Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to WIKA app Daily with
Speaker 1: Me Your Girl. Danielle Moody prerecording from the Bunker, Folks,
Speaker 1: I this episode is going to be about Juneteenth. I
Speaker 1: have mixed feelings about Juneteenth, hence my hesitancy as I
Speaker 1: was getting ready to announce it. I don't have mixed
Speaker 1: feelings about Juneteenth being celebrated. I have feelings about how
Speaker 1: Juneteenth is being co opted and commodified, and that especially
Speaker 1: at a time when we have an entire cult republican
Speaker 1: radicalized domestic terrorist party working over time to ensure that
Speaker 1: nothing that is taught in K three twelve education has
Speaker 1: even a hint of perspective outside of white supremacy and patriarchy.
Speaker 1: And that I believe that the Juneteenth holiday came about
Speaker 1: as a pacifier right to all of the other things
Speaker 1: that black people in this country have been asking for
Speaker 1: four centuries. Right When I think about Juneteenth, when I
Speaker 1: think about the way in which Juneteenth has been talked
Speaker 1: about and the backlash that has been received, and it
Speaker 1: pisses me off. It pisses me off. Juneteenth is a
Speaker 1: celebration of freedom and liberation, but it is also a
Speaker 1: reminder a deep reminder of the insidious nature of white supremacy.
Speaker 1: Yeah slighting lies, economic extraction, abuse of black people. Juneteenth
Speaker 1: came about because it would be two years following the
Speaker 1: end of the Civil War and the Emancipation Proclamation that
Speaker 1: enslaved Africans in Galveston, Texas would learn that they were
Speaker 1: now free. I'm certain that the white, vicious terrorists that
Speaker 1: were owning human beings knew that they were to be freed,
Speaker 1: but decided that they hadn't gotten enough free labor, They
Speaker 1: hadn't caused enough trauma, abuse, harm, violence, right, just needed
Speaker 1: two more years. This country makes me sick because every
Speaker 1: time that people are forced into the streets to declare
Speaker 1: the relevance of their own lives, that our lives actually matter,
Speaker 1: and that no lives, all lives can't matter until black
Speaker 1: lives actually matter, that we are still saying the same
Speaker 1: things that our ancestors said, still fighting for the same
Speaker 1: things that white, lying ass politicians and this lying ass
Speaker 1: federal government, regardless of which party is in charge, have
Speaker 1: denied Black people their full humanity. Because here's the thing.
Speaker 1: Juneteenth became a federal holiday following the racial uprisings of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty when we all watch collectively George Floyd take
Speaker 1: his last breath at the hands of the murdering X
Speaker 1: cop Derek Chauvin. For close to nine minutes, we watched
Speaker 1: a black man killed like a dog in the fucking street.
Speaker 1: Then we waited with bated breath through a trial to
Speaker 1: see if maybe this time someone is going to be
Speaker 1: held accountable for what the world witnessed in fucking Hora.
Speaker 1: We asked for a police reform, We asked for an
Speaker 1: end to qualified immunity. We asked for accountability of this
Speaker 1: state funded, fucking mob to be able to be charged
Speaker 1: and held criminally responsible for the damage and harm and
Speaker 1: death and destruction they cause. Eight months into bullshit negotiations
Speaker 1: between Senate Democrats and Senate Republicans, they come out, throw
Speaker 1: up their hands and say, oh, we couldn't come to
Speaker 1: an agreement, so we'll just continue with the status quo,
Speaker 1: which is that black lives don't actually matter and never have.
Speaker 1: They're only useful as tools to our ends, but outside
Speaker 1: of that, you're deserving of nothing. So then they turn
Speaker 1: around and they say, oh, well, here's Juneteenth off for everybody,
Speaker 1: including the white fucking racist, including the ancestors of those
Speaker 1: that kept us in shackles, that tortured, raped, sold our children,
Speaker 1: and then turn around and want to say that, oh,
Speaker 1: black people don't know anything about family, a nuclear family.
Speaker 1: Give me a break. How do you make a federal
Speaker 1: holiday and then don't create any curriculum around that holiday?
