Speaker 1: Native Land Pod is a production of iHeart Radio in
Speaker 1: partnership with Reasoned Choice Media.
Speaker 2: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, yes, Welcome home everybody. This is Andrew Gillim.
Speaker 1: I'm here with my beautiful hot hot literally hot co host.
Speaker 1: You are.
Speaker 3: I know, we host.
Speaker 4: We introduce you, Tiviny Crime and who are you?
Speaker 5: My name is Angela Rye. I'm live from the set
Speaker 5: and right woll.
Speaker 1: Technically we're just off the set.
Speaker 6: The Will Packer Amphitheater. We don't even have Will Packer
Speaker 6: with us today.
Speaker 7: I'm in.
Speaker 1: Also Florida and m But also you got a special
Speaker 1: relationship with Will.
Speaker 3: That's right, I tell you know.
Speaker 8: I text him a picture of the Will Packer and theater.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because he didn't have one proud of it.
Speaker 3: He's the.
Speaker 4: Anyway.
Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome home, everybody. We got a special special show
Speaker 1: and we're actually gonna get right into it because you know,
Speaker 1: we started a little bit later. Angelia insisted that the
Speaker 1: stage not have any covering, So.
Speaker 5: I'm really sorry, sorry.
Speaker 1: For all of our guests. Will be coming forward throughout
Speaker 1: the day. Just as you start to feel the sweat
Speaker 1: drip down your face, and through your shirt. You can
Speaker 1: thank Angelou Raie for having selected again no.
Speaker 5: Covering for also did and that is put napkins under
Speaker 5: your boobs.
Speaker 6: It works very well.
Speaker 3: How women know about it?
Speaker 1: Okay, we just re from being a PG thirteen show.
Speaker 1: Now you know we're explicit, So everybody again explicit.
Speaker 6: It's not explicit either.
Speaker 1: Way, y'all. We're about to get ready. Welcome to the
Speaker 1: highest of seven heels, Florida Agriculture and Mechanical University, also
Speaker 1: known as BAMN.
Speaker 3: If you say for mood.
Speaker 1: We know that you are not related to any of us.
Speaker 1: If you say at a m you we know that
Speaker 1: you were a guest. Will treat you as a visitor.
Speaker 7: The king.
Speaker 1: I was not the King of Origin and Green, but
Speaker 1: you should have been.
Speaker 8: Stage Go put on your hand, go put on your hand.
Speaker 8: I know, but you're blocking, can't you.
Speaker 1: He's a politician, our friend, your friend and our leader
Speaker 1: here in the state of Florida from Florida Senate is
Speaker 1: about to be joined by our future leader Florida Senate.
Speaker 1: In fact, both are senators. I think, I said the
Speaker 1: Florida House of Florida Senate Shevard Jones, alumnus of Florida
Speaker 1: Agricul University, Sir and future senator, former SGA president here
Speaker 1: two times, SGA president at Florida A and M University president.
Speaker 1: I was, but he hit it two times. It was
Speaker 1: so nice he had to do it twice. Check when
Speaker 1: that comes from them. But importantly, gentlemen, we are so
Speaker 1: so so happy to have you. Actually, I'm happy to
Speaker 1: have you. This is home for me, but it is also,
Speaker 1: by extension, home for these ladies. Yes, Angela calls herself
Speaker 1: an honorary rattler.
Speaker 7: I consent.
Speaker 1: I agree, uh, and Tiffany is another you along.
Speaker 3: But happy to be.
Speaker 8: It's all one big family and they but happy to
Speaker 8: be here. But yeah, bring it, as they're saying, the
Speaker 8: church bringing greetings, university.
Speaker 6: Up the road.
Speaker 1: Send any sin go single money, Oh Lord, send any money. Okay,
Speaker 1: when you bring greetings, see one to know that they
Speaker 1: send it past package. Welcome anyway, Senator, Yes, sir, I
Speaker 1: hope that you're up here not only celebrating homecoming, but
Speaker 1: helping to recruit a new colleague into the state Senate.
Speaker 9: Listen, I sent him some some love yesterday and we
Speaker 9: got to sing him a little bit more to get
Speaker 9: him across the finishing line.
Speaker 1: All right, yeah, I sent him some money, yes, Aryl asked.
Speaker 10: Well, without question, Well, unfortunately the fundraising deadline was yesterday,
Speaker 10: but he did send money in time.
Speaker 11: I did. Yep.
Speaker 7: Maybe give me my props. Now, what's up?
Speaker 6: Daryl said, to be clear, as as an attorney, I
Speaker 6: did not violate.
Speaker 10: They're good, they're not, you know, but we're doing great.
Speaker 10: Senator Jones and his colleagues have done a great job
Speaker 10: of helping my campaign. Andrew saidate Democrats actually coming together
Speaker 10: to win a race, and I think on on Tuesday,
Speaker 10: we're gonna take back the Senate seat and flip it.
Speaker 7: Then we're gonna flip.
Speaker 10: The seat back right, and we're gonna This is the
Speaker 10: number one legislators race in the state, and we all
Speaker 10: have gotten behind it to win it. So it's been
Speaker 10: a very collective effort on our part.
Speaker 8: I've seen a lot of your commercials. They are like
Speaker 8: back to back in there, Yes, which is great. But
Speaker 8: a lot of our viewers are outside of Florida. So
Speaker 8: if people who don't live in Florida, what is the
Speaker 8: relevancy your race? Why should they care? Why should they
Speaker 8: pay attention? Or they if they're hearing they should be
Speaker 8: so moved to send a donation for the next tone,
Speaker 8: I know, but for the next line, when you ask
Speaker 8: for re election, tell the people why they should care.
Speaker 10: It's the significance of it. So the Republicans came a
Speaker 10: couple of years ago. They jeremeded this particular district and
Speaker 10: designed it so that the Republican would have a better
Speaker 10: chance of winning. And they created a super district, so
Speaker 10: it's thirteen counties, it covers twenty percent of the geographic
Speaker 10: area of the whole state. And then they went and
Speaker 10: got a former football player, gave him lots of money
Speaker 10: and flipped the seat. And you probably recall our governor
Speaker 10: when he was campaigning in Iowa, he would brag about
Speaker 10: that there was a state Senate seat that had been
Speaker 10: Democratic for one hundred years. They flipped it for Democrat
Speaker 10: to republic And so this particular seat also, though, is
Speaker 10: one of the seats that gave the republic As the supermajority.
Speaker 10: So now we need to flip two seats back to
Speaker 10: take that super majority away. But that's important to the seat,
Speaker 10: and so we thought it important, I mean really in
Speaker 10: philosophically and what it represents to flip the seat back
Speaker 10: to Democrat. So I was lucky enough one decided that
Speaker 10: I could. I was that one of the people that
Speaker 10: could make this happen. And two the Senate Democrats sheriving
Speaker 10: in his colleagues decided that they would invest in it.
Speaker 10: And so the cool thing about it is that I
Speaker 10: had two eight hundred donors in the primary. And so
Speaker 10: you've seen a whole bunch of folks around the country,
Speaker 10: around the state, and around the city come and help
Speaker 10: me and did as I city. Today we probably have
Speaker 10: over four thousand donors, so we've raised Collectively, they raised
Speaker 10: about three point one million. I raised about two point
Speaker 10: six million on my side of it, and we're taking
Speaker 10: the seat back.
Speaker 5: Can you just for the sound, folks, if you can
Speaker 5: keep our mics up so we can hear each other,
Speaker 5: especially with the music, that'd be great.
Speaker 6: I want to ask you, Darryl, like, what was the
Speaker 6: impetus for you?
Speaker 5: You've been a civil rights lawyer, you've been on the
Speaker 5: ethics committee with the Bar, You've really dedicated your life
Speaker 5: to advocacy and service.
Speaker 6: What made you want to run for public office?
Speaker 10: Well, Angela is normally, I mean when you live in
Speaker 10: a good life like most folks in America. You see
Speaker 10: what's going on, and as Andrew tell you, we're very close.
Speaker 10: So I was involved in when Andrew ran and been around.
Speaker 7: Florida is important.
Speaker 10: Florida represents a lot to my family, to everything that
Speaker 10: I belong, that I am. And when you see what
Speaker 10: the people in power are doing, how they're managing it,
Speaker 10: you have to ask yourself that somebody capable has to
Speaker 10: start the cycle the flip. You just can't keep giving up.
Speaker 10: And so, like you say, being and I did great
Speaker 10: civil rights work. I have a great name in this town.
Speaker 10: I knew and the Republicans knew that I was the
Speaker 10: type of person that could beat their guy. And we're
Speaker 10: beating their guy. And on Tuesday, he's going home back
Speaker 10: to the couch.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 1: I know y'all are visiting Angela and Tiffany. But and
Speaker 1: the ads that his opponent is running and he's certainly
Speaker 1: an otherwise decent person, is spending most of this time
Speaker 1: talking biography, and we come together. Now he's the incumbent.
Speaker 1: When you the incumbent in the seat, everybody knows you
Speaker 1: talk about what you've done public policy wise, how you've
Speaker 1: improved the area in which you have been elected to
Speaker 1: represent And I found it interesting, Darryl that as between
Speaker 1: the two of you, you're the one talking about.
Speaker 6: Issues the incumbent that sound familiar.
Speaker 1: It's not talking about but that's what that's what the
Speaker 1: Republicans constantly run on.
Speaker 9: If you even look at Corey Senator Simon and what
Speaker 9: he has done since he's been in this I mean
Speaker 9: sending assignment, I mean he signed with the Republicans on
Speaker 9: all of the black history, elimination of black history, as
Speaker 9: far as ap African American studies. He ran the bill
Speaker 9: in the Education Committee, and we even when asked to
Speaker 9: him in committee like yo, dude, you you're a black
Speaker 9: man running a bill like this, and his justification of
Speaker 9: it was just mind blowing, not just to the Democrats,
Speaker 9: even to the people on his side and how he
Speaker 9: was able to convey a message of reasoning or why
Speaker 9: did he support this type of legislation. I also say
Speaker 9: why we need Daryl in the Senate is because we're deadlocked.
Speaker 7: We're gonna have a three fourth.
Speaker 9: So by the time we get into the legislator, whether
Speaker 9: we show up or not, they can start session or
Speaker 9: whether we're going to committee or not. We can't break nothing,
Speaker 9: but with this one, I know we can't because I
Speaker 9: believe there is an absolute pushback that's going to have
Speaker 9: to happen, because I think they are already setting up
Speaker 9: what they want to do for next session.
Speaker 7: They wanna make it harder for ballot.
Speaker 6: Initiatives next year.
Speaker 1: Of course, I know for a fact they're.
Speaker 9: Gonna go after local governments again, and we need to
Speaker 9: have the numbers to be able to block a lot
Speaker 9: of this stuff that's absolutely happening. I think they're going
Speaker 9: to continue to eat at our public education system. And
Speaker 9: it's not something that I am talking hypothetical. I'm talking
Speaker 9: something that I know what's happening, that absolutely brewing in
Speaker 9: the background.
Speaker 1: So could you explain to me why it is that
Speaker 1: Florida and the Florida Legislature is gifting the country so
Speaker 1: many black Republican elected officials. We got Byron Donaldson, Donalds.
Speaker 6: Donald donald disrespect on his name.
Speaker 1: I didn't know him.
Speaker 6: He ain't even finished here, Donaldson.
Speaker 1: Donald's. We got Simon, who we hopefully will be retiring soon.
Speaker 1: But what about the Florida Legislature keeps producing these.
Speaker 3: Byron Donaldson Toby.
Speaker 6: To stop making I have.
Speaker 10: Pledged and they have a new one too, called Grace Glass.
Speaker 10: She's running against Gallop right now. Oh really, Grace Glass
Speaker 10: is her name. She's from Bavard County. She came here
Speaker 10: to work for the say this real? And so I said,
Speaker 10: I was at a Ya politic with these people and
Speaker 10: that beautiful young lady and I was trying to understand
Speaker 10: her psyche. Yeah, and so so at lunch, I hope
Speaker 10: I didn't really disrespectful, I said, was you are a
Speaker 10: real Republican.
Speaker 3: I think I just I want to.
Speaker 8: Take a quick moment just to our viewers, because if
Speaker 8: you're tuning in and you don't live in Florida, you
Speaker 8: you might be, you know, maybe not as focused on
Speaker 8: Florida issues. So I think it's important for our viewers
Speaker 8: out there to know who are all across the country
Speaker 8: that a lot of these crappy policies bubble up from
Speaker 8: the state legislature. Right now, a majority of state legislatures
Speaker 8: are run by Republicans. So before you all ever heard
Speaker 8: about book bands, before you ever heard about the attacks
Speaker 8: on critical race theory that originated in Florida. It originated
Speaker 8: at a lot of school board meetings. It originated and
Speaker 8: then that bubled up to state legislature. So that's why
Speaker 8: we're talking the local elected officials. So I just want
Speaker 8: to make it make sense for the folks out there
Speaker 8: as much as you guys.
Speaker 10: Again, but it all starts from the twenty twenty five
Speaker 10: national policy. So what you really see is kind of
Speaker 10: like that alex model that we saw years ago.
Speaker 6: Yeah, Legislative Exchange councilor yeah.
Speaker 7: Yeah, it's the Republicans.
Speaker 10: That's tough Conference twenty twenty five in the sense right
Speaker 10: they go they pull these policies from that meeting and
Speaker 10: they started running in bills.
Speaker 5: Like in play yes, literally copy and paste. Well, we
Speaker 5: are so grateful that you all have joined us today.
Speaker 11: Thank you.
Speaker 5: We are thrilled to have you, and we know that
Speaker 5: we're going to see you around. Right off this set,
Speaker 5: we are Andrew.
Speaker 1: Before we let them go, they quickly give us their
Speaker 1: estimation of what will happen for Harris Wallas of Florida.
Speaker 9: I think that that Vice President Harris will do well
Speaker 9: in Florida, and I think plus one really wow.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think Florida's gonna go blue.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I'm gonna tell you why.
Speaker 9: Because people are not paying attention to the independence Independences
Speaker 9: are leading Democrat. There are a third YEP, and we're
Speaker 9: learning that in Miami Dade County while Miami Dade County,
Speaker 9: I know, our numbers are looking pretty weird right now,
Speaker 9: but we have more independents who are leaning Democrat, and
Speaker 9: we're novging because we did track Poland and we're noticing
Speaker 9: that they are leaning towards Kamla Harris.
Speaker 7: So I think it's going to be a big upset.
Speaker 7: And the Republicans are they are running scared.
Speaker 9: They're running scared on three, they're running scared on four,
Speaker 9: They're running scared on candidates because it's unpredictable because it
Speaker 9: is that left leg. And we just saw some numbers
Speaker 9: while I was driving here today that showed that as
Speaker 9: far as where the independents are lining up in Miami
Speaker 9: Dade County, particularly in one one of them, and I say,
Speaker 9: this is gonna shut up that even in Miami Dade
Speaker 9: County in District one thirteen, the Independents have voted over
Speaker 9: the Republicans almost plus two point three percent in jj
Speaker 9: r's old district, which is wow, just democratic.
