Erik Fleming hosts a powerful episode featuring three guests: Crystal FitzSimons of the Food Research & Action Center on hunger and federal nutrition policy; Pauline Steinhorn, author of Dreaming of the River, sharing her mother and grandmother's Holocaust survival story; and Dehjah Vaughn, a PhD candidate and educator discussing Black political consciousness and education. The episode explores food insecurity, historical memory, racial equity, and youth-led activism.
Listeners hear policy insights, personal narratives, and calls to action for social justice and community care.
00:00:00 --> 00:00:06 Welcome. I'm Erik Fleming, host of A Moment with Erik Fleming, the podcast of our time.
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00:02:00 --> 00:02:05 Hello, and welcome to another moment with Erik Fleming. I am your host, Erik Fleming.
00:02:06 --> 00:02:11 So today, I have three guests, three young ladies who have come on.
00:02:11 --> 00:02:12 One is Crystal FitzSimons.
00:02:13 --> 00:02:20 She is the president of the Food Research and Action Center, better known as FRAC.
00:02:21 --> 00:02:24 So we're going to be talking about hunger in America with her.
00:02:25 --> 00:02:30 Pauline Steinhorn, who has written this incredible book called Dreaming of the
00:02:30 --> 00:02:37 River, which talks about a mother and a daughter who escaped the Holocaust.
00:02:37 --> 00:02:41 And then I'm going to have this sister on named Dehjah Vaughn.
00:02:41 --> 00:02:47 Dehjah is pursuing her PhD in political science.
00:02:47 --> 00:02:54 She's an educator and she's a podcaster. She's a creative in the Atlanta area
00:02:54 --> 00:03:01 and probably one of the most dynamic personalities that you haven't met yet, but you will today.
00:03:02 --> 00:03:04 So I was really glad to get them on.
00:03:05 --> 00:03:08 So a little bit of housekeeping here.
00:03:10 --> 00:03:15 You know, last week we had reported, we had what I call our Dewey Defeats Truman moment.
00:03:16 --> 00:03:23 When we did the podcast and Grace did the news summary, we were under the impression,
00:03:24 --> 00:03:27 that Karen Bass was going to be running against Spencer Pratt.
00:03:28 --> 00:03:33 That's not the case. As the votes kept coming in, a member of the city council,
00:03:33 --> 00:03:36 Nithya Raman, pulled ahead of Mr. Pratt.
00:03:36 --> 00:03:43 And when when it was all said and done, I think she beat him by like twenty three thousand votes.
00:03:44 --> 00:03:51 So the runoff will be between Mayor Karen Bass and city council member Nithya
00:03:51 --> 00:03:57 Raman in November, which was really what people expected.
00:03:57 --> 00:04:02 But Spencer Pratt ran a better race than a lot of people thought he would,
00:04:02 --> 00:04:06 considering who he is and what he was saying.
00:04:07 --> 00:04:10 But the reality kicked in in Los Angeles.
00:04:10 --> 00:04:14 And once all the votes were counted, it's the two Democrats that'll be running
00:04:14 --> 00:04:19 against each other because they had that jungle primary in California where
00:04:19 --> 00:04:22 it's possible that two people from the same party runs.
00:04:22 --> 00:04:26 New Orleans and Louisiana liked that as well.
00:04:27 --> 00:04:29 Well, at least they were. I don't know if they've changed or not,
00:04:29 --> 00:04:35 but I remember when I was real active in politics, they had jungle primaries there too.
00:04:36 --> 00:04:43 So that race will be very interesting because that'll be the progressives because
00:04:43 --> 00:04:48 they're kind of touting Raman as a Mamdani-like race.
00:04:50 --> 00:04:54 Candidate, and Karen Bass as the establishment candidate.
00:04:55 --> 00:04:57 So we'll see how that works out. But it's going to be two women of color,
00:04:57 --> 00:05:01 so it's going to be a woman of color that's going to be mayor of Los Angeles,
00:05:01 --> 00:05:05 whether it's Mayor Bass again or Councilmember Raman.
00:05:06 --> 00:05:11 So I wanted to get that on the record. And I also want to make my appeal to
00:05:11 --> 00:05:18 folks to go to momenterik.com, Do what you can to support the podcast.
00:05:18 --> 00:05:20 We're going to be making some changes.
00:05:21 --> 00:05:26 And it's early enough to know that the changes are going to happen.
00:05:28 --> 00:05:32 It's too early to be specific about how the change is going to work because
00:05:32 --> 00:05:37 we're still trying to maneuver some things. But, you know, life happens.
00:05:37 --> 00:05:40 Usually when people say that, that's a negative connotation.
00:05:40 --> 00:05:42 But sometimes it's a positive.
00:05:43 --> 00:05:50 So life has happened and we're going to be making some adjustments with the
00:05:50 --> 00:05:57 podcast going forward, exploring some ideas and, you know, just trying to see how it's going to work.
00:05:57 --> 00:06:01 But for now, we're going to be the same.
00:06:02 --> 00:06:05 We're quickly approaching season 14.
00:06:07 --> 00:06:12 So, you know, a lot of those changes will kick in right around then.
00:06:13 --> 00:06:16 So I just thank you all for listening. I thank you all for the support.
00:06:17 --> 00:06:22 But if you feel so inclined to either subscribe or just give a one time donation,
00:06:22 --> 00:06:25 please go to momenterik.com and do that.
00:06:26 --> 00:06:29 But one of the things that's not going to change, at least in the foreseeable
00:06:29 --> 00:06:36 future, is Grace G giving the news summary. So let's go ahead and start this
00:06:36 --> 00:06:41 program. And as always, we kick it off with a moment of news with Grace G.
00:06:49 --> 00:06:54 Thanks, Erik. Nineteen-year-old Carmelo Anthony was sentenced to 35 years in
00:06:54 --> 00:06:58 prison after an all-white Texas jury found him guilty of murder for the fatal
00:06:58 --> 00:07:03 stabbing of Austin Metcalf during a 2025 high school track meet.
00:07:03 --> 00:07:08 The U.S. Congress passed a bill providing $70 billion in additional immigration
00:07:08 --> 00:07:12 enforcement funding for the Department of Homeland Security.
00:07:12 --> 00:07:16 Federal prosecutors have reached a plea deal with Vance Belter,
00:07:16 --> 00:07:20 the man accused of the politically motivated assassination of Minnesota State
00:07:20 --> 00:07:23 Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband.
00:07:24 --> 00:07:28 President Trump issued a full pardon to former U.S. Representative Stephen Byer,
00:07:28 --> 00:07:32 who was convicted of insider trading in 2023.
00:07:32 --> 00:07:37 Two African Americans, Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford and South Carolina
00:07:37 --> 00:07:39 State Representative Dr. Jermaine
00:07:39 --> 00:07:43 Johnson, won their respective Democratic gubernatorial nominations.
00:07:44 --> 00:07:49 Graham Plattner won Maine's U.S. Senate Democratic primary by a wide margin,
00:07:49 --> 00:07:53 despite recent controversies about his past personal behavior.
00:07:54 --> 00:07:59 In South Carolina's Republican gubernatorial primary, U.S. Representative Nancy
00:07:59 --> 00:08:04 Mace failed to reach the runoff election after facing opposition from President Trump.
00:08:04 --> 00:08:09 The Florida Supreme Court has allowed a Republican-drawn congressional map designed
00:08:09 --> 00:08:14 to flip up to four Democratic seats to remain in place for the upcoming midterm elections.
00:08:15 --> 00:08:20 A federal judge ruled that the Trump administration unlawfully blocked immigration
00:08:20 --> 00:08:26 benefits for applicants from 39 countries faced on unauthorized anti-immigrant sentiments.
00:08:27 --> 00:08:33 The U.S. Supreme Court blocked Alabama's scheduled execution of Jeffrey Lee via nitrogen gas.
00:08:34 --> 00:08:39 A federal judge struck down the Trump administration's $100 fee on new H-1B
00:08:39 --> 00:08:45 visas, ruling it an unlawful tax that lacked congressional authorization.
00:08:45 --> 00:08:50 And at least 12 people were injured too critically during a shootout between
00:08:50 --> 00:08:55 two individuals at the Old West End Festival in Toledo, Ohio.
00:08:56 --> 00:08:59 I am Grace G., and this has been A Moment of News.
00:09:06 --> 00:09:13 All right. Thank you, Grace, for that moment of news. Now it's time for my guest, Crystal FitzSimons.
00:09:14 --> 00:09:21 As president of the Food Research and Action Center, Crystal FitzSimons is recognized
00:09:21 --> 00:09:25 as the national thought leader on hunger in America and the role federal nutrition
00:09:25 --> 00:09:27 programs play in solving it.
00:09:27 --> 00:09:31 In her more than 20 years with the organization, most recently as the Director
00:09:31 --> 00:09:37 of Child Nutrition Programs and Policy, FitzSimons has made transformative contributions,
00:09:37 --> 00:09:40 including helping to design and implement,
00:09:40 --> 00:09:43 the after-school supper, summer EBT,
00:09:43 --> 00:09:45 and community eligibility programs.
00:09:46 --> 00:09:49 She has testified before Congress and led national coalitions.
00:09:50 --> 00:09:56 FitzSimons is a sought-after speaker and is also regularly quoted in major media outlets.
00:09:57 --> 00:10:03 She holds an MSW degree from Washington University in St. Louis and a BA from Carroll College.
00:10:04 --> 00:10:08 Ladies and gentlemen, it is my distinct honor and privilege to have as a guest
00:10:08 --> 00:10:12 on this podcast, Crystal FitzSimons.
00:10:23 --> 00:10:28 All right. Crystal FitzSimons, Madam President, how are you doing?
00:10:28 --> 00:10:32 I'm good. How are you today? I'm doing great. I'm doing great.
00:10:32 --> 00:10:37 So I understand you've been president of your organization for about a year?
00:10:37 --> 00:10:41 Yeah, and prior to that, I was the interim president, and I've actually been
00:10:41 --> 00:10:46 with the Food Research and Action Center, FRAC, for over 25 years.
00:10:46 --> 00:10:51 Before I was the president, I was leading our child nutrition work. Yeah, okay.
00:10:51 --> 00:10:55 Well, congratulations. It's still in order in that regard.
00:10:56 --> 00:11:02 So what I like to do to start off my interviews is a couple of icebreaker questions.
00:11:03 --> 00:11:05 So, or exercises, however you
00:11:05 --> 00:11:10 want to do it. My first icebreaker is a quote I want you to respond to.
00:11:11 --> 00:11:15 And the quote is, hunger is not an issue of charity.
00:11:15 --> 00:11:17 It is an issue of justice.
00:11:18 --> 00:11:23 Well, I think that is an amazing quote for us to start our conversation with,
00:11:23 --> 00:11:25 because I don't think that hunger is about food.
00:11:26 --> 00:11:31 We have plenty of food in the United States to make sure that everybody has access to it.
00:11:31 --> 00:11:36 The problem is we don't have the political will. We have economic inequality
00:11:36 --> 00:11:42 where we have people living in poverty who and we should not have people living in poverty.
00:11:42 --> 00:11:49 Hunger is really a symptom of poverty. Families are too stretched trying to make ends meet.
00:11:49 --> 00:11:53 And food is the easiest thing to cut. You have to pay your rent.
00:11:53 --> 00:11:56 You have to pay your utilities. You need to put gas in your car.
00:11:57 --> 00:12:02 You can actually cut back end food. But it really is, hunger is really about the tension
00:12:02 --> 00:12:06 that millions of families across the country face in trying to make ends meet
00:12:07 --> 00:12:12 and struggling under low wages, high child care costs, high housing costs,
00:12:12 --> 00:12:14 high transportation costs. Yeah.
00:12:15 --> 00:12:18 All right. So now the next icebreaker is what I call 20 questions.
00:12:19 --> 00:12:24 Okay. So I need you to give me a number between one and 20. 12.
00:12:25 --> 00:12:32 What advice do you have for recognizing fake news? Oh, that's a good question. Gosh.
00:12:33 --> 00:12:39 I think that is a good question well I think you always need to look for the
00:12:39 --> 00:12:45 source and where it comes from and if it seems credible I think I think.
00:12:47 --> 00:12:51 You know, there's been so many attacks on the news, and it really is,
00:12:52 --> 00:13:01 I think, a way to attack credibility, to attack people who may have a more progressive view of what's going on.
00:13:02 --> 00:13:07 You know, I think journalism actually works really hard to try and tell the
00:13:07 --> 00:13:11 story and to be as fair as possible.
00:13:11 --> 00:13:17 I think that we have moved as a country away from agreed upon facts.
00:13:18 --> 00:13:22 And I think it's an incredible problem when we try to have a conversation.
00:13:23 --> 00:13:27 So I would just say people really need to understand where,
00:13:27 --> 00:13:31 the person who's telling the story is coming from and whether or not they have
00:13:31 --> 00:13:35 a real agenda behind them and whether or not what they're saying,
00:13:35 --> 00:13:41 you know, is consistent with what they see in what's happening in the world around us right now.
00:13:41 --> 00:13:48 Yeah. Yeah. And I think I think that's a that's interesting you pick that question,
00:13:48 --> 00:13:53 because I think that is one a question that really is important in your line
00:13:53 --> 00:13:56 of work. And we're kind of we're going to address that in the interview.
00:13:56 --> 00:14:03 You said I've been at FRAC for 27 years and my passion for food justice overlaps
00:14:03 --> 00:14:06 with my passion for achieving economic and social justice.
00:14:06 --> 00:14:12 I grew up just outside of Toledo, Ohio, in a household where my mom was passionate about these issues.
00:14:12 --> 00:14:20 I remember her telling me that at some point I'd have to explain what I'd done with my life.
00:14:20 --> 00:14:24 The message was strong that I needed to work hard to benefit all people,
00:14:25 --> 00:14:28 to lift my voice and not give up when times were hard.
00:14:29 --> 00:14:37 So my question to you is, when did you realize your passion specifically for food justice?
00:14:37 --> 00:14:40 Yeah, well, you know, it's funny. I could have, in some ways,
00:14:40 --> 00:14:45 when I look back at the history of my career, I feel like I could have worked on other issues, too.
00:14:46 --> 00:14:50 I could have worked on housing. That's actually where I started was on housing.
00:14:50 --> 00:14:54 I could have worked on, you know, minimum wage. I worked collecting signatures
00:14:54 --> 00:14:58 in St. Louis for a minimum wage ballot initiative.
00:14:58 --> 00:15:02 So I just see such a huge intersection with food.
00:15:02 --> 00:15:05 And part of the reason why I've stayed at FRAC for so long is because I am so
00:15:05 --> 00:15:07 passionate about the mission.
