Speaker 1: Native Lampod is a production in partnership with Resent Choice
Speaker 1: Media and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome.
Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome home, y'all. This is episode seventy of Native Lampod.
Speaker 1: I am your host, Angela. Right, this is your host
Speaker 1: Andrew Gilliman. This is your host Tiffany Cross. We are
Speaker 1: thrilled to be yes, all right, what's up? We are
Speaker 1: thrilled to be with y'all today. We have a lot
Speaker 1: to get into. What do y'all want to talk about today?
Speaker 3: I'm excited a topic. This is Angela's topic that she chose,
Speaker 3: but I'm super excited to talk about it. Angela had
Speaker 3: the opportunity to go down to Selma for the sixtieth
Speaker 3: commemoration of Bloody Sunday, which is, of course, when black
Speaker 3: folks cross the Edmund Pettis Bridge to fight for voting rights,
Speaker 3: and so angel was on ground and wanted to talk
Speaker 3: about what has changed since Selma and I'm salivating at
Speaker 3: the opportunity to get into that.
Speaker 4: I love that. I love that. Well, ladies, I wanted
Speaker 4: to just bring up while it may be on this
Speaker 4: top because the sixty letters at the federal government Department
Speaker 4: of Education civil rights divisions sent to college and the university,
Speaker 4: really cracking down on protests on college campuses and essentially
Speaker 4: saying that these sixty institutions that are now under federal
Speaker 4: investigation need to do better to protect Jewish students. And
Speaker 4: I just want to explore a little bit at what
Speaker 4: costs how this differentiates between how the Civil Rights Act
Speaker 4: has been used previously in its application to make universities
Speaker 4: of a welcoming environment. And would just love, love love
Speaker 4: to dialogue with you all about where we could potentially
Speaker 4: see this go when we think about DEI and other
Speaker 4: efforts by the federal government to basically squash it out
Speaker 4: of any governmental institution.
Speaker 5: Add it, thanks, Andrew.
Speaker 1: I want to talk a little bit about this pending
Speaker 1: government shut down and this continuing resolution which is essentially
Speaker 1: a budget stopgap measure that passed the House.
Speaker 5: Before we recorded.
Speaker 1: It's being considered right now in the Senate as we record,
Speaker 1: and we'll talk about what are congressional democrats getting wrong
Speaker 1: about the urgency of the moment with the stop got
Speaker 1: measures the backdrop. And of course we're going to get
Speaker 1: in the target fast because that's what black folks want
Speaker 1: to talk about.
Speaker 5: Everywhere right now. So welcome home, y'all. We're going to
Speaker 5: dive into the show.
Speaker 6: Welcome home, Hi, Native Lampard. My name is Rachel. I
Speaker 6: live in the Bronx, and I'm just coming to you
Speaker 6: with a pretty important question to me right now, which
Speaker 6: is in regard to boycotts. Currently, there have been a
Speaker 6: lot of boycotts of various corporations, are calls to boycott
Speaker 6: various corporations, and I just want to understand how we
Speaker 6: do that effectively without hurting the folks that we don't
Speaker 6: want to hurt. In this very integrated economy, I think
Speaker 6: we are in a very different economic space than we
Speaker 6: were in the nineteen sixties. And while it's understandable that
Speaker 6: we boycott some places, others are pretty wide reaching, have
Speaker 6: multi cultural workforce, employ a lot of black and brown
Speaker 6: people specifically, and lost in revenue may first hit them
Speaker 6: before it hits the pockets of the large corporate owners
Speaker 6: of these places that we definitely do want to hurt.
Speaker 6: But how can we be more strategic about how we
Speaker 6: go about these boy cass considering that integration of our
Speaker 6: economy and that we don't want to hurt black and
Speaker 6: brown people. And other folks who are working class.
Speaker 7: Power concedes nothing without a demand. Target feels our demand.
Speaker 7: I want to thank you. Over one hundred and forty
Speaker 7: thousand people are standing strong against the injustices practiced by Target.
Speaker 7: We believe if we are spending twelve million dollars a day,
Speaker 7: then you need to respect us. We absolutely believe if
Speaker 7: Target is one of the largest employers of black people,
Speaker 7: second only to the federal government, you need to honor us.
Speaker 7: And so people by the thousands are pulling off and
Speaker 7: not pulling into Target.
Speaker 8: Their stock has dropped by thirteen percent, lowering it by
Speaker 8: twelve dollars a share. They've already lost over two billion
Speaker 8: dollars in their value. I'm so thankful we're just getting
Speaker 8: started and we ain't gonna let nobody.
Speaker 4: Turn us around.
Speaker 8: I need you to sign up at targetfast dot org
Speaker 8: right now.
Speaker 7: Because the movement is moving. We won't stop till we
Speaker 7: get enough. Stay plugged in and.
Speaker 1: Let me find out we ran a commercial. Jamal, We
Speaker 1: love you for real, but I'm gonna tell you this
Speaker 1: right now. You guys, I signed up on targetfast dot
Speaker 1: org to support what they're doing, and I was floored
Speaker 1: by some of the things that they listed the like,
Speaker 1: the thoroughness of the demand, the thoroughness of the approach,
Speaker 1: the ways in which they carefully and strategically, almost surgically
Speaker 1: laid out what should be happening since last week Ash
Speaker 1: Wednesday on the target fast for forty days. So I'm
Speaker 1: eager to hear what you are. I have to say, clearly,
Speaker 1: I like it. I want to hear what y'all think.
Speaker 3: I'd love it, you know. I just want to first say,
Speaker 3: for our viewers to understand what Pastor Jamal Harris Bryan
Speaker 3: is going through. There have been protesters outside his church
Speaker 3: since he's been on the forefront of this fight and
Speaker 3: very outspoken civil rights leader. Is not just a fast
Speaker 3: that he's promoting, but he's actually, to Angelo's point, thinking
Speaker 3: through long term strategy that I'm sure we'll be talking
Speaker 3: about in the weeks to come on this show. The
Speaker 3: last that he referenced the protesters who were in front
Speaker 3: of his church, they were holding up signs talking about
Speaker 3: free Derek Chauvin, who is, of course the police officer
Speaker 3: who murdered George Floyd. So he really is putting himself
Speaker 3: in harm's way leading this charge. So I just first
Speaker 3: want to express my gratitude because that's what it takes, fearless,
Speaker 3: bold leadership that we're not seeing in some of our
Speaker 3: democratic institutions, that we are seeing in some of the
Speaker 3: different sectors out here that promote us Black consumers have
Speaker 3: reached a two trillion dollar buying power, that's according to Nielsen,
Speaker 3: and we have to start thinking about how we want
Speaker 3: to exercise that buying power. And I will say it's
Speaker 3: really challenging, you know, because the target is not the
Speaker 3: only place, But we have to start somewhere and build
Speaker 3: momentum from from that. But my former employer, Paramount, who
Speaker 3: is of course the parent company for v E, t
Speaker 3: v H one and a bunch of other media outlets,
Speaker 3: they are proactively reconsidering their DEI approach because of the
Speaker 3: Trump administrations. Corporations are proactively capitulating to this administration. So
Speaker 3: I do think that we have to start considering how
Speaker 3: we want to exercise the buying power of two trillion
Speaker 3: dollars in this country and hit them where it hurts.
Speaker 3: And if you target white man's money, I just feel
Speaker 3: like that's when you get attention.
Speaker 4: I feel that I feel that I want to go
Speaker 4: specifically to this question of the market today and the
Speaker 4: interrelatedness of industry and our economy is different today than
Speaker 4: it was in the sixties. That is true and in truth,
Speaker 4: and Reverend Bryant Bishop I like to call them mention
Speaker 4: this on the offset that power sees nothing without a
Speaker 4: demand and boycotts, especially in this time where we have
Speaker 4: black folks who are vendors to target. The good news
Speaker 4: is that most, if not all of them are able
Speaker 4: to still direct sell you their product in addition to
Speaker 4: having it on store aisles. But I think we have
Speaker 4: to consider with this question of who we be hurting
Speaker 4: and could we potentially be hurting one of us who
Speaker 4: have worked hard gotten their brands on the shelves and
Speaker 4: so on and so forth. And I would say one,
Speaker 4: we do want to do everything we can not to
Speaker 4: hurt those individuals, which is why going to them directly
Speaker 4: and bind the products that you want from them is
Speaker 4: the next best thing we can do if we can't
Speaker 4: get it off of a shelf. But we have to
Speaker 4: demonstrate a discipline to do that. But boycotts are about
Speaker 4: the dignity and the strength of all of us, and
Speaker 4: it prioritizes the dignity and strength and respect for our
Speaker 4: community above what any one individual who may be benefactor
Speaker 4: benefiting on the back end might get by way of
Speaker 4: sales as a provider on a Target platform. So I
Speaker 4: guess what I'm saying is is, while I love many
Speaker 4: of the people who I know who are African American
Speaker 4: black women mostly who are doing their biz with Target,
Speaker 4: they've come up with their own set of demand and
Speaker 4: expectations that they want from the company, and the best
Speaker 4: thing we can do is demonstrate that we have their backs,
Speaker 4: even within that corporation by saying, look, if you don't
Speaker 4: pay attention to black money, black green dollars, then you
Speaker 4: are missing a huge swath of the economic opportunity that
Speaker 4: exists for this corporation, this brand, so on and so forth.
Speaker 4: And to my colleagues and friends, point Tiffany that a
Speaker 4: lot of folks are getting ahead of the government and
Speaker 4: basically the corporations are redefining DEI or dismissing it summarily
Speaker 4: without being asked necessarily by the government, basically trying to
Speaker 4: curry favor. There are also organizations, entities, corporations who are
Speaker 4: on the opposite side saying we're doubling down in our work.
Speaker 4: We're not getting rid of this, we're not deprioritizing it.
Speaker 4: And so I guess what I say is Target made
Speaker 4: a choice here, as have other companies have made a choice,
Speaker 4: and now is the consumer. It's important for us to
Speaker 4: make a choice as well. And this is the last thing.
