Speaker 1: Hello the Internet, and welcome to season three, twenty three,
Speaker 1: episode two of der Daily's Gay Yay production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: This is a podcast where we take a deep dive
Speaker 1: into America's share consciousness. And it is Tuesday, January thirtieth,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four. We're almost out of it. We're almost
Speaker 1: out of January.
Speaker 2: We all want more day, one more day? And what
Speaker 2: does that mean? It means National Plan for Vacation Day.
Speaker 2: This feels like something. This feels like very much like
Speaker 2: Blue Monday. I'm not sure this is a national day.
Speaker 2: Rather than be like why don't y'll spend money on this,
Speaker 2: they are trying to cheer us up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the pest National Day was like National fun at
Speaker 1: Work Day.
Speaker 2: Yeah, National Plan for Vacation Day, brought to you by
Speaker 2: the US Travel Association. Nailed it. And then also National
Speaker 2: Croissant Day if you're Roy Sant. Yeah, if you like
Speaker 2: to Kroi Sant, it's your day. Buttery Flicky?
Speaker 1: Can I get a croissan Is?
Speaker 2: How I like to order it?
Speaker 1: At Starbucks? You know, class at what?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's gonna have these suv egg bite bites. Man.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yes, my name is Jack O'Brien ak you got
Speaker 3: a frendom in me? You got a frindom in me?
Speaker 1: Oh, it's not your foreskin that talking about.
Speaker 3: I am the one that lives inside your mouth, under
Speaker 3: your tongue. Man, not way down south. Or you got
Speaker 3: a frendom in me?
Speaker 2: That is courtesy a Scali on the Discord, in reference
Speaker 2: to our conversation with Zara about Yeah, yeah, the little
Speaker 2: string under the tongue that is called frenum that I
Speaker 2: have been calling friendulum. But frigulum is a part of
Speaker 2: the penis, so or but lingual flint. Frenulum also applies,
Speaker 2: as many people came in to tell us medically too,
Speaker 2: was also accurate. So oh okay, good, we'll call it
Speaker 2: a book. Yeah, got it. Well, I'm thrilled to be
Speaker 2: joined as always by my co host mister Miles Press
Speaker 2: Miles Gray aka Mine Life a dragon Puppet. I must
Speaker 2: bring Uchi and no Mind Dreams, No th me underrated
Speaker 2: on t Ezy Easy. Shout out the Granberry, Shout out
Speaker 2: Nicole Adrian on the Discord. Yes, the dreaming continues with
Speaker 2: the lower levels of THC in my system. I had
Speaker 2: another one that I kept having. My partner was sick
Speaker 2: and kept vomiting on me. I hate to just start
Speaker 2: this off like that. But then it was just a
Speaker 2: misunderstanding in my dream. Somehow my medical panic turned into
Speaker 2: like that was just water. It's okay, it's okay. It
Speaker 2: was a it was a weird one. I don't know
Speaker 2: what's happening in the SubCom.
Speaker 1: Her majesty real vomit and it was like dream it was.
Speaker 2: It was like water got all over my I was like,
Speaker 2: what what's going on here right now? And then it's like, oh,
Speaker 2: it's fine, it's just water. Is just water. And I
Speaker 2: was like, oh, okay, look, it's hard to it's hard
Speaker 2: to re explain dreams after the fact because they just
Speaker 2: sound like nonsense. They do. Yeah, it is Her Majesty sick.
Speaker 2: That's what I couldn't that's what. Okay, that's good to hear. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: not at all.
Speaker 1: Miles. We are thrilled to be joined in our third
Speaker 1: seat by a writer, speaker, activist, best selling author who
Speaker 1: works on issues of race and identity in America. Her
Speaker 1: new book is Be a Revolution, How everyday people are
Speaker 1: fighting oppression and changing the world, and how you can too.
Speaker 1: Please Welcome to the show, The Brilliant, The talented Igioma.
Speaker 2: How you doing? Welcome?
Speaker 4: I am, I'm doing well. How are you?
Speaker 2: We're We're doing great, We're doing great. It's great to
Speaker 2: have you. We've we've just finished your book. We're very
Speaker 2: excited to talk about it and pick your brain and
Speaker 2: ask you questions, but not make you do any of
Speaker 2: the extra labor that sometimes you're asked to do in
Speaker 2: other spaces. Obviously, we want this to be a full conversation.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I also have to say, you are from Seattle,
Speaker 2: and the first thing I always say to every person
Speaker 2: from Seattle is dis ain't it great? Aren't the fries great?
Speaker 2: And you came with it and said it was part
Speaker 2: of your very substantial moment in your life on your wedding.
Speaker 2: So I'm glad to hear that we have we have
Speaker 2: that in common, just to start.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, sometimes it's all you need.
Speaker 1: M You don't mind because dicks aren't. Miles has very
Speaker 1: specific taste in French fries that he likes them, the
Speaker 1: texture medium, rare, you know, he likes. He likes Matt
Speaker 1: Saggi mashed potato sticks. Is that match sticks?
Speaker 2: Now?
Speaker 1: Is that always your preferred type of French fry or
Speaker 1: just Dicks. There's something about dis.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, no, I like all different types of fries,
Speaker 4: and there aren't fries like Dicks anywhere else. Like it's
Speaker 4: there's a Dicks fry and then you can't get it
Speaker 4: anywhere else. But it is a particular kind of soft,
Speaker 4: very salty thing that's beautiful. But it actually tastes like
Speaker 4: real potato, when a lot of French fries don't because
Speaker 4: it is just real potato. You can watch them chopping
Speaker 4: them up and tossing him in the fryar. But yeah,
Speaker 4: it's a really specific thing. But no, I like French
Speaker 4: fries other places, but when you want a Dick's French fry,
Speaker 4: you can't go anywhere else.
Speaker 1: That's all there is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, love it up there, Love it up there. Beautiful,
Speaker 2: You've got it all and a great miste. Well, we
Speaker 2: are going to dig into your book and just all
Speaker 2: all the work your expertise.
Speaker 1: But first before we get to that, we do like
Speaker 1: to get to know our guests a little bit better
Speaker 1: and ask what is something from your search history that's
Speaker 1: revealing about who you are or what you're up to.
Speaker 4: The Other day, I was trying to figure out what
Speaker 4: happened to seal oh like a singer. Yeah, yeah, I was.
Speaker 4: I don't know. I think like Heidi Kluon up in
Speaker 4: my feed, and then I was thinking what happened to
Speaker 4: cell And my partner was like, oh, did he die?
Speaker 4: And I said, I don't think he died, And so
Speaker 4: I spent a good amount of time. I don't know.
Speaker 4: He just seems happy. He was recently at like his
Speaker 4: sister I think, or his cousin had a film reallyas
Speaker 4: and he came and brought kids. Yeah, he seems happy.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 1: So, yeah, that's for me A lot.
Speaker 4: Of times, it's random things popping up into my head
Speaker 4: of you know, what happened to this person that, you
Speaker 4: know that used to be a part of my life.
Speaker 4: I was thinking about Jaman Hansu the other day too.
Speaker 4: Maybe it's just like really beautiful black men you know
Speaker 4: that popped up in like the nineties, and I'm like,
Speaker 4: where did they go?
Speaker 2: What happened? Yeah, what happened to Jamal Hansu? What's he doing?
Speaker 2: I mean, he's always popping up in movies all the time.
Speaker 2: And then like sometimes in roles, I'm like, Jami, you
Speaker 2: I felt like sometimes you look it's Hollywood, do you
Speaker 2: do all kinds of roles. But yeah, I'm trying to
Speaker 2: think of what the last thing I saw him in was.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I'm trying to think he was. I saw
Speaker 4: him in something just a few years ago, but it
Speaker 4: was like a really bit part with some futuristic like
Speaker 4: space thing I think I remember. Yeah, But like, I
Speaker 4: feel like he got type cast so bad, you know.
Speaker 4: I mean we're like the nineties and yeah, you know,
Speaker 4: of like he was only going to do like this
Speaker 4: trauma porn or he was so exotified because of his
Speaker 4: looks and his accent, and I just think that they
Speaker 4: really put him into a corner that made it a
Speaker 4: hard dream to get out of. And you know, and
Speaker 4: I think he has said the same, Like I think
Speaker 4: I remember some quotes from interviews in the past being like, yeah,
Speaker 4: he was absolutely type cast. But you know, my favorite
Speaker 4: memory of him is always going to be the Janet
Speaker 4: Jackson video because that's really where I just watched that
Speaker 4: on repeat, you know, in my little like preteen hormonal
Speaker 4: like explosion of like yeah, yeah, ooh, it is this
Speaker 4: incredibly beautiful human being and just washed it over.
Speaker 2: And over again. Love will never do without you. Know,
Speaker 2: we know that Jimon or jim On for what were
Speaker 2: people called him jam In too. Yeah, and I know
Speaker 2: another person I remember I went to school with someone
Speaker 2: who called him Digimond.
Speaker 4: I heard that a couple of times, like, yeah.
Speaker 2: Digital Monsters, the cartoon.
