Speaker 1: Good morning, peeps, and happy Monday. It is Easter Monday
Speaker 1: for those of you that celebrated the Easter holiday over
Speaker 1: the weekend April thirteenth. And I am Danielle Moody, your
Speaker 1: flight attendant, therapist and usher through the Apocalypse. Just kidding.
Speaker 1: It's okay, f daily, folks, and a lot transpired over
Speaker 1: the weekend that I'm going to bring to you. How
Speaker 1: are you all hanging in there? That's essentially the question
Speaker 1: that I have because it's been rough. I think that
Speaker 1: last week was probably one of the roughest weeks that
Speaker 1: we have had, not just because of the COVID numbers
Speaker 1: that reached really crushing numbers, the most deaths. The United
Speaker 1: States has taken over the spot that we would have
Speaker 1: never wanted to be in the number one spot for
Speaker 1: coronavirus cases for coronavirus deaths in the United States. New
Speaker 1: York leading the way unfortunately in that space. But here's
Speaker 1: what I will say about New York in this moment.
Speaker 1: And I can't, you know, provide a enough praise for
Speaker 1: what Governor Cuomo has been doing, because while New York
Speaker 1: maybe the epicenter, I actually feel safer here than I
Speaker 1: would anywhere in the country. Why Because leadership matters, and
Speaker 1: it matters for me and I think for all New
Speaker 1: Yorkers right now and people that are living in the
Speaker 1: Tristate area to have a leader that is dedicated to truth, transparency,
Speaker 1: giving us the tough love that we need, but providing
Speaker 1: us with empathy, doing all of the things that are
Speaker 1: necessary in this moment of great tragedy, of fear and anxiety,
Speaker 1: which is holding us together. Over the weekend, you know,
Speaker 1: as I celebrated the Easter holiday, which is a tough one.
Speaker 1: It's it's tough, and I think that many people will
Speaker 1: share my sentiment when I say that spending a holiday
Speaker 1: in isolation, away from your family, your friends, your church,
Speaker 1: your loved ones, whatever type of traditions and gatherings that
Speaker 1: you would have normally over this weekend, for my Jewish
Speaker 1: friends with Passover, for those that are getting ready to celeidate,
Speaker 1: to celebrate Ramadan that is coming up, like this is
Speaker 1: really trying. And you know, I'm not going to make
Speaker 1: light of it, and I'm not going to try and
Speaker 1: you know, have a speed bump over it, because I
Speaker 1: think that it's important that we feel the loss and
Speaker 1: the pain because that's how you begin to heal, that's
Speaker 1: how you move on, that's how you can feel your
Speaker 1: way through this. And I think that that's one of
Speaker 1: the most important lessons right now that we can take
Speaker 1: on each and every day, is the feeling of this.
Speaker 1: You know, my friend Sata said to me over the
Speaker 1: weekend that maybe, you know, she's like, we just need
Speaker 1: to give the earth a break. She needs to heal.
Speaker 1: Mother Nature needs to heal from all of the damage
Speaker 1: that's been caused. And maybe when we are able to
Speaker 1: rejoin our lives society link arms, whether virtually or figuratively,
Speaker 1: again with one another, will do so with a deep
Speaker 1: sense of gratitude because we will understand collectively what it
Speaker 1: means to have loss. And I think that the difference
Speaker 1: with this and let's say, other wars and tragedies that
Speaker 1: have happened around the world and in this country, is
Speaker 1: that it's always focused on one community, one country, one place.
Speaker 1: And the thing about the coronavirus is that it shows
Speaker 1: us just how connected we all are. We're all connected
Speaker 1: in the pain of consistent ambulance sirens and announcements of
Speaker 1: death and obituaries and sadness and grief. You know whether
Speaker 1: or not you know somebody at this particular moment that
Speaker 1: is connected to the coronavirus, Whether or not you know
Speaker 1: somebody that has passed away or is in hospital, doesn't
Speaker 1: really matter, because we've all lost something, right, our connectivity,
Speaker 1: our purpose. In many ways, myself, I'm driven every day
Speaker 1: by my purpose to do good, to be better, to
Speaker 1: try and offer information, to try and offer hope, to
Speaker 1: remind everyone that listens to WOKAF and the other shows
Speaker 1: that you do have power, right, that you do have
Speaker 1: collective power, and you do have a voice and in
Speaker 1: these days. And that's why I started off by saying
Speaker 1: that last week was a particularly hard week, because I
Speaker 1: think that in many ways, the shock begins to subside
Speaker 1: and the reality of the situation that we're in becomes
Speaker 1: ever present and we're ever rooted in this moment. And
Speaker 1: I think that that is what is so jarring, Because
Speaker 1: the first week you can say, well, this sucks and
Speaker 1: this is terrible, and you have a lot of shock
Speaker 1: around it. The second week you can say, Okay, well,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe it won't last that long and let
Speaker 1: me try and make the best of it. The third week,
Speaker 1: and now heading into the fourth week, For many people,
Speaker 1: it's like, how long is this going to go on?
Speaker 1: And is it this in fact the new normal? Will
Speaker 1: we return to society? And what doctor Fauci and many
Speaker 1: others are saying is that will we rejoin society at
Speaker 1: some point? Yes? Will it look like pre COVID No?
Speaker 1: And so that also creates another layer of grief and
Speaker 1: frustration because we didn't even have the time to really
Speaker 1: say goodbye to our former lives and our former selves.
