Speaker 1: I'm Tamika d. Mallory and the.
Speaker 2: Ship Boy my Son in general.
Speaker 1: We are your host of t M I.
Speaker 3: Tamika and my Son's Information, Truth, Motivation and inspiration.
Speaker 1: Name New Energy.
Speaker 4: But my son Lennon, what's going on today?
Speaker 2: Listen? Man, I'm here. You know, I woke up, I
Speaker 2: got a little breath.
Speaker 4: In my lungs. You said you was good.
Speaker 1: Well today you know, the world is still switching.
Speaker 2: Listen, turning, It's still turning, still.
Speaker 4: Still moving, still moving.
Speaker 1: Uh. I guess from my perspective, how I feel right
Speaker 1: now is like there's just days left before people go
Speaker 1: read my whole life. And I'm just.
Speaker 2: Listen, Ain't nothing, ain't nothing to fear with fear I got.
Speaker 1: I have a really powerful review that was released. I
Speaker 1: don't know, I don't even know if they released it yet,
Speaker 1: so I'm gonna be careful and not say who gave
Speaker 1: me this review. But it's a really important one in
Speaker 1: the industry. And in the review they talk about my
Speaker 1: book and they say, well, you know, they say it's
Speaker 1: it's a busy story. It's got a lot going on,
Speaker 1: and they say, but it's powerful, and it's very vulnerable
Speaker 1: and authentic and they say that, you know that pretty much.
Speaker 1: It like in other words, it tugs at the heartstrings
Speaker 1: of people, like you can feel this black activist go
Speaker 1: from being all over the place to getting her life
Speaker 1: together and growing through the ranks. And so it was
Speaker 1: like a it's like they read the book. They read
Speaker 1: the book. They read the book.
Speaker 2: So was that Give me a couple of days. I'm
Speaker 2: gonna sit down.
Speaker 4: It's two weeks.
Speaker 1: It's in a week that it comes out, and you
Speaker 1: haven't read it.
Speaker 2: So but you know, but I got the book.
Speaker 3: I just need to sit down. We just haven't had
Speaker 3: a chance to just sit down.
Speaker 4: You said last week, I was gonna read it tonight.
Speaker 2: But I've read a little bit of it and it
Speaker 2: started off good.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but.
Speaker 1: Anyway, I live to tell. The story is out in
Speaker 1: days February eleventh, tomorrow. If you are in Louisville, Kentucky,
Speaker 1: need you to be at the Norton Healthcare Sports and
Speaker 1: Learning Center that's at three thousand West Market Street. You
Speaker 1: can go to Tamika D Mallory dot com and purchase
Speaker 1: a ticket. It's forty dollars. That gets you a book, ants, food,
Speaker 1: and drinks. So and I just want to thank everybody.
Speaker 1: My family attorney Lania Baker, Sadiqua Rentals, Tamika Palmer, Brionna
Speaker 1: Taylor's mother, west Side Jen is a partner for this event.
Speaker 1: We've got Aka's links, Deltas, all types of folks that's
Speaker 1: going to be in the building.
Speaker 4: Freeway is going to be in the building.
Speaker 2: Bree ways.
Speaker 1: So please tomorrow, Louisville, Kentucky, if you're listening to this,
Speaker 1: come out and be with us at my first official,
Speaker 1: first official book event, which is in advance, so you'll
Speaker 1: have a copy before the rest of the country. You'll
Speaker 1: have a copy of my got to pull up.
Speaker 4: Oh my god. Anyway, So that's what I got going on.
Speaker 3: Well, you know me, man, I'm I'm gonna be there,
Speaker 3: definitely gonna be a little I see my feeling in Louisville,
Speaker 3: and we're gonna make sure that we turn this thing out.
Speaker 2: We're gonna turn it out, man, turn this mother out.
Speaker 1: Anyway. Let me get to tell you what my thought
Speaker 1: of the day is. I do I do because you
Speaker 1: know what I just have been. I've been having the.
Speaker 4: Most calls of my life.
Speaker 1: I always say that everything that happens, people call, and
Speaker 1: they call and we talk, and we talk, and I
Speaker 1: just want to say this to some of the black
Speaker 1: preachers across this country and some of the black men
Speaker 1: and women, because we have a friend who are several
Speaker 1: friends at least, but one that I had a really
Speaker 1: deep conversation with who said to me, I don't care
Speaker 1: about transgender people because if your child is transgender, they
Speaker 1: have a mental health problem, and so that means that
Speaker 1: they are that's not that's something you need to deal
Speaker 1: with with a therapist. And I've heard that a few times.
Speaker 1: And so then I have people saying, well, I don't
Speaker 1: care about immigrants because you should have came the right way. Did.
Speaker 1: I have people that say Palestinians, I ain't really see
Speaker 1: them with us. I don't know that they with us.
Speaker 1: That's all the way across the water. I don't got
Speaker 1: nothing to do with that. It feels bad, but I
Speaker 1: don't care. And some of these people, not all of them,
Speaker 1: as particularly the friends of ours, they didn't either they
Speaker 1: didn't vote at all, or they definitely did not vote
Speaker 1: for Donald Trump. But this is just how they feel.
Speaker 1: So they took a posture of being like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do what I'm gonna do, but I ain't
Speaker 1: gonna really fight like hell. Then there were black pastors
Speaker 1: that refused to be engaged in the election because they said, I,
Speaker 1: you know, I just can't morally the abortion piece or
Speaker 1: the you know, lgbtqia or whatever these issues is just
Speaker 1: not for me.
Speaker 4: So I'm just staying out of it. Then you add
Speaker 4: people who.
Speaker 1: Black men and some black women, but particularly black men,
Speaker 1: who said they're taking all our opportunities away from us,
Speaker 1: and I and I you know, we can't. That's why
Speaker 1: we can't build wealth because it's we always doing multiculturals,
Speaker 1: too many people whatever. And now many of them are
Speaker 1: saying this is crazy, like you gonna you are coming
Speaker 1: out the gate trying to rescind civil rights that don't
Speaker 1: just help black folks, by the way, but just civil
Speaker 1: rights that are important. Now they may not be able
Speaker 1: to get these things done. They may not be able
Speaker 1: to get them done, but nonetheless they're trying to do it.
Speaker 4: They have a.
Speaker 1: Posture an attitude of second class citizenship for black folks
Speaker 1: and others. And my whole thing that I want to
Speaker 1: tell say to people is that first they came for them,
Speaker 1: and then they come for you. There is no such
Speaker 1: thing as isolating oppression, isolating hate. It doesn't work that way.
Speaker 1: These people, Donald Trump, Elon Musk and them, It could
Speaker 1: go on and on and on and on. They believe
Speaker 1: in white nationalism, they believe in Europeans being.
Speaker 4: The dominant race.
Speaker 1: That's what they believe in, right, And so what they
Speaker 1: are attempting to do is figure out how to move
Speaker 1: some people out and break the backs of black people
Speaker 1: and change our conditions in terms of our rights to
Speaker 1: where we have no choice but to go fill in
Speaker 1: the positions of those people who they've been able to eliminate.
Speaker 1: They don't care about law and order. If he cared
Speaker 1: about law and order, he would never have freed people
Speaker 1: who beat the shit out of cops, including a woman
Speaker 1: whose head was bashed in a police officer who now
Speaker 1: has a permanent mental health issue. Right, they don't care
Speaker 1: about that. He doesn't care about law and order. He's
Speaker 1: total opposite of that, the total opposite. So that's not
Speaker 1: what it's about. It is very simply about the fact
Speaker 1: that there are people here who were doing certain types
Speaker 1: of jobs in the you know, on the land. They
Speaker 1: were saying that some of the farmers, the workers on
Speaker 1: the farms weren't showing up to work because they're afraid
Speaker 1: of being deported. So there are fruits and vegetables spoiling.
Speaker 1: All this stuff is going to get worse. But what
Speaker 1: they want to make sure is that you don't have
Speaker 1: the opportunities that you think you're gonna have. So this
Speaker 1: is why they're closing down DEI offices. They're doing all
Speaker 1: of these things to ensure that there is not enough
Speaker 1: wealth moving. Right, and if we don't change our habits,
Speaker 1: because there's a way we can deal with it, which
Speaker 1: is to spend with ourselves and build our economy up.
Speaker 1: That is us building with us, right, us building with us.
Speaker 1: But what they want to do is reduce the opportunities
Speaker 1: so that this way you feel pressured and feel the
Speaker 1: need to go fill in what they have deemed. I'm
Speaker 1: not saying I deem it that way, but what they
Speaker 1: have deemed the lower class positions. That's all. It's a shuffling.
Speaker 1: They're shuffling people, and they got to do a lot
Speaker 1: of things in order to get there. So what I'm
Speaker 1: saying is that whether you want to admit it or not,
Speaker 1: all people who are oppressed and vulnerable are in the
Speaker 1: situation together, every single one of us.
Speaker 4: We're all in it together.
Speaker 1: We can say we're not gonna do as much for
Speaker 1: this group or that group, or we're angry or whatever.
Speaker 1: People went out and voted. You know, you got Muslims
Speaker 1: that voted for these people because they came and met
Speaker 1: with you and put up a billboard and told you
Speaker 1: they were gonna do this and that and the third.
Speaker 1: And meanwhile you knew good and damn well that these
Speaker 1: people were the same, if not worse than the folks
Speaker 1: who were already in there. So I just that's my
Speaker 1: thought of the day. My thought of the day today
Speaker 1: is that Donald Trump and his homies are shuffling folks around,
Speaker 1: moving some out, and trying to shuffle black folks into
Speaker 1: positions that will help to keep them as number one
Speaker 1: and everybody else number two in below.
Speaker 4: That's what they're doing. They're shuffling.
Speaker 1: And similar to how there were some of us who
Speaker 1: were told when enslavement became a thing on the shores
Speaker 1: of Africa, they were moving our people, and there were
Speaker 1: black folks whipping, snitching and organizing with them against the masses.
