Host Erik Fleming speaks with Dr. Decoteau Irby and Dr. Ann Ishimaru about their decade-spanning book "Doing the Work of Equity Leadership for Justice and Systems," exploring how equity leaders build change, the challenges they face amid political backlash, and practical strategies for sustaining justice in schools.
Later, Dr. Karlos K. Hill joins to mark 100 years of Black History Month, explaining why Black history is central to American history, the cultural ways it has been preserved, and how Ubuntu and community-building support healing and future progress.
00:00:00 --> 00:00:06 Welcome. I'm Erik Fleming, host of A Moment with Erik Fleming, the podcast of our time.
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00:02:00 --> 00:02:04 Hello, and welcome to another moment with Erik Fleming. I am your host,
00:02:04 --> 00:02:08 Erik Fleming. And so today, I have three guests.
00:02:08 --> 00:02:17 Two of them have gotten together and written a book dealing with equity justice in public education.
00:02:19 --> 00:02:27 And I have a returning guest to talk about the significance of 100 years of
00:02:27 --> 00:02:29 black history in the United States.
00:02:30 --> 00:02:37 So we got a long show, so I'm not going to get into it, you know, too deep in the intro.
00:02:37 --> 00:02:39 We're just going to kick it off as always.
00:02:40 --> 00:02:46 Please look to support the show on www.momenterik.com.
00:02:46 --> 00:02:52 Whatever you can do, donations, subscriptions, whatever, greatly appreciate it.
00:02:52 --> 00:02:58 But like I said, This is a jam-packed show, so we're going to kick it right on off.
00:02:58 --> 00:03:02 And as always, we kick it off with a moment of news with Grace G.
00:03:08 --> 00:03:13 Thanks, Erik. President Trump condemned but refused to apologize for a racist
00:03:13 --> 00:03:19 video allegedly posted on his social media account by a staffer depicting the Obamas as apes.
00:03:19 --> 00:03:24 A federal judge ordered the release of body cam footage and evidence in the
00:03:24 --> 00:03:29 case of Marimar Martinez, a teacher shot by a Border Patrol agent in Chicago.
00:03:30 --> 00:03:33 Ghislaine Maxwell invoked her Fifth Amendment rights during a congressional
00:03:33 --> 00:03:37 deposition in an attempt to secure clemency from President Trump.
00:03:37 --> 00:03:43 A grand jury declined to indict six Democratic lawmakers after the Justice Department
00:03:43 --> 00:03:47 attempted to charge them for advising military members to refuse illegal orders.
00:03:48 --> 00:03:52 The House of Representatives approved the Save America Act to require proof
00:03:52 --> 00:03:54 of citizenship for midterm elections.
00:03:55 --> 00:03:59 The House also narrowly passed a resolution to end President Trump's national
00:03:59 --> 00:04:02 emergency-based tariffs on Canada.
00:04:02 --> 00:04:07 An immigration judge stopped deportation proceedings against a Tufts University
00:04:07 --> 00:04:12 student after the government failed to justify revoking her visa over a pro-Palestinian editorial.
00:04:13 --> 00:04:19 A New York federal judge unfroze $16 billion for the New York-New Jersey Gateway
00:04:19 --> 00:04:23 Rail project, overruling the Trump administration's blocking of the funds.
00:04:24 --> 00:04:29 Annalilia Mejia defeated 10 other candidates in the Democratic primary for the
00:04:29 --> 00:04:32 vacant New Jersey 11th Congressional District seat.
00:04:32 --> 00:04:37 A federal judge struck down a California law prohibiting federal officers from wearing masks.
00:04:38 --> 00:04:42 A California appeals court temporarily allowed the Trump administration to go
00:04:42 --> 00:04:44 ahead with ending deportation protections
00:04:44 --> 00:04:49 for nearly 89 migrants from Honduras, Nepal, and Nicaragua.
00:04:49 --> 00:04:55 A Georgia man was sentenced to over three years in prison for threatening President
00:04:55 --> 00:04:57 Trump during a TikTok livestream.
00:04:57 --> 00:05:03 And a Texas developer will pay $68 million to settle a civil rights case over
00:05:03 --> 00:05:06 fraudulent land sales to Hispanics.
00:05:06 --> 00:05:10 I am Grace Gee, and this has been a Moment of News.
00:05:17 --> 00:05:21 All right. Thank you, Grace, for that moment of news.
00:05:21 --> 00:05:29 And now it is time for my guests, Dr. Decoteau Irby and Dr. Ann Ishimaru.
00:05:30 --> 00:05:33 Decoteau J. Irby is a father, author,
00:05:33 --> 00:05:39 artist, and educator who works each and every day to advance education equity
00:05:39 --> 00:05:44 and justice for Black and brown children and youth in community spaces,
00:05:45 --> 00:05:48 schools, and districts, and higher education.
00:05:48 --> 00:05:53 His core philosophy is that when you improve learning conditions and opportunities
00:05:53 --> 00:05:57 through providing abundant resources and affirming support,
00:05:57 --> 00:06:03 children and young people's aspirations, efforts, and high-level academic performance will follow.
00:06:04 --> 00:06:09 Professor at the University of Illinois, Chicago, he teaches in the College
00:06:09 --> 00:06:12 of Education's top-ranked urban education leadership program,
00:06:13 --> 00:06:15 co-directs the UIC Center for
00:06:15 --> 00:06:19 Urban Education Leadership, and leads the Brothers Teaching Initiative.
00:06:20 --> 00:06:24 He organizes Bronzeville's Juneteenth Youth Baseball and Softball Tournament,
00:06:25 --> 00:06:31 Thames Community Gardens, and advocates for vibrant public spaces on Chicago's South Side.
00:06:31 --> 00:06:36 A self-taught guitarist, songwriter, and occasional performer,
00:06:36 --> 00:06:41 he has released three music projects under the name Decoteau Black,
00:06:42 --> 00:06:45 Exploring Black Love, Struggle, and Liberation.
00:06:46 --> 00:06:52 Dr. Ann M. Ishimaru is an award-winning scholar, writer,
00:06:52 --> 00:06:59 educator, and the Killinger Endowed Chair and Professor of Educational Foundations
00:06:59 --> 00:07:04 Leadership and Policy at the University of Washington College of Education.
00:07:04 --> 00:07:09 Through her work, she cultivates the leadership and solidarities of educators,
00:07:10 --> 00:07:15 organizational leaders, and racially minoritized youth, families,
00:07:15 --> 00:07:19 and communities to realize more transformative futures.
00:07:19 --> 00:07:24 In addition to many peer-reviewed articles in top-tier educational research
00:07:24 --> 00:07:31 journals, she is also the author of Just Schools, Building Equitable Collaborations
00:07:31 --> 00:07:33 with Families and Communities.
00:07:34 --> 00:07:42 And we will be discussing today this book that they've collaborated on called
00:07:42 --> 00:07:47 Doing the Work of Equity Leadership for Justice and Systems.
00:07:47 --> 00:07:49 So, ladies and gentlemen, it
00:07:49 --> 00:07:55 is my distinct honor and privilege to have as guests on this podcast, Dr.
00:07:55 --> 00:07:59 Decoteau Irby and Dr. Ann Ishimaru.
00:08:09 --> 00:08:15 All right. Normally, when I have these podcasts, I usually just have one person
00:08:15 --> 00:08:17 smarter than me at the other end, but now I got two.
00:08:18 --> 00:08:22 Dr. Decoteau Irby and Dr. Ann Ishimaru.
00:08:23 --> 00:08:27 Maru, I'm sorry. How y'all doing? Y'all doing good? Doing good.
00:08:28 --> 00:08:35 Doing right. Thank you. Okay. So I wanted to, I'm glad that y'all are on because
00:08:35 --> 00:08:42 we're going to talk about education and at least as it relates to leadership.
00:08:42 --> 00:08:47 Y'all co-edited or wrote, I don't know how exactly that works,
00:08:48 --> 00:08:53 but y'all oversaw a book being printed called Doing the Work of Equity Leadership
00:08:53 --> 00:08:55 for Justice and Systems.
00:08:56 --> 00:09:00 And which is very, very intense, I must say.
00:09:00 --> 00:09:03 I got to read it and I was like, oh boy, I'm back in school again.
00:09:03 --> 00:09:08 But it's a good read and it's very appropriate.
00:09:08 --> 00:09:13 And I want y'all to get into the meat of how y'all came about putting this together,
00:09:14 --> 00:09:17 and talk about the essence of the book.
00:09:17 --> 00:09:22 But before we do that, I do what we call an icebreaker segment.
00:09:23 --> 00:09:29 So the first icebreaker is a quote that I want y'all to respond to.
00:09:30 --> 00:09:38 And the quote is, when equity leadership is in addition to, instead of a priority,
00:09:38 --> 00:09:43 it gets placed on the back burner. What does that quote mean to you?
00:09:44 --> 00:09:48 You want to get it? You want me to go first, Anne? Yeah, you start.
00:09:48 --> 00:09:51 Yeah. So thank you for pulling that quote out. And thank you for having us on
00:09:51 --> 00:09:54 your podcast as well. We're glad to be here.
00:09:55 --> 00:10:02 So when we have that statement that when equity leadership is an add-on as opposed to at the center,
00:10:02 --> 00:10:08 What really what we're talking about there is in many schools in many districts,
00:10:08 --> 00:10:16 they don't try to embody and integrate commitments to equity and justice and
00:10:16 --> 00:10:16 to everything they're doing.
00:10:17 --> 00:10:20 They do them kind of like after the fact. I like to call it add on equity.
00:10:20 --> 00:10:22 So you make a bunch of decisions.
00:10:23 --> 00:10:26 You have, let's say, for example, a hiring process.
00:10:27 --> 00:10:31 You don't have commitments to equity baked into the hiring process.
00:10:31 --> 00:10:36 So you don't have the kind of language and qualifications that make the applicants
00:10:36 --> 00:10:40 have to come with the understanding and a demonstrated track record of their
00:10:40 --> 00:10:44 commitment to like equity, anti-racism and so on and so forth.
00:10:44 --> 00:10:48 Instead, you do a general race neutral hiring process.
00:10:48 --> 00:10:54 And then after the hiring process, once you realize your pool or the people
00:10:54 --> 00:10:58 who you either your pool of candidates or the people who you want to offer the position to.
00:10:59 --> 00:11:03 Don't reflect our society, don't reflect the people who you will be serving
00:11:03 --> 00:11:07 in your school community, then you say, now we need to do something to figure
00:11:07 --> 00:11:11 out how to get some more people who look like our students, some more people
00:11:11 --> 00:11:12 who relate to the communities.
00:11:13 --> 00:11:16 That B approach would be adding on, right?
00:11:16 --> 00:11:20 That would be leading and seeking out and trying to kind of like fill in,
00:11:20 --> 00:11:27 compensate for the inadequacies of that candidate pool and for who you actually
00:11:27 --> 00:11:30 saw as viable teachers or leaders in your district.
00:11:30 --> 00:11:35 The first approach where you're writing the job description,
00:11:35 --> 00:11:38 you're creating an interview panel with people from the community,
00:11:38 --> 00:11:42 with students who can understand what these folks bring, that you're making
00:11:42 --> 00:11:45 sure that the qualifications reflect the commitment.
00:11:45 --> 00:11:49 And the leadership part is making sure that the interview process and the recruitment
00:11:49 --> 00:11:53 process has all of that baked in from the very idea that you want to bring people
00:11:53 --> 00:11:58 in, as opposed to a kind of neutral, we're going to hire and see who we get.
00:11:58 --> 00:12:03 We know what happens when there's not a commitment, intentional commitment at
00:12:03 --> 00:12:07 the front end, then you kind of do the add-on piece. So that's just one example.
00:12:07 --> 00:12:12 And in a lot of schools and a lot of districts, we see people having a commitment
00:12:12 --> 00:12:16 to equity in order to fix the inequitable ways that they're already at,
00:12:16 --> 00:12:18 that they're already engaged in.
00:12:18 --> 00:12:24 And that's what we would consider. That's what I I consider kind of like add on equity, right?
00:12:24 --> 00:12:27 So equity leadership, where you add something on as opposed to it being something
00:12:27 --> 00:12:30 that you have thought about from the very beginning.
00:12:31 --> 00:12:36 Dr. Irby, I love one of the phrases that you use near the end is something being baked in.
00:12:36 --> 00:12:41 And it made me think of Terrence Green, who's a colleague, one of the co-authors in the book.
00:12:41 --> 00:12:43 He talks about the idea of equity sprinkles.
00:12:44 --> 00:12:48 So, you know, people always try to like sprinkle this stuff on the top when
00:12:48 --> 00:12:52 it isn't, you know, the cake. He tells the story about a friend who baked the
00:12:52 --> 00:12:53 cake that just was terrible.
00:12:53 --> 00:12:57 And no matter how many sprinkles you put on the top, it's not going to actually fix that cake.
00:12:57 --> 00:13:02 You actually have to start over from scratch and bake these things in,
00:13:02 --> 00:13:06 you know, as you go. And I'm thinking also about Maurice Sweeney,
00:13:07 --> 00:13:09 who is another co-author in one of the chapters.
00:13:09 --> 00:13:15 He talks about this sort of dynamic where there's a lot of, people expect people
00:13:15 --> 00:13:17 to do these initiatives.
00:13:17 --> 00:13:20 They want a new program. They want an initiative. And what happens when you
00:13:20 --> 00:13:24 do all these just initiatives or programs is they tend to sit off to the side
00:13:24 --> 00:13:29 as their own separate thing, rather than actually integrating across all the
00:13:29 --> 00:13:32 different work that happens in a school or in a system.
00:13:32 --> 00:13:37 So that's that quote really, I think, brings all of those dynamics to mind.
00:13:37 --> 00:13:43 Okay. All right. So now this will be a collaborative effort, I guess.
00:13:43 --> 00:13:48 I need you all to give me a number between 1 and 20.
00:13:49 --> 00:13:52 14. Oh, okay. So 14. All right. Okay.
00:13:54 --> 00:14:02 What does the idea of a better world mean to you? Oh, wow. That's a good question.
00:14:03 --> 00:14:07 I'm going to let you start off, Anne. I started the first question. All right.
00:14:08 --> 00:14:11 Oh, I actually love this question. I think it's a question we need to be asking
00:14:11 --> 00:14:18 more often because I think this sort of muscle that we have of imagining something
00:14:18 --> 00:14:24 other than what we already have is underdeveloped as we can feel so attacked
00:14:24 --> 00:14:26 by all of the broader dynamics,
00:14:27 --> 00:14:32 these long histories of racism and white supremacy, and then like the in-the-moment
00:14:32 --> 00:14:40 stuff that we can sort of only be limited by what we can imagine in this moment within these bounds.
00:14:40 --> 00:14:46 So for me, I think about, was it like a future of thriving where communities
00:14:46 --> 00:14:52 are able to be self-determining, where we think about kids learning that's not
00:14:52 --> 00:14:54 bound just by the four walls of the school,
00:14:54 --> 00:14:57 but is expanding out into the community.
00:14:57 --> 00:15:03 And that we think about success, not only as kids getting good grades,
00:15:03 --> 00:15:04 doing well in school and graduating,
00:15:05 --> 00:15:11 but actually being able to develop habits for learning things that are important to them,
00:15:11 --> 00:15:15 that are making change in the world to make it a better place and building a
00:15:15 --> 00:15:18 sense of responsibility and
00:15:18 --> 00:15:24 kind of collective investment in the thriving everyone in their community.
00:15:24 --> 00:15:27 Yeah. When I think about.
00:15:28 --> 00:15:32 What a better world would mean. It would be for me a place, the word that comes
00:15:32 --> 00:15:38 to mind is for me is dignity, where people would experience a sense of dignity.
00:15:38 --> 00:15:43 And by dignity, I mean really this deep kind of sense of self-worth and a recognition
00:15:43 --> 00:15:48 of self-worth combined with the capacity to see the self-worth of other people
00:15:48 --> 00:15:52 and other things, right? So for example, our environment.
00:15:52 --> 00:15:58 And it's not just a sense of self for just one self, which I always remind people
00:15:58 --> 00:16:01 that it has to be a both, right? You can see the value in yourself.
00:16:01 --> 00:16:04 You can also see the value and the worth in other people.
00:16:04 --> 00:16:09 Martin Luther King called this somebodiness. He talked quite a bit about somebodiness,
00:16:09 --> 00:16:15 especially when he started talking about economic justice, militarism, and racism.
