Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to woka F Daily with
Speaker 1: Meet your Girl Danielle Moody, recording live from our podstream
Speaker 1: studios in Times Square. You know, folks, at the beginning
Speaker 1: of every week, I really try and kind of work
Speaker 1: myself up a bit, right to really produce endorphins, to really,
Speaker 1: you know, get some positive energy moving, because I know
Speaker 1: that by the time that we get through yet another
Speaker 1: week in this fuck show we call America, you're exhausted, depleted,
Speaker 1: and are outdone. Over the weekend, I did MSNBC with
Speaker 1: Aimon Mohadeen and I shared the link on Facebook's woka
Speaker 1: F Nation and on Twitter, and one of the questions
Speaker 1: that I was asked was, didil do you think that
Speaker 1: Democrats are going to work on expanding the court? And I,
Speaker 1: you know, I wanted to laugh, not because I thought
Speaker 1: that the question was bad, but because do I think
Speaker 1: that Democrats are going to do anything? Full stop? Should
Speaker 1: just be the question, and my answer is no, They're
Speaker 1: not what we've seen over the past. I don't know.
Speaker 1: Eight god awful months, right, It's been eight months, folks
Speaker 1: since the Biden administration came into office. And I got
Speaker 1: to tell you, I know that I asked this question,
Speaker 1: you know, earlier in the week, But I really do
Speaker 1: not feel better off. And what does that say for
Speaker 1: a person like myself, whose job is politics, whose job
Speaker 1: is media, and to be in the no, what does
Speaker 1: it say that for so many years I have spent
Speaker 1: countless hours right working on advancing you know, anti discrimination policies,
Speaker 1: lobbying on the hill, being on radio, being on TV.
Speaker 1: Because I believe that America can be better than it is.
Speaker 1: I believe in the responsibility of each generation to do
Speaker 1: more to move the boulder of equality up the fucking mountain, right.
Speaker 1: But I gotta tell you that the images, the images
Speaker 1: that we are seeing, whether it is you know, half
Speaker 1: the state of California under on fire or underwater, whether
Speaker 1: it's you know, the hurricanes that have gone through Louisiana, Mississippi,
Speaker 1: whether it is the flooding that happened in Philadelphia and
Speaker 1: New York and New Jersey, you know, whether it's now
Speaker 1: what is troubling me so much this goddamn week is
Speaker 1: the fact that we're not going to get a three
Speaker 1: point five billion dollar infrastructure bill. And you know why
Speaker 1: we're not going to get that three point five billion
Speaker 1: dollar Structure Bill because Kirsten Cinema and Joe Mansion, the
Speaker 1: two bullshit Democrats in the Senate, think that the you know,
Speaker 1: the price tag is too big, right, They didn't seem
Speaker 1: to think that there was anything wrong with the price
Speaker 1: tag to give to the Pentagon. They don't seem to
Speaker 1: think that there's anything wrong with the seven hundred and
Speaker 1: twenty billion dollars budget that the Pentagon has. Right. But
Speaker 1: whenever we're asking, whenever we are demanding that our tax
Speaker 1: dollars be used to strengthen our social safety nets, to
Speaker 1: strengthen our own communities, we always receive pushback. I don't
Speaker 1: know how many more storms and fires, crumbling bridges, subway
Speaker 1: stations turning into full geysers that we need to see
Speaker 1: on the news on repeat for us to recognize that
Speaker 1: something needs to be done. I don't you know. I
Speaker 1: read an article over the weekend about childcare workers and
Speaker 1: how childcare workers who make minimum wage, and depending on
Speaker 1: what state you are in, that minimum wage could be
Speaker 1: as high and I use that in air quotes as
Speaker 1: high as fifteen dollars an hour or as low as
Speaker 1: seven dollars and twenty five cents an hour and childcare
Speaker 1: workers are quitting in mass There is a deficit of
Speaker 1: one hundred and twenty six thousand childcare workers. So what
Speaker 1: does that mean for working families, working parents. It means
Speaker 1: that you are going to struggle to be able to
Speaker 1: find childcare for your children, which is going to prevent
Speaker 1: who from having to leave the workforce in order to
Speaker 1: be able to rear your children at home. Women. Everything
Speaker 1: always falls back on the backs and the shoulders of women.
