Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and welcome to wok F Daily with
Speaker 1: Meet your Girl Danielle Moody right here live from the
Speaker 1: Long Island Bunker. You know. This week, I want to
Speaker 1: take a different approach to the show where I'm going
Speaker 1: to have in depth conversations with folks across different industries
Speaker 1: to discuss exactly how COVID is impacting them, from education
Speaker 1: to the judiciary to television. I am going to have
Speaker 1: in depth discussions with the folks about how we are
Speaker 1: dealing with this and what are some of the opportunities.
Speaker 1: Frankly that can come out of this obstacle. Look like
Speaker 1: everybody else, on a day to day basis, I probably
Speaker 1: swing from mood you know A to mood Z in
Speaker 1: a matter of minutes, if not ours. And so one
Speaker 1: of the things that has been pressing on me though
Speaker 1: is successful people usually in the midst of some type
Speaker 1: of crisis. They become successful because they find the niche,
Speaker 1: they find the right wave to ride at the right time.
Speaker 1: This is not about profiting off of people's pain, but
Speaker 1: it is about rethinking our democracy, rethinking our society, looking
Speaker 1: at where all of the gaps have been that we
Speaker 1: have just normalized, right like it has been normal to
Speaker 1: us that there are people that hold a majority of
Speaker 1: the world's wealth, like ten people right that hold a
Speaker 1: majority of the world's wealth while the rest of us
Speaker 1: are starving. Right, We have normalized the fact that your
Speaker 1: zip code can determine your life expectancy and whether you'll
Speaker 1: end up in jail, whether or not you'll end up
Speaker 1: with a college degree, whether or not you'll end up
Speaker 1: with high blood pressure. We have normalized the idea that
Speaker 1: there are some people that will have to work two
Speaker 1: four jobs in order to make ends meet. We have
Speaker 1: normalized the idea that we don't have a national living
Speaker 1: wage for people, right, even though those are the very
Speaker 1: people that are continuing to keep us fed right and
Speaker 1: keep us in our homes because we're able to go
Speaker 1: to the grocery store, because they're taking care of our
Speaker 1: elderly that we're no longer able to visit. There are
Speaker 1: so many things, in so many aspects of life that
Speaker 1: we have taken for granted because somebody else was doing them.
Speaker 1: So in the midst of this crisis, instead of just
Speaker 1: focusing on the crisis, maybe for a little bit of
Speaker 1: the time, we should start thinking about what are some
Speaker 1: of the opportunities available to make things actually better. So
Speaker 1: let's start at the top with woke a F Daily. Today,
Speaker 1: we're going to be in conversation with our regular woke
Speaker 1: F contributor Melissa Murray, who is a constitutional law professor
Speaker 1: at NYU and she also hosts the podcast that focuses
Speaker 1: on the Supreme Court. And why do I love to
Speaker 1: talk to Melissa? One because she is brilliant, but two
Speaker 1: because she has an ability to look at and analyze
Speaker 1: the world in a very different way, particularly as it
Speaker 1: pertains to law. But also we got into a very
Speaker 1: interesting conversation about what this current moment is telling us
Speaker 1: about working moms right about what structures are in place
Speaker 1: for parents right now. What happens if you are living
Speaker 1: in a Georgia, if you were living in a Texas,
Speaker 1: so if you're living in a Wisconsin. States that are
Speaker 1: considering or have already opened, but they're not opening up schools,
Speaker 1: what does that mean for working moms Because we know
Speaker 1: that most of the childcare child rearing falls on women.
Speaker 1: So if you now are being forced to go back
Speaker 1: to the workplace, whether or not it is deemed safe,
Speaker 1: whether or not the businesses are abiding by whatever guidelines
Speaker 1: Brian Kemp has put out, What does that mean? How
Speaker 1: does our education system right in this moment need to
Speaker 1: evolve and innovate in a way that has been lacking
Speaker 1: for decades. What are the things in terms of television
Speaker 1: and how we access television, how we access entertainment, how
Speaker 1: we stream services, how we record things. What are the
Speaker 1: things that are going to be changing. Those are the
Speaker 1: conversations that I'm going to be digging into this week
Speaker 1: because I think that it's important. So excited to welcome
Speaker 1: back to wok F Daily Melissa Murray, who is a
Speaker 1: professor at and Why You Law School and also the
Speaker 1: co host of Strict Scrutiny, I, a podcast covering all
Speaker 1: things scotus in the world that you need to be
Speaker 1: paying attention to. Melissa, Welcome back, How are you doing?
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me and doing well? Sheltering in place,
Speaker 1: per usual, per usual. In California, things are going well
Speaker 1: over there. I think things are sort of flattening out
Speaker 1: and there's some talk of reopening. I think some areas
Speaker 1: in Irvine and Newport Beach have opened up, although the
Speaker 1: rest of the state seems to have been taking a
Speaker 1: much slower approach. To reopening more cautious, I mean, and
Speaker 1: rightfully so the same thing with us here in New York.
Speaker 1: Governor Cuomo told us today that maybe construction and manufacturing
Speaker 1: in certain places can open as a phase one, but
Speaker 1: that businesses need to start putting together their plans on
Speaker 1: what they envision reopening to look like. So it seems
Speaker 1: that we're all on that kind of slow role. God
Speaker 1: only knows, Melissa. So last week, the President of the
Speaker 1: United States, in the midst of one of his briefing
Speaker 1: slash rallies, which is more less brief decided to pontificate
Speaker 1: to the American people whether or not injecting disinfectant and
Speaker 1: UV light into the body would rid us of COVID
Speaker 1: nineteen in less than a minute. This is what he said.
Speaker 1: He said it very definitively. He said it at the
Speaker 1: presidential podium in the press room at the White House.
Speaker 1: Doctor Bricks has been asked now several times since the
Speaker 1: White House had to issue a statement saying that, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, it's the liberal media that is making a
Speaker 1: big deal about this, and the President wasn't at all,
Speaker 1: suggesting that it was just him brainstorming. I've never known
Speaker 1: the president of the United States to brainstorm on live television.
Speaker 1: But maybe that is something new. Since then Lisol had
Speaker 1: to issue a statement, Chlorox had to issue a statement.
Speaker 1: Several state health departments have had to issue statements urging
Speaker 1: people not to drink disinfectant or injected into their bodies.
Speaker 1: What are the legal, if any, ramifications around the president
Speaker 1: just popping off at the mouth and then the consistent
Speaker 1: backtracking by this administration. Well, first, let's just acknowledge that
Speaker 1: there were people who took this seriously on a number
Speaker 1: of individuals or hospitalized. I think that just speaks to
Speaker 1: the fear and real desperation that people feel around the pandemic.
Speaker 1: I think there's incredible worry. Even as we sort of
Speaker 1: seem to have qusted about the worst of this in
Speaker 1: the major urban areas, there's still I think incredible fear
Speaker 1: because there's so much that is unknown about this illness,
Speaker 1: like why it happens to be virulent in some individuals,
Speaker 1: whereas in others it just sort of passes without incident.
