In the spirit of Malcolm X on his 100th birthday, this episode highlights two women, Misasha Suzuki Graham and Dr. Tammy Greer, who have, respectively, dedicated their lives to educating the masses to lead us to a better future.
00:00:00 --> 00:00:06 Welcome. I'm Erik Fleming, host of A Moment with Erik Fleming, the podcast of our time.
00:00:06 --> 00:00:08 I want to personally thank you for listening to the podcast.
00:00:09 --> 00:00:12 If you like what you're hearing, then I need you to do a few things.
00:00:13 --> 00:00:19 First, I need subscribers. I'm on Patreon at patreon.com slash amomentwitherikfleming.
00:00:19 --> 00:00:24 Your subscription allows an independent podcaster like me the freedom to speak
00:00:24 --> 00:00:27 truth to power, and to expand and improve the show.
00:00:28 --> 00:00:32 Second, leave a five-star review for the podcast on the streaming service you
00:00:32 --> 00:00:35 listen to it. That will help the podcast tremendously.
00:00:36 --> 00:00:41 Third, go to the website, momenteric.com. There you can subscribe to the podcast,
00:00:42 --> 00:00:47 leave reviews and comments, listen to past episodes, and even learn a little bit about your host.
00:00:47 --> 00:00:51 Lastly, don't keep this a secret like it's your own personal guilty pleasure.
00:00:52 --> 00:00:57 Tell someone else about the podcast. Encourage others to listen to the podcast
00:00:57 --> 00:01:02 and share the podcast on your social media platforms, because it is time to
00:01:02 --> 00:01:04 make this moment a movement.
00:01:04 --> 00:01:10 Thanks in advance for supporting the podcast of our time. I hope you enjoy this episode as well.
00:01:11 --> 00:01:16 The following program is hosted by the NBG Podcast Network.
00:01:20 --> 00:01:55 Music.
00:01:56 --> 00:02:01 Hello, and welcome to another Moment with Erik Fleming. I am your host, Erik Fleming.
00:02:02 --> 00:02:07 And today, I have two young ladies on as guests.
00:02:08 --> 00:02:15 One is a lawyer and activist in the San Francisco Bay Area community.
00:02:15 --> 00:02:17 Well, I should just say Bay Area community.
00:02:18 --> 00:02:24 And, you know, she has endeavored in a crusade, which caught my attention.
00:02:25 --> 00:02:32 And I think that you, the listening audience, will be also intrigued once you hear her interview.
00:02:33 --> 00:02:38 And then I have a repeat guest, somebody who followed the rules and came back
00:02:38 --> 00:02:43 on, who's a political scientist here in the Atlanta area, and come back on and
00:02:43 --> 00:02:47 talk about some issues going on locally and nationally.
00:02:48 --> 00:02:55 So this is going to be a great show, as always in my book. I'm very biased in that.
00:02:56 --> 00:03:02 And I hope that you all agree. We are still trying to get people to subscribe.
00:03:02 --> 00:03:05 We are still trying to get that 20.
00:03:08 --> 00:03:12 And it would be amazing if we could get those 20 subscribers.
00:03:12 --> 00:03:17 Let me just put it that way. I think that if you go to patreon.com slash I'm
00:03:17 --> 00:03:23 on with Erik Fleming and just subscribe to $1, I don't know if y'all been following
00:03:23 --> 00:03:26 the news when it comes to Patreon,
00:03:26 --> 00:03:32 but there's been a big deal with them and Apple concerning, you know,
00:03:33 --> 00:03:37 whether all of your subscription goes to the artists that you support.
00:03:38 --> 00:03:44 And all I know is that Patreon won that case and now that shouldn't be a problem
00:03:44 --> 00:03:47 so if you want to support me or other people,
00:03:48 --> 00:03:54 that are on Patreon and you use Apple be assured that they're going to get.
00:03:55 --> 00:04:03 The money, including me. You subscribe, we'll get that contribution.
00:04:03 --> 00:04:07 So please do that. Please spread the word.
00:04:07 --> 00:04:14 We're still out here doing the work and continuing to try to keep everything in front of us.
00:04:15 --> 00:04:23 And one of the things that supporting this podcast with help is how we always kick it off.
00:04:23 --> 00:04:33 And I appreciate Grace G for being with me, you know, and even being a guest
00:04:33 --> 00:04:36 on the show. She has been a godsend.
00:04:36 --> 00:04:42 But your subscription allows me to continue to have people like Grace come on
00:04:42 --> 00:04:46 and continue to make sure that, you know, like,
00:04:47 --> 00:04:53 you know, So next time, for example, get invited to the Democratic Convention
00:04:53 --> 00:04:58 to cover it again, we won't have to have a fundraiser because the subscriptions
00:04:58 --> 00:05:01 will make sure that it's covered.
00:05:02 --> 00:05:09 And, you know, I'm sure my boss at NBG Podcast Network would,
00:05:09 --> 00:05:15 Brother Young, Leonard Young, I'm sure he would greatly appreciate knowing that
00:05:15 --> 00:05:23 one of his many podcasts that he's building the network with can sustain themselves.
00:05:24 --> 00:05:29 I'm sure that'd be a relief to him. So, please, please subscribe,
00:05:29 --> 00:05:35 do that, and continue listening, and just spread the word.
00:05:36 --> 00:05:43 I've been honored to be recognized for the work, but we need to build our base
00:05:43 --> 00:05:50 up even more because it's, as I say in the intro appeal, it's time to make this
00:05:50 --> 00:05:51 moment of movement, right?
00:05:52 --> 00:05:55 All right, so let's go ahead and kick it off. And as always,
00:05:56 --> 00:05:58 we kick it off with a moment of news with Grace G.
00:05:58 --> 00:06:28 Transcription by CastingWords Eric.
00:06:01 --> 00:06:06 Music.
00:06:28 --> 00:06:33 During an incident at a federal detention center while members of New Jersey's
00:06:33 --> 00:06:35 congressional delegation were visiting.
00:06:35 --> 00:06:40 A Los Angeles judge resentenced Lyle and Eric Menendez, convicted of killing
00:06:40 --> 00:06:45 their parents in 1989, to 50 years to life under California's youthful offender
00:06:45 --> 00:06:47 law, making them eligible for parole.
00:06:47 --> 00:06:52 An Israeli-American hostage was released during a temporary Gaza ceasefire.
00:06:52 --> 00:06:57 Rumaysa Ozturk, a Turkish student detained for over six weeks after criticizing
00:06:57 --> 00:07:01 her university's response to the Gaza conflict, was released on bail.
00:07:02 --> 00:07:06 Wisconsin Judge Hannah Dugan was federally indicted for allegedly aiding an
00:07:06 --> 00:07:09 undocumented immigrant in evading authorities.
00:07:09 --> 00:07:14 A federal judge temporarily halted President Trump's large-scale government
00:07:14 --> 00:07:17 restructuring efforts due to a lack of congressional authorization.
00:07:18 --> 00:07:22 Democrat John Ewing Jr. became Omaha, Nebraska's first black mayor.
00:07:22 --> 00:07:27 President Trump dismissed Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden,
00:07:27 --> 00:07:30 citing her promotion of diversity and inclusion policies.
00:07:30 --> 00:07:35 A federal judge ordered independent oversight of Rikers Island due to worsening
00:07:35 --> 00:07:37 violence and unsafe conditions.
00:07:37 --> 00:07:42 Google settled a $50 million lawsuit alleging systemic racial discrimination
00:07:42 --> 00:07:44 against Black employees.
00:07:45 --> 00:07:50 The Trump administration granted refugee status to 59 white South Africans,
00:07:50 --> 00:07:52 citing racial discrimination.
00:07:52 --> 00:07:58 Trump defended accepting a $400 million plane from Qatar's royal family,
00:07:58 --> 00:07:59 despite ethical concerns.
00:08:00 --> 00:08:04 Measles cases in Texas and New Mexico rose to 788.
00:08:05 --> 00:08:12 Viola Fletcher, the oldest living survivor of the 1921 Tulsa massacre, turned 111.
00:08:12 --> 00:08:18 And former Supreme Court Justice David Souter passed away at the age of 85.
00:08:18 --> 00:08:23 I am Grace Gee, and this has been a Moment of News. .
00:08:25 --> 00:08:30 Music.
00:08:30 --> 00:08:34 All right. Thank you, Grace, for that moment of news. And now it is time for
00:08:34 --> 00:08:37 my guest, Misasha Suzuki Graham.
00:08:38 --> 00:08:42 Misasha Suzuki Graham has spent her life attempting to bridge gaps,
00:08:42 --> 00:08:47 both professionally and personally, and foster understanding among groups of people.
00:08:47 --> 00:08:52 A graduate of Harvard College in Columbia Law School, Misasha has spent over
00:08:52 --> 00:08:57 15 years as an accomplished attorney specializing in intellectual property law
00:08:57 --> 00:08:59 and cross-border work with Asia.
00:08:59 --> 00:09:04 With over 10 years spent at several international law firms honing these skills.
00:09:04 --> 00:09:10 Misasha is passionate about diversity, equity, and inclusion in the practice
00:09:10 --> 00:09:12 of law as well as in her communities.
00:09:12 --> 00:09:16 Her desire to make the world better for her boys led her to create Dear White
00:09:16 --> 00:09:23 Women with her biracial best friend of 26 plus years whom she met while walking
00:09:23 --> 00:09:30 out midway through a racial dialogue at Harvard about defining the multiracial identity.
00:09:30 --> 00:09:35 She is currently a facilitator, writer, and speaker regarding issues of racial
00:09:35 --> 00:09:37 justice with a focus on youth.
00:09:37 --> 00:09:42 The co-author of Dear White Women, Let's Get Uncomfortable Talking About Racism,
00:09:42 --> 00:09:44 and the co-host of Dear White Women,
00:09:45 --> 00:09:50 an award-winning social justice podcast which helps white women use their privilege
00:09:50 --> 00:09:55 to uproot systemic racism without centering themselves in the process.
00:09:56 --> 00:10:00 Misasha has been featured on Fox, NBC, Good Day LA,
00:10:00 --> 00:10:05 Forbes, and various other news and media outlets, has spoken and moderated in
00:10:05 --> 00:10:07 front of law firms, corporations,
00:10:07 --> 00:10:13 schools, and other community organizations, and gave her first TEDx talk on
00:10:13 --> 00:10:18 the link between asking questions and affirming humanity in April of 2024.
00:10:19 --> 00:10:23 Misasha is the proud daughter of a Japanese immigrant father and white mother,
00:10:23 --> 00:10:28 and the equally proud mom of two very active multi-ethnic tween boys.
00:10:28 --> 00:10:33 They live in the Bay Area of California with their largely indifferent cat.
00:10:33 --> 00:10:38 Ladies and gentlemen, it is my distinct honor and privilege to have as a guest
00:10:38 --> 00:10:42 on this podcast, Misasha Suzuki Graham.
00:10:44 --> 00:10:54 Music.
00:10:54 --> 00:10:59 Misasha Suzuki Graham. How are you doing? You doing okay?
00:11:00 --> 00:11:03 I am. Thank you so much for having me here. How are you?
00:11:04 --> 00:11:09 I'm doing fine. Like I said, I'm honored to have you on because you caught my
00:11:09 --> 00:11:14 attention with this crusade that you're on.
00:11:14 --> 00:11:19 And so we want to get into that and kind of talk about, you know,
00:11:20 --> 00:11:26 why you started that and what you see happening as we have been progressing into this,
00:11:27 --> 00:11:30 new era, I guess, for lack of a better term.
00:11:31 --> 00:11:37 So what I like to do is I like to get everything started with icebreakers.
00:11:38 --> 00:11:44 So the first icebreaker is a quote. And the quote is, those who stand up for
00:11:44 --> 00:11:49 justice will always be on the right side of history. What does that quote mean to you?
00:11:51 --> 00:11:57 Well, as the granddaughter of a historian, you know, history teaches us a lot.
00:11:58 --> 00:12:04 And I think that one thing that it teaches us is that, you know, justice for all.
00:12:04 --> 00:12:07 I always think about the concept of all of us or none of us,
00:12:07 --> 00:12:09 right? I think we're all so tied together.
00:12:09 --> 00:12:14 And justice for all of us means literally that, justice for all of us.
00:12:14 --> 00:12:17 It's not justice for some of us or the justice that we like.
00:12:17 --> 00:12:20 So I think when you're fighting for that, when you're fighting for justice,
00:12:20 --> 00:12:22 you're fighting for humanity, right?
00:12:22 --> 00:12:26 And that is always going to be the right side of history.
00:12:27 --> 00:12:30 Yeah. All right. So I need to give you a number.
00:12:31 --> 00:12:35 I need you to give me a number from between 1 and 20.
00:12:37 --> 00:12:43 Seven. All right. What do you consider the best way to stay informed about politics,
00:12:44 --> 00:12:46 current events, health, et cetera?
00:12:47 --> 00:12:53 So I'm a big fan of newsletters. I like to read my news.
00:12:53 --> 00:12:59 I mean, I love papers, newspapers too, but I like newsletters.
00:12:59 --> 00:13:04 I don't like watching the news, which, you know, angers my mother to no end
00:13:04 --> 00:13:08 that I'm not watching the news shows because she wants to tell me all about them.
00:13:08 --> 00:13:11 And I just can't, I cannot listen to some of that.
00:13:12 --> 00:13:16 So I like to read newsletters. I have a couple that are sort of curated and
00:13:16 --> 00:13:22 I can see the headlines and then I can decide if I want to read more about it.
00:13:22 --> 00:13:23 But that's how I normally get my news.
00:13:25 --> 00:13:32 All right. So I talked about this crusade and the crusade is called Dear White Women.
00:13:32 --> 00:13:37 So how did the Dear White Women journey start for you? Hmm.
00:13:38 --> 00:13:43 So I got to take it all the way back, right? Because I am the daughter of a
00:13:43 --> 00:13:46 Japanese immigrant father and a white American mother.
00:13:46 --> 00:13:51 So growing up in my household, you know, there was no one perspective on anything.
00:13:51 --> 00:13:56 And a lot of what I did growing up was trying to figure out where I fit in,
00:13:56 --> 00:14:01 having all sorts of conversations about race and identity, and also sort of
00:14:01 --> 00:14:04 moving through different circles because of who I was being,
00:14:04 --> 00:14:06 you know, multi-ethnic or biracial.
00:14:06 --> 00:14:11 I was not white enough, I was not Asian enough, or I was too Asian or too white.
00:14:11 --> 00:14:14 And so spending a lot of time thinking about my identity.
00:14:15 --> 00:14:19 And, you know, I went to law school, I became a lawyer, largely because of the
00:14:19 --> 00:14:24 incarceration of Japanese Americans and the treatment of, you know,
00:14:24 --> 00:14:28 historically marginalized people, but also people whose voices were not heard
00:14:28 --> 00:14:31 in the legal system and throughout history.
00:14:31 --> 00:14:35 And I thought like, well, that sucks and that's wrong.
00:14:35 --> 00:14:39 And so someone needs to do something about it. So I'm going to do something about it.
00:14:39 --> 00:14:46 And then, you know, 10 years or so into my legal career, I got married and I had two boys.
00:14:47 --> 00:14:50 And that's really when things, I mean, everyone says, right,
00:14:50 --> 00:14:52 your priorities change when you become a parent.
00:14:52 --> 00:14:57 And that was 100% true because my husband is Black.
00:14:58 --> 00:15:03 So my boys are Black, Japanese, and white. And we live in the Bay Area of California.
00:15:03 --> 00:15:09 And in the circles that we were in, circles are very white.
00:15:10 --> 00:15:15 And what I learned from those circles was that, and I've learned this my whole
00:15:15 --> 00:15:21 life, especially circles full of white women, is what's said in those circles, what's not said.
00:15:21 --> 00:15:26 And then the third part that no one says out loud is what's being said when
00:15:26 --> 00:15:32 those circles full of white women believe that there are no non-white people in that space.
00:15:32 --> 00:15:37 And I happen to have a best friend from college who is also Japanese and white,
00:15:37 --> 00:15:41 who experienced the exact same things that I did, who became a mother as well.
00:15:41 --> 00:15:45 And we thought, what if we could change those narratives, right?
00:15:45 --> 00:15:50 What if we could change the narratives in that circle to expand it beyond this
00:15:50 --> 00:15:53 dominant narrative that we have in the United States and really think about
00:15:53 --> 00:15:56 all of us, right? Like when we're, you know, I was talking about all of us,
00:15:56 --> 00:15:59 like how do we talk about all of us?
00:15:59 --> 00:16:04 Because in those circles, I heard a lot about, you know, hopes and dreams and fears for your kids.
00:16:04 --> 00:16:08 I didn't hear anyone talk about my fear for my kids, which is like my boys walk
00:16:08 --> 00:16:11 out of my house. I want them to come home safely.
00:16:12 --> 00:16:14 It's really simple and it's really hard.
00:16:16 --> 00:16:20 And at the same time, right, because now they're 12 and 10 and they've gone
00:16:20 --> 00:16:23 from cute to aggressive in the eyes of society really quick.
00:16:24 --> 00:16:28 That was not a common fear. But what if we could understand those fears?
