Speaker 1: Native Lamb Pod is the production of iHeartRadio in partnership
Speaker 1: with Reason Choice Media.
Speaker 2: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, well, come.
Speaker 3: Welcome, Welcome home, you guys.
Speaker 1: This is episode eighty seven of Native Lamb Pod. I
Speaker 1: can't believe it is eighty seven already. We are here
Speaker 1: to give you the breakdown of all things politics and
Speaker 1: culture where we give it to you straight, no chaser.
Speaker 1: If you like what you're hear on today's show, please
Speaker 1: be sure to let a friend know, like, subscribe, share,
Speaker 1: tell everybody so we can keep growing our lovely audience.
Speaker 1: You who we try to include in all of our
Speaker 1: all of our topics. All right, speaking of topics, what
Speaker 1: we got today?
Speaker 3: What y'all got?
Speaker 4: What's up? What's up Angela? What you got for him?
Speaker 5: Well, we have a guest I'm excited about Elizabeth A. Booker.
Speaker 5: Now he's about to mess it up. Elizabeth Booker Houston.
Speaker 5: Booker squared is what she goes by on Instagram and
Speaker 5: on TikTok, and y'all have known her for her legendary
Speaker 5: takedowns and breakdowns of all things politics. I'm thrilled to
Speaker 5: be shared space with her today.
Speaker 3: I'm excited to hear from her. I don't know her
Speaker 3: that well.
Speaker 1: You and Angela, you and Elizabeth work together a lot closely,
Speaker 1: so I'm excited to hear what she has to say.
Speaker 3: I google stalked her a little bit.
Speaker 1: I know her work, but I did google stock her
Speaker 1: a little bit, So I'm excited to hear from her
Speaker 1: and connect with her.
Speaker 3: Andrew, what you got?
Speaker 4: Yeah, So I want to talk about really an all
Speaker 4: two silent crisis right now affecting so many people across
Speaker 4: the country, and that's the affordability of housing. And really
Speaker 4: this will be a preview to the topic because I
Speaker 4: think we'll do a follow up, hopefully involving more of
Speaker 4: our listeners.
Speaker 1: Oh good, Okay, I have something on that. I have
Speaker 1: a lot to say on that. Well, for me, what
Speaker 1: I got is the viewers. I yield my time this
Speaker 1: week because I wanted to hear from the viewers, which
Speaker 1: I think is most important. And we want to remind
Speaker 1: you guys, if you have a comment question, even when
Speaker 1: you disagree with us, we welcome it. This is not
Speaker 1: a conversation at you, but a conversation with you, So
Speaker 1: please keep sending us your videos questions. We like to
Speaker 1: see your lovely faces. And like I said, we welcome
Speaker 1: disagreement here as well. All right, let's get into it.
Speaker 6: What's up Native landis is Craig and Brooklyn. I just
Speaker 6: wanted to say happy summer, and I wanted to chime
Speaker 6: in on your discussion about books. I'm so glad you
Speaker 6: talk about books. Someone told me once that the way
Speaker 6: that I make meaning is through words. Many of us
Speaker 6: love words, whether we are hearing them or reading them,
Speaker 6: or you know, our grandmothers are speaking to us.
Speaker 7: So I mean just the importance of the word.
Speaker 6: So with that being said, I want to recommend the
Speaker 6: book by Clint Smith called How the Word Is Passed.
Speaker 6: Brilliant book. His brother takes a tour through all of
Speaker 6: the plantation sites in the American South, increased this beautiful
Speaker 6: narrative about how those sites contribute to our history today.
Speaker 6: And the funny thing is I read that book right
Speaker 6: after I read sixteen nineteen. The two together was a
Speaker 6: very powerful experience.
Speaker 5: So I would recommend that as well.
Speaker 6: Welcome home, y'all, Angela Fifth Andrew love you guys as always.
Speaker 1: I love that sounds of the city, you know, And
Speaker 1: I wanted to tell you, guys, I felt bad because
Speaker 1: I was telling y'all, I don't think that listening to
Speaker 1: books is really reading, and Andrew You're like, yeah, if
Speaker 1: you're not an auditory learner. And then I felt bad
Speaker 1: because a lot of people were dming me and saying like,
Speaker 1: I agree with you, and I try to tell my
Speaker 1: kids that all the time. And then I'm like, no,
Speaker 1: your kids might be, you know, auditory learners, like just
Speaker 1: because I read and process things a different way. So
Speaker 1: it was it just changed my perspective. But I do
Speaker 1: appreciate this caller. First of all, Craig was kind of cute.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Craig.
Speaker 4: Craig, I heard my friend visits New York every now
Speaker 4: and again.
Speaker 5: I knew that he was gonna because he had his
Speaker 5: little stroll, like his little gangstery yeah going. I knew
Speaker 5: he was trying to be cute. And then Tiff went
Speaker 5: for the bait. Tiff said, what's what your phone number is, Craig,
Speaker 5: and what's the last name, because we're gonna vet you.
Speaker 5: Tiff might not vet you, but we're gonna We're gonna
Speaker 5: We're not gonna google stock, but we're definitely gonna do
Speaker 5: a background check you.
Speaker 3: Antel Is craggs now girlfriend about to be.
Speaker 8: My name is like, I just want you to know
Speaker 8: native welcome, you not welcome to my home.
Speaker 1: Okay, or these natively listeners, these ladies might see Craig
Speaker 1: Crags dms might might be lit up. But thank you
Speaker 1: black man for walking down the street looking beautiful.
Speaker 5: To send another question next week.
Speaker 3: This time he's gonna be topless running.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just wanted to say, anyway, thank you Craigs
Speaker 1: for your kid.
Speaker 4: In speaking of guys, the.
Speaker 3: Clint Smith, we should have them on. Sorry, and should
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 4: What you said of how many guys ask question she's
Speaker 4: compared to our women listeners. And I think it's actually prettyparity,
Speaker 4: Like we get a good balance between really adversity of
Speaker 4: listeners sending in race wise, gender wise, and so on.
Speaker 4: So that's cool.
Speaker 5: Yeah, should you have one white person is sending questions
Speaker 5: what you talk about?
Speaker 4: No, we've had no, we had two, one from Washington State.
Speaker 4: We got the brother in Georgia. Uh, white white guy
Speaker 4: in Atlanta.
Speaker 5: South Carolina. Yeah, okay, true, true, definitely rob so.
Speaker 4: True true true. Okay, another question now period in the statement.
Speaker 5: Well everybody white friend, we have boyfriends.
Speaker 4: We got you know.
Speaker 1: I hope you'll continue to send in your questions and comments.
Speaker 1: And I just finished dream Count by the way, by
Speaker 1: Tim and Monday id e t I pronounce her name,
Speaker 1: But I'm going on next to a side of Shaqueur
Speaker 1: and angela ry recommendation that is next on my list,
Speaker 1: So thank you for that.
Speaker 5: All right? If you never read the autobiography of aid
Speaker 5: No when you when you said it on the O,
Speaker 5: I was like, you know what, I haven't read that.
Speaker 3: I'm going to read that next love. I already know.
Speaker 5: They're gonna come back next week with an Afro Andrew.
Speaker 1: You don't know if it's a good idea for me
Speaker 1: to read it as militant as I feel these days,
Speaker 1: but I'm glad to I'm gonna read it.
Speaker 5: You're gonna want to go, You're gonna want to go
Speaker 5: find her in Cuba, and you definitely gonna want to
Speaker 5: get her off. The FBI's most one of this. Now
Speaker 5: good luck in this environment, but you're gonna.
Speaker 4: Hey, it might be a friend of your environment than
Speaker 4: you think.
Speaker 5: Nah, not for her, not for her, not for sis this.
Speaker 5: These people are they trying to put us on there?
Speaker 4: I mean, yeah, but you know we're present day threats.
Speaker 1: Well, before we get to the present day threats, of
Speaker 1: which there are many, we have another viewer question.
Speaker 3: Let's roll at.
Speaker 9: Native's Land podcast. Let me make sure I get the
Speaker 9: name right so Angela does not chew me up again.
Speaker 9: And also number two, she chewed me up last time
Speaker 9: because I have a baby in the background, you know,
Speaker 9: running around in the van while I needed to get
Speaker 9: this video out. But my name is Tiana, and I'm
Speaker 9: from Pittsburgh, and I love that Tiffany and Andrew mentions
Speaker 9: Game of Thrones. I'm a huge Game of Thrones fan
Speaker 9: and that makes me wonder too sometimes while I'm watching it.
Speaker 9: It's the current administration under Queen Circe or King Jeoffrey.
Speaker 9: I know for sure though they're Lanisters. Those are Lanisters
Speaker 9: in the office.
Speaker 4: Mm hmmm.
Speaker 5: I just want to know.
Speaker 9: Your thoughts on it.
Speaker 3: Lighting it up a little bit, peace and have a wonderful.
Speaker 5: Day, y'all.
Speaker 9: I love.
Speaker 5: Did I really yell at her about having.
Speaker 4: Her in the driver seat? It looked like, you know,
Speaker 4: but can I can?
Speaker 1: I just say, I want to make this very clear,
Speaker 1: none of us are ever like chewing anybody out for
Speaker 1: real real, It's all love. It's like when you go
Speaker 1: to a family reunion and you, you know, played a
Speaker 1: dozens like whatever.
