Speaker 1: Native Lampod is a production of iHeartRadio in partnership with
Speaker 1: Resent Choice Media.
Speaker 2: Welcome Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome.
Speaker 1: Welcome home, y'all's Episode ninety three of Native Lamb Pod.
Speaker 1: I am your host, uh here with my co host y'all.
Speaker 1: Like when I say that, people I know, I'd.
Speaker 3: Be like, I am your host here with my subjects.
Speaker 1: And ain't nobody coming to see you?
Speaker 3: Otis we're just gonna talk to you.
Speaker 1: Mean to say it like that, we are your three
Speaker 1: co hosts. That's probably a better way to say it.
Speaker 1: We are your three co hosts, Tiffany Cross, Angela Rii,
Speaker 1: and Andrew Gillham. I also feel like we always put
Speaker 1: you last.
Speaker 4: Andrew.
Speaker 1: I don't mean to come mind men, you know boys, Okay,
Speaker 1: all right, me and here chivalry fivlry exactly. Okay. We
Speaker 1: had a lot to get to. What's a lot happening?
Speaker 1: So what are we talking about?
Speaker 5: Well, one, we got a spectacular guest today who I
Speaker 5: am very very excited that we'll get a chance to
Speaker 5: talk to. She is really all knowing, all being everywhere
Speaker 5: on all things. And that's that's you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, No, I said, I'm talking about you.
Speaker 6: Said, all being all knowing, I'm like, everywhere I hear that. Okay,
Speaker 6: what you got, Angela, I got the same. I got
Speaker 6: democracy on the line, and I want to talk about it.
Speaker 6: We also are talking about uh, Donald Trump even going
Speaker 6: at the museums. We've heard about this for some time.
Speaker 6: He's saying, you know why we all got to focus
Speaker 6: on slavery, and sadly there was a black show with
Speaker 6: a black show host that allowed a guest to challenge
Speaker 6: this very same thing. So we're gonna get into all
Speaker 6: that today. What slavery bad?
Speaker 1: We are unfiltered on Native Lampard and I'm honestly chomping
Speaker 1: at the bit to get into all of this. So
Speaker 1: let's get into it. I'm so excited to bring on
Speaker 1: this next guest. Angelo texted our group chat last night
Speaker 1: that she had texted Madame Chryln Eiffel to join us,
Speaker 1: and I was so thrilled that she was available to
Speaker 1: join us. So let me tell you a little bit.
Speaker 1: If you've been living under a rock and don't know.
Speaker 1: Miss CHERYLN. Eifel is a civil rights lawyer, a founding
Speaker 1: director of the Fourteenth Amendment Center for Law and Democracy
Speaker 1: at the Howard University School of Law. She most recently
Speaker 1: before that position set at the helm of the NAACP
Speaker 1: LDF and has a long list of accolades that we
Speaker 1: could exhaust the airwaves with. But I'm just thrilled to
Speaker 1: have her here. I was honored to be there actually
Speaker 1: when she commenced the opening of the Fourteenth Amendment for
Speaker 1: the Center of Law and Democracy at HU. For all
Speaker 1: you Howard people out there listening, so very thrilled to
Speaker 1: welcome you to Native Lampa. Welcome home.
Speaker 7: Thank you so much. I'm really thrilled to be with
Speaker 7: you all in Tiffany. I don't feel like I had
Speaker 7: the chance to really thank you for being there. Meant
Speaker 7: a lot to me that you were there for the
Speaker 7: opening of the new Fourteenth Amendment Center at Howard Law School.
Speaker 1: I was thrilled to be there and thank you for
Speaker 1: the invite. I came all the way to see you,
Speaker 1: and I was double booked. I had a business dinner
Speaker 1: back down town. So I was there and I was
Speaker 1: trying to slip out, and as I was walking down
Speaker 1: the stairs, you started talking about Elaine Arkansas, and I
Speaker 1: turned around and took those stairs too at a time
Speaker 1: because I did not want to miss what you had
Speaker 1: to say about the slaughter that happened to black folks there,
Speaker 1: which is very on theme with what we're talking about.
Speaker 1: I told these guys, I told Angela and Andrew. I don't
Speaker 1: remember what you were talking about, but you were saying
Speaker 1: something about a precedent that you had not been taught
Speaker 1: in law school. And you said, I mean, it's a
Speaker 1: lot of lawyers here where any of you guys taught this.
Speaker 1: And this huge section of people started clapping and you
Speaker 1: started laughing, and you said, those are all of my
Speaker 1: students because they had learned this important precedent from you.
Speaker 1: So it just speaks to the leader that you have
Speaker 1: always been. So we're thrilled to have you. And we
Speaker 1: were talking in our group chat. I want to let
Speaker 1: you know I didn't know I'm an attorney too. Angela's
Speaker 1: our resident attorney. But our friend Aaron Haynes said, listen,
Speaker 1: if you watch Law and Order, then you have a
Speaker 1: fair amount of wisdom. So I'm going to call myself
Speaker 1: an attorney, but I will lay three.
Speaker 5: Years of school years of service.
Speaker 6: They actually have something. They have something for this. It's
Speaker 6: called the unauthorized practice of the law, and I think that.
Speaker 1: I yield the florid to the actual attorney Alo and
Speaker 1: I will listen and learn.
Speaker 6: Oh Man, well, you know how much we love you, Shrilyn.
Speaker 6: I was sharing with the team earlier. We have a
Speaker 6: gazillion stories about moments with you where you have set
Speaker 6: the tone and have been very clear. And I was
Speaker 6: reflecting on our time in Baltimore for the State of
Speaker 6: the People National Assembly, where you really were giving us
Speaker 6: a very clear indication of where we are as a democracy.
Speaker 6: And I would love for you to talk about where
Speaker 6: you think we are now. We're seeing the Smithsonian takeover,
Speaker 6: We're seeing the National Guard coming in from other states
Speaker 6: into d C to harass our children. We're of course
Speaker 6: seeing this crazy situation unfold in Texas with redistricting. I'd
Speaker 6: love to know if you were giving democracy a grade
Speaker 6: right now in the United States, what would it be.
Speaker 7: Oh, We're at a D, for sure, We're at a D.
Speaker 8: We are.
Speaker 7: Really right now fighting over the remnants. We're fighting over
Speaker 7: maintaining the found enough of the foundations that we could
Speaker 7: build something new on. I mean, I mean those of
Speaker 7: us who care about democracy, who want a different country.
Speaker 7: I have one of the reasons I wanted to start
Speaker 7: this Fourteenth Amendment Center was because I want to be
Speaker 7: in the twenty four to seven work of thinking through, strategizing,
Speaker 7: and preparing for the building of a new American democracy.
Speaker 7: And but but to build it, I recognize you need
Speaker 7: some of the stuff. You need some things in the
Speaker 7: foundation that you can build on. And we're getting perilously
Speaker 7: low on the on the integrity of the foundations that
Speaker 7: we would rebuild on. If we were to have a
Speaker 7: chance to rebuild. Will we have a chance to rebuild?
Speaker 7: There's no guarantees there, and it's a ways off. And
Speaker 7: so the process that we're in right now has to
Speaker 7: be one in which we are ever thinking towards the
Speaker 7: future and we're also thinking about our survival. A key
Speaker 7: piece is how do we survive this period with our
Speaker 7: integrity intact, our dignity intact, our families intact, and our
Speaker 7: communities intact, because that's who we are on this continent
Speaker 7: we are We're always trying to figure out how we
Speaker 7: survived this thing and make it to the next thing. Now,
Speaker 7: we want to thrive, for sure, but I want to
Speaker 7: be very clear that the opportunities for that will be
Speaker 7: very narrow in the coming years for a broad set
Speaker 7: of people. And that means it is incumbent on those
Speaker 7: of us who have been beneficiaries of the sacrifices that
Speaker 7: were made early on among our ancestors, to take up
Speaker 7: our obligation to do the same for those that come
Speaker 7: after us. But right now, you know, democracies are made
Speaker 7: up of citizens of people, but also critically made up
Speaker 7: of institutions that hold democracy together. And the worst of
Speaker 7: this moment, it's not that forty percent, maybe forty five
Speaker 7: percent of Americans are fully okay with an authoritarian takeover
Speaker 7: of our country, and maybe another ten percent are prepared
Speaker 7: to just watch an authoritarian takeover of our country. That's bad.
Speaker 7: But what will make this democracy completely crumble if it does,
Speaker 7: is the absolute collapse of democratic institute. What are democratic institutions, Well,
Speaker 7: there's no healthy democracy you can point to in the
Speaker 7: world that doesn't have a strong and free and independent media,
Speaker 7: that doesn't have a strong, free and independent civil service,
Speaker 7: that doesn't have a strong, free and independent university system,
Speaker 7: that doesn't have a strong business community that functions with integrity,
Speaker 7: that doesn't have a legal system that upholds the rule
Speaker 7: of law, and in which legal professionals are held to
Speaker 7: a high standard of performance. There's no healthy democracy in
Speaker 7: the world that doesn't have a strong and independent court system.
Speaker 7: And if you tick off those lists for all of
Speaker 7: us right now, every single one of the core institutions
Speaker 7: of democracy in this country has failed. And that, more
Speaker 7: than anything else, is why we are where we are today.
Speaker 7: Systems of government are not just about who gets elected
Speaker 7: in one election. It's a system. It sustains itself over
Speaker 7: multiple elections. And no one person, no one person, especially
Speaker 7: a person of Donald Trump's caliber, who, for all his bluster,
Speaker 7: didn't know shit from Shinola about politics before twenty sixteen.
Speaker 7: He knew about manipulation, he knew about narrative, he knew
Speaker 7: about image making, he knew about white supremacy and how
Speaker 7: to appeal to it, but he did know shit from
Speaker 7: Shinola about politics and government. No one person with that
Speaker 7: diminished knowledge can come in and hijack the most powerful
Speaker 7: and wealthy democracy in the world unless it is already
Speaker 7: in trouble. And that's writing this book now called Is
Speaker 7: This America? And that's what the book is about. It's
Speaker 7: about why we were already in trouble. And you all
Speaker 7: know this, you know, because it's all the people who
Speaker 7: think the world was perfect when Obama was president or
Speaker 7: Clinton was president or Biden was president, you know. And
Speaker 7: I've been a civil rights lawyer for thirty five years,
Speaker 7: never been out of work. It has not been perfect,
Speaker 7: but we had institutions attempting to hold the line. And
Speaker 7: now we have seen the biggest and most wealthy law
Speaker 7: firms in the world collapse. We've seen the biggest and
Speaker 7: most revered universities collapse. We've seen the media just utterly
Speaker 7: freaking collapse. And you can't save a democracy, and you
Speaker 7: can't have democracy unless you have an institutional structure to
Speaker 7: uphold it.
