Speaker 1: Native Land Pod is a production of iHeartRadio in partnership
Speaker 1: with Reason Choice Media.
Speaker 2: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome.
Speaker 3: Welcome, Welcome home, y'all, welcome home.
Speaker 1: We are live from Temple University. We are at the
Speaker 1: Anti Racism Center and we are a little late because
Speaker 1: what happened was.
Speaker 4: Angela could not put the bread down at the restaurant.
Speaker 5: Oh, by Shane, You guys don't believe that.
Speaker 1: Apparently someone has been feeding our eating off of misinformation
Speaker 1: and has has suffered from these problems themselves.
Speaker 5: Yes, that's truly alternative fact.
Speaker 1: We relate because one of us is directionally challenged and
Speaker 1: we were given directions to the other side of campus.
Speaker 1: So Temple, we thank y'all for being very patient with us.
Speaker 1: We did follow the address, but we made it. We did,
Speaker 1: we did, and we had an anti racist center and.
Speaker 5: It says freedom. Now y'all see that freedom. Now, have
Speaker 5: you guys resolved racism yet here? Okay, we're waiting.
Speaker 1: Well, we do want to shout out Timothy Welbeck, who
Speaker 1: is the director of the Anti Racism We.
Speaker 5: Just get here.
Speaker 1: Not only that he came to get us from outside
Speaker 1: lost carried lost, and carried the boxes.
Speaker 5: We were lost, but now we're found.
Speaker 4: But more importantly, we're on the eve of what I
Speaker 4: believe will be a historic event tomorrow. If we do
Speaker 4: our black job, yeah, and if you're not, do the
Speaker 4: white job job on behalf of black people on, behalf
Speaker 4: of the country, and we vote, how do y'all feel
Speaker 4: about tomorrow? By feeling like.
Speaker 6: Y'all feel good?
Speaker 5: I don't know that wasn't as enthusiastic. How y'all feeling?
Speaker 6: Okay?
Speaker 3: We gotta do something because I feel good and I
Speaker 3: want to be around other people who feel good. And
Speaker 3: if you're watching these polls, one say one thing in
Speaker 3: the five minutes and say something else them so it
Speaker 3: doesn't matter, I don't. All we need to do is
Speaker 3: do what we need to do. And if you arrive
Speaker 3: with five like Andrew always reminds us, and bring people
Speaker 3: to vote. I truly believe by sheer will of us
Speaker 3: that this country. We have been trying to bend this
Speaker 3: country to our will for four hundred years, and we
Speaker 3: know what happens to things that don't bend right. So
Speaker 3: tomorrow I believe we will elect Vice President Kamala Harris
Speaker 3: to President of.
Speaker 6: The United States.
Speaker 7: You're here.
Speaker 5: I feel good. How you feel? I feel great?
Speaker 1: Our podcasting godfather is here with us, Chris Morrow. Yes,
Speaker 1: but he's not in the room because guess what, he's
Speaker 1: lost too. So that's what I was just trying to address.
Speaker 1: But we have a really jam packed show for y'all
Speaker 1: and because we will be Oh hi, Prince L, I
Speaker 1: just did I scare you?
Speaker 3: Recentuie Media and known as the Podfather the podcast.
Speaker 1: Waving every buddy, Chris. We know you don't like people,
Speaker 1: but wave at them anyway.
Speaker 4: Chris, Chris Morrow, Angela Rye and Charlemagne the god Uh
Speaker 4: founded Recent Choice Media, which is the banner in which
Speaker 4: we get to operate under at iHeartRadio.
Speaker 5: So are you gonna polize?
Speaker 6: Good to me?
Speaker 4: No, you're just dramatic. You're being on display. Be on display.
Speaker 5: Wow.
Speaker 4: We do have a good show though today, some great
Speaker 4: voices that you all will get to hear from. And
Speaker 4: one of the things that I think we love about
Speaker 4: the live shows is that it gives us an opportunity
Speaker 4: to hear directly from you. So we have a roaming mic.
Speaker 4: Is that right in the room?
Speaker 5: Yes, we do, and we also have guests.
Speaker 1: We're gonna Welcome to our conversation today from Temple University's
Speaker 1: Black Law Students Association.
Speaker 5: Sonya K.
Speaker 1: Johnson, Hello, will join us. Hello, Hi, how you doing?
Speaker 5: I'm good. How are you guys going to welcome us?
Speaker 1: We say welcome home y'all at the beginning of our podcast.
Speaker 5: You're gon welcome us.
Speaker 6: Back, welcome home.
Speaker 3: Yeah you are, air girl. We gotta have some enthusiasms.
Speaker 3: How do you feel about tomorrow?
Speaker 5: I'm definitely a little nervous.
Speaker 8: I will say that I hope everybody made their their
Speaker 8: right choices. But you know, it's it's a crucial election.
Speaker 8: I think it's important for everybody to get out and vote.
Speaker 8: We only got one day left and.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, do you feel like we're gonna pull it off?
Speaker 5: I think we're gonna pull it off.
Speaker 4: I think are you're a president of the National Law
Speaker 4: Schoodents Yeah association, Yeah, very good. Yeah, you're a Temple
Speaker 4: And how many of your members are here with us?
Speaker 5: Currently? All of our board is here.
Speaker 4: They're right there right welcome me.
Speaker 1: Board got out to my boss, so fam I love
Speaker 1: to see it, love to see it. So we're also
Speaker 1: at this time, we're gonna we're gonna keep you on
Speaker 1: with us on you, but we're also gonna recognize and
Speaker 1: welcome the executive director and CEO of the National Black
Speaker 1: Justice Coalition, our dear brother, doctor David John and also
Speaker 1: the vice president of Philadelphia Black Jason Bowman. And I
Speaker 1: know y'all have seen these videos. Jason has been hit
Speaker 1: these streets hard for out for Harris. He has been
Speaker 1: making sure that the community is running these streets and getting.
Speaker 5: Into the both voting booths. So welcome to both of you,
Speaker 5: David and Jason.
Speaker 9: Welcome to Philadelphia.
Speaker 3: Welcome home. Now your name is pronounced David Sean a
Speaker 3: long long time and have known his work a long
Speaker 3: long time.
Speaker 5: How do you feel about tomorrow?
Speaker 10: I'm excited.
Speaker 11: The history of black people is that we thrive in
Speaker 11: spite of so as long as white people do they
Speaker 11: white job, we should be all right.
Speaker 3: Well do you think they will specifically white women? Do
Speaker 3: you think, because that's where this race hinges a lot. Yeah.
Speaker 11: I don't know, Jason, and you're just discussing us. I
Speaker 11: don't trust white people. We have lots of reasons not to.
Speaker 11: But what did harden me is that I got off
Speaker 11: the train in Philadelphia a half hour ago a little
Speaker 11: bit longer, traffic was a mess, and there was a
Speaker 11: little white girl who ran from across the parking lotch
Speaker 11: structure to say hello to me. And you know, w
Speaker 11: what a little white girls run at you? You don't
Speaker 11: really know. I'm six y five black men in America.
Speaker 11: It could be questionable on a spot of the fact
Speaker 11: that I taught elementary school. But she said to me
Speaker 11: that she loved my sweater, and then after her mom
Speaker 11: came over and said, I really enjoy or appreciate.
Speaker 10: What you're doing.
Speaker 11: And I thought to myself, four years ago, I don't
Speaker 11: recall white person doing anything similar. Right, And so in
Speaker 11: a world where there have been white women for lots
Speaker 11: of talk around white women who have been modeling their
Speaker 11: work after black women that we know in love like
Speaker 11: Joe Tika Edie and Christina Q and women with black women,
Speaker 11: I'm not really seen white women show up in the
Speaker 11: way in which some of them are publicly. And so
Speaker 11: my hope is that they've been talking to their friends
Speaker 11: and their group chats and their book clubs, and that
Speaker 11: they do their white job.
Speaker 1: You guys could call so the election is tomorrow night.
Speaker 1: But if you could call it, how would you call
Speaker 1: it and by how much? Like who's winning and by
Speaker 1: how much and why?
Speaker 12: I would say that Kamala wins by two hundred and
Speaker 12: eighty three electoral votes is going to be close.
Speaker 9: I do think that Trump is going to try to
Speaker 9: make elected. I don't think that Trump is winning this.
Speaker 9: I don't. I don't foresee that happening.
Speaker 12: And I've been on the ground knocking doors for virtual
Speaker 12: phone banking, having community engagement events, especially with the black
Speaker 12: and brown career community here in the city Philadelphia, and
Speaker 12: I know everybody.
Speaker 9: Is fired up about Kamala. Fired up.
Speaker 12: I will say that they kind of like waited a
Speaker 12: little too long to activate these communities, but they were
Speaker 12: definitely fired up.
Speaker 9: So I think that she's going to win. But I
Speaker 9: do think that it's going to be close.
Speaker 12: Because what's concerning me is a lot of the suburbs
Speaker 12: and a lot of you know, the other people that
Speaker 12: are really like pro Trump. It really amazes me that
Speaker 12: no matter what this man says, he can be disrespectful
Speaker 12: to black women, he could be disrespectful to white women,
Speaker 12: he could be disrespectful to immigrants. He can say that
Speaker 12: we're eating our cats and dogs. I mean, this man
Speaker 12: has no bounds, And the other day I saw him
Speaker 12: actually giving oral to a microphone. So I mean, even
Speaker 12: no matter what he does, they are still I'm voting
Speaker 12: for Trump, which is crazy to me.
Speaker 9: But here we are.
Speaker 5: Here we are David Johns calling.
Speaker 11: I would double tap that on Instagram, Um yeah, or
Speaker 11: I still call it Twitter in spite of the fact
Speaker 11: that that petulant child is trying to wreck it. And
Speaker 11: I think similarly, I worry most about people who have
Speaker 11: bought into the misinformation and disinformation, people who are not
Speaker 11: actually paying attention to what's available, and who simply are
Speaker 11: not being honest. I'd rather have a black man tell
Speaker 11: me that he's a misogynist or doesn't believe that a
Speaker 11: woman can lead, than to tell me that he believes
Speaker 11: that Trump has a better plan for filling the blank.
Speaker 10: Then they ain't got no plans for nothing.
Speaker 11: And so part of this is I'd just rather let's
Speaker 11: be honest about where we are so that we don't
Speaker 11: have to do the guessing or worry about things like
Speaker 11: the Bradley effect and all of these things that are
Speaker 11: coming up at this hour.
Speaker 12: But you know, in the city Philadelphi, w what I
Speaker 12: noticed when we were doing a lot of barbershop campussing.
Speaker 12: And though there are some men black men that were
Speaker 12: in barbershops that you know, are not really sold on
Speaker 12: Kamala because of the misinformation about you know, how many
Speaker 12: black men she left up.
Speaker 9: For marijuana charges.
Speaker 12: I've noticed that a lot a lot of black men
Speaker 12: that I've had conversations with, they just don't vote. So
Speaker 12: they say, oh, I'm voting for Trump, but they not
Speaker 12: voting at all. So it ain't even about them saying
Speaker 12: that they're gonna vote for Trump. Because even we just
Speaker 12: saw walka Floka and somebody just outed him on Instagram
Speaker 12: and showed that he has never voted in an election
Speaker 12: at all, but yet he's endorsing Trump.
Speaker 9: He probably ain't gonna vote. So stuff like.
Speaker 12: That is concerning because I think a lot of people
Speaker 12: have this messaging out there. They're like, oh, I'm voting
Speaker 12: but Trump, but we don't want the couch to win neither.
Speaker 12: So if you're watching this at home, it is your
Speaker 12: civic duty to get off the couch and make sure
Speaker 12: that you get out to vote Tomorrow morning. In the
Speaker 12: state of Pennsylvania, the polls open at seven am. They
Speaker 12: don't close until eight pm. Even if you're in line
Speaker 12: at APM, stay in line. Make sure that your vote counts,
Speaker 12: because like we've been doing all this, where we've been
Speaker 12: having all these conversations, it cannot go and banging tomorrow.
Speaker 1: Let me okay, let me ask this because you brought
Speaker 1: up barbershops, Jason, so I might at this point be
Speaker 1: more triggered by the barbershop in Tiffany.
Speaker 5: And that's hard.
Speaker 1: I am trying to understand, Like why don't we know
Speaker 1: where else black people go? There has been so much
Speaker 1: like there has been content shot at barbershop after barbershop
Speaker 1: on both sides of the aisle. It's driving me next.
Speaker 12: Well, you know why a lot of toxic conversations happened
Speaker 12: in the barbershop, like and that's just the truth. And
Speaker 12: as a queer man in the city of Philadelphia, I
Speaker 12: remember when I used to go to the barbershop.
Speaker 9: I would have to sit through all these conversations.
Speaker 5: Today, I want to know what they said to Line.
Speaker 12: It's funny I went yesterday and me and my Barbara
Speaker 12: have been having an argument because he actually supports Trump.
Speaker 12: So in the conversation, well, I mean like he does
Speaker 12: his job, isn't that said? He does his black job
Speaker 12: and look trying to put somebody to cut my hair.
Speaker 9: It's like hard. But I think he's trolling me too.
Speaker 7: He's trolling me.
Speaker 9: I really do think that he's trolling me.
Speaker 12: I don't think that he's going for Donald Trump, because
Speaker 12: he does have like you know, black votes and Kamala
Speaker 12: for Harrison, like all the emergingis in the barbershop.
Speaker 9: He's just trolling me.
Speaker 12: But I think a lot of those conversations happen in
Speaker 12: the barbershop because that's the safe space where black men
Speaker 12: are able to kind of like be untucked and untamed.
Speaker 12: So they're able to go in the barbershop and have
Speaker 12: these conversations that are crazy. I mean, y'all will be
Speaker 12: surprised how many y'all go to black barbershops in this room,
Speaker 12: I know, and how many crazy conversations have y'all heard
Speaker 12: in barbershops.
Speaker 9: And let's listen, let's speak truth to power.
Speaker 4: This.
Speaker 1: I'm not the only place y'all have these crazy conversation
Speaker 1: y'all have.
Speaker 4: Barbershops, though, are probably one of the few places where
Speaker 4: black men, regardless of what their professions are, regardless of
Speaker 4: their social economics, kind of is a convergence of black
Speaker 4: men from various parts of society. And so unless you
Speaker 4: were going, you know, into black business where everybody who
Speaker 4: works there is African American, there's probably a few places
Speaker 4: you can get that kind of strata of black folks
Speaker 4: in one place. I think beauty salons are similarly situated. Agree,
Speaker 4: Now it takes you know.
