Speaker 1: Native Land Pod is a production of iHeartRadio in partnership
Speaker 1: with Reaisent Choice Media.
Speaker 2: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome.
Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome home, y'all.
Speaker 3: This is Native Land Pod and we are joining you
Speaker 3: live from the Congressional Black Caucus Foundations fifty third Annual
Speaker 3: Legislative Conference. We are here as your official pregame show
Speaker 3: for the dinner tonight, and we are thrilled to be
Speaker 3: joined by the brilliant minds of the conscience of the
Speaker 3: Congress and so many wonderful friends of ours as well
Speaker 3: as elected officials on the local state at the local
Speaker 3: and state level and organizers. We have a jam packed
Speaker 3: show and we can't wait to get into it.
Speaker 1: I am with my co.
Speaker 3: Hosts Welcome Home, y'all, Tiffany Cross and Andrew.
Speaker 4: Gillocome Home, everybody, y'all.
Speaker 1: Were trying to figure.
Speaker 5: Out what episode it is, so if you're watching, please
Speaker 5: drop a comment and let us know what episode it is,
Speaker 5: because we literally cannot remember, So drop a comment on
Speaker 5: our YouTube.
Speaker 1: Oh Lola, where.
Speaker 6: Did we go?
Speaker 7: Right?
Speaker 1: Okay?
Speaker 5: Birthday from Yeah exactly, So welcome to the fortieth episode
Speaker 5: of Native Lampod. I have to say I'm really excited
Speaker 5: to be here. This is somewhat of a homecoming, I
Speaker 5: think for all of us. I used to cover Congress
Speaker 5: years ago, Andrew, being a politician, especially when he was running,
Speaker 5: would come to this dinner.
Speaker 1: But Angela, especially for you.
Speaker 5: As you all know, Angela is the former executive director
Speaker 5: of the Congressional Black Caucus, So this was like your family,
Speaker 5: like the prom Nerd Ball Well, Nerd Ball is the
Speaker 5: Washington correspondent, I say, Nerd from yeah exactly.
Speaker 8: This is a Black Nerve propromise.
Speaker 5: But Angela, how does it feel to be back in
Speaker 5: this capacity?
Speaker 1: Because you come, you still come every year. Have you
Speaker 1: missed the dinner?
Speaker 3: I have never missed a Phoenix Awards dinner except when
Speaker 3: the dinner missed us, and that was during COVID COVID
Speaker 3: and then the next year, of course we were virtual
Speaker 3: that year. The next year we came back. So this
Speaker 3: is nineteenth ALC. Wow, and I I am so I think.
Speaker 3: What's cool about this, you guys that I'm super super
Speaker 3: excited about is normally the conference all week, all of
Speaker 3: the sessions are pretty open to the public, they're even
Speaker 3: live streams. But the dinner is something that has often
Speaker 3: felt more exclusive, and this year because the Foundation wanted
Speaker 3: to partner with our podcast because we are so welcoming.
Speaker 3: There are folks from outside who weren't able to go
Speaker 3: to the dinner who are coming in to watch the podcast,
Speaker 3: and we're thrilled to have you all.
Speaker 1: So welcome Black Home Home Audience. Here.
Speaker 5: I want to let the viewers know that the dinner
Speaker 5: this evening will be hosted by Roy Wood Junior, amazing comedian.
Speaker 1: Ratler, absolutely and Sherry Shepard.
Speaker 4: Evening. So as Ryan's.
Speaker 5: Making his way to the stage, I want to let
Speaker 5: you all know he has a new show coming out
Speaker 5: on CNN. Have I got news for you? He just
Speaker 5: taped his first comedy special, which I was privileged to
Speaker 5: be there live in person to see to a sold
Speaker 5: out packs audience. So give some love to this Rattler
Speaker 5: great coming in. He and Andrew are kind of dressed like, hello,
Speaker 5: my dear.
Speaker 1: We're so happy you're joining me.
Speaker 9: I don't know. I don't have my bow tie.
Speaker 4: I got the same color.
Speaker 9: I see ye, don't put it on sooner or later?
Speaker 5: So what what are we? First of all, Roy, how
Speaker 5: you doing? We're so happy to.
Speaker 1: See you host.
Speaker 9: I'm good I'm good.
Speaker 10: I'm just happy my voice survived last week because that
Speaker 10: who was special and then prepping for seeing in and
Speaker 10: then doing all the media for that watching that way
Speaker 10: the dog who eating the doll? Yes, yes, but no,
Speaker 10: I'm I'm just happy to be you know how I
Speaker 10: get around.
Speaker 9: Like black folks?
Speaker 10: Yes, because I don't get it normally, like it's I'm
Speaker 10: not I'm in like the mainstream world. And then the
Speaker 10: Congressional Black Caucus. This is like, what did you say
Speaker 10: over texts like professional essence facial?
Speaker 4: We said black prom nerve prom.
Speaker 1: I'm going to call it political wikanda. I feel like politically,
Speaker 1: that's probably right.
Speaker 9: I like that too.
Speaker 1: That's probably right.
Speaker 9: I like that too.
Speaker 4: So do you do you change up?
Speaker 11: How do you alter your approach when going into an
Speaker 11: environment like this with people who are typically pretty serious
Speaker 11: about themselves the world life?
Speaker 4: I feel like, how do you prepare?
Speaker 10: I feel like the advantage I have at a black
Speaker 10: event is that they know me, and you kind of
Speaker 10: already know. You know my brand. You know, I'm not
Speaker 10: gonna say the all the way wrong thing. But I
Speaker 10: ain't regal. I'm not gonna be regal like I would argue, though,
Speaker 10: of everything that I've done this year, hosting that June
Speaker 10: teenth concert at the White House, that was the hardest.
Speaker 10: That was the hardest event because the issue with an
Speaker 10: event like this, it's similar to June thing, like the
Speaker 10: White House Correspondence dinner. It's understood that I can say
Speaker 10: the wrong thing, You're supposed to say the wrong thing
Speaker 10: June tenth and something like this. We are revering people
Speaker 10: who are fighting against very serious issues and going hit
Speaker 10: to head against very heinous people. There are people in
Speaker 10: this room tonight who get death threats on air regular
Speaker 10: and for their work, we're going to, you.
Speaker 9: Know, honor them.
Speaker 4: That's right.
Speaker 10: So the balance of joke and reverence and we must
Speaker 10: also remember racism and racism and the joke like that
Speaker 10: balance is more difficult to maintain in an all black
Speaker 10: place because black people will hold you accountable in real
Speaker 10: time if you went too far, you know, one way
Speaker 10: or the other.
Speaker 11: So I was telling the girls yesterday about a story
Speaker 11: with a well known person we know here who was
Speaker 11: in my city, Tallahassee, And we're sitting next to each
Speaker 11: other on the podium, and the brother didn't stand for
Speaker 11: the pledge, and about eight black women after it was
Speaker 11: a black event, came up to them and they just
Speaker 11: wanted to know why. But we had a debate about
Speaker 11: whether we'd be offended about being wrecked in a place
Speaker 11: like that. But you've had experience, I'm sure, yeah, where
Speaker 11: you've heard more than what you asked for.
Speaker 10: Yeah, and and and and at the end of the day,
Speaker 10: with black people, it's a critique, it's it's a it's
Speaker 10: still a dialogue. It ain't no battle, it's not disrespect.
Speaker 10: But it's just a matter of when you're going up
Speaker 10: at an event like this, how do you make sure
Speaker 10: that you maintain the respect and the reverence for while
Speaker 10: also doing humor. And I'm thankful tonight because I have
Speaker 10: a co.
Speaker 5: Host, So this Sherry Shepherd, your co hosting other interesting
Speaker 5: you weren't listening and clearly, but the other interesting thing
Speaker 5: is Roy that the chair of this year's event is
Speaker 5: Congresswoman Terry Sewell, and you are a son of Alabama, so.
Speaker 1: It is it is a.
Speaker 10: Terry Sewell used to come on my morning show in Birmingham,
Speaker 10: and I got to give her props because she wasn't
Speaker 10: just coming on when it was time to grab votes
Speaker 10: and re election and blah blah blah. You know there's
Speaker 10: a there's a connection, and I'm going to talk about
Speaker 10: it tonight before we bring out Fantasia. But you know,
Speaker 10: we had an F five tornado that came through Alabama.
Speaker 10: Tornado came from Tuscaloosa to Birmingham, killed fifty people, and
Speaker 10: it hit one of the blackest parts of town super hard.
Speaker 10: Terry Sewell was in that thing before sunrise, before the
Speaker 10: Red Cross pulled up. Same night Fantasia was supposed to
Speaker 10: have a show, could have canceled easily. Hey, y'all had
Speaker 10: a tornado. I'll come back another time. Stay did the show?
Speaker 10: Donated every penn. So like the connections between you know,
Speaker 10: Fantasia and you know, congress Woman Seuel and myself, I'm.
Speaker 9: Just like even to be yere with y'all.
Speaker 10: Like I don't y'all don't understand, Like I don't go nowhere,
Speaker 10: I don't talk, I don't get around people that I
Speaker 10: don't rock with. So when I'm in a space where
Speaker 10: I feel like I don't have to look over my shoulder,
Speaker 10: I don't have to wonder if this is being recorded
Speaker 10: for some other duplicitous thing, and honestly working at CNN
Speaker 10: and Angela, I might need to talk to you about
Speaker 10: this because this has opened up a whole nother can
Speaker 10: of how the energy that people have towards me simply
Speaker 10: because of the network that it's a Saturday.
Speaker 9: Night as jokes.
Speaker 5: Yeah yeah, and they'd be like ha ha, hell yeah, I.
Speaker 1: Get it, we need premiere yeah anywhere near ass.
Speaker 3: But I do want to know if you can get
Speaker 3: oh sorry, go ahead, Andrew.
Speaker 4: No, I said, not in the same category.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I do want to know if you can give
Speaker 3: us a little preview of a joke you might could
Speaker 3: potentially tail on stage tonight.
Speaker 9: I don't know.
Speaker 10: Here's what it comes down to, And this is a
Speaker 10: conversation I had with Sherry. If Biden how soon until
Speaker 10: Biden comes in the room before he speaks is kind
Speaker 10: of the deciding factor because I don't know if anyone
Speaker 10: has been able to look the President in the eyes
Speaker 10: and go, hey, thanks, thank you for what you did,
Speaker 10: like they all did it at the convention in their
Speaker 10: own way or whatever, but just to be able to
Speaker 10: stand on the stage and look at him and just
Speaker 10: go you are better than me. Because if I put
Speaker 10: in my two months notice, I'm.
Speaker 9: Not showing up for no more shifts.
Speaker 1: Baby.
Speaker 9: This is me trying to get you to let me.
Speaker 10: This is me telling you I don't want to come
Speaker 10: and pleee fire men, So you know, to give them
Speaker 10: prop because who you know put in, they notice and
Speaker 10: then keep showing up.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 1: That's a good point. I never thought about it.
Speaker 4: Although Trump did say at the debate he sleep till
Speaker 4: four pm.
Speaker 9: We snuck that in. Nobody called him.
Speaker 10: That's the type of joke though, that you can only
Speaker 10: do if he's in the room, because if he comes
Speaker 10: back to the fact, that's the sucker move. I know
Speaker 10: Sherry is gonna, you know, have some conversation with the
Speaker 10: Divine nine in the room as well. I think she's
Speaker 10: gonna make sure they get their time. I'm not a
Speaker 10: member of the Divine nine. I did not have the
Speaker 10: grades by the time I had, no, I didn't. I
Speaker 10: didn't know they needed two five.
Speaker 1: Boy, I don't think anybody we had we might have
Speaker 1: had the grace. But none of us are dividing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: none of us aren't that crazy. This is defind odds
Speaker 1: up here.
Speaker 5: People always see me and they're like, hey, so Ror
Speaker 5: and I always have to tell.
Speaker 1: People I'm.
Speaker 3: Because they definitely make sure you don't make any of
Speaker 3: their sounds or designs on air.
Speaker 1: I've worked with somebody who did that. I just tried
Speaker 1: to go over time.
Speaker 4: It's a nonqua.
Speaker 12: I want to tell you.
Speaker 5: Roy, because we texted, but I didn't get a chance
Speaker 5: to look you in your face and tell you how
Speaker 5: hilarious you were. I was so honored and privileged to
Speaker 5: be at your taping. You taped your Hulu special right,
Speaker 5: it was so what I loved about your comedy, And
Speaker 5: I won't give anything away. You guys, please be sure
Speaker 5: to tune in. I'll let Roy tell you win and wear.
Speaker 5: But I love comedy that makes a point, but also
Speaker 5: that touches you, you know, and I felt like I
Speaker 5: was laughing, But I also felt when you talked about connection,
Speaker 5: I really felt that.
Speaker 1: So I just want to tell you don't.
Speaker 10: Talk anymore, like we don't interact as a society, like
Speaker 10: we get mad if people call us. Every meeting at
Speaker 10: your job is on a computer. There's no employees in
Speaker 10: the stores anymore. What I tried to make chit chat
Speaker 10: on the elevator one time. Never again. You were able
Speaker 10: to talk for three four floors in the hotel. Don't
Speaker 10: nobody want to talk.
Speaker 9: Yeah, So I just.
Speaker 10: That was what I really wanted to drill in on
Speaker 10: because what I noticed in watching my mom and I
Speaker 10: talk about her a little bit and a special is
Speaker 10: that you know, my mom is seventy five. She's been
Speaker 10: a higher edge and she was twenty five years old
Speaker 10: still working at a black college in Alabama to this day,
Speaker 10: I ain't gonna never quit. And I've always been trying
Speaker 10: to get my mom to quit her job, not understanding
Speaker 10: that it wasn't just about work for her. It's about
Speaker 10: maintaining connection with the community, with her people, and so
Speaker 10: seeing how she's active and you know, she's had friends
Speaker 10: that have passed and you still, like, I hate to
Speaker 10: say it, next man up, who I need a new Yeah?
Speaker 9: Hey you y'all got a book club?
Speaker 6: Cool, I'm here.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 10: So the idea of working to make connections, that's something
Speaker 10: you have to actively do, the same as cardio every morning,
Speaker 10: the same as nutrition.
Speaker 9: So I just wanted to talk about that a little bit.
Speaker 5: You made that point, but you wrapped it beautifully in humor,
Speaker 5: like we were laughing, but we all kind of looked
Speaker 5: at each other after like we felt really connected. Just
Speaker 5: because I don't want to forget. I want you to
Speaker 5: tell the people win and where they can catch this special.
Speaker 10: Oh, the Who's special will be out sometime. I think
Speaker 10: at near the end of the year. I think with
Speaker 10: the low key, I think who was waiting to see
Speaker 10: how the election goes to decide kind of yeah, because
Speaker 10: what you expect of me is political political. So you know,
Speaker 10: if we are a country in turmoil and riots, then
Speaker 10: maybe you slide to roy Wood Junior, specially down to
Speaker 10: town a little bit after the riots calm.
Speaker 1: You have a prediction on how you think the election
Speaker 1: will go.
Speaker 9: Yes, riots and the I'm not pro riot.
Speaker 11: I just I don't take that part seriously. I think
Speaker 11: I don't think they're gonna show for him like they
Speaker 11: once did.
Speaker 10: I do not think that Republicans are going to accept
Speaker 10: the results of this election. I think that Kamala has
Speaker 10: turned a corner with enough moderates and undecided voters. I
Speaker 10: think most people at this point that are still undecided.
Speaker 10: You were intentionally undecided to some degree. This idea that
Speaker 10: you ain't seen us say nothing about that, go find it.
Speaker 10: You find everything else. You found everything else in your phone,
Speaker 10: So go find go find the policy that you care
Speaker 10: about it and read up on it and make a decision.
Speaker 10: So I don't. I just do not see when Dick
Speaker 10: Cheney says that he came. Now you noticed in the
Speaker 10: video he never said Kamala vot. He just said I'm
Speaker 10: not voting for Trump. That's gonna be enough for some
Speaker 10: of them old school Republicans and maybe they stay home,
Speaker 10: and even then in that regard, it's still a vote
Speaker 10: for Kamala in my opinion. I just I don't think
Speaker 10: though at the rate of wich they're locking up jan
Speaker 10: six offenders, that we're going to have a new January.
Speaker 10: There's not going to be another storm the Capitol number one.
Speaker 10: The National Guard gonna be there at that time, and
Speaker 10: they won't put that Thaye out in your ass you
Speaker 10: come up back and stupid. But I think that I
Speaker 10: think Kamala wins. But I think that we'll have another
Speaker 10: year of Trump lawsuit nonsense in trying to decertify the election.
Speaker 10: And I think the thing that we really have to
Speaker 10: look for in this election is the voter intimidation that
Speaker 10: I hope doesn't happen in a lot of disenfranchised places.
Speaker 10: And you know, you start talking about the way they've
Speaker 10: redrawn all the districts in these battleground states. To me,
Speaker 10: that's the bigger factor in this election is whether or
Speaker 10: not people will be allowed to even go to the polls.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's interesting because there are are like these laws
Speaker 5: and open carry states that you know, you have like
Speaker 5: these people guarding the election, and I'm like, I wonder
Speaker 5: how it will work if a bunch of armed black
Speaker 5: folks stood out in front of a voting facility in
Speaker 5: a white neighborhood and we just here to observe and
Speaker 5: make sure things go well. I don't think that'll go
Speaker 5: to I think that's the fastest way to change laws.
Speaker 5: What I want to shout you out also, Roy, because
Speaker 5: you are a journalist by training, and you see my degree.
Speaker 9: I don't want you to let's the hope with it.
Speaker 9: But I have a degree.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yes, yes, and I but so it makes sense
Speaker 5: to me that you would have a show on CNN,
Speaker 5: even if it's a comedy show, because I think you
Speaker 5: bridge those two things beautifully. And I just I have
Speaker 5: always been such a fan of yours, but also just
Speaker 5: consider you a personal friend. So I'm just so proud
Speaker 5: to see you here hosting a dinner tonight and prow
Speaker 5: to see your comedy special and prow to see your
Speaker 5: new show premiere on CNN, and it just feels like
Speaker 5: it's your season.
Speaker 10: This damn thing, this has been one of my favorite
Speaker 10: You know what's funny, I thought when I left the
Speaker 10: Daily Showing, like, yeah, I'm done with listening to no
Speaker 10: more politics. I ain't got to keep up, all right,
Speaker 10: let me go and see what and I'm talking about.
Speaker 10: Let me go download another episode, let me go on subscribe,
Speaker 10: subscribe the Native Land and Daily Showing just keeping.
Speaker 4: M android. Forget the haters.
Speaker 11: Man. The fact that you are bringing to a cable
Speaker 11: news network buying large comedy says so much about who
Speaker 11: you are, what your record has been, what you've demonstrated
Speaker 11: that otherwise pretty conservative network, if I say so, in
Speaker 11: my limited time I work with him, would say, you
Speaker 11: know what, there's room enough to pioneer something thing new
Speaker 11: and and so doing and taking this risk.
Speaker 4: Let's find the best out there who can do it.
Speaker 9: And I'm thankful for it.
Speaker 10: And the other beautiful thing about how I got news
Speaker 10: for you is that it's it's based on a British
Speaker 10: show that's been on for thirty five years. So in
Speaker 10: the eyes of CNN, it's not a risk. It's just
Speaker 10: the office. Let's see what else in Britain we can
Speaker 10: remix and you apply it to American politics. It's a
Speaker 10: quiz show where we don't keep points and no one wins,
Speaker 10: me wins money, and we just talk about the news.
Speaker 10: It's just questions about the news. So if you like quizzes,
Speaker 10: if you like the news, you don't know that it's
Speaker 10: a simple way to learn about the week that was
Speaker 10: and infuse a couple of opinions in there.
Speaker 9: I'm gonna get you all on it.
Speaker 11: So you expect and we like to know who the winner.
Speaker 1: Do you want to tell him who the latest winner was?
Speaker 4: The latest winner?
Speaker 11: For really, the most and thought unprovoking bet that we.
Speaker 3: Accept was whether or not Trump would.
Speaker 4: Take the bet and debate Kamala.
Speaker 1: We so we we shouldn't yeah.
Speaker 9: For a second for.
Speaker 5: Second form for Vice President Harris and Donald Trump to
Speaker 5: meet on the debate stage at all. I said, that's
Speaker 5: never gonna happen. He'll find every excuse not to show up.
Speaker 5: And Andrew was with me and was like, no, I
Speaker 5: think it's going to happen. And then we said Ben,
Speaker 5: so Angel was one, not one, but two dinners because
Speaker 5: she said no, no, no, I met both of you all.
Speaker 5: So that doesn't mean that we go out and last night.
Speaker 3: That just means y'all got to split another dinner. That's
Speaker 3: what we said, you guys, I'm not going.
Speaker 5: We did all your money a black owned restaurant at
Speaker 5: a black mobmy.
Speaker 6: Month.
Speaker 1: He accommodated us and don't so we were happy.
Speaker 9: Can't be running up this man bill he got a home.
Speaker 3: I know, Jay, I'm sorry, but he lost the bets.
Speaker 10: Going over the credit See I used the one get
Speaker 10: the bill parks.
Speaker 13: Heay, it was me.