Speaker 7: Yes, yeah, that's six.
Speaker 3: What you got to say, without question, what we.
Speaker 11: Did as early as last week.
Speaker 10: We see we have an eight point advantage with independence,
Speaker 10: So independence are that edge. And you know, for example,
Speaker 10: you get these news reporters saying, well, the Republicans are
Speaker 10: really showing up.
Speaker 11: Yeah, it's showing up.
Speaker 10: But one, this is a fifture three percent Democratic district
Speaker 10: that I'm running in and we have an eight point advantage,
Speaker 10: which is outside the era of Roger Vera.
Speaker 7: Exactly.
Speaker 1: Well, we want to think again. Our guests one sitting
Speaker 1: Senator Chevyn Jones and the Florida Senator and in just
Speaker 1: five more days, our next four more day days, the
Speaker 1: next Senator for the State of Florida, Democrats Attorney.
Speaker 5: Next up, we have Melanie Campbell, who is the President
Speaker 5: and CEO of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation.
Speaker 6: We have our good sister shavon.
Speaker 5: Our Line Bradley, who is the President and CEO of
Speaker 5: the National Council of Negro Women. And we have doctor
Speaker 5: Stacy Grant, the international president for Zeta Phi Beta Sorority.
Speaker 5: Clap it up as they the state get, we get some,
Speaker 5: we get some.
Speaker 8: I can't take another piece of clothing on me. Are
Speaker 8: so hot, I'm I'm about to lose cling.
Speaker 3: Yeah, behind right behind you.
Speaker 6: So good to see you. Thank you, guys.
Speaker 1: Get those couches together.
Speaker 6: We don't want to Oh yeah, they has a careful yeah,
Speaker 6: why to get there there?
Speaker 3: I want you all to know. It's about one and
Speaker 3: thirty degrees.
Speaker 8: But I hear, I feel a fan and it's a
Speaker 8: lively environment here on famu's campus. I heard Black Street
Speaker 8: earlier and then at some point I hope we do
Speaker 8: the can we Talk challenge? Can we It's like when
Speaker 8: they start playing can We Talk? And then they goes
Speaker 8: out and the whole audience.
Speaker 6: Oh, the whole song. Yeah, that's a great idea. Till yeah, Well,
Speaker 6: we have some powers on the stage joining us.
Speaker 5: One thing that we know, and I think Andrew will attest,
Speaker 5: it's given the powerful black woman he's married to, and
Speaker 5: the powerful black mom and he raised.
Speaker 6: Him and his powerful black sister. And if we wile
Speaker 6: black co hosts, oh yes, oh yes.
Speaker 7: Now.
Speaker 5: The other thing I'm gonna say was what we know
Speaker 5: is that when black women are involved, we can get
Speaker 5: the thing done every time. So talk to us about
Speaker 5: the work you all are doing right now in a
Speaker 5: very nonpartisan way, because I know you are in your
Speaker 5: non pos yes, you got them on.
Speaker 6: But talk about the importance of the black vote this season.
Speaker 5: What you all are hearing you all are in battleground states,
Speaker 5: traveling the country making sure that we are getting out
Speaker 5: to exercise our franchise because we know democracy is fragile
Speaker 5: and it's hanging in the balance.
Speaker 12: Well, first of all, thank you all for so I'm
Speaker 12: so excited to hear yes, come to my home state exactly.
Speaker 12: You know, you know I went to Clark but you
Speaker 12: know HBC, you love and as we sit in our
Speaker 12: aka both delta but real quickly been on this tour.
Speaker 12: We started a year ago in Florida for thirty days,
Speaker 12: just going from community community, listening to the folks to
Speaker 12: let us know what was concerning them. And then we
Speaker 12: did it again in the spring. But since October twelfth,
Speaker 12: we've been in seven states with its Power to Ballot tour.
Speaker 12: That it's called Freedom and Joy.
Speaker 1: Yes, I love it.
Speaker 12: And our tagline is we won't be erased and we
Speaker 12: won't go back. Somehow that's become a part of some
Speaker 12: term but I don't know why, but you know, it
Speaker 12: is what it is. But what we've been, what I
Speaker 12: have seen and what we've seen is that black folks
Speaker 12: are fired up, that we are right. And also I
Speaker 12: was talking to uh Uh Shavan and telling them when
Speaker 12: I hit Pittsburgh, that's when you saw some of the
Speaker 12: other uglinesses out there.
Speaker 7: Is ugliness is out there now.
Speaker 12: But our people are clear that African drum beats beating
Speaker 12: that we know this is not the normal election.
Speaker 1: This is of our future.
Speaker 6: And uh and young people all over this campus. We've
Speaker 6: been over here.
Speaker 12: We've been here since yesterday, but we've been in Michigan
Speaker 12: and Ohio and Pennsylvania, Maryland, Georgia, Alabama. We're not gonna
Speaker 12: forget the South, and that's why we're in Florida as well.
Speaker 7: But it's it's it's something.
Speaker 6: It's been something, and it's also been exciting and evailorating
Speaker 6: because we're not going nowhere.
Speaker 1: We built this country, as Angela says, for free.
Speaker 3: It's data five Beta.
Speaker 8: I will be remiss if I did not say my
Speaker 8: brother is a proud member of five Beta siblings.
Speaker 1: So love it.
Speaker 7: Yes, my father was a signal.
Speaker 6: That's why we live.
Speaker 13: We love the blue and white.
Speaker 11: I mean, we are under.
Speaker 14: But seriously though the power in being here, I too
Speaker 14: want to thank you for this conversation because everyone's paying
Speaker 14: attention to the D nine. So not only am I
Speaker 14: here as international President of Zata Phi Beta, I'm also
Speaker 14: proud to be the vice chairwoman of our councilor president.
Speaker 14: So I want to shout out the Honorable Chris Ray
Speaker 14: j D who is our chairman, and all of the
Speaker 14: presidents of the D nine. We work together as a unit.
Speaker 14: It's not just a hashtag D nine Stronger together. It's
Speaker 14: understanding that outside of the Black Church, one of the
Speaker 14: largest institutions of our people overre two point five million.
Speaker 14: So as we come together to educate our communities on
Speaker 14: what's on the ballot, that's the important part of this conversation.
Speaker 14: No stone can be left unturned. We can't take for
Speaker 14: granted that everyone is going to go to vote. So
Speaker 14: we have been intentional on our work and as our
Speaker 14: chairman would say, unless you're exhausted on November sixth, you
Speaker 14: didn't do your black job. So our job is to
Speaker 14: make sure that all of our members are not only
Speaker 14: mobilizing and educating the electorate, but they too are bringing
Speaker 14: people to the polls.
Speaker 13: They're understanding this.
Speaker 14: Is not just about the White House, it's the down ballot, right,
Speaker 14: it's to understand that every single election counts. It's working
Speaker 14: and collaborating with organizations like you see here today and
Speaker 14: being for the sororities. We're a part of NCNW, an
Speaker 14: organization of organization leaders, so we're bringing everybody to the
Speaker 14: table because our lives are on the ballots. So the
Speaker 14: power and knowing that as a D nine is more
Speaker 14: than a sorority party, as some person trying to our proclaim,
Speaker 14: but that we have been in the community for over
Speaker 14: one hundred years plus doing this work every day because
Speaker 14: our founders charged us to make the world better than
Speaker 14: how we found it through scholarships, sisterhood, and brotherhood.
Speaker 6: I have a quick question for the Reverend SHVN. I
Speaker 6: gotta ask you.
Speaker 5: We had Jamal Harrison Brian join us on our podcast
Speaker 5: and is killing it Like we're starting to see so
Speaker 5: many numbers because I think that black folks really feel torn.
Speaker 5: And I'm generalizing here, but some of us who grew
Speaker 5: up in the church feel really torn about some of
Speaker 5: the social values that we were taught that were kind
Speaker 5: of drilled into our minds. And then what is on
Speaker 5: the ballot this time? I gotta ask you says, when
Speaker 5: you're talking to folks about reproductive justice and the number
Speaker 5: of lives that hang in the balance because of what's
Speaker 5: on the ballot via initiatives, and of course with who's
Speaker 5: at the top of the ticket, how do you thread
Speaker 5: that needle.
Speaker 6: You're powerful, you are anointed.
Speaker 5: Like, let me just be very clear, this is what
Speaker 5: talks to the most time, So I want to be
Speaker 5: clear about that. I just want to know what do
Speaker 5: you say to the church folks that are like, I
Speaker 5: need to know how I'm making this point to folks
Speaker 5: who are like completely like.
Speaker 6: You know, the anti crisis at that top, you know,
Speaker 6: like nonsense.
Speaker 15: First of all, I love it. I'm so excited to hear.
Speaker 15: And I think one of the things I have to
Speaker 15: do with is called I call it moral mischief because
Speaker 15: it's context. But people have been taught, it's been ingrained
Speaker 15: in us to other people in the church, and an
Speaker 15: issue like reproductive justice for me is personal and Angeley
Speaker 15: knows this. I mean, I struggle intensely with conceiving and
Speaker 15: have lost children, and the condition that I had, I
Speaker 15: actually would have lost care under the current DoD's decision.
Speaker 15: So the children that I lost, I could have been
Speaker 15: arrested for some of the procedures that I had to
Speaker 15: actually have. And I've birthed one son, and I tell
Speaker 15: people all the time in the church, this is not
Speaker 15: about your conviction. This is about constitutional freedom. You can
Speaker 15: have your belief. No one's ever tried to change your belief.
Speaker 15: But what we are saying is if they can come
Speaker 15: in and tell you what to do with your body,
Speaker 15: what happens when they come in and say you can't
Speaker 15: go to this church anymore. What happens when they take
Speaker 15: you Jesus away from you? What happens when they tell
Speaker 15: you you can't go to that school, you can't go
Speaker 15: to this school? And the moral mischief, it is so
Speaker 15: consuming of us because we feel like we're gonna go
Speaker 15: to hell if we say these steps, and it scares
Speaker 15: people even.
Speaker 7: Away from the polls.
Speaker 15: So you'll see black preachers saying things like I can't
Speaker 15: vote for ex party right and playing it plays a
Speaker 15: game that confuses the mind. And I'm gonna tell you something.
Speaker 15: It is a concerted effort. It is a coordinated plan.
Speaker 15: And to the evangelizic evangelical Christians that are out there,
Speaker 15: let me tell you something. Evangelical just means to evangelize.
Speaker 3: They have their word, and it is wrong.
Speaker 15: Black people are actually evangelical because we tell good news,
Speaker 15: we evangelize. But what the political pundits have done is
Speaker 15: use that word, kidnapped it, misconstrued and confused minds to
Speaker 15: make you think that that if I now am evangelical,
Speaker 15: if I am pro life, well, if you're pro life,
Speaker 15: then that means you're pro all life. That means your
Speaker 15: pro Black life, your pro Brown life, you're pro all
Speaker 15: life for all the stages, in all ages and spaces.
Speaker 15: Let me close with this around the church and the
Speaker 15: faith piece, because Black people are a people of resilience
Speaker 15: and we are a people of faith, whatever your faith is.
Speaker 15: But we are still the largest number of Americans that
Speaker 15: attend the church. Now as that's still decreasing, our population
Speaker 15: still engages in fellowship. And this is why I call
Speaker 15: on black preachers, want to advance your black women clergy,
Speaker 15: the ones that can give life, so we can speak.
Speaker 7: About the life that we are affecting.
Speaker 15: But also I tell my brothers and sisters behind the claw,
Speaker 15: do not misconstrue the Gospel for your own plan. Do
Speaker 15: not do that, because that's not what Jesus does. Jesus
Speaker 15: is justice. It's an alignment. And if we're talking about
Speaker 15: this social justice space voting, this is of God. It
Speaker 15: is of God for you to go to vote. Why
Speaker 15: because he calls on us to engage in the governor's work.
Speaker 15: That's what we talked about in the world. So we
Speaker 15: are really seeing a the real challenge in the body
Speaker 15: of Christ where black and white and Hispanic and Asian
Speaker 15: are all in this molthy pot of confusion. But the
Speaker 15: Black Church is being called out in a way that
Speaker 15: is just so disgusting, but it is so racist, and
Speaker 15: that's what that's actually how this institution started.
Speaker 3: An I want to.
Speaker 8: Just say really quickly because there are so many people
Speaker 8: I know being weaned on the teachings of Washington, DC
Speaker 8: that you all are common knowledge to us, But there
Speaker 8: are so many young people, unfortunately, who are not familiar
Speaker 8: with the work of NCNW National Council of Negro Women
Speaker 8: founded by doctor Dorothy Hyde. I was vice president of
Speaker 8: the Millennial section that was forever ago, twenty four years ago. Yeah,
Speaker 8: I learned how to organized through National Council of Negro Women,
Speaker 8: and that was meant to carry the message for younger people,
Speaker 8: and it's time for another generation of younger people to
Speaker 8: carry forward the mission of NC ANDW.
Speaker 3: So I wanted to offer our viewers that background.
Speaker 8: But I also want to point out I met a
Speaker 8: woman in the audience who is an advocate for Amendment
Speaker 8: for Right here in floor Florida, which essentially codifies abortion
Speaker 8: rights here in the state. Something shocking is that they
Speaker 8: were told they could not tent or table here at
Speaker 8: fam you. Unfortunately, I haven't had time to look into
Speaker 8: the background of it, but my surmise perhaps because it may.
Speaker 3: Be an issue with state funded schools.
Speaker 8: Yeah, Republicans leadership Ron DeSantis, who has invested interest in
Speaker 8: silencing these voices and making sure that this amendment doesn't pass,
Speaker 8: And our previous guests talked about how important ballid initiatives are.
Speaker 8: So this is where why we have local elected officials here,
Speaker 8: This is where the local government meets the federal government
Speaker 8: and Republicans at one point in time, we're all about
Speaker 8: small government except when it comes to our bodies, except
Speaker 8: our choice, productive rights, and our choices exactly, except when
Speaker 8: it comes to anything that they want to have control over.
Speaker 8: So I just wanted to make sure that we highlight
Speaker 8: Amendment for right here in Florida. Please, if you are
Speaker 8: a resident of Florida, I'll look into it.
Speaker 3: Do the right thing.
Speaker 8: And I want to thank the woman in the audience
Speaker 8: who told me about amendment for it. Thank you for
Speaker 8: being here with us.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I and the we need to keep allies like
Speaker 1: you all at the national level close to states like Florida.
Speaker 1: For sure, as we laid out previous to your arrival,
Speaker 1: that these states oftentimes are the play field for much
Speaker 1: of what ultimately happens at the federal level. They tested
Speaker 1: with the guinea pigs. For sure. Ron de Santis is
Speaker 1: the biggest of the of the perpetrators of making Florida
Speaker 1: the guinea pig of the new extreme right. You talked
Speaker 1: about the suspension of these rights on campuses, but he's
Speaker 1: spent over I think the estimate is over fifty million
Speaker 1: in public taxpayer dollars against.
