Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to OOKF Daily with Meet
Speaker 1: your Girl Danielle Moody. Pre recording from the Home Bunker. Folks,
Speaker 1: Whenever I have the opportunity, as I've said this week,
Speaker 1: to bring on friends of mine, genuine friends of mine
Speaker 1: to the show and friends of the show, I'm always
Speaker 1: deeply honored and please because it gives me an opportunity
Speaker 1: to go beyond the headlines and to frankly the heart
Speaker 1: of the matter, which is, as you know, where I
Speaker 1: actually want to be taking this show. Waha hot Ali
Speaker 1: is a colleague, He is a friend, He is a
Speaker 1: righteous warrior for justice, and he is also my co
Speaker 1: host on Democracy Ish, which airs on Thursdays, Folks, and
Speaker 1: if you're not checking out out you should wherever you
Speaker 1: get your podcasts. And today's conversation with waj you know,
Speaker 1: I didn't want to talk about what is trending in
Speaker 1: the news, although we do bring it up. I wanted
Speaker 1: to talk to him about what it means to be
Speaker 1: a person of faith at a time when so many
Speaker 1: people are feeling so dark, and to be a person
Speaker 1: of faith in a faith and religion that is demonized,
Speaker 1: even though it is billions strong what it means to
Speaker 1: raise thoughtful, compassionate, empathetic global citizens. He has three kids,
Speaker 1: and so today's conversation is about, you know, continuing the
Speaker 1: work that we do that keeps us in the news,
Speaker 1: in the acid rain every single day. But how do
Speaker 1: we continue to hold on to our faith, our joy,
Speaker 1: our purpose and not allow ourselves to become hardened and
Speaker 1: distant and disconnected because of the despair and the grief
Speaker 1: that we are seeing on our screens every single day.
Speaker 1: So I hope that you take from this conversation some
Speaker 1: tips and some tools to how to keep yourself spiritually
Speaker 1: and emotionally and mentally well and how to continue to
Speaker 1: want to be a part of the progress and the change,
Speaker 1: because that's the kind of work that we need to
Speaker 1: be doing, is recognizing our shared humanity. Coming up next
Speaker 1: my conversation with my friend Waja hot Ali. Folks, I
Speaker 1: am so excited whenever I get to do a crossover
Speaker 1: mashup with this time of my favorite friends and Waja
Speaker 1: hot Ali, author of Go Back to You to Go
Speaker 1: Back to Where You Came from, Daily Bee's columnist and
Speaker 1: my co host of one of my fifty eleven thousand podcasts,
Speaker 1: Democracy Ish is in the Woke app house today and
Speaker 1: I am grateful while we are pre recording this at
Speaker 1: a time when there is just devastation, grief that is
Speaker 1: raining down in our country, around the world, and people
Speaker 1: are struggling, and because we happen to have decided to,
Speaker 1: for whatever fucking reason, make a career out of analyzing,
Speaker 1: out of analyzing chaos. I want to start off with
Speaker 1: you as a human being, which is, you know, people
Speaker 1: get some idea of what it's like to bathe in
Speaker 1: acid rain on a regular basis, but that kind of
Speaker 1: how I feel that this job has become and I
Speaker 1: want to, you know, ask you from from whence you
Speaker 1: came into this profession till now?
Speaker 2: You know? How?
Speaker 1: How how has how do you manage? How are you
Speaker 1: managing through this chaos?