00:16:28 --> 00:16:33 What if we could find those moments to really talk to each other and think about,
00:16:33 --> 00:16:38 like, what is the world that we want for our children? What is the world that we want for each other?
00:16:39 --> 00:16:44 And, you know, you started with that quote about justice and how do we find
00:16:44 --> 00:16:46 equity and justice and inclusion?
00:16:46 --> 00:16:49 And if we're not talking about it, then we're not going to find it.
00:16:49 --> 00:16:55 So, you know, that same best friend and I embarked on this journey to kind of.
00:16:55 --> 00:16:58 Let's make this conversation as big as we can. Let's have a podcast.
00:16:58 --> 00:17:01 Let's write a book. Let's talk to groups of people about it.
00:17:02 --> 00:17:07 But let's just keep talking about it and continuing to make this conversation bigger.
00:17:07 --> 00:17:10 Because it really is about all of us. It is not just about, you know,
00:17:10 --> 00:17:15 me as the mother of Black children. It's about our community, our society.
00:17:15 --> 00:17:20 And, you know, now we see this writ large, right, in our nation as well. Yeah.
00:17:21 --> 00:17:28 So in this book that you co-authored, Dear White Women, Let's Get Uncomfortable Talking About Racism.
00:17:28 --> 00:17:33 You stated that white privilege is both a legacy and a cause of racism.
00:17:34 --> 00:17:39 To understand and change anything in the realm of anti-racism, we need to start there.
00:17:40 --> 00:17:46 So let's start there. What is white privilege and why is it a legacy and a cause?
00:17:47 --> 00:17:53 Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, and when people, I have been asked to not use
00:17:53 --> 00:17:56 the word privilege or that white privilege is sort of a triggering term.
00:17:57 --> 00:18:00 And I, especially as an attorney, I have like really difficult time with not
00:18:00 --> 00:18:03 calling the thing the thing that it is, right?
00:18:03 --> 00:18:09 Because, you know, it exists. And I think people feel a way about white privilege
00:18:09 --> 00:18:11 because we haven't been talking about it.
00:18:11 --> 00:18:18 And I think what it is, is that being white has never cost you an opportunity
00:18:18 --> 00:18:26 to do something, to, you know, be seen as anything else, but sort of the dominant narrative.
00:18:26 --> 00:18:28 It has never worked against you.
00:18:29 --> 00:18:31 And I think that a lot of the pushback.
00:18:32 --> 00:18:36 I hear is, well, I grew up poor. I'm white, but I'm poor.
00:18:37 --> 00:18:41 So like, clearly I don't have white privilege or, you know, and I think that
00:18:41 --> 00:18:43 conflates like race and class, right?
00:18:43 --> 00:18:47 Because those are, those are two very important things and two very big factors
00:18:47 --> 00:18:50 in our American experience, but they're not the same.
00:18:51 --> 00:18:54 And so it is, it still exists.
00:18:54 --> 00:19:00 It is, it is a thing tied to race. And I think that if you look at how our country was founded,
00:19:00 --> 00:19:03 right, and we're doing that a lot these days because we're looking at the Constitution
00:19:03 --> 00:19:09 a lot, but the Constitution was written by and for white landowning men.
00:19:10 --> 00:19:15 And so that is part of the history of our country, right? And we fought wars about this.
00:19:15 --> 00:19:21 You know, the Civil War was about the white privilege and the ability to own
00:19:21 --> 00:19:23 slaves and can we own other people?
00:19:24 --> 00:19:28 And that persisted and it has persisted.
00:19:28 --> 00:19:32 And the longer that we have, that we try not to have this conversation, right?
00:19:32 --> 00:19:37 That we try not to explore how has that held us all back, right?
00:19:37 --> 00:19:41 Not just non-white people, but white people too in this country.
00:19:41 --> 00:19:43 Like how has that hurt everyone?
00:19:44 --> 00:19:48 Then if we're fighting about what the word is, then we're not gonna get to any
00:19:48 --> 00:19:50 sort of change around that.
00:19:51 --> 00:20:00 Yeah. Yeah, I was taught that triggers develop from guilt and pain or both.
00:20:01 --> 00:20:05 And so when somebody white says,
00:20:06 --> 00:20:10 well, you know, when you say privilege, that's a trigger to me,
00:20:11 --> 00:20:18 then it's like, so either you have some pain from being a white person,
00:20:18 --> 00:20:22 or you have some guilt from being a white person.
00:20:23 --> 00:20:27 So which one is it? And how do we deal with that? Right.
00:20:28 --> 00:20:36 And, you know, I think it's I think it's unfair for people to try to box you
00:20:36 --> 00:20:40 in and any anybody that wants to have the conversation,
00:20:40 --> 00:20:43 because in order for us to get to a point of healing,
00:20:44 --> 00:20:45 in order for us to get to a point of
00:20:45 --> 00:20:50 progress, we got to have the tough conversations. Do you agree with that?
00:20:51 --> 00:20:56 I do. I mean, you know, I think I mentioned as the granddaughter of a historian,
00:20:56 --> 00:20:59 he was specifically a Civil War historian.
00:20:59 --> 00:21:04 And, you know, I think about all the conversations and the reckoning we didn't
00:21:04 --> 00:21:09 do right after the Civil War, which you can kind of draw direct through a line
00:21:09 --> 00:21:14 to where we are now because we didn't do any of that. And I feel like.
00:21:15 --> 00:21:19 And then I think also about sort of that next generation, right?
00:21:20 --> 00:21:24 Like our children. And I spend a lot of time in classrooms and I have conversations
00:21:24 --> 00:21:27 with kids where we talk about racism and privilege and white privilege.
00:21:27 --> 00:21:33 And no one feels a way about that. Like these kids are great and are very,
00:21:34 --> 00:21:38 and you know, you were talking about sort of the guilt or the fear or the triggers
00:21:38 --> 00:21:40 and they don't have those.
00:21:40 --> 00:21:44 And then I talk to groups of parents, and I will have a parent tell me,
00:21:44 --> 00:21:48 a white parent, I don't want to talk to my kids about racism because I'm afraid
00:21:48 --> 00:21:50 of how it will make them feel.
00:21:50 --> 00:21:53 And when I hear statements like that, and they have said it's my face,
00:21:53 --> 00:21:56 and then we have a conversation about the privilege inherent in that statement.
00:21:56 --> 00:22:02 But also, that is about the fear of the parent, right?
00:22:02 --> 00:22:07 That is not about what they feel their child will feel.
00:22:07 --> 00:22:11 That is about the fear or the guilt that the parent feels in having that conversation.
00:22:11 --> 00:22:13 And so I think that you're absolutely right.
00:22:14 --> 00:22:17 And, you know, how we think about this and how we think about this,
00:22:17 --> 00:22:20 what we want for that next generation, too, is really important when we're having
00:22:20 --> 00:22:24 this conversation around reckoning and how we heal.
00:22:24 --> 00:22:32 So when you're talking to adults, is denial the biggest resistance you face in the work that you do?
00:22:32 --> 00:22:39 It's a mix, right? I will say, you know, people will, like, introspection is
00:22:39 --> 00:22:43 really hard for everyone, I think, right? It's like real self-reflection.
00:22:43 --> 00:22:51 I think people don't understand. And there is, so I will say denial based on
00:22:51 --> 00:22:55 the concept that we are not talking about systems, which we are,
00:22:55 --> 00:22:57 right? Like racism is a system.
00:22:57 --> 00:23:03 It is a systemic level of, you know, injustice that has been perpetuated in
00:23:03 --> 00:23:05 so many different parts of our society.
00:23:05 --> 00:23:11 And I think when people hear the word racism, it immediately becomes this individual concept.
00:23:11 --> 00:23:17 Rather than growing up in a racist society and being sort of indoctrinated or
00:23:17 --> 00:23:24 assimilated into this concept that this is how it is because this is how it always has been.
00:23:24 --> 00:23:31 So there's denial on that level. And then there's also the concept of like, but aren't we past this?
00:23:31 --> 00:23:36 It's kind of like, especially living in the Bay Area, which people consider
00:23:36 --> 00:23:40 us to be incredibly progressive and increasingly we are not.
00:23:40 --> 00:23:45 And I think people are like, well, this isn't really a thing, right?
00:23:45 --> 00:23:49 Because they don't see it in their own lives. I see it in my life.
00:23:49 --> 00:23:54 I know for sure my husband and my boys see it even more than I do.
00:23:54 --> 00:23:59 And so I think there's sort of this concept of like, we're in this post-racial society.
00:23:59 --> 00:24:04 We had a Black president. And I think that people right now are waking up to
00:24:04 --> 00:24:08 the fact that actually we are very, very much not in that post-racial society,
00:24:08 --> 00:24:11 But I think that's been a lot of the pushback as well.
00:24:11 --> 00:24:17 Yeah. So how do you handle the criticism when someone challenges you as being woke?
00:24:19 --> 00:24:23 Well, I asked them if they, if, what is their definition of woke?
00:24:24 --> 00:24:28 Because I think, you know, there's a lot of misinformation or misunderstanding
00:24:28 --> 00:24:30 around what words mean, right?
00:24:30 --> 00:24:35 And words are important and how we use them is important. And I don't think
00:24:35 --> 00:24:41 thinking about equity or thinking about inclusion or thinking about diversity
00:24:41 --> 00:24:44 or justice is a bad thing, right?
00:24:44 --> 00:24:50 And I think it's like when people say, well, DEI is dead or DEI is bad.
00:24:50 --> 00:24:54 And I, you know, want them to define exactly what part of that is dead,
00:24:54 --> 00:24:57 like what part of it is bad. You know, is it the diversity part?
00:24:57 --> 00:25:01 Is it the equity part? Is it the inclusion part? I think it's really easy to
00:25:01 --> 00:25:07 push back on things you don't really understand or words that have been weaponized.
00:25:07 --> 00:25:12 And you're not exactly sure how they've been weaponized. but it sounds,
00:25:12 --> 00:25:14 it's something you saw, and so you want to challenge.
00:25:15 --> 00:25:20 But I invite people to, when I hear that, to have that moment of introspection
00:25:20 --> 00:25:21 or, you know, what do you mean by that?
00:25:21 --> 00:25:27 Just asking them sort of a question to get at what is the real issue they're
00:25:27 --> 00:25:29 trying to talk about? Because often it's not that.
00:25:30 --> 00:25:34 Yeah, it's like when people say that around me, I just say, well,
00:25:34 --> 00:25:36 the opposite of woke is sleep.
00:25:37 --> 00:25:43 And when you sleep, you dream. So you can dream about all this fantasy,
00:25:43 --> 00:25:47 what you want to do, or you can open your eyes and figure out how you can make
00:25:47 --> 00:25:50 something a reality, right?
00:25:50 --> 00:25:57 And, you know, I just, like you said, people are weaponized words to the extent
00:25:57 --> 00:26:03 where you're afraid to have conversations with people.
00:26:03 --> 00:26:08 And I don't like being in a situation where I can't talk to folks.
00:26:09 --> 00:26:16 And so I challenge people when they say something like that to me,
00:26:16 --> 00:26:22 or one thing I always kind of get people, I'm a member of the Democratic Party.
00:26:22 --> 00:26:24 So when the other people,
00:26:25 --> 00:26:29 say, well, you know, the Democrat Party has done something.
00:26:29 --> 00:26:35 And I'll say, well, the Democrat Party sounds really bad. I'm a member of the Democratic Party.
00:26:36 --> 00:26:39 So this is where we take our position. And it just, you know,
00:26:39 --> 00:26:43 at that point, you know, it's like, oh, I'm engaged in a conversation I don't
00:26:43 --> 00:26:45 want to be, but here we go. You know what I'm saying?
00:26:46 --> 00:26:52 I mean, I think the more that people like you and I continue to engage people,
00:26:53 --> 00:26:56 you know, I think that's always a step in the right direction.
00:26:56 --> 00:27:00 And a lot of people are just, you know, COVID kind of got everybody in a shell.
00:27:02 --> 00:27:06 And it's almost like now, you know, even five years later, we're still learning
00:27:06 --> 00:27:08 how to talk to other people.
00:27:09 --> 00:27:14 Do you get that sense that COVID kind of set us back as far as interactions with people?
00:27:15 --> 00:27:19 I think so. I think people learn to spend a lot of time online.
00:27:19 --> 00:27:25 Right. And in COVID, I know my my kids did and it took a lot to get them off of it. Right.
00:27:25 --> 00:27:31 And and I think online, you know, you're in you're in your echo chamber or you're
00:27:31 --> 00:27:34 yelling into a void and it's really one sided.
00:27:34 --> 00:27:38 Right. It's it's sort of parasocial. And then when you have to enter into a
00:27:38 --> 00:27:42 conversation where you can't just say your piece and log off,
00:27:42 --> 00:27:44 right, it becomes really challenging.
00:27:44 --> 00:27:48 So I agree with you. I think that people have a really hard time.
00:27:48 --> 00:27:55 And also, I think, and increasingly now, we are being taught to be silent, right?
00:27:55 --> 00:27:59 And, you know, that silence is kind of what saves you. And silence is absolutely
00:27:59 --> 00:28:02 not what's going to save you, right?
00:28:02 --> 00:28:05 Like silence keeps you siloed away from your neighbors.
00:28:05 --> 00:28:09 It keeps you out of your community. It keeps you, you know, sort of in your
00:28:09 --> 00:28:13 own, that echo chamber that I was just talking about, right?
00:28:13 --> 00:28:17 It doesn't lead to growth and it doesn't lead to change. And if you want,
00:28:18 --> 00:28:20 most people are looking for change in some life.
00:28:20 --> 00:28:25 The status quo has, you know, sort of benefited the same people that it's always
00:28:25 --> 00:28:27 benefited. And that isn't many of us.
00:28:27 --> 00:28:35 And so I think that COVID cost us a lot, but hopefully we're going to choose
00:28:35 --> 00:28:38 voice and conversation over silence. Yeah.
00:28:40 --> 00:28:46 So 53 percent of white women voted against a woman to be president of the United States twice.
00:28:47 --> 00:28:52 Based on your work and observations, why do you think that outcome occurred?
00:28:54 --> 00:29:00 How much time do you have? I mean, it's a complicated, this is a complicated question.
00:29:01 --> 00:29:04 I still think this is why I always pitch back when people are like,
00:29:05 --> 00:29:11 we're in this post-racial society or, you know, we don't need to think about
00:29:11 --> 00:29:14 race or, you know, we're past sort of talking about gender divides.
00:29:14 --> 00:29:21 I think that in certain ways, the Republican Party was really excellent on messaging fear.
00:29:21 --> 00:29:29 I think that you have a lot of single issue voters who didn't understand what
00:29:29 --> 00:29:33 the implication of their single issue vote would mean for the country.
00:29:33 --> 00:29:38 And I think you still have racism on a large level.
00:29:38 --> 00:29:49 I do think you have many factors at work, including people who felt that probably
00:29:49 --> 00:29:51 the same people who would deny that white privilege exists,
00:29:51 --> 00:29:54 who still, you know, use that.
00:29:54 --> 00:30:01 And I am also a Democrat and I saw how effective the Republican Party was at
00:30:01 --> 00:30:02 weaponizing that as well.
00:30:03 --> 00:30:07 And yeah, I think that we still have people who vote against their self-interest.
00:30:08 --> 00:30:12 And do it for a whole host of reasons, be it I'm going to, you know,
00:30:13 --> 00:30:17 vote my family party line. I'm going to vote on this single issue.
00:30:17 --> 00:30:21 I don't like her or, you know, for whatever other reason.
00:30:21 --> 00:30:27 But it was extremely disappointing and but not surprising, if that makes sense.
00:30:27 --> 00:30:32 Yeah, I think I was a little more surprised this time than the first time.
00:30:32 --> 00:30:38 Now, the first time I will tell this story, and some people have listened to
00:30:38 --> 00:30:40 podcasts have heard me tell it before,
00:30:40 --> 00:30:47 but I was so sure that Hillary Clinton was going to win that my alma mater asked
00:30:47 --> 00:30:51 me to do a radio broadcast for election night.
00:30:51 --> 00:30:54 So I came dressed for radio.
00:30:54 --> 00:30:57 I had like a T-shirt on, some jeans, you know, and I, you know,
00:30:58 --> 00:31:02 showed up and, you know, we're sitting watching the results come in.
00:31:02 --> 00:31:07 And then, you know, it wasn't going the way that we thought it was going to go.
00:31:07 --> 00:31:13 And so now, Eric, we got to get you on the college TV station.
00:31:13 --> 00:31:19 Oh god I'm looking like a bum just like okay well it is what it is you know
00:31:19 --> 00:31:24 and so now we're on there and then at that point we were starting to see the
00:31:24 --> 00:31:26 results in Florida and I was like.
00:31:27 --> 00:31:31 Okay. So, you know, but me being a political scientist, I kind of looked at
00:31:31 --> 00:31:33 it like a political science major.
00:31:34 --> 00:31:37 Please don't let me insult my colleagues who actually are political scientists.
00:31:38 --> 00:31:44 But, you know, it was like, okay, well, Americans had been voting for either
00:31:44 --> 00:31:47 Clinton or Bush for like 40 years at that particular point.