00:16:16 --> 00:16:20 And he really was, you know, a lot of times started talking about like,
00:16:20 --> 00:16:22 you know, we're working towards achieving a kind of sense of somebody and it's
00:16:22 --> 00:16:24 where everybody feels like they're a person.
00:16:24 --> 00:16:29 So I feel like that's what in the tradition that I work in, you know.
00:16:29 --> 00:16:34 That's what I think a better world would look like, a place where people can
00:16:34 --> 00:16:37 experience that and how that relates to children and schools.
00:16:38 --> 00:16:42 Of course, the children, the schools would be developing and cultivating a sense
00:16:42 --> 00:16:44 of worth amongst children.
00:16:44 --> 00:16:49 It would also be helping them see the value of all of the people who are in
00:16:49 --> 00:16:52 front of them and the people who they're going to encounter through their throughout their life.
00:16:52 --> 00:16:56 So I know that's a big, broad, philosophical way of thinking about it. But that's what I think.
00:16:57 --> 00:17:02 And more concretely, that means economic security, housing security, food security.
00:17:02 --> 00:17:08 And when I say security, I'm specifically speaking about the the experience
00:17:08 --> 00:17:11 of waking up in the morning and being able to anticipate that you're going to
00:17:11 --> 00:17:14 have your needs met that day, every day.
00:17:14 --> 00:17:19 So that's what you know, and that can be like safety that can be All these different
00:17:19 --> 00:17:24 things when I say security, it's not just about it's a sense of Predictability
00:17:24 --> 00:17:28 relative predictability that you're going to be okay walking through the world,
00:17:28 --> 00:17:35 And a lot of people don't have that, unfortunately. Yeah. So what was the motivation behind this book?
00:17:36 --> 00:17:40 Well, there's kind of a couple of stories, but, you know, one of them has to
00:17:40 --> 00:17:42 do with the two of us and then also Dr.
00:17:43 --> 00:17:47 Terrence Green sitting around probably 2016 and starting to realize that we
00:17:47 --> 00:17:52 had colleagues, friends, people we knew in our own areas who were starting to
00:17:52 --> 00:17:56 take up this role of equity director and equity leadership.
00:17:56 --> 00:17:59 And, you know, saying, you know, what do we know about this role?
00:18:00 --> 00:18:04 How is this emerging in multiple places? So I'm in the Northwest.
00:18:04 --> 00:18:09 Dakota was in Chicago. Terrence is in Texas. I'm realizing this isn't just something
00:18:09 --> 00:18:11 that's happening locally, but it's starting to happen nationally.
00:18:12 --> 00:18:15 I know you're in Atlanta. Atlanta also has these roles.
00:18:16 --> 00:18:20 And, you know, trying to figure out sort of at the moment what's going on,
00:18:20 --> 00:18:25 what are these folks doing, and how is that making change, especially for the
00:18:25 --> 00:18:29 folks who are living this every day, living in educational injustices.
00:18:29 --> 00:18:31 But then it sort of became this
00:18:31 --> 00:18:35 much broader thing as we undertook this research across almost 10 years.
00:18:35 --> 00:18:39 And then we tried to make sense of like, what is happening across time?
00:18:39 --> 00:18:45 So we have this notion that leadership matters and context matters and leadership
00:18:45 --> 00:18:48 is contextual, right? But we wanted to get more specific than that.
00:18:48 --> 00:18:51 So, okay, yeah, we can say something different is happening.
00:18:51 --> 00:18:55 The conditions are different in Atlanta than they are in Chicago,
00:18:55 --> 00:18:56 than they are in Seattle.
00:18:56 --> 00:18:58 But we're also seeing that across time.
00:18:59 --> 00:19:03 The social political dynamics are changing in really dramatic ways.
00:19:03 --> 00:19:08 So I'm going to cue up Decoteau here because the way that we organized our book
00:19:08 --> 00:19:12 has to do with these cycles of equity leadership.
00:19:12 --> 00:19:18 And so we're talking about how there was a kind of awakening in 2014 or so that
00:19:18 --> 00:19:22 brought us all the way up to when the book came out and then the dynamics that
00:19:22 --> 00:19:24 are happening right now in 2026.
00:19:24 --> 00:19:28 I cued Decoteau up to kind of share that piece of the story. Yeah.
00:19:29 --> 00:19:34 So we really kind of the book covers a period from the end of the Obama administration,
00:19:34 --> 00:19:38 which we situate kind of like the emergence of these equity leaders at the end
00:19:38 --> 00:19:39 of the Obama administration,
00:19:39 --> 00:19:44 right around the time when, you know, George Zimmerman killed Trayvon Martin.
00:19:44 --> 00:19:46 We heard the 9-1-1 calls.
00:19:46 --> 00:19:51 It created kind of this awakening, this consciousness in our country for a relatively
00:19:51 --> 00:19:54 very brief moment of time. We had Million Hoodies movement.
00:19:54 --> 00:19:58 This is when we saw the initial seed of the Black Lives movement being planted
00:19:58 --> 00:20:03 in the social media space and in the digital media space. And then we kind of
00:20:03 --> 00:20:08 like fast forward to the election of Donald Trump. Right. It's 2016.
00:20:09 --> 00:20:15 Then we move forward to George Floyd being murdered by Derek Chauvin.
00:20:15 --> 00:20:20 And through all of these periods, what we argue is that this awakening ushered
00:20:20 --> 00:20:25 in a moment of where people wanted to do something. People wanted to take action.
00:20:25 --> 00:20:29 And the initial thing that a lot of districts started to do was to hire these
00:20:29 --> 00:20:31 equity leaders, these equity directors.
00:20:31 --> 00:20:35 So these people started to do things like create the policies that we see in
00:20:35 --> 00:20:37 a lot of districts throughout the country right now. Unfortunately,
00:20:38 --> 00:20:39 many of them have been rolled back.
00:20:40 --> 00:20:43 Since Trump's first year in office with his executive orders.
00:20:44 --> 00:20:47 But these are people who created equity policies, created affinity spaces.
00:20:47 --> 00:20:50 They started to look at data different kind of ways.
00:20:50 --> 00:20:53 They started to think about professional development of teachers and leaders
00:20:53 --> 00:20:54 in different kind of ways.
00:20:54 --> 00:20:58 And so and then we saw some more outward forward kind of things like school
00:20:58 --> 00:21:01 districts starting to celebrate Juneteenth, those sorts of things.
00:21:01 --> 00:21:06 Fast forward and then we move into a period that we call midday.
00:21:06 --> 00:21:11 So we had awakenings and mornings. And by midday, we saw substantial investment.
00:21:12 --> 00:21:16 This was after this was 2020 with the COVID pandemic and the racial uprisings
00:21:16 --> 00:21:20 that resulted from Derek Chauvin killing George Floyd.
00:21:20 --> 00:21:29 And we saw a proliferation of equity kind of activity and substantial resources
00:21:29 --> 00:21:30 invested in this kind of work. Right.
00:21:31 --> 00:21:34 And so we call this like, you know, midday where things were in the open.
00:21:34 --> 00:21:37 You could you could be Black Lives Matter.
00:21:37 --> 00:21:40 You know, you could be trans lives matter. You could be all of these different
00:21:40 --> 00:21:48 things openly and you wouldn't face as much hostility. But the hostility throughout
00:21:48 --> 00:21:51 this entire period was continually bubbling underneath.
00:21:52 --> 00:21:56 Which eventually led to people doing things like, you know, trying to take over
00:21:56 --> 00:21:59 school boards, book bans, all of these different sorts of things.
00:21:59 --> 00:22:04 So there's backlash to this proliferation of equity and justice,
00:22:04 --> 00:22:07 consciousness and action and leadership in schools.
00:22:08 --> 00:22:11 And before long, we moved into a period that we call evenings.
00:22:11 --> 00:22:16 And the evenings are when the activity started to be more subdued.
00:22:16 --> 00:22:18 People are not saying anti-racism anymore.
00:22:18 --> 00:22:21 They might be saying like student belonging and cultural relevance,
00:22:21 --> 00:22:26 but they might not be focused on the specific intentional language around like
00:22:26 --> 00:22:29 Black Lives Matter and that sort of thing. And what we argue at the end of the
00:22:29 --> 00:22:31 book is that we're now in a period of night.
00:22:31 --> 00:22:37 We were supposed to get this book into the publisher in November of 2024.
00:22:37 --> 00:22:42 And like academics do, we were late. And it was actually a silver lining,
00:22:42 --> 00:22:46 a blessing in disguise, because the election happened in 2024.
00:22:47 --> 00:22:52 Trump was elected for a second term. And by January, of course,
00:22:52 --> 00:22:56 he issued this record number of executive orders repealing basically everything
00:22:56 --> 00:23:00 that goes back to the Obama administration's effort.
00:23:00 --> 00:23:03 And then shortly thereafter, even things to go back to the 1960s.
00:23:04 --> 00:23:08 So we argue now that we're in a period of night.
00:23:08 --> 00:23:13 But one of the questions that we are raising with people as we travel around
00:23:13 --> 00:23:17 and as we're on podcasts and we're having conversations about this book is the
00:23:17 --> 00:23:22 question of what do we do and how do we lead for equity and justice under the
00:23:22 --> 00:23:24 cover of night when it's night, when it's a nighttime.
00:23:25 --> 00:23:29 So that's a little bit about a broad overview of the conceptual framing of the
00:23:29 --> 00:23:33 book. So since you brought that up, how has the current Trump administration
00:23:33 --> 00:23:37 impacted retention of equity leaders and programs?
00:23:39 --> 00:23:44 Yeah, all over the place, folks, we've noticed that people are losing these
00:23:44 --> 00:23:49 roles, or they're being transitioned to other roles, or their departments or
00:23:49 --> 00:23:51 titles are being changed to something else.
00:23:52 --> 00:23:57 So it depends on the state context in particular, where, you know,
00:23:57 --> 00:24:01 there are some states where, you know, they've just eliminated these roles entirely.
00:24:02 --> 00:24:05 In other states, they're transitioning to different language.
00:24:06 --> 00:24:12 But it's affected all of them. And I think one of the things that we always
00:24:12 --> 00:24:13 want to kind of bring out, too, is like,
00:24:14 --> 00:24:18 even though the social political context has been changing so much over this
00:24:18 --> 00:24:21 relatively short period of time,
00:24:21 --> 00:24:25 one of the through lines has been the leadership of Black women in particular
00:24:25 --> 00:24:30 in these roles and in equity leadership, even when they're not in these roles.
00:24:30 --> 00:24:34 Because after that initial research that we did,
00:24:34 --> 00:24:38 we continued on, but we expanded it to think about who are the many different
00:24:38 --> 00:24:42 players in a given educational system who are leading for equity,
00:24:42 --> 00:24:46 who don't necessarily have just that one singular role.
00:24:46 --> 00:24:51 So one of the things that we're seeing is that Black women were really at the vanguard.
00:24:52 --> 00:24:56 And again, that's not new. That's been the case since way before this time.
00:24:56 --> 00:25:01 But it also means that they are likely disproportionately losing their roles.
00:25:01 --> 00:25:04 We know that that's the case nationally in terms of other leadership roles.
00:25:05 --> 00:25:10 So I think education is very much following in that pattern.
00:25:11 --> 00:25:14 And I think there's a kind of twofold.
00:25:14 --> 00:25:20 One, we're coming out of this time when that kind of professionalization of
00:25:20 --> 00:25:24 equity in systems was pretty new.
00:25:24 --> 00:25:30 And it was very brief. But it doesn't mean that even though these folks are
00:25:30 --> 00:25:35 moving into different positions or the positions themselves are moving,
00:25:35 --> 00:25:40 changing into other things. It doesn't mean, though, that the work isn't happening.
00:25:41 --> 00:25:43 It means that that, too, is having to change.
00:25:43 --> 00:25:51 Yeah. I think the only thing I would add is that the speed and kind of intensity
00:25:51 --> 00:25:58 of this current backlash, you know, under this second Trump administration is very intense.
00:25:58 --> 00:26:02 But it's important to understand that even historically looking back,
00:26:02 --> 00:26:06 these were never easy roles for people to be in.
00:26:06 --> 00:26:10 The people who were in these roles were, you know, Anne has a chapter in the
00:26:10 --> 00:26:14 book about this idea of this paradox of trying to.
00:26:15 --> 00:26:18 Of being a person of color, mostly the people or people of color,
00:26:19 --> 00:26:27 women of color, asked to change a system that is actually designed to kind of
00:26:27 --> 00:26:28 like destroy who you are, right? Right.
00:26:29 --> 00:26:35 And so the even though we saw a period where the roles and the equity leadership
00:26:35 --> 00:26:37 activities and districts was well resourced,
00:26:37 --> 00:26:42 the resources don't necessarily mean that the work itself was easy because the
00:26:42 --> 00:26:46 way that, you know, white supremacy works is that it gets into the nooks and
00:26:46 --> 00:26:48 crannies and crevices, however, it needs to.
00:26:48 --> 00:26:53 And so this meant that like folks experienced, you know, all kinds of,
00:26:53 --> 00:26:56 you know, what I call mundane racial violence, these issues.
00:26:56 --> 00:27:00 Small everyday instances of racism at work, they really wear people down to
00:27:00 --> 00:27:02 give them racial battle fatigue over time.
00:27:03 --> 00:27:05 So people experience that kind of thing.
00:27:05 --> 00:27:09 People experience death threats, threats to their families.
00:27:09 --> 00:27:13 A lot of people left these roles because, you know, they were in districts and
00:27:13 --> 00:27:17 in regions of the country where people were extremely hostile to even the idea
00:27:17 --> 00:27:20 of celebrating Black History Month, for example.
00:27:20 --> 00:27:27 And especially for the people who were doing equity work around LGBTQI students
00:27:27 --> 00:27:32 and gender non-conforming students having policies to make sure either they're
00:27:32 --> 00:27:33 represented in the curriculum,
00:27:33 --> 00:27:35 that they're not discriminated against their school.
00:27:36 --> 00:27:41 Those sorts of things were the things that actually had people that people were
00:27:41 --> 00:27:45 under attack for championing those kinds of causes on behalf of young people in communities.
00:27:45 --> 00:27:49 So I do want to say that, like now, I think the level of intensity and in particular,
00:27:50 --> 00:27:55 the federal government's role in supporting the attacks is different than we had in years past.
00:27:56 --> 00:27:59 But the attacks have been happening at multiple different levels,
00:27:59 --> 00:28:05 municipal level, district level, state level, for example, in Texas has been going on for a while.
00:28:05 --> 00:28:08 All of these kinds of different things, these attacks have been happening.
00:28:08 --> 00:28:14 And so how I kind of see it is that right now, the districts that didn't want
00:28:14 --> 00:28:20 equity and leadership and justice work happening in their schools now have multiple
00:28:20 --> 00:28:26 layers of weight of enforcement to stop and to thwart the work that's actually happening.
00:28:26 --> 00:28:32 So I just wanted to mention that because Trump, this particular era is new and I think different,
00:28:32 --> 00:28:39 but also there's some continuity in terms of how people have been treated who
00:28:39 --> 00:28:46 try to do work on behalf of children who historically schools haven't worked well to represent,
00:28:46 --> 00:28:48 educate or, you know, set up for life success.
00:28:49 --> 00:28:55 So let's dig into the paradox a little bit. How does the paradox of education
00:28:55 --> 00:29:01 that James Baldwin talked about create challenges in reshaping the educational system?
00:29:01 --> 00:29:06 And Dr. Irby, you set it up pretty good. So, you know, Dr.
00:29:07 --> 00:29:10 Ishimaru, do you want to add on to that?
00:29:11 --> 00:29:15 Yeah. Well, I mean, I think so. I'm thinking especially about,
00:29:15 --> 00:29:19 I want to, like, Shannon Page Clark wrote a chapter called Shock to the System.
00:29:19 --> 00:29:25 She talks about the Black women's leadership in especially what she calls nice white districts,
00:29:26 --> 00:29:31 which, you know, I think in many ways, even districts that where she argues
00:29:31 --> 00:29:36 that even in districts that are not predominantly white, the dynamics of nice
00:29:36 --> 00:29:38 whiteness are often playing out.
00:29:38 --> 00:29:41 You know, in schools and in systems amongst the adults.
00:29:41 --> 00:29:50 So I think the paradox is, on the one hand, these are folks who bring enormous expertise.
00:29:50 --> 00:29:56 Often we found that Black women often had more credentials and more higher education.
00:29:57 --> 00:30:02 They had a lot of experience, often in a classroom and different levels of the
00:30:02 --> 00:30:05 system. And then they bring their own lived experiences.
