Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to boka F Daily with
Speaker 1: Meet your Girl Daniel Moody, recording from the home Bunker. Folks,
Speaker 1: I'm really excited to bring to woke f Daily for
Speaker 1: the very first time Corey Nathan. Corey Nathan is the
Speaker 1: host of Talking Politics and Religion podcast and we first
Speaker 1: got into a conversation on my other podcasts with my
Speaker 1: friend wajahat Ali Democracy Ish And you know, often I
Speaker 1: don't talk about religion. I don't talk about the mix
Speaker 1: of religion and politics because I don't come from a
Speaker 1: religious background. But I do understand how politics and our
Speaker 1: policy and frankly the founding of this nation is wrapped
Speaker 1: up in religiosity. I mean, for Fox's sake, we have
Speaker 1: on our coins in God, we trust God, bless America.
Speaker 1: We do all of these things reflexively and for people
Speaker 1: who are like myself, who deem themselves more spiritual agnostic,
Speaker 1: not subscribing to any organized religion. Getting into conversations with
Speaker 1: folks who do subscribe to religion if it is not
Speaker 1: a thoughtful, open minded conversation can end up in huge
Speaker 1: squabbles and just everyone shutting down. That is not the
Speaker 1: case with Corey Nathan and I have enjoyed joining his
Speaker 1: podcast him joining now Woke f for the first time,
Speaker 1: we get into an in depth conversation with regard to
Speaker 1: how we engage, you know, rather than shut down with people,
Speaker 1: we open up the conversation talking about the cruelty that
Speaker 1: is being exhibited by Republicans who claim right Christian faith
Speaker 1: and yet their actions say otherwise and what that means.
Speaker 1: And so I really hope, folks, that you enjoy this
Speaker 1: conversation with Corey Nathan. I hope that you will check
Speaker 1: out his podcasts, Talk in Politics and Religion pod. You
Speaker 1: can follow him at Corey Nathan on all social media
Speaker 1: platforms as well as his podcast. So I do hope
Speaker 1: that you enjoy this conversation. Do let me know in
Speaker 1: the comment sections below how it lands with you. I
Speaker 1: always appreciate your feedback. It's no secret that the news
Speaker 1: is horsepill hard to swallow. Thankfully, there's The Bituation Room
Speaker 1: podcast hosted by comedian and commentator Francesca free Erntini for
Speaker 1: a lighter take on the heavy stuff. Each week, the
Speaker 1: Bituation Room brings you progressive comedians, experts, and activists to
Speaker 1: break down the issues in a way that won't just
Speaker 1: leave you crying under a weighted blanket. Get the Bituation
Speaker 1: Room on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and streaming on YouTube
Speaker 1: and Twitch. Folks, I am very happy to welcome to
Speaker 1: woke F Daily Corey Nathan, who is the host of
Speaker 1: the podcast Talking Politics and Religion, who just has We've
Speaker 1: had incredible conversations Corey on democracy Ish my other podcasts
Speaker 1: on your own podcast, and I wanted to bring this
Speaker 1: conversation to the woke a F audience. I love the
Speaker 1: way that you are able to weave in religion politics
Speaker 1: and just kind of give us a fifty thousand foot
Speaker 1: view and then zero in on the contradictions, the many,
Speaker 1: many contradictions that we see in our body politic today,
Speaker 1: particularly at the hands of Republicans. The topic that I
Speaker 1: kind of want to start off with today is one
Speaker 1: that has really Corey been grading on me for the
Speaker 1: last week or so since it's happened, which is Rondes
Speaker 1: Santis and Greg Abbott in Texas playing political games with
Speaker 1: human beings, most recently with Ronda Santis lying to a
Speaker 1: group of migrants and then from Venezuela who were not
Speaker 1: even in his state, putting them on chartered planes and
Speaker 1: sending them to Martha's vineyard as a way to quote
Speaker 1: unquote own the Libs. These are people, Corey, who profess
Speaker 1: to be somehow children of God. I don't know what God,
Speaker 1: but that's what they profess to be, These christo christo
