WEBVTT - Prisoners of the Right 0:00:11.880 --> 0:00:14.680 Good morning, peeps, and welcome to Okay f Daily with 0:00:14.720 --> 0:00:18.120 me your girl Danielle Moody, recording live from our podstream 0:00:18.200 --> 0:00:22.360 studios here in Times Square. You know, folks, every week, 0:00:22.720 --> 0:00:24.960 right at the end of the week, it is Friday, 0:00:25.040 --> 0:00:27.120 and this is going to be a mix of fucking 0:00:27.240 --> 0:00:30.319 Friday and feel good Friday. But there isn't really a 0:00:30.360 --> 0:00:32.720 lot to feel good about if you've been paying attention. 0:00:33.240 --> 0:00:36.560 You have celebrities that are spouting some of the most 0:00:36.680 --> 0:00:41.080 ridiculous and false medical information as our country is spiking 0:00:41.120 --> 0:00:44.440 from COVID nineteen. Looking at you, Nicki Minaj, wish that 0:00:44.600 --> 0:00:47.280 you would spend some time, maybe a little bit of 0:00:47.280 --> 0:00:49.640 time in between trying to keep your husband out of 0:00:49.720 --> 0:00:54.240 jail and maybe potentially trying to do your quote unquote 0:00:54.280 --> 0:00:58.640 research on COVID nineteen vaccines instead of spreading bullshit to 0:00:58.680 --> 0:01:03.560 twenty two million people. Right, somebody told me essentially that 0:01:03.640 --> 0:01:07.680 I needed to provide quote unquote grace for black women 0:01:07.800 --> 0:01:10.920 that mess up. I provide grace for a lot of people, 0:01:11.319 --> 0:01:13.679 But what I don't provide grace for for people that 0:01:13.760 --> 0:01:17.160 decide to double down on their foolishness and potentially risk 0:01:17.600 --> 0:01:20.360 right having twenty two million people decide that they're not 0:01:20.400 --> 0:01:23.800 going to get vaccinated because Nicki Minaj and the barbies 0:01:23.880 --> 0:01:27.240 told them not to, right, based on some false premise 0:01:27.319 --> 0:01:30.080 that three countries had to come out and smack down. 0:01:30.200 --> 0:01:33.680 I'm just outdone by the fucking stupidity at this point. 0:01:33.680 --> 0:01:36.560 And people quote unquote doing your own research. Meanwhile, I 0:01:36.600 --> 0:01:39.400 would love to see what your grades look like in science, 0:01:39.560 --> 0:01:41.560 you know, when you were in high school and probably 0:01:41.600 --> 0:01:44.520 skip those classes. What kind of fucking research are these 0:01:44.520 --> 0:01:47.720 people actually really doing? Are you googling? Are you going 0:01:47.760 --> 0:01:50.240 to the CDC? Are you going to the who? Are 0:01:50.240 --> 0:01:53.080 you going to Nicki Minaj's page or you know, Buster 0:01:53.240 --> 0:01:55.800 Rhymes's page or ice Cube's page to figure out what 0:01:55.880 --> 0:01:59.600 kind of fuckery they decided to spread today. Understand, folks, 0:02:00.040 --> 0:02:03.600 at you now, you people, you Nicki Minajes and Busta 0:02:03.680 --> 0:02:07.000 Rhymes and ice Cubes have become a tool of the right. 0:02:07.360 --> 0:02:10.520 So when the likes of Tucker Carlson and Candice Owens 0:02:10.520 --> 0:02:14.080 are singing your praises and retweeting, you know that you 0:02:14.120 --> 0:02:16.840 are on the wrong fucking side of history and on 0:02:16.880 --> 0:02:20.720 the wrong fucking side of literally everything. When they decide 0:02:20.720 --> 0:02:23.600 to lift you up. You should fucking run and suspend 0:02:23.639 --> 0:02:27.680 your own goddamn accounts. So that's that. On that here 0:02:27.680 --> 0:02:32.520 we are once again folks with the potential right to 