Speaker 1: Natively in pod is the production of iHeartRadio in partnership
Speaker 1: with Reason Choice Medium.
Speaker 2: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome Home. Everybody. This
Speaker 2: is Tiffany Cross, Angela Raie and is me Andrew Gillom. Tiffany'
Speaker 2: you are tuned into this week's mini pod, And to
Speaker 2: be fully transparent with you, we were actually going to
Speaker 2: go in a different direction, but I think our nerves
Speaker 2: have really been pricked by you know, the news of
Speaker 2: the day, and yes, the Trump conviction. But really I
Speaker 2: think what we want to delve into a little bit
Speaker 2: is how our language, and more than our language, how
Speaker 2: Trump is experiencing the system, the exceptions that have been made,
Speaker 2: the curves that have been cut, if it's plausible to
Speaker 2: apply it to him, is it possible that some of
Speaker 2: those same things one may be never needed to exist
Speaker 2: in the first place and should be wholesale applied to
Speaker 2: the rest of us. We're talking about everything from the
Speaker 2: beginning of the process of an investigation, charges, a grand
Speaker 2: jury and arraignment when you have to go and submit
Speaker 2: yourself a trial and selection of a jury, to how
Speaker 2: a verdict is received by the public. Is it legit
Speaker 2: is it illegitimate, illegitimate? What makes it illegitimate? And who
Speaker 2: gets to decide that? And so today I'm hoping we'll
Speaker 2: spend just a few minutes on this subject and invite
Speaker 2: you all into the conversation as well. Tiffany Angel, I'd
Speaker 2: love to just sort of sort of kick it off
Speaker 2: with each of you reflecting on beyond just the guilty
Speaker 2: verdict itself and the Trump trial, and the way in
Speaker 2: which this has been talked about, largely in cable news,
Speaker 2: but also in print and otherwise on social media, how
Speaker 2: folks have weaponized I think certain terms, and therefore, how
Speaker 2: have y'all either been conflicted or pricked or reminded of
Speaker 2: something that you're like, you know this, it doesn't feel right.
Speaker 2: Something about this isn't isn't working for me.
Speaker 3: I think there are a lot of things that don't
Speaker 3: feel quite right, and I think we actually may have
Speaker 3: been last week we went into like what we thought
Speaker 3: was wrong with the trial in itself. But I think
Speaker 3: for me, there is this celebration of his mugshot or
Speaker 3: remember when they used to be at Trump rally saying
Speaker 3: lock her up. I don't have a desire to say
Speaker 3: lock him up. Back, like you know, him going to jail,
Speaker 3: like maybe just so that we were no longer like
Speaker 3: threatened by his presence. Fine, but, like I gotta be
Speaker 3: honest with you, my natural disposition is not to thrive
Speaker 3: in people being locked up. I'm not quite abolitionist all
Speaker 3: the way, but I'm pretty dag gone close. And so
Speaker 3: I think that this case is making me look very
Speaker 3: hard at where my hypocrisy lives and where my blind
Speaker 3: spots are. I think what is frustrating and maddening to
Speaker 3: me about Donald Trump is the way that he's using
Speaker 3: our language to make it seem like he's having that
Speaker 3: same experience, when in fact, he's having like the concierge version. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 3: it's it's ridiculous, but if we are now saying or not,
Speaker 3: we are. But there are folks among us whose politics
Speaker 3: were more aligned with are saying, call him a felon,
Speaker 3: call him for what it is, all of these things.
Speaker 3: I just don't really delight in that. Like I I
Speaker 3: would much rather figure out how to use his concierge
Speaker 3: version to democratize access for that version of the justice
Speaker 3: system than to have him reversal and going back to
Speaker 3: what we know has not served us and has been
Speaker 3: overly burdensome and harsh to us. Even thinking about the
Speaker 3: man we just talked about who didn't couldn't pay child supports,
Speaker 3: so his license was suspended. So I'm just thinking about
Speaker 3: these terms felon. Should we be calling someone a felon?