Speaker 6: Well, that's why we came a year ago.
Speaker 7: That's right.
Speaker 6: We know what the state would have.
Speaker 12: Been like had you That's happening in our home state,
Speaker 12: which is why we wanted to make sure we stayed
Speaker 12: a whole month.
Speaker 6: When we started.
Speaker 12: This was because so many things and what we wanted
Speaker 12: to point out about Florida was if you want to
Speaker 12: know what fascism looks like, come to this of Florida.
Speaker 12: And so what I'm seeing though, is a resurgence of
Speaker 12: organizing in this state. And because the numbers have always
Speaker 12: been there, right, And so he came run a second time, right,
Speaker 12: And I was glad to see them, just speaking as a.
Speaker 7: Native of Florida.
Speaker 12: Yes, and see Darren Parks up here and I ran
Speaker 12: into it earlier home. And how important it is that
Speaker 12: we don't turn this state over because the numbers are there.
Speaker 12: Florida has a young demographic. People still see Florida, you
Speaker 12: see Mickey Mouse and all that. But when it comes
Speaker 12: and then they say retirement. The truth of the matter,
Speaker 12: you know this that a lot of young people the
Speaker 12: state has changed, and the numbers are there that I
Speaker 12: believe that there's gonna be surgeon. And the reason we're
Speaker 12: in the South too, is because if sixty percent of
Speaker 12: black people live in the South, if we want to
Speaker 12: see this country change, we have to make sure the
Speaker 12: South changes.
Speaker 6: In Alabama, but take them, that's such.
Speaker 8: A it's such a common understanding. Like the racism and
Speaker 8: the suppression is almost baked in and how the media
Speaker 8: covers the electoral map. What would it take given that
Speaker 8: a majority of us either currently live in the South
Speaker 8: or we originate from the South, and there are small
Speaker 8: pockets of evidence of a remigration, you know, where people
Speaker 8: are the South right, So what does it take to
Speaker 8: actually change those numbers? And I asked Mellie, because you
Speaker 8: know this, when we were in Atlanta, Atlanta in the
Speaker 8: nineties was a different city. Today I look at Atlanta
Speaker 8: and this is no shade. I grew up in Atlanta.
Speaker 8: I love Atlanta, but there are so many transplants who
Speaker 8: do not appreciate what the magic is of having that
Speaker 8: black ass city run by black officials, creating black wealth
Speaker 8: with black homeowners, black college graduates taught by black people.
Speaker 8: And I think when transplants come and they like the
Speaker 8: city of Oz, everything is gold. And I run a
Speaker 8: studio in my baseman and I got a hair salon
Speaker 8: or whatever. But it takes responsibility to hold on to that.
Speaker 8: So what does it take to change the South?
Speaker 6: Vote next year?
Speaker 10: Vote in these state legislative races.
Speaker 3: That has stated trouble.
Speaker 12: The power dynamic in these states because of state like Mississippi,
Speaker 12: we saw try to move up now.
Speaker 6: The reality is when they.
Speaker 12: Control the legislature, they those who don't believe in inclusion,
Speaker 12: take over the state legislation, take over the governors races,
Speaker 12: and then they take over the census.
Speaker 7: Then you end up with this like reversal.
Speaker 12: And you're trying to come back to it, but we
Speaker 12: have to really find a way, uh, to to continue
Speaker 12: next year, to keep it's going, because.
Speaker 6: That's the only way going otherwise, you know.
Speaker 13: And then.
Speaker 15: That's what I'm gonna say, because you can be the
Speaker 15: blackest state in the Union and still not have power
Speaker 15: in the state legislature.
Speaker 3: That's which makes no sense.
Speaker 15: So the real question will it becomes is one who's
Speaker 15: running to who's mobilizing? And then three where where does
Speaker 15: real power line? Because that's the real question we have
Speaker 15: to start answering. This question about power has been the challenge.
Speaker 15: The dynamics won't shift until the people see themselves as
Speaker 15: the power. So that's that that comes from us mobilizing,
Speaker 15: that comes from these the Native Land podcast is power
Speaker 15: because you get to own the message, you get to
Speaker 15: own the content, the context. But if we're raising young
Speaker 15: generations to not see themselves as the power, then they're
Speaker 15: not gonna run.
Speaker 7: They're not gonna see.
Speaker 16: Value in this.
Speaker 15: So there's no way we can say that we're and
Speaker 15: we always see I'm I'm a Jersey girl, so I'm
Speaker 15: a by way of Florida planned city. And I feel
Speaker 15: I think about why we say the South has something
Speaker 15: to say. The South already has said it, but has
Speaker 15: the South mobilized to get it? And what I'm saying
Speaker 15: is that this black excellence about Atlanta is real. Manard
Speaker 15: Jackson was a whole phenomenon in.
Speaker 6: And of itself.
Speaker 15: We're not even having that conversation about who do we
Speaker 15: train the contracts to prepare the next generation of power seekers.
Speaker 15: It's about power.
Speaker 7: It's not just money.
Speaker 15: It's power, position money access.
Speaker 3: Right, that's position money access.
Speaker 1: That's not a president you're close to. We're closing.
Speaker 6: No, no, we're not, We're not yet. Hold on.
Speaker 5: I was just gonna say, if you all see Lolo
Speaker 5: Lolo Wavier your mic in the air. We didn't say
Speaker 5: at the beginning of the show that our shows are
Speaker 5: our live shows in particular. One you all know when
Speaker 5: we send in videos to get videos from you all
Speaker 5: every week to the podcast, but when we come to you,
Speaker 5: we want to make sure that it's an active and
Speaker 5: engaged conversation, because it is so much more than just voting.
Speaker 6: It's also utilizing your voice. So we have a mic
Speaker 6: here if you have a comment or a question while
Speaker 6: we have these incredible queen's up here. Andrew, I know
Speaker 6: you had a question.
Speaker 1: Well matter first of all, impressed with you every time
Speaker 1: I say you. I was doing the dishes.
Speaker 7: My wife was at her.
Speaker 1: Work station and we heard a voice in this interview
Speaker 1: responding to Donald Trump's whole party as he neglected the
Speaker 1: work of these CERTs and sororities. And there's this voice
Speaker 1: coming over speaking powerful truth.
Speaker 13: And I put the dish.
Speaker 16: Who was.
Speaker 7: She is good?
Speaker 1: So thank you for your representation not only of obviously
Speaker 1: your illustrious organization, but more broadly for black folks, including
Speaker 1: black Greeks. I did want to ask you your your
Speaker 1: organization obviously engages with alumni, adults, folks who are fully working,
Speaker 1: but also you're closest to young people, the folks who
Speaker 1: are your training to become your future alumni. I'm curious
Speaker 1: it's just what reed you've been getting as you all
Speaker 1: have moved around the country. As a relate said, this election,
Speaker 1: the potential of Harris as the next president.
Speaker 13: Absolutely so.
Speaker 14: For us as an organization, where proud that we did
Speaker 14: establish youth auxiliaries, the first to do that, and all
Speaker 14: of us have our youth auxiliaries now that we're working
Speaker 14: with because what we're allowing them to say and giving
Speaker 14: them platform. When we vote, we're voting for them. We're
Speaker 14: voting for their future. We have our young mikaz and
Speaker 14: our arcdents. They're making policy papers, they're talking to their teachers,
Speaker 14: they're holding their own forums on why it's important for
Speaker 14: their parents to vote, their relatives to vote, because we
Speaker 14: are preparing them for what it looks like to advocate
Speaker 14: for the rights of everybody. And thank you for your
Speaker 14: kind words. What I tell everyone is when you see me,
Speaker 14: you see every other black woman in this room and
Speaker 14: on this planet. I'm not here by myself, but because
Speaker 14: so many thousand came before me whose names will never
Speaker 14: be heard. And we are drinking from wells we did
Speaker 14: not dig. So we cannot take this for granted that
Speaker 14: we are sitting here advocating as a D nine stronger together.
Speaker 14: They see our colors, they see our shields. Everyone gets excited,
Speaker 14: but it's deeper. Than the surface. It's about the mission
Speaker 14: that our founders put us on so that we can
Speaker 14: uplift the community.
Speaker 13: We can't just get and keep, we get to give.
Speaker 14: So through our service and through elevating conversations, we are
Speaker 14: able to get out of this pocket of knowing where
Speaker 14: the Black state? But how do we now prepare with
Speaker 14: strategy around how we not only keep it but advance
Speaker 14: it for the future. So when you talked about reproductive rights,
Speaker 14: I didn't share until today publicly on Alive. I could
Speaker 14: have been arrested under these rules because I lost my
Speaker 14: child in between my two sons. This is serious and
Speaker 14: I love the Lord. I'm unapologetic about it. Anybody that
Speaker 14: knows me knows I don't.
Speaker 13: Play with my Jesus.
Speaker 14: But what we cannot do is allow other people to
Speaker 14: tell our story. We can't allow other people to shift
Speaker 14: the narrative of the truth. These alternate realities.
Speaker 6: That we're hearing.
Speaker 14: It's unreal and people are confused about the truth.
Speaker 13: And I think it was John Howard Wesley. I was
Speaker 13: John where he talked about true and truth.
Speaker 14: So if you believe something to be true, right, you
Speaker 14: believe that it's okay for in this state to tell
Speaker 14: children that slavery was good for them. Then it becomes
Speaker 14: your reality and you try to convince other people to
Speaker 14: join in. This election is about setting the record straight right,
Speaker 14: It's about making sure our young people understand that when
Speaker 14: we walk into that ballot box, it's for their future.
Speaker 14: So all of our organizations have been on the ground
Speaker 14: every single state, every single community, having these conversations.
Speaker 13: Shout out to this podcast for the work.
Speaker 14: That you do, because what I'm finding is that we
Speaker 14: are suffering an necessarily in silence because we're not elevating
Speaker 14: our voices. And when we elevate our voices, then we
Speaker 14: can talk about the truth of the small margins that
Speaker 14: win these elections. Many of people stay home and get
Speaker 14: frustrated and say, well, I'm not gonna be bothered. It's
Speaker 14: too much, I'm confused, I'm stressed out. Don't get stressed out.
Speaker 13: Do something.
Speaker 14: That's what Michelle Obama says, do something, and something means voting.
Speaker 14: So when you look into the eyes of a five
Speaker 14: year old who doesn't understand politics, but understands that they
Speaker 14: want their mother to live God forbid, something goes wrong.
Speaker 14: When you look at a teenage boy and my mother
Speaker 14: of two black men who I can say to them,
Speaker 14: do you understand what immunity means.
Speaker 13: On the ballot?
Speaker 14: Do you understand that if God forbid something happens, there's
Speaker 14: no recourse. These are the issues we need to talk about,
Speaker 14: and our young people are getting it. Yeah, they're understanding it.
Speaker 14: And because they see other peers coming together to have
Speaker 14: the conversations, it makes.
Speaker 13: It easier for us to move forward and.
Speaker 14: Not turn back the hands of time in twenty twenty four.
Speaker 14: That the blood that was shed on this country's ground
Speaker 14: has to be screaming from the grave if we allow
Speaker 14: us to go back to what they thought for us
Speaker 14: to walk through.
Speaker 3: We don't get to keep. We get to give.
Speaker 8: And I want you to know when I say that
Speaker 8: next week on the podcast, I'm giving you credit.
Speaker 3: I'm giving you credit, but I'm stealing it.
Speaker 5: I know we have to let you because y'all are
Speaker 5: going to your brunch and we've kept you long. But
Speaker 5: I do want to just say one thing. In addition
Speaker 5: to voting, we have to mobilize, and we do really appreciate,
Speaker 5: we're so grateful for the support that we've gotten from
Speaker 5: the community for the podcast. My ask of you all
Speaker 5: is to make sure that you share this segment that
Speaker 5: you're on with your membership.
Speaker 15: We're on right now.
Speaker 5: I make sure that you make sure that you share
Speaker 5: and tell them to tell a friend, because what this
Speaker 5: is is a convening of a safe space for all
Speaker 5: of us. We are your hosts, but we are merely
Speaker 5: the vessels and the facilitators for this space, so that
Speaker 5: everyone feels like they have an opportunity to share their opinions,
Speaker 5: to ask a question that they may have been too
Speaker 5: a shame to share.
Speaker 6: So continue to do that, and thank y'all so much
Speaker 6: for what you.
Speaker 12: Post all were put to do this for this moment.
Speaker 12: This is the binde of us are connected for a reason, right,
Speaker 12: Thank you all, and keep doing what you're doing and.
Speaker 6: Come getting the boat.
Speaker 14: Conditioning y'all, blessing over you, showing the black man's voice,
Speaker 14: black woman's voice, working together everyone, we'reparated.
Speaker 15: Love y'all.
Speaker 6: Thank thank you, love y'all, Thank you, thank you for everything.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 3: Get towels, sweat town, listen you were I tell y'all,
Speaker 3: I'm doing good.
Speaker 6: I got my napkins up under my boobs. I'm all right.
Speaker 3: Are we doing the sneak next man this way.
Speaker 5: Next we have the fox. Is there any questions? Are
Speaker 5: comments from the audience? If now we're gonna move along
Speaker 5: to our next man. All right, y'all are feeling quiet,
Speaker 5: you must be on one of them. We have Jasmine
Speaker 5: Bernie Clark, who is the Harris for President Florida State director.
Speaker 6: Y'all, sorry, we got we just gotta.
Speaker 3: Take the kind of forever.
Speaker 5: We have Lauren May who's the university trustee and holds
Speaker 5: the position that Andrew wants.
Speaker 6: Hell, she's the student body president.
Speaker 1: I was the first trustee.
Speaker 6: Okay, first trustee said get the history right.
Speaker 5: And then we have Christopher Matthews who's the president of
Speaker 5: Family's Chapter of Helping.
Speaker 6: Black Communities Unite. Thank you all for being here.
Speaker 5: Happy to see you, ja Don Lauren, I said, jazzmin Sorry,
Speaker 5: this is Jasmine Lauren.
Speaker 6: It's good to see you. We were handled together recent Jazz.
Speaker 8: Boss, Lauren and the young man in the middle. But
Speaker 8: we can make sure Christopher's mike is work and please.
Speaker 6: And put it a little closer. Thank you coming to
Speaker 6: you as well.
Speaker 1: How has it been so far? Tell us what we
Speaker 1: have to look forward to, and especially how voter registration
Speaker 1: and turnout is going for students, Yes, definitely.
Speaker 17: So it has been going great so far. My vice president,
Speaker 17: Decree Williams, has been doing a great job with planning homecoming.
Speaker 17: We've had some different things this year. A lot of
Speaker 17: our events have been at the Willpacker Amphitheater and I
Speaker 17: think that's and it has made the student engagement go
Speaker 17: up a lot. Tonight we have the n PhD Step
Speaker 17: Show tomorrow is the game. I know everybody is looking
Speaker 17: forward to that. And as far as voters registration, we
Speaker 17: have been doing a lot of things, you know, get
Speaker 17: the students out there. We just had a stroll to
Speaker 17: the polls. We had all the Divine nine organizations out
Speaker 17: with Campus Vote Project and it was a great turnout.
