Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to woke F Daily with
Speaker 1: me your girl, Danielle Moody, recording from the Home Bunker. Folks,
Speaker 1: it has been a wonderful Pride month here on WOKF
Speaker 1: and we are going to be rounding out our Pride celebration.
Speaker 1: You can't ban queer joy this week. And I'm excited
Speaker 1: because one, We've gotten to speak with some really amazing, thoughtful, innovative,
Speaker 1: courageous activists, writers, content creators this month that have really
Speaker 1: reminded me about the purpose of pride. Right, And you know,
Speaker 1: particularly in this time that we are living in which
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be honest with you to say that I
Speaker 1: never saw this kind of backslide coming. I feel really
Speaker 1: ignorant to say so, right, because there is nothing in
Speaker 1: our history that should have made me believe that it
Speaker 1: was just going to be smooth sailing from you know,
Speaker 1: from the passage of marriage and you know, and down
Speaker 1: with you know, bands on queer people in the military
Speaker 1: and the embracing of so much over the course of
Speaker 1: my life that I didn't see this coming, you know.
Speaker 1: And so a part of me is just like wake
Speaker 1: the fuck up, right, And then the other part of
Speaker 1: me is just really sad because every time that I
Speaker 1: feel in this country that we make progress on any front,
Speaker 1: it's like, then we take like seventeen thousand fucking steps backwards.
Speaker 1: And the fight for LGBTQ quality is honestly different than
Speaker 1: any other fight, right, Like, I'm a black woman in America,
Speaker 1: still fighting to be free, and we're coming up on
Speaker 1: the two hundred and fiftieth you know, year of America's
Speaker 1: existence in a handful of years, and I'm like, and
Speaker 1: we still just freeish, right.
Speaker 2: So I think that.
Speaker 1: As we move forward, and there have been a couple
Speaker 1: of wins that have taken place over the last couple
Speaker 1: of days that I think are really important, and those wins,
Speaker 1: you know, have been and I just want to, you know,
Speaker 1: name a couple, which is that judges are beginning to
Speaker 1: rule against these outrageous laws against drag performers, against LGBTQ
Speaker 1: people having freedom of speech and expression right, which is
Speaker 1: still a part of our constitution, and our constitution still
Speaker 1: dictates things, right. So we saw that happen with a
Speaker 1: federal judge in Florida temporarily blocked a new law allowing
Speaker 1: the state to penalize businesses that admit children to quote
Speaker 1: adult live performances such as drag shows. So that happened,
Speaker 1: and that was yet another slap in the face to
Speaker 1: Ron DeSantis, who also had the Hamburger Mary ruling that
Speaker 1: came up against him as well, because guess what, folks, like,
Speaker 1: they're breaking the law in trying to deny people their voice.
Speaker 1: And they're also calling drag shows quote unquote adult entertainment
Speaker 1: and like or as if it's burlesque, as if it's
Speaker 1: a strip club. But I don't see anybody trying to
Speaker 1: pass fucking legislation to deny strip clubs, right, you know,
Speaker 1: like so amazing the hypocrisy here. But you're seeing these
Speaker 1: incremental wins that are happening, and they give me hope,
Speaker 1: and they give me, you know, that kind of mustard
Speaker 1: seed that we need to continue to walk around with,
Speaker 1: because if you just take in all of the bad
Speaker 1: day in and day out, you're not gonna want to
Speaker 1: get out of bed in the morning. Which brings me
Speaker 1: to my next guest, Anna Deshaun. I was so excited
Speaker 1: folks about this conversation, and I'll tell you why because
Speaker 1: Anna has come on WOKP before as a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: Anna was on last year where Anna is the co
Speaker 1: founder and creator of The Cube, which is an LGBTQ
Speaker 1: and bipop app which is curated of all of these
Speaker 1: amazing black queer people of color voices and their podcasts
Speaker 1: and their content that is just like on one app.
