Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to wok F Daily with
Speaker 1: Meet your Girl Danielle Moody. Pre recording from the Home Bunker. Folks,
Speaker 1: I hope that you have enjoyed this cookout week on
Speaker 1: wok F where I've been in conversation with some of
Speaker 1: my favorite friends and guests of wok F to really
Speaker 1: dig into this week that we have been celebrating America's
Speaker 1: independence and what that actually means, you know, can we
Speaker 1: really have true conversations about liberty and justice for all
Speaker 1: when most people are becoming conscious to and dare I
Speaker 1: say woke to the very fact that the story, the
Speaker 1: fairy tale of America is not the reality, the nightmare
Speaker 1: that many people have been forced to live under. And
Speaker 1: so in today's conversation, I'm really excited to bring back
Speaker 1: one of my faves. And if you were a listener
Speaker 1: to the early days of democracy Ish, then you know Torrey.
Speaker 1: Torrey is the creative director over at The Grio and
Speaker 1: the host of The Torrey Show. He is also the
Speaker 1: host of the limited series Being Black the Eighties and
Speaker 1: Toray and I get into a really in depth conversation
Speaker 1: right on all the complexities and complications of you know
Speaker 1: him navigating society as a black man of raising gen
Speaker 1: Z kids. Who you know, I say to him, his
Speaker 1: youngest is fourteen, and I damn half her life, right
Speaker 1: has been already has been filled with chaos if you
Speaker 1: think about it, right, she's fourteen. We've come out of
Speaker 1: the last eight years for under Donald Trump, right, the
Speaker 1: other four just you know, the year before he came
Speaker 1: down the escalater and then the repercussions, all of the
Speaker 1: ripple effects of MAGA, dam and fuckery and the Republican
Speaker 1: Party turning into a full white supremacist cult, COVID right,
Speaker 1: historic storms needing to be forced inside because of toxic
Speaker 1: air from wildfires, like mass shootings, upon mass shootings. This
Speaker 1: has been his youngest daughter's life. And he looked at
Speaker 1: her and he will share this in conversation and said,
Speaker 1: you know, it's not always like this, and she kind
Speaker 1: of looked at him and was just like, but isn't it.
Speaker 1: And you know, folks, when you have the far right
Speaker 1: want to use children as a political football, want to
Speaker 1: use them as a talking point. I wonder if there
Speaker 1: is anyone that ever asked them about how their policies
Speaker 1: are actually long term going to effect these children that
Speaker 1: will turn into adults. So you're pushing for more coal
Speaker 1: and more oil, knowing good, goddamn well that that is
Speaker 1: what is causing our planet to heat up, and all
Speaker 1: of these historic storms that hey, we can't pay for
Speaker 1: right and be like, we may not be able to
Speaker 1: live through because each and every time that we have
Speaker 1: these wildfires, these historic hurricanes and tornado seasons and all
Speaker 1: of these things, people die, right, and it costs billions
Speaker 1: of dollars to rebuild. And yet you have the Republican
Speaker 1: Party and Joe Manchin Republican Light pushing policies that won't
Speaker 1: affect them because they'll all be dead in a few years,
Speaker 1: but it's sure as hell will affect the young people
Speaker 1: who are inheriting a steaming pile of shit. And so
Speaker 1: in my conversation with Torre, we talk about that what
Speaker 1: it is like to parent during this time, what it
Speaker 1: is like to you know, to try and provide hopefulness,
Speaker 1: to provide guidance and faith as you yourself are trying
Speaker 1: to take in all that is happening on a day
Speaker 1: to day basis. This is a really robust and juicy
Speaker 1: conversation with my friend to Ray that I hope you
Speaker 1: all enjoy, folks. I am very happy to welcome back
Speaker 1: to wok affidaily after a very long time. My friends were, ye,
Speaker 1: I'm happy to welcome you back. Now I feel good
Speaker 1: about welcoming you back. And you're making me kind of
Speaker 1: think twice about it now, my friend, wait till we
Speaker 1: get into it. My friend Toray, who is the host
Speaker 1: of the Torrey Show. He is also the creative director
Speaker 1: at the Grio and had a limited series called Being
Speaker 1: Black the eighties.
Speaker 2: And and what else, founder of democracy issues.
Speaker 1: Oh right, this show that has gone on so well?
Speaker 1: AnyWho tore yes right democracy because I.
Speaker 2: Have because you three shows?
Speaker 1: Yeah, good for you, Thank you so much.
Speaker 2: Geez.