Speaker 1: Man, you know what. I think part of the reason that, like,
Speaker 1: Seal's kind of hard to search online, Like I searched
Speaker 1: Steal Urban Legend and they were like, Okay, is breaking
Speaker 1: the seal a real thing when you're out drinking? And yeah,
Speaker 1: I just feel like it's a very specific. But Seal
Speaker 1: is sixty and thriving and touring. Last time Google checked
Speaker 1: out with him.
Speaker 2: The last last tweet he had was He's playing Redondo
Speaker 2: Beach Beach Life Festival this May through May third weekend
Speaker 2: with Sting, Incubus Devo Fleet Foxes. This is a real
Speaker 2: interesting lineup. I feel like he should get higher billing.
Speaker 2: He's like on the third line.
Speaker 1: It feels right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I just want to know what crowd is going,
Speaker 4: like what how people are mixing, like like oh, we
Speaker 4: got your Fleet Foxes, we got your Sting. Yeah, Like
Speaker 4: I can see I can see whatever the ven diagram
Speaker 4: is between Sting and Seal, being very annoying, like I
Speaker 4: don't want to be in that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a lot of Yeah, there's a lot of
Speaker 2: Obama third term if I could, and I feel like.
Speaker 1: Then you add the fleet Foxes into that, ven diagram
Speaker 1: becomes pretty Yeah, there are three separate circles.
Speaker 2: Suddenly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh no, what is something you think is overrated?
Speaker 4: Self care?
Speaker 1: Self care is over.
Speaker 2: It as in like the way it's being defined in
Speaker 2: mainstream culture or what what dimension of it?
Speaker 4: Or yeah, no, I mean I think a lot of it.
Speaker 4: I mean I think that the one, you know, self
Speaker 4: care being really pushed is this tool to kind of
Speaker 4: help us recover from hyper capitalism and kind of putting
Speaker 4: it on ourselves stead of looking at like systemic harm
Speaker 4: and why we're so exhausted and you know why we
Speaker 4: would need to recover in the first place. This idea
Speaker 4: that it's something that could be sold to you, the
Speaker 4: idea that we recover from systemic issues on an individual basis,
Speaker 4: just yeah, all of it. The fact that you could
Speaker 4: fail at caring for yourself, you know, and it could
Speaker 4: be enough lift Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah's your fault.
Speaker 1: Yeah, not grinding hard enough on that self care ship.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, right.
Speaker 4: Oh you you don't. You know, you don't have any
Speaker 4: sick time, and you're exhausted and you're working fifty hour weeks.
Speaker 4: Have you tried doing yoga on your list day? You know?
Speaker 2: Have you tried a heated weighted blanket exactly? Are you
Speaker 2: sure that won't help you feel terrible about edgemonic forces
Speaker 2: that are acting upon your life constantly? No, that's so
Speaker 2: true because now the way you say that, it like
Speaker 2: makes self care feel like the paper straws, like what
Speaker 2: that is to the environment, where it's like I don't
Speaker 2: look at that causes you idiot? Just yeah, fucking where
Speaker 2: a blanket that's shaped like a robe, and drink some
Speaker 2: tea and take a bath and just sort of let's
Speaker 2: let's let those real things meld away while it's a distraction. Wow. Okay, yep, Jema,
Speaker 2: thank you for that one. Yep, because it's true, like
Speaker 2: I feel like even like it might like in therapy,
Speaker 2: there is like an element of self care that is
Speaker 2: more just about being kind to yourself, but then as
Speaker 2: a way to sort of be like, this is how
Speaker 2: we get around the stress, the real stresses of like
Speaker 2: our really inequitable, unfair world, to be like just just
Speaker 2: try self care rather than yeah, empowering ourselves and the
Speaker 2: myriad of ways we can do, like for the many
Speaker 2: examples you have in your book are probably a more
Speaker 2: effective way to use that energy. For sure.
Speaker 1: I like to get into really negative self talk about
Speaker 1: how badly I'm doing it self care, you know, like
Speaker 1: you're fucking this up just in the spa, relaxing at
Speaker 1: myself in the mirror.
Speaker 2: Man, don't do that.
Speaker 1: Oh no, what is something you think is underrated?
Speaker 4: Community care? Absolutely? Like I think every time that we
Speaker 4: are in times of strife and stress and you know
Speaker 4: a spoiler alert, we're going to be increasingly in those
Speaker 4: as time progresses. I don't think everyone kind of is like, oh, well,
Speaker 4: when we're over this, over what over?
Speaker 1: In stage capitalism, twenty twenty three was just a bad year.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's all ready for the next off.
Speaker 4: We'll get back to normal soon. Yeah. It's the idea
Speaker 4: of leaning into community for healing and being a part
Speaker 4: of community healing, finding healing in community, being part of
Speaker 4: healing community as a way of sustaining us. As an
Speaker 4: acknowledgment of what has sustained us, I think is devalued highly.
Speaker 4: I mean, not only do we see this in how
Speaker 4: people responded to the ongoing COVID pandemic right where you
Speaker 4: actually people were mocked for prioritizing community care, and we
Speaker 4: saw the way which you know, we treated our children
Speaker 4: like we had our children home for a year and
Speaker 4: we're they were being told they're falling behind, falling behind.
Speaker 4: Who how can you fall fall behind when every student
Speaker 4: is the whole world and that you know. Yeah, but
Speaker 4: even now, when we think about how we're told to
Speaker 4: address societal issues, you know, the idea is to like,
Speaker 4: you know, like girl boss your way out of it,
Speaker 4: or you know, all these things instead of saying, hey,
Speaker 4: you know, why are you here? What has gotten your
Speaker 4: your community through these times in the past, What is
Speaker 4: kind of in our blood? And that's communal care and
Speaker 4: we can get a lot out of it when it's
Speaker 4: true communal care. You know, that's not like one subset
Speaker 4: of the population sacrificing themselves for the whole, but instead
Speaker 4: people seeing each other and their wholeness and caring for
Speaker 4: each other and recognizing are shared. You know, survival is
Speaker 4: one of the most longstanding and important tools we've had
Speaker 4: for resilience and resistance and joy and growth. And everything
Speaker 4: in our society and especially i'd say in an American
Speaker 4: culture and you know the quote unquote Western culture, it's
Speaker 4: treated like this really backwards, slow, you know, poverty inducing
Speaker 4: way of living.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh, you can't bootstrap it on your own. Well
Speaker 2: then what's that point? Yeah, it does look like that.
Speaker 2: And then even when you look at things like food
Speaker 2: not bombs and groups like that who are being like, well,
Speaker 2: we are actually going to care for the people that
Speaker 2: are in need of the community, and then you have
Speaker 2: you know, local government being like this is illegal, like
Speaker 2: and trying to completely you know, devalue that kind of
Speaker 2: practice and make it illegal. Is I think a really
Speaker 2: good example of how like to your point, it is
Speaker 2: something that we've been doing naturally to care for each other,
Speaker 2: but we were finding a way to sort of obscure
Speaker 2: that and turn into like a negative because I think, yeah,
Speaker 2: the momentum of something like that is more like mutual
Speaker 2: aid or intersectional thinking, and that's probably doesn't benefit the
Speaker 2: current situation. As you say, if ND stage, do we
Speaker 2: feel like there's a concerted effort to erase like the
Speaker 2: just community like that, I guess I'm just trying to
Speaker 2: think of, like you know, movies and things like that
Speaker 2: that I think are like shape how we view different
Speaker 2: parts of history. And like just the fact that.
Speaker 1: Like bowling used to be used to be a big
Speaker 1: deal in America.
Speaker 2: Like I just I remember hearing this NPR story where
Speaker 2: they were like, yeah, like everybody used to like go bowling,
Speaker 2: like the whole society was based Like all these cultures
Speaker 2: are based around like people just like going bowling on
Speaker 2: a weekend night and like seeing their entire town there.
Speaker 1: Or I think church is the other example. Do we
Speaker 1: think that there's like a concerted effort to like cut
Speaker 1: those things out of the stories that we tell ourselves
Speaker 1: or is that just because we are so like at
Speaker 1: a cellular level taught to be individualistic that like they
Speaker 1: just aren't in the stories that we tell from history.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think it's a conservative effort. I mean we
Speaker 4: look at like if you think of the movies and
Speaker 4: heroes of the movies, it's always this this one individual
Speaker 4: when alone, or we look at suggests I'm a you know,
Speaker 4: the idea of a self made millionaire or billionaire, which
Speaker 4: is ridiculous, right, It pulls us, you know, away from collectivism.
Speaker 4: Collectivism has always been you know collective consciousness collective care
Speaker 4: has always been the enemy of systemic oppression because that's
Speaker 4: where we can lean into our real power and where
Speaker 4: we don't need people to speak for us and make
Speaker 4: decisions for us. And so yeah, it is erased all
Speaker 4: of the time, like the amount of ways in which
Speaker 4: people will, you know, try to be like no one
Speaker 4: helped me, you know, even though I did this all
Speaker 4: my own, Like, yeah, I didn't. And also that's really sad, but.
Speaker 3: That's always so sad for you.
