Speaker 1: Native Land Pod is the production of iHeartRadio in partnership
Speaker 1: with reisent Choice Media.
Speaker 2: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome.
Speaker 3: Heay, we we are live from Detroit.
Speaker 4: We are right by Pistons Land where today is the
Speaker 4: first day of early voting in Detroit. Not to be
Speaker 4: mistaken for all of Michigan, which begins their early voting
Speaker 4: process next Saturday. But we are thrilled to be here
Speaker 4: for an incredible rally that's just down the way, uh
Speaker 4: with Pistons Land.
Speaker 5: Detroit Pistons will be there.
Speaker 4: Several acts including Little Baby, will be performing today and
Speaker 4: we are bringing the best in the brightest of Detroit
Speaker 4: to you here today.
Speaker 5: I'm here with Andrew Gilliman, Tippy.
Speaker 4: Cross, my co host Native Lamb pot Well.
Speaker 1: I want to say, do people realize there's a little
Speaker 1: sports knowledge for you folks. The NBA Pistons are known
Speaker 1: as the bad Boys of the NBA. I don't know
Speaker 1: if they're still known as that, but they were at
Speaker 1: one point. So I'm honored to be here in Detroit
Speaker 1: and we all can I also give a quick shout out.
Speaker 1: We have lovely We asked you guys for recommendations on
Speaker 1: where to eat and we had a lovely black on
Speaker 1: New last night.
Speaker 6: It was delicious.
Speaker 5: Without me, I had a headache.
Speaker 1: Angela was what she was, so she was doing all
Speaker 1: this stuff, so she had a headache. But we had
Speaker 1: shout out to Savannah Blue for accommodating.
Speaker 6: Was delicious.
Speaker 5: Thank you. Yeah.
Speaker 6: And we're also joined by a couple of Detroits. You're
Speaker 6: welcome home, Yeah, welcome home.
Speaker 4: And we also have been joined by someone who has
Speaker 4: the key to the city House, the real key, open
Speaker 4: doors literally, the legendary Detroit City Council president. Her name
Speaker 4: is Mary Sheffield, and she's joining us.
Speaker 7: Right as we say what Welcome to Detroit. Glad to
Speaker 7: have you all here.
Speaker 6: I'm sure you do. You have this thing?
Speaker 7: I like that we got swagging yea yeah.
Speaker 6: Also carry blade.
Speaker 5: Non violent practice. Mary.
Speaker 4: I want to ask you, this is the first day
Speaker 4: of early here in Detroit.
Speaker 5: How are you feeling about everything? What are you seeing?
Speaker 7: You know, we're seeing excitement, We're seeing momentum. There is
Speaker 7: some contrast here. I mean just yesterday there was some
Speaker 7: you know, high ranking African American influencers in Detroit who
Speaker 7: were at a Trump rally, and so I think there's
Speaker 7: just a lot of healthy dialogue that's taken place. We
Speaker 7: know that Michigan and particularly Detroit is a battleground city
Speaker 7: and state and that the role to the White House
Speaker 7: comes through Detroit specifically. So I think people are a
Speaker 7: big anxious, nervous, optimistic, but knowing that it's going to
Speaker 7: be a tight race. And so when Trump lasts one
Speaker 7: last time, he literally won by two votes per precinct.
Speaker 7: That's how tight it was. So we really want to
Speaker 7: hone in that every single vote matters in this election,
Speaker 7: every sing vote.
Speaker 6: Can you tell me what you said? A healthy dialogue
Speaker 6: has been taking place in light of Yeah, some folks
Speaker 6: choosing the back Trump in the community, tell us what that?
Speaker 5: Well?
Speaker 7: I just think that traditionally people who have not been
Speaker 7: a part of the political process are more engaged now
Speaker 7: that I've never seen before. And I think need that
Speaker 7: And I think having a healthy debate is always productive
Speaker 7: and necessary now.
Speaker 5: Whether or not where it lands.
Speaker 7: I believe that everyone needs to be on one side
Speaker 7: in this race regardless. I mean, our democracy is at
Speaker 7: stake in this election, and I think the progress that
Speaker 7: we made in Detroit, the sustainability of keeping that momentum moving.
Speaker 7: It really takes place in that White House, and so
Speaker 7: what I just think seeing different types of influencers, rappers,
Speaker 7: you know, getting involved in the political process is needed,
Speaker 7: and I think that that's healthy as well. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 7: curious early voting begins in Detroit earlier than it does
Speaker 7: for the rest of the state. Why is that, Well,
Speaker 7: we've made it an easy access to vote in Michigan.
Speaker 7: We want people to have no excuses whatsoever to be
Speaker 7: able to go and get their votes casted. And so
Speaker 7: there was a concerted effort years ago to make sure
Speaker 7: that early voting took place in Detroit, and our city
Speaker 7: Clerk has been phenomenal to make sure that there's absolutely
Speaker 7: no excuses. Two voting polls, voting centers in each council district,
Speaker 7: so there's fourteen locations where people can vote right now
Speaker 7: up into election day, and it's really just to make
Speaker 7: sure that we get the voter turnout as high as
Speaker 7: we can. Traditionally in Detroit we have not had the
Speaker 7: best voter turnout and so we're trying to eliminate any barriers,
Speaker 7: any excuses, and make it as easy as possible for
Speaker 7: people to vote.
Speaker 1: Which is so key in this election, because, as people know,
Speaker 1: Detroit is one of the most populous cities when it
Speaker 1: comes to the black population, particularly in Michigan. So I'm
Speaker 1: lovely lovely to hear that.
Speaker 4: I want to ask you to and I do want
Speaker 4: to acknowledge the city clerk as well as the deputy
Speaker 4: City Clerk, Andre Gilbert, who was so instrumental and ensuring
Speaker 4: that we were able to be here. I also want
Speaker 4: to shout out the hotel who's patio were using. We're
Speaker 4: at the Hotel Saint Regis and the owner, Crystals, has
Speaker 4: been magnificent. But just to go back to what you
Speaker 4: were saying about healthy dialogue, I think we've had like
Speaker 4: these very heated debates on the podcast about when is
Speaker 4: it time to cut off the conversation? Should you be
Speaker 4: cutting off the conversation? Have you been in any conversation?
Speaker 4: But we got to be here. I believe that's a
Speaker 4: plan that must be trying to distract me from my point.
Speaker 4: But I was gonna ask you, Mary, what types of
Speaker 4: conversions have you seen from people who said they're undecided,
Speaker 4: or folks who may have said they're voting for Kamala
Speaker 4: Harris or said they're going to vote for Donald Trump.
Speaker 5: Who have shifted?
Speaker 4: Have you been engaged in any conversations I have if
Speaker 4: even it might happen, I mean to people that I
Speaker 4: know most definitely. I think the more that we educate
Speaker 4: and the more that we make those connections, the correlation
Speaker 4: between your quality of life, your everyday living, in your vote,
Speaker 4: the easier it is, the better it is. So yes,
Speaker 4: I've had those conversations where people have shifted from you know,
Speaker 4: originally maybe wanting to support Trump or not really understanding
Speaker 4: what was at stake. And so I think again, those
Speaker 4: healthy dialogue and conversation is important so people can understand
Speaker 4: what is truly at stake, for sure.
Speaker 3: So so him not wanting to do business with black folks,
Speaker 3: letting them working as corporation, not not not letting them
Speaker 3: stay in his accommodations when they can control it, not
Speaker 3: paying his bills, the black folks meaning us, not seeing
Speaker 3: our humanity in any way, shape or form.
Speaker 6: I have it. I do have a difficult time. I'm
Speaker 6: probably the most open between the three of us of talking.
Speaker 6: She don't suffer fools, but I just, I just I'm
Speaker 6: having a hard time having conversations that grow and evolve
Speaker 6: with folks who start off jump not recognizing the fact
Speaker 6: this man don't like you as a person, and therefore
Speaker 6: what could he do for you?
Speaker 1: Even talking about Detroit, to have these high profiles right
Speaker 1: join him, it's like he bought you cheap, bro.
Speaker 4: If you have seen people transition from supporting him after
Speaker 4: what he said about Detroit.
Speaker 7: So not necessarily. And I think some of the same
Speaker 7: individuals who we know who were out taking pictures with Trump,
Speaker 7: I think they've been kind of silent still on who
Speaker 7: they're endorsing or if they're endorsing anyone in this race.
Speaker 7: I know Kamala was here recently. She had a radio
Speaker 7: fine with Charlemagne A God. I'm not sure if some
Speaker 7: of those influence.
Speaker 5: Yep.
Speaker 7: So I think we just we have to understand the
Speaker 7: importance of that this is not a game time. It's
Speaker 7: not a time for a joke, and so it's just
Speaker 7: important that we have those conversations.
Speaker 5: And when Trump was just.
Speaker 7: Here, he disrespected Detroit in front of Detroit, of course,
Speaker 7: but also we had the business leaders of this embracing
Speaker 7: it and clapping, which is another thing we have to
Speaker 7: work on. But again, we know he continues to show
Speaker 7: hisself time and time again, And I just think that Detroit,
Speaker 7: we have to get up, we have to show up,
Speaker 7: and we got to vote.
Speaker 6: I agree with that. I also and I wonder to
Speaker 6: what extent you experienced this, But black men are the
Speaker 6: second highest demographic behind the Democratic nominee historically since our
Speaker 6: conversion to the Democratic Party. Are there economic messages that
Speaker 6: you think Democrats have to do a better job at
Speaker 6: communicating that if we hear it, it sinks in for instance,
Speaker 6: Kamala Harris's plan around small businesses of the Loano and
Speaker 6: the Grand Forgiveness. Does that resonate or too little, too late?
Speaker 7: I think it was an opportunity to let them know
Speaker 7: that we hear you. I've heard internally that black men
Speaker 7: did not feel a part of the campaign, and so
Speaker 7: her initiative to come here and have a conversation with
Speaker 7: black men I think went a long way. Because we
Speaker 7: hear a lot about reproductive rights, and we hear a
Speaker 7: lot about abortion, which is extremely important. But I think
Speaker 7: we have to also message black men as well too,
Speaker 7: So I think having that initiative around economic empowerment was big.
Speaker 7: Whether it was two late or not, at least she tried.
Speaker 7: At least she tried to say that I hear you
Speaker 7: and we're going to address you all as well.
Speaker 6: It also should be noted because I think you made
Speaker 6: a right point to have an agenda this She may
Speaker 6: be the first president certainly that I can remember, who
Speaker 6: have ever delivered an agenda that is specifically targeted toward
Speaker 6: black folk. Yes, and for candidates who say, because this
Speaker 6: morning I heard a Trump's surgu and say that their
Speaker 6: agenda is agenda for the country, it's also for black folk.
Speaker 5: That's right.
Speaker 6: Well, when the country is impacted equally by what black
Speaker 6: men are impacted by, then we can get a everybody
Speaker 6: is included in this agenda. But until that happens, it's
Speaker 6: got to be it's got to be.
Speaker 7: Saying, we know there's not an agenda on the other
Speaker 7: side for sure, right, not at all?
Speaker 6: What are your what are your local races? Just local
Speaker 6: folks who are listening what local races?
Speaker 7: So we well, I actually will yield to who's she's
Speaker 7: going to be on the bound coming, but I will say,
Speaker 7: you know, coming up after the presidential race next year
Speaker 7: will be an open seat for a lot of the
Speaker 7: city council local races, the mayor's race, council will be up,
Speaker 7: and so a lot of shifting will be taking place
Speaker 7: in the landscape here in Detroit, which is exciting to see.
Speaker 7: As well. Our current mayor will not be running again
Speaker 7: and so that seat will be open. And we just
Speaker 7: know that Detroit, as much as we're growing and progressing,
Speaker 7: we still have to address some of the social issues
Speaker 7: in the trade. And I mean we still have one
Speaker 7: of the highest poverty rates in the country, when one
Speaker 7: in three of Detroiters are living in poverty. Uh, those
Speaker 7: issues have to be addressed. Our neighborhoods are coming back,
Speaker 7: for sure, but we wanted to make sure that it
Speaker 7: reaches more people as well. So we're excited about some
Speaker 7: of the races forthcoming and I want everyone to stay tuned.
Speaker 5: Andrew. Do you remember from.
Speaker 4: Course network that Andrew co founded People for the American Way.
Speaker 4: Now that's the thing I was going to say, what
Speaker 4: you know what Andrew built in content with so many
Speaker 4: of you. I was a real bit of people who
Speaker 4: are pushing forward with progressive policy. And to that end,
Speaker 4: we have joining us the Justice of the Michigan Supreme Court,
Speaker 4: Kyra Harris Bolden, who's also on the ballot this time.
Speaker 4: Mary's not breaking any news today. So I was wondering
Speaker 4: if she had any any people she was picking for
Speaker 4: the mayoral race next year. But right now we have
Speaker 4: Kyrie joining us, and there is an imminent election. People
Speaker 4: are going to vote right now. So Kyra talks us
Speaker 4: a little bit about your race and what you're expected.
Speaker 5: Well, thank you so.
Speaker 8: Much for having me. I just want to say my
Speaker 8: husband is a fan of the podcast, so.
Speaker 5: Well you can be in part. Listen and see if
Speaker 5: we're doing all right.
Speaker 8: I'm listening and thank you so much for having so Yeah,
Speaker 8: So I am on the ballot. I actually ran from
Speaker 8: Michigan Supreme Court in twenty twenty two. I lost by
Speaker 8: two percentage points and there was a one million vote
Speaker 8: drop off between the governor's race and the non partisan
Speaker 8: section of the ballot. And so I have being here
Speaker 8: in this space now just been telling people you're already.
Speaker 6: Voting, vote the ballot.
Speaker 8: You have to vote the entire ballot, and don't miss
Speaker 8: your judges and your justices, especially with a community that
Speaker 8: is so justice impacted, people that are making decisions about
Speaker 8: your lives every day, you have to vote for these people.
Speaker 8: Not every state has the opportunity, right, but we do
Speaker 8: have that opportunity in Michigan, and I am on everybody's
Speaker 8: ballot in the state of Michigan. So I'm just honored
Speaker 8: to sit in this space as the first black woman
Speaker 8: to ever serve on the Michigan Supreme Court, as well
Speaker 8: as the youngest, and as well as being a new mom.
Speaker 8: I have a two year old and I actually ran
Speaker 8: a twenty twenty two pregnant with my first child and
Speaker 8: have my baby in the middle of the campaign.
Speaker 5: So man, you're a woman. It's been a Jarney.
Speaker 1: I love that you're on the court because I think
Speaker 1: we in this country spend so much time focusing on
Speaker 1: the Supreme Court of the United States, but the lower
Speaker 1: courts are also where black women are underrepresented and then
Speaker 1: some spaces unrepresented, so a lot of people sometimes I
Speaker 1: think having a challenge with prosecutors. Vice President Harris, of course,
Speaker 1: is a former prosecutor, and we always try to point
Speaker 1: out on this show, prosecutors decide what charges to bring,
Speaker 1: what charges not to bring when the cops misbehave. They're
Speaker 1: the ones who bring charges with cops. They're the ones
Speaker 1: who can decide not to prosecute low level of sentences
Speaker 1: exactly so why what is the significance about having a
Speaker 1: black woman, a young black woman on the Supreme Court.
Speaker 1: And I just want to remind our audience that Donald
Speaker 1: Trump during his tenure appointed over two hundred mostly white
Speaker 1: metal judges to lifetime appointments and it can take a
Speaker 1: generation to undo the harm that causes.
Speaker 5: So I would love to hear your thoughts time.
Speaker 8: Yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head
Speaker 8: by saying generations. Right, So, when we're thinking about the
Speaker 8: Michigan Supreme Court or just judges and justices in general,
Speaker 8: diversity on the bench is so important, especially on the
Speaker 8: Michigan Supreme Court.
Speaker 5: There's seven of us.
Speaker 8: Right, we need to have representation at that very important
Speaker 8: seat to make sure that everybody in the state of
Speaker 8: Michigan is contemplated when we're making important decisions.
Speaker 5: I have a different lens.
Speaker 8: Than some of my colleagues, and I will tell you
Speaker 8: sometimes the question might be what is reasonable, Well, what
Speaker 8: is reasonable for a six year old black kid and
Speaker 8: what is reasonable for a fifth year old white man
Speaker 8: are different, and so bringing those perspectives to the table
Speaker 8: when having those very important conversations is incredibly important. And
Speaker 8: I can say as a person sitting at that table.
Speaker 8: It is important. It's incredibly important. The other thing that's
Speaker 8: really important as far as me being a black woman
Speaker 8: is just representation. I tell this story sometimes, but I
Speaker 8: was working in an after school program in college and
Speaker 8: a little black girl that looked like me came up
Speaker 8: to me and said, miss Kyra, and Miss Kyra kN
Speaker 8: girls go to college. And the amount of youth that
Speaker 8: come up to me that said I never even thought
Speaker 8: about going to law school. I never even thought about
Speaker 8: being an attorney. I never thought about being on the
Speaker 8: Michigan Supreme Court. But now that I see it, I
Speaker 8: can see that from myself, and that is so incredibly important.
Speaker 8: So not just the voice that's bringing those lib experiences
Speaker 8: to the table, but the impact on the youth and
Speaker 8: seeing themselves in positions of power so important.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you talked a little bit about representation, and I know, Mary,
Speaker 4: we have to let you go in just a moment.
Speaker 4: You busy today, but I do want to acknowledge we
Speaker 4: have representation at the table. In addition to Andrew, we
Speaker 4: have another black man who has joined us. He is
Speaker 4: James Tait, the City Council President pro tim and the
Speaker 4: most exciting thing about him right now? To me is
Speaker 4: this I voted sticker, exercise my franchise first and just
Speaker 4: I don't just run.
Speaker 5: I also vote that's right.
