Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to woka F Daily with
Speaker 1: Meet your Girl Danielle Moody, recording from the Brooklyn Bunker. Folks,
Speaker 1: I'm recording this message to you after a weekend where
Speaker 1: we all absorb the fact that white supremacist violence has
Speaker 1: now become the norm in America, where ten people can
Speaker 1: be gunned down, ten black people can be gunned down
Speaker 1: on a Saturday at morning, going about their lives and
Speaker 1: their business and be gunned down by a white man
Speaker 1: that has decided to drive hours out of his way,
Speaker 1: produce a hundred and six page manifesto and take their lives.
Speaker 1: Where we can spend the weekend pontificating on whether or
Speaker 1: not these things are racially motivated, or whether or not
Speaker 1: Republicans and their violent rhetoric has anything to do with
Speaker 1: the outcome of where we are today. I am in
Speaker 1: conversation with my friend and friend of the show, doctor
Speaker 1: Christina Greer, Associate Professor of Politics at Fordham University, and
Speaker 1: our conversation that you will listen to today came prior
Speaker 1: to the shooting over the weekend. Folks, I can't express
Speaker 1: to you that where we are as a country and
Speaker 1: where we are going, and the path that we are
Speaker 1: on is not good. It is dangerous, It is heartbreaking,
Speaker 1: it is tragic, it is trauma inducing, it is triggering.
Speaker 1: So I hope that you will glean from this conversation
Speaker 1: with Christina some sense of honesty about the moment that
Speaker 1: we are in, some ideas about how we move forward,
Speaker 1: how we deal with our own emotions and the emotions
Speaker 1: of this moment, how we stay sane and also recognize,
Speaker 1: without putting our heads in the sand, the urgency of now.
Speaker 1: So coming up next, my very in depth conversation with
Speaker 1: our friend, doctor Christina Greer. Please do tell me in
Speaker 1: the comment section below how you took the news this
Speaker 1: past weekend. I was on TV but before the shooting
Speaker 1: took place. If you're following me on TikTok, then you
Speaker 1: know my immediate reactions. But I want to hear from
Speaker 1: all of you, folks. I am so happy to welcome
Speaker 1: back to woke f Daily. It's been a long time
Speaker 1: since we've had doctor Christina Greer, Professor of Political Science,
Speaker 1: Associate Professor at Fordham University, and you see her very
Speaker 1: often on MSNBC and other outlets talking about, you know,
Speaker 1: the demise of our democracy and the constitutional crisis that
Speaker 1: we're in Christina. I want to start off today just
Speaker 1: asking you. We've had the Scotus leak that tells us
Speaker 1: that abortion is going to be gone from this country
Speaker 1: for the first time in fifty years. We have more
Speaker 1: mounting evidence against this twice impeached former president of the
Speaker 1: United States. If I see one more breaking news headline
Speaker 1: about more evidence of criminal wrongdoing of hiding documents at
Speaker 1: Mara Lago of just I mean, lying, inciting violence, and
Speaker 1: still nothing is happening with the Department of Justice. How
Speaker 1: are you feeling about this moment that we are living in. Well,
Speaker 1: it's always great to be back to talk to you.
Speaker 1: As you know. You know, my grandma, who's from the
Speaker 1: Deep South in town, a little town called yu LEI
Speaker 1: was had some of ninth she finished some of ninth grade. Right,
Speaker 1: I have a PhD. My sister is an indeed. But
Speaker 1: when I tell you she was the smartest woman I've
Speaker 1: ever met. And I'm starting off this conversation saying that
Speaker 1: she told me a long time ago when we were
Speaker 1: talking about kind of raise and white people. You know,
Speaker 1: she grew up through a lot. She said, Chrissy, the
Speaker 1: only time you should be surprised is when you're surprised.
Speaker 1: And I've stuck to that for a really, really long time.
Speaker 1: I'm not surprised. Abortion isn't going to be like, let
Speaker 1: me rephrase, it looks like abortion will be outlawed legally,
Speaker 1: what abortions will not stop? Right, So safe abortions will
Speaker 1: be outlawed for most, but a lot of women will
Speaker 1: still be able with meetings. We'll still be able to
Speaker 1: find an abortion. Obviously, it's for women who are for
Speaker 1: marginalized communities. They will still get abortions. It's just we're
Speaker 1: going to go back to the sixties and seventies and
Speaker 1: a back room abortions, and we'll see some horrible effects.
Speaker 1: But because I study American politics so deeply, I've always
Speaker 1: seen this country ebb and flow with progress and regress,
Speaker 1: and so when we're in a moment of regression, I'm
Speaker 1: not a surprised. And even though it's very scary, I
Speaker 1: will not lie the moment wherein it's very frightening on
Speaker 1: a host of levels. We haven't even touched the environment,
Speaker 1: and that's kind of like some irreversible stuff, right, But
Speaker 1: I know that there are enough people who are working
Speaker 1: in their various fields to sort of protect us. Still.
