Speaker 1: Native Land Pod is a production of iHeartRadio in partnership
Speaker 1: with Recent Choice Media.
Speaker 2: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome.
Speaker 3: Welcome, Hello, native Land Pod family. My name is Andy Duresco.
Speaker 4: I am reaching out because I wanted to hear your
Speaker 4: thoughts around Feels Fun.
Speaker 3: As you know, the.
Speaker 4: US Appeals Court has blocked them from being able to
Speaker 4: provide grants to black female entrepreneurs. I am part of
Speaker 4: the DEI movement in the sense that I am a
Speaker 4: co founder of Black and Jewelry Coalition, where we promote
Speaker 4: the advancement of black professionals and so we were created
Speaker 4: three years ago and we provide grants to support black
Speaker 4: professionals in the jewelry industry. There are many organizations similar
Speaker 4: to us that are about DEI, whether it's through schools
Speaker 4: or organizations. So this fearest fun issue is more than
Speaker 4: the feelest fun. I think it affects many of us
Speaker 4: and I wanted to want to hear your thoughts on
Speaker 4: what's going on with this.
Speaker 3: And the other piece is realize that not enough people
Speaker 3: are having a conversation about this.
Speaker 4: I don't think people realize how much this affects all
Speaker 4: of us as a community and what we're going to
Speaker 4: do about it. So we'd love to have some dialogue
Speaker 4: around this from your podcast, because I'd always love to
Speaker 4: hear your input.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Well.
Speaker 5: Welcome home everybody. This is our favorite time. It's a
Speaker 5: mini pod. I am, of course Angela Rai. I'm with
Speaker 5: Tiffany Cross and Andrew Gillen my co host, and this
Speaker 5: is Native lamppod and we are excited to be with
Speaker 5: you all.
Speaker 6: Welcome home, Welcome home. Today we are.
Speaker 5: Talking about something that is near and dear to all
Speaker 5: of our hearts, but it is something that is terrorizing me.
Speaker 5: We have been talking about being tormentors of racists, but
Speaker 5: I feel tormented by the number of lawsuits that are
Speaker 5: coming out opposing at every turn black progress. So there
Speaker 5: are two cases that I really wanted to talk about today.
Speaker 5: One is a lawsuit against Evanston, Illinois that was brought
Speaker 5: by Judicial Watch on behalf of six people who have
Speaker 5: relatives that once lived in Evanston, and they Judicial Watch
Speaker 5: as president Tom Fitten says that Evanston's program is just
Speaker 5: a proxy for giving out money to people based on race.
Speaker 6: For those of you who do not know.
Speaker 5: Evanston, Illinois is one of the first in the nation
Speaker 5: to develop a government funded reparations program for black folks.
Speaker 6: The program paid.
Speaker 5: Out nearly five million dollars to one hundred and ninety
Speaker 5: three of Evanston's black residents over the past two years,
Speaker 5: but Judicial Watch is saying that the program must die
Speaker 5: because it discriminates against non black people in Evanston. Additionally,
Speaker 5: we are familiar with the terrorist Ed Bloom, who runs
Speaker 5: an organization called the American Alliance for Equal Rights. It
Speaker 5: wasn't enough for conservative folks to say, hey, we don't
Speaker 5: want municipality, states or the FEDS to be paying all reparations.
Speaker 5: We actually also want to go after programs that y'all
Speaker 5: start for yourself. So Fearless Fund is on the receiving
Speaker 5: end of this attack from the likes of Ed Bloom.
Speaker 5: And what I want to do is show how Arian
Speaker 5: Simone Reid, who runs the Fearless Fund, came out with
Speaker 5: the challenge to the Biden administration and to Congress to
Speaker 5: respond to Ed Bloom's antics.
Speaker 2: Let's roll the clip, Arian Simone, we had such a
Speaker 2: quick segment that you had one other point you wanted
Speaker 2: to make, Please make it. Yes, I would like to
Speaker 2: send a signal to the President of the United States
Speaker 2: of America. We need the administration to say and do
Speaker 2: an executive order, some type of executive action that is
Speaker 2: on DEI right now, it is obvious that we need
Speaker 2: the administration to say something. It is an election here.
Speaker 2: We are counting on you to speak on behalf of
Speaker 2: the black community. Thank you much.
Speaker 5: So yeah so, Arian is saying we need the Biden
Speaker 5: administration to issue an executive order for full disclosure. Tiff
Speaker 5: and Andrew I have been speaking with Arian and others
Speaker 5: trying to make sure that we are working to support
Speaker 5: with the Fearless Fund represents.