Speaker 4: The Montgomery bus boycott, which I talked about on my
Speaker 4: solo pod on Monday, was initially scheduled to be a
Speaker 4: one day protest in Montgomery. When that day came November fifth,
Speaker 4: and the city buses all across Montgomery were empty of
Speaker 4: black riders, it shocked the system and white folks and
Speaker 4: the city had no idea what was happening and what
Speaker 4: was coming. Well, y'all, they felt so good at the
Speaker 4: end of that day, they said, let's extend this thing further.
Speaker 4: We got to keep it going until we bend them
Speaker 4: toward our will. And three and eighty two days later,
Speaker 4: the people won. So I'm just saying, these things take time,
Speaker 4: but we can absolutely bend it toward our will.
Speaker 3: I have a question for Angela, because we know Melissa Butler,
Speaker 3: friend of the show and friend of ours. She is
Speaker 3: the CEO of the Lip Bar, and we all love
Speaker 3: boss Lady her lipstick. She's also carried by Target, So
Speaker 3: show Melissa some love. But again, I think it's important
Speaker 3: to explain to people how we can keep this boycott
Speaker 3: up but also support people like Melissa Butler and the
Speaker 3: lip bar Like can we go to their websites? Also,
Speaker 3: your friend I met her, but I don't remember her name,
Speaker 3: but you had on this really cute outfit. I was like,
Speaker 3: who is that? And I think Kilani? Is that her name?
Speaker 5: Klana Barfield?
Speaker 3: Kalana Barfield, who also has a line in Target. How
Speaker 3: can we make sure? Because Andrew brought up a really
Speaker 3: good point like do they have websites where we can
Speaker 3: go directly to them? Like how are they protected?
Speaker 1: Yes, Kolana was part of the Black Creators program that
Speaker 1: was launched through what the Trump administration would now now
Speaker 1: totally brand as a DEI component of Target's work. So
Speaker 1: she was one of the creators and Sergio was one,
Speaker 1: fey Noel was one. So Kalina doesn't have an ongoing
Speaker 1: line with Target, although she's consulted, and I don't know
Speaker 1: the status of that contract.
Speaker 5: I apologize that I know this questions coming. And Melissa,
Speaker 5: you can.
Speaker 1: Definitely purchase her products at the libbar dot com and
Speaker 1: she's encouraged people to do as such. So I know
Speaker 1: that phase two is starting with this target fast dot org.
Speaker 1: I encourage people to go to the website one so
Speaker 1: you could see the many things that Jamal Bryant has
Speaker 1: put together with a number of colleagues and acquaintances of ours,
Speaker 1: including to Mika Mallory, including Nina Turner and others. But
Speaker 1: the faith community is deepening down into this. I think
Speaker 1: that it's important for us to understand that we can
Speaker 1: always support our brands, and we know how to find
Speaker 1: things like concert tickets. We know how to find things
Speaker 1: like our movie tickets and things that where we want
Speaker 1: to go see and participate, we figure out a way
Speaker 1: to get there. So, if you want to continue to
Speaker 1: support these brands, and you want to show American corporations
Speaker 1: or international corporations for that matter, if they're going down
Speaker 1: the same troubled road as the Trump administration what you're about,
Speaker 1: support your own and I think that there's never a
Speaker 1: better time than now to.
Speaker 5: Do just that.
Speaker 1: Next after the break, we'll be talking about a looming
Speaker 1: government shutdown and whether or not the Dems can hold
Speaker 1: their nose and vote for the right thing. So with that,
Speaker 1: speaking of shutting things down, stock markets and all, you
Speaker 1: want to get into government shutdown potentially the continual revolution.
Speaker 4: Give us, give us the word, madam from the hill.
Speaker 1: Well, let's go to a question on this first and
Speaker 1: we'll jump right into it.
Speaker 9: Hey, what's up Native Lands? Craig again in Brooklyn, Angela,
Speaker 9: Tiff Andrew Will. Hope you guys are doing well. I've
Speaker 9: just been thinking about a lot about the chaos that
Speaker 9: has been going on lately in government. It feels very
Speaker 9: apocalyptic to me. But that's a whole other conversation. But
Speaker 9: my question is this.
Speaker 10: When I think about the Republican Party, I think about
Speaker 10: a party that is very strategic, very effective in their messaging,
Speaker 10: but they're major flaws or courses that they lie. When
Speaker 10: I think about the Democratic Party, I see a party
Speaker 10: that is very piss poor in their messaging, despite what
Speaker 10: their good intentions may be. So we got one side
Speaker 10: that's lying but is good at it, and another side
Speaker 10: that is really bad at their messaging and gets in
Speaker 10: the way of whatever they want to do. So my
Speaker 10: question is this, what the midterm election is coming up,
Speaker 10: How can we as a community educate our voters or
Speaker 10: potential voters out there without using big ginormous concepts like
Speaker 10: constitutional crisis or threat to democracy or oligarchy and all
Speaker 10: those different things.
Speaker 5: What are some ways that we can them where they are?
Speaker 1: Yeah, the question in summation, thank you number one for
Speaker 1: sending that in, is why are democrats so bad and messaging?
Speaker 1: Maybe it's because the truth is harder to package with
Speaker 1: a nice little bow. I don't really know, but I
Speaker 1: don't think it's fair to say all Democrats are ineffective
Speaker 1: in their messaging. Historically, in recent history, at least aoc
Speaker 1: Alexandria Ocasio Cortez has broken through, and so has Jasmine Crockett,
Speaker 1: among many others. The backdrop I wanted to talk about
Speaker 1: this in is HR nineteen sixty eight.
Speaker 5: Imagine that name, which.
Speaker 1: Was the continuing resolution that the House of Representatives passed,
Speaker 1: and now the Senate is considering that if it passes,
Speaker 1: would prevent arguably a government shut down, when in actuality,
Speaker 1: I believe that the government has been shut down since
Speaker 1: Donald Trump was worn in.
Speaker 5: That is my argument that from.
Speaker 1: A good place, a good faith perspective, that the government
Speaker 1: has been shut down once this man gave the keys
Speaker 1: to this South African front Elon Musk who has been
Speaker 1: going rogue and slashing with his chainsaw across government agencies
Speaker 1: without regard for how it would impact the American people,
Speaker 1: the taxpayers that fund these varying entities and programs. So
Speaker 1: to me, it's been shut down, and I think the
Speaker 1: Democrats and Republicans of good conscience wherever they may be,
Speaker 1: had an obligation to vote against that bill. But instead
Speaker 1: of doing that, most of the Democratic Caucus held together
Speaker 1: under Hakem.
Speaker 5: Jeffrey's leadership. But there was one, because.
Speaker 1: There's always one named represented Jared Golden from Maine, who
Speaker 1: voted against the bill, despite almost ten percent of Maine
Speaker 1: being on something called main Care. A lot of people
Speaker 1: when they hear Medicaid and Medicaid being cut and watching
Speaker 1: Congressman Green standing up with a cane and saying, hey,
Speaker 1: you don't have a mandate to cut Medicaid, people don't
Speaker 1: know that a lot of them are on Medicaid. Like
Speaker 1: in Washington State, it's called Apple Care. In Maine, it's
Speaker 1: called main Care. So there is almost ten percent of
Speaker 1: the state that is on main Care. Like, were you
Speaker 1: thinking about these people when you voted for this legislation
Speaker 1: not to mention a billion dollars and cuts to the
Speaker 1: district of Columbia where many of them have their second homes,
Speaker 1: where many of their staff live. Like you're cutting like necessary,
Speaker 1: certain necessary services for people, all to prove a point
Speaker 1: and to say to Donald Trump and to Elon Musk,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna keep giving you this rubber stamp.
Speaker 5: And I think that's the messaging.
Speaker 1: There was one Republican, Thomas Massey, who voted against the
Speaker 1: measure and stood with Democrats. So essentially, Jared Golden is
Speaker 1: a net net.
Speaker 5: It doesn't matter.
Speaker 1: But I do want to raise three other votes in
Speaker 1: recent history that are questionable from Jered Golden. I think
Speaker 1: it gives our audience every reason to call him to
Speaker 1: question where his allegiance lies. So he voted with Republicans
Speaker 1: to overturn President Biden's student loan debt cancelation plan.
Speaker 5: This was in May twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1: He voted against a package of gun control measures in
Speaker 1: June of twenty twenty two, including raising the minimum age
Speaker 1: for purchasing a semiotic rifle from eighteen to twenty one,
Speaker 1: and the last one, I want to call you all's
Speaker 1: attention because I know it's near and dear to the
Speaker 1: three of us is the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act.
Speaker 1: Jared Golden was one of only two Democrats to vote
Speaker 1: against this bill, expressing reservations about qualified immunity for law
Speaker 1: enforcement officers, the same law enforcement officers who no longer
Speaker 1: have to be submitted through a database through the Department
Speaker 1: of Justice because Donald Trump overturned that too.
Speaker 5: So congratulations, Jared Golden.
Speaker 1: You just gave Elon Musk not only the keys to
Speaker 1: Tesla and SpaceX, but the key to the government with
Speaker 1: all of your constituents data and guarantee almost guaranteeing cuts
Speaker 1: to medicate across the board or main Care.
Speaker 5: That's all I got to say about that. A little
Speaker 5: bit of a rant, but hopefully it was clear.