Speaker 1: That happened because they brought the Europeans brought nice things,
Speaker 1: they bought shiny things. Some of them were forced in
Speaker 1: various ways. But there are others who they gave them
Speaker 1: shiny things, they bought, they gave them weapons, They gave
Speaker 1: them a drinks liquor with liquor was a big thing. However,
Speaker 1: they made look at that time, they gave them silver.
Speaker 1: They had all different types of trinkets that they dangled
Speaker 1: and said, you'll be a part of us if if
Speaker 1: you help us do this thing that we're doing, this experiment,
Speaker 1: this plan that we have, and now we have the
Speaker 1: same mentality that some of us voted for. Others of
Speaker 1: us didn't do anything to stop it, didn't use our platforms,
Speaker 1: didn't say one word, didn't say one word. You got
Speaker 1: you have people out here who are saying, don't stop
Speaker 1: supporting my brand. But they never did anything to help
Speaker 1: us when we were out there trying to stop this
Speaker 1: from happening. There being for the.
Speaker 3: Actually to get these these policies that got you inside.
Speaker 1: Exactly, they never.
Speaker 2: Did nothing to support anything, never said anything, no.
Speaker 1: No, no, In fact that that manager you have, that
Speaker 1: business partner you have, or that rep that you have
Speaker 1: that is at these big companies that told you you
Speaker 1: can't do politics.
Speaker 2: Got.
Speaker 1: You gotta keep yourself out of that because you're a
Speaker 1: business person and everybody comes from different You got people
Speaker 1: might be Republican that support you. You got people that might
Speaker 1: be so and so to support you. You gotta be careful.
Speaker 5: You can't do that.
Speaker 1: Guess what those people they talked you into being a
Speaker 1: part of your demise, because be clear, unless we support
Speaker 1: one another directly, depending on a big box store or
Speaker 1: any of that, it's not gonna work. They eventually they're
Speaker 1: going to you will book it will be fewer and
Speaker 1: fewer of you. So I think that the lesson we
Speaker 1: now learn is everything is political. I said that last week.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna say it again. Everything is political. And if
Speaker 1: you are a person in business or in anything else
Speaker 1: who wants to see the morality, the dignity, the sovereignty
Speaker 1: of our communities be upheld in any way, you gotta
Speaker 1: get political. You gotta get in the mud. Got because
Speaker 1: we in the mud.
Speaker 3: Listen, if you do not have a seat at the table,
Speaker 3: then you're on the menia and that's the bottom.
Speaker 1: But they'll say that their seat at the table is
Speaker 1: that they are doing business I mean.
Speaker 3: No, but but I don't trying to tell the sea
Speaker 3: that the table means that if you at the table,
Speaker 3: then nobody's going to tell you that they're going to
Speaker 3: exclude diversity, equity and inclusion when they understand that that's
Speaker 3: the how you got here.
Speaker 1: Well, I heard I heard somebody say today that that's
Speaker 1: not how they got their contract and what they have
Speaker 1: nothing to do.
Speaker 4: We we're real confused. We seem to think that.
Speaker 1: Diversity, equity and inclusion is something that started in twenty twenty.
Speaker 4: That's that's that's not a fact.
Speaker 2: That's not a fact.
Speaker 1: This has been going on for years. Reverend Jesse Jackson
Speaker 1: was one of those pine in years that forced companies
Speaker 1: to bring more black suppliers in, to bring more black
Speaker 1: board members and others in. So when folks try to
Speaker 1: say that they you know, oh, but I don't think
Speaker 1: that my thing. I don't know that I had anything
Speaker 1: to do with DEI or the summer of twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: The summer of twenty twenty was a renewal, but it
Speaker 1: was not the beginning. In fact, if you want to
Speaker 1: go back even further than that, we all have been
Speaker 1: part of that in many different places because they wasn't
Speaker 1: hiring us at all. So there was no merit system
Speaker 1: that allowed you to be in to be in place
Speaker 1: because they could know that you were. In fact, they
Speaker 1: got black people and black women know what I'm talking
Speaker 1: about that had all the merit. We at the top
Speaker 1: of the scale, most educated, We got all the things
Speaker 1: we are. We are brilliant, we're creative, we're organized, we
Speaker 1: are all those things. We know how to go into
Speaker 1: spaces and temper our emotional standing. Meanwhile, white women be
Speaker 1: crying all day at the office. We can't even cry.
Speaker 1: Not all white women, but some of them. We can't
Speaker 1: even cry. So we've been able to do all of that.
Speaker 1: And what they will do is let you present something,
Speaker 1: they will steal from you your intellectual property and go
Speaker 1: sell it elsewhere. That's how much, that's how high we
Speaker 1: are in a merit based system. If it was merit based,
Speaker 1: they wouldn't have shit. They wouldn't have shit. So the
Speaker 1: idea that you don't know if DEI had anything to
Speaker 1: do with how you got your contract or diversity equity inclusion,
Speaker 1: know that that did not begin. This is my This
Speaker 1: makes me so scared for us that we lack understanding
Speaker 1: of our history so much that we don't even know
Speaker 1: that this did not start in twenty twenty or even
Speaker 1: let's see even lets let me go back to another time.
Speaker 1: I started twenty was George Floyd Trayvon Martin was in
Speaker 1: twenty twelve. Right even before that. I'm talking about the eighties,
Speaker 1: even before that, before that, the seventies, even in the sixties.
Speaker 1: This is work that has been done with people toiled.
Speaker 1: They worked hard to get us to where we are now.
Speaker 1: So anyway, I gotta keep I gotta be quiet. We
Speaker 1: have a guest coming that is gonna speak. We're gonna
Speaker 1: be talking for a long time. So for today, I
Speaker 1: don't have anything else to say. I was gonna give
Speaker 1: y'all team I about this young lady that went on
Speaker 1: the internet and said, oh, don't be coming back with
Speaker 1: no Milano clothes. That's that, that ain't it. You need
Speaker 1: to you need to be in a Montclair or she
Speaker 1: might have said moose knuckle. And it's like it was
Speaker 1: a young black girl who's telling people that Milana who
Speaker 1: is passe and busted and this and that, but the
Speaker 1: white man stuff, this is the problem. That's why y'all
Speaker 1: been talking about boycott. Let me know when y'all ready.
Speaker 2: They're trying to girlcott.
Speaker 4: Let me let me know when y'all ready I've read,
Speaker 4: I'm out.
Speaker 1: Let's get our guests. Yes, sir, when friends come through.
Speaker 1: We've got a friend today, long time knowing one another,
Speaker 1: but becoming brother and sister as of lately, just coming together.
Speaker 1: You know, tragedy and we deal with so much of it,
Speaker 1: and trauma can tabonds. And while we may have been
Speaker 1: in many spaces together, I can say that we never
Speaker 1: really had any like meaningful conversation until we was like,
Speaker 1: what we're gonna do with this damn country? And so
Speaker 1: I'm so excited today to have someone who I am
Speaker 1: glad to be able to call friend and brother and
Speaker 1: comrade to join us.
Speaker 4: And you guys don't really know.
Speaker 1: Each other yet. But but you know, y'all ain't become
Speaker 1: friends yet. Oh that's that's some straight bullshit, because you
Speaker 1: know what I mean, might be like I don't like them.
Speaker 3: But your friends though, don't. We're not gonna you just
Speaker 3: don't realizing your friends.
Speaker 2: But don't worry about you anywhere.
Speaker 1: But Maurice Mitchell, nationally recognized social movement strategist national director
Speaker 1: of the Working Families Party and also one of the
Speaker 1: brilliant minds behind the Movement for Black Lives. And I
Speaker 1: would say one of the foremost voices on on social
Speaker 1: justice in.
Speaker 4: The nation is joining us in.
Speaker 1: Y'all. People don't be knowing people. We don't y'all don't
Speaker 1: be knowing our people. That they put folks with two
Speaker 1: ten million followers online and make them leaders. And then
Speaker 1: I keep hearing people say we don't have any leaders,
Speaker 1: and yet there are so many leaders, and Maurice is
Speaker 1: absolutely one of them. Born and raised in New York.
Speaker 1: That's correct to Caribbean working parents correct, which means Working
Speaker 1: Families Party. It all is ALIVEE.
Speaker 4: Comes from home. Thank you so much for being with us.
Speaker 3: So good to be truly, so explain to us, like,
Speaker 3: what is the Working Family Party?
Speaker 5: Okay, So I'm sure both of y'all have heard. Okay,
Speaker 5: I get it. The Republican Party. That's that's the party
Speaker 5: of Trump, that's the party of the white nationalists. Cool.
Speaker 5: But as a black person or as a working person,
Speaker 5: I think the Democratic Party is playing in my face.
Speaker 5: I think the Democratic Party is owned by the corporations
Speaker 5: or they're taking my vote for granted, and we need
Speaker 5: something else. I hear that all the time.
Speaker 2: We need some difference. Yeah.
Speaker 5: Sometimes you know, before I even tell people what I'm about,
Speaker 5: when I say that I'm involved in politics or organizing,
Speaker 5: I'll hear like, we need something else. We need another party.
Speaker 5: The Working Families Party is building. That's something else from
Speaker 5: the grassroots. And WFP started in New York at a
Speaker 5: time when grassroots organizers and folks in labor unions felt
Speaker 5: that the Democratic Party had gone astray and was listening
Speaker 5: way too much to the interest of Wall Street and
Speaker 5: not to the interest of Main Street or the interests
Speaker 5: of the streets that we grew up in. And so
Speaker 5: it started in New York and we've spread and we
Speaker 5: now are in twenty plus states, and we're organizing on
Speaker 5: the ground, and we're focused on governing. So we're not
Speaker 5: just focused on getting people elected, because we want people
Speaker 5: to have the experience of registering, voting, getting people elected,
Speaker 5: and then recognizing that things change when they recruit people
Speaker 5: from the grassroots to get elected. And I like to
Speaker 5: bring up you know, you just mentioned that you're going
Speaker 5: to do an event with Jumani Williams. A lot of
Speaker 5: people don't know.