Speaker 1: So instead of going through let's say, you know, these
Speaker 1: larger streaming places and trying to figure out, well, what
Speaker 1: do I really want to listen to, the Cube is
Speaker 1: a for us, buy us app. Anna and I get
Speaker 1: into really great conversation about what it feels like to
Speaker 1: be a black queer creator, the obstacles that she has faced,
Speaker 1: the obstacles to funding, right to have to show proof
Speaker 1: of concept when you know, white cysts, hetero men can
Speaker 1: walk into a room with like, you know, their fucking
Speaker 1: idea sketched out on a napkin and be given millions
Speaker 1: of dollars. And so we talk about the real wheel,
Speaker 1: but we also talk about, you know, the power in
Speaker 1: creation and in owning something that is for the community
Speaker 1: it's being created by. And so it was a really
Speaker 1: great conversation and I really hope that you will enjoy
Speaker 1: this as we close out month this week, my conversation
Speaker 1: with content creator and the co founder of The Cube,
Speaker 1: Anna Deshon. Folks, I am very happy to welcome to
Speaker 1: woke f Daily Anna Deshon, who is the co founder
Speaker 1: of the Cube. The conversation is centered around this, what
Speaker 1: this does. What the Cube is is an app that
Speaker 1: is created for and by us. I don't know how
Speaker 1: else to say that. You'll say it better, but I
Speaker 1: feel like it is four queer people of color about
Speaker 1: peer queer people of color. It is a space where
Speaker 1: you can find new artists, where you can find new creatives.
Speaker 1: And you know, we know that people who are listening
Speaker 1: to this right they find wok F Daily in a
Speaker 1: couple of different places. You're at being one of them.
Speaker 1: iHeart being another place. And so tell people exactly what
Speaker 1: it is that makes your and are so special and
Speaker 1: important and necessary.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, and yes see all of that. And thank
Speaker 2: you for inviting me to share this with your audience
Speaker 2: and for being back on WOKF because I love your
Speaker 2: work and always have so I'm always grateful to be
Speaker 2: on your platform. What makes us different is that it
Speaker 2: was born out of our own need. I was sitting
Speaker 2: around with my two co founders, who are also my
Speaker 2: two best friends talking about the radio station that we
Speaker 2: have that's online. We play queer music all day, we
Speaker 2: report on prier news. But we knew we had to
Speaker 2: expand in the podcasting to remain relevant because we're in
Speaker 2: such an on demand society. But we couldn't find any
Speaker 2: podcasts that were hosted by queer folks of color, that
Speaker 2: were hosted by black and brown folks within these apps
Speaker 2: that exist today, and we were like, where do we
Speaker 2: find the pods for us? We know they're out there,
Speaker 2: but we can't find them. And as we began digging
Speaker 2: into this idea, we were like, we got to create
Speaker 2: this app. We can create it. We can create the
Speaker 2: change right And one of my favorite quotes and I
Speaker 2: share it all the time Shirley chisholm, Okay, if they'll
Speaker 2: give you a seat at the table, bring a fold
Speaker 2: in chair. And I just felt like we brought plenty
Speaker 2: of chairs, and it was just time for us to
Speaker 2: build our own tables. Like what are we waiting on?
Speaker 2: We can do this ourselves. And so the idea came
Speaker 2: to create this platform where we can curate, you know,
Speaker 2: these podcasts and create a hub for the very best
Speaker 2: and that's really at the heart of what makes our
Speaker 2: platform different is that we do listen to everything. It's
Speaker 2: not just oh, come here, you can claim your pod,
Speaker 2: and you know, I'm not interested in the quantity. I'm
Speaker 2: interested in the quality. I want you to come here,
Speaker 2: and even if you're not down with this particular topic,
Speaker 2: it's gonna be a good podcast and you can just
Speaker 2: go find another good podcast hosted by a bipod or
Speaker 2: qt pock person. And we deserve that. We deserve a
Speaker 2: place built for us, centering us and centering our identities.
Speaker 2: And because of technology, we're using artificial intelligence to be
Speaker 2: really smart around things that we value, which are our
Speaker 2: identities and the things we care about. And so when
Speaker 2: you come to our platform, you create an account, you
Speaker 2: select your identities, you select the categories you'd like to
Speaker 2: listen to, and our platform serves you up content that
Speaker 2: uds you both of those things at the same exact time.
Speaker 2: And I'm really excited about what we're building. We've got
Speaker 2: ninety four podcasts accepted into the platform. Today you can
Speaker 2: go to the q dot app and begin discovering and
Speaker 2: searching and listening right from our platform and being an
Speaker 2: entrepreneur out here in the world is tough raising money BC.