Speaker 1: All right, guys, don't go anywhere. We got to pay
Speaker 1: some bills. But on the other side of this break,
Speaker 1: we're getting right back to it.
Speaker 3: That's powerful. That's extremely powerful and sobering.
Speaker 5: And I didn't expect anything otherwise from you, Sherilyn. Your
Speaker 5: comments drawed of mind two thoughts. One, how very very
Speaker 5: fragile democracies are. There's no wonder why so many societies
Speaker 5: choose autocrats, monarchies, a strong man as leaders, because for
Speaker 5: the average person is the easier route. They don't have
Speaker 5: to work to maintain it. It does rest on an individual,
Speaker 5: a set of individuals, a family, But in this case
Speaker 5: the fragility is like front and center. But the second
Speaker 5: thing you made me think about, which was actually the
Speaker 5: first thing, was something we all know well, which is
Speaker 5: you never let a good crisis go to waste. And
Speaker 5: when you began talking about envisioning and dreaming, me about
Speaker 5: what you build on top of when things are lost?
Speaker 5: All is lost in the slate is almost cleared. There
Speaker 5: are some founding and important building blocks. But when you
Speaker 5: start to stay think about what it looks like to
Speaker 5: scale this thing? Are there some imagineive thoughts that you
Speaker 5: feel prepared to share with us around Man, if this system.
Speaker 3: Is leveled, what do we build back? Or what never existed?
Speaker 5: Do we now make some allowance to exist so that
Speaker 5: we can all be on the way to thriving.
Speaker 3: Any thoughts come to mind to you? For I know
Speaker 3: the answer is yes.
Speaker 7: No, Yeah, thoughts are I think about. I'm sorry I
Speaker 7: shouldn't be talking over you. I'm thinking about a lot
Speaker 7: of things. And first of all, Andrew's just wonderful to
Speaker 7: see you again, and I so wish you with the
Speaker 7: Governor of Florida. But amen, But uh, you know, I
Speaker 7: was just writing the first chapter of my book, which
Speaker 7: is about something we lost and that we lost as
Speaker 7: a result. Most of most of the things that we
Speaker 7: lose in this country that are essential to democracy, we
Speaker 7: begin to lose because because of white supremacist ideology. And
Speaker 7: one of the things we lost is our commitment to
Speaker 7: an investment in you know, what we call public goods.
Speaker 7: Public goods are those things and those places that a society,
Speaker 7: a government ensures are in place that the public engages
Speaker 7: with and can enjoy and can access together. And these
Speaker 7: public goods play an incredibly powerful role in helping unify
Speaker 7: people in a democracy and helping them feel they're part
Speaker 7: of the same project, if you know what I mean. So,
Speaker 7: for example, I love the post office. I know that's
Speaker 7: old school, but bear with me. You know, the post
Speaker 7: office is a fundamentally democratic institution.
Speaker 9: Right.
Speaker 7: You put that one stamp on your envelope, and it
Speaker 7: goes to California, it goes to Florida, it goes to
Speaker 7: New York. I put on the same stamp you put on.
Speaker 7: You put on the same stamp Tiffany puts on. Tiffany
Speaker 7: puts on the same stamp Angela puts on, and we
Speaker 7: all can communicate with each other using this service that
Speaker 7: is provided by the government. When you walk into a
Speaker 7: neighbor neighborhood and you see the postal truck park there right,
Speaker 7: you know that's a neighborhood. In fact, we don't even
Speaker 7: see it anymore. It's like air, but it is a
Speaker 7: It's a symbol of something important. It's a symbol that
Speaker 7: the government is there is servicing that area. One of
Speaker 7: the reasons when people say, oh, it all needs to
Speaker 7: be privatized, one of the reasons the post office is
Speaker 7: so important is because even services like FedEx still use
Speaker 7: the post office for what we called the last mile.
Speaker 7: FedEx is not coming up that mountain to deliver nothing.
Speaker 7: What they do is they deliver it to the closest place,
Speaker 7: and the United States Postal Service, which is required to
Speaker 7: serve every home right and every edifice, takes that package
Speaker 7: the last mile. So that means people in rural America
Speaker 7: know that they're going to get their Social Security checks.
Speaker 7: They know they can wait on that letter from their
Speaker 7: child or their grandchild. This is a powerful and important
Speaker 7: service and exists all over the world. If you've ever
Speaker 7: stood in the line several weeks prior to Christmas with
Speaker 7: your packages waiting to mail them out in the post office.
Speaker 7: And you think about the conversations that happen in that line,
Speaker 7: right and all the you know, when is it going
Speaker 7: to arrive, and where's it going and all that stuff.
Speaker 7: All of those are the things that knit us together.
Speaker 7: And the post office is just one example. And we
Speaker 7: should remember that the post office, which was created in
Speaker 7: the seventeen i want to say eighties. Ben Franklin was
Speaker 7: the first postmaster, was one of the earliest places after
Speaker 7: the Civil War where black people could get federal jobs.
Speaker 7: And it's one of the reasons why as there was
Speaker 7: the resistance to reconstruction and violence, postal workers would the
Speaker 7: ones very often attacked by remaining Confederates in the South.
Speaker 7: The post office symbolized the federal government. The postal worker
Speaker 7: symbolized the federal government, and to be a black postal
Speaker 7: worker said something incredibly powerful because it meant that the
Speaker 7: United States government trusted you with the money, the mail,
Speaker 7: all of this official business. You know how if you
Speaker 7: know you always see the lines that if you if
Speaker 7: you ruin mail, you know it's a federal offense. It
Speaker 7: is right that it's a job of importance because they
Speaker 7: speak for the government. They are part of the federal government. Well,
Speaker 7: what happened after Brown versus Board of Education is that slowly,
Speaker 7: but surely, and not even that slowly, they're developed a
Speaker 7: narrative about public goods. Prior to Brown, we had public
Speaker 7: goods and they were not controversial. White people loved them too.
Speaker 7: White people loved public housing. They are the ones who
Speaker 7: were public housing was originally built for. And they benefited
Speaker 7: amazingly from the New Deal programs that were imposed in
Speaker 7: order to address and deal with the Great Depression. So
Speaker 7: the Works Projects Association, the NLRB, which the Fifth Circuit
Speaker 7: has just said it's unconstitutional, the National Labor Relations Board,
Speaker 7: all of the things that came through the New Deal.
Speaker 7: But here's how they maintained white support for those public goods.
Speaker 7: They carved black people out of them. So Southern segregationists
Speaker 7: were very clear that in fact, the South was the
Speaker 7: greatest beneficiary of New Deal programs. But what they wanted
Speaker 7: to make sure was that their power structure remained unchanged.
Speaker 7: That's right, and Frederick Franklin Dellana Roosevelt was willing to
Speaker 7: cut those deals because he needed the southern segregationists in
Speaker 7: Congress to support the legislation to bring the New Deal forward.
Speaker 7: So that's why black people didn't have access to Social
Speaker 7: Security when the Social Security Act was passed in nineteen
Speaker 7: thirty four, because what they carved out of the Social
Speaker 7: Security Act were agricultural workers and domestic workers. Now in
Speaker 7: nineteen thirty four, what were most black people doing. Most
Speaker 7: black people were sharecropping or were working as domestics in
Speaker 7: the homes of white people in the South. So black
Speaker 7: people were carved out of Social Security and I think
Speaker 7: not actually added to it until nineteen fifty two. I
Speaker 7: want to say it was Eisenhower. And so public goods
Speaker 7: were fine so long as they were not being given
Speaker 7: on an equal basis with white people.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 7: Segregated public housing, that was another when public housing was
Speaker 7: being built in the thirties and forties, it was you
Speaker 7: know FDR's aides who said, we have to acquiesce to
Speaker 7: Southerners who want public housing to be segregated, and that's
Speaker 7: why they were segregated public housing. All of the buildings
Speaker 7: that were built to work on New Deal projects were segregated,
Speaker 7: and the black housing was always substandard. So while there
Speaker 7: was that pat that understanding that if we have public goods,
Speaker 7: if we have public schools, black people are going to
Speaker 7: get the underfunded public schools and white people will get
Speaker 7: the state of the art schools. Right Central High School
Speaker 7: in Little Rock was seen as the high school. It
Speaker 7: was seen as you know, I've read accounts of white
Speaker 7: students know there was a fish pond at the bottom
Speaker 7: of the stairs. I mean it was. They were very
Speaker 7: proud of that school. The same thing with Central High
Speaker 7: School in Washington, d C. They were very proud of it.
Speaker 7: Well after Brown versus Board of Education, when the Supreme
Speaker 7: Court said first in terms of education, it has to
Speaker 7: be shared on an equal basis and there has to
Speaker 7: be integration, what was the first reaction and response? The
Speaker 7: first reaction and response was to withdraw from partiesipation in
Speaker 7: public goods keeping their kids home from school. You know,
Speaker 7: you know, you can decide which one is worse, the
Speaker 7: kids howling outside Central High School in Little Rock to
Speaker 7: keep nine black students out, or no kids being in
Speaker 7: school with Ruby Bridges in New Orleans so that she's
Speaker 7: in the whole school by herself. Or you can decide
Speaker 7: that it's Prince Williams County, Virginia closing the public schools
Speaker 7: for five years rather than integrate and building segregation academies
Speaker 7: to educate their kids. Now, you can pick from among
Speaker 7: those which one you think is the worst, but they
Speaker 7: all amount to the same thing, the withdrawal from what
Speaker 7: is the most important public good in any democracy, and
Speaker 7: that is public schools K through twelve. Why because that
Speaker 7: is where we inculcate the values of citizenship and what
Speaker 7: it means to live in this country. And we do it,
Speaker 7: we should be doing it together and they know that
Speaker 7: as well. So our whole relationship to public schools that
Speaker 7: changed came out of this, came out of Brown. And
Speaker 7: then when the Civil Rights Act of nineteen sixty four
Speaker 7: said that all public goods had to be shared on
Speaker 7: an equal basis, then we saw the withdrawal from all
Speaker 7: the other public goods. And by the time we got
Speaker 7: to the nineteen eighties with Ronald Reagan, it was an
Speaker 7: ordinary to exalt that which is private and to denigrate
Speaker 7: that which is public. If I say public transportation, the
Speaker 7: image in your mind has black people in it. If
Speaker 7: I say public schools, the image in your mind has
Speaker 7: black and brown people in it. This is when we
Speaker 7: get the gated community. This is when we get the
Speaker 7: backyard pool. All of our communities had pools. Baltimore had
Speaker 7: public pools. We all have public We have them again
Speaker 7: now thanks to Brandon Scott, but we all had public pools.