Speaker 1: York City, Yep, shout it out at the New York
Speaker 1: Public Library.
Speaker 5: Listen. I'm would be at one of them because there's something.
Speaker 5: There's something happening, even the eleven listen.
Speaker 2: Listen.
Speaker 5: This is your platform, so shout out your your book.
Speaker 2: Listen.
Speaker 5: So Jiubani, he was a grassroots organizer, an advocate for renters' rights,
Speaker 5: and he decided to run for office. And the establishment,
Speaker 5: the establishing even today doesn't doesn't appreciate that brother the
Speaker 5: way they need to. But the establishment at that time
Speaker 5: did not want him to run for office, the Democratic
Speaker 5: Party establishment and certainly certainly the Republicans establishment. He ran
Speaker 5: as a Working Families Party only candidate in Brooklyn for
Speaker 5: city council. Anyone.
Speaker 2: I didn't really know what it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so Jumandi got his start as an independent Working
Speaker 5: Families Party candidate. Tis James is another person. She started
Speaker 5: in the same way in Brooklyn, a lawyer for the
Speaker 5: people that the establishment couldn't figure out. And because she
Speaker 5: was so independent and because she was so righteous, the
Speaker 5: establishment in general, including the Democratic Party establishment, didn't know
Speaker 5: what to do it and the Working Families Party recruited
Speaker 5: her to run independently against the Democrats and Republicans. So
Speaker 5: that's an example of what we do every single day.
Speaker 5: We recruit everyday people. Sometimes they're they're educators like Jamal Bowman.
Speaker 5: Sometimes they're people's lawyers like Tis James. Sometimes their organizers
Speaker 5: like Jimani Williams. Working people, working people, right, because we
Speaker 5: believe that working people understand the solutions to the issues
Speaker 5: that they're under way better than the who tends to
Speaker 5: get into office. Like most congress people are millionaires that
Speaker 5: are former lawyers, right, former corporate lawyers, right. And so
Speaker 5: they tell you this lie that you need some sort
Speaker 5: of expertise that you only get from.
Speaker 1: You got to hire people to do that that know
Speaker 1: some of those things, right.
Speaker 5: But the expertise of knowing how to make ends me
Speaker 5: understanding how the policies that are coming from you know,
Speaker 5: coming from Congress or coming from state legislatures, how they
Speaker 5: actually affect your lives. Like dealing with affordability meant imagine
Speaker 5: a Democratic party that understood that people were really wrestling
Speaker 5: with affordability and they were actually able to in a
Speaker 5: compassionate way talk about how to help people get out
Speaker 5: of the affordability crisis that people are.
Speaker 1: Interrupted in this previous election, right, it probably would have
Speaker 1: helped them tremendously.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, But in order to do that, you need actual
Speaker 5: working people who have that experience, right, and so so
Speaker 5: again we've been around for a while and as a result,
Speaker 5: those people get into office, and then they don't just
Speaker 5: sit in office not making a difference. I'll just give
Speaker 5: an example that just happened over the past in New York.
Speaker 5: So chay Osa, that is another person who is a
Speaker 5: young elected official in Brooklyn, working families elected official, and
Speaker 5: he passed this legislation with his colleagues in city council
Speaker 5: that for people who are renting, they know whether or
Speaker 5: not you go through a broker, you pay for a
Speaker 5: broker fee. It's totally unfair. But now in New York,
Speaker 5: because Chaos was able to pass that law, that's not
Speaker 5: the case anymore.
Speaker 4: So you can go directly, yes, and do your business.
Speaker 5: And you don't have to pay that right now, Why
Speaker 5: was that unfair policy on the books because the lobby,
Speaker 5: because the real estate lobby benefited from me, right, right,
Speaker 5: And so what you have is way too many people
Speaker 5: on the local level, including a lot of Democrats, who
Speaker 5: are listening to these lobbyists, right, because they're making deals
Speaker 5: with these lobbyists, and they're kind of governing with the lobbyists.
Speaker 5: They're governing with the corporations instead of governing with the people.
Speaker 5: The Working Families Party is designed as a third party
Speaker 5: movement where we govern with the people.
Speaker 4: Well, okay, the interviews over.
Speaker 1: In fact, in the presidential election, I ran in that
Speaker 1: door so ready to vote, Like, first couple of days
Speaker 1: of early voting, started going down Democrat, just giving voting
Speaker 1: from my people. And when I got to the judges,
Speaker 1: I got a little stuck because I needed to understand them.
Speaker 1: And then I started thinking, I'm voting on the wrong line.
Speaker 1: I don't want to be on this line. So I
Speaker 1: quick was like, excuse me, what do you do if
Speaker 1: you messed up on you? And they were like, oh,
Speaker 1: we have to void it and go through a process.
Speaker 1: I say, yeah, I need a void. I have to
Speaker 1: so that I could vote Work is Family Party.
Speaker 5: Yes, And so people who are listening who live in
Speaker 5: New York or Connecticut, right, they are able to vote
Speaker 5: on the Working Families line and take advantage of something
Speaker 5: we call fusion. And it was the law on the
Speaker 5: books in every state. You know, way back when, and
Speaker 5: the reason why it was outlawed in so many states
Speaker 5: is because fusion was one of the things that allowed
Speaker 5: everyday people to organize against the status quo hugean voting,
Speaker 5: so you had parties outside of the Democratic Party and
Speaker 5: the Republican Party able to bring together coalitions of people
Speaker 5: on the grassroots level and vote as a block. Right now,
Speaker 5: it's hard for us as black people to show that
Speaker 5: we're voting as a block. We get lost in the
Speaker 5: sauce because most of us ninety two percent of black
Speaker 5: women voted for Democrats. Right 'st majority of black men
Speaker 5: voted for Democrats for a lot of very smart and
Speaker 5: strategic reasons, especially in this last election, but it's hard
Speaker 5: to tell how much of us voted for Democrats. So
Speaker 5: sometimes we get lost in the sauce. In New York
Speaker 5: and in Connecticut, we know the exact number of Working
Speaker 5: Families Party voters because we have our own ballot line.
Speaker 5: So then we're able to immediately after the election go
Speaker 5: to these elected officials from the local level all the
Speaker 5: way up and we could say, these are the amount
Speaker 5: of voters that voted for you, but they didn't vote
Speaker 5: for you. On the Democratic Party line, they voted for
Speaker 5: you as on the Working Families different values, and so
Speaker 5: I could say, so our argument was vote for Kamala Harris,
Speaker 5: but vote for around the Working Families Party because to
Speaker 5: show because we know you're not voting for Kamala Harris
Speaker 5: just because she's the Democrat, right, that you're voting for
Speaker 5: the values of the work.
Speaker 1: It should be for the working for the values that
Speaker 1: the Working Families Party holds.
Speaker 5: Yes, Okay, and then and then we could go and
Speaker 5: have that conversation. And listen, I know as a matter
Speaker 5: of fact that the conversations I'm able to have with
Speaker 5: politicians in Connecticut and in New York because we could
Speaker 5: count those votes when it comes time to governing. That's
Speaker 5: a different conversation.
Speaker 1: That's how long did it take you to get to
Speaker 1: this point? Because we have a world full of internet experts? Yeah, yes,
Speaker 1: and they know they know everything.
Speaker 5: God bless them.
Speaker 1: They know how to start a political party. They know
Speaker 1: they're gonna do it all.
Speaker 5: God bless you will be fixed.
Speaker 1: Just because you know that's it. Yeah, well, how long
Speaker 1: did it take to get to this point? And do
Speaker 1: you guys run white candidates? Also?
Speaker 5: Yeah, listen, we're a multi Racial Party. And so listen,
Speaker 5: all skin folk and kimfo right, and so are the
Speaker 5: candidates that we run represent the multiracial working.
Speaker 1: CLUI give us some white folks or other people so
Speaker 1: people will know because they they already turning you off.
Speaker 4: This interview has just ended.
Speaker 1: They are now saying this is what I'm talking multicultural,
Speaker 1: multi racial.
Speaker 4: We don't want that anymore. We want black.
Speaker 1: So talk about some of those other candidates that you
Speaker 1: guys have.
Speaker 5: Absolutely. Let me take for example, Recasar, who's a who's
Speaker 5: a Latino candidate in Texas. Recorzar, who's also currently the
Speaker 5: chair of the Progressive Caucus in Congress. He stands on business.
Speaker 5: That's why we've endorsed him. So in Texas, not only
Speaker 5: did we support Jasmine Crockett, who I'm sure a lot
Speaker 5: of people know, we also supported Records are right. Not
Speaker 5: only are we supporting UH candidates like I said, like Jimani,
Speaker 5: we're we're support we support aoc R. We ran Cynthia
Speaker 5: Nixon against Governor CuMo. Right. Basic, basic, what we've learned,
Speaker 5: right is that there is a politic that is about
Speaker 5: the grassroots, about working people, about making sure that there's
Speaker 5: more money in the pockets of everyday working people, especially
Speaker 5: every day working black folks, and more power. And that politics,
Speaker 5: to me is the lens that we look at when
Speaker 5: we endorse our candidates, and so those candidates are going
Speaker 5: to come from different backgrounds, and I would just argue
Speaker 5: that it's not a zero sum game to talk about
Speaker 5: a multi multi racial power and also to talk about
Speaker 5: independent black power, right, because what happens is black people
Speaker 5: unfortunately get lost in the sauce. So Black people get
Speaker 5: lost in the sauce unfortunately sometimes in some of these coalitions,
Speaker 5: which is why it's important before we join a coalition
Speaker 5: as black people, we're clear about what our black agenda is.