Speaker 2: We could talk so many.
Speaker 1: Things right right right, yeah, and all.
Speaker 2: Of the disparities around funding for women, funding for people
Speaker 2: of color in the BC space. But at the end
Speaker 2: the day to day, I'm doing it because I feel
Speaker 2: like we need it. I wanted it when I talk
Speaker 2: to other people, they wanted and I also I also
Speaker 2: know that we can create something that's really beautiful. Some
Speaker 2: folks have said it's like the be et a podcast.
Speaker 2: I'm like, I mean, okay, okay, we can receive like, okay, okay, yeah,
Speaker 2: I get where you're going. I've had people say, like,
Speaker 2: you like the Green Book of podcasts. I was like, Okay,
Speaker 2: I see where you're going. I see the vibe, you know.
Speaker 2: And when people tell me things like that or mirror
Speaker 2: what the Cube is to them, it reminds me just
Speaker 2: how important it is that we exist. And so yeah,
Speaker 2: y'all check out the Cube. Be down with it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I think, you know.
Speaker 1: I think it's like, there are a couple of things
Speaker 1: that you said that I think are really important, which is,
Speaker 1: you know, when we see let's say, companies like Spotify
Speaker 1: that promote the voices, you know of people who are
Speaker 1: anti uh, you know, anti humanity, and trans, anti queer,
Speaker 1: anti black, you know, anti women. Just the list goes
Speaker 1: on and on and on. And we see the ability
Speaker 1: of you know, governments to threaten to pull away apps
Speaker 1: like TikTok because of what country is behind them. You know.
Speaker 1: We often say or we see takeovers of the town
Speaker 1: square like with Twitter, right, people say, well, we need
Speaker 1: something that is for us, by us. We need something
Speaker 1: that we own because what happens, particularly with black creatives
Speaker 1: I feel as one myself, is that you get on
Speaker 1: these other apps, right, and you create content, and you
Speaker 1: try and monetize, and you try and build out an
Speaker 1: audience in a platform, but at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: if you don't own it, it can be taken away
Speaker 1: from you.
Speaker 2: At any given moment, right, And that's exactly the opposite
Speaker 2: of what we're doing. We don't own anybody's content that's
Speaker 2: inside the platform. Everybody owns their own stuff. We are
Speaker 2: really pulling in their RSS feed. And my hope is
Speaker 2: that by the end of twenty twenty five, because y'all
Speaker 2: gonna get into my business head right now, and by
Speaker 2: the end of twenty twenty five, my hope is that
Speaker 2: we have the brands and the advertising relationships needed that
Speaker 2: if folks who are in our platform want to monetize
Speaker 2: with us, that we can do that, that we can
Speaker 2: write add campaigns across you know, our entire platform to
Speaker 2: help support creatives because we know so many people, especially
Speaker 2: in the podcasting space, are not getting paid for their work, right,
Speaker 2: and people do not value who they reach, And I
Speaker 2: think that it's it makes me actually kind of upset
Speaker 2: because I feel like, if you are reaching one hundred
Speaker 2: people every week, those are one hundred people that somebody
Speaker 2: else isn't reaching, and there's value in those hundred people. Right.
Speaker 2: We live in a society where people are always trying
Speaker 2: to be the billion dollar or million follower person, and
Speaker 2: I'm like, you don't need that. You need to five
Speaker 2: your people, cultivate your audience. Right. It could be one
Speaker 2: hundred people, it could be five hundred people, a thousand people,
Speaker 2: but those are your people and they're gonna listen to you,
Speaker 2: and there's.
Speaker 1: Valuation and they'll show up. And that that's the thing too.
Speaker 1: I think that that people really need to understand. Yes,
Speaker 1: they're always looking for, you know, the million followers or
Speaker 1: what have you, but when you turn to those people
Speaker 1: and you're like, you know, for action or to activate them.
Speaker 1: Are they really connected or are they just you know,
Speaker 1: a bot that is in You know that that is
Speaker 1: a part of your of your viewership. You know, are
Speaker 1: they really are they really down for you? And I
Speaker 1: think that that what you said is really important. I
Speaker 1: do want to talk about the business aspect of it,
Speaker 1: because you know, if you go to tech conferences, which
Speaker 1: I know that you do, and go into these spaces,
Speaker 1: what we know is that black women get zero points
Speaker 1: zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero zero.