Speaker 3: We already say returning citizens? So why am I gonna
Speaker 3: say felling about Donald Trump? If we are saying, you know,
Speaker 3: we want him. You do the crime, you do the time, Well,
Speaker 3: what does that time really look like? We talked about
Speaker 3: some of that again on the last pod, But I
Speaker 3: want to make sure that one of these key pieces
Speaker 3: that's been driving me nuts around was should he be
Speaker 3: able to run? Sure, he should be able to run.
Speaker 3: And every one of the people in our communities who
Speaker 3: has committed an act that they regret and they have
Speaker 3: paid their time, and they have there's been restitution, and
Speaker 3: they served a sentence, they should be able to vote.
Speaker 3: And So I would much rather democratize access to this
Speaker 3: alleged democracy than to be trying to find other ways
Speaker 3: to shut it down, because what we know ultimately is
Speaker 3: if we shut it down for Trump, there will be
Speaker 3: an ironclad wall for us. That's the way the PEMM
Speaker 3: swing swings violently.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I you know this, This is making me
Speaker 1: think of other things of our ass as a community,
Speaker 1: our ass ass and our to cover our asses in
Speaker 1: the community with our ask And so with Donald Trump,
Speaker 1: for example, let's say he does get locked up, Okay,
Speaker 1: I don't really care. I don't know if that's gonna
Speaker 1: impact how that impacts me personally. I think it impacts
Speaker 1: the idea of America on a global stage for sure.
Speaker 1: But I'm not getting a Donald Trump was locked up,
Speaker 1: here's your prize. If Donald Trump is able to vote
Speaker 1: in Florida, that is not impacting my community in a
Speaker 1: big way. It's one vote, one person. It's making me
Speaker 1: think of when Tucker Carlson was fired from Fox News
Speaker 1: and everyone was saying, let's call this Tiffany cross Day
Speaker 1: or let's everybody like celebrate Tiffany today, And I'm like,
Speaker 1: I don't give a shit to Tucker Carlson. What is
Speaker 1: that doing for? Did to put money in my pocket?
Speaker 1: Did it offer me any restitution for things I've gone through?
Speaker 1: Not really? So what do I care if this man
Speaker 1: gets fired or not? Also, when Colin Kaepernick was unfairly
Speaker 1: and unjustly dismissed from his job, and we were demanding,
Speaker 1: but write black bag, we demand you let Colin Kaepernick play. Okay,
Speaker 1: so we get this one man to play football. Our
Speaker 1: ass that little you know, like we need to do
Speaker 1: intel this point. Disrupt a system and you have to
Speaker 1: participate in it, even if your participation is solely to
Speaker 1: disrupt it and rebuild what actually services us. So I
Speaker 1: definitely take your point about the individual action with Donald
Speaker 1: Trump around the language, I would say, they are just
Speaker 1: not a creative people. Like the everything we do they take,
Speaker 1: and we are a bottomless bucket of creativity, of dopeness,
Speaker 1: of slagger, innovation, all of that, and so they can't
Speaker 1: even their insults are typically things that have derived from us.
Speaker 1: They turn woke into a pejorative. You know, they didn't
Speaker 1: they couldn't come up with something to support law enforcement.
Speaker 1: So they took black Lives matter and said blue lives
Speaker 1: I ain't never met somebody with blue skin. I don't
Speaker 1: know what that means, but they like blue lives matter.
Speaker 1: You can't even come up with your own slogans, you know,
Speaker 1: like they it's thievery, non stop thievery, because that's what
Speaker 1: they do. That's what they know how to do. So
Speaker 1: when their jargon becomes dangerous, to your point about felons
Speaker 1: and how we speak about that, I do wonder how
Speaker 1: that language will start to impact policy. And even if
Speaker 1: you know, on a wing and a prayer, if if
Speaker 1: Biden is able to hold the White House, if Democrats
Speaker 1: are able to hold the Senate, if they flip the House,
Speaker 1: what does this mean for people who have adopted some
Speaker 1: of that conservative language, you know, you know, like, we'll
Speaker 1: show you that we're the true party of law and order.
Speaker 1: Who typically gets impacted by that is us. So it
Speaker 1: is I hadn't thought about it, honestly, Antil before you
Speaker 1: raised that point. I'm like, oh, that is something to consider.