Speaker 9: It's important to me to make sure that I example
Speaker 9: be an example for the black man is in particular,
Speaker 9: who have pulled themselves out of the process and not
Speaker 9: realize that the amount of power they have on a
Speaker 9: daily basis right. They give that power away and unfortunately,
Speaker 9: when they give that power away, something else feels that vacuum.
Speaker 9: And we've seen over time that that's something else is
Speaker 9: not in our best interest.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I want to make sure that we let you go.
Speaker 4: You all can stay with us, just for a moment.
Speaker 5: Thank you.
Speaker 6: So much. I'm going to get to the president pro
Speaker 6: teminal moment. But Justice, I would love to know. We
Speaker 6: have always been able to, I think, rely on the course,
Speaker 6: particularly the highest courts in our land and in this state.
Speaker 6: You sit on that court. But after the Supreme Court
Speaker 6: decision and Cater, you know, creating Donald Trump a king,
Speaker 6: I think a lot of people's faith in the court
Speaker 6: has been shaken. I'm curious to know at at your level,
Speaker 6: the state level, are you experiencing this sort of increased
Speaker 6: level of partisan ship at your level of government, or
Speaker 6: at least at the court level that you all supervise,
Speaker 6: that causes you concern as a justice.
Speaker 8: The one thing that's really interesting is in Michigan, in
Speaker 8: order to even get on the ballot, you have to
Speaker 8: be nominated by one of the major political parties, which
Speaker 8: is very unique. I think the Michigan is the only
Speaker 8: state that does that, and so the Michigan Democratic Party,
Speaker 8: the Republican Party, the Green Party, and so on and
Speaker 8: so forth so forth will nominate justices from the Michigan
Speaker 8: Supreme Court. But we are a nonpartisan on the ballot.
Speaker 8: So with that being said, it is a huge concern
Speaker 8: for Michiganders given that the parties are the ones that
Speaker 8: are nominating the non partisan justices. However, my experience on
Speaker 8: the court has actually been very collegial, very thoughtful, even
Speaker 8: those that have been nominated by the Republicans. I have
Speaker 8: found that you know that there's a healthy dialogue and
Speaker 8: there's definitely a respect there on the Michigan Supreme Court,
Speaker 8: which I appreciate. You have to be able to try
Speaker 8: to get the get things right, and it requires that
Speaker 8: people with the diverse thought process, some that different from
Speaker 8: mine on a particular case is represented at the table,
Speaker 8: and so there are concerns, and understandably so, But what
Speaker 8: I have experienced is is a court that works very
Speaker 8: well together. Sometimes I may change some one's opinion and
Speaker 8: someone and I might change someone's opinion based upon you know,
Speaker 8: our life experiences and thought processes. But again, I think
Speaker 8: that's why the process of electing our judges and justices
Speaker 8: in the state of Michigan is so important because people
Speaker 8: have the opportunity to hear from me, and people have
Speaker 8: the opportunity to go to my website and see my
Speaker 8: events and things like that, and so you can vet
Speaker 8: your own judges and justices here in Michigan, and there's
Speaker 8: a level of accountability that I think there's not on
Speaker 8: the federal level.
Speaker 4: I want to just for a moment go to you, James,
Speaker 4: And I was asking Mary before you arrived about the
Speaker 4: types of conversations that you're here in the ground. To me,
Speaker 4: I can't believe that the presidential election is as close
Speaker 4: as it is here in Detroit, especially after what former
Speaker 4: President Donald Trump had to say about Detroit. What are
Speaker 4: the types of conversations you're hearing when people are saying
Speaker 4: they're undecided or they're, you know, voting for Donald Trump?
Speaker 5: What are what are those conversations?
Speaker 10: Like, Yeah, I'm glad you're asking this.
Speaker 9: So I host three community meetings every month and a
Speaker 9: lot of community engagement, and I asked the question often
Speaker 9: over the last couple of weeks, who's excited about this election?
Speaker 9: You see some hands go up. Who's nervous about this election?
Speaker 9: All the hands go up at that point, right, So
Speaker 9: then I ask about, you know, who's on this side,
Speaker 9: who's on that side, and who's who who's undecided at
Speaker 9: this point? And so then I asked, well, why are
Speaker 9: you undecided? What I'm hearing is these are folks who
Speaker 9: just literally don't believe in government at all. Wow, they've
Speaker 9: taken themselves again, as I mentioned before, out of the process.
Speaker 10: Now they're on our sidelines.
Speaker 9: They're complaining, they're saying things aren't right, but in terms
Speaker 9: of them believing in government at all, they're just not there.
Speaker 11: Now.
Speaker 10: They'll tell you, well, Tate, I like you. I'm here
Speaker 10: for you.
Speaker 9: And so that's why it's important for me to make
Speaker 9: sure that I keep that connectivity to them.
Speaker 10: Whether we talk about younger.
Speaker 9: Oh, I was I was at a at an event
Speaker 9: this past weekend and I saw this brother and his family.
Speaker 9: It's a nuclear family, husband, wife, two kids that both
Speaker 9: of them just got off work, the kids that just
Speaker 9: picked them up from school. And again, are you are
Speaker 9: you involved engaged? No, not really, but I will be now,
Speaker 9: That's what he told me. I said, Okay, well, what
Speaker 9: about this big election that's coming up now? If you're voting,
Speaker 9: I mean, if you're a if you're in a ballot,
Speaker 9: I'll vote for you. I said, I'm not on the ballot.
Speaker 9: What about the this is the big election? And he
Speaker 9: told me, no, not really, not really, I'm just not
Speaker 9: feeling And it's amazing to see and hear that there's
Speaker 9: a disparity when we talk about what folks are expecting
Speaker 9: from the various from the two candidates. Right, I'm not
Speaker 9: hearing a plan. Well, brother, did you did you go online?
Speaker 9: I can even kind of run some things to you.
Speaker 9: And then he says, well, there the other guy, I mean,
Speaker 9: he does his life. I said, so what else do
Speaker 9: you need? What else do you need? Because that's what's
Speaker 9: going to set the policy. What's in their heart, what
Speaker 9: they're telling you, that's setting the policy. And he's telling
Speaker 9: me about these commercials that he sees, and he's just
Speaker 9: regurgitating things that he's seen in these commercials. And again
Speaker 9: I ask him, have you done any research at all?
Speaker 6: Well?
Speaker 10: No, but that's just bad, isn't it. So we have
Speaker 10: to make sure that.
Speaker 9: Those of us who are on the ground on the
Speaker 9: local level, that we constantly stay in contact with our
Speaker 9: community and bring them in not just during these four
Speaker 9: years every four years, but every day. We have to
Speaker 9: make sure that we are reaching out to him. And
Speaker 9: that's the chair and the founder of the Task Force
Speaker 9: on Black Meling Game. Here in the city of Detroit,
Speaker 9: there's a lot of connectivity, so we have conversations. We
Speaker 9: were going to have a walk today to get folks
Speaker 9: out to vote. We've got a couple of other things going,
Speaker 9: but we're going to be out next weekend. We're going
Speaker 9: to be out the weekend after as well. So we're
Speaker 9: going to keep on pushing getting our black men in
Speaker 9: particular engage in this election.
Speaker 6: I love that you asked the question what are you
Speaker 6: hearing from the other guy, the other candidate, because when
Speaker 6: I hear the point, I'm not I haven't heard a plan.
Speaker 6: I'm like, if you ain't heard one from her. Just
Speaker 6: listen to him. You've heard him, you ought to. That
Speaker 6: ought to be enough to help you make up your mind.
Speaker 6: But I am I'm curious. I heard from the Council
Speaker 6: president her response to whether or not you feel like
Speaker 6: the Harris campaign is going far enough with articulating a
Speaker 6: message that would be resonant with black men. Are there?
Speaker 6: I'm curious, are there pieces of the plan that you
Speaker 6: would say either work or don't work? Are there pieces
Speaker 6: that have been omitted that you think are important for
Speaker 6: black men to hear in order to make a decision
Speaker 6: that this is an election that I've got to be
Speaker 6: involved in because it affects me in my family.
Speaker 9: So I think we go back again to you can
Speaker 9: have a plan, and it's on paper, it's online. A
Speaker 9: certain audience will gravitate towards that. We have got to
Speaker 9: get out and break it down and make it real
Speaker 9: simple for folks. How does this plan, this two page,
Speaker 9: three page plan, how does how does it translate to
Speaker 9: your actual life? And when we're able to do that,
Speaker 9: now they can see, Oh so wait a minute, I'm
Speaker 9: able to receive benefits as a result of me being
Speaker 9: a business owner so it's not just words on a
Speaker 9: piece of paper by a politician that they don't know.
Speaker 9: This is now how it's going to transform the lives
Speaker 9: of you and your family and the city of Detroit
Speaker 9: as a whole. And once we start doing that. I've
Speaker 9: been on council now for fifteen years. I'm the old dog,
Speaker 9: as they say, so being on council, part of it
Speaker 9: is about taking these policies and breaking them down to
Speaker 9: bite sized chunks so that people can consume them, understand them,
Speaker 9: and then participate in the process as well.
Speaker 10: But don't wait every four years.
Speaker 9: Let's continue to drive those bread crumbs every bit along
Speaker 9: the way.
Speaker 12: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think that's been part of the challenge, right in
Speaker 1: some of these conversations, because when you hear people and
Speaker 1: just like you, like we've had conversations with men of
Speaker 1: all ages, some socioeconomic backgrounds that are varying, and I
Speaker 1: find that there is confusion about what branch of the
Speaker 1: government does, what, who is responsible for what. A part
Speaker 1: of that I think is I know, my biggest frustration
Speaker 1: has always been the media. The media tends to it's
Speaker 1: an incestuous conversation. They throw out these acronyms that people
Speaker 1: don't know. I remember watching TV and like, I don't
Speaker 1: even know what that is. I don't know what the
Speaker 1: CBO means. They would say the DLJ when I was younger,
Speaker 1: I'm like, what is the DJ? You know this is
Speaker 1: before Google and all that. So I wonder what as
Speaker 1: you navigate this process, what is the understanding of the
Speaker 1: constituency here, and how you've been able to bridge that
Speaker 1: gap and just have basic explainers. There's nothing to be
Speaker 1: embarrassed about, like you'd rather people be informed as they
Speaker 1: navigate this space, especially where in local government.
Speaker 9: So you just hit the nail on the head that
Speaker 9: don't be ashamed because I was the same way as
Speaker 9: you were. I had to learn, and even being a
Speaker 9: member of city council elected official, I still am in
Speaker 9: the process of learning what acronyms mean, who does what?
Speaker 9: It is extremely challenging to understand what district you're in,
Speaker 9: especially when you talk about from a local level. You
Speaker 9: have a city council district, you have a Wayne County district,
Speaker 9: you have a state Senate, a state a state House,
Speaker 9: and then you start talking about the federal levels as well.
Speaker 10: I go back again.
Speaker 9: That's why it's so critically important for us, those of
Speaker 9: us who are in the local level, to make sure
Speaker 9: that we keep that constant contact so that they know
Speaker 9: this is an executive function, y'all, this is a legislative function.
Speaker 10: This is what I do, This is what these so
Speaker 10: and the way.
Speaker 9: That you approach us is different, and what you're expecting
Speaker 9: from us has to be different. And what we bring
Speaker 9: to you has to solidify and satisfy the concerns you
Speaker 9: have and not just placate you. Because there's a way
Speaker 9: that you know, politicians, we know how to talk to folks.
Speaker 9: You know how to smooth talk them and get them
Speaker 9: in a certain direction just to keep them calm.
Speaker 10: Only to know.
Speaker 5: Anymore.
Speaker 10: Yeah, and that's the thing.
Speaker 9: There's a lot of folks who are waking up to it,
Speaker 9: but there but when they wake up, we don't want
Speaker 9: them to just wake up and take themselves out of
Speaker 9: the process.
Speaker 10: We want to wake up and get more engaged and involved.
Speaker 6: And I know we're going to be transitioned to but justice.
Speaker 6: I'm in the in the wake of needing folks to
Speaker 6: be involved in knowing what it is they're voting for.
Speaker 6: What can you what are the limits of what you
Speaker 6: can go to when you're trying to convince the voter
Speaker 6: to consider you. I'm imagining that there's some things that
Speaker 6: you're not able to say.
Speaker 8: I can't say much, okay, And what Counselman Tate was saying,
Speaker 8: it's so true. I mean, some people come up to
Speaker 8: me and they say, well, what's your criminal justice platform. Well,
Speaker 8: you know, as a justice, you know, you know, I
Speaker 8: deal with the cases that come before me. We try
Speaker 8: to make the best decisions possible based upon the law
Speaker 8: and what's the information available to us. And so no,
Speaker 8: I can't say that I'm for or against a certain issue.
Speaker 8: We're actually prohibited as judges and justices from from taking
Speaker 8: stances on positions, and so what I do, and obviously
Speaker 8: people can go to the website, but I think what
Speaker 8: I tell people is the important aspects of a justice,
Speaker 8: which are empathy and compassion and thoughtfulness right adherent to
Speaker 8: you know, the intention of the legislature. And for me,
Speaker 8: I always say justice for generations, knowing that the decisions
Speaker 8: I make today is set a precedent that will affect
Speaker 8: our children and our children's children and generations to come.
Speaker 8: And so I think those aspects are important. But that's
Speaker 8: basically all can.
Speaker 5: Say, yeah, I love it.
Speaker 13: Well.
Speaker 5: We so appreciate you all time today. So thank you
Speaker 5: all so much. Go get the rest of those votes. Counseling,
Speaker 5: thank you so much. Justice. We appreciate you all being here.
Speaker 4: Next up, we have a good friend of ours. I'm
Speaker 4: an honorary rattler. He's a real rattler, and so is she.
Speaker 4: Her name is Melissa Butler. She is the founder and
Speaker 4: CEO of the lip Bar. Y'all might have seen her.
Speaker 4: They tried to drag her when she went on a
Speaker 4: shark tank and she dragged them right with them.
Speaker 5: Revenues and all of that, all that good stuff.
Speaker 1: She is on this platform and absolately absolutely yes.
Speaker 5: I'm wearing I'm wearing my lip Bar products right now.
Speaker 14: You're always ready to hear you.
Speaker 8: Good.
Speaker 6: My wife and she knows.
Speaker 14: You, yes, she sure does.
Speaker 5: I appreciate all of the love.
Speaker 14: I feel like I'm at home right now.
Speaker 5: Welcome home. You know you are okay.
Speaker 4: So Melissa, you know we're out here because there's early
Speaker 4: voting starting into Troy. You've got friends and family here.
Speaker 4: Are you voting today, ma'am?
Speaker 14: I am going to vote today.
Speaker 13: I wasn't okay, I was like, no, I want to
Speaker 13: vote on election day, and somebody got me together real quick.
Speaker 13: They were like, if you are decided, if you know
Speaker 13: exactly what you're going to do, just go vote and
Speaker 13: get out of the way, like so that the lines
Speaker 13: are shorter. And I was like, you know what, You're right,
Speaker 13: So I will be voting as soon as I leave here.
Speaker 6: You bring five people, you spend your time.
Speaker 14: I'll do my best carpooling.
Speaker 15: Out there.
Speaker 6: We also you probably saw this, but your big Gretch.
Speaker 5: Big Gretch, she always.
Speaker 14: Yes, I'm obsessed with her. But we've we've always done
Speaker 14: our part.
Speaker 13: Like I remember in twenty sixteen, we put up a
Speaker 13: post that'sh like, Merry Christmas to everybody except Donald Trump,
Speaker 13: and people were pissed and we lost some customers then.
Speaker 13: But I was like, but if you don't understand the
Speaker 13: danger that is this man, then you weren't never rocking
Speaker 13: with us to begin with. And so in twenty twenty
Speaker 13: we helped people register to vote. We renamed our best
Speaker 13: seller in the company, it's called Boss Lady. We renamed
Speaker 13: it Boss Voter. Put a QR code on there to
Speaker 13: help people register to vote. You know, we're active with
Speaker 13: the governor, so we're always going to do our part
Speaker 13: because we are a community based business.
Speaker 1: I love that one. I just am obsessed. I think
Speaker 1: you're so beautiful. I love your product, I love your storyline.
Speaker 1: I was introduced by Boss Lady, but either you are
Speaker 1: britt Angela. I can't remember, but they said Boss Lady
Speaker 1: looks good on everybody, so I have Boss Lady to
Speaker 1: stain the gloss all of it. So I love it.
Speaker 1: I think I'm curious about you personally and professionally and
Speaker 1: how those two intersects, because we all saw on the
Speaker 1: Shark Tank people dismissed your vision, and I think that
Speaker 1: happened so often with black women, and that there's analogous
Speaker 1: to this moment in political history as a black woman
Speaker 1: is poised to lead the country for the first time.
Speaker 1: There's also the conversation around the economics of it all
Speaker 1: and entrepreneurship when it comes to black folks. If you
Speaker 1: are there pieces of Vice President Harris's policy that she's
Speaker 1: put forth that speak to you as a business owner,
Speaker 1: a black woman, someone who lives and puts on for Detroit,
Speaker 1: and someone who's been successful across multi layers and a
Speaker 1: fam You graduate and a Divine nine.
Speaker 13: First of all, I am rooting for this woman so
Speaker 13: hard just because I see myself and her like she
Speaker 13: is a member of the Divine Nine.
Speaker 14: She did go to an HBCU.
Speaker 13: She is always questioned, and as a black woman in business,
Speaker 13: you experience that often, and you have to be resilient
Speaker 13: enough to say, even though you don't see my vision,
Speaker 13: that doesn't mean that it doesn't remain clear to me.
