Speaker 1: I'm Tamika d.
Speaker 2: Mallory and the ship Boy my Son in general, we
Speaker 2: are your host of TMI.
Speaker 3: Tamika and my Son's Information, Truth, Motivation and.
Speaker 2: Inspiration name New Energy.
Speaker 1: But how good.
Speaker 2: We got a big show today. It's a lot to discuss.
Speaker 2: So our guest is a friend, A friend, a friend.
Speaker 2: That's one thing we brought over from street politicians to TMI.
Speaker 2: That's still we keep our friends.
Speaker 1: Our friends are doing really powerful things, you know. And
Speaker 1: so a friend is coming in.
Speaker 2: But it's a friend who's in a very powerful position
Speaker 2: in our society, and so I look forward to interviewing him.
Speaker 2: And because we have so much to discuss, I think
Speaker 2: it would do us some good to just kind of
Speaker 2: get into the show and not have an argument at
Speaker 2: the onset, Like, I mean, what.
Speaker 4: Does that mean. I don't really create arguments.
Speaker 3: I just I defend myself because for the most part,
Speaker 3: I'm always being attacked. Yeah, I don't know that this
Speaker 3: this is a room for the eye women. TV is
Speaker 3: full with women, and they are attacking me. They beat
Speaker 3: on me every time. Everything I do wrong physically to me,
Speaker 3: not physically, not physically. Not physically, there's no physical there
Speaker 3: is a mental and emotional lashing that I deal with Tamika,
Speaker 3: it becomes my mother on here. She tells me how
Speaker 3: to say the words, how to pronounce them. She stops me.
Speaker 4: There. You don't see that. You don't see the stuff
Speaker 4: that I gotta do with. That's what I do.
Speaker 1: It's for your I guess you know.
Speaker 3: That's why I don't really, you know, quit, That's why
Speaker 3: I'm still here, because you know, if I thought it
Speaker 3: was for my betterment, I would quit.
Speaker 4: I would just say, you know what, I'm not gonna
Speaker 4: do this.
Speaker 1: Wow, we should quit. No, I'm serious, tradition.
Speaker 2: The reason why I thought about that is because the
Speaker 2: weather is literally going to kill us, like seriously, it's
Speaker 2: really going to kill us. Every single day, the weather
Speaker 2: changes so drastically that you don't know exactly what you're
Speaker 2: supposed to be wearing.
Speaker 1: And it is freezing cold.
Speaker 2: It seems like everywhere else across the country that I'm
Speaker 2: talking to family members and friends, they are in almost
Speaker 2: summer condition.
Speaker 1: They got on like a sweat suit and.
Speaker 2: That's it we are deal I literally the last few
Speaker 2: days have had.
Speaker 1: On full winter clothes and I.
Speaker 2: Would have put a scarf on my neck if it
Speaker 2: were not for the fact that, like I didn't want
Speaker 2: to look crazy, right, so I was like cold trying
Speaker 2: to be cool. Thank you shout out to the Black
Speaker 2: Effect for sending us those jackets, because at least it's
Speaker 2: like a real almost winter cold.
Speaker 4: It's like.
Speaker 2: I've been wearing I've been wearing that jacket every day,
Speaker 2: every day, no matter what what I have, because it's
Speaker 2: like a little thick and I'm just trying to figure
Speaker 2: out Groundhog Day, right, this is really my thought of
Speaker 2: the day. The groundhog be missing a lot, not all
Speaker 2: the time, but the groundhog it don't always work.
Speaker 1: Why do we even like it's just because.
Speaker 3: You don't realize we just have symbol a lot of
Speaker 3: symbolism in America, a lot of the ship that they
Speaker 3: told me it don't work. It never really works.
Speaker 4: And it's just like the weather man is off. He's
Speaker 4: gotten better. He's gotten better over the years, the weather man.
Speaker 4: Because there was times.
Speaker 3: When you go outside and the weather man that said
Speaker 3: something and we don't I done stayed home from school
Speaker 3: for storms that never came. That you be looking out
Speaker 3: the window like it used to be crazy and it
Speaker 3: never came or just missed us.
Speaker 4: Like two inches it was supposed to come. And you
Speaker 4: know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: So there's a lot of symbolism shit in America that
Speaker 3: just don't make sense and it really doesn't add up.
Speaker 3: And I think the groundhog is one of those things
Speaker 3: that the good white people in America who who've seen
Speaker 3: his ground hog, he somebody obviously has some level of.
Speaker 4: Work at one point, don't want to look at it.
Speaker 2: Probably well, yeah, because I mean I can remember times
Speaker 2: when the groundhog did work, and it's true, true, it's true.
Speaker 1: We should really look at the history.
Speaker 2: Look how the groundhog started and try to understand it,
Speaker 2: because it doesn't always work. Nothing is one hundred percent.
Speaker 2: We already know that. But this is why I'm saying
Speaker 2: that we should quit the groundhog. Right, this is this
Speaker 2: is truly my thought.
Speaker 4: The groundhog.
Speaker 3: I don't think you have anything against us quitting him.
Speaker 3: I don't think he wants people just looking at him
Speaker 3: and he come on this little hole.
Speaker 2: And off want to deal with but being captured to
Speaker 2: be hell, he don't want to have to see if
Speaker 2: he sees the shadow.
Speaker 1: The animal cruet, right, I wonder, I mean, we really
Speaker 1: do need so.
Speaker 4: Listen, man, what they doing to that poor groundhog.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's the same.
Speaker 2: We should fight out because I would be ignorant.
Speaker 4: Leave him alone.
Speaker 1: But this is the real question.
Speaker 4: House. He probably got to use the all type of ship.
Speaker 4: Y'all just grabbing him.
Speaker 1: Talk about his house.
Speaker 4: He got a house. It's a little cubby.
Speaker 1: That is created for the experience.
Speaker 3: No way, they took him from somewhere in the wild. Yeah, house,
Speaker 3: that's where they live at. That's the reason.
Speaker 1: Why, Michael, he's a bathuum in the house.
Speaker 2: My issue with the groundhog situation is how much money
Speaker 2: do we spend to produce that little thing that they do.
Speaker 2: I just want to know, like how much does it cost?
Speaker 2: It's in Pennsylvania, and I just want to know what
Speaker 2: goes into it, how many people are paid?
Speaker 1: What is what are the structures?
Speaker 2: Like what's the budget for producing the groundhog moment? That
Speaker 2: fails often? And people do not really know whether or
Speaker 2: not the weather is going to be determined by what
Speaker 2: the groundhog sees.
Speaker 3: What's probably it's probably like a holiday in Pennsylvania, right,
Speaker 3: so groundhog gets probably something that people pay to come
Speaker 3: to be a party.
Speaker 4: They might.
Speaker 2: So you all know that our show is called TMI,
Speaker 2: which a lot of people when they first hear it,
Speaker 2: they're like, oh TM, I like too much information, But no,
Speaker 2: it's t making myissan's information. However, one of our segments
Speaker 2: is called too Much, And for the too Much segment today,
Speaker 2: I want to talk about this swatting issue. Right, A
Speaker 2: lot of people don't understand what swatting is, except I
Speaker 2: watched a show about it. I don't know if it
Speaker 2: was a documentary, but it certainly was a movie and
Speaker 2: it's definitely on one of these platforms, might have been Netflix.
Speaker 2: And it happened to Cardi B recently where her home
Speaker 2: she was swatted, which means that someone knows your address
Speaker 2: and they call the police and tell them that you have.
Speaker 1: You know, you're just you dealing drugs, or.
Speaker 2: Is a body in your house there was a murder
Speaker 2: or something which will which will pretty much summons the
Speaker 2: swat team to your home. Now, anybody that's ever seen
Speaker 2: a swat team, if you know anything about what that
Speaker 2: looks like, it is no joke.
Speaker 1: Like a swat team.
Speaker 2: When they run down on you. They come in with trucks,
Speaker 2: guns out, people moving into your space. Look, it looks
Speaker 2: very similar to what folks saw at Diddy's house recently,
Speaker 2: same thing at Puff's house. So our homes, that's what
Speaker 2: it looks like when a swat team comes. Sometimes there
Speaker 2: are a helicopters, there's certainly all types of technical devices
Speaker 2: they come in, and by the way, most of them
Speaker 2: come with no knock warrants where they busting through your door.
Speaker 2: They're not giving you time to think, to do or whatever.
Speaker 2: They running up in your shit and they tearing up
Speaker 2: everything until they get to a conclusion. You could be
Speaker 2: sitting there saying, as Carti said, she was like, I'm
Speaker 2: Cardi B. They was making her get naked, basically almost
Speaker 2: stripping her while she's explaining to them, I'm Cardi B.
Speaker 2: Sometimes these offices, especially depending on where you live, you're
Speaker 2: dealing with a bunch of white officers or a bunch
Speaker 2: of officers that don't know shit, don't care, and even
Speaker 2: if they know who you are, they don't care.
Speaker 1: They have no consideration or.
Speaker 2: Understanding about who you are and what you do, and
Speaker 2: that you're an entertainer. Somebody said you're doing drugs, gun
Speaker 2: dealing whatever out this house. They do not care, and
Speaker 2: they go through your shit and tear your house up.
Speaker 2: The question that I think it it.
Speaker 1: Oh, and let me go back.
Speaker 2: So in the SWAT, I don't know if you ever
Speaker 2: saw this the SWAT documentary or movie. They there were
Speaker 2: some young people, mainly young white kids, boys, young men,
Speaker 2: young white men, who were doing it all the time
Speaker 2: to their neighbors, to other people that they're playing video games.
Speaker 2: But I think that's kind of how it started. That
Speaker 2: they would be doing video playing video games, and if
Speaker 2: they lose or if they get upset in the midst
Speaker 2: of the game, and they knew the address of the person,
Speaker 2: the virtual person, you know, the person on the other
Speaker 2: side of this virtual experience, they would call and do
Speaker 2: a SWAT call on them, and then the police show
Speaker 2: up in the middle of the person playing the game.