00:31:48 --> 00:31:54 So I said, well, maybe it was just the name, you know, her favorability ratings were not really high.
00:31:55 --> 00:31:59 Okay. And, you know, people were like, well, you know, we'll try something new out.
00:32:00 --> 00:32:07 But this time, you know, after going through a term with this president and
00:32:07 --> 00:32:11 now, you know, and then he got voted out.
00:32:11 --> 00:32:15 Now he's running again, and he's running against the sitting vice president
00:32:15 --> 00:32:18 of the United States, who is clearly more qualified,
00:32:19 --> 00:32:26 who is clearly more articulate, who definitely was a better representation of
00:32:26 --> 00:32:27 what America looks like.
00:32:28 --> 00:32:35 And the people, the same coalition, I say, that voted against Secretary Clinton,
00:32:35 --> 00:32:37 voted against Vice President Harris.
00:32:37 --> 00:32:46 So now I'm like, yeah, it's something more than, you know, what normal analysis trying to find it.
00:32:47 --> 00:32:50 To me, you know, the majority of it was straight up racism.
00:32:50 --> 00:32:53 You could say that, yeah, I was voting for the price of eggs,
00:32:53 --> 00:32:58 but I'm like, that dude didn't do anything for the price of eggs when he was there last time.
00:32:58 --> 00:33:02 You know, Joe Biden had to come in and fix all that. So, yeah, I just,
00:33:03 --> 00:33:08 you know, I still hold hope for people, but, you know, just as somebody that
00:33:08 --> 00:33:14 has been involved in politics and studies, all this stuff, I just,
00:33:14 --> 00:33:21 I'm more Hobbesian in my thought about how people voted this time as opposed to in 2016.
00:33:21 --> 00:33:30 So, after the 2024 election, let me ask you this.
00:33:30 --> 00:33:36 Does allyship with African-American women become more difficult or easier?
00:33:36 --> 00:33:41 You know, this is a good question. I think in my circles.
00:33:42 --> 00:33:47 Easier, well, if you're asking about me personally, easier because this,
00:33:47 --> 00:33:51 you know, this Dear White Women platform was not a new platform.
00:33:51 --> 00:33:59 And I think that, you know, it's very clear how I feel and how I'm going to
00:33:59 --> 00:34:04 use my voice and how I'm going to be fighting past things.
00:34:06 --> 00:34:12 Past like all of the labels and all of the stuff that's being thrown at us and
00:34:12 --> 00:34:14 still going to fight for everyone.
00:34:14 --> 00:34:20 And that means that I also recognize that the fight is harder for people,
00:34:22 --> 00:34:27 you know, who like I'm fairly privileged in this fight as well because of what
00:34:27 --> 00:34:30 I look like and because of the circles I can move in.
00:34:30 --> 00:34:33 And I always will be fighting for those
00:34:33 --> 00:34:36 who show up with less privilege because that's
00:34:36 --> 00:34:39 that's part of what I said I was
00:34:39 --> 00:34:42 going to do as an attorney and that's what I do in
00:34:42 --> 00:34:47 my life too because I want my kids to know that every day I fought for them
00:34:47 --> 00:34:52 and like when we look back at this time period and they're like what were you
00:34:52 --> 00:34:56 doing I mean but yeah I've sat there every day fighting you know and so I think
00:34:56 --> 00:34:59 on that level because people know who I am,
00:34:59 --> 00:35:04 they know that I spent all this time in the 2024 election cycle,
00:35:04 --> 00:35:08 making sure people had the access and the right to vote.
00:35:08 --> 00:35:11 Making sure people had ways to get to the polls, checking to make sure that
00:35:11 --> 00:35:17 California was in compliance, and then doing all the national election work I could do.
00:35:17 --> 00:35:24 And I had hope for a while for this 2024 election cycle.
00:35:24 --> 00:35:29 And I felt election night, I felt like I did in 2016.
00:35:29 --> 00:35:35 In 2016, I was in Louisiana visiting my husband's family and waking up that
00:35:35 --> 00:35:40 next morning to the results was very similar to how I felt this time around.
00:35:40 --> 00:35:44 And that fight is stronger now because we have so much more at stake.
00:35:44 --> 00:35:49 So that's kind of a long answer to your question. I think it's stronger.
00:35:49 --> 00:35:59 But I also understand anger in the community, right? and how that can and should play out, too.
00:36:00 --> 00:36:05 Yeah, it's because you have a very, very unique view about...
00:36:07 --> 00:36:11 You know, what's going on in the communities. And, you know,
00:36:11 --> 00:36:17 I think the fact that your credibility has made it easier for you to still move in circles.
00:36:17 --> 00:36:24 I think there were a lot of people who were activated in 2024 that had not been.
00:36:25 --> 00:36:28 And, you know, and now that they've been activated and they've been disappointed,
00:36:28 --> 00:36:32 they're out in the streets and they're like going, hey, we need y'all out in the streets.
00:36:32 --> 00:36:36 And them sisters are like, yeah, no, we're not going out with you because,
00:36:36 --> 00:36:40 you know, y'all Johnny come lately to the thing.
00:36:40 --> 00:36:44 But I believe because you've been doing this work for a while,
00:36:44 --> 00:36:49 I think it's easier for you to have that credibility and,
00:36:50 --> 00:36:55 for people, if you ask them, hey, I need your help, that they will participate.
00:36:56 --> 00:37:09 But I'm a little concerned that we don't really have the leadership that's ready for the movement.
00:37:10 --> 00:37:13 So that means new leaders have to emerge. What
00:37:13 --> 00:37:19 have you seen in the circles that you have traveled as far as new leadership
00:37:19 --> 00:37:26 stepping forward to deal with the issues that you deal with specifically with
00:37:26 --> 00:37:30 Dear white women and just overall as far as the political conversation.
00:37:32 --> 00:37:37 So I think you're absolutely right that whatever has been going on,
00:37:37 --> 00:37:41 especially the leadership that we've had previously, is not working in terms
00:37:41 --> 00:37:47 of moving us forward or even sort of visibly, you know, fighting back.
00:37:47 --> 00:37:50 Or, you know, I think about this on a national level a lot.
00:37:51 --> 00:37:55 But I think at the same time, and I was literally just right before this recording
00:37:55 --> 00:38:00 having a conversation about this very thing, it is in flux, though.
00:38:00 --> 00:38:05 There is no, I'm not seeing people kind of be like, this is,
00:38:05 --> 00:38:09 I am the person or this is the person.
00:38:09 --> 00:38:13 And I think that that has been a problem, right?
00:38:13 --> 00:38:18 I think that this is why messaging is so difficult.
00:38:18 --> 00:38:23 This is why reaching people is difficult. This is why conversations are hard
00:38:23 --> 00:38:27 is because there is not, like there isn't really that leadership.
00:38:28 --> 00:38:31 And we were in this conversation we were trying to discuss
00:38:31 --> 00:38:34 like well what does that even look like and that's even even
00:38:34 --> 00:38:37 that is really hard to discuss because we have and
00:38:37 --> 00:38:41 when I think about it on the national political level we have people and you
00:38:41 --> 00:38:44 know you were talking about the Clintons and the Bushes kind of being that you
00:38:44 --> 00:38:49 know dynasty of American politics and we have that sort of dynastic politics
00:38:49 --> 00:38:53 or people who have held seats for 40 years and you know or who are going to
00:38:53 --> 00:38:55 be on the Supreme Court for life,
00:38:55 --> 00:38:58 which is still so wild to me that that's a lifetime thing.
00:39:00 --> 00:39:04 So change is really hard. And, you know, I wish I had a better answer for you.
00:39:04 --> 00:39:07 I just haven't seen leadership sort of step up.
00:39:07 --> 00:39:11 And I feel like some, especially on the political side, people are like,
00:39:11 --> 00:39:15 oh, well, we've got 2026 to, you know, look forward to. And like, do we though?
00:39:15 --> 00:39:19 I mean, because if we're waiting till, you know, starting to run another election
00:39:19 --> 00:39:22 cycle, we may not be running another election cycle.
00:39:22 --> 00:39:25 Like we are in a really precarious position when it comes to our democracy.
00:39:26 --> 00:39:29 So as far as I'm concerned, we need to, we should have been doing this yesterday,
00:39:29 --> 00:39:32 but like, we're still not there.
00:39:33 --> 00:39:36 Yeah. So let's close it out on something positive.
00:39:37 --> 00:39:42 What, what gives you hope? What, what gets you up in the morning to keep doing
00:39:42 --> 00:39:43 the work that you're doing?
00:39:45 --> 00:39:49 Kids. Kids keep me, keep me going. Like not only my own kids and,
00:39:49 --> 00:39:53 and I've been able to have some really great discussions with them sort of about.
00:39:54 --> 00:39:59 How they see my work and how they see themselves in the world.
00:40:00 --> 00:40:05 And that gives me a lot of hope because the way that they can talk about who
00:40:05 --> 00:40:10 they are and what they believe in is unlike sort of other generations that I've seen.
00:40:10 --> 00:40:13 Like I couldn't have talked like that when I was 10 or 12.
00:40:13 --> 00:40:18 And I mentioned I spend a lot of time in classrooms and whenever I go into a
00:40:18 --> 00:40:25 school and talk to kids and hear how motivated they are to really like fight against injustice.
00:40:25 --> 00:40:30 And kids have such a strong sense of like, what is fair and what is right and what is just?
00:40:30 --> 00:40:35 And I want them to just hold on to that. And we talk a lot about how to have
00:40:35 --> 00:40:39 difficult conversations and how to critically think about things and how to
00:40:39 --> 00:40:42 ask questions and like how to keep asking questions when you're not getting
00:40:42 --> 00:40:45 the answer that you want, which sometimes backfires as a parent.
00:40:45 --> 00:40:49 But I mean, I'm talking about life lessons, right, for them,
00:40:49 --> 00:40:54 because, you know, what we can do to fight against the silence is to really
00:40:54 --> 00:40:58 make sure that these next generations coming are strong.
00:40:58 --> 00:41:02 Because when you were asked that question about leadership, like some of that
00:41:02 --> 00:41:04 leadership is going to come from young people.
00:41:04 --> 00:41:08 And I think that the more time that I spend with young people,
00:41:08 --> 00:41:12 the more hope it gives me for the future, because they're going to ask those
00:41:12 --> 00:41:15 questions. They're really strong in their beliefs of who they are.
00:41:15 --> 00:41:20 And as long as we can keep making sure that they're getting the education to
00:41:20 --> 00:41:23 do that, they're reading the books to do that, that's what we can do for them.
00:41:23 --> 00:41:28 But then they bring so much to us as well. Yeah.
00:41:29 --> 00:41:35 Well, Misasha Suzuki Graham, I am really, really, again, honored to have you come on.
00:41:37 --> 00:41:39 And I am really, really honored to...
00:41:41 --> 00:41:44 Meet you and know that you're out there doing the work.
00:41:45 --> 00:41:47 As I've stated many times before
00:41:47 --> 00:41:51 on this podcast, I want to highlight people that are doing the work.
00:41:51 --> 00:41:55 They don't necessarily have to be elected, but as long as they're out there
00:41:55 --> 00:42:00 making a positive contribution and trying to improve our society,
00:42:01 --> 00:42:03 every chance I get, I want to highlight folks.
00:42:03 --> 00:42:07 So again, I thank you for coming on. And before I let you go,
00:42:07 --> 00:42:10 how can people get in touch with you?
00:42:11 --> 00:42:13 How can people get involved with the work that you're doing?
00:42:14 --> 00:42:16 You know, go ahead and make your plug.
00:42:17 --> 00:42:22 Well, Eric, thank you. This has been a real honor and a joy to have a conversation
00:42:22 --> 00:42:24 with you. And I feel the exact same way about you.
00:42:24 --> 00:42:30 I love meeting and talking to people who are fighting for all of us. So thank you.
00:42:31 --> 00:42:35 As far as where people can find me, not on many social platforms.
00:42:36 --> 00:42:39 I am on LinkedIn, so you can find me there. It's just my first name, Misasha.
00:42:40 --> 00:42:45 I have a newsletter called Get Up 8, where I try to thread the needle sometimes
00:42:45 --> 00:42:48 between law, history, hope, and humanity.
00:42:49 --> 00:42:53 And as far as Dear White Women, if you want to find out more about that work,
00:42:53 --> 00:42:56 we have a website, dearwhitewomen.com.
00:42:56 --> 00:42:58 And where can people get the book?
00:42:59 --> 00:43:02 People can get the book pretty much anywhere books are sold.
00:43:02 --> 00:43:07 Our favorites are bookshop or local bookstores, though. So if your bookstore
00:43:07 --> 00:43:09 does not have it, please ask.
00:43:10 --> 00:43:14 All right, Misasha, thank you so much for coming on. I greatly appreciate it.
00:43:14 --> 00:43:18 Thank you for having me. All right, guys, we're going to catch y'all on the other side.
00:43:19 --> 00:43:38 Music.
00:43:38 --> 00:43:44 All right and we are back and so it's time for my next guest who has followed
00:43:44 --> 00:43:50 the rules and the rule is is that if you've been a guest on my show you have
00:43:50 --> 00:43:51 an open invitation to come back.
00:43:52 --> 00:43:58 And Dr. Tammy Greer has adhered to that, and so she is on for another appearance,
00:43:58 --> 00:44:02 and I am so glad that she was able to do that.
00:44:02 --> 00:44:06 Dr. Greer currently serves as a clinical assistant professor and director of
00:44:06 --> 00:44:12 the BIS Social Entrepreneurship in Public Management and Policy Department in
00:44:12 --> 00:44:17 the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies at Georgia State University.
00:44:17 --> 00:44:22 She has a bachelor's degree in criminal justice and master of security management,
00:44:22 --> 00:44:26 both from the University of Houston downtown, as well as a Ph.D.
00:44:26 --> 00:44:31 In political science from Clark Atlanta University, with focus areas in American
00:44:31 --> 00:44:34 government, including state and local government, urban politics,
00:44:34 --> 00:44:37 comparative politics and international politics.
00:44:38 --> 00:44:41 She has served in numerous capacities in the private sector as well as the public
00:44:41 --> 00:44:43 sector, including as an educator.
00:44:44 --> 00:44:47 Dr. Greer's interests include community and civic involvement,
00:44:48 --> 00:44:53 focusing on policy, and the lack of equitable public policy impact historically
00:44:53 --> 00:44:54 underserved communities.
00:44:55 --> 00:44:59 She advocates for consistent civic engagement in voting, especially in non-presidential
00:44:59 --> 00:45:03 elections, which means voting for all positions on the ballot.
00:45:04 --> 00:45:07 Dr. Greer has served as a board member on several organizations,
00:45:07 --> 00:45:12 including Georgia Women Connect, Media Policy,
00:45:12 --> 00:45:21 and the Community Chair, working to create community garden in an urban food desert community. Dr.
00:45:21 --> 00:45:25 Greer has been interviewed in numerous state, nationwide, and international
00:45:25 --> 00:45:30 media outlets, including CNBC, Canadian Broadcasting Company, NPR.
00:45:31 --> 00:45:36 Washington Post, WGN, Christian Science Monitor, and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
00:45:36 --> 00:45:39 regarding politics and policy.
00:45:39 --> 00:45:44 And she is the author of the forthcoming book, Checks Without Change,
00:45:44 --> 00:45:47 Moving from Protest to Policy.
00:45:47 --> 00:45:55 Ladies and gentlemen, it is my distinct honor to welcome again on this podcast, Dr. Tammy Greer.
00:45:57 --> 00:46:06 Music.
00:46:06 --> 00:46:10 All right, Dr. Tammy Greer. How you doing, sister? You doing good?
00:46:11 --> 00:46:15 I'm doing well. Thank you for asking. Well, ladies and gentlemen,
00:46:15 --> 00:46:20 you know, I always say this to my guests, that whenever you got some burning
00:46:20 --> 00:46:24 on your chest and you want to come back on, just reach out and we'll make that happen.
00:46:25 --> 00:46:29 So Dr. Tammy is a woman of her word to make sure that I was a man of mine.
00:46:29 --> 00:46:30 And here we are, we're back again.
00:46:31 --> 00:46:37 So I'm glad that you accepted my invitation to come back. So let's go ahead and get this going.
00:46:37 --> 00:46:41 I'm going to give you a quote and let you respond to that to get it started.
00:46:41 --> 00:46:47 As long as the wrong people hold power, how can the right political climate
00:46:47 --> 00:46:50 even arise? What's your thought about that quote?
00:46:51 --> 00:46:56 As long as they are in power, that is always the right time.
00:46:56 --> 00:47:01 It's always the right time for good people. And it's always the right time to make that change.
00:47:01 --> 00:47:06 It's just that are there enough good people who have the courage,
00:47:06 --> 00:47:11 the fortitude, and the will to make it happen? That's where we are.
00:47:11 --> 00:47:13 That's exactly the moment we're living in.
00:47:14 --> 00:47:17 All right. Give me a number between 1 and 20.
00:47:18 --> 00:47:24 4. Okay. Hey, how should we balance individual freedoms with the common good?
00:47:25 --> 00:47:33 Oh, we balance it by fully appreciating, like, where's the safety?
00:47:33 --> 00:47:37 Where are the masses in totality?
