Speaker 1: Native Land Pod is a production of iHeartRadio in partnership
Speaker 1: with Reason Choice Media. Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome home, everybody.
Speaker 1: Quite literally, today, I am at my parents' home because
Speaker 1: for some reason, my power is out. I believe it's
Speaker 1: because it's the last and evil days and the wind
Speaker 1: definitely blew the power out. So I'm coming to you
Speaker 1: live for my parents and for those of you who
Speaker 1: have been asking. My mom is doing really well. She
Speaker 1: had her first treatment, chemo treatment yesterday and she is thriving.
Speaker 1: That is a strong lady, So continue to keep her
Speaker 1: in your prayers and your thoughts. Today we are talking
Speaker 1: about something that is really really important. I know for
Speaker 1: so many people in this country, particularly Black folks, it
Speaker 1: is so important that we talk about something that a
Speaker 1: lot of us were raised with. So there's a saying
Speaker 1: in the black community that we have to be we
Speaker 1: would have to work twice as hard and we have
Speaker 1: to be twice as good. So for a lot of us,
Speaker 1: this DEI conversation is particularly triggering because it's something that
Speaker 1: we grew up knowing that we actually couldn't be not
Speaker 1: as good as and couldn't not compete and couldn't put
Speaker 1: our best before we had to. So when people talk
Speaker 1: about DEI, which is diversity, equity and inclusion, and the
Speaker 1: weaponization of that, that's something that is particularly triggering to
Speaker 1: a lot of us. There are some examples of that
Speaker 1: this week that I really want to get into because
Speaker 1: if there was ever an administration that had people who
Speaker 1: were not as qualified, it is absolutely this one. So
Speaker 1: we're going to get into that, and I really want
Speaker 1: to talk about that through the lens of the myths
Speaker 1: of meritocracy. So that's where I wanted to be today.
Speaker 1: So the first thing is I really wanted to just
Speaker 1: take a step back and talk about this argument around merit.
Speaker 1: You're hearing a lot of people in the ecosystem talking
Speaker 1: about what it means to, you know, earn you spot
Speaker 1: and to not get a handout, and you know, people
Speaker 1: have to work hard. And there's this reverse discrimination happening
Speaker 1: against white Anglo Saxon Christian men, and when you look
Speaker 1: at what Donald Trump is putting into place for civil
Speaker 1: rights protections, you might think that is true. However, it
Speaker 1: is obviously blatantly false. There's not a lot of reverse
Speaker 1: discrimination happening around here, y'all, And just in a matter
Speaker 1: of weeks, he's almost even in Black History Month, taken
Speaker 1: us back to plus e versus Ferguson times, which is
Speaker 1: essentially not separate but equal, which is what the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court rule. But it's actually separate and vastly unequal. So
Speaker 1: that's where we are right now, and I really want
Speaker 1: us to lean into that through the lens of some
Speaker 1: of Donald Trump's most recent appointments. So again meritis idea
Speaker 1: that you earn your position, that if you work hard,
Speaker 1: your work will speak for itself and the doors will
Speaker 1: open to you. Well, what does it mean when racism
Speaker 1: stands in that door? Or what does it mean when
Speaker 1: somebody's connections daddy's connections, I don't know, like Fred Trump
Speaker 1: for Donald Trump, or somebody's trust fund makes the way
Speaker 1: for you or your mom or daddy made a call
Speaker 1: on your behalf. And in full disclosure, there are instances
Speaker 1: where my parents have made calls on my behalf, and
Speaker 1: I know that's the point of privilege. That's not a
Speaker 1: moment where I earn something. That's a moment where those
Speaker 1: connections come into play. When we think about legacy admissions
Speaker 1: in college, that is about having some connections that's about
Speaker 1: your parents working hard and being able to open a
Speaker 1: door for you. I think parents opening doors is not
Speaker 1: necessarily bad. But when you are literally taking opportunities from
Speaker 1: people who are overwhelmingly qualified and deserve to be in
Speaker 1: those positions, we're talking about something different. We're not talking
Speaker 1: about legacy admissions here today. We are not talking about
Speaker 1: folks of color who have earned their positions but get
Speaker 1: blanketed as DEI because they've demonized it. We're actually talking
Speaker 1: about folks who are beneficial of white supremacy and the
Speaker 1: systems that follow it. Caset indpoint. So, just last week,
Speaker 1: Donald Trump decided to fire a four star Air Force
Speaker 1: general by the name of Charles C. Q. Brown. He
Speaker 1: served as the chairman for the Joint chiefs of Staff.