Speaker 2: Some people bathe in acid rain. I play slip and slide. Uh,
Speaker 2: you know that's I embrace it. I like, bring on
Speaker 2: the toxicity, bring on the contaminated water. It's one of
Speaker 2: It's a good question, and it's a question which really
Speaker 2: I think it's a it's a question to ask many
Speaker 2: of us because so many of us who do this,
Speaker 2: what we do is like masochists. We voluntarily hurl ourselves
Speaker 2: towards the bigots, and you kind of get and it's
Speaker 2: it's important not to get numb, because you want to
Speaker 2: recognize that, you know, ugliness and bigotry and hate should
Speaker 2: not be just tolerated, right, Like you don't have to
Speaker 2: just take it. And that's one of those things where
Speaker 2: you have to realize that you know, I am a
Speaker 2: human being, I have self worth. I realize that I've
Speaker 2: created this type of implicit contract with the universe that
Speaker 2: whenever you're a public figure, the universe will respond. Everyone's
Speaker 2: a critic. But that doesn't mean that you have to
Speaker 2: sit there and take people shit and abuse, right. And
Speaker 2: that's something that like years ago as a writer, I
Speaker 2: figured it out, like, yeah, you can give me your
Speaker 2: unsolicited opinion, and sure you can come in and tell
Speaker 2: me how to end my play and how I should
Speaker 2: have started my article, even though you've never written anything before,
Speaker 2: and you can think I've done. But I don't have
Speaker 2: to sit there and indulge your ignorance, stupidity and hate.
Speaker 3: I don't.
Speaker 2: I can choose.
Speaker 3: This is a choice, folks, to ignore.
Speaker 2: And always the recommendation I give young journalists and writers,
Speaker 2: especially those who ventured as social media. I'm like, ignoring
Speaker 2: is a choice. You don't have to accept every fight
Speaker 2: you're invited to. You can say, and you need that
Speaker 2: for your mental health, and you need that for your
Speaker 2: self worth. And there is not enough time in the day, Daniel.
Speaker 2: The second thing is I think there is something to
Speaker 2: be said about disposition. Some people like me, I think
Speaker 2: are capable, not because I'm better than anyone of taking it.
Speaker 3: I can take it.
Speaker 2: I can take a lot more than most, and a
Speaker 2: lot of stuff bounces off me, and I'm able to
Speaker 2: respond in a way. I don't know if you've seen
Speaker 2: my social media where I respond like Bugs Bunny and
Speaker 2: not like Daffy Duck. Now what do I mean by that?
Speaker 2: If you've ever seen the cartoons, folks, Bugs Bunny is
Speaker 2: always chilling in his cubby hole. He's never bothering Yosemite
Speaker 2: Sam or Elmer Fudd. He just like watching TV eating
Speaker 2: his carrot. It's always Yousemite Sam and Elmer Fudd who
Speaker 2: are messing up Bugs Bunny's date, right, And so what
Speaker 2: Bugs Bunny does is he uses Elmer Fudd and Yusemite
Speaker 2: Sam's traps against him. And he also has a little
Speaker 2: fun while doing it. And so for me, Danielle, the
Speaker 2: strategy that I've done and you could probably see in
Speaker 2: my tweets and facebooks when I respond to some ignorant
Speaker 2: comments is uh, I try to have a.
Speaker 3: Little fun with it.
Speaker 2: Now, people say, well, you're not going to change the
Speaker 2: biggest opinion.
Speaker 3: I won't.
Speaker 2: But my audience is a global audience. And when I
Speaker 2: want to show my audience is this is how you
Speaker 2: can respond to hate.
Speaker 3: Two.
Speaker 2: This is how we can smile during the acid rain.
Speaker 2: This is where I don't lose my joy. This is
Speaker 2: where I don't lose my mind. This is where I
Speaker 2: don't self hate. And I'll give you an example. Yesterday
Speaker 2: someone forgot a comma, but I had a little fun.
Speaker 2: He was trolling me because of course there's the hellish
Speaker 2: chaos that's happening in Israel Gaza right now, and says
Speaker 2: like what to do with Hamas w Jahat, But there
Speaker 2: was no comma between Hamas and wa Ja Hut, And
Speaker 2: so I said, I'm not Lamas w Jahat, I've never
Speaker 2: met him. I'm American, overweight, left handed Jahat. Nice to
Speaker 2: meet you, and all these people just like had to
Speaker 2: like people are like man, I needed that laugh then yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: So that's how I respond. And also I will say
Speaker 2: this is two things. I make sure I have a
Speaker 2: space mental and spiritual where I cleave it off and
Speaker 2: I lean into what gives me joy, you know, my kids,
Speaker 2: my wife, food, whatever it is. And I recommend that
Speaker 2: for everyone find spaces that give you joy. And the
Speaker 2: second thing I will say is I forget sometimes, Danielle,
Speaker 2: how you and I do is not for everyone.
