Speaker 1: Welcome to Naked Sports, the podcast where we live at
Speaker 1: the intersection of sports, politics, and culture. Our purpose reveal
Speaker 1: the common threads that bind them all. So what's happening
Speaker 1: in women's basketball right now is what we've been trying to.
Speaker 2: Get to for almost thirty years.
Speaker 1: From the stadiums where athletes to break barriers and set records.
Speaker 2: Kaitenanquar broke the all time single game assists record. This
Speaker 2: is crazy for rookies to be doing.
Speaker 1: Our discussions will uncover the vital connections between these realms
Speaker 1: and the community we create. In each episode, we'll sit
Speaker 1: down with athletes, political analysts, and culture critics, because at
Speaker 1: the core of it all, how we see one issue
Speaker 1: shines the light on all others. Welcome to Naked Sports.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Carrie Champion. Hey, everybody, welcome back to
Speaker 1: another edition of Naked Sports. Which girl Carrie Champion. I
Speaker 1: appreciate you all being here and listening and being faithful.
Speaker 1: I will introduce our next guest in a few moments.
Speaker 1: You're gonna be You're gonna be happy to hear from him.
Speaker 1: He is a true to me, a teacher, a professor.
Speaker 1: He calls himself a digital creator, but he definitely has
Speaker 1: found a way to speak to the culture. But before
Speaker 1: I get into that, I have to talk about our podcast.
Speaker 1: Let them play WNBA Growing Pains. That's our podcast from
Speaker 1: last week. If you didn't listen, please do. But I
Speaker 1: want to address something that is disturbing and and I
Speaker 1: don't know if anybody will hear this, but I am
Speaker 1: really really tired of the narrative that these women in
Speaker 1: the WNBA are jealous of Kitlyn Clark, or Angel Reese
Speaker 1: doesn't like Caitlyn Clark, or we should be grateful for
Speaker 1: Caitlyn Clark. If you've listened to me, you know I
Speaker 1: am a big proponent of saying we as fans can't
Speaker 1: be mad at how she is getting attention, how the
Speaker 1: media is covering her, how legends in our business revere
Speaker 1: her so soon, so quickly. I think of a Dick
Speaker 1: Vital who said the women of the WNBA are jealous
Speaker 1: of Kaitlyn Clark. Charles Barkley echoed something very similar Stephen A. Smith,
Speaker 1: same thing.
Speaker 3: These people, these.
Speaker 1: Voices that we hear consistently in sports, that we regard
Speaker 1: as credible and worthy of our time, are sending that message.
Speaker 1: They are sending that message without hesitation, that Kitlyn Clark
Speaker 1: is untouchable and the women of the WNBA are jealous.
Speaker 1: The reason why that bothers me. I can give you
Speaker 1: a ton of reasons why. I can tell you that
Speaker 1: Dick Vital or Charles Barkley or Stephen A. Smith weren't
Speaker 1: watching the WNBA in ninety seven in a real way.
Speaker 1: I can tell you these men just started to watch
Speaker 1: the WNBA because of Katelyn Clark, I'm sure. And now
Speaker 1: that they've watched and they're paying attention, they're like, oh,
Speaker 1: it's not, Oh okay, it's it's kind of interesting. I
Speaker 1: just don't believe that they have the right, nor do
Speaker 1: they have the knowledge and or acumen to make such
Speaker 1: a sweeping statement as if it is fact. And because yes,
Speaker 1: and even if it is fact, even if it is.
Speaker 3: True, who cares?
Speaker 1: There are people who were jealous of Lebron and Kobe
Speaker 1: and Barkley and name any other superstar player. Players in
Speaker 1: the NBA were jealous as well. And it wasn't headline news,
Speaker 1: and it wasn't something that people stopped and paid attention to.
Speaker 1: It wasn't something where you said, oh, everybody's jealous of Lebron.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about it, and it is this gender bias
Speaker 1: and how in which men, the way they consume women's sports,
Speaker 1: feel like they have to point out women being caddied.
Speaker 1: And you all know, if anybody's listening to this podcast,
Speaker 1: the biggest gossips, the biggest caddiest people usually aren't women. Okay, guys, Okay.
Speaker 1: Whenever I hear something about some gossip, it's usually coming
Speaker 1: from a male. I just want to let you know,
Speaker 1: especially in this business. But to my point, so what
Speaker 1: if they are jealous? So what if they are competitive?
Speaker 1: That is sport. It happens all the time. And I
Speaker 1: hate how precious you all are being with Caitlin. I'm saying, yes,
Speaker 1: and these two things can exist. Yes, and yes they
Speaker 1: may be jealous. Yes, they might be upset with the
Speaker 1: fact that she's getting all the attention, and they also
Speaker 1: are still playing the sport. They also are still showing her.
Speaker 1: She's still not regarded as other legends are. She isn't
Speaker 1: the best in the league. No one is saying that.
Speaker 1: I most definitely am not saying that she is the
Speaker 1: best in the league. I'm saying she's a super nova
Speaker 1: with a special talent. Doesn't mean she's the best in
Speaker 1: the league. It means there's something about her that is
Speaker 1: drawing people to her, that makes people who have never
Speaker 1: watched this game before want to watch the game.
Speaker 3: Let's ride that wave that's separate.
Speaker 1: I really truly cannot stand that listening comprehension is gone
Speaker 1: these days. No one pays attention. I'm not saying she's
Speaker 1: the best. I'm not saying that angel Reese is not
Speaker 1: as good as her. In fact, I think Angel Reese
Speaker 1: is a dog. I think they both are figuring it out.
Speaker 1: Is there's sophomore seasons. They are going to have great streaks,
Speaker 1: They're gonna have bad streaks. It's how sport works. But
Speaker 1: the growing pains of the WNBA specifically come from people
Speaker 1: who are not allowing this sport to grow. Everyone has
Speaker 1: an opinion. Everyone thinks the media, the media, the big
Speaker 1: bad media, is for Caitlyn Clark. And I can see
Speaker 1: why because some of the biggest voices with the biggest
Speaker 1: platforms are are truly caping for her. They are laying,
Speaker 1: they're taking off their capes and they're throwing it over
Speaker 1: a puddle of water, and they're saying, Caitlyn, come on.
Speaker 3: Walk over, friend, we got to help you. You're so precious.
Speaker 1: I understand that, I truly do, but everyone doesn't feel
Speaker 1: that way. And I do believe that what we're going
Speaker 1: to witness in the coming days, years, or months is
Speaker 1: a breaking point. The women who've built this league from
Speaker 1: ninety seven are going to be fed up. They're going
Speaker 1: to be fed up, and they're going to start saying more,
Speaker 1: and they're going to start saying more, and that's going
Speaker 1: to start to affect the game, and in a real way.
Speaker 1: This is a PSA for the commissioner of the WNBA,
Speaker 1: Kathy Ingelbert. You need to get it together. You need
Speaker 1: to get it together. You need to know who your
Speaker 1: players are. You need to understand what they want. You
Speaker 1: need not be afraid of having these uncomfortable conversations, and
Speaker 1: you need to not treat this like it's just solely
Speaker 1: a business. You're dealing with souls. You're dealing with women
Speaker 1: who are used to being marginalized. You're dealing with women
Speaker 1: who have big voices. You're dealing with women who understand
Speaker 1: right from wrong, and this freedom that they are starting
Speaker 1: to experience. And what I mean by freedom is the attention,
Speaker 1: the time and the money that they're making. What comes
Speaker 1: with all of that, when you know that you are
Speaker 1: a precious commodity, comes this ego, comes this inner voice,
Speaker 1: and it comes at a cost. And they're not going
Speaker 1: to let you continue. This is for you, miss Ingelbert, commissioner, Ingelbert.
Speaker 1: They're not going to let you continue to ignore that.
Speaker 1: They're not going to let you continue to ignore the
Speaker 1: fact that they are being treated differently because they are
Speaker 1: not Caitlin Clark pains all growing pains. I just hate
Speaker 1: and I'm fed up. I just hate that we're letting
Speaker 1: people who don't even understand the sport create this narrative.
Speaker 1: Why do we care what RG three has to say?
Speaker 3: Why do we care that.
Speaker 1: RG three says he knows people in Angel Reese's inner
Speaker 1: circle that says she does not like Caitlin Clark. Why
Speaker 1: does he matter? Why does his voice matter? Why are
Speaker 1: we giving him attention?
Speaker 3: To my point earlier? Has he been a fan of
Speaker 3: the WNBA or is this new?
Speaker 1: His eyes tell him that Angel Reese doesn't like Kitlyn Clark.
Speaker 1: Who cares? And I'll wrap it up with this, It's
Speaker 1: okay to not like your opponent. I don't know if
Speaker 1: you know that this thing called sports, I'm gonna say
Speaker 1: it every week, it's okay not to like somebody you
Speaker 1: go up against, because you all want the same thing,
Speaker 1: and that is to be the best. We've seen that, right.
Speaker 1: Why is it different for women? Why do we have
Speaker 1: to bring in Caddy? Why do we have to bring
Speaker 1: in oh, they're jealous? Why do we have to bring
Speaker 1: in all of these these tropes of how women interact
Speaker 1: with other women. Why can't it just be we have
Speaker 1: athletes who just don't get along. Athletes are like Caitlin Clark.
Speaker 1: You don't handle the ball well. You can shoot your
Speaker 1: ass off, but you don't handle that ball well. And
Speaker 1: stop and stop flopping and stop acting like people are
Speaker 1: are trying you. That's what sport is. Because the biggest
Speaker 1: complain about Kaitlin Clark, honestly from other players, is that
Speaker 1: she winds too much. It's everybody else's fault and that
Speaker 1: might be her and that might be her downfall. Correct,
Speaker 1: that might be her issue. Maybe she needs she'll work
Speaker 1: on it.
Speaker 3: Who knows. I don't know.
Speaker 1: It's too early to tell. I don't have a firm opinion.
Speaker 1: My opinion can be changed on that. But from what
Speaker 1: I see. Yeah, no, she's not the top guard in
Speaker 1: the league, not the top point guard in the league
Speaker 1: at all, not at all, And we know that.
Speaker 3: But that's okay.
Speaker 1: And I just simply want us to be able to
Speaker 1: talk about these women the way we talk about NBA players.
Speaker 3: Narrative.
Speaker 1: Lebron winds too much on social media. Get off of
Speaker 1: social media. Remember back in the day, I'm old enough
Speaker 1: to remember, we couldn't stand Lebron on social media with
Speaker 1: all his passive aggressive tweets.
Speaker 3: Who are you talking about? Say it? Kobe? No one
Speaker 3: like Kobe. He was mean. He didn't get along with Shaq.
Speaker 1: People thought Shaq was the nicest one and Kobe was
Speaker 1: mean and he ran shack out of la. Michael Jordan
Speaker 1: was physically getting his ass handed to him when he
Speaker 1: played for the Chicago Bulls when he went up against
Speaker 1: the Detroit Pistons before he finally got his first chip.
Speaker 3: They used to physically beat.
Speaker 1: The hell out of that man until he got in
Speaker 1: the gym and figured it out. I go down a list,
Speaker 1: I go down a list of narratives for NBA players,
Speaker 1: and of surrounding all of those narratives, nobody talked about
Speaker 1: being jealous. Nobody talked about the fact that Lebron was
Speaker 1: mad when stuff was getting all the attention and he was.
Speaker 1: Nobody was talking about the fact that Michael Jordan don't
Speaker 1: really fool with Lebron like that. Maybe is Jordan jealous?
Speaker 1: Is Jordan jealous? Was Kobe jealous? Was the Magic Johnson jealous? No, y'all,
Speaker 1: don't even that. Don't even come in you'll mind.
