Hosts Erik Fleming interviews Lieutenant Colonel Eileen Isola about her book "Necessary Turbulence," which compiles fifty years of women's experiences at the U.S. Air Force Academy, and Ryan Virden about "Breaking the Privilege Frame," his call for white Americans to join racial justice work as a path to mutual healing and systemic change.
The episode explores military service, gender and racial barriers, the impact of wars and policy on institutions, and how storytelling and collective action can build a more just, connected America.
00:00:00 --> 00:00:06 Welcome. I'm Erik Fleming, host of A Moment with Erik Fleming, the podcast of our time.
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00:01:15 --> 00:01:20 The following program is hosted by the NBG Podcast Network.
00:02:00 --> 00:02:05 Hello, and welcome to Another Moment with Erik Fleming. I am your host, Erik Fleming.
00:02:06 --> 00:02:13 And so today, I have two guests who have written books. One is Eileen Isola.
00:02:14 --> 00:02:20 And Eileen is a former lieutenant colonel with the U.S. Air Force.
00:02:21 --> 00:02:30 And she has written this book about the history of women in the U.S.
00:02:30 --> 00:02:35 Air Force that went through the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.
00:02:36 --> 00:02:39 Very, very moving and compelling history,
00:02:39 --> 00:02:45 which uses the actual testimonies from people who went through the Academy from
00:02:45 --> 00:02:52 the very beginning all the way to this last class in 2026.
00:02:52 --> 00:02:57 So we're going to be talking to her, and then we're going to be talking to this
00:02:57 --> 00:03:02 young man named Ryan Virden, who has written this book called Breaking the Privilege Frame,
00:03:03 --> 00:03:12 in which he discusses how we can end the mindset of white privilege in the United States of America.
00:03:13 --> 00:03:17 So I hope that you will enjoy those interviews.
00:03:18 --> 00:03:22 And as always, we will encourage you to support the podcast.
00:03:22 --> 00:03:26 Go to www.momenteric.com to do that.
00:03:26 --> 00:03:32 And you can either give a one-time donation or you can subscribe to the podcast
00:03:32 --> 00:03:36 and the website will show you how to do either one of those things.
00:03:37 --> 00:03:42 If you want to catch up with past episodes, all that stuff, please feel free
00:03:42 --> 00:03:48 to do that. One of the things I think is really cool for people is to see who all has been on the show.
00:03:48 --> 00:03:55 And you can go to the guest page link and just see all the magnificent guests
00:03:55 --> 00:03:56 that I've had on the show.
00:03:58 --> 00:04:04 And we are continuing to grow that. And again, I hope that you are enjoying
00:04:04 --> 00:04:06 all these interviews that we are doing.
00:04:06 --> 00:04:10 Very interesting time we're living in, as always.
00:04:11 --> 00:04:16 So I encourage you all not only to listen to me, but other independent podcasters,
00:04:16 --> 00:04:18 especially black independent podcasters.
00:04:19 --> 00:04:25 The content that is coming out is powerful and really addressing some of the
00:04:25 --> 00:04:26 things that need to be addressed.
00:04:27 --> 00:04:32 And some serious like mine and some are really, really humorous,
00:04:33 --> 00:04:38 but they're all serving the same mission and that's to try to get people to
00:04:38 --> 00:04:43 think and get people inspired to make the changes that need to be made to make,
00:04:44 --> 00:04:46 America live up to its pledge,
00:04:47 --> 00:04:48 to be a more perfect union.
00:04:49 --> 00:04:53 All right, so now that we've got the formalities out the way,
00:04:53 --> 00:04:55 it's time to kick this program off.
00:04:55 --> 00:05:00 And as always, we kick it off with a moment of news with Grace G.
00:05:07 --> 00:05:11 Thanks, Erik. A Mississippi grand jury will review the death of black teenager
00:05:11 --> 00:05:16 Nolan Wells, keeping evidence temporarily sealed to protect the integrity of
00:05:16 --> 00:05:18 the routine investigation.
00:05:18 --> 00:05:23 A Georgia teenager received a life sentence for a fatal 2024 school shooting,
00:05:23 --> 00:05:28 and his father was sentenced to 15 years in prison for providing the weapon.
00:05:28 --> 00:05:33 A Democratic National Committee panel voted to keep South Carolina as the first
00:05:33 --> 00:05:38 presidential primary state for 2028, prioritizing its crucial black voter base
00:05:38 --> 00:05:41 over Nevada's push for the spot.
00:05:41 --> 00:05:45 A federal appeals court upheld an injunction blocking the Trump administration
00:05:45 --> 00:05:50 from implementing an executive order designed to tighten mail-in voting rules
00:05:50 --> 00:05:53 in 23 states ahead of the November elections.
00:05:54 --> 00:06:00 Elon Musk's America PAC plans to spend up to $120 million on voter turnout efforts
00:06:00 --> 00:06:05 to help Republicans retain control of Congress in the upcoming November elections.
00:06:05 --> 00:06:10 Former infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci invoked his Fifth Amendment rights
00:06:10 --> 00:06:15 to avoid answering questions at a Senate hearing, prompting Senator Rand Paul
00:06:15 --> 00:06:17 to schedule a contempt vote.
00:06:17 --> 00:06:22 Hadi Mattar, already serving 25 years for stabbing author Salman Rushdie in
00:06:22 --> 00:06:29 2022, was found guilty of federal terrorism charges and faces a potential life sentence.
00:06:29 --> 00:06:33 The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced the termination of
00:06:33 --> 00:06:38 a subsidy program for Medicare prescription drug plans after 2026,
00:06:38 --> 00:06:43 stating insurers can now accurately price plans without federal support.
00:06:43 --> 00:06:50 The CDC has recorded 6 confirmed cases of cyclosporiasis since May 1,
00:06:50 --> 00:06:55 with over 11 suspected cases pending investigation.
00:06:55 --> 00:07:02 And the CDC also reported 2 U.S. measles cases this year,
00:07:02 --> 00:07:07 the highest annual total in 35 years due to declining vaccination rates.
00:07:07 --> 00:07:11 I am Grace Gee, and this has been a Moment of News.
00:07:18 --> 00:07:22 All right. Thank you, Grace, for that moment of news. And now it is time for
00:07:22 --> 00:07:26 my guest, Eileen Isola.
00:07:26 --> 00:07:33 Eileen Isola is the lead editor for Necessary Turbulence, 50 Years,
00:07:33 --> 00:07:38 One Unbreakable Sisterhood Forged in the Crucible of the Air Force Academy.
00:07:39 --> 00:07:44 Former U.S. Air Force commander and decorated combat pilot who now flies internationally,
00:07:45 --> 00:07:49 She was the first woman to serve as an advanced agent to the President of the United States,
00:07:50 --> 00:07:54 flew high-performance jets, trained combat pilots, invaded other countries,
00:07:55 --> 00:08:00 airlifted humanitarian relief, resupplied Amazon jungle radar sites,
00:08:00 --> 00:08:06 commanded an Air Force squadron, and crumbled barriers for women who wanted to serve their country.
00:08:07 --> 00:08:10 A graduate of the United States Air Force Academy, she has spoken at universities,
00:08:11 --> 00:08:15 professional women's aviation events, and to business and community organizations.
00:08:15 --> 00:08:18 It has been featured on the front page of the New York Times.
00:08:19 --> 00:08:22 When out at 40 feet in her front row seat to the universe,
00:08:22 --> 00:08:24 she makes her home in Virginia.
00:08:25 --> 00:08:29 Ladies and gentlemen, it is my distinct honor and privilege to have as a guest,
00:08:30 --> 00:08:34 on this podcast, Eileen Isola.
00:08:45 --> 00:08:52 All right. Eileen Isola, Lieutenant Colonel Eileen Isola. How are you doing?
00:08:52 --> 00:08:55 Very well, Erik. Thanks for having me today.
00:08:55 --> 00:09:00 Well, I'm honored to have you on. Like I just, my last episode,
00:09:00 --> 00:09:02 I had an airman from the Air Force on.
00:09:03 --> 00:09:08 And what I told her, I'm going to tell you, is that I have a very special place
00:09:08 --> 00:09:12 in my heart for those who actually serve in the military.
00:09:12 --> 00:09:16 The only other people I hold in higher regard are social workers.
00:09:16 --> 00:09:20 So I tell people that if you're a veteran and a social worker, it's like.
00:09:22 --> 00:09:26 I've hit the ultimate guess, right, as far as who I do. And then teachers,
00:09:26 --> 00:09:31 of course, too. But yeah, but I really commend you for that.
00:09:31 --> 00:09:35 And especially with this book that you have written, Necessary Turbulence,
00:09:36 --> 00:09:41 which talks about, you know, through some collective stories,
00:09:41 --> 00:09:46 the history of women being in Air Force and especially going through the Air
00:09:46 --> 00:09:48 Force Academy in Colorado Springs. things.
00:09:49 --> 00:09:54 So I'm really, really honored to talk to you personally and to talk to you about this book.
00:09:54 --> 00:09:58 So what I normally do, and that's the old moderator in me, I do a couple of
00:09:58 --> 00:10:00 icebreakers to get things started.
00:10:01 --> 00:10:05 So the first icebreaker is a quote that I want you to respond to.
00:10:05 --> 00:10:09 And the quote is, you do what you can for as long as you can.
00:10:09 --> 00:10:16 And when you finally can't, you do the next best thing. You back up, but you don't give up.
00:10:16 --> 00:10:22 Yeah, you found a great one amongst all the entirety of this incredible story in this book.
00:10:24 --> 00:10:28 That is a great summary quote that perfectly describes,
00:10:29 --> 00:10:33 What we refer to as the collective we, all of these, this incredible,
00:10:33 --> 00:10:39 extraordinary group of women that almost no one has ever heard of and yet changed
00:10:39 --> 00:10:41 our society and our country and,
00:10:42 --> 00:10:45 made our military that much more combat capable.
00:10:46 --> 00:10:51 And that is that that quote speaks to their persistence, their determination,
00:10:51 --> 00:10:57 their resilience, and they, as a group, the constantly, individually and as
00:10:57 --> 00:10:59 a group, constantly having to,
00:10:59 --> 00:11:01 calibrate and navigate,
00:11:02 --> 00:11:03 and find their way,
00:11:04 --> 00:11:12 and to achieve and to lead in inside systems and spaces that never imagined them.
00:11:13 --> 00:11:19 Women being there were not designed for women and and yet had to do all of that
00:11:19 --> 00:11:25 typically without a template or any precedence and do it with little to no margin for error and,
00:11:26 --> 00:11:33 that's that particular quote exquisitely describes our collective and individual
00:11:33 --> 00:11:37 mindsets that you just keep going Yeah.
00:11:37 --> 00:11:44 Yeah, that was from when I was growing up. He was considered a superhero, Chuck Yeager. Yeah.
00:11:45 --> 00:11:51 I said, yeah, that sounds like Mr. Yeager. All right. So the next iceberg is
00:11:51 --> 00:11:52 what I call 20 questions.
00:11:53 --> 00:11:55 So I need you to give me a number between 1 and 20.
00:11:57 --> 00:12:05 18. All right. What is one thing we might all agree is important no matter our differences?
00:12:06 --> 00:12:09 Well, there's any number of things I can respond to for that.
00:12:10 --> 00:12:19 The one thing that we can all agree is that the absence of stories like this
00:12:19 --> 00:12:23 one from our collective American narrative and chronicle,
00:12:25 --> 00:12:32 mean that we as a society lack the full picture of what our American story,
00:12:33 --> 00:12:35 our history consists of.
00:12:36 --> 00:12:40 And when groups, entire groups of people are missing from the record,
00:12:40 --> 00:12:43 our understanding becomes incomplete.
00:12:43 --> 00:12:54 And when a society is missing pieces of itself, our next generations don't see what's possible.
00:12:56 --> 00:12:57 And then they're left.
00:12:58 --> 00:13:05 They don't even know that they absolutely can go through any door they want.
00:13:05 --> 00:13:12 They can be or do absolutely anything they want to do or be and navigate through
00:13:12 --> 00:13:15 any door they want, including the doors they didn't even know were there.
00:13:16 --> 00:13:22 And it's the absence of stories from groups, like are told through this story,
00:13:23 --> 00:13:27 that leaves, and this is my personal, something that's important to me,
00:13:28 --> 00:13:33 that it leaves our next generation and subsequent generations never knowing,
00:13:34 --> 00:13:38 what's possible for themselves and for our society and our country.
00:13:39 --> 00:13:42 And I think we can absolutely all agree on that. Yeah.
00:13:43 --> 00:13:47 All right. So before we get into the book, Necessary Turbulence,
00:13:47 --> 00:13:49 I need to pick your brain on a couple of issues.
00:13:50 --> 00:13:54 Okay. So the very first agency, the Department of Government Efficiency,
00:13:54 --> 00:13:57 or DOGE, cut was the Federal Aviation Authority.
00:13:58 --> 00:14:03 Right after that, we had the terrible helicopter plane collision at Reagan National.
00:14:04 --> 00:14:10 So I have two questions. As a commercial pilot, why is the FAA important? Yeah.
00:14:11 --> 00:14:22 The FAA is the single organization for this country that handles everything to do with aviation.
00:14:23 --> 00:14:29 It is an entirely different, unlike any other industry, and there are many industries
00:14:29 --> 00:14:31 that could say the same, respectively.
00:14:32 --> 00:14:36 But there is nothing else, no body anywhere,
00:14:37 --> 00:14:46 that defines all the rules for operating safely at every possible dimension
00:14:46 --> 00:14:52 of what it takes to navigate, to fly any aircraft of any kind.
00:14:52 --> 00:14:57 Big, small, helicopter, airplane, hot air balloon, you name it.
00:14:57 --> 00:15:01 There is no other organization that handles that.
00:15:01 --> 00:15:06 Including the air traffic controllers, including maintenance standards,
00:15:08 --> 00:15:12 every single aspect, and there's not enough time for me to attempt to laundry list out,
00:15:14 --> 00:15:19 all the dimensions inside this one industry that we term aviation.
00:15:19 --> 00:15:27 It is the sole organization that defines, manages, executes,
00:15:27 --> 00:15:34 holds the standards, and holds people and organizations accountable to those standards.
00:15:36 --> 00:15:40 And I'll just quickly, you talked about, you mentioned the Reagan accident.
00:15:40 --> 00:15:44 I will just say that for your listeners,
00:15:44 --> 00:15:49 that accident in and of itself, and I'm speaking now personally as a commercial
00:15:49 --> 00:15:52 pilot, I am not speaking as the FAA or any other organization,
00:15:53 --> 00:16:00 that accident did not happen solely because of a decision that was made within
00:16:00 --> 00:16:05 a short period of time, whether it was budgetary or staffing or whatever.
00:16:05 --> 00:16:12 There are a number of issues within the entirety of the air traffic control
00:16:12 --> 00:16:19 system, meaning airports, towers, airplanes, helicopters, hot air balloons, blimps, you name it,
00:16:20 --> 00:16:22 that have been compounding for several years.
00:16:22 --> 00:16:26 And in that particular little chunk of airspace right there in Washington, D.C.,
00:16:27 --> 00:16:31 anybody who's taken the time to actually go read the report out of the National
00:16:31 --> 00:16:37 Transportation Safety Board will quickly come away understanding that,
00:16:38 --> 00:16:45 that that was an almost doomed to happen event that had to do with a whole host
00:16:45 --> 00:16:47 of compounding decisions over time.
00:16:48 --> 00:16:53 Well, Eileen, if I had a bingo card, I would have won because I said,
00:16:53 --> 00:16:58 you know, sometimes when I ask people questions, I kind of anticipate what they're going to say.
00:16:59 --> 00:17:04 And sometimes I'm pleasantly surprised, sometimes I'm just surprised.
00:17:04 --> 00:17:10 But I knew that you were going to be very professional in giving that and giving
00:17:10 --> 00:17:13 a complete picture about what happened.
00:17:13 --> 00:17:18 That it not necessarily was a direct correlation, but the timing image-wise
00:17:18 --> 00:17:21 and me being a political person. Absolutely. It was very, very mad.
00:17:22 --> 00:17:26 And all pilots that have flown by in and out of Reagan, me included,
00:17:28 --> 00:17:32 we have all said, and there are other places around the country we have the same concerns for.
00:17:34 --> 00:17:38 That the changes, the things that have been allowed to pile up and wave people
00:17:38 --> 00:17:43 have been allowed, airplanes, whatever decisions made to pile up that led to that accident,
00:17:44 --> 00:17:48 are similar to other places around the country that we pilots have been raising
00:17:48 --> 00:17:50 the stink about for a very long time.
00:17:50 --> 00:17:55 And it's a horrible tragedy to have a way to get the organizations,
00:17:55 --> 00:17:59 the government's attention to frickin' make the changes that should have been made a long time ago.
00:18:00 --> 00:18:03 Yeah. So that leads me to the next question.
00:18:03 --> 00:18:09 What is the difference between military piloting and commercial piloting,
00:18:09 --> 00:18:12 especially when it comes to communications?
00:18:12 --> 00:18:18 Because that was kind of just the report that it was a communications failure,
00:18:18 --> 00:18:22 as folks didn't know where other people were at the time.
00:18:23 --> 00:18:28 So inside, within the, I'll say domestic airspace, you know,
00:18:28 --> 00:18:33 around, right around the country, we're not at war here inside the U.S.