Speaker 7: We had public golf courses in all our cities. And
Speaker 7: when the Civil Rights Act of nineteen sixty four passed
Speaker 7: and was signed by President Johnson, this act included a
Speaker 7: provision called Title six, which says that federal funds cannot
Speaker 7: support state and local programs that engage in discrimination. It
Speaker 7: was actually created to force compliance with brown, to force
Speaker 7: schools to comply with brown. People like me were bussed
Speaker 7: to school in the immediate years after the Civil Rights
Speaker 7: Act of nineteen sixty four, because that's when northern school
Speaker 7: districts who had kind of stayed out of the immigration
Speaker 7: the integration conversation around school but who were also segregated, right,
Speaker 7: not segregated by statute but by custom, they started integrating
Speaker 7: their schools because they got nervous and afraid about the
Speaker 7: Civil Rights Act of nineteen sixty four. So when you
Speaker 7: hear about kids getting bussed, Black kids getting bussed to school,
Speaker 7: in the North Boston, Chicago, Denver, New York. It is
Speaker 7: usually after nineteen sixty four. Right, So I first went
Speaker 7: to school nineteen sixty eight. So now you have this
Speaker 7: rule that but it's not only schools, it's you can't
Speaker 7: get any federal funds if your parks department, right discriminates
Speaker 7: and keeps black kids out of the pool.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 7: So now everything has to integrate. And that's when we
Speaker 7: see the full on white withdrawal. We see white flight,
Speaker 7: white people moving out of cities, right. We see the
Speaker 7: decimation of public goods like parks and swimming pools. We
Speaker 7: see white pull out of public schools and thus the
Speaker 7: defunding of public schools. We see all of that, and
Speaker 7: that is you cannot build a society that is multi
Speaker 7: racial as a democracy like that. And let me give
Speaker 7: the US a little bit of credit here for the
Speaker 7: for the you get points for the difficulty of the project.
Speaker 7: We're doing the most difficult project. There is no other
Speaker 7: country in the world that we're pointing to and saying, see,
Speaker 7: they got the multiracial democracy thing, right. It's just not
Speaker 7: a thing.
Speaker 9: Right.
Speaker 7: And that's why when people say, oh, but look at
Speaker 7: the criminal justice system in Norway right because they're all white.
Speaker 7: And when you have a in which people are not
Speaker 7: different from one another, there's built in trust, there's built
Speaker 7: in trust. We're fighting against a very different tide, the
Speaker 7: tide of a place of differences, which is part of
Speaker 7: what makes this country. If you want to say great, great,
Speaker 7: is that there's all this difference. But all that difference
Speaker 7: means the project of holding together that population in a
Speaker 7: democracy is extremely challenging. And so my even look like
Speaker 7: I'm answering Andrew's question, my recognition for the future is
Speaker 7: we have to be actually especially careful and intentional about
Speaker 7: creating public goods that force us together. We actually have
Speaker 7: to be thoughtful about that. I had this section my
Speaker 7: book where I talk about public parks because that's what
Speaker 7: we did as kids, you know, our family. There were
Speaker 7: ten kids in my family, so we did not go
Speaker 7: on vacations, but we did packed that hamper, you know,
Speaker 7: with the chicken and the sandwiches and whatever, and we
Speaker 7: went to every public park. We went to Bear Mountain,
Speaker 7: we went to Sunken Meadow, we went to Wildwood State Park.
Speaker 7: That's what we would do on Labor Day, on Memorial Day,
Speaker 7: on these holidays, and just the experience in a public
Speaker 7: park in a place like New York, right where you
Speaker 7: put your blanket, you know, nobody wants to be two
Speaker 7: up in somebody's Like you're learning these lessons about accommodation
Speaker 7: without actually learning a lesson like a school, right, And
Speaker 7: so you learn. And you're watching people, right, and the
Speaker 7: people next to you are making food that's very different
Speaker 7: than yours, right, and they're treating their kids differently than
Speaker 7: you treat yours. And something's on the grill over here
Speaker 7: that smells really good, and you want to go over
Speaker 7: there and look at it, and you're you know, your
Speaker 7: older sisters are saying, get out, go over here, get
Speaker 7: leave those people alone, but you want to see. You know,
Speaker 7: what's that meat they put on the grid? I've never
Speaker 7: seen that. But like, there's all this stuff that's happening
Speaker 7: in a public space, and you are just without having
Speaker 7: to have an explicit conversation up accommodating the differences around you.
Speaker 7: You get on the New York City subway. We don't
Speaker 7: talk about it, but there is an understanding. As you're
Speaker 7: holding the pole, right, people's hands are different places on
Speaker 7: the pole. You don't put your hand over somebody's you
Speaker 7: know what I mean. There is a whole accommodation that
Speaker 7: happens when we're together. It's very different you all sitting
Speaker 7: in four us, all sitting in four different studios right now,
Speaker 7: or if we were in an auditorium together and we
Speaker 7: were sitting next to each other, because we would very quietly,
Speaker 7: without even talking about it, decide whose arm went on,
Speaker 7: which armrest right, And we might say, oh, Andrew, you're
Speaker 7: the tallest, so you still on the end, so your
Speaker 7: leg could be.
Speaker 4: There's all kinds of things we.
Speaker 7: Do just in the process of being together. That's actually
Speaker 7: not about who did you vote for. It's actually not
Speaker 7: about race. It's actually it's not about any of that.
Speaker 4: And we just do it.
Speaker 7: Without those opportunities, without those experiences, it is very difficult
Speaker 7: to begin to knit together a population. I understand this
Speaker 7: is a small example, but it is. If you scale
Speaker 7: it up, it becomes university, right, it becomes public housing,
Speaker 7: it becomes all of those places where the stakes are high.
Speaker 7: And so when you see this effort, this unrelenting effort,
Speaker 7: since it started against affirmative action and now against DEI right,
Speaker 7: it is a deliberate counter to creating context that compel
Speaker 7: us to be together and to see one another, to
Speaker 7: see one another's humanity in an environment that asks all
Speaker 7: of us, as of all of us, the same thing,
Speaker 7: and where we have the opportunity to bring the same
Speaker 7: thing to the table. So one thing is thinking about
Speaker 7: how we would restructure and this is even architectural. That's
Speaker 7: why it's a multi disciplinary project. What do we want
Speaker 7: our cities to look like? What do we want our
Speaker 7: towns to look like? I believe the schools should be
Speaker 7: the center of the town, right, everything you know about
Speaker 7: a community you should know by visiting their elementary school,
Speaker 7: their high school. You should just know whether they value kids,
Speaker 7: whether they value sports, What did they believe about green space,
Speaker 7: What did they believe about food and access? What did
Speaker 7: they you know, all of that stuff should be So
Speaker 7: we were even thinking about, you know, we were getting
Speaker 7: infrastructure money. That's what I was thinking about. I mean
Speaker 7: I pushed very hard but with the Secretary of Education
Speaker 7: and the Biden administration as they were making their plans
Speaker 7: that we needed school infrastructure money.
Speaker 4: We needed to be.
Speaker 7: Able to build new schools so that we could see
Speaker 7: it differently and pull kids together differently, you know, So
Speaker 7: it requires that kind of thinking. Obviously, I have lots
Speaker 7: of thinking about law and my profession. I have lots
Speaker 7: of thinking about the Supreme Court, which is I'm no
Speaker 7: longer interested in the conversation about the personnel. I'm interested
Speaker 7: in a conversation about structuring a Supreme Court that could
Speaker 7: make sense.
Speaker 1: And obviously I'm glad you brought up the Supreme Court,
Speaker 1: where unfortunately our time is always so tight on this podcast,
Speaker 1: so we mainly have time for another one or two questions,
Speaker 1: so I just want to try to get one in.
Speaker 1: You said a lot there one you you gave a
Speaker 1: shout out to Brandon Scott. I just want to let
Speaker 1: our listeners and viewers across the country know that is
Speaker 1: the mayor of Baltimore, who you gave a shout out to.
Speaker 1: You also bringing up the courts, because I have a
Speaker 1: lot of lay persons questions about what we see happening here,
Speaker 1: and I want to take us to the very current
Speaker 1: situation of what's happening in Texas. And I was asking
Speaker 1: Angela earlier in the week about keeping the Cole Collier, who's,
Speaker 1: of course the state representative in Texas, who is and
Speaker 1: from my lay person's perspective is being held captive.
Speaker 10: She is.
Speaker 1: It looks like false imprisonment to me, and so Angela
Speaker 1: and our friend Brittany Packnet Cunningham were s to me,
Speaker 1: you know, language around the rules for their legislature, which
Speaker 1: they were trying to explain to me is essentially treated
Speaker 1: like the law. Sunny Hassen, another fellow lawyer, saying, this
Speaker 1: is what exists until a court says it doesn't. I
Speaker 1: keep saying, I do not believe the courts will hold
Speaker 1: I just and everything that you laid out from a
Speaker 1: capitulating media landscape that we see to the third co
Speaker 1: equal branch of government, I don't see the courts holding.
Speaker 1: So even if this case were to go before a
Speaker 1: court saying yes, you cannot lock this black woman up,
Speaker 1: what is wrong with you all? I don't. I think
Speaker 1: it can just escalate, perhaps all the way to the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court. So what And it sends a message, I think,
Speaker 1: to the country, to other potential Republican governors, that it
Speaker 1: is okay to we already see it's we've declared it's
Speaker 1: okay to kidnap people off the street without due process.
Speaker 1: Mass men can come and snatch any one of us
Speaker 1: we've already declared that. And so this is very scary
Speaker 1: to me that we're almost normalizing this, that we're talking
Speaker 1: about it. I see on cable news they present it
Speaker 1: like it's fodder, like well, what do you think about
Speaker 1: this instead of outrags like oh my god, where is
Speaker 1: the country going? I'm just curious your thoughts on that.
Speaker 1: And I know had another question, So I don't want
Speaker 1: you to take up to ms CI. I'll be able
Speaker 1: to get to her question.
Speaker 7: I'll do it real fast. I think you hit, you know,
Speaker 7: the nail on the head. It is true that you know,
Speaker 7: this stuff will be litigated and there'll be whatever a
Speaker 7: court says. It'll be first whatever the highest court in
Speaker 7: Texas says, uh, and then it'll be what the Supreme
Speaker 7: Court says. And I just think you hit the nail
Speaker 7: on the head. The reason this time is so scary
Speaker 7: is because the courts have not held. Now there are
Speaker 7: the courts, and the courts, the federal district courts have
Speaker 7: been amazing. And what has been shocking to see is
Speaker 7: how much the Supreme Court, the majority of conservative justices
Speaker 7: on that court, are so set on their agenda that
Speaker 7: they are willing to disparage and pull into disrespute, ill disrespute, irrepute,
Speaker 7: ill repute. The federal district court judges, right, who are
Speaker 7: deciding things they don't like. But the Federal district court
Speaker 7: judges are the ones who are like pulling out the
Speaker 7: facts and figuring out exactly what happened. And so I
Speaker 7: think you have every right to be alarmed by the
Speaker 7: fact that the courts may not hold. And that's why
Speaker 7: it was so important for people to understand the significance
Speaker 7: of the courts. It was important for advocates like me
Speaker 7: and others to make clear to our people why the
Speaker 7: courts were so significant, and to make it understood, and
Speaker 7: to make it understood in layman's terms, and to get
Speaker 7: out of the whole conversation, the insider conversation about the
Speaker 7: courts and the justices and who's an institutionalist and so
Speaker 7: on and so forth. I've watched every Supreme Court confirmation
Speaker 7: hearing since I was.