Speaker 3: Y'all make me sick. Y'all make me sick.
Speaker 1: I'm not talking to people who don't think like this,
Speaker 1: but the rest of y'all make me sick, all right,
Speaker 1: that's my vent. I approve that message coming up on
Speaker 1: the show today. I love him so much. And by
Speaker 1: the way, I've never met him, but I love him
Speaker 1: so much. Some people are put on this planet to
Speaker 1: give us very special messages, Messages that teach us, that
Speaker 1: make us think, messages that challenge us. Whether you are
Speaker 1: black or white, male or female, whatever you are. I
Speaker 1: believe that if you listen to Garrison Hayes, heeds you
Speaker 1: in education. So today on Naked we're gonna talk to
Speaker 1: Garrison travels what he's been able to find out, and
Speaker 1: I hope it's an education for you all, because there's
Speaker 1: so much we just don't know about myself, included.
Speaker 3: Welcome to Naked Sports. I'm Carrie Champion back in a moment.
Speaker 2: Hey, my name is Garrison Hayes. I am a journalist
Speaker 2: and creator. I love history, I love black people. Those
Speaker 2: are probably the most important things to know about me
Speaker 2: from a content perspective. Originally from Atlanta, Georgia, but currently
Speaker 2: in Nashville. So it feels really really important to tell
Speaker 2: you that I'm from Atlanta.
Speaker 1: Because why does it feel really important to tell me
Speaker 1: you're from Atlanta.
Speaker 2: Well, you live in Nashville, because I live in Nashville,
Speaker 2: and you can't if you're from Atlanta. You can't live
Speaker 2: in any other Southern city and be like, oh, I'm
Speaker 2: from here. No, No, you have to let people know
Speaker 2: I am from the southern city, especially for black people. Atlanta, Georgia.
Speaker 3: That's the one that matters. I got you.
Speaker 1: I lived in Atlanta for a hot stint. I enjoy Yeah,
Speaker 1: I loved it. I was a local news reporter.
Speaker 3: I loved it.
Speaker 1: It was it was, it was, it was. Can I
Speaker 1: explain Atlanta? Atlanta for me really helped me solidify my
Speaker 1: blackness and I know that sounds crazy, but I grew
Speaker 1: up in California. I grew up in LA and it's.
Speaker 3: Really set apart from the rest of the world. When
Speaker 3: you live in.
Speaker 1: California, the isms aren't obvious, especially not when I was
Speaker 1: growing up. Like if someone was a racist, I wouldn't
Speaker 1: know if someone didn't like me.
Speaker 3: I really didn't.
Speaker 1: The first place I would go wasn't about who I
Speaker 1: was or the color of my skin because it's such
Speaker 1: a community I grew in Pasadena, especially in Pasadena, everyone
Speaker 1: is just it's a mixing melting pot, and I didn't
Speaker 1: really know what I needed to know, which brings me
Speaker 1: to my point of wanting to bring you on how
Speaker 1: I grew up. I didn't have storytellers passing down oral history.
Speaker 1: I didn't know much about the black experience that my
Speaker 1: mother had growing up, or even my grandmother for that matter,
Speaker 1: who grew up in the South. You and I have
Speaker 1: talked to her. I didn't have that oral history. It
Speaker 1: just wasn't a part of my childhood. And I don't
Speaker 1: know why, but it just wasn't. And when I got older,
Speaker 1: I made sure that I became more and more curious,
Speaker 1: but there was just so much. I didn't know you
Speaker 1: as a creator, as a storyteller. As a journalist, you
Speaker 1: do something that I find invaluable, and you are able
Speaker 1: to reach audiences of different ages, and that is tell
Speaker 1: stories black history. And so when you say you love
Speaker 1: black people, you love history. That's most important. It is
Speaker 1: evident in the work that you do. Thank you for
Speaker 1: doing that.
Speaker 2: No, that means a lot to me. Thank you so much, Carrie.
Speaker 2: You know it's funny. I grew up similarly. Maybe we'll
Speaker 2: talk about our grandmothers today. I grew up with my nana,
Speaker 2: who is born in the South, still alive and well
Speaker 2: and doing great and all of that. And she told
Speaker 2: me all of these stories about her life growing up
Speaker 2: as a little black girl in the kind of in
Speaker 2: the South and just outside of Atlanta, Lynnwood Park. And
Speaker 2: the thing that I always felt when she was telling
Speaker 2: me these stories was that I was transported back to
Speaker 2: that time that I was living in nineteen forty whatever
Speaker 2: it was, or fifty whatever, and I'm experiencing these things
Speaker 2: in the moment. And so that's probably the first place
Speaker 2: where I really fell in love with history. It was
Speaker 2: this kind of personal oral history that I really fell
Speaker 2: in love with and then I realized that there were
Speaker 2: people I have this book behind me right now from
Speaker 2: doctor Panil Joseph. There are people who study this and
Speaker 2: then take those oral histories and the larger context and
Speaker 2: synthesize it in a way where you can really digest it.
Speaker 2: And I just fell in love with that really very
Speaker 2: specific thing. And then when I realized that I could
Speaker 2: do that, that I could be a part of that process,
Speaker 2: it just kind of lit up my world. And I'm
Speaker 2: so thankful that I get to do it now because
Speaker 2: I think it's really really important to your point. A
Speaker 2: place like Atlanta. I was just telling a friend this
Speaker 2: last night. Atlanta is special because there is this kind
Speaker 2: of baseline level of respect that I think you can
Speaker 2: can kind of expect. Maybe people are disrespectful, maybe people
Speaker 2: say disrespectful things to you, that's fine, but it isn't
Speaker 2: because you're black in many ways, especially if you're around
Speaker 2: black people. And there were there I've kind of been.
Speaker 2: I grew up with that understanding, and then I moved
Speaker 2: and I've lived all across the country and I never
Speaker 2: really found another place where I could access that, And
Speaker 2: so there is this kind of like baseline level of dignity,
Speaker 2: dignity that I think certain people from Atlanta really kind
Speaker 2: of walk around with and we're kind of looking for
Speaker 2: it everywhere and you never why find that thing again?
Speaker 1: My time living in Atlanta, first time I saw a
Speaker 1: black mayor, first time I saw a black chief of police,
Speaker 1: first time black people were running the city in a
Speaker 1: real way. Attorneys, money, this, that, n doctors, and I
Speaker 1: was like, is it? What is this place that I
Speaker 1: am in? And I loved everything about it, but it
Speaker 1: was also yeah, the first time I realized racism existed
Speaker 1: in a very hurtful way.
Speaker 3: Interesting because if you go.
Speaker 1: Twenty miles out side of atlantaxt I had. I was
Speaker 1: a local news reporter. I have photographers who refused to
Speaker 1: go to Stone Mountain. They were like, I'm not trying
Speaker 1: to die. They grew up there and they were afraid
Speaker 1: of certain areas because of what they knew. And I
Speaker 1: was like, that's crazy, what do you mean to me?
Speaker 1: In my mind, it didn't make any sense. But I mean,
Speaker 1: I'm not a black man. One and two I didn't
Speaker 1: know the history YEA. So with that being said, I'm
Speaker 1: really curious about your journey and I want to get
Speaker 1: into specifics, but what was up And I don't want
Speaker 1: to say breakthrough moment for you, but when did you
Speaker 1: realize the content that you were providing was imperative in
Speaker 1: terms of how people responded to it and how and
Speaker 1: how it went viral if.
Speaker 2: You were yeah, you know, there are a couple of moments.
Speaker 2: I'll say this. I started out on YouTube, like making
Speaker 2: videos on YouTube back in two thousand and seven. They
Speaker 2: were silly little videos that are all private now. But
Speaker 2: I've been kind of like telling these stories and doing
Speaker 2: video stuff online for a while, and I put it down.
Speaker 2: I went off to film school. I fell in love
Speaker 2: with ministry while in college, and so I ended up
Speaker 2: in seminary. I became a pastor for some time. So
Speaker 2: I had this kind of crazy journey. But what I
Speaker 2: would do as a pastor is I'd be up on
Speaker 2: stage and I would essentially be synthesizing the things that
Speaker 2: I'd kind of taken from the text in scripture and
Speaker 2: then communicating it to the congregation. And what I learned
Speaker 2: was that you can take these elements and put them
Speaker 2: together in a way that really impacts people, that helps
Speaker 2: them think about the world differently, think about themselves, and
Speaker 2: others in a different way. And so when the pandemic hit,
Speaker 2: everything at my church went online, and so I was
Speaker 2: back to making videos on the internet, but this time
Speaker 2: for my congregation, and I just kind of fell back
Speaker 2: in love with that process and the ability to take
Speaker 2: images and words and put them together in a really
Speaker 2: neat and tight way. And my congregation was really like
Speaker 2: enjoying it it and I was getting so much positive
Speaker 2: feedback from them because so much of their life had
Speaker 2: been disrupted, and so the kind of one consistent thing
Speaker 2: was that they knew they'd see a video from me
Speaker 2: every single week. And so, you know, of course, we
Speaker 2: lived through twenty twenty and the kind of Black Lives
Speaker 2: Matter moment, and by January twenty twenty one, I already
Speaker 2: started to get this sense that so much of what
Speaker 2: we were fighting for and protesting for was like we
Speaker 2: were getting away from the point. And I thought a
Speaker 2: lot of that had to do with the missing historical context,
Speaker 2: like how we got here kind of felt like we
Speaker 2: were starting from scratch, But we're not starting from scratch, right,
Speaker 2: Like we have so much history that bears down on
Speaker 2: this moment to help us kind of get to the
Speaker 2: next moment. And that's what I wanted to do. I
Speaker 2: wanted to take those ideas and stories and that history
Speaker 2: and just share it. And so I started by sharing
Speaker 2: videos of me saying here are three black books that
Speaker 2: I think you should read on this topic, and it
Speaker 2: really resonated. The first video I posted. One of the
Speaker 2: first videos I posted got like one hundred and fifty
Speaker 2: thousand views, which to me is just like kind of
Speaker 2: mind blowing. Yeah, you know, our kind of goalpost changes
Speaker 2: over time, and so now one point fifty is like, oh, like,
Speaker 2: I don't know, but that's great, Yeah, you know exactly.
Speaker 2: But at the moment, at the time, it was like
Speaker 2: this kind of mind blowing viral moment for me. And
Speaker 2: that's when it really clicked that there was something here,
Speaker 2: that there was a real thirst for this kind of
Speaker 2: information and knowledge.
Speaker 1: What have you learned, and this might be a series
Speaker 1: of questions, what is the one thing that you realize
Speaker 1: Black folks don't know about themselves in terms of their history.
Speaker 2: It's not your fault. I think so much of the
Speaker 2: American psyche, the way we think about the world is
Speaker 2: looked at through the lens of the individual. So we
Speaker 2: think about my own individual f failures and my own
Speaker 2: individual accomplishments. You know, only recently are people starting to
Speaker 2: admit that, like there's some degree of luck involved in
Speaker 2: like the success of the most successful people. Right for
Speaker 2: a long time, it was like, hey, I pulled myself
Speaker 2: up by my bootstraps. It comes from that old story,
Speaker 2: the rugged Dick's story of you know, this guy who
Speaker 2: moves to New York to make it big and from
Speaker 2: rags to riches. That's a part of the American myth.
Speaker 2: And in some ways, I want to I want to
Speaker 2: give it credit that it means that we are incredibly ambitious,
Speaker 2: and we believe and we have hope and we know
Speaker 2: that the future will be better. We always kind of
Speaker 2: think that way, which is good in some ways. At
Speaker 2: the same time, there are so many forces at play
Speaker 2: that are way further upstream from your individual effort that
Speaker 2: contribute to outcomes. And while you may be exceptional, carry
Speaker 2: because you are, and maybe I am exceptional in some ways.