Speaker 17: And I think the students they're very geared up to
Speaker 17: vote this year.
Speaker 3: And I see you're pink and green.
Speaker 6: Yes, definitely, Yes, I love that.
Speaker 5: One of the things I remember, Lauren, we did a
Speaker 5: panel together recently in Bringingham. You talked about being raised
Speaker 5: in a family of politicians.
Speaker 6: Yes, definitely. How has that mattered for you in this
Speaker 6: election cycle?
Speaker 5: In particular, how have you used that history within your
Speaker 5: own family to motivate folks to go.
Speaker 6: Out and vote.
Speaker 5: There's literally an early voting station across the street from
Speaker 5: where we are, right across set. Yes, sorry, right across
Speaker 5: the set from where we are, across from will Packer Amphitheater.
Speaker 1: Yes, definitely.
Speaker 17: I think as student body president, it's not only important
Speaker 17: for me to advocate and put out information about voters,
Speaker 17: education and registration, but for me to actually be doing
Speaker 17: the things that we're talking about, Because if the representation
Speaker 17: of the student body isn't getting out there, voting and
Speaker 17: getting my hands dirty, how can I encourage the rest
Speaker 17: of the student body to do the same.
Speaker 1: I love it, Jasmine. I know your hands are full here. Yes,
Speaker 1: it has been and is an organizer, continuing organizer, but
Speaker 1: right now is leading the Harris Wallas campaign here in
Speaker 1: the state of Florida. Yes, how has it been. I
Speaker 1: know we're at the top of the state, but I
Speaker 1: know energy has been on full display for the South.
Speaker 6: Energy has been electric.
Speaker 18: Since the transition has occurred here in the state of Florida,
Speaker 18: we have seen the highest number of voter participation we
Speaker 18: have ever seen in our state's history. And actually just
Speaker 18: recently this campaign has received more participation by way of
Speaker 18: volunteers and voter contact than the last four presidential elections
Speaker 18: in history. So that is a testament to the amount
Speaker 18: of people who are feeling this campaign, not only you know,
Speaker 18: through thoughts, prayers, and support, but they're actually digging in
Speaker 18: and getting engaged. We have county parties who are trying
Speaker 18: to figure out where to put all of these people
Speaker 18: in their offices because they're so full of enthusiasm across
Speaker 18: the state.
Speaker 1: So what's your projection. I know you've got to be
Speaker 1: optimistic as a director, but.
Speaker 18: We're incredibly wantimistic. We are excited about what we're seeing.
Speaker 18: Here's the thing. We know that Republicans have a million
Speaker 18: vote margin here in the state of Florida, but we
Speaker 18: are not seeing that actually show up in early vote numbers.
Speaker 18: We're not seeing that be represented. So you may have
Speaker 18: registered them, but you never engage them. You're not talking
Speaker 18: to them. We are bringing folks over to our side.
Speaker 18: We're bringing as many Republicans and independence into the fold
Speaker 18: as we possibly can, and they're showing up and they're
Speaker 18: bringing other folks with them.
Speaker 8: Christopher, I love having you on the panel because one
Speaker 8: thing that we do on this show is tried as
Speaker 8: often as possible to center the voices of everybody, especially
Speaker 8: black men. If our viewers would call our past few shows,
Speaker 8: we've had an i say, asymmetric number of black male guests.
Speaker 3: Now I know my peer group.
Speaker 8: And my seniors and the people right below me, and
Speaker 8: they are enthusiastic to vote for Vice President Harris despite
Speaker 8: this false media narrative perpetuated by folks who don't look
Speaker 8: like us. I'm curious from your peer group, who I
Speaker 8: don't have the privilege of talking to as much, how
Speaker 8: confident are you that young black men are going to
Speaker 8: show up to these polls enthusiastically on Tuesday.
Speaker 16: I'm pretty enthusiastic about it. I think most black men
Speaker 16: are supporting Harris at this point in time, and I
Speaker 16: think that's never kind of been an issue amongst us.
Speaker 16: We've always kind of demonstrated our support for her. I
Speaker 16: do think there may be a slight turnout for Trump
Speaker 16: or for the other side and the replica Republican Party,
Speaker 16: but I don't think that's gonna negate the fact that
Speaker 16: black men have an overwhelming support for Kamala Harris.
Speaker 3: Do you hear people saying that in your peer group?
Speaker 8: Do you hear people talking to you about okay, and
Speaker 8: what is the what is their I guess attraction, like
Speaker 8: what attracts them to the other side of this divide.
Speaker 16: Honestly, I wouldn't say it's attracting to the other side.
Speaker 16: I think a lot of them feel like their versus
Speaker 16: voices haven't been heard. They feel like this, well, a
Speaker 16: lot of us are. A lot of them are looking
Speaker 16: at the state of the community and just thinking about
Speaker 16: what's you know, changing over these last four years, or
Speaker 16: what's over the last eight years. And most people are
Speaker 16: opting not to vote. That's what I kind of hear
Speaker 16: more so than like voting for Trump. I see most
Speaker 16: people saying I'm just not going to vote at all.
Speaker 16: And that's honestly where a lot of people are at
Speaker 16: nowadays in terms of like just seeing a political system
Speaker 16: in the government and.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what do you say to them?
Speaker 16: Yeah, I respond to them. So the way we do
Speaker 16: it with our organization HBCU, Inc. So we try to
Speaker 16: get the students engaged in different ways. So one method
Speaker 16: was just doing postcarding where they write postcards and put
Speaker 16: express their own ideas of what they want change to
Speaker 16: those people, and the postcards go out to Florida Virginia
Speaker 16: and other states around the nation. And this makes the
Speaker 16: students feel like they're engaged in actually doing something and
Speaker 16: getting their voice across instead of just you know, I'm
Speaker 16: gonna go to the selection and hope that they do
Speaker 16: something for me after it.
Speaker 8: So can I want to ask a follow up? And
Speaker 8: this is a straight up We try to keep it
Speaker 8: a buck on this show. So I am really curious when.
Speaker 6: Like you in the dorm with your people, you.
Speaker 1: He ain't do yeah, I'm fourth you or not, You're
Speaker 1: with your.
Speaker 3: Friends wherever you.
Speaker 8: Right, whatever is appropriate, and you hear somebody saying, yeah, man,
Speaker 8: I ain't even voting.
Speaker 3: Like, what's your straight up answer?
Speaker 8: Not the I'm on a podium answer, but like, straight up,
Speaker 8: how are you talking to your peers saying, my g
Speaker 8: that ain't it?
Speaker 3: What do you say?
Speaker 16: Well, first off, I do give them that answer. Okay,
Speaker 16: if you are going to go vote, make sure you
Speaker 16: educate yourself and give them incentive of powering them with
Speaker 16: that knowledge and not just like going again studying with
Speaker 16: these bills and amendments actually mean read the language of it, but.
Speaker 7: You're right.
Speaker 16: But when you educate them on what is actually on
Speaker 16: the ballot, like homestead and what does homestead actually mean
Speaker 16: if you're looking to potentially be a homeowner eventually, what
Speaker 16: does this mean to you? And actually connecting the amendments
Speaker 16: to them and their actual reality. And if honestly, if
Speaker 16: they say I'm not going to vote, then I say,
Speaker 16: check out my organ and our organization. We have a
Speaker 16: garden here on Family's campus. We're mentoring at Family DRS.
Speaker 16: This is weekly, so tomorrow we're going to be at
Speaker 16: the garden and everything like that. So there's also proactive
Speaker 16: ways besides just voting to change your community. And I
Speaker 16: think that's what is more appealing to people at this hour,
Speaker 16: is just self determination and self help and actually like
Speaker 16: building for themselves. We have a lot of I don't
Speaker 16: mean to go on around or anything, but we have
Speaker 16: a couple businesses within our organization. We have about ten
Speaker 16: businesses within our organization, and one of them is right there.
Speaker 16: She has a crochet clothing company called Noble Treasures. We
Speaker 16: have another another member on the side, he has a
Speaker 16: holistic healing company. So just yeah, teaching these students not
Speaker 16: only just voting is a method, but going out and
Speaker 16: doing something for yourself, creating a new reality shifting your
Speaker 16: lifestyle so you can shift the entire paradigm in which we.
Speaker 3: Live and how policy impacts small business owners.
Speaker 16: That's ma'am.
Speaker 13: Yes, ma'am, I love it.
Speaker 5: I want to just quickly and I know we have
Speaker 5: to let you go, Lauren. I know you're running today.
Speaker 5: You have to squeeze us in, so we're grateful. I
Speaker 5: want to just ask you really quickly, Jasmine. You talked
Speaker 5: about a million vote different like a basically like a
Speaker 5: gulf between progressives or Democratic leaning voters and Republicans.
Speaker 6: What do you think it will take for that margin
Speaker 6: to shift for Tuesday?
Speaker 18: So we are in a state where I think you
Speaker 18: already know project existence far before this document did, and
Speaker 18: we have been living under a governorship for the past
Speaker 18: five or six years where the reality is so bleak.
Speaker 18: We have experienced multiple hurricanes, where insurance is an issue,
Speaker 18: housing is an issue. When this campaign talks about price gouging,
Speaker 18: we're experiencing it as people are trying to escape to safety.
Speaker 18: So this isn't something that they're reading in a document.
Speaker 6: We're living.
Speaker 18: We've been experiencing it for a really long time, and
Speaker 18: I think people are finally connecting the dots they see
Speaker 18: who's in charge and who can make those decisions, and
Speaker 18: they see that in our governor, who takes his decisions
Speaker 18: from a mega party extremist boss, which is you know,
Speaker 18: Donald Trump, and folks are making that connection and saying,
Speaker 18: this does not work for me anymore. This does not
Speaker 18: serve me, It does not serve my family. Unfortunately. It
Speaker 18: takes natural disasters like that to impact people's lives in
Speaker 18: a real way. And it also takes ripping books out
Speaker 18: of schools, taking black history off of the curriculum, you know,
Speaker 18: attacking trans children, fighting immigration issues in other states where
Speaker 18: people have issues here.
Speaker 4: We can't talk about.
Speaker 18: Where money is going in other countries when we see
Speaker 18: the example of what our governor is doing by sending
Speaker 18: resources to other states when people can't escape here.
Speaker 6: And so that's what it takes.
Speaker 18: And I think folks again are seeing the difference with
Speaker 18: the levels of government and how.
Speaker 3: They are interconnected.
Speaker 18: And when you go to your ballot, this fall take
Speaker 18: into consideration that every single person that is on that
Speaker 18: ballot us to work together from local all the way
Speaker 18: up to federal.
Speaker 6: To get what we need in this community.
Speaker 16: Thank you so much, and honestly, I want to give
Speaker 16: Lauren her flowers as well, or we brought the mayor
Speaker 16: of Tallahassee uh this semester, and you know, this is
Speaker 16: our second year doing it, and just continue to having
Speaker 16: that engagement from the local level. I think that's a
Speaker 16: great point in just you know, making sure they understand, Uh,
Speaker 16: this is a bottom up situation where it starts locally
Speaker 16: and it works its way up.
Speaker 6: Absolutely absolutely no shade.
Speaker 3: But I only know one mayor of Tallahassee.
Speaker 7: Bring.
Speaker 6: I don't know a man.
Speaker 19: Thank you so much.
Speaker 6: Get enjoy homecoming.
Speaker 4: Jes Oh, the Lord is mild on us with some clouds.
Speaker 3: Because it's all them all over the country.
Speaker 6: Shout out to the small business.
Speaker 3: Hundred degrees out here.
Speaker 6: We got Disney meeting, y'all.
Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying that my I'm most excited
Speaker 3: about Desmond meeting.
Speaker 6: Oh just forget everybody else.
Speaker 8: I'm happy about everybody else, but but Desmond Meat has
Speaker 8: done the Lord's work. So this this year in Florida,
Speaker 8: Amendment four is about abortion. But you all will recall
Speaker 8: uh years ago twenty eighteen, Amendment Florida was about restoring
Speaker 8: voting rights for formerly incarcerated people who are returning citizens,
Speaker 8: and desneh mean led that work for the state of Florida,
Speaker 8: but also the work that he did here cast a
Speaker 8: wide net influence across the country and even today, millions
Speaker 8: of people remained disenfranchised because of the time. And not
Speaker 8: only were you leading that work, but you became an
Speaker 8: attorney while incarcerated.
Speaker 3: So brother, you know we love you.
Speaker 20: We thank y'all so much for having me. I missed
Speaker 20: this for the world. I drove three and a half
Speaker 20: hours forget yeah, hang out with y'all for a couple
Speaker 20: of minutes.
Speaker 6: I wanted him to have his own time for a
Speaker 6: little bit.
Speaker 5: We're gonna bring him some panelists too, but I wanted
Speaker 5: there's a special, unique spiritual connection between these two because
Speaker 5: of the time on the ballot together and.
Speaker 7: I us one.
Speaker 6: I'm gonna make it.
Speaker 1: But in truth, I would love for you to just
Speaker 1: update our viewers nationally on since the passage of Amendment
Speaker 1: for Desmond. They know that they heard some wrangling in
Speaker 1: the legislature and the governor around its interpretation. Where do
Speaker 1: we sit today as a result of that, And obviously
Speaker 1: that goes without saying how proud we are of you,
Speaker 1: the amendment and the voters of Florida who tried to
Speaker 1: you know, who tried to change the law make it right.
Speaker 11: Well, Andrew, I'm glad you used that word nationally.
Speaker 7: Right.
Speaker 20: So, first of all, you know, since the passages of
Speaker 20: Amendment for we know, the Florida legislature had implemented the
Speaker 20: law that basically made people have to pay outstanding legal
Speaker 20: financial obligations.
Speaker 11: Right.
Speaker 20: But the problem was was that when people would go
Speaker 20: to the state and say, well how much I owe,
Speaker 20: the state was like, well, I don't know, right, And
Speaker 20: that has been a consistent problem. And you know, over
Speaker 20: the last couple of years you've even seen people getting arrested,
Speaker 20: which was problematic because everyone that got arrested, even the
Speaker 20: women in Texas, they all had one thing in common.
Speaker 11: You know what it was?
Speaker 20: They were all issued a voter identification card by the state.
Speaker 20: And if you can't rely on the state to determine
Speaker 20: for the eligibility, then who can.
Speaker 11: You rely on?
Speaker 20: And so we end up having to file a lawsuit
Speaker 20: against the entire state of Florida, and I'm talking about
Speaker 20: the entire state over two hundred and sixty seven plaintiffs,
Speaker 20: I mean defendants. We have wow, right, and as a
Speaker 20: result of their lawsuit, the state is now finalizing some
Speaker 20: policy changes that would allow anyone, if they have any
Speaker 20: doubts about their voter eligibility to actually find out within
Speaker 20: a certain amount of time.
Speaker 11: Or it is presumed that they're eligible to vote. So
Speaker 11: we're keeping our fingers crossed on this.