Speaker 13: It's so funny because people give him so much credit
Speaker 13: as it relates to business, even though he is a
Speaker 13: field businessman. But I'm gonna talk about exactly, but more specifically,
Speaker 13: I don't think people realize how the form policies have
Speaker 13: hurt American businesses. Thelipper used to manufacture in the United
Speaker 13: States of America. We used to manufacture in California. At
Speaker 13: one point, I left Detroit moved to California because we
Speaker 13: were doing so much manufacturing.
Speaker 14: And then we got tariffs twenty six percent.
Speaker 13: I could no longer afford to keep my products made
Speaker 13: in California. I moved everything to Taiwan. So the idea
Speaker 13: that like the Republicans are better for business is a farce.
Speaker 13: And now with these additional tariffs, that are like insane.
Speaker 13: One thousand percent two thousand percent like that is not sustainable.
Speaker 13: It's not good for any business, but particularly black businesses.
Speaker 13: And we know that black business people hire black people.
Speaker 13: My team is all women, were like eighty percent black
Speaker 13: women like that.
Speaker 14: That's not the reality for most.
Speaker 13: Small business owners who are not of my complexion.
Speaker 14: So from a business percent.
Speaker 13: Respective, I believe that VP Harris like she has what
Speaker 13: it takes to make sure that that we will thrive
Speaker 13: next year. I think the Wall Street Journal said that
Speaker 13: next year, under the other guys, the orange toats policies,
Speaker 13: we will be in a recession by like mid five.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 13: And we've been sort of like the Lippar certainly because
Speaker 13: I mean, makeup is not essential. It's something that's fun,
Speaker 13: it's something that you do, you splurge on. If people
Speaker 13: have to decide between their groceries or their gas and
Speaker 13: their makeup, the lipper will be out of business. And
Speaker 13: so I am fearful of her not getting elected. And frankly,
Speaker 13: I believe in you know, I believe in her policy
Speaker 13: around like investing in HBCUs. I believe in her tax
Speaker 13: cuts for small businesses as opposed to these giant corporations
Speaker 13: that frankly should be paying taxes. I believe in home ownership.
Speaker 13: Like Detroit is the blackest city in America. It is
Speaker 13: seventy eight percent black, and it's changing. It's changing right
Speaker 13: now as we speak. And the only way that it
Speaker 13: can remain this like culturally rich place is if we
Speaker 13: are able to afford to buy homes in our own cities.
Speaker 14: So I think there's so many things.
Speaker 13: About her approach that boats well, not just for me,
Speaker 13: but for the broader American population.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I'm so.
Speaker 6: Glad you hit on these terrorifts because I wonder as
Speaker 6: a business owner, if you could speak to make it
Speaker 6: clear when a business is hit with a tariff, they
Speaker 6: either eat that cost and end up having to do
Speaker 6: what you did, which is move a piece of your
Speaker 6: product line and production out of the United States, or
Speaker 6: they pass that cost through the cost of the product
Speaker 6: onto the customer. Do you know of a business that
Speaker 6: eats the costs, absorbs the increase, and keeps the price
Speaker 6: the same.
Speaker 14: It's for the customer, It's impossible.
Speaker 13: And so if you look, there have been many articles
Speaker 13: talking about how you know, just the price of everything
Speaker 13: is rising, it's because of these tariffs. It's because of COVID.
Speaker 13: It's because of the poor handling of COVID. Like people
Speaker 13: get upset, they're like shrinkflation. I'm paying the same amount
Speaker 13: and getting less or I'm paying more for what I
Speaker 13: used to get. It is impossible, especially for a small
Speaker 13: business owner. And small businesses are the backbone of this country. Sure,
Speaker 13: you know, a small business owner cannot eat the cost
Speaker 13: because we have to pay our people. You know, we
Speaker 13: actually pay taxes, and then you know, for businesses that
Speaker 13: are in retail, like everyone wants a cut. So you know,
Speaker 13: we have tried really hard to not increase prices, and
Speaker 13: our decision was, unfortunately, to go across the country, go
Speaker 13: across the world.
Speaker 5: Rightly, since we love you so much, we know you
Speaker 5: got to go vote.
Speaker 4: We're gonna call up you've laid a great trail. We're
Speaker 4: gonna call up some other business owners to join us now.
Speaker 4: And one who travels often is a good friend of yours,
Speaker 4: Jessica Nabango, travel expert, author and entrepreneur. We have Jillian Bradley,
Speaker 4: the owner of Harper Ray and porschep how CEO of
Speaker 4: one Detroit Credit Union.
Speaker 5: So we're gonna talk some more about business.
Speaker 4: We hear from you all out and clear regularly that
Speaker 4: the economy is at top of mind, whether we're talking
Speaker 4: about costs of goods, home ownership, tariffs. Melissa just brought
Speaker 4: tariffs into the conversation, gave us a quick little get
Speaker 4: down breakdown on economics, and I think it was super
Speaker 4: helpful to hear that from her. So welcome, ladies, We
Speaker 4: are so gill. Let me tell you what I love
Speaker 4: about this panel, and of course about Melissa is joining us.
Speaker 4: We still know that black women are the fastest growing
Speaker 4: group of entrepreneurs in this country, and it looks like
Speaker 4: that holds two.
Speaker 5: Interesting Yeah, Hi guys, Yes, thank you all so much
Speaker 5: for being here. You'll have no questions. Okay.
Speaker 1: I was mesmerized by Jessica because every time I fear,
Speaker 1: she's has on a beautiful fit.
Speaker 5: And voting is my blood. John and.
Speaker 1: Jessica, you have traveled all literally all over the globe,
Speaker 1: have been to every country in existence, and I'm just curious,
Speaker 1: from a global perspective, how does the United States look
Speaker 1: right now on a global scale. Do you imagine, like,
Speaker 1: are there spaces in the globe where they're like, oh,
Speaker 1: we hope Donald Trump is back in, or we please, Lord,
Speaker 1: let you know Vice President Harris is sent to the presidency,
Speaker 1: or people indifferent.
Speaker 16: No, definitely, indifference does not exist globally. I was just
Speaker 16: in the country of Georgia, which was part of the
Speaker 16: former Soviet Union, and I can tell you there they
Speaker 16: are terrified of the idea of Donald Trump getting in.
Speaker 16: Obviously I am too, because I think what people don't
Speaker 16: realize is that we could potentially be looking at the
Speaker 16: reunification of parts of the Soviet Union. Right, we already
Speaker 16: know he's gonna let putin have Ukraine, but there's other
Speaker 16: countries in the world that used to be in the
Speaker 16: Soviet Union that are also afraid. And I think also,
Speaker 16: I'm gonna take this moment to talk to my Arab
Speaker 16: American friends. Obviously there's a huge population here, and you know,
Speaker 16: we have we know exactly where they stand, we know
Speaker 16: how they feel, we know how horrible the last one
Speaker 16: year plus, I mean, it's much longer than that, but
Speaker 16: we know what it's been here, the concerns. But I
Speaker 16: think at the end of the day, the unfortunate situation
Speaker 16: we're in is that there are two options.
Speaker 6: That's right and one option.
Speaker 16: Sure, the administration has not called for a ceasefire as
Speaker 16: soon as we'd like to see it. There hasn't been
Speaker 16: an arms embargo. I do believe confidently that that is
Speaker 16: coming very soon. But the other option is someone who
Speaker 16: was in office for less than one year and moved
Speaker 16: the US embassy to Jerusalem. That is a line that
Speaker 16: no previous president was willing to cross less than one year.
Speaker 16: Let's not forget about Jared Kushner, you know like that. Okay,
Speaker 16: he might be Secretary of State, and so I recogniz
Speaker 16: that we are between a rock and a hard place,
Speaker 16: specifically air of Americans. But I you know, this is
Speaker 16: my individual plea just to say, like, I'd rather fight
Speaker 16: for Gaza, for the West Bank, for Lebanon under a
Speaker 16: Harris administration versus Trump because they are looking to turn
Speaker 16: that into Israeli beachfront property.
Speaker 5: Let's be honest.
Speaker 16: So I think, you know, it is very difficult, and
Speaker 16: I understand it's hard for them to cast that vote,
Speaker 16: but there's only two options on the ballot. Somebody's gonna win,
Speaker 16: and there's two people.
Speaker 5: Yeahound policy.
Speaker 4: You know, one of other questions I have for you,
Speaker 4: Porsche as a community bank, a credit union, you are
Speaker 4: the one that's responsible for lending to members of our
Speaker 4: community more often than not. Can you talk a little
Speaker 4: bit about some of the things you're seeing relative to
Speaker 4: home ownership, small business loans, and the kinds of things
Speaker 4: that you all are working to ensure parity and access there.
Speaker 5: Absolutely sooth your micro So I'm.
Speaker 17: Sorry about that, and so I think those those are
Speaker 17: the key pillars of this election that's most important to me,
Speaker 17: especially as not how leading of financial institutions, specifically here
Speaker 17: in Detroit, where access to capital, entrepreneurship, those are things
Speaker 17: that we're all taken from us at a point in time,
Speaker 17: and so now to have those things threatened, to have
Speaker 17: the institutions that we're putting into place to ensure that
Speaker 17: we had long term sustainability are now at the top
Speaker 17: of the chopping block. I think this is the most
Speaker 17: important time, you know, in Detroit's history. I think this
Speaker 17: whole rhetoric that came out yesterday about make Detroit great again,
Speaker 17: you know, which is absolute asonized. I think that's a
Speaker 17: slapp in the face to all of the entrepreneurs like
Speaker 17: the Melissa Butler's, the Jillian Bradley's who've invested into this
Speaker 17: area and fought to make sure that businesses thrive here.
Speaker 17: And so for all of the people that's putting into
Speaker 17: the work, you know, having that type of rhetoric, those
Speaker 17: type of conversations as if we haven't been putting that
Speaker 17: work in, you know, is insane to me. And so now,
Speaker 17: as a leader of a fine institution, I'm charged with
Speaker 17: making sure we continue.
Speaker 5: To bry access to capital.
Speaker 17: And so you think of things like interest rates, how
Speaker 17: the FED controls the environments that we're able to lend to.
Speaker 17: Those things are even more important because what will happen
Speaker 17: is those products and services become more restrictive. We don't
Speaker 17: have a government that's in support of us providing more
Speaker 17: access to capital, and they give and support to the
Speaker 17: institutions that do that. We are a CDFI. That's super important.
Speaker 17: CDFIs are threatened every day with additional restrictions being put
Speaker 17: into place, and all that does is limit the access
Speaker 17: that the consumers will have to products and services. As
Speaker 17: Melissa mentioned, make up things like that aren't essential, but
Speaker 17: we still want them.
Speaker 1: What is a CDFI.
Speaker 17: CDFI is a community development financial institution and so what
Speaker 17: that means for us is we actually get support from
Speaker 17: the government to provide funding and access to capital and
Speaker 17: underserved communities, Detroit being of course one of those, And
Speaker 17: so it allows us to take additional risks. It allows
Speaker 17: us to look at things beyond the credit store. It
Speaker 17: allows us to create products and services that systematically people
Speaker 17: of color and migrants have been excluded from because things
Speaker 17: like credit and things like that. So it takes out
Speaker 17: some of those systematic banking policies that have held us
Speaker 17: back and allows us to at least have access in
Speaker 17: ways that we haven't before. And that's why you see
Speaker 17: things like small businesses driving a lot of that is
Speaker 17: not being driven by banks, is being driven by CDFI's
Speaker 17: And when you start thinking about policy, we have to
Speaker 17: make sure that we're supporting a government that is going
Speaker 17: to think about those things and how it impacts the
Speaker 17: bottom line of small businesses if those things are eliminated.
Speaker 12: I love that.
Speaker 6: Julian I know is another business owner. Harper k on
Speaker 6: your own. I'm curious to roper Ray. I'm so sorry,
Speaker 6: Harper Ray. Yes one, tell our listeners a little bit
Speaker 6: about Harparay and Man's second, I'd love to know how
Speaker 6: you feel the administration, how government impacts what you get
Speaker 6: to do from day to day.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 18: So Harper Ray is a fashion Jury brand marketed directly
Speaker 18: towards women. Generally, Jury is marketed towards men to buy
Speaker 18: for women. So that's the difference with us. And it's
Speaker 18: named after my grandfather. He was actually one of the
Speaker 18: first black antiseesiologists in the state of Michigan.
Speaker 6: Wow.
Speaker 5: So definitely some history there.
Speaker 18: And when am I like, one of the main points
Speaker 18: that she's made clear that Kamala has made clear is
Speaker 18: that she wants to give the funding to small business
Speaker 18: owners like myself. I'm able to employ other black women,
Speaker 18: I'm able to give back to my community. We do
Speaker 18: all the type of drives and things like that where
Speaker 18: we're giving back to shelters all around Detroit. And if
Speaker 18: I was able to, you know, get capital at the beginning,
Speaker 18: I would be a lot further, a lot sooner. And
Speaker 18: you know, we have to support the people that are
Speaker 18: giving back to us. There's obviously, you know, there's one
Speaker 18: candidate that has a plan and there's one candidate that doesn't.
Speaker 5: And that was the concept of a plan, right, concept
Speaker 5: of a plan.
Speaker 18: And you know, I think at this stage in the election,
Speaker 18: if you're still undecided, or if you're you know, teetering
Speaker 18: that fence, it's like you're making a choice, and I
Speaker 18: think things have been very clear.
Speaker 6: Yeah, And so really to any of you, or really
Speaker 6: all of you, for the black men in your lives
Speaker 6: that you get to interact with, I'm curious how those
Speaker 6: conversations go. Is it a pro Harris conversation? Is it
Speaker 6: a pro Trump? Is it a really none of this
Speaker 6: stuff is impacting our lives from day to day, year
Speaker 6: to year, and so what does it matter. We were
Speaker 6: doing all right during Trump, we did all right during Biden,
Speaker 6: and we'll do all right with whoever comes next. Curious
Speaker 6: to hear y'all and what that experience has been like,
Speaker 6: I would.
Speaker 5: Say, I'm sorry, you go first.
Speaker 16: So I would just say, fortunately, the men in my
Speaker 16: life are supporting Kamala Harris, so I haven't had to
Speaker 16: have a lot of difficult conversations. But I will say
Speaker 16: I was at one of my best friend's houses recently
Speaker 16: and conversation did open up, and there were some people
Speaker 16: obviously that I'm not connected to, and I do think
Speaker 16: a lot of people because you know, I'm you Gunden,
Speaker 16: So I will say, like I don't have a whole
Speaker 16: lot of family in the US. My family is definitely
Speaker 16: all voting for Kamala. But I think for a lot
Speaker 16: of people who do have a lot of family here,
Speaker 16: I think we can't make any assumptions about how people
Speaker 16: are voting.
Speaker 9: You know.
Speaker 16: I think it's really important to have the tough conversations.
Speaker 5: Even if you just have the.
Speaker 16: Text folks because you don't want to talk to them
Speaker 16: in person, That's fine, but I think it's really important.
Speaker 16: Since we're in Detroit and thinking about the state of Michigan,
Speaker 16: you can have those conversations. We still have seventeen days.
Speaker 16: The amazing thing about Michigan is that you can register
Speaker 16: to vote the day you go and vote. Even on
Speaker 16: November fifth, you can register to vote that day, so
Speaker 16: have the conversations. It's not too late. They can still
Speaker 16: register to vote and vote the way we need them
Speaker 16: to vote.
Speaker 12: I love that same.
Speaker 18: Unluckily for me, all the men in my life are
Speaker 18: definitely supporting commonly Harris. But I did have a cousin
Speaker 18: who I have a cousin who is a Republican. He
Speaker 18: voted for Trump the first time, but he's not doing
Speaker 18: so this time, so he did take a lot of
Speaker 18: talks and things like that for my family, but he
Speaker 18: came to his own conclusion even that, you know, the
Speaker 18: state of the world of the United States when Trump
Speaker 18: was in office was not you know, was not.
Speaker 5: Favorable for anyone.
Speaker 18: Almost towards the end, and even when Biden was running,
Speaker 18: we were all like, maybe we should just break up,
Speaker 18: Maybe we should just I mean, I gues should be
Speaker 18: single for.
Speaker 5: President.
Speaker 18: That was a sittingment at the time. So it's like,
Speaker 18: you know, is that a place that we want to
Speaker 18: go back to.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think it's an easy answer.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 17: I think my experience is actually much different in both
Speaker 17: these ladies. A being a leader in a financial soution
Speaker 17: in the underserved community, we have a lot of people
Speaker 17: who come in who are just detached, people who really
Speaker 17: don't see in a media impact, people who are misinformed,
Speaker 17: people who don't really have a true understanding of what
Speaker 17: this means to them, things like CDFI funding seen like
Speaker 17: affordable healthcare, the Obamacare, things that are on the chopping black.
Speaker 17: A lot of them don't resonate that to this election.
Speaker 17: And I am the oldest, I have three younger brothers,
Speaker 17: and I really feel they felt a sense of displacement
Speaker 17: and not having an identity in either candidate. For some reason,
Speaker 17: some black men have fear of Kamala Harris. And I
Speaker 17: don't know if it was to your earlier point of
Speaker 17: her being a prosecutor and how systematically you know, there
Speaker 17: were things that were put in place, but I think
Speaker 17: we have to take some accountability there too and say, Okay, hey,
Speaker 17: yes she was a prosecutor, but she was prosecuting people
Speaker 17: for things that they did wrong, you know, and so
Speaker 17: and for her, like there's education, there's inclusiveness. I think
Speaker 17: things that now black men are starting to see. I
Speaker 17: think the best thing that she did for black men
Speaker 17: and started talking directly to them so that they could
Speaker 17: really understand how she plans to imback them by strengthening
Speaker 17: the African American families, creating a pathway to a middle
Speaker 17: class lifestyle for many of them who've been excluded. Education,
Speaker 17: as we know, it is one of the biggest things
Speaker 17: that has held us back from wealth. And so now
Speaker 17: her putting plans in that in place that will support
Speaker 17: those things. Really, I think it's starting to help a
Speaker 17: black man identify with why this is a better choice
Speaker 17: for them, because to everyone's point, Donald Trump is not
Speaker 17: for you, and why are we arguing so much about
Speaker 17: why she's for us? No, but he is not, So
Speaker 17: I think that just needed to be clear. I really
Speaker 17: do like how she started talking directly to black men
Speaker 17: so that they can also find place on her, because
Speaker 17: SIMI this point, we we black women, we see ourselves. Yeah,
Speaker 17: black men did not, and so I think for her
Speaker 17: to just start talking to them has really helped transition
Speaker 17: a lot of their thinking.