Speaker 4: Well, Angela, can I just say real quick on the
Speaker 4: main Care the main Care piece, because you've exhibited main
Speaker 4: Care is just one example of how this program gets
Speaker 4: rebranded once it's in the states these governors. Because medicaid
Speaker 4: is a partnership between both the federal government and the
Speaker 4: state government. Under Obamacare, it raised the federal government contribution
Speaker 4: for Medicaid in these states to ninety percent the states
Speaker 4: then had to kick in the other ten percent to
Speaker 4: cover the cost. But the reason why the American people
Speaker 4: may not be very clear about them being beneficiaries of
Speaker 4: Medicaid dollars for healthcare is because the branding. And this
Speaker 4: kind of gets set the question, which is, you know,
Speaker 4: Republicans rebrand or they brand and they do it well,
Speaker 4: but they lie on while they're doing it, and then
Speaker 4: we don't rebrand, and we may be earnest at heart,
Speaker 4: but in effectual in the outcome. And I think we
Speaker 4: have been slow to lean into the credit that the
Speaker 4: party deserves for what it does. I know, we hated
Speaker 4: on Donald Trump for slowing down that first batch of checks,
Speaker 4: stimulus checks that went out to the American people thanks
Speaker 4: to the Democrats under the leadership of Nancy Pelosi and
Speaker 4: the Democratic Caucus delivering that package under Trumps signature. But
Speaker 4: he said, Noah, hold up, hold them, hold up. I'm
Speaker 4: gonna put my name on every check. And yes, I
Speaker 4: realize it's gonna cause delays, but I'm gonna put my
Speaker 4: name there anyway. All that to say is I do
Speaker 4: agree with the question of this question, which is or
Speaker 4: the point made in the question, which is we're just
Speaker 4: not that good at it. And I often ask myself
Speaker 4: Angela and Tiffany, like, is it that the people who
Speaker 4: we put in front of the cameras aren't savvy enough?
Speaker 4: Are they not dropping the lines like we need them
Speaker 4: to in order for them to land? Or is it
Speaker 4: that the constituency that Democrats have to talk to is
Speaker 4: so vast and different. It's easy to be on point
Speaker 4: with your people when you're pretty much a monolith when
Speaker 4: everybody pretty much is the same color, practically the same class,
Speaker 4: and are at least united around the same ideals, which
Speaker 4: is largely keep black and brown and women folks off
Speaker 4: of whatever it is that we have. It's not that,
Speaker 4: but I'm trying to simplify here, whereas for Democrats it's
Speaker 4: more complicated. But are we given an excuse when I
Speaker 4: say something like it's just more complicated because the people
Speaker 4: are more complicated, tif Or is there a way to
Speaker 4: say easy or simplify things to people and help them
Speaker 4: understand and grasp what's that consequence even if they don't
Speaker 4: understand the hook line and letter of the law.
Speaker 3: I mean, I appreciate that perspective, Andrew, because honestly, I
Speaker 3: think That's why so many people are kind of checked
Speaker 3: out because so often it's a very inside the beltweigh
Speaker 3: conversation where you don't understand what the shutdown means, you
Speaker 3: don't know what a continuing result means, you don't understand
Speaker 3: what role this senator has and what this means. So
Speaker 3: I just want to take a click second and explain
Speaker 3: what this all means, because people ask that all the time.
Speaker 3: People DM me, even people who I'm like close with
Speaker 3: who are like intelligent people. So it's nothing wrong if
Speaker 3: you don't know it, but like we have to take
Speaker 3: time to explain these things. Essentially, Congress is supposed to
Speaker 3: fund four hundred and thirty eight government agencies, but that
Speaker 3: it happens before October one. October first is when the
Speaker 3: fiscal year begins for the federal government. At issue are
Speaker 3: a lot of things that you can imagine given the
Speaker 3: Trump administration. That goes to support Angelo's point that the
Speaker 3: government has been shut down when Congress cannot because Congress
Speaker 3: controls the budget. When Congress cannot agree on those things,
Speaker 3: well that's when you have conflict. And so once the
Speaker 3: government is shut down, people are essential employees will still
Speaker 3: report to work, but they don't get paid. There was
Speaker 3: a law that passed that made sure that now employees
Speaker 3: will get paid retroactively, but basic services go away. I
Speaker 3: don't think a lot of people understand. We talked about
Speaker 3: Social Security and Medicare, but even like health inspections from
Speaker 3: the EPA, air traffic controllers still work, but they don't
Speaker 3: get paid. Subtext to that, again, I want to keep
Speaker 3: Puncry and Angelo's point about the government's been shut down.
Speaker 3: Air traffic controllers still report to work, they don't get paid.
Speaker 3: Yet we also know that Elon Musk has been laying
Speaker 3: off people left and right at all these government agencies,
Speaker 3: which are pretty essential to what we do. Pass shutdowns
Speaker 3: have also delayed tax refunds for people. We are in
Speaker 3: tax season right now. It's put on hold loans to
Speaker 3: small businesses, homeowners, prevented patients from enrolling in different programs.
Speaker 3: At the NIH, which is the National Institute of Health,
Speaker 3: they have clinical trials happening. So this is a really
Speaker 3: big deal when something like this happens. And I think,
Speaker 3: because I see this happening across the newspapers, across cable news,
Speaker 3: and I think, if we just took a minute to
Speaker 3: playing to people what this is, how it's going to
Speaker 3: impact you. I think the more informed people will be,
Speaker 3: the angrier they will get, and the more they will
Speaker 3: have their hands the deep in what's happening here, and
Speaker 3: they will start blowing up the offices of their members
Speaker 3: and getting just a lot more outraged at their tax
Speaker 3: dollars being allocated to things that they don't support, and
Speaker 3: then the government completely just not functioning. Now. I think
Speaker 3: also people can get very it's immune to it because
Speaker 3: you hear, oh a government shutdown, the government shutdown, and
Speaker 3: it rarely happens, but I remember, you know, the times
Speaker 3: in our lifetime when it has happened in our adult life,
Speaker 3: and how it does, cause it has a real Exactly
Speaker 3: when Knnie B came out there, I love Carti B's
Speaker 3: response to this, and she was like, what's going on?
Speaker 3: In two weeks but her clip went viral because she
Speaker 3: put it in such basic terms for people that was
Speaker 3: very digestible for people to get. So it is a
Speaker 3: big deal should the government shut down. Even I get
Speaker 3: a little confused about out what's the process? You know, Okay,
Speaker 3: what passed in the House, and now I was in the Senate,
Speaker 3: like you know, what when are we going to know?
Speaker 3: But I even myself like I can't keep up with
Speaker 3: every process and every part of the process. So it's
Speaker 3: just frustrating to me. So I know for the people
Speaker 3: listening and you're like, it's kind of over my head,
Speaker 3: It's over my head too. I have to like literally
Speaker 3: google sometimes what is a continuing resolution or what is
Speaker 3: the role of a continuing resolution in a government shutdown?
Speaker 3: Or once you know the budget passes in the House,
Speaker 3: what is the role of the Senate? So I just
Speaker 3: think we have to take a second and fill in
Speaker 3: the gaps where the actual journalists fail repeatedly retely.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I mean beyond the journalists, we have an
Speaker 1: obligation to to teach people what we know. So I
Speaker 1: say in shorter terms because I tried to make it
Speaker 1: clear based on the even the votes who defected in
Speaker 1: the House side one voted with the Democrats, one voted
Speaker 1: with the Republicans. I explained Jared Golden's voting record that's
Speaker 1: also been troubling. And encourage people yesterday on my solo
Speaker 1: pod to make sure that you call the House representatives
Speaker 1: and urge them at that time to vote against this
Speaker 1: continuing resolution. Now it's made its way to the Senate.
Speaker 1: If the Senate passes the exact same bill, then it
Speaker 1: just goes to Donald Trump to be signed into law.
Speaker 1: If they pass a different bill, then they have to
Speaker 1: go through a process called conference where they have to
Speaker 1: negotiate on the terms and get on the same page.
Speaker 1: Or the Senate could just send their bill back to
Speaker 1: the House to be considered.
Speaker 5: The thing that should be people should.
Speaker 1: Be aware of now is the Senate needs at least
Speaker 1: eight Democrats to vote for the CR for the continuing
Speaker 1: Resolution for this temporary stop gap measure so that the
Speaker 1: government will stay funded. If you don't think it's shut
Speaker 1: down again, I argue that it's been shut down. But
Speaker 1: they needs eight Democratic senators. Right now, it looks like
Speaker 1: John Fetterman is the only one, although Richard Blumenthal is
Speaker 1: saying that he's a likely no. He's likely to vote
Speaker 1: against it. Call them and pressure them, HAKEM. Jeffrey should
Speaker 1: not be getting more pressure than Chuck Schumer when he
Speaker 1: mostly kept the party in line. There was one defector
Speaker 1: tell Chuck Schumer that he better not lose eight. That's
Speaker 1: what this is about, and it shouldn't just be on
Speaker 1: these things it's about all the things that are impacting us.
Speaker 1: At some point, budgets became partisan despite the fact that
Speaker 1: they fund taxpayers no matter who they voted for. These
Speaker 1: are fundamental government services. These are not things that are partisan.
Speaker 1: Like I know what they're trying to tell you that
Speaker 1: all the cuts that they're making, all these various government
Speaker 1: agencies with Elon mush chainsaw are because there are waste.
Speaker 5: Fraud an abuse.
Speaker 1: The real waste for an abuse are all the contracting dollars
Speaker 1: that he's extracting out of the government instead of funding
Speaker 1: basic services that your neighbors need. So hopefully that is
Speaker 1: common sense enough as we move on to.
Speaker 4: Another TAE thing on this budget thing, and that's simply
Speaker 4: to say the Republicans, I want to say this specifically
Speaker 4: about the Republicans have consistently driven us to the edge
Speaker 4: of national embarrassment, economic catastrophe for federal workers and sending markets,
Speaker 4: but more important people into feeling like we're always in
Speaker 4: this state of emergency when it comes to our federal budget.
Speaker 4: The most powerful, wealthiest, strongest nation in all the world,
Speaker 4: and all I want to say about it is is
Speaker 4: that it would be one thing if these folks were
Speaker 4: doing this in advance of having run up our debt.
Speaker 4: The problem is is that they run up the debt first,
Speaker 4: and the debt ceiling comes around, and the federal budget,
Speaker 4: which we haven't adopted in a number of years under
Speaker 4: a Republican they because of continuing resolutions. They then decide,
Speaker 4: you know what, in the spirit of Donald Trump, We're
Speaker 4: just not going to pay our bills. How about this,
Speaker 4: The most powerful nation in the world will walk away
Speaker 4: from its obligation many money it's already spent to create
Speaker 4: a stunt in Washington, DC and make people think like
Speaker 4: they care about national debt, the budget and all that
Speaker 4: other stuff. They don't. They simply hate government and want
Speaker 4: to see it shut down.