Speaker 1: And that's jarring because we want to believe. And you know,
Speaker 1: it's funny because I'm watching all of these commercials, commercials
Speaker 1: that tell us that, you know, we'll go to concerts again,
Speaker 1: and we'll go to restaurants again, and we'll hug people again,
Speaker 1: and and I'm looking at them and I'm watching it,
Speaker 1: and I'm saying, will we We don't know. We tell
Speaker 1: each other that because I think that the reality is
Speaker 1: too much to take, it's too much to swallow, it's
Speaker 1: too much of a hard pill to get down when
Speaker 1: you try and figure out what re emerging if I
Speaker 1: use the biblical term of resurrecting from this, you know,
Speaker 1: coronavirus lockdown that we've been in, What does it look like.
Speaker 1: And I think that that's hard to figure out, and
Speaker 1: we're all trying the best that we can. And I
Speaker 1: just want to offer to people that last week was
Speaker 1: really tough for me emotionally. It's a tough. This past
Speaker 1: weekend was incredibly tough. Easter is a holiday for me.
Speaker 1: I'm not a religious person, but it's a holiday for
Speaker 1: me that I had begun a tradition with my loved
Speaker 1: ones and friends of gathering together and it kind of
Speaker 1: being our holiday and our time to see everyone's kids
Speaker 1: and just like enjoy each other and we do some
Speaker 1: day drinking, and we play some games, and we take
Speaker 1: pictures and we laugh for hours and hours and hours
Speaker 1: and and it's hard to understand the deep sense of
Speaker 1: loss and change and transition that we are all experiencing.
Speaker 1: And you know, I took to social media, as everyone
Speaker 1: is doing on a day and day out, and looked
Speaker 1: at old pictures and liking everybody's old pictures or current
Speaker 1: pictures of how they're trying to make the best of
Speaker 1: it with online church and online synagogue and zoom celebrations,
Speaker 1: you know, and all of it. Because I think that
Speaker 1: what this has shown me, more so than any thing
Speaker 1: else is just how much we yearn to be connected,
Speaker 1: how much we yearn to love and share and be
Speaker 1: in community with one another. And I think that a
Speaker 1: lot of our despair and sadness and frustration comes from
Speaker 1: that lack of connection and the lack of vulnerability to
Speaker 1: admit that you want that connection. So I just I
Speaker 1: offer that as a way to say that I am
Speaker 1: here with all of you, love all of you, and
Speaker 1: am sending you virtual hugs as we move on this
Speaker 1: Monday and head into our fourth week, our fourth week
Speaker 1: of lockdown. So where are things politically? Who the fuck knows?
Speaker 1: You know? There was a piece in the Washington Post
Speaker 1: over the weekend entitled Sidelined by coronavirus pandemic, Congress seed
Speaker 1: stage and authority to Trump? What else is do? This
Speaker 1: is how it begins. Weeks into a pandemic that has
Speaker 1: upended American life, Congress is struggling to adapt to the
Speaker 1: country's new socially distanced reality, hampering an entire branch of
Speaker 1: the federal government during a crisis of epic global scale,
Speaker 1: and tilting the balance of power in Washington towards Trump.
Speaker 1: With lawmakers dispersed across the country and with rules frequently
Speaker 1: out of step with modern telecommunications. The House and the
Speaker 1: Senate are only starting to come to terms with how
Speaker 1: to conduct many of their most essential functions amid and
Speaker 1: extended national emergency. I just quote, I just think it's
Speaker 1: time for Congress to think differently about how we operate,
Speaker 1: said Rob Portman, Republican from Ohio. Most of my constituents
Speaker 1: right now are working at least somewhat remotely. Some are
Speaker 1: entirely teleworking, others are partly teleworking. So it's not as
Speaker 1: though this isn't being done. Congress is one of the
Speaker 1: few entities that has not been able to figure this out.
Speaker 1: Both House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Moscow
Speaker 1: Mitch have made clear in recent weeks that remote voting
Speaker 1: is not feasible in the near term, citing concerns of security, practicality,
Speaker 1: and even constitutionality. But the disruption on Capitol Hill only
Speaker 1: begins with casting votes. And I have to say this,
Speaker 1: You know, it's twenty twenty. It's twenty twenty, and the
Speaker 1: fact that our institutions and agencies have yet to evolve
Speaker 1: innovate technologically is incredibly struggled. Like troubling. The fact that
Speaker 1: our infrastructure is not set up to handle this type
Speaker 1: of disaster just shows exactly how vulnerable the United States is.
Speaker 1: I mean, just think about this for a second. Any
Speaker 1: terrorist you know who decided that, you know what, we're
Speaker 1: going to move beyond planes into buildings like what happened
Speaker 1: on nine to eleven. We're gonna evolve past planes into
Speaker 1: navy vessels as what happened in Paul Harbor, and literal
Speaker 1: boots on the ground. Instead, we're gonna focus on cyber
Speaker 1: attacks and viral attacks. We're not prepared for any of it,
Speaker 1: any of it. It's been nineteen years since nine to eleven,
Speaker 1: right since one of the biggest terrorist attacks and significant
Speaker 1: loss of life before the coronavirus in a single fucking day,
Speaker 1: and we've done really nothing to think ahead of the
Speaker 1: game about what happens if there was a global hacking,
Speaker 1: if there was you know, any type of intervention. I mean, fuck,
Speaker 1: it's been four years since the twenty sixteen election, when
Speaker 1: we knew that the Russians hacked and tried to destroy
Speaker 1: our democracy. They have been successful in some ways, but
Speaker 1: in others. You would think that we would have put
Speaker 1: together the plans and the security measures to ensure that
Speaker 1: in the event of some type of major cyber attack,
Speaker 1: that our government could still fucking function. And so here
Speaker 1: we are, in the midst of a global pandemic, and
Speaker 1: our House Speaker and Senate Majority leader are like, I
Speaker 1: really don't know what to do here because voting is impossible,
Speaker 1: So I guess we just won't fucking do it. What, folks,
Speaker 1: we are only like two hundred plus days out from
Speaker 1: the next election and Congress doesn't even know how to
Speaker 1: vote amongst itself, let alone figure out how two hundred
Speaker 1: and thirty million of us are going to be able
Speaker 1: to vote? Like, what the fuck? This does not make
Speaker 1: me feel calm. This does not make me feel like
Speaker 1: government knows what the fuck it's doing. It makes me
Speaker 1: feel like they are just as blind and just as
Speaker 1: dumb and just as caught off guard as the rest
Speaker 1: of us. What the fuck do we pay them for?