Speaker 1: So it's fourth of July week, right, you know when
Speaker 1: white America loves to celebrate America's independence, and you know,
Speaker 1: we have patriotic shirts that are sold. You got flags
Speaker 1: that are waving everywhere. And yeah, but in majority of
Speaker 1: the states in this country, right, critical thought is outlawed.
Speaker 1: We can't really have conversations about what it means to
Speaker 1: be an independent country, what it means to have liberty
Speaker 1: at a time, to be gay, to be black, any
Speaker 1: of these things. But so long as you can walk
Speaker 1: into an old Navy and buy a flag shirt, you
Speaker 1: and my friend are patriotic. So I'm wondering this week, right,
Speaker 1: we've passed Juneteenth, which is actual liberation, if we really
Speaker 1: want to talk about it, when all people in the
Speaker 1: country were actually free and notified of said freedom, What
Speaker 1: does the fourth of July mean to you?
Speaker 2: Not really much. I mean the jingoism around America and
Speaker 2: the quote unquote meaning of America. I mean, absolutely, Lance flat,
Speaker 2: it's hypocritical. America has been a long conversation about who
Speaker 2: actually is is a full human who is a full
Speaker 2: part of America? And right at the beginning, it was like, well,
Speaker 2: just white men, right, nobody else even gets to vote
Speaker 2: to be a landowner, nobody else's part. We are having
Speaker 2: that same conversation now right where the right is saying
Speaker 2: women should not be a full participant in their own freedom,
Speaker 2: in the agency of their own bodies. Black people should
Speaker 2: not be a full participant in the democracy. Gay and
Speaker 2: trans people should not be a full right. And the
Speaker 2: conversation ultimately becomes who gets to be human? Right, because
Speaker 2: they get to decide in their mind who gets to
Speaker 2: be so they are full humans, right, white straight CIS men, right,
Speaker 2: presumably middle class to upper middle class, right, a Christian right, right,
Speaker 2: of course, right, because we're not talking about working class
Speaker 2: white now they benefit, but they are not part of
Speaker 2: the deciding structure. So yeah, we see a tremend this
Speaker 2: amount of hypocrisy. The American dream is liberty for all,
Speaker 2: everybody is welcome. But that's bullshit. It has never been
Speaker 2: that country. It continues to not be that country. And
Speaker 2: we're actually at a fairly frightening juncture.
Speaker 3: I am a staunch optimist.
Speaker 2: And I feel like things will work out at some point.
Speaker 2: I know you, let's say you're more of a realist.
Speaker 2: I was a pessimist, but more of a.
Speaker 1: Realist, Okay, I'll take that. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Of like, no, like shit is going to hell, and like,
Speaker 2: how has it changed? And the notion that a lot
Speaker 2: of people have that the racists or the homophobes or
Speaker 2: the transphobes will one day die out and we will
Speaker 2: move on to more of a utopic where we are
Speaker 2: accepting no, no, And it's a very dangerous notion to
Speaker 2: think that they'll all just die out at some point.
Speaker 2: All the racists and transphobes are not baby boomers, right,
Speaker 2: there are gen xers, there are millennials, there are zoomers
Speaker 2: who are you know, anti LGBTQ, racist, you know, misogynist.
Speaker 3: What have you.
Speaker 2: And you know, they may not be walking down the
Speaker 2: street oppressing people at every second, but they believe things
Speaker 2: that allow us to create a society that where you know,
Speaker 2: those of us who are not straight white men sis
Speaker 2: straight white men are second class citizens in some way.
Speaker 2: They are perpetuating that whole system. A tremendous number of
Speaker 2: millennials voted.
Speaker 1: For Trump, right, and also, folks, forget that the people
Speaker 1: in twenty seventeen that were marching in Charlottesville, they were
Speaker 1: not sixty and up right, they were in their twenties
Speaker 1: in their khaki shorts with their party city tiki torches. Right,
Speaker 1: So you know, when we think about this idea that
Speaker 1: they will die out. And the way that they have
Speaker 1: been talking about the LGBTQ plus Commune, which I want
Speaker 1: to talk about for a second, is stating that queer
Speaker 1: people are pedophiles and groomors. However, when I see, right,
Speaker 1: young kids that are in tiny, tiny KKK outfits, when
Speaker 1: I see young kids that are holding up signs that said,
Speaker 1: would you have aboarded me when I see all of
Speaker 1: these things, you know, these parents flipping over tables at
Speaker 1: school board meetings and punching teachers in the face. For
Speaker 1: I don't know, reading The Little Mermaid right because it
Speaker 1: now depicts a black woman. I think about all the
Speaker 1: ways that the right has groomed hate right, that it
Speaker 1: isn't something that is just Oh, this is how older
Speaker 1: people think. And I wonder as somebody who who often
Speaker 1: goes back through history interviews a lot of different people,
Speaker 1: I think that the way that we've talked about the
Speaker 1: civil rights movement has always made it seem like it
Speaker 1: was one hundred plus years ago, when Ruby Bridges is
Speaker 1: like sixty. Now. Do you think that the way we've
Speaker 1: allowed the civil rights movement to be discussed to show
Speaker 1: black and white pictures when we had color right, that
Speaker 1: we've created this timeline that isn't actually real.