0:02:32.639 --> 0:02:36.560 do something right around voting rights, to do something that 0:02:36.720 --> 0:02:42.120 is going to change America's slippery, slippery, sliding slope into 0:02:42.240 --> 0:02:46.280 fascism right right now. I just saw pictures on MSNBC 0:02:47.200 --> 0:02:51.760 of our capitol buildings surrounded by essentially, you know, seven 0:02:51.800 --> 0:02:55.320 foot high fences, barbed wire, all of these things, and 0:02:55.400 --> 0:02:59.080 I wonder, is this what democracy looks like? Is this 0:02:59.200 --> 0:03:03.160 what it looks like to live free when our capital 0:03:03.240 --> 0:03:08.399 building is behind bars? Like? Is this? So recognize that 0:03:08.440 --> 0:03:11.920 we have become prisoners of the right. And I don't 0:03:11.960 --> 0:03:15.120 think that folks are really wrapping their eyes around what 0:03:15.200 --> 0:03:18.160 has happened. Whether or not you're living in a red state, 0:03:18.240 --> 0:03:21.360 but you actually have blue sensibilities, meaning that you believe 0:03:21.360 --> 0:03:24.440 in vaccines, you believe in science, you believe in facts, 0:03:24.720 --> 0:03:27.240 and now you're being held hostage, whether it be in 0:03:27.280 --> 0:03:30.040 your home or in your school by a governor who 0:03:30.160 --> 0:03:33.960 was choosing to not follow any science, to not follow 0:03:34.000 --> 0:03:37.560 any rules, and to essentially become the executioner for the 0:03:37.600 --> 0:03:41.760 citizens of their state. And so as I look around 0:03:41.880 --> 0:03:45.560 right now at our country in shambles every which way 0:03:45.600 --> 0:03:48.520 that you look and pick an issue, it's fucked. Right now, 0:03:49.440 --> 0:03:52.360 I think about Joe Mansion, and I think about the 0:03:52.400 --> 0:03:56.800 fact that this attention whore is the one who now 0:03:57.160 --> 0:04:01.760 we are essentially pandering to higher democracy, and the health 0:04:01.800 --> 0:04:04.000 of it is on the shoulders of a man from 0:04:04.000 --> 0:04:07.480 West Virginia who is the king of Cole, who has 0:04:07.560 --> 0:04:10.920 no black or brown constituents and could give a fuck 0:04:11.200 --> 0:04:14.360 so long as he remains the king of his small fiefdom. 0:04:14.880 --> 0:04:18.040 I am so sick to death of hearing his fucking 0:04:18.120 --> 0:04:21.520 name and Kirsten Cinema's name, and recognizing that we have 0:04:21.800 --> 0:04:24.240 three branches of government, as somebody had said to me 0:04:24.560 --> 0:04:27.640 on Twitter, and I said, damn, you know, this is 0:04:27.720 --> 0:04:31.080 really the goddamn truth. They said. The three branches of 0:04:31.160 --> 0:04:35.280 government as they sit right now is Biden, McConnell's courts, 0:04:35.720 --> 0:04:41.279 and Joe Mansion. So essentially, three white men are controlling 0:04:41.400 --> 0:04:44.920 every direction that this country takes, and the only direction 0:04:44.960 --> 0:04:48.760 that it's moving in right now is backwards. And Joe 0:04:48.800 --> 0:04:52.279 Mansion has signaled that he wants to move on voting rights, 0:04:52.279 --> 0:04:54.840 a bill that he has decided to endorse that. Guess 0:04:54.920 --> 0:04:58.880 what takes out every single ethics rule that was put 0:04:58.960 --> 0:05:02.480 into the other of voting rights legislation to make sure 0:05:02.560 --> 0:05:06.400 that a Trump like figure cannot emerge right and cannot 0:05:06.400 --> 0:05:09.760 take over this country. So he's removed those things. He's 0:05:09.800 --> 0:05:12.839 removed a lot of things that have to do with ethics. 