Speaker 1: I mean, this country has been since its inception. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we've had some really great strides because a lot of
Speaker 1: people have worked really hard to move this country forward,
Speaker 1: and then we have folks who work really hard to
Speaker 1: pull it back. And so at some point, good meaning
Speaker 1: white people will understand the capacity of white people. They
Speaker 1: don't just yet. We do. Our mothers and grandmothers told
Speaker 1: us what people are capable of in this nation. But
Speaker 1: I think a lot of white people just fundamentally don't
Speaker 1: understand what some of their own relatives will do to
Speaker 1: sort of take away from others, which will ultimately affect
Speaker 1: them too. It'll come around. And so part of me
Speaker 1: just feels like I'm an ostrich where I'm like, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic while we're
Speaker 1: looking at the glacier. But we kind of we've hit
Speaker 1: the glacier before and we found rafts, and sadly we do.
Speaker 1: We lose time, we lose people. But I think that
Speaker 1: I can't stay in a perpetual state of rage or
Speaker 1: panic because then I can't a do the work. I
Speaker 1: can't stay focused on what the work is I can't
Speaker 1: have clarity for young people where I need to be
Speaker 1: a leader and help them devise new strategies. And also
Speaker 1: it's like life is for the living. They're gonna do
Speaker 1: what they're gonna do, right, So we have to figure
Speaker 1: out the tools to a keep ourselves healthy and sane
Speaker 1: so that we can work in our various pockets to
Speaker 1: move this country forward the way people have always done.
Speaker 1: So that's kind of where I am. You know, you're
Speaker 1: so salient in what you're saying, and I'm listening to you,
Speaker 1: and I'm realizing that this country has been through a lot, right,
Speaker 1: fortunate fortunate for us that we have lived through a
Speaker 1: lot of progress, right. And I think that what I
Speaker 1: find scary in this moment is that this is going
Speaker 1: to be the first time in my adult life where
Speaker 1: progress isn't even on the table, right, that we're in
Speaker 1: a full on regression to times that I've only ever
Speaker 1: read about. And so the fear for me is is
Speaker 1: there enough strategy and tools to protect us at a
Speaker 1: time when these radicalized white evangelical Christian fascists are not
Speaker 1: only about turning back the clock on civil liberties, but
Speaker 1: they're also about inflicting pain. That's the thing that I
Speaker 1: feel like people are not getting. This isn't just about
Speaker 1: what they are taking away, which is serious. It is
Speaker 1: about the kind of pain that they want to inflict
Speaker 1: so people know that they are in charge. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: they've always done that. That's the history of this country.
Speaker 1: And so you know when I would give talks a
Speaker 1: few years ago and I would talk about the Civil
Speaker 1: Rights Act, Voting Rights Act, Immigration Act, and I would
Speaker 1: say that they're triumphant of acts, and we cannot detangle
Speaker 1: the three. And if you sort of start to erode one,
Speaker 1: you erode all. We've seen this, right, we saw the
Speaker 1: gutting of the Civil Rights Act or the Voting Rights Act,
Speaker 1: and now we're seeing our civil rights and civil liberties
Speaker 1: being yanked away. We've seen what's happening with immigration, which
Speaker 1: is just abhorrent. But this country has never been welcome
Speaker 1: to immigrants. You've got like eight different Chinese exclusion acts
Speaker 1: on the books. You understand nothing about chattels to say
Speaker 1: nothing about the genocide of Native Americans, say nothing about
Speaker 1: what we did to you know, sort of Mexicans and
Speaker 1: Spaniards coming from the South. I mean, like this country
Speaker 1: is long and deep, you know. And I didn't even
Speaker 1: touch upon internment camps. And that's from FDR the good President, right,
Speaker 1: that was like from one of the good guys. And
Speaker 1: he put the internment camps in place. That also kept
Speaker 1: you know, Italians and Germans in there too. So this
Speaker 1: country has such a long history of inflicting pain, yep.
Speaker 1: And I think what was really key about what you
Speaker 1: said is like we're adults now, right, Yeah, Like it's
Speaker 1: time to put the big girl painties on, Like we
Speaker 1: don't have the luxury anymore of being girls. We are
Speaker 1: grown ass women, and we're now in charge of protecting
Speaker 1: the democracy. Right when we see all these stories about
Speaker 1: black women, Fanny lou Hammer, Barbara Jordan, I mean, that's
Speaker 1: the book that I'm working on right now. So those
Speaker 1: two obviously refresh in my mind. But you know, countless,
Speaker 1: countless black women how to be wells, aren't married church
Speaker 1: terrelle who literally put their lives in their bodies on
Speaker 1: the line to protect the people in this country, not
Speaker 1: just black people, people in this country. And it's like,
Speaker 1: oh shit, Mike, it's my time, Like I'm supposed to
Speaker 1: I'm supposed to use the tools that I have and
Speaker 1: the thing maybe the reason why I feel so it's
Speaker 1: not agnostic, and it's not immune, and it's not numb.
Speaker 1: I feel a sense of calm in the sense that
Speaker 1: I do feel prepared. I feel prepared intellectually. I feel
Speaker 1: prepared with the community, the community that I've built in
Speaker 1: the connections of especially black women, but you know others.
Speaker 1: But like, let's just keep it black women right now.
Speaker 1: The partnerships and the friendships and the sisterhoods that I
Speaker 1: have people like present Company included. I am not fearful
Speaker 1: because I'm like, I have tools, you have tools. You
Speaker 1: know people who have tools. I know other people have tools.