00:15:07 --> 00:15:13 I do believe that people actually need access to nutritious food to grow and
00:15:13 --> 00:15:16 be healthy and thrive in our world. And.
00:15:18 --> 00:15:23 We really do need to make sure that people's basic needs are being met in order
00:15:23 --> 00:15:27 to ensure that they're able to thrive. And it starts with food.
00:15:27 --> 00:15:31 But, you know, food is also so much more than just basic needs.
00:15:31 --> 00:15:33 It's about community. It's about culture.
00:15:34 --> 00:15:37 You know, we all have our favorite foods that we think of that take us back
00:15:37 --> 00:15:42 to when, you know, our parent, we were growing up or with our friends.
00:15:42 --> 00:15:45 And so to me, food is just such a magical thing.
00:15:46 --> 00:15:51 And we should be making sure that everybody has access to the food that they need to thrive. Yeah.
00:15:52 --> 00:15:54 So what is FRAC and why have you
00:15:54 --> 00:15:59 devoted nearly 30 years of your life specifically to that organization?
00:16:00 --> 00:16:03 Yeah, well, so FRAC, we're the Food Research and Action Center.
00:16:03 --> 00:16:09 We've been around for over 50 years, and we really do focus on the federal nutrition program.
00:16:09 --> 00:16:13 So SNAP, which used to be called food stamps, school meals, summer meals,
00:16:13 --> 00:16:19 after school meals, WIC, all of those programs kind of as the core support to combating hunger.
00:16:20 --> 00:16:23 We're very committed to making sure that people have access to a healthy diet
00:16:23 --> 00:16:28 with dignity, and that is a core value at FRAC, and it's very important to me as well.
00:16:29 --> 00:16:33 But I just am very proud of all the things that we've accomplished at FRAC during
00:16:33 --> 00:16:36 the time that I've been at FRAC and even before that.
00:16:37 --> 00:16:42 We have a pretty incredible track record of moving policy forward,
00:16:42 --> 00:16:46 of having a really positive impact on people's lives around the country.
00:16:46 --> 00:16:52 And I really see the work that we do as critical and we are willing to take on a fight.
00:16:52 --> 00:16:57 Like right now, we are in the fight of our lives to save SNAP and make sure
00:16:57 --> 00:17:02 that the program is available and accessible to everybody who needs it and also
00:17:02 --> 00:17:06 protecting all the other nutrition programs that are somewhat under attack right now.
00:17:06 --> 00:17:13 But we do see, you know, when you look at our nation, we do have a series of
00:17:13 --> 00:17:17 programs that are designed to ensure that people are not going hungry.
00:17:17 --> 00:17:21 You know, we have SNAP to help people purchase food at home.
00:17:21 --> 00:17:25 WIC, which is a nutrition prescription to help, you know, pregnant women and
00:17:25 --> 00:17:29 young children and infants, you know, grow up healthy.
00:17:29 --> 00:17:33 It is, you know, we've got school meals to make sure that kids have access to
00:17:33 --> 00:17:36 the nutrition they need at school to focus and concentrate and learn.
00:17:36 --> 00:17:40 And the same thing with child care meals. And we even have programs to fill
00:17:40 --> 00:17:44 the gap for kids during the summer with summer food and summer EBT.
00:17:45 --> 00:17:49 What worries me these days is that it does feel like the federal government
00:17:49 --> 00:17:51 is advocating that commitment.
00:17:51 --> 00:17:56 The programs have never been perfect. Like we could definitely invest more resources.
00:17:56 --> 00:18:00 We could make more people eligible for the program. So there's lots of things
00:18:00 --> 00:18:01 we could do to improve them.
00:18:01 --> 00:18:07 But at the base, we have historically had this commitment to making sure that
00:18:07 --> 00:18:09 people are not going hungry in the United States.
00:18:09 --> 00:18:14 And it really concerns me, some of the messaging that's coming out of Washington
00:18:14 --> 00:18:21 right now and moving away from that federal commitment to make sure that people aren't hungry.
00:18:21 --> 00:18:28 Well, I know FRAC has done a lot and has made a lot of contributions to those
00:18:28 --> 00:18:29 programs that you mentioned.
00:18:29 --> 00:18:34 My favorite, however, is the fact that this was the organization that basically
00:18:34 --> 00:18:39 stopped Ronald Reagan from saying that ketchup and relish were vegetables.
00:18:40 --> 00:18:44 I greatly appreciated that because I was in school during that time and I did
00:18:44 --> 00:18:50 not want to have hot dogs every day for school lunch. So I thank FRAC for stepping up and doing that.
00:18:51 --> 00:18:56 Of the five strategic goals for FRAC, which one is the most challenging?
00:18:57 --> 00:19:01 Well, I would say the most challenging is the root causes. I mean,
00:19:01 --> 00:19:04 I think all of them can be challenging in their different ways.
00:19:04 --> 00:19:12 And I do think at this specific moment in time, we are facing significant challenges in all the areas.
00:19:13 --> 00:19:18 But, you know, when people talk about ending hunger, they talk about moving food around sometimes.
00:19:19 --> 00:19:23 But we're actually never going to be able to end hunger in the United States
00:19:23 --> 00:19:27 unless we end poverty and we address the root causes of hunger.
00:19:28 --> 00:19:34 So I just think that is such a harder thing for people to understand.
00:19:35 --> 00:19:42 But I do think at this, we are kind of at a crossroads with the federal nutrition programs.
00:19:43 --> 00:19:47 I will also say, you know, it's hard to pick one that's the most challenging
00:19:47 --> 00:19:51 right now. But, you know, the racial hunger gap is huge.
00:19:51 --> 00:19:55 And, you know, FRAC is continuing to talk about racial equity,
00:19:56 --> 00:19:57 diversity and inclusion.
00:19:57 --> 00:20:02 We think it's a really important conversation to be having, particularly when,
00:20:02 --> 00:20:07 you know, nationally one in seven households are struggling with food insecurity.
00:20:07 --> 00:20:12 But that number is one in four for black households and it's one in five for
00:20:12 --> 00:20:16 Latino households. And if we're going to solve hunger, we have to be talking
00:20:16 --> 00:20:21 about how it disproportionately impacts different communities. Yeah, yeah.
00:20:22 --> 00:20:27 I mean, all those goals are lofty and just looking at them.
00:20:27 --> 00:20:32 But, you know, reducing the racial hunger gap probably would.
00:20:33 --> 00:20:36 If I was in your position, I would think that that would probably be the toughest
00:20:36 --> 00:20:40 one because there's so many factors outside of that.
00:20:40 --> 00:20:44 But since you brought it up, what are the root causes for hunger in America?
00:20:45 --> 00:20:50 Yeah, well, I mean, we seem to be okay as a country with having incredible economic
00:20:50 --> 00:20:53 inequality, and it's just gotten worse.
00:20:53 --> 00:20:57 Like, I remember when I was in school back in the 80s, we were,
00:20:57 --> 00:21:01 you know, a sociology philosophy major. And in sociology, we learned that the
00:21:01 --> 00:21:07 highest paid employee in a company was making 66 times what the lowest paid employee was making.
00:21:08 --> 00:21:13 And now, you know, you fast forward 30 years and that number has,
00:21:13 --> 00:21:15 you know, increased exponentially.
00:21:15 --> 00:21:20 Like the difference between what people are making, the vast majority of people
00:21:20 --> 00:21:24 in this country are making versus the top 10% is just...
00:21:25 --> 00:21:29 Shocking, it's not okay, but it is a big driver.
00:21:29 --> 00:21:35 And then you have, so you start with wages and people not making enough,
00:21:35 --> 00:21:36 not having livable wages.
00:21:37 --> 00:21:42 And then you start, move on to the fact that housing costs have gone up significantly.
00:21:42 --> 00:21:45 Childcare costs are astronomical.
00:21:46 --> 00:21:51 And you've got food costs have risen. So there's all this tremendous pressure
00:21:51 --> 00:21:55 that is being placed on families across the country.
00:21:55 --> 00:21:59 But it really, you know, people have lots of different conversations about the
00:21:59 --> 00:22:04 poor and poverty and all of that. And what makes somebody poor is the fact that
00:22:04 --> 00:22:05 they don't have any money.
00:22:05 --> 00:22:10 Like that is that is it. And we need to make sure that families have the resources
00:22:10 --> 00:22:15 that they need to be able to have safe and stable housing, to be able to purchase
00:22:15 --> 00:22:17 the food that they need, to be,
00:22:18 --> 00:22:23 able to kind of focus on raising their kids and taking care of their loved ones
00:22:24 --> 00:22:28 and leaning into their community as opposed to being stressed and stretched
00:22:28 --> 00:22:31 and struggling to put food on the table.
00:22:31 --> 00:22:37 Yeah, and, you know, this is not a modern phenomenon. This has basically been
00:22:37 --> 00:22:39 going on throughout the history of this country.
00:22:40 --> 00:22:44 I think about two things.
00:22:44 --> 00:22:51 One, I read once that a reporter asked Andrew Carnegie, why do you give so much
00:22:51 --> 00:22:56 money in charity, but you don't give a raise to your workers?
00:22:57 --> 00:23:03 And he said, you know, it's like when I if I control the money,
00:23:03 --> 00:23:08 so I, you know, I do things to try to help the community and all that.
00:23:08 --> 00:23:12 But if I just gave it to the workers, all they would do is just buy more meat.
00:23:13 --> 00:23:19 And I always found that to be a striking thing. And then I watched Theodore
00:23:19 --> 00:23:23 Roosevelt, the documentary on him that the History Channel did.
00:23:23 --> 00:23:24 I think it was History Channel.
00:23:24 --> 00:23:31 And there was a moment during his administration where he reformed food safety, right?
00:23:31 --> 00:23:34 He was, you know, watching what was going on in places. He sent people out to
00:23:34 --> 00:23:40 Chicago and other places, stockyards, to see how they were processing meat and
00:23:40 --> 00:23:42 realize what they were doing.
00:23:42 --> 00:23:50 And so he invited, like, Mr. Swift and all these other people to the White House
00:23:50 --> 00:23:52 to have dinner. And he had a steak dinner.
00:23:53 --> 00:23:58 And, you know, he had somebody give the report while they were eating the steak.
00:23:59 --> 00:24:01 And all of them just kind of pushed their plates away.
00:24:03 --> 00:24:10 And, you know, so food, not only is the wages, which I was highlighting with
00:24:10 --> 00:24:13 Carnegie, but it's also the safety factor, too.
00:24:13 --> 00:24:16 You know, a lot of people are not getting...
00:24:18 --> 00:24:22 The right food and all that. And that contributes to hunger,
00:24:22 --> 00:24:25 too, right? It's like the malnutrition piece of it.
00:24:26 --> 00:24:31 Yeah. And I do think the core of that is having more resources to purchase food.
00:24:31 --> 00:24:36 Because when people have more money to purchase food, they tend to purchase healthier food.
00:24:37 --> 00:24:41 And that is a big driver. I mean, it's not an accident when you look at health
00:24:41 --> 00:24:46 that more affluent people tend to have better health. And it starts with what
00:24:46 --> 00:24:48 they're able to purchase in the grocery store.
00:24:49 --> 00:24:54 And people who are struggling are making, I mean, it's amazing the math and
00:24:54 --> 00:24:58 mental calculations that are happening in the grocery store when people are
00:24:58 --> 00:25:02 there making sure that they're purchasing food to feed their families.
00:25:02 --> 00:25:07 Because prices have gone up so high on so many different things.
00:25:07 --> 00:25:13 We have this huge affordability crisis that almost everyone is facing in this country.
00:25:13 --> 00:25:16 And it's making it really difficult for people to purchase healthy food.
00:25:17 --> 00:25:21 But one of the easiest ways to improve the nutrition quality of what people
00:25:21 --> 00:25:25 buy in the grocery store is to give them more resources to purchase more fruits
00:25:25 --> 00:25:29 and vegetables, more lean meats, more whole grains, all of those things that
00:25:29 --> 00:25:32 come together into a healthy diet.
00:25:32 --> 00:25:40 Yeah, yeah. I mean, I have to, you know, watch, you know, what I got in the cupboard. I'm just me.
00:25:41 --> 00:25:44 And you know I have to watch what I got in cupboard it's like I get I drink
00:25:44 --> 00:25:48 a lot of juices so I got a budget it's like okay.
00:25:49 --> 00:25:52 It's like if I get these juices that's going to be x amount of dollars and all
00:25:52 --> 00:25:56 that stuff and I'm not saying that you know.
00:25:57 --> 00:26:02 We got it there's no desire for everybody to be extravagant what they buy but
00:26:03 --> 00:26:07 it should not like you said all this mental gymnastics and figure out what I
00:26:07 --> 00:26:12 need to take care of my family of three, four, five, six people, right?
00:26:13 --> 00:26:18 America shouldn't be in that situation, but let's get back to Frack for just a second.
00:26:19 --> 00:26:23 What is FRAC's relationship with the Coalition of Human Needs?
00:26:23 --> 00:26:28 Oh, we love the Coalition on Human Needs. Actually, our chief government affairs
00:26:28 --> 00:26:30 officer is the board chair for them.
00:26:31 --> 00:26:35 They do incredible work, and they work on all the different issues.
00:26:35 --> 00:26:38 So we're a very active partner of theirs. Yeah.
00:26:39 --> 00:26:44 You know, one of the cool things about doing this podcast is that you find out stuff.
00:26:45 --> 00:26:49 And, you know, and I, and I've been privileged to be an elected official and all that.
00:26:50 --> 00:26:53 And I have never heard of this organization and I'm sitting there going,
00:26:54 --> 00:26:58 so there's a group where everybody that deals with.
00:26:59 --> 00:27:05 You know, basic human that needs the Maslow pyramid, there's a coalition where
00:27:05 --> 00:27:06 they all get together and meet.
00:27:06 --> 00:27:10 I was like, Oh God, I wish I had known that a couple, you know,
00:27:10 --> 00:27:12 about 20 years ago when I was elected.
00:27:13 --> 00:27:15 I could have tapped into them for a lot of stuff.
00:27:15 --> 00:27:21 And probably a lot of the work that they do, I probably was getting,
00:27:21 --> 00:27:23 but I was getting it from another source.
00:27:23 --> 00:27:27 So when I found that out, I was like, that's really fascinating,
00:27:28 --> 00:27:32 this group. And I think they're getting new leadership too, as far as executive director and all that.
00:27:33 --> 00:27:37 But I just thought that was kind of cool that there is actually a group of people,
00:27:37 --> 00:27:45 who meet that's trying to address the issues that humans basically need. I think that's great.