Speaker 1: Paranoid today history right hands out my pockets.
Speaker 3: I think what Andrew is saying, though, it raises a
Speaker 3: good point, because regardless of your socio economic status, is
Speaker 3: that is a place where you can get various aspects
Speaker 3: of conversation. I think the point we're saying is that that's
Speaker 3: not the only place. But I'm curious and I want
Speaker 3: to ask you guys this because we've been on tour,
Speaker 3: We've done a lot of shows, and when we were
Speaker 3: in Atlanta, it was a similar conversation about somebody who
Speaker 3: had been going to barbershops, and he talked about why
Speaker 3: some black men felt disillusioned.
Speaker 5: With the Democratic Party.
Speaker 3: One of the things he said is because there is
Speaker 3: a significant number of black men who feel like the
Speaker 3: Democratic Party has a specific LGBTQ agenda. Now I don't
Speaker 3: I'm not a fan of taking tools of the oppressor
Speaker 3: and applying them within our community. It breaks my heart
Speaker 3: when I hear that. So without you know, I try
Speaker 3: not to judge either, like I try to be an
Speaker 3: open space. I want to listen more than I speak.
Speaker 3: What would you say to men who feel that way?
Speaker 3: You're giving me a look like I say, I'm gonna
Speaker 3: go to Jay first because I don't know what David
Speaker 3: about to say.
Speaker 5: Here you go first.
Speaker 12: So the biggest problem that I have with that rhetoric,
Speaker 12: especially that, is that I think that when they look
Speaker 12: at us, I know I have pretty privilege, and I
Speaker 12: recognize my pretty privilege because a lot of times I'm
Speaker 12: in these spaces with black men that are macho macho man,
Speaker 12: so when they see somebody that's black and gay, they
Speaker 12: don't look at us the same. So I think they
Speaker 12: failed to realize that black trans men's issues are black
Speaker 12: men's issues. Black gay men's issues are black men's issues.
Speaker 12: So we're not invited to the conversation because they deem
Speaker 12: us less than because of our feminine facing, you know,
Speaker 12: gestures of attitude or how we carry ourself. It's not
Speaker 12: my fault that there is an ordained light over top
Speaker 12: of me. And when I walk into a space, I
Speaker 12: own it. That's your problem that you have an issue
Speaker 12: with my sexuality being so faced forward, and I think
Speaker 12: that is ultimately the biggest problem because even here in
Speaker 12: the city, I was so thankful that Isaiah Thomas had,
Speaker 12: you know, put me as the co chair for Philadelphia
Speaker 12: Black Men for.
Speaker 9: Harris and sorry like this.
Speaker 12: I was so thankful that he actually put me as
Speaker 12: the co chair of Philadelphia Black Men for Harris, and
Speaker 12: as a black queer person, to be in that space
Speaker 12: was great because I had a voice at the table
Speaker 12: with the men that are deciding things that are happening
Speaker 12: for black men. But I also talk to my elective
Speaker 12: and I let them know, like, hey, this is great
Speaker 12: that I'm here. But we also got to include black transmen.
Speaker 12: We also got to include other black gay men in
Speaker 12: the conversation too and invite them because a lot of
Speaker 12: times we don't feel welcome.
Speaker 9: To the space.
Speaker 11: Yeah, let me first ask all of us to give
Speaker 11: Jason around of applause.
Speaker 10: It's not just Jason, but there are.
Speaker 11: Members of our community who identify as queer, transitgender expansive,
Speaker 11: who have always been doing this work who often don't
Speaker 11: get platforms like this, and so I want us to
Speaker 11: celebrate and acknowledge them. I would, if I'm being thoughtful,
Speaker 11: step back and say, first, let's celebrate with Fatti lu
Speaker 11: Hammer taught us, which is that none of us are
Speaker 11: freeing lesson until all of us are free. The second
Speaker 11: thing I would say is that we collectively should engage
Speaker 11: in white supremacy rehab. My queerness is African, My queerness
Speaker 11: is African. That you believe that me being a same
Speaker 11: gener loving person, because God made me perfectly in his image,
Speaker 11: that you believe that this is my desire to be
Speaker 11: closer to whiteness or to do anything that is anti
Speaker 11: African is a lie from white supremacy hell. And we
Speaker 11: can debate about it, we can go biblically, we can
Speaker 11: talk ancestrally. But what I know is that this didn't
Speaker 11: just happen, and you can't get to freedom without me.
Speaker 11: It is because of black queer, transmigender expanse, of people
Speaker 11: like Biard Rustin, who built the stage that many of.
Speaker 10: Our leaders stood on.
Speaker 11: Doctor Marler, the King Junior included, it's because of folks
Speaker 11: like Marsha paying no mind Johnson that we have things
Speaker 11: like Pride Month. If it weren't for us living in
Speaker 11: the trenches on the front lines, we wouldn't be at
Speaker 11: this moment, on this precipice of having a black woman
Speaker 11: who has been able to complete the race that Shirley
Speaker 11: Hilsm and so many others have started.
Speaker 10: And so I would offer.
Speaker 11: A besiechment for them to go to therapy to deal
Speaker 11: with their own shit, to engage in white premiacy rehab
Speaker 11: so that we can have a meaningful conversation about how
Speaker 11: we as a community get over together. I would then
Speaker 11: highlight data, because sometimes we got to bring data to
Speaker 11: these conversations. Are people to be moved? So NBJ see
Speaker 11: the organization that I have the pleasure of quarterbacking partner
Speaker 11: with five other national organizations that have queer leaders. And
Speaker 11: you'll hear me using three different terms, queer, trans and
Speaker 11: gender expansive. I use gender expansive in the place of
Speaker 11: non binary and non conforming because those terms reinforce the
Speaker 11: very binary we're trying to get away from.
Speaker 10: But we partner with HRC.
Speaker 11: GLAD Family Equality Glisten and wasn't GLAD, it was Glisten,
Speaker 11: and NCLR, the National Center for Lesbian right to collect
Speaker 11: data to hear about what black people have to say
Speaker 11: about these issues, because often it's our white colleagues, and
Speaker 11: they're white noise that have us talking about things that
Speaker 11: don't really affect us.
Speaker 10: Two top lines.
Speaker 11: One is when we think about what policy issues matter
Speaker 11: most to black people, when we account for the divisions
Speaker 11: that people suggest that exists because of our sexual identity,
Speaker 11: there's no daylight between the things that matter most to us.
Speaker 11: If I ask you all to imagine, like, what's the
Speaker 11: top three policy issues that matter to you? Hold that
Speaker 11: list in your head. For the people we survey, Number
Speaker 11: one healthcare. Number two, the cost of every goddamn thing
Speaker 11: is too high, health care, college, gas whatever. Number three
Speaker 11: safety justice, anti blackness, to get the state to stop
Speaker 11: killing us.
Speaker 10: Those three things.
Speaker 11: Matter to people regardless of their sexual orientation, gender identity,
Speaker 11: or expression. But if you listen to the white noise,
Speaker 11: the white media, it's our sexuality that matters most.
Speaker 10: The second thing that we learn from.
Speaker 11: Our data is that black people believe that we should
Speaker 11: be doing more so that all of us can get free.
Speaker 11: And so if we lean into celebrating the beautiful diversity
Speaker 11: that has always existed in our community, again turning down
Speaker 11: this white noise and engaging in white supremacy rehab. I
Speaker 11: think that we can come on the other side of
Speaker 11: some of these seemingly intractable discussions.
Speaker 5: I want it for a moment.
Speaker 1: Just remind you all, we do have a floating mic,
Speaker 1: So if you have a question, raise your hand.
Speaker 5: Someone will walk the mic over to you. Okay, yes, sir.
Speaker 1: And while that mic is making its way to him,
Speaker 1: I think I lost my mic.
Speaker 5: Holder.
Speaker 1: Uh, we will get that to you in just a moment.
Speaker 1: But until we do, sonya, I want to come back
Speaker 1: to you for a moment. The election, we didn't even finish.
Speaker 1: The first question is how our panels go sometimes with
Speaker 1: can you predict? David was like, I'm not gonna, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna I'm gonna double click that on Instagram.
Speaker 5: But he's not on Instagram. He's on this panel. But
Speaker 5: that's fine.
Speaker 1: So I want to just ask you what the role
Speaker 1: of lawyers will be in this election. What the lawyer,
Speaker 1: the role of young lawyers, black law students is in challenging.
Speaker 5: Whatever comes up.
Speaker 1: We know that there are folks who are eager to
Speaker 1: dismantle this democracy on the other side, questioning the legitimacy
Speaker 1: of these election results before they even come out. What
Speaker 1: role should young black lawyers be playing in this election
Speaker 1: and it saving demis.
Speaker 8: I believe, for especially from my organization personally, that we
Speaker 8: need to be informing our members students. A lot of
Speaker 8: us are political science and criminal justice majors, and I
Speaker 8: feel like we have that knowledge to be able to
Speaker 8: educate the youth as well as educating are sorry as
Speaker 8: well as educating our the students that are in the
Speaker 8: area were located because I think sorry, I think that.
Speaker 1: Sorry, Just take a step back and just think about
Speaker 1: your really important role as the president of Boston here.
Speaker 1: I'm sure you all are reached out to by election
Speaker 1: protection efforts and that kind of thing.
Speaker 5: What role do you all see see? What role do
Speaker 5: you see.
Speaker 1: Playing and making sure that democracy is preserved, which is
Speaker 1: what we've always done, is black attorneys in this space.
Speaker 8: I believe it really is just educating as well as
Speaker 8: informing people are members. I know I've spoken to a
Speaker 8: lot of people who are unsure of like where they
Speaker 8: stand in the election, and I feel like emphasizing on
Speaker 8: getting our research just simple, just as simple as doing
Speaker 8: something as just searching up their policies and just talking
Speaker 8: with I know social media is another place where it
Speaker 8: can have a lot of misinformation, but I also think
Speaker 8: it can also be a crucial place to look for
Speaker 8: information because I think there are a lot of people
Speaker 8: that are showing that Trump isn't a good person. He
Speaker 8: has racist ideologies, He's disrespecting a lot of people. And
Speaker 8: I think that it's our job, especially in our organization,
Speaker 8: to just be educating our members, our students, are anybody,
Speaker 8: we can really our families, because I know there's a
Speaker 8: lot of families where people don't see eye to eye,
Speaker 8: especially when it comes to elections. And I think that's
Speaker 8: just something that we need to It's a conversation that
Speaker 8: we need to have and that we need to continue having.
Speaker 5: And yeah, it's perfect.
Speaker 1: Say your name and where you're from.
Speaker 6: Please Hi.
Speaker 13: My name is Sauna Alone. I'm a junior here at
Speaker 13: Temple University. I am a member of Alpha Phi Alpha
Speaker 13: for Tunity in Cobawa.
Speaker 14: And I'm and I'm throwing up gang signs in here.
Speaker 5: Y'all going on talking about heard of people, I say,
Speaker 5: color signs panel they're in your carry on.
Speaker 13: But all that succeests as a African American man that
Speaker 13: have a disability. Why is it I here talked about
Speaker 13: every issue in the back community, but we don't talk
Speaker 13: about back disable issue in the African American community. I
Speaker 13: was told by a white teacher that college was not
Speaker 13: for me. Here I am in college with a high GPA.
Speaker 13: But but but where I don't understand. We talked about
Speaker 13: the black boat, the black woman boat, the bad lgbtq abo,
Speaker 13: what is amazing? We talked about all that, but we
Speaker 13: don't talk about the black disable vote. And people like
Speaker 13: myself of tire of being cheated ass she'd get past
Speaker 13: citizens in America. So if y'all could just talk about
Speaker 13: what we need to do as a community to uplift
Speaker 13: the back disablable as well, so that more people like
Speaker 13: myself can be a success story. They give for Carmen
Speaker 13: and yes, I love that past.
Speaker 9: Can I say something to that? Can I say something
Speaker 9: to that? Can I respond to that? Thank you? I'm
Speaker 9: trying to get emotional.
Speaker 12: I'm talking because that's the reason why that this election
Speaker 12: is so important to me. My mother was born with
Speaker 12: spina bifita, which is a neurological disorder that affects the spine.
Speaker 9: She was not supposed to live past the age of fourteen.
Speaker 12: She went to Wider Memorial School, which is right behind
Speaker 12: Girls High, and I watched my mother learn how to walk.
Speaker 12: They told my mom that she was not going to
Speaker 12: have any children. I was her miracle baby. After me,
Speaker 12: she miscarried. After the miscarriage, she had my little brother,
Speaker 12: and I watched her as a disabled American fight and
Speaker 12: never give up and constantly make space to educate her
Speaker 12: two black sons, and she adopted four girls because she
Speaker 12: never had a girl that I was probably the closest
Speaker 12: one to it.
Speaker 9: But when you speak about well, I probably was. I
Speaker 9: probably was.
Speaker 12: But like hearing him say that, it's conversations that I
Speaker 12: have with my mom, So it like kind of like
Speaker 12: hit me some my core because like that's why, like
Speaker 12: I do a lot of this work and the reason why,
Speaker 12: you know, Magnavine, the disability of voices and magnifying black
Speaker 12: career people was so important to me because I watched
Speaker 12: my mom as a single mother raising us. I was
Speaker 12: a latch key kid, you know. I was afforded the
Speaker 12: opportunity to be a part of the segregation program, which
Speaker 12: busts us from the projects to the Northeast area, Philadelphia,
Speaker 12: so we can have a quality education. You know, she
Speaker 12: sacrificed so many things for me, So like, thank you
Speaker 12: for that, because you're absolutely right, we have to do that.
Speaker 12: Are at making sure that we also speak to our
Speaker 12: disabled community as well?
Speaker 11: If I could jump in these double Dutch robes to
Speaker 11: add two points. One is that words matter. And in
Speaker 11: my previous intervention, I use the phrase my queerness is African.
Speaker 11: Too often we conflate queerness to signal sexual minority status
Speaker 11: or lgbtqia plus or ligabigg tiggers at lgbtquad, whatever, But
Speaker 11: queerness refers to people who are not a position of
Speaker 11: pejorative privilege or power. So most of us in this
Speaker 11: room are queer people. Women in a society that says
Speaker 11: men have.
