Speaker 1: Native Lamb Pod is the production of iHeartRadio in partnership
Speaker 1: with Reezing Choice Media. Welcome Home, y'all, Episode one O
Speaker 1: two of Native Lamb pot where we break down things
Speaker 1: that are all political and dip into the culture and
Speaker 1: boy ol boy, did we set off a discussion this week?
Speaker 1: We are going to get into all of that on
Speaker 1: this episode. I am your co host Tiffany Cross here
Speaker 1: with Angela Rye, Andrew Gillum and Bacari Sellers. Bakari, we
Speaker 1: are told is having some technical difficulties. You guys know,
Speaker 1: he's a very hard working trial attorney. He's in trial
Speaker 1: at the moment, so he joins us on this podcast
Speaker 1: from his office and he is having some technical difficulties.
Speaker 1: So we have seen him, we've heard from him, and
Speaker 1: he rumor has it he'll be making an appearance on
Speaker 1: the show eventually once he gets his dial up fixed.
Speaker 2: I think that's his dialupe.
Speaker 3: Beyonce would never have done.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, while we wait on Bakari, what are we
Speaker 1: getting into on the show today?
Speaker 2: Angel what you got?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 4: If we move beyond to beef, I think that we
Speaker 4: really need to talk about another beef that I have
Speaker 4: and the beef that I have is with the way
Speaker 4: that Donald Trump continues to use this government as a
Speaker 4: bank account, rolling bank account while everybody else is frozen out.
Speaker 4: So he's asking the Department of Justice for restitution for
Speaker 4: crimes he says he doesn't he didn't commit.
Speaker 1: Wow, Okay, I have thoughts on that, Andrew, what do
Speaker 1: you got?
Speaker 5: I hear that Mayor Brandon Johnson of the Great City
Speaker 5: of Chicago issued a different kind of challenge during this
Speaker 5: No Kings set of protests over the weekend, and I
Speaker 5: actually wonder if we have as a community the stomach
Speaker 5: for it. We're here about that and hopefully get into
Speaker 5: a little conversation.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, Butcari wanted to talk about something with
Speaker 1: the Congressional Black Caucus, So if we have time for that,
Speaker 1: we might have to do that on a mini pod
Speaker 1: next week. But I know he did reference that, and
Speaker 1: I want to get into this what's going on with
Speaker 1: snap benefits. I think that'll probably come up in your conversation.
Speaker 1: And I know, Angela, you did a whole on the
Speaker 1: government shut down. I just want to tell people what's
Speaker 1: happening there, and I want to stress that we this
Speaker 1: week have certainly heard from a lot of you. We
Speaker 1: looked at all your comments, and so we're going to
Speaker 1: be joined by Charlemagne the God Lenara McKelvey, host of
Speaker 1: the Breakfast Club, who had his own thoughts about what
Speaker 1: we shared and quite frankly disagreed with the discussion and
Speaker 1: wants to come on and join and share his thoughts
Speaker 1: on what anti intellectualism is to him. And so I
Speaker 1: think that will be a very spirited discussion. So stay
Speaker 1: tuned for that conversation. But for now, let's kick off
Speaker 1: the show. I oh, I think Beyonce is in the building.
Speaker 3: AOL, AOL dial.
Speaker 2: Up, get fixed, Bacary, Like, what's going on?
Speaker 6: Man? Look, this is called this is called Orangeburg, South Carolina.
Speaker 6: We welcome to the.
Speaker 1: Technological Okay, Well, we just went through our rundown on
Speaker 1: what we want to talk about. And I know that
Speaker 1: you had mentioned that you wanted to talk about something
Speaker 1: with the Congressional Black Caucus. I wasn't clear, So you
Speaker 1: should tell the viewers.
Speaker 6: Yeah, No, I mean I think that people need to
Speaker 6: understand that the Congressional Black Caucus is at risk. I
Speaker 6: think that you know what's going on with the rulings
Speaker 6: in the Supreme Court and what you're seeing throughout the South.
Speaker 6: Many of your CBC members are at risk of having
Speaker 6: their seats either squashed, cut in half, or disappeared. So
Speaker 6: it's something we need to raise awareness about, you know what.
Speaker 2: And that reminds me.
Speaker 1: We did get a really great viewer question on section
Speaker 1: two of the Voting Rights Act, so I'd love for
Speaker 1: you and Andrew to weigh in on those.
Speaker 2: For now, I have to.
Speaker 1: Tell you, I'm really concerned with Donald Trump asking for
Speaker 1: restitution from the Department of Justice.
Speaker 2: Can you explain to people exactly what that is.
Speaker 1: Explain it to me like a five year old, because
Speaker 1: I'm still.
Speaker 4: Following well for those who had forgotten, because there it
Speaker 4: feels like we've lived a decade in the last ten months.
Speaker 4: Donald Trump, before he was elected president in twenty twenty four,
Speaker 4: was charged with ninety one different counts, different felony counts.
Speaker 3: They ended up dropping three.
Speaker 4: It was reduced down to eighty eight and he was convicted.
Speaker 4: I think it was it was it thirty two felonies
Speaker 4: on the state level. Now he's saying because all of
Speaker 4: the cases that were that were mounted against him, brought
Speaker 4: by the federal government, brought by the Department of Justice.
Speaker 3: They were thrown out. He now wants restitution. But see
Speaker 3: here here, here's how it goes.
Speaker 4: Friend, Just because the case was thrown out doesn't mean
Speaker 4: that it was a malicious or selective prosecution. It was
Speaker 4: thrown out because you're lawyers, not you, Tiff. I'm just
Speaker 4: looking at you, Tiff. But his lawyers said, you know
Speaker 4: what we're gonna challenge forget civil immunity. We're gonna go
Speaker 4: for criminal immunity for anyone who served as president. That
Speaker 4: means that you cannot be liable, convicted, charged for any
Speaker 4: criminal rondoing if you did it under the auspices of
Speaker 4: be being president of these United States. So the charges
Speaker 4: that he no longer faced federally were because they could
Speaker 4: no longer bring those cases because he's now criminally immune.
Speaker 4: That's what the Supreme Court decided. So he said, let
Speaker 4: me take it a step further with my white privilege.
Speaker 4: Let me see if since I was never tried, or
Speaker 4: since the cases were thrown out, can I get you
Speaker 4: to run me my money that's not mine? So he said, tif,
Speaker 4: you pay it to this taxpayer bucket. I want your
Speaker 4: money to come to my pockets now and pay two
Speaker 4: hundred and thirty million dollars of restitution for these charges
Speaker 4: that I wasn't convicted of. Again, not because he didn't
Speaker 4: do it, just but just because he's immune.
Speaker 3: He's trying to see.
Speaker 5: How far he the judges to the Supreme Court that
Speaker 5: decided imune.
Speaker 4: Yes, that's true as well what he did, that's true
Speaker 4: as well. But the thing that is yes, no, but
Speaker 4: it's but it's true as well. And I think the
Speaker 4: other thing that's important to understand is the Florida judge
Speaker 4: who he did appoint also Andrew not just the Supreme
Speaker 4: Court justices, but Eileen Cannon said they that they've made
Speaker 4: two separate claims. No, they've I'm sorry, I'm so sorry.
Speaker 4: I'm looking at the wrong thing. They that they've made.
Speaker 4: In the case of mar A Lago Judge Eileen Cannon,
Speaker 4: who ruled in favor of Donald Trump on some very
Speaker 4: controversial issues. The one thing that Judge Cannon, who he appointed,
Speaker 4: did not rule on was that the search of his
Speaker 4: mar A Lago compound was improper or violated his rights.
Speaker 4: So let's say that there was some wrongdoing which would
Speaker 4: be the reason for restitution.
Speaker 3: There was none, and so he just says, let.
Speaker 4: Me just see if because there's a gray area or
Speaker 4: a place where it's silent, I can now recover something.
Speaker 4: He claims that what he would do with the money
Speaker 4: is that for that east wing that he's now torn down,
Speaker 4: he's over there destroying the White House and Kseyawn missed it.
Speaker 4: For that east wing, I'm going to use that money
Speaker 4: to build out this grand ballroom that the country so
Speaker 4: desperately needs in the middle of a shutdown.
Speaker 1: This sounds like, man, he's not planning on leaving the
Speaker 1: White House with maccari. Let me ask you, how likely
Speaker 1: is this to happen? Like, do we think that he
Speaker 1: will actually get two hundred and thirty million dollars of
Speaker 1: taxpayer money and restitution based on what Angela just said?
Speaker 6: He should not. Angela highlighted something that was very important
Speaker 6: about the reasoning, the legal reasonings why he should not
Speaker 6: and the indictment to regurgitate a little bit wasn't tossed
Speaker 6: out because of some finding of malicious prosecution. The timeline
Speaker 6: goes the indictments were actually just and prudent based upon
Speaker 6: what the prosecutor believed. However, subsequently, the challenges to presidential
Speaker 6: immunity were made to the Supreme Court and that expanded,
Speaker 6: and I think that timeline is very important. And so
Speaker 6: you know, it becomes a weird question. So does he
Speaker 6: pardon himself? Is that necessary to happen? The conflict is inherent,
Speaker 6: But as we know, the conflict of interest is now
Speaker 6: or bothered this White House because ultimately, and this is
Speaker 6: why I'm hesitant about saying no to the question that
Speaker 6: you asked Tiffany, Ultimately, the decision made about who's going
Speaker 6: to pay out that Tort Claim Act is going to
Speaker 6: come from the Department of Justice, where we see there
Speaker 6: is no separation. There is some unique case law over
Speaker 6: who can bring a tort claims a case which is
Speaker 6: what this falls under, is called the Federal FTCA Federal
Speaker 6: Tort Claims at case. And you know there are intentional
Speaker 6: acts that you can file a case against the federal
Speaker 6: government for you can just actually file a notice and
Speaker 6: those cases can be resolved on the basis of that notice.
Speaker 6: And so I really don't know this is this like
Speaker 6: many other things we deal with, this unprecedented novel ground.
Speaker 6: But if there was some level of ethics, the answer
Speaker 6: would be no. And this would be something that you
Speaker 6: probably wouldn't even bring up right now if you're a
Speaker 6: president of the United States. But I wouldn't be surprised
Speaker 6: if you got a check written on the backs of
Speaker 6: tax pack.
Speaker 2: Everyone's seen Andrew.
Speaker 5: Yes, he's gonna get the money, just as he achieved
Speaker 5: the prosecution of the people he told the US Attorney
Speaker 5: General to prosecute. She turned around and she prosecuted them.
Speaker 5: I don't think there's any with the respect to all
Speaker 5: the legal leaf. I don't think that there is any
Speaker 5: respect towards the law whatsoever. And I don't even believe
Speaker 5: that there's any respect towards the process. If the president
Speaker 5: tweets that he ought to get his money back from
Speaker 5: his appointed attorney general for cases that, in his words,
Speaker 5: should have never been bought and that he was never
Speaker 5: found guilty of, and of course you've heard the reasoning
Speaker 5: as to why those things didn't need to play themselves out.
Speaker 5: I think he's going to get exactly what he asked for, period.
Speaker 5: And he's telling the American people that he's going to
Speaker 5: achieve these things, and he's so gratuitous with his winnings
Speaker 5: that he's going to put it right back in the
Speaker 5: American government on an expense the American people didn't ask for,
Speaker 5: were not budget through the budgeting process, but that we're
Speaker 5: decided by the president. And I think he's going to
Speaker 5: get him and I think he'll get his money back
Speaker 5: to and if you should choose to redivert that two
Speaker 5: hundred and forty million back to his own pocket at
Speaker 5: some point, I'm sure he'll figure way to make that
Speaker 5: happen as well. I think this is a White House unconstrained,
Speaker 5: the president, unconstrained, the Attorney General unconstrained. I just hope,
Speaker 5: and I hope, and I hope, and I say this
Speaker 5: with the beliefs that it will happen, that there'll be
Speaker 5: a day after Donald Trump, and if the people who
Speaker 5: then have executed and excavated and worked around and buried
Speaker 5: underneath the laws will know that those laws will be
Speaker 5: back to haunt them one day too.
Speaker 4: I just want to say one other thing that I
Speaker 4: think is if we're in b I see you, and
Speaker 4: I will yield in just a second. Donald Trump is
Speaker 4: maintaining that any decision about whether or not he gets
Speaker 4: restitution or not will be based upon or This means
Speaker 4: that the decision will absolutely come across his desk, so
Speaker 4: he thinks that Pam BONDI will decide is the decider,
Speaker 4: and then he will sign off on it. The one
Speaker 4: flag that I have is that DJ is saying that
Speaker 4: they will defer to the career prosecutors at DJ. The
Speaker 4: problem is they're firing those, so he just will hire
Speaker 4: new you know, a career folks. And now I think
Speaker 4: that's the other problem. Yeah, I know you're about to
Speaker 4: say something, you know, Yeah.
Speaker 6: I mean, I have a really unique relationship with Merrick Garland.
Speaker 6: But this is when the criticism of Merrick Garland comes
Speaker 6: into play full front of.
Speaker 3: You should have him come on the show.
Speaker 6: I think, I mean, I think I will. Merrick Garland
Speaker 6: is a unique figure because I've actually seen him work.
Speaker 6: I worked diligently and closely with Merrick Garland and the
Speaker 6: biggest civil rights case that I had, Merrick Garland had
Speaker 6: to literally go over to the FBI building and meet
Speaker 6: with Christopher Ray at the time so that they would
Speaker 6: settle the Mother Emanuel case. It was eighty eight million
Speaker 6: dollars paid out to one of the most violent civil
Speaker 6: rights cases we've ever seen in the history of this country.
Speaker 6: I saw him spend time with those families. I saw
Speaker 6: him move mountains to make justice work. But then, you know,
Speaker 6: the flip side is you see what happens when justice
Speaker 6: moves too slowly and when justice has what is somewhat
Speaker 6: of a level of cowardice when it comes to taking
Speaker 6: on those who need to be prosecuted. Because if Marion
Speaker 6: Garland prosecuted Donald Trump the way we see other dignitaries
Speaker 6: and other countries prosecuted, we wouldn't be here, Which brings
Speaker 6: me to my second point, which is Democrats are going
Speaker 6: to have to have the courage in twenty twenty eight
Speaker 6: to run on the fact that they are going to
Speaker 6: prosecute those individuals who profoundly flaunted the law and not
Speaker 6: do what democrats do, which is just to say America
Speaker 6: wants to turn the page, let's wash our hands at
Speaker 6: this and not mention it. And so I think they
Speaker 6: looking back at history is that great is a great
Speaker 6: metric for looking forward at what we should expect from
Speaker 6: our especially people running for president of the United States.
Speaker 2: It's just frightening to me.
Speaker 1: I you know, America introduced that the ridiculous term banana
Speaker 1: Republic because it was really you know, making fun of
Speaker 1: Latin countries for corruption, but when you look at how
Speaker 1: they've handled their corrupt leaders. Argentina prosecuted their former president.
Speaker 1: We saw the same thing in Brazil at Bolsonaro. And
Speaker 1: to look at this happening here in America. For us
Speaker 1: as black folks, I think we've always viewed it as
Speaker 1: a very corrupt country. We've never looked at this government.
Speaker 1: It's something that was on the up and up. But
Speaker 1: to see it so brazenly and blatantly taking place before
Speaker 1: our eyes, I just I still question every single day,
Speaker 1: six months from now, what will I regret not doing today.