Speaker 1: And it's like and we'll come together because we recognize
Speaker 1: and like we can't count on the Democratic Party to
Speaker 1: save us. I mean, they're just treading water. And you know,
Speaker 1: as my grandfather, my dad's dad, you say, they're a
Speaker 1: lost ball in high weeds. But they're just you know,
Speaker 1: Jamie Harrison, what are you doing? Where's your strategy? I
Speaker 1: mean it all, but like but that's real talk talk,
Speaker 1: christ real talk. It's like, what what are they doing? Well? Right, Like,
Speaker 1: why do they seem so suckless? Love that word? Well,
Speaker 1: I mean, here's here's the thing I said from day
Speaker 1: one when Chuck Schumer became Senate Majority Leader, and I'm
Speaker 1: from New York, you know, I live in New York.
Speaker 1: He is Senator. I was like, he ain't built for
Speaker 1: this moment. He's not because he also doesn't understand his colleagues.
Speaker 1: He and Joe Biden, you know, they were from the
Speaker 1: Senate of a different time. Yeah, where the agenda was different,
Speaker 1: but the pain, the level of pain that Republicans wanted
Speaker 1: to inflict on people was ever so slightly different, it was,
Speaker 1: and so they don't understand fully the moment they're in.
Speaker 1: I mean, they're removed, and it's it's interesting, you know,
Speaker 1: the older we get and we we go on vacations
Speaker 1: or you know, we do certain things and you realize,
Speaker 1: I just went on vacation with my family and we
Speaker 1: sort of like rented a house. We sort of did
Speaker 1: something that really kind of celebrated, you know, my niece
Speaker 1: is about to go to college. And I was like,
Speaker 1: when you have a little pocket change, you actually don't
Speaker 1: have to interact with people. It's true, you don't. You
Speaker 1: can like we stayed we didn't stay hotel in my house,
Speaker 1: right like it. So we didn't do like a tour.
Speaker 1: We just like rented a boat, you know, like we
Speaker 1: didn't and it's in it's COVID. So we did it deliberately,
Speaker 1: you know, we're like but we also we didn't hang
Speaker 1: out with people. We hung out with our saves, nine
Speaker 1: of us. We hung out with our family. But we
Speaker 1: spent money to do that. And I just feel like
Speaker 1: a lot of these elected officials, they're not in gen
Speaker 1: pop yep. Yeah, you know, they come and give speeches,
Speaker 1: but they went in, they got their their talks and like, yes,
Speaker 1: they are seeing the people that they represent, but are
Speaker 1: you really with people? So when Katie Porter makes you know,
Speaker 1: a speech and says, let me walk you through the
Speaker 1: fact that like women can't buy groceries because you're know,
Speaker 1: women buying large are the ones who buy groceries for
Speaker 1: their family. Let me explain to you what inflation is
Speaker 1: doing to a family. Because if I in my PhD
Speaker 1: tenured full salaried self goes to the grocery store and
Speaker 1: I'm like, fifty dollars barely gets me one bag of groceries,
Speaker 1: and I call myself, Yeah, I don't understand what people
Speaker 1: are doing with yeah, real families, and they got to
Speaker 1: make this check last if they have a check, right, Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: if they have a job. So I think that a
Speaker 1: lot of our representatives because it costs so much money
Speaker 1: to get into office. And you know, we've talked about
Speaker 1: this for years, and you've come to my classes and
Speaker 1: you talk about because the type of people who can
Speaker 1: even think about running for office are already a certain
Speaker 1: level of elite. We don't have very rarely. Every now
Speaker 1: and again you have pockets, and you know someone can
Speaker 1: get through. But by and large, our representatives are not
Speaker 1: representative of the populaces. We don't have someone who's like,
Speaker 1: I'm a single mother, owned food stamps and I am
Speaker 1: your new congresswoman. We have people who went to university
Speaker 1: have graduate degrees by and large, you know, when we
Speaker 1: look at sort of our senators and members of the
Speaker 1: House disproportionately, you know what Richie Torres from the Bronx,
Speaker 1: I believe is like one of the few, if not only,
Speaker 1: members of Congress who doesn't have a college degree. Most
Speaker 1: Americans don't, right, most college age Americans do not have
Speaker 1: a college degree. Why is he either the solo or
Speaker 1: one of a handful, Right, right, And so when we
Speaker 1: think about who is actually representing us, it makes no sense.
Speaker 1: We got a whole bunch of lawyers and even some PhDs, sure,
Speaker 1: but like the vast majority of people are like, and
Speaker 1: let's be real, you and I also don't know what
Speaker 1: real poverty looks like. We don't We genuinely don't know.
Speaker 1: And so oftentimes when I'm in these meetings and at
Speaker 1: these tables, and my question is always where are the
Speaker 1: people who we're talking about? Why are they not at
Speaker 1: the stable? Why are we sitting here scratching our hands
Speaker 1: trying to come up with solutions, and the people who
Speaker 1: could tell us what the problem is and most likely
Speaker 1: tell us what the solution is aren't even at the table.