Speaker 2: And this was like real life and they'd be sitting
Speaker 2: there playing the game and all of a sudden, the
Speaker 2: police is like boom, boom, boom, or they coming straight
Speaker 2: through the door. So they did this so many times
Speaker 2: that several of them were arrested. It became an addiction,
Speaker 2: and several people were arrested for it. One guy he
Speaker 2: got he was arrested. His parents was like, what the hell.
Speaker 2: His grandmother, I believe began to realize that he was
Speaker 2: doing some weird shit in the basement, because you know,
Speaker 2: they'd be in the basement doing weird stuff. So she
Speaker 2: was doing she was doing some weird stuff, and the
Speaker 2: grandmother was like, you know, she thought she figured he
Speaker 2: had something to do with this. The boy went to jail,
Speaker 2: spent time in prison for swatting people. I don't know
Speaker 2: if that's really what it's called, but I'm gonna call
Speaker 2: the swatten people. And then he got out of jail
Speaker 2: and did it again, like he could not stop. But
Speaker 2: the last time that he did it a man. When
Speaker 2: the police showed up at some brown people's home, it
Speaker 2: wasn't there wasn't a white family. It was some brown
Speaker 2: people's home. They showed up the father or the son whatever,
Speaker 2: a man in the house. I guess the way in
Speaker 2: which he approached the police, so how he probably was like, yo,
Speaker 2: what the fuck?
Speaker 1: They killed him?
Speaker 2: And the young man who sent the police there, he
Speaker 2: was charged with exactly. He was charged with like some
Speaker 2: serious crimes. And it's probably gonna spend a.
Speaker 5: Long, long, long long because in the commission of a felony,
Speaker 5: a life was lost because you committed a felony by
Speaker 5: falsely calling that person, so you actually responsible for the
Speaker 5: death of the person.
Speaker 1: And it's so crazy and it's like bruh, like that's
Speaker 1: just it's just too much much, like you way too much.
Speaker 2: So but then then the larger conversation here is it's
Speaker 2: law enforcement doing too much.
Speaker 1: But then what if some what if someone.
Speaker 2: Knows that you or I are kidnapped or we're somewhere
Speaker 2: and someone tries to report it and then they don't
Speaker 2: take it seriously and they approach it with soft gloves
Speaker 2: like let me, oh, hey, do you have a body
Speaker 2: in the house because somebody.
Speaker 1: Called and that, and then you're like, well, no, I
Speaker 1: don't have a body in here.
Speaker 4: I mean, the thing is, I don't I don't blame
Speaker 4: I don't blame the officers because they're doing their job.
Speaker 3: Because exactly if somebody makes a call with that level
Speaker 3: of you know, haineus talking about something a murder or
Speaker 3: somebody being kidnapped or something to that degree that we
Speaker 3: need that level of action. But the fact the accountability
Speaker 3: has to be very strong. The accountability when you find
Speaker 3: out somebody's lying and they sending that type of you know, date,
Speaker 3: they're making us send out that level of military to
Speaker 3: people's homes. That's taking away, that's taxpayers money, like thousands
Speaker 3: of dollars that people are going out. People's lives are
Speaker 3: at risk. So if they find that you lying about that,
Speaker 3: I think it should be some very steep consequences.
Speaker 2: I agree, I think it should be steep consequences one
Speaker 2: hundred percent.
Speaker 1: And I want so bad to find a way to
Speaker 1: say that.
Speaker 2: Law enforcement could do X, Y or Z right, Like,
Speaker 2: I want to find a way that they can. If
Speaker 2: they got to knock down a door and and and
Speaker 2: you know, and and go in, cool, But I need
Speaker 2: them to say, let's not go in and start tearing
Speaker 2: the walls out without understanding who we're dealing with. Unfortunately,
Speaker 2: there might be somebody behind a door with a weapon,
Speaker 2: and they do have to protect themselves. But I wish
Speaker 2: there was some type of balance now that we know
Speaker 2: that swatting is a thing, because then what like now
Speaker 2: this man is dead. The man was killed because first
Speaker 2: of all, when law enforcement approaches people of color, they
Speaker 2: come with a level of aggression that they do not
Speaker 2: have when they're dealing with their own or not their own.
Speaker 2: Because the blacks, the black officers have the order somehow
Speaker 2: they find a way to calm down.
Speaker 3: There's a training inside these a lot of these institutions
Speaker 3: that train you that black people are dangerous, and they
Speaker 3: even train you as.
Speaker 1: A blacker seper and black.
Speaker 4: And brown people are dangerous, so they train.
Speaker 3: That's how they train who when they're showing images of
Speaker 3: the criminals, right, those images.
Speaker 1: Have done that. They have done that.
Speaker 2: I mean that is supposed to be changing within police departments,
Speaker 2: like within their training, they are supposed to, you know,
Speaker 2: not show pictures of black folks and brown folks. But
Speaker 2: that was at one point that was a really big issue,
Speaker 2: and so it certainly criminalizes folks who like off the back,
Speaker 2: you're criminalized, even if you're wearing a suit.
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter.
Speaker 2: It's the color of your skin, it's the neighborhood you
Speaker 2: come from, it's all of those things. Of course, you
Speaker 2: know the zip code that you're in and so you know, those.
Speaker 1: Who are making the phone calls need to know. And
Speaker 1: I hope that this.
Speaker 2: Is not a thing that young black kids pick up
Speaker 2: on and start doing it, because you going under the
Speaker 2: jail for sure.
Speaker 4: For show.
Speaker 3: So today's music Spotlight comes from a young girl from
Speaker 3: Hobridge from my hood. See, and I actually happened to
Speaker 3: be in the video.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: Yes, I grew up with her mother and her uncle
Speaker 3: like day from the hood. She remixed a boogies did
Speaker 3: Me Wrong and it's called Noble Shout out to Embroidery Kings.
Speaker 3: They provided the hats and the gear for the video.
Speaker 3: It's a dope video. It's a really dope video. Her
Speaker 3: name is Princess Ariah Princess.
Speaker 1: How old is she?
Speaker 4: She did she's probably about eight or nine. She's a baby.
Speaker 3: And the energy is just like her talking about she
Speaker 3: got so much swag with it. But she's talking about
Speaker 3: how you know you tried to bully me.
Speaker 4: We could have been cool and you was trying to
Speaker 4: bully me and we don't.
Speaker 3: This is no bullies on. We don't want to be
Speaker 3: around bullies. It's people that love each other here. So
Speaker 3: it's energy. And then it's her talking about her hot bridge,
Speaker 3: got all the swag and how we the best.
Speaker 4: So I love it. It's a person.
Speaker 1: She's a rapper.
Speaker 4: She's a young rapper.
Speaker 3: I think I'm not saying she's a rapper, but she
Speaker 3: got a song, okay, so she's rapping in the song
Speaker 3: I think she's more into modeling, but I think she
Speaker 3: found the laying with this song and probably do more
Speaker 3: music's most but if you watch her, she moves like
Speaker 3: a model. If you go to her Instagram following on
Speaker 3: Instagram Princess Soarriat, you'll see she does modeling all the time.
Speaker 3: And the song took off on the internet. So I
Speaker 3: just want to give her shout out for some positive music.
Speaker 2: Princess Soriah. Yes, So next up we're gonna hear from
Speaker 2: our guests. Like I said, I'm I'm quite excited to
Speaker 2: have our.
Speaker 3: Boy Brox finance a congressman in the United States, these
Speaker 3: United States of America, and it's a lot for us
Speaker 3: to talk about.
Speaker 1: We're covering everything.
Speaker 2: We're talking about the TikTok band, We're talking about the
Speaker 2: Naga influence over our country, and what will happen with
Speaker 2: the Republican Party. We're talking about DEI.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's so.
Speaker 2: Many issues on the table right now, and it is
Speaker 2: so good to have in studios someone who can take
Speaker 2: us through the ins and outs of what's happening with
Speaker 2: our government.
Speaker 4: Sure is.
Speaker 1: So we are privileged honor today, Yes to be joined.
Speaker 4: By Oh we got the bro in the building.
Speaker 2: You know, he's the bro to us, but to a
Speaker 2: lot of people across this country, and particularly my parents
Speaker 2: who live in his district and co Op City in
Speaker 2: the Bronx. You know, you are actually very important and
Speaker 2: a lot of people depend on you to make good decisions, uh,
Speaker 2: and to be a an advocate for the people and
Speaker 2: not just for yourself. And so I'm grateful we have
Speaker 2: now become really good friends.
Speaker 1: We talk all the time.
Speaker 2: And I think, you know, there's something to be said
Speaker 2: about people like you, a congressman or a congressional person,
Speaker 2: a person who has been elected to public office, who
Speaker 2: picks up the phone like when people are calling, because both.
Speaker 1: Of us are right not picking up the phone as
Speaker 1: a thing.
Speaker 2: You and I have actually had to have that conversation
Speaker 2: about different people. I'm like, well, I called congressmen or
Speaker 2: woman so and so or Senator such and such, and
Speaker 2: you got to track them down and call fifteen times
Speaker 2: and then start threatening the protests and sending letters and
Speaker 2: doing that.
Speaker 1: And it's like, oh, wait, I didn't I missed it.
Speaker 2: You don't miss it too much, because you know you
Speaker 2: could call a person back at least.
Speaker 1: But you are a like in real time. Yo, Yo,
Speaker 1: what's up?
Speaker 2: Taught me to issue or let me break it down
Speaker 2: for you and explain to you what you don't know.
Speaker 2: And I think that's pretty powerful. And you had that
Speaker 2: relationship before I even Yeah.
Speaker 3: Man, the congressman, you know, I have actually met him.
Speaker 3: I went to the school where he was the principal
Speaker 3: at and there was an issue in one of the
Speaker 3: teachers have brought me in and I talked to the
Speaker 3: young boys. We had a round table me and and
Speaker 3: because in that area there are just different communities that
Speaker 3: have been beefing for years, and those beefs carried into
Speaker 3: the school, so they and we were sat at the
Speaker 3: table and a lot of them didn't even know why
Speaker 3: they was beefing. They just know this side over here,
Speaker 3: don't mess with this side. That's just what it is.
