Erik Fleming hosts three interviews: Dr. Adam Barsouk on practical cancer prevention from his book Outsmarting Cancer; Lorissa Rinehart on Jeanette Rankin and her pacifist biography Winning the Earthquake; and Dr. Sherice Janaye Nelson on Visibly Invisible, examining Black women’s legislative power in the Congressional Black Caucus. The episode opens with a news roundup and host appeals to support independent podcasting.
Listeners are encouraged to read the featured books, follow the guests, and visit momenterik.com to subscribe, review, and support the show.
00:00:00 --> 00:00:06 Welcome. I'm Erik Fleming, host of A Moment with Erik Fleming, the podcast of our time.
00:00:06 --> 00:00:08 I want to personally thank you for listening to the podcast.
00:00:09 --> 00:00:12 If you like what you're hearing, then I need you to do a few things.
00:00:13 --> 00:00:19 First, I need subscribers. I'm on Patreon at patreon.com slash amomentwitherikfleming.
00:00:19 --> 00:00:24 Your subscription allows an independent podcaster like me the freedom to speak
00:00:24 --> 00:00:27 truth to power, and to expand and improve the show.
00:00:28 --> 00:00:32 Second, leave a five-star review for the podcast on the streaming service you
00:00:32 --> 00:00:35 listen to it. That will help the podcast tremendously.
00:00:36 --> 00:00:41 Third, go to the website, momenterik.com. There you can subscribe to the podcast,
00:00:42 --> 00:00:47 leave reviews and comments, listen to past episodes, and even learn a little bit about your host.
00:00:47 --> 00:00:51 Lastly, don't keep this a secret like it's your own personal guilty pleasure.
00:00:52 --> 00:00:57 Tell someone else about the podcast. Encourage others to listen to the podcast
00:00:57 --> 00:01:02 and share the podcast on your social media platforms, because it is time to
00:01:02 --> 00:01:04 make this moment a movement.
00:01:04 --> 00:01:10 Thanks in advance for supporting the podcast of our time. I hope you enjoy this episode as well.
00:01:15 --> 00:01:20 The following program is hosted by the NBG Podcast Network.
00:02:00 --> 00:02:05 Hello, and welcome to Another Moment with Erik Fleming. I am your host, Erik Fleming.
00:02:06 --> 00:02:09 So today is going to be a jam-packed show. I've got three guests,
00:02:10 --> 00:02:13 and you are going to enjoy these three guests.
00:02:15 --> 00:02:21 First guest is going to be a doctor who is going to talk to us about cancer,
00:02:21 --> 00:02:27 a book that he has written to try to help us deal with understanding the disease
00:02:27 --> 00:02:31 and how we can minimize our risk of getting it.
00:02:31 --> 00:02:38 And then I have two women who have written books. One has been a previous guest on the show.
00:02:39 --> 00:02:45 And the last time she was on, she was in the process of finishing this book we're going to discuss.
00:02:45 --> 00:02:49 And so now that she's finished it and it's out for publication,
00:02:49 --> 00:02:55 we're going to talk in detail about that. It's a biography of the first woman
00:02:55 --> 00:02:57 ever to serve in the United States Congress.
00:02:57 --> 00:03:06 And then I have another young lady who is a political scientist who has written
00:03:06 --> 00:03:11 a book about the Black women who have served in Congress. It was a very scholarly piece.
00:03:12 --> 00:03:18 And like I said, you're going to enjoy the discussions I had with all three of them.
00:03:18 --> 00:03:22 So stay tuned for that. As you know,
00:03:22 --> 00:03:34 we always try to promote this podcast in a way where we can get you to do more than just listen. We...
00:03:35 --> 00:03:40 We ask for your support because it's very, very important, you know,
00:03:40 --> 00:03:45 each and every day, and especially this year as we're getting closer to the November election,
00:03:46 --> 00:03:51 that you support these independent podcasters that are out there, including myself,
00:03:52 --> 00:03:59 that's trying to get people on to better inform you about what's going on,
00:03:59 --> 00:04:01 to give you as many perspectives as possible.
00:04:03 --> 00:04:07 And, you know, to counter the misinformation that's out there.
00:04:08 --> 00:04:16 Unfortunately, we've gotten to a point where, you know, you don't have the luxury I had growing up.
00:04:16 --> 00:04:21 When I was growing up, it was Walter Cronkite, it was David Brinkley and Chet
00:04:21 --> 00:04:24 Hundley, Frank Reynolds, Howard K. Smith.
00:04:24 --> 00:04:29 You know, those guys' job was just to tell you the news, what happened.
00:04:30 --> 00:04:34 And let you formulate your own opinions about it one way or the other,
00:04:34 --> 00:04:36 but they were going to get you the facts, right?
00:04:38 --> 00:04:45 And, you know, even as I got older, we had Dan Rather and Peter Jennings and Tom Brokaw.
00:04:46 --> 00:04:51 And, you know, that was how we got our news.
00:04:52 --> 00:04:57 And it wasn't a 24-hour cycle and all that stuff. You know, it was just,
00:04:57 --> 00:05:03 you know, you got to your house at a certain time when you got off work.
00:05:04 --> 00:05:09 And you turned on the news to see what happened on the planet while you were doing your job, right?
00:05:09 --> 00:05:15 But we've gone away from that. We've either dealing with strictly misinformation
00:05:15 --> 00:05:21 or skewed information. information or we want to be, you know,
00:05:21 --> 00:05:22 they're trying to entertain us.
00:05:24 --> 00:05:30 And I don't want to be entertained from the news. I want to know what's happening, right?
00:05:30 --> 00:05:34 And I want you to give me the facts. I don't want you to give me what the corporate
00:05:34 --> 00:05:36 bosses will allow you to say.
00:05:37 --> 00:05:43 And so it's very, very important in the short of what I'm saying that you support
00:05:43 --> 00:05:47 independent podcasters like us. I don't claim to be a journalist.
00:05:47 --> 00:05:54 I'm here to give you my opinion, but I think my opinion is valuable in this
00:05:54 --> 00:05:59 discussion and in the general discussion, I should say,
00:05:59 --> 00:06:04 of what's going on in politics as well as some of these other independent podcasters.
00:06:04 --> 00:06:07 So continue to listen to us, but also support us.
00:06:08 --> 00:06:14 If you want to support this podcast, please go to www.momenteric.com and show
00:06:14 --> 00:06:18 your support there, either through a donation, either through a subscription.
00:06:19 --> 00:06:23 If you want to catch up on past episodes, do that. If you want to find out more
00:06:23 --> 00:06:26 about me, you can do that there as well.
00:06:26 --> 00:06:33 So please, please, please support A Moment With Erik Fleming and any other independent
00:06:33 --> 00:06:35 podcasters that you've listened to.
00:06:35 --> 00:06:40 All right, now that I've done all that, it's time to kick this program off.
00:06:40 --> 00:06:44 And as always, we kick it off with a moment of news with Grace G.
00:06:51 --> 00:06:57 Virginia voters approved a redistricting amendment that allows the Democratic-led
00:06:57 --> 00:07:00 legislature to redraw district lines.
00:07:00 --> 00:07:06 U.S. Labor Secretary Lori Chavez de Reimer resigned amid a misconduct investigation,
00:07:07 --> 00:07:10 with Deputy Keith Sonderling assuming the role of acting secretary.
00:07:11 --> 00:07:17 Representative Sheila Cherfelis McCormick resigned from Congress amid an ethics
00:07:17 --> 00:07:21 probe into her alleged misuse of federal disaster funds.
00:07:21 --> 00:07:26 Navy Secretary John Phelan was fired due to slow shipbuilding reforms,
00:07:26 --> 00:07:31 poor relationships with defense leadership, and an ongoing ethics investigation.
00:07:31 --> 00:07:36 A man in Shreveport, Louisiana, killed eight children in a domestic violence
00:07:36 --> 00:07:41 shooting before being fatally shot by police following a carjacking and vehicle pursuit.
00:07:41 --> 00:07:47 A Minnesota prosecutor has charged an ICE agent with felony assault for allegedly
00:07:47 --> 00:07:49 pointing his gun at motorists.
00:07:49 --> 00:07:55 Congress has passed a short-term 10-day extension of the Section 702 surveillance
00:07:55 --> 00:07:59 law after failing to secure a long-term reauthorization.
00:07:59 --> 00:08:04 Federal prosecutors have indicted the Southern Poverty Law Center for fraud,
00:08:05 --> 00:08:09 alleging the group's secretly funded extremist informants with donor money.
00:08:09 --> 00:08:15 President Trump issued an executive order requiring the FDA to expedite the
00:08:15 --> 00:08:21 review of Ibogaine and other psychedelic drugs for potential use in treating veterans with PTSD.
00:08:22 --> 00:08:27 The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Texas may legally require public
00:08:27 --> 00:08:29 schools to display the Ten Commandments.
00:08:29 --> 00:08:34 Several activist organizations have sued the Trump administration to prevent
00:08:34 --> 00:08:37 the Department of Justice from accessing state voter rolls.
00:08:38 --> 00:08:44 Pope Leo XIV completed an 11-day apostolic journey to Algeria,
00:08:44 --> 00:08:50 Cameroon, Angola, and Equatorial Guinea, where he reportedly denounced war and
00:08:50 --> 00:08:52 inequality in his sermons.
00:08:53 --> 00:08:59 New figures from ICE indicate that 17 immigrants have died in custody since the start of 2026.
00:08:59 --> 00:09:01 And U.S.
00:09:01 --> 00:09:05 Representative David Scott of Georgia died at the age of 80.
00:09:05 --> 00:09:09 I am Grace G., and this has been a Moment of News.
00:09:17 --> 00:09:23 Thank you, Grace, for that moment of news. And now it is time for my guest, Dr. Adam Barsouk.
00:09:24 --> 00:09:30 Adam Barsouk, MD, is an oncology fellow at John Hopkins University and resident
00:09:30 --> 00:09:32 physician at the University of Pennsylvania.
00:09:32 --> 00:09:37 His articles about science, medicine, and policy have been featured in Forbes,
00:09:38 --> 00:09:40 Newsweek, Fox News, and Business Insider.
00:09:40 --> 00:09:45 He's the author of the new book, Outsmarting Cancer, Risk Reduction,
00:09:45 --> 00:09:47 and the Power of Prevention.
00:09:47 --> 00:09:51 Ladies and gentlemen, it is my distinct honor and privilege to have as a guest
00:09:51 --> 00:09:55 on this podcast, Dr. Adam Barsouk.
00:10:07 --> 00:10:12 Dr. Adam Barsouk. How are you doing, sir? I'm well, Eric. How are you?
00:10:12 --> 00:10:15 Such a pleasure to be here. Well, it's an honor to have you on,
00:10:15 --> 00:10:19 and we're going to talk about your book, Outsmarting Cancer.
00:10:20 --> 00:10:23 We're going to get into that and maybe a couple other things,
00:10:23 --> 00:10:28 but before I get started, I usually do icebreakers.
00:10:29 --> 00:10:33 So the first thing I want you to do is respond to this quote.
00:10:33 --> 00:10:38 So the more we learn, the more we realize the answer has been sitting,
00:10:38 --> 00:10:43 or in this case, running, swimming, or biking in front of us the whole time.
00:10:44 --> 00:10:50 I agree. I would say swimming, but I think we have a lot to learn,
00:10:50 --> 00:10:55 and there's always more to learn is what I realize every day. Yeah, okay.
00:10:56 --> 00:10:59 All right, so now the next icebreaker is what we call 20 questions.
00:11:00 --> 00:11:03 So I need you to give me a number between one and 20.
00:11:05 --> 00:11:08 You're you're ready now. Should I tell you? Yes, sir. Okay. Seven.
00:11:09 --> 00:11:13 All right. What do you consider the best way to stay informed about politics,
00:11:14 --> 00:11:16 current events, health, et cetera?
00:11:18 --> 00:11:25 Um, I would say, I would say a, a reputable sources on social media.
00:11:25 --> 00:11:30 You know, I think social media gets a bad rep and there's there's a lot of untrustworthy
00:11:30 --> 00:11:32 and incredible options out there.
00:11:32 --> 00:11:35 But I think if you're following new sources, you know, universities,
00:11:36 --> 00:11:39 Penn, Hopkins, Harvard, those sorts of things on Twitter, on Instagram,
00:11:39 --> 00:11:42 on Facebook, you're going to get live updates really quickly and they're going
00:11:42 --> 00:11:44 to be they're going to be reputable. OK.
00:11:45 --> 00:11:50 All right. Before we discuss your new book, Outsmarting Cancer,
00:11:50 --> 00:11:56 let's talk politics. Are you still a libertarian in your political ideology?
00:11:58 --> 00:12:04 I would not, I think that the libertarian has been twisted politically over
00:12:04 --> 00:12:09 the years, and I would not, no, I would not identify with what people call libertarian these days.
00:12:09 --> 00:12:12 I like the philosophy, and I think a lot of people agree that,
00:12:12 --> 00:12:16 you know, we want a country where people should be free to do whatever they
00:12:16 --> 00:12:18 want, as long as they're not hurting others.
00:12:18 --> 00:12:22 They're free to do whatever they want with their body, make whatever healthcare choices they want.
00:12:22 --> 00:12:27 But I think at the same time, we have to recognize when our choices affect other people.
00:12:28 --> 00:12:31 And unfortunately, these days in health care, especially, there's a lot of scenarios
00:12:31 --> 00:12:36 where people are making choices that are hurting others and hurting our health system at large.
00:12:36 --> 00:12:41 Okay. Do you still believe that modern politics has, quote unquote,
00:12:41 --> 00:12:46 killed any hope for a prosperous, a free or prosperous future?
00:12:46 --> 00:12:50 I don't want to be a Debbie Downer, but I do get worried day to day.
00:12:51 --> 00:12:54 I think, unfortunately, you know, our political system is so broken.
00:12:54 --> 00:12:58 We've seen this time and again. We're not able to pass any meaningful reforms
00:12:58 --> 00:13:02 to health care, to so many other issues that are affecting day-to-day Americans.
00:13:02 --> 00:13:08 And so I'm very concerned that we either, unless we undergo a drastic kind of
00:13:08 --> 00:13:13 reform of the way we do politics in this country, things are just going to keep getting worse.
00:13:14 --> 00:13:19 Okay. You once wrote, yes, Ivy Leagues are private enterprises,
00:13:19 --> 00:13:22 and it is their right to accept whomever they choose.
00:13:23 --> 00:13:26 However, this does not give them the right to discriminate by race.
00:13:27 --> 00:13:31 Students must also have the right to know the true value of their education
00:13:31 --> 00:13:35 and to understand what their exorbitant tuition dollars are really going.
00:13:36 --> 00:13:40 Unfortunately, the schools we could once rely upon to do best by their students
00:13:40 --> 00:13:45 are now putting politics over prowess and race over results.
00:13:45 --> 00:13:47 Do you still stand by that statement?
00:13:48 --> 00:13:52 I would say a caveat of yes.
00:13:52 --> 00:14:00 I think this is an issue that is much more nuanced than just that quote would say.
00:14:01 --> 00:14:05 I think we're, honestly, Ivy Leagues are failing to, and a lot of our colleges
00:14:05 --> 00:14:09 are failing to educate people on the important life skills that we need these days.
00:14:09 --> 00:14:12 Right, where we're seeing now with AI, people are losing their jobs.
00:14:12 --> 00:14:17 More and more like Ivy League and college educated folks are losing their jobs
00:14:17 --> 00:14:20 because they're not getting the kind of real life vocational training that they ought to get.
00:14:21 --> 00:14:24 And I think, I think, you know, race and admissions is just a small,
00:14:24 --> 00:14:30 small issue and a small component of, of kind of the bigger problem with, with higher education.
00:14:31 --> 00:14:35 But I, you know, I think, I think we ought to be focusing on admitting people
00:14:35 --> 00:14:37 mostly on their merits, right?
00:14:37 --> 00:14:41 On, on how much they have to share with their fellow students,
00:14:41 --> 00:14:45 what their skills are, what their abilities are, as opposed to focusing on,
00:14:47 --> 00:14:50 You know, other factors. But once again, I don't think I think it's important
00:14:50 --> 00:14:52 to see this this issue with nuance.
00:14:52 --> 00:14:56 And as I'm sure, you know, in general and race race affects so many aspects
00:14:56 --> 00:14:58 of our lives, as does income inequality.
00:14:58 --> 00:15:02 And these are all issues that we should be addressing at their root causes and
00:15:02 --> 00:15:04 trying to make a more more equitable society.
00:15:05 --> 00:15:10 Yeah, because in the book, you when you were talking about health disparities,
00:15:10 --> 00:15:15 the quote that stood out was the present is the product of the past.
00:15:16 --> 00:15:19 Yeah and so it was like when i
00:15:19 --> 00:15:22 heard that you had said that and i said well you can kind
00:15:22 --> 00:15:26 of say the same thing about higher education but i know
00:15:26 --> 00:15:31 that you you made that comment god jesus i'm doing 10 years ago yeah yeah yeah
00:15:31 --> 00:15:37 yeah so i i understand how it's evolved so that's when i was doing my research
00:15:37 --> 00:15:42 i said well okay we can we can we can kind of break some stuff down this is
00:15:42 --> 00:15:44 good All right. Appreciate it. Yeah.
00:15:44 --> 00:15:47 So just real quick, Eric, I appreciate you doing your research and I want to
00:15:47 --> 00:15:50 acknowledge that a lot of my views have evolved over the years,
00:15:50 --> 00:15:54 you know, as I've interacted with people more, worked in the hospital and healthcare.
00:15:54 --> 00:16:00 And I think I will fully acknowledge that some of my views earlier on things
00:16:00 --> 00:16:03 like race and income inequality were something somewhat naive.
00:16:03 --> 00:16:06 And I think I've learned a lot from my patients over the years.
00:16:06 --> 00:16:11 And I think I've recognized how important these issues are for my patients and for folks at large.
00:16:11 --> 00:16:15 Amen. I understand you achieved a perfect score on the SAT.
00:16:17 --> 00:16:22 That is true. Yeah, yeah. So what influenced you to use that beautiful brain
00:16:22 --> 00:16:24 of yours to pursue a medical career?
00:16:25 --> 00:16:30 I think ever since I was young, really, I saw that medicine was a way to kind
00:16:30 --> 00:16:33 of apply learning and science to make a huge difference.
00:16:33 --> 00:16:38 I was first exposed when my grandparents got sick with these rare blood cancers.
00:16:39 --> 00:16:42 And I actually had to go with them to translate when they were going to their
00:16:42 --> 00:16:43 doctor's appointments.
00:16:43 --> 00:16:47 And so I think that was a very early experience for me.
00:16:47 --> 00:16:51 And it was eye-opening to see how the science I was learning in school was making
00:16:51 --> 00:16:53 a difference for them, for patients like them.
00:16:53 --> 00:16:57 And ultimately, when they passed away, that kind of inspired me to want to get
00:16:57 --> 00:16:58 involved first in cancer research.
00:16:58 --> 00:17:02 And then later, I realized what I was most passionate about was working with
00:17:02 --> 00:17:08 patients, translating the findings from the lab to everyday writing and to everyday
00:17:08 --> 00:17:09 patients in their lives.
00:17:09 --> 00:17:13 And that's kind of the route that has led me into medicine and now to becoming
00:17:13 --> 00:17:15 a cancer specialist. Okay.
00:17:15 --> 00:17:19 Again, the title of your book is Outsmarting Cancer. So, Doc,
00:17:19 --> 00:17:24 how can you outsmart something when you admit that the science is complicated
00:17:24 --> 00:17:27 and preventing it is a constant game of risk?
00:17:28 --> 00:17:31 That's an excellent question. Right. I think outsmarting is not necessarily
00:17:31 --> 00:17:35 curing and it's not necessarily preventing all cases of cancer.
00:17:35 --> 00:17:38 Right. We know, as you're saying, that cancer is incredibly complicated.
00:17:38 --> 00:17:42 It's an umbrella term for, you know, 50 different conditions.
00:17:42 --> 00:17:44 So there's we're not going to be able to prevent or cure them all.
00:17:45 --> 00:17:48 But what we can do is we can significantly reduce the risk.
00:17:48 --> 00:17:52 Right. We know now as many as half of all cancer cases around the world and
00:17:52 --> 00:17:53 cancer deaths are preventable.
00:17:53 --> 00:17:58 So if we can help half as many people get cancer and half as many people die
00:17:58 --> 00:18:03 of cancer, I think that's a huge accomplishment that'll save millions of lives in the long run.
00:18:04 --> 00:18:07 And that's what I hope to do in outsmarting cancer.