Speaker 3: That's an interesting question.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, on Tori Show, I ask a
Speaker 2: lot of people what does it mean to be black?
Speaker 2: And for me, that really ties into an almost tangible
Speaker 2: connection to all the people who came before us, whose
Speaker 2: shoulders we stand on that allow us, you and I
Speaker 2: to have the lives that we have now because our
Speaker 2: parents could not have had this media gadfly experience, right,
Speaker 2: you know, integrate whatever. Like, they didn't have that experience,
Speaker 2: and their parents definitely did not have the freedoms that
Speaker 2: we have. So to me, I don't think about the
Speaker 2: Civil rights movement and Black Power movement it's sort of
Speaker 2: super long ago, because I feel a tangible connection to it.
Speaker 2: I am standing on its shoulders. I remember being in
Speaker 2: college and thinking once it would be really interesting to
Speaker 2: be in the CIA. I think a CIA recruiter was
Speaker 2: coming and I was like, well, that would be a
Speaker 2: cool ass job. But then at the same time, I
Speaker 2: was like, you know, I need to do something that
Speaker 2: pays back and speaks to the people whose shoulders that
Speaker 2: I'm standing on, right. I was already thinking about that
Speaker 2: sort of stuff in college and earlier.
Speaker 3: And you know, you.
Speaker 2: Can be the judge of whether or not I have
Speaker 2: done that, but I was always thinking of, like, I
Speaker 2: need to live a life that honors what I have
Speaker 2: been given, the life, the opportunities that have been given
Speaker 2: because of the people before us. So it's it's not
Speaker 2: distant to me, you know, And I mean I have
Speaker 2: I have a family member who was a black panther.
Speaker 1: So it's it's very tangiblegible to me. I am a
Speaker 1: realist and I used to be probably like a deep pessimist,
Speaker 1: and I am a realist in the way that look
Speaker 1: the artistism to.
Speaker 2: Think I have a realist, you're a pessimist, but the
Speaker 2: pessivist thinks I have the I know I'm a realists.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know.
Speaker 2: Everybody, I think in a way everybody thinks they're a realist.
Speaker 2: I'm an optimist, but I think I'm a realist. We
Speaker 2: are going to get there one day. It's going to
Speaker 2: be hard. I'm a person which means I'm a realist.
Speaker 1: Because I'm not sure where we're I'm not sure where
Speaker 1: we're trying to get to because it's never going to
Speaker 1: be a utopia, Like we're never going to have the
Speaker 1: kind of I guess the kind of dream actualize that
Speaker 1: our ancestors had been fighting.
Speaker 2: For that I want to say, well, utopia, Like I
Speaker 2: don't even know what utopia looks like, right beyond what.
Speaker 1: People being able to live in their skins and in
Speaker 1: their body without oppression, without fear, without violence.
Speaker 2: I think I think that it's important to eliminate the
Speaker 2: notion of what is in white people's hearts and spirits.
Speaker 3: I don't give a.
Speaker 2: Fuck if you love me or if you think that
Speaker 2: I'm equal to you. Right, And when we think about
Speaker 2: the amount of internalized racism that we deal with, white
Speaker 2: people absolutely have internalized racism. Right, they're not even challenging it, right,
Speaker 2: most of the right. But to me, the most critical
Speaker 2: aspect of the whole thing is the wealth gap. Right,
Speaker 2: there's a massive racial wealth gap. I don't know the
Speaker 2: numbers of a top my head, but you know they
Speaker 2: are easily google able. The upper black family has a
Speaker 2: fraction of what the average white family is. There is
Speaker 2: essentially no black upper class, right. There's a tiny number
Speaker 2: people who would constitute a black upper class. But there
Speaker 2: is a black upper middle class, and a Black middle
Speaker 2: middle class and a black lower middle class. But so
Speaker 2: there's not sufficient wealth in our community to be able
Speaker 2: to help each other when one of us has a problem.
