 5: things go a little differently in the Northeast.
Speaker 1: You mean in terms of moving the goal post.
Speaker 5: Yeah, like it couldn't be so blatant. And we would
Speaker 5: never have let a man like that only be governor
Speaker 5: again and re Going again think he has a chance again.
Speaker 7: The law he passed that is voter suppression two point zero.
Speaker 7: This law not only says you can't have water or food,
Speaker 7: he's outsourced voter voter purging. Sixty four thousand people have
Speaker 7: had their voter registrations challenged because he and Brad Rasenberger
Speaker 7: put in place a law that says that you can
Speaker 7: any person can walk into a county board of Elections
Speaker 7: and say I don't think that Amir has the right
Speaker 7: to vote, and you have to prove that you have
Speaker 7: the right to vote. They don't have to have any evidence.
Speaker 7: And it used to be that if it looks fishy,
Speaker 7: the board of elections can say this is this is crazy,
Speaker 7: We're not going to do. They now have to process
Speaker 7: every single challenge and in Gwinnett County alone, thirty seven
Speaker 7: thousand voter registrations were challenge heard.
Speaker 5: About Gwennett County, I heard it's a problem, right.
Speaker 7: It's no, But this has happened across the state. But
Speaker 7: this is the same state where because of Brian Kemp's
Speaker 7: law s B two two four, different boards of elections,
Speaker 7: the people who control where the polling is, if you
Speaker 7: get your if your name's there, they kicked all of
Speaker 7: the black people off of the board and it is
Speaker 7: legal in Georgia for them to do so. Brian Kemp
Speaker 7: did that. But the reality is, and this goes just
Speaker 7: to the larger issue, not only black men, but of
Speaker 7: the urgency of this election. If this is what they're
Speaker 7: willing to do. Now, imagine when he is a lame
Speaker 7: duck governor who can't run for office again, when he
Speaker 7: has six he has nothing to lose. He's got his
Speaker 7: way billion dollars.
Speaker 5: He already took our bodies away from us and the
Speaker 5: right to.
Speaker 7: He's got six billion dollars at his disposal. We have
Speaker 7: a surplus once you pay every bill. We've got six
Speaker 7: billion dollars sitting there. He has told us his intention
Speaker 7: is to give this money to the wealthy. And so
Speaker 7: part of the goal of today, and I appreciate this conversation,
Speaker 7: is that most people are so legitimately consumed with their
Speaker 7: lives and with their fears and with their realities that
Speaker 7: politics feels like an extra burden. I like to say politics.
Speaker 7: You may not be into politics, but politics is into you.
Speaker 7: And it is a stalker. And we have to understand
Speaker 7: that stalking usually turns into something grave and terrible that
Speaker 7: you will one day see on lifetime movies.
Speaker 6: And so we've got to push back.
Speaker 7: In my job, my interest, my intensity is because I
Speaker 7: know what the consequences are if we don't do it,
Speaker 7: But I also know what the possibilities are if we do.
Speaker 7: We can invest in people, We can restore bodily autonomy.
Speaker 7: We can make certain that black men and black people large,
Speaker 7: but black men in particular get re enfranchised and actually
Speaker 7: have an active role to play in their futures instead
Speaker 7: of a governor who thinks that restoring mass incarceration is
Speaker 7: an okay thing to do for.
Speaker 3: Cats like me on the sideline that we want to
Speaker 3: do something. Now, last year, you know, I raised money,
Speaker 3: went out on the streets, I mean even hand it out,
Speaker 3: what like I would go to polling places and all
Speaker 3: those things.
Speaker 5: What can we do and not celebrity civilians because we
Speaker 5: all want to.
Speaker 3: We I just meant, like flesh and blood people, Okay,
Speaker 3: what can we do to help alleviate the situation that
Speaker 3: I know is going to be problematic?
Speaker 6: So number one, feel free to give me money.
Speaker 1: But here's why No, but here's why take all my money.
Speaker 7: I'm running the So our campaign has the single largest
Speaker 7: voter engagement apparatus in the state. That means going into
Speaker 7: the places that most people don't go to get to
Speaker 7: the voters most people ignore that's what that's what we do.
Speaker 7: But it takes money because I actually pay every canvasser
Speaker 7: twenty dollars an hour. We don't we pay a living
Speaker 7: wage to our canvass.