Speaker 1: I was greedy. I was very greedy. Id everything on
Speaker 1: the menu because I won ordered.
Speaker 4: What is your prep time?
Speaker 5: Like, what are you doing up there when you leave
Speaker 5: us and go back to backstage?
Speaker 1: Is there?
Speaker 10: It's so much show tonight that there's not a lot
Speaker 10: of space. Sherry and I've identified two pockets where we
Speaker 10: can do maybe like two to three minutes of bits.
Speaker 10: Everything else is getting the people on the stage and
Speaker 10: get honored and keeping it moving so that people can
Speaker 10: get back to mingling. Because what we also have to
Speaker 10: remember is that for a lot of our elected officials.
Speaker 10: This is the first time where they can just come
Speaker 10: sit and kick back and just on some class reunion,
Speaker 10: what you've been up to this year type of stuff.
Speaker 10: So yeah, this is the lowest level of prep I've
Speaker 10: done this year. I can't wait. I'm this is this
Speaker 10: is how chill I am. I'm tempted to have a
Speaker 10: drink before. I absolutely will not.
Speaker 9: Absolutely, I do want to let.
Speaker 5: The folks know because I don't know what they can see.
Speaker 5: But behind us, it is a ball. It looks like
Speaker 5: a wakanda balls. As Angelas said, this is the what
Speaker 5: do you call it?
Speaker 1: Wakanda?
Speaker 7: Oh?
Speaker 1: Political political wakanda.
Speaker 5: It is a bevy of beautiful black people in floor
Speaker 5: length evening gowns. You know how the hair I see
Speaker 5: remember of the Congressional Black Caucus. President Biden will obviously
Speaker 5: be here tonight, Vice President Harris or President elect Harris.
Speaker 5: If we want to speaking into existence, we'll be here
Speaker 5: tonight speaking some of the members of the press pool.
Speaker 5: We've already seen them arrive early anticipating her arrival.
Speaker 1: Secret services all around us.
Speaker 5: So I just want to bring you guys into what
Speaker 5: we're witnessing and experiencing here tonight because It really is
Speaker 5: truly a night to make history. This will be the
Speaker 5: first time that Vice President Harris addresses this crowd as
Speaker 5: the nominee for the next President of the United States.
Speaker 5: Hosted then her sit by comedian Roy Wood Junior, co
Speaker 5: hosted with Sherry Shepherd, and it's just a night of
Speaker 5: beautiful black excellence. And I'm so thrilled to share this
Speaker 5: evening with my beautiful co host Angela. Got this dress
Speaker 5: shipped in from Wakanda. It was a three week backwater
Speaker 5: and it's beautiful. Andrew is where you by look black,
Speaker 5: but he and Roy were in the same colors with
Speaker 5: navy blue and black.
Speaker 6: True.
Speaker 5: What a beautiful evening to be here with you guys.
Speaker 5: Before to ask her yes.
Speaker 10: Yes, yes, yes, how have you all been in terms
Speaker 10: of because I know for the podcasts and the prep,
Speaker 10: I imagine you have to do. It's take in all
Speaker 10: of the bad stuff and then decide what bad stuff
Speaker 10: we will talk about and what bad stuff we will not.
Speaker 10: Have you figured out a way yet to only consume
Speaker 10: what you need in terms of what you want to
Speaker 10: present to your listeners or do you still have to
Speaker 10: take in every terrible thing? And if so, what's what's
Speaker 10: your system, what's your mental health?
Speaker 3: This is a really great opportunity to pub a podcast
Speaker 3: that we did. We did a mini pod where we
Speaker 3: actually had a battle tip and I have never gotten
Speaker 3: an argument. We got in an argument that day about
Speaker 3: whether or not we should put something out. I thought
Speaker 3: she was saying something she wasn't, but it was like,
Speaker 3: I feel like we need to listen to everything that's happening.
Speaker 3: It was about black Trump supporters, and I wanted to
Speaker 3: hear it because I thought it was I couldn't even
Speaker 3: wrap my mind around it, but it's the same thing
Speaker 3: for me. That was like the trigger of the trauma
Speaker 3: of twenty sixteen. So I was like, we have to
Speaker 3: be aware of this because I was oblivious to it
Speaker 3: in twenty sixteen. And I think they Andrew and Tiff
Speaker 3: who agreed, We're both like, we don't have to go
Speaker 3: about it this way though. So it was a whole battle.
Speaker 3: But I think what's good about the battle is there
Speaker 3: are a lot of folks who have family members who
Speaker 3: have that same conversation in that same way every time
Speaker 3: they get together, whether it was a picnic over the summer,
Speaker 3: if it's about to be Thanksgiving, dinner. Hopefully this man, well,
Speaker 3: I'm trying to be as nonpartisan as possible because it's
Speaker 3: the foundation, but in my personal capacity, I hope doesn't win.
Speaker 3: And that's, you know, kind of what we're up again.
Speaker 3: So we try to figure out every week. I think
Speaker 3: Tiffany does a good back, good job of challenging us
Speaker 3: to not sound like every other news network and making
Speaker 3: sure that we're providing information to our listeners who sometimes
Speaker 3: don't get those stories.
Speaker 1: They're below the fold or there in the B section or.
Speaker 3: The Z section, meaning they did not get in there,
Speaker 3: and she will go and find them and make sure
Speaker 3: that we are talking about those things.
Speaker 1: I'm grateful for you.
Speaker 5: Tif grankful for you guys and Andrew, but.
Speaker 11: I did want to say this to be very honest.
Speaker 11: It has evolved a number of times, and we've only
Speaker 11: done forty episodes up to this point around show format,
Speaker 11: how do we prepare and our preparation is very different
Speaker 11: in between the three of us. And then, if I
Speaker 11: could be even more honest, our show flow right now
Speaker 11: was like what you feeling?
Speaker 4: What you feeling feel like?
Speaker 5: We don't really talk about it, and we every time
Speaker 5: we do a call before the show just to check
Speaker 5: in with each other, and we're constantly saying we're potting, like,
Speaker 5: don't talk about this. I want, like, I want the
Speaker 5: audience to feel like they're in the room with us.
Speaker 5: And if we have people there with us, you know,
Speaker 5: if we are too prepared, then it doesn't work. And
Speaker 5: as a journalist, obviously, I'm still reading eight nine papers
Speaker 5: every morning, so I have not figured out how to
Speaker 5: only consume.
Speaker 14: What I need.
Speaker 1: But I just have curiosity about a lot of things.
Speaker 10: I enjoyed reading local news, you know, I like reading
Speaker 10: local papers and local sections.
Speaker 9: But the problem now is that.
Speaker 10: With with the way that local newspapers are being gobbled
Speaker 10: up by larger outlets, a lot of local stories are
Speaker 10: the same across that's right, So you might have three
Speaker 10: true local stories.
Speaker 9: You know.
Speaker 10: I have a friend that's a reporter for Atlanta Journal Constitution.
Speaker 10: He was talking to me how they cut down their
Speaker 10: local reporter pool. Yeah, and even lower number. And it's okay, well,
Speaker 10: now who do you have covering all of those stories?
Speaker 10: So it's just it's it's real.
Speaker 1: It's happening everywhere.
Speaker 5: That's why your show coming on CNN is so important
Speaker 5: because it makes shoes accessible your comedy special whenever it airs.
Speaker 5: We're excited about it. Well, thank you so and just
Speaker 5: everything that you have going on, Roy, your your previous
Speaker 5: pastors have not figured it out yet. I think they
Speaker 5: lost a gym when they lost you. But I'm just
Speaker 5: happy that your fans, and there are so many will
Speaker 5: get to experience and hear you on an ongoing basis.
Speaker 10: Well every Saturday night, nine pm CNN, streaming next day
Speaker 10: on Max. We're talking about the news of the week
Speaker 10: and some of the hole on the way. And let
Speaker 10: me also stress lastly, the show is not just political
Speaker 10: news like it could be the debate. Yeah, but also
Speaker 10: Shannon Sharp was laying pipe on Instagram.
Speaker 3: Lot wow, Roy, And on that note.
Speaker 10: I'm just saying we are covering a range of topics.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, let me tell you, and not what you
Speaker 3: see going live on Native Lampody good luck tonight.
Speaker 1: We're so.
Speaker 4: I couldn't make that joke later, so he gave it.
Speaker 3: He's like, I gotta throwing out before I go.
Speaker 4: Let me, God, let it go.
Speaker 9: Dignitaries, don't do that.
Speaker 15: Roy.
Speaker 1: Thank you right, thank you by yourself. You got proud
Speaker 1: of people waiting for you up there. Oh, my gosh,
Speaker 1: we are thrilled at this time. Thank you, Roy, We
Speaker 1: appreciate you.
Speaker 3: We're thrilled at this time to bring up a very
Speaker 3: very special guest, our good friend, Melanie Parker, who is
Speaker 3: at Google and she is the chief diversity officer there,
Speaker 3: is joining us to talk about this very very special
Speaker 3: occasion and some of the great things they have going
Speaker 3: on to make an impact in the community at Google.
Speaker 16: Hi God, thank you, Thanks beautiful, thank you.
Speaker 1: How are you feeling I'm feeling great.
Speaker 16: I'm excited about tonight, excited about all the black excellence
Speaker 16: all around us.
Speaker 13: So it's a great night.
Speaker 1: Yes, we're happy to have you.
Speaker 5: I think one thing, sorry, Andrew, a question, I'll ask
Speaker 5: it quickly. A lot of people we hear a chief
Speaker 5: diversity officer all the time, but I think so many
Speaker 5: people out there don't always know exactly what a chief
Speaker 5: diversity officer does. Tell us what your role is exactly
Speaker 5: tangibly at Google.
Speaker 13: So my role at.
Speaker 16: Google one, I've been in my role for five years,
Speaker 16: so I know there's a meme out there five years
Speaker 16: I've been to my.
Speaker 13: Role at Google. But what I do I look after.
Speaker 16: Google's internal workforce, and that is to make sure that
Speaker 16: people not just feel like they belong, but feel that
Speaker 16: they can bring all of who they are in the workplace.
Speaker 13: And that's not just you know, heart and head.
Speaker 16: That's really about I'm looking after how we're hiring, how
Speaker 16: we're promoting, how we're providing developmental assignments. I'm looking at
Speaker 16: who's leaving and are they leaving at the same rate
Speaker 16: across communities?
Speaker 13: Are they looking at different rates?
Speaker 16: And then I'm looking after who's coming into Google over
Speaker 16: the next ten to fifteen years, and what programs do
Speaker 16: we need to have externally, What does our creator base
Speaker 16: look like, what does our user base we have over
Speaker 16: a billion users, what does.
Speaker 13: That look like?
Speaker 16: And how does that ecosystem all work together to make
Speaker 16: sure that we're meeting people just as they are where
Speaker 16: they are in that moment, and have a global team
Speaker 16: that helps.
Speaker 13: Me do that well every day.
Speaker 3: Melanie, speaking of some of the impact that you all
Speaker 3: are making, you all had fight the event recently. During
Speaker 3: this conference, change makers talk about how important it is
Speaker 3: to invest in support some of those folks outside. You
Speaker 3: talked about your rowle inside, but what's your impact on
Speaker 3: the outside as well?
Speaker 16: You know, externally, our goal is to build sustainable equity,
Speaker 16: not just internally, as you said, Angela, but externally as well.
Speaker 16: So change Makers allows us to give voice, often to
Speaker 16: a community that may not have voice. What we typically
Speaker 16: find when we look at black and brown voices is
Speaker 16: that you're either hyper visible or you're invisible and in between.
Speaker 13: That that's a whole lot of stress.
Speaker 16: And so we want to make we want to normalize,
Speaker 16: like elevating change Makers, and we want people to know
Speaker 16: they have to feel empowered to have voice. It's when
Speaker 16: you don't have voice that we have, you know, horrible
Speaker 16: leadership that we're you know, by being silent, we're actually
Speaker 16: giving way to change that's not progressive. So that's what
Speaker 16: change Makers is really all about. So we look to
Speaker 16: curate spaces and rooms where we can bring people.
Speaker 11: Together, Melanie, a lot of them, at least as of late,
Speaker 11: there's been quite a political attack on diversity inclusion. What
Speaker 11: it means to have diverse work for is obviously I
Speaker 11: don't mean for you to tell on your own company,
Speaker 11: but amongst your group of peers, could you just shine
Speaker 11: a light for us, let us, let us sit on
Speaker 11: the floor of y'all's couch. Conversation and share a little
Speaker 11: bit about what folks who are in that space are
Speaker 11: feeling experiencing. Are they feeling like the best approach for
Speaker 11: survivalists to step back in the work and maybe make
Speaker 11: it more I guess you'd say for everybody and not
Speaker 11: just for or directed toward a particular group of employees.
Speaker 16: So let me start with the incredible work that you know,
Speaker 16: we have long standing at Google, you know, so we've
Speaker 16: you know, long been commuted committed to diversity, equity and inclusion,
Speaker 16: and we're leaders and we're learners, and we do both transparently.
Speaker 16: We just published our eleventh Diversity Annual Report in the spring,
Speaker 16: and in the.
Speaker 13: Back of that, when we talk about our progress.
Speaker 16: Which includes you know, just historic levels of bringing underrepresented communities,
Speaker 16: which are women, people with disabilities, we look across minority
Speaker 16: communities as well, but we put that in an appendix.
Speaker 16: So we have the largest publicly available DEI data set,
Speaker 16: and we use big Query to open source it, so
Speaker 16: you're you know, there's no mystery in what our numbers are.
Speaker 16: You can look at them year over year, and we
Speaker 16: put it in a very easy format because we want
Speaker 16: you not just to you know, look at where we lead,
Speaker 16: but look at where we're learning and the opportunity space.
Speaker 1: For all of us. Can I ask you ment, Oh, sir,
Speaker 1: can I ask you?
Speaker 3: You know, we have witnessed this massive pulling back of
Speaker 3: DEI efforts and here we are at this Congressional Black
Speaker 3: Hawkice Foundation. You look out here, you see all this
Speaker 3: cea of beautiful blackness.
Speaker 1: But for some.
Speaker 3: Reason our blackness is treated as inherently violent and criminal
Speaker 3: on the outside. So we got this pushed forward in
Speaker 3: twenty twenty and this severe retraction since then. How have
Speaker 3: you You've been able personally and professionally a reality because
Speaker 3: you are.
Speaker 1: You're such a leader.
Speaker 3: You are always a shiny example even today, like you
Speaker 3: have this glow that's her all the time.
Speaker 1: It's not makeup, y'all, this.
Speaker 13: Is literally her.
Speaker 3: I want you to talk briefly about how you were
Speaker 3: able to sustain and in fact grow through that retraction.
Speaker 16: Well, you know, I'm not surprised by some of the
Speaker 16: things that we see, because whenever we have progress, we
Speaker 16: have people who are looking at how do you get
Speaker 16: to that progress?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 13: And so that's what we see.
Speaker 16: How I stay focused and how I encourage others look
Speaker 16: at the data what is your data?
Speaker 13: Say Like we're data informed. And one of the things
Speaker 13: I say is like I exist and my.
Speaker 16: Organization exists to close gaps. And how am I going
Speaker 16: to find those gaps? I'm going to look at the data,
Speaker 16: so I'm not disheartened by looking to my left or
Speaker 16: my right. I'm really looking forward and where do I
Speaker 16: need to continue to like close those gaps, make that
Speaker 16: progress and.
Speaker 13: Really meet people where they are.
Speaker 16: And people really need us to continue to create safe
Speaker 16: spaces to bring them together.
Speaker 5: Melody, I'm interrupting for two seconds.
Speaker 1: Mama and Papa Rye that staples.
Speaker 5: Here at the Congressional to give your ticket Legislative Commerce,
Speaker 5: and they're looking for their tickets for dinner.
Speaker 1: So we will be remains if we did not have
Speaker 1: Papa Rye come by. Come by and get on the mic.
Speaker 1: Popa Rye. He wants you. This is what he said.
Speaker 13: I just want you to know.
Speaker 1: This is what my dad was going to do.
Speaker 9: The record.
Speaker 1: This way in front of the camera. Come this way,
Speaker 1: would you leg.
Speaker 5: Handle's beautiful mom, Mama, Rai and Papa Rye are here
Speaker 5: your own cameras.
Speaker 1: And you look beautiful.
Speaker 5: You look so beautiful, gorgeous we're in the middle of
Speaker 5: an interview. You're live and we have you, so we
Speaker 5: wanted to have a cameo from Mama and Papa Rye
Speaker 5: say hi to everybody.
Speaker 6: We can't go back.
Speaker 4: That's right, that's right, that's right.
Speaker 3: We're gonna want to remind everyone that this is a
Speaker 3: nonpartisan conference.
Speaker 12: We're not going Oh.
Speaker 1: I love it. In case anybody wanted to know why
Speaker 1: I'm so hard headed.
Speaker 3: Thank you all so much for being here. It's a pleasure.
Speaker 3: You're gonna stay on set, okay, perfect.
Speaker 1: And father ra we love you. We'll see you inside
Speaker 1: at the dinner.
Speaker 13: I love it.
Speaker 1: We had to, you know, she had to get her
Speaker 1: parents their tickets.
Speaker 16: So we have generation of women that live in my house,
Speaker 16: but one and a half your old granddaughter to my
Speaker 16: eighty seven year old mother.
Speaker 1: This is grandmother, welcome, This is you know, like, what
Speaker 1: are the rules? Right?
Speaker 5: But it's funny you say that because you you know,
Speaker 5: you look gorgeous, and we have beautiful grandmothers in our community.
Speaker 1: Of course.
Speaker 5: But I'm always bringing up when Donald Trump said, well,
Speaker 5: I thought he was talking about Vice President Harris.
Speaker 1: I thought she was a lot younger. Turns out she's sixty.
Speaker 5: Like he's going to learn a whole lot about how
Speaker 5: black women show up in this country physically and literally.
Speaker 5: I want to I've been in and ask a quick
Speaker 5: policy question if I could, because something that we are
Speaker 5: well I have a personal interest in is AI, and
Speaker 5: I'm curious how Google might navigate the changing AI, particularly
Speaker 5: through the lens of diversity when it comes to black folks.
Speaker 5: And I know we've got some other guests way to
Speaker 5: buy so and I know you got to get to
Speaker 5: the dinner.
Speaker 1: So that's a quick question before we let you go.
Speaker 16: So really, you know, our goal here is to build
Speaker 16: sustainable equity. That's the same thing that we want to
Speaker 16: do with AI, and so you know, we want to
Speaker 16: move responsibly, and sometimes that means you don't move as
Speaker 16: fast as you're looking at that responsibly and we're looking
Speaker 16: particularly when you look at like black community and brown
Speaker 16: communities and other underrepresented groups.
Speaker 13: We know there are two sides to a coin.
Speaker 16: One do no harm and the other side of that
Speaker 16: is leave no community behind. So we've developed a set
Speaker 16: of AI principles. A part of those principles is ensuring
Speaker 16: you know the ethical responsibility that we have and some
Speaker 16: of the work like a lead to HBCU President's Council.
Speaker 16: And with Howard University, we have our research AI research
Speaker 16: project with them where they own all the licensing rights,
Speaker 16: and it's called Project Elevate Black Voices because our own
Speaker 16: research and external research shows that automatic speech recognition doesn't
Speaker 16: recognize all the dialect that exists.
Speaker 13: In the black culture.
Speaker 16: And so Howard is seeking to, you know, with their
Speaker 16: own student body and our researchers, they are getting first
Speaker 16: hand experience and how to develop the research that will
Speaker 16: support the technology recognizing.
Speaker 13: The dialect a little bit better. We have a five
Speaker 13: million dollar grant we put at Spelman.
Speaker 16: Doctor Gail will be at our Google table today, so
Speaker 16: come give her a shout out. But those are the
Speaker 16: types of things that we're doing on that front. And lastly,
Speaker 16: I'll say we worked with the Divine Nine, the Links Incorporated,
Speaker 16: and Dress for Success to really train one hundred thousand
Speaker 16: black women, but of course our community we've now trained
Speaker 16: over two hundred.
Speaker 13: Thousand black women. We're still going strong.
Speaker 16: Delta Sigma Theta has been out in front really you know,
Speaker 16: embracing and taking this technology like out to the communities
Speaker 16: that they served.
Speaker 13: And so we're really proud of the effort.
Speaker 9: You love it.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much, you are so grateful to have
Speaker 3: you enjoy the dinner.
Speaker 1: This is my favorite time of the year.
Speaker 3: I always tell people my favorite moment is when the
Speaker 3: members walk across.
Speaker 1: That's my favorite too.
Speaker 16: And last night I saw representative of Jasmine Crockett and
Speaker 16: I said, I'm going to be so excited to see
Speaker 16: you and the other freshman representatives walk across that stage.
Speaker 13: Thank you for having me, thank.
Speaker 1: You, thank you for partnering with us. It's my twenty
Speaker 1: fourth CBC. I just thought about that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, there ought to be some sort and next
Speaker 5: year is gonna be your twenty, so we need to
Speaker 5: do like a.
Speaker 1: Something special for your twenty fifty.
Speaker 17: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well, while we're sitting here, you are, we're waving at people.
