Speaker 1: Native Land Pod is a production of iHeartRadio in partnership
Speaker 1: with Reason Choice Media Welcome Home to the Natives.
Speaker 2: On Tuesday, Tennessee was called into special session to get
Speaker 2: rid of the sole black district, majority minority district. Unfortunately
Speaker 2: that's represented by Steve Coin right now, but it is
Speaker 2: a majority minority district, and Justin Pearson was said to
Speaker 2: challenge Steve Coin in this district that Justin Pearson, of course,
Speaker 2: is the state representative there. The voices, the very voices
Speaker 2: that Elliotts are describing, are those that were protesting. Let
Speaker 2: us please roll this clip of State Senator London Lamar
Speaker 2: protesting against the Republican redistricting efforts in Tennessee just on Tuesday.
Speaker 3: Colonel Lamar, thank you, missus, speaker, but I'm not thankful
Speaker 3: to be here. I never thought in my lifetime did
Speaker 3: I be standing in a body surrounded by my colleagues
Speaker 3: who are going to erase the vote of my city
Speaker 3: and black people in Memphis. My constituents are angry right now,
Speaker 3: and just forty eight hours after this Supreme Court decision,
Speaker 3: you all decided that you're gonna slice black voters in Memphis.
Speaker 3: I need you to know this will be one of
Speaker 3: the most racist actions taken in the history of modern
Speaker 3: history of this legislature that you are participating in this week.
Speaker 3: Intentionally breaking state law to take my community's vote is
Speaker 3: downright disgusting and offensive. My grandmother, who's sinning watching of
Speaker 3: meet right now, still alive to this day, live with
Speaker 3: a moment where she could not vote, and I remember
Speaker 3: the smile on her face when her grand baby got
Speaker 3: elected in made history. And I know some of you
Speaker 3: sending in this body Ashley, don't agree with this. I
Speaker 3: know you don't, but this is an opportunity for you
Speaker 3: to have some courage, show some courage. Y'all know this
Speaker 3: is wrong. You know it.
Speaker 1: You know it.
Speaker 3: You don't have to do it. I'm calling on the
Speaker 3: soul of you to do.
Speaker 1: The right thing.
Speaker 3: Let's not carve out Memphis because you can't fairly win
Speaker 3: in a ballot box or to favor one member in
Speaker 3: this body's path to Congress. If you do this, this
Speaker 3: is racist in its intent and there's no reason for
Speaker 3: us to cut through it. Let's call it what it is.
Speaker 3: Call it what it is, show some courage. Thank you,
Speaker 3: mister speaker, potential yourself with modern history right.
Speaker 4: The crazy part about these men as though, like and
Speaker 4: this is like, my experiences is kind of unique when
Speaker 4: it comes to this stuff because I was on our
Speaker 4: I was one of the five people who drew actually
Speaker 4: drew the lines in South Carolina in twenty ten, and
Speaker 4: so I was able to travel around and do the
Speaker 4: town hall meetings and go in the rooms and actually
Speaker 4: take the maps out and go precinct by precinct with
Speaker 4: the guidelines of the Voting Rights Act and making sure
Speaker 4: we weren't going over bodies of water and splitting you know, streets,
Speaker 4: and trying to do that to the best of our ability,
Speaker 4: and getting that in South Carolina it was like thirty
Speaker 4: three thy seven hundred and one. That was like the
Speaker 4: number you were looking for. And then I had to
Speaker 4: testify in district court and then testify and then it
Speaker 4: went all the way up to the Supreme Court, and
Speaker 4: they wrote about it and all of these things. So
Speaker 4: I was able to see it from a really interesting perspective.
Speaker 4: And all of these maps stick out for one thing,
Speaker 4: they're patently legally absurd. The map that they're talking about
Speaker 4: doing in Tennessee. Take someone from downtown Memphis to be
Speaker 4: represented by the same person who represents a city two
Speaker 4: hundred miles away, Like it's patently absurd. When you look
Speaker 4: at the potential maps in South Carolina, they go from
Speaker 4: the top of the state of South Carolina, the border
Speaker 4: of Georgia and North Carolina all the way down to Buford,
Speaker 4: Like they cover hours of ground. Because what people don't
Speaker 4: understand is that black people ain't going nowhere. It's not
Speaker 4: like we're moving with the district, like the black centers
Speaker 4: in Memphis are going to be the black centers in Memphis.