Speaker 3: Like I had a.
Speaker 2: Friend, yeah last week, tell me, he openly said he's like.
Speaker 2: I got trolled by one person on Twitter, which led
Speaker 2: to like six tweets. It unhinged me all day and
Speaker 2: it made me realize, oh shit, this is what you
Speaker 2: deal with all the time. And you asked me this question,
Speaker 2: I'll answer it. It really started with me with nine
Speaker 2: to eleven. The first time I got told to go
Speaker 2: back to where you came from was when I was
Speaker 2: twenty one years old, yep, a student leader at MSA.
Speaker 2: My email was on the cal Muslim Student Association website
Speaker 2: and guess who got all the hate mail? And it's
Speaker 2: been like that every day ever since.
Speaker 1: I think that it is extraordinary one to be able
Speaker 1: to slip and slide and acid rain. The imagery of
Speaker 1: that we need to have somebody draw that cartoon and
Speaker 1: you as bugs bunny just makes me. That brings me joy.
Speaker 1: But being able to essentially have not like teflon down,
Speaker 1: but to actually have like real thoughtfulness in how you
Speaker 1: make a choice, a conscious decision not to take on
Speaker 1: other people's shit, right that you can, because what I
Speaker 1: feel happens with times that we are living in that
Speaker 1: feel like you're just inundated everywhere you go, is that
Speaker 1: you forget that you can turn it off. You forget
Speaker 1: that you can walk away from the fights that are
Speaker 1: beckoning you. You forget that you don't have to have
Speaker 1: the news on for twenty four hours a day, seven
Speaker 1: days a week, that you can choose something else. And
Speaker 1: I think that you and I talked about this, you know,
Speaker 1: last week on democracy issue, where we talked about choosing
Speaker 1: humanity right, choosing humanity above all else. It seems like
Speaker 1: a really old and kind of cliche thing to say,
Speaker 1: but it's like when you look around and all things
Speaker 1: are going to hell, like literally hell in a handbasket.
Speaker 1: I don't think that you can choose anything other than
Speaker 1: humanity because the darkness like will just take hold of you. So,
Speaker 1: you know, for you, you talked about you know, finding
Speaker 1: joy through your children, through your faith, and I want
Speaker 1: to give you an opportunity to talk about that faith,
Speaker 1: to talk about out you know, because you are a
Speaker 1: very faithful Muslim. You are practicing Muslim that are raising
Speaker 1: three children, you know, in a country that does not
Speaker 1: love you, and and a in a world where there
Speaker 1: are billions that practice. But it is a religion that
Speaker 1: has been demonized. Yeah, so what does it mean to
Speaker 1: hold on to to a faith and to be so
Speaker 1: faithful with a religion that has been placed in being
Speaker 1: synonymous right with terrorism and hate?
Speaker 2: So some dark humor And there's a joke I do
Speaker 2: with my Muslim friends and they just shake their head,
Speaker 2: but they laugh. Anytime you hear about like someone converting
Speaker 2: to Islam, especially after nine to eleven, I'm like, why
Speaker 2: did you choose the losing team? Are you sure about this?
Speaker 4: There are other world religions, you know, and they and
Speaker 4: then I'm like, I'm very suspect, you know, like are
Speaker 4: you really Muslim or are you representing some like law enforcement?
Speaker 2: Because why would you want to join us, especially in
Speaker 2: America after nine to eleven some dark humor exactly because
Speaker 2: you're part of a I think you said it in.
Speaker 3: One of your videos which I laughed. The Big Three, it's.
Speaker 2: Like, we got the Jews, we got the Christians, We've
Speaker 2: got the muslim like the Hindus, Like what do I mean?
Speaker 3: Like no, not you on the bench, not you on
Speaker 3: the bench right now?