Speaker 5: Ten.
Speaker 7: It did right, I mean, this is this is my thing,
Speaker 7: you know, Like, I'm so clear about it. And I
Speaker 7: just think that we have now gotten ourselves in quite
Speaker 7: a pickle. And I don't think there's any easy way
Speaker 7: out of it. I think there's some things that John
Speaker 7: Roberts will will it pumped the brakes on, but never
Speaker 7: never about race. He's always been one of the leaders.
Speaker 7: He worked in the Break and Justice Department. He was
Speaker 7: vociferously opposed to the amendments to Section two where the
Speaker 7: Voting Rights Act. He has always been an anti civil
Speaker 7: rights person. So there may be other things that you know,
Speaker 7: on an executive power that he may you know, come
Speaker 7: around on. But it ain't going to be on is
Speaker 7: section to a violation of the fourteenth and fifteenth Amendments.
Speaker 7: It's not going to be I've become convinced it's not
Speaker 7: going to be on birthright citizenship, like it's not going
Speaker 7: to be anything that doesn't serve this current agenda. And
Speaker 7: the mistake I think that many of us got too late,
Speaker 7: myself included is while I knew that these I've always
Speaker 7: said they were right wing, I did not know they
Speaker 7: were a MAGA until the decision saying that the president
Speaker 7: has immunity for any acts he commits while he's president,
Speaker 7: as long as they can be deemed as official acts,
Speaker 7: including criminal acts. Was that the beginning of the unraveling?
Speaker 7: Was it that moment you know it. That was the
Speaker 7: for hostallization. That was the crystallization that they are. I
Speaker 7: thought so with the insurrection decision, the decision to basically
Speaker 7: kind of stand down section three of the fourteenth Amendment,
Speaker 7: which says, if you participated in insurrection, you can't be
Speaker 7: on the ballot. And Colorado had removed President Trump from
Speaker 7: the ballot in twenty twenty four, and the case went
Speaker 7: to the Supreme Court and they said a lot of
Speaker 7: things and in the end said, well, we would need
Speaker 7: an Act of Congress, even though you have it clearly
Speaker 7: set forth in the fourteenth Amendment.
Speaker 4: I thought so.
Speaker 7: Then because of the descent from Justices Soto, Mayor Jackson,
Speaker 7: and Kagan, I felt their dissent. The tone of it,
Speaker 7: the words they said was a flair. I thought they
Speaker 7: were warning us of what was happening with their colleagues.
Speaker 7: They weren't just saying that they were right wing. There
Speaker 7: was some language where they said, you know, you've taken
Speaker 7: a decision in order to insulate this president or any
Speaker 7: after him like that, in order to insulate him like
Speaker 7: just It really stuck out to me, and that's when
Speaker 7: I first thought, like, are they telling us that Wait
Speaker 7: a minute, right, And then we got the the immunity decision,
Speaker 7: and that has convinced me in ways I had not
Speaker 7: been convinced before. And it's frightening. It's very very frightening,
Speaker 7: and there's no easy way out of it at all.
Speaker 1: But I say all of that, oh, go ahead, go ahead, I.
Speaker 7: Just I don't say this too so that we are
Speaker 7: in despair and believe that there's no way out. Because,
Speaker 7: you know, civil rights advancement, it is like a cocktail
Speaker 7: of things. You know, we all know the different elements
Speaker 7: that we use. You know, it's there are boycotts, and
Speaker 7: there are stand downs, and there are general strikes, and
Speaker 7: there are there's litigation, and there's marching, and there's protesting,
Speaker 7: and there's shaming and there's educating and these are all
Speaker 7: the elements and then you shake them all up. But
Speaker 7: there's always something else that is completely unexpected that we
Speaker 7: don't have any control over, that also ends up in
Speaker 7: the mix, that moves things in ways that are unexpected.
Speaker 7: My concern always is like, have you put all the
Speaker 7: other stuff in the in the mix so that we're
Speaker 7: ready to go when the when the when the day
Speaker 7: x MACNA happens, When the when the secret sauce comes
Speaker 7: from the outside to move things forward. It's not all
Speaker 7: the secret sauce is not always great, by the way,
Speaker 7: it's sometimes very painful. In the civil rights movement, there's
Speaker 7: nothing that we got that didn't happen before. There was
Speaker 7: some horrifyingly violent attack. We don't care.
Speaker 6: Then you mentioned sorry, You mentioned that you didn't want
Speaker 6: us to be in despair. And in a special moment recently,
Speaker 6: we were wrestling with this question we've been doing on
Speaker 6: the podcast too, what is not under attack in this country?
Speaker 6: And you mentioned a really special conversation you had with
Speaker 6: Hank Sanders in Selma, and I would love for that
Speaker 6: to be our partying words, to give us a little.
Speaker 4: Bit of hope. And so I said, we don't have
Speaker 4: a silver lin anymore as glitter.
Speaker 7: And to be clear, I am always hopeful. I am
Speaker 7: when people ask me if I'm optimistic, I'm optimistic because
Speaker 7: I know what the end is going to be. I
Speaker 7: understand that the struggle to get there. In that struggle,
Speaker 7: many people will be heard. That's what infuriates me, empowers me.
Speaker 7: And we have the right to try to minimize those
Speaker 7: as much as possible. But I don't have any doubt,
Speaker 7: any doubt of where we're going to be because we
Speaker 7: don't fight with the same tools they fight with.
Speaker 6: We just don't.
Speaker 7: And Hank Sanders, whose civil rights activists and lawyer served
Speaker 7: in the State House in Alabama, always says to me
Speaker 7: that during the civil rights movement, they had all the
Speaker 7: law and all the guns and all the dogs, and
Speaker 7: we had our prayers, our songs, our feet, and our
Speaker 7: moral sense of what was right, and we were able
Speaker 7: to overcome them again and again. And so if we're
Speaker 7: counting up, you know what they have and what they got,
Speaker 7: all these Spreme Court justice they got, all this, they
Speaker 7: got all that. That's not really how it works. We're
Speaker 7: not going to work. We're not going to win using
Speaker 7: their tools. We're never going to have as much money.
Speaker 7: We're never going to have the weaponry or the willingness
Speaker 7: to use it. We're never going to have all the
Speaker 7: offices that they control. We're never going to have the
Speaker 7: same level of political power. We are fourteen percent of
Speaker 7: the population of the United States. We're not having it,
Speaker 7: but we punch above our weight. There's a reason that
Speaker 7: white people, when they do the Washington Post pole, think
Speaker 7: that we're fifty percent of the population because we are
Speaker 7: just so we saturate, because we control the culture, because
Speaker 7: we control the narrative, because they like to look at us.
Speaker 7: There's all kinds of little intangibles about who we are
Speaker 7: as black people in this country that gives us power.
Speaker 7: And when we show up in the space, when we speak,
Speaker 7: it ruptures something, It disturbs, it troubles the waters. And
Speaker 7: so we have to not think we are smaller than
Speaker 7: we are. We shouldn't think we're bigger than we are,
Speaker 7: for sure, but we should know that we fight with
Speaker 7: tools that maximize our size in ways that cannot be
Speaker 7: explained by math. You know, it's like feeding the five
Speaker 7: thousand with some you know, however, many.
Speaker 4: Loaves of breads.
Speaker 7: Right, it's not math, it's not ma Right. There is
Speaker 7: a spiritual power. And when we are activated and united
Speaker 7: and believe that we are going to walk towards what
Speaker 7: is right, it maximizes power and it disarms our opponent.
Speaker 7: That's what we have to go for. It's not that
Speaker 7: we want to fight them hand to hand and somehow
Speaker 7: we win in hand to hand combat. No, we want
Speaker 7: to take the knowledge, the numbers, the force, the moral force,
Speaker 7: the demand the strategic thinking that we have and disarm them.
Speaker 7: I'm trying to make them let their own arms down.
Speaker 7: I'm trying to make them stumble first and foremost. I
Speaker 7: don't want to fight them at full strength. I want
Speaker 7: them to trip and fall and then we can fight.
Speaker 7: I want them to forget something that's important. I want
Speaker 7: them to I want them weak. Yeah, and that's the
Speaker 7: power we have, is to disarm our enemies so that
Speaker 7: we are in a better position to overcome them.
Speaker 1: Thank you. I feel so inadequate calling you, Sherilyn. It
Speaker 1: feels so I don't know why. It feels so uncomfortable.
Speaker 1: I feel like I should be saying your honor, the honorable, Yes,
Speaker 1: her excellency, thank.
Speaker 6: You, profess Her excellency.
Speaker 1: The prophetes.
Speaker 5: May know this, you may know this already, but I
Speaker 5: am a very, very verbal and expressive like a man corner.
Speaker 5: And my colleagues warned me the muzzle so that I
Speaker 5: wouldn't mess with your audio. And I felt like I
Speaker 5: was going.
Speaker 3: To explode like a balloon all the.
Speaker 5: Way through this thing because bringing it as you always do.
Speaker 5: And so I've got to adopt some of my Grandmama's
Speaker 5: you know, church mannerisms where you know, she can't mean yeah,
Speaker 5: you know, but thank you.
Speaker 4: I was on mute. Amen. I literally have to be like,
Speaker 4: it's good.
Speaker 5: Overwhelming, and not just with the warnings and the forecasting
Speaker 5: because they told us we didn't believe and I want
Speaker 5: to hear I can't wait to read that in your book,
Speaker 5: but but also the resilience. You're reminder of our resilience,
Speaker 5: our punching above our weight, our endurance, and the fact
Speaker 5: that we do know what the end is going to be.
Speaker 5: Let's not pretend there's some things we do know and
Speaker 5: it's not in a book, but it's been assured, right,
Speaker 5: it's already been promised.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. We have come back. We would really love
Speaker 1: to have you back, and I hope I get to
Speaker 1: see you in person again soon. Anytime you're doing something
Speaker 1: at Howard I would be honored to be there and
Speaker 1: show up. And we're so grateful to you for taking
Speaker 1: time to join the idea we should.
Speaker 6: Okay, we'll do a live pod with the Fourteenth Amendment
Speaker 6: Center to Howard Law.