Speaker 2: But I guess, yeah, and I think that's where like
Speaker 2: our American ego gets involved, Like and that's why I'm
Speaker 2: so unique, you see, because I had no, oh advantages,
Speaker 2: and I'm selectively remembering that my father gave me a
Speaker 2: three hundred thousand dollars loan, okay, but then I did
Speaker 2: it all by myself after that, And it's sort of
Speaker 2: part of that way to just differentiate ourselves in this
Speaker 2: very like individualistic way for sure. Yeah, yeah, and I
Speaker 2: think like it is probably it is. I feel like intentional, right,
Speaker 2: because even as we've talked about on the show and
Speaker 2: even examples in your book, Joma, like we're we're trying
Speaker 2: to take certain details even out of our educational narratives
Speaker 2: that we're giving children, like whether that's like the kinds
Speaker 2: of things Ron DeSantis is trying to do in Florida
Speaker 2: and obscuring like you know, we have people being like
Speaker 2: slavery was actually like a great work study program, or
Speaker 2: like trying to reduce like like have those kinds of
Speaker 2: takes in history books or the other example I've heard
Speaker 2: from one of the people in your labor chapter about
Speaker 2: how there's no real discussion about like the labor movements
Speaker 2: and why those are important. They're just like, yeah, there's
Speaker 2: a Department of Labor next chapter the USDA, And you're like,
Speaker 2: what you know, because if we're not taught that as kids,
Speaker 2: and if those aren't the lessons, then yeah, we have
Speaker 2: we don't have a great frame of reference to lean
Speaker 2: on when like those kinds of moments arise where we
Speaker 2: need to have that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, let's uh, let's take a quick break
Speaker 1: and we'll dive into the book and just all the
Speaker 1: amazing work that you do.
Speaker 2: We'll be right back.
Speaker 5: Ye, and we're back, and Geoma, your book is in
Speaker 5: part about like you know, everyday people, you know as
Speaker 5: the as the subhet says like how every day people
Speaker 5: can fight oppression like you don't have to be born
Speaker 5: into it.
Speaker 1: It's very hopeful, as we've been talking about, because I
Speaker 1: think a lot of people feel despair and not, you know,
Speaker 1: weighted down by all all these systems. But I just
Speaker 1: want to start with your story because I heard you
Speaker 1: talk about you were working and marketing before you kind
Speaker 1: of came to the work that you do today. So
Speaker 1: I'd just be curious to hear kind of about that
Speaker 1: transition from the world of marketing to getting into doing
Speaker 1: the really important work you do.
Speaker 4: Know, yeah, I would say, you know, for me, I
Speaker 4: think and for many people actually in the book, a
Speaker 4: lot of it is necessity, right, we come to this,
Speaker 4: especially if you are a you know, population primarily targeted
Speaker 4: by systemic oppression. You know, I was working and doing
Speaker 4: what I had to do to raise my family, and
Speaker 4: you know, in Seattle that means you're in tech. So
Speaker 4: I was in marketing for a tech agency and then
Speaker 4: for the auto industry doing digital marketing and advertising, and
Speaker 4: I was in an incredibly toxic environment for a long time.
Speaker 4: I was the only black person, the only woman in
Speaker 4: my entire department, and you know, living in an environment
Speaker 4: that likes to pretend that because the majority of its
Speaker 4: voters voted a particular way, that it had no work
Speaker 4: to do on race or racism. And I was still
Speaker 4: a black woman at Freytas and coming to this work
Speaker 4: really for me what was sparked when Trayvon Martin was murdered,
Speaker 4: and that was when I just had to have a
Speaker 4: space to express how I was feeling my fear, my outrage,
Speaker 4: my heartbreak and talk about you know what this meant
Speaker 4: for me and people I loved in New and Seattle,
Speaker 4: because I was in a space where I was surrounded
Speaker 4: by people who were saying, oh, it's so sad. You know,
Speaker 4: good thing, you don't have to worry about that here.
Speaker 4: You know, good thing you don't live in Florida, and
Speaker 4: not recognizing the amount of fear I had every day,
Speaker 4: you know, sending my kids out in the world, watching
Speaker 4: my brother when my brother was on tour at the
Speaker 4: time as well, and he is, you know, six foot
Speaker 4: four black man, and you know, feeling, oh, my gosh,
Speaker 4: y'all the biggest spider. Did you see that?
Speaker 2: Just yeah, that was wild. It actually looked like a
Speaker 2: glowing like.
Speaker 4: It's like coming back up now what I'm sorry.
Speaker 2: Oh we're going.
Speaker 4: Hey, what it's doing? Provided it gets back up.
Speaker 2: There, it's eating the other insects.
Speaker 1: And it also made me realize how people like think
Speaker 1: they see ghosts, because I thought I saw a ghost,
Speaker 1: like a spirit, just like down for a second.
Speaker 4: Well, anyways, back to the system. Yeah, I just I
Speaker 4: needed to express it. I felt like I was kind
Speaker 4: of going crazy, and I don't see that lately. It
Speaker 4: felt like I was in an alternate reality where I
Speaker 4: was feeling all of this anguish and heartbreak. And I
Speaker 4: would go to work with people who said they really
Speaker 4: cared about these issues, and they'd be like, oh, look
Speaker 4: at the shoes.
Speaker 2: I thought, how's your day?
Speaker 4: You know, I just it wasn't impacting them, and they
Speaker 4: didn't want to talk about it. And so I started writing,
Speaker 4: really just trying to get coworkers, friends, community members to
Speaker 4: discuss this and look at this on a more local level.
Speaker 4: Writing had been a great love of mine. You know,
Speaker 4: as a child, I had wanted to be a writer,
Speaker 4: but you know, I was also a black woman caring
Speaker 4: for a family, and the thought of going into a
Speaker 4: creative field was just not feasible for me. At that time,
Speaker 4: and so I just started writing and people started responding,
Speaker 4: not the people I intended to, like not you know,
Speaker 4: I've lost a lot of friends, but other people in
Speaker 4: the area. And so first it was like other black
Speaker 4: people in Seattle being like, oh my gosh, someone shared
Speaker 4: that Facebook post or that blog post and no one
Speaker 4: has described what it's like to live here in such
Speaker 4: a way before for me. And then it was just
Speaker 4: like random calls from like, you know, the New York
Speaker 4: Times and like being like, hey, we saw that you
Speaker 4: were you know, we saw this post you made. Can
Speaker 4: we reprint it? And I'm like, what's happening? Because I
Speaker 4: had no intention at the time to build a writing career, right.
Speaker 4: And the funny thing about it is when you enter
Speaker 4: a space where you can really speak freely and openly
Speaker 4: as a black woman, after decades, you know, I was
Speaker 4: in my thirties of always kind of trying to check
Speaker 4: part of yourself at the door for your own safety
Speaker 4: and protection, you can't really like shove that back in
Speaker 4: a box, you know. Like, once I had a space
Speaker 4: where I could just I was being super honest about
Speaker 4: what I was seeing and feeling and being really outspoken.
Speaker 4: Then going back and spending you know, ten hours a
Speaker 4: day in this pretty exclusively white male space where you know,
Speaker 4: that was incredibly hostile to my existence. I couldn't be
Speaker 4: quiet about it anymore, and so making the leap to write.
Speaker 4: You know, I was absolutely getting more requests to write things,
Speaker 4: but really it was I'm either going to get fired
Speaker 4: from this job or I'm going to leave this job
Speaker 4: and see what I can do with this voice that
Speaker 4: people seem to be responding to. And so I made
Speaker 4: that leap with no savings, no real plan B. And
Speaker 4: you know, luckily, I guess from a life of growing
Speaker 4: up incredibly poor or the ability to withstand you know,
Speaker 4: that changed for a while and build upon it. And
Speaker 4: you know, eventually my lovely agent, Laurie Bramer, reached out
Speaker 4: to me and asked if I wanted to write a book,
Speaker 4: and I thought about it, and a couple of years
Speaker 4: later I did, and you know, the rest is kind
Speaker 4: of history.
Speaker 2: Right, And I feel like, you know, like, with this book, right,
Speaker 2: be a revolution. You know, revolution is this term that
Speaker 2: I think is at the forefront of so many people's
Speaker 2: minds because we're like in this liminal space where we're like,
Speaker 2: what like the way we're doing shit is terrible. But
Speaker 2: where do we go? Like, you know, a lot of
Speaker 2: people are like, I know a lot of this stuff
Speaker 2: is not serving us at all, and that there's I
Speaker 2: don't need any more proof about this, But what do
Speaker 2: I do now? And we always hear about like you know,
Speaker 2: whether it's a cynical version like we need a revolution
Speaker 2: here in this country or other people's like we need
Speaker 2: to have a like internal like a societal revolution here.
