Speaker 1: Good morning, keeps, and welcome to wok F Daily with
Speaker 1: me your girl, Danielle Moody recording from the Brooklyn Silarium. Folks,
Speaker 1: you know I have you can see here my notepad
Speaker 1: and my computer on my lap because I have been
Speaker 1: struggling with what to cover and how to kind of
Speaker 1: maneuver us into this holiday week when there is just
Speaker 1: so much wrong that continues to happen. And I'm like,
Speaker 1: do we talk about the news of the day, which
Speaker 1: is the fact that listening let me just say this,
Speaker 1: listening to the McDaniel's trial, the trial of the three
Speaker 1: murderers that killed Ahmad Aubrey because he had the audacity
Speaker 1: to jog while black in his own nigh Hoodum, listening
Speaker 1: to that trial, which I cannot stomach, and I think
Speaker 1: that my tolerance for white fuckery and rage has reached
Speaker 1: a all time high. Like I just don't. I no
Speaker 1: longer have what used to be like an iron stomach
Speaker 1: to be able to listen to the to the defense
Speaker 1: talk about how these white men were well within their
Speaker 1: right to have a citizen's arrest, even though Georgia wiped
Speaker 1: that rule right, that law off the books because it
Speaker 1: was inherently racist right, and it was installed like a
Speaker 1: century ago. It's hard for me to listen to the
Speaker 1: justification of murder of black people anymore. I know the story,
Speaker 1: I know the song, the I feared from my life,
Speaker 1: the um they were doing something and saying, oh, we
Speaker 1: were protecting our property. It's always the same fucking story.
Speaker 1: So it's like, if you've heard it once, you've heard
Speaker 1: it a million times, and there's really no need to
Speaker 1: continue to relive these stories with each and every single murder.
Speaker 1: So I haven't wanted to dive into that. And there
Speaker 1: are other people who know that you can listen to,
Speaker 1: like our friend Mark Thompson who's been covering the trial
Speaker 1: on his show Make It Plain. So there are plenty
Speaker 1: of people that can walk you through the intricacies of that.
Speaker 1: I am just not going to be one of them
Speaker 1: because I care too much about my mental health. But
Speaker 1: there's another story that has really taken hold over me,
Speaker 1: and it's kind of how I feel, and I know
Speaker 1: that many of you feel this way as well, because
Speaker 1: you're messaging me and dming me about how to deal
Speaker 1: with this sense of despair. Michelle Goldberg, who has joined
Speaker 1: Woke af a couple of times over the years. Is
Speaker 1: a writer for The New York Times, and this week
Speaker 1: she wrote a piece called the Problem of Political Despair.
Speaker 1: And before I delve into the piece, you know, I
Speaker 1: want to share with you my own feelings over the
Speaker 1: past couple of weeks. Right, Usually, I get super excited
Speaker 1: for the holidays. You know, I'm not one of those
Speaker 1: people that decorates everything, you know, but I love spending
Speaker 1: time with my family. I love taking a break. But
Speaker 1: over the past couple of years, I feel like it's
Speaker 1: like there's a dread that kind of follows along with
Speaker 1: the holidays. And so before I delve into the political despair,
Speaker 1: I kind of want to talk about like this holiday
Speaker 1: feeling and get a sense like if other people feel
Speaker 1: this way. I kind of miss And let me preface
Speaker 1: this by saying that I'm not a cheap person, right,
Speaker 1: but I miss the holidays really being about spending time
Speaker 1: with family and friends that you don't get to readily see.
Speaker 1: I miss the idea of, you know, it being about
Speaker 1: the time and the quality of that time and the
Speaker 1: games and the cooking together as opposed to the overconsumption. Right, So,
Speaker 1: for the past couple of days, I've been kind of
Speaker 1: deciding do I really want to do a show on
Speaker 1: like capitalism and Black Friday every year? Right? You see
Speaker 1: the videos. Media loves it. They love to show, you know,
Speaker 1: middle income or lower income people with these mad dashes
Speaker 1: into the store to get the latest gadget right that
Speaker 1: they can only afford frankly when the prices are slash.
Speaker 1: But we know that capitalism is about breeding this feeling
Speaker 1: that you need material goods in order to feel good
Speaker 1: about yourself, that in order to stay in competition with
Speaker 1: your family and friends, like, you just have to accumulate
Speaker 1: more stuff. And you know, the fact is that we
Speaker 1: know that that companies inflate prices right so that they
Speaker 1: can then cut them in a way that makes us think,
Speaker 1: oh my god, I'm getting these things for seventy percent off,
Speaker 1: when in fact they're still recouping a huge, huge, fucking profit.
