Speaker 1: Native Lamppod is a production of iHeartRadio in partnership with
Speaker 1: Reason Choice Media. Welcome home, y'all. This is episode twelve,
Speaker 1: counted twelve of Native Lamppod, where we break down all
Speaker 1: of the news that we think is important for your
Speaker 1: listening ears, everything politics, and a little bit of culture
Speaker 1: sprinkled in between a lot of culture. We are your host,
Speaker 1: Andrew Gillham. I'm here with my sisters Tiffany Cross in
Speaker 1: the Angelo Rye. Welcome everybody to the week of reckoning
Speaker 1: that maybe wasn't. We'll start this conversation on this day
Speaker 1: welcoming all of you, our wonderful listening audience, by digging
Speaker 1: a little deeper into what exactly is the state of
Speaker 1: the Trump trials. Yes, that's within s trials from New
Speaker 1: York to Florida to Georgia back to the District of Columbia.
Speaker 1: We'll try to bring up to speak with what we know.
Speaker 1: This was the week that was supposed to be the reckoning,
Speaker 1: and we'll let you be the judge of that ever
Speaker 1: actually happened. From there, we'll travel across the country and
Speaker 1: do a little bit more of a deep dive into
Speaker 1: the nationwide anti DEEI diversity, equity, and inclusion, a war
Speaker 1: that it seems to be going on in just about
Speaker 1: every state in the Union. We'll hear what the proponents
Speaker 1: of these initiatives have to say and have a little
Speaker 1: discussion about what we think the real reason is for
Speaker 1: the volume of pushback. After our deep dive, we'll have
Speaker 1: a conversation about Haiti, located closer to Miami than Miami
Speaker 1: is to New York, the island nation of Haiti has
Speaker 1: been an upheaval over the last several months. We'll try
Speaker 1: to figure out and parse what it is that you
Speaker 1: need to know what's happen and Potter Prince and in
Speaker 1: politics is everywhere, or maybe it's politics aren't everywhere. Instagram
Speaker 1: has quietly started a limit on political social media, so
Speaker 1: I'm not even sure if y'all are seeing us right now.
Speaker 1: You'll get the host and cost take on what that's
Speaker 1: all about. Stick around. At the end of the episode,
Speaker 1: we'll talk about our respective calls to action that we
Speaker 1: hope that each of you will join us in. All right,
Speaker 1: so let's get started, y'all. I hear Tiff that you're
Speaker 1: breaking it down over there in Atlanta, Agela over in
Speaker 1: our favorite west coast city, Los Angeles.
Speaker 2: My favorite West coast city Seattle.
Speaker 1: You're confused, Are you in Seattle? You'll thinks, say, La, Well.
Speaker 3: That's not my problem. My favorite west coast city. I'm
Speaker 3: fact checking you. It's Seattle.
Speaker 1: Thanks, all things above understood to opany all day, Oral
Speaker 1: fourth and I heard you had a great, great, great
Speaker 1: working day yesterday. Uh, and that you've been lightening it
Speaker 1: up in Atlanta. You're doing all right over there, I am.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 5: It's good to be back in the South. It's nice.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 5: I'm used to like speaking to people when you walk
Speaker 5: past them, and I still do that even in DC
Speaker 5: and New York. I give that nod that y'all know
Speaker 5: that we give, and then the nod to everybody. It's
Speaker 5: nice to be in the South. So yes, and happy
Speaker 5: to be in community with you guys. But I have
Speaker 5: to say, like I say all the time, I think
Speaker 5: it's very different when we're together in person. So I
Speaker 5: love seeing you guys in person.
Speaker 1: Infection, Well, this may be something that we can commune
Speaker 1: on together, y'all. Tiff tell me, folks want to know
Speaker 1: what the heck is going on in trump Land? The
Speaker 1: reckoning that.
Speaker 5: Was that wasn't as you said, Andrew. Okay, I'm gonna
Speaker 5: try to walk us through this. Angela, our resident attorney,
Speaker 5: I hope will correct me if I say something incorrect.
Speaker 5: So my understanding is on Monday the twenty fourth, I believe,
Speaker 5: or the twenty fifth, and appeals Court reduced the bond
Speaker 5: for Trump's fraud trial. That you guys know he didn't
Speaker 5: have this money and state Attorney General, New York State
Speaker 5: Attorney General was prepared to seize his assets, and so
Speaker 5: this appeals court reduced the bond from four hundred and
Speaker 5: fifty four million to one hundred and seventy five million
Speaker 5: of parentheses. I want to ask Angela house Sleagh, like,
Speaker 5: how does that happen? He has ten additional days to
Speaker 5: secure the bond money which will allow him to appeal
Speaker 5: the ruling and the size of the fine. The ruling
Speaker 5: and the seas of the fine. He has ten days
Speaker 5: to come up with that hiss. James has previously said
Speaker 5: she is prepared to start seizing his assets and his
Speaker 5: property should he be unable to pay. So, to be
Speaker 5: honest with you, all, I thought on Monday we were
Speaker 5: going to see his sit out on the front lawn
Speaker 5: like as an eviction, like you got to go. I
Speaker 5: didn't understand how it was all going to go. Now.
Speaker 5: Trump does have more court cases in progress, as everybody knows.
Speaker 5: This week he got a trial date for the hush
Speaker 5: money case, which is of course his trial with Stormy Daniels,
Speaker 5: and that starts April fifteenth. For those who may not remember,
Speaker 5: Stormy Daniels was the adult film star that he tried
Speaker 5: to get his attorney to buy her silence essentially some
Speaker 5: of his eighty eight criminal charges. So we're still awaiting
Speaker 5: trial dates for the federal election interference case which is
Speaker 5: out of Georgia, which we've talked about with Fannie Willith,
Speaker 5: the election ference case federal, which is course is about
Speaker 5: January sixth, and the mishandling of the classified documents case.
Speaker 5: So before we move on, we really love you guys
Speaker 5: asking your questions. We want to keep encouraging you to
Speaker 5: do that, and you all determine our topics a lot
Speaker 5: of times because we have a question from a viewer
Speaker 5: who is seeing us up perfectly. So let's hear that
Speaker 5: listener question.
Speaker 6: Hey, what's up Native Land pod? This is a guy
Speaker 6: Ti ty McIntosh in Orlando, Florida. I'm originally from Miami, Florida, though,
Speaker 6: and so a special shout out to my homeboy, mister
Speaker 6: Andrew Gillim grew up in the Richmond Heights neighborhood. Man,
Speaker 6: I grew up in Parian, the next neighborhood over. And
Speaker 6: actually remember your dad that used to sell flowers out
Speaker 6: on one hundred and seventeenth AF But that's a whole
Speaker 6: other thing. I really wanted to ask you guys a
Speaker 6: question of regarding the Donald Trump civil case in New York,
Speaker 6: and I was really wondering why it was a civil
Speaker 6: case that was filed in not criminal charges that were
Speaker 6: filed against him. That tex fraud is not a criminal
Speaker 6: issue in the state of New York. Was there a
Speaker 6: statute of limitations at play? What exactly was going on there?
Speaker 6: Maybe you could shed some light on that and help
Speaker 6: folks like me better understand that issue.
Speaker 1: Thanks a lot, Thank you, toy with the time. Well,
Speaker 1: first of all, shout out real quick to Paran. I
Speaker 1: was a neighboring a neighborhood to the neighborhood. I grew
Speaker 1: up in the heights, and yes, my daddy on the
Speaker 1: weekends would sell flowers in this intersection across the street
Speaker 1: from a cemetery that was located there, and I would
Speaker 1: on some weekends go down and pitch a little umbrella
Speaker 1: and help my daddy out selling flowers. That was a
Speaker 1: nice memory. My father passed the year after I ran
Speaker 1: for governor, so I was a nice conjuring of memory there.
Speaker 1: I appreciate it to I love.
Speaker 5: That, Angela. I feel like our resident attorney. I have
Speaker 5: so many questions for you, but you should probably get
Speaker 5: to the viewer question first.
Speaker 3: I want to start by saying thank you to Ty.
Speaker 3: We always appreciate hearing from our listeners. We continue to
Speaker 3: invite you all to share your comments and your questions
Speaker 3: every week. Ty, you know I would like to know
Speaker 3: the same thing. Why the hell didn't he face a
Speaker 3: tax fraud case as well, especially federal We've seen report
Speaker 3: after report of the of the either the limited or
Speaker 3: no tax that Donald Trump paid, even before he gave
Speaker 3: rich people a very nice tax break, He's been hustling.
Speaker 2: He's been a hustler on the go.