Speaker 2: Like how about five r heres? No, no, no. But
Speaker 2: you know, the the interesting thing is, first and foremost,
Speaker 2: I'm very cognizant as to why there is a rise
Speaker 2: in the nuns n O n e s, not n
Speaker 2: U n e s. It's because organized religion, the way
Speaker 2: it has been practiced, in the way it has been
Speaker 2: abused young generations, Danielle, even millennials, They're like, we don't
Speaker 2: want this. Why do we want to bring in such
Speaker 2: a toxic force that has brought us so much pain
Speaker 2: and misogyny and racism and homophobia and cruel We're done
Speaker 2: with it now. What's so fascinating is with the rise
Speaker 2: of the nuns, which freaks out the Big Three. By
Speaker 2: the way, I always tell the Big Three folks that
Speaker 2: something my fellow believers. I'm like, first of all, understand
Speaker 2: why people are leaving right. Secondly, when they're leaving this
Speaker 2: what's fascinating. And then an answer to your question, people
Speaker 2: are still surging, Daniel, it's not. People are so they'll
Speaker 2: go to yoga, they'll go to cross fit, they'll go
Speaker 2: to Coachella, they'll go to Burning Man. And when you
Speaker 2: really like go like investigate, Look what's that root of this?
Speaker 2: Human beings need connection. It's talking to a friend of
Speaker 2: mine who who's a psychiatrist, very well educated in the
Speaker 2: Bay Area, and I asked him recently, you know Boutuk's ago.
Speaker 2: I said, what do most people come to you with?
Speaker 2: He said, you know, there are people who have everything.
Speaker 2: They have the money, they have the zip code, they
Speaker 2: have the job, picture perfect family. They don't have contentment.
Speaker 2: They have anxiety, unrest, depression. So I'm like, what's the
Speaker 2: root cause of it? And he goes, people just need connection.
Speaker 2: They need something firm, something to ground themselves with, something
Speaker 2: you know, to feel something sincere with someone or something.
Speaker 2: And this is why for me, I do believe in God.
Speaker 2: That's what's so funny. People are like, your politics are
Speaker 2: very progressive, but you're like a traditional Pakistani uncle at home,
Speaker 2: you know, like three kids, you're a teetotaler. You've gone
Speaker 2: to hudge, you pray. I'm like, it is very funny
Speaker 2: for me. It gives me a connection and rudedness to
Speaker 2: something bigger than myself. It allows me to connect to
Speaker 2: force that allows me to recognize that in the grand
Speaker 2: scheme of things, I'm but what nothing.
Speaker 3: It makes me.
Speaker 2: Realize that if you take away the divisions and the externalities,
Speaker 2: we're all part of one collective goop. You know, everyone
Speaker 2: has a spirit, everyone has a soul. It likes to
Speaker 2: tap into a collective humanity. It allows me to think outside,
Speaker 2: out of myself and that there's something greater Danielle than me.
Speaker 2: There is a purpose to my life. There is limited time,
Speaker 2: and what do I do with that time? How do
Speaker 2: I choose to live my life and to exercise and
Speaker 2: flex the privileges that I've been given right and then
Speaker 2: the last thing it is it really deals with a
Speaker 2: mindset for me, and so I can choose to be miserable,
Speaker 2: or I can choose to invest in joy. I can
Speaker 2: choose to see what the lack of everything, or I
Speaker 2: could choose to see what's in front of me. I
Speaker 2: could choose to be grateful, or I could choose to
Speaker 2: be miserable. And for me, that's what that perspective, Danielle
Speaker 2: is what has helped me navigate much of the you know,
Speaker 2: crazy shit that's happened in life that you know about
Speaker 2: that for me, it's given me that peace of mind
Speaker 2: and peace of soul. And at the end of the day,
Speaker 2: what I'll end with this is, you know, I've never
Speaker 2: proselytized because I think it's a very personal relationship between
Speaker 2: a person and God. And that's why I don't care
Speaker 2: if you will do what you do what you gotta do.