Speaker 1: And these are the same companies that have poor labor practices,
Speaker 1: that don't pay their people, that have folks coming in
Speaker 1: now on Thanksgiving Day, right, like you can barely finish
Speaker 1: a turkey before folks are either called into work if
Speaker 1: they work in retail, or your family is like, well,
Speaker 1: we got to you know, finish this all up so
Speaker 1: that we can go accumulate more shit, right, and then
Speaker 1: show you how much we love you by giving you
Speaker 1: a bunch of shit that is only going to add
Speaker 1: to the clutter and take up space in your homes. Right,
Speaker 1: this is how I feel these days. And I know
Speaker 1: that I sound like a grinch, but the reality is
Speaker 1: is that I feel like capitalism. The desire to accumulate
Speaker 1: more stuff, the goal of keeping up with your neighbors
Speaker 1: so that you have the latest iPhone, you have the
Speaker 1: latest pair of sneakers, you have the latest whatever, really
Speaker 1: has us devoid of what the holidays actually were about. Now,
Speaker 1: let's be clear that Thanksgiving, much like the celebration of
Speaker 1: Columbus Day, is a fucked up holiday. Right. We have
Speaker 1: tried to move it just to being you know, the
Speaker 1: holiday that is about gratitude, the holiday that is about
Speaker 1: really giving thanks But you know, when we understand the origins, right,
Speaker 1: as we've been talking about America's origin story, we know
Speaker 1: that this right Thanksgiving is based on the massacre of
Speaker 1: indigenous people and the colonization thereof by a bunch of
Speaker 1: white religious zealots who decided to leave their homeland so
Speaker 1: that they can pursue their religious fanaticism right unencumbered by taxes.
Speaker 1: That that's just such like the story in a nutshell.
Speaker 1: And then they come across the Wampanogue tribe who greets them,
Speaker 1: who then they rape and pillage and colonize, and then
Speaker 1: so begins their story of despair. Right, So that's this
Speaker 1: in a fucking nutshell. And I got to tell you
Speaker 1: that whenever I see still in the twenty first century,
Speaker 1: still in twenty twenty one, when I see young elementary
Speaker 1: school kids coming home, you know, off of the bus
Speaker 1: with the Pilgrim hats on and still like doing this
Speaker 1: performative racism, I'm disgusted, right, And I'm like, oh, see,
Speaker 1: if I had kids, they would need to be homeschooled
Speaker 1: because I cannot believe that we're still doing this bullshit
Speaker 1: about the Pilgrims and the Indians and like, oh the
Speaker 1: coming together and the sharing of food involved, blah, and
Speaker 1: you know, totally whitewashing over the reality of what has happened, right,
Speaker 1: and where those Native American and Indigenous populations are today,
Speaker 1: that they are on small plots of land referred to
Speaker 1: as the reservations, where they have they are over indexed
Speaker 1: in alcoholism, drug abuse, joblessness, depression, anxiety, all of these
Speaker 1: things that come from this thanksgiving right, that come from
Speaker 1: the treatment of indigenous people in this country and why
Speaker 1: slavery was born because you couldn't enslave a group of
Speaker 1: people that knew the land better than you did, so
Speaker 1: best to just massacred them and put them on a
Speaker 1: small plot of land and then ship in actual human
Speaker 1: beings that you refer to as chattel in order to
Speaker 1: build up the economy so that you could continue your
Speaker 1: religious fanaticism right unencumbered. So that's the story of America
Speaker 1: in a fucking nutshell. And so when I come to
Speaker 1: this holiday season and begin to take stock, you know,
Speaker 1: as we only have a couple of more weeks left
Speaker 1: of the year, and you know, everyone is frantically moving
Speaker 1: because you want to end the year, you know, as
Speaker 1: well and as thoughtful as you started it. I was
Speaker 1: just in a conversation with one of my cousins and
Speaker 1: she's like, oh, you're looking forward to the holidays, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, not really, I'm kind of looking forward to
Speaker 1: them being done. I'm and it's not because I don't
Speaker 1: want to spend time with my family because I do
Speaker 1: and I spend you know, plenty of time with them
Speaker 1: throughout the year. But it's the over like consumption, consumer driven,
Speaker 1: capitalistic nature of Thanksgiving and the speed through you know,
Speaker 1: Hanukkah and Christmas and you know, and then the rush
Speaker 1: to the new year. It's disgusting because we don't actually
Speaker 1: I mean, you would think, right, And a lot of
Speaker 1: people said this that last year, and I'll speak for myself.
Speaker 1: Last year, I think that more people, and you tell
Speaker 1: me in the comments section, I think that more people
Speaker 1: took stock of what the holidays meant because it was
Speaker 1: the first time in many of our lives right where
Speaker 1: we were not able at all to join with family
Speaker 1: because of the coronavirus. We all needed to stay within
Speaker 1: our pods. And even though that was recommended by the
Speaker 1: CDC and recommended you know by many health officials and
Speaker 1: scientists and doctors, many people did gather and then they
Speaker 1: had these mini COVID you know, cluster events right where
Speaker 1: where a lot of people ended up getting sick. But
Speaker 1: it was really a time to take stock for me
Speaker 1: and many people into what really matters, like do you
Speaker 1: need the pile up of presence underneath the tree. Do
Speaker 1: you need to you know, exit out of Thanksgiving dinner
Speaker 1: so that you can get you know, a new microwave.