Speaker 1: fascist right, which is what I will refer to them as,
Speaker 1: because I don't see what else you would refer to
Speaker 1: their behavior as. When you see these images and these
Speaker 1: examples of cruelty being normalized in our media and in
Speaker 1: our politics. Cory, what comes up for you? Well, you
Speaker 1: used a word at the beginning of your thoughts that
Speaker 1: I think is key, and that word is human. I
Speaker 1: think that this the actions that are taken on the
Speaker 1: part of the Santis, in particular because i've I've watched
Speaker 1: his stand up comedy routines. I don't know what else
Speaker 1: you could call it. There he's like going on tour now,
Speaker 1: he's going to other states, and he's brazenly proclaiming and
Speaker 1: showing off his cruelty and and is celebrating it. And
Speaker 1: I think the only way that you get there is
Speaker 1: by numbing your sense of someone else's humanity, losing or
Speaker 1: never having seen or never having acknowledged that this is
Speaker 1: another human being. You know. I got to talk to
Speaker 1: Wag and he had a really insightful way of describing
Speaker 1: this whole Christian thing. This the way that someone liked
Speaker 1: De Santis would use the name of God or Jesus
Speaker 1: or his label of Christianity, and wash put it in
Speaker 1: such way. He said, Jesus is his mascot. Jesus isn't
Speaker 1: his lord? Wow, Jesus is his mascot, you know. And
Speaker 1: and it's something very different. I mean, I you mentioned
Speaker 1: that we were going to be talking about this, and
Speaker 1: I've gotten into really heated conversations because to me, it's
Speaker 1: very clear whether we're looking at Hebrew by and I
Speaker 1: know not all of your audience are or of the
Speaker 1: Judeo Christian background, but I do bring it up, not
Speaker 1: to evangelize or anything like that, but because this is
Speaker 1: this is supposed to be the word and the authority
Speaker 1: that guides our morality, our ethic, you know. So I've
Speaker 1: gotten too heated debates about Hey, listen, I know, I
Speaker 1: know y'all prefer your socio political leaning is you know,
Speaker 1: closed border, and you know they're only bringing the rapists
Speaker 1: and the you know and seeing them seeing other humans
Speaker 1: in another light, you know. But listen, this is the
Speaker 1: word of God. When a foreigner resides among you in
Speaker 1: your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among
Speaker 1: you must be treated as your native born, love them
Speaker 1: as yourself. For you or foreigners, this is still true
Speaker 1: even if you do book, don't buy the Bible. We
Speaker 1: could take this statement and say, this is a virtue
Speaker 1: to see our neighbors a certain way, to see our
Speaker 1: neighbors as ourselves. Because I know you know your your
Speaker 1: parents are originally from Jamaica, Jamaica, right, so I'm sure
Speaker 1: you can identify. I identify with it. We talked about
Speaker 1: my grandmother arriving here at Ellis Island on March third,
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty one. I was a foreigner. This is my story,
Speaker 1: you know. And if Desantists can't see that, if Desantists
Speaker 1: doesn't know his own family's history, we're happy to look
Speaker 1: it up for him, just like we looked it up
Speaker 1: for Donald fucking Trump or drump I should say, you know,
Speaker 1: we're happy to look it up for you. You know
Speaker 1: what it is, It's that what I've come to understand
Speaker 1: is that there is no shaming the devil, right, there
Speaker 1: is there is no there is no shaming of the devil.
Speaker 1: And I say that because I believe that these people
Speaker 1: are at have come to a place where they are
Speaker 1: celebrating they're evil, Like you said, Ron de Santist is
Speaker 1: on a tour, a toward the evil, right, a toward
Speaker 1: the cruelty. But this isn't how the media is depicting this.
Speaker 1: They are depicting what is happening and what continues to
Speaker 1: happen with these migrants as political posturing, as opposed to
Speaker 1: dehumanization and cruelty, as opposed to where is amnesty international? Right?