Speaker 5: So when we join that coalition, we're joining with the
Speaker 5: clear black agenda that we're bringing into the picture, and
Speaker 5: clear it's a black power. Is when we join coalitions
Speaker 5: and we're unclear about what our agenda is, then we
Speaker 5: often find ourselves getting lost in the sauce, which has
Speaker 5: historically been our experience. Unfortunately, in a lot of democratic
Speaker 5: party politics, they are hungry for black votes, but oftentimes
Speaker 5: when it comes to a black agenda, they are looking elsewhere, right.
Speaker 5: But that's to me on us how sharpers are organizing and.
Speaker 4: Talk about how long it took.
Speaker 5: So, yes, so Working Families Party, Like I said before,
Speaker 5: twenty six years, it took twenty six years for the
Speaker 5: Working Families Party to build to this level. I've been
Speaker 5: the national director of the Working Families Party for nearly
Speaker 5: seven years, right, and.
Speaker 1: So you started in seven years ago. Sorry, I don't
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to cut you off, but I know
Speaker 1: what we got to hit.
Speaker 4: So people can understand when.
Speaker 1: You started seven years ago, what would you say are
Speaker 1: the successes or is the success It would be more
Speaker 1: than one thing. I'm assuming from there into now, like
Speaker 1: how much has the move moved?
Speaker 5: Sure, so in the seven years since I've been the
Speaker 5: national director, the Working Families Party has grown exponentially, Right,
Speaker 5: We've we have new chapters. We're in California where we
Speaker 5: could count one hundred elected officials just in the state
Speaker 5: of California on the local and state level that are
Speaker 5: proudly Working Families Party. I just came from the Bay
Speaker 5: Area where they met and they were fired up. I
Speaker 5: was with Barbara Lee with one of our candidates she
Speaker 5: ran for Senate. Absolutely, yes, listen, and so that that chapter,
Speaker 5: as well as some other chapters that we built recently
Speaker 5: are the byproduct of heart organizing, right organizing. So I'm
Speaker 5: talking hours and hours of conversations, of humble conversations, of back,
Speaker 5: back and forth struggles about how are we going to
Speaker 5: build this, How are we going to make sure that
Speaker 5: our candidates are accountable? How are we going to make
Speaker 5: sure that we actually have the resources to run. So
Speaker 5: we're not just making a point, We're delivering for our
Speaker 5: people real struggles, right.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 5: The other thing I would say is like over the
Speaker 5: past years, look at the city of Philadelphia. So when
Speaker 5: I started in the city of Philadelphia, the city of
Speaker 5: Philadelphia was a two party city Democrats and Republicans. Today,
Speaker 5: because of the hard organizing in the Working Families Party,
Speaker 5: it is still a two party city with Democrats and
Speaker 5: Working Families Party. So we the Working Families Party kicked
Speaker 5: the two Republicans in city Council in Philadelphia off of
Speaker 5: the city council and replaced them with Working Families Party
Speaker 5: only city councilors. So Kendra Brooks is the minority leader
Speaker 5: and Nicholas or Work is the Minority Whip of Philadelphia.
Speaker 5: They both are independent voices that both are are black,
Speaker 5: rest root voices. Kendra comes from nice Town. She is
Speaker 5: a working class Black mom, and she governs. She governs
Speaker 5: in the city of Philadelphia for the people that didn't
Speaker 5: come through overnight. You know, that started through a long process.
Speaker 5: You know, when we started, a lot of people didn't think,
Speaker 5: especially the establishment, didn't think that we would be able
Speaker 5: to remove the Republicans and replace them of working families
Speaker 5: party people. There were a lot of doubters, and there
Speaker 5: continues to be a lot of doubters. But you know,
Speaker 5: like I just you know, for anybody who's doubting, look
Speaker 5: at the results. You know, I asked people to look
Speaker 5: at our receipts, so one concrete result, not just getting
Speaker 5: them elected, but in terms of how it actually affects.
Speaker 1: People's lives, right right, right.
Speaker 5: So, like I said before, we have this affordability crisis, right,
Speaker 5: we have. We have a crisis where so many we
Speaker 5: were just talking about it, so many working class Black people,
Speaker 5: in particular in cities everywhere are finding it harder and
Speaker 5: harder to stay in their homes because of gentrifications, were
Speaker 5: being pushed out of our communities. Historical black communities were
Speaker 5: being pushed out of and so in Philly during the pandemic.
Speaker 5: There was a problem because a lot of people were
Speaker 5: facing evictions, right, and a lot of people couldn't draw
Speaker 5: a salary right because people are sheltering in place. And
Speaker 5: so Kendra Brooks, the Independent Working Families Party candidate, she
Speaker 5: passed a temporary law protecting renters, and so renters couldn't
Speaker 5: just get pushed out. They had to negotiate with their landlords. Right.
Speaker 5: That kept a lot of working class people in their home,
Speaker 5: and then recently we made it permanent. And so if
Speaker 5: you look at the trend lines of there's a lot
Speaker 5: of trend lines for evictions that are going in this direction,
Speaker 5: but in Philadelphia, the trend line is moving like this
Speaker 5: because of that policy. So it's important for people to
Speaker 5: understand these aren't just we're not just making noise, We're
Speaker 5: not just making a point. We're actually getting people in
Speaker 5: positions where they could govern. And then when they're in
Speaker 5: those positions, they are remembering where they came from. And
Speaker 5: it's actually been a fitting everyday people. The thing is like,
Speaker 5: I've heard a lot of people say we need a
Speaker 5: third party in this country. I couldn't agree more. But
Speaker 5: I think it's important to look at the history of
Speaker 5: third parties, you know, so that we can learn from
Speaker 5: different each now, right, and I don't even I don't
Speaker 5: even need to go too far, right, so we could
Speaker 5: go further, but let's just look at what ross Perot did.
Speaker 5: That's exactly what we want to get into, right, Yeah,
Speaker 5: because you know, I'm actually I'm really pleased that so
Speaker 5: many people were talking about third parties, especially last cycle,
Speaker 5: and you know a lot of people had our name
Speaker 5: in their mouths, and I'm happy for that because it
Speaker 5: allows me to cut to platforms like this and share
Speaker 5: more because people are curious. So nineteen ninety two, Ross
Speaker 5: Paro billionaire, right, he spent all the money in the world,
Speaker 5: and he started his own party, the Reform Party, and
Speaker 5: he couldn't break twenty percent, right, So to me, and
Speaker 5: the lesson that I learned from that is that if
Speaker 5: your approach is all right, let's find a charismatic person
Speaker 5: who could run a campaign and run a top down
Speaker 5: campaign every four years and that will somehow break the
Speaker 5: duopoly and break the back of the Democratic and Republican Party.
Speaker 5: If ross Pero, with all of his money, he was
Speaker 5: able to just buy blocks of time during during primetime, right,
Speaker 5: he was able to he couldn't break twenty percent. To me,
Speaker 5: that strategy isn't viable, especially if you don't have billions of.
Speaker 1: Dollars, right and people that they invest that yes, and
Speaker 1: we're okay, right.
Speaker 3: So and I think so that's what that's what I think.
Speaker 3: Right when I think about third party, I think that
Speaker 3: the third party serves as an addition to whatever candidate.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: So if we already have a two we already have
Speaker 3: a two party system, the third party is going to
Speaker 3: give leverage to the other party.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: And it's like, because we, like you say, the Democrats,
Speaker 3: we understand pretty much that the Democratic Party has failed
Speaker 3: us in a lot of ways. But there are a
Speaker 3: lot of candidates and people from our communities that are
Speaker 3: in it that need the support of the working family
Speaker 3: party that you can run them as working family. But
Speaker 3: they fall under the guys pretty much of them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what happens to them when they if Jimiani was
Speaker 1: he not a Democrat.
Speaker 5: Then initially he wasn't a Democrat. Once he got elected,
Speaker 5: the Democratic Party embrace embrace them.
Speaker 2: So it gives you that power, do you see?
Speaker 3: Is a balance is a voting block and there's a
Speaker 3: voice that says, this is what the working parties, the
Speaker 3: people in our community want, this is who we want,
Speaker 3: and then the Democratic Party has no choice because what
Speaker 3: happens is you drowned out their candidate pretty much, and
Speaker 3: when they win, they have no choice but embrace yous.
Speaker 3: So what you start doing is you start and that's
Speaker 3: what I tell people. You have to retrain in the values.
Speaker 3: You don't throw the baby away with the bath word
Speaker 3: right there. I just think when when I look at
Speaker 3: the Democratic Party, we have hundreds of black people and
Speaker 3: a lot of them are good. When we look at
Speaker 3: Jasmine Crockett and all these people who are under the
Speaker 3: guise of Democrats, we can't just throw all these people away.
Speaker 2: What we have to do is reform.
Speaker 3: There's definitely issues, there are definitely people that take advantage
Speaker 3: of our votes and all that, but we have to say, okay,
Speaker 3: this is our issue.
Speaker 2: This is our party now.
Speaker 3: Like when when the working when you come and you say, look,
Speaker 3: we have we have the power, right, we know what
Speaker 3: the people want in our community and we know that
Speaker 3: this two party system won't allow us to do anything outside.
Speaker 3: But you know that you can't really ruin without us.
Speaker 3: Because when he talks about ross Paro. That's the problem.
Speaker 3: Ross Road just said, I'm just gonna run ato the
Speaker 3: third party, and you don't have no backing from anything else.
Speaker 3: So what happens is we have to use that as
Speaker 3: our leverage.
Speaker 2: We have to use it.
Speaker 3: And what happens is now when we start to take
Speaker 3: the values of the Working Families Party and we put
Speaker 3: it into the demo that who were supposed.
Speaker 1: To be is in the Democratic Party.