Speaker 3: Feel okay, all right, I'm still mad.
Speaker 5: At the guy from saying Angela miss crossed. Do you
Speaker 5: know people were doing that to me?
Speaker 1: At essence, I just thought, I really did think he
Speaker 1: felt familiar.
Speaker 8: With people thought it was funny, and they sided with me.
Speaker 4: Tip.
Speaker 5: They were like, hey, where's miss crossing? They thought it
Speaker 5: was so funny.
Speaker 8: I thought it was.
Speaker 4: I took it as he felt close enough to you.
Speaker 4: Uh to use your first name. What people use your
Speaker 4: first name is usually out of familiar I want us all.
Speaker 5: I had a saying that either we are on the
Speaker 5: first name basis or we all miss or miss. That's
Speaker 5: how I feel about it. I'm never chewing out. I'm
Speaker 5: never chewing anybody out about kids. I'm saying this part
Speaker 5: because I don't know nothing about Game of Thrones, so
Speaker 5: let me take my moment on this. I'm never chowing
Speaker 5: anybody else about your children. We welcome the kids. You
Speaker 5: can have your kids on the thing to say hello,
Speaker 5: we love the kids. Tiff loves the kids, and she
Speaker 5: loves the dogs. Andrew loves the kids. Wait, wait, Andrew.
Speaker 5: Andrew does not love the cats, but he loves you know.
Speaker 5: If you don't know what that's about, go back some episodes.
Speaker 1: Go back and watch the awkward moment episode, especially for.
Speaker 3: It is.
Speaker 1: Yeah, don't watch this is not one for the kids.
Speaker 1: Do we remember the name of that episode. I don't
Speaker 1: remember the name of it.
Speaker 3: Oh it was Community Peen. I know that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, tis only only fans.
Speaker 1: Yes, Angela said that on the show. She said, I
Speaker 1: know we were about to hear some to be porn. Anyway,
Speaker 1: y'all can go back and find that episode.
Speaker 3: AnyWho.
Speaker 1: Okay, because angel doesn't watch Game of Thrones, I we
Speaker 1: will make this brief. I so I disagree Tiana with
Speaker 1: the choices that she gave. I think they are not
Speaker 1: Lantis because you know, you remember that each show you thought,
Speaker 1: man like, these are the worst.
Speaker 4: People were always the worst.
Speaker 1: Though, well, hear me out. Thirsey Lanister was awful. She
Speaker 1: birth king Jeoffrey. Jeoffrey Lanister was awful, and you just thought,
Speaker 1: you know, how could I hate these people more? And
Speaker 1: then we met Ramsey Bolton. So I'm gonna say the
Speaker 1: Trump administration is Ramsey Bolton on steroids. They were methodical,
Speaker 1: and how they broke down theon gray Joy and I
Speaker 1: think that is the equivalent of what we're seeing the
Speaker 1: Trump administration due to our society right now, Like they
Speaker 1: have him up on the thing, you know, where they
Speaker 1: had him like stretched out, Like that's what it feels
Speaker 1: like the Trump administration is doing to our society. I
Speaker 1: would say they're Lanister is just for the subtext of incests.
Speaker 1: You know, this very weird lust that this president seems
Speaker 1: to have for his own daughter. People forget about that
Speaker 1: because it's been so much mess. So that's where I
Speaker 1: would say they're like the Lanisters, but in terms of
Speaker 1: their cruelty and the imagination of their cruelty, on their
Speaker 1: sub human treatment of people that we've seen from the
Speaker 1: iced deportations to these concentration camps that they're building, to
Speaker 1: how they're how the Big Beautiful Bill is going to
Speaker 1: impact people with their medicine and medicaid. I would say
Speaker 1: they are the scum of Winterfell. Uh, the North remembers
Speaker 1: will always remember, So I say they're Ramsey Bolton. And
Speaker 1: I invite Angela to Binge because it is an interesting show.
Speaker 4: I'll yeah, I like you did something creative there, But
Speaker 4: she did say keep it light for him.
Speaker 1: I mean, if there's a lot of parallels.
Speaker 4: Here, there are there are, I'm gonna take a slight exception.
Speaker 4: I do think at the core there are lanisters, because
Speaker 4: I think there is a thread that runs through particularly Circe,
Speaker 4: but her Daddy, Circe and Jeoffrey I think are the
Speaker 4: three worst of the Lanisters. I'm gonna push this one
Speaker 4: and say, Queen Denaris last episode crazy hit and in
Speaker 4: the sense that they took to fire and burned it
Speaker 4: all down, like it's not just one, that the enemy
Speaker 4: is not one, right, like she she could have had
Speaker 4: the enemy as one if the intention was simply to
Speaker 4: take out the castle, right, but when they really took
Speaker 4: stock of it and sat into themselves, when she set
Speaker 4: into who she is, just as the Trumps, now that
Speaker 4: he knows who he is, what he's gotta do the
Speaker 4: second Trump two point zero. The man took fire to everybody,
Speaker 4: and everybody's in the receiving end right now, innocent poor
Speaker 4: middle rich well healed and not healed at all. So
Speaker 4: I'm sticking with.
Speaker 3: It, Okay.
Speaker 4: I thought I have.
Speaker 3: Such an issue with this that I have to just correct.
Speaker 4: She went crazy. I'm sorry, I don't know.
Speaker 3: I don't know at the time.
Speaker 1: Nope, at the time when I saw it, I thought,
Speaker 1: what the hell, Like de Naris has gone crazy. I
Speaker 1: will tell you I've since revisited because I think her
Speaker 1: entire point was and I think there's a parallel here.
Speaker 3: In DC.
Speaker 1: There are some innocent people, there are some good people.
Speaker 1: But if I'm trying to eradicate evil, and it's like, well,
Speaker 1: you can eradicate evil slowly over time, or you can
Speaker 1: just blow this bitch up in one fell Jakaris, I
Speaker 1: don't know what I'm choosing, Like I might think, yeah,
Speaker 1: if you want to make an omelet, you gotta crack
Speaker 1: some eggs. And so now seeing the Trump administration, yeah,
Speaker 1: since seeing what they're doing, I do kind of I
Speaker 1: understand her more because it was like I to leave
Speaker 1: you all. It's like Trump can die, but trump Ism
Speaker 1: will live, and so you still have like all these
Speaker 1: young people who adopt his ideology. You still have all
Speaker 1: of these people across America. Everybody's like, oh, I think
Speaker 1: the election was stolen. I hope so, because I if
Speaker 1: it wasn't, then that means there are nearly one hundred
Speaker 1: million people in this country who supports what this man
Speaker 1: is doing. And so I do kind of understand when
Speaker 1: she said, you know what, and they were telling her,
Speaker 1: and she was looking down at all the people, like
Speaker 1: some of y'all rock with me, but most of y'all
Speaker 1: don't your card and burned everybody.
Speaker 4: But you're taking it to mean that she used the
Speaker 4: fire to eliminate evil, And I'm suggesting she she used.
Speaker 1: The fire to eliminate the people who were not loyal
Speaker 1: to her. So her reasoning may have been.
Speaker 4: Bad, right, And by the way, should leaders look for
Speaker 4: people who are loyal to them or people who are
Speaker 4: loyal to the larger, greater vision, larger cause, larger. You're right,
Speaker 4: and so way, and the Trumps are in parallel alignment
Speaker 4: in the sense that what they were looking for was
Speaker 4: feilty to the individual. Denarius at the end of the
Speaker 4: day wanted filty to her. And at different points we
Speaker 4: saw different parts of her where it seemed that she was,
Speaker 4: you know, for the greater good, the greaterst good, for
Speaker 4: the greatest number. And then I think is she got
Speaker 4: again closer to the throne and more healed in her seat.
Speaker 4: The real true Uh style of leadership came forward and
Speaker 4: I think Trumps are the same way, and their fire
Speaker 4: is not to eliminate the the enemies. Their fire is
Speaker 4: to eliminate anyone who would stand in their way. All
Speaker 4: the institutional structures that are built to hold them accountable.
Speaker 4: They want to extinguish them. And so I'm Queen de nerus.
Speaker 1: All right, well, I will leave it to the audience.
Speaker 1: Y'all let us know, because one thing I do miss
Speaker 1: is after every episode the Game of Thrones, all the
Speaker 1: black people.
Speaker 4: With them thrones.
Speaker 1: Them thrones was the best thing that ever happened to
Speaker 1: us as a community. So I am reigniting them thrones.
Speaker 1: Jakaris setting fire to this discussion. Audience, do you all
Speaker 1: tell us who are the trumpministration? Did you agree with
Speaker 1: denars Uh and the way that she handled it? Did
Speaker 1: we support John Snow of taking out Denares And if anybody,
Speaker 1: if any one of you all hits me with spoilers,
Speaker 1: please no spoilers.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna clown you so hard.
Speaker 1: Yes, right, this show is like ten years old now,
Speaker 1: and I don't really respect you binge watchers because we
Speaker 1: had to suffer through each week after the we had
Speaker 1: one wait seven days, right, But if you want to
Speaker 1: binge watch and ketch up Antel has already shook her head. No,
Speaker 1: but if some of y'all want to binge watch Angela,
Speaker 1: you I promise you will not.
Speaker 3: You will not reguise.