Speaker 20: But why I like what you said about the national
Speaker 20: because one of the reasons I was excited to come
Speaker 20: on this show because I know you guys have a
Speaker 20: reach that is nationwide. Right, is that what I'm excited
Speaker 20: about is related to Amendment. For because in every battleground state,
Speaker 20: key states right now, in this election, impacted people like
Speaker 20: me are returning. Citizens like me are four to ten
Speaker 20: times the margin of victory in the last presidential election.
Speaker 20: For instance, in Georgia, which was won by a little
Speaker 20: over eleven thousand votes, they're over eight hundred thousand people
Speaker 20: in Georgia where the previous felony conviction who are elgib
Speaker 20: with the vote. Wow, right, same thing in North Carolina.
Speaker 20: In North Carolina it was won by seventy thousand votes.
Speaker 20: There's four hundred and eighty one thousand eligible people right now,
Speaker 20: and they can register the vote all the way up
Speaker 20: to tomorrow. And yeah, same thing in Wisconsin, in Michigan,
Speaker 20: in Philadelphia, it's the same thing. Hundreds of thousands more
Speaker 20: people who've been impacted by the criminal justice system can
Speaker 20: have a significant role in this election.
Speaker 11: And it's not too late for people.
Speaker 20: In Wisconsin, in Michigan, in Arizona, in Nevada, and even
Speaker 20: in Minnesota and in Virginia, because people can register the
Speaker 20: vote all the way up to the election day. Yes,
Speaker 20: and so we definitely, I definitely want to be able
Speaker 20: to get the word out to let people know that
Speaker 20: just because you've been impacted, just because you've been arrested
Speaker 20: or have a felony conviction, that doesn't mean that you
Speaker 20: can't have a say in the direction that this country
Speaker 20: go in after November fifth, Right, and folks need to
Speaker 20: know that because there's over nineteen million people across the
Speaker 20: country who.
Speaker 11: Are else with the vote, they think they can't vote,
Speaker 11: are too scared to vote.
Speaker 8: Well, this is just the first first step really in
Speaker 8: restoring a very punishing criminal justice system, particularly when it
Speaker 8: comes to black men. I'm not leaving out black women,
Speaker 8: but people of color are disproportionately harmed by the current
Speaker 8: criminal justice system. What is your ass once Vice President
Speaker 8: Harris becomes President elect. Harris, what is your ask of
Speaker 8: this administration to really remap I.
Speaker 11: Love your positive and forward things.
Speaker 16: First of all, if I were to give an ask,
Speaker 16: I would get rid of this first, right, and I
Speaker 16: put this on.
Speaker 11: And basically what that say is f the F word, right,
Speaker 11: because for too long that F word is just like
Speaker 11: the N word. Right.
Speaker 20: For too long we've used that word to marginalize people, right,
Speaker 20: and it is stuck with them as a scholar, that
Speaker 20: of shame for all of their lives. Somebody may have
Speaker 20: done something twenty thirty years ago. I mean, look, last
Speaker 20: year my organization was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Right,
Speaker 20: so now I'm a Nobel Peace Prize nominee. I am
Speaker 20: time one hundred most influential. I'm MacArthur genius for the really.
Speaker 6: Another year, and I still have to go by that
Speaker 6: F work with people fur me and.
Speaker 7: So we have to start there.
Speaker 20: So that would be one of the things is that
Speaker 20: do not you have to take a more humane approach
Speaker 20: to criminal justice and people who've been impacted by the
Speaker 20: criminal justice.
Speaker 8: Yeah, So I just I want our viewers to know
Speaker 8: because they probably can't hear and the music isn't coming
Speaker 8: through the mic. But if you're listening to us or
Speaker 8: watching at home, it's very loud here on the ground.
Speaker 3: I know you guys hear us at home.
Speaker 8: Trying to speak loud, but I really appreciate it anyway,
Speaker 8: I really appreciate what you said, because that's such an
Speaker 8: important issue around reframing. A lot of people don't even
Speaker 8: know how to talk about it themselves. So we hear
Speaker 8: our own people saying felon or for former felon. So
Speaker 8: we try to reintroduce language returning citizens formally.
Speaker 11: In justice impact of people, you know what. A lot
Speaker 11: of people can normalize the end word as well, like yo,
Speaker 11: my end, what's up?
Speaker 7: You know?
Speaker 11: Yeah, we even turned it into a term of endearment.
Speaker 20: But the reality is is that the origin of that
Speaker 20: word is meant to be dehumanizing to someone else, right
Speaker 20: and and and here's the catch that if we if
Speaker 20: we understand the the human nation aspect of it, the
Speaker 20: humanizing aspect of it, then that means that we should
Speaker 20: not use that word, even for our enemies. To be
Speaker 20: totally honest with you, Well, so hire was a problem.
Speaker 20: Let me tell you what the problem was they jumped
Speaker 20: the gun because technically, at the time when they started
Speaker 20: using the F word on him, he was not that
Speaker 20: he was found guilty of a couple of charges. Now
Speaker 20: here's the thing that he have a ton of other
Speaker 20: outstanding charges out there.
Speaker 11: So he's currently under criminal investigation.
Speaker 20: Right at the time that the jury filed them guilty,
Speaker 20: they found him guilty of a couple of charges, but
Speaker 20: there wasn't an adjudication of guilt, right, and there wasn't
Speaker 20: a finding of guilt yet, you know, And so until
Speaker 20: that happens, technically he's not He is just a person
Speaker 20: that was convicted by a jury, but that has not
Speaker 20: finalized yet, and so we kind of like jumped the
Speaker 20: gun on that. That was unfortunate because even when I
Speaker 20: was looking at the first debate with President Biden, when
Speaker 20: he used that F word, it had much vendom behind it.
Speaker 11: I felt like he was talking to me.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I felt it.
Speaker 20: And it's just like having that white friend that's cool
Speaker 20: with you all these years and one day somebody black
Speaker 20: pists them off and that it worked come out of
Speaker 20: his mouth.
Speaker 7: Start, man, I'm wonder how many times he said that
Speaker 7: about Yeah, another ed word.
Speaker 6: We can use to describe him.
Speaker 7: It's called fraud.
Speaker 2: Fraud.
Speaker 6: So I know that we have some other guests that
Speaker 6: are joining us to state place Dans.
Speaker 7: But you gotta give your stuff. Okay, I want you.
Speaker 1: You'll be joined now by two Uh yeah, go ahead,
Speaker 1: other individuals who are one important in this state but
Speaker 1: also important in this election cycle. I want to invite
Speaker 1: Shawn and kimber come on up.
Speaker 7: Uh.
Speaker 1: And approaching the podium now is u Kim Rivers who
Speaker 1: owns truly did you see those signs to leave medical
Speaker 1: marijuana distributor distributorships here in town and around the state,
Speaker 1: really around the country. This is its owner and chair
Speaker 1: of the board. Also former SGA president of Florida State University.
Speaker 7: That is this poetic?
Speaker 11: Or what right? Everybody's been impacted?
Speaker 3: How many people are finding bars?
Speaker 1: That's right? Yes? And next to Kim is is political strategist, lobbyist, lawyer, uh,
Speaker 1: my former finance chairman and my race for governor of
Speaker 1: the State of Florida.
Speaker 7: Good friend.
Speaker 1: And now we add to it author Sean Pittman, who
Speaker 1: is face here at Tallahassee but a great supporter of
Speaker 1: the show and and awesome, awesome, strategist. You want them
Speaker 1: on your side.
Speaker 3: Thank you for introducing me, my new mess friends in
Speaker 3: the middle.
Speaker 21: Okay, yes, right.
Speaker 3: We'll talk after this show.
Speaker 6: I love that.
Speaker 8: You champion the issue I care very deeply about. So
Speaker 8: welcome home, y'all, thanks for being here. I hope the
Speaker 8: audience can hear. Can you guys here okay? Okay, good,
Speaker 8: So they're good. You guys are good. The audience at
Speaker 8: home can here because we're.
Speaker 4: In the you can't hear, I can't hear you?
Speaker 3: Okay, can you hear the guest? Okay, yes, yes, okay,
Speaker 3: so everybody can hear. So we're good with the with
Speaker 3: with this. But it's it is.
Speaker 8: I want the viewers and know it is popping live
Speaker 8: and popping here on campus and so much music. But
Speaker 8: let's let's get into this because I'm really I do
Speaker 8: want to talk kickoff with the issue of marijuana. One,
Speaker 8: why is that your issue? And too, how are you
Speaker 8: connecting accessibility and a lot of the legalizations. We see
Speaker 8: who's making money off of it and who's not, and
Speaker 8: the people who are most impacted by the criminal justices
Speaker 8: inside of marijuana are not making money from it. But
Speaker 8: BC's venture capitalists private equity. These are the people who
Speaker 8: are profiting. So would love your thoughts on that. Yeah,
Speaker 8: thanks for having me.
Speaker 22: And Amendment three is really about, first and foremost, we've
Speaker 22: got to stop the madness. It is time that we
Speaker 22: stop putting people in jail and and targeting and profiling
Speaker 22: and arresting thoks for marijuana. And here in the state
Speaker 22: of Florida, we have got in Florida, and I know
Speaker 22: Andrew can talk about this at length, but we've got
Speaker 22: a checkerboard of enforcement regimes across the state. And so
Speaker 22: you know, you could be in one place and maybe
Speaker 22: it's a civil citation, but you cross that border into
Speaker 22: the next county and not only are you getting arrested,
Speaker 22: but you're going to jail. And so we've got we've
Speaker 22: got to even the playing field here and create a
Speaker 22: bright line so that we stop again arresting people ruining
Speaker 22: people's lives over a plant. So that's that's number one,
Speaker 22: and that's really I'm very very passionate about that. We've
Speaker 22: done spongement clinics across the state of Florida and across
Speaker 22: the country, and we know and we see firsthand that
Speaker 22: it's very difficult to recover and they've done that intentionally,
Speaker 22: candidly to make it really hard for people to come
Speaker 22: back from just a possession charge. Right, you can't get
Speaker 22: a job, you can't get employed. So number one, number two,
Speaker 22: we need to create an environment.
Speaker 3: Where adults, responsible adults.
Speaker 22: Over the age of twenty one have the freedom to
Speaker 22: make a personal choice on a product that's safer than
Speaker 22: alcohol in the privacy of their own home.
Speaker 3: So it's a personal freedom, you know amendment as well.
Speaker 3: And what we know is that there are.
Speaker 22: Products right now that are in our communities that are dangerous,
Speaker 22: that are laced with a lot of different substances. In
Speaker 22: some cases, in gats In County, we had nine individuals
Speaker 22: die over a weekend over a.
Speaker 3: Bad batch of weed. It's ridiculous.
Speaker 22: And we have an opportunity now to make sure that
Speaker 22: people and adults have access to smart, safe, regulated product
Speaker 22: here in.
Speaker 3: The state of Florida.
Speaker 22: Now, to answer your question directly, you know, the state
Speaker 22: of Florida has been It is an interesting landscape right now,
Speaker 22: right and I'm not here to tell you any differently.
Speaker 22: There's twenty five companies currently that are licensed.
Speaker 3: Sitting on the Governor's desk.
Speaker 22: Is another twenty Two, we fought really really hard to
Speaker 22: make sure that in those licenses that there's a class
Speaker 22: of farmers here called the Pigford licenses that are our
Speaker 22: African American farm owners who were initially not able to
Speaker 22: participate in the licensing arena. We have fought really really
Speaker 22: hard to make sure that there is licenses now that
Speaker 22: have been and are being issued for that class's five.
Speaker 22: So of those current licenses, five specifically are allocated for
Speaker 22: for you know, black businesses that have had agriculture and candidly,
Speaker 22: we're you know, disenfranchised a long time ago, and I
Speaker 22: think that's the right thing to do here, and that's
Speaker 22: what we've done.
Speaker 3: Now, they're still room for improvement.
Speaker 22: So we also give the legislature and ability to issue
Speaker 22: new licenses and so there can be a whole new
Speaker 22: licensing regime. So the idea here is that this is
Speaker 22: a market expander to bring more opportunity to the state.
Speaker 3: In addition the tax revenue, this is going to.
Speaker 22: Generate four hundred million dollars every year that we can
Speaker 22: generate back into our communities to make sure that we're
Speaker 22: doing right by those communities that have been the most
Speaker 22: impacted by this crazy war on drugs that candidly has
Speaker 22: gone on way too long.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But the savings that the system will experience by
Speaker 1: not Desmond you know as well, Yeah, I prosecuting in
Speaker 1: the dial system.
Speaker 23: You're talking about over two hundred million dollars a loan,
Speaker 23: say save to tax visions.
Speaker 11: Well, absolutely, I think it's it's I think it's far
Speaker 11: more than that, right. And the reason why I've say
Speaker 11: that is that you're.
Speaker 20: Talking about to You're talking about two hundred million that
Speaker 20: the state will saved just from prosecuting. But the state
Speaker 20: loses over forty billion dollars a year and lost income
Speaker 20: from people that get these type of convictions, and so
Speaker 20: that the cost goes on and on. But listen, I
Speaker 20: like that question, and I have to say that traditionally,
Speaker 20: you know, one of the challenges that we've had nationally
Speaker 20: is that the people who have been getting arrested and
Speaker 20: getting these convictions, right, they are barred from profiting from
Speaker 20: you know, recreational marijuana. However, there is a glimmer of hope,
Speaker 20: right because I remember not too long ago when our
Speaker 20: current governor had raised his hand on the debate stage
Speaker 20: and said that he would support voting for someone for
Speaker 20: the office of president of the United States with a
Speaker 20: felony conviction. And so what I'm thinking that if you
Speaker 20: would support someone with a felty conviction being president of
Speaker 20: the United States, then you shouldn't have any problem supporting
Speaker 20: someone with the felony convictions who's turned their life around
Speaker 20: being able to.
Speaker 11: Profit off of this in the past. Yeah, point blank.
Speaker 11: You're able to get jobs and housing the same thing.
Speaker 1: Because it makes economic sense, it makes community, I think,
Speaker 1: value sense, and the regulatory regime, however restricted now as
Speaker 1: it expands, can be inclusive of the communities who have
Speaker 1: sat at the epicenter of the worst impacts from the
Speaker 1: War on drugs at this country has waged against them. Sean,
Speaker 1: You've obviously been in the state through democratic regimes as
Speaker 1: well as Republican regimes, which has been you know, frankly,
Speaker 1: the majority of your professional career has been under that one.
Speaker 1: I'm just curious, as we raise voters and turn voters
Speaker 1: out in this upcoming election, what hope do people have
Speaker 1: around the change that they can experience at the state
Speaker 1: level here, Because regardless of who we elect for president,
Speaker 1: which is eminently important, we still live in the state
Speaker 1: of Florida. Under what already fe like Donald Trump's America.
Speaker 1: He lives here one, but he's got a sycophant in
Speaker 1: the current governor who is attempting every day to outdo
Speaker 1: his right lead. Those are my words, not yours. You
Speaker 1: got to do business in this state tomorrow. Yeah, But
Speaker 1: my question is is what do Florida voters have by
Speaker 1: way of a motivation of turning out?
