Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to Okay f Daily with
Speaker 1: Meet your Girl. Danielle Moody recording once again from the
Speaker 1: Brooklyn Bunker. I cannot believe that it is Christmas Eve,
Speaker 1: that we have almost made it to the end of
Speaker 1: yet another tumultuous year. Before I dive into all of
Speaker 1: the things that we have lived through and seen throughout
Speaker 1: this twelve months of twenty twenty one, or rather twenty
Speaker 1: twenty the sequel, I want us to give a lot
Speaker 1: of grace and gratitude to ourselves for where we are
Speaker 1: at this point in the year. If you are feeling exhausted,
Speaker 1: if you are feeling deflated, if you are feeling weary,
Speaker 1: know that you are not alone. It has been a
Speaker 1: very arduous year. It has been an arduous couple of
Speaker 1: years in America. You know, I have been doing a
Speaker 1: lot of reflection over the last couple of weeks. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm a person that believes in spiritual awakenings and renewals
Speaker 1: and the universe and that there are no coincidences, and
Speaker 1: you know, I realize that a lot of us, whether
Speaker 1: you are a person that believes in, you know, the
Speaker 1: spiritual verse, or you are a person that subscribes to
Speaker 1: a form of religion that we do so we reach
Speaker 1: out or look for connections because sometimes we feel just
Speaker 1: so very disconnected from what is happening in front of us.
Speaker 1: And I realize lately that my weariness is coming from
Speaker 1: a place of discontent and confusion about what forward looks
Speaker 1: like for twenty twenty two. Usually at the end of
Speaker 1: most years, right outside of you know, the last two
Speaker 1: usually at the end of the year, you kind of
Speaker 1: take stock on what some of your highlights were, what
Speaker 1: some of your low lights were, and you know, you
Speaker 1: give gratitude, you create vision boards for what's next, and
Speaker 1: you give gratitude for what has transpired. What I realize
Speaker 1: that I'm struggling with as we countdown the days to
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two on this Christmas Eve, what I'm struggling
Speaker 1: with is what to expect next. And this is where
Speaker 1: I think faith, regardless of what you subscribe to, comes in.
Speaker 1: I think that faith comes in because friends, we have
Speaker 1: no idea what to expect, and it's the uncertainty, the
Speaker 1: instability of the times that we are living in that
Speaker 1: I feel has us so weary and deflated and just tired. Frankly, right.
Speaker 1: It's because it's hard to create a vision board and
Speaker 1: to plan for the year ahead, right, or to think
Speaker 1: about what you want to manifest in terms of your
Speaker 1: goals when you have no idea what to expect from
Speaker 1: one day to the next. You know, it was only
Speaker 1: a couple of weeks ago, three in fact, that omicron
Speaker 1: was discovered by scientists in South Africa, and in that
Speaker 1: span of time, that span of time, which is so short,
Speaker 1: the world has turned upside down. Thing that we thought
Speaker 1: that we were passed, or at least had hoped, had
Speaker 1: hoped that we were passed. We had seen in New
Speaker 1: York Broadway reopened, We saw restaurants reopen and filled to
Speaker 1: the brim with excited customers, you know, ready to return
Speaker 1: and leave the confines of their homes. We were able
Speaker 1: to get through a summer, right that was filled with
Speaker 1: warm sunshine and hopefully beach trips and outdoor gatherings and
Speaker 1: backyard gatherings and rooftops, and so we felt that, you know,
Speaker 1: as a as a nation, as a people, that we
Speaker 1: were adapting well to our new normal. I think that
Speaker 1: all of us had slowly begun to recognize that we
Speaker 1: were never going to go back to before, Right, we
Speaker 1: were never going to be back to that PC place,
Speaker 1: pre COVID, before COVID, that the those days twenty nineteen
Speaker 1: and all that came before, we're just going to be memories.
