Speaker 1: Native lanmdpod is a production of iHeartRadio in partnership with
Speaker 1: Reason Choice Media.
Speaker 2: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, welcome, Welcome, Hey, everybody, welcome home.
Speaker 1: I am your host of Native lampod this solo pod. Anyway,
Speaker 1: Angela Rai and today I sound happy, But I ain't
Speaker 1: that dog unhappy because let me tell y'all this right
Speaker 1: here is the Trump administration's executive order called Restoring Truth
Speaker 1: and Sanity to American History. Now, what I want to
Speaker 1: talk about today is the fact that this actually is
Speaker 1: not a new approach. What the Trump administration is doing
Speaker 1: is what white folks in this country have been doing
Speaker 1: a long time. Y'all. There's nothing new under the sun.
Speaker 1: The Bible says that, and so does our history. If
Speaker 1: we are allowed to continue to see that history.
Speaker 2: What's happening in.
Speaker 1: This administration right now is mass erasure.
Speaker 2: And here's the thing. Some people say, Oh, I didn't
Speaker 2: know what was going to happen. Why would they do that?
Speaker 2: What's the harmon knowing our history?
Speaker 1: I'm so glad you asked those questions. Here's the thing.
Speaker 1: There's a little thing that we've talked about on this
Speaker 1: podcast multiple times called Project twenty twenty five. It is
Speaker 1: all there, and if you can't find it in Project
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five, I dare you to google Project twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five and the Smithsonian. I dare you to google
Speaker 1: Project twenty twenty five and the National Park Service. You
Speaker 1: might be wondering, what the hell does the National Park
Speaker 1: Service have to do with this? Again, I'm so glad
Speaker 1: you asked. We're gonna get into all that today and more. First,
Speaker 1: I want to just address this fact. Does the Project
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five address the Smithsonian in and of itself?
Speaker 2: No, but the.
Speaker 1: Heritage Foundation, which is the holder of Project twenty twenty five,
Speaker 1: the convener of Project twenty twenty five. How the authors
Speaker 1: of each section came together for Project twenty twenty five. Well,
Speaker 1: they have on their website in an article reference and
Speaker 1: Seeing sixteen nineteen and other things that what is going
Speaker 1: to destroy the fabric of this country is something called
Speaker 1: woke indoctrination.
Speaker 2: What the hell is that? Do y'all know? Neither do I.
Speaker 1: I have a feeling it has something to do with
Speaker 1: this teaching people black history, just something to do with
Speaker 1: the books they think should be banned, books like the
Speaker 1: sixteen nineteen project, which the Heritage Foundation talks about in
Speaker 1: an article on their website. You should google that two
Speaker 1: Heritage Foundation sixteen nineteen project. Why am I telling you
Speaker 1: all to go and look at what the enemy is doing?
Speaker 1: Some of y'all might be saying, why are you call
Speaker 1: them the enemy? Because anybody that's trying to erase you
Speaker 1: still kill and destroy who you are the legacy of
Speaker 1: your people in this country. I'm pretty damn sure their enemies.
Speaker 1: So why am I telling you to go look at
Speaker 1: what the enemy's doing? How are you going to prepare
Speaker 1: for the fight ahead if you don't know what's coming? Right,
Speaker 1: there's only one way to prepare for the fight ahead.
Speaker 1: These folks put their playbook, they put their strategy on
Speaker 1: their website for all this. They typed up nine hundred
Speaker 1: something pages about the direction that they think the country
Speaker 1: should go in in Project.
Speaker 2: Twenty twenty five, So we should utilize it now.
Speaker 1: I want to bring this up because just last year
Speaker 1: or over I'll say last two years, you all saw
Speaker 1: elected officials from both sides of the isle, and we
Speaker 1: didn't have time to pull these clips. But maybe we'll
Speaker 1: do it on the back end from both sides of
Speaker 1: the Isle who cannot say that America is a racist country?
Speaker 2: Do you remember that?
Speaker 1: And it was really frustrating to a lot of us
Speaker 1: because we're like, well, what country are you living in?