Speaker 1: You know? One of the things about representation right is
Speaker 1: that you look for people you vote in, people that
Speaker 1: you believe have your best interests at heart and are
Speaker 1: going to do their job to represent your best interests
Speaker 1: right to the best of their ability. And what I'm
Speaker 1: beginning to really wrap my mind and arms and legs
Speaker 1: around is that they don't know much more than you do.
Speaker 1: They are not thinking ahead. They are literally taking everything
Speaker 1: step by step in one day at a time. And frankly,
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty, that's not how our government should be functioning.
Speaker 1: You know. You take this pandemic for instance. Trump likes
Speaker 1: us to believe and wants to convince America and the
Speaker 1: world that he and his entire administration were completely caught
Speaker 1: off guard. No one could have predicted this. Oh really,
Speaker 1: then I wonder why the Obama administration put together a
Speaker 1: all day meeting with the Trump administration's counterparts to the
Speaker 1: outgoing Obama administration to practice this very situation. If no
Speaker 1: one could predict it, then how could they have practiced?
Speaker 1: Also if no one could have predicted it? Right? Like,
Speaker 1: what this isn't how we have shown up to deal
Speaker 1: with this global pandemic. It's not an accident, right. I
Speaker 1: believe that ignorance sometimes is purposeful. And I keep trying
Speaker 1: to ask myself and I haven't come up with the
Speaker 1: answer yet as to what exactly this administration would get
Speaker 1: out of bumbling the fuck out of their response to
Speaker 1: this pandemic. It's like who is getting rich, who is
Speaker 1: getting more power? I don't know. I don't know. I
Speaker 1: do know that many of Trump's cronies have gone into
Speaker 1: the ppe manufacturing business, but you know, for a fee m.
Speaker 1: I do know that, I do know that the federal
Speaker 1: government has given a considerable amount of money to one
Speaker 1: of Trump's cronies, Peter Navarro, and the manufacturing of the
Speaker 1: twenty nine million pills the hydros is what I'll call them,
Speaker 1: because I can't pronounce the name the malaria pills. I
Speaker 1: do know that. I just feel like if we were
Speaker 1: to follow the money, and I can't say it enough
Speaker 1: because I'm not a you know, forensic accountant, but I
Speaker 1: feel like if anyone is out there that is listening
Speaker 1: who knows how to do this, please please, please, please
Speaker 1: follow the fucking money. It's always about money with Trump,
Speaker 1: and I feel like if we follow it and we
Speaker 1: go back further enough, we'll get the answers that we're
Speaker 1: looking for. But in the meantime, Congress isn't doing shit.
Speaker 1: They're trying to pass yet another stimulus package in the
Speaker 1: midst of this one that we've been told last week
Speaker 1: that for those of you who will receive the twelve
Speaker 1: hundred one time twelve hundred dollars payment. You could be
Speaker 1: waiting for as long as three months. So how is
Speaker 1: that one time twelve hundred dollar payment going to help you,
Speaker 1: your family, your small business if you're not getting it
Speaker 1: until I don't know, June or July. I have to
Speaker 1: tell you that I am. Every day I become more
Speaker 1: and more worried. Not that we won't come out of this,
Speaker 1: because you know, all things end. It's just a matter
Speaker 1: of how right, Like you know, there are cycles, there
Speaker 1: are stages, and we're being told, well, the Spanish flu
Speaker 1: lasted actually for two years. Can I spend two years
Speaker 1: in isolation? Probably not. I will probably lose my fucking mind.