Speaker 1: I don't know what the solution is. How do we
Speaker 1: get ahead of this?
Speaker 2: I think, how do we how do we co opt
Speaker 2: them versus them co opting us? In this criminal justice
Speaker 2: you know, pie, well one, why not we why not
Speaker 2: call them to the carpet on their legislation? Y'all have
Speaker 2: backbenched this large wholesale criminal justice reform piece of legislation.
Speaker 2: Kim Scott was a part of, Corey Booker was a
Speaker 2: part of We Got Bits and pieces of it, but
Speaker 2: buying large wholesale the system the first step back, yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean, but but the first step of a of
Speaker 2: a tiny step, right, that's why. Yeah, and then real
Speaker 2: gigantic lead.
Speaker 1: And it's at a federal level. It's a lot of
Speaker 1: those police policies were federal police that did very little for.
Speaker 2: A little decisely. So if we took at the state level,
Speaker 2: for example, Rondo Santis, you want to you know, shortcut
Speaker 2: the system for restitute for returning of rights to uh A,
Speaker 2: former felons or folks who identify as felons, then make
Speaker 2: your work for everybody. Do it for everybody. If you
Speaker 2: if you were in Congress and you're saying the system
Speaker 2: doesn't work, that it is stacked against certain people, then
Speaker 2: let's unstack it for everybody. If you're sincere and you're
Speaker 2: genuine about that, you want to interrogate whether or not
Speaker 2: the grand jury process was right and deciding to go
Speaker 2: after him in the first place, and you think that
Speaker 2: they will indict a ham sand which you feel that's real,
Speaker 2: then take the teeth out of it. God damn grand jury.
Speaker 2: Why should it be used as a cudgel of prosecutors
Speaker 2: to go after who it is that they choose and
Speaker 2: want to go after. If you believe that sincerely, then
Speaker 2: it can't be true just in his case. It's got
Speaker 2: to be true. It's got to be true in other cases.
Speaker 2: And I would argue probably the over warman majority, and
Speaker 2: I would reject their definition of that being his experience
Speaker 2: and his experience alone. Right, So, as I looked at
Speaker 2: these folks on the Sunday shows, and I listened to
Speaker 2: well regarded senators and folks with real position and with
Speaker 2: real power taking I mean a machete to the criminal
Speaker 2: justice system as it sits in this country, except they
Speaker 2: only limited to their comments about Donald Trump. If you
Speaker 2: think it's wrong, if you think it's inherently bad, if
Speaker 2: you think it needs to be leveled, if you think
Speaker 2: prosecutors decide political enemies and then they go after them,
Speaker 2: then figure out a way to defang it.
Speaker 1: Well, Look, we could talk about the Hunter Biden case. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, y'all so concerned about gun control here,
Speaker 1: But that's what's the art.
Speaker 2: One of them, not one of them, cited Hunter Biden's trial,
Speaker 2: which began this week, as an example of a little
Speaker 2: known statue being a never before applied statue being applied
Speaker 2: to the son of the president. Right, they chose the
Speaker 2: line of that. Republicans are now at the centerfold. They're
Speaker 2: the example, they're the target of prosecutors. Well, no, Maryland
Speaker 2: mostly is not a Republican.
Speaker 3: I'm not a Republican, Joos, the prosecutor now attached to
Speaker 3: the Hunter Biden case. That was the one who went
Speaker 3: after Maryland people.
Speaker 2: Again, a conservative who's really in the shop and the
Speaker 2: you know, he's in the tank for you know, their size.
Speaker 2: So the truth is is it wouldn't feel so goddamn
Speaker 2: disingenuine and so dishonest and so wrong if they weren't
Speaker 2: so selective about their usage. And it's already clear they
Speaker 2: don't really have fidelity to fact or the truth. They
Speaker 2: just need whatever the narrative is to fit their scenario.
Speaker 2: And right now it happens to be Trump.
Speaker 3: All right, y'all, we're gonna take a quick break and
Speaker 3: we'll be right down. So just to take this a
Speaker 3: step further, we're talking about the ways in which Donald
Speaker 3: Trump's justice system should be everybody's justice system. We are
Speaker 3: not trying to take him into the oppression of ours.