Speaker 1: So this is where we have our representatives, especially Democrats,
Speaker 1: who in their hearts might want to do something great,
Speaker 1: but it's like, you don't even know what the real
Speaker 1: problem is. So this is why Alexandrea Castio Cortez, you know,
Speaker 1: resonated and still resonates with so many people because it
Speaker 1: feels like and Cory Bush, right, Corey Bush being one
Speaker 1: of the Bush Yeah she's and what you said, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, you're You're so right, because they are not representative,
Speaker 1: like they don't know real people, right and like and
Speaker 1: so if I'm pretty sure that if you were to
Speaker 1: ask those in Democratic leadership right now how much how
Speaker 1: much a gallon of milk costs, they wouldn't be able
Speaker 1: to tell you, so right like that, I mean, that's
Speaker 1: that's the reality. And you know, and everyone's like, oh,
Speaker 1: gallon milk. It's like I care, right, A woman who
Speaker 1: has to be four children, she cares. I mean, but
Speaker 1: for an example, Danielle, you know, if you remember the
Speaker 1: mayor's race, the New York City mayor's race last year,
Speaker 1: when they asked the various candidates what was the average
Speaker 1: price of a home in Brooklyn? These kids eighty thousand dollars.
Speaker 1: Eighty thousand dollars, But my grandparents in Florida, Like, who
Speaker 1: is buying anything in Brooklyn for eighty thousand dollars? I mean,
Speaker 1: then I don't think you can get a parking space
Speaker 1: for eighty thousand exactly, or your Honda civic, right because
Speaker 1: you know that they charge more for like SUVs. So
Speaker 1: I mean the numbers that these candidates gave Sean Donovan,
Speaker 1: who you know Obama's yeah, yeah, he was he was
Speaker 1: find he was the HUD secretary, that's right, And I
Speaker 1: mean I was just like, sir, sit on down, he
Speaker 1: said something. I mean literally, he was like one hundred
Speaker 1: thousand dollars. I mean, you were the Hunt secretary. So
Speaker 1: you want to be mayor of New York and you
Speaker 1: have no idea, not even the fact that people are
Speaker 1: priced out and can't buy anything. But that means you
Speaker 1: don't understand what renters are going through. You don't understand
Speaker 1: people can't even get a place with one hundred thousand
Speaker 1: dollars down payment, let alone you think that's the price
Speaker 1: of a home in Brooklyn, Like, sir, come on. So
Speaker 1: I think that I'm I'm eerily zen because I think
Speaker 1: that I understand just how long the road ahead of
Speaker 1: us is going to be. And when I played sports,
Speaker 1: I never liked doing that long distance run. I was
Speaker 1: always like, coach, can I please just do sprints while
Speaker 1: everyone's doing the mile, you know, around the field. Can
Speaker 1: I just do sprints until they're done? And the coach
Speaker 1: was like, no, you have to learn how to have endurance, Christy,
Speaker 1: And I was like, yeah, yeah, but I'm really good
Speaker 1: at sprinting and I can just do that, like, I
Speaker 1: can just do the burst, do the birth, and then
Speaker 1: I'll rest at the end of the game. And I
Speaker 1: never understood I hated long distance running. I am not
Speaker 1: a runner. Every time I see runners in my neighborhood,
Speaker 1: I'm like, what are you doing? But I recognize that
Speaker 1: there is something to be said about resting so that
Speaker 1: I can be ready, you know, like the best way
Speaker 1: to be ready to stay ready. Sure, But at the
Speaker 1: same time, I believe in rest because, especially in academia,
Speaker 1: black women aren't lasting long. And we've got a good
Speaker 1: job relatively speaking. You know, we're not cleaning floors at
Speaker 1: three am in an office building and we're sitting here
Speaker 1: thinking and writing on our laptops. Yet we're dying at
Speaker 1: these disproportionate rates. So I am not going to let
Speaker 1: this country take me out. And I understand that, like,
Speaker 1: I actually have a lot of tools and a lot
Speaker 1: to give this moment and this movement where I actually
Speaker 1: the best thing I can do is take care of
Speaker 1: myself and pay attention and take care of other women
Speaker 1: who were doing this work and and still do work.
Speaker 1: But I can't be on three sixty five because get
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Speaker 1: miss a new episode there. And you're right, and this
Speaker 1: is this is the this is the place that I
Speaker 1: find myself on a regular basis, which is oscillating between
Speaker 1: rage and rest, where I am so filled with rage
Speaker 1: that people are so asleep at the fucking wheel right
Speaker 1: are So you know, I just posted Joy Behart on
Speaker 1: the View just said like, I don't know what Americans
Speaker 1: are thinking right now, Like we are losing our rights
Speaker 1: every single day. She's like, I get that people are
Speaker 1: focused on gas and inflation because those things matter, but
Speaker 1: like at the end of the day, we're about to
Speaker 1: lose everything, and y'all ain't paying attention, right, And so
Speaker 1: it's it's the it's the anxiety. I have to stay
Speaker 1: on screaming into the microphone, you know, every single day.
Speaker 1: But then I'm just like, well, shit, they gonna do
Speaker 1: what they're gonna do, like and I can't I can't
Speaker 1: be taken out by this. I can't be I can't
Speaker 1: carry the emotional weight of this moment on my back.