Speaker 1: There wasn't going to be a time when you would
Speaker 1: be in supermarkets or walking on the street and not
Speaker 1: see people with mass of course, unless you lived in
Speaker 1: Tennessee or Texas or out east on Long Island where
Speaker 1: my parents are, where it seemed that, as many Republicans
Speaker 1: had said, real America was done with COVID, whatever that meant,
Speaker 1: because a virus doesn't know what political affiliation you have,
Speaker 1: let alone your geography. Nonetheless, we'd all kind of moved
Speaker 1: into this space where we believed that for those of
Speaker 1: us that had been following the rules and had done
Speaker 1: the right things and followed the CDC guidelines, that we
Speaker 1: had adapted and we lived to see a fight another day,
Speaker 1: which sadly, over eight hundred thousand Americans would not. And
Speaker 1: then omicron. On the side of good news, we are
Speaker 1: seeing signs in South Africa where scientists discovered the variant
Speaker 1: that it seems as if they have peeped we can't
Speaker 1: really use South Africa though as our guide, because they
Speaker 1: had very low vaccination rates but very high COVID rates,
Speaker 1: so meaning that a lot of these people who had
Speaker 1: contracted the omicron variant had already had delta or alpha.
Speaker 1: So while we're trying to understand this virus and use
Speaker 1: different cities and countries as models for what we can anticipate,
Speaker 1: nothing is one hundred percent. We live in a country
Speaker 1: where only sixty percent of the population is vaccinated. Millions
Speaker 1: have contracted COVID, but millions have not. Some are boosted,
Speaker 1: some are not. Right. It's an entirely different climate, it's
Speaker 1: an entirely different geography, and so we unfortunately will have
Speaker 1: to see, as doctor Jonathan Metzel told us, over the
Speaker 1: next four to six weeks, what COVID looks like in
Speaker 1: the United States. What we know right now is that
Speaker 1: we are seeing record breaking numbers that we haven't seen
Speaker 1: since twenty twenty two the UK, I means, excuse me,
Speaker 1: since twenty twenty the UK is reporting for the first
Speaker 1: time one hundred thousand new cases in a day. Again,
Speaker 1: those numbers have not been seen since the beginning of
Speaker 1: this global health pandemic in twenty twenty. So far we
Speaker 1: can say that the symptoms seem to be the same,
Speaker 1: while hospitals are still at reaching their breaking point in
Speaker 1: many different regions that those that were vaccinated and were boosted,
Speaker 1: they may fall sick. But again, what was the goal
Speaker 1: of the vaccine that you don't die? Right? We all
Speaker 1: forget that. We think that the goal of the vaccine
Speaker 1: was to go back to to go back to twenty nineteen.
Speaker 1: We thought that the goal of the vaccine was to
Speaker 1: turn the clock back. It's never going to do that, folks.
Speaker 1: And there's a reason why we have these vaccines because
Speaker 1: they've been working on them for years, because there were
Speaker 1: people in labs around the world that we're anticipating some
Speaker 1: type of global outbreak and so had been positioning themselves
Speaker 1: and using technology to be able to give to the
Speaker 1: world the gift that we received back in June of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one. Right, But what we didn't anticipate while
Speaker 1: we were all, you know, praying, manifesting, meditating, and hoping
Speaker 1: to see brighter days, what we didn't anticipate was that
Speaker 1: the damage that the Trump administration had already done to
Speaker 1: whip up, you know, Trump Americans into believing that this
Speaker 1: was all a hoax into believing that public health was
Speaker 1: nothing but you know, and something to encumber their idea
Speaker 1: of liberty and freedom, that taking care of thy neighbor
Speaker 1: was no longer a tenant of any Bible that they
Speaker 1: ever picked up, and that it was just, you know,
Speaker 1: lord of the flies in this country. We thought, and
Speaker 1: we're sadly mistaken, that once a new administration had come in,
Speaker 1: that they would be able to wipe clean with claros
Speaker 1: all of the grift and the damage and the soils
Speaker 1: that the Trump administration had created over the last four years.