Speaker 1: Where is the UN in terms of what laws against
Speaker 1: humanity this country is breaking? These governors are breaking. And
Speaker 1: so my question for you is, you know, one of
Speaker 1: the major tenants of authoritarianism and fascism is to normalize violence,
Speaker 1: is to normalize political violence and to normalize cruelty and
Speaker 1: brutality in such a way that people begin to look
Speaker 1: the other way. It's similarly that we've all when we
Speaker 1: see headlines with regard to mass shootings, it's really only
Speaker 1: the amount of people being gunned down at one time
Speaker 1: that moves us. If it's for or less people we're like, oh,
Speaker 1: isn't that sad? And we turn the page or we
Speaker 1: turn the channel and we move about our day because
Speaker 1: there's just been so many shootings. It's hard to shed
Speaker 1: tears for all of them because you'd be crying all
Speaker 1: day every day. So, but my question, Corey is when
Speaker 1: we start to become desensitized to this level of cruelty,
Speaker 1: what do you see as the long term impact on
Speaker 1: our ability to have empathy and compassion and what that
Speaker 1: does to our founding principles, whether or not we've ever
Speaker 1: truly met them. At least each generation in some form
Speaker 1: or fashion, has strived towards that. Yeah, I want to
Speaker 1: hold out hope. I want to. I think one of
Speaker 1: the ways that I've been able to continue in my
Speaker 1: efforts is to hold out hope for individuals, to hold
Speaker 1: out hope for other human beings, even for people who
Speaker 1: are in that room where De Santis is giving his performances.
Speaker 1: That there are other human beings that I think are
Speaker 1: not beyond our reach. You know, I think that there
Speaker 1: are folks. I've been thinking a lot about this Bible
Speaker 1: study I went to. It was a Sunday school class
Speaker 1: that we were going to for like ten fifteen years.
Speaker 1: When I first became a Christian, first having kids was
Speaker 1: called young marriages. And listen, I'm realistic. I think if
Speaker 1: there were twenty twenty five of us in that room,
Speaker 1: they're going to that class. I'm still friends with a
Speaker 1: lot of them. I'm not gonna fool myself into thinking
Speaker 1: that that entire room is persuadable. But you know what,
Speaker 1: I do think that there's one or two or three
Speaker 1: that are you know, and what does that look like?
Speaker 1: So so what might be the question, But no, there
Speaker 1: is a so what Because just as an example, and
Speaker 1: I'm kind of taking a left turn here, I live
Speaker 1: in a district, a US Congress House district, California, twenty
Speaker 1: seven that was decided by three hundred and thirty three
Speaker 1: votes out of over three hundred and forty thousand people
Speaker 1: who cast a vote, and Christy Smith lost that one,
Speaker 1: but she's running again. So why do I think of
Speaker 1: my son day school class and how is that connected?
Speaker 1: Because if I can persuade one person from my old
Speaker 1: Sunday school class, that means Christy wins this time. And
Speaker 1: that's exactly a suburban college educated women in particular, that
Speaker 1: is exactly the content constituency that's that's in a swing.
Speaker 1: So if I can convince you know, my friend Margaret, like, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, I think we got it wrong on this
Speaker 1: immigrant thing. I think we you know, I know that
Speaker 1: we're rooting. We're always trained to root for the Red,
Speaker 1: root for the Republicans. We're always training to vote. Don't think,
Speaker 1: just vote and vote the way you know our people.
Speaker 1: You know, no, no, no no, no, it's time to think.
Speaker 1: It's time to think why. Because loving the Lord your
Speaker 1: God involves loving the Lord your God with all your heart, soul,
Speaker 1: mind and strength. So let's think. So I'm talking to
Speaker 1: Margaret right now, and I'm saying we got this. You know,
Speaker 1: Trump separated children from their parents, and we're still having
Speaker 1: to clean up the mess. You know. Uh, De Santis
Speaker 1: and Abbott are are making it about own the lives.
Speaker 1: So to them, it's not about any philosophy, it's not
Speaker 1: about any theological premises that they're basing it on. It's
Speaker 1: based on this worldview that everything is a contest that
Speaker 1: they have to win. They've identified the enemy, and the
Speaker 1: enemy is anybody outside of a particular cult, that cult
Speaker 1: being anyone who's going to bow down to the golden
Speaker 1: statue of Nebuchadnezzar, a modern day Nemicadnezzar. I eat Trump,
Speaker 1: you know, or or that Trump is m if you will,
Speaker 1: even if you want to take Trump out of the equation,
Speaker 1: this Trump is M because that's what that's what DeSantis
Speaker 1: is trying to do. He's trying to do his bad
Speaker 1: imitation of Trump. But maybe he's a little bit more
Speaker 1: polite about it. Bullshit, he's not polite. He's sending he's
Speaker 1: he's forgetting about the humanity of human beings, and and
Speaker 1: he's he's tricking them into going thousands of miles away
Speaker 1: after they've already been on a thousand mile journey. You know.