Speaker 3: I have a question, Andrew, what is it? Because there
Speaker 3: I didn't read this book, but there was a lot
Speaker 3: of writing about that taxes don't actually fund the government,
Speaker 3: but I didn't read it, so it could have been
Speaker 3: like a tongue in cheek point. But also when people
Speaker 3: say national debt and you just said, well, we don't
Speaker 3: pay our bills money that we've already spent, like specifically,
Speaker 3: what is that? Like, what is our national debt and
Speaker 3: what is the money that they've already spent.
Speaker 4: There's a calculator I'm going to I'm just gonna pull
Speaker 4: up the calculator, but I'm going to say it very very.
Speaker 1: And say where that website is, Andrew, so people have
Speaker 1: it and they can.
Speaker 5: Live it up.
Speaker 4: Well, there is, of course, we know what I was
Speaker 4: going to use was the United States Department of Treasury.
Speaker 4: But unfortunately primary sources now have to be questioned because
Speaker 4: you've got Trump's people being mandated to go.
Speaker 5: Through scrub pages down. Absolutely, that's already shut down.
Speaker 4: The only is your point is made. But okay, so
Speaker 4: right now we're at what is the national that thirty
Speaker 4: six point twenty two trillion dollars. That's the amount of
Speaker 4: money that the United States government has spent and has
Speaker 4: borrowed this money. Let me make clear here, the national
Speaker 4: debt means it's in debt to somebody, and who it's
Speaker 4: in debt to are a bunch of foreign creditors and
Speaker 4: buy up China, I would say, largely the oil and
Speaker 4: gas tycoons across the planets, absolutely, right. So the government
Speaker 4: goes out spends this money and then they make absolutely
Speaker 4: no effort to pay down this bill, y'all. They only
Speaker 4: crow about it because it's a nice talking point, but
Speaker 4: the bill continues to accumulate with no plan for how
Speaker 4: to lower this Why is this number important? This number
Speaker 4: is important because you can imagine what the interest rate
Speaker 4: is on thirty six point two two trillion dollars, an
Speaker 4: interest rate that has to be paid every month we spent.
Speaker 4: I think that the interest rate of this government might
Speaker 4: be what the second or third largest expense of the
Speaker 4: government is the money it has to pay for what
Speaker 4: it's borrowed for what it has already spent. And I
Speaker 4: just want to say, inside of democratic and Republican administrations,
Speaker 4: we've had national debt issues, but the only time they've
Speaker 4: ever been balanced in the history of the country have
Speaker 4: been under democratic presidents. Don't get it twisted. They talk
Speaker 4: a good game. On the other side, however, they drive
Speaker 4: us to the brink of a shutdown simply for theatrics
Speaker 4: because they've already spent the money.
Speaker 3: Well, I was asking because I just really quickly. I
Speaker 3: actually Angelae can correct me if I'm wrong. There was
Speaker 3: that video. Somebody dropped it in our group chat of
Speaker 3: there was a young man saying, I don't blame Elon
Speaker 3: Musk for you know, the doze in firing all these
Speaker 3: people because government agencies are getting tax breaks for hiring
Speaker 3: right for hiring debate. It's so ridiculous. And I mean,
Speaker 3: I am not a tax expert or I'm not an
Speaker 3: expert on how the government is funded, but I know
Speaker 3: basic common sense that know, your taxes are paying to
Speaker 3: fund the government. Government agency agencies are not paying taxes,
Speaker 3: so obviously they're not getting tax breaks to hire people.
Speaker 3: But the fact that people saw that and that there
Speaker 3: are people out there who think that shows how ignorant.
Speaker 3: And I know what, y'all don't like it what I
Speaker 3: say this, but I just say that some dumb people
Speaker 3: out there. I would have to say that is a
Speaker 3: dumb person because even when he was confronted with facts,
Speaker 3: he very arrogantly just said, I don't think that's true.
Speaker 4: Well that's what and unfortunately, tip that's kind of where
Speaker 4: we've gone as a country. People continuously are selecting the
Speaker 4: news based off its alignment with their with their beliefs.
Speaker 3: We can't agree on basic facts anymore.
Speaker 4: There are none, And this is what the assault is
Speaker 4: on the other side is basically, if you remove the facts,
Speaker 4: if you remove the people who are supposed to argue
Speaker 4: the facts. If you make all that irrelevant and truth
Speaker 4: has no base and no relevance in the conversation, then
Speaker 4: you can sell a people anything you want because there's
Speaker 4: no primary source to correct them. It's a shame and
Speaker 4: a sham. But mostly y'all this issue around the debt
Speaker 4: and cutting these jobs. It's very easy I understand for
Speaker 4: every day Americans to say I don't like government because
Speaker 4: it hasn't done such and such for me.
Speaker 6: Lately.
Speaker 4: Most people's interaction with the government is largely around some
Speaker 4: regulatory thing they have to do, a license that they
Speaker 4: have to complete for if you want to own a gun,
Speaker 4: you got to submit applications on and so forth. So
Speaker 4: a lot of us don't like it because it requires
Speaker 4: us to do something. But there are days in and
Speaker 4: days out, moments in, moments out, hours in, hours out,
Speaker 4: minutes moments seconds in where the grid that gets electric
Speaker 4: utility to every one of us, including all three of
Speaker 4: us that are on this pod right now, until it
Speaker 4: goes out. It happens without our effort because other people
Speaker 4: in the government are putting in the effort to make
Speaker 4: it work. So you don't have to question whether or
Speaker 4: not it's coming on when you flip the switch. And
Speaker 4: I'm just that's how it's supposed to work. We shouldn't
Speaker 4: know always, so what the question that's doing?
Speaker 5: All right?
Speaker 1: The question was also asked, essentially, how is the government funded?
Speaker 1: And I'm going to refer people to Taxpolicycenter dot org,
Speaker 1: where it says that the individual income tax has been
Speaker 1: the largest single source of federal revenue since nineteen forty four,
Speaker 1: and in twenty twenty two it comprised fifty four percent
Speaker 1: of total revenues. On this chart that is at the
Speaker 1: top of Tax Policycenter dot org.
Speaker 5: And what are the sources of revenue for the federal government?
Speaker 1: Individual income tax by far, corporate income tax, which essentially
Speaker 1: we indirectly fund because we're paying money into these corporations
Speaker 1: for goods and services. Only nine percent of corporate income tax,
Speaker 1: but yet they dominate with the policies that come out
Speaker 1: of the House and the executive branch, Social insurance, payroll tax.
Speaker 5: I have a company that pays payroll tax.
Speaker 1: That's still my damn money, excise tax, same thing, and
Speaker 1: then there's a bucket for other Now when you go
Speaker 1: on to their next page. If people are like, well,
Speaker 1: that's the faz What about state and local I'm so
Speaker 1: glad you asked so for it's.
Speaker 5: The same thing. We are overwhelmingly.
Speaker 1: Responsible at the state and local level with our income
Speaker 1: tax dollars contributing. And so there's a whole chart breakdown.
Speaker 1: I won't go to each thing, but it's tax receipts,
Speaker 1: other receipts, that's still us paying. The money come from somewhere,
Speaker 1: contributions to social insurance programs, again the same thing, and
Speaker 1: then inter governmental transfers. So the money that goes from
Speaker 1: the state to the FEDES or vice versa, the money
Speaker 1: that goes to local to state to FEDES or vice.
Speaker 5: Versa, we are still paying for it.
Speaker 4: So cut the exist in a state where you have
Speaker 4: no state income tax, I'm in one of those states
Speaker 4: where there is no state income tax. Here, you're getting
Speaker 4: here and walloped even worse. Why way worse sales tax?
Speaker 5: Ask me about.
Speaker 4: It is a regressive tax in almost every program that
Speaker 4: they want to fund under Republican control. In these states
Speaker 4: where they say you'll pay no state income tax, largely
Speaker 4: they're hitting you over the head because every one of you,
Speaker 4: whether you are a US citizen, a non US citizen.
Speaker 4: So long as you go into a store, a gas station,
Speaker 4: or elsewhere and buy something, you're paying for it. That's
Speaker 4: why the statement that immigrants and others don't pay taxes.
Speaker 4: And by the way, I think half of the American
Speaker 4: people don't necessarily pay federal income tax. They get a refund,
Speaker 4: but about half the country doesn't pay the federal income tax.
Speaker 4: That doesn't mean they're not paying taxes. They're paying taxes
Speaker 4: every day on nearly everything. They're just not getting a
Speaker 4: credit for having done it.
Speaker 1: No, they still will be paying taxes in their check
Speaker 1: even if they get a refund. They don't get refunded
Speaker 1: all of the tax payments that they've made in payroll.
Speaker 5: No, no, no, no.
Speaker 4: I'm simply saying, even if you are a worker who
Speaker 4: does not work on the books, or you work in
Speaker 4: an industry where it's more cash driven cas slaton and
Speaker 4: so you're not paying a federal tax in the equivalent way,
Speaker 4: those people are still paying taxes, and they're largely through
Speaker 4: the consumer taxes that that Republicans love to push on
Speaker 4: to us. They'll say, we're going to lower the tax
Speaker 4: exemption on your home, We're going to lower state income taxes,
Speaker 4: but we're going to increase sales taxes and that's how
Speaker 4: they get us on the back end.
Speaker 3: I just I want to complain for a second because,
Speaker 3: first of all, thank you both, because that's informative to me.
Speaker 3: But this is also happening at the time. This week,
Speaker 3: Linda McMahon, the WWE specialist turned education secretary, they have
Speaker 3: made several steps to shut down the Department of Education.
Speaker 3: So I think this speaks to what we're talking about.
Speaker 3: I think what Angela just said definitely informs why people
Speaker 3: are outraged about tax cuts and who gets tax cuts
Speaker 3: versus who is still overwhelmingly paying to fund the government.
Speaker 3: So while the government is shutting down. Someone wrote in
Speaker 3: one of the comments, I read all the comments, y'all,
Speaker 3: so thank you all for commenting. Even if it's a
Speaker 3: bad comment, I still read them. I like to know
Speaker 3: how you guys are receiving the show. But somebody said,
Speaker 3: you know, Tiffany's always talking about the media. I think
Speaker 3: she's still bitter, rightfully so, but I think she's still better.