0:05:12.839 --> 0:05:17.719 And our friend who joins the show often, Ellie Mitzel, 0:05:18.080 --> 0:05:20.839 wrote this in The Atlantic, and I tell you, friends, 0:05:21.160 --> 0:05:24.080 if you have not read the piece, you should. It 0:05:24.240 --> 0:05:29.640 is both depressing but also necessary. And he said this, 0:05:30.760 --> 0:05:34.000 and I gotta tell you you know, whenever Ellie writes, 0:05:34.120 --> 0:05:38.440 I am both extremely excited and also very depressed. He 0:05:38.520 --> 0:05:41.159 says this at the end of his piece entitled Joe 0:05:41.240 --> 0:05:46.039 Mansion giveth on Voting Rights and Joe Mansion taketh Away. 0:05:46.520 --> 0:05:50.360 He says, this America isn't a democracy right now. It's 0:05:50.360 --> 0:05:54.400 a hostage scenario. Mansion is just toying with the Democrats 0:05:54.440 --> 0:05:58.800 who insist on negotiating with him. And that is the 0:05:58.920 --> 0:06:03.640 absolute truth here, folks. You see, Joe Mansion is having 0:06:03.720 --> 0:06:07.520 the time of his fucking life. He is on everybody's lips, 0:06:07.520 --> 0:06:10.400 and he is at the center of every conversation. I've 0:06:10.440 --> 0:06:13.400 never seen an attention horror like this, other than maybe 0:06:13.520 --> 0:06:16.719 a Nicki Minaj, But I've never seen anything like this 0:06:16.920 --> 0:06:20.599 in a politician. Usually they really want to go to 0:06:20.680 --> 0:06:27.400 the table. At least maybe in my you know, very delightful, 0:06:27.560 --> 0:06:30.599 lovely memories from back in the day when I worked 0:06:30.600 --> 0:06:33.240 on Capitol Hill and I believed in democracy and I 0:06:33.279 --> 0:06:36.839 believed in the people. Maybe it's that memory that is 0:06:36.920 --> 0:06:40.440 being conjured and that often times is proving not to 0:06:40.440 --> 0:06:44.600 have been the truth. Right, you know, folks, when you 0:06:44.800 --> 0:06:48.719 think about this, right, and I just again, we don't 0:06:48.880 --> 0:06:52.960 need to present hypotheticals on this issue. We need only 0:06:53.040 --> 0:06:55.320 to look at the last four years under Donald Trump 0:06:55.320 --> 0:06:58.960 and the fucking grift that his entire family put together 0:06:59.120 --> 0:07:02.039 in order to square as much money away from the 0:07:02.080 --> 0:07:05.760 American people, away from agencies, away from social safety nets, 0:07:05.839 --> 0:07:09.040 and into his fucking pocket. So how is it that 0:07:09.080 --> 0:07:12.960 a Joe Mansion, who on his own is a fucking 0:07:13.080 --> 0:07:17.920 sellout because he has more money from coal than anywhere else, right, 0:07:18.080 --> 0:07:22.600 as well as you know, the fucking Koch Brothers decides 0:07:22.880 --> 0:07:26.480 that after witnessing Donald Trump and all of his family's 0:07:26.480 --> 0:07:29.320 fucking grift over the last four years that we don't 0:07:29.400 --> 0:07:32.120 need to put in writing the things that we expect 0:07:32.160 --> 0:07:36.240 from our fucking president and vice president. How is that right? 0:07:36.480 --> 0:07:40.560 Because here's the thing that you are essentially asking burglars 0:07:40.600 --> 0:07:43.360 to watch the fucking beck That's what we are doing 0:07:43.440 --> 0:07:46.360 right now with our politicians. Right, we can't get shit 0:07:46.560 --> 0:07:50.120 done with regard to Big Pharma and how they price 0:07:50.280 --> 0:07:53.800 their prescriptions right that they create for the American public. 