00:27:45 --> 00:27:51 Yeah, no, we're huge fans, and they convene all the different groups every week,
00:27:51 --> 00:27:54 have lots of conversations, share information.
00:27:54 --> 00:27:59 But yeah, they're fantastic. And yeah, Debbie, their executive director,
00:27:59 --> 00:28:03 who's been there for a long time, I don't know exactly the number,
00:28:03 --> 00:28:05 is just an icon in our community.
00:28:05 --> 00:28:10 They're going to be celebrating her at their Heroes Award in July.
00:28:10 --> 00:28:14 So I'm looking forward to being there and celebrating all her great work. Yeah, that's cool.
00:28:15 --> 00:28:19 It's also kind of cool that one of your co-workers is the chairman of the board.
00:28:19 --> 00:28:21 I think that that helps out a lot too.
00:28:23 --> 00:28:28 How has ending the Household Food Security Report impacted your work?
00:28:29 --> 00:28:32 Well, so it hasn't actually impacted our work yet because they did,
00:28:32 --> 00:28:35 there are always a year delay in the data.
00:28:35 --> 00:28:41 So they actually released the data just before the new year for the last round.
00:28:41 --> 00:28:43 So that was delayed a couple months, but they've announced that they aren't
00:28:44 --> 00:28:45 going to put out data moving forward.
00:28:45 --> 00:28:51 Normally we would get it in the fall, but it is an absolute disaster to end this measure.
00:28:51 --> 00:28:56 It is the gold standard for understanding what people are facing as far as getting
00:28:56 --> 00:29:01 food on the table, who's impacted the impact of the federal nutrition programs.
00:29:01 --> 00:29:07 It really does help drive kind of policy thinking and really just understand what's going on.
00:29:08 --> 00:29:13 You know, last summer, Congress and the president signed it.
00:29:13 --> 00:29:19 They passed this bill called H.R. 1 that just made a tremendous amount of cuts
00:29:19 --> 00:29:21 to the SNAP program, to Medicaid.
00:29:22 --> 00:29:26 And it is going to have a huge impact on people's health and well-being.
00:29:26 --> 00:29:31 And the food security measure, I think, is a really important measure to understand
00:29:31 --> 00:29:35 how that's playing out so that we can respond to it.
00:29:36 --> 00:29:40 And canceling it just hides the impact.
00:29:40 --> 00:29:46 And, you know, we need to be focused on making sure that everybody has enough to eat.
00:29:46 --> 00:29:51 And if we don't have a measure to truly understand it and to truly understand
00:29:51 --> 00:29:56 the struggle that so many households face, like I said, it's one in seven across
00:29:56 --> 00:30:00 the country, it's really hard to figure out how to respond.
00:30:00 --> 00:30:05 And frack, so back in the 80s, we did do the ketchup as a vegetable piece and
00:30:05 --> 00:30:10 were able to successfully have that not counted as a vegetable.
00:30:10 --> 00:30:14 But one of the other things that we worked on before I got to frack was kind
00:30:14 --> 00:30:16 of the food security measure.
00:30:16 --> 00:30:21 Reagan said there was no hunger. His administration was saying that there was no hunger.
00:30:21 --> 00:30:27 And we were like, yes, there is. And people were standing in line for food.
00:30:27 --> 00:30:33 And so we actually developed the Community Childhood Hunger Identification Project, where we went out,
00:30:33 --> 00:30:38 worked with community groups to go out, developed a measure of questions to
00:30:38 --> 00:30:42 figure out food security and how much people were struggling.
00:30:42 --> 00:30:47 And that, you know, was one of the precursors to the food security measure.
00:30:47 --> 00:30:54 So we understand how important it is to know and track what how people are struggling
00:30:54 --> 00:30:59 to put food on the table. And we are continuing to call on Congress to reverse
00:30:59 --> 00:31:01 that. We are trying to get.
00:31:02 --> 00:31:09 Congress to include funding and tell USDA that they need to reinstate the food
00:31:09 --> 00:31:12 security measure so that we can really track this.
00:31:12 --> 00:31:15 And it's not expensive. I think it's less than $2 million.
00:31:16 --> 00:31:20 So when you think of all the funding that goes into anti-hunger programs and
00:31:20 --> 00:31:24 anti-poverty programs and all the decisions that get made at the federal level
00:31:24 --> 00:31:30 to be operating blind without really understanding food security and the struggle that peoples face,
00:31:31 --> 00:31:33 it does not make any sense at all.
00:31:34 --> 00:31:40 Yeah. So is that part of the Restoring Food Security for American Families and
00:31:40 --> 00:31:42 Farmers Act, which you're talking about?
00:31:43 --> 00:31:49 No, actually, the Restoring Food Security for a Family, and I'm probably butchering
00:31:49 --> 00:31:55 the name, that is to reverse all of the cuts that they made to SNAP in the budget
00:31:55 --> 00:31:57 reconciliation law that they passed last summer.
00:31:58 --> 00:32:04 And so last summer, they cut SNAP by $186 billion over 10 years.
00:32:05 --> 00:32:09 And they did it through a number of different ways. But that bill would reverse
00:32:09 --> 00:32:15 those cuts, which have already led to millions of people losing their SNAP benefits.
00:32:15 --> 00:32:21 And we expect that number to continue to grow as the cuts continue to roll out across the country.
00:32:22 --> 00:32:29 Yeah, I think Senator Lujan from New Mexico, I think he was one of the sponsors
00:32:29 --> 00:32:33 of that. So in New Mexico, y'all hear that? Y'all need to reelect that guy because
00:32:33 --> 00:32:34 he's trying to feed folks.
00:32:35 --> 00:32:40 What is the progress of that act, the healthy school meals for all legislation
00:32:40 --> 00:32:44 and efforts to maintain funding for SNAP and WIC programs?
00:32:45 --> 00:32:49 You've kind of touched on it in different answers, but overall.
00:32:51 --> 00:32:55 What is Ms. Ellen going through and trying to lobby Congress?
00:32:58 --> 00:33:01 Yeah, no, it's a lot of work right now. And there's, but you know,
00:33:01 --> 00:33:04 the thing that I think is really interesting, because I've been at FRAC for
00:33:04 --> 00:33:10 a long time, is that I think most people share the vision that they want people
00:33:10 --> 00:33:12 in this country to have what they need to thrive.
00:33:13 --> 00:33:16 And I do think we need to figure out a way to.
00:33:17 --> 00:33:21 To move people back to that vision that we do share.
00:33:21 --> 00:33:26 I mean, people want the best for kids. They want the best for seniors.
00:33:26 --> 00:33:30 They, you know, they want, they don't want people to be going hungry in this
00:33:30 --> 00:33:32 country. And I think we need to move back to that.
00:33:32 --> 00:33:36 But for the HR1 piece, I mean, that was such a huge cut. I mean,
00:33:36 --> 00:33:39 it was unprecedented, the attack on SNAP.
00:33:40 --> 00:33:46 And it really changes kind of the structure in some ways. It could lead some states to drop out.
00:33:47 --> 00:33:53 So what's happening in Congress right now is that they have a farm bill that
00:33:53 --> 00:33:58 passed out of the House that, and just for people who don't track anti-hunger
00:33:58 --> 00:34:00 policy, the SNAP program,
00:34:00 --> 00:34:02 is actually part of the farm bill.
00:34:02 --> 00:34:07 So that passed out of the House. They didn't reverse any of the cuts that we were calling for.
00:34:07 --> 00:34:12 The Senate, it looks like it could be different. The Senate Agriculture Committee,
00:34:12 --> 00:34:16 Chairman Bozeman is getting ready to release his bill actually in the next few
00:34:16 --> 00:34:20 days, I think, or it could slip till next week. Things do slip sometimes in D.C.
00:34:20 --> 00:34:25 But the Democrats on the committee have drawn a line in the sand and said that
00:34:25 --> 00:34:30 they're not going to support a bill unless it does something to address the snap cut.
00:34:30 --> 00:34:35 So there is conversation around reversing kind of these cost shifts that make
00:34:35 --> 00:34:40 it harder for states to run the program and would be a huge financial burden on states.
00:34:40 --> 00:34:46 We've been lifting up time limits to try and reverse that or give some support there.
00:34:46 --> 00:34:50 But those are kind of the two things that we've really been focused on and seen
00:34:50 --> 00:34:52 maybe an opportunity on.
00:34:52 --> 00:34:56 The food insecurity piece is part of the appropriations process.
00:34:56 --> 00:34:59 And then the other piece that you talked about, the healthy school meals for
00:34:59 --> 00:35:03 all, which is actually what I think about when I want to have a little bit of
00:35:03 --> 00:35:05 hope right now, because it feels like,
00:35:05 --> 00:35:10 everywhere you look, there is a challenge coming at you and people are not being
00:35:10 --> 00:35:12 treated the way they should be treated.
00:35:12 --> 00:35:16 Healthy school meals for all is kind of like that shining light.
00:35:16 --> 00:35:21 I've been working on that for more than a decade, and we have slowly increased
00:35:21 --> 00:35:25 the number of schools that offer free meals to all students,
00:35:25 --> 00:35:29 and we have nine states that do that for all their schools.
00:35:29 --> 00:35:33 Over half the schools across the country are offering free meals to all the
00:35:33 --> 00:35:37 students, and it's an incredible way to
00:35:37 --> 00:35:41 reduce the stigma of participating in school meals because we see kids who are
00:35:41 --> 00:35:45 eligible for free or reduced price meals drop out of the program as they get
00:35:45 --> 00:35:49 older as they start to see it as more of a program for poor kids.
00:35:49 --> 00:35:53 So making sure that everybody is, it's accessible to everybody,
00:35:53 --> 00:35:54 I think is a really important piece.
00:35:55 --> 00:36:01 It releases, it's kind of like a release valve for household food budgets because
00:36:01 --> 00:36:06 parents can count on breakfast and lunch for their kids 180 days out of the
00:36:06 --> 00:36:09 year, which dramatically reduces their food costs.
00:36:09 --> 00:36:13 It's easier for administrators. They don't have as much paperwork.
00:36:13 --> 00:36:19 And then you also have We have teachers and superintendents who really love
00:36:19 --> 00:36:24 it because they know that kids are coming to the class well nourished and ready to learn.
00:36:24 --> 00:36:29 So we're continuing to work on that. We think more states will take it up and
00:36:29 --> 00:36:33 we are calling on the federal government to move in that direction for school
00:36:33 --> 00:36:36 meals. But when I feel...
00:36:36 --> 00:36:41 I'm looking for a little hope in this world. I think about healthy school meals for all.
00:36:41 --> 00:36:46 And I also think about all the positive polling, because it is a very simple
00:36:46 --> 00:36:50 thing to understand, and most people do support it.
00:36:50 --> 00:36:56 We've seen polls as high as 80% of voters that support it, and even in some
00:36:56 --> 00:37:03 red states. So I think it's really something that we should be rallying around and celebrating.
00:37:03 --> 00:37:08 Yeah I you know I I grew up in Chicago and,
00:37:08 --> 00:37:13 you know it was like they offered breakfast and lunch and I wasn't one of the
00:37:13 --> 00:37:18 free lunch kids I had to pay I think it was like 40 cents for like lunch,
00:37:19 --> 00:37:22 and you know you used to get into fights people tried to take your lunch money
00:37:22 --> 00:37:28 it's like really right um you know but you know it was you know,
00:37:29 --> 00:37:33 when I look back of my childhood it was just kind of like understood it was
00:37:33 --> 00:37:35 like you got there in time for breakfast,
00:37:36 --> 00:37:39 because a lot of parents even if they could afford it was like it was a matter
00:37:39 --> 00:37:43 of time because both of them had to work so it was kind of like all right and
00:37:43 --> 00:37:47 we didn't have school buses in chicago so elementary school you have to walk to school,
00:37:47 --> 00:37:50 so it's like hey you got to get out especially when it's cold because i got
00:37:50 --> 00:37:52 to put all these layers on you,
00:37:52 --> 00:37:56 get to the school so you can get you something to eat you know i'm saying some
00:37:56 --> 00:38:02 morning so it was just there for us and then of course you know lunch was always the standard, but.
00:38:04 --> 00:38:08 It never dawned on me until I got into adulthood and got into politics.
00:38:09 --> 00:38:14 That was like, so not every child in America is getting breakfast and lunch at school?
00:38:14 --> 00:38:19 That's crazy, you know? So it's just amazing when you grow up.
00:38:19 --> 00:38:23 I told one of my professors, I was like, I should be mad at y'all because y'all
00:38:23 --> 00:38:25 didn't tell us adulthood was like this.
00:38:26 --> 00:38:29 That was the only thing you didn't tell us about the world.
00:38:29 --> 00:38:34 Well, speaking of which, why do you think that some lawmakers lack the understanding
00:38:34 --> 00:38:37 and compassion to address hunger in America?
00:38:38 --> 00:38:40 And what can be done to fix that?
00:38:41 --> 00:38:43 Well, I think...
00:38:45 --> 00:38:50 Yeah, I mean, sometimes I actually really do not understand why people don't
00:38:50 --> 00:38:57 support it. You know, it's one of the things with the Healthy School Meals for All before.
00:38:58 --> 00:39:02 So that's been a long journey for schools and for FRAC.
00:39:02 --> 00:39:07 And before the pandemic hit because when the pandemic hit schools across the
00:39:07 --> 00:39:12 country all were able to offer free meals to all their students before the pandemic hit,
00:39:12 --> 00:39:19 we i would get a call probably like every month there was some child in school
00:39:19 --> 00:39:22 who had their lunch taken away and thrown in to the trash
00:39:23 --> 00:39:28 because they had unpaid school meal debt and it's just horrible situation.
00:39:28 --> 00:39:33 That absolutely should not happen to any child. You know, I have got two kids
00:39:33 --> 00:39:39 and my, you know, they just, that is like the worst message you could send to a child.
00:39:39 --> 00:39:43 We'd rather put the food in the trash than let you eat it. I mean, seriously.
00:39:43 --> 00:39:48 And then you've got school nutrition folks who really don't want to be doing that.
00:39:48 --> 00:39:52 And you've got school boards who, you know, are really struggling with this
00:39:52 --> 00:39:56 unpaid school meal debt and trying to figure out how to solve it.
00:39:56 --> 00:39:59 So it's not a great situation.
00:40:00 --> 00:40:05 And people were absolutely outraged, as they should be, when that happened.
00:40:06 --> 00:40:09 And, you know, I could tell lots of stories of other things that happened to
00:40:09 --> 00:40:11 kids who had unpaid school meal debt.
00:40:12 --> 00:40:16 But people really seemed to understand how problematic that was.