Speaker 1: And you know what, Danielle, some people will only learn
Speaker 1: when they have nothing. Girl. They don't see it, you know,
Speaker 1: some people don't see how the immigration crisis is linked
Speaker 1: to them in their daily lives. They don't care. It's
Speaker 1: brown children, it's Longitian children at the border. They are unbothered.
Speaker 1: But they don't see how it's connected to a woman's
Speaker 1: right to choose. You don't see how it's connected to
Speaker 1: the environment. They don't see how it's connected to their
Speaker 1: job right. So it's like, okay, so now we gotta
Speaker 1: it sucks, but we gotta wait until you catch up,
Speaker 1: which is what we are used to doing. So while
Speaker 1: you're sitting there knitting a pink hat, we gotta wait
Speaker 1: for you to catch up, girl, and understand the severity
Speaker 1: of the issue. But here we are. And then when
Speaker 1: you come to the party, you're late. You're lad as hell,
Speaker 1: but you came, and then we're gonna get you up
Speaker 1: to speed and then we'll have progress and regrets. What
Speaker 1: are your students? You they You know, I gotta tell you.
Speaker 1: When I was sitting in my poly side class, you know,
Speaker 1: all that I was dealing with was you know, a
Speaker 1: precedent that got to blow job and lied about it, right, right,
Speaker 1: like saying that seems like a marital issue to me,
Speaker 1: that did not seem like I needed ken stars investedation
Speaker 1: and like an impeachment trial. It seemed like you probably
Speaker 1: should get a divorce, right, um, And I'm not and
Speaker 1: again I am. You know, there were major things that
Speaker 1: were happening, but I'm talking about as a young person,
Speaker 1: that was the biggest thing, literally, And so these these
Speaker 1: young people that you're educating day in and day out,
Speaker 1: what like, what are they thinking about the world that
Speaker 1: they are being handed right now? The politics that they
Speaker 1: are coming to understand. They're disgusted. They're disgusted that a
Speaker 1: lot of the people who are their age don't vote
Speaker 1: because they're just starting to vote in you know, now
Speaker 1: they're in a policy class. Like, I can't believe all
Speaker 1: these people don't vote, you know, when I explained to
Speaker 1: them that, like, you know, during Obama's election two thousand
Speaker 1: and eight, that was like one of the most participatory
Speaker 1: elections we had seen in modern history. Into the sixty
Speaker 1: percent of the voting eligible population showed up. That was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: a barn storm, and they were like, wait. I was like, so,
Speaker 1: where's that other forty percent? When all we were talking
Speaker 1: about was we could have the first black president forty
Speaker 1: percent of the voting eligible population. It was like, yah,
Speaker 1: set this point out. So there are a few things.
Speaker 1: One obviously, Roby Wade is something that they're just like,
Speaker 1: and they now see the connection between you voting for
Speaker 1: your senators and Roby Wade and the Spirit Report, and
Speaker 1: so now we can now Federalist fifty one separation of
Speaker 1: powers and checks and balances makes a lot of sense
Speaker 1: to them because it's like, well, the President nominates somebody,
Speaker 1: but the Senate confirms them, and then they have a
Speaker 1: job for life, and it's only nine of them representing
Speaker 1: three hundred forty million people. So they're like, wait, I
Speaker 1: admit it. So they are now seeing the connections from
Speaker 1: the text to the front page of the New York
Speaker 1: Times when it comes to say Ukraine. And now, granted,
Speaker 1: I'm an American politics professor, and that's even though I
Speaker 1: teach interroid to politics, I teach it through an American
Speaker 1: politics lens. We all teach it through the lens that
Speaker 1: makes the most sense for us. So a lot of
Speaker 1: my examples are American politics examples because we live in America,
Speaker 1: but we read the paper and we talk a lot
Speaker 1: about current events. So when it comes to Ukraine, a
Speaker 1: lot of my students, last majority of my students were like, listening,
Speaker 1: this is real, and this is dangerous, and Putin's a
Speaker 1: mess and we should pay attention. But a few things.
Speaker 1: We just found eighty billion dollars under the couch cushion,
Speaker 1: and another thirty billion, and now another forty billion, And
Speaker 1: you tell me that you can't cancel these student loans.
Speaker 1: That's one two. And maybe these are just the types
Speaker 1: of students I attract because I am who I am.
Speaker 1: But they're like, we get it. What's happening in the
Speaker 1: Ukreane is terrible, and we should send some sort of aid,
Speaker 1: we should figure it out. But when we started this semester,
Speaker 1: things were popping off in Yemen and Afghanistan and Syria,
Speaker 1: and ain't nobody really say a peep? And we didn't
Speaker 1: find eighty billion dollars in the couch cushion, and didn't
Speaker 1: have a whole American like, let's bring all the refugees,
Speaker 1: let's let's open up. We have space for one hundred thousand.
Speaker 1: How we have space for one hundred thousand, one thousand,
Speaker 1: but didn't have space for fourteen thousand Haitians at the border.