00:18:07 --> 00:18:13 Okay. You stated in the book that many people who belong to marginalized groups
00:18:13 --> 00:18:15 live in a war zone in the U.S.
00:18:15 --> 00:18:19 Every day, battling historic prejudices, economic inequality,
00:18:19 --> 00:18:21 and the inertia of racism.
00:18:21 --> 00:18:27 How has racism hindered cancer prevention in the Black community? in so many ways.
00:18:27 --> 00:18:32 I think first and foremost, you know, people don't have access to preventative
00:18:32 --> 00:18:33 care and to regular doctors.
00:18:34 --> 00:18:37 And when you're not seeing doctors regularly, you're not getting screened.
00:18:37 --> 00:18:40 You're not getting colonoscopies, mammograms, lung cancer screening.
00:18:41 --> 00:18:44 And that means that we don't catch the cancers that we ought to early.
00:18:44 --> 00:18:49 And people are getting sick with incurable metastatic cancer at higher rates
00:18:49 --> 00:18:52 in the black community than in the white community or the Asian community.
00:18:53 --> 00:18:57 But it goes even beyond that. Black people in this country are at higher risk
00:18:57 --> 00:19:01 of suffering from obesity, from diabetes, from heart disease,
00:19:01 --> 00:19:05 all these different conditions, the many of which increase your risk of cancer,
00:19:05 --> 00:19:06 increase your risk of death.
00:19:06 --> 00:19:09 And we know in the U.S., especially in southern states, unfortunately,
00:19:09 --> 00:19:14 people in the Black community live many years shorter than those in the white community.
00:19:14 --> 00:19:16 And I think all of that is related to our healthcare system,
00:19:17 --> 00:19:21 but also determinants of health, things like healthy diet, exercise,
00:19:21 --> 00:19:26 access to healthcare, all of those kind of conspire to hurt marginalized groups
00:19:26 --> 00:19:27 and particularly black people in this country.
00:19:28 --> 00:19:35 In the book, you talk about relative risk as it relates to humans actually developing cancer.
00:19:35 --> 00:19:41 According to the National Institutes of Health, 7% of African-American adults
00:19:41 --> 00:19:43 were both obese and smokers.
00:19:43 --> 00:19:46 How much risk are those individuals in?
00:19:47 --> 00:19:51 A lot of risk, unfortunately. You know, we know that smoking is now the leading
00:19:51 --> 00:19:53 cause. Smoking has been the leading cause of cancer.
00:19:53 --> 00:19:58 Obesity is now the second leading cause. So in people who are non-smokers who
00:19:58 --> 00:20:01 are obese, they're at higher risks of breast, colorectal, lung cancer.
00:20:01 --> 00:20:05 In smokers, it's even higher, astronomically higher.
00:20:05 --> 00:20:08 So I think, once again, that's another reason why many folks in the Black community
00:20:08 --> 00:20:13 are getting cancer more, are dying earlier because of preventable risk factors
00:20:13 --> 00:20:15 like smoking and obesity. Yeah.
00:20:16 --> 00:20:22 Well, Doc, the toughest thing to do to get some middle-aged elderly black man
00:20:22 --> 00:20:26 to regularly go to a doctor, even when they're not feeling well,
00:20:26 --> 00:20:28 or to change some habits.
00:20:28 --> 00:20:33 When you say to them, that's going to give you cancer, they usually respond,
00:20:33 --> 00:20:34 everything gives you cancer.
00:20:35 --> 00:20:38 Now, they might not be too off the mark with that remark, are they?
00:20:40 --> 00:20:43 I know i agree that unfortunately a lot of things we're
00:20:43 --> 00:20:46 learning now in our day-to-day lives cause cancer but i don't
00:20:46 --> 00:20:49 think i disagree that that's a reason to not try at
00:20:49 --> 00:20:52 all because we know we know the things that help the most and
00:20:52 --> 00:20:55 you know i i must say i'm also the kind of guy i don't want to go to doctors
00:20:55 --> 00:20:59 if i don't have to you know i think we all we all understand that feeling i
00:20:59 --> 00:21:02 don't want to take medicines that i don't have to so i you know i i try and
00:21:02 --> 00:21:06 counsel my patients that when i'm making a strong recommendation it's not it's
00:21:06 --> 00:21:10 not because i'm trying to you know tell you how to live your life or make you
00:21:10 --> 00:21:11 do a bunch of things you don't want to do.
00:21:11 --> 00:21:15 I only recommend things if they really are proven to help you live longer.
00:21:15 --> 00:21:19 And that's my job as your doctor to try and help you live longer. Yeah.
00:21:20 --> 00:21:22 Yeah. You know, it's.
00:21:23 --> 00:21:32 My, my dad is a tough, I think he's gotten better now, but for a stretch,
00:21:32 --> 00:21:34 it was just kind of like, yeah, I think you might need to go see somebody.
00:21:34 --> 00:21:37 Oh, I'm fine. I think you need to go check this out.
00:21:37 --> 00:21:41 It sounds like you sound like you have a problem. No, no. So,
00:21:41 --> 00:21:47 you know, I, I, all of us have been through that moment and I don't think it's a black thing.
00:21:47 --> 00:21:52 I think it's a man thing where anything else, but you know, I,
00:21:52 --> 00:21:57 I, I just said, I I got to ask the doctor a question since he was so pro in
00:21:57 --> 00:21:59 trying to break everything down.
00:21:59 --> 00:22:05 The National Institutes of Health cut $3.8 billion in cancer research in 2025.
00:22:06 --> 00:22:10 When asked about the Medicaid cuts in the Big Beautiful Bill,
00:22:10 --> 00:22:15 you said, in the long run, these Medicaid cuts will actually cost taxpayers
00:22:15 --> 00:22:19 many more, many fold more than they save.
00:22:19 --> 00:22:24 Because people who lose insurance will forego cancer screenings like colonoscopies
00:22:24 --> 00:22:29 and mammograms and ultimately get diagnosed with metastatic cancer,
00:22:29 --> 00:22:32 which costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to treat.
00:22:32 --> 00:22:38 So my question to you is, why doesn't government get it when it comes to cancer prevention?
00:22:39 --> 00:22:44 Man, I wish I knew. I think the truth is a lot of our politicians are short-sighted.
00:22:44 --> 00:22:48 I think they're looking for short-term wins, you know, when someone like Trump
00:22:48 --> 00:22:54 or whomever else can come and say, oh, we saved, what, $20 billion cutting all
00:22:54 --> 00:22:55 this research and cutting Medicaid.
00:22:55 --> 00:22:58 But they don't think about the long-term picture. You know, they don't think
00:22:58 --> 00:23:02 about what's going to happen after they're gone, which is that by cutting people's
00:23:02 --> 00:23:06 access to things like colonoscopies, mammograms, preventative medicines,
00:23:06 --> 00:23:08 People are going to fall ill more.
00:23:08 --> 00:23:11 They're going to end up getting cancer earlier and more aggressively.
00:23:11 --> 00:23:15 They're going to end up in the hospital more, and that's actually going to cost taxpayers more money.
00:23:15 --> 00:23:19 It costs much more money to treat someone in the hospital, where it costs something
00:23:19 --> 00:23:25 like $10 a day to be in the hospital, compared to giving them a $100 pill
00:23:25 --> 00:23:26 that keeps them out of the hospital.
00:23:26 --> 00:23:30 So I think our politicians are very short-sighted.
00:23:30 --> 00:23:34 They're only concerned for themselves and for getting reelected and profiting
00:23:34 --> 00:23:38 off of their position. and unfortunately they're not looking out for their constituents
00:23:38 --> 00:23:42 and for the health of our society as they're supposed to be. Okay.
00:23:43 --> 00:23:47 What do you think will get them to do that, to get out of that short-sightedness
00:23:47 --> 00:23:53 in your— I think, I mean, I think truly it's educating people.
00:23:53 --> 00:23:56 I think people need to start holding their politicians accountable, right?
00:23:56 --> 00:24:01 It's, at the end of the day, public health should not be a Democrat or a Republican
00:24:01 --> 00:24:03 issue, right? We all get cancer.
00:24:03 --> 00:24:08 We all are at risk of this increasing rate of cancer around the country.
00:24:08 --> 00:24:12 So we should all be asking of our politicians, regardless what party you are,
00:24:12 --> 00:24:16 white, black, Asian, or whatnot, we should all be demanding that our politicians
00:24:16 --> 00:24:20 prioritize investment in our health, in cancer research, in doctors,
00:24:20 --> 00:24:24 in nurses, and access to medicines, because that affects all of us.
00:24:24 --> 00:24:28 And it's, you know, all you can do, all that any of us can do is vote in the
00:24:28 --> 00:24:33 primaries, vote in the general election, go online and make our voices heard.
00:24:33 --> 00:24:37 Because the only way to really get to our politicians is to make them worry
00:24:37 --> 00:24:40 about getting reelected. Because truly, unfortunately, that's all they care about.
00:24:41 --> 00:24:50 Yeah, Joe Biden referred to cancer research as the next moonshot. Do you agree with that?
00:24:51 --> 00:24:57 I do. I think it's something that if we put enough resources and effort into, like the U.S.
00:24:58 --> 00:25:02 Had done with the moon landing in the 60s, we may not cure cancer,
00:25:02 --> 00:25:04 but we could significantly improve
00:25:04 --> 00:25:07 survival, we could significantly reduce how many people get cancer.
00:25:07 --> 00:25:12 And it's such a shame that, you know, since Biden left, that the current administration
00:25:12 --> 00:25:14 has gone backwards on so many of those things.
00:25:14 --> 00:25:17 But I'm hopeful, I'm still hopeful for the future.
00:25:18 --> 00:25:22 People stay educated, they read up, whether it's my book or other places online,
00:25:23 --> 00:25:26 they read about the importance of cancer research and cancer prevention.
00:25:26 --> 00:25:30 And I'm hoping that that translates into future politicians,
00:25:30 --> 00:25:32 future generations prioritizing these things.
00:25:33 --> 00:25:38 Okay. So which group is the biggest hindrance to cancer prevention?
00:25:38 --> 00:25:46 Government officials, medical professionals, big pharma, insurance companies, or U.S. citizens?
00:25:48 --> 00:25:53 Oh, man, that's a tough question. I would say politicians are definitely number
00:25:53 --> 00:25:58 one, because especially recently, politicians have cut so much funding from
00:25:58 --> 00:26:00 cancer research, from cancer prevention.
00:26:00 --> 00:26:04 They have cut people's ability to access Medicaid, Obamacare,
00:26:04 --> 00:26:05 health insurance, right?
00:26:05 --> 00:26:10 So without a doubt, politics and certain politicians in particular have made
00:26:10 --> 00:26:13 drastic cuts that are going to hurt millions of lives.
00:26:13 --> 00:26:18 But I think that the truth is that There is a growing crisis of misinformation
00:26:18 --> 00:26:22 and mistrust among people in the U.S. at large.
00:26:22 --> 00:26:27 People have all this stuff that they're listening to and reading about online that's simply not true.
00:26:27 --> 00:26:32 And then a lot of folks, because of that, refuse care that could save their
00:26:32 --> 00:26:36 life, refuse medicines, refuse vaccines, believe in all sorts of conspiracy theories.
00:26:36 --> 00:26:39 And so I think that's something that we have to root out as well.
00:26:39 --> 00:26:44 We need to address kind of the root causes of all this misinformation and try
00:26:44 --> 00:26:47 and get people real, real-life statistics and real-life information.
00:26:47 --> 00:26:50 Because without that, unfortunately, people are going to keep making choices
00:26:50 --> 00:26:52 that are hurting themselves.
00:26:52 --> 00:26:59 What are some ideas that you have to try to navigate through that misinformation?
00:27:00 --> 00:27:04 Well, I think what I always tell my patients is I get why you wouldn't trust,
00:27:04 --> 00:27:06 you know, doctors, health care systems.
00:27:07 --> 00:27:10 There's plenty of reasons, you know, and plenty of historical injustices.
00:27:10 --> 00:27:14 But if you're so skeptical, why are you trusting all these random podcasters
00:27:14 --> 00:27:18 online who are just trying to sell you supplements and other things?
00:27:18 --> 00:27:21 You know, the truth is I want people to do their own research.
00:27:21 --> 00:27:25 I want people to go online and read about the medicines that are being recommended,
00:27:25 --> 00:27:29 read about the vaccines that are being recommended. but I want people to use
00:27:29 --> 00:27:31 reputable resources, right?
00:27:31 --> 00:27:36 Go to Hopkins or the Mayo Clinic or Harvard, you know, go to a big name that
00:27:36 --> 00:27:40 you recognize and read what they have to say, not what some Joe Schmo wrote
00:27:40 --> 00:27:45 on his blog yesterday because that's the only way these days to get reputable information.
00:27:45 --> 00:27:47 Well, you brought up supplements.
00:27:48 --> 00:27:55 Are there some supplements that we should not be taking when it comes to trying to prevent cancer?
00:27:56 --> 00:28:00 I think there are no supplements that are proven to prevent cancer.
00:28:00 --> 00:28:05 Most of them probably don't make much of a difference. There are some that actually make things worse.
00:28:05 --> 00:28:10 So for instance, vitamin E, E as in Edward, it's actually been shown to increase
00:28:10 --> 00:28:11 the risk of lung cancer in smokers.
00:28:12 --> 00:28:14 So I would definitely stay away from that.
00:28:14 --> 00:28:18 And honestly, any supplement or vitamin you take, it's important to talk it
00:28:18 --> 00:28:22 over with your doctor because you don't realize all the ways that these medicines,
00:28:22 --> 00:28:24 that these supplements interact with the meds that you're taking.
00:28:25 --> 00:28:29 And I've seen a lot of people get really sick. I've seen people die from supplements
00:28:29 --> 00:28:33 they were taking that the doctors didn't know about. So it's so important to communicate that.
00:28:34 --> 00:28:41 So let's just say, I'm not one of those people, but just to say there's some people that, you know,
00:28:41 --> 00:28:45 take a multivitamin and then they turn around and drink like,
00:28:45 --> 00:28:50 say, like a AG1 or whatever and, you know, throw in some colostrum.
00:28:50 --> 00:28:53 And you know what I'm saying? It's like, is it...
00:28:55 --> 00:29:03 Does doing that cause more harm than good because the body is not,
00:29:03 --> 00:29:10 because you said that part of one of the risks for cancer is the body not processing right.
00:29:11 --> 00:29:17 So it's like if you take too many supplements, does that increase your risk?
00:29:18 --> 00:29:23 There is no specific data right now about the number of supplements and your cancer risk.
00:29:23 --> 00:29:27 I will say the more supplements you take, the more you are at risk of having
00:29:27 --> 00:29:29 all these different interactions that can be really dangerous,
00:29:30 --> 00:29:34 the more money you're spending and truly wasting instead of things that you
00:29:34 --> 00:29:36 could be spending it on that would help you much more.
00:29:36 --> 00:29:39 So if you took all the money, and these supplements can be really expensive.
00:29:39 --> 00:29:43 If you took that money you spent on colostrum and whatever else and just used
00:29:43 --> 00:29:44 it to buy healthy foods, right?
00:29:44 --> 00:29:49 To eat more vegetables, fruits, whole grains, I truly think that's going to help.
00:29:49 --> 00:29:53 That's going to help you prevent cancer much more than any of these supplements would. Yeah.
00:29:53 --> 00:30:01 So since you mentioned about eating healthy, go ahead and list 11 lifestyle
00:30:01 --> 00:30:04 recommendations you suggest to minimize cancer risk.
00:30:06 --> 00:30:09 Yeah. So I mean, first and foremost, remain smoking. So people who are smoking,
00:30:10 --> 00:30:13 you know, try and minimize it, try and quit best you can, easier said than done.
00:30:14 --> 00:30:17 Number two is obesity. And that's where, you know, diet comes in,
00:30:17 --> 00:30:20 exercise comes in, particularly processed foods, right?
00:30:20 --> 00:30:23 Right now, that's most of the American diet, all these chips,
00:30:23 --> 00:30:26 cookies, everything else that's full of preservatives and sugar.
00:30:26 --> 00:30:31 So trying to minimize intake of those, decreasing your alcohol consumption.
00:30:33 --> 00:30:36 Decreasing sun exposure so using sunscreen when
00:30:36 --> 00:30:39 you go outside decreasing air and water pollution using
00:30:39 --> 00:30:42 filters at home for your water for your air wearing
00:30:42 --> 00:30:46 masks if the air quality is bad and wearing masks if you work somewhere where
00:30:46 --> 00:30:50 you're exposed to a lot of chemicals like cleaning products and pesticides and
00:30:50 --> 00:30:54 so forth let's see what else there's also people should get their basements
00:30:54 --> 00:30:59 tested for radon that's a gas that's in a lot of people's basements that's radioactive
00:30:59 --> 00:31:01 and can increase your risk of lung cancer.
00:31:02 --> 00:31:05 And there's truly, I mean, the truth is that it's a 400 page book.
00:31:05 --> 00:31:09 There's so many other things that each of us can do, but those are,
00:31:09 --> 00:31:10 those are probably the highest yield ones.
00:31:10 --> 00:31:14 And so if you take away nothing else, it's really diet, exercise,
00:31:14 --> 00:31:19 smoking, and alcohol, particularly processed foods, avoiding those that can
00:31:19 --> 00:31:20 make the biggest difference.
00:31:20 --> 00:31:24 Yeah. Yeah. I was, I was testing you see if you could do it without looking
00:31:24 --> 00:31:27 at your book to see if you remembered all 11,
00:31:28 --> 00:31:35 But the ones that kind of stood out, like, for example, if you're at a gas station
00:31:35 --> 00:31:42 and you're pumping gas, would it be better for you to wear a mask while you're pumping gas?
00:31:44 --> 00:31:48 I think, I mean, the truth is the biggest issue is not so much with the gas
00:31:48 --> 00:31:51 that you're pumping as the exhaust from the cars around you.
00:31:51 --> 00:31:56 But yeah, I would say if you're the kind of person who drives to work every
00:31:56 --> 00:31:59 day for a few minutes and you're pumping gas once a week or so,
00:31:59 --> 00:32:01 it's probably not going to make a huge difference.
00:32:01 --> 00:32:05 But if you're a truck driver who's always on the road, who's always pumping
00:32:05 --> 00:32:08 gas and breathing in the fumes, that's probably where it makes a bigger difference.
00:32:08 --> 00:32:12 And I think you can help yourself by wearing a mask when you're exposed to those
00:32:12 --> 00:32:17 fumes from other cars and particularly from diesel engines, those produce the most dangerous fumes.
00:32:18 --> 00:32:25 And what about the radon? Because I grew up in Chicago, and so radon was a big
00:32:25 --> 00:32:28 deal as far as basements.
00:32:28 --> 00:32:35 But I lived in Jackson, Mississippi for like 34 years, and they didn't really
00:32:35 --> 00:32:39 talk about radon because in Jackson, very few homes have basements.
00:32:40 --> 00:32:43 And now i'm here in atlanta and i don't hear
00:32:43 --> 00:32:46 people talking about radon but in
00:32:46 --> 00:32:49 chicago that was a real thing it was like people
00:32:49 --> 00:32:55 had to get detectors for their basements and all that so is it is it like regions
00:32:55 --> 00:33:00 of the country is radon something that you don't have to have a basement for
00:33:00 --> 00:33:05 it to develop kind of explain that a little bit exactly yeah it's it's a gas
00:33:05 --> 00:33:06 that naturally occurs in the soil.
00:33:07 --> 00:33:10 I think it is definitely certain regions have more of it than others.
00:33:11 --> 00:33:17 About 25% of where people live has dangerous radon around the U.S.
00:33:17 --> 00:33:19 So it's more than you'd think, right? One in four people.
00:33:19 --> 00:33:23 And you can easily find out, you know, if you take your zip code or your city
00:33:23 --> 00:33:27 and Google it online, right, you can see whether your area is an area that has radon.
00:33:28 --> 00:33:30 And if it does, you know, even if you don't have a basement,
00:33:30 --> 00:33:35 if you live on the first floor, or you live in, you know, close to the ground,
00:33:35 --> 00:33:37 you are definitely at risk of exposure.
00:33:38 --> 00:33:45 I forgot to ask you at the beginning, what was your motivation for writing the book?
00:33:45 --> 00:33:53 So what was your motivation for writing the book, and what do you want people to get from this book?
00:33:54 --> 00:33:59 I think as I started to share earlier, you know, I lost my grandparents to these rare blood cancers.
00:34:00 --> 00:34:04 They motivated me to want to become a cancer researcher and a doctor.