Speaker 2: One of the things I read talked about how black
Speaker 2: people tend to have reverse inheritance, in that the older
Speaker 2: generation has nothing, so when they get older and they
Speaker 2: are sicker or a knee of help, we have to
Speaker 2: take care of them.
Speaker 3: Whereas in a lot of white.
Speaker 2: Families where they were able to get a home loan
Speaker 2: cheaply one hundred years of business. Now the right a
Speaker 2: business loan. Now the grandparents are able to help out
Speaker 2: the children and the grandchildren. Right, you need help with
Speaker 2: your mortgage, with your down payment, with you know, your business,
Speaker 2: like we are in a position.
Speaker 3: We can help you.
Speaker 2: Now we then to not have that. Right, So there's
Speaker 2: all these different ways that the wealth gap, to me is.
Speaker 3: The central ya. And if we can get we can
Speaker 3: narrow that.
Speaker 2: Sum, then we would have that would impact politics, that
Speaker 2: would could impact criminal justice, that could impact schooling, impact
Speaker 2: in so many ways the entire world. Now, somebody far
Speaker 2: smarter than me said, the only way that that would
Speaker 2: ever happen, the let's just call it not the equaling
Speaker 2: but just just an evening out, would be reparations.
Speaker 3: M Right.
Speaker 2: We have to have an intrusive financial impact on the
Speaker 2: journey of the black community to change the trajectory we
Speaker 2: have because the way America is now, there is very
Speaker 2: very little class ascension. Right, It's very hard to end
Speaker 2: up not in the class that your father was born into. Right,
Speaker 2: That's not the way America was supposed to be. That's
Speaker 2: not the way America used to be. But that is
Speaker 2: the way America is now, So how would we change it? Well,
Speaker 2: at some point there will have to be some sort
Speaker 2: of reparations.
Speaker 1: But in order to have and because I've been thinking
Speaker 1: about this, because I think about the people that have
Speaker 1: been working on reparations, I think about the member of
Speaker 1: Congress that introduces just the report, let us just do
Speaker 1: a report. They won't even do that, right to see
Speaker 1: where we would land. California had just come out and say, well,
Speaker 1: if we were to provide reparations, I think it was
Speaker 1: going to cost the state. It will cost the state
Speaker 1: trillions of dollars, right, trillions of dollars in order to
Speaker 1: do that. When we talk have conversations about reparations, it
Speaker 1: always sounds like we are asking for some type of philanthropy,
Speaker 1: that we're asking for some type of charity. And I'm saying, no, motherfucker,
Speaker 1: give us back what you extracted. Right Like, if you
Speaker 1: hadn't if you were required during reconstruction at that time
Speaker 1: to give back the wealth that was taken from free
Speaker 1: labor to provide land, we wouldn't be in this situation.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: They gave reparations to the slave slavelders like, so sorry,
Speaker 1: so sorry, we took away your interns, because that's what
Speaker 1: they call them in Florida textbooks. So sorry, we took
Speaker 1: away your interns. So here's a fucking stipend.
Speaker 2: And of course you know the history. It's not just
Speaker 2: about slavery. It's about what happens in say, it's about
Speaker 2: what happens in in Tulsa with other places where our
Speaker 2: communities are destroyed. It's about wage theft and redlining.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: One of the things that blows my mind that we
Speaker 2: don't even know the full extent of is this whole
Speaker 2: is it home assessment? Was that where somebody comes to
Speaker 2: tell you the value of your home. Yes, but many,
Speaker 2: many families have seen if the assessor and I might
Speaker 2: not be using the right word there, thinks that it
Speaker 2: is a black owned home.
Speaker 1: They'll devalue it.
Speaker 3: They'll devalue it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, sometimes as much as fifty percent, hundreds of thousands
Speaker 2: of dollars. And only a few people are figuring out, well,
Speaker 2: if I get my white friends to pretend it's their homes,
Speaker 2: then it'll be more.
Speaker 3: So.
Speaker 2: We don't know how many tens and tens of thousands
Speaker 2: of black people sold their.