00:18:33 --> 00:18:35 We're not doing combat operations, all that kind of stuff.
00:18:35 --> 00:18:38 Everybody flies by the same rules.
00:18:39 --> 00:18:43 And in that particular incident, for example, the military, though, is allowed
00:18:43 --> 00:18:48 to operate and do things differently in order to train like how we're going
00:18:48 --> 00:18:52 to actually operate in a combat or a high stress environment,
00:18:52 --> 00:18:55 I mean, even if it's not combat, it could be some humanitarian relief operation
00:18:55 --> 00:18:57 that nonetheless is very complicated.
00:18:58 --> 00:19:01 I flew in one of those, and it was very challenging.
00:19:02 --> 00:19:07 Nobody was shooting at each other, but it still made for an extremely complicated
00:19:07 --> 00:19:09 airspace and an extremely complicated operation.
00:19:10 --> 00:19:16 So we train inside the U.S. in a whole host of ways and in different areas for
00:19:16 --> 00:19:21 how we're going to actually operate when we are deployed or some other circumstance.
00:19:22 --> 00:19:26 Or even inside the U.S. You know, long ago, 20 plus years ago,
00:19:26 --> 00:19:31 Hurricane Katrina, that was extremely complicated aviation operation that went
00:19:31 --> 00:19:33 on there with everything that went on with Katrina.
00:19:34 --> 00:19:38 So now in that particular incident, there were some differences.
00:19:38 --> 00:19:44 So for example, nobody in the airline world, you know, flying airliners and
00:19:44 --> 00:19:47 stuff, they don't fly around with night vision goggles on.
00:19:47 --> 00:19:51 We in the military fly around with night vision goggles on as part of our routine
00:19:51 --> 00:19:56 training, even when that routine training seems to be something as benign as flying,
00:19:56 --> 00:20:01 up and down a particular route around a major city or something like that,
00:20:01 --> 00:20:06 like not in some protected training chunk of airspace away from,
00:20:06 --> 00:20:10 you know, commercial pilots or commercial aircraft and that kind of thing.
00:20:10 --> 00:20:15 So we do do that. And we are allowed to do that as part of the routine way that
00:20:15 --> 00:20:22 we have to, as military pilots, have to learn to be able to operate routinely, comfortably, safely.
00:20:22 --> 00:20:26 The first time you want a military pilot putting on night vision goggles and
00:20:26 --> 00:20:31 going out to operate is not when they're in some foreign country in an airspace
00:20:31 --> 00:20:35 they don't know, with languages that they don't know, with,
00:20:36 --> 00:20:39 air traffic controllers who speak English, but with very thick accents,
00:20:39 --> 00:20:42 perhaps, trying to figure out what's happening, what's going on.
00:20:42 --> 00:20:50 That all happens here inside the U.S. But in general, we absolutely all fly by all the same rules for.
00:20:51 --> 00:20:56 Speeds and altitudes and keeping track of each other and knowing where other
00:20:56 --> 00:21:00 aircraft are and those kind of things. Okay.
00:21:02 --> 00:21:04 What was your motivation for writing this book?
00:21:06 --> 00:21:09 You know, if you, the answer I give you today is different than the answer I
00:21:09 --> 00:21:11 would have given you three and a half years ago when we started.
00:21:12 --> 00:21:17 Three and a half years ago, it was because a group of women realized that 2026 would be
00:21:18 --> 00:21:23 the year marking 50 years since the doors of the Air Force Academy and the other
00:21:23 --> 00:21:27 military service academies, but the doors of the Air Force Academy opened to women.
00:21:27 --> 00:21:31 So the thought came out, you know, hey, we should write a book.
00:21:31 --> 00:21:36 Now, the answer that I give you now is that in retrospective,
00:21:37 --> 00:21:40 we knew that there was more than 12 women who would enter the Air Force
00:21:40 --> 00:21:45 Academy over the 50 years from 1976 to 2026.
00:21:45 --> 00:21:49 And the voices in the group cover that entire 50-year period.
00:21:50 --> 00:21:55 And we had a deep conviction that somewhere within all of those lives was a
00:21:55 --> 00:21:59 larger story, a collective journey. The book is not about what it's like to
00:21:59 --> 00:22:04 be a cadet at the Air Force Academy or just focuses on the Air Force Academy.
00:22:05 --> 00:22:10 It's the entire 50 years of these women's lives through and with,
00:22:10 --> 00:22:12 told through and with their voices.
00:22:13 --> 00:22:16 And we knew there was some sort of a larger story in there, what we call the
00:22:16 --> 00:22:22 collective heroine's journey, and one that had never been fully seen or heard
00:22:22 --> 00:22:24 before. And I liken it very much.
00:22:25 --> 00:22:29 When I speak about the book, I talk all the time about it's like hidden figures.
00:22:29 --> 00:22:34 Like with hidden figures, like one of my all-time favorite books,
00:22:34 --> 00:22:40 it wasn't that suddenly we Americans discovered there had been a space race. We knew that.
00:22:41 --> 00:22:46 What we didn't know was that all of the different, the kinds of people and the
00:22:46 --> 00:22:51 work that was done that no one had ever heard about, and that it was this extraordinary
00:22:51 --> 00:22:54 group of women who ultimately,
00:22:54 --> 00:22:59 put human beings into space, onto the moon, into the International Space Station,
00:22:59 --> 00:23:02 and now out to the cosmos, headed for Mars someday.
00:23:02 --> 00:23:06 And it was that extraordinary group of women. And that's the parallel to this
00:23:06 --> 00:23:07 extraordinary group of women.
00:23:07 --> 00:23:10 And we knew that story. There was a story in there.
00:23:10 --> 00:23:16 And we just didn't know what it was. So we put out a call and asked women to
00:23:16 --> 00:23:19 tell us stories from the entirety of their lives.
00:23:20 --> 00:23:23 And we ended up with over a half a million words came back to us.
00:23:24 --> 00:23:29 And it was we went into those over half a million words and we found the story
00:23:29 --> 00:23:34 as i say that was demanding it be told that needed to be told for some of the
00:23:34 --> 00:23:35 reasons i already spoke about,
00:23:36 --> 00:23:42 for for our daughters our nieces our granddaughters and for people everywhere,
00:23:42 --> 00:23:48 not just women or little girls but people everywhere because it is such a universal story.
00:23:49 --> 00:23:56 And so we found that collective heroine's journey that unfolded across generations, across these 50 years.
00:23:56 --> 00:24:00 And with that, everything changed, and we were no longer just writing a book.
00:24:02 --> 00:24:09 We were shepherding a story into being birthed into the world.
00:24:10 --> 00:24:16 And making sure that we were faithfully revealing something that had always
00:24:16 --> 00:24:21 been there, but now needed to be come forward.
00:24:22 --> 00:24:26 And it was so important to us that we do it with and through these women's voices.
00:24:26 --> 00:24:32 We didn't just write a single story and make reference to other people,
00:24:32 --> 00:24:37 other women, that it was there. So think of it like an impressionist painting.
00:24:37 --> 00:24:40 You know, you're standing up close and you just see a bunch of colored dots.
00:24:40 --> 00:24:43 And when you step back away from that Impressionist painting,
00:24:44 --> 00:24:47 you see the painting. The painting was always there.
00:24:47 --> 00:24:52 But now when you step back, as we did, over 50 years, with over these half a
00:24:52 --> 00:24:58 million words from these 108 women, boom, it came into view.
00:24:59 --> 00:25:06 And then we knew we had this incredible responsibility that we weren't just writers or authors.
00:25:06 --> 00:25:12 We now were curators of something that,
00:25:13 --> 00:25:19 had always existed but had never come into our world and absolutely needed to,
00:25:19 --> 00:25:24 that it was this incredible, important part of American history and women's stories.
00:25:25 --> 00:25:30 For all of us, for all of us. So what is the significance of the title?
00:25:32 --> 00:25:35 So like many books, probably most, I would say,
00:25:36 --> 00:25:41 it named itself far, long, far into, somewhere around three years into the three
00:25:41 --> 00:25:45 and a half year total journey that we, there was a writing team of nine of us
00:25:46 --> 00:25:51 spread from Germany to the Pacific coast of the US who lived on Google Drive
00:25:51 --> 00:25:52 and Zoom for three and a half years.
00:25:53 --> 00:25:57 And it the story named itself because it speaks to,
00:25:58 --> 00:26:04 that individually these women who had to navigate and calibrate and shape shift
00:26:05 --> 00:26:10 and be four or five different versions of themselves all in a day usually all before nude,
00:26:11 --> 00:26:16 and they had to constantly all of the turbulence all of the challenges all of
00:26:16 --> 00:26:21 the obstacles all of the times they were told no or they told they didn't belong
00:26:21 --> 00:26:23 We're told they were lowering standards.
00:26:23 --> 00:26:28 We're told they couldn't do something for no other reason than because they were a woman.
00:26:29 --> 00:26:35 All of that turbulence, as we call it, ultimately it generated growth for each
00:26:35 --> 00:26:36 of these women individually.
00:26:37 --> 00:26:43 And they had to constantly work at defining and redefining and figuring out
00:26:43 --> 00:26:47 who they were as they navigated, not just in the military.
00:26:47 --> 00:26:51 There are women in the book who actually didn't graduate from the Air Force Academy.
00:26:51 --> 00:26:56 It's the totality of these women's lives Whether they didn't graduate They served
00:26:56 --> 00:27:00 five years They served 35 years It's the whole,
00:27:00 --> 00:27:06 human experience That we all go through And the growth that each of them had
00:27:06 --> 00:27:09 experienced The other aspect to the title is.
00:27:11 --> 00:27:16 It kind of dawned on us that what we're also talking about is this group of
00:27:16 --> 00:27:22 women over time, over 50 years, who just kept showing up, showing up to the
00:27:22 --> 00:27:24 Air Force Academy, showing up in their jobs,
00:27:25 --> 00:27:33 doing them excellently, and just determined persistently with great resilience to...
00:27:33 --> 00:27:39 Achieve and lead and make a difference in other people's lives and serve their
00:27:39 --> 00:27:44 oath to the constitution even long after they left uniform,
00:27:44 --> 00:27:50 and all of that by just showing up and that presence caused the institution
00:27:50 --> 00:27:55 the same things happened to the institution of the air force academy and the air force
00:27:56 --> 00:28:00 it caused the institution to have to look introspectively
00:28:00 --> 00:28:05 and to make decisions how it was going to change and grow and make itself better,
00:28:06 --> 00:28:10 so that our country could have the most combat-capable force that it could.
00:28:10 --> 00:28:15 So it speaks to both of those aspects, the individuals and the turbulence that caused growth,
00:28:16 --> 00:28:21 as individuals and as humans, and to the institution and how it had to change
00:28:21 --> 00:28:24 and adapt and grow as well because of the turbulence that we women,
00:28:25 --> 00:28:30 unwittingly perhaps, but nonetheless that we brought to the institutions.
00:28:30 --> 00:28:33 Yeah. And I appreciate that answer.
00:28:34 --> 00:28:38 One thing you said in the answer is something that I stress to people a lot
00:28:38 --> 00:28:44 is that, you know, whether you serve in the military, you serve in law enforcement,
00:28:44 --> 00:28:48 you elected to something, most of the time you have to swear an oath to the Constitution.
00:28:48 --> 00:28:52 And I remind people that just because
00:28:52 --> 00:28:56 you're no longer in that particular position, you did take that oath.
00:28:57 --> 00:29:03 So you still have an obligation even afterwards. So to hear that a lot of people,
00:29:04 --> 00:29:09 that you interview still hold that oath important, I think that's an important thing to highlight.
00:29:09 --> 00:29:13 That's absolutely inviolable. Yes, ma'am. So what was your biggest challenge
00:29:13 --> 00:29:17 in securing the interviews for the book? Was it getting the women to talk about
00:29:17 --> 00:29:22 the experiences or was it limiting the amount of interviews that conduct in place in that?
00:29:23 --> 00:29:28 Well, we put out a call for submissions, and so the majority of the submissions were written.
00:29:29 --> 00:29:32 We actually didn't have much of a challenge getting submissions.
00:29:33 --> 00:29:38 As we say in the introduction to the book, nobody had ever asked this group
00:29:38 --> 00:29:42 of women to talk about, to tell their stories. And we asked,
00:29:43 --> 00:29:44 and boy, did they respond.
00:29:45 --> 00:29:47 And so we had—we had—.
00:29:49 --> 00:29:55 Somewhere in the neighborhood of close to 200 submissions total between written
00:29:55 --> 00:30:01 and oral interviews that totaled up to this 560 words.
00:30:01 --> 00:30:08 And out of that, we went then and selected excerpts that,
00:30:09 --> 00:30:15 as we crafted the single narrative arc, the single story that told in a collective
00:30:15 --> 00:30:20 we voice where we speak, the story's told,
00:30:21 --> 00:30:25 and written about we, but in a single story that then,
00:30:27 --> 00:30:28 these women's voices then.
00:30:30 --> 00:30:31 Are like the punches.
00:30:31 --> 00:30:35 That make the points, that bring out the highlights, that are the themes,
00:30:35 --> 00:30:43 that curate and really shout the themes to the rafters of their lives and all
00:30:43 --> 00:30:45 of us then collectively as a group.
00:30:46 --> 00:30:50 So that there wasn't much of a challenge getting responses the challenge was,
00:30:51 --> 00:30:57 we were it was overwhelming the response and the the time it took to read and
00:30:57 --> 00:30:59 read and read and read and then,
00:31:00 --> 00:31:05 go find what it was what we were going to pull out and bring together,
00:31:06 --> 00:31:08 into this heroine's journey,
00:31:09 --> 00:31:14 of leaving our known world, entering the crucible, all of the challenges,
00:31:15 --> 00:31:21 in uniform, after uniform, whatever, and then the transformation as the final,
00:31:22 --> 00:31:25 section of the book is titled, The Becoming of What We All Become,
00:31:26 --> 00:31:29 whether it was from the first class 50 years ago or,
00:31:30 --> 00:31:34 our youngest contributor just graduated in the class of 2026,
00:31:34 --> 00:31:35 a little over two months ago.
00:31:36 --> 00:31:40 Yeah, that's cool. It's very cool.
00:31:40 --> 00:31:45 Dr. Catherine Landig said that, as a historian, I have long believed that the
00:31:45 --> 00:31:50 experiences of women serving in the military can reveal much about the United
00:31:50 --> 00:31:54 States at the time. Do you agree with that sentiment? Absolutely.
00:31:55 --> 00:32:02 Absolutely. Yes, she's a brilliant historian. We were very, very gifted to have
00:32:02 --> 00:32:08 her write the foreword to the book and bring her perspective to this as a historian
00:32:08 --> 00:32:09 and particularly one who focuses.
00:32:10 --> 00:32:15 She wrote the what's considered the book on the women air force service pilots from world war ii,
00:32:16 --> 00:32:21 and their their experience and this this is a continuation from you know that's
00:32:21 --> 00:32:23 another group of women that,
00:32:23 --> 00:32:28 very few people really know much of anything about just like we talked about
00:32:28 --> 00:32:31 hidden figures we talked you can talk about the women air force service pilots
00:32:32 --> 00:32:36 the suffragettes the mercury 13 the green belts.
00:32:37 --> 00:32:42 You know there's there's several of these groups through history whose and particularly
00:32:42 --> 00:32:49 groups of women whose stories have very little if at all come to literary or stage light and,
00:32:50 --> 00:32:57 this that's another really important factor behind why this we had to tell this story,
00:32:57 --> 00:33:03 because it's now part of it's part of our american record it's evidence as well,
00:33:03 --> 00:33:08 We don't have to speculate and have somebody's opinion about whether women did
00:33:08 --> 00:33:09 this or that or how well they did it.
00:33:10 --> 00:33:15 There's 50 years of evidence now collected into this single book and this single
00:33:15 --> 00:33:18 story. And that's really important for all of us.
00:33:19 --> 00:33:25 So in the book, you said most of us do not see barriers denying our goals.
00:33:25 --> 00:33:31 Most of us did not see barriers denying our goals, merely obstacles we tackled on our way to success.
00:33:32 --> 00:33:36 So my question is, which barrier challenged female cadets the most,
00:33:36 --> 00:33:40 the cultural misogyny or the beast itself?
00:33:41 --> 00:33:45 So by the BEAST, I'm assuming you're referring to, that's our slang word as
00:33:45 --> 00:33:49 cadets for basic cadet training, which is military basic training,
00:33:49 --> 00:33:52 just like anywhere else in any of the services.
00:33:54 --> 00:34:00 And so it's called basic cadet training. Like I said, the acronym reduces to
00:34:00 --> 00:34:02 our slang word. We call it BEAST.
00:34:02 --> 00:34:07 And it's a six-week basic training course that every cadet goes through.
00:34:07 --> 00:34:11 And women and men do all experience the exact same thing,
00:34:12 --> 00:34:15 to get all the same training run all the same assault forces crawl through the
00:34:15 --> 00:34:20 same mud and under the concertina wire etc etc etc run all the same miles get
00:34:20 --> 00:34:24 up at six o'clock in the morning all of that stuff.