Speaker 1: Because clearly this country has racist history, It's rooted in
Speaker 1: racist history. You built your whole economy on the backs
Speaker 1: of enslaved people.
Speaker 2: Clearly there's racist history. And clearly when you look at.
Speaker 1: George Zimmerman who killed George Floyd, I'm sorry that was
Speaker 1: a Freudian slip, George Zimmerman who killed Trayvon Martin, George
Speaker 1: Floyd who was killed by Derek Shavin.
Speaker 2: The many other ways in.
Speaker 1: Which vigilantes and the process by which vigilantes operated under
Speaker 1: the slave trade.
Speaker 2: Still exists to this day.
Speaker 1: Right when you look at that, you know that racism
Speaker 1: is still alive and well in this country. When you
Speaker 1: look at the disparities in pay between black and white
Speaker 1: income earners.
Speaker 2: You know that racism is still alive in this country.
Speaker 1: When you look at the number of contractors, whether on
Speaker 1: the local, state or federal level, and how much black
Speaker 1: and brown participation of people of other ethnic backgrounds, the
Speaker 1: lack that exists there, the lack of access the lack
Speaker 1: of process and the lack of fairness and equity, equitable outcomes.
Speaker 1: In those spaces, you know that racism is still alive
Speaker 1: in this country. When you look at the publications, newspapers,
Speaker 1: media outlets, you know that racism is still alive in
Speaker 1: this country. It may be uncomfortable, it may be something
Speaker 1: that you want to look away from because it is
Speaker 1: painful for you to see the obvious. But we're not
Speaker 1: going to that you turn away, not on this podcast.
Speaker 1: So what I want to get into today is the
Speaker 1: fact that they actually put us in harm's way by
Speaker 1: not being able to say that America is a racist country.
Speaker 1: Because what's happened as a result is Donald Trump's administration
Speaker 1: has been able to wrap.
Speaker 2: Certain words woke.
Speaker 1: Uh, what's let me tell you what a Western foundations?
Speaker 1: What else do they have in here? We're going to
Speaker 1: go into this things around oppression. Any of those words
Speaker 1: are harmful to them, so they try to to to
Speaker 1: use something different. They would rather frame it as woke indoctrination,
Speaker 1: so they are offended. For example, this is the executive
Speaker 1: order called Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.
Speaker 2: Right, they have.
Speaker 1: On their uh in this executive word on page TEO
Speaker 1: of this exact executive order. For example, the Smithsonian American
Speaker 1: Art Museum today features the Shape of Power, Stories of
Speaker 1: Race and American Sculpture and exhibit representing that societies, including
Speaker 1: the United States, have used race to establish and maintain
Speaker 1: systems of power, privilege, and disenfranchisement.
Speaker 2: Right this exhibit says.
Speaker 1: The exhibit further claims that sculpture has been a powerful
Speaker 1: tool in promoting scientific racism and promotes the view that
Speaker 1: race is not a biological reality but a social contract construct,
Speaker 1: stating race is a human invention.
Speaker 2: Now, they would have you believe that these quotes are
Speaker 2: not true.
Speaker 1: They would have you believe that centering race is a
Speaker 1: divisive tactic, which is what they say right above that
Speaker 1: they would have you believe that in order to foster
Speaker 1: unity in this country and a deeper understanding of our
Speaker 1: shared past, that means that we have to get rid
Speaker 1: of what causes people shame, or what causes people guilt,
Speaker 1: or what causes people humiliation.
Speaker 2: But we have to come to terms with the fact that.
Speaker 1: Slavery was an awful institution, and it is the reason
Speaker 1: that many of us are here in this country today
Speaker 1: because our ancestors were forced here right in the belly
Speaker 1: of slave ships in the Transatlantic slave trade in America
Speaker 1: was one of the places. The United States of America
Speaker 1: is one of the places where enslaved people were brought.
Speaker 1: But that's not the only place. The Caribbean, Brazil, the.
Speaker 2: UK, etc. Etc.