Speaker 1: Homes that were devalued by hundreds of thousands of dollars
Speaker 1: thousand dollars.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that is money that did not come into
Speaker 2: the community. On top of the money that was directly
Speaker 2: given to white people. Here's a cheap home loan for
Speaker 2: you the fifties and decades later, that adds up to
Speaker 2: So it's it's just an extraordinarily difficult situation. Policing is
Speaker 2: a whole different part of it. Schooling is a whole
Speaker 2: different part of it. If we had a sufficient amount
Speaker 2: of money in our community to have more self determination, yep,
Speaker 2: then we could start looking at a world that has equity,
Speaker 2: not even equality, but just equity. Right, then we could
Speaker 2: start talking about creating better schools for ourselves, perhaps, you know,
Speaker 2: having better lawyers to defend ourselves when we have issues.
Speaker 1: But this is this is what Rosewood, this is what Tulsa,
Speaker 1: this is what hundreds but lat I mean hundreds and
Speaker 1: people because we only know and barely know the names
Speaker 1: of those places that were destroyed. And so when I
Speaker 1: think about even just the idea that white people created
Speaker 1: around separate but equal, right, black people had created separate towns,
Speaker 1: separate societies running their own buses, banks, school systems, like
Speaker 1: all of those things. But white people couldn't take it, yeah,
Speaker 1: and they had to destroy it.
Speaker 2: And those are just the big stories we know, right, right,
Speaker 2: What about all the people who like the farmer who.
Speaker 1: Lived in unincorporated towns, Yeah, who just you know, he
Speaker 1: just had it and he built it up, and some
Speaker 1: white people came.
Speaker 3: Just stole it.
Speaker 1: Right, there's thousands and.
Speaker 2: Thousands of such stories. We've been screwed economically by this
Speaker 2: country over and over and over, and slavery is just
Speaker 2: one part of it. And it's not it's not just
Speaker 2: a thing that happened. America does not become America without slavery, right,
Speaker 2: it is the thing that leads to America becoming a
Speaker 2: global economic power. And not really secondarily is the work
Speaker 2: that the enslaved people did because cotton was then the
Speaker 2: biggest product in the world. Right, so we're able to
Speaker 2: produce cotton wave faster and cheaper because they not have
Speaker 2: to pay the labor than anybody else. But no, it's
Speaker 2: the value of the human beings.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 2: And when we talk about reparations in the realm of
Speaker 2: slavery and white people, some white people want to say, well,
Speaker 2: my family didn't own slaves. Right, everybody in America who
Speaker 2: benefits from the American economy benefits from slavery. Yep, right,
Speaker 2: because the American economy is buttressed, is created by slavery.
Speaker 2: But there's all sorts of other industries and institutions, insurance, transportation,
Speaker 2: all sorts of people who never owned slaves but benefited
Speaker 2: from the slavery. The gun industry becomes massive in America
Speaker 2: because of all this. So there's all sorts of people
Speaker 2: who are benefiting from slavery, never own slaves, and we should.
Speaker 3: Be part of that.
Speaker 2: And the fact and the idea that it's that it's
Speaker 2: a controversial and revolutionary and basically unspeakable idea.
Speaker 3: Right, you can't be a serious political thinker and.
Speaker 1: Talk about ridiculous because who is going because the oppressor
Speaker 1: is never going to give the oppressed the keys to
Speaker 1: their liberation. Like that's just not how it ever works.
Speaker 1: And I feel like when we have these conversations, I'm like,
Speaker 1: I don't even want to I don't want it to
Speaker 1: be even referred to as reparations. I'm like, give me
Speaker 1: back what the fuck you stole for, Like centuries upon
Speaker 1: centuries we just named so many other ways outside of
Speaker 1: chattel slavery, how we have been economically forced into ghettos
Speaker 1: and in situations that have locked us into an economic
Speaker 1: future that was going to sustain a not even a
Speaker 1: working class, but a working poor, right, because that's what
Speaker 1: they've wanted. I want to switch gear, and that's what
Speaker 1: I want to talk about. I want to talk about
Speaker 1: the way in which you have Republicans right now, like
Speaker 1: Rohnda Santis, Greg Abbott and all of the Republican governors
Speaker 1: across the state that are doing their damnedest to erase
Speaker 1: black history, to ban critical literally ban critical thought, all
Speaker 1: of it. I believe torre is about creating a permanent
Speaker 1: under class, thank you. All of it is about creating
Speaker 1: a permanent under class. And they want to make sure
Speaker 1: that the demographic shift right that is coming that everyone
Speaker 1: was like, yes, look, black and brown people are going
Speaker 1: to be the majority. They're like no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: that's cute, right, because we're going to lock you in.