Speaker 5: And shut out this plan.
Speaker 1: She was already just I just want our audience to
Speaker 1: know she was already talking to black men. She was
Speaker 1: hosting dinner, she was hosting private conversations. So yeah, absolutely, so.
Speaker 4: We really we're so grateful to you Jessica, Jillian and
Speaker 4: Porsche for being here with us. We are gonna we're
Speaker 4: gonna go ahead and let you all go. Hopefully you
Speaker 4: all our early voting today as well, So thank you
Speaker 4: so much for your time, y'all. Also, uh, next time,
Speaker 4: we are gonna talk to the Brothers. The Brothers speak next,
Speaker 4: and we have someone who is a legendary voice in Detroit.
Speaker 4: I don't know why he's outside of the gate. Lo Loo,
Speaker 4: if you can go get Bush Man standing right there.
Speaker 4: Bush Man Detroit radio legend yesterday. Yes, oh yes, we
Speaker 4: did talk to radio you know. And then we also
Speaker 4: have Eric Thomas. I'm thrilled to talk to Eric Thomas today.
Speaker 4: He is a legendary entrepreneur, a writer, a strategist, and
Speaker 4: storyteller for the city of Detroit.
Speaker 5: He also asked a question at the.
Speaker 4: Town hall recently with Kamala Harrison and Charlot Mane the gods.
Speaker 5: I can't wait to hear that feedback. You can go ahead,
Speaker 5: put your head sit on. I'm sorry.
Speaker 4: I hope we all mess up them and just late honey.
Speaker 13: You.
Speaker 1: Guys, you you would, he told us day bring up Detroit.
Speaker 10: Yes, at least.
Speaker 4: So you know the thing that that we share in commons.
Speaker 4: So I met Bushman the other day and aside from
Speaker 4: talking about deer, which we took a little time to
Speaker 4: talk about some deer.
Speaker 10: I did I was.
Speaker 19: I missed this beautiful shot of some deer this morning.
Speaker 5: You did? You know better than us?
Speaker 12: So I didn't want to go no, no, no.
Speaker 4: It's not there for us. And if you need to
Speaker 4: turn your mind down you can. But now here's the thing.
Speaker 4: I met the two of you just a couple of
Speaker 4: days ago at the town hall that Leonard hosted with
Speaker 4: or Charlotte Mane hosted with Kamala Harris. I want to
Speaker 4: know how you thought the town hall went, bush Man,
Speaker 4: and then I want to come to you, Eric, to
Speaker 4: see how you what your response was to her question,
Speaker 4: I mean to your question and her answer.
Speaker 5: What did you think was? What got right? Was she
Speaker 5: get wrong? All of that? But Bushman, don't start with you.
Speaker 19: I thought it was amazing. I didn't even know anything
Speaker 19: about it until I was driving into work listening to CNN,
Speaker 19: and that's how.
Speaker 10: I found out.
Speaker 5: Wow.
Speaker 19: Then I called my boss, I'm like, did you know
Speaker 19: that Charlemagne Cu She's like what, Yeah? And this all
Speaker 19: came together and I thought it was amazing. And other
Speaker 19: people obviously thought it was amazing too, because the impressions
Speaker 19: that we've gotten and they're.
Speaker 6: Still growing, yes, and they're still.
Speaker 10: Growing over that.
Speaker 19: And I've gotten so many d ms, so many text messages,
Speaker 19: so many phone calls, so many emails about how did
Speaker 19: this all come about?
Speaker 12: And they thought it looked really really good.
Speaker 4: Highest rated interview for Kamala Harris so far to date. Eric,
Speaker 4: I want to hear from you and then I'm a
Speaker 4: pivot to my co host.
Speaker 20: I'm deeply amused you just hit my mail with the Leonard.
Speaker 21: But all right, Charlotte, I call them Charlotte.
Speaker 20: I don't know, I'm not.
Speaker 6: No.
Speaker 21: It was an interesting It was interesting because I was
Speaker 21: actually got a shock that I got called into that
Speaker 21: because I'm a bit of a robber rouser. But the
Speaker 21: whole gay right with me, vessels and everybody. So I
Speaker 21: try to bring nuance to these conversations. She said at
Speaker 21: the beginning she was gonna stick tooy talking for words.
Speaker 20: She did. It felt like she I.
Speaker 5: Think she said she was gonna be disciplined.
Speaker 20: She was.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 21: I think she fit one of the talking points that
Speaker 21: she had into my question about poverty and how it
Speaker 21: impacted black men, which is fine. One thing that I
Speaker 21: appreciated about Kamala is that she's thoughtful, considerate, and intelligent.
Speaker 21: Right Donald Trum would start talking about dogs, right, he
Speaker 21: would have just veered off the curve.
Speaker 6: It.
Speaker 21: I think it went as well as it could have
Speaker 21: possibly gone. I think it showed her warmth. I think
Speaker 21: it showed her sincerity. I think it showed that she
Speaker 21: had a real understanding and appreciation of the black community,
Speaker 21: which for some reason people are trying to act like
Speaker 21: biracial people don't have and that might be something we
Speaker 21: need to dig into a little bit more. But I
Speaker 21: like Kamala, I don't know if I was super into
Speaker 21: the answer, but I mean, healthcare is a poverty issue, yeah, right,
Speaker 21: and so I think that does fit. I think it
Speaker 21: is important, but I don't think it is a pathway
Speaker 21: out of pop.
Speaker 4: Let me ask you, because you said, and I'm promised
Speaker 4: I'm coming to y'all, but I just had a follow
Speaker 4: on this really quick said you weren't super into the answer.
Speaker 4: And I think one of the most important things that
Speaker 4: we've all learned touching policy all the time is like
Speaker 4: it is not a single person sport, is a joint effort.
Speaker 4: So for example, the black Man Agenda that they rolled
Speaker 4: out earlier last week, that was put together by a
Speaker 4: whole team of folks, including a black man named Brian
Speaker 4: Nelson who runs her policy shop. I'm curious to know,
Speaker 4: when you say I'm not that into the answer, what
Speaker 4: are the things that you would have liked to hear
Speaker 4: or you know, if you were advising Kamala Harris's campaign,
Speaker 4: what would you say you know, Madame Vice President, here
Speaker 4: are some of the things that really need to be
Speaker 4: included when you're talking about coming from poverty and trying
Speaker 4: to get folks into the middle class that where they
Speaker 4: deserve to be.
Speaker 21: So I think it's I'm with you. I've worked in
Speaker 21: politics and policy for a long time. Yeah, so sometimes
Speaker 21: you have to keep it a little loose, right, You
Speaker 21: can't get into the details, you don't have time. I
Speaker 21: think talking about if I asked for how do we
Speaker 21: move people from.
Speaker 20: Poverty to middle class?
Speaker 21: I would love to see stare step measures where we're
Speaker 21: going to be investing right or their parint You was
Speaker 21: talking about CDFI's I worked for a CDFI.
Speaker 20: So where are we investing, what geographies are they going?
Speaker 21: How does education what we talk about reparations, is there
Speaker 21: reparation for the war on drugs?
Speaker 12: Right?
Speaker 21: Like, maybe you can't go all the way back to slavery,
Speaker 21: Maybe that's difficult, but we do know all the people
Speaker 21: were impacted by marijuana incarcerations for things you could go
Speaker 21: buy in places that look like Apple stores right now, right,
Speaker 21: And so we know that if you get taken out
Speaker 21: of the workforce for twenty five years, that you are
Speaker 21: going to come at a distinct disadvantage. You're not able
Speaker 21: to vote, you're not able to work certain places. You
Speaker 21: got these boxes that they're trying to ban. So how
Speaker 21: are we looking at that really systemically? And this is
Speaker 21: in saying that all black men have been to prison.
Speaker 21: I have not, But we do know that black men
Speaker 21: are over criminalized and are impacted by the criminal justice
Speaker 21: system at a higher rate the most. Even I was
Speaker 21: pulled out of a car for dancing too much, dressed
Speaker 21: like this, all right, So there are all of these
Speaker 21: challenges they see that I would love to see what
Speaker 21: systems are we working actively to invest in and dismantle
Speaker 21: to move someone from one place to the next.
Speaker 20: Those are the sort of things excellent.
Speaker 1: You talked about liking vice president here is after town hall.
Speaker 1: But I'm really curious, because ratings aside, how many people
Speaker 1: were moved to vote for her, how many people were
Speaker 1: moved to be active for her, so less than our
Speaker 1: personal feelings, I'm curious, since you were in the room,
Speaker 1: do you feel like it was impactful in terms of
Speaker 1: changing hearts and minds and more so motivating people to
Speaker 1: get to the ballot box and cast their vote for her.
Speaker 21: I'm not going to say exactly who it was in
Speaker 21: the room because I let people tell their own stories,
Speaker 21: but I remember one of the people in the room
Speaker 21: said that he was incredibly impressed by how she presented
Speaker 21: and what she presented, as they have met most of
Speaker 21: the presidential candidates, and it's not this idea that like
Speaker 21: everybody's doing the politician thing. It was Look how thoughtful
Speaker 21: that was, Look how well she knows the issues. Sometimes
Speaker 21: it's not even like I want to know that you're
Speaker 21: going to do everything on my side, but I just
Speaker 21: want to know that you.
Speaker 20: Even know what the issue is.
Speaker 21: And Kamala comes across as incredibly educated on what issues
Speaker 21: impact the American people in a way that other candidates
Speaker 21: don't necessarily seem.
Speaker 20: Like they have a full grasp on that or reality.
Speaker 5: Were you moved?
Speaker 19: I energet I posted a video of her when she
Speaker 19: was walking in to the studio, which I typically don't
Speaker 19: like to do stuff like that with politics, because you know,
Speaker 19: I got a state neutral neutral and I definitely don't
Speaker 19: like to go read the contents because they can go
Speaker 19: left to right. There was a lot of positive contents
Speaker 19: of people where their minds had been changed by that
Speaker 19: town hall.
Speaker 1: It was impactful, it was very.
Speaker 6: It was I think it was.
Speaker 1: I think that counts the most. And we have a
Speaker 1: new guest joining us conversation.
Speaker 6: By Bravo.
Speaker 1: I think their their mic is out, but yeah, why
Speaker 1: don't you introduce yourself and then we'll rope the convers Uh.
Speaker 15: Well, support and raised in Detroit. I am a hospitality
Speaker 15: a nightlight partner, own six venues around from restaurants to
Speaker 15: nightclubs to to lounges, and I'm also a cast member
Speaker 15: on eleven Marors Detroit. Thank you for now. We just
Speaker 15: we just started that. We just yeah, we'll see second
Speaker 15: season middle mid break and then Huntsville starting up and
Speaker 15: then we're going to start back after that. So, so
Speaker 15: you interacted a lot of people obviously through the course
Speaker 15: of promoted for like twenty years.
Speaker 6: Yeah, so you hear you, you hear it all.
Speaker 5: He could tell us the folks, what's the focus group,
Speaker 5: saying Robin.
Speaker 15: That, but so, so I know we're talking about the
Speaker 15: town hall, so I will say this, Uh, it has
Speaker 15: been a lot of people that that been convoluted by
Speaker 15: the the pandemic of the stimulus funds that they were given.
Speaker 15: I'm glad that she did break it down as to
Speaker 15: it was a Congress that really pushed that. Yes, and uh,
Speaker 15: you know, and with Trump having a signature on the checks,
Speaker 15: it's a lot of people that are thinking that they
Speaker 15: came directly from him. So that's where a lot of
Speaker 15: the from Detroit side, because Detroit they spend their money,
Speaker 15: you know, they spend their money good.
Speaker 5: I think the second checks came from.
Speaker 15: The same person that gave the I mean, you know, yeah.
Speaker 6: They came from them. They so of course both x
Speaker 6: came from Democrats. There was a Democrats priorities. The president
Speaker 6: had no agenda to resolve the issue around COVID, and
Speaker 6: as we see, over a million Americans died as a
Speaker 6: result of his misaneling. I hope folks also know that
Speaker 6: those checks were delayed because weeks earlier month, But they
Speaker 6: were delayed because he gave instruction to the Treasury to
Speaker 6: go back and put his name on the line. Now
Speaker 6: our money, US expayers money that he said, go back,
Speaker 6: put my name on the bottom, and then you send
Speaker 6: those checks out. Donald Trump knew something that we clearly
Speaker 6: didn't have appreciation for at that time, and it's marketing.
Speaker 21: Don Trump marketing all that he can do. He can't
Speaker 21: run businesses. He can just do marketing.
Speaker 6: You can run them into the ground, those businesses. But
Speaker 6: you're right.
Speaker 20: But until he finds out that they don't nothing.
Speaker 5: Work, I feel like you could run circles around him
Speaker 5: my marketing.
Speaker 20: I just want to do the debate.
Speaker 6: I'm curious. So the checks went a long way with folks.
Speaker 6: But when we're not in the the heat of an
Speaker 6: election and to the extent that government or whatever happens
Speaker 6: in people's lives and who they blame, do you get
Speaker 6: the sense that folks make a real connection between what
Speaker 6: I do every day to make money, a living for
Speaker 6: my family, for myself, so on and so forth. They
Speaker 6: make that connection between how it impacts their lives and
Speaker 6: what the role of the government is in that.
Speaker 15: So I feel like, look at the town hall of Iceword,
Speaker 15: Vezzo's great rapper here. He did say that, I guess
Speaker 15: in his sense he said that sometimes they feel like
Speaker 15: we get the attention right around election time. I do
Speaker 15: feel like that things are being passed and pushed all
Speaker 15: in between that timeframe. And I'm glad that it was
Speaker 15: the uh. I'm glad that she actually, you know, answer
Speaker 15: to that but I do feel like we don't look
Speaker 15: for it intelection time comes, if it really you know,
Speaker 15: it's been a lot. It's a lot of bills that pass,
Speaker 15: a lot of things that pushed a lot of grants.
Speaker 15: But I feel a lot of the people in my demographic,
Speaker 15: we don't look for it intil election time comes. It's
Speaker 15: not a three years or two years into the election,
Speaker 15: I mean two years into after the election is over,
Speaker 15: still saying I wonder what's new coming up this month
Speaker 15: by Congress? I wonder. So I feel like it's really
Speaker 15: on us, you know, that they make it more present.
Speaker 15: They're an election time, but it's always present. We just
Speaker 15: don't look for you know, and that falls on us
Speaker 15: as a community, and it falls the you know, the
Speaker 15: US is the guys that have the verbal front, you know,
Speaker 15: a platform to be able to say, I mean, we
Speaker 15: need to probably say more. Hey, guys, two years in
Speaker 15: it's you know, twenty twenty two, this is a new
Speaker 15: thing in Congress if you guys, you know, and I
Speaker 15: feel like that's really a community issue.
Speaker 5: You know, you guys are making it.
Speaker 19: I was going to say something sometimes too, with the
Speaker 19: way the world is, especially in twenty twenty four. If
Speaker 19: we're not seeing it on the gram, TikTok, Facebook, Twitter, x,
Speaker 19: whatever you want to call it today, it's not happening, right.
Speaker 6: We don't know that it is happening.
Speaker 19: And if it's not drama with it, it doesn't get
Speaker 19: pushed out. The algorithm just lets it go there and
Speaker 19: you don't see it. So a lot of people ignore
Speaker 19: what might be happening. We just don't know it.
Speaker 6: Y'all. Have had some high profile black entertainer rappers of
Speaker 6: late come out for the Trump How is that landing?
Speaker 6: Do you think it's gonna land? Do you think folks
Speaker 6: are being moved shifted by it? Or is it causing
Speaker 6: deeper conversation that's worthwhile having.
Speaker 15: I'm starting to see more people giving up now. They're
Speaker 15: tired of arguing, they're tired of I think when you
Speaker 15: saw a couple of them at the last Trump rally,
Speaker 15: you can look into comments and some of some really
Speaker 15: high profile entrepreneurs in the city were like, hey, we're
Speaker 15: over it, We're not here, you know. So I think
Speaker 15: at this point, you know, it's not really pushing indy
Speaker 15: agendas anymore. It's like some people are going to vote
Speaker 15: for what they want to vote for in their own,
Speaker 15: you know, whatever reason they have. I have told a
Speaker 15: lot of my friends that I told one yesterday at
Speaker 15: my restaurant. I said, hey, if you're going to post
Speaker 15: some radical stuff, I'm gonna start calling you out now
Speaker 15: if you want to. It's a difference between conservatives, and
Speaker 15: it's differently between radicals, between you know, liberals, between radicals.
Speaker 15: It's the radical stuff that I think, honestly is really
Speaker 15: you know, if you push conservative agendas and that that
Speaker 15: fits to your lifestyle. Who am I to blame you?
Speaker 15: Who am I to tell you you know you're wrong?
Speaker 20: Now?
Speaker 15: It is some things that I feel like you should
Speaker 15: not overlook, you know. But I mean, if you're pushing
Speaker 15: radical you know, if you if you hit one person,
Speaker 15: that person is one person. It's a butterfly effector radicalism
Speaker 15: going on. And I think that's where the issue lies
Speaker 15: with us.
Speaker 4: I wait, I gotta sound because then we got to wrap.