00:40:17 --> 00:40:23 And I've never understood, which is true, and it's outrageous and problematic.
00:40:23 --> 00:40:28 And I've, you know, worked very hard to reverse that and to make sure that schools
00:40:28 --> 00:40:34 are focusing any efforts to collect school meal fees to the parents, not the kids.
00:40:34 --> 00:40:39 But at the same time, the same people who are outraged by that are totally fine,
00:40:39 --> 00:40:44 you know, with 14 million kids growing up in households where they don't have
00:40:44 --> 00:40:45 the money to purchase food.
00:40:45 --> 00:40:50 So that disconnect, I really don't understand.
00:40:50 --> 00:40:55 I do think that there are plenty of politicians and policymakers who do care,
00:40:55 --> 00:41:01 but they don't think that we should be spending the money on it and they worry about that.
00:41:01 --> 00:41:07 But I actually think those dollars are best invested in making sure that people
00:41:07 --> 00:41:12 have access to healthy food and have access to health care and the things they
00:41:12 --> 00:41:14 need to be able to thrive.
00:41:15 --> 00:41:18 Yeah, that could be a whole other podcast. My thoughts on that.
00:41:18 --> 00:41:24 I just, you know, I never understood colleagues that would be like,
00:41:25 --> 00:41:26 well, we can't afford that.
00:41:27 --> 00:41:31 And my argument has always been, no, you don't want to prioritize that.
00:41:32 --> 00:41:36 You know, it's like whatever money, and I was an elected official in Mississippi,
00:41:37 --> 00:41:39 the quote unquote poorest state in the nation.
00:41:40 --> 00:41:44 And, you know, but even a poor state of the nation, we had a $10 billion budget.
00:41:44 --> 00:41:48 You know what I'm saying? So for 3 million people, it seems like needs could
00:41:48 --> 00:41:51 be met if you prioritize them.
00:41:51 --> 00:41:58 So, you know, that to me has always been the thing. It's not so much affordability
00:41:58 --> 00:42:01 on the government end. It's about prioritization.
00:42:01 --> 00:42:08 And, you know, until we can get a mindset as far as like basic needs should
00:42:08 --> 00:42:12 be a priority, regardless of what level of government you're in, it's,
00:42:13 --> 00:42:17 it's it to me is always going to be a struggle, which leads me to this.
00:42:17 --> 00:42:22 Albert Einstein once said an empty stomach is not a good political advisor.
00:42:22 --> 00:42:23 Do you agree with that statement?
00:42:24 --> 00:42:28 Oh, I would absolutely agree with that statement. I mean, you know,
00:42:28 --> 00:42:34 when people have an empty stomach, they can't focus, they can't concentrate, they can't learn.
00:42:34 --> 00:42:39 You know, it is just so basic. You know, parents, I think one of the best things
00:42:39 --> 00:42:42 you can do for kids is make sure parents aren't parenting hungry.
00:42:43 --> 00:42:47 The workforce is much more productive if everybody has food in their belly.
00:42:48 --> 00:42:51 We know that kids can't learn if they're hungry.
00:42:52 --> 00:42:57 It doesn't make any sense to let people walk around needing food.
00:42:57 --> 00:42:59 Yeah. Yeah. Amen to that.
00:43:00 --> 00:43:04 All right, Crystal, finish this sentence. I have hope because...
00:43:05 --> 00:43:13 I have hope because I've seen how committed people are to making sure that others
00:43:13 --> 00:43:18 have what they need. I have hope because I think we ultimately are going to
00:43:18 --> 00:43:20 win this fight, even though it's taking way too long.
00:43:21 --> 00:43:30 And I have hope because there's no reason why we can't win. We all just need to be all in on it. Yeah.
00:43:31 --> 00:43:35 Well, Crystal FitzSimons, I'm Christian by faith.
00:43:35 --> 00:43:40 But and so in the black church, we always have this saying that,
00:43:40 --> 00:43:43 you know, when people are doing what needs to be done in the community,
00:43:43 --> 00:43:45 we say you're doing the Lord's work.
00:43:45 --> 00:43:53 In the Jewish faith, there's a belief that there are 36 spirits that come up in every generation.
00:43:54 --> 00:44:01 And those 36 people, you won't know them until you see their deeds and their actions.
00:44:02 --> 00:44:06 I tend to believe there's more than 36. I don't know why in the Jewish faith,
00:44:07 --> 00:44:14 they've limited to 36, but I would say that you and the people that you work
00:44:14 --> 00:44:17 fall into that category because, you know.
00:44:18 --> 00:44:23 It's mind-boggling to me that in the richest nation in the world,
00:44:23 --> 00:44:25 people go to sleep hungry.
00:44:26 --> 00:44:32 And just the fact that there are warriors like you out here to hold us accountable
00:44:32 --> 00:44:37 to that, I greatly appreciate that So I wanted to say that to you,
00:44:37 --> 00:44:40 but more importantly, I wanted to,
00:44:41 --> 00:44:46 you know, just thank you for being committed to what your mom had said about
00:44:46 --> 00:44:48 being involved in social justice.
00:44:49 --> 00:44:54 If people want more information about FRAC or people want to reach out to you, how can they do that?
00:44:54 --> 00:45:01 Yeah, so we do have a website, FRAC.org, F-R-A-C.org, and we have most of our resources on it.
00:45:02 --> 00:45:08 The one thing I would say, Erik, is if people are committed to ending hunger
00:45:08 --> 00:45:12 in the United States, we actually have lots of resources at FRAC to weigh in
00:45:12 --> 00:45:15 with policymakers and communicate your thoughts.
00:45:15 --> 00:45:20 And you can easily find that on our Action Center, on our website.
00:45:20 --> 00:45:23 You know, definitely all of our information is on the website.
00:45:23 --> 00:45:27 I always have to connect with people and to also make sure that people get to
00:45:27 --> 00:45:33 the right person at FRAC if they want to talk about school meals or child nutrition or WIC or SNAP.
00:45:33 --> 00:45:36 Always can make sure that we make those connections for people.
00:45:37 --> 00:45:39 You know, and you can always donate to FRAC.
00:45:39 --> 00:45:42 My comms director would actually kill me if I didn't say that.
00:45:42 --> 00:45:44 And our development director as well.
00:45:44 --> 00:45:49 But because it is a little harder to raise funding for advocacy work,
00:45:49 --> 00:45:53 but it is so important because, just to give you an example,
00:45:53 --> 00:45:59 you know, for every one meal that's provided by a food bank, SNAP provides nine.
00:45:59 --> 00:46:04 So, you know, we need to be fighting the good fight, making sure that we have
00:46:04 --> 00:46:07 a public commitment to ending hunger in the United States.
00:46:07 --> 00:46:10 And that really is the core work of FRAC.
00:46:10 --> 00:46:16 Yeah, and it was some other stat that I saw where it's like for every dollar
00:46:16 --> 00:46:21 that's invested in food, that's an extra dollar and eight cents that goes out
00:46:21 --> 00:46:24 to the community for economic development and all that.
00:46:24 --> 00:46:28 So, yeah, it just makes sense.
00:46:28 --> 00:46:32 But look, I could talk about this forever. You're a busy woman and all that.
00:46:32 --> 00:46:36 So, again, I want to thank you for your time and thank you for coming on the podcast.
00:46:37 --> 00:46:42 Yeah. Crystal FitzSimons, again, I mean it when I say that you're doing great
00:46:42 --> 00:46:47 work and I appreciate the fact that you have dedicated most of your adult life
00:46:47 --> 00:46:48 to doing this kind of work.
00:46:49 --> 00:46:53 Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for having me on. I really enjoyed our conversation.
00:46:54 --> 00:46:57 Yes, ma'am. All right, guys, and we're going to catch y'all on the other side.
00:47:17 --> 00:47:21 And so now it is time for my next guest, Pauline Steinhorn.
00:47:22 --> 00:47:25 Pauline Steinhorn enjoys telling other people's stories.
00:47:26 --> 00:47:30 Throughout her career as an award-winning filmmaker and writer,
00:47:30 --> 00:47:35 she has written and directed documentaries for PBS, Maryland Public Television,
00:47:35 --> 00:47:38 Sesame Street, Discovery Channel, the U.S.
00:47:38 --> 00:47:43 Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Smithsonian, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
00:47:44 --> 00:47:49 Her articles and essays have appeared in the Wall Street Journal and Moment magazine.
00:47:50 --> 00:47:54 She is the author of the book, Dreaming of the River, a mother and daughter's
00:47:54 --> 00:47:56 fight for survival during the Holocaust.
00:47:57 --> 00:48:00 And we're going to talk about that book during the interview.
00:48:00 --> 00:48:04 So, ladies and gentlemen, it is my distinct honor and privilege to have as a
00:48:04 --> 00:48:08 guest on this podcast, Pauline Steinhorn.
00:48:21 --> 00:48:23 Pauline Steinhorn. How are you doing, ma'am? You doing good?
00:48:24 --> 00:48:29 I'm doing great. How are you today? I'm doing lovely, and I'm really glad to
00:48:29 --> 00:48:32 have you on. We're going to talk about your book, Dreaming of the River.
00:48:33 --> 00:48:37 And it sounds like this great romance novel and all this stuff,
00:48:37 --> 00:48:42 but it's a little deeper than that, but we'll get into that as we have the discussion.
00:48:43 --> 00:48:48 I'll do a couple of icebreakers first. The first icebreaker is a quote I want you to respond to.
00:48:49 --> 00:48:54 And the quote is, the lessons of the Holocaust are not Jewish, but universal.
00:48:55 --> 00:48:58 And unfortunately, the lessons remain relevant today.
00:48:59 --> 00:49:05 I agree. And that's one of the reasons it was important to me to publish this book right now.
00:49:07 --> 00:49:11 One of the big lessons of the Holocaust, and one that I was told from a very
00:49:11 --> 00:49:18 young age, was this concept of turning a group into the other.
00:49:19 --> 00:49:24 You know, we're all the same. Whatever we, my mother would sit me down at the
00:49:24 --> 00:49:26 table at the beginning of every school year.
00:49:26 --> 00:49:32 And she said, is there anyone in your class who's looks different,
00:49:32 --> 00:49:36 sounds different, and who doesn't have anyone to sit with in the cafeteria or
00:49:36 --> 00:49:39 play with in the playground?
00:49:39 --> 00:49:44 We're all the same. You know how to be a friend and a good neighbor.
00:49:44 --> 00:49:46 Go make friends with them.
00:49:46 --> 00:49:50 And I wish that that was the motto of the world,
00:49:51 --> 00:49:57 because right now we're blaming problems on the wrong places, on people and groups,
00:49:58 --> 00:50:04 when the problems have nothing to do with immigrants or with other people who
00:50:04 --> 00:50:08 are coming to this country or who have been here their whole lives.
00:50:08 --> 00:50:14 And that's one of the lessons that I think we need to take from the Holocaust. And the other is...
00:50:16 --> 00:50:19 That it's very easy for authoritarian leaders.
00:50:22 --> 00:50:28 To blame our problems on these other groups. And I see that happening all over the world.
00:50:30 --> 00:50:30 Yeah, yeah.
00:50:32 --> 00:50:35 It's a problem of accountability, I think.
00:50:37 --> 00:50:41 The older I get, the more I realize it's not just a simple, I hate you,
00:50:42 --> 00:50:44 right? Or I'm not comfortable with you.
00:50:45 --> 00:50:53 It's like I can't accept the fact that I am not worthy of doing or I'm not I
00:50:53 --> 00:50:57 don't have the ability to do something so I've got to find,
00:50:58 --> 00:51:04 a reason why I can't do that and so I scapegoat and and that's really where
00:51:04 --> 00:51:11 the power of otherism is and we can go off on a whole tangent of that but let's.
00:51:13 --> 00:51:17 So let's get back with my next icebreaker, which is 20 questions.
00:51:18 --> 00:51:20 Give me a number between 1 and 20.
00:51:20 --> 00:51:24 1 and 20. Okay. 17. Okay.
00:51:25 --> 00:51:31 What's something about people who see the world differently than you that you've come to appreciate?
00:51:32 --> 00:51:37 I appreciate the fact that by engaging in a conversation with that person or
00:51:37 --> 00:51:46 those people, that I can expand my understanding of the world and my understanding of other people.
00:51:46 --> 00:51:51 I don't want to judge people by their political opinions. It's very easy to
00:51:51 --> 00:51:54 do that, but I want to stay open-minded.
00:51:55 --> 00:52:01 Yeah, my daddy had, you know, he had a few sayings and one of the things he
00:52:01 --> 00:52:05 used to say was a broken clock tells the time right twice a day.
00:52:07 --> 00:52:13 And the lesson was that somebody that you may not agree with,
00:52:13 --> 00:52:20 somebody that you think you have nothing in common every now and then it's like, eh, that makes sense.
00:52:20 --> 00:52:25 But we automatically tune them out because they're different, right?
00:52:26 --> 00:52:29 So, yeah, I appreciate that.
00:52:30 --> 00:52:38 So, Dreaming of the River is a story of Bronia. Am I saying that right?
00:52:38 --> 00:52:42 Yes. Bronia Feldman and her daughter, Hajuta.
00:52:43 --> 00:52:49 Hajuta. The Polish. Yes, right. Okay. Bronia Feldman and her daughter Hajuta.
00:52:49 --> 00:52:52 How did you come across their story?
00:52:52 --> 00:52:56 I had heard my mother's stories my whole life.
00:52:57 --> 00:53:01 When I was very young, a woman came to the house who I didn't know,
00:53:01 --> 00:53:05 dressed in a business suit, and that was very rare. I don't think that ever happened.
00:53:06 --> 00:53:11 And she came and sat down at the kitchen table, and my mother sent the children,
00:53:11 --> 00:53:15 there were three of us, downstairs to our playroom, and said,
00:53:15 --> 00:53:17 Don't come up until I tell you to.
00:53:18 --> 00:53:21 And she closed the door, and she never closed the door on us.
00:53:21 --> 00:53:23 She also never told us not to come up.
00:53:24 --> 00:53:28 So curious me at about maybe, I don't know, six, seven years old,
00:53:28 --> 00:53:31 I climbed to the top of the stairs and I sat and listened.
00:53:32 --> 00:53:36 And what I heard were adventure stories, you know, to my young mind.
00:53:37 --> 00:53:43 I didn't hear about the violence. I only heard about my grandmother escaping
00:53:43 --> 00:53:50 from her slave labor camp and my mother being hidden under trash by someone when she was sick.
00:53:51 --> 00:53:57 And this young girl, Lita, my mother's sister, escaping from the ghetto to bring her food.
00:53:57 --> 00:54:00 And I thought, wow, what an adventurous time.