Speaker 1: If we can't lock you into being the working class,
Speaker 1: we're going to lock you into student loan debt because
Speaker 1: we don't want to give you relief there because if
Speaker 1: we give you relief there then you have opportunity for mobility,
Speaker 1: and we don't want that.
Speaker 2: Well, let me address two things. Yes, capitalism requires working poor,
Speaker 2: right because somebody has to do the jobs at the
Speaker 2: bottom of the totem pole. I shouldn't say that somebody
Speaker 2: has to do the jobs at the bottom.
Speaker 3: Of the ladder.
Speaker 2: I mean New York's Manhattan still has relatively significant size
Speaker 2: of real estate where there's.
Speaker 3: Projects in Lower Manhattan.
Speaker 2: And this, I believe this is the most in Manhattan,
Speaker 2: the most expensive real estate in the country. So it
Speaker 2: points out how valuable the working poor is that they
Speaker 2: continue to have quite a bit of projects right in
Speaker 2: Lower Manhattan. Right, that land is worth a lot of money,
Speaker 2: right some of us right on the river, like, so
Speaker 2: you know, clearly somebody is saying, I don't know, we
Speaker 2: need some people here because if we have them coming
Speaker 2: in from the outer burrows, that's not going to But
Speaker 2: the other thing, you know, Nicole Hannah Jones is so brilliant.
Speaker 2: She's a genius, and you know you have a real
Speaker 2: fought leader when somebody can say things that really change
Speaker 2: your thinking on things. And I had her on to
Speaker 2: Ratio several years ago, and we were talking about that
Speaker 2: twenty forty thing that white people are very focused on.
Speaker 2: When when white people will become the minority? Now that
Speaker 2: so the people of color, which I don't even like
Speaker 2: that phrase, will become the majority, right, and we already
Speaker 2: have I believe it's under age.
Speaker 3: Ten and under age twelve. There are more black, brown.
Speaker 2: And Asian people in this country than white people under
Speaker 2: twelve or something like that. Nicole Handa Jones made a
Speaker 2: really interesting point when I brought that up, and I know,
Speaker 2: I remember in twenty sixteen, I remember Van Jones was
Speaker 2: going around for CNN talking to Trumpers. Yes, yes, all
Speaker 2: of that, yes, and they were bringing it up without
Speaker 2: him asking about it, making different reference, sometimes coded, but
Speaker 2: sometimes references to like this is our last chance, like
Speaker 2: we were about to lose the majority in this country.
Speaker 2: We need somebody to stand up for white rights, saying
Speaker 2: essentially that. But what Nicoleana Jones said is that whiteness
Speaker 2: is fluid and flexible and it will take people in.
Speaker 2: You know, the Irish, the Italians. Jewish people were at
Speaker 2: one point in America not truly white people, right, and
Speaker 2: over time they were subsumed into whiteness, which increased the
Speaker 2: power of whiteness. And her argument, which makes a lot
Speaker 2: of sense, is that overtime Latino people will be subsumed
Speaker 2: into whiteness, right, so that it then becomes so then
Speaker 2: that increases the size of whiteness, and this change in
Speaker 2: the demographics doesn't actually happen right now. This is this
Speaker 2: is what she's this is what she's saying, and I
Speaker 2: put a lot of stock into what she says. So
Speaker 2: I don't know if that reckoning or that pivot moment
Speaker 2: when they become I don't know if.
Speaker 3: That's gonna happen.
Speaker 2: But also the coalition that on the other side of white,
Speaker 2: there is black, brown, and Asian, right, Latino, Latina Asian.
Speaker 2: I'm not gonna say LATINX because they don't say LATINX, right,
Speaker 2: So it's like super woke to say LATINX.
Speaker 3: They're not saying LATINX. So what are we doing?
Speaker 2: Do we have shared political needs black people, Asian people
Speaker 2: and Latino latinas I don't think so. I think we
Speaker 2: have different outlooks on the world. I think we have
Speaker 2: different things that we need politically. So looping us in
Speaker 2: together is like a fear tactic to bond white people
Speaker 2: because we're not all gonna align. I mean black people
Speaker 2: don't all align the same issue. I think black, brown,
Speaker 2: and Asian are all gonna align on the same issue.
Speaker 2: Like no, I mean like to go with gross generalizations
Speaker 2: and stereotypes. Asian people remain quote unquote the model minority.
Speaker 3: Yep. Right. I'm not saying that they embrace.
Speaker 1: That, no, but it's what's been placed on them by whiteness.