Speaker 3: Yes I am. I'm here to confirm. Yes, I am
Speaker 3: very very bitter, not only for my show, but just
Speaker 3: for the landscape of journalism. So I was listening to
Speaker 3: The Daily New York Times, and it's a popular podcast.
Speaker 3: But this is why I think Native laandpod is so important.
Speaker 3: On the Daily, the reporter who covers education, Dana Goldstein.
Speaker 3: So they're talking about shutting down the Department of Education,
Speaker 3: which our tax dollars fund, and they said, one of
Speaker 3: the roles of the Department of Education is when people
Speaker 3: are complaining that not enough black or brown students are
Speaker 3: being taught properly, or they're not enrolled in gifted programs.
Speaker 3: The Department of Education is part of the federal government
Speaker 3: who will on the ground locally and investigate this. And
Speaker 3: then she says, which is inconvenient. Now I'm listening to this,
Speaker 3: and my head wants to explode, because who gives a
Speaker 3: shit if it's inconvenient for the local school district. Now,
Speaker 3: she is an impartial reporter, and this is not meant
Speaker 3: to attack her. I don't know anything about her except
Speaker 3: that she covers education for The Times. But my point
Speaker 3: is they center white people at everything they do and
Speaker 3: everything they're talking about her perspective, which she is shaping
Speaker 3: for millions of people who continue to read the garbage
Speaker 3: coverage of the political coverage of The Times, which I
Speaker 3: do every day, but they have great coverage elsewhere. She's
Speaker 3: centering white folks, and she's saying, so, yes, this is inconvenient. Well,
Speaker 3: I'd imagine it's pretty goddamn inconvenient for the parents of
Speaker 3: black and brown children who have been sidelined, who have
Speaker 3: their gifted children placed in remedial classes because someone says
Speaker 3: they're not smart enough, or they're not paying attention in class,
Speaker 3: and not given the grace benefit understanding cultural competency to
Speaker 3: meet them where they are to help educate them. When
Speaker 3: you get rid of the Department of Education, you are
Speaker 3: sentencing a whole class of children to be sidelined and
Speaker 3: creating an entire different society when they go enter the
Speaker 3: workforce ten, fifteen, twenty years from now. So it's very
Speaker 3: frustrating to see our government fall while also seeing the
Speaker 3: people who are supposed to be on the front lines
Speaker 3: covering this capitulate and make every excuse and continue to
Speaker 3: center white folks. So I'm concerned about all of these
Speaker 3: things happening, and I think it feeds your point, Andrew,
Speaker 3: about how the government is funded, and your point Angela,
Speaker 3: that this government is shut down is not that new
Speaker 3: to us, because the government has been shut down since
Speaker 3: January twentieth of this year.
Speaker 4: Well, the worst offense y'all, in my opinion, is that
Speaker 4: the Conservatives are not being honest with us about why
Speaker 4: they want to shut down education. Yes, they were being
Speaker 4: honest with the American people around why they want to
Speaker 4: shut down the federal Department of Education. It is because
Speaker 4: they blame it inherently for the enforcement of Brown v.
Speaker 4: Board of Education, and the fact that it was largely
Speaker 4: the federal government who passed laws and instituted protections that
Speaker 4: carried out the integration of the Little Rock nine and
Speaker 4: in Arkansas, any of the southern states that wanted to
Speaker 4: defect from federal law and create a two tiered system,
Speaker 4: one of white people first class and anybody else, but
Speaker 4: very specifically black people to be treated as less than
Speaker 4: citizens and even less than human. They blamed the US
Speaker 4: Department of Education for encroaching on states rights, which was
Speaker 4: basically a state's right to keep black folks in subpar
Speaker 4: education centers where their books come from third, fourth, fifth
Speaker 4: generation hand me downs from white schools. That's what they
Speaker 4: are after. They want to return to the pre Brown V.
Speaker 4: Board of Education era of plusy B V. Ferguson, and
Speaker 4: we ain't going back.
Speaker 3: Y'all and privatized education. They crivatize education. It's a multi
Speaker 3: billion dollar business.
Speaker 4: And they're already been subsidized right now.
Speaker 3: So I want to talk about Salem soon when we
Speaker 3: get into that.
Speaker 1: Well, first, I think, since we're on Department of Education, Andrew,
Speaker 1: you had something you wanted to raise in this space.
Speaker 4: I know we've been hearing a lot about education shut down,
Speaker 4: but what about the shakedown they have going on over there?
Speaker 4: More on the other side of this break.
Speaker 3: Just really quickly.
Speaker 4: Some of y'all may have seen this week that there
Speaker 4: was news about the federal government sending UH Department of
Speaker 4: Civil Rights sending out letters to sixty institutions colleges, universities
Speaker 4: of all stripe because they say these institutions may be
Speaker 4: in violation of the Civil Rights Act for their failure
Speaker 4: to protect against pro Palestinian pro Hamas demonstrations on college
Speaker 4: campuses that occurred in this country and are still occurring
Speaker 4: wherein They are suggesting or arguing that any of those
Speaker 4: protests created a hostile learning environment for Jewish students and
Speaker 4: so being a protest that wasn't pro Palestine, that wasn't
Speaker 4: pro Israeli were therefore antisemitic. What really stresses me out
Speaker 4: about this position, y'all, is the government's ability here to
Speaker 4: very quietly, but to me very loudly step on our
Speaker 4: First Amendment rights as free speech by essentially deciding that dissent,
Speaker 4: meaning to have a different opinion about an issue, automatically
Speaker 4: means that you are against a whole group of people
Speaker 4: because of their faith and also of their birth. Meaning
Speaker 4: if you're Jewish and you don't necessarily side on the
Speaker 4: same side as the Israeli state the government that your
Speaker 4: opposition must be antisemitic, And y'all, I just I'm afraid
Speaker 4: of where this line can be drawn, because if you're
Speaker 4: a Black Lives Matter protester, could they then say that
Speaker 4: you're anti white and therefore those protests and protesters should be,
Speaker 4: I don't know, penalized differently because they are at a
Speaker 4: different political position than you are. And I think that
Speaker 4: I think it's gross, but I think we are coming
Speaker 4: very very close to something here as it relates to
Speaker 4: our First Amendment rights that are I believe going to
Speaker 4: be trampled on already. They have been, but increasingly by
Speaker 4: states and by the federal government. And if we lose
Speaker 4: that protection, y'all, where they can round us up and
Speaker 4: arrest us free will because we have a different political
Speaker 4: belief we're further gone there.
Speaker 3: We have they reached that level.
Speaker 5: We are already there.
Speaker 3: Just this week or this week, this past weekend, I
Speaker 3: should say my mood Khalil, a legal permanent resident, a
Speaker 3: Green card holder, was kidnapped by the state. ICE came
Speaker 3: in and removed him from his Columbia paid for apartment.
Speaker 3: This man is a student, he is assumed to be father.
Speaker 3: His wife is eight months pregnant. They took him into custody.
Speaker 3: They're trying to revoke his green card. They will not
Speaker 3: hand him give him his freedom unless they are ordered
Speaker 3: by a court, and then we'll see if they even
Speaker 3: follow court orders. But agents basically told him that he
Speaker 3: was detained because his visa had been revoked. Specifically, what
Speaker 3: you're talking about, Andrew, because they're trying to say that
Speaker 3: his demonstrations, his protests are pro HAMAS and they're leading
Speaker 3: to activities that are aligned with HAMAS, which of course
Speaker 3: the United States considers a designated terrorist organization. This terrifies
Speaker 3: me the most, the fact that any one of us
Speaker 3: could come in on this podcast and say something, and
Speaker 3: that somebody can come in and take us into custody,
Speaker 3: snatch our liberty and take us away. We're not waiting
Speaker 3: to get there. We are there right now. Then I
Speaker 3: don't even know what to do about it.
Speaker 4: The thing is the reason why I thought it was
Speaker 4: important for us to illuminate this and I think we
Speaker 4: have to keep doing it, is because our rights get
Speaker 4: taken away with our eyes wide open. It's this, it's this,
Speaker 4: it's I don't even want to call it a slow
Speaker 4: process because it doesn't even doesn't even feel slow, y'all.
Speaker 5: It's everyday.
Speaker 4: It feels like the ripping away of what was hard fought, hard,
Speaker 4: struggled hard to come by, and now we're about to
Speaker 4: let it slip away so easily, like guess on us.
Speaker 4: Democracies are insured by its people, by the people, not
Speaker 4: by the government itself, but by the people, and we're
Speaker 4: past the line. You're absolutely right. I just think it's
Speaker 4: important that we continue to lift a light. And I
Speaker 4: know the next question that folks have is, then, well,
Speaker 4: what do we do about it? We have to raise
Speaker 4: our voices. We cannot go quietly into the good night.
Speaker 4: It doesn't work for us. It just doesn't.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, uh, speaking of going backwards and things being taken away,
Speaker 1: taken away with our eyes wide open, some of us
Speaker 1: really felt strongly about being in Selma this past weekend,
Speaker 1: the sixtieth commemoration of Bloody Sunday. And I can tell
Speaker 1: you all on the fiftieth being there and feeling so
Speaker 1: proud of progress and going back ten years later and
Speaker 1: feeling concerned that I need to now stand on this
Speaker 1: hollow ground to get the energy, the inspiration, the strength
Speaker 1: to endure in this moment is really sobering. It was
Speaker 1: so powerful to be with so many people. Our sister
Speaker 1: and friend Joy Reid was awarded at the dinner that
Speaker 1: they hold on the eve of Bloody Sunday. We have
Speaker 1: panel discussions, really robust meeting, strategy sessions, but it just
Speaker 1: still feels so disappointing that in the blink of an
Speaker 1: eye and the matter of a couple of months, so
Speaker 1: much has been rolled back because people ignored the signs
Speaker 1: and they ignored the ways in which our rights were
Speaker 1: snatched from us over the last several years, including what
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court did in Shelby County Shelby County versus
Speaker 1: Holder in twenty thirteen, right on the other side of
Speaker 1: President Obama winning two terms is the first the nation's
Speaker 1: first black president.