00:34:05 --> 00:34:11 But more so it motivated me to look into and do research in cancer prevention
00:34:11 --> 00:34:13 and the more I've learned about this,
00:34:13 --> 00:34:17 the more I've realized how many things we're neglecting in our day-to-day lives
00:34:17 --> 00:34:21 to try and reduce our cancer risk and having these conversations with,
00:34:22 --> 00:34:26 patients in the hospital, in the clinic, day in and day out has really motivated
00:34:26 --> 00:34:30 me to want to get that message out there and that's why I've written the book
00:34:30 --> 00:34:34 and that's what I hope people will take away that There are so many small changes
00:34:34 --> 00:34:37 that each of us can make in our day-to-day lives that can make a significant
00:34:37 --> 00:34:39 impact on our cancer risk.
00:34:40 --> 00:34:43 All right. So I've been asking all of my guests this.
00:34:44 --> 00:34:48 Well, I've been asking all of my guests to finish this sentence.
00:34:49 --> 00:34:50 I have hope because...
00:34:52 --> 00:34:57 I have hope because science is powerful and every day we're learning more answers
00:34:57 --> 00:35:01 and we're making huge strides in treating and preventing cancer.
00:35:01 --> 00:35:06 And I think that this is an issue that we can overcome if we all put our minds
00:35:06 --> 00:35:07 and our hearts together.
00:35:08 --> 00:35:14 Okay. All right. So, Dr. Adam Barsouk, how can people get this book?
00:35:14 --> 00:35:16 How can people reach out to you?
00:35:16 --> 00:35:20 Yeah the book is available on amazon
00:35:20 --> 00:35:23 on barnes and nobles on hopkins press just google outsmarting
00:35:23 --> 00:35:29 cancer there's also my website adam Barsouk a-d-a-m-b-a-r-s-o-u-k.com
00:35:29 --> 00:35:34 where you can find links to all of my articles links to the book and more writing
00:35:34 --> 00:35:39 and i'm always happy to chat with folks via social media email what have you
00:35:39 --> 00:35:45 all the contact information is there all right well doc i I greatly appreciate
00:35:45 --> 00:35:49 you not only writing the book, but coming on the podcast.
00:35:50 --> 00:35:54 I know that you're a very, very smart, dedicated health professional.
00:35:55 --> 00:36:02 And I hope that more and more people, especially in your generation and even
00:36:02 --> 00:36:06 younger, pursue that career because we need it.
00:36:06 --> 00:36:13 So I thank you for your service in that. And also, too, one of the things I
00:36:13 --> 00:36:19 do is that I extend an invitation to anybody that's been on.
00:36:19 --> 00:36:24 It's an open invitation. So anytime you think there's something that you want
00:36:24 --> 00:36:28 to discuss and you need a platform to do it, just let me know and we'll make that happen.
00:36:29 --> 00:36:33 I really appreciate it, Erik. It's been a pleasure. And I appreciate the tough questions.
00:36:33 --> 00:36:37 Get me on my feet. Well, I knew you could handle it. I knew you could handle it.
00:36:38 --> 00:36:41 All right. Thank you. All right, guys. We're going to catch y'all on the other side.
00:37:01 --> 00:37:07 All right, and we are back. And so now it is time for my next guest, Lorissa Rinehart.
00:37:07 --> 00:37:13 Lorissa Rinehart is an engaging author and public speaker whose work explores
00:37:13 --> 00:37:17 the powerful intersections of women's history, politics, peace, and war.
00:37:17 --> 00:37:21 Her debut book, First to the Front, The Untold Story of Dickey Chappelle.
00:37:22 --> 00:37:26 Trailblazing female war correspondent, garnered rave reviews from The Wall Street
00:37:26 --> 00:37:30 Journal, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Publishers Weekly, and more.
00:37:31 --> 00:37:35 She has written and released her second book, Winning the Earthquake,
00:37:35 --> 00:37:39 How Jeanette Rankin Defied All Odds to Become America's First Congresswoman.
00:37:39 --> 00:37:43 Through her weekly newsletter and podcast, The Female Body Politic,
00:37:44 --> 00:37:50 Lorissa offers insight analysis of contemporary events, drawing on 250 years
00:37:50 --> 00:37:53 of women's engagement in American politics.
00:37:53 --> 00:37:59 A dynamic TEDx speaker, Lorissa has delivered thought-provoking talks at prestigious
00:37:59 --> 00:38:04 venues, such as the National Press Club, Friends of the National World War II Memorial,
00:38:05 --> 00:38:09 the Women's National Press Club, and the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.
00:38:10 --> 00:38:14 Her expertise has been featured on prominent podcasts and radio shows,
00:38:14 --> 00:38:19 including Tell Me Everything, Cold War Conversations, Writers Talking,
00:38:19 --> 00:38:21 and Her Story on the Rocks.
00:38:21 --> 00:38:26 And this is her second appearance on A Moment with Erik Fleming.
00:38:26 --> 00:38:31 Ladies and gentlemen, it is my distinct honor and privilege to have as a guest
00:38:31 --> 00:38:34 on this podcast, Lorissa Rinehart.
00:38:46 --> 00:38:50 Hey, Lorissa Rinehart, how are you doing? I am hanging in there.
00:38:50 --> 00:38:54 I am working hard and trying to stay joyful.
00:38:54 --> 00:38:58 Well, I see you working hard. Your sub stack's blowing up. That's really,
00:38:58 --> 00:39:01 really good. And it's really good to have you back on, you know.
00:39:02 --> 00:39:06 It's not often I get to have a fan as a guest.
00:39:08 --> 00:39:13 But, yeah, it's cool. And this is something we were anticipating,
00:39:13 --> 00:39:16 right? Because you've written this book called Winning the Earthquake,
00:39:16 --> 00:39:19 where you were working on it the last time you were on.
00:39:19 --> 00:39:24 So now it's finished and it's out. So we're going to talk about the book and
00:39:24 --> 00:39:26 especially Congresswoman Rankin.
00:39:26 --> 00:39:32 Yeah, I think it's timely. But let's do it like we normally do it.
00:39:32 --> 00:39:37 So I'm going to throw a quote at you, and then I want you to respond to the quote.
00:39:37 --> 00:39:41 Peace is not merely the absence of war, but the presence of justice,
00:39:41 --> 00:39:44 of law, of order. and short of government.
00:39:46 --> 00:39:51 I think that is absolutely true, and we are starting to see that every day in
00:39:51 --> 00:39:59 our lives with the Trump administration waging war against not only Iran,
00:39:59 --> 00:40:05 but also the American people through his regressive economic policies,
00:40:06 --> 00:40:11 through ICE, through constant monitoring of us, right?
00:40:11 --> 00:40:15 We're seeing that there is an absence of peace in our lives.
00:40:15 --> 00:40:21 And when you have the effects of Doge undercutting of multiple important government
00:40:21 --> 00:40:25 agencies and how that's affecting people's lives,
00:40:25 --> 00:40:30 the absence of government in their lives, that's sowing chaos and a great deal
00:40:30 --> 00:40:34 of hardship and pain that's entirely unnecessary.
00:40:34 --> 00:40:44 So, yeah, government can be a place where peace is created, not only in the
00:40:44 --> 00:40:49 world, but also in our individual lives and in our homes and at our dinner tables.
00:40:49 --> 00:40:52 Yeah, yeah. You know, that was...
00:40:53 --> 00:40:56 You know, when I was elected, I don't think I used the term peace.
00:40:56 --> 00:41:00 I think it was more or less like balance was kind of my mindset.
00:41:00 --> 00:41:05 But, you know, in the true sense of the word, peace is balance.
00:41:05 --> 00:41:10 And if we can just get to that, that'd be great. I don't know.
00:41:10 --> 00:41:12 I was reading something.
00:41:13 --> 00:41:16 I go down rabbit holes with Wikipedia.
00:41:17 --> 00:41:22 Yes, that's what it's for. And I ended up, I ended up on Plato and the Republic
00:41:22 --> 00:41:23 and stoicism and all that stuff.
00:41:24 --> 00:41:29 And I was just like thinking, you know, those guys really, they really had some
00:41:29 --> 00:41:32 hope for human beings back in the day.
00:41:33 --> 00:41:36 They knew that we were, we were flawed, but they still said,
00:41:36 --> 00:41:39 you know, if we could kind of argue and reason this out, this,
00:41:39 --> 00:41:43 this might happen. And I said, boy, if you talk about people turning their graves,
00:41:43 --> 00:41:46 they probably done did just gymnastic flips and all that stuff.
00:41:48 --> 00:41:50 Anyway, I want to do something different with you. Normally,
00:41:50 --> 00:41:54 this would be the part for 20 questions, but since you've been on before,
00:41:54 --> 00:41:58 I'm not going to put you through that again. But I do want to introduce this
00:41:58 --> 00:42:01 thing called Women's Suffrage Trivia.
00:42:02 --> 00:42:05 Okay. That didn't come out as smooth as I wanted it to be, but that's what we're going to do.
00:42:05 --> 00:42:08 So I'm going to ask you a couple of questions. Okay.
00:42:09 --> 00:42:13 Which one of the original 13 colonies allowed women to vote?
00:42:13 --> 00:42:20 Oh, gosh, you're putting me on the spot. I'm going to go with,
00:42:20 --> 00:42:25 I think it was one of the Carolinas. It was not an expected one, right?
00:42:25 --> 00:42:31 Well, none of them were expected for me, but no, it was a little further north
00:42:31 --> 00:42:34 than the Carolinas. Oh, okay.
00:42:37 --> 00:42:42 Was it Massachusetts? No, no, but you're getting close. It's New Jersey. All right.
00:42:42 --> 00:42:48 New Jersey. Okay. I didn't know that. The New Jersey Constitution of 1776 enfranchised
00:42:48 --> 00:42:52 all adult inhabitants who owned a specific amount of property.
00:42:52 --> 00:42:59 Laws enacted in 1790 and 1797 referred to voters as he or she.
00:42:59 --> 00:43:05 And women regularly voted. A law passed in 1807, however, excluding women from
00:43:05 --> 00:43:08 voting in that state. So for 10 years, women had a good.
00:43:09 --> 00:43:15 At least. Well, yeah, well, white property owning women. That's right. Okay.
00:43:15 --> 00:43:18 That's right. That's right. Please keep me straight there, Lorissa. All right.
00:43:18 --> 00:43:24 So now the next question, who was the first woman to vote on anything in the
00:43:24 --> 00:43:27 American colonies? Oh, no,
00:43:27 --> 00:43:31 Erik, I don't know. You're catching me out. Who is it?
00:43:31 --> 00:43:37 Well, you said Massachusetts, so I'll give you partial credit on the second question.
00:43:38 --> 00:43:44 So it was a lady named Lydia Taft. She lived from 1712 to 1778.
00:43:44 --> 00:43:50 So she was a wealthy widow who was allowed to vote in town meetings,
00:43:50 --> 00:43:51 which is not exactly true.
00:43:51 --> 00:43:57 It was one meeting in a town called Uxbridge, Massachusetts in 1756.
00:43:57 --> 00:43:58 So here was the story.
00:44:00 --> 00:44:08 The British Empire was demanding of the colonies to raise taxes,
00:44:08 --> 00:44:10 property taxes on their cities.
00:44:11 --> 00:44:15 And so then the colonies were going out and asking.
00:44:15 --> 00:44:21 And so Uxbridge, when it came down to this, Mrs. Taft's husband had passed away.
00:44:22 --> 00:44:26 Prior to the vote. And so since he owned most of the property,
00:44:26 --> 00:44:31 they only felt that it would be fair if that Mrs.
00:44:31 --> 00:44:33 Taft would cast the vote that he would have cast.
00:44:34 --> 00:44:38 And because she voted, they went ahead and paid the tax.
00:44:38 --> 00:44:43 So she was the difference in, because it was pretty, oh, interesting.
00:44:43 --> 00:44:47 She was, she was the difference in deciding to go ahead and pay the tax.
00:44:48 --> 00:44:52 But after that, until 1776, it was a wrap.
00:44:53 --> 00:44:57 It was in New Jersey. So she was, but she was the only woman.
00:44:57 --> 00:45:00 All right. So, you know, it...
00:45:01 --> 00:45:04 It's so obscure, but it was like when I was doing research and stuff,
00:45:04 --> 00:45:09 it just came across and I was like, wow, okay. Another rabbit hole I went down.
00:45:10 --> 00:45:14 And so I thought that was fascinating, though, that the people, especially with Mrs.
00:45:15 --> 00:45:18 Taft, it was like going, well, I can just only imagine the question is,
00:45:18 --> 00:45:21 you know, the conversation is like, oh, she's got a vote.
00:45:22 --> 00:45:25 I mean, she owns all the property in Taft.
00:45:25 --> 00:45:30 Right. We can't put a property tax on her and she's, you know.
00:45:30 --> 00:45:34 Yeah. Yeah. So anyway, I thought that was pretty cool. And then I just kind
00:45:34 --> 00:45:40 of when I did it, I kind of made the connection with with Congresswoman Rankin
00:45:40 --> 00:45:43 because her dad was pretty much that same person.
00:45:44 --> 00:45:49 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So the last time we talked, you were in the final stages of
00:45:49 --> 00:45:53 this book, Winning the Earthquake, How Jeanette Rankin Defied All Odds to Become
00:45:53 --> 00:45:55 America's First Congresswoman.
00:45:56 --> 00:45:59 Ms. Rankin was elected to Congress in 1914, representing Montana.
00:46:00 --> 00:46:03 However, the 19th Amendment, the amendment that granted women's,
00:46:03 --> 00:46:07 that guaranteed women's suffrage was not ratified until 1920.
00:46:07 --> 00:46:11 So here's my two-part question. How did Jeanette Rankin have the stature to
00:46:11 --> 00:46:16 be a serious candidate for Congress, and how was she able to get elected before
00:46:16 --> 00:46:19 women nationally had a guaranteed right to vote?
00:46:19 --> 00:46:23 Well, another thing that a lot of people don't know about women's suffrage is
00:46:23 --> 00:46:27 that individual states could actually enfranchise women before the 19th Amendment.
00:46:27 --> 00:46:29 And so that's what happened in Montana.
00:46:30 --> 00:46:33 So actually, women were given the right to vote in Montana in 1914,
00:46:33 --> 00:46:36 and then Jeanette was elected in 1916.
00:46:36 --> 00:46:41 So Jeanette was instrumental in getting women access to the ballot.
00:46:41 --> 00:46:47 And she really built what I call a constellation of power in her suffrage campaign
00:46:47 --> 00:46:52 for the state of Montana, where she would identify precinct captains all across the state, right?
00:46:52 --> 00:46:57 It's a very difficult state to traverse even now. You can imagine what it was like in 1914.
00:46:57 --> 00:47:01 And so she couldn't be everywhere all at once. So she would say to these precinct
00:47:01 --> 00:47:07 captains, I trust you to organize your community in the way that you believe is best.
00:47:07 --> 00:47:12 If you have any questions, I'm here, but you do what you think you should do.
00:47:12 --> 00:47:18 And so in this way, she rapidly built a grassroots movement that could react
00:47:18 --> 00:47:21 and turn out right at the drop of a hat.
00:47:22 --> 00:47:28 And so from 1911, when the campaign really began, to 1914, when they were enfranchised,
00:47:29 --> 00:47:36 this grassroots campaign both flipped both houses of the state legislature from
00:47:36 --> 00:47:40 adamantly against to almost unanimously for women's suffrage,
00:47:40 --> 00:47:45 and then also got the male-only electorate to enfranchise them.
00:47:45 --> 00:47:50 So it was really an incredible force of political organizing.
00:47:50 --> 00:47:55 So Jeanette became well known in the state, not only because,
00:47:55 --> 00:47:58 as you mentioned, her father was an immigrant,
00:47:58 --> 00:48:03 sort of broke immigrant turned real estate mogul, but also because she had done
00:48:03 --> 00:48:06 all this organizing and she'd become very well known throughout the state and
00:48:06 --> 00:48:13 also understood as a progressive leader that really stood for and by the people.
00:48:13 --> 00:48:19 And so when she went on to campaign for her seat in Congress,
00:48:19 --> 00:48:21 she had this going for her.
00:48:21 --> 00:48:23 But also, Erik, you know, you're
00:48:23 --> 00:48:26 in politics, so I'm going to get in the weeds with you a little bit.
00:48:26 --> 00:48:32 But what she also had going for her was that Montana was what is called or was called an open state.
00:48:32 --> 00:48:36 We would now call it a multiple member congressional district,
00:48:36 --> 00:48:40 which meant that everyone in the state could vote for both of their congressional
00:48:40 --> 00:48:44 representatives. and they did so through ranked choice voting.
00:48:44 --> 00:48:48 So rather than having to create wedge issues and attack her opponents,
00:48:49 --> 00:48:52 Jeanette could go around the state and say, vote for your local man.
00:48:52 --> 00:48:55 It was a very crowded field and there were all men besides her.
00:48:55 --> 00:48:58 So vote for your local man and vote for Jeanette Rankin.
00:48:58 --> 00:49:03 So it was never a zero-sum game like we experience in these heavily gerrymandered,
00:49:03 --> 00:49:08 you know, Republican sort of districts where voters are cracked and packed and
00:49:08 --> 00:49:12 politicians get to pick their voters rather than voters getting to pick their leaders.
00:49:12 --> 00:49:17 And so she ran a positive campaign and people felt more comfortable voting for
00:49:17 --> 00:49:21 someone that they might not otherwise if it was a choice between one or the other.
00:49:22 --> 00:49:24 It wasn't a choice between one or the other. It was one and.
00:49:25 --> 00:49:29 So because she had enfranchised, right, 50% of the population,
00:49:29 --> 00:49:34 because she was well-known and because she had a more equal playing field when
00:49:34 --> 00:49:39 it came to the electoral system, She was able to translate all of that into
00:49:39 --> 00:49:43 a historic win as the first woman elected to Congress,
00:49:43 --> 00:49:49 the first woman elected actually to a federally held position in a self-determining democracy in the world.
00:49:50 --> 00:49:55 Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, and that's, that was a pretty good school strategy.
00:49:55 --> 00:50:00 You know, it's like, you can vote for your guy, but then vote for me too.
00:50:00 --> 00:50:03 You know, I'm not going to talk about, I'm not going to trash anybody.
00:50:04 --> 00:50:09 And so when you say open state, I just said open-minded because it was like,
00:50:09 --> 00:50:12 you know, to even, to even feel comfortable to make that argument,
00:50:13 --> 00:50:14 it sounded pretty positive.
00:50:15 --> 00:50:17 Where does the title of the book
00:50:17 --> 00:50:21 come from? Well, that goes back to your original question about peace.
00:50:21 --> 00:50:28 So Jeanette Rankin would always say you can no more win an earthquake than you can win a war.
00:50:28 --> 00:50:32 So the title is really about how you win an earthquake.
00:50:32 --> 00:50:38 And winning the earthquake is about pursuing peace through never declaring war in the first place.
00:50:39 --> 00:50:43 And, you know, in addition to being a suffragist, a democratic reformer,
00:50:43 --> 00:50:49 Jeanette was one of America's foremost pacifists and still occupies that place in history today.
00:50:49 --> 00:50:52 And she spent a good period of
00:50:52 --> 00:50:59 her life lobbying for peace and disarmament and making the case to the American
00:50:59 --> 00:51:07 people of why peace and democracy are inextricably intertwined and why war is
00:51:07 --> 00:51:10 truly the enemy of democracy.
00:51:10 --> 00:51:16 And, you know, I think we can look now at what's going on currently with the
00:51:16 --> 00:51:23 escalation of the conflict in Iran and the ways that it's being used to obfuscate
00:51:23 --> 00:51:27 the constant attack on our democratic rights at home.
00:51:27 --> 00:51:30 That's not a coincidence. That is possible.
00:51:30 --> 00:51:38 Completely planned and a common, I would say, tactic of authoritarian leaders
00:51:38 --> 00:51:44 to use war as a reason to curtail democratic rights. Yeah.
00:51:45 --> 00:51:53 Two things, her rural but affluent upbringing and her family's role in the battles
00:51:53 --> 00:51:57 against Native Americans seemed to shape Ms. Rankin's politics.
00:51:57 --> 00:51:59 Just kind of talk about that a little bit.
00:52:00 --> 00:52:06 Yeah, absolutely. So her father was actually a pacifist as well.
00:52:07 --> 00:52:11 He didn't allow guns on his ranch at all.
00:52:12 --> 00:52:18 And he had witnessed and then Jeanette had witnessed the genocide being waged
00:52:18 --> 00:52:22 against the Native and Indigenous peoples of that region.