Speaker 6: This case cannot go to the Supreme Court.
Speaker 5: That would have disastrous impact, not just on the Fearless Fund,
Speaker 5: but you know, the Supreme Court would use this and
Speaker 5: corporations and other entities would use it, just like they
Speaker 5: did with the Harvard case. All of a sudden, it
Speaker 5: was Harvard admissions and affirmative action. Then it became and
Speaker 5: actually were going to shut down on DEI programs everywhere.
Speaker 5: So imagine what that does to not for profit entities.
Speaker 5: The Fearless Fund is a nonprofit that gives twenty thousand
Speaker 5: dollars grants to black women in business because we don't
Speaker 5: see venture capital, we are not on the receiving end
Speaker 5: of those resources. So that is why they stood that
Speaker 5: up to meet a need. It is a very clear intent.
Speaker 5: It's I believe it's clearly constitutional. But again, as we
Speaker 5: talked about on our recent podcast, we know that the
Speaker 5: Supreme Court isn't just ruling on the constitutionality of a thing.
Speaker 5: They're ruling on whether or not they like you, if
Speaker 5: they support the interests of the thing, and who is
Speaker 5: the highest paid payer. And of course I just can't
Speaker 5: even imagine what the Fearless Fund is encountering in terms
Speaker 5: of legal fees and what they would encounter if this
Speaker 5: is allowed to continue. So yes, there needs to be
Speaker 5: legislation to establish and to protect DEI efforts throughout the country,
Speaker 5: and there absolutely should be an executive order looking at
Speaker 5: the disparities that exist in venture, in philanthropy, in wages
Speaker 5: and access to boardrooms, all of that to prove that
Speaker 5: we need the programs that are in place to protect
Speaker 5: our interest and to level the playing field.
Speaker 7: I mean, but has there not been enough research done
Speaker 7: to show the dispared impact and investing how many black
Speaker 7: women owned companies that exist and compete for venture capitalist
Speaker 7: dollars by comparison to white male led VC interests, and
Speaker 7: how oftentimes, actually it's well recorded, how most consistently it's
Speaker 7: black women own companies that get the shortest end of
Speaker 7: that stick, even though they have like the highest rate
Speaker 7: of success of any across all race gender groupings. And
Speaker 7: I'll try to find that research while we're sitting here
Speaker 7: so I can bring it up more definitively. But I
Speaker 7: think anywhere you look, and almost across any platform, you
Speaker 7: can see the dispared impact investment, banking, leveraging, through lending,
Speaker 7: so on and so far, and the impact that it
Speaker 7: has on black women run businesses. I think we're being
Speaker 7: set back on our back heel here when at one
Speaker 7: point folks on the left, progressive groups actually negotiated the
Speaker 7: upper hand by taking to the courts many of these
Speaker 7: issues that won us the kind of victories that we've
Speaker 7: had that have been the status quo sort of motive
Speaker 7: operandi for most of these institutions for the past thirty
Speaker 7: forty years. And then I think, what happened, you know,
Speaker 7: Tiffan Agela, is this federalist society, this federalist society reared
Speaker 7: set of judges who have made their way not just
Speaker 7: through the local benches and the appellate courts, but into
Speaker 7: the federal benches and onto the federal Court. I think
Speaker 7: Amy Comi Berrett is one of the yielded examples of
Speaker 7: it where these justices have not become so philosophically ensconced
Speaker 7: that it isn't about as you talked about before when
Speaker 7: we spoke about judges strict conservative conservatives. Some were strict
Speaker 7: construction of the of the law, strict construction of the law,
Speaker 7: but rather which position I ideologically agree with and which
Speaker 7: one I ideologically don't agree with. And we all ought
Speaker 7: to know we don't put judges there for ideological issues
Speaker 7: that they agree and don't agree with. They're supposed to
Speaker 7: be there to interpret the law. When it was put
Speaker 7: into law, what were the operating modes of operandis of
Speaker 7: those who put it, who moved these pieces of legislation along,
Speaker 7: and instead, what it's yielding is very philosophical binds that
Speaker 7: come down to whether or not you are appointed by
Speaker 7: a left or a right judge, a president, and whether
Speaker 7: you're a left or right justice. And to me that
Speaker 7: it is the beginning steps of I think that the
Speaker 7: destruction of the federal system.
Speaker 6: All right, y'all, we're going to take a quick break
Speaker 6: and be right back.
Speaker 1: I just wanted to say to Andrew's point about venture capitalism.
Speaker 1: I wrote about this in my book and I've cited
Speaker 1: it on this show before, so forgive me for being redundant.