Speaker 4: And so to do this, I think you're gonna have
Speaker 4: a hard time still passing the muster, even set forth
Speaker 4: by this bullshit Supreme Court.
Speaker 1: We got, well, we won't know because it's an imaginary one, right.
Speaker 1: The muster now is how they use so we're supposed to.
Speaker 1: We thought we had a guidepost when they said we
Speaker 1: still have Section two after they destroyed Section five. But
Speaker 1: then their justification here is so long as you can
Speaker 1: come up with a reasonable argument that you are removing
Speaker 1: or splitting, slicing and dicing this not because these people
Speaker 1: are black, but because you're trying to create a Republican majority,
Speaker 1: which they have created as constitutional Jerry mandering for the
Speaker 1: purpose of political advantage. And so since in the South,
Speaker 1: and I think probably all over the country, but definitely
Speaker 1: in the South, the correlation between race and political party,
Speaker 1: they're almost one and the same. Black people are Democrats,
Speaker 1: white people are Republicans. And so if you're drawing a
Speaker 1: district for political advantage, you can slice, dice, split black
Speaker 1: folks up into many subgroups, say we never recognize the
Speaker 1: power of our whole so that you can accomplish the
Speaker 1: goal of creating a Republican seat. And the member in
Speaker 1: Tennessee was simply saying, let's call this thing what it is.
Speaker 1: While the Constitution may have been plastered over by this
Speaker 1: current Republican majority in the United S of Supreme Court,
Speaker 1: giving you the s roud of dignity that you're building
Speaker 1: this for political advantage, we know you're building this to
Speaker 1: destroy black representative voice. But Cary, I thought that part
Speaker 1: of our conversation was about the fact that there are
Speaker 1: now black people in great areas in southwest Atlanta and
Speaker 1: you know, Tallahassee and the North Side and all these
Speaker 1: other places where they have argued with themselves to say, well,
Speaker 1: we can still elect a black person because we've done
Speaker 1: it in this case, and in this case, and in
Speaker 1: this case, and Ellie, I think did better than I could.
Speaker 1: I was attempting to make sure I guarded myself while
Speaker 1: I made the comment. But it's not that you're getting
Speaker 1: a poorer quality of black elected I'm not suggesting that.
Speaker 1: I am saying. However, all elected officials are not created equal,
Speaker 1: and different ones of us can do different things and
Speaker 1: show up in different ways for our community and be
Speaker 1: as effective as you can possibly imagine. But when it
Speaker 1: comes to the will, the realm of your authority that
Speaker 1: requires the public will, people have to give you your authority.
Speaker 1: They can limit it or they can expand it based
Speaker 1: on how they feel. And if you don't hear your
Speaker 1: voice being spoken the way you speak it, the way
Speaker 1: you do it, saying a thing that needs to be
Speaker 1: said the way it needs to be done, you risk
Speaker 1: losing out on a whole constituency of people who never
Speaker 1: rally on that issue because they never heard you talking
Speaker 1: about them. You may have been, but you were referring
Speaker 1: to boundaries and districts, and this person was talking about
Speaker 1: the grocery store and food on my table. So what
Speaker 1: we are being raped of, we're being just completely script
Speaker 1: of it's our ability to even in Tennessee, where they
Speaker 1: chose a white man to be their voice, the choice
Speaker 1: was still theirs as a community that could be made
Speaker 1: as a community because y'all had the we were and
Speaker 1: we weren't a single We were us and not one individual.
Speaker 1: And so now they have decided that we're so well
Speaker 1: healed we can win white votes and so we no
Speaker 1: longer need the concentrated fist to bring down its power
Speaker 1: whenever it needed to bring it down because the leader
Speaker 1: said so. And we're in compromise place, y'all, And I
Speaker 1: couldn't be more despaired by it, because I don't know
Speaker 1: what the road map looks like to overcome it. Yes,
Speaker 1: go vote, yes, organize.