Speaker 3: And they even heroded these beefs. So you know, I
Speaker 3: went in there to facilitate and sit down with the
Speaker 3: young boys, and we came to you know, a lot
Speaker 3: of agreements.
Speaker 1: I understand. Been a wow long time.
Speaker 3: So we've been outside. We've been outside.
Speaker 2: And so you've been elected to Congress since twenty twenty,
Speaker 2: sworn in in twenty twenty one. You served the sixteenth
Speaker 2: Congressional district, which is the Bronx and Westchester. So tell
Speaker 2: us more about your background.
Speaker 6: Yeah, who is Jamal Bowman? Black Man in America, Pauline
Speaker 6: Bowman's son, educator, father, husband, just trying to do good work.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 6: I was blessed to work in education for twenty years
Speaker 6: before I ran for Congress. Started my career in the
Speaker 6: South Bronx as an elementary school teacher before becoming a
Speaker 6: high school Diana students at the High School for Arts
Speaker 6: and Technology in the MLK campus.
Speaker 4: I was there for three years.
Speaker 6: And it was there that I, you know, pursued school leadership,
Speaker 6: wrote my own proposals, submitted to the city, and opened
Speaker 6: up KASA where we met and I was there for
Speaker 6: ten and a half years. So black man in America,
Speaker 6: Pauling Bowman's son, Cata and just trying to change the world,
Speaker 6: particularly for our people and marginalized people.
Speaker 1: How old are your children.
Speaker 6: Twenty two, fourteen and nine. Mine is about to be
Speaker 6: ten April seventeen.
Speaker 3: So what made you make the transition from educated to
Speaker 3: elected official.
Speaker 6: Yeah, when you work in education, you realize everything that
Speaker 6: happens in public schools is based on policy. These are
Speaker 6: policy decisions made at the local level, at the state level,
Speaker 6: at the federal level, and then financial decisions are also
Speaker 6: made at the local, state, and federal levels. So when
Speaker 6: we talk about underfunded schools, we're talking about policy decisions
Speaker 6: made by people in elected office. And when we talk
Speaker 6: about underfunded and underresourced communities, it's the same thing. And
Speaker 6: when you work in education, you know, parents send their
Speaker 6: best children to your school, right, so whatever the community,
Speaker 6: whatever's going on in the community, that's going to land
Speaker 6: in your school. So you know, kids with food and security,
Speaker 6: housing and security, entanglement with the criminal jobs system, on gangs,
Speaker 6: lack of resources, lack of community centers like I couldn't
Speaker 6: believe and still we have a lack of community centers
Speaker 6: in places like the Bronx, Mount Vernon, Yonkers, etc. So
Speaker 6: you know, we did good work in our school, but
Speaker 6: kids still had to go home. And then, particularly the
Speaker 6: year before I decided to run, I saw a rise
Speaker 6: in violence, and I saw a rise specifically in mental
Speaker 6: health challenges in the community. And I first saw that
Speaker 6: rise with young girls who started to commit self harm
Speaker 6: at a higher rate, and it was concentrated amongst Latinas
Speaker 6: young Hispanic girls. And I started like just doing research
Speaker 6: on what was going on here, and so that's what
Speaker 6: was happening in my school, rising self harm, rise in
Speaker 6: suicidal ideation. But then around the school thirty four kids
Speaker 6: died with adicated tall school system. In the Bronx, seventeen
Speaker 6: died by suicide. One fourteen year old in co Op City,
Speaker 6: she was being bullying school, went to school officials to
Speaker 6: talk about it. No one really helped her. She went
Speaker 6: to the top of a building after school and jumped
Speaker 6: off right after school and arrived the street and nuw
Speaker 6: Michelle girl stabs and other kills right down the street.
Speaker 6: And another school near the Bronzou you know LGBTQ student
Speaker 6: ty to being bully stabbed, the kid killed him. This
Speaker 6: is the same year where in the South Bronx this
Speaker 6: kid junior got jumped case of mistaken identity beat the death.
Speaker 6: The same time Parkland school shooting happened. And this is
Speaker 6: Trump's first YA in office. And I had done work
Speaker 6: with elected officials around all of these issues dropped my career.
Speaker 6: But I realized that they didn't have the background and
Speaker 6: expertise to really understand what was going on with kids
Speaker 6: and what was going on with families and connecting it
Speaker 6: to policy, and the elected official at that time was
Speaker 6: completely absent and completely ignoring what was going on in
Speaker 6: our community. So, you know, I had seen sort of,
Speaker 6: you know, the movement that kind of Bernie started in
Speaker 6: twenty six and then twenty eighteen the whole squad got elected.
Speaker 4: So AOC.
Speaker 6: Ilhan and Rashida and AOC was right next door to
Speaker 6: me in the Bronx and still is. And so that
Speaker 6: watching them gave me a footprint of the kind of
Speaker 6: politics I wanted to do, Like what I want to
Speaker 6: speak to, what I want to fight for, what I'm
Speaker 6: all about, you know, working class people, marginalized people, black
Speaker 6: and brown people, et cetera. And so I decided, you know,
Speaker 6: after I got my doctorate early twenty nineteen, I was like,
Speaker 6: you know what I think. I'm just I'm gonna go
Speaker 6: for it. And I had no idea how to run
Speaker 6: for office. I was just like, I'm an he had won.
Speaker 6: I counted the votes the year before or the election
Speaker 6: before the twenty twenty cycle. He had won with only
Speaker 6: twenty thousand votes, and it was four hundred and forty
Speaker 6: thousand elected Democrats in that district. So I realized people
Speaker 6: weren't voting. People weren't voting, probably because no one talked
Speaker 6: to them. Probably they were just disengaged.
Speaker 4: They like that.
Speaker 6: So I was like, So my thinking was I could
Speaker 6: knock on more than twenty thousand doors myself and get
Speaker 6: people the vote easy. So that's what I jumped out
Speaker 6: and did it and got a lot of support.
Speaker 4: And we were able to win big election in twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: Wow, you talked about AOC and the squad. You know,
Speaker 2: I noticed that since you joined Congress, you chose a
Speaker 2: difficult route. You went straight for the super progressive side.
Speaker 2: You're with the folks that are you know, they being
Speaker 2: attacked for everything, and sometimes they are the ones doing
Speaker 2: the attacking because it's necessary, right, Like somebody has to
Speaker 2: be the has to push the envelope for real.
Speaker 1: And so why did you go that route?
Speaker 2: Like why not just go hook up with the moderate
Speaker 2: Democrats or the ones that's kind of in the middle,
Speaker 2: so you could have an easier path through your beginning stages.
Speaker 4: At least it's just.
Speaker 6: Who I am, And I mean I was a kid
Speaker 6: who got in a lot of trouble in school. You
Speaker 6: know what I'm saying, So like I didn't you know,
Speaker 6: I got in a lot of trouble in school when
Speaker 6: I was in high school.
Speaker 4: Uh, you know you talk about beefs with kids.
Speaker 6: You know, when you can't go this project, you go
Speaker 6: to this project, you know, you get caught up in hell.
Speaker 4: No I had.
Speaker 6: I went to three high schools to graduate. I had
Speaker 6: to leave New York City to graduate because it was crazy.
Speaker 6: I went to high school at first August Martin. Uh
Speaker 6: got into a situation, there was some shooting, transferred out
Speaker 6: of that, went to Humanity's High School, gotten a beef
Speaker 6: with kids from Chelsea, pretty much fighting every day, got
Speaker 6: my report car failed every class. It was like I
Speaker 6: got to get out of here and think I was lucky,
Speaker 6: because a lot of people ain't lucky.
Speaker 4: They can't leave.
Speaker 6: My father lived in New Jersey and I was able
Speaker 6: to go live with my father and finish high school.
Speaker 6: And I literally had a chance to reset my life
Speaker 6: because I was away from the city. And so I
Speaker 6: got lucky and that got me through it. But no,
Speaker 6: it's who I am. I mean, even as an educter.
Speaker 6: You know I've been you know, uh In trouble a
Speaker 6: couple of times when I was a principal, just because
Speaker 6: I the status quo ain't working. Like kids are dying,
Speaker 6: people are dying, people are suffering inequality.
Speaker 4: All the issues we know, we know.
Speaker 6: And there's no way I'm gonna go in there and
Speaker 6: just keep doing that thing thing. It has to be
Speaker 6: something different. It has to be disruptive in a good way.
Speaker 6: I mean, John Lewis's legacy is all about good trouble.
Speaker 6: So if we're gonna follow the legacy of the people
Speaker 6: shoulders we stand on, it's about being disruptive in a
Speaker 6: good way. And then the last thing I'll say is
Speaker 6: when you talk about how the resources are disseminated in
Speaker 6: our country, the wealthiest country on Earth, our communities continue
Speaker 6: to be marginalized and left behind. And again this is
Speaker 6: not because we don't got the money. We got the money.
Speaker 6: We choosing to invest it in in the military industrial
Speaker 6: complex and weapons contract and jails more than we are people.
Speaker 6: So people who can afford childcare, healthcare, housing, not getting work,
Speaker 6: not earning enough in their jobs, food and secure, whatever
Speaker 6: the case is, there's money to help them. And if
Speaker 6: you help them, they actually help the economy. Any political system.
Speaker 6: But we so built on racism and sexism and discrimination
Speaker 6: and maintaining that cast system.
Speaker 4: That's right.
Speaker 6: That new movie origin so powerful with our political system
Speaker 6: is designed to maintain that. And so you got majority
Speaker 6: white men from certain backgrounds in Congress. They're gonna make
Speaker 6: decisions to maintain that. First time they get a black man,
Speaker 6: a person of color representing them, they redraw the lines
Speaker 6: and take one.
Speaker 4: Hundred and eight thousand black people away. That's crazy.
Speaker 6: It's crazy, and it's not by accident. Like now that
Speaker 6: I'm in Congress, I realize powerful special interests control the
Speaker 6: whole thing, and we they're pushing back against that, which
Speaker 6: is why they come out to us the way they do.
Speaker 3: Speaking of controversy, and you being with the controversial team.
Speaker 4: You know, to turn.