00:52:22 --> 00:52:35 And Jeanette witnessed, saw, three Salish people, men, hung in the middle of Missoula as a child.
00:52:35 --> 00:52:41 And her father would also tell her about, really, the massacre of the Pierce Nez
00:52:41 --> 00:52:43 people that he had witnessed.
00:52:44 --> 00:52:53 And these two things combined really influenced her pacifist commitment to pacifism.
00:52:53 --> 00:52:57 And she understood that there is no place for violence in democracy and that
00:52:57 --> 00:53:00 there is no reason for this sort of violence against anyone,
00:53:00 --> 00:53:02 particularly the indigenous peoples.
00:53:03 --> 00:53:07 So that was where her pacifism came from.
00:53:08 --> 00:53:21 But then her sense of democracy and the power of democracy really came about because of her unique,
00:53:22 --> 00:53:26 place in American landscape and her time in history.
00:53:27 --> 00:53:31 So as you mentioned, she was born on a ranch in rural Missoula,
00:53:31 --> 00:53:34 and it was a hard scrapple time, right?
00:53:35 --> 00:53:38 If people didn't work together, you're not going to survive the winter.
00:53:38 --> 00:53:42 And as they say in Montana, there's two seasons, there's August and there's winter.
00:53:43 --> 00:53:47 So you have to really work together as a community to just make it through.
00:53:47 --> 00:53:52 I mean, And we all can visualize sort of the community coming together for the barn raising.
00:53:52 --> 00:53:56 But it's also this idea of, you know, you have pork and I have beans.
00:53:56 --> 00:53:58 And if we share, we can have a complete meal.
00:53:58 --> 00:54:02 So you have this sense of, right, grassroots democracy in action.
00:54:02 --> 00:54:06 The other part of that upbringing was at that place and at that time,
00:54:07 --> 00:54:10 there was a greater sense of gender equality than, you know,
00:54:10 --> 00:54:17 on the East Coast in Boston or New York, sort of these famously gilded age, you know,
00:54:17 --> 00:54:21 hierarchies, gender hierarchies, where women wore bustles and didn't work as
00:54:21 --> 00:54:25 long as you were rich and certainly didn't have the vote and didn't have a voice or opinion.
00:54:27 --> 00:54:33 That wasn't the case in Montana, right? Imagine you're a homesteader and you give birth.
00:54:33 --> 00:54:39 Your husband has to help you deliver that baby and take care of that baby and
00:54:39 --> 00:54:40 take care of you as you recover.
00:54:41 --> 00:54:48 At the same time, when it's time to bring in the harvest, women had to be in the field as well.
00:54:48 --> 00:54:52 So no one's labor could be entirely erased.
00:54:52 --> 00:54:56 And Jeanette really grew up with the sense that she was equal to anyone and any man,
00:54:57 --> 00:55:05 and based her politics on that belief accordingly, and dedicated herself to
00:55:05 --> 00:55:07 the enfranchisement of women for many,
00:55:07 --> 00:55:15 many years and then continued that logic to the belief that all people deserved
00:55:15 --> 00:55:18 a voice in government, an equal voice in government. Yeah.
00:55:19 --> 00:55:22 What did the phrase go, go, go mean to Ms. Rankin?
00:55:23 --> 00:55:27 Know, some people are born in little towns that they don't want to stay in.
00:55:27 --> 00:55:31 And it was very difficult to leave Missoula for a number of reasons.
00:55:31 --> 00:55:36 One, there just wasn't a lot of opportunity for women to go to a big city,
00:55:36 --> 00:55:42 have a job and change their lives at the time, even if you were affluent as she was.
00:55:42 --> 00:55:47 The other part of it was Jeanette was, you know, the oldest of six children,
00:55:47 --> 00:55:49 five of whom survived to adulthood.
00:55:49 --> 00:55:56 And her mother, Olive, was pregnant 14 times in 20 years, gave birth six times.
00:55:56 --> 00:56:02 And by the time her youngest was born, Edna, she really took a step back and
00:56:02 --> 00:56:05 Jeanette had to step forward into that role of mothering, which happened to
00:56:05 --> 00:56:10 a lot of oldest daughters in that period and still does to a certain extent, right?
00:56:10 --> 00:56:13 The sandwich generation of women who have to take care of their,
00:56:13 --> 00:56:17 you know, children, their siblings, and their parents all at the same time.
00:56:18 --> 00:56:26 And so it wasn't until Jeanette was really in her mid to late 20s that she had the opportunity to go.
00:56:26 --> 00:56:30 And she had always wanted to go. She had an adventurous spirit.
00:56:30 --> 00:56:35 She was brilliant. And she was, quite frankly, a born leader.
00:56:35 --> 00:56:42 And so she wrote in her journal, just go, go, go. It doesn't matter where you go, just go.
00:56:42 --> 00:56:48 And she really lived by that ethos until she found a place that she was meant to be. Yeah.
00:56:49 --> 00:56:54 So one of the challenges I found when I lived in Mississippi was that you.
00:56:55 --> 00:56:58 Very few people in Mississippi left the area they were born and raised in.
00:56:59 --> 00:57:03 One minister even told me in the state capitol that at age 83,
00:57:03 --> 00:57:07 this was the first time ever seeing or being in the building.
00:57:07 --> 00:57:13 Wow. And I always argue that the lack of exposure was paralyzing to people's development.
00:57:14 --> 00:57:19 And as I read Ms. Rankin's story, she's proof positive of my argument.
00:57:19 --> 00:57:23 Her crisscrossing of the country had a very profound impact on her.
00:57:23 --> 00:57:27 Was that what you were trying to convey as well? Absolutely.
00:57:29 --> 00:57:34 She traveled so extensively throughout her life, and particularly in her young
00:57:34 --> 00:57:39 life or, you know, in her late 20s, both in Montana and across the United States.
00:57:40 --> 00:57:44 And she had a, you know, real capacity to listen.
00:57:44 --> 00:57:49 And I think that's one of the most important qualities in a leader that we can find, right? Right.
00:57:49 --> 00:57:54 Because we're not asking them in a democracy to espouse their own beliefs.
00:57:54 --> 00:58:00 We're actually asking them to collect our beliefs, meld them together and make them into a platform.
00:58:01 --> 00:58:03 And that's really what Jeanette did. And by traveling the country,
00:58:03 --> 00:58:07 by traveling Montana extensively and listening to the people,
00:58:08 --> 00:58:12 she became the embodiment of a democratic leader and really developed herself
00:58:12 --> 00:58:14 in terms of understanding.
00:58:14 --> 00:58:21 And developing this sense of deep empathy that's also required of our leaders
00:58:21 --> 00:58:24 and of all of us. You know, when we talked earlier about.
00:58:26 --> 00:58:34 You know, Socrates and Plato and this idea that we as humans can grow and evolve
00:58:34 --> 00:58:36 and become our better selves.
00:58:36 --> 00:58:39 That was really something that Jeanette embodied.
00:58:39 --> 00:58:42 She made mistakes. We all make mistakes. And she made gross mistakes.
00:58:42 --> 00:58:44 And that's just the way it goes.
00:58:45 --> 00:58:49 But she listened when she was told that she was incorrect.
00:58:50 --> 00:58:53 She considered it and she grew from that.
00:58:53 --> 00:58:57 And that's something we really have to demand of our leaders,
00:58:57 --> 00:59:01 of ourselves, and of each other, and I think in this time particularly.
00:59:01 --> 00:59:08 Especially in this time. Yeah, yeah. All right, let's fast forward to the last lines of chapter 25.
00:59:09 --> 00:59:13 Jeanette Rankin called the clerk. Jeanette stood.
00:59:14 --> 00:59:19 No was all she said. That was her lone dissenting vote against the declaration
00:59:19 --> 00:59:21 of war towards the empire Japan.
00:59:21 --> 00:59:25 What was life like for her immediately afterwards?
00:59:26 --> 00:59:31 It was lonely and hard and filled with rancor.
00:59:32 --> 00:59:41 She had spent 20 years lobbying for and organizing for disarmament and peace.
00:59:41 --> 00:59:45 She saw in the advent of the Great War,
00:59:45 --> 00:59:51 World War I, and in the aftermath, the birth of the military-industrial complex
00:59:51 --> 00:59:57 well before President Eisenhower made his famous speech and understood that
00:59:57 --> 00:59:58 it was antithetical to democracy.
00:59:58 --> 01:00:03 And she did everything she could, practically laying her body down on the tracks
01:00:03 --> 01:00:08 to try to get the world to change its course. Yeah.
01:00:09 --> 01:00:16 She understood, right, that we were going through a profound shift in the way
01:00:16 --> 01:00:21 that countries waged war through technological development, but also through
01:00:21 --> 01:00:22 who built the machines of war.
01:00:23 --> 01:00:31 There was a large investment of public funds and private corporations building the machinery of war.
01:00:31 --> 01:00:35 And she understood that when a corporation makes an investment,
01:00:35 --> 01:00:38 they demand a return on that investment.
01:00:39 --> 01:00:43 When that investment is the machinery of war, the return on that investment is war itself.
01:00:44 --> 01:00:47 She would say, if you prepare for war, you will get war. If you prepare for
01:00:47 --> 01:00:48 peace, you will get peace.
01:00:49 --> 01:00:54 And so her vote, right, against declaration of war with the Empire of Japan
01:00:54 --> 01:01:01 was not necessarily about changing history or changing anyone's mind, even at the time.
01:01:01 --> 01:01:09 But to hang a lantern on a path that we could have taken in 1919 or 1929 or maybe even 1933.
01:01:10 --> 01:01:13 But that was no longer available in 1941.
01:01:14 --> 01:01:20 But if we look at where we are now, with the massive influx of public funds
01:01:20 --> 01:01:29 in the development of AI war machinery, the buildup of conflict across the world,
01:01:30 --> 01:01:35 we can very much see that we are standing at the same crossroads that Jeanette stood on in 1919,
01:01:36 --> 01:01:41 and we can now choose to prepare for peace, or we can continue to allow the
01:01:41 --> 01:01:48 oligarchs who profit from war to prepare for war, and the outcome is inevitable.
01:01:49 --> 01:01:54 So I hope we can find that lantern that Jeanette hung on that crossroads and
01:01:54 --> 01:01:57 choose the path of peace at this time.
01:01:58 --> 01:02:03 Yeah, I love the Terminator movies. And I remember when somebody,
01:02:03 --> 01:02:11 I think Ed Norton played the scientist or something, and he was either Sarah Connor or John.
01:02:11 --> 01:02:15 One of them asked him, how did the leadership allow this to happen?
01:02:16 --> 01:02:22 And so now living in this time with the leadership we have is like, oh, Mr.
01:02:22 --> 01:02:25 Connor, this is how this happened. This is how it went down.
01:02:25 --> 01:02:31 These were the people that. so I always think about that but I really one of
01:02:31 --> 01:02:34 the things I liked is how you.
01:02:35 --> 01:02:40 Conveyed the dread that she was feeling as the vote was coming right because
01:02:40 --> 01:02:44 there's somebody that has been in a position where it's like okay something
01:02:44 --> 01:02:48 controversial is happening and you kind of like am I going to be the only person
01:02:48 --> 01:02:50 to vote against this thing or you know whatever,
01:02:51 --> 01:02:55 I was putting myself in her place And it was just like,
01:02:55 --> 01:03:01 poor thing You know, she was As strong a woman as she was It was like,
01:03:01 --> 01:03:05 that was a moment of vulnerability It's like, I've run out of time It was kind
01:03:05 --> 01:03:10 of like that mindset And I really love the way that you framed that Her last
01:03:10 --> 01:03:16 fray in public life was Jeanette Rankin Brigade Talk about that a little bit So,
01:03:17 --> 01:03:22 after her vote against war with Japan And Jeanette really took a step back from
01:03:22 --> 01:03:27 public life and spent a lot of time traveling,
01:03:27 --> 01:03:33 devoting herself to the nonviolent movement in India and building community
01:03:33 --> 01:03:37 in her adopted home of Georgia outside of Athens.
01:03:38 --> 01:03:43 But in 1965, when the U.S. committed its first ground troops to Vietnam.
01:03:45 --> 01:03:49 She couldn't stay silent anymore. Also, she was really old. So she was like,
01:03:49 --> 01:03:51 I don't have anything to lose. Whatever.
01:03:51 --> 01:03:55 Let's just go for this. So she placed a small ad in four Montana newspapers
01:03:55 --> 01:04:02 that said, women, call your congressman and make sure that they do not support this war.
01:04:02 --> 01:04:06 Well, this got picked up by the national press and became, right,
01:04:06 --> 01:04:09 this sort of viral story, as we say now.
01:04:09 --> 01:04:14 And the burgeoning peace movement started looking back at Jeanette and And,
01:04:14 --> 01:04:21 you know, admiring and appreciating her decades of service to pacifism.
01:04:21 --> 01:04:30 And she really became, again, this figure of early feminism and dedication to pacifism.
01:04:30 --> 01:04:36 And so she, along with several other women, organized, as you said,
01:04:36 --> 01:04:41 the Jeanette Rankin Brigade, which was one of the first anti-war marches on Washington.
01:04:41 --> 01:04:47 It was the largest all-female anti-war march at that time.
01:04:48 --> 01:04:52 And it was about 5 women standing arm in arm.
01:04:52 --> 01:04:56 You know, she marched with Coretta Scott King, which was such an amazing movement.
01:04:56 --> 01:05:01 And they demanded not only the end to the war, but also the end to all of the
01:05:01 --> 01:05:06 conditions that allow governments to wage war on people to begin with.
01:05:06 --> 01:05:16 That's racism, poverty, inequity, and, you know, the investment in the buildup of war machinery.
01:05:17 --> 01:05:24 So it was this really incredible, I think, bookend to her life.
01:05:25 --> 01:05:30 And it really did make a difference. Right.
01:05:30 --> 01:05:36 Lot of ways. And one of them was actually Jeanette being a alum of Congress
01:05:36 --> 01:05:41 was able to go into Congress and meet with the speaker at the time who was Mike Mansfield, I believe.
01:05:41 --> 01:05:45 But the rest of the Jeanette Rankin Brigade had to stay outside on the Capitol
01:05:45 --> 01:05:48 steps. And they refused to leave when the Capitol Police came.
01:05:49 --> 01:05:51 And they were escorted off and several of them were arrested.
01:05:52 --> 01:05:57 They took their case to the Supreme Court and won because they believe that
01:05:57 --> 01:06:03 we have a right to peacefully protest on the steps of Congress, and they won.
01:06:03 --> 01:06:08 And that's why we are able to peaceably protest on Capitol Hill now.
01:06:08 --> 01:06:14 So it has long-lasting effects in our democracy and our capacity to advocate for peace.
01:06:15 --> 01:06:21 Yeah. And, you know, the domino effect was that, you know, Coretta Sky King
01:06:21 --> 01:06:23 really was the influence for Dr.
01:06:24 --> 01:06:28 King to publicly come out and use his platform against the war.
01:06:29 --> 01:06:32 And, I mean, it cost him his life, I think, and a lot of other people think,
01:06:32 --> 01:06:41 but, you know, he felt that, how could he be a man of God and not say something about it?
01:06:41 --> 01:06:43 And so, you know, just...
01:06:44 --> 01:06:48 So, you know, everybody, there's a whole generation that's going to hear the
01:06:48 --> 01:06:51 initials RFK and look at what's going on now.
01:06:51 --> 01:06:55 But, you know, I'm old enough to remember the RFK that was really about something.
01:06:56 --> 01:07:04 And he said that, you know, he just wanted to throw that stone in the lake and create the ripples.
01:07:05 --> 01:07:10 And Ms. Rankin's life pretty much, you know, she was definitely a stone thrower.
01:07:10 --> 01:07:12 And she created a lot of ripples that.
01:07:13 --> 01:07:17 Definitely. We're benefiting from it. So if Congresswoman Rankin was around
01:07:17 --> 01:07:22 today, what do you think she would be doing in this political climate?
01:07:22 --> 01:07:24 I think she'd be organizing. I think
01:07:24 --> 01:07:28 she'd be organizing. I think she'd be running for office or in office.
01:07:28 --> 01:07:32 Honestly, she is one of the great political geniuses of American history.
01:07:32 --> 01:07:37 I wouldn't put it past her if she was president. She had a capacity to talk
01:07:37 --> 01:07:41 to all kinds of folks, listen to all kinds of folks, synthesize what they're saying.
01:07:42 --> 01:07:46 She also had incredible dedication to the United States Constitution and Bill of Rights.
01:07:47 --> 01:07:52 But she would, above all, be doing the difficult thing.
01:07:53 --> 01:07:56 There are a few others in our history with the courage of her convictions.
01:07:56 --> 01:08:06 And she knew that we had to stand up for this democracy regardless of the cost,
01:08:06 --> 01:08:12 the personal cost, because it is precious and it is fragile and it is frankly
01:08:12 --> 01:08:17 miraculous and it is worth all of our time and effort to preserve, protect, and grow it.
01:08:18 --> 01:08:21 Who do you think embodies the spirit of Ms. Rankin in today's politics?
01:08:23 --> 01:08:29 You know, I often get asked this question, and my answer is the folks who come
01:08:29 --> 01:08:30 out to the No Kings protests.
01:08:31 --> 01:08:40 It's, you know, the women who are organizing, you know, drives for Mephapristone
01:08:40 --> 01:08:44 in the South, who are helping women get abortion access.
01:08:44 --> 01:08:49 Yes, it's not, you know, yes, AOC, Jasmine Crockett,
01:08:49 --> 01:08:55 Governor Spanberger, many other women are doing amazing work,
01:08:55 --> 01:09:03 but it's really the people on the ground doing the grassroots organizing who embody her spirit,
01:09:03 --> 01:09:05 her ethos and her dedication, right?
01:09:05 --> 01:09:10 Because leaders can only do so much. Democracy is the power of the people.
01:09:10 --> 01:09:13 And that's what she dedicated her life to was the power of the people.
01:09:14 --> 01:09:18 How did she inspire you? Oh, my gosh.
01:09:18 --> 01:09:24 You know, as a biographer, I try to stay objective, but she really inspired me.
01:09:24 --> 01:09:29 I've always been politically active ever since I was, you know, pretty much a child.
01:09:30 --> 01:09:43 But she inspired me to not only act right in my conscience, but to act with bravery and fortitude.
01:09:43 --> 01:09:52 And to not cower, right, at these bullies that are trying to take away our democracy,
01:09:52 --> 01:09:56 trying to take away our right to the ballot, our right to have a functioning
01:09:56 --> 01:09:59 government, and our right to freedom and equality.
01:09:59 --> 01:10:02 We don't have time to be afraid.
01:10:02 --> 01:10:09 And I look at so many of these CEOs who are just bending the knee because they're
01:10:09 --> 01:10:16 afraid that their bottom line will be And I cannot understand their complicity
01:10:16 --> 01:10:20 in this true attack on American democracy,
01:10:20 --> 01:10:24 which has enabled them to be so wealthy in the first place. It's unbreakable.
01:10:25 --> 01:10:32 So I'm trying to act with as much courage and conviction as I possibly can every day.
01:10:33 --> 01:10:38 What do you want readers of the book to take away from it? I want them to take
01:10:38 --> 01:10:42 away that, you know, the power is in their hands.
01:10:43 --> 01:10:45 The power is theirs alone.
01:10:46 --> 01:10:49 We are told every day that.
01:10:50 --> 01:10:56 The government, by, you know, corporate media, by bad faith actors,
01:10:56 --> 01:11:00 that we do not have the capacity to change the course of history.
01:11:00 --> 01:11:03 And this book shows that we do.
01:11:04 --> 01:11:07 Jeanette Rankin shows that we do. And we can come together when we can organize,
01:11:07 --> 01:11:13 when we can find common cause and devote ourselves to the better angels of America.
01:11:13 --> 01:11:19 There is nothing that can stop us. And it is, you know, this book really is
01:11:19 --> 01:11:27 a call to action, and I hope folks who read it are inspired and galvanized.
01:11:29 --> 01:11:32 All right, so I'm doing something a little different this year.
01:11:33 --> 01:11:38 I'm closing out the interviews, I guess, for lack of a better word, this challenge.
01:11:39 --> 01:11:42 Finish this sentence. I have hope because.
01:11:44 --> 01:11:48 I have hope because of you, because of your listeners,
01:11:49 --> 01:11:58 because of all the people who are coming out and running for office and marching
01:11:58 --> 01:12:04 in the streets and just talking to one another and recognizing that it doesn't have to be this way.
01:12:05 --> 01:12:11 I would say, I truly believe that we are more galvanized and actually more united
01:12:11 --> 01:12:13 than we have been in so long.