Speaker 2: The reality is that most Americans exist somewhere in the middle.
Speaker 2: And I think that's true for most Black people in
Speaker 2: those conditions that we are, that we are raised in,
Speaker 2: that we come up in those conditions matter and for
Speaker 2: so many Black people, the conditions that we were like
Speaker 2: brought into, that we exist in are are designed to
Speaker 2: see us fail. And so I think if you can
Speaker 2: think about some of those larger trends and some of
Speaker 2: those larger elements, we can target our solutions to those
Speaker 2: problems way more effectively. And I also think we can
Speaker 2: walk around with a with a greater deal of dignity
Speaker 2: and respect and belief in ourselves for what we've already overcome.
Speaker 2: I encounter so many Black people who just have like
Speaker 2: low racial self esteem, and it breaks my mind.
Speaker 3: As low racial self esteem.
Speaker 2: What I what I mean by that is that that
Speaker 2: we take a low view of who we are. I'm
Speaker 2: so thankful for the Black Lives Matter movement. I'm thankful
Speaker 2: for movies like Roots, which kind of like redeemed this
Speaker 2: idea of resilience in the enslaved individual. I'm so thankful
Speaker 2: for the for the for the media that helps Black
Speaker 2: people feel feel good about themselves, because there's so much
Speaker 2: in this world designed to make us feel bad about ourselves.
Speaker 2: And so that's what I mean when I say low
Speaker 2: racial self esteem. It's this idea that we don't believe
Speaker 2: that Black people are capable precisely because in so many
Speaker 2: ways we've been given these narratives and these examples and
Speaker 2: the things that they show in the news tell us
Speaker 2: that we are less than. But the history of our
Speaker 2: people is a history of resilience and excellence despite all
Speaker 2: that we've been through.
Speaker 1: So that is where for me, where the work is
Speaker 1: the history. I think when you talk about us not
Speaker 1: understanding who we are in terms of how we view
Speaker 1: ourselves as because we don't know our history, myself included,
Speaker 1: they're just things I just don't know. I could scroll
Speaker 1: through your page and be like, I didn't know that,
Speaker 1: I didn't know that, I don't know. There's so much
Speaker 1: that I didn't know. And I wish the same way
Speaker 1: that you said your grandmother told you stories. I wish
Speaker 1: my grandmother grew up telling my mom those stories, and
Speaker 1: then my mom could tell my mother and my father
Speaker 1: could tell me those stories nowadays. And this is you
Speaker 1: have to be curious, and I just I just I'm
Speaker 1: blessed that I'm curious and I'm about different things, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, so tell me why I don't understand why.
Speaker 1: I think that is my my superpower. But when I
Speaker 1: watch you go to the likes of a Republican National Convention.
Speaker 3: It didn't.
Speaker 1: And you sit and you talk with these black Republicans,
Speaker 1: and we have to we have to highlight some of
Speaker 1: these moments on the podcast. You sit and you talk
Speaker 1: to these people, and it's clear, at least to me,
Speaker 1: they don't really understand why that they are Republican. They
Speaker 1: think they do, and they give you what we know
Speaker 1: that is out in the Zeigeist. Well, you know, Republicans
Speaker 1: used to be all black. You know, Democrats were racists
Speaker 1: when they first start. They give you all of these
Speaker 1: these generic sayings that we have heard about, but we
Speaker 1: don't really know why when you went to the RNC,
Speaker 1: because I went to the DNC and I loved it.
Speaker 1: But when you went to the RC, God bless you
Speaker 1: because that is that's God's work right there. That is
Speaker 1: something that only Jesus put on your heart.
Speaker 3: Amen.
Speaker 1: Amen, Amen, because I was ready to fight. And that's
Speaker 1: the problem. We're too emotional as a people because it's
Speaker 1: so serious and it means.
Speaker 3: So much, and I'm like, I am mad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So talk to.
Speaker 1: Me about what are the reasons, just the reasons that
Speaker 1: black Republicans exist. From the research that you've been able
Speaker 1: to do. From those you've been able to talk to,
Speaker 1: what are their reasonings for being in the Republican Party
Speaker 1: today right now supporting Donald Trump.
Speaker 2: It's such a good question. It's literally the question that
Speaker 2: I set out to answer last summer summers. Black Conservatives
Speaker 2: are everywhere. That's why I'm here to show my support
Speaker 2: as a black man. But Trump polsters can't get enough
Speaker 2: of them.
Speaker 1: The historic levels of support the Republicans are getting from
Speaker 1: black folk under Trump.
Speaker 2: Donald Trump is cozying up to them. The RNC was
Speaker 2: full of President Trump.
Speaker 4: We have the greatest economy in all lifetime.
Speaker 2: America is not a racist country.
Speaker 4: Can you imagine President Donald Trump coming to a city
Speaker 4: and calling a pastor like me.
Speaker 2: You've probably heard a lot of people talking about black Republicans,
Speaker 2: but I spent all of the R and C talking
Speaker 2: to black Republicans. So it is with being a black Conservative.
Speaker 4: I equate it to being gay back in the fifties
Speaker 4: our sixties.
Speaker 2: You didn't come off the closet then.
Speaker 4: And so you look at the people who are really
Speaker 4: saying that about Trump.
Speaker 2: It's not no up to the negroes, it's negroes out the.
Speaker 5: Real hood and that's one reason why I'm pro Trump
Speaker 5: and I'm a conservative, is because I truly believe in
Speaker 5: the individualistic approach to the problems that we see within
Speaker 5: the black community or in America as a whole.
Speaker 2: Black Republicans specifically are some of the most disliked and
Speaker 2: unpopular political figures within the black community for a reason,
Speaker 2: reason reason. There were all of these headlines saying that
Speaker 2: blackeople are going for Trump at a higher rate, and
Speaker 2: they turned out to be right, maybe not to the
Speaker 2: degree that they were right. You look at the data.
Speaker 2: Trump gained in every single demographic among people of color,
Speaker 2: gained with black women, gained with black men, And that
Speaker 2: was notable to me, And it was notable. It was
Speaker 2: kind of like becoming obvious as I was kind of
Speaker 2: out talking to people. I talked to people in Atlanta,
Speaker 2: I was as you mentioned the RNC, I talk to
Speaker 2: people in New York, all across the country. And the
Speaker 2: thing that I feel like it's important to acknowledge here, Carrie,
Speaker 2: is that black people are if you were to really
Speaker 2: if you were to take one singular issue out of
Speaker 2: the American politics, if you were to take out racism,
Speaker 2: like let's say that racism wasn't a political issue. Let's
Speaker 2: say everybody was equally against racism. Black people would be
Speaker 2: a third independent, a third conservative, a third liberal. I
Speaker 2: think we've all very naturally across.
Speaker 1: Wait, let's just hold for a moment. I do to
Speaker 1: say you are absolutely right. I hate that people assume
Speaker 1: because we're black, we're Democrats. But because we're one of
Speaker 1: a few countries that gives you that give you only
Speaker 1: two really viable options, you go for the lesser of
Speaker 1: two evils. Yea, and the lesser of two evils for
Speaker 1: many black people would be the Democratic Party. But we
Speaker 1: are so conservative. We are so some of us are
Speaker 1: so liberal. We don't there is We're not a monolith
Speaker 1: the way I could be extremely liberal on some issues
Speaker 1: and then very conservative on other issues.
Speaker 2: I don't want to dig into that. I want to
Speaker 2: know which ones you're very conservative on because I'm always curious, Like,
Speaker 2: I don't know if we have time for that.
Speaker 3: Later, Yes we do, we yes, yes, yes, we get
Speaker 3: after you.
Speaker 1: So so so you found out like if racism wasn't
Speaker 1: an issue, we'd be one third this one or that
Speaker 1: one third whatever.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's okay, So let let's get I want to.
Speaker 2: I want to talk at least for a moment about
Speaker 2: the data the research that HIT Strategies did. My good
Speaker 2: friends over at HIT Strategies, they they pulled black people
Speaker 2: around their political ideologies and political leanings, and one of
Speaker 2: the things that they found was that across the spectrum, yes,
Speaker 2: there are these different factions, these ways that black people
Speaker 2: are thinking about politics, but for those who identify with
Speaker 2: the Republican Party the most, race and racism are actually
Speaker 2: lowest on their priority list. They don't care as much
Speaker 2: about that. So that's that's part of it that's important
Speaker 2: to say of a party. It is actually very fascinating
Speaker 2: that that there are a group of black people in
Speaker 2: this country, obviously a minority, that don't see the forces
Speaker 2: of racism at work in the black community, on individuals whatever.
Speaker 2: They don't see that as a real problem, and that
Speaker 2: is probably the biggest gateway into today's Republican Party for
Speaker 2: black people. And so when I talk to them, let's
Speaker 2: let's let's get some of those those stories in here.
Speaker 2: When I talk to them, they talk about economic issues,
Speaker 2: they talk about abortion issues, So that's kind of a
Speaker 2: socially conservative kind of issue that they have. There of
Speaker 2: course that means that they're also issue with with the
Speaker 2: LGBTQ movement. A lot of times it is specifically the
Speaker 2: rise of trans visibility. I won't say that there are
Speaker 2: more trans people, they are just more visible trans people today,
Speaker 2: and so they take issue with this and they see
Speaker 2: that as this kind of negative force in the country.
Speaker 2: And when I push on those things like well, what
Speaker 2: difference does it make if there are gay people getting
Speaker 2: married or they're trans people going through their own individual things,
Speaker 2: like what difference does it mean? There are very rarely
Speaker 2: satisfying answers for me. That's my opinion.
Speaker 3: They's the answer. What's the overall sentiment?
Speaker 2: A lot of times it's that it's being pushed on
Speaker 2: the kids, And I think that I think that's insane.
Speaker 2: Can I just be honest, I think that's crazy.
Speaker 3: Why? Why is that crazy?
Speaker 2: I think it's crazy because visibility. I grew up I
Speaker 2: mean back to Atlanta. I grew up in Atlanta in
Speaker 2: the nineties and two thousands, when there was a great
Speaker 2: deal of gay visibility in the city. Everyone And it's
Speaker 2: finily like saying like Atlanta's like the gay, black gay mecca,
Speaker 2: you know, in the nineties, in the two thousands. I
Speaker 2: have a very close cousin who unfortunately passed away, but
Speaker 2: I grew up with a cousin who was trans or
Speaker 2: is trans, and I have plenty of gay I'm not gay.
Speaker 2: I'm around them in like a really intimate, you know,
Speaker 2: close relational way. This is my family, these are my friends.
Speaker 2: And I'm not gay because I wasn't. I'm not gay
Speaker 2: because I'm not gay. I don't And so I don't
Speaker 2: think that seeing more trade people means that I'm going
Speaker 2: to suddenly switch into being a trans person. And so
Speaker 2: I think the idea of being pushed on is manufactured.
Speaker 2: It's really just the visibility that they have an issue with.
Speaker 3: It's the visibility.
Speaker 1: So when when trans people existed and it wasn't as
Speaker 1: as known or as around the corner or social media
Speaker 1: or holiday, it was fine because it was done behind
Speaker 1: closed doors. But now that it's out in public, do
Speaker 1: you find that really bothers people on the Republican side,
Speaker 1: especially the blacks.
Speaker 3: Who who are who are are joining the party.
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, and you see, and you see I mean
Speaker 2: back to your point about the conservatism of black people.
Speaker 2: You know, black people are still the most churched demographic.
Speaker 3: That's what I was going to say. We are churchy,
Speaker 3: We see churchy folks.