0:07:53.840 --> 0:07:58.200 You know why because three of the biggest right Dems 0:07:58.600 --> 0:08:01.840 quote unquote middle of the voters take close to two 0:08:01.880 --> 0:08:05.280 million dollars from big fucking Pharma. All of this is 0:08:05.320 --> 0:08:09.160 a goddamn sham, And I wonder how we make it 0:08:09.240 --> 0:08:11.760 through each and every week without going out of our 0:08:11.800 --> 0:08:15.520 front doors and just screaming that primal scream and waiting 0:08:15.560 --> 0:08:18.600 for something to fucking change and happen. Because what I 0:08:18.680 --> 0:08:21.160 am starting to recognize is that it does not matter 0:08:21.520 --> 0:08:24.000 who the fuck we vote for, because at some way 0:08:24.320 --> 0:08:27.480 form shaping down the road, they will turn into a grifter, 0:08:27.720 --> 0:08:31.239 just like everybody fucking else. Right, You know, I remember 0:08:31.360 --> 0:08:34.040 there's an episode of Sex in the City that I 0:08:34.120 --> 0:08:38.040 love so much. It was very funny where Carrie Branshaw 0:08:38.440 --> 0:08:43.240 says that squirrels are essentially rats, just in better costumes. 0:08:43.280 --> 0:08:46.080 That's how the fuck I feel about the Democrats right now. 0:08:46.480 --> 0:08:51.920 Essentially many of those centerists right are just what Republicans 0:08:51.960 --> 0:08:55.760 in different fucking clothing with different mantras, but they're doing 0:08:55.760 --> 0:08:59.480 the same type of underhanded grifting shit that Republicans just 0:08:59.640 --> 0:09:03.439 do to your face, right because they say their work 0:09:03.600 --> 0:09:07.360 is who gonna fucking check me, Ain't not a goddamn person. 0:09:07.559 --> 0:09:11.120 Because everybody is trying to get on or get off 0:09:11.360 --> 0:09:14.840 with money in their pockets, in their packs, right in 0:09:14.880 --> 0:09:17.480 their businesses or what have you, they could give a 0:09:17.559 --> 0:09:20.240 fuck about the rest of us. And this is why 0:09:20.280 --> 0:09:23.280 I continue to say that revolution to me looks like 0:09:23.320 --> 0:09:25.840 the only direction that we are headed in, because I'm 0:09:25.880 --> 0:09:28.640 not quite sure how you continue to try and reform 0:09:28.679 --> 0:09:32.160 a system that was based on grift and racist capitalism. 0:09:32.360 --> 0:09:37.200 I don't know. Coming up next, folks, is my conversation 0:09:37.480 --> 0:09:42.160 with a really dynamic duo who put out a very 0:09:42.200 --> 0:09:46.120 thoughtful book that I think that this conversation is one 0:09:46.320 --> 0:09:49.320 that should be happening a lot more, but doesn't. I 0:09:49.440 --> 0:09:53.199 get to talk with k Whitlocke and Nancy Heightseg who 0:09:53.280 --> 0:09:57.800 wrote the book Carcerol Khan, The Deceptive Terrain of Criminal 0:09:57.840 --> 0:10:01.520 Justice Reform, and I really enjoyed this conversation. It was 0:10:01.520 --> 0:10:05.000 about thirty five minutes of just listening to these women 0:10:05.080 --> 0:10:07.720 talk about the ways in which we've all been duped 0:10:08.280 --> 0:10:11.880 right by the prison industrial complex. That they talk about 0:10:11.880 --> 0:10:16.040 how its tentacles reach into every part of our society. 0:10:16.080 --> 0:10:18.960 So I hope that you enjoy that conversation. Let me 0:10:19.040 --> 0:10:23.800 know what you think about the ideas around abolition, restoration, reform, 0:10:24.080 --> 0:10:31.760 and reimagining this broken system. Folks. I am so happy 0:10:31.880 --> 0:10:34.240 to be joined for the first time on Woke, a 0:10:34.360 --> 0:10:37.960 f daily with k Whitlock and Nancy Heitzegg, authors of 0:10:38.160 --> 0:10:43.080 Carcel Khan, The Deceptive Terrain of Criminal Justice Reform. Thank 0:10:43.120 --> 0:10:45.240 you to the both of you for one for your 0:10:45.280 --> 0:10:49.120 work in a topic that I think doesn't get enough attention. 