Speaker 3: He's not just invoked white privilege, but he also embodies
Speaker 3: why they call him teflon don I don't understand it
Speaker 3: for the life of me. And of course, now with
Speaker 3: all of the cases, all the charges that are pending,
Speaker 3: the thing that is most alarming is we've talked about
Speaker 3: on this podcast is the fact that Donald Trump has
Speaker 3: a really important case before the Supreme Court on presidential immunity,
Speaker 3: and if that case is decided in his favor, not
Speaker 3: only will he not face federal charges for the election
Speaker 3: interference case, he likely won't face any charges. So there
Speaker 3: are eighty eight pending charges. Trial with Alvin Braggs scheduled
Speaker 3: to begin, as Tiff has already noted, but we are
Speaker 3: all waiting with beta breath to see what really happens.
Speaker 3: But these charges are are the trials are slated to
Speaker 3: go forward. In reference to these charges, I think even
Speaker 3: Fulton County has some hearings that are coming up, so
Speaker 3: we shall see. But nothing on tax You all know
Speaker 3: that this is the time where I am, of course
Speaker 3: going to raise the hypocrisy here. We've seen people who've
Speaker 3: been accused of far less, indicted for far less. Namely
Speaker 3: I'm thinking about Marilyn Moseby as I continue to dig
Speaker 3: into this case. It is absolutely insane. I don't know
Speaker 3: why at all Donald Trump can get away with I
Speaker 3: won't say murder, but it certainly seems like it. To
Speaker 3: be indicted eighty eight times on multiple levels of government,
Speaker 3: I think signifies something very serious. If that if he
Speaker 3: were black, what we would be saying, we wouldn't even
Speaker 3: be having this conversation. There wouldn't be a presidential immunity
Speaker 3: case before the Supreme Court. So for you to be
Speaker 3: able to utilize or access ninety five thousand dollars of
Speaker 3: your own money and face forty years in prison, versus
Speaker 3: you are raking people over the calls, your contractors, not
Speaker 3: paying them, your taxes, evading them. You know you're you're
Speaker 3: in a bill your property valuations. That is a form
Speaker 3: of mortgage fraud. Donald Trump has done that with his
Speaker 3: son time and time again and has faced nearly no consequence.
Speaker 3: So I'm eager to see these trials get started and
Speaker 3: see if justice becomes a system that serves all of us,
Speaker 3: or for will it be just us we're the only
Speaker 3: ones who are penalized.
Speaker 5: I have a question, Angela, because I think what he
Speaker 5: was asking was about civil versus criminals. So just for
Speaker 5: our viewers, civil is about money. Criminal is about your
Speaker 5: life and liberty. So who are the entities that decide
Speaker 5: we are going to press civil charges, and like what
Speaker 5: goes into that decision and who decide? I mean, I know,
Speaker 5: I think prosecutors decide for the criminal charges.
Speaker 2: Is it this?
Speaker 5: This might be a dumb question, but I really don't
Speaker 5: know anybody about the law. Do prosecutors also make the
Speaker 5: decision in a civil case? No, So a private citizen
Speaker 5: has to bring that right.
Speaker 3: It can be so civil cases aren't always about money.
Speaker 3: They can be if there are damages involved. Sometimes it
Speaker 3: can be about there was criminal activity. For example, I
Speaker 3: have an open case right now with a former staffer
Speaker 3: that is a civil case on embezzlement. Right, So you
Speaker 3: can proceed with a civil lawsuit when someone was negligent
Speaker 3: or reckless or caused you personal or physical harm. That
Speaker 3: can be a civil action. But also a state's attorney
Speaker 3: general can proceed with a civil action.
Speaker 2: They consue you if.
Speaker 3: They believe that there was a wrong done to this
Speaker 3: state or to the people of that state. And then
Speaker 3: also with criminal cases, it is normally a prosecutor can
Speaker 3: be on the local, state, or federal level. But I
Speaker 3: think that the main thing is to know that a
Speaker 3: private citizen can sue someone that isn't normally a civil action,
Speaker 3: and a state or a government is that he can
Speaker 3: also pursue someone that can be civil or criminal. And
Speaker 3: in this instance this he was referencing the Letitia James case,
Speaker 3: But there are other open criminal matters they just have
Speaker 3: not gone to trial yet.
Speaker 5: And you're saying that a civil like charges can come
Speaker 5: out of a civil case. It's not just about money.
Speaker 3: They're not charges, but I'm saying that there it can
Speaker 3: be about a wrong done to a person that is
Speaker 3: not financial only.
Speaker 2: So for example, it could be a property dispute.
Speaker 3: It could be you know, someone was physically harmed and
Speaker 3: as a result of that physical harm you can get
Speaker 3: monetary damages or punitive damages. But it doesn't have to
Speaker 3: just be a civil action about money.
Speaker 1: But the remedy is never in a civil case. The
Speaker 1: remedy is never jail time or correct a criminal record
Speaker 1: because that doesn't accompany civil litigation. I use one example
Speaker 1: of OJ Simpson where he may have been adjudicated non guilty,
Speaker 1: you know, not guilty in the criminal proceeding, but the Goldman.
Speaker 2: Uh uh found liable in the civil suits.
Speaker 1: Simpson family bought civil uh Yeah, and you know some
Speaker 1: say justice may have been had in some way there,
Speaker 1: you know, keeping this man perpetually, you know, financially obligated
Speaker 1: to pain.
Speaker 5: What's the most likely to happen with Trump? This is
Speaker 5: for either of you, like, will he likely be found
Speaker 5: guilty in some of these civil cases or.
Speaker 2: Even the language is a little different.
Speaker 3: So even when a jury brings back a guilty verdict,
Speaker 3: it means he's liable in a civil suit. On on
Speaker 3: the criminal side, you found guilty, it means you you
Speaker 3: have a criminal conviction.
Speaker 2: There's a criminal charge on your on your record.
Speaker 3: And I think that the the other thing that's important,
Speaker 3: and this might be too in the weeds, but with
Speaker 3: civil cases it's by a preponderance of the evidence and
Speaker 3: and the the plaintiff has an obligation to prove that.
Speaker 3: On the on the criminal side, it is the person
Speaker 3: has to be guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. So the
Speaker 3: threshold for liability versus guilt or innocence is different in
Speaker 3: each of those and proving that someone's guilty beyond a
Speaker 3: reasonable doubt is the responsibility of the prosecution.
Speaker 5: So the strongest case against Trump then.
Speaker 1: So I think it's hard to parse and part because
Speaker 1: I think the only reckoning we've seen, and again this week,
Speaker 1: was supposed to be him having a pony up, you know,
Speaker 1: a fraction of what he says he's worth, but then
Speaker 1: the appellate court reduced that amount. The only reckoning we've
Speaker 1: seen so far as it relates to Trump's misdeeds have
Speaker 1: been in the civil courts, uh and the civil proceedings,
Speaker 1: I should say, the criminal ones he has yet to
Speaker 1: stand you know, his day in court on. And I
Speaker 1: think that's part of what the viewer listener was getting to,
Speaker 1: which is, if we know that he has violated criminal code,
Speaker 1: why didn't prosecutors determine to go after him criminally on
Speaker 1: these cases? Either in the tax peace and the evaluations,
Speaker 1: there was clearly there's a statute that the prosecutors could
Speaker 1: have cited in pursuing him that way. I don't know
Speaker 1: the answer to that. I don't think we right now
Speaker 1: know the answer to why that decision was made. We
Speaker 1: may never know the answer as to why that was made.
Speaker 1: But the reckoning on that is clearly, you know, sort
Speaker 1: of working its way through, and I'm kind of skeptical, frankly,
Speaker 1: whether or not this man is going to outlawyer the
Speaker 1: lawyers of the government and figure out a way not
Speaker 1: to have to pay anything at the end of the day.
Speaker 1: The criminal ones really concern me because this is a
Speaker 1: matter of timing. We know that Trump is committed to
Speaker 1: delaying the start of any of these criminal trials, criminal proceedings,
Speaker 1: and I think he's betting on one thing to cover
Speaker 1: all things, and that is one that he wins re election.
Speaker 1: And if I had to offer a second, the second,
Speaker 1: I think he's wagering that the Supreme Court will say
Speaker 1: the president a sitting president cannot be prosecuted federally or
Speaker 1: by the states. If we were dealing with another person,
Speaker 1: Barack Obama, would it be fair for him, as a
Speaker 1: sitting president to have an investigation and indictment come up
Speaker 1: against him from the state of Alabama or Mississippi or
Speaker 1: Texas a criminal indictment, I mean for some act that
Speaker 1: they may have determined to be criminal and have him
Speaker 1: prosecuted as a sitting president. And my guess is is
Speaker 1: that the courts would not allow for a sitting president
Speaker 1: to withstand prosecution while he is sitting in the seat
Speaker 1: of president, either at the federal or the state level.