Speaker 2: You know, there are ideas in many churches around the
Speaker 2: role that women are supposed to play, queer issues, right
Speaker 2: like whether or not people should or shouldn't be gay,
Speaker 2: whatever that might mean. There are all of these ideas,
Speaker 2: these ecclesial and the theological and missiological ideas, and it's
Speaker 2: worth saying that some of those things are creating pathways
Speaker 2: for black folks specifically to be kind of ushered into
Speaker 2: the Republican Party, conservatism and Republicanism specifically.
Speaker 1: Wow, okay, so you're so let me just say from
Speaker 1: the research you've done and what you think you've been
Speaker 1: able to ascertain that like the church aspect, the conservative aspect,
Speaker 1: churchy black folks, that like, yes, I am a Republican.
Speaker 1: So let's get into my grandmother. I have said on
Speaker 1: the show, and I have said on every show CNN here,
Speaker 1: my grandmother voted for Donald Trump. She's ninety five years old.
Speaker 1: FI se as can be mine's mostly there. I would
Speaker 1: say if I said to say, because you know, because
Speaker 1: you know, you lose a little, if I'd give her
Speaker 1: eighty five percent, you know, mostly good days, mostly good days,
Speaker 1: but smart enough to tell me most recently, she made
Speaker 1: a mistake. We've heard that before. What are we supposed
Speaker 1: to hold on that mistake with? Told me to make
Speaker 1: sure I save my money because with this man now
Speaker 1: in charge, she can see that bad times are coming.
Speaker 1: She then gave me a list of things to do
Speaker 1: because she said, I've been here before, and I know
Speaker 1: it's going to be tight, so you just pay attention
Speaker 1: to ABC and D. My next question, naturally, was like, well,
Speaker 1: why would you vote for him and her philosophy while
Speaker 1: not you know, she's not going to be as eloquent
Speaker 1: and explain it all to me and give me the
Speaker 1: historical perspective. But she was just like, I churchy, Kamla
Speaker 1: wore too many pants her pants suit, Like, wow, he's
Speaker 1: just too bossy.
Speaker 3: What have you seen me?
Speaker 1: Who you gave right to this? She didn't birth me,
Speaker 1: but you raised me. Could you say that about this
Speaker 1: woman who I in many ways align with because of
Speaker 1: who Kamala Harris is and what she's been through and
Speaker 1: her struggle and trying to figure it out. She's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: but you know you don't need to be doing all that.
Speaker 1: You don't need to live in New York and in
Speaker 1: la you don't need to. It's a very simple mind
Speaker 1: your business mindset, go to church, come home, work, have
Speaker 1: some kids, have a family, mind your business.
Speaker 3: But that still wasn't.
Speaker 1: Enough for me because Karsen, she was the first in
Speaker 1: many ways in my family to do so many things.
Speaker 1: She was married to a man who was abusive, she
Speaker 1: left him. Women didn't do that back then, that's right.
Speaker 1: She raised two kids on her own. Women didn't do
Speaker 1: that back then. They went and got married again and
Speaker 1: again and again. Because the mrs was more important than independence.
Speaker 1: She then was the first person in our family to
Speaker 1: travel outside the country. She was like, you know, I
Speaker 1: deserve I wanted to be a Hollywood movie star. It
Speaker 1: never happened, But what I'm going to start doing is
Speaker 1: traveling around the world. Like some of the favorite films
Speaker 1: that she used to watch that she wanted to actually
Speaker 1: go and visit a London or a Paris, and she'd
Speaker 1: come back with this dollars, you know, their version of
Speaker 1: their money, whether it was the Euro.
Speaker 3: Or or whatever it was.
Speaker 1: She would come back and say, look, and she would
Speaker 1: explain her travels to us, and it was really a
Speaker 1: beautiful thing.
Speaker 3: And as she's.
Speaker 1: Sitting here telling me this, I'm like, you're so independent,
Speaker 1: You so are aligned with Kamala, You're so aligned with
Speaker 1: women today who are saying, look, yes and yeah, I
Speaker 1: want that, But if I don't, I'm gonna have to
Speaker 1: go make it on my own. I'm not going to
Speaker 1: be in the circumstances that life says I should have.
Speaker 1: So why in the world do you still feel this way?
Speaker 1: And what I have come to learn is that we
Speaker 1: and I don't want to use the word hypocritical, but
Speaker 1: we are such a complicated people. I can tell you
Speaker 1: that I don't think transgender athletes should be in high school.
Speaker 1: And the reason why I think that is because there's
Speaker 1: not enough research. There isn't enough money, and there isn't
Speaker 1: any testing done to make sure that there is parody
Speaker 1: in the sense that most recently in California, in Clovis,
Speaker 1: there was a transgender track and field athlete and she
Speaker 1: wanted to run and there were a lot of parents protesting.
Speaker 1: And I didn't like that they were protesting her because
Speaker 1: she was a child. But what I understood was is
Speaker 1: this fair. I know that this person takes hormones, I
Speaker 1: know the science is here that says that she is
Speaker 1: probably the same as my daughter, but we really don't
Speaker 1: know enough because high school. High schools don't give you
Speaker 1: that budget to go and do what you would do
Speaker 1: on a collegiate level, or what you would do on
Speaker 1: an Olympic level or in a professional level. I have
Speaker 1: no problem on all of these other levels where testing
Speaker 1: is done and people are making sure that your hormones
Speaker 1: are equal and there's no unfair advantage, and that you're
Speaker 1: competing the same way that everybody's competing next to you.
Speaker 3: I have no problem with that.
Speaker 1: But then I talked to a really good friend of mine,
Speaker 1: and she has a daughter in high school, and she said,
Speaker 1: if I didn't have a daughter playing sports in high school,
Speaker 1: I would not believe the way I believe. But I
Speaker 1: truly believe it shouldn't be done in high school. I
Speaker 1: watch my daughters compete. I watch them lose when they're
Speaker 1: going up against girls who are better than them and
Speaker 1: they are the best, and I watch them lose, and
Speaker 1: I see how hard it is for them. And if
Speaker 1: someone seemingly has an unfair advantage, I am going to
Speaker 1: take issue with that. I know it sounds shocking, and
Speaker 1: scary and uncomfortable to say, but that's what I believe,
Speaker 1: and it makes people uncomfortable. But I know at the
Speaker 1: same time, I have no problem with gender affirming care.
Speaker 1: I have no problem with trans people living their own lives.
Speaker 1: They're not bothering me. Do you do whatever you want
Speaker 1: to do? And you know, here comes the my best
Speaker 1: friends are gay, you know what I mean? Like my
Speaker 1: best friends are white? No, my best friends are black.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 3: I have no problem with any of that.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I want to respond to it because I hear
Speaker 2: you and I and I don't think it's an insane thing.
Speaker 2: I actually think we need way more of these kinds
Speaker 2: of conversations, you know. And maybe we should bring a
Speaker 2: trans person into the conversation.
Speaker 3: I would love that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that'd be amazing. And I think the point that
Speaker 2: you make is well taken that we might not know.
Speaker 2: We might not I don't think we do information and
Speaker 2: I don't think we do, you know. But the chilling
Speaker 2: effect of this conversation nationally is that it has become
Speaker 2: politicized to even study this. It's become politicized and frowned
Speaker 2: upon to even look into it to get that critical information,
Speaker 2: that data that we need to be able to understand
Speaker 2: it better the part of the way I think about it.
Speaker 2: And to be fair, I don't have a high school athlete.
Speaker 2: I don't have someone who's you know, a child that's
Speaker 2: competing or anything like that, and so and so I
Speaker 2: come to this conversation with a great deal of humility.
Speaker 2: But but what I will say is that the number
Speaker 2: of trans people just in general is so low that
Speaker 2: it feels like this conversation is way larger than it
Speaker 2: should be, right.
Speaker 1: Okay, Garrison, Garrison. I say this all the time. I'm
Speaker 1: seeing it, and this isn't an issue. This isn't an
Speaker 1: issue exactly because it's a non issue. But if people
Speaker 1: ask you what do you feel, I would say there
Speaker 1: are some some things that I'm Probably people would say
Speaker 1: I'm conservative on sure, government programs. I'm like, okay, some
Speaker 1: of them, but not all of them. Like I because
Speaker 1: the way my taxes work so and because because sometimes
Speaker 1: I know they're being abused and people are taking advantage
Speaker 1: of the system.
Speaker 3: I don't think you have to get rid of you
Speaker 3: got to throw the baby out with the bathwater.
Speaker 1: But yes, I am about reform, not necessarily a doge reform,
Speaker 1: but I'm about reform and making it better.
Speaker 3: But that is me.
Speaker 1: These are my individual rights. It goes back to your
Speaker 1: initial assertion that we are all not one thing. We
Speaker 1: are a third this, and we're a third that. And
Speaker 1: if we had to go through individual items or issues
Speaker 1: that decide how we vote, morality, you name it, guess
Speaker 1: what we would all be all over the place. We
Speaker 1: wouldn't be in the Democratic Party, which is why I
Speaker 1: wish there wasn't a Democratic Party. But to your point,
Speaker 1: trans athletes is not an issue at all. There are
Speaker 1: five hundred thousand, I believe, of five hundred thousand college athletes,
Speaker 1: how many are transgender?
Speaker 3: Maybe a dozen, Yeah, maybe a dozen.
Speaker 1: It's not even it's not even a real issue. And
Speaker 1: so I agree with you it has become politicized. But
Speaker 1: when things are politicized, we're afraid to talk about it.
Speaker 1: And I don't think what I said was offensive, and
Speaker 1: I don't think that I am saying I don't want
Speaker 1: to be around transgender people and they should not compete.
Speaker 1: But the way we hear information today forces us to
Speaker 1: say this person took this side when there's just so
Speaker 1: much nuance in the conversation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's right. I think that's right. It's
Speaker 2: interesting to me that that I think, you know, we
Speaker 2: get pulled into these kind of traps in so many ways, right,
Speaker 2: Like you you think about even the way that you know,
Speaker 2: the issue of abortion is kind of talked about, and
Speaker 2: even you know, to your point about social welfare and
Speaker 2: these government assistance programs and the way that they are
Speaker 2: constantly politicized by highlighting kind of the extreme cases like
Speaker 2: perhaps there are, no doubt people who are taking advantage
Speaker 2: of so many things, but you know what, there are
Speaker 2: also corporations that are taking advantage of social were for
Speaker 2: welfare programs.
Speaker 3: To be right, I'm talking all across the board.
Speaker 1: I'm not just talking about I'm talking across the yes,
Speaker 1: from top to bottom.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, And so I guess what I'm trying to
Speaker 2: kind of get at here is to say that I would,
Speaker 2: you know, it would be unfortunate in the world that
Speaker 2: I want to live in where we are making rules
Speaker 2: based on these kind of far away exceptions and in
Speaker 2: so many ways. I think this stuff comes back to
Speaker 2: this idea of a multi racial, diverse democracy. And you know,
Speaker 2: multiracial democracy is one where black people, white people, Latino
Speaker 2: people Whoever, as long as you are an eligible citizen,
Speaker 2: you are able to participate and have your voice heard
Speaker 2: in this country. But I also think about, you know,
Speaker 2: the ways in which you know, women are often pushed
Speaker 2: outside of the frame, or the ways that queer people
Speaker 2: are pushed outside of the frame. And I just want
Speaker 2: to live in a country where everyone has a place
Speaker 2: and everyone can contribute to the to the conversation in
Speaker 2: an equal way, and people aren't being relegated and pushed
Speaker 2: outside because they are different. And I actually feel like
Speaker 2: in so many ways we're getting away from that. As
Speaker 2: a baseline, I think that folks really want their group
Speaker 2: or maybe even just themselves, to have a voice. But
Speaker 2: part of what made the civil rights movement so special
Speaker 2: in the nineteen forties, fifties, and sixties was this idea
Speaker 2: of coalition building where you have, you know, on the
Speaker 2: legal front, you know on the racial front, on the
Speaker 2: gender front, you have so many people coming together on
Speaker 2: the immigrant status front. You have all of these groups
Speaker 2: coming together under the same banner that rights people should
Speaker 2: have them. At a baseline, I think people should have rights,
Speaker 2: and they're able to come together on that particular point
Speaker 2: and move the needle in a really powerful way by
Speaker 2: working together. And I think so much of the Right
Speaker 2: Wings project is to get us to think extremely individually.