Speaker 1: Juneteenth was only celebrated in a handful of places, Texas, Washington, DC,
Speaker 1: where I used to live, being one of them, two
Speaker 1: of them. I hadn't heard about Juneteenth until I moved
Speaker 1: to the Washington DC DMV area for college. Can you
Speaker 1: imagine the amount and the lengths that this white supremist
Speaker 1: country has gone to to hide their abuses, to hide
Speaker 1: their terrorism, to distort reality, to paint this picture of
Speaker 1: white exceptionalism, knowing that there is nothing exceptional about whiteness
Speaker 1: outside of the exceptional way with which they reeled brutality
Speaker 1: and harm. So then as people are forced out into
Speaker 1: the streets out a hide of a pandemic before we
Speaker 1: have vaccines, before we even really know what we are
Speaker 1: dealing at with. Oh, the federal government says we're gonna
Speaker 1: make Juneteenth a federal holiday that'll show black people we
Speaker 1: care about them. I don't need your fucking holidays that
Speaker 1: everybody gets off and doesn't know dick about. I don't
Speaker 1: need Maya Angelou's face embassiled on a coin. I don't
Speaker 1: even need Harriet Tubman on a twenty dollar bill that
Speaker 1: we will never see. What I need is equity. What
Speaker 1: I need is justice. What I actually need and wants
Speaker 1: fucking reparations, not Juneteenth ice cream or T shirts, just
Speaker 1: another way to capitalize on the money that black people
Speaker 1: put out into our economy to support it. We spend
Speaker 1: more money than most other communities and get nothing back
Speaker 1: from these very same corporations that want to now turn
Speaker 1: their websites from half Rainbow to half kenttie cloth. And
Speaker 1: that's supposed to be showing some type of allyship and solidarity.
Speaker 1: Miss me with it. So as I'm seeing people from
Speaker 1: Nike to Walmart giving employees a day off or saying, oh,
Speaker 1: we're going to do a day of service, or let
Speaker 1: us give some wayward black community a couple of thousand dollars,
Speaker 1: patting themselves on the back for fucking what. The amount
Speaker 1: that black people are owed in this country is obscene.
Speaker 1: We have had HR forty introduced every year, and I
Speaker 1: want to pull it up for you because people don't
Speaker 1: know this. Why because it's never happened. It's never, ever, ever,
Speaker 1: ever happened. HR forty has been introduced multiple multiple times.
Speaker 1: The bill seeks to establish the Commission to Study and
Speaker 1: develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans. The Commission shall examine
Speaker 1: slavery and discrimination in the colonies and the United States
Speaker 1: from sixteen nineteen to the present and recommend appropriate remedies.
Speaker 1: It's never passed, it's never passed. We've had no such commission,
Speaker 1: We've had no such investigation. We haven't even had so
Speaker 1: much as a fucking apology, really, right, a recognition of
Speaker 1: harm that has been done. Folks will say, oh, but
Speaker 1: you know, don't you remember when the House, you know,
Speaker 1: under Nancy Pelosi said that they were sorry about slavery,
Speaker 1: and then was that when they put the kenty cloth
Speaker 1: around them and all got down on one knee. I
Speaker 1: tell you that what makes me sick, so sick about
Speaker 1: America is we don't want to do anything. We don't
Speaker 1: want change, not America as a whole, and certainly not
Speaker 1: white America. And I'm going to say it as a whole.
Speaker 1: I'm not part in parceling. So if I'm not talking
Speaker 1: about you, then I'm not talking about you. But you see,
Speaker 1: things get done in this country when White America demands it.
Speaker 1: So if there are so many good, thoughtful, caring, empathetic allies,
Speaker 1: then where are their voices around demanding reparations for the
Speaker 1: Black community, for a community that has faced so much.