00:30:05 --> 00:30:12 And then at the same time, their identities are sort of the kind of expertise
00:30:12 --> 00:30:14 that they bring isn't valued.
00:30:14 --> 00:30:19 It's often undermined. So she talks about these dynamics where like,
00:30:19 --> 00:30:24 you know, people are sitting around a table, the equity director or an equity leader,
00:30:24 --> 00:30:29 especially a woman, black woman, will be trying to weigh in and talk about,
00:30:29 --> 00:30:32 say, there's a social emotional learning curriculum, for example,
00:30:32 --> 00:30:38 and there is a need to address how that plays out differently for children of color.
00:30:38 --> 00:30:43 Children who experience racialized trauma versus children who haven't.
00:30:44 --> 00:30:47 But that's not even part of the conversation. So this leader knows that she
00:30:47 --> 00:30:51 needs to bring that up and raise that as an issue that needs to be addressed
00:30:51 --> 00:30:53 in that curriculum and the delivery and the implementation.
00:30:54 --> 00:30:58 But at the same time, she knows that the people around the table are going to
00:30:58 --> 00:31:00 expect her to say something like that.
00:31:00 --> 00:31:05 And then there's this automatic sort of undermining of their expertise.
00:31:05 --> 00:31:10 So there's this like dynamic where it's their job to go in and disrupt the system.
00:31:10 --> 00:31:15 And at the same time, all the dynamics that are operating to maintain the status
00:31:15 --> 00:31:19 quo are set up to undermine their leadership and their expertise.
00:31:19 --> 00:31:24 They're often seen through these racialized and gendered lenses of being angry
00:31:24 --> 00:31:28 or too aggressive, whereas this is a different district now.
00:31:28 --> 00:31:32 They would notice a white man would say something very similar,
00:31:32 --> 00:31:36 like raise issues around the need for other languages and communications with
00:31:36 --> 00:31:38 families that are predominantly Latino.
00:31:38 --> 00:31:43 And this other leader would be perceived as, you know, like really passionate
00:31:43 --> 00:31:47 and getting down to business and really serious about equity.
00:31:47 --> 00:31:52 Whereas the same comment would be raised by women of color would be seen as
00:31:52 --> 00:31:54 too aggressive, making people uncomfortable.
00:31:55 --> 00:32:03 So that's the kind of paradox that these folks are navigating all of the time. And as Dr. Irby said, it.
00:32:04 --> 00:32:12 It has this racial battle fatigue dynamic that plays out in very systematic ways.
00:32:13 --> 00:32:21 Yeah. So explain the significance of the big red truck with the Confederate flag.
00:32:21 --> 00:32:26 Yeah. So this was a story that our colleague, Shannon Clark,
00:32:26 --> 00:32:31 who's at University of Maryland Eastern Shore, contributed to the book.
00:32:32 --> 00:32:39 And so she tells the story of a superintendent of equity and having a conversation
00:32:39 --> 00:32:42 where so this big red truck was sitting out and this is in the midwest this
00:32:42 --> 00:32:45 is not i should say this is not in the south because i'm from south carolina
00:32:45 --> 00:32:47 so these big red trucks are everywhere in south carolina,
00:32:48 --> 00:32:53 but this was in the midwest in a place where the confederate flag is not something
00:32:53 --> 00:32:59 that you see frequently and for someone in the midwest to fly or have the confederate
00:32:59 --> 00:33:01 flag is like in my opinion, a deliberate,
00:33:02 --> 00:33:06 a kind of deliberate kind of, you know, provocation.
00:33:07 --> 00:33:12 So at this particular district, there was a truck, a big red truck with the
00:33:12 --> 00:33:18 Confederate flag on it that this person would park right in front of the district's
00:33:18 --> 00:33:20 entrance to go into the kind of district building.
00:33:20 --> 00:33:24 So when people had to go into a board meeting or do any kind of official business
00:33:24 --> 00:33:26 with the school district, they walked past this truck.
00:33:27 --> 00:33:33 So Dr. Clark was interviewing this superintendent of equity and asked her about
00:33:33 --> 00:33:36 the truck because this superintendent of equity is talking about we're trying
00:33:36 --> 00:33:41 to make sure, you know, people feel safe, right? Coming to school and they feel like they belong.
00:33:41 --> 00:33:46 And so Dr. Clark asked, you know, if the goal is safety and belonging,
00:33:46 --> 00:33:50 like what's going on with the big red truck with the Confederate flag on it outside?
00:33:50 --> 00:33:53 And it was interesting because, you know.
00:33:53 --> 00:33:58 The superintendent of equity at the time acknowledged the truck,
00:33:59 --> 00:34:03 but had almost done this thing where she blocked the truck out of her mind.
00:34:04 --> 00:34:08 Right. And so in that chapter, she writes about these like strategies,
00:34:09 --> 00:34:13 these kind of micro strategies that women in particular, black women,
00:34:13 --> 00:34:16 her whole chapter is about black women, that black women adopt to be able to
00:34:16 --> 00:34:19 do this work, to show up to work, to fight for black children,
00:34:20 --> 00:34:22 Latinx children, right? English language coachliners.
00:34:23 --> 00:34:28 And one of the strategies in that story was that she had kind of blocked it out.
00:34:28 --> 00:34:32 And she told Dr. Clark, who was interviewing, like, she said,
00:34:32 --> 00:34:34 I'm surprised I know about it.
00:34:34 --> 00:34:37 And I'm surprised you brought that up because I've tried to,
00:34:37 --> 00:34:41 you know, she was just like, I've noticed it, but I don't notice it.
00:34:41 --> 00:34:47 And that was, that's an interesting kind of psychological kind of coping mechanism,
00:34:47 --> 00:34:52 this kind of approach that this, you know, leader wasn't even fully aware that
00:34:52 --> 00:34:57 she had adopted that helped her actually be able to show up to work and fight every day.
00:34:57 --> 00:35:02 So that chapter is a heavy one because it really writes about the kind of the
00:35:02 --> 00:35:05 emotional labor that black women give.
00:35:05 --> 00:35:09 So we think times about labor, about, you know, people moving from school to
00:35:09 --> 00:35:15 school, but there's this kind of emotional labor that people who do the work of equity,
00:35:15 --> 00:35:21 leadership and justice give to districts that's not compensated, that's not recognized.
00:35:22 --> 00:35:24 That's ignored, that's not talked about.
00:35:24 --> 00:35:31 And so that story is a really powerful example of the provocations that people
00:35:31 --> 00:35:37 who do this kind of work experience outside of the South and a powerful example
00:35:37 --> 00:35:40 of the kind of strategies and coping mechanisms,
00:35:40 --> 00:35:45 whether they're adaptive or maladaptive that people adopt to try to fight for
00:35:45 --> 00:35:47 our children and young people.
00:35:48 --> 00:35:55 Yeah. I know we're kind of pressing on time, but I got three more questions I really want to ask.
00:35:56 --> 00:35:59 And if you indulge me. Yes, let's do it.
00:35:59 --> 00:36:05 What is the importance of appreciating the fruits of unsuccessful leadership?
00:36:06 --> 00:36:12 Yeah, this is a chapter. I'll get us started because this is a chapter that Dr.
00:36:12 --> 00:36:18 Irby really was part of leading. And so early on, I mentioned that we had done
00:36:18 --> 00:36:23 this research with folks who were what we call doing seating work in this morning time.
00:36:23 --> 00:36:28 And at the time, they were doing all of this work with policy,
00:36:28 --> 00:36:33 with different stakeholders, with professional development.
00:36:33 --> 00:36:39 And you would ask them during this time, and many of them felt like the efforts
00:36:39 --> 00:36:42 that they were putting in place weren't...
00:36:42 --> 00:36:47 Realizing the change that they expected and wanted to see in that time.
00:36:48 --> 00:36:51 And I think one of the things that the benefit, you know, a lot of research
00:36:51 --> 00:36:55 is just like a year, you know, like nine months or something like that.
00:36:55 --> 00:36:57 And maybe at most it's 18 months.
00:36:58 --> 00:37:02 One of the benefits that we had of doing this kind of work across such a long
00:37:02 --> 00:37:07 period of time is that we could see that what those leaders at the time felt
00:37:07 --> 00:37:09 like wasn't successful,
00:37:09 --> 00:37:11 ended up planting really crucial
00:37:11 --> 00:37:16 seeds that the next generation of equity leaders were able to build from.
00:37:17 --> 00:37:21 So, for instance, when we get to the daytime, we hear from Maurice Swinney,
00:37:21 --> 00:37:27 and one of the first things he did, actually also this equity leader in the chapter by Dr.
00:37:27 --> 00:37:34 Clark also talks about using policies that got developed by folks in the earlier
00:37:34 --> 00:37:38 times in other districts and being
00:37:38 --> 00:37:43 able to build from those to think about both, what do we not want to do?
00:37:43 --> 00:37:48 What are some of the, you know, sort of the roadblocks that we can actually
00:37:48 --> 00:37:52 go around, but also what can we build from and move forward in our district?
00:37:53 --> 00:37:58 So in retrospect, you can see that all of the, you know, all of the kind of
00:37:58 --> 00:38:02 the policy work and the ongoing routines that got built into different parts
00:38:02 --> 00:38:04 of everyday decision-making,
00:38:05 --> 00:38:10 for example, in school districts, all of those were kind of seeded in this earlier time.
00:38:10 --> 00:38:15 And many of the districts, those leaders turned over before they were able to
00:38:15 --> 00:38:20 see those things emerge and, you know, come bear fruit.
00:38:21 --> 00:38:25 So I think that was the, you know, they saw it as unsuccessful at the time.
00:38:25 --> 00:38:29 But the benefit is that over time, We were able to see that it was actually
00:38:29 --> 00:38:34 really essential in enabling some of the policies and the practices and the
00:38:34 --> 00:38:38 routines and the outcomes that we were able to see in later times.
00:38:39 --> 00:38:45 All right. Why should we avoid the constant cycle of chasing rabbits?
00:38:47 --> 00:38:52 So the kind of like chasing piece and putting out fires, those that was the
00:38:52 --> 00:38:55 kind of language that a lot of people used.
00:38:55 --> 00:39:01 It's exhausting and it doesn't get people who are doing the work of equity leadership
00:39:01 --> 00:39:03 very far. It's not impactful.
00:39:03 --> 00:39:07 And what we talk about in terms of like chasing rabbits or putting out fires,
00:39:07 --> 00:39:14 these are this is the practice of when something happens at you know let's say
00:39:14 --> 00:39:19 there's a district there's 25 schools in the district something happens at school
00:39:19 --> 00:39:22 number five the equity leader.
00:39:23 --> 00:39:28 Is deployed to school number five to try to talk to people try to figure out
00:39:28 --> 00:39:32 what's going on and then something happens at school number 12 and then they
00:39:32 --> 00:39:35 run and try to figure out how they can help the people at school number 12.
00:39:35 --> 00:39:39 And then something happens at a board meeting. And then they have to go through
00:39:39 --> 00:39:42 a training and they have to help the board figure out and process what's going on.
00:39:42 --> 00:39:45 And then somebody sends a message to the superintendent.
00:39:46 --> 00:39:50 And then they have to go and counsel and give therapy to the superintendent,
00:39:50 --> 00:39:52 the white male superintendent, about what they can do.
00:39:53 --> 00:39:58 That's the kind of like putting out fires approach that a lot of people described as,
00:39:59 --> 00:40:03 Early on, we're talking 2015, 16, 17, the people who were doing the work right
00:40:03 --> 00:40:07 about that time, they were doing a lot of kind of putting out fires.
00:40:07 --> 00:40:11 And if they weren't, their districts wanted them to put out a lot of fires.
00:40:11 --> 00:40:14 And it was interesting because by the time thinking about, you know,
00:40:14 --> 00:40:21 this idea of planting seeds by the time, you know, 2020 rolls around 2019, 2020 rolls around.
00:40:22 --> 00:40:25 Folks understand coming into the roles that that's not what they're going to
00:40:25 --> 00:40:28 be doing, that they can't do that, that it's not a useful practice.
00:40:29 --> 00:40:34 And so we saw a lot less of that and a lot people didn't people describe not doing that.
00:40:34 --> 00:40:39 And instead, during the midday, people talked about a lot about institutionalizing change.
00:40:40 --> 00:40:43 Right. And so what that meant was instead of like being in a leadership role
00:40:43 --> 00:40:46 where you're going to school five, school 12 and school 14.
00:40:46 --> 00:40:49 Instead you're creating the kind of learning
00:40:49 --> 00:40:53 processes for professional development and learning that allows
00:40:53 --> 00:40:56 you to pull people from every school and get
00:40:56 --> 00:40:59 people from every school and build their capacity to address
00:40:59 --> 00:41:02 issues at their local site that meant things
00:41:02 --> 00:41:05 like having principals participate in
00:41:05 --> 00:41:09 professional development it meant forming equity leadership teams at the school
00:41:09 --> 00:41:15 level it meant creating student affinity groups like black student unions latinos
00:41:15 --> 00:41:20 united It meant making sure that the curriculum is diverse so that people develop
00:41:20 --> 00:41:24 the capacity over the time to deal with the issues that emerge in their own setting.
00:41:24 --> 00:41:29 And so we started to see equity leadership really be conceptualized as this
00:41:29 --> 00:41:30 much more strategic approach.
00:41:31 --> 00:41:35 Approach to actually facilitating the
00:41:35 --> 00:41:38 kind of like institutional changes that makes the
00:41:38 --> 00:41:42 putting out fires and chasing rabbits approach obsolete where you don't need
00:41:42 --> 00:41:47 to do that because the system itself starts to develop the capacity and the
00:41:47 --> 00:41:51 people within the system start to develop the capacity to address a lot of these
00:41:51 --> 00:41:55 issues without having a call on on one individual or group of people to come
00:41:55 --> 00:41:57 and help quote unquote, save them.
00:41:58 --> 00:42:01 Yeah. All right. In your conclusion, by the way,
00:42:02 --> 00:42:07 those last two questions, those, those are really like very important primers
00:42:07 --> 00:42:13 for people in politics because you can get in and, you know,
00:42:14 --> 00:42:17 your term is up or, you know, you don't get reelected or whatever.
00:42:17 --> 00:42:20 And then you look back and say, did I really do what I wanted to do?
00:42:21 --> 00:42:28 And then so many years down the road, you see the legislation you push through actually bear fruit.
00:42:28 --> 00:42:33 And then the other thing is politics is very reactionary.
00:42:33 --> 00:42:38 And it's like, okay, you know, instead of visionary leadership and saying,
00:42:38 --> 00:42:41 okay, we're going to introduce this legislation to stop this,
00:42:41 --> 00:42:43 right? Because that was a question I always got to ask.
00:42:44 --> 00:42:47 We're not dealing with this right now. Why are you introducing this bill?
00:42:47 --> 00:42:50 And it's like, maybe because we don't want to deal with that in the future.
00:42:50 --> 00:42:53 But anyway, I just wanted to throw that out there that it's not this limited
00:42:53 --> 00:42:56 to education, those concepts that y'all talked about.
00:42:56 --> 00:43:04 In your conclusion, you quoted Nikki Giovanni, if the enslaved could believe, I know I can.
00:43:05 --> 00:43:09 How does that convey what you want readers to take away from this book?
00:43:10 --> 00:43:13 It goes back to that question that you asked us near the beginning,
00:43:13 --> 00:43:21 the number 14 question about what is it that we can imagine and work towards.
00:43:21 --> 00:43:24 And I think right now in this moment, especially, it's hard to imagine.
00:43:25 --> 00:43:29 We've got, like you think about what's happening in Minneapolis and the kind
00:43:29 --> 00:43:33 of assault that young people and families and communities are experiencing in
00:43:33 --> 00:43:39 their schools can be really hard to imagine that we could move towards something really different.
00:43:39 --> 00:43:43 But I think that's one of the things that we heard over and over again,
00:43:43 --> 00:43:49 especially from the Black woman, is that this is generational work.
00:43:49 --> 00:43:52 And so when we put it in that broader, longer arc of history,
00:43:52 --> 00:43:57 we can see, yes, it's sort of heightened in particular kinds of ways right now.
00:43:57 --> 00:44:07 And we have this whole history as Americans of making change and realizing justice
00:44:07 --> 00:44:10 across time that we are a part of.
00:44:11 --> 00:44:14 That's what this broader effort is about. And so I think.