Speaker 4: If we can do it, let's do it.
Speaker 7: Let's do we have the perfect in the Law library
Speaker 7: is beautiful.
Speaker 3: I'm with you. Sharylin.
Speaker 7: We death, yeah, in the center space itself. We should
Speaker 7: do the show. It would be amazing and the students
Speaker 7: would absolutely love it, and we owe it to them.
Speaker 4: This is tough for them.
Speaker 7: This is tough for them and our job right now.
Speaker 7: We have to unlock the doors they have. We have
Speaker 7: to give them a chance to understand how this fits
Speaker 7: in the whole thing. We have to help them.
Speaker 4: Understand that.
Speaker 3: Yourself. Until we see you.
Speaker 1: Yes, you doing good, Thank you, thank you Carolyn. Oh god,
Speaker 1: that was so great, you guys. I mean, honestly, she's
Speaker 1: so amazing. Something that I really take away from that
Speaker 1: I struggle with. I still question is what is Because
Speaker 1: she talked, she touched on this, and I appreciate her
Speaker 1: saying like we will get through this, Like she's not
Speaker 1: suggesting that we are in despair. I love what she
Speaker 1: shared from with the conversation with her and Hank Sanders.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I think that's such a I would
Speaker 1: have loved to hear it from him saying this is
Speaker 1: all we had. It's just I feel overwhelmed. But the
Speaker 1: thing that I'm left with is what is our red line?
Speaker 1: And just quickly for the viewers, if you all are
Speaker 1: as struck as we are. Please please please spread the words,
Speaker 1: share this podcast, like subscribe, send it around because people
Speaker 1: like SCHERYLN. Eiffel join because we have an audience like you,
Speaker 1: like they literally come not to talk to us. They
Speaker 1: can talk to us anytime, they can text us, call us,
Speaker 1: see us, but they come to reach the people who
Speaker 1: tune in to us. So thank you to our regular viewers,
Speaker 1: our faithful viewers. But please do continue to spread the
Speaker 1: word about Native lampod because we are living in service
Speaker 1: to the liberation of of black folks and that liberates
Speaker 1: everybody everywhere. So I just think, what is that red
Speaker 1: line for a society at large? And we may have
Speaker 1: a viewer question or comment that speaks to that. I
Speaker 1: don't know because I didn't even get a chance to
Speaker 1: look at all of our viewer questions, but I feel
Speaker 1: like that red line has been crossed one hundred times.
Speaker 9: Hey, Andrew, Angela, and Tiffany, This is Monte from Maryland
Speaker 9: and wanted to discuss something that Andrew kind of alluded
Speaker 9: to a week or so ago. Trump was not able
Speaker 9: to steal the election due to Mike Pence saying, Hey,
Speaker 9: the Constitution will allowed allow me to do this, so
Speaker 9: I can't. But with somebody like jd Vance sitting in
Speaker 9: the vice presidency, what is the recourse should jd Vance
Speaker 9: just say I'm not going to certify the next election.
Speaker 9: I know there's nothing in the constitution about it because
Speaker 9: the founders never thought we'd be here, But is there
Speaker 9: any recourse that we have if jd Vance just following
Speaker 9: his servitude to Trump just said I'm not going to
Speaker 9: certify the election for blah blah blah reason. I know
Speaker 9: it'll go through the courts, but is there anything standing
Speaker 9: that says, no, this cannot happen, or no, he will
Speaker 9: not do this or cannot do this. Just so was
Speaker 9: anxious to get your thoughts on that. Again, thank you
Speaker 9: for all you do and welcome home.
Speaker 5: I love that from Manti, and I actually didn't think
Speaker 5: that was a strand that was going to get picked
Speaker 5: up on, because I think we do have to drive
Speaker 5: people to what the conclusion is. When we had on
Speaker 5: the episode a couple of weeks ago around why it
Speaker 5: is they're playing with the numbers in the House and
Speaker 5: who counts the electoral votes that come in from each
Speaker 5: states for certification. Part of that process requires that both
Speaker 5: the House and the Senate, except the results as they
Speaker 5: come in through their express vote. When it got to
Speaker 5: the Senate, the reason why JD. Vance's vote would matter, Actually,
Speaker 5: I'm sorry, the reason why Kamala Harris's vote mattered was
Speaker 5: because of this closeness. She was the tie breaker in
Speaker 5: a fifty to fifty Senate. In this case, there is
Speaker 5: not a fifth Senate. The Republicans have the majority, they
Speaker 5: don't need jdvents to break a tie, so the vice
Speaker 5: president will be less important. And that scenario unless you
Speaker 5: had Republicans who were actually going to say we are
Speaker 5: not going to do that, We're going to vote to.
Speaker 3: Accept the results from the election.
Speaker 5: The vice president undoubtedly plays an important role the courts.
Speaker 5: I think given the conversation we just had with Sherylyn
Speaker 5: and I think most of us probably agree, there is
Speaker 5: not a lot of hope when you look at the
Speaker 5: Supreme Court with the conservative majority, that they would do
Speaker 5: anything to offend a bridge wrangle the power of Donald Trump.
Speaker 5: So I'm not in that. I'm hoping that won't be
Speaker 5: a scenario. The best scenario is that we have folks
Speaker 5: with honesty and dignity who don't steal elections. But if
Speaker 5: they do, we've got to make sure that we got
Speaker 5: enough of a margin that it doesn't that it doesn't
Speaker 5: get close. And that's why this redishoting fight is so important.
Speaker 5: That if they take a few seats here, convert a
Speaker 5: few seats here, they throw us in a scenario that
Speaker 5: a majority of members of the Congress can vote to
Speaker 5: reject the electoral College votes that declare anybody else president
Speaker 5: other than Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: That's really good. That was so Sometimes on this podcast,
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm an audience member, like I'm just
Speaker 1: listening to Sometimes you guys say things so insightful. I'm like,
Speaker 1: oh wait, I'm on here, I should wagh in here.
Speaker 1: But that's really good, A good way to explain it.
Speaker 1: And look, that is a red line, you know, that
Speaker 1: was a red It should have been a red line
Speaker 1: then to highlight the Fishers in our democracy.
Speaker 4: So I'm Burgundy.
Speaker 6: And the thing though it flag, I would say, Andrew,
Speaker 6: to the point is we don't know what the makeup
Speaker 6: of the Senate will be after the twenty sixth election,
Speaker 6: and so you know, if that becomes the case where
Speaker 6: he is a trek tie breaking vote, what will he
Speaker 6: do and what will the tech bros allow him to do?
Speaker 4: That should also be a mini pot this tech Borough situation.
Speaker 3: It's nuts and Angela.
Speaker 5: If you, if you, if you follow the logic of
Speaker 5: the Court, and I know you do, it is that
Speaker 5: they will rest with the decision of that institution as
Speaker 5: a as a coequal branch of government. They've been willing
Speaker 5: to allow that institution to decide what it wants to
Speaker 5: do without checking it.
Speaker 3: So if they say J. D.
Speaker 5: Mans has a tiebreaking vote and he says reject the Constitution,
Speaker 5: the the ballots from the States, the Court is loath
Speaker 5: to do anything at this rate given their pattern.
Speaker 6: Yeah, so so on this we've been talking a lot
Speaker 6: about a red line today. What is at stake in
Speaker 6: terms of democracy. We had Sharylyn eifel On who's always
Speaker 6: a sage of a sage voice and gave a prolific
Speaker 6: history lesson which we may need to be relying upon
Speaker 6: more as times go by. Why because we've been talking
Speaker 6: about the Smithsonian is under attack. Lonnie Bunch just received
Speaker 6: a letter from Donald Trump last week saying all of
Speaker 6: the ways in which they're going to look at these museums.
Speaker 6: But before that, well, we have to be accountable for y'all.
Speaker 6: And by we in this moment, I mean all America.
Speaker 6: So really, maga, y'all, this is y'all. Is how you
Speaker 6: are talking about the institutions that framed and founded this country.
Speaker 6: So there's a conversation recently that was held on a
Speaker 6: CNN show, and I want to go ahead and run
Speaker 6: the clip that was uh that took place on that show.
Speaker 11: Have you looked at some of the things that slavery
Speaker 11: was about to talk about?
Speaker 4: Forget, he's not whitewashing slavery, so he's not.
Speaker 3: He's not.
Speaker 4: No, he's not.
Speaker 11: And you cannot tie imperialism and racism and slavery did
Speaker 11: just one race, which is pretty much what every single
Speaker 11: exhibit does. Well, let's talk about the fact.
Speaker 4: That when you slavery in America was only.
Speaker 11: Less than two percent of white Americans own slaves, but
Speaker 11: it was a system of slavery is thousands of years old.
Speaker 6: The first.
Speaker 4: You surprised, I'm really surprised.
Speaker 8: Do you realize, Jillian, I'm surprised that you're trying to
Speaker 8: litigate who was the beneficiary of slavery.
Speaker 4: And I'm not. What I'm trying to tell you is the.
Speaker 8: Context of American history. In the context of American history,
Speaker 8: what are you saying is incorrect by saying that white
Speaker 8: people oppressing.
Speaker 11: Every single thing? Is like, oh no, no, no, this is
Speaker 11: all because white people bad, and that's just not the truth.
Speaker 1: Like, for example, every.
Speaker 11: Single exhibit, I have a list of every single one,
Speaker 11: like people migrated from Cuba because white people bad, not
Speaker 11: because of pastory. Just know it's in there, That's what
Speaker 11: I'm saying.
Speaker 4: You don't actually know what's in there?
Speaker 11: Do you know that when you walk in the door,
Speaker 11: exactly first thing you have.
Speaker 6: Gay So we're not going to litigate those points because
Speaker 6: they're not litigatable. What we are going to do now
Speaker 6: is play Nicole to Nicole Hannah Jones response and we'll
Speaker 6: get to that shortly. Andrew Gilla, let's play her response.
Speaker 9: I do not usually do.
Speaker 10: These videos, but as a creator of the sixteen nineteen
Speaker 10: project and someone who has studied the history of slavery
Speaker 10: for three decades, I could not let the viral CNN
Speaker 10: clip of Jillian Michael's stand after first date that the
Speaker 10: times are far too serious and dangerous for us to
Speaker 10: lend our platforms to harmful nonsense. It's simply irresponsible with
Speaker 10: everything that's happening in this country to have someone as
Speaker 10: credentialists as Jillian Michaels on a major network show legitimizing
Speaker 10: the erasure of our history.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 10: I know, there have been some viral efforts to debunk
Speaker 10: her claim that somehow slavery was a side institution in
Speaker 10: the United States because less than two percent of white
Speaker 10: people own slaves. But even those efforts, while valiant by
Speaker 10: embracing this right wing framing, they still aren't really getting
Speaker 10: to it. You see, this is how numbers and data,
Speaker 10: though technically true, can also be lies. And this is
Speaker 10: why we can't let bad faith actors set the parameters
Speaker 10: of the debate or of our collective understanding. So please
Speaker 10: bear with me, because this is a lot. Let's take
Speaker 10: the fewer than two percent of white people own slaves
Speaker 10: at face value, though we know that number is technically incorrect,
Speaker 10: and let's apply that standard to any other industry. What
Speaker 10: percentage of Americans own social media companies or technology companies
Speaker 10: such as Apple. It's a tiny percentage.