Speaker 1: It's amazing. You want to talk about excellence. Every day
Speaker 1: I find myself in awe of Black people in this
Speaker 1: country and all of the fact that given every single obstacle,
Speaker 1: whether it be through education, incarceration, our death rates being
Speaker 1: higher than everybody else, gun violence, police brutality, right, food deserts,
Speaker 1: our healthcare system that has killed so many, including one
Speaker 1: in three Black women that go to deliver babies. Oh,
Speaker 1: when I think, folks about all of these things, it's
Speaker 1: amazing to me. The success is that we've had the
Speaker 1: people that have been produced through this community. You want
Speaker 1: to talk about resiliency, and yet we're still being forced
Speaker 1: into the streets to demand acknowledgement that oh, we're killed
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Speaker 1: we can't even hold those same police accountable that the
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Speaker 1: your podcasts that books are being banned that are written
Speaker 1: by black authors because God forbid, we tell the truth,
Speaker 1: because it will make According to Ron deck Santis in Florida,
Speaker 1: white people uncomfortable. White people should be uncomfortable, should absolutely
Speaker 1: be uncomfortable. You know what's uncomfortable walking around in a
Speaker 1: black body in this country and not knowing how you
Speaker 1: are going to be received, knowing that by virtue of
Speaker 1: being in this body, and don't let me add in
Speaker 1: the other layers of being queer. Right, black trans women
Speaker 1: are murdered at a rate well above the national average
Speaker 1: of murder rates. That you can't shop in a grocery store,
Speaker 1: you can't play on a playground, you can't sleep in
Speaker 1: your own bed, you can't walk to the corner store,
Speaker 1: you can't shop for a legal gun without the fear
Speaker 1: of violence descending upon you. And then guess what your
Speaker 1: family after your death, having no recourse, getting no justice,
Speaker 1: getting absolutely fucking nothing but more pain so that we
Speaker 1: can all have press conferences to talk about this will
Speaker 1: never happen again, just in time for it to guess
Speaker 1: what happening again. It is exhausting living in a country
Speaker 1: and supposedly being told that you are not a patriot
Speaker 1: because you stand up to a country that has decided
Speaker 1: that you are worth nothing. If you are not laboring
Speaker 1: for free, for the system and just being thankful for
Speaker 1: being allowed to exist outside of shackles, then somehow you
Speaker 1: are the problem. I'm the racist because I acknowledge the
Speaker 1: fact that racism is embedded in every Fabrican, in every
Speaker 1: system of this country. But you want me to jump
Speaker 1: up and celebrate Juneteenth being named a federal holiday in
Speaker 1: a country that has killed so many of us. And
Speaker 1: just recently acknowledges the fact that the Tulsa massacre that
Speaker 1: happened over a hundred years ago wiped out an entire
Speaker 1: town of people. Bombs those people never received, or operations.
Speaker 1: Those people never received anything other than a mass fucking grave.
Speaker 1: So you should be applauded for acknowledging that. You should
Speaker 1: be applauded for the fact that we know. Why has
Speaker 1: cancer research and other research been able to happen. Oh,
Speaker 1: because the healthcare system stole cells from a black woman,
Speaker 1: Henriette A. Lacks made multi billions off of it while
Speaker 1: her family lived in poverty, not knowing that she had
Speaker 1: been stolen from that she had no bodily autonomy, that
Speaker 1: her cells, her body, her pieces had been commodified. We
Speaker 1: only learned about that through a book and research that
Speaker 1: was done. Still, her family has received nothing. But I'm
Speaker 1: supposed to be happy with a holiday. I've been talking
Speaker 1: for a long time about really considering leaving this country.
Speaker 1: In the next couple of years. My sister is returning
Speaker 1: to the States after twelve years of living abroad, and
Speaker 1: now that she's returning, we are actually wondering if it's
Speaker 1: even safe for us to exist in this country. And
Speaker 1: it isn't. We know that. But how do you flee
Speaker 1: everything that you know? And where do you go that
Speaker 1: is safe? Because black people are not safe anywhere. Anti
Speaker 1: blackness is prevalent everywhere. So what does it mean to
Speaker 1: occupy a body that you have no escape from? And
Speaker 1: everyone is made a target? But please pass me some
Speaker 1: of that Walmart Juneteenth ice cream. I'm sure that will
Speaker 1: make me feel better. I'm going to preview a piece
Speaker 1: that by the time that this airs will be running
Speaker 1: on The Daily Beast that I wrote because I was
Speaker 1: asked to write about my feelings around Juneteenth, and I said,
Speaker 1: my feelings are actually quite layered. I have more anger
Speaker 1: than I do anything else because just like everything that
Speaker 1: black people had that was ours, it now becomes everyone else's.
Speaker 1: Now you have CNN doing a global Juneteenth holiday. Juneteenth
Speaker 1: is about the abuse of Black people and their liberation
Speaker 1: in this country, being liberated from white supremacy, only right
Speaker 1: to be left out of one shackles in order to
Speaker 1: be put into another one under Jim Crow, to just
Speaker 1: birth generations into poverty, into under education, all because they
Speaker 1: did the hard labor to build this country, only to
Speaker 1: have its spit in its face. So for me, America
Speaker 1: doesn't deserve Juneteenth. It doesn't deserve the day off. What
Speaker 1: it deserves is the hard labor and the hard fucking
Speaker 1: truth that my ancestors had to live through. And thank
Speaker 1: God for their perseverance under such unbelievable terrorism and durest
Speaker 1: because otherwise I wouldn't be here. It's why I love
Speaker 1: the T shirt that says, I am my ancestors wildish
Speaker 1: dreams because you see those black people that you see
Speaker 1: walking around and living where the products of the enslaved
Speaker 1: Africans that you couldn't kill, that this country could kill,
Speaker 1: but tries to kill us every day. America. Honestly, these
Speaker 1: days makes me feel ill, even as I went recently
Speaker 1: to the White House and still this place that was
Speaker 1: built again for free by my ancestors, still fills me
Speaker 1: with some type of hope. But I don't know what's
Speaker 1: smaller than a mustard seed, But that is how I feel.