Speaker 1: I think I could keep going. You could point one
Speaker 1: percent of VC funding. Can you speak to that and
Speaker 1: how you have been able to to to to create this,
Speaker 1: to create this app given the statistics that.
Speaker 2: Do not work in our favor. Yeah, I put a
Speaker 2: pause on fundraising with vcs because of that. I actually
Speaker 2: I was like, you know what, I'm gonna build this
Speaker 2: with my people. I'm gonna do what I know which
Speaker 2: is grassroots community building, building relationships with my audience, and
Speaker 2: then let's do this the way that I know how
Speaker 2: to build. In this moment, I will say I entered
Speaker 2: this space thinking about going the BC route. We definitely
Speaker 2: got our first check. Big up to Fifth Star Funds.
Speaker 2: They wrote us our first check. They are a VC
Speaker 2: firm out of Chicago who who support BIPOC founders here
Speaker 2: in the city, and they wrote us a twenty five
Speaker 2: thousand dollars check. That was our first check that we
Speaker 2: got and their support has been invaluable. Okay, but all
Speaker 2: vcs are not like Fifth Star Funds. And what I
Speaker 2: found was that people are not investing in media and entertainment.
Speaker 2: That's one thing that's different right about our platform. I
Speaker 2: also found that I have to prove a little bit
Speaker 2: more right. I'm not just going off of what is possible.
Speaker 2: I have to go off of what we've done, which
Speaker 2: is not always the same standard as anybody.
Speaker 1: Else calling for a second, it is not the same
Speaker 1: standard that it's not kind of the same standard. It's
Speaker 1: not the same standard. You as much you you have
Speaker 1: listened and you've heard, you know, sis white straight men
Speaker 1: talk about the ability to you know, continue to fail
Speaker 1: up and talk about somebody just putting millions of dollars
Speaker 1: behind the dream. Meanwhile, you know, people of color, particularly
Speaker 1: black women, have to show you know, a body of
Speaker 1: work and wrapped around their dream and so much more
Speaker 1: when dudes are walking in with a handshake.
Speaker 2: A handshaking idea, nothing proving, right, I've got a with
Speaker 2: proof traction supporters, beta users, you know, all this other,
Speaker 2: all this other stuff, and it's so exhausting. I had
Speaker 2: this experience. I got to meet the Brat and Judy.
Speaker 2: It's just it's gonna sound like a random story, but
Speaker 2: it's not. Daniell Arms, Okay, what had the opportunity to
Speaker 2: meet Brett and Judy? It was really dope. There's a
Speaker 2: queer basketball club here in Chicago called Swish and they
Speaker 2: invited me, They invited them, we got to meet. I'm
Speaker 2: in this room with Brat and Judy. I'm thinking to myself,
Speaker 2: I want to talk to Judy because she has built
Speaker 2: a multimillion dollar brand from the ground up, and I
Speaker 2: believe the Cube has an opportunity to be that. And
Speaker 2: I'm like, who knows it's gonna get a chance to
Speaker 2: talk to her again. I want to pick her brain. Right,
Speaker 2: So we're in the back before Brat, before Brat performs,
Speaker 2: I'm talking to Judy. I'm like, what do you think
Speaker 2: I should do? Should I continue fundraising VC? And she
Speaker 2: was just like Nope, no, build it, build it, figure
Speaker 2: out how you bring in consistent cash flow, figure out
Speaker 2: your business how you want it to be before you
Speaker 2: let someone in who may want to control it, who
Speaker 2: want to push their own agenda. Come on, She's like,
Speaker 2: She's like, I know too many people who have taken
Speaker 2: VC funding and their business doesn't look like anything they
Speaker 2: wanted to be. And I took that and I listened.
Speaker 2: I haven't fundraised since that moment, and I feel like
Speaker 2: that was some of the best advice. It was worth
Speaker 2: the brat coming over there like are you okay? I
Speaker 2: thought the brat was gonna come get me dam up
Speaker 2: if everybody was with her and I was with Judy,
Speaker 2: and I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm married. We're good.