Speaker 1: So I think that it's one it's one area where
Speaker 1: we might defer because, like I said, I want to
Speaker 1: hold out hope, even for maybe not de Santis himself,
Speaker 1: but for people in that room, because I think one
Speaker 1: or two or three are persuadable not to get on,
Speaker 1: you know, not not to start carry protest signs and
Speaker 1: you know, be full on board with um with you know,
Speaker 1: democratic activists, and you know, I don't think that's that's
Speaker 1: the case. But I think if we can if we
Speaker 1: can persuade even one degree, one percent, you know, one
Speaker 1: person out of that room, just to just to cast
Speaker 1: one vote for a person who believes in our democratic institutions,
Speaker 1: who understands that this time. I know you've always voted
Speaker 1: a Republican and you think that's the Christian thing to do.
Speaker 1: I'm a Christian, I'm a conservative, and I'm voting proudly
Speaker 1: for a Democrat because no matter how much I disagree
Speaker 1: with Christy on certain fiscal issues, uh, we we agree
Speaker 1: that democracy itself is at stake. So yeah, sorry to
Speaker 1: go on so long, but again I think I would
Speaker 1: just I just want to hold out hope for some
Speaker 1: of those something, not just for the folks in that room,
Speaker 1: but that that circle gets wider, because there are some
Speaker 1: folks who are just sort of um, they don't want
Speaker 1: to talk about it, they don't they don't want to
Speaker 1: think about it, and they're just kind of getting carried
Speaker 1: away with this wave. But but you know, loving the
Speaker 1: Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind
Speaker 1: and strength requires us to really think through this stuff,
Speaker 1: to really think through are we worshiping a god? Or
Speaker 1: are we faithful to even taking God in Christianity had
Speaker 1: the question out of the equation for a second. But
Speaker 1: are we faithful to what we know to be true
Speaker 1: and right to what we know to be good virtues?
Speaker 1: Are we being faithful to that? Or are we sending
Speaker 1: all that aside because we happen to be on a
Speaker 1: team that wears these red hats. And part of being
Speaker 1: wearing red hats means that it's okay to be cruel.
Speaker 1: It's it's it's winning to be cruel, you know. So, yeah, yeah, no,
Speaker 1: but that you know that. But that's the thing, is
Speaker 1: that the reason why I love our conversations is because
Speaker 1: there has to be some other way to persuade people
Speaker 1: to tap in to their shared humanity. There has to
Speaker 1: be a way to open up people's eyes to the
Speaker 1: fact that the zero sum game means that they lose
Speaker 1: as well, right, that there is no way to put
Speaker 1: on that red hat and to for instance, deny the
Speaker 1: existence of climate change as you're standing in front of
Speaker 1: trumbling infrastructure, your home and community being hit once again
Speaker 1: by raging floods and fires, and to think that like
Speaker 1: you're going to continue to vote against your best interests,
Speaker 1: you don't have, you don't have to carry a protest
Speaker 1: sign right to understand that taking care of the land,
Speaker 1: the water, the environment, and the air should be a
Speaker 1: principle of the very religion that you are touting as
Speaker 1: a reason you are against so many other people, so
Speaker 1: many other issues. And so I'm wondering, Corey, like, have
Speaker 1: we just has the tribalism just consume so many minds
Speaker 1: that we have, because this has always been a part
Speaker 1: to me of republicanism, which is the demonization of education,
Speaker 1: the demonization of what it means to have an open mind,
Speaker 1: right to ask questions, to critically think. And so, you know,
Speaker 1: is there a way do you see that there is
Speaker 1: a way that we break through the tribalism, this red
Speaker 1: web that has fallen across this country that we call
Speaker 1: Trumpism now that we are all trapped in, whether or
Speaker 1: not we are subscribing to it or not, we're all
Speaker 1: trapped inside of this red web. Is there a way
Speaker 1: to break out by appealing to people's humanity when they
Speaker 1: are being indoctrinated to dehumanize and applaud the humiliation and
Speaker 1: the cruelty being expressed onto other people. Yeah, yeah, and listen,
Speaker 1: there is a place to fight. There's a place for
Speaker 1: I prefer non violent resistance, but resistance nonetheless, and resistance
Speaker 1: as a means of fighting a good fight, you know,
Speaker 1: and getting in good trouble as as the late Representative
Speaker 1: Lewis would say, you know, but I think so there's
Speaker 1: a place for fighting, But I also think there's a
Speaker 1: place for bridge building. Now what does that look like?