Speaker 5: Yes, I was still ne for free in a college town.
Speaker 7: But when you to go to a small place, when
Speaker 7: you've got to go to Colquit County, or go up
Speaker 7: to Dade County, or you're in Clayton County and you've
Speaker 7: got to knock on all these doors in these apartment buildings,
Speaker 7: this is a job and people need to take it.
Speaker 7: So we need volunteers. But before we get volunteers, I
Speaker 7: need people who I know can show up to work
Speaker 7: every single day, so your investment is in that work.
Speaker 6: Number two.
Speaker 7: I need volunteers, I need folks to reach out to
Speaker 7: their communities, but I also need people to talk about
Speaker 7: this on social media. The other side is spending a
Speaker 7: lot of time pretending this doesn't matter. Every negative narrative
Speaker 7: you here, they amplify it. They will tell a lie
Speaker 7: a thousand times until it sounds like the truth. We
Speaker 7: tell the truth one time and we shut up with
Speaker 7: no one says amen. I need us to talk about
Speaker 7: what is at stake. And who is, who these people are,
Speaker 7: who my opponent is, and who I am. And we
Speaker 7: may not agree on everything, but if you look at
Speaker 7: the totality of my work, I show my work. And
Speaker 7: so think about if you've got a guess who's going
Speaker 7: to do a better job, the guy who's told you
Speaker 7: he doesn't care about you, or the woman who's shown care.
Speaker 7: But I need folks to be talking about this. In
Speaker 7: eighteen there was a national conversation. This time it's been
Speaker 7: a bit more muted because we've been dealing with so
Speaker 7: many things.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, Yeah, how do you think the pandemic?
Speaker 6: How you think that is a shit pandemic?
Speaker 7: COVID inflation, racial violence. People are tired and you you
Speaker 7: laid it out very well, Ameir. People are exhausted. But
Speaker 7: pain doesn't care about your exhaustion. Politics doesn't care about
Speaker 7: your exhaustion. Our responsibility is to show up anyway, because
Speaker 7: the consequences are going to visit us whether we invite
Speaker 7: them or not.
Speaker 5: Okay, so let me ask you this as your sister,
Speaker 5: and it's funny. I do another podcast with two sisters,
Speaker 5: Jill Scotten in Asia from Kinju the Family Soul, and
Speaker 5: were always talking about self care. I need to know,
Speaker 5: Stacy Abrams, what is your self care ritual? Do you
Speaker 5: do have something daily? What do you do for self
Speaker 5: so that you can go out and give all this
Speaker 5: energy to all these people because it costs.
Speaker 6: I watch an inordinate amount of television and I read books.
Speaker 5: Rest.
Speaker 7: When I say I watch a lot of TV, it
Speaker 7: is a bit absurd. Right now, I'm watching Eureka because
Speaker 7: I didn't watch Eureka when it came out before. I
Speaker 7: love it, so I'm on season five and very sad.
Speaker 7: I've heard it's really good. I'm waiting for The Equalizer
Speaker 7: to come back because I love Queen Latifah. I watch
Speaker 7: all of the fbis. I think they're twenty seven of
Speaker 7: them now, yeah.
Speaker 5: I watch you on Law Order.
Speaker 6: You got to decide, Well, well, no, I'm Onlaw Order.
Speaker 5: Yeah the new season?
Speaker 7: Well yes, so I know they did all three of
Speaker 7: them on the twenty second, but I haven't haven't had
Speaker 7: a chance to watch it.
Speaker 5: But yes, do you watch the first Lawn Order?
Speaker 1: Because I watched Hey, I was a dead body on that.
Speaker 5: No you was on SBS. Yeah, yeah, yeah, SPU is
Speaker 5: the tight.
Speaker 7: I watch all of the Lawn I've watched Law and
Speaker 7: Order UK. When I say I watched TV, I am
Speaker 7: K there's a Law and Order UK.
Speaker 1: Yes, And is this thing have an accent?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 3: You know what, I'm putting it out there. You organized
Speaker 3: an outcast union, they will come.
Speaker 6: Well, I think I'm talking to the person who can
Speaker 6: make it happen.
Speaker 5: He's talking to you.
Speaker 3: I'm talking to uh, you know what someone should get out.
Speaker 3: Oh boy actually lives five minutes away from me.
