Host Erik Fleming sits down with novelist Erica Kent, Men for Choice leader Aaron Bos-Lun, and writer Ke’Aun Charles to explore themes of addiction, reproductive justice, and Afrofuturism.
The episode moves from a discussion of Kent’s debut novel Black Dog and its compassionate portrayal of teen addiction, to Aaron’s work activating men in the fight for reproductive freedom, and concludes with Keon’s perspectives on Afrofuturism, U.S.–Africa relations, and political strategy.
00:00:00 --> 00:00:06 Welcome. I'm Eric Fleming, host of A Moment with Eric Fleming, the podcast of our time.
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00:02:00 --> 00:02:05 Hello, and welcome to another moment with Eric Fleming. I am your host, Eric Fleming.
00:02:06 --> 00:02:13 So today, I have three guests and very diverse group of folks.
00:02:13 --> 00:02:21 The first one is Erica Kent. She has written this book, a fictional novel called Black Dog,
00:02:22 --> 00:02:29 and it deals with a very, very heavy subject, but she did it in such a way where.
00:02:31 --> 00:02:40 You won't feel sad when you read the book or it won't hit you hard emotionally.
00:02:41 --> 00:02:46 It's beautifully written. It's a great story, but it does deal with the heavy
00:02:46 --> 00:02:47 subject of drug addiction.
00:02:48 --> 00:02:53 So we're going to talk about that. We're going to talk to Erin Boslin.
00:02:54 --> 00:02:58 Aaron is the executive director of a group called Men for Choice.
00:02:59 --> 00:03:04 And I've been trying to get Aaron on, and we've had to have some scheduling on my end and his end.
00:03:05 --> 00:03:09 But we finally got together, and so he's going to talk about the importance
00:03:09 --> 00:03:12 of men being in the reproductive rights fight.
00:03:13 --> 00:03:17 And then I've got this young brother named Keon Charles.
00:03:17 --> 00:03:25 Keon is primarily, I've known him as a writer, where he has written some incredible
00:03:25 --> 00:03:30 articles about our relationship with Africa.
00:03:30 --> 00:03:37 When I say our, I mean the United States, and his viewpoints on that.
00:03:39 --> 00:03:45 And he wrote another piece about Black Power that we're going to touch on in the interview.
00:03:45 --> 00:03:52 But he is what we call and he's part of this group of Afro futurists that are out there and.
00:03:54 --> 00:04:03 That's a subject where a lot of young progressive thinkers, it started off kind
00:04:03 --> 00:04:07 of in the sci-fi genre and has evolved now into other cultural aspects,
00:04:08 --> 00:04:11 even politics and technology.
00:04:12 --> 00:04:18 But yeah, so I hope that you, it's an interesting topic and I hope that you
00:04:18 --> 00:04:21 gleaned something from that interview as well.
00:04:22 --> 00:04:24 It was really fun talking to all three of them.
00:04:25 --> 00:04:30 And I hope that you have the same experience that I had just listening to them.
00:04:32 --> 00:04:35 If you like what you're hearing, if you like everything that we're doing on
00:04:35 --> 00:04:39 the podcast, please, please, please go to www.momenteric.com.
00:04:40 --> 00:04:47 They reviews, you know, the five stars, the, you know, donations,
00:04:47 --> 00:04:51 either one time or subscribe, just whatever you can do to support the podcast.
00:04:51 --> 00:04:54 It would be greatly, greatly appreciated. But most importantly,
00:04:54 --> 00:05:00 I am really, really glad that you are listening to the podcast and spread the word as we go.
00:05:00 --> 00:05:03 All right, since we've got all these guests, let's go ahead and kick the show
00:05:03 --> 00:05:08 off. And as always, we kick it off with a moment of news with Grace G.
00:05:15 --> 00:05:20 Thanks, Eric. The NAACP joined the legal team for Nolan Wells' family,
00:05:20 --> 00:05:25 seeking a thorough investigation and more transparency into the teen's death in Mississippi.
00:05:26 --> 00:05:30 The U.S. Supreme Court temporarily allowed President Trump's White House ballroom
00:05:30 --> 00:05:36 construction to continue by granting an administrative stay while related litigation proceeds.
00:05:37 --> 00:05:42 Navy leaders are considering renaming a carrier being built to honor Black World
00:05:42 --> 00:05:45 War II sailor Doris Miller after President Trump.
00:05:45 --> 00:05:50 The Pentagon fired the Stars and Stripes editor-in-chief and dismissed its publisher
00:05:50 --> 00:05:54 after they criticized potential Defense Department censorship.
00:05:54 --> 00:05:58 State Representative Angie Nixon won Florida's Democratic U.S.
00:05:58 --> 00:06:04 Senate primary, defeating Alex Vindman, and will face Republican Senator Ashley Moody in November.
00:06:04 --> 00:06:09 David Jolly won the Democratic nomination for Florida governor and will run
00:06:09 --> 00:06:15 against Representative Byron Donalds to replace term-limited Governor Ron DeSantis.
00:06:16 --> 00:06:21 Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz won Florida's newly redrawn 20th District
00:06:21 --> 00:06:25 Democratic primary, defeating Black candidates who criticized her choice to
00:06:25 --> 00:06:27 run in a historically Black district.
00:06:28 --> 00:06:34 A Texas federal judge ruled that Biden-era ghost gun regulations are unconstitutional,
00:06:34 --> 00:06:38 citing Second Amendment violations and vagueness under due process.
00:06:39 --> 00:06:44 In Alaska, Democrat Mary Peltola and Republican Senator Dan Sullivan both advanced
00:06:44 --> 00:06:49 to the general election in a race that many believe will decide the majority
00:06:49 --> 00:06:50 in the United States Senate.
00:06:51 --> 00:06:55 A federal appeals court ruled the Justice Department cannot enforce subpoenas
00:06:55 --> 00:07:00 targeting information about cases by New York Attorney General Letitia James
00:07:00 --> 00:07:03 due to unlawful appointment of a Trump ally.
00:07:03 --> 00:07:08 Ayesha Wahab won a special House election in California, taking the seat formerly
00:07:08 --> 00:07:15 held by Eric Swalwell, while the FBI raided Swalwell's home amid a sexual misconduct investigation.
00:07:15 --> 00:07:23 And the CDC reported 15 confirmed cyclosporiasis cases across 47 states,
00:07:23 --> 00:07:30 including 828 hospitalizations and two deaths, with more cases under investigation.
00:07:30 --> 00:07:34 I am Grace Gee, and this has been a Moment of News.
00:07:40 --> 00:07:47 All right. Thank you, Grace, for that moment of news. And now it is time for my guest, Erica Kent.
00:07:48 --> 00:07:54 Erica Kent is a winner of the Santa Fe Writers Project Literary Awards Program.
00:07:55 --> 00:07:58 She holds an MFA for Vermont College of Fine Arts.
00:07:59 --> 00:08:03 Her work has appeared in Story Quarterly, The Brooklyn Rail,
00:08:03 --> 00:08:06 Conium Review, among other publications.
00:08:07 --> 00:08:12 She is the recipient of scholarships from Marilyn Moss Rockefeller and James
00:08:12 --> 00:08:18 S. Rockefeller Jr., IOTA Short Forms, Maine Writers and Publishers Alliance,
00:08:18 --> 00:08:20 and the Vermont College of Fine Arts.
00:08:21 --> 00:08:24 She lives in Portland, Maine with her family and Chunky Bulldog.
00:08:25 --> 00:08:30 Her debut novel, Black Dog, was published by Santa Fe Writers Project on August
00:08:30 --> 00:08:36 4th, 2026, and that's what we'll be talking about in the interview.
00:08:36 --> 00:08:40 So, ladies and gentlemen, this is my distinct honor and privilege to have as
00:08:40 --> 00:08:43 a guest on this podcast, Erica Kent.
00:08:55 --> 00:08:58 All right. Erica Kent, how are you doing?
00:08:58 --> 00:09:05 I'm good. How are you? I'm doing good. I'm really honored to talk to you. Now, I am not a guy.
00:09:05 --> 00:09:10 I'm just going to be honest. I don't do a whole lot of fictional authors on
00:09:10 --> 00:09:14 this podcast because I get into politics a lot and all that.
00:09:14 --> 00:09:19 But when there is a book that's presented to me that deals with a topic that
00:09:19 --> 00:09:25 we should be discussing in politics, then, you know, I think we need to have you on.
00:09:25 --> 00:09:30 And so this book called Black Dog, I think, definitely falls into that category.
00:09:30 --> 00:09:35 Now, if it was like a harlequin romance, yeah, no, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
00:09:36 --> 00:09:42 But as we get into it, I think the listeners will understand why I'm honored to have you on.
00:09:43 --> 00:09:45 So let's go ahead and start with the icebreakers.
00:09:47 --> 00:09:50 I do a couple of them. The first one is a quote I want you to respond to.
00:09:50 --> 00:09:54 And the quote is, but that's what I love about books.
00:09:54 --> 00:09:59 All that shit doesn't matter. When you meet a character, you recognize a character
00:09:59 --> 00:10:02 has always been a part of you. You just didn't know it.
00:10:03 --> 00:10:04 Hmm. Yeah.
00:10:06 --> 00:10:09 I think that's absolutely true.
00:10:09 --> 00:10:13 I mean, I'm a big fiction reader. I do read some.
00:10:13 --> 00:10:19 I do read the news a bit, although I take little breaks because it's really tough these days.
00:10:19 --> 00:10:26 Yeah, I think that's the beauty of reading and of fiction in particular is fostering empathy,
00:10:27 --> 00:10:30 you know, being able to put yourself in other people's shoes,
00:10:30 --> 00:10:36 being able to understand situations that you probably will never encounter in your own life.
00:10:36 --> 00:10:46 And Jessica, the main character in the book, is somebody that basically literature and a few other things,
00:10:46 --> 00:10:52 save her from herself, save her from addiction and active addiction.
00:10:52 --> 00:10:56 And so I think it's one of my favorite things.
00:10:57 --> 00:11:01 As a teacher, it was one of my favorite things when you see a student or you
00:11:01 --> 00:11:04 see a person connect with a book in a meaningful way, a story.
00:11:05 --> 00:11:08 And the circumstances don't matter. You know, you can be...
00:11:09 --> 00:11:12 Hundreds of years later, earlier, you know,
00:11:13 --> 00:11:21 you can basically meet someone on the page who isn't you but reflects part of
00:11:21 --> 00:11:25 you or reflects part of you that you sense is there but you don't really know.
00:11:26 --> 00:11:32 Yeah, yeah. Because a perfect example of that is when she said that she was
00:11:32 --> 00:11:36 referring to, I think, it was a character out of The Great Gatsby, I believe.
00:11:37 --> 00:11:39 Nick Carraway, yeah. Yeah, okay.
00:11:39 --> 00:11:44 All right. So now the next icebreaker is what I call 20 questions.
00:11:44 --> 00:11:47 Okay. So I need you to give me a number between 1 and 20.
00:11:48 --> 00:11:54 Seven. All right. What do you consider the best way to stay informed about politics,
00:11:54 --> 00:11:55 current events, health, etc.?
00:11:57 --> 00:12:03 I have a digital subscription to The Times. I look in at that.
00:12:04 --> 00:12:08 And, you know, in terms of being informed, I look at the Atlantic,
00:12:08 --> 00:12:14 I look at the New Yorker, but it's a pretty small little liberal bubble.
00:12:14 --> 00:12:19 I'm not going to pretend that it isn't. I mean, I don't claim to have a broader
00:12:19 --> 00:12:27 perspective. I don't watch Fox News. I don't engage with a more conservative point of view.
00:12:27 --> 00:12:33 So it's, you know, it's within my scope. I understand.
00:12:34 --> 00:12:38 All right. Of all the subjects an English teacher could write a fiction novel
00:12:38 --> 00:12:40 about, why a book about drug addiction?
00:12:42 --> 00:12:49 Well, I experienced, I have my own experience with addiction from an early age
00:12:49 --> 00:12:56 and getting sober around age 20, which is in some ways an absurdly early age to,
00:12:57 --> 00:12:59 get sober. But for me, that was important.
00:13:00 --> 00:13:06 And also as a teacher, encountering lots and lots of substance abuse with kids
00:13:06 --> 00:13:09 and talking to them about it, noticing it.
00:13:09 --> 00:13:16 I mean, I think one thing that was a little different about me as a teacher was noticing things.
00:13:16 --> 00:13:20 It always amazed me when teachers didn't notice a student having a hard time
00:13:20 --> 00:13:26 or a student having red, blurry eyes or, you know, sort of sauntering in into
00:13:26 --> 00:13:29 the room, being a little blurry.
00:13:29 --> 00:13:34 I guess being an addict myself, I recognize those things. And so,
00:13:34 --> 00:13:37 you know, there is a cliche of write what you know.
00:13:37 --> 00:13:42 And I think for a first book, it's not a thinly veiled autobiography,
00:13:42 --> 00:13:49 but I am writing about stuff I know, teenagers and drug abuse and so forth. Gotcha.
00:13:50 --> 00:13:53 What is the significance of the title, Black Dog?
00:13:55 --> 00:14:00 Well, the black dog is kind of the embodiment of addiction. And it's a reference to,
00:14:01 --> 00:14:04 you know, Winston Churchill, who didn't coin the phrase originally,
00:14:04 --> 00:14:10 but this idea of the black dog following him around, his depression.
00:14:11 --> 00:14:17 And so I took that idea of depression and sort of melded it into addiction.
00:14:17 --> 00:14:21 And addiction, of course, depression often goes hand in hand with addiction.
00:14:22 --> 00:14:28 But something that embodies addiction that tracks you and that doesn't ultimately
00:14:28 --> 00:14:31 die. It's not something that you can get rid of.
00:14:32 --> 00:14:37 You know, you can get sober, you can modify your behavior, you can do all kinds
00:14:37 --> 00:14:42 of things that you couldn't do while using or drinking.
00:14:42 --> 00:14:48 But the black dog is there to stay And you have to learn to live with that And
00:14:48 --> 00:14:55 not in a downbeat crazy bad way But in a mode of acceptance Yeah,
00:14:56 --> 00:15:00 Why was Boston the perfect backdrop for this story?
00:15:02 --> 00:15:08 Again, I know Boston well. I grew up, part of my adolescence was spent there
00:15:08 --> 00:15:12 in Brookline, which was, we lived near Fenway Park, which was kind of cool.
00:15:12 --> 00:15:15 And so I know that city really well.
00:15:17 --> 00:15:22 I think I have a somewhat romanticized version of it from my adolescence that
00:15:22 --> 00:15:24 I wanted to recreate on the page.
00:15:24 --> 00:15:30 I wanted to recreate specifically that time period of the 80s and in Boston
00:15:30 --> 00:15:36 specifically, knowing it and having a clear reference point.
00:15:36 --> 00:15:40 And it's just a city I love. You know, I've lived in Portland,
00:15:40 --> 00:15:45 Maine since 1998, but I definitely miss Boston.
00:15:46 --> 00:15:48 I will always consider it my home.
00:15:49 --> 00:15:57 Yeah, and I get that. But it seems like part of an undercurrent of the story
00:15:57 --> 00:16:02 was that if you got away from Boston, you were OK.
00:16:02 --> 00:16:06 If you went back to Boston, you were going to run into some of the same demons,
00:16:06 --> 00:16:13 the black dog, if you will, that that was leading to the addiction and all that kind of stuff.
00:16:14 --> 00:16:18 Was that intentional or is just the way that the story kind of framed out?
00:16:19 --> 00:16:25 I think it's the way this story framed out more than sort of like Boston itself.
00:16:25 --> 00:16:32 I mean, Alston, which is an area of outer Boston, was sort of the real problematic
00:16:32 --> 00:16:35 gritty area, and that is a pretty gritty area.
00:16:36 --> 00:16:41 So that's sort of more of the dangerous area, if you will.
00:16:42 --> 00:16:47 But, yeah, I think that has more to do with the story than sort of embodying
00:16:47 --> 00:16:50 the problem or embodying the addiction. I got you.
00:16:50 --> 00:16:56 Because the young man, Dean, that was like the big thing. He ran off to Vermont.
00:16:56 --> 00:16:59 And it was like the dad said, you're going to Vermont, too? She was like,
00:16:59 --> 00:17:01 I might. You know what I'm saying? It was like. Yeah.
00:17:02 --> 00:17:06 Yeah, it was kind of like Vermont was like this oasis compared to where they
00:17:06 --> 00:17:08 were, but I feel you on that.
00:17:09 --> 00:17:13 How do you want the readers to perceive Jessica, who is the protagonist of her?
00:17:14 --> 00:17:21 I think, you know, I have a lot of empathy with Jessica, and I would want readers
00:17:21 --> 00:17:25 to perceive her as having a sense of humor, albeit a dark sense of humor,
00:17:26 --> 00:17:32 that she's resilient and that she doesn't feel sorry for herself.
00:17:32 --> 00:17:40 She's in pain, but she also recognizes her situation as being relatively cushy, you know.
00:17:41 --> 00:17:47 She's growing up in a—she's not growing up in, like, I'd say solid middle class,
00:17:48 --> 00:17:50 maybe hedging to or for middle class.
00:17:50 --> 00:17:56 So she's aware of her privilege, but she's also caught in something that's bigger
00:17:56 --> 00:18:01 than her. So I would want readers to be patient with her and to,
00:18:01 --> 00:18:05 I guess, appreciate her, love her if possible.
00:18:05 --> 00:18:11 Yeah, because she, I think that's right. She never came across as,
00:18:12 --> 00:18:19 I mean, she had some issues as far as, you know, her self-esteem to a degree.
00:18:20 --> 00:18:23 Sure. But she never came across like.
00:18:25 --> 00:18:28 I got to do this thing. You know what I'm saying? It's something I like.
00:18:28 --> 00:18:30 It's something I've accepted as a part of me.
00:18:30 --> 00:18:33 I mean, I had my first beer when I was 11. You know, I'm just,
00:18:34 --> 00:18:36 it's just the way I grew up, you know?
00:18:36 --> 00:18:43 And, and, and so, you know, now I've gotten to a point where I might need to get away from that.
00:18:43 --> 00:18:48 You know what I'm saying? It's never, it was never like, it never came across
00:18:48 --> 00:18:51 to me like a lot of those stories where it's like, you know,
00:18:51 --> 00:18:55 you went all the way down and then you came all the way back up.
00:18:55 --> 00:19:00 It was just kind of like, I'm dealing with this addiction and I know it's a
00:19:00 --> 00:19:06 part of my life and I've had some opportunities to get out and I didn't do it.
00:19:07 --> 00:19:13 So when I decide to get to that level, when I make that decision to do it.
00:19:14 --> 00:19:18 Even though she was still kind of forced, but nonetheless, even when it got
00:19:18 --> 00:19:21 to that point, And she said, okay, this is my life now.
00:19:21 --> 00:19:26 I'm not doing this anymore. So, and that's a little different than a lot of
00:19:26 --> 00:19:31 stories when people try to, because it's almost like the reefer madness effect.
00:19:31 --> 00:19:32 I don't know if you ever watched that movie.
00:19:33 --> 00:19:38 They just want to go to the ultimate extreme, you know, or like my friend at
00:19:38 --> 00:19:40 South Park, what's the teacher's name? Drugs is bad, okay?
00:19:40 --> 00:19:45 It's just, it didn't go there. You know what I'm saying? It was just like everybody
00:19:45 --> 00:19:51 dealt with the reality of it and she dealt with it to me to some kind of maturity,
00:19:51 --> 00:19:53 which leads me to my next question.
00:19:54 --> 00:19:59 Would you feel comfortable with your book being categorized as a coming of age story?
00:20:00 --> 00:20:03 Yeah. I mean, that's what I think generally it falls into.
00:20:03 --> 00:20:09 But I also wanted to avoid what you were talking about, where it was all terrible
00:20:09 --> 00:20:13 and then all amazing, because I think that trajectory as an.
00:20:14 --> 00:20:19 Addiction story is kind of played out and also misses a lot,
00:20:19 --> 00:20:21 misses a lot of gray area.
00:20:21 --> 00:20:25 Because, I mean, she's a kid when she, and hopefully, you know,
00:20:26 --> 00:20:31 as a kid, you're going to be in the throes of joy a fair amount.
00:20:31 --> 00:20:36 And I think she is. But she also, addiction is one of those things that doesn't
00:20:36 --> 00:20:43 discriminate against, you know, social class or, you know, sexual preference
00:20:43 --> 00:20:45 or religious affiliation.
00:20:45 --> 00:20:52 I mean, it just, if it gets you, it gets you. And she grows up with an active alcoholic, so...
00:20:53 --> 00:20:58 Yeah, I mean, coming of age, I guess that could be for some people perceived
00:20:58 --> 00:21:02 as kind of a stereotype or kind of cliche, but I don't see it that way.
00:21:02 --> 00:21:06 I think it's some of the great books for me are coming of age books,
00:21:07 --> 00:21:11 you know, To Kill a Mockingbird, for example, is a coming of age book.
00:21:11 --> 00:21:17 And I could read that book, you know, every year and not be tired of it.
00:21:18 --> 00:21:22 Yeah, because when a lot of times when we say coming-of-age stories,
00:21:22 --> 00:21:27 I'm of the generation, you know, we had the after-school specials, right?
00:21:27 --> 00:21:31 Yeah, yeah. And, you know, and you're trying to tell this, you know,
00:21:31 --> 00:21:35 important story, put this important lesson out there in about 30 minutes.