Speaker 4: So fold this into your answer. You two here it
Speaker 4: both all three of y'all quickly. So if you were
Speaker 4: giving a thirty second I know people are over it,
Speaker 4: but we can't be over it because see we're out
Speaker 4: here because there's early voting starting in Detroit today. So
Speaker 4: I hope y'all when you leave here you go down
Speaker 4: over there and vote. But if you are giving a
Speaker 4: closing argument in thirty seconds for why people shouldn't give
Speaker 4: up and why they can't give up and why they
Speaker 4: should go vote, what would you say, besh Man, you
Speaker 4: were going.
Speaker 5: To talk to go first?
Speaker 19: Well, I was just gonna say I had a heated,
Speaker 19: not a heated debate about some of the things that
Speaker 19: were said last night our In this debate, they said
Speaker 19: there was more to the story than what we got
Speaker 19: to hear. But what I would say to people in
Speaker 19: thirty seconds of wrapping up, you can't complain about it.
Speaker 19: In January twenty twenty five, if you didn't get out
Speaker 19: and cast your vote, I love that you got it.
Speaker 19: You can't, you know, you gotta be about it. You
Speaker 19: can't just sit around and not do anything. Your vote counts,
Speaker 19: So get out and vote.
Speaker 21: I have a whole wide theory about why people are
Speaker 21: voting for Trump, and but let's do the quick thirty
Speaker 21: do that too, Oh my goodness.
Speaker 6: I wouldn't really see how talented you are.
Speaker 20: Okay, pressure, Okay.
Speaker 21: I think that Donald Trump exists for a lot of
Speaker 21: people as a power fantasy.
Speaker 20: It's why people have liked him for a long time.
Speaker 20: Is why rappers used.
Speaker 21: To include him in his as mean why he became
Speaker 21: an analogy for wealth because he is almost a caricature
Speaker 21: of what rich people are like, and people will assume
Speaker 21: they want to be like that. It's why people vote
Speaker 21: on tax breaks for they're wealthy, because eventually when I
Speaker 21: become wealthy. I had a friend say once that all
Speaker 21: white guys think that they're a rich man in a cocoon,
Speaker 21: and so they're voting for their future and not their current.
Speaker 20: And I see that in some of the rappers that
Speaker 20: want to be Trump.
Speaker 12: Right.
Speaker 20: If I had to say, why is it important to vote?
Speaker 21: Though in a city like Detroit, it's important to remember
Speaker 21: that local elections matter too, and when you have a
Speaker 21: through line from local politicians mayor city council up to president.
Speaker 20: It's why Detroit.
Speaker 21: Got the American Rescue Plan with eight hundred million dollars.
Speaker 21: When you get that is because Mike Duggan had a
Speaker 21: relationship with Joe Biden. We had the fifth largest amount
Speaker 21: of money a city got, even though we're not the
Speaker 21: fifth largest city. And so you want to think about
Speaker 21: how the president impacts what your city gets and what
Speaker 21: resources follow on the through line because they're connected on values.
Speaker 20: Even if you have apathy towards that person, there.
Speaker 21: Is a connected thread from the top down to the
Speaker 21: local leadership, down to the school board and everybody in
Speaker 21: between that will allow you to get access to things
Speaker 21: you need even if the president isn't doing what you want.
Speaker 6: That is especially with Donald Trumps whole place.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I know he got so much top.
Speaker 15: Hat falling up out of the air now because he
Speaker 15: said everything everybody thought. No, but I mean libs without
Speaker 15: ad libs too. Yes, yes, we've seen public schools closing here.
Speaker 15: People think public schools are with the mayor, but no,
Speaker 15: they understand it starts with it goes all the way
Speaker 15: to really to the governor has more power over the
Speaker 15: public school systems. The governor now is you know, the
Speaker 15: government from there. So I feel like we're looking at
Speaker 15: the headlines of two people. But if you trickle down
Speaker 15: to what it is, voting does not only pertain to
Speaker 15: the headlines. It's a lot of disclaimers in there that
Speaker 15: affects us. Me as a restaurant owner, me as a
Speaker 15: you know, business owner. A lot of it's a lot
Speaker 15: of disclaimers under there that affects us, that affects I mean, cannabis,
Speaker 15: I mean everything that everything, your lifestyle and locally. It's
Speaker 15: a lot of things that you have to look for
Speaker 15: that we don't really push. We're pushing them all in Trump,
Speaker 15: but they need to. They need to go in there
Speaker 15: and if they don't know what they want to vote
Speaker 15: on the top side, still, it's a lot of things
Speaker 15: to look for on the bottom side that's going to
Speaker 15: affect you in you know, in the bottom end. So
Speaker 15: I mean, so that's that's really the biggest point, you know.
Speaker 15: I love may end.
Speaker 4: Thank you guys so much for being here, y'all, pushman,
Speaker 4: Eric and Bravo.
Speaker 5: You're grateful for y'all.
Speaker 6: Thank you. Go vote, y'all.
Speaker 15: I'm gonna send them snacks to don't worry about that.
Speaker 4: Well, you know what the good news is, that's a
Speaker 4: perfect transition because right now we have Fatima uh Techo
Speaker 4: from Detroit's Fresh Roots, who is bringing not just not
Speaker 4: just snacks, but liquid snacks, liquid wellness and wholeness and
Speaker 4: speaking of being well and whole in addition to the
Speaker 4: to the juices.
Speaker 5: She's bringing us.
Speaker 4: So we can promote this amazing black owned business, Detroit's
Speaker 4: Fresh Roots. We also have someone to talk to us
Speaker 4: about how to take care of your mental health during
Speaker 4: this crazy election season, doctor Rita Walker, who's a clinical psychologist,
Speaker 4: award winning professor and author of the Unapologetic Guide to
Speaker 4: Black Mental Health.
Speaker 5: And that is this book right here, ladies and gents,
Speaker 5: and calming the chaos.
Speaker 1: Okay, high ladies, lady, I'm ready for my juice.
Speaker 22: I have a couple of different kinds, so we can
Speaker 22: hear you. Got it around, Harry got better better, Okay,
Speaker 22: I think it's falling back.
Speaker 5: No, no, we hear you.
Speaker 22: So if they're all mixed, that's my that you guys
Speaker 22: had wanted.
Speaker 5: He probably wanted orange juice, cause I want. I couldn't
Speaker 5: decide between. I know these are what I order, b
Speaker 5: roots and ballance.
Speaker 1: Wait, is that the one with the mint and the apple?
Speaker 5: No, he's got the one with the this.
Speaker 4: And I want and some chunks of mango, lime, ginger,
Speaker 4: carrot apple. This is kale, spinach, cellery, cucumber, app a, lemon, lime, ginger.
Speaker 4: You know what, doctor Rita, I will share one with
Speaker 4: you if you want. Which one you want I'm saying,
Speaker 4: I'm getting this on balance.
Speaker 5: I have this one so much.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna drink a little bit, but not much because
Speaker 4: you guys are sitting here for another hour and I
Speaker 4: really got a peek right now, so just go to wait. Sorry,
Speaker 4: that's the truth, but I'm just gonna take a little
Speaker 4: swallow in the juice.
Speaker 5: But talk to us about about this amazing business fresh Roots.
Speaker 22: So fresh Roots motto is everything is deeply rooted. So
Speaker 22: it's beyond providing the food and the nutrition that comes
Speaker 22: with it, but also services to help and mental health
Speaker 22: awareness and health and wellness and overall health and wellness.
Speaker 5: I can't get this. You got it, We hear you, Okay.
Speaker 22: So we also do things like pot yoga, We do
Speaker 22: health and wellness camps, things like that. So we are
Speaker 22: located here in Minton, Detroit, and we just opened up
Speaker 22: our second location in Rochester Health with plans of growth
Speaker 22: with hopefully turning it into a franchise. At fresh Roots,
Speaker 22: not only do we do health and wellness from a
Speaker 22: physical standpoint, but a mental standpoint as well, so meditations
Speaker 22: and things like that. We also offer other women on
Speaker 22: black home minority owned businesses a place to come and
Speaker 22: have like pop ups, and we don't charge them, we
Speaker 22: don't ask nothing of them. We actually do cross promotion
Speaker 22: to help build their brand of business as well. So
Speaker 22: just being deeply rided in the community, really giving back
Speaker 22: more than just great product, but amazing services.
Speaker 1: And this is delicious. So it's citrus Land and it's amazing.
Speaker 1: And I'm also going to have half of Andrews. What
Speaker 1: do you have their refresh.
Speaker 5: Got the refresher that's actually my favorite one. How you
Speaker 5: got to keep this one? But I want that one definitely.
Speaker 6: Rita, I'd love to hear from you as well. Give
Speaker 6: us the motivation around the title for the book, the
Speaker 6: reason for writing in this space, because I know one
Speaker 6: thing we could all.
Speaker 5: Use a lot more, especially in this election season.
Speaker 23: Especially in the election season, but just in life, we
Speaker 23: have to be mindful of how we are dealing with
Speaker 23: the things, the stuff that just comes at us. And
Speaker 23: we know it's not just you know, financial stress, it's
Speaker 23: family stress, it's job stress. And now we're adding election
Speaker 23: stress on top of everything else. And I appreciate I
Speaker 23: picked up balance because we have to be mindful of
Speaker 23: how we're dealing with those things.
Speaker 5: We're going to have good times and bad times.
Speaker 23: And so The Unapologetic Guide to Black Mental Health came
Speaker 23: out a few years ago, and I did the workbook
Speaker 23: so that people who recognize you know they're feeling a
Speaker 23: little like they need more resources, and especially in our community,
Speaker 23: especially in our community, that we recognize that there are
Speaker 23: things that we can do, so that we can be
Speaker 23: intentional rather than just keep pushing, because that's what we
Speaker 23: are customer doing.
Speaker 5: You just you keep pushing. You don't let them see
Speaker 5: you sweat.
Speaker 23: You look good on the outside, so you're hoping you
Speaker 23: feel good on the inside, but it doesn't always translate.
Speaker 23: And so I want for us to be so much
Speaker 23: more intentional. Calming the Chaos actually just came out two
Speaker 23: days ago, So that is a brand newsture recognizing that
Speaker 23: we are living in really very chaotic times.
Speaker 5: We don't have to feel chaotic on the inside.
Speaker 6: Tell us what if we're average person in Joe walking
Speaker 6: on the street, what should we be paying attention for
Speaker 6: as really to what's happening with us? You know, I'll
Speaker 6: say snappy or what's.
Speaker 23: The I love that question because it doesn't have to
Speaker 23: be that complicated. If you're not quite feeling like yourself
Speaker 23: like something just isn't right. I don't feel like I
Speaker 23: have my usual level of energy, or I don't feel
Speaker 23: like I'm connecting with people, or I want to withdraw sometimes,
Speaker 23: or if I want to sleep a lot, or just
Speaker 23: anything that changes. And then also if the person feels
Speaker 23: like they can't get their work done. So we all
Speaker 23: have responsibilities, whether they be outside of home or inside
Speaker 23: the home, but you can't just focus like your mind
Speaker 23: just isn't keeping up with your thoughts like something, or
Speaker 23: sleeping too much or not. I don't even know if
Speaker 23: I've said that one. That's another easy one. We live
Speaker 23: in a society where most people don't get enough rest
Speaker 23: and we take it for granted, but being sleep deprived
Speaker 23: affects our ability to do everything, to do absolutely everything.
Speaker 23: And so those are the kinds of things that we
Speaker 23: can start to be mindful of.
Speaker 6: I love that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well, great, Cheldia's with the balance.
Speaker 6: I'm also curious as we get closer to this election,
Speaker 6: hopefully y'all have decided on who it is that you're
Speaker 6: voting for, But if we were in the as we
Speaker 6: are in the closing days, what would you need to
Speaker 6: hear if you were if you're talking to people who
Speaker 6: are undecided, folks who are sitting in your communities who
Speaker 6: are maybe balancing between whether or not this election is
Speaker 6: going to make a difference, frankly, because the policies happening
Speaker 6: out of Washington aren't either reaching them or they're in
Speaker 6: disagreement what's coming from the policies out of DC.
Speaker 14: I think it's important to be always aware of our values.
Speaker 23: It's the same for our mental health, because sometimes, you know,
Speaker 23: we feel pushed to go in different directions based on
Speaker 23: other people's values, based.
Speaker 5: On what's important to us.
Speaker 23: So we first and foremost have to get real about
Speaker 23: what's important to us. You know, do we want to
Speaker 23: live in a society. I'm a mom, you know, do
Speaker 23: I want to live in a society where my child
Speaker 23: might not be able to vote in the next four years?
Speaker 24: You know?
Speaker 23: Do I want to live in a society that firms
Speaker 23: who I am as a black woman? What kind of
Speaker 23: society do I want to live in? And I think
Speaker 23: that's what is important for anyone to be able to
Speaker 23: make an informed decision.
Speaker 5: I feel like there.
Speaker 1: Was a collective depression in the country. I know, for
Speaker 1: a while I just felt kind of checked out.
Speaker 15: You know.
Speaker 1: We did a podcast and Angela was like, you know
Speaker 1: what it means DAP, Tiffany Grals checked out of the
Speaker 1: process because we were so just exhausted with it. And
Speaker 1: there was a collective movement of joy when she announced
Speaker 1: when Vice President Harris announced her campaign, and the things shifted.
Speaker 1: And I wonder, in terms of our community, did we
Speaker 1: feel this collectively that we pull ourselves out of it collectively?
Speaker 1: Because I think sometimes when people hear depressions or heaviness,
Speaker 1: and I know I felt like, but I'm not because
Speaker 1: I'm still getting up. I'm still putting one foot in
Speaker 1: front of the next. And my therapist told me, it's
Speaker 1: not about that, It's about the energy it's taking you
Speaker 1: to do that.
Speaker 5: And so I.
Speaker 1: Wonder now in this heightened, you know, time period that
Speaker 1: we live in, that we're navigating how we are I guess,
Speaker 1: qualifying and quantifying what it means to be healthy and.
Speaker 23: Message Well, I'm I'm a clinical psychologist, and a lot
Speaker 23: of how I make sense of what's happening around me
Speaker 23: is and for other folks is how we're thinking about things.
Speaker 23: Like you're thinking affects your mood.
Speaker 5: Affects what you're doing.
Speaker 23: And so if we think about, you know, going back
Speaker 23: to you know, feelings of depression, we weren't very inspired,
Speaker 23: maybe didn't have a whole lot of hope.
Speaker 5: But then we start to.
Speaker 23: Think more about the future and what the future could
Speaker 23: look like. In the future was bright and encouraging and inspiring.
Speaker 23: And so I think because of that, you know, maybe
Speaker 23: we were pulled from, you know, a lower place where
Speaker 23: we were uninspired and still the rest of life was
Speaker 23: still happening. So it's not like life stops because of
Speaker 23: election season. Everything is still happening. It still weighs on
Speaker 23: us in a lot of different ways.
Speaker 1: At Yeah, that's I was just gonna say, it's striking
Speaker 1: the balance of because we have to stay engaged, but
Speaker 1: then knowing when to cut off that. When I ask
Speaker 1: people why are you so stressed about the election and
Speaker 1: they say, I don't know, it's just this narrative and
Speaker 1: like I'm watching the news, it's like, cut that off
Speaker 1: because it really doesn't matter. Like what matters is you
Speaker 1: vote and you encouraging other people to vote. Consuming all
Speaker 1: this information unless you work on the campaign, I don't
Speaker 1: think is very healthy.
Speaker 4: I wanted to come to you, Fatima, because I saw
Speaker 4: when Tim fras her last point, you kind of made
Speaker 4: a face. So I want to give you the floor
Speaker 4: to you can disagree. It's still a safe space. It's family,
Speaker 4: So I would love to know your thoughts.
Speaker 22: I'm going to be completely transparent and honest. I have
Speaker 22: a lot of weight on my shoulders right now. Clearly
Speaker 22: I'm Muslim, I'm a woman. I'm a woman in business,
Speaker 22: so there's a lot that I have at stake, let
Speaker 22: alone a mother. There I have to be a role model.
Speaker 22: But in the same breath, I have to protect myself.
Speaker 22: And there's so much that I can say and so
Speaker 22: much that I can't say, because when I did speak
Speaker 22: on certain things, there was.
Speaker 5: I guess there is a reaction to a reaction, right,
Speaker 5: and so.
Speaker 22: What I'm referring to is everything that is going on overseas.
Speaker 22: Of course, I lived through the war in two thousand
Speaker 22: and six. I was over there, born and raised American
Speaker 22: citizen kids, born and raised American citizens. So just to
Speaker 22: really see what is happening over there and not hear
Speaker 22: more pushback and a ceasefire happening, more support from innocent
Speaker 22: women and children dying. I mean, it should not have
Speaker 22: led to waking up to see people dying, being burnt
Speaker 22: alive with IVS in their arms.
Speaker 5: How am I supposed to explain that to my kids? Yeah?
Speaker 22: How am I supposed to keep them deeply rooted and
Speaker 22: everything that they do if I can't tell them that
Speaker 22: they can speak openly about this without feeling like they're
Speaker 22: not going to be protected, without them feeling like they're
Speaker 22: not going to get the same support. When I'm getting
Speaker 22: text message after text message after text message of somebody
Speaker 22: running for an American campaign with the Jewish flag in
Speaker 22: their background, it's heartbreaking. And I had a conversation actually
Speaker 22: with low.
Speaker 5: Man.
Speaker 22: It feels like when I hear Kamal this week, it's
Speaker 22: like my best friend that broke my heart. There was
Speaker 22: so much that she spoke on prior to this during
Speaker 22: the Biden campaign, and we were just looking like, okay,
Speaker 22: you know, family is coming into office, and.
Speaker 5: It was just like where are you? Yeah, what would
Speaker 5: you like to hear from her?