Speaker 1: You know, we are seeing a country that arrests his
Speaker 1: political enemies. We are seeing a country that calls for
Speaker 1: the killing of people who host ai videos of him
Speaker 1: literally taking a shit on protesters while wearing a queen tat,
Speaker 1: not a king, not a king's crown, a queen crown.
Speaker 2: So I you know, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I'm just very distraught seeing these things take place before
Speaker 1: our eyes every single day.
Speaker 2: It's incredibly frightening.
Speaker 5: Andrew, I mean, the only surprise here is that he
Speaker 5: waited this long for the grift. You would have thought,
Speaker 5: being Donald Trump, being Donald Trump, that he would have
Speaker 5: went for the money first. To be quite honest with you,
Speaker 5: I never thought that him trying to make himself whole
Speaker 5: from the legal cases that he well earned in this
Speaker 5: country was going to be so delayed. I really thought
Speaker 5: that it'd be in the front door. He would excuse
Speaker 5: himself the charges and get his money, rather get his
Speaker 5: money and maybe then excuse himself for the charges. But
Speaker 5: one thing that I think the American people know to
Speaker 5: be clear about this man is he is very clear
Speaker 5: on the grift. He is always coming for the money.
Speaker 5: Always follow the money with the man. He's coming for it.
Speaker 5: This is not an afterthought for Donald Trump. This was
Speaker 5: probably a before thought that somebody convinced him to integrate
Speaker 5: a little later into the game. But he was always
Speaker 5: coming for the pocket.
Speaker 1: Oh well, we have we have a lot to get
Speaker 1: to on the show today, and we still have our
Speaker 1: conversation coming up with Charlemagne and God. So I want
Speaker 1: to close us out on this. But I have to
Speaker 1: say I've been looking at some of the archives of
Speaker 1: interviews I did five or six years ago, and it's
Speaker 1: amazing what we knew about Donald Trump then. And it
Speaker 1: feels like America has failed an open book test.
Speaker 2: We knew then that he was corrupt.
Speaker 1: We knew then that in the first few months of
Speaker 1: the administration his family made over eighty billion dollars off
Speaker 1: a grift on the government. So it's frightening to see this.
Speaker 1: But I always like to make sure that we include
Speaker 1: our viewers. You for watching and listening, so thank you
Speaker 1: for sending in your videos. And we have one question
Speaker 1: now on section two of the Voting Rights Act, so
Speaker 1: let's get to that.
Speaker 7: Hi, Native Lamb, my husband and I just said us
Speaker 7: watching the episode, the latest episode one oh one, and
Speaker 7: we're trying to figure out his voters at voters Section two.
Speaker 8: He broke it down for me, gave me a better
Speaker 8: understanding vot he thinks.
Speaker 9: But we just want to.
Speaker 8: Make sure that we understand correctly why the Supreme Court
Speaker 8: is hearing this case and how will it affect the
Speaker 8: black community. So you can break it down for us
Speaker 8: and lamor lamess terms, that would be amazing.
Speaker 5: I don't know if it's a good guest or not,
Speaker 5: but it looks like she and her husband in the
Speaker 5: middle of a workout and they're discussing our show. As
Speaker 5: I want to appreciate them for working us into that
Speaker 5: and this is not different, Bacardi, than what you were
Speaker 5: mentioning at the at the earlier part of the show.
Speaker 5: You know, Section two is the part of the Voting
Speaker 5: Rights Act where essentially it allows for communities of sort
Speaker 5: of shared interests to be able to make the choice
Speaker 5: of their choosing. And to put that another way, it's
Speaker 5: one of the few ways in which the the Constitution
Speaker 5: and its subjugate amendments along the way allows for people's
Speaker 5: race to really be considered in there and in its representation.
Speaker 5: We know already through the weakening of Section two that
Speaker 5: the that the Court, at least as it's made up
Speaker 5: right now, is permitting gerrymandering or at least lines to
Speaker 5: be drawn, congressional lines to be drawn based off of
Speaker 5: how a party can gain political advantage. But it has
Speaker 5: come short of allowing lines to be drawn that basically
Speaker 5: allow for uh communities of color and communities of shared
Speaker 5: interest to be chopped up, to be reduced, to be
Speaker 5: manipulated in such a way that they lose representation or
Speaker 5: access to representation and its seats in Congress. And I'm
Speaker 5: getting why this is actually so difficult for a lot
Speaker 5: of people to understand. And I didn't have to look
Speaker 5: any further than thinking about the state of Florida, wherever
Speaker 5: the last several years, Ronda Santis has basically gotten rid
Speaker 5: of black access seats all around the state of Florida
Speaker 5: and Central Florida and North Florida, made attempts in South
Speaker 5: Florida where previously these were seats were unambiguously held by
Speaker 5: black elected officials who won them through a court's consent decree,
Speaker 5: a court's instruction that these seas be created. Donald Trump
Speaker 5: Junior or Ronda Santis has decided summarily to go through
Speaker 5: and redraw these lines, splitting black people out of the district,
Speaker 5: creating districts that are more super white with shreds or
Speaker 5: shards of black people represented in them, where the end
Speaker 5: result is that you cannot elect a black person to
Speaker 5: Congress based off of who gets to vote in those elections.
Speaker 5: So where we now find ourselves is that because this
Speaker 5: has happened in so many places, think about the states
Speaker 5: of Mississippi, of Alabama in some cases, the attempts that
Speaker 5: are being made in Georgia, but all over the South
Speaker 5: where you have black folks who are I don't know,
Speaker 5: a third of the population that come close to forty
Speaker 5: or fifty percent of the population of a place, but somehow,
Speaker 5: when it comes to their congressional representation, of six seats
Speaker 5: that are available to that state, only one of them
Speaker 5: has a Black representative in them, even though black people
Speaker 5: are more than forty percent of a state's population. You understand,
Speaker 5: the point that we're trying to make is that you
Speaker 5: can have enough black people in a state to create
Speaker 5: a significant minority, but those votes are never enough to
Speaker 5: create I don't know, out of a state of six seats,
Speaker 5: two or three of those seats being Black access seats.
Speaker 5: So this is not a crisis for a lot of
Speaker 5: people in America anymore, because they have had to live
Speaker 5: through instances where our seats have been slowly but surely
Speaker 5: taken down, and, to Begardi's point earlier in the show,
Speaker 5: eventually going to be taken out such to the point
Speaker 5: that we may not even have a representative congressional Black
Speaker 5: caucus in the US Congress anymore.
Speaker 1: That's what I wanted to ask Andrew, So sorry for interrupting,
Speaker 1: but you're kicking it right over to Bikari Bakari. I mean,
Speaker 1: was that the point that you were making is that
Speaker 1: what you mean that we could literally be looking at
Speaker 1: no more Congressional Black Caucus, which I would imagine potentially
Speaker 1: means no more tricoccus, no more k pak, no more cecio.
Speaker 6: I mean, I mean, I use some some sensationalistic language.
Speaker 6: I mean, but the number of black members will go
Speaker 6: down exponentially. I mean you'll be talking about districts like
Speaker 6: I think the sixth Congressional district in South Carolina, where
Speaker 6: I say it is probably the best example. After Jim
Speaker 6: Cliburn leaves. You can maneuver that district in places that
Speaker 6: you know that district is now twenty five percent black,
Speaker 6: and there there's an argument that you know, it makes
Speaker 6: other districts more competitive, but what we do know is
Speaker 6: that that would be one less CBC member, and you'll
Speaker 6: see that happen throughout the South in particular. And then
Speaker 6: you know, just to add a little cruelty, which sometimes
Speaker 6: that is the point, you just put two black people
Speaker 6: in one district and make them negroes fight it out.
Speaker 6: And that is happening, if I'm not mistaken. In South Florida,
Speaker 6: it's actually w Washman shows and a black Yeah debut
Speaker 6: Watchman shows and what's my other member's name, But it's certainly.
Speaker 5: What's happening in Texas. It's definitely worth what's happening in
Speaker 5: Texas right now?
Speaker 9: Yeah, yeah, exactly exactly.
Speaker 6: So you're seeing those things, and yes, I shout out
Speaker 6: to watching the show, I appreciate you. But those are
Speaker 6: those are the results of the actions that are taking
Speaker 6: place right now, I could.
Speaker 4: Say, quickly, very quickly, I just want to emphasize the
Speaker 4: difference between Section two and Section five, which we no
Speaker 4: longer have. Section two was preclearance, states that had a
Speaker 4: pattern in practice of discrimination had to submit their plans,
Speaker 4: their voter plans ahead of time to get approval, and
Speaker 4: Section two now rest on the burden rest on the
Speaker 4: voter to prove that they were deprived of this of
Speaker 4: being able to exercise their franchise and being able to
Speaker 4: elect a representative of their choice. There was a three
Speaker 4: part test in the Gingles case that Janey Nelson shout
Speaker 4: out to Jenney, we already talked to her last week,
Speaker 4: referenced in her oral arguments last week. I won't go
Speaker 4: through that three part test, but that is also available
Speaker 4: for people to understand.
Speaker 3: So now all of the.
Speaker 4: Burdens for black folks, brown folks who want to see
Speaker 4: themselves protected, voting rights protected, they have to rely on
Speaker 4: Section two if the Supreme Court doesn't also gut that,
Speaker 4: which is it is looking like?
Speaker 1: And Jennae Nelson, of course runs the NAACPLDF and as
Speaker 1: a black woman who argued before the Supreme Court, antiplated
Speaker 1: a great interview with her. If you haven't seen it,
Speaker 1: you should check it out.
Speaker 5: Only one it out, okay? I haply saying that the
Speaker 5: government right now would be the agency that has the
Speaker 5: grounds for legitimacy to bring these cases to the court
Speaker 5: on behalf of the voters. That is the piece that
Speaker 5: the US Supreme Court delayed taking additional action on the
Speaker 5: supp If the course should come to the conclusion that
Speaker 5: the government is the only entity that can argue that
Speaker 5: a state is out of line with any with any
Speaker 5: how do you say failty to the law, then if
Speaker 5: we were relying on Donald Trump's judiciary to bring that case,
Speaker 5: those cases would never come Why Because Pambondy in this
Speaker 5: case has decided against the standard government position. She's now
Speaker 5: on the other side of the government's.
Speaker 4: Arguments state governments. Andrew, just for clarity, is the state governments.
Speaker 4: They're bringing it, and we're also up a crete there.
Speaker 5: All I'm saying is that the federal government's previous position,
Speaker 5: all the way up until Pambondi's administration here was always
Speaker 5: on this was the government's position, wasn't upholding these respective
Speaker 5: standards of the law. If their position now is to
Speaker 5: collapse those to say, the state government is right to
Speaker 5: have no argument on the other side, and then the
Speaker 5: states and then the West Supreme Court says that these
Speaker 5: cases cannot be bought by interest groups anymore, like the
Speaker 5: like Janey and what she's doing at the Legal Defense Fund.
Speaker 5: If they no longer are a party to this, who
Speaker 5: is going to bring the legal cases on our behalf?
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, that is a question, right, Okay, Andrew was
Speaker 1: always profound. So I hate to cut you off because
Speaker 1: I wanted to hear what you had to say, But
Speaker 1: because our show is so so packed, I do want
Speaker 1: to shift us along because I'm coming right back to you, Andrew,
Speaker 1: because on the other side of this break, Chicago Mayor
Speaker 1: Brandon Johnson has quite the charge for society.
Speaker 2: We're going to get into that right after this. Stay tuned.
Speaker 10: My ancestors as slaves can lead the bravest general strait
Speaker 10: in the history of this country. Operations we can, Gooby said,
Speaker 10: today people people well people to people people relations. We
Speaker 10: are makeupations to boss to live on because of this generation.
Speaker 5: Are you letting to take it to a book to
Speaker 5: the snake?
Speaker 3: He ain't net a lampid.
Speaker 2: My name is Andrea.
Speaker 11: I am originally from Cleveland, Ohio, but I've been living
Speaker 11: in Fort Worth, Texas for the past almost ten years,
Speaker 11: and I wanted to pick y'all brains about Mayor Brandon
Speaker 11: Johnson's call for a general strike during the No King's
Speaker 11: protests this past Saturday on October eighteenth. I think that
Speaker 11: that was a very bold move by an elected official,
Speaker 11: especially during the times of like this administration. And I
Speaker 11: also think that him calling for the general strike on
Speaker 11: a national stage, even though a general strike is nothing new,
Speaker 11: it's not a new concept, but I think he's probably
Speaker 11: one of the few elected officials who has called for
Speaker 11: a general strike to meet this moment. Also, I think
Speaker 11: that in this moment, as Bakari and Tiffany had the
Speaker 11: conversation that during the one hundredth episode about the relationship
Speaker 11: between black men and black women and how Bakari stated that,
Speaker 11: you know, black men don't really get a chance to
Speaker 11: breathe and lead. I feel like think this is a
Speaker 11: perfect opportunity. I feel like Mayor Brendan Johnson has put
Speaker 11: the call to action out and I think it is
Speaker 11: a perfect opportunity for black men to meet the moment.
Speaker 2: I think that's you, Andrew.
Speaker 5: Oh, well, there's the resident black man not meeting moments.
Speaker 3: Now what that meant?
Speaker 5: I take her at her words, and I appreciate everything
Speaker 5: she had to say and the question the framing. I
Speaker 5: appreciate also the seriousness by which she interpreted the mayor's comments.
Speaker 5: I don't think it got covered in real broad swaths
Speaker 5: of American media that a general strike had been called
Speaker 5: for by the mayor of Chicago. It's one of the
Speaker 5: largest municipalities in the country. He sits at one of
Speaker 5: the most powerful purchases of political power, and he did
Speaker 5: admonish us to hold corporations accountable for their complicity in
Speaker 5: the moment. I thought it was powerful. I honestly, I
Speaker 5: wish that it was accompanied by more fanfare, that more
Speaker 5: people said what a thing was similar to what this
Speaker 5: viewer did. I question if the American people are prepared
Speaker 5: to demonstrate the kind of appetite for resistance that we
Speaker 5: say not just in a weekend's protest, but in a
Speaker 5: day in and a day out, weekend, week out, month
Speaker 5: and month out, resistance toward putting our financial dollars behind
Speaker 5: a system and behind a set of systems and corporations
Speaker 5: who have fallen fidal to this autocratic form of government,
Speaker 5: who basically saying we're okay with this so long as
Speaker 5: we keep making money, or we're okay with it so
Speaker 5: long as our deals toward consolidation of company X and
Speaker 5: Y still go forward. Or you saw with Salesforce, one
Speaker 5: of the most impactful companies in this country, the chairman
Speaker 5: of their foundation board back up, and basically, I don't
Speaker 5: recognize Benioff, don't recognize the person who I thought I
Speaker 5: was in good company with accomplishing good things for the
Speaker 5: American people when you agree with the President sending the
Speaker 5: National Guard into the excuse me, into the city of
Speaker 5: San Francisco. So I'll just double down on compliments for
Speaker 5: Mayor Johnson on his call, and I would just hope
Speaker 5: similar to how we've seen our brother in Atlanta helped
Speaker 5: to to to that's Jamal Bryant. That is to create
Speaker 5: a framework around what protests out to look like, what
Speaker 5: impact ought to look like. That there's some people who
Speaker 5: are part of that movement who are willing to put
Speaker 5: pen to paper to sketch a to sketch a resistance
Speaker 5: and what that resistance looks like. That might help to
Speaker 5: build the appetite amongst American people to say, you know what,
Speaker 5: I am willing to put my money where my mouth is,
Speaker 5: where my where my street shoes are, and say I
Speaker 5: can protest not just for days resistance, but I can
Speaker 5: protest for the next foreseeable future so that we can
Speaker 5: still have the democracy if we can keep it.
