Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to WOKP Daily with Me
Speaker 1: your Girl, Daniel Moody recording from the Home Bunker, Folks.
Speaker 1: Over the weekend, I posted several clips from recent television appearances,
Speaker 1: and I also joined MSNBC on Sunday with Reverend Al Sharpnan.
Speaker 1: And you know what I'm starting to notice, and I've
Speaker 1: said this before, is that the comments section on my
Speaker 1: pages or starting to become quite intense in terms of
Speaker 1: their real anger frustration with the Biden administration at a
Speaker 1: SIP pertains to the stance in Gaza and their stands
Speaker 1: to be in solidarity with Israel, even though many of
Speaker 1: us believe and know with our own eyes that war
Speaker 1: crimes are being committed and that they are weaponizing their trauma.
Speaker 1: And I am really starting to question a lot of things,
Speaker 1: which I will be talking about as I often do
Speaker 1: on this show and other places, because I want people
Speaker 1: to understand that my allegiance is not to an administration.
Speaker 1: It is to upholding democracy that I believe is on
Speaker 1: the brink of collapse in this country, and that while
Speaker 1: we can consistently, you know, push back and be angered
Speaker 1: with this administration, understand that we're able to do that
Speaker 1: because this president still believes in the constitution and the
Speaker 1: rule of law and listens to people's voices. So us
Speaker 1: lifting up our voices, marching, boycotting matters in this moment,
Speaker 1: particularly as we go into the twenty twenty four election. However,
Speaker 1: throwing caution to the win by saying that folks are
Speaker 1: not going to vote for democracy, which is exactly what
Speaker 1: it means to vote for Joe Biden, whether or not
Speaker 1: you're doing it holding your nose, closing your eyes and
Speaker 1: just pulling the lever has to happen. And we are
Speaker 1: not in a position to play games with Donald Trump
Speaker 1: his dictatorial fantasies. Right like, he is telling us out
Speaker 1: loud that he wants to be a dictator. His followers
Speaker 1: are telling us out loud that they are going to
Speaker 1: clean house of any career right policy people, any career
Speaker 1: political people in UH to make room for the sycophants,
Speaker 1: to make room for those that will turn the other
Speaker 1: cheek so that they get the white Christian fascist country
Speaker 1: of their dreams. That is not something to play with
Speaker 1: and think that, oh, okay, well, if that happens, we'll
Speaker 1: just fight and fight and fight the way we did
Speaker 1: in twenty sixteen and twenty twenty and all will be well. No,
Speaker 1: if Donald Trump gets in, he's never leaving. And to
Speaker 1: me that is more terrifying of a proposition for our
Speaker 1: stability as a nation and global stability than anything else.
Speaker 1: I am happy to fight with right a president that
Speaker 1: actually still believes in the rule of law, whether or
Speaker 1: not I agree on what it is that he is
Speaker 1: doing with Israel, right, because I fucking do not. But
Speaker 1: as sure as hell know that I won't have a
Speaker 1: voice and I may not have freedom right if a
Speaker 1: Donald Trump were to come into office. And those are
Speaker 1: the things that I think that we need to be
Speaker 1: in deep consideration and conversation with ourselves and with those
Speaker 1: around us. Coming up next on today's show, I am
Speaker 1: excited to welcome on writer and author of the new
Speaker 1: book Breaking Free. In the book Breaking Free, The Lie
Speaker 1: of Equality and the Feminist Fight for Freedom, culture writer
Speaker 1: Marcy Bianco persuasively argues that the very concept of equality
Speaker 1: is a fallacy, an illusory goal that cannot address historic
Speaker 1: forms of discrimination and oppression. And in our conversation we
Speaker 1: talk about what does equality actually mean and are we
Speaker 1: fighting for the right thing or do we need to
Speaker 1: reimagine write what freedom actually looks like. She says that
Speaker 1: we've been conditioned for generations to want equality. It has
Speaker 1: become insidious in the mindset, locking us into the gender
Speaker 1: binary and reductive identity politics. So my conversation with the
Speaker 1: author of Breaking Free, The Lie of Equality and the
Speaker 1: Feminist Fight for Freedom, Marcy Bianco, is coming up next. Folks.