Speaker 2: But for me, I always tell people this, like, how
Speaker 2: do you know of God existsingly? I don't know. But
Speaker 2: what I do know is I have a limited time
Speaker 2: on this earth, and with the time that I have,
Speaker 2: this makes me.
Speaker 3: A better person.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, And I you know, I respect that so
Speaker 1: much as somebody who was not brought up in the church.
Speaker 1: I opted out of church when I was ten. My
Speaker 1: grandparents were taking my sister and I. They were Protestants.
Speaker 1: They were taking my sister and I and I said
Speaker 1: to my mother, you know, it just doesn't feel And
Speaker 1: I was ten, and I'm like, it just doesn't feel right.
Speaker 1: And I don't really want to go, but I don't
Speaker 1: want to upset grandma and grandpa. And she said, I'll
Speaker 1: talk to them. And what I have found is that
Speaker 1: for me, organized religion has always been very dogmatic in
Speaker 1: the things that you couldn't do right. And I think that,
Speaker 1: you know, it was always like, you know, if you're
Speaker 1: a woman, you have to act like this. You know,
Speaker 1: you have to have babies, you have to wear a skirt,
Speaker 1: you have to be docile to and it was always
Speaker 1: very prescriptive. And I thought, you know, this universe, this
Speaker 1: this world that we're living in, is so massive, right,
Speaker 1: Like the God that I believe in, which I do,
Speaker 1: doesn't believe in in in restriction, right, Like like like
Speaker 1: why would you create a universe that is so boundless
Speaker 1: and so beautiful to tell people don't smell that flower,
Speaker 1: smell this one, don't talk, you know, don't pet that dog,
Speaker 1: pet this one? Right? And so what I have come
Speaker 1: to understand is that it is it's it's man is
Speaker 1: the problem, you know, Like, it isn't. It isn't the
Speaker 1: it isn't spirit, it isn't God, it isn't the universe.
Speaker 1: It is it's the way that I view politics, right, Like,
Speaker 1: I believe in government for and by the people. I
Speaker 1: believe that there is a way to build a society
Speaker 1: that has humanness at the center of it, right, not privilege,
Speaker 1: not greed. And so when you look, when you detact,
Speaker 1: like the the the dogma from like what the belief
Speaker 1: structure is that all people should be able to exist
Speaker 1: free of harm, you know, and be able to like
Speaker 1: enjoy the bounty uh in their in their lives. It's
Speaker 1: just like, what does what stops that from happening? Right?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: And and so for me, the friction has always been
Speaker 1: with the manipulation of scripture what I mean, plug in
Speaker 1: whatever religion you want versus the actual source. Because there
Speaker 1: was some there's some guy who I think his name
Speaker 1: is Matthew Cook, and he's a writer and a director
Speaker 1: and he's you know, all over social media and he
Speaker 1: did this you know, beautiful video where he was just like,
Speaker 1: if you look at everyone's text, it all formulated from
Speaker 1: this same literally the same place, but literally the same ideas,
Speaker 1: right of fasting for clarity of one to center the
Speaker 1: least among us. Right, So it isn't it wasn't the
Speaker 1: idea that was that you know that the ideas are
Speaker 1: the same, it's the interpretation that has been contorted. And
Speaker 1: so I always, you know, I find myself and I'll
Speaker 1: ask you this now, even though you are a traditional
Speaker 1: Pakistani Buslam uncle, which is you know, how has your
Speaker 1: faith and the way that you are also raising your children,
Speaker 1: if it has that all changed shifted over the last
Speaker 1: few years.
Speaker 2: You know? So I always tell people, why are you
Speaker 2: exactly what you said? Why are you so surprised that
Speaker 2: people are leaving when all they've witnessed is abuse and
Speaker 2: prescriptions that pretty much tell them don't do anything, and
Speaker 2: if you do it, you'll go to help. Are you
Speaker 2: shocked if you are teaching religion as a way that
Speaker 2: instead of being a shield that protects the most marginalized,
Speaker 2: it sword in particular attack women and the marginalized, and
Speaker 2: it unleashes nothing but cruelty and makes people miserable. There's
Speaker 2: no joy, there's no benefit of it. There's no joy,
Speaker 2: like what's your cell? Your cell is do this or
Speaker 2: you'll go to hell. And it doesn't stick with people, Danielle.