Speaker 1: I think people are genuinely worried, and we don't really
Speaker 1: know when a vaccine is likely to arrive, and so
Speaker 1: I think people hear this individual who the President of
Speaker 1: the United States, who is in a position of authority,
Speaker 1: and you know, maybe they're not exercising terrific judgment, but
Speaker 1: this is an official mouthpiece of the United States, the
Speaker 1: representative of the United States on a global family saying this,
Speaker 1: and you know, whether he's joking or not, people are
Speaker 1: going to take it seriously because it comes with the
Speaker 1: in premature of the federal government, of the most important
Speaker 1: office in the federal government, and you know, that is
Speaker 1: incredibly unfortunate. The president's spokespersons say that, you know, this
Speaker 1: was a joke, and then they did a sort of
Speaker 1: traditional pivot that often happens when the president's statements come
Speaker 1: in for scrutiny or for challenge. They talked about freedom
Speaker 1: of speech, and I just want to sort of push
Speaker 1: back on this idea that freedom of speech it's just
Speaker 1: kind of an unfettered license to say what you like
Speaker 1: at any time that you like without any consequences, Like,
Speaker 1: that's not the case. There is no liberty that is
Speaker 1: inscribed in the Constitution that is absolutely unfettered. And I
Speaker 1: say this under the best of circumstances when we're talking
Speaker 1: about things like gun rights. Yes, the Constitution provides for
Speaker 1: the right to their arms, but it's not unfettered. It's
Speaker 1: not when you want to without any restrictions. There are
Speaker 1: lots of ways in which they fundamental freedoms that are
Speaker 1: enshrined in the Constitution can be restricted. And so again,
Speaker 1: as with free speech, the president doesn't have unfettered license
Speaker 1: to say what he wants whenever he wants them. Again,
Speaker 1: there's a very famous Supreme Court case. You cannot simply
Speaker 1: yell fire in a slotted theater right. You must take
Speaker 1: into account the impact of that speech on broader public health,
Speaker 1: public safety consequences. And this might be one of those cases. Now,
Speaker 1: whether or not the president can be held into court
Speaker 1: and called to account what he says, I mean, you
Speaker 1: may have lots of sort of procedural limits on whether
Speaker 1: or not the president can be subject to civil suits,
Speaker 1: and lots of constitutional inkis and filled on that. But
Speaker 1: at the very least I think you can say that,
Speaker 1: you know, free speech isn't truly free right, you have
Speaker 1: some limits on it, like you have to exercise this
Speaker 1: liberty in a responsible manner, and all of the case
Speaker 1: law in this arena make clear that that is surely
Speaker 1: the case. I mean It's just terrifying to me that
Speaker 1: this president gets up on a microphone and that there
Speaker 1: are forty percent of the population Melissa believes everything and
Speaker 1: anything that comes out of his mouth. And so the
Speaker 1: idea that one of the first things that people tell
Speaker 1: you when they have kids, what is the first thing
Speaker 1: when your kids are crawling walking? What are you supposed
Speaker 1: to do? Lock all of your medicine cabinets, Lock the
Speaker 1: cabinet underneath the sink where there are harmful and dangerous chemicals.
Speaker 1: And yet this president essentially just said, bust open the
Speaker 1: child locks. Why don't we try and see what happens.
Speaker 1: That is, to me akin to yelling fire in the
Speaker 1: middle of a crowded theater. And then we're supposed to say,
Speaker 1: after the fact, where people are rushing and trampling for
Speaker 1: the door or ingesting things that they should not be ingesting,
Speaker 1: say oh, well, I don't know why you were taking
Speaker 1: anything that the president was saying. Seriously, he was just kidding,
Speaker 1: or it was sarcastic. None of those things were true.
Speaker 1: The tape has been replayed over again, and we watch
Speaker 1: the uncomfortableness of doctor Bricks. But I'm wondering, now, is
Speaker 1: everyone just fearing the loss of a job instead of
Speaker 1: fearing the loss of more dead Americans at the hands
Speaker 1: of a very dangerous and uninformed president. Well, so I
Speaker 1: think we ought to just start generally with our people afraid.
Speaker 1: I think people are really afraid. I think a lot
Speaker 1: of this kind of comes down to root fear and
Speaker 1: I think a lingering suspicion that this administration does not
Speaker 1: have handle on this. And I think we know that,
Speaker 1: and we're all grasping at straws. And maybe you know,
Speaker 1: those individuals who thought it would be a good idea
Speaker 1: to ingest cleaning products because the President said that that
Speaker 1: might be a way to stave off this virus, I
Speaker 1: think that's an action, an act of desperation, an act
Speaker 1: motivated by fear. And it is a fear that I
Speaker 1: think this President has done little to a swage right.
Speaker 1: In fact, you know, he stoked it in a lot
Speaker 1: of ways, or you know, try to sort of pawn
Speaker 1: it up. This is a Chinese virus. There are other
Speaker 1: people to blame for it. Instead of just really sort
Speaker 1: of grappling what we need to whoever cause this, we
Speaker 1: need to get a handle on it. Um, I don't
Speaker 1: know what it means going forward for us, that we
Speaker 1: had forty percent of you know, the electorate who believes
Speaker 1: what he says unwillingly, because I mean, I think, and
Speaker 1: I believe this quite strongly. The whole prospect of democracy
Speaker 1: isn't about unwavering and blind faith and allegiance to a
Speaker 1: charismatic leader. I mean, it's exactly the opposite. The whole
Speaker 1: point of democracy is that you have a citizenry that
Speaker 1: is educated, and I don't mean like it has gone
Speaker 1: to college, but can generally discern for themselves, have other
Speaker 1: sources of allegiance, whether it's religion or their families, beliefs
Speaker 1: that allow them to be skeptical of government and to
Speaker 1: call the government out when it goes too far. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's the vision of democracy that the Framers had. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's why we have protections for freedom of speech, for
Speaker 1: the press. This idea that there should be other sources
Speaker 1: of authority that can challenge the government so that the
Speaker 1: government cannot become so powerful so as to completely overwhelm
Speaker 1: the liberty of the people. And we don't have that
Speaker 1: right now. Instead, what we have is, you know, a
Speaker 1: charismatic leader who's telling everyone to do something and people
Speaker 1: just sort of blindly falling in line and sometimes to
Speaker 1: their detriment. You know. One of the things that I
Speaker 1: keep thinking about, you know, on a day to day basis.
Speaker 1: And again, I'm in New York with the both of
Speaker 1: us are literally functioning under governor's leadership that have sense. Right.
Speaker 1: You're with, you know, with Governor Newsom in California, and
Speaker 1: I'm with Cuomo in New York. And one of the
Speaker 1: things that has been amplified during this time is states rights.