Speaker 1: It is a pretty important role for those of you
Speaker 1: who don't know. The Joint chiefs of Staff is the
Speaker 1: primary advisor to the President of the United States, the
Speaker 1: National Security Council, the Homeland Security Council, and to the
Speaker 1: Secretary Secretary of Defense. So this person has to have
Speaker 1: a working knowledge of how military systems work, particularly uniform personnel.
Speaker 1: It is a very very important role. Well, it just
Speaker 1: so happens that up until the end of last week,
Speaker 1: we had a black man who was serving as the
Speaker 1: second ever black man Joint chiefs of Staff chairman. He
Speaker 1: had forty years of service. I'm going to just tell
Speaker 1: you some highlights from his bio and forty years of
Speaker 1: service he served. He went to Texas Tech, served as
Speaker 1: a US Air Force fighter. He was a command pilot
Speaker 1: with more than thirty one hundred flight hours, and he
Speaker 1: was serving in this capacity since twenty twenty. Well, what
Speaker 1: happened is he was apparently too woke for them, right.
Speaker 1: They think anything that is race conscious is woke. They
Speaker 1: think that anything that pays attention to race in our
Speaker 1: diversity is problematic because for whatever reason, we should be
Speaker 1: ambiguous and not really care because somehow race is weaponized
Speaker 1: when we just highlight race to them. So they decided
Speaker 1: to fire this four star Air Force general and replace
Speaker 1: him with a man named John kin They call him
Speaker 1: John raising Kane. He's a lieutenant general. And for those
Speaker 1: of our our military officers know that these are a
Speaker 1: military person I'll know that there is a difference between
Speaker 1: a general and a lieutenant general. So just our phase value,
Speaker 1: here's the face. Here's the face, just off phase value alone.
Speaker 1: Our general outranks the lieutenant general. So lieutenant general uh
Speaker 1: cain is what's so funny? Is you guys, I'm looking
Speaker 1: at this. This is hilarious. So on the actual official website,
Speaker 1: oh my god, it says Lieutenant Lieutenant General John D.
Speaker 1: Kin and then it just skips down to Lieutenant Lieutenant
Speaker 1: General Dan Kane. I'm assuming he goes by Dan Kane,
Speaker 1: but we know is he goes by raising Kine. I
Speaker 1: think they have a typo on this site. I wonder
Speaker 1: what the real DEI is because they got typos on
Speaker 1: this site, they better get it right. This man is
Speaker 1: a three star right, he's a three star general. He
Speaker 1: worked at the CIA as the Associate Director for Military Affairs.
Speaker 1: He was most recently the Director of Special Programs and
Speaker 1: the Department Special Sorry in the Department of Defense Special
Speaker 1: Access Program Central Office, and he served as a Principal
Speaker 1: staff Assistant an advisor to the Secretary of Defense there.
Speaker 1: This man has now been promoted to the Joint Chiefs
Speaker 1: of Staff Chairman. Now what I think is interesting here
Speaker 1: is while he's more qualified than your Secretary of Defense,
Speaker 1: Pete heg Sath, and he advises Pete Heath which I
Speaker 1: think you can determine in terms of rank, that means
Speaker 1: Pete hex Seth outranks him. Right. What is interesting about
Speaker 1: this is that they are constantly making merit arguments and
Speaker 1: claiming that DEI or diversity, Equity and Inclusion means that
Speaker 1: somebody got a door opened for them that was not
Speaker 1: deserved on qualifications, just on face value. You guys can
Speaker 1: go and look at these biles yourselves online on the
Speaker 1: official military websites to see what they're talking about. CQ
Speaker 1: Brown outranks and is more qualified than John D. Game. Okay,
Speaker 1: so that's the first thing that I wanted to talk about.
Speaker 1: The second thing is the FBI. So, and this is
Speaker 1: important because again a lot of us have fallen into
Speaker 1: these traps around DEI meaning that folks didn't earn it. Now,
Speaker 1: there are people who didn't earn it, and I'm going
Speaker 1: to get into that with this FBI nomination. But it's
Speaker 1: not black people. Like you can't look at somebody that's
Speaker 1: a person in college just be like, oh, you didn't
Speaker 1: earn it because you black sid in this role. That's ridiculous.