00:21:37 --> 00:21:44 Right. And, you know, and so, or even movies, I call them after-school movies. Yeah, yeah.
00:21:44 --> 00:21:48 Like Gina and the Plastic Bubble, all that kind of stuff. Yeah.
00:21:48 --> 00:21:52 Oh, boy in the plastic bubble. I said, Gina. Boy in the plastic bubble.
00:21:52 --> 00:21:53 Yeah. Cause the girl's name was Gina.
00:21:54 --> 00:21:58 I actually named my dog Gina because of that, that, that movie.
00:21:58 --> 00:22:02 Cause I, John Travolta. Yeah. John Travolta going, Gina, what'd you run away
00:22:02 --> 00:22:06 for? Come back. You know, I just, I said, I'm gonna name my dog after that.
00:22:08 --> 00:22:13 Yeah. But I mean, but the, but the point was, yeah, it wasn't,
00:22:13 --> 00:22:19 you know, It was Hollywood because it was like when we dealt with those kind
00:22:19 --> 00:22:22 of situations in real life, it wasn't that smooth.
00:22:22 --> 00:22:26 You know what I'm saying? You wish you could have gotten that in a half hour.
00:22:28 --> 00:22:31 That's why I wanted to ask you that question because...
00:22:32 --> 00:22:37 You know, you're telling a story, but then, of course, people try to put stories in boxes.
00:22:38 --> 00:22:44 And so I didn't know, even though it's not your typical coming of age story,
00:22:45 --> 00:22:47 it's a little more gritty than that.
00:22:47 --> 00:22:52 But for her, it was a coming of age to me. That's the way I looked at it.
00:22:53 --> 00:22:59 I just want to throw in one thing with that before I forget,
00:22:59 --> 00:23:00 because I'm so forgetful.
00:23:01 --> 00:23:07 I think what you were alluding to was a lack of moral judgment in the book.
00:23:07 --> 00:23:10 And so I think that's really important in general.
00:23:11 --> 00:23:15 There's not this sort of like, and that can be really like after school special
00:23:15 --> 00:23:21 kind of cliche of like, drugs are bad, and you're bad, and then you become good
00:23:21 --> 00:23:25 when you, you know, and I think a lot of moralizing can take place.
00:23:25 --> 00:23:31 And that's I've never found that to be helpful with this issue with kids or whatever I,
00:23:32 --> 00:23:37 I've never found sort of moralizing about something and yes bad things happen
00:23:37 --> 00:23:41 people do bad stuff especially when they're drinking and using but.
00:23:42 --> 00:23:48 Morality, it's a disease, and morality is something else that's not,
00:23:48 --> 00:23:55 you know, linked into addiction in the way that a lot of people perceive it to be. Yeah, yeah.
00:23:56 --> 00:24:05 Explain how current historical events impact us even without us knowing or acknowledging it immediately.
00:24:06 --> 00:24:13 I mean, I think that generationally, you know, I'm 57, and so I'm the same age
00:24:13 --> 00:24:16 as Jessica when she's experiencing the 80s.
00:24:17 --> 00:24:23 And I think that Lennon's death at the beginning of the book was a real cultural marker,
00:24:23 --> 00:24:28 and not obviously in the same way as like Kennedy's assassination or the attempt
00:24:28 --> 00:24:35 on Ronald Reagan's life, you know, But something that definitely sort of hearkened.
00:24:36 --> 00:24:41 A beginning of a very different decade than the 70s, in my mind.
00:24:42 --> 00:24:47 And it's easy to make generalizations about that. But I think those kind of
00:24:47 --> 00:24:52 events are baked into where you are, particularly when you're a child,
00:24:52 --> 00:24:57 I think, and you're not necessarily aware of them. You might be fleetingly aware of them.
00:24:57 --> 00:25:04 So when the Space Challenger blew up, I remember that, and I remember that because
00:25:04 --> 00:25:08 of, not because I was in kindergarten, like the kids watching it,
00:25:09 --> 00:25:15 or some of the kids watching it, but from realizing that sort of kid-like perspective
00:25:15 --> 00:25:22 of, oh, wow, things happen that are so big, that are so out of my control. I don't even know.
00:25:23 --> 00:25:28 How to attempt to respond to them. And so I think those events that are sprinkled
00:25:28 --> 00:25:33 in the book are kind of reflective of that time that they're happening.
00:25:33 --> 00:25:40 You know, smaller picture is her story, and then the larger picture is culturally what's happening.
00:25:41 --> 00:25:45 And then a book is mentioned every year as a book that has been published,
00:25:45 --> 00:25:51 which is just my way of paying homage to those books. Yeah, yeah.
00:25:52 --> 00:25:56 That was pretty cool how you did that. I just, you know, I think I got my news
00:25:56 --> 00:26:01 about John Lennon like millions of other people. I was watching Monday Night Football.
00:26:02 --> 00:26:06 Yeah. I can't remember who. And that's scary. I can't remember who was playing.
00:26:07 --> 00:26:11 Yeah. I looked that up. But I remember Howard Cosell interrupting the broadcast.
00:26:12 --> 00:26:18 And if only Howard Cosell does, you know, he said, John Lennon is dead.
00:26:20 --> 00:26:23 You know he was sitting there like going and you know being young i was like
00:26:24 --> 00:26:28 the beatles guy somebody shot the beatles you know that was my mindset really,
00:26:29 --> 00:26:37 you know and um and so yeah so yeah you're right that that placed a marker growing up in chicago.
00:26:38 --> 00:26:44 The marker would have been even though i had left to go to college the marker
00:26:44 --> 00:26:50 i think in chicago was when this basketball player benjamin wilson died we called him benjamin,
00:26:50 --> 00:26:55 it was like at at that point growing up in chicago everybody thinks you know
00:26:55 --> 00:27:00 the gangs and all that stuff it was like the if you had a left hand and a right
00:27:00 --> 00:27:02 hand you could make it in chicago,
00:27:02 --> 00:27:08 growing up so it's like when benzy got shot and killed it was like,
00:27:09 --> 00:27:13 It's gone to a different level. And that point is when all the homicides and
00:27:13 --> 00:27:18 all that stuff escalated, even though his shooting was not gang related.
00:27:18 --> 00:27:23 It was just kind of like if he can get shot, all of us are vulnerable.
00:27:23 --> 00:27:29 You know what I'm saying? Right. And so that was kind of my equivalent to if
00:27:29 --> 00:27:33 I was in the situation that Jessica was in, that might have been my moment to
00:27:33 --> 00:27:35 drink that first beer. You know what I'm saying?
00:27:36 --> 00:27:42 So, yeah, that's that's. But so that's why I wanted to phrase the question away,
00:27:42 --> 00:27:47 because you do like mark each chapter as a year and you highlight certain people
00:27:47 --> 00:27:49 and certain things and books.
00:27:50 --> 00:27:53 So that's why I wanted to incorporate that in question. Now,
00:27:53 --> 00:27:57 you kind of touched on this earlier, but I'm going back to it.
00:27:57 --> 00:28:03 Should teachers be engaged with students like Mr. Ryer engaged with Jessica?
00:28:04 --> 00:28:10 I think it depends. I think it can be a little tricky as a teacher because you're
00:28:10 --> 00:28:13 dealing with administrators and you're dealing with parents.
00:28:13 --> 00:28:18 So you're dealing with adults, and adults tend to be pretty unpredictable,
00:28:18 --> 00:28:22 whereas kids are fairly predictable, in my mind, in a good way.
00:28:22 --> 00:28:30 So it's, I always found it important to relay to kids that they were seen,
00:28:31 --> 00:28:35 that they were seen and that they could come talk to me.
00:28:36 --> 00:28:42 And I would be open and judgment free as much as I could be.
00:28:42 --> 00:28:45 I mean, I'm not, you know, 100% judgment free, obviously, but.
00:28:47 --> 00:28:51 So I think that that, I think going around and trying to save everybody doesn't
00:28:51 --> 00:28:57 work. But if you, I would often see, I'll give you an example.
00:28:57 --> 00:29:05 There was a kid I had who lost his mother and he was just really fragile.
00:29:05 --> 00:29:10 And a kid that you could tell was smoking pot and just kind of medicating himself
00:29:10 --> 00:29:12 and trying to deal and get through the day.
00:29:13 --> 00:29:19 And so I had a little library. Mr. Ryrie has a library. I had a little library
00:29:19 --> 00:29:22 and I said, why don't you find a book that you like?
00:29:22 --> 00:29:26 And he's like, I don't like books. And I said, well, just look at them,
00:29:26 --> 00:29:32 pick them up, check them out, you know, and he picked out The Hobbit.
00:29:33 --> 00:29:37 And started reading it. And at first he was a little bit, you know,
00:29:37 --> 00:29:41 it was a little bit tricky for him, but he started reading it and then he got
00:29:41 --> 00:29:43 addicted to it, you know?
00:29:43 --> 00:29:49 And so he would come in and go to the back of my room where I had beanbags and
00:29:49 --> 00:29:52 stuff for kids. And even when I was teaching a different class,
00:29:52 --> 00:29:55 he would come in and he would just sort of read his book.
00:29:55 --> 00:29:59 And then he began to read more and more Tolkien books.
00:30:00 --> 00:30:04 And it was great to see him. He just needed a reprieve. He just needed like
00:30:04 --> 00:30:10 a break from his everyday, you know, here I am, my mom is dead,
00:30:10 --> 00:30:13 15 years old, I don't know what I'm doing.
00:30:14 --> 00:30:18 And so, yeah, I think in those situations, if you're in the right place at the
00:30:18 --> 00:30:22 right time, you can make a big difference for the kid.
00:30:22 --> 00:30:26 Just being a trustworthy adult who doesn't automatically say,
00:30:27 --> 00:30:32 you know, you're doing this and you're doing that and this is bad and this is, you know, like that.
00:30:32 --> 00:30:37 I think you're kind of missing the point if you're always pointing a finger at a kid.
00:30:37 --> 00:30:43 Yeah. And you have to really be in tune with your class.
00:30:44 --> 00:30:47 Now, the way that classes are structured now, it's like if you've got more than
00:30:47 --> 00:30:51 30 kids in a class it's kind of hard to do that i think,
00:30:52 --> 00:30:58 yeah the brief time that i did teach i was at a basically a private school so
00:30:58 --> 00:31:03 i had very small and i was able to like the kids that were really really taking off,
00:31:03 --> 00:31:08 it's like i get you on this extra credit track you know i'm saying,
00:31:09 --> 00:31:14 give you something to do whereas the kid that was like falling behind it's like
00:31:14 --> 00:31:19 look do we need to talk to the counselor do we need to get the parent up here,
00:31:19 --> 00:31:21 we need to have a conversation about what's going on,
00:31:22 --> 00:31:25 rather than quote-unquote punishing the child and then.
00:31:26 --> 00:31:30 You know the ones that you could see that were just right there yeah right there
00:31:30 --> 00:31:36 it's like if you just give them that little positive encouragement they're gonna do things i i have,
00:31:37 --> 00:31:42 one parent who was a fellow teacher at the school and I had her son,
00:31:43 --> 00:31:50 and every time she sees me it's been years years almost like 30 years and every
00:31:50 --> 00:31:52 time she sees me she said I will never forget,
00:31:53 --> 00:31:59 how you challenged my son and I will always appreciate that you know what I'm saying and yeah,
00:31:59 --> 00:32:01 that's why I.
00:32:02 --> 00:32:06 But even the way that you did it in the book wasn't over the top it wasn't like
00:32:07 --> 00:32:08 Like, oh, like My Fair Lady kind of thing.
00:32:08 --> 00:32:12 It was just like, you know what I'm saying? Here, read this book.
00:32:12 --> 00:32:16 And he saw how Jessica was attached to that Gatsby book. She said,
00:32:16 --> 00:32:18 well, you know, I got this whole shelf back here.
00:32:18 --> 00:32:23 Just knock yourself out. And she took advantage of that, you know? Yeah.
00:32:24 --> 00:32:30 But, yeah, I feel that. All right, so now I got to ask you a political question
00:32:30 --> 00:32:32 because this is a political show.
00:32:32 --> 00:32:38 And this is an election year. So my political question to you is,
00:32:39 --> 00:32:40 what would you like to see public
00:32:40 --> 00:32:46 policy-wise to address youth drug addiction? That's a good question.
00:32:47 --> 00:32:54 I think one thing is, it's amazing to me how there's still a stigma around addiction
00:32:54 --> 00:32:59 and still a stigma around kids and addiction.
00:32:59 --> 00:33:07 And sort of this ability to kind of cordon off people, you know, sort of like the,
00:33:08 --> 00:33:15 addiction truly exists among poor people in, you know, middle America who are
00:33:15 --> 00:33:16 struggling and there's, you
00:33:16 --> 00:33:21 know, there's fentanyl and there's overdoses and that's like over there.
00:33:21 --> 00:33:28 That's contained. And I think I'm not a public policy person,
00:33:28 --> 00:33:32 so I'm going to answer this in somewhat of a naive fashion, I suppose.
00:33:33 --> 00:33:39 But I think being open and being honest about it and being on the ground with
00:33:39 --> 00:33:45 it, you know, like not thinking of always thinking of numbers,
00:33:45 --> 00:33:49 and supporting, putting support behind treatment.
00:33:50 --> 00:33:55 And because, you know, you can be cynical and say, well, you know,
00:33:55 --> 00:33:58 people only change when they want to change and da-da-da-da-da.
00:33:58 --> 00:34:04 But, for example, in Portland here, there's a recovery community center that
00:34:04 --> 00:34:09 does a lot of really good work, but they're always struggling financially because
00:34:09 --> 00:34:12 money isn't put into that kind of thing.
00:34:12 --> 00:34:17 And they're doing okay, but it's, you can tell that,
00:34:18 --> 00:34:23 I mean, it's just absurd to me that where wealth is distributed and addiction
00:34:23 --> 00:34:30 and services is an area that just people would rather turn away and pretend
00:34:30 --> 00:34:32 doesn't exist. I think, unfortunately.
00:34:33 --> 00:34:43 So money and attention and people talking about it is risky for politicians,
00:34:43 --> 00:34:45 you know? It's like you—it.
00:34:48 --> 00:34:54 Baffles me and it saddens me how much people don't talk about when they're in
00:34:54 --> 00:34:57 the public eye because they know how it's going to be perceived,
00:34:58 --> 00:35:02 especially now in our climate. which is just insane.
00:35:03 --> 00:35:06 I mean, the lunatics are truly running the asylum right now.
00:35:06 --> 00:35:09 And I don't know, man. I...
00:35:11 --> 00:35:16 I'm glad I don't have to teach history because I would not be able to teach
00:35:16 --> 00:35:18 it in any way objectively.
00:35:18 --> 00:35:25 I would just want to spout things off. And I remember I had a neoconservative
00:35:25 --> 00:35:29 student who I liked a lot, but we just didn't touch on politics.
00:35:30 --> 00:35:35 You know, I mean, I just didn't want to. And he was very well spoken and he
00:35:35 --> 00:35:39 was respectful and everything, but his ideology was just beyond me.
00:35:40 --> 00:35:46 Yeah. Well, you know, there's, I mean, I encountered that in my regular job,
00:35:47 --> 00:35:52 you know, and I just, and I'm somebody that's been in the public arena.
00:35:53 --> 00:35:58 Yeah. And I still, you know, in certain environments, you know,
00:35:58 --> 00:36:02 when to talk about something, when not to or that kind of thing.
00:36:03 --> 00:36:09 I think the biggest problem we have in addressing issues is forgetting.
00:36:10 --> 00:36:13 And you mentioned the word earlier, empathy.
00:36:14 --> 00:36:18 And humanizing people. And normally, when I come to this part of the interview,
00:36:18 --> 00:36:26 I always ask what authors were trying to, you know, what do you want readers to get out of the book?
00:36:26 --> 00:36:34 And I just instead of asking you that I want to commend you because the humanization
00:36:34 --> 00:36:38 of Jessica is is so important to me in the book,
00:36:39 --> 00:36:44 the fact that she is still a normal teenager even though she's dealing with
00:36:44 --> 00:36:50 this addiction she's got crushes on people she she she you know I don't want
00:36:50 --> 00:36:53 to hang out with this person I think this girl is cool you know what I'm saying?
00:36:53 --> 00:36:58 Just all the basic stuff that teenagers are dealing with, she's dealing with it.
00:36:58 --> 00:37:02 But there's this black dog that's part of her life too.
00:37:03 --> 00:37:09 And so that's the thing I think when it comes to addressing issues is that we
00:37:09 --> 00:37:11 forget how to humanize it.
00:37:12 --> 00:37:16 And I think that's why we're in this position now, because when we look at somebody,
00:37:17 --> 00:37:21 that's not of the same political party or,
00:37:21 --> 00:37:24 they're going through some stuff, whether they're homeless, whether they're
00:37:24 --> 00:37:28 going through addiction, whether they're going through mental illness, anything like that.
00:37:29 --> 00:37:34 It's because there's a block in our mind. We create stigmas because we take
00:37:34 --> 00:37:36 away the humanity of people.
00:37:37 --> 00:37:44 And so I think if we got back to, now we may not do things like in Portland,
00:37:44 --> 00:37:47 Maine, or we may not do things like in San Francisco, California,
00:37:47 --> 00:37:51 or however, you know, Charleston, West Virginia,
00:37:52 --> 00:37:56 everybody's going to have to address it the way they need to address it in their particular areas.
00:37:56 --> 00:38:03 But I think if you come from a place of humanity, we can figure this stuff out.
00:38:03 --> 00:38:05 So anyway, all right, that's my speech.
00:38:06 --> 00:38:08 I always got to get a speech in with my guests at some point.
00:38:09 --> 00:38:13 Finish this sentence. I have hope because...
00:38:14 --> 00:38:18 I have hope because kids, I mean, it's cliche, but I have a 20-year-old daughter and,
00:38:19 --> 00:38:27 I see sort of how far we've come in terms of attitudes towards sexual orientation,
00:38:28 --> 00:38:32 and gender and kindness, acceptance.
00:38:32 --> 00:38:39 I see growth in her and her friends, and that encourages me.
00:38:39 --> 00:38:45 It encourages me that people still care and that there are a number of people
00:38:45 --> 00:38:52 who are involved and keeping their hope alive, you know, just,
00:38:53 --> 00:38:55 I mean, like you said, you are an example.
00:38:55 --> 00:39:04 I mean, keeping humanity at the forefront and trying to foster humanity is hopeful to me.
00:39:04 --> 00:39:11 Creativity is hopeful to me. Expression, going to see movies and art and dance
00:39:11 --> 00:39:16 and all kinds of things where people aren't, it's out of a political arena.
00:39:16 --> 00:39:22 I mean, you can have political work, obviously, but people are creating,
00:39:22 --> 00:39:27 people are still creating, and they're still listening to each other, thankfully.
00:39:28 --> 00:39:29 And I think there's less.
00:39:31 --> 00:39:35 I think the extremes are smaller. I think our perspective is warped,
00:39:35 --> 00:39:40 where it's like all extreme, and it's here and it's there. It's completely polarized.
00:39:41 --> 00:39:44 And that's a sensationalist way of perceiving it, I think.
00:39:46 --> 00:39:50 There's a lot of common ground among people. And like you said,
00:39:50 --> 00:39:54 if we can, we're all, I mean, it sounds so obvious, but we're all human.
00:39:55 --> 00:40:02 Like, we're literally all human. And so we have to be able to connect with each other,
00:40:03 --> 00:40:08 in order to survive, you know, like in order to keep our species alive,
00:40:08 --> 00:40:11 we need to connect with each other. And I do see that happening.
00:40:12 --> 00:40:18 I see the opposite happening, too, but I do see that happening on the ground, thankfully. Yeah.
00:40:19 --> 00:40:25 All right. So this book just came out. How can people get Black Dog and how
00:40:25 --> 00:40:27 can people reach out to you?
00:40:28 --> 00:40:35 Okay, so I have a website. It's E-R-I-C-A, Erica Kent, K-E-N-T.
00:40:35 --> 00:40:41 So ericakent.com is my website, and you can contact me there,
00:40:41 --> 00:40:44 and I love to hear from people, from readers.
00:40:44 --> 00:40:53 It's on sale at Amazon and Bookshop and Barnes & Noble, and it's on sale through
00:40:53 --> 00:40:57 the publisher, Santa Fe Writers Project. So there's a lot of different ways to get it.
00:40:58 --> 00:41:02 Yeah. Well, Erica Kent, first of all, thank you for writing a book.
00:41:04 --> 00:41:10 It is, it's a beautifully written book. Thank you. Especially considering the subject matter.
00:41:11 --> 00:41:16 You know, it was not, you know, when you get it, it's like, we're going to talk about drug addiction.
00:41:16 --> 00:41:18 It's like, oh, this is going to be heavy. You know what I'm saying?
00:41:18 --> 00:41:22 And then it's like, you read it and it's like, huh, that didn't hurt at all.
00:41:22 --> 00:41:26 That was, that was actually a great story. You know what I'm saying?
00:41:26 --> 00:41:33 So I appreciate the way that you wrote that. And I encourage everybody to get a copy of it.
00:41:33 --> 00:41:37 But most importantly, I really, really want to thank you for taking the time,
00:41:37 --> 00:41:41 to come on the podcast and talk about the book and some other things.
00:41:42 --> 00:41:46 I'm really honored. Thank you. Oh, thank you. Thanks for having me.
00:41:47 --> 00:41:49 All right, guys. We're going to catch y'all on the other side.