Speaker 1: We're all getting a really good lesson in what states
Speaker 1: have the authority to do and what the federal government
Speaker 1: has the authority to do. And you know, for so
Speaker 1: many years we've all been able to and I mean
Speaker 1: and I mean years, you know, decades upon decades, been
Speaker 1: able to rest on our laurels, understanding that there are
Speaker 1: a myriad of agencies that we don't even know the
Speaker 1: names of that are working on our behalf, and understanding
Speaker 1: the true distinction. What I'm concerned about, however, is that
Speaker 1: the lack of federal leadership in this moment, right is
Speaker 1: not just about the you know, the letting go of
Speaker 1: power and leadership and like acquiescing to the states, but
Speaker 1: I wonder what this looks like moving forward. Right, we
Speaker 1: have I mean, not only in this country has Trump
Speaker 1: the Trump administration essentially thrown up their hands. Right, Governors
Speaker 1: are are conducting treaties, essentially trade agreements, I should say,
Speaker 1: not treaties, trade agreements with foreign leaders in order to
Speaker 1: acquire the ventilators the ppe that they need. Right. And
Speaker 1: Cuomo said the other day last week, it's not our job.
Speaker 1: It's not our job to negotiate with foreign countries, like
Speaker 1: that's the federal government. How do you see the roles
Speaker 1: and the responsibilities between the federal government and the states
Speaker 1: moving forward? Right where we can no longer trust that
Speaker 1: there is going to be any kind of unified leadership,
Speaker 1: and we are literally in a situation where it's everyone
Speaker 1: for themselves. You have Georgia opening, you have Texas getting
Speaker 1: ready to open. Rallies in Wisconsin. New York saying slow
Speaker 1: your role. We're working on a regional situation. California saying
Speaker 1: slow your role. We're also working regionally, but everyone else
Speaker 1: is kind of doing their own thing. What does that
Speaker 1: look like for the future of our democracy? Well, to
Speaker 1: think about the future of our democracy, let's look at
Speaker 1: the past. So let's go all the way back to
Speaker 1: seventeen eighty seven. This nation had just come out of
Speaker 1: the American Revolution. They didn't actually have a constitution yet. Instead,
Speaker 1: they had this document called the Articles of Confederation, which
Speaker 1: basically allowed for this kind of loose confederation of states,
Speaker 1: and all of the states, all of these thirteen colonies
Speaker 1: now skates. We're basically free to do whatever they like.
Speaker 1: So Virginia had its own money, Connecticut had its own money.
Speaker 1: Virginia was trying to negotiate something with England and France.
Speaker 1: Jina had paid off its debt, New York had paid
Speaker 1: off it's that other states had not. It was all
Speaker 1: kind of a hodgepodge and they couldn't do anything. And
Speaker 1: so they get together in seventeen eighty seven for the
Speaker 1: purposes of trying to amend these Articles of Confederation and
Speaker 1: actually make a working document to run a government. And
Speaker 1: they realize that they can't have a working document that
Speaker 1: is premised on this idea of thirteen sovereign entities, like
Speaker 1: they actually have to draft a plan that allows for
Speaker 1: a kind of centralized government. But they can't. They're scared.
Speaker 1: The idea of centralized government to them looks very much
Speaker 1: like England Parliament the King. They are worried about a
Speaker 1: centralized government leading to tyranny, and so the constitution that
Speaker 1: they draft is this very delicate balance between centralizing power
Speaker 1: within a federal government for the purpose of coining money,
Speaker 1: negotiating with foreign powers, conducting foreign policy, but then also
Speaker 1: limiting that federal government so that the individual state and
Speaker 1: the people within them can actually have some room to move.
Speaker 1: And so you know, they strike this balance of divided
Speaker 1: government among the federal government. So there're three branches and
Speaker 1: they each can check each other in particular ways, and
Speaker 1: so there's a kind of horizontal division and diffusion of power.
Speaker 1: And then vertically they diffuse power between the federal government
Speaker 1: of the states. So constitution is basically a list of
Speaker 1: all of the things that Congress, the President, the courts
Speaker 1: can do, and then everything else is supposed to be
Speaker 1: left up to the states, right, And so you know,
Speaker 1: the way this is shaken out over time is that
Speaker 1: the federal government really deals with these issues of centralization
Speaker 1: that we need. Like you know, you want to have
Speaker 1: interstate commerce, a market market economy, that's for Congress, right,
Speaker 1: But individual things within states, those are for states to do.
Speaker 1: So states will do these kind of things that are
Speaker 1: in trust, state in nature. The Trump administrations really turn
Speaker 1: these ideas on their head in some ways that are
Speaker 1: really so. At the beginning, when the Trump administration was
Speaker 1: rolling back federal protections for the environment and things like that,
Speaker 1: California and many of these other Western states began codifying
Speaker 1: into their state laws the existing protections that had been
Speaker 1: available in federal statutes that had been rolled back under
Speaker 1: the Trump administration. So an example of what some have called,
Speaker 1: like Heather Gerkin and Jessica Bowman Posen for example, have
Speaker 1: called uncooperative federalism. So, you know, we're really getting this
Speaker 1: sort of emboldened sense of the states because realistically the
Speaker 1: federal government hasn't protected some of the things that the
Speaker 1: states think are important. Right, They're not acting in a way,
Speaker 1: but the states see as important by the same token.
Speaker 1: We see this in a lot of different issues. So
Speaker 1: a lot has been made about Letitia James, the Age
Speaker 1: in New York, going after the Trump administration and the
Speaker 1: Trump family for its sort of business dealings, which you know,
Speaker 1: she finds shady. A lot of that is a response
Speaker 1: to the fact that Congress for much of the administration
Speaker 1: has been really blacks on oversight of the executive branch,
Speaker 1: and so you see a kind of displacement effect. If
Speaker 1: Congress isn't going to do it, isn't going to call
Speaker 1: the president and his family to account for these business
Speaker 1: deals that seem shady, while then that will go to
Speaker 1: the States. And so you know your syvance in New
Speaker 1: York City eventually going about trying to get the president's
Speaker 1: financial disclosure. I mean, there was also lots to be
Speaker 1: made of the fact that he had an opportunity to
Speaker 1: really go after the Trump children and pass that up initially,
Speaker 1: but you do see a lot of this work being displaced.
Speaker 1: So I actually think the Trump administration is kind of
Speaker 1: a really reinvigorating moment for federalism. But it's not the
Speaker 1: federalism that we might have seen, you know in nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty five where you've been in eighteen sixty five. One
Speaker 1: to really talk about federalism was to give states the
Speaker 1: power to do things that we might find really troubling. So,
Speaker 1: you know, slavery was defended as an exercise of states
Speaker 1: rights of federalism and the idea that the federal government
Speaker 1: could tell states that they could not be slaveholding was
Speaker 1: seen as completely inconsistent with the Constitution. And then of
Speaker 1: course you have the fourteenth Amendment, the fifteenth thirteenth Amendment
Speaker 1: coming along to make clear that the federal government does
Speaker 1: have a role to say in whether or not you
Speaker 1: can own people. But I think what we're seeing right
Speaker 1: now is a kind of new, weirdly progressive brand of
Speaker 1: federalism that is very much unlike what we've seen before,
Speaker 1: probably you know, a species of what the founders had
Speaker 1: in mind. But again, this idea that the states are
Speaker 1: going to check an overrunning, an over encroaching executive branch.