Speaker 2: We're good here. We are so good. I don't want
Speaker 2: no problems, Brad. Respect. But that was some of the
Speaker 2: best advice because when you are doing a startup, and
Speaker 2: you're doing a tech startup, that's the way everyone thinks
Speaker 2: you should be going vc BC. But at the end
Speaker 2: of the day, they're giving you capital. But can you
Speaker 2: keep the capital going or you're gonna can you the
Speaker 2: fundraise for the rest of your life? Because that's also
Speaker 2: what I hear. Once you start fundraising, you can't stop
Speaker 2: because you have more milestones to me, more people to manage,
Speaker 2: more people on your cap table, and.
Speaker 1: More money to give back, right, more money to get
Speaker 1: that to And that's stairus.
Speaker 2: Right, that's right. Yeah, that's right, And they want it quickly,
Speaker 2: depending what the type of investor you have. Some people
Speaker 2: want one hundred x ten x in the next two months.
Speaker 2: Can you turn that over? No? No, Oftentimes the answer
Speaker 2: is no. So where we're at right now, I have
Speaker 2: leveraged our audience. We've done crowdfunding, right, we have. I've
Speaker 2: got a monthly give call them the Cute Crew. They
Speaker 2: give monthly to our Queer News podcast. And I have
Speaker 2: built just based on my community and building on partnerships
Speaker 2: and aligning our brand with other people who are doing
Speaker 2: the same exact thing in the podcast and community. And
Speaker 2: that's fueling our Cube tour that we're actually going on
Speaker 2: starting in July. We're kicking off in New York City
Speaker 2: with the Black Podcast is a social.
Speaker 1: I mean, hello, do I get an invite? I'm in
Speaker 1: New York City. I would like to come?
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely please, It's because summer social. We're kicking it
Speaker 2: off July fifteenth in Brooklyn. And you know what, Danielle,
Speaker 2: you should actually be our special guest in Manhattan.
Speaker 1: Saying I mean going to Podstream Studios.
Speaker 2: We're gonna be with Chris. With Chris, Yeah, I want
Speaker 2: to come, all right, Yes, Okay, we're gonna get it.
Speaker 2: We're gonna do that. Yeah, We're doing the second tecond
Speaker 2: Activation and Podstream Studios in Times Square with Chris. We're
Speaker 2: gonna be going to the DMB. We're going to Atlanta,
Speaker 2: We're going to Denver, We're gonna hit Oakland, We're going
Speaker 2: to Minneapolis, and we're partnering with all of these amazing
Speaker 2: podcasting companies who are amplifying black and brown voices in
Speaker 2: the space. And there's a lot of them, but there's
Speaker 2: a lot of them, and we're gonna do this together
Speaker 2: and I'm really excited about that. Also, going to Baltimore,
Speaker 2: we're gonna take our podcast to the people. We're using
Speaker 2: silent Head as our immersive way of people listening to
Speaker 2: the Yeah. Yes, we're gonna play trailers from our Cube
Speaker 2: original podcast. We've got Black HIV in the South, which
Speaker 2: is now an award winning podcast. I'm so grateful for
Speaker 2: that piece of work, and we've got PolyAm chats coming out.
Speaker 2: We just dropped the WNBA podcast called Rebound Revolution. It
Speaker 2: is so queer, it is so black, it is so great.
Speaker 2: If you enter the WNBA, you should tap in. If
Speaker 2: you're not, that's okay too. We actually made this pod
Speaker 2: for people who don't follow the w but want to
Speaker 2: know more about it. And then we're doing a podcast
Speaker 2: called Second Sunday in collaboration with PRX about being black
Speaker 2: and queer in the Black Christian Church. So we're gonna
Speaker 2: play trailers, have conversation, highlight podcasts within the Cube network,
Speaker 2: and come together. We listened to podcasts alone, but podcast
Speaker 2: is community, so we should do it together sometimes. You know,
Speaker 2: I love that.
Speaker 1: I love that idea because you're right, you know, the
Speaker 1: whole the experience of listening to a podcast for the
Speaker 1: year June it on a run on your commute, walking,
Speaker 1: you know, gardening and taking care of your house or
Speaker 1: what have you, is a very solo app But I
Speaker 1: do find that when people get into community, whether you're
Speaker 1: at brunch with friends or what have you, it's like,
Speaker 1: oh what are you listening to?