Speaker 5: And so the question I really have for y'all is.
Speaker 1: How far have we really come? And why is progress
Speaker 1: so dog gone fragile?
Speaker 5: Are going to be snatched?
Speaker 1: It just feels like it can be yanked from us.
Speaker 3: Well, just as for our viewers know Shelby Beholder is
Speaker 3: when they gut it section five of the Voting Rights Act,
Speaker 3: which essentially said that you have to have permission from
Speaker 3: the federal government before making any changes to your local
Speaker 3: voting laws. And that existed because there was so much
Speaker 3: persistent voter suppression happening all across the country. And you
Speaker 3: saw once that happened, there have been an increase in
Speaker 3: laws that suppressed the vote. I think last I check,
Speaker 3: which has been years, probably over a year, there may
Speaker 3: have been maybe over seventy local ballot initiatives to roll
Speaker 3: back voting rights, but.
Speaker 1: Three hundred pieces of legislation and states throughout the country.
Speaker 3: That they pass that they passed.
Speaker 1: Hundred introduced in state legislatures. You were saying local. So
Speaker 1: I was just saying it on the state.
Speaker 3: Thank you for a correct me state. And I don't
Speaker 3: know how many passed, but it might be close to
Speaker 3: that number. Over three hundred of thus introduced. Yeah, we're
Speaker 3: so over y'all.
Speaker 4: They've also used the gutting of Section five to jerry
Speaker 4: Mander and to steal yes seats congressional seats that had
Speaker 4: diverse representation. In Florida, they took two of the four
Speaker 4: black access seats, which means a district design where an
Speaker 4: African American candidate could run and have the potential to
Speaker 4: win if folks voted along racial lines necessarily, which is
Speaker 4: not necessarily how it goes. Nonetheless, this governor must say,
Speaker 4: stole two of them. And guess who's there now? White candidates,
Speaker 4: Republican male candidates that have taken these seats. And it's
Speaker 4: happened all across the country thanks to what they handed
Speaker 4: down to us and shall.
Speaker 3: Be and greatly dilutes our political power. One thing I
Speaker 3: want to point out, I want to hear more just
Speaker 3: about your how it felt being there, Angela, But before
Speaker 3: I asked that, I just I want to point out
Speaker 3: what happened on that bridge I think so often the
Speaker 3: history is sanitized because the narrators don't often look like us,
Speaker 3: and they control the narrative. But it wasn't like you know,
Speaker 3: Congressman John Lewis was. He wasn't a congressman then, but
Speaker 3: he was walking past and somebody pushed him down and
Speaker 3: that was it. I mean, he had his skull fractured.
Speaker 3: It was not just men, not that it reduces it
Speaker 3: that it was just our men. Even our men being
Speaker 3: violently assaulted is horrific. But they also violently assaulted women, children,
Speaker 3: pregnant women across that bridge. It was a violent, bloody
Speaker 3: melee of non violent protesters. Why this was so significant
Speaker 3: is because this was the first time. Now imagine this
Speaker 3: is before social so a lot of people don't even
Speaker 3: know what's happening along the Bible Belt in the country,
Speaker 3: but really all over the country when it came to
Speaker 3: voting rights, and the violence was so so yes, it
Speaker 3: was so horrific that ABC at the time, the network,
Speaker 3: actually interrupted its telecast. They were showing a judgment at
Speaker 3: Nuremberg at the time, and they interrupted it to show
Speaker 3: what was happening in Salma, Alabama. Once the rest of
Speaker 3: the country saw what was happening. Then there were people,
Speaker 3: including allies, including folks who didn't look like us, who said, well,
Speaker 3: wait a set, we can't tolerate that, we can't stand
Speaker 3: for that, and that's when chain started to happen. Now
Speaker 3: that we have these devices and you know, we're looking
Speaker 3: at monkeys on a unicycle and you know, for me
Speaker 3: looking at you know, puppies getting their vaccination shots, we're
Speaker 3: not necessarily paying attention to those things. So I don't
Speaker 3: know how to corral they attention of folks. But that
Speaker 3: was a turning point in history. That revolution was televised
Speaker 3: and that's what led to change. So I don't know
Speaker 3: that we have come that far. And i'll tell you, Angela, Andrew,
Speaker 3: I feel really defeated. I feel bad because last week
Speaker 3: on the podcast, I was saying I don't know if
Speaker 3: I'm hopeful yet, and people are like, what are you expectivity?
Speaker 3: So I don't want to spread my blanketed bereavement around
Speaker 3: what's at my despair, around what's happening. I think, you know,
Speaker 3: if you don't feel hopeful, please tune into this podcast,
Speaker 3: because Andrew, I'm like, you're fighting your hopeful Angela. You
Speaker 3: are eighteen hours every day around the clock doing something
Speaker 3: to help organize a movement. I'm doing other things, which
Speaker 3: I'll talk about later, but it is depressing to see
Speaker 3: because it feels like in this time of being a
Speaker 3: flat circle, it is a cyclical problem. And I don't
Speaker 3: know why progress is so fragile, but I just know
Speaker 3: that not only is progress fragile, this very young democracy
Speaker 3: is and it takes participation and awareness to preserve it.
Speaker 3: And I don't know how we get to that point
Speaker 3: because we're asking people to care about every thing and
Speaker 3: they end up caring about nothing.
Speaker 4: That's why I like Tiffany, your your your your, lay
Speaker 4: up to Angela around the feeling, because I am also
Speaker 4: likewise curious at a moment like this where you were
Speaker 4: able to assemble with a lot of folks in our
Speaker 4: community who frankly sit at the position where people expect
Speaker 4: them to do something all the time to protect us.
Speaker 4: Tell me how what is being in Selma sixty years
Speaker 4: on that hollow ground mean for an organizing leader like
Speaker 4: yourself and and and folks that you were you were
Speaker 4: with to gird them up in this moment because there
Speaker 4: is a lot of despair. I don't think any of
Speaker 4: us should refuse that that exists. The question is is
Speaker 4: once we confront the despair, then what do we do
Speaker 4: with it? And I'm just wondering what kind of fuel,
Speaker 4: if any, do the leaders get right so that they
Speaker 4: can keep leading?
Speaker 3: And how did it feel to your spirit to be there?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 1: And I meant to addressed this earlier, so sorry if
Speaker 1: I didn't, But yes, it felt good to be there.
Speaker 1: It felt necessary. It provided as again a sobering opportunity
Speaker 1: to reflect on how far we've come and how quickly
Speaker 1: progress can be rolled back. I think beyond the politics
Speaker 1: of who's gonna be in the picture in the front,
Speaker 1: even seeing the Reverend Jackson's commitment to be there, you know,
Speaker 1: with Parkinson's in a wheelchair, and among others, you know,
Speaker 1: Reverend Sharpton, Congressome and waters how came Jeffries, Derrick Johnson
Speaker 1: like and Latasha Brown who was rallying folks singing in
Speaker 1: a bullhorn because something happened in the sound system. You know,
Speaker 1: it was like it was reminding us of you know,
Speaker 1: when there's not a way, we make one. So I
Speaker 1: think it's necessary. I hope that black folks in this
Speaker 1: time will continue to convene, to gather strategy.
Speaker 5: Ain't gonna happen out of nowhere.
Speaker 1: Hope isn't gonna be given to you with no action,
Speaker 1: like it requires the moment requires us to sacrificially come
Speaker 1: together to find a better way.
Speaker 5: It just does. And I think that will.
Speaker 1: Continue to be in despair, will continue to be fearful,
Speaker 1: will continue to be scrambling about what to do so
Speaker 1: long as we don't prioritize what our next steps must be.
Speaker 1: There is the fearce urgency of now, and I wish
Speaker 1: that it wasn't, but that is where we are, and
Speaker 1: I think we'll be able to better fight it once
Speaker 1: we accept what is well.
Speaker 3: Can I ask, do you feel despair because you're doing
Speaker 3: these things? You're in the fight? Do you ever feel despair?
Speaker 3: Do you feel like? I mean, because you when you
Speaker 3: ask that question, you sound exhausted, you know, you sound like,
Speaker 3: why is our progress so fragile? And I feel that,
Speaker 3: Like I really do feel that, And I think so
Speaker 3: you Latasha Brow all the other people who are in
Speaker 3: this fight. Are you saying I like, I don't feel
Speaker 3: that despair because I'm actively fighting something every day? Or yeah,
Speaker 3: I feel that despair too, but I know if I
Speaker 3: keep moving then that's the only way to progress.
Speaker 1: Well, let me let me turn the question to you, Tiff.
Speaker 1: Feeling despair in the feeling of despair that you have, Yeah,
Speaker 1: how do you think you get out of that?
Speaker 6: Like?
Speaker 5: What is the way out of despair?
Speaker 3: I don't know. I'm trying to figure that out. And
Speaker 3: you know, I'm not apathetic, like I'm not sitting around
Speaker 3: doing nothing, but sometimes I do look at the things
Speaker 3: that are happening, and I wonder, how does that stop?
Speaker 3: What's happening right now? I feel like I'm in the
Speaker 3: middle of the storm watching all this happen, and I'm like,
Speaker 3: I don't even know how to stop it. But there's
Speaker 3: something That's why I think there is something to being hopeful,
Speaker 3: you know, Like what did it mean to be in Selma?
Speaker 3: Like how is going to Selma stopping something? How is
Speaker 3: standing on the floor of Congress saying and we shall
Speaker 3: overcome stopping something. I don't want to dismiss those things,
Speaker 3: because black folks our hope, Like we need that hope
Speaker 3: to go on. I just don't know what the tangible
Speaker 3: thing is that we're stopping, you know, I think.
Speaker 1: That My question is, and maybe I'm probably asking it poorly,
Speaker 1: but I would love to know, even from our audience,
Speaker 1: if you are feeling despair but you're not apathetic, what
Speaker 1: are you doing? What are you actively doing to not
Speaker 1: feel the despair? Like if you're feeling sad, what are
Speaker 1: like about something else? Let's say it's not even about
Speaker 1: the government. But if you're feeling sadness, how do you
Speaker 1: combat that sadness? If you're feeling hopeless? How do you
Speaker 1: comback that hopelessness? If you're feeling despair, how do you
Speaker 1: combat that despair? Or do you just say I'm gonna
Speaker 1: sit in until it passes. I mean that is a way.