Speaker 22: That's good again, just more in supporting my people as well.
Speaker 22: I mean, a ceasefire, just humanity, just real humanity.
Speaker 1: I'm just want to be really specific here, so you
Speaker 1: would like her to acknowledge the humanity of the Palestinian people, which.
Speaker 22: Is just the Palestinian I mean, we're talking about Sudan,
Speaker 22: we talk about Lebanon, We're talking about Palestine, We're talking
Speaker 22: about Congo. We're talking about more than just one. Genocide
Speaker 22: is not just in Palace.
Speaker 1: It's true, very true, very true.
Speaker 5: It's in multiple places. Right now. Our focus is.
Speaker 22: Israel, nowhere else, right I mean, even in our own
Speaker 22: country here in the United States, we're seeing people being
Speaker 22: taken away from hurricanes and floods and all of this,
Speaker 22: and they're not getting food on their table like babies.
Speaker 5: As a mom, that kills me.
Speaker 1: So acknowledgment of the humanity of people who are suffering
Speaker 1: genocide right now, which should be pretty effortless. So that
Speaker 1: makes sense, And you would like her to call for
Speaker 1: an immediate ceasefire?
Speaker 6: Is that?
Speaker 1: I don't want to put words in your mouth, So
Speaker 1: I want to understanding you.
Speaker 22: I've heard her speak on a ceasefire, but in the
Speaker 22: same breath aiding the other side.
Speaker 5: What sense does that make?
Speaker 1: M So are you suggesting that you would like to
Speaker 1: see the United States government stop funding correct?
Speaker 5: Israel? The idea correct?
Speaker 1: And those are so are those things going to preclude
Speaker 1: you from casting a ballot for her.
Speaker 22: In truth, I'm very undecided right now. I'm very undecided.
Speaker 1: And are you undecided between she and Trump? Are you
Speaker 1: undecided between?
Speaker 12: You?
Speaker 5: All? Got it? Got it to vote at all?
Speaker 22: I mean, again, going back to speaking as a Muslim woman,
Speaker 22: if I vote for that, I'm voting to hurt my people.
Speaker 4: What do you think is the the we know and
Speaker 4: we say often and I don't. I'm not just trying
Speaker 4: to throw away stuff, throw around stuff that we say
Speaker 4: all the time, but I do believe it's true. So
Speaker 4: for example, I work. I grew up working on the
Speaker 4: hill as my professional the place where I grew up.
Speaker 4: When members have stained from voting, it's still a vote, right, right, right,
Speaker 4: So if you don't vote, what signal is that send
Speaker 4: into your kids and others? Have you contemplated what that
Speaker 4: might be like?
Speaker 22: And that's and that's where it goes back to a
Speaker 22: little bit on what you were speaking on. Truly, we
Speaker 22: might not be in a level of depression or things
Speaker 22: like that, but we we are actively in a depressed state.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we're moving in a depress state.
Speaker 22: So it's kind of like that moment where you just
Speaker 22: laying in bit curled up, don't know what to do,
Speaker 22: don't know what's.
Speaker 5: Next, don't That's where it is.
Speaker 22: So at some point, coming on situations like this and
Speaker 22: podcasts like this and having conversations like this again, I
Speaker 22: had to backtrack because I was so scared to do so.
Speaker 22: When I did do so, the trolls hit my social media,
Speaker 22: went on my Google page, went on everything, and brought
Speaker 22: my ratings down.
Speaker 5: With fake reviews.
Speaker 22: There you go, thank you, And I had to think, like, okay,
Speaker 22: this is just gonna hurt my business. So I going
Speaker 22: back and saying I have to be a role model
Speaker 22: to my kids. I'm trying to be a roll model
Speaker 22: to my kids. Get up and speak up. But they're
Speaker 22: saying that it's only going to hurt you to speak.
Speaker 22: So what difference is it going to make if I
Speaker 22: vote or don't vote?
Speaker 5: And well, I wonder it makes it go ahead?
Speaker 6: Well, I just I wonder if I can't imagine right
Speaker 6: what has to how you have to make sense out
Speaker 6: of nonsense? This process right now? When you when you can,
Speaker 6: you can name the names, you recognize the faces that
Speaker 6: would be difficult to imagine for all of us if
Speaker 6: we knew who said at the other end of the
Speaker 6: consequence of a decision we make. I am curious if
Speaker 6: if you feel like, however the election turns out, that
Speaker 6: you will be okay with the outcome based off of
Speaker 6: whatever your decision may be to vote or to not vote.
Speaker 22: Again, I'm such an unsure state at the moment, it's.
Speaker 5: Really difficult to call.
Speaker 22: I feel like for me, I have a lot of
Speaker 22: processing to do, I have very little time to do.
Speaker 22: But I think what was very encouraging is agreeing to
Speaker 22: do this podcast. I mean, I had had a really
Speaker 22: good conversation with Low for her to say no, I
Speaker 22: think it'll help you to be here, and in truth
Speaker 22: that has I mean just in this little bit of time.
Speaker 22: So I can't give you a definite answer, but what
Speaker 22: I can give you is my perspective and again saying
Speaker 22: I survive something like that. I'm still living here. I
Speaker 22: have a home there that's destroyed. I have families home
Speaker 22: that is leveled. I have family members. I lost eight
Speaker 22: people in one week.
Speaker 5: My god, wow, you hear me.
Speaker 22: No reason a school should be touched, no reason a
Speaker 22: church should be touched, not a hospital, not nothing. There's
Speaker 22: no reason that there is no uproar from the world
Speaker 22: in regards to humanity, and when it happened on the
Speaker 22: other end and it said never again, it should be
Speaker 22: never again for anyone that can.
Speaker 4: I just say to you, I Fatima, and I know
Speaker 4: we have to we have to wrap, but I want
Speaker 4: to just say one thing, and I mean it. I
Speaker 4: don't say things that I don't mean, but I just
Speaker 4: want you to hear my heart on this. I cannot imagine,
Speaker 4: just like what Andrew said.
Speaker 5: What you're experiencing.
Speaker 4: I am so so sorry for what your family, your community,
Speaker 4: that culture has experienced. It should not happen. But this
Speaker 4: is the thing that I want to promise you. I
Speaker 4: know me, I know for Andrew, and I know for Tiffany.
Speaker 4: We all know Kamala personally. The thing that I have
Speaker 4: witnessed and I've helped her to organize our conversations with
Speaker 4: people she doesn't necessarily agree with, but she's listened and
Speaker 4: she's pivoted. What I am promising you is that if
Speaker 4: you can muster up the strength to get out that bed,
Speaker 4: and you're out the bed right now. So I say that,
Speaker 4: I'm saying, in the moment when you're feeling just stuck,
Speaker 4: to take that chance and to not just trust her,
Speaker 4: but to trust us and the Rashidahs of the world
Speaker 4: that are here to just ensure that you at least
Speaker 4: have the opportunity to have the dialogue that is so
Speaker 4: much better than what is offered on the other side.
Speaker 4: And there's another candidate in the race that's promising the
Speaker 4: world but has no allies in Congress to pull off
Speaker 4: what they're promising.
Speaker 5: I've heard.
Speaker 4: I am going to promise you that if you can
Speaker 4: do that, we will ensure that that happens. When you
Speaker 4: listen to our podcast, we don't brush over this issue.
Speaker 5: We talk about it and we mean I've heard it
Speaker 5: everything very loud. And that's why I'm here. Another reason
Speaker 5: that I'm here.
Speaker 22: You might not know this, but I've actually done a
Speaker 22: lot behind the scenes work for you and with you,
Speaker 22: whether it's a Woman's March, Black Lives Matter.
Speaker 5: I'm sure you're familiar with Queena. I love her. It's
Speaker 5: my sister.
Speaker 4: So that's a young lady that got us in touch
Speaker 4: with the with the indigenous.
Speaker 22: So I've done a lot of grassroots work. I've been
Speaker 22: on the front line for a lot of different causes.
Speaker 22: And what broke my heart most is when I needed,
Speaker 22: or felt like I needed the team that I stood with.
Speaker 5: I didn't feel like was there for me.
Speaker 22: But here I am, and I hear you loud and care,
Speaker 22: and I did listen and I did share a lot
Speaker 22: of very recent podcasts episodes that you did with my kids.
Speaker 22: And my son literally texted me and said, I feel
Speaker 22: like a.
Speaker 5: Proud parent.
Speaker 22: And I do feel encourage and I do appreciate it
Speaker 22: and the irony of having somebody in mental health.
Speaker 5: We need very much so information with you. I appreciate you,
Speaker 5: but we love y'all. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 5: I want to make sure Lolo will give you my number.
Speaker 4: I want to stay in touch. I mean it's okay
Speaker 4: for sure, and we are just down the streets. We
Speaker 4: want to send everybody over there, but you want to
Speaker 4: support you. We want that business to stay open, so
Speaker 4: trust me, appreciate it. Walk We love you, guys. Thank
Speaker 4: you so much.
Speaker 6: An InCred awesome conversation. And you know, I don't know,
Speaker 6: thank you, ladies. I didn't want to it felt because
Speaker 6: I hate to put a voter. You know, the ballot
Speaker 6: is still secret, right, folks should still be able to
Speaker 6: express that. But as I was thinking, listening, I'm trying
Speaker 6: to think for myself, like, if I'm in this complex situation, well,
Speaker 6: I'd be okay with regardless of how it turns out.
Speaker 6: If I make the choice that almost down, I'm gonna
Speaker 6: let them be aside. And I could answer that, at
Speaker 6: least for the moment by saying I'm not okay with
Speaker 6: any outcome, Yeah, because I know that there are real
Speaker 6: consequences that flow from that. And I just just much
Speaker 6: respect for the openness and the honesty and that conversation as.
Speaker 1: I understand the conflict still having a ballot for a
Speaker 1: government that is funding the killing of your people and
Speaker 1: that has to impact all of us. But we all
Speaker 1: have to understand that. But I hear your point, Angel,
Speaker 1: which I thought was so great that we you know,
Speaker 1: we promise to get Vice President Harris over the line.
Speaker 1: We also promised to hold this administration accountable when it
Speaker 1: comes to the atrocities. Quite honestly, does the IDF has
Speaker 1: been acted on the world at this point.
Speaker 4: And she said personally that she has to earn every vote.
Speaker 4: Part of earning a vote is meeting the demands of
Speaker 4: the voter. Absolutely, we are sitting here now with the
Speaker 4: first black woman International President for SCIU and Services Employee
Speaker 4: International Union. We are so grateful for your partnership. First, April,
Speaker 4: I remember April from Cali from meeting her when you
Speaker 4: were running things in California, and you have demonstrated what
Speaker 4: it means to hold on a bipartisan level administrations accountable.
Speaker 4: And I think just recently you're celebrating a really major
Speaker 4: win with Kamala Harris's announcement to support in home healthcare workers.
Speaker 5: So please talk about that and all.
Speaker 11: The things, and thank you for joining us and for
Speaker 11: being apartment. So first I got to say what up though,
Speaker 11: And really, it is an honor to be here. It's
Speaker 11: been far too long since we got to hang out.
Speaker 11: But I'm proud to be here in Detroit and talking
Speaker 11: about what we are going to do for care workers
Speaker 11: across this country. That I would be remiss if I
Speaker 11: don't remind us who care workers are. They are overwhelmingly women,
Speaker 11: people of color, immigrants, and it's the work that enslaved
Speaker 11: women did, right, It's the work that our great grandmothers
Speaker 11: and grandmothers and mothers did, domestic work taking care of
Speaker 11: people who cannot take care of themselves, our elders and
Speaker 11: our children, and it's been poverty work. Right, It's been
Speaker 11: work that has been dismissed and disrespected and demeaned. And
Speaker 11: because of what we heard Vice President Harris say just
Speaker 11: last week right creating a Medicare program for the first
Speaker 11: time that invest in home care, we are taking this
Speaker 11: work out of the shadows. We are going to make
Speaker 11: this family sustaining work, and we are going to begin
Speaker 11: to undo the wounds, the immortal wounds of this country
Speaker 11: that has dismissed us and our work for far too long.
Speaker 6: I love it well. I've got my experience with the
Speaker 6: Purple folks in Florida. Yes, Monica rus the whole crew,
Speaker 6: all of that was my staff from their champion. So
Speaker 6: I love the strategic organizing that s CiU does. You
Speaker 6: don't just put an idea out there. In fact, before
Speaker 6: your ideas are out there, y'all have already workshopped the
Speaker 6: way in which you plan to get it done. So
Speaker 6: I love having s CiU on the side of at
Speaker 6: least the issues and the policies that I care about,
Speaker 6: because I know that means you guys are working to
Speaker 6: the finishes is achieved. I'm curious to know as you
Speaker 6: all have as a as A as a union, international union,
Speaker 6: what kind of the Some of the unions have struggled,
Speaker 6: and we've been less privy to some of the internal
Speaker 6: conversations around the debate of Harris, nobody or the other guy.
Speaker 6: I'm curious has s CiU had similar internal debates around
Speaker 6: where y'all would land.
Speaker 5: Well, I will tell you.
Speaker 11: We convened our board at about six o'clock Eastern on
Speaker 11: the night that the Vice President Harris announced her candidacy,
Speaker 11: the day that President Biden said he was step and
Speaker 11: down and it was a no brainer. I convened my
Speaker 11: board of sixty five people and in less than thirty
Speaker 11: minutes we had humanimously decided that we.
Speaker 20: Were going to endorse our vice president.
Speaker 5: Let me walk get back. It was two abstentions. Its
Speaker 5: just talked about that that's a vote too.
Speaker 11: It is a vote too, But it was a it
Speaker 11: was a no breaker here for the leaders in my
Speaker 11: union who have known Vice President Harris from her time
Speaker 11: as a district attorney in San Francisco. We represent seven
Speaker 11: hundred thousand people in California, so we know her well.
Speaker 11: We know that she has walked a day in the
Speaker 11: shoes of a caregiver in Oakland, California, of a security
Speaker 11: officer right here in Detroit, Michigan. She walked picket lines
Speaker 11: with striking fast food workers in South Carolina. She knows
Speaker 11: who we are, we know who she is, we know
Speaker 11: whose she is, and so we didn't have a lot
Speaker 11: of beef, right we were able to come together and
Speaker 11: it was just like, come on, y'all, it is really
Speaker 11: clear what's at stake in the and it's clear who's
Speaker 11: going to deliver a future for work.
Speaker 6: So as y'all translate what y'all's experiences have been with her,
Speaker 6: which you're clearly vast, to the voter out there who
Speaker 6: is either undecided or not motivated yet to go vote,
Speaker 6: what are you saying.
Speaker 11: I am telling folks all over this country. Yeah, Kamala
Speaker 11: Harris's name is at the top of the ticket. But
Speaker 11: this election is about you. This election is about us.
Speaker 11: This election is about electing people in this country who
Speaker 11: give us a chance to fight for our themselves. I'm
Speaker 11: a union organizer, I'm a union president. I'm a power builder.
Speaker 11: But it is up to us to build power, to
Speaker 11: take our own agency and do something for ourselves. And
Speaker 11: there is one person in this race who wants to
Speaker 11: build an inclusive, multi racial, multicultural, multi generational democracy, and
Speaker 11: there's one who wants to usher in a new era
Speaker 11: of fascism. That's right, It's real simple.
Speaker 1: I think I did a brief, very brief stint in labor,
Speaker 1: and quite honestly, I didn't understand the significant role that
Speaker 1: labor plays in politics, and I would imagine a lot
Speaker 1: of people across the country don't quite understand that. I
Speaker 1: think what we do understand is the challenging issues around caretakers.
Speaker 1: I love that you've made the point this is the
Speaker 1: work that black women have done during enslavement. I think
Speaker 1: that's so true. Care in this country is in crisis.
Speaker 1: It is as someone who's had to be a caretaker
Speaker 1: for ill relatives, who had to pay for caretakers for relatives.
Speaker 1: I'm curious what isn't in Vice President Harris's plan that
Speaker 1: speaks to people who are facing that very issue right now.
Speaker 11: Yeah, but again, throughout her career in the Senate, she
Speaker 11: was a chief sponsor of the Domestic Worker Bill of Rights,
Speaker 11: So this isn't a new issue to her. She didn't
Speaker 11: just come up with the idea of investing in a
Speaker 11: medicare program. Right, it's who she's always been as a leader.
Speaker 5: And you're right.
Speaker 11: The country is in crisis. Ten thousand seniors turned sixty
Speaker 11: five every single day in this country. And if we
Speaker 11: don't want to pay people to take care of them,
Speaker 11: who's going to do it? And we shouldn't be told, oh, well,
Speaker 11: it's your responsibility as a mother or a niece, or
Speaker 11: grandparent or a daughter, right, because it falls on the women, yes, right, and.
Speaker 1: Sometimes will be taking care of and children.
Speaker 11: And it's not just the older care crisis, it's a
Speaker 11: childcare the most families. The cross of care is the
Speaker 11: second largest expense and your more than your more, yes, right.
Speaker 11: So let's talk about it with the only industrialized country
Speaker 11: in the world that does not have a care infrastructure
Speaker 11: that we can really clean.
Speaker 4: So speaking of it falls on women, we're gonna make
Speaker 4: sure it don't fall on women.
Speaker 5: Today. We got two young men who are going to
Speaker 5: join April.
Speaker 4: Right now, we have our good brother, Lieutenant Governor Garland Gilchrist,
Speaker 4: and we also there he is, he's sitting down. He
Speaker 4: got a brace on our good brother and friend, a
Speaker 4: co founder of Black Voters Matter. He ain't bring me
Speaker 4: no sweatsuit that says we fight back.
Speaker 11: But Cliff alright is also joins.
Speaker 4: Right now, give Cliff a hand to y'all because he
Speaker 4: ain't from Detroit.
Speaker 1: We should tell people why Cliff is limping a little bit.