Speaker 2: You know, what what are you getting into? This?
Speaker 1: Similar way would people watch shows, you know on the streaming,
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, what are you watching? You want
Speaker 1: to be able to have conversation about it. So I
Speaker 1: love the idea of bringing something that is a very
Speaker 1: siloed activity together in community with people. And I also think,
Speaker 1: you know, Anna that frankly crowd funding right, Getting people
Speaker 1: who are able to see themselves in what it is
Speaker 1: that you're creating to be a part of something that
Speaker 1: is being built for you matters more, I want to say,
Speaker 1: than like, you know, the millions of dollars that you
Speaker 1: could get from a faceless person that has no real
Speaker 1: connection to this community. Look, the money is great, but
Speaker 1: the money is only great if you're able to do
Speaker 1: with it what you want, what you envision and what
Speaker 1: you see. And I think that that's really important. You know,
Speaker 1: you hear these stories of folks, you know, going on
Speaker 1: shows like Shark Tank, right, and they're thinking like this
Speaker 1: is going to be their biggest thing, And you hear
Speaker 1: more stories of people that end up failing, you know,
Speaker 1: hard after that, or losing diluting their business in order
Speaker 1: to bend to the whims you know of the sharks,
Speaker 1: and then the at the end of the day, They're like,
Speaker 1: we were doing fine as as is, you know, and
Speaker 1: we could have just kept building incrementally. But our society
Speaker 1: is about immediate gratification, immediate fame, immediate wealth, and anything
Speaker 1: outside of that is not applauded. It's not celebrated. And
Speaker 1: I think so, I think that what you're doing in
Speaker 1: the way that you're doing it will do so much
Speaker 1: more for the community and so much more for your company,
Speaker 1: h than than than anything else.
Speaker 2: Thank you, because I believe in a strong foundation and
Speaker 2: it can't be built just because we have a whole
Speaker 2: bunch of money to throw at something. I think we've
Speaker 2: all felt, as black, brown queer folks, what it feels
Speaker 2: like with someone when you know someone's just throwing money
Speaker 2: at something they can just market to you over and
Speaker 2: over again. But I still have no connection to them.
Speaker 2: I don't want to support them. I don't want to
Speaker 2: show up for them if it feels inauthentic, and I
Speaker 2: want this to be the cube is way bigger than me.
Speaker 2: I feel like anything that I build, I don't think
Speaker 2: of myself as the center of it. It's really for
Speaker 2: the people, and the people have to want it, and
Speaker 2: that people have to want to support it, And it
Speaker 2: don't matter how much money I put into it. If
Speaker 2: people love it, they tell a friend about it. And
Speaker 2: I think that the power of word of mouth, the
Speaker 2: power of relationships is what's gonna make the Cube successful,
Speaker 2: not a million dollars from a VC, even though that'd
Speaker 2: be nice, But it's not that, right, right, it's not that.
Speaker 1: I want to ask you with a couple of minutes
Speaker 1: that we have left, you know, it is it is
Speaker 1: Pride Month and we've had just an incredible time on
Speaker 1: okay app this month talking to you know, qu are
Speaker 1: brilliant creators and musicians and activists and therapists and you know,
Speaker 1: and teachers and all of these different pieces of our
Speaker 1: community that build up just a beautiful mosaic. But with
Speaker 1: that mosaic is the backdrop of just a lot of
Speaker 1: pain and strife and activation on the right. Uh, that
Speaker 1: is about nothing more than cruelty, nothing more than trying
Speaker 1: to steal our joy, beat away our joy, legislate away
Speaker 1: our humanity. And I wanted to get you know your
Speaker 1: thoughts on how you are feeling, uh in this moment,
Speaker 1: and how you feel about Pride this this year.