Speaker 3: You know this TikTok Man that they voted on, you
Speaker 3: were one that voted against it. You know, their position
Speaker 3: was that it threatened national security China's allies, and you
Speaker 3: have a very different position because we definitely know that
Speaker 3: we're dealing with censorship, you know what I'm saying, And
Speaker 3: our kids are the ones that's on it, and they're vocal.
Speaker 3: This is especially on TikTok A lot of the the
Speaker 3: posts of our kids with their voices and what they
Speaker 3: think is on it. So give give me some insight
Speaker 3: on why you made that. Yeah, first of all, why now,
Speaker 3: Like when we first allowed TikTok to operate in our country,
Speaker 3: we didn't know if it was really true. We didn't
Speaker 3: know that China may have the ability to commit espionageal
Speaker 3: We didn't know that when we first made that decision,
Speaker 3: So why now from that perspective, But then also why
Speaker 3: now in terms of it's an election year. Young people
Speaker 3: are using TikTok way more than everybody else. They are
Speaker 3: building their own political power on TikTok. They are becoming
Speaker 3: more politically engaged than ever before. People have small businesses
Speaker 3: on there, more people of color on there, the algorithms
Speaker 3: more aligned to building community and power. And so now
Speaker 3: we're talking about banning it right before an election. It
Speaker 3: doesn't make any sense to me.
Speaker 6: We were talking about it last year, and we were
Speaker 6: out front last year and saying nowhere against the band
Speaker 6: as well. But the most important part is we got
Speaker 6: privacy issues on Facebook, on Twitter, on Instagram, on YouTube,
Speaker 6: on Google. Did we have privacy issues? They sell our
Speaker 6: data third party all over the world right now as
Speaker 6: we speak. I know for a fact China use its
Speaker 6: Facebook book to get more most of its information from us,
Speaker 6: way more than TikTok right now as we speak. So
Speaker 6: why are we only talking about TikTok and not talking
Speaker 6: about privacy legislation for all of social media across the board.
Speaker 6: That's all I've been saying. Let's have a comprehensive public
Speaker 6: conversation about all the social media. Figure out how can
Speaker 6: we keep kids safe? Figure out the mental health piece,
Speaker 6: figure out the safety piece. And our third party data
Speaker 6: give us the opportunity to opt out of having.
Speaker 4: Our data soul.
Speaker 6: But they're using our data for their own bottom line
Speaker 6: to gain wealth and revenue. And so let's have a
Speaker 6: let's do something comprehensive when it comes to all of
Speaker 6: social media. Let's not keep isolating TikTok.
Speaker 2: So I mean your prediction TikTok is banned? Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: how does that impact the election? Because I'm confused as
Speaker 2: to why we.
Speaker 1: Want, especially democratics, just enfranchise young people who are already pissed.
Speaker 6: When we disenfranchised voters, it benefits Republicans, and right now,
Speaker 6: the Republican Party is a fascist, racist, maga party that
Speaker 6: cares about power, really, that cares only about power, and
Speaker 6: they don't care about democracy, right, newspapers and all that.
Speaker 4: Right, Yeah, yeah, it's wild.
Speaker 6: So it makes no sense to me that Democrats will
Speaker 6: go along with this right now, because those young people,
Speaker 6: even when they pissed at us, they're more likely to
Speaker 6: vote for us when they do come out, and so
Speaker 6: we need to figure out a way to engage them
Speaker 6: and pull them into the process, and TikTok is one way.
Speaker 4: To do that.
Speaker 6: So we'll see what happens in the Senate. It moved
Speaker 6: out the House, we'll see if they could get sixty
Speaker 6: votes in the Senate to ban it. Or it's not
Speaker 6: an outright bands, it's byte edance. The company that owns
Speaker 6: it has a has an affiliation with the Chinese Communist Party,
Speaker 6: and so the bill is by dance. You have to
Speaker 6: sell TikTok to an American company if you want to
Speaker 6: continue to operate in the US.
Speaker 2: But I just would love to know, so tell us
Speaker 2: really quickly, which this was not a question we were
Speaker 2: supposed to ask, But what's the process of who could
Speaker 2: buy it?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: Because I bet you the devil is right in that detail. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: and I've already heard. I don't want to speculate, and
Speaker 2: clearly we don't know the process, but I've already heard
Speaker 2: of the types of people.
Speaker 1: Who are attempting to buy it. So what's that process
Speaker 1: look like.
Speaker 6: Well, I'm not a businessman, so I don't really know
Speaker 6: what that process looks like. But if the government is
Speaker 6: saying you gotta sell it within one hundred and eighty days,
Speaker 6: then it's going to be we're going to oversee that
Speaker 6: process in some way. We don't know the details of
Speaker 6: that department overseas, it will theoretically in that on our side,
Speaker 6: on the House side, it will be the Committee on
Speaker 6: Energy and Commerce E and C.
Speaker 4: But we'll see. We got to stay tuned on that.
Speaker 3: So, moving from TikTok's hip Hop, you create or you
Speaker 3: were one of the people who created the hip Hop
Speaker 3: Task Force, and what is that about?
Speaker 6: I mean, we need to build political power within hip
Speaker 6: hop culture. You know, hip hop's an art form, it's
Speaker 6: a musical genre, it's culture, it's clothes, it's marketing. It's
Speaker 6: a lot of different things. But for me, it was
Speaker 6: the genesis of my identity and it was a thing
Speaker 6: that helped me to evolve into the person I am
Speaker 6: right now. And so how do you harness the power
Speaker 6: of that into something that could build not just economic
Speaker 6: power because we make a lot of money for other
Speaker 6: people mostly, but how do you harness that into political
Speaker 6: power that then is used to change legislation in our
Speaker 6: country at a national level, state level, local level. And
Speaker 6: so you know, and you heard me on the call
Speaker 6: the other day, you know, Carraswan, Rock Kim, Chuck d Brand,
Speaker 6: Nubian x Clan, Big Daddy Kane. These are artists who
Speaker 6: like aren't just rap artists. They're like philosophers, they're like greots,
Speaker 6: they're like poets, they're creative, innovative geniuses, and they're visionaries.
Speaker 6: And so you know when we talk about when when
Speaker 6: Karaswan mentions, you know, hip hop as a revolutionary tool
Speaker 6: to change the structure of racist America, like that, I
Speaker 6: still live by those words when ro Kim says, when
Speaker 6: knowledge of self does nothing, not can't solve like that,
Speaker 6: those words literally guided me throughout my entire life towards
Speaker 6: searching for black knowledge that was taken from us when
Speaker 6: we were brought here, as in women, our ancestors brought
Speaker 6: here as enslaved people, and so how do you harness
Speaker 6: the power of that politically? I don't know yet, but
Speaker 6: we're gonna figure it out, you.
Speaker 4: Know what I'm saying.
Speaker 6: And so, working with you and working with many others
Speaker 6: who are already doing incredible work in the community, how
Speaker 6: do you harness that towards lasting, sustainable political change? Because
Speaker 6: you know, when we talk about all the issues we
Speaker 6: care about affordable housing and redlining, hip hop deals with that.
Speaker 6: Domestic violence. Hip hop deals with that, justice reform, police brutality.
Speaker 6: Hip hop deals with that, wealth inequality. Hip Hop deals
Speaker 6: with all these issues directly. Hip Hop holds the mirror
Speaker 6: of America up to itself and says, look at yourself,
Speaker 6: this is what you are.
Speaker 4: I am what you made me. Pop said this, this
Speaker 4: is what you made me. Now deal with me.
Speaker 6: So I'm going to do my part as a member
Speaker 6: of Congress, hopefully to bring the culture in to help
Speaker 6: me write legislation and pass legislation and then leverage the
Speaker 6: power of the fans and the supporters and the money
Speaker 6: to really build sustainable political power. It's just to me,
Speaker 6: the skies the limit there. To me, hip hop is
Speaker 6: the rebirth of black civilization in America. Look a where
Speaker 6: it came from. Like you try to you burn down buildings,
Speaker 6: You created the conditions where kids in the Bronx and
Speaker 6: kids all inner cities, kids in all inner cities will
Speaker 6: kill themselves. They you know, the system continues to create
Speaker 6: conditions where they hope we kill ourselves. And what do
Speaker 6: we do? We become reborn. We do kill ourselves too,
Speaker 6: But but the essence of who we are continues to
Speaker 6: be red reborn.
Speaker 1: So no, absolutely, we do.
Speaker 2: We welt sexualized nature of like we.
Speaker 3: Have issues, like to act like we don't havesues issues
Speaker 3: with hip hop in this culture. But it would be
Speaker 3: I would just be dishonest to say that because it's
Speaker 3: definitely over sexual used. It's definitely you know, there's a
Speaker 3: growth of violence within it, you know, but to not
Speaker 3: acknowledge the voice and the reach of it and saying
Speaker 3: if it's harnessed, right, and as we grow in that,
Speaker 3: if we take the minds of these young kids who
Speaker 3: who are embracing the culture and we lead them right,
Speaker 3: because we were we were misleading, because we were misled right.
Speaker 3: So and that's what my goal is now to teach
Speaker 3: so that these young kids have the understanding, Like we're
Speaker 3: doing programs in school from drill music to build music
Speaker 3: in which we're taking the same energy and everybody who's
Speaker 3: spending the block and killing and got the black we
Speaker 3: ain't putting that. We want you to talk about the
Speaker 3: reality that's going on in the community, which I don't
Speaker 3: want you to kill nobody right so once, because those
Speaker 3: things that have been incentivized incentivized in this culture. There
Speaker 3: was a time, like you said, there was Karrus One
Speaker 3: and it was rock Kim. Those were the major people
Speaker 3: on hip hop. So people wanted to emulate that. When
Speaker 3: you stop emulating that, when you stop promoting that, and
Speaker 3: you stopped showing us that vision, then you showed them
Speaker 3: the only way you can make money is if you
Speaker 3: killing and shoes somebody. Then that's what incentivizes them. So
Speaker 3: we just had we got weat Like you said, that's
Speaker 3: one of the things I want to focus on with
Speaker 3: the hip hop. You know, hip hop task for us
Speaker 3: is really taking the message and harnessing the same energy,
Speaker 3: but changing the message and direction because we know once
Speaker 3: you see it, you can be it.