Speaker 1: It doesn't It doesn't look like getting into a thread
Speaker 1: on Twitter with somebody, does that? You know? I'll tell you,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm going out for beers tomorrow night with
Speaker 1: this guy. I've been friendly with him because I've played
Speaker 1: poker with him a bunch and we stayed in touch.
Speaker 1: I didn't realize how magnified he is until he invited
Speaker 1: me to a game. And first thing I see in
Speaker 1: his garage is this huge locker, a gunrack, you know,
Speaker 1: like a huge gun locker. Um. I think I'd like
Speaker 1: to think that he's a responsible gun owner. But he's
Speaker 1: one of these guys from the mindset of we might
Speaker 1: have talked about this last time, but of the come
Speaker 1: and take them kind of mindset. Yep, yep, yep. You know. So,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to convince my buddy Darren to become
Speaker 1: you know, a social justice warrior. But I do think
Speaker 1: that if we if we go out for beers and
Speaker 1: there'll be some sort of connection that all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: I'm not just some you know, some guy that he's
Speaker 1: getting in a spat with and contesting with on Twitter
Speaker 1: or Facebook or whatever. I'm a human being, you know,
Speaker 1: and and but also he's a human being to me,
Speaker 1: you know, And I can understand if I if I
Speaker 1: seek to understand what what's behind the big gun rack,
Speaker 1: what's behind his feeling about that, I might be able
Speaker 1: to we might be able to get underneath to something
Speaker 1: that does we do hold in common? For example, his
Speaker 1: concern for his family, His concern for his family and
Speaker 1: wanted to keep his family safe, and we share that,
Speaker 1: you know, how how we what's derived from that, and
Speaker 1: how we act and decisions that we make are obviously
Speaker 1: very different, but there's an underlying value that we share.
Speaker 1: So I think maybe making that connection and understanding that connection,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna I'm not gonna turn him around one hundred
Speaker 1: and eighty degrees, but I think there's one or two things,
Speaker 1: one or two ingredients that I can throw in the
Speaker 1: mix where I'll give you an example we were have
Speaker 1: an extended conversation about January sixth, and he referred to
Speaker 1: guys who storm the capitol as ass hats. I'm like, okay, good,
Speaker 1: we're making some progress. Yeah, at the very least they
Speaker 1: were ass hats. But then he quickly diverted the conversation to, yeah,
Speaker 1: but where was your outrage when you know people were
Speaker 1: storm Seattle in Portland and you know all those people.
Speaker 1: I'm like, wait, wait, wait, these two things are not related.
Speaker 1: So if we're going to address one, we'll address it.
Speaker 1: But these two things are not related. But if you
Speaker 1: want to talk about it, let's talk about the fact
Speaker 1: that we're a year and a half, almost two years
Speaker 1: past January sixth, there hasn't even been a thousand arrests yet.
Speaker 1: And by the way, there's been so much process. So
Speaker 1: some people are just you know, got a got a
Speaker 1: minimal fine. But some people who are beating, trying to
Speaker 1: beat cops to death and stab them to death, Yes,
Speaker 1: they're in jail deservedly so. But you know, you know what,
Speaker 1: we're a year and a half, two years out and
Speaker 1: still not even a thousand arrests. Fourteen thousand arrests within
Speaker 1: two weeks after George Floyd's Floyd's murder, So we talked
Speaker 1: about that, you know, and I think, I think again,
Speaker 1: he wasn't thoroughly convinced. He didn't want to join the
Speaker 1: next protest march, you know, but I think he understood
Speaker 1: the depravity frankly, and trying to connect these two things,
Speaker 1: the seditiousness. What's the word I'm looking for. It's like toxic,
Speaker 1: It's like poison, and he bought the poison. He took
Speaker 1: that bill, you know. So I can't convince him of everything,
Speaker 1: but I can help him. I can understand him a
Speaker 1: little bit better and and honor the values, honor him
Speaker 1: as a human being, even if we've arrived at very
Speaker 1: different conclusions, you know. And that gives me. It's like
Speaker 1: the ticket that I have to buy in order to
Speaker 1: persuade him just a little bit on one thing, you know,
Speaker 1: and our relationship I think is going to bear fruit.
Speaker 1: Not that I need him to agree with me on everything,
Speaker 1: but just if nothing else, that he can see the
Speaker 1: humanity in that what we were originally talking about, in
Speaker 1: the human beings that that fled, violence that fled. You know.