Speaker 2: So I'm feeling a lot of different things. One thing
Speaker 2: I'm feeling is a call to action for allies and
Speaker 2: accomplices and comrades, because in this moment, we need them
Speaker 2: to activate themselves. Like we've been out here, Dan, Ye,
Speaker 2: you've been out here. We've been talking about what's happening
Speaker 2: in these legislatures for the last two years. It's been
Speaker 2: happening two three years. It's been a steady increase, and
Speaker 2: they just went all ham okay, DeSantis found success and
Speaker 2: they all are just copying what he's doing in Florida
Speaker 2: like this, This isn't just happen and so for me,
Speaker 2: it's not about queer folks all. It's not about queer
Speaker 2: folks doing the fighting. It's like, allies, wake up. This
Speaker 2: is your moment. You consider yourself an ally or a
Speaker 2: comrade to this community, this is your time to step
Speaker 2: up and say something, be active like this is queer
Speaker 2: folks have to deal with all of the pain and
Speaker 2: the mental anguish and the harm that's happening to our friends. Right.
Speaker 2: My heart breaks when I think about my friends who
Speaker 2: didn't make it through COVID, my friends who are having
Speaker 2: to move out the States because they don't feel safe,
Speaker 2: people who and the people who can't move, the people
Speaker 2: are not in a place where they can just pick
Speaker 2: up their whole life and go somewhere else. They're having
Speaker 2: to deal with it. Right, We got enough on our
Speaker 2: plate now. I think this is the time for people
Speaker 2: who consider themselves liberals to step up and speak up
Speaker 2: and figure out what it actually means to be in
Speaker 2: a fight, because we are in a fight. This is
Speaker 2: a fight right now. So for me, you know, the
Speaker 2: marketing always like say, Pride is a protest, Pride was
Speaker 2: a right. Pride is a fight right now and you
Speaker 2: have to really fight to be proud today. And so
Speaker 2: for me, that's what this is. And I think I'm
Speaker 2: seeing all the parties. Okay, we are celebrating I know
Speaker 2: black queer folks are fighting joy this Pride season post
Speaker 2: COVID to be together as community and creating safe spaces
Speaker 2: for us to be and there is work to be
Speaker 2: a lot of work to be done. I think I
Speaker 2: heard that the Equality Act was going to be reintroduced.
Speaker 2: I mean, we I don't even know what's happening right now.
Speaker 2: Banning books at an enormous rate, like they're erasing our humanity,
Speaker 2: erasing our history, trying to erase who we are right now,
Speaker 2: and we can't sit around and act like it's a
Speaker 2: normal day in the neighborhood. It is not a normal
Speaker 2: day in the neighborhood. Trans folks have less rights today
Speaker 2: than they did fifty years ago. What world are we
Speaker 2: living in? There's nothing okay about that. And if we
Speaker 2: aren't standing up and fighting right now, then what the
Speaker 2: world are you doing? What are you doing? We can't
Speaker 2: sit back right now. This is time for us to
Speaker 2: double down, double triple down on what democracy really means.
Speaker 2: What does democracy mean to you? Because right now it's
Speaker 2: a whole bunch of fascism happening. Like, if you believe
Speaker 2: in democracy, then it's time, just time to do something.
Speaker 2: I'm actually really proud of Illinois. They just we just
Speaker 2: passed a build that you can't ban books here, right
Speaker 2: don't if you can, if you ban books, you don't
Speaker 2: get no state funded Like that's the type of legislation,
Speaker 2: that's the active allyship that we need right now to
Speaker 2: counteract what the right wing hatred is doing and across
Speaker 2: all of our legislatures across the country.
Speaker 1: You know, yeah, one hundred percent, Anna, I thank you
Speaker 1: so very much for the work that you're doing, for
Speaker 1: the company that you're building, for the app that you're
Speaker 1: that you have created, for the queer and bipoc folks
Speaker 1: who have found home and space with the Cube. I'm
Speaker 1: really excited for you, know, for for your continuation and
Speaker 1: anything that we can do on wok F we will
Speaker 1: because you know it's we're always stronger when we're together,
Speaker 1: so we appreciate it.
Speaker 2: I appreciate you so much. I appreciate you so much.
Speaker 2: And I'll say, if y'all enjoy WOKF, I think you
Speaker 2: might enjoy my pot too. It's called Queer News. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm saying. We drop it every Monday, four or five
Speaker 2: queer news stories, and in summertime we do interviews with
Speaker 2: amazing LGBTQ folks whose work deserves to be amplified. So
Speaker 2: if you get down with that jam check us out. Amazing.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Thank you, Danielle, thank you so much.
Speaker 1: That is it for me today, Dear friends on wok
Speaker 1: F as always power to the people and to all
Speaker 1: the people. Power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.