00:54:01 --> 00:54:06 And I read everything I could find about the Holocaust. I would go to the library
00:54:06 --> 00:54:12 and sit on the floor and read Myla 16, which I wasn't allowed to take out of the library.
00:54:13 --> 00:54:17 And fortunately, I didn't understand much of what was said, but it just sounded
00:54:17 --> 00:54:19 like a great adventure to me.
00:54:19 --> 00:54:24 My mother became a Holocaust educator. She got her degree in education with
00:54:24 --> 00:54:26 a focus on the Holocaust.
00:54:27 --> 00:54:30 And she started going into classrooms and talking about it.
00:54:31 --> 00:54:35 And as a teenager and a young adult, when I heard her stories,
00:54:36 --> 00:54:40 I finally understood the gravity of what had happened.
00:54:42 --> 00:54:47 My mother had been working on a memoir based on the journal she wrote in 1945,
00:54:48 --> 00:54:50 right after she was liberated.
00:54:50 --> 00:54:54 And at the end of her life, she told me her only regret was not completing her
00:54:54 --> 00:54:58 memoir, and I promised to finish it for her.
00:54:58 --> 00:55:04 And so for the last six months of her life, we talked about these stories.
00:55:04 --> 00:55:06 I read them all. I knew most of them.
00:55:08 --> 00:55:13 And I asked questions. And I took notes. and she kept writing.
00:55:14 --> 00:55:21 And when she passed away, my youngest brother and I packed up 12 boxes of papers—research,
00:55:21 --> 00:55:28 writings, poems, plays that she had written that were published—and I started right in.
00:55:28 --> 00:55:34 At a certain point, I realized I can't do this part-time, and so I left my job.
00:55:36 --> 00:55:41 And started writing. And a year later, I went through, every few months,
00:55:41 --> 00:55:43 I'd go through the boxes and see what I could find. Initially,
00:55:43 --> 00:55:48 I just grabbed the most recent, you know, typed memoir with a date.
00:55:48 --> 00:55:53 And a year later, I found my grandmother's journals that she had translated
00:55:53 --> 00:55:55 from Polish into English.
00:55:56 --> 00:56:02 And boy, what a story I heard. This was no longer the young teen,
00:56:02 --> 00:56:08 age 13 to 16, in the camps being saved by other people and cheering up her friends,
00:56:09 --> 00:56:16 but a young woman who committed sabotage and had three children,
00:56:17 --> 00:56:21 one of whom was a mile away in another labor camp,
00:56:22 --> 00:56:25 and she enlisted the help of her Polish Christian friends.
00:56:26 --> 00:56:34 To smuggle medicine into the labor camp because she was a nurse and she could
00:56:34 --> 00:56:36 help the other prisoners.
00:56:36 --> 00:56:41 And I'm still blown away by some of the stories that are in this book.
00:56:43 --> 00:56:48 And it's also interesting what other people, what stands out for other people,
00:56:49 --> 00:56:53 about these stories that I've written, or that I've,
00:56:55 --> 00:57:00 I should say I've added notes, I edited their language, and put them together,
00:57:00 --> 00:57:02 in what I believe is an original way.
00:57:03 --> 00:57:10 Well, somebody, I think the person that wrote one of the forwards compared what
00:57:10 --> 00:57:17 you did to, like, Beethoven, I guess, the Ghost Trio, or wherever it is.
00:57:18 --> 00:57:22 I was more of a Bach guy than a Beethoven guy. But, you know,
00:57:22 --> 00:57:26 just the way you composed that and intertwined them was so...
00:57:28 --> 00:57:33 Unique and powerful in the sense because it was it was it was like a timeline
00:57:33 --> 00:57:38 kind of deal but it was it was and it was synchronized and all that it's really
00:57:38 --> 00:57:42 powerful and for the listeners how you say say your mom's name again,
00:57:43 --> 00:57:49 Hajuta and Bronia my grandmother yeah so Hajuta was was the mom that that,
00:57:50 --> 00:57:52 was my mom the teenager yeah yeah,
00:57:53 --> 00:57:58 teenager and Bronia was the grandmama and and and,
00:57:59 --> 00:58:06 And they changed their names when they got over here, so your grandma became Brenda? That's right.
00:58:07 --> 00:58:11 And your mom became Harriet? Yes. Okay.
00:58:11 --> 00:58:17 Yeah, but we're going by their native Polish names in the book.
00:58:18 --> 00:58:21 What was the significance of the book's title to you?
00:58:22 --> 00:58:28 I think that the river, which was right outside their back door when my mom
00:58:28 --> 00:58:34 was growing up, became a symbol for both of them of the life they hoped to return to.
00:58:36 --> 00:58:41 They dreamed of being with their family again and swimming in the river and
00:58:41 --> 00:58:47 having big picnic dinners along the river to celebrate birthdays and holidays
00:58:47 --> 00:58:49 and everyone would bring their instruments.
00:58:49 --> 00:58:53 And it was a really lovely time for the family.
00:58:53 --> 00:58:58 For my mother, it was also one of the reasons that she survived.
00:58:59 --> 00:59:05 She was living in the ghetto for two years. She wanted to go back to the river,
00:59:05 --> 00:59:06 but she wasn't allowed to.
00:59:07 --> 00:59:13 She hated being in the ghetto and confined in this small space that was very crowded.
00:59:14 --> 00:59:19 And so she begged my grandmother, who at that time was working as a day laborer
00:59:19 --> 00:59:23 in a munitions factory, she was working in the gardens.
00:59:24 --> 00:59:29 My mother begged her to go in her place. My mother thought, working in the gardens
00:59:30 --> 00:59:35 sounds easy compared to being stuck here in the ghetto, and I would get to walk along the river.
00:59:36 --> 00:59:40 I would get to walk a kilometer past my old house, and I would love that.
00:59:40 --> 00:59:47 And one day, Hajuta's youngest sister came home in tears, inconsolable,
00:59:47 --> 00:59:51 because some boys said they're going to kill all the children under 10.
00:59:52 --> 00:59:57 And my grandmother, Bronia, realized she had to stay home with her the next
00:59:57 --> 01:00:00 day just to reassure her that life would be fine.
01:00:01 --> 01:00:05 And she allowed my mother to go in her place and take her ID badge.
01:00:06 --> 01:00:11 Months later, when the ghetto was liquidated, everyone was sent to Treblinka,
01:00:11 --> 01:00:13 who was left in the ghetto.
01:00:14 --> 01:00:20 My mother was in a labor camp. My grandmother was in another labor camp. She had been arrested.
01:00:21 --> 01:00:24 If they had been in the ghetto, they would have gone to Treblinka,
01:00:24 --> 01:00:27 and very few people survived Treblinka.
01:00:29 --> 01:00:32 So it's the reason my mother survived. Yeah.
01:00:33 --> 01:00:41 And it really, your mom's recollections of the river, just the initial entries
01:00:41 --> 01:00:44 that she made in her journal, set the tone.
01:00:45 --> 01:00:49 And it was like, it was one of the fascinating things about the book,
01:00:49 --> 01:00:53 Their Perspectives, because here you had this grown woman, she was a mother,
01:00:53 --> 01:00:55 talking about your grandmother.
01:00:55 --> 01:01:01 And, you know, and trying to convince her husband, shouldn't we be paying attention
01:01:01 --> 01:01:03 to what's going on and, you know, and all this stuff?
01:01:03 --> 01:01:08 And then you've got the child who's like, I like sitting out and looking at the river.
01:01:08 --> 01:01:12 I like going on the beach. I remember swinging on a rope and falling into,
01:01:12 --> 01:01:18 you know, just the child's mindset about playing and not even connecting the
01:01:18 --> 01:01:21 dots until, bam, it, you know, it hits home.
01:01:21 --> 01:01:26 So what were your thoughts as you were lining those stories up,
01:01:26 --> 01:01:27 those journals together?
01:01:28 --> 01:01:32 My mother did write her journals at 16 with a childlike wonder.
01:01:33 --> 01:01:37 And that childlike wonder continued throughout her book, too.
01:01:37 --> 01:01:40 She had a boyfriend in a labor camp.
01:01:40 --> 01:01:44 She wrote about boys. You know, she has this boyfriend. And then there's another
01:01:44 --> 01:01:47 boy who's much more handsome than my boyfriend.
01:01:48 --> 01:01:52 And he wants to walk with me on Sundays, our day off, and maybe I should walk
01:01:52 --> 01:01:54 with him, but what will my boyfriend think?
01:01:56 --> 01:02:00 And I thought, goodness, that could be my high school diary.
01:02:01 --> 01:02:05 And so she's still living a life and being a human being.
01:02:05 --> 01:02:12 And she and the other young women in the barracks swapped recipes and mimed
01:02:12 --> 01:02:15 how they made certain foods, even though they were starving.
01:02:15 --> 01:02:22 And there was a boy who read poetry on Sundays and had memorized Midsummer Night's
01:02:22 --> 01:02:25 Dream and spoke, you know, recited some of that.
01:02:26 --> 01:02:29 My grandmother didn't write about any of this. And at that point,
01:02:29 --> 01:02:31 they were together in the same camp.
01:02:32 --> 01:02:40 So there was a difference between the brutality and the realization that my
01:02:40 --> 01:02:46 grandmother, Bronia, had that she may have lost all of her loved ones except her daughter.
01:02:47 --> 01:02:52 And my mother's reality that I'll just make it through today.
01:02:52 --> 01:02:57 My friends will be here. We'll help each other. and we'll get through this.
01:02:59 --> 01:03:03 It was fascinating to see those points of view side by side.
01:03:04 --> 01:03:09 So one of the things, one of the characters, even though these were real people,
01:03:09 --> 01:03:13 it was like, you know, in a story form, they're characters.
01:03:13 --> 01:03:16 And your grandfather was a very interesting character.
01:03:17 --> 01:03:23 Why do you think he remained optimistic even as he saw the terror being afflicted upon them daily?
01:03:26 --> 01:03:31 He was a Marxist and belonged to the Marxist Labor Party.
01:03:31 --> 01:03:37 And he really believed that the Allies would come to their aid and they would
01:03:37 --> 01:03:41 get through this, and that he and his comrades in.
01:03:43 --> 01:03:48 These freedom fighter groups throughout Poland that were aligned,
01:03:48 --> 01:03:53 specifically that were aligned with this Marxist party, They believed that they
01:03:53 --> 01:03:56 could rebuild Poland and rebuild it,
01:03:57 --> 01:03:59 that would get closer to a socialist state.
01:03:59 --> 01:04:02 And they wanted to be there to rebuild Poland.
01:04:03 --> 01:04:06 And many of the relatives and friends left in time.
01:04:07 --> 01:04:11 But he was such an optimist, and he wanted to stay.
01:04:11 --> 01:04:17 And my grandmother, she was a housewife. And at that time period,
01:04:17 --> 01:04:23 in the 30s, you let your husband make the final decisions.
01:04:23 --> 01:04:30 And so what I saw also in her life throughout this time period is a transformation
01:04:30 --> 01:04:35 for her in becoming her own agent. And I think that's what I saw.
01:04:36 --> 01:04:44 And operating the way she wanted to and becoming a healer in the camps and fighting to save people.
01:04:45 --> 01:04:48 And she still, throughout her life, she talked about her husband.
01:04:49 --> 01:04:57 Even though she remarried, she still spoke very kindly about Pincus and his idealism.
01:04:58 --> 01:05:04 Yeah. I think it was one point, I guess, maybe close to the end.
01:05:04 --> 01:05:08 It may have been in the middle somewhere, but it was it was one point where
01:05:08 --> 01:05:14 she she said, well, Pinkcus would have said something to try to get something
01:05:14 --> 01:05:15 done. So let me say something.
01:05:15 --> 01:05:17 Right. I mean, let me use my voice.
01:05:18 --> 01:05:22 So I thought that was that was that was interesting. Like you said,
01:05:22 --> 01:05:28 it was just you could see the transformations as as they were dealing with the stuff every day.
01:05:29 --> 01:05:32 So as you were reading, translating, and editing these journals,
01:05:33 --> 01:05:40 what was more emotional for you, their depictions of Nazi cruelty or their resilience and ingenuity?
01:05:41 --> 01:05:42 I think what was...
01:05:43 --> 01:05:52 Most emotional to me was how much people maintained their humanity and helped each other survive.
01:05:53 --> 01:05:58 I think that the people who survived had two things going for them.
01:05:58 --> 01:06:04 One was a great deal of luck, and another thing was keeping their humanity.
01:06:05 --> 01:06:09 Viktor Frankl wrote a book about Man's Search for Meaning, and he was a psychiatrist
01:06:09 --> 01:06:12 before the war. He was in Auschwitz.
01:06:13 --> 01:06:17 And when he was in Auschwitz, he noticed that some people died and others didn't.
01:06:17 --> 01:06:23 And the people who died could have been stronger, they could have been healthier, but they had given up.
01:06:24 --> 01:06:29 So he started talking to the prisoners and asking them every night,
01:06:30 --> 01:06:32 someone who seemed like they were on the verge of giving up,
01:06:32 --> 01:06:37 he'd say to that person, what do you have to look forward to when the war is over?
01:06:38 --> 01:06:42 What purpose do you have in life that you want to continue? What work do you
01:06:42 --> 01:06:45 want to finish when you leave here?
01:06:45 --> 01:06:50 And I believe that he really had something. And.
01:06:53 --> 01:06:59 That means so much to me that they had—my grandmother had a purpose in life
01:06:59 --> 01:07:05 to save other people, and my mother's purpose was to be together with her family.
01:07:06 --> 01:07:09 And every time they talked about that, and then they wrestled with God,
01:07:10 --> 01:07:12 that was a surprise to me, too.
01:07:12 --> 01:07:19 That meant a lot to me and was very emotional for me to read about people who
01:07:19 --> 01:07:21 risked their lives to save others.
01:07:23 --> 01:07:28 Yeah. So what is it like to be the child of a Holocaust survivor,
01:07:28 --> 01:07:33 especially in this current American political climate?
01:07:35 --> 01:07:39 For many years, I didn't want to think about the Holocaust because it was too
01:07:39 --> 01:07:43 painful to think about. Whenever my mom would talk about it,
01:07:43 --> 01:07:46 her face would change, and so that was painful to see.
01:07:50 --> 01:07:54 It's very hard in this political environment. First of all, it's hard to be
01:07:54 --> 01:08:01 Jewish and to be proud of being Jewish right now because of all the rising anti-Semitism.
01:08:02 --> 01:08:12 And it's also hard to see this administration and the lack of humanity I see
01:08:12 --> 01:08:14 in how they approach problems.