Speaker 23: Listen, you just talked about one and Amendment three, right,
Speaker 23: I mean, And one of the things I talk about
Speaker 23: in my book This Affected is you know, what are
Speaker 23: we pretending not to know as folks that are stakeholders
Speaker 23: involved in government and politics and all of that. And
Speaker 23: one of the things we pretend not to know is
Speaker 23: when there are issues like Amendment three and Amendment four
Speaker 23: that we have an opportunity to make like revolutionary change.
Speaker 23: We got to lead with those things, and we got
Speaker 23: to give people the opportunity to show up for them, right.
Speaker 23: And the other thing we got to do is manage
Speaker 23: the expectations of our elector.
Speaker 10: Right.
Speaker 11: Too many times they think if I do this, it
Speaker 11: means this.
Speaker 23: Tomorrow doesn't always mean that we would make voting today
Speaker 23: our modern day bus boycott where we sacrifice, knowing that
Speaker 23: it may take some time. We would, we would, we
Speaker 23: would make the kind of change not just nationally, but
Speaker 23: locally where it hits home.
Speaker 11: You are a mayor.
Speaker 23: You know the kind of things you can do as
Speaker 23: a mayor statewide. We can't make them think that if
Speaker 23: this person gets in office tomorrow, that's going to change
Speaker 23: their lives. What we have to do is make them
Speaker 23: realize that you're not just doing it for yourself. You're
Speaker 23: doing it for your kids and your grandkids. And we
Speaker 23: got to create that muscle memory, that voting sacred right.
Speaker 23: But at the end of the day, it is the
Speaker 23: modern day bus boycott, and it is the thing, the
Speaker 23: only thing that's going to get us down the road
Speaker 23: in a position where we really feel that change. We
Speaker 23: got to manage that expectation.
Speaker 5: Sorry, I'm doing this because I can't hear on my headphones,
Speaker 5: but we're about to adjust that. As soon as this
Speaker 5: panel's over, Desmond, I want to ask you if you
Speaker 5: can share any best practices for these lovely folks who
Speaker 5: have an initiative on the ballot and other folks throughout
Speaker 5: states all over the country that are thinking about what
Speaker 5: they can do to change their communities their states to
Speaker 5: ensure that ballot initiatives pass.
Speaker 6: You're a victor, so what do you recommend?
Speaker 11: What's the game? It's still a lot of people that
Speaker 11: So there's two things.
Speaker 20: One is Behindsight twenty twenty that you know what we've seen,
Speaker 20: especially in the state of Florida. Right is typically the
Speaker 20: second greatest display of democracy. Right, it's actually a citizens
Speaker 20: and the first is voting. The second is when the citizens,
Speaker 20: who all power belong to to begin with, right, decides
Speaker 20: to take matters in their own hand in the form
Speaker 20: of a citizen's initiative, to say this is what we
Speaker 20: as citizens want. What's troubling in the state of Florida
Speaker 20: is that they have a history of disregarding what the
Speaker 20: citizens want and they feel that, well, we are the politician,
Speaker 20: we know what's best for you, so we just need
Speaker 20: you to shut up and just do what we tell
Speaker 20: you to do. And it's gotten so bad that now
Speaker 20: you have tax payers dollars being used to fight against
Speaker 20: what the citizens wanted. I was fortunate enough that no
Speaker 20: one fought against it, maybe because I ran a great
Speaker 20: campaign right, which I do believe I did. You did
Speaker 20: right to actually preempt that kind of actually, but what
Speaker 20: I didn't or wasn't able to prey up was the
Speaker 20: backlash that came afterwards. And so my advice is is that, yes,
Speaker 20: you need to be strategic to win, but you also
Speaker 20: have to be more strategic to protect the win.
Speaker 11: That's going to be extremely important.
Speaker 3: So important though.
Speaker 11: I agree, I.
Speaker 1: Wanted to ask you all giving you an expense on
Speaker 1: these initiatives that I know We've got to move to
Speaker 1: the next panel is what do you fear for access
Speaker 1: to the ballot following your amendments through citizen initiated process.
Speaker 1: You anticipate that there's gonna be a clap back and
Speaker 1: really directly because you still got one that needs to
Speaker 1: be passed. Is how it is that you can'tpaign for
Speaker 1: an initiative that may be more effective than how you
Speaker 1: might for a candidate, or are there similarities that could.
Speaker 20: Listen candidates is entirely different than in this entirely different,
Speaker 20: you know, I think the candidates is more narrowly focused.
Speaker 20: And unfortunately, because of just who we are as a society,
Speaker 20: we have gotten to the point of where we are
Speaker 20: where we are with our candidates and and let's be real,
Speaker 20: you know, not everybody is excited about the candidates. They're
Speaker 20: excited about the moment, right, but not necessarily about the candidates.
Speaker 20: But when you're talking about an initiative, you're talking about
Speaker 20: something that speaks directly the people's heart in regardless of
Speaker 20: their political affiliation, regardless of their ethnic background or economic status.
Speaker 20: They were speaking to everyone, and that makes it a
Speaker 20: little bit more powerful.
Speaker 11: Dani. If a candidate whether we're.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would just add right that.
Speaker 22: I mean, what we tell folks is, look, I mean
Speaker 22: it certainly, you know it's our it's our civic responsibility
Speaker 22: and our privilege right to be able to exercise our
Speaker 22: voice and to vote. And you vote for candidates, but
Speaker 22: you just kind of you hope that the candidate is
Speaker 22: going to do what you what you want them to do.
Speaker 7: Right.
Speaker 22: A citizen ballot initiative is our most direct way that
Speaker 22: we can we can impact our communities, right, and so
Speaker 22: we are talking about the citizens in the state of Florida,
Speaker 22: as an example, have an opportunity to mark a mark
Speaker 22: a bubble on their ballot sheet that is going to
Speaker 22: directly stop people from going to jail. Like that is
Speaker 22: what we're talking about in a very literal way here.
Speaker 22: And that's why I think that right it is. It
Speaker 22: is different because it is our opportunity to directly influence
Speaker 22: the process and demand that something gets done that the
Speaker 22: citizens are behind and that we're we're and we're advocating for.
Speaker 23: And you position it also right for the next step, right,
Speaker 23: you give incentive to our lawmakers to then do that
Speaker 23: right thing about folks who have all already been uh
Speaker 23: in trouble, have it on their record. Expungement becomes a
Speaker 23: word that everybody understands after the point that Amendment three
Speaker 23: gets passed, Because if I'm a lawmaker, my next thing is, Okay,
Speaker 23: how do we deal with these people who have been
Speaker 23: in trouble.
Speaker 7: For small amounts a week?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 23: We got to get that stuff off their record and
Speaker 23: and help them help them with their lives.
Speaker 3: Can I asked us a quick closing question.
Speaker 8: For for somebody who's visiting Florida and you want to
Speaker 8: sample Florida's offerings, what might you.
Speaker 3: You know talk about it?
Speaker 6: After that?
Speaker 13: Was that was a set up question there?
Speaker 8: Thank you, we have Frederick Ingram and then come on
Speaker 8: up man, I'm sorry, really quick, we need to come
Speaker 8: on up and make your way up here. We lie brother,
Speaker 8: all right, Fan makes his way up here. Frederick Ingram
Speaker 8: is the president, the Florida President.
Speaker 3: Hi, you pled me.
Speaker 1: He's telling you maybe you can't use a certain title. Man,
Speaker 1: We don't introduce you with your title. Former president of
Speaker 1: the Teachers Union in Miami Dade. He got elected president
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen of the state wide Teachers.
Speaker 8: Association Federation of Teachers, No in Florida Teachers and.
Speaker 3: Any right in Florida when.
Speaker 6: He almost got fired because I saw it, this hot
Speaker 6: had a head on.
Speaker 3: At first.
Speaker 6: I didn't see make America normal rally.
Speaker 7: You had the wrong.
Speaker 1: Rally, got the right share.
Speaker 21: There you go.
Speaker 1: Of course, Nicky Free who is the chairwoman of the
Speaker 1: Florida Democratic Party here in Florida.
Speaker 3: And you're at this point, well that.
Speaker 1: Too, just on the map quite often. But she's also
Speaker 1: been fighting fiercely in a state that has tried to
Speaker 1: not only silence Democrats but have us to disappear and
Speaker 1: every way in the society. And so I think you
Speaker 1: want to give it up to you for the thankless
Speaker 1: and hard for work you all do every day.
Speaker 14: Thank you and thank you so much for having me
Speaker 14: up here.
Speaker 6: And first I got to do a shout out.
Speaker 24: There's no other post fam you student body president that
Speaker 24: can get a cat student body president.
Speaker 4: All to be on here on stage.
Speaker 1: There it issident University of Florida where I graduated high school.
Speaker 6: Nikki.
Speaker 3: I feel like every time your governor here, Governor Ron's.
Speaker 12: Not my governor.
Speaker 3: Rand is stupid?
Speaker 7: Is that.
Speaker 8: Every time he does something, I feel like you're the
Speaker 8: first person we hear from on a national Stage's like,
Speaker 8: you come out and you're really good at being on
Speaker 8: the front lines. What is keeping you up at night
Speaker 8: when it comes to this Tuesday as it relates to
Speaker 8: the state of Florida.
Speaker 24: There's a lot of things actually that keep me up
Speaker 24: and also get me up in the morning. A lot
Speaker 24: is voter suppression. A voter suppression that we've seen consistently
Speaker 24: since he became governor for six years. Everything between access
Speaker 24: to the ballot box, the drop boxes you all remember
Speaker 24: last last Yeah, the machetes, Yeah, the people that are
Speaker 24: coming out with the big trucks, and the intimidation at
Speaker 24: the polls that are making.
Speaker 6: People scared to be there.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 24: But it's also you're just talking about it with Desmond
Speaker 24: fifty million dollars that the governor has stolen from the
Speaker 24: people to put out there against the citizens' initiatives.
Speaker 14: That is miskeueuing information that is going out people.
Speaker 24: So that's what's keeping me up and making sure that
Speaker 24: you know, what I've said consistently for the last few
Speaker 24: months is that we have seen that we have been
Speaker 24: the lab racks of Project twenty twenty five for the
Speaker 24: last six years. And if we don't vote, then we
Speaker 24: say that's okay, and that keep going for another two years.
Speaker 3: So we got to make sure that we are doing everything.
Speaker 24: Possible to turn out our vote in this election.
Speaker 21: Questioning prediction, fed oh, my prediction, Kamala Harris is gonna
Speaker 21: be our next president.
Speaker 1: It is help.
Speaker 3: It's Florida gonna be blue.
Speaker 7: This same absolutely gonna help. Florida is not dead.
Speaker 21: We got a lot of people who care about everything
Speaker 21: that's going on, and listen. Shout out to my colleagues,
Speaker 21: the teachers, the teachers that are doing God's work every day.
Speaker 21: They're taken care of two million children in this state
Speaker 21: and fifty million children nationwide. In spite of being defunded,
Speaker 21: in spite of being villainized, in spite of having librarians
Speaker 21: taken away from us, in spite of having fewer resources
Speaker 21: in our classrooms, we are still going to teach. We're
Speaker 21: gonna teach honest history. We're gonna teach the good culture
Speaker 21: that we see at this HBCU, at fans. That's what
Speaker 21: we need to be teaching black excellence because we've always
Speaker 21: had it.
Speaker 7: And so I am eternally optimistic, like every teacher is.
Speaker 7: At beginning in the school year. We think we can teach.
Speaker 21: Every kid how to read and every kid how to
Speaker 21: do math, because that's what we do that And if
Speaker 21: you give us the right resources, get out of our way,
Speaker 21: protect us through public policy, we will continue to do
Speaker 21: the magic that we need in our public schools.
Speaker 3: Policy that doesn't impact the classrooms. Every piece of policy,
Speaker 3: every policy that's.
Speaker 21: Right, you know, and if we want to continue to
Speaker 21: see stuff like FAM you and FAM Youth's homecoming, you know,
Speaker 21: we can't make light of this kind of stuff, right
Speaker 21: These kids come from K twelve public schools.
Speaker 7: These are the best purprisers.
Speaker 11: That we have.
Speaker 7: And we need more of these folks, and we need
Speaker 7: more public policy that's.
Speaker 21: Going to protect what we have in our classrooms and
Speaker 21: our teachers, and we need to get more about black
Speaker 21: men in our classrooms because they're not going into the
Speaker 21: classroom because they don't pay well. They're not going into
Speaker 21: the classroom because why would you go back to a
Speaker 21: place that treated you in the wrong way?
Speaker 7: Why would you go back to that.
Speaker 21: So we need to change our system so that we
Speaker 21: can change our people and we can help our families
Speaker 21: in this next generation.
Speaker 7: That's why voting is important. It's gonna happen with or
Speaker 7: without you.
Speaker 21: So you can choose not to vote, but that's a
Speaker 21: vote for somebody else, and it's a vote against your children.
Speaker 21: And our children should not be for sale. That's not
Speaker 21: what we should be doing. In the state of Florida,
Speaker 21: we've had double trouble, Desanta's and Trump in the same
Speaker 21: zip code. That's crazy, you know, And so listen, we're
Speaker 21: not crazy. We got to understand where this has make
Speaker 21: America normal again. Not because I want normal, because I
Speaker 21: want the abnormal to be gone.
Speaker 7: I want stuff that Donald Trump.
Speaker 21: Is saying about my people, about people like me, about Haitians,
Speaker 21: about you know, villainizing our teachers, villainizing our children.
Speaker 7: This man doesn't know anything from anything, and the.
Speaker 21: Only way we can get rid of that kind of
Speaker 21: hate and disdain and divisiveness is to vote.
Speaker 7: It's the only game in town. You can like it
Speaker 7: or not like it, but you better get at it.
Speaker 24: Yeah, and that's why Florida isn't play because what DeSantis
Speaker 24: has done to this state for six years, that the
Speaker 24: banning of books. I saw an article today that says
Speaker 24: we're still the number one state in the nation for
Speaker 24: banning books, you know, everything from black history to slaves,
Speaker 24: that there was a benefit to slavery, the six week
Speaker 24: abortion ban. That's not who we are as Floridians. And
Speaker 24: he's taken us into such a dangerous direction. That's why
Speaker 24: I think you're seeing the backlash here in our state.
Speaker 24: And no offense to the men on this stage, but
Speaker 24: the women are going to save the day in this
Speaker 24: election cycle.
Speaker 6: I always do.
Speaker 1: By the men. But I will say this question for
Speaker 1: national audience. There are a lot of folks who have
Speaker 1: written Florida off by and large, that we constantly is
Speaker 1: not a purple state Nymore. People keep saying a red state.
Speaker 1: A lot of folks neglect that a third of the
Speaker 1: electorate maybe second and running now are independent registrants in
Speaker 1: this Florida. If you had to make the audience more broadly,
Speaker 1: make the case more broadly, and I'd like to hear
Speaker 1: from both of you on it, both Floridians. Is how
Speaker 1: do you convince folks that Florida is a state that
Speaker 1: politically can still vote for a Democrat at a statewide level.