Speaker 6: I'm just saying that, don't have boy in his name.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the one that does boring. He goes fishing in
Speaker 1: Long Island like four days a week. So yeah, I'll
Speaker 1: call him.
Speaker 5: But what are you listening to? Stacy?
Speaker 7: I'm curious, my my, So, I have a sixteen year
Speaker 7: old niece who now lives with me. Okay, no, so
Speaker 7: I don't want to tell you what I listened to
Speaker 7: because everything I say out loud she cringes at So. Yeah,
Speaker 7: most of our musical tastes are frozen from when we
Speaker 7: were basically between the ages of ten and twenty five.
Speaker 7: I have expanded my universe since then, but when it
Speaker 7: comes back to just the core narrative. But I'm curious,
Speaker 7: who do I listen to right now, I just had
Speaker 7: to do some I just did a photo shoot, which
Speaker 7: that sounds so bougie. But anyway, so they play music
Speaker 7: because well it's awkward to do this stuff, and so
Speaker 7: they play music to relax you.
Speaker 6: So it was tribe called Quest. It was Whitney.
Speaker 7: There was a new addition, of course. I also love
Speaker 7: Van halen Stone Temple pilots. There was some Fiona Apple. Yes,
Speaker 7: I listened to a broad range. There was and I'm
Speaker 7: not just pandering. There were some roots.
Speaker 5: So when's the last time you had to go to
Speaker 5: a show? Like, was the last time you had time.
Speaker 1: To go to a show?
Speaker 7: Well, last night I was at Alicia Keys concert for
Speaker 7: fourteen seconds so she could say.
Speaker 5: Hi and listen to thank you?
Speaker 1: That that was it?
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 6: So once two step any by Missy Elliott. You just
Speaker 6: get me high.
Speaker 7: And I have a deep, end abiding commitment to all
Speaker 7: of the fun songs done by Ludacris.
Speaker 1: I'm a person. Yeah, I got he.
Speaker 3: Look, this is fun one because it feels like this
Speaker 3: is a ten minute episode of Question of Supreme, even.
Speaker 5: Though I know that we've it was longer than Michelle Obom.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was about to say, can you come back
Speaker 1: after you win?
Speaker 6: I can thank you, thank you, No.
Speaker 3: I really appreciate it, and you know you're you're an
Speaker 3: inspiration for it for a lot of us on the
Speaker 3: sideline that like someone should do something, and can I.
Speaker 6: Give people one more thing to do?
Speaker 7: Yes, I need people to vote early starting October seventeen,
Speaker 7: vote early, So Georgia has three weeks of early voting,
Speaker 7: and the reasoning people to vote as early as they
Speaker 7: can early voting because we know suppression is on its way.
Speaker 7: We know they're making it hard to get absentee ballots.
Speaker 7: They're making it hard to know your polling places. They've
Speaker 7: changed the rules, and if you go to the wrong
Speaker 7: polling place and you're in line for four hours and
Speaker 7: you get to the end and it's the wrong polling place,
Speaker 7: they will not accept your ballot. Yes, it's called a
Speaker 7: provisional ballot. So the way to the way to overcome
Speaker 7: voter suppression is not to let it win by staying home.
Speaker 7: It is by overwhelming the poll with our presence. But
Speaker 7: we need to show up early. We get there the
Speaker 7: first week, we get all of the we know all
Speaker 7: the problems. We can get as many things out of
Speaker 7: the way, and so we're really just dealing with the
Speaker 7: biggest issues, but with fewer and fewer people. As we
Speaker 7: get close to election day, show up early. If we
Speaker 7: show out on the week of October seventeenth, there's no.
Speaker 6: Stop in us.
Speaker 1: There he goes the big pay back.
Speaker 5: I don't live here.
Speaker 3: I'm taking a cue from Unfinished Business in EP Yes, finished.
Speaker 3: This is the big payback for our guest today, overdue
Speaker 3: Stacy Abrams, Thank you very much.
Speaker 1: Yes, future.
Speaker 3: On behalf of no. You know I believe in affirmation
Speaker 3: and putting it out there. I won't be happy to
Speaker 3: show Steve like paid Bill. You missed another classic and fine.
Speaker 3: This is quest love and thank you again, Stacy as Hardiness.
Speaker 3: We'll see you next time.
Speaker 1: Thank you. West Love Supreme is a production of iHeart Radio.
Speaker 3: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 3: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.