01:08:14 --> 01:08:17 I mean, we talked about that a little bit earlier.
01:08:18 --> 01:08:23 But I also have taken on my mother's legacy of sharing these stories,
01:08:23 --> 01:08:25 and I never thought I would do that.
01:08:26 --> 01:08:30 And I might not have done that if it wasn't for this particular time.
01:08:31 --> 01:08:35 I especially enjoy speaking to middle school and high school students and telling
01:08:35 --> 01:08:44 my mother's story, because I believe that they're the future of this country and college students.
01:08:44 --> 01:08:55 And if I can encourage them to stop this otherism and to see each other as equal,
01:08:55 --> 01:08:59 then I believe we can change the world. Yeah.
01:09:00 --> 01:09:06 So your mother was 16 when she and your grandmother were liberated from Bergen-Belsen.
01:09:06 --> 01:09:11 Yes. And you stated that your mom would go on to be a Holocaust educator,
01:09:11 --> 01:09:13 giving public talks at schools and synagogues.
01:09:13 --> 01:09:17 But your grandmother never spoke of her experiences, not even privately.
01:09:18 --> 01:09:23 Why do you think there was a difference there? Why do you think your mom was,
01:09:24 --> 01:09:27 more of an activist and your grandma was kind of like, yeah,
01:09:27 --> 01:09:30 that's just a part of my life I don't talk about?
01:09:30 --> 01:09:35 I think that it was, I think there are two reasons. I've heard many Holocaust
01:09:35 --> 01:09:40 survivors say, I don't want you to know what I went through and what your family went through.
01:09:40 --> 01:09:47 It's too painful for you to think about, and then it's too painful for me to think about.
01:09:48 --> 01:09:56 My mother became a very religious Jew, and she had an interesting meaning of God.
01:09:56 --> 01:10:02 My grandmother didn't believe in God because God took so many of her people,
01:10:02 --> 01:10:06 even though in the book she thanks God for saving her daughter.
01:10:09 --> 01:10:14 You know, I think it was very hard for my grandmother. My grandmother continued nursing.
01:10:15 --> 01:10:20 She worked at the Hebrew Home, which was a part of Sinai Hospital in Baltimore.
01:10:21 --> 01:10:25 And she especially liked working with immigrants and refugees.
01:10:25 --> 01:10:28 And she felt like that was her calling.
01:10:28 --> 01:10:32 But you're right, she didn't want to talk about it. I discovered later that
01:10:32 --> 01:10:37 I have a cousin who's eight years older than I am, who she did talk about it.
01:10:37 --> 01:10:43 And it may have been in talking to my aunt and uncle, they spoke in Yiddish,
01:10:43 --> 01:10:47 and I never learned Yiddish, so that may be how my cousin knew some of these stories.
01:10:48 --> 01:10:52 But I think my grandmother was trying to protect us.
01:10:53 --> 01:10:58 Yeah, yeah. And that sounds like, you know, the generational kind of thing,
01:10:58 --> 01:11:04 because it wasn't until I got older that my dad would share some of his experiences.
01:11:05 --> 01:11:09 He was two when he left Mississippi, but he said they used to go back,
01:11:10 --> 01:11:12 like, in the summers and work.
01:11:12 --> 01:11:18 And, you know, it was like growing up in Chicago, I didn't relate to any of
01:11:18 --> 01:11:21 that. And he didn't feel any need to really talk about it.
01:11:21 --> 01:11:28 And then, you know, as I got older, then he would tell me these stories or we see some on TV.
01:11:29 --> 01:11:32 And he would say, yeah, I remember when they stopped us at the border.
01:11:32 --> 01:11:34 I was like, what? You know what I'm saying?
01:11:34 --> 01:11:39 And so it's like, it was just kind of like had to pry it out of him.
01:11:39 --> 01:11:42 And then, of course, when I got into politics in Mississippi,
01:11:42 --> 01:11:47 it was like, oh, it's obviously different now if you if you if you can run for office down there.
01:11:48 --> 01:11:53 So, you know, and then my mom, you know, who always seemed like she was happy
01:11:53 --> 01:11:58 with everybody. Then she started sharing some stuff. And I was like, really?
01:11:58 --> 01:12:00 It is. You know, it's just amazing.
01:12:01 --> 01:12:04 All of these stories that are in all of our families.
01:12:05 --> 01:12:10 And to be honest, Ms. Pauline, I'm a little jealous of you because you were
01:12:10 --> 01:12:14 able to get that and be able to put it out in the book and all that stuff.
01:12:15 --> 01:12:19 There are so many relatives that I wish I had that foresight and just got a
01:12:19 --> 01:12:20 recorder and went to work.
01:12:21 --> 01:12:29 But I'm really, really, really honored that you did that because that story always needs to be told.
01:12:30 --> 01:12:34 And I hope that you will tell the stories that you do have to your children
01:12:34 --> 01:12:38 and to other people. It's important for all of us to hear those stories.
01:12:39 --> 01:12:47 Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's like my child and my child grew up in Mississippi and now they're in Chicago.
01:12:47 --> 01:12:53 And yeah, so, you know, a lot of the stories I told was about growing up in Chicago.
01:12:54 --> 01:12:57 So, of course, there were questions like, is it safe if I'm in this neighborhood?
01:12:57 --> 01:12:59 Oh, yeah, you're fine. You're good.
01:13:00 --> 01:13:06 That kind of stuff. Yeah. Your mom said, my fear and that of other Holocaust
01:13:06 --> 01:13:11 survivors is that the world has not learned from the genocide of six million Jews.
01:13:12 --> 01:13:16 We must do everything we can to encourage tolerance and respect towards those
01:13:16 --> 01:13:17 who are different from us.
01:13:18 --> 01:13:22 I have been privileged to share my family's story about the dangers of fascism,
01:13:23 --> 01:13:28 anti-Semitism, and genocide in the hope that learning this history will prevent
01:13:28 --> 01:13:29 others from repeating it.
01:13:31 --> 01:13:38 Was that a motivating factor to make sure that Bronia's and Hajuta's story was told?
01:13:38 --> 01:13:45 Yes. Although genocides never stopped. You know, they've been happening all over the world.
01:13:46 --> 01:13:52 And I wish there was more that I could do to stop it. But I hope that in my
01:13:52 --> 01:13:54 small way I'm contributing.
01:13:54 --> 01:13:58 Yeah, yeah. So finish this sentence for me.
01:13:58 --> 01:14:00 I have hope because...
01:14:02 --> 01:14:08 I have hope because of the response that I've gotten from my book and the amazing
01:14:08 --> 01:14:15 response and letters I've received from young people who I speak to in high schools.
01:14:16 --> 01:14:25 I've received letters talking about intolerance and wanting to be more tolerant
01:14:25 --> 01:14:27 and more involved in social justice.
01:14:28 --> 01:14:34 A friend whose daughter graduated from high school wrote a letter to me thanking
01:14:34 --> 01:14:40 me for telling my story, and she also, she and the other students from her class,
01:14:41 --> 01:14:47 one of them shared not the story about me, but their hope for the future of
01:14:47 --> 01:14:55 living in a world where there's no prejudice, more tolerance, no racism, no otherism.
01:14:56 --> 01:15:04 And I hope that I'm contributing to that. Yeah, well, Pauline Steinhorn, you definitely are.
01:15:04 --> 01:15:11 And I think that, you know, when I first was approached to having you on.
01:15:13 --> 01:15:18 I remember going to Washington, D.C. and going to the Holocaust Museum.
01:15:19 --> 01:15:30 And if I forget, as I get older stuff, I will never forget the exhibit of the shoes, right?
01:15:31 --> 01:15:37 And there's a moment in a book where, you know, the shoes of your grandmother
01:15:37 --> 01:15:38 was very, very important.
01:15:39 --> 01:15:41 I want people to read the books. I ain't going to tell the story.
01:15:41 --> 01:15:48 But I just remember seeing all of those shoes lined up and that,
01:15:48 --> 01:15:52 that will leave a lasting impression on me.
01:15:53 --> 01:16:00 And then the other thing is at the museum, you get a little passport and you,
01:16:00 --> 01:16:04 you, you, you have this person and you go through the whole museum.
01:16:04 --> 01:16:09 And then at the end, you'll see if you survived or not. Right. Right.
01:16:10 --> 01:16:17 And, you know, like you said, those stories need to be told because just like
01:16:17 --> 01:16:20 there's people that don't believe it actually happened.
01:16:20 --> 01:16:25 And I can't conceive how people think like that.
01:16:26 --> 01:16:32 But as long as there's a Pauline Steinhorn out there doing the kind of work,
01:16:33 --> 01:16:37 and telling the stories, then we will continue to have the hope.
01:16:37 --> 01:16:41 And like you said, those young people that gravitated to the book.
01:16:42 --> 01:16:46 And so speaking about that, how can people get the book? How can people reach out to you?
01:16:47 --> 01:16:52 I have a website, paulinesteinhorn.net, and there's an email.
01:16:52 --> 01:16:53 My email address is on there.
01:16:54 --> 01:16:59 And you can purchase the book on Amazon and Barnes & Noble and through your local bookstore.
01:17:00 --> 01:17:05 Many of the local bookstores in my area are carrying it. I live outside of Washington, D.C.
01:17:06 --> 01:17:12 And I hope that if you go to your independent bookstore, they'll order it for you. Yeah.
01:17:13 --> 01:17:19 And I encourage people, if you've never read anything other than maybe a Wikipedia
01:17:19 --> 01:17:26 page or something you remember from your high school history or college history class.
01:17:27 --> 01:17:29 I need you to read this book.
01:17:29 --> 01:17:32 Because when you have a real life
01:17:32 --> 01:17:36 account, when you have somebody that documented what they went through,
01:17:37 --> 01:17:43 you can appreciate it better and understand the magnitude of,
01:17:43 --> 01:17:48 in this case, a tragedy that turned triumphant because they survived, right? Right.
01:17:49 --> 01:18:00 But, you know, just to me, it's always going to be hard to believe that people can be that cruel.
01:18:00 --> 01:18:06 And so you have to be reminded of that in order to make sure that we do better,
01:18:07 --> 01:18:09 generation after generation after generation.
01:18:09 --> 01:18:14 So Pauline Steinhorn, thank you so much for writing the book.
01:18:14 --> 01:18:20 Thank you so much for being obedient to your heart to put that thing together.
01:18:21 --> 01:18:25 And I thank you for coming on the podcast and sharing.
01:18:26 --> 01:18:32 I hate that we've got a limit in time because you can only scratch the surface,
01:18:32 --> 01:18:35 but then I want people to read the books. I can't tell everything anyway.
01:18:35 --> 01:18:38 But I really thank you for taking the time to talk about the book today.
01:18:39 --> 01:18:43 Thank you very much. It was a pleasure speaking with you. All right,
01:18:43 --> 01:18:45 guys, and we're going to catch y'all on the other side.
01:19:06 --> 01:19:10 So it is time for my next guest, Dehjah Vaughn.
01:19:11 --> 01:19:18 Dehjah Vaughn is an educator, podcaster, PhD candidate, thought-provoking speaker, and creative writer.
01:19:19 --> 01:19:23 Her work is centered around promoting Black consciousness and entrepreneurship,
01:19:24 --> 01:19:28 with the motive to shift the narrative through highlighting exceptional achievements
01:19:28 --> 01:19:31 of our brothers and sisters across the diaspora.
01:19:31 --> 01:19:37 Her ambition is to reveal facets of Black liberation by employing research analytics,
01:19:37 --> 01:19:43 both qualitative and quantitative data analysis, and through written expression.
01:19:43 --> 01:19:47 She contends that it is crucial,
01:19:47 --> 01:19:52 to recognize the influence of political psychology on Black individuals,
01:19:52 --> 01:19:58 asserting that such an understanding will furnish essential tools for comprehensive
01:19:58 --> 01:20:00 mental and emotional upliftment.
01:20:01 --> 01:20:05 Ladies and gentlemen, it is my distinct honor and privilege to have as a guest
01:20:05 --> 01:20:08 on this podcast, Dehjah Vaughn.
01:20:20 --> 01:20:28 Dehjah Vaughn, how are you doing? I'm doing well. I can't complain. The sun is out Saturday.
01:20:29 --> 01:20:33 It feels good. Well, it's an honor to have you on.
01:20:33 --> 01:20:37 You had reached out to me, I guess, a couple years ago.
01:20:38 --> 01:20:42 And, you know, I think you were, might have been longer than that,
01:20:42 --> 01:20:46 though, now that I think about it, because you were trying to get your podcast started.
01:20:46 --> 01:20:51 And you were excited to network with somebody. And I felt really flattered about
01:20:51 --> 01:20:56 that, that you thought I was somebody that you could get some wisdom from.
01:20:56 --> 01:21:01 So when I was really excited when you accepted my invitation to be a guest,
01:21:01 --> 01:21:09 because I've listened to your podcast and since and just kind of followed you
01:21:09 --> 01:21:11 because we're on LinkedIn together.
01:21:11 --> 01:21:16 And I think we're about to have a really good discussion. So if you're ready,
01:21:16 --> 01:21:18 we'll go ahead and get that discussion going.
01:21:20 --> 01:21:25 Let's get it going. All right. So normally how I start off the interviews is
01:21:25 --> 01:21:28 that I have, I do a couple of icebreakers.
01:21:28 --> 01:21:32 And the first icebreaker I want to respond to is a quote.
01:21:33 --> 01:21:39 And the quote is, I define success as the motivation to get up in the morning.
01:21:39 --> 01:21:44 I can describe it as what is your why.
01:21:44 --> 01:21:50 I feel like once I identified what my why was, I felt more inclined to wake
01:21:50 --> 01:21:55 up on time or get up early in the morning because I was driven by success.
01:21:55 --> 01:22:00 I loved the way it felt to get things accomplished, the things that made me feel good.
01:22:01 --> 01:22:06 Whether if the feeling was how something makes me feel or how something makes someone else feel.
01:22:06 --> 01:22:15 In those moments, I feel aligned to my purpose and I would consider my purpose as success. Hmm.
01:22:17 --> 01:22:20 That's a deep one. It makes me think of so many different people.
01:22:20 --> 01:22:24 And I think the person that quoted that is on the tip of my tongue,
01:22:24 --> 01:22:26 but I don't really recall.
01:22:26 --> 01:22:32 But I do remember the impact of the quote and the intentionality of what it
01:22:32 --> 01:22:37 means to wake up every morning and know what you are doing and who you are doing it for.
01:22:38 --> 01:22:45 Um yeah that's how i would categorize that quote but who is the individual that,
01:22:45 --> 01:22:49 that wrote that i'll give you a hint it's somebody that you see every morning.