Speaker 2: So that's the thing that they're wanting for us to do,
Speaker 2: is to think so singularly about ourselves that we are
Speaker 2: unable to see the power in thinking about each other.
Speaker 1: Well, the times were different, right, there were things that
Speaker 1: we just didn't have. The civil rights movement was to
Speaker 1: give to have these people treat us civilly.
Speaker 2: We didn't know.
Speaker 1: Our humanity did not exist and it still doesn't in
Speaker 1: many ways. And I'm not talking about us as black people,
Speaker 1: but every marginalized group, their humanity did not exist, and
Speaker 1: so they everyone had to come together because they did
Speaker 1: want to be recognized as a human being first and
Speaker 1: then everything else after that.
Speaker 3: So they were fighting for something that was really tangible
Speaker 3: and needed. So I agree with you. So now here
Speaker 3: we are and we think we've made it.
Speaker 1: A lot of people have this complacency, and the Republican Party,
Speaker 1: to your point, has made it feel like they're taking
Speaker 1: something from you.
Speaker 3: You are being.
Speaker 1: Hurt, and the only reason why people respond to that
Speaker 1: is because they feel that they are better I do.
Speaker 3: What is this the best quote? And I can't.
Speaker 1: And I don't know if it was Roosevelt who said it,
Speaker 1: but it was something to the effect. And maybe you know,
Speaker 1: a man will give his last dime, We'll spend all
Speaker 1: of his money to make sure that he feels like
Speaker 1: he's better in the next I e. The black man,
Speaker 1: the immigrant, the whomever, the woman. I will do whatever
Speaker 1: it takes so people know that I am higher. There's
Speaker 1: a hierarchy that this country was built on, and it's
Speaker 1: a hierarchy that they want to put in play. I
Speaker 1: would love to live in a world where, to your point,
Speaker 1: where we all saw each other for who we are.
Speaker 1: But I don't think where we are today is I
Speaker 1: don't know if that's feasible. And what I mean by
Speaker 1: that garrison is that we are all we as a culture,
Speaker 1: we're so selfish.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're so selfish. We're all about us.
Speaker 2: You're right, But I want to kind of point to
Speaker 2: two times, kind of quickly. I think you make this
Speaker 2: really good point that we were fighting, or they were
Speaker 2: fighting our ancestors. I spend so much time reading this
Speaker 2: stuff that I always.
Speaker 3: It's still us, it's in us, it's right, and our
Speaker 3: spirit of us. Yes, yes, but.
Speaker 2: They were fighting. You're You're totally right. They're famed for
Speaker 2: some for some very basic things like like please let
Speaker 2: me walk on the sidewalk.
Speaker 3: Yeah, please let me eat here in this restaurant?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Can I drink out of this water fountains? Can I
Speaker 1: go to that bathroom?
Speaker 2: Exactly? Like It's incredibly basic, And I think that is
Speaker 2: the silver lining. In so many ways, things were so
Speaker 2: bad that boycotting the buses was just like, yeah, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna not go face these social indignities of being forced
Speaker 2: to the back or having to stand up when some
Speaker 2: white boy walks in onto the bus, and so like
Speaker 2: that that part of it made it in some ways easier,
Speaker 2: I think, to get on board with the movement for progress,
Speaker 2: and I think a silver lining in this time when
Speaker 2: you see millions of people currently set to lose healthcare coverage,
Speaker 2: that will be millions more people who are more passionate
Speaker 2: than ever before about universalizing healthcare. That will represent millions
Speaker 2: of people who are like, wait, wait, wait, wait wait,
Speaker 2: this is not working. The way that we're trying to
Speaker 2: do this and the way that we've can talk to
Speaker 2: these things are being talked about, it isn't working, and
Speaker 2: so that kind of reminds me of the sixties, but
Speaker 2: it also reminds me of twenty twenty. I think the
Speaker 2: Black Lives Matter kind of moment in twenty twenty is sharpened,
Speaker 2: it's made that much more effective by this collective sense
Speaker 2: that we'd all kind of been just jarred into that, like, wait,
Speaker 2: there's a virus that's killing people and it could get me,
Speaker 2: and I could have it and I could give it
Speaker 2: to someone I love. Like that kind of it shook
Speaker 2: us out of this individual kind of way of thinking.
Speaker 2: And there are people who are shaking very hard to
Speaker 2: get back into it right, who are working incredibly hard
Speaker 2: to make sure that you didn't wear a mask and
Speaker 2: that you didn't think about your neighbor. But for millions
Speaker 2: of people around the globe, there was this awakening, this
Speaker 2: moment of awareness. And a lot of that awakening existed
Speaker 2: beyond just there, you know, racial justice, It existed in
Speaker 2: healthcare and all these but it got funneled into this moment.
Speaker 2: When people saw George Floyd with a knee on his neck,
Speaker 2: people like, wait, that's wrong, and we've got to do
Speaker 2: something about it. And I think that collected that we
Speaker 2: idea is something that I anticipate will come back as
Speaker 2: things get tighter, Like your grandmother is kind of getting
Speaker 2: at us. Things get tighter, sure, you know what I mean,
Speaker 2: there's less margin. People are going to start thinking about, like,
Speaker 2: how do we work together to make this play better?
Speaker 1: You know, Garrison, I what we're dealing with right now,
Speaker 1: I think is what it's supposed to be. History always
Speaker 1: repeats itself, and I think that we have to get
Speaker 1: down to the basics. Right what we just talked about,
Speaker 1: what our ancestors were fighting for, the basics. The basics
Speaker 1: now are different. Whether it be universal health care, whether
Speaker 1: it be gender affirming rights, whether it be immigration, whatever
Speaker 1: it is, we are all going to have to get
Speaker 1: down to the basics. And I believe America gets what
Speaker 1: it deserves. And that's not a bad thing. I just
Speaker 1: believe America gets what it deserves. And so if this
Speaker 1: is what America wants, this is what America has until
Speaker 1: it can be changed. Now, when you are dealing with
Speaker 1: these when you're talking to these Republicans, Black Republicans more specifically,
Speaker 1: I must admit this is my blind side. I love
Speaker 1: you for doing it. I'm not emotionally mature enough to
Speaker 1: have those conversations. I'm not and I want to be.
Speaker 1: That's why I brought you on. And I wonder when
Speaker 1: approaching someone who you think should be aware of obvious
Speaker 1: racism in a party, in a political party, when you say,
Speaker 1: that's really low on their list of why I am
Speaker 1: or why I'm upset what's going on in the world.
Speaker 3: I rarely meet, rarely meet.
Speaker 1: Black people who put racism at the bottom of the
Speaker 1: total pole. Yeah, why do you think that is? What
Speaker 1: is that ideology?
Speaker 2: You know, it's complex, it's complicated, and I don't you know,
Speaker 2: I don't know if there's any one thing. I think
Speaker 2: part of it is a defense mechanism if I could
Speaker 2: just like give grace to it. I think to your
Speaker 2: point about like talking to these people across differences, part
Speaker 2: of what I try to do is to really listen
Speaker 2: and actually to listen with good faith, to say, like
Speaker 2: I'm assuming this the probably is I really want to
Speaker 2: assume that you are coming from a place of good
Speaker 2: faith and that you mean what you say, and that
Speaker 2: you're doing it for the good read for the right reasons,
Speaker 2: like you just want a better future for your kids
Speaker 2: and all this stuff, and like I'm just gonna assume
Speaker 2: that coming into the conversation. And so when I'm listening
Speaker 2: to these people, and I think there is a degree
Speaker 2: to which I've kind of become aware of these kind
Speaker 2: of defense mechanisms to some of this stuff exist. As Like,
Speaker 2: I think about how in so many instances I've noticed
Speaker 2: this where black Republicans are black maga. They're the ones
Speaker 2: who are gonna wear the shirt that says I stand
Speaker 2: with Donald Trump, and they're gonna have the hat on.
Speaker 2: And I look at that and like, on the one hand,
Speaker 2: you could say, like, y'all are shucking and giving okay,
Speaker 2: that could be a response, But on the other hand,
Speaker 2: there is something, there is a defense mechanism in there.
Speaker 2: It kind of reminds me of how sometimes people will
Speaker 2: put like that thin blue line sticker on their car
Speaker 2: to indicate to the police that I support the police.
Speaker 3: I didn't know that. Is that a thing you can?
Speaker 2: Yeah, people do that and it'll insulate you a little bit,
Speaker 2: I think from kind of the most vicious elements of
Speaker 2: perhaps police brutality or them being maybe more on guard.
Speaker 2: And I think similarly for people who especially operate in
Speaker 2: these white spaces that had and those kind of like
Speaker 2: emblems are almost a defense, like they set up a
Speaker 2: little bit of a barrier between them and the anti
Speaker 2: blackness or racism that they are very likely to encounter. Otherwise,
Speaker 2: it marks them as a safe person and it kind
Speaker 2: of invites them into a community. And so I think
Speaker 2: that's a part of it. I think a part of
Speaker 2: it is that there is a fraternity. There is a
Speaker 2: community of people who support Donald Trump, and they see
Speaker 2: themselves as the outsiders and as the outcasts and misunderstood,
Speaker 2: but amongst each other, they are part of something together
Speaker 2: in many ways, it is a cult, and so they
Speaker 2: are a part of the call sounds like, and so
Speaker 2: I kind of I think that's a part of it
Speaker 2: for sure. But then there are also issues. There are
Speaker 2: issues that they care about, and so you got to
Speaker 2: acknowledge the issues as well.
Speaker 1: When you left the rn C, and there was one
Speaker 1: moment and you guys should definitely follow Garrison Hayesen and
Speaker 1: check out his YouTube also Instagram. But when you left
Speaker 1: the rn C, there was a moment prior to you
Speaker 1: leaving where the black Republican Republicans were gathering and it
Speaker 1: was you said, it was a joyous event and it
Speaker 1: just so happens that Donald Trump's motorcade drove by, and
Speaker 1: they were under the impression there was a bit of
Speaker 1: a frenzy for a few moments in which they thought
Speaker 1: Donald Trump was coming to say hi to them, because
Speaker 1: they are in that special group. They are accepted. They
Speaker 1: are one of his if you will, cult members. Not
Speaker 1: necessarily cold, but you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: And then what happened, and he just drove by, and
Speaker 2: there was palpable disappointment in the room. I encourage people
Speaker 2: to go watch the video. I think the title is
Speaker 2: I spent a week with Black Republicans. There was some
Speaker 2: very very real disappointment in that moment, and and I
Speaker 2: think in so many ways it was emblematic of the
Speaker 2: larger issue. We're now a year or so later, and there,
Speaker 2: you know, I posted this on threads to the other
Speaker 2: day that I'm amazed at how little airtime Black Republicans
Speaker 2: have gotten in the last six months of this presidency.
Speaker 2: I mean, they were so central. It really felt like
Speaker 2: every day you'd see Representative Byron Donald's or you'd see
Speaker 2: Tim Senator Tim Scott. Oh, you see all these people
Speaker 2: out there really pushing, you know, for go support Trump
Speaker 2: and a year later. Some of those people I've literally
Speaker 2: not seen at all at all. Like I don't know
Speaker 2: where Senator Timscott is. I have no idea where the
Speaker 2: man is, and maybe I should google him, but it
Speaker 2: seems as though his media, you know, it's just way down.