Speaker 1: I just you know, I want to think that in
Speaker 1: the hands of good you know, to me, it looks
Speaker 1: like this. In the hands of good people, good things happen, right,
Speaker 1: So the fact that and in the hands of bad people,
Speaker 1: basalism can be bad. Yeah, federalism can be bad. So
Speaker 1: it's like, okay, great right now, because as the two
Speaker 1: of us are positioned in states that are in the
Speaker 1: hands of who I perceived to be people that are
Speaker 1: on the side of public health and science and facts
Speaker 1: and climate change and wanting to do right by the
Speaker 1: by their residence, I feel like it's a good thing.
Speaker 1: But in the Florida of the world, or Mississippi or
Speaker 1: Alabama or Georgia, right, it's like, what are those residents
Speaker 1: supposed to do? You have a state right now? You know,
Speaker 1: you have a state yesterday. Um, you know, over the weekend,
Speaker 1: I went on MSNBC for the first time in weeks
Speaker 1: and weeks and weeks, and you know, one of the
Speaker 1: questions that I was asked about is why do you
Speaker 1: think that states Republican governors are rushing to open up
Speaker 1: these states to reopen And I said, because they don't
Speaker 1: want to pay unemployment because there is a rush for
Speaker 1: people who have lost their jobs. And one of the
Speaker 1: questions that you are asked when you are seeking unemployment
Speaker 1: is that is has there been an opportunity for you
Speaker 1: to get work? Right? Well, if the states now open up,
Speaker 1: even though you don't feel safe and you don't want
Speaker 1: to endanger yourself or your family, you have now been
Speaker 1: placed in a position where you have no option. That's
Speaker 1: a great example of you know, federalism looks really different
Speaker 1: if you're in a red state versus a blue state,
Speaker 1: and so, and you can think about that even going back,
Speaker 1: you know, why does Georgia have this problem right now
Speaker 1: in terms of unemployment insurance. Well, they passed a number
Speaker 1: of laws that limit the degree to which they can
Speaker 1: expand their budget and whether they can tax their citizens
Speaker 1: in order to expand the budget to accommodate, you know,
Speaker 1: a kind of unprecedented economic pressure like the one that
Speaker 1: we're seeing right now, and they can't because they pass
Speaker 1: these laws. That's actually, like that was within their progative
Speaker 1: to do, That's what the voters in Georgia wanted. So
Speaker 1: limiting their ability to raise taxes and to raise revenue
Speaker 1: is something that george did a couple of years ago
Speaker 1: at the will of its citizens. And now, you know,
Speaker 1: one of the consequences is that you're not going to
Speaker 1: have those robust protections for unemployment because they can't afford
Speaker 1: to right now. So you know, again, I think when
Speaker 1: they were doing this three or four years ago, they
Speaker 1: probably did not anticipate a kind of catastrophic economic event
Speaker 1: like this one, and they did this, you know, sort
Speaker 1: of to be fiscally prudent, you know, to be responsive
Speaker 1: to what the citizens about it no more taxes. But
Speaker 1: now we're sort of in the situation and again everyone
Speaker 1: talks about this whole question of socialism, and you know,
Speaker 1: socialism is a bad word, but I will note this
Speaker 1: is a global pandemic and there are some societies like
Speaker 1: Finland Denmark, for example, where this has been devastating. But
Speaker 1: they shut down, they immediately sequestered their individual their citizens,
Speaker 1: and they you haven't seen the kind of economic strife
Speaker 1: that we're seeing here, in part because there is a
Speaker 1: robust social saking net. They did rely on their jobs
Speaker 1: for health insurance, they had additional health service, they had
Speaker 1: unemployment protections, they had protections for individuals. In terms of childcare,
Speaker 1: they had some state sponsored support for childcare. One of
Speaker 1: the things that this has made incredibly clear to me
Speaker 1: is that for parents, the only state support of childcare
Speaker 1: that we have is the earned income tax credit and
Speaker 1: the childcare deductions that you may or may not be
Speaker 1: able to take advantage of, and public school. And when
Speaker 1: public school isn't there, you can't work because or you
Speaker 1: can't work at the same level of productivity that you
Speaker 1: once did. You can only sort of just do what
Speaker 1: you can't while you're also homeschooling your kids. So you know,
Speaker 1: one of the things I think this is sort of
Speaker 1: laid there is not just sort of the distinction between
Speaker 1: what the federal government should be doing and what states
Speaker 1: have had to do when the federal government blacks off,
Speaker 1: but as a general matter, the government, whether state or federal,
Speaker 1: has not been doing that much to create a social
Speaker 1: safety net that holds all of us in place when
Speaker 1: something catastrophic like this happens. And I've been on Facebook.
Speaker 1: I grew up in Florida. A lot of the people
Speaker 1: that I grew up in Florida with our Republicans that
Speaker 1: many of them are small business owners. And these are
Speaker 1: the first people to decry the whole idea of public
Speaker 1: assistance and the first people to tell you, like, you know,
Speaker 1: I brought myself up by my bootstraps. I founded this business.
Speaker 1: I sacrifice, and everyone else should do it. And I
Speaker 1: get it, Like they did a really great job. They've
Speaker 1: made these small businesses for themselves. But now they're finding,
Speaker 1: you know, even with the kind of drive and ingenuity
Speaker 1: that they had to get their small businesses off the ground,
Speaker 1: they are it's not enough right now. This is a
Speaker 1: global catastrophe, an economic scourge that we have never seen
Speaker 1: since nineteen twenty nine. And even with all of their
Speaker 1: ingenuity and their drive. They cannot make their businesses work,
Speaker 1: and now they're asking for PPP and small business loan assistance.
Speaker 1: And you know, I'm just sort of like that's a
Speaker 1: kind of welfare too, Like it can't be the case
Speaker 1: that you don't. You're not for government subsidy when it's
Speaker 1: about single mothers, but now you are because it's about
Speaker 1: keeping your business uploat. We all need a safety net.
Speaker 1: We never know when the next economic scourge is coming.
Speaker 1: That has been the constant drumbeat of the Republican Party.
Speaker 1: Social safety nets. You might as well say, like you
Speaker 1: said earlier communism, you might as well say, well, you
Speaker 1: were lazy, right, government should only intervene for those people
Speaker 1: that are lazy. We've created a construct right that tells
Speaker 1: us that those people that are economically on the bottom
Speaker 1: are there for lack of ingenuity and not lack of
Speaker 1: structures in safety nets that were good in it's always
Speaker 1: it's always it's always the p's we make wealth or
Speaker 1: lack thereof something that is very personal about your ambition,
Speaker 1: your ability. You're never about your access, never about like
Speaker 1: the obstacles that are placed in your way. And so
Speaker 1: when we look at the countries that are doing well, right,
Speaker 1: that are that are able to do well, and I
Speaker 1: use that relative, you know, to to a global pandemic,
Speaker 1: but are doing a hell of a lot better than us.