Speaker 2: Angela, what do you?
Speaker 6: What do you?
Speaker 2: I have so many questions I want to hear you.
Speaker 3: At thoughts fars Well, just a few things. The first
Speaker 3: thing is, you know, since we.
Speaker 4: Talk about black intellectualism at least over the last couple podcasts,
Speaker 4: I've been thinking a lot about the approach. We've talked
Speaker 4: before about Congressman Rangel saying whether or not we took
Speaker 4: the right path and in our liberation from economic roots
Speaker 4: versus social roots. We think about the beefs that is,
Speaker 4: like we didn't create beefs y'all believe that, believe it
Speaker 4: or not, between Booker T. Washington and w E b
Speaker 4: DU Boys or w E b DU Boys and Marcus
Speaker 4: Garvey and all of the others Jay Z and oas right,
Speaker 4: all the others that have existed. And I think that
Speaker 4: what comes to mind is that ultimately most of us,
Speaker 4: I say, ninety five percent of us agree that black
Speaker 4: people need to be free in this country.
Speaker 3: We often disagree on the means. And I was looking at.
Speaker 4: Stuff on the General Strike and like, why wb DU
Speaker 4: Boys says that it was enslaved people and their general
Speaker 4: strike that really resulted in our emancipation, and so have
Speaker 4: we since. And I had thought about it because of
Speaker 4: what Brandon said at the top of his remarks, which
Speaker 4: was like, it was our ancestors and the general strike
Speaker 4: that led to our freedom. So I was like, I
Speaker 4: know that from somewhere, and then I was like, Oh,
Speaker 4: it's w B DU Boys, who I just so I
Speaker 4: happen to talk about. But the thing is in Black
Speaker 4: Reconstruction in America, he has an entire chapter on the
Speaker 4: General Strike. And I wonder, if we don't take this
Speaker 4: moment you keep saying to if we need to go
Speaker 4: back and read books, but read the book for how
Speaker 4: it applies in this moment. What is the lesson that
Speaker 4: we can learn the call to action from the various
Speaker 4: scholarly pieces that exist, and if it's quotes from people
Speaker 4: who didn't necessarily write books, but they were an essential
Speaker 4: part of different movements and movement building. What is the
Speaker 4: role of the black person in labor, you know, not
Speaker 4: just the person in black labor leadership, but the actual
Speaker 4: dues paying labor union members.
Speaker 3: Educator, Yeah, what's the role of all of us?
Speaker 4: The commentator, you know, the influencer, who's the creative content producer,
Speaker 4: whatever it is.
Speaker 3: What is the role that we must play in this moment?
Speaker 4: And if we are to strive towards a general strike,
Speaker 4: do we have commonality around understanding for what that means
Speaker 4: at that point? That's not just a boycott of a
Speaker 4: business and withholding your dollar for Black Friday or Christmas Eve.
Speaker 4: Now we're talking about workers saying if you don't respect
Speaker 4: my labor, I don't respect your business and I'm not
Speaker 4: going to go. Do we feel that our people are
Speaker 4: willing to sacrifice their paycheck they're going to work?
Speaker 3: Is a strike?
Speaker 4: Right like it is saying I'm withholding my labor. I'm
Speaker 4: not just withholding my dollar and supporting your business. I'm
Speaker 4: saying that since you don't respect my personhood, you also
Speaker 4: are not going to be a benef You're not gonna
Speaker 4: be gonna be a beneficiary of my labor. I'm going
Speaker 4: to deprive you of that because now we're at a
Speaker 4: crossroads where, you know, it's not just about democracy anymore,
Speaker 4: it's literally about my ability to survive in this space.
Speaker 4: It is dangerous, it's as risky.
Speaker 2: Well it sounds even privileged that that would even be
Speaker 2: a question.
Speaker 3: Well, but you know, but I think that W. E. B.
Speaker 4: Du Bois at the time would argue it was not
Speaker 4: privileged for enslaved people to withhold their labor. It was
Speaker 4: a matter of survival. And so then the question becomes,
Speaker 4: are we at that type of crossroads where now our
Speaker 4: labor and are withholding that labor as risky and as
Speaker 4: sacrificial as it is, is that the only way that
Speaker 4: we'll truly see liberation in this country?
Speaker 6: Well? WB.
Speaker 1: De Boys was also criticized at the time. I mean,
Speaker 1: he you know, and this is of course post slavery,
Speaker 1: where he, you know, was leading a cause and always
Speaker 1: thought that there would be a path in this country
Speaker 1: where black folks could be accepted. You know, he was saying, like,
Speaker 1: no black people. He wasn't saying withhold your labor. He
Speaker 1: was saying, go participate in this system, go fight in
Speaker 1: this war, because then if you do that, you will
Speaker 1: they cannot deny you. They cannot deny your citizenship, they
Speaker 1: cannot deny your equal rights. Of course, he later changed
Speaker 1: that changes, right, Yeah, he changed his attitude. But I'm
Speaker 1: just saying at the time when he was saying that
Speaker 1: there they had be for real, and Marcus Garvey said
Speaker 1: of w E B du boys, this is the white
Speaker 1: man's nigga.
Speaker 2: Y'all listening to you.
Speaker 1: And so I just think at this time I would
Speaker 1: have a hard time telling somebody, yeah, withhold your labor
Speaker 1: and don't get that paycheck, you.
Speaker 3: Know, because that's the very thing Brandon is coming for.
Speaker 1: I agree, this is why I have questions about it.
Speaker 1: And so I'm just trying to think realistically, what does
Speaker 1: it look like for us to not only withhold our labor,
Speaker 1: because now we're talking about with hold our participation in
Speaker 1: this white constructed society, and so any and anytime I
Speaker 1: think about that, I think, Okay, we build our own communities,
Speaker 1: we live off the grid, you know, we grow our
Speaker 1: own food. And when that has happened, they've come and
Speaker 1: destroyed our communities. They've literally burned them down. At me,
Speaker 1: just Tulsa, I mean, we can go over more than fifty.
Speaker 1: You can look up the Red Summer of nineteen nineteen,
Speaker 1: which predated Tulsa, of course, and look at all the cities,
Speaker 1: all the white violence, all the despotism that we've survived.
Speaker 2: So again I would ask us, is this a time
Speaker 2: to flee?
Speaker 1: That doesn't to me that is perhaps an act of violence,
Speaker 1: or not an act of violence, an act of resistance.
Speaker 1: But I really stay well, I was to teeing that
Speaker 1: up to get Andrew's perspective on this, only because for me,
Speaker 1: I only have me, you know, like I do have family,
Speaker 1: but what I don't have is a spouse and children,
Speaker 1: school systems to worry about. I guess health care. Health
Speaker 1: care isn't an issue for me, but like healthcare systems,
Speaker 1: not just for myself, but because other people. I will
Speaker 1: you say that what does that really look like? And
Speaker 1: that is a real last question, and how and Andrew
Speaker 1: you're in Florida, You're in the belly of the beast, Like,
Speaker 1: at what point or I don't know, just your thoughts
Speaker 1: on all of it. I was gonna say, at what point, Well.
Speaker 5: Rebirth the beast. Yeah, the parents of the beast. We
Speaker 5: are the beast.
Speaker 2: Some people say he is a dick of the country,
Speaker 2: but that's another Well, you know, there's that.
Speaker 5: So, first of all, I do think the amount of
Speaker 5: racial consolidation around this idea, in order for success to
Speaker 5: be had in all, you know, points across this land
Speaker 5: would be significant. White people would have to find themselves
Speaker 5: as at risk as many of us find ourselves at risk,
Speaker 5: I think to participate. I wonder whether or not the
Speaker 5: appetite for that exists, and I mean for a general strike. Right,
Speaker 5: So we're talking about at all levels of society, largely
Speaker 5: against the owners, right, the same owners who helped us
Speaker 5: develop these narratives of these very meaningless, bifurcated meritives, narratives
Speaker 5: on the workplace that put black and white people and
Speaker 5: black and white bodies at strife toward each other. Anyway, Right,
Speaker 5: I'm gonna give you a title and a promotion without
Speaker 5: any financial increase, just so that we can keep the
Speaker 5: turbulence between blacks and white so that we can be
Speaker 5: sure that you'll never find the same side with each other.
Speaker 5: You'll never end up fighting on the same side, because
Speaker 5: we've now created a level of difference between you, and
Speaker 5: that difference now will always exists. So are folks who
Speaker 5: are who were susceptible to that kind of divide before?
Speaker 5: Are they going to be equally as succeptable to it?
Speaker 5: Are they willingly? Are they going to be willingly able
Speaker 5: to walk away from their jobs, their workplaces, and the
Speaker 5: places that they patronize frankly out of solidarity with the
Speaker 5: kind But they don't see it as the country right
Speaker 5: now because they only you know, because but for their
Speaker 5: favorite late night comedian, they hadn't seen themselves in the
Speaker 5: crosshairs of its.
Speaker 2: Impacts talk about it.
Speaker 5: So are they now willing to see themselves truly in
Speaker 5: the crosshairs of the impact and are now willing to
Speaker 5: lay their bodies on the line? And I mean their
Speaker 5: physical bodies. I don't know how we get a general
Speaker 5: strike that is successful if once again it relies on
Speaker 5: black and brown bodies to lay themselves at the sacrifice
Speaker 5: of everything horrible that happens in society and whatever little
Speaker 5: good that they are able to extract from society so
Speaker 5: that everybody else gets to be the benefactor of their
Speaker 5: of their sacrifice.
Speaker 1: I do well really quick. I just want to say, Andrew,
Speaker 1: we're not making you the sole black man here. As
Speaker 1: you guys know, Bakari joins this podcast while he's in trial,
Speaker 1: so he had to run to court, but he will
Speaker 1: be joining us for our interview with Charlemagne and the God,
Speaker 1: which is coming up right after this segment, So don't
Speaker 1: go anywhere. I just wanted to let folks know why
Speaker 1: Bakari wasn't weighing in. He had to run, but he's
Speaker 1: coming right back for that important conversation.
Speaker 4: I think the other thing that we might need to
Speaker 4: consider is, like you know, just like anything else, is
Speaker 4: just focusing on not leaving the country, but on this
Speaker 4: general strike concept. There is something to be said about
Speaker 4: the privilege piece that you mentioned. And one thing that
Speaker 4: I would love to see My dad has been saying
Speaker 4: this for years and every time something goes down, particularly
Speaker 4: in athletics, my dad is like, I wish the players
Speaker 4: would do X, Y or Z. And one thing that
Speaker 4: comes to mind here is It would be incredible, Like
Speaker 4: the NBA.
Speaker 3: Just opened up.
Speaker 4: It's a preseason over game opener, you know, just a
Speaker 4: couple of days ago. It would be dope to see
Speaker 4: entire teams say, until my personhood is respected, until my
Speaker 4: community's respected, until democracy is no longer compromised.
Speaker 3: I don't have anything for you.
Speaker 4: And what would it take to organize players around that,
Speaker 4: Whether it's the NBA, the MLB, or the NFL, what
Speaker 4: would it take for them to say, like at a
Speaker 4: pivotal moment, whether it's a season opener, it is right
Speaker 4: before playoffs start, like until we get some things done.
Speaker 4: And I wonder really if they know their power or
Speaker 4: if they could if they're willing, like we keep saying,
Speaker 4: you know, it would be a sacrifice for maybe these
Speaker 4: hourly wage workers. I know it would be sacrificial as
Speaker 4: well for players who support their whole families. But I
Speaker 4: don't know where the buck stops. No pun intended, right,
Speaker 4: It's like it has to stop somewhere. So if the
Speaker 4: Miszoo athletes could come together, the football players and say
Speaker 4: we're organizing with other students on campus and administration at
Speaker 4: Maszoo until you hear what they're saying we can't play
Speaker 4: for y'all.
Speaker 3: It turned immediately.
Speaker 4: I think there's so much of what we're fighting against
Speaker 4: and protesting and people are carrying signs and banners and
Speaker 4: bullhorns for that.
Speaker 3: If a few of the elites, yeah, and by that I.
Speaker 4: Mean people who actually made it's a professional leagues said
Speaker 4: we're not going to do this with you until you
Speaker 4: respect us in this way. I think that could be
Speaker 4: well a general strike that that could at least kick
Speaker 4: it off.
Speaker 1: Can I ask you then, because we've had this conversation,
Speaker 1: how do you square that with Because somebody could argue
Speaker 1: Jay Z's partnership with the NFL, he's providing entertainment for.
Speaker 2: This, like does like how do you square that with?
Speaker 11: Like?
Speaker 1: Does he have a role to play in saying because
Speaker 1: he said we're beyond protesting. You know, that was part
Speaker 1: of the discord I think was he and Colin Kaepernick.
Speaker 3: A small clip of what he said.
Speaker 4: He said beyond kneeling, and I think he was talking
Speaker 4: about I think he said right after that that it's
Speaker 4: time to stand up and take us right.
Speaker 1: But his intention was we were beyond what Colin Kaepernick
Speaker 1: was doing. He was trying to take the next step.
Speaker 1: In conversation with Colin Kaepernick, he has had pushback on that,
Speaker 1: of course, But I wonder as we talk about that,
Speaker 1: the people who are in a position like that, should
Speaker 1: they be leading an effort to get athletes to stop
Speaker 1: playing or leading an effort to provide aner tayment for
Speaker 1: the Super Bowl delivering a political political message. And it's
Speaker 1: not either one and again or both in I agree,
Speaker 1: and I think that what I'm saying is what we
Speaker 1: keep doing.
Speaker 4: And I really think this is where we shoot ourselves
Speaker 4: in the proverbial foot. We keep trying to get one entity,
Speaker 4: one person of influence, one person of power, to be
Speaker 4: all things to all of us, and I don't think
Speaker 4: that's their role.
Speaker 9: There.
Speaker 4: The people who would most likely be the most influential
Speaker 4: with athletes to get them to sit down are the
Speaker 4: veterans in the league. Are the people who they like,
Speaker 4: the people who are the old heads in the league,
Speaker 4: like they're yeah, they're they're veterans.
Speaker 3: So, but I'm not talking about I see what you
Speaker 3: think they're They're not.
Speaker 4: They're no longer out of the military. I'm talking about
Speaker 4: people who are old. And then also the people who
Speaker 4: have tried it. It's been so long, but it would
Speaker 4: have been like a Muhammad Ali. There are a lot
Speaker 4: of folks who went back to learn from Muhammad Ali.
Speaker 4: It would have been a Jim Brown before he changed.
Speaker 4: I said, before he changed, what would have been those folks.
Speaker 4: It's the it's the the John Carlos Is and the
Speaker 4: Times Smith. Why did you take this approach? And what
Speaker 4: did you sacrifice in doing that? And can I stomach that?
Speaker 4: Am I brave enough to do?
Speaker 11: Yeah?
Speaker 5: I've seen by the top one percent ever, and certainly
Speaker 5: not one towards the success. This is This is why
Speaker 5: coon tycoons tycoons of industry, is why Henry Ford decided
Speaker 5: that his best tactic was going to be to separate
Speaker 5: the proletariat, to put one man who feels equal next
Speaker 5: to this the other man that feels equal. Because in
Speaker 5: my experience, having you know, watched these things, I don't
Speaker 5: know that there's a lot of common cause between me
Speaker 5: and the top one percent of athletes in this country
Speaker 5: or the top earners who are largely who largely constitute
Speaker 5: the who largely make up the players of the National
Speaker 5: Basketball League. But I'm actually also not looking for enemies here.