0:10:49.760 --> 0:10:52.880 When you highlight the fact that the United States has 0:10:52.960 --> 0:10:57.400 four percent of the world's population and yet twenty percent 0:10:57.679 --> 0:11:01.000 making up of those that are incarcerated, those are numbers 0:11:01.000 --> 0:11:03.679 that I think are really difficult to run from and 0:11:03.720 --> 0:11:07.920 they're really shocking. And the premise I think of your 0:11:07.960 --> 0:11:13.400 work is we have people, organizations, administrations that always want 0:11:13.400 --> 0:11:16.640 to talk about how we reform this system, and the 0:11:16.720 --> 0:11:19.000 both of you were saying, how do you reform a 0:11:19.080 --> 0:11:23.360 system that was built on injustice? To begin with, one 0:11:23.400 --> 0:11:26.960 of many big conversations that came out of the uprisings 0:11:27.040 --> 0:11:31.160 over the summer in twenty twenty was abolished the police. Right, 0:11:31.240 --> 0:11:36.400 we had multiple very high profile and then many very 0:11:36.440 --> 0:11:40.920 low profile murders of unarmed black people by police, and 0:11:41.000 --> 0:11:45.959 the conversation got stuck on language right about abolition and 0:11:46.040 --> 0:11:49.079 not necessarily what that means. And so tokay, I'll give 0:11:49.160 --> 0:11:53.839 this to you first, which is, you know, how important 0:11:54.000 --> 0:11:57.679 is a language here right when we're talking about we're 0:11:57.760 --> 0:12:01.600 talking about reform, or we're talking about reimagining a system, 0:12:01.880 --> 0:12:05.720 or we're talking about abolition. How important is the language 0:12:05.760 --> 0:12:09.280 that we're using versus the impact that is needed to 0:12:09.400 --> 0:12:13.320 change or shrink I should say this octopus that you're 0:12:13.320 --> 0:12:20.160 talking about that is the prison industrial complex. Well, the language, 0:12:20.640 --> 0:12:26.320 the rhetorical devices that are used, especially to frame reform 0:12:26.840 --> 0:12:29.720 are very important in the sense that people really need 0:12:29.800 --> 0:12:36.600 to know how they're being used and misused. Abolition has 0:12:36.640 --> 0:12:40.800 a long history in this country and it comes out 0:12:40.800 --> 0:12:44.560 of a biack radical tradition, and there are many streams 0:12:44.600 --> 0:12:49.800 and currents and threats of abolitionism that have fed in 0:12:49.840 --> 0:12:54.679 this country. When we start to see the gathering of 0:12:55.640 --> 0:13:00.079 what Nancy and I call reform inc. That is the 0:13:00.120 --> 0:13:07.360 coalescence of an emergent industry that's going to it's a 0:13:07.360 --> 0:13:12.760 public private industry that's going to manage reform, and it 0:13:13.040 --> 0:13:21.720 starts to really gain momentum in the brokering of certain 0:13:22.320 --> 0:13:27.959 kinds of agreements between governments and it's philanthropy driven and 0:13:31.240 --> 0:13:38.000 agreements between public and private partners. And the rhetoric they 0:13:38.120 --> 0:13:44.520 use to fashion some of the responses is really kind 0:13:44.520 --> 0:13:48.920 of important because they pick rhetoric that they believe will 0:13:49.000 --> 0:13:55.880 respond to most people and that will actually blunt protest. 