Speaker 10: Privilege, are queer.
Speaker 11: People with disabilities in a space where we don't acknowledge
Speaker 11: people with our disabilities, Our privileged are queer. And it's
Speaker 11: often left to those of us who are queer to
Speaker 11: do exactly what you did, which is to lift up
Speaker 11: the consequences of white supremacy and what happens when we
Speaker 11: don't think about intersectionality.
Speaker 10: And so just to put a pin in this.
Speaker 11: I often remind folks that black people, because of how
Speaker 11: white supremacy work, are usually born with the disability, and
Speaker 11: if we live long enough, we're going to grow into
Speaker 11: having one right. And so this is why we need
Speaker 11: to be having conversations at center all of the important
Speaker 11: parts of who make us whole. Now, my frustration becomes
Speaker 11: this in a practical do party system, Andrew and I
Speaker 11: used to have some of these debates about scarcity, right,
Speaker 11: which is often it's the responsibility of the.
Speaker 10: Democratic Party or Democratic.
Speaker 11: Representatives to speak to everybody because they're creating a large tent.
Speaker 11: And in this moment, we don't have people who have
Speaker 11: the same energy for whatever the policy issue that is
Speaker 11: important to them for the people on the other side
Speaker 11: of the aisle. And so in this moment, while there
Speaker 11: are still some people who are debating, are thinking about
Speaker 11: who they're going to vote with, my hope is that
Speaker 11: people here my heart when I say voting ways that
Speaker 11: will allow us to be more strategic and getting closer
Speaker 11: to freedom. Right on the other side of this election
Speaker 11: being decided, we can go back and have the policy
Speaker 11: debates about what changes need to be made legislatively at
Speaker 11: every level of government. To address the unique issues that
Speaker 11: we have. But what I know is that my black
Speaker 11: queer SAMs and her loving self cannot fathom surviving four
Speaker 11: years under a fascist, white supremacist regime. And I hope
Speaker 11: that that is clear isn't lost in us highlighting the
Speaker 11: need to do more with regard to intersectionality.
Speaker 3: I love your question, So I want to speak specifically
Speaker 3: to the disability community because I think that's such a
Speaker 3: huge issue that your one hundred percent right gets overlooked
Speaker 3: so specifically to being black and disabled. I would echo
Speaker 3: what David said that there has to be a policy
Speaker 3: change at every level. And this was something that I
Speaker 3: think many of us in our different professional backgrounds have
Speaker 3: been confronted with and talked about. There was a social
Speaker 3: experiment that made its way around the socials where there
Speaker 3: was a white man who was blind and a black
Speaker 3: man who was blind, and they were walking on the
Speaker 3: streets of Florida and reached out for help, and every
Speaker 3: time somebody was willing to hold that white man's hand,
Speaker 3: when most people were coiled at the black man extending
Speaker 3: his hand. And so I think in terms of just
Speaker 3: the disability community as a whole, for sure, that's something
Speaker 3: that needs to be talked about, but we cannot talk
Speaker 3: about that without highlighting the wealth gap in this country
Speaker 3: and who gets resources. It was much like this during
Speaker 3: the Great Depression. We all were destitute, but there were
Speaker 3: white families who were prioritized in a way, and I
Speaker 3: imagine it's the same way for the black and disabled community.
Speaker 3: I commend you for raising the issue, and I would
Speaker 3: love we'll make sure our research and producer and everything
Speaker 3: person lol follows up with you, because I would love
Speaker 3: to hear from you three issues that you would like
Speaker 3: to see raised on a national level, and we can
Speaker 3: certainly commit to talking about those on our platform.
Speaker 4: I would also say you are the best representative. I
Speaker 4: was compelled by everything you had to say. I felt
Speaker 4: your story. I applaud you not for having any sort
Speaker 4: of disability, but I applaud you for being willing to
Speaker 4: talk about out what's important to you. And a lot
Speaker 4: of people shrink from that opportunity when they have it,
Speaker 4: and you didn't shrink at all. So one, you've got
Speaker 4: to continue to be on the front lines. The other
Speaker 4: thought that I wanted to complete with something David said
Speaker 4: around the scarcity debate that we often have and I
Speaker 4: answered the gentleman in Atlanta the same way when he
Speaker 4: bought up. We don't see heterosexual black men as a
Speaker 4: priority in the Democratic Party unless you're gay. And my
Speaker 4: point to him was, your beef isn't with black, queer
Speaker 4: gay people. Your beef isn't with black women. Your beef
Speaker 4: is it with any of those communities. That's what white
Speaker 4: supremacy has done. It is he pitted us against each
Speaker 4: other through again a mentality of scarcity, that there's only
Speaker 4: so little and that we all have to hold as
Speaker 4: much of that little that exists on the table, when
Speaker 4: in fact, there are almost unlimited resources. If Donald Trump
Speaker 4: can give the top one of Americans a tax break
Speaker 4: that lands this country in its largest national debt in history,
Speaker 4: then why are we fighting about whether or not we
Speaker 4: can get resources to a community of disability to make
Speaker 4: sure that the laws and statutes that exist on the
Speaker 4: books are enforced at every level of government, from school
Speaker 4: boards to municipalities, to counties to states, all the way
Speaker 4: up to the federal level. Because in the grand scheme
Speaker 4: of it, these would be these are pennies and truth
Speaker 4: when you think about the scale of the federal government.
Speaker 4: So I guess if there was a point that we
Speaker 4: might take away on, it is that we all ought
Speaker 4: to be fighting for what we need, not for what
Speaker 4: they say is our little piece of the pie for
Speaker 4: us to negotiate over, because that's a distraction. The pie
Speaker 4: is all the pie, not the little piece that you
Speaker 4: have aggregated or separated or told us that we're supposed
Speaker 4: to fight over. But they keep us, they keep us
Speaker 4: in the cycle of fighting each other over crumbs when
Speaker 4: the pie is much bigger than that, and the pie
Speaker 4: is all of ours. And I just I hope we
Speaker 4: shrink from competition between one another on whether your life
Speaker 4: ought to be protected as an LGBT person, whether laws
Speaker 4: ought to exist for black women that they should be
Speaker 4: able to work in a workplace and while doing the
Speaker 4: same job that a man does as well, if not better,
Speaker 4: that you're still being paid thirty cents on a dollar
Speaker 4: in comparison. That's that's not right for any of us.
Speaker 4: And I think that's kind of, at least for me,
Speaker 4: where I feel like we ought to be turning our advocacy.
Speaker 5: Jason will offer you, Oh sorry, no, I's said him downey.
Speaker 1: Jason will offer you close The remarks we're gonna wrap
Speaker 1: this panel, we're gonna get to an audience question and
Speaker 1: bring on Earnest.
Speaker 12: I just want to kind of like go back to
Speaker 12: something Tiffany said really quickly and closing. When people always
Speaker 12: say like, oh, they're pushing this LGBTQ agenda down my throat. Oh,
Speaker 12: it's an agenda, it's an agenda. It's not an agenda.
Speaker 12: We are asking for equality, that is, that is the we,
Speaker 12: that is the agenda. But the way they make it
Speaker 12: sound is almost as if like, oh, y'all keep trying
Speaker 12: to push this gayness down my throat, like not realizing
Speaker 12: that we're just fighting for equality, like we are fighting
Speaker 12: for equal rights, We're fighting for representation. To me, the
Speaker 12: fight for equality, the civil rights movment, it's like it's
Speaker 12: our rights.
Speaker 9: We need rights.
Speaker 10: It's period and not just period.
Speaker 9: Let's no, we're not just period, not experience. Let's just
Speaker 9: do it.
Speaker 11: Let's do it a different which is that children don't
Speaker 11: ask to be born exactly right. One of my spirit
Speaker 11: animals a god, not an animal person a sehiliar. The
Speaker 11: sociologist said the following, I've never in my life met
Speaker 11: a child, in particular a black child who is not
Speaker 11: a genius, and there's no secret to how we support them.
Speaker 11: We first acknowledge them as human and we second support
Speaker 11: them with love. And the reality is that children, whether
Speaker 11: they are marked by race, ethnicity, or sexual identity, often
Speaker 11: don't ask to be born and then don't consent to
Speaker 11: the politics that impact their lives in a measurable ways.
Speaker 11: And today we still are not talking enough about the
Speaker 11: fact that the suicide rate for black youth has doubled
Speaker 11: over the last two decades. That data study I mentioned
Speaker 11: the most compelling statistic to move black people was around
Speaker 11: the suicidality for black.
Speaker 10: Youth thirteen through twenty one. So many of them.
Speaker 11: Are contemplating suicide because big ass bullies are passing laws
Speaker 11: that are encouraging.
Speaker 10: Them to commit genocide.
Speaker 11: If you live in a space where you can't have
Speaker 11: access to life saving at affirming care, where your parents
Speaker 11: can go to jail for loving on you, where your
Speaker 11: teachers can be arrested for teaching you that you are normal,
Speaker 11: that you are not a bastardization that you deserve not
Speaker 11: just to live, but to thrive. If those conditions are legislated,
Speaker 11: the result is genocide.
Speaker 10: And so if in this moment. You don't think that
Speaker 10: I should.
Speaker 11: Have the ability to have my nails as they always
Speaker 11: are done, or the ability to live as freely as
Speaker 11: our ancestors dreamed of our ability to do. I pray
Speaker 11: that you are compelled by children who didn't consent to
Speaker 11: any of this bullshit, who don't have the ability to vote,
Speaker 11: do it for them.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, Jason Bowman, David john Saya, Madam President,
Speaker 1: we appreciate you. We're gonna take a quick audience question
Speaker 1: if you have your hands that will take it. Yes,
Speaker 1: we see you. Let's pass that. Mike Lolo, say your
Speaker 1: name and where you're from. And while you are asking
Speaker 1: your question, we are going to bring up history walking history.
Speaker 1: The speaker of the Pennsylvania House Representatives, our good friend,
Speaker 1: Joanna McClinton, is here with us today.
Speaker 15: Yes, sir, oh Minnie, my name is Shan Nuby, Jr.
Speaker 15: I'm the vice president of Black Lawsuits Association here at Temple.
Speaker 15: My question was relating back to what y'all just talked
Speaker 15: about about how the disenfranchisement of the African Americans it
Speaker 15: comes to Kama Harris's plan towards black men, and how
Speaker 15: can she expand on that outside of like talking about
Speaker 15: the issues with healthcare for us and only in those
Speaker 15: spaces you guys touched a little bit earlier, how the
Speaker 15: barbershops are place for us to decompress, and also things
Speaker 15: in which where they can allow us to get out
Speaker 15: loans to open up more businesses, because as you just
Speaker 15: talked about, sir, the pie is not in our favor.
Speaker 15: So I was wondering how you guys think she can
Speaker 15: expand on that plan.
Speaker 4: Well, one, thank you for the question, but the plan
Speaker 4: is actually really expansive. And I don't know if any
Speaker 4: of you all have another recollection, but I don't recall
Speaker 4: ever a major party candidate ever presenting an agenda for
Speaker 4: black men in the history of presidential races in the country.
Speaker 4: The fact that Kamala Harris was bold enough to step
Speaker 4: up there and say I have an agenda. She didn't
Speaker 4: say for black women. She said I have an agenda
Speaker 4: very specific specifically and particularly for black men. When Obama
Speaker 4: always asked what his agenda was for the black community,
Speaker 4: he said, my agenda for the black community is my
Speaker 4: agenda for the American people. And some people cringe to
Speaker 4: others were critical, But I don't think any of us
Speaker 4: would argue that we didn't benefit from having expanded healthcare,
Speaker 4: being able to see a doctor, many of us for
Speaker 4: the first, you know, for the first time in our adulthood.
Speaker 4: But the truth is is the reason why I think
Speaker 4: we need agendas that are particular to our needs is
Speaker 4: that black folks, particularly black men, are always at the
Speaker 4: worst end of almost every single.
Speaker 7: Statistic that we measure.
Speaker 4: So unless the entire society is going to be impacted
Speaker 4: at the same rate that we are, if their health
Speaker 4: data reflects the same statistics that ours do, if their
Speaker 4: education data, if their access to capital reflected that, that'd
Speaker 4: be one thing, but it doesn't.
Speaker 7: Ours is greater.
Speaker 4: It is almost almost more significant and has detrimental impacts
Speaker 4: on ours in our livelihoods. Which is why I think
Speaker 4: her agenda really, really, it really pierced to me as
Speaker 4: a study of history and also as a study an
Speaker 4: example of courage. What she's offering as a relation to
Speaker 4: small business, not only loans, but loans to them be
Speaker 4: forgiven as grants for folks to start new businesses a
Speaker 4: big deal. The credit that she's willing to offer for
Speaker 4: families who have children who are between the ages of
Speaker 4: zero and five who can't afford the cost of high
Speaker 4: quality childcare. The fact that we're getting in a larger
Speaker 4: inducement and added tax incentive in order to make sure
Speaker 4: that our kids are ready by the age of five
Speaker 4: when they enter kindergarten to read and excel just like
Speaker 4: all other kids are. Her emphasis on health and men's
Speaker 4: health is a particular import. Our life lines and life
Speaker 4: spans are shorter because of the health outcomes and health implications.
Speaker 4: So what I loved about it is that I thought
Speaker 4: it was broad. Where we're really going to have to
Speaker 4: come together is on helping her to get it done.
Speaker 4: You can imagine if there's never been a black agenda
Speaker 4: and a black male agenda before in this country, that
Speaker 4: the US Senate, which is ninety eight out of one
Speaker 4: hundred or nine ninety eight out one hundred white or
Speaker 4: other than African American, only two blacks in the US Senate.
Speaker 4: Only counting two, I'm sorry there is a third. He's
Speaker 4: on the Republican.
Speaker 5: Yeah, David is going to be a heckler.
Speaker 4: David is deleting any self haters from the caucus. But
Speaker 4: but that's where I think we're going to have to
Speaker 4: really call our power together. Is that I can already
Speaker 4: since once we get past this moment of unity where
Speaker 4: Republicans and Democrats and white women and black women are
Speaker 4: supporting Kamala Harris, that the next story that will be
Speaker 4: written after she wins is a few months saying if
Speaker 4: they give her that long, this isn't the president that
Speaker 4: we thought we were getting. She's too liberal, she's not
Speaker 4: working with Republicans, and it'll fall back to that same
Speaker 4: refrain that I think politics always falls back into, and
Speaker 4: we're going to have to have her back so that
Speaker 4: she can deliver on our promises. That's my real fear.