Speaker 1: I am so happy to welcome to ook f Daily
Speaker 1: culture writer and the author of Breaking Free, The Lie
Speaker 1: of Equality and the Feminist Fight for Freedom. In the book, Marcy,
Speaker 1: you explore the notion that equality is a lie. And
Speaker 1: let me tell you something. I have said that phrase.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I've said that at nauseam. And I
Speaker 1: want you to explain to folks, because you know, we
Speaker 1: are taught right, yes, that we are. We are fighting
Speaker 1: for equality, we are fighting for freedom. This is what
Speaker 1: it looks like, right, and you know, and and there
Speaker 1: there are differences, I think in the way that you
Speaker 1: maneuver through history, through these different and moments and fights.
Speaker 1: And I just want, what do you mean when you
Speaker 1: say equality is a fallacy? Equality is a lie?
Speaker 2: Okay? Well, maybe like I can't believe that you actually
Speaker 2: have said this too. But then at the same time,
Speaker 2: I feel like most people when I talk to them
Speaker 2: about this book, they're like, wait a minute, just you know,
Speaker 2: it's almost like when people say we're all equal, or
Speaker 2: the use of the language of color blindness in particular.
Speaker 2: I feel like it's this for like societal gas lighting
Speaker 2: of the world that we actually live in, because no
Speaker 2: one is born equal, No one has equal advantages in life,
Speaker 2: equal eco socionomic backgrounds, no one is born in the
Speaker 2: same conditions, and no one dies equally, especially in this country.
Speaker 2: Come on, you know, And so it's just kind of
Speaker 2: like in all facets of our life, especially when it
Speaker 2: comes to institutions, which you know, in this country. I
Speaker 2: really focus argument on the politics and the sociality of
Speaker 2: the United States, But when you have institutions and systems
Speaker 2: built upon the genocide of indigenous people and the enslavement
Speaker 2: of black people, you are never going to get the
Speaker 2: full realization of any kind of equality, even if it's
Speaker 2: so called constitutionally protected. Right. So even when we see,
Speaker 2: even when we have two constitutional amendments saying we have
Speaker 2: voting rights, what has actually transpired the past one hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty years? Two people you know, are as everyone
Speaker 2: able to practice that right exactly? And so I, you know,
Speaker 2: these were just general observations that I felt, you know,
Speaker 2: had me asking why is it that feminist? And I
Speaker 2: think women in general we're taught to say we just
Speaker 2: want to be equal, or especially we heard with like
Speaker 2: gay marriage, like we just want this same, We don't
Speaker 2: want anything more, we don't want anything else. We just
Speaker 2: want gay marriage the same as you, and I kept
Speaker 2: thinking the same as you, the same in these institutions
Speaker 2: that are woefully inadequate, right that we even see with
Speaker 2: gay marriage, sure you can get married, but how many
Speaker 2: anti LGBTQ laws coming on pieces of legislation do we
Speaker 2: have in the States and in this federal government right now,
Speaker 2: like being debated and even when equality is implemented and
Speaker 2: you know, like exacted in laws and in policies, you know,
Speaker 2: like not only are they fully realized, but also like
Speaker 2: what is the endgame? You know, like what are we
Speaker 2: trying to achieve within these in these systems? And so
Speaker 2: I ask, why is it, you know, why is it
Speaker 2: do we want equality so badly when we see how
Speaker 2: it operates, when we see that it really doesn't you know,
Speaker 2: affect us all equally and rights and policies, and like,
Speaker 2: what are we actually fighting for? I don't think to
Speaker 2: get to a world in which we can create meaningful
Speaker 2: and joyful lives and create a more just world, equality
Speaker 2: won't get us there. And I pull upon this large history,
Speaker 2: often marginalized history of feminist thinkers, writers, but also freedom
Speaker 2: fighters like I quote James Baldwin at length right in
Speaker 2: this book, because people have championed equality for generations when
Speaker 2: it comes to their human dignity right, living authentically and
Speaker 2: caring for each other in creating a more just world.