00:47:37 --> 00:47:43 How are they to fare in whatever decision that is being made?
00:47:44 --> 00:47:50 There's always based on the social contract theory you always give up something
00:47:50 --> 00:47:56 some of your civil liberties some of what we consider to be our individual freedoms
00:47:56 --> 00:48:03 you give up some of that for the general safety and security of your government and so the question is
00:48:04 --> 00:48:09 how much as a whole are we willing to give up and what does that look like for
00:48:09 --> 00:48:14 the masses the challenge that we have is that we're not looking at the masses
00:48:14 --> 00:48:18 as let's say 51% of the total population of the country.
00:48:19 --> 00:48:24 What we're looking at the masses is in terms of people who actually participate in the process.
00:48:25 --> 00:48:31 So depending on who we elect to office, they may have a thought process of working
00:48:31 --> 00:48:33 to the masses of those that voted.
00:48:33 --> 00:48:39 Another group may be thinking of working to the masses of those in the country
00:48:39 --> 00:48:44 overall. all, depending on where we sit in our personal lives,
00:48:44 --> 00:48:46 that will determine who we put into office.
00:48:47 --> 00:48:52 All right. As we get close with Anne, I want to get some updates on a couple of things with you.
00:48:53 --> 00:48:57 But let's go ahead and get into the fact that we have survived the first hundred
00:48:57 --> 00:49:00 days of the second Trump administration.
00:49:00 --> 00:49:07 So what is your assessment? What is your big takeaway or your big concern as
00:49:07 --> 00:49:10 far as what's gone on during these first hundred days?
00:49:11 --> 00:49:17 So my biggest takeaway is my biggest concern. And for those of us that read
00:49:17 --> 00:49:23 Project 2025 before the election, we knew that this day was coming.
00:49:24 --> 00:49:29 And so my biggest takeaway, my biggest concern is that the current president
00:49:29 --> 00:49:36 is doing exactly what him and his advisors told us that they would do.
00:49:36 --> 00:49:40 And that is to put, to sow,
00:49:40 --> 00:49:47 to deepen distrust in government by messing with the bureaucracy,
00:49:47 --> 00:49:55 by attacking some of these fundamental institutions that we have that keep the country safe.
00:49:55 --> 00:50:03 From a physical standpoint, from a mental standpoint, from a product line standpoint, from diseases,
00:50:03 --> 00:50:11 or when it comes to protection of children in schools, this is what they're doing.
00:50:12 --> 00:50:20 And the impact on the bureaucracy is sowing distrust into what government does.
00:50:20 --> 00:50:25 And it's creating this notion that we don't need the bureaucracy.
00:50:26 --> 00:50:27 And that is far from the truth.
00:50:29 --> 00:50:37 Yeah. So I always hear people talk about, you know, me when I was running for office,
00:50:37 --> 00:50:42 you know, and listen to other people give speeches, always used to hear and
00:50:42 --> 00:50:46 still hear people saying, well, we need to run government like a business.
00:50:47 --> 00:50:51 So they got this guy who happened to be the richest person in the world.
00:50:52 --> 00:50:58 Gave him like, he picked 25 people and they went in and started dismantling
00:50:58 --> 00:51:04 this agency and slashing funds from another agency and so on and so on.
00:51:04 --> 00:51:09 And they claim now that they have saved $165 billion.
00:51:10 --> 00:51:14 Now, the initial thing was, oh, we can save two trillion, right?
00:51:14 --> 00:51:21 And then we find out that the total cost for him doing all this damage is going
00:51:21 --> 00:51:25 to be $135 billion, which means that they're only going to save $30 billion.
00:51:26 --> 00:51:32 So my question to you, Doc, is does this put this myth to rest that you can
00:51:32 --> 00:51:33 run government like a business?
00:51:34 --> 00:51:42 No. And as I explained to my students, there are two different philosophies
00:51:42 --> 00:51:47 that we're working with. The first is that people who are in business are in
00:51:47 --> 00:51:49 business to make a profit.
00:51:49 --> 00:51:54 People who work in government work in government for public service.
00:51:54 --> 00:51:57 Those are two different philosophies that we're working with.
00:51:57 --> 00:52:01 When you are someone who is, you
00:52:01 --> 00:52:05 know, says that they're going to run the public sector like a business,
00:52:06 --> 00:52:12 what they're saying to you is, is that they're going to cut, cut, cut.
00:52:13 --> 00:52:20 Whether that is cut resources, how much funding goes to different organizations,
00:52:20 --> 00:52:27 whether that is cutting employees, which then drives up the number of unemployment
00:52:27 --> 00:52:29 that we have in this country.
00:52:30 --> 00:52:34 Cutting and there is no profit to be made in government.
00:52:34 --> 00:52:40 You could have a surplus. There's no profit, though. And what you do with that
00:52:40 --> 00:52:45 surplus is you save it because things come up all the time.
00:52:45 --> 00:52:50 If you run government like a business, you're only looking at quarter to quarter.
00:52:51 --> 00:52:55 If you're only looking at quarter to quarter, that means you have no long-term
00:52:55 --> 00:52:59 vision for what happens when you are no longer there.
00:52:59 --> 00:53:07 So whatever it happens, whatever the mess is that's left, then that becomes someone else's issue.
00:53:07 --> 00:53:11 And that someone else is the person that is elected after you.
00:53:12 --> 00:53:20 So running a service like a business negates the underlying current that is government.
00:53:20 --> 00:53:27 And that is to serve the people, not shareholders, not a board of directors.
00:53:27 --> 00:53:29 It is to serve the people.
00:53:29 --> 00:53:36 And if we lose sight of that, this is how the distrust in government begins.
00:53:36 --> 00:53:43 It begins this way. So there's a process to this. But if I could go back, what is a bureaucracy?
00:53:44 --> 00:53:50 And that is the way that our government is run. And a bureaucracy is just a system and rules.
00:53:50 --> 00:53:55 So when people say the bureaucracy or bureaucrats, the people that work in the
00:53:55 --> 00:54:02 bureaucracy, they use this negative connotation and they put it as if it is just government.
00:54:02 --> 00:54:07 A bureaucracy is everything. It is from the fast food restaurant you go to.
00:54:07 --> 00:54:12 It is from the job that you currently have. It is the process that you use to
00:54:12 --> 00:54:16 get a home loan for a house. It is probably the way you run your household.
00:54:17 --> 00:54:18 It is just a process.
00:54:19 --> 00:54:27 And the way that government uses bureaucracy is to ensure the safety and security of its people.
00:54:27 --> 00:54:31 And safety and security, again, comes in many different forms.
00:54:32 --> 00:54:39 So, for example, when we are looking at cutting the number of people in health and human services.
00:54:40 --> 00:54:44 Then that means that some of these services that are used by the elderly,
00:54:45 --> 00:54:48 by those that may have physical or intellectual disabilities,
00:54:48 --> 00:54:55 when it comes to monitoring vaccines, the health of our country,
00:54:56 --> 00:55:01 making recommendations when it comes to some of these entities that want to
00:55:01 --> 00:55:09 bring product into our system, this is what they do. They protect us.
00:55:09 --> 00:55:13 This is making sure that insurance companies, health insurance companies,
00:55:13 --> 00:55:19 are not trying to get their customers by not paying for particular services.
00:55:19 --> 00:55:26 This is the protection. So to say that we're going to take away thousands upon
00:55:26 --> 00:55:33 thousands of employees who make sure that you are safe is very interesting because
00:55:33 --> 00:55:38 what it does is it degrades the trust that we have.
00:55:38 --> 00:55:43 And there's a two-step process to this. The first is devolution.
00:55:43 --> 00:55:47 And devolution is a way where people,
00:55:47 --> 00:55:54 whatever the executive is, will start taking away the responsibility of that
00:55:54 --> 00:55:56 bureaucracy and saying that, okay,
00:55:57 --> 00:56:03 either I can delegate that responsibility to someone else or I can combine services together.
00:56:03 --> 00:56:09 So if you have, you know, 50 departments in the Department of Health and Human
00:56:09 --> 00:56:14 Services and then you reduce it to 25, well, you're doubling the work of individuals.
00:56:14 --> 00:56:17 And so then that creates inefficiency.
00:56:17 --> 00:56:24 And if you have inefficiency, then therein lies the people that fall through
00:56:24 --> 00:56:30 the cracks because you don't have as many eyes on those particular services
00:56:30 --> 00:56:33 and processes as originally intended.
00:56:33 --> 00:56:39 And then once you start doing this devolution, people start gaining or feeling
00:56:39 --> 00:56:46 frustrated and they want to get rid of or they have no longer have trust for the government.
00:56:46 --> 00:56:50 Then that moves into the second step, which is privatization.
00:56:50 --> 00:56:56 So once we get frustrated, we as a people, we get frustrated with how long it
00:56:56 --> 00:57:02 takes to get these services because, again, you reduced the size of government.
00:57:02 --> 00:57:05 Those services, though, are not going away.
00:57:05 --> 00:57:12 Those services do not go away. What happens is that the people then get frustrated
00:57:12 --> 00:57:17 with the inefficiency of government because of the dismantling of government
00:57:17 --> 00:57:22 and then pushes those services to the private sector.
00:57:22 --> 00:57:28 The private sector will follow some of the rules. At the same time,
00:57:28 --> 00:57:33 they will not. The private sector will not take that through line all the way,
00:57:33 --> 00:57:35 the way the government does.
00:57:35 --> 00:57:40 For example, folks get frustrated with the United States Post Office.
00:57:40 --> 00:57:45 And you can get frustrated with them at the same time the Postmaster General
00:57:45 --> 00:57:48 was someone who did not like the U.S.
00:57:48 --> 00:57:55 Post Office. And so there was, under the former, the previous Trump administration,
00:57:55 --> 00:57:58 there was an effort to get rid of the U.S. post office.
00:57:58 --> 00:58:03 And even before the Trump administration, there was an effort by the Republican
00:58:03 --> 00:58:09 Congress to start chipping away at their funding such that you had a reduction
00:58:09 --> 00:58:14 in workforce and closing of post office offices around the country.
00:58:14 --> 00:58:22 Then you had an increased drumbeat to get these private delivery companies to deliver packages.
00:58:23 --> 00:58:29 Here's the challenge. Those private delivery companies may deliver your package
00:58:29 --> 00:58:32 a day or two sooner than you would get from the post office.
00:58:32 --> 00:58:37 At the same time, those private companies do not go to rural areas.
00:58:37 --> 00:58:40 They do not go to remote areas.
00:58:40 --> 00:58:43 What those private companies do is they
00:58:43 --> 00:58:49 will take your money to deliver your package and then they will give your package
00:58:49 --> 00:58:55 to the post office to deliver your package to your remote area because it does
00:58:55 --> 00:59:02 not make them financial sense to go that extra mile to go to your home. That is privatization.
00:59:02 --> 00:59:04 You're still using government services.
00:59:05 --> 00:59:11 And when the thought comes to you that this is going to save the government
00:59:11 --> 00:59:19 money, that is also false because the government will then contract with those private entities.
00:59:20 --> 00:59:25 So even though those employees are not on the government payroll,
00:59:25 --> 00:59:28 that does not mean that the government is not paying.
00:59:28 --> 00:59:33 It means that the government has now decided to get a middleman to do the work.
00:59:33 --> 00:59:35 We are still paying for those services.
00:59:36 --> 00:59:42 It's just that we, the people, no longer are able to have accountability with
00:59:42 --> 00:59:44 those individuals in the private sector.
00:59:44 --> 00:59:51 And then once that takes place, then there is no, we no longer need government.
00:59:51 --> 00:59:57 And that's how you destroy your republic. And that's how you destroy your democracy.
00:59:57 --> 01:00:00 Yeah. Cause even at that, right.
01:00:01 --> 01:00:08 When you talk about privatization, you know, a lot of the conservatives say,
01:00:08 --> 01:00:12 well, we don't like this redistribution of wealth you're talking about.
01:00:12 --> 01:00:17 You want to take money from rich folks and give it to poor folks.
01:00:17 --> 01:00:21 I said, but privatization is a redistribution of wealth.
01:00:22 --> 01:00:29 It's like instead of making sure that people have good jobs,
01:00:29 --> 01:00:35 you want to take those jobs away and redistribute that wealth to the wealthy
01:00:35 --> 01:00:38 already because they already own these big corporations.
01:00:38 --> 01:00:41 So you just made game no more money. And then you're like, wow,
01:00:41 --> 01:00:46 you know, am I far off in, in, in, in my rebuttal to that?
01:00:47 --> 01:00:52 No, you're not. You're absolutely correct. And what I explained to my students,
01:00:52 --> 01:00:56 we also go through this exercise on social welfare.
01:00:56 --> 01:01:03 And of course, you know, welfare is the definition of welfare is the government,
01:01:03 --> 01:01:09 the government using its services and resources for the financial stability
01:01:09 --> 01:01:13 of the country, for the financial stability of the country.
01:01:13 --> 01:01:21 So when we talk about welfare, because we've accepted the narrative of the 1970s
01:01:21 --> 01:01:25 and 1980s, we attribute welfare to poor people.
01:01:25 --> 01:01:29 So we think of housing, Section 8 housing or food stamps or Medicaid.
01:01:30 --> 01:01:35 That's what we think of when it comes to us welfare. At the same time,
01:01:35 --> 01:01:40 when we give tax breaks to corporations, that is a form of welfare.
01:01:41 --> 01:01:47 We don't call it that, though. So what we tend to do is take the same program
01:01:47 --> 01:01:52 or the same thought, and depending on which audience we're speaking to,
01:01:53 --> 01:01:59 we either put that negative connotation, redistribution of wealth or welfare on the poor people.
01:01:59 --> 01:02:05 Yet when it's the poor people paying for this private sector,
01:02:06 --> 01:02:10 then that's called economic development or job creation.
01:02:11 --> 01:02:15 And when we take a look at those particular components,
01:02:15 --> 01:02:24 we do not see these job creators making these jobs as they have gaslighted us
01:02:24 --> 01:02:26 into believing that that's what they're doing.
01:02:26 --> 01:02:33 It's not true, but we don't question it because then we are considered anti-business.
01:02:34 --> 01:02:39 Yeah. And, you know, the biggest selling, well, the biggest buyers into that
01:02:39 --> 01:02:46 thought process is the those what I call the poor whites, the Appalachians,
01:02:47 --> 01:02:53 those folks in Hill Country, Mississippi and, you know, Alabama,
01:02:53 --> 01:02:56 Georgia, all in the South. They just, they buy into that.
01:02:56 --> 01:03:00 They think, oh, well, you know, what little money I'm paying,
01:03:00 --> 01:03:02 I'm paying for these folks ain't even trying to work.
01:03:03 --> 01:03:06 And it's like, you know, I don't know if you've looked around your neighborhood,
01:03:06 --> 01:03:11 but there's some folks that don't want to pay for what life that you're living,
01:03:11 --> 01:03:14 you know, what government assistance you're getting.
01:03:14 --> 01:03:18 And a lot of these people don't understand that when they go to their health
01:03:18 --> 01:03:19 clinic, that's government.
01:03:19 --> 01:03:22 When they go to the school, that's government.
01:03:23 --> 01:03:28 And so, you know, I don't know. I don't know what it's going to take really to...
01:03:29 --> 01:03:35 Get people out of that mindset. But one of the things I used to tell folks about
01:03:35 --> 01:03:40 being in legislature was that we have two options anytime a bill comes forward.
01:03:41 --> 01:03:44 The preamble sets the guidelines for legislation.
01:03:45 --> 01:03:46 Either this bill is going to
01:03:46 --> 01:03:50 protect individual liberty or it's going to promote the general welfare.
01:03:50 --> 01:03:54 The magic bills are the ones that protect both, right?
01:03:55 --> 01:04:00 And so, So, you know, like you said, people have this negative connotation on the word welfare.
01:04:01 --> 01:04:06 I said, that is the primary objective of government, as stated out in the preamble,
01:04:06 --> 01:04:11 to protect liberty, promote to general welfare, and to provide defense.
01:04:11 --> 01:04:16 Those are the three basic tenets of government set in the first paragraph of
01:04:16 --> 01:04:21 our governing document. So if you don't like welfare, then that's a third of
01:04:21 --> 01:04:24 the government responsibility that you don't like.
01:04:25 --> 01:04:30 And that poses a problem. And I think that's where we get caught in the weeds
01:04:30 --> 01:04:33 a lot of times in our political discussions.
01:04:34 --> 01:04:39 I agree. All right. So speaking about bureaucracies, right, we got this big
01:04:39 --> 01:04:41 one called the Department of Homeland Security.
01:04:43 --> 01:04:47 And I got a couple of questions I need to ask you about what they're doing.
01:04:48 --> 01:04:54 So the first question is, what message is the Trump administration sending when
01:04:54 --> 01:04:59 a judge and a mayor are being arrested concerning immigration?
01:04:59 --> 01:05:04 What they're saying is, is that they're taking the position,
01:05:04 --> 01:05:11 which is a fair position, that the federal government has the responsibility
01:05:11 --> 01:05:15 over immigration and its borders, which is true.
01:05:15 --> 01:05:22 At the same time, the separation of powers or, you know, federalism,
01:05:22 --> 01:05:28 where you have the federal government coming into local government or state
01:05:28 --> 01:05:31 government to interrupt their proceedings...