Speaker 4: It's not that we don't have an agenda, is that
Speaker 4: that it'll fall flat in less way able to organize
Speaker 4: and insisted it happened.
Speaker 1: So before we go to Madame Speaker, I just want
Speaker 1: to acknowledge two of our family members in the audience.
Speaker 1: Quentin James has joined us, one of our partners from
Speaker 1: Vote to Live, who will be joining the panel in
Speaker 1: a little bit. And I also want to recognize I
Speaker 1: didn't say right now, Lolo relaxed, she come around. I'm
Speaker 1: just acknowledging our family. I said she came around and
Speaker 1: not yet, we know we Madam Speaker is going to
Speaker 1: have the floor. But also to me, a Booker, I
Speaker 1: want you to stand yeah, sand sand Sand, y'all. I
Speaker 1: want you to know I have known this sister. She's
Speaker 1: a brilliant strategist. I've known her since she worked in
Speaker 1: Hillary Clinton's office on the Senate side and twenty years
Speaker 1: ago almost and I've.
Speaker 4: Known since she was a student in college.
Speaker 1: Oh oh, so here we go, see, here we go,
Speaker 1: here we go?
Speaker 5: Okay, well what else? Keep going?
Speaker 4: She's bad and the room. The chief of staff for
Speaker 4: uh US Senator Corey Booker out of New Jersey.
Speaker 1: Related that's not her cousin. They did not violate rules,
Speaker 1: but I wanted to. I wanted to shout her out.
Speaker 1: You trumped me.
Speaker 5: No pun intended on how long you've known her.
Speaker 1: But I want you all to know that Tamiya is
Speaker 1: not just a fan of the show and a support
Speaker 1: of the show, but of all of us. And wanted
Speaker 1: to make sure that we had some amazing guests on
Speaker 1: the show tonight, and that started with Madam Speaker. So
Speaker 1: I want to come to you. The question that they
Speaker 1: did not answer on the last panel was what do
Speaker 1: you think they're the the who's going to win tomorrow?
Speaker 1: And what are the numbers like electoral college votes? Who's
Speaker 1: winning in how many?
Speaker 7: Well, good evening, but even welcome to Philly.
Speaker 16: I'm so glad to see you all, and thank you
Speaker 16: to doctor val for coordinating this. You are so glad
Speaker 16: to be at the Center for Anti Racism. My first visit.
Speaker 16: I come to North a lot, but you know, I
Speaker 16: haven't been here, so I'm glad to be here this evening.
Speaker 6: Proud of the work that Temple is doing, a long
Speaker 6: my doing in the law. Classmate Tim year Over, thank
Speaker 6: you for your work.
Speaker 16: Here, Professor Tim, thank you for your work. Who's winning?
Speaker 16: Kamala d Harris is winning? What are the electoral college numbers?
Speaker 16: The winning number? You gotta put the map up. I mean,
Speaker 16: I wasn't ready for that, Angela. You came in with
Speaker 16: a heavy hitter. I need to see the map. But
Speaker 16: you know, so.
Speaker 1: Seventy anything higher, she's gonna win.
Speaker 7: She's going to have at least two seventy.
Speaker 1: Okay, and she win in Pennsylvania.
Speaker 16: She's winning Pennsylvania right now. This is where the nation started,
Speaker 16: and we're sticking on the right side of history.
Speaker 5: All right, I love it.
Speaker 4: Does anybody else suspect that while the polling loose closes,
Speaker 4: anybody think that this may also be a blow away
Speaker 4: on behalf of Kamala Harris, you think there may be
Speaker 4: some a blowout, A blow away blowout, however you want.
Speaker 7: To phrase it. I said a blow away.
Speaker 1: Love, that's what you're doing with your hands to tip,
Speaker 1: just so you know, next time we do a panel,
Speaker 1: you're sitting to the right side of Andrew because I'm
Speaker 1: ducking like.
Speaker 4: I'm a sneaky suspicion that she's gonna blow past two seventy.
Speaker 5: I agree.
Speaker 4: I think there are people here who are not being
Speaker 4: caught in the polling. I think there are states that
Speaker 4: we are counting out. Uh And I think that there's
Speaker 4: a lot of secret voting that's happening where people are
Speaker 4: not necessarily disclosing who they're supporting. And when the final
Speaker 4: analysis is done, I think we're gonna pick up states
Speaker 4: that we didn't think we're gonna be in our column.
Speaker 5: You know, I want to say something about that.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry one because I'd never like to make us invisible.
Speaker 1: There is another sister that I should have recognized, and
Speaker 1: we ran in here we had to go to the
Speaker 1: bathroom wash our hands. It was doctor Valerie Harrison and
Speaker 1: I talked about it to me, Joanna, thank you for
Speaker 1: giving me my life together. We would not be here
Speaker 1: today if it wasn't for you, Doctor Harrison. And Tim
Speaker 1: got us together as well. He was directing me and
Speaker 1: Tiff down the hallway like we were. We didn't stan him,
Speaker 1: do I understand? But this way with the people so
Speaker 1: they know, thank you, you appreciate it.
Speaker 5: Thank you for your work.
Speaker 3: I want to say something about this idea about voting
Speaker 3: in secret. What year are we in that women got
Speaker 3: a hide from their husbands, not us, but the other
Speaker 3: women got a hide from their husbands who they're voting for.
Speaker 3: The vote is secret, Yeah, it's secret, but I don't
Speaker 3: need my husband's permission to.
Speaker 1: Or secret. There's a difference sacred and secret.
Speaker 3: The dynamic that exists that you and it showed to me.
Speaker 3: It highlights the clear divide between us and them sometimes
Speaker 3: if you feel like you can't stand in your own conviction,
Speaker 3: in your own home, and to me, there's an un
Speaker 3: are lying envy in that that I want the same
Speaker 3: power that my white man husband has, and so to
Speaker 3: get that power. I will preserve his power in hopes
Speaker 3: that one day he might extend it to me. That
Speaker 3: is the clear divide between us and them.
Speaker 4: The campaign was wrong to run the ads they did,
Speaker 4: but I don't want you.
Speaker 5: To start defending.
Speaker 7: The last ads.
Speaker 4: But essentially Julia Roberts is narrating this experience for two
Speaker 4: white women go into the polling place with their husbands
Speaker 4: to cast their ballots.
Speaker 5: It's like away each other.
Speaker 4: And have this sort of wink nod experience where like, girl,
Speaker 4: you know, yeah, I know. They then uh, as they're leaving,
Speaker 4: you know, we did the right thing. We voted for Trump.
Speaker 4: And then there's an exchange that basically shows that they
Speaker 4: voted for Harris, and the right wing went mayhem over
Speaker 4: the last seventy two hours over these adswe the preacher
Speaker 4: white men particularly, but there was also an ad that
Speaker 4: they ran with two white men going in to vote.
Speaker 4: They have a similar exchange and both of them vote
Speaker 4: for Harris. However, there was no blowback about white men
Speaker 4: in secret deciding they look at each other with a
Speaker 4: weekend and the nod that yeah, we couldn't go with
Speaker 4: that dude. We went with Harris. But in the case
Speaker 4: of the women. There was intense blowback across Fox News
Speaker 4: and every other right wing outlet.
Speaker 5: How dare got us to be Handmaid's tail so bad?
Speaker 16: Well, I think we don't recognize how culturally to your points,
Speaker 16: if any people are, people are culturally different. And depending
Speaker 16: on the type of community that you live in, I
Speaker 16: always say, you know, I live in West Philly is
Speaker 16: a big blue bastion of Democrats. There's some Republican neighbors,
Speaker 16: but I don't see them with maga hats on, and
Speaker 16: the same way I don't see my neighbors with maga
Speaker 16: hats on. It's the same way in other communities. People
Speaker 16: don't have on a Harris Wall shirt tonight and a
Speaker 16: big button that says voting is my black job. But
Speaker 16: that's okay because when you go into the ballot it
Speaker 16: is both sacred and secret. And if it's both sacred
Speaker 16: and secret, you shouldn't have to advertise, because if you
Speaker 16: are going to run into something at work or at
Speaker 16: your place of worship, you'd rather avoid. So you're not
Speaker 16: going to tell everybody this is where I am and
Speaker 16: this is where I line, because then the questions start
Speaker 16: or what about this?
Speaker 7: What about this?
Speaker 16: Are you saying, you agree with everything that this person
Speaker 16: and this candidate is for. Because the same way somebody
Speaker 16: told me I was at an event yesterday, I'm for you,
Speaker 16: but I'm voting for the other guy. I said, well,
Speaker 16: you know he's not for you. He's not going to
Speaker 16: tell your union that you should go on strike. He's
Speaker 16: not going to tell megacorporation acts that they should pay
Speaker 16: you fairly. He's never going to stand in the gap
Speaker 16: for you. So how could you not be with her?
Speaker 16: And he says something to be about an open primary.
Speaker 16: I said, you're sure, that's it. You're sure you're not
Speaker 16: voting for her because of a primary short that's the issue,
Speaker 16: that's the reason. So it's different depending on where you're
Speaker 16: from and where you live. And I was on an
Speaker 16: interview last week with a group of women from all
Speaker 16: across the nation, Oregon, Michigan again, their leaders in their
Speaker 16: state houses and Senate, and we all talked about how
Speaker 16: there are some women who do not talk openly about
Speaker 16: being tired of the forty fifth president is nonsense, and
Speaker 16: being tired of it means that they're not voting for
Speaker 16: him again, even if they did in sixteen and twenty.
Speaker 5: I want to go too.
Speaker 1: You can ask your question, but I want to bring
Speaker 1: up Quentin James, who's going to join us now from
Speaker 1: Vote to Live. Also he's the founder and president of
Speaker 1: Collective Pact. Give our brother a round of applun the home.
Speaker 1: And we also have gabriel Gabrielle Reid, who is the
Speaker 1: president of Black Girls Vote here at Temple University joining
Speaker 1: the panel.
Speaker 3: T if you were about to ask a question, okay,
Speaker 3: I'll tell you later.
Speaker 5: Anyway, I right, last, all right, we're gonna get in
Speaker 5: trouble with Andrews. Can we say? We can't say?
Speaker 4: I phone was ringing it it read n DeSantis.
Speaker 1: Give me the phone there, but let me call real
Speaker 1: quick with me called back on.
Speaker 3: The party anyway, Rondo Sanders was calling anyway, I have
Speaker 3: a question for you.
Speaker 5: But that's a distracting thing you show me. Rond de
Speaker 5: Santa's calling it. But anyway, I have a question that
Speaker 5: you should focus group.
Speaker 3: I agree, Okay, the young man who asked about Vice
Speaker 3: President Harris's plan, I think this is a great question
Speaker 3: for you, Madam speaker, because what I was struck by
Speaker 3: when I heard your question is something that I think
Speaker 3: we assume a lot of people just understand how government works.
Speaker 3: I assume you understand, but a lot of people out
Speaker 3: there don't. And some people think that President elect Harris
Speaker 3: is also State Rep. Harris is also city councilwoman Harris
Speaker 3: is also school board president Harris and so I would
Speaker 3: love for you to punctuate the role of state and
Speaker 3: local government as it relates to getting the president's agenda done.
Speaker 3: While we discussed calling Royan DeSantis back on the side, well.
Speaker 16: While y'all call him, we're going to have this conversation.
Speaker 16: And many times, even when people decide that they don't vote,
Speaker 16: not interested in voting, it's because they think that one official,
Speaker 16: the mayor, the mayor supples to solve every problem. Social
Speaker 16: Security now that's a federal benefit. Unemployment now that's a
Speaker 16: state benefit. But we think, well, I voted for this
Speaker 16: woman from mayor, why hasn't everything been fixed immediately? So
Speaker 16: our President elect Harris will have to have a Congress
Speaker 16: that is willing to work with her to change policies.
Speaker 16: The number of high school town halls I had in
Speaker 16: September getting students to register the vote. Who said, oh, no,
Speaker 16: the last president gave my mama a check. No, it
Speaker 16: was the majority leader in the Senate, who at the
Speaker 16: time was Chuck Schumer, and it was Madam Speaker in
Speaker 16: Washington DC, MSS Pelosi that worked together to get your
Speaker 16: parents some benefits during the pandemic. Now, for whatever reason,
Speaker 16: the former president did and let the Secretary from Treasury
Speaker 16: sign it. He decided he wanted his name on it.
Speaker 16: So now people thinking that he was able to give
Speaker 16: them some money. He didn't give anybody anything. It took
Speaker 16: action from the lawmakers to do it. And in Harrisburg,
Speaker 16: the things that we oversee are paying for many public benefits,
Speaker 16: like public education. In Pennsylvania, that's a big bill we have.
Speaker 16: I was proud in our last budget to have the
Speaker 16: biggest investment thanks to my colleagues, finally into public schools,
Speaker 16: making them fair. For so long in pas you got
Speaker 16: to roll the dice on where you can afford to live,
Speaker 16: on what type of public school you can access. That's
Speaker 16: not all on Washington. A lot of that is on
Speaker 16: the state's responsibility. Similarly, we're in the city we live in.
Speaker 9: You know people talk about a pothole, Well, if it's a.
Speaker 16: City rule, we have to get downtown to get our
Speaker 16: city council mempus working on something like that, so all
Speaker 16: of us have a role to play. But people get
Speaker 16: disenchanted because they think that one time you voted for
Speaker 16: elected official.
Speaker 5: Why she was supposed to fix it all.
Speaker 6: And it doesn't work that way.
Speaker 16: It takes collaboration, partnership, even once you set in it
Speaker 16: ambitious agenda.
Speaker 1: Now, speaking of collaboration, I want to go to the collective.
Speaker 1: It is you all that creates history makers and helps
Speaker 1: to blaze trails for history makers like Madam speaker right here,
Speaker 1: I want to talk to you briefly quitting about what
Speaker 1: you see as our responsibility in the next twelve hours,
Speaker 1: right is what is our collective responsibility and call to
Speaker 1: action leading up to election day tomorrow.
Speaker 17: Well, first, good evening, Thank you all for having us Yes,
Speaker 17: give it up the temple. You all sent a good
Speaker 17: brother by the name of doctor Greg Carr to Howard
Speaker 17: University from this university. So he was my professor at Howard.