Speaker 1: It's not like they wanted to leave their homes. It's
Speaker 1: not like they wanted to leave their business. But that's
Speaker 1: the That's the thing that I think is consistently lost,
Speaker 1: right is, and particularly around our broken and purposefully broken
Speaker 1: immigration system, where we are assuming that people have this
Speaker 1: deep desire to flee everything that they have known, everyone
Speaker 1: that they have loved, with a frigging knapsack on their back,
Speaker 1: that being it, and going off into a land of
Speaker 1: people that you know half of at least hate you,
Speaker 1: right have been trained to literally hate you. You've seen
Speaker 1: images of people at the border, and yet you are
Speaker 1: compelled by virtue of just the desire to have safety
Speaker 1: to do just that, to make that journey, and so
Speaker 1: like is there and the thing to me again, go
Speaker 1: back last I don't even know, Yeah, I guess it
Speaker 1: was last year when we had fourteen thousand Haitians at
Speaker 1: the border that were being beaten on horseback by border patrol.
Speaker 1: The images were all over the place. Biden's cooped up
Speaker 1: fourteen thousand Haitians and sent them back to Haiti, to
Speaker 1: political violence, to unrelenting COVID, all of these things. Literally
Speaker 1: in the same month, welcomed in one hundred thousand Ukrainians.
Speaker 1: No one bats an eyelash. Oh my god, we had
Speaker 1: changed our social media avatars to Ukrainian flags and do
Speaker 1: all these things. So my question, Corey is how how
Speaker 1: do you go about having conversations about the clear, the
Speaker 1: clear distinctions between who we see as human, who we
Speaker 1: can align ourselves with, and be like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: look at that mother with that abandoned stroller. Look at
Speaker 1: those people, you know with just their backpacks. There's the same.
Speaker 1: Their skin color is different, their language is different, the
Speaker 1: desire for safety and freedom is not. So how do
Speaker 1: we can how do we get to that? There? There? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a quadra to say the least. You know, I
Speaker 1: think when we see folks that look different than us,
Speaker 1: that maybe have a different religion than us, you know,
Speaker 1: I see the fault in myself, you know, I see.
Speaker 1: I was I was watching this old Bugs Bunny cartoon
Speaker 1: and the portrayal of an Asian character. Oh, I see
Speaker 1: it now, I'm like, oh, oh my god, Like these
Speaker 1: are the cartoons that I was watching, And I wasn't
Speaker 1: even aware of the caricatures that that that we're getting
Speaker 1: emblazoned into my own mind, it's my own imagination. Until
Speaker 1: I had a friend this wonderful woman. She's one of
Speaker 1: those like fuck you friends like I don't but she's like,
Speaker 1: fuck you, Corey. And and I love her to death.
Speaker 1: Her name is Helen, but she she like she's like,
Speaker 1: she's one of those people whose whose love language is
Speaker 1: punching you in the face. She's she's, um, you know,
Speaker 1: she's an Asian woman. Uh. And and she's she's educated me,
Speaker 1: she's taught me. She's she's opened my eyes. There's a blindness,
Speaker 1: and I think in a way, there's there's a deadness.
Speaker 1: You know. I wasn't even alive, My soul wasn't even
Speaker 1: alive to these these blind spots that I had, you know,
Speaker 1: until I had a wonderful friend who opened up my
Speaker 1: eyes to it. I'm thankful for Helen. Well, now, listen,
Speaker 1: we still disagree on some things. We've got a really,
Speaker 1: really a fight about a year ago about I was
Speaker 1: trying to make a comment about freedom of expression, freedom
Speaker 1: of speech. Um, I used a bad example because it
Speaker 1: was too it was too tenuous. I'm not even gonna
Speaker 1: bring up the example, but it was the wrong example
Speaker 1: because it was part of my point, because I felt
Speaker 1: that the freedom of speech, if we really believe in
Speaker 1: that isn't tested when we agree with what the speech
Speaker 1: is all about. But I think I used an example
Speaker 1: that wasn't like one step outside of her of Helen's
Speaker 1: belief system. It was so far outside of her belief system.
Speaker 1: It was just a wrong example. And then our our
Speaker 1: argument became about the example itself. I'll just say what
Speaker 1: I used, Chappelle's stand up the Closer. Oh, yep, yep.