Speaker 5: I think we want friends on all sides.
Speaker 3: Andrew, can't you see where.
Speaker 9: It could drive?
Speaker 3: Just let me just let me just ask you this
Speaker 3: really quick. Can you see where the.
Speaker 4: People who are the players are more like the laborers
Speaker 4: and the owners are more like the heads of corporations? Well,
Speaker 4: they are, they are they literally they literally have unions,
Speaker 4: not at all.
Speaker 5: Because regular people are usually unionizing over the ability to
Speaker 5: put food on the table from one check to the next.
Speaker 5: And I think when you sit at this is why
Speaker 5: you know what folks are like? Well, what about athletes
Speaker 5: such and such and such, And why wouldn't he be
Speaker 5: against a ross holding a fund raiser for Trump because
Speaker 5: he would be a guest and invited guests at such
Speaker 5: a dinner. Because that's the that is the strata in
Speaker 5: which people roll. And I just don't think that our
Speaker 5: shared race can can, can can can any longer be
Speaker 5: a topical connection between uh us as a group of people.
Speaker 5: We we are not we are not advocating for the
Speaker 5: same things in the tax bracket because we're not in
Speaker 5: acted by the same things in the tax bracket. The
Speaker 5: reason why I can see that fifty cent comes down
Speaker 5: differently on his politics toward a bush or toward a
Speaker 5: Trump and then where I could ever come down, it's
Speaker 5: because we don't. Our pocketbooks don't look the same, our
Speaker 5: checks don't look the same. And I think power corrupts absolutely,
Speaker 5: and in this day and age, power is in so
Speaker 5: many ways interpreted by your money, not by who you
Speaker 5: can call them the cell phone necessarily, but by how
Speaker 5: much money you have. That that's the trading card, that's
Speaker 5: the currency. I think we have better if we could
Speaker 5: get over this big issue of race. I think our
Speaker 5: better cause is going to be toward the man or
Speaker 5: the woman I'm standing next to earning similar amount to
Speaker 5: being separated by superficial differences that are no differences at all,
Speaker 5: and for them to wake up and realize that the
Speaker 5: same enemy we're trying to withhold our services from are
Speaker 5: the same ones who have their foot on your neck too.
Speaker 5: And I just think it's harder for wealthy people to
Speaker 5: see that with other wealthy people. I think it's an easier, easier, common,
Speaker 5: a common reframe that working folks see in other working people.
Speaker 5: But you know what, can I failed at this Booker T.
Speaker 5: Washington failed that all of those who tried to move
Speaker 5: this argument to be one of economics have almost always
Speaker 5: failed at this, largely funded by the big pooh bahs
Speaker 5: who have made the issue about race right. Every time
Speaker 5: we talk about money, they want to talk about race.
Speaker 5: Every time we have a share ground, they want to
Speaker 5: change the narrative to one that's more superficial in nature
Speaker 5: to keep us from grasping at the thing we know
Speaker 5: we share.
Speaker 9: The most that can.
Speaker 1: I just say, this is why I love our conversations
Speaker 1: because we all have very different perspectives. I don't know
Speaker 1: that I have a perspective here, but I'm curious about
Speaker 1: you all's perspective because I'm looking for guidance here.
Speaker 2: This is not an area where I can lead.
Speaker 3: You know, I'm not either. I'm trying to figure out out.
Speaker 2: But you say that, but you do.
Speaker 1: I think you do have like charging orders like you
Speaker 1: do say like here's what I think we should do
Speaker 1: when people ask me.
Speaker 3: I try because the things haven't worked.
Speaker 1: But even even having an idea like here's what we
Speaker 1: should try, I think that is something that's needed. Andrew,
Speaker 1: you have like very clear positions on this. So I
Speaker 1: just love when I get to listen on this podcast
Speaker 1: and learn something. So I really learned from you guys,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, but Cary has to run the court. But
Speaker 1: he's literally running back right now because it is time
Speaker 1: for us to move along and finally get to that
Speaker 1: conversation that we've talked about all show. Charlemagne the God
Speaker 1: is going to join us for this conversation to talk
Speaker 1: about anti black intellectualism and get his take.
Speaker 12: I define an intellectual not based on how much a
Speaker 12: person knows, but I define an intellectual as someone who
Speaker 12: has a tremendous desire to know, someone who's incredibly curious,
Speaker 12: someone who loves the question. And there are these curious
Speaker 12: people with tremendous desires to know, who are incarcerated, who
Speaker 12: are houseless, who are in c suites, who are in universities,
Speaker 12: who are dropouts, they're everywhere. And these people who are
Speaker 12: everywhere I define as intellectuals. And I define a black
Speaker 12: intellectual as not only a black person with a tremendous
Speaker 12: desire to know, but a black person who is seeking
Speaker 12: to acquire knowledge for power. Not knowledge for knowledge's sake,
Speaker 12: but knowledge for power's sake.
Speaker 9: Man, that was powerful.
Speaker 6: I mean I think that I think we all agree
Speaker 6: he is the definition of an intellectual. And none other
Speaker 6: than Ebram Candy. Shout out to my brother for always
Speaker 6: speaking truth to power. Speaking of someone who I love
Speaker 6: and a door speaks truth to power. Always very very curious.
Speaker 6: We have none other than Charlemagne, the god I think Angela.
Speaker 6: You call him by his full government, but I call
Speaker 6: him Charlemagne. That's what we call him down in Monk's Quarter,
Speaker 6: That's what we call him up and down twenty six.
Speaker 6: So Charlemagne, welcome to the show, my brother. How you feel, Cary,
Speaker 6: what's up, my brother?
Speaker 9: How are you? I just heard your name. I was
Speaker 9: with us ce Sue Williams earlier. He said your name.
Speaker 6: Cecil Williams for y'all who don't know, is one of
Speaker 6: the greatest civil rights photographers that we've ever seen. I
Speaker 6: challenge everybody to google see Sir Williams and then check
Speaker 6: out his museum. He had the legendary picture he just
Speaker 6: walked New York Fashion Week and he has the picture
Speaker 6: of him drinking out of a whites only water fountain.
Speaker 6: And since we're doing something right here, make sure y'all
Speaker 6: go and contribute to Cecil Williams Museum in Orangeburg, South Carolina.
Speaker 6: It's those type of artifacts of relics of our community
Speaker 6: that we need to make sure we support.
Speaker 1: So can I Saycary, that's all that, Michael, Harriet's uncle,
Speaker 1: all related to everybody and probably cousin.
Speaker 5: But oh man, lucky to have you brother.
Speaker 3: Well, so we had that much time.
Speaker 2: So we we love you.
Speaker 4: You know that we're nice to you. We're gonna keep going.
Speaker 4: So you are here because we had a very interesting
Speaker 4: exchange on our show last week and also over the weekend,
Speaker 4: true to normal sibling chatter, we had conversations about you know,
Speaker 4: where you thought we were right, where you thought we
Speaker 4: were wrong. And I think really what it gives us
Speaker 4: the opportunity to do is to back into uh, you
Speaker 4: know device that exists across our community, from gender to
Speaker 4: class to degree attainment to you know, who gets to
Speaker 4: speak for who and what why you get to speak
Speaker 4: for that person. And so I just thought it would
Speaker 4: be a good thing to have you come on talk
Speaker 4: about some of what you're hearing, some of what you
Speaker 4: felt listening to our show, listening to the response on
Speaker 4: Joe Budden's podcast on the other side of what was
Speaker 4: a disagreement with Mark and Flip, and would love to
Speaker 4: hear your thoughts on that and in broadening the conversation.
Speaker 5: Wait wait, wait, wait, wait, are we not going to
Speaker 5: let the record reflect that we were just a peaceful
Speaker 5: place for people to talk before Bakar joined this show, Yeah,
Speaker 5: started fighting with everybody on every block. I just think,
Speaker 5: you know, for historical record, we should put a pin
Speaker 5: in it.
Speaker 3: I agree that is not misinformation. We got more fights everywhere,
Speaker 3: and we fight each other.
Speaker 6: B way to go.
Speaker 3: Now you want to talk time out.
Speaker 6: I just I just have to clarify the record as
Speaker 6: we are doing this. I don't talk trash about people individually,
Speaker 6: except even A because I go out too much in
Speaker 6: these streets and I don't want to bump into people
Speaker 6: in one of the dark corners in one of these bars.
Speaker 9: I'd be able to get hit in the back of everybody.
Speaker 9: I love everybody.
Speaker 13: Go ahead, No, I mean, you know, sometimes I don't
Speaker 13: even like to have a private conversations publicly. But you know,
Speaker 13: when I first saw you know what y'all talked about
Speaker 13: last week, I hit Angela and I was like, I
Speaker 13: want to talk about what y'all was just speaking about,
Speaker 13: not saying I want to talk about it on the show,
Speaker 13: I said, I just want to talk to you personally.
Speaker 13: And then you know, when I when I saw what
Speaker 13: you know, Joe Budden said about it, I agreed with Joe,
Speaker 13: you know, I felt like, you know, it came off,
Speaker 13: you know, very elitists, you know, very Jack and Jill,
Speaker 13: you know, very you know, I got my nose up.
Speaker 9: At these these negroes over here.
Speaker 13: And I don't think that, you know, you make any
Speaker 13: you don't make any scribes and connecting community by by
Speaker 13: by doing, by doing that conversation and the way the
Speaker 13: way that it was done.
Speaker 9: You know, I feel like, you know, whenever there's UH,
Speaker 9: instead of.
Speaker 13: Calling people out, sometimes you should, you should call people
Speaker 13: in and and you know, the whole conversation around who's
Speaker 13: an intellectual and who's not intellectual. My biggest issue with
Speaker 13: it was, well, damn, you know, a person who's an
Speaker 13: intellectual should look at the whole context of a situation
Speaker 13: before they have a conversation about it. I feel like,
Speaker 13: you know, Andrew said one of the strongest points last
Speaker 13: week when Andrew was like, I don't watch the show
Speaker 13: enough to have an opinion about it, you know, and
Speaker 13: then he said, and then he said, but I trust Mark,
Speaker 13: you know, being marked not to be in spaces where
Speaker 13: you know, he knows he needs to be in. And
Speaker 13: as I'm listening to the combent, I told Angela that
Speaker 13: even when she told me that y'all wanted to talk
Speaker 13: about it, it came up as a topic of discussion.
Speaker 13: I said, well, make sure you watch the whole thing
Speaker 13: in context before you just watch a clip of it
Speaker 13: and then you know, speak on it for the next
Speaker 13: twenty or thirty minutes, because to me, that's what an
Speaker 13: intellectual should do, right, Like, that's what an intelligent person
Speaker 13: should do. An intelligent person should get the whole context
Speaker 13: of something before they comment on it, instead of watching
Speaker 13: like two or three minutes or something and then actually
Speaker 13: taking to clip out of context. Because if you watch
Speaker 13: the clip in context, Mark was actually wrong. You know,
Speaker 13: if there's a right or wrong in this situation, Mark
Speaker 13: was actually the one who was who was wrong in
Speaker 13: that situation, so much so that he even came back
Speaker 13: and apologized, you know, the next week, and I just, yeah,
Speaker 13: I just did the conversation just really just it just
Speaker 13: kind of made me feel a way, like, damn, like
Speaker 13: that's how we look at each other as black can.
Speaker 4: I tif I want you to go here because this,
Speaker 4: this is TIFF's conversation. But I do want to oh no,
Speaker 4: but this was Tiffs's idea. Tiff is ready to claim that.
Speaker 4: And we're fine. We all weighed in, we all said
Speaker 4: what we said. But I have a quick question for you,
Speaker 4: and this is a focus group for this podcast. How
Speaker 4: many of you all were in Jack and Jail? Raise
Speaker 4: your hands? How many of you all or have any
Speaker 4: sorority or fraternity affiliation? Raise your hands? How many of
Speaker 4: you all are in the Links? I quit, I was
Speaker 4: in the links. How many of you all are in
Speaker 4: the Bulet? Raise your hands. I'm doing that because Andrew
Speaker 4: was the most relatable person to them, per their own commentary.
Speaker 4: And Andrew's the only one who was into Bulet. We
Speaker 4: are not even into Bulet, so we get label for
Speaker 4: stuff that we're not even in.
Speaker 1: But tipy, I didn't. I didn't hear Charlemagne say that.
Speaker 9: He didn't.
Speaker 3: He said Jack and Jail of y'all?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I I I yeah.
Speaker 1: But I want to say, uh, just to set the
Speaker 1: record straight, because I hear what Charlemagne is saying, and
Speaker 1: I think a lot of comments echoed that my personal
Speaker 1: background aside, I want to say that as a journalist,
Speaker 1: before I bring up anything on this show, I want
Speaker 1: our viewers to know I have indeed done my due diligence.
Speaker 1: So I didn't just watch the clip. How I prepared
Speaker 1: for that segment. I didn't pay for Patreon, but I
Speaker 1: did read the transcript of what happened. I even understood
Speaker 1: the word in question that was tricky was a lude.
Speaker 1: I understood that the conversation was about payment discrepancy. I
Speaker 1: spoke to Mark before I did the segment. I looked
Speaker 1: at literacy rates before I.
Speaker 2: Did this segment.
Speaker 1: I watched a few clips or not clips with segments,
Speaker 1: different segments from Joe Budden's podcasts before I did this segment.
Speaker 1: And I will say I stand by what I said.
Speaker 1: My perspectives and opinions don't sway in the winds of
Speaker 1: public opinion. Sometimes the cheese will stand alone. I do
Speaker 1: think there is very much a toxic landscape that is
Speaker 1: fueled by a lot of podcasts, Bros. But I definitely
Speaker 1: agree with you, Charlemagne. Before you have an interview with anybody,
Speaker 1: before you sit down and speak on something, I would
Speaker 1: advise anyone to be well informed. Rather it's politics, sports,
Speaker 1: anything like that, and so I don't think.
Speaker 2: That the issue was that.
Speaker 1: The collective was not well informed. I don't think that
Speaker 1: was my perspective. I think the issue that a lot
Speaker 1: of people felt is they felt attacked. And so I
Speaker 1: want to be clear that I wasn't saying who wasn't
Speaker 1: intellectual and who was not. My perspective was there is
Speaker 1: an anti intellectual movement ravaging the black community. I also
Speaker 1: want to be clear that I was not saying that
Speaker 1: no one should talk to Flip or Joe Budden. Certainly
Speaker 1: somebody should, someone should be reaching out to them. That's
Speaker 1: not my ministry. Things I care about are the incarcerated
Speaker 1: and puppies, most importantly pitbulls. I don't like that tens
Speaker 1: of thousands of them get euthanized every month. It breaks
Speaker 1: my heart. I think about the incarcerated all the time.
Speaker 1: I don't want our Black men and women in prison
Speaker 1: thinking they're forgotten about. I think it's a bit arrogant
Speaker 1: to me to say Angela Bakari Andrew y'all should be
Speaker 1: talking to the incarcerated. That's not their ministry. But if
Speaker 1: Angela feels like no, those are the people, or U Sharman,
Speaker 1: if you feel like, no, those are the very people
Speaker 1: I want to be speaking to. Then, by all means,
Speaker 1: go do that. I'm saying, it's hard to fill a
Speaker 1: cup that's already full. So if I'm telling you something
Speaker 1: and you're insulting me from my intelligence, I don't need
Speaker 1: to be where fools gather. So I stand on what
Speaker 1: I say said. I'm not disrespecting any of them, but
Speaker 1: I just want to be clear our viewers know. I
Speaker 1: never come on this podcast ever without being very well
Speaker 1: informed and researched and fact checked, and FactCheck is not
Speaker 1: a thirty second Google search before I come on this show.