Speaker 6: It's on us to do it too, right, Like it's
Speaker 6: on us to do it. We can't just say, oh,
Speaker 6: you know, dismiss those kids and marginalize those kids. It's
Speaker 6: on us to work with them. On the other side
Speaker 6: of it, there's a policy connection here. Access to guns
Speaker 6: is due to lack of gun reform legislation at the
Speaker 6: federal level. How do we work with the hip hop
Speaker 6: community and culture to change that particular policy so guns
Speaker 6: can stop being trafficked in our community?
Speaker 4: Poverty? Right, So when we.
Speaker 6: Talk about the root causes of this violence we're talking
Speaker 6: about it's all connected to policy. And many times the
Speaker 6: young people who are you young people are victims of this, right,
Speaker 6: They're victims of a lack of access and opportunity in
Speaker 6: their communities. I mean, we're the only developed nation that
Speaker 6: doesn't doesn't have paid maternity leave, right, so you know,
Speaker 6: people are having families, they got to rush back to work,
Speaker 6: you know, have their child go to childcare, and childcare
Speaker 6: is unaffordable. Right, So that's two policies right there, lack
Speaker 6: of access to pay leave and lack of affordable childcare.
Speaker 6: How many of the kids were talking about are suffering
Speaker 6: because they didn't have access to a nurturing environment when
Speaker 6: they were babies. Instead, they were born and raised into
Speaker 6: toxic stress and chronic trauma created by horrible policies that
Speaker 6: are actually violent policies, and then that kid grows up
Speaker 6: more likely to be in special ed, more likely to
Speaker 6: be incarcerated, more likely to be vulnerable, and to pick
Speaker 6: up a gun and cause harm in their community. So
Speaker 6: we got to do the policy stuff, and then we
Speaker 6: got to do the on the ground cultural pie.
Speaker 2: So there are people who are like, see, see, that's
Speaker 2: why we shouldn't vote at all, because to hell with it,
Speaker 2: Like the system doesn't work.
Speaker 1: And there's another narrative that I see. It is so
Speaker 1: sad to me that our people.
Speaker 2: Sometimes we own the narrative that has been pushed on
Speaker 2: us from white supremacists, from right wing media. And so
Speaker 2: now I hear black folks saying, some black folks saying, oh, well,
Speaker 2: the Democratic cities are the ones with all educational problems.
Speaker 1: That the schools in.
Speaker 2: The Democratic cities, the poverty and the Democratic cities. That's
Speaker 2: what it's the problem is the Democrats. I mean, it's
Speaker 2: a black people, oftentimes black men who are trying, who
Speaker 2: are saying gun violence and violence is a problem in
Speaker 2: democratic cities.
Speaker 1: Do you how do you respond.
Speaker 4: That, I mean it's not true.
Speaker 6: I mean the the life expectancy, healthcare outcomes, economic outcomes,
Speaker 6: and death by gun is higher in every Republican led
Speaker 6: state and county city.
Speaker 4: So that that's just not yet correct. That's just not
Speaker 4: a true statement.
Speaker 6: At the same time, you know, the Democratic Party ain't
Speaker 6: you know, like, ain't perfect. You know what I'm saying,
Speaker 6: ain't doing everything right by us as well? The system
Speaker 6: is designed to maintain the cast.
Speaker 4: System that is.
Speaker 6: Designed for that. It's also designed to be changed if
Speaker 6: we get involved and we get engaged. So if I
Speaker 6: had that attitude that you're you're sharing, I would have
Speaker 6: never ran for Congress. I would have internalized a sense
Speaker 6: of despair and hopelessness and frustration that I completely understanding
Speaker 6: from our people. Because it is hard.
Speaker 2: But if you just hard the money, if you just
Speaker 2: focus on money, money, money, money, because again.
Speaker 6: Well but that's yeah, yeah, but that's part of the
Speaker 6: cast ideology. So if you focus on raising money, you
Speaker 6: could become a billionaire, but you still not. If you black,
Speaker 6: you still not at the top of that cast. Because
Speaker 6: it's two stories that come to mind for me. One,
Speaker 6: remember in the sixties when we was fighting the marching
Speaker 6: for civil rights, and we got the civil rights back
Speaker 6: pass and the voting rights ACKs past fifty sixties. You
Speaker 6: know what they were doing on the other side, they
Speaker 6: were creating a micro chip. So think about that, like
Speaker 6: they were creating the next revolution, next wave of scientific technology,
Speaker 6: and we were finding for our humanity. Right now, That's
Speaker 6: one example. The other example is we've had rappers for
Speaker 6: thirty twenty thirty years talking about, you know, a billy abillity.
Speaker 6: We want to make a billion, a billion. The goal
Speaker 6: is to get to a Billy bill We got how
Speaker 6: many billionaire is now? How close is that billion to
Speaker 6: the wealth of Jeff Bezos? Hundreds of billions gates hundreds
Speaker 6: of billions. Right, so we cha, we've been chasing what
Speaker 6: white supremacy is put in front of us as a
Speaker 6: carrot like chase this thing over here, a full sense
Speaker 6: of accomplishment, full sense of utopia, full sense of accomplishment,
Speaker 6: full sense of success.
Speaker 2: If you have everything and your people don't, you still
Speaker 2: have nothing.
Speaker 6: Correct, right? So, but in reality we have lost we
Speaker 6: our sense of self determination and our identity has been
Speaker 6: stripped from us. So we have to connect back to
Speaker 6: that first and foremost and Through that, then we can
Speaker 6: self actualize and manifest our magic in whatever way it
Speaker 6: manifests itself. It doesn't have to be a billion dollars.
Speaker 6: It could be a million other things that we haven't
Speaker 6: even thought about yet.
Speaker 4: And so.
Speaker 6: Yeah, man, it's the culture is you know, it is
Speaker 6: what it is, but it's America and it's on us
Speaker 6: to in my opinion, connect with it and do something
Speaker 6: about it to change America.
Speaker 2: I want to talk about Biden, the Biden administration, accomplishments
Speaker 2: and the perceived and or actual failures. Right, so there's
Speaker 2: a lot of stuff that's supposed to happen as slow
Speaker 2: moving if at all. The George Floyd justicson police and
Speaker 2: actor is just nobody's even talking about it. It's like
Speaker 2: that just discipine, I don't know what happened, no more, right,
Speaker 2: because we work in trends. Unfortunately in this country that
Speaker 2: people are still dying, but yet they've moved on to
Speaker 2: something different. So talk about what you think are accomplishments
Speaker 2: that you all have worked on, things that the administration
Speaker 2: has been able to get done, and then we can
Speaker 2: kind of go into the and I say proceed because
Speaker 2: some people are like student loans. He didn't do anything.
Speaker 2: It's a failure, even though so much we see.
Speaker 6: It is a lot on student loans. Yeah, so yeah, no,
Speaker 6: great question. So, first of all, Biden is a president.
Speaker 6: He has to work with legislators in order to pass legislation.
Speaker 4: That's o fact.
Speaker 6: So if people are only focused on Biden and don't
Speaker 6: even know who their Congress members are, that's a problem
Speaker 6: because those are the people we got to vote in
Speaker 6: and out to work on. Legislation that Biden is going
Speaker 6: to ultimately sign are not signed. So just wanted to
Speaker 6: put that out there. What is Biden done? The American
Speaker 6: Rescue Plan was huge. When our first got into Congress,
Speaker 6: we were we were still dealing with COVID. We needed
Speaker 6: a vaccine. We needed to save education systems across the country.
Speaker 6: We need to save poor city. We got people checks,
Speaker 6: we had unemployment extended. Like American Rescue Plans, saved the economy.
Speaker 6: That was about an accomplishment. Safer Communities Act is the
Speaker 6: first piece of gun legislation we passed in over a decade.
Speaker 6: A lot of resources for mental health, a lot of
Speaker 6: supports to communities that have been ignored when it comes
Speaker 6: to these issues. Huge huge piece of legislation, the Inflation
Speaker 6: Reduction Act four hundred billion invested in climate the most ever,
Speaker 6: caps prescription drug costs, insulent drug costs at thirty five
Speaker 6: dollars a month and gives it was crazy, and gives
Speaker 6: Medicare the opportunity to negotiate drug prices which never happened before.
Speaker 6: And caps senior Drug court at two thousand and a year,
Speaker 6: which is a game changer. You ain't gonna hear seniors
Speaker 6: saying what we hear people saying about body. You ain't
Speaker 6: gonna hear that from seniors because they feel the effects.
Speaker 6: The Infrastructure Bill, which is historic investments in our infrastructure
Speaker 6: one point three two trillion to rebuild roads, bridges, and tunnels.
Speaker 4: A great bill.
Speaker 6: My problem with the bill is then there wasn't enough
Speaker 6: equity provisions in it to make sure black and brown
Speaker 6: people got those jobs, which is one of the reasons
Speaker 6: why I voted against it. And then the other bill.
Speaker 6: His other signature bill is the Chips and Science Act.
Speaker 6: We're bringing semiconductive manufacturing back to our country, which means
Speaker 6: we're going to start building our microchips again, which is
Speaker 6: going to create thousands of jobs. If not millions and
Speaker 6: re empower us with our technology. And I personally love
Speaker 6: that bill the most, well second most, because I have
Speaker 6: two amendments in that bill. One is for building community
Speaker 6: wealth through technology and the other is for building worker
Speaker 6: cooperatives through technology. So whenever I'm dealing with legislation, I'm
Speaker 6: specifically thinking about the Bronx Mount Vernon Yonkers and where
Speaker 6: black and brown people live in my district and thinking
Speaker 6: about what they need. So those are the amendments I
Speaker 6: wrote to that bill. So those huge accomplishments. The challenge
Speaker 6: continues to be how is that impacting people's pockets on
Speaker 6: a day to day basis, And those bills haven't come
Speaker 6: online yet to do that except for seniors. With the
Speaker 6: other stuff, it's coming online slowly, but surely not at
Speaker 6: the rate we needed. What I wished Biden did more
Speaker 6: around was this issue of price gouging. So the reason
Speaker 6: why inflation still is still higher than it should be
Speaker 6: is because corporation raised prices during COVID and many of
Speaker 6: them never bought the prices back then, which is why
Speaker 6: people still can't afford all that stuff. This is why
Speaker 6: people still which is why people still struggling so much,
Speaker 6: to live and you know people both pointed out it. Yeah,
Speaker 6: I mean, so we have a bill called the Ending
Speaker 6: Corporate Greed Act, which focuses specifically on this issue of
Speaker 6: price gouging. We want to hold companies accountable for price
Speaker 6: s gouging, right, and we want them to open their
Speaker 6: books to show us what's going on in their companies
Speaker 6: so that we can see how much is going to
Speaker 6: profit and how much is going to the people. It's
Speaker 6: called the Ending corp agree that that's something we would
Speaker 6: like the President to support. We talk a little bit
Speaker 6: about price scugeing, but we don't talk about it enough.