Speaker 2: But you know, ag to this point, like I'm so
Speaker 2: glad you said, like you don't know where to go
Speaker 2: from here. I think that we have to understand what
Speaker 2: the bottom is and we still really don't know what
Speaker 2: the bottom is. And just for example, you all know
Speaker 2: we record our show Wednesday morning. Right before our show started,
Speaker 2: we got word that Louise Lucas, Senator Lucas out of Virginia,
Speaker 2: her office has been rated. This was proposed by Donald
Speaker 2: Trump's foe district attorney in Virginia that didn't have the credentials,
Speaker 2: that kept going after people like Tiss James, and who
Speaker 2: else did she go after in Virginia? I missing somebody
Speaker 2: Tis James and one other person. They had to throw
Speaker 2: the oh it's James, comey. They had to throw the
Speaker 2: cases out because she wasn't air tight on her way out.
Speaker 2: She suggests that it would be good for Donald Trump
Speaker 2: in midterms, energizing their base for the midterms by going
Speaker 2: after a powerhouse like Senator Lucas, who is the one
Speaker 2: of the people who championed Virginia's redistricting process to make
Speaker 2: the maps fair again, to make the electoral process fair again,
Speaker 2: by discounting what Donald Trump and his minions are doing
Speaker 2: in other Southern states. So they go after Louise Lucas today.
Speaker 3: God only knows for what.
Speaker 2: But the spectacle of an FBI raided her office of
Speaker 2: a cannabis dispensary across the lot of several other entities,
Speaker 2: dragging people out a swat tea going in. You know,
Speaker 2: I mean, that is what we're dealing with. So anybody that.
Speaker 4: Has you missed, you miss the most important.
Speaker 2: But let me just say this, anyone who has the
Speaker 2: courage to do the right thing in the face of
Speaker 2: this terrorist, this is what they're going to do back.
Speaker 2: They're trying to send a signal, a damn foghorn that
Speaker 2: if you do right, if you try to pursue, if
Speaker 2: you dare to pursue justice, and with this administration, these
Speaker 2: are the repercussions you will lose your freedom.
Speaker 1: Angelau, you're helping to draw the through line of.
Speaker 4: And it's important because Angela was Angela was correct, but
Speaker 4: she forgot one major point in her articulation of the
Speaker 4: facts arounding Louise Lucas. Fox News apparently had to wherewithal
Speaker 4: to stake it out, so they got the news first.
Speaker 4: So if there was any doubt or question, I wanted
Speaker 4: our viewers to and listeners to have the full context
Speaker 4: of what weaponization really looks like. Because the only news
Speaker 4: station that was there during the FBI raid, which, by
Speaker 4: the way, Elie, tell me if I'm wrong, but don't
Speaker 4: they usually happen right before Don or right around Don,
Speaker 4: but having it having it around lunchtime is just weird.
Speaker 4: But anyway, the only people who were there to record
Speaker 4: this was Fox News. I'm sorry, and everything else I
Speaker 4: want to say, I want to kudos, everything else, Angela.
Speaker 1: Said, I just that the through line is for me.
Speaker 1: We started talking about the election outcomes and Republicans solidifying
Speaker 1: their support behind Trump and Indiana. I am now trying
Speaker 1: to say there is no distinguishable difference between the people
Speaker 1: taking these actions and those who are empowering them to
Speaker 1: be able to do this by voting for their Republicans
Speaker 1: who are on the ballot, who are simply rubber stamps.
Speaker 1: Y'all are all the same. If you if if you
Speaker 1: wanted accountability on a runaway government, you have an easy
Speaker 1: way to do that. But but, but but this is
Speaker 1: the this is the beauty of understanding them, I think,
Speaker 1: is to see that they are in common cause despite
Speaker 1: the areas of disagreement that surface. The war may be
Speaker 1: an area of disagreements, and inconvenience, the price of gas
Speaker 1: might be an inconvenience right now, maybe a big one
Speaker 1: for some people if you are strained at every corner
Speaker 1: of your wallet. But where we still come home is
Speaker 1: that The New York Times is being sued by Trump's
Speaker 1: Equal Opportunity Office because a white man was denied a job,
Speaker 1: and a person who was non white got the job
Speaker 1: they were applying for. It is because her meat is
Speaker 1: going around advertising on online markers on the internet to
Speaker 1: white men to come and bring your case to me.