Speaker 5: Let me let me, let me, let me, let me
Speaker 5: break let me, let me break that down from my perspective,
Speaker 5: because because listen, you're speaking facts, right. One of the
Speaker 5: ways that I talk about the difference between the Republican
Speaker 5: Party and the Democratic Party, right is that, Okay, in
Speaker 5: the Republican Party, one hundred percent of their elected officials
Speaker 5: do not believe in the basic rights or the human
Speaker 5: rights of Palestinians. One hundred percent of their elected officials
Speaker 5: do not believe in the basic rights of black people.
Speaker 5: One hundred percent of their elected officials either believe in
Speaker 5: the billionaire agenda or are too fearful to do anything
Speaker 5: about fighting the billionaire agenda. And that was evident when
Speaker 5: you saw the number one, number two, or number three billionaire.
Speaker 1: Right cabinet member.
Speaker 5: Inside the Democratic Party, you have a debate, right, So
Speaker 5: the Democratic Party, there's a lot of people who I
Speaker 5: disagree with vehemently. There's a lot of people in the
Speaker 5: Democratic Party that align with corporate interests. And the Democratic
Speaker 5: Party is also the party of Summerly and Latifa Simon
Speaker 5: right and Jamal Bowman right, and Corey Bush right and
Speaker 5: Rashida Talib right, Williams and Jimani Williams right. So the
Speaker 5: Working Families Party wants to represent the interest and support
Speaker 5: and provide blocking and tackling for them so that they
Speaker 5: could do the people's business. And long term, we're doing
Speaker 5: the things to change the structures so that there could
Speaker 5: actually be a viable multi party democracy. And so we're
Speaker 5: doing both. We're engaged in politics today with many of
Speaker 5: the Democrats who agree with us and many of the
Speaker 5: people who agree with us, and we're building the independent
Speaker 5: infrastructure for the third party multi party democracy of the future.
Speaker 5: And like I said, fusion voting exists in Connecticut and
Speaker 5: New York, but we want fusion voting to exist in
Speaker 5: many more states. And we're suing, you know, and we're
Speaker 5: engaging in conversations. So fusion voting is the thing that
Speaker 5: we talked about, where in the ballot you could actually
Speaker 5: see Democratic Party is one line, Republican is another line,
Speaker 5: and the Working Families Party is another line, and you
Speaker 5: could vote on the Working Families Party line and it
Speaker 5: doesn't dilute your vote because you could choose. I could
Speaker 5: either vote for Kamala Harris on the Democratic Party line
Speaker 5: or the Working Family Party line, and either vote counts
Speaker 5: the same thing.
Speaker 3: But it just shows the value that the working Family
Speaker 3: already brings, because it shows that people are voting for
Speaker 3: the values of the working families.
Speaker 5: That's right. Hundreds of thousands of people just in the
Speaker 5: state of New York voted on the Working Families Party line,
Speaker 5: and in many of those cases, the margin of the
Speaker 5: margin of victory was so slim that if those voters
Speaker 5: are not voted on the Working Families Party line, that
Speaker 5: candidate wouldn't have won. So it really does have a
Speaker 5: significant impact.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, Okay, So okay, So I didn't want to spend
Speaker 1: a lot of time so much time talking about work
Speaker 1: is Family Party, Working Families Party because you are that,
Speaker 1: but you got other school. Yeah, absolutely, But I do
Speaker 1: have to ask you, how does that how do y'all
Speaker 1: play in the sand box with the Democrats? Like, what
Speaker 1: does the what does it look like? Because one of
Speaker 1: the biggest issues that I face when I tell people
Speaker 1: you vote on the Working Family I told my girlfriend
Speaker 1: and she she works at a bank and whatever, and
Speaker 1: she was like, I need my vote account and I'm
Speaker 1: scared that you're telling me to do something that's going
Speaker 1: to mess me up.
Speaker 5: Blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: So how do y'all play in the sand box together?
Speaker 1: And I know you said fusion, but maybe I didn't
Speaker 1: get it.
Speaker 5: So let me just let me just break it down.
Speaker 5: We cook what we have in the kitchen. Some places
Speaker 5: like New York and Connecticut, we use fusion voting, and
Speaker 5: that allows for you to be able to vote on
Speaker 5: the Working Families party line without spoiling, without wasting your vote.
Speaker 5: It actually empowers you. Right, But we don't have fusion
Speaker 5: voting everywhere, and so where we don't have fusion voting,
Speaker 5: and also in New York, we like to get busy
Speaker 5: in primaries. We like to find those people that have
Speaker 5: a d nex to their name for Democrat, but we
Speaker 5: have decided that they are not accountable in any way.
Speaker 5: Right when it comes, you know, like they're not accountable.
Speaker 5: They got to this place either they came in listening
Speaker 5: to the corporations, or they have gotten to this place
Speaker 5: where they believe that they're entitled to their to their role,
Speaker 5: that they're entitled to their seat, and they're not listening
Speaker 5: to the people. They're not being responsive to the people.
Speaker 5: And we primary those those Democrats, we kick them out
Speaker 5: of office. The reason Jamal Bowman was in office was
Speaker 5: because somebody who had been there for years needed to go.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 5: He was he wasn't even living in his district. Right,
Speaker 5: This is how entitled they get. They don't even live
Speaker 5: in their district after a while, right, and so and
Speaker 5: then a lot of them for them, this isn't about service,
Speaker 5: this is this is a this is a business, you know,
Speaker 5: And so they got to go right, and so the
Speaker 5: Working Families Party, we build coalitions from the grassroots with
Speaker 5: unions like you know, like the unions that that that
Speaker 5: my parents came out of, right and grassroots organizations, and
Speaker 5: we build that coalition on the ground. We find candidates
Speaker 5: who we who we believe are actually accountable. We run them,
Speaker 5: and we often are able to primary and win. People
Speaker 5: have been there for years people have the backing of
Speaker 5: all these corporations, because when real advocates run, you could
Speaker 5: see that difference and see, like the the the reason
Speaker 5: why somebody like Summerly, why Apak and the corporations have
Speaker 5: to send millions and millions and millions and millions of
Speaker 5: dollars against her, she still wins. Shows that that that
Speaker 5: formula works as well as it does when you have
Speaker 5: somebody who can't be bossed around, won't be bought, is
Speaker 5: a true advocate people in the community know where to
Speaker 5: be stand up. You add that with the resources and
Speaker 5: support of grassroots organizations and then also the support of
Speaker 5: Working Families Party that's been around for twenty six years
Speaker 5: and other organizations, and then that grassroots coalition wins every time.
Speaker 5: And that's why we believe that over time we could
Speaker 5: shift our politics closer to the people. But it requires
Speaker 5: the people to believe that it's possible, which is why
Speaker 5: being on this platform and having this conversation so important,
Speaker 5: because people say, like, we need it's happening.
Speaker 4: It's happening, It's happening in.
Speaker 2: This It's a process.
Speaker 3: And I tell people this all the time and they're like, oh,
Speaker 3: we just the frustration that I have with our people
Speaker 3: is we don't see and it's designed for us not
Speaker 3: to see the strategy. Like when we talk about what
Speaker 3: happened in black wall streets and how the burnt down
Speaker 3: and how they constantly disenfranchises right in this moment, that's
Speaker 3: the strategy that's happening right now. We don't We're not
Speaker 3: realizing it because we were just saying.
Speaker 2: Oh, the Democrats, is they just term where everything's gone?
Speaker 2: We need to get No.
Speaker 3: What happened is they've watched black people a man so
Speaker 3: much power with the wealth within this party. Like when
Speaker 3: I went to the Democratic National Convention, it looked like
Speaker 3: it was just a black reunion.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: So when you start to see that, they say, Okay,
Speaker 3: we have to disenfranchise. We have to make it see
Speaker 3: dismantle it. We have to completely make it seem like
Speaker 3: woke is the worst thing in the world. You say,
Speaker 3: black lives matters, everything that we fought for. They have
Speaker 3: to they have stained it, right because they've seen us
Speaker 3: gaining the power.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and I want to I want to drill down
Speaker 5: here the reason why when one of the reasons why
Speaker 5: we endorse Kamala Harris is our focus on governing right,
Speaker 5: And I want to explain if we were able to
Speaker 5: in this last selection at a democratic president, get a
Speaker 5: Democratic Congress with a Democratic House, why is that so
Speaker 5: important to us? So that summerly, Jasmine Crockett, you know,
Speaker 5: many of the people we talked about, Latifa Simon could
Speaker 5: be in a position to govern right right. So if
Speaker 5: it's just about personalities, it's hard to really understand the
Speaker 5: value and it's like, oh, I don't like Kamala or
Speaker 5: I heard this, or it's about putting our people in
Speaker 5: a position to govern for our people. And in the
Speaker 5: Democratic Party, we've been able to organize a cadre of
Speaker 5: independent black voices that stand on business and best believe
Speaker 5: the corporations. The lobbyists were aware of that, and when
Speaker 5: they were trying to shut us down and they were
Speaker 5: trying to drown us with misinformation and disinformation, unfortunately recruit
Speaker 5: some folks in our community, right, it was about that.
Speaker 5: That's what it was about. They understood what was at
Speaker 5: risk for their corporate agenda if we put people like
Speaker 5: Latifa Simon in a position to govern in the House,
Speaker 5: right like they actually understood that, which is why it
Speaker 5: was so important to confuse some people. Luckily most people
Speaker 5: in our community didn't get it twisted. But the thing
Speaker 5: that I'm always thinking about when it comes to that
Speaker 5: misinformation and disinformation is not, oh, that's going to lead
Speaker 5: to millions of black folks voting for Trump. If they
Speaker 5: confuse enough of us, it might mean enough of us
Speaker 5: are unclear how to vote, and therefore enough of us
Speaker 5: are not going to vote right. And to me, that's
Speaker 5: my greatest fear. And I think when you look, you know,
Speaker 5: we're still we're still breaking down what happened in that election.
Speaker 5: But millions of people who we know agree with our
Speaker 5: values didn't turn up right. And I have to imagine
Speaker 5: being confused by all that misinformation led to some percentage
Speaker 5: of our folks.