00:44:14 --> 00:44:18 You know, as we're at night now, one of the things that we're seeing as all
00:44:18 --> 00:44:19 of these things are getting,
00:44:19 --> 00:44:24 you know, like the formal structures are being dismantled, also seeing that
00:44:24 --> 00:44:30 the ways that educators and leaders in systems are working strategically to
00:44:30 --> 00:44:33 build these networks of community and care.
00:44:33 --> 00:44:37 I'm thinking also about like what's happening in Minneapolis and the incredible
00:44:37 --> 00:44:39 sort of collective movement.
00:44:39 --> 00:44:43 Collective mutual aid and action that's happening there on the ground.
00:44:43 --> 00:44:49 And I think about, in particular, there's a chapter near the end about a group of Black principals.
00:44:49 --> 00:44:53 They call themselves the Black Lady Principals who were sort of dissatisfied
00:44:53 --> 00:44:57 with the pacing and accountability that was happening at their district level.
00:44:57 --> 00:45:02 And they took it upon themselves, not just to kind of lead in their own school
00:45:02 --> 00:45:06 context and their own school community, but to actually then connect with each
00:45:06 --> 00:45:10 other and develop this network so that their leadership could expand beyond that.
00:45:10 --> 00:45:16 So, you know, I always want to say, you know, I think a big lesson takeaway for us from those.
00:45:17 --> 00:45:20 You know, from what we've learned in the evening time, but across time is really
00:45:20 --> 00:45:26 don't wait for permission or a role or a charge, though all of us can take that
00:45:26 --> 00:45:28 up. Find your people, don't do it by yourself.
00:45:29 --> 00:45:32 And then we all have got to start coloring outside the lines.
00:45:33 --> 00:45:38 That's the only thing that's going to help us realize something that might seem
00:45:38 --> 00:45:43 improbable or implausible in terms of trying to realize more just schools and communities.
00:45:44 --> 00:45:49 But that we didn't get there historically by coloring inside the lines.
00:45:49 --> 00:45:51 So we got to be coloring outside the lines.
00:45:52 --> 00:45:55 Yeah. Yeah, I think I add that, you know,
00:45:55 --> 00:45:59 there are the there's belief,
00:45:59 --> 00:46:03 but there's also these very kind of like small micro practices,
00:46:03 --> 00:46:09 these small things that whatever the condition is, whatever who's attacking,
00:46:09 --> 00:46:14 there's these small things that people who have experienced oppression do for
00:46:14 --> 00:46:16 their children, for their young people that advanced them.
00:46:16 --> 00:46:20 You know, I grew up in South Carolina and there's this like tradition with,
00:46:20 --> 00:46:23 you know, elders and older people kind of like they call it palm and they put
00:46:23 --> 00:46:24 a little bit of money in your hand.
00:46:24 --> 00:46:27 Nobody sees it, though. They kind of get up to you.
00:46:27 --> 00:46:30 You did pretty or you put some effort forward in school and they put that little
00:46:30 --> 00:46:34 put that little dollar in your hands and whisper to you real low.
00:46:34 --> 00:46:36 I'm proud of you. You did good.
00:46:36 --> 00:46:40 I imagine that enslaved people did a lot of that.
00:46:41 --> 00:46:46 That's resistance. That's, you know, that's not only believing,
00:46:46 --> 00:46:49 but telling a person that you believe in them.
00:46:49 --> 00:46:53 And I think that, you know, even with my grandmother now, you know,
00:46:53 --> 00:46:56 people kind of like, you know, kind of like, you know, we kind of like laugh
00:46:56 --> 00:47:01 at it a little bit, but she looks at us with awe, you know, and a lot of the
00:47:01 --> 00:47:04 elders, you know, my granddad, for example, you know,
00:47:05 --> 00:47:08 he was amazed that, you know, I wrote books, right.
00:47:08 --> 00:47:11 And they were just so proud, like, you know, of that sort of thing.
00:47:12 --> 00:47:15 And a lot of that comes from them de-palming, right?
00:47:15 --> 00:47:19 It comes from the little encouragement that like nobody else heard.
00:47:19 --> 00:47:22 It wasn't a political, it wasn't no speech. It wasn't a big speech.
00:47:22 --> 00:47:28 It's these little acts of resistance to help people see a potential that they
00:47:28 --> 00:47:32 may not see for themselves if they in the current condition or setting that they're in.
00:47:32 --> 00:47:35 And in my mind, I think that enslaved folks did a lot of that.
00:47:35 --> 00:47:39 And so I think that even in a time right now where things seem like,
00:47:39 --> 00:47:44 well, not seem like, things are, you know, rough for a lot of people.
00:47:44 --> 00:47:47 Me, I've never lived through something like this. There's people who have.
00:47:47 --> 00:47:52 I have not, you know, I grew up in the 80s, so Black neighborhoods was under siege.
00:47:52 --> 00:47:57 But I think that the force of the federal government in particular is a different
00:47:57 --> 00:48:03 kind of experience to not have any kind of political redress or recourse, because if you,
00:48:03 --> 00:48:06 they're not going to bring charges against anything that happens even at a state
00:48:06 --> 00:48:09 or local level as far as we've seen so far.
00:48:10 --> 00:48:15 So, but I think that, you know, if we know we can do things,
00:48:15 --> 00:48:17 then we can continue to do them. We don't need.
00:48:18 --> 00:48:24 The district equity policy for a teacher to instead to palm a student,
00:48:24 --> 00:48:27 right, to say, hey, I see your effort. You're doing great.
00:48:28 --> 00:48:30 And I think that the the the the
00:48:30 --> 00:48:35 when you put all of those smaller actions together, it has a big impact.
00:48:35 --> 00:48:39 That's what I think those actions get us and have gotten us to where we are
00:48:39 --> 00:48:42 and they're going to get us to where we want to go as well. That's what I believe.
00:48:43 --> 00:48:47 All right, guys, finish this sentence. I have hope because.
00:48:48 --> 00:48:52 You know, I mean, I grew up in the black Baptist church in the South,
00:48:52 --> 00:48:56 so I would have to say I have hope because like of God and faith.
00:48:56 --> 00:49:00 You know, I mean, like that sounds that sounds like I'm at the Grammys.
00:49:01 --> 00:49:05 But, you know, they say I feel like that's OK, you know, like just that's what people say.
00:49:06 --> 00:49:09 But that's I mean, it's kind of like this this this faith of.
00:49:09 --> 00:49:17 And I mean, I think also knowing, you know, what people before me have overcome, right?
00:49:18 --> 00:49:22 So I think those two things, understanding history and then also just having
00:49:22 --> 00:49:25 a faith that things are going to work out some kind of way somehow.
00:49:26 --> 00:49:30 For me, I have hope because, you know, I'm thinking about Bad Bunny at the Super
00:49:30 --> 00:49:35 Bowl and because love wins, because love is stronger than hate,
00:49:35 --> 00:49:39 because, and I'm Buddhist because things change.
00:49:39 --> 00:49:41 That's the nature of the universe.
00:49:41 --> 00:49:45 Because we're interdependent, we depend on each other.
00:49:46 --> 00:49:50 And because, you know, like also from my own history, I'm Japanese American.
00:49:50 --> 00:49:54 We're about to come up on the Day of Remembrance, which is February 19th.
00:49:54 --> 00:49:59 And 120 Japanese Americans were incarcerated by our own government.
00:49:59 --> 00:50:01 So my dad was born in one of the camps.
00:50:01 --> 00:50:05 So that history is real fresh of the federal government pulling the rug out
00:50:05 --> 00:50:10 under a whole swath of folks' feet, two-thirds of us were American citizens.
00:50:11 --> 00:50:18 But my community was able to come through that and to pursue reparations,
00:50:18 --> 00:50:24 and now are really working to be in solidarity with other communities as all of this is unfolding.
00:50:24 --> 00:50:29 So I have faith also from my own histories as well.
00:50:29 --> 00:50:34 All right. So if people want to get this book, how can they do that?
00:50:35 --> 00:50:38 You can get it from all the places that you can get books, bookshop,
00:50:38 --> 00:50:40 if you Amazon, you can do Amazon.
00:50:40 --> 00:50:45 And then you can also find out more about the book and about us at our respective websites.
00:50:46 --> 00:50:48 So mine is annishimaru.com.
00:50:48 --> 00:50:54 Yep. And my website is decoteauirby.com. We're also on social media,
00:50:55 --> 00:50:57 Instagram, LinkedIn, and Facebook.
00:50:57 --> 00:51:07 All right. Well, Dr. Ann, excuse me, Ishimaru, I want to congratulate you and
00:51:07 --> 00:51:10 your Seattle Seahawks for winning the Super Bowl.
00:51:10 --> 00:51:15 Thank you. And Dr. Decoteau Irby, I don't know if you're a Bears fan or a Carolina
00:51:15 --> 00:51:18 fan. If you're a Bears fan like
00:51:18 --> 00:51:23 me, then we'll be having our parade next year. I think so. I think so.
00:51:24 --> 00:51:28 So I greatly appreciate y'all coming on, seriously. And, you know,
00:51:28 --> 00:51:35 this is a very, very important topic because all of our children need to be educated.
00:51:35 --> 00:51:39 And I think we cannot place enough emphasis on education.
00:51:40 --> 00:51:44 And we want to make sure, as you said in one of your answers,
00:51:44 --> 00:51:47 that we want our schools to be a safe place.
00:51:47 --> 00:51:54 I always make the statement that if we're going to be good toward our faith,
00:51:55 --> 00:52:00 then we have to reach enlightenment and education leads to enlightenment. Right.
00:52:00 --> 00:52:05 And so if we if we don't have the safe spaces for our children,
00:52:05 --> 00:52:09 for our next generation, then we're going to continue to have chaos.
00:52:09 --> 00:52:11 So I appreciate the research that you have done.
00:52:11 --> 00:52:15 I appreciate the collaboration you've had with others to make this so.
00:52:15 --> 00:52:19 And I want to encourage y'all to continue to do the good work.
00:52:19 --> 00:52:22 And again, I want to thank you all for being on this podcast.
00:52:23 --> 00:52:25 Thank you so much. And thank you for the questions. Thanks so much for having
00:52:25 --> 00:52:26 me. Really being good. Yeah.
00:52:27 --> 00:52:29 Terrific questions. Thanks so
00:52:29 --> 00:52:31 much. All right, guys. And we're going to catch y'all on the other side.
00:52:50 --> 00:52:58 All right, we are back. So now it is time for my next guest, Dr. Karlos K. Hill.
00:52:59 --> 00:53:04 Karlos K. Hill is a writer, speaker, and community-engaged scholar who brings
00:53:04 --> 00:53:07 a deeper perspective to historical racism.
00:53:08 --> 00:53:11 Dr. Hill works with students, leaders, and communities to understand our collective
00:53:11 --> 00:53:16 past and heal in relation to our most traumatic histories.
00:53:17 --> 00:53:22 Dr. Hill is Regents Professor of the Clara Looper Department of African and
00:53:22 --> 00:53:26 African American Studies at the University of Oklahoma Dr.
00:53:26 --> 00:53:31 Hill is the author of three books, Beyond the Rope, The Impact of Lynching on
00:53:31 --> 00:53:35 Black Culture and Memory The Murder of Emmett Till, A Graphic History,
00:53:35 --> 00:53:40 and the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, A Photographic History Dr.
00:53:40 --> 00:53:46 Hill founded the Tulsa Race Massacre Oklahoma Teachers Institute to support
00:53:46 --> 00:53:51 teaching the history of the race massacre to thousands of middle and high school students.
00:53:51 --> 00:53:55 He also serves on the boards of the Freedom Center Planning Committee,
00:53:56 --> 00:54:02 the Clara Luper Legacy Committee, and the Board of Scholars Facing History and Ourselves,
00:54:02 --> 00:54:08 and is actively engaged on other community initiatives working toward racial justice.
00:54:08 --> 00:54:15 Ladies and gentlemen, it is my distinct honor and privilege for the second time
00:54:15 --> 00:54:20 to have as a guest on this program, Dr. Karlos K. Hill
00:54:31 --> 00:54:37 All right, Dr. Karlos K. Hill. How you doing, brother? Happy Black History Month.
00:54:38 --> 00:54:43 Man, thank you so much. It's always a pleasure to be a part of your show, be a guest on your show.
00:54:43 --> 00:54:48 We always have great conversations, but happy Black History Month to you, too.
00:54:49 --> 00:54:53 Yeah, yeah. And I understand you're in between classes and stuff,
00:54:53 --> 00:54:55 so we're going to do what we got to do.
00:54:55 --> 00:54:58 That you gave me some interesting background i
00:54:58 --> 00:55:02 might i might throw that in my editorial or something as we
00:55:02 --> 00:55:05 were talking okay that's that's an interesting
00:55:05 --> 00:55:10 scenario you gotta go through but look like like always we start this off with
00:55:10 --> 00:55:17 a quote and your quote is we must never forget that black history is american
00:55:17 --> 00:55:23 history the achievements of african americans have contributed to our nation's greatness.
00:55:24 --> 00:55:26 What does that quote mean to you? Mm.
00:55:27 --> 00:55:31 And when I hear that, and if I've said that,
00:55:31 --> 00:55:39 I've said it in order to raise our consciousness and to raise our consciousness
00:55:39 --> 00:55:43 and not only our consciousness in relationship to the contributions of black people,
00:55:43 --> 00:55:48 but for us to really center black people in American history.
00:55:49 --> 00:55:53 I mean, I would argue You don't have an American history without Black people
00:55:53 --> 00:55:57 and centering Black people in the nation's history.
00:55:57 --> 00:56:02 When slavery is 250 years of our nation's history and responsible for the vast
00:56:02 --> 00:56:07 wealth that this society created, Black people and Black people's history are
00:56:07 --> 00:56:09 central to American history.
00:56:09 --> 00:56:17 And so for me, Black History Month is necessary and has been necessary historically
00:56:17 --> 00:56:24 because those contributions have been systematically erased from school books, from textbooks,
00:56:24 --> 00:56:26 from knowledge in general.
00:56:27 --> 00:56:32 And so Black History Month is a reminder of that erasure, but it's also hopeful.
00:56:32 --> 00:56:36 It's a hopeful holiday in that we can learn more.
00:56:36 --> 00:56:43 We can improve our understanding and how we see the Black experience as central to American history.
00:56:44 --> 00:56:47 There's an aspirational element to Black History Month.
00:56:47 --> 00:56:55 And for that reason, I spent a lot of time during February talking to not just
00:56:55 --> 00:56:57 to students and audiences,
00:56:57 --> 00:57:03 but to Black people in Black contexts about our history.
00:57:03 --> 00:57:09 Because often, and the worst consequence of the erasure is that it removes or
00:57:09 --> 00:57:15 it prohibits Black people from having an empowering understanding of our history
00:57:15 --> 00:57:18 and our place in not just American history, but in world history.
00:57:19 --> 00:57:25 You know, Black History Month is seeking to try to address all of that amnesia, all of that erasure.
00:57:26 --> 00:57:28 Whether it does it or not is a different thing.
00:57:29 --> 00:57:35 But the reason why we have it as a sacred institution is because of the erasure, right?
00:57:35 --> 00:57:40 And so I believe that anything that we can do to center Black people,
00:57:40 --> 00:57:45 center Black people and the Black experience and talking about America is not
00:57:45 --> 00:57:47 only a good thing, it's transformative.
00:57:48 --> 00:57:53 And it's the transformation that we need. So I hope that answers it.
00:57:53 --> 00:58:00 But that's kind of how I, that's how I that's the place that I teach from okay
00:58:00 --> 00:58:04 so what does the idea of a better world mean to you.
00:58:05 --> 00:58:10 Ubuntu is what a better world means to me.
00:58:10 --> 00:58:19 Ubuntu, if we could get to an Ubuntu, that's U-B-U-N-T-U, an Ubuntu-centered
00:58:19 --> 00:58:25 understanding of ourselves and the world, the world would be a better place.
00:58:25 --> 00:58:29 I try to live my life with great Ubuntu, right?
00:58:29 --> 00:58:33 For me, to live a life of great Ubuntu means to live a life,
00:58:33 --> 00:58:38 not only joy, but to live a life of kindness, of generosity,
00:58:39 --> 00:58:42 of compassion for others, right?
00:58:42 --> 00:58:47 Grounding myself in that ethic, but also extending that ethic to other people
00:58:47 --> 00:58:53 and how I treat them is for me how to lead a life as an individual,
00:58:53 --> 00:58:56 but also if we could do that as a collective, right?