Speaker 1: Like you should look at people's bios, their resumes, their qualification,
Speaker 1: their gifts their talents and make a decision from that way.
Speaker 1: But now we're finding ourselves on the defense trying to
Speaker 1: prove that we belong when that's not ours to prove.
Speaker 1: You need to prove while we don't belong. And instead
Speaker 1: what's happening is a lot of corporations, company schools, universities,
Speaker 1: federal government agencies are taking a page out of Donald
Speaker 1: Trump's playbook and dismantling programs that are serving people well
Speaker 1: and are balancing the skills of justice that have not
Speaker 1: been balanced for so long in this country. They're still
Speaker 1: not so even while I'm talking to you about this
Speaker 1: military rank and joint chiefs of staff chairmen and getting
Speaker 1: ready to get into FBI, these are entities that many
Speaker 1: of my peers, me included, don't necessarily love. Like I'm not,
Speaker 1: you know, an FBI champion. I'm not about to go
Speaker 1: cut an FBI ad or do a billboard. But what
Speaker 1: I can say to you is it's important for us
Speaker 1: to understand that there should still be qualified folks working
Speaker 1: on the nation's behalf in national security entities. So the
Speaker 1: FBI cash Bettel was narrowly nominated last week. As you
Speaker 1: all know well there's another guy. You guys probably are
Speaker 1: like Dan Bogino, Dan Bongino, his name sounds familiar. Well,
Speaker 1: it's not because he's this high ranking officer in the
Speaker 1: intel community. It's not because he served so many presidents
Speaker 1: in the past. Although he has served some presidents. I
Speaker 1: will give him that as the form of a secret
Speaker 1: service officer, including for a president Barack Obama. But you
Speaker 1: probably know his name because he's a popular podcaster. This
Speaker 1: popular podcaster is your deputy director for the FBI. Now
Speaker 1: here's why that is astounding. The deputy director of the
Speaker 1: FBI has traditionally been a position that was reserved for
Speaker 1: a career official. What does that mean? So in the
Speaker 1: United States government, there's something called appointed officials, and of
Speaker 1: course there are elected officials, but there are appointed officials
Speaker 1: in the administration who work under the president and vice
Speaker 1: president appointed, and then there are career career service are
Speaker 1: folks who have engaged in work for the government, not
Speaker 1: as a part of any partisan any party. So it's
Speaker 1: not a partisan, no partisan affiliation. They are doing this
Speaker 1: in service to the American public, doing this on behalf
Speaker 1: of their country, regardless of who is at the top
Speaker 1: of the ticket. Or who regardless of who the president is.
Speaker 1: So normally the FBI hires someone in that role, that
Speaker 1: is that has had a career of serving in an
Speaker 1: intel capacity, serving in the FBI, etc. So Don Mangino
Speaker 1: has Dan Bongino. By the way, I got caught up
Speaker 1: in Madon's and Madan's today. Dan Bongino is someone who
Speaker 1: has called the FBI irredeemably corrupt. He has no experience
Speaker 1: as an officer in intel other than being a other
Speaker 1: than being a Secret Service Agency agent, which doesn't in
Speaker 1: and of itself mean you're not qualified. But it is
Speaker 1: remarkable and unprecedented. That's the word that you're gonna hear
Speaker 1: thrown around a lot. For those of us that remember
Speaker 1: when Donald Trump was elected in twenty sixteen, that's where
Speaker 1: we said all the time. Now he said unprecedented, like
Speaker 1: unpresident the president. But I'm saying unpress sedented because they're
Speaker 1: doing a lot of things that are not normal. So
Speaker 1: this is someone who is a media personality, he's a
Speaker 1: former Secret Service agent. He does not have any experience
Speaker 1: with the FBI, and they're putting him in here after
Speaker 1: saying that the thing is, you know, irredeemably corrupt. I'm
Speaker 1: sure there are many of us who hear that language
Speaker 1: and aren't alarmed by it. But I think what's remarkable
Speaker 1: is he doesn't have any experience to determine where the
Speaker 1: corruption comes from, what system needs to be dismantled, what
Speaker 1: system needs to be looked into. What you know, who
Speaker 1: can be the real watchdog for the FBI? That probably
Speaker 1: ain't Dan's role. And speaking of watchdogs, this is a
Speaker 1: also the administration that has gotten rid of a lot
Speaker 1: of inspector generals. I think there are at least ten
Speaker 1: now that are gone, so they don't want any watchdogs. Nonetheless,
Speaker 1: he is the deputy director of the FBI now, he
Speaker 1: does not have to be Senate confirmed. This is an
Speaker 1: appointment that Donald Trump can just make, and their responsibility
Speaker 1: is to supervise domestic and international operations with no FBI experience.