Speaker 1: It takes a lot of work to prepare for anything
Speaker 1: I introduce, and I would hope that we all do that.
Speaker 9: Well.
Speaker 13: If it's interesting you say you like talking to the incarcerated,
Speaker 13: Like who do you think they incarcerated or are listening to?
Speaker 13: Like they incarcerated are listening to things like the Joe
Speaker 13: Budden podcast, Like they're listening to, you know, places like
Speaker 13: the Breakfast Club, Like that's who they're actually tuning into.
Speaker 13: I know because I go speak at the jails. I
Speaker 13: was at right gu Island a couple of weeks ago
Speaker 13: with Shaka Sin Koor. You know, I know when you
Speaker 13: know these brothers from Rikers Island are writing into the
Speaker 13: breakfast club and telling me, like you know, what they
Speaker 13: like to listen to, what they like to read. So
Speaker 13: if you are trying to reach the incarcerated, you got
Speaker 13: to go where the incarcerated is that.
Speaker 1: I go directly into the prisons as well through a
Speaker 1: teaching program and also through a journalism program I've talked
Speaker 1: about here. Prison journalism is a project that I support.
Speaker 1: So I'm not necessarily trying to talk to Joe Budden
Speaker 1: to talk to the incarcerated. I'm trying to talk directly
Speaker 1: to the incarcerated.
Speaker 3: I don't want to air.
Speaker 1: Out anybody's business, but I got people in my immediate
Speaker 1: family who are the incarcerated, which is another thing I
Speaker 1: think it's important for people to understand.
Speaker 11: I am not.
Speaker 1: I don't think that intellect has anything to do with degrees, pedigree,
Speaker 1: how much money you make, because I saw a lot
Speaker 1: of comps they all make more money than you. I
Speaker 1: know a lot of rich fools, and I know a
Speaker 1: lot of degreed idiots. I've sat across from tables of
Speaker 1: CEOs who I did not find terribly intelligent. I went
Speaker 1: to school with a lot of debutantes that I don't
Speaker 1: find terribly intelligent. It's not ass to them, but I
Speaker 1: wouldn't necessarily put them in that category either. I think
Speaker 1: it's important. I just want people to know I don't
Speaker 1: come from I wasn't born with a silver spoon in
Speaker 1: my mouth.
Speaker 2: I am my family right now.
Speaker 1: I just I'm not of that world. And I don't
Speaker 1: think you know what we called like elitism. I don't
Speaker 1: necessarily think being of that world is a bad thing.
Speaker 1: I don't also don't believe in putting people down because
Speaker 1: you did grow up privileged, or because you did have
Speaker 1: parents who have multiple degrees or money, that none of
Speaker 1: these things.
Speaker 2: Makes you a bad person.
Speaker 6: To me.
Speaker 1: What I find frustrating is when you are not receptive
Speaker 1: or curious. I don't need to talk to people wherever
Speaker 1: you are, whatever your background is. If you're not receptive
Speaker 1: or curious, then you are likely not my audience and
Speaker 1: I'm likely not yours. I am curious about things. I
Speaker 1: can learn from anybody, but I don't necessarily respect everybody's opinion,
Speaker 1: and I don't think all the people say I respect
Speaker 1: everybody's opinion.
Speaker 2: You'se a lie, I don't believe that.
Speaker 9: Go ahead, can you?
Speaker 13: Can you be intellectually curious without respecting everybody's opinion.
Speaker 1: Yes, you're looking at somebody who's intellectually curious without respecting everybody.
Speaker 13: Because I consider myself intellectually and curious. So I'm the
Speaker 13: type of person that I'm gonna hear you out. You know,
Speaker 13: I may not want to hear you again, but I'm
Speaker 13: at least take the opportunity to live listen to you
Speaker 13: at least one time.
Speaker 1: No, there's a gentleman by the name of Corey. He
Speaker 1: is a lovely person. He happens to be schizophrenic and homeless,
Speaker 1: and he's in the front of my building, and he
Speaker 1: has an opinion on everything. And I sit there and
Speaker 1: chat with Corey sometimes just because he's so nice and
Speaker 1: so sweet, and I give him bread because he lightly
Speaker 1: feed the birds. I don't respect Corey's opinion on anything.
Speaker 1: He got opinion on the financial systems and the banks
Speaker 1: and all the things that he wants to tell me about.
Speaker 1: I'm nice to him, I'm kind to him, I give
Speaker 1: him bread. I would be lying to you to say
Speaker 1: I respect Corey's opinion when I have interest you had to.
Speaker 9: Speak to him, you had to speak to him at
Speaker 9: least one time to understand him.
Speaker 1: Yes, I can speak to anybody. I'm never saying I
Speaker 1: don't speak to anybody. But once I ascertain, oh, you
Speaker 1: are not a curious person, once you are saying things
Speaker 1: to me like you're using tricky words, and this isn't
Speaker 1: just a center flipping that conversation, because I'm really trying
Speaker 1: to broaden this out into anybody who's incurious. Once you
Speaker 1: are clear to me that you are not curious about
Speaker 1: what I have to say. And I would inter myself
Speaker 1: when I would interview different like men on the street
Speaker 1: interviews during the Obama race, and people would say the
Speaker 1: most ignorant things to me, or when you would hear
Speaker 1: lazy reporters go out to Trump rallies and they would say, well,
Speaker 1: you know Obama gave Iran millions of dollars. You know
Speaker 1: he's in cahoots with Iran and he's a Muslim. I
Speaker 1: don't respect your opinion anymore now, like you sound like
Speaker 1: a fool, And I'm giving you reason right there in
Speaker 1: real time, challenging you. But I can't fill a cup
Speaker 1: that's already for so now, No, I don't respect your opinion.
Speaker 1: And Bacari said, this is South Carolina saying, but I
Speaker 1: think all black folks say this. If I'm arguing with
Speaker 1: a fool from a distance, you can't tell the difference.
Speaker 1: I don't need to be where fools gather. If somebody
Speaker 1: else feels called to say no, it is my ministry
Speaker 1: to go inform, to go educate this.
Speaker 2: Particular group of people. I would never shit on that, Like,
Speaker 2: that's just not even my way. I'm like, live and
Speaker 2: let live go do it. That's just not what I
Speaker 2: choose to do.
Speaker 13: I understand. I guess the issue comes in. I can't
Speaker 13: believe I'm on here defending the Joe Budden podcast us, right,
Speaker 13: But but I guess the issue is I don't think
Speaker 13: fools go together at the Joe Budden Podcast, Like, I
Speaker 13: don't think anybody I never say that for the record, Yeah,
Speaker 13: I don't think anybody in that room.
Speaker 6: Is a fool.
Speaker 13: And I also feel like, you know, we should be
Speaker 13: happy that people like Mark Lamont Hill want to be
Speaker 13: on big black platforms. I think that's the biggest problem
Speaker 13: I have right now, is that you know, we tend
Speaker 13: to knock, you know, certain platforms when what we should
Speaker 13: be doing is infiltrating those platforms.
Speaker 9: Like you know, I know everybody likes to you know,
Speaker 9: go as Steven A. Smith.
Speaker 13: I want to see more black elected officials, more black politicians,
Speaker 13: you know, uh, more black spiritual leaders, more black activists,
Speaker 13: more black people with something to say about black issues,
Speaker 13: go on platforms like Steven A. Smith, because all the
Speaker 13: white elected officials are taking advantage of it.
Speaker 2: They're taking advantage of it.
Speaker 1: They're laughing at a fool that when people like about
Speaker 1: because I think that's such an important point. White politicians
Speaker 1: are going on there because they are elevating him to
Speaker 1: a position and they only do this specifically in the
Speaker 1: black community. They are elevating him into a position that
Speaker 1: he did not earn. He is an expert in sports,
Speaker 1: and so you will have white people all the time
Speaker 1: pluck an entertainer, right, well, he whatever he expert in,
Speaker 1: is not politics, it's.
Speaker 2: Not policy, and.
Speaker 9: He has an audience.
Speaker 1: An audience does not equate to intellect, if we can.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that what you have to say about
Speaker 1: about defendence, go ahead.
Speaker 9: Yeah, I'm not saying it does.
Speaker 13: I'm just saying these audience, these these black people who
Speaker 13: have these large audiences. Instead of sitting on the sidelines
Speaker 13: complaining about them having a large audience and who didn't
Speaker 13: learn what how.
Speaker 9: About go on that platform and deliver some of that truth?
Speaker 13: Are some of that intellect that you have to his audience,
Speaker 13: Like even if you sit around and you talk about
Speaker 13: you know, you saying about the person that you that
Speaker 13: sits outside of a stoop and they have a lot
Speaker 13: of misinformation, are you talking about the people that were
Speaker 13: saying the things about Obama? Those people will continue to
Speaker 13: have misinformation if somebody doesn't go to them and inform them.
Speaker 1: But this was the point that miss, let me, let
Speaker 1: me just respond, please, This is the point that maybe you, miss,
Speaker 1: I'm saying when I'm trying to inform you, when I'm saying, no,
Speaker 1: that is actually not true about Obama, and somebody say
Speaker 1: yes it is because Okay, you are not curious at that.
Speaker 2: You are not right.
Speaker 1: I can't feel your bucket is full. You don't want
Speaker 1: to hear what I have to say. Number two, I'm
Speaker 1: not complaining about anyone having a large audience. I'm complaining
Speaker 1: about who his audience is. He has a large audience
Speaker 1: of mostly conservative, white folks, and they are treating him.
Speaker 4: This is no.
Speaker 9: Tiffany.
Speaker 13: Do you have statistics that say Stephen A. Smith's audience
Speaker 13: is majority conservatives?
Speaker 1: I do Nielsen ratings or his ESPN show. Nielsen Ratings
Speaker 1: qualifies that.
Speaker 9: Well, no, that's the ESPN. I'm talking about his podcast
Speaker 9: because most of the time of these funerals, I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't know his podcast. I just know he built
Speaker 1: his audience on a majority of white people. So I
Speaker 1: don't and I would I would love to dig into
Speaker 1: and I'm happy to come on here next week because
Speaker 1: I would love somebody to prove to me that his
Speaker 1: audience is a majority of black people.
Speaker 13: That's a feeling, but that's a fact. So does that
Speaker 13: make you anti intellectual because you're spewing feelings?
Speaker 1: You know, I'm gonna respond to It's literally five minutes
Speaker 1: left in the conversation. I want to respond to what
Speaker 1: he said. Weigh in, but I'm going to respond to
Speaker 1: this he said, that's a feeling or an opinion. Not necessarily,
Speaker 1: it's somewhat informed because if you look at who his audience,
Speaker 1: how he built his audience, the suggestion that a majority
Speaker 1: of his audience would be comprised of black people is
Speaker 1: not a well informed one. It's it's logic to say
Speaker 1: most of his audience are white people. Are you suggesting
Speaker 1: that most of his audience are black people.
Speaker 13: I don't know what most of his audience is, but
Speaker 13: I know I started, you know, reading steven A's columns
Speaker 13: when he was writing for the Philadelphia Inquirer, when he
Speaker 13: was covering Allen obviously way back in the day, and
Speaker 13: then I followed him the cold pizzin first Take and
Speaker 13: everything else. I think that this new, you know, political
Speaker 13: Stephen A with a conservative audience is relatively new, so
Speaker 13: I would before these white people were talking about him.
Speaker 13: It was majority black people in the barbershop that was
Speaker 13: talking about steven A. But I'm just talking about the
Speaker 13: audience in general. Like you said Mark la mont Hill
Speaker 13: shouldn't be on Joe budden show, why you actually said
Speaker 13: You actually said he should be on CNN.
Speaker 1: Yes, So that's the difference between saying he should not
Speaker 1: be on Joe Budden. I'm saying he should be on
Speaker 1: CNN because he should have never gotten fired from CNN.
Speaker 1: If Mark is happy on Joe Budden's podcast, more power
Speaker 1: to it. What I said was they lack an understanding
Speaker 1: of Mark. I felt like he's disrespected on that podcast
Speaker 1: based on clips that I had seen what Angela said,
Speaker 1: and Angela caught a lot of strays for things I said,
Speaker 1: so I wanted to be clear. What Angela reference was
Speaker 1: a moment where they dismissed his humanity on that show
Speaker 1: when he talked about his friends being killed in Palestine.
Speaker 1: And I do think that is based on what I've seen.
Speaker 1: I do think that is a consistent, consistent pattern where
Speaker 1: I do feel like Mark is not necessarily well received there.
Speaker 2: But Angela once again, other people.
Speaker 9: I just I will say Joe did apologize.
Speaker 3: It's more than just you two in here.
Speaker 2: Just you got a hard out, but you get these
Speaker 2: dudes in here.
Speaker 9: I know, but Joe is crazy, But Joe did apologize
Speaker 9: for that moment.
Speaker 3: I get to all that if we sort I want.
Speaker 2: We can continue, Charlene, and.
Speaker 4: To be continued, you trying to talk twenty minutes ago,
Speaker 4: I got to like one, you got time got.
Speaker 3: That's crazy.
Speaker 6: I was just appreciating watching the mini pod that.
Speaker 1: I know, the Invisible Man, Robert's a good conversation.
Speaker 6: It was it was all right, the only the only uh,
Speaker 6: My only criticism of us, I think as we approach
Speaker 6: these discussions is that we are part of that intellectual
Speaker 6: curiosity that we all must have. We must be able
Speaker 6: to accept criticism without necessarily being defensive, and that being
Speaker 6: our immediate posture to it. And one of the things
Speaker 6: that I saw in the comments, and one of the
Speaker 6: things that I saw when Joe Button was making those comments,
Speaker 6: is we want to be individuals that people come to.
Speaker 6: It's in our phrase, it's welcome home, that feel as
Speaker 6: if there is a comfort level to come in to
Speaker 6: our doors and hear the things we have to say,
Speaker 6: and whether or not we're talking about it from a
Speaker 6: respect perspective or intellect perspective. I think that throughout that conversation,
Speaker 6: it's not that we can't sit out here and be like,
Speaker 6: I'm sorry you felt that way, because that's like human
Speaker 6: gut gas lighting. We have to acknowledge that there were
Speaker 6: people who felt foreclosed from a conversation because of our tone,
Speaker 6: ten or vocabulary. And how do we make sure that
Speaker 6: these are some of the people that we do want
Speaker 6: to reach, or at least I want to reach. That
Speaker 6: may not be everybody's ministry, but I would like to meet.
Speaker 6: I would like to have some of those listeners from
Speaker 6: Joe that are like, you know, maybe maybe we can
Speaker 6: come over there too, maybe there's an hour we can
Speaker 6: spend there too, And that may never happen, but uh,
Speaker 6: you know, that's just kind of my perspective on it.
Speaker 6: And I feel like the only other thing that I
Speaker 6: felt was like weird, and I know we don't do that,
Speaker 6: and we fixed it, but I was glad that we
Speaker 6: didn't necessarily stick with using you know that Joe Button
Speaker 6: in the title and y'all had my face. It was handsome,
Speaker 6: but we had like Joe Button in the title.
Speaker 3: On you get to that be don't be trying to
Speaker 3: scoop me be.