Speaker 3: And I've seen.
Speaker 2: What I've seen is when religion is promoted and pushed
Speaker 2: that way, and it is in the Big Three oftentimes
Speaker 2: a lot of my friends, you know, and when they
Speaker 2: get older in their thirties and forties, and their soul.
Speaker 3: Needs to be nourished.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they need hope, they need joy, they need something esoteric.
Speaker 2: Simply saying don't do this or else it just doesn't
Speaker 2: fill the void. The void, the emptiness. And what we're
Speaker 2: seeing now is this crisis of emptiness, of apathy, of nihilism,
Speaker 2: of cynicism, of lack of connectedness. And I think this
Speaker 2: is where, like you said, the source of it all
Speaker 2: is a profound spiritual source where, if you really think
Speaker 2: about it, all of us literally come like even the
Speaker 2: primordial suit, we all came like we all got star
Speaker 2: stuff in us, right, Yeah, And this is where I
Speaker 2: think the core of it is is how do you
Speaker 2: maintain the particularities of your religion, but don't let that
Speaker 2: get in the way of appreciating and indulging and investing
Speaker 2: in our shared humanity. Yeah, our shared humanity. And what
Speaker 2: you're what you're articulating is where religion actually, instead of
Speaker 2: allowing us to expand ourselves and to be generous and
Speaker 2: to invest in our shared humanity, it puts the walls.
Speaker 2: That's a coper, disbeliever, fassic, mushrik, aggressor, pervert. You know
Speaker 2: me me me, me, me here, and let me construct
Speaker 2: a small cocoon and live in that cocoon forever, which
Speaker 2: is what we're seeing more and more in the United
Speaker 2: States of America, especially with disinformation. So for my children,
Speaker 2: what me and my wife do very deliberately is we
Speaker 2: live in a very diverse neighborhood. Our neighbors they're best friends,
Speaker 2: are Ethiopian Americans. They're other best friends. Are I just
Speaker 2: found out yesterday actually conservative, never Trumper, Republicans who are
Speaker 2: Evangelical Christians white. My kids are the brown kids. You've
Speaker 2: heard my home before every time we recorded like eight
Speaker 2: hundred children in our home. Our home is that like
Speaker 2: neighborhood home like yesterday, Like like's like from six to
Speaker 2: eight thirty. I look at my house, there's like seven
Speaker 2: kids just going wild, and I'm like, all right, that's great.
Speaker 2: And so what we tell our kids is we are
Speaker 2: raising you musclim but know that not everyone is Muslim.
Speaker 2: You are Pakistani, not everyone is Pakistani. Your job is
Speaker 2: to be the best version of yourself, but also be
Speaker 2: respectful to everyone else. Right, don't look down on people.
Speaker 2: You know that my son went to a preschool and
Speaker 2: there were two moms, and we've talked about this. We're
Speaker 2: now like all these religious communities like LGBT, the butt, sex,
Speaker 2: the trans what's happening? And then what we did. My
Speaker 2: son was four and now he's nine. But like we
Speaker 2: literally said, hey, Abraham, you know that your friend who
Speaker 2: came over and his two moms. You know, every family
Speaker 2: is different. Some people have two moms, some people one month,
Speaker 2: some people are biracial, but you know, you just be
Speaker 2: respectful to people and you understand that the world is
Speaker 2: big that way. And you know what my four year
Speaker 2: old son goes, Yeah, okay. Kids have this capacity of
Speaker 2: innocence and generosity that we get hardened, Danielle as we
Speaker 2: get older. So what we're trying to cultivate is this elasticity,
Speaker 2: this expansion. You know, be centered and grounded in who
Speaker 2: you are, be proud of you who you are, but
Speaker 2: don't let that be used as a cudgel against any way.