Speaker 4: I'm doubtful if it's.
Speaker 10: Even one percent of Americans, And yet no one would
Speaker 10: credibly argue that social media companies are not ubiquitous across
Speaker 10: American life, that they don't play a major influence on
Speaker 10: our political, social, and economic life in America. And in fact,
Speaker 10: what we know is that more than seventy percent of
Speaker 10: Americans use social media, though hardly any Americans own social
Speaker 10: media platform. There's a reason that the heads of Meta,
Speaker 10: Apple and Amazon, Google and x all took part in
Speaker 10: Trump's inauguration festivities, with several of them standing on the
Speaker 10: actual diies during Trump's inauguration.
Speaker 6: So, you know, I think this is important to do
Speaker 6: because this is Nicole Hannah Jones fact check five days
Speaker 6: after Jillian michaels is on the show, which gives ample
Speaker 6: time for any media outlet, really to respond, any media outlet.
Speaker 6: Maybe it's not just Abby's response, right, Like, maybe not,
Speaker 6: But after Nicole Hannah Jones' post, Abby Phillips had this
Speaker 6: to say on her show on Tuesday Night.
Speaker 8: Last week, on this show, a guest shocked the table
Speaker 8: by arguing, in part that slavery in America can't just
Speaker 8: be blamed on one race and that museums put too
Speaker 8: much focus on the role of white people who participated
Speaker 8: in that terrible institution. And now tonight that same argument
Speaker 8: is being pushed by the President of the United States,
Speaker 8: Donald Trump says that one of the reasons for his
Speaker 8: crackdown on Smithsonian museums is quote, everything discussed is how
Speaker 8: bad slavery was. What we try to do on this
Speaker 8: program is create a platform for discussion and debate, debate
Speaker 8: that reflects the very real differences that exist in this country.
Speaker 8: It's what echo chambers in our society fail to do. Frankly,
Speaker 8: but on this topic, it's important to say objectively slavery
Speaker 8: was indeed bad.
Speaker 4: I'm not frozen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm either.
Speaker 6: I'm just pausing to allow you all to weigh in
Speaker 6: Andrew effect, do you want to answer whether or not
Speaker 6: you believe slavery was bad and whether or not at
Speaker 6: this in this day and age, that should be litigated.
Speaker 6: We had Donald Trump's social post from Abby's screen. We
Speaker 6: can also put that up if you all need to
Speaker 6: read it. But he's very concerned with the fact that
Speaker 6: we're spending a lot of time on wokeism, that the
Speaker 6: Smithsonian is out of control, where everything discussed is how
Speaker 6: horrible our country is, how bad slavery was. And I'd
Speaker 6: love to know if you all have a silver lining
Speaker 6: like Bill O'Reilly about how we were fed and slept well,
Speaker 6: And I.
Speaker 1: Honestly, I think it's such it's so beneath our dignity
Speaker 1: to even engage that I think to even debate it
Speaker 1: legitimizes their perspective, which is part of the danger. And listen,
Speaker 1: I feel very uncomfortable and awkward weighing in on this
Speaker 1: for a few reasons. One, I know Abby. I've known
Speaker 1: Abby for a long time and I like her personally,
Speaker 1: so I want to be and I know you do too.
Speaker 1: I want to be careful, like I'm not trying to
Speaker 1: say this is all you know, like what Abby should
Speaker 1: have done, Because I think this is a network issue.
Speaker 1: Her show is not the only person who platforms problematic people.
Speaker 1: The network itself does. And because y'all are listening to
Speaker 1: some free blacks, listen, I'm gonna give this truth. And
Speaker 1: you can invite me or not invite me on the
Speaker 1: network ever. Again, I think we it. It is not
Speaker 1: courage if there is not a sacrifice. It is not
Speaker 1: valor if you don't have skin in the game. So
Speaker 1: I think all three of us ain't never been scared
Speaker 1: to speak an honest truth. And let corporate media. Deal
Speaker 1: with it as you will, but we live in service
Speaker 1: to a higher truth and one that does not engage
Speaker 1: in debate with low life, half witted individuals who do
Speaker 1: nothing but regurgitate talking points from the White House. And
Speaker 1: that is what Gillian michaels the biggest loser is in
Speaker 1: this moment. I think it's incredibly frightening that she's raising
Speaker 1: a black child with that ignorant ass attitude. And I
Speaker 1: detest her. I detest people who look who share her viewpoints.
Speaker 1: I detest the people who voted for this administration. I
Speaker 1: find them to be I just I don't honor or
Speaker 1: respect their positions at all. And so to present some
Speaker 1: of these things as though it is a debate, to
Speaker 1: present this as though well, she says, you know that
Speaker 1: slavery wasn't that bad, and she says that slavery was
Speaker 1: really bad now you guys have at it. I think
Speaker 1: that is a danger. And when I had a platform
Speaker 1: on a major cable news network, I was willing to
Speaker 1: risk it all before I would dare ever let somebody
Speaker 1: sit on my set and say something that was one
Speaker 1: disrespectful to another guest or disrespectful to our history and
Speaker 1: our facts. That is the standard by which I hold myself.
Speaker 1: I'm not arrogant enough to say what choices somebody else
Speaker 1: should make. But I think to watch seeing in the
Speaker 1: place where I began my career, to watch them devolve
Speaker 1: into this Jerry Springer type atmosphere is disgusting. And then
Speaker 1: when we step back and look at journalism as an industry,
Speaker 1: how it has failed at the most important time, it
Speaker 1: has failed and continues to fail. We never want to
Speaker 1: acknowledge white supremacy. They talk about this immigration policy that
Speaker 1: is the brainchild of Stephen Miller, who is a white supremacist.
Speaker 1: An opinion is rooted in reporting by the Wall Street Journal.
Speaker 1: It is widely known you will never hear an anchor
Speaker 1: introduce or reference Steven Miller as a white supremacist. Why
Speaker 1: for the comfort of white folks? And so many of
Speaker 1: these discussions that I know what we talk about when
Speaker 1: the cameras aren't on, But when the cameras come on,
Speaker 1: people want to get polite, People want to both sides
Speaker 1: things I don't do that. It's almost only one version
Speaker 1: of Tiffany, and I can attest it's only one version
Speaker 1: of Angela. It's only one version of Andrew. What we speak,
Speaker 1: we mean, we walk it like we talk it, and
Speaker 1: so I just think we have to have a higher
Speaker 1: accountability of having those types of discussions in a way
Speaker 1: that presents a lie and equates it with a fact,
Speaker 1: that presents somebody with an opinion and equates them with
Speaker 1: an expert. I have said on that very show across
Speaker 1: from people who are neither my intellectual equal nor am
Speaker 1: my professional equal on any level, and I just you know,
Speaker 1: we talked about this before, angel and a lot of
Speaker 1: the comments, thank you guys for weighing in, and I
Speaker 1: so appreciate everybody's thoughts. A lot of the comments, they
Speaker 1: were pretty mixed Angela. And I am respecting your boundary, Angela,
Speaker 1: because you were clear on the last episode. I was
Speaker 1: trying to like politely push and Angela was like, just
Speaker 1: so I'm clear, So we don't have discuss this again.
Speaker 1: I am not going on that show unless all three
Speaker 1: of us go together. So I completely respect that boundary.
Speaker 1: Beyond respecting the boundary, I respect you for having that
Speaker 1: position in that boundary. There were people who are like Tiffany,
Speaker 1: I love that you go on there because if it's nonsense,
Speaker 1: at least you're somebody who's going to push back on that.
Speaker 1: I gotta say, I feel torn. I feel really torn.
Speaker 1: You reminded me, you said, because you said you would
Speaker 1: never do that show. You reminded me of that, and
Speaker 1: I remember getting so mad at you. I never told
Speaker 1: you this, but you dropped in our group chat. You
Speaker 1: guys Tiff is on it happy, and I was like,
Speaker 1: don't tell people I'm on the show. That's how I
Speaker 1: throw inside. Don't tell our friends I'm doing this show
Speaker 1: because I did have some shape. But I love I mean,
Speaker 1: I just I feel before Abby had this show, I
Speaker 1: was so proud of her. I just I love her voice,
Speaker 1: and I just think she's so beautiful and she has
Speaker 1: such a great spirit. And I'm cheering for her because
Speaker 1: we have too few black women on air, and I
Speaker 1: fear if Abby goes away, then who will take her?
Speaker 1: It'll be somebody worse, like do we want Scott Jennings
Speaker 1: in that chair?
Speaker 7: You know?
Speaker 1: So that's all my jumble thoughts. Sorry for going on
Speaker 1: so long about it, but I don't know. I really
Speaker 1: want to hear because.
Speaker 6: People, even when they comment clearly they are torn like
Speaker 6: I have. If I have to choose between you going
Speaker 6: on or Candice Owens, duh, right, yeah, I if but
Speaker 6: I think that we've entered if we've crossed the red line,
Speaker 6: and you said the red line has been crossed one
Speaker 6: hundred times, what is our boundary. I don't want to
Speaker 6: make this again about whether or not we go on
Speaker 6: the show. That is so besides the point. What I
Speaker 6: think is really an issue now is we have been
Speaker 6: reduced to the point of having a conversation about how slavery,
Speaker 6: the history of slavery will be will be told in
Speaker 6: our independent institutions, Some that we help, that we helped
Speaker 6: to fund, some that we helped to build. Machissic and
Speaker 6: mckissic was a key construction partner on the National Museum
Speaker 6: of African American History and Culture. We are now at
Speaker 6: the point where we are litigating the fact that white
Speaker 6: people are responsible for the institution of slavery, for the
Speaker 6: fact that white people are responsible for the Transatlantic slave trade.
Speaker 6: I don't care if they were able to pick off
Speaker 6: a few negroes. You all were able to do that
Speaker 6: in modern day times. That's how Clarence got on the
Speaker 6: Supreme Court.
Speaker 4: Who GI's are gonna do? Well?
Speaker 6: Who she's gonna do. We have talked about this, so
Speaker 6: we're fine. We understand that. What we're not fine with.
Speaker 6: What we don't understand is why we even give audience
Speaker 6: to someone who would be so blatantly in and gaslight
Speaker 6: us about the most traumatic incident in American history, the
Speaker 6: most traumatic first centuries.