Speaker 1: I don't care how much Netflix, how much Wi Fi,
Speaker 1: how many fucking walks I'm allowed to take two years
Speaker 1: doing this. No. No, I've always wondered if I was
Speaker 1: like built for prison. You know, like my dad, he's
Speaker 1: obsessed with those prison shows. He watches them all the
Speaker 1: time on on MSNBC, on TNT, wherever the fuck they
Speaker 1: play those. And you know, I only ever watch I
Speaker 1: can only ever stomach like ten minutes of them, and
Speaker 1: I look at them and I always say to myself, like,
Speaker 1: I really need to be above the law, because like
Speaker 1: I can't. I wouldn't make it through prison. I don't
Speaker 1: even think I would last a night. I think I
Speaker 1: would lose it. And that's how I feel now when
Speaker 1: they're talking about, well, the Spanish flu lasted for two years,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, yes, true. I would also like to
Speaker 1: believe that we did not have the technology one hundred
Speaker 1: years ago that we do now. We did not have
Speaker 1: the amount of scientists and researchers and different prototypes of
Speaker 1: vaccinations that we could be trying different combinations of you know,
Speaker 1: I'd like to think that a lot of things have
Speaker 1: changed in the past hundred years. Maybe I'm wrong, Maybe
Speaker 1: I'm wrong, because the best defense that we have against
Speaker 1: this is to stay the fuck home, right. It's not
Speaker 1: like anybody is like out in the street spraying the
Speaker 1: air to try and get rid of coronavirus, because what
Speaker 1: the fuck would you be spraying. But I do have
Speaker 1: to say that the continued lack of coordinated response from
Speaker 1: this administration from Congress in general is deeply troubling, and
Speaker 1: I believe that if anybody else had been in charge,
Speaker 1: whether it was Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, we wouldn't be
Speaker 1: at half a million cases in the United States. I
Speaker 1: don't think that we would have the most deaths in
Speaker 1: the world either. There's a meme going around that shows
Speaker 1: the countries that are led by women, right and their
Speaker 1: response and how their countries are doing. And apparently, you know, Denmark,
Speaker 1: New Zealand, Germany and several others that are led by
Speaker 1: women have all flattened the curve for the entire country,
Speaker 1: not just you know, a particular area like we're doing
Speaker 1: right now in New York. Why is that right? And
Speaker 1: I wonder is it because women recognize, like know what
Speaker 1: they don't know and are not ruled by their ego
Speaker 1: in the same way that male leaders are. I wonder, honestly,
Speaker 1: I'm not even joking. Is it the fact that men
Speaker 1: are completely ruled by their egos and so asking for
Speaker 1: help or seeking out advice outside of yourself, especially when
Speaker 1: you are a narcissist, egomaniac, petty small toddler of a man.
Speaker 1: That Trump is admitting that you don't know something is
Speaker 1: completely outside of your nature. But I believe that in
Speaker 1: order to balance things out right, in order for us
Speaker 1: to get back on track, you have to be able
Speaker 1: to admit what you don't know and ask for help.
Speaker 1: And I think that men in general have problems with that,
Speaker 1: and I think that men that suffer from narcissistic disorder
Speaker 1: like Trump do. It is impossible, So I, you know,
Speaker 1: I keep having these fantasies and wondering what would happen
Speaker 1: if we had a woman in charge right now? Where
Speaker 1: would the country be? And frankly, I think that we
Speaker 1: would be a lot more unified. We'd have we'd be
Speaker 1: on the same page and possibly the same team, the
Speaker 1: American team. And you know that this would be a
Speaker 1: way to unite us in some cases, the way that
Speaker 1: rooting for the Olympics usually does. Right, it's not your
Speaker 1: team or my team, it's our team against the world.
Speaker 1: And I feel like any other administration would have been
Speaker 1: able to gather us up as a country and make
Speaker 1: us feel like we can make it through this together.
Speaker 1: But instead, what Trump has done is what he always does,
Speaker 1: which is this level of divisiveness that has governors fighting
Speaker 1: against one another in order to keep their own residence
Speaker 1: safe as opposed to the entire federal government fighting to
Speaker 1: keep us all safe. And well, that's where we are.
Speaker 1: The Undivided States of America. We made the joke, you know,
Speaker 1: three and a half years ago when Trump was inaugurated,
Speaker 1: when we said we were no longer the United States
Speaker 1: of America. You know, I'm not too old to remember
Speaker 1: when Barack Obama burst onto this political scene and was
Speaker 1: talking about we're not read states and blue states, but
Speaker 1: we are the United States of America. In these moments
Speaker 1: of great grief and strife and mourning and pain, you
Speaker 1: need those messages. And I know I didn't truly understand
Speaker 1: that until now. What it means to feel like someone's
Speaker 1: hand is on your shoulder or rubbing your back or
Speaker 1: making you feel like you can get through right now
Speaker 1: is really about the triumph of the human spirit. When
Speaker 1: you feel like you've been beaten to shit day in
Speaker 1: and day out, doing the same things over and over again,
Speaker 1: going to the market, and fearing right that you may
Speaker 1: rub up against somebody by accident or touch something by accident,
Speaker 1: and you know, forget that you're not supposed to touch
Speaker 1: your face or sneeze and what does that sneeze mean?
Speaker 1: And all of these things, and you don't realize how
Speaker 1: important it is to have somebody providing some level of solace.
Speaker 1: You know, I can remember after the horrific shooting in
Speaker 1: Newtown when I thought this was going to be it.
Speaker 1: There's no way in life we shrug off the murder, bloody,
Speaker 1: horrific murder of first graders and their teachers. There's no
Speaker 1: way we just pick up and go on like that's normal.
Speaker 1: And when President Obama made his way to Newtown for
Speaker 1: their multi faith service that was aired, and the President
Speaker 1: breaks down, you know, in tears, because how the fuck
Speaker 1: did we get here when that is okay? How do
Speaker 1: you get there? How do you look grieving parents in
Speaker 1: the face and tell them that, well, there's nothing we
Speaker 1: can do because you know, some people have their First
Speaker 1: Amendment rights, and you know, we're not willing to budge.
Speaker 1: We're not willing to ensure that all Americans are safe,
Speaker 1: just those gun toting ones. When Barack Obama sang amazing Grace,
Speaker 1: it's those collective moments of grieving where we remember our humanness.