Speaker 2: Whatever it is about our values, it feels like I
Speaker 2: feel like for a lot of people, feels like an
Speaker 2: overwhelming topic with very rigid definitions, like if it isn't
Speaker 2: a mass movement, then it isn't revolutionary. Or if it
Speaker 2: isn't cataclysmic instant change, like instantly in one big moment,
Speaker 2: then that's not revolution. How do you sort of define
Speaker 2: it in sort of our own roles within that framework,
Speaker 2: because I think you really do a great job of
Speaker 2: helping connect people to this idea without sort of having
Speaker 2: the whole thing of like do I you to put
Speaker 2: on a three tip, three cornered hat and grab a
Speaker 2: musket and get on my horse type of thing, or
Speaker 2: is it about sort of what we're able to do
Speaker 2: what we're putting out there. So how would you sort
Speaker 2: of define that or help people understand like the sort
Speaker 2: of this as a concept without getting into the overwhelming
Speaker 2: parts of it.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Absolutely, I would say first that there is revolution
Speaker 4: happening every day on large and small levels, and where
Speaker 4: we are directly challenging and kind of breaking the chains
Speaker 4: of systemic oppression, whether that's the way it's been pushed
Speaker 4: upon us internally, how we deal with each other, our
Speaker 4: systems large or small, well, where we are doing that work,
Speaker 4: where you're doing revolutionary work, And there are so many
Speaker 4: levels of this, so it doesn't you know, have to
Speaker 4: reach a certain threshold to be revolutionary. Every aspect of
Speaker 4: it is and so there's always work to do, and
Speaker 4: it can seem like a lot, But the good news
Speaker 4: is that you could literally decide right now to do
Speaker 4: a piece of it, whether that's you know, looking at
Speaker 4: your own personal indoctrination and how you see yourself and
Speaker 4: how you have been asked to be a part of harm,
Speaker 4: whether it's looking at what's being taught in your kids'
Speaker 4: school and saying, hey, I'm going to have this conversation
Speaker 4: and really open up, you know, try to open up
Speaker 4: space and safety for these young people in these classrooms.
Speaker 4: There is always something to be done, and it's important
Speaker 4: to recognize that people are doing it and that the
Speaker 4: story of that is often a race. The truth is
Speaker 4: is the vast majority of our systems don't serve a
Speaker 4: lot of people, especially our bipock populations and are queer
Speaker 4: and trans and disabled by populations. It doesn't serve us,
Speaker 4: and therefore we've had to create revolutionary systems that you know,
Speaker 4: we are tweaking and experimenting with every day because we
Speaker 4: don't have any alternative. And yet people don't talk about that,
Speaker 4: and they really erase it so that you will think
Speaker 4: there's nothing to be done instead of saying what is
Speaker 4: being done? Because every day, like even you know, listening
Speaker 4: to some of the stories that people I was talking
Speaker 4: to and watching them revolutionize their own lives and the
Speaker 4: people around them, and even if that's just two or
Speaker 4: three people total, that's huge, especially if we consider all
Speaker 4: of us kind of taking those steps, we can make
Speaker 4: some really big change.
Speaker 2: Do you think that people that are sort of beginning
Speaker 2: to be interested in justice movements or justice work they
Speaker 2: fear that term for like because of just sort of
Speaker 2: how like sort of sort of nebulous. It is in
Speaker 2: our minds, so like instantly when we hear revolution, like
Speaker 2: we're thinking like literal historical revolutions that have occurred in countries,
Speaker 2: rather than this idea of like being a node within
Speaker 2: a system of change that is consistently sort of espousing
Speaker 2: like these different values that would help bring about that.
Speaker 2: Do you think that is like that that's sort of
Speaker 2: an obstacle for people who are who are like, I
Speaker 2: know stuff's bad, but like I don't know revolution am
Speaker 2: I don't know if I'm like a revolutionary kind of person.
Speaker 2: Do you think that sort of plays into sort of
Speaker 2: like the apathy for lack of a better word for
Speaker 2: some people.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think the fear right because we like to
Speaker 4: paint these very extreme pictures of what change looks like,
Speaker 4: and that's been done on purpose. Right, So when we
Speaker 4: look at you know, systems, and they talk about systemic change,
Speaker 4: a lot of times people will immediately turn towards this
Speaker 4: really violent imagery because they want to they want to
Speaker 4: make it seem like something that people can't join in on.
Speaker 4: But I think it's also really important to recognize that
Speaker 4: even in our histay where we see what is known
Speaker 4: as violent revolution or very like active military type revolution.
Speaker 4: What you also have for years and years of social
Speaker 4: revolution that happened before and after, and where that doesn't happen,
Speaker 4: we actually see a lot of harm. Right, So the
Speaker 4: real work is about how we see ourselves, how we
Speaker 4: relate to each other, how we structure our systems. Often
Speaker 4: what makes news is first the violent response to that,
Speaker 4: and then how people withstand that, and that can often
Speaker 4: look like the quote unquote revolutions that we see in news. Right,
Speaker 4: We're not seeing people immediately going I'm gonna even when
Speaker 4: we think we do, I'm going to go and I'm
Speaker 4: taking a gun and I'm overthrowing like that is not
Speaker 4: actually what we're seeing. What we're usually seeing is years
Speaker 4: of social and political revolution happening, a violent response, and
Speaker 4: then people meeting that response, and that's that little snippet,
Speaker 4: That little piece is what meets makes the news. But
Speaker 4: then afterwards we don't see the continued work of healing
Speaker 4: from that, of growing from that of redefining. But that
Speaker 4: is done in large and small spaces every day, and
Speaker 4: it's done in ways that are so quiet it doesn't
Speaker 4: make headlines because people don't want us to know it
Speaker 4: can be done that way. It doesn't mean that there
Speaker 4: will never be violent responsible and we saw that even
Speaker 4: in twenty twenty, right, we saw people taking guns to protests,
Speaker 4: right to shoot peaceful protesters because this idea it could
Speaker 4: that you know, it was a revolution. It was called
Speaker 4: a revolution because people were revolutionizing how they thought about
Speaker 4: systemic racism. And then people said, oh, let me get
Speaker 4: my gun and stop it. Right, And the idea of
Speaker 4: it being violent, even now, like in history books, is
Speaker 4: likely going to come down and looking like black people
Speaker 4: were in this violent uprising and not we were part
Speaker 4: of this beautiful, moral, intellectual revolution that was met with
Speaker 4: an incredibly violent response because anything that threatens systems is
Speaker 4: considered a mortal threat to the systems, right, and they're
Speaker 4: going to treat it violently regardless of what tactics we have.
Speaker 4: And so I want people to look at that and recognize, like,
Speaker 4: how much do I actually know what perspective everything I've
Speaker 4: thought about as far as revolution, What perspective have I
Speaker 4: been given? Who's writing these stories and what really happened?
Speaker 4: And you know, think about what does it mean to
Speaker 4: get people to change their minds? Because you can't do
Speaker 4: that at a point, you know, what is it getting
Speaker 4: people into the streets, What is getting people to say
Speaker 4: we want a new system? That's the actual revolution?
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we talk a lot on this show about the
Speaker 1: sort of attempt to kill our imagination when it comes
Speaker 1: to alternate systems to you know, capitalism, policing, human engaging.
Speaker 1: You know, these are systems that have physical captured us
Speaker 1: because they're the systems we live inside, but they've also
Speaker 1: captured our imagination, like they're the systems that our movies
Speaker 1: take place inside. I always go back to movies because
Speaker 1: I think they have a profound impact on like how
Speaker 1: people kind of view parts of the world that they
Speaker 1: haven't experienced. And like there's like movies about cops a
Speaker 1: lot for a lot of our history. And it's been
Speaker 1: said that it's easier to imagine like a zombie apocalypse
Speaker 1: than the end of capitalism. And like that's why this
Speaker 1: book is so exciting, because it focuses on telling these
Speaker 1: stories and creating these alternatives. So I'm just curious, like
Speaker 1: how you came, how you approached that work, and then
Speaker 1: if there are any specific stories of these like alternative
Speaker 1: systems that you've seen people successfully implement that that you
Speaker 1: think will are particularly helpful for you know, people's ability
Speaker 1: to imagine a world outside of the systems of capitalism, policing,
Speaker 1: and human caging.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I would say, you know, as first of my approach,
Speaker 4: you know, there were some people I knew that I
Speaker 4: wanted to talk to right away, people I had been
Speaker 4: in community with, in movement work with. But really I
Speaker 4: was looking at, what are the places where we're seeing
Speaker 4: change happening or burgeoning, change that doesn't get talked about.
Speaker 4: What are these stories that are really inspiring with people
Speaker 4: who've been you know, on the ground doing this work
Speaker 4: for a long time. And then you know, I started
Speaker 4: asking as I was talking with people, like who's inspiring you,
Speaker 4: who's you going? Who do you really want to see
Speaker 4: in these pages? And it really brought me into these
Speaker 4: spaces that even I hadn't known existed before, and you know,
Speaker 4: work that people were doing that I didn't know existed.
Speaker 4: And I really hope that when people go through this book,
Speaker 4: but they'll see is that wherever your interests lie, wherever
Speaker 4: your skills lie, there's space for you to make really
Speaker 4: courtant change. And so a lot of the things that
Speaker 4: I wasn't even sure were going to interest me, like
Speaker 4: as someone who is you know, Okay, So I you know,
Speaker 4: I love things and I'm highly critical of capitalism, right,
Speaker 4: which I think is is a pretty universal idea. So
Speaker 4: I wasn't exactly thinking like I'm going to have a
Speaker 4: chapter on business and to people able to do you know,
Speaker 4: because I feel like we have like those weird books
Speaker 4: of like do business Better and it's like not you.