00:42:09 --> 00:42:15 All right. And we are back. So now it is time for my next guest, Aaron Bosslund.
00:42:16 --> 00:42:22 Aaron Bosslund is the executive director of Men for Choice, where he founded
00:42:22 --> 00:42:29 and expanded the organization's youth fellowship program by over 1%,
00:42:29 --> 00:42:36 making it the centerpiece of Men for Choice's effort to engage passively pro-choice
00:42:36 --> 00:42:39 men as active allies for reproductive freedom.
00:42:40 --> 00:42:44 Aaron began his career with AmeriCorps and D.C. public schools before moving
00:42:44 --> 00:42:49 to Miami for Teach for America, where he was the Florida winner of the Sue Layman
00:42:49 --> 00:42:51 Excellence in Teaching Award.
00:42:51 --> 00:42:56 From this experience, he shifted to community organizing, serving as chair of
00:42:56 --> 00:43:00 Engage Miami, now Florida's largest youth civic engagement group,
00:43:01 --> 00:43:07 and was honored with the 2024 National Mentorship Award from New Leaders Council.
00:43:07 --> 00:43:12 In 2025, the Miami New Times recognized Aaron as Best Activist.
00:43:13 --> 00:43:18 Aaron also serves on the Victory Fund Campaign Board and holds master's degrees
00:43:18 --> 00:43:22 from the University of Miami and Harvard University.
00:43:22 --> 00:43:26 Ladies and gentlemen, it is my distinct honor and privilege to have as a guest
00:43:27 --> 00:43:30 on this podcast, Aaron Balsam.
00:43:41 --> 00:43:45 All right. Aaron Bosslin, how are you doing? So are you doing good?
00:43:45 --> 00:43:47 I'm good. Good to be with you, Eric.
00:43:48 --> 00:43:51 Well, I'm honored to have you on because you caught my attention.
00:43:52 --> 00:43:56 I noticed there was this organization out there called Men for Choice.
00:43:57 --> 00:44:02 And I said, oh, I have to get this young man on to talk about that.
00:44:02 --> 00:44:07 Because as you know, you occupy a pretty unique space in the political conversation.
00:44:08 --> 00:44:11 So I definitely wanted you to come on and talk about, you know,
00:44:11 --> 00:44:13 what you are doing in that space.
00:44:14 --> 00:44:21 But before we get into the meat of the conversation, I do a couple of icebreakers, Aaron.
00:44:22 --> 00:44:26 So the first icebreaker is a quote I want you to respond to.
00:44:26 --> 00:44:32 And the quote is, in the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies,
00:44:32 --> 00:44:34 but the silence of our friends.
00:44:36 --> 00:44:41 Well, I think that quote basically gets to the heart of what Men for Choice is.
00:44:42 --> 00:44:46 You know, are we going to be the kinds of guys who sit out attacks on abortion
00:44:46 --> 00:44:49 rights because it's not our body under attack?
00:44:49 --> 00:44:53 Or are we going to step up? And if you look at every successful movement,
00:44:53 --> 00:44:56 the civil rights movement, the labor movement, the women's movement,
00:44:56 --> 00:45:00 the LGBT movement, none of those groups have the numbers on their own.
00:45:00 --> 00:45:03 They need friends and allies. And it's one thing to say that.
00:45:03 --> 00:45:05 It's another thing to do something about it. So I think that quote's about on.
00:45:06 --> 00:45:12 Okay. All right. So now the next one, icebreaker, is called 20 questions.
00:45:13 --> 00:45:16 So I need you to give me a number between 1 and 20.
00:45:19 --> 00:45:23 Whichever number you want. I pick the number. Let's go with 14.
00:45:24 --> 00:45:31 Okay. What does the idea of a better world mean to you and what will be different
00:45:31 --> 00:45:32 than the world that we're in now?
00:45:33 --> 00:45:37 You know, there's, I think, a simple answer to this and a complex answer.
00:45:37 --> 00:45:40 I actually think the simple answer says all of it.
00:45:40 --> 00:45:43 And the simple answer is we treat each other better.
00:45:43 --> 00:45:47 You know, I think we've gone a little crazy as a country, whether that's,
00:45:47 --> 00:45:51 you know, customer service when you're trying to deal with an issue with something
00:45:51 --> 00:45:55 you ordered or if you're trying to get a plane ticket or whatever,
00:45:55 --> 00:45:56 you know, issue with your internet.
00:45:56 --> 00:45:59 And we just don't know how to treat each other okay anymore.
00:45:59 --> 00:46:01 We don't know how to talk to each other.
00:46:01 --> 00:46:03 People aren't, you know, having the spaces they used to have,
00:46:03 --> 00:46:07 whether that's in churches or labor unions or wherever it may be.
00:46:07 --> 00:46:10 People aren't connected to their families in the way they used to be.
00:46:10 --> 00:46:14 And whatever the other side of this looks like, a better world looks like treating
00:46:14 --> 00:46:19 each other with more respect, more dignity, thinking about the impact our actions have on other people.
00:46:19 --> 00:46:27 And I think the more complex answer is how do we have a country where everyone
00:46:27 --> 00:46:32 can live their lives without others getting in the way of that?
00:46:33 --> 00:46:34 I used to be a public school teacher.
00:46:35 --> 00:46:38 Both my parents are teachers. All four of my grandparents were educators.
00:46:38 --> 00:46:43 So I spent a lot of time in my life thinking about the ways that we make it
00:46:43 --> 00:46:47 easy or difficult for people to reach their potential.
00:46:47 --> 00:46:51 And when it comes to the country looking forward, and especially because I work
00:46:51 --> 00:46:56 with a lot of young men, I don't see young people having a sense of confidence in the future.
00:46:56 --> 00:47:00 And so how can you have people growing up in this country, and they can get
00:47:00 --> 00:47:03 the training they need in schools, they can be confident that they'll be able
00:47:03 --> 00:47:08 to find a job, they'll be confident they'll be able to raise their own family, and that.
00:47:09 --> 00:47:12 That isn't going to be interrupted or made worse by government.
00:47:12 --> 00:47:15 If anything, it can be made better.
00:47:16 --> 00:47:22 Yeah. All right. So what is Men for Choice and why is this organization important?
00:47:22 --> 00:47:26 Yeah, so Men for Choice was started in Chicago in 2015.
00:47:26 --> 00:47:33 And the basic idea is to get passively pro-choice men, men who believe that
00:47:33 --> 00:47:36 everyone should have the freedom to control their own body, that the government
00:47:36 --> 00:47:40 shouldn't be banning and criminalizing abortion, rather than just,
00:47:41 --> 00:47:43 believing that to do something about it.
00:47:43 --> 00:47:49 Because 61% of men in America believe abortion should be legal in all or most
00:47:49 --> 00:47:53 cases, and virtually none of them are doing anything about it.
00:47:53 --> 00:47:57 So at the most basic level, it's about getting pro-choice men to get off the
00:47:57 --> 00:47:58 sidelines and into the fight.
00:47:59 --> 00:48:05 Why it matters is because with all the craziness happening in the news right
00:48:05 --> 00:48:10 now, and we're at a you know, new war every couple weeks and prices are out
00:48:10 --> 00:48:14 of control and whatever drama's coming out of Washington and,
00:48:15 --> 00:48:16 all the madness we're living through.
00:48:17 --> 00:48:22 One of the things that I think has fallen off people's radar is just how much...
00:48:23 --> 00:48:29 Government bans on abortion is affecting women and affecting health care more generally.
00:48:30 --> 00:48:35 So to give just one statistic, black women are three times more likely to die
00:48:35 --> 00:48:37 than white women during childbirth.
00:48:38 --> 00:48:42 And if you look at what's happening in the country, it's not getting media attention
00:48:42 --> 00:48:45 in the way it was a couple years ago after Roe was overturned.
00:48:45 --> 00:48:50 But you hear all kinds of stories of women who are having a miscarriage in a
00:48:50 --> 00:48:55 hospital and denied care because the doctors fear that they could be prosecuted
00:48:55 --> 00:48:57 criminally because you can't prove after the fact
00:48:58 --> 00:49:01 that they didn't provide quote-unquote illegal abortion.
00:49:01 --> 00:49:05 And so, you know, in the state of Georgia, for example, Amber Nicole Thurman
00:49:05 --> 00:49:10 is a woman who a few years ago was having a relatively simple medical complication,
00:49:10 --> 00:49:14 was denied medical care, died in an American hospital in Georgia
00:49:14 --> 00:49:20 because the doctors were afraid to provide her health care because of these anti-abortion laws.
00:49:20 --> 00:49:24 And so I think most guys, and certainly me too, prior to starting to work with
00:49:24 --> 00:49:27 Men for Choice six years ago, we might realize that's wrong,
00:49:27 --> 00:49:32 but it's not something we think about because if it's not your body,
00:49:32 --> 00:49:34 you're not going to think about it in the same way.
00:49:34 --> 00:49:37 I'm guessing that unless someone's in a wheelchair, they don't spend a lot of
00:49:37 --> 00:49:42 time thinking about if there's on ramps to enter a building in a safe and accessible way.
00:49:43 --> 00:49:49 And so the question becomes, If the majority of men are against what is happening
00:49:49 --> 00:49:52 with abortion laws, why aren't we doing something about it?
00:49:52 --> 00:49:57 And even more the case because it's men who are leading the charge to ban and
00:49:57 --> 00:50:01 criminalize abortion. But the guys on our side are just letting the women endure
00:50:01 --> 00:50:03 these attacks on their own, and we don't think that's okay.
00:50:06 --> 00:50:09 Well, you know, any organization that, that starts at a bar,
00:50:10 --> 00:50:14 I think is, has a potential to, to be great in America.
00:50:15 --> 00:50:19 I think that's, that's, that's, that's a cool history as far as men's for choices
00:50:19 --> 00:50:21 concerned, especially the Chicago Tavern.
00:50:22 --> 00:50:25 So yeah, I think that's pretty cool backstory.
00:50:25 --> 00:50:30 Yeah. Well, no, and I think so much of, so much I've learned in my time at my
00:50:30 --> 00:50:32 place is just the importance of people talking with each other.
00:50:32 --> 00:50:33 You know, we don't talk with each other enough.
00:50:35 --> 00:50:41 Yeah. What was your personal motivation to become the executive director of this organization?
00:50:42 --> 00:50:47 Yeah. So, I mean, I got involved in Men for Choice at the end of 2019 when I
00:50:47 --> 00:50:51 got an email that Men for Choice was going to expand out of Illinois and nationally.
00:50:52 --> 00:50:56 And what I realized in that moment, and for me, it was just reading the title
00:50:56 --> 00:50:58 of the email, the name Men for Choice.
00:50:59 --> 00:51:04 I kind of was like, is this about guys for abortion rights? And I realized that it.
00:51:05 --> 00:51:09 In that moment in 2019, with the Supreme Court, what it was,
00:51:09 --> 00:51:13 and I used to be a U.S. history teacher, and I wasn't great at math,
00:51:13 --> 00:51:16 but I knew enough math to see the five votes at the time that were on the Supreme Court.
00:51:17 --> 00:51:21 I knew this basic freedom was at risk. And it occurred to me just from that
00:51:21 --> 00:51:24 email that I wasn't doing anything about it.
00:51:24 --> 00:51:28 Similarly, Men for Choice, when it was founded in that bar in 2015,
00:51:28 --> 00:51:32 was because our co-founder sat through a presentation where he learned in seven minutes
00:51:33 --> 00:51:37 about attacks happening on abortion access at that time in 2015,
00:51:37 --> 00:51:39 pre-Donald Trump, pre-Roe being overturned.
00:51:40 --> 00:51:44 And he realized, how do I not know any of this? And how do no guys I know know any of this?
00:51:45 --> 00:51:49 And so to me, because of my background as a public school teacher,
00:51:49 --> 00:51:51 being active in my teacher's union.
00:51:51 --> 00:51:56 Various ways that I had tried to step up and make the community better,
00:51:56 --> 00:52:00 it felt like an obvious one that I was missing.
00:52:01 --> 00:52:05 And I've always been very close with my grandma, who is one of those women who
00:52:05 --> 00:52:11 in the 1960s was studying hard sciences and was the only woman in her classes
00:52:11 --> 00:52:12 and then became a professor later.
00:52:12 --> 00:52:16 And the 1990s was the first woman to get tenure in her department.
00:52:16 --> 00:52:21 And a lot of the older guys had given her a hard time. But as women of her generation
00:52:21 --> 00:52:22 did, she just kind of pushed through it.
00:52:22 --> 00:52:25 And I grew up with a pretty simple way of thinking about it,
00:52:25 --> 00:52:28 which was, my grandma is the coolest person I know.
00:52:29 --> 00:52:32 How did my grandma get to be the way she was? And so I'd hear these stories
00:52:32 --> 00:52:33 about the way women used to be
00:52:33 --> 00:52:37 treated and grew up thinking that that was something we were moving past.
00:52:37 --> 00:52:42 And so by the time it gets to 2019, in addition to I'm not doing anything on
00:52:42 --> 00:52:44 this, I thought about my grandma sort of.
00:52:45 --> 00:52:49 Eyeing the end of her life and the direction we're going as a country.
00:52:49 --> 00:52:53 And it felt kind of obvious to me that this was one to stand with.
00:52:53 --> 00:52:58 And then as far as becoming executive director, my background first as a teacher
00:52:58 --> 00:53:03 and then when I started working in political organizing and campaigns was all about young people.
00:53:03 --> 00:53:06 And so, like I said, my parents were both teachers and, you know,
00:53:06 --> 00:53:11 my grandparents as well. And, you know, I grew up, my dad was one of seven in
00:53:11 --> 00:53:15 one of those houses where there were lots of cousins around.
00:53:15 --> 00:53:17 There were lots of family members.
00:53:17 --> 00:53:21 And my grandpa, who first was a high school teacher and then a college professor,
00:53:21 --> 00:53:24 you know, there would even be former students who would come by who were still
00:53:24 --> 00:53:27 in the community and they might join for barbecues on the 4th of July.
00:53:27 --> 00:53:32 And so I just kind of grew up with this sense that we're supposed to look out
00:53:32 --> 00:53:36 for each other and a real basic idea that part of the role of older people is
00:53:36 --> 00:53:37 to support young people.
00:53:37 --> 00:53:42 And, you know, I was about 30 when I joined Men for Choice staff and I advocated
00:53:42 --> 00:53:46 for creating a youth fellowship program, which we started with seven guys six years ago.
00:53:47 --> 00:53:52 We now have over 130 participate at a time and do it three times a year. It's grown 19 fold.
00:53:53 --> 00:53:57 And so once we started doing this program for young men, training them as organizers,
00:53:57 --> 00:53:58 teaching them about the issue.
00:53:59 --> 00:54:02 And I started to see how much the young men were getting out of it.
00:54:03 --> 00:54:07 I became really drawn to the idea of we can build this whole organization around
00:54:07 --> 00:54:09 the guys who have gone through our program.
00:54:09 --> 00:54:13 They could learn how to organize they could learn about being better guys they
00:54:13 --> 00:54:14 can learn from each other about,
00:54:15 --> 00:54:18 you know how we need to treat people how we need to build community in ways
00:54:18 --> 00:54:22 that are just needed generally people need you know what get called third spaces
00:54:22 --> 00:54:27 spaces where they can just interact outside of work or home and so i saw a lot
00:54:27 --> 00:54:30 of potential in that and the obvious need that,
00:54:31 --> 00:54:34 you know, 61% of men in this country could be more active on this issue,
00:54:34 --> 00:54:38 could be standing with women and weren't. And between those two things,
00:54:38 --> 00:54:42 this felt like the right use of my time for the next phase of my life. Yeah.
00:54:43 --> 00:54:50 So you, like you said, it's estimated that 60 million American men via polls
00:54:50 --> 00:54:52 identify politically as pro-choice.
00:54:53 --> 00:54:59 And you've kind of answered this next question, but I want you to kind of flesh it out a little more.
00:54:59 --> 00:55:02 What is your strategy to activate them. Yeah.
00:55:04 --> 00:55:10 Well, for one, it's that most men, when they hear pro-choice,
00:55:10 --> 00:55:13 they either think one of two things. They just don't know what it is.
00:55:13 --> 00:55:16 And if that's the case, that's okay, but they just might not know.
00:55:17 --> 00:55:22 Or they say, well, that's a label for women, right? Like that's a women's label.
00:55:23 --> 00:55:26 I'm not going to step on that one. Of course, the problem is the guys who want
00:55:26 --> 00:55:31 to ban and criminalize abortion don't have any problem at all stepping into the issue.
00:55:31 --> 00:55:36 But we start with the assumption that men just haven't thought about this very
00:55:36 --> 00:55:39 much, wouldn't have much reason to think about it very much.
00:55:39 --> 00:55:44 In my experience, the only guys I know outside of Men for Choice who have spent
00:55:44 --> 00:55:48 much time thinking about this issue tend to be guys who something happened to
00:55:48 --> 00:55:51 their wife in the last couple years and she was denied care in a hospital.
00:55:51 --> 00:55:56 You know, men like Hope and Gomezy in Texas or Derek Cook in Florida or people
00:55:56 --> 00:56:00 who have had family members who are just shocked and they said doctors can't
00:56:00 --> 00:56:02 provide health care in America anymore.
00:56:02 --> 00:56:05 But unless you have that happen to you, you're not going to know.
00:56:05 --> 00:56:10 And so the first thing is to help guys understand the harm caused by abortion bans.
00:56:10 --> 00:56:15 The second is, you know, helping guys realize that this isn't just a women's
00:56:15 --> 00:56:20 issue. This is a broader issue about families and communities and health care.
00:56:20 --> 00:56:22 A third is that guys need an on-ramp.
00:56:22 --> 00:56:25 And the fourth is that they need a playbook. You know, what are you supposed
00:56:25 --> 00:56:26 to do? How are you supposed to do it?
00:56:27 --> 00:56:32 So the main way we do that is through our youth fellowship program with 18 to 28-year-old men.
00:56:32 --> 00:56:35 Next application is due on September 14th.
00:56:35 --> 00:56:39 And we have over 100 young men involved at a time who learn how to be organized,
00:56:39 --> 00:56:43 who actually run peer-to-peer, you know, small group conversations where they
00:56:44 --> 00:56:47 reach their male peers about the state of abortion rights in America because
00:56:47 --> 00:56:48 no guys are thinking about that.
00:56:48 --> 00:56:51 And it means something different if it comes from your male friend.
00:56:51 --> 00:56:56 And then the second thing is online communications. We've started doing more
00:56:56 --> 00:56:59 and more where, you know, mostly guys who have gone through our fellowship program
00:57:00 --> 00:57:02 are speaking out online and the numbers have gotten big there.
00:57:02 --> 00:57:08 In just the month of July, we reached 15 million people online just in the month of July
00:57:08 --> 00:57:12 and it's guys reaching to their networks, reaching to the guys they can reach,
00:57:12 --> 00:57:16 whether they're a gamer and they can reach gaming guys or they're a fitness
00:57:16 --> 00:57:20 guy and they can reach fitness guys it takes all of us to reach the audiences
00:57:20 --> 00:57:26 that we can reach and then the third way is through our our political entity,
00:57:26 --> 00:57:31 men for choice advocacy we mobilize at elections to get guys to show up to to
00:57:31 --> 00:57:35 knock doors make calls do what's needed to support you know the women who have
00:57:35 --> 00:57:38 been on their own with this one and we don't think it should be that way yeah.
00:57:39 --> 00:57:44 All right. So what is the biggest weapon that needs to be tapped into when you're
00:57:44 --> 00:57:46 trying to get these men off the fence?
00:57:47 --> 00:57:51 Is it the instinct of empathy or the desire for independence?
00:57:52 --> 00:57:57 It's a great question. I think both are important, but I think if I had to pick
00:57:57 --> 00:58:00 just one of those, because I think the other one comes from it,
00:58:00 --> 00:58:02 it's the desire for independence.
00:58:03 --> 00:58:09 You know, one of the things we've found is that when men realize that men are
00:58:09 --> 00:58:14 stakeholders with something to lose in this, it's not just about someone else,
00:58:14 --> 00:58:16 and start thinking about this as,
00:58:17 --> 00:58:18 what if this was your wife?
00:58:18 --> 00:58:21 What if this was your mom? What if this was your daughter?
00:58:21 --> 00:58:25 Do you want your daughter growing up in a country with fewer rights than your grandma did?
00:58:25 --> 00:58:31 Those kinds of things, not to mention, you know, we kind of take for granted that.
00:58:33 --> 00:58:37 In America, you get to plan your own family without government interference.
00:58:37 --> 00:58:40 That isn't necessarily going to be the case much longer. And so I think once
00:58:40 --> 00:58:44 guys realize that an attack on one of us is an attack on all of us,
00:58:44 --> 00:58:48 and this can affect you and your family, especially if they hear from a man,
00:58:48 --> 00:58:50 for example, Derek Cook,
00:58:50 --> 00:58:53 who I know very well here in Florida,
00:58:53 --> 00:58:58 his wife was denied care during a miscarriage, a pregnancy at 16 weeks,
00:58:58 --> 00:59:03 and then the next day lost half the blood in her body when she had to miscarry
00:59:03 --> 00:59:05 in a beauty salon in a bathroom.
00:59:06 --> 00:59:11 And when I met him, he was just distraught. He didn't realize that that could
00:59:11 --> 00:59:13 happen to someone in America.