Speaker 1: But alas what we are seeing is that that is
Speaker 1: far from the truth. But as James Baldwin once clearly
Speaker 1: stated and said, is that you can't change things that
Speaker 1: you refuse to face. My problem with COVID nineteen is
Speaker 1: not just around the exhaustion, the collective exhaustion that we
Speaker 1: are feeling, right, and also the thing that we're not
Speaker 1: talking about is what collective trauma looks like living with
Speaker 1: this sense of anxiety and fear, and how depression is
Speaker 1: kind of going back and forth like a seesaw in
Speaker 1: our lives, and what that does right, how it impacts
Speaker 1: the way that we show up in our families and
Speaker 1: our friends and our communities at our job. It's real.
Speaker 1: I am very vocal about the fact that I go
Speaker 1: through in any given day sometimes waves of emotions where
Speaker 1: I am grounded in deep gratitude but then almost feel
Speaker 1: paralyzed with fear about what's to come. Get so paralyzed,
Speaker 1: in fact, I sink myself into my couch, I wrap
Speaker 1: myself in a blanket, and I numb myself with any
Speaker 1: stupid Netflix series or Amazon Prime or whatever the fuck
Speaker 1: is streaming, just as a way to suspend thought for
Speaker 1: just a little bit, because I realized that my mind,
Speaker 1: my body, my nerves need a break. But what pains
Speaker 1: me is that Democrats on a daily basis missed the
Speaker 1: opportunity to tell the truth. That is what Representative Jamal
Speaker 1: Bowman said yesterday. It shouldn't be this hard to tell
Speaker 1: the truth, to say we're here because we have an
Speaker 1: entire Republican Party that has turned themselves into a death cult.
Speaker 1: That we are here because they continue to go on
Speaker 1: a news station that lies to the American people about
Speaker 1: how dangerous this virus is and lies to them about
Speaker 1: the ways that they can protect themselves. Why they themselves
Speaker 1: follow protocols and vaccines and get boosters and wear masks.
Speaker 1: You know, I worry, and I think that that's what's
Speaker 1: making this transition into a new year so hard, is
Speaker 1: that I don't know what to expect. Act none of
Speaker 1: us do, you know, Normally as a new year would
Speaker 1: come around, we never know what to expect. Right. We
Speaker 1: love to say things like it's a clean slate, Right,
Speaker 1: we had three hundred and sixty five days in front
Speaker 1: of us to write a different story, and in many
Speaker 1: ways that is still completely true. But I think that
Speaker 1: we also need to afford ourselves with a level of
Speaker 1: nimbleness and the word that I've used, the word that
Speaker 1: I guess if I had to say, what was my
Speaker 1: word of twenty twenty one, it would be grace. It
Speaker 1: would be to give ourselves a level of grace and
Speaker 1: those around us for having gotten this goddamn far. To
Speaker 1: be proud, frankly of the journey that we've been on,
Speaker 1: because it's been a roller coaster and on some days
Speaker 1: it felt like we were headed towards the light, and
Speaker 1: in other days it felt like the light that was
Speaker 1: in front of us was an oncoming train. I think
Speaker 1: what we all need to adapt to is the reality
Speaker 1: that as the seasons get colder, right as years go on,
Speaker 1: that we're going to have to self quarantine, that there
Speaker 1: will always be pop ups of new variants, but God
Speaker 1: willing that the boosters and the vaccines continue to work,
Speaker 1: and that if we recognize that the holiday seasons moving
Speaker 1: forward may be marred continually with anxiety and stress and
Speaker 1: not just about what to get your significant other or
Speaker 1: you know, whether or not you can stretch a dollar
Speaker 1: farther farther enough to get your kids the gifts that
Speaker 1: they want, or you know, things under your tree or
Speaker 1: what have you. That it's going to look different, and
Speaker 1: maybe we need to figure out the ways in which
Speaker 1: to adapt to that. You know, part of the reason
Speaker 1: why I found myself struggling this week is because a
Speaker 1: lot of things that I had anticipated and been looking
Speaker 1: forward to with regard to the holiday we're going to
Speaker 1: be drastically different. As millions of people got that same
Speaker 1: shocking news, you know, I was watching and as people
Speaker 1: were welcoming their kids back home after being terrified, you
Speaker 1: know that they've been at college all year, just hoping
Speaker 1: to God that they didn't come back with COVID or
Speaker 1: get COVID and then they come home, you test them
Speaker 1: and they find out, oh shit, they do have COVID.