00:58:56 --> 00:59:02 That's what a better world for me looks like. To go deeper with Ubuntu, Ubuntu.
00:59:03 --> 00:59:14 As a word and a concept, means I am because you are, I am only because you are, we are.
00:59:14 --> 00:59:19 And so Ubuntu expresses something deeply profound, right?
00:59:19 --> 00:59:25 That our humanity is interdependent and relational, right?
00:59:25 --> 00:59:29 I can't be human all by myself.
00:59:30 --> 00:59:34 My humanity is bound up, is tied to yours.
00:59:35 --> 00:59:41 And because it is bound up, tied to yours, interwoven with yours,
00:59:41 --> 00:59:48 how I treat you, not only is about who I am, it's about who we are, right?
00:59:48 --> 00:59:51 By denying you respect, I deny myself self-respect.
00:59:52 --> 00:59:56 By denying your humanity, I erode my own, right?
00:59:57 --> 01:00:02 My humanity is deeply intermissed with yours. When we have that conception,
01:00:02 --> 01:00:07 right, of ourselves, I think the world is better, right?
01:00:07 --> 01:00:12 Because that understanding of the world is rooted in a deep compassion.
01:00:12 --> 01:00:18 A compassion that steers us away from violence, away from ignorance,
01:00:18 --> 01:00:23 away from intolerance, and toward deep compassion for each other because we
01:00:23 --> 01:00:30 see ourselves in our lives and our histories as intimately connected and interdependent.
01:00:31 --> 01:00:37 And so for me, trying to see that understanding of the world is what healing
01:00:37 --> 01:00:41 history is all about, is what I sort of talk about, even hell,
01:00:42 --> 01:00:48 I talk a lot of churches preach about is centering
01:00:48 --> 01:00:54 ubuntu in how we engage with each other dialogically and dialogue but also how
01:00:54 --> 01:01:00 we understand our history right as interconnected and interdependent not black
01:01:00 --> 01:01:04 history over there american history over here african history over there no
01:01:04 --> 01:01:06 we have a common origin story,
01:01:06 --> 01:01:14 And so that is, I think, those kinds of perspectives are liberating perspectives,
01:01:15 --> 01:01:20 transformative perspectives that if we can if we can weed them into identities
01:01:20 --> 01:01:25 in our everyday lives, I think they transform how we treat each other. Yeah.
01:01:26 --> 01:01:31 All right. This year marks the 100th year of formally celebrating the history
01:01:31 --> 01:01:33 of African-Americans in the United States.
01:01:33 --> 01:01:38 Why do you think we have been able to perpetuate this tradition?
01:01:39 --> 01:01:48 Well, you know, the reason why we are able to perpetuate this tradition of recalling
01:01:48 --> 01:01:52 and reclaiming our past is because we never lost it.
01:01:52 --> 01:01:57 We never lost our history. Our history has been suppressed.
01:01:57 --> 01:02:02 Our history has been demonized. Our history has been minimized,
01:02:02 --> 01:02:11 but we never lost our sense of identity and not losing a sense of our identity, our history.
01:02:11 --> 01:02:18 You know, to understand Black history and how it survived slavery and not only
01:02:18 --> 01:02:25 survived slavery, thrived under slavery, that becomes the basis for a Black identity today.
01:02:25 --> 01:02:29 What we have to understand about the Black past, the African past,
01:02:29 --> 01:02:31 is that it was an oral past.
01:02:31 --> 01:02:39 It was transmitted, preserved, and perpetuated into the future orally,
01:02:39 --> 01:02:44 and not just orally, through our names, through our traditions,
01:02:44 --> 01:02:47 through our food ways, right?
01:02:47 --> 01:02:54 Our history is encoded in the very experience, in the very day-to-day life,
01:02:54 --> 01:02:59 the mundane day-to-day life of Black people, our history was encoded in the
01:02:59 --> 01:03:01 practices, encoded in the names.
01:03:01 --> 01:03:08 And so we didn't forget those things. Those things survived and thrived in these
01:03:08 --> 01:03:14 Americas and became the basis for not only a common history back in Africa,
01:03:14 --> 01:03:17 but a common experience in America.
01:03:18 --> 01:03:22 And so the history was never lost because it was a part of us.
01:03:22 --> 01:03:24 It was a living, breathing history.
01:03:25 --> 01:03:31 Founding our clothing, founding how we do, you know, how we curate our hair,
01:03:31 --> 01:03:34 like how we tell stories through song.
01:03:34 --> 01:03:36 The history was in the songs.
01:03:37 --> 01:03:40 The history was in the songs, my dear brother.
01:03:41 --> 01:03:48 And so the history was never lost because it was never, it never needed to be on paper, in books.
01:03:49 --> 01:03:55 The books were, we were forbidden from reading, but yet our history survived.
01:03:55 --> 01:03:59 Because it wasn't textual. It was a living history.
01:03:59 --> 01:04:04 And so you had to kill black people to kill the history. You couldn't kill black
01:04:04 --> 01:04:06 people because they were worth too much as enslaved people.
01:04:07 --> 01:04:09 And so the history lived.
01:04:10 --> 01:04:13 And we have Black History Month, not because the history died,
01:04:14 --> 01:04:19 because the history was being suppressed in American education.
01:04:20 --> 01:04:25 Therefore, Carter G. Woodson, black historian I would say the father of black
01:04:25 --> 01:04:29 history to give him his respect,
01:04:29 --> 01:04:37 saw a problem in not our traditions but in American institutions who suppress marginalized,
01:04:38 --> 01:04:44 demonize that history it was in that space that black history has done its work,
01:04:44 --> 01:04:48 not because the history had been forgotten and lost by black people no, no, no, no, no.
01:04:49 --> 01:04:56 No, no, no. And so it's not a miracle to me, right, that we we we have a deep
01:04:56 --> 01:05:02 pride and a deep historical connection to that history because that is the black experience.
01:05:02 --> 01:05:06 Right however yes when
01:05:06 --> 01:05:10 we when it comes to these american institutions we
01:05:10 --> 01:05:16 need a black history month right we are not represented well right in educational
01:05:16 --> 01:05:23 settings especially with the erasure that's happening today and so for me i
01:05:23 --> 01:05:27 understand our history as a living history it lives in our practices,
01:05:27 --> 01:05:29 in our food ways, in our phraseology,
01:05:30 --> 01:05:32 right, in Black vernacular, right?
01:05:33 --> 01:05:37 And that is as vibrant as ever, right?
01:05:37 --> 01:05:42 And if you ever want to understand our history, there's so many portals to the past, right?
01:05:42 --> 01:05:47 Hip-hop is such a portal to our past, right?
01:05:47 --> 01:05:52 If you just understand the hip-hop as
01:05:52 --> 01:05:55 the art form and as a container for our history
01:05:55 --> 01:06:04 it'll never be lost and so for me for for me the the question isn't how we were
01:06:04 --> 01:06:11 how were we able to preserve it the question really is is how has the history
01:06:11 --> 01:06:13 been suppressed so well yeah.
01:06:15 --> 01:06:23 In these American institutions. How did that project become so successful when
01:06:23 --> 01:06:25 you have, you know, again,
01:06:26 --> 01:06:32 the legacy of contributions and significance that Black people have made to
01:06:32 --> 01:06:35 the, you know, if we're just thinking about the American past and not world
01:06:35 --> 01:06:39 history, it's impossible to talk about it.
01:06:39 --> 01:06:46 And so we're really doing a lot of damage, In other words, by conveniently excluding
01:06:46 --> 01:06:48 black people, marginalizing them from the history.
01:06:49 --> 01:06:56 That's a societal, systemic issue in society, but not one that begins or ends
01:06:56 --> 01:07:02 with black people and how black people have remained connected,
01:07:02 --> 01:07:10 deeply connected to their identity and through that identity, their history. Yeah.
01:07:11 --> 01:07:16 So I think you kind of led into this question. Every year, some white people
01:07:16 --> 01:07:20 go into public square and complain about the celebration of Black history.
01:07:21 --> 01:07:25 How do you answer the question, why a Black History Month?
01:07:26 --> 01:07:31 Why a Black History Month? Why are we focusing on Black history?
01:07:31 --> 01:07:34 Why does Black people deserve a month?
01:07:34 --> 01:07:37 I would agree with them. We need a year.
01:07:38 --> 01:07:44 Let's not be mad about a month. Let's get mad about a year devoted to Black
01:07:44 --> 01:07:47 people. That's Annie Young.
01:07:47 --> 01:07:54 But seriously, I think when people are angry,
01:07:54 --> 01:08:03 especially white people are angry about our focus on Black History Month or why those stories,
01:08:03 --> 01:08:11 those narratives are emphasized, I think it's from often from a place of indifference.
01:08:11 --> 01:08:14 Right it's from a place of
01:08:14 --> 01:08:21 not only indifference but indifference rooted in ignorance and sometimes it's
01:08:21 --> 01:08:28 not indifference rooted in ignorance it is true hostility rooted in a real troubled
01:08:28 --> 01:08:34 relationship with the black past a relationship that they may feel guilty about a relationship
01:08:34 --> 01:08:36 that they may feel uneasy about, right?
01:08:37 --> 01:08:42 But there is a reason for that disavowal.
01:08:42 --> 01:08:47 It's not just disavowal because it's rooted to an experience.
01:08:47 --> 01:08:54 It's rooted to a relationship. And one has to confront that relationship, right?
01:08:54 --> 01:08:59 I believe if you want to get to a place where you can appreciate,
01:08:59 --> 01:09:08 where you can acknowledge, where you can see, right, the impact and think about it compassionately.
01:09:09 --> 01:09:14 And so that is the kind of identity work that I do or I try to do.
01:09:15 --> 01:09:20 But I know those ideas, those feelings are rooted in a kind of experience.
01:09:20 --> 01:09:27 And if you grow up in America and you experience American education that that
01:09:27 --> 01:09:34 marginalizes for the most part the black experience in how it educates, you know,
01:09:34 --> 01:09:38 students about American history, you can kind of understand the indifference.
01:09:38 --> 01:09:43 You can kind of understand the hostility because they've never been told that
01:09:43 --> 01:09:47 this is important. These people matter. Their histories matter.
01:09:48 --> 01:09:54 And so when you've never been told that, but then you're bombarded with it, there is resistance.
01:09:55 --> 01:09:57 There is reluctance. There is indifference.
01:09:57 --> 01:10:03 My role as educator, whether you're Black, you're white, you're Indigenous,
01:10:03 --> 01:10:09 or otherwise, is to overcome that indifference, right, through education,
01:10:09 --> 01:10:12 through knowledge, and most importantly.
01:10:13 --> 01:10:18 Understanding why we care about that knowledge and that history of and that
01:10:18 --> 01:10:20 experience of Black people.
01:10:20 --> 01:10:25 Understanding why we care is what is most transformative about education,
01:10:25 --> 01:10:28 not the simple transmittal of knowledge,
01:10:28 --> 01:10:31 the simple transmittal of knowledge to reading and discourse,
01:10:31 --> 01:10:38 but it's in us understanding why we care that transforms indifference to empowerment,
01:10:38 --> 01:10:42 indifference to compassionate and so
01:10:42 --> 01:10:48 for me it's it's ultimately the relationship that white people have to not only
01:10:48 --> 01:10:54 the black past but to the american past and so for me again i teach from this
01:10:54 --> 01:11:00 place that it's not good enough to teach people about black people we have to teach them.
01:11:01 --> 01:11:06 That they have always already have a relationship to the Black past.
01:11:06 --> 01:11:10 The only question is whether you care about it or not, and how do you care about it?
01:11:12 --> 01:11:18 And so those are the profound questions that not just white people have to answer,
01:11:18 --> 01:11:21 Black people, everybody has to answer that question.
01:11:21 --> 01:11:26 If they're going to truly understand what I believe I understand,
01:11:26 --> 01:11:31 is that our histories are intertwined, interconnected,
01:11:32 --> 01:11:37 not separate, not parochial, not nationalistic, right?
01:11:38 --> 01:11:44 Just like our humanity is intertwined and interdependent, our histories are too.
01:11:45 --> 01:11:52 And the recognition of that and activating that, operationalizing that and how we talk about our past,
01:11:52 --> 01:11:55 how we treat each other because we understand the past in
01:11:55 --> 01:11:59 that way is what for me again healing
01:11:59 --> 01:12:02 history is all about right us developing
01:12:02 --> 01:12:08 a compassionate relationship to our many paths but certainly the black path
01:12:08 --> 01:12:14 does that make sense dear brother yes sir henry lewis gates said the thing about
01:12:14 --> 01:12:18 black history is that the truth is so much more complex than anything you can
01:12:18 --> 01:12:21 make up do you agree with that statement.
01:12:22 --> 01:12:25 Whoo! I love Henry Louis Gates.
01:12:25 --> 01:12:33 I know he's not beloved by all, but he does say some really profound and powerful things.
01:12:33 --> 01:12:44 I do think, I do agree that the Black experience gives us more mystery than it does revelations.
01:12:44 --> 01:12:52 I say that not just because Black history and the history of Africa has been
01:12:52 --> 01:12:54 marginalized in Western accounts.
01:12:54 --> 01:13:00 I say that because of the vastness of Black history.
01:13:00 --> 01:13:06 Black history is vast. It encompasses the African past.
01:13:06 --> 01:13:13 And when we think about the Black past and the African past together,
01:13:13 --> 01:13:18 that represents not just the last 500 years of human history,
01:13:18 --> 01:13:23 that represents 7 million years of human history.
01:13:23 --> 01:13:31 When I think about the Black past, I think about it as 7 million years of continuous history.
01:13:33 --> 01:13:38 And the vast majority of that 7 million years, we know very little about.
01:13:38 --> 01:13:48 And so as much as Africa reveals about who we are, we are all out of Africa.
01:13:48 --> 01:13:55 There are so many questions and mysteries that we have not unraveled.
01:13:56 --> 01:14:00 Because of the vastness of that history and the fragmentary nature of how we
01:14:00 --> 01:14:05 know that history through fossil evidence, through genetic evidence,
01:14:05 --> 01:14:08 and in the last 10 years,
01:14:09 --> 01:14:13 invention of writing, right, through textual sources, but fragmentary,
01:14:14 --> 01:14:19 right, the vastness of the African past has revealed a lot, right,
01:14:20 --> 01:14:22 but it's still shrouded in deep mystery.
01:14:23 --> 01:14:29 And so I think of it as a universe that we constantly explore,
01:14:29 --> 01:14:31 but we will never, ever know.
01:14:32 --> 01:14:39 Just like space is the vastness of space, we will continuously explore,
01:14:39 --> 01:14:43 but we will only be able to see the visible universe and understand the visible
01:14:43 --> 01:14:46 universe, not the universe in all its entirety,
01:14:46 --> 01:14:50 not in all of its glory. It's simply too big.
01:14:51 --> 01:14:55 And so I feel the same way about African history and so when Henry Louis Gates
01:14:55 --> 01:15:04 would say that that's where my mind and body go and that for me gives Africa its deepest reverence,
01:15:04 --> 01:15:12 and sacred nature it is so vast we can never know it all but what we do know about it and what I
01:15:12 --> 01:15:21 And what I seize upon is Africa as motherland of humanity and as motherland
01:15:21 --> 01:15:23 of humanity, no matter if you are black,
01:15:23 --> 01:15:29 you're white or otherwise, you have a deep and profound relationship to Africa.
01:15:30 --> 01:15:33 Now, whether you care about that relationship is something different,
01:15:33 --> 01:15:39 but you always already have a relationship with Africa and the African past.
01:15:39 --> 01:15:46 Seven million years of human history. Africa represents the vast majority of
01:15:46 --> 01:15:51 human history, most of which happened on the continent.
01:15:51 --> 01:15:56 Only in the last 100 to 50 years have humans dispersed from Africa and.
01:15:57 --> 01:16:03 And the modern world, if we can say, after the dispersal has only been in the
01:16:03 --> 01:16:07 last 100 years, 7 million years was on the continent.
01:16:08 --> 01:16:14 And so when we think about Africa in that way, if we are indifferent to it,
01:16:15 --> 01:16:16 we are indifferent to ourselves.
01:16:17 --> 01:16:23 If we are hostile to it, we're hostile to ourselves because we are not recognizing
01:16:23 --> 01:16:32 how deeply connected we are to Africa as not just the black people's motherland, all of us.
01:16:32 --> 01:16:38 It's our motherland right that's a profound idea that is not found in American
01:16:38 --> 01:16:42 education but what if it was hmm,
01:16:43 --> 01:16:48 Speaking about American education, the word black was banned from a black history
01:16:48 --> 01:16:51 flyer at an HBCU. Your thoughts?