Speaker 1: And again, I don't say that to shame people who
Speaker 1: this is their opportunity to shop during the year because
Speaker 1: the prices, you know, meet what they are able to
Speaker 1: bring home. So I'm not shaming them, but I'm shaming business,
Speaker 1: big business. I'm shaming capitalism and how it has deteriorated,
Speaker 1: like our sense of connectedness, right, our sense of joy
Speaker 1: from just being able to be in each other's presence
Speaker 1: and break bread and share a meal, right and actually
Speaker 1: really truly think about what you are grateful for, right
Speaker 1: to have this moment, have this time in our very
Speaker 1: fast paced lives, even though we may not be back
Speaker 1: up to full speed in a lot of senses, which
Speaker 1: I will talk about what's transpiring in Europe and why
Speaker 1: we need to really pay attention to how we are
Speaker 1: still being mindful living in a global health pandemic. But
Speaker 1: you know this coincides this feeling, this desire to kind
Speaker 1: of just for me anyway to speed through the holiday,
Speaker 1: is that I just don't want to see the commercials.
Speaker 1: I don't want to be concerned with what amount of
Speaker 1: stuff I need to buy people that are able to
Speaker 1: buy all of this shit for themselves, right, Like I
Speaker 1: struggle every year to think about, like, what is the
Speaker 1: gift that isn't about you know, just adding to the stuff, right,
Speaker 1: that is thoughtful, that is you know, one that is
Speaker 1: indicative of the relationship that I have with the person
Speaker 1: that I'm gifting, and is indicative of the thoughtfulness that
Speaker 1: I want to have and the space I want to
Speaker 1: hold for that person in my life. And you feel
Speaker 1: this force, right Like if you were to say like, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: we don't need to exchange gifts, then you seem like
Speaker 1: the cheap bastard, right that doesn't want to you know,
Speaker 1: buy presence for people. And that's not what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: It's just, you know, the desire to consume so much,
Speaker 1: to buy so much, to fill this void that we
Speaker 1: all feel. In many ways, I realize that it cannot
Speaker 1: be filled with things, right, and that if we were
Speaker 1: to just take a at back and reimagine what we
Speaker 1: want this season to be, that it isn't just the
Speaker 1: season of giving and the season of rapping and the
Speaker 1: season of you know, going into increased debt because you
Speaker 1: want to be able to tell people what you bought
Speaker 1: for them, or you want to be able to show
Speaker 1: it off. For the fucking Graham, that we could just
Speaker 1: have a season of honesty, one that isn't about how
Speaker 1: much we can get how much we can give, but
Speaker 1: like about how grateful we really are. And I know
Speaker 1: that that sounds corny, but it's where I am. It's
Speaker 1: where I've been really for the last couple of years.
Speaker 1: But the pandemic put things into perspective. Right, to be
Speaker 1: appreciative for health, to be appreciative for the health and
Speaker 1: wellness of your family and friends, the ability to having
Speaker 1: create pods, right, Like I a couple of pods of people,
Speaker 1: and I'm still really active in those pods, even though
Speaker 1: you can see more people now now that I'm vaccinated,
Speaker 1: now that I've had the booster shot, and feel a
Speaker 1: lot more comfortable doing so. But just you know, taking
Speaker 1: a step back and thinking about when we were at
Speaker 1: the height of the pandemic, why you surrounded yourself with
Speaker 1: the people that you did. Right, The sense of calm,
Speaker 1: and again I don't mean to minimize, right, the trauma,
Speaker 1: the exhaustion, the fear that we were all living in
Speaker 1: and many of us you know, still are, but it's
Speaker 1: shifting into being fearful right and grief written about other
Speaker 1: things that are transpiring in our society. But for those
Speaker 1: of us that had the privilege to slow down, for
Speaker 1: those of us that had the privilege and the ability
Speaker 1: to work remote and still do right, I just I
Speaker 1: don't want to lose sight of what I was truly
Speaker 1: grateful for and happy about and had deep gratitude about
Speaker 1: during the height of the pandemic. And I feel like
Speaker 1: in this rush to go back to normal, it is
Speaker 1: the rush to purchase all of the things that we
Speaker 1: didn't purchase, right, to go to all of the places
Speaker 1: that we didn't go to in twenty twenty. And it's
Speaker 1: like the makeup that we're trying to do in this
Speaker 1: year is not really about, oh, how do I want
Speaker 1: to show the people who I miss so dearly how
Speaker 1: much I love and appreciate them? Right, It's like how
Speaker 1: hard can I flex on the Graham, you know? And
Speaker 1: how hard can I, you know, go and recoup all
Speaker 1: of the things that I weren't that I wasn't able
Speaker 1: to purchase and spend. It just makes me feel gross
Speaker 1: and you know, in my family, as we're like you know,
Speaker 1: looking ahead, Christmas comes and then it's Black Friday, then
Speaker 1: it's you know, all of these things, we've put like
Speaker 1: limits on what we are spending, like here's a budget,
Speaker 1: or we just want stocking stuffers because in my family
Speaker 1: they're funny and you know, and we get more joy
Speaker 1: out of unpacking our stockings than we do with like
Speaker 1: the gift that we're getting. And maybe it's because we
Speaker 1: don't have a ton of little kids in our family,
Speaker 1: and so people have moved to believe that Christmas is
Speaker 1: really for them or the holidays in that sense, and
Speaker 1: gift giving is really for them. But I just want,
Speaker 1: as we embark on the second holiday season in a pandemic,
Speaker 1: at a time when there is such despair, that we
Speaker 1: stop and pause and really think about how we want
Speaker 1: to show up right, like how we want to be
Speaker 1: in community and what that looks like and how that feels.