Speaker 1: So my question for you all today really is for
Speaker 1: us to consider who really didn't earn it? What does
Speaker 1: it really mean to dismantle DEI it sounds like we
Speaker 1: should be this mantling these same tired systems that put
Speaker 1: white men. Although I think y'all, don't you kind of
Speaker 1: think Dan is I think Dan is a brother. I
Speaker 1: think he might be black, which would make this even
Speaker 1: worse because now they're putting them in a position that
Speaker 1: he don't have no business in to be Like, see,
Speaker 1: black people didn't earn it. Y'all picked him. Okay, we
Speaker 1: didn't pick him, But I just want to say I
Speaker 1: think that what is remarkable here is that we have
Speaker 1: this opportunity to really examine who really didn't earn it
Speaker 1: and when we say these things, when you compare resumes,
Speaker 1: and what is typical, and why it isn't the best
Speaker 1: national security interests of the country to have someone who
Speaker 1: understands how those systems work, particularly when you're engaging in
Speaker 1: operations with foreign adversaries or people who are on domestic
Speaker 1: soil trying to compromise our national security. If you have
Speaker 1: no experience in doing that, what are we talking about,
Speaker 1: Like y'all see, I wouldn't earn it if y'all hired
Speaker 1: me to go run engineering at Google. That's not my expertise.
Speaker 1: You can't just put plug and play any white guy
Speaker 1: to fill a role of influence in this government and
Speaker 1: not expect for that thing to completely break. And then
Speaker 1: that begs the question, maybe they know after all that
Speaker 1: they didn't earn it, and they're totally fine with breaking
Speaker 1: systems because they don't want the system to be here anyway.
Speaker 1: And if they've anointed Donald Trump as king, we end
Speaker 1: up right where we started. So I think that is
Speaker 1: which is this is an unprecedented time. I think what
Speaker 1: we have to acknowledge is that the weaponization of diversity, equity,
Speaker 1: and inclusion is a method to distract us from what
Speaker 1: really is going on. And what really is going on
Speaker 1: is Donald Trump is trying to give favors back to
Speaker 1: people who carried his water doing this during this election,
Speaker 1: even if that means putting the entire country in harm's way.
Speaker 1: If that isn't didn't earn it, I don't know what
Speaker 1: is that is the opposite of meritocracy. The face of
Speaker 1: meritocracy and black excellence for the rest of his Black
Speaker 1: History Month and the rest it is black here is
Speaker 1: gonna be Charles c. Q. Brown. The face of didn't
Speaker 1: earn it is gonna be Pete Hackseth. It's gonna be
Speaker 1: Dan Bongino, and it's gonna be Dan not don Kine,
Speaker 1: a lieutenant general that replaced a general for no reason.
Speaker 1: He I promoted with no experience having done the same
Speaker 1: things that Charles c Q Brown has done. And Charles
Speaker 1: c q Brown was beloved. So that's all I got today.
Speaker 1: I talked a long time. Let me see what these
Speaker 1: questions are. Somebody said, was Joy Anne fired as a
Speaker 1: part of DEI reform? You know, I'm gonna tell you this.
Speaker 1: I think that nobody black on mainstream television right now
Speaker 1: is safe. I think that a lot of people are
Speaker 1: made concessions to Donald Trump and his policies, trying to
Speaker 1: ensure that they don't get fined. Because he's technically the
Speaker 1: new FCC chairman. He has decided that he is going
Speaker 1: to run the FCC, the FTC, and the SEC. Okay
Speaker 1: if in order for him to run the Federal Communications Mission,
Speaker 1: he's going to make sure that there's nobody that's criticizing
Speaker 1: him on air. And I think that we are going
Speaker 1: to see many of these systems begin to unravel. I
Speaker 1: think that Joy Read was one of his biggest threats.
Speaker 1: How do I know that because as soon as he
Speaker 1: learned that Joy was no longer at MSNBC, his response
Speaker 1: was finally, which means that Joy was on his radar.