Speaker 1: Know, entrepreneur way to systemic change?
Speaker 5: Right right?
Speaker 2: Oh? Okay?
Speaker 4: And so you know when I was talking with like
Speaker 4: Richie Masida in the book and actually reaching out to
Speaker 4: talk with him about his Success Stories project, which is,
Speaker 4: you know, an amazing organization that seeks to help men
Speaker 4: caught up in the prison industrial complex heal from violent
Speaker 4: white supremacist patriarchy. And he was like, actually, I want
Speaker 4: to talk about my abolitionist business. And I was like what,
Speaker 4: you know that I had not set out for that,
Speaker 4: but hearing him talk about this reimagining and taking these
Speaker 4: principles that he had dedicated so much of his life
Speaker 4: to and saying I'm going to apply it everywhere I'm
Speaker 4: and yeah, I want to have this coving company and
Speaker 4: I want to apply it here, and I want to
Speaker 4: see if I can do something completely different with this
Speaker 4: was really beautiful, and it totally you know, caught me
Speaker 4: off guard because I really wasn't planning on including that
Speaker 4: in there, and you know, looking at that and saying, oh,
Speaker 4: even in these everyday things, we can actually challenge a
Speaker 4: lot of assumptions and try something really creative and see
Speaker 4: what we can, you know, see how we can further
Speaker 4: live these values. They don't just exist in one space.
Speaker 4: We don't say I'm a movement worker right now, and
Speaker 4: so I care about liberation when I'm marching, But then
Speaker 4: you know, my relationship with my family, my children, and
Speaker 4: my coworkers is going to be highly patriarchal and hierarchical.
Speaker 4: You know, that's not how this goes. And you can
Speaker 4: actually be quite revolutionary by just simply saying all of these,
Speaker 4: you know, statuses I'm sharing. What if I live that,
Speaker 4: I what if I said every everywhere that I'm you know,
Speaker 4: interacting with people or systems, I'm trying to bring those
Speaker 4: values into that well.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think that's really important too, because we're
Speaker 2: in such a social media centric age where there is
Speaker 2: a lot of like this you know, digital activism for
Speaker 2: lack of a better word, where it's like, sure, I
Speaker 2: will retweet or share something like and I see this
Speaker 2: so often too, Like I mean, in twenty twenty, it
Speaker 2: was amazing how many people were like digitally on their shit.
Speaker 2: You know, I was like, oh, okay, okay, only for
Speaker 2: it to fizzle out pretty quickly thereafter. Unless I think,
Speaker 2: especially for people who weren't part of these communities that
Speaker 2: were at the highest risk. What is the challenge that
Speaker 2: we should be laying out to people who are like Okay,
Speaker 2: clearly you feel like this is something worth saying. I
Speaker 2: will share my handle on social media to rebroadcast this message,
Speaker 2: but I just can't quite get there. Is it, Like
Speaker 2: what sort of examination do we need to do, like internally,
Speaker 2: whether that's like I mean, like what your whole chapter
Speaker 2: on ableism had me really like inspecting my own beliefs
Speaker 2: and how limiting my own beliefs were around that and
Speaker 2: how much you know that is sharian Stare sort of
Speaker 2: metaphor was about like how ableism is just intertwined with everything,
Speaker 2: especially because we're in this capitalist mindset about productivity and
Speaker 2: what productive bodies do or do not do. So like,
Speaker 2: what are the what are the kinds of steps I
Speaker 2: think that everyone can do, because I think many people
Speaker 2: are like, I know what has to be done. I
Speaker 2: can live. For me as a black and Asian person,
Speaker 2: I'm very able to. It's very easy for me to
Speaker 2: speak about anti Asian racism or anti black racism things
Speaker 2: like that, but ableism a little bit different. My life
Speaker 2: isn't intersecting with those kinds of things as much. I
Speaker 2: try to talk about other issues around transphobia and homophobia
Speaker 2: as much because I do know people in like in
Speaker 2: those communities. But what sort of like what are what
Speaker 2: are the kind of nudges we need to be giving
Speaker 2: ourselves to be Like, Okay, our head's in the right place,
Speaker 2: but now let's let's take it beyond the retweet, Like
Speaker 2: how do we do that without freaking somebody out? Because
Speaker 2: again I think people think that can be very or
Speaker 2: it's just not their place. Maybe to take it further
Speaker 2: than that, Yeah, I.
Speaker 4: Would say my number one advice is to start small.
Speaker 4: So I usually advise people like, start where your interest lies,
Speaker 4: whether that's a hobby or anything like that. You know
Speaker 4: you can start with and as someone who who has written,
Speaker 4: you know, very popular books on race and racism. I
Speaker 4: get emails from people about their issues. So trust me,
Speaker 4: there is no segment. There is no hobby you have
Speaker 4: but doesn't have a systemic racist issue or a systemic
Speaker 4: compression issue. And like, you know, a couple years ago,
Speaker 4: I remember there was a big kerfluffle in the knitting
Speaker 4: community about racism as far as whose patterns get published
Speaker 4: and things like that. Right, I was getting it, I
Speaker 4: know because I get emails from people say, you know,
Speaker 4: I love advice when people are tagging me and saying
Speaker 4: you should read this book. So the truth is is
Speaker 4: you can pick that one space and say, what's happening
Speaker 4: in this space? How are people moving through this space
Speaker 4: or have access to this space? Who's invited to this space?
Speaker 4: How is it different from my experience? And where does
Speaker 4: my privilege And so if you just pick that one
Speaker 4: little space, if you love knitting and you're saying who
Speaker 4: you know whose patterns get published or who gets to
Speaker 4: go to writing conferences and get seen, or who's appropriating
Speaker 4: culture and these sorts of things, I'm going to focus
Speaker 4: on this and I'm going to go, you know, look
Speaker 4: for the voices of people who have been talking about
Speaker 4: this because people do not suffer in silence. And I'm
Speaker 4: just going to start here. I'm going to learn as
Speaker 4: much as I can about this one little space, and
Speaker 4: I'm gonna learn to leverage my power in that space,
Speaker 4: because chances are if you're in that space, you have
Speaker 4: some level of power or privilege or knowledge that makes
Speaker 4: you better suited to start there. Once you have that
Speaker 4: idea and you're listening to people who are saying, yeah,
Speaker 4: you know what, like I went to this conference in
Speaker 4: nice tree, like crap, and I would really love it
Speaker 4: if organizers would do this. Okay, you have an action now, right,
Speaker 4: you have a thing you can join in on, you
Speaker 4: can ask about. But once your knowledge deepens about that
Speaker 4: and you start to see how it works, you'll be
Speaker 4: surprised at how quickly you can apply that to other spaces.
Speaker 4: And you can hear other people talking about what problems
Speaker 4: they're having, and you'll have a reference and you can
Speaker 4: be like, oh, you know what, that is actually so
Speaker 4: similar to how it's set up in the knitting space.
Speaker 4: You know, let me me support you with any way
Speaker 4: I can, and I get it now, and I'm not
Speaker 4: starting from scratch, right, And it's a great way to start.
Speaker 4: And you know, even in the book, you have people
Speaker 4: like Ian Head in the book, Who's you know, foundation
Speaker 4: for his incredibly meaningful legal aid work helping you know,
Speaker 4: incarcerated people advocate for themselves and helping to you know,
Speaker 4: get the important verdicts on stopping frisk policing started with
Speaker 4: his love of hip hop. You know, it's started because
Speaker 4: he loved to wrap right and delving into that and saying,
Speaker 4: what is happening? What is the reality for these musicians
Speaker 4: that I love who are trying to, you know, really
Speaker 4: tell me what's going on and what can I do here?
Speaker 4: And branching from there, you know, ended up with a
Speaker 4: lifelong passion and mission that he has found incredibly rewarding
Speaker 4: and has had real measurable impacts on community. So I
Speaker 4: think it's so important for people to recognize that, you know,
Speaker 4: wherever people exist in systems like these issues happen, and
Speaker 4: therefore it matters that we address it. So it doesn't
Speaker 4: always have to be I'm going to look at who's
Speaker 4: the president and I'm going to focus here, or I'm
Speaker 4: only going to focus on police brutality. It's I can
Speaker 4: focus in my one space because every day people are
Speaker 4: being impacted, and it will give me the context to
Speaker 4: also be able to stand in solidarity on these other
Speaker 4: larger issues.
Speaker 1: Let's take a quick break, we'll come back. We'll keep talking,
Speaker 1: and we're back. And you know, we've been covering this
Speaker 1: show has been we've been doing this daily show for
Speaker 1: a long time, and you know, covering the incredibly consistent
Speaker 1: energy pushing back against ideas like defund the police and
Speaker 1: abolitionism coming from places like the New York Times, you know,
Speaker 1: places that coming into adulthood, I had been told where
Speaker 1: like liberal or progressive, And it feels like there's a
Speaker 1: lot of parts of the mainstream media that have kind
Speaker 1: of pushed past the idea of defunding the police, like
Speaker 1: it's settled law among people that like defund the police
Speaker 1: was bad politics, Like everybody heard James Carvill say it,
Speaker 1: and they're like, well, I guess guess that's true.