Speaker 6: So the Republicans have run with the narrative that the
Speaker 6: reason why inflation is crazy because it's too much government spending. No,
Speaker 6: it's because of price gouging. When you look at I
Speaker 6: don't have the number in front of me. Was it
Speaker 6: tens tens of billions of hundreds of billions of dollars
Speaker 6: that billionaires gained during COVID versus working class people? It's
Speaker 6: because of price gouging. So they got their check. But
Speaker 6: that that ran out right, that ran out and now
Speaker 6: you know correct, and we also have a system where
Speaker 6: you know, like you see the mo flee or quarterly
Speaker 6: celebrations of job growth growth, Right, more jobs, got more jobs,
Speaker 6: more jobs. We still have underemployment, which means people aren't
Speaker 6: making enough money. So people may have jobs, but they're
Speaker 6: not making enough prevailing wage and so. And part of
Speaker 6: that is because we have a system where if you
Speaker 6: are large corporation, uh, you you get rewarded for buying
Speaker 6: your own stock to prop up the value of your corporations,
Speaker 6: where you should be investing in creating paying wage job,
Speaker 6: living wage jobs for people, but they're not, and they're
Speaker 6: not held accountable for that. So a lot of our
Speaker 6: eyre towards President Biden or the Democratic Party should go
Speaker 6: towards the corporations that are that are you know, destroying
Speaker 6: us right now economically.
Speaker 3: So those things help black people? What's that the stuff
Speaker 3: you said that did? Yes, directly helped black because that's
Speaker 3: what people are going to say, Yeah, whatever, what have
Speaker 3: you done for black people?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 6: Exactly right, So yes they do. Here's a challenge though
Speaker 6: one it doesn't help them fast enough.
Speaker 4: So that's the problem.
Speaker 6: So that that that criticism is well taken for Biden
Speaker 6: and for all of us. It's not just Biden, it's
Speaker 6: the legislators. Here's here's the challenge.
Speaker 4: Though.
Speaker 6: A lot of that money is made available in grants,
Speaker 6: so it's not just given. The American Rescue Plan was
Speaker 6: just given. It was given the Mount Vernon, it was
Speaker 6: given the city.
Speaker 4: It was it was it was yeah, it was.
Speaker 6: Given the Yakers, it was the stimulus checks given. Certain
Speaker 6: things were given in the beginning. These bills have grants
Speaker 6: attached to them. So if you don't have a grant
Speaker 6: writer to go after the grant, you can't bring X
Speaker 6: program into your into your community. That's a major part
Speaker 6: of the problem. But again it's not just it's it's
Speaker 6: the it's the government side. It's the government, it's accessing
Speaker 6: opportunities the government side. But it's also the corporate side
Speaker 6: as well. And one of the challenges with Biden, particularly
Speaker 6: in this day, Biden is a capitalist. He you know,
Speaker 6: he supports you know, large corporations and building wealth corporations
Speaker 6: and whatever we can. We can save that for another conversation.
Speaker 6: My point is what are we doing to invest in
Speaker 6: working class people every day and support them so that
Speaker 6: they can afford childcare, housing, healthcare, transportation, utilities, et cetera.
Speaker 6: Utilities are crazy killing everything.
Speaker 1: Seriously, this is a real problem.
Speaker 2: And I tell people that will see this interview will say, still.
Speaker 1: How exactly does.
Speaker 2: TT in Alabama, who lives in a trail apart, who's
Speaker 2: taking care of her kids, struggling, doing everything possible to survive,
Speaker 2: how does t T get money in her pocket?
Speaker 1: That is?
Speaker 2: That's still And until we can answer for that, because
Speaker 2: it's not responsibility only or whatever, it's it's like you said,
Speaker 2: it's a full legislature. It's it's a lot of people
Speaker 2: involved in that. But until you can answer that question directly,
Speaker 2: you're going to have a lot of people who just
Speaker 2: checked out. And I'll give you an example of something
Speaker 2: that happened recently I was talking to.
Speaker 6: Before you do that, I just make one quick counter argument.
Speaker 6: There are certain groups and lobbies that have incredible power
Speaker 6: in Congress because they vote every single election, They vote
Speaker 6: in every primary, they voted in every general, and made
Speaker 6: itself a priority the right.
Speaker 1: So a politicians care about money and.
Speaker 6: Votes, right, And so if you say you not voting,
Speaker 6: are you in participating?
Speaker 4: Why do I care about what's.
Speaker 1: Easier for them to run to completely ignore you?
Speaker 4: Why do I care about what you want to what
Speaker 4: you think.
Speaker 1: But I was going to give you this.
Speaker 2: I was talking to some cousins on the phone, you know,
Speaker 2: having our little Sunday kicking around doing we still do
Speaker 2: zoom and conference calls like COVID. And my cousin said,
Speaker 2: I said, you know, we gotta get ready to vote.
Speaker 2: Country is crazy. This is serious, serious election. Gotta do it.
Speaker 2: And she laughed and said, child, y'all live a different world.
Speaker 2: We down here hustling from moment to moment to survive.
Speaker 2: We was hustling when Trump was the president. We've been
Speaker 2: hustling since Biden is the president. It does not change
Speaker 2: for us. None of that stuff impacts our street, like
Speaker 2: where we're living and what we're suffering with.
Speaker 4: But that's just the reality.
Speaker 3: The reality is right there is there is a demographic
Speaker 3: in this country that is not served right, and that
Speaker 3: when we were sitting here making up alive.
Speaker 1: They are for real, that's nobody not they.
Speaker 3: They've so below the Holidy line that they don't even
Speaker 3: they not even counted. It's a reality.
Speaker 6: When I first got to Congress.
Speaker 4: We couldn't. We failed to raise the.
Speaker 6: Federal minimum wage from seven dollars an hour to fifteen.
Speaker 1: Dollars, simple thing. Seven dollars.
Speaker 4: The federal minimum wage is people.
Speaker 2: And Democrats and Republicans allowed federal.
Speaker 3: That's crazy to happen the federal I thought it was everywhere.
Speaker 3: So the federal no minium wage is still seven.
Speaker 2: I think, yeah, corporations have to take it upon themselves
Speaker 2: at this point, or.
Speaker 4: States like New York State has it. You know, I
Speaker 4: think it's seventeen now.
Speaker 2: Business owners coming to this conversation because I've had several
Speaker 2: business owners say they cannot handle the increase in minimum
Speaker 2: wage for the employees.
Speaker 1: So I mean, it's a what to your point?
Speaker 2: And we're gonna move on because we only got one
Speaker 2: more one, two more things and then I know we
Speaker 2: gotta cut this. But we knew that this would be
Speaker 2: a real powerful interview, and it has to, you know,
Speaker 2: between yourself and others like you, Congresswoman, and Corey Bush
Speaker 2: and just a number of individuals who are in the
Speaker 2: federal government pushing to make progressive and radical change. Right,
Speaker 2: your voices need to be amplified because our people are bewildered,
Speaker 2: feeling disrespected. Don't understand. Some people are confused. Other people
Speaker 2: are like, I'm not confused.
Speaker 1: At all.
Speaker 2: My middle fingers is up to the whole jam. Like
Speaker 2: I'm checked out completely, you know, And when you think
Speaker 2: about how many people are suffering, it's almost like nothing
Speaker 2: that we ever could say can make them feel better.
Speaker 2: Especially on top of all of the financial issues. The
Speaker 2: police are still knocking them upside the head, right, the
Speaker 2: schools are still not properly educating their children properly. They
Speaker 2: are tired and worn out, and so I get frustrated
Speaker 2: because I'm like, we can't stay home, not in this
Speaker 2: people keep I think the worst talking point is this
Speaker 2: is the most election, the most important election of our time.
Speaker 2: Every single election, city council, district leader, every single election
Speaker 2: is the most important election of our lifetime. And because
Speaker 2: we just start that when it comes to keeping Donald
Speaker 2: Trump out of being becoming president, it's lost, you know
Speaker 2: what I'm saying, because yeah.
Speaker 4: Voter die over.
Speaker 6: Yeah yeah, I mean, slogans ain't going you know, we're
Speaker 6: not gonna a revolution from slogans, right, But to your
Speaker 6: point of myself and others in Congress.
Speaker 4: Where's some of the few who don't get the middle finger?
Speaker 1: All Right?
Speaker 4: When we show up.
Speaker 6: In community, people actually are excited, and it's inspire to
Speaker 6: engage with us. They beat us down to right, y'all
Speaker 6: ain't doing nothing, and we got to what's going They
Speaker 6: do that, but they still engage, and we engage with
Speaker 6: them because that's why we in Congress for them. We
Speaker 6: are ran for Congress because of them. I ran for
Speaker 6: Congress because kids in the Bronx Mount vernon Y, because
Speaker 6: all were ignored, marginal and dying every day in our streets.
Speaker 2: So I'm a quick questions, a question that we want
Speaker 2: to know. How you deal with the black whatever they
Speaker 2: call themselves that they listen. You talked about radical on
Speaker 2: your side, They outside the building, down the hall around it,
Speaker 2: behind them, the what you call it, the shrubs hiding
Speaker 2: from a radical conversation?
Speaker 1: How do you deal?