Speaker 3: There's some folks coming by above us on either side,
Speaker 3: and then behind us there are full long lines. We
Speaker 3: just got had such a great conversation about the importance
Speaker 3: of DEI, especially when it's under attack, and this woman
Speaker 3: is standing strong fighting ensure that our voices are in
Speaker 3: our presence is represented in tech as it continues to
Speaker 3: evolve and change. We have a few more guests coming
Speaker 3: and part of what's happening.
Speaker 1: One of them are here is here O. We have doctor.
Speaker 3: Joining us, doctor hebram Kindy, one of my favorite people.
Speaker 3: And also Andrew is gonna get next to get to
Speaker 3: sit next.
Speaker 1: So this is the second rattler that we've had on
Speaker 1: the program already. Nice to see doctor.
Speaker 5: Hello this New York Times best selling offer as intellectual luminary.
Speaker 5: We are so pleased to have you a thought leader
Speaker 5: here tonight. We see Jamie Harrison up above, chair of
Speaker 5: the Democratic National Conference.
Speaker 13: We love to see.
Speaker 5: Jamie Harrison, Eric Alexander Alexander, and.
Speaker 1: Congressman Kelly We see you.
Speaker 5: You all remember Eric Alexander, Maxine Shaw on Living Singles,
Speaker 5: Some of you off because of her. She was also
Speaker 5: closing pan on the Cosby Show. So a beautiful night
Speaker 5: of luminaries. Indeed, back to you, doctor Kenny, thank you
Speaker 5: for taking the time.
Speaker 1: To be here. I'll let the rattler kick the county.
Speaker 4: Appreciate it, appreciate it. Welcome Doc, to see you as always.
Speaker 4: I saw you.
Speaker 11: You had a post trying to help all of us
Speaker 11: struggle with and and and comprehend the significance of Donald
Speaker 11: Trump's and the Republican parties repeated mythology. I don't know
Speaker 11: what the hell to call it, but around the eating
Speaker 11: of of pets, I want you, if you wouldn't mind
Speaker 11: just help us sort of see that, I think in
Speaker 11: a much more grounded and concrete and really important way,
Speaker 11: because I think it's easy to make jokes and memes
Speaker 11: without assessing the impact that it may have on the
Speaker 11: greater greater community.
Speaker 18: Well, well, I think it's it's part of a larger
Speaker 18: project to criminalize black people more broadly, but their specific
Speaker 18: target obviously we're ra Haitian immigrants yea. And in Springfield, Ohio,
Speaker 18: you have longtime black residents who are also being sort
Speaker 18: of demonized and racially profiled, you know, as a result
Speaker 18: of what they've said about those, you know, people presumably
Speaker 18: eating pets. And so I just tried to show that
Speaker 18: when you didn't mean one black group, what ultimately happens
Speaker 18: is you demean every black group. And I think it's
Speaker 18: important for us to not think, let's say, if you
Speaker 18: are not a Haitian immigrant, but you're black, to think, no,
Speaker 18: that's just them. No, ultimately it's gonna boomerang back to you.
Speaker 4: That's real, that's real. We have that a lot in Florida,
Speaker 4: even I know you know that.
Speaker 11: But because of the immigrant community, the expanding Caribbean, Afro Latino,
Speaker 11: Haitian community, so on and so forth, you will hear
Speaker 11: at the higher education level folks saying I'm not you know,
Speaker 11: African American, I'm not black, I'm Haitian, or I'm this,
Speaker 11: and I think black people do this. You know, American
Speaker 11: born black folks do do similarly. And I just thought
Speaker 11: your message was poignant because it started. I always felt
Speaker 11: that if they're going after Haitians, they don't know the
Speaker 11: difference largely between any one of us. It's not okay
Speaker 11: to go after Haitians, period, But certainly when you consider
Speaker 11: that this is an attack on all of us, that
Speaker 11: we all have to say something.
Speaker 4: And do something about it.
Speaker 18: And it's interesting because it just harkens me back to
Speaker 18: this speech that Malcolm X actually gave I believe it
Speaker 18: was in nineteen sixty two after police sort of barged
Speaker 18: into the La Mosque and ended up killing some members
Speaker 18: of the nation, and he gave this sort of funeral speech.
Speaker 18: And during that funeral speech, that's when he's well known
Speaker 18: for saying the most disrespected person in America today is
Speaker 18: the black woman. But in that speech, he also speaks
Speaker 18: to black people and says, who taught you to hate yourself?
Speaker 18: And I'm referencing that because you know, you can ask
Speaker 18: African Americans.
Speaker 9: Well, who taught you to hate Black immigrants?
Speaker 18: Who you can ask black immigrants who taught you to
Speaker 18: hate African Americans? And so what happens is you have
Speaker 18: different groups of black folks seeing other groups of black
Speaker 18: folks through the eyes of racist white people.
Speaker 4: Yah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think that's such a legitimate point. How have
Speaker 5: you found because the last time you were in the news,
Speaker 5: we were all ready to come to your defense. How
Speaker 5: have you found navigating this space? Because it does feel
Speaker 5: like it is such a visceral attack. You know, this
Speaker 5: kind of racial reckoning that mostly white run newsrooms introduced.
Speaker 5: What we've actually witnessed is more of a hostile backlash,
Speaker 5: a swift and hostile backlash to that.
Speaker 1: So, in this age of how.
Speaker 5: To be an anti racist and you, you know, contributing
Speaker 5: what you can to society and being I think all
Speaker 5: of us have been on the receiving end of such
Speaker 5: visceral attacks. How have you found navigating life personally, professionally, politically,
Speaker 5: all of it.
Speaker 18: I mean, it's difficult, and I think for me it's
Speaker 18: it's most difficult when I see attacks that those who
Speaker 18: are obviously trying to conserve racism create and launch, and
Speaker 18: people that I love sort of repeat those ideas, sort
Speaker 18: of not knowing it my mind. I think that's when
Speaker 18: it's sort of most painful. What's ironic even about comparing
Speaker 18: this to the last question about what's going on with
Speaker 18: those Haitian immigrants, is you have this sort of viral
Speaker 18: series of sort of reports with no evidence, like there
Speaker 18: was no evidence, right, And I think for those of
Speaker 18: us who've been targeted in the media for doing something
Speaker 18: where there's no evidence because apparently, like our skin color
Speaker 18: is evidence enough, I mean, it becomes hard like can you, like,
Speaker 18: can you present some portion of evidence to substantiate this claim.
Speaker 9: That's sort of.
Speaker 18: More or less delegitimizing our work, our work as a scholar,
Speaker 18: our work as an elected official, I work you know,
Speaker 18: as you know, as a common and for typically black people,
Speaker 18: you don't need evidence. And I think that's what's incredibly
Speaker 18: painful for black people who are in the public life.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, era, first of all, I just want
Speaker 3: to tell you thank you, because no matter what, anytime
Speaker 3: that I've caught on you, you've been there. And I
Speaker 3: wanted to start there because I think that that is
Speaker 3: an essential component and essential ingred ingredient for community. And
Speaker 3: I'd love to know in this era that we're in
Speaker 3: right now, given the quality of the work you do,
Speaker 3: the significance of the work you do, what our community
Speaker 3: can do to really come together to not only support you,
Speaker 3: to support each other in our collective advancement and liberation.
Speaker 18: I really think we we have to, I think to
Speaker 18: support sort of my work or even others, I think
Speaker 18: we have to be more results oriented, and I think
Speaker 18: we have to be more sort of evidence based. Going
Speaker 18: back to what I was just you know, talking about,
Speaker 18: and I'm saying that to say, even in my book
Speaker 18: How to Be an Anti Racist, I ended up defining
Speaker 18: an activists as someone with a record of power and
Speaker 18: policy change. So so a person can't just say one
Speaker 18: day I'm an activist. Yeah, right, you know, what is
Speaker 18: your record? What organizations have you have you built? What
Speaker 18: institutions uh you know, have you have you created? What
Speaker 18: campaigns have you launched to you know, reduce levels of
Speaker 18: housing insecurity, you know, in your community. And I think
Speaker 18: we have to be more outcome oriented, more results oriented,
Speaker 18: because especially in a moment in which those who are
Speaker 18: trying to conserve racism are so intent focused.
Speaker 9: Yeah, we have to be outcome focused.
Speaker 5: And I think there's a lot of symbolism, right and
Speaker 5: even when we when it comes to the presidency, we
Speaker 5: you know, have seen the election of President Barack Obama
Speaker 5: and looking at that through the lens of policy, you know,
Speaker 5: we can judge his presidency. I think at this point
Speaker 5: we are for a lot of younger people. President Obama
Speaker 5: was the floor, not the ceiling, and so now younger
Speaker 5: people have a lot more demands of our leaders. We're
Speaker 5: beyond the role of symbolism. So I think that's so true.
Speaker 5: What is your prediction for what may happen in November
Speaker 5: and what this landscape might look like in this country,
Speaker 5: you know, because when he was elected, it was like, oh,
Speaker 5: we're post racial now, which we all kind of laughed
Speaker 5: at that ridiculous notion of that. What might we see
Speaker 5: what might await us under a president Kamala Harris.
Speaker 18: Well, it's interesting because many people have talked about the
Speaker 18: importance obviously of this election, and you know, as an historian,
Speaker 18: let me just say I can attest to that I
Speaker 18: can't think of this election in twenty twenty four, particularly
Speaker 18: for black folks, without thinking of the election of eighteen
Speaker 18: sixty four. And this was an election between a candidate
Speaker 18: who more or less planned to end the Civil War
Speaker 18: and pretty much re enslaved black people, you know, in
Speaker 18: a candidate that presumed that he was going to continue
Speaker 18: the Civil War. I mean, it really is that stark,
Speaker 18: particularly when you look at the candidacy of Donald Trump
Speaker 18: and what he has planned, particularly for black folks, and
Speaker 18: so I don't I think it's important for us to
Speaker 18: understand those stakes, especially when you look at some of
Speaker 18: the candidates who are sort of allying with Trump internationally,
Speaker 18: when you look at what they've done when they've gotten
Speaker 18: a second term or when they've gotten a second presidency.
Speaker 18: This is this is a critical moment in the history
Speaker 18: of black life in this country and really in the
Speaker 18: history of the United States.
Speaker 4: I just I just want to take that you're going
Speaker 4: to know that they're three rattlers.
Speaker 3: I was just getting ready to say there are now
Speaker 3: three rattlers on the stage, and there was already a
Speaker 3: fourth one.
Speaker 1: Roywood Junior has already left us.
Speaker 3: Andrews gonna be completely hood and go ahead and do
Speaker 3: the selfie in the middle of the show.
Speaker 1: They're not like us. That's so rude.
Speaker 6: It is rude.
Speaker 1: Anyway.
Speaker 3: Let me just take this moment to announce and welcome
Speaker 3: our dear brother Vince Evans, who is the Congressional Black Caucus.
Speaker 1: Executive Director, and he is looking rather dapa. Bring the
Speaker 1: mike close to that's so much better.
Speaker 9: I waited a long time to get to this table.
Speaker 4: Man, get out of here.
Speaker 1: He didn't come to DNC, you know, dang well, we
Speaker 1: told this come.
Speaker 3: This is a big week for Vince, not just because
Speaker 3: of the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation's annual legislative Conference, but.
Speaker 1: Also and Ebrim.
Speaker 3: It's perfect that you're here because the Congressional Black Caucus
Speaker 3: just released a report and a report card on diversity
Speaker 3: the inclusion efforts in the corporate space. So talk a
Speaker 3: little bit about that, Vince, and why you are so
Speaker 3: focused on that word.
Speaker 9: It's a good question, Dee and I.
Speaker 7: When they try to roll it back and attack d
Speaker 7: and I, they are attacking you and I, as y'all know,
Speaker 7: ten months produced a report got Corporate America more than
Speaker 7: the third of Corporate America.
Speaker 9: To respond, first ever report of its kind.
Speaker 7: And what we found is this diversity, echoity, inclusion is
Speaker 7: a good business imperative. That's what Corporate America says. Most
Speaker 7: of them are still committed to it. The realities they
Speaker 7: are they are getting attacked because people can't get lass
Speaker 7: through the Congress. They are going to the courts to
Speaker 7: get the bad lass pass that they want. So the
Speaker 7: CBC is doing two front here, right, defensive work, holding
Speaker 7: holding those accountable who are taking away the tools of
Speaker 7: economic opportunity. We've heard the Vice President in recent days
Speaker 7: talk about an economic opportunity that she will advance around housing,
Speaker 7: work and wages when she is elected next president of
Speaker 7: the United States. And then we're doing the offensive work,
Speaker 7: which is to make certain that we close America's.
Speaker 9: Racial wealth gap.
Speaker 7: So that report released this week begins to serve as
Speaker 7: a grounding, if you will, in a resource for all
Speaker 7: of those out there who say they care about these issues.
Speaker 9: So we're gonna hold you.
Speaker 11: Accountabiliyes, love that, and a guide post, right, I mean
Speaker 11: for those who unfortunately we live it well, you lived
Speaker 11: in a state with a governor who is taken to
Speaker 11: the university system.
Speaker 4: Yep, I mean Abram and Counada.
Speaker 11: He hit me first, then he came for you, you
Speaker 11: and your books and trying to pull resources that tell
Speaker 11: the true history of black the black experience in America
Speaker 11: to kids.
Speaker 4: They don't want any of that.
Speaker 11: I'm curious how it is that we get our political
Speaker 11: space back realigned to such a way that the floor
Speaker 11: isn't so damn low, right. I mean we're sceptterranean now
Speaker 11: when we say benchmarks against one another, even in our
Speaker 11: own you know, in the state of Florida, you're comparing
Speaker 11: folks who generally don't want us in the same building,
Speaker 11: the same space, the same room, and then others who say,
Speaker 11: if you're gonna be there, it won't be through any
Speaker 11: support the.
Speaker 6: Illusion of inclusion.
Speaker 4: Right, that's what it is, right, Yea.
Speaker 7: Look, I think I was listening earlier today. I was
Speaker 7: a black sheep. The choice of yours came on the radio.
Speaker 7: You can get with this, you can get with that. Yeah,
Speaker 7: this November fifty two days. I think we got fifty
Speaker 7: two days in a wake up. You can either get
Speaker 7: with this, which is about protecting our rights not rolling
Speaker 7: them back. As y'all know, I'm preaching to the choir,
Speaker 7: but the acquired needs a tune up every now and then,
Speaker 7: right making certain that we do not allow d and
Speaker 7: I roll back, making certain that we finally get the
Speaker 7: John R.
Speaker 9: Lewis Voting Rights Act past.
Speaker 7: Doing all the things that we know are our north
Speaker 7: stars as black people, black people, let's say black yes
Speaker 7: in America, or you can get with this over here
Speaker 7: on that which is all the attacks, all the things
Speaker 7: you just said, all the books that are being rolled
Speaker 7: back you cannot read, or Amanda Gorman's poem in the
Speaker 7: State of Florida.
Speaker 9: So we got a lot of work to do.
Speaker 19: You know that.
Speaker 7: I don't know that we haven't answer yet about how
Speaker 7: we raise the ceiling over time, but we got to
Speaker 7: win something you cannot.
Speaker 9: You cannot govern if you do not win. As you
Speaker 9: used to say.
Speaker 1: It's told me before he got on he had to go.
Speaker 1: Ebram squeezed us. And we love y'all. We appreciate you
Speaker 1: for being here.
Speaker 9: Thank you, We love y'all so much.
Speaker 3: Do you want to say a rattler something or something
Speaker 3: and while there, thank you guys so much for being here.
Speaker 3: While they're leaving. We are welcoming up Congresswoman Evat Clark.
Speaker 3: She is the incoming chair for the Congressional Black CAUCUSSE.
Speaker 3: She's been in congressional leadership a long time, Chris, and
Speaker 3: she is extraordinary.
Speaker 1: We first met while she was on.
Speaker 3: The Homeland Security Committee as a freshman, and watching her
Speaker 3: rise has been my greatest privilege and honor. Congress with Mclark,
Speaker 3: thank you so much for being here with us today.
Speaker 5: I want to add that she's one of the most
Speaker 5: fashionable members Congress as well. Has always been super fly
Speaker 5: and a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Incorporated. And
Speaker 5: on a personal note of privilege, you have always been
Speaker 5: so supportive of me, so I want to thank you
Speaker 5: publicly for that.
Speaker 1: So we love you and happy welcome.
Speaker 12: Home, Welcome, wonderful. It's such an honor to be with you.
Speaker 12: And I do want to make a correction. I am
Speaker 12: the first vice chair of the Congressional Black Caucus and
Speaker 12: I'm seeking the support of my colleagues will message of
Speaker 12: the Congressional Black Caucus.
Speaker 3: But you know you put it well, here's what I know,
Speaker 3: Here's what I know, And I want to say this
Speaker 3: to you. Of course, that race is not partisan, and
Speaker 3: also we're in the clear here. What I want to
Speaker 3: say to you to your face, Miss Clark, is as
Speaker 3: long as I worked on the hill and even after,
Speaker 3: I know how long you've served diligently, how much you
Speaker 3: love your colleagues, how much you love the culture, how
Speaker 3: much you love your constituents, how much you adore our community.
Speaker 3: And so I am confident that you will be the
Speaker 3: next share of the Congressional Black Caucus.
Speaker 1: And I know I've seen your service, you know firsthand.
Speaker 3: And I loved laboring with you because you made everything
Speaker 3: fun and we still worked hard, but you always kept
Speaker 3: a smile on your face.
Speaker 1: And I'm grateful for that and for your sisterhood too.
Speaker 12: Thank you so much, my sister, Andrew. It's such a pleasure.
Speaker 12: It's good to be with you.
Speaker 9: I was going to tell you.
Speaker 11: I told Congress went mixing waters when we were together
Speaker 11: at the DNC. How growing up in Florida, in Gainesville,
Speaker 11: how I didn't know my member of Congress and there
Speaker 11: was a white male at the time, and how because
Speaker 11: of her advocacy, I always felt like she was my
Speaker 11: member of Congress. You're the next member of Congress who
Speaker 11: really puts puts it in the mold of I don't
Speaker 11: have to be a New York resident in your district
Speaker 11: to know that you're out there fighting for us, and
Speaker 11: so I know our listeners feel that way. I know
Speaker 11: I personally feel that way, and I just I'm thankful
Speaker 11: for your leadership and high time that a voice like
Speaker 11: yours helms again the CBC.
Speaker 12: I want thank you, Thank you all so very much.
Speaker 12: I appreciate it, and I love my people. At the baseline,
Speaker 12: it starts with the love of your people, and you
Speaker 12: will go, you know, through the fire, yeah, to make
Speaker 12: sure that they are safe, they are protected, they are thriving.
Speaker 12: That's real in this society.
Speaker 1: You do that every day. I want to ask you.
Speaker 3: You know, we're talking about this election in less partisan
Speaker 3: ways because you know, we want to protect the five o'
Speaker 3: one C three status of the Foundation absolutely, But one
Speaker 3: thing I wanted to raise is there are a lot
Speaker 3: of concerns of impacting our community specifically going into this election.
Speaker 3: And we're not talking about who to go for necessarily
Speaker 3: right now, but I think we all want to preserve democracy.
Speaker 3: There are a lot of threats at stake, and you,
Speaker 3: for a long time. Cybersecurity has been your bread and butter,
Speaker 3: you know that space. What are you more concerned about
Speaker 3: for black folks going into this election?
Speaker 12: Cite absolutely. I'm concerned that our extreme, you know, devotion
Speaker 12: to social media puts us in a place where misinformation
Speaker 12: and disinformation can can permeate our thoughts and so oftentimes
Speaker 12: what we're seeing is not accurate, their deep fakes. You
Speaker 12: technology used to deceive, intentionally deceive people. That can be
Speaker 12: visual and it can be audio as well, And this
Speaker 12: will be the first election where this technology is that
Speaker 12: the fingertips of the average everyday American not to mention
Speaker 12: foreign advisory. And so I'm just concerned, given the tone
Speaker 12: and tenor of this particular election cycle, some would call
Speaker 12: it desperation, others would call it overly ambitious, that there
Speaker 12: will be those types of disruptions to our election. And
Speaker 12: it doesn't have to be information regarding candidates. It could
Speaker 12: be your polling side is close.
Speaker 1: Right righte the date of the election.
Speaker 5: And it's interesting you bring that up because it shows
Speaker 5: how powerful we are as a people in this country, first,
Speaker 5: but second as a voting block, because we are disproportionately
Speaker 5: targeted by misinformation and disinformation, I would argue perhaps second
Speaker 5: only to the Lasino community, and a lot of these
Speaker 5: outlets don't have native Spanish speakers to help dispute some
Speaker 5: of the disinformation. So we want to encourage our viewers
Speaker 5: out there share responsibly, consume information responsibly. What are some
Speaker 5: things that you would encourage people to do, like how
Speaker 5: you know, how how do they make sure that they're
Speaker 5: not consuming misinformation and disinformation?
Speaker 12: And what role is the Congressional black costice And you
Speaker 12: take the same device provide that's the opportunity to fact check. Yes, right,
Speaker 12: So don't just receive content and not then do some
Speaker 12: a little due diligence around it, because if it doesn't
Speaker 12: sound right, it probably isn't right right. And oftentimes we
Speaker 12: know that the information we receive can be flawed and
Speaker 12: we don't want to inadvertently participate in the spread of that.