Speaker 1: And it isn't about how much stuff we have and
Speaker 1: how many packages we can get or you know, our
Speaker 1: table scape for the holiday, but about like who is
Speaker 1: actually around that table and who isn't right because again,
Speaker 1: we're embarking on a holiday season the second one of
Speaker 1: which is in a pandemic where over seven hundred thousand
Speaker 1: people have lost their lives. And so there are a
Speaker 1: lot of missing people that are going to be you know,
Speaker 1: not at this holiday season. And so what does that mean?
Speaker 1: And are we pausing to have like a collective moment
Speaker 1: of grief around that and honoring that loss in the
Speaker 1: rush to get back to normal? There is nothing normal
Speaker 1: about what we've been through and what we continue to
Speaker 1: go through as a country and as a world. And
Speaker 1: so can we use you know, this week, this time
Speaker 1: of you know, Thanksgiving to really think about what we
Speaker 1: are grateful for. So on our Thanksgiving wok a f
Speaker 1: I am going to go through, like what I have
Speaker 1: learned over the past year, the things that I truly
Speaker 1: am grateful for, and I encourage all of you to
Speaker 1: do the same, to use this week and the rest
Speaker 1: of the year as an opportunity to take stock in
Speaker 1: the obstacles that you overcame, the opportunities that you created
Speaker 1: for yourself, and what you're most looking forward to. If
Speaker 1: we are not grounding ourselves in thinking about how we
Speaker 1: are bettering not only ourselves, but our family, our friends,
Speaker 1: our communities, then I I feel like we are going
Speaker 1: to get lost in the despair of the moment, into
Speaker 1: this dystopia that doesn't seem to have an expiration date,
Speaker 1: which brings me to this piece that Michelle Goldberg wrote,
Speaker 1: which is called The Problem of Political Despair in the
Speaker 1: New York Times, and it starts out like this. On
Speaker 1: Friday morning, after a night of insomnia fueled by worries
Speaker 1: about raising children in a collapsing society, I opened my
Speaker 1: eyes started reading about efforts by Wisconsin Republicans to seize
Speaker 1: control of the state's elections, then pause to let my
Speaker 1: techiocardic heartbeat subside. Marinating in the news is part of
Speaker 1: my job, but doing so lately is a source of
Speaker 1: full body horror. If this were simply my problem, i'd
Speaker 1: write about it in a journal instead of The New
Speaker 1: York Times. But political despair is an issue for the
Speaker 1: entire Democratic Party. It's predictable that with Donald Trump out
Speaker 1: of the White House, Democrats would pull back from constant,
Speaker 1: phrenetic political engagement. But there's a withdrawal happening now from
Speaker 1: news conception, activism, and in some places voting that seems
Speaker 1: less a product of relief than of avoidance. Part of
Speaker 1: this is simply burnout and lingering trauma from COVID, but
Speaker 1: I suspect that part of it is about growing hopelessness
Speaker 1: born of a sense that dislodging Trump has bought American
Speaker 1: democracy only a brief reprieve. I want to pause there
Speaker 1: because this is the kind of space that I have
Speaker 1: found myself in. And as I was reading Michelle's opinion piece,
Speaker 1: it struck me that it isn't just an exhaustion that
Speaker 1: I am feeling and that we are all feeling from
Speaker 1: the Donald Trump and Trumpism hangover, because a hangover would mean,
Speaker 1: to be honest, that you had overconsumed the night before.