Speaker 9: I told Angela that too.
Speaker 6: I was like, you know what I'm it was first,
Speaker 6: but it was my face and I didn't know, and
Speaker 6: I just felt like I just felt like, right, damn.
Speaker 5: Description, because I don't have no no problem.
Speaker 3: So we had our thumbnail.
Speaker 4: What but car is talking about is the thumbnail for
Speaker 4: last week's show, said Joe Button's podcast and the dumbing
Speaker 4: down of America and Bacari's standing there in the middle
Speaker 4: getting the haze up.
Speaker 3: He did for another too much, so he was in
Speaker 3: the middle of it, and I think that what what
Speaker 3: we did wrong, and I do want to.
Speaker 4: I do want to apologize to Joe Button's cast, to
Speaker 4: their team, to their production company for that title. I'm
Speaker 4: an EP on this show and so I own that wholeheartedly.
Speaker 4: We should have titled it differently. Maybe they wouldn't have
Speaker 4: looked at it. But they they got us back. They
Speaker 4: got the whole podcast taken down for copyright and fishment
Speaker 4: because we actually used their clip. They only took that
Speaker 4: clip out. It's still under challenge. We reposted it without
Speaker 4: the clip, but I would just say to them, well played.
Speaker 4: But I do apologize for titling the podcast.
Speaker 5: Maybe we should for that purpose though. I mean, the
Speaker 5: conversation we had was about the dumbing down.
Speaker 4: But I think that what they took offense to is
Speaker 4: that it looked like we were saying that they are
Speaker 4: responsible for the dummy.
Speaker 3: Well, we all apologize, thanks Tiff.
Speaker 5: Well, I don't apologize one. I don't necessarily credit all
Speaker 5: of us with wanting to be curious. I think we
Speaker 5: have to declare that for ourselves and then act that
Speaker 5: way if it's a true statement.
Speaker 7: Too.
Speaker 5: Typically, I'm never confused about what perspective you're coming from,
Speaker 5: because you kind of stated very clearly every time you
Speaker 5: say a thing, and it is often clear, I think
Speaker 5: to the audience. You know how you'll have relatives or
Speaker 5: uncles or friends who you're like, they don't suffer fools Like,
Speaker 5: that's just not the uncle you're gonna go to to
Speaker 5: bring up that kind of mess with. And I don't
Speaker 5: necessarily take offense from that uncle. I just know what
Speaker 5: I'm getting when I walk in the door, that that's
Speaker 5: not the one who's gonna play with Nichols with me.
Speaker 5: He don't believe woulden Nichols are wooden, and therefore we're
Speaker 5: not gonna play a game with the where the where
Speaker 5: the Nikels are wooden? Tiff, You're kind of that for
Speaker 5: me as it relates to this show. And I don't
Speaker 5: think you hold yourself out there as being something that's
Speaker 5: you're not one either curious about the things that are
Speaker 5: incurious to you. That's not to say you're not curious
Speaker 5: about things, but things that you've determined to be in
Speaker 5: curious to you. You don't want to go the next
Speaker 5: layer layer. And if many of us are being honest,
Speaker 5: there's some people we're not gonna waste time with or
Speaker 5: issues upon because it doesn't say she had us in
Speaker 5: any way, form or fashion. And I wish more of
Speaker 5: us would frankly be honest about that part of ourselves,
Speaker 5: Like I'm not going to feign curious. I'm not going
Speaker 5: to and curious. I'm not going to feign interested and
Speaker 5: what it is that everybody has to say because I'm
Speaker 5: not that isn't necessarily my personal testimony. My personal testimony
Speaker 5: is sort of closer to that, to that tank half
Speaker 5: empty versus half full scenario. If you have room in
Speaker 5: your brain, if you've got room in the conversation for
Speaker 5: what I have to contribute, and I mean legitimately, then
Speaker 5: I feel like this is a conversation I can stay
Speaker 5: a part of. But if it becomes very clear to
Speaker 5: me there's no room here for what I have to contribute,
Speaker 5: no matter in what way or at what level of
Speaker 5: substance I do it, then it's a waste of all
Speaker 5: of our times for us to continue that going on.
Speaker 5: I'm actually I didn't know we were at a war
Speaker 5: of words with other podcasts till this morning. My brother
Speaker 5: told me he's a subscriber to Patrina Patreon Patreon, and
Speaker 5: he was like, I was about to cancel my subscription
Speaker 5: if they were go come at you. And I was like,
Speaker 5: who are you talking about, because I don't even know
Speaker 5: who Patreon is. And then you know, we get in
Speaker 5: the dialogue and he's telling me who is what, and
Speaker 5: I'm like, yeah, we said something, but it was a
Speaker 5: response to this. That and the third I say that
Speaker 5: to say, I know, we feel like these things are
Speaker 5: much bigger than what they really are in the in
Speaker 5: the scale and in the frame of the world to everybody,
Speaker 5: but it isn't that serious to a lot of people.
Speaker 5: I hope we can keep this sort of at that level.
Speaker 5: One of the most brilliant things I heard at the
Speaker 5: opening of this topic was from Brother Abram ken Deing,
Speaker 5: where he basically was like he considers the intellectual you know,
Speaker 5: sort of the intellectual drivers and thinkers of our day,
Speaker 5: to be the ones who are the most curious. And
Speaker 5: I thought that was beautiful. And I think it's beautiful
Speaker 5: to the extent that it leads to a pathway of
Speaker 5: greater understanding. But I'm also not down for going on
Speaker 5: the platform that's the largest I don't know that we
Speaker 5: find ourselves in competition in those places, partly because I'm
Speaker 5: not sure what made you the largest. I'm looking around
Speaker 5: at some people's numbers. I'm like, well, God, who juiced
Speaker 5: this machine to make this the outcome. I just think
Speaker 5: we ought to go places that allow us to be ourselves,
Speaker 5: that allow us to state truth. And yes, the truth
Speaker 5: can be challenged, but it's still mine if I've expressed it,
Speaker 5: and then that has some intellectual honesty that they're not
Speaker 5: gas like men. I'm not gaslighting you to think that
Speaker 5: the thing is when it really isn't. And if some
Speaker 5: of those norms can be absorbed, then all cool, Great,
Speaker 5: I'm taking this hot ass sweat off.
Speaker 9: I agree with the last thing you said, Andrew.
Speaker 5: I think that you know the one thing off and
Speaker 5: Floyd in the summertime, I.
Speaker 13: Think the one thing that would keep me from going
Speaker 13: to a place is it's not if it's not a
Speaker 13: good faith conversation. Absolutely, that's the one thing that keep
Speaker 13: me from going to a place. But you said something else.
Speaker 13: You said, people that allow you I think was the
Speaker 13: first thing you said, people that allow you to be
Speaker 13: who you are.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that you don't have to change codes to like
Speaker 5: show up.
Speaker 9: That that's on you.
Speaker 12: No, no, no, no no.
Speaker 5: What I mean by that is you're not welcomed and
Speaker 5: you're not legitimated in the space unless you're splitting certain
Speaker 5: verbs in that verbs, unless you're laying down lines, you know,
Speaker 5: like you're laying down a track. And I'm just saying
Speaker 5: to the extent that that is the environment that's created
Speaker 5: or else you're debased or legitimized in the audit, in
Speaker 5: the eyes of the people you're in discourse with. Then
Speaker 5: it can't be an honest and intellectual conversation in my opinion,
Speaker 5: like I can't, but you can't.
Speaker 9: Want me to.
Speaker 5: It's okay, beca you. If you express a different thought,
Speaker 5: it's totally cool. All I'm saying is is I don't
Speaker 5: want to feel outside of myself in order to enter
Speaker 5: You're right, that is completely controlled by me, Charlemagne, whether
Speaker 5: I feel in or outside of myself. I don't want
Speaker 5: the pressure to be outside of myself in order for
Speaker 5: me to fill at home in the conversation. And I
Speaker 5: can be outside of myself, I can be in environments
Speaker 5: that are completely different every day of the week. I've
Speaker 5: done that. I've run for election in one of the
Speaker 5: most incurious states I think out there right in so
Speaker 5: many ways, so it's not unlike me to be in
Speaker 5: those places. I've never felt the pressure, however, to show
Speaker 5: up as something that I'm that I'm that I'm not.
Speaker 5: And so so long as the conversation can stay legit
Speaker 5: on those various planks, we're good to go. And if
Speaker 5: they can't, I'm not likely going there anyway.
Speaker 6: I just I for me personally, I think that I
Speaker 6: want to stand on something I said earlier, which is
Speaker 6: that in a portion of being intellectually curious, is you
Speaker 6: cannot be above reproach from criticism, understanding that criticism, and
Speaker 6: at least at least sitting in it for a moment
Speaker 6: to see whether or not it's something that can make
Speaker 6: you better, or it's something you cast aside. Is it
Speaker 6: constructive or is it destructive? But the other thing is,
Speaker 6: and I think this is where I'm somewhat disagreeing with
Speaker 6: with with my brother Andrew, is that I have this
Speaker 6: unique belief that Andrew Gillam is the most talented political
Speaker 6: communicator official that I've ever been around. And I say
Speaker 6: that with a great deal of humility, because I think
Speaker 6: I'm really really good at this right and Andrew. But
Speaker 6: Andrew is the only person that I can say that
Speaker 6: I've been around and be like, man, buddy better than
Speaker 6: me at this, Like he gets it, he conceptualized it,
Speaker 6: he puts policy, and he can go and articulate. And
Speaker 6: that is one of the major reasons I disagree with
Speaker 6: you in Tiffany's kind of a thesis here, because I
Speaker 6: think we're missing the moment where it's incumbent upon us
Speaker 6: to meet people where they are. We have a skill
Speaker 6: set and this is not this is not some anti
Speaker 6: intellectual putting us on another play, But I believe that
Speaker 6: there is a skill set which is measured for this moment,
Speaker 6: something that I don't even think that the Chuck Schumer's
Speaker 6: and the King Jeffries, et cetera. Have, But for this
Speaker 6: particular moment where we it's incumbent upon us in a
Speaker 6: responsibility to meet people where they are, and we can't
Speaker 6: disregard who those people are or disregard the platform upon
Speaker 6: which we may meet them. And so I just feel
Speaker 6: that to be a part of the responsibility, even with
Speaker 6: the skill set and talent that I hold all of
Speaker 6: you all up to have, but I just think that
Speaker 6: was important for me to couch Andrew in that discussion,
Speaker 6: so one he knows how I feel about him. But
Speaker 6: to the reason that I say that, yeah, I get
Speaker 6: it right. This shit may be hard, it may be uncomfortable,
Speaker 6: They may not even give you the benefit of their humanity.
Speaker 6: But oftentimes you're not even talking to that individual. You're
Speaker 6: talking to that impressurable mind. That may be somebody that
Speaker 6: you can change, even slightly, if it's a city council race,
Speaker 6: or it's a proposition or whatever it may be. And
Speaker 6: I think we miss that sometimes, understanding that, yeah, protecting
Speaker 6: our piece is something we have to do, but understanding
Speaker 6: your skill set, God's responsibility, the platform we have, I
Speaker 6: would just say in synopsis, never be above reproach to
Speaker 6: criticism and to you know, I think that we have
Speaker 6: to accept the challenge of meeting people.
Speaker 9: With Are are we using the word intellectual wrong?
Speaker 13: Because because what y'all should be saying is academic, right,
Speaker 13: Because intellectual is just to be able to think, reason
Speaker 13: and understand objectively.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 13: Like I think what y'all are saying is y'all y'all
Speaker 13: are talking about academics like anybody. Joe is an intellectual.
Speaker 13: Joe Budden is one of the most prolific rappers ever.
Speaker 13: Joe Joe probably got a better macabulat.
Speaker 9: Than all of us. Stop card, Joe Budden can rap
Speaker 9: his ass off.
Speaker 5: Now you're about to make this man hate me because
Speaker 5: I'm about to be.
Speaker 9: Remember from the one song, But y'all remember Joe from
Speaker 9: the podcast. I remember Joe from Rappings. But I'm just
Speaker 9: saying why.
Speaker 3: Leonard think he older than us. Y'all just know him
Speaker 3: from the podcast.
Speaker 11: I know him when he had.
Speaker 6: Because you and Leonard are the same age and the
Speaker 6: rest of us are young.
Speaker 4: First of all, you're younger junior down Andrew, you've been
Speaker 4: trying to get in.
Speaker 5: After that, I want to get back to quick, which
Speaker 5: was simply say I haven't disqualified any platform. In particular.
Speaker 5: I talked about a couple of planks that I need
Speaker 5: to be in place for me to be anywhere, and
Speaker 5: that's not to disqualify a place. And I and I
Speaker 5: and I generically think that, yeah, it does require. All
Speaker 5: communication requires at a certain level, meeting people where they
Speaker 5: are if each side is going to be heard. I
Speaker 5: just don't always. I don't always. That doesn't always equal
Speaker 5: to me the glass half empty side of the equation
Speaker 5: every time. Meeting people where they are doesn't require them
Speaker 5: dumbing down or me smartening up necessarily. The way I
Speaker 5: consider what it means to meet somebody where they are
Speaker 5: is to see that their situation and circumstances might be
Speaker 5: right just like mine, or it might be or me
Speaker 5: maybe the up too, so opposite side of where I am,
Speaker 5: and they still deserve what is a respectful exchange, you know,
Speaker 5: off jump, I people don't have to use the same
Speaker 5: vocabulary as me. For us, we meet met each other
Speaker 5: where we are. We don't have to go to the
Speaker 5: same schools. And I've never credentialed myself by education. I
Speaker 5: think I probably carry the lowest amongst it, amongst my
Speaker 5: siblings who have been educated, amongst my friend base who
Speaker 5: have been educated, so.
Speaker 9: That you don't count anyway.
Speaker 5: On that point. So I don't think those are righteous
Speaker 5: criteria in my opinion. I don't think your degrees are
Speaker 5: righteous criteria for me. I don't think where your parents
Speaker 5: come from, what was before and after your name or
Speaker 5: righteous criteria for me. My criteria are much more a
Speaker 5: humane and basic level of entry than that.
Speaker 4: So if we're saying, Leonard, you raised that you thought
Speaker 4: we were saying we met academic when we said intellectual,
Speaker 4: and I don't think any of us think that. Is
Speaker 4: there a way that we're defining And I'm saying we
Speaker 4: are very loosely because we all clearly have very different
Speaker 4: opinions here, But is there a way that you're hearing
Speaker 4: any of us describe or define intellectual that is striking
Speaker 4: you as more actandemic?
Speaker 3: And if you can't explain that, that would be helpful.
Speaker 9: I mean, I think the whole conversation.
Speaker 13: But that's what's so interesting because Mark isn't on that
Speaker 13: show to be an academic, you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 13: Marcus on that show talking about pop culture, Marcus on
Speaker 13: that show talking about you know, women like he's just
Speaker 13: talking about regular things that they would normally be talking
Speaker 13: on that show.
Speaker 9: And then when the conversation, you know, turns to something
Speaker 9: that might be around.
Speaker 13: Social justice or you know, activism or you know politics,
Speaker 13: then he comes in and he's Mark Lamont Hill to academic.
Speaker 13: But I think a lot of us look at Mark
Speaker 13: a certain way, and so you think that's what Mark
Speaker 13: is doing on when it's not.
Speaker 9: That's why I say him and Flip can have that brotherly,
Speaker 9: you know, kurk.