Speaker 1: Now, what I think is important for us to kind
Speaker 1: of dissect here is why is it that what does
Speaker 1: not feel good to white folks generally, particularly in this administration, is.
Speaker 2: Worth rewriting. Right.
Speaker 1: We know that if they can destroy our history, they
Speaker 1: can destroy the legacy of our people, the remembrance and
Speaker 1: the memory of our ancestors. That is how you destroy things.
Speaker 1: And here's what I really think is beneath this there's
Speaker 1: a bill that has been introduced in the United States
Speaker 1: House of Representatives every year since I'm gonna tell you
Speaker 1: the year. But that bill is a reparations bill.
Speaker 2: Congressman Conyers.
Speaker 1: Congressman John Conyers began introducing the bill, I believe in
Speaker 1: the late nineteen eighties.
Speaker 2: I was trying to pull.
Speaker 1: This yes in the late nineteen eighties, and nineteen eighty
Speaker 1: eighty nine is the first year the Congressman Knyer's entroduce
Speaker 1: HR forty. This bill was merely designed to establish a
Speaker 1: commission and to study the DISASTERIX disaster disastrous impacts of
Speaker 1: the Transatlantic slave trade and the institutional slavery in the
Speaker 1: United States.
Speaker 2: Here's what I believe is happening. I don't believe that.
Speaker 1: This executive order that Donald Trump signed at the end
Speaker 1: of March on March twenty seventh, I don't believe that
Speaker 1: they're only doing this to absolve themselves of white guilt.
Speaker 1: I don't believe that they want to get rid of
Speaker 1: artifacts in certain language in the Smithsonian and all of
Speaker 1: its properties because it makes them feel bad.
Speaker 2: I think that it's far more sick in its intention.
Speaker 1: I believe that if they can reframe slavery, if they
Speaker 1: can reframe the impact of institutional racism and systemic racism
Speaker 1: in this systemic oppression in this country, that there is
Speaker 1: that's a way for them to destroy any argument that
Speaker 1: has worked on the local, state or federal level for reparations.
Speaker 1: I believe it is that that it's that sick. They
Speaker 1: don't support reparations because the only people they support receiving
Speaker 1: handouts are rich, rich billionaires. Right, That's what we're seeing
Speaker 1: consistently across the board from this administration that nobody that
Speaker 1: has given anything to this country and was not paid
Speaker 1: for it should be taken care of.
Speaker 2: And to that, I do want to say this too.
Speaker 1: A lot of people think that this executive order is
Speaker 1: just about what we call the Black Sonia, the National
Speaker 1: Museum of African American History and Culture.
Speaker 2: It's not this.
Speaker 1: This is about all Smithsonian properties. That's twenty one museums
Speaker 1: and it is the world's largest institution of museum education, research, science.
Speaker 1: It is the world's largest. They want to destroy all
Speaker 1: of that. So they're using race as one of the inroads.
Speaker 1: But that's not the only in road. And this isn't new.
Speaker 1: I want to go to this clip because I think
Speaker 1: it's important for you all to understand where are some
Speaker 1: of this now we're originated, but the fact that it
Speaker 1: didn't just pop up with the Trump administration.
Speaker 2: Let's roll this clip.
Speaker 3: As we mentioned talking points memo, Michelle Obama referenced slaves
Speaker 3: building the White House and referring to the evolution of
Speaker 3: America in a positive way. It was a positive comment.
Speaker 3: The history behind a remark is fascinating. George Washington selected
Speaker 3: the site in seventeen ninety one, and as present, laid
Speaker 3: the cornerstone in seventeen ninety two. Washington was then running
Speaker 3: the country out of Philadelphia. Slaves did participate in the
Speaker 3: construction of the White House. Record show about four hundred
Speaker 3: payments made to slave masters between seven ninety five and
Speaker 3: eighteen oh one. In addition, free blacks, whites, and immigrants
Speaker 3: also worked on the massive building. There were no illegal
Speaker 3: immigrants at that time. If you could make it here,
Speaker 3: you could stay here. In eighteen hundred, President John Adams
Speaker 3: took up residence in what was then called the Executive Mansion.