Speaker 24: Easy, look at our election in twenty eighteen, Andrew, you
Speaker 24: lost by thirty four thousand votes. I bet you probably
Speaker 24: know that number by yeah, And I won and I
Speaker 24: won by five thousand, six hundred and seventy three votes.
Speaker 6: That was just six years ago.
Speaker 24: And then in twenty twenty and we saw Desmond's You know,
Speaker 24: in twenty eighteen, we saw a restoration of civil rights
Speaker 24: passing by over seventy percent, legalization of medical marijuana by
Speaker 24: seventy two percent. These initiatives that you're talking about earlier
Speaker 24: are are progressive, and the people of this state consistently
Speaker 24: are voting way over the sixty percent threshold. And the
Speaker 24: fact of the matter is a third of our state
Speaker 24: is independent at this point. And so when you take
Speaker 24: the independence who have been breaking for Democrats since the
Speaker 24: beginning of twenty twenty three in the numbers of sixty
Speaker 24: five to seventy percent, that's how We were able to
Speaker 24: flip the du Bal mayor's race last year, Donna Digan
Speaker 24: the first female ever elected as mayor.
Speaker 14: She won with independence.
Speaker 6: We flipped a House seat this year.
Speaker 24: The last time that House seat was blue was when
Speaker 24: Senator Nelson was a House member, and we flipped it
Speaker 24: with seventy percent independence. So right now we've got a
Speaker 24: demographic that Democrats are voting, Independents are voting and breaking
Speaker 24: for Democrats, and I am not convinced that more than
Speaker 24: ten percent of the Republican voters are voting for Kamala
Speaker 24: Harrison Democrats because they're tired of this nonsense and they
Speaker 24: want normality again.
Speaker 6: Well, and speaking of normal, we got to get back
Speaker 6: on schedule. So we so appreciate you with us today.
Speaker 6: We're so so great voting.
Speaker 5: Thank you all the work that you're doing is help
Speaker 5: save democracy. So thank you so much, Nikki Freed and
Speaker 5: better ingram.
Speaker 7: Y'all keep doing for the black community.
Speaker 6: Vote November fifth, because we have.
Speaker 2: Awesome welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome.
Speaker 3: This breeze is so appreciated. As we bring up the
Speaker 3: next guest.
Speaker 6: Praise the Lord. Yes, okay, So now what we're gonna
Speaker 6: do is. We're gonna bring up a very very special guest.
Speaker 6: She is our defacto producer of today's show. She is
Speaker 6: Andrews not just better, but the best half.
Speaker 7: She is.
Speaker 3: I guess it is, yes, shaking her head.
Speaker 6: He's doing. Genesis Robinson is also going to join us
Speaker 6: on ground.
Speaker 3: Shaking her head.
Speaker 6: She's still producing. Come on, Jay, and where is uh?
Speaker 6: I'm not sure he's.
Speaker 1: Okay, okay anyway, Southern Girl Desserts, don't worry about it.
Speaker 8: Are so happy to have you, our de facto producer
Speaker 8: making it happen. Yeah, she really, We're happy to have you,
Speaker 8: have you as well, happy to have yell in Tallahassee.
Speaker 6: Thank you so much.
Speaker 5: So real quick, Jay, before we get to you, Genesis,
Speaker 5: tell us about the Equal Ground Fund and what you're doing.
Speaker 19: Yes, so, thank y'all for having me.
Speaker 25: Equal Ground As a black led voting rights organization, we're
Speaker 25: working throughout the entire state of Florida with the goal
Speaker 25: of educating our community, getting them prepared for elections, and
Speaker 25: getting them more involved in the civic engagement process. Too often,
Speaker 25: election after election, we don't see the type of engagement
Speaker 25: in our community, and so we made the commitment to
Speaker 25: have a year round investment.
Speaker 12: Right.
Speaker 25: We're not just coming into communities right before an election
Speaker 25: and disappearing.
Speaker 19: We're staying in.
Speaker 25: We're mobilizing, We're educating and providing all of the resources
Speaker 25: for people to get more involved in the political process.
Speaker 1: I love that Genesis was a young organizer as a
Speaker 1: student on campuses here. He's given all of his time
Speaker 1: since leaving Catlin to continue organizing around the state. We
Speaker 1: appreciate it. We're gonna come back to Egle ground. I
Speaker 1: want to give a quick shout out to my best friend,
Speaker 1: my wife, my chosen life partner r J who home
Speaker 1: and for whom I couldn't I couldn't do give it
Speaker 1: up for Jay, y'all, and then and then she also
Speaker 1: so the produces on other shows.
Speaker 7: Y'all, you don't get to hear about it, but.
Speaker 6: We hear about it.
Speaker 1: What's on Instagram?
Speaker 6: Why Why do I know that?
Speaker 4: I don't know because you don't know what's going on.
Speaker 1: Which most people figure out what they listen to the.
Speaker 6: Show it's We're at the highest of seven Hill.
Speaker 4: That's why I.
Speaker 5: Said it, right, I feel like we should hear this
Speaker 5: love story that began in politics.
Speaker 1: We have two different versions, and therefore we don't j.
Speaker 6: You're gonna tell it blaming her time.
Speaker 5: Let's jay, I want you to tell this story because
Speaker 5: we want to get the young people motivated, and sometimes
Speaker 5: the best way to do that is to know that
Speaker 5: they can meet in the city chamber.
Speaker 1: WHOA, yes, the microphones are defect.
Speaker 3: Yes, Jesus you're mad that.
Speaker 26: I am so proud of you and what all young
Speaker 26: people are doing being active. This young man was a
Speaker 26: very active student leader. We were both in student government
Speaker 26: the year before.
Speaker 27: He was SGA president, I was SGA vice president, and
Speaker 27: we didn't get along at all. We thought about everything
Speaker 27: because Andrew was ready to march to the capitol.
Speaker 3: He was ready to protest, and I just had a.
Speaker 1: More because do we always have to march?
Speaker 4: Well, no, my boy was what are we asking for?
Speaker 3: And what is the exit strategy? So need let's to
Speaker 3: say we did not date in college at all. We
Speaker 3: reconnected years later. It was our student government advisors that
Speaker 3: put us together and here we are all these years later.
Speaker 26: But I will say one thing he says a lot
Speaker 26: is life partner, and that is that's true. No matter
Speaker 26: how we started, where we are now and all the
Speaker 26: in between. This is my friend, my best friend. I
Speaker 26: can talk about him, y'all came.
Speaker 6: But this is home for us.
Speaker 3: It's where we started, it's where our love started.
Speaker 13: But like this is.
Speaker 6: Spiritual, right, and you don't just have to be a rattler.
Speaker 26: All of these people supporting you, all this show. When
Speaker 26: we have been through the highs and the lows, it
Speaker 26: was our rattler family that was right there.
Speaker 3: They didn't care what was going on.
Speaker 6: They said, you are one of us, and.
Speaker 3: We've got y'all. So I hope that wherever you are,
Speaker 3: you have that.
Speaker 26: You have that home, you have that community, you have
Speaker 26: that love, that kinship, because there's nothing like it. So
Speaker 26: I won't tell the full story because we disagree.
Speaker 6: I wanted to hear that. I think the whole tremendously.
Speaker 3: On how the story goes, I'll tell you.
Speaker 18: Listen, this is the quickest part. When I first moved
Speaker 18: back to Tallahasseee after graduating, I ran.
Speaker 4: Into Andrew and the mall and he was a city commissioner.
Speaker 26: So I was proud of him, and he gave me
Speaker 26: his number. I'm gonna try to find it so I
Speaker 26: could take a picture to show y'all.
Speaker 3: He wrote it down because.
Speaker 26: I still had a paper calendar in my purse, and
Speaker 26: he wrote down three phone numbers on this piece of paper. Now,
Speaker 26: when I saw the young man in the mall, he
Speaker 26: looked really nice.
Speaker 6: He was shopping, but.
Speaker 4: He had two phones on his hip.
Speaker 26: None of those three numbers was a cell phone number,
Speaker 26: so I just assumed he didn't want me to call him.
Speaker 6: For real.
Speaker 3: He gave me like a word number.
Speaker 6: And anybody with two cell phones is probably never home.
Speaker 3: Why are you giving me your home number?
Speaker 6: You see j What was you doing?
Speaker 1: You shouting to the genesis.
Speaker 6: Right here in this love story? Did we connected?
Speaker 3: It was fine.
Speaker 6: I never called him because I just assumed I was.
Speaker 3: Like need meet with calling it.
Speaker 26: What happened the pond day our student government advisors. I
Speaker 26: had come back and actually worked on campus.
Speaker 7: I had a.
Speaker 26: Graduate student job and I was in charge of the court,
Speaker 26: the Royal Court, and I was at a football tailgate
Speaker 26: and Miss Doing, Miss Lamb, miss Dupon, is no longer
Speaker 26: with us, but everybody that was in student government in
Speaker 26: the nineties and two thousands remembers her and Miss Lamb,
Speaker 26: who doesn't work on campus, but it's still here, said
Speaker 26: they had somebody that wanted me to meet, and I
Speaker 26: got very excited and we made plans and it was.
Speaker 3: Him, and I was like, why y'all could just tell
Speaker 3: it was him.
Speaker 4: So we went to dinner to Bennigan, which is no longer.
Speaker 26: The restaurant closed, they had to put us out, and
Speaker 26: we sat and talked for another two or three hours
Speaker 26: in the parking lot on Saturday night, and he invited
Speaker 26: me to go to church with him the West day.
Speaker 4: I wasn't.
Speaker 6: One more second before we go to tennis.
Speaker 5: Sometimes love stories don't always have happy endings, and they should,
Speaker 5: but sometimes love stories brush you into another part of
Speaker 5: your destiny.
Speaker 6: We're joined today by Charles Johnson said here for moms,
Speaker 6: and we're gonna get it right with four moms.
Speaker 1: Moms.
Speaker 5: Charles, thank you so much for joining us and for
Speaker 5: the work you're doing. We want to hunt you, but
Speaker 5: we didn't throw it off and ran off the set.
Speaker 5: Today we're just gonna be be good and.
Speaker 7: And that too.
Speaker 5: I feel like we've been shouting at church, so we
Speaker 5: really really thank God for your work. I first learned
Speaker 5: of what you were doing, uh at Elaine Walter Ross's
Speaker 5: Firth Fund event in la so thank you so much.
Speaker 5: Please tell the audience about for here, for moms and
Speaker 5: the reason for the work, which is sure.
Speaker 11: Sure, sure.
Speaker 21: So first of all, it's an honor to be here, right,
Speaker 21: And I have to say to my brother Andrews, to RJ. Right,
Speaker 21: like y'all have to understand, like on behalf of all
Speaker 21: of us, man, we love you, bro, we really love you.
Speaker 21: And I want to tell my story, but I have
Speaker 21: to start and center this and the fact that when
Speaker 21: I touched down here twenty five years ago in the
Speaker 21: fall of nineteen ninety nine, my first time voting ever
Speaker 21: was in ninety nine, right, and I had a front
Speaker 21: row seats to two things, to a historical steal of
Speaker 21: an election. But I had a front row seat to
Speaker 21: Andrew Gilliam's leadership, right because he was our student president
Speaker 21: and he led us to march up the street to
Speaker 21: the capitol. He led to sit in right and to
Speaker 21: watch where you have been, what you have meant to us, brothers,
Speaker 21: we love you, We love RJ.
Speaker 7: And there's nothing you can do of it. Did you
Speaker 7: understand me? We love you?
Speaker 28: So this is an honor to being here. So with
Speaker 28: that being said, I apologized, had I had to say
Speaker 28: that Andrew so and so this story starts, and how
Speaker 28: I got this work. I was fortunate enough to meet
Speaker 28: a woman that absolutely changed my life. As we talked
Speaker 28: about my wife, Kira, we're talking about Sunshine per signing.
Speaker 7: We're talking about Sunshine Per signed by the woman.
Speaker 28: That raced cars, who had her pilot's license, who spoke
Speaker 28: five languages, and I always wanted to be a dad,
Speaker 28: always wanted to be a dad.
Speaker 7: And socome.
Speaker 28: We welcomed our first son, Charles the fifth, in twenty
Speaker 28: and fourteen, and we begin to talk about how cool
Speaker 28: we would be to have back to back boys, and
Speaker 28: so we found out we were welcomed our second sons
Speaker 28: in twenty and sixteen.
Speaker 7: We were ecstatic, and so on April.
Speaker 28: Twelfth of twenty sixteen, we walked in the Cedar Sinai
Speaker 28: in Los Angeles for we expected to be the happiest
Speaker 28: day of our lives and walk straight into a nightmare.
Speaker 28: It's important to stand that Kira was not only in
Speaker 28: good health, she was an exceptional help and no pre
Speaker 28: existing conditions, no signs of distress. And we went and
Speaker 28: it was supposed to be a weird seeing scheduled sea section.
Speaker 28: Our son was born perfectly healthy, ten fingers, ten toes,
Speaker 28: super handsome, and.
Speaker 7: You're looking just like me, like, this is it, right,
Speaker 7: this is it? This is the dream.
Speaker 28: And they take us back to recovery. And that's when
Speaker 28: things took a turn for the worst. And as I'm
Speaker 28: sitting there watching cure rest and watching the baby rest,
Speaker 28: I see blood and the casseeter bring it to the attention.
Speaker 28: And the doctors been nurses at CEDARS. They come in,
Speaker 28: they examine her, they examine her, they take her vitals,
Speaker 28: they ordered tests.
Speaker 7: Keep in mind, this is around. We went into the
Speaker 7: delivery at two and it's about four and.
Speaker 28: They ordered that CT scan that's supposed to be performed
Speaker 28: STAT and so STAT what does that mean?
Speaker 7: Right now?
Speaker 11: Right?
Speaker 28: Like, okay, I'm concerned, but my wife is healthy, my
Speaker 28: baby is healthy, and we're supposed to be a seat
Speaker 28: of sign. Now five o'clock comes, no CC scam, and
Speaker 28: I'm asking, hey, y'all, where's the where's the scam that's coming?
Speaker 7: Sir? Six o'clock, no skin? Hey, what's going on? Ah, sir,
Speaker 7: it's coming. We'll see seven o'clock.
Speaker 28: And now by seven o'clock she's shivering uncontrollable, right, And
Speaker 28: they said, well, maybe we may have to take her
Speaker 28: back to surgery.
Speaker 7: I'm like, what about to say it, skin that you
Speaker 7: said in.
Speaker 28: This game of dismissal, denial, and deprioritization of my wife's
Speaker 28: pain and our concerns continues to escalate.
Speaker 7: Eight o'clock, nine o'clock, and.
Speaker 28: Around nine o'clock the nurse came in the only thing
Speaker 28: that they had done at this point is get her
Speaker 28: IV through it. So around nine o'clock, though, nurse comes
Speaker 28: in to change her IV bags and just out of decoration,
Speaker 28: I just stopped her.