Speaker 1: So now our holiday plans are scrapped. We thought we
Speaker 1: were traveling, now we're not. Now we're all quarantining for
Speaker 1: the next ten to fourteen days. That's where the nimbleness
Speaker 1: comes in. You know what would they used to say that,
Speaker 1: you know, you make plans and God laughs, Right, I
Speaker 1: think in order to save ourselves some deep heartache, that
Speaker 1: we need to just be nimble, right, and that when
Speaker 1: we do have the opportunity to share time, break bread,
Speaker 1: commune with our family, with our friends, that we need
Speaker 1: to enjoy them to the fullest. Right, that we really
Speaker 1: need to squeeze every bit of joy and life and
Speaker 1: love and experience out of those moments so that they
Speaker 1: help to sustain us in our lowest times. You know.
Speaker 1: I it was funny just recently, I'd gone to San Francisco,
Speaker 1: which mighty of you know, form for work for Um
Speaker 1: for Lesbians wu TECH, an organization that I'm an advisor on,
Speaker 1: and I'd seen one of the other and a couple
Speaker 1: of the other advisors that I haven't seen in three years, Right,
Speaker 1: And she remarked and said, my god, we didn't realize
Speaker 1: how good we had it, how good we had it,
Speaker 1: you know, at doing these summits with thousands of queer
Speaker 1: women from around the country, around the world that would
Speaker 1: descend on San Francisco, and you know, it just felt
Speaker 1: like these rock star moments for days on end during summit,
Speaker 1: and she goes, you know, if I knew that our
Speaker 1: last Advisor meeting in twenty nineteen and was going to
Speaker 1: literally be our last Advisor meeting in person, maybe I
Speaker 1: wouldn't have rushed out. Maybe I wouldn't have rushed to
Speaker 1: the airport to go catch a flight, and I would
Speaker 1: have stayed longer, and I would have talked to that
Speaker 1: person in the corner that I didn't get to because
Speaker 1: I was looking at my watch and I needed to go.
Speaker 1: I think that there was something really profound in what
Speaker 1: she offered, which is that the fact that we are
Speaker 1: still alive when so many of our family, our friends,
Speaker 1: our community members, our church friends, our colleagues are not
Speaker 1: provides us with an opportunity to have a do over,
Speaker 1: to really enjoy those moments that we get to share.