Speaker 17: I'm an African American Studi's major. So thank you officing
Speaker 17: him to us. The next twelve hours. What we got
Speaker 17: to do. We got some good news. Right, There's been
Speaker 17: a lot of talk around our black men go to
Speaker 17: show up. Our black girl's going to come out. What
Speaker 17: we know from the numbers, over two point seven million
Speaker 17: Black people have already vote voted early.
Speaker 6: In the battleground states.
Speaker 17: Right huge, give yourselves around replause. Anybody already vote, People
Speaker 17: already voted, I voted. So what we know is that,
Speaker 17: for instance, in Georgia, forty eight percent of all black
Speaker 17: women rights have.
Speaker 9: Already voted right.
Speaker 17: In North Carolina, over fifty percent of black women have
Speaker 17: already voted right. So we're heading towards a record breaking
Speaker 17: turnout tomorrow, at least from black women. We got to
Speaker 17: make sure the gap isn't too big with black men.
Speaker 17: But what we need to do we need to get
Speaker 17: everyone that we know out to the polls tomorrow. It
Speaker 17: is the job of the campaigns to convince them who
Speaker 17: to vote for. It is your job to try and
Speaker 17: get them to the polls. If you go on your
Speaker 17: phones real quick, put your phones out, go to rides
Speaker 17: to Vote dot com. We are offering people thirty dollars
Speaker 17: uber vouchers to get to and from the polls tomorrow,
Speaker 17: all across Pennsylvania, all across Maryland and Texas, in Wisconsin
Speaker 17: and Michigan and Georgia, North Carolina rides to vote dot com,
Speaker 17: put it on your social media, put it up there.
Speaker 4: We need people to go and vote.
Speaker 17: That's the biggest thing that we can do over the
Speaker 17: next twelve hours is turn our people out. I'm predicting
Speaker 17: that we're gonna have a really interesting surprise tomorrow, a
Speaker 17: surprise I think to Andrew's point, I think we're gonna
Speaker 17: see someone possibly get close to three hundred electoral votes.
Speaker 17: You know, we think about the polls and all the
Speaker 17: polls that you see, they're tight, one person's ahead by
Speaker 17: a point or two. The thing that you don't think
Speaker 17: about is those polls on average are about they say
Speaker 17: there's a margin of air about three to four points.
Speaker 17: And so imagine if some candidate has a little of
Speaker 17: a bit of a break three or four points in
Speaker 17: every single state, that could lead to someone winning the
Speaker 17: majority of the swing states. I think that will be
Speaker 17: Vice President Harris. I predict she will also get about
Speaker 17: fifty five percent of white women to support her tomorrow,
Speaker 17: which if she does again, she is going to be
Speaker 17: the president elect come Wednesday morning or Wednesday after noon.
Speaker 4: Quents a quick follow up and really for all of
Speaker 4: our guests. The election day voting results were folks who
Speaker 4: will show up on Tomorrow Tuesday and cast their ballots.
Speaker 4: And some states, obviously we've got early voting windows. Early
Speaker 4: vote typically with the exception of twenty twenty favors favors Republicans,
Speaker 4: and we think this year will be similar. Do you
Speaker 4: anticipate that the early vote, for instance, and Georgia comes
Speaker 4: out and those are the first numbers and they show
Speaker 4: Donald Trump with a substantial lead in early vote, do
Speaker 4: you think Donald Trump potentially goes out tomorrow eight nine
Speaker 4: o'clock in declares victory as the next president. You fear
Speaker 4: whether or not these earth And this is something I
Speaker 4: think all of us should really reckon with, is that
Speaker 4: no matter what, the data as it comes in is
Speaker 4: going to look very and skewed from point to point.
Speaker 4: The reason why they want one day of only voting
Speaker 4: with paper ballots and a result that evening is so
Speaker 4: that the votes that came in via absentee or early
Speaker 4: votes maybe or may not yet be factored into the
Speaker 4: numbers when they are initially announced. Because these states all
Speaker 4: have transparency rules, and as the numbers are counted, they're
Speaker 4: to be posted and put out there that way, when
Speaker 4: eleven o'clock and the numbers are looking more round it
Speaker 4: and Kamala Harris has come back, then there is they
Speaker 4: stole it from us. And if you fear that, what
Speaker 4: do you think our best tactics are as a people
Speaker 4: to sort of calm that? And what responsibility do you
Speaker 4: think Kambala Harris may have to address that? If Donald
Speaker 4: Trump preemptively declares victory.
Speaker 16: Well he's shown us that he will lie and he
Speaker 16: will try to steal an election. You know, when I
Speaker 16: was little, my granny said, don't ever tell a lie
Speaker 16: because the next temptation will be to steal something that's
Speaker 16: not yours. He's to steal elections. He was on the
Speaker 16: phone asking the governor to find votes. It's like, well,
Speaker 16: when you find votes in Georgia, my friend, what's going
Speaker 16: to happen in Pennsylvania? Because you already lost. We have
Speaker 16: to recognize that people need to be patient. Democratic leaders
Speaker 16: from across the nation are going to start hitting press
Speaker 16: tomorrow night saying to count every vote, to let it
Speaker 16: be a free and fair election, which is a blessing
Speaker 16: that we should cherish that we've always had in this nation,
Speaker 16: and that we're going to do that again and just pursue,
Speaker 16: you know, shake off all ideas that anybody won yet,
Speaker 16: because it will not be clear since we've gone into
Speaker 16: the age where states allow for more ways for people
Speaker 16: to vote. It's not twenty sixteen. We don't know Tuesday
Speaker 16: night at midnight. We just don't like the time I
Speaker 16: voted first time at LaSalle two thousand. Don't y'all laugh,
Speaker 16: you were born, you know, I was sitting on my bed,
Speaker 16: finger legs crossed, like, what's going on? What's happening? You
Speaker 16: know who won? Because it was a time when you
Speaker 16: just would know. But that is not the time. And
Speaker 16: in Pennsylvania and our state House, we sent a bill
Speaker 16: over to the Senate several months ago so that they
Speaker 16: could even just organize the mail in ballots, not open
Speaker 16: them and vote them yet, but just organize and sort them.
Speaker 16: But they wouldn't, of course do that, because our state
Speaker 16: senate's held by Republicans and they like the chaos.
Speaker 5: Are you concerned about violence?
Speaker 16: Absolutely, absolutely concerned about it and what people think about
Speaker 16: when we think about January to sixth, we think people
Speaker 16: from certain states came from the South to Washington, DC,
Speaker 16: and not realizing that Pennsylvania had the highest number of
Speaker 16: people arrested from and of course nobody was really arrested
Speaker 16: that day, so they was going on looking on footage
Speaker 16: find out who people were. Found Pelosi's computer in Harrisburg
Speaker 16: with a twenty one year old. Yes, I'm very concerned
Speaker 16: about it, but we are being vigilant to ask people
Speaker 16: to be patient and most importantly, to recognize that the
Speaker 16: process will not be finished until it's finished. We even
Speaker 16: never had a stolen election, but we have had a
Speaker 16: former president that tried to throw our votes out.
Speaker 1: I want to you all come back to you, but Gaby,
Speaker 1: I want to get your prediction first, and then I
Speaker 1: want to hear from you on the very important role
Speaker 1: that black girls, black women are playing in this election.
Speaker 1: We know we're carrying this thing on our backs. How
Speaker 1: much further do we have to go?
Speaker 18: I would say we have some ways to go. We're
Speaker 18: showing up and the youth vote is definitely counting as
Speaker 18: us as college students, we're out there, we're getting the votes,
Speaker 18: we're making sure people are registered to vote, and as
Speaker 18: black women, we're showing up like this is the first
Speaker 18: women president and she just so happens to be black.
Speaker 18: So it's one of those things where we all have
Speaker 18: to collectively come together and make sure that we are
Speaker 18: showing out and to ensure that everyone's not like, oh
Speaker 18: my goodness, it's a blowout.
Speaker 5: It's this.
Speaker 18: It's just remembering that a lot of the people who
Speaker 18: are voting in this election, this is our first time voting,
Speaker 18: Like this is it for us. This is a big
Speaker 18: election and it's her story. So many college students are
Speaker 18: coming out, those high school students who are old enough
Speaker 18: or coming out. So just remembering that it's not just
Speaker 18: the older generation going to the polls, it's us too.
Speaker 18: So just remembering that and having that piece of information
Speaker 18: with you, just stay calm and do your job, like
Speaker 18: go to the polls, take a friend to the pulls,
Speaker 18: make sure your kids are going to the polls after school.
Speaker 18: Do your job, and make sure people are going to vote.
Speaker 18: Because at the end of the day, if you fall
Speaker 18: asleep tomorrow night and being like I register to vote
Speaker 18: and I voted, then we're all good. So I think
Speaker 18: that's what we really need to remember.
Speaker 5: Here we go quick, we were going thin th business.
Speaker 4: Thank you for that.
Speaker 17: So yeah, I mean, I think I say this cautiously
Speaker 17: but I say this realistically, I think we should expect
Speaker 17: Donald Trump to come out tomorrow and say either he
Speaker 17: won or that the election is being rigged or stolen.
Speaker 17: That is their only defense. If you remember in twenty twenty,
Speaker 17: there was one party calling for stage to stop count votes.
Speaker 17: That was not the Democratic Party, that was the Republican Party,
Speaker 17: and so we should expect that, but we should also
Speaker 17: be patient. So we've talked to leaders in the different
Speaker 17: states and just a quick rundown. So tomorrow, between seven
Speaker 17: and ten PM on election night, we should have most
Speaker 17: results from Georgia and North Carolina, but only partial results
Speaker 17: from Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan as well. We also may have
Speaker 17: near complete results from Virginia, Florida, Ohio, and Colorado. Between
Speaker 17: ten PM and midnight, again we should have most results
Speaker 17: from Georgia, North Carolina and also possibly Michigan, but again
Speaker 17: only partial results from Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona, and then initial
Speaker 17: results from Nevada. Going from midnight to six am. This
Speaker 17: is Wednesday morning, y'all, most results from Wisconsin and Michigan,
Speaker 17: but again only partial results still from Pennsylvania, Arizona.
Speaker 9: And Nevada.
Speaker 17: So the idea that we're going to know the winner
Speaker 17: tomorrow night. Is probably unlikely this will be going on
Speaker 17: into Wednesday, and so remain patient.
Speaker 9: Money.
Speaker 7: Bet me some money, Bet you some money.
Speaker 17: Yes, I mean, look, I said that she's gonna approach
Speaker 17: three hundred Elexora votes. I think if we can call
Speaker 17: Georgia and or North Carolina, then the game is over
Speaker 17: tomorrow at by eleven o'clock possibly.
Speaker 4: So. I think the one thing that just to all
Speaker 4: of us should know is that one, it is always
Speaker 4: taken three or four weeks for states to certify elections.
Speaker 4: Those calls are not typically made by any state until
Speaker 4: those certifications take place. Arizona in particular, Nevada another one
Speaker 4: in particular, whose state laws are very you know, specific
Speaker 4: about some of these things, will withhold, not withhold, they
Speaker 4: will do their due diligence. Count votes are necessary, and
Speaker 4: particularly those challenge ballots and states that are going to
Speaker 4: be close, those challenge ballots have to be cured, which
Speaker 4: requires a Republican and a Democrat sitting at the same
Speaker 4: table and agreeing that a voter's intent is a voter's intent,
Speaker 4: and that a voter's signature belongs to the voter who
Speaker 4: casts that particular ballot. The reason why I think we
Speaker 4: may be at a more predicted place tomorrow night is
Speaker 4: there are certain counties in certain areas who will perform
Speaker 4: certain ways, and depending upon how those places perform here
Speaker 4: in Pennsylvania and Georgia and North Carolina, networks will begin
Speaker 4: to start projecting who they believe the winners are. I
Speaker 4: think an open question is whether or not how deep
Speaker 4: Fox News is in the tank for Donald Trump, and
Speaker 4: whether or not they will go contrary to the work
Speaker 4: of most news organizations and start declaring states and putting
Speaker 4: in a column for Donald Trump that he hasn't rightly
Speaker 4: deserved yet. I don't fear that for Kamala Harris, because
Speaker 4: I think most networks are pretty cautious before they put
Speaker 4: a state on a column. But in addition to Donald
Speaker 4: Trump claiming victory, my concern is that some of the networks,
Speaker 4: who again get out there before votes are certified, before
Speaker 4: elections are certified, they make a claim on a state,
Speaker 4: thereby creating even more tension and fewer in the possibility.
Speaker 4: I think for violence as hard when somebody says a
Speaker 4: state went for Donald Trump, and then the next morning
Speaker 4: you woke up and it was taken from him. Well,
Speaker 4: it wasn't taken from him. All of those weren't county.
Speaker 4: Y'all jumped the gun, right. Nobody's won that state yet.
Speaker 4: The vote hasn't been certified.
Speaker 17: But I don't I don't think Fox News will do
Speaker 17: that simply because of the dominion lawsuit they did that.
Speaker 4: They have a track.
Speaker 9: Record of being sued.
Speaker 4: But their track record was about lying on a certain
Speaker 4: company and that company faking or manipulating the vote count correct.
Speaker 4: Declaring a winner isn't the same thing as as as
Speaker 4: besmerging a company's name and having to pay life.
Speaker 3: Can you get in the first Amendment issue so that
Speaker 3: the same danger of lawsuits doesn't necessary early apply. I
Speaker 3: would not be so confident about Fox News doing that.
Speaker 5: Never, not once. But here's what I am confident about.
Speaker 1: Time is ticking. This panel has been amazing and we
Speaker 1: are going to give them around a cause. For those
Speaker 1: with you watching at home, know that Q James will
Speaker 1: join us again tomorrow Election Night Live from Howard University
Speaker 1: the Meta. But please give a red applause again to her,
Speaker 1: Madam Speaker, Join a McClinton.
Speaker 5: Away for joining.
Speaker 1: And next up we have a working family's agender partner
Speaker 1: from Working Families Party, Party national director Maurice Mitchell, council
Speaker 1: Member Kendra Brooks and council Member Nicholas Rourk will now
Speaker 1: join us if around our party.
Speaker 5: Be live on camera, I have a seat.
Speaker 1: We love you, mokaya all right, to make sure you
Speaker 1: get all your time, y'all.