Speaker 1: But and then if you're saying, well, I'm not apathetic,
Speaker 1: so then there's some action that you're taking to not
Speaker 1: sit in apathy.
Speaker 5: What is that action?
Speaker 3: Well, I'll say what I can. I don't want to
Speaker 3: say a lot about it. But one thing for me
Speaker 3: that I'm caught up in the middle end is writing
Speaker 3: bearing witness to this and writing and I'll say more
Speaker 3: about that later, but I don't have the ability to
Speaker 3: disconnect from it. Like I'm mired in it. It can weigh
Speaker 3: me down and when I'm not in it. I feel lighter,
Speaker 3: I feel better, but trying to keep up with everything,
Speaker 3: and I write every day from ten am to about
Speaker 3: seven pm. There are other things that I am finding
Speaker 3: my way to participate in which I don't. I want
Speaker 3: to protect and preserve some of the work that's happening.
Speaker 3: But you know, there are some of us who are
Speaker 3: involved in conversations happening, and I'm looking for that thing
Speaker 3: within those groups of well, what is the thing that
Speaker 3: I can attach to where I'm doing something to stop this?
Speaker 3: And I haven't quite found that thing.
Speaker 4: Is it possible that the work, the cathartic and even
Speaker 4: weighing work of being the teller of the time is
Speaker 4: a contribution?
Speaker 3: Yes, I mean what we do here, but I I
Speaker 3: mean to Angela's point, though, I think we have to
Speaker 3: do more. Whatever we're doing, we have to do more
Speaker 3: of it. Sure, I just don't know that doing like
Speaker 3: what I'm not good at is swinging at the wind.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm not good at is like I'm
Speaker 3: gonna just go a bunch of actions and you know,
Speaker 3: scramble myself in a tizzy. Like No, I do want
Speaker 3: to be still and purposeful. You know, if I'm going
Speaker 3: to lend my time and resources in my very limited
Speaker 3: time and time deficit of actual you know, work that
Speaker 3: pays me. Then what what is it? And sometimes I
Speaker 3: do feel like, in the chaos of it all, I wonder, well,
Speaker 3: what did this actually stop? What did it move? But
Speaker 3: I don't I don't. I hate saying that because I
Speaker 3: feel like, if that's what you're doing, and you know,
Speaker 3: maybe something's gonna stop. Well somebody was like, what was
Speaker 3: it gonna mean that we crossed the bridge? All we
Speaker 3: doing is walk across the bridge, you know, and that
Speaker 3: was a big moment to change things. So I don't
Speaker 3: want to. I don't want this to I don't want
Speaker 3: my despair to be infectious. I just yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 3: Whatever I'm doing is not enough, you know, bearing witness
Speaker 3: of things isn't enough. But that's just what i've you know.
Speaker 3: And by the way, I'm not an organizer, I know
Speaker 3: that much. It doesn't mean that I can't be supportive
Speaker 3: to the organizers.
Speaker 4: You know you are you are an organizer because I've
Speaker 4: been on the receiving end of your organizing work.
Speaker 3: Is an organ I mean I would say she isn't organizer.
Speaker 4: She is as well. But this is what I think.
Speaker 4: I think we often make the bar for entry to
Speaker 4: damn high. Yep, you don't have to be an Angela Raie.
Speaker 4: I love her and I'm thankful to God for our people. No,
Speaker 4: I mean no, Yes, we need new ones, you need
Speaker 4: acolytes and people who will replace you. But I just
Speaker 4: think we spend a lot of energy in our community
Speaker 4: knowing that we carry the weight of so much ship
Speaker 4: waking up every day. Ha does James Baldwin put it?
Speaker 4: You know, waking up as a black man. You know,
Speaker 4: every big it's right, it's to be enraged. So that's
Speaker 4: already a feat. But we don't have to make the bar.
Speaker 4: You too, have to organize a twenty four our meeting
Speaker 4: for the urgency of the moment, and by the way,
Speaker 4: do it in forty eight hours from this point the
Speaker 4: production needs to take place. You don't necessarily have to
Speaker 4: be the person who's out there getting the most new
Speaker 4: voter registration cars signed. Maybe you're the one who's actually
Speaker 4: building the teams, training people so that they don't run
Speaker 4: a foul of the law while they're in the process
Speaker 4: of collecting voter registration cars. I only say this y'all.
Speaker 4: I use an example, and by the way, I want
Speaker 4: to invite people onto listening to my solo pods as
Speaker 4: they released, because we're trying to demystify this question, the
Speaker 4: big question of what do I do and how do
Speaker 4: I start? If we make the start so big, there
Speaker 4: are a lot of people who will check out before
Speaker 4: they ever take a step forward. And I just think
Speaker 4: we are all here. We're designed with our own respective
Speaker 4: gifts and things that we can contribute. I've saved the saying,
Speaker 4: and I think r J hates it when I said
Speaker 4: you can't need an elephant in a hole or in
Speaker 4: one bite that you can't say all because it's for me.
Speaker 4: That's how I understand that I.
Speaker 1: Who was requiring that of anybody. Our EP Lauren actually
Speaker 1: has a question. Our EP Lauren has a question about this,
Speaker 1: and I think that maybe hearing it from a lay
Speaker 1: person that is also organizing, even neighbor and neighbor is important.
Speaker 1: So let's hear Lauren Lauren's question on this.
Speaker 11: A Native lampod.
Speaker 5: It's your EP Lauren.
Speaker 11: Hey, Lauren, I'm coming with a question about organizing. Also,
Speaker 11: I'm calling from Sunny Brooklyn. I think you like to
Speaker 11: know that. I obviously listened to Andrew solo pod yesterday
Speaker 11: and I'm so inspired and I take every I literally
Speaker 11: took notes so i could share this with my group.
Speaker 11: But I've done some of the things that you've talked about.
Speaker 11: So a friend of mine after the election, started a
Speaker 11: community group feeling despondent about the results and wanting to
Speaker 11: do something. We gathered friends and neighbors and other parents,
Speaker 11: and we have met like half a dozen times. You know,
Speaker 11: we brain stormed issues that feel important to us, which
Speaker 11: are all over the map, like super local, like safety
Speaker 11: on our streets or like our schools, to climate and
Speaker 11: repro writs, and you know, it gets really big. I'm
Speaker 11: just sort of wondering. I've never done this before, and
Speaker 11: as the leader of this, I just every time I
Speaker 11: meet with our group, I love it and I feel
Speaker 11: really good. But I'm also like it feels like I'm
Speaker 11: weeding through a thicket. I'm like, is this the work?
Speaker 5: Is this what you're supposed to do?
Speaker 11: You just meet and talk and brainstorm, like nothing really
Speaker 11: feels concrete. It's like we're kind of blindly taking one
Speaker 11: step forward at a time. And I'm from a newly
Speaker 11: sort of organizer to you all, like, is this what
Speaker 11: you're supposed to do? Is there something more concrete.
Speaker 5: That we can do?
Speaker 11: Am I doing it wrong? I just love some advice
Speaker 11: for this group that's trying to get off the ground
Speaker 11: and find their footing. I don't know, just thank you so.
Speaker 5: Much for your leadership.
Speaker 11: Appreciate you guys, and love working with you.
Speaker 4: Bye, love, I love.
Speaker 3: I love that question.
Speaker 1: I think that what Lauren shared is so important because
Speaker 1: I don't think that there's anybody throughout history that has
Speaker 1: engaged in a movement that became significant that knew from
Speaker 1: the outset like, oh, this is going to be the one.
Speaker 1: Like I don't think Minister Farrakhan was like, I'm definitely
Speaker 1: gonna get a million people. I know, I mus strive
Speaker 1: for it. But what happens the only five people show up?
Speaker 5: You know?
Speaker 1: I don't think that on the March on Washington, they
Speaker 1: knew it was going to be that. I don't even
Speaker 1: think for the Women's March, despite a lot of its flaws.
Speaker 5: Knew that it was going to be that.
Speaker 1: I think that you have to start somewhere and you
Speaker 1: are flying blind the grace that we should be extending
Speaker 1: to each other right now is we have never been
Speaker 1: here before. We don't know what is going to work.
Speaker 1: What we do know is that there has to be resistance.
Speaker 1: We do know that there has to be a fight.
Speaker 1: We do know that there has to be an opposition.
Speaker 1: We do know that we got to stand on truth.
Speaker 1: We do know that we have to protect the most vulnerable.
Speaker 1: Maybe your role isn't every single one of those pieces,
Speaker 1: but you take on your part. It is imperative that
Speaker 1: we do something. You sitting by and watching what is happening, saying, oh, no,
Speaker 1: where to start, it's gonna mean that we end up
Speaker 1: with our asses handed to us.
Speaker 5: Like we gotta get in the game.
Speaker 1: My biggest frustration right now is there's so many people
Speaker 1: that got smoked for everybody who's doing something.
Speaker 5: But when we turn around be like, well what you doing,
Speaker 5: It's like, uh, you gotta start somewhere, you really really do.
Speaker 1: And so I do think it's in the conversation, But
Speaker 1: it's beyond the conversation to making a call to Congress.
Speaker 1: It's beyond making a call to Congress to go pulling
Speaker 1: on a government building door to see if you can
Speaker 1: get into the door that you pay for. You know,
Speaker 1: it really is figuring out how to protect your kids
Speaker 1: at school, special needs kids who may be impacted by
Speaker 1: this disease. These disastrous cuts to the Department of Education,
Speaker 1: most of which now that we know that half the
Speaker 1: employees have been told to go home and they can
Speaker 1: come get their personal effects later, most of which has
Speaker 1: not even been congressionally sanctioned. So the fight is in
Speaker 1: the other two coequal branches of government. If you have
Speaker 1: a lawsuit and you got standing suit, if you know
Speaker 1: that you have some inrows with Congress, call them, make
Speaker 1: a visit when you're at a fundraiser, let them know
Speaker 1: what it really is.