01:12:14 --> 01:12:18 It seems like the opposite, but I actually think that we are.
01:12:18 --> 01:12:21 And I have a great deal of hope.
01:12:21 --> 01:12:26 I would also just say, I have to caveat that, and I said this to you when we were just chatting.
01:12:28 --> 01:12:33 These midterms and the next president election is not the end, it's the beginning.
01:12:33 --> 01:12:37 We have to hold our elected officials' feet to the fire to make those reforms
01:12:37 --> 01:12:43 that are necessary for the people actually and finally to have a voice in this
01:12:43 --> 01:12:46 government, to actually and finally have equality.
01:12:47 --> 01:12:53 And if we cannot do that this time around, That's my real fear.
01:12:54 --> 01:13:00 Yeah, yeah. So, Larissa, how can people get this book? How can people reach
01:13:00 --> 01:13:01 out to you? All that stuff.
01:13:02 --> 01:13:06 So the book is for sale anywhere books are sold, bookshop.org,
01:13:06 --> 01:13:12 probably your local indie store, Barnes & Noble, and other booksellers that shall not be named.
01:13:13 --> 01:13:18 And I am on Substack at the Female Body Politic.
01:13:18 --> 01:13:23 Please subscribe. I'm exploring 250 years of women's participation in American
01:13:23 --> 01:13:28 democracy and how that we can read today's headlines through this feminist lens.
01:13:28 --> 01:13:32 And you can check out my website at LarissaReinhart.com.
01:13:33 --> 01:13:40 Larissa, as always, it's good to have you on. I just admire your enthusiasm
01:13:40 --> 01:13:44 about how we change this thing.
01:13:45 --> 01:13:50 And, you know, you said some nice things about me. I can throw that right back at you.
01:13:50 --> 01:13:58 I think it's very important for you and others to continue to raise the banner
01:13:58 --> 01:14:06 and continue to blare out this clarion call and to do it in a way which highlights
01:14:06 --> 01:14:09 our strengths and our skill set.
01:14:09 --> 01:14:12 And because you're somebody that has been dedicated to the history of women
01:14:12 --> 01:14:21 in politics and really women in American society, I think female body politic is a vital,
01:14:21 --> 01:14:25 vital weapon for us in this fight. Thank you so much. Democracy.
01:14:25 --> 01:14:29 So I appreciate you and look forward.
01:14:29 --> 01:14:32 You already know the rule, so I don't have to restate it to you,
01:14:32 --> 01:14:34 but I look forward for the next time.
01:14:35 --> 01:14:39 In my mind, I was thinking, you know, this Lydia Taft woman,
01:14:39 --> 01:14:45 maybe we should do like a little short film or come up with like some kind of
01:14:45 --> 01:14:49 fictionalized version about what led up to that moment where she had to vote on something.
01:14:49 --> 01:14:53 I was just playing in my mind, like, you know, like what's Netflix got that
01:14:53 --> 01:14:57 Bridgerton show and just how people were dressed up back then.
01:14:57 --> 01:15:00 I could, yeah, I could see like a little short film where it's like,
01:15:00 --> 01:15:02 you know, the Uxbridge voter.
01:15:03 --> 01:15:04 So I don't know anything, But
01:15:04 --> 01:15:09 we'll, what do they say, bounce it off the walls and see what comes up.
01:15:09 --> 01:15:14 But again, thank you so much for doing this and much continued success on the book.
01:15:14 --> 01:15:19 Please, people, go read this book. It's very, very inspiring and very,
01:15:19 --> 01:15:26 very eye-opening as far as to see how this important figure in American history became that person.
01:15:26 --> 01:15:30 So thank you again for doing this. Thank you so much for having me.
01:15:31 --> 01:15:34 All right, guys, and we're going to catch y'all on the other side. All right.
01:15:54 --> 01:15:58 It is time for my next guest, Dr. Sherice Janaye Nelson.
01:15:59 --> 01:16:05 Dr. Sherice Janaye Nelson is a speaker, author, researcher, and has a decade
01:16:05 --> 01:16:06 of higher education experience.
01:16:07 --> 01:16:11 She has taught at the University of California, Berkeley, and other premier
01:16:11 --> 01:16:16 institutions in the San Francisco Bay Area and in Los Angeles, California.
01:16:16 --> 01:16:22 She was the inaugural director for the Jewel Lamar Prestige Public Policy Polling
01:16:22 --> 01:16:27 and Research Center, which performs mixed-methods research that tell the stories
01:16:27 --> 01:16:30 of Blacks with data at Southern University.
01:16:30 --> 01:16:36 She is a proud alumna of Howard University and as a political analyst,
01:16:36 --> 01:16:41 provides commentary for the Howard Fisher Show on WHUR and SiriusXM.
01:16:42 --> 01:16:46 There, she received a doctorate of philosophy in political science at 27 years
01:16:46 --> 01:16:51 old, specializing in Black politics and international relations.
01:16:51 --> 01:16:56 These specializations have defined her as a Black diaspora scholar who focuses
01:16:56 --> 01:17:02 on the political, social, and economic effects of chattel slavery on present-day democracies.
01:17:03 --> 01:17:08 She is the originator of the term insulated Blackness, which speaks to African
01:17:08 --> 01:17:13 American separation from Black political identity due to infrequent experiences
01:17:13 --> 01:17:16 of racial discrimination. Dr.
01:17:16 --> 01:17:22 Nelson is the recent author of Visibly Invisible, Black Women of the Congressional Black Caucus.
01:17:22 --> 01:17:29 This work discusses the erasure of black women in the push for democracy legislatively.
01:17:29 --> 01:17:36 Ladies and gentlemen, it is my distinct honor and privilege to have as a guest on this podcast, Dr.
01:17:36 --> 01:17:39 Sherice Janaye Nelson.
01:17:52 --> 01:17:57 Dr. Sherice Janaye Nelson. How are you doing, ma'am? You doing good? I cannot complain.
01:17:58 --> 01:18:01 Neither can I. If you can't, I ain't got no reason to complain either.
01:18:02 --> 01:18:07 I'm really glad that you're here. We're going to talk about your book,
01:18:07 --> 01:18:14 which is called Visibly Invisible, Black Women of the Congressional Black Caucus.
01:18:15 --> 01:18:18 And I'm going to pick your brain a little bit, too, about some other stuff.
01:18:18 --> 01:18:24 But what I'd like to do to start the interview off is I do a couple of icebreakers.
01:18:24 --> 01:18:29 So the first icebreaker is a quote that I want you to respond to.
01:18:29 --> 01:18:34 And the quote is, black women belong everywhere decisions are made.
01:18:35 --> 01:18:39 Black women have always been where all decisions are made. The difference is
01:18:39 --> 01:18:42 that we've been there through a representative.
01:18:43 --> 01:18:44 And what do I mean by that?
01:18:46 --> 01:18:51 There's no place in society black women haven't touched. Even in the ages during
01:18:51 --> 01:18:56 the age of child slavery, black women were taking care of white children inside the home.
01:18:57 --> 01:19:01 So there's never been a place that black women haven't been making decisions.
01:19:01 --> 01:19:04 The difference is that they've been doing it indirectly and not directly.
01:19:04 --> 01:19:05 And this is what I mean by that.
01:19:06 --> 01:19:11 When you're making a decision or thinking about how do I pass this law while
01:19:11 --> 01:19:14 I still, I'll give you a perfect example, Lyndon B. Johnson.
01:19:15 --> 01:19:19 Lyndon B. Johnson, one of the biggest reasons it is said that he knew that civil
01:19:19 --> 01:19:27 rights had to carry on after Kennedy died was because his maid for a number
01:19:27 --> 01:19:32 of years could not travel with him or could not come up from Texas and travel
01:19:32 --> 01:19:34 with him all the way to the White House.
01:19:34 --> 01:19:38 She was getting ready to be the maid of the president of the United States and
01:19:38 --> 01:19:44 expressed to him fears about driving, driving up with him from Texas all the
01:19:44 --> 01:19:46 way to Washington, D.C., right?
01:19:46 --> 01:19:52 And so that right there, that decision about what do you do about this domesticated
01:19:52 --> 01:19:57 worker that you spent your life with in many ways and her safety then makes
01:19:57 --> 01:20:01 you totally think different about what then needs to be done in these United States.
01:20:01 --> 01:20:05 And I would argue that that's been the case in big spaces and that's been the
01:20:05 --> 01:20:07 and that has been the case in little spaces.
01:20:08 --> 01:20:12 Yeah. All right. So now the next icebreaker is what I call 20 questions.
01:20:13 --> 01:20:19 So I need you to give me a number between one and 20. 13. All right.
01:20:20 --> 01:20:24 Do you think there is such a thing as unbiased news or media and why?
01:20:25 --> 01:20:31 No, there's no such thing. And because everybody has a perspective and we need
01:20:31 --> 01:20:35 to walk away from the idea of objectivity.
01:20:35 --> 01:20:41 Do I think that news now is more sensationalized than it has been in years prior? Yes.
01:20:41 --> 01:20:46 But the idea of objective news is a falsehood to begin with. Okay.
01:20:47 --> 01:20:52 So how did a girl from Oakland, California, in the words of Dr.
01:20:52 --> 01:20:57 Anne-Marie Waterman, blossom into a powerhouse political scientist,
01:20:57 --> 01:21:01 analyst, speaker, administrator, and associate professor?
01:21:01 --> 01:21:07 It's funny that you use her quote because she met, I would like to say,
01:21:07 --> 01:21:11 that little girl from East Oakland right after I left Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
01:21:12 --> 01:21:18 So I moved from Oakland, California to go to school in Tuscaloosa, Alabama for undergrad.
01:21:18 --> 01:21:22 Talk about a culture shock. It was a huge culture shock. I enjoyed it,
01:21:22 --> 01:21:27 but a huge culture shock because I fell in love with my people in different
01:21:27 --> 01:21:30 ways because I understood after going to school down in the South that there
01:21:30 --> 01:21:33 was different ways to be Black, and I loved all of them.
01:21:34 --> 01:21:40 And so then I moved to Washington, D.C. because I graduated in 08 when the economy
01:21:40 --> 01:21:45 was belly up with the housing crisis. I moved to Washington, D.C.
01:21:45 --> 01:21:49 I started attending the University of the District of Columbia to get a master's
01:21:49 --> 01:21:53 in public administration so I could go get my good government job, right?
01:21:53 --> 01:21:58 Or go to law school, depending on if I had a good enough LSAT score.
01:21:59 --> 01:22:03 And a professor met me there and said to me, you're too smart to work.
01:22:05 --> 01:22:10 I said, where I'm from, they don't get those. The only doctors I know are player-hater
01:22:10 --> 01:22:13 degrees and MDs, medical doctors.
01:22:13 --> 01:22:18 I said, don't you got to switch to be a PhD? He was like, yeah, it's called methods.
01:22:19 --> 01:22:24 You'll understand it when you get to three PhD programs, got into two,
01:22:25 --> 01:22:26 and ended up choosing Howard University.
01:22:27 --> 01:22:30 And one of the best decisions I think I've made in my life was to be,
01:22:30 --> 01:22:36 then at that point, become only HBCU educated. And that is when I started really
01:22:36 --> 01:22:41 digging in and understanding how power works at all these different echelons, right?
01:22:41 --> 01:22:46 Attending a more liberal arts, small HBCU in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.
01:22:47 --> 01:22:52 Attending UDC, which is more of a regional college, so folks who didn't finish
01:22:52 --> 01:22:55 or started off the school, all the non-traditional students,
01:22:55 --> 01:23:01 all those in the government trying to get a degree to move up was where they went. They went to UDC.
01:23:02 --> 01:23:06 And then to attend the Black Mecca, right, when I'm in class arguing with the
01:23:06 --> 01:23:14 Sultan of Oman's niece, right, gave me a very full perspective of what power looks like.
01:23:14 --> 01:23:19 And then how do I articulate it and use it for people that look like me for
01:23:19 --> 01:23:21 the interest that we have?
01:23:21 --> 01:23:26 Yeah. So when you talked about the culture shock, I did that. I had the same thing.
01:23:26 --> 01:23:30 I grew up in Chicago and then went to Jackson State in Mississippi.
01:23:31 --> 01:23:37 So, yeah. And the way you articulated that, how you fell in love with Black
01:23:37 --> 01:23:41 people because it was different being black in the South as opposed to,
01:23:41 --> 01:23:43 you know, growing up in a city.
01:23:43 --> 01:23:47 I totally appreciate that. That's that's that's very well said.
01:23:47 --> 01:23:51 Why did you decide to write this book, Visibly Invisible?
01:23:51 --> 01:23:55 So actually, this is a sequel, as as folks say.
01:23:55 --> 01:24:00 So my first book, The Congressional Black Caucus, 50 Years of Fighting for Equality,
01:24:00 --> 01:24:06 was really based upon arguing that the Congressional Black Caucus is actually
01:24:06 --> 01:24:07 doing something. Right.
01:24:08 --> 01:24:11 And so there were so many people that were like, they don't do it.
01:24:12 --> 01:24:14 They don't do it. They don't do it. And I said, no, no, no, no, no.
01:24:14 --> 01:24:17 You don't understand what they're there to do.
01:24:17 --> 01:24:23 And I wanted to write a book that was accessible, right. For the community. It, it.
01:24:24 --> 01:24:26 Usable in the classroom, but accessible
01:24:26 --> 01:24:29 to the community about what the Congressional Black Caucus does.
01:24:30 --> 01:24:32 Well, as I started writing the book, I started realizing, wait,
01:24:33 --> 01:24:38 wait, wait, wait, wait, the women are doing a lot here and they are not getting any of the credit.
01:24:39 --> 01:24:43 My husband is a Baptist preacher and he often talks about Zipporah in the Bible
01:24:43 --> 01:24:48 who cut the foreskin of Moses' kids so that there could be an exodus.
01:24:48 --> 01:24:54 And I realized the black women in the Congressional Black Caucus was doing all
01:24:54 --> 01:24:56 of the cutting and getting none of the credit.
01:24:57 --> 01:25:01 And so this book was really about giving them the credit they were due because
01:25:01 --> 01:25:05 of all the cutting they've been doing for years. I got you.
01:25:06 --> 01:25:12 As somebody that has been a member of a Black Caucus, I have heard that same commentary.
01:25:12 --> 01:25:15 Y'all ain't doing nothing up there. Why ain't y'all doing something? I said.
01:25:16 --> 01:25:24 So part of our job is to make sure that bad stuff doesn't happen based on our numbers, right?
01:25:24 --> 01:25:28 Right. People do not understand. People are so worried about what you pass,
01:25:28 --> 01:25:32 they do not focus on what you block. That's right. That's exactly right.
01:25:33 --> 01:25:37 All right, so I'm going to do something here because it's going to lead to a question.
01:25:39 --> 01:25:43 This is from, this is the very first paragraph of your book.
01:25:43 --> 01:25:47 It says, There is no possible compromise in the case of race,
01:25:47 --> 01:25:50 in social construction, and here are.
01:25:52 --> 01:25:55 Hierarchical. Thank you. Thank you, Professor.
01:25:56 --> 01:26:01 Hierarchical manipulation, as these factors were present during the country's founding.
01:26:02 --> 01:26:07 White elites at the founding understood the convergence of their interests revolved
01:26:07 --> 01:26:09 around the prevention of tyranny.
01:26:09 --> 01:26:14 Such prevention of white Southern elites was wrapped in the diminutive legal
01:26:14 --> 01:26:19 status of blacks. Although northern white elites did not agree without compulsion,
01:26:19 --> 01:26:23 they understood the importance of the young country's unification.
01:26:24 --> 01:26:30 A compromise was made in the best interest of white elites to allow poor whites to feel privileged.
01:26:30 --> 01:26:34 Thus, white superiority became gospel.
01:26:34 --> 01:26:40 Such a gospel was in direct opposition to an American creed that stated that
01:26:40 --> 01:26:43 all men were created equal with inalienable rights.
01:26:44 --> 01:26:50 So you use this as the backdrop of America in 1969 when the Congressional Black
01:26:50 --> 01:26:54 Caucus then called the Democratic Select Committee was formed.
01:26:54 --> 01:26:59 So kind of elaborate on that. Why did you decide to hit the reader in the face with that?
01:26:59 --> 01:27:04 Why? It's so funny. When I was reading it, I was like, man, that's a punch, right?
01:27:04 --> 01:27:08 Listening to it back, I was like, man, that's a punch.
01:27:09 --> 01:27:13 I wanted to quickly articulate in a paragraph, which is difficult to do,
01:27:14 --> 01:27:18 that this understanding of unifying a country is why...
01:27:21 --> 01:27:24 Why white folks who disagreed allowed for slavery.
01:27:25 --> 01:27:30 And oftentimes I think that when we're taught about slavery or we're taught
01:27:30 --> 01:27:34 about the origins of this country, we are taught them in this,
01:27:35 --> 01:27:37 you know, good or bad, right?
01:27:37 --> 01:27:43 Good angel, bad angel, right? We're taught about it in this dichotomy of left or right.
01:27:43 --> 01:27:49 And I wanted the readers off the gate to understand that this is more of a spectrum.
01:27:50 --> 01:27:53 Right. I tell my students all the time, yes, there is black and white,
01:27:54 --> 01:27:56 but life is lived in the gray.
01:27:57 --> 01:28:01 And because life is lived in the gray, I wanted to make sure that we understood
01:28:01 --> 01:28:04 that that the founders had a decision.
01:28:05 --> 01:28:11 Do we unify a country and allow for slavery or do we allow ourselves to be picked
01:28:11 --> 01:28:16 off state by state at that time or colony by colony at that time and not have
01:28:16 --> 01:28:18 a United States of America?
01:28:18 --> 01:28:21 And what do we hold our nose and accept?
01:28:22 --> 01:28:29 Well, after holding your nose and accepting it, it bloomed and swole and swelled
01:28:29 --> 01:28:31 and even caused a civil war.
01:28:31 --> 01:28:36 And because those ideas were so entrenched, right, because poor white people
01:28:36 --> 01:28:41 started to believe that they were better than black people or Native American people so much.
01:28:41 --> 01:28:44 We have what we still are dealing with
01:28:44 --> 01:28:47 today in this white superiority in this
01:28:47 --> 01:28:50 white superiority complex that was only created
01:28:50 --> 01:28:54 for such a time to unify a
01:28:54 --> 01:28:57 country and that is no longer unifying the country it
01:28:57 --> 01:29:00 is breaking the country apart and it is breaking the
01:29:00 --> 01:29:06 country apart because blacks were then granted citizenship with the civil rights
01:29:06 --> 01:29:11 act of 1965 that that activated their citizenship and that black people have
01:29:11 --> 01:29:16 been running with that citizenship ever since they were allowed inside of the
01:29:16 --> 01:29:19 United States House of Representatives in 1969.
01:29:21 --> 01:29:26 You contend that the CBC is a party faction in the United States Congress.
01:29:26 --> 01:29:28 Explain what you mean by that.
01:29:28 --> 01:29:32 Yeah. So in an academic world, we have a conversation.
01:29:32 --> 01:29:39 Well, if you think about the Federalist Papers, right, some of the founders talk about factions.
01:29:39 --> 01:29:44 And then in an academic world, it's our job to move those kind of ideas forward.
01:29:44 --> 01:29:50 And so DeSalvo in the early 2000s said that one of the biggest reasons we see
01:29:50 --> 01:29:56 consternation inside of parties is because a party can have a group or a faction
01:29:56 --> 01:29:59 that then slows down how the party operates.
01:29:59 --> 01:30:05 And I argued that in the 111th Congress, the Congressional Black Caucus was
01:30:05 --> 01:30:07 no longer just a disturbing force.
01:30:07 --> 01:30:10 They had became their own faction and they
01:30:10 --> 01:30:13 had become a faction that then slowed down or
01:30:13 --> 01:30:17 altered I shouldn't say slowed down but altered how the Democratic Party
01:30:17 --> 01:30:20 operated and we've seen that we we've seen
01:30:20 --> 01:30:25 that even from the kicking out or stopping Joe Biden from running for office
01:30:25 --> 01:30:29 right because the person that replaced him was once a member of the Congressional
01:30:29 --> 01:30:34 Black Caucus and so if we think about it in those terms the Congressional Black
01:30:34 --> 01:30:38 Caucus gained saliency meaning that they had a standing member on,
01:30:38 --> 01:30:42 they had a member on every standing committee inside the House of Representatives.
01:30:43 --> 01:30:47 So that means there was no piece of legislation that was brought in that House
01:30:47 --> 01:30:50 that made it to committee that a member of this caucus didn't see.