00:34:25 --> 00:34:31 The harder i would submit that in in terms of the two options you gave me there
00:34:31 --> 00:34:35 the harder part was navigating and and surviving,
00:34:36 --> 00:34:41 the culture, particularly in the early decades, but it absolutely lingers on,
00:34:41 --> 00:34:47 which is mind-baffling to think that there's some 18-, 19-, 20-year-old guys,
00:34:48 --> 00:34:51 male cadets at the Academy, who still feel,
00:34:51 --> 00:34:58 from wherever it comes that they are able to walk up to a woman cadet and stick
00:34:58 --> 00:35:03 their finger in her face and tell her that she doesn't belong there and she
00:35:03 --> 00:35:06 belongs home in a kitchen making babies.
00:35:06 --> 00:35:08 All these things are still said.
00:35:09 --> 00:35:12 Now, there's a great story in the book from one of our contributors. Her name is Sheila.
00:35:12 --> 00:35:17 And she had that happen to her where a male cadet walked up to her and put his
00:35:17 --> 00:35:21 finger in her face and said, you belong home in a kitchen making babies.
00:35:21 --> 00:35:25 And she put her finger right back in his face and said, you better get used
00:35:25 --> 00:35:27 to working for women in the Air Force. Yeah.
00:35:29 --> 00:35:35 And uh you know we just but it was very difficult particularly women who had
00:35:36 --> 00:35:38 there was a whole spectrum of experiences some women,
00:35:39 --> 00:35:44 did not have the same none of us had the same experience as any single other
00:35:44 --> 00:35:47 woman of the 12 or 12 000 of us that have now attended,
00:35:48 --> 00:35:54 and those that had very rough experiences including women who were raped and
00:35:54 --> 00:35:59 and all of the other whether it's any form of Any form of ism,
00:35:59 --> 00:36:01 because all the isms are there,
00:36:02 --> 00:36:04 there are those that had it worse than others.
00:36:04 --> 00:36:08 And that's an objective fact.
00:36:09 --> 00:36:16 But all of us, I would say, collectively would say that navigating and surviving,
00:36:16 --> 00:36:20 and thriving for those that were able to thrive in that culture was far more
00:36:20 --> 00:36:25 difficult than Beast or any of the other physical or mental challenges.
00:36:25 --> 00:36:29 BEAST was a one-time, it's the very first thing you do right when you first
00:36:29 --> 00:36:31 in process, the very first summer there.
00:36:31 --> 00:36:36 And there's a multitude of those kind of challenges throughout the entirety of the four years.
00:36:36 --> 00:36:44 The survival training, the POW camp training, all of the different types of
00:36:44 --> 00:36:48 training that we go through, many of them can be very physically and mentally
00:36:48 --> 00:36:50 demanding, as they should be.
00:36:51 --> 00:36:55 We're training a future officer corps to lead our nation.
00:36:56 --> 00:37:03 So it should be very difficult. And everybody goes through it and performs it to the same standards.
00:37:04 --> 00:37:10 The emotional and mental aspects from the culture side of it was very difficult,
00:37:11 --> 00:37:17 and there are many women now through the journey of this book who we have heard
00:37:17 --> 00:37:22 back from and who are, for the first time, some of them were talking 40 years,
00:37:23 --> 00:37:25 for the first time are now healing from,
00:37:26 --> 00:37:29 the experiences that they had there 40 years ago.
00:37:29 --> 00:37:33 So based on the interviews conducted, would you assess that it was tougher on
00:37:33 --> 00:37:35 the early black female cadets?
00:37:37 --> 00:37:42 Eric, I'll tell you just honestly, I really hesitate to speak for our black
00:37:42 --> 00:37:45 women from any of the eras. I'm a white woman.
00:37:46 --> 00:37:51 There's no way that I can fully appreciate. I absolutely can speak the totality
00:37:51 --> 00:37:53 of the women's experience.
00:37:53 --> 00:38:00 There is no doubt from the stories we read that came in from the many black
00:38:00 --> 00:38:01 women that are in the book.
00:38:02 --> 00:38:08 There is no doubt that they i can't say every single one of them but but it
00:38:08 --> 00:38:12 would not surprise me if every single one of them had a much tougher time than
00:38:12 --> 00:38:14 their white women counterparts,
00:38:15 --> 00:38:23 and the earliest classes perhaps had it in terms of just the cultural realities from,
00:38:24 --> 00:38:28 the late 70s, early 80s into the 90s compared to today.
00:38:29 --> 00:38:34 I like to think it's better today. I can't give you an objective factual reading on that.
00:38:34 --> 00:38:38 I haven't done some sort of quantitative survey or something.
00:38:38 --> 00:38:42 I'm sure that data, those kind of surveys are out there and are done.
00:38:42 --> 00:38:46 They used to be done regularly, all the climate assessment surveys.
00:38:47 --> 00:38:51 They have not been being done for about the last two years, which doesn't really
00:38:51 --> 00:38:55 surprise any of us. But there is no doubt that.
00:38:57 --> 00:39:05 My Black women sisters had experiences that I could not possibly have a full
00:39:05 --> 00:39:10 appreciation and understanding for. And reading many of them that came in absolutely
00:39:10 --> 00:39:12 laid me out on the floor and had me sobbing.
00:39:13 --> 00:39:20 They just did. It probably was tougher for my Black women sisters in those early classes.
00:39:21 --> 00:39:24 But I wouldn't, I can't categorically state that. Yeah.
00:39:25 --> 00:39:30 So how did the Gulf War change the perception of women in the Air Force?
00:39:31 --> 00:39:35 The Gulf War, and by that, we're talking about the first Gulf War in 1990,
00:39:36 --> 00:39:39 91, 92, I'm assuming you're speaking to. That changed.
00:39:40 --> 00:39:41 That was a pretty big game changer.
00:39:42 --> 00:39:49 The Gulf War was the impetus for the end of what was known as the combat exclusion law.
00:39:50 --> 00:39:58 We, America, went to war and everybody deployed, whoever you were and whatever unit you were in.
00:39:58 --> 00:40:04 And prior to that, and during the Gulf War, women were not allowed to fly combat
00:40:04 --> 00:40:11 aircraft, nor could they fly non-combat aircraft in combat zones, combat environments.
00:40:12 --> 00:40:18 And all of that evaporated in the Gulf War because there was no front lines in a rear echelon.
00:40:19 --> 00:40:22 For anybody that's old enough to remember that, Scud missiles were flying everywhere.
00:40:24 --> 00:40:30 And on the ground, you know, under General Schwarzkopf, the ground force was
00:40:30 --> 00:40:37 moving so fast that his words were, logistics is just going to have to keep up.
00:40:37 --> 00:40:42 And the historians among us will remember what was known as the big left hook,
00:40:42 --> 00:40:44 the big swing through the sunny desert.
00:40:45 --> 00:40:54 And there was so much happening so fast that, frankly, as a young captain at
00:40:54 --> 00:40:59 that time, the generals that were leading combat operations were,
00:41:00 --> 00:41:05 Just stop, I would say, stop caring about what the law said.
00:41:05 --> 00:41:10 They had a mission to get done, and nobody was going to stop to go,
00:41:10 --> 00:41:14 we need C-130s to land on highways out in the middle of the Saudi desert to
00:41:14 --> 00:41:17 make sure that Schwarzkopf's troops are getting resupplied.
00:41:19 --> 00:41:23 There was no time, and nobody wanted to even consider stopping to go,
00:41:23 --> 00:41:25 okay, do we have women on those C-130s?
00:41:25 --> 00:41:28 Wait a minute, wait a minute. That airplane can go fly, but that one cannot,
00:41:29 --> 00:41:34 unless we pull that woman pilot off and put another, that couldn't happen in
00:41:34 --> 00:41:38 the fog of war and the furious pace that all of what was happening.
00:41:39 --> 00:41:45 So I would say that our experience was, and if you were an air refueling tanker,
00:41:45 --> 00:41:48 pilot, or crew, it was the same thing.
00:41:48 --> 00:41:52 You just went where you needed to go. If you were flying one of the airborne.
00:41:53 --> 00:41:58 Command and control aircraft that was working the airspace and keeping planes de-conflicted.
00:41:59 --> 00:42:04 You just went where, a plane went where it needed to go to perform the mission,
00:42:04 --> 00:42:10 and nobody cared who was on it in terms of male or female or anything else.
00:42:10 --> 00:42:16 And that, so we all came home from that war with having flown in combat.
00:42:17 --> 00:42:25 And that was, that then began the major effort to eliminate the combat exclusion law, which did change.
00:42:25 --> 00:42:31 And you'll appreciate this as a former congressman. The 1992 National Defense
00:42:31 --> 00:42:37 Authorization Act removed the combat exclusion for women flying in combat aircraft
00:42:37 --> 00:42:39 and serving on combatant ships.
00:42:40 --> 00:42:47 And in April 28th of 1993, Les Haspin, the Secretary of Defense,
00:42:47 --> 00:42:49 removed the policy that prohibited us.
00:42:50 --> 00:42:55 And thus, the doors were flung open and women poured through those doors to
00:42:55 --> 00:43:00 do, you know, I was a high performance jet instructor pilot and there were many others like me.
00:43:01 --> 00:43:04 And there we were, the airplane doesn't care.
00:43:04 --> 00:43:08 The airplane doesn't know, or any weapons system, whether it's an airplane or
00:43:08 --> 00:43:16 a ship or a tank or anything else, doesn't know and care what gender is at the controls.
00:43:16 --> 00:43:19 The machine responds to control inputs, period.
00:43:20 --> 00:43:25 And anything else that would be considered regarding women's physical abilities
00:43:25 --> 00:43:28 to handle the demand or their ability to think.
00:43:29 --> 00:43:35 With the speed and the agility actually all the studies show that and these
00:43:35 --> 00:43:38 are factual things now which more and more of these continue to come out,
00:43:39 --> 00:43:43 so for example after women all the women that have now gone through ranger school
00:43:43 --> 00:43:47 for the army and the studies that have been done show,
00:43:47 --> 00:43:52 that physiologically and mentally women possess their bodies,
00:43:53 --> 00:43:58 sustain that kind of stress physiologically speaking,
00:43:58 --> 00:44:05 better than a male body does which doesn't mean that women are better or men are better whatever,
00:44:05 --> 00:44:10 these are the kinds of realities that the facts speak to and all any of us care
00:44:10 --> 00:44:13 about and particularly when you're in command as i was,
00:44:14 --> 00:44:20 you just want the most capable force and know that your people are trained know
00:44:20 --> 00:44:25 what they're doing and are going to be there for the person on their left and
00:44:25 --> 00:44:26 their right, in front of them, behind them,
00:44:27 --> 00:44:30 and don't care about anything else other than that. Yeah.
00:44:32 --> 00:44:38 Excuse me. You wrote this statement in the book, to survive until we belonged,
00:44:38 --> 00:44:42 our rations included vigilance, humor, and tenacity.
00:44:42 --> 00:44:48 We exposed the unwritten rules, morphed to fit in, but never forget our differences.
00:44:49 --> 00:44:55 Speak up but don't be too assertive defer to protect competitive egos laugh
00:44:55 --> 00:44:57 but not too loud and never off color,
00:44:58 --> 00:45:03 we adjusted our voices our words and our posture some of us hardened our tone
00:45:03 --> 00:45:09 to be heard others kept softness as quiet rebellion we recorded our memories
00:45:09 --> 00:45:12 not as victims or to accuse but to bear witness,
00:45:14 --> 00:45:20 As a civilian, does that mindset give you a sense of empathy to people in American
00:45:20 --> 00:45:23 society that may feel the same way? Absolutely.
00:45:24 --> 00:45:25 Absolutely.
00:45:26 --> 00:45:30 Absolutely. And which is one of the, I think, one of the most powerful things.
00:45:30 --> 00:45:35 You know, we started this and the core connection point for this extraordinary
00:45:35 --> 00:45:37 group of women is the Air Force Academy.
00:45:37 --> 00:45:41 But what emerged out of this was this incredible human story.
00:45:41 --> 00:45:47 It's for anyone, anywhere, who, again, who has found themselves in a space or
00:45:47 --> 00:45:53 a place or a system that never imagined them, wasn't designed for them,
00:45:53 --> 00:45:55 doesn't think they belong there.
00:45:57 --> 00:46:03 And you have to, as you just listed off, all the ways we calibrate and adjust,
00:46:04 --> 00:46:09 and tailor ourselves and present a different aspect or different part of ourselves
00:46:09 --> 00:46:14 that we think will be the acceptable part for that circumstance or that audience.
00:46:15 --> 00:46:20 That was very much has been for this group of women and I would submit for lots
00:46:20 --> 00:46:28 of people in a number of different sub-demographic groups or whatever from the collective,
00:46:29 --> 00:46:36 we of this group of women absolutely can see themselves in that reality every
00:46:36 --> 00:46:40 day and for many groups for decades,
00:46:41 --> 00:46:43 in some cases, hundreds of years.
00:46:45 --> 00:46:49 There's an old aviation saying that goes, the three most useless things in the
00:46:49 --> 00:46:54 world are altitude above you, runway below you, and time that has passed.
00:46:55 --> 00:46:58 How can that saying be applied in everyday life?
00:46:58 --> 00:47:05 Oh, so this very much is how, for me personally, how I think and operate.
00:47:06 --> 00:47:14 Not because I'm a pilot, but I have learned, I have the blessing of a few decades of life.
00:47:15 --> 00:47:22 And with that comes the learning through all the good, the bad, and the ugly,
00:47:23 --> 00:47:29 of arriving at a place, a circumstance in my life where there is no other way
00:47:29 --> 00:47:34 for me to be than to be a whole, fully integrated person,
00:47:34 --> 00:47:36 and in my case, as a woman.
00:47:37 --> 00:47:44 And to do that and to live in the moment of every day for today and not attempt
00:47:44 --> 00:47:47 to, as someone who is very left-brained,
00:47:48 --> 00:47:57 but not attempt to project and project manage and analyze and overthink,
00:47:57 --> 00:48:03 all the things that I have no idea may or may not happen.
00:48:04 --> 00:48:07 And all with those things, the things I have no control over.
00:48:07 --> 00:48:13 So for me, and those may recognize, that's a real, I'm a huge serenity prayer type of a person.
00:48:13 --> 00:48:20 And that's to me what you're speaking of is I am constantly looking and I would submit.
00:48:22 --> 00:48:26 The journey of leading this incredible team of women who wrote this book,
00:48:27 --> 00:48:32 The Nine of Us, and the 108 voices that are in it, really brought that,
00:48:32 --> 00:48:35 for me, into really stark relief.
00:48:35 --> 00:48:40 That i learned from these women and their experiences that i wasn't alone and
00:48:40 --> 00:48:43 that there this is something that so many,
00:48:44 --> 00:48:51 women have had to learn through their experiences and i learned from that and took from them,
00:48:51 --> 00:48:57 and integrated it more fully into my own life over the course of these three
00:48:57 --> 00:48:59 and a half years and and that,
00:49:00 --> 00:49:05 i am i do not look back at the runway behind me i did the best i could,
00:49:06 --> 00:49:12 and i've arrived at this exquisite moment in time that everything that has gone
00:49:12 --> 00:49:16 before me the runway behind me the altitude below me and the time has prepared
00:49:16 --> 00:49:20 me for this moment in my life,
00:49:21 --> 00:49:25 That i'm sitting here today with you having this phenomenal conversation,
00:49:25 --> 00:49:30 And that's that is not lost on me at all and i'm not worried about thinking
00:49:30 --> 00:49:31 i'm not even thinking about,
00:49:32 --> 00:49:37 What comes next later today or which doesn't mean I don't plan for The future
00:49:37 --> 00:49:40 means it doesn't mean I just live on a whim I.
00:49:41 --> 00:49:47 But it does mean that when I'm here in this moment with you, that I am fully here.
00:49:47 --> 00:49:51 And I know that the reason I'm here is because of the runway behind me,
00:49:51 --> 00:49:52 the altitude below me, and the time.
00:49:53 --> 00:49:59 And I chuckled as you read that because, yes, that is absolutely a very pilot thing that we say.
00:50:00 --> 00:50:04 And usually we say it in the context of, you know,
00:50:05 --> 00:50:08 thinking out, getting out ahead of the aircraft so you don't go,
00:50:09 --> 00:50:16 oh crap i wish i had done whatever so i not looking at oops what i should have
00:50:16 --> 00:50:18 done what's behind me or below me,
00:50:19 --> 00:50:22 i now have taken that in my own life and looked at it from,
00:50:22 --> 00:50:26 all of that runway behind me and altitude below me and what has come before
00:50:26 --> 00:50:32 brings me to this moment and the ability and the blessing and the and the privilege
00:50:33 --> 00:50:37 of getting to talk about this extraordinary group of women and this story,
00:50:37 --> 00:50:40 that has already changing lives.
00:50:40 --> 00:50:44 It has changed mine, it is changing others, and it's going to continue to change
00:50:44 --> 00:50:46 lives as it continues to make its way.
00:50:46 --> 00:50:51 It's only been out into the world now for five weeks, and it is already changing
00:50:51 --> 00:50:55 lives. And we are so grateful, so grateful for that.
00:50:55 --> 00:50:59 Because what more could you ask for than to make a difference for people?
00:51:00 --> 00:51:04 So finish this sentence i have hope because.
00:51:06 --> 00:51:15 I have hope because i do do in the quiet moment of the day i do believe in the,
00:51:16 --> 00:51:23 the goodness the incredible goodness of people doesn't mean every person but i think,
00:51:25 --> 00:51:30 I think that particularly, these women are a microcosm,
00:51:32 --> 00:51:38 of all kinds of women everywhere, across any industry or domain you want to,
00:51:39 --> 00:51:40 list or talk about or think of.