Speaker 1: But in twenty seventeen, venture capitalists had reached a boom
Speaker 1: investment over eighty million dollars. This was a height not
Speaker 1: seen since the dot com bubble in the early two thousands.
Speaker 6: This is a big deal.
Speaker 1: And analysis was done by rate my Investor, which analyzed
Speaker 1: whatever public information was available for venture back deals over
Speaker 1: a five year period. I want to tell you all
Speaker 1: of the funds that a majority went to college educated
Speaker 1: white men founders. Out of nearly ten thousand founders, only
Speaker 1: nine percent founders were women, seventeen percent Asian American, two
Speaker 1: point four percent as Middle Eastern, one point nine percent
Speaker 1: is Latino, just one percent identified as black. On the
Speaker 1: funding side, the same study found that white men make
Speaker 1: up more than ninety percent of venture capitalists. What Arian
Speaker 1: Simone is doing is not even trying to level the
Speaker 1: playing field. It is just to give us a fighting chance.
Speaker 1: And I have to say, you guys, I'm increasingly exhausted
Speaker 1: with it. As we're recording this, it just crossed the wars.
Speaker 1: Our brother Roland Martin just sent this to us. The
Speaker 1: Oklahoma Supreme Court has struck down the case to award
Speaker 1: the Tulsa survivors any kind of reparations. They dismissed the
Speaker 1: Tulsa massacre lawsuit. And it just feels like we keep
Speaker 1: fighting these same battles and I don't know what comes next,
Speaker 1: but I think we're increasingly getting exhausted with asking politely
Speaker 1: to give us a fair chance, to asking directly give
Speaker 1: us a fair chance, to demanding to give us a
Speaker 1: fair chance. And it's like America, the system while bend,
Speaker 1: and we all know what happens to things that don't bend.
Speaker 7: Mmmm, well, you know what, maybe it is time to break, right, Yeah,
Speaker 7: maybe it is time to level the whole system, because
Speaker 7: I mean, I think all of us listen to the
Speaker 7: oral arguments on Tulsa. You had the two of the
Speaker 7: remaining survivors both now what in excess of one hundred
Speaker 7: years old, who were able to represented and you all
Speaker 7: have to name check me on your your colleague, who
Speaker 7: is the attorney.
Speaker 1: For Mario an amazing brother, Mario Solomon Simmons.
Speaker 7: Yea indeed, and and and quite frankly, what an incredible
Speaker 7: attorney you are. Listen to you before the court and
Speaker 7: was just overwhelmingly impressed. I just don't know how you
Speaker 7: make how you make those arguments any more convincingly than
Speaker 7: than were made there, How you example it any better.
Speaker 7: You're talking about a community that was one day, and
Speaker 7: then the events of another day, which can be clearly correlated,
Speaker 7: then takes that community off of its thriving thrust into
Speaker 7: disrepaired destruction at the hands of its white residents and
Speaker 7: the Chamber of Commerce and the local government and every
Speaker 7: other institution that existed at the time, and then there
Speaker 7: too forth did nothing to heal what was, you know,
Speaker 7: a theft, a great theft, destruction and a theft, and
Speaker 7: the fact that the court could see no reason to
Speaker 7: go back and see those those harms redressed. And I
Speaker 7: don't know what argument, because we're just hearing this tip
Speaker 7: from from from from from what you said, from what
Speaker 7: you're sharing here. I can't wait to go back and
Speaker 7: read whatever justification they put on paper. But there is
Speaker 7: no justification to be put on paper. There isn't anything
Speaker 7: that can justify that the harm was done there and
Speaker 7: the absence of a repair, no repair whatsoever.
Speaker 5: You know this is and this kind of gets back
Speaker 5: to this point about Evanston. Evanson is a reparations case
Speaker 5: right involving these citizens who were harmed by the community.
Speaker 5: Twenty five thousand dollars per resident is all we're talking about.