Speaker 5: The problem that you have for me is I do
Speaker 5: not like blood and gore and the one that I
Speaker 5: saw somebody got castrated. Yes, I don't see that.
Speaker 1: Okay, okay, so every episode is not blood and gore.
Speaker 7: Yep.
Speaker 5: But here's the thing. If you could tell me which
Speaker 5: ones to avoid, oh lord, if you tell me which
Speaker 5: ones to avoid, I'm down. But if you can't, I
Speaker 5: just know it all like Sinners, I had to keep
Speaker 5: looking like, oh.
Speaker 3: I loved it.
Speaker 4: It was that you took this g O t this
Speaker 4: got real series with I was going to be real
Speaker 4: lighting you like, nah, this is it.
Speaker 3: Well, there are so many parallels in the series.
Speaker 4: But we're moving on.
Speaker 3: We're moving on. We're moving on.
Speaker 1: When when, if, and when Angela beingjwack is we can
Speaker 1: revisit this conversation, but I definitely want to.
Speaker 5: Hear the thoughts from you. Okay, okay, just feel like
Speaker 5: my foreign policy lessons.
Speaker 4: Okay, well let's get domestic and if I.
Speaker 5: Okay, everybody. We'll be right back after we pay some bills.
Speaker 4: And I know that we're gonna try to revisit this.
Speaker 4: We will revisit this topic around housing. But I don't
Speaker 4: know about you and Tiff and Angela, but from friendship
Speaker 4: circles or extended friendship circles to reading articles, people constantly
Speaker 4: talking about housing availability where they live, whether that's in Atlanta,
Speaker 4: in the city proper that is going through its own
Speaker 4: regentrification and a mass exodus of people who have always
Speaker 4: lived in the urban core now having to try to
Speaker 4: find a place that they can afford outside the urban center,
Speaker 4: which again creates multiples of problems. Angela, I don't know
Speaker 4: if you've seen the Seattle data on affordability of housing,
Speaker 4: but some of our most prosperous cities in the country
Speaker 4: are also where we're finding the greatest exacerbation of the
Speaker 4: lack of affordable owners home ownership as well as rental.
Speaker 4: And what's really problematic about this is I think America
Speaker 4: by and large has had this idea that the people
Speaker 4: who are without a home are the ones who deserve
Speaker 4: to be without a home. They're the people who are
Speaker 4: addicted somehow, They're the people who don't work and are
Speaker 4: basically waiting for the government to take care of them.
Speaker 4: But undeserving folks, right, I take exception with that. I
Speaker 4: think housing is a human right and everybody should be housed,
Speaker 4: and we ought to have policy directed toward making sure
Speaker 4: that we've got folks who are housed. But people do
Speaker 4: make convenient places in their mind where they think it's
Speaker 4: okay for people to be without a home. And now
Speaker 4: what we're seeing is that people who are getting up
Speaker 4: every day and going to work a job, people with children,
Speaker 4: married couples who together pooling their resources, still are not
Speaker 4: able to afford to live in and in many of
Speaker 4: these cities. And what I'd love for us to explore
Speaker 4: and and and delving further into this one is what
Speaker 4: are our listeners experiencing. I'd love to hear wherever you
Speaker 4: are in the country, o' good enough. I was surprised Alabama,
Speaker 4: Lower Alabama UH is experiencing its issues around housing affordability.
Speaker 4: Who would have ever thought, right, And no offense to anybody,
Speaker 4: but just knowing, you know, having relatives there and visiting
Speaker 4: that just wasn't That wouldn't have been my first guest.
Speaker 4: But wherever you are around the country. If you've got
Speaker 4: experiences that you want to share, make a video express
Speaker 4: what the conditions seem to be like, what you think
Speaker 4: are contributories to the issue. We'd love to hear from
Speaker 4: you here at Native Lampid and then try to get
Speaker 4: to some of the reasons why. I will tell you
Speaker 4: with the with the rise of all of these equity
Speaker 4: uh firms that are basically pulling a non less money,
Speaker 4: to include a lot of that anonymous money coming from
Speaker 4: people's pension funds that are being invested on Wall Street,
Speaker 4: much of the housing market right now has been taken
Speaker 4: over by by these by these very discreete almost anonymous
Speaker 4: funding sources that are buying it up. And they have
Speaker 4: no relationship to the cities, no relationship to the community,
Speaker 4: no care for anything other than getting their money. And
Speaker 4: if that means expelling you, putting you and your kids
Speaker 4: out because you're late two days with the rent, they'll
Speaker 4: do it. So I think, y'all, I know you both
Speaker 4: are in cities that probably experienced this u DC tiffany
Speaker 4: that again some of the highest incomes in the region,
Speaker 4: but also one of the most extreme divides between those
Speaker 4: who have and those who have not even in my
Speaker 4: own city, y'all. I will testify that we have our
Speaker 4: own issues, Florida being one of the top three places
Speaker 4: where you cannot afford to live, whether it's rental or
Speaker 4: buying a home. And I'll tell you, for our our community,
Speaker 4: the biggest transfers of wealth for us has largely been
Speaker 4: between the passing of our real estate, our homes that
Speaker 4: we've owned and poured into. When I was on tribe,
Speaker 4: my uncle called me, who was in real estate himself,
Speaker 4: and said, son, I know this legal bill is going
Speaker 4: to be a lot, but the last thing you can
Speaker 4: consider it, in fact, you cannot consider it at all.
Speaker 4: It's taking out another mortgage on your home or putting
Speaker 4: your house up in any way, shape or form. That
Speaker 4: is for you, that is for your family, that is
Speaker 4: for your kids, And the fact that people don't have
Speaker 4: that to look forward to increasingly in our country is
Speaker 4: very problematic, but especially for our community.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I have to be honest with you, guys.
Speaker 1: There are parts of adulting that I do really well
Speaker 1: and there are parts that I don't. And when it
Speaker 1: comes to home ownership, that's probably one. I bought my
Speaker 1: first house when I was twenty seven. I really wanted
Speaker 1: to buy a home by the time I was thirty,
Speaker 1: because that's what we were told, that's the American dream,
Speaker 1: and that's how you wealth build. Unfortunately, I bought this
Speaker 1: house at the height of the house crisis in two
Speaker 1: thousand and seven, and ten years later I found myself
Speaker 1: underwater in my mortgage. I was living far out, and
Speaker 1: so I used to live far out. I was in
Speaker 1: like way out Silver Spring, not downtown Silver Spring, but
Speaker 1: way out Silver Spring. But I remember when you had
Speaker 1: your house out that like townhouse. I remember head to
Speaker 1: get thirtieth birthday party there. And but my point is
Speaker 1: none of us were living in the city, you know,
Speaker 1: the the hot area, and I just hated being out there.
Speaker 1: My whole life was in the city, and I had
Speaker 1: this incredibly tortuous commute. I was spending three hours each day,
Speaker 1: an hour and a half in traffic going back and forth.
Speaker 1: And one day I blew up my entire life and
Speaker 1: I just came home and said, I don't live here anymore.
Speaker 1: And I called my realtor and explained to her, and
Speaker 1: she said, well, someone's feelings is going to get hurt
Speaker 1: in this.
Speaker 3: It's going to be yours or it's going to be
Speaker 3: the banks.
Speaker 1: And I was like, I said, the bank so fast,
Speaker 1: I don't give it, Damn the bank. I'm standing out
Speaker 1: here miserable for these three little numbers, and now ten
Speaker 1: years have coming gone, and I think about what people
Speaker 1: have gone through, what the housing crisis did to black
Speaker 1: wealth in this country, and we never really corrected for it.
Speaker 1: And this was on top of decades of redlining and
Speaker 1: housing policy that just you know, decimated our chance at
Speaker 1: this American dream. So I'm not an expert here. I
Speaker 1: really hoped of viewers take you up on that, Andrew,
Speaker 1: and send in your stories, because our friend Latasha Angela
Speaker 1: went through similar things looking for a house in Atlanta.
Speaker 1: People here in New York are offering, you know, two
Speaker 1: hundred thousand over the asking price just to be able
Speaker 1: to afford a place. I didn't even know what was
Speaker 1: going on in Seattle. So this seems to be something
Speaker 1: that's happened that's affect impacting all regions of the country.
Speaker 1: So I'll have more questions for you guys about it
Speaker 1: than I do answers. But I wanted to get a
Speaker 1: little testimony just so y'all can be encouraged. Don't be
Speaker 1: embarrassed by your problems, because I'm telling y'all, I did
Speaker 1: a short sale on my home and walked away from
Speaker 1: it in service to my peace, and I haven't regretted
Speaker 1: since at all.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I I you know, it's funny tip because you
Speaker 5: brought up my thirtieth birthday party. I lived in Boui Bouie, Maryland,
Speaker 5: and was so excited to buy my first house and
Speaker 5: I wanted to do it also by the time I
Speaker 5: was thirty, So how I celebrated my birthday was with
Speaker 5: that house. And what is so crazy is, you know,
Speaker 5: people talk often about financial literacy being something that we
Speaker 5: really need, but one of the things we learned on
Speaker 5: the tour is that even when you're financially literate and
Speaker 5: you do have all the tools, if you still don't
Speaker 5: have the resources, your literacy means nothing because you don't
Speaker 5: have the capability or the capacity to do the things
Speaker 5: that you need to do. I, however, was both financially
Speaker 5: ignorant and didn't have all the capacity because I was
Speaker 5: working on the hill. I had a lot of tools
Speaker 5: that a lot of folks didn't have, Like you know,
Speaker 5: the Congressional Federal credit Union.