00:59:13 --> 00:59:19 And his exact words to me is, I want to talk to men before they're holding their
00:59:19 --> 00:59:21 wife while she's bleeding out in a public bathroom.
00:59:22 --> 00:59:27 And so I think when you realize that this is serious and this can affect anyone.
00:59:28 --> 00:59:31 And tap into that, I think, instinct that most Americans have,
00:59:31 --> 00:59:35 that the government shouldn't be interfering in the details of your private
00:59:36 --> 00:59:39 decisions that you and your wife know better than, you know,
00:59:39 --> 00:59:42 Ted Cruz or Ron DeSantis or Donald Trump.
00:59:43 --> 00:59:46 I think that's the main thing. I think the empathy comes from that.
00:59:47 --> 00:59:49 Because if we can start to say, well, I wouldn't want the government telling
00:59:49 --> 00:59:50 me what to do with my body.
00:59:51 --> 00:59:53 I wouldn't want the government getting between me and my doctor.
00:59:54 --> 00:59:56 If you can see that in yourself, you can then see it in somewhere else.
00:59:56 --> 00:59:58 And that's where the empathy comes in.
00:59:59 --> 01:00:03 Yeah. Yeah. And that's, that's very thoughtful.
01:00:03 --> 01:00:06 You know, when I was putting the question together,
01:00:07 --> 01:00:12 you know, I was kind of thinking that some people would say to empathy first,
01:00:12 --> 01:00:16 because a lot of times in our political discussions,
01:00:17 --> 01:00:24 we forget that the person on the other side or the people that we make decisions for are humans.
01:00:25 --> 01:00:32 And, you know, I think that empathy has been just really just taken all out
01:00:32 --> 01:00:33 of the political debate.
01:00:35 --> 01:00:39 And so that's why I wanted, you know, since you're a frontline person on this
01:00:39 --> 01:00:42 issue, I just wanted to kind of pick your brain on it. And the fact that you
01:00:42 --> 01:00:44 didn't hesitate was very impressive.
01:00:44 --> 01:00:47 You went right into it. So I appreciate that.
01:00:48 --> 01:00:55 Do you think that the 2026-2028 elections will lead to a reversal of the Dobbs decision?
01:00:56 --> 01:00:59 Not yet, because I think that,
01:01:00 --> 01:01:06 for the next couple years, as long as the current administration is in office
01:01:06 --> 01:01:09 and can keep appointing people who,
01:01:09 --> 01:01:15 mostly through a lot of behind the scenes sort of ways can further restrict
01:01:15 --> 01:01:18 and ban various forms of reproductive health care.
01:01:19 --> 01:01:20 They're still going to be able to do that.
01:01:20 --> 01:01:25 You know, the new attorney general, you know, said privately when he was courting
01:01:25 --> 01:01:28 support, even though he's Donald Trump's personal lawyer and there were lots
01:01:28 --> 01:01:32 of reasons not to appoint him, he was doing that legwork to get the votes he
01:01:32 --> 01:01:34 needed to become attorney general.
01:01:34 --> 01:01:38 And something he said to a number of, you know, far right leaders was we're
01:01:38 --> 01:01:41 going to make the Dobbs decision in effect in every state. In other words,
01:01:41 --> 01:01:45 what they said about, you know, we'll leave it to the states was a lie.
01:01:46 --> 01:01:48 And we knew it was a lie, but now they're saying it was a lie.
01:01:49 --> 01:01:52 And they're planning to take it farther and ban and criminalize abortion in
01:01:52 --> 01:01:56 every state. So they'll still be able to do all those things and what I think
01:01:56 --> 01:02:01 the midterms could do is send a signal that the wind is against them.
01:02:02 --> 01:02:05 Because I think we forget sometimes, you know, we look at who's in office and
01:02:05 --> 01:02:09 we think that the president or powerful people are just sort of pulling levers
01:02:09 --> 01:02:11 and it just kind of happens.
01:02:11 --> 01:02:14 But they're looking at public opinion too and they're looking at what they can
01:02:14 --> 01:02:18 get away with and, you know, I don't see any world where this gets significantly
01:02:18 --> 01:02:21 better in the next few years, but certainly,
01:02:22 --> 01:02:25 a result that shows the country's not on board with what they're doing would
01:02:25 --> 01:02:28 be sanded their gears, would slow them down.
01:02:29 --> 01:02:31 Which gets into the importance of this being a long-term fight.
01:02:31 --> 01:02:36 You know, 50 years ago, when Roe v. Wade was decided, you know,
01:02:36 --> 01:02:39 the opposition lost 7-2 at the Supreme Court.
01:02:39 --> 01:02:42 And they were losing on everything. And the same people, by the way,
01:02:42 --> 01:02:49 who started the anti-abortion movement were also against the civil rights movement.
01:02:49 --> 01:02:55 And one of the reasons that the anti-abortion movement took off was realizing
01:02:55 --> 01:03:01 that supporting segregationist policies, For example, opposing tax exemptions
01:03:01 --> 01:03:03 for private schools in the South that.
01:03:04 --> 01:03:06 You know, wanted to uphold segregationist private institutions.
01:03:07 --> 01:03:08 That wasn't a political winner anymore.
01:03:09 --> 01:03:12 But they realized that by turning to abortion and sort of claiming to be for
01:03:12 --> 01:03:16 families, they could present something that was a little more digestible for people.
01:03:16 --> 01:03:20 And they lost and they lost and they lost until they started winning.
01:03:20 --> 01:03:23 And so I think we need to have that mindset, just like those who came before
01:03:23 --> 01:03:27 us, that we're not going to win this one in the immediate future.
01:03:27 --> 01:03:28 And so we have two options.
01:03:29 --> 01:03:32 Do we give up and say, well, I guess that's how the country's going to be,
01:03:32 --> 01:03:38 and, you know, oh, these people have won, or do we stem the bleeding as much
01:03:38 --> 01:03:41 as we can and dig in for a long fight ahead like those before us did?
01:03:42 --> 01:03:51 Yeah, I think the only reason why I think if the results are the Democrats take
01:03:51 --> 01:03:56 hold of the House and the Senate and then a Democrat's elected president.
01:03:57 --> 01:04:01 Or a progressive Republican. I don't know. I mean, I think they still exist
01:04:01 --> 01:04:04 somewhere. They might be unicorns, but I think they still exist.
01:04:05 --> 01:04:11 I think that they're going to learn the lesson from not codifying Roe v.
01:04:11 --> 01:04:19 Wade when it was the decision that was protecting women's reproductive rights.
01:04:19 --> 01:04:22 Just like they're learning the lesson about the Civil Rights Act.
01:04:23 --> 01:04:28 I think, you know, when you get to a point where things have been going the
01:04:28 --> 01:04:37 same and you lose that right after you thought it was, you know,
01:04:37 --> 01:04:43 you took it for granted, then, you know, again, you're in shock when you do lose it.
01:04:44 --> 01:04:51 So I just, I think I'm hopeful that they're going to be more proactive.
01:04:52 --> 01:04:55 And yeah, I just hope that they're going to be more proactive.
01:04:56 --> 01:05:04 All right. So the next question is, how does the pro-choice movement fit into the preamble of the U.S.
01:05:04 --> 01:05:11 Constitution's charge of promoting the general welfare and the protection of
01:05:11 --> 01:05:12 individual liberties? Thanks.
01:05:13 --> 01:05:17 It's a great question. I mean, I think it's a really basic one of,
01:05:17 --> 01:05:21 are we going to be the kind of country where individuals and families get to
01:05:21 --> 01:05:25 make their own decisions about what's best for them? Or are we going to trust
01:05:25 --> 01:05:27 mostly men and government to do it for us?
01:05:27 --> 01:05:30 And so I think if you think about the kind of country where,
01:05:31 --> 01:05:36 you know, everyone born here can look out at the world and think,
01:05:36 --> 01:05:38 I've got a decent shot of getting ahead.
01:05:39 --> 01:05:44 If something happens to me, You know, it's not going to be, it's not going to
01:05:44 --> 01:05:49 be a life ending catastrophe if I have an issue in an American hospital and
01:05:49 --> 01:05:51 I can, I can, I can get care.
01:05:51 --> 01:05:55 I'm confident that I'm able to chart the path that that's, that's best for myself.
01:05:55 --> 01:05:59 Uh, I think we're all, we're all better off when individuals can make healthier
01:05:59 --> 01:06:03 decisions for themselves on this issue and, and more generally. Yeah.
01:06:04 --> 01:06:12 When your time at Men for Choice comes to an end, what will people say about your leadership?
01:06:13 --> 01:06:19 It's a great question and, you know, obviously best answered by others down the road.
01:06:19 --> 01:06:25 But what I would hope they would say is that I live the values of the organization.
01:06:25 --> 01:06:30 You know, you asked that quote at the beginning about the thing we'll remember
01:06:31 --> 01:06:33 is the silence of our friends.
01:06:34 --> 01:06:39 And we at Men for Choice talk a lot about your politics is the way you treat people.
01:06:40 --> 01:06:43 So if we claim we're here to support others, if we claim we're going to be the
01:06:43 --> 01:06:49 kinds of guys who believe that things can be better than they are now,
01:06:49 --> 01:06:54 that we don't have to fall into this sort of embarrassing, selfish, angry,
01:06:55 --> 01:07:01 cruel kind of country, if we're going to say that, then we need to do that.
01:07:02 --> 01:07:05 And what I would hope is that, you know, when the dust settles and people are
01:07:05 --> 01:07:11 looking back, whether that's 10 or 20 or 30 years from now, I would hope that
01:07:11 --> 01:07:15 they would say he was consistent with what he said and what he did.
01:07:15 --> 01:07:19 And I would also hope, because we have a lot of men in their 20s on staff,
01:07:19 --> 01:07:25 I would hope they would say, I learned something from him about how to treat
01:07:25 --> 01:07:29 others that has lasted with me in the decisions I've made in my career and my family.
01:07:29 --> 01:07:39 Finish this sentence I have hope because I have hope because I used to be a U.S. history teacher.
01:07:40 --> 01:07:44 And I'm well aware that things are bad, but this is not the worst it's ever been.
01:07:44 --> 01:07:49 And I'm aware that at many points in history, people think they're uniquely,
01:07:50 --> 01:07:54 facing the worst thing that's ever happened. And this isn't the worst this country's ever faced.
01:07:55 --> 01:07:58 It's not the worst even in the living lifetime of some people who might have
01:07:58 --> 01:08:00 lived through the 1920s or 1930s.
01:08:01 --> 01:08:05 You know, ask a leader in the Montgomery bus boycott if this is the worst we've
01:08:05 --> 01:08:08 ever faced. They had it pretty hard and they endured.
01:08:08 --> 01:08:13 And so because the blueprint is there, we might have gotten out of practice
01:08:13 --> 01:08:17 with some of the old school practices of organizing from the civil rights movement,
01:08:17 --> 01:08:19 from the labor movement, but they're there.
01:08:20 --> 01:08:27 And I know enough to know this has happened before and be motivated to act based on that.
01:08:28 --> 01:08:36 Yeah. All right. So, Aaron Bosslin, how can people get involved with Men for Choice?
01:08:36 --> 01:08:39 And how can people reach out to you?
01:08:40 --> 01:08:46 Yeah. So, if you're interested, if you go to the Men for Choice website, it's men4choice.org.
01:08:47 --> 01:08:50 You can fill out a take action form. And then a member of our team will call
01:08:50 --> 01:08:53 you. It's not like most customer service chatbots or something where you fill
01:08:53 --> 01:08:56 out a form and no one gets back to you. Someone will call you that week.
01:08:56 --> 01:08:57 And they can pair you with the right thing.
01:08:58 --> 01:09:04 The most immediately actionable step is that we are accepting applications for
01:09:04 --> 01:09:05 our next fellowship program for
01:09:05 --> 01:09:09 18 to 28-year-old men, and you can either nominate a young man you know.
01:09:10 --> 01:09:14 To apply to the fellowship, or if you are an 18 to 28-year-old man,
01:09:14 --> 01:09:18 you can apply yourself, and sometimes guys in their 30s participate as well.
01:09:19 --> 01:09:24 And to get hold of us, email info, I-N-F-O, at menforchoice.org,
01:09:25 --> 01:09:30 or my personal email is Aaron, A-A-R-O-N, at menforchoice.org.
01:09:30 --> 01:09:36 And if anything I've said or the questions that Eric asked sparked something in you, then reach out.
01:09:36 --> 01:09:39 You know, most guys think they're not the right guy on this.
01:09:39 --> 01:09:42 Nearly everyone who ends up applying to the fellowship, they say something like,
01:09:42 --> 01:09:45 well, I haven't done a lot on abortion rights yet, and I'm not sure I'm the
01:09:45 --> 01:09:47 right guy. And we go, that's the point. No guy has.
01:09:48 --> 01:09:52 So don't hesitate to reach out. We'll also have a virtual event this Thursday
01:09:52 --> 01:09:56 on the history of abortion rights, where we'll hear from major national leader
01:09:56 --> 01:10:00 from the 1970s and an investigative journalist who's looked into abortion rights
01:10:00 --> 01:10:02 in the last 50 years. You can join that.
01:10:03 --> 01:10:07 But email info at menforchoice.org, email Aaron at menforchoice.org,
01:10:08 --> 01:10:12 go to the website or go to our Instagram page and you can learn ways to get plugged in.
01:10:13 --> 01:10:17 So you're a nonprofit, correct? Yes, sir.
01:10:18 --> 01:10:21 So that means people need to donate some money. So look, y'all go to the website.
01:10:22 --> 01:10:26 If y'all like what y'all hearing from Aaron or you like what you see on the
01:10:26 --> 01:10:29 website, make sure that you click that donate button.
01:10:29 --> 01:10:32 Because all this fun stuff that Aaron is doing and his staff,
01:10:33 --> 01:10:34 it doesn't come for free.
01:10:35 --> 01:10:38 They need whatever help that you can get.
01:10:38 --> 01:10:42 How'd I do? I do okay? That was great, Eric. Couldn't have asked for it anymore.
01:10:42 --> 01:10:44 The real energy here. All right.
01:10:46 --> 01:10:52 You know, it's like, yeah, I don't buy it. It's like y'all are doing good work,
01:10:53 --> 01:10:54 doing the Lord's work in some cases.
01:10:55 --> 01:10:59 And, you know, it's like if you're not, people, y'all need to ask for that money.
01:11:00 --> 01:11:05 Just like John Ossoff, every time he sends me an email, God bless him, I love him.
01:11:05 --> 01:11:08 But every time he sends me, Eric, it's urgent. I need something.
01:11:08 --> 01:11:12 It's like it's urgent that you all support these groups that are here doing
01:11:12 --> 01:11:14 this grassroots organizing.
01:11:14 --> 01:11:17 And so I just wanted to make sure I got that plug in there for you.
01:11:17 --> 01:11:21 Yeah. And if I could add, something is always better than nothing.
01:11:21 --> 01:11:25 If you can give five bucks, that's better than zero. If you can give two 50,
01:11:25 --> 01:11:30 that's better than zero. I think we get hung up sometimes on the idea that,
01:11:30 --> 01:11:35 well, I can't individually change it all. You know, I'm not politically connected or I'm not rich.
01:11:35 --> 01:11:39 And, you know, there's, there's, there's two things that I think can change the country.
01:11:40 --> 01:11:44 One is organized money, and there's a lot of that on the other side.
01:11:44 --> 01:11:46 And the other is organized people.
01:11:46 --> 01:11:50 And I think the trick of the organized people part is that no one thing any
01:11:50 --> 01:11:52 of us does, including me, is ever going to be enough.
01:11:52 --> 01:11:56 But if we all do what we can, it adds up because there's more of us than them.
01:11:56 --> 01:12:01 That's exactly right. All right, look, Aaron, thank you so much again for doing
01:12:01 --> 01:12:06 this. Thank you so much for taking the leadership of the organization.
01:12:06 --> 01:12:07 I wish you much luck on that.
01:12:08 --> 01:12:12 So anytime you have an open invitation to come back, so anytime you want to
01:12:12 --> 01:12:15 come back on and talk about this issue or some other issues,
01:12:15 --> 01:12:19 just let me know and we'll make that happen. Thank you, sir. Thanks for having me on.
01:12:20 --> 01:12:22 Yes, sir. All right, guys, we're going to catch y'all on the other side.
01:12:42 --> 01:12:47 All right, and we are back. And so now it is time for my next guest, Keon Charles.
01:12:47 --> 01:12:52 Keon is a San Francisco writer exploring politics, technology,
01:12:52 --> 01:12:56 culture, and the emerging mythology of American civilization.
01:12:57 --> 01:13:02 A self-described culture hacker, he uses essays, poetry, and social media to
01:13:02 --> 01:13:06 turn unconventional ideas into narratives built for the Internet age.
01:13:07 --> 01:13:14 He is also emerging as one of the young thought leaders in Afrofuturism.
01:13:14 --> 01:13:18 And so we're going to talk a little bit about that during the interview.
01:13:18 --> 01:13:22 So ladies and gentlemen, it is my distinct honor and privilege to have as a
01:13:22 --> 01:13:27 guest on this podcast, Keon Charles.
01:13:38 --> 01:13:42 Right. Keon Charles. How you doing, brother? You doing good?
01:13:43 --> 01:13:44 I'm doing pretty good. How are you doing?
01:13:45 --> 01:13:49 Doing fine. I'm glad that you could join us. I know you're out there on the
01:13:49 --> 01:13:56 West Coast, so it's a little earlier in the day for you, but we're going to make this thing work.
01:13:56 --> 01:14:02 I want to get right into it because you're kind of a unique brother.
01:14:02 --> 01:14:07 You're an artist, but you're also like a political writer and,
01:14:09 --> 01:14:13 excuse me, lecturer, and you're an Afro-futurist.
01:14:14 --> 01:14:18 So I want to get into that topic a little more with you.
01:14:19 --> 01:14:24 But before we do that, I do a couple of icebreakers. So the first icebreaker
01:14:24 --> 01:14:26 is a quote that I want you to respond to.
01:14:27 --> 01:14:32 And the quote is, We live under the false impression that our pain,
01:14:33 --> 01:14:36 our dreams are so incredibly unique.
01:14:39 --> 01:14:42 Uh, hmm, that sounds like a piece of a poem.
01:14:43 --> 01:14:50 Yeah, you know, if I remember correctly, that is a piece of a poem I wrote, like a fashion poem.
01:14:50 --> 01:14:54 I was writing a lot of, like, fashion poetry, where I took lines from,
01:14:54 --> 01:14:59 like, fashion magazines, articles, and kind of related things like that,
01:14:59 --> 01:15:01 and I compiled them with the poetry.
01:15:02 --> 01:15:06 And I don't remember exactly which poem that was, but that does sound familiar
01:15:06 --> 01:15:09 to me. Hopefully, I'm not completely off on that one. But, yeah,
01:15:09 --> 01:15:10 that's what it sounds like to me.
01:15:11 --> 01:15:16 And, you know, like I said, I got it out of fashion, but I think it can apply to history.
01:15:17 --> 01:15:23 You know, a lot of, you know, human pain and human dreams don't differ that
01:15:23 --> 01:15:25 much between different peoples.
01:15:26 --> 01:15:30 You know, that doesn't diminish the horrificness of pain or,
01:15:31 --> 01:15:32 you know, the joy of dreams.
01:15:33 --> 01:15:35 You know, these are all important and powerful things.
01:15:36 --> 01:15:41 But if you study a lot of different people you see a lot of similarity between
01:15:41 --> 01:15:45 them you know like a lot of people want to get wealthy a lot of people want
01:15:45 --> 01:15:49 to get rich you know that's important to a lot of people a lot of people have,
01:15:49 --> 01:15:55 trauma of war you know that's a human universal you know things like that you
01:15:55 --> 01:15:58 know so there's a lot of commonality on both the good and the bad,
01:15:59 --> 01:16:01 that we see across across the world and uh.
01:16:02 --> 01:16:09 That doesn't diminish anything but i think it It makes it easier to relate to people in a sense. Yeah.
01:16:10 --> 01:16:14 All right. So now the next icebreaker is what I call 20 questions.
01:16:14 --> 01:16:18 So I need you to give me a number between one and 20.
01:16:19 --> 01:16:29 Six. Okay. What do you think was the worst or best thing the previous administration did?
01:16:30 --> 01:16:39 Okay. I think the best thing the Biden administration did was the Inflation Reduction Act, the IRA.
01:16:40 --> 01:16:46 Because among other things, what that bill did was it spent a lot of resources
01:16:46 --> 01:16:54 and money on re-industrialization, particularly of two regions of the South and the Midwest.
01:16:55 --> 01:17:00 And for my own political goals, re-industrializing the South is key.
01:17:01 --> 01:17:04 You know, if you build up a lot of factories, the factories need workers,
01:17:05 --> 01:17:09 and that could attract a lot of people from the North and West to the South
01:17:09 --> 01:17:14 for work, particularly African-Americans or Black peoples, you know.
01:17:14 --> 01:17:21 So I think that bill had a lot of promise in furthering my goals.
01:17:21 --> 01:17:25 And because it was built, it was because it so benefited the South,
01:17:26 --> 01:17:31 even though it was done by a Democratic president, I thought to myself,
01:17:31 --> 01:17:35 even if Trump wins, there's no way he'll get rid of this bill because it's such
01:17:35 --> 01:17:37 a huge benefit to the red states.
01:17:38 --> 01:17:40 I was way wrong on that one, surprisingly.