01:22:54 --> 01:22:59 Wow i'm like that's me that's you you said that,
01:23:01 --> 01:23:06 Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty, it's pretty heavy when you hear your own words back to you, isn't it?
01:23:07 --> 01:23:13 Yes. Very much so. Yeah. Yeah. Very much so. See, but that just proves my point,
01:23:13 --> 01:23:14 how profound you are, right?
01:23:14 --> 01:23:19 All right. So now the next icebreaker is what I call 20 questions.
01:23:19 --> 01:23:22 So I need you to give me a number between one and 20.
01:23:23 --> 01:23:30 11. All right. Where do you go to check a fact that you see, hear, or read?
01:23:31 --> 01:23:32 Where do I go? Mm.
01:23:35 --> 01:23:47 Wow. The first way that it's coming up for me is I usually type in Google the theme of the fact,
01:23:48 --> 01:23:53 and I look through reputable sources,
01:23:54 --> 01:24:00 whether it's an org or DACA will be my preferred method, especially if this
01:24:00 --> 01:24:05 research is pertaining to something that is within academia,
01:24:05 --> 01:24:06 but not just in academia either.
01:24:07 --> 01:24:12 And in the literature that I am writing on my own, it's important that even
01:24:12 --> 01:24:14 if I'm reading something from a Dr.
01:24:14 --> 01:24:19 Claude Anderson or reading something from a Dr.
01:24:19 --> 01:24:27 Francis Cress I'm still taking that and expounding on that because a lot of times.
01:24:28 --> 01:24:38 People can create a discussion around statistics, but it is not the actual logistics
01:24:38 --> 01:24:42 or the foundational pieces of why something is.
01:24:43 --> 01:24:47 Basically creating their own understanding of what they have understood about
01:24:47 --> 01:24:56 numerical data or qualitative research or quantitative research, whatever that is.
01:24:56 --> 01:25:01 So I usually look at that, but I also, too, look at other scholarly works to
01:25:01 --> 01:25:06 see their opinions on sites like a JSTOR or.
01:25:07 --> 01:25:13 Those type of databases that have journal articles of other researchers that
01:25:13 --> 01:25:17 may have a different opinion upon what is being presented to them as well.
01:25:18 --> 01:25:24 And then for a larger notion, I take it internally and I ask myself, do I believe in this?
01:25:25 --> 01:25:32 Because I also too believe that sometimes the questions that we have are already
01:25:32 --> 01:25:36 within us, but have we taken enough time to be able to figure that out?
01:25:36 --> 01:25:42 Have we been able to ask ourselves questions out loud and answer back out loud?
01:25:43 --> 01:25:48 I think it's very important, at least to my own personal matriculation in life.
01:25:49 --> 01:25:56 I have realized that it is so important for my own balance to be able to ask myself questions too.
01:25:57 --> 01:26:05 Okay. So talk to the listeners about the path that led you to pursue a doctorate in political science.
01:26:05 --> 01:26:13 Wow. Yes. So it was, I just had completed my master's at University of Pacific.
01:26:14 --> 01:26:19 And I was like, there's something, there's a next step that I want to take.
01:26:20 --> 01:26:22 We were just coming off of the ends of COVID.
01:26:23 --> 01:26:27 And I felt pretty much radicalized from that experience in COVID,
01:26:28 --> 01:26:29 especially politically about.
01:26:30 --> 01:26:37 What I wanted to see in terms of change or just better yet comprehension of
01:26:37 --> 01:26:39 the political system in general.
01:26:39 --> 01:26:42 So the institution that I sought was Clark Atlanta.
01:26:43 --> 01:26:48 And I was so intentional about getting to Clark Atlanta.
01:26:49 --> 01:26:52 You know, I saved X amount of dollars.
01:26:53 --> 01:27:01 I had a tutor for me, for my writing, for my personalized statement,
01:27:01 --> 01:27:04 for my resume, for my writing sample.
01:27:04 --> 01:27:12 I was super intentional because I felt like I deserved to put that energy into
01:27:12 --> 01:27:14 something that I wanted to see.
01:27:15 --> 01:27:20 I wanted to foresee for myself. So once I got to Atlanta, mind you,
01:27:20 --> 01:27:22 I had never been to Atlanta before.
01:27:23 --> 01:27:26 I think the one time that I was in Atlanta, I was traveling with my grandfather
01:27:26 --> 01:27:29 from Virginia to drop off my car.
01:27:31 --> 01:27:36 Uncle in Atlanta, but I don't really recall vividly what that experience was
01:27:36 --> 01:27:40 like besides just driving through, going here and going there.
01:27:40 --> 01:27:47 But I was called to come to Atlanta just because of the political dynamic for
01:27:47 --> 01:27:53 African Americans in the city, the dominance that they have been able to have.
01:27:54 --> 01:27:57 I'll say that in quotes, you know, the dominance that they have been able to
01:27:57 --> 01:28:04 have politically, the Black mayors and the legacy behind that.
01:28:04 --> 01:28:09 I was drawn to that. I'm like, yes, this is where we can uprise and politically
01:28:09 --> 01:28:16 mobilize ourselves because there's a commonality between ethnic groups and racial structure.
01:28:16 --> 01:28:24 But I'm also coming from a California lens where the radicalized Blacks kind
01:28:24 --> 01:28:26 of stem from the legacies of Black Panther Party.
01:28:27 --> 01:28:36 So my individual perspective of the political type of urgency and uprising came from that kind of lens.
01:28:37 --> 01:28:43 And that can kind of be at a detriment that you are perceiving that the Black,
01:28:44 --> 01:28:47 political systems will mirror cities.
01:28:47 --> 01:28:52 I think the outcomes may mirror the same, but the way that they go about liberation
01:28:52 --> 01:28:58 may look completely different just because of economics and different things like that.
01:28:59 --> 01:29:11 But nonetheless, I've been enjoying understanding the why to Black political systems in Atlanta.
01:29:11 --> 01:29:17 And I feel like Clark has done an excellent job with allowing me to navigate
01:29:17 --> 01:29:25 that experience and has pushed me beyond what I believed my limits were. As a writer.
01:29:26 --> 01:29:31 As a thinker, as a political scientist, mainly as a political scientist,
01:29:31 --> 01:29:35 because my background comes from education and history.
01:29:36 --> 01:29:42 My first few years, I had no, I had maybe the, I wouldn't even discredit myself
01:29:42 --> 01:29:44 and say it was basic information.
01:29:44 --> 01:29:49 But I would say the thinking, again, became.
01:29:50 --> 01:29:58 Significantly radicalized when I had to take a gap between my doctoral studies
01:29:58 --> 01:30:02 because I was primarily teaching full-time in Bankhead.
01:30:03 --> 01:30:10 And that experience required so much of my intellectual energy until I came
01:30:10 --> 01:30:13 back about maybe two years ago.
01:30:14 --> 01:30:20 And I have been able to really understand the purpose of why my educators and
01:30:20 --> 01:30:25 my professors have pushed me, why I have had educators like Dr.
01:30:25 --> 01:30:29 Joseph Jones pushing me to become a better writer and a better thinker and a
01:30:29 --> 01:30:34 better reader and reading to comprehend the text,
01:30:35 --> 01:30:41 reading to discuss the text, reading to understand the construction of why political
01:30:41 --> 01:30:46 regimes are the way that they are, also understanding the political theory behind
01:30:46 --> 01:30:48 it, the political sociology behind it,
01:30:49 --> 01:30:55 why man thinks how man thinks, understanding the political philosophy behind it.
01:30:55 --> 01:31:01 So I've been really intrigued now and settling in into the experience here in
01:31:01 --> 01:31:04 Atlanta, excuse me, through that.
01:31:05 --> 01:31:08 Yeah. So when you say California, you're from the Bay Area?
01:31:09 --> 01:31:18 Yes okay yeah okay who is a person in history that you admire the most wow.
01:31:22 --> 01:31:22 Wow,
01:31:24 --> 01:31:27 Uh, this is actually a really good question.
01:31:29 --> 01:31:37 And I am contemplating several individuals, but I believe the person that changed
01:31:37 --> 01:31:40 my experience was Dr. Frances Presswelson.
01:31:42 --> 01:31:47 I read her book probably at least five to six times now.
01:31:48 --> 01:31:56 But when I first read her book, I I was in complete shock of the information.
01:31:57 --> 01:32:00 That she was presenting.
01:32:01 --> 01:32:09 I really enjoyed the fact that she used symbols to propose an understanding
01:32:09 --> 01:32:14 of why symbols are constructed in a certain way.
01:32:14 --> 01:32:17 Why are things a certain color?
01:32:17 --> 01:32:21 And that kind of leans into her background in psychiatry.
01:32:22 --> 01:32:31 So it makes sense on why she was looking at it from a sort of mental or standpoint of that matter.
01:32:31 --> 01:32:38 I liked how she was talking about where the 21st century will be in terms of
01:32:38 --> 01:32:43 the deconstruction of the Black home and the way,
01:32:45 --> 01:32:47 that Black men engage themselves,
01:32:48 --> 01:32:52 the way Black men engage themselves, or the way that Black women engage themselves,
01:32:52 --> 01:32:55 the way that Black children engage themselves.
01:32:56 --> 01:33:02 But also on the flip hand, her work was completely radical and some may argue,
01:33:03 --> 01:33:06 anti-Semitic because of her,
01:33:07 --> 01:33:16 ability to critique the structure of the United States and the way that from
01:33:16 --> 01:33:21 a sociological standpoint, the Black family has been under that sort of regime.
01:33:22 --> 01:33:28 So her work was super impressionable to me in undergrad at Virginia State University
01:33:28 --> 01:33:34 because it was the first time that I was really reading a text that I would
01:33:34 --> 01:33:35 say went against the grain.
01:33:36 --> 01:33:42 It was totally different. It was exciting because I didn't know what the next page will lead to.
01:33:43 --> 01:33:50 I didn't know what type of research that she was going to present and how she
01:33:50 --> 01:33:51 was going to construct it.
01:33:52 --> 01:33:57 And that kind of goes to my first point and the question that you had initially, which was,
01:33:58 --> 01:34:04 when you're reading something, how do you take that and then essentially operationalize
01:34:04 --> 01:34:07 it into your own better understanding?
01:34:07 --> 01:34:10 How do you say that this person is really speaking truth?
01:34:11 --> 01:34:16 So it is also important for me as a reader. That's why I've read it six times,
01:34:17 --> 01:34:23 five to six times, because I'm like, okay, but let's see if this actually mirrors.
01:34:23 --> 01:34:27 And some of the things do, but also some of the things cannot too. Yeah.
01:34:29 --> 01:34:34 Are you a content creator or an activist that utilizes social media?
01:34:35 --> 01:34:38 Activist that utilizes social media. Why do you say that?
01:34:39 --> 01:34:47 Because I'm very intentional about what I produce. I'm not necessarily a content creator.
01:34:47 --> 01:34:52 When I think of content creating, I'm thinking phone out, talking,
01:34:52 --> 01:34:57 TikToks, posting like maybe three times a week, you're posting on your story.
01:34:58 --> 01:35:01 You know, you have reels, you're talking behind the reels.
01:35:02 --> 01:35:05 You know, not saying that I don't have the capacity to do that,
01:35:05 --> 01:35:10 but does that feel aligned to my mission and who I am? No.
01:35:10 --> 01:35:13 And quite honestly, it's a little overstimulating for me too.
01:35:14 --> 01:35:18 I don't know if I want to be doing that.
01:35:19 --> 01:35:24 Sometimes I actually want to ground myself in the experience and then reflect
01:35:24 --> 01:35:27 at a later date rather than reflecting in the moment about the experience.
01:35:28 --> 01:35:34 You know, there are individuals that content create activism work. Kudos!
01:35:35 --> 01:35:39 Congratulations to you to be able to have the capacity.
01:35:39 --> 01:35:46 Bless you, because I personally, I'm a little bit more intentional about my
01:35:46 --> 01:35:48 creative endeavors more.
01:35:49 --> 01:35:53 Yeah. Yeah. That's, I, I, I thought about you and it was really,
01:35:53 --> 01:35:58 it's, it's really interesting to hear you say overstimulate.
01:35:58 --> 01:36:00 Cause you know, I thought that was just for us old folks. You know what I'm
01:36:00 --> 01:36:04 saying? It's like, what is all this going on? But it's, it's really refreshing
01:36:04 --> 01:36:07 to hear that even younger people are like, yeah, this might be a little bit
01:36:07 --> 01:36:08 too much for me to deal with.
01:36:09 --> 01:36:16 But that that means a lot when when people take advantage of the tools that
01:36:16 --> 01:36:21 are out there one of the things i when i used to talk to young people and explain
01:36:21 --> 01:36:23 to them that you you really,
01:36:24 --> 01:36:29 have a weapon when you have that phone we use it for our entertainment purposes,
01:36:29 --> 01:36:33 you know for the most part but you know,
01:36:33 --> 01:36:40 when you have the capacity to reach somebody in Singapore or reach somebody in Ukraine.
01:36:42 --> 01:36:47 On your phone, that's a tool that can be used to build coalitions,
01:36:47 --> 01:36:49 to learn and all that kind of stuff.
01:36:50 --> 01:36:54 And I would just encourage people to take advantage of that and look at it that
01:36:54 --> 01:37:00 way, as opposed to just, you know, something to laugh or, you know,
01:37:00 --> 01:37:03 catch the latest Nextflix movie or wherever the case may be.
01:37:03 --> 01:37:08 So it, you know, I kind of had a feeling that you were going to go with the
01:37:08 --> 01:37:14 activist part of the question, but I had to ask it because I don't know if anybody,
01:37:15 --> 01:37:21 even the people that do the activism and they are kind of, they don't,
01:37:21 --> 01:37:26 I don't know if they're that intentional the way that you described it. Right.
01:37:27 --> 01:37:30 So anyway, I just thought that would be an intriguing question to ask somebody
01:37:30 --> 01:37:32 that utilizes social media the way that you do.
01:37:33 --> 01:37:36 Yes, I ask that question too. Yeah.
01:37:36 --> 01:37:42 Audre Lorde said, when I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service
01:37:42 --> 01:37:47 of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I'm afraid.
01:37:48 --> 01:37:51 When you speak up on issues, do you feel any fear or trepidation? No.
01:37:52 --> 01:37:56 No, not really. Not really.
01:37:56 --> 01:38:01 But I also had to work through having the fear initially.
01:38:02 --> 01:38:07 I would be lying to myself and others if I said, yeah, I was able to do it easily.