Speaker 1: And when you have an administration that is so evil
Speaker 1: and so heartless, on top of battling with the anxiety
Speaker 1: of the moment and the grief, there's just this deep
Speaker 1: sense of what it means to be alone. Do you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying? When you feel like you're on
Speaker 1: your own right, like nobody has your back, That's how
Speaker 1: I feel right now. And I'm looking and I'm really
Speaker 1: like desperately searching for moments of connectivity of community. I
Speaker 1: love when my friends are posting that are still in
Speaker 1: Manhattan every day at seven o'clock, the applause for the
Speaker 1: healthcare workers and the all of the essential workers. Right
Speaker 1: because it was last week that we learned about grocery
Speaker 1: store clerk Leilani, young black girl twenty eight years old
Speaker 1: diagnosed with cerebral palsy that was working at Giant food
Speaker 1: stores without protective gear, but wouldn't stop working because she
Speaker 1: wanted to help the elderly get the things that they
Speaker 1: needed as they would come into the grocery store. She
Speaker 1: felt like her life had purpose and meaning and to
Speaker 1: watch her mother on MSNBC last week cry and grieve
Speaker 1: the loss of her twenty eight year old daughter and
Speaker 1: then receiving her paycheck for that week that was twenty
Speaker 1: dollars and sixty four cents, an amount of money that
Speaker 1: I will never forget. How much is a life worth?
Speaker 1: How much was her life worth? Twenty dollars in sixty
Speaker 1: four cents, Giant Foods did not provide her with latex gloves,
Speaker 1: hand sanitizer, a mask, anything. And while cheering our first
Speaker 1: responders as we should, because they're dealing with extraordinary, extraordinary
Speaker 1: stress to try and live up to their oath to
Speaker 1: do no harm and to help as many people and
Speaker 1: save as many people as possible, so are our grocery
Speaker 1: store clerks, So are our truckers, so are nursing home attendants.
Speaker 1: And they're getting up every single day and they're doing
Speaker 1: their jobs, and they're doing so without the safety gear,
Speaker 1: clothingpes that they need. And what we are learning each
Speaker 1: and every day is that the numbers of those people
Speaker 1: who do those jobs that are on the front lines
Speaker 1: are largely black and Latin X right, people of color,
Speaker 1: and they're dying. This virus is targeting those that are
Speaker 1: the most vulnerable among us. And that doesn't just mean
Speaker 1: with underlying health conditions. It means economically vulnerable as well,
Speaker 1: the ones who do not have jobs that allow them
Speaker 1: to work from home, the ones who who are essential
Speaker 1: workers and need to get on the subways and the
Speaker 1: buses and the shuttles and get to their jobs. And
Speaker 1: we're not protecting them. Their companies aren't protecting them, and
Speaker 1: we're not protecting them as a nation because this administration
Speaker 1: and big business gets to the side. Who's expendable. You
Speaker 1: know Republican yesterday, I don't even know her name, and frankly,
Speaker 1: I don't give a fuck, and neither should you. And
Speaker 1: she's one of those Republican personalities on social media, and
Speaker 1: she tweeted and said, you know, it's time for America
Speaker 1: to open back up. And somebody responded to her tweet
Speaker 1: and said, well, then, why don't you go down to
Speaker 1: your local supermarket and start bagging groceries. Why don't you
Speaker 1: go into the hospitals and start cleaning up the waist
Speaker 1: of coronavirus patients. Why don't you start doing something in
Speaker 1: your community if you're so quick to put everybody else
Speaker 1: back on the front lines while you tweet from the
Speaker 1: safety of your fucking home. All of these people right
Speaker 1: who were talking about while we all just need to
Speaker 1: get back to work, where are they tweeting that from?
Speaker 1: Where are they saying that from? Because there are thousands
Speaker 1: of people, tens of thousands of people that are going
Speaker 1: to work every fucking day and they're dying so that
Speaker 1: you can go and get you know, the canned soup
Speaker 1: that you want, right, so that they deliver you your
Speaker 1: packages that you're ordering while this administration is you know,
Speaker 1: really hell bent on bailing out big businesses, but won't
Speaker 1: bail out the United States Postal Service, you know, the
Speaker 1: one rain nor rain, nor sleet nor snow will keep
Speaker 1: your postage and packages away from you. This virus is
Speaker 1: revealing so much, so very much about what is broken
Speaker 1: in this country, what has been broken. People are shocked
Speaker 1: when they see the numbers as it pertains to black
Speaker 1: and brown people that are dying from the virus. And
Speaker 1: I was saying all last week, why why are you shocked?
Speaker 1: You've known these things. You've known that a majority of
Speaker 1: black and brown people are the ones that live in
Speaker 1: and around poverty levels, right. You've known that they are
Speaker 1: more likely to be unensured, that they are more likely
Speaker 1: to have medical underlying conditions such as high blood pressure, hypertension, diabetes.
Speaker 1: They are most likely to live in environments that have
Speaker 1: food deserts right where you're not going to get supermarkets
Speaker 1: and healthy foods where you are picking up your food
Speaker 1: goods for liquor stores or bodegas or whatever type of
Speaker 1: pantries are available where the cheaper food, right, is the
Speaker 1: food that is worse for you, but it's the food
Speaker 1: that you can afford. So why would anybody be shocked
Speaker 1: if you follow racial disparities and gaps, racial wealth gap
Speaker 1: and so on and so forth. This virus is moving
Speaker 1: right along those lines. We talked last week about the
Speaker 1: fact that in particular areas of the country, if you
Speaker 1: happen to be born black, and not just black and
Speaker 1: poor or black and working class, but just black in
Speaker 1: certain areas, your life expectancy is almost two decades less
Speaker 1: than your white counterparts. But this is the land of
Speaker 1: the Free, the home of the brave, where the American
Speaker 1: dream lives, and yet your life expectancy can be tracked
Speaker 1: by your zip code. How the fuck does that work?