Speaker 13: Fuffle that back and forth because that's how they they
Speaker 13: get down on the show, like they talk about things
Speaker 13: that happen behind the scenes, they bring it to the
Speaker 13: podcast and they're able to have those type of interactions.
Speaker 13: But that wasn't an academic debate like to where where
Speaker 13: Mark was using some you know, fifteen letter words and
Speaker 13: Flip was confused about the words.
Speaker 9: That was that was just some nigga ship.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well we talked about that because I heard from
Speaker 1: a lot of men who are Joe Budden podcast listeners,
Speaker 1: and what they said to me, Leonard is there are
Speaker 1: so few spaces for black men to gather. There are
Speaker 1: so few spaces where black men can go and exhale
Speaker 1: and be themselves. And what they said is, you know
Speaker 1: that Mark Lamont Hill and Flip exchange is so common.
Speaker 1: They're like Tiffany. That's happening everywhere across barbershops right now,
Speaker 1: on street corners, everywhere. And the intimation was, and I
Speaker 1: receive it, but the intimation was, you were weighing in
Speaker 1: on something that you don't touch. You're weighing in on
Speaker 1: a culture of that exists between black men that you
Speaker 1: that's exactly what they said, I'm from we.
Speaker 4: Now apparently share a vagina, were the same person, and
Speaker 4: why all of what Tiff said. I also said, they
Speaker 4: can't even distinguish between the two us because they're like,
Speaker 4: why y'all in the.
Speaker 1: Angel caught a lot of straits or things I said,
Speaker 1: But I did receive what black men were saying, and
Speaker 1: they were saying, like, don't you do some like, you know,
Speaker 1: ignorant shit because they acknowledge, like, yeah, some ignoran shit
Speaker 1: on that show, But so what is our ignorant shit?
Speaker 2: And it's for us?
Speaker 13: And you know, no, I didn't look at it as
Speaker 13: a gender thing at all. It was literally just just
Speaker 13: a black Yeah, it was just it was just a
Speaker 13: black community thing.
Speaker 5: To me.
Speaker 13: It was like, yo, man, if we're trying to build community,
Speaker 13: and we need community.
Speaker 9: Now more than ever. Like, it's not even about knocking
Speaker 9: the platform.
Speaker 13: I don't think you should knock the platform, but don't
Speaker 13: don't knock Mark's role on that platform, because I think
Speaker 13: Mark's role on that platform is very important.
Speaker 9: I think when you got there, when.
Speaker 13: You command the type of audience that you know, Joe
Speaker 13: Budden has for all the type of issues that will
Speaker 13: be you know coming up and have been coming up
Speaker 13: over the last ten months, and we'll.
Speaker 9: Be coming up for the next few years. You need
Speaker 9: somebody like him.
Speaker 5: And that just beef with our conversation about it was
Speaker 5: I felt like we may have positioned marks like the
Speaker 5: guy fighting out of the corner, you know, the keep,
Speaker 5: and I was thinking, which is why I said, I
Speaker 5: wish we could interpret what we think is being said.
Speaker 5: And I think where we into the conversation was like
Speaker 5: each of those men knew exactly what was being said,
Speaker 5: what shot was being fired across which bow, and they
Speaker 5: were prepared to meet each other at that respective place.
Speaker 5: There were no fools, there were no there was no
Speaker 5: confusion about the words exchange or anything like that. I
Speaker 5: just felt like each man met the moment for for
Speaker 5: what they had going on, for the exchange that was
Speaker 5: going on. And I heard directly from a good friend
Speaker 5: of mine, he's a lawyer. Came it was family home
Speaker 5: company rescued me out of my corpse of a house
Speaker 5: and basically was like, look, man, I'm just saying I
Speaker 5: know it's something shit don't listening to. That's why I
Speaker 5: listened to it. And at the same token, he's subscribing
Speaker 5: to NPR every morning, and it's listening, you know, so
Speaker 5: it doesn't even have to be a fight of amongst hedgemonds,
Speaker 5: Like I'm listening to the smartest thing versus the thing
Speaker 5: you're listening to. It's not how you got downe with
Speaker 5: it at all. It was like it's some nigga ship
Speaker 5: and I love it and that's why I listened to it.
Speaker 5: But I love y'all too, and I listened to that
Speaker 5: on the Native Lamp podcast. And that's the thing that
Speaker 5: I guess frustrates me the most awesome. Yeah, every I
Speaker 5: know y'all, single one of y'all. I'm here in the
Speaker 5: corner like I don't even know what we signed up.
Speaker 13: Even when you look at even when you look at
Speaker 13: the conversation that was happening, Look how the audience is interested.
Speaker 13: There's people who listen to Native who listen to Joe,
Speaker 13: people who listen to Joe who listened to the Native land.
Speaker 13: So that lets you know that Joe y'all are not
Speaker 13: far from each other in any way shape of fact.
Speaker 9: Thing that I think that was my money that was
Speaker 9: that was you.
Speaker 3: Need to get the briefing on not cutting people off
Speaker 3: in the middle of it.
Speaker 6: I mean if I if I don't cut nobody off, yeah,
Speaker 6: it'll just be tiffing and Angelo over and talking about
Speaker 6: I should want like.
Speaker 2: At that point, go ahead, Lena, you are the way.
Speaker 3: Listen, he has a heart out.
Speaker 1: Go ahead, Bakari, and then we'll go ahead, Bakari, and
Speaker 1: then Leonardo closes.
Speaker 6: Now I just want to make sure. I want to
Speaker 6: make sure that listeners know that I don't think we
Speaker 6: say this and I definitely don't believe it that there
Speaker 6: is a huge gulf between you know, what goes on
Speaker 6: over there and where we are and if it is
Speaker 6: a golf Hopefully the conversations we can have, we can
Speaker 6: have them on a certain level, that we can bring
Speaker 6: communities together in the spirit of welcome home instead of
Speaker 6: drive people apart that that is the only thing that
Speaker 6: frustrated me in reading the comments. I felt like we
Speaker 6: put ourselves in a position to and it was you know,
Speaker 6: when you drive people, when you when you jones people
Speaker 6: like I was talking about pump pump, pump it up
Speaker 6: and all that stuff. That's one thing, But to just
Speaker 6: push people away from not having a purpose or seat
Speaker 6: at the table, I think is another. And I think
Speaker 6: that people felt that whether or not that was our
Speaker 6: intention or not, that's literally all it was.
Speaker 13: It's just like the rhetoric seems like y'all were so
Speaker 13: far apart, are you know, you know, y'all look at
Speaker 13: them in a certain way, like, you know, kind of
Speaker 13: looking down on them, And I'm like, no, we should
Speaker 13: be looking.
Speaker 9: At each other, you know, eye to eye, because I
Speaker 9: want to see everything.
Speaker 13: I want to see Mark Lemon Hill on Joe Budden,
Speaker 13: I want to see Angela Rai on steven A because
Speaker 13: I know, you know, whoever wants to go to these platforms,
Speaker 13: whoever we on these platforms. I want to see Bakari
Speaker 13: and steven A have a conversation, even though that might
Speaker 13: not ever happen, Like it's the reason we bring, you know,
Speaker 13: so many different voices on Breakfast Club. It's like, wherever
Speaker 13: the audience is, let's amplify the people who have, you know,
Speaker 13: something to say. Like it's just weird that you know,
Speaker 13: everybody's drawing a line in the sand and we're being
Speaker 13: so divisive to each other as a community. Because if
Speaker 13: we're really trying to build community, let's build community for real.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think I think that we are.
Speaker 4: I think that we do also have to understand that
Speaker 4: everybody plays a different part. So if Tiff is saying
Speaker 4: this is my ministry over here, this is the thing
Speaker 4: that I can do and I do well, then we
Speaker 4: have to trust that somebody else can play their position.
Speaker 3: I really would like for us to get underneath this.
Speaker 4: Blanket labeling that we do of anti intellectualism, of elitism,
Speaker 4: of the boulet, of the democratic shields, Like what is
Speaker 4: beneath all of that?
Speaker 3: And can you really hear people for the distinctions?
Speaker 4: One of my favorite things about this show as long
Speaker 4: as we've been on is that we there's always a distinction.
Speaker 4: There's always a fine point that somebody offers where it
Speaker 4: may even shift my opinion, you know, it really might.
Speaker 4: I was glad when Leonard was like, I want you
Speaker 4: to listen to the show.
Speaker 3: I promise you. I was like, I am not listening
Speaker 3: to their show. I am not listening to it.
Speaker 4: I just knew they were gonna be it was gonna
Speaker 4: be some craziness, and I am so grateful that you
Speaker 4: pushed me to listen to the show, so much so
Speaker 4: that I went into our chat dropped the show link.
Speaker 4: It was like Leonard said, listen to this, here's the
Speaker 4: time stamp. It changed my perspective a lot. On flip
Speaker 4: it changed my person I could feel like I heard
Speaker 4: the pain in Joe. It felt like, no matter how
Speaker 4: high up you get, you never get the recognition you
Speaker 4: truly deserve, which is amongst your people. And that's something
Speaker 4: that whether we have the same degree, went to the
Speaker 4: same school, live in the same area, or make the
Speaker 4: same amount of money, that's something that we all should
Speaker 4: be able to relate to as black folks. So I think,
Speaker 4: if there's nothing else, if we know where our end
Speaker 4: goal is, liberation for black people, even if our means
Speaker 4: is different, that's the conversation I really want to have,
Speaker 4: and it's the one that I've been in earnest having
Speaker 4: for several months now since this terrorist cuts off.
Speaker 13: Imagine if Bakari and tiff never went on Abbey Phillips show.
Speaker 2: Think get about that I'm conflicted about and we need
Speaker 2: you in that space.
Speaker 9: You're great in that space.
Speaker 13: Because if you weren't there, how many things would just
Speaker 13: go would just fly and people would probably just take
Speaker 13: his gospel if Tiffany wasn't there to dispute it.
Speaker 9: If Bakari wasn't there to dispute it.
Speaker 13: Like think about Obama going on O'Reilly back in the day,
Speaker 13: Think about John Stewart going on Fox News back in
Speaker 13: the day. Imagine if people didn't go in those spaces
Speaker 13: to combat some of the bullshit.
Speaker 9: I think that we need to be everywhere there's eyeballs.
Speaker 13: We need to be everywhere our people are listening, because
Speaker 13: you know that truth does get the people.
Speaker 9: And you may not see it in that moment. Yeah
Speaker 9: you might.
Speaker 13: You might be in that studio and feel like you
Speaker 13: just wasted your time because you was arguing with somebody.
Speaker 13: But think about the millions of people that are at
Speaker 13: home watching. Are the millions of people that are at
Speaker 13: home listening they're getting something from it. They're like, damn yo, Macari,
Speaker 13: Really you know said some ship last night on seeing
Speaker 13: in a Tiffany?
Speaker 9: Really doesn't it last night? On seeing it? And like
Speaker 9: you need that?
Speaker 13: Mark sets in on Joe Budden podcast. I personally feel
Speaker 13: like you you need that, and I don't think we
Speaker 13: should we should knock it.
Speaker 1: Ever, Well, I have I have thought some questions on that,
Speaker 1: but that's a conversation. I don't have to text you
Speaker 1: about because I'm I'm I'm seriously conflicted about going on
Speaker 1: that show. We've talked about it a little bit here, but.
Speaker 13: Angela stopped listening to Angela and it will probably be
Speaker 13: she can testify.
Speaker 2: No, don't listen to me.
Speaker 4: No, I make my She's not intellectually curious about what
Speaker 4: I have to say on this top.
Speaker 1: On this topic, Angela think we all need to be
Speaker 1: on there or as a no go, So that's something different.
Speaker 3: I think Angela's was the agreement.
Speaker 2: Yes, but I have I have.
Speaker 1: Conflict about going on that show, Charla Mane, because I
Speaker 1: think it is dangerous the way that they are platforming
Speaker 1: literal white supremacists, and not everybody deserves my audience, not
Speaker 1: everybody deserves my debate, and so it does feel icky
Speaker 1: to me, Like I watch people on there when you
Speaker 1: are getting to the point where you debate in slavery.
Speaker 1: Something about that does feel beneath me. And I don't
Speaker 1: think it's anything wrong with feeling that way, or even
Speaker 1: somebody does think is wrong. Then that's just where I stand,
Speaker 1: and I'm just on the wrong.
Speaker 2: Side of you.
Speaker 6: But let me also let me also, I mean, it's
Speaker 6: it's one of the only shows where you have whatever
Speaker 6: however you want to describe people where you have that
Speaker 6: cross section of individuals that are there. But also like,
Speaker 6: we have to not come from a place where we
Speaker 6: are foreclosing on platforms we won't go to like we
Speaker 6: we have to. I mean, you're too talented. I mean
Speaker 6: I feel like I said the same thing about Andrew,
Speaker 6: Like we there. It seems like we we always come
Speaker 6: up with a litany or list of like I'm not
Speaker 6: gonna go there. I have, but we have to be
Speaker 6: willing to take our talents in these spaces, not quite
Speaker 6: come as you are a type of deal, but take
Speaker 6: your talents in these spaces and be willing to Yeah,
Speaker 6: have these discussions and realize that at the end of
Speaker 6: the day, it's not about changing that person's mind that's
Speaker 6: sitting at the table from you. At the end of
Speaker 6: the day, it's about talking to the broader audience that
Speaker 6: is thirsting during this vacuum for somebody like Tiffany Cross
Speaker 6: and so I wasn't a part of those conversations. But
Speaker 6: let me just ask you to, you know, politely, reconsider
Speaker 6: that notion. Just if you're weighing as a balance, I
Speaker 6: want you to reconsider it because the need is probably
Speaker 6: greater than the can then the condemnation you may have
Speaker 6: for the particular person you may be may be there with.
Speaker 9: I think.
Speaker 13: Tif gave the best example, Tiffany, you gave the best example,
Speaker 13: that Slavery example. Imagine somebody wasn't there to combat that
Speaker 13: because there are people peple out there who believe it.
Speaker 13: There's people out there who actually believe what that young
Speaker 13: lady said. It's actually people out there who think just
Speaker 13: like her. So somebody has to be out there to
Speaker 13: give the real information.
Speaker 9: That they're not.
Speaker 1: For platforming that person because seeing they should not be
Speaker 1: putting them on. To me, that's where I began my
Speaker 1: broadcast journalism career, and it is abhorrent to me to
Speaker 1: witness them devolve into that kind of thing. It is
Speaker 1: not actually healthy political discourse. It is a Jerry Springer
Speaker 1: like segment where you literally will have a white supremacist
Speaker 1: sitting across from somebody like me, or you'll literally have
Speaker 1: Scott James regurgitating white supremacist attitudes, policies, politics, et cetera.
Speaker 1: And I'm supposed to legitimize this point by debating him.
Speaker 1: It's not necessarily you know, like I shouldn't be a
Speaker 1: part of the debate. It is this news organization should
Speaker 1: not be putting setting up that kind of conversation.
Speaker 2: I think that's a disgrace.
Speaker 5: I agree with you to this parameters. I don't don't
Speaker 5: think this is pick on tiffany day, but I'll just
Speaker 5: say definitely at the that and I said this to
Speaker 5: you directly, that we have to check ego a lot
Speaker 5: of times and a lot of these spaces and to
Speaker 5: the if the most salient point, like echoing in your
Speaker 5: mind is this person doesn't deserve me across from them,
Speaker 5: I just say that's the wrong part of the that's
Speaker 5: not a place to begin in the conversation.