Speaker 3: I know he thinks he's oppressed, but you don't know
Speaker 3: oppression yet.
Speaker 1: Let's press the work.
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's roll this clip.
Speaker 4: If Donald Trump can be a felon and be president,
Speaker 4: then we absolutely, without a doubt in this country need
Speaker 4: to make sure felon is removed off of all job applications,
Speaker 4: felon is removed off of rental applications, felon is removed
Speaker 4: off of professional certifications things like dentists, massage therapists, realtors,
Speaker 4: mortgage loan officers. Those are professional certifications, anything like that
Speaker 4: that felon needs to be removed off of it. Because
Speaker 4: the highest position in the land should be the most
Speaker 4: sacred and should be the example for everybody in this country.
Speaker 4: This is not a political post. This is an equal
Speaker 4: opportunity post, and this is a post that is about
Speaker 4: not holding down the everyday average American citizen.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 3: I love this because I think that it demonstrates for
Speaker 3: people who have been privileged not to have had any
Speaker 3: entanglement with the criminal justice system. You don't know how
Speaker 3: many areas it gimpax. Absolutely, do you know that if
Speaker 3: you have a felony on your record, you can't even
Speaker 3: get pre checked TSA pre checked for a certain amount
Speaker 3: of time, you cannot get global entry for a certain
Speaker 3: amount of time.
Speaker 2: You cannot live in the housing authority with your family.
Speaker 1: If a housing authority really may not.
Speaker 2: Live in federal housing as a felon. Wow, with that label.
Speaker 3: The scarlet letter. That makes life harder for you, more
Speaker 3: expensive for you, more inconvenient for you. And I know
Speaker 3: that people would argue that that is the price you
Speaker 3: pay for being convicted. But what if you were wrongfully convicted?
Speaker 3: What if you were convicted as a child but you
Speaker 3: were tried as an adult. What if you made a mistake?
Speaker 3: And what is the point if we keep saying you
Speaker 3: were rehabilitated. We say that the system is supposed to
Speaker 3: be about rehabilitation, but is it? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Is it?
Speaker 3: Ever? It only feels like punishment to our folks.
Speaker 1: And if you're convicted, like if you had a like
Speaker 1: a public defender who was encouraging you get a plea deal,
Speaker 1: because it just goes to trial.
Speaker 3: It'd be worse.
Speaker 2: So just tak it.
Speaker 1: But you're innocent and you're the only person with no
Speaker 1: law degree here and everybody's telling you just plead your
Speaker 1: case out. I do want to point out, though, I
Speaker 1: love that clip that you played ban the box legislation.
Speaker 1: I forgive me for being overpaired because I don't know
Speaker 1: where it stands federally, but locally, this was a huge
Speaker 1: piece of legislation.
Speaker 3: Across the country.
Speaker 1: Did you so, can you talk about it a bit?
Speaker 1: I want people to know ban the box legislation is
Speaker 1: when that is removed.
Speaker 2: That's right. We don't ask about any previous criminal offenses
Speaker 2: period in the application process, and only after the job
Speaker 2: has been offered do we check your criminal background history
Speaker 2: to see if the if the event has anything to do,
Speaker 2: is that a financial crime? And we just hired you
Speaker 2: as the bookkeeper? And then there is a conversation, not
Speaker 2: even a withdrawal of the offer, a conversation so that
Speaker 2: we can get into the nuance of what happened and
Speaker 2: decide that that's still a movie you want to make. Right,
Speaker 2: And so it measures people from their merit, not off
Speaker 2: of the mistake you made, but it measures you on
Speaker 2: your Are you qualified for the position? Do you have
Speaker 2: the upper pos previous experience that will add to the
Speaker 2: to the role. And if you meet that off of
Speaker 2: the content of your person and the qualifications you present,
Speaker 2: you get offered the job. And unfortunately, and I know
Speaker 2: that there are various versions of this that exists around
Speaker 2: the country. But where's the wholesale, you know, movement of that.