Speaker 1: You know? I've been thinking because I am sheltered in
Speaker 1: place with my family on Long Island, with my sister
Speaker 1: who is an international school teacher, and we've been having
Speaker 1: lots of deep conversations about distance learning and what is
Speaker 1: going to happen to young kids who were all ready
Speaker 1: at schools that were graduation rates super low, didn't even
Speaker 1: have the books that students need, let alone the ability
Speaker 1: to provide them all with computers. We're talking about school districts,
Speaker 1: public schools that have a large population of free and
Speaker 1: reduce lunch recipients, which means that you have to make
Speaker 1: very little money, right in order to be able to
Speaker 1: qualify for those for your kids. You think that those folks,
Speaker 1: those families have Wi Fi at home, You think that
Speaker 1: they have multiple electronic devices so that their kids can
Speaker 1: distance learn. Are their parents those that are the essential workers?
Speaker 1: So are they home by themselves? And are they going
Speaker 1: to be able to stick to a routine all by
Speaker 1: themselves to learn? So how much further will these kids
Speaker 1: already fall behind their counterparts that are white and more
Speaker 1: economically well off than they are? You're talking now, let's
Speaker 1: just assume that a lot of schools across this country
Speaker 1: have closed right since March. You're talking about missing four
Speaker 1: months out of the school year, right, because the likelihood
Speaker 1: that anybody is opening back up in May, let's just
Speaker 1: say April is a wash. Right. We are at April thirteenth,
Speaker 1: so April is a wash. It is halfway done. Basically,
Speaker 1: you think May schools are going to open back up.
Speaker 1: I don't think so. So you're talking about four and
Speaker 1: five months of being out of school. Then we go
Speaker 1: into the summer, so that's an additional two months, and
Speaker 1: then we pray to God that your kids can go
Speaker 1: back to school in September. You're talking about having an
Speaker 1: educational loss of six months or more for kids who,
Speaker 1: for all intensive purposes, we're already academically behind their classmates.
Speaker 1: I know this because I went to school for education policy.
Speaker 1: That's what my master's degree is in early childhood education.
Speaker 1: There are children who were starting at school in let's
Speaker 1: say kindergarten, in preschool already five and ten thousand words
Speaker 1: behind their counterparts. That's how education begins and falls alongside
Speaker 1: racial and poverty lines, in some cases racial and economic lines.
Speaker 1: Were kids that are entering school, and you think that
Speaker 1: they're entering school all on the same playing field and
Speaker 1: a blank slate, they're not. There are young kids that
Speaker 1: are going into school with more words, so they already
Speaker 1: have a sturdy foundation upon which to build. Friends that
Speaker 1: I've been talking to that are homeschooling, their kids have
Speaker 1: ordered all of these products and packets and things from Amazon.
Speaker 1: What about those people that can't afford any of that.
Speaker 1: The same way that I've talked about people being able
Speaker 1: to have panic shopping is a luxury. Folks, Being able
Speaker 1: to panic shop and stock up your house with three four,
Speaker 1: five hundred dollars and more of groceries, of liquor, of this, that,
Speaker 1: and the other thing that is a fucking luxury and
Speaker 1: a privilege. A majority of people in this country have
Speaker 1: to wait for pay day in order to go and
Speaker 1: get the necessities that they need. So even if you
Speaker 1: are struggling now, which a majority of Americans are, ten
Speaker 1: percent of the population has filed for unemployment. Let that
Speaker 1: sink in ten percent, and that was only three weeks
Speaker 1: into the epidemic. We're still at the beginning. What does
Speaker 1: this look like six months from now, a year from now,
Speaker 1: does that look like twenty percent, thirty percent, fifty percent
Speaker 1: of the population filing for unemployment? But right now, if
Speaker 1: you have a home, a pantry that is filled with
Speaker 1: canned goods and pastas and rices, and a fridge that
Speaker 1: is packed, and a wine fridge and wine that is there,
Speaker 1: you count yourself among the privilege, whether or not you
Speaker 1: are jobless. If you have those things, that is in
Speaker 1: stark contrast to many people right now. There's a reason
Speaker 1: why it took New York City public schools so long
Speaker 1: to close, because you're talking about a school population of
Speaker 1: over one million children, a majority of which live at
Speaker 1: poverty levels, so much so that New York City made
Speaker 1: lunch free across the board because that's how many kids
Speaker 1: were receiving free and reduced lunch. So everybody might as
Speaker 1: well we live in this fallacy that we've been fed.
Speaker 1: America is the best, We're the greatest nation. Everybody wants
Speaker 1: to come here. Some people do, Yeah, But when I
Speaker 1: start to look at how we have been reacting as
Speaker 1: a country to this global pandemic versus other countries, how
Speaker 1: other nations are providing true economic help that are stopping
Speaker 1: debt collectors and bills and halting mortgages and rents, and
Speaker 1: providing food and assistance for all people who are set up,
Speaker 1: who had been set up for distance learning, and who
Speaker 1: had innovated on education already so they weren't caught off
Speaker 1: guard by this. Who've provided healthcare to their entire country
Speaker 1: instead of kicking three and a half million people off
Speaker 1: in the midst of a global pandemic and not extending
Speaker 1: the health exchange so that more people could be covered
Speaker 1: in the middle of a health pandemic. America hasn't been
Speaker 1: great in a long fucking time, but we've just been
Speaker 1: fed a lot of bullshit. But now when push comes
Speaker 1: to shove, we are realizing just how far behind we are.