Speaker 2: Uncle. Definitely. Yeah, I've had conversations with people that I
Speaker 2: had to just.
Speaker 3: Unwind just the misinformation and say, well, where did you
Speaker 3: get this information? Well they said who? They said, like,
Speaker 3: here's the facts, and oh, well I didn't know that.
Speaker 3: And it's like they were constantly being fed just lies
Speaker 3: and lies and just missing and it's like today somebody
Speaker 3: just came on my page told my commas not black
Speaker 3: and all this.
Speaker 2: It's just like how do how do we keep having
Speaker 2: these comments?
Speaker 1: And that's the same thing, in my judgment, that's the
Speaker 1: same problem we have whenever we talk about boycotts.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: I was saying to you off air that one of
Speaker 1: the problems that I see today is there's so many
Speaker 1: different people talking. Everybody has a voice, everybody is an expert,
Speaker 1: as I said, and that is in and of itself misinformation,
Speaker 1: not even because what they're saying is not true, but
Speaker 1: it's that some of these folks who are talking about
Speaker 1: what to do do not know what it takes to
Speaker 1: actually do it. And so you might not be able
Speaker 1: to say, well, we don't need we don't need Kroger.
Speaker 1: But when Kroger is the only place that people have
Speaker 1: to go eat, you can't just be like, we don't
Speaker 1: need Kroger. Especially some of us who are sitting in
Speaker 1: very privileged places. We have to be able to say
Speaker 1: we don't need Kroger because on Wednesdays we're going to
Speaker 1: be delivering boxes of food, which is what we did
Speaker 1: in Kentucky. Right for months, we were feeding people so
Speaker 1: that they didn't have to because Kroger was criminalizing them,
Speaker 1: assuming that anybody. First of all, they closed for a while.
Speaker 1: As you know, it was protest going on til Kroger
Speaker 1: was closed and it was the only supermarket in the
Speaker 1: West end of Louisville, Kentucky. And so we said, okay,
Speaker 1: well we're going to bring food boxes out with you know,
Speaker 1: roots and vegetables and things. Now, of course, there was
Speaker 1: some people was like, what I'm gonna do with that
Speaker 1: egg plant? I don't eat egg plant. But we weren't
Speaker 1: just feeding black people. It's other people who live in
Speaker 1: that area. So we might be able to do college greens,
Speaker 1: but then what about you know, other families that needed
Speaker 1: other things.
Speaker 4: So that's just a little antidote.
Speaker 1: But nonetheless, we tried to say, okay, so Kroger's closed,
Speaker 1: we don't want that to be the focus. So let's
Speaker 1: figure out how we bring people what they need so
Speaker 1: they're not dependent on or feeling like, get this protest
Speaker 1: shit out of here because y'all over here protesting, and meanwhile.
Speaker 4: They won't open our supermarket. So's there there is.
Speaker 1: So there's so many needs of our people, and when
Speaker 1: they're online and everybody is saying and doing and this
Speaker 1: and that, it makes people feel like I just can't
Speaker 1: I can't do it. I don't know. I don't even
Speaker 1: want to vote. Y'all telling us when we go down there,
Speaker 1: they might beat us up, telling us that we might
Speaker 1: not have our names on the Liz, you're telling us
Speaker 1: don't vote on Democratic tickets. You're telling us I vote
Speaker 1: don't count. Like it's so many messages coming at once.
Speaker 1: I don't even know what we're supposed to do.
Speaker 5: Don't worry about it, and on whose platform? Sucker birth right?
Speaker 1: I'm all right, right, right, right, but yeah, but they
Speaker 1: got hoteps in your family too, now that know a
Speaker 1: lot of things, and they be smart. I'm not. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm not against it because sometimes brothers be checking me
Speaker 1: a little bit on things, and I be like, okay,
Speaker 1: I see you, bro. But sometimes, you know, I listen
Speaker 1: to some of the things that they say, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: I've been.
Speaker 4: Doing this for thirty years.
Speaker 1: And I know what some of the challenges are. Because
Speaker 1: those of us who are willing to make the sacrifice
Speaker 1: the shifts to the working family. Yes, and we have
Speaker 1: to grow the base.
Speaker 5: That's correct.
Speaker 1: That's first before we can say forget this party or
Speaker 1: that thing or this set spoken like a true organizer, right,
Speaker 1: got to grow the base and.
Speaker 5: There's ways that if you aren't listening to the base,
Speaker 5: even if what you're saying is factually correct, even if
Speaker 5: the policies are correct, even if you're right, because you
Speaker 5: didn't listen to the base, you now have a wedge
Speaker 5: between you and the base, absolutely right. So your people
Speaker 5: are looking at you like what do you because you
Speaker 5: weren't humble enough and you weren't rigorous enough in that
Speaker 5: organizing to always listen to the base to hear like
Speaker 5: all right, well listen like, yes, yes, a boycott would
Speaker 5: be great as a tactic, but in order for us
Speaker 5: to earn the ability to boycott, we need to make
Speaker 5: sure that our people are fed, that our people feel
Speaker 5: a connection to the like when people people you know,
Speaker 5: go back in history, people talk about the Montgomery bus boycott,
Speaker 5: right that they organize the Planta to get there. It
Speaker 5: wasn't a snap decision because they needed to sustain the boycott.
Speaker 5: That caused a significant amount of duress on the people
Speaker 5: because now you got to walk to work, right now,
Speaker 5: you gotta you know, yeah, and you know, they have
Speaker 5: to organize all types of different arrangements to make sure
Speaker 5: that people got to where they need to go to right.
Speaker 5: That is a logistical and organizing sort of commitment to
Speaker 5: your people. So you have to consider those things before
Speaker 5: you say let's do this, let's do that, and so
Speaker 5: you earn the right to be able to do attack.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: You know, we got to earn also every day we
Speaker 1: I mean Coreta Scott King said that that freedom is
Speaker 1: not given. It's not a given. Every generation has to
Speaker 1: earn it. And in order to earn it, you have
Speaker 1: to show the people that you're trustworthy and stable enough
Speaker 1: for them to follow what you are offering them.
Speaker 4: I got to ask you this question.
Speaker 1: Because you gotta go. Okay, elections is coming up.
Speaker 4: Are you optimistic?
Speaker 1: What do we need to do?
Speaker 5: Okay, listen, So I considering this is just the second
Speaker 5: week of the Trump administration, right, I actually have a
Speaker 5: lot of optimism, and I'll explain why. I don't know
Speaker 5: if folks followed the Maga civil war that took place
Speaker 5: even before they got into office, where Elon Musk and
Speaker 5: some of the tech Maga people were arguing with the
Speaker 5: traditional Maga people. And then the other thing I noted
Speaker 5: is that Trump was talking a lot about groceries, and
Speaker 5: a lot about affordability, a lot about eggs and eggs.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 5: If you notice he has abruptly pivoted. He's not talking
Speaker 5: about that anymore. Right, And the eggs, oh yeah, oh yeah,
Speaker 5: absolutely yeah, the price of eggs are going up. Right,
Speaker 5: he has pivoted already. Right, And to me, and we
Speaker 5: were saying this, we were we were saying this in
Speaker 5: real time. We've been saying this, right, that this is
Speaker 5: a grift, that he is a billionaire that is in
Speaker 5: league with other billionaires. He is not a true populace.
Speaker 5: He's not concerned about the price of eggs or making
Speaker 5: things affordable for your family.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 5: Not everybody got that message. Some people voted for Trump,
Speaker 5: not because they're maga. Some people voted even some people
Speaker 5: of color, some black folks voted for Trump based on
Speaker 5: quote unquote the economy.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 5: But this is a mask off moment. So people saw
Speaker 5: him next to the richest people on the planet. And
Speaker 5: he has some tax cuts he has to pay for.
Speaker 5: He has a bunch of policies he has to pay for.
Speaker 5: Where's he going to pay for those things. He's going
Speaker 5: to be looking at Medicaid, He's going to be looking
Speaker 5: at SNAP, He's going to be looking at programs that
Speaker 5: allow everyday people to survive. Elon Musk even said that.
Speaker 5: He said it's going to be painful, it's going to
Speaker 5: be harder.
Speaker 1: He said he might have to put everybody on welfare
Speaker 1: or something like that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, so Elon is saying the quiet part out loud because.
Speaker 2: You don't care.
Speaker 3: This is emboldened white privilege. This is a billionaire white
Speaker 3: privilege that I can say what I want. And it's
Speaker 3: just when you watch that, it confuses me how people
Speaker 3: see something else.
Speaker 5: It's like it's a part time South Africa white privilege.
Speaker 5: What's that? And so here's the.
Speaker 1: For him, this is his natural habitats coming home, yes,
Speaker 1: coming yes, Yes. And the thing is sorry, Mama made
Speaker 1: it like we did it in America. Yes, when I
Speaker 1: told you I was leaving here to go to America,
Speaker 1: I promised you that one day we would see what
Speaker 1: they stopped us kind.
Speaker 4: Of from doing over here. Begin again.
Speaker 5: That's right over there, that's right, that's right, that's right,
Speaker 5: it's the prodigal son, right and so and so here's
Speaker 5: something deep. It's deep. You think about the psychology of
Speaker 5: these people. And the point I'm making is what gives
Speaker 5: me hope is number one people have eyes and ears.
Speaker 5: Our people aren't stupid. People are not stupid. And many
Speaker 5: of the people, I mean, I'm even seeing it in
Speaker 5: the discourse online, including many of our folks who might
Speaker 5: have thought, well, we're voting for the anti establishment. You
Speaker 5: can get more establishment than all the billionaires in the
Speaker 5: world lining up.
Speaker 2: With you know.
Speaker 5: So it's clear. And so I have a lot of
Speaker 5: hope for the organizing that we could do over the
Speaker 5: next two years to flip because they have a very
Speaker 5: very slim majority.