Speaker 5: Five million dollars or five million dollar cost to the
Speaker 5: city is all we're talking about. And it wouldn't have
Speaker 5: been that expensive for Tulsa to repair the damage of
Speaker 5: that community. One and the same going back to Arian
Speaker 5: someone read and what she's pushing for with Fearless Fund
Speaker 5: and the idea of a commission. There was a Kerner
Speaker 5: Commission stood up. The Kerner Commission was stood up by
Speaker 5: Lyndon me Johnson in nineteen sixty seven. Otto Kerner, who
Speaker 5: was the governor of Illinois, chaired the National Advisory Commission
Speaker 5: on Civil Disorders. Let me just remind you all what
Speaker 5: the questions were asking. It was in response to twenty
Speaker 5: three uprisings in cities throughout the country, and the conclusion
Speaker 5: of the commission was that the triggers for civil unrest
Speaker 5: were discrimination in policing practices, the justice system, consumer credit practices,
Speaker 5: inadequate housing and public assistance programs, high unemployment, and the
Speaker 5: exclusion of communities of color from the democratic process. This
Speaker 5: was fifty seven years ago. Here we are today, in
Speaker 5: twenty twenty four, needing a redo of the Kerner Commission,
Speaker 5: needing them to tell us why the Tulsa survivors, who
Speaker 5: are almost one hundred and ten years old right, why
Speaker 5: they are not going to see justice one hundred plus
Speaker 5: years later. Why a city of that has proven that
Speaker 5: its residents deserve reperations don't deserve those reparations. Why when
Speaker 5: we go and do it ourselves, are we still found
Speaker 5: to be breaking the law in some way, just for
Speaker 5: not even for trying to get ahead, for just trying
Speaker 5: to see over the fence the same way that you do. Like,
Speaker 5: that's the thing to me, And so we really have
Speaker 5: to evaluate what recourse we have. I think that we
Speaker 5: are in the season around the election where you all
Speaker 5: know I believe in demands. I believe that we have
Speaker 5: to make our demands known, not just our asks about
Speaker 5: our requirements. It is not a heavy lift for President
Speaker 5: Biden to ensure that there's an executive order on the
Speaker 5: table when we couldn't get the George Floyd Justice and
Speaker 5: Policing Bill passed. It is not a heavy lift to
Speaker 5: ask President Biden to sign an executive order establishing a
Speaker 5: commission when we can't get HR forty looked at to
Speaker 5: give Evanston, Illinois and other cities that we're pursuing similar paths,
Speaker 5: including San Francisco, some cover when people don't want to
Speaker 5: pay their debt and the city and the state and
Speaker 5: the Feds to pay their debt. We literally have been
Speaker 5: having podcasts after podcasts when we're talking about what a
Speaker 5: waste of resources by DJ to pursue someone's application, someone
Speaker 5: who lied on an application or misspoke on an application.
Speaker 5: But you can't ensure that our unity receives justice. That
Speaker 5: is absolutely ours, Like I'm beyond and I'm just saying
Speaker 5: that this administration has the ability to review, to look
Speaker 5: over to study since apparently Andrew, it's not enough studies,
Speaker 5: not enough money has been spent on this. There couldn't
Speaker 5: be another Pew polled, none on the disparities that exists.
Speaker 6: Couldn't be more. You know, folks in corporate talking about
Speaker 6: the wage gap. There couldn't be more. You know, we
Speaker 6: know how many.
Speaker 5: Like lawsuits, Wells Fargo, Bank of American, others have had
Speaker 5: to settle because of housing discrimination.
Speaker 6: But apparently more studies need to be done.
Speaker 5: You know, HR forty is merely a study bill, right,
Speaker 5: It establishes a commission to do this same thing. So
Speaker 5: because we have to prove our trauma, because we have
Speaker 5: to prove our injustice, because we have to prove our
Speaker 5: discrimination when we're on the receiving end of it.
Speaker 6: I don't if there's that's not victim blaming. I don't
Speaker 6: know what is. I really don't know what ied.
Speaker 5: Just anyway, it's beyond I think I'm super pissedive because
Speaker 5: I got the same tech.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 7: Yeah, the victim has to develop it.
Speaker 1: And it was Evanston. I think when you read through
Speaker 1: the policy and how black people were impasted, uh and
Speaker 1: how it spiraled through generations. Even for those who were
Speaker 1: able to buy some miracle acquire property in mostly white neighborhoods,
Speaker 1: they were terrorized, They had crosses burned in their lawns.
Speaker 1: There was actually a case of kidnappings and potential torture
Speaker 1: and human experiment with black people that dated back to
Speaker 1: the sixties. A series that I watch every summer since
Speaker 1: it's come out is Lovecraft Country. Did you guys watch that?
Speaker 1: Oh my god, it is like the most amazing uh series.
Speaker 1: So I've given them free Avere Tulsa what incredible, I
Speaker 1: think sometimes for to connect younger generations with the atrocities
Speaker 1: that were faced. The dramatization of it and a scripted
Speaker 1: series helps bring it to life. So it wasn't a documentary,
Speaker 1: it was a scre series, but it was just an amazing,
Speaker 1: really well done series that highlighted what people went through.
