Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to Woke f Daily with
Speaker 1: Meet your Girl Danielle Moody back recording from the Home Bunker, Folks.
Speaker 1: I'm struggling and when I have moments of struggle. In
Speaker 1: times of struggle, I try and offer up that truth
Speaker 1: to all of you. And I'm going to say some
Speaker 1: things on this Woke Wednesday that I find troubling about
Speaker 1: the current moment that we are in. And the purpose
Speaker 1: of woke a App is not for people to you know,
Speaker 1: agree with every single thing that I say and feel
Speaker 1: the same exact way that I do. The purpose is
Speaker 1: to spark conversation. The purpose is to have us tilt
Speaker 1: our heads and open our eyes and say, huh, I
Speaker 1: never thought about it that way on a variety of issues, right,
Speaker 1: because it's that kind of thinking of understanding that there
Speaker 1: is always more to learn, more to know, and to
Speaker 1: allow ourselves to continue to be students of the world
Speaker 1: that we're living in, to ask questions, to be critical thinkers.
Speaker 1: And so I'm struggling right now with how the protests
Speaker 1: at the universities and colleges are being characterized. I'm struggling
Speaker 1: with this current administration and their response to it and
Speaker 1: their you know, unwavering support for Israel. I'm struggling right
Speaker 1: now with accusations of anti Semitism, all for the benefit
Speaker 1: of shutting down conversation that is necessary in order for
Speaker 1: us to get to a place of real significant change.
Speaker 1: I'm struggling with the way in which the oppressors right
Speaker 1: and those that uphold systems of injustice want to tell
Speaker 1: other people the right way right to protest systems of injustice.
Speaker 1: So what I'm going to offer today are a couple
Speaker 1: of my thoughts, not on different news stories, but on
Speaker 1: this particular story, because I think, friends, that this story
Speaker 1: that it's happening on college campuses is the most important
Speaker 1: story in America right now, and I'm going to tell
Speaker 1: you why. From my perspective, Colleges and universities have always
Speaker 1: been a petri dish, if you will, a place of
Speaker 1: great experiment and thought, a microcosm of what society is
Speaker 1: and who it wants to be, a place where you
Speaker 1: can go to sharpen your skills right and understanding of
Speaker 1: various industries, various philosophies, to learn how to socialize with
Speaker 1: so many different groups of people, people from around the
Speaker 1: United States, from around the world, from different ethnic groups,
Speaker 1: from different cultural backgrounds, different sexual orientations and identities. Right,
Speaker 1: the importance of colleges and universities to me is not
Speaker 1: just about the lie of what it was of getting
Speaker 1: a good job, because that's what my generation was told,
Speaker 1: is that you go to college because you can't get
Speaker 1: a quote unquote good job without going there. And now, college,
Speaker 1: as I continue to say, is a Ponzi scheme, right,
Speaker 1: it is a setup, particularly for those in middle and
Speaker 1: low income communities that are roped into ratcheting up six
Speaker 1: figure plus worth of debt that they're told that they
Speaker 1: can't exist in the professional workspace without, but are not
Speaker 1: given the certainty that said debt is going to shove
Speaker 1: somehow provide them with a better life and a better future. Right,
Speaker 1: Because what we are seeing now with the younger generations
Speaker 1: is that that's not the fucking case, because income has
Speaker 1: not kept pace with inflation, with corporate greed, right, with
Speaker 1: the rise in rent and mortgages and interest rates in
Speaker 1: all of these things. And so when people want to
Speaker 1: dictate to young people about how to best spend their money,
Speaker 1: it's not the same fucking pot of money. Yoh, Like,
Speaker 1: it's just not. But aside from the economics that are
Speaker 1: at play, the point of colleges and universities is really
Speaker 1: to help diversify thought, to help put different perspectives on
Speaker 1: critical issues and see if we can't look at them
Speaker 1: from a different lens, from a different vantage point and
Speaker 1: come up with solutions right like to our most pressing
Speaker 1: issues and problems. It is also the place where young
Speaker 1: people begin to formalize their perspectives and their opinions on
Speaker 1: a myriad of issues, in justice being one of them. Right,
Speaker 1: you're taught from such a young age right from wrong,
Speaker 1: or at least you used to be, and we all
Speaker 1: had some universal idea of what was right and what
Speaker 1: was wrong. It was wrong to cause unnecessary harm to people.