Speaker 1: In the House, super slim the day.
Speaker 5: And the other thing to note is that they aren't
Speaker 5: very disciplined. They tend not to be disciplined when it
Speaker 5: comes time to govern, right, So whether or not they're
Speaker 5: going to be able to make those slim majorities actually
Speaker 5: matter is a different question because they have so many Look,
Speaker 5: they have the ultra ultra ultra Maga wing inside inside
Speaker 5: Congress right, and they're blowing things up left and right right,
Speaker 5: and so whether or not they're going to be able
Speaker 5: to make peace with them in order to govern as
Speaker 5: a different story. But the thing is whether whether or
Speaker 5: not that's true. The people are going to learn quickly quickly,
Speaker 5: they're going to learn quickly that they are governing by
Speaker 5: for and with billionaires. It's a true mask off moment.
Speaker 5: And now it's the job for organizers and also the
Speaker 5: job for people who have platforms, and thank god we
Speaker 5: have this platform right to tell the truth about it, right,
Speaker 5: So over the next two years, the people could get information.
Speaker 5: So I have a lot of confidence that we'll be
Speaker 5: able to flip Congress in these two years. The other
Speaker 5: thing I want to say is that there are so
Speaker 5: many opportunities. So people who are watching and they might
Speaker 5: want to know, well, what can I do about it?
Speaker 5: I've seen what's transpired. I'm concerned about these anti DEI
Speaker 5: policies and I know the words diversity, equity and inclusion
Speaker 5: policies right, because that's what it is, right, and I
Speaker 5: understand how my impact, my family or my impact. The
Speaker 5: thing that we need to do is again is to
Speaker 5: organize on the local level, right, And there's opportunity. Presidents
Speaker 5: aren't kings, at least today, they aren't right, right, And
Speaker 5: as long as they're not kings, and as long as
Speaker 5: power exists on multiple levels in this country, what's going
Speaker 5: on in your school board, right, what's going on in
Speaker 5: your city? And this is why I say that I
Speaker 5: want to go back to the Ross Pero strategy. Every
Speaker 5: four years, Let's let's find somebody to run for president.
Speaker 5: Then you're not focused on school board, right, You're not
Speaker 5: focused on city council. You're not focused on what's happening
Speaker 5: in your county district attorney. That's where so much of
Speaker 5: the governing happens. In fact, most of the things that
Speaker 5: we're concerned with, like well, the quality of education for
Speaker 5: my children, or whether or not it is still affordable
Speaker 5: in the city that's zoning, zoning is city council, right,
Speaker 5: All of those things happen on the local level. And
Speaker 5: so many of those things they know that you know,
Speaker 5: I'm sure people are watching, are.
Speaker 4: Busy, are hustling and tired of.
Speaker 5: It and tired right, and and aren't close political observers,
Speaker 5: and are are locked in like the people here, right,
Speaker 5: which is why we have organizations. Right. Organizations exist so
Speaker 5: that with the time that you do have, we can
Speaker 5: make sure that that time is the most effective. And
Speaker 5: there's organizations like the Working Families Party that are on
Speaker 5: the local level. And we're recruiting people for school board,
Speaker 5: for city council, for county, so that they could run
Speaker 5: and win. And so this year they say it's an
Speaker 5: off year, but so many of those elections are happening
Speaker 5: this year, and then next year the entire House of
Speaker 5: Representatives is up for reelections.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna we're gonna work together. Absolutely, we're gonna
Speaker 1: be together.
Speaker 3: Where do you get the motivation? Like, what would your
Speaker 3: childhood to do this work? Where are you from?
Speaker 5: Okay, So I'm from not too far from here, from
Speaker 5: a working class suburb of New York called Long Beach.
Speaker 5: I grew up in Long Beach, I was born. I
Speaker 5: was born in the late seventies, nineteen seventy nine, and
Speaker 5: my parents are working class people who came from the Caribbean.
Speaker 5: My grandmother came here as a domestic worker and she worked.
Speaker 5: She left like ten children in Trinidad and worked in
Speaker 5: the houses of other people Monday through Friday on Long
Speaker 5: Island and during the weekend, she didn't have a home.
Speaker 5: And the reason we actually got our bearings in that community.
Speaker 5: That's an example of black solidarity. Actually, I actually spoke
Speaker 5: in Long Beach at the m OK event in Long
Speaker 5: Beach this past at this past MKDA and I brought
Speaker 5: up this story my grandmother. Again, she's an immigrant from
Speaker 5: this country, knew this country, working Monday through Friday in
Speaker 5: the homes of white folks, taking care of their children,
Speaker 5: taking care of their families, away from all of her
Speaker 5: children during the weekend. Sometimes she would just sit in
Speaker 5: the park in Long Beach. Right, there's a park in
Speaker 5: Long Beach in the center of town. And a woman
Speaker 5: who is a church elder, a black woman, noticed her.
Speaker 5: Could have passed her by, but noticed her, and she's like,
Speaker 5: what are you doing sitting there? And my grandmother explained, well,
Speaker 5: I work in these people's home Monday through Friday. During
Speaker 5: the weekend. This is often where I'll sit and you
Speaker 5: catch a break and she's like, you know, people, you
Speaker 5: don't have any places to stay. And that day she
Speaker 5: was like, you staying with me, right, you staying with me.
Speaker 5: And because of that, that led to a whole chain
Speaker 5: of events that led to me being here. Wow, you know,
Speaker 5: And so what I took from that and my experience
Speaker 5: of growing up with my family, we had a very
Speaker 5: big family, a lot of aunties and uncles, a lot
Speaker 5: of cousins. You know, you're hip hop artist, so you know,
Speaker 5: I grew my cousin God rest his whole MF doom
Speaker 5: you know, yeah, shout out. We all grew up together
Speaker 5: in this community, and we supported one another, and if
Speaker 5: there were people who had a need, just like that
Speaker 5: church elder looked out for my grandmother, we made sure
Speaker 5: that they had a place to stay. If there were
Speaker 5: people who needed work, oftentimes my grandmother would be like,
Speaker 5: stay here, I'll find work for you, right. And so
Speaker 5: I grew up with the family that you know, they
Speaker 5: didn't know they were organizers, but they were organizers, right,
Speaker 5: And so it was normal and it is normal for
Speaker 5: me to understand that family is not just the people
Speaker 5: whose blood you might share. It is the family that
Speaker 5: you creates here and now. And that's how Black people,
Speaker 5: in whatever condition we've ever been in, whenever we've been
Speaker 5: able to persevere, it's been because of the community that
Speaker 5: we build. And so when I do this work, it's
Speaker 5: in honor of my grandmother, and it's in honor of
Speaker 5: the people that chose to lean in and build community
Speaker 5: so I could be where I'm at. And I try
Speaker 5: to apply that in politics. So I don't look at
Speaker 5: politics as a dirty word, right, because when I think
Speaker 5: about politics, I think about democracy. Democracy is just the
Speaker 5: things we do together, right, And so how can we
Speaker 5: flip it?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 5: They want you to think democracy is dirty, so they
Speaker 5: could have all this boils, right, But democracy is just
Speaker 5: what we do together and how we share. In the
Speaker 5: richest country in the history of countries, how can we
Speaker 5: share all of this so that we could be more whole?
Speaker 5: And when I see them try to do the divide
Speaker 5: and conquer, then I know what it is. It's like,
Speaker 5: look immigration, right, they want black folks to fight for
Speaker 5: crumbs to decide who's going to be the permanent underclass.
Speaker 1: That's it.
Speaker 5: Is it going to be black folks or is it
Speaker 5: going to be immigrants. Well, let's stop finding for crumbs
Speaker 5: and let's come together as black folks and have the
Speaker 5: entire pie. Right. Or what if we came together and
Speaker 5: started an alliance, black and brown alliance and we start
Speaker 5: we have the entire bakery. Right. So, in the richest
Speaker 5: country in the history of countries, how can I sit
Speaker 5: here and fix my face in protest of another working
Speaker 5: person that maybe they don't share my heritage, but they're
Speaker 5: just trying to struggle like me, A mother, a mother
Speaker 5: who's a migrant from from Venezuela. Right, who's trying to
Speaker 5: make ends meet?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 5: How do I fix my face having a problem with
Speaker 5: her when my problem is with the billionaires and the corporation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you more mad at miss Mary, then you are
Speaker 1: mister Elon and mister so and so and mister whoever.
Speaker 5: Come on and just pick another divide And that's just
Speaker 5: one thing. They want us to be more mad at
Speaker 5: the fact that transgender people are trying to live their
Speaker 5: lives where they're trying to live their lives, Like why
Speaker 5: am I Why am I here out here mad at
Speaker 5: transgender people? How is me being mad at transgender people
Speaker 5: or my discomfort with their lives? How does that make
Speaker 5: my life better?
Speaker 1: We just talked about this conversation we have to You're
Speaker 1: gonna kill us because I was about to say what
Speaker 1: you cannot answer? How would birthright citizenship have a ending?
Speaker 1: Or not having birthright citizenship? How would that have impacted
Speaker 1: your family? You know so? But anyway you can't answer.
Speaker 5: It's part to part.
Speaker 1: Director of the working families.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, we could go and you could.
Speaker 2: They divided.
Speaker 3: They divide us against the teelers, they call them.
Speaker 1: But then I guess they get turn it all.
Speaker 2: To separate us. There's so many different.
Speaker 5: God bless Malcolm X. And you know his mom, his
Speaker 5: mom from Grenada. That's so god bless Malcolm. I'm so
Speaker 5: happy that his mom immigrated from Grenada so that we
Speaker 5: can have a Malcolm X exact but we can have
Speaker 5: that conversation.
Speaker 1: Thank you for being here. Thank you so much.
Speaker 3: By shout out to Maurice mitchell Man.
Speaker 2: That was an excellent interview.