01:30:51 --> 01:30:56 And that gave them an enormous amount of power that the current structure is
01:30:56 --> 01:30:58 trying to stop and halt right now.
01:30:58 --> 01:31:03 Yeah. And that was something, another thing we had to relate to people,
01:31:04 --> 01:31:08 constituents, was that I would tell people it's like there are the white Democrats,
01:31:09 --> 01:31:13 there's the white Republicans, and then there was us, the black folk.
01:31:14 --> 01:31:18 And most of the time we sided with the white Democrats, but every now and then
01:31:18 --> 01:31:23 we had to side with the white Republicans, especially we were in a unique situation
01:31:23 --> 01:31:26 where Medicaid wasn't a state department.
01:31:27 --> 01:31:32 It was actually something we contracted out and a black doctor had the contract.
01:31:32 --> 01:31:37 So the white Democrats wanted the state agency and the white Republicans were
01:31:37 --> 01:31:38 like, no, we like the private thing.
01:31:38 --> 01:31:42 So we used to vote with the Republicans to make sure that that brother kept
01:31:42 --> 01:31:45 that contract for as long as he did. Now, it's a state agency now,
01:31:45 --> 01:31:52 but we try to, you know, we try to keep that brother employed with that contract as long as we could.
01:31:53 --> 01:31:57 But you're making a good point here. And this is what the founder of the Congressional
01:31:57 --> 01:32:02 Black Caucus said, Charles Diggs, that black people do not have permanent parties.
01:32:02 --> 01:32:04 They have permanent interest.
01:32:04 --> 01:32:11 And I think that what what we have been been romanticized into believing is
01:32:11 --> 01:32:14 that black people would not vote that way,
01:32:14 --> 01:32:18 that black people would decide they were going to take party right over then
01:32:18 --> 01:32:20 this black man. that that has not been the case.
01:32:20 --> 01:32:22 It's not what I've seen in my research and it's not been the case.
01:32:22 --> 01:32:27 I think that we have to understand that black people for wholesale normally
01:32:27 --> 01:32:31 align themselves with the Democratic Party because it gives them the opportunity
01:32:31 --> 01:32:34 to continue to fight for their interest.
01:32:34 --> 01:32:39 But it doesn't then mean that they walk lockstep in whatever the Democratic
01:32:39 --> 01:32:43 Party says at the local level, at the state level, or at the federal level. Yeah.
01:32:44 --> 01:32:50 Do you agree with Pearl Dowd's argument that elite Black women have a unique
01:32:50 --> 01:32:55 political ambition that compels them to move beyond service to seek office?
01:32:56 --> 01:33:02 Absolutely. And I agree with Pearl because the Black elite in this country have always existed.
01:33:04 --> 01:33:09 I think that now that we have social media that's prevalent in a learning space,
01:33:09 --> 01:33:10 right, not just in a relatable space,
01:33:11 --> 01:33:15 not for me to post my pictures at the family reunion and all those kind of things,
01:33:15 --> 01:33:21 but using social media to educate as a way to counteract the narrative about
01:33:21 --> 01:33:23 certain historical events.
01:33:23 --> 01:33:26 Many people are learning that there have been black elites
01:33:26 --> 01:33:29 in this country for a long time And black
01:33:29 --> 01:33:34 elites have found a way to infiltrate
01:33:34 --> 01:33:36 right certain areas in american life not
01:33:36 --> 01:33:40 just in politics but in american life To then forward
01:33:40 --> 01:33:43 then the cause of black people
01:33:43 --> 01:33:46 And so what happens for black women in particular is
01:33:46 --> 01:33:49 that they are serving oftentimes the black
01:33:49 --> 01:33:53 men that get to do get to be in those spaces and
01:33:53 --> 01:33:56 now black women are are have you
01:33:56 --> 01:33:59 know in some ways cracked a glass ceiling to get themselves
01:33:59 --> 01:34:03 at the table to say hey hey hey hey hey it's no more just black elites black
01:34:03 --> 01:34:08 male elites you're going to have to deal with there there are black female elites
01:34:08 --> 01:34:11 that you're going to have to deal with and when black female elites that step
01:34:11 --> 01:34:16 up to the table to serve they're oftentimes bringing the marginalized with them
01:34:16 --> 01:34:19 in a way that black male elites just aren't So,
01:34:19 --> 01:34:26 so answer this question for me, because that came up a lot in 2024 with Vice
01:34:26 --> 01:34:28 President Harris running and.
01:34:29 --> 01:34:38 There were some black men who were like, why is it that we're putting a woman,
01:34:38 --> 01:34:41 a black woman up instead of another black man?
01:34:41 --> 01:34:48 Why is it that, you know, it seems like we're having this concerted effort to
01:34:48 --> 01:34:52 recruit women to run for office as opposed to recruiting men?
01:34:52 --> 01:35:01 And, you know, it's this age old thing where it seems like whether it's an outside force or internal,
01:35:02 --> 01:35:07 there's a concern about black women pushing aside black men.
01:35:08 --> 01:35:10 And, you know, you're a first lady.
01:35:11 --> 01:35:13 So, you know, people say that even in the church. Right.
01:35:14 --> 01:35:19 How do you what is your your response to those kind of concerns?
01:35:19 --> 01:35:23 You see, I was sneezing in the middle of your question, so that lets you know
01:35:23 --> 01:35:24 I'm allergic to that bullshit.
01:35:29 --> 01:35:32 This is something I think that Black men have to wrestle with,
01:35:32 --> 01:35:34 and it's a wrestle even in my marriage.
01:35:35 --> 01:35:40 Black men have to wrestle with the idea that they will never experience white
01:35:40 --> 01:35:42 patriarchy the same way white men have.
01:35:43 --> 01:35:50 And I think that it's a struggle because the society, our society here in America,
01:35:50 --> 01:35:53 is not only white-dominated, it's white male-dominated.
01:35:53 --> 01:36:01 And so black men in many ways want to be able to control that power and wield it when they get ready.
01:36:01 --> 01:36:05 But the problem is their societies are not built that way.
01:36:05 --> 01:36:09 For the most part, African societies are matriarchal. And
01:36:09 --> 01:36:12 so then you see this hypervigilance amongst
01:36:12 --> 01:36:15 the men In matriarchal societies We see
01:36:15 --> 01:36:18 this even in Mexican or Latin culture Where
01:36:18 --> 01:36:25 the machismo of men is even stronger Because of the matriarchal way in which
01:36:25 --> 01:36:30 the society is formed And I think black men have to take a step back and say
01:36:30 --> 01:36:36 Do I want to keep chasing after this elusive ring Of this black patriarchy That
01:36:36 --> 01:36:38 white men are never going to let me have
01:36:38 --> 01:36:44 Or do I make the decision that I'm okay with living inside of this matriarchal
01:36:44 --> 01:36:46 black society that I'm currently living in?
01:36:47 --> 01:36:52 And how do I then come to the table with black women so we can split up the pie?
01:36:52 --> 01:36:57 Because if you think about it, if there was a fight in the family, it was Big Mama.
01:36:57 --> 01:37:00 It was Madea. It was Grandmother.
01:37:01 --> 01:37:05 It was Auntie. Those are the people that solve those family arguments or family
01:37:05 --> 01:37:10 fights because we operate in a matriarchal society internally.
01:37:11 --> 01:37:15 And so I think that if black men...
01:37:15 --> 01:37:19 To grips with the fact that white men are never going to allow you to have what
01:37:19 --> 01:37:25 they have and come back to the table inside of our matriarchal society as black
01:37:25 --> 01:37:28 folks and decide how much of the power we couldn't up.
01:37:28 --> 01:37:32 Because what they will find if they do that is that there's not as many black
01:37:32 --> 01:37:37 women that want to be in charge as they think, right? That's an illusion and a mirage.
01:37:37 --> 01:37:41 It's just not that. It's just that black women don't want to be trapped, right?
01:37:41 --> 01:37:45 There's a difference with being trapped because we watched previous generations
01:37:45 --> 01:37:50 of our families as women be trapped in situations. We just don't want to be trapped.
01:37:51 --> 01:37:53 We don't necessarily want to take over.
01:37:54 --> 01:38:00 We got you. You know, I had a professor on that had written a book about the colored conventions.
01:38:00 --> 01:38:05 And one of the things I noticed was that the men ran the meeting,
01:38:05 --> 01:38:10 but the project managers were the women because they were the ones that handled logistics.
01:38:10 --> 01:38:12 They were the ones that made sure Everybody had something to eat and,
01:38:12 --> 01:38:18 you know, even even picking out the accommodations as far as where they were going to meet at. Right.
01:38:18 --> 01:38:23 So it's always been that that, like you say, historically and culturally has
01:38:23 --> 01:38:24 been that relationship.
01:38:24 --> 01:38:33 But I guess when you when people see white men doing this and black men say, well, I want to be that.
01:38:33 --> 01:38:41 And for whatever reason people get caught up in saying well she's trying to
01:38:41 --> 01:38:45 stop me from being great and it's like that's.
01:38:46 --> 01:38:51 That's not how that works. It's like, it's like, well, not that I would argue,
01:38:51 --> 01:38:54 I will argue, Erik, that white men keep wanting to put your,
01:38:54 --> 01:38:57 put your attention to that with the numbers, right?
01:38:57 --> 01:39:01 There are less black men going to, there are less black men going to college.
01:39:01 --> 01:39:04 Why is that? Because white men keep locking y'all up, right?
01:39:04 --> 01:39:08 There are less black men. There are less black men that are inside of black
01:39:08 --> 01:39:12 churches. And I would even argue in some ways, black mosque, right?
01:39:12 --> 01:39:17 We're seeing that in both kind of our spiritual anchor spaces. Why is that?
01:39:17 --> 01:39:22 Because black men have then become disconnected to the God that's created them
01:39:22 --> 01:39:26 and are chasing after this economic freedom or success.
01:39:26 --> 01:39:33 If we think about it, white men have hurt you and then used the numbers to then
01:39:33 --> 01:39:39 produce or to mirror or reflect back to you that you're in a diminutive position.
01:39:39 --> 01:39:43 When in actuality, they are the reason they've reduced your numbers.
01:39:43 --> 01:39:46 They've reduced your numbers in college because they've convinced you you can
01:39:46 --> 01:39:49 be successful without a college degree.
01:39:49 --> 01:39:53 They've reduced your numbers in population because they've locked you up.
01:39:53 --> 01:39:57 They've made it so that you can't get good jobs because they've locked you up.
01:39:57 --> 01:40:00 They've disconnected you in many ways from your God because they've told you
01:40:00 --> 01:40:01 money should be your God.
01:40:01 --> 01:40:05 Like, if we think about this at its base level,
01:40:06 --> 01:40:11 the reason that narrative that black women are coming for you can be used so
01:40:11 --> 01:40:18 adroitly is because black women are the most educated affinity group inside
01:40:18 --> 01:40:20 of the United States right now, right?
01:40:20 --> 01:40:25 That's not by accident because that that's because we don't want to be trapped.
01:40:25 --> 01:40:30 Right. But they are using that very thing then against you.
01:40:30 --> 01:40:34 And so that's where I get confused. I get confused. If you understand that they're
01:40:34 --> 01:40:40 doing this to you on one hand, why then you do not understand the effects of it on the other hand? No.
01:40:41 --> 01:40:45 All right. Let's get back to the book. Appreciate you going down that rabbit trail with me.
01:40:46 --> 01:40:50 Shirley Chisholm. I mean, Erik, that's what the book is about for all intents and purposes.
01:40:50 --> 01:40:55 The whole reason the book was written was because Black women in particular
01:40:55 --> 01:40:58 allowed Black men to take the forefront, right?
01:40:59 --> 01:41:03 Allowed them to take the forefront. And I wanted to write a book that put the
01:41:03 --> 01:41:04 women at the forefront. Yes, ma'am.
01:41:05 --> 01:41:08 So Shirley Chisholm was the first Black female elected to Congress,
01:41:09 --> 01:41:13 and she was one of the founders of the CBC. that in the 1972 election,
01:41:14 --> 01:41:18 Yvonne Braithwaite Burke, Curtis Collins, and Barbara Jordan joined her.
01:41:18 --> 01:41:23 You make the point that these ladies laid the foundation for future Black females
01:41:23 --> 01:41:27 in Congress and for the caucus itself. Talk about that.
01:41:28 --> 01:41:32 Yeah, especially Cardiss Collins. So Shirley Chisholm gets a lot of shout out,
01:41:33 --> 01:41:40 but Cardiss Collins plays a huge role because there is, there's successive congressional
01:41:40 --> 01:41:46 sessions where she's the only Black woman inside of that Congress.
01:41:46 --> 01:41:52 And what I mean by the foundation is that they made a decision collectively
01:41:52 --> 01:41:59 and individually that it did not matter that the larger apparatus wanted to silence them.
01:41:59 --> 01:42:02 They were going to be absolute in their activism.
01:42:02 --> 01:42:07 Cardiss Collins, I mean, authored so many bills, it's mind dizzying, right?
01:42:07 --> 01:42:11 The amount of bills that she offered, knowing they were going nowhere,
01:42:11 --> 01:42:15 knowing that they weren't going to become law, but you are going to see me.
01:42:15 --> 01:42:18 And what they did, what,
01:42:19 --> 01:42:22 what Shirley Chisholm did in running for president, you're going to see me.
01:42:23 --> 01:42:28 What Cardiss Collins did as far as the amount of legislation she put through, you're going to see me.
01:42:28 --> 01:42:33 If you think about Burke, Burke's understanding by being from the Midwest,
01:42:33 --> 01:42:38 right, and pushing back against this narrative of Black women needing to be
01:42:38 --> 01:42:40 homemakers, right, you're going to see me.
01:42:40 --> 01:42:45 What I argue in this foundation is that they taught every other Black woman
01:42:45 --> 01:42:50 behind them, don't wait for them to recognize you, force them to see you.
01:42:50 --> 01:42:58 Yeah. And, and so I'm old enough to remember when she got elected because her
01:42:58 --> 01:43:04 husband died and he was, he was a congressman and he died in that terrible crash at Midway airport.
01:43:05 --> 01:43:10 And, you know, so that was a big deal when, when she took over and it was,
01:43:10 --> 01:43:15 it was, it was almost kind of like, you know, well, we're offering her a courtesy
01:43:15 --> 01:43:16 because she's the widow.
01:43:17 --> 01:43:21 And, you know, even though we were in Chicago, we had a lot of Southern ways
01:43:21 --> 01:43:23 and that's in the South, that was kind of like how they did it.
01:43:23 --> 01:43:27 It's like, if the governor died and the, then, or, you know,
01:43:27 --> 01:43:31 a representative, then the, the widow would, would take the spot.
01:43:32 --> 01:43:37 And, you know, but she proved to be an incredible force. When I had a chance to actually meet her.
01:43:38 --> 01:43:42 Don't forget, we were sitting there and I was just telling her how much I admired
01:43:42 --> 01:43:44 her and how much it was the inspiration.
01:43:44 --> 01:43:50 I think she was taken aback because, you know, it was like he was a young man
01:43:50 --> 01:43:54 saying that she was the inspiration as opposed to a young woman saying it. Right.
01:43:55 --> 01:44:00 So, you know, I she was she was really, really a sweet lady.
01:44:00 --> 01:44:05 She knew what she was doing in that building, but she was really, really a nice person.
01:44:05 --> 01:44:08 And and in this day and age in politics you
01:44:08 --> 01:44:11 don't usually get that mix right right and no one
01:44:11 --> 01:44:14 thought that she would after giving i'm glad you brought up the courtesy piece and
01:44:14 --> 01:44:17 i didn't want to dive into it for those that didn't are familiar that's why
01:44:17 --> 01:44:20 i said that she was important to push back against that narrative that black
01:44:20 --> 01:44:25 women should stay at home right after she after she takes the seat as courtesy
01:44:25 --> 01:44:31 she continues to win and that i mean she ran her own race under her own name
01:44:31 --> 01:44:33 right If we think about it,
01:44:33 --> 01:44:37 she's the first woman that's inside the Congress with a hyphenated name.
01:44:37 --> 01:44:42 This idea of hyphenation. She kept her maiden name and then took on the married name.
01:44:42 --> 01:44:46 There's all of these things that she did of, no, you're going to see me.
01:44:46 --> 01:44:52 And what that really taught successive black female legislators is that if you're
01:44:52 --> 01:44:56 waiting on them to acknowledge you, you'll be waiting till you die. Yeah.
01:44:57 --> 01:45:01 Define the phenomenon called resolute legislative activism.
01:45:02 --> 01:45:07 So resolute legislative activism. So I argued in the first book that the Congressional
01:45:07 --> 01:45:13 Black Caucus were, they were not just legislators, they were activists, right?
01:45:13 --> 01:45:18 Because there's been this argument about, again, is the Congressional Black
01:45:18 --> 01:45:22 Caucus doing its job, right? And I argued in the first book that they are because
01:45:22 --> 01:45:24 they're legislative activists.
01:45:24 --> 01:45:33 They are using legislative tools and bully pulpits to then push forward issues
01:45:33 --> 01:45:39 that eventually become law, even if it means that they do not live to see it.
01:45:39 --> 01:45:45 When it comes to the women, I called it resolute legislative activism because
01:45:45 --> 01:45:48 nothing and no one was going to deter them.
01:45:48 --> 01:45:52 And I mean nothing and no one. If we think about, I love you,
01:45:53 --> 01:45:59 Sheila Jackson Lee, God rest her soul. she put a reparations bill up every year
01:45:59 --> 01:46:01 after John Conyers left, right?
01:46:01 --> 01:46:08 After John Conyers left, she put up a reparations bill, a study, every year, right?
01:46:08 --> 01:46:20 And so when we think about Black women, they are unabashed in talking about
01:46:20 --> 01:46:21 what everybody doesn't want to talk about.
01:46:22 --> 01:46:25 Unabashed at, let's pull the covers off this thing.
01:46:26 --> 01:46:31 There's no termenity there. And I think that oftentimes because they have different
01:46:31 --> 01:46:38 personalities, we ascribe that or attribute that to more outspoken women in the Congress,
01:46:38 --> 01:46:43 not understanding that even the Terry Sewells of the world that may have a more
01:46:43 --> 01:46:47 sweeter demeanor are in no way not connected to that.
01:46:47 --> 01:46:52 And I wanted to use quantitative data, numbers to show that.
01:46:52 --> 01:46:54 And that is what that theory is all about.
01:46:54 --> 01:47:00 Taking the numbers to show people Black women author more bills inside of the
01:47:00 --> 01:47:05 United States Congress for the history of that Congress and them being in it
01:47:05 --> 01:47:08 than any other affinity group in these United States.
01:47:09 --> 01:47:14 Yeah. And I'm going to use that when people ask me about my experience.
01:47:14 --> 01:47:19 I say, well, I practice resolute legislative activism because I always introduced
01:47:19 --> 01:47:25 like the same bills over and over again myself. So I appreciate that going back to the title.
01:47:25 --> 01:47:31 You are basically describing the act of legislating, whereas we invisibly introduce
01:47:31 --> 01:47:37 legislation, but once the legislation passes is visible for all to see that. Correct. Yeah.
01:47:38 --> 01:47:41 Correct. And, and, and it's a, it's a, it's, it's layered this,
01:47:41 --> 01:47:44 this visibly and this invisible is layered. It's the idea of,
01:47:45 --> 01:47:49 When I was putting the legislation in the hopper, it was invisible, right?
01:47:49 --> 01:47:54 Until it becomes nationally, there's some level of national attention.
01:47:54 --> 01:47:58 And now that it's national attention, it's visible, but I'm not visible.
01:47:58 --> 01:48:02 The issue is visible, but me as a Black woman, I'm not visible.
01:48:02 --> 01:48:08 And in the inverse, if there is an issue that's happening inside of the country that.
01:48:08 --> 01:48:11 Make me extremely visible right to prove
01:48:11 --> 01:48:14 the point or to buttress your argument but the
01:48:14 --> 01:48:17 things that i've been fighting for for years or decades didn't
01:48:17 --> 01:48:20 become and become invisible so now it's
01:48:20 --> 01:48:23 i'm just a loud mouth out here about whatever issue
01:48:23 --> 01:48:26 that is that's raised up i'll give you an example going
01:48:26 --> 01:48:29 back to sheila jackson lee we made they they
01:48:29 --> 01:48:32 made her be the super visible when she
01:48:32 --> 01:48:35 was attacking united during pandemic because
01:48:35 --> 01:48:38 they were taking bonuses right while
01:48:38 --> 01:48:41 while the federal government was propping up the industry right
01:48:41 --> 01:48:44 the the the fat cats were taking bonuses so she
01:48:44 --> 01:48:51 did now becomes extremely visible about hollering down these these ceos and
01:48:51 --> 01:48:55 these top these these top corporate folks about taking these bonuses during
01:48:55 --> 01:48:59 that time she becomes highly visible right but the but the long haul of her
01:48:59 --> 01:49:04 career is invisible in that she's been doing that the entire time.