Speaker 3: It was only later on they named it the White House,
Speaker 3: but Adams was in there with Abigail, and they were
Speaker 3: still hammer and nails. The construction was still going on.
Speaker 3: Slaves that worked there were well fed and had decent
Speaker 3: lodgings provided by the government, which stopped hiring slave labor
Speaker 3: in eighteen oh two. However, the FEDS did not forbid
Speaker 3: subcontractors from using slave labor. So Michelle Obama is essentially
Speaker 3: correct in citing slaves as builders of the White House,
Speaker 3: But there were others working as well.
Speaker 2: Chow.
Speaker 1: What like the fact that we're talking about it, and
Speaker 1: this was a big thing when it came up. Originally,
Speaker 1: it was a big thing because he said, well, you know,
Speaker 1: they were well fed, well fed, and there was decent
Speaker 1: lodging for enslaved people.
Speaker 2: Right, that's insane. We're talking about people who were brought
Speaker 2: to this country back force.
Speaker 1: He also said, if you know there were no illegal immigrants,
Speaker 1: if you could make it here, you could stay here.
Speaker 1: And I'm gonna give him the benefit of the doubt
Speaker 1: that what he's saying is at that point there was
Speaker 1: no immigration policy, and certainly there was no repercussion for
Speaker 1: those who chained people into the belly of a slave ship,
Speaker 1: slave ship to force them to come here and force
Speaker 1: them to work for free for centuries, for centuries. Right,
Speaker 1: we don't need to talk about reframing this as hired
Speaker 1: slave labor. There was no such thing. Slave enslaved people's
Speaker 1: masters were the ones receiving the benefit. He's talking about subcontractors,
Speaker 1: there's no subcontractor if you're not paid. I mean, well, actually,
Speaker 1: if you look at how some of these federal prime
Speaker 1: contractors work now and their subcontractors, yes, some of them
Speaker 1: don't see payment. And if you look at Donald Trump's history,
Speaker 1: certainly some of his subcontractors, even some of his overall
Speaker 1: contractors didn't receive payment. So maybe that's just also a
Speaker 1: vestage of slavery. But I think the one thing that
Speaker 1: we do have to acknowledge here is that there is
Speaker 1: a rewriting of history that's been taking place for a
Speaker 1: long time to compensate for the guilt that white folks
Speaker 1: feel when you talk about the slave trade and when
Speaker 1: you talk about the institution of slavery. Now, the thing
Speaker 1: that I want us to recognize as we wrestle with
Speaker 1: what happens with the Smithsonian next, is there's a black man,
Speaker 1: the first black man in history, who's running that museum
Speaker 1: or that museum property. Again, we talk about Smithsonian as
Speaker 1: twenty one museums plus plus all of the other things
Speaker 1: that they occupy as the world's largest entity of its
Speaker 1: hid Lonnie Bunch is not safe from my vantage point,
Speaker 1: and I'm saying that because you know, we're in a
Speaker 1: situation where they are attacking people. They've fired people from
Speaker 1: the EEOC that had terms that extended beyond that firing.
Speaker 1: Sure folks can be taken to court to address the
Speaker 1: issues in those firings. The fact that they're illegal. But
Speaker 1: this administration, as we all know, doesn't care about doing things.
Speaker 2: In a legal way.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: This is not about mining minding the law. We're the
Speaker 1: only ones that have to mind the law. The administration
Speaker 1: does not have to follow the law, and we need
Speaker 1: to be holding them accountable to that.
Speaker 2: But I think we need to also be clear about that.
Speaker 1: Now that said, I want to turn our attention briefly
Speaker 1: to because I don't know what the outcome will be
Speaker 1: with the Smithsonian properties. I'm hoping that Lonnie Bunch will
Speaker 1: be safe, but I'm very clear about the fact that
Speaker 1: a very qualified black person in any role to this
Speaker 1: administration threatens their argument about DEI, and they are attacking
Speaker 1: things like science, like access to education, like employment, like
Speaker 1: the cost of goods, and certainly black labor, when black
Speaker 1: people have demonstrated that they actually are extremely excellent, deserve
Speaker 1: to be in those roles and probably should have been
Speaker 1: promoted long before they actually were. They are replacing qualification
Speaker 1: and quality with nonsense, with the type of tiplel say nonsense,
Speaker 1: the type of people that put military strike plans in
Speaker 1: a dog gone signal threat.