Speaker 1: You know, I think about the fact that if we
Speaker 1: use straight white men right as our bar which is
Speaker 1: what we do, because they have been considered and still
Speaker 1: now the norm, we're seeing this pushback right with more
Speaker 1: education and critical thought, which is why we find ourselves
Speaker 1: with a rabid right wing right now, because they see
Speaker 1: their domination right falling by the wayside. They see people questioning, well,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, because why am I measuring my life,
Speaker 1: measuring my opportunities on what it is that they have.
Speaker 1: Because the fact of the matter is exactly what you
Speaker 1: said at the opening, which is that you can't talk
Speaker 1: about equality when you're talking past the way in which
Speaker 1: this country was founded. You can't talk about equality being
Speaker 1: equal to when one group of people was forced off
Speaker 1: of their land, right, the indigenous population had their land
Speaker 1: and their children stolen from them, right, Right? Talk about
Speaker 1: making black people equal to white people because one of
Speaker 1: us was considered property for four hundred years, right and
Speaker 1: the other was not. And so not even had we
Speaker 1: been provided the forty acres and a mule that were
Speaker 1: asked for from the jump, you are still talking about
Speaker 1: hundreds of years of a gap in wealth building, in
Speaker 1: educational opportunities that were robbed. So what does equality really
Speaker 1: look like when we're actually laying those things out to
Speaker 1: be bare? When you're talking about women who were not
Speaker 1: able not only not to have access over their own bodies,
Speaker 1: but also the right to vote, right also the right
Speaker 1: to own a credit card, which I continue to tell
Speaker 1: people did not happen till the nineteen seventies, nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: four to be precise, Right, Like, what does it look
Speaker 1: like to be equal in the workplace where one of
Speaker 1: us were afforded all of those opportunities and one of
Speaker 1: us was not. And so talk to us about what
Speaker 1: it is that you offer in contrast to this idea
Speaker 1: and this continued fight. Because the other thing that you
Speaker 1: said too, and it's in our constitution. Our constitution talks
Speaker 1: about happiness. You talk about joy. I now talk about
Speaker 1: joy because I say, as the world becomes increasingly hardened,
Speaker 1: what resistance begins to look like is softness. And that
Speaker 1: is something that has been a jump in my mindset
Speaker 1: in my work that I've been doing. But talk to
Speaker 1: us about what you are introducing other than equality.
Speaker 2: Right right, everything you said, I just there are so
Speaker 2: many things to toug on. I'll get to freedom, but
Speaker 2: even just briefly, you know, Supreme Court Justice John Roberts
Speaker 2: and Clarence Thomas mentioned when they ended affirmative action, right like,
Speaker 2: they base their argument on equality and that eliminating race
Speaker 2: discrimination means eliminating all of it. They see affirmative action
Speaker 2: as discrimination. To your point, right, that equality fundamentally is
Speaker 2: impossible within institutions that were built by a white supremacist
Speaker 2: cisce heteror patriarchy. In contrast, what I really wanted to
Speaker 2: offer feminists but all people, right, because my what I'm
Speaker 2: proposing here is a feminism that is not based on
Speaker 2: the gender binary in fact, I really find a huge
Speaker 2: problem with the existing I think the predominant form of
Speaker 2: feminism in this country has been a quality feminism for
Speaker 2: one hundred and fifty years. Elizabeth kat Stanton, those folks
Speaker 2: really champiing for equal rights two white men in particular,
Speaker 2: and that they you know, there is record Lucretia Mott, Stanton,
Speaker 2: Susan B. Anthony, everyone talking about how, you know, if
Speaker 2: white women have the same rights as white men, they
Speaker 2: will fortify white supremacy. They were not shy about talking
Speaker 2: about fortifying white see when it came to white women's
Speaker 2: ecal rights and specifically the equal right to vote. So
Speaker 2: what I'm proposing instead is, you know, there's often talk