Speaker 1: You know, back in twenty twenty, when we were all
Speaker 1: sequestered away. We kept saying that when we got out, right,
Speaker 1: when we got out, that we would dance harder, we
Speaker 1: would hug harder, we would love harder. Well, I think
Speaker 1: that there are going to be a lot of jack
Speaker 1: in the box moments right where you pop out things
Speaker 1: feel great, it's spring, it's summer, and then you go
Speaker 1: back in. But on those moments when we do get
Speaker 1: to pop out and everything does feel like it is aligned,
Speaker 1: let's marinate in that. Let's soak that up. Let's journal
Speaker 1: about it, let's talk about it, let's sing about it
Speaker 1: right because what we recognize over these last few years
Speaker 1: is that it's fleeting. Time is fleeting, and joy is
Speaker 1: something that we have to consistently work at, and that
Speaker 1: when we find ourselves in our low and dark moments,
Speaker 1: we can honor that. We can see that. But let's
Speaker 1: not get stuck in it. Let's allow our memories to
Speaker 1: provide us with the images the warmth of better times,
Speaker 1: so that they booy us forward. I don't know, friends,
Speaker 1: what next year will bring. I have no idea, and
Speaker 1: I think that that not knowing requires us then to
Speaker 1: do what my mother has said for so many years,
Speaker 1: be in the present. The past doesn't matter, in the
Speaker 1: future doesn't exist. We can anticipate, right, we can follow
Speaker 1: the cycles, We can understand these things. But with a
Speaker 1: mid term election coming up, with a white supremacist nationalist
Speaker 1: party gaining momentum and steam by the minute, with a
Speaker 1: Democratic party that seems to once again have lost its way,
Speaker 1: its passion, and its sense of urgency, I only wish
Speaker 1: some days that I could shake a magic eight ball
Speaker 1: and tell you where we will be in November of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty two. I don't know, and neither do you.
Speaker 1: So what I realize, as I've been wiping my tears
Speaker 1: all week, is that then it doesn't make any sense
Speaker 1: to worry about what I don't know is coming. What
Speaker 1: does make sense, though, is to control what we can control.
Speaker 1: And what does that look like. It looks like really
Speaker 1: getting a hold of our health, right. And you know,
Speaker 1: I have been on a weight loss journey, on a
Speaker 1: weight gain journey during the last couple of weeks, and
Speaker 1: I can say that as it pertains to my health
Speaker 1: and wellness, and what I hope to manifest in twenty
Speaker 1: twenty two is just more consistency. I know that when
Speaker 1: I the end of the year is always a working
Speaker 1: at a breakneck pace, and I let a lot of
Speaker 1: things slide so that I can get to the end.
Speaker 1: I always have an end date in mind, and I
Speaker 1: get there and then it's like, woof, you get to
Speaker 1: take you know, these almost you know, ten days to
Speaker 1: fourteen days off, which is very necessary and I feel
Speaker 1: very grateful and blessed and privileged to be able to
Speaker 1: do so. But it's always a mad dash there. So
Speaker 1: a lot of my normal routines fall by the wayside
Speaker 1: because I'm trying to cram in, you know, so much
Speaker 1: into a very little amount of time. So as I'm
Speaker 1: stepping on the scale every day, I'm noticing the numbers
Speaker 1: going up, and normally I would have a major freak
Speaker 1: out and I would start to really, you know, with
Speaker 1: my negative self talk and with all of these things
Speaker 1: like oh my god, I can't believe you can't get controlled, this,
Speaker 1: that and the other thing. And you know, late last
Speaker 1: week I had decided that, oh, I can step on
Speaker 1: the scale and I'll see the number. But you know
Speaker 1: what's different this time than all of the other times,
Speaker 1: is I'm confident and how I get myself healthy. I'm
Speaker 1: confident in the ways that I need to focus, and
Speaker 1: that when I am focused and I am on put
Speaker 1: myself on my own schedule, that things fall away and
Speaker 1: they realign. And so over these next couple of weeks,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to beat myself up because guess what,
Speaker 1: the self talk I had done for years didn't change
Speaker 1: shit anyway. It actually just made things worse. So instead
Speaker 1: of the negative self talk, don eat this, don't do that,
Speaker 1: calling myself all types of names as I head into
Speaker 1: this merry season, so I'm going to give myself a
Speaker 1: break and some grace. Then I will circle back in
Speaker 1: a couple of days when there is no work and
Speaker 1: all I'm focusing on is being with my family and
Speaker 1: rest and relaxation, and then my body will start to
Speaker 1: let go of the cortisol levels and I will look
Speaker 1: to my walking and my exercise as a way to
Speaker 1: give my body back what I depleted from it towards
Speaker 1: the end of the year. And that to me is progress.