Speaker 1: Are those countries that have put together programs that are
Speaker 1: about helping all people. To me fundamentally, though, our lack
Speaker 1: of social safety nets goes directly to the core of
Speaker 1: racism and white supremacy. We do not in this country
Speaker 1: want all people to be helped. We want certain people
Speaker 1: to be helped. It is why when the New Deal
Speaker 1: was created, there was right the government was going to
Speaker 1: take care of everyone, but in order to appease Southerners, right,
Speaker 1: in order to appease the South, we had to cut
Speaker 1: out right people of color, domestic workers, sharecroppers were which
Speaker 1: were largely people of color. And so in this country
Speaker 1: there's a reason why we don't have this, and I
Speaker 1: believe that fundamentally it is about racism and the pervasiveness
Speaker 1: that we have been locked into this idea that those
Speaker 1: that require government assistance are on the government's tip. As
Speaker 1: we as Republicans, have told us from beginning to end,
Speaker 1: all of that is exactly right. I mean, you sort
Speaker 1: of saw species of this when the Surgeon General was
Speaker 1: speaking I guess now a week ago, and he admonished
Speaker 1: all of us to stop you well, all of the
Speaker 1: black people, all the black and Latin us, because it
Speaker 1: was that was very discernible based on the language that
Speaker 1: he decided to do it. Do it for Big Mama.
Speaker 1: It's really interesting that you just sort of have this
Speaker 1: idea that what is going on is really about a
Speaker 1: personal failure. I mean, that's the way he sort of
Speaker 1: broke broke it down, like, yes, you know, black people
Speaker 1: and brown people are suffering just a personal and it's
Speaker 1: about personal choices rather than thinking about well, it's also
Speaker 1: about the fact that they are likely to be those
Speaker 1: in jobs that are now considered essential, that where their
Speaker 1: exposure to the virus is heightened and they don't have
Speaker 1: the opportunity to quarantine because they're in these essential positions.
Speaker 1: And alternatively, when they do go home, they may not
Speaker 1: be in a position to sort of spread out and
Speaker 1: be comfortable, like they're living in smaller situations where the
Speaker 1: likelihood of passing this on to their family members as higher.
Speaker 1: So there's this whole vernacular and sort of discourse of
Speaker 1: personal responsibility or a lack there of and no appreciation
Speaker 1: for the kinds of really broad and pervasive systemic impediments
Speaker 1: that would make certain groups more susceptible to this than others,
Speaker 1: And that to me, I think has been really difficult
Speaker 1: to watch and to hear. I strongly believe that the
Speaker 1: more we talk about coronavirus as something afflicting particular communities
Speaker 1: rather than talking about the universality of its devastation, we're
Speaker 1: going to have the sort of situation where people can
Speaker 1: just sort of think about, like, you know, coronavirus or
Speaker 1: something that happens to them not to meet, when in fact,
Speaker 1: this is something that it's going to be a huge
Speaker 1: level or whether you get coronavirus or not, we are
Speaker 1: all going to feel the impact of this. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: the economic the economic repercussions of what is happening, the
Speaker 1: health repercussions. We also don't know what the capacity is
Speaker 1: for people who recover. Right in certain test and certain places,
Speaker 1: researchers are saying that you've you're losing twenty percent of
Speaker 1: your lung capacity, right and other like. We have no idea.
Speaker 1: So the repercussions are going to continue. But it is
Speaker 1: this pervasiveness that like it's happening to them, it's not
Speaker 1: happening to me. We see the folks who are at
Speaker 1: these reopen rallies right with their adam, I mean, the
Speaker 1: people who are like, you know, this is oppression. I'm like,
Speaker 1: if you like, it's amazing that, like the fact that
Speaker 1: you have to stay at home in a global public
Speaker 1: health crisis, you think that is oppression? You haven't lived
Speaker 1: through some oppression, Like it's the ultimate form of privilege
Speaker 1: to be able to call this oppression. I mean, and
Speaker 1: get it. I understand the economic anxiety that prompts a
Speaker 1: reaction like that. I mean, it's a kind of economic
Speaker 1: anxiety that I think a lot of people of color
Speaker 1: have lived with perpetually. Nobody cares, really exactly nobody cared.
Speaker 1: But I mean, like so I get what animates it,
Speaker 1: and just sort of like, this isn't really oppression. This
Speaker 1: is like kind of what we have to do in
Speaker 1: this moment to deal with this thing that we don't
Speaker 1: actually have a handle on because we don't have a
Speaker 1: federal government that really seems to know what's going on here.
Speaker 1: I mean, we wasted a lot of time dealing with this.
Speaker 1: We've now sort of relied on our state governments to
Speaker 1: take the lead in this. There's this content back and
Speaker 1: forth power struggle between the administration and the very estate
Speaker 1: government statism't helping. And then now like you know, the
Speaker 1: call to liberate these particulars, this is liberation. This is one.
Speaker 1: This is when I understood, Melissa, that we have to
Speaker 1: we have very different understandings of what liberty and the
Speaker 1: word liberate actually mean. Right, Like, this is when I
Speaker 1: have fundamentally I got it. I'm like, wow, I don't
Speaker 1: know how we're ever going to move forward as a country,
Speaker 1: as a collective again, because we have two very different
Speaker 1: understandings of what liberty and justice actually look like. Well,
Speaker 1: and as a lawyer just listening to it, just sort
Speaker 1: of like you all have like very little understanding of
Speaker 1: constitutional law. I mean, states have anything we talked about
Speaker 1: this last week, they have, you know, police power to
Speaker 1: legislate in order to preserve public health and safety within
Speaker 1: their states. Like it's not an unfettered power. I mean
Speaker 1: there are obviously constitutional limits, whether it's the first meant
Speaker 1: or other fundamental liberties that people possess, like free speech.
Speaker 1: But again even those have to be sort of tempered,
Speaker 1: like the Constitution is not a suicide pact. So it
Speaker 1: is not like, well, I didn't say it, but I
Speaker 1: think it's it's just it's clear that those who say
Speaker 1: these things, but we have to liberate this, we have
Speaker 1: to liberate that. Like, that's not liberty. Liberty, like the
Speaker 1: liberty protected in the Constitution is not a kind of
Speaker 1: unfettered liberty to do what you want when you want
Speaker 1: without any kind of government in position. I mean, and
Speaker 1: then there's a kind of double speed to this. I mean,
Speaker 1: the people who you know, I'm talking to you on
Speaker 1: Facebook from my high school. Um, you know, there is
Speaker 1: this idea that you know, they don't want government intervention,
Speaker 1: government regulation because what they want is free market. But
Speaker 1: then part of me is like, well, if you want
Speaker 1: a free market then when they were trying to tax you,
Speaker 1: you should also be okay with a free market now
Speaker 1: because right now it maybe the case that the kind
Speaker 1: of business you have isn't viable in this new reality.
Speaker 1: Like I mean, you know, maybe if you had a
Speaker 1: business that was supplying I don't know, like cruise ships,
Speaker 1: maybe people aren't getting on cruise ships now. And that's
Speaker 1: the economic reality. That's the free market you've got a
Speaker 1: shift and pivot. But I mean it's when you say
Speaker 1: it to them like that, they're like, well, that's not
Speaker 1: what I mean. I'm like, well, that's actually classical economics,
Speaker 1: Like that's truly less ay fair, Like you if you
Speaker 1: can't survive and this economy, maybe your business wasn't meant
Speaker 1: to survive. And look when you say it like that
Speaker 1: to them, they're like, well, that's not what I'm meant.
Speaker 1: I'm like, well, I know, because you want it both ways.