01:05:33 --> 01:05:37 When they are not violating the Constitution, is a challenge.
01:05:37 --> 01:05:47 So the interfering with the court or even with the duties of a mayor,
01:05:47 --> 01:05:52 if they are not violating the Constitution, then what is the foundation for the arrest?
01:05:52 --> 01:05:55 And therein lies the question.
01:05:56 --> 01:06:03 So the judge, it was noted that she did her proceedings as she is supposed to do.
01:06:03 --> 01:06:11 And the so-called warrant that was provided to her was not signed by a judge.
01:06:11 --> 01:06:16 Thus, she had no obligation to follow what was in that warrant.
01:06:16 --> 01:06:25 The thing that the Trump administration is doing is intimidating state and local
01:06:25 --> 01:06:31 individuals into acquiescing to whatever it is that they want,
01:06:31 --> 01:06:33 regardless of the legality.
01:06:33 --> 01:06:37 And part of this tactic, this bullying tactic,
01:06:38 --> 01:06:48 is to stoke fear on the bystanders, such that if the Trump administration comes to the bystanders,
01:06:48 --> 01:06:55 then the bystanders would have learned a lesson from these other public acts
01:06:55 --> 01:07:00 and retaliation tactics that the administration has taken upon other folks.
01:07:02 --> 01:07:05 Yeah and and and obviously nobody
01:07:05 --> 01:07:08 in the trump administration watches the show the good fight because
01:07:08 --> 01:07:12 they literally had an episode where you
01:07:12 --> 01:07:16 know article 10 was in play whereas like
01:07:16 --> 01:07:19 these these fbi folks wanted to arrest this woman
01:07:19 --> 01:07:24 who was a witness and the judge told the witness to go in my chambers and you
01:07:24 --> 01:07:27 know go in her chambers and all that stuff and then they arrested the judge
01:07:27 --> 01:07:31 for that and you know they went through the whole trial i said y'all obviously
01:07:31 --> 01:07:37 did not see that episode so good luck on on that what would you do good.
01:07:38 --> 01:07:43 Well, if I could also say, though, it's also very interesting because these
01:07:43 --> 01:07:48 are the same people, depending on what the issue is, are pro-state's rights.
01:07:49 --> 01:07:56 So if they are pro the 10th Amendment, you know, it works whenever it's convenient for them.
01:07:56 --> 01:08:02 And that's part of the interesting dynamic right now is that now that these
01:08:02 --> 01:08:04 folks are in federal government.
01:08:04 --> 01:08:09 They want all this power that the federal government can yield.
01:08:09 --> 01:08:14 At the same time, when they are not in power, they are pro-states' rights.
01:08:15 --> 01:08:21 It is incredibly fascinating, and I know it's been said by individuals since
01:08:21 --> 01:08:27 the Trump administration took office, is that if the former President Biden,
01:08:28 --> 01:08:31 former President Jimmy Carter, former President Clinton, and former President
01:08:31 --> 01:08:39 Barack Obama did any of these acts, impeachment and conviction would be so there.
01:08:39 --> 01:08:43 The amount of lawsuits against the administration would be there.
01:08:43 --> 01:08:49 News outlets would be calling them tyrants and wannabe kings and dictators and so forth.
01:08:49 --> 01:08:52 Yet this administration is doing...
01:08:53 --> 01:09:00 Harm to how we view our federal government, which creates fear in our states.
01:09:01 --> 01:09:07 And really, it's interesting to see the chipping away of the 10th Amendment to the Constitution.
01:09:07 --> 01:09:10 Right. And you said it right. I said Article 10. I meant the 10th Amendment.
01:09:11 --> 01:09:17 And that also applies to Mayor Baraka in Newark, because, you know,
01:09:17 --> 01:09:22 if it was a government facility, there would be limitations.
01:09:23 --> 01:09:28 But it is a private company that is doing business in his city.
01:09:28 --> 01:09:33 Now, you may have a government contract, but you're a private business in his city.
01:09:34 --> 01:09:39 And so there are certain rules that you're supposed to adhere to in the city of Newark.
01:09:39 --> 01:09:44 And his job is to make sure that those rules are being enforced.
01:09:44 --> 01:09:50 Now, he could have sent the fire marshal he could have sent the the health inspector
01:09:50 --> 01:09:53 he could have sent uh you know,
01:09:53 --> 01:09:57 somebody in permitting he could have sent anybody from city government to go
01:09:57 --> 01:10:00 down there but he wanted to go down there and especially since they were members
01:10:00 --> 01:10:04 of congress showing up he definitely wanted to go down there because you you
01:10:04 --> 01:10:06 had told him before he couldn't come.
01:10:07 --> 01:10:11 And so now there's members of congress there so he wants to be there for that
01:10:11 --> 01:10:15 But, you know, it's just, and I said, again, they don't have any sense of history.
01:10:16 --> 01:10:18 I said, of all of the mayors that you decided to arrest first,
01:10:18 --> 01:10:25 you arrest the son of one of America's real political prisoners. Right.
01:10:26 --> 01:10:28 And I just, I was like, really?
01:10:28 --> 01:10:32 OK, you want you wanted to get him anyway.
01:10:34 --> 01:10:39 I just I mean, they're tone deaf on that. And speaking about being tone deaf, right?
01:10:40 --> 01:10:46 What's your take on the Afrikaners from South Africa being given political asylum in the United States?
01:10:48 --> 01:10:51 It's very telling, right? It's very telling.
01:10:51 --> 01:11:00 If we appreciate the history of South Africa and colonization and apartheid,
01:11:00 --> 01:11:11 the notion that when the Black South Africans are retaking control of their country,
01:11:12 --> 01:11:20 retaking control of their land, And really to stand for some of the discrimination
01:11:20 --> 01:11:28 and the segregation and the financial slavery that Black South Africans went through,
01:11:28 --> 01:11:37 the still notion of interracial marriage being illegal and the children literally are illegal.
01:11:37 --> 01:11:44 And all of this atrocity that one could argue, as you said, sir,
01:11:44 --> 01:11:53 if we know our history, why are we giving space to those individuals who benefited
01:11:53 --> 01:12:00 from and who quite possibly participated in the discrimination, the segregation,
01:12:00 --> 01:12:06 the dehumanization of individuals who are Native to their own country?
01:12:06 --> 01:12:11 And to what we're saying is it is okay.
01:12:12 --> 01:12:20 What we're saying is it is okay for a group of individuals to have inflicted
01:12:20 --> 01:12:26 upon, profited from such dehumanization to have refuge in this country.
01:12:27 --> 01:12:30 And that's very interesting considering the.
01:12:32 --> 01:12:36 First Europeans that came to this country seeking solace for,
01:12:36 --> 01:12:42 you know, political and religious persecution.
01:12:43 --> 01:12:52 I would like for us to be very mindful of not allowing there to be a correlation
01:12:52 --> 01:13:00 between these white South Africans and those that came to this country originally
01:13:00 --> 01:13:02 that created of these United States,
01:13:02 --> 01:13:04 because that's what's going to happen.
01:13:05 --> 01:13:11 There's going to be where we are conflating histories, and we are going to find
01:13:11 --> 01:13:15 a way, twist ourselves into a way to make this okay,
01:13:15 --> 01:13:22 to make this similar in its plight, the way that some folks who are wanting
01:13:22 --> 01:13:27 to create discriminatory policies always invoke Martin Luther King, right?
01:13:27 --> 01:13:33 There's always the MLK reference that this is what he would want and we're going
01:13:33 --> 01:13:38 to take away affirmative action and all of these other items because Dr.
01:13:39 --> 01:13:44 King said he wants his children to be blah, blah, blah.
01:13:44 --> 01:13:51 No, no, we should be very mindful of people using the leadership,
01:13:51 --> 01:13:54 the words, the inspiration,
01:13:54 --> 01:14:02 the accounts of others and using them to say another thing is okay.
01:14:02 --> 01:14:05 I hope that we are very mindful of that.
01:14:06 --> 01:14:12 Yeah. And, you know, we're approaching the 100th birthday of Malcolm X.
01:14:13 --> 01:14:20 Yes, May 19th. And one of his major, you know, everybody knows about by any
01:14:20 --> 01:14:24 means necessary and, you know, the speech to battle the bullet.
01:14:24 --> 01:14:30 But one of the things that he always stressed was that education is is the passport to our future.
01:14:32 --> 01:14:37 And, you know, I think it's because of a lack of education that,
01:14:37 --> 01:14:43 you know, we were talking about bureaucracy or, you know, my previous guests,
01:14:44 --> 01:14:45 we talking about white privilege. Right.
01:14:46 --> 01:14:50 It's like if you don't understand white privilege, then you you've got a clear
01:14:50 --> 01:14:54 example when those 59 people from South Africa were brought here. Thank you.
01:14:55 --> 01:15:00 They're trying to say that, well, the rumor is that these people were being
01:15:00 --> 01:15:06 victims of genocide and, you know, they just taken their land and all this kind of stuff.
01:15:07 --> 01:15:11 And, and I just sat there and said, if I outnumbered you 93 to seven,
01:15:11 --> 01:15:14 it wouldn't have took me 35 years to commit to genocide.
01:15:15 --> 01:15:19 If that was my intention, you know, all those years that those,
01:15:19 --> 01:15:23 you know, if, if you don't understand, you need to get, I think it's Wretched
01:15:23 --> 01:15:27 of the Earth by Franz Fonin. Is that it?
01:15:27 --> 01:15:30 I can't recall. Yeah, I think that's the book.
01:15:30 --> 01:15:34 I might be butchering his name. I'm sure somebody's going to let me know.
01:15:34 --> 01:15:39 But if you really want to know about that, Franz Fonin and Wretched of the Earth,
01:15:39 --> 01:15:42 those are the you really want to understand.
01:15:42 --> 01:15:45 Pay attention to what happened to Stephen Biko. Pay attention to what happened
01:15:45 --> 01:15:50 to Nelson Mandela. Pay attention to what Desmond Tutu was talking about.
01:15:50 --> 01:15:56 And and and and then you you would look at those 59 people it was like i didn't
01:15:56 --> 01:16:01 just throwing 60 because you got elon musk in that that click too right and
01:16:01 --> 01:16:07 so you know for those folks you know if you if you don't understand what's been
01:16:07 --> 01:16:10 going on and i'm i'm real sensitive to that because,
01:16:11 --> 01:16:16 that was the big issue when i was in college about divestiture and you know and dealing with that.
01:16:16 --> 01:16:21 Heck, in my class, I had to take the pro-apartheid side for my debate class,
01:16:22 --> 01:16:26 just so, because my teacher was like, I need y'all to be able to make arguments
01:16:26 --> 01:16:29 based on facts, not on emotion.
01:16:30 --> 01:16:34 And, you know, unfortunately or fortunately, I won.
01:16:34 --> 01:16:41 You know what I'm saying? But it was like just getting the literature and seeing
01:16:41 --> 01:16:45 what they were saying about Black people, about African people, people.
01:16:46 --> 01:16:50 The literature, and this is in the 20th century, stuff that they were saying
01:16:50 --> 01:16:55 about Black slaves in the 17th and 18th century in this country, right?
01:16:55 --> 01:16:58 They were saying in the 20th century about Africans there.
01:16:59 --> 01:17:08 So to me, as a Black person, those 59 people sitting for the United States is a direct insult to me.
01:17:08 --> 01:17:14 Now, I can't speak for any other Black person, but for me, it's a direct insult
01:17:14 --> 01:17:19 because I'm educated and I know my history and I know what your message you're trying to send.
01:17:19 --> 01:17:24 And I think it's a shame that you want to give these 59 people,
01:17:25 --> 01:17:29 and I think there's 500 more coming, but you want to give these people,
01:17:29 --> 01:17:33 you know, asylum, but you want to take away,
01:17:34 --> 01:17:43 to protect the status from Afghanistan natives who helped our troops during
01:17:43 --> 01:17:47 the wars that we were there, the 20 years that we were there.
01:17:47 --> 01:17:51 These were people, you don't want to give them status. You want to take away
01:17:51 --> 01:17:54 the status from the Venezuelans. You want to take away the status from the Haitians.
01:17:54 --> 01:17:58 You want to take away the status from the Cubans, but you want to give these
01:17:58 --> 01:18:06 people special protection that that sends me a message i and i i you know but
01:18:06 --> 01:18:11 that's that's just me i just that's that's what's burning on my chest you want
01:18:11 --> 01:18:14 to add anything to that doc you gonna let that ride.
01:18:15 --> 01:18:19 Well, it's also a way to increase the white population in this country.
01:18:19 --> 01:18:24 Since the white population is decreasing, it's declining.
01:18:24 --> 01:18:30 That's part of why abortion bans are so rampant through this country is because
01:18:30 --> 01:18:32 the white population is decreasing.
01:18:32 --> 01:18:38 And there is a conspiratorial fear, to your point,
01:18:38 --> 01:18:43 that when the white population becomes the minority,
01:18:43 --> 01:18:49 that there is a conspiracy that all of these black and brown people are going
01:18:49 --> 01:18:54 to get together and do to white people what white people have done to black and brown people.
01:18:54 --> 01:19:00 And so this is a way, this is why you see from certain countries,
01:19:00 --> 01:19:02 depending on what country it is in Europe,
01:19:03 --> 01:19:11 the free flowing of visas and easy access to green cards and citizenship that
01:19:11 --> 01:19:16 you get from those countries as opposed to the ones that you just noted.
01:19:17 --> 01:19:22 I, you know, I know the president was feeling the Norwegian thing,
01:19:22 --> 01:19:25 the first administration. He seemed like he was fascinated with them.
01:19:26 --> 01:19:31 That's why he wanted to Greenland. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, you know, and Canada.
01:19:31 --> 01:19:39 But, you know, if he's dependent on these 59 folks, it's like he didn't pick the youngest ones.
01:19:41 --> 01:19:45 His Noah arc is going to be very disappointing.
01:19:47 --> 01:19:51 All right, look, let's get to some of this local stuff real quick while I got you, because I—.
01:19:53 --> 01:19:57 I got to ask this question because Georgia is a national player in politics.
01:19:57 --> 01:20:02 So whoever is the next governor to say to Georgia, that's going to be a national figure.
01:20:02 --> 01:20:04 And we can thank the stage for that.
01:20:04 --> 01:20:10 And of course, we got a U.S. Senate race coming up. So here's the here's the question for governor.
01:20:10 --> 01:20:14 You have State Senator Jason Estevez,
01:20:15 --> 01:20:20 former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr,
01:20:20 --> 01:20:25 former DeKalb County CEO Michael Thurman, Stacey Abrams,
01:20:26 --> 01:20:31 and Georgia Lieutenant Governor Burt Jones, either running or contemplating a run.
01:20:31 --> 01:20:36 Now, as for governor, for the U.S. Senate race to challenge Senator Ossoff,
01:20:36 --> 01:20:42 MTG, or Marjorie Taylor Greene and Governor Kemp have taken their names out,
01:20:42 --> 01:20:45 but Earl Buddy Carter has jumped in.
01:20:46 --> 01:20:50 And if you don't know who Earl Buddy Carter is, if you're paying attention on
01:20:50 --> 01:20:57 TikTok and you saw this video where AOC put down a Republican member for accusing
01:20:57 --> 01:21:01 her of looking at the camera instead of talking directly to him.
01:21:01 --> 01:21:04 Buddy Carter was the dude trying to gavel her silent.
01:21:05 --> 01:21:08 So that's the dude that wants to run against Ossoff.
01:21:08 --> 01:21:13 So if y'all are on TikTok and y'all see that video, that guy chairing that meeting,
01:21:13 --> 01:21:15 that's the guy that wants to run against Ossoff.
01:21:15 --> 01:21:21 So again, Georgia, we don't have, we don't, as a collective,
01:21:21 --> 01:21:26 we don't have the best congressman, at least on the Republican side of the aisle.
01:21:27 --> 01:21:30 We got all the crazy folks. We got somebody that lives in a state that's not
01:21:30 --> 01:21:34 on the Gulf, wants to rename a Gulf of Mexico. I mean, that's where we are.
01:21:35 --> 01:21:38 Anyway, I'm glad she's not running for the Senate.
01:21:38 --> 01:21:44 But anyway, what's your take, Doc, on these races and how it's going to play
01:21:44 --> 01:21:45 out? And it's important.
01:21:45 --> 01:21:55 So my take on it is that while I appreciate some of the pushing of particularly the Democrats,
01:21:55 --> 01:22:04 There has not been a statewide Democrat elected to office here in almost two decades.
01:22:05 --> 01:22:09 It's a very long time. I want to say Michael Thurman is the last one we've had.
01:22:09 --> 01:22:13 The last one, right? The last one.
01:22:13 --> 01:22:23 And so I'm curious how folks here in Georgia like to see optimism versus what
01:22:23 --> 01:22:27 is reality or even folks that are looking at Georgia,
01:22:27 --> 01:22:31 the optimistic view versus the realistic view.
01:22:32 --> 01:22:40 Realistic view is this, that we will not get a liberal to win in Georgia.
01:22:40 --> 01:22:44 It's disappointing to say to some, at the same time, it is what it is.