Speaker 1: It's a switch in thinking. It's an honoring of myself
Speaker 1: and where I am and what I have the capacity
Speaker 1: to do, and it's giving myself a fucking break. And
Speaker 1: I think too often we don't do that we don't
Speaker 1: give ourselves a break. As a year comes to an end,
Speaker 1: we beat ourselves up. We say, put the pedal to
Speaker 1: the metal. There's only a couple of days left of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one. Make the best of it. And it's like,
Speaker 1: for the love of God, you know the fact that
Speaker 1: we are here, bravo. You get all of the applause
Speaker 1: from me. If nobody else salutes you, I'm saluting you.
Speaker 1: So let us give ourselves a break. Let's look at
Speaker 1: ourselves in the mirror and say thank you, dear body,
Speaker 1: dear mind, dear heart for carrying me through this tumultuous y,
Speaker 1: or thank you right for the wholeness that stands before me.
Speaker 1: Thank you for getting me to this place. And in turn,
Speaker 1: I will honor you by caring for you and loving
Speaker 1: for you more. When the calendar year turns over. That's
Speaker 1: not a resolution. It's just a recognition, right, It's just
Speaker 1: a recognition of what we've all been through and being
Speaker 1: proud of having gotten to the end and have the
Speaker 1: ability to be able to start anew. And it isn't
Speaker 1: just the new year, you know. I said this year
Speaker 1: because somebody had told me that they look at their
Speaker 1: birthdays as their own personal new year, and I said,
Speaker 1: I love that. I love that so much. But to
Speaker 1: be honest, I look at every day. I want to
Speaker 1: look at every day as a personal new year, because
Speaker 1: yesterday is done, the future has not been written, and
Speaker 1: today's an opportunity to do something a little different. If
Speaker 1: I was hard on myself on Monday, then I want
Speaker 1: to give myself a little more grace on Tuesday. That
Speaker 1: I gave myself a little bit of grace on Tuesday,
Speaker 1: I want to really love up on myself on Wednesday.
Speaker 1: And that's okay. You are deserving regardless of the mansions
Speaker 1: and the cinemas and these politicians that want to portray
Speaker 1: the American people as lazy, as liars, as cheats. That's
Speaker 1: not who we are. But we have allowed capitalism, right
Speaker 1: and the grind, the forced grind, to believe that we
Speaker 1: are undeserving of rest, that we are undeserving of the
Speaker 1: space to provide ourselves if in fact, we do breakdown,
Speaker 1: that we spend so much time beating ourselves up that
Speaker 1: we don't even need anyone on the outside to do so,
Speaker 1: because we're too busy pulverizing ourselves. So if there's nothing
Speaker 1: else that we can do with the last handful of
Speaker 1: days of this year. Let's center grace. Let's allow our
Speaker 1: shoulders to come down from our ears. Let's need out
Speaker 1: the not that has been forming and living in our stomachs.
Speaker 1: Let's return to deep breaths and pushing out the stale
Speaker 1: air of this year. Let's make a pact to just
Speaker 1: use every day as an opportunity to give gratitude, to
Speaker 1: ground ourselves in joy, and to just try and be
Speaker 1: just a little bit better. That doesn't mean to do more, Jess,
Speaker 1: means to be a little bit better than we were
Speaker 1: the day before. Maybe read an extra page of your book,
Speaker 1: Maybe spend another minute in meditation or prayer. Maybe spend
Speaker 1: a little extra time watering and weeding out your plants.
Speaker 1: Maybe dance around your home. Just connect with the fact
Speaker 1: that we are alive and almost a million Americans are not.