Speaker 1: And I think that that's probably the math that Trump
Speaker 1: is also working with that he says, look, if I
Speaker 1: become president, the federal stuff, I can summarily dismiss, direct
Speaker 1: the Attorney general to suspend with that, and in the
Speaker 1: state charges, they can't pursue me while I'm president. And
Speaker 1: so maybe there's a statue of limitations. Maybe it comes
Speaker 1: back around that by the time they're able to pursue him,
Speaker 1: they're not legally able, or they no longer have the
Speaker 1: appetite to remember the judges elected in this case in
Speaker 1: Georgia and the prosecutor is elected in the state of Georgia,
Speaker 1: they may be different people by the time a you know,
Speaker 1: second term president Trump, you know, was there, God forbid
Speaker 1: that ever happened. But I think those are the odds
Speaker 1: he's playing.
Speaker 3: The one thing that I would also flag is that
Speaker 3: if the Supreme Court can't rule that a sitting president
Speaker 3: who is on the record as trying to find additional
Speaker 3: votes is not worth hearing, like, there should be some
Speaker 3: restrictions on presidential immunity. And I feel like when it
Speaker 3: comes time to look at whether or not someone trying
Speaker 3: to actually tear with democracy in a very real way,
Speaker 3: like there should be some limitations on that. I think
Speaker 3: the precedent that we have that I'm traumatized by is
Speaker 3: Bush versus Gore in two thousand. They found themselves on
Speaker 3: the wrong side of that mad then too. So I
Speaker 3: just I don't have a lot of faith and hoping this,
Speaker 3: especially the particular makeup of this court.
Speaker 2: But I am I'm really concerned.
Speaker 3: To me, it feels like the very obvious case is
Speaker 3: the election interference case because of how egregious that was
Speaker 3: and what the fallout from that with January sixth I
Speaker 3: know there are a lot of people who aren't as
Speaker 3: connected to people on the Hill who don't understand the
Speaker 3: severity of that. But this is a really, really big
Speaker 3: deal and I'm like been sounding the alarm on this.
Speaker 3: I'm like losing sleep about this presidential immunity case and
Speaker 3: where the Supreme Court rules in junior July.
Speaker 5: Do you have a prediction, Angela on how they might rule.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think my prediction is my worst fear, which
Speaker 3: is that it is a six ' to three decision,
Speaker 3: you know, deciding that Donald Trump does not have to
Speaker 3: withstand trial and he does in fact have presidential immunity
Speaker 3: on all of these cases and he gets to get
Speaker 3: off Scott straight.
Speaker 5: On party lines.
Speaker 3: I think maybe maybe, maybe John Roberts, but I don't
Speaker 3: have a lot of hope. I definitely ain't hoping for
Speaker 3: Claire's Thomas. I wouldn't be surprised if he was right
Speaker 3: there on them calls with Jenny Okay exactly.
Speaker 2: I would.
Speaker 1: I would submit, and I'm not I'm not a lawyer.
Speaker 1: I think the court is going to be very narrow
Speaker 1: and whatever decision they make, and I think is likely
Speaker 1: going to be a decision that doesn't exonerate him from
Speaker 1: the actions that he took even while as president. They
Speaker 1: were not presidential actions. So his actions that he took
Speaker 1: while being president is different than actions that he's taking
Speaker 1: as the president of the United States toward a greater good,
Speaker 1: greater end of the of the people of the country.
Speaker 1: There's a distinction here, and I think the Court will
Speaker 1: make that distinction. But I also think they are going
Speaker 1: to waste so much time in doing so that there
Speaker 1: will not feasibly be time enough to try him on
Speaker 1: any of those federal cases prior to the November election,
Speaker 1: and thereby really giving him a free pass that means
Speaker 1: he gets to compete in this presidential election, with with
Speaker 1: no adjudicatory decisions having been made on the most critical
Speaker 1: cases that we've all been seeing, witnessing, hearing about, and
Speaker 1: that his reckoning comes only after and only assuming that
Speaker 1: the appetite still exists at these various levels to continue
Speaker 1: to pursue, uh, you know, these charges. But it's complicated, y'all.
Speaker 1: But don't let it be so complicated that we tune out.
Speaker 1: A lot is happening here. Just know this. The rules
Speaker 1: of the game for Donald Trump is delays. His only
Speaker 1: friend and I and I and I come down on
Speaker 1: the side will deny as always his but his best
Speaker 1: friend is to delay this so that it never comes
Speaker 1: before a decision of a jury prior to the election
Speaker 1: of twenty twenty four November. Yeah. Wow, that's a lot, y'all.
Speaker 2: I know, we got to talk about them.
Speaker 1: Tiff said, Well, that's why we got a toss to
Speaker 1: pay some bills. So we'll be back on the other
Speaker 1: side of this. Stay tuned, everybody. So we're back, And
Speaker 1: I wish the topic was lighter coming off of that
Speaker 1: Trump legal update. But Angela, Tiffany, we've all been making
Speaker 1: reference to these diversity, equity and inclusion programs, policies. Shoot,
Speaker 1: if you're in my state, conversation about you've probably heard
Speaker 1: it listeners in your respective communities as anti woke legislation
Speaker 1: or anti DEI programs, and all over the country. I
Speaker 1: think now in half the states, we've heard legislators and
Speaker 1: legislation that has stripped your respective state of any DEI
Speaker 1: protections programs, offices, laid folks off sumarily and unsummarily, and
Speaker 1: folks are just confused about what's going on. And so
Speaker 1: we thought it'd be a timely matter to have us
Speaker 1: do a little bit of a deeper dive on what's
Speaker 1: up with DEI. What's its standing? Is it still standing?
Speaker 1: Are we barely standing on one leg and a crutch?
Speaker 1: And so on and so forth. And we decided we
Speaker 1: turned to Angela to give us the best readout on
Speaker 1: what's happening with DEI.
Speaker 2: Thanks Andrew.
Speaker 3: So, I think the most important thing to note is
Speaker 3: that there are currently more than thirty bills across the
Speaker 3: country that target diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. If you
Speaker 3: ask us, if you ask them, it's didn't earn it
Speaker 3: for whatever reason. They include initiatives that are at public universities.
Speaker 3: We know that this started at the top, top top
Speaker 3: with the Supreme Court overturning affirmative action last summer, and
Speaker 3: I think that what we have to understand now is
Speaker 3: that this is by design. It is happening in Utah
Speaker 3: because that's a very multicultural state. North Dakota also very
Speaker 3: multicultural South Dakota, extremely black Tennessee, Alabama, Idaho, and Florida
Speaker 3: are just a few others. And what I think we
Speaker 3: really have to understand is it's not just a state issue.
Speaker 3: This issue also found its space and weird it's ugly head.
Speaker 3: Just last week, folks were talking about the House Office
Speaker 3: of the United States House of Representatives getting rid of
Speaker 3: their Diversity and Inclusion office. What I ended up finding
Speaker 3: out from Hakim Jeffries, who will likely become the first
Speaker 3: black speaker in United States history, he mentioned that actually,
Speaker 3: this didn't just begin last week with the failure to
Speaker 3: appropriate funds to the office. It actually began in the Republicans'
Speaker 3: twenty twenty three rules package.
Speaker 2: They've been trying.
Speaker 3: To get rid of the House or the Diversity Inclusion
Speaker 3: Office in the House since then.
Speaker 2: And so we are seeing what folks are doing and
Speaker 2: We're very clear about it.
Speaker 3: I think one thing that is extraordinarily telling is Brandon Scott,
Speaker 3: who is the mayor of Baltimore. In a very tragic
Speaker 3: moment when the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed after the
Speaker 3: ship collided with the bridge, he is out speaking about it,
Speaker 3: and some idiot I try not to name call, but
Speaker 3: sometimes it just is what it is tweeted that he
Speaker 3: was a DEI mayor. I'm sorry, what does that have
Speaker 3: to do with anything? Oh, you know what, we actually
Speaker 3: get it. We're clear about exactly what you mean when
Speaker 3: you say DEI. So for us, they think that DEI
Speaker 3: is about a handout, but we're clear about the fact
Speaker 3: that they use DEI as a racist trope. It is
Speaker 3: their new so it's their twenty four version of the
Speaker 3: N word. They no longer have to say that because
Speaker 3: they can call us what they mean by calling it DEI.