Speaker 3: I had.
Speaker 5: Ways that I could borrow against my retirement, which is
Speaker 5: part of the reason why what happened with Maryland was
Speaker 5: so inflammatory to me. But I did those things and
Speaker 5: then still now found myself kind of house poor because
Speaker 5: I wasn't making enough money to pay for the mortgage,
Speaker 5: didn't realize all the HOA fees. There was some other
Speaker 5: like random ass water feed five thousand dollars that they
Speaker 5: would pop up every now and then, and I got
Speaker 5: to the point where I was also really frustrated living
Speaker 5: in the house. I got a loan modification because on
Speaker 5: the hill you get exposed to these things because banks
Speaker 5: wanted to release you know, members and their staff and like,
Speaker 5: even though it was supposed to be further constituents. I
Speaker 5: was like, let me tell you something real quick, I
Speaker 5: actually need one of these too, And so I got
Speaker 5: my loan modified, and I felt myself really resenting my
Speaker 5: realtor and the person who structured my bank loan, because
Speaker 5: there were a lot of things they did that weren't helpful.
Speaker 5: The realtor and the lender were married, and so they
Speaker 5: did what was necessary, yeah, to help each other, but
Speaker 5: not necessarily to help me. So again this is where
Speaker 5: literacy meets lack of resource. I'm trusting who's right there
Speaker 5: because I'm like, well, I just know I need to
Speaker 5: hurry up and close on this house. Saying all that
Speaker 5: to say, I wish that somebody would have told me
Speaker 5: that the only way that there's more than one way
Speaker 5: to reach the American dream. And some of that is
Speaker 5: by eliminating debt, not creating new debt. Some of that
Speaker 5: might be investing in different things in your furro one
Speaker 5: k and putting more money in there. Like what I've
Speaker 5: learned over the last couple of years. You know, my
Speaker 5: furro one k has almost tripled its value having the
Speaker 5: right broker, the right financial advisor. So there are all
Speaker 5: these things that I've learned from trial and error. All
Speaker 5: I would ask, just like Tiff just did, is please
Speaker 5: learn from the words of my testimony, so you do
Speaker 5: not dare repeat these things at home. And if you
Speaker 5: find yourself I'm in a situation where desperation has come in,
Speaker 5: or where your hard hit, or where you don't know
Speaker 5: how you're gonna make ends meet, please don't be afraid
Speaker 5: to speak up, because you will be astonished by the
Speaker 5: number of people who are in the exact same situation
Speaker 5: and trying to figure out how to pay rent or
Speaker 5: how to try to figure out how to pay the
Speaker 5: mortgage and that h o a fee, trying to figure
Speaker 5: out what we'll suffer trying to pay tax that on
Speaker 5: top of that, you got to lean on your house.
Speaker 5: I had that too, right, So there are all of
Speaker 5: these things that come up and we don't know how
Speaker 5: to get out of it because we haven't learned the
Speaker 5: different tools to use to apply them in the process.
Speaker 5: That's it, rent is too damn high and then fix it.
Speaker 4: Across the country and.
Speaker 1: A protections and it's interesting guests coming up. Has also
Speaker 1: dealt with housing uh insecurity and actually impacted her health
Speaker 1: living in substandard housing when she was growing up to
Speaker 1: get asthma.
Speaker 3: And yes I did learn this by Google stalking her.
Speaker 5: Call it stocking.
Speaker 1: Don't go anywhere, guys, because on the other side of
Speaker 1: this break, we're going to bring in an amazing guest,
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Booker Houston.
Speaker 3: You don't want to miss this, y'all.
Speaker 7: Think my husband will buy me when they get Brother
Speaker 7: of the thirteenth.
Speaker 5: Of Okay, everybody, we are thrilled to be joined by
Speaker 5: the good sister Elizabeth Booker Houston. She is a stand
Speaker 5: up comedian. She is an attorney. She is a mama,
Speaker 5: she is a wife. She is Trump's arc enemy, and
Speaker 5: she also works for her man steal in the administration.
Speaker 5: I don't know how she keeps her day job, but
Speaker 5: she keeps her day job. I'm gonna remind him every day.
Speaker 5: She's the biggest forget bone thugs in harmony. We got
Speaker 5: Elizabeth Booker Houston thugs in harmony, and she is making
Speaker 5: it happen every single day on social telling us what
Speaker 5: it is, debunking misinformation, and she does it with the smile,
Speaker 5: with brilliant and with zest. Y'all can't even stand this. Elizabeth,
Speaker 5: thank you for joining us.
Speaker 7: Well, thanks y'all, thank you for having me. It's nice
Speaker 7: to see you again. Andrew and Angela and Tiffany. We
Speaker 7: did not get to meet last time, but I know
Speaker 7: I'm excited to talk to you.
Speaker 4: She missed a flight.
Speaker 5: She was Tiffany, remember Andrew, she was Tiffany.
Speaker 4: And Jael got canceled. I know I was saying Tiffany
Speaker 4: got canceled, so I hate that I haven't.
Speaker 1: But I will tell you I am familiar with your work, Elizabeth,
Speaker 1: and I.
Speaker 3: Love what you're doing.
Speaker 1: I say this on the show Alis, so angel has
Speaker 1: heard this before. But I just I have a level
Speaker 1: set respect for people who went to law school because
Speaker 1: I think everyone I know anyway who went to law
Speaker 1: school has a different way of thinking.
Speaker 3: It seems to be more linear.
Speaker 1: It's also more concise, like you know, bullet pointed for me,
Speaker 1: and I always tell young people like, yeah, go to
Speaker 1: law school because you don't have to be a trial attorney.
Speaker 1: You don't have to you know, practice law at a firm.
Speaker 1: There are so many careers. You can be a policy
Speaker 1: person and you can also be a stand up comedian.
Speaker 1: But I will say the whole right now, the whole
Speaker 1: idea and concept of being in law school in America
Speaker 1: to learn a constitution that we are understanding is pretty
Speaker 1: much meaningless going forward.
Speaker 3: Has I think put some question marks on a lot
Speaker 3: of us.
Speaker 1: So you and Angela both went to law school. I'm
Speaker 1: just I don't even know if I have a question.
Speaker 1: I'm just not what that even means these things.
Speaker 7: I'm going to tell you. It's a struggle because I'm
Speaker 7: also a law professor, so having to teach my students,
Speaker 7: you know, I just I told my two l's and
Speaker 7: three l's this past semester. I was just like, I'm
Speaker 7: so sorry the y'all are still in these unprecedented times,
Speaker 7: because it just seemed like every week whatever I had
Speaker 7: to teach them did not apply. There's this Supreme Court
Speaker 7: case called Chevron, because I focus on administrative law and
Speaker 7: food and drug law. Like you said, there's a lot
Speaker 7: of different ways to be a lawyer. I don't practice.
Speaker 7: I did a hot minute in court and I did well,
Speaker 7: but I was crying all the time. So I was like,
Speaker 7: this is not for me. So I came to DC
Speaker 7: as a regulatory council in the FDA as a fellow
Speaker 7: under that man in the White House back in twenty seventeen,
Speaker 7: and I teach a lot of administrative law and Chevron
Speaker 7: was like the big case for forty years. Yeah, and
Speaker 7: it got overturned last summer. So I didn't know what
Speaker 7: to do with my whole first two lessons for the
Speaker 7: semester because I'm like, I don't know what I have
Speaker 7: for y'all. So it's just been really very much trying
Speaker 7: to keep up with what's going on and flying by
Speaker 7: the seat of my pants. A lot of times.
Speaker 1: Well, because you brought up the Chevron case, can you
Speaker 1: just give us a quick breakdown of that. This was
Speaker 1: a huge blow to environmentalists. I remember our friend Van Newkirk,
Speaker 1: a writer with The Atlantic, was covering this case. I
Speaker 1: could attempt to give a breakdown, but you'd probably do
Speaker 1: it a lot better.
Speaker 7: I can try, so. Chevron deference basically said that administrative
Speaker 7: agencies that's the FDA, the CDC, the NIH, all of
Speaker 7: these federal agencies that are under the executive branch, but
Speaker 7: they're given their authority from Congress.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 7: They said that if they are interpreting an ambiguous statue,
Speaker 7: so the Food and Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, that's
Speaker 7: what gives the FDA its power. That's the statue that
Speaker 7: created the FDA. That's the authority that the FDA works under.
Speaker 7: If there is something ambiguous in there that has to
Speaker 7: do with, say, regulating tobacco, because that's one of the
Speaker 7: things that FDA has regulatory power over. They have said
Speaker 7: that Chevron difference means that the agency's interpretation gets difference,
Speaker 7: meaning that the court's got to listen to them. And
Speaker 7: it made good sense because the whole reason these agencies
Speaker 7: exist is these are the experts, the scientists, the doctors,
Speaker 7: all the people that Congress is definitely not and so
Speaker 7: that's the whole reason these agencies exist because you know,
Speaker 7: Congress can't pass or the least they shouldn't be passing
Speaker 7: laws and regulations about things they don't understand. Well, the
Speaker 7: Supreme Court overturned that, and it was a big slash
Speaker 7: to agency authority. And that was just step one of everything,
Speaker 7: because now we see that this administration is completely completely
Speaker 7: dismantling all of the federal agencies, but the layoffs, the
Speaker 7: mass terminations, all of that. So they're trying to get
Speaker 7: these experts out of So when you talk about environmental
Speaker 7: activists being very concerned, this was a big blow, say
Speaker 7: to the EPA, for example, because it didn't give them
Speaker 7: the dame.