01:49:04 --> 01:49:09 So why is she now all of a sudden extremely visible because she's hollering
01:49:09 --> 01:49:15 at these white CEOs when that has been her career the entire time she's been inside of the Congress?
01:49:15 --> 01:49:20 And so when I talk about this invisibility-visibility thing, it cuts both ways.
01:49:20 --> 01:49:25 And unfortunately, Black women never get the positive end of that stick. Yeah.
01:49:25 --> 01:49:29 Another thing you point out in the book is that Black women in Congress have
01:49:29 --> 01:49:33 sponsored or introduced more legislation than any other group.
01:49:33 --> 01:49:35 And I think that's important to know.
01:49:35 --> 01:49:40 What is the significance of the 31 Black women serving in Congress today?
01:49:41 --> 01:49:46 To be honest with you, I think that they are reshaping what they are in the
01:49:46 --> 01:49:48 spot right now to reshape what America looks like.
01:49:49 --> 01:49:54 Because Donald Trump has done has been so adroit at right at dismantling in
01:49:54 --> 01:50:01 many ways the way we understand the relationship from Congress to the presidency,
01:50:02 --> 01:50:04 not to the president, but to the presidency.
01:50:04 --> 01:50:11 I think that these Black women, and coming up very soon here in this next congressional
01:50:11 --> 01:50:15 session, especially if Democrats are able to wrestle back one of these houses,
01:50:15 --> 01:50:21 these Black women will get the opportunity to remake what America looks like.
01:50:21 --> 01:50:26 Because oftentimes people do not understand that the progression that we've
01:50:26 --> 01:50:33 seen in our American life is based upon this tension between presidency and
01:50:33 --> 01:50:36 Congress, not the tension between Democrat and Republican.
01:50:37 --> 01:50:42 That tension is there and it exists and it's becoming more impolarizing every
01:50:42 --> 01:50:49 day, yes, but the real tension is how does the Congress stop the president because.
01:50:49 --> 01:50:53 Does the Congress stop the president from becoming king or queen, right?
01:50:54 --> 01:50:59 That is where the real tension is in our system. And I think that especially
01:50:59 --> 01:51:02 if Democrats are able to wrestle back one of these houses, we are going to see
01:51:02 --> 01:51:06 these black women pounce into action, right? I mean, we're seeing it every day.
01:51:06 --> 01:51:11 If we think about Jasmine Crockett, if we think about a Stacey Placid,
01:51:11 --> 01:51:17 if we think about Lisa Blunt Rochester, who's now on the Senate side, right?
01:51:17 --> 01:51:22 If you're paying attention to C-SPAN, right, you will see these Black women
01:51:22 --> 01:51:28 investigating, right, and coming back with real questions to the people that
01:51:28 --> 01:51:30 they subpoenaed to come and testify before Congress,
01:51:31 --> 01:51:35 right, knowing I may not be able to do something right now, but I'm keeping
01:51:35 --> 01:51:40 notes because the next congressional session starts in January of 2027,
01:51:40 --> 01:51:44 and if the Democrats are able to win back the House at the minimum,
01:51:44 --> 01:51:47 the president is in trouble, and he knows it.
01:51:48 --> 01:51:54 All right. At the end of the book, you suggest seven steps for black women to
01:51:54 --> 01:51:58 take in order to become a viable candidate for political office.
01:51:58 --> 01:52:00 Can you list those for the listeners?
01:52:01 --> 01:52:05 Absolutely. So, number one, I think it's important that you become active in your community.
01:52:06 --> 01:52:10 What we see for almost all black women is that there's no way to then become
01:52:10 --> 01:52:14 anything if you're not active in your community because you need people to say
01:52:14 --> 01:52:16 she's the one to lead us forward.
01:52:17 --> 01:52:21 Number two, you need a mentor. Find you a mentor. And what I mean by a mentor
01:52:21 --> 01:52:25 is someone that is emotionally tied to the work that you're doing and how you're doing.
01:52:26 --> 01:52:30 That's why I thought it was funny that you introduced this segment with Anne-Marie
01:52:30 --> 01:52:35 Waterman because she has been my mentor since she found this 21-year-old kid
01:52:35 --> 01:52:37 at the University of the District of Columbia.
01:52:37 --> 01:52:42 Join a sorority, any one of the D9. Do one that's attached to your heart.
01:52:43 --> 01:52:46 Don't just do one, do one. But join a sorority because
01:52:46 --> 01:52:49 it will help you to understand that you're not in this fight alone And
01:52:49 --> 01:52:52 that there are other black women that are doing a lot of the same things
01:52:52 --> 01:52:56 that you are And so it'll give you a launching
01:52:56 --> 01:52:59 pad But it'll also give you in some ways a place of refuge
01:52:59 --> 01:53:04 So that you feel safe in the things that you will face if you're going to run
01:53:04 --> 01:53:10 for office Join and engage a civil rights organization I know people have a
01:53:10 --> 01:53:17 lot of things to say about Rainbow Coalition push or the NAN Network or NAACP,
01:53:17 --> 01:53:22 but these legacy civil rights organizations are legacy...
01:53:23 --> 01:53:27 Civil rights organizations for a reason. And you want to at least engage them
01:53:27 --> 01:53:31 and know about them so that you understand how legacies play out.
01:53:31 --> 01:53:34 Because if you get inside of that United States Congress, especially,
01:53:34 --> 01:53:40 you have to understand how legacies replete themselves in the moving forward of this country.
01:53:41 --> 01:53:45 Support Black women currently running for office. Go volunteer.
01:53:45 --> 01:53:50 Don't look for a check. Just go support your sister because she cannot raise
01:53:50 --> 01:53:53 the same amount of money that her counterparts are able to raise, black men included.
01:53:54 --> 01:53:59 And so supporting a black woman that is running for office by volunteering in
01:53:59 --> 01:54:03 her office will give you a front row seat of how things work,
01:54:03 --> 01:54:08 what they're up against, but it will also then show your solidarity for that black woman.
01:54:09 --> 01:54:13 Number six, engage black and female political action committees.
01:54:13 --> 01:54:17 Now, PACs are something that people find to be repulsive.
01:54:17 --> 01:54:22 However, because of the Citizens United case, that they used to try to stop
01:54:22 --> 01:54:24 the second term of Barack Obama, which wasn't successful.
01:54:25 --> 01:54:28 We have seen these super PACs rear their ugly head.
01:54:29 --> 01:54:32 Well, instead of fighting against, join the party.
01:54:32 --> 01:54:38 Get inside of a super PAC. The collective is one of those black ones out of Washington, D.C.
01:54:38 --> 01:54:43 Join these super PACs and these collectives, because what you don't understand
01:54:43 --> 01:54:49 is your $25 a month is huge inside of that PAC versus that $25 a month that
01:54:49 --> 01:54:51 you're paying directly to that candidate.
01:54:52 --> 01:54:56 And lastly, get involved in candidate training programs.
01:54:56 --> 01:55:00 The Congressional Black Caucus Foundation has one that I attended.
01:55:00 --> 01:55:06 I still have the booklet. I attended in 2020, part of it for my research, and attended that.
01:55:06 --> 01:55:12 But there are candidate training programs locally and at the state level.
01:55:12 --> 01:55:19 And when you do that, you are sending a signal to the rest of the Democratic little deed, not big D,
01:55:19 --> 01:55:25 to the Democratic apparatus that you are a viable person to represent at the
01:55:25 --> 01:55:28 state level, at the local level and at the federal level.
01:55:28 --> 01:55:35 All right. So I've been asking my guests as we close out to finish this sentence.
01:55:36 --> 01:55:38 I have hope because...
01:55:39 --> 01:55:43 I have hope because of the bright black women that I see behind me every day.
01:55:44 --> 01:55:51 I just attended the induction ceremony for the 100 black men for the collegiate
01:55:51 --> 01:55:53 chapter they have at Southern University.
01:55:54 --> 01:55:58 One of the young women that asked me to attend, because I am a member of the
01:55:58 --> 01:56:01 100 black women, and she asked me to attend.
01:56:01 --> 01:56:07 She's from California, and I begged her dad that I grew up with to let her come to school down here.
01:56:07 --> 01:56:15 And to watch those 57 young people on the stage gave me the hope that I don't
01:56:15 --> 01:56:20 feel like we have right now to watch how excited they are about changing the world around them.
01:56:21 --> 01:56:25 That's where I get my hope. All right. So Dr. Sherice Janaye Nelson,
01:56:26 --> 01:56:30 how can people get this book Visibly Invisible and how can people reach out to you?
01:56:31 --> 01:56:36 Absolutely. So Visibly Invisible is available where all books are sold. You can go to Amazon.
01:56:36 --> 01:56:42 You can go to Barnes & Noble online. You can also go to UW Press.
01:56:42 --> 01:56:45 UW Press is the press that released this book.
01:56:45 --> 01:56:52 A black woman, the only black woman who owns a scholarly book of books.
01:56:53 --> 01:56:57 Oftentimes we black folks own printing presses, but they're not scholarly ones
01:56:57 --> 01:56:59 that are recognized by the academic community.
01:56:59 --> 01:57:03 She owns one at UW Press. So if you want to support that black woman,
01:57:03 --> 01:57:04 go ahead and order it from there.
01:57:04 --> 01:57:06 And then you can reach out to me.
01:57:07 --> 01:57:12 I'm really big on Instagram because that's the bridge between TikTok and Facebook.
01:57:12 --> 01:57:18 So you can catch me at the at sign D-R-J-A-N-A-Y-E.
01:57:18 --> 01:57:23 And if you want to book me or have a more substantive conversation about me
01:57:23 --> 01:57:27 coming to where you are in your community, you can reach out to me on LinkedIn.
01:57:27 --> 01:57:35 First name Sherice, S-H-E-R-I-C-E, J-A-N-A-Y-E, and then Nelson, N-E-L-S-O-N.
01:57:35 --> 01:57:38 But if you just Google me, you will find me.
01:57:38 --> 01:57:43 Well, Dr. Nelson, I appreciate the work that you're doing. I appreciate this book.
01:57:44 --> 01:57:49 Because it's very important, not just for Black women, but for Black men as
01:57:49 --> 01:57:52 well to understand the political dynamics of what's going on.
01:57:53 --> 01:57:56 You said this was a sequel. Say the name of the first book again.
01:57:57 --> 01:58:03 Absolutely. It's called The Congressional Black Caucus, 50 Years of Fighting for Equality.
01:58:04 --> 01:58:10 Yeah. So, you know, y'all get both books so that you can kind of get an understanding
01:58:10 --> 01:58:16 of the history and the dynamics of what it means to be a Black man or woman
01:58:16 --> 01:58:18 in the United States Congress.
01:58:18 --> 01:58:22 But Doc, again, I greatly appreciate you taking the time to do this.
01:58:22 --> 01:58:24 I've been waiting for this interview for a while.
01:58:24 --> 01:58:28 I enjoyed reading the book, so I greatly appreciate it.
01:58:29 --> 01:58:32 Thank you so much. All right, guys, and we're going to catch y'all on the other side.
01:58:46 --> 01:58:53 So I want to thank Dr. Adam Barsouk, Lorissa Rinehardt, and Dr.
01:58:53 --> 01:59:01 Sherice Janaye Nelson for coming on the podcast and talking about their books.
01:59:02 --> 01:59:06 Dr. Barsouk's book is called Outsmarting Cancer.
01:59:06 --> 01:59:16 And it's a very, very good book. and it just exposes you to all the different things that.
01:59:17 --> 01:59:24 We need to watch out for environmental-wise as well as our physical habits to
01:59:24 --> 01:59:25 try to minimize the risk of cancer.
01:59:26 --> 01:59:33 And, you know, while people like him and others are continuing to do the research
01:59:33 --> 01:59:39 to eventually cure us from that disease,
01:59:39 --> 01:59:45 there are some things that we can do to minimize our chances of contracting cancer.
01:59:46 --> 01:59:48 And so please get that book.
01:59:49 --> 01:59:52 My good friend, Lorissa Rinehart, she,
01:59:52 --> 01:59:58 you know, has come on and she really has been very supportive of the podcast
01:59:58 --> 02:00:04 from the time that we had talked about her coming on and been waiting on this
02:00:04 --> 02:00:06 book, Winning the Earthquake.
02:00:07 --> 02:00:14 And finally, to actually read it and to talk to her about it on the podcast
02:00:14 --> 02:00:16 was really a treat on both ends.
02:00:17 --> 02:00:23 And please follow her on the Female Body Politic on Substack.
02:00:23 --> 02:00:29 And then for Dr. Sherice Janaye Nelson, what an incredible brain.
02:00:29 --> 02:00:33 What an incredible sister. She is a fireball.
02:00:35 --> 02:00:39 And if you couldn't feel the passion in an interview, then I don't,
02:00:39 --> 02:00:42 I don't, you know, there was an old preacher friend of mine.
02:00:43 --> 02:00:46 He did a radio show for years in Jackson, Mississippi.
02:00:46 --> 02:00:52 And he always would say, sugar is sugar and salt is salt. If you can't feel what I'm
02:00:52 --> 02:00:53 saying, it ain't my fault.
02:00:54 --> 02:01:00 And that's, you know, if you can't feel what Dr. Nelson is talking about, then that's on you.
02:01:01 --> 02:01:07 Because she lays it out there very well and very articulate,
02:01:08 --> 02:01:13 very, again, passionate about what she researches and put out there.
02:01:14 --> 02:01:18 And very, very proud about the research she's done.
02:01:18 --> 02:01:21 And she should because this book,
02:01:21 --> 02:01:29 Visibly Invisible, is very much a well-researched book. Very analytical.
02:01:29 --> 02:01:37 It's not just making an emotional case as to the validity of Black women in
02:01:37 --> 02:01:43 the United States Congress, but she's got the data to back up how valuable they are.
02:01:43 --> 02:01:52 And it's a really, really powerful testimony to the effectiveness of these black
02:01:52 --> 02:01:57 women that have taken the obligation to serve.
02:01:58 --> 02:02:04 So please go get all three of those books and support these authors,
02:02:04 --> 02:02:05 support the work that they're doing.
02:02:06 --> 02:02:13 And I look forward to all three of them. Um, Lorissa has already led the way,
02:02:13 --> 02:02:19 but I look forward to all three of them coming back on the podcast and in their future.
02:02:21 --> 02:02:25 So what do I want to close out with? What is on my mind?
02:02:27 --> 02:02:33 So, as you know, in politics, we, you know, those of us who have had the privilege
02:02:33 --> 02:02:39 of being elected, especially in deliberative bodies like state legislatures or even Congress.
02:02:39 --> 02:02:46 We have developed relationships with people from the other side, right?
02:02:46 --> 02:02:57 And until 2015, you tolerated some things and you called BS on some things and all that.
02:02:57 --> 02:03:07 But it was all in the spirit of healthy debate and just people being human and
02:03:07 --> 02:03:10 expressing their opinions about things.
02:03:12 --> 02:03:18 Know, and well, I shouldn't say 2015, I should say, you know,
02:03:19 --> 02:03:23 turn of the century, I guess, because, you know, when Fox News came on,
02:03:23 --> 02:03:26 and then CNN was trying to match that energy,
02:03:26 --> 02:03:31 you know, the political discourse went into disarray at that point,
02:03:31 --> 02:03:39 and, you know, by 2015, it reached such a level that we've elected Donald Trump as president.
02:03:41 --> 02:03:49 So, you know, but it's really, really, really has been a push to the lowest
02:03:49 --> 02:03:52 common denominator over the last 11 years.
02:03:52 --> 02:03:57 You know, so, but you're used, what I'm trying to say is you're used to debating
02:03:57 --> 02:04:00 people who have different viewpoints.
02:04:01 --> 02:04:08 And, you know, but it's like it's gotten to a level now where whereas prior
02:04:08 --> 02:04:13 to all this, you were having intelligent discussions and disagreements and now
02:04:13 --> 02:04:15 it's just flat out ridiculous. Right.
02:04:17 --> 02:04:26 So the thing that kind of got me stirred up is somebody I considered a friend.
02:04:26 --> 02:04:30 You know, I've been, you know, we follow each other on Facebook.
02:04:31 --> 02:04:36 And I've been watching some of the commentary he has, especially when the administration
02:04:36 --> 02:04:39 throws out something crazy or does something crazy.
02:04:39 --> 02:04:49 And how he goes full bear into defending that or being outraged by their claims or whatever.
02:04:50 --> 02:04:54 And, you know, a couple of times I kind of like checked him on it.
02:04:55 --> 02:04:58 And, you know, of course, he didn't really appreciate that.
02:04:59 --> 02:05:04 But, you know, it's just kind of like I'm just trying to figure out what happened.
02:05:05 --> 02:05:11 When did you drink that Kool-Aid? When did you buy into this silliness? Right.
02:05:11 --> 02:05:17 And so he made a post right after the Justice Department decided they wanted
02:05:17 --> 02:05:22 to indict the Southern Poverty Law Center.
02:05:23 --> 02:05:32 For fraud. And if you're not, you know, Grace mentioned it in the in the moment of news.
02:05:32 --> 02:05:35 But what it is is that the Justice
02:05:35 --> 02:05:39 Department is saying that the
02:05:39 --> 02:05:56 SPLC defrauded their donors by using money to pay informants to infiltrate these hate organizations.
02:05:56 --> 02:06:00 And they're even going to the extreme that they're saying that they pay these
02:06:00 --> 02:06:07 folks to create hateful situations, I don't know, I guess, to benefit the organization.
02:06:07 --> 02:06:13 You know, I'm still trying to understand the motive, right?
02:06:13 --> 02:06:19 You know, they're basically saying that these folks gave money to people to
02:06:19 --> 02:06:26 stir up stuff to, I guess, justify their existence. I don't know what the motivation would be.
02:06:27 --> 02:06:29 And, you know, cause their whole
02:06:29 --> 02:06:35 agenda is to get rid of all of these organizations, period. But, but.
02:06:36 --> 02:06:41 You know, the reality is, is that the Southern Apartment Law Center has gone
02:06:41 --> 02:06:52 after organizations like the Proud Boys and the Three Percenters or whatever they are to,
02:06:52 --> 02:06:53 you know,
02:06:54 --> 02:06:57 any other hate group that support the president.
02:06:57 --> 02:07:01 Right. And they're going after them just like any other group.
02:07:01 --> 02:07:05 And so I guess this is their way to try to silence them.
02:07:06 --> 02:07:10 And it shut them down or put a cloud over them, right?
02:07:10 --> 02:07:17 And so, you know, I don't know if people are familiar with how certain things
02:07:17 --> 02:07:20 work, but it's like, you know,
02:07:20 --> 02:07:27 when people say that they've seen the light and they're trying to expose these
02:07:27 --> 02:07:30 different groups, these people take risks.
02:07:32 --> 02:07:40 If money has been exchanged, it's for those folks to be able to maybe get out of situations.
02:07:42 --> 02:07:49 Or make sure that, you know, they're taken care of if they have to get out of the situation, right?
02:07:49 --> 02:07:57 I mean, whatever arrangements organizations like SPLC has with informants, that's on them, Right.
02:07:57 --> 02:08:03 But the overwhelming bulk of the money for organizations like that is to file
02:08:03 --> 02:08:09 lawsuits, because when you go to federal court, like they're going to have to
02:08:09 --> 02:08:11 go to federal court now to fight this indictment.
02:08:12 --> 02:08:17 Federal courts are the most expensive courts in America. The filing fees are
02:08:17 --> 02:08:24 higher, the demand on research and all that stuff, that costs money to do all that.
02:08:24 --> 02:08:31 And so that's why they ask for donations in order to supplement because they
02:08:31 --> 02:08:36 don't have, you know, contrary to popular belief, some benevolent billionaire
02:08:36 --> 02:08:38 just financing the whole operation.
02:08:38 --> 02:08:44 They have to get donations from people like you and I to fight to get fight.
02:08:45 --> 02:08:57 And so I guess the strategy is to discredit them in a way where they won't get as much money. Right.
02:08:57 --> 02:09:04 And so, you know, this guy, you know, wrote a piece on Facebook and was talking
02:09:04 --> 02:09:09 about all they they're the ones who started the thing in Charlottesville where
02:09:09 --> 02:09:12 the young lady got killed and this, that, and other.