Speaker 12: And that's what generitive AI can do in the blink
Speaker 12: of an eye. So I want to encourage our folks
Speaker 12: to use that same device. When you receive something on
Speaker 12: social media to investigate, you do your own fact checking.
Speaker 4: Yeah, have you considered, I know you've got to bounce.
Speaker 4: I'm so sorry.
Speaker 11: Have you considered the feeling what the work becomes if
Speaker 11: you are negotiating as CBC chair with a black woman
Speaker 11: president who's overly qualified, and all the other good stuff.
Speaker 11: But I just I don't want us to sit in
Speaker 11: a moment that we're not at yet. But I would
Speaker 11: love to hear your pre thought.
Speaker 12: I'm extraordinarily excited about, first of all, what the Biden
Speaker 12: Harris administration has already done. They've made monumental investments, and
Speaker 12: the CBC has been a major part of negotiating those investments,
Speaker 12: knowing that the need for those investments to hit our
Speaker 12: communities is paramount, and that we're turning the page. We
Speaker 12: are already turning the page. The question is will we
Speaker 12: go back, Will all of those investments be dismantled? And
Speaker 12: we say no, it won't. We say not on our watch,
Speaker 12: and just knowing that this, I want to say, sister,
Speaker 12: is a new generation. Both of us were born in
Speaker 12: the same year. I won't go into those details, but
Speaker 12: you can google it, use your Google machine. We were
Speaker 12: birth born as beneficiaries of the civil rights movement. We
Speaker 12: were not you know, the young people that march or
Speaker 12: the young people that were host We were the beneficiaries,
Speaker 12: and that meant that, you know, the world was our
Speaker 12: oyster because our ancestors truly did what needed to be
Speaker 12: doe to get to be done in order to advance
Speaker 12: our communities. We now have someone with that frame.
Speaker 6: To move us forward.
Speaker 12: And certainly among CBC members, we've got a intergenerational body
Speaker 12: and that is a unique blend in this century. We are,
Speaker 12: I believe, at the precipice of manifesting a whole new
Speaker 12: paradigm of a civil society. It already exists. They are
Speaker 12: those who are in denial about the existence. But as
Speaker 12: a result of what our ancestors that we probably have
Speaker 12: the most educated Black community in the generation. That's not
Speaker 12: to say that there is major work that has to
Speaker 12: be telling me because we got to raise the bar
Speaker 12: and I think that's where the fear that we are
Speaker 12: experiencing that has been weaponized against us is coming from.
Speaker 12: So stay tuned, and I just.
Speaker 1: Want to let you know because I know you've got
Speaker 1: to get to the dinner.
Speaker 5: But the comments on our YouTube live, everyone is commenting
Speaker 5: about your glasses and your nails.
Speaker 1: I told y'all she the most fashionable. So thank you
Speaker 1: so much.
Speaker 10: Much.
Speaker 3: Continued success, you can't wait to have you back in
Speaker 3: all your capacities.
Speaker 6: I love you.
Speaker 5: I am so excited about the guests and I angel
Speaker 5: and I'm excited because I see some people waiting in
Speaker 5: the wing. Yes, and I'm so excited to talk to
Speaker 5: these ladies.
Speaker 15: We have some.
Speaker 1: Superstars that are coming up to join us right now.
Speaker 3: Some of y'all are sadly, really narrow minded about one
Speaker 3: of these ladies' contributions to not only the discourse but
Speaker 3: to the political ecosystem. She is representing our interests all
Speaker 3: day long in committee hearing after committee hearing, and markup
Speaker 3: after markup. She is on the House floor making sure
Speaker 3: that our positions are heard, that we are represented fully.
Speaker 3: And she even gets on Twitter and breaks down what's
Speaker 3: really going on or what should be going on, because
Speaker 3: it's not going on. I'm not gonna get two partisan
Speaker 3: up in here, because, like I said, we are at
Speaker 3: the CBC Foundation and your legislative conference. But we are
Speaker 3: joined by Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett and there's another superstar. They
Speaker 3: tell you they are a gift and they are dressed
Speaker 3: by Christmas.
Speaker 1: Okay, so here we go.
Speaker 3: This wasn't even planned, but we are joined by District
Speaker 3: Attorney Fulton County District Attorney Fannie Willis, who's also here
Speaker 3: with us tonight.
Speaker 1: So Jason, find welcome. We are so happy to have
Speaker 1: you both. We got a town down and eightstown down.
Speaker 5: I'm sorry, look at me, Deawn. Yeah, yes, we're excited.
Speaker 5: Lady Jasmine, it's like you might be a three timer
Speaker 5: on this show. You research.
Speaker 12: We love having you.
Speaker 1: Youwers love having you.
Speaker 5: I'm at home, so here we absolutely I want to
Speaker 5: because Jasmine's been here before us. I do want to
Speaker 5: start off with Madame District Attorney Fannie Willis.
Speaker 1: We were lock glued. We were so like such a
Speaker 1: just cheering for you.
Speaker 5: So before I ask you anything, I just want to
Speaker 5: say thank you, yes for standing on the front lines
Speaker 5: of democracy.
Speaker 1: I do want to let you know that I have
Speaker 1: stolen your quote.
Speaker 5: No matter what the situation is, if I'm running late
Speaker 5: for a flight, I always say, no, you're confused.
Speaker 1: You think I'm the one running for it.
Speaker 5: But y'all are confused because these are people trying to
Speaker 5: make me miss my flight. Of course, I'm taking that
Speaker 5: from her when she said, you're confused, you think.
Speaker 1: I'm on trial.
Speaker 5: These people are on trial. I'm trying to steal an election.
Speaker 5: So thank you for your work. How he are you
Speaker 5: doing personally and professionally.
Speaker 20: I'm excellent. I am actually at the happiest time in
Speaker 20: my life. I think people would find that surprising, but
Speaker 20: I am living my dream. There's nothing more than I
Speaker 20: want to be than the District Attorney of Fulton County, Georgia.
Speaker 12: Fulton County is my home.
Speaker 9: The work is important.
Speaker 20: It is important that we have people that really represent
Speaker 20: the values of the community and understand that everyone in
Speaker 20: a community gets to be safe. So I'm happy there.
Speaker 20: I have two beautiful daughters. They're just getting to that
Speaker 20: age where their.
Speaker 12: Brain works twenty five and.
Speaker 20: Accuracy, an accurate statement. I've been raising these beautiful daughters,
Speaker 20: and so I know that to be true. I'm gonna
Speaker 20: be a grandmother. My personal life is good, and so
Speaker 20: I am excellent. No matter how hard they come from me,
Speaker 20: they mad because I'm.
Speaker 21: Doing good over here.
Speaker 1: Congratulations coming to grandmother.
Speaker 13: Amazing.
Speaker 5: They try to throw us off our game all the time,
Speaker 5: but try as they might, it don't work. You of
Speaker 5: all people know that Congresswoman Crockett, I love this dress
Speaker 5: that you're wearing.
Speaker 1: Tonight, by the way, so listen, I think it's it's
Speaker 1: so great.
Speaker 22: First of all, I love Fani for so many different reasons,
Speaker 22: but as someone who's always been more so in the
Speaker 22: public defender side of things, I can tell you that
Speaker 22: I've always appreciated a good prosecutor, right yeah, Because.
Speaker 1: Here's the deal. Some people make mistakes.
Speaker 22: Some people are simply, you know, dealing with circumstances of
Speaker 22: life and end up in some kind of circumstances. But
Speaker 22: having a prosecutor that sees people as just that people
Speaker 22: is really important. And as we are going through this election,
Speaker 22: all I can think about is that there is a
Speaker 22: prosecutor in the race, right But one of the things
Speaker 22: that it's really difficult to get people to do is
Speaker 22: to see and value her as someone who's literally just
Speaker 22: always stood for the people.
Speaker 1: Because that's what Fani does.
Speaker 22: Her job isn't to go after a certain person or
Speaker 22: a certain type of person, is to look to see
Speaker 22: if someone has broken the law, and to stand for
Speaker 22: the people of full ten County. And so I am
Speaker 22: so appreciative for all of the prosecutors that actually do
Speaker 22: their job, which is to.
Speaker 21: Seek justice and not convictions.
Speaker 22: And so we need to make sure that we're continually
Speaker 22: educating our community.
Speaker 1: About what a prosecutor is supposed to look like.
Speaker 22: It's supposed to seek out justice, and sometimes situations just
Speaker 22: aren't just. But as they are standing in the gap,
Speaker 22: they are the highest law enforcement agent in those counties,
Speaker 22: and so it is important that you have someone that
Speaker 22: does not misuse or abuse that power, but instead harnesses
Speaker 22: that power and make sure that they are standing for
Speaker 22: the community. And so I'm just excited that I get
Speaker 22: to sit next to her and we get to bring
Speaker 22: Christmas early.
Speaker 1: I have one question for you. It's something I think
Speaker 1: about all the time. In law school.
Speaker 3: When they came to recruit district attorneys, prosecutors will come
Speaker 3: to coircuit.
Speaker 1: I was like, I can't do that.
Speaker 3: That's where my people ended up going. What was the
Speaker 3: thing for you that was like, this is exactly where
Speaker 3: I need to be. What was the thing that clicked
Speaker 3: for you? So that's really interesting. If you know my history,
Speaker 3: I was actually raised by a defense attorney. My father
Speaker 3: practiced criminal defense. As a child, I was dragged at courtrooms.
Speaker 1: By the way. You know, I told you yesterday, Yes,
Speaker 1: your daddy and my daddy could be friends.
Speaker 20: Meet, and so I always wanted to be a defense attorney, right,
Speaker 20: I wanted to be like my father. What happened was
Speaker 20: I was actually young, married, had two young children, and
Speaker 20: I was like, let me go see about being a prosecutor.
Speaker 20: And what I have learned is and it is not
Speaker 20: that I am better than any defense attorney. It is
Speaker 20: that I am in position. And so I tell people
Speaker 20: all the time, I have probably been able to help
Speaker 20: more people charged with crimes than any individual defense attorney
Speaker 20: because I sit in the seat where we made those decisions, and.
Speaker 21: So I'm able to have an office.
Speaker 20: When I took my office, literally the police would facts
Speaker 20: over a statement and an indictment would be brought. I
Speaker 20: have changed the policy in my office that you're not
Speaker 20: ever able to bring an indictment until you do an investigation.
Speaker 20: And you would be surprised at the percentage of people
Speaker 20: that never get charged because we are doing what is
Speaker 20: just by them. We also started a diversion program that
Speaker 20: sometimes they did do it, but it's their first defense.
Speaker 20: They were young, it was a mistake. We can make
Speaker 20: the victim whole and we can restore them. And so
Speaker 20: I am looking at the people charged with crimes as
Speaker 20: human beings. Another thing is I take a huge part
Speaker 20: of my budget and I put it into the school
Speaker 20: system because, as I tell people often, I want to
Speaker 20: see the children that look like me and don't look
Speaker 20: like me, but have opportunity ahead of them in the
Speaker 20: classroom and not in the courtroom. And so it is
Speaker 20: so important that as people listen to your program, that
Speaker 20: they don't go in on November fifth and just vote
Speaker 20: at the top of the ballot. They need to vot
Speaker 20: and those local elections that are going to touch them,
Speaker 20: their mothers, their grandmothers, their nephews, their uncles. And I
Speaker 20: can tell you that a prosecutor is one of the
Speaker 20: things that touches too many people's lives. And you need
Speaker 20: to make sure that you have someone sitting in that
Speaker 20: seat that cares about you, involves you you, and doesn't
Speaker 20: think that you are just someone that should be thrown
Speaker 20: away based on the way you look, or who you love,
Speaker 20: or the zip code or area code.
Speaker 9: That you live in.
Speaker 11: I preach, preach, preach past the basket, come out of
Speaker 11: the local tradition. So I feel that while this question
Speaker 11: is directed that you, finally, I'm hoping, Jasmine, you would
Speaker 11: weigh in here, which is while you are doing great,
Speaker 11: which I'm loving you and your life professionally and personally,
Speaker 11: the Republicans in your state are pretty obsessed with you
Speaker 11: and so being are attempting to level the power of
Speaker 11: your office, which will have impact on every black next
Speaker 11: prosecutor who follows you, and so on and so forth.
Speaker 4: And I know you've been at the epicenter, you know,
Speaker 4: taking the arrows as well.
Speaker 11: What can we got a lot of listeners from Georgia,
Speaker 11: a lot from Atlanta and the surrounding area. What can
Speaker 11: black lawyers be doing in Georgia to not just I
Speaker 11: don't want to put it on you, but we know
Speaker 11: what's powering a lot of this movement. But what can
Speaker 11: they do to help protect you the office, the ability
Speaker 11: for folks like you who want to come next to
Speaker 11: not feel so bowed by the attacks against you that
Speaker 11: it's not a choice that they make.
Speaker 4: What does that look like? And the reason why I
Speaker 4: pointed at you as well, Jasmine, is.
Speaker 11: Because you're a lawyer yourself. Some may be afraid of
Speaker 11: what that thing is that they may have to do
Speaker 11: to stand in protection. And I'd love for you to
Speaker 11: speak to that.
Speaker 21: Well, well, I will start.
Speaker 20: I think that one thing that lawyers all over the
Speaker 20: country can do is they can let these senators because
Speaker 20: I live renfree in Republicans locally and nationally, I'm there,
Speaker 20: I got the mortgage paid up. As a result of that,
Speaker 20: I am the target many many times. But what they
Speaker 20: don't understand is I take my craft very seriously, and
Speaker 20: we dot our eyes and we cross our t's and
Speaker 20: we make sure that we operate ethically. And that is
Speaker 20: a very frightening proposition. People want to get up, they
Speaker 20: want to do good work, they want to make their money,
Speaker 20: and they want to be left alone. And so I
Speaker 20: understand people not wanting to live really excuse me the
Speaker 20: hell that I have lived where I can't live in
Speaker 20: my home but I had to pay the mortgage today anyway,
Speaker 20: or where I am threatened constantly. I understand someone not
Speaker 20: wanting to live like that, But at some point you
Speaker 20: have to make a decision what is your life for
Speaker 20: what does it mean? And for me personally, I want
Speaker 20: to make sure that it's a life of service. You know,
Speaker 20: we're only here for a very limited number of days,
Speaker 20: and the only thing that's really going to matter is
Speaker 20: how did you help other human beings, and so I
Speaker 20: think that it's worth it. And I think that us
Speaker 20: as young African Americans, although I'm in my fifties, I'm
Speaker 20: gonna still Clay.
Speaker 21: Take that young title.
Speaker 20: I think that it's important that we recognize all the
Speaker 20: shoulders that we stand on of black people, of white people.
Speaker 13: Of Jewish people.
Speaker 20: It was a movement that took us to resting, and
Speaker 20: we are living in a time where they want to
Speaker 20: take history out of our books, have us forget it
Speaker 20: and not remember all the legacy that we stand on.
Speaker 21: And I know the legacy that.
Speaker 4: I stand on.
Speaker 12: I've already read the books.
Speaker 4: Come all right, And so I plan to do the work.
Speaker 20: And I think that lawyers need to demand that the
Speaker 20: senators that who want to attack and do things wrongly,
Speaker 20: that they know that we're not going to allow it,
Speaker 20: and that they stand next to me.
Speaker 12: And not calur.
Speaker 4: Come on, that's it.
Speaker 3: Any dark you're gonna say, any party words for you
Speaker 3: a congressman, I know you guys have to go to
Speaker 3: the dinner.
Speaker 22: I was literally gonna basically echo those sentiments. Besides like
Speaker 22: paying amensh ancestors who literally pave the way for us
Speaker 22: to have the opportunities. I do think it's important that
Speaker 22: as a village we stand together. It's kind of like
Speaker 22: the kid that goes to the playground. If you go
Speaker 22: to the playground and they think you ain't got no
Speaker 22: cousins and no sisters and brothers, then.
Speaker 1: They will jump you.
Speaker 22: But if they see that you have an entire coalition
Speaker 22: standing with you, then they are afraid of you. And
Speaker 22: so what we need to do is we need to
Speaker 22: lets our power. We didn't get through or to law
Speaker 22: school by ourselves. There were those that made sacrifices. Some
Speaker 22: lost their lives plenty bled and some literally just went
Speaker 22: to jail so that we could have the opportunities. So
Speaker 22: I do think that at some point in time, you
Speaker 22: have to say, what am I going to do with
Speaker 22: this privilege that has been granted upon me. And so
Speaker 22: even if you don't want to be on the front lines,
Speaker 22: because I get it, if you don't want to necessarily
Speaker 22: be the ones that takes all the bullets, make sure
Speaker 22: that you are standing there with us. Make sure that
Speaker 22: you are providing some armor, and make sure that she's
Speaker 22: not having to spend all her dag on campaign money
Speaker 22: hiring lawyers out the Wazu, and half of them may
Speaker 22: not even have her back. They just good for her
Speaker 22: so long as she keeps paying them a check. Sometimes
Speaker 22: you have to decide. My sacrifice may not be that
Speaker 22: I'm gonna run for office, but I'm gonna make the
Speaker 22: sacrifice and support those that are running for office.
Speaker 13: And so that's what I would implore them to do.
Speaker 1: But we have our margin orders and it's Kyle County girl.
Speaker 1: A love that that Fulham County girl. Thank you guys
Speaker 1: so much. Queen Queens. Yes, thank you for having me.
Speaker 5: Thank you. You know what's interesting all of us, these
Speaker 5: ladies andrew all of us, we have all been attacked
Speaker 5: publicly by them.
Speaker 1: They not like us, and they don't like us.
Speaker 3: Well, thank God for this particular conference which has been
Speaker 3: called from Vision to Victory. We are so fortunate to
Speaker 3: be joined now by Congressman Troy Carter, who is an
Speaker 3: Annual Legislative Conference co chair. He is representing New Orleans.
Speaker 3: And we also are being joined by Congresswoman Joyce Batty,
Speaker 3: who is a CBC Foundation board member. And we also
Speaker 3: see present the extraordinary, extraordinarily brilliant.
Speaker 1: And beautiful summer Ly, Congresswoman Summerly you.
Speaker 3: We might as well get y'all all up, because y'all
Speaker 3: come to go line up to march across that.
Speaker 1: Stage in just a moment.
Speaker 5: How congresome and baby, she didn't walk, she floated, She
Speaker 5: did floated, She elegantly floated into con seats.
Speaker 3: I want to shout out my friends Quentin and Stephanie
Speaker 3: Brown who are here also. We're gonna get them on
Speaker 3: all the members, y'all because they gotta go, They gotta
Speaker 3: go line up.
Speaker 5: Look at you look beautiful, beautiful and handsome and handsome.
Speaker 1: So happy to have you guys here.
Speaker 3: So from vision to victory. We are the last day
Speaker 3: of the conference. How do you think we've done? Are
Speaker 3: we closer to the victory? And this is a non
Speaker 3: partisan question, to be very.
Speaker 8: We're absolutely closer.
Speaker 10: To the victory.
Speaker 1: Get closer to the mic.
Speaker 23: We're absolutely closer to the victory. When you look at
Speaker 23: the excitement, the energy, the commitment, people see the opportunity
Speaker 23: to save our democracy. And I think while this has
Speaker 23: been a great opportunity to come together party with a purpose.
Speaker 23: While we're having a good time, we're also talking about
Speaker 23: significant policy. We're talking about making sure that the antidote
Speaker 23: to Trump twenty twenty five is November fifth, twenty twenty four.
Speaker 9: Vote.
Speaker 3: I want to come to you, miss baby, and I
Speaker 3: also want to defer to my colleagues. But I wanted
Speaker 3: to start here because I heard someone say to.
Speaker 1: Me the other day. They were like, there's a member
Speaker 1: of Congress.
Speaker 3: She got this short PIXI cut and she had sharp
Speaker 3: and she gave us our marchant orders at Black Women's Agenda.
Speaker 1: So I know you can tear the house now. So
Speaker 1: what you got for us, I know you got something
Speaker 1: to say.
Speaker 3: And by the way, we would not be here at
Speaker 3: this conference without the advocacy, the fierce advocacy a Congressman Joyce.
Speaker 1: Baty, and she does it for the people every single day.
Speaker 19: So thank you, no, thank you all for doing this.
Speaker 19: And I certainly agree with Congressman Troy Carter. And let
Speaker 19: me just say, we are closer because we have a platform.
Speaker 19: We are closer because we have a candidate fat not partisan.
Speaker 19: When you think about we're here for or CBCFLC. We
Speaker 19: took fifty percent of little Black babies out of poverty.
Speaker 19: We put thirty five dollars cap on insulin for our
Speaker 19: seniors and others. We put sixty five billion dollars into
Speaker 19: HBCUs and I'm a HBCU SEU graduate.
Speaker 1: And if that's not good enough, let's talk about.
Speaker 19: Loan forgiveness one hundred and sixty seven billion dollars for
Speaker 19: some sixty four million people.
Speaker 21: So we have a platform.
Speaker 19: Economy is better fifteen million jobs inflation. Now, if you
Speaker 19: look at the plan of the two different visions, I
Speaker 19: certainly want to be on the sister's vision. And so
Speaker 19: I'm just saying kkk. You know what we usually think
Speaker 19: about when we hear that, Well, I'm gonna give it
Speaker 19: a DEI name on King's Day, Katanji Jackson.