Speaker 1: Upheld the Reagan era if he had the Reagan era
Speaker 1: have the eighties that conservatives celebrated, and it upheld the
Speaker 1: Reagan era interpretation of the Clean Air Act. And as
Speaker 1: you probably will explain, communities of color, Black communities in
Speaker 1: particular are disproportionately adversely impacted by that.
Speaker 7: Yes, we are seeing that with my hometown. I've made
Speaker 7: some videos about it and talked about it. But with
Speaker 7: XAI down in Memphis, Tennessee, where we are seeing violations
Speaker 7: of what would have been I guess at that point
Speaker 7: you would have called it maybe Biden era Clean Air Act,
Speaker 7: because there were regulations passed under his administration. It would
Speaker 7: violate that. And they purposely put this Elon Musk supercomputer
Speaker 7: monstrosity in the middle of the poorest, blackest neighborhood in Memphis, Tennessee,
Speaker 7: and they are violating how we would interpret the Clean
Speaker 7: Air Act under the Biden Harris administration. But as you said,
Speaker 7: we're going back to Reagan era interpretations, and so it's
Speaker 7: a little bit squishy as to whether they will succeed
Speaker 7: in court and fighting against this big, huge machine that
Speaker 7: is polluting the air, in the water in the area.
Speaker 5: Can you talk a little bit about that too, Elizabeth.
Speaker 5: I think it's been fascinating just to see I don't
Speaker 5: have as many ties to Memphis as you do, but
Speaker 5: it's certainly become a place that has touched my heart,
Speaker 5: has become near and dear to me. There's a group
Speaker 5: of activists there called the Squad. Shout out to Tammy Keidrin,
Speaker 5: Earle Andre and others who have always had the conscience
Speaker 5: of the community at heart, and it's been as amazing
Speaker 5: to me. We finally got this white Dixiecraft mayor out.
Speaker 5: There's a black mayor who has sided with Elon Musk
Speaker 5: on this supercomputer on XAI, despite the fact that it
Speaker 5: is very clear that there the emissions being let out
Speaker 5: from this this entity are causing great harm to the
Speaker 5: surrounding communities. How is he justifying that and how should
Speaker 5: the community hold him accountable and responsible for that? And
Speaker 5: what's the point if we got black elected divisions, if
Speaker 5: they're not gonna do right by black people, don't even
Speaker 5: get me.
Speaker 7: Start out, Mayorpleso, that's it.
Speaker 5: Start start, start, start, how he start?
Speaker 7: That's the one. Mayor Paul Young, Lord Jesus, you know,
Speaker 7: I don't like him. I don't like him. I don't
Speaker 7: think he actually cares about those black communities. I don't
Speaker 7: really think he cares that much about Memphis. I think
Speaker 7: he cares about power. I think he cares about having attention.
Speaker 7: I think he likes having the position of mayor. But
Speaker 7: if he actually cared about these communities, he would definitely
Speaker 7: not be signing with Elon Musk. I think he's trying
Speaker 7: to justify it because of the whole economic advantages to
Speaker 7: the city, which, mind you, this supercomputer only takes about
Speaker 7: thirty people working in that facility to make it go.
Speaker 7: They are not creating jobs. Because people want to make
Speaker 7: comparisons to FedEx, because yes, we have FedEx and Memphis. Yes,
Speaker 7: FedEx has pollution, you know, at similar levels. FedEx also
Speaker 7: employs most of the city. FedEx is also providing services.
Speaker 7: It's not perfect. We want to address the environmental impact
Speaker 7: issues of Vetex. But just because there's this one company
Speaker 7: there which is employing a lot of people in the
Speaker 7: city and they have some environmental issues to work on,
Speaker 7: doesn't mean we should just give away our city to
Speaker 7: other big factories. So he's basically trying to say, oh,
Speaker 7: if they build XAI here, then they're going to build
Speaker 7: a whole bunch of other industries here Memphis, which, by
Speaker 7: the way, we don't want that. I grew up in
Speaker 7: South Memphis. That's where I was originally from when I
Speaker 7: was born, and I have a ton of health issues
Speaker 7: to this day because of growing up in that part
Speaker 7: of the city. I actually got to meet Mayor Brandon
Speaker 7: Scott at essence best Mayor of Baltimore, and I looked
Speaker 7: at him and I said, can you can you go talk?
Speaker 5: Uh?
Speaker 7: Oh, y'all, can you go maybe to Memphis and maybe
Speaker 7: talk to him about how to be a mayor of
Speaker 7: a black city because he's missing the mark. So I
Speaker 7: don't know, maybe I was petty, but.
Speaker 4: No, we talked, you know, we talked earlier about I'm
Speaker 4: actually really glad that we're spending a little bit of
Speaker 4: time on some of these issues that show up for
Speaker 4: people every day in there, and they're local communities. As
Speaker 4: a former mayor myself, you know, even when I visit places,
Speaker 4: I'm looking at medians and how they're maintained. I'm looking,
Speaker 4: you know, paying attention to the roads and how they're
Speaker 4: being treated, and obviously the things like water and water quality.
Speaker 4: But housing topic we address a little bit earlier in
Speaker 4: the show is probably one of the greatest undersung, under
Speaker 4: voiced issues confronting Americans. The majority, I've got to say,
Speaker 4: the majority of us. If you're not in a rural
Speaker 4: place that may be experiencing some depopulation issues, maybe you're
Speaker 4: in you know, just a regular city town in anywhere
Speaker 4: America where even there, if you're an aging person you're
Speaker 4: not able to find independent living that is at your
Speaker 4: price point, and you certainly aren't able to get into
Speaker 4: assistant living facilities without the help of your Medicare and
Speaker 4: probably other supplemental insurance to be able to afford that right.
Speaker 4: If you are young person who believes that the American
Speaker 4: dream is one day being able to own a home,
Speaker 4: if you are like the three of us hosts before
Speaker 4: the age of thirty, you know that dream is extinguished
Speaker 4: for many people. I'm curious, just based off your policy experience,
Speaker 4: obviously your care and love for the city that you're from,
Speaker 4: but for cities, for localities, how did we get to frankly,
Speaker 4: World War two, post World War two levels of housing unaffordability,
Speaker 4: and of course the World War two crisis driven by
Speaker 4: the fact that we had soldiers returning who you know,
Speaker 4: had unpresident in numbers who just didn't have housing. How
Speaker 4: do we go from that to here today? No real
Speaker 4: explainable reason. How it is that housing is so unaccessible
Speaker 4: for people.
Speaker 7: Well, instead of looking at it as a human right,
Speaker 7: we treated it as a commodity. I mean, that's what
Speaker 7: it comes down to, is about making money. And you're
Speaker 7: talking to the right person because when I said I
Speaker 7: spent a hot minute in court, I took some lords
Speaker 7: to court. That's actually what I used to do. I
Speaker 7: worked in the Medical Legal Partnership Clinic in Labonnar Children's Hospital, Memphis, Tennessee.
Speaker 7: And how that worked is the doctors, the nurses, everybody
Speaker 7: would be treating these children coming in with issues after
Speaker 7: issue after issue, but we would find that they're not
Speaker 7: going to get healthier. They're taking the medicine as they should,
Speaker 7: they're going to the doctors they should, but there's a
Speaker 7: legal need and underlying legal need that the doctors cannot handle.
Speaker 7: And so that's when we would come in and provide
Speaker 7: promono legal services. And oftentimes that was me taking slum
Speaker 7: lords to court so they could get out of these
Speaker 7: leases and get into some safe, you know, actual good housing,
Speaker 7: or to force the slumblards to clean up the vice
Speaker 7: because it was just keeping these kids sick, and we
Speaker 7: just we treat housing as another product rather than understanding
Speaker 7: that it is the place that's supposed to be where
Speaker 7: children and families and individuals are safe, where they could
Speaker 7: be healthy, or they could be sheltered from the weather,
Speaker 7: where they can make sure they have somewhere to go
Speaker 7: lay their heads at night and not worry about, you know,
Speaker 7: the elements outside or elements coming inside. And that shift
Speaker 7: in thinking about property, I mean, we see it all
Speaker 7: the time. There's Netflix shows about real estate moguls, you know,
Speaker 7: and about how many millions of dollars they can get
Speaker 7: in all their commissions for selling houses. That's how we've
Speaker 7: looked at this. We're looking at it as if this
Speaker 7: is a want and not a need for every single individual.