Speaker 1: And I don't want us to get stuck in survivor's
Speaker 1: guilt about that, or feeling like the pressure is on
Speaker 1: and we should be doing the most. The fact that
Speaker 1: we have in all as a nation had a collective
Speaker 1: nervous breakdown, I think is doing the most. Just think
Speaker 1: about this. I'll read you the top of the piece
Speaker 1: that I wrote for Zora Magazine, a vertical on medium,
Speaker 1: and I just want you to take it in for
Speaker 1: a second. Take in what you've lived through. This is
Speaker 1: entitled twenty twenty one, the Year of Trauma. Once again,
Speaker 1: here we go. Over eight hundred thousand Americans are dead
Speaker 1: from a global health pandemic. Twenty five percent of the
Speaker 1: American population still refuses to be vaccinated. A violent attempt
Speaker 1: to overthrow the government left five people dead, a once
Speaker 1: in a century fire season, a once in a century
Speaker 1: tornado outbreak, mass shootings on the rise, over four hundred
Speaker 1: voter suppression laws on the books, book burning is back.
Speaker 1: Republican members of Congress openly threatening violence against their Democratic
Speaker 1: colleagues is now the norm. This is America at the
Speaker 1: end of twenty twenty one. We are a nation amid
Speaker 1: a very real existential crisis. Following the carnage that was
Speaker 1: collectively experienced in twenty twenty, from the health pandemic to
Speaker 1: a racial reckoning. Many of us wanted to believe that
Speaker 1: the following the election of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris,
Speaker 1: we could take a deep breath and turn our attention
Speaker 1: back to the mendanity of life. We were assured that
Speaker 1: we wouldn't have to frantically check Twitter to make sure
Speaker 1: Trump hadn't tweeted us into a war or lawaunch nukes
Speaker 1: via nastygram. We had faith that with the resounding rebuke
Speaker 1: of his presidency through our votes, the message would be clear.
Speaker 1: American authoritarianism is not welcomed or wanted here. Sadly that
Speaker 1: has not been the case. Twenty twenty one pack the
Speaker 1: same unrelenting punch as twenty twenty did. We now have
Speaker 1: not one but two hyperactive in new COVID nineteen variants.
Speaker 1: Parents have taken to threatening school board members over mask
Speaker 1: mandates to keep children safe in school. Shootings are back
Speaker 1: in the headlines. Suicide attempts among America's teens are up
Speaker 1: a staggering fifty percent. In Roe v. Wade, the forty
Speaker 1: eight year old law that protected a person's right to
Speaker 1: an abortion is now hanging in the balance until the
Speaker 1: Supreme Court makes their decision in June of twenty twenty two.
Speaker 1: America is in a full blown meltdown. All any of
Speaker 1: us can think about as we close out this grueling
Speaker 1: year is what is coming next? Usually, the end of
Speaker 1: the year offers a time for us to reflect, recharge,
Speaker 1: and reconnect with our loved ones. Except as we reflect
Speaker 1: on the whirldwind that was twenty twenty one, it's hard
Speaker 1: to think about anything other than fear of things getting worse.
Speaker 1: Twenty twenty two is an election year, and while every
Speaker 1: election year, commentators and politicals alike lament on just how
Speaker 1: important this election is, the significance of the upcoming midterms
Speaker 1: can't be understated. While we wanted to believe that the
Speaker 1: attack on our democracy ended after the one hundred and
Speaker 1: eighty seven minute physical assault on our Capitol building, the
Speaker 1: reality is that was just at one The slow moving coup,
Speaker 1: as Bill Maher referred to it is still moving, but
Speaker 1: it's not that slow. Republicans have showed their hand with
Speaker 1: their fond embrace of the murderer Kyle written House, who
Speaker 1: received a not guilty verdict for killing two people in
Speaker 1: cold blood during the Kenosha, Wisconsin Black Lives Matter protests
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty They have clearly shown they want their
Speaker 1: country back and are willing to take it back by
Speaker 1: any means necessary. What message did the written House jury
Speaker 1: and Judge Bruce Schroeder provide to enrage white Americans, simple
Speaker 1: we got your back. To say that the times feel
Speaker 1: bleak would be the understatement of the year. We are
Speaker 1: a nation that is exhausted and on the brink and
Speaker 1: wondering what will finally break democracies back democracy, as we
Speaker 1: are learning the hard way is only as strong as
Speaker 1: the citizens who remain vigilant over it. When Steve Bannon
Speaker 1: talked about the flood zone, he was keenly aware that
Speaker 1: creating mass chaos breeds apathy. Why because with so much
Speaker 1: coming at the nation, eventually folks will throw up their
Speaker 1: hands and give up. The times are more arduous right now.