Speaker 1: And here are the lingering effects. Except the consumption of
Speaker 1: Trumpism is continuing, right, And what we thought was going
Speaker 1: to stop with an election and a new administration and
Speaker 1: a new Congress has only continued to barrol out of control.
Speaker 1: And I say this daily on woke af and if
Speaker 1: you follow me on Instagram, you see the more uplifting
Speaker 1: posts that I post in the morning, my rise and
Speaker 1: sparkles as a way to kind of set the tone
Speaker 1: for the day, right, And what I realized in the
Speaker 1: point that she makes is that we're not feeling a
Speaker 1: sense of relief in that, you know, okay, we can
Speaker 1: rest assured that the country is back in the hands
Speaker 1: of grown ups, of patriots, of people that actually believe
Speaker 1: in the constitution and the rule of law, and that
Speaker 1: they're busy at work patching back together our frayed society.
Speaker 1: But the more that we look around, the more that
Speaker 1: we read, and the more that we watch, we realize
Speaker 1: that all that was all that transpired on election Day
Speaker 1: right in twenty twenty, was that America hit pause on authoritarianism.
Speaker 1: When we talk about this all the time, but it's
Speaker 1: this feeling that I think as a way to move
Speaker 1: through the Trump administration and get through the day after
Speaker 1: day of COVID right and the masks rules, and then
Speaker 1: the six feet of distance, and then quarantine, and then
Speaker 1: the shutdowns, and then the doubling back to shutdowns, and
Speaker 1: then the phased reopenings, and then the insurrection and all
Speaker 1: of these things, right like, when you take them one
Speaker 1: after the other after the other, you're like, fuck, I
Speaker 1: cannot believe that we have made it this far through
Speaker 1: this nightmare. But at the same time, there is this
Speaker 1: collective shutdown that is happening. I talk about my mother
Speaker 1: a lot. My mother is a rabid MSNBC watcher, reads
Speaker 1: all of the blogs, watches every show, or she did
Speaker 1: rather until this last election. After the election, the television
Speaker 1: and my parents home never goes on the news unless
Speaker 1: it is the local news, to see what is happening
Speaker 1: in their town, what is happening around the corner. If
Speaker 1: it's even on in the background, you can sense the
Speaker 1: energy shift in the house. My mother gets a bit
Speaker 1: more anxious. I too, if I'm there, start to get
Speaker 1: like a bit more prickly, not really knowing where any
Speaker 1: of it is coming from, until we realize, oh shit,
Speaker 1: the TV is on and has been on for the
Speaker 1: past hour, and we're just hearing the same news matriculate
Speaker 1: in in the back of our heads, like even subconsciously,
Speaker 1: our body is getting tighter, our you know, our lines
Speaker 1: in our face are getting deeper, and this grip, right,
Speaker 1: this body grip is taking over. And the moment that
Speaker 1: we turn it off, recognize where how the energy is
Speaker 1: shifted and what started it, we start to evenly come
Speaker 1: back down. Well, when Michelle offers in her peace that
Speaker 1: there is this sense of avoidance and not just relief,
Speaker 1: well she's one hundred percent. Right, I am in the
Speaker 1: news like she is on a regular day, and I
Speaker 1: avoid it. Right. I gather as much as I can
Speaker 1: as quickly as I can, orienting myself around which stories
Speaker 1: I think are the most important, right, and they'll do
Speaker 1: the least harm as a way to then analyze them
Speaker 1: and share them here. But in doing so, over the
Speaker 1: past several years, pieces of myself have been broken apart.
Speaker 1: Because it's really hard, especially if you're a person who
Speaker 1: wants to be of service, right, who has dedicated their
Speaker 1: life to public service. It's hard to be in this
Speaker 1: state of being where you're not sure if you're having
Speaker 1: any impact whatsoever, because the problems that we are facing
Speaker 1: just seems so goddamn big and overwhelming, right, Like, there
Speaker 1: was a funny meme, this like series of jokes that
Speaker 1: I saw the other day on Instagram that was just like,
Speaker 1: my god, do we have to talk about colonialism and
Speaker 1: white supremacy on every fucking occasion? Like can I just
Speaker 1: have the salt past to me at dinner without talking
Speaker 1: about how like it's tied to British realism of India
Speaker 1: and this? Then the other thing, it's like, can we
Speaker 1: just go see a fucking movie without then having to
Speaker 1: dive into the inequality that you know, people of color
Speaker 1: lack representations still, right, Like, can we just take anything
Speaker 1: in without having to recognize like the injustice and embody it.
Speaker 1: It becomes fucking exhausting because there's nowhere to look and
Speaker 1: feel like, oh yeah, well, at least in this space,
Speaker 1: everything is okay. So there is this active avoidance that
Speaker 1: is happening right now. The point that Michelle make in
Speaker 1: our New York time piece is well, there's a serious problem.