Speaker 6: I mean, yeah, it's you know, I don't I don't
Speaker 6: really deal with it, you know what I'm saying Because
Speaker 6: at the end of the day, we got work to do, right,
Speaker 6: So I'm I'm hyper focused me personally, I'm hyper focused
Speaker 6: on the work we need to do. And you know,
Speaker 6: Malcolm educated us, educated us on the on on the bourgeoisie,
Speaker 6: uh friends for none, educated us on the colonized bourgeoisie.
Speaker 4: And for me again, if we not.
Speaker 6: Going all out for for our people and hurt people
Speaker 6: and marginalized people, we don't need to be there.
Speaker 4: We don't need to be in.
Speaker 6: No elected office if we're not trying to go all
Speaker 6: out for our people. And so you know, that's what
Speaker 6: I'm all about it and that's why we we And
Speaker 6: it's not just words, it's legislation is money. One quick example,
Speaker 6: you know, horrible incident took place a couple of years
Speaker 6: ago in Mount Vernon. UH girls from neighboring cheerleading squads
Speaker 6: got into some beef. It went to Snapchat, it got
Speaker 6: out of control. They decided they was going to meet
Speaker 6: and fight a block away from city hall.
Speaker 4: In Mount Vernon.
Speaker 6: One girl pulls out a knife, stabs one girl kills her,
Speaker 6: stabs another one critical condition. The one who did the
Speaker 6: stabing is now going for fifteen twenty years right one.
Speaker 6: The other girl's going forever, family, community, never going to
Speaker 6: see her again. And one's in critical I don't know
Speaker 6: how she's doing right now. So you know, I show
Speaker 6: up at the mayor's office the next day, we have
Speaker 6: a community meeting, town hall circle, trying to understand what
Speaker 6: the hell happened, and why couldn't we stop this. In
Speaker 6: addition to that, we worked with them to bring in
Speaker 6: a million dollars to create a program called Safe Place
Speaker 6: for Our Girls, where now we're targeting middle school and
Speaker 6: high school girls in Mount Vernon to support them in
Speaker 6: their growth and development as young women. If someone like
Speaker 6: me wasn't in office, that doesn't happen. There's another incident,
Speaker 6: young man Newishelle High School kid gets into an argument
Speaker 6: with some other kid, apparently fencing always involved. Kid pulls
Speaker 6: out a ghost gun, shoots the kid, kills him. I
Speaker 6: think the kid was fifteen years old, shot by sixteen
Speaker 6: year old. Again, one life going, one life change forever,
Speaker 6: Community change, forever, show up.
Speaker 4: Meet with community, meet with teachers.
Speaker 6: Parents, administrators, families, not just thoughts in prayers. Figure out
Speaker 6: how can I use my position bring in resources to
Speaker 6: help this community. We brought in about three million dollars
Speaker 6: for the Boys and Girls Club and the school district
Speaker 6: to work specifically with at risk youth. If we not
Speaker 6: voting in every election, you not gonna get someone like
Speaker 6: me in office doing that work with our most vulnerable communities.
Speaker 4: All you gonna get his thoughts in prayers, and that's it.
Speaker 4: The last thing I'll say on that is this is
Speaker 4: personal for me. Personal. I mean shit, it was.
Speaker 6: I must have been eleven years old, so it must
Speaker 6: have been like eighty seven eighty eight. My sister I
Speaker 6: got two older sisters, both was dating drug dealers, you know,
Speaker 6: big radios all at you know, eighty seven eighty eight.
Speaker 6: One of them took me on a run uptown to
Speaker 6: the Bronx with them. I'm from Manhattan. Took me uptown
Speaker 6: on the Bronx for a run to go drop off
Speaker 6: something and pick seing up whatever it was. We get
Speaker 6: into an alley. He pulls out a gun, shoots in
Speaker 6: the air.
Speaker 4: Three times, blah blah blah.
Speaker 6: He's like, here, you want to shoot it. I'm like,
Speaker 6: hell no, I was scared to death. I don't want
Speaker 6: to touch that gun. But I tell our story to tell,
Speaker 6: like from when I was eleven, the issue of gun violence,
Speaker 6: since the violence was going on our community has been
Speaker 6: in my life personally, professionally.
Speaker 4: So now obviously I'm going to govern from that perspective.
Speaker 6: So now because of the way I govern and we
Speaker 6: go with community, we have some of the most powerful,
Speaker 6: wealthiest people in the country coming to take me out
Speaker 6: of my seat because.
Speaker 4: We challenging that power. So we're challenging this power.
Speaker 6: So now APAC Republican mega donors who support Trump and
Speaker 6: over one hundred insurrectionists who are racists and support the
Speaker 6: mass murder that's happening in Gaza right now, they're coming
Speaker 6: to take me out of my seat.
Speaker 4: And it's crazy. And it's crazy to me.
Speaker 6: Simply because we fight it for black and brown lives
Speaker 6: hair and in Gaza it's connected.
Speaker 4: It's white supremacy. It's all connected, you know.
Speaker 3: And I just want to say that I commend you
Speaker 3: because when I talk about voting and I talk about
Speaker 3: who do we elect, and people say who are we
Speaker 3: supposed to elect? And no party of this? And I'm
Speaker 3: not a party person, you understand I'm saying. But the
Speaker 3: reality of the situation is I need the proper representation
Speaker 3: for me. I need to know that people get it.
Speaker 3: I need to know that there's somebody in these offices
Speaker 3: that understand my reality, that understand that's been through the alleyway,
Speaker 3: somebody shot a gun, that's been had a couple of
Speaker 3: fights in school and had to switch to school, that
Speaker 3: had to go through something to overcome something that actually
Speaker 3: understand and identify what it is these kids are dealing with.
Speaker 3: You can't govern our communities if you not even you
Speaker 3: don't understand the realities that we have to deal with
Speaker 3: every day. So when I vote, it's for somebody like you.
Speaker 3: So I want to I just want to commend you
Speaker 3: because I understand what it is that you represent and
Speaker 3: understand the fight that you have against you because we
Speaker 3: fight against it every day, you know.
Speaker 4: So what I want to say is, continue to fight.
Speaker 3: We're gonna do everything we can to fight with you,
Speaker 3: because this is what representation looks like.
Speaker 4: This is what our communities need. We need young.
Speaker 3: Boys that are at risk need to see somebody like
Speaker 3: you that's willing to come and argue with the people
Speaker 3: or take the abuse and deal with it because we
Speaker 3: reality is y'all just talking from your talking points and
Speaker 3: this with the community. You've never been in that community.
Speaker 3: You having a conversation with me about what black people
Speaker 3: is and what hip hop is and what the culture
Speaker 3: is and what violence doesn't mean. And y'all want to
Speaker 3: say no, Unfortunately, this is how we had to survive. Unfortunately, somebody,
Speaker 3: this was the only thing we had to survive.
Speaker 4: But we didn't know anything else.
Speaker 3: Unfortunately, some of us had to go through things and
Speaker 3: actually overcome those things, you know.
Speaker 4: And so now we come.
Speaker 3: From a perspective of lived experience, and we want to
Speaker 3: help our kids get through that and before they have
Speaker 3: to go through what we've been through. So I reject
Speaker 3: the notion that somebody outside of my community that's never
Speaker 3: been through can govern my community.
Speaker 4: I reject that notion.
Speaker 3: I reject that some white man that's never been in
Speaker 3: my community can can tell me what's better for our community.
Speaker 4: I reject that. I vehemently reject that.
Speaker 3: And I want our community and our representation to look
Speaker 3: like the people that's inside those communities. So I want
Speaker 3: you to tell us when is reelection, what is the STRATEGYAH.
Speaker 6: Election day is June twenty fifth, that's the primary, June
Speaker 6: twenty fifth. Early voting starts June fifteenth. If you're not
Speaker 6: registered to vote, please register the vote by June fifteenth.
Speaker 6: That's the last stay to vote in this election. And
Speaker 6: in New York State, I don't agree with the law,
Speaker 6: but you have to be registered with a party to
Speaker 6: vote in a primary. So if you want to vote
Speaker 6: the demoprat primy, no, the congressional primaries June twenty fifth.
Speaker 6: That's my primary. The presidential primary is like next week.
Speaker 6: What's happening right now?
Speaker 4: Yup?
Speaker 6: So for the congressional primary June twenty fifth. Congressional primary,
Speaker 6: early voting June fifteenth. Congressional primary. Last day to vote,
Speaker 6: register to vote is June fifteenth. You could vote early
Speaker 6: beginning June fifteenth.
Speaker 4: You could do mail in.
Speaker 6: Ballots, but not just in my election. You got to
Speaker 6: register in New York State. You gotta be registered Democrat
Speaker 6: or Republicans vote. I'm saying registered Democrat in my district
Speaker 6: to vote for me, because I have someone who has
Speaker 6: been a Democrat in his old career, but he's partnering
Speaker 6: with racist Republican mega donors to take me out my seat,
Speaker 6: out this seat, the district seat. They had a whole
Speaker 6: campaign trying to switch Republicans to be Democrats to vote
Speaker 6: against me. So that's only happening because we're causing good trouble,
Speaker 6: Like we're being disruptive.
Speaker 3: If they wouldn't, they wouldn't go to hard, they wouldn't
Speaker 3: go so hard.
Speaker 6: They're throwing everything at us right now. So June twenty fifth,
Speaker 6: Election day June fifteenth, early voting. Please register the vote
Speaker 6: Democrat in my district, at least register the vote because
Speaker 6: we need people involved and engaged. Because the federal government
Speaker 6: spends four hundred and fifty billion dollars a year on weapons,
Speaker 6: nine hundred billion for the military industrial complex, and the
Speaker 6: second largest expenditure is jails. So they spend on war,
Speaker 6: they spend on jails. The only way to get them
Speaker 6: to spend on our people in our communities is to
Speaker 6: get involved in vote and change the whole game.
Speaker 3: We appreciate you, thank you, we got you got we
Speaker 3: got your back man, Thank you, man, appreciate such.
Speaker 1: A very very informative interview. And you have to come back.
Speaker 1: But you're our friends.
Speaker 3: So you know you boycott black murder all day.