Speaker 1: It was wrong to be mean, it was wrong to steal,
Speaker 1: to murder, to pillage, all of these things. Like, we
Speaker 1: were taught what was right and wrong. But then now,
Speaker 1: as I look back through my own education, you realize that,
Speaker 1: like you may have been told on the playground, don't
Speaker 1: knock down Johnny and take his candy, right, because that's
Speaker 1: not yours, it doesn't belong to you. But when we
Speaker 1: see it on a larger political scale and landscape, right,
Speaker 1: then somehow the ends justify the means. And was it
Speaker 1: really Johnny's candy, right or was it mine? And you know,
Speaker 1: and if there are more people in my corner saying
Speaker 1: that that candy is actually belongs to me and Johnny
Speaker 1: really stole it, what then becomes the truth. I do
Speaker 1: not think that the issues that are playing out on
Speaker 1: the college emphasis are that complex. I really don't. I
Speaker 1: don't think that it is complex at all to bear
Speaker 1: witness to horrific atrocities on your phone every single day,
Speaker 1: where you see headlines and videos that show you body parts,
Speaker 1: headlines of yet another mass grave that was uncovered in Israel,
Speaker 1: filled with the bodies and parts of Palestinian people. Don't
Speaker 1: take my word for it, Google it because it was
Speaker 1: broadcast on CNN. How many war crimes does it take
Speaker 1: for folks to recognize that those that say that they
Speaker 1: are the victims right can also victimize That two things
Speaker 1: can be true at the same time. That there can
Speaker 1: indeed be anti Semitism that exists and anti Islamophobia that
Speaker 1: exists as well, anti you know that exists as well,
Speaker 1: That those that were oppressed when given unbridled power, can
Speaker 1: also turn around and become the oppressor. And that is
Speaker 1: what young people are seeing. They're asking themselves, why are
Speaker 1: we funding this? It is one thing to have the
Speaker 1: right to defend yourself, but you do not have the
Speaker 1: right to torment, destroy, abuse and torture all others because
Speaker 1: of your sense right of victimhood, because what does that
Speaker 1: then make you? For so long, hundreds of years in fact,
Speaker 1: enslavers did not want to teach the enslaved Africans how
Speaker 1: to read because knowledge is power, did not allow enslaved
Speaker 1: Africans to congregate in mass because then community is built.
Speaker 1: Because they dictated the rules of slavery through the lens
Speaker 1: of fear of uprising. Well, the thing is is that
Speaker 1: you don't actually have to fear an uprising. If you're
Speaker 1: not torturing, brutally beating, right and like manipulating, verbally abusing people,
Speaker 1: then you don't have to worry about what happens when
Speaker 1: they become free. And yet, through my own lens, when
Speaker 1: I traveled to Israel and Palestine, I saw oppression that
Speaker 1: I had only ever read in history books. I saw
Speaker 1: apartheid with my own eyes. When you have two types
Speaker 1: of license plates, one for one group of people and
Speaker 1: one for another. And I'm not talking about the difference
Speaker 1: in license plates of those that live in Texas versus
Speaker 1: those that live in Louisiana. I'm talking about a license
Speaker 1: plate that says that you are less than human and
Speaker 1: that you do not belong on this road. Similarly to
Speaker 1: the sunset laws that are still on the books in
Speaker 1: many states inside of these United States, that dictated that
Speaker 1: any black person, regardless of their status, found inside of
Speaker 1: any said town after sunset, could be lynched, could be beaten,
Speaker 1: could be raped, could be maimed, could be tortured because
Speaker 1: that person, that black body, was not welcomed. I understand
Speaker 1: what it is like to feel unsafe. I understand it
Speaker 1: through the lens of being black. I understand it through
Speaker 1: the lens of being a woman, understand it through the
Speaker 1: lens of being queer. I understand it in a way
Speaker 1: that my ancestors didn't have the ability as some groups
Speaker 1: who came to these United States willingly. First of all,
Speaker 1: so there's already we're starting off in a different fucking place,
Speaker 1: but willingly come here and then change their name so
Speaker 1: that they could assimilate and the generations after them could
Speaker 1: assimilate into this country, because when you're black, you don't
Speaker 1: just get to change your skin. It doesn't work that way.
Speaker 1: So much so that they created an entire rule and
Speaker 1: system called the one drop rule, meaning that if you
Speaker 1: had even one drop of African blood in you, you
Speaker 1: were black. Because for white America, it was always about
Speaker 1: a numbers game, and they had to continue to suppress
Speaker 1: the number of black people right so that they could
Speaker 1: continue with their oppression and their power. It is not
Speaker 1: hard now to look back in time and say, oh,
Speaker 1: that was repulsive, But do you know how I grew up, Well,
Speaker 1: that was the times. That's what my teacher said, Oh
Speaker 1: you know, that's what they did then, not that it
Speaker 1: was cruel and inhumane and horrific. And my god, let
Speaker 1: us look at this and how we decide to oppress
Speaker 1: an entire group of people and criminalize them for nothing
Speaker 1: other than existing in the same space as you, and
Speaker 1: you feeling threatened just by virtue of having to share
Speaker 1: space with other people that may not look like you,
Speaker 1: that may not pray like you. If we actually embraced
Speaker 1: real civil behavior in modern civilization, then we wouldn't have
Speaker 1: to worry. But when it's decided that the only way
Speaker 1: that you can stay safe and in power is to
Speaker 1: press your foot on somebody else's neck and tell them
Speaker 1: that they are the problem. What do you think that
Speaker 1: the long term result is going to be? So when
Speaker 1: young people now are looking around understanding how much money
Speaker 1: they are paying into these institutions that are paying into
Speaker 1: systems that they do not want their money to go towards.
