Speaker 1: Welcome to Woke AF with me Danielle Moody. While I
Speaker 1: wanted to start the year with a fresh perspective, things
Speaker 1: don't always go as planned. The incitement of literal riots
Speaker 1: at the US Capitol has shaken this country to its core,
Speaker 1: and this week I've been doing my best to balance
Speaker 1: wellness and wokeness both in my life and on my podcast.
Speaker 1: I want to share some nuggets for my conversations this
Speaker 1: week with my friends Ellie Mistel, Justice correspondent for the
Speaker 1: Nation and Anita Copatch, author and spiritual psychologists, which you
Speaker 1: can hear right now and full at patreon dot com
Speaker 1: slash woke AF. Later on you'll hear Anita talk about
Speaker 1: how wellness and wokeness actually go hand in hand and
Speaker 1: how you need one to feed the other. But first,
Speaker 1: my dear friend Ellie joined me on Thursday show to
Speaker 1: discuss how we as a nation cannot and will not
Speaker 1: get well until we get woke and take action against
Speaker 1: these seditious dissidents who incited a white supremacist riot in
Speaker 1: our nation's capital. Take a listen. So I want to
Speaker 1: start at the very very top, where you say, look
Speaker 1: at all these calls for unity, right that you knew
Speaker 1: we're coming, that I knew we're coming, That basically every
Speaker 1: mildly conscious black person knew would be happening. This is
Speaker 1: what they always do, right. The white people at the
Speaker 1: Constitutional Convention want unity and comedy with the slavers and
Speaker 1: colonists who were raping and holding our brothers and sisters
Speaker 1: in bondage right after the first unity call after the
Speaker 1: Civil War, Abraham Lincoln, great emancipator, out here with charity
Speaker 1: for all and malice are well, fuck that, I want
Speaker 1: some malice for these insurrectionists who just started a five
Speaker 1: year civil war. But no, no no, no, we have to
Speaker 1: have unity with our Southern brothers and sisters. Right. It
Speaker 1: happens all the time that every time white people get
Speaker 1: crazy and violent, the white people who weren't crazy and
Speaker 1: violent want to embrace and how and understand and a
Speaker 1: commission studies about the grievances of their brothers. Right. They
Speaker 1: never want to hold them accountable, which is why they
Speaker 1: are always permissive of white supremacy, white anger, and white violence.
Speaker 1: What could we do, Corey Bush? Absolutely, legally, it's relatively
Speaker 1: easy to expel a member of Congress. You make a rule,
Speaker 1: and then you vote on it, and if more people
Speaker 1: vote on it than not, that member is expelled. It's
Speaker 1: actually not that hard if you have an underlying crime, right,
Speaker 1: like it's it would be hard to just say, like
Speaker 1: I don't want Ted Cruz to be in Congress because
Speaker 1: he's an asshole, Like that's that's not enough, but a
Speaker 1: seditious asshole. Well, well now you tell me more, tell
Speaker 1: me right, maybe we can do something about that. So yeah,
Speaker 1: the spelling members of Congress is not often used, but
Speaker 1: it's not particularly hard to do if you have enough
Speaker 1: congress people willing to do it. The Congress sets their
Speaker 1: own rules. Congresses like a club. They set their own
Speaker 1: rules of entry at some kind of basic level. But
Speaker 1: I think more than that, and really even more than
Speaker 1: going after Ted Cruise and Josh Alvey, who absolutely should
Speaker 1: be expelled, the very first level of accountability has to
Speaker 1: start with the people who a rioted and you know,
Speaker 1: attack the capital, right and all that, many of whom
Speaker 1: have not yet been found or arrested. It has to
Speaker 1: start there, and it has to start with the people
Speaker 1: who directly incite it the riot on the day of
Speaker 1: the riot. I am here for discussion theoretically of how
Speaker 1: Ted Cruise is adoption of the election fraud lie Like,
Speaker 1: I'm here for that discussion. But first we have to
Speaker 1: get Don Junior, who sat there for five minutes telling
Speaker 1: these crazy people go fight for Trump, Go fight for Trump.