Speaker 1: But who are just flood a country whose prime minister
Speaker 1: was assassinated and it's being ravaged by COVID and you know, oh,
Speaker 1: and we're responsible for the economic disaster that their country
Speaker 1: is in Boom and that earthquake that took out way
Speaker 1: too many people and storytowns. It's like, well, that's also
Speaker 1: an environmental crisis because they've had to cut down trees
Speaker 1: to sort of say all these things. Right, So they're like,
Speaker 1: so now they're scratching their heads. It's like, well, so
Speaker 1: for the white refugees, we got all come, all the
Speaker 1: money and all the time, all the money and all
Speaker 1: four time and all the open arms, right, we got
Speaker 1: the flags. We got peopleting their nails like we have everything.
Speaker 1: But it was crickets up in this piece when it
Speaker 1: with Syria, Afghanistan, Haiti, you name it. So they're also
Speaker 1: seeing that and they're like, this doesn't make any sense
Speaker 1: to me. I'm like, because it doesn't make anything. But
Speaker 1: if you know the country, it makes totals, it makes
Speaker 1: all the sense in the world. It makes absolute and
Speaker 1: total sense. And so then we talk about, you know,
Speaker 1: the project of whiteness and how it's tied to this
Speaker 1: anti abortion movement, how it's tied to allowing in Ukrainian immigrants, right,
Speaker 1: because it can't make any more white people. So now
Speaker 1: we either got to like bring them in import them. Right,
Speaker 1: You've already let the Greeks and the Italians and the
Speaker 1: Portuguese become white and Jews and Germans slowly, maturely, begrudgingly,
Speaker 1: but you allowed that. But now it's like, okay, so
Speaker 1: now we've just got to make sure because of how
Speaker 1: we structured our racial dynamics, unlike Brazil and other you know, say,
Speaker 1: Latin American countries, it's like only a white lady can
Speaker 1: make a white person. Y'all structured it that way. You said,
Speaker 1: one drop makes you not not in the game anymore.
Speaker 1: So a woman's right to choose is intrinsically attached to
Speaker 1: our white and the project of whiteness and the threat
Speaker 1: that Latinos will take over is the number one group.
Speaker 1: You know that twenty thirty two deadline, and you know
Speaker 1: whites will be come the second one. And I was like,
Speaker 1: first of all, we've seen what apartheid is, Like Latinos
Speaker 1: could be the number two group. It's not that Latinos
Speaker 1: will be in power, like we can still have an
Speaker 1: apartheid regime. Whites could be the fifth largest group and
Speaker 1: could still maintain power in various ways. And so how
Speaker 1: they're seeing how we've taken away parts of the Voting
Speaker 1: Rights Act that's gonna limit people at the polls, which
Speaker 1: will assist the Republican Party, and the corruption and as
Speaker 1: you stated, all of the thuggery that we've seen. So
Speaker 1: it's all interconnected. And I think what's been even in
Speaker 1: the midst of a global pandemic, keep them keep that
Speaker 1: in mind. We're still in the middle of a global pandemic.
Speaker 1: But what I've been really happy about with these students,
Speaker 1: and I really really like gen Z. I like them
Speaker 1: a lot. I've said that from day one, more so
Speaker 1: than the millennials, and I've said that one day two.
Speaker 1: I like the way they connect the dots. They don't
Speaker 1: have as much, their parents don't have as much, so
Speaker 1: they're not as entitled and they're sort of like, we
Speaker 1: got to figure this out. We ain't got anhing. So
Speaker 1: there's a work ethic that is there in this new
Speaker 1: generation that did not exist with millennials. Yeah, um, you know,
Speaker 1: it's just also fascinating and depressing at the same time.
Speaker 1: I don't know how I feel about gen Z I'll
Speaker 1: be honest, like, because I'm like, they are the softest
Speaker 1: group of people I think I've ever heard and seen
Speaker 1: in my life. Everything can't be a breakdown, like everything
Speaker 1: like some things, you must be resilient four you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, Like, yeah, I think those are still Millennials.
Speaker 1: I think I honestly think that the gen Zers are
Speaker 1: getting folded into the sort of like I was triggered child,
Speaker 1: you're at work, Like, right, girl, everything be agger right.
Speaker 1: I think that's the Millennials. I don't think that's the
Speaker 1: gen Zers. Yeah, um, you know. I I worry for
Speaker 1: this generation coming up because I think that they are
Speaker 1: going to feel the brunt of all of the things.
Speaker 1: They're going to be living inside a Banana Republic. They're
Speaker 1: going to be hit with environmental historic environmental disaster after
Speaker 1: historic environmental disaster, And I'm like, what did their lives
Speaker 1: look like? What I have been educated in three years?
Speaker 1: Like real, half of them have not really been in
Speaker 1: school for three years. But you know, it's like though,
Speaker 1: and this is where my optimism comes in. That's sometimes
Speaker 1: when we get the most creative solutions. Like I'm really
Speaker 1: wondering if this is what we needed as a nation
Speaker 1: to shake us up, to get us back on track,
Speaker 1: because we were in some status quote les fair, and
Speaker 1: it's like and we weren't perfect before this pandemic and
Speaker 1: before Republicans really started wilding out. I think Donald Trump
Speaker 1: just exposed just how embedded this diseases in our country.
Speaker 1: But we were just kind of cruising along like it
Speaker 1: wasn't there. It was there. He didn't create these people.
Speaker 1: These people were always there. They were just sort of
Speaker 1: in the shop. As he said, we are the silent majority.