01:17:41 --> 01:17:46 I'm still in shock that the Republicans just let that bill be destroyed when
01:17:46 --> 01:17:47 it's so heavily benefited them.
01:17:48 --> 01:17:53 But I was very excited about that. That's what I was watching very closely in
01:17:53 --> 01:17:54 the Biden administration.
01:17:56 --> 01:17:57 Alright, so,
01:17:58 --> 01:18:03 Well, Charles, what is an Afrofuturist? It's a fairly new movement,
01:18:04 --> 01:18:08 I think. It kind of blew up briefly, especially around Black Panther.
01:18:08 --> 01:18:12 And I think that Black Panther kind of turned it into, like,
01:18:13 --> 01:18:15 Black sci-fi kind of thing.
01:18:16 --> 01:18:25 But outside of Black Panther-ization of Afrofuturism, it was kind of an experimental kind of movement.
01:18:25 --> 01:18:31 It was driven by several women, like Natasha Womack being probably the biggest
01:18:31 --> 01:18:32 name, at least as far as I know.
01:18:33 --> 01:18:41 And it had a lot to do with owning time, like time being a fluid kind of nonlinear
01:18:41 --> 01:18:43 thing that you can control and play with.
01:18:44 --> 01:18:52 And so you could basically twist time to their purposes. And that's how it was used in narrative.
01:18:52 --> 01:18:57 Trying to remember the one book that's pushed me around. Yes, a lot of time travel.
01:18:58 --> 01:19:04 I guess Huston Wombeck used it to kind of tie older African modes of thought
01:19:04 --> 01:19:08 to African American and African action.
01:19:08 --> 01:19:11 So in a sense, it had a pan-Africanist bent to it as well.
01:19:12 --> 01:19:17 But yeah, it's very experimental, but it's been kind of.
01:19:18 --> 01:19:21 Mainstreamed too early I think unfortunately,
01:19:22 --> 01:19:27 yeah well we tend to do that you know when we get an idea you know even,
01:19:28 --> 01:19:31 just a just a basic example like in sports right,
01:19:32 --> 01:19:36 there's a young man that got drafted by Dallas Cowboys named Caleb Downs he's
01:19:36 --> 01:19:39 supposed to be one of the best safeties coming out of college,
01:19:39 --> 01:19:44 they've already compared his brother to Ronnie Lott I mean it's like he hasn't
01:19:44 --> 01:19:47 played to snap yet, but they said he's going to have the same impact that Ronnie
01:19:47 --> 01:19:50 Lott had for the 49ers and the 80s. You know what I'm saying?
01:19:51 --> 01:19:56 And so when you, when you said that the Black Pantherization of Afrofuturism,
01:19:56 --> 01:19:59 that's what I thought is like, okay, let,
01:20:00 --> 01:20:04 okay, Black Panther might be a form or might be an, a goal maybe,
01:20:05 --> 01:20:09 but I don't think that really defines the movement. Right. And so,
01:20:11 --> 01:20:17 I think a lot from what I was reading, a lot of it is, you know, how do we fit?
01:20:18 --> 01:20:22 Because it was like, it was a real, it was a billboard. I can't remember where
01:20:22 --> 01:20:26 the billboard was, but it was a billboard that said Black people are in the future.
01:20:28 --> 01:20:33 And that was always a joke for us, you know, watching some of the original sci-fi
01:20:33 --> 01:20:37 stuff that it was like, there was no Black people.
01:20:37 --> 01:20:40 And even after Star Trek introduced us to a Black person.
01:20:42 --> 01:20:45 Star Wars came out and there were no black people in Star Wars, right?
01:20:46 --> 01:20:49 And they all spoke with English accents. So we're trying to figure out,
01:20:49 --> 01:20:52 so they're going to be nothing but British people in the future.
01:20:52 --> 01:20:53 You know what I'm saying?
01:20:53 --> 01:21:00 So I think a lot of that drove the thought. It's like, what will our culture
01:21:00 --> 01:21:05 look like 20, 30, 100 years from now, right?
01:21:06 --> 01:21:09 So I'm going to ask you this question and then I'm going to go back to,
01:21:10 --> 01:21:13 I'll come back to Afrofuturism toward the end. But I do want to ask this question
01:21:13 --> 01:21:14 while we're thinking about it.
01:21:14 --> 01:21:19 What would African-American culture look like in a world without racism?
01:21:20 --> 01:21:24 That's a really good question. I, you know, assuming that we stay part of the
01:21:24 --> 01:21:30 US of A, you know, that we're not doing any separatist thing, you know, that's tough.
01:21:30 --> 01:21:35 I think it would squint for quite a bit. I think some black people would choose
01:21:35 --> 01:21:36 to assimilate into white culture.
01:21:36 --> 01:21:43 You know, I would argue, you know, that black Republicans are that essentially.
01:21:43 --> 01:21:44 They're assimilated black people.
01:21:45 --> 01:21:47 So I think some black people would go down that line.
01:21:48 --> 01:21:53 Some black people would stay as very nationalistic, you know,
01:21:53 --> 01:21:56 very strongly pro-black culture.
01:21:57 --> 01:22:01 And I think in a world without racism black culture is.
01:22:02 --> 01:22:05 Would develop in very unusual ways to us now,
01:22:06 --> 01:22:11 because racism would no longer be a binding agent you know like truthfully and
01:22:12 --> 01:22:16 i don't mean this in a negative sense just kind of this what it is a lot of
01:22:16 --> 01:22:19 our culture a lot of what binds us together is a shared pain,
01:22:19 --> 01:22:23 you know it's a shared history of struggle and if that just goes away,
01:22:24 --> 01:22:29 that is a good thing i think but we're losing a binding agent you know so what
01:22:29 --> 01:22:31 what becomes a binding agent next,
01:22:31 --> 01:22:33 you know that's my question you know i mean,
01:22:34 --> 01:22:40 you know it could be something like aave you know maybe you know language becomes
01:22:40 --> 01:22:44 like a binding agent that's how they do it in europe everyone's white in europe
01:22:44 --> 01:22:45 but you have different languages you know that's,
01:22:46 --> 01:22:50 a dividing factor or uniting factor religion might be an aspect of black church,
01:22:51 --> 01:22:55 i don't see the black church going away because of a lack of racism you know
01:22:55 --> 01:22:59 i think it'll stay around then that might be another binding agent that keeps the community together,
01:23:00 --> 01:23:05 you know so i i think there are i think there are enough elements in black culture
01:23:05 --> 01:23:11 to keep the culture together despite racism but it would still get looser and
01:23:11 --> 01:23:13 you would see more groups splinter off,
01:23:13 --> 01:23:17 and do their own thing you know which i think is a good thing you know people
01:23:17 --> 01:23:20 want to do that let them do it you know no big deal.
01:23:22 --> 01:23:29 I wonder to myself what our eyes to Africa would be like in that kind of setting.
01:23:29 --> 01:23:32 You know, would we choose? You know, there's already a movement now,
01:23:32 --> 01:23:35 you know, like ADOS or FDA,
01:23:35 --> 01:23:40 where they're kind of rejecting Africa altogether in favor of a kind of pure
01:23:40 --> 01:23:45 American kind of, you know, I'm using air quotes here for the audio,
01:23:45 --> 01:23:47 pure American kind of outlook.
01:23:48 --> 01:23:51 And I think things like that would continue to develop as well in a world-world
01:23:51 --> 01:23:53 racism, you know because again,
01:23:54 --> 01:23:58 part of what binds us to africans on the continent is a shared history of struggle
01:23:58 --> 01:24:04 against european oppression essentially and without that in without that bringing us together,
01:24:05 --> 01:24:09 ties get looser i think tires would get much looser in terms of africa because
01:24:09 --> 01:24:13 there's already the ties to africa are less strong than our ties to each other
01:24:13 --> 01:24:16 than americans just this is how it is,
01:24:16 --> 01:24:21 you know not that i'm you know i'm in favor of pro-asperties but I think just
01:24:21 --> 01:24:23 because highs are less, less than.
01:24:24 --> 01:24:28 So a lot of fragmentation, a lot of fragmentation, I think is the answer to that question.
01:24:29 --> 01:24:33 And that, you know, that's people's choice. You know, it would be a lot of free
01:24:33 --> 01:24:35 choice. I think it'd be interesting to see, you know?
01:24:36 --> 01:24:40 Yeah, I think, I think that would be interesting to see because I believe you're right.
01:24:41 --> 01:24:45 Well, I know you're right that the binding agent has been, like you said,
01:24:45 --> 01:24:49 pain. I mean, we've developed a whole genre. well, really two genres of music.
01:24:49 --> 01:24:55 When you look at blues and you look at rap, that's based out of pain, right, originally.
01:24:55 --> 01:25:03 And as it's gotten more mainstream and more acceptive, then more creative forces
01:25:03 --> 01:25:06 have been able to get in and take it to different levels.
01:25:06 --> 01:25:13 But like you said, a lot of the stuff, I mean, even the braids that women wear,
01:25:14 --> 01:25:18 and there's a language in that. right?
01:25:18 --> 01:25:22 And it was a survival mechanism in that. So.
01:25:23 --> 01:25:32 Yeah, it'll be interesting to see how, I mean, will we even call ourselves African-Americans anymore?
01:25:33 --> 01:25:36 What will we call ourselves, right? And that might be part of fragmentation
01:25:36 --> 01:25:42 that some would say, well, I'm ADOS, or some may say I'm just,
01:25:43 --> 01:25:44 I am who I am. I mean, I don't know.
01:25:45 --> 01:25:49 But I thought when I saw that, I said, that'll be a good question to ask because
01:25:49 --> 01:25:51 that's something futuristic we have to look at.
01:25:52 --> 01:25:56 But since you brought up Africa, let me ask you a couple of questions about,
01:25:57 --> 01:26:01 our relationship with the continent. And when I say our, I'm talking about the
01:26:01 --> 01:26:02 United States as a whole.
01:26:04 --> 01:26:08 Why should America stop backing the losing horse?
01:26:09 --> 01:26:14 Hmm. I, I, I mean by that, you mean Europe?
01:26:15 --> 01:26:19 Yeah. Define what the, I just threw it out there, but you can go ahead and define
01:26:19 --> 01:26:20 what the losing horse is.
01:26:22 --> 01:26:28 Sure. Yeah, I wrote an article for, excuse me, I wrote an article for Afro newspaper,
01:26:29 --> 01:26:32 that the U.S. needs to stop backing Europe in Africa.
01:26:33 --> 01:26:36 Because, in part, because Europe is a losing horse in Africa, like you said.
01:26:37 --> 01:26:44 You know, a while ago, there was a big story in the news about how Niger,
01:26:44 --> 01:26:48 I believe it was, hits France out. It was very humiliating for France.
01:26:49 --> 01:26:52 I cheered for it. I don't like French influence on Africa.
01:26:53 --> 01:26:59 So I was very supportive of Niger in that case. But shortly after the Niger
01:26:59 --> 01:27:04 kicked France out, they kicked the U.S. out on top of that, which was humiliating for the U.S.
01:27:04 --> 01:27:07 And we left. We left. As far as I'm aware, we did not raise a fuss.
01:27:08 --> 01:27:09 But we had recently built a
01:27:09 --> 01:27:13 huge, multi-million dollar base there that we had to give to the Russians.
01:27:14 --> 01:27:19 So it was very humiliating for the U.S. And I think part of the reason why that
01:27:19 --> 01:27:26 happened is because the U.S. has a habit of backing these decaying European powers in Africa.
01:27:26 --> 01:27:29 And the European influence in Africa is declining.
01:27:30 --> 01:27:33 It's facing severe pressure from China, from Russia.
01:27:34 --> 01:27:36 And they're distracted by the Ukraine
01:27:36 --> 01:27:40 war, the Europeans. And they're just increasingly unable to do anything.
01:27:41 --> 01:27:46 Even from a real European standpoint, they're unable to do anything constructive in Africa.
01:27:47 --> 01:27:50 Even for just their own influence, they can't. they can't, they don't have the
01:27:50 --> 01:27:53 strength anymore. That's why I'm asking myself, why are we backing it?
01:27:54 --> 01:27:58 Like, the only thing we're getting out of it, even from just a pure,
01:27:58 --> 01:28:04 like, real politic, like, hard-nosed angle, from just a pure self-interest point
01:28:04 --> 01:28:09 of view, the only thing we're getting out of backing the Europeans is the Africans' angry at us.
01:28:09 --> 01:28:11 We're not getting any influence out of it, but they're losing.
01:28:12 --> 01:28:13 So, like, what are we doing, you know?
01:28:15 --> 01:28:19 I think it would be better for our point of view as Americans,
01:28:19 --> 01:28:20 which is the U.S., right,
01:28:21 --> 01:28:27 if we took a more constructive but direct interest in Africa,
01:28:27 --> 01:28:31 as opposed to leaning on Europeans, especially our proxies in the region.
01:28:32 --> 01:28:36 I think it would be better for our interests as Americans. And,
01:28:36 --> 01:28:38 you know, I know you said just from an American point of view,
01:28:38 --> 01:28:42 but I also think it would be better for African-Americans specifically if the
01:28:42 --> 01:28:45 U.S. did this, as opposed to relying on the Europeans in the region.
01:28:46 --> 01:28:51 Yeah, I mean, it would be the dream of a Leon Sullivan, right,
01:28:51 --> 01:28:58 who had created, I guess it was the Opportunities Industry Council or something like that, where,
01:28:59 --> 01:29:07 it was basically his dream to have African-Americans doing business with Africans in straight trade.
01:29:08 --> 01:29:14 And definitely if we came in, and I think that's what President Obama was trying
01:29:14 --> 01:29:16 to establish before he left.
01:29:17 --> 01:29:22 I think that's what Vice President Harris wanted to do if she had gotten to be president.
01:29:22 --> 01:29:25 You know, she really kind of intimated that.
01:29:26 --> 01:29:31 And then none of that would have happened if there wasn't an African union that
01:29:31 --> 01:29:38 had become more stabilized, right, where we could go in and talk to people. So, I.
01:29:39 --> 01:29:43 You know, everybody says, well, the United States wasn't in the colony business.
01:29:43 --> 01:29:48 I said, well, Liberia actually was an American colony. And so was,
01:29:49 --> 01:29:50 to a degree, Sierra Leone.
01:29:51 --> 01:29:57 You know, because that was the place where a lot of freed slaves decided when
01:29:57 --> 01:30:01 they took the boat ride back to Africa and that's where they settled.
01:30:02 --> 01:30:06 So, you know, we were a colonial power, well, a colonial influence,
01:30:07 --> 01:30:11 even if it was just a little small part. but not like the Europeans.
01:30:11 --> 01:30:14 And I think you're right. Cause that kind of leads me to my next question.
01:30:15 --> 01:30:19 What is the soft, soft power advantage?
01:30:22 --> 01:30:24 So first I want to say that's interesting. Leon Sullivan, I had not heard of
01:30:24 --> 01:30:25 him in the past, but look him up later.
01:30:26 --> 01:30:30 So he said he was, he did business. He promoted business cars in the U S and
01:30:30 --> 01:30:31 Africa. Yeah. Leon Sullivan.
01:30:32 --> 01:30:37 Leon Sullivan. Yeah. He was a graduate of West Virginia state university and
01:30:37 --> 01:30:42 he, He had started an organization to develop trade with African nations,
01:30:42 --> 01:30:45 trying to set up African-American businesses to do trade.
01:30:46 --> 01:30:52 And, yeah, he it was I guess he set that up like in the 70s, late 70s.
01:30:52 --> 01:30:56 And it was pretty big in the 80s and the 90s.
01:30:56 --> 01:31:01 And I think he passed away like either in the late 90s or early 2000s.
01:31:02 --> 01:31:05 But that was that was kind of his his deal.
01:31:06 --> 01:31:10 That's fascinating. I never heard of them. I have to do more research on that. Thank you for that.
01:31:12 --> 01:31:17 As far as soft power, yeah, I think the U.S. has several advantages in terms
01:31:17 --> 01:31:23 of soft power with Africa, particularly relative to the Chinese and the Europeans,
01:31:24 --> 01:31:28 one of which, and I think the best one, is the African diaspora,
01:31:28 --> 01:31:33 in which I would include both recent African immigrants and their descendants
01:31:33 --> 01:31:36 in the U.S. and African-Americans.
01:31:36 --> 01:31:38 You know, the entire black population,
01:31:39 --> 01:31:43 I would include it as part of the African diaspora. And, you know,
01:31:44 --> 01:31:46 it's a significant edge.
01:31:46 --> 01:31:51 And I think if the U.S. wants to, quote-unquote, win in Africa,
01:31:51 --> 01:31:52 it will develop that edge.
01:31:53 --> 01:31:58 You know, one, the diaspora has always been interested in trade,
01:31:58 --> 01:32:03 as you said, in trade and in strengthening the African continent.
01:32:03 --> 01:32:07 There's a long history of that, of engagement with Africa for hundreds of years now.
01:32:08 --> 01:32:11 And I think harnessing that would be to our mutual benefit.
01:32:12 --> 01:32:18 All three powders, Africans, the diaspora, and the U.S. country and state.
01:32:18 --> 01:32:21 I think we'd all benefit from developing that edge.
01:32:22 --> 01:32:27 For Africans on the continent, you know, the African diaspora represents a huge,
01:32:28 --> 01:32:32 pro-African voting bloc that could very easily,
01:32:33 --> 01:32:38 you know, decide to vote for pro-African policy at the national level.
01:32:38 --> 01:32:43 And I'm kind of surprised that I don't, maybe I'm wrong, but the continental
01:32:43 --> 01:32:48 Africans have not really developed that very well, which seems to me pretty obvious.
01:32:48 --> 01:32:51 But, you know, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe they had not had to have it.
01:32:51 --> 01:32:54 I would have seen it. But that seems like an edge to me.
01:32:55 --> 01:32:59 The U.S. is the largest market in the world, the richest market in the world, I should say.
01:32:59 --> 01:33:06 And so, you know, if the African diaspora would be pro-AGOA,
01:33:07 --> 01:33:10 you know, the African growth, the opportunity act,
01:33:11 --> 01:33:14 the act that keeps the U.S. market open for African exports.
01:33:15 --> 01:33:18 That's a very important act for many African exporters.
01:33:19 --> 01:33:23 And if the African diaspora was to be in favor of that, like loudly in favor
01:33:23 --> 01:33:27 of that, enough to sway the government to keep it open, which is not happening
01:33:27 --> 01:33:29 right now, that would again be the benefit,
01:33:29 --> 01:33:34 to us in the diaspora, to Africans on the continent, and to the U.S.
01:33:34 --> 01:33:39 State. Because the U.S. state will be able to put in a policy that benefits
01:33:39 --> 01:33:44 the continental Africans and help sway them a little more, that little bit more
01:33:44 --> 01:33:47 to our side against, say, the Chinese or the Russians.
01:33:48 --> 01:33:50 So I think there's a lot of.
01:33:51 --> 01:33:55 Beneficial triangulation that can happen between our three sides,
01:33:56 --> 01:34:00 you know, in the realm of soft part. It doesn't have to be all guns a-blazing military stuff.
01:34:01 --> 01:34:05 You know, it could just be simple trade, simple diplomacy.
01:34:06 --> 01:34:09 And I think that we have the three sides to get to work together on that to
01:34:09 --> 01:34:11 further that for all of us.
01:34:12 --> 01:34:18 Yeah, because that was the reason why people were so upset when Elon Musk and
01:34:18 --> 01:34:22 Doge shut down USAID, because that was South power, right?
01:34:22 --> 01:34:25 That was like we were providing food to countries that needed help.
01:34:25 --> 01:34:30 We were providing, I think we were providing condoms for some nations,
01:34:30 --> 01:34:33 you know what I'm saying, to deal with the AIDS epidemic and all that.
01:34:33 --> 01:34:39 So that was kind of our entryway, whereas like China and Russia,
01:34:39 --> 01:34:42 even though Russia is part of, quote-unquote, part of Europe.
01:34:43 --> 01:34:46 They weren't part of the colonizing Europe in Africa.
01:34:47 --> 01:34:51 And China definitely wasn't. So they've been able to come in with money and
01:34:51 --> 01:34:56 say, look, you need a port, we'll build you a port. If you need a reservoir
01:34:56 --> 01:35:01 lake, we'll do that for you. And that's how they've been getting in.
01:35:01 --> 01:35:07 And so, like you said, we even had a program where...
01:35:08 --> 01:35:13 The U.S. Department of Agriculture, they'd hooked up with the HBCUs that were
01:35:13 --> 01:35:15 like land grant schools.
01:35:16 --> 01:35:19 So they had an agricultural component and they were.
01:35:20 --> 01:35:24 They were building alliances through like companies like Hershey and others,
01:35:24 --> 01:35:29 to teach African farmers, especially like those that grow cocoa to,
01:35:29 --> 01:35:32 you know, grow other crops.
01:35:32 --> 01:35:35 So they wouldn't be just dependent on that one crop. Right.
01:35:36 --> 01:35:41 I mean, if you even go back to the, what was that movie with Violet of the Women King, right?
01:35:42 --> 01:35:47 It was because of their ability to sell palm oil that they were able to say,
01:35:47 --> 01:35:52 well, we're not going to keep giving y'all bodies to use for the slave trade anymore.
01:35:53 --> 01:35:58 And that gave them enough power, not only economically, but even to the point
01:35:58 --> 01:36:02 where they could hold off the Portuguese in battle, right?