Speaker 7: And that shift in thinking, this idea that not everybody
Speaker 7: deserves a home, but a home is something you're supposed to,
Speaker 7: I don't know, basically kill yourself trying to get that,
Speaker 7: I think has been the biggest attack. I'm making sure
Speaker 7: that people have affordable housing. And y'all were all talking
Speaker 7: about buying your first home. And I remember I was
Speaker 7: not under thirty, but I was thirty one when I
Speaker 7: bought my first home, and my husband was a stay
Speaker 7: at home dad at the time, so even though I
Speaker 7: was married, I bought the home completely in my name,
Speaker 7: so the mortgage was just in my name, even as
Speaker 7: a married woman. And that was such a big deal
Speaker 7: because my dad didn't buy his first house until he
Speaker 7: was almost in his fifties, and so he was really
Speaker 7: proud that I was able to do that, but there
Speaker 7: were so many barriers to get there. I was going
Speaker 7: through a first time home buyer's program, and it became
Speaker 7: apparent to me after the fact that they were being
Speaker 7: very discriminatory against me when I was buying the song,
Speaker 7: because days before closing, they told me, oh, we can't
Speaker 7: move forward unless you have an entire year's mortgage payments
Speaker 7: and arrears after the down payment, after the closing, cause
Speaker 7: you need to have twelve months of your mortgage payment.
Speaker 7: And I happened to be a little savior at the time,
Speaker 7: and I was very fortunate to be able to save
Speaker 7: the money, and I said, okay, no problem, and the
Speaker 7: way the finance person on the phone went oh oh oh.
Speaker 7: I was like, yeah, I can send you bank sayments. Sure,
Speaker 7: I have another account with that money in there, and
Speaker 7: it was like they were shocked. So there's the discriminatory
Speaker 7: aspect to it too. So when we talked about the
Speaker 7: housing situation, we're talking about redlining, we're talking about discriminatory practices.
Speaker 7: I remember looking at the application for my financing and
Speaker 7: they marked the races black and it said, how did
Speaker 7: you find this information? And it says social media? Because
Speaker 7: I had never seen these people in person. I had
Speaker 7: only talked on the phone and gone over email. I
Speaker 7: thought that was crazy because this was still in that
Speaker 7: kind of COVID times. I had a little baby, like,
Speaker 7: you know, so I wasn't out there meeting up with
Speaker 7: people in person or anything. It was just on the
Speaker 7: phone and over email. And they treated me very funny,
Speaker 7: especially being a black woman who is married to and
Speaker 7: I'm married to a white man, but a black woman
Speaker 7: who was buying the house completely in her name. It
Speaker 7: was like it bothered them for some reason.
Speaker 4: Bet. Yeah, but it's funny. What's interesting in that story
Speaker 4: is both you and Angela mentioned the trust around the
Speaker 4: banking piece. You know that they you know, these instruments
Speaker 4: that they tell you about and the stuff that they
Speaker 4: you know, very conveniently omit these conditions that again get
Speaker 4: added by the bank to add comfortability to their lending,
Speaker 4: so to speak. But these are also the same people
Speaker 4: who took families who lived in homes for thirty forty years,
Speaker 4: who never missed a mortgage payment whatsoever, who went to
Speaker 4: those same black families presenting a better option for them
Speaker 4: repackaging their loans and turn their situation completely upside down.
Speaker 4: A lot of the untold story I feel about the
Speaker 4: housing crisis is the one that we've been fed, is
Speaker 4: that there were a lot of people who were unqualified
Speaker 4: getting access to houses that they shouldn't have ever had
Speaker 4: and could never have afforded. Not true. Overwhelmingly, the crisis
Speaker 4: in the housing industry was bought on by greedy banks,
Speaker 4: with greedy incentivized negatively or positively for them, but negatively
Speaker 4: for the rest of us. Incentivized to package these things
Speaker 4: repackage was what were otherwise stable loans and to now
Speaker 4: unstable loans that looked good for a couple of years,
Speaker 4: and then the bottom falls out and put a whole
Speaker 4: generation of folks into a tail spin and eliminated untold
Speaker 4: wealth in this country overnight. But it wasn't individuals who
Speaker 4: were uneducated or didn't know enough about what they were doing.
Speaker 4: Y'all knew what we knew what we needed to know
Speaker 4: at the time to accomplish the goal that yet set
Speaker 4: for ourselves. We didn't expect, however, on the other side,
Speaker 4: to meet an untrusting partner who was only interested and
Speaker 4: their incentivized bottom line, the bonuses that they could get
Speaker 4: by basically duping us into situations that were untenable. And
Speaker 4: they all knew it, yet they were complicit. In fact,
Speaker 4: they created it and were complicit with the whole ruse.
Speaker 4: And now we're sitting in a situation where people can't
Speaker 4: afford rents where they live. There's zero protection in most places.
Speaker 4: A lot of people hear about protections for folks in
Speaker 4: rental units in New York City, but New York City
Speaker 4: is a complete and total exception, and even their rules
Speaker 4: are not perfect. And most communities there's no protection for
Speaker 4: folks who are renting housing, which is the condition that
Speaker 4: a lot of our people find themselves in. And so
Speaker 4: I'm wondering, given your years, Angela, even your years in DC,
Speaker 4: what does it take for the kind of regulation that's
Speaker 4: necessary in this country to come forth. Because this is
Speaker 4: a bipartisan issue, it's a non part of an issue.
Speaker 4: Republicans and Democrats are suffering the saying, how do we
Speaker 4: get the lawmakers? What? What is what has got them
Speaker 4: gripped so much so that they can't unleash themselves to
Speaker 4: be our advocates on housing.
Speaker 5: They can afford need at all.
Speaker 1: And also, Elizabeth, your your expertise isn't focused on housing
Speaker 1: but public health.
Speaker 4: And regulationships you focus regulation.
Speaker 1: You're the intersection of how housing impacts public house.
Speaker 7: It's very strong. I actually used to work with an
Speaker 7: organization in Memphis called the Healthy Homes Partnership, and so
Speaker 7: we worked on trying to make sure that the homes
Speaker 7: were safe, were healthy. We don't have enough focus on that,
Speaker 7: and we talk about pricing people out. The worst thing
Speaker 7: about this is we are pricing people out of having safe,
Speaker 7: habitable homes. Like you don't deserve anything but a hovele
Speaker 7: unless you make you know, X amount of money. That
Speaker 7: doesn't make any kind of sense. And we're starting to
Speaker 7: see some shifts. So I'm a Montgomery County, Maryland resident.
Speaker 7: Now I've lived here fram a state year, and I've
Speaker 7: noticed that there have been some shifts to try to
Speaker 7: do things like cap increases in rent. I know Tacoma Park, Maryland,
Speaker 7: is particularly good about this, but Tacoma Park is still
Speaker 7: an expensive place to live. We're still not seeing the
Speaker 7: equity that we need. I would say that being in
Speaker 7: Maryland compared to Tennessee over the last few years, I
Speaker 7: see a higher level of equity than I've seen back home.
Speaker 7: But as you pointed out, Andrew, it's still not to
Speaker 7: the level that we need it to be. It's still
Speaker 7: not where we need it to be. There are still
Speaker 7: homeless people sleeping by the Metro. There's no reason in
Speaker 7: this country why anybody should be homeless. It makes no
Speaker 7: sense to me why anybody is unhoused anywhere in this country.
Speaker 7: We have too much money, we have empty homes, we
Speaker 7: have empty apartments. There's no reason except again to treat
Speaker 7: this as a commodity and try to use it as
Speaker 7: a form of conspicuous consumption. And a lot of it
Speaker 7: comes down to that conspicuous consumption. I got to look
Speaker 7: like I have something, And not only do I have
Speaker 7: to look like I have something, but I have to
Speaker 7: make sure that you don't have something so I can
Speaker 7: feel good about myself. And that's what we've been doing.
Speaker 7: And I've also been on a ti rate about multigenerational housing.
Speaker 7: I purchased a multiti generational home in December. My husband
Speaker 7: and I we're very happy to do this. It has
Speaker 7: multiple little living situations going on. And my aunt, who
Speaker 7: is seventy, she is retired. She is living in the
Speaker 7: guest house of the home, and it has a walk
Speaker 7: out basement apartment, so when the time comes to my
Speaker 7: parents can live in the home. And right now my
Speaker 7: best friend is there. It was my child's godmother, and
Speaker 7: she's helping out with things like childcare. White supremacy has
Speaker 7: done such a number on taking this concept of multigenerational
Speaker 7: living and intergenerational living and treating it as a failure
Speaker 7: and that you have to follow this rugged individualism and
Speaker 7: have a nuclear family and one home for your family,
Speaker 7: and if you don't have that, you are a failure,
Speaker 7: rather than understanding that you bring your family together and
Speaker 7: you pull resources to be safe, live together and help
Speaker 7: each other out. And again, I know that's really a
Speaker 7: policy point, but I feel like we need a shift
Speaker 7: in that cultural thinking of understanding that this kind of
Speaker 7: living does not actually work, especially someone who has birthed
Speaker 7: and is now raising a child. We should not be
Speaker 7: alone postpartum raising these.
Speaker 4: Kids, none of us.
Speaker 3: It's very American.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I was going to ask, and I'm switching gears
Speaker 5: quite a bit, but I know that you've experienced this
Speaker 5: for all of us as show hosts, as content creators.