Speaker 1: And it's like, oh snap, I don't think they're the majority,
Speaker 1: but there's a lot of them. And I think it's like,
Speaker 1: you know what, it's I do think that at a
Speaker 1: certain point in time, and I hate, you know, sort
Speaker 1: of it's scary to say this, but it's like this
Speaker 1: country needed to turn the lights on. Yeah, we have
Speaker 1: finally just turned It's like, all right, now we see it.
Speaker 1: What's up. It's twenty twenty two. We were actually we
Speaker 1: got a lot more folks that are that one nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty two, and we were just pretending that they didn't exist,
Speaker 1: and we kept telling ourselves, Oh, they'll die off, they'll
Speaker 1: die off, right. I was, It's like, why do people
Speaker 1: keep saying like they'll die off? As if the people
Speaker 1: that were marching in Charlottesville in twenty seventeen were eighty five?
Speaker 1: They were they were twenty, right, Like do you know? Also?
Speaker 1: And then I think Democrats fooled themselves to think, like,
Speaker 1: you know, demographics is destiny. It's like, oh, well, we'll
Speaker 1: get all these immigrants and you know, then we'll have
Speaker 1: the numbers. It's like, well, first of all, not if
Speaker 1: you get the Voting Rights Act, And second of all,
Speaker 1: you can look at voting patterns and say a place
Speaker 1: like Arizona, where you know there are a lot of
Speaker 1: Latino Republicans who are like, yes, I was an immigrant,
Speaker 1: Yes I may have been an undocumented immigrant. I am
Speaker 1: up the ladder and I'm pulling it up, and I
Speaker 1: want to make Mosttonian rules for all the immigrants out there.
Speaker 1: So it's just like, you know, we've seen we've seen
Speaker 1: it now with the growing Asian American Republican population. We
Speaker 1: see it with all these black folks, you know, who
Speaker 1: were sort of skyrocketing to the front of the Republican
Speaker 1: party because it's like, well, if I'm a Democrat, then
Speaker 1: I got to wait in line behind all these people.
Speaker 1: If I just say negroes are too stupid to you know,
Speaker 1: have jobs and homes and you know, excelling this kind,
Speaker 1: you can run for governor and get all the money.
Speaker 1: I'm looking at you, mister Kentucky. So I think that,
Speaker 1: you know, democrats underestimate the allure of the policies that
Speaker 1: Republicans sell to people. Yea, how there's a lot of
Speaker 1: money to be made in taking away There's a lot
Speaker 1: of money to be made in taking things away from people,
Speaker 1: and they get it. They get it, and I think
Speaker 1: Democrats are still just like, well, shucks, let's you know,
Speaker 1: let's be kind and nice. It's like a last question
Speaker 1: for you, Christina. This conversation has just been so as always,
Speaker 1: so so invigorating, so so many, so many morsels, so
Speaker 1: many pieces are so filling for me because you make
Speaker 1: me feel not crazy. It's like, where where do I
Speaker 1: go to feel like I'm not crazy? I come to
Speaker 1: you with all that is happening though with all of
Speaker 1: this pressure, with all of this regression, to me, I
Speaker 1: only see this leading to one place. Right, Like when
Speaker 1: you turn on all the lights, all of the cockroaches
Speaker 1: don't go away, right, They leave eggs, And so sometimes
Speaker 1: you need to bomb the home that has become infested
Speaker 1: in order for there to be the possibility of actually
Speaker 1: living there. That is how I feel about America. Are
Speaker 1: we headed towards a revolution? Towards an uprising? Because I
Speaker 1: don't know how you control how nine people control three
Speaker 1: hundred and forty million and think that like we're all
Speaker 1: going to go quietly into the good goddamn night, back
Speaker 1: to nineteen fifty two, right. I think I'm of two minds.
Speaker 1: So one mind is, listen, of all the guns in
Speaker 1: the world, We've got a quarter of them in America,
Speaker 1: And of the people who have guns, the vast majority
Speaker 1: of them belong to one party. So let's just say
Speaker 1: we take the violent route. I prefer not to because
Speaker 1: we are we are outnumbered and unarmed, and we also
Speaker 1: know that people in our armed forces and our military
Speaker 1: forces by and large, have white supremosis tendencies. So I
Speaker 1: would prefer not to not to broach that that road,
Speaker 1: because I think that it's it's not a road that
Speaker 1: ends up well for people like us. The other road
Speaker 1: is the more optimistic road. There are ways we've changed
Speaker 1: the Constitution several times. Think about thirteen, fourteen, fifteenth Amendment,
Speaker 1: think about the nineteenth amendment, the women white women. We
Speaker 1: can think about the twenty sixth amendment that you know,
Speaker 1: let younger people vote. We can think it about amendment.
Speaker 1: Think about an amendment to increase the size of the court.
Speaker 1: That's one of my final exam questions some years. You know,
Speaker 1: do we increase the size of the Supreme Court? And
Speaker 1: if so, what's the number? You know, if we were
Speaker 1: increased it to thirteen, will we just have a six
Speaker 1: seven majority and just basically instead of five fours, we'll
Speaker 1: just have you know, seven sixes. Do we make it
Speaker 1: twenty one? Do we make it fifty? We know that
Speaker 1: they're transaction costs and conforming costs, and the more people
Speaker 1: you got, the harder it is, and so you know,
Speaker 1: things take longer. So there's some pros and cons to
Speaker 1: changing the system, but that doesn't mean that we can't
Speaker 1: do it. And as my incredibly brilliant grandmother, you still
Speaker 1: always say, if we could put a man on the moon.