Speaker 2: Yes, so they have a certain relationship to whiteness. Politically, right,
Speaker 2: we see a lot of Latinos and Latinas voting Republican
Speaker 2: right and some of the data is saying because they're
Speaker 2: in their political thinking, they're not They're either not leading
Speaker 2: with their ethnicity or they are trying to assimilate and
Speaker 2: this is part of assimilation for them. And I'm sure
Speaker 2: there's other reasons as well. But so are we going
Speaker 2: to see this group of like all the people of
Speaker 2: color are going to politically band together and get what
Speaker 2: they want? Like, I don't think that's gonna happen, right,
Speaker 2: You know, if we nominate a black person for president
Speaker 2: or governor, are the Latinos, Latinas and Asians gonna say
Speaker 2: that person's one of ours?
Speaker 1: I feel like that is what But that is what
Speaker 1: the Obama coalition was able to bring together so many
Speaker 1: disparate groups of people under this idea of we can
Speaker 1: better America. It wasn't under this context of like my
Speaker 1: oppression is your oppression, or we have a shared enemy.
Speaker 1: It was this idea of we all essentially want the
Speaker 1: same things, and there is only a few people, right,
Speaker 1: the one percent, the greed that is standing away from
Speaker 1: all of us being able to have just a little
Speaker 1: bit more.
Speaker 2: Right, Obama's so special because he has blackness and whiteness,
Speaker 2: and he's able to see and feel and discuss these
Speaker 2: issues in a different way. Right, I mean, like especially,
Speaker 2: I mean in all of life, but especially in politics.
Speaker 2: Tone and body language means so much. And just Obama
Speaker 2: could say things in a way that white people could
Speaker 2: hear other politicians Black Asian could not hear. And you know,
Speaker 2: you wonder if you'll ever see anybody like that in
Speaker 2: our lifetime.
Speaker 1: Again, probably not. The last question I have for you
Speaker 1: goes back to our opening around optimism and realism pessimism.
Speaker 1: You have kids, right, you have you have teenage Yeah,
Speaker 1: you have teenagers who are inheriting a planet that is
Speaker 1: on fire, that is under water that is, you know, unsafe.
Speaker 1: We had to go inside, you know a couple like
Speaker 1: go inside again right with mass On because the air
Speaker 1: was not safe. Why because the earth is getting warmer?
Speaker 1: Why because of global warming and trees going up in
Speaker 1: smoke and the toxins and all of these things. They've
Speaker 1: seen so much as young people. They've seen George Floyd video.
Speaker 1: They've heard about Tyree Nichols, they've heard about you know,
Speaker 1: Breonna Taylor, whether or not you've actually if they've actually
Speaker 1: seen the videos, but it's out there, right. They're growing
Speaker 1: up in a world that is so different and different
Speaker 1: in my humble appealion as in bad from when I
Speaker 1: was fourteen and sixteen years old, right, I interviewed, I
Speaker 1: not interviewed, but I talked to a group of teenagers
Speaker 1: the other day and I asked them, you know, what
Speaker 1: are some things you're fearful of? Do you know what?
Speaker 1: They all talked about, not having enough money to be
Speaker 1: able to take care of their family. These were This
Speaker 1: was at my old high school, majority white school in
Speaker 1: you know, on Long Island, and all their fear was
Speaker 1: money and climate change. And so I'm wondering, where are
Speaker 1: your how are your kids feeling about the world that
Speaker 1: they're going to inherit are they would you label them
Speaker 1: as being optimists? We can take this on.
Speaker 2: My son is more of a political thinker right now
Speaker 2: than my daughter, but that could funk. That may partly
Speaker 2: be a function of age and as she grows should
Speaker 2: be more. But I mean, he, like many in his
Speaker 2: generation are are furious about the climate situation and are
Speaker 2: and feel like, you know, like a direct anger at
Speaker 2: Gen xers, And I'm like, it's really the boomers you're
Speaker 2: wren mad out, not us, but like you fucked up
Speaker 2: our planet. I mean, just the same way as if
Speaker 2: if you came home and your house was on fire
Speaker 2: and and like you know, your little your your mom's
Speaker 2: sitting there. You'd be like, mom, what the fuck you
Speaker 2: destroyed my house?
Speaker 3: Like I live here, yep, and like that, and the
Speaker 3: rage about that is.
Speaker 2: Palpable, you know. I mean, in my son's mind, in
Speaker 2: twenty forty, the earth will will cease to exist. I'm like,
Speaker 2: I don't think that's the future we're headed for, but he's.