Speaker 1: Pioneering is hard, and so even the folks who did
Speaker 1: acquire property, what they went through was horrific. We wouldn't
Speaker 1: stand for it today, but we're still impacted by it today.
Speaker 1: So I share your outrage Angela and Tiffany.
Speaker 7: It is really and those examples are almost anywhere America. Yes,
Speaker 7: at that time when black families were making their migration
Speaker 7: into into differing neighborhoods where we were not welcome, were
Speaker 7: not wanted. In fact, we were the object of rejection
Speaker 7: in every way, shape and form that it could take.
Speaker 7: And I know we're rapping here, but I would say
Speaker 7: my ass would be not just to the administration, but
Speaker 7: to the legislative branch where Democrats have been able to
Speaker 7: wield power. There's been a tit, you know, a tossing
Speaker 7: back and forth between the left and the right almost
Speaker 7: every other election between who controls the House and the Senate.
Speaker 7: When we are in control again of the House of
Speaker 7: Representatives in the Senate, don't wait until you got two
Speaker 7: thirds majority before you move on issues and interest that
Speaker 7: affect us. I want to see them take some leadership,
Speaker 7: pass some legislation, and at the local level, require your
Speaker 7: own local governments to institute their own disparity studies so
Speaker 7: that we can have some legs to stand on. And
Speaker 7: they want to take Evanston up, then you're going to
Speaker 7: have to take Tallahassee and Miami and you name the
Speaker 7: city out right along with it. Force the federal government
Speaker 7: to have to then weigh in because of how ubiquitous
Speaker 7: these studies then become looking at each and every community
Speaker 7: in each and every state across the entire country. We
Speaker 7: ought to make them do some of the work here.
Speaker 7: If they want to dismantle it, you got to come
Speaker 7: at us one by one by one by one by one,
Speaker 7: and every local community has the ability institute their own
Speaker 7: despaired studies across a range of private sector and public
Speaker 7: sector impacts as it relates to race and gender.
Speaker 6: Absolutely well. I don't know.
Speaker 5: I just feel like whatever we need to do to
Speaker 5: gear for the fight, y'all, we are in the fight
Speaker 5: of our lives. I mean, it's one that's you know,
Speaker 5: expanded and extended beyond generations across generation stiff like, we're
Speaker 5: still in the fight and it's so devastating to witness
Speaker 5: that it just doesn't feel like it's getting lighter.
Speaker 1: And thank you for your work, Angela. Like you said,
Speaker 1: we were between taking a break and I asked Angela
Speaker 1: what was her involvement? And I don't want to mess
Speaker 1: up your words, but it was something to the effect
Speaker 1: when black folks call upon me to help the join
Speaker 1: that I answer that call.
Speaker 6: So, Jess, I appreciate y'all.
Speaker 5: Thank you for always carving out space for these important topics.
Speaker 5: I just am hoping that soon we can report on
Speaker 5: our victory, like we deserve our victory from losing. What
Speaker 5: the mission is of the Minority Business Development Agency is to,
Speaker 5: you know, the really important work that affirmative action policy
Speaker 5: is done in this country, even though we know it
Speaker 5: needed work to lose it, to watch DEI Department after
Speaker 5: DEI Department and position get completely eviscerated, it's just really
Speaker 5: hard to continue to bear witness to this and not
Speaker 5: be discouraged. So thank you all for carving out space,
Speaker 5: and hopefully we can think through some additional costs to action.
Speaker 5: But I think for now we are supposed to be
Speaker 5: putting up a letter. We hopefully will have that done
Speaker 5: by the time this mini pod runs, asking President Biden
Speaker 5: to sign an executive order to develop and establish a
Speaker 5: commission that would look at the dispirit experiences, impact, and
Speaker 5: probably in many ways intention on the experiences of black
Speaker 5: folks in this country. It's time to revisit what the
Speaker 5: Kerner Commission was evaluating. It may not be an uprising
Speaker 5: where things are happening in community, but there's certainly an
Speaker 5: uprising in our souls and it needs to be addressed.
Speaker 5: And we are feeling that the pinch of it economically, educationally,
Speaker 5: and psychologically, and that needs to be evaluated and there
Speaker 5: should be some recourse. So thank you all so much.
Speaker 5: Welcome home, every welcome home, Thank you all so much
Speaker 5: for listening. Remember to rate review subscribe and tune in
Speaker 5: to our regular episode on Thursday.
Speaker 3: Welcome Home.
Speaker 1: Native Land Pod is the production of iHeartRadio and partnership
Speaker 1: with Recent Choice Media. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.