Speaker 1: We can figure this out. I mean, I gave a
Speaker 1: talk once at a transportation equity forum, and I was
Speaker 1: talking about how we can figure out a way to
Speaker 1: make transportation cheaper, if not relatively free, for poor people.
Speaker 1: We can find some metrics to sort of measure what
Speaker 1: is poverty and all these other things. But you know,
Speaker 1: we figured out for students and we get them a
Speaker 1: metric card and senior citizens. So it's basically saying, like
Speaker 1: there can be some sort of means test for marginalized
Speaker 1: communities to help them pay for a public transit. This
Speaker 1: man in the audience just, no, that's impossible. You know,
Speaker 1: we can't do we can't. We can't, we can't, we can't.
Speaker 1: And so I gave him the line of, like we
Speaker 1: put a man on the moon, I think we can
Speaker 1: figure out how to give a poor person a bus pass. Right.
Speaker 1: It's not that deep. And I think that there are
Speaker 1: a lot of ways in this country. Going back to
Speaker 1: your point about like this this new generation, I think
Speaker 1: that they will come up with some creative solutions that
Speaker 1: you and I just can't see. We've been in this
Speaker 1: institution our whole lives. We have been institutionalized me, especially
Speaker 1: in graduation, for so long, you know, and now I
Speaker 1: work in an institution like Trust and Believe. I talked
Speaker 1: to my therapist about this all the time, like, why
Speaker 1: is it that I've chosen to be in institutions my
Speaker 1: whole life, the whitest of the white, the sort of
Speaker 1: you know, elitist, of the most elite and the most unwelcoming.
Speaker 1: Yet I signed up to keep doing it for a
Speaker 1: future generation purposes. So I think though that this I
Speaker 1: don't know, I'm just feeling really good about some of
Speaker 1: the young many of the young people who we're like,
Speaker 1: we're passing over a shit sandwich and they're like, okay,
Speaker 1: Like all right, we'll figure it out. I really hope
Speaker 1: that they do. And I hope so that you continue
Speaker 1: to educate them and inspire them to do something create
Speaker 1: and innovative with that a ship that we are giving them.
Speaker 1: That's my job, and I take it really seriously, you know,
Speaker 1: And I think the reason why I am not filled
Speaker 1: with rage, I am, you know. I'm definitely worried, sure,
Speaker 1: and I have my days where I'm like, ah, but
Speaker 1: I think because I have the privilege of seeing of
Speaker 1: a planting seeds and seeing sort of things bloom. They
Speaker 1: don't always bloom in that three and a half months
Speaker 1: that they're with me, but sometimes they bloom in three years.
Speaker 1: Sometimes sometimes I'll get an email from you know, Stupero
Speaker 1: years ago. I was like, Hey, that thing you said,
Speaker 1: I finally it finally clicked. I finally get it, and
Speaker 1: now I'm doing X with my life. And so there's
Speaker 1: that's the beauty of being an educator. I think that's like,
Speaker 1: that is the secret when people are like, I don't
Speaker 1: understand why these teachers, you know, you make no money
Speaker 1: relatively speaking, right, you were not respected by your principle
Speaker 1: or your school district, and like academics, it's like you
Speaker 1: won't went to all this extra schooling to make a
Speaker 1: few extra dollars more than a regular teacher, Like why
Speaker 1: do you do it? It's like, because there is nothing
Speaker 1: that compares to planting a seed and a young person
Speaker 1: and then seeing it grow in front of your eyes
Speaker 1: and it's like oh snap, and recognizing you are then
Speaker 1: changing literally the course of history. So that's why I'm
Speaker 1: sort of like, all right, well, yeah know we are
Speaker 1: where we are, girl, We're gonna be where we at However,
Speaker 1: we're gonna I think we're gonna be okay. You keep planting,
Speaker 1: you keep planting, I'll keep oscillating between rage and rest,
Speaker 1: and we need that now. We will make it to
Speaker 1: the other side. Dear friend, doctor Christina Greer, thank you
Speaker 1: so much, thank for this lesson, for this time. I
Speaker 1: love our conversations and appreciate you so much. Righty, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm David. Plots of Slights Political Gabfest. As another election
Speaker 1: season accelerates, it can be tricky to sort through all
Speaker 1: the noise and the news. Each week on the Gapfest,
Speaker 1: John Dickerson, Emily Bathlona and I decipher the headlines, break
Speaker 1: down the races, and tell you what issues really matter.
Speaker 1: We do not always agree, we definitely do not always agree,
Speaker 1: but we always deliver thoughtful debate and we always have
Speaker 1: a good time. So subscribe to Slate's Political Gapfest, new
Speaker 1: episodes every Thursday. That is it for me today here,
Speaker 1: dear friends, it will be a fucking week. Buckle up.
Speaker 1: As always, Power to the people and to all the people. Power,
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