01:16:53 --> 01:16:58 I don't like it. I'm proud to be black with a capital B.
01:16:59 --> 01:17:04 And I'm never not going to be proud of being black with a capital B,
01:17:04 --> 01:17:09 even with all the complexities of how I think about my identity and its connection
01:17:09 --> 01:17:12 to other people, other communities.
01:17:13 --> 01:17:17 Blackness beyond history is
01:17:17 --> 01:17:20 a lived experience and that
01:17:20 --> 01:17:23 lived experience has been i'm we
01:17:23 --> 01:17:28 are building upon the shoulders of our ancestors they have passed down that
01:17:28 --> 01:17:35 culture to us as an inheritance ubuntu is a part of our inheritance passed down
01:17:35 --> 01:17:42 orally for generations for centuries that has structured the Black experience.
01:17:42 --> 01:17:47 When we talk about lift every voice and sing, that's Ubuntu.
01:17:49 --> 01:17:54 When we say lifting as we climb, that's Ubuntu.
01:17:56 --> 01:18:04 And so that is an experience, a Black experience that I will never,
01:18:04 --> 01:18:10 ever turn against And I don't and I'm never going to be OK with people turning against,
01:18:10 --> 01:18:12 especially black institutions,
01:18:12 --> 01:18:19 right, that have over their history preserved black history and black culture,
01:18:20 --> 01:18:24 projected black history and black culture, uplifted black people.
01:18:24 --> 01:18:25 I can I'm never going to accept.
01:18:26 --> 01:18:34 Them banning black capital b no why how who for what reason,
01:18:36 --> 01:18:38 for what reason you're going
01:18:38 --> 01:18:44 to deny that incest of that cultural inheritance for what for donald trump you're
01:18:44 --> 01:18:49 crazy well speaking about donald trump what signal does it send when the current
01:18:49 --> 01:18:57 administration makes a concerted effort to remove historical artifacts pertaining to African-Americans?
01:18:58 --> 01:19:01 We have to resist. We have to organize and resist.
01:19:01 --> 01:19:07 Our history will not be removed by removing artifacts. Let's be clear about
01:19:07 --> 01:19:09 that. Our history ain't going nowhere.
01:19:10 --> 01:19:16 But in American institutions, you can try to erase it. But our history ain't
01:19:16 --> 01:19:17 going nowhere as long as we here.
01:19:18 --> 01:19:23 Our history is not just preserved in museums and libraries and in books.
01:19:23 --> 01:19:27 It is a part of us and so
01:19:27 --> 01:19:30 you have to get rid of black people to get rid of black history because
01:19:30 --> 01:19:33 we are got we are rooted in it we are
01:19:33 --> 01:19:36 guided by it and we create it
01:19:36 --> 01:19:39 through cultural practices and traditions
01:19:39 --> 01:19:42 it ain't going nowhere i'm not worried about
01:19:42 --> 01:19:45 it like that but what i am worried about
01:19:45 --> 01:19:48 is the damage that removing it from the
01:19:48 --> 01:19:51 smithsonian does right to
01:19:51 --> 01:19:55 to education to students right
01:19:55 --> 01:20:01 the is the kind of historical amnesia it will create and the kind of harm that
01:20:01 --> 01:20:04 it will do in terms of the hostilities and indifference that i talked about
01:20:04 --> 01:20:09 i'm worried about it in that way but not in a way that our history is going
01:20:09 --> 01:20:14 to some kind of some kind of way shrink away and it loses its vitality because
01:20:14 --> 01:20:15 it ain't in the Smithsonian.
01:20:16 --> 01:20:19 It serves a real important role with it being there,
01:20:20 --> 01:20:24 But it's not the end all be all. It's not keeping me up at night because I know
01:20:24 --> 01:20:27 there are black institutions like HBCU.
01:20:27 --> 01:20:31 There are black cultural museums where this history will continue to live.
01:20:31 --> 01:20:36 But more importantly, it's going to live in us. It's going to live in our traditions
01:20:36 --> 01:20:40 and it's going to live and it's going to outlive this country.
01:20:40 --> 01:20:45 It's going to outlive these efforts to ban it, to minimize it,
01:20:45 --> 01:20:54 etc. And so our history is too vast, like I said, it's too vast to suppress it.
01:20:54 --> 01:21:01 You can try to ban it, but a ban cannot erase 7 million years of history.
01:21:02 --> 01:21:05 It just can't. and so when
01:21:05 --> 01:21:08 you come from that place yeah it's it's
01:21:08 --> 01:21:10 alarming but it ain't no way in
01:21:10 --> 01:21:14 the world you can erase the black experience too
01:21:14 --> 01:21:17 central you can't even talk about world history
01:21:17 --> 01:21:20 without black people you can't even
01:21:20 --> 01:21:23 my grandmother would say you can't even fix your mouth to talk
01:21:23 --> 01:21:26 about she said you can't
01:21:26 --> 01:21:29 fix your mouth to talk about me
01:21:29 --> 01:21:32 or to talk about my people like that because
01:21:32 --> 01:21:36 it ain't true and so that's the
01:21:36 --> 01:21:39 deep deep deep faith that i
01:21:39 --> 01:21:46 have in our culture and our traditions and they are under threat but they are
01:21:46 --> 01:21:53 not going anywhere so what more can we do as a community to preserve our heritage
01:21:53 --> 01:21:57 build community build community community.
01:21:58 --> 01:22:03 We have the most amazing historical legacy.
01:22:04 --> 01:22:10 We have the most vast cultural inheritance, African history.
01:22:10 --> 01:22:17 And when I say vast, I truly mean in the most profound way, human beings learned
01:22:17 --> 01:22:21 how to be human on the continent of Africa.
01:22:21 --> 01:22:24 We need to
01:22:24 --> 01:22:33 recognize that deep heritage and build community around it that goes for black
01:22:33 --> 01:22:41 people and all other people right i truly believe this and this is just me going
01:22:41 --> 01:22:43 as deep as i can on this question.
01:22:44 --> 01:22:56 I truly believe if skin color differences have been the basis of modern identities,
01:22:56 --> 01:22:59 you're a white person, you're a black person, you're a brown,
01:22:59 --> 01:23:05 you know, if skin color difference has been the basis of modern identities,
01:23:06 --> 01:23:14 structured society, and its institutions, and we've seen how divisive, how oppressive,
01:23:15 --> 01:23:18 and how much harm that has done.
01:23:19 --> 01:23:31 If we can embrace our shared African origin and truly care about that and let that idea transform us,
01:23:32 --> 01:23:36 we can create a new, liberating, Thank you.
01:23:37 --> 01:23:43 Identity, rooted in what we share, not what makes us different.
01:23:43 --> 01:23:49 But in order for that to happen, we have to free our African mind.
01:23:49 --> 01:23:57 And until we free our African mind, as Black people and all other people,
01:23:57 --> 01:24:04 I think we're stuck in these identities that pit us against each other versus bring us together.
01:24:05 --> 01:24:13 My sincere hope and where I teach from, where I'm at and how I organize is from that place.
01:24:13 --> 01:24:16 It's from that deep, the deepest and stressful place I think I can go.
01:24:17 --> 01:24:20 I believe that idea is not just a good idea.
01:24:20 --> 01:24:29 I believe it's a healing idea. It can heal us in recognizing common humanity
01:24:29 --> 01:24:35 and just how intimately interconnected we are, our shared African origin.
01:24:35 --> 01:24:38 For me, that's a healing history.
01:24:39 --> 01:24:45 And what needs to happen is we need to dialogue about that endlessly.
01:24:46 --> 01:24:49 We need to center it so much that we dialogue about
01:24:49 --> 01:24:52 it endlessly and as a society
01:24:52 --> 01:24:55 come to an understanding about why we care
01:24:55 --> 01:24:58 about that and how because
01:24:58 --> 01:25:02 we care about that that's transformative for how we're going to live together
01:25:02 --> 01:25:09 see it's all about that yeah all right last last question yes sir and i've been
01:25:09 --> 01:25:17 asking all my guests this question this year finish this sentence i have hope because Because...
01:25:18 --> 01:25:19 I'm a humanist.
01:25:23 --> 01:25:27 Hey, I have hope in humanity.
01:25:27 --> 01:25:31 I don't just study humanity. I actually love people.
01:25:32 --> 01:25:38 I truly embrace the idea that a human is a human through other people.
01:25:38 --> 01:25:42 Right. I can't be human all by myself. I can't even have joy all by myself because
01:25:42 --> 01:25:49 I want to share with somebody. And so I have the deepest faith in humanity.
01:25:50 --> 01:25:58 And not in humanity getting it right, but I have the deepest faith in humanity
01:25:58 --> 01:26:03 because of how we are human because of each other.
01:26:03 --> 01:26:10 We have survived and thrived, not because of survival of the fittest,
01:26:10 --> 01:26:12 but it's been the survival of the friendliest.
01:26:12 --> 01:26:15 We have actually helped each other.
01:26:15 --> 01:26:20 Human beings couldn't have survived the rigors of the African continent,
01:26:20 --> 01:26:25 the great Asians in weather, the extreme weather, the hot seasons,
01:26:25 --> 01:26:28 the dry seasons, without cooperation.
01:26:28 --> 01:26:37 To be human is to profoundly depend on others and because you depend on others you cooperate and,
01:26:38 --> 01:26:42 And so that is what roots my humanism.
01:26:42 --> 01:26:48 Why I have a deep love for humanity because I know at our at our core,
01:26:48 --> 01:26:52 we are human because we cooperated with each other and we survived.
01:26:52 --> 01:26:55 And we were able to because we survived we
01:26:55 --> 01:27:03 were able to thrive when we figured out how to work together that didn't mean
01:27:03 --> 01:27:07 that we worked all the way together there's slavery there's oppression there's
01:27:07 --> 01:27:13 all kinds of things but that's not why we survived that's how we began to oppress.
01:27:14 --> 01:27:19 And so when we think about the long durée of of of of world history african
01:27:19 --> 01:27:23 history we survived because we cooperated with each other.
01:27:24 --> 01:27:35 And so at my core, I believe that people cooperate versus structure or prefer
01:27:35 --> 01:27:37 to be in conflict with people.
01:27:38 --> 01:27:44 And because of that, I love people on their worst day and I love people on their
01:27:44 --> 01:27:51 best day. And so my profound hope is in people, not in technology.
01:27:51 --> 01:27:54 Some people think technology is the driving force of history.
01:27:54 --> 01:27:59 I believe compassion is the driving force of history, not technology.
01:28:00 --> 01:28:05 And so these are fundamentally humanness values, right?
01:28:06 --> 01:28:12 Believing in people, right? Loving people, believing in us on our worst day.
01:28:13 --> 01:28:16 Loving people when we ascend Mount Kimlemanjaro.
01:28:17 --> 01:28:24 That's great. But even when we engage in horrific acts,
01:28:24 --> 01:28:30 trying to find compassion so that we can transform that relationship,
01:28:30 --> 01:28:33 is what, for me, it is all about.
01:28:34 --> 01:28:39 And so I'm hopeful in humans. That's why I'm a Black humanist.
01:28:39 --> 01:28:45 And I believe, and Ubuntu, to go back to Ubuntu, is for me the greatest expression
01:28:45 --> 01:28:49 of humanism, that tradition, that thought tradition.
01:28:50 --> 01:28:53 Ubuntu is the root of it, but it's also the greatest expression of it.
01:28:54 --> 01:28:57 And so that's, for me, why I keep that centered.
01:28:57 --> 01:29:03 It's not just a talking point. It's truly how to live life in a line with our
01:29:03 --> 01:29:07 ancestral heritage Does that make sense?
01:29:07 --> 01:29:11 Yes, sir. That makes a whole lot of sense. Dr. Karlos K. Hill, How can people
01:29:11 --> 01:29:14 reach out to you if they want to want to get some more of this wisdom?
01:29:16 --> 01:29:20 Dear brother Erik, you know, it's easy to find me. You just got to email me
01:29:20 --> 01:29:26 at Karlos. You can actually go to my website, karloskhill.com.
01:29:27 --> 01:29:33 And from there, you can very easily send me an email and or connect with American
01:29:33 --> 01:29:41 Program Bureau who represents me and organizes lectures and workshops that I do.
01:29:41 --> 01:29:46 I mean, so either my website or American Program Bureau, go on their website.
01:29:46 --> 01:29:52 You can find me there or just email me at carlos.hill at ou.edu.
01:29:52 --> 01:29:57 I answer all emails. So if you email me, I will respond.
01:29:57 --> 01:30:02 It may take a month, but I will get back to you. But no, I'm easy to find.
01:30:03 --> 01:30:06 And I'm a community engaged black studies historian.
01:30:06 --> 01:30:12 Right. So it's not an it's not a inconvenience for me. It's actually the work for me.
01:30:12 --> 01:30:17 And so engaging with people that that don't encounter me in the classroom,
01:30:17 --> 01:30:22 engaging them wherever they are is what for me, community engaged really means.
01:30:22 --> 01:30:30 Well, Brother Karlos, you know, considering the significance of this year being
01:30:30 --> 01:30:35 a hundredth year of commemorating and celebrating Black history,
01:30:35 --> 01:30:42 I am so glad I was able to lock you in and to have you come and talk about this.
01:30:43 --> 01:30:48 You know, I don't think I could have found a better person or a more articulate
01:30:48 --> 01:30:56 person to break down the significance of this month, what it means to us and
01:30:56 --> 01:30:58 what it's meant to us for this last century.
01:30:58 --> 01:31:03 So thank you so much, man. And I apologize for all the technical stuff.
01:31:04 --> 01:31:07 It was me. It was me still, brother.
01:31:08 --> 01:31:13 But I'm glad we got through it, man. So thank you so much. I appreciate you.
01:31:13 --> 01:31:17 Much, much success on the on the current academic year, too.
01:31:18 --> 01:31:23 Absolutely. Thank you so much. And I think you and your questions bring out
01:31:23 --> 01:31:26 the best of me. They are profound questions.
01:31:26 --> 01:31:30 You have a profound voice and sharing with the community.
01:31:30 --> 01:31:36 So every time you you invite me, I get excited and I want to share as deeply
01:31:36 --> 01:31:41 and as compellingly as I can, because I know you have an audience of people
01:31:41 --> 01:31:44 who really value your perspective.
01:31:44 --> 01:31:50 So, again, thank you. And I look forward, dear brother, for us to come back together.
01:31:50 --> 01:31:53 Hopefully it's not, you know, a year from now. Maybe it's, you know,
01:31:53 --> 01:31:56 in a few months we can chat again.
01:31:56 --> 01:31:59 But maybe around Juneteenth. Let's do a Juneteenth talk.
01:32:00 --> 01:32:01 Let's talk during Juneteenth time.
01:32:02 --> 01:32:06 All right. All right. We'll, I'm going to get you in. I'm going to get you in.
01:32:06 --> 01:32:09 I got some folks lined up, but I'm going to get you in there.
01:32:09 --> 01:32:17 All right all right we'll make it a gala okay hey i appreciate you brother thank
01:32:17 --> 01:32:20 you so much for having me all right guys we're gonna catch y'all on the other side.
01:32:32 --> 01:32:37 All right. And we are back. So let me thank Dr. Decoteau Irby,
01:32:37 --> 01:32:40 Dr. Ann Ishimaru, and Dr.
01:32:40 --> 01:32:43 Karlos K. Hill for coming on the program.
01:32:43 --> 01:32:48 It's pretty cool to have all those smart people be guests on the podcast.
01:32:49 --> 01:32:55 And I greatly appreciate all the work that they are doing to educate our young
01:32:55 --> 01:32:58 folks, right, our future leaders.
01:32:58 --> 01:33:04 For Dr. Irby and Dr. Ishimaru, please get their book, Doing the Work of Equity
01:33:04 --> 01:33:06 Leadership for Justice and Systems.
01:33:07 --> 01:33:14 This was nearly a decade in the making and it's really, really a positive book
01:33:14 --> 01:33:19 in the sense that even though it highlights some struggles and challenges.
01:33:20 --> 01:33:26 It's important to know that there are people that have dedicated their lives
01:33:26 --> 01:33:30 to make sure that our students are in safe spaces,
01:33:30 --> 01:33:36 that they are comfortable in their learning environments.
01:33:37 --> 01:33:44 And I only expect great things to come from the research that Dr.
01:33:44 --> 01:33:50 Irby and Dr. Ishimaru have put in. And for Dr.