00:51:41 --> 00:51:47 And there are legions of women and people like these women who,
00:51:48 --> 00:51:53 who in pursuit of their dream to be part of,
00:51:54 --> 00:51:58 they didn't start off this way thinking oh i'm going to be part of this incredible
00:51:58 --> 00:52:04 american story but now recognize and know that they are and there are so many,
00:52:05 --> 00:52:11 you are too your background that are part of this story and are and believe in in.
00:52:13 --> 00:52:22 The goodness ultimately at our core at our soul of people and that we we absolutely
00:52:22 --> 00:52:24 can make a difference we can,
00:52:25 --> 00:52:32 continue to move forward continue in the pursuit of in the case of our country
00:52:32 --> 00:52:37 a more perfect union and that that does that does give me hope,
00:52:38 --> 00:52:44 even even in the throughout the days when it's very difficult to have hope because
00:52:44 --> 00:52:51 there are continually there are moments that drop in on me that tell me that,
00:52:53 --> 00:53:00 everything that this country is and where it came from with all of.
00:53:03 --> 00:53:10 All of the horrible crap that is also part of our story our our nation's story,
00:53:11 --> 00:53:13 and the more of these stories that get told,
00:53:14 --> 00:53:20 and if i could be so bold for example just because i'm speaking with you on
00:53:20 --> 00:53:23 this particular show of yours one of the greatest books i've,
00:53:25 --> 00:53:28 profoundly changed my life was reading the 1619 project,
00:53:29 --> 00:53:36 i i was i was angry and i when i got while i was reading it and certainly when
00:53:36 --> 00:53:41 i got done with it and i was stunned and i was absolutely a changed person and
00:53:41 --> 00:53:43 it's things like that to have,
00:53:43 --> 00:53:49 that book drop into my life when it did before the writing of this one,
00:53:50 --> 00:53:58 changed me and it's another drop-in that gives me hope because without,
00:53:58 --> 00:54:02 that story and everything that
00:54:02 --> 00:54:06 has flowed from it and all the other ones like Cast that then followed.
00:54:08 --> 00:54:14 And Hidden Figures and Maureen Murdoch's Heroine's Journey their timing-wise
00:54:14 --> 00:54:19 are different, doesn't matter there's this constant pieces these constant books
00:54:19 --> 00:54:21 and stories and experiences,
00:54:22 --> 00:54:24 that drop in on me that tell me,
00:54:24 --> 00:54:26 and affirm for me,
00:54:27 --> 00:54:32 that that there there is a preponderance of souls,
00:54:33 --> 00:54:41 out there with whom i can connect and together we we will continue to be for
00:54:41 --> 00:54:45 each other and for our brothers and sisters,
00:54:45 --> 00:54:51 what we can all be and should all be for each other, everything else aside.
00:54:51 --> 00:54:57 Long answer to your question, but thanks for the opportunity to just free stream a little bit.
00:54:58 --> 00:55:04 Well, that's awesome. I like free thinkers and especially conscientious free thinkers.
00:55:05 --> 00:55:12 I think that says a lot about just imagining being a part of your unit and the
00:55:12 --> 00:55:16 trust that you garnered from your.
00:55:18 --> 00:55:24 Folks under your command. I think that last answer spoke a lot about that.
00:55:24 --> 00:55:25 That gives me an incredible visual.
00:55:27 --> 00:55:30 So you said the book just dropped five weeks ago. How can people get it?
00:55:30 --> 00:55:37 Oh, well, you can purchase the book from whatever your favorite bookseller is, retailer is.
00:55:37 --> 00:55:42 But I will tell you that if you go to our website, necessaryturbulence.com,
00:55:42 --> 00:55:46 and go to the book page there, you can purchase the book.
00:55:46 --> 00:55:52 There's a long list of retailers, including a list of minority and women-owned
00:55:52 --> 00:55:57 retailers that we would love for people to buy from and support,
00:55:58 --> 00:56:01 as well as you can go to your local independent bookstore and purchase from
00:56:01 --> 00:56:04 them. That would give us great joy as well.
00:56:05 --> 00:56:10 And if anybody, if your listeners out there can convince Mahogany Books to carry
00:56:10 --> 00:56:14 our book and be able to purchase it through Mahogany Books, I would be beyond
00:56:14 --> 00:56:17 joy. We've not yet been successful in doing that.
00:56:18 --> 00:56:25 And that saddens me because there are so many voices in the book of incredible
00:56:25 --> 00:56:28 Black women and their stories, and.
00:56:29 --> 00:56:35 Mahogany Books needs to sit up and pay attention and take note of their stories that are in this book.
00:56:35 --> 00:56:39 But on necessaryturbulence.com, you can also purchase it directly from our publisher
00:56:39 --> 00:56:46 and get a 15% discount, which then in turn supports our incredible publisher,
00:56:46 --> 00:56:49 which is Millspeak Books, which is a nonprofit.
00:56:49 --> 00:56:55 And directly, their mission, among others, is to publish the voices of veterans
00:56:55 --> 00:56:59 and veteran-adjacent stories in the books there.
00:57:00 --> 00:57:04 So there's a number of different ways you can. I do hope folks will take the
00:57:04 --> 00:57:11 time and go purchase from a minority or woman-owned bookstore or your local independent bookshop.
00:57:11 --> 00:57:18 If you're overseas with an FPO, an APO, or a DPO address, that information is also there.
00:57:19 --> 00:57:23 How best to get that if you live overseas? There are other links there for where
00:57:23 --> 00:57:25 it is sold in different countries.
00:57:26 --> 00:57:31 We did our best to make sure that no matter where you are, you can get this
00:57:31 --> 00:57:35 book and you can get it into your hands and into your life and the lives of
00:57:35 --> 00:57:37 those around you as well.
00:57:38 --> 00:57:42 All right. So if people want to reach out to you directly, how can they do that?
00:57:43 --> 00:57:49 Through that same website. There's a contact form there that you could send
00:57:49 --> 00:57:54 a little note. And it comes to me and you will absolutely hear back from me. I guarantee you.
00:57:55 --> 00:57:59 It's very important that you will hear back from, from me, from us.
00:58:00 --> 00:58:06 Well, Eileen Isola, Lieutenant Colonel Eileen Isola, I thank you again for your service,
00:58:07 --> 00:58:12 not just for the military aspect of it, but for you being a dedicated historian,
00:58:13 --> 00:58:15 and gathering these stories and putting it in a book form.
00:58:17 --> 00:58:24 I firmly believe that in order to move forward, we have to remember where we came from.
00:58:25 --> 00:58:31 Absolutely. And I think, you know, your book is a very foundational piece in that.
00:58:31 --> 00:58:37 And so not only was I honored to be able to read it, but to be able to talk
00:58:37 --> 00:58:42 to you directly about it and to have you as a guest on the show.
00:58:42 --> 00:58:48 So the rule is that once you've been on the show, that you have an open invitation to come back.
00:58:48 --> 00:58:52 So if you do a follow-up on the book or something else on your mind,
00:58:53 --> 00:58:56 feel free to reach out and we'll get you on. But again, Eileen,
00:58:57 --> 00:58:59 I enjoyed this conversation. Thank you so much.
00:59:00 --> 00:59:04 I did too, Erik. Thank you. And I will absolutely come back once I finish and
00:59:04 --> 00:59:08 publish my memoir, which got set aside and backburnered in order to,
00:59:08 --> 00:59:11 because this story was so important. It was so important.
00:59:12 --> 00:59:15 So I will absolutely, and I would love to come back and I would love to continue
00:59:15 --> 00:59:18 this conversation and any other you'd like to have.
00:59:19 --> 00:59:23 And a joy. Well, thank you. And all right, guys, we're going to catch y'all on the other side.
00:59:43 --> 00:59:48 All right, and we are back. And so now it is time for my next guest, Ryan Virden.
00:59:49 --> 00:59:53 Ryan Virden is an esteemed author, educator, cultural worker,
00:59:53 --> 00:59:59 leadership coach, and public speaker with over 15 years of experience working
00:59:59 --> 01:00:01 with individuals, teams, and organizations.
01:00:02 --> 01:00:06 Grounded in a background spanning research, classroom teaching,
01:00:06 --> 01:00:09 restorative justice, and executive leadership.
01:00:11 --> 01:00:16 Ryan's work emphasizes creating strong, authentic relationships that enable
01:00:16 --> 01:00:19 clients to build trust, clarity, and connection through their work.
01:00:20 --> 01:00:25 The sought-after speaker and writer Ryan Virden is the author of the newly released
01:00:25 --> 01:00:27 book Breaking the Privileged Frame,
01:00:27 --> 01:00:31 a compelling and essential read for anyone seeking to understand and address
01:00:31 --> 01:00:35 the complexities of race and privilege in today's world.
01:00:36 --> 01:00:41 His work offers readers a fresh perspective on those working on dismantling
01:00:41 --> 01:00:46 oppressive systems, one that calls for an honest exploration of identity,
01:00:47 --> 01:00:52 engagement in meaningful dialogue, and work towards greater justice and equity.
01:00:52 --> 01:00:57 By dissecting the historical roots of white supremacy and the language used
01:00:57 --> 01:01:03 to discuss race, breaking the privileged frame challenges conventional narratives
01:01:03 --> 01:01:07 through a thought-provoking exploration of how race operates.
01:01:07 --> 01:01:12 As the founder and executive director of Lear Culture Coaching,
01:01:12 --> 01:01:16 Ryan has partnered with dozens of organizations across the private,
01:01:16 --> 01:01:18 public, and nonprofit sectors,
01:01:18 --> 01:01:23 to strengthen leadership capacity, facilitate conflict resolution efforts,
01:01:23 --> 01:01:25 and build cultures of belonging.
01:01:26 --> 01:01:31 His approach combines data-informed assessment tools with reflective practice
01:01:31 --> 01:01:35 and systems designed to transform cultures from the inside out.
01:01:36 --> 01:01:41 Ryan's writing has appeared in The Good Men Project and Twin Cities Daily Planet,
01:01:42 --> 01:01:45 and his work has been featured by Minnesota Public Radio.
01:01:46 --> 01:01:49 He holds advanced degrees in both liberal studies and educational leadership
01:01:49 --> 01:01:52 and is working toward a third in human resource law.
01:01:53 --> 01:01:58 Additionally, Virden is an adjunct professor in the Justice and Peace Studies
01:01:58 --> 01:02:02 Department at the University of St. Thomas, working each semester to help young
01:02:02 --> 01:02:08 people understand the manifestations of violence and work for a more just and peaceful world.
01:02:08 --> 01:02:12 In his work, he continues to bridge scholarship and practice through his writing,
01:02:12 --> 01:02:14 coaching, and workshops.
01:02:14 --> 01:02:19 Originally from Northeast Minneapolis, Ryan found his voice via hip-hop and
01:02:19 --> 01:02:23 enjoys debating your top five dead or alive.
01:02:23 --> 01:02:29 He's also a fan of rom-com films, especially the cheesy ones from the 90s and the early 2000s.
01:02:29 --> 01:02:33 Outside of work, he is a proud husband and dad to two daughters,
01:02:34 --> 01:02:36 plus two canine companions.
01:02:37 --> 01:02:40 He currently lives in Atlanta, Georgia. Ladies and gentlemen,
01:02:41 --> 01:02:47 it is my distinct honor and privilege to have as a guest on this podcast, Ryan Virden.
01:02:58 --> 01:03:01 All right. Ryan Virden. How are you doing? So you're doing good.
01:03:02 --> 01:03:05 I'm doing well, Erik. Thank you. Yeah, I'm doing well. Well,
01:03:05 --> 01:03:10 I'm glad to have you on. You have written this book that is very, very interesting.
01:03:10 --> 01:03:17 And let's see. I'm breaking. I hope it's interesting. Breaking the Privilege Frame. Yeah.
01:03:17 --> 01:03:21 Yeah, that caught my attention. So I'm glad we're going to talk about a little
01:03:21 --> 01:03:27 bit. We're going to talk about kind of not so much word for word on the book,
01:03:27 --> 01:03:31 but but the theme and why you decided to do that.
01:03:32 --> 01:03:37 But what I like to do is I do a couple of icebreakers.
01:03:37 --> 01:03:43 But before I do my normal icebreakers, it says in your bio that you're this
01:03:43 --> 01:03:48 this hip hop aficionado and and all that stuff.
01:03:48 --> 01:03:52 And you like to debate people about the top five.
01:03:55 --> 01:03:58 Who's your Mount Rushmore rap and all that stuff? Yeah.
01:04:00 --> 01:04:04 So aficionado might be stretching it. I'm a hip-hop head, and I do like to debate
01:04:04 --> 01:04:07 the top five. I'll debate people's top fives for sure.
01:04:08 --> 01:04:12 All right, so let me ask you this question. Who do you – because I got into
01:04:12 --> 01:04:14 a debate with some friends.
01:04:14 --> 01:04:17 This was years ago, and we were
01:04:17 --> 01:04:23 like, saying east coast west coast um they made fun they made fun of me,
01:04:24 --> 01:04:28 about midwest because i'm originally from chicago it's like you know midwest
01:04:28 --> 01:04:33 rappers i said okay common yay e or yay or however you pronounce it now kanye west,
01:04:34 --> 01:04:39 i don't yeah i twist okay that's fine y'all y'all can y'all can act like y'all don't know but anyway.
01:04:41 --> 01:04:46 Who do you consider the best female lyricist of all time?
01:04:47 --> 01:04:50 Oh, wow. That is such a good... I was not expecting that question.
01:04:50 --> 01:04:54 The best female lyricist of all time.
01:04:54 --> 01:05:02 Honestly, like, so my personal... Like, I think she could go bar for bar with anybody is Foxy Brown.
01:05:03 --> 01:05:07 I think... Yeah, I think Foxy... I grew up in that era of...
01:05:07 --> 01:05:10 I would say, you know, I'm from Minneapolis. So when you said there's no Midwest
01:05:10 --> 01:05:12 rappers, I'm like, yeah, right.
01:05:12 --> 01:05:17 Like I grew up on Bone and Common and my mom Rushmore got Lupe in it.
01:05:17 --> 01:05:23 So, you know, Brother Ali from Minneapolis. But Foxy is right there for me.
01:05:23 --> 01:05:28 I think we're in an age of some really talented female MCs right now.
01:05:28 --> 01:05:32 Like I'm down in Atlanta, so I get a lot of Lotto.
01:05:32 --> 01:05:36 I get a lot of YK niece, like all that.
01:05:36 --> 01:05:40 I think where the female emcees have come with it and are finally starting to
01:05:40 --> 01:05:41 get their shine right now.
01:05:42 --> 01:05:48 Yeah, Lotto is coming up. Dolce is an up-and-coming one that a lot of people like.
01:05:48 --> 01:05:53 Dolce is cold, yeah. But the one I think of all time is Lauryn Hill.
01:05:54 --> 01:06:00 I think Lauryn is the queen when it comes to Ravelers. Because not only is she,
01:06:00 --> 01:06:05 profound in what she talks about, but her freestyle skills are ridiculous.
01:06:05 --> 01:06:08 Because I just saw someone on, I think, Instagram.
01:06:08 --> 01:06:10 They were at the Apollo, where she
01:06:10 --> 01:06:14 got booed, by the way, when she first auditioned on Showtime for Apollo.
01:06:15 --> 01:06:19 But she got out there with the Fugees, and Wyclef said, we need to have some
01:06:19 --> 01:06:22 freestyle going on. And then Lauren took over, and it was like.
01:06:23 --> 01:06:28 She's the queen to me, but you can't go wrong with Ms. Hill for sure.
01:06:28 --> 01:06:33 All right. Now that we got that out the way, the other icebreakers I do is the
01:06:33 --> 01:06:36 first one is I want you to respond to a quote.
01:06:37 --> 01:06:44 Okay. And the quote is, if you have to come help me, you are wasting your time.
01:06:45 --> 01:06:49 But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with me,
01:06:49 --> 01:06:51 then let's work together.
01:06:52 --> 01:06:55 The response of that? Yes, sir. Yeah, that's the only way forward.
01:06:56 --> 01:07:04 I think that we fundamentally are in a position since the Industrial Revolution
01:07:04 --> 01:07:08 where we're in this hyper-independent, hyper-individual mindset,
01:07:09 --> 01:07:11 and we don't understand how interconnected we are.
01:07:11 --> 01:07:16 And so I think, you know, it's a great quote to talk about, to segue into the
01:07:16 --> 01:07:22 book, because that's really the impetus for the book was realizing,
01:07:22 --> 01:07:24 hey, we're doing this racial justice thing wrong.
01:07:24 --> 01:07:27 By we, I mean, white folks, I'm a white guy.
01:07:27 --> 01:07:33 And so we keep trying to do things for people and not figuring out how we benefit
01:07:33 --> 01:07:38 and what we can do, how this struggle benefits us, heals us,
01:07:38 --> 01:07:40 and that we are in it side by side.
01:07:40 --> 01:07:44 Not leading anybody, not doing anything for anybody, but doing it with people.
01:07:45 --> 01:07:48 And I'm a restorative practitioner as well. And so that's the number one tenant
01:07:48 --> 01:07:50 is you don't do things to people. You do it with them.
01:07:51 --> 01:07:56 And so I really think that's the only way we figure this thing out. Okay.
01:07:57 --> 01:08:01 My next icebreaker is what we call 20 questions. Nah, I like it.