Speaker 7: Lest we think about the threat of again elections.
Speaker 1: You really look like the Praise team right now that
Speaker 1: hold on, look at this, we really do. We got
Speaker 1: the ten direct it okay sign but I just you
Speaker 1: know we do.
Speaker 4: You curve frankly.
Speaker 7: And everybody else.
Speaker 4: What responsibility do political parties that are not the majority
Speaker 4: parties Democratic or Republican, as well as C three C
Speaker 4: four organizations who have been working on behalf of turning
Speaker 4: out voters? What responsibility do you all feel you have
Speaker 4: tomorrow and then in the days after to ensure that
Speaker 4: we've got not just a fair election, but that we
Speaker 4: don't jump the gun and find ourselves in a situation
Speaker 4: where democracy really feels at stake and it becomes something physical.
Speaker 4: What responsibility do you all think you all have in
Speaker 4: that situation?
Speaker 19: Our number one responsibility always is to tell the truth, right,
Speaker 19: That's our number one responsibility, and it's hard to know.
Speaker 6: And also.
Speaker 19: Happy Election daye if everybody. So we don't know what's
Speaker 19: going to happen, but we do know that Donald Trump
Speaker 19: and the MAGA movement will engage in some shenanigans, right.
Speaker 19: And I remember in twenty twenty. I remember when at
Speaker 19: the Convention Center in Philadelphia they were counting votes and
Speaker 19: Rudy Giuliani wanted to come and hold a press conference
Speaker 19: in order to kind of drum up the stop the
Speaker 19: Steel energy in Philly. But he don't know about Philly, right,
Speaker 19: and he found out, So, you know, Nicholas and Kendra
Speaker 19: and a lot of the folks in the community turned
Speaker 19: that space into a Party for Democracy and shut that down,
Speaker 19: shut the Stop the Spiel movement down in Philly, and
Speaker 19: instead we basically celebrated our democracy. So to me, we
Speaker 19: have a duty to when the dust is settled and
Speaker 19: the days and weeks after, we know that there's going
Speaker 19: to be a lot of noise to be able to
Speaker 19: communicate to the people that we have influence over that
Speaker 19: we got us, that the processes of our democracy are
Speaker 19: fear and that we need to make sure that every
Speaker 19: vote is counted.
Speaker 4: I appreciate you. I want to hear from the other
Speaker 4: two of you, but you gave an important example of
Speaker 4: one that I just wanted to illuminate as well. In
Speaker 4: Florida in two thousand and the Bush be scenario, it
Speaker 4: was outside groups, not necessarily political parties, but also staff
Speaker 4: who were flown in bust in to certain precincts where
Speaker 4: they knew that the vote count and those precincts where
Speaker 4: those ballots fully counted would result in black They were
Speaker 4: largely black precincts, and I watched as many community groups
Speaker 4: and community leaders shrink from the moment of standing up
Speaker 4: for democracy because the other side was so violent, so loud,
Speaker 4: so agitating and antagonizing. And it's the reason why I
Speaker 4: wanted to know how U all's organizations are sort of
Speaker 4: prepared or thinking about that, because I don't think any
Speaker 4: of us can put it beyond the pale that should
Speaker 4: they show up at precincts and counting locations, that the
Speaker 4: votes they're going to want to shut down first will
Speaker 4: be amongst the folks who are estimated to vote almost
Speaker 4: ninety percent for their opponent, which means they'll be in
Speaker 4: black neighborhoods, younger college campuses and an effort to shut
Speaker 4: down the ability to count every vote.
Speaker 6: Oh oh, they're saying the quiet part out loud.
Speaker 19: They are saying what they plan on doing, right, They
Speaker 19: want to call the election even before we've counted all
Speaker 19: the votes, which is why it's important for us to
Speaker 19: understand the assignment.
Speaker 20: I would just say that one of the things that
Speaker 20: we were trying to be intentional in doing in the
Speaker 20: midst of the lockdowns when the twenty twenty election was
Speaker 20: going forward was returning a sense of joy in the
Speaker 20: act of this wholest election system.
Speaker 4: Actually, the whole movement joye of the polls was kind of.
Speaker 20: Burfed out of the party that was set up at
Speaker 20: that convention center to push back against the negative energy
Speaker 20: that many folks were feeling, all the anxiety that folks
Speaker 20: were dealing with in the midst of it all, and
Speaker 20: using joy as a resistance tactic to and also to
Speaker 20: kind of booy the spirit in pushing back. It also
Speaker 20: continues to be something that folks do. It's now kind
Speaker 20: of spread. You now have DJ at the Polsy, you
Speaker 20: have all these other means by which people are bringing
Speaker 20: celebration and a spirit of festivity to that space, and
Speaker 20: it diffuses a bit some of the tension that happens
Speaker 20: at that space, and so as you have seen it
Speaker 20: now has kind of gone national or what have you.
Speaker 20: And that's one of the things that we continue to
Speaker 20: prioritize in this work.
Speaker 14: And I just want to add that we organize like
Speaker 14: we are all organizers, So we organize not just at
Speaker 14: election time.
Speaker 5: This is an ongoing process.
Speaker 14: So whatever happens on election day, we still have a
Speaker 14: commitment to our community to build and grow because the
Speaker 14: way we win election after election is by building this
Speaker 14: movement and growing our base. So our commitment is always
Speaker 14: going to be first to grassroots movement, our organizers, and
Speaker 14: our communities to build and grow from every moment.
Speaker 19: And that's the difference between a third party movement that's
Speaker 19: actually on these streets versus third party movements that parachute
Speaker 19: every four years with us a.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about it, Okay, I want to talk about it.
Speaker 1: So on that point, there are a lot of folks
Speaker 1: that here wishless and pie in the sky agendas from
Speaker 1: third party candidates, and you guys are very serious about
Speaker 1: organizing all the way down ballot. Can you talk about
Speaker 1: what the role of the Working Families Party is in
Speaker 1: this election, where do you all stand in the presidential
Speaker 1: election and then down ballot?
Speaker 19: Sure, well, the Working Families Party every and we've been
Speaker 19: around for twenty six years, so every single election year
Speaker 19: we're making close to one thousand endorsements. This election year
Speaker 19: we have seven hundred and fifty close so seven hundred
Speaker 19: and fifty endorse candidates. That means that in California we
Speaker 19: have one hundred and thirty four candidates that we've endorsed
Speaker 19: on the municipal level, on the state level as well,
Speaker 19: at the top of the ticket in Georgia, in Pennsylvania.
Speaker 19: So we're concerned with the state house because that's where
Speaker 19: the laws get made. Right, If you actually are serious
Speaker 19: about policies, policies that will actually make a difference in
Speaker 19: your lives, then you have to be focused on where
Speaker 19: the laws get made in city councils, which is why
Speaker 19: I'm so proud that in the city of Philadelphia it's
Speaker 19: a two party city, Working Families and Democrats right or
Speaker 19: in state houses or in Congress, which means you have
Speaker 19: to care about the down ballot races.
Speaker 6: And political parties.
Speaker 19: Political parties if you're to take them seriously, are not
Speaker 19: just about winning elections.
Speaker 6: They're about governing.
Speaker 19: And the real governing happens in those legislative bodies.
Speaker 6: So if you only hear.
Speaker 19: A political party talk about their presidential candidate every four years,
Speaker 19: it might mean they're not serious about governing, right, and
Speaker 19: governing is actually how we deliver. And I'd love for Nick,
Speaker 19: who you just got your first bill passed, right, and
Speaker 19: Kendra to talk about these cow crete victories that they
Speaker 19: worked day and night with our coalition to pass through
Speaker 19: Philly City Council, because these are transformative.
Speaker 20: Peter Brooks, you want to start first, Okay, Well, yeah,
Speaker 20: very well, thank you very much for saying that. I
Speaker 20: am pretty proud of our staff and our team who
Speaker 20: helped put together our first bill passed with an overwhelming
Speaker 20: support from our colleagues to ban algorithmic rental price fixing.
Speaker 20: There is we are in Philadelphia every election cycle, we're
Speaker 20: reminded over and over again that we're the poorest big
Speaker 20: city in the USA about nearly fifty some forty percent
Speaker 20: of the residents of the city, meaning almost every other
Speaker 20: person you see as a renter. And you already heard
Speaker 20: the folks up in New York talk about the rent
Speaker 20: being too damn high.
Speaker 9: It's too high here too, and so how.
Speaker 20: Do we govern in a way that protects tenants here
Speaker 20: in the city of Philadelphia. As the folks say, all
Speaker 20: politics is local. I heard someone say recently, if it is,
Speaker 20: if all politics are local, then all local politics is housing,
Speaker 20: because that's one of the material ways by which we're
Speaker 20: able to secure people and create safety, and and and
Speaker 20: and also build from there. So we're super proud to
Speaker 20: be able to go ahead and put forward something that's
Speaker 20: going to help materially protect the lives of almost half
Speaker 20: the city or at least have shelter over their heads.
Speaker 5: That's good.
Speaker 1: Oh, Okay, So I wanted to address this third party issue,
Speaker 1: but one more just to like double click on this
Speaker 1: and get even closer to the point. For the presidential candidate,
Speaker 1: you know, the options that you have. Did you all
Speaker 1: choose a candidate?
Speaker 19: Yes, we did, and I want to tell you why.
Speaker 1: I want to know who it is.
Speaker 19: Okay, Okay, So the Working Families Party endor endorsed Kamala
Speaker 19: Harris and Tim.
Speaker 1: Walls for all the third party candidates watching.
Speaker 6: Did you hear that?
Speaker 5: Okay?
Speaker 6: Okay? Yeah?
Speaker 19: And we're independent, So I'm not a Democrat, all right,
Speaker 19: I'm proudly an independent person who's building an independent third
Speaker 19: party from the ground up. Right, So we're not we're
Speaker 19: not democrats and sense we're independence. We're building independent power.
Speaker 19: And like I said before, our job is to tell
Speaker 19: the truth. Building a serious third party in this country
Speaker 19: that has such a rigid two party system is not easy.
Speaker 6: Serious, it is not easy.
Speaker 19: Look, Rothbaro couldn't do with all of his money in
Speaker 19: nineteen ninety two.
Speaker 6: It is not easy.
Speaker 19: But we've learned the art of doing it right, and
Speaker 19: we have the receipts to prove that it can be done,
Speaker 19: not just in this city, but now in twenty states
Speaker 19: around the country. We're building it and we're securing concrete victories.
Speaker 6: Like we're talking about here.
Speaker 19: We could not see based on the power that we
Speaker 19: currently had, and we currently are building a path for
Speaker 19: us to run our own person at the top of
Speaker 19: the ticket number one.
Speaker 10: Right.
Speaker 19: So being an organizer is being honest with your people
Speaker 19: about the power that you have and the power that
Speaker 19: you need.
Speaker 9: Right.
Speaker 19: And math right, Oh, Also, I mean the other thing
Speaker 19: is that you know so it's basic math. It's basic math.
Speaker 19: The math does not math for a independent third party,
Speaker 19: based on the current rules to win the electoral college
Speaker 19: two hundred and seventy electoral college votes to win the presidency.
Speaker 19: So also, we are in a historic moment where if
Speaker 19: the hate rally at MSG didn't let you know, we're
Speaker 19: dealing with a hate movement, a fascist movement, an authoritarian movement,
Speaker 19: and so that contrast couldn't be more clear for us.
Speaker 19: So this is a five alarm fire for our democracy.
Speaker 19: We as an independent third party, understood what time it was,
Speaker 19: and we felt it was our duty to communicate to
Speaker 19: all the people that entrust in us their political decisions,
Speaker 19: to say with our full chest that we've endorsed Kamala
Speaker 19: Harrison Tim Walls so that we could have more space
Speaker 19: to do the organizing that we've been doing right now.
Speaker 19: We don't believe that any politician is going to save
Speaker 19: us right Our belief is in organizing in our people,
Speaker 19: and we believe in this binary choice that there's one
Speaker 19: choice that gives us more space to organize, and there's
Speaker 19: another choice that gives us less space. And it isn't theoretical.
Speaker 19: There's one side that's talking about deporting protesters. There's one
Speaker 19: side that's talking about rounding up their political opponents. And
Speaker 19: so it is actually for us not a hard decision, right,
Speaker 19: which is why.
Speaker 6: We don't shrink.
Speaker 19: We're clear when we make endorsements, we say it with
Speaker 19: a full chest, and we could stand on twenty six
Speaker 19: plus years of organizing and doing work on local communities
Speaker 19: to validate that when we say this, we mean it.
Speaker 5: I want to.
Speaker 3: Stick with this third party issue because I think this
Speaker 3: is something that came up a lot this year, particularly
Speaker 3: around a lot of people. When it was Joe Biden
Speaker 3: on the ticket, there were a lot of people who
Speaker 3: felt not enthusiastic about either person. We did an episode.
Speaker 3: I encourage you guys to all check it out. We
Speaker 3: did a full conversation on third party candidates and what
Speaker 3: that means, and I think we should have an intellectual
Speaker 3: conversation around third parties. A two party system has not
Speaker 3: served our community and arguably it has not served anyone.
Speaker 3: It has not served the country, and as we start
Speaker 3: to reimagine what democracy could and should look like, I
Speaker 3: don't think we should dismiss third parties. Like the work
Speaker 3: you're doing, it's important that you punctuate the point it's
Speaker 3: taken twenty six years to build this. The challenge is
Speaker 3: a lot of people who champion a third party. The
Speaker 3: presidential race is very seductive, but when you think about it,
Speaker 3: there are plenty. There's a plethora of third party candidates
Speaker 3: who've been victorious across this country at the state and
Speaker 3: local level. That is where you can start to make
Speaker 3: a difference. So I don't want to discourage people who
Speaker 3: are out there who feel this way. We acknowledge that.
Speaker 3: Angela and I frequently say we are not mouthpieces for
Speaker 3: the Democratic Party. They don't call and ask us for
Speaker 3: too much because we are critical. We understand racism, like
Speaker 3: we've said, is a bipartisan challenge, but there is a pathway.
Speaker 5: To victory for third party candidates.
Speaker 3: So I think it's important the story that you just
Speaker 3: told about the work that you do, that that work
Speaker 3: happens at the grassroots level.
Speaker 5: So thank you for that.
Speaker 6: Thank you.