Speaker 1: He got smart with his wife and so I wis.
Speaker 25: Gott driving to the mountain to climb the mountain to
Speaker 25: go register some folks, Escalator should have taken Escalator.
Speaker 1: Hapy to have you back with us, hosting us in
Speaker 1: this wonderful city.
Speaker 24: Welcome back here to the city of Detroit. We are
Speaker 24: so proud that this was part of our native land. Yes,
Speaker 24: I am also always honored to be sitting here with
Speaker 24: my sister April s c i U in Detroit and
Speaker 24: across Michigan is one of the most powerful forces for
Speaker 24: working people. They just want a tremendous victory thanks to
Speaker 24: that was signed in the law by Governor Grecia, woman
Speaker 24: that I personally lobby for in our Democrat out of
Speaker 24: majority legislature, to put forth an opportunity for home care
Speaker 24: workers in the state of Michigan to organize to be
Speaker 24: respected and protected in a new generational way. And it
Speaker 24: speaks to that democratic governance is worth voting for because
Speaker 24: we can create the conditions for health and wealth for
Speaker 24: a new generation.
Speaker 12: And aples leadership and that CiU leadership really made that happen.
Speaker 12: I'm proud to be a part of the two.
Speaker 11: That's right, and it's important to remember. That's why we
Speaker 11: give a lot of attention and energy, as we should
Speaker 11: to the race for president. But we got to make
Speaker 11: sure we keep a working people's majority in the House
Speaker 11: of Representatives, the State House here in Michigan, like in the.
Speaker 10: State Senate here in Michigan.
Speaker 11: We got to protect right those in our state and
Speaker 11: local government as well.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, we're so happy to see you. Are you on
Speaker 1: the blackest bus in America?
Speaker 25: Yes, the blackest bus and americles just down the block.
Speaker 5: Blocked off.
Speaker 1: I don't even know not able to get over here,
Speaker 1: but I don't know.
Speaker 10: And we were just giving out some shirts and stuff.
Speaker 25: We want to give a couple of shirts.
Speaker 12: Coming back to.
Speaker 1: Everybody.
Speaker 5: I mean.
Speaker 1: That we've talked about, We've referenced a lot on this podcast,
Speaker 1: the work of Black Voters Matter, And during the hurricanes
Speaker 1: that impacted a lot of the southern region of the
Speaker 1: United States, I was talking about how you and our
Speaker 1: dear sister are a good friend Latasha Brown, who is
Speaker 1: our the Maya Angelou to our Oprah, like she is
Speaker 1: our deity and our lives on some level. But she
Speaker 1: talked about you guys going into these areas and not
Speaker 1: only registering people to vote, or not even focused on
Speaker 1: registering people to vote, but delivering them generators. Tell us
Speaker 1: why you all did that?
Speaker 25: Yeah, I mean, first of all, when we say black
Speaker 25: voters matter, we mean that, right.
Speaker 6: We were intentional when we.
Speaker 25: Say black voters matter, not black votes matter, because there's
Speaker 25: a lot of people that care about black votes that
Speaker 25: don't give a damn about black.
Speaker 6: So that's why.
Speaker 10: But you know, Latasha and I and.
Speaker 25: April, my wife, April, we've been doing disaster relief ever
Speaker 25: since Katrina. That's the first time we got a big
Speaker 25: old bus. It wasn't black, it was actually purple, and
Speaker 25: we started driving it. That's right, And so you know,
Speaker 25: and and and so that really started our intentionality around
Speaker 25: not just talking about power building the sense of elections,
Speaker 25: but recognizing that it was small churches and neighbored associations
Speaker 25: when nobody else was around, when no national guards around,
Speaker 25: that's who was feeding our folks. So we've been doing
Speaker 25: some level of disaster resistance, as y'all know, a lot
Speaker 25: of it.
Speaker 6: I know, as Andrew knows.
Speaker 25: A lot of these storms happened right in the middle
Speaker 25: of the vote, you know, right either by the registration
Speaker 25: deadline or the early vote period. And a lot of
Speaker 25: times what we have to do in addition to providing
Speaker 25: the relief to our communities is we have to fight
Speaker 25: those election battles to get hours expands, to expand the
Speaker 25: registration's deadline and all that. And so we got to
Speaker 25: be able to walk in shot gum at the same time,
Speaker 25: because I can't go knock it on somebody's door talk
Speaker 25: about come vote when they got.
Speaker 6: A tree on their house or they don't have power.
Speaker 25: Right, So we got to deal with our real lives issues,
Speaker 25: with our everyday issues, at our emergency issues before we
Speaker 25: can continue to talk about the voting.
Speaker 6: As Cliff, y'all have also been talking to black voters,
Speaker 6: black men voters, particularly long before it became popular and
Speaker 6: we could go and I've seen more black men on
Speaker 6: television talking about black man I've never seen television. I
Speaker 6: just want to know, what, how is this resonated with
Speaker 6: you you all as an organization and the folks who
Speaker 6: are your members and the folks you serve. Does it
Speaker 6: feel real and authentic? Does it feel a little overblown?
Speaker 6: Does it reflect the reality you see an experience on
Speaker 6: the street.
Speaker 25: Right, No, it does not feel real. It feels overblown.
Speaker 25: It feels like hyperbole. You know, I said last year,
Speaker 25: I was on some show and I said, look, people
Speaker 25: are acting like the sky's falling.
Speaker 6: Sky's not falling.
Speaker 25: It might be drizzling, right that there might be a
Speaker 25: real issue that you got to pay attention to, right,
Speaker 25: But the sky's not falling. There's not some big, massive
Speaker 25: shift that's taking place. In fact, the bigger shift that
Speaker 25: we saw take place isn't the shift happening now from
Speaker 25: between Biden and Kamala or even from Hillary from that year.
Speaker 25: The biggest shift what we saw with black men was when.
Speaker 20: Karen Obama was during the Obamas.
Speaker 25: It was from two thousand and eight to twenty twelve. Right,
Speaker 25: that wasn't about sexism. That was about brothers feeling like
Speaker 25: some of our issues, right or wrong. Some brothers felt
Speaker 25: like many of our issues were not being dealt with
Speaker 25: at that time.
Speaker 10: They still feel the same way.
Speaker 6: So it's overblown.
Speaker 25: Are there some real issues of sexism is real, misogyny
Speaker 25: is real, patriarchy is real. And there's some of that
Speaker 25: group of that ten percent that we know is good
Speaker 25: to vote.
Speaker 12: For the Orange meta right. They always do that, right, They've.
Speaker 25: Been doing that ever since George Bush was talking about what.
Speaker 10: Was it the faith based initiatives?
Speaker 6: They always exist.
Speaker 25: But you got this other batch that have some real
Speaker 25: questions that really did want to hear more discussion around
Speaker 25: black men, that wanted to be talked to you know
Speaker 25: where we are. And for many of them, the agenda
Speaker 25: that she put out, which I think is.
Speaker 10: An excellent agenda.
Speaker 25: It actually deals with a lot of the issues that
Speaker 25: we hear when we're in the streets. Right that agenda
Speaker 25: is going to answer some of those questions for some
Speaker 25: of those brothers who will now be like, you know.
Speaker 10: What, I didn't know that.
Speaker 25: I'm glad to see that some of them might still
Speaker 25: be like that ain't enough. It's too late. You know,
Speaker 25: I still don't like you, I don't like your laugh.
Speaker 25: And guess what, they wasn't gonna no matter what agenda
Speaker 25: she shout out, it wasn't gonna be enough. But our
Speaker 25: job is to inform the ones that right now are
Speaker 25: not getting enough information because disinformation only thrives in a vacuum.
Speaker 6: As long as we're having.
Speaker 25: These conversations and giving folks accurate information, then the disinformation
Speaker 25: can have as much impact.
Speaker 4: And then we need to go to April because she's
Speaker 4: leaving us. You don't feel well, so I want to
Speaker 4: make sure we get to you.
Speaker 24: But want to come the amount of people who have
Speaker 24: been just like climbing over other people to be able
Speaker 24: to take punches at black men in television, Oh, come on,
Speaker 24: come on, And and I think the irony of that is,
Speaker 24: are these the people who, then you would.
Speaker 12: Trust to have the best interests of black men.
Speaker 24: Anyone who would be so so eager and aggressive to
Speaker 24: attack women, we wouldn't say with supportable women. Anyone who
Speaker 24: would be so eager and aggressive to attack working people,
Speaker 24: we wouldn't say it was someone we would trust to
Speaker 24: protect working people. And so I think the better conversation
Speaker 24: is what is the opportunity that we have to be
Speaker 24: part of this future? And so that means yes, laying
Speaker 24: forward an agenda that is inclusive and responsive to the
Speaker 24: priorities of people who want health and wealth and opportunity.
Speaker 24: But It also means that we have to have a
Speaker 24: real conversation about how people can be invited to do
Speaker 24: so in the right way. And I just have never
Speaker 24: looked I do. This ain't true with my parents. This
Speaker 24: ain't true with voters. I mean by my kids or
Speaker 24: my voters. They're like, by admonishing someone, it's not how
Speaker 24: you get them to do something. If I getting mad
Speaker 24: at people's effective, yeah, it would be in a much
Speaker 24: different place.
Speaker 15: That's right.
Speaker 4: I want to ask you, April, because I believe Correct
Speaker 4: me if I'm wrong, But I believe SCIU is also
Speaker 4: the blackest and brownest labor union in the country.
Speaker 5: Is that right?
Speaker 11: We are sixty percent women and overwhelmingly people of color.
Speaker 4: So when you hear some of the things that we're
Speaker 4: talking about, I think I got mad for We were
Speaker 4: on the CNN earlier today and I went on, I
Speaker 4: was like, why.
Speaker 5: Why I talk to these white people? They trying to
Speaker 5: cost the elections.
Speaker 4: So when you hear some of these things, what are
Speaker 4: some of the union responses For those at home who
Speaker 4: are dues paying labor union members, what are the things
Speaker 4: that you would say to them? Because I know it
Speaker 4: ain't CiU members, because you getting together. But for everybody else,
Speaker 4: what would you say to them about the importance of
Speaker 4: this election and voting their interests?
Speaker 11: So, first of all, y'all gonna stop beating up on
Speaker 11: my brothers. Right, No, not y'all, but y'all them they're
Speaker 11: not like us. They know who they are, and I'm
Speaker 11: gonna stand up for my brothers. And like you said,
Speaker 11: you know, how often do white men vote against their
Speaker 11: own interests? And how often do white women vote against
Speaker 11: their own interests?
Speaker 5: Interest is that part?
Speaker 11: So we're not going to try to set this up
Speaker 11: to blame what I don't think will happen. But we're
Speaker 11: not gonna blame this on black men, like cut it out.
Speaker 11: But to your to your question, Angela, we know that
Speaker 11: it's going to be working people that make the difference
Speaker 11: in this election. I am really proud and I'm gonna
Speaker 11: brag a second on the two hundred million dollar investment
Speaker 11: that SEIU is making.
Speaker 5: In this cycle. We have a goal to reach six
Speaker 5: million voters.
Speaker 11: We've achieved that and we're gonna knock a million more
Speaker 11: doors between now and election day. And we're doing that
Speaker 11: because this election is about us, and that's what we're
Speaker 11: saying in this selection. This is about us, This is
Speaker 11: about our hopes, this is about our dreams. This is
Speaker 11: about enough power, enough agency to be able to do
Speaker 11: the big stuff like dismantle systemic and structural racism, like
Speaker 11: in poverty for once and for all, like fix a
Speaker 11: broken immigration system to heal our climate which causes the
Speaker 11: natural disasters. Right, enough power with real champions to do
Speaker 11: the big stuff.
Speaker 5: And it's clear you.
Speaker 11: Got a despot, right, a fascist in this race who
Speaker 11: only cares about himself, and so like, let's have a
Speaker 11: real conversation about what's at stake here and who's the
Speaker 11: best people that's going to help move us in our
Speaker 11: community forwards.
Speaker 5: True, well, April, we know that you gotta go.
Speaker 4: You got a million more doors than knock on and
Speaker 4: we need you well to do that. I'm empathizing because
Speaker 4: they know they left me for dinner last night because
Speaker 4: I had a headache.
Speaker 11: I was like, bye, I can't move. So thank you
Speaker 11: so much being the d and not come by and
Speaker 11: say what's up. I really really appreciate the way you
Speaker 11: all use your platform for to tell the truth and
Speaker 11: to use it to be powerful for our folks.
Speaker 7: So thank you.
Speaker 4: I want to give a shout out to Denise Horn too,
Speaker 4: who made sure that you came on here and was like,
Speaker 4: and what we're gonna do to get her on Breakfast Club.
Speaker 5: So I'm glad everything good. Yeah day at absolutely, thank
Speaker 5: you so much.
Speaker 4: So Cliff is wearing this sweatshirt that's really supposed to
Speaker 4: be mine.
Speaker 5: It says we fight back.
Speaker 20: Cliff, I'm gonna.
Speaker 6: Take this off.
Speaker 5: Keep it. You just taking off now because you had it.
Speaker 5: He's got warm out here.
Speaker 4: But Cliff, I wanted can you talk to us a
Speaker 4: little bit about what we fight back means? Black Voters
Speaker 4: Matter is also a partner of ours, and so I
Speaker 4: want to make sure we have a clear idea of
Speaker 4: this theme and why it's so important for us to
Speaker 4: take our power back and fight back.
Speaker 25: Yeah, you know, so when we started the So I'm
Speaker 25: gonna give you the true story because when we first
Speaker 25: picked the theme, we pick a new bus theme every year,
Speaker 25: and we picked this like towards the end of last year.
Speaker 25: And actually it was right after the Montgomery brawl that.
Speaker 1: We august the beloved white folding chairs.
Speaker 25: But what it means is, you know, we picked it
Speaker 25: for a couple of reasons. One because you know, as
Speaker 25: we always say, when our rights are under attack, we
Speaker 25: fight back, right.
Speaker 10: And so and it's not just that we fight back against.
Speaker 25: Something right, we're fighting back also for something for a
Speaker 25: different vision, right, a different vision for our communities and
Speaker 25: our safety and our health and our jobs and all
Speaker 25: of that. But the other reason that we picked it
Speaker 25: is because we knew that there was this discussion that
Speaker 25: we just touched on it a little bit right in
Speaker 25: terms of black men, but even more more wider, it
Speaker 25: was about whether or not black folks in general we're
Speaker 25: going to be as enthusiastic right, whether or not we're
Speaker 25: going to turn out, is all. And what we wanted
Speaker 25: to send is a message that look historically, when when
Speaker 25: we face tough times, we don't just sit stuff out.
Speaker 25: We don't have the luxury of sitting on the sidelines.
Speaker 25: We fight back, right, We get involved, we get in
Speaker 25: the game. And so we wanted to send that message
Speaker 25: that you know, right now in this moment. And and
Speaker 25: and yes, there was some some some issues. I'll just
Speaker 25: talked about a major one in terms of you know,
Speaker 25: our their brothers and sisters in the uncommitted movement. But
Speaker 25: although there are some real issues, we don't have the
Speaker 25: luxury of waiting on the perfect We've got to be
Speaker 25: in the game. We got to fight back, and that's
Speaker 25: why we're going around the country spreading that message.
Speaker 6: I love that colin Utan Governor, as you say, my
Speaker 6: bad Lieutenant Governor, I would love, would love for you
Speaker 6: to spend just a few moments as we've got a
Speaker 6: bunch of Michiganders who are paying attention, listening, some who
Speaker 6: are here with us today. What else should folks be
Speaker 6: aware of coming up on your ballot this uh and
Speaker 6: two weeks as motivation for them to get out of
Speaker 6: both the ballot.
Speaker 24: So in Michigan, this election is incredibly consequential because not
Speaker 24: only is the person and that person will be Kamala
Speaker 24: Harris and her partner Tom Walls, who wins the state
Speaker 24: of Michigan at the presidential level when the Electoral College
Speaker 24: with the election, but we also have an open United.
Speaker 12: States Senate seat here and Senator w.
Speaker 24: Savanale is retiring from her lawn service to the state
Speaker 24: of Michigan. And we have Congressoman and Alyssa Slacken who
Speaker 24: is ready to be here the next United States Center
Speaker 24: here from our state. And that's important because in order
Speaker 24: for President Harris to pass her agenda, she must have
Speaker 24: at least one chamber of Congress, and so by protecting
Speaker 24: the senatece the minute in Michigan, that'll make sure that
Speaker 24: we are one step closer to at least having a
Speaker 24: fifty plus one majority in the United States Senate. Now
Speaker 24: a little bit closer to home for me. On the
Speaker 24: state level, Michigan has a one seat majority in our
Speaker 24: state House of Representatives. So let me tell you something
Speaker 24: about that one seat majority.
Speaker 12: It's been the.
Speaker 24: Most productive legislature in Michigan in fifty years in terms
Speaker 24: of putting money back in people's pockets. Our appeal and
Speaker 24: the tax and retirement income that Republicans put in place
Speaker 24: thirteen years ago so that they can give task custom
Speaker 24: rich people and big companies. It is quintupled the working
Speaker 24: families task it because there are so many people who
Speaker 24: are working in Michigan and still need a little bit
Speaker 24: of help to make ends meet. And this is putting
Speaker 24: thirty two hundred dollars in seven hundred and fifty thousand
Speaker 24: households pockets. That is lifting half of the children in
Speaker 24: Michigan literally out of poverty. With this that one seat
Speaker 24: Democratic majority delivered that at a time when things are
Speaker 24: so expensive. We have to hold onto that majority because
Speaker 24: all one hundred and ten members are on the ballot.