Speaker 1: First we have to get Moe Brooks, who sat there
Speaker 1: for fifteen minutes and told his people this is the
Speaker 1: day we start taking names and kicking ass. First we
Speaker 1: have to get Rudy Giuliani, who ordered them to have
Speaker 1: a trial by combat. And first we have to get
Speaker 1: Donald Trump, the president, who spent two hours whipping these
Speaker 1: people up in a frenzy and telling them to march
Speaker 1: on the Capitol and find his vice president and quote
Speaker 1: make him do the right thing. All right, these people
Speaker 1: got to go now, all right, way before we get
Speaker 1: to Holly and Cruise and you know, Matt Gates, all
Speaker 1: of whom are dicks who should have some kind of
Speaker 1: accountlatily brought to them. But before we get to that,
Speaker 1: we have to legally hold accountable and punish the people
Speaker 1: who directly inside it the violence they would do it
Speaker 1: to black people. I wrote in the Nation, I took
Speaker 1: people back to two and seventeen during a protest for
Speaker 1: Alton Sterling, Louisiana man who was just shot to death
Speaker 1: by the coll when he was in a prone position.
Speaker 1: Black Lives Matter organizers like Deray McKesson and Brittany pack
Speaker 1: At Cunningham were arrested after one of these protests because
Speaker 1: one guy, one guy who was not them, who did
Speaker 1: not know them, through a brick at a cop. Ye,
Speaker 1: all right, he hurt his foot or something through a
Speaker 1: brick at a cop, and they arrested the organizers for
Speaker 1: inciting the violence. Even though Deray and Brittany are not
Speaker 1: out here saying let's throw bricks at cops. Fight the
Speaker 1: cops throw bricks at them. They're not saying that, but
Speaker 1: they got arrested anyway. They were eventually released. The injured
Speaker 1: cop actually sued Deray for his injuries and Deray had
Speaker 1: to fight him all the way to the spring court.
Speaker 1: All right. So that's what they do to black people.
Speaker 1: If you do that to black organizers of protests, the
Speaker 1: very least we can do is arrest Don Junior, Moe Brooks,
Speaker 1: Rudy Giuliani Trump once he's out of office and no
Speaker 1: longer protected by the Office of the Presidency, and arrest
Speaker 1: these people for inciting a riot. That is the first
Speaker 1: level of accountability. If we don't have that, at least
Speaker 1: we don't only have anything. Let me ask you this though, Ellie,
Speaker 1: because it turned out right that the Department of Justice,
Speaker 1: which is still currently under the Trump regime, has decided
Speaker 1: that they are not going to prosecute anyone for incitement, right,
Speaker 1: meaning any of the folks that were at this bullshit
Speaker 1: Save America rally. However, DC Attorney General right an office
Speaker 1: is actually looking into this. We know that we have
Speaker 1: but a handful of days left until Merrick Garland is
Speaker 1: the new Attorney General of the United States. Talk to
Speaker 1: us about the kind of pressure that is going to
Speaker 1: be necessary to get done exactly what it is that
Speaker 1: you just said. These people didn't find themselves on the
Speaker 1: steps of the Capitol inside the Capitol Building on their own.