Speaker 1: And what economists are saying about this shortage of childcare
Speaker 1: workers is that let this be a first of red
Speaker 1: flags and sirens about how unstable our economy is about
Speaker 1: to be. Because again, if people don't have childcare work right,
Speaker 1: they don't have childcare workers. That means that families will
Speaker 1: have to leave the workforce, which means that then they
Speaker 1: are not contributing to our economy in the ways that
Speaker 1: need to be contributed to. These people childcare workers are
Speaker 1: leaving in mass Why because the pay sucks and they're
Speaker 1: going to get jobs as bank tellers or assistants or
Speaker 1: anywhere frankly that's going to pay them a living goddamn wage.
Speaker 1: Staying on this tip, listen to this, I guess the
Speaker 1: happiest place on Earth. Actually isn't the happiest fucking place
Speaker 1: on earth looking at you, Disneyland. So evidently twenty five
Speaker 1: thousand Disneyland employees are suing right in a class action
Speaker 1: lawsuit because they don't have living wages. Listen to this
Speaker 1: report that was done by Occidental and let me tell
Speaker 1: you something I gotta tell you, but done by Occidental College.
Speaker 1: So this is a survey of five thousand what Disneyland
Speaker 1: refers to their workers as cast members. I guess that
Speaker 1: makes you feel great that you can't afford to pay
Speaker 1: any of your bills if you are called the cast
Speaker 1: members opposed to a worker or a staff or whatever
Speaker 1: the fuck. But listen to this. So in this report,
Speaker 1: in this study called Working for the Mouse, a study
Speaker 1: by Occidental College and the Economic Roundtable published back in
Speaker 1: February twenty eighteen, found that eleven percent of Disneyland employees
Speaker 1: reported experiencing homelessness. Can you imagine working for a multi
Speaker 1: billion dollar company? I want you to understand what the
Speaker 1: fuck Disney owns? Like everything? Right, They own networks, they
Speaker 1: own amusement parks, they own media platforms. You have Disney plus,
Speaker 1: you have all of these things that Disney owns, and
Speaker 1: eleven percent of the people that are working at Disneyland,
Speaker 1: according to this Occidental College report from twenty eighteen, and
Speaker 1: mind you, twenty twenty fucked us all right, So numbers
Speaker 1: did not look better in twenty twenty. They actually looked worse.
Speaker 1: So eleven percent of employees. This means people that are
Speaker 1: working were homeless. Okay, sixty eight percent of the five
Speaker 1: thousand people that were studied were food insecure, meaning that
Speaker 1: they did not know where their next meals were coming from,
Speaker 1: and seventy three percent said that they do not earn
Speaker 1: enough for basic living expenses. Folks, how can we justify
Speaker 1: multibillion dollar corporations who who have made their riches on
Speaker 1: the backs of their lowest paid workers, and justify the
Speaker 1: fact that you are working forty hours a week and
Speaker 1: that is not enough to put food on the table
Speaker 1: for three meals a day. It is not enough to
Speaker 1: pay all of your bills. At the same time, it
Speaker 1: is not enough for you to have a roof over
Speaker 1: your head, and you So here's the myth that Republicans
Speaker 1: always like to push, right, is that, like, we don't
Speaker 1: need to raise the minimum wage because it's just kids
Speaker 1: that have these jobs. No, the fuck, it's not right.
Speaker 1: It is actually adults, adults with families, right, who cannot
Speaker 1: afford to live. They can't afford to live. How do
Speaker 1: you tell people to work forty hours a week? And
Speaker 1: the assumption that Republicans make is that, oh, those that
Speaker 1: are on minimum wage are lazy? Are you fucking kidding me?
Speaker 1: These people are busting their asses in jobs and in
Speaker 1: places that those members of Congress would never even step
Speaker 1: fucking foot in. Right. I remember back in the day
Speaker 1: that Senator Corey Booker had set up a challenge, and
Speaker 1: I think that he might have been the only member
Speaker 1: of the Senate that took it up, but he decided
Speaker 1: for a month to try and live on minimum wage. Right.