Speaker 9: Brown's gonna square in kam La Harris.
Speaker 1: That's my kkkk ok.
Speaker 19: Yeah, come because I got a black job, My black
Speaker 19: job twenty twenty five.
Speaker 21: As Troy said, it's bad.
Speaker 19: It dismantles everything that we believe in in our values.
Speaker 19: So I'm gonna call it twenty twenty four vote. I
Speaker 19: just need everybody to vote. But let's not get over excited.
Speaker 19: Let's not think the job is done, because we are
Speaker 19: a long way from it until we get to election day.
Speaker 19: So I just want everybody to take the energy and
Speaker 19: double it for the next fifty some days, and then
Speaker 19: I'll be really happy to say I love that.
Speaker 1: Congress Woman Lee, thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 5: I love the margin orders we just got from Congressman
Speaker 5: Baby Joe Taka Edie who I'm sure you guys know her,
Speaker 5: one of my dearest friends. Yes, we love Joe Taka
Speaker 5: and her work around one with black women. She addressed
Speaker 5: the conference this week, and one point that she made
Speaker 5: here in DC inauguration weekend, there is no accommodation. Hotels
Speaker 5: are sold out. That is how confident people are about
Speaker 5: this election. And so I hear your caution Joe Taka's
Speaker 5: marching orders. Where if you have a hotel room books here,
Speaker 5: but you ain't registered nobody to vote, there you go,
Speaker 5: then you ain't been doing your job. So, Congressoman Lee,
Speaker 5: I'm curious what you would say to people out there
Speaker 5: who are rightfully celebratory of this moment, after what we've
Speaker 5: been through as a people and as a country.
Speaker 1: What are your marching orders to our audience watching right now?
Speaker 14: Yeah, so listen, I'm in Pennsylvania, So I always take excitement.
Speaker 14: I take joy that I see especially in these places
Speaker 14: right because when we gather, we bring this sort of energy.
Speaker 14: But when we go home, we forget sometimes that we're
Speaker 14: going back to people who are in these circles. Yeah right,
Speaker 14: they're not getting dressed up tonight. They haven't been able
Speaker 14: to hear all the inspiration from these panels. They haven't
Speaker 14: absorbed all the black excellence that we've been absorbing. So
Speaker 14: we got to go back to the states just like mine,
Speaker 14: to western Pennsylvania, and we actually have to talk to
Speaker 14: people who are not.
Speaker 1: As tuned in as we are.
Speaker 21: And that's not as easy.
Speaker 14: And it's okay to admit that when we talk about
Speaker 14: what Solar Baby said that we have a plan, we
Speaker 14: have to take it. That's our responsibility. We have to
Speaker 14: go on doors and we have to let folks know
Speaker 14: what's that stake and what we can do to address that.
Speaker 14: We have to let people know that hope isn't something
Speaker 14: that is just a word, but we have a belief
Speaker 14: in each other and ourselves, and when we step up
Speaker 14: for ourselves, we can get those things done. But you know,
Speaker 14: that is translating all of this into some actual action.
Speaker 14: We always get folks who say they want to you know,
Speaker 14: they'll go to the rallies, and I love rallies, y'all.
Speaker 14: I do there's a lot of energy out these rallies,
Speaker 14: But the reality is is that the people who we
Speaker 14: need are not the rally We need to go and
Speaker 14: get black folks on college campuses. We got to go
Speaker 14: and get young folks who are reasonably concerned about a
Speaker 14: lot of stuff. We need to take that concern and
Speaker 14: we need to help connect them into the system. We
Speaker 14: need to plug them in, and we got to be
Speaker 14: patient with them. So I'm seeing this and I think
Speaker 14: that this is a really good foundation, but we know
Speaker 14: in these fifty something days, we got work to do.
Speaker 1: Steel Yeah, I think that's so.
Speaker 5: It's kind of like an analogy for the kids who
Speaker 5: show up to the guidance counselor's office because they want
Speaker 5: to go to college. Those are not the kids who
Speaker 5: are in the most need. It's the kids who are
Speaker 5: not participating. So I love that you made that point.
Speaker 11: I think that's a poignant So I don't want to
Speaker 11: be a Donald downer, but I do want to say
Speaker 11: a lot of people elect people to public office and
Speaker 11: then they start to criticize those individuals basically saying, well,
Speaker 11: they didn't get done.
Speaker 4: What it is that they said they would do.
Speaker 11: I often try to remind folks, look, we came here
Speaker 11: under ball and chain had to endure, you know, four
Speaker 11: hundred years of servit to before even being legal, then
Speaker 11: having that taken away before then we're still seeing laws
Speaker 11: that are passed that bring us into our full existence.
Speaker 11: What does Kamala Harris in addition to folks going out
Speaker 11: and voting and organizing for her, what companionship does she
Speaker 11: need in order to facilitate the movement of an agenda
Speaker 11: that makes life different for people in the streets.
Speaker 6: She needs an a Keen Jeffries to be Speaker of
Speaker 6: the House. We need to have.
Speaker 23: A full complement of democratic senators in the majority in
Speaker 23: the US Senate. We need a patient community, a faith
Speaker 23: based community, an academia, nonprofit and business to recognize that
Speaker 23: the alternative is no democracy. The alternative is a reversal
Speaker 23: of people's rights. The alternative is a total ignoring of
Speaker 23: the Constitution and the rights that we have.
Speaker 12: We cannot go backwards.
Speaker 23: And so when you think about where we are, we
Speaker 23: have a vice president who was a district attorney, an
Speaker 23: attorney general, a United States Senator, and now the vice
Speaker 23: president soon to be president. Of the United States, the
Speaker 23: most consequential candidate to have ever served as vice president,
Speaker 23: and no one has had as much experience as she
Speaker 23: does bringing to the over It's ridiculous that people will
Speaker 23: suggest otherwise everyone should stand and defend and just call
Speaker 23: balls and strikes. The facts bear out Kamala Harris clearly
Speaker 23: has the requisite skill sets, temperament, and abilities what we
Speaker 23: have to do as a people. As Jesse Jackson said
Speaker 23: in nineteen eighty eight, you can't.
Speaker 12: Helpe me in.
Speaker 8: You have to vote for me in.
Speaker 23: So we've got to remind people that for the next
Speaker 23: fifty one fifty two fifty three days, we got to hump.
Speaker 23: We got to just as as severally just said, we
Speaker 23: can't depend on the circles that we're in.
Speaker 12: We're the choir preaching to the choir.
Speaker 23: We've got to go out and the to the communities,
Speaker 23: into the barbershops, the beauty shops, into the nightclubs and
Speaker 23: the sororities and fraternities, and we've got to tell people, yes,
Speaker 23: your vote does matter, and we can't afford to think
Speaker 23: we've got this thing one so we can celebrate.
Speaker 9: No, No, it's going to be close.
Speaker 23: And in order to make sure that we can defend
Speaker 23: what will happen on election day. We have to make
Speaker 23: sure it is a solid victory.
Speaker 9: You know.
Speaker 1: I want to flag for you all.
Speaker 3: Of course, the Congressional Black Caucus is known as the
Speaker 3: conscience of the Congress, and with the three of you
Speaker 3: all sitting here, you all have divergent politics. Your politics
Speaker 3: aren't all the way aligned. And what I love about this.
Speaker 1: Is people get to see themselves reflected in each of you.
Speaker 3: And as the caucus continues to grow, we see from
Speaker 3: how you vote, from the way you negotiate.
Speaker 1: From what you say in committee, the differences.
Speaker 3: There was one moment yesterday that I wanted to mention
Speaker 3: at the top of the show, and I forgot until now.
Speaker 3: But this conference is always a convening for people of
Speaker 3: divergent opinions and perspectives to share.
Speaker 1: In forums, people get up and ask questions, sometimes want
Speaker 1: a debate with y'all. But there was this really harrowing
Speaker 1: moment last night.
Speaker 3: I was walking out of the Salamander and there was
Speaker 3: a protest, and the protest was for Justin Johnson, who
Speaker 3: was killed at a McDonald's in DC, shot ten times.
Speaker 3: And I was so troubled that it was at a
Speaker 3: black hotel for our black members. And of course I
Speaker 3: was walking with Papa Rye and my.
Speaker 1: Dad looks at me and he says, this is where
Speaker 1: they knew they could be heard.
Speaker 3: And so I know that Justin Johnson and so many others,
Speaker 3: Breonna Taylor and mott Arbury have been at the top
Speaker 3: of you all's minds and you've legislated for them. But
Speaker 3: I just want to say thank you for facilitating the
Speaker 3: space for the protesters, for Justin Johnson, for the protesters
Speaker 3: against the Israel Hamas war, for the protesters to ensure
Speaker 3: that black lives matter. So for facilitating this space. I
Speaker 3: just want to say thank you, and I want to
Speaker 3: honor you all for being here.
Speaker 12: Thank you so much.
Speaker 19: Do we realize that now, I'll say this, and I
Speaker 19: think we'd all agree, we realize our diversity. Sometimes people
Speaker 19: think when you say Congressional Black Caucus that we're all.
Speaker 9: Alike, and we are not.
Speaker 19: And that's what we value and appreciate because that is
Speaker 19: our strength.
Speaker 9: But it's even better when you put it all together.
Speaker 21: That's the power is.
Speaker 19: We can make anything happen, as we did with the
Speaker 19: infrastructure bills, or we can stop anything from happening.
Speaker 6: As we did that, we got both parts.
Speaker 9: That we wanted.
Speaker 19: We wanted to make sure that the services were going
Speaker 19: to be voted on and signed, and so we did
Speaker 19: it all because of our unity and our power. Yeah,
Speaker 19: and if I could add to that, just even with
Speaker 19: what brother Carter was just talking about. When we think
Speaker 19: about what we are really needing to do right now,
Speaker 19: it is how do we invest in the coalitions of
Speaker 19: the future to see me. You know, I'm a black
Speaker 19: girl from Lamond Valley of Pittsborg outside of Pittsburgh, right,
Speaker 19: I'm a progressive and a lot of people for a
Speaker 19: long time, you know, we're told that you couldn't be
Speaker 19: black and progressive, And I actually don't always agree that
Speaker 19: we differ in so many ways. I think that sometimes
Speaker 19: our politics difference and our policies, our goals are similar.
Speaker 19: We're trying to figure out what is the best way
Speaker 19: to get there, recognizing that we're working through systems where
Speaker 19: there are no clear answers. So when we talk about
Speaker 19: how do we invite in these folks who have been disenfranchised,
Speaker 19: who maybe or are feel a little disaffected, how do
Speaker 19: we make room for them? How do we welcome them,
Speaker 19: and when they see me in the place like that,
Speaker 19: they see that that's possible. They see that you know what,
Speaker 19: even if I don't come you know, speaking the same language,
Speaker 19: I don't come with the same background, I don't come
Speaker 19: from the same socio economic status, that my blackness still qualifies.
Speaker 24: Me to be in Congress.
Speaker 14: That my perspective, my experiences qualifies me to have an opinion,
Speaker 14: and that opinion deserves to be represented in every hall
Speaker 14: of power. That's what this is about. And right now,
Speaker 14: when we think about what we need to do in
Speaker 14: these next forty something days, we need to figure out
Speaker 14: how do we remind and keep our democratic coalition together.
Speaker 24: How do we remind people that even the.
Speaker 14: Democratic coalitions of the past aren't going to be sufficient
Speaker 14: right now. What we know, what Republicans know, and what
Speaker 14: we need to know, is that that coalition of black folks,
Speaker 14: of brown folks, of young folks, of progressives, of moderates,
Speaker 14: of people who are urban and rural and suburban, coming
Speaker 14: together right now is what's going to keep us afloat,
Speaker 14: to keep democracy alive.
Speaker 12: Well, we need to pull that together.
Speaker 19: You need to go back and tell them when they
Speaker 19: say you can't be progressive and democrat, that they don't
Speaker 19: know our history. If you don't think Shirley Chisholm progress,
Speaker 19: if you don't think John Lewis was gray.
Speaker 9: If you don't think Charlie Rango was and all of them.
Speaker 19: If you don't think Maxine Waters and Jim Clive right
Speaker 19: not progressive.
Speaker 21: So we have to make sure we keep our history.
Speaker 19: They do that to try to pit us against us
Speaker 19: when a younger generation comes in and says progressive and
Speaker 19: black lives matter, Well, see, I'm from the generation before
Speaker 19: we was raising our fists.
Speaker 1: And seeing black power with Jesse Jackson in the eighties.
Speaker 21: So I just want to lose it now, and that's
Speaker 21: what I want to ask.
Speaker 3: Lady said, I have receipts, and on type of received,
Speaker 3: y'all also have time. We have the chairwoman Terry Sewell
Speaker 3: of the Congressional Black Hawks Foundation, who's here, and Nicole Austin,
Speaker 3: Hillary who is the president, who are going to join us,
Speaker 3: and I know y'all got to get ready to go
Speaker 3: meet your president.
Speaker 1: Thank you for letting me be.
Speaker 3: Thank you both, Carter, Congresswoman Baby Kate Summerlee.
Speaker 1: We are so grateful for your participation today.
Speaker 5: I'm so excited to be joining friend Car with Stephen Quintin,
Speaker 5: and we want.
Speaker 1: You guys to stay tuned because some amazing work with
Speaker 1: And all right, Madam President, please join this woman Terry Sewell,
Speaker 1: you all will know her.
Speaker 5: She's leading a lot of the voting rights work because
Speaker 5: she is representing Alabama. We just shared the stage the
Speaker 5: other day, so I'm so happy to have you join us.
Speaker 5: And every time I see you you get more beautiful.
Speaker 1: I saw we were on stage the other day.
Speaker 5: Yeah, this beautiful, elegant dress on and tonight you both
Speaker 5: look so gorgeous.
Speaker 25: Just want that.
Speaker 11: Said.
Speaker 3: I want to back just so you all know you
Speaker 3: talked about voting rights, Tiff. I think it's really important
Speaker 3: for folks to know. Too many of us met Nicole
Speaker 3: and her voting rights advocacy work, and we are so
Speaker 3: grateful for your service and then bringing that here from
Speaker 3: vision to victory this week and in so many other
Speaker 3: ways to support our wonderful members.
Speaker 1: My CBC family, how are you all doing? Are you great?
Speaker 1: You almost made it through. This is the final act. Congressman.
Speaker 1: We wanted to make Mike absolutely well.
Speaker 25: You know, I'm honored to chair the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation,
Speaker 25: but I'm equally honored to chair the CBC's Voting Rights
Speaker 25: brain Trust.
Speaker 12: Tiffany, thank you.
Speaker 9: You were awesome on that.
Speaker 25: And I think that what we talked about was strategizing, mobilizing,
Speaker 25: empowering Black voters to get to the polls in fifty days.
Speaker 25: It's really really important. So I can't thank you enough
Speaker 25: for being a participant in this. And I also just
Speaker 25: really want to thank Nicole as the president and CEO
Speaker 25: of foundation and it's amazing staff for putting on such
Speaker 25: a great conference. This is our fifty third annual legislative
Speaker 25: conference and it's at a pivotal moment in American history
Speaker 25: as we all know.
Speaker 5: Yes, I just want to shout out your colleague, Congressman
Speaker 5: Lucy McBeth.
Speaker 1: Just walk past so we see congress woman and thank
Speaker 1: you for your work that you leave. You know, she's
Speaker 1: a coach chair.
Speaker 5: Yes sorry, Yes, the coldair of this year, and I
Speaker 5: would love to hear from Nicole because a lot of
Speaker 5: people come.
Speaker 1: We might do a mini pod on this.
Speaker 5: We talked about doing a mini pod on the best
Speaker 5: Black conferences or around the country, but a lot of
Speaker 5: people come to Washington d C this time every year,
Speaker 5: and it's definitely a lot of parties and a lot
Speaker 5: of fraternizing, but there's a lot of work that happens here.
Speaker 5: So if you can tell the viewers at home, if
Speaker 5: you come to party, that's fine, But we want.
Speaker 13: To arm you with things with.
Speaker 1: A purpose. And what is the purpose of this week's conference.
Speaker 5: What are the tangible results that you want to see
Speaker 5: when people get back on their flights home to Alabama
Speaker 5: or Tallahassee or LA or Seattle, wherever they're going.
Speaker 1: What do people take away when they leave.
Speaker 21: First of all, thank you for having this conversation in
Speaker 21: this space.
Speaker 26: I want to go back to our theme for this year,
Speaker 26: from Vision to Victory, amplifying Black voices.
Speaker 6: That's what this is about.
Speaker 26: This is ostensibly the nation's largest black public policy conference.
Speaker 26: It brings together people from everywhere. We break down barriers.
Speaker 26: It doesn't matter who you are, what your rank, file
Speaker 26: title is. We want everyone here and it is about
Speaker 26: talking about the issues that are most salient to the
Speaker 26: black community, figuring out solutions, and then taking that back
Speaker 26: out into the community.
Speaker 24: That's what this is for.
Speaker 26: And the parties and the receptions are all a part
Speaker 26: of it too, because that's our culture. Our culture is
Speaker 26: what sustains us while we do that work. So they
Speaker 26: are inextricably linked. So we want them to go hand
Speaker 26: in hand. But make no mistake about it. We are
Speaker 26: here to problem solve and to arm the community so
Speaker 26: that they can be empowered and strengthened.
Speaker 25: And you know that's exactly what we did in the
Speaker 25: brain Trust people. They had to have a voting plan.
Speaker 25: You got to know where your polling station is. You
Speaker 25: need to know exactly the precinct captains all that good stuff,
Speaker 25: and you need to bring a neighbor or friend to
Speaker 25: the war with I.
Speaker 4: Think arride with five. You got five friends, five other people.
Speaker 11: Folks right all the time and say, well it's such
Speaker 11: and such endorsing, it's such and such, gonna get behind
Speaker 11: Kennedy that I say the if they do, great, But
Speaker 11: the truth is is that the most important contact that
Speaker 11: voter will have or potential voter is gonna be with you.
Speaker 4: The person they know, the one that they trust, the
Speaker 4: word that is bond to them is.
Speaker 6: Gonna be you.
Speaker 4: And so no wait for celebrity X, Y and Z
Speaker 4: to show up. You go out and you do what
Speaker 4: you have to do.
Speaker 11: But in spite and like is saying that I am curious,
Speaker 11: how concerned are we with our folks's ability to have
Speaker 11: their votes one to make it through, we got citizen
Speaker 11: armies that are being formed around the country that folks
Speaker 11: have to be concerned.
Speaker 25: We also have election protection being armed.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 1: Defence Fund.
Speaker 25: They have an eight hundred number toll free number that
Speaker 25: you can call it you feel like your voting rights
Speaker 25: are being denied. So with every punch that they make,
Speaker 25: we have a CounterPunch. We just got to make sure
Speaker 25: that our voting population knows what that counter punch is exactly.
Speaker 26: That's what it's about. It's about information. That's how we
Speaker 26: make sure our communities are armed. Look, I will tell
Speaker 26: you we do research at the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation,
Speaker 26: and we do research around voting rights. People just want
Speaker 26: to have the information because they say when they have it,
Speaker 26: they can get it out to the communities.
Speaker 24: And I will tell you.
Speaker 26: When people know it, and REPSOL knows this, when people
Speaker 26: feel as though their voting rights are being suppressed, that
Speaker 26: makes them even more zealous and they want to get
Speaker 26: out and do something. So as long as we give
Speaker 26: them the tools that they need they're going to get out.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well we don't necessarare it. That's for sure.
Speaker 1: We're here for quite a historic night.
Speaker 3: We know that the President will be addressing this wonderful
Speaker 3: body the Congressional Black Caucus Foundations Phoenix Awards Dinner, and
Speaker 3: we'll be joined by Madame Vice President Kamala Harris.
Speaker 1: So thank you, we will be joined. How are you
Speaker 1: breaking news?
Speaker 3: I'm asking, Well, we don't know, and so we can
Speaker 3: pronounce it right over here exactly. But they actually have
Speaker 3: it do They have to be upstairs so they don't
Speaker 3: get in trouble secret service. So Madame President and Madame Chair,
Speaker 3: we thank you all so much for joining Native.
Speaker 12: Lamp Us alc Fife's.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 13: You don't know.
Speaker 1: She might be watching. It might be and you can
Speaker 1: just do that way. Wait, I gotta go stay. What's
Speaker 1: up the Native lampid, Well, let me tell you who.
Speaker 3: We definitely have to say what's up to right the
Speaker 3: second because my dear friends, our dear friends have been
Speaker 3: waiting patient for a long time to ensure that they
Speaker 3: could get up here to talk about the extraordinary work
Speaker 3: and mission of the collective Collective pack. We have Stephanie Brown,
Speaker 3: James and her lovely husband. Y'all are looking round their
Speaker 3: Dappa went to James, so thank you all so much.
Speaker 27: Oh yeah, looking goodly, loving us.
Speaker 3: We are thrilled that y'all are here, so talk to
Speaker 3: us about what's going on. So just so you know,
Speaker 3: this is the Foundation Daniel Legislative Conference. Andrew in particulars
Speaker 3: following no rules about a five.