Speaker 2: If that old swamp creature says it, that old snake
Speaker 2: say it, then I don't like that. Yeah, that's backwards idea.
Speaker 1: But how I'd just be curious to hear from you
Speaker 1: on like, how are you seeing progress made in the
Speaker 1: fight for abolishing the current system of like policing and
Speaker 1: human caging. Maybe just talking about like what is abolitionism
Speaker 1: currently as you see it, and what are the areas
Speaker 1: that abolitionists are currently working on.
Speaker 4: I mean, yeah, I would say it's incredibly broad abolitionism.
Speaker 4: You know, people have multiple understanding of understandings of it,
Speaker 4: but the one I worked from is abolitionism is the
Speaker 4: fight to end enslavement, incarceration, and the exploitation of people
Speaker 4: that is based in the model of chattel slavery. And
Speaker 4: so what we are in is a continuation of that
Speaker 4: of chattel slavery and that exploitation of people, in the
Speaker 4: imprisonment and enslavement of people, and we see it in
Speaker 4: the ways in which our systems have built. Now, that
Speaker 4: is broad, because we actually see that in our mental
Speaker 4: health system, we see this in our quote unquote child
Speaker 4: welfare system, and we see it in our incarceration systems,
Speaker 4: in our school systems. And so there are a lot
Speaker 4: of different places to fight this and say, you know,
Speaker 4: people have the right to their own autonomy. We don't
Speaker 4: have the right to say that only certain people deserve freedom,
Speaker 4: deserve liberation, deserve a second chance, deserve to learn and
Speaker 4: grow and change and be a part of community, and
Speaker 4: that we will look at the problems we face as
Speaker 4: a community and with the fundamental belief that as a
Speaker 4: community we can solve it because these problems don't exist
Speaker 4: in a vacuum. If these problems are rooted in society
Speaker 4: and community, in our systems, then we can solve them.
Speaker 4: And I think that that is fundamental to this work.
Speaker 4: And so you know a lot of people will try
Speaker 4: to fight that and say, you know, with fear mongering, well,
Speaker 4: if there's no cops tomorrow, what are you going to do?
Speaker 4: As if there isn't a process, isn't the system? And
Speaker 4: often I would say, you know that fear mongering glazes
Speaker 4: over how incredibly brutal the reality is, right, which is
Speaker 4: that you know, we have a system that does nothing
Speaker 4: to deter harm our crime, that is stealing away large
Speaker 4: percentages of our population, that is leading to the deaths
Speaker 4: of hundreds, if not thousands of people by police officers
Speaker 4: every year, that is leading to the thefts of children
Speaker 4: from black, brown and Indigenous homes, That is leading to
Speaker 4: the forced treatment and incarceration of mentally ill people. And
Speaker 4: we're not safer, We're no safer, right, and so this
Speaker 4: idea that trying something new would be worse how much.
Speaker 2: Yeah than this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a system that like insert you know, exports
Speaker 1: brutality into the world that we live in, right.
Speaker 4: And reinforces societal inequities that create brutality, that create harm
Speaker 4: and violence, and you know, and I think that's why
Speaker 4: we're forced at all of these you know, stories and
Speaker 4: cop shows of if it weren't for a cop, you know.
Speaker 4: And I think one of the most important things that
Speaker 4: was said to me by Jenia Kahn years back. You
Speaker 4: were talking and they said, you know, cops can't prevent crime,
Speaker 4: they can only respond after it's happened. And yet we
Speaker 4: act as if that's the eposoite, like you can't you know,
Speaker 4: unharm someone with a police officer, and if anything, they're
Speaker 4: showing up and creating a whole new level of crime.
Speaker 4: And so this idea that it would make us safer
Speaker 4: just doesn't make any sense. And so I think it's
Speaker 4: important to recognize, like that there's something so deeply hopeful
Speaker 4: and beautiful and abolitionism in that fundamentally it believes in people,
Speaker 4: like it believes that we can actually solve this that
Speaker 4: no one is irredeemable, that we can look at societal
Speaker 4: issues and address them and change the way that we
Speaker 4: relate to each other, that we can heal each other,
Speaker 4: and that yes, we can address safety at the same time.
Speaker 4: And it doesn't mean it's perfect, but oh my goodness,
Speaker 4: what we have right now is is causing more harm
Speaker 4: than good. And so that means that there's so many
Speaker 4: different ways in which we can do this work, and
Speaker 4: you can pick different spots, and yeah, it can seem
Speaker 4: like we'll never get there right that we're not going
Speaker 4: to have a time where there aren't policing, But every
Speaker 4: time that we can kind of remove the task given
Speaker 4: to policing InCAR thural systems, every time that we can
Speaker 4: dismantle pieces of it and strengthen alternatives, we're doing really
Speaker 4: important abolitionists work. And we can do that and still
Speaker 4: say this shouldn't exist. So I always say that, like,
Speaker 4: it is abolitionists to say I don't want cops in schools.
Speaker 4: It's abolitionists to say that, you know, people need to
Speaker 4: be given alternatives to incarceration. It is abolitionists to say
Speaker 4: that people shouldn't be given, you know, forced treatment for
Speaker 4: mental health issues against their will. It is abolitionists to
Speaker 4: do all of these. And I can say that work
Speaker 4: for and saying I don't want any cops, you know,
Speaker 4: I can say that right while also working towards these
Speaker 4: things that are available to me right now.
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, I think especially when it relates to policing, right,
Speaker 2: and we, like you said, the status quo is violence
Speaker 2: is dysfunction is increased harm. It's not solution based, it's
Speaker 2: not about identifying root causes. Yet so many people are
Speaker 2: so frightened to make the change that like the fear
Speaker 2: instantly turns like passionate defenses of the status quot. So
Speaker 2: then the next thing that you get offered, especially from
Speaker 2: legislators politicians, is our reforms. Right, and we talk a
Speaker 2: lot about reform is not we're just We're just you're
Speaker 2: just putting different, a different code of paint on the
Speaker 2: same problem. How do you sort of like balance obviously
Speaker 2: the need for these kinds of like deeper changes or
Speaker 2: these different like different kind of emphasis alongside like the reforms,
Speaker 2: because a lot of the times you get these sort
Speaker 2: of these debates now where people are like, well, don't
Speaker 2: let the perfect be the enemy the good. They're saying
Speaker 2: they're built and cops to use a slightly lighter baton
Speaker 2: or something, and we're supposed to be like, oh, okay, yes, sure,
Speaker 2: but like, how do we sort of in a world
Speaker 2: where if people are so focused and able to say, like, no,
Speaker 2: like a lot of our crime is because of desperation
Speaker 2: or lack of support. That's what we need to be doing.
Speaker 2: I don't want to hear about anything unless I mean
Speaker 2: talk to me when we're getting rid of qualified immunity
Speaker 2: or something like that. How do you how should people
Speaker 2: sort of like look at this balance of understanding what glacial,
Speaker 2: incremental sort of reform can do versus trying to like,
Speaker 2: for lack of a better word, hope for something revolutionary,
Speaker 2: something different, something that's sort of upending the status quo.
Speaker 4: That's a great question, and it is something that we
Speaker 4: talk about in the book. It's so vital that we
Speaker 4: understand the difference between like true liberation, liberatory work, and
Speaker 4: harm reduction and recognize what's neither, because a lot of
Speaker 4: what we say is police reform is neither harm reduction
Speaker 4: or liberatory work, and we have to say, at least
Speaker 4: give us some harm reduction, right, So it's really important
Speaker 4: to listen to the people most impact by it, and
Speaker 4: people who are actually you know, experts on this from
Speaker 4: the perspective of communities harmed, right, and say no, this
Speaker 4: doesn't work, and we know this doesn't work, and listen
Speaker 4: to that and be really really clear, because people will
Speaker 4: sell you anything and call it revolutionary, and then we
Speaker 4: will they'll label, you know, harm reduction as like this
Speaker 4: huge attack on the system and we're not even getting
Speaker 4: to like the meat of it. Harm reduction matters, absolutely matters,
Speaker 4: because the truth is is, if we have these long term,
Speaker 4: big goals, we have to be alive to get there, right.
Speaker 4: But that means we have to be honest about what
Speaker 4: it is. And so you know, when first of all,
Speaker 4: if it's offered to us by the system, throw it away.
Speaker 1: You got that idea, Oh okay.
Speaker 4: We don't want that, right, You got to listen. We
Speaker 4: have to listen and listen to the communities who've been
Speaker 4: building alternatives, right, because communities wouldn't we build alternatives. Some
Speaker 4: of those are revolutionary, some of those are harm reduction, right,
Speaker 4: And so we already kind of know what direction works
Speaker 4: and what direction doesn't. And so when it comes to
Speaker 4: issues that are as big as like policing and say
Speaker 4: we would hate you know, we don't want this system here.