Speaker 1: What happens if we all decide to actively avoid reality
Speaker 1: and I mean the news, right, Like, I don't mean
Speaker 1: to go and create our own reality, you know, like
Speaker 1: Republicans have, But I mean to actively disengage from the
Speaker 1: news of the day, from the current political and social climate.
Speaker 1: That avoidance has a price, right, because the fact is
Speaker 1: that if we aren't paying attention, if we aren't finding
Speaker 1: or creating tactics to allow ourselves to pay attention enough,
Speaker 1: then what happens? Right then we decide that you know,
Speaker 1: voting doesn't matter, We decide that we don't really trust
Speaker 1: these agencies anyway, what difference does anything make? And we
Speaker 1: begin right to really distance ourselves from participating actively in society,
Speaker 1: in our government. But at the same time, right, does
Speaker 1: that continued active engagement in marinating and misery, what is
Speaker 1: it really doing? Is it helping to reshape or reimagine
Speaker 1: who we can be when the people that are in
Speaker 1: power and have the ability to make real, real, thoughtful
Speaker 1: change decide that they're not going to do that. You know,
Speaker 1: I was reading most recently about the scale back, right,
Speaker 1: the scaling back of the infrastructure bill, and how all
Speaker 1: of these historic things, historic investments in childcare and elderly care,
Speaker 1: and investment in workers, how it all got scaled back, right,
Speaker 1: because what the media wanted to focus on was the
Speaker 1: number attached to the bill as opposed to the policies
Speaker 1: that were in there that are desperately needed by Americans,
Speaker 1: and that need was exacerbated by the pandemic, and so
Speaker 1: instead of focusing on what Democrats are actually providing, we
Speaker 1: just wanted to focus on the cost. Right. Meanwhile, it's
Speaker 1: your fucking money. So do you want your money to
Speaker 1: actually better your life or do you not? Right, Like,
Speaker 1: that's the thing. Do you want your tax dollars to
Speaker 1: go into paying off CEOs and shareholders? Writing giving them
Speaker 1: breaks or do you want to see real life investment
Speaker 1: into your day to day lives. I mean, these are
Speaker 1: the choices, but that's not the way that it's presented. Nonetheless,
Speaker 1: you know, this avoidance that is happening is also coming
Speaker 1: out of self preservation. There is only so much that
Speaker 1: we can all take in and weather. Like I said
Speaker 1: from the jump, I'm not following the McDaniels trial, not
Speaker 1: in any like deep investigative way that I did with Chauvin, right,
Speaker 1: because I just I can't listen to the justification of
Speaker 1: murdering unarmed black people. I just can't. This country has
Speaker 1: a pattern and a history of cruelty and violence and
Speaker 1: terrorism done at the hands of enraged white men. And
Speaker 1: what are they enraged by, Oh, because they're taking our place,
Speaker 1: or they shouldn't be on our streets, or blah blah
Speaker 1: blah blah blah, until of course you recognize that our
Speaker 1: economy doesn't work without those that are the foundation for
Speaker 1: this capitalistic pyramid, which are people of color. Right. I
Speaker 1: say that all because it's important for us to take
Speaker 1: these breaks. And while Michelle makes a point about avoidance,
Speaker 1: but we avoid things that we can't readily handle, and
Speaker 1: we need to understand that avoidance for avoidance sake is
Speaker 1: not helpful, but avoidance as a way to bolster up
Speaker 1: our self care, to build our collective armor, is necessary
Speaker 1: so that we can get the work done. So she
Speaker 1: goes on in her peace to say this. One redeeming
Speaker 1: feature of Trump's presidency in retrospect was that it was
Speaker 1: possible to look forward to the date when Americans could
Speaker 1: finish it. COVID two once seemed like something we'd be
Speaker 1: able to largely put behind us when we got vaccinated. Sure,
Speaker 1: Trump is m like the virus would linger, but it
Speaker 1: was easy to imagine a much better world after the election,
Speaker 1: the inauguration, and the availability of shots. Now we're past
Speaker 1: all of that, an American life is still comprehensively awful.