Speaker 1: You want to be able to have no regulation when
Speaker 1: it suits you, and then you want to be able
Speaker 1: to and then and then you want help when things
Speaker 1: are lot And I'm like, I just want everyone to
Speaker 1: be helped to the extent that we can so that
Speaker 1: we can all sort of thrive. And it always goes
Speaker 1: back to the fact that I believe that folks in
Speaker 1: general in this country, Americans will cut off their nose
Speaker 1: to spite their face, and like they we have to.
Speaker 1: We live in two very different worlds. What is considered
Speaker 1: liberty and justice, what is considered free market, what government
Speaker 1: should support versus what it should not based on stereotypes,
Speaker 1: um that aren't real, right, And so to me, like
Speaker 1: what this does. What this situation does, it continues to do,
Speaker 1: is just exasperate what we've already known, the gaps between
Speaker 1: the rich and the poor, the gaps in the you know,
Speaker 1: within the racial wealth gap. Who is actually considered essential,
Speaker 1: Who is doing the mandatory jobs that doesn't, that don't
Speaker 1: have the ability to work at home? Who the government
Speaker 1: is going to give breaks to, right, which is Wall
Speaker 1: Street before they even bother looking at Main Street? Right?
Speaker 1: The rush to reopen, to get workers back so that
Speaker 1: they can start to fill the coffers for CEOs and
Speaker 1: shareholders like there is. We live in a very distorted reality.
Speaker 1: And one of the things that I consistently been saying
Speaker 1: on woke app is that this rush to get back
Speaker 1: to normal, right, we all need to figure out which
Speaker 1: part of normal we want to get back to, because
Speaker 1: none of the ways in which we have been operating
Speaker 1: should be looked at as normal. We have normalized bad behavior,
Speaker 1: but that does not make it normal. What we have
Speaker 1: normalized systemach and equality and chalked it up to personal choices.
Speaker 1: And you know, maybe there is some personal choice in it,
Speaker 1: but it's not It can't exclusively be accounted for just
Speaker 1: by you know, poor decision making or good decision making,
Speaker 1: like some of this is deeply institutionalized. And I think
Speaker 1: one of you know, the questions going forward as we
Speaker 1: move toward whatever the new normal is is to what
Speaker 1: degree are we going to reckon with and wrestle with
Speaker 1: the fact that some of this is baked gin Melissa,
Speaker 1: with just a few minutes that we have left, what
Speaker 1: are some of the other stories that we should be
Speaker 1: paying attention to? Because you know, like we were saying
Speaker 1: before we even jumped into our conversation on what gay
Speaker 1: app is that the news doesn't seem to be able
Speaker 1: to walk and chew gum at the same time. And
Speaker 1: while we're in the midst of a global pandemic that
Speaker 1: is incredibly important for us to keep eyes on on
Speaker 1: a daily basis. There are so many other stories that
Speaker 1: we are missing, and because the relentless criminality of this
Speaker 1: administration has not backed off of the gas. And I
Speaker 1: think that, especially because we are in the midst of
Speaker 1: a global pandemic, they are putting their foot through the floor.
Speaker 1: So what are some of the other things that we
Speaker 1: just we should be keeping an eye on as we
Speaker 1: head into another week. So last week I talked a
Speaker 1: little bit about COVID opportunism in terms of access to abortion,
Speaker 1: and a number of states that have limited access to
Speaker 1: abortion on the ground that ppe is needed and needs
Speaker 1: to be preserved, and so they've limited abortions of non
Speaker 1: essential healthcare. During this period, there have been a couple
Speaker 1: of lawsuits that have already percolated. One in Texas that
Speaker 1: seems to sort of resolved itself as the state is reopened,
Speaker 1: but there's also one that as of last week was
Speaker 1: going through Tennessee. And there will be other challenges because
Speaker 1: there are a number of red states would have done this,
Speaker 1: So that's certainly one thing to keep an eye on.
Speaker 1: The other thing I think just we're thinking about is
Speaker 1: something I think almost everyone who's at home with small
Speaker 1: children right now can and deal with. Is you know,
Speaker 1: I don't think we have really come to grips with
Speaker 1: as women, or at least thinking about women's progress. So
Speaker 1: much of the women's rights movement and what we call
Speaker 1: women's liberation has really been focused on the market, allowing
Speaker 1: women to enter into workplaces that historically had been inhospitable
Speaker 1: to them. So we have Title seven and all of that,
Speaker 1: and women had made enormous gains I think in the
Speaker 1: work world, but now that work has moved back through
Speaker 1: the home, I think we're seeing very clearly how little
Speaker 1: we have done to equalize or to integrate the work
Speaker 1: of caregiving. And I think women contain to take on
Speaker 1: the burden of that. And now that work and home
Speaker 1: are in the same place, and I have to and
Speaker 1: have to be reconciled together. I think, you know, I
Speaker 1: really worry about women losing ground, Like you know, when
Speaker 1: the zoom call have to be rescheduled, who zoom call
Speaker 1: is it? And I think it's a really important question
Speaker 1: as we have families that no longer huge a sort
Speaker 1: of heterosexual model like that same sex families or single
Speaker 1: mother families. You know, we haven't really talked about that,
Speaker 1: Like we're telling people that, you know, one family member
Speaker 1: needs to be the one designated to go get the
Speaker 1: groceries so that you can limit exposure. What does that
Speaker 1: mean if you are a single parent and you have
Speaker 1: a small child at home and you can't leave your
Speaker 1: child alone, what does it mean in terms of the
Speaker 1: work that you do, or even how do we reopen
Speaker 1: knowing that schools are not resooming like that we're not
Speaker 1: going to have summer camp in the summer. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, the President keeps talking about reopening. I'm like,
Speaker 1: I'll talk like, one, are you going to talk about schools?
Speaker 1: What are you going to recognize that school for a
Speaker 1: lot of parents is a key part of how they
Speaker 1: maintain their own productivity during the day, Like you rely
Speaker 1: on school to care for your children and educate them,
Speaker 1: and that is part of what allows you to be
Speaker 1: productive at your job during the days. I mean, I
Speaker 1: just think there is this larger conversation to be had,
Speaker 1: not just about reopening, but what women's productivity, what famili's
Speaker 1: productivity looks like as these essential basically the only kinds
Speaker 1: of subsidies that governments provide to families in terms of
Speaker 1: childcare have really sort of gone dark, and families have
Speaker 1: been taking on the bulk of this sort of supervisory work.
Speaker 1: I think that what we recognize too, is that our
Speaker 1: way of life, it has been I think in a
Speaker 1: lot of ways to just disrupted on a permanent level.
Speaker 1: The ways in which we've been able to kind of
Speaker 1: go through, navigate some of us hang on for dear
Speaker 1: life right are going to be changed because all of
Speaker 1: these questions that we are posing now right, and that
Speaker 1: our governors, the ones that actually care about their residents,
Speaker 1: are pontificating on which is what does a reopen look like?