Speaker 24: And so I'm literally leaving here to go not doors
Speaker 24: to one of our candidates in Macomb County. Earlier this morning,
Speaker 24: I was in Grand Rapids, Michigan, three and a half
Speaker 24: hours away kicking off people to not doors in Grand Rapids, Michigan,
Speaker 24: but one of our members who made us the majority
Speaker 24: the last time. So I'm basically organizing sixty to ninety
Speaker 24: people every single day to go not doors something in
Speaker 24: Michigan every day between now and election day. You know,
Speaker 24: we have to make sure also and very important that
Speaker 24: I know you had her on this show here, but
Speaker 24: I got to lift her up again. The Michigan Supreme
Speaker 24: Court also has a one seat Democratic majority thanks to
Speaker 24: Justice Kyra Harris Bolden, and we need to elect not
Speaker 24: only send her back to the court, but also elect
Speaker 24: the one and named Ken Thomas alongside her, which will
Speaker 24: give us a two seat majority on the state Supreme Court.
Speaker 24: And the trifecta is the governor Lieutenant governor plus the
Speaker 24: legislature plus the Supreme Court. And that is what leads
Speaker 24: to progress in Michigan on the climate crisis, on environmental justice,
Speaker 24: on economic opportunity, on the path of the health and wealth,
Speaker 24: on the record investors in public education, including free breakfasts
Speaker 24: and free lunch for every kid who goes to school
Speaker 24: in Michigan. Like this is what we're voting to protect
Speaker 24: in the later foundation to expand because even if we
Speaker 24: had even just one more seat in that majority, a
Speaker 24: two seat majority would have helped us go even farther
Speaker 24: on our reproductive health app to protect reproductive freedom.
Speaker 12: Because we got everywhere except for it.
Speaker 24: There's still an anti science, anti woman, twenty fo hour
Speaker 24: waiting period on abortion services in Michigan. There's no reason
Speaker 24: for that. But we couldn't get that across the finish line.
Speaker 24: But if we had just one more vote. So that's
Speaker 24: why all these elections are critical, and I am doing
Speaker 24: my best using my platform. The privilege that the voters
Speaker 24: in Michigan gave me to be able to go every
Speaker 24: place in Michigan is still be home. That's why I
Speaker 24: go every place from the Upper Peninsula to the southwest
Speaker 24: and southeastern Michigan and right here in Detroit, will be
Speaker 24: knocking doors on the west side tomorrow about the opportunity
Speaker 24: you have to put your stamp on this state's present future.
Speaker 20: Well come, welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome.
Speaker 4: Speaking of going west, I want to go all the
Speaker 4: way to the best coast really quick.
Speaker 19: There you go to some of y'all.
Speaker 5: I'm taking a point of personal privilege.
Speaker 4: Sitting next her, Lieutenant Governor Garland Gil Chris is a
Speaker 4: good friend. We went to Santory School together where I'm
Speaker 4: from in Seattle, Washington. His dad was the coach of
Speaker 4: the SuperSonics that I really want Seattle SuperSonics to come back.
Speaker 4: I know our resident sports expert knows all about that,
Speaker 4: Tiffany Cross.
Speaker 5: I feel that there was also a baller.
Speaker 4: Garland is a baller, But there's a baller named John
Speaker 4: Blair Bepperstat who is now the coach, the head coach
Speaker 4: of the Detroit Pistons, and he's joined us today.
Speaker 5: And I'm so so grateful you did. I'm more excited
Speaker 5: just personally because I'm like you, oh God, this is great.
Speaker 15: I appreciate it. I'm happy to be here. I'm looking
Speaker 15: forward to it.
Speaker 5: It's been a while all the way fourth or physical
Speaker 5: some time.
Speaker 10: Good I've seen him on mind.
Speaker 5: He's been killing it. He's been killing it.
Speaker 6: Thank you so.
Speaker 4: Talk about the importance of having Pistons land here the
Speaker 4: first day of early voting in Detroit.
Speaker 5: Why is it so important? Why was it important for
Speaker 5: you all to be involved?
Speaker 15: I think you know, even before I got here, the
Speaker 15: Pistons have done a great job of being a member
Speaker 15: of this community, understanding what their responsibility is, the platform
Speaker 15: that they have, and their ability to reach people. I
Speaker 15: think one of the things that you know, we take
Speaker 15: pride in as a sports organization the NBA as a whole,
Speaker 15: is one thing that sports does is it brings people together,
Speaker 15: and it unites people that look like you know, every
Speaker 15: different color, from every different place, from.
Speaker 10: All over the world.
Speaker 6: It attracts that.
Speaker 15: So if you have that large of a platform, it's
Speaker 15: part of your responsibility to make sure that you're reaching
Speaker 15: out and just getting people involved. Right, all of us
Speaker 15: got here on the backs of somebody else, and it's
Speaker 15: our responsibility to pay that forward. And that's what the
Speaker 15: Detroit Pistons are doing. They're giving people an opportunity, creating
Speaker 15: an environment form to understand what our civic duties are.
Speaker 15: And then we got to go out and impact change
Speaker 15: the best of our ability.
Speaker 6: I love it. I want to ask you anything that's
Speaker 6: gonna get you in any trouble. We want you on
Speaker 6: your job. I know. But I'm curious to know whether
Speaker 6: or not your team has a commitment around your members voting.
Speaker 6: I've heard different coaches commit to one hundred percent players, staff, administration,
Speaker 6: getting out and voting where they're registered. I'm curious to
Speaker 6: know whether you all have a similar commitment or.
Speaker 15: Working towards We're working towards it, obviously.
Speaker 12: You know.
Speaker 15: We just got here not too long ago, just got
Speaker 15: the job not too long ago. But we had the
Speaker 15: Secretary of State come down and talk to our guys.
Speaker 15: We've hired someone, Misty Boyd, who's there helping as well,
Speaker 15: and we're pushing to get all our guys either registered
Speaker 15: here in Detroit if they can, or some of them
Speaker 15: have residents other places. So we're working to get all
Speaker 15: those guys registered to articipate in the process.
Speaker 6: I love that. I guess I could because she knows that.
Speaker 1: She probably always don't mind. I think my co host
Speaker 1: know a lot about sports. To shift into a little
Speaker 1: bit of sports conversation.
Speaker 5: I'm careful.
Speaker 1: I would like to know. It is a sports question.
Speaker 1: When the Pistons were known as the bad boys of
Speaker 1: the NBA, which they were, you guys, thank.
Speaker 5: You during the heyday.
Speaker 1: You don't know, during the heyday of Isaiah Thomas and
Speaker 1: Joe Dumars, who now works at the NBA, by the way,
Speaker 1: and overseas operations, by the way, he's played for the Pistons,
Speaker 1: how might.
Speaker 5: You had ideas and find them during that era?
Speaker 1: There was a game where they walked off the court
Speaker 1: and did not shake the hands of the Chicago Bulls.
Speaker 1: This was a major I'll.
Speaker 5: Explain it to you, guys, Pistons player, and then Joe
Speaker 5: already said.
Speaker 1: I'm Isaiah Thomas.
Speaker 6: Can you give it to retired.
Speaker 1: Rick White?
Speaker 5: But got white guy name was Bill?
Speaker 10: You were talking about it.
Speaker 5: There's a bob to any who.
Speaker 1: How might you have advised guys when they walk up
Speaker 1: and didn't shake. Do you think that it's like part
Speaker 1: of the norm now? Or would you have said no,
Speaker 1: you guys should have shaken the hands in the bay.
Speaker 5: Thank you?
Speaker 6: Okay, where we're going.
Speaker 1: If you were their coach, would you have said, yes,
Speaker 1: shake their hands? Relevant about good sportsmanship that across a
Speaker 1: lot of politics.
Speaker 25: Thank you.
Speaker 15: You guys definitely always preached good sportsmanship, but I think
Speaker 15: when you go back to that group, the rivalries were
Speaker 15: deeper than that, and it was you know, those those
Speaker 15: rivalries got personal. So those guys did what they did.
Speaker 15: You know, they were they want a ton of games,
Speaker 15: they were champions.
Speaker 11: Uh.
Speaker 15: They set the tone of what I think Piston basketball
Speaker 15: should be. That toughness, that mentality that they played with
Speaker 15: uh where they didn't concede anything. So those are the
Speaker 15: messages that we're trying to give our guys now as
Speaker 15: we try to rebuild this uh, and we're using them
Speaker 15: as you know, a way to establish that like we
Speaker 15: want to go back in the past and appreciate those
Speaker 15: guys and their legacy and hopefully carry that forward.
Speaker 1: Well, if there's ever the opportunity, I know this is
Speaker 1: your way of probably asking, so I'll just spare you
Speaker 1: for having having to ask. I'm happy to come talk
Speaker 1: to the players and any kind of motivational capacity about sports.
Speaker 1: Definitely about sports.
Speaker 6: You got her number right.
Speaker 4: I'm going to make sure that I give her guidelines
Speaker 4: that include do not talk about sports.
Speaker 5: I got sports guidance for them. Shut up and don't.
Speaker 6: What sport did she say? Did they make a goal?
Speaker 4: If you guys are making closing our missed today about
Speaker 4: the importance of getting out the vote, telling people to
Speaker 4: go right here to vote. It's early voting in Michigan.
Speaker 4: Of course, there's are in Detroit rather a huge concert
Speaker 4: taking place. We want to be entertained, but we don't
Speaker 4: want just want people to be entertained. They need to
Speaker 4: do something with that. We have to take action. What
Speaker 4: would you tell them?
Speaker 15: I think the simple thing for me is like, you
Speaker 15: can't complain if you don't participate. And that's one of
Speaker 15: the things that you know, we sit around and we
Speaker 15: talk about the problems, We talk about the issues, but
Speaker 15: then we don't participate in ways to solve them. And
Speaker 15: it's our responsibility. You know, we live our lives. You know,
Speaker 15: we're trying to pass things forward to our families, our children,
Speaker 15: those types of things. So if we don't participate, you know,
Speaker 15: we don't have the right to complain about it when
Speaker 15: things don't go our way.
Speaker 6: That's true.
Speaker 24: I met a nineteen year old guy named Beyonce and
Speaker 24: Flant a couple of weeks ago, and this will be
Speaker 24: his first election, and he said honestly, he would shake
Speaker 24: you all about making the decision. He registered to vote
Speaker 24: because we have preregistration laws in Michigan now, so he
Speaker 24: was registered. But he said, you know, I don't know,
Speaker 24: like I don't know what this is about. And I
Speaker 24: asked him, well, is there anything in your unity just
Speaker 24: start on your street?
Speaker 12: Is anything that you want to see different?
Speaker 24: And he said, yeah, you know, I wanted to do
Speaker 24: something about you know, I think the homes could be
Speaker 24: better taking care of on my street. And I was like,
Speaker 24: all right, dance, So what do you think could happen?
Speaker 24: Like who could do something about that? And he said, well,
Speaker 24: we can get the people together and we could clean
Speaker 24: some stuff up, and maybe we can get some money
Speaker 24: or resource to the community. And now I did hear that,
Speaker 24: you know that the city spends money on stuff like that,
Speaker 24: maybe we could do it. So what I said, Tom,
Speaker 24: is I want you to do all that. I'm gonna
Speaker 24: help you get connected so you can organize. It's clean up,
Speaker 24: you can organize talking to people in the local Flint government.
Speaker 24: There's a good public service there. I want to add
Speaker 24: something on top of what you're doing to make sure
Speaker 24: you make a difference, like voting can only help you.
Speaker 24: Voting can help you get closer to the vision of
Speaker 24: the community that you want. And I believe that you
Speaker 24: are powerful enough to use all the power at your
Speaker 24: disposal to make the change that you want to see.
Speaker 24: And I think the way we encourage people to vote,
Speaker 24: because that young man is casting an early valot, he
Speaker 24: voted absent you already. But the way that you get
Speaker 24: people to vote is letting him know that they have power,
Speaker 24: like I'm not giving you power, you already have it,
Speaker 24: and then just making sure that there are enough avenues
Speaker 24: for them to use it, and that they include voting
Speaker 24: and how they make a difference.
Speaker 12: It's not the only thing you can do.
Speaker 24: It's not everything you should do, but it's a necessary
Speaker 24: thing you must do in order to make sure we
Speaker 24: can get closer and doing so at every level to
Speaker 24: make sure we have allies at the local, county, state,
Speaker 24: federal level we share our values and are going to
Speaker 24: help us get posted that vision.
Speaker 12: That's what this is all about. And I think our people,
Speaker 12: I think our.
Speaker 24: Voters in Michigan, all ten million people in our state,
Speaker 24: are important enough to participate in that power.
Speaker 12: So that's what I asked them I love to think about.
Speaker 20: When they vote.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so Cliff, when they go to the blackest bus
Speaker 4: in America, what are you telling them and say this
Speaker 4: for Michigan and for black voters and other folks who
Speaker 4: are watching at home.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 25: Yeah, So two things. One, Lieutenant Government stole my answer
Speaker 25: because the way that yeah it was, and the way
Speaker 25: that I answer that question around that closing argument really
Speaker 25: does depends on whom I'm talking to at that moment,
Speaker 25: because everybody's got a different issue that's their motivation, right,
Speaker 25: And so what I tell people was pick an issue.
Speaker 25: Whatever your issue is, it is on the ballot right now.
Speaker 25: If your issue is our health, it's on the ballot.
Speaker 25: If it's about abortion rights, it's about democracy, it's about
Speaker 25: our economy, our kids, our schools are housing.
Speaker 10: All of that is on the ballot.
Speaker 25: And so depending on who I'm talking to, I really
Speaker 25: try to speak to that and drive that point home.
Speaker 25: And the overall thing is exactly again what Lieutenant Government
Speaker 25: said is that you've got the power to make a difference.
Speaker 10: Right.
Speaker 25: There's a story that I often tell I'm not gonna
Speaker 25: tell it now because it goes into some.
Speaker 12: History around Birmingham and Selma but.
Speaker 25: It's basically the heart of the story is about how
Speaker 25: one person's decision, who wasn't overly political, he was a
Speaker 25: high school student at the time in Birmingham, but one
Speaker 25: person's decision created a chain of reaction that led to Selma,
Speaker 25: that led to Bloody Sun Day, that led to the
Speaker 25: Voting Rights Act, that has literally led in some ways
Speaker 25: to today. One person's decision to get involved literally changed
Speaker 25: the course of history. And so the only question we
Speaker 25: really have to ask ourselves is what is our action
Speaker 25: going to be today?
Speaker 6: What is that step that we are going to take
Speaker 6: today that.
Speaker 25: Might cause that ripple effect that can literally change the
Speaker 25: future for us, our communities, this entire country. Each of
Speaker 25: us has the power to do that. Everybody we touch
Speaker 25: is an organizer, not just a voter that's important, but
Speaker 25: everybody we touches an organized who has the power to
Speaker 25: spread that message to five, ten or fifty other people us.
Speaker 4: Well, they're so good. We up at the end of
Speaker 4: the show, y'all got closing thoughts.
Speaker 1: I just want to say, I am so happy that
Speaker 1: we had so many black men on this show. You know,
Speaker 1: there's a narrative that tries to divide us, but I
Speaker 1: think these conversations are healing, not just in our politics
Speaker 1: and our policy, but in our personal community. We've never
Speaker 1: been such staunch advocates for this democracy that was placed
Speaker 1: upon us. We've always voted in favor of harm reduction,
Speaker 1: and we've built community with each other. So I really
Speaker 1: appreciate you guys being open with your thoughts and showing
Speaker 1: up today. I really and I'm happy to follow up
Speaker 1: with you on any pistons, assistance questions, anything you need.
Speaker 5: I'm there for you. It's too bad that Mike's didn't
Speaker 5: cut off.
Speaker 6: You're out of time, you know. I like you. I
Speaker 6: enjoyed the conversation and the emphasis on black men, and
Speaker 6: not through the lens that we've heard it necessarily through
Speaker 6: the national media, but moreover through personal, lived experiences that
Speaker 6: folks are reflecting on. And then my mind immediately jumped
Speaker 6: to once we're through this election, how do we make
Speaker 6: sure that the voices, the issues, the concerns of black
Speaker 6: men continue to be present, not as the community had
Speaker 6: fault for a loss. And I won't even state the
Speaker 6: opposite of that, because we never get the benefit of
Speaker 6: the privilege of being credited for the game. All the
Speaker 6: wins that we have been participatory and delivered on behalf
Speaker 6: of the candidate that we believed in, but the blame
Speaker 6: that we largely get. So just thinking in my head like, okay, well,
Speaker 6: what's our job now through this election to ensure that
Speaker 6: if we're centerfold to the conversation and the debate around
Speaker 6: policy now, that we also be centerfold to that conversation
Speaker 6: when it's talking about advancing that the Congress initiative from
Speaker 6: the White House to Executive order, so on and so forth.
Speaker 6: Because I have to tell you, if we're at this
Speaker 6: four years from now and our reflections are we're still
Speaker 6: not seeing, not heard, not reflected, and no benefit, no game,
Speaker 6: We're gonna have a hard road to hold trying to
Speaker 6: convince folks that it matters to vote and participate in
Speaker 6: the process. And so I think that's a charge we
Speaker 6: all ought to accept and figure out a solution for.
Speaker 4: Well, for those of you who joined us today in Detroit,
Speaker 4: what up though we saw.
Speaker 5: At home? Thank you so much for tuning in.
Speaker 4: This is episode forty six of Native Lampard and there
Speaker 4: are only sixteen.
Speaker 5: Days intel election.
Speaker 4: I'm in this like I did my bet Cipher and
Speaker 4: say go vote.
Speaker 5: We all.
Speaker 2: Thank you for joining the Natives intention of what the
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Speaker 2: connective to the statements that you leave on our socials.
Speaker 2: Thank you sincerely for the patients. Reason for your choice
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Speaker 5: It, we'll welcome home to all of the Natives.
Speaker 20: We thank you.
Speaker 5: Welcome, y'all, Welcome.
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