Speaker 1: Dystopia no longer has an expiration date. You see, we
Speaker 1: were in many ways suspending reality right because we kept saying,
Speaker 1: if we just do this, things will get better. If
Speaker 1: we just wear masks, if we just social distance, we'll
Speaker 1: be able to figure out how to live with COVID
Speaker 1: being is how Republicans and anti vaxers were not interested
Speaker 1: in it ever, leaving right because it could have but
Speaker 1: we were not interested as a collective right, like, we
Speaker 1: can't move forward when twenty five percent of the population
Speaker 1: is like no, fuck fuck, you know, fuck safety and
Speaker 1: health and wellbeing. We want the virus to stay. It's
Speaker 1: to stay. But we kind of talked ourselves through the
Speaker 1: steps that we could take because what I have come
Speaker 1: to understand, and what my therapist actually alerted to me
Speaker 1: this week, is that our sense of safety right has
Speaker 1: been completely and totally wiped away and diminished the reality
Speaker 1: that like you can walk outside, you can touch somebody's
Speaker 1: hand or hug them, or they could cough or sneeze
Speaker 1: and droplets enter into the air, and now you're infected
Speaker 1: and you're infecting everybody else around us. Again, the reality
Speaker 1: of that is still settling in with us. The safety
Speaker 1: that we all thought that we had from you know,
Speaker 1: global health pandemics, we don't because now that this has happened,
Speaker 1: we recognize that anything can fucking happen. And it's the
Speaker 1: same that is true with the election of Donald Trump
Speaker 1: and the rise of Trumpism and white supremacy. If Donald
Speaker 1: Trump be elected and our society can be pushed to
Speaker 1: the brank of democracy's breaking point, then anything is possible. Right,
Speaker 1: And when you start to really think about that that
Speaker 1: like this could possibly not be as bad as it
Speaker 1: could get, that things could in fact get worse, your
Speaker 1: desire to tap in to all of this fades, right,
Speaker 1: because again, self preservation is going to take control, because
Speaker 1: I don't want my mind to go to the darkest
Speaker 1: fucking place that it can. My god, what could be
Speaker 1: worse than Donald Trump? Well, we're seeing that. Maybe it'll
Speaker 1: be Writtenhouse for presidents soon, right, maybe it'll be Paul
Speaker 1: Gosser for president. Right, And dissantists and all of these
Speaker 1: people who have literally right are perpetuating violence, are celebrating it,
Speaker 1: who have either actively killed their constituencies and actively chosen
Speaker 1: violence as a way to deal with their political opponents,
Speaker 1: as opposed to, you know, the old school way of debate,
Speaker 1: that we are a society that is completely and totally
Speaker 1: fucking unhinged, right, waiting for the other shoe to drop
Speaker 1: and not knowing where that's going to come from. And
Speaker 1: so as an act of preservation of quality of life
Speaker 1: and our mental health and wellness, we are avoiding to
Speaker 1: a certain extent what is transpiring in front of us
Speaker 1: because it's too fucking much. It's too goddamn much. We
Speaker 1: expected life to get better, you know. I am reminded
Speaker 1: of the it gets Better campaign that was targeted towards
Speaker 1: LGBTQ youth in their early two thousands, when there was
Speaker 1: a rash of suicides because of bullying right in schools
Speaker 1: of Q youth. And so we created guidelines and campaigns
Speaker 1: in order to bring awareness right, and the idea was
Speaker 1: just hold on because it's going to get better. But
Speaker 1: look at where the fuck we are now, right? You
Speaker 1: and an entire administration come in that wiped out any
Speaker 1: advancements that we had made into creating safe, right and
Speaker 1: connected schools for all kids. Instead, we've put a target
Speaker 1: on their backs. We told them that it gets better,
Speaker 1: but actively over the last several years, things have gotten
Speaker 1: progressively worse. So how do you choose to engage at
Speaker 1: a time when nothing seems to be going right or
Speaker 1: actually better? Yet everything is going to the right even
Speaker 1: though we supposedly won. If this is what winning looks like,
Speaker 1: I hate to think about what the next loss will
Speaker 1: bring because I don't feel like a winner at all?
Speaker 1: Do you? So she goes on to say this, what's
Speaker 1: terrifying is that even if Democrats win back public confidence,
Speaker 1: they can win more votes than Republicans and still lose.
Speaker 1: Jerrymandering alone is enough to tip the balance in the House.
Speaker 1: North Carolina, a state Joe Biden lost by one point
Speaker 1: three percentage points, just passed a redistricting map that would
Speaker 1: create ten Republican seats, three Democratic ones, and one competitive one.
Speaker 1: Democrats would have to win North Carolina by eleven point
Speaker 1: four points just to win half of its congressional seats.