0:13:56.440 --> 0:13:59.480 It seems to be responsive to protest. It seems to 0:13:59.520 --> 0:14:03.440 be responsive. You know, we have in in two thousand 0:14:03.480 --> 0:14:06.839 and nine, we have the Oscar Grant killings, we have Ferguson, 0:14:06.920 --> 0:14:14.040 We have this unending series of killings and the rising 0:14:14.360 --> 0:14:20.560 of of of protest and fury about that, and actually 0:14:20.600 --> 0:14:25.520 that starts to gain a lot of public support. Over 0:14:25.560 --> 0:14:30.120 the years, you can just chart an upward interest in 0:14:30.120 --> 0:14:35.240 in abolition things. So when we talk about the rhetoric. 0:14:35.360 --> 0:14:38.800 We can talk about the concepts abolitionists US and how 0:14:38.800 --> 0:14:44.760 they get coopted by reformers and how they get undermined, 0:14:45.240 --> 0:14:48.360 so that uh, you know, defund the police is a 0:14:48.440 --> 0:14:52.000 slogan that comes out and it means exactly what it says, 0:14:52.480 --> 0:14:56.920 defund the police. By defunding the police, you reduce contact, 0:14:57.640 --> 0:15:01.120 the amount of contact people have in community, and that's 0:15:01.160 --> 0:15:05.320 going to matter, and you free up more resources that 0:15:05.440 --> 0:15:09.440 should be spent on human needs, on social goods, on 0:15:09.560 --> 0:15:13.400 environmental needs, completely outside of the criminal justice system. But 0:15:13.560 --> 0:15:19.080 suddenly you have this reform that this backlash from the 0:15:19.120 --> 0:15:22.680 reform movement saying they don't really mean to fund the police. 0:15:22.880 --> 0:15:28.480 Yes we did, and yes we do. They don't. They're 0:15:28.520 --> 0:15:32.480 saying all or nothing, that that isn't a that isn't viable, 0:15:32.560 --> 0:15:37.080 that isn't viable. Then we start to see the emergence 0:15:37.160 --> 0:15:42.800 too of people who call themselves abolitionists, but say, we're abolitionists, 0:15:42.800 --> 0:15:45.760 but we believe first you have to build more humane 0:15:45.760 --> 0:15:49.560 new jails. We're abolitionists, but you know the way to 0:15:49.600 --> 0:15:54.160 have public safety is to have smaller, better run jails, 0:15:54.600 --> 0:16:02.000 better trained police. So there's a whole red rick of reform. 0:16:02.080 --> 0:16:09.720 That's incredibly deceptive. It masquerades in such phrases as public safety, 0:16:10.480 --> 0:16:21.120 as smaller, fairer, kinder for jails, the whole reimagining rhetoric. 0:16:21.400 --> 0:16:27.520 That's really interesting because I've been working in this particular 0:16:27.680 --> 0:16:33.360 area and considered myself an abolitionist since at least two thousand, 0:16:33.880 --> 0:16:39.800 late nineteen nineties, and a number of abolitionists who'd been 0:16:39.840 --> 0:16:42.840 in it longer than I had were already using the 0:16:42.920 --> 0:16:49.880 reimagining kind of language. Now, the VERA Institute for Justice 0:16:49.960 --> 0:16:56.000 once to quote, reimagine prisons, not permanently reduce them. Let's 0:16:56.080 --> 0:16:59.400 make them nicer, Let's make them better, Let's make them 0:16:59.640 --> 0:17:03.480 an institution of democracy. So we don't let the co 0:17:03.600 --> 0:17:07.840 optation of rhetoric get in the way of saying what 0:17:07.880 --> 0:17:11.920 we really mean. Yes, we do really mean defund the police. 