Speaker 2: I say that to say that in the moment, it
Speaker 2: felt like they were the center of the world. I
Speaker 2: met this event for Black Republicans at the r n C,
Speaker 2: and it's this really great event, and it felt like
Speaker 2: Trump was coming there, but in reality he was just
Speaker 2: passing by. It feels like this real kind of almost
Speaker 2: a parable.
Speaker 3: Let's sit with that for a moment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they you just said they thought Trump was coming
Speaker 1: to visit them and be there and relate and commune
Speaker 1: with them, but he was just passing by. Where's Tim Scott?
Speaker 1: Where are these Black Republicans that you that you had
Speaker 1: on stage with you at the r n C. You
Speaker 1: were just passing by. You were just in translation using them.
Speaker 1: I needed you for the moment. Thank you appreciate it.
Speaker 1: That is powerful, I.
Speaker 2: Think it is. There's this this this book you know,
Speaker 2: called The Loneliness of the Black Republican, and it is
Speaker 2: about the history of black people trying to just trying
Speaker 2: to find a place in American politics. And I think
Speaker 2: that that there's a we're living in a moment right
Speaker 2: now where black people are incredibly frustrated with the Democratic
Speaker 2: Party and and so in that frustration has also existed
Speaker 2: with the Republican Party. There's a part in that book
Speaker 2: where Jackie Robinson and hey, we're bringing it back to
Speaker 2: sports Baby, where Jackie Robinson is one of the kind
Speaker 2: of most he's the most famous Black Republican in the
Speaker 2: country at the time. He's this incredibly conservative person. He
Speaker 2: won't call Muhammad Ali Muhammad Ali because he doesn't really
Speaker 2: believe in all that job, right, Like that's kind of
Speaker 2: his vibe. And yet Barry Goldwater, who is this real
Speaker 2: racist and really a precursor in so many ways to
Speaker 2: what we see in Donald Trump, he was just out
Speaker 2: there calling for segregation and being a racist. And Jackie Robinson,
Speaker 2: who is the Republican of Republicans among black people and
Speaker 2: emissary calling black people back into the Republican Party, he
Speaker 2: stands up and says, I can't get on board with this.
Speaker 2: There's this moment where he's like, I'm just I can't
Speaker 2: do this, and I've been waiting for that moment among
Speaker 2: some of the more prominent black Republicans where they stand
Speaker 2: up and just say, Okay, this DEI stuff like the
Speaker 2: fact that you are leveraging this to take away access
Speaker 2: for my community. I'm waiting for them to stand up
Speaker 2: just say I can't do that. That's a bridge too
Speaker 2: far from me. Even the way that the ICE agents
Speaker 2: and even the National Guard have been deployed, and the
Speaker 2: just the rhetoric in general. You know, I've been waiting
Speaker 2: for that moment and is yet to come. And I
Speaker 2: think in many ways it is because American politics have
Speaker 2: really moved so far away from integrity and more into tribalism.
Speaker 2: You know, Jackie Robinson had a moral compass that led
Speaker 2: him for the majority of his life to vote for
Speaker 2: and support Republicans. That's his business. But he also had
Speaker 2: a moral compass that would not allow him to stand
Speaker 2: idly by while racist bigots were gaining political power in
Speaker 2: his name. And so I think I think we're we're
Speaker 2: kind of we've moved away from that in so many ways.
Speaker 2: And I look at some of the I won't you know,
Speaker 2: mention specific candidates or or specific individuals, but I look
Speaker 2: at some of the voices, the younger voices especially, who
Speaker 2: are really bringing back this moral courage to stand against
Speaker 2: the things that they stand against. And if you accept that,
Speaker 2: you accept that. If you reject it, that's your business
Speaker 2: as well. But I believe this thing and I'm going
Speaker 2: to stand up for it, and so that's encouraging me.
Speaker 2: But I'm still I'm still waiting. I'm still waiting, Carrie,
Speaker 2: I'm still waiting.
Speaker 1: I'm curious if you can for our listeners, can you
Speaker 1: describe the history of the Republican Party from its inception.
Speaker 3: And the history of the Democratic Party.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think it's important because I don't know if many
Speaker 1: people understand the ebb and flow of the parties and
Speaker 1: how they have. What happens is these parties, and we
Speaker 1: can see this in real time with the Republican Party,
Speaker 1: they transform at one point as a you know, in
Speaker 1: my recent memory, when I was old enough to really
Speaker 1: pay attention, the Democratic Party was the party of the
Speaker 1: working class and we were they were I want to
Speaker 1: say we, because I'm a registered independent, but it was
Speaker 1: where you would go if you wanted to pull yourself
Speaker 1: up by the bootstraps and do that hard work you
Speaker 1: talked about and the Republicans were always the rich party,
Speaker 1: not that that's changed, but there is a marketing turn
Speaker 1: and how we describe it now. So historically speaking, what
Speaker 1: was the Republican Party? Did it consist of black people?
Speaker 1: Were they for slavery? Were they against slavery?
Speaker 2: Like to know how these black people could be drawn
Speaker 2: into Trump's political orbits. So I talked to Pastor Lorenzo Sewel.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so anyone that wants to come to church, they
Speaker 4: able to come. So when President Trump called, I thought
Speaker 4: about it like you calling me as Hey, a pastor,
Speaker 4: I want to invite a friend to church who has
Speaker 4: thirty four felonies. Hey pastor, I want to invite a
Speaker 4: friends to church who is a womanizer. Hey pastor, I
Speaker 4: want to invite a friend to church who could be
Speaker 4: a racist.
Speaker 2: He's the lead pastor at a black church in Detroit
Speaker 2: that Trump visited earlier this year. He was also a
Speaker 2: featured speaker at the RNC.
Speaker 4: All my friends back in Detroit, who are Democrats?
Speaker 2: I'm want to ask you just one simple question.
Speaker 4: You can't deny the power of God on this man's life.
Speaker 4: You can't deny that God protected him.
Speaker 2: Could it be that.
Speaker 4: Jesus Christ preserved him for such a time.
Speaker 2: Is this could it be? Why should black people support
Speaker 2: the Republican ticket and Donald Trump specifically? That's a good question.
Speaker 4: You know what I would say to any black person
Speaker 4: is this specifically about the Republican platform, I would say, look,
Speaker 4: do your research, right, I would say, look back to
Speaker 4: one hundred and seventy years ago in this state where
Speaker 4: a group of patriots stood up and they started that
Speaker 4: Grand Old Party to stop the explanchion of slavery. If
Speaker 4: a black person said, well, pastor Donald Trump's racist, the
Speaker 4: Republican Party is racist, Well, let's play that theme out
Speaker 4: throughout history. Let's look at who was the party of slavery.
Speaker 4: Who was the party of Jim Crow, Right, who's the
Speaker 4: party of you know the slave codes? Well, well, those
Speaker 4: are Democrats. Let's have that conversation. And when you look
Speaker 4: at when the Senate was integrated, those were black Republicans.
Speaker 4: When we look at our Frederick Douglass black Republican. So
Speaker 4: that's on the political side.
Speaker 2: I won't pretend to be a historian here. I just
Speaker 2: like to read the things, and so I would encourage
Speaker 2: you to read as well. You know, the Loneliness of
Speaker 2: the Black Republican by Leah Wright Rock here is a
Speaker 2: really good one. I think you know. There are number
Speaker 2: of book I love tannahse Codes Eight Years in Power
Speaker 2: Lost book on that topic. And so there's some history
Speaker 2: here in short, though the kind of Layman's version as
Speaker 2: a late historian in my own right, I guess, I
Speaker 2: don't know. I don't know if that can't even call
Speaker 2: us that.
Speaker 1: Don't worry like if you like, if you get it wrong,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be like he got it wrong on I'm.
Speaker 2: Kidding rect it. What I will say is that you know,
Speaker 2: there was certainly a time where the Republican Party, obviously
Speaker 2: was the Party of Lincoln. That party fought for emancipation
Speaker 2: in its own way, not necessarily because they were pro
Speaker 2: black right, but for their own political kind of you
Speaker 2: know reasons. They they fought for slave, for the end
Speaker 2: of slavery. A good book for that is W. E. B.
Speaker 2: Dubois's Black Reconstruction, which is a really really good book,
Speaker 2: very necessary.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's so so sixteen nineteen too, Like she gets
Speaker 1: so amazing. Okay, I have it somewhere, I know you right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: for going.
Speaker 2: Okay, all that said, you know, obviously there are these
Speaker 2: kind of pro and anti and so this the Southern
Speaker 2: Democrats really are the anti abolition party, and like explicitly right,
Speaker 2: And so as black people gain access to participation in democracy,
Speaker 2: the natural home for black voters in the North and
Speaker 2: in parts of the South where this was allowed, especially
Speaker 2: during reconstruction, the natural home is the Republican Party. And
Speaker 2: so you see all of the first governors or in Congress,
Speaker 2: people and representatives in state, local officials, all those people
Speaker 2: identified as Republicans. And this was true for most of
Speaker 2: the eighteen hundreds into the early nineteen hundreds. But as
Speaker 2: the civil rights movement begins to grow in the early
Speaker 2: nineteen hundreds, black people are still looking for a home.
Speaker 2: And to remind you, the Republican Party was never pro black.
Speaker 2: We know that Abraham Lincoln did not believe that black
Speaker 2: people were equal with white people. He said so explicitly.
Speaker 2: And so in this moment of real tension, the kind
Speaker 2: of inflection point is that black people come back from
Speaker 2: the war World War one, World War two especially, and
Speaker 2: they're like, yo, I fought for this country. I deserve
Speaker 2: my rights. Who's going to help me fight for this?
Speaker 2: And there were decades where that was pretty unclear. But
Speaker 2: by the time you get to the fifties where there's
Speaker 2: a fight for education access and obviously the civil rights
Speaker 2: movement which comes in to focus in the nineteen sixties,
Speaker 2: as we understand it, there becomes this kind of push
Speaker 2: and pull in JFK ultimately becomes an ally to the
Speaker 2: Kings around this issue, and that is in many ways
Speaker 2: how black people started to flood into the Democratic Party.
Speaker 2: Now again, doctor Leo right Roger really digs into the
Speaker 2: specifics of this in her book about Black Republicans, but
Speaker 2: that is kind of those are the larger con tours.
Speaker 2: There is this kind of push and pull around who's
Speaker 2: going to be on our side, and for a time
Speaker 2: that looked like Republicans, and after a while that became
Speaker 2: very clear that the Republicans were against it and the
Speaker 2: Democrats were for it. And the Republicans saw an opportunity
Speaker 2: what we know as a Southern strategy after the Civil
Speaker 2: Rights movement, where they said, if we could make ourselves
Speaker 2: more appealing to the Southern Democrats, we will be able
Speaker 2: to control the South. And so their Southern strategy is
Speaker 2: to appeal to the right white racists in the South,
Speaker 2: and that's how we get the modern day Republican Party
Speaker 2: is that decision with Lee Atwater in the late nineteen
Speaker 2: sixties and seventies.
Speaker 1: I think that we have a version of that story.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people who've done any and
Speaker 1: not a lot of people, but I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people who have platforms have a version of why
Speaker 1: that is. But you say something, and you've said it
Speaker 1: several times, and I think this is something we should explore.
Speaker 3: Black people are still looking for a home.
Speaker 1: Today then and now you're still looking for a home.
Speaker 1: There is not there doesn't feel it doesn't feel like
Speaker 1: in terms of a political party that speaks to our spirit.