Speaker 1: Well that's enough said, I.
Speaker 3: Mean our brother listen, man, Like things like that invigorate
Speaker 3: me to you know that have some little bit of hope,
Speaker 3: you know, because it's so it's so few people that
Speaker 3: that you can even vote for it that even represent
Speaker 3: what it is your mind state that said understands what
Speaker 3: the problem is and willing to fight regardless. And it's
Speaker 3: it's sad because what we have to do and how
Speaker 3: we have to stand behind. We got to do put
Speaker 3: everything we have because that's not a popular thing.
Speaker 4: One is something.
Speaker 3: Different and one better for your community and understanding the
Speaker 3: dynamics of your community and fighting for all the time
Speaker 3: it's not popular, like they want you to forget where
Speaker 3: you come from. They want you to forget the realities
Speaker 3: that they want you to just go along with status
Speaker 3: quo while I'll continues where our communities continue to fall
Speaker 3: apart and our young kids' education is shot and there's
Speaker 3: violence going on, and you not care about that, and
Speaker 3: you focus on we just need money for the district,
Speaker 3: so you could just keep funneling the same money to
Speaker 3: this which really.
Speaker 2: Need people like Jamal Bowman to be reelected. So I
Speaker 2: just know that for people who are listening to this,
Speaker 2: this is a serious situation. And I think he said something.
Speaker 2: I mean, we could have done so much more with
Speaker 2: that interview, but he said something that I hope folks heard.
Speaker 2: He said, because we stand up for black and brown people,
Speaker 2: they put everything when we say cease fire and Gaza
Speaker 2: they come after us. But they're not only coming after
Speaker 2: us because Gaza, they are also they already had a
Speaker 2: target on you because of your advocacy and radical voice
Speaker 2: for black and brown people.
Speaker 4: It's so crazy the word radical.
Speaker 3: Well, I'm saying no, but that's the best word.
Speaker 1: I use.
Speaker 2: The word radical is because I want to to to to.
Speaker 1: Take the stigma from it.
Speaker 2: It should be used and we should normalize saying it
Speaker 2: because we do need radical because progressive is not getting
Speaker 2: us enough. Progressive has been co opted, by the way
Speaker 2: by it mean that.
Speaker 4: You got to run instead of they want to tiptoe.
Speaker 2: Progressives many of them are people that are also not
Speaker 2: from our community, that are fighting for this whole pie theory, right.
Speaker 2: So it's it's sort of like one of our critiques
Speaker 2: about well, one of my critiques about Bernie Sanders was
Speaker 2: this idea that if we just raised the entire all
Speaker 2: the people, right, so the entire nation gets support and resources,
Speaker 2: then it will benefit it every micro group.
Speaker 1: And that is not true.
Speaker 2: You have to have a very specific focus on black
Speaker 2: folks if you want to, if you want to, if
Speaker 2: you are if you are a true fighter and believer
Speaker 2: in the success of our communities, you gotta target us.
Speaker 2: You have to focus us, which is the whole thing
Speaker 2: around DIA that we have to do on another day,
Speaker 2: but which is diversity, equity, and inclusion. So you know,
Speaker 2: I want to say radical because I don't care if
Speaker 2: they don't like it.
Speaker 4: Now it's not to me.
Speaker 3: It's I just the definition of radical means something that's
Speaker 3: so far gone and it's so far left to pushing us.
Speaker 3: To me is like why is this pushing? Like this
Speaker 3: shit has just common sense to me. So that's why
Speaker 3: I'm saying. I'm not saying you shouldn't use it or
Speaker 3: kid how they weaponize it, because fuck them anyway, you know,
Speaker 3: But that that goes to my I don't get it.
Speaker 4: I'm just noticing.
Speaker 3: Just it's is so many things, you know, this Internet
Speaker 3: and misinformation and the intentional spreading of misinformation is just
Speaker 3: at an all time high. Like people are just reposting
Speaker 3: and resharing and re saying things.
Speaker 4: That they have no clue about, like.
Speaker 3: Shit that just makes no sense, and you be like
Speaker 3: you really didn't did you even think about that?
Speaker 4: Did you? Who told you to post it?
Speaker 3: And these are supposed to be reputable sites and reputable
Speaker 3: blog sites and reputable people.
Speaker 4: And they're just saying anything.
Speaker 3: And it's just like, I just fear for us that
Speaker 3: this misinformation age that we're in this is.
Speaker 4: Going to be the death of us.
Speaker 2: It's misinformation and disinformation, and there are people who benefit
Speaker 2: from from making sure that we are uninformed and misinformed.
Speaker 2: And I've been watching also over the last week or
Speaker 2: two weeks misinformation even around the situation with Diddy that
Speaker 2: I don't know what the hell has happened.
Speaker 1: I have no idea.
Speaker 2: It is very alarming and very disturbing to hear the
Speaker 2: types of allegations that are out there about someone that
Speaker 2: I love. But nonetheless, I know people that I love
Speaker 2: that may have done something wrong. So I don't say
Speaker 2: because I don't know, but I certainly see misinformation even
Speaker 2: in that and even when someone says, actually we were wrong,
Speaker 2: people have taken whatever that thing was and they've gone
Speaker 2: with it.
Speaker 1: And it is very very dangerous. Not because.
Speaker 2: Not because any one of us can definitively say or
Speaker 2: this or that and the third in that situation. That's
Speaker 2: not what we are here to discuss. But what it
Speaker 2: makes me worry about is that in an election season,
Speaker 2: well we're now learning is that if a blog site
Speaker 2: or even a news outlet, because even The New York
Speaker 2: Times has been found throughout the issue of the attack
Speaker 2: on Gaza.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: The New York Times has been found, by the way,
Speaker 2: put that to the side. Even in my own life,
Speaker 2: The New York Times has been found to push propaganda
Speaker 2: and to report things that are actually unfounded and pure lies.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: So now we're in a situation where people can't even say, well,
Speaker 2: let me go look at media sources to get info.
Speaker 2: You don't even you can't even because you don't even
Speaker 2: know whether those media sources are true or not. So
Speaker 2: they've been running for the last week. It was a
Speaker 2: whole thing about the shares of that that puff sold
Speaker 2: the shares of his shares of revolt, and Roland Martin
Speaker 2: is like, I'm talking to the people at the highest
Speaker 2: level and that is actually not the case. And it's like, okay, cool,
Speaker 2: put that over here, because that's people's personal bit. This
Speaker 2: is whether he sells it, doesn't sell it, who buys it,
Speaker 2: how it all works out. Shout out to the family
Speaker 2: at Revote. I pray for every single staff person that's
Speaker 2: there that I know are people who are trying to
Speaker 2: do their job despite all of this other craziness that's
Speaker 2: going on. They are attempting to be a voice for
Speaker 2: Black America and try to get it right, right, So
Speaker 2: shout out to them, much love to them.
Speaker 1: But let's say put that over there.
Speaker 2: Imagine when people realize that, all they gotta do is say,
Speaker 2: you know, boom.
Speaker 4: But that's what they realize. But that's what I'm trying.
Speaker 1: To state it as fact.
Speaker 4: But that's what I'm explaining to you. That is the
Speaker 4: error we are on.
Speaker 3: That's why we have so many quote unquote Internet influences.
Speaker 4: YouTubers.
Speaker 3: They come on there with the most outrageous shit that's unfounded.
Speaker 3: Nobody fact checked them, nobody looked it up. They just repost.
Speaker 3: People could come to you and say, oh this is true,
Speaker 3: this is true, and you're like, where did you get
Speaker 3: the information?
Speaker 1: But I want to believe, mice.
Speaker 2: I want to believe that because of what women have suffered, right,
Speaker 2: women have suffered abuse and discardment for a long time,
Speaker 2: and I want to believe that we are living in
Speaker 2: an era where some of our people are just like,
Speaker 2: we want to support those who may have been harmed.
Speaker 2: I mean, we see this going on across the board, people,
Speaker 2: young people, kids on Nickelodeon.
Speaker 3: And how do you support somebody by life?
Speaker 2: Well no, Well, what I'm saying is I don't know
Speaker 2: that folks believe that they are caught up in lies.
Speaker 2: I think they are really There's some people that's just
Speaker 2: trolls and they idiots and that's it. But there are
Speaker 2: some people who are truly trying to advocate for what
Speaker 2: they believe is the underdog or the victim.
Speaker 4: You can advocated, you can advocate with the truth.
Speaker 2: I believe that, But you don't know the truth. But
Speaker 2: that means if you don't know the truth, what.
Speaker 4: Can you advocate?
Speaker 3: You advocate and say, hey, this is such and such
Speaker 3: said this, and I believe such and such right, But
Speaker 3: you can't you can't push that as is a fact.
Speaker 3: Right if somebody come to you and say something such
Speaker 3: happen to me and they say, this is my friend,
Speaker 3: I believe that that and based on what my friends said,
Speaker 3: I believe it. But you can't come in fact and
Speaker 3: act like.
Speaker 4: You was there.
Speaker 2: The macrocosm is that we are in a time where
Speaker 2: you will take anything they say on the internet and say,
Speaker 2: well they said, they said who's that?
Speaker 1: And who is that?
Speaker 2: Nobody never tells you who they are, and it's a
Speaker 2: real dangerous it's dangerous.
Speaker 1: So I just I just I just hope that we learn.
Speaker 1: That's what they what the ministers been. I told you
Speaker 1: what I learned, learned, I.
Speaker 3: Learned, learned, and with that learn we've come to the
Speaker 3: end of another episode. Shout out to Congressman Jamal Bowman.
Speaker 3: We appreciate you, We appreciate our fans, Tea and my fans.
Speaker 3: Make sure that you go let us know what topics
Speaker 3: you want us to talk about. Who y'all want us
Speaker 3: to interview. We're still the number one podcast in the world,
Speaker 3: number one number one podcast. I could always be right
Speaker 3: to mek, It's not gonna always be wrong. We'll both
Speaker 3: always and I mean always be authentic that check out
Speaker 3: the video version of TMO.
Speaker 2: Every single Wednesday on Iwoman dot TV.
Speaker 4: That's