Speaker 1: To all of those points that you're making. But I
Speaker 1: love the fact that you are couching it around around
Speaker 1: women who are normally the ones that carry the burden
Speaker 1: of childcare, of child rearing. Right, what does that look
Speaker 1: like in the midst of a zoom call with your
Speaker 1: CEO or your whomever. Right, And now you're having to
Speaker 1: figure out how to homeschool and now all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: businesses are opened up, a schools are not. I think
Speaker 1: that fundamentally we need to think about where we're getting
Speaker 1: our resources from and what it looks like when the
Speaker 1: bottom falls out, like there's an opportunity. That's why I
Speaker 1: continue to try and find in the midst of all
Speaker 1: of this chaos, what the opportunity can be to rebuild
Speaker 1: something better. Right. It is evident that America as we
Speaker 1: have known nets, the social safety nets that we thought
Speaker 1: we had are broken, right and have been broken, And
Speaker 1: there are many people in communities that have always known
Speaker 1: them to be broken. For them that there's an opportunity
Speaker 1: here to rebuild That's why they are pushing to reopen,
Speaker 1: because the longer this remained shuttered, the more people are
Speaker 1: going to recognize that, wait a minute, I actually cannot
Speaker 1: go it alone in the face of an imprecedented disaster.
Speaker 1: It would be nice to not worry about if my
Speaker 1: health character from my employer. It would be nice to
Speaker 1: know that there was a social safety net that I
Speaker 1: could rely on, whether in my old age or you know,
Speaker 1: or right now. And so I think part of the
Speaker 1: push to reopen is so that they can sort of
Speaker 1: squelch this broader conversation about what does life in a
Speaker 1: democracy look like when you eliminate the sort of individualistic
Speaker 1: neoliberal ethos. Yeah, and those are all the things that
Speaker 1: we're going to have to examine in the coming weeks,
Speaker 1: in the coming months, and in the coming years when
Speaker 1: we actually do get to a place where America as
Speaker 1: a whole, whatever that means and actually looks like, is reopened.
Speaker 1: Melissa Murray, thank you so much for joining us again
Speaker 1: on Woke EFFI daily. Your brilliance and your insight is
Speaker 1: something that we look forward to in these really trying times.
Speaker 1: I appreciate thanks for having me on. Look. We can
Speaker 1: all get lost in the sadness, the frustration, the anxiety,
Speaker 1: the depression of this moment. Look on a regular basis.
Speaker 1: First of all, we don't even know whether it's Monday
Speaker 1: or Friday, or Saturday or Sunday, whether it's one pm,
Speaker 1: nine am, five am. What difference does it fucking make,
Speaker 1: you know? I remember one of my friends who is
Speaker 1: very big into mysticism, had said to me, time as
Speaker 1: a construct right, time is something that we have made up.
Speaker 1: And there is no other time for you to really
Speaker 1: think about that and what that really means than during
Speaker 1: quarantine when one day runs into the next. But for
Speaker 1: those of us who are currently employed, doesn't mean that
Speaker 1: we will be right in the coming weeks and the
Speaker 1: coming months, because what we are seeing right now are
Speaker 1: massive layoffs that are happening or bankruptcies that companies are filing.
Speaker 1: But for those of us who are in a privileged position,
Speaker 1: and yes I refer to it as a position of privilege,
Speaker 1: if you have been in a job where you have
Speaker 1: been able to work from home close to two months now,
Speaker 1: you are fortunate. Yes it may be frustrating, Yes it
Speaker 1: may be overwhelming. Yes, you may be living in a
Speaker 1: small space, or you may have to share space with
Speaker 1: an entire family, or you may, like many of us,
Speaker 1: be living in New York City where you decided to
Speaker 1: set sacrifice your interior space because the city was your oyster.
Speaker 1: And now you're like, why the fuck did I do that?
Speaker 1: But there's an opportunity for those of us who are
Speaker 1: free to think about how we better society, how we
Speaker 1: better this country, how we better our democracy, because it
Speaker 1: is clear that in so many different ways we are
Speaker 1: failing now. I like to blame a lot of things
Speaker 1: on Donald Trump, like the fact that Lysol had to
Speaker 1: issue a statement and so did Chlorox, and multiple state
Speaker 1: health boards had to also issue statements and go out
Speaker 1: on Twitter telling people what we've known since toddlerhood. Don't
Speaker 1: drink bleach, don't inject yourself with shit, lock the cabinets,
Speaker 1: and apparently now you need to lock the cabinets from
Speaker 1: yourself because the New York Post has reported that at
Speaker 1: least thirty New Yorkers have ingested some type of chemical.
Speaker 1: What the fuck is wrong with you? What is right
Speaker 1: with you? You know better than that. You know? My
Speaker 1: mom read me a hilarious meme which was that the
Speaker 1: person said, now I understand why they needed to have
Speaker 1: a warning on irons that said, do not use while
Speaker 1: you're wearing your shirt because you have fucking people that
Speaker 1: are out in the streets protesting a virus. How fucking
Speaker 1: dumb are you? Are you dumb? Right? And I don't
Speaker 1: want to say that you're dumb for having placed your
Speaker 1: hopes and good will in the hands of the president
Speaker 1: of the United States, because frankly, for the majority of
Speaker 1: your life, you should have been able to do that,
Speaker 1: right like you should have been able to believe that
Speaker 1: in the United States of the America that when the
Speaker 1: President of the United States gets up at their podium
Speaker 1: and begins to speak, that you can trust what the
Speaker 1: fuck they are saying. In this case, no, no, you
Speaker 1: can not. I don't know how much more information you
Speaker 1: fucking me. Then, someone who has no medical degree probably
Speaker 1: doesn't have a fucking college degree, because he hasn't released
Speaker 1: his transcript much in the way that he hasn't released
Speaker 1: his fucking taxes. Tell you, hey, maybe if we inject
Speaker 1: disinfectant I don't know, Trump, Maybe if we all stand
Speaker 1: on our hands and spin around ten times and say,
Speaker 1: candy man, candy man, candy man, we will be, you know,
Speaker 1: relieved of the COVID nineteen. What the fuck You might
Speaker 1: as well ask a seventh grade chemistry student to find
Speaker 1: you a vaccine. If this is what we're using as
Speaker 1: a fucking barometer, give me a break. Nonetheless, the president
Speaker 1: is a danger to society. I've been saying that for years,
Speaker 1: but now many more people are waking up to the
Speaker 1: fact that, you know, the taste of bleach in their
Speaker 1: mouth not good. You know, it's actually one of the
Speaker 1: number one ways in which people commit suicide. Right, it
Speaker 1: should drink something where the warning label states do not
Speaker 1: drink tis dangerous. Alas, this is where we are, in
Speaker 1: the midst of hell. I've often wondered what hell would
Speaker 1: feel like. It's not exactly hot, right, but it is
Speaker 1: fucking miserable. It is miserable. It is miserable to be
Speaker 1: led by a complete and total imbecile. But this is
Speaker 1: what I will say is, folks, I don't know how
Speaker 1: we get out of this, but I do know that
Speaker 1: consistently focusing narrowly on just COVID nineteen and not any
Speaker 1: of the other things that this president and this administration
Speaker 1: is doing, that is illegal, That is criminal, that is
Speaker 1: against our best interests and our public safety need to
Speaker 1: be investigated. But what I'm finding right now, much how
Speaker 1: I always find it, is that the mainstream media is
Speaker 1: always help bend. I'm like chasing their fucking tails. That's
Speaker 1: what I feel like. Covering this administration on a day
Speaker 1: in and day out basis feels like I'm just chasing
Speaker 1: my tail, right. But the thing is is it's attached
Speaker 1: to my body, and so I might as well stop
Speaker 1: running and actually take a moment, take a breather. That's
Speaker 1: what we need to do. We need to not pay
Speaker 1: attention to the forty percent of stupid motherfuckers that are
Speaker 1: going to continue to follow Trump off of a cliff right,
Speaker 1: let them go. I don't want to convince these people
Speaker 1: not to drink bleach. Hey, you know that's what you
Speaker 1: want to do. Go out and do it. Your president
Speaker 1: told you to, right, But don't blame it on the
Speaker 1: quote unquote what did they say the lamestream media? Are
Speaker 1: you fucking dumb? Because every outlet covered this. The President
Speaker 1: wasn't joking. Did you hear a giggle after he said
Speaker 1: maybe we'll use disinfectant? Did you see doctor Bricks laugh? No?