Speaker 1: Oh one C three.
Speaker 3: So if you talk about it in your personal capacity,
Speaker 3: I think you have a pass. Can I just really
Speaker 3: quickly to sing your praises because I want the viewers
Speaker 3: to know who you are when we talk about, yes,
Speaker 3: contributing to politics, there are a lot of ways. In
Speaker 3: the same way that you don't have to run for office,
Speaker 3: there are other ways that you can support and fundraising
Speaker 3: is such a key piece of that.
Speaker 5: The donor class is largely white and male. They get
Speaker 5: to determine who's a viable candidate and who's not. And
Speaker 5: Quentin and Steph collectively said not on our watch. Collectively,
Speaker 5: we are going to form the collective pack and empower
Speaker 5: people to help empower leaders who speak for us.
Speaker 1: So thank you for the work that you do in
Speaker 1: that space.
Speaker 5: And you're unapologetic about it and have had tangible success
Speaker 5: in the people that you've.
Speaker 1: Helped get into office. So we just want to let
Speaker 1: our viewers know who you are and thank you for
Speaker 1: your well, you.
Speaker 27: Know, we're the Mutual Admiration Society. Let me just say that,
Speaker 27: how proud we are of y'all. So this is an
Speaker 27: honor for us to be here.
Speaker 4: We love you, girl.
Speaker 1: Okay, So tell us what y'all got going on. Y'all
Speaker 1: got fifty one days? What are you doing? Yeah?
Speaker 6: Cool, fifty one days.
Speaker 28: I think maybe back in July, I was really worried
Speaker 28: about where we were in terms of the numbers. We
Speaker 28: know when the major presidential swing states, Uh, there are
Speaker 28: about three and a half million unregistered but eligible black voters.
Speaker 8: And what's been so phenomenal about this moment?
Speaker 1: And what how many?
Speaker 8: About three and a.
Speaker 5: Half million million unregistered voters eligibles as of July. As
Speaker 5: of July, so that's Pennsylvania, Ohio, Nevada, Nevada.
Speaker 21: And there's over five million that aren't registered at all.
Speaker 19: Wow.
Speaker 28: But what's been interesting is over the past two and
Speaker 28: a half three weeks, we've seen almost a four hundred
Speaker 28: percent increase in new in new voter regtations kind of
Speaker 28: getting process in these states. We have a fifty eight
Speaker 28: percent increase in black voter registration since twenty twenty compared
Speaker 28: to the same time twenty twenty, over one hundred and
Speaker 28: twenty five percent increase in Black women under thirty getting
Speaker 28: registered to vote, and so there's a movement happening. So
Speaker 28: ATHEL when you say, like, what's happening, we see momentum
Speaker 28: and we're excited.
Speaker 8: We got to turn that into actual votes and mean,
Speaker 8: so we know if you're in.
Speaker 28: Pennsylvania on Tuesday, people have the right to go out
Speaker 28: and vote early starting this coming Tuesday, early voter starting
Speaker 28: in other states the next few weeks. And so this
Speaker 28: isn't about November. This is actually election season over the
Speaker 28: next few weeks. So people gonna get out there and
Speaker 28: are voting. They're starting on Tuesday.
Speaker 1: This teod.
Speaker 4: Welcome.
Speaker 1: Then we've been together for twenty y That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: This is their family.
Speaker 3: So I was like, let me make sure this is
Speaker 3: Derek Johnson, the president of the NAACPU. Also I'm joined
Speaker 3: us at the Democratic National Convention as well, but he's
Speaker 3: their family.
Speaker 1: So I figured they were like this.
Speaker 6: There's not crashing a party.
Speaker 15: When they come to the house before the proposal about
Speaker 15: their marriage, we quit cooked.
Speaker 6: Them breakfast.
Speaker 21: That good Jackson Mississippi.
Speaker 1: Food we're talking about.
Speaker 3: You were talking about there's fifty one days left, Like,
Speaker 3: what are the marching orders for the people?
Speaker 6: Don't get distracted.
Speaker 15: Don't allow an idiot to distract you, because he's not
Speaker 15: an audience. Our audience, our young voters. Our audience are
Speaker 15: male voters, female voters. Our audience are infrequent voters who
Speaker 15: turned out in no way turned out in twelve and
Speaker 15: no one talked to them in sixteen, and in many
Speaker 15: ways no one talked to them last year. Yeah, don't
Speaker 15: get distracted and talk to infrequent voters, because that's the
Speaker 15: difference between the quality of life that we that we
Speaker 15: have earned and going to going in the directions. I
Speaker 15: don't know who behind me, you waving that so, but
Speaker 15: I'm nosy.
Speaker 21: Congress congressome with Stacy plask.
Speaker 4: Mister President, what this we just did?
Speaker 11: What does protection look like for voters, particularly in black communities,
Speaker 11: who aren't sure what they're gonna confront when they go
Speaker 11: out to vote on election day or in the or
Speaker 11: in the advance what is the what is the artillery
Speaker 11: look like on our side to make sure that voters
Speaker 11: votes when cast, hopefully casts are protected.
Speaker 15: But it's a combination of things, and it also depends
Speaker 15: on where you're voting. The reality of what it looks
Speaker 15: like in your home state of Florida may be different
Speaker 15: in where I live in Mississippi or in Georgia. So
Speaker 15: the protection may vary depend on location. If you and
Speaker 15: Hans County, Mississippi, we have a black police sheep, we
Speaker 15: have a black sheriff, and we have black folks who
Speaker 15: stand up for each other. But if you're in an
Speaker 15: isolated commuit than you want to cast your black ballot,
Speaker 15: then it may be something different. So you know, the
Speaker 15: Lawyer's Committee stood up a number some years ago that
Speaker 15: one a six number. That's important, but it varies. But
Speaker 15: at the end of the day, walk through the faith
Speaker 15: that we're gonna we're gonna win this and not through
Speaker 15: the fear of what might happen. Unfortunately, we reinforce some
Speaker 15: of the most negative stereotypes which also create a chilling
Speaker 15: effect of our people. Let's talk about what's gonna happen
Speaker 15: in the positive and make sure we have the infrastructure
Speaker 15: place wherever possible. So if something come up called the
Speaker 15: A sixty six number, if you in the Cab County, Georgia,
Speaker 15: it's a whole infrastructure there.
Speaker 6: If you are in Michigan, it's a different infrastructure. But
Speaker 6: whatever you do, go to the polls.
Speaker 15: At the end of the day, we will be victor
Speaker 15: victorious because it's us for us, fighting for us.
Speaker 6: And we must do that together.
Speaker 5: I want to get back to James Ox, to Quinton
Speaker 5: and Stueph, but I want to ask you a quick
Speaker 5: question on this, Derek, because I just want to quote
Speaker 5: the wonderful, late great Nina Simone, because every time we
Speaker 5: talk about this, I just feel like Mississippi, God damn.
Speaker 5: Because this is the most populous state with the largest
Speaker 5: number of black folks. There is no statewide representation black
Speaker 5: representation in Mississippi. The racism is written into the state's constitution.
Speaker 5: I always went when I hear people say the South
Speaker 5: is red, it's only read until it's a't. And we're
Speaker 5: seeing Georgia tangibly show that we can make a difference. Mississippi,
Speaker 5: of all places, can make a difference. But how do
Speaker 5: we disrupt and dismantle these systems of institutional racism that
Speaker 5: keep people there so oppressed.
Speaker 6: So Mississippi is a great number of math.
Speaker 15: We are thirty eight percent of the population, not fifty
Speaker 15: one percent of the population. And the other side of
Speaker 15: that is it takes twenty five percent of white voters
Speaker 15: to vote with us consistently with blacks. Anytime you have
Speaker 15: a majority black, something white fear goes up.
Speaker 6: Racial block voting also is seen.
Speaker 15: Minute end, you will have someone elected in Seattle, Washington,
Speaker 15: or San Francisco with less than five percent of the
Speaker 15: black voting population because the fear of the black community
Speaker 15: isn't as prevalent as it is in a place like Mississippi.
Speaker 15: But I will assure you in our lifetime, probably before
Speaker 15: twenty thirty, Mississippi will have more than one black state
Speaker 15: wide elected officials before twenty thirty. Be clear, the treads
Speaker 15: are there. They're running out of white people. We are
Speaker 15: a younger population at medium age thirty one, thirty one,
Speaker 15: thirty four years in Mississippi Black, forty five years old.
Speaker 9: White.
Speaker 6: We have more children we are looking at demographically.
Speaker 15: Next year will be the last year where the population
Speaker 15: under eighteen is majority white. The population of the UNTEA
Speaker 15: will be majority non white. Let's look at the data,
Speaker 15: the number. That's what's going to drive an outcome if
Speaker 15: we stay focused, not get distracted and lead into our power.
Speaker 6: And not create a dynamics where its us fighting us.
Speaker 1: Okay, see, we crashed the party. You guys aren't done.
Speaker 1: You you crashed. You're taking Maurice Mitchell c. We have
Speaker 1: to bring more Reese on working families.
Speaker 6: Gentlemen, working party president.
Speaker 28: Can I mean I think we might have just maybe
Speaker 28: maybe personal breaking these it is breaking news about maybe
Speaker 28: a future governor.
Speaker 8: Derek Johnson speaking speaking existence, We.
Speaker 11: Would expect that coming coming from you, Q And which
Speaker 11: is least been my question for you and Steph, which
Speaker 11: is we often get feedback through the pod through our
Speaker 11: listeners who are saying, well, what can we do?
Speaker 4: What can we do right where they are?
Speaker 11: Uh?
Speaker 4: If they want to impact?
Speaker 11: Why do we have to compete against an apex to
Speaker 11: preserve a member of Congress who we like, who we support?
Speaker 4: What are we doing? And I can't just personal testimony.
Speaker 11: I could not have competed successfully in the race and
Speaker 11: Florida and that primary race without Quintin and Stephanie stepping up,
Speaker 11: which often put them at odds with the democratic establishment
Speaker 11: of this country. Who came for their next every time
Speaker 11: they came to have my back. So I know what
Speaker 11: the power of the collective pack he is. I'm a
Speaker 11: personal testimony to it, and so many others around the
Speaker 11: country are.
Speaker 4: But tell folks at home, if you want.
Speaker 11: To be on the side of being at the table
Speaker 11: of deciding who to support, of putting your money where
Speaker 11: you know it can go towards candidates who share your
Speaker 11: values and vision.
Speaker 4: What can they do?
Speaker 21: The best thing is that everyone can do something.
Speaker 27: So even when you look at your local community, you
Speaker 27: probably know who your city council member is because you
Speaker 27: go to the grocery store with them, their children, They
Speaker 27: go to school with your children.
Speaker 21: Start at home.
Speaker 27: Support the people that you know that are running for office,
Speaker 27: who share the same values, the same vision for the future.
Speaker 21: Give them five dollars, give them ten. That adds up.
Speaker 27: We keep talking about two thousand and eight Barack Obama,
Speaker 27: his low dollar fundraising amounts and how it was transformative.
Speaker 21: But guess what that is what we have Black folks
Speaker 21: have always done. We put our low coins together.
Speaker 27: We collectively utilize the power of our resources that we
Speaker 27: have at our hands to make a change. And so
Speaker 27: I just want to make sure everyone knows that, you know,
Speaker 27: I have a wonderful hairstylist named Edith the hairla good.
Speaker 21: Yes it does.
Speaker 27: But Edith is in the shop, the shop that she
Speaker 27: owns registering voters. She's talking about the issues. She's making
Speaker 27: sure that her stylists are also doing the same and
Speaker 27: that's powerful.
Speaker 21: And I know before she felt like what could I do?
Speaker 27: Everyone can do someone because everyone has a point of
Speaker 27: influence in the people that are around us.
Speaker 5: I love that there was a similar movement in Georgia
Speaker 5: with strippers. I don't know if you guys remember that
Speaker 5: Booties to the Pole.
Speaker 1: Yeah, think And it was so I just.
Speaker 5: Thought it was amazing because you're speaking to a specific
Speaker 5: demographic in Georgia, demographic cast to wide net and meeting
Speaker 5: people where they are. And I think, you know, if
Speaker 5: if nothing else, that man him forty five, Donald Trump
Speaker 5: taught us to throw out the old playbook, like we
Speaker 5: have to navigate and move in a different way, and
Speaker 5: you all are doing exactly.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 27: And to the point, I just want to say one
Speaker 27: of the things, we have an organization that's a sister
Speaker 27: organization called vote to Live.
Speaker 21: We focus on low propensity black voters. What does that mean.
Speaker 27: That's to mean the black folks that people have left
Speaker 27: behind because maybe they didn't vote in the last election
Speaker 27: or the last of two elections.
Speaker 21: We need everyone to vote.
Speaker 27: The man on the street corner who you pass every day,
Speaker 27: who's asking you from we need him to vote. So
Speaker 27: part of it is as black folks, we got to
Speaker 27: reach out make sure that everyone in our community is
Speaker 27: resourced and ready to be able to participate because.
Speaker 21: You know, when we fight, we know we win.
Speaker 28: And I would just say tangibly, you can visit vote
Speaker 28: to live dot org again all c three, register to vote,
Speaker 28: find out what's on your ballot, find your polling site,
Speaker 28: request then absentee ballot of vote early check your status
Speaker 28: because we know purging is an issue.
Speaker 8: Vote to live dot org.
Speaker 28: Get all those resources there and to share that with
Speaker 28: your friends and family in perfect resource.
Speaker 1: Hell, we love you are so much.
Speaker 3: Quentin and Stephanie Brown, seventy Brown, James, Quentin James, We
Speaker 3: thank God for y'all.
Speaker 1: Thank you for stopping by to see us, most sting around.
Speaker 3: And we have state Representative Justin Jones also joining us
Speaker 3: y'all the Tennessee three. He's been doing the work since
Speaker 3: before that stand down moment on the on the Tennessee
Speaker 3: State Legislature floor.
Speaker 5: And this shows how important the role of state legislatures,
Speaker 5: about the majority of our Republican control, and.
Speaker 3: How important the work of Stephanie Brown James and Quenten
Speaker 3: James the Organization Collective Pack is and how patient they are,
Speaker 3: how shit they are.
Speaker 1: We have so many people, come on, welcome brother, Look
Speaker 1: at this, y'all, come on, is that? What is that moment?
Speaker 4: Crush vilma.
Speaker 1: We love it. I love all these black men on
Speaker 1: set tonight.
Speaker 5: We've had quite a few, and I think that piece
Speaker 5: is so important because you know, even watching our comments,
Speaker 5: I don't know if you all have been looking, but
Speaker 5: there are people who feel left out of the conversation,
Speaker 5: and particularly a lot.
Speaker 1: Of black men have felt that way. So I just
Speaker 1: want to say, welcome home.
Speaker 5: And we are so happy to have our counterparts are
Speaker 5: the people our community would not be the same. We
Speaker 5: love black men, we love having all their counterparts, and
Speaker 5: we are never trying to drive an agenda that divides us.
Speaker 1: So we are partners in this work. So thank you
Speaker 1: all for being here. I want to come to mo.
Speaker 3: We we we kind of had you sitting around waiting,
Speaker 3: but I want you to talk about the purpose of
Speaker 3: Working Families First. We actually were having a whole text
Speaker 3: conversation because he got uh, you know, some some unintended
Speaker 3: fire on an on a breakfast club interview that I
Speaker 3: did with Jill Stein the other day and she talked
Speaker 3: kind of trash a little bit about Working Families parts.
Speaker 1: I want to I want you talk about what it
Speaker 1: means to actually win some elections.
Speaker 8: Oh my, oh my, oh my, GM.
Speaker 9: It's really good to be here with you, sis.
Speaker 4: Brother.
Speaker 6: It's been a while.
Speaker 4: Yeah, see y'all's endorsement guess right, honor to endorse.
Speaker 6: You on SIS.
Speaker 29: Thank you so much all of y'all. I mean, man,
Speaker 29: when y'all launched, I knew I wanted to be here.
Speaker 29: So it's a true honor to actually finally be sitting here.
Speaker 29: And the Working Families Party we've been around for twenty
Speaker 29: six years. I've been at the HELM for six years,
Speaker 29: and what we've been doing, we've been building a third
Speaker 29: party infrastructure from the ground up. Because of everything that
Speaker 29: we talked about, we recognize that independent black voices aren't
Speaker 29: often welcome in political spaces, and what we believe is
Speaker 29: we have to do the hard work to build the
Speaker 29: infrastructure to resource people in order to For example, this
Speaker 29: tuesday in Delaware, right, Cam Smith in Delaware defeated the
Speaker 29: Speaker of the House, a Working Families Party, a black organizer.
Speaker 29: Working Families Party can and now she's going to be
Speaker 29: representing all of her all of the interests that we
Speaker 29: talked about on this program in Delaware.
Speaker 11: Right.
Speaker 29: So you talk about winning elections, Right, While folks were
Speaker 29: trading barbs online, we were doing the hard work, state
Speaker 29: by state by state in twenty states, actually winning with
Speaker 29: grassroots black candidates.
Speaker 6: For example Tis James.
Speaker 29: Tis James is the Attorney General of New York and
Speaker 29: was able to hold Donald Trump accountable. What a lot
Speaker 29: of people don't know is that her entrance into politics
Speaker 29: started off as a Working Families Party independent candidate.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 29: You want to go into the South, we made black
Speaker 29: history in the city of Jonesborough, Right, So this is
Speaker 29: like local Donya Sarter's a black woman who's now the
Speaker 29: mayor of Jonesborough because of the Working Families Party infrastructure,
Speaker 29: actual boots on the ground, volunteers, labor unions, grass roots
Speaker 29: organizations doing the hard work, not just yapping about it,
Speaker 29: but actually delivering. And then in Philidelp when we talk
Speaker 29: about delivering right, we have Pastor Nicholas or Rourke who
Speaker 29: is the Minority Whip, and we have an amazing grassroots coalition,
Speaker 29: and we have Kendra Brooks who's the Minority leader of Philadelphia.
Speaker 29: And Kendra and Nicholas they're not just talking about it,
Speaker 29: they're actually governing. Elections are an opportunity to govern. Elections
Speaker 29: are not the prize. Governing is the prize. Fat So
Speaker 29: in the city of Philadelphia, black folks in North Philadelphia
Speaker 29: that Kendra and Nick represent, unlike many cities, are not
Speaker 29: facing in a fiction crisis like before. Why because the
Speaker 29: Working Families Party municipal candidates created groundbreaking protections so that
Speaker 29: planlords have to negotiate before they throw folks out. That
Speaker 29: has showed a total shift. So we're delivering for working people.
Speaker 29: We're delivering for working class black folks. This independent, grassroots,
Speaker 29: bottom up, third party approach. We don't believe in the
Speaker 29: top down every four years top down approach. Look, if
Speaker 29: that could be possible, then Ross Perrot, who was a
Speaker 29: billionaire would have delivered that top down third party approach.
Speaker 29: What we're doing is telling the truth to our people,
Speaker 29: right we tell the truth to our people. What we're
Speaker 29: saying is, look, we do not yet have the infrastructure
Speaker 29: to surface our own candidate at the top of the
Speaker 29: ticket and not pull votes in order to ensure that
Speaker 29: the right wing and Project twenty twenty five agenda happens.
Speaker 29: But what we do have is the power to influence
Speaker 29: people all the way at the top of the ticket
Speaker 29: and deliver on the grassroots.
Speaker 5: What I appreciate about what you're saying is because we
Speaker 5: we have a mini pod on this so you guys
Speaker 5: watching it home can tune in. We talk about third
Speaker 5: party candidates and so many people they're seduced by bigger roles.
Speaker 1: But the truth is.
Speaker 5: Third parties do win at you know, in state legislatures,
Speaker 5: at the local level. So I want to bring justin
Speaker 5: into this conversation because a lot of the challe policies
Speaker 5: that we see reach the federal government, they bubble up
Speaker 5: from these state legislatures. You held the line, sit on
Speaker 5: the line. Shout out Memphis. I see y'all in the comments.
Speaker 5: Shout out a hometown Memphis talk to our viewers about
Speaker 5: how important the role of their state legislatures are when
Speaker 5: it comes to politics.
Speaker 6: Definitely.
Speaker 24: Well, it is so honored to be here with you all.
Speaker 30: I represent the most diverse district in Nashville, District fifty two,
Speaker 30: and I'm the youngest black law making our state. And
Speaker 30: what we're trying to build is to build a real
Speaker 30: opposition party to the extremists of white nationals who've taken
Speaker 30: over our state government.
Speaker 24: And so Tennessee is a tip of the spear.
Speaker 30: We look at extremist policies where the state with one
Speaker 30: of the most restrictive anti abortion laws, the first state
Speaker 30: to ban books, to ban drag shows, but it won't
Speaker 30: ban the assault weapons that are terrorizing our kids in schools.