Speaker 5: In many ways, podcast hosts. Tiff is of course a
Speaker 5: former TV host and I know that will change again
Speaker 5: soon and she'll be back on air. But I want
Speaker 5: to ask you what drove you into the content creation
Speaker 5: space and what gaps were you feeling? Right? Like normally
Speaker 5: when we go in to do these things, there's a
Speaker 5: passion that is leading us. I remember I think it
Speaker 5: was gerald Dee Mariba who wasn't seeing in and was
Speaker 5: recently overprogramming a degree almost like have you heard of her?
Speaker 5: And I was like, oh my god, I love her
Speaker 5: because you could dress people down quickly but still very clear.
Speaker 5: You know, you can understand you, but your mouth is
Speaker 5: going quick, and you could break it all down in
Speaker 5: ways that I think you know a lot of people
Speaker 5: respect and for all the people that was mad enough
Speaker 5: to cut you, was doing it all for them, you guys,
Speaker 5: I will tell y'all know I'm a snitch. So I
Speaker 5: saw Elizabeth's daddy and Jackson. I said, how do you
Speaker 5: feel when she cuts? Because my dad went off on
Speaker 5: me a vodcast. He's like, I don't like it, but
Speaker 5: it's okay. So Elizabeth, I would do want to come
Speaker 5: to you on you know, why do you do it?
Speaker 5: And when you're talking to young people about where their
Speaker 5: space is and how to find their lane if they
Speaker 5: are to do content creation, what do you what do
Speaker 5: you advise them?
Speaker 7: Definitely find that space that feels right. And I, you know,
Speaker 7: I go against every single rule when it comes to
Speaker 7: any kind of content cration. I don't post on the schedule.
Speaker 7: I don't stick to one kind of thing. My niche
Speaker 7: is basically politics, but that's so varied and wide. And
Speaker 7: then sometimes I'm just cracking jokes, supposed to stand up videos,
Speaker 7: and you know, I feel like that. I know it's
Speaker 7: like running on vibes, you know, the whole generational thing.
Speaker 7: But that's really what it is. Is what feels right,
Speaker 7: What feels right in my spirit. That is what drives
Speaker 7: everything that I do. That's what drove me going to
Speaker 7: law school. That's what drove me getting my master's and
Speaker 7: being a scientist. At one point I had started my
Speaker 7: law career, so I don't want to go back to
Speaker 7: being a scientist because it felt right in the moment,
Speaker 7: and that's what I did. And I know that was
Speaker 7: such a shift, but it was the thing to do.
Speaker 7: And when it came to content creation, what happened is
Speaker 7: there was a global pandemic. I was home with a baby,
Speaker 7: I was on a maternity leave, and I had just
Speaker 7: so happened to be the first JDMPH grad from the
Speaker 7: University of Memphis, and I was trained at the CDC's
Speaker 7: Public Health Law program in epidemics, pandemics, quarantine, isolation law,
Speaker 7: all this stuff. And I told myself, this doesn't feel
Speaker 7: super relevant, and so I had shifted into privacy law.
Speaker 7: And then a whole pandemic happened, and I realized, oh,
Speaker 7: I'm sitting on a whole bunch of knowledge that not
Speaker 7: a lot of people have at this intersection. Because I
Speaker 7: started having people who were my mentors, who had been
Speaker 7: ten twenty thirty years in the law calling me and saying,
Speaker 7: we know that you are one grad from Memphis who
Speaker 7: understands this. Can you break down this information for us
Speaker 7: and how this works? And so I realized this might
Speaker 7: be useful on a wider scale. And so it started
Speaker 7: off getting on TikTok, just kind of cracking jokes. I
Speaker 7: lost my brother back in twenty seventeen to gun violence,
Speaker 7: and so I've made I do a lot of dark
Speaker 7: humor jokes. I made this little trend we were raiding
Speaker 7: our siblings. I raided it all, all four of my siblings.
Speaker 7: When it got to my brother, I gave before out
Speaker 7: of ten because I said he up and died. And
Speaker 7: you know, that had people laughing because they were like,
Speaker 7: not you rating him low because he died. I said, hey,
Speaker 7: it is what it is, and you know, kind of
Speaker 7: built up a little bit of a following there. But
Speaker 7: I realized, oh, I can actually give people some information too,
Speaker 7: So I started talking about emergency use authorizations on vaccines,
Speaker 7: how the vaccine approval process works, all of this stuff,
Speaker 7: and doing it in a way that was, you know,
Speaker 7: entertaining for people. And so I think people started to
Speaker 7: appreciate it, and so I just kept doing it. And
Speaker 7: as long as people find what I do useful, I'll
Speaker 7: keep doing it. And when it's not useful anymore, I'll
Speaker 7: go do something else.
Speaker 3: Well, we love it, and we're grateful to you.
Speaker 1: We are running out of time, but I want to
Speaker 1: close with you actually work at the FDA, the Angeli
Speaker 1: pointed out under the Trump administration, the FDA has been
Speaker 1: the focus of a lot of challenges with the lack
Speaker 1: of regulation around food safety. Of course, vaccine means so
Speaker 1: you're under rfk's agency. Is there anything that we should know?
Speaker 1: We don't want you know. We we need somebody in
Speaker 1: this administration with some sense, So we don't want to
Speaker 1: put you in a bad situation. But what are the
Speaker 1: things that we should be most concerned about given what's happening.
Speaker 7: Well, you can't put me in a bad situation, because
Speaker 7: they send them around the forum the other day asking
Speaker 7: us to snitch about de I, and I submitted and
Speaker 7: said that the whole administration is a bunch of mediocre
Speaker 7: white men. So and caullify the fact that I'm not
Speaker 7: fired every day is insane.
Speaker 5: But anyway, Yeah, I got you there.
Speaker 1: On the side, and we we haven't met in person, Elizabeth,
Speaker 1: but I love that I will.
Speaker 4: Protest for you, but I will protest.
Speaker 8: For you for you take the strip.
Speaker 7: I don't know what they're doing, but I will say this, measles.
Speaker 7: We need to be very, very concerned about measles. We
Speaker 7: have the highest rate of musles in the United States
Speaker 7: that we have had in the past two decades, and
Speaker 7: we need to be very careful and watch very closely
Speaker 7: about what they're doing with dismantling this vaccine board, with
Speaker 7: trying to dismantle vaccine approvals within the FDA. Because the
Speaker 7: FDA handles approvals, it's through our biologics, the Center for Biologics,
Speaker 7: that's SBIRD and FDA, and pay close attention to that
Speaker 7: because I feel like it's not getting the coverage it should.
Speaker 7: And we've already seen what happened with COVID having a
Speaker 7: resurgence of diseases that we can prevent preventable communicable illnesses
Speaker 7: come back up, especially when the school year is going
Speaker 7: to start back up next month. Yes, we got to
Speaker 7: be careful. We have to make sure and I know
Speaker 7: in our community especially there's a lot of vaccine hesitancy.
Speaker 7: People have misconceptions about the syphilist childs at Tuskegee. But
Speaker 7: vaccines are safe, they are effective. We need to make
Speaker 7: sure our babies have their MMR vaccines. We need to
Speaker 7: get our teaters and make sure that we are up
Speaker 7: on our MMR vaccines, that our levels are good, to
Speaker 7: make sure we don't need a booster. That would be
Speaker 7: my number one thing that I would say to really
Speaker 7: really watch out for. That is the thing that scares
Speaker 7: me the most.
Speaker 4: Can I ask you on the piece. I know we're running.
Speaker 4: But this is this year on the out, which is
Speaker 4: if you need if you've already been inoculated or vaccinated
Speaker 4: as a younger person against measles, is it the case
Speaker 4: that the strand is of a different nature that we're
Speaker 4: experiencing in this cycle, and therefore people previously inoculated not
Speaker 4: need to do something yet.
Speaker 7: But that's the risk. That's the risk, is the spreading
Speaker 7: enough that it mut takes, just like it kept doing
Speaker 7: with COVID. And so that's why I say, also, if
Speaker 7: you've been inoculated before, you need to go get it's
Speaker 7: called a teeter t I tr e. Go get your
Speaker 7: teeters checked at the doctor's office to make sure that
Speaker 7: you still have the right back you know, basically the
Speaker 7: levels you need in your body to prevent infection. And
Speaker 7: if those levels are not where they need to be,
Speaker 7: they'll let you know if you need to get another shot.
Speaker 7: And again I always tell people I'm very open about it.
Speaker 7: I have an autistic son. He has five years old.
Speaker 7: He's beautiful, he's amazing, he's fantastic. Vaccines do not cause autism.
Speaker 7: It is genetic. It is also could be hereditary. They
Speaker 7: do not cause autism. And I'm gonna tell you right now,
Speaker 7: I'd rather have my living, beautiful, happy, healthy baby boy
Speaker 7: than a child who has died from a preventable illness.
Speaker 7: I will tell you that every day.
Speaker 1: Hey man, Well, thank you so much, Elizabeth Booker Houston.
Speaker 1: You'll have to come back because I feel like we
Speaker 1: don't even get into the FDA stuff, so we should
Speaker 1: have you back really soon. But thank you so much
Speaker 1: for joining us today. And don't go anywhere at home,
Speaker 1: because we're going to get into CTA's On the other side.
Speaker 1: I love that we had Elizabeth Booker Houston on. I
Speaker 1: thought that conversation was so helpful, and hopefully the audience
Speaker 1: did too. But it is that time to get to
Speaker 1: calls to action, so let's fire them off.