Speaker 1: You know, I, you know, I can't stand the pandering
Speaker 1: that is done to Trump voters, right like, I'm fucking
Speaker 1: over that. But the way that Trump was able to
Speaker 1: collect these aggrieved white folks so easy, right, like shooting
Speaker 1: fish in a arrol Because for them as well as
Speaker 1: you know, black and brown people and women and people
Speaker 1: who live at the intersection of multiple identities, and with
Speaker 1: each identity, their economic status and their economic viability is
Speaker 1: slashed just a little, right death by a thousand cuts.
Speaker 1: America hasn't been great, and for some was never great.
Speaker 1: But when you have an egomaniac monster that comes out
Speaker 1: and pretends and lies to you and says that he
Speaker 1: can make it great, sometimes you're so downtrodden that you'll
Speaker 1: take the lie because the truth is so damn painful.
Speaker 1: So why I watch these commercials, these pandemic commercials that
Speaker 1: are you know, showing us concerts and game days and
Speaker 1: you know, celebration and telling us soon will be reunited.
Speaker 1: And I'm thinking, are you sure about that? Because I'm
Speaker 1: not so sure. I'm not so sure that we see
Speaker 1: stadiums packed again. I'm not so sure that we see
Speaker 1: you know, sweaty people dancing the night away inside our
Speaker 1: outside of clubs. I'm not so sure that we see
Speaker 1: our beaches packed with you know, summer revelers again. I'm
Speaker 1: not so sure that you see Broadway and Times Square
Speaker 1: and all of those places packed with millions of moving bodies.
Speaker 1: But sometimes the lie of the commercial and of the
Speaker 1: Trumps of the world that tell us that they're going
Speaker 1: to return, wind the clock back and take us back
Speaker 1: to better times eases the reality that we're in now.
Speaker 1: Trust and believe. I don't, you know, say to myself like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: you know, those poor people like Trump just sold them about. No,
Speaker 1: they're racist folks, so like understand that. But it's this
Speaker 1: approach of the used car salesman, right that is trying
Speaker 1: to make the shiny lemon that you're going to be
Speaker 1: driving home with seem a lot better than it is
Speaker 1: because it's what you can afford, so you might as
Speaker 1: well make the best of it. Lie to me, tell
Speaker 1: me it's amazing. Tell me it runs like a Mercedes,
Speaker 1: even if it's a Pinto. That's what Trump did for
Speaker 1: the forty percent of Americans that back him. No matter what,
Speaker 1: I'm going to bring back prosperity. I'm going to bring
Speaker 1: back your factory jobs. I'm gonna put you white man
Speaker 1: back on top of the pyramid where you belong again.
Speaker 1: They know it's bullshit, They know those jobs are long gone,
Speaker 1: but the pretending makes them feel better. But I think
Speaker 1: in these times, we need what Governor Cuomo has been
Speaker 1: bringing to the people of New York. Tough love, right,
Speaker 1: stay the fuck home. Yeah, I know it's painful. Yeah
Speaker 1: I don't want to close down the parks, But I
Speaker 1: also don't want you all to die. I also don't
Speaker 1: want to continue to go on national television every day
Speaker 1: to tell you that seven hundred and ninety people, eight
Speaker 1: hundred people, a thousand people all died in one day.
Speaker 1: I don't want to do that either. Tough love is important.
Speaker 1: Doesn't mean that I don't love you, just means that,
Speaker 1: like you don't need the kid gloves, America should have
Speaker 1: taken off the kid gloves a long time ago. Tell
Speaker 1: people the truth. The reality is that been fed alive
Speaker 1: for a long time. You know, you were told that
Speaker 1: if you just work hard, if you just had a
Speaker 1: high school education, you were going to be able to
Speaker 1: buy a house, a car, and provide for your family
Speaker 1: and always going to be great. Well, that lasted for
Speaker 1: a little bit till the Industrial Revolution, until more people
Speaker 1: started going to college. And then we continue to tell people,
Speaker 1: just go to college, get a degree, and you'll get
Speaker 1: a great job, and then you'll be able to afford
Speaker 1: all the things that you want. Except those things continue
Speaker 1: to get more and more expensive, and your paycheck got
Speaker 1: less and less and less. So we keep telling you
Speaker 1: work harder, work harder, go get another degree, Go put
Speaker 1: yourself further in debt, but don't worry. You'll get a
Speaker 1: good job and you'll be able to afford the house
Speaker 1: and the car and the kids and this and then
Speaker 1: the other thing. And little by little, all of that
Speaker 1: started to become less and less true. Now we have
Speaker 1: twenty something year olds, thirty something year olds, forty something
Speaker 1: year olds that are saddled with six figure debt because
Speaker 1: we told them it was the most important thing to do.
Speaker 1: We also keep telling folks that like, yeah, you can
Speaker 1: go and get your vocational certification, and like you'll be okay,
Speaker 1: you fucking won't. We haven't been planning ahead for what
Speaker 1: evolution looks like. We're still operating with twentieth century ideals
Speaker 1: in the twenty first century. There's a reason why other
Speaker 1: countries are handling things a lot better than we are,
Speaker 1: because they've been preparing, because they haven't still believed that
Speaker 1: the tooth fairy was really the thing, and that the
Speaker 1: easter bunny existed. What we are dealing with in this
Speaker 1: country with going to the grocery stores, multiple grocery stores,
Speaker 1: and realizing that you know, uh, salmon and toilet paper
Speaker 1: and you know, fucking paper towels and soap just don't
Speaker 1: you know, miraculously appear out of nowhere. There are countries
Speaker 1: where what we are experiencing now is a complete disruption
Speaker 1: of our norm has been their norm. Where food isn't
Speaker 1: readily available, it's scarce, where you don't have economic stability,
Speaker 1: where you can't believe the ship that government says because
Speaker 1: they've been lying to you for decades and that we
Speaker 1: know that they're all corrupt, and we just kind of
Speaker 1: moved through ruin. We are now in America living everyone
Speaker 1: else's norms. The people who we turned our nose down at,
Speaker 1: who we said, how could you possibly vote for these people?