Speaker 3: Do you all know that one of the things that
Speaker 3: got the most traction last week in our podcast Conversation
Speaker 3: online was DEI. We have young black folks saying things
Speaker 3: now like I don't need a handout. I'm sorry, it's
Speaker 3: not a handout for you to get what you deserve.
Speaker 3: The thing that is the most troubling about a lot
Speaker 3: of this legislation, and we can actually throw to a
Speaker 3: clip in Alabama. But the thing that's the most troubling
Speaker 3: about this legislation is that they are billing it as
Speaker 3: a way to make sure they level the playing field.
Speaker 3: The playing field ain't been level for four hundred plus years.
Speaker 3: You have never given us what we deserve. You've never
Speaker 3: given us what we earned. We are supposed to be here,
Speaker 3: and that means making sure that you don't get the handout.
Speaker 3: So I do want to go to this Alabama clip
Speaker 3: really quer so we can hear how these things are
Speaker 3: talked about on both sides of the aisle and reported
Speaker 3: on Let's take a listen today.
Speaker 1: The state of Alabama committed sin.
Speaker 7: The passing of s B one twenty nine has caused
Speaker 7: controversy among Alabama lawmakers. The bill will ban topics that
Speaker 7: will be considered divisive concepts or discussions that will make
Speaker 7: a group of people feel bad about their identity. Republicans
Speaker 7: supporting the bill say, everyone, no matter what race, sexual orientation,
Speaker 7: or other identity backgrounds, are already seen as equal.
Speaker 6: I think the main thing is to make sure that
Speaker 6: everybody regardless of race.
Speaker 1: Is I will be on the plane level fail.
Speaker 7: People who oppose this bill fear that there will be
Speaker 7: some negative consequences that could affect Alabama's ability to recruit
Speaker 7: students at its public colleges and universities.
Speaker 3: Child, now here's what we holl Well, you know, I
Speaker 3: want you guys to weigh in and then I'll go
Speaker 3: to what my highest.
Speaker 2: Hope is on this particular topic. But I would love
Speaker 2: for y'all to weigh in.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, I'll just pick up with the I
Speaker 1: guess the legislator left off in the description of the
Speaker 1: bill as being being instruction of anything that might cause
Speaker 1: people to feel offended about themselves or their cultures. And
Speaker 1: of course, this resembles very much what Florida Governor Rohnda
Speaker 1: Santis and his Republican acolytes in the legislature past when
Speaker 1: they passed their anti Woke legislation, which basically said, in
Speaker 1: addition to stripping all of these programs of their funding
Speaker 1: and resources and decommitting the state from its commitment to diversity,
Speaker 1: is it said you can't teach a history, you can't
Speaker 1: have a book in the school library or any other
Speaker 1: public face of which our tax dollars go to pay
Speaker 1: for if a reader might find the contents of it
Speaker 1: degrading to themselves or their heritage, And I just this
Speaker 1: is it's so to me emblematic of really the point
Speaker 1: around why we have to put emphasis on what's different
Speaker 1: and what we don't or ties on a regular basis
Speaker 1: is that their umbrage comes at hearing a history that
Speaker 1: is dehumanizing or leads to them feeling bad. But at
Speaker 1: no point considered what part of the history that was
Speaker 1: already under instruction that caused us to shrink in our
Speaker 1: seats as students every single day we had to show up,
Speaker 1: So forget how I feel, don't consider what makes me
Speaker 1: feel degraded or dehumanized or unseen. But the moment it
Speaker 1: creeps up your street, it's a major offense. The reason
Speaker 1: why I say this is emblematic of why we need
Speaker 1: programs that emphasize what's different and allows what's different just
Speaker 1: in the door, because we're not talking about anybody's qualifications
Speaker 1: for entry. We're simply talking about the makeup of the
Speaker 1: room of equally qualified people. Everybody qualified. Let's deal with
Speaker 1: that first. Now that we settle that question, everybody meets
Speaker 1: the threshold. Now, what is going to enrich this threshold
Speaker 1: in such a way this group, this community in such
Speaker 1: a way that they are now taught to think differently,
Speaker 1: to experience the world through another pair of eyes. Because
Speaker 1: if you're going to be my future leaders, I want
Speaker 1: to know that you have the capability of being able
Speaker 1: to look at a situation and analyze that situation through
Speaker 1: a set of eyes that are not dismissive and dysphoric
Speaker 1: of everybody else's experiences except your own part of the
Speaker 1: I don't even want to go down that road. I
Speaker 1: simply want to say, I'm going to I'm going to
Speaker 1: submit that there are a lot of people out here
Speaker 1: who don't who are who are perpetrating racist acts and
Speaker 1: biased activities unconscious of their of themselves. Give you an example,
Speaker 1: my wife R Jay patronizes a number of these custom
Speaker 1: places where they put logos and your name, you know,
Speaker 1: your monograms and stuff on things, and she had a
Speaker 1: comment to them about the fact that we shop her
Speaker 1: often and they're never during the holiday season, any black
Speaker 1: Santas or any black Santas on the face of the
Speaker 1: cloths or the towels or this or that, and this
Speaker 1: is the owner of a woman who she's become very
Speaker 1: close to, and Almo says, I just had not thought
Speaker 1: about that. And when she the next year had got
Speaker 1: in this big old stock of diverse santas, black, brown,
Speaker 1: and everything in between, was so excited to reach out
Speaker 1: to my wife to say, this year we made an
Speaker 1: intentional effort at trying to find santas that we're doing so.
Speaker 1: So we didn't go off and be like, this is
Speaker 1: a racist woman who commssed racist acts and doesn't care
Speaker 1: about diversity. We simply said, your walk in life just
Speaker 1: hasn't caused you to think about how I might experience
Speaker 1: this shopping venture when I don't see myself and my
Speaker 1: family and my whatever reflected, And so they took corrective action.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying, I'm not giving legislators that saying benefit
Speaker 1: of the doubt. Many of them are taking these actions
Speaker 1: to be inflammatory. Don't mistake the intention here. I'm simply saying,
Speaker 1: that's why having different people in the place matters, right,
Speaker 1: because we experience it differently and it all matters. It
Speaker 1: all matters. So these folks are crying wolf because we're
Speaker 1: not traveling up their street, but they've been traveling up hours,
Speaker 1: over our neighborhoods, over our states, over our everything, and
Speaker 1: haven't had to think twice about it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well, I would just say diversity, equity, and inclusion
Speaker 5: efforts are necessary everywhere, in both the public and the
Speaker 5: private sectors. I think the example you just gave Andrew
Speaker 5: is so great because people get very tight in their
Speaker 5: feelings when they feel like you're calling them a racist
Speaker 5: when and what you said is this woman said, I
Speaker 5: just had not simply considered your perspective in life. I
Speaker 5: think for a lot of black people in this country,
Speaker 5: we've never had the option or privilege to not consider
Speaker 5: the master narrator's perspective on everything. We've always had to
Speaker 5: consider how white people feel and navigate ourselves accordingly, not
Speaker 5: out of deference, but out of survival. And so now
Speaker 5: that we're looking at diversity, equity, and inclusion, the popular
Speaker 5: phrase that goes along with it is diversity is being
Speaker 5: invited to the dance, inclusion is being asked to dance.
Speaker 5: I think, to put equity in its perspective, it's different
Speaker 5: than equality. It's equity. So equity is saying, if Angela
Speaker 5: and I live together and Angela has one hundred millillion
Speaker 5: dollars in the bank, and I have ten dollars in
Speaker 5: the bank, and Angela says, well, let's plit the rent evenly.
Speaker 5: That's that's equal. It's not equitable. And so if I
Speaker 5: say no, I want to spend a dollar and Angela
Speaker 5: because she makes and this is true, Angela makes five
Speaker 5: hundred million dollars a year.
Speaker 2: Trying to get me robbed, that's a lie from the
Speaker 2: pit of hill.
Speaker 1: Put another way, it's equal being giving everybody the same thing,
Speaker 1: and equitable being giving everybody what they need right access.
Speaker 5: That's the equity piece.
Speaker 2: But isn't that the part?
Speaker 3: Like I think, really quick, like just a really quick
Speaker 3: glimpse at this, this didn't earn it thing is really
Speaker 3: pissing me off. And the reason it's really pissing me
Speaker 3: off is because if there was ever a group of
Speaker 3: people in this country who didn't effen earn it it,
Speaker 3: it's like white men. So if we look at this quickly,
Speaker 3: can y'all just tell me who you think benefits more
Speaker 3: from legacy admissions?
Speaker 2: Is it white folks or black and brown folks?
Speaker 5: What do you think white people?
Speaker 2: Okay, if we say.
Speaker 1: Those who have historically attended college.