Speaker 1: This is the piece that is in the Daily Beast
Speaker 1: right now that I will share with all of you
Speaker 1: as you reflect on Juneteenth, and you know, I want
Speaker 1: to hear from all of you, all people that listen
Speaker 1: to Woke a f Do you believe that Juneteenth should
Speaker 1: have been named a federal holiday? Is there something else
Speaker 1: that could have been done, Let's say, maybe passing HR
Speaker 1: forty and kicking it up to the Senate and having
Speaker 1: that being signed by the President of the United States
Speaker 1: to actually honor what was stolen, the lives that were stolen,
Speaker 1: and figure out how to restore the generational damage that
Speaker 1: has been done. What does it say about this country that,
Speaker 1: even when we have Democrats that are in power, that
Speaker 1: this isn't something that they could imagine to get done.
Speaker 1: It's not a priority skip Corporate Juneteenth branding invest in
Speaker 1: black people. June nineteenth, eighteen sixty five is a date
Speaker 1: in our nation's history that all Americans should know, but
Speaker 1: haven't until recently. It was the day that the last
Speaker 1: enslaved African Americans were notified about their emancipation following the
Speaker 1: end of the Civil War. The kicker, it came two
Speaker 1: whole years after President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.
Speaker 1: That's two years have continued abuse and torture at the
Speaker 1: hands of white slave owners who knew of the emancipation
Speaker 1: but kept their scheme going until the news reached Galveston, Texas.
Speaker 1: So how does this occasion call for Juneteenth ice cream
Speaker 1: and T shirts modeled by white women make sense to
Speaker 1: corporate America. Juneteenth became a national holiday in twenty twenty
Speaker 1: one following the racial uprisings of twenty twenty that was
Speaker 1: sparked by the brutal murder of George Floyd at the
Speaker 1: hands of Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin in the midst
Speaker 1: of the COVID nineteenth pandemic that the world was still
Speaker 1: trying to understand. Thousands of Black Americans and allies took
Speaker 1: to the streets demanding justice and police accountability. What did
Speaker 1: we receive instead, a national holiday and a failed attempt
Speaker 1: at police reform legislation. That's the thing about America. This
Speaker 1: country would rather provide a holiday in a Maya Angelou
Speaker 1: embazzled coin than voting rights, police reform, economic investment, and
Speaker 1: K through twelve education taught outside of the lens of whiteness.
Speaker 1: The Juneteenth Federal Holiday was announced at the very same
Speaker 1: time Republicans were escalating their crusade against critical race theory.
Speaker 1: It was the most American move yet, creating a federal
Speaker 1: holiday but not designing a curriculum that teaches what that
Speaker 1: holiday means, all because of the radical rights war against
Speaker 1: consciousness otherwise known as wokeness. As with any holiday in
Speaker 1: the United States, what follows is the mass commercialization by
Speaker 1: corporate America, squeezing any real sentiment or understanding dry in
Speaker 1: order to increase their bottom line. What does it mean
Speaker 1: for corporations to commodify the Juneteenth Holiday extracting once again
Speaker 1: from a community they choose not to invest in. It
Speaker 1: means taking our money in one hand and supporting candidates
Speaker 1: that vote against our access and equity in the other.
Speaker 1: The real bottom line, corporate America needs to find more
Speaker 1: meaningful ways to honor this sacred holiday than selling ice
Speaker 1: cream wrapped in Kente cloth and African colors. What the
Speaker 1: Black community has always needed is the resources that were
Speaker 1: beautially extracted from our ancestors with their free labor, which
Speaker 1: built this nation. We need our neighborhood, schools and businesses
Speaker 1: to be reinvested in, not as charity, but as reparations
Speaker 1: for the generational trauma and damage inflicted upon us. This, however,
Speaker 1: is the conversation that American doesn't want to have, because
Speaker 1: doing so would force a level of accountability that White
Speaker 1: America would prefer and not reckon with. Let alone, actually
Speaker 1: acknowledge corporations can and should play a vital role in
Speaker 1: the restoration of the Black community and other marginalized commun unities,
Speaker 1: instead of lining the pockets of their CEOs, whose pay
Speaker 1: has reached record levels. As the rest of US struggle
Speaker 1: with the effects of inflation and supply chain disruptions, corporations
Speaker 1: could instead invest in historically black colleges and universities, creating
Speaker 1: a pipeline for the next generation of C suite executives.