01:08:01 --> 01:08:04 So I need you to give me a number between 1 and 20.
01:08:05 --> 01:08:07 Let's go 11. All right.
01:08:08 --> 01:08:12 Where do you go to check a fact that you see, hear, or read?
01:08:13 --> 01:08:19 Oh, man, I go lots of places. I go multiple places, so never just one place, but I will go.
01:08:19 --> 01:08:23 I got lots of books, so I'll go check a book, or I'll.
01:08:24 --> 01:08:32 Find in the archives of maybe the Times or some of the more established traditional
01:08:33 --> 01:08:35 presses, although I don't put a lot of stock in that.
01:08:35 --> 01:08:38 But then I'll also go find somewhere outside of Western media.
01:08:38 --> 01:08:43 So, like, I might go fact check something in Al Jazeera English or some other
01:08:43 --> 01:08:47 media outside of the Western framework.
01:08:48 --> 01:08:55 Okay. All right. So why did you decide to write this book and why did you decide
01:08:55 --> 01:08:57 to write it in a textbook format?
01:08:58 --> 01:09:05 Yeah. So the book comes out of my experience as a organizer and cultural worker in Minneapolis.
01:09:05 --> 01:09:09 I was an educator. So maybe that gets to the, to the formatting.
01:09:09 --> 01:09:13 I actually tried not to write it as much as a textbook as I think maybe it came
01:09:13 --> 01:09:16 out. I just seen it was on like an intellectual books list. I was like,
01:09:16 --> 01:09:21 man, maybe I, maybe I didn't get it enough out of the intellectual part.
01:09:21 --> 01:09:24 But I'm an educator, trained, and a historian.
01:09:25 --> 01:09:32 And so my work is in that space, right? As in like intellectual scholarship.
01:09:32 --> 01:09:37 And then my life was around cultural work and organizing and trying to make the world better.
01:09:38 --> 01:09:43 And in Minneapolis after the uprisings, it felt like a moment.
01:09:43 --> 01:09:46 Well, during the uprisings, after the murder of Floyd, it felt like a moment
01:09:46 --> 01:09:53 where we could really capitalize on the truth that was being laid bare and do something different.
01:09:54 --> 01:09:58 And for lots of different reasons, that didn't happen. And so this book is really
01:09:58 --> 01:10:00 my reflection on that and like, what happened?
01:10:03 --> 01:10:08 Why didn't this result in a fundamental shift in how we relate to each other?
01:10:08 --> 01:10:11 And I talk about it from my own point of view, right? Like, I don't talk about
01:10:11 --> 01:10:13 communities that I'm not a part of.
01:10:13 --> 01:10:17 And so I thought a lot about what were white people doing, particularly white
01:10:17 --> 01:10:18 men, how were we showing up?
01:10:19 --> 01:10:25 And I realized that back to that first quote, we're showing up as if we were
01:10:25 --> 01:10:28 doing people a favor. As if we were,
01:10:29 --> 01:10:34 saving them. You know, saviorism is a thing that's well documented in social
01:10:34 --> 01:10:37 justice spaces and in anti-racist spaces.
01:10:38 --> 01:10:42 And I realized that our anti-racism, the logic that we use to think about it,
01:10:42 --> 01:10:47 actually didn't create space for us to talk about how the struggle for racial
01:10:47 --> 01:10:48 justice heals white people.
01:10:49 --> 01:10:54 I had not had a space to talk about how I became a better person by being involved
01:10:54 --> 01:10:59 in anti-racism struggle, by thinking deeply about race and its impact on my life,
01:11:00 --> 01:11:04 not a better person as in I could show up for communities of color or for black
01:11:04 --> 01:11:09 people better which I think I do but just felt better felt more connected felt
01:11:09 --> 01:11:11 more you know closer to creation.
01:11:12 --> 01:11:17 Was just a better person and that I felt healthy and happy and so the book comes
01:11:17 --> 01:11:19 out of that it comes out of that realization,
01:11:19 --> 01:11:23 and and I try to make that case in the book I try to make the case that racial
01:11:23 --> 01:11:28 justice is good for all of us particularly white folks that we're actually the
01:11:28 --> 01:11:29 ones that need to heal from it.
01:11:30 --> 01:11:36 And I grounded in, you know, Baldwin said, as long as you think you're white, there's no hope for you.
01:11:36 --> 01:11:41 You got Richard Wright when asked, you know, well, he's in, is it a Vogue,
01:11:41 --> 01:11:47 Paris or somewhere in Europe? And they asked him what it was to talk about the
01:11:47 --> 01:11:49 Negro problem in America. And his response is, there's no Negro problem.
01:11:49 --> 01:11:50 There's a white problem.
01:11:51 --> 01:11:54 And El-Haj, Malik, El-Shabazz, Malcolm X, you know, says that,
01:11:54 --> 01:11:59 tells the white lady that comes up and it says, you know, minister, how can I help?
01:11:59 --> 01:12:04 Early in his career, he says, you can't. And then he revisits that interaction
01:12:04 --> 01:12:08 and Alex Haley writes about it in the autobiography.
01:12:08 --> 01:12:11 And he says, I would tell her to go work with her people at the source.
01:12:11 --> 01:12:16 You know, Toni Morrison said that like, white racism is about white people being
01:12:16 --> 01:12:22 broken, not anybody else. And so I tried to take that seriously and get my people
01:12:22 --> 01:12:24 to take it seriously. Yeah.
01:12:25 --> 01:12:31 What is white privilege and why do you think it is hard for people to believe that it exists?
01:12:32 --> 01:12:36 So this might be this might be one of the more controversial things in the book.
01:12:36 --> 01:12:41 White privilege, as it's used commonly, as it's understood, is the advantages
01:12:41 --> 01:12:45 of being perceived as white and moving in the world as white.
01:12:46 --> 01:12:50 And it definitely has advantages. I argue in the book that being white is actually
01:12:50 --> 01:12:57 not a privilege, that being included in the category of white required a division from humanity.
01:12:57 --> 01:13:01 It required a division from creation. It required hatred.
01:13:02 --> 01:13:06 It required accepting genocide, accepting the logics of.
01:13:08 --> 01:13:11 The Atlantic slave trade, right? The genocide of Native people,
01:13:11 --> 01:13:16 the enslavement of African people, the taking over of land and colonialism.
01:13:16 --> 01:13:19 And so I don't think that that's I don't think that that's a privilege.
01:13:19 --> 01:13:25 I think the system that was propped up that benefited those folks legally considered
01:13:25 --> 01:13:29 white, which is important because legally you got rights from it.
01:13:29 --> 01:13:33 Right. So like you could you could own land. You could own a home.
01:13:33 --> 01:13:36 You can get you could testify in court. You could carry a gun.
01:13:37 --> 01:13:40 There were real advantages in our system to being to being considered white
01:13:40 --> 01:13:43 and moving in the world that's white and being labeled white so i don't want
01:13:43 --> 01:13:47 to i never want to have anybody walk away from a conversation with me saying
01:13:47 --> 01:13:51 like oh this dude thinks white thinks being white doesn't matter it definitely does,
01:13:52 --> 01:13:56 what i'm saying is that we can't hold on to it like it's the thing that we should
01:13:56 --> 01:13:58 all be that we should live life as white people,
01:13:58 --> 01:14:02 live life or that we should view the world as through the lens of whiteness,
01:14:02 --> 01:14:06 because i think that that's how we end up i mean look at what's happening right now.
01:14:06 --> 01:14:10 We got wildfires all over. Europe is burning up.
01:14:10 --> 01:14:14 We're out of water. My daughter lives in the Southwest in Arizona,
01:14:14 --> 01:14:16 and they ain't got no water.
01:14:17 --> 01:14:22 This is the result of what accepting whiteness does, is it just destroys and
01:14:22 --> 01:14:28 consumes itself. And so I think white privilege is the advantages that are offered
01:14:28 --> 01:14:31 people who are white within white supremacy.
01:14:31 --> 01:14:35 And I would argue that it is indeed not a privilege, but rather something that's
01:14:35 --> 01:14:37 going to destroy us. Yeah.
01:14:38 --> 01:14:44 As a white person who has benefited from white privilege, why are you working so hard to eliminate?
01:14:45 --> 01:14:49 Yeah. And I want to be clear. I definitely have. Right. Like I tell this story
01:14:49 --> 01:14:50 off. I tell it in the book.
01:14:50 --> 01:14:54 The only reason I was even able to go to college because my my pops could cosign
01:14:54 --> 01:14:58 on my student loans because he owned a home and lots of my friends didn't have that opportunity.
01:14:59 --> 01:15:02 So, again, I'm not saying that being white doesn't have its advantages,
01:15:02 --> 01:15:09 but I'm working so hard to end it for the reasons I just talked about,
01:15:09 --> 01:15:11 because it's going to destroy us.
01:15:11 --> 01:15:15 It's cool to be, you know, you could be the most advantaged person in...
01:15:16 --> 01:15:19 A completely dystopian future. What good does that do?
01:15:19 --> 01:15:22 Like the things that make us happy, our community, the things that make us happy
01:15:22 --> 01:15:28 are, you know, not having to worry about our health, not having to worry about if we get to go home,
01:15:28 --> 01:15:33 and being with people, having love in your home, being able to laugh,
01:15:33 --> 01:15:34 being able to create art.
01:15:34 --> 01:15:39 We started this by talking about hip hop, right? Like hip hop comes from the Bronx.
01:15:39 --> 01:15:45 And at a time when the Cross Bronx Expressway has dispossessed a bunch of people.
01:15:45 --> 01:15:47 We see the housing boom and white flight is happening.
01:15:48 --> 01:15:53 And what comes out of community? The most powerful cultural force in modern history, hip hop.
01:15:53 --> 01:15:56 You know, that's the things that make us happy is being in community,
01:15:56 --> 01:16:00 creating cultural practices. And whiteness keeps us from that.
01:16:00 --> 01:16:06 And so, yeah, you can give me all the material advantages, but my soul is still
01:16:06 --> 01:16:09 going to be starving for something else. And that's what I'm most interested in.
01:16:10 --> 01:16:14 Not to say that those material things are really, really, really important, right?
01:16:14 --> 01:16:18 Like, I think everybody should have those, which is also why I advocate for
01:16:19 --> 01:16:24 as much anti-capitalist policies as I can because I don't think we should make
01:16:24 --> 01:16:27 money off of health, housing, private prisons, things like that.
01:16:27 --> 01:16:30 Like, not everything is a commodity. Yeah.
01:16:30 --> 01:16:36 So how much did hip-hop rap culture influence your actions and thoughts as an activist?
01:16:37 --> 01:16:42 You know, the older I get and the more I think about it, the more I realize
01:16:42 --> 01:16:45 that it did, right? Like hip-hop is about being in community.
01:16:46 --> 01:16:50 Hip-hop is about looking out for each other. Hip-hop is about truth-telling.
01:16:50 --> 01:16:54 You get the ugly part of the world. You get the beautiful part.
01:16:56 --> 01:16:59 You get all that. It's about being authentically yourself. At least that's the
01:16:59 --> 01:17:00 hip-hop that I grew up in.
01:17:01 --> 01:17:06 You know, and I came up at an age where, you know, post Telecommunications Act
01:17:06 --> 01:17:11 of 94, when they deregulate markets and then you get the sort of commodification
01:17:11 --> 01:17:13 of rap music versus hip hop culture.
01:17:14 --> 01:17:16 And so, you know, you've got to you've got to you've got to weed through some
01:17:16 --> 01:17:19 of that increasingly now with the more popular that it gets.
01:17:20 --> 01:17:24 But at its core, hip hop is about community. Hip hop is about taking care of each other.
01:17:24 --> 01:17:28 Hip hop is about standing up against oppression and and people that are trying
01:17:28 --> 01:17:31 to exploit and get over on people.
01:17:31 --> 01:17:35 And that's fundamentally the foundation of how I try to live my life.
01:17:35 --> 01:17:37 So I would say it's incredibly important.
01:17:38 --> 01:17:43 How is the whitewashing of American history detrimental to white Americans?
01:17:44 --> 01:17:48 Man, such a great question. This is one of my one of my things that I try to
01:17:48 --> 01:17:50 talk about as often as possible.
01:17:50 --> 01:17:53 And you can well, you can't you can see because we're on the camera.
01:17:53 --> 01:17:56 But I got John Brown over my corner over my shoulder.
01:17:57 --> 01:18:01 We don't we don't talk about the white folks that said, no, this ain't this ain't it.
01:18:01 --> 01:18:06 And stood up against the advancement of white supremacy.
01:18:06 --> 01:18:09 I don't want to suggest that that was everybody or that, you know what I mean?
01:18:09 --> 01:18:14 It was like a razor thin, you know, we just barely squeaked out and then white
01:18:14 --> 01:18:15 supremacy became entrenched.
01:18:16 --> 01:18:18 But it's not, it wasn't everybody.
01:18:18 --> 01:18:22 And why that's important, why it's important to talk about the John Browns,
01:18:22 --> 01:18:26 the Ann Bradens, the Thaddeus Stevens, these folks, the Heather Heyers.
01:18:26 --> 01:18:27 I'm from Minneapolis, right?
01:18:28 --> 01:18:34 The Alex Preddies is because it's, it makes it, it gives white people,
01:18:34 --> 01:18:36 particularly the young white people.
01:18:36 --> 01:18:42 A different model, a different choice. For so, so many white folks,
01:18:42 --> 01:18:44 it's just, this is how it is, right? This is what we do.
01:18:45 --> 01:18:47 And we never ask who the we are or,
01:18:48 --> 01:18:51 Is there a different version of we? I'm Irish.
01:18:51 --> 01:18:56 And so I grew up hearing about how the British colonized Ireland,
01:18:56 --> 01:18:59 how they pushed my people down to the rocks and how we had to leave and how,
01:19:00 --> 01:19:03 you know, they forced us to eat potatoes because we were, you know,
01:19:04 --> 01:19:06 cattle farming for British folks.
01:19:06 --> 01:19:11 And so I always had that, this idea that there was something that wasn't that
01:19:11 --> 01:19:15 about my story that wasn't reflected in the mainstream American story.
01:19:16 --> 01:19:21 And I think when we talk about, honestly, a history of white folks resisting,
01:19:21 --> 01:19:26 we will see more white folks start to resist and find courage in that line.
01:19:26 --> 01:19:33 And again, I feel like they have some sort of rooted purpose in this,
01:19:33 --> 01:19:37 that they're not just making this up as they go, but that there's ancestors
01:19:37 --> 01:19:41 that are behind them that they can draw strength from. Okay.
01:19:42 --> 01:19:48 Now, a previous guest of mine on this podcast has what she calls her blonde hair, blue eyed story.
01:19:48 --> 01:19:53 So she's an African American woman and at a former job, she wanted to implement
01:19:53 --> 01:19:55 a program geared toward children.
01:19:57 --> 01:20:01 Her white bosses rejected the idea. And then her counterpart,
01:20:01 --> 01:20:05 a white male with blonde hair and blue eyes, deliberately made the same proposal.
01:20:05 --> 01:20:09 They were they were co-workers. They they they got along.
01:20:09 --> 01:20:12 So he decided I'm going to do the same thing she's going to do and see what
01:20:12 --> 01:20:16 happens. Well, those same bosses approved it.
01:20:16 --> 01:20:20 Her counterpart made sure that the program was implemented the way she wanted
01:20:20 --> 01:20:21 it. And it was successful.
01:20:22 --> 01:20:26 However, from that day forward, she started dying her hair blonde.
01:20:26 --> 01:20:30 And wearing blue-eyed contacts. She left that company and never looked back.
01:20:31 --> 01:20:35 Needless to say, she has become a leader in her field. So my question to you,
01:20:36 --> 01:20:40 is, how does her act of defiance jive with your thoughts on white privilege?
01:20:41 --> 01:20:44 Wow, one, that's a crazy story. That's a crazy story.
01:20:44 --> 01:20:48 And I hope that that guy, and I think that I talk about this in the book,
01:20:48 --> 01:20:55 that's an act of breaking white solidarity, which is a real thing.
01:20:56 --> 01:20:58 And I hope that he was able to point out to the people like,
01:20:58 --> 01:21:02 yo, you know, whatever, whatever her name was made exactly the same proposal.
01:21:02 --> 01:21:06 And like, why did he, why was it more acceptable coming from me than from her?
01:21:07 --> 01:21:10 But then also, I think, you know, to get directly answer your question,
01:21:10 --> 01:21:17 it demonstrates what we're saying is that in this society, if you can pass as
01:21:17 --> 01:21:20 white and you can move in the world as white and be seen as white,
01:21:20 --> 01:21:22 you're going to be taken more seriously.
01:21:22 --> 01:21:25 You're going to be given more opportunities, you're going to be treated well,
01:21:25 --> 01:21:31 better and I think that's important too and we can talk about that but I think
01:21:31 --> 01:21:37 that's the that's what it talks about white supremacy advantages people who
01:21:37 --> 01:21:39 it perceives as white yeah,
01:21:41 --> 01:21:43 How does weight loss relate to race relations?
01:21:45 --> 01:21:48 So that's why I start the book with that. So I start the book.
01:21:48 --> 01:21:54 So I was a chubby guy. Well, I was chubby, but I was an athlete.
01:21:54 --> 01:22:00 And so I didn't get unhealthy until after college. And then I got unhealthy.
01:22:00 --> 01:22:04 And so I start the book by talking a little bit about my struggle with weight.