Speaker 4: You know. Harm reduction, you know, would be things like one,
Speaker 4: you know, getting police out of officers out of schools. Right,
Speaker 4: the systems still exist, but we don't need the officers
Speaker 4: in schools. Studies have shown time and time again that
Speaker 4: you know, it leads to an increase in arrests of
Speaker 4: black and brown and indigenous and disabled students with no
Speaker 4: actual reduction in harm. And it's not in whether they're
Speaker 4: you know, arrested, has no ties to violence in schools,
Speaker 4: drugs and schools or anything like that. It's just do
Speaker 4: you have black students? Do you have cops? Now? We
Speaker 4: have more black students arrested, so we know it doesn't work, right,
Speaker 4: So harm reduction would be you know, getting them out,
Speaker 4: and that isn't you know, it's an abolitionist practice in
Speaker 4: that it is, you know, getting them out, but it's
Speaker 4: not getting rid of the system. Other ones would be
Speaker 4: you know, before you start referring making calls kicking kids
Speaker 4: out of school and getting them in these pipelines, you
Speaker 4: know what who oversees that? Right? Who approves that? What
Speaker 4: records do you have? Whatever things are you trying first?
Speaker 4: Those are all things that are really important to look
Speaker 4: at while staying while recognizing if the system still stays
Speaker 4: in place, it's not getting rid of the system, and
Speaker 4: so we can work towards that, push towards that don't
Speaker 4: accept anything that re entrenches the system. And so retraining
Speaker 4: always re entrenches the system. Retraining is never going to
Speaker 4: be a harm reduction. It's just putting more money into
Speaker 4: a system and asking you know, and we've shown that
Speaker 4: they don't come out, you know, gentler kind or more
Speaker 4: understanding of community. They come out with more police officers,
Speaker 4: you know, and they come out with more levels of
Speaker 4: excuses for why they're doing what they're doing. And so
Speaker 4: just listening to community on that is really really vital.
Speaker 4: But when it comes to every day and if you're
Speaker 4: looking at smaller things we can do, you know, if
Speaker 4: you live in an area that has cash bail programs,
Speaker 4: getting rid of cash bail is one of the most
Speaker 4: vital things you can do right now, right you know,
Speaker 4: in Washington here we have like pay to stay where
Speaker 4: people actually have to pay for their incarceration if they
Speaker 4: work out a deal and they want to go in early,
Speaker 4: so that they aren't away from their family for three
Speaker 4: years and maybe six months, they have to pay for
Speaker 4: every day that they're in there, and so, you know,
Speaker 4: things like that are wild classes basist, and getting rid
Speaker 4: of that doesn't get rid of the system. But it's
Speaker 4: also a really really important step that we can take
Speaker 4: right now to reduce the numbers of people caught up
Speaker 4: in this popular in these systems, and how long they're
Speaker 4: caught up in them, and that gives us what we need,
Speaker 4: the strength we need in community to keep fighting.
Speaker 1: Just how do you think about the pushback from the
Speaker 1: mainstream media? Just that that's been something that I've tried
Speaker 1: to get my head around, trying to picture the editorial
Speaker 1: meetings at these you know, major journalistic institutions where they decide,
Speaker 1: let's go with this story where the police are the
Speaker 1: only source for the information. Do you think of that
Speaker 1: as being put in place by powers, like architecturally structured
Speaker 1: to put this power in place, Because I also feel
Speaker 1: like there's also some some desire for that narrative coming
Speaker 1: from below also, like from the readership, And I'm just wondering,
Speaker 1: like how you think about that, Hey, does that inform
Speaker 1: how how you approach people when you're trying to talk
Speaker 1: to them about you know, the car soural system and
Speaker 1: you know, things like that. There's this big infrastructure of
Speaker 1: power and money that is like trying to keep these
Speaker 1: institutions in place. But then there's also people who are
Speaker 1: just like really quick to believe the the bullshit stories.
Speaker 1: And I don't know if it's because that's what they've
Speaker 1: always had, if it's because you know, it preserves their
Speaker 1: feeling of superiority and protection, but just just interested to
Speaker 1: hear your thoughts on that.
Speaker 4: I think it's a mix of things, right. So one,
Speaker 4: I do think that if people were, you know, if
Speaker 4: the reality of systemic oppression were laid bare for all people,
Speaker 4: and the way in which people have been made to
Speaker 4: participate in the impression of others was laid bare for
Speaker 4: all people, that people would decline to participate in that,
Speaker 4: especially if they were able to see how it impacts
Speaker 4: their own personal safety. No one is safe in a
Speaker 4: police state, whether or not we've been told we are.
Speaker 4: Even if you have privilege, only the very select few are,
Speaker 4: and often that is only for a limited time. But
Speaker 4: you know, that is something that people don't want, and
Speaker 4: so that is often kept from the people who are
Speaker 4: made to participate most, right, people with the most privileged.
Speaker 4: The reality of how unsafely are is something that many
Speaker 4: of us can't escape, you know, and which is why
Speaker 4: we're often the first and the most outspoken about trying
Speaker 4: to change it. But that unsafety exists for everyone, and
Speaker 4: that culpability exists, and people want to avoid it, and
Speaker 4: people have been protected from it, and they're you know,
Speaker 4: their bellies are soft to it, you know what I mean,
Speaker 4: Like they're they don't they haven't built up that tolerance
Speaker 4: for it and have been told that they would fall
Speaker 4: apart if they knew the reality that they couldn't handle it,
Speaker 4: and they're fed a constant diet of fear. When we
Speaker 4: look at our media, and this constant fear of the other,
Speaker 4: fear of this danger that is pumped into people. Right
Speaker 4: we look at these shows where it's just this random
Speaker 4: person gets a thirst for blood and is out murdering
Speaker 4: people who's going to come help you, or you know,
Speaker 4: like this, you know gang violence where the gang leaders
Speaker 4: are just soul as creatures who popped out of nowhere
Speaker 4: and they're going to take over your city if you don't,
Speaker 4: you know, have this people are fed that and people
Speaker 4: who don't have that firsthand experience with the reality of
Speaker 4: these systems and are living this completely alternate reality and
Speaker 4: are being told no other reality exists that you know,
Speaker 4: you would feel comfortable calling a cop knowing they could
Speaker 4: help you get your cat out of a tree or whatever,
Speaker 4: and you'd be safe and everyone would because that's your reality.
Speaker 4: Challenging that makes the world terrifying, right, It can make
Speaker 4: the world team really terrifying. Challenging how you've been made
Speaker 4: a part of it can seem really terrifying. It can
Speaker 4: make you feel really powerless in a way that you know,
Speaker 4: many of us have never had the luxury of avoiding.
Speaker 4: And people will put up walls around that. And it
Speaker 4: has little to do with intent. It has You can
Speaker 4: say you care, you know, and you love, But if
Speaker 4: you're not actively challenging these ideas and willing to sit
Speaker 4: with that discomfort, then you'll have a problem. And people
Speaker 4: don't want to hear it, right, People really don't want
Speaker 4: to hear it. They don't want it to land on
Speaker 4: their doorstep. If they are thinking about things like police brutality,
Speaker 4: they want the name of the one cop that they
Speaker 4: can yell at and blame because if it's a system
Speaker 4: and they're, you know, paying taxes into that system, if
Speaker 4: they've been supporting that system, if they voted for the
Speaker 4: candidate who said they'll bring law and order and safety
Speaker 4: to their area, knowing that that men it would increase
Speaker 4: cops in black and brown communities, right, then there's a
Speaker 4: whole level of culpability. And if that thing that they've
Speaker 4: been pouring money and effort into would endanger their disabled child,
Speaker 4: they don't want to know. They don't want that, they
Speaker 4: don't want that reality, and so it's really important that
Speaker 4: we challenge it while also showing that people are building
Speaker 4: alternatives and that idea that we could build something else
Speaker 4: is kept from a lot of people who've never had to.
Speaker 4: And so it's always wild to me when people say, well,
Speaker 4: what are you going to do? You know, what are
Speaker 4: you going to do? If someone read you, that's the
Speaker 4: thing people say a lot to me, right, especially as woman,
Speaker 4: people will weaponize that against me. And then like, first
Speaker 4: of all, I'm absolutely a survivor of sexual assault. Many
Speaker 4: women have been, and please do anything right and my healing,
Speaker 4: my sense of safety came from the practices that, like
Speaker 4: my black and Brown community had to build to try
Speaker 4: to address this because we always knew that we weren't
Speaker 4: going to find safety in the system, and we weren't
Speaker 4: going to find repair in the system. And so, you know,
Speaker 4: those kind of ideas, these things that are thrown out
Speaker 4: erases the fact that right now, the you know, a
Speaker 4: large segment of blackground and indigenous populations, queer and trans
Speaker 4: populations absolutely know that they could never find safety in
Speaker 4: our systems and they have to build elsewhere, and they
Speaker 4: have been, but that is completely erased. You know, the
Speaker 4: ways in which we solve conflict is erased, the ways
Speaker 4: in which we ensure safety is erased, the way in
Speaker 4: which we heal each other and ourselves has been erased.