Speaker 2: about like practicing feminism and what feminism looks like, and
Speaker 2: sometimes it's been reduced to capital like capitalist commodification, like
Speaker 2: a cute bag, and you know, all of that nonsense
Speaker 2: right right right, right right, and it's like, what what
Speaker 2: does it mean in practice? And I really believe and
Speaker 2: this is again I and I want to be very
Speaker 2: clear about this. Like my work, and I say this
Speaker 2: in the introduction and throughout, is informed and inspired by
Speaker 2: black feminism, the black feminism of self determination, and a
Speaker 2: freedom because what I'm saying is that practice of freedom
Speaker 2: if we think about you know, this freedom as the
Speaker 2: ongoing practice of self creation, which is my version of
Speaker 2: Black feminist self determination, but the ongoing practice of self
Speaker 2: creation based and accountability and care. That is a type
Speaker 2: of feminism that you practice daily and how you live
Speaker 2: your values and how you respect the human dignity of
Speaker 2: other people by taking accountability for how you act in
Speaker 2: the world. And I really truly believe that if we
Speaker 2: center these values care and accountability, we can begin to
Speaker 2: change how we treat each other. Because on a daily level,
Speaker 2: like what matters, it's how we treat each other. Right,
Speaker 2: It's even if you know there was some harm or
Speaker 2: harassment or infringement or violence the law, you know, like
Speaker 2: we see how the law functions come on who protects
Speaker 2: and who daily basis. I really believe collectively, you know,
Speaker 2: this idea that if we change how we treat each other,
Speaker 2: that can change, Like that builds and that grows, and
Speaker 2: that's a collective like that causes a collective change. It's
Speaker 2: a world changing collective effort. But that becomes on a
Speaker 2: very individual level. I believe. I don't believe it's an
Speaker 2: either or thing, right, the personal or you know, the collective.
Speaker 2: I believe they're integrated, and so I wanted to offer
Speaker 2: a practical feminism one that really too because if you
Speaker 2: think about the issues today that are affecting us the most,
Speaker 2: that are harming us, these are not issues of equality.
Speaker 2: There are issues of freedom, whether it's abortion, whether it's education,
Speaker 2: how we move in the world, how we identify right,
Speaker 2: our authenticity and becoming. These are not about being equal.
Speaker 2: These are about being free, right, the freedom to determine
Speaker 2: one's life. And that's what's you know, what's really interesting,
Speaker 2: and another reason why I'm trying to pivot us to
Speaker 2: freedom is that what have we seen, especially over the
Speaker 2: past couple of years, concerned rivatives weaponizing equality to further
Speaker 2: write discrimination and oppression. They use the equality to end
Speaker 2: affirmative action, They use equality to end COVID relief funding
Speaker 2: for black farmers. They use the quality to prevent women
Speaker 2: and racially marginalized folks applying for PPP loans early right,
Speaker 2: not giving any real advantage. But like they keep using
Speaker 2: equality to promote the racist agenda. And they're using equality
Speaker 2: too in their larger broader you know, movement to end
Speaker 2: abortion and to promote fetal personhood because they're espousing, right,
Speaker 2: here's the thing, equality begins in the womb. That was
Speaker 2: the right to life, you know, like marchist slogan, equality
Speaker 2: begins in the womb. And if that happens, who's who
Speaker 2: is life? Like, we're trying to equate, equate two very
Speaker 2: different things, actual legal personhood, and you know, as I go,
Speaker 2: so I want to I'm trying to be conscientious too
Speaker 2: of how equality is being used and how it's leveraged
Speaker 2: and how it's leveraged effectively in this country. And I
Speaker 2: also I'm trying to promote a kind of feminism that
Speaker 2: I feel we can all practice because you know, like
Speaker 2: I don't know about you, but I've never woken up
Speaker 2: my life saying I feel equal today, right right, like
Speaker 2: it's but I have definitely had moments where I've felt
Speaker 2: free and joyful and I felt fully embodied and express myself.