01:36:02 --> 01:36:11 So, yeah, soft power is the way that you're supposed to go as nation states. That's the ideal.
01:36:11 --> 01:36:16 But like you said, you know, the European model was like, come in,
01:36:17 --> 01:36:21 show some guns, intimidate some folks, and take over a country or a community,
01:36:21 --> 01:36:24 right? Right, absolutely. Yeah.
01:36:24 --> 01:36:28 All right, so let's get back to this Afrofuturism for a moment.
01:36:28 --> 01:36:33 What role do you think Afrofuturism will play in this year's midterm elections?
01:36:35 --> 01:36:41 You know, I'm not sure. The vibe I've been getting, and please let me come wrong,
01:36:41 --> 01:36:46 because I would love to be wrong, is that the black community has been really
01:36:46 --> 01:36:50 quite hurt by the loss of Kamala Harris in 2024.
01:36:50 --> 01:36:58 I've seen a lot of memes, you know, a lot of posts about the black community
01:36:58 --> 01:37:02 kind of taking a step back from a lot of politics, you know.
01:37:02 --> 01:37:07 Now that doesn't mean I don't think that that they won't vote like I'm not going
01:37:07 --> 01:37:12 to say they're going to completely check out I'm not saying all that but I think there is a level of,
01:37:12 --> 01:37:16 disillusionment a level of disenchantment with the black population right now,
01:37:17 --> 01:37:21 that's the vibe I'm kind of getting and so I've I think there will be a vote
01:37:21 --> 01:37:23 for like self-preservation,
01:37:24 --> 01:37:31 you know but I the vibe I'm getting is not one of like excitement or or even of much of much.
01:37:32 --> 01:37:38 Ideological ferments, you know, I think the most from what I've seen and heard,
01:37:38 --> 01:37:45 the most aggressive ideological force right now is probably ADOS and FDA like
01:37:45 --> 01:37:47 those kind of movements, you know, that kind of,
01:37:47 --> 01:37:53 I wouldn't even know what to call them, nativist kind of movements and there,
01:37:53 --> 01:37:57 I wouldn't call them democratic, like blue movements at all,
01:37:58 --> 01:38:03 so I don't know, you know, I think for the most part African Americans will vote Democratic.
01:38:03 --> 01:38:06 I think we've been quite hurt by this administration, and I think that will
01:38:06 --> 01:38:08 get people to the polls for the most part.
01:38:09 --> 01:38:13 But I I'm not seeing much in the way of, like.
01:38:14 --> 01:38:17 Anything beyond that, you know, and like I said, I would like to be wrong.
01:38:18 --> 01:38:22 So if you think something else, please, please help me out.
01:38:22 --> 01:38:29 Well, I think, I think initially, I think, you know, after the November 24 election,
01:38:29 --> 01:38:32 I think that was seriously the vibe.
01:38:32 --> 01:38:38 I think since the move to do all that redistricting took place,
01:38:39 --> 01:38:43 I think that's been kind of the wake up call that it was like,
01:38:43 --> 01:38:49 okay, Because I know the Sunday after they did the redistricting in Texas,
01:38:49 --> 01:38:51 or no, the Supreme Court, the Calais decision.
01:38:52 --> 01:38:58 When they said it was all right to redraw those lines in Louisiana so that Black
01:38:58 --> 01:38:59 folks would lose representation.
01:39:00 --> 01:39:04 It was like the Sunday after that, it was like thousands of Black women got
01:39:04 --> 01:39:08 on Zoom and was like saying, OK, we got to organize for the election.
01:39:09 --> 01:39:14 And, you know, so I think the vibe that you're kind of feeling is what they
01:39:14 --> 01:39:16 call in the military trust, but verify.
01:39:17 --> 01:39:25 Right. It's like we know that the Democratic Party is the party where our best interest is.
01:39:26 --> 01:39:30 But there are some that felt like the party didn't do enough,
01:39:30 --> 01:39:32 even though she only had one hundred and seven days.
01:39:33 --> 01:39:37 They still didn't do enough to make sure that this black woman got what she needed.
01:39:37 --> 01:39:41 Now, she raised more money in 107 days than any human being on the planet.
01:39:42 --> 01:39:47 I mean, she she put together a presidential campaign that nobody will ever rival
01:39:47 --> 01:39:50 ever again just to be close. Right.
01:39:51 --> 01:39:56 But, you know, a lot of black folks that could have made money as far as consultants
01:39:56 --> 01:39:58 and stuff were left out of the loop.
01:39:59 --> 01:40:03 Know, just it just felt kind of like the only black person they were going to
01:40:03 --> 01:40:07 listen to was her because she was she was the candidate outside of that.
01:40:07 --> 01:40:09 We were just along for the ride.
01:40:10 --> 01:40:15 And so I think black folks don't want that. They don't want to be along for
01:40:15 --> 01:40:17 the ride. They want to have a seat at the table.
01:40:18 --> 01:40:23 And and to be honest, they want to dictate the term. So South Carolina now next
01:40:23 --> 01:40:30 in 28 is going to be the first state to hold a primary on the Democratic side again.
01:40:31 --> 01:40:34 And that was basically, I'm saying, okay, we heard you on that one.
01:40:35 --> 01:40:40 Now there's still some hurt feelings because Atlanta got denied this week,
01:40:40 --> 01:40:46 this past week, they got denied the opportunity to make it to the finals for the convention in 28.
01:40:47 --> 01:40:49 And the mayor got real upset about that.
01:40:50 --> 01:40:55 You know, they're ignoring black folks again, you know, but But it's like,
01:40:55 --> 01:41:02 you know, it's kind of a give and take because the Democratic Party is what it is.
01:41:03 --> 01:41:11 We have a vital role in it. Black women are probably the most solid voting block they have.
01:41:11 --> 01:41:16 But you have the LGBTQ community, which spans more than just black folks.
01:41:16 --> 01:41:20 And you've got the Asian American Pacific Islander community,
01:41:20 --> 01:41:25 which is slowly coming to a majority Democratic Party. We're trying to get the
01:41:25 --> 01:41:27 Latino community back. Right.
01:41:28 --> 01:41:32 And that seems thanks to these ICE raids. I think that's happening.
01:41:33 --> 01:41:40 So, you know, the party has a unique challenge where they have to figure out
01:41:40 --> 01:41:46 a way that they can put together a platform that lifts all boats.
01:41:47 --> 01:41:51 And back in the day, they used to do it when I was really involved in politics,
01:41:52 --> 01:41:53 by just staying down the middle.
01:41:54 --> 01:41:58 And I don't think we can afford to just stay down the middle this time because
01:41:58 --> 01:42:00 the other side has gone too far to the right.
01:42:01 --> 01:42:06 Where if we go to the middle, we'll just be Republican-like.
01:42:07 --> 01:42:10 You know what I'm saying? We got to push it all the way forward.
01:42:10 --> 01:42:16 And maybe that's why in your part of the world, you may not be seeing the excitement
01:42:16 --> 01:42:22 because they may not feel like they're going far enough away from the Republicans,
01:42:23 --> 01:42:24 to get them excited and generated.
01:42:25 --> 01:42:28 But, you know, like you said, I think they're going to vote.
01:42:28 --> 01:42:34 So, you know, it's just because they want to send a message, if nothing else.
01:42:34 --> 01:42:38 But it's not going to be out of enthusiasm. I think, like you said,
01:42:38 --> 01:42:43 survivalism, anger, more so than enthusiasm. Right.
01:42:43 --> 01:42:48 And that leads me to this next question. Well, actually, I got two questions based on this.
01:42:48 --> 01:42:52 Right. So this past week, this past Thursday, Tuesday in Florida,
01:42:53 --> 01:42:58 we had a progressive black women win the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate.
01:42:59 --> 01:43:03 But you got a conservative Republican black man as a Republican nominee for
01:43:03 --> 01:43:05 governor in the same state.
01:43:06 --> 01:43:13 So my first question is, can those two diverse political thoughts coexist in,
01:43:13 --> 01:43:17 what we are looking at as Afrofuturism? That's the first question.
01:43:19 --> 01:43:24 So you're asking me whether progressivism and conservatism can exist in the
01:43:24 --> 01:43:26 same kind of Afrofuturism.
01:43:27 --> 01:43:31 That's interesting. As I've read Afrofuturism, Afrofuturism has always seemed
01:43:31 --> 01:43:36 to me a very, I'll say blue, blue kind of movement, right?
01:43:36 --> 01:43:42 Very, just what do you expect out of a democratic space today, right?
01:43:43 --> 01:43:51 So I would say conservatism has not really had much space in Afrofuturism as I've seen.
01:43:53 --> 01:43:56 So I probably wants to say no,
01:43:58 --> 01:44:08 you know but I guess Afrofuturism has never as I've seen it outside of being pro-black,
01:44:10 --> 01:44:13 in that kind of sense in a kind of, like, blue sense.
01:44:13 --> 01:44:16 It's not really that political. I don't think so.
01:44:17 --> 01:44:20 And I'm sure when someone hears this, they're going to, like,
01:44:20 --> 01:44:22 post a link proving me wrong.
01:44:23 --> 01:44:26 But from what I've seen, it's not expressly political.
01:44:27 --> 01:44:31 Right? It's not, like, vote here, vote this way, do, like, leave this.
01:44:31 --> 01:44:32 It doesn't really do that.
01:44:32 --> 01:44:39 Right? So I guess in an African-futurist world, you could have those two interests
01:44:39 --> 01:44:40 coincide. And, you know, I guess Yes.
01:44:42 --> 01:44:47 Of my interests, local interest, is seeing kind of Black people kind of migrate
01:44:47 --> 01:44:52 to the South in huge numbers enough to kind of flip the South their way, right?
01:44:52 --> 01:44:56 And so I think if that were to happen, you know, if we consider this kind of
01:44:56 --> 01:45:01 an Afrofuturist project, if that were to happen, there would naturally be Black
01:45:01 --> 01:45:03 conservatives doing their thing. Like, they're not going to go away.
01:45:04 --> 01:45:10 They exist, right? So, and, you know, in that Afrofuturist project,
01:45:10 --> 01:45:11 they would exist and they would do their thing.
01:45:11 --> 01:45:16 Would they win maybe i'm sure they would do well you know like i you know i would think.
01:45:17 --> 01:45:23 Someone like umar johnson you know he's a conservative he's a pan-africanist
01:45:23 --> 01:45:27 but he's a conservative is he does he into afrofuturism,
01:45:28 --> 01:45:32 i say yeah i say he could a certain wing of it you know so,
01:45:32 --> 01:45:36 yes i'm kind of talking myself through it as i'm thinking about it but i guess
01:45:36 --> 01:45:41 conservatives and professors can't fit together uncomfortably in a sense in
01:45:41 --> 01:45:44 the kind of sense, but they always fit together uncomfortable anyway.
01:45:44 --> 01:45:46 So that's nothing new, I guess, at the end of the day.
01:45:47 --> 01:45:53 Yeah, and I guess going back to the earlier question, if racism was out of the picture, maybe.
01:45:53 --> 01:45:58 You know, maybe it would be 50-50, you know, because that racism factor which
01:45:59 --> 01:46:03 predominates conservative politics now wouldn't be in the game.
01:46:04 --> 01:46:09 All right, so the second question I have is, which one do you think will be
01:46:09 --> 01:46:13 successful in this election cycle? The progressive black.
01:46:14 --> 01:46:20 Agenda or the conservative black agenda? So just to clarify,
01:46:20 --> 01:46:21 by conservative, do you mean Republican?
01:46:21 --> 01:46:23 Yeah. Republican? Okay.
01:46:24 --> 01:46:28 I mean, you know, I've read the conservative black agenda. I read them quite a bit.
01:46:29 --> 01:46:33 It is completely the same as Republican agenda. There's no blackness to it,
01:46:33 --> 01:46:36 you know? And I think that's why I call them assimilated, you know?
01:46:36 --> 01:46:39 Because there's no distinction. They just have black skin.
01:46:40 --> 01:46:42 But other than that, they're the same.
01:46:43 --> 01:46:46 They have the same interests. the mainstream Republican, right?
01:46:47 --> 01:46:52 Whereas with a black progressive, they might be very progressive in all of the
01:46:52 --> 01:46:58 doctrinaire kind of ways, but they also have that black interest that they all tend to espouse.
01:46:58 --> 01:47:02 They have like a, here's what I'll do for black people list, right?
01:47:02 --> 01:47:05 Whereas black conservatives do not have that.
01:47:07 --> 01:47:11 I think black progress I think they'll both win they'll have their wins but
01:47:11 --> 01:47:16 black conservative wins will not look like anything different from black from
01:47:16 --> 01:47:17 regular it's just the same.
01:47:19 --> 01:47:24 Whereas black progressives have some distinction about them so I think they'll
01:47:24 --> 01:47:29 both have their wins in this race between republican gerrymandering and democratic
01:47:29 --> 01:47:33 turnout I'm not sure who will come out on top between the two I'm not sure,
01:47:34 --> 01:47:37 I'm hedging by saying they'll both do okay They'll both get their wins here and there.
01:47:38 --> 01:47:41 But at least with the black Congressors, you'll see what a win looks like with
01:47:41 --> 01:47:43 them. You'll see the distinction.
01:47:43 --> 01:47:46 You won't see any distinction with the black conservatives at all.
01:47:46 --> 01:47:51 Yeah, and I totally agree with that because I'm old enough to remember Edward
01:47:51 --> 01:47:57 Brooke, who was a Republican U.S. Senator from Massachusetts.
01:47:58 --> 01:48:04 And, you know, he would not be a part of the Republican Party that's existing now.
01:48:05 --> 01:48:10 You know, I got a friend at less range, people like Thomas Sewell.
01:48:10 --> 01:48:16 I don't think those guys would fit in this current Republican setup,
01:48:16 --> 01:48:18 but they're black conservatives. Right.
01:48:18 --> 01:48:23 And I forget Armstrong's last name. I want to say Williams, but that might not
01:48:23 --> 01:48:28 be right. But I just saw him. He was actually covering the Democratic National Convention 24.
01:48:29 --> 01:48:34 But he was one of those guys that was like, I'm a conservative,
01:48:34 --> 01:48:36 but I'm not a shill for the Republican Party. Right.
01:48:37 --> 01:48:40 And even and even Mega Evers, brother Charles.
01:48:42 --> 01:48:47 After Bobby Kennedy died, he started becoming more of a conservative.
01:48:47 --> 01:48:52 But I'll never forget him telling me it was like he said, Eric, I'm black first.
01:48:52 --> 01:48:56 And if I can get the black agenda carried through the Republican Party,
01:48:56 --> 01:48:59 then that's what I'm going to do, just like you do on the Democratic Party.
01:49:00 --> 01:49:06 So, you know, I think that's what you're basically saying.
01:49:07 --> 01:49:10 If the Black conservative agenda is no different than the white conservative
01:49:10 --> 01:49:13 agenda, then it doesn't benefit the Black community.
01:49:14 --> 01:49:20 And it's hard to get current Black conservatives to understand that.
01:49:20 --> 01:49:22 But, you know, it is what it is.
01:49:23 --> 01:49:26 In 2023, you wrote this for Afro News.
01:49:26 --> 01:49:30 This black power is not the black power of yesteryear.
01:49:31 --> 01:49:35 So my question to you is, how has black power evolved over the last 60 years?
01:49:36 --> 01:49:41 And are we closer to self-reliance throughout the African diaspora based on that?
01:49:42 --> 01:49:47 The way i see a black power over the past 60 years has become bluer,
01:49:48 --> 01:49:52 and you know in terms of being more democratic aligned more and i mean that
01:49:52 --> 01:49:57 not in terms of just voting for the party i mean culturally it's become bluer,
01:49:57 --> 01:50:02 right like the black power is more expressly,
01:50:02 --> 01:50:07 pro lgbt for example there's more expressly pro-feminist it's it's,
01:50:08 --> 01:50:12 just it's just bluer it's a stronger part of that coalition in a cultural sense,
01:50:12 --> 01:50:14 not just a pragmatic sense. You know?
01:50:15 --> 01:50:19 So I would say black people who are pro-black power, they now,
01:50:20 --> 01:50:23 most of them simply truly believe these other things.
01:50:23 --> 01:50:26 You know? And they tie them into their black power ideology.
01:50:27 --> 01:50:32 People like, I mean, again, Umar Johnson, he's pro-black power,
01:50:32 --> 01:50:34 but he's very conservative. You know?
01:50:34 --> 01:50:38 And people like that are not in the driver's seat right now.
01:50:39 --> 01:50:43 It's the black power, liberals and progressives who are on the driver's seat.
01:50:43 --> 01:50:49 And I think that has been the major change in Black power in terms of this, on this topic here.
01:50:49 --> 01:50:54 In terms of, what was that term you used again? Self-reliance.
01:50:54 --> 01:50:57 Thank you. It's a difficult question to answer.
01:50:58 --> 01:51:02 We are a minority, you know, and so there's a limit to how far self-reliance
01:51:02 --> 01:51:04 can go as a minority group, right?
01:51:05 --> 01:51:11 The Black economy is not large enough to support all Black people. It just isn't, you know?
01:51:13 --> 01:51:18 And the black voter base is not large enough to do what it wants on its own.
01:51:19 --> 01:51:21 Without other groups in the Democratic Party, we would lose.
01:51:23 --> 01:51:28 And so there's a limit to our self-reliance. I think we've gotten richer over the past 60 years.
01:51:29 --> 01:51:34 Black poverty has fallen by about 30%, 40% since civil rights.
01:51:35 --> 01:51:39 So we're doing better than we were 60 years ago, for sure.
01:51:40 --> 01:51:44 Our vote is more important now than, I mean, obviously. obviously no months
01:51:44 --> 01:51:48 before we can vote right so so we're we're,
01:51:48 --> 01:51:52 we're a lot stronger than we were 60 years ago but are we more self-reliant
01:51:52 --> 01:51:54 can we go on our own no i don't think so,
01:51:55 --> 01:51:59 and i truthfully i don't think we'll ever get there personally i think we can
01:51:59 --> 01:52:01 keep getting stronger and reaching
01:52:01 --> 01:52:05 new levels of wealth and power and i think that is a worthwhile aim,
01:52:06 --> 01:52:08 but i think self-reliance in terms of like,
01:52:09 --> 01:52:13 we only rely on ourselves we go it alone and we do what we want with no one
01:52:13 --> 01:52:17 else to answer to i think that is probably not going to happen at least not
01:52:17 --> 01:52:21 anytime soon yeah yeah i when you say that,
01:52:22 --> 01:52:27 we were talking about tv shows there's this the man in the high castle i don't
01:52:27 --> 01:52:33 know if you ever saw that show or not i think it was on either amazon or a and e but,
01:52:34 --> 01:52:37 if if you if it's a Spoiler alert, the black folks won.
01:52:39 --> 01:52:42 Because what happened, this was
01:52:42 --> 01:52:49 the scenario that Nazi Germany and the Japanese Empire won World War II.
01:52:49 --> 01:52:52 So the western half of the United States was controlled by Japan,
01:52:53 --> 01:52:55 and the eastern half was controlled by the Nazis.
01:52:56 --> 01:53:00 But the black folks had figured, had gotten out of the South and had basically
01:53:00 --> 01:53:03 taken over the area that we call the Rocky Mountains.
01:53:04 --> 01:53:07 And because it was it was considered no man's land. You couldn't really build
01:53:07 --> 01:53:09 anything there new or anything.
01:53:09 --> 01:53:14 So it was just kind of like that was the border between the Nazis and Japanese.
01:53:15 --> 01:53:17 And so black folks inhabited that.
01:53:17 --> 01:53:22 So basically, the resistance came from the black folks in the Rockies.
01:53:22 --> 01:53:26 So when they find when the Nazis and the Japanese were finally defeated,
01:53:27 --> 01:53:29 it was the black folks that that did it. They were, they were,
01:53:29 --> 01:53:30 they led the resistance.
01:53:32 --> 01:53:37 So, you know, when you see a country divided up like that, I think that's about
01:53:37 --> 01:53:42 the only scenario where black folks could have their self-reliance.
01:53:42 --> 01:53:45 Like you were talking about all black folks moving to the South.
01:53:45 --> 01:53:48 That was the original concept of Republic of New Africa.
01:53:48 --> 01:53:53 Charles Blow just did a documentary saying, what if black folks all moved to the South? Right.
01:53:53 --> 01:53:58 And so that's kind of been like a dream for a long time.
01:53:58 --> 01:54:04 I just, I always used to mess with my friends in the nation of Islam. I'm going to let you go.
01:54:06 --> 01:54:11 You know, I was always invited to speak at the mosque, and I support what they're
01:54:11 --> 01:54:13 doing to uplift Black men and Black women.
01:54:14 --> 01:54:20 But the question I always ask them is like, I understand y'all want to get farms and all that stuff.
01:54:20 --> 01:54:23 Any of y'all decided y'all going to start building some tanks?
01:54:23 --> 01:54:26 Any of y'all decided y'all going to start making bullets and guns?
01:54:26 --> 01:54:28 Because that's the only way we're going to be able to pull this off.
01:54:28 --> 01:54:30 You know what I'm saying? We're going to have to fight for it.
01:54:31 --> 01:54:34 You know, it's not like a bunch of our folks are just going to steal some stuff
01:54:34 --> 01:54:39 from the U.S. Army and the U.S. military and, you know, fight the battle for us.
01:54:39 --> 01:54:43 We're going to have to make our own stuff if we're serious about creating our
01:54:43 --> 01:54:46 own nation. I mean, Haiti did it. In 1804, they did it.