Speaker 1: So Corey Booker took up this challenge so that he
Speaker 1: could understand exactly what he was fighting for and why
Speaker 1: these policy changes needed to be made so that people
Speaker 1: could have a living wage. Right? What does it mean
Speaker 1: to have a living wage that you can pay rent,
Speaker 1: pay for groceries, pay your utilities, right, and still maybe
Speaker 1: just maybe have a little bit left over so that
Speaker 1: I don't know, you could see a movie, you could
Speaker 1: do something because you see, Republicans also believe right that
Speaker 1: you are undeserving. So we don't want to give you welfare,
Speaker 1: We don't want to give you any help or assistance whatsoever,
Speaker 1: because you know that discourages work. So when Corey Booker
Speaker 1: did this experiment, right, and he offered it up to
Speaker 1: other members, but of course they didn't take him up
Speaker 1: on that, with their six figures that they make out
Speaker 1: a taxpayer dollars, not to mention the millions that they
Speaker 1: make with their fucking insider trading and all of the
Speaker 1: other hot shit that they do on a regular basis
Speaker 1: that they mind. You don't get caught for, right, like
Speaker 1: nobody says anything about it. They get tips and they
Speaker 1: decide what they're going to invest in and what they're
Speaker 1: not and what they're going to pull their money out of.
Speaker 1: But that's all considered okay and above fucking board, because
Speaker 1: those are white collar crimes for white people. Nonetheless, when
Speaker 1: I'm looking at this horrible situation in Disneyland where workers
Speaker 1: have been there for some fifteen years, right making Hennis
Speaker 1: and in one circumstance, this gentleman who I this is
Speaker 1: a story from the San Francisco dot Com But this man.
Speaker 1: I have to tell you, I was reading this story
Speaker 1: and I always have to stop myself because oftentimes I
Speaker 1: have to check my own privilege, which I think is
Speaker 1: really important to do. Because the person that is interviewed
Speaker 1: in here has been working for Disneyland for fifteen years,
Speaker 1: and according to the article let Me read Saraceno has
Speaker 1: worked at Disneyland Hotel for fifteen years as a valet,
Speaker 1: parking cars and assisting guests with their luggage. For all
Speaker 1: of those fifteen years, he's earned minimum wage from Disney
Speaker 1: and supplemented his income with tips, but a recent decision
Speaker 1: from leadership that prevents valets from handling luggage has cut
Speaker 1: substantially into his earnings. He's now one of the twenty
Speaker 1: five thousand cast members as Disneyland calls its employees who
Speaker 1: are participating in a class action lawsuit against Disneyland that
Speaker 1: alleges the company is legally obligated to pay a living wage.
Speaker 1: He says this, I couldn't make it on minimum wage,
Speaker 1: which is how much they pay me. If they are
Speaker 1: going to make changes where I have less opportunity for tips,
Speaker 1: then that's half my income is gone. I hope to
Speaker 1: some day buy a house that extra money, I should
Speaker 1: be able to invest in my community and my children
Speaker 1: have an edge. He considers himself fortunate that his wife
Speaker 1: and two children are getting by in affordable housing, but
Speaker 1: not every cast member at Disneyland can claim the same.
Speaker 1: So here's where I have to check my privilege, because
Speaker 1: when I initially read the article, I said, how could
Speaker 1: anybody work anywhere for fifteen years for minimum wage? How
Speaker 1: do you not go after getting a certificate or a
Speaker 1: degree or something that is going to move you out
Speaker 1: of this kind of cyclical poverty? And then I was
Speaker 1: checked and it was just like, well, how can you
Speaker 1: even entertain other ideas of how to move up, of
Speaker 1: how to expand when your basic needs are not met,
Speaker 1: when you are living paycheck to paycheck? You see, dreaming
Speaker 1: right and innovating and creating and having the time in
Speaker 1: the bandwidth to do so is in fact a privilege.
