Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to wok F Daily with
Speaker 1: Meet your Girl Daniel Moody recording from the Home Bunker, Folks.
Speaker 1: I am so excited. Why because it is June. It
Speaker 1: is June first, which means that it is the beginning
Speaker 1: of LGBTQ Pride Month. Now, if you've been listening to
Speaker 1: wok at for the past couple of years, then you
Speaker 1: know that I take Pride very very seriously and I
Speaker 1: try to use the month to showcase performers, entertainers, academics, authors, activists,
Speaker 1: all who are members of the LGBTQ community, as well
Speaker 1: as bring you conversations and the issues that are most
Speaker 1: impacting the community. This Pride, however, has me filled with
Speaker 1: a mix of emotions, which is what brings me to
Speaker 1: the title of this month and the theme for this
Speaker 1: month on WOKF, which is you can't ban queer Joy.
Speaker 1: You cannot ban queer joy. And why did we choose
Speaker 1: to run with this? Because what we are witnessing happen
Speaker 1: across this country is a wave of hate that I
Speaker 1: don't think that we have seen since the beginning of
Speaker 1: Pride celebrations, which began as a riot at Stonewall in
Speaker 1: the nineteen sixties, led by black, trans women and queer
Speaker 1: people who had had enough of being bullied and beaten
Speaker 1: by police on a regular basis, and on that night
Speaker 1: they fought back. One year on this show, we did
Speaker 1: Pride as a Riot as a reminder of the founding
Speaker 1: of Pride that we have seen in many ways become
Speaker 1: commercialized and corporatized over the past several decades. Why because
Speaker 1: before the entirety of the Budweiser and the Target debacle,
Speaker 1: we saw corporations decide that they're gonna rainbow things up
Speaker 1: for the month of June, they'll ignore you for the
Speaker 1: rest of the year. And as a black queer woman,
Speaker 1: I can tell you they basically have done to Pride
Speaker 1: what they do to Black History Month, which is, oh,
Speaker 1: let us go all in for these you know, thirty
Speaker 1: days or twenty eight days or what have you. And
Speaker 1: then we're not actually conscious about how we create products,
Speaker 1: how we create real inclusion and belonging in our marketing
Speaker 1: right in both our internal and external work that we're
Speaker 1: doing with these companies, and as we are seeing folks,
Speaker 1: you know, Target succumb to the whims and grievances of
Speaker 1: white cis hetero fucking homophobes and transphobes in this country,
Speaker 1: as we're seeing Budweiser do the same and lose money
Speaker 1: because you know, their aggressive, toxic white cis quote unquote
Speaker 1: masculine men have decided that you know, what gets in
Speaker 1: the way of their masculinity, and apparently the ability to
Speaker 1: drink a beer is knowing that queer people too drink
Speaker 1: that same fucking American beer. It's so sick and twisted.
Speaker 1: What's happening, you know, I likened it the other day
Speaker 1: to this like whole rampage around Target, right as me
Speaker 1: walking in as a person who eats meat and says,
Speaker 1: oh my god, they're selling vegan meat here, They're selling
Speaker 1: vegan baked goods here, and just going in and tossing
Speaker 1: over the fucking kitchen area of Target because I'm a
Speaker 1: meat eater and now I feel infringed upon. That's how
Speaker 1: fucking stupid these people sound. That's how fucking dumb. You
Speaker 1: don't like the pride shit at Target, don't fucking buy it, right,
Speaker 1: It's the same thing that I said, you know, a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks ago on Twitter. You don't like the
Speaker 1: books that are in certain libraries, don't check them out.
Speaker 1: You don't like the books that are being read in
Speaker 1: a school that you don't even have children that are
Speaker 1: attending in Like, look the other fucking way. This is
Speaker 1: a country with lots of different people who look differently,
Speaker 1: pray differently, love differently, and think differently. That is supposed
Speaker 1: to be the beauty and foundation of a democracy. You
Speaker 1: wanna go live right in a theocrisy, then go someplace
Speaker 1: fucking else. But what you're not gonna do is that
Speaker 1: you're not gonna continue to try and decimate our feeling
Speaker 1: of self work right, You're not gonna continue to decimate
Speaker 1: our feeling of pride, of what it means to live
Speaker 1: authentically in our skin and show up in our day
Speaker 1: to day lives. So for the month of June and
Speaker 1: from here until the end of fucking time, you're not
Speaker 1: gonna ban queer joy. You're not gonna ban but black joy.