Speaker 1: And maybe it's because one political party can't do that,
Speaker 1: and all black people don't belong to one political party.
Speaker 1: Maybe we should be spread out, as you said, one
Speaker 1: third this, one third that, and would.
Speaker 3: That be okay culturally? I'm curious in your mind what
Speaker 3: that would look like.
Speaker 2: I'll say this, I don't think that I don't you know,
Speaker 2: do what you want to do for people. But what
Speaker 2: I will say is, so long as the Republican Party
Speaker 2: is still playing by the Southern strategy playbook of appealing
Speaker 2: to racists as a way to build political power. So
Speaker 2: long as that's happening, I do not think that black
Speaker 2: people in any significant sense will ever align with that party.
Speaker 2: I think, you know, we to get a little newsy.
Speaker 2: Elon Musk is starting the America Party right, kind of
Speaker 2: potentially viable third party. But so long as Elon Musk
Speaker 2: is doing what appeared to be Nazi salutes and he's
Speaker 2: amplifying the voices of bigots on his platform, black people
Speaker 2: won't feel safe there. They won't feel there, And so
Speaker 2: in so many ways, we're between a rock and a
Speaker 2: hard place. We are in this really kind of difficult tension,
Speaker 2: and I'm hopeful that people will listen to that tension.
Speaker 2: I think that black political power. You know, I did
Speaker 2: a radio show around this I call it called it Red,
Speaker 2: Black and Blue. And I called it that because I
Speaker 2: wanted to put black people at the center of the
Speaker 2: kind of political story in America. And I do think
Speaker 2: that there is a need for someone. I don't know
Speaker 2: who it will be, but there needs to be someone
Speaker 2: who will actually take that seriously. In the South. Let
Speaker 2: me just make the case for taking black people seriously
Speaker 2: as a political force. Most black people live in the South.
Speaker 2: Yet black people's political will is not very well realized
Speaker 2: down here, precisely because Republicans have taken very seriously the
Speaker 2: idea that if they can disenfranchise and jerry mander and
Speaker 2: kind of like they're constantly being sued for getting rid
Speaker 2: of black majority districts and breaking these things up, if
Speaker 2: they can do that, they can continue to win. And
Speaker 2: it feels to me that Democrats have not taken seriously
Speaker 2: that there are so many black people in Mississippi and
Speaker 2: Alabama and Georgia and Tennessee that are ready to go
Speaker 2: out and vote so long as you represent their interests.
Speaker 2: And so I'm hopeful that at some point in the
Speaker 2: near future, hopefully sooner than later, our political interests will
Speaker 2: be taken seriously.
Speaker 1: I agree with you, and I don't know. I don't
Speaker 1: know what that is. I don't know what the malaise is.
Speaker 1: I don't know what the fear is. We are now
Speaker 1: and I'm watching this in real time. The current president
Speaker 1: and his administration has made it ingue to push the limits,
Speaker 1: to remove the political conversation to and what I mean
Speaker 1: by remove the political conversation, it's the way he talks.
Speaker 1: It's very it's not as if I am in an
Speaker 1: office of authority. There is this behind the scenes, this
Speaker 1: fourth wall that we are looking at, and it's very
Speaker 1: real and authentic, and for some reason people are fascinated.
Speaker 1: I've never seen the fascination with the president that I
Speaker 1: see with Donald Trump. I've seen it with I've seen
Speaker 1: it with Barack who you just recently interviewed. I've also
Speaker 1: seen it with President Clinton.
Speaker 3: But this is different.
Speaker 1: There is a fascination, maybe even a respect that I
Speaker 1: can't understand. I can't understand why it's okay for him
Speaker 1: to not be well versed. I can't understand why he
Speaker 1: doesn't know more than a sixth grader. I can't understand
Speaker 1: why he can go on television and lie and we
Speaker 1: know he's lying, right, but there is this compliance and
Speaker 1: agreement that makes it seem like this lie is okay.
Speaker 1: I use this example. Do you know Bill Aikman Ackman?
Speaker 2: You know that I don't know him personally, but I
Speaker 2: know who he is, so.
Speaker 1: He most recently, but I think purchase his way into
Speaker 1: a tennis tournament. A challenger is what they call it.
Speaker 1: It's an amateur tournament, but it's at the Hall of
Speaker 1: Fame and it's in Rhode Island, and he played doubles
Speaker 1: with a tennis pro named Jack Sock, who is somewhat retired,
Speaker 1: semi retired.
Speaker 3: He hasn't played until twenty twenty three. This tour that he.
Speaker 1: Played in, this tournament that he played in is for
Speaker 1: people who really truly want to play tennis, who are
Speaker 1: a journeyman in tennis, because that's a tough sport. It's expensive,
Speaker 1: you travel all the time, you need to coach, you
Speaker 1: need to spend money to get to the actual place
Speaker 1: to play, and it's an international sport. So they have
Speaker 1: these things called challengers, and they give out wild cards
Speaker 1: to people who are trying to get their rankings back
Speaker 1: up or two up and comers who are good, and
Speaker 1: it's done at this this particular time tournament. They have
Speaker 1: a ton but this particular tournament is called the Hall
Speaker 1: of Fame, and it is exactly that it's for the greats.
Speaker 1: And so somehow, some way, this sixty year old man
Speaker 1: gets a wild card into the tournament so he can
Speaker 1: live out his full dream. By way of background. By
Speaker 1: way of background, he's bankrolling the PTPA, which is the
Speaker 1: Professional Tennis Players Association he's helping bankroll that, help erase
Speaker 1: twenty six million dollars to get that going. So he
Speaker 1: has made friends with all of the greats, and he's
Speaker 1: casually friendly with them, and then all of a sudden
Speaker 1: he decides, at fifty nine, sixty years old, that he
Speaker 1: wants to play in a real tennis tournament. Now, you
Speaker 1: would think, because it's sports, says hey, sir, this isn't
Speaker 1: for amateur. This is you're not even you're sixty, You're
Speaker 1: not even this is not even real. This is not
Speaker 1: even a real thing. And when he played those two sets,
Speaker 1: it was so uncomfortable to watch this man barely get
Speaker 1: the ball across the net. But what that, to me
Speaker 1: says is that we are living in a country where
Speaker 1: it's okay to push the limits and see who's going
Speaker 1: to say what, because no one is saying anything. If
Speaker 1: I have money, if I have power, if I have access,
Speaker 1: which has always been the case, but now I'm just
Speaker 1: doing it so blatantly. And that's what I believe this
Speaker 1: administration has allowed to happen. If you see this as
Speaker 1: an example, why not me. If this man can get
Speaker 1: on TV and ask for a plane for another country,
Speaker 1: if I if I could, if I could sit in
Speaker 1: your office and be Benjamin NETANYAHUU and hand you a
Speaker 1: letter for a Nobel Peace Prize nomination because you deserve
Speaker 1: it for what I don't know why. Because he solved,
Speaker 1: He solved, there's a world peace in Africa. Now, No,
Speaker 1: there's not, like come on, but there is something about
Speaker 1: this fascination that I can't quite understand. And I feel
Speaker 1: like while we are looking for a home as a
Speaker 1: people that they're really truly is no place for us
Speaker 1: that makes sense right now, And I don't know why
Speaker 1: there's a silence around it.
Speaker 3: That's my question to you.
Speaker 2: This is this is what I'll say, Carrie. First of all,
Speaker 2: like I'm thankful for platforms like this where we're having
Speaker 2: these conversations and so hats off to you for that.
Speaker 2: But you know, we have a good friend in Angela Rye,
Speaker 2: who is who's who organized this State of the People
Speaker 2: Power tour along with a few others, and I think
Speaker 2: it was exactly right. It was rightly timed. And I
Speaker 2: love the places that they chose to kind of host these,
Speaker 2: you know, these gatherings. One was in Louisville, Kentucky. They
Speaker 2: had one in Mississippi and Jackson, Mississippi, and Baltimore and
Speaker 2: all of the Troy and Atlanta, all these amazing places
Speaker 2: where there are lots of black people. And I think
Speaker 2: it's the right thing and at the right time. And
Speaker 2: I'll tell you why. You know, after the civil rights
Speaker 2: movements success, there were all of these groups that came
Speaker 2: together to make sure that they could build a necessary
Speaker 2: political power to have the America that they wanted to have.
Speaker 2: Now I think we are living in the America that
Speaker 2: they imagined right now. And Donald Trump is generational TV talent,
Speaker 2: Like I think that's part of it, right, Like he
Speaker 2: gets on here the Apprentice, the apprentcess, he gets a
Speaker 2: mic in a camera, you fry it. This guy is
Speaker 2: like you really good, He's really really good. And that's
Speaker 2: how he kind of gets so much attention. And so
Speaker 2: he is kind of the figurehead in some ways, he's
Speaker 2: the face of something much more strategic over a much
Speaker 2: longer time. I do not believe that Donald Trump, who
Speaker 2: did not know Liberia was an American colony. I don't
Speaker 2: think that he really understands the intricacies of the Office
Speaker 2: of the OMB or or the way to like, you
Speaker 2: know what I'm saying the al I don't think he
Speaker 2: knows all of these kind of minute laws, in these
Speaker 2: little codes that they're now leveraging to kind of carry
Speaker 2: out this agenda. So I don't give him that much credit.
Speaker 2: I give him credit for being able to talk really,
Speaker 2: really good on TV, but I don't give him credit
Speaker 2: for being able to actually lead. And the reason why
Speaker 2: they're getting things done is because there was a fifty
Speaker 2: year plan in place that was intent on undermining the courts,
Speaker 2: that was intent on undermining the media, the press, that
Speaker 2: was intent on undermining the university. That's what was in place.
Speaker 2: They established the Federalist Society so that they could interpret
Speaker 2: laws in a really conservative, regressive way, and they could
Speaker 2: lobby and raise a ton of money to make sure
Speaker 2: that those lawyers and legal minds ended up as judges,
Speaker 2: so that when they got to twenty twenty five and
Speaker 2: the person did whoever was in office, did the thing
Speaker 2: that they've been planning to do. When those things, when
Speaker 2: lawsuits were brought against them, they would end up winning
Speaker 2: because they had already stacked the deck on the court level.
Speaker 2: They did what they set out to undermine the press
Speaker 2: and to create alternative forms of media, so that there
Speaker 2: would never be the ability to undermine what they say right,
Speaker 2: to completely pull apart the concept of truth. They set
Speaker 2: out to kind of jerry mander and to win on
Speaker 2: state and local levels for decades so that they could
Speaker 2: enact their vision for America on every single level. And
Speaker 2: I think right now you mentioned that I talked to
Speaker 2: President Barack Obama recently. One of the things that I
Speaker 2: asked him is like, you know, where are you. Everyone's
Speaker 2: wondering where you've been, and they want you to be
Speaker 2: more out there. And he told me he's like, hey,
Speaker 2: I'm out here. But the thing that he kind of
Speaker 2: talked about that I took note of was that through
Speaker 2: the foundation, the Obama Foundation, they've been building all kinds
Speaker 2: of you know, necessary leadership kind of capital. They've been
Speaker 2: building up these young leaders who they want to lead
Speaker 2: in the future. And I appreciate that future focused idea
Speaker 2: because I think in so many ways Democrats are really
Speaker 2: focused on the moment. They want to win in twenty
Speaker 2: twenty six. They want to win back the House, they
Speaker 2: want to win the presidency in twenty twenty eight, But
Speaker 2: really you need the kind of vision that will look
Speaker 2: forty years down the road and say this is the
Speaker 2: kind of America I want to live in, or I
Speaker 2: want my children to live in, or maybe my grandchildren
Speaker 2: to live in in forty years, And how do I
Speaker 2: reverse engineer a plan that gets us there? And so,
Speaker 2: to bring you full circle, I think that what Angela
Speaker 2: and the State of the People Power Tour are doing
Speaker 2: is that's a kind of a necessary part of that
Speaker 2: larger push to have in America that we will want
Speaker 2: to live in in a decade or twenty years, or
Speaker 2: thirty years or forty years. And I think a lot
Speaker 2: of people are neglecting that. And so what's the response
Speaker 2: to the Federalist Society who's putting together an organization that
Speaker 2: can put more progressive people, you know, humans entered judges
Speaker 2: on the bench, you know what I mean? Like, who's
Speaker 2: doing that? Because ultimately, Carrie, I want us to win
Speaker 2: on the issues of humanity. I really want to win
Speaker 2: on racist I don't want racism to win. I want
Speaker 2: to beat racism up, guys, And I don't think that's
Speaker 2: too much to ask. And I'm hoping that there are
Speaker 2: people who are thinking strategically about bringing that vision to reality.