Speaker 4: You know what. Just in the theme of us talking
Speaker 4: about this issue around housing, I would just encourage, encourage,
Speaker 4: encourage people to look local and figure out what are
Speaker 4: some of the reasons why it is that housing seems
Speaker 4: to be so scarce, whether it's rental or affordable. You'll
Speaker 4: learn that many of the culprits on this issue can
Speaker 4: be addressed right where you live.
Speaker 5: And sticking in the financial lane, something that I'm working
Speaker 5: on right now. Because things have changed so much for
Speaker 5: us in this environment. We used to be raking in
Speaker 5: speaking engagement money, it's harder. People are trying to ask
Speaker 5: you to come speak for less. Dealing with stuff with
Speaker 5: my mom and helping to manage her care, resources are
Speaker 5: stretched a lot more thin. So I would encourage people
Speaker 5: to one keep me honest to this, but also try
Speaker 5: to keep yourselves honest in this. It's a good time
Speaker 5: to start relooking and re examining your budget. How are
Speaker 5: you spending your money? How much are you spending on food,
Speaker 5: on clothes, on gas, on carb notes. Check to see
Speaker 5: where you can trim the fat, and keep asking yourself
Speaker 5: what do I need? And if it's not something that's needed,
Speaker 5: think about how you can have a treat less. Often
Speaker 5: I need to have a lot less street so I
Speaker 5: can fit my clothes. By the way, but we'll talk
Speaker 5: about them treats next time.
Speaker 4: I love it all right.
Speaker 1: I got three quick ones. One please send the video,
Speaker 1: like Andrew Ass. If you're going through challenges with real
Speaker 1: estate housing, we really want to hear from you, and
Speaker 1: hearing your voices helps add some texture and meet to
Speaker 1: the show. So I'd love to hear your testimony, especially
Speaker 1: since we put our business out there, we would love
Speaker 1: to have somebody all's business.
Speaker 3: Please. And two I just lost my train of thought.
Speaker 3: It's going to come to me. Oh survey. Yes, we
Speaker 3: have a survey, and we would love for you all.
Speaker 1: To participate in the survey because that's going to help
Speaker 1: determine the future of NP and we want to make
Speaker 1: sure that we're incorporating your thoughts as well. And if
Speaker 1: you complete it, there are some prizes for you and
Speaker 1: for the person who completes it the fastest, you will
Speaker 1: get Angela Ri's personal cell phone number, which I will
Speaker 1: deliver to you myself. Okay, misinformation, I won't do that,
Speaker 1: but please just please complete a survey. Be on the
Speaker 1: lookout for it. We'll let you guys know when that drop.
Speaker 1: So I just want to give you all a hits up.
Speaker 1: And then my last CTA is just my own complaint,
Speaker 1: but I keep saying it and I don't think enough
Speaker 1: people have heard it. Nobody wants to hear your goddamn conversations.
Speaker 1: Please use your ear but at air in public spaces
Speaker 1: because when you when you don't do it, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: just start joining in the conversation.
Speaker 4: Conversations.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna just start jumping in. I'm gonna just say, wait, girl,
Speaker 1: what happened? And if you don't want if you don't
Speaker 1: want me to hear anything, get off. Oh I hate it.
Speaker 1: I hate it.
Speaker 3: It's just.
Speaker 4: Stistic.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, it is like only get everyone that.
Speaker 5: I'm like, if I'm walking down like the hallway.
Speaker 3: I hate that. I hate that. It's like, yeah, it's
Speaker 3: consider it.
Speaker 5: I'm trying not to keep the phone to my ear.
Speaker 5: I'm not thinking that they use it. I want to
Speaker 5: ask somebody. But if I can't, like I sometimes now
Speaker 5: I move with just my little you know this tip.
Speaker 5: I'm moving with just this and I don't even have
Speaker 5: my airplane.
Speaker 3: What got me this first?
Speaker 4: So I love it again. Just the people who consider themselves.
Speaker 1: That's how I that's how I experience it. It drives me crazy.
Speaker 1: And if I'm on a flyer, this one man said, no.
Speaker 5: I don't watch a movie.
Speaker 3: Well, it's it's to me, all of it is.
Speaker 1: But when we don't correct the first social grace, it
Speaker 1: keeps escalating. And so now I ask people like can
Speaker 1: you please use your earbuds? And this man was like
Speaker 1: he was about to watch a movie. He's like, it's
Speaker 1: on low. I'm like, it doesn't matter. And he kept
Speaker 1: doing it, and I was like, Sarah, I'm asking you
Speaker 1: to do it, but I can ask them to ask
Speaker 1: you to do it if that's better. And he wouldn't.
Speaker 1: And I'm definitely that person. Excuse me, flight attendant, this
Speaker 1: man right here.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, you got a problem.
Speaker 1: Please, I think in any space when I'm walking down
Speaker 1: the street, like, get off your it's just I don't
Speaker 1: like they're.
Speaker 3: Walking the street.
Speaker 5: Yes, use your earbuds in your privacy of your own home.
Speaker 3: That's it, privacy of Yes, yes.
Speaker 4: It's really please, it's really really insane to me that
Speaker 4: this is not an obvious thing.
Speaker 5: But it is not like to be on a public
Speaker 5: street and I'm walking past I can't be on speaker.
Speaker 4: That's to me that all of it is offensive. But
Speaker 4: but please, we are in this cordant space and for
Speaker 4: some reason you have determined in your mind's eye that
Speaker 4: the whole plane that everybody knows.
Speaker 8: I said that everybody's about the street there.
Speaker 4: I'm talking about everybody in the store line. Everybody store too.
Speaker 3: I agree with the store, I say, the street.
Speaker 5: Do you think you're outside or like in a mall.
Speaker 1: Like never right, it's just if you guys blah blah
Speaker 1: blah and what y'all think about blah blah blah.
Speaker 4: I don't know. I don't want no videos about this.
Speaker 5: I definitely want videos on this. You guys, send in
Speaker 5: all the comments. I want to hear that.
Speaker 3: Sending a video, y'all.
Speaker 5: Don't wait a minute. Here's the thing, So Tiff can
Speaker 5: have eighty six C t A can't walk down the street.
Speaker 4: No, but y'all appropriated time for her to have five one.
Speaker 5: We have a call to action, but you.
Speaker 4: And your conversation with everybody under the sign and while.
Speaker 5: Walking we're okay.
Speaker 1: Well, my CTA was really part of y'all CTA. I'm
Speaker 1: giving Angela CTA. Send in your comments about what y'all
Speaker 1: think about being on speakerphone, Andrew ct A sending your
Speaker 1: videos and my c in the group ct A for
Speaker 1: complete the surveys.
Speaker 5: Y'all.
Speaker 1: Well, as always, we do want to remind you guys,
Speaker 1: if you like this conversation, please not only participate in it,
Speaker 1: but like, subscribe, share, spread the word. We really want
Speaker 1: to keep expanding the folks who are a part of
Speaker 1: this conversation, so we encourage you all to help us
Speaker 1: to do that and check out our girl, Jamel Hill,
Speaker 1: who I just love get to be friends with people
Speaker 1: I'm a fan of, and I just I coseplay Jamail
Speaker 1: when I'm out in these streets. I'll be trying to
Speaker 1: talk sports to these people, and I know I don't
Speaker 1: know what I'm talking about, but I just think she's
Speaker 1: one of the coolest people.
Speaker 3: The first submission, I'd like to edit that out of
Speaker 3: the show.
Speaker 4: Talking about I'm gonna.
Speaker 1: Tell somebody on speaker, but I say things I like.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I repeat what I hear Jamel say.
Speaker 3: You know the show what the hell about?
Speaker 1: Well, anyway, my point is check out the shows on
Speaker 1: Reasent Choice Media.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 1: Jammel Hills on r c M with her show's politics.
Speaker 1: S Cup also has a show Off the Cup, not
Speaker 1: Off the Cuff, but Off the Cups c PP. I
Speaker 1: see what y'all did there, So please sure to check
Speaker 1: out those two shows, and don't forget to follow us
Speaker 1: on social media and subscribe to our text or email
Speaker 1: on Native lamppod dot com. We are Tiffany Cross, Angela Right,
Speaker 1: and Andrew Gillham.
Speaker 3: Y'all there, are.
Speaker 1: I don't even know why we bother to say this,
Speaker 1: but there are four hundred and eighty one days until
Speaker 1: mid term elections. If they back, I'm happy, So maybe
Speaker 1: we should do the mini pod this week on that
Speaker 1: do y'all wanted to ask?
Speaker 3: Okay, check out the mini pot.
Speaker 1: We're gonna get into mid term elections for now, four
Speaker 1: hundred and eighty one days until these midterm elections, if
Speaker 1: they happen to happen.
Speaker 4: Welcome home, Welcome home, We'm home morning.
Speaker 2: Thank you for joining the natives attentional with the info
Speaker 2: and all of the latest re regulum and cross connective
Speaker 2: to the statements that you leave on our socials. Thank
Speaker 2: you sincerely for the patients reason for your choice is cleared,
Speaker 2: so grateful it took to execute roads. Thank you for serve,
Speaker 2: defend and protect the truth human in pace. We'll walk
Speaker 2: a home to all of the natives. We thank you.
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