Speaker 1: Because we have a right to exist, and not just
Speaker 1: in the small, narrow, pale, miserable little bubble that white cis. Hetero, racist, homophobic,
Speaker 1: transphobic pieces of trash want to exist. And yes I
Speaker 1: will call names because if you don't like somebody, here's
Speaker 1: an idea. Don't fuck with them, right, don't go to
Speaker 1: the Drag Bengos show, don't go to the library at
Speaker 1: drag story time. But you don't get to create the
Speaker 1: reality for the rest of us. And this is why
Speaker 1: I gotta tell you, folks that this Pride season is
Speaker 1: so fucking important. You know, there was a time where
Speaker 1: I think that I had gotten complacent myself because I
Speaker 1: have lived only only lived in blue states and cities
Speaker 1: for most of my life. Even growing up out East
Speaker 1: on Long Island. It was not quote unquote Maga country
Speaker 1: and Trump country when I grew up. It was democratic
Speaker 1: right the entire time, working class and middle class Americans
Speaker 1: right of all different persuasions. That's who the fuck lived
Speaker 1: out East on Long Island. Yes, we're there are incidences
Speaker 1: of race and racism, absolutely, because we live in America
Speaker 1: that is a racist country, that fucking you know, white
Speaker 1: supremacy flows through the Fawcetts. At that same time, you
Speaker 1: could ask me, did you ever feel unsafe growing up? No?
Speaker 1: I did not. Did ever feel racism, yeah, up, so
Speaker 1: fucking lutely, But did I feel unsafe? Did I feel unwanted? No?
Speaker 1: It hasn't been folks, until the last seven years that
Speaker 1: when I go out east on Long Island and I
Speaker 1: see these fucking tattered Trump flags flying everywhere, that I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: I had no idea that the neighbor two doors down
Speaker 1: was a racist. I had no idea right that the
Speaker 1: neighborhood that I frequently walked in and played in as
Speaker 1: a kid was filled with a bunch of homophobes in Transphil.
Speaker 1: I had no idea, right. And so what Donald Trump
Speaker 1: and magaism has done is give permission for people to
Speaker 1: put their hoods on right, fly their fucking racist flags,
Speaker 1: beat their yes, and I ask those people, right, how
Speaker 1: is your life better over the last seven years? I'm
Speaker 1: just curious what Donald Trump and magadon has actually done
Speaker 1: to better the lives of their most loyal, fucking rabid followers.
Speaker 1: Are you richer? Right? Like? Were you able to buy
Speaker 1: a home off of your hate? Are you happier? Because
Speaker 1: what's wild is that these people seem more miserable than
Speaker 1: fucking ever because guess what, holding and spewing so much
Speaker 1: hate and toxicity and taking that QAnon and fox in
Speaker 1: every day all day, all it does is corrode your insides.
Speaker 1: They'll learn that later on, right, because to be actually
Speaker 1: conscious to the ways in which you are holding such
Speaker 1: horrible negativity that your glory in life right now is
Speaker 1: to ensure that other people suffer more. It's just it
Speaker 1: is a wild, wild place to exist. And you see
Speaker 1: the thing that I understand and what I have understood
Speaker 1: to be true about the LGBTQ plus community in this
Speaker 1: country and around the world. And why you have groups
Speaker 1: of people that are so full of hate and you
Speaker 1: know so much so that they will act violently towards
Speaker 1: the queer community. Is this? The queer community is bold,
Speaker 1: exists outside of the box, decided right when folks came
Speaker 1: out that we're not going to follow the prescribed fucking
Speaker 1: rules that we don't even know who created them or
Speaker 1: why outside of your ability to control. You see the
Speaker 1: reason why cis hetero, anti trans and anti queer folks
Speaker 1: act the way that they fucking do is out of
Speaker 1: pure fucking fear. What does it mean? What does their
Speaker 1: life mean when they've followed the rules and suppressed their
Speaker 1: own feelings and their own desires, and now here you
Speaker 1: come as a mirror into who they could have been
Speaker 1: if they had courage enough. That's what that is about,
Speaker 1: because it takes a whole hell of a lot more
Speaker 1: bravery and courage to show up as your true fucking
Speaker 1: self than it does to go along with the fucking pack,
Speaker 1: to step out and say this is who I am,
Speaker 1: and have the audacity to demand that those around you
Speaker 1: treat you with the dignity and respect that you deserve,
Speaker 1: even if you don't fall into their uniform idea of
Speaker 1: what it means to be a man or a woman
Speaker 1: who made up the rules, And why the fuck does
Speaker 1: everybody have to look and act and be and love
Speaker 1: and pray and exist in the same fucking way. The
Speaker 1: last time I checked, we're not robots yet. The last
Speaker 1: time I checked, Elon Musk didn't implant us all with neuralink.
Speaker 1: The last I checked. That the God that these people
Speaker 1: say that they worship also gave free will, the will
Speaker 1: to live and be and exist as free as you
Speaker 1: want to be, And that is what these people fear.