Speaker 2: And I feel like people know that intuitively in their gut,
Speaker 2: like I can feel free. Not it's not a continuous like,
Speaker 2: it's not an eternal thing. It's a continuous practice, as
Speaker 2: Angela Davis has told us, Right, but you can feel
Speaker 2: it and it's real equality depends on you know, the
Speaker 2: current people in power handing it to us, and it's
Speaker 2: going to look like however they want it to look like.
Speaker 1: It also requires them to give up something, right. That's
Speaker 1: that's the thing that we have to understand, is that
Speaker 1: when you come from that lens, what it is is
Speaker 1: it's like, oh so in order for you to get
Speaker 1: you know, from the bottom to midway, I have to
Speaker 1: come down, right, And so when we're moving outside of
Speaker 1: that lens, it isn't about the oppressor. Can't use the
Speaker 1: giving up of something as the reason to keep oppressing you.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: I think that what's important to what you offer when
Speaker 1: you I want to go back to what you said
Speaker 1: around care and compassion because it's like almost like taking
Speaker 1: a fifty thousand foot view and looking at I'll take,
Speaker 1: for instance, you know what happened during COVID with the
Speaker 1: New Zealand Prime minister right versus a woman versus what
Speaker 1: male leaders of nations were doing. And the reason why
Speaker 1: New Zealand did not have skyrocketing COVID cases is because
Speaker 1: she just through the lens of compassion, let me talk
Speaker 1: to the people, let me connect us as this community
Speaker 1: that we are all in this together. Let me bring
Speaker 1: different people to the table because we all don't know anything.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: This is new to all of us. So let me
Speaker 1: not presume that, as Donald Trump has said, I alone
Speaker 1: can fix this. So when you look at what happened
Speaker 1: real life work, through her care and compassion lens right,
Speaker 1: she was able to save people's lives literally, right, Toxic
Speaker 1: masculinity centered around ego, right, cost a million plus lives
Speaker 1: in this country.
Speaker 2: That's right?
Speaker 1: And so what I just I look at it and
Speaker 1: I say the question that I have for you is
Speaker 1: this is like I hear it, and we saw it
Speaker 1: in action, and we see it in action. What does
Speaker 1: it look like for us to get there? Knowing that
Speaker 1: white men in power have a death grip on this country,
Speaker 1: in order for us to get to a place of
Speaker 1: care and compassion, Right, we have to have new leadership, right,
Speaker 1: because who was in charge? And by virtue of the
Speaker 1: way that we have seen the Republican Party move, we
Speaker 1: know that they are not giving up their power. Right.
Speaker 1: We heard Brick Santorum after the election, after Ohioan's decided
Speaker 1: that they were going to enshrine abortion rights into their
Speaker 1: constitutions say democracies don't work. He said that out loud.
Speaker 1: He said that. He said that out loud and on
Speaker 1: news Maxine. So when we see what we're up against
Speaker 1: and we know what could work is care and compassion,
Speaker 1: what does it look like for us to get there?
Speaker 2: Yeah, No, that's a great that's a great question. And
Speaker 2: I you know, I wish I was. I'm not an
Speaker 2: organizer or a political strategist, So I think some your
Speaker 2: right at a systemic institutional level, we need those leaders
Speaker 2: to take those stands. This is about integrity. This is
Speaker 2: about like living your values and wanting to care for
Speaker 2: your citizenship, which just into art. And actually, did you
Speaker 2: know accountability is for a form of care And it
Speaker 2: really is because if you decide that you're going to
Speaker 2: take responsibility for your actions and know that you are,
Speaker 2: you know, like Donald Trump, you are not the only
Speaker 2: person in the world that our freedoms are interconnected. That
Speaker 2: the situatedness, the specificity of the freedom that I have
Speaker 2: in my life depends on your freedom, right like because
Speaker 2: other people make like they expand my capacity for freedom.
Speaker 2: And we saw that again with the COVID crisis, right
Speaker 2: like with the pandemic of you know, people deciding to
Speaker 2: be accountable to the situation of this global public health
Speaker 2: the pandemic, and deciding to hold themselves accountable. In New Zealand,
Speaker 2: it only it didn't take that long because everyone decided.