Speaker 4: And it all comes down to you have to trust
Speaker 4: this person with a gun. Nothing else has been done,
Speaker 4: nothing else can work. And so media I think plays
Speaker 4: a huge part in that they're invested in that because one,
Speaker 4: they personally don't want to investigate that, and I've talked
Speaker 4: with editors, you know, as a writer, who don't personally
Speaker 4: want to investigate it. They want to keep it in
Speaker 4: a comfortable place for them. But also they have funders
Speaker 4: who are systemically you know, invested in this, and there
Speaker 4: is a real backlash four people publicly taking a stand
Speaker 4: and saying we're going to address the real roots of this.
Speaker 4: People have been made to pay, and I do think
Speaker 4: that people are afraid of that and afraid of challenging
Speaker 4: those assumptions.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think one of the most like one of
Speaker 2: sort of inspiring passages for me or just to just
Speaker 2: to kind of put everything into perspective, right, because we
Speaker 2: started off being like revolution just feel like this scary
Speaker 2: idea and like, even though I know like we need
Speaker 2: to actually look out for everybody, true liberation is only
Speaker 2: when every single person is liberated, like even if they
Speaker 2: don't look like me or not part of my community.
Speaker 2: That there was I think it was Miriam Caaba who
Speaker 2: you were saying, like which really put this into perspective,
Speaker 2: was like it's it's not about like these big things, right,
Speaker 2: It's like I might be butchering the quote, but it's
Speaker 2: just about taking out removing just the bricks of like
Speaker 2: these oppressive systems. It doesn't have to be a wrecking
Speaker 2: ball type moment, because if if everybody's taken a brick
Speaker 2: out one by one for themselves, shit will start crumbling.
Speaker 2: That's just there's just no way for something structurally to
Speaker 2: keep it structural integrity if we're always like just kind
Speaker 2: of picking away at it. And I think that's a
Speaker 2: really important message for I think, and I really encourage
Speaker 2: our listeners to really, uh to check your book out,
Speaker 2: because we are in such a time right now where
Speaker 2: I feel like everyone feels like they're banging their heads
Speaker 2: against a wall and they're like, I'm seeing this happen
Speaker 2: right now, am I Like, but we're not doing the
Speaker 2: right things. And I think it really is an empowering
Speaker 2: message a to see these other stories of people who
Speaker 2: a lot of are starting from absolute powerlessness and then
Speaker 2: opening the door to something really really substantive and really
Speaker 2: monumental without necessarily that being the initial intention of it,
Speaker 2: of just it's more just about advocating for yourself. So
Speaker 2: I really thank you for putting all of these stories
Speaker 2: together and your words around it. Because as someone who's done,
Speaker 2: like worked from all over the political spectrum, from being
Speaker 2: a lobbyist to being like in the streets and things
Speaker 2: like that, I've always sort of grappled with these feelings
Speaker 2: of like where my power lies or how I can
Speaker 2: actually exercise that and what it means to be revolutionary
Speaker 2: or not. And I think it makes it a very
Speaker 2: accessible way and I think is very powerful, I think
Speaker 2: for people to understand that it's just about these small actions,
Speaker 2: because they all like, we can't just think we can't.
Speaker 2: We have to get out of like the superhero mentality
Speaker 2: of them, like I'm going to figure it out by
Speaker 2: myself right now. Rather than can I contribute to a
Speaker 2: community that's doing well, can I from my space say,
Speaker 2: you know what, maybe we don't need funding that's contingent
Speaker 2: upon us interacting with the police to keep our nonprofit going,
Speaker 2: et cetera, et cetera. So yeah, I just again I
Speaker 2: feel like, thank you for putting this book out, and yeah,
Speaker 2: it's really great to just be able to speak with
Speaker 2: you today. It's just been really eye opening and I'm
Speaker 2: sure our listeners have had the same experience too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, truly a pleasure. Thank you for coming on. All right,
Speaker 1: we'll have to have you back on again. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: thank you for writing this book, Thank you for coming
Speaker 1: on to talk to us about it. Where can people
Speaker 1: find the book? Find you all that good stuff.
Speaker 4: You can find the book anywhere books are sold. I
Speaker 4: highly make command if you're buying online, go to bookshop
Speaker 4: dot org or your local indie store or libro sm
Speaker 4: if you listen to your audiobooks because those all support
Speaker 4: our independent booksellers, which is super important. And you can
Speaker 4: find me. All you have to know is have spell
Speaker 4: my name. I figure you learn that you can find
Speaker 4: me on social media. Everything is under my name. You
Speaker 4: can find my substack, you can find my Instagram, you
Speaker 4: can find my Facebook. And I just hope that people
Speaker 4: love the book, engage with it and find their own
Speaker 4: little piece of revolution that they can be a part of.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's I j E O m A O l
Speaker 6: uo for people looking to spell amazing. Is there a
Speaker 6: work a media that you've been enjoying.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I have been really loving the So for me
Speaker 4: like kind of relaxing, finding a little bit of joy.
Speaker 4: Is this segment of like young black male fashion influencers
Speaker 4: who are really embracing, like really colorful, flamboyant fashion, skirts, heels, suits, cosplay,
Speaker 4: kind of turning it all into their own thing in
Speaker 4: a way that I feel like only the black community
Speaker 4: really can and I love them. So I have just
Speaker 4: been you know, wisdom k is like when I think
Speaker 4: of the pops to mind right away. But there's a
Speaker 4: lot of like these young early twenties black men who
Speaker 4: are like, you know what, I want to wear clothes,
Speaker 4: and I just want to wear things that are beautiful.
Speaker 4: And I'm going to be walking around the streets of
Speaker 4: New York in this beautiful thing from head to toe
Speaker 4: and I'm gonna blog it and I want people to
Speaker 4: see it. And I just that itself, you know, every
Speaker 4: day for our community, where so much of our definitions
Speaker 4: of my masculinity you have been externally imposed upon us.
Speaker 4: To have this younger generation say, actually, this is what
Speaker 4: this looks like for me, and I'm going to define
Speaker 4: it proudly and show it for other people to find
Speaker 4: their own definition of self is also a really revolutionary
Speaker 4: thing while also being beautiful.
Speaker 1: Look at Amazing Miles. Where can people find you? Is
Speaker 1: there a workimedia you've been enjoying?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you can find me on Twitter and Instagram when
Speaker 2: other at based platforms at Miles of Gray. Find Jack
Speaker 2: and I on our basketball podcast, Miles and jackobat host Tea.
Speaker 2: If you like something a little casual, check out my
Speaker 2: ninety Day Fiance podcast for twenty day Fiance and let's
Speaker 2: see a tweet I like is from Socialist Sopranos memes
Speaker 2: at gobble ghoul Marks. It's a picture of Polly talking
Speaker 2: to Tony and he's got his hands up and he says,
Speaker 2: all I'm saying, Tea is if they're gonna nominate Barbie
Speaker 2: for Best Picture, they probably should have nominated some of them.
Speaker 2: Broad's that was involved capture the the angst of all
Speaker 2: the Oscar snuffs in the way Socialist Sopranos Memes only
Speaker 2: knows how tweet I've been enjoying is just Kevin Durant's
Speaker 2: response to finding out that Joe El Embiid scored seventy
Speaker 2: points last week. I don't know.
Speaker 1: This one really stuck with me. Kevin Durant is my
Speaker 1: favorite basketball fan. He's like obviously one of the best
Speaker 1: players of all time, but he just gets his look
Speaker 1: of like kind of I don't know, joy and he
Speaker 1: just like kind of gets this thousand yard staris like
Speaker 1: he turned seventy al was like so excited and just
Speaker 1: a great moment to appreciate. What a great basketball fan,
Speaker 1: Kevin Durant. Yeah, you can find me on Twitter at
Speaker 1: Jack Underscore. O'Brian. You can find us on Twitter at
Speaker 1: daily Zeikeeist. We're at the Daily Zeigeist on Instagram.
Speaker 2: We have a Facebook fan page and a website daily
Speaker 2: zeikeist dot com, where we post our episode and our footnote.
Speaker 1: We link off to the information that we talked about
Speaker 1: in today's episode, as well as a song that we
Speaker 1: think you might enjoy.
Speaker 2: Wow, is there a song that you think people might
Speaker 2: have done? Yeah, Two of some of my favorite producers
Speaker 2: DJs get together every now and then. That's Kareem Riggins
Speaker 2: and mad Lib and they do this little project called
Speaker 2: the Jahari Massamba Unit, and it's just a blend of
Speaker 2: their you know, jazzy hip hop sort of roots with
Speaker 2: a little bit like African rhythm. So this track is
Speaker 2: called Masamba Apun Dance a Fu and d a Ncee
Speaker 2: and it's just a great track. And if you like
Speaker 2: Kareem Riggins or mad Lib on their own, you'll definitely
Speaker 2: love them together on this one. So this one now,
Speaker 2: all right?
Speaker 1: We will look off to that in the footnotes. The
Speaker 1: Daily Zeitgeis is a production of iHeart Radio. For more
Speaker 1: podcast from my Heart Radio is the ihart radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows
Speaker 1: that is gonna do it for us this morning, back
Speaker 1: this afternoon to tell you what is trending, and we
Speaker 1: will talk to you all then.
Speaker 2: Bye bye,