Speaker 1: It's a privilege for middle income folks like myself. It's
Speaker 1: a privilege for those that are clearly upper middle class
Speaker 1: and upper class right to have that kind of luxury
Speaker 1: dream time, right to be able to think to yourself,
Speaker 1: what is next, what their opportunities? Can I go after right,
Speaker 1: but that those are things that you can do when
Speaker 1: your basic needs are met, when you know where your
Speaker 1: next meal is coming from, when you have clothing right
Speaker 1: that doesn't have holes in it. Right that you have
Speaker 1: like a transportation or the access to transportation to get
Speaker 1: to work, right, that your rent is paid, that your
Speaker 1: utilities are paid, right, that your kids are taken care of,
Speaker 1: that you have healthcare. You see, when you start to
Speaker 1: check all of those boxes, that then provides you with
Speaker 1: a certain level of privilege. And regardless of whether or
Speaker 1: not you look at me and you say, well, I'm black,
Speaker 1: and I'm queer, and I'm a woman. So there are
Speaker 1: a lot of things that are against me. Sure, But economically,
Speaker 1: I have never known what it's like to have to
Speaker 1: juggle between paying one bill and not paying another. I've
Speaker 1: never had to wonder about where I was going to
Speaker 1: sleep or if I was going to be able to
Speaker 1: pay rent, right, I have never had that challenge. And
Speaker 1: so when thinking about this gentleman and him having been
Speaker 1: in this company for fifteen years making seven dollars in
Speaker 1: twenty five cents an hour, where they have raised the
Speaker 1: minimum wage right in parts of Californy, in California to
Speaker 1: fourteen dollars. What you think about that? Folks think about
Speaker 1: how much right because of COVID, how much the cost
Speaker 1: of things has increased. Right? The other day, I was
Speaker 1: home on Long Island with my family, and because I
Speaker 1: don't have a car, I don't ever pay attention to
Speaker 1: gas prices, and I'm driving around in my mother's car,
Speaker 1: and I'm like passing gas stations and I look up
Speaker 1: and I'm like, holy shit, gas is three nineteen. That
Speaker 1: seems really fucking expensive. Right, But again, these are things
Speaker 1: that I don't have to think about, And so I
Speaker 1: offer that tidbit to say that when you read or
Speaker 1: you see news reports about people who are low income
Speaker 1: and about the struggles that they have, I really want us, right,
Speaker 1: those of us who live not paycheck to paycheck, Those
Speaker 1: of us who have some means, even if it's not
Speaker 1: a lot, but have more right than folks that are
Speaker 1: making minimum wage, think about what it's like to live
Speaker 1: in their shoes. Think about what it's like to wonder
Speaker 1: and pray that no one in your family falls ill
Speaker 1: because you don't have any fucking healthcare, and that could
Speaker 1: very well send you literally into the poorhouse. Disneyland, and
Speaker 1: the company Disney makes so much fucking money that it
Speaker 1: is disgraceful the twenty five thousand of their employees have
Speaker 1: to put together a class action lawsuit just to get
Speaker 1: a living god damn wage. What is wrong with this country? Right?
Speaker 1: And what I keep saying is that, you know, capitalism
Speaker 1: is really some fuck shit. And I say that because
Speaker 1: I recognize that a lot of our problems, right if
Speaker 1: we just follow the money or follow who has the money,
Speaker 1: we realize that capitalism causes more problems than itselves. Right
Speaker 1: that when you know we were in if you can
Speaker 1: remember back to the Democratic primary, and you had folks
Speaker 1: talking about a basic you know, basic income, right, universal
Speaker 1: basic income which many countries have, which provides your basic needs. Again,
Speaker 1: I've said this before. What would happen if your basic
Speaker 1: needs were met? If every America we're receiving right that
Speaker 1: had a certain you know, I'm not talking about the
Speaker 1: bezos and you know those that are in the one percent. No,
Speaker 1: I'm talking about what if every American who needed, right,
Speaker 1: middle class and down, received twenty five hundred dollars a month,
Speaker 1: right just to cover basic things, right, your utilities, groceries, whatever,
Speaker 1: you could spend it. However, right we're looking at what
Speaker 1: you know, close to thirty thousand dollars a year, and
Speaker 1: that would be what the federal government would pay, so
Speaker 1: that at the bare minimum, people are not housing insecure,
Speaker 1: they're not food insecure, and maybe they can pursue degrees
Speaker 1: and certificates that will allow them to make more money,
Speaker 1: but we also know that that's a lie as well.
Speaker 1: How many fucking people right now are saddled with six
Speaker 1: figure student loan debt, many of which didn't even complete
Speaker 1: their degrees and are in debt because they had to
Speaker 1: drop out because they couldn't fucking afford the school. That
Speaker 1: is a lot of black and brown people right who
Speaker 1: midway through are like, yo, I can't afford this, and
Speaker 1: I can't afford the payback, and then you get looped
Speaker 1: into low paying jobs just so that you can pay
Speaker 1: the minimum of your student loan debt back. This cycle
Speaker 1: is so vicious and it's so strategic because it is purposeful.