0:17:12.520 --> 0:17:16.880 Yes we do mean abolition, which is as much about 0:17:17.040 --> 0:17:22.600 creating the social and economic and ecological conditions in which 0:17:22.640 --> 0:17:27.320 both individuals and communities, especially those who have been marginalized, 0:17:27.560 --> 0:17:34.800 can thrive outside of the criminal legal system. Of lolling rhetoric. 0:17:35.520 --> 0:17:38.239 It's going to be evidence space reform, it's going to 0:17:38.280 --> 0:17:42.080 be just They will not touch structural racism will not 0:17:42.160 --> 0:17:50.240 touch structural poverty, but dressing up reform in certain words 0:17:50.280 --> 0:17:54.640 that are so compelling that we don't often understand how 0:17:54.760 --> 0:18:01.520 effective a vehicle so called criminal legal justice, criminal justice 0:18:01.520 --> 0:18:08.320 system reform is for advancing broader processes of criminalization and 0:18:08.359 --> 0:18:13.600 an expansion of police forces literally as a substitute for 0:18:14.000 --> 0:18:20.720 civil rights YEP, or voting rights for real justice. So 0:18:21.160 --> 0:18:26.320 it's it's a dark, little wonderland of sorts in the rhetoric. 0:18:26.760 --> 0:18:31.480 So when Nancy and I are talking, for example, we're 0:18:31.520 --> 0:18:36.840 trying to be real specific about helping people understand peel 0:18:36.920 --> 0:18:41.879 away the co optation or the or just the deception 0:18:42.760 --> 0:18:47.280 or the incompleteness that's in the rhetoric and start to 0:18:47.320 --> 0:18:52.520 think about the concepts of structural inequality. I think that 0:18:52.520 --> 0:18:56.160 that makes so much sense, right for us to move 0:18:56.280 --> 0:18:59.480 past the rhetoric and into the concepts. But it's the 0:18:59.560 --> 0:19:03.640 rhetoric that turns into the hashtags, that turns into the protests, 0:19:03.720 --> 0:19:07.040 that turns into all of these different things. And I wonder, 0:19:07.600 --> 0:19:12.440 you know, I wonder Nancy too. We see our politicians 0:19:12.480 --> 0:19:15.280 consistently get caught up in this, right, because if we 0:19:15.600 --> 0:19:20.840 have conversations about what it means to abolish police really 0:19:20.880 --> 0:19:25.600 conceptually have conversations about what it means to abolish the 0:19:25.640 --> 0:19:32.600 prison industrial complex. Then Democrats right, get the Moniker as 0:19:32.640 --> 0:19:36.879 being soft on crime, right, and then Republicans are able 0:19:36.880 --> 0:19:40.200 to co opt the mantra law and order. And so 0:19:40.280 --> 0:19:43.720 I'm wondering from your from your vantage point, you know, 0:19:44.160 --> 0:19:48.400 how how how do we negate those things from happening? 0:19:48.440 --> 0:19:51.320 Because it's it's where we get caught up in this 0:19:51.440 --> 0:19:54.920 vicious cycle where progress really is not made. The progress 0:19:55.000 --> 0:19:57.479 is really only made so much as we change the 0:19:57.560 --> 0:20:00.119 language and adapt to the times that we're in, it 0:20:00.160 --> 0:20:06.080 doesn't actually change the system in and of itself. You know, 0:20:06.119 --> 0:20:11.000 I'm sitting here in Minneapolis, um, you know, when the 0:20:11.119 --> 0:20:15.360 aftermath of the you know, George Floyd murder and Donty 0:20:15.440 --> 0:20:20.080 Wright murder and many murders and many protests burned on 0:20:20.200 --> 0:20:25.320 the third Precinct, um, you know, and thinking about language, UM, 0:20:26.240 --> 0:20:32.560 and I think how important it is to for abolitionists 0:20:32.560 --> 0:20:38.040 to not compromise the language or not try to assuage um, 0:20:38.480 --> 0:20:42.800 you know, various