01:22:04 --> 01:22:10 And I draw the parallel that. So let me actually back up because it won't make
01:22:10 --> 01:22:12 sense to your audience if you don't get this piece.
01:22:13 --> 01:22:17 As I struggled growing up with weight, one of the things that I would always
01:22:17 --> 01:22:20 hear is that, oh, you just got more of your mom in you because my mom's side,
01:22:20 --> 01:22:25 Irish, short, stocky is just what it is, right? Like, you might as well just
01:22:25 --> 01:22:27 make the best of it. You got to make the best of it.
01:22:28 --> 01:22:31 And then as I got older and I got divorced, and so I was really starting to
01:22:31 --> 01:22:35 like think about my life and try to be healthy in all aspects.
01:22:36 --> 01:22:39 And I lost a bunch of weight and I realized that, okay, yeah,
01:22:39 --> 01:22:43 it might be true that I got more on my mom's side than me, but that wasn't predetermined
01:22:43 --> 01:22:46 what my possibilities were, that I could go be healthy.
01:22:48 --> 01:22:52 I could get in good shape. I could lose the weight that I wanted to lose.
01:22:53 --> 01:22:57 And for me, that parallels the way whiteness is talked about in our country
01:22:57 --> 01:23:00 and in our society. It's that you're born white.
01:23:00 --> 01:23:03 That is just what it is. You got more of that European in you,
01:23:03 --> 01:23:09 whatever it is. And so you're not going to be able to stand up and tell your
01:23:09 --> 01:23:14 bosses that, hey, that black woman's idea is the same exact one that I just did.
01:23:15 --> 01:23:18 And you're kind of whacked for not going with it, that you can't do those things
01:23:18 --> 01:23:24 or that you somehow can't recognize racism and stand up just on its own accord, that you need to,
01:23:24 --> 01:23:28 somebody needs to tell you it's wrong, that you couldn't see George Floyd getting
01:23:28 --> 01:23:31 murdered and be like, that's wrong.
01:23:31 --> 01:23:36 On your own accord, you had to have Darnella Frazier send out the video or,
01:23:36 --> 01:23:41 you know, you've got to ask yourself, is it, you know, does race have anything
01:23:41 --> 01:23:43 to do with Nolan Wells gone?
01:23:43 --> 01:23:47 You know, that he's the only black boy on that boat and he's the only one that
01:23:47 --> 01:23:53 didn't come back? Like, that we can't see reality for what it is and ask some questions about it.
01:23:56 --> 01:24:00 That's not true, right? So that's why I draw that parallel is that there's nothing
01:24:00 --> 01:24:05 biological about whiteness that keeps us from recognizing how race is working.
01:24:05 --> 01:24:09 We are socialized to ignore it because of the advantages that whiteness offers
01:24:09 --> 01:24:13 us. But at the end of the day, it's going to destroy us.
01:24:13 --> 01:24:17 It's going, you know, I talked about being able to go to college.
01:24:18 --> 01:24:21 And that's true. My dad cosigned, but he cosigned on my student loans.
01:24:22 --> 01:24:28 And now my loans is through the roof. My interest is capitalized out about four times what I took out.
01:24:28 --> 01:24:32 Like, I think that's also a good parallel for how whiteness operates.
01:24:32 --> 01:24:37 It might open the door, but it's only opening the door so it can squeeze more
01:24:37 --> 01:24:41 out of you, right? Especially if you grew up poor, especially if you don't have
01:24:41 --> 01:24:46 access, if you're not, if your last name ain't Trump and you can't finesse a crypto business,
01:24:48 --> 01:24:52 it's not going to work for you. And at the end of the day, look at him and tell
01:24:52 --> 01:24:55 me that he's happy and I got a bridge somewhere I can sell you.
01:25:00 --> 01:25:07 Well well speaking about politics how is whiteness at play in the 2026 midterm elections,
01:25:08 --> 01:25:17 oh man so first of all this whole fear about democratic socialism and and all that is wild because,
01:25:18 --> 01:25:20 And I don't want to get too, like, well,
01:25:22 --> 01:25:25 I would consider myself, like I said, anti-capitalist and all that.
01:25:25 --> 01:25:31 But it is crazy to see so much fear being ginned up about the possibility of
01:25:31 --> 01:25:32 taking care of each other.
01:25:33 --> 01:25:38 Universal health care. Look at New York, like, child care, grocery stores,
01:25:39 --> 01:25:40 public transportation.
01:25:40 --> 01:25:45 None of these things are bad, objectively. They're just not bad.
01:25:45 --> 01:25:52 And if they weren't coming from a Pakistani Muslim, we wouldn't be thinking
01:25:52 --> 01:25:55 twice about it, right? If a white man was saying that, matter of fact,
01:25:55 --> 01:25:58 when Franklin Delano Roosevelt said that thing, we were like, oh, okay, let's get it.
01:25:59 --> 01:26:03 Similar to your story, right? Like this message, which is objectively positive.
01:26:04 --> 01:26:10 When it's in a brown or black face, it's just not accepted. So whiteness is at play in that way.
01:26:10 --> 01:26:14 There's also, though, this idea I think whiteness thrives on independence and
01:26:14 --> 01:26:18 commodity and making profit out of everything.
01:26:18 --> 01:26:21 And that's why it's so intimately tied. Whether you're looking at Dr.
01:26:21 --> 01:26:27 King or you're looking at the Michigan Senate race and all that, it's tied to communism.
01:26:27 --> 01:26:31 It's tied to you know like one of the things that they're throwing at memdani
01:26:31 --> 01:26:36 is he's a communist you know and and the communists are taking over and anything
01:26:36 --> 01:26:39 that's for people is is anti-white,
01:26:40 --> 01:26:45 and anti-capitalist and so i think you can't you can't have that conversation
01:26:45 --> 01:26:48 without talking about whiteness at play here and then there's obviously just
01:26:49 --> 01:26:51 there's an active genocide happening in Palestine.
01:26:52 --> 01:26:58 And the fact that we can't name that as a manifestation of whiteness,
01:26:59 --> 01:27:04 and I'm saying Jewish folks have a particular relationship to whiteness that
01:27:04 --> 01:27:08 is very, very unique and not at all solidified, not in the same way that Irish
01:27:08 --> 01:27:11 people have assimilated into whiteness. But also...
01:27:12 --> 01:27:18 I learned that from Jewish folks. I learned my anti-Zionism from Jewish folks
01:27:18 --> 01:27:21 who understood that and have resisted whiteness.
01:27:22 --> 01:27:27 And that's still a major, major issue in the primary.
01:27:27 --> 01:27:32 It's going to be where do Democrats and Republicans, but I think Republicans,
01:27:32 --> 01:27:34 well, we could talk about that.
01:27:34 --> 01:27:38 Where do Democrats stand on that? But also Republicans, for different reasons,
01:27:38 --> 01:27:43 though. I don't think Tucker Carlson is critiquing Israel for the same reason
01:27:43 --> 01:27:44 that I'm critiquing Israel.
01:27:45 --> 01:27:49 I think that he's doing it because he don't like Jewish people point blank.
01:27:49 --> 01:27:54 And that, that is not acceptable to me either. Yeah. Yeah. All right.
01:27:55 --> 01:28:00 So I want you to answer some questions you pose to the readers of your book.
01:28:01 --> 01:28:08 Gotcha. I love that. All right. So first question, What white anti-racists are in your life today?
01:28:09 --> 01:28:15 Oh, man. Great question. So the first anti-racist that I think of in my life is my father.
01:28:16 --> 01:28:24 My dad, Leon Virden, is somebody who has always taught community and communal
01:28:24 --> 01:28:27 and look out for each other and do the right thing.
01:28:28 --> 01:28:33 Make sure people get what they need to succeed. And if something has,
01:28:33 --> 01:28:36 if there's been harm that's happened, fix it.
01:28:37 --> 01:28:40 And I think that that's fundamentally anti-racism. And then there are folks
01:28:40 --> 01:28:46 like I'm close with Christine Saxman and Shelly Touchluck, who wrote Being White Today.
01:28:46 --> 01:28:51 They're organizing in the Midwest and the West Coast specifically.
01:28:51 --> 01:28:56 I have a friendship with Robin DiAngelo, who I'm sure listeners have heard, wrote White Fragility.
01:28:56 --> 01:29:00 I mean, it's trying her best. I have connections where I just interviewed Michelle
01:29:00 --> 01:29:02 Chalmers, who wrote Liabilities of Whiteness.
01:29:03 --> 01:29:08 And then I have, you know, my brothers. I have folks in Surge, Chris Kras.
01:29:09 --> 01:29:16 I have there's I'm I'm pretty so surrounded by white anti-racist in my life. Yeah.
01:29:16 --> 01:29:20 Yeah. I figured I'd be a softball question for you. Well, I like to I like to
01:29:20 --> 01:29:22 throw I like to shout them out. You know what I mean?
01:29:23 --> 01:29:26 Yeah. Go Google them folks. Yeah, it's like Robin's been on the show.
01:29:27 --> 01:29:29 I was really honored to have her on.
01:29:30 --> 01:29:33 Hopefully some of the other folks you mentioned, we might be able to get them on too.
01:29:35 --> 01:29:40 Why is a world free of saviorism good for me?
01:29:41 --> 01:29:45 Because you, whenever we can come into our full strength.
01:29:45 --> 01:29:48 Oh, well, actually let me pause. Good for you. Are you saying like you,
01:29:48 --> 01:29:51 Eric, as a black man or good for me as a white man or just the,
01:29:51 --> 01:29:54 the general, like, why is it good for individuals? That's the way you phrased
01:29:54 --> 01:29:59 it in the, in the, in the book. So I guess it's supposed to be introspective.
01:29:59 --> 01:30:02 Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So depending on both. So the general,
01:30:02 --> 01:30:04 like, why is it good for you? How I'm thinking about that?
01:30:05 --> 01:30:09 No matter who the reader is answering that a world free from Saviorism means
01:30:09 --> 01:30:13 that you are living into your own strength, your own truth, your own capabilities,
01:30:14 --> 01:30:15 and bringing your talents,
01:30:16 --> 01:30:20 and your unique skill sets and perspectives to the community,
01:30:20 --> 01:30:26 to the communal good, and expanding everybody's understanding of how we can do this thing better.
01:30:26 --> 01:30:33 When we, when our communities and our spaces are full of saviorism,
01:30:33 --> 01:30:37 we tend not to do that, right? We tend to just fall back and let other people's
01:30:37 --> 01:30:39 ideas take us where they need to, where we need to go.
01:30:40 --> 01:30:46 Which is also so funny uh about the ways that particularly white liberals think
01:30:46 --> 01:30:51 about solving problems right with like philanthropy and and saving people as opposed to.
01:30:52 --> 01:30:55 You know getting down and dirty with them and seeing like what what what wisdom
01:30:55 --> 01:31:00 is actually here what knowledge is actually here and yeah that's i talk about
01:31:00 --> 01:31:04 that in the book too just like what do we actually believe is possible from from communities,
01:31:04 --> 01:31:07 that that the story is that they're not capable and,
01:31:08 --> 01:31:11 And then we see bullshit like the, my bad, I mean, I don't know if we can cuss
01:31:11 --> 01:31:12 on hearing that, but, uh.
01:31:13 --> 01:31:18 Yeah, the State Department, you know, throwing up maps of Africa with Nigeria
01:31:18 --> 01:31:22 landlocked, Mozambique up in the Horn of Africa, cultivar on the other complete other side.
01:31:22 --> 01:31:28 And like we actually have the nerve to act like that we have any sort of standard
01:31:28 --> 01:31:31 for for like quality and that we can't just go to the block.
01:31:31 --> 01:31:34 And I say this as teachers, too. Right. Like I was just talking to my brother
01:31:34 --> 01:31:37 who's a teacher. We're talking about the literacy crisis.
01:31:38 --> 01:31:42 And it's one of those things. And Chris Embiid talks about this for white folks who teach in the hood.
01:31:43 --> 01:31:47 If you go and we're talking about hip hop, go listen to a debate about the top
01:31:47 --> 01:31:51 five or people freestyling or the cypher that happens in the hallway before school.
01:31:52 --> 01:31:55 You'll see genius. You'll see intelligence. You'll see critical thinking.
01:31:55 --> 01:32:01 You'll see argument skills. You'll see all the things that we talk about inside
01:32:01 --> 01:32:04 Honors English 105 or whatever it is.
01:32:05 --> 01:32:09 It just don't happen via Shakespeare and Faulkner.
01:32:09 --> 01:32:15 It's Kiese Lamey from Mississippi instead of some of these dead white people.
01:32:16 --> 01:32:22 And so we just, when we remove saviorism, we start to recognize our own strengths,
01:32:22 --> 01:32:25 our own intelligence, our own beauty, and our own contributions,
01:32:25 --> 01:32:27 which makes it easier than to recognize everybody else's.
01:32:28 --> 01:32:33 And so then we're having authentic relationships, we're having authentic conversations,
01:32:33 --> 01:32:38 and we're coming up with effective solutions to the actual problems that our community faces.
01:32:39 --> 01:32:42 That was a really long-winded answer for that. My bad. No, no, no.
01:32:42 --> 01:32:47 No, you good. You good. It's like, you know, the viral video that's out now
01:32:47 --> 01:32:52 is, you know, when Tavis Smiley used to have those summits.
01:32:54 --> 01:32:56 And they were going around the table and Louis Farrakhan said,
01:32:56 --> 01:32:57 hold up, wait a minute, wait a minute.
01:32:58 --> 01:33:02 Why are we asking white folks to do something that we can do ourselves?
01:33:02 --> 01:33:04 And he got a standing ovation for that.
01:33:04 --> 01:33:09 And, you know, and that's kind of the deal with the, you know,
01:33:09 --> 01:33:12 that I think about the book, The Black Messiah.
01:33:13 --> 01:33:16 And the whole concept of that book was that there was one Messiah.
01:33:16 --> 01:33:20 He happened to be black. And that was Jesus. But it was like,
01:33:21 --> 01:33:22 we don't need another one.
01:33:23 --> 01:33:27 It's like we've got that one. That one from our teaching, because he was a theologian,
01:33:27 --> 01:33:31 is still alive, you know, in our lives and so forth.
01:33:31 --> 01:33:37 So what we need is more community and more, you know, collective thought as
01:33:37 --> 01:33:41 opposed to trying to rally behind one person.
01:33:42 --> 01:33:46 And then the other thing was that, you know, pointing out that when we do single
01:33:46 --> 01:33:49 out one person in a black community, like a Malcolm X, like a Dr.
01:33:49 --> 01:33:52 King, they tend to take them out. Right.
01:33:53 --> 01:33:57 And so a lot of people, I'll never forget when President Obama got elected,
01:33:57 --> 01:34:00 that was the first thing people were saying, man, they're going to kill him,
01:34:00 --> 01:34:01 man. He get out here and start doing something.
01:34:02 --> 01:34:05 I say he's probably the safest black man in America right now.
01:34:05 --> 01:34:11 He's got a whole army. He literally has a whole army protecting him at any time he wants to.
01:34:11 --> 01:34:16 He needs the protection it's the rest of us that need to be concerned right
01:34:16 --> 01:34:22 it's the tamir rices and the trayvon martins and the freddie grays and the george floyds,
01:34:22 --> 01:34:27 and the philando castills they're the ones that yeah like and we're seeing that
01:34:27 --> 01:34:28 pushback now that's i mean.
01:34:29 --> 01:34:34 Carol anderson wrote white rage and and she's uh you know extended that to uh,
01:34:35 --> 01:34:38 what that's what we're through that now the pushback to an Obama presidency
01:34:38 --> 01:34:44 is the the nonsense that we're seeing now that's exactly right yeah all right
01:34:44 --> 01:34:48 another question you asked where have you experienced white fatigue.
01:34:51 --> 01:34:56 That's a good question. I experienced, so there's a couple ways to think about this.
01:34:56 --> 01:35:00 So white fatigue is often misunderstood.
01:35:00 --> 01:35:06 And so like, because it was like black fatigue was the viral thing and it was
01:35:06 --> 01:35:10 turned into white people being sick of black like that.
01:35:10 --> 01:35:13 It was being sick of black people. And that's not what I'm thinking about,
01:35:13 --> 01:35:16 right? And I'm not thinking about white people being sick of white people.
01:35:17 --> 01:35:20 White fatigue, as I talk about it, is,
01:35:22 --> 01:35:27 what happens oftentimes for white folks when you learn the true history of our
01:35:27 --> 01:35:30 country, when you could just get, it can feel overwhelming.
01:35:30 --> 01:35:36 And so there are times, right? Like I think about the summer of racial reckoning
01:35:36 --> 01:35:42 and seeing Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, Floyd in one summer, you know what I mean?
01:35:42 --> 01:35:46 And then we're Sonya Massey and we're seeing, you know, that comes off,
01:35:46 --> 01:35:48 I'm from Minneapolis. So that came right off Philando.
01:35:49 --> 01:35:51 My wife went to high school with Phil.
01:35:51 --> 01:35:56 You know, that was right after Terrence Franklin and Jamar Clark and all that.
01:35:56 --> 01:36:04 And so for me, my personal answer to that is it is exhausting to see the ways
01:36:04 --> 01:36:10 that whiteness operates to destroy people and communities that I love and then.
01:36:10 --> 01:36:17 To have to have some of the most basic conversations about race and have that be debated.