Speaker 1: You say, you know, you say what I say. I
Speaker 1: was like, I wonder there's I hope there's somebody who's
Speaker 1: doing it right now. I hope there's somebody who's doing
Speaker 1: it right now. Have you ever thought of doing it
Speaker 1: right now? My friends always say that to me. My
Speaker 1: friends are like, you always want to say something. Why
Speaker 1: don't you just be the change? I said, I'm participating
Speaker 1: in the way in which I have been blessed to participate.
Speaker 1: I am doing the work that I can, the work
Speaker 1: that I know that I have the capacity to do.
Speaker 1: But there is a part of me that looks at
Speaker 1: the looks at you, or looks at other people and think.
Speaker 3: This would be a great leader.
Speaker 1: I want he run And it's easy to pass the buck,
Speaker 1: and it's easy to ask someone else to do it
Speaker 1: because we see something in them. But I also know,
Speaker 1: and I don't know, if you struggle with this when
Speaker 1: people ask me that I struggle with and if I'm
Speaker 1: being really candid and naked, I struggle with, well, how
Speaker 1: does this affect me personally? How am I going to
Speaker 1: if I say something so real and so honest, Will
Speaker 1: I ever be able to make a living? Will I
Speaker 1: be ostracized out of the community that I've known. Most recently,
Speaker 1: I've had two different people say, well, be careful. You
Speaker 1: know you're on CNN.
Speaker 3: Be careful, got be careful, be fighting with them white
Speaker 3: people on TV. Gotta be careful.
Speaker 1: It makes me angry to my core when I hear that.
Speaker 1: And my response has been and I shouldn't be defensive,
Speaker 1: but my response is, was Harriet Tubman careful?
Speaker 2: Real?
Speaker 1: What if she decided that she didn't want to do
Speaker 1: anything for the people so that they could be free?
Speaker 1: What if Martin Luther King Junior got tired? What if
Speaker 1: Malcolm X got tired and said no to be careful?
Speaker 1: We would not be able to enjoy the freedoms that
Speaker 1: we have today. And I truly understand that this country
Speaker 1: is only held together by a few individuals that really
Speaker 1: care for the country as a whole in the way
Speaker 1: in which you describe it. But do you ever struggle
Speaker 1: with that? Do you ever struggle with.
Speaker 3: Am I doing too much? Am I saying too much?
Speaker 3: Will this cost me down the line? What does my
Speaker 3: future look like if I continue on this path?
Speaker 2: No? Absolutely, absolutely, I think about you know, future kids.
Speaker 2: I don't have kids today, but I think about a
Speaker 2: future you know, or my family or any of that.
Speaker 2: You know, I mean, you are a public figure, so
Speaker 2: you know that there are crazy folks out there are
Speaker 2: who are dming you something nuts right now?
Speaker 1: Right, No, they're not even they're not even respectful enough
Speaker 1: to make it a DM. It's under my comments, so
Speaker 1: it's not even they can't even hide it. They're like,
Speaker 1: just because I hate you, you idiot, sin right, They're
Speaker 1: like a real person on the other side of it.
Speaker 1: Problem is talking talking to me so raggedy. I was
Speaker 1: so unfortunate.
Speaker 2: Sideways, I hear you. I think about that stuff often,
Speaker 2: and so yeah, you know, I don't know. I think
Speaker 2: that truthfully, like we are already leaders in this work.
Speaker 2: Their media matters. I really believe in it, and I
Speaker 2: believe that telling the truth matters. Your voice is important,
Speaker 2: and it's important to use it in a way that
Speaker 2: helps liberate people. And so I do think that that
Speaker 2: in some ways we are already doing this. I know
Speaker 2: that your question is more so like official kind of
Speaker 2: elected leadership, and I don't know about that. I don't
Speaker 2: know if anything like that is in my future, but
Speaker 2: I do I really enjoy being able to again tell
Speaker 2: the truth and be able to to kind of tell
Speaker 2: these stories, as I've said earlier, that are often you know,
Speaker 2: left untold and and the way it might inspire someone.
Speaker 2: I'll tell you this. You know, I got an email
Speaker 2: year from a parent who said, Hey, I'm watching your videos.
Speaker 2: I do this series called About That Life where I
Speaker 2: talk about you know, these black these radical kind of
Speaker 2: resistance black history figures usually and it's not just only
Speaker 2: black people, but it's usually black people who did something
Speaker 2: and pushed for some change and bucked against the status quo.
Speaker 2: And this mom, she's like in Texas. She says, Hey,
Speaker 2: I'm a homeschool mom here in Texas. I have a
Speaker 2: cohort of other moms and we all come together and
Speaker 2: I screenshot your videos and take the information from your
Speaker 2: videos and it is a part of our curriculum. And
Speaker 2: I'm like mind blown by this, like what she's going
Speaker 2: through all this work, and it encouraged me because it
Speaker 2: means that it's effective and it's helping someone. And there's
Speaker 2: gonna be some kid who now knows about Charles Hamilton
Speaker 2: Houston and he would not have known about that guy otherwise,
Speaker 2: perhaps especially in the state like Texas. And so now
Speaker 2: he's gonna kind of like or she is going to
Speaker 2: learn and maybe be better and be more effectively as
Speaker 2: a result of it. And so I think what we're
Speaker 2: doing is important, and I think is important that we
Speaker 2: continue to do.
Speaker 1: It in the way in which we can do it,
Speaker 1: in the way in which it makes sense and feels authentic.
Speaker 2: That's all.
Speaker 1: I just want to be able to feel like I'm
Speaker 1: really being true to myself. There are times in which
Speaker 1: I'm measured and yes, and I have a filter, but
Speaker 1: you know, at my core, I'm just saying, recognize our
Speaker 1: humanity we deserve. It's not right. And by the way,
Speaker 1: it's not just for black people. I feel that way
Speaker 1: across the board. I'm the kind of person if I'm
Speaker 1: walking down the street and I see somebody getting treated unfairly,
Speaker 1: I'm like, hey, hold on.
Speaker 3: My friends have told me before, mind your business, get
Speaker 3: beat up in New York. Mind your business.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm effis myja business? You're gonna get beat up
Speaker 1: in New York.
Speaker 2: But I am the.
Speaker 1: Person just like, well, that's not right, and that's just
Speaker 1: who I am, and trust me hereas and if I
Speaker 1: could be any different, I would I tell my friends
Speaker 1: that all the time. But if I could just sit
Speaker 1: home and be cute and not in my my business.
Speaker 1: I would, I really would. It's an easier life. No
Speaker 1: one wants to deal with this. No one wants anybody
Speaker 1: in your comments calling you all kind of names. But
Speaker 1: I am grateful for you. I am grateful for the
Speaker 1: work that you do. I think that I would love
Speaker 1: to have you on forever. It's been an hour and
Speaker 1: change and I could talk to you all day because
Speaker 1: it is a reminder of what we should be doing.
Speaker 1: Your work is invaluable. Keep teaching the children, myself included
Speaker 1: in Last but not least, I really want you to
Speaker 1: talk about your book so people know to go out
Speaker 1: and get your book. Before I let you go, you
Speaker 1: did something special.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, thank you so much for the kind words
Speaker 2: and for having me here. This is a real honor.
Speaker 2: I'm going to go brag in my.
Speaker 3: Talking to Carry and she thinks you're the best.
Speaker 2: And that too. On the records. On the record, yeah,
Speaker 2: behind me. I have the book, a kid's book about Juneteenth.
Speaker 2: I wrote this book to literally bring the story of
Speaker 2: Juneteenth to families, to caretakers and children, and to make
Speaker 2: sure that the story continues on. You know, we know
Speaker 2: that this is now a federal holiday currently, hopefully it remains.
Speaker 2: But it's also such an important history of the way
Speaker 2: that black people have leveraged joy and solidarity for progress
Speaker 2: and for survival and to thrive even right, And so
Speaker 2: that's why I wrote the book. You can get it
Speaker 2: wherever books are sold. It's a kid's book about Juneteenth.
Speaker 2: I appreciate you letting me plug that. I don't get
Speaker 2: to talk about it as much post June Nineteenth, Like June.
Speaker 3: Twenty, it's over.
Speaker 2: It's over. I could tell you like.
Speaker 3: A two week period to talk about your motally.
Speaker 2: Literally, there's like a two week period.
Speaker 3: Bring it back in February.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I will do that. I will do that. But
Speaker 2: but I love that it exists, and I love the
Speaker 2: people are grabbing the book, and I appreciate you for
Speaker 2: having me and for this really great conversation.
Speaker 1: Keep doing the work. Thank you, Garrison Hayes for joining
Speaker 1: us on Naked Sports.
Speaker 2: Thank you, thank you, thank you all.
Speaker 1: Right, folks, thanks so much for joining us on this
Speaker 1: edition of Naked Sports. I hope you learned something that
Speaker 1: is always, always, always the number one goal.
Speaker 3: I want to point out.
Speaker 1: That next weekend, next weekend, WNBA All Star, tune in,
Speaker 1: watch support the ladies, help change this narrative. Stop talking
Speaker 1: about who's jealous of whom and even if they are
Speaker 1: add the so what, because does it matter? It's all
Speaker 1: going to get handled on the court. And then if
Speaker 1: it doesn't get handled on the court specifically, you'll hear
Speaker 1: about it.
Speaker 3: You'll hear about.
Speaker 1: It all right, y'all, I'm going to go to the
Speaker 1: WNBA All Star at least that's my intention. I'll keep
Speaker 1: y'all posted if I do. I'm also head in ne Vegas.
Speaker 1: Shout out to my girl, Swin Cash. You guys have
Speaker 1: to support Swin Cash. Speaking of WNBA, she is an
Speaker 1: All Star, a legend, Hall of Famer, and she's having
Speaker 1: a huge, huge, huge conference for women in sports, and
Speaker 1: she was so generous enough to invite me to speak.
Speaker 1: So I'm excited to be there and we're just going
Speaker 1: to talk about all the things changing, the narratives, being
Speaker 1: loud and proud, and what's next for the future in
Speaker 1: front of the camera and behind the scenes. So shout
Speaker 1: out to Swin Cash. And when I come back, I'll
Speaker 1: tell you all about the festivities. Those I was able
Speaker 1: to make and those I wasn't able to.
Speaker 3: Make my que cart is full. Man, I got lots
Speaker 3: going on, all right, y'all. Thanks for listening to Naked Sports.
Speaker 3: Talk to y'all next week.
Speaker 1: Naked Sports written and executive produced by me Carrie Champion,
Speaker 1: produced by Jacquise Thomas, sound designed and mastered by Dwayne Crawford.
Speaker 1: Naked Sports is a part of the Black Effect podcast
Speaker 1: Network in iHeartMedia