Speaker 1: That's according to five thirty eight. She goes on to say, Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: Republicans are purging local effects who protected the integrity of
Speaker 1: the twenty twenty election, replacing them with appartics. It will
Speaker 1: be hard for Republicans to steal the twenty twenty four
Speaker 1: election outright, since they don't control the current administration. But
Speaker 1: but they can throw it into the sort of chaos
Speaker 1: that will cause widespread civil unrest. So, folks, when you
Speaker 1: have this reality to look forward to, right when this right,
Speaker 1: the fact that we are watching Republicans systematically destroy voting
Speaker 1: rights put into place those sycophants who are not going
Speaker 1: to hold the line for our democracy right, that are
Speaker 1: instead going to thwart your voice right and your vote
Speaker 1: in a decision to have minority rule, And then you
Speaker 1: couple that with the recent you know, verdicts in the
Speaker 1: Written House case, and as we're watching to see after
Speaker 1: the jury deliberates in the McDaniel's case, if there will
Speaker 1: actually be justice, and my whole thing is that even
Speaker 1: if there is justice right in that case, it doesn't
Speaker 1: signal that our justice system is fucking working. So when
Speaker 1: you take all of these things into account, who the
Speaker 1: fuck doesn't want to bury their head someplace else? Who
Speaker 1: the fuck doesn't want to not think about what is
Speaker 1: coming down the pike because what is sitting in front
Speaker 1: of us is just so overwhelming. You know, I looked
Speaker 1: all the way to the end of this piece for
Speaker 1: some you know, leaving the reader with something hopeful. And
Speaker 1: it's the same way that I feel at the end
Speaker 1: of every woke a f show. How can I leave people,
Speaker 1: leave you all with something that is hopeful when everything
Speaker 1: around us points to the contrary. And this is why,
Speaker 1: you know, yesterday I posted one of my quotes from
Speaker 1: a group called Spirit Daughter, and it said something to
Speaker 1: the extent that gratitude is fucking magic, right, because having
Speaker 1: a practice of daily gratitude where I stop, you know,
Speaker 1: in the morning, in the evening, and it parts during
Speaker 1: the day to think about and just quietly give thanks
Speaker 1: for various moments, people, the breath that's in my body,
Speaker 1: the ability to go walking, the ability to stretch my
Speaker 1: body and add more breath and space to it. That
Speaker 1: I find little and big things each day to be
Speaker 1: grateful for. Because if I were to take in every
Speaker 1: single bad message right, if I were to look at
Speaker 1: every single DM where somebody is sending me yet another
Speaker 1: story that is awful, I wouldn't want to get out
Speaker 1: of bed in the morning. And so I don't want
Speaker 1: our reaction to our current dystopia to be avoidance. For
Speaker 1: avoidance sake, I want us to develop other tactics that
Speaker 1: allow us to be able to consume the bad, but
Speaker 1: be able to let it go and at the same
Speaker 1: time recognize and hold the good. It doesn't have to
Speaker 1: be an either or proposition. Either I marinate in misery
Speaker 1: or in my act of avoidance, I pretend everything is okay.
Speaker 1: It is possible to hold both, to recognize that things
Speaker 1: are indeed really bad, and then have such gratitud to
Speaker 1: daily for the things that aren't right. Understand what you
Speaker 1: can control, right and let go of the things that
Speaker 1: you cannot. We are not going to end white supremacy,
Speaker 1: not in our lifetime. All we're going to do is
Speaker 1: be able to chip away at it so that, as
Speaker 1: Clint Smith said to me in an interview that will
Speaker 1: air later this week, that the next generation doesn't have
Speaker 1: to chip as hard. They'll still have chipping to do,
Speaker 1: but we will have removed a layer, making their work easier.
Speaker 1: And that's a hard pill to swallow, because we all
Speaker 1: want to see the fruits of our labor. We all
Speaker 1: want to believe that we're doing this not only for
Speaker 1: ourselves right so that we can live freer, but for
Speaker 1: other people. But in recognize saying that we may never
Speaker 1: see that, and we need to let go of the
Speaker 1: expectation around it. But that doesn't mean that we stop
Speaker 1: doing the work. It just means that, at this time
Speaker 1: of great despair and struggle and grief and trauma, that
Speaker 1: we need to put our energies into creating strategies and
Speaker 1: tactics that allow us not only to survive, not just
Speaker 1: keep our head above water, right, but allow us to thrive.
Speaker 1: Because if you can thrive in the moments of great
Speaker 1: despair right. And again that doesn't mean about how much
Speaker 1: stuff you can buy or sell or whatever. No, it
Speaker 1: means how whole you can live, right, how connected you
Speaker 1: can be to yourself right and to your community, to
Speaker 1: your family, to your friends. If you can thrive in
Speaker 1: these moments of despair, then just imagine what you can
Speaker 1: do when the world is a little bit more settled,
Speaker 1: a little bit less anxious. And so I offer, as
Speaker 1: we prepare to enter into the holiday dash and prepare
Speaker 1: to once again gather with family and friends, for us
Speaker 1: to talk out loud with each other about what each
Speaker 1: of us is doing to thrive, not just to survive,
Speaker 1: what each of us are grateful for, and how we
Speaker 1: show up and show gratitude so that we can share
Speaker 1: not just in our collective grief and in our trauma,
Speaker 1: but in our desire right to create positive energy, to
Speaker 1: put something positive out into the world, and to actually thrive.
Speaker 1: So that is my hope as we enter into this
Speaker 1: holiday season. That is it for me today, dear friends,
Speaker 1: on this Woke Wednesday, as always, power to the people
Speaker 1: and to all the people. Power, get woke and stay
Speaker 1: woke as fuck.