Speaker 3: Okay, weportionate, just a quick just a quick answer here.
Speaker 3: Trust funds, white men? Yeah, okay, what about will money?
Speaker 3: Your your people leave you some money in a will.
Speaker 3: Who's more likely to benefit Who's more likely to have
Speaker 3: a goddamn will?
Speaker 5: Well, my will for my grandmother was the money's under
Speaker 5: the mattress. Okay, that's what a lot of our trust
Speaker 5: funds are.
Speaker 1: Mine is I got enough to pay for the right bear.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: But but I'm saying, like, who's more likely to break
Speaker 3: out really well with will money?
Speaker 2: Money from the will? From an estate plan? Okay? What
Speaker 2: about a mortgage loan?
Speaker 3: There have been suit after suit about the ways in
Speaker 3: which banks are not even giving us access to loans
Speaker 3: for homes.
Speaker 2: What about that? Who's more likely to benefit there?
Speaker 3: There's statistics for this, White folks, black and brown folks.
Speaker 2: Yeah, white people last tax cuts. So I'm just saying, like,
Speaker 2: when you talk to us about didn't earn it, check.
Speaker 3: Yourself before you wreck yourself, because the facts are all here.
Speaker 2: The DEEI, the anti DEI legislation needs to be back
Speaker 2: pointing at you. Here goes you, here go you point
Speaker 2: at us. Here's us point back at you, But I got.
Speaker 5: My question is because like those white men who were
Speaker 5: power rests almost exclusively in some of these areas, they're
Speaker 5: not going to be convinced by this. I sure the years,
Speaker 5: quite frankly have lost my faith. I'm not trying to
Speaker 5: convince the willfully ignorant anymore. But I do want to
Speaker 5: collectively inform the people who are open and arm us
Speaker 5: collectively with action items that can change this. So white
Speaker 5: man like no, see is you They're not going to
Speaker 5: hear that and say, oh, well, why didn't I think
Speaker 5: of that? I'm sorry, guys, let's fix it. So what
Speaker 5: do we do?
Speaker 3: But it's black folks that are looking at that too, like,
Speaker 3: oh I Like I have seen in the comments that
Speaker 3: are like, yeah, I don't want to hand out no, no, no,
Speaker 3: you do want equal footing though, you do want equitable footing.
Speaker 3: So like you're getting brainwashed by that. Yeah, you're Solda
Speaker 3: bill A Goods, it's not even real. Like and then
Speaker 3: here's the other thing. There are places where we are empowered,
Speaker 3: where we have power to push back against these narratives
Speaker 3: we always know and this is the thing that I
Speaker 3: wish we would have embraced and embodied from the civil
Speaker 3: rights movement. You hit them in the dollar. The most
Speaker 3: successful example of this, I think in an athletic program,
Speaker 3: particularly because Randall Woodfinn called on athletes no longer to
Speaker 3: go to Alabama States permis Yes, sorry, TIF, thank you
Speaker 3: for that, the mayor of Birmingham. You also have Derrek
Speaker 3: Johnson from the NAACP and other civil rights leaders saying
Speaker 3: don't go to Florida, don't go to Kentucky.
Speaker 2: Then don't go to these places.
Speaker 3: And a wonderful example because there's some students who are like,
Speaker 3: I can't afford to not go. I was planning on
Speaker 3: helping my parents, my family get out the hood.
Speaker 2: I gotta go to.
Speaker 3: The school that's recruiting me. I would turn you to
Speaker 3: Missouri in twenty fifteen. Miszoo in twenty fifteen. Their football
Speaker 3: team was like, if this administration can't get us act together,
Speaker 3: we're not playing. I guarantee you we could get some
Speaker 3: coaches together, the Don Staleys of the world, the Deon
Speaker 3: Sanders of the world, the other folks black coaches at
Speaker 3: big institutions who can say college players have us say
Speaker 3: college players have a role, College players have influence. Use
Speaker 3: your influence and turn your back to these institutions.
Speaker 2: They want to perpetuate what slavery.
Speaker 3: Was all about. I keep trying not to use that analogy,
Speaker 3: but it is hell. It is applicable here. You have
Speaker 3: to say you will not use my body to make
Speaker 3: money for your institution, all the while turning around around
Speaker 3: my colleagues, my peers who could get in here on
Speaker 3: academic scholarships, could could learn here, but you're turning them
Speaker 3: away because they don't see themselves reflected in the curriculum.
Speaker 3: If you can't reflect me in the curriculum, I will
Speaker 3: not serve you on the field or on the court.
Speaker 3: Game is over, pastime, halftime, over time, is due?
Speaker 1: Time?
Speaker 2: And time?
Speaker 5: What impact? What's the financial impact? How effective is that
Speaker 5: of athletes not going to states because I imagine that
Speaker 5: would hit institutions of higher ed. But how wide a
Speaker 5: shadow does that cast across the rest of the States.
Speaker 1: Let's begin and in with this. Who is likely the
Speaker 1: highest paid staffer on any lege campus in the country football.
Speaker 1: It ain't the president, Yeah, it ain't the provost. It
Speaker 1: ain't the dean of this, that or the other. And again,
Speaker 1: these are institutions of higher learning, principally created for our
Speaker 1: academic uplift, yet the highest paid individual on the campus.
Speaker 1: It's so much so that they not only take the money.
Speaker 1: If you're a state school, they don't just take the
Speaker 1: state money. Then they put a whole committee together on
Speaker 1: the side, call them boosters or insert whatever you want,
Speaker 1: that then has the ability to raise unlimited sums of
Speaker 1: money for said individuals. Angela, I know you've been doing something.
Speaker 1: I got out out till I said that.
Speaker 2: Please tell it was no and it's accurate.
Speaker 3: We know it's accurate, but I just wanted to I
Speaker 3: wanted folks to know the figures. This is a tiff
Speaker 3: moment brought to you by Native Lampire, but this is
Speaker 3: normally a Tiffany moment.
Speaker 2: Our resident sports expert would have told you.
Speaker 3: This that eighty percent of the highest earning public employees
Speaker 3: are college head coaches. You all know Nick Saban, of course,
Speaker 3: he just retired recently of Alabama. He was making eleven
Speaker 3: point seven million dollars a year. But he doesn't see
Speaker 3: that you should have equity in a college institution because
Speaker 3: because you did not earn it.
Speaker 2: That's just one.
Speaker 5: Right of the college football team business. There was black.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thirty one of the fifty highest paid state employees
Speaker 3: are college football coaches, thirty one of the fifty.
Speaker 2: To Andrew's point, you know, I just I.
Speaker 1: Think so some people, as Tiffany was pointing out, will
Speaker 1: hear the checklists and say, well, that's because we planned better,
Speaker 1: that's because we wrote a wheel, That's because da da
Speaker 1: da da da. And I just want you to really
Speaker 1: interrogate this further because I agree with Tiffany, I don't
Speaker 1: think we're going to convert mis because ultimately what it's about,
Speaker 1: while we may see the supremacy in it, it is
Speaker 1: about power and the survival of that power. And it
Speaker 1: begins in my home. I want to preserve as much
Speaker 1: as I can for myself in my porogeny, and it's
Speaker 1: to hell with everybody else who's not in that category.
Speaker 1: And I don't think this is a wide exclusive reaction.
Speaker 1: I think this is a people period reaction, which is
Speaker 1: self preservation. But when your self preservation now doesn't just
Speaker 1: have your actions to attribute to a success, but it
Speaker 1: is reinforced by a set of systems banking, loans, loan officers, policies,
Speaker 1: institutions that then stand up right behind you to reinforce
Speaker 1: that system. It's now no longer within your own It's
Speaker 1: no longer happening within your own power. It's happening within
Speaker 1: the collective power of institutions, public private governments, of policies, laws, ordinances, codes,
Speaker 1: you name it are now reinforcing your ability to maintain
Speaker 1: your power. Whereas, when you look at me, what institutions
Speaker 1: do I have backing me up other than some symbolic
Speaker 1: resolutions and statements that say everybody of any shade and
Speaker 1: background ought to be able to be here. Well, if
Speaker 1: that's true, then let's interrogate why then all those folks
Speaker 1: aren't represented here. I'm just saying I know a lot
Speaker 1: of us, and I'm talking specifically to black folks up
Speaker 1: in Mobile who don't want to be cast with an
Speaker 1: expursion that you didn't deserve to be here. I know
Speaker 1: that voice, I know it intimately. But don't get caught
Speaker 1: by the okie doke. Once you get compelled by that vision,
Speaker 1: you have failed to ask any other questions as to
Speaker 1: why why don't my people have a will? Well, your
Speaker 1: folks weren't able to build up enough reserves. They were
Speaker 1: paying their bills every single month and therefore weren't able
Speaker 1: to save up enough. Oh, and then granddaddy remember that
Speaker 1: land he had, that forty acreuse everybody used to talk
Speaker 1: about he had in southern Georgia that somehow because of taxes,
Speaker 1: not because of his ability to own it, not because
Speaker 1: of his ability to buy it he bought it, but
Speaker 1: because of government taxation and the policies that shifted. And
Speaker 1: then who came into ownership, Oh, the bank, and they
Speaker 1: wouldn't let you get it back at the amount that
Speaker 1: he owed in taxes. So then they owned it and
Speaker 1: then sold it to the commercial realtor who now has
Speaker 1: a whole strip mall on your granddaddy's lay in. We
Speaker 1: have to interrogate the reasons as to why and if
Speaker 1: you buy the okie dokee, you never get to the
Speaker 1: questions as to why these things look the way they look.