01:54:47 --> 01:54:52 So it's possible if they did it with swords and knives and muskets.
01:54:53 --> 01:54:55 I think if we had the right equipment, we could pull it off.
01:54:55 --> 01:54:58 But to me, that's the only way,
01:54:58 --> 01:55:03 we could get to that point, not unless there is a total buy-in where it's like,
01:55:03 --> 01:55:07 well, black folks, we're just going to leave these cities where we've developed political power,
01:55:08 --> 01:55:15 and just reinvest in the South and make Atlanta or Birmingham the capital, Jackson, I don't know.
01:55:15 --> 01:55:18 You know what I'm saying? Memphis, one of them cities will be the capital.
01:55:18 --> 01:55:23 And then we all move down there. But I'm just, that's my only thing about that.
01:55:23 --> 01:55:26 But it's a discussion that we really need to have.
01:55:26 --> 01:55:32 And I think in the concept of Afrofuturism, that's really a discussion that we need to have.
01:55:33 --> 01:55:36 So, look, I'm going to let you go, but I got a couple of things I need to do
01:55:36 --> 01:55:40 first. First is a challenge I offer all the guests this year.
01:55:41 --> 01:55:42 I need you to finish this sentence.
01:55:43 --> 01:55:45 I have hope because.
01:55:46 --> 01:55:50 I have hope because there's always a new day. All right.
01:55:50 --> 01:55:54 Now, the other thing is, how can people reach out to you?
01:55:54 --> 01:55:59 How can people read your writings? Do you have a website, the email?
01:55:59 --> 01:56:01 Go ahead and where you at on social media, all this stuff.
01:56:03 --> 01:56:06 Yeah. By far, my main presence is on Quora.
01:56:07 --> 01:56:11 It's kind of a Q&A site. It's spelled Q-U-O-R-A.
01:56:12 --> 01:56:19 And my name is Keon Charles. That's K-E-A-U-N Charles.
01:56:19 --> 01:56:22 And you can find me on there. I have a picture of an orange robot.
01:56:23 --> 01:56:26 It knows me. I have a good amount of...
01:56:27 --> 01:56:30 You'll see me. That's where my main presence is.
01:56:30 --> 01:56:34 I have a link tree. It's kind of hard to give out the URL for it.
01:56:34 --> 01:56:40 It's kind of a bunch of random letters and stuff. But if you find me on Quora
01:56:40 --> 01:56:41 and you ask for it, I'll give it to you.
01:56:42 --> 01:56:47 And those are really the two main things. Yeah, and the link tree is like a
01:56:47 --> 01:56:49 direct link to all your writings and stuff.
01:56:50 --> 01:56:55 Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, so I have all the writings from Afro, which we talked about.
01:56:55 --> 01:57:00 Some writings were like his papers uh book and all that other stuff but yeah
01:57:00 --> 01:57:05 so but if you if you find that core i can keep that link if you want to well
01:57:05 --> 01:57:09 keon charles i i greatly appreciate the other thing i want to tell y'all is that,
01:57:10 --> 01:57:13 so apparently keanu reeves middle name is charles.
01:57:14 --> 01:57:19 And so some people will like hit that is like and it was like keanu reeves no
01:57:19 --> 01:57:21 i'm trying to find a brother, where the brother at, right?
01:57:22 --> 01:57:29 So, but it's Keon, K-E apostrophe, capital A-U-N, Charles.
01:57:29 --> 01:57:33 If you type it in that way, you'll get directly to this brother here.
01:57:33 --> 01:57:38 And Keon, again, man, I appreciate the conversation. I appreciate you reaching out to me.
01:57:39 --> 01:57:43 And one of the rules is that, you know, now that you've been on the show,
01:57:44 --> 01:57:46 you have an open invitation to come back. So I know you're going to have a lot
01:57:46 --> 01:57:50 on your mind If you decide to write a book that's going to stay on the shelf,
01:57:52 --> 01:57:57 please come on back. Or if you decide I'm going to put the book on the shelf,
01:57:57 --> 01:57:58 now we can talk about it some more.
01:57:59 --> 01:58:02 Just feel free to come back on, brother. I enjoyed the conversation.
01:58:02 --> 01:58:03 Look forward to the next time.
01:58:04 --> 01:58:07 Thank you. All right, guys. And we're going to catch you all on the other side.
01:58:20 --> 01:58:26 And we are back. So I want to thank Erica Kent, Aaron Bosslin,
01:58:27 --> 01:58:31 and Keon Charles for coming on to the podcast again. Incredible interviews.
01:58:32 --> 01:58:37 I hope that you've taken away some good information from all of those.
01:58:38 --> 01:58:45 Please, if you're a young man that wants to get involved in a reproductive rights
01:58:45 --> 01:58:51 fight, reach out to Aaron. And please buy Erica's book, Black Dog.
01:58:51 --> 01:58:53 It's a great, great book, like I said.
01:58:54 --> 01:58:59 And, you know, if you want to talk about Afrofuturism or anything else going
01:58:59 --> 01:59:03 on in the African diaspora, Keon Charles is available for dialogue.
01:59:03 --> 01:59:08 I think all three of those people are doing some really, really cool things.
01:59:08 --> 01:59:13 And I'm really, really glad that I was able to share some space on the podcast with them.
01:59:14 --> 01:59:18 All right. So real quick. Natalie Harp.
01:59:19 --> 01:59:26 So there's this 35-year-old woman who is obsessed with the president,
01:59:26 --> 01:59:32 and she has now been called the human printer based on her proximity to the
01:59:32 --> 01:59:37 president and printing out that some people have called her the diaper lady, all this other stuff.
01:59:38 --> 01:59:42 But, you know, her close proximity to the president has given her that title,
01:59:42 --> 01:59:47 human printer because he's printing out stuff that's positive for him to read,
01:59:47 --> 01:59:51 whether it's truthful or not, to kind of keep his spirits up, I guess. I don't know.
01:59:52 --> 01:59:58 She's the one who's doing all these overnight true social things,
01:59:59 --> 02:00:03 including the meme that depicted the Obamas as apes.
02:00:05 --> 02:00:08 You know, when I see people like Scott Jennings and all them folks getting upset
02:00:09 --> 02:00:13 about us, John Ossoff just mentioned her name. He didn't say she was sleeping
02:00:13 --> 02:00:16 with the president and like that. He just think he said something about her
02:00:16 --> 02:00:18 sitting in the president's lap or whatever.
02:00:19 --> 02:00:25 OK, it's like you you literally applauded when she put that post out about the Obama being apes.
02:00:25 --> 02:00:28 Y'all are the ones going around saying that Michelle Obama is a man.
02:00:28 --> 02:00:35 Y'all that are going around and calling black women in Congress women with low
02:00:35 --> 02:00:39 IQs. When the president says it, you say, right on, Mr. President.
02:00:39 --> 02:00:42 But if we said that about any Republican women, you lose your mind.
02:00:43 --> 02:00:45 So forgive me if I don't care what y'all got to say about that.
02:00:46 --> 02:00:51 Right. That's a wrap. That's done. We don't care how your feelings are hurt.
02:00:52 --> 02:00:55 What I want you to do is pay attention to this Eminem song. And there's this
02:00:55 --> 02:01:00 one young comedian on Instagram who caught the same thing I did.
02:01:00 --> 02:01:03 So there was this song that Eminem did called Stand.
02:01:04 --> 02:01:10 And it was basically about colloquialism. I think that's where we get the term
02:01:10 --> 02:01:16 from, from that song. Because this guy was an obsessed fan of Eminem.
02:01:16 --> 02:01:21 And he eventually catches Eminem and puts him in the trunk of a car and throws
02:01:21 --> 02:01:24 him over a river because Eminem didn't acknowledge him.
02:01:25 --> 02:01:30 All the times he was writing all this Obsessed Mayo, not understanding the fact
02:01:30 --> 02:01:34 that Eminem is like, at that time was like the hottest thing in rap and he wasn't
02:01:34 --> 02:01:38 reading all these letters. Now, Eminem has created this character.
02:01:38 --> 02:01:39 This has not really happened.
02:01:40 --> 02:01:44 This was a character he created and did a rap song called Stand and it was about
02:01:44 --> 02:01:48 an obsessive fan. And it was basically a warning to his contemporaries.
02:01:48 --> 02:01:51 It's like, there are people like this out here, right? Right.
02:01:53 --> 02:01:56 President of the United States has a stand, and her name is Natalie Harp.
02:01:57 --> 02:02:02 And, you know, whether you love or hate or despise this man,
02:02:02 --> 02:02:08 he is still the President of the United States, and he has a stand literally next to him.
02:02:09 --> 02:02:16 He is so convinced that when they switched planes for him after the NATO summit,
02:02:17 --> 02:02:20 in Turkey, when they switched, it was either the NATO or G summit,
02:02:20 --> 02:02:22 whatever summit they just had in Turkey.
02:02:22 --> 02:02:27 When he had to switch out of the Qatari plane and go into this military plane,
02:02:28 --> 02:02:32 she was one of the ones allowed to go with him on the military plane while all
02:02:32 --> 02:02:36 the rest of the staff and the young lady, what's it, Caroline Levitt,
02:02:36 --> 02:02:40 she had to stay on the regular, on the A-1.
02:02:41 --> 02:02:46 And they had to take the breath away, but she, this Natalie Harper woman, went up, right?
02:02:47 --> 02:02:50 But and what what you need to understand while y'all trying to,
02:02:50 --> 02:02:57 quote unquote, defend this woman that you don't know is that there's a problem with that.
02:02:58 --> 02:03:03 Now, I know that the president likes to have yes men and yes women around him.
02:03:03 --> 02:03:06 He doesn't want anybody to tell him no, this second administration. But.
02:03:08 --> 02:03:12 You still have to be careful about people that obsess over you.
02:03:12 --> 02:03:16 Some of the notes that she has written, some of the things she has written to
02:03:16 --> 02:03:24 the president, if you listen to that song, Stan, it's right along that same genre, that same tree.
02:03:27 --> 02:03:29 And just for historical perspective, right?
02:03:32 --> 02:03:37 So, you know, the Secret Service was kind of like, we're not really cool with this woman.
02:03:37 --> 02:03:42 And the president pretty much said, yeah, I don't care. I want her around me. Right.
02:03:43 --> 02:03:48 It took her a year to get security clearance because she didn't want to go through the process.
02:03:48 --> 02:03:52 And finally, the president just said she's got the clearance. Keep it moving.
02:03:53 --> 02:03:58 So he's basically tied the hands of Secret Service. But if you so John F.
02:03:58 --> 02:04:05 Kennedy had a young lady, excuse me, that was pretty close to him.
02:04:05 --> 02:04:10 For those who are still sensitive, even after 60, 70 years about hearing that
02:04:10 --> 02:04:15 John F. K. was not faithful to his wife, Jackie, you can cover your ears.
02:04:15 --> 02:04:17 But for the rest of us that understand history.
02:04:19 --> 02:04:24 A young woman who President Kennedy got really, really close to,
02:04:24 --> 02:04:25 and we believe intimately.
02:04:26 --> 02:04:32 And the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover, had to step in because the Secret Service obviously
02:04:32 --> 02:04:35 was not convincing the president that she shouldn't be around.
02:04:35 --> 02:04:38 So J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI director, had to step in and say,
02:04:38 --> 02:04:43 she cannot come around anymore because she is East German.
02:04:44 --> 02:04:47 So we don't know what her intent is. Her intent may have been just to kick it
02:04:47 --> 02:04:49 with the president. That's fine.
02:04:50 --> 02:04:55 It's like you don't want to take that chance, right? It was a security risk.
02:04:55 --> 02:05:01 So whatever was going on with Kennedy and that woman had to end because the
02:05:01 --> 02:05:06 people who were in charge of protecting the president said she can't come around anymore.
02:05:07 --> 02:05:13 And, you know, instead of being upset about this Natalie Harp woman,
02:05:14 --> 02:05:17 what you need to be doing is asking questions like,
02:05:18 --> 02:05:22 how did somebody this emotionally unstable get that close to the president where
02:05:22 --> 02:05:23 now we can't separate them?
02:05:24 --> 02:05:31 Right. Because if I'm just telling you, if he does them because he does stuff
02:05:31 --> 02:05:36 to piss even the closest people he has off. Right.
02:05:37 --> 02:05:41 He'd throw anybody under the bus. And then down the road, like with Michael
02:05:41 --> 02:05:43 Cohen, he'll come on his talk show or whatever.
02:05:43 --> 02:05:49 Anyway, you literally put this man in jail. And then now, years later,
02:05:49 --> 02:05:54 y'all are supposed to be cool. And you think somehow he has recanted all the
02:05:54 --> 02:05:56 negative stuff he said about you.
02:05:57 --> 02:06:01 Anyway, that shows that the man ain't all there. But, you know,
02:06:01 --> 02:06:04 you've got to stop this guy from,
02:06:05 --> 02:06:10 If he says something to piss this woman off, right, and she's at that kind of
02:06:10 --> 02:06:16 proximity to him, and she is, you know, that obsessed with him, that can be a problem.
02:06:18 --> 02:06:23 You'll be looking at us saying, you'll be trying to say that she was secretly a Democrat, right?
02:06:24 --> 02:06:28 Instead of, wait a minute, just before all this happened, y'all were defending
02:06:28 --> 02:06:31 the woman. Y'all were jumping on us for even mentioning her name.
02:06:32 --> 02:06:38 And now, you know, and why are we talking about her when he is married and there's a first lady?
02:06:38 --> 02:06:41 We haven't said anything about her in months.
02:06:42 --> 02:06:47 She literally just had a special, just to remind us, I guess she's still the first lady, on Amazon.
02:06:47 --> 02:06:53 But we're talking about this Natalie Harp woman instead of the First Lady. Why is that? Right?
02:06:54 --> 02:06:58 That's some questions y'all might need to ask. But y'all are trying to hide
02:06:58 --> 02:06:59 whether Mitch McConnell is still alive or not.
02:06:59 --> 02:07:05 So y'all got a lot of things going on. I wish all the energy you put on lying
02:07:05 --> 02:07:09 about Mitch McConnell and protecting Natalie Harp that you would put on doing
02:07:09 --> 02:07:12 something to help the American people,
02:07:13 --> 02:07:15 through this economic crunch that we're going through.
02:07:15 --> 02:07:18 If you would do that, you might get salvaged.
02:07:19 --> 02:07:23 You might fend off the damage like Biden was able to do during his midterm.
02:07:24 --> 02:07:25 You might be able to do that.
02:07:26 --> 02:07:31 But y'all ain't got a clue because y'all are morally bankrupt.
02:07:32 --> 02:07:36 So when you're morally bankrupt, y'all be on bankrupt. Y'all are in receivership
02:07:37 --> 02:07:39 at this particular point, morally.
02:07:40 --> 02:07:43 So, you know, but I wanted to.
02:07:45 --> 02:07:50 Need to take this seriously. When you got somebody, I won't say crazy because
02:07:50 --> 02:07:55 I'm not a psychologist, but this obsessed with any human being that close to
02:07:55 --> 02:07:57 the human being they're obsessed with,
02:07:58 --> 02:08:00 that's a security risk.
02:08:01 --> 02:08:06 And if y'all want to go to y'all grave and watch the president go to his grave
02:08:06 --> 02:08:11 because y'all want to defend this woman and she snaps on him, that's on y'all.
02:08:12 --> 02:08:16 I think John Ossoff did a favor by highlighting the fact that this woman is
02:08:16 --> 02:08:20 this close to a sitting president of the United States.
02:08:21 --> 02:08:24 And history has showed us that we're not comfortable with that.
02:08:25 --> 02:08:28 We have taken steps to make sure that doesn't happen.
02:08:29 --> 02:08:34 Anyway, I just wanted to get that off my chest. Now, the other thing that's,
02:08:34 --> 02:08:39 got me pissed off about the president, among a myriad to other things.
02:08:40 --> 02:08:41 And P.K. Hegseff, who...
02:08:43 --> 02:08:49 I don't care how he explains his tattoos. I don't care how he explains the pocket
02:08:49 --> 02:08:52 square in his suit coat or anything else.
02:08:54 --> 02:08:57 If you don't understand that he's racist, then I don't know.
02:08:58 --> 02:09:03 I guess he has to go to the Smithsonian before they hide it and just go and put the Klan robe on.
02:09:05 --> 02:09:11 So there is a ship that is being built right now that is supposed to be named
02:09:11 --> 02:09:15 after the mess cook, the black man, Dory Miller.
02:09:15 --> 02:09:20 His real name is Doris, but we referred to him when I was growing up as Dory Miller.
02:09:20 --> 02:09:26 The mess cook who literally, during Pearl Harbor, manned a gun on one of the
02:09:26 --> 02:09:31 aircraft carriers that had not sunk yet and started shooting at the Japanese
02:09:31 --> 02:09:35 planes attacking Pearl Harbor, actually getting credit for shooting down one.
02:09:35 --> 02:09:39 He may have shot down more, but they definitely know he shot down one of them, right?
02:09:39 --> 02:09:44 And he was pulling people off of the ship as it was sinking, saving lives.
02:09:44 --> 02:09:49 So this mess cook, this black man who was a mess cook, got the naval cross,
02:09:50 --> 02:09:56 the Navy cross for his heroism at Pearl Harbor. And I think he died in another battle.
02:09:56 --> 02:10:00 I don't think he died at Pearl Harbor, but he died in action.
02:10:01 --> 02:10:06 So they wanted to name the next aircraft carrier after him.
02:10:06 --> 02:10:09 Oh, no, not with Pete Hegseth as the Secretary of Defense.
02:10:10 --> 02:10:13 Name something after a black person? Oh, no.
02:10:14 --> 02:10:18 No, we're not going to do that. We're going to name that after Donald Trump,
02:10:18 --> 02:10:23 right, who never spent a minute in the United States military.
02:10:24 --> 02:10:27 He was given the title of Commander-in-Chief because he was elected president.
02:10:28 --> 02:10:30 That's the only connection he's ever had with the military in his life.
02:10:31 --> 02:10:36 He went to military academy. That's not, he didn't go to the U.S.
02:10:36 --> 02:10:39 Military academy, U.S. naval academy, U.S. air force academy.
02:10:39 --> 02:10:41 He went to some high school academy, right? Private school.
02:10:42 --> 02:10:46 And then borrowed somebody else's medals for his senior picture.
02:10:47 --> 02:10:52 Right? Not that guy. They wanted to name a boy after that guy instead of the guy.
02:10:54 --> 02:11:00 Actually fought in a war, who actually shot down the enemy, who actually saved other sailors.
02:11:01 --> 02:11:06 Now, if he was David Miller, a white guy, I guess we wouldn't be having this
02:11:06 --> 02:11:11 conversation, but because his name was Dory Miller and he was a black mess cook,
02:11:12 --> 02:11:17 we're just going to take that honor for him even before the ship is finished, right?
02:11:20 --> 02:11:24 So, you know, I just, but you want black people to vote for you.
02:11:25 --> 02:11:27 You know what I'm saying? You want black people to support you,
02:11:28 --> 02:11:32 but you would do little petty stuff like that. And, you know, I get it.
02:11:32 --> 02:11:37 And I think it's ironic. I get it that you want to rename Dulles Airport after
02:11:37 --> 02:11:42 President Trump, you know, if, especially if President Trump decides to,
02:11:43 --> 02:11:49 is allowed to spend his money to renovate it or whatever, even though it's not a federal airport,
02:11:50 --> 02:11:54 but he wants to rebuild it, I guess, in his image. I don't know.
02:11:55 --> 02:12:00 But I think it's ironic that Dulles is the one, outside of one in Palm Beach,
02:12:01 --> 02:12:05 which may have actually participated in trafficking young girls, right?
02:12:05 --> 02:12:10 You want to rename Dulles, named after the guy who created the mess,
02:12:11 --> 02:12:18 who set in motion the mess that's in Iran now, after the guy who's made it worse, right?
02:12:19 --> 02:12:24 Asha David, the Islamic Republic of Iran airport, because that's the connection,
02:12:25 --> 02:12:29 of those two names. Dallas was the one who put the shot in, and now Donald Trump
02:12:29 --> 02:12:31 is the reason why the straight out of Hamus is.
02:12:33 --> 02:12:39 No longer safe to vote in, not unless you're Iranian or friends of the Iranians, right?
02:12:41 --> 02:12:44 You gave them a nuclear weapon. They don't need a bomb.
02:12:44 --> 02:12:48 All they need to do is just shoot any ship that they want to coming through
02:12:48 --> 02:12:51 the strait. You gave them a weapon.
02:12:51 --> 02:12:59 So, you know, I guess, ironically, it fits if you want to rename Dulles after Trump, right?
02:13:01 --> 02:13:09 That and then in Florida, Alexander Vindman, who his brother,
02:13:09 --> 02:13:11 I think, got elected to Congress in Virginia.
02:13:11 --> 02:13:14 And Alexander moved to Florida and he was running for the U.S.
02:13:14 --> 02:13:17 Senate, raised about $16 million.
02:13:19 --> 02:13:22 I don't know if he spent it all, but I know he raised $16 million to run for the U.S. Senate.
02:13:23 --> 02:13:27 And everybody's like, oh, yeah, he's going to win. He's going to win. He's going to win.
02:13:28 --> 02:13:32 But he was running against a sister named Angie Nixon. Angie Nixon had been
02:13:32 --> 02:13:35 a state legislator for a while in Florida.