Speaker 1: They must be dumb, they must not care. We'll look
Speaker 1: at us. It's the same shit that now everybody can
Speaker 1: say about America. Ooh, America, yikes. Half a million cases
Speaker 1: of the coronavirus a botched reaction. It'll probably be an
Speaker 1: even more botched recovery, if we can even use that word,
Speaker 1: or throw that word around at all. Everything about this
Speaker 1: country is predicated upon some false ideal. Everything about our
Speaker 1: government was pretty much based in a handshake that we
Speaker 1: just assume that everybody else would follow. I think that
Speaker 1: the coronavirus is showing us ourselves, our deep vulnerabilities and
Speaker 1: our weaknesses, how much we've taken advantage of mother Earth,
Speaker 1: how much we've taken advantage of each other, how much
Speaker 1: we've taken for granted as a society, as a people,
Speaker 1: as a global community. The luxury of thinking that when
Speaker 1: you go to the store, what you want, exactly what
Speaker 1: you want is going to be where it always is.
Speaker 1: Your paycheck is always going to come, You're going to
Speaker 1: pay your mortgage, you're going to pay your taxes, you're
Speaker 1: going to send your kids to school, You're going to
Speaker 1: be able to have a little joy in your life.
Speaker 1: And that's going to be It never occurred to us
Speaker 1: than any of the as things could go. But yet
Speaker 1: there are millions of people around this world who would love,
Speaker 1: as my friend Amon Mohadeen said on MSNBC, love the
Speaker 1: idea of being able to shelter in place. But you know,
Speaker 1: Syrian refugees had to leave their fucking homes because of war.
Speaker 1: So I say all that to say that it is
Speaker 1: okay to grieve, to feel the deep sense of loss,
Speaker 1: to cry, to be down, to spend however many days
Speaker 1: in bed. But I also ask you to remember that
Speaker 1: if you have a bed, and you have a home,
Speaker 1: and you have covers to pull up, and television to
Speaker 1: zone out on, and family to fight and bicker with
Speaker 1: and be sick of, count your blessings, count yourself lucky.
Speaker 1: You can be both. And you can be both in
Speaker 1: grief and in deep frustration and panic and also recognize
Speaker 1: your privilege and your good fortune. We can do both.
Speaker 1: We don't need to do one or the other. And
Speaker 1: it fluctuates sometimes by the minute, sometimes by the hour,
Speaker 1: sometimes by the day. But it's important, I think, to
Speaker 1: take stock of what we all have, what we all
Speaker 1: have lost, and what we're grateful for. I am a
Speaker 1: person who lives very much in the future. Did live
Speaker 1: very much in the future. I used to lament the past,
Speaker 1: try and dash the present, dash through it, and just
Speaker 1: focus on the future, focus on what I was building
Speaker 1: for well in these deeply uncertain times, the future is unknown,
Speaker 1: as it's always been, but now more so than ever,
Speaker 1: the past is a memory and the present really is
Speaker 1: all we have literally, the world, our environment. This global
Speaker 1: pandemic has forced us to look at and to think about,
Speaker 1: and meditate on and pray on what is most important
Speaker 1: because everything else has been stripped away. I think that
Speaker 1: the only way that we move through this is with
Speaker 1: a deep sense of gratitude. Again, if you are listening
Speaker 1: to me right now, on a run, or you know,
Speaker 1: in a car because you just want to take a drive,
Speaker 1: or on a walk with your dog, or around your
Speaker 1: dining room table or nustled into your couch or in
Speaker 1: bed with the covers pulled up, take a moment, close
Speaker 1: your eyes, take a big inhale through your nose, exhale
Speaker 1: through your mouth and just sit in gratitude because there
Speaker 1: are too many people right now that have none of
Speaker 1: those things. So yeah, it sucks. But with all things
Speaker 1: that grow, there are pains. With all transitions, there is
Speaker 1: some level of being uncomfortable. But we will be reborn,
Speaker 1: we will rebuild, and I hope that next time around
Speaker 1: we will do so with a lot more compassion, a
Speaker 1: lot more love, a lot more authenticity, and with a
Speaker 1: lot more deep, deep gratitude for everything that we all
Speaker 1: bring to the table. So as we prepare for this
Speaker 1: new week of our new normal, I challenge us all
Speaker 1: each and every day, as we continue to press on
Speaker 1: to find those moments of joy, to write them down,
Speaker 1: say them out loud, to record them, because when things
Speaker 1: are dark, they will be our little flickers of light.
Speaker 1: That is it for me here, Folks on Woke a F.
Speaker 1: Power to the people and to all the people. Power.
Speaker 1: Get woke and stay woke as fuck, and remember Woke
Speaker 1: a F is free for the next three weeks. So
Speaker 1: share this show with all of your friends and tell
Speaker 1: them they can get it free wherever they get their podcasts.
Speaker 1: So let's all get through this together. Stay safe as fuck,