Speaker 1: Corporations like Walmart could put their money where their branding
Speaker 1: is and contribute to underserved communities like the one in Buffalo,
Speaker 1: whose Soule grocery store in the black community became a
Speaker 1: scene of a vicious white supremacist hate crime. Why was
Speaker 1: Top's Grocery such an important hub in the Buffalo community
Speaker 1: because for decades it had been outright ignored by both
Speaker 1: politicians and corporations. There are way too many communities like
Speaker 1: Buffalo where the largely black communities have a dearth of
Speaker 1: grocery stores, community centers, banks, and tree lined streets with
Speaker 1: regular sanitation pickup. Instead, they're dotted with predatory lenders and
Speaker 1: liquor stores. This hasn't happened by accident, nor is it
Speaker 1: a moral failing of black people. It's a product of
Speaker 1: racist redlining and disinvestment. But this doesn't have to be
Speaker 1: our curse forever. If Corporate America wants to celebrate Juneteenth,
Speaker 1: the honor the legacy of enslaved Africans that built this country,
Speaker 1: those companies need to shift their thinking from one of
Speaker 1: extraction to investment. What would it look like to make
Speaker 1: public commitments to diversifying their workforce from the assembly lines
Speaker 1: to the C suites. What would it look like for
Speaker 1: more companies to do what Sapphora did and devote physical
Speaker 1: space in their stores for black owned health and beauty lines.
Speaker 1: There are a myriad of ways that corporate America can
Speaker 1: engage with Juneteenth. That isn't about commodification, but it means
Speaker 1: making a promise and actually delivering. This piece is live
Speaker 1: right now at the Daily Beast, so I encourage you
Speaker 1: all to check it out and share it widely. Share
Speaker 1: it with your friends, share it with your family, share
Speaker 1: it on social media. Because this is the truth. It
Speaker 1: is not enough to acknowledge something, to acknowledge pain just
Speaker 1: for a holiday, just as a pacifier for real, actual
Speaker 1: work that needs to be done. And it's not Black
Speaker 1: people's job to do it, because we didn't create racism
Speaker 1: and the slave trade to begin with. We're only the
Speaker 1: ones that have to deal with the residual effects of it.
Speaker 1: When will it end? When white people have decided that
Speaker 1: true ally ship isn't just about marching alongside. It is
Speaker 1: actually about continually speaking out and organizing on behalf of
Speaker 1: those who have been wronged and continue to be historically
Speaker 1: wronged in this country. We don't all deserve Juneteenth an
Speaker 1: America sure as fuck does not. Get a behind the
Speaker 1: scenes look at Comedy Central's The Daily Show Beyond the Scenes,
Speaker 1: an original podcast from The Daily Show with Trevor Noah.
Speaker 1: Every week, host Roy Wood Junior goes deeper with the
Speaker 1: notable guests and experts from the Emmy Award winning series. Together,
Speaker 1: they use comedy to tackle current topics from gentrification to
Speaker 1: gun laws and take a closer look at how and
Speaker 1: why these topics matter. Listen to Beyond the Scenes from
Speaker 1: The Daily Show with Trevor Noah on the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcast. New episodes
Speaker 1: every Tuesday. That is it for me today. Folks on
Speaker 1: Woke app as always, Power to the people and to
Speaker 1: all the people. Power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.
Speaker 1: Get a behind the scenes look at Comedy Central's The
Speaker 1: Daily Show on Beyond the Scenes, an original podcast from
Speaker 1: the Daily Show with Trevor Noah. Every week, host Roy
Speaker 1: Wood Junior goes deeper with the notable guests and experts
Speaker 1: from the Emmy Award winning series. Together, they use comedy
Speaker 1: to tackle current topics from gentrification to gun and take
Speaker 1: a closer look at how and why these topics matter.
Speaker 1: Listen to Beyond the Scenes from the Daily Show with
Speaker 1: Trevor Noah on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcast. New episodes every Tuesday.