Speaker 1: They were fucking led there. They were led there by
Speaker 1: Donald Trump. They were led there by Rudy Giuliani. They
Speaker 1: were led there by Don Trump Junior. They were led
Speaker 1: there by Matt Gates. They were led there by these people. Right,
Speaker 1: you can't lay out, right, all of this tender, all
Speaker 1: of this gasoline, give everybody a match and then walk away,
Speaker 1: and you have no responsibility for the fucking fire that
Speaker 1: was set. So what pressure needs to happen in order
Speaker 1: to get these things done, so that these people a
Speaker 1: year from now, five years from now, ten years from
Speaker 1: now know that, oh, actually my words do matter, that
Speaker 1: we're not just supposed to shrug it off. Well, here's
Speaker 1: my worry with the Biden administration. Right from from where
Speaker 1: I said, Barack Obama's biggest mistake was in the transition
Speaker 1: after he was elected, before he was inaugurated, when he
Speaker 1: went on this Week with George Stephanopolus, I believe and
Speaker 1: said that he wasn't going to be focused on prosecuting
Speaker 1: Dicky and people in the Bush administration for war crimes
Speaker 1: and torture because it was important to move forward and
Speaker 1: not look backward. That was Barack Obama in two thousand
Speaker 1: and eight, two thousand and nine, and I believe that
Speaker 1: was rock. I believe that was permissive of attacks on
Speaker 1: our very character and permissive of criminals. And I believe
Speaker 1: that other Republicans understood that, took note of that and
Speaker 1: realize that they can do whatever they want while cloth
Speaker 1: and power, because the Democrats will never have the stones
Speaker 1: basically ye to go back and find them when the
Speaker 1: wheel turns around and the Democrats were empowered. Note that
Speaker 1: this is not how the Republicans played right. Had Hillary
Speaker 1: Clinton won, it would have been four straight years of
Speaker 1: Manghazi hearings. By the way, more people die than the
Speaker 1: Capitol attack than at Benghazi. If Barack Obama had prosecuted
Speaker 1: his presidency like Donald Trump has, Barrock Imbaba will be
Speaker 1: in jail right now. Publicans never just move forward and
Speaker 1: move on and don't worry about the past. They always
Speaker 1: go back and settle their scores like a mom or something. Right,
Speaker 1: Joe Biden needs to prosecute these people. Yes, we cannot
Speaker 1: move forward until there is accountability. We cannot heal until
Speaker 1: the bleeding wound is staunched. I don't think that he
Speaker 1: understands that. His pick of Merrick Garland suggests that he
Speaker 1: doesn't understand that it's just incredibly rare to get white people,
Speaker 1: especially even white liberals, to take action against white racist
Speaker 1: It's just not something they're kind of. It's just not
Speaker 1: something they ever seem to want to do. We cannot
Speaker 1: move forward unless there is accountability, folks. I've been saying
Speaker 1: that for weeks now, But do you know what we
Speaker 1: also need to move forward rest. I said this on
Speaker 1: Friday's show, which you can here right now on patreon
Speaker 1: dot com. Slash Woke af that rest is part of
Speaker 1: the revolution. We cannot tire ourselves out before we even
Speaker 1: get to the starting line. I was so happy to
Speaker 1: be joined on this Friday show by my friend Anita Copatch,
Speaker 1: who talked about her work as a spiritual psychologist. Hear
Speaker 1: her thoughts on how using techniques of mindfulness and spirituality
Speaker 1: can bring wokeness into our everyday lives. How do you
Speaker 1: work with people who feel in this moment stuck, right,
Speaker 1: They do feel stuck, and they don't feel rooted, they
Speaker 1: feel weighed down. How do we help those into the
Speaker 1: space of being in flow, even if that flow feels
Speaker 1: like a tempest at times? Yeah, yeah, that's very true.
Speaker 1: So most of the people that I work with, I know,
Speaker 1: we haven't brought it up, but most of the people
Speaker 1: that I've worked with have experienced sexual trauma. And the
Speaker 1: way that I work with that because a lot of
Speaker 1: times they will feel stuck or they won't know what
Speaker 1: it is, and so I don't push them to say
Speaker 1: so much, but I create a space for them to
Speaker 1: figure that out. Right, because when we find out what
Speaker 1: it is that's holding us back, rather than someone telling
Speaker 1: us what it is, it's a much more profound effect
Speaker 1: on their healing and how they move forward because once
Speaker 1: we realize we are our own healers, that we don't
Speaker 1: say like, oh, I need her in order for me
Speaker 1: to move to this next level. And so what I
Speaker 1: do is, if they're feeling stuck, I ask those small
Speaker 1: questions like how are you feeling? You know, what is
Speaker 1: giving you anxiety? What are you sad about? What are
Speaker 1: you excited about? And it's such simple things. But as
Speaker 1: they begin to talk and say it, they come to
Speaker 1: these realizations within this space right And it's interesting because
Speaker 1: most of the people within my communities right now are
Speaker 1: feeling very motivated, which is interesting because I don't feel
Speaker 1: it all the time rightly. I'm like, let me just
Speaker 1: sit in this bed right now. Oh my gosh. So
Speaker 1: I've been getting much of my inspiration from seeing the
Speaker 1: people around me, Like it's so important to connect with
Speaker 1: your community during this time, especially if you're feeling stuck.