Speaker 3: Like, that's what I read.
Speaker 2: And fuck you for contradicting me, because I'm gonna have
Speaker 2: to deal with this shit. And you're gonna be dead,
Speaker 2: old man, Like seriously, he was trying to say that.
Speaker 3: I'm like, go to your room.
Speaker 1: Fuck you.
Speaker 2: He is a cursed But basically so, no, there's there's
Speaker 2: there's tremendous an you know. I did say to my
Speaker 2: daughter the other day because she's really only been really
Speaker 2: paying attention to politics.
Speaker 3: For like five years.
Speaker 2: Right, she's fourteen, right, and it's been Trump and it's
Speaker 2: COVID and then you know, the sky is yellow and
Speaker 2: then like you know, oh, it's it. And I'm like,
Speaker 2: you know, honey, it's not normally like this, and she's like,
Speaker 2: like what I mean, like like on Earth, like in America,
Speaker 2: Like it's not normally like this, Like.
Speaker 3: It's usually a little more.
Speaker 2: It's been incredibly intense the last like what five six years.
Speaker 2: It's not normally like this. It's you now. Is that
Speaker 2: going to change?
Speaker 3: I don't. I don't know that that's going to change.
Speaker 2: I think like this is where we are now because
Speaker 2: of the Republican Party, because of the nature of media,
Speaker 2: because of so many things, the nature of the division
Speaker 2: in the country, and the entitlement and the empowering of
Speaker 2: you know, the most fringe and angry aspects of our country.
Speaker 2: It's much more intense. It seems to becoming much faster.
Speaker 2: It's much more stressful.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it didn't used to feel.
Speaker 2: I don't talk about the ten twenty thirty years ago.
Speaker 3: We disagreed with the Republicans, but.
Speaker 1: I didn't actively think they were trying to kill me though, right,
Speaker 1: you know different.
Speaker 2: I think I mean around Bush and Gore. It started
Speaker 2: to take a turn. It started to get more intense
Speaker 2: and nastier. I felt like, wow, this is like the
Speaker 2: nastiest it's ever been in like terms of like the
Speaker 2: political climate. I remember I was on a plane and
Speaker 2: I was reading the Nation and it was something. The
Speaker 2: article was something I think it was something about Gore,
Speaker 2: and the stewardess just just being nice, just parroted the
Speaker 2: headline of like, oh like something something effective, like what
Speaker 2: does it say about Gore? And the person across from
Speaker 2: me was clearly a Bushy and he said something nasty
Speaker 2: about Gore, and I said something back to him, because
Speaker 2: we're super anti Bush, right, w was the devil before Trump? Yeah,
Speaker 2: and and and and like everybody kind of caught themselves
Speaker 2: and was like, we're not gonna have a fucking intellectual
Speaker 2: argument on a plane, so everyone's but it was like
Speaker 2: it's just everyone's so on edge and like fuck you,
Speaker 2: and and that was the most intense I have felt
Speaker 2: it ever was. And around the Iraq War, we were
Speaker 2: all very angry, and I feel like we're way past
Speaker 2: that in terms of the intensity and the anger in
Speaker 2: the country, and I'm not sure how we get it back.
Speaker 2: And I'm trying to tell my daughter it's not always
Speaker 2: like this, but like, maybe this is how it is now.
Speaker 2: Oh that makes me sad, but that's where you live.
Speaker 1: I know you live, but I don't want to but honestly,
Speaker 1: I don't want to believe that that is just like
Speaker 1: this is going to be her norm. But in thinking
Speaker 1: about the fact that she's fourteen and the last set
Speaker 1: five to seven years have been absolutely like so half
Speaker 1: her life has actually been fucking insanity, it's hard to
Speaker 1: tell her it's not always like this. And she's just like, really,
Speaker 1: because I've only been around a little bit, right, and
Speaker 1: it just doesn't feel like seems bad.
Speaker 3: So she's it is better on the other planet that
Speaker 3: was go back to.
Speaker 1: That Earth two does sound nice, not where Republicans are,
Speaker 1: but Earth too, where our doppelgangers are my friend Tore,
Speaker 1: thank you for making the time for wok f and
Speaker 1: a conversation that leaves me wondering. Are we all pessimists, optimists, realists.
Speaker 1: I think society is making us sad.
Speaker 2: I feel you should.
Speaker 1: That is it for me today on woke f as
Speaker 1: always power to the people and to all the people. Power.
Speaker 1: Get woke and stay this fot