02:13:36 --> 02:13:42 She was the one who basically challenged DeSantis when he showed up in her district,
02:13:43 --> 02:13:48 trying to talk about why we need police protection and why we need to cut school
02:13:48 --> 02:13:49 budgets and all this stuff.
02:13:49 --> 02:13:53 And she basically told him, why are you here? None of us voted for you.
02:13:55 --> 02:14:00 Not in support of anything that you're proposing. So why are you here other
02:14:00 --> 02:14:03 than just being audacious?
02:14:04 --> 02:14:08 You know, he said some choice words to her and eventually he left.
02:14:09 --> 02:14:14 Right. She single-handedly shut down for a couple of days the redistricting
02:14:14 --> 02:14:20 move in Florida, which led to Debbie Washington Schultz ending up representing
02:14:20 --> 02:14:22 a historically black congressional district.
02:14:25 --> 02:14:30 It's okay it's all right i mean it could have been worse could be a republican,
02:14:30 --> 02:14:35 so you know it so basically deborah washington schultz has become the new steve
02:14:35 --> 02:14:41 cohen right all the black folks had some jews ran in this race and the one little
02:14:41 --> 02:14:42 white woman got in there and she won,
02:14:43 --> 02:14:47 right steve cohen when harold ford ran for the u.s senate,
02:14:47 --> 02:14:52 steve cohen ran against every black important politician in Memphis,
02:14:52 --> 02:14:57 and while they beat each other up, Steve walked in and got the seat, right?
02:14:58 --> 02:15:01 And was there until they carved up Memphis three ways.
02:15:02 --> 02:15:06 I think the technical term was cracked it, right? And then once they cracked
02:15:06 --> 02:15:08 it, then he said, you're not running.
02:15:08 --> 02:15:14 So that's the technically, that's the seat that Justin Pearson is running.
02:15:15 --> 02:15:17 Right? So anyway.
02:15:18 --> 02:15:24 Nixon shut down the Florida legislature for two days wearing a pink outfit with
02:15:24 --> 02:15:30 a pink bullhorn, shouting this, stop the steal, this is illegal, all sorts of stuff.
02:15:31 --> 02:15:36 She shut it down for two days. They eventually got it done, but she shut it down.
02:15:37 --> 02:15:42 And Alexander Vindman thought that between his $16 million and his wife,
02:15:43 --> 02:15:44 Alexander Vindman is a hero.
02:15:45 --> 02:15:49 Let's get this straight. Like, he's the guy who basically gave the testimony
02:15:49 --> 02:15:51 that led to the first impeachment of Donald Trump.
02:15:51 --> 02:15:58 So he stood up to the president and said he wasn't going to be involved at Ukraine
02:15:58 --> 02:16:01 stuff, and the president fired him, right?
02:16:01 --> 02:16:06 So he's a good guy, but he thought it was $60 million and his wife basically
02:16:06 --> 02:16:13 trashing Representative Nixon's fashion choices that he was going to walk away with a Senate race.
02:16:13 --> 02:16:22 Meanwhile, Representative Nixon was traveling the state from the Panhandle to the Keys.
02:16:24 --> 02:16:27 Beat the brakes off of them. Like she had the $16 million.
02:16:28 --> 02:16:31 I mean, it wasn't like she won by like 100 votes, 150 votes.
02:16:31 --> 02:16:38 She beat them. She got 56% of the vote and she was outspent 16 to 1.
02:16:39 --> 02:16:40 16 to 1.
02:16:41 --> 02:16:49 That's why organization matters. That's why talking to people matters.
02:16:50 --> 02:16:53 You can't consult your way into these spots.
02:16:54 --> 02:16:58 If there was ever a comeback or a clapback for what black folks were saying
02:16:58 --> 02:17:02 about Kamala Harris and the fact that y'all didn't invest in these black folks
02:17:02 --> 02:17:06 that can go in these streets and go in these neighborhoods and get people to show up and vote,
02:17:07 --> 02:17:10 and educate them as to why they should be showing up to vote.
02:17:10 --> 02:17:14 That was the clapback. That was the reminder.
02:17:14 --> 02:17:19 You can throw all the money you want onto something because there were some
02:17:19 --> 02:17:23 Republicans that Donald Trump endorsed that lost and have been losing lately,
02:17:24 --> 02:17:26 he was undefeated, not anymore.
02:17:27 --> 02:17:31 You know, you can have all the right endorsements. You can have all the money
02:17:31 --> 02:17:32 in the world, all that stuff.
02:17:32 --> 02:17:35 But if you're a terrible candidate and you have no organization,
02:17:36 --> 02:17:37 you're going to get your brains beat out.
02:17:38 --> 02:17:43 Now, just imagine if Angie Nixon had the $16 million with her organization skills.
02:17:44 --> 02:17:52 We could go ahead and put Florida in the blue column, at least for the Senate. You know, I mean….
02:17:55 --> 02:18:01 Respect politics, if you're going to get in it, respect it. It is a sport, but it's not a game.
02:18:01 --> 02:18:06 Let me say that again. It is a sport, but it's not a game, right?
02:18:07 --> 02:18:09 You have to take it seriously.
02:18:10 --> 02:18:13 You have to be committed to it. You have to be willing to put on the right kind
02:18:13 --> 02:18:18 of shoes and knock on the right doors and just keep working and working and
02:18:18 --> 02:18:20 working because you never know.
02:18:21 --> 02:18:24 You never know how it's going to shake out until election day.
02:18:24 --> 02:18:26 All the polls continue. I can tell you.
02:18:27 --> 02:18:31 All the polls were showing the last election, legislative election,
02:18:31 --> 02:18:33 that I had a solid lead. Everything was cool.
02:18:34 --> 02:18:38 And when it came down to it, what I had in the polls was all I was going to get.
02:18:38 --> 02:18:40 Because there was too many undecideds.
02:18:41 --> 02:18:47 If somebody had been in the legislature for nine years and they were over 10%
02:18:47 --> 02:18:49 undecided, that was a problem.
02:18:50 --> 02:18:52 People didn't believe me, but that's okay.
02:18:53 --> 02:18:56 I did what I had to do. She did what she had to do and she won.
02:18:57 --> 02:19:01 Not mad at that. Some people say, well, she cheated. I don't know that.
02:19:01 --> 02:19:05 You can't prove that. I don't know that. As far as I'm concerned, she won.
02:19:05 --> 02:19:09 I got that 45, 46% that you said I was going to get. I got that.
02:19:10 --> 02:19:14 What you didn't account for was all those people that was undecided that made
02:19:14 --> 02:19:16 the decision, I'm going to go with something new.
02:19:17 --> 02:19:24 That's how politics works. It's all about doing the work until the very last moment.
02:19:25 --> 02:19:31 Did I make some mistakes in the campaign? Sure. You always make mistakes if you lose, right?
02:19:32 --> 02:19:37 But you make mistakes if you win, too. Sometimes you get away with them, right?
02:19:38 --> 02:19:44 But that's just the learning process of the sport of politics. That's how it works.
02:19:45 --> 02:19:48 But those of you who think you can just throw money at it, those of you who
02:19:48 --> 02:19:51 think that you can just ride on somebody else's endorsement,
02:19:51 --> 02:19:55 you're trying to game the system, and you can't.
02:19:56 --> 02:20:02 Because it comes down to those people that show up either through early voting or Election Day.
02:20:02 --> 02:20:05 And if your state is like Mississippi that doesn't have early voting,
02:20:05 --> 02:20:08 it's definitely Election Day, right?
02:20:09 --> 02:20:14 So hindsight, I might have won. It was early voting, but it's a different type
02:20:14 --> 02:20:17 of strategy. You understand what I'm saying?
02:20:18 --> 02:20:22 Nonetheless, I might have won the U.S. Senate race. We had early voting.
02:20:23 --> 02:20:27 But, you know, that wasn't the option. And so it came down to Election Day.
02:20:27 --> 02:20:30 Who could get their folks out? Who had the money to get their folks out?
02:20:31 --> 02:20:34 Who had the money to convince people just don't vote for the president,
02:20:34 --> 02:20:36 vote for everything on the ticket? Right?
02:20:37 --> 02:20:43 And that might have been one of the factors with Vindman. Some people voted for Jolly,
02:20:43 --> 02:20:48 and there's quite a few of them obviously voted for Nixon, but there might have
02:20:48 --> 02:20:54 been some that just didn't vote at all, which lowered the chances for Vindman to pull it off, right?
02:20:57 --> 02:21:02 And people are getting hung up about, oh, you know, she's a Democrat socialist
02:21:02 --> 02:21:06 and they're really trying to play that in Miami because of the number of Cubans in Miami.
02:21:06 --> 02:21:11 And, you know, so if you say the word socialist or communist or anything like
02:21:11 --> 02:21:15 that and you trigger target somebody with, they think that these people are
02:21:15 --> 02:21:20 going to be so reflexive that they're just going to vote against that person.
02:21:20 --> 02:21:23 But now you're trying to play that game.
02:21:24 --> 02:21:28 In the meantime, your administration, Mr. President, is deporting these people's
02:21:28 --> 02:21:32 cousins and friends in that same Miami community.
02:21:32 --> 02:21:36 Guy that Haitian restaurant owner supported President Trump.
02:21:37 --> 02:21:41 They ain't got no workers. He ain't got no customers because these people are
02:21:41 --> 02:21:45 leaving if they haven't been deported because they don't want to be arrested.
02:21:46 --> 02:21:51 They don't want to encounter ICE. So you think that rhetoric is going to help
02:21:51 --> 02:21:56 you when people, you're saying that Ms.
02:21:56 --> 02:22:01 Nixon is a socialist, but you're acting like Castro yourself.
02:22:02 --> 02:22:06 You're actually arresting people off the streets of Miami.
02:22:10 --> 02:22:17 See, there is obviously a select few Americans who live in a bubble and believe
02:22:17 --> 02:22:20 everything you say, but it's a select few.
02:22:20 --> 02:22:26 It is not the overwhelming majority, Mr. President. It's not the overwhelming majority, GOP.
02:22:27 --> 02:22:31 People have, majority of people in America have all five senses.
02:22:31 --> 02:22:34 And even if they don't have all five, they've got enough of them to realize
02:22:35 --> 02:22:38 what you're saying ain't correlating to what's actually happening.
02:22:39 --> 02:22:46 And if everything trends the way it's trending, y'all are going to get your brains beat up. Right?
02:22:46 --> 02:22:48 And then here's another story.
02:22:50 --> 02:22:53 Byron Donalds is running, and I've met the congressman.
02:22:55 --> 02:22:59 He's a decent brother. I don't agree with him on his politics,
02:22:59 --> 02:23:03 and he plays politics fiercely.
02:23:06 --> 02:23:11 He is dedicated to the agenda that's going to get him elected,
02:23:11 --> 02:23:13 right? I'll put it that way.
02:23:14 --> 02:23:19 But he's always, every time I've run into him, especially in setting,
02:23:19 --> 02:23:23 public settings, he's been very, very respectful and very cordial.
02:23:24 --> 02:23:31 I mean, I ain't nobody important, but, you know, he could very easily have been,
02:23:31 --> 02:23:36 there's been some Democrats. It's like, I mean, Van Jones, you know.
02:23:38 --> 02:23:42 He's supposed to be on my side, but I couldn't talk to him if I tried to save
02:23:42 --> 02:23:46 my life. I was running to everybody else.
02:23:47 --> 02:23:50 Couldn't talk to him. Not unless you were at a level where he had to address
02:23:50 --> 02:23:54 you, right? There were some people I bored to death. I'm sorry, Ms. Finney.
02:23:54 --> 02:24:01 I bored to death talking because I was such an admirer of hers and her courage
02:24:01 --> 02:24:04 and her comeback, right?
02:24:05 --> 02:24:11 But again, Ms. Finney, if you listen, I'm sorry for taking too much of your time.
02:24:11 --> 02:24:16 But nonetheless, you know, you got people that are on your team,
02:24:17 --> 02:24:22 don't even want to say hi to you, you know, with Byron Donald's cordial brother.
02:24:23 --> 02:24:25 Now, would I vote for him? Of course not.
02:24:26 --> 02:24:33 Because like, like Brother Charles said, his agenda is not conducive to what black folks need.
02:24:34 --> 02:24:40 He may try to sell us on that, but his agenda is more aligned with making Elon
02:24:40 --> 02:24:45 Musk happy as opposed to any black person, including black people like Robert
02:24:45 --> 02:24:47 Smith, who's a billionaire, right?
02:24:51 --> 02:24:58 So Byron won the nomination. He didn't crack 50%, which to me,
02:24:59 --> 02:25:02 considering his opposition, because there was this guy named Fishback who was
02:25:02 --> 02:25:04 a straight up loony to him.
02:25:05 --> 02:25:08 And Charlie Kirk would look at that guy and say, you're crazy.
02:25:08 --> 02:25:12 Nick Fuentes would say, you're a little out there, right? Yeah.
02:25:14 --> 02:25:21 I got 10% of the vote in that robbery. He finished third, but he still got 10%.
02:25:22 --> 02:25:26 Byron, a sitting U.S. congressman, couldn't get over 40. A guy who literally,
02:25:27 --> 02:25:33 Byron Donalds, if you remember the name, Byron literally got votes to be Speaker
02:25:33 --> 02:25:34 of the House of Representatives.
02:25:35 --> 02:25:38 He got votes, and he couldn't crack 50.
02:25:39 --> 02:25:44 And one of the things that was noticed was that in the counties that were majority
02:25:44 --> 02:25:49 white and ruled, Byron got his brains beat out. He didn't win.
02:25:50 --> 02:25:54 In the counties that had any mix, whether it was Latino or African-American,
02:25:54 --> 02:25:58 a combination of all three, he wouldn't know.
02:25:59 --> 02:26:04 But in the counties that were white, as white can be, he got his brains beat out.
02:26:05 --> 02:26:10 If he's going to run, now that he's the Republican nominee, either these people
02:26:10 --> 02:26:14 are going to change their mind and say, well, we're going to vote red no matter
02:26:14 --> 02:26:16 what, or they're not coming to vote.
02:26:17 --> 02:26:22 And if you're the GOP, instead of worrying about Natalie Harp,
02:26:22 --> 02:26:25 you need to be trying to figure out how you're going to convince your cousins
02:26:25 --> 02:26:28 and friends in Miami to vote for this black man to be governor.
02:26:28 --> 02:26:29 That's what you need to be doing.
02:26:31 --> 02:26:34 Donald Trump endorsed him. all y'all needed to be making the trip to Florida.
02:26:34 --> 02:26:39 All those counties that Byron didn't win, y'all need to be all up in there,
02:26:39 --> 02:26:42 phone calling, knocking on, whatever you need to do.
02:26:43 --> 02:26:48 Because David Jolly, in the Democratic primary in those same counties, he won all those.
02:26:50 --> 02:26:54 Now, he was a Republican at one time. Nonetheless, he won.
02:26:55 --> 02:26:59 He won across the board, just about every county in Miami, in Florida.
02:26:59 --> 02:27:02 He won. Byron Donalds couldn't say that.
02:27:05 --> 02:27:10 So why are you trying to get in Angie Nixon's Kool-Aid, which I understand because
02:27:10 --> 02:27:13 she's a Democrat, so you're trying to help Ms. Ashley out?
02:27:15 --> 02:27:19 You need to be convincing your own folks to vote for your own people instead
02:27:19 --> 02:27:21 of trying to disparage this woman.
02:27:22 --> 02:27:27 Because we showed you on the Democratic side that wasn't a good idea. Right?
02:27:29 --> 02:27:32 You know, why would you?
02:27:34 --> 02:27:39 $16 million, because my wife said something about that woman's outfit.
02:27:40 --> 02:27:43 I lost $16 million. I lost an election.
02:27:45 --> 02:27:48 And some of the Venn men's going to have to work out at their house. I'm just saying,
02:27:51 --> 02:27:57 politics is a sport. It's not a game. You have to engage fully.
02:27:58 --> 02:28:01 And the Democrats have got to get out of this.
02:28:02 --> 02:28:07 Hell you know we don't want the socialists to win and all that look man whoever
02:28:07 --> 02:28:13 is on your team whoever is on your team on that November ballot you gotta support them,
02:28:14 --> 02:28:18 you got to doesn't matter if your girl in Michigan didn't win doesn't matter
02:28:18 --> 02:28:21 if your girl in Minnesota didn't win it doesn't matter if.
02:28:24 --> 02:28:30 Your guy in Florida didn't win. Doesn't matter if your person in Texas didn't win. Mine sure didn't.
02:28:31 --> 02:28:36 There were some candidates I was hoping would win in here in Georgia that didn't win. That's fine.
02:28:37 --> 02:28:41 When I go to my ballot, whatever's lined up on that D side, I got them.
02:28:42 --> 02:28:47 Not unless they ain't done something crazy in between now and the election. I got them.
02:28:47 --> 02:28:50 And if they did something crazy, I'm not voting for the Republican.
02:28:50 --> 02:28:52 I'm just going to skip that slot.
02:28:53 --> 02:28:57 Oh, by the way, I don't know if y'all play these polymarkers or not. I do not.
02:28:59 --> 02:29:02 But I suggest if you play the polymarkers, I suggest you watch this.
02:29:02 --> 02:29:06 There's a video floating around where Keisha Lance Bottoms confronts Rick Jackson,
02:29:07 --> 02:29:09 about saying something about her husband.
02:29:13 --> 02:29:19 Must see TV. It's pretty apparent who the next governor of the state of Georgia is going to be.
02:29:19 --> 02:29:24 Because Ms. Bottoms walked up to that man like she already had the job and basically
02:29:24 --> 02:29:26 told him, this is how it's going to go down.
02:29:26 --> 02:29:31 This is what's on limits. This is what's off limits. She said, I am fair game.
02:29:31 --> 02:29:36 Come at me all you will. But if you say something else about my husband or my
02:29:36 --> 02:29:38 family, we're going to have a problem. That's basically how she told him.
02:29:39 --> 02:29:42 And Rick Jackson ain't no small man and Keisha's not a tall woman,
02:29:43 --> 02:29:47 but Keisha had that business suit on and she had them folks surrounding her
02:29:47 --> 02:29:50 and she looked that man square in the face and told him.
02:29:50 --> 02:29:55 He just, he said, thank you. Nice outfit. And he walked away. Bruh.
02:29:56 --> 02:30:00 Keisha Lans Bottoms is governor of Georgia. Now we still have to vote.
02:30:01 --> 02:30:05 Still have to make it going. But if you watch that video, you know who the governor
02:30:05 --> 02:30:08 is and who's pretending that they want to be governor.
02:30:09 --> 02:30:12 That man ain't ready for prime time. That man ain't ready for that show.
02:30:13 --> 02:30:14 He ain't ready for that smoke.
02:30:15 --> 02:30:19 He would have been better off letting Butch Jones win instead of investing his
02:30:19 --> 02:30:23 money because he's going to get his butt wet in November.
02:30:24 --> 02:30:26 He's already got his tails between his legs now.
02:30:27 --> 02:30:32 Keisha Lamb's bottom is about to be the first black, the first female governor in the state of Georgia.
02:30:33 --> 02:30:37 And even if I had no party bias whatsoever, But if I saw that video,
02:30:38 --> 02:30:39 that would have made my mind up right there.
02:30:40 --> 02:30:45 Because that's the kind of people we need in all 50 states to remind the president
02:30:45 --> 02:30:49 of the United States this is not an authoritarian dictatorship.
02:30:49 --> 02:30:51 It's the United States of America.
02:30:52 --> 02:30:57 These states are united to create this nation, to build it up,
02:30:57 --> 02:31:00 to fight and defend for democracy. That's what we're about.
02:31:01 --> 02:31:03 Everybody has a place at the table.
02:31:05 --> 02:31:11 I just think some people should some people that might not to be close to the head of the table.
02:31:12 --> 02:31:14 Right. But I.
02:31:16 --> 02:31:21 The seat at the table. And yeah, we need to vote accordingly.
02:31:22 --> 02:31:25 So I'm going to be interested. It's going to be interesting to watch how all
02:31:25 --> 02:31:30 this develops from now until, because Labor Day is when officially everything
02:31:30 --> 02:31:33 really gets into high gear. That's usually how it works.
02:31:33 --> 02:31:40 And we'll see. But, you know, I just want the Republicans to understand.
02:31:41 --> 02:31:47 If you want Black people to get behind you, then the racism has to stop,
02:31:48 --> 02:31:51 whether it's inadvertent or direct. It's got to stop.
02:31:52 --> 02:31:56 And to the Democrats, if they want black folks to continue supporting them,
02:31:57 --> 02:32:05 then they've got to uplift sisters like Angie Nixon and brothers like Justin
02:32:05 --> 02:32:07 Pearson. That's your team.
02:32:08 --> 02:32:14 Every primary that has happened, you've built your team. the team that's going to go into November.
02:32:15 --> 02:32:19 And you've got to commit to them full force.
02:32:20 --> 02:32:26 Shout out to Sister Janu in Vermont. I'm so, so happy and proud for her. That's your team.
02:32:27 --> 02:32:31 When camp started, did you think these people were going to be the starting
02:32:31 --> 02:32:33 quarterbacks, the starting players? Probably not.
02:32:34 --> 02:32:38 But now that we're on the field, this is the team we're putting out there.
02:32:39 --> 02:32:42 And we got to support them. with our full chest.
02:32:43 --> 02:32:46 All right, that's all I got. Thank you all for listening. Till next time.