01:22:45 --> 01:22:49 And the reason it is what it is, is because, not because of the population of
01:22:49 --> 01:22:51 Georgia, it's because who votes in Georgia.
01:22:51 --> 01:22:58 And we confuse those two populations, that the overall population,
01:22:58 --> 01:23:03 you know, may be racially diverse, may be economically diverse,
01:23:03 --> 01:23:08 may be all of these things that we aspire that is the canary in the coal mine
01:23:08 --> 01:23:11 in the former Confederacy.
01:23:11 --> 01:23:17 At the same time, the people who are voting, it is a skewed population from
01:23:17 --> 01:23:18 the overall population.
01:23:19 --> 01:23:22 So we want policy to move forward.
01:23:22 --> 01:23:30 We want these things. At the same time, someone who identifies as liberal will
01:23:30 --> 01:23:38 have an extremely challenging time to win the entire state outside of Metro Atlanta.
01:23:38 --> 01:23:44 And I think that that's something that we as a whole, those of us that are politically
01:23:44 --> 01:23:50 sophisticated, who are in the know, who follows these things all the time,
01:23:50 --> 01:23:54 that is something that we have to grapple with.
01:23:54 --> 01:24:00 Is that either we start talking to the irregular voter,
01:24:00 --> 01:24:09 to non-voters constantly in realistic terms, in facts, and talk about consequences and impacts.
01:24:10 --> 01:24:15 If we start talking to those folks, then you could probably have a more liberal
01:24:15 --> 01:24:18 person to win statewide in Georgia.
01:24:18 --> 01:24:26 Right now, the answer is no because of the population, the population that votes. And if we could...
01:24:26 --> 01:24:31 Move the needle. We can move the needle. We can move the needle.
01:24:31 --> 01:24:37 As far as we want to move it, the work has to take place 24-7, 365.
01:24:37 --> 01:24:41 And we don't do that work 24-7, 365.
01:24:41 --> 01:24:48 Right now, since the state party changed its rules, so now we have a full-time,
01:24:48 --> 01:24:50 Democratic Party chair in Georgia.
01:24:51 --> 01:24:56 So that means that this person can fundraise and hopefully be more strategic
01:24:56 --> 01:25:05 about some of these races and consider being competitive in light pink or, you know,
01:25:05 --> 01:25:08 whatever counties, because to me,
01:25:08 --> 01:25:18 there has been a consistent decline in the state party's willingness to be competitive
01:25:18 --> 01:25:20 in some of these seats, right?
01:25:20 --> 01:25:27 So, you know, I akin my thought process to Howard Dean when he was the national
01:25:27 --> 01:25:29 Democratic Party chair.
01:25:29 --> 01:25:34 And why not have 159 county strategy in this state?
01:25:34 --> 01:25:42 Why do you just give up some of these seats to Republicans because historically Republicans have won?
01:25:42 --> 01:25:47 Well, historically they have won because you have opted out of participating.
01:25:47 --> 01:25:52 You know, one could argue that Lucy McBath should not have run when she ran
01:25:52 --> 01:25:55 for her original district. Why?
01:25:55 --> 01:26:03 Because the Republicans had had that seat since 1978, almost 50 years now.
01:26:03 --> 01:26:07 So what was the point of her competing in that race?
01:26:09 --> 01:26:14 The sequiescing of this, the pushing back, the say that I'm not going to compete
01:26:14 --> 01:26:17 because no one has won that seat in over a decade.
01:26:18 --> 01:26:24 That kind of defeatist posture is where...
01:26:25 --> 01:26:32 Georgia can get so close yet so far because there has not been, as the young kids say.
01:26:32 --> 01:26:38 You know, being 10 toes down and standing on business and saying,
01:26:38 --> 01:26:44 you can see the need for certain things in Georgia.
01:26:44 --> 01:26:51 This whole notion of, number one, being hyper-partisan, especially in spaces
01:26:51 --> 01:26:56 where you have not been visible, does not make sense.
01:26:56 --> 01:27:00 It does not make political sense if you want to win.
01:27:00 --> 01:27:05 And perhaps that's my biggest question. That is probably my question for the
01:27:05 --> 01:27:09 rest of 2025 and 2026 and in 2028.
01:27:09 --> 01:27:15 Do you really want to win? And if the answer is yes, then the current strategy must be changed.
01:27:16 --> 01:27:21 Yeah. So you got Charlie Bailey, who has run statewide twice.
01:27:22 --> 01:27:24 I think he ran for Attorney General and Lieutenant Governor.
01:27:24 --> 01:27:25 He's the new party chair.
01:27:26 --> 01:27:31 I think he brings a certain sensibility to the concerns that you have.
01:27:32 --> 01:27:38 And I definitely agree. And one of the big barometers and, you know,
01:27:38 --> 01:27:40 Congresswoman Williams,
01:27:40 --> 01:27:45 who has been the party chair, and even though it hasn't been a full time position
01:27:45 --> 01:27:51 for her, I think one of the takeaways is is the fact that, you know,
01:27:51 --> 01:27:54 Georgia is in play now.
01:27:54 --> 01:27:59 And out of all of the swing states in the last election, Georgia was the only
01:27:59 --> 01:28:02 one that increased their Democratic numbers.
01:28:02 --> 01:28:06 Now, of course, the Republican increased their numbers, and that's why Trump won the state.
01:28:06 --> 01:28:12 But Kamala Harris got 70 more votes than Biden did when Biden won the state in 2020.
01:28:13 --> 01:28:16 So, as you say, they can move the needle.
01:28:18 --> 01:28:22 Lost Milledgeville, right? It's like you could be as a Democrat,
01:28:22 --> 01:28:26 you could win Atlanta, you could win Athens, you could win Columbus,
01:28:26 --> 01:28:31 you could win Macon, you could win Savannah, and it used to be you could win Milledgeville.
01:28:31 --> 01:28:35 We lost Milledgeville this last election. So now.
01:28:35 --> 01:28:40 Not only do you need to win that for any of these statewide seats,
01:28:40 --> 01:28:43 and when we say statewide, we're talking about the constitutional seats because
01:28:43 --> 01:28:47 we know Raphael Warnock is an African-American who's the U.S.
01:28:47 --> 01:28:50 Senator but to to win
01:28:50 --> 01:28:53 these constitutional seats you know
01:28:53 --> 01:28:56 it's kind of a even if
01:28:56 --> 01:29:01 we pulled this off right even if the democrats say okay we got the governorship
01:29:01 --> 01:29:06 if you don't have control of the house or the senate what does that mean right
01:29:06 --> 01:29:11 so yeah because the people in the back didn't hear you if you don't have control
01:29:11 --> 01:29:15 of the house or the senate then the democratic governor is going to be like
01:29:15 --> 01:29:16 those governors you see,
01:29:16 --> 01:29:19 like the poor governor of Wisconsin and a few other states where it's like.
01:29:20 --> 01:29:21 Well, at least I can veto stuff.
01:29:22 --> 01:29:24 You know what I'm saying? And that's all that governor will do.
01:29:24 --> 01:29:26 They won't be able to implement the agenda.
01:29:26 --> 01:29:30 They'll just stop all the bad stuff from happening. And as being a former black
01:29:30 --> 01:29:35 caucus member in the legislature, I understand the power of being able to say
01:29:35 --> 01:29:39 no and killing stuff, but you want the governor to do more.
01:29:39 --> 01:29:45 So So for the Democratic Party to really be effective, and I'm agreeing with
01:29:45 --> 01:29:48 what you're saying, you've got to have 159 county strategy.
01:29:48 --> 01:29:53 And more importantly, you've got to win those swing districts in the legislature
01:29:53 --> 01:29:57 and turn that legislature out.
01:29:57 --> 01:30:01 Even if you don't win the statewide seats, if you can turn that legislature
01:30:01 --> 01:30:07 out and even just flip one, that would be a huge thing. But I think if you flip
01:30:07 --> 01:30:10 one of them, you're going to get a statewide position.
01:30:11 --> 01:30:15 Now, I think Ossoff is going to beat the brakes out of Buddy Carter.
01:30:15 --> 01:30:18 If that's the guy that's running against the guy I saw in that TikTok video,
01:30:18 --> 01:30:20 he's going to beat the brakes off of him.
01:30:20 --> 01:30:28 But now, one, I don't know, and I don't want to take up too much more time,
01:30:28 --> 01:30:33 but I just remember when I was in Mississippi, there was a race between Charlie
01:30:33 --> 01:30:35 Ross, who was a state senator.
01:30:36 --> 01:30:42 He was a Harvard Law graduate, you know, Air Force pilot, smart guy.
01:30:42 --> 01:30:46 And he was running against the state auditor at the time, this guy named Phil Bryant.
01:30:46 --> 01:30:51 And Phil Bryant had been a state legislator. He was like a volunteer firefighter,
01:30:51 --> 01:30:53 insurance salesman, all that stuff.
01:30:54 --> 01:30:59 But when you put Charlie up against Phil, as far as like, if this was a battle
01:30:59 --> 01:31:04 for an IQ test, Phil wouldn't even qualify in the race, right? Right.
01:31:05 --> 01:31:11 Got to see them on a stage and Charlie was, he had the chalkboard going and
01:31:11 --> 01:31:13 he was basically breaking down the budget and saying, you know,
01:31:13 --> 01:31:16 if I'm Lieutenant Governor, this is what we're going to do.
01:31:16 --> 01:31:21 And then Phil got up there and started walking in front of the stage. Like he was at a concert.
01:31:21 --> 01:31:25 He was like, Hey y'all, you know, I'm a good old guy. And yada,
01:31:25 --> 01:31:28 yada, yada, yada started talking at the end and he beat him.
01:31:28 --> 01:31:32 And on the Republican side, That's what I'm looking at with Chris Carr and Bert Jones.
01:31:32 --> 01:31:39 Chris Carr, in his day and age of Republicanism, Chris Carr is the intellectual of the two.
01:31:39 --> 01:31:42 I mean, Bert Jones, he played football at the University of Georgia.
01:31:43 --> 01:31:47 He got in a barn and said, I'm going to get rid of your income tax, and he won.
01:31:47 --> 01:31:50 Now, Georgia still has a state income tax. Mississippi doesn't,
01:31:50 --> 01:31:52 but Georgia still doesn't have a state income tax.
01:31:54 --> 01:31:59 So, just to put that in perspective. So I think Burt Jones is going to be Republican
01:31:59 --> 01:32:03 based on my experience in Southern politics.
01:32:03 --> 01:32:05 I think Burt Jones is going to be the guy.
01:32:05 --> 01:32:10 So now the question is, who's going to beat him out of this group of folks?
01:32:10 --> 01:32:15 I don't think Stacey Abrams. I think people have lost the flavor for Stacey
01:32:15 --> 01:32:16 to be at the front of the ticket.
01:32:16 --> 01:32:23 I think they still want her to be the organizer and the person making sure that
01:32:23 --> 01:32:26 people get out to vote. I think people will always be grateful for that,
01:32:27 --> 01:32:30 but I think her at the top of the ticket, I don't know.
01:32:31 --> 01:32:35 Keisha Lance Bottoms, mayor of the largest city in the state,
01:32:36 --> 01:32:42 did one term, had to deal with police protests, COVID, fighting the governor.
01:32:43 --> 01:32:49 I don't know if Georgia is going to elect a woman because we're still in that
01:32:49 --> 01:32:54 mindset, which leaves then Michael Thurman, the last man standing as far as
01:32:54 --> 01:32:56 the Democratic constitutional officer,
01:32:56 --> 01:33:01 and Jason Estevez, who is an Afro-Latino.
01:33:01 --> 01:33:10 So I don't know. I want to be optimistic about it. And I don't know if I had
01:33:10 --> 01:33:14 to put money on it, I think Keisha would be the nominee.
01:33:14 --> 01:33:20 But I don't see that needle moving with those group of folks.
01:33:21 --> 01:33:23 And I love all these people on the Democratic side.
01:33:23 --> 01:33:29 But I'm just looking at it reality-wise like you are and just trying to figure
01:33:29 --> 01:33:34 out how we're going to get past BERT. I think, you know, people in Georgia,
01:33:34 --> 01:33:35 and we'll close out with that.
01:33:36 --> 01:33:41 I think people in Georgia look for their federal officers to be of a different
01:33:41 --> 01:33:43 standard, although it's questionable on the House side.
01:33:44 --> 01:33:49 But I think when they look at their U.S. senators, they hold the U.S.
01:33:49 --> 01:33:52 Senators to a different standard than their statewide elected officials.
01:33:52 --> 01:33:55 Is that your assessment of Georgia politics?
01:33:56 --> 01:34:04 I like that because when you think about Johnny Isakson, he was very different
01:34:04 --> 01:34:09 from many of the individuals inside of the state, right?
01:34:09 --> 01:34:16 So he had bipartisan, even from an independent standpoint, there was a collective.
01:34:16 --> 01:34:22 He had a coalition of individuals that really appreciated him as a Republican
01:34:22 --> 01:34:23 representing the state.
01:34:24 --> 01:34:29 I can see that. I can see how, for example,
01:34:29 --> 01:34:35 Ossoff does a lot of outreach and may not make everyone happy,
01:34:35 --> 01:34:43 yet he still stands in his business about whatever it is that he's talking about.
01:34:44 --> 01:34:47 And there's a lot of focus here in the state.
01:34:47 --> 01:34:53 So when it comes to some of the issues about particularly the post office,
01:34:53 --> 01:35:00 he was going in on the postmaster general all the time about how you messing
01:35:00 --> 01:35:02 up stuff in Georgia when it comes to the mail,
01:35:03 --> 01:35:05 particularly for rural areas. Right.
01:35:05 --> 01:35:08 So it was it's very interesting to see.
01:35:08 --> 01:35:11 I like that, that the U.S.
01:35:12 --> 01:35:17 Senators, there's a different standard that we expect when it comes to the senators
01:35:17 --> 01:35:24 as opposed to the statewide seats and even the folks representing us in the U.S. House.
01:35:25 --> 01:35:29 You know, there's there seems to be a different standard for that as well.
01:35:29 --> 01:35:30 That's very interesting.
01:35:30 --> 01:35:36 What I will say in terms of the governors, I would like for us to,
01:35:36 --> 01:35:43 you know, think about while someone may be popular to the primary voter,
01:35:44 --> 01:35:49 that does not turn into votes for the general election to win.
01:35:49 --> 01:35:56 And I'm curious with the new state party chair if the strategy is going to be
01:35:56 --> 01:36:01 about the general election versus the primary election.
01:36:01 --> 01:36:05 And the reason I say this is because when I teach partisanship,
01:36:05 --> 01:36:11 when I teach that lesson in class, what we tend to do is we tend to have about
01:36:11 --> 01:36:15 25 percent of the total population to vote in the primaries.
01:36:15 --> 01:36:19 And so what does that mean? That means that the people that vote in the primaries,
01:36:20 --> 01:36:25 that 25% are your dedicated voters.
01:36:25 --> 01:36:29 These are your most educated voters on the issues. These are the people that
01:36:29 --> 01:36:35 will go to a runoff election, even if it's one person or one issue on a ballot.
01:36:35 --> 01:36:37 Those are your primary voters.
01:36:37 --> 01:36:44 And so these individuals who tend to vote in the primary tend to be to the...
01:36:45 --> 01:36:49 Of your spectrum. So you're far left or you're far right.
01:36:49 --> 01:36:57 And what tends to happen to us is that that 25% then chooses who the candidate is.
01:36:58 --> 01:37:01 And then when we get to a general election and perhaps another 40,
01:37:02 --> 01:37:06 45 or 50% start paying attention, they don't like either choice.
01:37:06 --> 01:37:09 Well, they don't like either choice because they didn't participate in their
01:37:09 --> 01:37:15 primary. And the people that participated in the primary really like the choice that they made.
01:37:15 --> 01:37:21 So then it becomes that bane of my existence phrase, the choice between two evils.
01:37:22 --> 01:37:27 I hate that so much. It is because we as a collective have not participated
01:37:27 --> 01:37:28 in the primary election.
01:37:28 --> 01:37:31 So we don't like the choices in the general election.
01:37:31 --> 01:37:34 Well, we got what we got from the people that voted.
01:37:34 --> 01:37:42 And so my strategy, If it were a Tammy Greer strategy, my strategy would be
01:37:42 --> 01:37:44 the 159-county strategy.
01:37:44 --> 01:37:54 My strategy would be very clear that to have multiple-decade control of one party,
01:37:54 --> 01:38:01 flipping the switch to go to the extreme of another party is not going to work.
01:38:01 --> 01:38:07 That there is a level because people are afraid of change regardless of what
01:38:07 --> 01:38:09 they say. People fear change.
01:38:09 --> 01:38:12 So we have to take those.
01:38:12 --> 01:38:17 I know that, again, liberals don't like this, that there's a compromise here.
01:38:17 --> 01:38:21 There is a pathway to getting to where you want it to be.
01:38:22 --> 01:38:24 Georgia did not become this state overnight.
01:38:24 --> 01:38:29 California did not become California overnight. New York did not become New
01:38:29 --> 01:38:32 York overnight. There was a progression there.