01:33:50 --> 01:33:53 Karlos Hill, this is his second time on the podcast.
01:33:53 --> 01:34:02 And like I told him, his thoughtfulness and his enthusiasm and his passion, I think,
01:34:02 --> 01:34:09 really encapsulates why it's important for us to celebrate Black History Month.
01:34:09 --> 01:34:14 And especially since we have been celebrating it now for a hundred years in this country.
01:34:15 --> 01:34:23 I just really, really am grateful that he was able to carve out some time to make this happen.
01:34:23 --> 01:34:31 Again, I apologize for the technical difficulties that we had to put this together.
01:34:31 --> 01:34:33 You know, them gremlins be out there.
01:34:34 --> 01:34:39 And especially, I was just thinking, Oh, yeah, they trying to,
01:34:39 --> 01:34:46 they doing their best, you know, and it, yeah, technology's not supposed to be neutral and all that.
01:34:46 --> 01:34:50 But sometimes I just feel there's some interviews that's harder to record than others.
01:34:51 --> 01:34:57 But we pushed through it and hopefully that you were able to get the gist of
01:34:57 --> 01:35:04 what we talked about in the interview because it was very, very profound what Dr.
01:35:04 --> 01:35:13 Hill said. But especially in this contrarian era that we are in, right?
01:35:14 --> 01:35:17 Because, you know, some people say counterculture and all that stuff,
01:35:17 --> 01:35:19 but this is just being contrarian.
01:35:20 --> 01:35:22 And there are some people, there are some black people.
01:35:23 --> 01:35:29 Who, when I watch what they post and their political commentary.
01:35:30 --> 01:35:36 That's the first word that comes to my mind. They're just not happy with anything.
01:35:37 --> 01:35:46 Anything, you know, it's one thing to be upset about the politics that are out there,
01:35:47 --> 01:35:51 but it's a whole other thing to just be upset about everything,
01:35:51 --> 01:35:54 thing, even the progressive stuff, even the good things.
01:35:55 --> 01:35:57 It's just always finding fault.
01:35:57 --> 01:36:05 There's this one sister, I mean, my God, you know, I don't even know if she
01:36:05 --> 01:36:08 would support Jesus if he can.
01:36:08 --> 01:36:11 I mean, that's how contrarian she is.
01:36:12 --> 01:36:17 I follow her just to see to what level she can go, right,
01:36:17 --> 01:36:23 you know but you know but just like a broken clock you know at least twice a
01:36:23 --> 01:36:27 day it's gonna give you the correct time so you know,
01:36:29 --> 01:36:32 And you try to support people, especially your own people.
01:36:33 --> 01:36:39 But I just, you know, some days I just be like, really? That's what you got out of all of that?
01:36:40 --> 01:36:48 Or are you that narrow-minded, right, that you can't just accept a win?
01:36:49 --> 01:36:56 You know? And we've had to navigate that as black people throughout, right?
01:36:56 --> 01:36:59 You know she's not
01:36:59 --> 01:37:02 what people would describe as a sellout she's
01:37:02 --> 01:37:07 not a sellout by any means she's she's pro-black but it just seemed like she
01:37:07 --> 01:37:14 ain't never gonna be happy or maybe she is happy just being contrary I don't
01:37:14 --> 01:37:19 know you know I don't understand the mindset of those folks,
01:37:20 --> 01:37:22 And, you know,
01:37:22 --> 01:37:25 maybe I'm not black enough to understand that.
01:37:25 --> 01:37:29 I don't know. But I don't really like contrarian people anyway,
01:37:29 --> 01:37:33 because they always cause problems.
01:37:35 --> 01:37:42 And, you know, we are quickly, you know, people talk about being an authoritarian
01:37:42 --> 01:37:47 society and, you know, the end of democracy and all that.
01:37:47 --> 01:37:57 But what leads to that is being contrary, just being angry and dissident about everything.
01:37:58 --> 01:38:05 You know, they accuse black folks of that. But one of the good things about
01:38:05 --> 01:38:13 Black History Month is that it reminds the nation that we are far from contrary as a people.
01:38:14 --> 01:38:24 We are the conscience of America. We are the epitome of what the American ideal is, right?
01:38:25 --> 01:38:31 For a group of people to be enslaved, to have one of their descendants become
01:38:31 --> 01:38:34 president of the United States, right?
01:38:35 --> 01:38:41 And the first lady, you know? I think it's just, you know, it's amazing.
01:38:41 --> 01:38:46 You know, people say, well, you know, his folks are mixed. Whatever, man.
01:38:47 --> 01:38:53 You know what I'm saying? It's like to see one of us in the White House. That was a major moment.
01:38:54 --> 01:39:00 You can deny it if you want to. You can Monday morning quarterback about how effective it was.
01:39:00 --> 01:39:02 But my child got to see that.
01:39:03 --> 01:39:07 And, you know, and I was in the middle of all that. I was running for office
01:39:07 --> 01:39:09 myself during that time.
01:39:11 --> 01:39:16 So, yeah, there's nothing you can say to dissuade me about the positive impact
01:39:16 --> 01:39:22 of that and how it shows how persistent,
01:39:22 --> 01:39:27 despite the contrary attitude of America,
01:39:28 --> 01:39:32 that we have succeeded, right?
01:39:33 --> 01:39:39 But this contrarianism leads to authoritarianism.
01:39:41 --> 01:39:49 And it was in total display over the last week, you know, with the Super Bowl.
01:39:50 --> 01:39:58 And you had this guy come on who is literally the most popular musical artist
01:39:58 --> 01:40:00 in the world right this minute.
01:40:01 --> 01:40:04 Agree to do the halftime show at the Super Bowl.
01:40:04 --> 01:40:10 And all these contrarians kept talking about, well, he is not in English and,
01:40:11 --> 01:40:13 oh, it's not American and blah, blah.
01:40:13 --> 01:40:20 You know, this dude is more American than you are because he believes in hope. He believes in love.
01:40:21 --> 01:40:24 And Puerto Rico is a part of the United States.
01:40:24 --> 01:40:31 I don't know if they want to be, you know, if you understand the history.
01:40:32 --> 01:40:35 You know, we took them over, I guess, during the Spanish-American War,
01:40:36 --> 01:40:38 you know, as far as colonizing them.
01:40:38 --> 01:40:44 And, you know, there's a sector of them that have been pushing for independence,
01:40:44 --> 01:40:46 even violently, right? I grew up in Chicago.
01:40:46 --> 01:40:53 So if you understand Chicago history, you understand how the quest for Puerto
01:40:53 --> 01:40:56 Rican independence impacted our city, right?
01:40:57 --> 01:41:00 So, you know, it was a beautiful show
01:41:00 --> 01:41:05 and even if you're not fluent in spanish you
01:41:05 --> 01:41:08 got the gist of it the visual and
01:41:08 --> 01:41:11 you know he was very sensitive about that the only thing i was disappointed about
01:41:11 --> 01:41:14 the show was that i saw
01:41:14 --> 01:41:18 that people were the grass and
01:41:18 --> 01:41:22 i was just saying oh if the grass dances this would be the greatest show ever
01:41:22 --> 01:41:27 but the grass didn't dance but there was some symbolism behind that as far as
01:41:27 --> 01:41:38 how the natives or the inhabitants of Puerto Rico would hide from their oppressors in that grass.
01:41:38 --> 01:41:42 So it was like, okay, I get it, right?
01:41:43 --> 01:41:47 And, you know, there's that symbolism about grassroots, right?
01:41:48 --> 01:41:53 So, but the contrarians wanted to do their own Super Bowl show.
01:41:53 --> 01:42:00 And it was terrible from all aspects, from the talent that they put together
01:42:00 --> 01:42:04 to just, it just wasn't even a comparison.
01:42:04 --> 01:42:10 Listen, the only thing that would make anybody that's contrary and happy is
01:42:10 --> 01:42:16 that they got to see a lot of red, white and blue and people performed in English.
01:42:17 --> 01:42:25 That's it. I mean, the quality, the songs, the, you know, and to give Kid Rock
01:42:25 --> 01:42:29 his respect, you know, he had one hit song.
01:42:30 --> 01:42:37 So, you know, for those who like that song, it was good that he performed that, but...
01:42:38 --> 01:42:48 Outside of that, you know, it was almost like Star Search that nobody got disqualified from, right?
01:42:48 --> 01:42:51 Or Showtime at Apollo and the Sandman didn't come with the hook.
01:42:51 --> 01:42:53 That's the only difference, right?
01:42:55 --> 01:43:00 So it is what it is. I mean, I don't want to disparage artists,
01:43:00 --> 01:43:08 but if you sign up for that, you don't really give a damn about me or anybody else.
01:43:08 --> 01:43:11 So if I hurt your feelings, so be it, right?
01:43:12 --> 01:43:20 But, you know, all this contrarian behavior leads to dysfunction,
01:43:20 --> 01:43:27 and it leads to incompetence, and it leads to buffoonery, right?
01:43:27 --> 01:43:34 And there was no greater example of that than when the so-called attorney general
01:43:34 --> 01:43:36 of the United States of America,
01:43:36 --> 01:43:44 Pam Bondi, who I don't know how y'all view people, but I'm older than Pam.
01:43:45 --> 01:43:47 And, you know.
01:43:48 --> 01:43:55 I don't know. I mean, but I guess when you are oppressed, when you're under a lot of stress,
01:43:56 --> 01:44:03 you know, your whole complexion, your whole demeanor, your physical presence changes.
01:44:05 --> 01:44:12 And if you're not in good spirit, because being contrarian truly means that
01:44:12 --> 01:44:14 you don't have a good spirit.
01:44:14 --> 01:44:18 And there's something that's troubling you to the point where you can't see
01:44:18 --> 01:44:26 joy or you can't conduct yourself in a manner with composure and dignity. Right.
01:44:27 --> 01:44:34 And I mean, I don't know. You know, I, you know, some people say,
01:44:34 --> 01:44:36 well, you're talking about how she looks.
01:44:36 --> 01:44:42 It was like, look at all of them. Look at all of the three gentlemen that represented
01:44:42 --> 01:44:45 ICE and the Border Patrol.
01:44:45 --> 01:44:47 They have aged considerably.
01:44:48 --> 01:44:53 And I know at least two of those guys are younger than me. Right.
01:44:54 --> 01:45:00 Maybe all three of them. You know, if they're not younger, they're about my age.
01:45:01 --> 01:45:09 I think they're all younger than me, and they look like they just came out of
01:45:09 --> 01:45:12 serving in both the Korean, the Vietnam,
01:45:12 --> 01:45:17 and even the Afghanistan war, like right off the battlefield.
01:45:17 --> 01:45:23 Like they've just aged that much because they're dealing with being,
01:45:23 --> 01:45:30 I think the phrase is out of their skis or over their skis, whatever, right?
01:45:31 --> 01:45:37 They're playing at a level above their pay grade or their skill set. And that's stress.
01:45:38 --> 01:45:44 But contrarianism leads to incompetence, leads to dysfunction,
01:45:45 --> 01:45:50 leads to mismanagement, just everything, right?
01:45:50 --> 01:45:56 Because if you're not in a good place mentally, you're not going to do good
01:45:56 --> 01:45:57 things. You're just not.
01:45:59 --> 01:46:02 And, but Pam, getting back to plan bonding,
01:46:03 --> 01:46:09 the foolishness of that, and I know everybody has talked about it all week and all this stuff,
01:46:10 --> 01:46:17 you know, but as somebody that has actually participated in a hearing to ask
01:46:17 --> 01:46:19 people questions, to hear testimony,
01:46:20 --> 01:46:27 to try to get a better understanding of legislation or how a particular agency
01:46:27 --> 01:46:30 works, why should we do this, why we shouldn't do this,
01:46:30 --> 01:46:35 having been a witness at a hearing, you know,
01:46:36 --> 01:46:45 given written testimony, oral testimony, it was literally the worst display
01:46:45 --> 01:46:51 I have ever seen of a government official addressing Congress.
01:46:52 --> 01:46:56 And it doesn't matter what your political affiliation is.
01:46:57 --> 01:47:03 That should not be acceptable. Now, I understand that people are trying to disbar her in Florida.
01:47:04 --> 01:47:09 And the only reason why that hasn't happened is because the bar has said,
01:47:09 --> 01:47:13 we try not to do that when people are in positions.
01:47:14 --> 01:47:22 And maybe that's why Florida has decided that they're not going to be a part of the ABA.
01:47:22 --> 01:47:28 The American Bar Association anymore, because I'm sure the American Bar Association
01:47:28 --> 01:47:33 is kind of like, yeah, I don't see a problem with you getting rid of this person,
01:47:33 --> 01:47:35 even if they are the attorney general.
01:47:35 --> 01:47:37 I don't see why they shouldn't be disbarred.
01:47:39 --> 01:47:45 Basically, the way they're acting in that position is the reason why they should be disbarred, right?
01:47:45 --> 01:47:50 Because, you know, I've never heard of that in any other state.
01:47:50 --> 01:47:56 And maybe that's why Texas did the same thing as far as any of their affiliation with the ABA.
01:47:57 --> 01:48:03 But, you know, because I'm sure there's been complaints about Ken Paxton.
01:48:03 --> 01:48:06 I don't even know if Greg Abbott is an attorney. Well, yeah, he's an attorney.
01:48:07 --> 01:48:11 I'm sure there was, there's been some bar complaints about him, right?
01:48:12 --> 01:48:16 You know, if it haven't been in complaints, it should be.
01:48:18 --> 01:48:25 Right? Because the whole purpose of being and practicing law is,
01:48:25 --> 01:48:28 above all else, upholding it, right?
01:48:30 --> 01:48:35 Even the people that defend folks that have been accused of crimes,
01:48:35 --> 01:48:37 they are upholding the law.
01:48:37 --> 01:48:43 They are upholding the Constitution because they're providing counsel for the defense, right?
01:48:44 --> 01:48:51 So there's a standard that is applied to people that are in that profession,
01:48:51 --> 01:48:55 that are in that practice, just like any other profession.
01:48:56 --> 01:49:04 If a doctor yelled at other doctors while they're performing surgery the way
01:49:04 --> 01:49:07 that Pam Bondi did, probably would lose his license.
01:49:08 --> 01:49:13 If a teacher yelled at students the way that Pam Bondi did, probably would not
01:49:13 --> 01:49:14 be in a classroom much longer.
01:49:15 --> 01:49:23 Hell, we've seen coaches get fired at all levels based on the way that they
01:49:23 --> 01:49:26 communicated with their players.
01:49:26 --> 01:49:34 Right? There's a line. There's a level of professionalism that you have to have.
01:49:34 --> 01:49:41 And to be in a culture where you think that acting that way is cool,
01:49:41 --> 01:49:47 because she had this smirk on her face, just like Scott Jennings has this smirk on his face on CNN.
01:49:47 --> 01:49:56 And that contrarian confidence, which is the ultimate oxymoron, right?
01:49:58 --> 01:50:01 You know, that, oh, I got those liberals, right?
01:50:01 --> 01:50:06 I got those folks that don't agree with our position. I showed them.
01:50:07 --> 01:50:12 You showed how much of an ass you were. That's all you did. That's all you did.
01:50:14 --> 01:50:20 And it was an embarrassment. Even to the people that you pissed off,
01:50:20 --> 01:50:24 they were embarrassed that it got to that point.
01:50:24 --> 01:50:32 You're sitting up here talking about the Dow Jones Index and the S&P,
01:50:33 --> 01:50:41 and the whole purpose of the hearing was to determine what are you doing to
01:50:41 --> 01:50:48 help the survivors of the worst sex trafficking ring in world history, right? Right.
01:50:48 --> 01:50:54 We're trying to find out what have you found out about this guy Epstein, who's no longer with us,
01:50:55 --> 01:51:02 you know, how he became a multimillionaire off of trafficking young women and
01:51:02 --> 01:51:10 who all was involved, who all needs to take accountability for that. Right.
01:51:11 --> 01:51:15 Because some people are catching it now.
01:51:15 --> 01:51:19 You know, some young woman just retired from a law firm because she was given
01:51:19 --> 01:51:22 Epstein legal advice without the firm's knowledge.
01:51:23 --> 01:51:28 So she's gone. A guy who used to be an economic advisor to a president.
01:51:29 --> 01:51:33 It's basically gone into hiding, gave up his position at an Ivy League school.
01:51:34 --> 01:51:40 Because of his connection, we've got people in the cabinet, next door neighbors,
01:51:41 --> 01:51:48 bought a house from Epstein after he was convicted in 2008 for doing the same thing.