Speaker 4: It's like, what are we talking about? Right?
Speaker 6: So I think that really is it for me? And
Speaker 6: now you know it's started with him. I don't know
Speaker 6: if y'all remember when he ran in sixteen and Andrew.
Speaker 6: I think Andrew over there writing a sermon.
Speaker 1: I'm promised.
Speaker 3: I don't want to interrupt.
Speaker 4: No, no, I want to say I won't say this,
Speaker 4: but I'm just thinking he's running if you know, I
Speaker 4: really want to hear that.
Speaker 6: I'm just thinking, you know that we are in this
Speaker 6: time where we have an obligation to not just speak truth,
Speaker 6: but to speak truth to power, to call the thing
Speaker 6: a thing, to hold these institutions that we have been
Speaker 6: beholden to, that we have been dedicated consumers.
Speaker 4: Of, to account.
Speaker 6: We ain't had no protest on this, we ain't had
Speaker 6: no met we have meetings when people were just fired
Speaker 6: from the networks and wrote letters where's our meeting on
Speaker 6: the obligation of these people to hold like it's not
Speaker 6: a reality show.
Speaker 4: It is news. It's news, so let it be news.
Speaker 6: When Donald Trump was running the first time, y'all, and
Speaker 6: they were asked, I think they asked him about Harriet
Speaker 6: Tubman being on the twenty dollars bill, and he said
Speaker 6: maybe the two dollar bill or something. We don't have
Speaker 6: Harriet on the two or the twenty. And they took
Speaker 6: her off the National Park Service website. And they're making
Speaker 6: it more restrictive for us to get data from the census.
Speaker 6: And now they're wondering if they should do the census
Speaker 6: at all or if the Census should be private based
Speaker 6: on the conversation we just had with Sherilyn. Right here
Speaker 6: is where we are now. We are watching the erosion,
Speaker 6: the destruction, the blowing up of all of the institutions
Speaker 6: that we have built.
Speaker 4: With our blood soiled hands. This is not okay, we passed.
Speaker 4: It's a state of emergency. We're passed. This is co read.
Speaker 4: We're passed down the alarm. It isn't all out war.
Speaker 6: And that war is being like executed on our babies
Speaker 6: in DC right now. And that's the test ground. They
Speaker 6: are testing us, and y'all we are failing. She merely
Speaker 6: gave us a D, what's lord and a F? I
Speaker 6: guess we're We're not supposed to say that no more
Speaker 6: on the show, but I want to know they honestly
Speaker 6: can't say that there What other word can we use
Speaker 6: for right now?
Speaker 1: Get that be button ready because we're okay, Andrew, if
Speaker 1: you ain't got at least one your response, we don't
Speaker 1: want to hear.
Speaker 3: I don't have any. I don't have any to get.
Speaker 4: I want to hear. Fay, I'll just.
Speaker 3: Say this one. I have fewer pearls to clutch.
Speaker 5: As it relates to the corporate media and how the
Speaker 5: corporate media handles their business, it is not new. I've
Speaker 5: been watching Jerry Springer on CNN for a very long time,
Speaker 5: probably since I began consuming the news. I think to
Speaker 5: make Abby Phillips, the object of the issue is a
Speaker 5: misplacement of where we are to be putting our concern.
Speaker 5: First of all, I said, and I apologize for interrupting,
Speaker 5: but where did this woman license and get the license?
Speaker 5: Julie the Michael's woman? What she got from Byron Donald's
Speaker 5: a black man who sits in Congress, who is likely
Speaker 5: going to be the Republican nominee for governor of Florida
Speaker 5: with the endorsement of Donald Trump, who in blackface, got
Speaker 5: out there telling us how good slavery was.
Speaker 3: For black folks.
Speaker 5: The Minstrel Show, live in and effect, right in front
Speaker 5: of us, a black man, a grifter, telling us what
Speaker 5: was good for us because we were fed and housed
Speaker 5: and learned skills that we could then later apply to
Speaker 5: jobs that black people would eventually come to doing this country.
Speaker 5: So there's been a number.
Speaker 3: I appreciate it.
Speaker 5: I'd be saying, this show is intended to get out
Speaker 5: of the echo chamber. I never ever, ever want to
Speaker 5: be again surprised on election night that there was a
Speaker 5: whole half of the country that walked away with an
Speaker 5: impression set of feelings that I had never heard, never thought,
Speaker 5: didn't didn't didn't believe they would give credence to Abby,
Speaker 5: as a host responded to the obscenity of an insaneness
Speaker 5: of what this woman was was attempted to articulate. But
Speaker 5: across American networks, news channels, radio stations, platforms, uh you
Speaker 5: know that, on the Internet and otherwise, there are so
Speaker 5: many places where those comments would not have even been
Speaker 5: questioned because the listening audience from the hosts of the
Speaker 5: people who tune in believe it, hook line and sinker.
Speaker 5: There is a war on black people. That energy is
Speaker 5: coming from somewhere. There is an audience for exactly this
Speaker 5: kind of bullshit that that Michael spreads.
Speaker 3: But she's not the only one.
Speaker 5: We're getting it from black men and blackface who occupy
Speaker 5: only white spaces and who only intend to represent the
Speaker 5: interest the beliefs of white people who are at the
Speaker 5: apex of all of this simply offended and don't want
Speaker 5: their children to be offended by the history carried out
Speaker 5: by their ancestors. This is about ego, and since they're
Speaker 5: in position to check ego, they have they have every
Speaker 5: intent to check it everywhere it appears. What I appreciate
Speaker 5: is that now that we know that this narrative drives
Speaker 5: fuels maybe a whole half of the country, then we
Speaker 5: can be better prepared when we come into contact with
Speaker 5: them about how we need to move, how we need
Speaker 5: to flow, and what checking we need to do real,
Speaker 5: live and in person when we hear it, because they're
Speaker 5: not just whispering it amongst themselves. They're saying it directly
Speaker 5: to you, listener, How are you checking them? How are
Speaker 5: you setting the recordstraate Because the problem is a way
Speaker 5: too big for any one personality to be able to
Speaker 5: handle any one individual, and certainly a reluctant, if not
Speaker 5: cooperative network right in our harm. So we have to
Speaker 5: be the protectors of our harm. We have to be
Speaker 5: the protectors of our history. And as I have children maticulating,
Speaker 5: matriculating through the public school system and a state where
Speaker 5: the governor doesn't want anything in the books or taught
Speaker 5: verbally from the teachers that would bring offense to his children,
Speaker 5: I goddamn know Jay and I both that we will
Speaker 5: have an obligation to do all of the history lessons,
Speaker 5: or to at least supplement every era of history as
Speaker 5: my kids matriculate to it through it. Thank goodness, I
Speaker 5: was a political science and history person because I love
Speaker 5: it and I know it, and they're going to get it.
Speaker 5: But I'm also appreciative to groups like Jack and Jail
Speaker 5: who are taking it as part their responsibility amongst the
Speaker 5: kids who participate there to bring real black history directly
Speaker 5: to them if they're not getting it from the schools
Speaker 5: that they pay for them to attend, or that they
Speaker 5: attend publicly, and I think we've got to guard ourselves
Speaker 5: up people to fill that void, because if they're not
Speaker 5: doing it there and you ain't doing it at home,
Speaker 5: God help our children when it comes to knowing your history.
Speaker 3: So it doesn't get repeated.
Speaker 6: Andrew, I really appreciate you lifting up the point about
Speaker 6: this not being a responsibility that is solely at Abby's feed.
Speaker 4: I think that's important.
Speaker 6: Everybody on this show certainly supports her, but I think
Speaker 6: that we are growing exhausted of watching this happen to
Speaker 6: sister after sister, brother after brother, and it happens in
Speaker 6: different ways. It's may manifest in different ways, but we
Speaker 6: have to call the thing out. So I think the
Speaker 6: question I would have for the audience is what does
Speaker 6: it look like to support Abby in this moment and
Speaker 6: for the other Abby's that still find themselves on air,
Speaker 6: you know, in crosshairs to have to even go on
Speaker 6: a show to say, I just want to be clear
Speaker 6: for the record, slavery's bad. When Jillian Michaels is saying
Speaker 6: white people bad, well, some of you all are have
Speaker 6: up by virtue of the fact that you're on this
Speaker 6: show saying what you're saying, white people bad, especially you, right,
Speaker 6: so until you pass a different litmus test for what
Speaker 6: it means to stand in the gap for your black
Speaker 6: child or for your black friends, white people bad. And
Speaker 6: if y'all can't understand the distinction, I don't know what
Speaker 6: to tell you. Go to the Smithsonian before they change it.
Speaker 6: Perhaps with that, I guess we can go to Cast
Speaker 6: to Action.
Speaker 5: I just want to add to your request with just
Speaker 5: to say, not only do you how you stand in
Speaker 5: and support your folks, but also hold them accountable. That
Speaker 5: question needs to be extended to every network you watch,
Speaker 5: in every new station on that network that you watch,
Speaker 5: where the hosts don't even check their guests when they
Speaker 5: come out of left field, right field, middle of space
Speaker 5: with their ideas, they've got to be more accountable to
Speaker 5: us period. To Cherylyn's point about us out boxing our weight,
Speaker 5: we have the power within ourselves to not just hold
Speaker 5: folks who look like us accountable, but the networks we
Speaker 5: watch subscribe to give money to, they get out advertising
Speaker 5: dollars off of us. They ought to respect us enough
Speaker 5: not to do that bullshit either, and we would.
Speaker 6: Expect ourselves enough not to give them the And that's
Speaker 6: the part we do. I pray that we get to
Speaker 6: the point we're only it doesn't have to be all
Speaker 6: of us, but a small percentage of us do what
Speaker 6: we need to do to ensure the tide changes. They
Speaker 6: are not going to coward to us without a demand.
Speaker 4: We know that.
Speaker 6: Frederick Douglass told us that history lessons have told us
Speaker 6: that over and over.
Speaker 4: Sorry too, but what does that mean?
Speaker 1: Like what is our demand?
Speaker 4: You know?
Speaker 1: Like what are we asking people to do? Is it
Speaker 1: don't watch?
Speaker 10: Is it?
Speaker 9: You know?
Speaker 1: I know you say, don't go on there? Like as
Speaker 1: a cord cutting is at an all time high, particularly
Speaker 1: in black households, and black people consume a lot of
Speaker 1: media across all types of media, so we're already abandoning
Speaker 1: cable news streaming is like yanking them down, which I
Speaker 1: think is why we see some of these ridiculous tactics,
Speaker 1: some of these people who are espousing ridiculous thoughts during
Speaker 1: the you know, opinion hour at ten o'clock. You can
Speaker 1: see them on CNN's morning show. You can see them
Speaker 1: in the middle of the afternoon. So that that's why
Speaker 1: I just try to caution people like like we're saying
Speaker 1: this is not on ABBY, you know, like this is
Speaker 1: and it's not just on CNN either, this is also MSNBC.