Speaker 1: You call me whatever name you want to, but just
Speaker 1: just make sure that the same the same policies you
Speaker 1: have benefiting you, undergirding you, backing you up, that that
Speaker 1: same artillery, that same bandwidth exists for me and mine.
Speaker 1: And my guess is there ain't a state in this
Speaker 1: nation we can point to that can back us up
Speaker 1: in the same way that you can point to any
Speaker 1: of the fifty that backs up the institutional structures that
Speaker 1: pre exist us.
Speaker 2: Andrew, I know we've been on this for a minute.
Speaker 3: We should do, like really think this should be a
Speaker 3: mini five to like a deeper dive on this. But like,
Speaker 3: I'm curious to know why, like ACOU hasn't come forth
Speaker 3: with challenging some of these pieces of legislation on the
Speaker 3: not teaching something because it makes someone feel bad piece
Speaker 3: in particular, like that feels like a violation of free speech.
Speaker 3: So I'm curious to know why that hasn't been the
Speaker 3: approach here. They are loud, and I would argue in
Speaker 3: some instance is wrong on some of the other things
Speaker 3: that they'll take up for free speech. So in this
Speaker 3: instance where that could be particularly harmful, we're talking about
Speaker 3: equitable funding in this country on that didn't earn it part.
Speaker 2: But there are whole pieces where these folks.
Speaker 3: Have joined together, almost like the American Legislative Exchange Council
Speaker 3: also known as ALEX, making a resurgence because these bills
Speaker 3: are widespread. It's only thirty places where they've caught traction,
Speaker 3: but they are over like almost in every state, especially
Speaker 3: on the piece around now teaching our history because it
Speaker 3: makes someone feel bad, and that feels like a really
Speaker 3: good opening to me. I think I would just say
Speaker 3: the last thing is I'm very curious to know why
Speaker 3: the Biden administration, in particular, I would think Kamala, Vice
Speaker 3: President Harris, why they're not going after this the same
Speaker 3: way that they're going after reproductive justice issues like this.
Speaker 3: It feels like it's remarkably silent, and it feels a
Speaker 3: little irresponsible to me that we're not taking this head on.
Speaker 3: This is something that the Republican Party is using to
Speaker 3: gin up their base. How you're going to gin up
Speaker 3: our base? Our base isn't excited to watch these bills happen.
Speaker 3: We've seen this time and time again. We saw a
Speaker 3: turn of events in twenty twenty around the murder of
Speaker 3: George Floyd, and we're seeing a harsh backlash. We should
Speaker 3: be like making sure that our folks know that we care,
Speaker 3: that we're seeing that we're heard. They're going to be protected,
Speaker 3: just like wombs are being protected.
Speaker 1: I think it's I think they will dial this down
Speaker 1: to a red herring. And I think Tiffany said this
Speaker 1: early on when we started broadcasting. You know, she was
Speaker 1: saying we get whispered to.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm tired.
Speaker 1: Anyone else gets the megaphone right in the podium, with
Speaker 1: the with the with the with the mics everywhere, and
Speaker 1: so on and so forth.
Speaker 2: I surely last night I need a megaphone.
Speaker 1: But you know what, we've got to charity or or
Speaker 1: or or sympathy or understanding or comprehension begins at home,
Speaker 1: which is why we've you say, ten ten toes deep.
Speaker 1: We've got to be able to stand ten toes down.
Speaker 1: I said it in my own sentence, ten toes down.
Speaker 1: And the fact that we aren't anybody's charity case. You
Speaker 1: aren't giving me a damn thing that I don't not
Speaker 1: just deserve, but that I haven't worked for and earned
Speaker 1: for myself. I agree with you. I think we probably
Speaker 1: need a deeper dive here, and I would actually love
Speaker 1: a deeper dive that may be centered some of these
Speaker 1: voices of folks who carry some shame or embarrassment around diversity,
Speaker 1: equity and inclusion, so that we get to hear like, what's.
Speaker 2: Really you want to hear from the audience.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, I want to hear that what's really at this?
Speaker 1: What has you confused over over your being seen.
Speaker 3: Help to your respect, Doctor Ken, you talked about respecting
Speaker 3: the dollar, like this is this is your money, money,
Speaker 3: this is your opportunity, This is what you desire the dollar.
Speaker 1: But but but guess what, most of these things don't
Speaker 1: ever get to the dollar. Most of this is for
Speaker 1: many of these corporations, companies, university, so and so forth.
Speaker 1: This is an assembly and some quiet counseling. When the
Speaker 1: when the students of color come to you and say,
Speaker 1: my professor doesn't say a damn thing about my history.
Speaker 1: We're relegated with DA DA DA. And then they become
Speaker 1: champions on their behalf to say, hey, we got to
Speaker 1: teach inclusive and complete histories here, right. But but in
Speaker 1: a lot of places it doesn't come down to the dollar.
Speaker 1: In so many places, it's just about being reflected, and
Speaker 1: it can't be overstated. It cannot be overstated. When my
Speaker 1: children have not had a black teacher all of their education,
Speaker 1: except for the ones that they get at home, Andrew,
Speaker 1: are you serious, I'm very serious. In a public they.
Speaker 2: Don't have black they don't have black teachers.
Speaker 1: My children haven't had a black teacher, and my twins
Speaker 1: are fourth graders any year of their matriculation, and they
Speaker 1: will not if it stays the way that it looks,
Speaker 1: they will not have that experience in their elementary school.
Speaker 1: And I would reckon that I am not rare in
Speaker 1: this situation. Is not in isolation or alone. I think
Speaker 1: is reflected in a lot of places that in the
Speaker 1: south West, Midwest and so on and so forth. All
Speaker 1: I have to say is it meant something so much
Speaker 1: when my children were able to see a doll in
Speaker 1: a picture in a person who wasn't inside their home.
Speaker 1: They got all these pictures, they're like, my daddy knows Obama,
Speaker 1: and but that isn't the real experience of of of everybody.
Speaker 1: But the first time you see that outside of your
Speaker 1: home is in Black History Month.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then even in those so I miss me with
Speaker 1: self hatred, self uh devaluation where you can't even stand
Speaker 1: up with your stiff spine held and your shoulders thrown back,
Speaker 1: to say that we matter enough to be reflected in
Speaker 1: the true telling of the story. Period enough said, I
Speaker 1: can navigate the rest, but just let's start there. We're
Speaker 1: not even there, and I we are over time. When
Speaker 1: we come back, y'all, we're gonna pick up another weighty,
Speaker 1: heavy topic. And uh after that, we'll try to land
Speaker 1: this plane one way or another. Stay tuned, let's face
Speaker 1: some bills, and we're back. And again the topic is
Speaker 1: is no lighter. In fact, I think considerably, considerably more
Speaker 1: costly when we think of human toll and just the
Speaker 1: terrible ants that the people of Haiti have been experiencing.