Speaker 7: I said, look, my wife isn't doing good. She's pale.
Speaker 7: They said that they were gonna take her for surgery.
Speaker 7: Nobody's coming. They said they were gonna take her for
Speaker 7: a CDC. And that was five hours ago. Can you
Speaker 7: please just help us?
Speaker 28: At which point this woman looked me dead in my
Speaker 28: eyes and lund she said to me, sir, your wife
Speaker 28: just isn't a priority right now, Your wife just isn't
Speaker 28: a priority.
Speaker 7: Nine ten o'clock and for the instant time.
Speaker 28: It wasn't until midnight, twelve thirty am that they finally
Speaker 28: made the decision to take my wife back of surgery,
Speaker 28: after allowing her to bleed and suffer needlesly for more
Speaker 28: than ten hours, while myself and my family begged and
Speaker 28: pleaded for them to just.
Speaker 7: See her validate our concerns.
Speaker 28: So finally they take her back to surgery, go down
Speaker 28: to make the walk down this long corridor, and I'm
Speaker 28: holding her hand and I'm just doing once.
Speaker 7: Again, the only thing I know to do is a
Speaker 7: husband and to say they everything will be okay.
Speaker 28: And the last thing she said to me before those
Speaker 28: double doors opened up and they closed behind her, and baby,
Speaker 28: I'm scared. And we're talking about women as fearless. A
Speaker 28: woman that went skydiving like some of us went for jobs.
Speaker 28: And when they took her back in their operating room
Speaker 28: and they opened her up there with three leaders of
Speaker 28: blood in her abdoinence from where she had been able
Speaker 28: to bleed and suffer for all those hours. And I'm
Speaker 28: always transparent about the fact that although this has become
Speaker 28: my life, when I walked into that hospital that afternom
Speaker 28: the thought that my wife would not walk out to
Speaker 28: raise her voice, it never crossed my mind, right, I
Speaker 28: thought that this is a walk in the park, like
Speaker 28: we had done everything right. I never missed a prenatal visit.
Speaker 28: I read all his books, I held her hands through
Speaker 28: la mine right, and it still wasn't enough in today's
Speaker 28: America to make sure that she walked out to raise
Speaker 28: her boys. So although there's nothing that I can do
Speaker 28: to bring fear back, I'm dedicated, and we're dedicated to
Speaker 28: do with everything we can. The highest honor we can
Speaker 28: pay her is to do everything we can to make
Speaker 28: sure we send other mothers home with their precious babies.
Speaker 8: That's such a heartbreaking story, and let me just say
Speaker 8: I'm so sorry, and when we offer our condolences for
Speaker 8: your loss and the strength it must take you every
Speaker 8: day to carry your wife's memory and create this legacy
Speaker 8: not only on behalf of her, but the work you're
Speaker 8: doing will impact thousands, if it's not millions of black
Speaker 8: women across the country.
Speaker 3: So I don't even have a question. I just have
Speaker 3: gratitude for you and to you, so thank you.
Speaker 1: I've heard your story, Charles. Obviously, I don't know. Today
Speaker 1: I feel particularly moved as I think about my wife
Speaker 1: sitting there, and I think about our three children and
Speaker 1: think about the miscarriages that happened in between them, and
Speaker 1: I just have nothing but gratitude for as a husband
Speaker 1: and father, your willingness to stand when I imagine you
Speaker 1: didn't have the strength to get up and to stand
Speaker 1: in the gap for so many other families, other husbands
Speaker 1: and their wives and partners who deserved to walk out
Speaker 1: of the hospital just as your wife did, and the health.
Speaker 1: Earlier this week, Charles hosted here on campus of Eternal Health,
Speaker 1: simposing and through for Kira, for moms. They're being able
Speaker 1: to get this word out, this message out across the
Speaker 1: country to not only folks in Washington and here at
Speaker 1: fam you and and and across the country, but hopefully
Speaker 1: to medical professionals who too often don't believe women, don't
Speaker 1: trust black women, don't validate or hear or believe our pain.
Speaker 1: They sum it up to they just want drugs, and
Speaker 1: life perishes in the balance of that. And so uh again,
Speaker 1: I can't imagine the everyday walk, but I thank you
Speaker 1: for it anyway, thank you, thank you great, thank you
Speaker 1: for it. And Genesis you've had to see. You've sat
Speaker 1: through one slight, fabricated story the other heart wrenching one.
Speaker 1: But I'd love for you to talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about what youth engagement and engaging youth particularly and advance
Speaker 1: of this election has felt like has been like and
Speaker 1: if there's any learning that we can take from your
Speaker 1: organizing experience in this election as relates to black men
Speaker 1: and what the system out to be doing to better hear, validate,
Speaker 1: and advocate on behalf of us, what would that advice be?
Speaker 25: You know, I think you know, youth are certainly excited
Speaker 25: to get engaged to hear me. Yeah, okay, I think
Speaker 25: youth are certainly excited to get engaged this election. Many
Speaker 25: of them who are having the first opportunity to pass
Speaker 25: a vote, they've watched for four years, They've watched for
Speaker 25: eight years, right, Donald Trump and the type of leadership
Speaker 25: that he has had. They've seen here in the state
Speaker 25: of Florida that they have books that are being banned,
Speaker 25: a curriculum that is being whitewashed and really stripped of
Speaker 25: truth and validity.
Speaker 19: Right, They're seeing where they're prevented.
Speaker 25: From calling their peers by pronouns of their chosen right,
Speaker 25: and so they have an opportunity to do something about it.
Speaker 19: And so we're excited about that.
Speaker 25: We know that this is sort of the first test
Speaker 25: of what their engagement and participation will look like not
Speaker 25: only on the national level, but here in the state
Speaker 25: of Florida. You talk about Black Men as an organization
Speaker 25: that organizes the black community in the state of Florida.
Speaker 19: We know that the black community has a lot to say.
Speaker 25: We're a little concerned right now about the black turnout
Speaker 25: here in the state of Florida, and so that's why
Speaker 25: our organization is committed from now until Tuesday to continue
Speaker 25: the work of getting people out to vote, providing the
Speaker 25: resources necessary for them to make educated, informed decisions, because
Speaker 25: we know that the voter suppression laws.
Speaker 19: That have been passed here in Florida are having an impact.
Speaker 25: In twenty twenty three, they removed four point two million
Speaker 25: Floridians from the vote by mail roles. Why did they
Speaker 25: do that because they knew in twenty twenty our community
Speaker 25: led the way and voting by mail and parenting, and
Speaker 25: they wanted to prevent us from being able to participate
Speaker 25: in that way.
Speaker 19: And so you know, we're hopeful, we know that, you know,
Speaker 19: Thomas winding up. We encourage everyone who's out there to
Speaker 19: make a plan to vote.
Speaker 25: If you have not voted yet, make sure you're vote
Speaker 25: by mail ballots received by seven pm on election day.
Speaker 25: It's not enough to have it dropped in the mail
Speaker 25: by that time, it must be received by your supervisor.
Speaker 25: And so make a plan to vote and make sure
Speaker 25: you participated in.
Speaker 19: This upcoming election.
Speaker 1: I love it, and angela activity for your awareness. The
Speaker 1: greatness about Equal Ground is that it's a group that
Speaker 1: doesn't work just in an election cycle. It's one of
Speaker 1: the few groups that you'll find year in year out,
Speaker 1: inside of gubernatorial or presidential or outside of those races,
Speaker 1: organizing and meeting people at their need. So, Genesis, we
Speaker 1: thank you for it.
Speaker 6: Yes to that point.
Speaker 5: To Charles and Jay, I know you all have both
Speaker 5: been personally impacted by what happens with black mothers.
Speaker 6: I'm curious to know, as so much is on.
Speaker 5: The balloting our very bodies, what do you encourage people
Speaker 5: to do and how do they stay engaged around issues
Speaker 5: like this beyond election day?
Speaker 28: Yeah, so, I think you know, when we think about
Speaker 28: reproductive justice, when we think about maternal health, particularly black
Speaker 28: maternal health, and it's important to speak to this and
Speaker 28: black maternal health. I know that stories like mine, when
Speaker 28: we look at the statistics, their heart brainsfuls.
Speaker 7: But here's the realt of this situation. We talk about data.
Speaker 28: The CDC is determined that eighty four percent of the
Speaker 28: maternal deaths in this country are classified as preventable, right,
Speaker 28: eighty four percent. That means those of mothers that should
Speaker 28: be at the first day of kindergarten, that should be
Speaker 28: dancing at weddings, they should be streaming at soccer games
Speaker 28: on Saturday mornings at the top of their lungs, and
Speaker 28: they're being taken for us. But that eighty four percent
Speaker 28: is where the opportunity lies, right, And so we've set
Speaker 28: a goal, as you heard me share in Los Angeles,
Speaker 28: that the United States needs to have a goal of
Speaker 28: zero preventable deaths from pregnancy and pregnancy related complications by.
Speaker 7: The year twenty thirty.
Speaker 28: Yeah, and how do we do that Fundamentally, we talk
Speaker 28: about a climate right now, As you well know that
Speaker 28: it's so politically divisive, this issue around maternal wellness and
Speaker 28: mothers being having the human right, not the women's health right,
Speaker 28: not the black the human right to get birth to
Speaker 28: a healthy child and live to raise that child is
Speaker 28: uniquely bipartisan right, whether your approach and suppose this is
Speaker 28: something we can reigar on So regardless of how you affiliate,
Speaker 28: which your zip code is, who you love, how you
Speaker 28: identify politically, make sure that your candidate has a clear,
Speaker 28: concise plan to make our country a better safe of
Speaker 28: place for mothers and babies.
Speaker 11: Right.
Speaker 28: But at the same time, while policy is important, we
Speaker 28: are done asking other people's permission to save our own lives.
Speaker 28: So it's important that we as a community get back
Speaker 28: to what we do well, which is community, making sure
Speaker 28: that we're informed and empowered, knowing what questions to ask,
Speaker 28: knowing making sure that we are elevating and sharing information
Speaker 28: about the providers that are doing it right, that are
Speaker 28: approaching it with cultural sensitivity, that are approaching that are
Speaker 28: leading with compassion, supporting organizations like the birth Guard.
Speaker 7: And supporting the doers.
Speaker 28: The re out of this situation is there's a lot
Speaker 28: of people that like to stand around and admire the problem. No,
Speaker 28: and when we talk about policy too, And I could
Speaker 28: go on all day, but one of the things I'll say,
Speaker 28: we talk about policy.
Speaker 7: We're making sure that the dollars. This year we passed.
Speaker 28: And a budget appropriation of one hundred million dollars specifically
Speaker 28: to fund community based black women led organizations It's an
Speaker 28: important distinction, right, So these funds are not just going
Speaker 28: to the legacy organizations that are making the sisters in
Speaker 28: the community sing for their sufferers, right and tap dance
Speaker 28: to get the funding. So we're making sure that funding
Speaker 28: is going to the people that need it, that have
Speaker 28: boots on the ground and are having their hands on
Speaker 28: the bellies. But the great news is that we can
Speaker 28: fix this, and so making sure that you're holding people accountables,
Speaker 28: choosing the right provider, and making sure that the people
Speaker 28: that you are generously giving your votes to have a
Speaker 28: plan to make sure that that's product.
Speaker 26: I think it's personal. It goes from personal to policy.
Speaker 26: Advocate for yourself. Yes, black women, black men, we gotta
Speaker 26: go to the doctor at least once a year, right.
Speaker 3: We got to get our mammograms, We got to get our.
Speaker 6: Paths, nears.
Speaker 3: We have to take control of our health, take back
Speaker 3: our power for our bodies.
Speaker 26: And then we have to understand the power of our vote.
Speaker 26: Because there are people out here politicizing IVF. I wouldn't
Speaker 26: have my children if it weren't by IVF. There are
Speaker 26: people politicizing what we do with our bodies and the
Speaker 26: decisions we have to make so I just asked everybody,
Speaker 26: you don't have to be into politics, but politics is personal.
Speaker 3: It's very important, and that is how people decide the policy.
Speaker 26: That affects all of our lives. So I just asked
Speaker 26: that people take back that power. Like Charles said, there
Speaker 26: are a lot of policies at place, so support the
Speaker 26: people that support the power things that support us.
Speaker 25: Yeah, and you know, that's one of the things that
Speaker 25: I think we're seeing here in the state of Florida's
Speaker 25: people to start to recognize the electoral power associated with
Speaker 25: the issues that they care about. Andrew, I often talk
Speaker 25: about that your election was perhaps the most consequential in
Speaker 25: the history of our state.
Speaker 11: Right. We went on to have.
Speaker 19: A Supreme Court that allowed unconstitutional.
Speaker 25: Maps to move forward and jimp Jerrymander. We have a
Speaker 25: state Board of Education that has allowed there to be
Speaker 25: to be taught that there's educational and benefit to slavery, right.
Speaker 25: And so I think when people look around and are
Speaker 25: able to tie their electoral power to the issues that
Speaker 25: matter to them, that we can use that as a
Speaker 25: motivator to get them to vote.
Speaker 19: It's not just about the presidential race, right, It's about voting.
Speaker 25: Up and down the ballot at all levels of government
Speaker 25: to ensure that we're getting the results that we need
Speaker 25: for documentedy.
Speaker 6: It's so grateful for it is.
Speaker 12: All your.
Speaker 1: Thank right back. I shout out to my co hosts.
Speaker 1: I should keep up, I should keep us here for
Speaker 1: thirty more minutes. Just the torture them. You got one
Speaker 1: over from Seattle the other way from the northeast. They
Speaker 1: about to die of here.
Speaker 3: Me too, though, shout out you did, good seed. I
Speaker 3: was real worried about you, so you did good.
Speaker 1: Y'all get up for this final panels. Thank you for
Speaker 1: their growth, their energy, and her female of applause.
Speaker 20: To you all.
Speaker 6: You guys can ask no questions.
Speaker 5: Y'all probably Tom raise the Lord. We'll come down and
Speaker 5: answer Mama's stage.
Speaker 1: Well, I want to say to our viewing audience, thank
Speaker 1: you very much for joining us for the fiftieth episode
Speaker 1: of Data Lampard. Welcome home, forty flight.
Speaker 7: We'll be at Philly on Monday.
Speaker 1: We'll be at Howard University with the next President of
Speaker 1: the United.
Speaker 13: States on Tuesdays.
Speaker 7: Sorry, that's break news. We'll be in DC night. We
Speaker 7: got thank you ourselves, but it would be that Moran see.
Speaker 29: Thank you for joining the Natives attention of with the
Speaker 29: info and all of the latest rock Gulim and cross
Speaker 29: connected to the statements that.
Speaker 7: You leave on our so shows.
Speaker 29: Thank you, sincerely for the patients reason for your choice
Speaker 29: is clear, so grateful it took the OA to execute
Speaker 29: roles than for serve, defend and protect the truth even
Speaker 29: in pain.
Speaker 19: For Welcome home to all.
Speaker 1: Of the natives.
Speaker 7: Wait, thank you, Welcome y'all.
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