Speaker 5: But you got to do something.
Speaker 1: I think every single day, if somebody takes one action,
Speaker 1: we're a lot closer to a victory than without.
Speaker 3: I gotta be honest, I have not seen I've only
Speaker 3: heard tangentially about the people having smoke for people who
Speaker 3: are trying to do something. I have not seen that.
Speaker 3: I'm not experiencing it. I know, and how I know
Speaker 3: it is because in our chat sometimes that you know,
Speaker 3: we'll talk about it. I do have to say, if
Speaker 3: you are criticizing what other people are doing, then that
Speaker 3: is a plan, like you have to you can't criticize
Speaker 3: and not you know, be involved. But I like the
Speaker 3: question that you posed with the audience, and it's something
Speaker 3: that I would actually like to hear from the audience.
Speaker 3: What did you say, Andrew? Like, basically, what are y'all doing?
Speaker 3: If you feel despair? What are you doing about it?
Speaker 3: Was that your question?
Speaker 1: Yeah, like, how do you how do you solve for despair?
Speaker 1: How do you solve for feeling stuck in this moment?
Speaker 1: How do you solve for that?
Speaker 5: What are you doing? The software?
Speaker 1: And if you're like, hell, I don't know, y'all, tell
Speaker 1: me listen to Andrew's organizing pod.
Speaker 5: He's doing. He's basically doing a.
Speaker 1: Masterclass breakdown every other Monday to talk about these things.
Speaker 5: On the Instagram Live yesterday. On my solo pod.
Speaker 1: Yesterday, talked about specifically just calling Congress. I think we
Speaker 1: should call Congress and reach out to these offices. I
Speaker 1: think we should do it on air to let people
Speaker 1: know how it goes.
Speaker 5: When you recall, they have to answer, they owe you
Speaker 5: an explanation.
Speaker 3: We should take that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but I also want to, as a local person,
Speaker 4: say shout out Lauren on the local emphasis. She said,
Speaker 4: we're talking about our neighborhood, our streets, our schools, our safety.
Speaker 4: Is the work the convening part. Well, guess what if
Speaker 4: your group decides that the work you all are doing
Speaker 4: is that every day we are all weighed down by
Speaker 4: the facts of life as they hit us, either from
Speaker 4: the federal, the world, the global, or what's happening locally,
Speaker 4: and so the best thing you can do to not
Speaker 4: get stuck on stunned is to convene together and talk
Speaker 4: through it. That way, as you all fan back out,
Speaker 4: everybody is interacting in their space now with a different
Speaker 4: recharged mindset. Maybe that recharge mindset puts them in contact
Speaker 4: with people who are feeling despair and haven't had an
Speaker 4: opportunity for hope, who now feel hope because they see
Speaker 4: somebody who's just like them, who shares their beliefs and opinion,
Speaker 4: who are as sad about what they see happening nationally
Speaker 4: or in their state or in their local but they
Speaker 4: have some joy in it, and they have some joy
Speaker 4: in the work. If that is what the group decides,
Speaker 4: and then yes, that is the work, Lauren. It doesn't
Speaker 4: have to be too high minded or too low brow.
Speaker 4: It has to, however, reflect what the community. The folks
Speaker 4: you have pulled together believe is the reach, the objective,
Speaker 4: the goal that you all want to see realized. Maybe
Speaker 4: it is that y'all set a goal around voter registration
Speaker 4: and your precinct or as a cohort, we're gonna you know,
Speaker 4: we're gonna have five hundred new registered voters by the
Speaker 4: time the Mitchron comes around, and not only that, we
Speaker 4: will have invited every single one of them to one
Speaker 4: of our sit downs. Every person we register, we use
Speaker 4: as an extension to invite them into this setting for
Speaker 4: every time we meet that they can become more conscious
Speaker 4: minded about what they can do as individuals to help
Speaker 4: your local area, your community, and obviously the nation. We
Speaker 4: on the left, i think too often organize people exclusively
Speaker 4: around electioneering, and we've left a lot of people on
Speaker 4: the sidelines. I would love to see more work like
Speaker 4: you're doing Laur, where people are organizing each other toward
Speaker 4: getting to the beloved community, because then they gonna know
Speaker 4: before you even tell them that if Trump takes away education,
Speaker 4: these are going to be the residual impacts, and that's
Speaker 4: why we have to wake up to it.
Speaker 5: And that's the thing too.
Speaker 4: Everyone doesn't interact with those issues the same way.
Speaker 5: That's the thing too.
Speaker 1: We don't know how far he's going to go and
Speaker 1: how people will be able to stop it. We've seen
Speaker 1: a few successful instances.
Speaker 5: All right, y'all, So it's that time. It's time for
Speaker 5: some action.
Speaker 1: We've debated whether or not action or inaction works better
Speaker 1: in these times and how we fight back. So my
Speaker 1: call to action is to remember you can always do something.
Speaker 1: Shout out to our EP Lauren for submitting a question
Speaker 1: today and all of you who submit questions every single week.
Speaker 1: We are so grateful. But I will tell you never
Speaker 1: ever ever give up. In the spirit of John Robert Lewis,
Speaker 1: who did cross the Edmund Pettis Bridge, was bluddened and
Speaker 1: buddy bloody for us to ensure that our voting rights
Speaker 1: would always be protected and more broadly are civil rights.
Speaker 5: If what you.
Speaker 3: Got, I will stick with was your CTA because I'm
Speaker 3: one of those people that suspended in the onslaught of
Speaker 3: all these attacks, looking at it, wondering what do I do?
Speaker 3: And so if I if I could do something, you
Speaker 3: guys tell me if this is even realistic. I would
Speaker 3: like to build some sort of infrastructure that immediately protects
Speaker 3: our people to engage in harm reduction because I don't
Speaker 3: know how to stop the onslaught. But I look at
Speaker 3: the work of Fred Hampton, I look at the work
Speaker 3: of the Black Panthers, and they had, like you know,
Speaker 3: the free food program, They had a whole education system.
Speaker 3: You know, that is something that feels right to me.
Speaker 3: That is something I feel like I could latch onto.
Speaker 3: I don't have the time, capacity or ability to lead it,
Speaker 3: but I could certainly work in something like that. That's
Speaker 3: just an idea, and I think ideas matter. So I
Speaker 3: want to hear from you guys. Tell me what you
Speaker 3: think I should be doing, what y'all are doing. If
Speaker 3: you are feeling despair at Angela's point, answer her question
Speaker 3: about how you move past that despair and any ideas
Speaker 3: because ideas matter. So yeah, that's my my CTA. And
Speaker 3: just thank you to Andrew for teaching us organizing every
Speaker 3: other week, and to Angela for your tireless ever. I
Speaker 3: don't know how you how you do it, but thank
Speaker 3: you to you both for at least being in it.
Speaker 3: And shout out to the people who do feel like me, like,
Speaker 3: what what is any of.
Speaker 4: This stopping like how you're not giving enough credit to yourself.
Speaker 4: You're in it, friend, I know you will.
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm in it, and like writing about a
Speaker 3: bearing witness to it, but I don't feel like I'm doing.
Speaker 4: If somebody will be able to one day read that
Speaker 4: and take from it some action steps on how to
Speaker 4: survive it. All of us are reflecting back on moments
Speaker 4: that preceded us as inspiration, every one of us, and
Speaker 4: so there's value you. There's big value well.
Speaker 3: I remember when we were in Miami at Kim Blackwell's conference,
Speaker 3: shout out to him Blackwell, and we had a similar
Speaker 3: question and Angela, you said that if you're tired, maybe
Speaker 3: someone else is not tired in the same way that
Speaker 3: you are, so collectively you can build that work. And
Speaker 3: when we say grassroots, grassroots is just your neighbor, you
Speaker 3: could be wealthy in doing grassroots if you're talking to
Speaker 3: your neighbors about something that's grassroots. So I know there's
Speaker 3: something I just I want to do something tangible. I
Speaker 3: think the target thing also feels like it will. There's
Speaker 3: a tangible result in that, and you give people hope
Speaker 3: in that, and then you build on that hope and
Speaker 3: go to the next thing. So I don't know that
Speaker 3: I'm just suspended in it. I don't want to spread
Speaker 3: by despair, but I want to hear from you Algy.
Speaker 4: Not spreading it. I think what we were doing is
Speaker 4: we're normalizing the conversation so that we can move more
Speaker 4: people past it. You know, it shouldn't be a roadblock
Speaker 4: for us, right and my CTA is issued to us,
Speaker 4: which is in these moments of dispair, I would like
Speaker 4: to know who gives permission for the joy, who brings
Speaker 4: the joy, who helps us experience There's not one of
Speaker 4: us who could wake up every single day, day in
Speaker 4: day out, just pushing the rock up the heel, because
Speaker 4: at some point you get tired and you need somebody
Speaker 4: else to tap in. Or we got to sleep in
Speaker 4: shifts and somebody's on this time and somebody else is
Speaker 4: on this time. But even that requires a space for
Speaker 4: renewal and joy. And if I would say something as
Speaker 4: an observation of what it's felt like since Trump is
Speaker 4: there's been a lot of no joy for me because
Speaker 4: unlike them, we don't bask in the destruction of our neighbors, friends,
Speaker 4: church members, classmates, coworkers, and colleagues. That's not how we
Speaker 4: get our thing off. It works for them, but not
Speaker 4: for us. So I love for us to be intentional
Speaker 4: about creating the permission structure for joy while we fight.
Speaker 5: I love you well with all of that. Thank you
Speaker 5: all so much for tuning in today.
Speaker 1: This again us episode seventy of Native lamppod and just
Speaker 1: one moment while I'll tell you how many days it's
Speaker 1: too many days until midterm elections that hopefully we get
Speaker 1: to see it's six hundred days remaining. And with that
Speaker 1: we thank you all so much. Know that new episodes
Speaker 1: do still drop every single Thursday and Friday is our
Speaker 1: mini pods, solo pods our Monday and Tuesday.
Speaker 5: We guide y'all cover wall to wall.
Speaker 1: Except for Wednesdays when we record this here podcast. If
Speaker 1: you need more, check out Politics and Off the Cup
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