Speaker 1: But her defense of him was laughable. Her defense of
Speaker 1: him over the weekend was laughable and fucking ridiculous. The
Speaker 1: fact is, you need to stop paying attention to the
Speaker 1: president of the United States if you actually want to
Speaker 1: keep yourself and your family safe. Okay, if you are
Speaker 1: employed at this very moment, you could use part of
Speaker 1: that time to think about how you innovate in whatever
Speaker 1: field you were in. That's what this moment is actually
Speaker 1: calling for. Once we can move through the ebbs and
Speaker 1: the flow of devastation and grief and law and anxiety,
Speaker 1: spend some time each day, maybe you start out slow,
Speaker 1: with like five minutes or ten minutes a day in
Speaker 1: thinking about what good can actually come from this. I'm
Speaker 1: going to try it as a practice this week because
Speaker 1: people need to be thinking about it, and not just
Speaker 1: the greedy, because that is always what happens in the
Speaker 1: midst of crisis. The greedy, the already wealthy pillage, right,
Speaker 1: they pillage the village that is on fire that the
Speaker 1: people are screaming and they're hungry and they are in
Speaker 1: need of assistance. But you know what they come in
Speaker 1: and do, right, They buy up the town, They buy
Speaker 1: up the homes, they buy up everything. I've been in
Speaker 1: conversation with different folks over the past couple of weeks,
Speaker 1: and I want us all of us right, who are
Speaker 1: not millionaires, who are not well off, who pretty much
Speaker 1: if you fancy yourself as middle class, you're probably hanging
Speaker 1: on by a threat because if you were real like
Speaker 1: fundamental middle class, you did not receive that twelve hundred
Speaker 1: dollar check. No relief has come to you as of yet.
Speaker 1: And that's the problem with America and our capitalistic structure.
Speaker 1: If you are super wealthy, government going to give you breaks,
Speaker 1: because if you were super wealthy, then re reward your character,
Speaker 1: then there must be something fundamentally right about you. If
Speaker 1: you are poor, then there's something fundamentally wrong with you, right,
Speaker 1: But the government is set up to still, in some
Speaker 1: small way, offer some assistance. If you find yourself tracked
Speaker 1: in the shrinking middle you are completely fucked. You don't
Speaker 1: make enough money to get the tax breaks and the
Speaker 1: benefits of the super wealthy, and you don't have to
Speaker 1: all money to be able to take advantage in some
Speaker 1: ways of some of the very dilapidated social safety nets
Speaker 1: that are in place. You're just fucked. So there is
Speaker 1: an opportunity in this moment to think that if we
Speaker 1: were to recreate something, maybe we don't want to go
Speaker 1: back to normal. Maybe we want to think about entertainment
Speaker 1: and media in a different way. Maybe we want to
Speaker 1: think about education and our laws and our judiciary in
Speaker 1: a different way. Maybe we want to think about right,
Speaker 1: how we care for one another, how we connect, what
Speaker 1: the food industry looks like in a different way. My
Speaker 1: fear though, is that the same people that we're in
Speaker 1: charge during fucking Nixon are the ones that are still
Speaker 1: in charge now. So there's not a lot of room
Speaker 1: for innovation when you're in your seventies and fucking eighties
Speaker 1: in this government. I'm looking at the aocs and the
Speaker 1: aion A says and the Rashida to libs to think
Speaker 1: in this moment big right, because they come from communities
Speaker 1: that have always had to scrap, that have always had
Speaker 1: to hustle, and that have always been on the front lines.
Speaker 1: What do those people need? And then we build from there.
Speaker 1: You know, the first of the month is coming at
Speaker 1: the end of this week. There's been no relief given
Speaker 1: to those of us that pay rent none, and as
Speaker 1: a matter of fact, the mortgage relief that has been
Speaker 1: put in place essentially allows you to push it off
Speaker 1: for ninety days. But then your mortgage company read the
Speaker 1: fine print, they want to lump some when you're able
Speaker 1: to pay. So how do you go from needing to
Speaker 1: defer your mortgage to then all of a sudden hitting
Speaker 1: the lottery and are sitting on a wad of cash.
Speaker 1: No one has any idea, So I encourage you all
Speaker 1: to read the fine print. But when you see AOC
Speaker 1: on the floor of the house saying what the fuck
Speaker 1: is going on here, she's a lot more eloquent than
Speaker 1: I am. She's asking all of the right questions. We
Speaker 1: know that the coronavirus is not an equalizer. It is
Speaker 1: not a level playing field. Those people whose communities have
Speaker 1: been vulnerable economically vulnerable, health wise vulnerable are the ones
Speaker 1: that are being the hardest hit. So maybe if we
Speaker 1: look at ways to help those that are most vulnerable
Speaker 1: amongst us, the rest of us will do well. Maybe
Speaker 1: we should take this opportunity instead of consistently getting behind
Speaker 1: the top down approach, that we actually look at what
Speaker 1: it means to help those at the bottom and lift
Speaker 1: them up, because what we've been doing doesn't fucking work.
Speaker 1: It doesn't work. It only works for the one percent.
Speaker 1: It doesn't work for everybody else. We have to figure
Speaker 1: out a way to be better, to grow from this.
Speaker 1: And so those are the conversations that we're going to
Speaker 1: have this week on Woke f What can be done?
Speaker 1: What should we be thinking about? What is being ignored?
Speaker 1: Where do we see opportunity in the midst of this obstacle?
Speaker 1: All right, folks, that is it for me here on
Speaker 1: Woke a F Daily. As always, here is a reminder
Speaker 1: this week is the last week to get Woke a
Speaker 1: F Daily free when you subscribe two PM Mood wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, So if that is Google Play,
Speaker 1: if it is Spotify, if it is iTunes, subscribe for
Speaker 1: free two PM Mood and get Woke a F Daily
Speaker 1: four free for the next week for my Stay Safe
Speaker 1: as Fuck Quarantine special. As always, folks, power to the
Speaker 1: people and to all the people. Power, get woke and
Speaker 1: day woke as fuck and remain safe as fuck.