Speaker 30: We're a state where twenty percent of black people cannot
Speaker 30: vote because a fellow need iss enfranchisement. And so the
Speaker 30: spirit of Jim Crow's alive, and well we have our
Speaker 30: own governor, George Wallace is his name is Bill Lee,
Speaker 30: and the Speaker of the House, Cameron Sex and whom's
Speaker 30: suing right now because not only do they attack us,
Speaker 30: but there when they silence us, when they expelled us,
Speaker 30: and now when they silence us in committee, kick us
Speaker 30: off our committees. They're silencing the voices of our constituents
Speaker 30: because they know that the state House is a laboratory
Speaker 30: for what they're trying to nationalize. So it's a tip
Speaker 30: of the spear. And if we can stop it in
Speaker 30: the state like Tennessee, we can stop Project twenty twenty
Speaker 30: five from spreading nationally. I've been telling everyone across this
Speaker 30: nation that Project twenty twenty five is Tennessee twenty twenty four.
Speaker 30: We are already dealing with the consequences of a Project
Speaker 30: twenty twenty five agenda. We look at voter suppression, We
Speaker 30: look at the removal of qualified people from our state government,
Speaker 30: from the health department.
Speaker 24: You know, because they're talking about diversity.
Speaker 30: They say, we don't want to talk about diversity, equity, inclusion,
Speaker 30: because to them, that's a bad word.
Speaker 24: We already see Project twenty twenty five.
Speaker 30: We look at defunding public education and passing voucher scams
Speaker 30: to give coupons to wealthy people to go to private schools.
Speaker 30: We already are dealing with Project twenty twenty five, which
Speaker 30: why we're filing like hell with everything we have, and
Speaker 30: which why we were expelled because they're afraid of what
Speaker 30: we represent. We represent a new South. Southern curregatious would
Speaker 30: say the South is going to rise again.
Speaker 24: I say, to hell with that. The South is going
Speaker 24: to rise and new.
Speaker 30: We're building a new South that is multiracial, that is younger,
Speaker 30: and they're terrified of us because they know that if
Speaker 30: we can stop their agenda in the South, stop it
Speaker 30: from studying cross this nation.
Speaker 4: I love it well.
Speaker 11: Florida was probably twenty twenty five, two thousand and two,
Speaker 11: so we got it before everybody. I mean the consequences
Speaker 11: for elected officials that we saw play out and your
Speaker 11: state they have been executing on progressive attorneys who lead
Speaker 11: prosecutoral offices around the state. And so we know what
Speaker 11: you mean when you say that. I am curious, what
Speaker 11: does what does the support continue to look like?
Speaker 4: For you as you battle?
Speaker 11: What are systems these aren't they're individuals who helm them,
Speaker 11: but they're buying large systems that you're attempting to reconstruct
Speaker 11: or to level and build again our way.
Speaker 4: What is the what does the support for that community
Speaker 4: look like?
Speaker 11: Which also makes me want you to answer, what does
Speaker 11: it mean to build a working party's infrastructure on a
Speaker 11: place where it doesn't exist, and the and and and
Speaker 11: cities and towns around the country.
Speaker 29: Well, absolutely so we we take an eye on the
Speaker 29: long haul work it is you all know, it is
Speaker 29: the day to day organizing and the work that day
Speaker 29: to day organizers do that often we don't see, right
Speaker 29: that actually builds our democracy. And what we understand is
Speaker 29: that elections happen state by state and even further county
Speaker 29: by county. And so if anybody is talking about movement building,
Speaker 29: but they're not talking about building county by county infrastructure
Speaker 29: that could support activists, could actually do leadership development, so
Speaker 29: they develop skills. Maybe they first start off canvassing and
Speaker 29: then in another cycle they're actually running a campaign, and
Speaker 29: then they become a candidate. Right then, I don't know
Speaker 29: what you're talking about, right if you're talking only at
Speaker 29: the top of the ticket and you're not recruiting candidates
Speaker 29: to run on the municipal level and then eventually on
Speaker 29: the legislative level, and then ultimately, like we saw our
Speaker 29: sister Summerly who came from governing on the legislative level
Speaker 29: in the state legislature and then moved up to Congress.
Speaker 29: And I'm proud to call Summerly a WFP endorse candidate.
Speaker 29: That type of work is how you build that infrastructure.
Speaker 29: I'll give you another example, right, Brandon Johnson. I remember
Speaker 29: Brandon Johnson when he was a educator and your union organizer,
Speaker 29: and we have the honor to support him so that
Speaker 29: he could become the Cook County, the Cook County Permission Commissioner.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 29: It took five years of him governing on that level
Speaker 29: before he was able to build the infrastructure and build
Speaker 29: the movement so that he could become the mayor of
Speaker 29: the third largest city in America.
Speaker 6: Right.
Speaker 29: So we have to have that long arc view of
Speaker 29: building power and it means getting organizations, grassroots organizations, labor organizations,
Speaker 29: activists in a shared political commitment.
Speaker 6: And have a north star, know where you're going.
Speaker 9: Right.
Speaker 29: It's not simply about getting people elected. Again, that's not
Speaker 29: the prize. The prize is actually being able to use
Speaker 29: governing power to deliver for our people.
Speaker 24: Right.
Speaker 29: And I want everybody to really consider, especially when we're
Speaker 29: looking at November, this is a binary choice the Project
Speaker 29: twenty twenty five agenda, because elections are about the future
Speaker 29: and elections are about a governing agenda. And then the alternative,
Speaker 29: the agenda that we could claim right and listen, politicians
Speaker 29: are who they are.
Speaker 24: It's not about putting faith in any.
Speaker 29: Politicians, even politicians that we might have an affinity for.
Speaker 29: It's about putting faith in our organization and our ability
Speaker 29: to organize once we get at the other end of
Speaker 29: an election, and that could only happen inside organization.
Speaker 3: Thank you all so much, justin I want you to
Speaker 3: I want to close with you and we I know
Speaker 3: we have to get you out to the dinner. Why
Speaker 3: is it important for young black folks to run for
Speaker 3: state and local office?
Speaker 30: So before I was elected, I was arrested eighteen times
Speaker 30: and I was banned from the state capitol, which is
Speaker 30: what led me to run. So the same troopers who
Speaker 30: went to court and lied on me had to hold
Speaker 30: the door and say welcome representative to your office, and
Speaker 30: at each other charge were this missed? And so it's
Speaker 30: important for us to run because, as Sana lou Hammer said,
Speaker 30: move on over, and we'll move on over you because
Speaker 30: we're moving on over.
Speaker 24: And so we must reclaim these seats.
Speaker 6: You know.
Speaker 30: My first week in the legislature, State Senator Jack Johnson,
Speaker 30: the Republican majority leader was on the elevator with me,
Speaker 30: and his welcome to me was saying, Jones, I just
Speaker 30: want you to know that you're worthless and you're not
Speaker 30: supposed to be here.
Speaker 24: And at that time I was shocked. I didn't respond
Speaker 24: to him.
Speaker 30: But actually, in hindsight, I have appreciation for Senda Johnson
Speaker 30: because he gave me clarity that I'm not there to
Speaker 30: make friends with these people.
Speaker 24: I'm there to make change for my district.
Speaker 30: And that's why I show up to committee every day
Speaker 30: about business because what we're facing as serious that they
Speaker 30: are using this our state as a laboratory to test
Speaker 30: out these horrible policies that they're going to try and
Speaker 30: spread across the nation.
Speaker 24: We're the state three seven to eight the most incorporated
Speaker 24: is zip code in the nation.
Speaker 30: We're a state that you know, again, twenty percent of
Speaker 30: black folks cannot vote, and so it's important for us
Speaker 30: as young black people to run because we can represent
Speaker 30: a new vision what a state like Tennessee can be.
Speaker 30: The birthplace of the Klan is also the birthplace of
Speaker 30: the Nashville student movement, where young people like Diane Nash
Speaker 30: and John Lewis rose up against him Crow and it's
Speaker 30: our time again, and so you know, I have so
Speaker 30: much hope and I'm excited about this election. So we're
Speaker 30: trying to gain ten seats in our state legislature to
Speaker 30: break the Republicans supermajority so they can't expel us again,
Speaker 30: so they can't cut off our microphones again. But if
Speaker 30: they do, we always stay ready with a megaphone because
Speaker 30: we're not going to allow them the silence the voices
Speaker 30: of our constituents. Because what we're we represent moral clarity,
Speaker 30: we represent boldness, and we represent urgency in these policies
Speaker 30: when we look at the crises of our democracy, the
Speaker 30: crisis of white supremacy, the crises of our economy, and
Speaker 30: we must fight with everything we have because when history
Speaker 30: looks down on this moment, I want to say that
Speaker 30: we were on the right side.
Speaker 24: Of history and that we stood on what we needed
Speaker 24: to for future generations.
Speaker 1: I'm so grateful for you all. Thank you all for
Speaker 1: joining Native Lampid.
Speaker 3: We are so so thankful, and I mean, I wish
Speaker 3: we could just let that be the benediction, but what
Speaker 3: the show has to go on, But we definitely want
Speaker 3: both of you all back, and if we got to
Speaker 3: We'll be in Tennessee right with you with a bullhorn.
Speaker 24: And thank you so much, thank you, thank you so much.
Speaker 24: Tom cousin Angela says, come on, you know, I come on.
Speaker 3: It's my honor, it is my highest honor. Andrew been
Speaker 3: greeting everybody on our behalf. That's a hug and a
Speaker 3: handshake from all of us. At this time, we have
Speaker 3: the great privilege and honor of being joined by our
Speaker 3: dear sister Alexis mcgil johnson, who of course is the
Speaker 3: president of Planned Parenthood America, and she's greeting these wonderful
Speaker 3: gentlemen too.
Speaker 1: No, you're don't run.
Speaker 3: Right, You're like, come on down, it's giving prices, right,
Speaker 3: you look beautiful.
Speaker 1: Alexis so excited to me.
Speaker 5: It's obviously a very busy year when it comes to
Speaker 5: repro justice, and so I know, miss Alexis mcgil johnson
Speaker 5: has been running criss crossing the country's standing on the
Speaker 5: front lines on behalf of women, but honestly, everybody is.
Speaker 1: It's not an issue that just impacts women and impacts
Speaker 1: all of us.
Speaker 13: So thank you for your work.
Speaker 1: Thank you. I'm so honored to be here with family.
Speaker 3: Thank you, thank you. Alexis, So we were just mentioning Andrew.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry, you know, I can't hardly hear you. I
Speaker 3: meant to say that a long time.
Speaker 1: Say yeah, but maybe maybe I'll look this way too.
Speaker 1: Is that better when I do this? Is that better?
Speaker 13: I hear you?
Speaker 4: Fine?
Speaker 3: Okay, well, Andrew, hopefully you can hear me, and you're
Speaker 3: not struggling a much as I'm struggling to hear you.
Speaker 3: But I was gonna say, Alexis, we've been talking about
Speaker 3: the fact that there really are fifty one days left.
Speaker 3: What what marching orders do you have for the folks
Speaker 3: at home watching for us sitting at this desk with
Speaker 3: you as we welcome our listeners and our audience home.
Speaker 1: What should we be focused on in this final stretch.
Speaker 17: So I want people to be focused not on polls,
Speaker 17: not on time, not on even the fifty days. I
Speaker 17: want them to be focused on every single conversation they're
Speaker 17: going to have from now until November fifth. I want
Speaker 17: them to make sure that everyone they know is registered
Speaker 17: to vote. I want them to understand that freedom is
Speaker 17: on the ballot. I want them to understand if they
Speaker 17: don't vote now, they may not get to vote again.
Speaker 17: That has to be the single most important message. Because
Speaker 17: our bodies are on the ballot, our freedoms are on
Speaker 17: the ballot, and everywhere I turn, I have to say,
Speaker 17: the energy has turned up, right, it's turned up.
Speaker 12: In a way.
Speaker 1: I don't know that we felt this in a minute,
Speaker 1: right in a minute.
Speaker 17: And we've been doing this game, all four of us, right,
Speaker 17: so I've known all of you all and all your
Speaker 17: different iterations of organizing, including mine. I don't know that
Speaker 17: I felt the kind of multi generational, the multiracial, the
Speaker 17: feminist democracy build the realignment that's happening that we actually
Speaker 17: are in charge of.
Speaker 13: And I want people to understand that.
Speaker 1: This is our time to do that now.
Speaker 11: It almost would have felt draconian to hear the comments
Speaker 11: around if you don't vote this time, you may never
Speaker 11: have the opportunity to again. And then you sit for
Speaker 11: a moment and realize the Republicans, in what shenanigans they've
Speaker 11: been involved in since they got power, can't lead. But
Speaker 11: since they got power, and you realize, with the Supreme
Speaker 11: Court declaring a king again, that anything is possible. And
Speaker 11: I just wonder, as you make your rounds around the states,
Speaker 11: are there particular places. I know the country's on fire,
Speaker 11: but other particular places that raise significant alarm bells as
Speaker 11: it relates to bodily autonomy, as it relates to frankly,
Speaker 11: people of color finding themselves on the margin of real
Speaker 11: health crisis personally for not being able to have access
Speaker 11: to making their own reproductive health decisions.
Speaker 17: Well, look, absolutely, Look, we are living in a world
Speaker 17: world right now where twenty two states have put bands
Speaker 17: on our bodies, right where they have eliminated restricted access
Speaker 17: to abortion in those states. That affects forty three percent
Speaker 17: of all women. It affects more than half of all
Speaker 17: black women. So we have to be clear that that
Speaker 17: when I say our bodies are on the ballot, they're
Speaker 17: literally on the ballot across the country. And while we
Speaker 17: can look at the maps and say this is the
Speaker 17: presidential this is what you need to do for the Senate,
Speaker 17: this which you to the House, like literally all across
Speaker 17: the country, our bodies are on the ballot. But part
Speaker 17: of what I'm saying is like I think about what's
Speaker 17: happening in Florida right now, just last week or this week.
Speaker 17: I can't remember this week, Governor DeSantis. So there's a
Speaker 17: really critical ballot initiative in Florida. Florida is one of
Speaker 17: the most important states in the South for reproductive freedom.
Speaker 17: Florida has enacted a six week band before many people
Speaker 17: even know that they are pregnant, and so Floridians, to
Speaker 17: protect reproductive freedom have put a ballot in ah have
Speaker 17: on in order to protect their you know, to get
Speaker 17: a constitutional right. Governor DeSantis decided he was going to
Speaker 17: get his election police.
Speaker 21: I didn't even know that was a division.
Speaker 17: Yeah.
Speaker 4: They started with black folks going to their doorstep ar
Speaker 4: wrestling them.
Speaker 6: Yah.
Speaker 17: Yeah, an election police to go and all of all
Speaker 17: of the good people who signed a petition finding out
Speaker 17: where they are. They're looking at their address, going up
Speaker 17: to their doors.
Speaker 1: And knock, knock, knock.
Speaker 4: That's right, right, that's right.
Speaker 1: Hello Angela Ryan, did you sign that petition? Crazy?
Speaker 4: That's right?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 17: Like I need to talk to you and then to intimidate,
Speaker 17: like if that is not an example of voter intimidation,
Speaker 17: an example of how protecting your own body becomes a
Speaker 17: way to understand how you need to protect your own democracy.
Speaker 1: I don't know what that is.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, anything is possible.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. I always say I don't really.
Speaker 5: There's always polling about how many people support aborische rights,
Speaker 5: and I always say, I don't give a damn how
Speaker 5: many people support or it is up to us as
Speaker 5: an individual if you are not the person in the situation, I.
Speaker 1: Don't want anyone weighing in on what I do with
Speaker 1: my body.
Speaker 5: But even beyond reproductive justice and actions, it is just
Speaker 5: the health, the actual health of women, and also more importantly,
Speaker 5: the health of children. I saw this as a meme,
Speaker 5: and I don't mean to be insensitive to anything that happened,
Speaker 5: But when Donald Trump lied about babies being aborted right
Speaker 5: post birth, someone posted a school shooting and said, this
Speaker 5: is what it looks like when babies are aborted after birth.
Speaker 1: And it's so true.
Speaker 5: If you care so much for children, care for actual children,
Speaker 5: do something about these school shootings, and stay the F
Speaker 5: word out of my uterus. You know, that's the bottom
Speaker 5: line to all these elections. I didn't have a question.
Speaker 1: That was my comment. I yield the Florida from the way. No,
Speaker 1: But I think that's right.
Speaker 17: I mean, I think is like, there are all these
Speaker 17: people who are out there in the vein of like
Speaker 17: pro life as their banner, but like, no, you're really
Speaker 17: just pro birth because once we're here, right, what are
Speaker 17: you actually doing?
Speaker 1: Are they Robb looking on the maternal health disparacy.
Speaker 17: Maternal mentality, look at info mentality exactly exactly in the
Speaker 17: same states that a band abortion same stands as the
Speaker 17: highest maternal mortality rates, the highest infomortality rates.
Speaker 13: So clearly, you're not doing anything to save us.
Speaker 17: And they're also, by the way, the same states that
Speaker 17: have declined billions of dollars of healthcare under the ACA
Speaker 17: right so much, so much resource that could be going
Speaker 17: to actually saving communities. And they're like, no, we're okay,
Speaker 17: We're willing to.
Speaker 1: Let all of you go.
Speaker 4: I know we've got to push soon.
Speaker 11: But I wanted to ask you, as we look prospectively
Speaker 11: toward the future beyond November fifth, assuming it goes the
Speaker 11: way we all will work and want it to. On
Speaker 11: the reproductive health agenda, do you think there is a
Speaker 11: chance we can get codification through law the con grissy
Speaker 11: US House in the US Senate that hopefully precludes this
Speaker 11: mess from happening again.
Speaker 17: That is the whole ballgame, manager, right, It is all
Speaker 17: about getting a reproductive freedom majority. It is about ensuring
Speaker 17: that we have reproductive freedom champions up and down the ballot,
Speaker 17: because when we do, we have the opportunity to get
Speaker 17: federal legislation that will restore the protections of reproductive freedom.
Speaker 17: And so there should be no world where if you
Speaker 17: live in Florida or you live in Texas, that you
Speaker 17: don't have the same rights that you do in Washington,
Speaker 17: d C. And New York, in California and Illinois. Right,
Speaker 17: And what we have right now is a buifer Kida
Speaker 17: system where if you were born in a certain zip code, you.
Speaker 21: Are being held hostage.
Speaker 17: You can't necessarily even travel out of state, and you
Speaker 17: may be forced into pregnancy. So many politicians at cycle
Speaker 17: are talking about things like exceptions. Right, They're saying like, oh,
Speaker 17: I support reproductive freedom, or I don't support it, but
Speaker 17: I will in these certain so circumstances.
Speaker 21: Just look at the matters of rape and incest.
Speaker 17: There were twenty six thousand episodes examples of rape and
Speaker 17: incests in Texas alone, forty pregnant thousand, twenty six thousand
Speaker 17: of forced pregnancies due to rape and incests sixty thousand overall,
Speaker 17: but a third actually happened in Texas.
Speaker 1: Wow, So when you talk about free states and non
Speaker 1: free states.
Speaker 4: Right, that's true, and so.
Speaker 1: Does Sator Crew and A. G. Paxton.
Speaker 17: So, like, literally, what we are fighting for is to
Speaker 17: ensure that wherever you live, you get access to the
Speaker 17: healthcare you need.
Speaker 1: And that should just be a fundamental American right.
Speaker 3: While we've been sitting here, a former Congressman Ed Towns
Speaker 3: just walked by.
Speaker 1: I was just waving at you, Congressman. Good to see you.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, I want to thank you, alexis not only for
Speaker 3: your advocacy that you fight.
Speaker 1: You're fighting every day the fights we know about, the
Speaker 1: fights we do not. We thank you. And I also
Speaker 1: want to especially thank you for being a partner of
Speaker 1: this podcast. You are we just are. We thank God
Speaker 1: for you, and we thank God we've known you for
Speaker 1: a very long time.
Speaker 17: We have known each other for a very long time.
Speaker 17: And I just want to say, with the moment of privilege,
Speaker 17: how proud I am of all of you all for
Speaker 17: like you know, misinformation is such a real challenge in
Speaker 17: a world where we can't control the way information is disseminated,
Speaker 17: and the way you show up every day and you
Speaker 17: break it down flawlessly and brilliantly, and and just to
Speaker 17: the point and make it plain for the people. Like
Speaker 17: That's what gives me so much joy because I know
Speaker 17: I can trust everything I'm hearing from you, because I know.
Speaker 13: You've lived it.
Speaker 1: It's your experience. You know it because you.
Speaker 13: Can find it out. And you're all brilliant and what
Speaker 13: you do.
Speaker 1: So thank you, appreciating you.
Speaker 3: We love you.
Speaker 1: You look amazing. Enjoy the dinner.
Speaker 5: We're almost We're all else on our way to dinner.
Speaker 5: Somebody failed Jesus Andrews does knock somebody else, it sounded
Speaker 5: like it, but we are being joined.
Speaker 1: So we've got a whole Brothers panel right now. We
Speaker 1: have I was gonna say congresson that's we said.
Speaker 3: We have Garrison Hayes, who's a video correspondent for Mother Hayes.
Speaker 3: We have Chris Ray, who is the international president of
Speaker 3: five Beta Sigma. You see him dapper in that blue
Speaker 3: and he's also the president of the Divine Nine Council
Speaker 3: of Presidents. Also, I don't know why Andrew is the
Speaker 3: Welcome Committee. He can't do it on my life's so pressure.
Speaker 3: Like he can see he doesn't care. He he has
Speaker 3: no idea what I said. He wants to be the
Speaker 3: Welcome Committee, the Goodbye Committee, the Hello Committee.