Speaker 2: Where is the movement? The brother went through any number
Speaker 2: of different feels at which this question is asking becomes
Speaker 2: an immediate disqualifier for the position, an immediately disqualifier in
Speaker 2: his jury. Well, the same thing about jury. If you
Speaker 2: have a felony, that should.
Speaker 1: Be the main person because you know what it is
Speaker 1: like on the inside. And if you're deciding somebody's liberty,
Speaker 1: you all.
Speaker 2: Know what it's like on the inside. But you also
Speaker 2: know what it's like to have a system gained against you.
Speaker 2: Everywhere nowhere in the country.
Speaker 1: You can serve on a jeury.
Speaker 2: You may not.
Speaker 3: I had no idea.
Speaker 2: And if you and and in most places you certainly
Speaker 2: can't vote, You certainly don't get to vote automatically. But
Speaker 2: but that's what I'm saying. This is a moment, the
Speaker 2: brother said. This is this brother said, this is not
Speaker 2: a political statement. Is an equal opportunity, And this is
Speaker 2: right because I think that's what we want to achieve,
Speaker 2: even in this mini pod, which is if it is
Speaker 2: good for the goosen, it's good for the gander. If
Speaker 2: there are, if there are pieces of this that we
Speaker 2: truly are critical love that you think do not serve us,
Speaker 2: the people or the system, then this man to let
Speaker 2: then then then then let's take this thing to the carpet.
Speaker 2: Let's take it all the way through. Let's let's let's
Speaker 2: think about it through its logical conclusion. What are the
Speaker 2: many ways listed out in which the system does not
Speaker 2: serve us, and rather it acts against us, and it's
Speaker 2: not to the betterment of society, but rather simply to
Speaker 2: be punitive or to get back at somebody. Okay, you
Speaker 2: believe that, then let's go through and let's figure out
Speaker 2: those pieces that we have to remove. And I think
Speaker 2: if we can find common calls there, because their version
Speaker 2: of common cause is simply saying, ah, he's a felony
Speaker 2: and now he can relate to black and brown people.
Speaker 2: That's in bold right, that then begin to get on.
Speaker 2: It's disrespectful, it's disingenuous, it's not true, it's it's it's
Speaker 2: it's malarchy.
Speaker 1: Tell me you don't know black people. What I was saying,
Speaker 1: you don't know black people, and it's real, and that ridiculously.
Speaker 4: Ra.
Speaker 2: I just think we got to use the moment if
Speaker 2: we could as a co opt and I also think
Speaker 2: it requires us to really interrogate the language that we use.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 2: We refer to people what, regardless of their qualifications and
Speaker 2: what they bring society, is simply a felon.
Speaker 3: And one thing I want to just point out, Lolo
Speaker 3: put in our research that as of now, thirty seven
Speaker 3: states in over one hundred and fifty cities and counties
Speaker 3: have implemented some form of being in the box legislation.
Speaker 3: You know, I really appreciate you all leaning into this topic.
Speaker 3: I think the person that's coming to mind and it
Speaker 3: has just has been very heavy on my spirit. In
Speaker 3: addition to Marilyn Moseby and what we're seeing her go
Speaker 3: through on the other side of a conviction is Crystal Mason,
Speaker 3: who of course is the black woman in Texas who
Speaker 3: was convicted of a felony, was trying to get re
Speaker 3: engaged in society, goes to vote and then faced five years.
Speaker 3: Her conviction was overturned and then they went right back
Speaker 3: at her. So we'll see what happens with Our prayers
Speaker 3: and thoughts are certainly with Crystal and we hope for
Speaker 3: the balancing scales of justice. This has been remarkable to
Speaker 3: watch all the contortions that people will make for one man.
Speaker 3: Hopefully they can figure out how to do it for
Speaker 3: all of us.
Speaker 2: Yeah, level it up. If it's good for him or
Speaker 2: bad for him, then then then consider whether it's good
Speaker 2: or bad for the rest of us.
Speaker 1: I'm glad we did this.
Speaker 3: This was a good podcast and thank you for listening. Everyone.
Speaker 3: Please make sure that you are sending in your comments
Speaker 3: and your thoughts not just on this this issue, but
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Speaker 3: Native Lampard is a production of iHeart Radio in partnership
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