02:09:14 --> 02:09:15 And I'm like.
02:09:17 --> 02:09:27 Know, that's the dumbest thing to even concede, let alone believe, right?
02:09:27 --> 02:09:34 That an organization wants to, that that's fighting hate groups,
02:09:34 --> 02:09:40 wants to stage something that ended up killing two people.
02:09:40 --> 02:09:45 Because we talk about the young lady who died, but there was an actual state
02:09:45 --> 02:09:50 trooper from Virginia, a state police officer, that died too.
02:09:52 --> 02:09:53 And so,
02:09:54 --> 02:10:01 That's just crazy talk. And, you know, I was working for the ACLU at that time.
02:10:02 --> 02:10:11 And we were on kind of a guilt trip because the ACLU in Virginia fought for
02:10:11 --> 02:10:13 these people to get the permit.
02:10:13 --> 02:10:18 Initially, the city did not want them to have this rally or parade or wherever
02:10:18 --> 02:10:24 it was. And the ACLU stepped in and said, well, look, these people have the right to free speech.
02:10:25 --> 02:10:31 You shouldn't deny them. And so that was part of a thing where we were dealing
02:10:31 --> 02:10:36 with internally that, you know, we had to have a conversation about it.
02:10:36 --> 02:10:39 Because it was like, you know,
02:10:40 --> 02:10:46 the people in the Virginia office, they were distraught because,
02:10:46 --> 02:10:50 you know, they fought for these people to have the right to do this,
02:10:50 --> 02:10:52 and then people died, right?
02:10:53 --> 02:11:00 So that's the dilemma that these groups have, is that they're trying to uphold
02:11:00 --> 02:11:03 the Constitution in the most honorable way.
02:11:04 --> 02:11:11 And when people abuse that privilege, the guilt falls on them because they defended
02:11:11 --> 02:11:14 their rights to do that, right?
02:11:15 --> 02:11:19 And, you know, if anything, the Southern Poverty Law Center.
02:11:21 --> 02:11:27 If they were coming into that, they were going to be in the part to deal with
02:11:27 --> 02:11:31 the lawsuits on the deaths,
02:11:32 --> 02:11:40 the wrongful death lawsuits, and try to push for, on the civil end,
02:11:40 --> 02:11:46 and try to push for as advocates for criminal charges on these people for doing it.
02:11:46 --> 02:11:55 So to believe that these people wanted that to happen and they paid for people to do that,
02:11:55 --> 02:12:02 the term that people say legally or professionally is, that's a reach.
02:12:04 --> 02:12:10 But that's just dumb shit to believe that these folks want to do that.
02:12:10 --> 02:12:15 And just the fact that you would come out and agree with that,
02:12:15 --> 02:12:17 and you've been an elected official before,
02:12:17 --> 02:12:24 you've seen how things can be manipulated on your side and on the other side,
02:12:25 --> 02:12:31 for you to just say and buy into that with your whole chest without any level of skepticism is.
02:12:33 --> 02:12:37 It kind of tells me a lot about who you are, and that's what makes it hard for
02:12:37 --> 02:12:41 people in this day and age to reconcile with each other.
02:12:42 --> 02:12:48 You know, it shows me that you had a disdain for this organization and you would
02:12:48 --> 02:12:52 believe anything negative that they would say about them, even though you knew
02:12:52 --> 02:12:56 a lot of people that were involved with the organization that you claim were friends.
02:12:59 --> 02:13:05 It tells me that you have this incredibly dark side that would believe that
02:13:05 --> 02:13:09 that's, you know, even achievable, right?
02:13:09 --> 02:13:14 I mean, human beings surprise us every day, but, you know.
02:13:16 --> 02:13:21 This was the organization that basically bankrupted the Ku Klux Klan,
02:13:22 --> 02:13:30 You know, serving as the attorneys for the young lady, the mother in Alabama who fought them.
02:13:31 --> 02:13:38 And that's how they came to fame is like this is the organization that Julian Bond started.
02:13:39 --> 02:13:46 And for this administration to go after them should automatically,
02:13:46 --> 02:13:50 automatically raise a red flag,
02:13:50 --> 02:13:58 especially at this particular moment in history when they are trying every way,
02:13:58 --> 02:14:02 shape, and form to validate themselves,
02:14:02 --> 02:14:09 validate this incompetence, validate this ignorance, validate this vitriol, right?
02:14:09 --> 02:14:14 So, you know, that's the challenge that we are in right now,
02:14:14 --> 02:14:20 that we have people who have just bought into it.
02:14:21 --> 02:14:27 And for somebody that doesn't have any kind of religious background,
02:14:28 --> 02:14:34 whether by choice or by omission, it's really kind of hard to understand it.
02:14:34 --> 02:14:39 You know, for those of us that do, we understand that there are supernatural
02:14:39 --> 02:14:48 forces in play and there are some weapons that we have to utilize better to to negate it.
02:14:49 --> 02:14:54 I think that we haven't done enough in utilizing our supernatural tools.
02:14:54 --> 02:14:58 We haven't done enough to hone our discernment.
02:14:58 --> 02:15:02 To avoid this to happen.
02:15:03 --> 02:15:07 And so we have to be accountable for that on our deal.
02:15:07 --> 02:15:12 But as far as for the folks that don't believe or, you know,
02:15:12 --> 02:15:18 agnostic or whatever about that concept, you have to really,
02:15:19 --> 02:15:22 really understand what's happening.
02:15:22 --> 02:15:29 You have to get into, if you want to express a public opinion about it, right.
02:15:30 --> 02:15:34 Then you need to kind of do a little research and understand,
02:15:34 --> 02:15:40 is that really feasible, if that's really believable, if you just accept the
02:15:40 --> 02:15:43 first thing that somebody says, right?
02:15:44 --> 02:15:50 Vulnerable. You're vulnerable to be misled. And in this society where we want
02:15:50 --> 02:15:54 everything instant, I guess we think knowledge is supposed to be instant too.
02:15:55 --> 02:16:02 And we don't do our research and we don't do our due diligence to find out what's really going on.
02:16:03 --> 02:16:08 We're laser focused on what you're presenting us instead of looking at the big
02:16:08 --> 02:16:13 picture and understanding why is that being and presented to me at this time, right?
02:16:16 --> 02:16:22 So let me just say this. There's going to have to be a reckoning for all of
02:16:22 --> 02:16:23 the damage that's being done.
02:16:24 --> 02:16:28 You know, a lot of people will just say, well, we got them out and now we got
02:16:28 --> 02:16:29 to fix the country and all that.
02:16:30 --> 02:16:34 No, there's going to have to be some payback in that, right?
02:16:35 --> 02:16:39 Because they're taking, they're destroying institutions, they're taking money,
02:16:39 --> 02:16:48 you know, and they're creating this wedge in society that we're going to have to break down.
02:16:48 --> 02:16:54 Because once the wedge is removed, the breach is still going to be there, you know.
02:16:54 --> 02:17:01 And so first we have to remove the wedge and then we have to repair the breach, right?
02:17:03 --> 02:17:11 So that's going to take some time. Now, the encouraging thing is what happened in Virginia recently.
02:17:11 --> 02:17:18 And that is the fact that the citizens there, the majority of them made a decision
02:17:18 --> 02:17:23 to allow the state legislature to redistrict. Right.
02:17:24 --> 02:17:27 Of course, the Republicans are upset. They're like going, oh,
02:17:27 --> 02:17:29 well, they shouldn't be doing this and blah, blah.
02:17:29 --> 02:17:33 It's like, y'all do know y'all the ones who started that, right?
02:17:34 --> 02:17:38 It's President Trump that called Governor Abbott in Texas and said,
02:17:38 --> 02:17:42 I need five more congressional seats out of the state of Texas.
02:17:43 --> 02:17:47 And you make that happen. And he called a special session and they did it.
02:17:48 --> 02:17:52 And then Governor Newsom in California said, well, if you're going to do that
02:17:52 --> 02:17:55 in Texas, then we're going to do it in California.
02:17:56 --> 02:18:03 Now, the difference was in California was that the legislature created a referendum
02:18:03 --> 02:18:08 when they called a special session and it got on the ballot.
02:18:08 --> 02:18:12 And the majority of the people in California said, yeah, go ahead and do that.
02:18:12 --> 02:18:15 If they're going to do that in Texas, then we need to do this in California.
02:18:17 --> 02:18:21 So other states have decided to follow the Texas model.
02:18:21 --> 02:18:26 And so Virginia said, oh, so y'all still going to try this after what California did.
02:18:27 --> 02:18:30 OK, so they went through the process. They called a special session.
02:18:31 --> 02:18:33 They went through the process, got the amendment.
02:18:34 --> 02:18:39 Some judge in the southwestern part of Virginia said, no, you can't do that.
02:18:39 --> 02:18:41 And the Supreme Court in Virginia said, yeah, they can.
02:18:42 --> 02:18:47 And the voters voted. it. So now that same judge down in the southwestern part
02:18:47 --> 02:18:53 of Virginia is saying, well, now we don't care what the people say. They can't do that.
02:18:53 --> 02:18:56 So now they got to go back to the Virginia Supreme Court.
02:18:56 --> 02:19:00 And I'll be surprised if Virginia Supreme Court upholds this judge's decision
02:19:00 --> 02:19:04 this time, because basically the arguments he made the first time,
02:19:05 --> 02:19:07 they shut that down. He's using the same arguments.
02:19:07 --> 02:19:12 It's just that the result turned out the way they feared it was going to turn
02:19:12 --> 02:19:14 out and And that the majority of people were going to say, no,
02:19:14 --> 02:19:20 if bottom line is, if you're going to cheat, then we're going to cheat now for
02:19:20 --> 02:19:25 the long term in a democratic process. We should not be doing that.
02:19:26 --> 02:19:29 But it's just gotten to a point where it's like.
02:19:31 --> 02:19:34 Past, the Democrats have always tried to say, well, you know,
02:19:35 --> 02:19:36 we're not going to stoop to that level.
02:19:36 --> 02:19:40 We're just going to beat them fair and square. They're not playing fair and square.
02:19:41 --> 02:19:46 Then, you know, Katie barred the door. It's, it's all the rules are gone at that point.
02:19:47 --> 02:19:49 If they're going to be allowed to cheat, it's just like playing a sport.
02:19:50 --> 02:19:55 If you're playing basketball and, and one team is allowed to foul,
02:19:55 --> 02:19:59 you know, just to beat you up and not get any fouls called.
02:20:00 --> 02:20:03 You know, at some point in order to get the ref's attention,
02:20:04 --> 02:20:05 you're going to have to commit some fouls.
02:20:06 --> 02:20:11 And you're going to say, if you're going to call it on us, then you need to call it on them, right?
02:20:11 --> 02:20:17 And that's why coaches get thrown out on technical fouls because they're making that case, right?
02:20:17 --> 02:20:21 If the rules are going to be equally applied, then we ain't got no problem.
02:20:21 --> 02:20:26 But if you're going to favor one group over another, then we're going to protest that.
02:20:27 --> 02:20:31 In baseball, there's actually a situation where you can protest the game.
02:20:32 --> 02:20:39 If there was a call so egregious, this was before replay and the automatic balls
02:20:39 --> 02:20:40 and strike system, all that stuff, right?
02:20:41 --> 02:20:52 But if there was a call that was so egregious that you felt that it changed the game,
02:20:52 --> 02:20:57 it altered your ability to win, you could literally walk up to the umpire and say,
02:20:57 --> 02:21:01 we are playing the remainder of this game under protest, right?
02:21:01 --> 02:21:06 And then the league would review it. Now, most of the time, the league stood
02:21:06 --> 02:21:10 behind the umpires, but every now and then, you'd say,
02:21:10 --> 02:21:15 yeah, and then, you know, they wouldn't, they would say you might need to replay
02:21:15 --> 02:21:20 the game instead of changing who won, right?
02:21:20 --> 02:21:23 They would just throw that game out and you'd have to replay it.
02:21:23 --> 02:21:27 Like I said, it's very rare that it happens, but there's a system in place where
02:21:27 --> 02:21:33 you can say, we're playing the rest of this game under protest to force the
02:21:33 --> 02:21:35 league to review what happened, right?
02:21:38 --> 02:21:44 So what I'm saying to you is it's not an ideal situation that states are during,
02:21:44 --> 02:21:51 you know, midterm, you know, are in between the census is trying to alter,
02:21:52 --> 02:21:55 you know, redistrict and gerrymander and all that stuff.
02:21:55 --> 02:21:59 Gerrymander, I think, is actually a proper term since the guy's name was Gary
02:21:59 --> 02:22:02 in Massachusetts who first did this.
02:22:03 --> 02:22:08 You know, you can't, it's not something that is being encouraged,
02:22:08 --> 02:22:16 but if we're going to protect, then we're going to have to fight.
02:22:18 --> 02:22:23 Just take punches, take punches, take punches. I had to fight back.
02:22:24 --> 02:22:30 And most fights are not pretty. War is definitely not pretty.
02:22:30 --> 02:22:38 And so, you know, while I'm not an encourager of that,
02:22:38 --> 02:22:41 even though I'm guilty of participating in it,
02:22:41 --> 02:22:45 because I was in a legislature during a redistricting,
02:22:45 --> 02:22:49 and the Democrats were in charge
02:22:49 --> 02:22:57 and we didn't necessarily make it to the advantage of a particular party,
02:22:57 --> 02:23:01 but we did target some people to make
02:23:01 --> 02:23:05 sure they wouldn't come back in the legislature. We did do that, right?
02:23:05 --> 02:23:11 So I'm just as guilty as anybody else that's ever served in a redistricting
02:23:11 --> 02:23:15 state that doesn't have an independent commission, right? If the legislature
02:23:15 --> 02:23:18 is given the sole responsibility to do it.
02:23:18 --> 02:23:21 So, you know, that's the perspective I come from.
02:23:22 --> 02:23:26 I don't think we should wholesale be doing that kind of stuff.
02:23:26 --> 02:23:30 I mean, we've drawn districts to try to protect.
02:23:31 --> 02:23:37 We had in Mississippi, when I first got elected, we had five congressional districts
02:23:37 --> 02:23:39 and then we got knocked down to four.
02:23:39 --> 02:23:43 So it was a big fight. We had two Democrats and three Republicans,
02:23:43 --> 02:23:47 and we were trying to—well, actually, we had three Democrats.
02:23:47 --> 02:23:54 Yeah, we had three Democrats and two Republicans, and then one of the Democrats
02:23:54 --> 02:23:56 didn't run. I think a Republican got that.
02:23:57 --> 02:24:01 And then when we lost the congressional seat due to reapportionment,
02:24:01 --> 02:24:04 we were trying to keep it at 2-2.
02:24:06 --> 02:24:12 And so we had a plan to try to make it 2-2. Republicans had a plan to make it 3-1 and,
02:24:14 --> 02:24:18 one to this day, right? And, you know, and throughout history,
02:24:19 --> 02:24:22 they tried to, because they knew where the population, where were black folks,
02:24:23 --> 02:24:27 they used to draw the lines to try to minimize black representation.
02:24:28 --> 02:24:35 And for a long time, until 1986, you didn't have a black person in Congress,
02:24:35 --> 02:24:37 right? Representing the state of Mississippi.
02:24:38 --> 02:24:48 So, you know, it's It's the best thing is not to have partisan gerrymandering at all.
02:24:48 --> 02:24:59 The best thing is to have a neutral commission or computer program to draw the districts, right?
02:25:00 --> 02:25:05 You know, you had to program information like where does the current legislator
02:25:05 --> 02:25:09 live to give them a chance if they want to run for reelection, that kind of stuff.
02:25:10 --> 02:25:16 Population. You have to put in the correct data to make it work,
02:25:16 --> 02:25:23 but you could have a computer program that'll spit out a fair map.
02:25:23 --> 02:25:29 And if a computer spits it out and more Republicans get elected to Democrats, it is what it is.
02:25:30 --> 02:25:32 If it's vice versa, it is what it is, right?
02:25:32 --> 02:25:37 But the district should be decided on who's the best representative for that
02:25:37 --> 02:25:41 particular area, not what party they're in.
02:25:42 --> 02:25:46 Again, that might be Pollyannish, but that's the way it's supposed to go.
02:25:47 --> 02:25:52 So, you know, the fact that the people in Virginia made that decision.
02:25:53 --> 02:26:02 To engage in the fight, to make sure that it's not skewed in the president's
02:26:02 --> 02:26:04 favor as far as Congress is concerned.
02:26:04 --> 02:26:06 The only reason, his only motivation
02:26:06 --> 02:26:10 is, well, if the Democrats get in charge, I want to be impeached.
02:26:11 --> 02:26:18 Well, you know, I mean, if you would stop doing stuff to to warrant an impeachment,
02:26:18 --> 02:26:20 then you wouldn't have to worry about that.
02:26:21 --> 02:26:25 Nonetheless, You know, it's all about self-interest for him.
02:26:25 --> 02:26:30 And we got people like the guy I was talking about. That's all for that.
02:26:30 --> 02:26:35 And I just keep, I guess the thing that just keeps irking me,
02:26:35 --> 02:26:42 although I do understand what's really happening, is the defense of the indefensible.
02:26:43 --> 02:26:48 What really chaps my heart about all of this. How do you constantly twist your
02:26:48 --> 02:26:52 conscience in a pretzel to defend the indefensible?
02:26:53 --> 02:26:57 If you've been an elected official, you've taken an oath to uphold the Constitution
02:26:57 --> 02:27:00 of the United States of America.
02:27:00 --> 02:27:07 If you're a local official, the state constitution and the laws thereof, right?
02:27:08 --> 02:27:13 And it seems like if you're not that elected official anymore,
02:27:13 --> 02:27:15 you've just discarded that oath.
02:27:15 --> 02:27:17 It's like that oath just went away.
02:27:18 --> 02:27:22 And what you don't understand is that once you swear an oath,
02:27:22 --> 02:27:24 then that's your allegiance for life.
02:27:25 --> 02:27:28 As long as you're breathing, that's an oath you took.
02:27:29 --> 02:27:33 And you have to uphold that. I don't think people really understand it.
02:27:34 --> 02:27:39 When you swear or affirm that you're going to uphold the Constitution of the
02:27:39 --> 02:27:44 United States at any point in your life, then that's your lifetime commitment.
02:27:45 --> 02:27:49 If you swear to uphold the Constitution, I don't even live in Mississippi anymore,
02:27:49 --> 02:27:54 but my oath was to uphold it. That's for life.
02:27:56 --> 02:28:03 For some crazy reason, well, technically, I've taken an oath with being a deputy sheriff.
02:28:04 --> 02:28:09 Because when you take that oath to be a deputy, you have to swear an oath to
02:28:09 --> 02:28:12 the Constitution of the state of Georgia and the laws thereof.
02:28:13 --> 02:28:16 Because you're upholding the law.
02:28:16 --> 02:28:20 You're part of the executive branch of government, law enforcement.
02:28:20 --> 02:28:26 And so, yeah, I'm obligated to follow that for the rest of my life.
02:28:26 --> 02:28:31 But some people think once they're out of public service, then they don't have to do that anymore.
02:28:31 --> 02:28:34 That was just when I was serving. That doesn't matter now.
02:28:34 --> 02:28:40 No, it matters because you swore before God that you were going to do that, right?
02:28:41 --> 02:28:46 There was nothing that said this oath expires when your term is up.
02:28:47 --> 02:28:50 There's no disclaimer at that. But so, you know,
02:28:51 --> 02:28:58 just food for thought for all you folks that are out here defending people violating
02:28:58 --> 02:29:03 the Constitution on a daily basis, violating the law on a daily basis.
02:29:03 --> 02:29:09 Just remember, you took an oath to uphold it, and now you're violating that
02:29:09 --> 02:29:12 oath by defending the indefensible.
02:29:13 --> 02:29:18 Right. So anyway, I just I just wanted to get that off my chest.
02:29:19 --> 02:29:24 I just don't understand it, but I have hope based on what happened in Virginia,
02:29:24 --> 02:29:30 what's been happening at the No Kings rallies and different protests and all
02:29:30 --> 02:29:32 that stuff that we're going to fix this.
02:29:34 --> 02:29:42 But we got to keep our voices loud and we got to continue to fight for what we believe in.
02:29:43 --> 02:29:51 And maybe, just maybe, the system has broken enough that when we fix it,
02:29:51 --> 02:29:53 it'll be better than it ever was.
02:29:54 --> 02:30:00 That's my hope. And I pray that those of you listening agree with that.
02:30:01 --> 02:30:06 All right, guys, it's time for me to go. Thank y'all for listening. Until next time.