Speaker 1: I'm not listening to you committee anyway.
Speaker 3: Last, but certainly not least, in my introductions, doctor Wes Bellamy,
Speaker 3: who is the Public policy chair for one hundred Black Men.
Speaker 3: He brings his students here to this conference every single year.
Speaker 3: I have the great honor of being an EP on
Speaker 3: his documentary more than a statue, and he's here, of
Speaker 3: course with a kin take clock bow.
Speaker 14: I love you.
Speaker 1: If you guys are doing better, even better than how
Speaker 1: you look, So tell us about what's going on. Man,
Speaker 1: get close to the us. Get close before Yeah, we did,
Speaker 1: you did. We were all there comedy.
Speaker 3: Talking about and should introduce him to mister President now
Speaker 3: that he's back and he knows that we actually did
Speaker 3: our black jobs.
Speaker 5: You have to bet and before you leave, we have
Speaker 5: to get a photo because my brother, I will be remiss.
Speaker 5: My brother is a proud member of five Beta Sigma
Speaker 5: Fraternity Incorporated, plays at Georgia Said University.
Speaker 1: So yes, you and I have to get a photo
Speaker 1: so I can send this Listen.
Speaker 10: First of all, thank you all so much for the
Speaker 10: opportunity to hang out with you all. Right, then following
Speaker 10: you all love what you're doing for the culture, love
Speaker 10: the information that you're sharing. I get to do my
Speaker 10: black job, which is I'm the international President of five
Speaker 10: Et Sigma. I get to serve as the president, the
Speaker 10: twentieth president of Barba Scotia College, the.
Speaker 6: Home of Mary MacLeod Bethune.
Speaker 10: And now I am the chairman of the Council of President.
Speaker 1: He got a lot of jobs, a lot of black jobs.
Speaker 10: A lot of black leading literally but just doing the
Speaker 10: good work, doing the good work. And this man right
Speaker 10: here who has you know, who has been a big inspiration.
Speaker 10: I got caught up in this whole leadership chain when
Speaker 10: I had the opportunity service mayor of Spring Lake, North
Speaker 10: Carolina a few moons ago, and I was plucked out
Speaker 10: of this whole obscurity because of Andrew Gilliam and so
Speaker 10: just really glad that he was able to put me
Speaker 10: and connect me with a group of amazing young people
Speaker 10: who have now I've been able to grow up with
Speaker 10: in the fight.
Speaker 4: And they all still design their own outfits, so.
Speaker 6: Everything is purposeful.
Speaker 4: He let's be clear, Let's be clear.
Speaker 6: I'm super excited to be here.
Speaker 31: One man, you know, with respect to our dear brother
Speaker 31: Andrew but he's everybody's big brother, honestly, man, and the
Speaker 31: work and what you put in it is super appreciative.
Speaker 6: Tiffany, you know how much I admire you and thank
Speaker 6: you man. I love both of y'all. But I'm gonna
Speaker 6: not gonna lie. I love Angela and anybody messing with her,
Speaker 6: I'm gonna find them.
Speaker 30: We know.
Speaker 6: I was clear, but we'll see.
Speaker 16: Joe.
Speaker 6: Yeah, y'all can't let me and Wing win.
Speaker 31: But we really appreciate all the work and what you
Speaker 31: all do, and we're excited to talk about, you know,
Speaker 31: a lot of the collaborative work efforts that we have
Speaker 31: going on and not only getting brothers and sisters out
Speaker 31: the vote, but most importantly.
Speaker 6: Putting off for the culture. For these last fifty some
Speaker 6: of my days, it is Yeah.
Speaker 32: I mean, I'm really happy to be here as well.
Speaker 32: It's great to be on finally and make it happen.
Speaker 32: I mean, you guys are doing something really special in
Speaker 32: that I think black media has such a really important
Speaker 32: role right now, and so it's incredible to see your
Speaker 32: platform and the way you're using your platform is amazing.
Speaker 32: In my work, I'm covering black issues most consistently telling
Speaker 32: black stories about the way that we're utilizing our black
Speaker 32: political power. This year, I've been down in Atlanta talking
Speaker 32: to both voters and organizers on the ground, folks who
Speaker 32: are mobilizing in communities that are often left behind, and
Speaker 32: many of them are getting their information from platforms just
Speaker 32: like this one.
Speaker 4: So it's a real honor to be here.
Speaker 1: I love it.
Speaker 5: Thank you for your work bringing information to people. I'm
Speaker 5: happy to have these black men at the table because
Speaker 5: we've talked about this a little earlier in the show,
Speaker 5: and that is the manisphere and the comments coming from
Speaker 5: the manisphere, And I just wonder what you all might
Speaker 5: say to our good brothers out there who might be misinformed, misdirected,
Speaker 5: miseducated about what is at sake for this election. And
Speaker 5: I hear consistently from the manisphere about this agenda to
Speaker 5: drive a wedge between us and y'all know we love you,
Speaker 5: we can't we need Not only do we love you,
Speaker 5: but we need you. You are integral to our lives
Speaker 5: in our community. So what would you say out there
Speaker 5: the men who feel like, well, we left out of
Speaker 5: the conversation and this Black women this and this Black
Speaker 5: women always owe democrats and black men vote with Trump
Speaker 5: and what about me?
Speaker 1: What do y'all say to them? Well, always say do
Speaker 1: the voice one more time and what about me?
Speaker 6: And appreciate it.
Speaker 31: But nonetheless, so the one hundred black men we're a
Speaker 31: part of this twenty one city tour talking about real
Speaker 31: men vote, and to be candid, those are things in
Speaker 31: which when we go to these town halls, we hear
Speaker 31: some brothers say we feel left out. But I think
Speaker 31: what I would say to them is similar to what
Speaker 31: we say during the town halls is, brothers, we have
Speaker 31: to be one educated and informed on the issues. We
Speaker 31: know that there's a great deal of misinformation that is
Speaker 31: specifically targeted towards us. And if you look no further
Speaker 31: than the mother, the black mama that birthed you, her
Speaker 31: rights are under attacked. You're a black sister, your a
Speaker 31: black daughter, your black niece, your black cousin. You all
Speaker 31: just had alexus on their bodies and their ability to
Speaker 31: be able to do what they want to do is
Speaker 31: under attack. And candidly, what I'm often saying is currently
Speaker 31: we don't have the time to complain about what isn't
Speaker 31: happening or the wish that's being pushed between us to
Speaker 31: perceived wedge between us. What we have to do right
Speaker 31: now is what we have to do, which is be
Speaker 31: the true leaders of our communities, collaborate and work together,
Speaker 31: take care of our brothers and our sisters, and most importantly,
Speaker 31: show up. That's most important. Show up and do your
Speaker 31: job because you have an obligation to do so.
Speaker 6: Right now. I'm sorry I would have.
Speaker 1: Had a little snak on what you said.
Speaker 3: One of my favorite things about you is I saw
Speaker 3: your videos on TikTok, and you are constantly educating in
Speaker 3: spaces where people will get on completely unresearched, not saying much.
Speaker 1: Every video that I've seen from you, I've learned something.
Speaker 3: How are you utilizing that platform to kind of combat
Speaker 3: some of the misinformation that TOIVI started about making sure
Speaker 3: you're bringing.
Speaker 1: People in to be heard.
Speaker 32: Yeah, I mean, I think what's so important here is
Speaker 32: that we don't get to this moment without the things
Speaker 32: that came before it. Right, Like, we have to talk
Speaker 32: about the fact that we are at this very week
Speaker 32: is the thirtieth anniversary of the nineteen ninety four crime Bill.
Speaker 32: Black men are left out of the conversation. I just
Speaker 32: mentioned being in Atlanta. Just last week, I was in
Speaker 32: Atlanta talking to some young men and both of them
Speaker 32: had felony convictions. They can't vote, and so they have
Speaker 32: been taken out of this conversation in a way intentionally
Speaker 32: systematically right, And so we have to acknowledge that that
Speaker 32: there are structures in place that have led to this
Speaker 32: kind of disillusionment that we see. And at the same time,
Speaker 32: I love the mentorship. I love the messaging that we're
Speaker 32: hearing from our brothers here about we don't have time
Speaker 32: to really get caught up in that. Right, they're using
Speaker 32: our vulnerabilities against us as men, the misogyny and sexism
Speaker 32: that we're taught from birth, the ways that we're being
Speaker 32: condition to believe that women are inferior to us. They're
Speaker 32: using that against us to leverage our vote against us.
Speaker 32: And so much of what I try to do on
Speaker 32: my platform is that re education work, the work of
Speaker 32: really taking that history, taking the issues and reframing them,
Speaker 32: hopefully adding in some more information so that people understand
Speaker 32: things differently so that we can build a better future.
Speaker 24: And I think that's so.
Speaker 32: I think it's so important and often overlooked in this
Speaker 32: conversation because men are being educated by folks who do
Speaker 32: not have our.
Speaker 6: Best interest in mind.
Speaker 32: The last thing I'll say is, unfortunately, men are taking
Speaker 32: their own lives and we have to ask ourselves why.
Speaker 32: And a lot of it has to do with the
Speaker 32: pressure that we put on ourselves, and the manisphere is
Speaker 32: a part of that.
Speaker 6: They have blood on their hands and we have to.
Speaker 24: Call it that and say it that way.
Speaker 6: And this election is so important.
Speaker 5: I think that's such a thank you for that, for
Speaker 5: stating that the way you did. Anybody can answer this.
Speaker 5: I just wonder why out of that frustration, Because when
Speaker 5: our brothers are in pain, we hold.
Speaker 1: Your pain, we feel that pain.
Speaker 5: We too are in pain, and I think it's in
Speaker 5: our nature to love and to nurture. I wonder why
Speaker 5: out of that does it become that we, the black women,
Speaker 5: are your.
Speaker 8: Enemy, broken.
Speaker 10: And you're the closest to many of us are broken,
Speaker 10: and when what you don't realize is is that we
Speaker 10: are literally moving through life broken.
Speaker 9: And so here I am.
Speaker 10: I have been taught at a certain age how to
Speaker 10: carry myself or what I think a man should be,
Speaker 10: how I should move in this world, and then when
Speaker 10: there are individuals that see me not operate in that space,
Speaker 10: They criticize me, they tear me up.
Speaker 9: They it is literally death by a thousand cuts.
Speaker 10: So by the time I get to a space where
Speaker 10: it's time for me now to take a partner, I don't.
Speaker 10: I'm not even who I'm supposed to be. Broken and
Speaker 10: so and then and then you have the individuals who
Speaker 10: say to you you don't need to get any help.
Speaker 10: You know that's you know, you don't need any any
Speaker 10: support there? You know a real man, doesn't you know?
Speaker 10: You just suck it up. You know how many times
Speaker 10: I've heard that in my life, just suck it up.
Speaker 10: And here I am now. And so you wonder why
Speaker 10: as I moved through this space that I am not
Speaker 10: able to have the true conversation with my partner. I'm
Speaker 10: not able to really know how to navigate on my job.
Speaker 10: I don't know how to navigate in other relationships. And
Speaker 10: so the only time that I find an opportunity for
Speaker 10: me to really express myself is in this informal opportunities,
Speaker 10: informal time with my brothers where I'm just kicking it
Speaker 10: and you know, you're you're saying stuff like man, she
Speaker 10: tripping right, But really, what I'm saying is it's like, man,
Speaker 10: I don't know how to communicate to her.
Speaker 9: I don't know how to.
Speaker 10: Move in such a way to let her know that
Speaker 10: I'm care I don't know how to say I'm vulnerable.
Speaker 10: Oh my gosh, that word very rarely comes out of
Speaker 10: our mouth. And so by because being vulnerable as a
Speaker 10: man is absolutely not a part of the lexicon of
Speaker 10: being a man.
Speaker 11: Broken And I'll just say brokenness also has no monopoly
Speaker 11: on men. Brokenness applies across the board. And the reason
Speaker 11: why I think it's important to say it is because
Speaker 11: we're almost always it feels like we're looked at from
Speaker 11: the deficit perspective of what we're not bringing to the table,
Speaker 11: rather than what is here present that you've never seen
Speaker 11: exemplified anybody else but me, if we're being honest with
Speaker 11: each other. But I will say in y' all of
Speaker 11: y'all's comments that hit on this, that it is systematic
Speaker 11: that folks aren't waking up feeling broken. There are advertisers
Speaker 11: who put commercials on television between the most popular shows
Speaker 11: on tele that we're watching and others are watching, and
Speaker 11: never choose to take mental health as their mantle or
Speaker 11: their opportunity to say, you know what, this is in vogue,
Speaker 11: whatever the phrasing is, that communicates directly to us and
Speaker 11: a way that we can hear it. When you, when
Speaker 11: you consider black men taking on issues during this election
Speaker 11: supposedly not supportive of the black woman who's running for president,
Speaker 11: you are getting not just you United States of America,
Speaker 11: Republicans and conservatives coming at you in your inboxes, in
Speaker 11: your screen time and when you're trailing through trying to
Speaker 11: see what story you're going to read next.
Speaker 4: But you got China and you've got Russia.
Speaker 11: You're so powerful as an individual and as an entity
Speaker 11: that foreign nations have determined that you are the enemy
Speaker 11: and are not putting endless resources into making it true. Yes,
Speaker 11: so it isn't by accident. Is We're not stumbling into it.
Speaker 11: We're not broken and falling into it. We are targeted
Speaker 11: with significant resources to perform a certain way.
Speaker 31: But you said something also that I think is super
Speaker 31: important when you said the closest the proximity sifany like
Speaker 31: when when you see the closest proximity to the person
Speaker 31: that you know is oftentimes the person of what you harmed.
Speaker 6: If you're not healed, in some regard, so our sisters off.
Speaker 31: And catch the brunt of our brokenness man, because they
Speaker 31: are the closest to us, and we feel as if
Speaker 31: that's the only place in which we can try to
Speaker 31: be invoke some kind of superiority, which again is all systematic,
Speaker 31: you know, things in which we have to be intentional
Speaker 31: with breaking down. And I'm glad that we have in
Speaker 31: the platform the opportunity to be able to discuss this.
Speaker 31: You asked a question earlier to what would we say
Speaker 31: the black men first and foremost, You're valued, you're loved,
Speaker 31: you're supported, you're needed, you're necessary. But you also have
Speaker 31: to go out and vote in this election, or at
Speaker 31: a bare minimum, encourage everyone you can to do the
Speaker 31: right thing, because if you don't do the right thing
Speaker 31: in this instance, you may not have another chance to
Speaker 31: do anything.
Speaker 8: You're not going to have another chance.
Speaker 9: And you know, I remember there was an argument the
Speaker 9: one time I had with my wife, and she.
Speaker 10: Said, if you were on your job, would you talk
Speaker 10: to your supervisor your manager that way? No, you wouldn't
Speaker 10: because you're trying to protect your job. So why would
Speaker 10: you talk to me like that in our home where
Speaker 10: we are. You know, the president and CEO or where
Speaker 10: the you know, why would you do that to me
Speaker 10: here knowing that you wouldn't do that outside of this space,
Speaker 10: but you would do it in this space. And I
Speaker 10: had to check myself, you know, she had to check
Speaker 10: herself realizing that, you know, I'm not going to blow
Speaker 10: up on you here because I know that I'm going
Speaker 10: to be able to manage how I'm going to delete, delete,
Speaker 10: delete that email before I resend it, because I'm trying
Speaker 10: to protect the lifestyle that I have, So.
Speaker 8: Why would I not try to protect the lifestyle that
Speaker 8: I got.
Speaker 20: Now.
Speaker 10: One of the things that we're doing with the National
Speaker 10: Penalinic Council, specifically our fraternities, is we're having deep conversations
Speaker 10: with the fraternities, the five fraternities on how we're going
Speaker 10: to make sure that we are seriously engaged in this
Speaker 10: upcoming election cycle. Now next week, we're excited that we're
Speaker 10: going to be dropping a lot of information on how
Speaker 10: the National Penelonic Council is about to be a part
Speaker 10: of this process. We're not sitting on the sidelines. We're
Speaker 10: going to make sure that we're going to be an
Speaker 10: intricate part. Every single week, there's going to be something
Speaker 10: coming out from us about making sure the folks are
Speaker 10: getting to the poll.
Speaker 4: I love it.
Speaker 9: On November fifth, watch us work.
Speaker 1: This is amazing, so great. Thank you for that.
Speaker 5: What an amazing way to close out the show with
Speaker 5: words from black men and the openness and knowledge that
Speaker 5: you've armed the home viewing audience with. But also does
Speaker 5: us as your counterparts who are cheering you on and
Speaker 5: grateful to the roles that y'all play in our lives
Speaker 5: in our commune.
Speaker 1: We do see y'all, We do thank you.
Speaker 3: I do want to say his name one more time,
Speaker 3: Justin Robinson, who is the young man who was shot
Speaker 3: and killed by the police here in Washington, d C.
Speaker 3: Just days ago, And we want you all to know
Speaker 3: we stand with you, we're thinking of you, and we're
Speaker 3: absolutely going to talk to the CBC about what can
Speaker 3: be done on a federal level to prevent.
Speaker 1: These shootings to continue to happen. Thank you so much
Speaker 1: for doing it. Thank you brother.
Speaker 3: All up again, But we can't close the show. But
Speaker 3: if you were yelling at you As a perpetual politicians,
Speaker 3: they always want us to leave Andrew.
Speaker 1: Andrew thinks that we bully him, but really we get bullied.
Speaker 13: Thank you so much.
Speaker 3: I just I want to tell you, guys how much
Speaker 3: it means to me to be here with you all
Speaker 3: in this way. It is the fifty third Annual Legislative Conference.
Speaker 3: It is such a significant and historic occasion.
Speaker 11: Uh.
Speaker 3: This may be the very last time that President Joe
Speaker 3: Biden addresses a large audience before the election, and it
Speaker 3: may be the last time that Kamala Harris addresses this
Speaker 3: body in her role as vice president, and the next
Speaker 3: time maybe when she is president. So I'm looking forward
Speaker 3: to going to see the members, watch a walk across
Speaker 3: the stage, and just so y'all clear, that's gonna happen
Speaker 3: in about three minutes. I will leave y'all glasses right
Speaker 3: here and go see them.
Speaker 1: Okay, do you really want to leave? What you want
Speaker 1: us all to say?
Speaker 3: By?
Speaker 5: I would love for us I'll say by so we
Speaker 5: can all watch. All right, Thank you guys, and this
Speaker 5: is amazing. We will catch you when we're back on
Speaker 5: next Thursday, Monday.
Speaker 4: I didn't know.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure, but what I will say is I
Speaker 3: would love to have a break, but maybe not gonna
Speaker 3: let we know.
Speaker 1: We know because we recorded no.
Speaker 5: So we'll see y'all. The next NA Native Lampid. You'll
Speaker 5: see it's Thursday. Lo Is off camera yelling at us.
Speaker 5: Thursday is the next episode. But now and then you
Speaker 5: can catch up on this episode and any others that
Speaker 5: you may have missed. We were live a few times
Speaker 5: this week, so please tune into that.
Speaker 1: And I'm thinking, I'm sorry. I want to think the
Speaker 1: Congressional Black HAWKUS Foundation for having us here. We're so
Speaker 1: very grateful for.
Speaker 3: You all to the iHeart team, clap it up for
Speaker 3: the camera, all of our friends.
Speaker 9: We appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Everybody was late. I just want you'll know.
Speaker 4: She's always on the job.
Speaker 1: John Shout and Laura News who aren't here, we really
Speaker 1: thank you.
Speaker 6: Want to go.
Speaker 5: I just want to shout out our guests who came
Speaker 5: on tonight, because there are a lot of guests who
Speaker 5: make time for networks that don't look like us, who
Speaker 5: prioritize and networks, and these guests understood that we carry
Speaker 5: an audience who are interested in what we're talking about,
Speaker 5: but who are also motivated by our guests. There are
Speaker 5: guests who you know, may cancel at the last minute,
Speaker 5: who would never do that to a white run network.
Speaker 5: So I just want to say thank you to the
Speaker 5: guests who respect and honor what we do and the
Speaker 5: platform we got, and you respect us, so we appreciate
Speaker 5: you for that.
Speaker 1: So everyone you see on here know that they appreciate you,
Speaker 1: and we appreciate you for tuning in tonight.
Speaker 5: You guys, we're going to head to the dinner Saturday night.
Speaker 5: Isn't that so many days? Fifty one days?
Speaker 13: Next day?
Speaker 1: Election and welcome home y'all.
Speaker 3: Native Lampot, Reason Choice Media, iHeart everywhere you get your pause,
Speaker 3: all that good stuff back.
Speaker 2: Thank you for joining the Natives intention of with the
Speaker 2: info and all of the latest Roy Gilman Cross connected
Speaker 2: to the statements that you leave on our socials. Thank
Speaker 2: you sincerely for the patients. Reason for your choice is clear,
Speaker 2: so grateful it took to execute roads. Thank you for serve,
Speaker 2: defend and protect the truth even in paint for Welcome.
Speaker 3: Home to all of the Natives wait, thank you, welcome,
Speaker 3: oh y'all Welcome.
Speaker 1: Native Lampid is the production of iHeart Radio in partnership
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