Speaker 1: Donald Trump's a hired hand to go after those people
Speaker 1: who have been taking from you, white men, what you
Speaker 1: so richly deserve. So the common cause the through for
Speaker 1: me is that I don't care how mad they get
Speaker 1: with Donald Trump. I don't care how many sound bites
Speaker 1: they offer of disagreement about his thing he did today, yesterday,
Speaker 1: or the day before, because they are still making common
Speaker 1: cause and they are still at peace with him when
Speaker 1: he is taking us out the picture, swiping us completely
Speaker 1: out the frame. So I don't have high hopes. I
Speaker 1: guess for me, if I had to go action, which
Speaker 1: is what we'll get to next. And I know we
Speaker 1: got another topic but we're gonna have to talk about
Speaker 1: after the show. But my ass would be to really
Speaker 1: come to terms people that we are not gonna be
Speaker 1: saved by anybody else. There is no gallivanting a group
Speaker 1: of Republican white folks that are going to surface this
Speaker 1: November and get us free. I don't believe it. I
Speaker 1: don't care what the polls show. I think they would
Speaker 1: may be mad today, but they gonna make common cause
Speaker 1: with the strand that runs beneath all of them. And
Speaker 1: so when you talk, we just have to do our part.
Speaker 5: When you talk about the road forward, I mean I
Speaker 5: go back to history. I go back to you know,
Speaker 5: Bakari was saying eighteen ninety six plus E v. Ferguson
Speaker 5: nineteen fifty four, Brown be boarded that what changed? What's
Speaker 5: the difference between eighteen ninety six and nineteen fifty four?
Speaker 5: And I have two answers for that. We had different
Speaker 5: Supreme Court justices and in nineteen fifty four.
Speaker 4: We had one that we had one that was that
Speaker 4: that literally transformed the court. Though Earl Warren was just
Speaker 4: a whole different beast.
Speaker 3: You know what.
Speaker 5: Katanji Brown Jackson got that dog in her right.
Speaker 3: She got thow dogs in us.
Speaker 4: But Earl Warren was a white man though, so it
Speaker 4: was a little different.
Speaker 5: Something we can, we can. We have the people that
Speaker 5: we need to have, they're just not on the court.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right.
Speaker 5: And so when I always come back to Supreme Court expansion,
Speaker 5: when I always come back to the Supreme Court reform,
Speaker 5: this is why The thing that changed between eighteen ninety
Speaker 5: six and nineteen fifty four is that we had a
Speaker 5: completely different Supreme Court by nineteen fifty four, and we
Speaker 5: have to have a completely different Supreme Court than the
Speaker 5: Roberts Court in twenty twenty six. We have to like you.
Speaker 5: There is nothing you can do if you don't change
Speaker 5: the Supreme Court, because the Supreme Court will always exist
Speaker 5: as the stop, as the retardation on progress. That is
Speaker 5: their function. They understand their function. They understand that they
Speaker 5: are there four whites, including the black one. They understand
Speaker 5: that they're there for whites. And until you change the
Speaker 5: math on the Supreme Court, you change nothing. Can so
Speaker 5: I always can I do my call to action phone? No? No?
Speaker 2: Wait wait wait is that a call? That's the call
Speaker 2: to action? I have a question?
Speaker 1: You got it? Go ahead?
Speaker 2: Okay, Sorry, Well I thought Ellie went off on a tangent,
Speaker 2: but I like that tangent and call to action. But
Speaker 2: I have a quick question for Ellie. I'm sorry, ag,
Speaker 2: but is there can you quickly like in thirty seconds
Speaker 2: so I'm not in too much trouble, my co host,
Speaker 2: can you forecast for us what you think is gonna
Speaker 2: happen in the birthright citizenship case.
Speaker 5: I think Trump is gonna lose that one based on
Speaker 5: oral arguments. I thought that was gonna be the bridge
Speaker 5: too far, and I think that they're gonna use that
Speaker 5: is to see we're not totally racist. We stared up
Speaker 5: to Trump' stuff, Like, I think that's gonna be how
Speaker 5: they go. I think they're gonna lose it seven to two.
Speaker 5: I could even make a case for eight to one,
Speaker 5: depending on what Clarence Thomas thinks I made. I made
Speaker 5: the argument that literally Thomas was not as down to
Speaker 5: get rid of birthright citizenship as I expected him to.
Speaker 5: I still think he'll I still think it's gonna be
Speaker 5: seven to two with Alito and Thomas dissenting. But I
Speaker 5: could even make a case for eight to one. But
Speaker 5: like Barrett just wasn't going for it. Neil Gorsich, I
Speaker 5: didn't think was going for it. I think he'll lose
Speaker 5: that one. Yeah, So you know, I'll come back here
Speaker 5: when we don't, when they win and e Crow.
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