Speaker 2: Right And I've said to him, and having lived this
Speaker 2: life as oftentimes a token Muslim in a climate where
Speaker 2: we are condemned even right now, I have to condemn
Speaker 2: violent acts done by Hamas. Even though I'm born and
Speaker 2: raised in America, we're all lumped together. I say, the
Speaker 2: choice is, if people are cruel to you, do you choose.
Speaker 3: To respond with kindness or cruelty?
Speaker 2: If people are miserly, do you choose to expand yourself
Speaker 2: to be generous? And just because everyone else is like
Speaker 2: that doesn't mean you have to be either. You can
Speaker 2: be the model of a good, decent, generous human being
Speaker 2: who is firm and true to your roots, is never
Speaker 2: embarrassed or ashamed about it, but also invites the kid
Speaker 2: next door to come to our home for shelter and food.
Speaker 1: Oh wajah hut, We're so good you. I mean, you're
Speaker 1: not trying, You're actually doing and creating hopefully, you know, wonderful,
Speaker 1: thoughtful global citizens that are rooted in their own practice, spirit,
Speaker 1: and self and can see like the love and compassion
Speaker 1: in other people that don't look like them, that don't
Speaker 1: pray like them, that don't love like them. That's the goal.
Speaker 1: That's you know, that's the goal and it and it
Speaker 1: I think that this will help people understand that everything
Speaker 1: is a choice. Every every moment in our lives, we
Speaker 1: have a choice. We can choose to be kind, We
Speaker 1: can choose to be loving. We can choose you know,
Speaker 1: or you or we can pickle and spite, you know,
Speaker 1: and and and hatred. And this is coming from somebody
Speaker 1: who you know, carries around a mustard seed of hope.
Speaker 1: But I tell I, you know, but I tell people
Speaker 1: like this is this is a journey because if rage alone,
Speaker 1: if anger alone was going to uh was going to
Speaker 1: be the answer, then all of the doors would have
Speaker 1: been unlocked by now, right, that's it's not it's not
Speaker 1: the answer. And so I appreciate you so very much,
Speaker 1: and I'm just, you know, so thankful of the way
Speaker 1: that you were raising your beautiful children and family and
Speaker 1: for the work that you're doing and for you know,
Speaker 1: but being the bugs bunny to you know, to the
Speaker 1: Yosemite Sam.
Speaker 2: You know why because our people, and I'm talking about
Speaker 2: the people who have oftentimes been on the wrong side
Speaker 2: of privilege and who have not been seen as the
Speaker 2: real American boy, I have to always prove our loyalty.
Speaker 2: And I'm talking about any person of color. If you're poor,
Speaker 2: indigenous Muslim right now, it's the teas but LGBTQ, right
Speaker 2: the model that we've been given. I want to end
Speaker 2: on this oftentimes is rage, anger, pain, and our kids
Speaker 2: see that, and our kids see that, and our kids
Speaker 2: would be like, you know what, I don't want that.
Speaker 2: I'm going to tap out. And so I want my
Speaker 2: kids and that generation to be like, oh, Baba tried.
Speaker 2: I mean it was kind of weird and old and overweight,
Speaker 2: but he tried, and he still had joy, and he
Speaker 2: still loved our mama, and he played with us. And
Speaker 2: there is a way to live this life with purpose
Speaker 2: and intentionality and fight the good fight, but also not
Speaker 2: give up your vanity and not give up your smile.
Speaker 2: And I think that's a better story and a better
Speaker 2: model for our kids. And that's the one that I
Speaker 2: want to impart.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much, my friend. Appreciate you every single day.
Speaker 1: And folks, if you're not listening to us on democracy is,
Speaker 1: you're missing all of these jewels and jajah Hat's movie
Speaker 1: phone voice and all of his Pakistani uncle jokes. It's amazing.
Speaker 5: In one of Daniel's four hundred and thirty six podcasts records,
Speaker 5: every week, this is totally abnormal, right, That is it.
Speaker 1: For me today, Dear friends on Woke af as always
Speaker 1: power to the people and to all the people power.
Speaker 1: Get woke and stay woke as fuck.