Speaker 1: And I know it has not been widely covered on
Speaker 1: most of our traditional platforms here mainland US, but in
Speaker 1: the opening I mentioned that Haiti is closer to Miami
Speaker 1: than Miami is to New York. I mean it is
Speaker 1: seven hundred miles off the Florida coast. But not just
Speaker 1: that Haiti. Haiti occupies a very very very very important
Speaker 1: place in the in the African dash or around the globe,
Speaker 1: having been the first and still struggling, but nonetheless the
Speaker 1: first republic that was majority black, and in the history
Speaker 1: of the world, they threw off the yoke of US
Speaker 1: and French and Spanish imperialism, but more specifically in its founding,
Speaker 1: they threw off the yoke of French imperialism and slave
Speaker 1: trade to declare their independence as a free people. Oftentimes,
Speaker 1: I remember growing up, i'd hear oder folks say, man
Speaker 1: if I couldn't have been alive during state, because if
Speaker 1: I was alive, such and such and such and such
Speaker 1: and such, a lot of us have that such and
Speaker 1: such and such and such and such and such. But
Speaker 1: the people of Haiti, under the leadership of Toussaint and
Speaker 1: so many other powerful figures who were around that time
Speaker 1: and have served since, were able to throw off that yoke,
Speaker 1: establishing their independence. And then we talk about reparations here
Speaker 1: in the United States and what is old.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 1: The French, when they were thrown out of Haiti during
Speaker 1: Haitian independences, decided that because they could no longer ship
Speaker 1: cocoa beans out of Haiti and that they could no
Speaker 1: longer benefit from the slave trade. That they said, the
Speaker 1: Haitians owed the French people five hundred million dollars during
Speaker 1: that day, five hundred million dollars, which is over two
Speaker 1: billion in today's money, that they had to repatriate to
Speaker 1: the French country, which they did, preventing them from doing
Speaker 1: all kinds of things for themselves and for their people.
Speaker 1: I want you to toss real quick to this video,
Speaker 1: which will give you a little bit of perspective on
Speaker 1: what we see happening now in Haiti, where heavily armed
Speaker 1: gangs now control about eighty percent of the capital city,
Speaker 1: Porto Prince according to the United Nations, and fortunately the
Speaker 1: circumstances made them even more powerful than what appears to
Speaker 1: be Haiti's remaining government. Let's toss to the package.
Speaker 4: So let me give a little hits free lesson. I've
Speaker 4: talked about this before on the show. Most people are
Speaker 4: familiar with the fact that in eighteen oh four Haiti
Speaker 4: declared its independence from its brutal slave owners France slave masters.
Speaker 4: They became established the first independent black republic in the
Speaker 4: history of the world. That was a miracle of miracles,
Speaker 4: never to be equalled. But for generations descendants of the
Speaker 4: enslaved had to pay reparations to their enslavers, that includes France.
Speaker 4: By accounts, some five hundred million dollars was repatriated back
Speaker 4: to France, money that could have gone to build schools,
Speaker 4: to build roads, to build.
Speaker 6: Infrastructure in Haiti.
Speaker 4: Also in nineteen fifteen, the United States invaded the country,
Speaker 4: saying that it was too poor and too unstable to
Speaker 4: take care of itself, and walked out of Haiti's national
Speaker 4: bank with some five hundred thousand dollars, which they used
Speaker 4: to establish a company that is now known as City Group.
Speaker 4: A lot of people don't know that history.
Speaker 2: But we can't talk.
Speaker 4: About that without the deep corruption that has existed in
Speaker 4: Haiti from its political leaders for many, many, many years.
Speaker 4: Wasn't always like this, Back in the nineteen fifties and
Speaker 4: the nineteen sixties. We have some images that show that
Speaker 4: Haiti was a beautiful country, just like many other islands
Speaker 4: in the Caribbean, thought to be a playground for the
Speaker 4: rich and the famous. But that deep culture of corruption
Speaker 4: that has existed for many of Haiti of Haiti's leaders
Speaker 4: has led to the situation that we're seeing right now,
Speaker 4: in addition to some natural disasters like the earthquake and
Speaker 4: of course the assassination of a president.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so your land is robbed. You are then
Speaker 1: thieve from, not just off of your crop, but literally
Speaker 1: your banks are robbed from the leaders who are stood
Speaker 1: up in Haiti, from du Vaier, Papa Doc, Baby Doc.
Speaker 1: Some of you will remember just July of twenty twenty,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one, where the president was assassinated in his home,
Speaker 1: President Moyes. We now have the Prime Minister Henry, who
Speaker 1: as of this week, has landed in Puerto Rico, but
Speaker 1: has not been able to return to Haiti itself, the
Speaker 1: country that he is the political leader of, because he
Speaker 1: went to the United Nations and asked for an international
Speaker 1: police force to come in and help re establish order.
Speaker 1: The people of Haiti said no. The gang said hey,
Speaker 1: oh no, and you can't come back. You must resign.
Speaker 1: He's now agreed to resign and stepped down after a
Speaker 1: provisional government for governance has put in place. It's a
Speaker 1: terrible situation. But what I appreciated about that piece is
Speaker 1: you can't understand what's happening now, the failures of a
Speaker 1: stable government in Haiti. You can't understand it now if
Speaker 1: you don't also happen to understand how we got here. Tiffany,
Speaker 1: I know you are a lover of things all international
Speaker 1: and global. I just wonder how what's happening in Haiti plays,
Speaker 1: and you're part of the neighborhood up north.
Speaker 5: I'll keep it brief because I know we've been going
Speaker 5: long on these pop but I think it's important, and
Speaker 5: thank you for putting in context. The Slaver Volt, the
Speaker 5: self Liberated Slavery Volt, that took place in seventeen ninety one.
Speaker 5: That is reason number one why we should care about
Speaker 5: what happened there. If we don't care to bring a
Speaker 5: wrinkle in time here, the United States could potentially face
Speaker 5: a country seven hundred miles from Florida shore that could
Speaker 5: be run by criminals and narcos. So you could have
Speaker 5: potentially a narcos state, and that will most certainly impact
Speaker 5: domestic policy here. In terms of our foreign policy, the
Speaker 5: United States has already spread very thin given multiple confrontations
Speaker 5: happening across the globe, and so I unfortunately have more
Speaker 5: questions than answers around what the US role is and
Speaker 5: what it should be. You talked about, you know, going
Speaker 5: to the UN. A lot of people this is not
Speaker 5: my opinion. I don't feel comfortable opining on it, but
Speaker 5: a lot of people would argue that the US prompted
Speaker 5: Prime Minister Henry was pretty much feckless during his time there.
Speaker 5: And so if we are turning to international people, there
Speaker 5: is a chance that the Kenyan police could play a
Speaker 5: role here, which would also potentially create other problems, but
Speaker 5: they are approved at least by the UN. Some people
Speaker 5: have challenges with the UN, so This is a subject
Speaker 5: matter that's really hard to wrap up in thirty seconds,
Speaker 5: so probably something for a deeper dive. But I would
Speaker 5: just encourage people to read papers. Google is not a
Speaker 5: research tool, you know, like actually read an article from
Speaker 5: reputable reporters who are on ground there, who've been doing
Speaker 5: deep dives on this for years, because it's worth knowing
Speaker 5: about and foreign policy impacts domestic policy, and we should
Speaker 5: all have a little bit of curiosity about it.
Speaker 1: That's real, that's real. Well, listen, just know that here
Speaker 1: at natal Land Pod, we're going to try to bring
Speaker 1: news to you that is also relevant to you. And
Speaker 1: so it's my hope that we'll continue to track what's
Speaker 1: happening there and see the people of Haiti and the
Speaker 1: larger death spora that exists outside of Haiti right here
Speaker 1: in the United States, and just you know, let you
Speaker 1: know that you're not alone in your care and in
Speaker 1: your concern for what happens to the future of of
Speaker 1: of Haiti. All of us, all of us are are
Speaker 1: in horror about what we're seeing, and we're hoping that
Speaker 1: we'll reach a conclusion there that preserves life and liberty
Speaker 1: and most importantly the freedom. So bravely established on that
Speaker 1: island nation so many, so many years ago. We'll be
Speaker 1: right back after we pay some bills. All right, y'all,
Speaker 1: We went a little long today, so we didn't get
Speaker 1: to cover everything we wanted to in the episode, most
Speaker 1: namely Instagram and they're limiting up political content. I asked
Speaker 1: you before we're on Instagram. Are y'all able to see us?
Speaker 1: We're talking politics? But we're going to do a deeper
Speaker 1: dive for you. We'll give you a little bit more
Speaker 1: time and a little more emphasis on the topic. So
Speaker 1: stay tuned for the details on the picture mini pod
Speaker 1: talking about Instagram and their limitation of political conversation and
Speaker 1: in the spirit of calls to actions, the bio pict
Speaker 1: surely that our I mean the actress, the actor at
Speaker 1: extraord and their Regina King plays pivotal role and I
Speaker 1: think acts for the first time with her sister, biological
Speaker 1: sister in and all these years of acting, they've never
Speaker 1: been in a film together, and so they got to
Speaker 1: do that this time. I'm interested. Have y'all checked it
Speaker 1: out yet? I did what you got for Angela.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm going to tell you. There are
Speaker 3: two things that I really want to say one Regina
Speaker 3: King for performance like that after losing her son so tragically.
Speaker 2: It's just it's just amazing.