Speaker 2: That is what we're dealing with right now.
Speaker 1: So let me just turn briefly to a place where
Speaker 1: there was an attack and folks won on this attack.
Speaker 1: It's the National Park Service. So you I think you
Speaker 1: all know. But every day I wear this chain. This
Speaker 1: is Harriet Tubman on my necklace. Harriet Tubman to so
Speaker 1: many of us.
Speaker 2: I dared not just say just black folks.
Speaker 1: But when you talk about the undergrown, under underground railroad
Speaker 1: and what.
Speaker 2: She means to our community, to this country.
Speaker 1: You know, the type of person that that John Brown
Speaker 1: could confide in around military plans and battle plans, the
Speaker 1: type of person that would go nineteen times to get
Speaker 1: three hundred people, three hundred black folks. The type of
Speaker 1: person who would say, you know, there are a lot
Speaker 1: of folks where you.
Speaker 2: Know they're running, they run, they might be running.
Speaker 1: You know, uh automotive service, you know the train and
Speaker 1: her train. She said her train never went off the
Speaker 1: tracks and she never lost a passenger figuratively speaking of course,
Speaker 1: for those of you whose history has already been so arrased,
Speaker 1: you don't know, the underground railroad isn't actually the train tracks.
Speaker 1: And so the thing that I think is important now is,
Speaker 1: you know, the National Park Service removed references to Harriet
Speaker 1: Tubman from the Underground Railroad page. And there is a
Speaker 1: victory on the other side of this, But I want
Speaker 1: to tell you it says that the new page did
Speaker 1: not mention until slavery until the third paragraph, and that
Speaker 1: there was there were references to the Fugitive Slave Act
Speaker 1: of eighteen fifty that were removed completely from the pages,
Speaker 1: that that Harriet Tubman is not a central figure in
Speaker 1: the Underground Railroad and a quote from her and her
Speaker 1: picture being taken down is remarkably it is. It is
Speaker 1: the textbook definition of a rasure right. And so what
Speaker 1: I want to say is the victory around this is
Speaker 1: the National Park Service put it back.
Speaker 2: And why am I bringing that up to you all
Speaker 2: right now?
Speaker 1: I think it is so important for us for us
Speaker 1: to understand as we get hit on every side. We
Speaker 1: get hit in our history, we're getting hit in our
Speaker 1: present day experience, and we're getting hit on what is accessible,
Speaker 1: attainable and viable for future generations.
Speaker 2: We're literally getting hit on every side.
Speaker 1: As we consider that, I want us to think about
Speaker 1: how important it is to wage a fight back. It
Speaker 1: may be y'all that some people have to fight there
Speaker 1: may have you know, Black people love a committee, especially
Speaker 1: Black church folks, especially Black church Baptist Church folks, and so,
Speaker 1: and that is not shade in this moment is actually
Speaker 1: a compliment because this may be a moment where we
Speaker 1: need to divide up into committees to take on the labor.
Speaker 1: Somebody needs to be focusing on the attacks on future generations.
Speaker 1: Some folks need to be focused on what the attacks
Speaker 1: are in the present and how we stave off.
Speaker 2: Any additional harm.