01:36:17 --> 01:36:21 That can be exhausting it can be exhausting so there's that way and then there's
01:36:21 --> 01:36:28 also just it can it can be exhausting to to process the truth of of what's going on,
01:36:28 --> 01:36:32 you know what i mean i remember a mentor of mine and folks your audience will
01:36:32 --> 01:36:38 probably recognize his name resuma and my grandmother's hands was popular booked in the uprisings,
01:36:38 --> 01:36:42 um and he's from minneapolis and when it when that came out his release party
01:36:42 --> 01:36:47 what he did is he had the postcards of lynchings And he took the black folks
01:36:47 --> 01:36:50 out And it just had the white people Who had brought their kids like it was
01:36:51 --> 01:36:52 a theater You know what I mean?
01:36:52 --> 01:36:56 It was like an event It was like this is what we're going to do And he asked
01:36:56 --> 01:36:59 white folks to like sit with that What does that mean? What is that like?
01:36:59 --> 01:37:03 How are you living that? How is that Trauma being carried with you?
01:37:03 --> 01:37:07 Epigenetically and morally And spiritually and physically,
01:37:09 --> 01:37:15 And that comes with emotional, mental, and physical tiredness and fatigue.
01:37:15 --> 01:37:20 And so white fatigue is something I want to say we need to not experience it
01:37:20 --> 01:37:22 or name it when we're experiencing it.
01:37:22 --> 01:37:25 But we can't let it stop us as white folks, particularly.
01:37:28 --> 01:37:32 How does being capable of interrupting racism feel?
01:37:33 --> 01:37:38 How does it feel scary? Sometimes. Rewarding? Sometimes.
01:37:40 --> 01:37:46 I think the biggest thing that I feel with it and that I hope others feel is
01:37:46 --> 01:37:51 a sense of duty and just ability.
01:37:52 --> 01:37:56 I know what to do and going to do it. And so there's just a sort of,
01:37:57 --> 01:38:02 I don't know what the, what would you say? Like maybe just like a steadfastness.
01:38:02 --> 01:38:06 You feel just like grounded and steadfast. Like this is what it is.
01:38:06 --> 01:38:08 And if this happens, this is how I'm going to act.
01:38:09 --> 01:38:11 Period. Point blank. No question about it.
01:38:12 --> 01:38:15 A sense of resolve. That's the word I'm looking for. Resolve.
01:38:15 --> 01:38:16 Like, you feel resolved.
01:38:17 --> 01:38:20 Or in the hip-hop community, standing on business, right? Yeah,
01:38:20 --> 01:38:23 you're 10 toes down. You're going to stand on business. Exactly. 100%.
01:38:24 --> 01:38:26 All right, you end your book with this passage.
01:38:27 --> 01:38:33 We can live in a world that values stories. We can live in a world that sees the divine in creation.
01:38:34 --> 01:38:39 We can live in a world where we celebrate similarities and grow from learning about differences.
01:38:40 --> 01:38:45 We can live in a world that is curious and searching for connection We can unlearn
01:38:45 --> 01:38:50 the whiteness frame for understanding the world We can live in harmony,
01:38:51 --> 01:38:56 So my question to you is Do you believe that the readers of Breaking the Privilege
01:38:56 --> 01:39:00 Frame Will act accordingly to make that possibility a reality?
01:39:01 --> 01:39:06 I do, yeah, I can honestly say that, I do I think,
01:39:06 --> 01:39:10 I've traveled the country doing this work And I haven't,
01:39:11 --> 01:39:15 Most of the people that I met I think I can think of two offhand Who are just
01:39:15 --> 01:39:17 like, no, I don't like people like that Like, I don't like them,
01:39:18 --> 01:39:22 Most of the people that I meet are like, yeah, I can get with that And they're
01:39:22 --> 01:39:25 just afraid Or they think that it comes with giving up something Or somebody,
01:39:25 --> 01:39:28 you know, in order to do that They gotta suffer in some way,
01:39:29 --> 01:39:32 And so I hope that Breaking the Privilege Frame makes it clear that.
01:39:34 --> 01:39:38 In the short term and in some really narrow senses, you're going to lose some
01:39:38 --> 01:39:42 advantages in white supremacy of being white, but you're going to gain so much more.
01:39:43 --> 01:39:45 You're going to gain connection. You're going to gain healing.
01:39:45 --> 01:39:48 You're going to gain power. You're going to come away with a sense of being
01:39:48 --> 01:39:53 resolved about doing something about racism and white supremacy.
01:39:53 --> 01:39:58 And so I do think that the readers of Breaking the Privileged Frame will do
01:39:58 --> 01:40:04 it and will take it seriously and work towards that world of harmony and connection.
01:40:05 --> 01:40:09 All right. So finish this sentence. I have hope because.
01:40:10 --> 01:40:14 I am human and we are human. All right. That's cool.
01:40:15 --> 01:40:19 If people want to get this book, Breaking the Privileged Frame, how can they do that?
01:40:19 --> 01:40:23 So it's available anywhere you buy books. I would tell you to go check out your
01:40:23 --> 01:40:28 local independent bookstore. If they're not currently have a copy in stock, ask them to order it.
01:40:28 --> 01:40:33 Otherwise, go to like bookshop.org, anywhere by Amazon. But if you must,
01:40:33 --> 01:40:35 you can order it on Amazon.
01:40:37 --> 01:40:40 So if people want to reach out to you, how can they do that?
01:40:40 --> 01:40:44 You can reach out on Instagram, Ryan Verdon Official.
01:40:44 --> 01:40:49 You can find me on website, Lear Cultural Coaching. That's L-I-R.
01:40:49 --> 01:40:53 Yeah, really, I monitor those pretty closely. If you Google Ryan Virden,
01:40:53 --> 01:40:58 V-I-R-D-E-N, I'll come up. There'll be any of those ways to contact me.
01:40:58 --> 01:41:02 And I definitely love interacting with folks. So do get in touch.
01:41:03 --> 01:41:08 Well, Ryan Virden, first of all, thank you for writing the book and thank you
01:41:08 --> 01:41:11 for doing the work that you're doing.
01:41:11 --> 01:41:18 I think it's vitally important that, you know, in a previous conversation,
01:41:18 --> 01:41:23 somebody asked me about can America survive what we're going through now?
01:41:23 --> 01:41:28 And I said, yeah, if we have a mindset of rebuilding.
01:41:29 --> 01:41:34 And I always use the example, I say always, I've been using the example lately,
01:41:35 --> 01:41:38 to remind people that Jesus was only a rabbi for three years.
01:41:39 --> 01:41:41 Prior to that, he was a carpenter.
01:41:41 --> 01:41:47 There's a lesson in that, that in order to make something better,
01:41:47 --> 01:41:51 sometimes you have to tear stuff down, but you gotta have the capacity to build
01:41:51 --> 01:41:52 something better, something new.
01:41:53 --> 01:41:59 And so I believe that what you're doing with this book and the teaching and
01:41:59 --> 01:42:06 the counseling and all that stuff is the kind of work that needs to be done to make this happen.
01:42:07 --> 01:42:12 And so I greatly appreciate you doing that. And of course, I'm really,
01:42:12 --> 01:42:15 really humbled and honored that you took the time to come on a podcast.
01:42:15 --> 01:42:16 So thank you again for being here.
01:42:17 --> 01:42:21 Man, thank you, Erik. Thank you for making the time. I'm humbled and honored,
01:42:22 --> 01:42:26 to come on here. And yeah, I appreciate it. I appreciate it.
01:42:26 --> 01:42:30 So now the rule, before I let you go, the rule is that once you've been on the
01:42:30 --> 01:42:33 show, that you have an open invitation to come back.
01:42:33 --> 01:42:37 So if you've got some other projects happening, if you want to continue the
01:42:37 --> 01:42:42 discussion about the greatest hip hop people, or you want to get real deep into
01:42:42 --> 01:42:46 changing this country, just let me know, brother, and we'll let you come back on.
01:42:47 --> 01:42:49 I appreciate it. So hold on. Can I ask you that? Because, you know,
01:42:49 --> 01:42:51 the hip-hop conversation, I was like, oh, we could get into that.
01:42:52 --> 01:42:56 Well, Kendrick or Lupe, you follow that debate where Lupe said he's a better
01:42:56 --> 01:42:59 rapper, but Kendrick is a better artist? Where are you at?
01:43:00 --> 01:43:06 Well, I think, you know, paying for a show, Lupe is probably a better show.
01:43:06 --> 01:43:10 But I can't fight a brother that won a Pulitzer Prize, man.
01:43:11 --> 01:43:15 I just can't do that. You know, Kendrick, and that Super Bowl,
01:43:16 --> 01:43:20 you know, I'm sorry, that's right up, that Super Bowl performance is right up
01:43:20 --> 01:43:24 there, one of the best ones ever done, and the thought that he put into it and
01:43:24 --> 01:43:26 the way that he tied it in with his lyrics,
01:43:27 --> 01:43:29 yeah, that's...
01:43:29 --> 01:43:35 If that's not artistry, I don't know what that is. Yeah. You know what I mean? No, facts, facts.
01:43:36 --> 01:43:40 It's one of, I always enter, you know, in my bio, I always say that facetiously,
01:43:40 --> 01:43:43 like, I'll debate your top five or whatever. And some, actually not always,
01:43:43 --> 01:43:46 but sometimes people's top five needs to be like, come on, man.
01:43:47 --> 01:43:49 But for the most part, when I talk to people like that, I'm like,
01:43:49 --> 01:43:53 man, what a blessing it is to be able to debate such high art, right?
01:43:53 --> 01:43:58 Like, to be able to, to live at a time with Kendrick and Lupe and Mos and Ali,
01:43:59 --> 01:44:03 and Black Thought and, you know, some of these folks, it's just like,
01:44:04 --> 01:44:07 it's what gives me hope, for real. Yeah.
01:44:08 --> 01:44:11 Well, Ryan, again, thank you for doing this, brother. I appreciate it.
01:44:11 --> 01:44:15 Thank you, Erik. All right, guys, and we're going to catch y'all on the other side.
01:44:27 --> 01:44:36 Right. And we are back. And so I want to thank my guests, Eileen Isola and Ryan Virden.
01:44:36 --> 01:44:39 First of all, Lieutenant Colonel, I got it right in the intros,
01:44:40 --> 01:44:45 but during the interview, I noticed that I did the Mississippi thing with your
01:44:45 --> 01:44:47 last name instead of the way I was supposed to say it.
01:44:47 --> 01:44:50 In Mississippi, there's a town called Isola.
01:44:50 --> 01:44:57 And so if I called you Isola instead of Isola I deeply apologize. And I appreciate
01:44:57 --> 01:45:02 your grace if I mispronounced your name for letting me slide with that.
01:45:03 --> 01:45:08 You know, but Eileen Isola, you know, the book that she has written,
01:45:09 --> 01:45:13 it's powerful because it's a historical book.
01:45:13 --> 01:45:18 And it's based off of the narratives of people, primarily women,
01:45:18 --> 01:45:23 who went through the Air Force Academy over these last 50 years.
01:45:24 --> 01:45:25 And, you know, just...
01:45:27 --> 01:45:31 You know, like I told her, the most moving part of that book was,
01:45:32 --> 01:45:36 you know, all of it is powerful, but that navigating part.
01:45:37 --> 01:45:41 Because in the navigating, one of the things as a soldier that you have to navigate
01:45:41 --> 01:45:45 is that some of the, especially if you go to war, some of the people you build
01:45:45 --> 01:45:50 relationships with, some of the people, camaraderie, folks in your unit,
01:45:50 --> 01:45:52 folks that you command even.
01:45:53 --> 01:45:58 You know, in war, you lose those people or you could lose those people.
01:45:58 --> 01:46:01 And so the way that.
01:46:03 --> 01:46:10 The painstaking way to humanize those folks that serve, because,
01:46:10 --> 01:46:16 you know, like I said, we go on the news and you'll see a face that maybe any
01:46:16 --> 01:46:18 event, Memorial Day, something like that.
01:46:18 --> 01:46:23 One of the families of the soldiers will, representatives will,
01:46:23 --> 01:46:25 you know, say some things or whatever.
01:46:25 --> 01:46:31 But when you read the book, the people that were highlighted that were lost,
01:46:31 --> 01:46:35 and just the detail and just the humanism that was put on them,
01:46:36 --> 01:46:38 it's like even though you don't know them,
01:46:40 --> 01:46:45 you feel that loss with the people telling the story in that book.
01:46:45 --> 01:46:50 And I really, that was a really, really moving part for me because it's just
01:46:50 --> 01:46:54 a reminder that when you sign up to serve in our military,
01:46:55 --> 01:46:58 you know, that, you know, a lot of people like, well, man, I'm just trying to
01:46:58 --> 01:47:04 get free education for college or, you know, I just want to get some benefits,
01:47:04 --> 01:47:05 you know, good health care plan.
01:47:05 --> 01:47:09 I mean, you know, just stuff that people are trying to get in a regular employment,
01:47:10 --> 01:47:13 that the government provides through military service.
01:47:14 --> 01:47:20 But the job is to defend the nation and to fight in wars.
01:47:21 --> 01:47:28 And that is one of the casualties is, you know, it's the reality,
01:47:28 --> 01:47:30 I should say, is being a casualty.
01:47:31 --> 01:47:34 Because even if you don't die, you may get hurt.
01:47:35 --> 01:47:40 And, you know, I encourage people, listen to podcasts, get involved with Wounded
01:47:40 --> 01:47:43 Warrior Project and all these other different organizations.
01:47:44 --> 01:47:51 Organizations, USO, anything you can, you know, to, to help people who are trying
01:47:51 --> 01:47:56 to, because some people adjust really, really well, but a number of people do not.
01:47:56 --> 01:48:00 And so all these different organizations are there to help.
01:48:00 --> 01:48:04 You know, I mentioned I was in the American Legion for a little bit and,
01:48:04 --> 01:48:09 you know, there's veterans of foreign wars, all these, all these different support organizations.
01:48:09 --> 01:48:13 You know, when they have fundraisers, do the best that you can.
01:48:13 --> 01:48:17 I know things are hard and everybody, including me, is asking you for money
01:48:17 --> 01:48:22 for stuff. And this is campaign season. And if I get another urgent email from
01:48:22 --> 01:48:24 John Ossoff, oh my God, right?
01:48:25 --> 01:48:31 We know you're trying to raise money, brother. We get it. And I support you 100%.
01:48:31 --> 01:48:37 But not every email is urgent, my bad. You just ask me for the money.
01:48:37 --> 01:48:38 You know what I'm saying?
01:48:38 --> 01:48:41 Just ask for the money. We know you're out there campaigning.
01:48:41 --> 01:48:42 We know that you're in a battle.
01:48:43 --> 01:48:50 But anyway, but back to Eileen Isola, please go get that book. Necessary Turbulence.
01:48:51 --> 01:48:53 Please go get that book. And then Ryan Verdon.
01:48:55 --> 01:48:59 You know, he's in the Atlanta area, so I think I finally got another friend. Yay.
01:48:59 --> 01:49:09 Ryan is doing some real work in helping rebuild this nation because we've got
01:49:09 --> 01:49:11 to get away from this whole.
01:49:13 --> 01:49:16 Well, let me say it like this, and this will kind of lead into my commentary,
01:49:16 --> 01:49:19 right? Whiteness is overrated.
01:49:20 --> 01:49:27 And I say that not to demean the value of people who identify as white,
01:49:27 --> 01:49:30 but this whole thing about.
01:49:31 --> 01:49:35 You know, we got these people in office now that want to NDI,
01:49:35 --> 01:49:41 and and take, you know, turn the clock back on all the civil rights gains that
01:49:41 --> 01:49:45 were made and this, that and the other and the Confederate soldiers and the
01:49:45 --> 01:49:47 South will rise again and all that crap.
01:49:47 --> 01:49:52 So it's over with. It's done. It's, you know, we get it that this is the life
01:49:52 --> 01:49:56 support movement for that, but it's over with.
01:49:56 --> 01:50:02 You can go ahead and pull the plug on it. Because once the people are in place
01:50:02 --> 01:50:06 and starting in this election, 2026, people will be in place.
01:50:07 --> 01:50:11 And once those people are in place and then more people and more people by,
01:50:12 --> 01:50:17 I would say, by 2032, this country will be going in a totally different direction.
01:50:17 --> 01:50:22 And if you're still trying to cling on to the racist past, you're going to be
01:50:22 --> 01:50:24 left behind and left out of the conversation.
01:50:24 --> 01:50:30 One of the things I was mentioning offline was that just look at what happened
01:50:30 --> 01:50:37 with South Africa and look at how Nelson Mandela and the ANC got power.
01:50:38 --> 01:50:43 P.W. Bolta and all them guys weren't dead. They just conceded power.
01:50:43 --> 01:50:47 And once they conceded power, South Africa started rebuilding.
01:50:48 --> 01:50:54 And, you know, you hear all this stuff from Elon Musk and all these other disgruntled
01:50:54 --> 01:50:57 folks because they're not in power anymore, right?
01:50:58 --> 01:51:03 They grew up, you know, Elon Musk is old enough to have grown up in apartheid.
01:51:04 --> 01:51:12 And, you know, when you've been doing everything, you've been able to sashay through everything,
01:51:13 --> 01:51:17 and then to have that power taken away from you, rightfully so,
01:51:18 --> 01:51:20 yeah, you're not dealing with it well.