Speaker 4: I would also say, we got to be honest about
Speaker 4: the limitations at the federal level, which is why I
Speaker 4: appreciate I was honored to get the endorsement of the
Speaker 4: Working Families Party in Florida.
Speaker 1: Say which full chance Andrew this.
Speaker 4: This is the worst part about it is that from
Speaker 4: the Constitution of the United States to the effectuating statutes
Speaker 4: and laws that have been passed ever since, they exist
Speaker 4: only to prop up the two party systems. Dollars come
Speaker 4: from the federal government to support the Democratic Party and
Speaker 4: the Republican Party. It finds every way possible under the
Speaker 4: laws and constructs that it's created to keep third parties
Speaker 4: out of the game, to ensure that that your negotiation
Speaker 4: is always one between which one will create a better
Speaker 4: organizing environment for you, rather than you setting the tone
Speaker 4: of what that organizing environment will be by being the
Speaker 4: party that wins. And so I think one of the
Speaker 4: things that I think we're all challenged to do is
Speaker 4: we reimagine the kind of government that would be reflective
Speaker 4: of us rather than of power structures and power structures
Speaker 4: specifically that don't serve us. Is how we can get
Speaker 4: serious about organizing at a level where we can then
Speaker 4: put people in positions from states legislative races to congressional
Speaker 4: races and our forward that will pass laws or at
Speaker 4: least uncouple the stranglehold that our current laws have to
Speaker 4: prop up only to political parties in America.
Speaker 7: Unless that system gets leveled.
Speaker 4: There's no chance at a third party competing at the
Speaker 4: and no amount of money will make the difference in
Speaker 4: that when the laws are on the books specifically to
Speaker 4: keep a third party out, you gotta have so many
Speaker 4: many people in a state, you gotta have so many
Speaker 4: votes from so many people in that particular congressional district,
Speaker 4: so on and so forth, and so I applaud with
Speaker 4: y'all are doing. It is the long work, and it's
Speaker 4: the hard work. But we all have to be enlisted
Speaker 4: if we're serious about wanting to level the system as
Speaker 4: that he just today and opening I think our investment
Speaker 4: and groups like Working Family Party.
Speaker 1: We can't have a conversation about third parties without bringing
Speaker 1: on our dear brother and friend, Professor Mark Lamont Hill,
Speaker 1: who's here. Mark, I'm gonna give you my seat and
Speaker 1: I'm gonna take the float to mic because I want
Speaker 1: you to be a part of this conversation in this panel.
Speaker 5: Give them where I'm call.
Speaker 6: Yeah, you all want to know you.
Speaker 21: Picked to day to have the accident of all accidents.
Speaker 21: So I spent the last hour running back and forth
Speaker 21: to the car, to the stove, to the blowout.
Speaker 5: Oh that kind of blowout.
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, he fine, I'm not.
Speaker 5: Traumatizic.
Speaker 16: Well.
Speaker 1: I wanted to bring Mark up for this moment for
Speaker 1: a couple of reasons. One is, I think the biggest
Speaker 1: argument we've ever had is centered around twenty sixteen, and
Speaker 1: I think what is not fair is that you've, although
Speaker 1: you've tried several times to articulate the nuance of your position,
Speaker 1: it's something that continues to come back. And I think
Speaker 1: that this year in particular, given all that's going on,
Speaker 1: given your advocacy around Gaza and your own experience there,
Speaker 1: it's a critical election and you've made a really significant
Speaker 1: choice about what you're going to do this year, and
Speaker 1: i'd love for you to talk about, you know, what
Speaker 1: the considerations were and how you got there.
Speaker 21: Yeah, thank you for that. It's been a heck of
Speaker 21: a journey. And it's good to see everybody too, So
Speaker 21: good to see everybody. Most of y'all only see online,
Speaker 21: so it's good to be in person and community with everybody.
Speaker 21: I've been a Green Party member since.
Speaker 6: Twenty five years now.
Speaker 21: And I remain one a very proud Green Party member,
Speaker 21: despite my frustrations at times, and over that time, I
Speaker 21: have consistently, with one exception, voted Green and the reason
Speaker 21: why I vote Green is because I do believe in
Speaker 21: the need for a third party. And I think I
Speaker 21: didn't hear what y'all were just talking about, but I
Speaker 21: heard the end of it, and I think we have
Speaker 21: to create the conditions for a third party.
Speaker 6: And I think that as long as we believe that
Speaker 6: there are.
Speaker 21: There's only two options, and it's the lesser of two
Speaker 21: evils is our only option, and the evil is always
Speaker 21: going to be the outcome that we're going to get.
Speaker 21: And so we always have to be mindful of how
Speaker 21: we can push Democrats to the left, how we can
Speaker 21: imagine new political possibilities so we don't stay locked in
Speaker 21: the same frameworks. And so for me, that has meant
Speaker 21: voting Green, not because I think Jill Stein was gonna
Speaker 21: be president.
Speaker 6: You know, I don't know if i'd be happy.
Speaker 21: I think I would not be happy if Jill Stein
Speaker 21: were a president as a practical matter, but I'd be
Speaker 21: happy if the Green Party were able to build and
Speaker 21: organize and if we were able to get five percent
Speaker 21: of the vote, we were able to we would be
Speaker 21: able to get enough funding in order to have a
Speaker 21: more competitive race the next time around, not just for
Speaker 21: the presidency, which we ain't gonna win no time soon,
Speaker 21: but gubernatorial races, mayoralties, city councils, et cetera. So that's
Speaker 21: the logic of it for me. And I've always resisted
Speaker 21: the argument that, well, this election is different because it
Speaker 21: ain't been an election yet that we haven't been told
Speaker 21: this one is different. It wasn't like, you know, they said,
Speaker 21: I don't vote cars, Okay, Reagan will be fine. It
Speaker 21: wasn't like they said, oh, Daddy, Bush will be fine.
Speaker 21: Bush will be fine. Trump every time the sky is falling,
Speaker 21: every time, this is the worst threat to Democrat we've
Speaker 21: ever seen, and therefore you have to vote Democrat. Now,
Speaker 21: the truth is Republicans keep getting worse, and so it's
Speaker 21: not untrue that this is the worst threat. I would
Speaker 21: argue Trump is a worst threat than Bush, and Bush
Speaker 21: maybe not a worse threat than Reagan, but in retrospect.
Speaker 6: But you get the point. So that's the backdrop to
Speaker 6: all of this.
Speaker 21: And so this election cycle, I was faced with the
Speaker 21: same challenging question that we argued about in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 21: and that was what do you do.
Speaker 6: When you're facing a Trump.
Speaker 21: In twenty sixteen, My response was exactly what I had
Speaker 21: planned for, which was I voted Green. I said that
Speaker 21: not because I thought Trump would be good, but because I.
Speaker 6: Believed that the.
Speaker 21: Context was right for us to really mount a resistance. Now,
Speaker 21: to be clear, even when I voted Green in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 21: y'all know I live in Pennsylvania. I really was advocating
Speaker 21: Green Party voting in the forty two states that are
Speaker 21: not competitive because if you think of because they always
Speaker 21: say your vote, you wasting your vote.
Speaker 6: If you vote, you waste your vote.
Speaker 21: If you vote anything in Mississippi or California or Texas
Speaker 21: other than the thing that's.
Speaker 6: Going to win.
Speaker 9: I mean what I mean by waste.
Speaker 21: What I mean by waste is if I'm a Republican
Speaker 21: voting in California. I'm not making a dent either. I'm
Speaker 21: talking at the level of president. I think down to
Speaker 21: ballot you should Down ballot is a whole different conversation.
Speaker 21: I'm only talking about presdential election right now. Down ballot,
Speaker 21: I think we have to be very careful and very
Speaker 21: strategic because Republicans have been.
Speaker 6: Strategic for decades.
Speaker 21: Right while we're thinking about the presidency, they went in
Speaker 21: state houses, they're taken over. They're doing all the things
Speaker 21: necessary to ruin our lives in very meaningful, day to
Speaker 21: day way. So I'm not saying your vote doesn't matter.
Speaker 21: What I'm saying is that we could be strategic and
Speaker 21: still build a third party. For me, that meant vote
Speaker 21: trading and strategic balloting. So and so, for example, I'm
Speaker 21: in Pennsylvania.
Speaker 6: I might not vote Green.
Speaker 21: In California, I would, and if you know somebody is
Speaker 21: in that state, y'all can vote trade. Right, There's ways
Speaker 21: to navigate it so that the Green Party gets its
Speaker 21: vote and we keep Trump out. What I said that
Speaker 21: entire time in twenty sixteen was we have to do
Speaker 21: whatever we can do to keep Trump out while simultaneously
Speaker 21: building a third party movement. Now sometime that message gets
Speaker 21: lost in all because all people all I ever see
Speaker 21: on the internet is a clip of me saying we
Speaker 21: can afford to lose an election.
Speaker 6: We can. You know, I'm you know, things that I
Speaker 6: wouldn't say in context.
Speaker 21: I never wanted Trump to be in there, and I
Speaker 21: did all I could to stop it, but they lost.
Speaker 21: And one more thing about that before I tell you
Speaker 21: what I'm going to do now. The election wasn't lost
Speaker 21: because of Green Party, you know, And I think that
Speaker 21: that's an unfair burd I think it lets democrats off
Speaker 21: the hook for not meeting our needs. I think it
Speaker 21: ignores the effect that the Clinton campaign in particular did
Speaker 21: not target the right states at the right time and
Speaker 21: the right demographics. You know, no one is entitled to
Speaker 21: our vote. And also if you look at the vote also,
Speaker 21: just to be nerdy, but if you look at the
Speaker 21: exit ata, people who are voting Green aren't voting Democrat next,
Speaker 21: some of them voting Trump next, some of them are
Speaker 21: not voting at all next, some of them are voting
Speaker 21: Communist Party next, some of them voting Socialists next. A
Speaker 21: lot of people are in the Green Party because they
Speaker 21: don't want to be part of the main system. So
Speaker 21: even if the Green Party doesn't run, clardaated La Cruz
Speaker 21: will probably get their vote. And I know people say,
Speaker 21: if I don't vote for them, I'm voting Trump because
Speaker 21: I want to be outside the system, as if he's
Speaker 21: outside the system.
Speaker 6: So I don't accept any of that.
Speaker 21: This time around, I was faced with a very similar challenge,
Speaker 21: and I was faced with the realities of a genocide
Speaker 21: in Gaza. And as I stand in strong solidarity with
Speaker 21: Palestinian people. Many of them have said genocide is a
Speaker 21: red line for them.
Speaker 6: It's a non starter.
Speaker 21: They can't vote for anybody who is endorsing a genocide. Now, obviously,
Speaker 21: Kamala Harris is not the head of the Biden administration.
Speaker 21: Biden is the head of the Biden administration, and if
Speaker 21: she promised a different way, I think she could make
Speaker 21: a compelling argument. Unfortunately, much of what she has spoken
Speaker 21: about so far has suggested that it's the status quote,
Speaker 21: we support Israel's right to defend itself, which is really
Speaker 21: secret agent talk for you know, we're gonna keep funding
Speaker 21: these weapons in these bombs. I have no reason to
Speaker 21: believe that the harrison is going to be different, because
Speaker 21: I have no presidential administration has been largely different.
Speaker 6: So you have to tell me you're going to be different.
Speaker 6: You can't.
Speaker 21: I can't assume you know what I mean. We did
Speaker 21: that with too many other presidents. So then the question becomes, well,
Speaker 21: if that's the same, what do I do? And I
Speaker 21: would never tell a Palestinian not you know what I mean,
Speaker 21: not to stay home or not to vote third party?
Speaker 6: How could I? How dare I right?
Speaker 21: How dare I, in the midst of a genocide, say,
Speaker 21: vote for the person who's literally funding or helping to
Speaker 21: fund your genocide. And whether it's Biden, whoever, Let's be clear,
Speaker 21: Trump ain't not Trump would be worse. So that's one
Speaker 21: one thing I also have to calculate is despite what
Speaker 21: we're saying, Trump on stage said the only thing I
Speaker 21: would do different is I finished the job. And we
Speaker 21: saw Trump treated Palestinians and as president, so we don't
Speaker 21: have to guess under he cut funds and did all
Speaker 21: these things we could talk about if we want to,
Speaker 21: far more intensely than Biden did, and Biden's been terrible.
Speaker 21: So if I then make a vote right now, it
Speaker 21: would not be for a policy different policy outcome. It
Speaker 21: would be for UH to send a message that genocide
Speaker 21: is unacceptable.
Speaker 6: And I'm down with anybody who wants to make that choice.
Speaker 21: But I believe right now, given what we've seen in
Speaker 21: the past, given the reality of what's going on in Gaza,
Speaker 21: and I do believe that more Palestines would die under
Speaker 21: Trump than under Harris, even though I think too many
Speaker 21: will die under both. And in light of the fact
Speaker 21: that there are other things that I witnessed over the
Speaker 21: last eight years that have.
Speaker 6: Broken my heart. My father, My father died alone.
Speaker 21: Right down the street at twenty third in spring Garden
Speaker 21: because we couldn't see him.
Speaker 6: You saw him.
Speaker 21: We went and visited him one night. We snuck and
Speaker 21: snuck in anyhing stale, just getoraded of leave him some gatory.
Speaker 6: I can't remember.
Speaker 9: That's the okay.
Speaker 6: He didn't need it. Black people got sugar.
Speaker 21: So but after he let But once COVID came, he
Speaker 21: was he was older, he was ninety, but suddenly because
Speaker 21: of the pandemic, he couldn't.
Speaker 6: He couldn't, he couldn't see anybody. He was isolated.
Speaker 21: What does it mean to be an isolation inside of
Speaker 21: inside of a nursing home which became death camps all
Speaker 21: around this country, as did prisons. Now that ain't Trump's fault,
Speaker 21: but Trump could have done some things different, like read
Speaker 21: the pandemic playbook, not try to tell us the bleach
Speaker 21: you'll fix it, or the sunlight will fix it. My
Speaker 21: sister died likely of COVID the day of my father's funeral.
Speaker 21: But it's not personal for me. Hundreds, I mean all
Speaker 21: of us lost people, money, jobs, but more importantly, people.