Speaker 1: They may not stand down ten toes down. I don't
Speaker 1: know why supremisist does not deserve.
Speaker 2: They don't deserve And as.
Speaker 5: You are, all I'm simply saying is is we have
Speaker 5: to challenge our own ego and some of it. And
Speaker 5: I don't think it's ego to not when we say
Speaker 5: this person does deserve.
Speaker 1: To be, Oh, well, then I guess I got an
Speaker 1: ego because that's me. That's that's where I draw a car.
Speaker 5: I don't want to deride it. I don't want to
Speaker 5: really drive us down in the conversation. I apologize for
Speaker 5: moving us that direction. This is meant and and and
Speaker 5: real love for you, and not just for you, but
Speaker 5: for all of us. Because I have to do it myself.
Speaker 5: I'm like, I've debated at that level before, I've debated
Speaker 5: above that level. There's no reason for me to have
Speaker 5: a legitimate, a legitimate person who sympathizes with white supremacists,
Speaker 5: as I said in the debate, one who if if
Speaker 5: I'm not calling him it, the ones who are it
Speaker 5: seem to believe they're in good company with them, So
Speaker 5: so I get that. But there are people who are
Speaker 5: legit moved by your words, who might be where they
Speaker 5: are and the position of the debate simply because they
Speaker 5: haven't heard the other side. That's all.
Speaker 9: That's it.
Speaker 5: They maybe where they are simply because they don't know
Speaker 5: the fruits of the other side.
Speaker 9: And I gotta run. I gotta run. But I do
Speaker 9: want to say one thing.
Speaker 13: Andrew said something on this podcast a couple of weeks ago,
Speaker 13: and he said he never wanted to be blind sided
Speaker 13: again about what the other side thinks in this country.
Speaker 13: So therefore, when I see these people platformed on the CNNs,
Speaker 13: you know the MSNBC's of course you see them on Fox.
Speaker 13: I watched that because I too want to know what
Speaker 13: other people are thinking. But I am very appreciative when
Speaker 13: there's a Tiffany Cross, when there's a Bacari Sellers or
Speaker 13: whoever to confront that.
Speaker 9: And I will end with this, are we better than
Speaker 9: our ancestors?
Speaker 13: Because I know Malcolm X, James Baldwin, they publicly debated
Speaker 13: the debated white supremacists all the time. They publicly confronted
Speaker 13: white supremacists all the time, and they would smack them
Speaker 13: down with their black intellect and they're black excellence.
Speaker 9: So wherever there's.
Speaker 13: White supremacy on cable TV, I want to see black
Speaker 13: intellect and black excellence like the Tiffany Crosses of the world.
Speaker 9: And I'm glad and I thank you for your service.
Speaker 1: To be continued. This is a conversation that's ongoing. Thank you,
Speaker 1: What are you got to You gave us way more
Speaker 1: time than you had, so thank you Lenar for joining
Speaker 1: the conversation. All right, well, we're moving us right along.
Speaker 1: I think now we got to get into some calls
Speaker 1: to action. We kept you all here for a long time.
Speaker 1: It's a long show today, but we wanted to be
Speaker 1: sure to address this issue because we did read a
Speaker 1: lot of your comments and did hear from a lot
Speaker 1: of you for laying in. So thank you all to
Speaker 1: our viewers, and we also want to let you know
Speaker 1: if you're watching this show or listening, at the end
Speaker 1: of the show, we are going to play Angela Roun's
Speaker 1: a professional development program of young folks, and she asks
Speaker 1: them the way in with their thoughts on the whole
Speaker 1: intellectual debate. So at the end of the show you'll
Speaker 1: be able to hear their thoughts as well. But for
Speaker 1: now we're going to move on to cause to action.
Speaker 5: Who cares about truth?
Speaker 6: On the last more than.
Speaker 1: Okay, we told you it was going to be a
Speaker 1: spirited conversation and it certainly is. Thank you guys for
Speaker 1: sticking with us on a long show today. I do
Speaker 1: want to remind you that please tune into our mini
Speaker 1: pod because we get to sit down with Ajaka Owen's mom.
Speaker 1: She's the subject of a very striking documentary on Netflix,
Speaker 1: The Perfect Neighbor. It was so striking it is number
Speaker 1: one on Netflix right now. It is about a woman
Speaker 1: who was murdered by a white woman who happened to
Speaker 1: be her neighbor, and I encourage you all to watch it,
Speaker 1: but please be sure to tune into Native Lampod's conversation
Speaker 1: with them. And right now we have another that was
Speaker 1: not my call to action. For the record, I have
Speaker 1: another call to action, but I'm gonna kick it off
Speaker 1: with my co host, Angela.
Speaker 2: You want to go first.
Speaker 3: Sure.
Speaker 4: My call to action is to talk to somebody you
Speaker 4: don't agree with this week and really listen. I had
Speaker 4: the opportunity to do that last week, and to listen
Speaker 4: to a podcast that I don't normally listen to.
Speaker 3: It proved to be enlightening. So that is my challenge
Speaker 3: to y'all.
Speaker 2: I like it, Andrew was yours.
Speaker 5: Build your things on things that last, Put your hopes
Speaker 5: on things that last. Put all everything you're building on
Speaker 5: things that last, because slippery is all of the ground.
Speaker 5: And learn from the movements that have actually something to
Speaker 5: teach us. There was a time in this country where
Speaker 5: eighty percent of Americans believed in social security and retirement benefits.
Speaker 5: There was a time in this country where eighty percent
Speaker 5: of the politepole believed in workplace protections. There was a
Speaker 5: time when eighty percent of this country was prepared to
Speaker 5: go after big oligarchs and the wealthiest, consuming as much
Speaker 5: as they could for themselves, and it was a widely
Speaker 5: popular set of ideas, the New Deal, And when the
Speaker 5: New Deal was popular, it was popular amongst over eighty
Speaker 5: percent of Americans until those people realize that those same
Speaker 5: benefits would be extended to black people. And that's when
Speaker 5: the benefit, the support for those benefits dissipated. So check
Speaker 5: out the sum of us. Read a little bit about
Speaker 5: these parts of movements that I think we can build from,
Speaker 5: grow from, learn what we can from them, and leave
Speaker 5: the rest that doesn't serve us behind. Because our only
Speaker 5: pathway out of this is going to be on the
Speaker 5: ground that's solid and that gets shored up by our
Speaker 5: continued activism in this space. At least that's what I believe.
Speaker 5: I'll continue to believe that until a new belief takes over.
Speaker 2: Did you say, build your hopes on the things that.
Speaker 5: Last, Build build everything on the things that last.
Speaker 1: Build everything on it. I just want to get it
Speaker 1: right from when I repeat it like it was my own.
Speaker 1: Everything on the things that last.
Speaker 5: Dream, build it last.
Speaker 1: Build your hopes and dreams on the things that last. Honestly,
Speaker 1: that's beautiful, Andrew, thank you for that. I do want
Speaker 1: to share Bakari. So, Bakari has been going back and forth,
Speaker 1: as I said, because he's in court, but he did
Speaker 1: when he was running out, he did tell us his
Speaker 1: CTA and it was really similar to yours.
Speaker 2: Angela. He said, I need no, no, no.
Speaker 1: He he just said, to basically approach conversations open. I
Speaker 1: think it's all you know, all about our conversations that
Speaker 1: we've had. So he kind of shared his ct and
Speaker 1: his perspective and our conversation with Charlemagne. But essentially he
Speaker 1: was saying, you know, be open to have conversations with people.
Speaker 1: Show go to where people are even you know, no
Speaker 1: matter what your preconceived notions about them. So sorry, b
Speaker 1: if I have butchered your CTA, but next.
Speaker 2: Time, keep your ass here.
Speaker 3: Next time homework.
Speaker 2: But if I mess it up, you can correct me.
Speaker 3: Next week you can do a dis tape on social
Speaker 3: media like you probably.
Speaker 1: Probably we sorry Beyonce from messing up as your backup dancers.
Speaker 1: My ct A is this week in Minnesota, Texas, New York,
Speaker 1: and Pennsylvania. Uh, they are looking at dwindling funds for
Speaker 1: SNAP benefits and uh even Wick which which helps to
Speaker 1: feed over seven million low income mothers and children. Those
Speaker 1: funds are running low. SNAP is of course federally funded,
Speaker 1: but it's administered by the states, and so the shutdown
Speaker 1: impacts the people who get these benefits. So if you
Speaker 1: are able to help in any way feed someone who
Speaker 1: may not have their benefits, who may be too proud
Speaker 1: to ask. You can anonymously leave a bag of groceries
Speaker 1: on their door, mail them food. You can have food
Speaker 1: delivered to them if you feel in fancy, Uber eats
Speaker 1: them dinner for a week. Whatever you can do, even
Speaker 1: if it's somebody you don't know, if you see somebody
Speaker 1: on the news talking about it. However, we can help
Speaker 1: each other in this time. I think it's so incredibly important,
Speaker 1: and I'm cheating because I have another call to action.
Speaker 1: I do want to tell our Native Land Pod audience
Speaker 1: that Angela Rye turns twenty nine years old this week.
Speaker 2: She's celebrating forty six.
Speaker 1: She is turned at forty six this week, and so
Speaker 1: we want to wish our dear sister a happy birthday.
Speaker 1: I hope that you spend that day I don't think
Speaker 1: you will, but I hope you spend that day doing
Speaker 1: nothing in service to anyone but yourself.
Speaker 3: Like to go to sleep.
Speaker 2: Okay, is that what you're planning on doing? Sleeping?
Speaker 3: I do think so.
Speaker 4: And I was like, for my birthday, wish is for
Speaker 4: Andrew to get well, because I'm watching him blow his nose.
Speaker 3: It's so nice.
Speaker 2: He's been sweating the whole show.
Speaker 1: Andrew's been fighting bickness since last week because the show.
Speaker 3: Last week, ever, he got well. Here's what you know.
Speaker 3: I'm not gonna do my birthday be around Andrew because
Speaker 3: I do not want whatever.
Speaker 1: Angel You need some rest, and Andrew and Angela you
Speaker 1: need celebration. I will say, you guys know the Machetes
Speaker 1: always we are a very giving, loving, supportive group of girlfriends,
Speaker 1: and so you do. You have something coming your way
Speaker 1: from us, But I won't say what it is. We
Speaker 1: can talk about it later. But if you guys catch
Speaker 1: this on numberfore Sunday, be sure to wish Angela a
Speaker 1: very happy birthday. I will be tweeting out her personal
Speaker 1: cell phone number so you can tell her directly. Stay
Speaker 1: tuned for that. And as always, we want to remind
Speaker 1: everybody if you like what you heard today, and I
Speaker 1: really hope you did, because we've been Andrew's stripping.
Speaker 2: I don't know what's happening. He's getting undressed. I was
Speaker 2: distracted though, like I saw Andrew stripping. I don't know
Speaker 2: it's happening. But uh, we're here for it, Andrew, We're
Speaker 2: here for it, not.
Speaker 5: Go straight.
Speaker 1: But no, that is why I know you said because
Speaker 1: you've been hot and cold, Andela being rude talking about you.
Speaker 1: If you liked any part of this conversation, truly, I
Speaker 1: just wanted to say all of us really appreciated reading
Speaker 1: your comments, hearing from you all, So please share the video.
Speaker 1: Tell a friend about the podcast. You know, some people
Speaker 1: were complaining, like, oh, you guys are doing this for clicks.
Speaker 1: We talk about things of substance. You know, Angela had
Speaker 1: a great interview with Jenny Nelson. Please, by all means
Speaker 1: go flood that clip with comments. I don't know he's
Speaker 1: going through menopause.
Speaker 2: He's like chill.
Speaker 5: Menopause shows up in all different phases. To be guilty.
Speaker 5: But no, I was shaking my head your comment about
Speaker 5: they're just doing that for clicks.
Speaker 1: I'm like, click for who We'll just we're saying like
Speaker 1: we wanted more viewers, and of course we always do,
Speaker 1: and that's that's why we show not by any means
Speaker 1: and certainly not by being messy, but but having a
Speaker 1: very healthy exchange of ideas and ideology, which we do
Speaker 1: on this show every week about things of Stuffarence. Okay,
Speaker 1: we got two minutes before we got to be out
Speaker 1: of the studio, so I just want to tell everybody
Speaker 1: that there are other clips and things that we would
Speaker 1: love to have from this week that we discussed that
Speaker 1: we would love to hear from you on. Feel free
Speaker 1: to drop a video, drop a question, share the video. Also,
Speaker 1: please check out other choices on Reason Choice Media. Our
Speaker 1: girl Jamil Hill shout out to the Macheties, she hosts
Speaker 1: Politics and Si Cup hosts Off the Cup and I
Speaker 1: know it's the edition which we talked about Noah de
Speaker 1: Borasso with the more you know, and please be sure
Speaker 1: to give us a follow on all our platforms.
Speaker 2: We certainly heard.
Speaker 1: From a lot of you, so you just showed up
Speaker 1: to make a comment on our alleged beef. We hope
Speaker 1: that you will stick around for the substance that we
Speaker 1: try to offer on this show every week.
Speaker 2: I don't know how.
Speaker 1: Many days there are until midterm elections, because at this point, Oh,
Speaker 1: Angela's telling me there are three hundred and seventy six days,
Speaker 1: which is almost a year. Isn't that crazy? Three hundred
Speaker 1: and seventy six days left until midterm elections. I'm not
Speaker 1: sure if we're gonna have free and fair elections, but
Speaker 1: certainly now's the time to be informed and stay focused
Speaker 1: on what's happening while we prepare for the worst to come.
Speaker 2: Thank you guys for joining us. We are your hosts.
Speaker 1: Bakari Sellers allegedly is somewhere fighting a good fight in
Speaker 1: the courtroom. Andrew Gillam, who is going through the menopause
Speaker 1: hot and cold. We send our prayers. Angela Rai, who
Speaker 1: is getting ready to turn up for her birthday, and
Speaker 1: by turn up, I mean turn it down, getting comfy
Speaker 1: in the bed, relaxing. We're on down for what she
Speaker 1: deserves it. And Tiffany Cross, thank you guys for tuning in.
Speaker 14: Welcome Home, Welcome Home to the Native Landing on the
Speaker 14: podcast space Tess and for greatness sixteen minutes it's so hit,
Speaker 14: not too long for the crazy ships. High level combo
Speaker 14: politics in a way that you could taste it then
Speaker 14: got chested. Politics touches you will and if you don't
Speaker 14: touch it, so get invested across the t's and dop
Speaker 14: the i's, kill them back to get them staying on
Speaker 14: business with ride. You could have been anywhere, but you
Speaker 14: truset us natively and podcast the brand that you can
Speaker 14: trust you.
Speaker 4: Hey, everybody, So, because we had such a long, in
Speaker 4: depth conversation today, we're actually gonna move some of our
Speaker 4: viewers questions and comments over to our sub stack. We
Speaker 4: invite you to continue the conversation over there, real or
Speaker 4: perceived beef whatever. We're broadening out this conversation into what
Speaker 4: it means to be an intellectual, what it means to
Speaker 4: find common ground with all of us, so that we're
Speaker 4: not excluding anyone. We are not engaged in the math
Speaker 4: the power politics of subtraction or division. We are engaged
Speaker 4: in additional multiplication and for that reason we want to
Speaker 4: hear your thoughts. Go over and leave your comments, let
Speaker 4: us know what you think, send us a video as
Speaker 4: you normally do, and hopefully we'll see you over there
Speaker 4: on substance.
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