Speaker 1: Have an accountability of partner, have someone who can check
Speaker 1: in with you, or you can check in with each
Speaker 1: week at least because there are some people who are
Speaker 1: out there feeling very alone during these times, and though
Speaker 1: creating these spaces where you're in community, right because as
Speaker 1: we see the mirrors around us, we're able to see
Speaker 1: who we are even more clearly because you know, underneath
Speaker 1: it all, we all are all one. But there's so
Speaker 1: many different levels of healing in order for us to
Speaker 1: even get to that. You can't ask someone to buy pass,
Speaker 1: you know, their pain of what they're feeling from their
Speaker 1: experience of being black in America, right, Oh no, but
Speaker 1: we're no, I'm not going to get there until I
Speaker 1: heal all of these things, these ancestral things, like for instance,
Speaker 1: I had this experience where this person contacted me and
Speaker 1: asked me to create these things, you know, for this
Speaker 1: big event. And I was like, oh, yeah, absolutely, and
Speaker 1: I created them. And then she told me after or
Speaker 1: my team created them, right, so it's my time, my resources.
Speaker 1: She told me after that they weren't able to be
Speaker 1: vetted in time and something like that. And so I
Speaker 1: sat there for a moment and I was feeling so triggered,
Speaker 1: Like yeah, so triggered, And I was like, why are
Speaker 1: you so triggered about this Anita like, what is that?
Speaker 1: I mean tears like anger, and I was like, I know,
Speaker 1: it's not just about this, right, And I realized it
Speaker 1: was about because to me it felt like I did
Speaker 1: work for a white person and they didn't pay me.
Speaker 1: And I not only did work, I did work and
Speaker 1: I used my resources to have someone design things, you know,
Speaker 1: like it was a whole uful thing. And so I
Speaker 1: don't know if before twenty twenty I would have allowed
Speaker 1: myself to feel those triggers, right like, I probably would
Speaker 1: have been annoyed and then just moved on and did
Speaker 1: something else. But it was almost as if I couldn't
Speaker 1: help it. And so when I went into my own
Speaker 1: self counseling about it, it did. It went into those
Speaker 1: wounds of slavery. And so basically, once I had cleared
Speaker 1: that and went into that, I was able to respond
Speaker 1: without the emotional triggers, but also allow this person to
Speaker 1: know what she did, because it's especially within the millennials,
Speaker 1: there are so many people who are trying to be
Speaker 1: woke and triab to through this work. And you know,
Speaker 1: one of the things she wanted to vet was make
Speaker 1: sure that I had people of color within my organization
Speaker 1: and another organization that I raise money for. And so
Speaker 1: I just told her, I said, you know, I am
Speaker 1: a woman of color, and what is happening right now
Speaker 1: is that there is a disrespect that's happening because you
Speaker 1: asked me to do this work without letting me know
Speaker 1: that there was a possibility that it was not going
Speaker 1: to be used. Yeah, yeah, yep. So I was like,
Speaker 1: you have to realize that at every level, not just oh,
Speaker 1: let me see if they have black people working, you know,
Speaker 1: if they have enough black people where I'm like, I
Speaker 1: am a black person, right and this is it, this
Speaker 1: one on one, Like every moment is a chance for
Speaker 1: us to wake up. Every moment is a chance for
Speaker 1: us to wake up. I will leave you with those
Speaker 1: wise words from Anita Copatch. Thank you so much for
Speaker 1: checking out Woke a F. If you want to hear
Speaker 1: more of my full thirty minute interviews with Ellie and Anita,
Speaker 1: they are alive right now on Patreon, Patreon dot com
Speaker 1: slash Woke a F head over and subscribe for just
Speaker 1: five dollars a month and get access to hundreds of
Speaker 1: past shows as well as five new one hour shows
Speaker 1: every single week. I'm looking forward to expanding our vision
Speaker 1: of what it means to be woke in twenty twenty one,
Speaker 1: and your support helps spread that message far and wide.
Speaker 1: As always, power to the people and to all the people. Power,
Speaker 1: get woke and stay woke as fuck.