Speaker 21: Those are preventable deaths, against the batch of all this
Speaker 21: other stuff, against the batch of losing the Supreme Court,
Speaker 21: and and what the Chevron decision is going to mean,
Speaker 21: and basically giving the president the license to kill almost
Speaker 21: and almost the Kingdom. When I look at all of
Speaker 21: this and I see another Trump presidency, I don't believe
Speaker 21: that Trump is the boogeyman in the sense that the
Speaker 21: people can't defeat him. But the way to defeat Trump,
Speaker 21: not all presidents, not most presidents, not any but Trump
Speaker 21: at this juncture history, I do think, is to do
Speaker 21: everything we can to vote him out. And for me,
Speaker 21: that means I am going to pull the lever tomorrow
Speaker 21: morning for Kamala Harris unless something. Let's she say something
Speaker 21: real crazy tonight. I mean, I mean real crazy.
Speaker 1: She's not gonna do nothing crazy. She's just gonna be
Speaker 1: down here with the roots.
Speaker 5: I want to ask you about about Gaza one.
Speaker 3: I just we were talking about you a little at
Speaker 3: dinner tonight, and I fully understand. I think we all
Speaker 3: do what it's like to stand on your convictions, even
Speaker 3: if you're the only person standing there. And I think
Speaker 3: had you made the comments that you did today, it
Speaker 3: would be a completely different reception. It's always the hardest
Speaker 3: when you're the first to say it, and people don't
Speaker 3: always move with the courage of their convictions. When we
Speaker 3: expect lions or hyenas to be lions, and you have
Speaker 3: to accept at the end of the day, people are
Speaker 3: simply hyenas. That's an original Tiffany cross quote and trying
Speaker 3: to be aer But you know, I think a lot
Speaker 3: of people echo your concerns and I was really I
Speaker 3: breathed the sigh of relief after you carry us through that,
Speaker 3: I'm like, who did he vote for? I'm so happy
Speaker 3: that that you did. But there I'm torn. As a
Speaker 3: black woman. I feel so overcome with joy and pride
Speaker 3: when I pulled that lever, when I clicked her name,
Speaker 3: and when I see her become president, I will just explode.
Speaker 3: There is also my humanity, and I think about the
Speaker 3: fifty thousand plus because I don't believe the numbers that
Speaker 3: we're putting out. When you look at Western media, it's
Speaker 3: a very different story than what you see elsewhere. Fifty
Speaker 3: thousand people and we always say women and children, but
Speaker 3: men too, like their lives matter too. When we see
Speaker 3: the devastation the raw devastation, and that we are supporting
Speaker 3: a government that is funding that. What would you say
Speaker 3: to people who feel so incredibly torn by our humanity
Speaker 3: and also the history of this moment.
Speaker 21: I'm gonna tell you not to appeal to authority, which
Speaker 21: would be a logical fallacy university students, But I'm gonna
Speaker 21: say with Angela Davis told me, but I asked. She's
Speaker 21: been on this struggle a lot longer than I have
Speaker 21: even on this issue, and we were together maybe a
Speaker 21: month ago in Chicago and we talked about it, and
Speaker 21: what she said to me is, and it's not the
Speaker 21: first time someone has said this, but it hit me
Speaker 21: differently this time, is that we are voting for the
Speaker 21: person who will give us the most terrain to fight.
Speaker 6: It's really that simple. I know what it's like to
Speaker 6: fight what's happening in Palestine under Trump. Trump.
Speaker 21: The moving the embassy the Jerusalem, the US embassy to
Speaker 21: Jerusalem is something that was actually signed under Clinton in
Speaker 21: the nineties, in ninety six, I believe ninety five. But
Speaker 21: every Democratic, every president, Republican Democrat, has punted on it.
Speaker 21: They just signed a waiver so they don't have to
Speaker 21: actually move it. Because nobody really wants to smoke. It
Speaker 21: was a class of Clinton. Move, get the credit for it,
Speaker 21: but then don't do it, so everybody happy, and every
Speaker 21: president has ignored it. Trump said no, no, no, I ain't
Speaker 21: signing nothing. Move the embassy, which is a Provac's illegal ad.
Speaker 6: It's a provocation.
Speaker 21: UNRWA is the source of food, clothing, and shelter for
Speaker 21: most Palestinians. He cut all US funds to UNRWAH.
Speaker 10: For no.
Speaker 6: He didn't even pretend to give a reason.
Speaker 21: There's a cruelty to Trump that doesn't even allow him
Speaker 21: to be pushed or moved. I believe I'm gonna even
Speaker 21: say I know that Kamala Harris's decision about the vice
Speaker 21: presidential choice was at least taking into consideration the voices
Speaker 21: of people on the ground, who, especially in this state,
Speaker 21: who expressed their concerns about jos Shapiro. I don't know
Speaker 21: what she was gonna do. I'm not in her head,
Speaker 21: but I do know that they were listening. It's not
Speaker 21: much to just say we listen, but I do think
Speaker 21: it matters. I do think that a more humane position
Speaker 21: on Palestine matters, not because I think we're going to
Speaker 21: vote our way whether the US is going to get
Speaker 21: religion and change on Israel Palestine right away. But it
Speaker 21: is the difference between somebody living and somebody dying. And
Speaker 21: so what I say is, if you think I mean
Speaker 21: what Bobby Womack say, if you think you're lonely, now
Speaker 21: wait until tonight. You know what I'm saying. Like it's bad,
Speaker 21: but wait, let trump and see what it's gonna be.
Speaker 21: Even for the people who are the most vulnerable.
Speaker 2: Well come, well come, well come, well come, well come, come.
Speaker 1: We are I see the hands. We're gonna take a
Speaker 1: quick question. There are two questions we're gonna take. Uh,
Speaker 1: we're gonna take this sister here, first in the in
Speaker 1: the Burgundy that's the color that followed by the way,
Speaker 1: shout out to Burgundy. I'm gonna make sure I get
Speaker 1: y'all's predictions. And then we're gonna wrap because we apparently
Speaker 1: we're gonna run to this train and now looks like
Speaker 1: it's on time.
Speaker 3: We yeah, I know, bye, y'all, I'm gonna meet you
Speaker 3: at That is so rude.
Speaker 1: You can't take the car.
Speaker 5: We shared a car.
Speaker 1: Car pull and say yes, ma'am, oh you.
Speaker 3: Need we got to We'll get We'll get you because
Speaker 3: we want to have a question too.
Speaker 5: Yeah, thank you so much.
Speaker 22: I am Jenese Sis. I'm a senior here at Temple University.
Speaker 22: A journal is a major Afrocology and African American Studies minor.
Speaker 22: I'm also the co president editor in chief of her campus,
Speaker 22: Temple if anybody wants to read. I had a question
Speaker 22: about mobilizing for the third party. I know, for myself
Speaker 22: and for many students, we have so much on our backs,
Speaker 22: you know, have to focus on so many different things.
Speaker 22: It's sometimes hard to know if there's another option, but
Speaker 22: we are all very dissatisfied with the two party system.
Speaker 22: I'm just asking, is there a suggested plan of action
Speaker 22: in order to mobilize people to understand who the third
Speaker 22: party option is if there's multiple fourth parties, but just
Speaker 22: any way to kind of get out of the confines
Speaker 22: of the two party system.
Speaker 14: Councilwoman Brooks sure, like we have maybe one second because
Speaker 14: I made I made a mistake.
Speaker 5: Zoe, can you stand for a moment.
Speaker 1: So we're supposed to have another panelist and we got
Speaker 1: wrapped up in this and I completely forgot. But well,
Speaker 1: if you don't mind, the executive director of for US
Speaker 1: dot US, and I want to make sure you may
Speaker 1: even be able to answer part of this contextualize in
Speaker 1: some of the important work you all are doing around immigration.
Speaker 23: Thank you, it's been so nice to.
Speaker 5: It's been so nice to be here.
Speaker 23: I'll just say that, you know, I came today to
Speaker 23: talk a little bit about some of the work that
Speaker 23: we've been doing, particularly around justice reform and trying to
Speaker 23: pull on criminal justice reform, because if you believe sort
Speaker 23: of a lot of the punditry, they'll have you thinking
Speaker 23: that there was a bunch a big wave around justice
Speaker 23: and a big polanetization around justice, and then now we're
Speaker 23: having this big backlash around voters caring about this other
Speaker 23: issue that is safety. And what we see in the
Speaker 23: polling time and again is that voters are smarter than
Speaker 23: that and have been informed by four decades of mass
Speaker 23: criminalization and mass incarceration. And you know, went into American
Speaker 23: families and went into American adults that are going to
Speaker 23: vote tomorrow or have voted, have experienced incarceration and their
Speaker 23: immediate families, and I was moved, and many others were
Speaker 23: when mister Gillham, you talked about that when you were
Speaker 23: running for office, and so anyways, it's one examp of
Speaker 23: one issue. That is where we've been sort of forced
Speaker 23: into these binaries we've been talking about all evening and
Speaker 23: forced into false choices. But really voters are looking for
Speaker 23: different solutions and know that they can have different solutions
Speaker 23: on this one and many others. So thanks for giving
Speaker 23: me the mic for a second.
Speaker 9: Thank you.
Speaker 14: So okay, So, being like what we do here for
Speaker 14: Working Families Party, we do national mobilizations and your other
Speaker 14: students can get online and do our I think it's
Speaker 14: monthly calls with mobile around mobilization local here in Pennsylvania.
Speaker 5: We have our office at fifteenth and Ridge.
Speaker 14: We do several events, mainly focusing going young people. We've
Speaker 14: been doing like progressive young progressive folks meet up. I
Speaker 14: see some constant people in a room. So it makes
Speaker 14: me feel good that we're getting the work done.
Speaker 6: Our job is to.
Speaker 14: Make sure that you're connected to organizing tools right here
Speaker 14: in the city, whether it's issue based work was just
Speaker 14: a political landscape. Working Families Party has something to you.
Speaker 14: I would encourage you go to our website and tap
Speaker 14: in and we can figure out exactly what it is
Speaker 14: that you want to do to get involved, because for us,
Speaker 14: mobilization is a personal thing.
Speaker 5: Like I'm not telling you what to do.
Speaker 14: It's you to come in and bring your own skill
Speaker 14: set to help us grow.
Speaker 5: Thank you. We got one more name and where you're from.
Speaker 24: My name is Lisa. I am a student here. I'm
Speaker 24: connected to the School of Social Work and ideal. My
Speaker 24: question is, uh, what would make a third party viable?
Speaker 24: And what about doing like a coalition with other parties
Speaker 24: that may have the same ideals ultimately speaking to you know,
Speaker 24: seek for the ultimate conclusion.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 19: So just a few things we organize every sing in
Speaker 19: order to expand the conditions for a third party. And
Speaker 19: some of those things aren't going to happen overnight, but
Speaker 19: we're in the courts, so that fusion voting, for example,
Speaker 19: which exists in Connecticut and New York, can be the
Speaker 19: law in more states which allows third party, our third
Speaker 19: parties to have ballid access in a way that doesn't
Speaker 19: get into that whole spoiler dilemma problem. So that's number one,
Speaker 19: it's a legal fix that we're trying to spread to
Speaker 19: more states. Number two, we're a non sectarian party interested
Speaker 19: in the interest of working people and so we build
Speaker 19: our party as a coalition party, So we build with
Speaker 19: labor unions and grassroots organizations, and we're truly a grassroots
Speaker 19: democratic party. You all could know about the arguments that
Speaker 19: we have every single day on the local level about
Speaker 19: who do we endorse and what direction do we take,
Speaker 19: and which piece of legislation on the state level.
Speaker 6: The local level we align with.
Speaker 19: So we're trying to demonstrate what that broad based sort
Speaker 19: of coalition looks like, where we're bringing in immigration organizations
Speaker 19: and organizations that are led by people who are returning citizens,
Speaker 19: and organizations that are led by the LGBTQ community, and
Speaker 19: organizations that have a different position, you know, on on
Speaker 19: the environment. We bring all of those folks together through
Speaker 19: the Working Families Party to be the electoral expression of
Speaker 19: a very very broad diverse movement.
Speaker 5: Thank you, Thank you guys so much.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Mo, you're in trouble.
Speaker 6: Mo, we heard we got you in trouble.
Speaker 7: You closing all Moe's on a time time frame.
Speaker 1: We think we're so thankful for Working Panils Party, our
Speaker 1: partner here, Kindred and Nick. We're grateful.
Speaker 4: Zoe.
Speaker 1: I want to bring you up really quick to give
Speaker 1: us your prediction and close us. Now, we got to
Speaker 1: wrap up this show.
Speaker 5: Come on real quick.
Speaker 1: Who do you think is going to win tomorrow? And
Speaker 1: what are the electoral college votes looking like?
Speaker 5: You go right there? I have no idea.
Speaker 23: I am concerned and I am I am extremely hopeful
Speaker 23: that we end up in a situation where we are
Speaker 23: able to organize the next president to do things like
Speaker 23: grant commutations, which we should also push President Biden to
Speaker 23: do and his lame duck, and that we are able
Speaker 23: to push the next president to you know, get the
Speaker 23: Sentencing Commission running and changing sentences. So I'm ready to
Speaker 23: move to policy, and I really hope that we're working
Speaker 23: with someone that will help us get there. I have
Speaker 23: my own personal ideas, but I'm non partisan professionally.
Speaker 5: So thank you.
Speaker 3: And can we shout out to people who came from Jersey,
Speaker 3: Yeah to the Jersey fight.
Speaker 5: How are coming out?
Speaker 1: Thank you all so much. We know that there are
Speaker 1: so many things pressing on your time.
Speaker 6: It is election eve.
Speaker 1: If you haven't voted already, please make sure you go
Speaker 1: and pull the lever like our dear brother Mark la
Speaker 1: myt heil tomorrow. I don't know which camera I'm looking at,
Speaker 1: but we are closing out this show, this one. Thanks, welcome, Thanks, and.
Speaker 5: We don't mean to be Welcome y'all for.
Speaker 9: The last morning. Say thank you for joining the Natives.
Speaker 2: Attention to what the info and all of the latest
Speaker 2: Roy Gillum and cross connected to the statements that you
Speaker 2: leave on our sol shows. Thank you sincerely for the patients.
Speaker 2: Reason for your choice is clean, so grateful and took
Speaker 2: to execute role for serve, defend and protect the truth
Speaker 2: you've been.
Speaker 6: In paint for.
Speaker 2: Welcome home to all of the Natives, wait, thank you,
Speaker 2: Welcome y'all.
Speaker 6: Welcome.
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