Speaker 1: So it was so far beyond the pale for Helen.
Speaker 1: She couldn't get past that if I use if I used,
Speaker 1: like somebody, the freedom of speech, I don't know. I
Speaker 1: was trying to make a point. It wasn't a great
Speaker 1: point because so far beyond the pale for her, you
Speaker 1: know so, But it helped me to learn. It helped
Speaker 1: me to learn, you know, how to make a better
Speaker 1: argument if I want to make an argument about the
Speaker 1: freedom of speech. It helped me to learn, I have
Speaker 1: to respect certain folks boundaries. I have to respect certain folks,
Speaker 1: you know, what is beyond the pale for them if
Speaker 1: I want to stay in the conversation. So I'm not
Speaker 1: going to say it was a good argument. I'd rather
Speaker 1: not have gotten into it. I'd rather have learned some
Speaker 1: of the lessons that I learned in a less contentious way.
Speaker 1: But I did. I did learn a lot about that,
Speaker 1: So I guess, I guess again. I come back around
Speaker 1: to having having friends in our life that are different
Speaker 1: from us, having people in our lives that can teach
Speaker 1: us and open our eyes to things that we didn't
Speaker 1: see that. I don't know any other way. You know,
Speaker 1: maybe maybe we can read a book if they're not banned.
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Speaker 1: If you like what you here, be sure to subscribe
Speaker 1: so you never miss an episode. You know, like, but
Speaker 1: I know, I say, I say that you know. I
Speaker 1: say I say that you know seriously, because there are
Speaker 1: you know and the last question I want to ask
Speaker 1: you about before I get there, I say that there
Speaker 1: are people that are desperate for information, that want the truth,
Speaker 1: and I just want people to understand that politicians are
Speaker 1: going to the extreme to say that no, you shouldn't
Speaker 1: read this book. We're gonna burn it, we're gonna ban it.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, these are the tenants of how authoritarianism
Speaker 1: and fascism take hold. Education is and the freedom of
Speaker 1: education is the first place that they go to. So
Speaker 1: for those people who may live in community, don't who
Speaker 1: don't live in you know, particularly diverse communities, whether it
Speaker 1: be culturally, linguistically, you know, racially, and so they're the
Speaker 1: only way for them to build that bridge of understanding
Speaker 1: that you're saying is to begin to try and educate themselves.
Speaker 1: But then I'm going to my library or I'm enrolling
Speaker 1: in my kids in school, and I can't get those things.
Speaker 1: I can't you, I can't access those tools because those
Speaker 1: tools are being kept from me. That's the that's the
Speaker 1: extreme of where we are. But my last question for you,
Speaker 1: Corey is this, there are a lot of people you know,
Speaker 1: over the particularly since the insurrection, so you know, we're
Speaker 1: we're coming up on two years, Like you said, since
Speaker 1: since the insurrection that lost that have lost a lot
Speaker 1: of family and friends that have lost the ability to
Speaker 1: come to the table and have communication UM and have
Speaker 1: thrown up their hands right, Donald Trump magasm Trump is
Speaker 1: M has been the most successfully divisive tools and strategies
Speaker 1: UM that this country has ever seen. And it has
Speaker 1: divided families, it has divided friendships, It's divided entire communities.
Speaker 1: And so my question to you for you know, for
Speaker 1: people that listen to this show, who they are one
Speaker 1: of those people that they are like, I'm done, and
Speaker 1: there are certain people that you need to be done with.
Speaker 1: But then there are those like you're saying that maybe
Speaker 1: all is not lost, right, what advice do you give
Speaker 1: them in terms of how one decides to even go
Speaker 1: back to a table that's been overturned right a table
Speaker 1: that has been flipped. What advice do you give to
Speaker 1: people who still say, you know what, I want to
Speaker 1: keep trying or I want to try again right to
Speaker 1: reach who I thought was unreachable. Yeah. So I think
Speaker 1: it's a great question, and I think having that goal
Speaker 1: is a step number one. Having that disposition is a
Speaker 1: good way to go. Giving yourself permission to mess up
Speaker 1: is really important, you know, giving your self permission to
Speaker 1: have a bad conversation, but to still be committed to
Speaker 1: come back around to it, you know, So give because
Speaker 1: because you're going to revisit it with a friend and
Speaker 1: something's going to come up and it's just gonna be
Speaker 1: you can't do it anymore, you know, And like it
Speaker 1: happens to me all the time where I just lose
Speaker 1: my shit, like I just I can't, like I mess
Speaker 1: it up, but I'm committed to continuing the conversation and
Speaker 1: trying again and getting better, you know. So I would
Speaker 1: say that one thing is, you know, I had a
Speaker 1: conversation my middle kid, I have twenty one, nineteen and
Speaker 1: seventeen year old. Nineteen year old, when vaccines first became available,
Speaker 1: he took a weight and see approach. But because he
Speaker 1: was waiting, he got beat up by a bunch of
Speaker 1: other people in our family and friends, and I was
Speaker 1: one of them. I was like, dude, what are you
Speaker 1: fucking stupid? Like, just get the damn shot, you know.