01:38:32 --> 01:38:37 And if we could do this progression, you can get people who are waffling on
01:38:37 --> 01:38:40 your side and then you can gain more.
01:38:40 --> 01:38:45 However, if you just leap from one hot pot to the other, everyone is going to
01:38:45 --> 01:38:46 get burned at that point.
01:38:46 --> 01:38:50 And then you're not going to get longstanding, long lasting support.
01:38:52 --> 01:38:58 Well, I'm going to leave it there because I've stretched out your time as much as I could.
01:38:59 --> 01:39:03 And but I appreciate that assessment, because, again, I agree with you.
01:39:03 --> 01:39:07 You got to have, you know, and that goes to every state.
01:39:07 --> 01:39:12 That's not just in Georgia. If you're listening in Idaho, however many counties
01:39:12 --> 01:39:16 in Idaho, we need the Democrats to compete in every one in Wyoming.
01:39:16 --> 01:39:19 You only send one person to Congress. It's a statewide race.
01:39:19 --> 01:39:22 You might as well make it a multi-county strategy.
01:39:22 --> 01:39:27 I'm just, that's just me. Anyway, how's the new book coming?
01:39:27 --> 01:39:28 When is it going to come out?
01:39:28 --> 01:39:35 Or, and how's the coffee shop thing going? Y'all, you still got the coffee shop class happening?
01:39:35 --> 01:39:39 So the book is coming along well. Can you cut this part out?
01:39:39 --> 01:39:45 I've gotten so many rejections. I've gotten so many rejections for my book. It's very interesting.
01:39:45 --> 01:39:51 I'm hoping now with this new administration coming in, people are revisiting my book.
01:39:52 --> 01:39:56 So processing that part. And then the coffee shop thing,
01:39:56 --> 01:40:03 what I ended up doing is going to like being invited to some of these civic
01:40:03 --> 01:40:12 groups and helping individual civic groups versus doing like the big thing that I really wanted to do.
01:40:12 --> 01:40:18 Because the civic groups tend to be more focused on.
01:40:20 --> 01:40:25 What they should do differently and how to be more effective advocates.
01:40:25 --> 01:40:31 And that's been a joy there to be constantly invited to those places.
01:40:32 --> 01:40:39 So we'll have to work on the coffee shop next year so I can get through municipal
01:40:39 --> 01:40:42 elections and some of these civic groups this year.
01:40:43 --> 01:40:46 Well, I may have a lifesaver on the book.
01:40:46 --> 01:40:51 We'll talk about that offline. But as far as the podcast goes,
01:40:51 --> 01:40:54 Dr. Tammy Greer, I'm glad that you came back on.
01:40:54 --> 01:40:59 I assume the school year went well and you're looking forward to another year
01:40:59 --> 01:41:01 and teaching some young minds.
01:41:01 --> 01:41:05 And I always appreciate you for not just being on a podcast,
01:41:05 --> 01:41:10 but just doing that work because we need young leaders. We need we need some new ideas.
01:41:10 --> 01:41:15 I just greatly appreciate you coming on and and doing the work that you do.
01:41:15 --> 01:41:18 So can I put in a shameless plug?
01:41:18 --> 01:41:20 Go ahead. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because
01:41:20 --> 01:41:22 I was going to ask you, how can people reach you and all that stuff?
01:41:23 --> 01:41:30 So go ahead. In the fall, fall 2025, starting August 26th is the beginning of
01:41:30 --> 01:41:35 the semester. I will teach a class entitled Protest to Policy.
01:41:35 --> 01:41:41 And this class is an advocacy class to look at what are effective strategies
01:41:41 --> 01:41:47 to move away from protesting as a solo act of demonstration,
01:41:47 --> 01:41:51 all the way through changing policy.
01:41:51 --> 01:41:55 So I am very excited to teach that class in the fall.
01:41:55 --> 01:41:59 It's going to be a roller coaster of emotions. At the same time,
01:41:59 --> 01:42:04 I am very confident that once the semester is over.
01:42:04 --> 01:42:10 That those that took the class will be more effective at their advocacy and
01:42:10 --> 01:42:12 see that there's a change that they can make.
01:42:13 --> 01:42:17 All right. Well, Dr. Greer, thank you for coming on again. I greatly appreciate
01:42:17 --> 01:42:21 it. Thank you. All right, guys, and we'll catch y'all on the other side.
01:42:21 --> 01:42:31 Music.
01:42:33 --> 01:42:41 All right. And we are back. And so I want to thank Ms. Sasha Suzuki Graham and Dr.
01:42:41 --> 01:42:43 Tammy Greer for coming on to the program.
01:42:44 --> 01:42:49 Like I said in the intro, two women who are really making an impact.
01:42:50 --> 01:42:54 And, you know, one of the things that I admire about both of them is that a
01:42:54 --> 01:42:58 lot of their work focuses in on young people.
01:42:59 --> 01:43:05 Because now I'm at that age where the young folks need to get engaged.
01:43:06 --> 01:43:09 My child is grown.
01:43:10 --> 01:43:14 Many of my peers, their children are grown.
01:43:15 --> 01:43:20 And, you know, they're of that age, either millennial or Gen X,
01:43:21 --> 01:43:29 where they need to start asserting themselves and being more engaged in the process.
01:43:31 --> 01:43:37 So I greatly admire anybody who takes the time out to mentor young folks,
01:43:37 --> 01:43:42 whether you're a full-time professor or you just visit classrooms and educate.
01:43:44 --> 01:43:50 And then I'm just really honored that they took the time to come on a podcast,
01:43:50 --> 01:43:52 especially Dr. Greer, since this is her second time.
01:43:54 --> 01:44:01 So as this podcast is dropping, it'll drop on the 100th birthday of Malcolm X.
01:44:02 --> 01:44:03 I understand May 19th.
01:44:04 --> 01:44:07 So where are we now? Right.
01:44:08 --> 01:44:13 Are we better off than we were when Malcolm X was born?
01:44:15 --> 01:44:21 Know, right? You know, I think about it really kind of got me going on this
01:44:21 --> 01:44:28 thought process when the mayor of Newark, New Jersey, Roz Baraka, was arrested.
01:44:29 --> 01:44:37 And his dad was a contemporary of Malcolm X, as far as being a voice in the community.
01:44:38 --> 01:44:40 Now, Mary Baraka was a poet.
01:44:41 --> 01:44:47 And, you know, in the interview, I mentioned the fact that, you know,
01:44:47 --> 01:44:49 he was a political prisoner.
01:44:49 --> 01:44:58 They tried to arrest him for assault and resisting arrest, and they had to drop the assault charges.
01:44:59 --> 01:45:04 But they still put him in jail for resisting a police officer and all that stuff.
01:45:04 --> 01:45:09 And many people during that time basically said that they were just trying to
01:45:09 --> 01:45:12 shut him up and they, you know, he was a political prisoner and all that.
01:45:12 --> 01:45:19 And so of all the mayors that you wanted to go after, you went after the son of that guy.
01:45:22 --> 01:45:28 And basically falsely imprisoned him. Right. If you want to pursue that,
01:45:28 --> 01:45:33 that is the definition of being a political prisoner in the United States.
01:45:34 --> 01:45:41 You're trying to shut him up and send a message to everybody else not to challenge your authority.
01:45:41 --> 01:45:45 And the your is Mr. President, right?
01:45:46 --> 01:45:52 And Christy Noem and the rest of the cast of characters that are out there.
01:45:52 --> 01:45:55 I think, you know, it's really,
01:45:55 --> 01:46:05 really sad that we are at this point, and it just goes back to why I have such
01:46:05 --> 01:46:08 a high regard for teachers and professors,
01:46:09 --> 01:46:15 mentors, because this country needs to be educated.
01:46:15 --> 01:46:22 And I know some people might get offended by that, but just look at the people that you are electing.
01:46:22 --> 01:46:26 Look at the people that are serving in leadership positions.
01:46:27 --> 01:46:32 And then come back to me and say, make the argument that the American public
01:46:32 --> 01:46:36 is educated to the point that they need to be.
01:46:36 --> 01:46:42 I'm not saying that y'all are stupid. I'm saying that you need more education.
01:46:43 --> 01:46:49 Because why would a person who represents a state that doesn't border the Gulf of Mexico.
01:46:52 --> 01:46:56 Bill to change the name of the Gulf of Mexico. If you lived in Alabama,
01:46:56 --> 01:46:59 you lived in Mississippi, that would make sense.
01:46:59 --> 01:47:02 Louisiana, that would make sense. Texas, that would make sense.
01:47:03 --> 01:47:05 Florida, that would make sense. But Georgia?
01:47:06 --> 01:47:11 I mean, even if Buddy Carter introduced it, I can understand he got confused
01:47:11 --> 01:47:15 because he represents Savannah,
01:47:15 --> 01:47:19 or at least part of it, and that borders the Atlantic Ocean,
01:47:19 --> 01:47:22 so I understand if he got confused, at least that's close.
01:47:22 --> 01:47:27 But you represent Rome, Georgia, the furthest away.
01:47:28 --> 01:47:32 I mean, you're far away from the Chattahoochee River. You might be close to
01:47:32 --> 01:47:37 the Chattanooga River, but nonetheless, the Gulf is not even in your purview.
01:47:38 --> 01:47:45 But that's all about that currying favor and being a loyal court jester and all that stuff.
01:47:45 --> 01:47:51 You know, So an educated public would not elect people like that to office.
01:47:51 --> 01:47:55 Get up there and you bang your gavel 50 times because you just want to show
01:47:55 --> 01:47:56 that you're an authority.
01:47:56 --> 01:48:01 People respected you. You wouldn't have to bang your gavel once, let alone 50 times.
01:48:01 --> 01:48:07 But if you don't respect your colleagues, you wanted to fight your colleagues, you know.
01:48:08 --> 01:48:12 And it's just ironic that, you know, that young man that you harassed before
01:48:12 --> 01:48:14 you got elected. Now he's the
01:48:14 --> 01:48:19 vice chair of the party that you're going to have to face every election.
01:48:20 --> 01:48:24 You know that you're going to have a Democratic opponent every time you run
01:48:24 --> 01:48:30 from now on, because that man that you harass is now in leadership in his party.
01:48:32 --> 01:48:37 All that stuff comes back when you treat people badly, when you have no regard
01:48:37 --> 01:48:40 for others. There's consequences for that.
01:48:40 --> 01:48:47 Doesn't matter if you stay in a position that pays you $175 to $190 a year. Good for you.
01:48:47 --> 01:48:52 Doesn't matter that you get insider tips on the stock market so you can build
01:48:52 --> 01:48:54 your personal wealth. Good for you.
01:48:54 --> 01:49:01 Still going to pay for that, though. So, you know, I mean, you can watch all
01:49:01 --> 01:49:07 these movies that talk about the devil and his arrangements with folks,
01:49:07 --> 01:49:09 people making these Faustian agreements.
01:49:11 --> 01:49:16 They pay for that. You know, the Bible even says, what good is it for a man
01:49:16 --> 01:49:19 to have the world and lose his soul, right?
01:49:20 --> 01:49:24 There's a cost for being mean. There's a cost for being disrespectful.
01:49:24 --> 01:49:30 There's a cost for being deliberately ignorant, right?
01:49:32 --> 01:49:39 And, you know, if you can live your life with the rewards that mask that, so be it.
01:49:39 --> 01:49:44 I just remember there was an old saying that said that the softest pillow a
01:49:44 --> 01:49:46 man could sleep on was a clear conscience.
01:49:47 --> 01:49:49 And I have come to realize in
01:49:49 --> 01:49:52 2025, there's a lot of people that's pretty comfortable sleeping on rocks.
01:49:53 --> 01:49:55 Leaping on lumpy stuff.
01:49:57 --> 01:50:04 They can get their rest at night, you know, with not having a clear conscience.
01:50:06 --> 01:50:09 So that's why I make the argument that we got to do better.
01:50:10 --> 01:50:14 You know, it's like you've got a Department of Homeland Security,
01:50:14 --> 01:50:21 Christy Noem, who's cosplaying a cowgirl or a superhero, and her department's
01:50:21 --> 01:50:23 about to run out of money in July, two months.
01:50:24 --> 01:50:28 And the fiscal year doesn't start till October. And I don't know what was going
01:50:28 --> 01:50:35 on in South Dakota, you know, but you get a government, you know,
01:50:35 --> 01:50:37 and you've been a member of Congress.
01:50:37 --> 01:50:40 Kristi Noem was a member of Congress before she was the governor of South Dakota.
01:50:40 --> 01:50:43 So she knows how the appropriation process works.
01:50:44 --> 01:50:49 But now she's been given this title in Muscota Town.
01:50:50 --> 01:50:53 Pete Hegssef couldn't manage an $80 budget.
01:50:55 --> 01:51:01 Right? and you gave him the biggest budget in the government,
01:51:01 --> 01:51:02 the Department of Defense,
01:51:03 --> 01:51:09 and the people and the person putting him in these spots was elected after the
01:51:09 --> 01:51:13 people realized the first time he wasn't a good person in that job.
01:51:14 --> 01:51:17 And for whatever reason, I say it's racist.
01:51:17 --> 01:51:24 You can say it was eggs. You can say it was, I don't think she's tough enough. You can say whatever.
01:51:25 --> 01:51:29 I say it was racism. And if it wasn't racism, it was sexism.
01:51:29 --> 01:51:34 But either way, I didn't vote for her. And now the person who y'all didn't think
01:51:34 --> 01:51:39 was qualified to serve a second term right away, now this person gets another chance?
01:51:40 --> 01:51:44 Again, I make my argument that we have to do better.
01:51:45 --> 01:51:49 We have to pay more attention. We have to be diligent about this stuff.
01:51:49 --> 01:51:53 I don't, again, And I'll say it over and over again.
01:51:53 --> 01:51:58 I don't want y'all to be political junkies, but I do want you to be a little
01:51:58 --> 01:52:00 more stringent on who you give your trust to.
01:52:01 --> 01:52:04 And the only way you can do that is to pay attention.
01:52:05 --> 01:52:10 We're not going to win a global war by putting tariffs on every nation,
01:52:10 --> 01:52:15 including nations that only have penguins as a population. We're not going to make it that way.
01:52:15 --> 01:52:19 How we are going to make it is if our folks are educated. Right?
01:52:20 --> 01:52:23 Hear all these folks talking about the student loans and they got upset when
01:52:23 --> 01:52:28 Biden was trying to get people to get their loans forgiven.
01:52:28 --> 01:52:33 Nobody forgave my loans, blah, blah. Most of y'all that are complaining didn't
01:52:33 --> 01:52:36 even go to college. So you don't even know what student loans we're talking about.
01:52:36 --> 01:52:40 We're not talking about mortgages. We're not talking about car loans.
01:52:40 --> 01:52:41 We're talking about student loans.
01:52:42 --> 01:52:47 And those of y'all who went to college and paid them off, you say that now you
01:52:47 --> 01:52:50 You've got sour grapes because you paid it, and now you've got a president that
01:52:50 --> 01:52:56 finally is like going, hey, we might need to, well, we had a president that said, hey.
01:52:57 --> 01:53:00 We realize that this is a burden for folks.
01:53:01 --> 01:53:06 So we want to give people that are dealing with this now a second chance.
01:53:07 --> 01:53:10 And nobody gave me a break. Well, you should have asked the president during
01:53:10 --> 01:53:13 your time when you were paying the loans to give you the break.
01:53:14 --> 01:53:17 If enough of y'all had said something, it might have happened.
01:53:17 --> 01:53:23 The whole reason why those loans were created was for national security reasons.
01:53:23 --> 01:53:27 Dwight Eisenhower created the student loan program because he wanted to get
01:53:27 --> 01:53:35 more Americans educated in the sciences, especially because he was fighting
01:53:35 --> 01:53:38 an army in Europe, the Germans.
01:53:39 --> 01:53:45 Ooh, I mean, we built our NASA program off the scientists that we captured.
01:53:46 --> 01:53:52 We say liberated. That's the more politically correct term for that military
01:53:52 --> 01:53:54 action. But we captured these people.
01:53:55 --> 01:54:01 And they started our space program. That's how advanced Germany was compared
01:54:01 --> 01:54:04 to us, the most powerful, wealthiest nation in the world.
01:54:04 --> 01:54:07 And we weren't even the most powerful. Then we just proved it during World War
01:54:07 --> 01:54:09 II. But people had their doubts.
01:54:10 --> 01:54:14 Japan thought we were a sleeping giant, but they thought we were the giant in
01:54:14 --> 01:54:20 Jack and the Beanstalk as opposed to the giant that we turned out to be, right, militarily.
01:54:21 --> 01:54:25 But we started the loan program in the issue of national security.
01:54:25 --> 01:54:31 The reason why we have the interstate highway system was because of national security.
01:54:31 --> 01:54:36 Now, of course, people figured out a way, it didn't matter if it was north,
01:54:36 --> 01:54:41 south, east, or west, to destroy black communities in putting this highway system together.
01:54:42 --> 01:54:47 But nonetheless, the highway system was also designed with national security in mind.
01:54:48 --> 01:54:52 Because Eisenhower saw how those German troops were using the Autobahn to get
01:54:52 --> 01:54:53 from one spot to the other.