Speaker 3: I hope that this is homework for students all over
Speaker 3: the country, particularly those who are eligible to vote for.
Speaker 2: The first time.
Speaker 3: It is so inspiring and it teaches us so much
Speaker 3: about the importance of our engagement, even when the system
Speaker 3: itself is not perfect.
Speaker 2: We are there to perfect the system.
Speaker 3: The thing that I wish, like, I literally cried about
Speaker 3: this yesterday to see Barbara Lee, how she showed up
Speaker 3: in that film, and then to be in there after.
Speaker 3: I'm crying again now. I wish that this would have
Speaker 3: came out before her primary, because what you see is
Speaker 3: Shirley Chisholm passing the baton to her like she was
Speaker 3: willing to figure out how to engage everybody who was
Speaker 3: necessary in the political system, from the Black Panther Party
Speaker 3: to George Wallace and Barbara Lee, like learned under her tutelage,
Speaker 3: she still performs that bravely nine to eleven. We wouldn't
Speaker 3: have had a war and faux weapons of masters destruction
Speaker 3: if Congress would have listened to Barbara Lee like she
Speaker 3: is formidable, and I wish that people knew what we
Speaker 3: all know about b Lee, so to see this document
Speaker 3: or not this documentary, but really could have been this biopic,
Speaker 3: like with the way in which she comes across on
Speaker 3: camera again for people who don't know her full history
Speaker 3: and how she showed up for us in Congress and
Speaker 3: even as a staffer for Ron Dellams after what happened
Speaker 3: with Shirley Chisholm and Ron Dellams to taking the baton
Speaker 3: also from him. She deserved that Senate seat and she
Speaker 3: didn't get a fair shot because money is still in
Speaker 3: politics and because people don't understand the courage that it
Speaker 3: takes to sit in these role, these roles and to
Speaker 3: be sworn, you know, to take this oath, and for
Speaker 3: the belief that she could still have in this system
Speaker 3: after constantly watching the system betray her, but know that
Speaker 3: if she's there it could change it. Just was it, really, honestly, y'all,
Speaker 3: Like as frustrated as I've been lately, it restored my
Speaker 3: hope and reminded me of the importance of our voices
Speaker 3: right now.
Speaker 2: So that I.
Speaker 5: Love that you brought it and made it relevant to
Speaker 5: present day Angela, because I think that's so relevant. I
Speaker 5: do want to say about Shirley Chisholm for our viewers
Speaker 5: who may not know, she's the first black woman elected
Speaker 5: to Congress. She ran for president, and she was a
Speaker 5: voice for the people in Congress. She like challenged her
Speaker 5: fellow members who were accused of harassing and trading sexual
Speaker 5: favors from their staff. There were things that that were
Speaker 5: not included in the biopic about her, So I encourage
Speaker 5: people to learn more about Shirletism. I would also say,
Speaker 5: there's so many questions for us as black women, and
Speaker 5: sometimes you can show up and you show up as
Speaker 5: a woman who happens to be black, or you can
Speaker 5: show up as a black person who happens to be
Speaker 5: a woman. I always show up as a black person
Speaker 5: who happens to be a woman. Shirly Tism, perhaps controversially
Speaker 5: to some people, sometimes showed up as a woman who
Speaker 5: happens to be black because she felt so much sexism.
Speaker 5: And I look at some of the commentary sometimes on
Speaker 5: our socials and I can understand that level of frustration
Speaker 5: from her. So I think her legacy lives on in
Speaker 5: so many of us, but still invite so many conversations
Speaker 5: around the work that she did. And I love how
Speaker 5: Angela created at wrinkle in Time, and thank you Andrew
Speaker 5: for making sure we talk about it. And I have
Speaker 5: to say, lastly, Regina King, if you ever hear this,
Speaker 5: we love you, my to have always loved you. But
Speaker 5: the way that she shows strength after losing her only
Speaker 5: baby h to suicide, and the way that she's talked
Speaker 5: about it, and then you know she I respect his
Speaker 5: decision to not be here. It's hard not to hear
Speaker 5: her promote this because they used to walk the carpets
Speaker 5: together and not weep for that too. So lots of
Speaker 5: heaviness around this film, but I encourage everybody to see it.
Speaker 1: Well man, I appreciate I thought it was gonna be
Speaker 1: a quick mention, but I love y'all going deep on
Speaker 1: it because similarly I took away a couple of things.
Speaker 1: But I'll just mention two for the moment. One was
Speaker 1: a little saddened by the role that black men in
Speaker 1: Congress played in negotiating a way a bit of Shirley
Speaker 1: Chisholm's power. And it wasn't about her power, it was
Speaker 1: what it was the gap she was standing in on
Speaker 1: behalf of and you have to look at the biopic,
Speaker 1: I think more understand or understand or history and what
Speaker 1: happened at that seventy two convention. And then I also
Speaker 1: really paused in reflection at that moment, Angela that you
Speaker 1: reflected on, which was to see Ron Dellams, who were
Speaker 1: former mayor, famed socialist democratic socialist himself, who would be
Speaker 1: succeeded in Congress by the Barbara Lee, who was such
Speaker 1: a strong support or advocate for Shirley Chisholm and credits
Speaker 1: her with so much of her own learning, would then
Speaker 1: take the seed of a man who, in this very
Speaker 1: pivotal moment at the seventy two Democratic Convention played a
Speaker 1: role in a little bit of the undermine of the
Speaker 1: negotiating game there at the end, that's to not take
Speaker 1: anything away from anybody's record of service, but to put
Speaker 1: it into context in that particular moment. And I think
Speaker 1: it should challenge all of us to not let the
Speaker 1: biopick be the beginning in the end of our research,
Speaker 1: but let it be if you haven't studied it before,
Speaker 1: let it pique your interest. If you have, go back
Speaker 1: and refresh yourself. And again we're talking about the premiere
Speaker 1: of this past premiere of March twenty second on Netflix
Speaker 1: of the new biopic Shirley, which again stars the amazing
Speaker 1: talented work of Regina King as the indomitable Shirley Chisholm
Speaker 1: and the brook the Brooklyn politician herself who made history
Speaker 1: becoming the first black woman to run for president of
Speaker 1: the United States. So I hope y'all check that out.
Speaker 5: He was on the front lines at a fight against
Speaker 5: Phyllis Lafley too, around the Equal Rights Amendment, And can
Speaker 5: I say, really quickly, just for context for the viewers audience,
Speaker 5: brought up Barber Lee's courage of her conviction. I just
Speaker 5: want because there are a lot of people out there
Speaker 5: who aren't old enough to remember this. As crazy as
Speaker 5: that sounds, but after nine to eleven, Congress took up
Speaker 5: a vote and she was the sole member to vote
Speaker 5: against the AUMF, which was the authorization use of military
Speaker 5: the only person to vote against it.
Speaker 1: You curations, Yeah, that's right, appreciate that.
Speaker 2: We love you really going to be our senator. You
Speaker 2: will be our senator no matter.
Speaker 1: Always, always, and the new conscience. Right if if we
Speaker 1: refer to John Lewis as the congressman, rightly, John Lewis
Speaker 1: as the conscience of the Congress. I think we can
Speaker 1: add a couple more voices to that conscious.
Speaker 2: We claim that title for the CBC. By the way,
Speaker 2: well didn't say that.
Speaker 3: Shirley Chisholm and Ron de Ellins are also co founders
Speaker 3: of the thirteen of the CBC members as well. And
Speaker 3: his legacy, I really do hope people go back and
Speaker 3: look because he was a strong voice on apartheid, anti apartheid.
Speaker 3: He there's way more good to his record than that moment.
Speaker 1: But that was a tough one. But that's why people,
Speaker 1: you know, folks ought to be considered in the fullness
Speaker 1: of their service and not at any one particular time.
Speaker 1: But moments in time also matter, right. Yeah, you mentioned
Speaker 1: to invoke the term wrinkling time. There's some wrinkles and
Speaker 1: maybe over time, by and bye, we'll iron those out.
Speaker 1: Please please please take some time over the next coming
Speaker 1: days to watch Shirley Again in premiere March twenty second
Speaker 1: on Netflix and it's still available for your downloading streaming pleasure.
Speaker 1: Check it out. Before we end the show, I want
Speaker 1: to remind everyone to leave us a review please and
Speaker 1: subscribe to natal Lampid. We're available on all platforms and YouTube.
Speaker 1: New episodes drop every Thursday. You can also follow us
Speaker 1: on our social media. We are Angelo Buie, Tiffany Cross,
Speaker 1: and Andrew Gillum. There are two hundred and twenty one
Speaker 1: days until election Day. Welcome Home, We All Native lamdpod
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