Speaker 1: But because of that, being the nineteen year old boy
Speaker 1: that he is, he just decided to screw you. I'm
Speaker 1: now I'm definitely not getting it, you know. So I
Speaker 1: stayed in the relationship. He still hasn't gotten his vaccines.
Speaker 1: But I knew that I lost the privilege of having
Speaker 1: that conversation with him because I was one of the
Speaker 1: ones that was beating him up. I was dog ponding
Speaker 1: on the rabbit, you know, So what do you do?
Speaker 1: I just want to stay in the relationship with the kid,
Speaker 1: and maybe we could talk about welding, which is his trading.
Speaker 1: Maybe we could talk about I love the Mets. Let's
Speaker 1: talk about the Mets. You know, stay in the game,
Speaker 1: you know, just stay in a conversation, talk about everything else.
Speaker 1: You know. Yeah, you gotta still get back, gotta get
Speaker 1: back around to the big important things. But I didn't
Speaker 1: get him to get the vaccine. But we were going
Speaker 1: on a family outing with three other families and he
Speaker 1: did submit to getting a test, you know, so that
Speaker 1: was something at least he acknowledged. Yeah, this thing is
Speaker 1: actually real. It's not made up by the fake media.
Speaker 1: It's actually real. And you know what, could you at
Speaker 1: least get a test before you join the rest of us.
Speaker 1: There's there was one or two people that were immunity immunocompromised.
Speaker 1: He's like, all right, so again, like I didn't get
Speaker 1: him to get the shot, but like even him acknowledging that, yes,
Speaker 1: there is a pandemic, there is a disease. It is real,
Speaker 1: and I'll get the test. You know, any tested negative,
Speaker 1: thank god. And you know it was it was it
Speaker 1: made it. It was a compromise that everybody made. But
Speaker 1: that's just an example of like, stay in the conversation, recognize,
Speaker 1: and give yourself permission to mess up, you know, and
Speaker 1: maybe you just got to talk about the METS for
Speaker 1: a while before you get back to politics and religion,
Speaker 1: you know. But eventually, I think what earned my right
Speaker 1: back into that conversation was acknowledging with Jackie Boy, the
Speaker 1: older of the two boys, that I messed up and
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, and uh, you know it gave it gave
Speaker 1: me the open door to revisit it. And even though
Speaker 1: he didn't do what I wanted him to do, he
Speaker 1: like came once step in my direction, you know, to
Speaker 1: what I think is good for him, frankly, and good
Speaker 1: for everybody else around him. So I don't know that
Speaker 1: that's not it's not an entire book. It's not you know,
Speaker 1: here's here's the ten Steps to. But it's just an illustration,
Speaker 1: a short story to illustrate how how you can do
Speaker 1: this thing. We can do it better, we can do
Speaker 1: it better, and we should try. We should definitely try.
Speaker 1: Corey Nathan, thank you so much for making the time
Speaker 1: to join Woke f folks. His podcast is Talking Politics
Speaker 1: and Religion pod. You must check it out. There are
Speaker 1: great conversations I've been on, My friend Wajahat has been on,
Speaker 1: many other people have been on, So do check Cory
Speaker 1: out and follow the pod and follow Cory Nathan. Appreciate
Speaker 1: you friend, Danielle. I love hanging out with you. We
Speaker 1: definitely have to do this in person and Whiskey is
Speaker 1: definitely going to be involved. It will be that is
Speaker 1: it for me to day. Folks on Woke app as
Speaker 1: always Power to the people and to all the people power,
Speaker 1: get woke and stay woke as fuck.