01:54:54 --> 01:54:59 Using that engineering technology they had to get those weapons where they needed
01:54:59 --> 01:55:01 to be to protect their homeland.
01:55:03 --> 01:55:10 Name of Germany, in their language, is Homeland. That's how serious they were about protecting it.
01:55:12 --> 01:55:20 So there's that, you know, but we, you know, and we just,
01:55:20 --> 01:55:23 we've got all these people that were cast of characters and all the drama that
01:55:23 --> 01:55:28 was going on with Trump while he was out of office.
01:55:28 --> 01:55:32 Some of them that was while he was in office the first time and even a couple
01:55:32 --> 01:55:37 of them before, right, that he's incorporated into this universe.
01:55:37 --> 01:55:44 And now most of the ones that are, yes, men and women are in the position, right?
01:55:44 --> 01:55:51 Don't think it's not a coincidence that Pam Bundy, our attorney general,
01:55:51 --> 01:55:54 and it needs to be reminded she's our attorney general, not his.
01:55:55 --> 01:55:59 Because when she took that oath of office, she swore to uphold the Constitution,
01:56:00 --> 01:56:02 not a loyalty oath to him.
01:56:03 --> 01:56:08 It's not a coincidence that a country that she used to lobby for now wants to
01:56:08 --> 01:56:13 give our president a $400 million gift, a jet plane, that they couldn't sell, by the way.
01:56:13 --> 01:56:17 They've been trying to sell it for five years. Nobody would buy it.
01:56:17 --> 01:56:21 So now they want to give it to our president.
01:56:22 --> 01:56:27 Please don't think it's a coincidence. Because then she's turning around,
01:56:27 --> 01:56:30 oh, yeah, it's constitutional. In what way?
01:56:30 --> 01:56:34 What part of the emoluments clause as a lawyer do you not understand?
01:56:35 --> 01:56:39 There is actually a process that if somebody wanted to give a gift,
01:56:40 --> 01:56:43 that the president say, yeah, I might want to keep that.
01:56:43 --> 01:56:47 Hey, Congress, is it all right if I keep this gift?
01:56:48 --> 01:56:53 And if Congress says no, they give it back. Congress says, yes, you get to keep it.
01:56:54 --> 01:56:59 The stories that former presidents that are still alive could tell about the
01:56:59 --> 01:57:04 gifts that were offered and they had to turn down because of this thing called
01:57:04 --> 01:57:07 the emoluments clause. Right.
01:57:08 --> 01:57:12 Some of this stuff is like, you know, it doesn't even make the news.
01:57:12 --> 01:57:15 They get the gift. They send it to Congress. Congress says, OK.
01:57:16 --> 01:57:22 They get to keep it. If not, they take it back. the most any president has ever
01:57:22 --> 01:57:25 gotten in gifts, I think was $2 million.
01:57:26 --> 01:57:31 And Donald Trump gets a $400 million gift and thinks that's okay.
01:57:32 --> 01:57:34 The attorney general thinks it's okay.
01:57:35 --> 01:57:37 And Congress is saying nothing.
01:57:38 --> 01:57:41 But now you got some congressmen saying that's a bad idea.
01:57:42 --> 01:57:47 But if they actually followed the process and said, well, you know,
01:57:47 --> 01:57:48 y'all need to vote on that.
01:57:48 --> 01:57:53 How many of these folks that are Republicans saying is a bad idea will actually vote against it?
01:57:56 --> 01:58:02 American leaders have integrity, they have intelligence, and they have courage.
01:58:03 --> 01:58:08 We don't have people like that. And if we do have people like that,
01:58:08 --> 01:58:10 a lot of them are confused.
01:58:10 --> 01:58:14 A lot of them don't feel like they have power. A lot of them,
01:58:15 --> 01:58:17 their best days have gone past them.
01:58:18 --> 01:58:23 And, you know, that's our fault because we just kept voting for these people.
01:58:23 --> 01:58:30 There's one congressman, I won't say his name, but I will say that he's gotten
01:58:30 --> 01:58:34 to the point in his life where he's more concerned about if his lips are chapped
01:58:34 --> 01:58:37 than helping his people.
01:58:37 --> 01:58:43 He's at that age. How do I look in public as opposed to how y'all really doing?
01:58:45 --> 01:58:48 And, you know, a lot of these people get by because, you know,
01:58:48 --> 01:58:53 in the budget process, they can stick in something that guarantees some money
01:58:53 --> 01:58:56 for their state. And it's like, oh, well, you know, he brought so many dollars.
01:58:57 --> 01:58:58 Yeah, that's well and good.
01:59:00 --> 01:59:06 But when I ran for the U.S. Senate in 2008, half of the places that I spoke
01:59:06 --> 01:59:07 at was named after my opponent.
01:59:09 --> 01:59:13 And that same year that I'm running against him, he voted against the Pell Grant
01:59:13 --> 01:59:17 extension, well, expansion, I guess, for money.
01:59:18 --> 01:59:24 And so you've got buildings on every college campus, but you're not going to
01:59:24 --> 01:59:29 vote for the money to make sure that these kids go to the college and you were
01:59:29 --> 01:59:32 the chair of appropriations? That's crazy, right?
01:59:33 --> 01:59:38 But oh, how I long for those kind of fights as compared to whether we should
01:59:38 --> 01:59:41 rename a body of water or not.
01:59:43 --> 01:59:50 Who can go to what bathroom? The first woman to attend a military institution
01:59:50 --> 01:59:55 in the United States that was designed to train soldiers to lift the South back
01:59:55 --> 02:00:02 up again is going to die on a hill about who goes to their bathroom.
02:00:03 --> 02:00:07 And here's a question I need to ask, and I hope somebody can answer it.
02:00:08 --> 02:00:14 Everybody's upset about trans women playing women's sports. Why are you not
02:00:14 --> 02:00:16 upset about trans men playing men's sports?
02:00:18 --> 02:00:21 Where is the outrage in that? If you are against trans people,
02:00:22 --> 02:00:27 then you shouldn't want trans men playing football or baseball or basketball
02:00:27 --> 02:00:29 or anything in the men's category.
02:00:30 --> 02:00:31 Why is that not a problem?
02:00:32 --> 02:00:37 Why are you worried about trans women playing women's sports and not worried
02:00:37 --> 02:00:40 about trans men playing men's sports?
02:00:41 --> 02:00:46 I'm just asking. You know, some people might try to say, well,
02:00:46 --> 02:00:47 you know, there's no difference.
02:00:50 --> 02:00:54 Trans, the trans man ain't going to be able to compete with what?
02:00:55 --> 02:01:02 If a trans man beats a dude in a, in a swimming contest, are y'all going to
02:01:02 --> 02:01:08 be as outraged as a trans woman placing fourth and the woman that's raising
02:01:08 --> 02:01:10 all the hell place fifth?
02:01:10 --> 02:01:13 Do realize that that that girl that's out here that
02:01:13 --> 02:01:16 started all this stuff and saying all is a
02:01:16 --> 02:01:20 shame she was no if that trans woman
02:01:20 --> 02:01:23 was not in that race that trans woman athlete was not in a race she wasn't gonna
02:01:23 --> 02:01:30 win anyway and it was it was non-trans women cisgender women who won the race
02:01:30 --> 02:01:39 three of them were better than the trans woman let's let's get that through our heads right?
02:01:39 --> 02:01:43 If she had won the race and the girl finished second by a split second,
02:01:44 --> 02:01:47 okay, I understand why she's got some beef, right?
02:01:47 --> 02:01:52 I don't agree with it, but that would be a more valid argument than you finishing fifth.
02:01:53 --> 02:02:00 You had no prayer. Your only claim to fame is that you bitched about it. That's it.
02:02:01 --> 02:02:05 That's what education is about. If you're educated, you know these things.
02:02:05 --> 02:02:11 If you're on point with stuff, you realize that a lot of this grievance and.
02:02:12 --> 02:02:19 Barking and Karenism and all this stuff, it's BS.
02:02:20 --> 02:02:26 It's not substantive at all. It is all performative. It is all about the show.
02:02:27 --> 02:02:36 It is not about anything that will make our lives in society better? Nothing.
02:02:38 --> 02:02:41 States when he's campaigning and saying, I'm going to lower prices from day one.
02:02:42 --> 02:02:48 And then he enacts a tariff on every country in the world, including countries
02:02:48 --> 02:02:52 that have no people, literally penguins.
02:02:53 --> 02:03:01 So that 10% tariff is a 10% increase on stuff that we want, that we buy because
02:03:01 --> 02:03:03 we're the largest consumer nation on the planet.
02:03:04 --> 02:03:10 That's a tax, just like a sales tax, just like an income tax. It's a tax.
02:03:11 --> 02:03:15 So not only when you go grocery shopping, do you pay the sales tax in your state
02:03:15 --> 02:03:20 if your state has a sales tax, but you're going to pay that tariff tax.
02:03:21 --> 02:03:26 If you're educated, you would know that and you would be upset and you would
02:03:26 --> 02:03:27 raise holy hell about it.
02:03:28 --> 02:03:35 Somebody brought up, Donald Trump keeps saying, well, we've lowered the price of eggs by 87%.
02:03:35 --> 02:03:40 I want you to go to the grocery store right now, go to the egg section,
02:03:41 --> 02:03:45 and tell me if you see a dozen eggs for 12, 15 cents.
02:03:46 --> 02:03:52 If you see that, then that's the only store in America that's actually reduced eggs by 87%.
02:03:53 --> 02:03:56 Other than that, he's lying.
02:03:56 --> 02:04:02 Now, you can go to different stores like I do and try to find the best bargain.
02:04:03 --> 02:04:06 I go to one store to get my eggs. I go to one store to get my,
02:04:06 --> 02:04:12 you know, juice and tea and all that stuff.
02:04:13 --> 02:04:19 One store to get meat. You know what I'm saying? Because I'm trying to stretch out my money.
02:04:21 --> 02:04:24 And that's a whole other conversation you didn't get into that bad.
02:04:24 --> 02:04:27 But I'm trying to stretch out my money. So I can eat.
02:04:28 --> 02:04:35 But I have yet to run into a store and see eggs for 12 to 15 cents a dozen. I haven't seen that.
02:04:36 --> 02:04:40 So when Donald Trump says that he's reduced price of eggs by 87%, he's lying.
02:04:41 --> 02:04:48 And if you're educated, you know that. But you want to get caught up in the entertainment.
02:04:49 --> 02:04:54 You want to get caught up in the look and the feel. instead of the substance.
02:04:55 --> 02:04:57 And we've got to do better than that.
02:05:00 --> 02:05:03 And, you know, for those of y'all who just,
02:05:05 --> 02:05:13 that, then just stay out of the rest of ours way because we want better for us.
02:05:13 --> 02:05:15 We want better for our children. We want better for our grandchildren.
02:05:16 --> 02:05:20 We want better for our great-grandchildren. Heck, we want better for generations
02:05:20 --> 02:05:28 that are not even on the planet yet because we do want a planet for them to exist in, right?
02:05:28 --> 02:05:30 That's what statesmanship is about.
02:05:31 --> 02:05:33 We don't have any statesmen or stateswomen.
02:05:34 --> 02:05:39 Everybody's worried about the next election. That's all people are talking about. Oh, 2026.
02:05:39 --> 02:05:44 Bro, we might not have a 2026. Not as far as an election goes.
02:05:45 --> 02:05:49 Not if you don't do the work to make sure that there's an election in 2026.
02:05:50 --> 02:05:53 We have got to get organized and educated.
02:05:54 --> 02:05:57 Actually, it should be the reverse order. Educated, then organized,
02:05:58 --> 02:06:02 right? Because once you learn what's really going on, you're ready to hit these streets.
02:06:02 --> 02:06:09 If you think these jobs, look, in the month of April, 106 African-American
02:06:09 --> 02:06:11 women were laid off their jobs.
02:06:13 --> 02:06:21 106. Black women should be tearing this country up, period, in the discussion.
02:06:21 --> 02:06:26 Even if you weren't one of those 106, you should be hitting these streets.
02:06:26 --> 02:06:29 And if not hitting the streets, organize them.
02:06:29 --> 02:06:33 Because I get it. I don't want, I get that y'all are playing that long game
02:06:33 --> 02:06:37 and you realize that if black people hit the streets, then martial law hit and
02:06:37 --> 02:06:38 all that stuff. I get that.
02:06:39 --> 02:06:42 I'm kind of in agreement with y'all. So apologize for saying hitting the streets.
02:06:42 --> 02:06:44 But you better be organized.
02:06:44 --> 02:06:49 And however that organization manifests itself, whether it's boycotts.
02:06:51 --> 02:06:59 You know, sit-ins, sit-outs, whatever, you know, electing people to school boards
02:06:59 --> 02:07:05 and city council seats and all that stuff, whatever you want to do. Right?
02:07:06 --> 02:07:09 Get to working, starting your
02:07:09 --> 02:07:14 own business so you can hire some of these sisters that's been laid off.
02:07:14 --> 02:07:19 Get to working and get to supporting each other, right?
02:07:20 --> 02:07:23 It's like people think like in this podcast world, oh, well,
02:07:24 --> 02:07:28 you know, I'm trying to get this audience and this podcast trying to get this audience.
02:07:28 --> 02:07:34 No. So if it was possible for every black person to listen to every black podcast,
02:07:34 --> 02:07:38 especially the political ones, we would be all happy.
02:07:38 --> 02:07:46 Right. But we know that not everybody can be Joe Rogan and Joe Rogan hasn't
02:07:46 --> 02:07:49 hit every white person. He's got like three million.
02:07:50 --> 02:07:52 There's more than three million white people in the United States.
02:07:52 --> 02:07:57 Right? He has 1% of the population, less than one.
02:07:58 --> 02:08:04 So there are millions of people out here that need to hear what's going on.
02:08:05 --> 02:08:10 And if most of us are saying the same thing, great, then that means you got
02:08:10 --> 02:08:13 both of us are paying attention to what's happening.
02:08:13 --> 02:08:18 Now, there may be some different strategies of how we go about making this happen,
02:08:18 --> 02:08:20 but you need to be paying attention.
02:08:20 --> 02:08:26 We need to be plugged in, y'all. We need to be networking. We need to be collaborating.
02:08:27 --> 02:08:33 We just, we need to be supporting each other in these endeavors because it's
02:08:33 --> 02:08:35 going to take all of us to fight.
02:08:36 --> 02:08:40 If he does declare martial law, we're going to have to be unified to fight.
02:08:40 --> 02:08:45 If he doesn't declare martial law, then we need to be unified and fighting the
02:08:45 --> 02:08:50 way that we can in the system, which is through voting, through exercising our
02:08:50 --> 02:08:53 constitutional rights, right?
02:08:54 --> 02:08:59 Now, Mayor Baraka was exercising his constitutional right under the 10th Amendment.
02:09:00 --> 02:09:04 You have a private business in his city. He wants to see if y'all are doing
02:09:04 --> 02:09:06 the right thing, period.
02:09:07 --> 02:09:11 Don't matter who you got a contract with, you are not the U.S.
02:09:12 --> 02:09:13 Government. You are a contractor.
02:09:14 --> 02:09:18 So you're a private business in his city. Get over it.
02:09:19 --> 02:09:24 You know? But we need to rally around people like him. We need to rally around
02:09:24 --> 02:09:27 the people, the elected officials that are trying to do something.
02:09:28 --> 02:09:31 Maybe that'll give them the courage to continue to do what they're doing.
02:09:32 --> 02:09:35 And maybe they'll get some ideas of how to do it more effectively.
02:09:35 --> 02:09:41 I don't know. Those black preachers out there that are trying to educate the
02:09:41 --> 02:09:47 masses while doing their godly doing and educating us about God and the afterlife,
02:09:48 --> 02:09:52 about walking the Christian walk or walking the Muslim walk or even walking
02:09:52 --> 02:09:55 the Jewish walk, because there are black Jews out there, right?
02:09:58 --> 02:10:03 Need support for trying to do the right thing. And just like the Bible said,
02:10:03 --> 02:10:06 you can separate the wheat from the chaff, right?
02:10:06 --> 02:10:11 You know who's out there doing the good thing and who's out there for the hustle. You should.
02:10:12 --> 02:10:20 So, you know, I'm just grateful for those of you all who pay attention and listen to me and my guests.
02:10:22 --> 02:10:26 Because I'm trying to get y'all educated. I want y'all to know that there's
02:10:26 --> 02:10:28 people out here doing the work.
02:10:28 --> 02:10:36 And we're not going to stop until things get better or until God calls us home, whichever comes first.
02:10:38 --> 02:10:43 Because this is a job that we got to pass the baton. This is a relay race.
02:10:44 --> 02:10:49 When our time is up, we got to hand the baton to somebody else and let them take it from there.
02:10:50 --> 02:10:52 So we've got to be committed in the long haul.
02:10:53 --> 02:10:58 But the individual responsibility we all have is that we have to be better educated.
02:10:59 --> 02:11:02 And that old slave holder, Thomas Jefferson, was right. The more educated we
02:11:02 --> 02:11:06 are, the better our leadership will be, period.
02:11:07 --> 02:11:12 All right, guys, I'm gonna end it there. Thank y'all for listening. Until next time.
02:11:13 --> 02:12:00 Music.