political parties. I mean, Minneapolis is a 0:20:43.080 --> 0:20:48.080 very democratic city, very blue city. UM. You know. One 0:20:48.119 --> 0:20:54.640 of the results UM UM of the George Floyd murder 0:20:54.760 --> 0:20:57.120 or some efforts on the part of the City Council 0:20:57.200 --> 0:21:01.200 and various activist groups like Reclaim the Block and Black 0:21:01.280 --> 0:21:07.680 Visions Collective UM now Yes from Minneapolis UM to organize 0:21:07.720 --> 0:21:12.640 and push for UM some changes to the language of 0:21:12.680 --> 0:21:16.760 the city charter UM, which mandates you know X amount 0:21:16.760 --> 0:21:20.680 of police officers have to UM you know serve here 0:21:20.920 --> 0:21:24.119 you know, And and lots of conversation you know, for 0:21:24.240 --> 0:21:28.080 more than a year now about UM changing the charter, 0:21:28.720 --> 0:21:33.520 about creating UM a new department of Public Safety that 0:21:33.680 --> 0:21:37.200 police might be a part of UM. You know, city 0:21:37.200 --> 0:21:42.199 council was for this UM. You know, it's about potentially 0:21:42.920 --> 0:21:47.680 defunding the police and replacing some police functions like mental 0:21:47.720 --> 0:21:52.800 health crisis calls, etcetera, with with UM, you know, public 0:21:52.840 --> 0:21:58.320 health options UM. Lots of support for this UM. You know, 0:21:58.720 --> 0:22:04.639 twenty two thousand Minneapolis residents you know signed UM you 0:22:04.720 --> 0:22:08.000 know petition to get this on the ballot. UM. The 0:22:08.040 --> 0:22:12.040 backlash has been stunning UM. You know, even in a 0:22:12.119 --> 0:22:17.600 democratic city. Backlash from the mayor you know, UM, backlash 0:22:17.760 --> 0:22:24.600 from other soul called democrat you know, former politicians, you know, 0:22:24.640 --> 0:22:29.879 the Minnesota Supreme court now is hearing UM whether or 0:22:29.920 --> 0:22:36.560 not this will even be on the ballot. So bottom line, 0:22:36.560 --> 0:22:38.879 I guess, and then this is related to everything that 0:22:39.040 --> 0:22:47.720 case said. UM. UM. I think abolitionists should be real clear, 0:22:48.600 --> 0:22:50.560 UM we want to defund the police, who want to 0:22:50.600 --> 0:22:56.120 abolish the police, who want to abolish the prison industrial complex. UM. UM. 0:22:56.160 --> 0:23:00.639 We might be interested in and certainly supportive of forms 0:23:00.640 --> 0:23:06.359 that UM immediately mitigate the suffering UM of those in 0:23:06.400 --> 0:23:12.040 the system without expanding it. UM, But I don't know. 0:23:12.119 --> 0:23:15.080 I guess. My my view increasingly over time is that 0:23:15.359 --> 0:23:22.359 so much energy UM activist energy is spent on I'm 0:23:22.400 --> 0:23:28.639 trying to play Kate UM elected political figures. UM. That 0:23:28.640 --> 0:23:32.320 that that we should just say what we want, say 0:23:32.359 --> 0:23:37.520 what we mean, UM, move forward, UM, work in community 0:23:37.560 --> 0:23:40.840 as as much as we can to you know, create 0:23:40.960 --> 0:23:49.720 an envision, UM, you know, another world. That's it for 0:23:49.760 --> 0:23:53.040 today's wok F Daily Podcast. To hear more from today's show, 0:23:53.080 --> 0:23:56.960 including my full interviews with Ka Whitlock and Nancy heightseg 0:23:57.160 --> 0:24:00.919 do check out my patreon at patreon dot com. Slash 0:24:01.000 --> 0:24:03.400 Woke a f Power to the people and to all 0:24:03.520 --> 0:24:06.440 the people. Power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.