Speaker 2: Everyone made that choice, and thanks to that leadership, as
Speaker 2: you said, they were able to then live the past
Speaker 2: couple of years very differently than how we've experienced it
Speaker 2: in the United States. This is something it's hard because
Speaker 2: I'm a pragmatist. Like this is why in my book too,
Speaker 2: I like area of like completely saying like get rid
Speaker 2: of their Capitalism has a ton of problems, especially how
Speaker 2: it's used by people. But it's like I live paycheck
Speaker 2: to paycheck, you know, it's like I'm reluctant to take
Speaker 2: these very definitive stands in some regard because I'm a pragmatist.
Speaker 2: So when it comes to that that leadership. Politically, I
Speaker 2: think people need to begin to work within their communities.
Speaker 2: But also like you know, you think about how like
Speaker 2: what kind of groups, what kind of communities, and what
Speaker 2: kind of networks do we operate in, and how can
Speaker 2: we promote the care and well being of all of
Speaker 2: us within those networks and communities, and for some people,
Speaker 2: you know, they can't necessarily take those stands, like it's
Speaker 2: a it might be too great of a risk to
Speaker 2: their own situation. But you know, like in the workplace,
Speaker 2: what if you reimagined policies in terms of care. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and I think again it's at a local level that
Speaker 2: this change can build. It's hard for me to answer
Speaker 2: that question, because you're right, they have this, they had,
Speaker 2: these very old white men have this death grip on
Speaker 2: this nation, and they live by, as you mentioned, equality
Speaker 2: being a zero sum game, meaning that there's a finite
Speaker 2: pie and oh my gosh, if you have a benefit,
Speaker 2: then I must lose something. As a response, it's such
Speaker 2: a white supremacist mindset zo zero some game. I don't
Speaker 2: think I have an easy answer for that other than
Speaker 2: what we've seen, you know, the past couple of days
Speaker 2: of people mobilizing and understanding that they really do have
Speaker 2: the power to go to I mean, if they are
Speaker 2: able to vote again, if they aren't impeded, if the
Speaker 2: if their districts aren't being jerrymandered, to go to the
Speaker 2: you know, the polls and vote and vote in that
Speaker 2: kind of change. But I do think more locally on
Speaker 2: a daily level. It's trying to center accountability and care
Speaker 2: and how we operate in the worlds that we live in,
Speaker 2: in the communities that we live in. I wish I
Speaker 2: had like a clear now.
Speaker 1: I mean, we're just you know, it's just I think
Speaker 1: that what you offer, what your book, Marci offers, is
Speaker 1: a possibility model, right. It's a place that provides us
Speaker 1: a historical understanding of how things have always worked and
Speaker 1: provides a framework for how they could work, how they
Speaker 1: should work. And I think that what we come to
Speaker 1: understand is that nothing is easy, right, and that where
Speaker 1: we have to be though, is a place of moving
Speaker 1: beyond what has been given and dream about something that
Speaker 1: is bigger, right, and think about something that is more
Speaker 1: than just being anti the thing right. And so I
Speaker 1: think and I and I think that that is what
Speaker 1: you do. And so I just want to say thank you,
Speaker 1: uh for for for writing this piece, folks. The book
Speaker 1: is breaking Free the Lie of equality and the feminist
Speaker 1: fight for freedom. And you know, Marcie, I really hope
Speaker 1: that you will join us again on on wok F
Speaker 1: because I love this conversation and I think that it's
Speaker 1: an important one for us to have and I didn't
Speaker 1: even get to ask you about, you know, the reframing
Speaker 1: of the narrative around feminism which has been weaponized. So
Speaker 1: that will be a part A, part two at some point, So.
Speaker 2: You do, Danielle.
Speaker 1: That is it for me today. Dear friends on wok F,
Speaker 1: always power to the people and to all the people power,
Speaker 1: get woke and stay woke as fuck.