Speaker 1: And some people will need to focus on what has
Speaker 1: to happen to main sure maintain our security and our
Speaker 1: history from a safety and security standpoint. Who can take
Speaker 1: on the fight for our history, who can ensure it's
Speaker 1: not just the Black Sonian under attack, it is all
Speaker 1: of the Smithsonian property. So this should be a rainbow
Speaker 1: coalition fight, Like, like, at what point are you going
Speaker 1: to stop saying we're gonna wait for the fight to
Speaker 1: take us on. Personally, it has women are seniors. If
Speaker 1: you buy any products, it's on you. If you work
Speaker 1: for the federal government, it's on you. If you work
Speaker 1: for a quasi governmental agency that means kind of a
Speaker 1: public private split, it's upon you. If you are a student,
Speaker 1: it is upon you. If you are a researcher, Let's
Speaker 1: say you're in a PhD program where you need access
Speaker 1: to federal websites for data collection, it's on you. And
Speaker 1: if you're an art curator, collector donor, it's on you,
Speaker 1: right And there are so many other spaces, veterans, folks
Speaker 1: who rely on any type of what they call entitlement
Speaker 1: program but snap benefits or Medicare or medicaid, any type
Speaker 1: of need, access to healthcare that you need, it's upon you.
Speaker 1: And so now is the time for us to be gathering,
Speaker 1: coming together out figuring out what our next steps and
Speaker 1: our response must be in this environment, because it is
Speaker 1: so treacherous and so dangerous, and it is only going
Speaker 1: to become more so the less we challenge them. And
Speaker 1: so I invite you into the fight. I will tell
Speaker 1: you a little bit of breaking news on here. It
Speaker 1: is not public yet, but we are announcing our State
Speaker 1: of the People Tour, and the State of the People
Speaker 1: Tour is going to begin in ten cities. We're starting
Speaker 1: off in Atlanta, Georgia on April twenty six, and we
Speaker 1: are saying we've got to come together, We've got to
Speaker 1: fight together, we got to be in coalition together, national
Speaker 1: partners across the board, from NAACP to NCNW to National
Speaker 1: Urban League, Africanamerican Mayors Association, across the board, Advancement Project.
Speaker 1: There's so many at the table so that we can
Speaker 1: get this right, the D nine right. We're doing this
Speaker 1: all together, the faith community, our young folks. We're working
Speaker 1: all together to ensure that our basic needs can be
Speaker 1: met and that we know how to fight in this environment,
Speaker 1: fight to preserve ourselves, to survive, and to get to
Speaker 1: the point of thriving. As we go on this tour,
Speaker 1: we're releasing black papers every week that will become our
Speaker 1: Black Agenda, or our Freedom Agenda, or our Project twenty
Speaker 1: twenty five.
Speaker 2: We need all hands on deck.
Speaker 1: So I want you all to reach out to us
Speaker 1: at STATEOFTHEPPL dot com, Stateadthepeople dot com, State of the People,
Speaker 1: State OFTHEPPL dot com. Though remember that I keep messing
Speaker 1: that up, because that is where you can sign up
Speaker 1: to participate, to volunteer, to host a workshop, all the things.
Speaker 1: We want to see you involved, and we definitely want
Speaker 1: to see you in a city near you. So this
Speaker 1: is our love letter to y'all State of the People.
Speaker 1: There are local organizers doing the Doggone thing in each city,
Speaker 1: and we're so excited to work with groups on the
Speaker 1: ground who've been doing this work. And we're also thrilled
Speaker 1: about the opportunity to come together, do something all together
Speaker 1: and make our work that much more impactful.
Speaker 2: We are better together.
Speaker 1: One fist can strike a mighty blow, y'all. So with that,
Speaker 1: all power to the people. I'll see y'all soon. I'm
Speaker 1: not going to answer no questions because I didn't went
Speaker 1: long out and got hot about this stuff, y'all.
Speaker 2: We should.
Speaker 1: We don't need to end with bill O'Reilly, But just
Speaker 1: remember they're trying to make history say that slaves were
Speaker 1: well fled, well fed, and they had decent lodging, and
Speaker 1: we're going to tell them at every step of the
Speaker 1: way the devil is a lie. We're going to make
Speaker 1: sure you know our history, even if if paining you
Speaker 1: to learn it. So thanks, y'all, We'll see you next time.
Speaker 2: Welcome Home.
Speaker 1: Native Lampard is a production of iHeartRadio in partnership with
Speaker 1: Reason Choice Media. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the
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