Speaker 1: They're banning books right, changing curriculum, because the power that
Speaker 1: we have is in our ability to think and live free,
Speaker 1: to challenge the systems they can't stand. Generation zenare trying
Speaker 1: to rob them of their autonomy, of their ability to
Speaker 1: think and exist because they have the tools in their
Speaker 1: pockets and they're not afraid to ask the questions that
Speaker 1: these motherfuckers don't have the answers to. So instead of
Speaker 1: actually having to answer to this rising and growing constituency,
Speaker 1: they say, we're gonna shut them down. We're gonna take
Speaker 1: away their access to education, We're gonna take away critical thought.
Speaker 1: We're gonna make them turn on each other and hate
Speaker 1: each other so much so we can usher in this
Speaker 1: straw man. Queer liberation is about the pushback against that
Speaker 1: fucking heteronormative lie, gender fucking bias. Why does a woman
Speaker 1: have to look and act a certain way? Why does
Speaker 1: a man have to look and act a certain way?
Speaker 1: The queer community pushes back against those quote unquote stereotypical norms,
Speaker 1: and they make everyone else around them start to question
Speaker 1: the why why have we been going along with this?
Speaker 1: Why have we accepted this as the way? Why can't
Speaker 1: close just be closed? Why can't toys just be toys?
Speaker 1: Why do things need to be pink or blue? Who
Speaker 1: said we need both the blend of masculine and femininity,
Speaker 1: We need right to recreate this idea of humanness? What
Speaker 1: it means to value people outside of the is that
Speaker 1: you can put them in. Why do you need to
Speaker 1: quote unquote understand me in order to respect my humanity.
Speaker 1: I'm not asking for your tolerance. I'm not even asking
Speaker 1: for your understanding. I'm asking for you to get the
Speaker 1: fuck out of our way, to honestly live and let live.
Speaker 1: So part of me is always going to be about
Speaker 1: the fight, is always going to be about literally raging
Speaker 1: against the machine. The other part of me, though, is
Speaker 1: steeped in the fucking joy of the thing, because there
Speaker 1: is nothing that these people hate more, These fucking narrow minded, conservative,
Speaker 1: bigoted people hate more than queer joy, than black then
Speaker 1: bipoc joy, then people being proud of who they are,
Speaker 1: how they look, who they love, how they pray, and
Speaker 1: embodying it to the fullest extent. You can throw as
Speaker 1: much hate and as much lies at me as possible,
Speaker 1: but you are not going to steal my humanity, not
Speaker 1: my dignity. So what I ask for all of you,
Speaker 1: whether or not you are queer, in this month of June,
Speaker 1: is to find a way to support LGBTQ youth who
Speaker 1: are truly struggling during this time. Because the Republican Party
Speaker 1: is trying to paint a future that they don't see
Speaker 1: themselves in. So, whether it is that you look at
Speaker 1: an organization like Family Quality, you look at an organization
Speaker 1: like Glisten p HRC, your local organizations that are queer focused.
Speaker 1: If you have the resources, donate, if you have the time, volunteer.
Speaker 1: I just saw today that my own Brooklyn Public Library
Speaker 1: is going to provide library cards to teens outside of
Speaker 1: Brooklyn who can actually check out e books. Right So,
Speaker 1: for that kid that is living in Florida that can't
Speaker 1: access the books that they want from the library and
Speaker 1: it's too expensive to be buying them and shipping them
Speaker 1: to their home, they can now check out e books
Speaker 1: from the Brooklyn Library. Help those kids find a way,
Speaker 1: help them make a way out of nowhere, Help them
Speaker 1: understand that not all cis hetero people hate them. What
Speaker 1: we need to do this month and every single month
Speaker 1: is about building community to combat the hate that is
Speaker 1: raining down on this country. The LGBTQ community deserves more.
Speaker 1: Queer youth deserve more than what is happening, and we
Speaker 1: can all do better to make sure that queer joy
Speaker 1: is not banned. So find a way to excise your
Speaker 1: power and take up space this fucking month. If you
Speaker 1: are queer, if you live at the intersection of marginalized communities,
Speaker 1: take up fucking space. And for those that are allies,
Speaker 1: do your best to find ways to support, to donate,
Speaker 1: to volunteer, to let queer youth know, and queer people
Speaker 1: in your own community know they are not fighting this
Speaker 1: fire alone, that you are there with them, because you
Speaker 1: know that queer people are often the canaries in the
Speaker 1: coal mine, as was said to me recently, first they
Speaker 1: go after them, then they go after everybody else. Don't
Speaker 1: let that be the case. Not this month of June,
Speaker 1: and not any fucking month. Now is the time to
Speaker 1: get off of the sidelines and to put yourself, your life,
Speaker 1: and your future on the line for our democracy, for
Speaker 1: all communities that are under attack. I look forward to
Speaker 1: this month of June on wokf with each and every
Speaker 1: single one of you. That is it for me today,
Speaker 1: dear friends, on as always, power to the people and
Speaker 1: to all the people. Power, get woke and stay woke
Speaker 1: as fuck. H