01:51:21 --> 01:51:28 But what's happening is that South Africa did not regress. It has moved forward.
01:51:29 --> 01:51:33 Economically has moved forward. It's politically stable.
01:51:34 --> 01:51:43 It's, you know, it's considered one of the nations that are players in international discussions.
01:51:44 --> 01:51:49 And so that can happen here in America,
01:51:50 --> 01:51:58 It should happen here And not trying to, you know, do the USA-USA kind of thing
01:51:58 --> 01:52:03 But I've always made the argument That the United States is the most unique nation on the planet.
01:52:04 --> 01:52:12 We've only been in existence for 250 years And we have such influence I'll see you next time.
01:52:13 --> 01:52:20 Every nation that is established in the world has a representative as a citizen of this nation.
01:52:21 --> 01:52:25 There's something divine in that. There's something powerful in that.
01:52:25 --> 01:52:32 And if we don't embrace it, if we keep getting caught up in white is right and
01:52:32 --> 01:52:35 everything else is okay, we're going to miss it.
01:52:36 --> 01:52:40 We're going to miss it. And I think we've been pushing that blessing off long enough.
01:52:41 --> 01:52:46 I think it's time for us to take it to another level. Speaking of which.
01:52:49 --> 01:52:53 We used to have a little phrase growing up, say, some got to be dead.
01:52:55 --> 01:53:02 And something has to be done about corruption.
01:53:03 --> 01:53:09 You know, it's one thing for the New York Times or the Washington Post or some
01:53:09 --> 01:53:17 other periodical or news outlet find corruption and expose it.
01:53:17 --> 01:53:22 Or the Department of Justice, you know, does an investigation and finds corruption in people.
01:53:23 --> 01:53:28 You know, and that's a news story and people follow it and follow the trial and all that stuff.
01:53:29 --> 01:53:32 And, you know, and there's consequences if you get caught.
01:53:33 --> 01:53:41 But we've gotten to the point now where because of the brazenness of racism,
01:53:42 --> 01:53:45 we now see a brazenness in corruption.
01:53:45 --> 01:53:54 So the U.S. Senate is really, really struggling with Todd Blanch being the permanent attorney general.
01:53:56 --> 01:54:05 And the issue is the money that Donald Trump wants to give to people who stormed
01:54:05 --> 01:54:07 the Capitol on January 6th.
01:54:07 --> 01:54:14 And for those senators who were there that day, some of them in their mind has
01:54:14 --> 01:54:19 reconciled, well, it's okay because we're in charge again.
01:54:19 --> 01:54:23 Everything's all right. So we'll just, we'll let that slide.
01:54:23 --> 01:54:27 And that's what the president wants. And far be it for me to anger the president.
01:54:28 --> 01:54:31 But there are some senators who really have nothing to lose,
01:54:31 --> 01:54:39 and they are doing their best to try to say, if you want this man to be the
01:54:39 --> 01:54:41 attorney general of the United States,
01:54:41 --> 01:54:48 then that weaponization fund has to be off the table, period, done.
01:54:50 --> 01:54:55 And we need that in writing because it's one thing to say you ain't going to
01:54:55 --> 01:54:58 do it, then you get what you want, and then you do it anyway.
01:54:59 --> 01:55:02 So we need that in writing. And these folks don't want to put it in writing.
01:55:03 --> 01:55:08 They want to get what they want and then do the corrupt thing, right?
01:55:09 --> 01:55:15 And to me, if the Senate had done that from the opening day,
01:55:16 --> 01:55:22 from inauguration day in 2025, we would not be in this position once they saw
01:55:22 --> 01:55:24 the direction that this was going.
01:55:25 --> 01:55:35 It's like this whole deal with us going to war with Iran is more about money,
01:55:35 --> 01:55:40 than it is about nuclear weapons and it is about stability in the Middle East,
01:55:41 --> 01:55:49 or even making sure that oil commodities can travel astray to Hormuz, right?
01:55:50 --> 01:55:56 But see, like Ukraine and Russia are fighting a war over the sovereign independence of Ukraine.
01:55:56 --> 01:56:01 Russia is trying to reclaim Ukraine or at least part of it or more of it than
01:56:01 --> 01:56:04 it got the last time. That's how they got Crimea.
01:56:05 --> 01:56:09 And Ukraine is like, no, we are an independent nation and we're going to stand
01:56:09 --> 01:56:13 up for ourselves. That's more of a traditional war.
01:56:13 --> 01:56:17 Not that war is good, but that's usually how that works.
01:56:17 --> 01:56:24 Right. When Saddam Hussein wanted to reclaim Kuwait for Iraq,
01:56:25 --> 01:56:29 the world said, no, that's not going to happen. Right.
01:56:29 --> 01:56:31 And he had to back off.
01:56:33 --> 01:56:36 Those are traditional things. But this whole thing with Iran,
01:56:36 --> 01:56:39 we don't know as American citizens.
01:56:39 --> 01:56:43 We don't know why we're doing what we're doing.
01:56:44 --> 01:56:51 And that's a weird feeling, right? With Vietnam, people were not comfortable with it.
01:56:51 --> 01:56:54 But the premise was there. It's
01:56:54 --> 01:56:57 like, okay, well, we're trying to stop the spread of communism in Asia.
01:56:58 --> 01:57:03 We'd already got a track record of doing it in Korea. So now Vietnam is the
01:57:03 --> 01:57:05 next chapter in that story, right?
01:57:05 --> 01:57:08 And then China is like right in the middle. They've already committed.
01:57:09 --> 01:57:11 Russia at the time, the Soviet Union still existed.
01:57:12 --> 01:57:17 So that was a plausible argument.
01:57:17 --> 01:57:22 The United States was against the spread of communism. And so initially we went
01:57:22 --> 01:57:26 over to help the French and then we ended up embroiled in a war.
01:57:28 --> 01:57:39 That we did not win, by the way. And so, you know, again, plausible reasoning.
01:57:40 --> 01:57:48 But this whole Iran thing, it's it's nothing more because every other story
01:57:48 --> 01:57:52 I'm hearing is that, well, we're in a ceasefire. We're not on a ceasefire.
01:57:52 --> 01:57:55 We're going to stop shooting. The strait is open, all that stuff.
01:57:56 --> 01:58:03 And then you watch the volatility of the stock market based on the updates about what's going on in Iraq.
01:58:04 --> 01:58:08 And you start to see a pattern that this is a game about money.
01:58:09 --> 01:58:12 This has nothing to do with fighting
01:58:12 --> 01:58:18 for democracy or fighting for Iranian independence or none of that.
01:58:19 --> 01:58:25 End of the, you know, all those things have been said, but that's not the real mission.
01:58:26 --> 01:58:30 And to me, that's blatant corruption, right?
01:58:31 --> 01:58:35 Blatant corruption is the value system that we're supposed to have.
01:58:36 --> 01:58:41 Because when you make a commitment to fight, that means you're making a commitment
01:58:41 --> 01:58:48 to lose lives and to take lives in order to fight for a principle worth dying for.
01:58:48 --> 01:58:54 The 18 young men and women who have died, what did they die for, right?
01:58:55 --> 01:59:00 Other than they were stationed where the conflict took place.
01:59:00 --> 01:59:08 That's insane. If we're going to do this, then it needs to be explained why we're doing it.
01:59:09 --> 01:59:15 That's a blatant corruption, not so much of dollars and cents, but of our goodwill.
01:59:16 --> 01:59:19 We're supposed to hold the presidency. We're supposed to hold the U.S.
01:59:19 --> 01:59:22 Government in high esteem, the U.S. military in high esteem.
01:59:23 --> 01:59:28 But you jeopardize that when you do whatever you want to do and don't feel you
01:59:28 --> 01:59:32 have to be accountable for anything. People that are not accountable have no value.
01:59:33 --> 01:59:37 Let me say that again. People that are not accountable have no value.
01:59:38 --> 01:59:45 If you can't say I made a mistake, or if you can't articulate a cause for doing
01:59:45 --> 01:59:48 what you do, then you're not being accountable.
01:59:49 --> 01:59:54 And if you're not accountable, then how can we put a value on you?
01:59:55 --> 01:59:58 Because you don't care. You don't care about us.
01:59:59 --> 02:00:02 You don't care about the damage you're causing.
02:00:03 --> 02:00:07 All you care about is, how am I going to make some money off of that?
02:00:08 --> 02:00:12 You know, the polymarkers are making money off how long the ceasefire is going
02:00:12 --> 02:00:15 to last. Who's going to strike first?
02:00:16 --> 02:00:20 How many days is the ceasefire? I mean, you know, just all sorts of just stupid
02:00:20 --> 02:00:27 stuff instead of a nation rallying around a cause. Right.
02:00:29 --> 02:00:34 I was just reminded of a story that I'm a diehard Cubs fan.
02:00:35 --> 02:00:38 And even though I lived on the south side of Chicago, went to White Sox games,
02:00:38 --> 02:00:40 I love the White Sox because I love baseball.
02:00:41 --> 02:00:45 But truth be told, I'm a diehard Cubs fan. And as you know, the Cubs didn't
02:00:45 --> 02:00:49 get lights until like the late 80s, early 90s. Right.
02:00:50 --> 02:00:52 The last major league team not to play night games.
02:00:54 --> 02:00:59 That was supposed to have ended in the 1940s. As a matter of fact,
02:00:59 --> 02:01:04 construction on the lights was supposed to start in November of 1941.
02:01:05 --> 02:01:08 A month later, Japan attacked Pearl Harbor.
02:01:09 --> 02:01:13 And Mr. Wrigley, who owned the Cubs at that time,
02:01:14 --> 02:01:19 immediately, whether it was an immediate call from the president or immediately,
02:01:20 --> 02:01:23 realized the dire situation we were in,
02:01:23 --> 02:01:30 stopped the construction of the lights and donated all the steel that was supposed
02:01:30 --> 02:01:32 to be used to build the lights,
02:01:33 --> 02:01:39 to the United States government to use for weapons or planes or tanks or wherever
02:01:39 --> 02:01:40 they wanted to use that steel for.
02:01:41 --> 02:01:49 185 tons of steel that this man had bought to put lights on a baseball stadium.
02:01:50 --> 02:01:55 In December of 1941, He took all that steel and gave it to the United States
02:01:55 --> 02:01:57 government and said, go win the war.
02:01:58 --> 02:02:02 That's fighting for a cause. That's what people do when there's a cause to fight
02:02:02 --> 02:02:08 for. People take action to make sure that the United States is successful in
02:02:08 --> 02:02:10 their battles. That's the dedication.
02:02:11 --> 02:02:18 Who is the rallying cry for Iran? What is the rallying cry for Iran?
02:02:19 --> 02:02:23 Nothing. But we're supposed to just go along with it because President Trump
02:02:23 --> 02:02:24 says this is what I want to do.
02:02:25 --> 02:02:31 That's corrupting. That's insulting. And we need to stand up with that.
02:02:31 --> 02:02:36 Just like these senators are standing up against this corruption.
02:02:36 --> 02:02:40 Because the other part of the deal that everybody keeps wanting to slide it,
02:02:40 --> 02:02:44 they keep throwing the weaponization fund in front of you.
02:02:44 --> 02:02:49 But the other part of the deal is the Trump family wants to be exempt from paying
02:02:49 --> 02:02:54 taxes for the rest of their lives and not have to pay any back taxes for the
02:02:54 --> 02:02:56 taxes they didn't pay prior to that.
02:02:57 --> 02:03:05 A grift. And so, you know, if I was in the Senate, I wouldn't vote for it either.
02:03:05 --> 02:03:11 But of course, I'd be a Democrat, so probably nothing I'd vote for in this administration, to be honest.
02:03:11 --> 02:03:15 But just standing on principle, no.
02:03:16 --> 02:03:22 You want me to commit U.S. tax dollars. You get mad at me when I say I want
02:03:22 --> 02:03:25 to commit U.S. tax dollars to create universal health care.
02:03:26 --> 02:03:31 You get mad at me when I want to continue to spend money to have a department
02:03:31 --> 02:03:37 of education. You would get mad at me for pushing universal childcare or universal
02:03:37 --> 02:03:40 childcare credits even, right?
02:03:41 --> 02:03:46 But you want me to give money to people who stormed the building that I worked at?
02:03:48 --> 02:03:51 U.S. Capitol building? That's what you're asking, if I was a senator,
02:03:51 --> 02:03:53 that's what you'd be asking me to do.
02:03:54 --> 02:03:59 You want me to give money to people that you pardoned for doing your work and
02:03:59 --> 02:04:04 trying to disrupt an election that you lost, the count of the election,
02:04:04 --> 02:04:07 the official count, the certification.
02:04:07 --> 02:04:10 You want to disrupt that because you can't accept losing.
02:04:11 --> 02:04:19 You pardon those people that did that for you. And now you want me to vote for those folks to get paid.
02:04:20 --> 02:04:23 That's not being a Democrat. That's.
02:04:26 --> 02:04:31 Just common sense. I wouldn't do that. And none of the senators that actually
02:04:31 --> 02:04:37 are elected should do that, regardless of political affiliation. That's insane.
02:04:37 --> 02:04:39 But that's a sign of corruption.
02:04:40 --> 02:04:47 Again, corruption is not just about money. It's about your soul. Your soul is corrupt.
02:04:48 --> 02:04:49 There's no boundaries.
02:04:50 --> 02:04:56 The very first paragraph, what we call the preamble to the United States Constitution,
02:04:57 --> 02:05:00 is the most important paragraph on the planet.
02:05:02 --> 02:05:08 I heard John Meacham talk about the most important sentence in world history
02:05:08 --> 02:05:13 is the sentence that says we hold these truths to be self-evident,
02:05:13 --> 02:05:15 that all men are created equal, right?
02:05:16 --> 02:05:22 That they're endowed by their creator with life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, right?
02:05:23 --> 02:05:27 He said that was the most important sentence. But to me, the most important
02:05:27 --> 02:05:31 paragraph ever written is the preamble to the United States Constitution.
02:05:31 --> 02:05:37 We, the people, in order to form a more perfect union, that's the North Star. That's the guide.
02:05:38 --> 02:05:42 That's what we should be working toward every day.
02:05:42 --> 02:05:47 Not the most abundant stock portfolio.
02:05:48 --> 02:05:55 Not the most side deals we can get with Saudi Arabia and China and all these other folks.
02:05:56 --> 02:06:00 The perfect union. That's what we should be pushing for each and every day.
02:06:01 --> 02:06:05 When those men and women take that oath, whether it's to fight in the military
02:06:05 --> 02:06:10 or to serve in the United States Congress, or even the President of the United States,
02:06:11 --> 02:06:15 when you take that oath to uphold the Constitution, you are supposed to be upholding,
02:06:15 --> 02:06:17 the very first paragraph.
02:06:18 --> 02:06:26 More importantly, we the people, in order to form a more perfect union.
02:06:27 --> 02:06:30 And in that paragraph, It defines three things.
02:06:31 --> 02:06:35 We're supposed to provide a defense for this nation. We're supposed to promote
02:06:35 --> 02:06:38 the general welfare of this nation.
02:06:38 --> 02:06:42 And we're supposed to protect the individual liberties of its citizens.
02:06:43 --> 02:06:45 That's all in that one paragraph.
02:06:46 --> 02:06:49 And these people raise their right hand and don't want to shake the hand of
02:06:49 --> 02:06:50 the vice president and all that.
02:06:53 --> 02:07:00 Because their soul is corrupted. And if we are going to have a nation that is
02:07:00 --> 02:07:04 going to extend beyond the 250 years of its current existence,
02:07:05 --> 02:07:07 we've got to redeem the soul.
02:07:08 --> 02:07:13 We've got to, we've got to rebuild the soul of this nation.
02:07:14 --> 02:07:20 So, you know, I just, when you go to the polls this November.
02:07:21 --> 02:07:22 Do it for good.
02:07:24 --> 02:07:30 Not just for Alex Pretty and Renee Good, but for good of the nation.
02:07:31 --> 02:07:35 Your vote this year will be a prayer for redemption.
02:07:36 --> 02:07:41 Your vote this year will be a commitment to rebuilding this nation.
02:07:42 --> 02:07:48 Your vote this year should be a guarantee that the United States of America
02:07:48 --> 02:07:51 will stand for another 250 years.
02:07:51 --> 02:07:55 That's why this election is important.
02:07:56 --> 02:08:01 Not because my friends are saying we urgently need you to donate money.
02:08:01 --> 02:08:09 The future of this country, the future that we envision for this country is on the line.
02:08:10 --> 02:08:18 If you believe that this nation should stand through the test of time, then vote like it.
02:08:19 --> 02:08:24 Stop voting for these people who just want to be part of the current corruption.
02:08:25 --> 02:08:30 Stop voting for people who tap dance for lobbyists and donors.
02:08:31 --> 02:08:34 Vote for the people. I don't care if you're in Michigan.
02:08:35 --> 02:08:40 I don't care if you're in Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee,
02:08:40 --> 02:08:47 Mississippi, Illinois, New York, Maine, Vermont, Maryland, California,
02:08:47 --> 02:08:49 Oregon, wherever you are.
02:08:50 --> 02:08:56 Please, please, please, ladies and gentlemen, vote for our future.
02:08:57 --> 02:08:59 Vote for our greatness.
02:09:00 --> 02:09:02 Vote for the America you want to live in.
02:09:04 --> 02:09:07 That's all I got Thank y'all for listening Until next time.