Speaker 1: Much in the same way that the United States is
Speaker 1: paying billions of dollars a year, three to four billion
Speaker 1: in fact, to provide welfare for Israel, and you put
Speaker 1: no contingency on that money, like to build an actual democracy,
Speaker 1: even one that is as imperfect as the United States.
Speaker 1: But my God, when I was in Israel, I said,
Speaker 1: this is what the United States would have looked like
Speaker 1: had the Civil rights movement not happened, or had it
Speaker 1: been queuched, had the justices that were on the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court be the very justices that are sitting there now,
Speaker 1: I'm sure as fuck wouldn't have a podcast, let alone
Speaker 1: be living in the building that I'm living in and
Speaker 1: the part of town that I'm living in. Having had
Speaker 1: an education that I had, there is no civilized way
Speaker 1: to protest against in civility. Martin Luther King was the
Speaker 1: biggest proponent an example of non violent resistance, and do
Speaker 1: you know what they did to him? They shot him dead,
Speaker 1: widowed his wife, and left his children fatherless. The late
Speaker 1: Congressman John Lewis marched peacefully across Edmund's Bridge and was
Speaker 1: beaten and bloodied by a legal system that told him
Speaker 1: that he did not have the right to exist. Black
Speaker 1: panthers that organized in this country for black liberation, that
Speaker 1: created food programs and literacy programs in after school programs
Speaker 1: were bombed, jailed, and assassinated by this government. What were
Speaker 1: they doing? They were bearing arms the way that the
Speaker 1: constitution told them that they could. They didn't see the
Speaker 1: fine print that had said only white men were allowed
Speaker 1: to do that, and that in so exercising the fullness
Speaker 1: of your citizen injury would cost you your life. There
Speaker 1: are still political prisoners in these United States that were
Speaker 1: black liberationists. They only are let out of jail when
Speaker 1: they are on depth's door. That's the modern day political
Speaker 1: way of leaving the body hanging from the news or
Speaker 1: leaving Mike Brown's body rotting in the street after police
Speaker 1: officers killed him. For four hours in the hot sun
Speaker 1: as a reminder to stay in your place. There is
Speaker 1: no right way to react to the obscenity of what
Speaker 1: is considered the rule of law. So when you see
Speaker 1: young people setting up camps, barricading themselves in buildings, and
Speaker 1: trying to figure out how to have their voice is heard.
Speaker 1: When they try to be civil but are met with incivility,
Speaker 1: you tell me what is the right way. If I
Speaker 1: can't critique a system of government because of the religion
Speaker 1: of the people who are running that government, how are
Speaker 1: we to form conversation and get to a point of
Speaker 1: change and clarity. There are bigger issues at play here
Speaker 1: that are about power and control, subjugation and silence. It
Speaker 1: isn't just about what's happening on the college campuses, my friend.
Speaker 1: It is about what is happening all around us. And
Speaker 1: the questions that I want to be asked and not
Speaker 1: necessarily answered on this show every single day is what
Speaker 1: are we going to do about it? How are we
Speaker 1: going to create this more perfect union? How are we
Speaker 1: going to talk openly and honestly about injustice and our
Speaker 1: responsibility to bring light to darkness. That is the underlying
Speaker 1: question of what it means to be woke. What kind
Speaker 1: of world do we want to live in and how
Speaker 1: do we want to create it together? Because it's sure
Speaker 1: as fuck is not about lying about what we are
Speaker 1: seeing with our own eyes and pretending it doesn't ega exist,
Speaker 1: or staying silent because we don't want to hurt other
Speaker 1: people's feelings. It is about telling the truth. It is
Speaker 1: about integrity, It is about compassion and empathy. That's how
Speaker 1: we build community. It starts with us. It starts with
Speaker 1: hard conversations about who we are and who we want
Speaker 1: to be. That is it for me today, Dear friends
Speaker 1: on Woke a f as always, Power to the people
Speaker 1: and to all the people. Power, get woke and stay
Speaker 1: woke as fuck.