Speaker 1: For capitalism to work, you have got to have people
Speaker 1: that are consistently on the bottom, so there's no incentive
Speaker 1: to change anything. And it's the greed of the one
Speaker 1: percent that is driving all of this with court from
Speaker 1: both fucking parties, Because the only difference I see when
Speaker 1: we talk about capitalism, when we talk about investment, frankly,
Speaker 1: between the Republicans and Democrats, is the slogans that they use.
Speaker 1: Democrats want to say, oh, let's tax the rich and
Speaker 1: let's offer this, that and the other thing. Knowing good,
Speaker 1: goddamn well, they don't have the numbers to even be
Speaker 1: able to bring up something like that for a vote
Speaker 1: because too many of them are receiving funds from the
Speaker 1: fucking rich. So are you gonna cut off your nose
Speaker 1: to spite your face? Are you going to bite the
Speaker 1: hand that feeds you? No, you're not. But you see,
Speaker 1: we set this up, and by we I mean the
Speaker 1: United States Supreme Court set this up. You see, when
Speaker 1: they allowed for companies and corporations to act as people
Speaker 1: and give as much money and flood as much money
Speaker 1: into election, they turn politicians into two bit hookers, right,
Speaker 1: doing a trick for whoever is going to put money
Speaker 1: into their pockets. So if that means, oh, I'm going
Speaker 1: to talk out of both sides of my mouth, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: tax the rich, but the riches, what is affording me
Speaker 1: my lifestyle? As a senator or as a member of Congress,
Speaker 1: then I'm gonna go easy on them, because God forbid,
Speaker 1: these fucking people pay their fair share. And that's again
Speaker 1: another line of rhetoric that we hear, oh, folks need
Speaker 1: to pay their fair share? Really do they? Clearly they
Speaker 1: don't because they never have and they never will because
Speaker 1: that's how the system is set up. If you can
Speaker 1: afford the lawyers and the tax people to maneuver around
Speaker 1: all of these loopholes, then you are golden. But for
Speaker 1: the rest of us, you're pretty much fucked because you
Speaker 1: don't even know the rules of the game that you're
Speaker 1: being forced to play that shift depending on the year,
Speaker 1: depending on who's in office. You have no idea because
Speaker 1: once you start to get a hold of things, they
Speaker 1: come in flip the fucking table over like Tiffany Guidise
Speaker 1: in The Real Housewives, and you're over. You're done. Starting
Speaker 1: back from zero, I gotta tell you you know this story,
Speaker 1: among so many other stories about how our economy is
Speaker 1: essentially collapsing. A couple of weeks ago, I reported on
Speaker 1: the fact that eleven and a half million people have
Speaker 1: left the workforce, right that finally we are setting up
Speaker 1: in a way where you have some companies like the
Speaker 1: Amazons of the world, which we talk about, who have
Speaker 1: mass production quotas that they need to set up so
Speaker 1: much so that people aren't allowed to go to the bathroom.
Speaker 1: They are now having to compete for workers because people
Speaker 1: are quitting in mass because why the fuck am I
Speaker 1: doing this? So hopefully we are moving towards a place
Speaker 1: where workers right get to be the ones that are
Speaker 1: in charge and get to dictate the terms of how
Speaker 1: they work. But to me, that's like a pipe dream
Speaker 1: because it's always those that can write the checks that
Speaker 1: are going to be the ones that are in power,
Speaker 1: and it makes me fucking sick. I will leave you
Speaker 1: with this, folks. Times are getting tougher. The days are
Speaker 1: going to start to get shorter because we're headed into
Speaker 1: the fall and winter months, and I think that depression
Speaker 1: and anxiety are going to continue to be at an
Speaker 1: all time high. You must make your mental health, your
Speaker 1: emotional well being, your physical wellbeing a priority because as
Speaker 1: things get darker and harder, you're going to need to
Speaker 1: dig deeper in order to keep yourself buoyed above the toxicity,
Speaker 1: above the fray. So please do stay well, and be well.
Speaker 1: That's it for today's Woke AF Daily Podcast. To hear
Speaker 1: more from me, including five full hour long shows every
Speaker 1: single week, exclusive guest interviews, and more, support me on
Speaker 1: Patreon at patreon dot com slash woke AF. Power to
Speaker 1: the people and to all the people power, get woke
Speaker 1: and stay woke as fuck.