Speaker 1: And so what we have to be aware of is
Speaker 1: as people take out black folks and Latino folks, and
Speaker 1: Asian folks and women and indigenous folks, as they take
Speaker 1: folks out under the auspices of we want to play safe,
Speaker 1: we want to make sure our business is successful. What
Speaker 1: they need to know is they're actually undermining their business.
Speaker 1: What they need to know is they're actually putting Americans
Speaker 1: in harms way. What they need to know is they're
Speaker 1: actually putting folks in the international, our greater global community
Speaker 1: in harm's way because there's nobody there to tell their stories. Now,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna tell you something that might be unpopular. We
Speaker 1: started turning TV off, TV off because we know that
Speaker 1: these media conglomerates don't want to tell these stories. That's
Speaker 1: why it's important for you to tune in to podcasts
Speaker 1: like ours. I know Joy's gonna be dropping soon something soon.
Speaker 1: You need to tune into Joyce show on what she
Speaker 1: does next. Check her out on substack on all social
Speaker 1: media platforms right now, it's important to listen to shows
Speaker 1: like Roland's Brittany. So many other people, Aaron, our friend, Aaron,
Speaker 1: so many other people who are doing amazing, amazing work
Speaker 1: informing you raw and unfiltered, because now, in order to
Speaker 1: be on mainstream media, you're gonna have to make some concessions,
Speaker 1: and they haven't maybe some of them haven't had to
Speaker 1: make them yet, but they are going to have to
Speaker 1: make them soon. And that, my friends, is what is
Speaker 1: going to put us in very very precarious positions and
Speaker 1: in harm's way. So we've got to pay attention to this.
Speaker 1: It's not DEI that they're trying to dismantle. It's not
Speaker 1: even just the Civil Rights Act of nineteen sixty four
Speaker 1: that they're trying to dismantle. What they're doing is trying
Speaker 1: to dismantle the fourteenth Amendment, which gives us all equal
Speaker 1: protection under the law. That's the thing that black folks
Speaker 1: could lean up against after slavery to say that we
Speaker 1: are indeed free and we are somebody we are in
Speaker 1: fact citizens, despite what they said in the dread Scott ruling.
Speaker 1: Those are the things that we have to know. So
Speaker 1: as they try to dial us back, not even just
Speaker 1: to Jim Crow, but to before Jim Crow, we have
Speaker 1: to pay attention. We have to call a thing a thing,
Speaker 1: and we've got to make sure that we're given accurate information,
Speaker 1: and we'll do that by any means necessary, no matter
Speaker 1: what he tries to take out. So it may be
Speaker 1: a little scary, but we're going to keep pushing. And
Speaker 1: on that note, that's all I have for you all today.
Speaker 1: Thank you all for your questions. I'll answer some other
Speaker 1: ones online. Make sure you tune in on Thursday. That's
Speaker 1: our main show, Native Lampod where we always give it
Speaker 1: to your real the best we got. We'd be fighting
Speaker 1: in there, but it's so good and we love to
Speaker 1: hear you ask questions in your comments, make sure you're
Speaker 1: sending those in. And lastly, my good brother Andrew Gillum
Speaker 1: started his solo pods yesterday on Monday. It went very
Speaker 1: very well. He's talking to y'all about how to make
Speaker 1: sure that we're organizing for the fascist regime that we
Speaker 1: are now living in. You've got to watch that show.
Speaker 1: Get organized, organize your communities. We don't know how long
Speaker 1: we'll have social media systems. We don't know how long
Speaker 1: we'll be able to upload on YouTube. We don't know
Speaker 1: how long the power y'all to power grid got attacked
Speaker 1: in my neighborhood today. We don't know how long we're
Speaker 1: gonna have these things so make sure you're organizing people,
Speaker 1: human bodies, getting phone numbers, develop a phone tree, your churches,
Speaker 1: your other places of worship, your friend groups, get organized
Speaker 1: so we don't find ourselves isolated. Okay, we can make it.
Speaker 1: And take it from a true soldier. It's not me,
Speaker 1: it's Mama Rah. She looked at the care today and
Speaker 1: she said, cancer ain't got nothing on me, and neither
Speaker 1: does this fascist. Let's go, y'all, Welcome home. Native Lampard
Speaker 1: is a production of iHeartRadio in partnership with Reason Choice Media.
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