Speaker 4: So much more to discuss, yes, so much more to.
Speaker 2: Unpack that we could. We could have been here for
Speaker 2: a whole nother hour.
Speaker 1: For sure. There's a lot of things that because I
Speaker 1: wanted to ask him about this whole you know, Senator
Speaker 1: entering a bill that would allow Trump to have a
Speaker 1: third term.
Speaker 4: It just with so many.
Speaker 3: Things I don't get it today is I am so
Speaker 3: confused at the ignorance of people, right because we had
Speaker 3: an election.
Speaker 2: You know, people voted for Trump, people voted.
Speaker 3: For Kamala, and the election is over, and there are
Speaker 3: people who actually are mad because now that the election
Speaker 3: is over. Those of us who understand the political process,
Speaker 3: understand civics and engagement, understand how laws are made, to
Speaker 3: understand how advocating for things work, are still talking about
Speaker 3: what's going on in America. We're talking about the president
Speaker 3: who was elected president of America. We're talking about policies
Speaker 3: that he's putting into activation, and they're saying, why don't
Speaker 3: you just go away now because the election is over.
Speaker 3: You lost, just shut up, And that's the dumbest shit
Speaker 3: I've ever heard. We voted because we wanted America to
Speaker 3: look a certain way, So all right, we didn't get
Speaker 3: the candidate that we wanted. But this president is the
Speaker 3: president of the United States and he's actively signed executive
Speaker 3: orders that is affecting our life within seven days.
Speaker 2: So we're supposed to just go sleep.
Speaker 3: See, this is why I don't understand half these people
Speaker 3: that I know that they don't get it. This shit
Speaker 3: ain't no basketball game where you're a Nick fan and
Speaker 3: I'm a Lebron fan and after the game we shake hand,
Speaker 3: we just go and we're just supposed to just be
Speaker 3: a sore loser or just shut up. No, this is
Speaker 3: real life. This is real life shit that's happening. Well,
Speaker 3: these people affecting our lives. So you thinking that now
Speaker 3: that Trump is elected president because I voted for comment.
Speaker 2: And she didn't win, that now I'm supposed to shut up.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna get even louder because I know he's activating
Speaker 3: policies that's gonna affect my life trying to every day.
Speaker 3: So I'm going to get louder. I'm gonna be on
Speaker 3: the front line. I'm you gonna see me way more.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna do so much shit now because I know
Speaker 3: that he's trying to disenfranchise my people and and do
Speaker 3: got people scared to death. You got people on the
Speaker 3: internet crying. You got migrants and immigrants. You got people
Speaker 3: who are not even they just are from you know,
Speaker 3: Hispanic descent and seeing their people getting sh Latino.
Speaker 4: I've been being educated.
Speaker 3: So you got people from Latino descent that are just
Speaker 3: being crying online. You got black people. That's a black
Speaker 3: lady he was saying that they shipped her family off.
Speaker 3: That was from the Caribbean, and that was from different
Speaker 3: parts of Haitia whatever that were being shipped out. It's
Speaker 3: not just affecting them. So this shit is really going on.
Speaker 3: And y'all think that we're supposed to be quiet now
Speaker 3: because he won an election. Hell no, when he won
Speaker 3: the first election, I wasn't quiet, and I was telling
Speaker 3: you that he was a threat to democracy, that he
Speaker 3: was a threat to black people. And now that y'all
Speaker 3: see it, it's real crazy to me, right, because it
Speaker 3: was so many blacks for Trump that was very loud
Speaker 3: that I haven't seen lately.
Speaker 2: Right in the last week, I haven't heard them say anything.
Speaker 3: The most thing they're gonna talk about is, oh, yeah,
Speaker 3: he said it's only two genders. That's what I'm talking about.
Speaker 3: That's all I'm worried about. So you sold out of democracy.
Speaker 3: You saw a lot of people down the line because
Speaker 3: you needed him to tell you that it was only
Speaker 3: two genders. And you think because Trump says only two genders,
Speaker 3: that the people that identify as another agenda don't identify
Speaker 3: no more. So they just they just disappear off the planet.
Speaker 1: They don't want them, as we were saying early, they
Speaker 1: don't want these people to get to have resources.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but the bottom line is you're not gonna stop
Speaker 3: nobody from being who they is because you don't want
Speaker 3: them to be you.
Speaker 2: So you you.
Speaker 3: Internalize that shit so much that you you said, fuck it,
Speaker 3: they can have civil rights, they can have all the
Speaker 3: shit that our incestors died and for we we'll just
Speaker 3: start from the beginning. As long as they ain't saying
Speaker 3: that it's a transgender we don't want we just don't
Speaker 3: want to hear. But and that ain't even affecting your
Speaker 3: life every day. So you thought that was enough to say,
Speaker 3: fuck all the shit that black people fought for for years,
Speaker 3: and then you think it's enough for me to be quiet,
Speaker 3: that I'm gonna just be quiet because Trump is the
Speaker 3: president now and common laws, so now we're just supposed
Speaker 3: to go go just hide under the stairs and just
Speaker 3: say nothing. This this is what these people say. Oh man,
Speaker 3: you're gonna cry. You're gonna keep knowing. I'm not crying.
Speaker 3: I'm mistake truth to power. Every day I'm gonna call
Speaker 3: out bullshit. But I'm not crying though, because I don't
Speaker 3: know already to crying. Shit is over at this point.
Speaker 3: You got to roll up your sleeves. You gotta put
Speaker 3: your heart boots on, you gotta put your hard hat on.
Speaker 2: You gotta get on this front line because this ship
Speaker 2: is real.
Speaker 3: And the same people that want me to shut up
Speaker 3: is gonna be the same people that say, yeah, man,
Speaker 3: tell him, tell him again, tell the truth, because y'all
Speaker 3: gonna y'all gonna fuck y'all done fucked around, and y'all
Speaker 3: about to find out. But it's cool because we was
Speaker 3: already prepared for this. We we was mentally prepared. It
Speaker 3: took me a minute because I understood, but this man
Speaker 3: did the ship that I thought he was gonna take
Speaker 3: in a couple of months in seven days.
Speaker 2: So we were in for some.
Speaker 1: Shit, but he didn't do that. Okay, I just want
Speaker 1: to make sure because it's I don't want to diminish it,
Speaker 1: because what you're saying is powerful and true that he
Speaker 1: is doing things and the culture is shifting. So because
Speaker 1: he's getting rid of DEI you see corporations and others,
Speaker 1: excuse me, because he's getting rid of diversity, equity and
Speaker 1: inclusion in federal spaces, which is the only thing he
Speaker 1: can control. But the culture will shift in his direction.
Speaker 1: So I don't want to diministrate, but I will say
Speaker 1: that things like birthright, citizenship and other areas that he's
Speaker 1: working on, there are in fact levels to how it
Speaker 1: has to happen. Now because he has control of the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court, the Senate, and Congress, will some of those
Speaker 1: things happen, absolutely, But we already saw a federal judge
Speaker 1: block birthright citizenship, so or trying to end birthright citizenship,
Speaker 1: you know that's been blocked by a federal judge. So
Speaker 1: he is attempting to do And I just think that's
Speaker 1: very important because I don't want people to think that
Speaker 1: in seven days he was able to do everything. But
Speaker 1: they definitely.
Speaker 5: Diffor any people.
Speaker 1: They deported the wrong person or the wrong two people
Speaker 1: the other day. And you see what happened in Newark,
Speaker 1: New Jersey. So there's a lot of terrible things happening.
Speaker 1: And there are people who are gonna say, I'm not
Speaker 1: paying attention because I ain't you know, the immigrants. I
Speaker 1: ain't gonna I'm not gonna get myself all upset about
Speaker 1: that because what they didn't vote, and this didn't happen,
Speaker 1: and excuse me, and this didn't happen and whatever, And
Speaker 1: we could try to do that for as long as
Speaker 1: we want. But I think that my point from earlier,
Speaker 1: I just I'm just circling back to it that white supremacist,
Speaker 1: white nationalists, whatever one you want to call them, they
Speaker 1: don't just dislike one group of people. They might not
Speaker 1: be as loud about their disdain for a particular group
Speaker 1: of people, but they don't like us all and they
Speaker 1: are watching and saying, Okay, we don't got to worry
Speaker 1: about it too much because they still arguing.
Speaker 3: Over The thing for me is not that you don't
Speaker 3: like me because you don't have to like them.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm just saying that's where but that's where their
Speaker 1: motivation comes from.
Speaker 2: No, it's not even.
Speaker 3: Their motivation comes from the fact that they want to
Speaker 3: impose their will right, they want control. They don't like
Speaker 3: they don't like anyone that's not them. So the reality
Speaker 3: is when you're able to utilize your power in the
Speaker 3: fact that you don't like me to negatively impact me, Well,
Speaker 3: I don't care if they like me.
Speaker 2: Bottom line is I don't I could care less.
Speaker 1: I understand that. But I'm saying when I say don't
Speaker 1: like me, that's very like.
Speaker 2: No, I get what you said.
Speaker 1: I'm saying that we all in the same boat with them.
Speaker 1: So it's not about like, like, you're my friend. It
Speaker 1: means we're they target all of us. They are looking
Speaker 1: at all of us with a level of disdain that
Speaker 1: allows them to try to do the things that they're
Speaker 1: trying to make sense, So that's that for.
Speaker 3: That, that's that on That brings us to the end
Speaker 3: of another episode of TMI. Shout out to our brother
Speaker 3: Maurice Mitchell who came and have some gems on us.
Speaker 3: We definitely got to have more Rechack on the show
Speaker 3: because he knows a lot.
Speaker 4: Absolutely, he's very very knowledgeable, very very knowledgeable.
Speaker 3: I'm not gonna always be right, tamik It. The Maveri's
Speaker 3: and I canna always be wrong, but we will both
Speaker 3: always and I mean always be authentic PA.
Speaker 2: That's how we own it.