01:51:49 --> 01:51:51 Prostitution of a child.
01:51:52 --> 01:51:58 And all these members of Congress were trying to do was to find out where you had in the case.
01:51:59 --> 01:52:03 They wanted to know about the Dow Jones and his impact. That's what Secretary
01:52:03 --> 01:52:06 Besson is for. He's the treasury guy.
01:52:06 --> 01:52:12 They could have got Epstein's neighbor, Lutnik, to come in, the commerce guy.
01:52:12 --> 01:52:14 But he made his money off the stock.
01:52:15 --> 01:52:19 Let's ask him about the importance of the stock market. They're not asking the
01:52:19 --> 01:52:22 attorney general of the United States about the stock market.
01:52:23 --> 01:52:27 Nobody's there to talk about that. There are women in the audience that were
01:52:27 --> 01:52:30 victims or survivors of,
01:52:31 --> 01:52:36 want to hear what you're doing to help them. And, you know, you said,
01:52:36 --> 01:52:40 well, you didn't ask that about the previous attorney general.
01:52:40 --> 01:52:43 You didn't ask the attorney general before that, the attorney general before that.
01:52:45 --> 01:52:51 No, I guess they didn't. Because for some reason, I think people thought it
01:52:51 --> 01:52:53 was kind of handled after 2008.
01:52:54 --> 01:52:57 And now we're realizing that it got worse.
01:52:58 --> 01:53:03 So, you know, it's Like one survivor said, you know, we've been looking for justice for 30 years.
01:53:04 --> 01:53:11 So, yeah, there's a lot of attorney generals that have been there in the last
01:53:11 --> 01:53:13 30 years. But guess what?
01:53:13 --> 01:53:21 You're the attorney general right now. So it doesn't matter about the other folks what you do.
01:53:21 --> 01:53:26 The ball is in your court. So if that's something you can't handle,
01:53:27 --> 01:53:31 then maybe you should step aside and let somebody that can't handle it, handle it.
01:53:32 --> 01:53:37 But in this contrarian environment we're in, her foolishness,
01:53:37 --> 01:53:44 her buffoonery, her brazen disrespect is OK.
01:53:44 --> 01:53:51 And that should be a problem for all of us. Right now, if you're cynical about
01:53:51 --> 01:53:53 stuff, well, they're not going to get anything done.
01:53:53 --> 01:54:01 Well, you know, I mean, it's hard to argue when stuff hadn't been done in 30 years. I get that.
01:54:03 --> 01:54:08 But it's not acceptable to be contrarian and just act a fool when people ask you questions about it.
01:54:09 --> 01:54:13 You know, that's not owning anything. And like I've said before,
01:54:13 --> 01:54:16 slavery is over with. So we don't own human beings.
01:54:17 --> 01:54:23 Don't. You can have your opinion. I can disagree with it. Keep it moving.
01:54:24 --> 01:54:30 But it's like, you know, you just basically said, look, we're doing the best we can.
01:54:31 --> 01:54:35 Apologize that it's not going as fast as some of y'all want.
01:54:35 --> 01:54:43 I apologize that the survivors are not feeling that they're not getting the justice they deserve,
01:54:43 --> 01:54:51 but we're doing the best we can to finally put some closure on this and to hold people accountable.
01:54:52 --> 01:54:56 If she had just repeated that every time somebody asked her a question,
01:54:56 --> 01:55:01 that would have been more acceptable than her trying to literally have a book
01:55:01 --> 01:55:08 that supposedly had got you moments for each member of Congress that she or
01:55:08 --> 01:55:09 the president doesn't like.
01:55:09 --> 01:55:14 And then we find out in the book that the Congress,
01:55:14 --> 01:55:18 members of Congress that went to actually look at the unredacted files,
01:55:19 --> 01:55:27 she actually had a page or a book that broke down what files they pulled up.
01:55:28 --> 01:55:35 So we're being nosy. That's what surveillance is. We're being nosy.
01:55:36 --> 01:55:39 I want to see what this representative looked at. I want to see what this.
01:55:40 --> 01:55:44 What does it matter? You opened it up so that they could look at all of them.
01:55:44 --> 01:55:46 You put out 3 million pages.
01:55:47 --> 01:55:51 So you want to see, are you trying to see which ones are popular,
01:55:51 --> 01:55:54 which ones are not? Right?
01:55:54 --> 01:56:01 I am sure that if a member of Congress read something in the files that they
01:56:01 --> 01:56:05 want further questions about, they know how to get in contact with you.
01:56:05 --> 01:56:08 How do I know that? Because they put out a book.
01:56:09 --> 01:56:12 It's a congressional directory. It's a huge book.
01:56:12 --> 01:56:20 And it's got the phone numbers, direct phone numbers of every person in government.
01:56:21 --> 01:56:28 It's got the direct number to the attorney general. If they wanted to contact you, they'll call you.
01:56:28 --> 01:56:36 You ain't got to spy on them to figure out what they're looking at. That's crazy, right?
01:56:37 --> 01:56:46 But, you know, that was all like, I guess, to, you know, embarrass them. I don't know.
01:56:46 --> 01:56:53 All I know is that contrarian behavior is not going to move this country forward.
01:56:54 --> 01:56:57 Foolishness is not going to move this country forward. Pettiness is not going
01:56:57 --> 01:56:58 to move this country forward.
01:56:59 --> 01:57:02 Revenge is not going to move this country forward.
01:57:04 --> 01:57:07 If that was the case, then Martin Luther King would be known as revolutionary.
01:57:08 --> 01:57:14 Malcolm X actually would have been shooting people, right? That's not how this works.
01:57:16 --> 01:57:22 We are here to express ideals and to build on hope, not despair,
01:57:23 --> 01:57:30 not to play on fear, not to play to dozens. We're grown folks.
01:57:30 --> 01:57:34 That's that's not how we function effectively.
01:57:35 --> 01:57:40 Our job is to do our job and do it to the best of our ability.
01:57:40 --> 01:57:45 That's why you take an oath before you start working on the job,
01:57:45 --> 01:57:49 because you are making a verbal commitment that you're going to do the best
01:57:49 --> 01:57:53 that you can do within the confines of the Constitution of the United States
01:57:53 --> 01:57:56 and the laws thereof, period.
01:57:57 --> 01:58:03 If you cannot do that job, step aside and let somebody who is capable step in.
01:58:04 --> 01:58:08 Yeah, there's a lot of power and prestige and the title sounds awesome,
01:58:08 --> 01:58:12 but it ain't about the glitz and the glamour. It's about the work.
01:58:13 --> 01:58:16 And if you're unwilling to do the work, that's just not for Ms.
01:58:16 --> 01:58:20 Bundy. That's for everybody that's in the cabinet. That's for the president himself.
01:58:21 --> 01:58:27 If you're not willing to do the work, step aside and let somebody else do the
01:58:27 --> 01:58:33 work that's capable of doing it, that has the professionalism to do it,
01:58:33 --> 01:58:35 that has the temperament to do it.
01:58:36 --> 01:58:42 If you are triggered because somebody asked you as the Attorney General of the
01:58:42 --> 01:58:50 United States to look at the survivors of the worst sex trafficking ring in
01:58:50 --> 01:58:51 the history of the world,
01:58:52 --> 01:58:55 that triggers you. This is not the job for you.
01:58:56 --> 01:59:02 You've been an Attorney General for a state. You've been a prosecutor You have
01:59:02 --> 01:59:08 dealt with victims and survivors You have dealt with criminals Right?
01:59:09 --> 01:59:11 What's different than this?
01:59:13 --> 01:59:20 The magnitude of it, the people that might be involved, it is what it is.
01:59:20 --> 01:59:24 If you can't handle it, step aside.
01:59:24 --> 01:59:29 And if you're offended by what I say, so be it.
01:59:31 --> 01:59:35 I've been in situations where they asked me to resign, right?
01:59:36 --> 01:59:41 I've made mistakes being an elected official, but I was accountable for it.
01:59:42 --> 01:59:47 And for nine years, I served. And when the people decided it's time for Mr.
01:59:47 --> 01:59:49 Fleming to go to the House, they sent me home.
01:59:49 --> 01:59:54 When I asked to be a United States senator, the majority of people decided to
01:59:54 --> 01:59:57 keep the guy they had. It is what it is.
01:59:57 --> 02:00:03 I'm not mad about that. I'm disappointed. Yeah, I was disappointed then.
02:00:04 --> 02:00:09 I'm a little disappointed now. But that doesn't make me a contrarian.
02:00:09 --> 02:00:17 That didn't create this mindset in me that I'm just going to destroy the system
02:00:17 --> 02:00:23 because I can't get what I want, which is exactly what's going on with this administration.
02:00:24 --> 02:00:31 They are systematically destroying the very institution that it took 250 years to build.
02:00:31 --> 02:00:36 We are celebrating 250 years of being a country, and we have an administration
02:00:36 --> 02:00:39 that's trying to destroy all of that.
02:00:39 --> 02:00:42 For whatever personal petty reason they've got.
02:00:44 --> 02:00:48 A man who did something that only one other human being has done.
02:00:49 --> 02:00:54 Run for president, win the presidency, lose the next election,
02:00:54 --> 02:00:57 come back the following election, and win.
02:00:57 --> 02:00:59 Only one other human being has done that.
02:01:00 --> 02:01:04 And Grover Cleveland didn't go around, at least not from any accounts I've seen,
02:01:04 --> 02:01:06 saying, well, you know, I won the other election.
02:01:07 --> 02:01:14 You know, they stole it from me. And that was at a time where he could have served multiple terms.
02:01:15 --> 02:01:21 He could have served three terms in a row, but he served one term,
02:01:21 --> 02:01:26 lost the election, came back the following election, and won.
02:01:26 --> 02:01:33 But now this president can't go over the fact that the people rejected him, right?
02:01:33 --> 02:01:39 He can't go over the fact that nearly 60% of the population can't stand him now.
02:01:39 --> 02:01:46 After he won the election, literally a year after he won.
02:01:46 --> 02:01:52 Now everybody's like buyer's remorse because you're not doing the job.
02:01:52 --> 02:01:55 You're not doing what you said you were going to do.
02:01:55 --> 02:02:02 Well, outside of the crazy mass deportation thing, and that's only because you
02:02:02 --> 02:02:05 got a zealot like Stephen Miller in your ear pushing it.
02:02:05 --> 02:02:10 That's it. Because if you had competent people running it, you could probably
02:02:10 --> 02:02:16 pull that off without killing people in Minnesota or shooting people in Chicago
02:02:16 --> 02:02:20 or dropping helicopters in Chicago, right?
02:02:21 --> 02:02:25 Repelling from helicopters and arresting children.
02:02:26 --> 02:02:30 Be staging military maneuvers in a park in downtown Los Angeles.
02:02:31 --> 02:02:38 You do the job. I've had a border patrol agent who wrote a book about the horrors
02:02:38 --> 02:02:47 and the struggles that they have dealing with the cartels and smuggling people across the border.
02:02:47 --> 02:02:50 We know it's not an easy job.
02:02:51 --> 02:02:55 And so what you got to do on the border, on the southern border of the United
02:02:55 --> 02:03:00 States to deal with that, you really have the latitude to do that.
02:03:01 --> 02:03:04 Nobody's really arguing with you about it, especially those of us that have
02:03:04 --> 02:03:06 a law enforcement background. We get it.
02:03:07 --> 02:03:09 But you can't do that in Chicago.
02:03:09 --> 02:03:13 You can't do that in Minneapolis. You can't do that in New York.
02:03:13 --> 02:03:15 You can't do that in Los Angeles.
02:03:15 --> 02:03:18 You can't even do that in Jackson, Mississippi. You can't do that.
02:03:19 --> 02:03:21 You got to have a different approach.
02:03:22 --> 02:03:28 And if you are trying to get the worst of the worst out, which is what you said, Mr.
02:03:29 --> 02:03:36 President, then you got people that can do that without, and you got other agencies to help you.
02:03:37 --> 02:03:39 The FBI deals with criminals every day.
02:03:40 --> 02:03:44 DEA deals with criminals every day, especially in the drug enforcement thing.
02:03:44 --> 02:03:50 You've got ATF if you would ever fund it, but now I think they've actually merged
02:03:50 --> 02:03:51 that in with the DEA somehow.
02:03:52 --> 02:04:01 You could develop a strategy that doesn't terrorize citizens to accomplish what you want.
02:04:01 --> 02:04:05 And even though the Supreme Court said racial profiling is okay,
02:04:05 --> 02:04:07 you probably shouldn't practice that.
02:04:07 --> 02:04:16 You probably shouldn't be stopping and frisking and detaining people of color just because.
02:04:18 --> 02:04:23 Literally have a Russian mafia in the United States of America.
02:04:23 --> 02:04:27 Why are we not deporting these people, right?
02:04:27 --> 02:04:32 If you're going after the worst of the worst, Armenians, whoever.
02:04:33 --> 02:04:38 If they didn't exist, we wouldn't even have all these movies out, TV shows.
02:04:39 --> 02:04:43 I'm just saying, if you're trying to get the worst of the worst,
02:04:43 --> 02:04:47 you might want to go after them too.
02:04:48 --> 02:04:55 All I'm saying is that at this particular point in time, I'm hoping that this
02:04:55 --> 02:04:59 whole Pam Bondi thing conveys a message that.
02:05:01 --> 02:05:09 To do better. Even if we have disagreements on issues and strategies of how
02:05:09 --> 02:05:12 to deal with issues, right? Because the contrarian thing, it just doesn't work.
02:05:13 --> 02:05:18 Y'all remember American fries? Of course not, because it was contrarian.
02:05:19 --> 02:05:25 Do you remember they came out with a W ketchup to counter John Kerry because
02:05:25 --> 02:05:30 John Kerry married the heirs to the Heinz ketchup fortune?
02:05:31 --> 02:05:35 Y'all remember W? Of course not. Because it was contrarian. It didn't matter.
02:05:36 --> 02:05:39 Contrarian doesn't sell. Hope sells.
02:05:41 --> 02:05:45 Competent sells. Right? Competence, I should say, sells.
02:05:47 --> 02:05:51 Being functional. Being professional. That sells.
02:05:52 --> 02:05:57 That foolishness that happened this week, starting with the halftime,
02:05:57 --> 02:06:04 the all-American, quote-unquote, halftime show, we've got to do better,
02:06:04 --> 02:06:06 y'all. We've got to do better.
02:06:06 --> 02:06:11 And as a society, our obligation is to demand better.
02:06:11 --> 02:06:17 If you want to be entertained, and Mark Burnett, wherever you are,
02:06:17 --> 02:06:23 if you hear this, I have always blamed you for the devolution of American culture.
02:06:23 --> 02:06:28 Ever since that first episode of Survivor showed up, right?
02:06:28 --> 02:06:31 And you created this monster, Donald Trump.
02:06:33 --> 02:06:36 So I'll never have any high regard for you.
02:06:38 --> 02:06:41 You've made your money. You could care less about my opinion.
02:06:41 --> 02:06:47 But just understand, there's at least one American who thinks that you contributed
02:06:47 --> 02:06:49 to the destruction of our culture.
02:06:50 --> 02:06:57 And, you know, and now we have a creature from your creation running the country.
02:06:57 --> 02:07:05 And people are being entertained, right? There's no secret that people like foolishness on TV.
02:07:06 --> 02:07:13 But it shouldn't be in our government, right? You know, if you go to local cities.
02:07:14 --> 02:07:19 The city councils that are constantly fighting each other, that's the most highly
02:07:19 --> 02:07:26 watched show in that demographic because people are acting foolish.
02:07:27 --> 02:07:31 And just like we like looking at car wrecks, we like looking at people crashing out.
02:07:32 --> 02:07:36 It's human nature. But government is not supposed to be entertaining.
02:07:37 --> 02:07:41 Government actually is supposed to be boring. That's why only a select few people
02:07:41 --> 02:07:44 get chosen to handle that.
02:07:44 --> 02:07:47 And the rest of us lives our lives.
02:07:47 --> 02:07:51 We're hoping that the decisions that you make don't impact our lives in such
02:07:51 --> 02:07:58 a way where we got to ask some questions and make some decisions about the leadership. Right?
02:07:59 --> 02:08:03 Government is supposed to be boring. It's not supposed to be entertaining.
02:08:04 --> 02:08:10 And the sooner we get that, the sooner we can stop the foolishness that we saw
02:08:10 --> 02:08:15 up there on Capitol Hill, the sooner we could get competent people alive.