Speaker 1: I don't even consider Fox, but you know this is
Speaker 1: MS that's stupid ass name. But yes, but across networks,
Speaker 1: not even just the cable news, but across networks. The
Speaker 1: way that we normalize white supremacy for the comfort of
Speaker 1: white people.
Speaker 6: Yeah, we can use that to transition into calls to action.
Speaker 6: And I'll say that my call to action first would
Speaker 6: be signed the petition to Protect the Integrity of the
Speaker 6: National Museum of African American History and Culture. There is
Speaker 6: a change dot org petition. We'll make sure that that's
Speaker 6: in our show notes. Please hear me. I'm having a
Speaker 6: broader conversation beyond cable news news, regular news, anybody news.
Speaker 6: I'm talking about all of the things that we need
Speaker 6: to do to hold these institutions accountable to properly serving us.
Speaker 6: Let's start with the Smithsonian petition. Then we need to
Speaker 6: be having meetings. There needs to be some folks who protest.
Speaker 6: We need to make sure that our folks, folks are
Speaker 6: very clear about the facts of their power and what
Speaker 6: these institutions owe us.
Speaker 4: But let's start with the Smithsonian. Then I'll yield.
Speaker 1: Did you tell just so, did you tell people how
Speaker 1: they can sign the petition?
Speaker 4: Yes, ma'am.
Speaker 6: While you were typing, I said that it will make
Speaker 6: sure we put it in the show notes.
Speaker 1: It's going to be in show notes. Okay, I have
Speaker 1: a right, okay, because I was just about to say
Speaker 1: change dot org. And I have a silly question like
Speaker 1: when we say we're putting something in the show notes.
Speaker 6: We want you if you, if you, if you look,
Speaker 6: if you actually ever listened to our show, folks at home,
Speaker 6: you're going to go into the podcast. You'll click on
Speaker 6: the podcast and there's a description, and the description is
Speaker 6: where we normally direct people to action oriented items and
Speaker 6: and that is also the case for YouTube, so on
Speaker 6: the iHeart podcast app or if you go into Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 6: in the description, you'll see any of our casts to action.
Speaker 4: There are things that you can do from home. Okay, sorry,
Speaker 4: that was first I was.
Speaker 5: I was simply going to just admonish our listeners and
Speaker 5: ourselves to just read just to quickly check back in
Speaker 5: with Project twenty twenty five as well as you know
Speaker 5: lessons around how to be an Autocrat because from the
Speaker 5: Smithsonian trailing back to the beginning of the Trump days
Speaker 5: in the White.
Speaker 6: House and the Smithsonian, I said, the Smithsonian does that.
Speaker 11: Bad?
Speaker 5: Well, you know, but but but from the Smithsonian, pulling
Speaker 5: all the way back to the beginning of this administration.
Speaker 5: One thing that they that we will never be able
Speaker 5: to accuse them of of not saying the plan out loud.
Speaker 5: Not only has it been said, it's been written, and
Speaker 5: there is no harm in reading it to know what
Speaker 5: is coming down the pike. As we said on the
Speaker 5: other show a couple of weeks ago, when if you
Speaker 5: stay ready, you don't have to get ready, and we
Speaker 5: were talking about that in relation to the cities that
Speaker 5: have already been name checked around an invasion from the
Speaker 5: federal government and their likely brothers sister states that want
Speaker 5: to go in using their law enforcement bodies to again
Speaker 5: harass and terrorize our people in our communities. I simply
Speaker 5: say to update ourselves so that we can then steady
Speaker 5: ourselves for it. We can steady ourselves for the fight.
Speaker 5: And when I say steady ourselves, I don't mean withstand it.
Speaker 5: I mean withstand it, yes, but also mean fight back,
Speaker 5: prepare to fight back, be ready so you don't have
Speaker 5: to get ready.
Speaker 1: Well, now, I'm ashamed of my CTA, but there's one
Speaker 1: I've given before and I feel the need to give
Speaker 1: it again because it's getting a bit outrageous, and that
Speaker 1: is speakerphones. I don't know if people didn't the first time,
Speaker 1: but people seem to think that, well, it's my kid,
Speaker 1: and my kid is playing with his iPad on the train.
Speaker 1: You know, I take the Asella all the time and
Speaker 1: so on amtrak these and I don't care if it's
Speaker 1: your kid. They need to have headphones on. We don't
Speaker 1: want to hear cartoons. And if we're sitting in the airport,
Speaker 1: get off speaker phone. I don't want to want you
Speaker 1: next to meek like, use your earphones. Nobody wants to
Speaker 1: hear that. I know these are serious times, but this
Speaker 1: is a serious annoyance and frustration.
Speaker 3: To mine, Yes to mine during these times, trying to.
Speaker 1: Be them listening to music, and I got just it's
Speaker 1: so obnoxious. Stop doing that. I felt bad that I
Speaker 1: I don't care that the kids.
Speaker 3: What tell me, you said, we don't want to hear cartoons.
Speaker 5: We want to hear. When the kids realized that we
Speaker 5: had the TVs in the car and that they could
Speaker 5: watch their shows wherever we were going to.
Speaker 3: School or on a long trip.
Speaker 5: Of course, our lives became about listening to cartoons and
Speaker 5: other nonsense. I broke the ones in my car and
Speaker 5: they have not worked since my kids.
Speaker 3: Were I don't know, very very young. And now when
Speaker 3: they're like, Daddy, can we listen to this?
Speaker 5: But no, that daddy's TV is don't work, I'm not mad.
Speaker 5: I tried to get all you to do the same,
Speaker 5: but because she's always complaining, I was like, I'm that person.
Speaker 1: I walked down there because I'm like, who is playing this?
Speaker 1: And I go and I don't care if his little
Speaker 1: family if like, oh, they don't have their headphones, Like,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, but on the Amtrak you have to have
Speaker 1: devices that come with earphones. We got them read it
Speaker 1: was not the quiet car, because I shouldn't have to
Speaker 1: ride in the quiet car, because yes, you have to
Speaker 1: have it on answer you know. Of course I looked
Speaker 1: at the rules. I'm a lawyer, a TV lawyer. As
Speaker 1: we discussed, I looked at the rule you have to
Speaker 1: have an Amtrak Maybe you all should start making this
Speaker 1: a part of the announcement, so I don't have to
Speaker 1: because I don't work for Amtrak.
Speaker 6: Maybe you could start and you could be like, I'm
Speaker 6: not the conductor, but I'm about to conduct some business.
Speaker 6: And speaking of conducting business, I'm about this, I'm about
Speaker 6: to shame Nick real quick, you guys. So Trav is
Speaker 6: one of our is one of our new producers. And
Speaker 6: Trav said and that you got your excited with Andrew,
Speaker 6: and so Trash says, turn up Andrew, and the Knick's
Speaker 6: response was done. F YI, The in studio levels only
Speaker 6: affect the live conversation. The recording we get afterward is unaffected.
Speaker 6: And Trav was like, sorry, that was not an audio.
Speaker 4: I don't even know.
Speaker 1: Where this was going.
Speaker 4: That is hilarious. Wait cut that out. If you cut
Speaker 4: it out, we cutting you out and we.
Speaker 3: Leave this show.
Speaker 4: Well, that is hilarious.
Speaker 6: This is actually a perfect way in the show because
Speaker 6: learning ebonics and slang is a very important factor in
Speaker 6: terms of how we blend the democracy, tying it right
Speaker 6: back into Sherylyn, I gotta understand what we mean when
Speaker 6: we're talking that talk and talking.
Speaker 1: I don't like that, honestly, no, I do not. I
Speaker 1: don't mind if Andrew.
Speaker 6: Is going to be screaming in the show because there
Speaker 6: was a misunderstanding.
Speaker 4: So I just want to make sure.
Speaker 1: Because I like our the things that we say to
Speaker 1: each other that is understood. I don't I think there
Speaker 1: is fine. We'll let Nick, we'll Nick know about this. Well,
Speaker 1: this might be something to talk about on the mini pod.
Speaker 1: I don't think it is good. I don't want everybody
Speaker 1: to understand something. If I'm at Angela's house, I'm like, girl,
Speaker 1: you put your foot in these greens. I don't want
Speaker 1: to explain that everybody. Andrew Gellham, now, why don't you
Speaker 1: answer it on speaker so you can make my point?
Speaker 4: All right?
Speaker 5: And were welcome, all y'all welcome.
Speaker 1: Oh wait, I have to say, how many ridiculous days
Speaker 1: there are? I got a bunch of stuff, tells Sherilyn.
Speaker 4: Now, she would have got you together on that.
Speaker 1: That is a good question.
Speaker 3: That's a good question.
Speaker 1: We'll have her back when we get We'll have her
Speaker 1: back to talk about that. But there are four hundred
Speaker 1: and thirty nine days until midterm elections, and as always,
Speaker 1: we've reminded you a few times throughout the show, but
Speaker 1: it really does us a solid when you share, like, subscribe,
Speaker 1: do all the things because we come here every day
Speaker 1: living in service to you, so we want to make
Speaker 1: sure that you guys are spreading the word. We're available
Speaker 1: on all podcast platforms and YouTube, and if you're looking
Speaker 1: for more shows like ours, please check out other shows
Speaker 1: on Recent Choice media, including Politics with Jamel Hill. Ps.
Speaker 1: I'm super pissed off at ESPN hand the Colin Kaepernick documentary. Uh,
Speaker 1: but that's all I'll say about that. No time for
Speaker 1: my sports takes today. I'm off the Cup with se
Speaker 1: Cup and our newest edition, who you guys know because
Speaker 1: we had them on this show now you know, with
Speaker 1: thirteen year old Noah de Debarasso. And be sure to
Speaker 1: give all those shows a follow, and don't forget to
Speaker 1: follow us, of course on social media, and subscribe to
Speaker 1: our text or email list. For every fifth subscriber, I
Speaker 1: will give you Angela's personal cell phone. You can get
Speaker 1: that native lampod dot com. We are Angela Rii, Andrews
Speaker 1: Gillum and Tiffany Cross. Welcome home, y'all.
Speaker 2: Showing the Natives attention of what the info and on
Speaker 2: all of the latest rock Gulum and Cross connected to
Speaker 2: the statements that you leave on our socials. Thank you
Speaker 2: sincerely for the patients reason for your choice is cleared, so.
Speaker 3: Grateful it took to execute roads.
Speaker 2: Thank you for serve, defend and protect the truth, even
Speaker 2: if pat go walking home. To all of the natives,
Speaker 2: we thank you.
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