Speaker 1: They are depressing and all consuming. And yet this isn't
Speaker 1: the worst of times. While toiling fields who spoils they
Speaker 1: were not privy to, and caring for white children while
Speaker 1: theirs were sold into chattel slavery, enslaved Africans kept believing.
Speaker 1: They believed in a liberation that they they may never experience.
Speaker 1: Their unrelenting belief in freedom is what got us to
Speaker 1: this place. Giving up now would be a slap in
Speaker 1: the face to the torture they endured. As famed civil
Speaker 1: rights activist composer and founder of the Student Non Violent
Speaker 1: Coordinating Committee's Freedom Singers, Doctor Bernice Reagan wrote an Ella's
Speaker 1: song this, we who believe in freedom cannot rest until
Speaker 1: it comes folks. That's the message that I want to
Speaker 1: leave you with on this Christmas Eve. We have to
Speaker 1: keep believing. And while I joke and sometimes I'm very
Speaker 1: serious about losing hope, the reality is is that I
Speaker 1: would not continue turning on my microphone day in and
Speaker 1: day out if I did not believe in the possibility
Speaker 1: of something better. The reality is is that, as you know,
Speaker 1: curse filled and as a rage filled, as the episodes
Speaker 1: of wok AF have been over the course of twenty
Speaker 1: twenty one, we show up each and every day, myself,
Speaker 1: my producer Andrew, who make sure that this sounds good
Speaker 1: and looks good and is up all of the time
Speaker 1: for you, in time, each and every day. We show
Speaker 1: up every day because we believe in this country. We
Speaker 1: believe in us the people. It's why I end each
Speaker 1: show with power to the people and to all the
Speaker 1: people power. It's because I believe leave in us, and
Speaker 1: I believe that the work that we are doing each
Speaker 1: and every day, whether it is registering to people to vote,
Speaker 1: whether it is volunteering, whether it's donating, whether it's having
Speaker 1: conversations with our very difficult family members or friends or
Speaker 1: colleagues to try and change hearts and minds and expand
Speaker 1: perceptions of what is right, what is just? Where the
Speaker 1: believers where the fighters? We are so angry because we care,
Speaker 1: We are so frustrated because we know better. So do
Speaker 1: not give up. Do not stop fighting. Take your time
Speaker 1: to rest, take your time to recharge, Take your time
Speaker 1: to hug yourselves and those around you. Look for the
Speaker 1: good in each and every day, even even when it
Speaker 1: seems like there isn't anything good to look at. They
Speaker 1: win when we choose to give up. They win when
Speaker 1: we decide to wallow in our despair. I'm not saying
Speaker 1: not to feel sad. I'm saying, just don't let the
Speaker 1: sadness control you, because we who believe in freedom cannot
Speaker 1: rest until it comes. I wish each and every single
Speaker 1: one of you a happy, RESTful, reach charged, beautiful holiday.
Speaker 1: If you celebrate, and if you don't, I hope that
Speaker 1: you just take the time off to sleep, to eat,
Speaker 1: to fill yourself with good things. All of next week,
Speaker 1: we have brand new shows and never before seen footage.
Speaker 1: So do not think that this is goodbye. There are
Speaker 1: more good things to come. Cannot wait to be back
Speaker 1: live with all of you in twenty twenty two. I
Speaker 1: wish you well. Please be safe as always, Power to
Speaker 1: the people and to all the people. Power, get woke
Speaker 1: and stay woke as fun