01:38:08 --> 01:38:12 So that's just not a realistic experience, especially when you live in the United
01:38:12 --> 01:38:17 States of America and you've seen people get murdered, killed,
01:38:18 --> 01:38:22 completely dismantled organizations.
01:38:23 --> 01:38:30 At the end of the day, if your work is truth-based or integrity-driven,
01:38:30 --> 01:38:32 you're going to think about,
01:38:33 --> 01:38:41 well, if I say this, this may ruffle some feathers, but also at the same time, I had to realize that.
01:38:42 --> 01:38:51 A lot of the things that I have read or seen or watched or heard has also been
01:38:51 --> 01:38:53 watched by people that control it.
01:38:54 --> 01:39:01 So I'm quite certain that they also, too, have an understanding of what is actually taking place.
01:39:02 --> 01:39:08 I don't think those specific individuals are aloof to it, which is why there
01:39:08 --> 01:39:11 has been restrictions in terms of what is being said.
01:39:12 --> 01:39:18 Which is even more reason why to continue to say things.
01:39:19 --> 01:39:23 Because also, it's also like, but the masses aren't necessarily saying those
01:39:23 --> 01:39:31 concrete things, which kind of goes back to my first initial point to it being dismantled.
01:39:31 --> 01:39:40 Yeah. I, you know, I think, I think society, American society doesn't understand
01:39:40 --> 01:39:41 when we try to tell them that,
01:39:42 --> 01:39:50 Black people feel a dichotomy in that we grow up here in the United States.
01:39:50 --> 01:39:55 So we're socialized, you know, from basically from kindergarten,
01:39:55 --> 01:40:02 maybe even younger to adulthood to be proud about being an American. Right.
01:40:03 --> 01:40:07 But then we have our lived experience, whether. Right.
01:40:08 --> 01:40:13 You know, whether it's in-your-face kind of racism or subtle stuff,
01:40:13 --> 01:40:20 you know, how we have to process it and figure out a way to communicate the ouch, right?
01:40:21 --> 01:40:27 Because, you know, when you get hurt, if you bump into a table or somebody hits
01:40:27 --> 01:40:32 you on a football field, you're going to say ouch in one way or the other.
01:40:32 --> 01:40:39 And we've always had to be, I don't know, creative, I guess would be the best
01:40:39 --> 01:40:42 word to make sure that people understood that.
01:40:42 --> 01:40:48 And, you know, one of the examples I think of, it was like there was a debate
01:40:48 --> 01:40:55 going on in the oversight committee and Jasmine Crockett was reading somebody.
01:40:56 --> 01:41:04 It was really getting into him and a latina woman uh anna paula luma or whatever
01:41:04 --> 01:41:07 lima wherever her name is from florida,
01:41:07 --> 01:41:13 she said something like calm down don't get angry just calm down right,
01:41:15 --> 01:41:22 and jasmine escalated at that point so most people that are not black looked at that and said,
01:41:23 --> 01:41:25 Jasmine's losing control.
01:41:26 --> 01:41:30 Black folks was like, how are you going to tell me to calm down?
01:41:30 --> 01:41:34 Who are you to give me to say that?
01:41:35 --> 01:41:38 You can act a fool all you want to, but I have to calm down.
01:41:39 --> 01:41:44 And people don't understand that. Calm down. When I used to go out and speak
01:41:44 --> 01:41:48 in public and white folks would come up to me and say that I was well-spoken,
01:41:49 --> 01:41:52 right? It's like, what did you expect?
01:41:52 --> 01:41:55 You know what I'm saying? You invited me to come to speak to you.
01:41:56 --> 01:41:59 So I assumed you thought that I knew what I was I could talk,
01:42:00 --> 01:42:04 you know I'm saying I could give a speech it's just those little things like
01:42:04 --> 01:42:09 that that I think puts a little trepidation if not necessarily fear but just
01:42:09 --> 01:42:12 a little hesitancy when we,
01:42:12 --> 01:42:15 decided we want to speak out on something,
01:42:16 --> 01:42:17 and I.
01:42:19 --> 01:42:22 Not to belabor the point because I want to I got a couple more questions for
01:42:22 --> 01:42:27 you but we had a debate when I was in the legislature about voter ID.
01:42:28 --> 01:42:33 And you can kind of predict who was on most issues, who was going to get up
01:42:33 --> 01:42:37 and speak like me, for example, you know, and who wasn't going to say anything.
01:42:38 --> 01:42:41 Now we get to Black Caucus meeting, everybody's got something to say.
01:42:41 --> 01:42:45 But on the floor, there was only a few of us that actually got to the well and spoke.
01:42:46 --> 01:42:51 But on this issue with voter ID, every member of the Black Caucus spoke.
01:42:52 --> 01:42:56 And it was riveting because people knew that they don't normally go up there.
01:42:56 --> 01:43:00 So when you had certain representatives, especially some of the female representatives,
01:43:00 --> 01:43:05 talking about the history of voting in Mississippi.
01:43:05 --> 01:43:11 And you had one of the chairmen who rarely speaks, you know, on issues.
01:43:12 --> 01:43:15 We used to when he was younger, but as he got to be an older statesman,
01:43:15 --> 01:43:18 he kind of played the game a little bit.
01:43:19 --> 01:43:24 He hit the podium so hard that crack is still in the podium to this day.
01:43:26 --> 01:43:30 It changed the dynamic. It basically killed the bill at that particular point.
01:43:30 --> 01:43:34 Now, they eventually passed it and all that stuff years later.
01:43:34 --> 01:43:44 But that day it was over because they never saw firsthand how we rally,
01:43:44 --> 01:43:48 how we feel about certain things. They never really got a sense.
01:43:49 --> 01:43:51 And it kind of puts them in the back of their mind is like, oh,
01:43:51 --> 01:43:55 it's not just Erik Fleming or such and such and so-and-so that's speaking out.
01:43:56 --> 01:43:57 All these folks feel this way.
01:43:58 --> 01:44:06 And I think it's important for us to, to whatever hesitancy we have that we
01:44:06 --> 01:44:11 speak out. And so that's, you know, when you're young, you're not supposed to
01:44:11 --> 01:44:13 have any fear. You're supposed to be bold.
01:44:14 --> 01:44:23 But I just, you know, because you are of this generation, I wanted to explore
01:44:23 --> 01:44:24 that a little bit with you.
01:44:25 --> 01:44:30 Yeah, I appreciate that. Yeah. What is the most pressing issue for your generation
01:44:30 --> 01:44:32 that you would like elected leaders to address?
01:44:35 --> 01:44:38 Oh, probably student loans, student loans.
01:44:43 --> 01:44:49 Yeah, that's pretty, that's probably the one issue, but at least for the individuals
01:44:49 --> 01:44:56 that I am friends with outside of my immediate circle, they are teachers.
01:44:57 --> 01:45:01 And the teachers that I have as friends are, especially on a,
01:45:02 --> 01:45:07 specifically from a K-12 level, is the issue of literacy.
01:45:08 --> 01:45:14 That is a collective issue that we are collectively having as a community of
01:45:14 --> 01:45:18 teachers, at least in my friend or associate group.
01:45:18 --> 01:45:28 Is the fact that the kids that we are teaching are not reading at the level of where they need to be.
01:45:30 --> 01:45:31 And this is not just in the city
01:45:31 --> 01:45:36 of Atlanta, but also in the city of San Francisco and the city of Oakland.
01:45:38 --> 01:45:44 So this issue is, it's frightening for me, you know, to know that as an educator
01:45:44 --> 01:45:50 that when I was teaching, I had kids that, We're not reading on grade level in sixth grade.
01:45:51 --> 01:45:57 And at that point, I'm not going to say it's too late, but to how I would categorize
01:45:57 --> 01:46:03 it is moving a group of far below basic to a coefficient in one year,
01:46:04 --> 01:46:07 may not necessarily be achievable.
01:46:07 --> 01:46:11 However, moving a far below basic to a basic that is achievable.
01:46:12 --> 01:46:19 But that far below basic may be 18 students, five may already be at basic,
01:46:19 --> 01:46:23 and three may be at proficient, and one may be at advanced.
01:46:24 --> 01:46:31 So how do you then construct your classroom when you are then supposed to meet state demands?
01:46:32 --> 01:46:35 You're still meeting state testing standards.
01:46:36 --> 01:46:42 Multiple testing throughout the year. And the literacy focus is not only in
01:46:42 --> 01:46:47 English, but it's also in science and social study. And it's also in math.
01:46:48 --> 01:46:55 So I believe programs like, you know, iReady and iExcel, great programs to have online.
01:46:56 --> 01:47:03 But also at the same time, kids still need to be able to put their finger on a paper and read.
01:47:03 --> 01:47:09 I feel like reading is totally different on your laptop versus you having a
01:47:09 --> 01:47:14 pen and paper and being able to annotate it, circle, feel the page.
01:47:16 --> 01:47:20 Touch the paper, touch the letters versus you just clicking.
01:47:21 --> 01:47:27 I don't know how much brain usage is being used with just clicking.
01:47:27 --> 01:47:33 And I say this as a person that has designated time for kids to do iReady and,
01:47:33 --> 01:47:35 iExcel and all these things.
01:47:36 --> 01:47:41 But I think there has to be an intentionality that still requires a physical presence.
01:47:41 --> 01:47:45 I say that to say that education should not be moved to just being online,
01:47:46 --> 01:47:48 which we may come to that.
01:47:48 --> 01:47:59 We may come to a thing where AI is completely prevalent and now teachers are having to teach online,
01:48:00 --> 01:48:04 I think that will totally expedite,
01:48:05 --> 01:48:13 the achievement gap to a larger discussion about socioeconomics and accessibility
01:48:13 --> 01:48:17 to resources and accessibility to Wi-Fi within the home.
01:48:18 --> 01:48:21 What if this child comes from a low-income home and they ain't got no Wi-Fi?
01:48:23 --> 01:48:26 They ain't got no Wi-Fi in there. They're using the Chromebook.
01:48:26 --> 01:48:30 So then that means that schools and school districts will have to designate,
01:48:31 --> 01:48:35 a Wi-Fi router to each home. That's like...
01:48:36 --> 01:48:41 Totally shifting the socioeconomics within education,
01:48:41 --> 01:48:49 which, again, I appreciate the online platforms, but I can see how maybe within
01:48:49 --> 01:48:52 the next three to five or 10 years,
01:48:53 --> 01:48:54 education completely shifting.
01:48:55 --> 01:49:05 So yeah the literacy is a concern being able to do math is a concern basic arithmetic without using,
01:49:06 --> 01:49:11 online like a chat gpt kids are already knowing how to use chat gpt.
01:49:12 --> 01:49:18 It's sad and then like also the if you're in a public charter school institution,
01:49:19 --> 01:49:26 the way they categorize gpa and the grading scale is completely skewed.
01:49:27 --> 01:49:35 And I feel in my hardest of hearts that it's almost enabling.
01:49:36 --> 01:49:43 And I mean, like overall, not just from the rating scale, but just overall,
01:49:44 --> 01:49:51 I feel in my own educational experience as a millennial, it was totally different.
01:49:52 --> 01:49:53 It was totally different. And we
01:49:53 --> 01:50:02 were the first kind of generation to be introduced to the Apple laptops.
01:50:02 --> 01:50:10 Well, not even laptops, the hardback, ginormous laptops. I remember those in elementary school.
01:50:10 --> 01:50:17 And then I also remember the technology continuously advancing,
01:50:18 --> 01:50:23 and also gets to the point where how far will technology advance to before it
01:50:23 --> 01:50:32 just blows up or just totally just shuts off because we have overused it.
01:50:32 --> 01:50:39 And then it's like, we're using so much water to then use ChatGPT.
01:50:39 --> 01:50:41 We're draining the world.
01:50:42 --> 01:50:52 You know, are we sucking up all the natural resources to like have some electric gravity field water.
01:50:54 --> 01:50:57 Driven by electricity now?
01:50:57 --> 01:51:01 So it's a two-fold situation.
01:51:01 --> 01:51:08 A lot of different variables and things that I have been in discussion with my peers.
01:51:09 --> 01:51:14 But those are some of the main talking points that we usually talk about. And student loans.
01:51:15 --> 01:51:18 I want to keep throwing in student loans because, yes.
01:51:19 --> 01:51:20 Yeah, well...
01:51:22 --> 01:51:29 Excuse me, it doesn't surprise me about either one of those coming from your background,
01:51:30 --> 01:51:37 because you touch on financial stability, and then you're talking about basic
01:51:37 --> 01:51:40 human stability when you're talking about education.
01:51:41 --> 01:51:45 You know, it's just fascinating to me that all these intellectual people.
01:51:46 --> 01:51:50 You know, can figure out, okay, well, these computers have to network with each
01:51:50 --> 01:51:54 other, right? That was the basic concept of the internet, that be able to get
01:51:54 --> 01:51:56 all these computers to communicate.
01:51:56 --> 01:51:59 But you forget the fact that you got that model from human beings.
01:52:00 --> 01:52:04 Human beings have to be able to network and communicate and interact with each
01:52:04 --> 01:52:07 other in order for society to function.
01:52:08 --> 01:52:14 And I just think, you know, I think back to when the Roman Catholic Church was
01:52:14 --> 01:52:15 the political power in the world,
01:52:16 --> 01:52:23 and there was this era they call scholasticism prior to the Renaissance, right,
01:52:24 --> 01:52:31 where only the monks and the priests were educated, right?
01:52:31 --> 01:52:37 And only they could write the scriptures, you know, rewrite the scriptures.
01:52:37 --> 01:52:42 Only they could write theology and all that. And when Martin Luther said,
01:52:43 --> 01:52:46 if some of us were supposed to speak German, we'd like to be able to do that too.
01:52:47 --> 01:52:53 You know, that was radical because they wanted to contain information.
01:52:53 --> 01:52:55 I look at all these people now in technology.
01:52:56 --> 01:53:00 I mean, Elon Musk just became the first trillionaire over the week.
01:53:01 --> 01:53:05 But it's like all these people in technology are just...
01:53:06 --> 01:53:09 You know, narrowing, the group is small.
01:53:10 --> 01:53:14 You know what I'm saying? You've got those folks at Apple, those folks at Google
01:53:14 --> 01:53:21 and all that, but it's not, not everybody in America even has broadband,
01:53:21 --> 01:53:23 let alone knows how to code, right?
01:53:24 --> 01:53:29 So it just seems like it's that same era again where only a small group of people
01:53:29 --> 01:53:35 have the knowledge to advance technology and not everybody else has access to it.
01:53:36 --> 01:53:42 And when you have children that can't read at a level and, you know,
01:53:42 --> 01:53:46 you have people that are struggling to pay for their education,
01:53:47 --> 01:53:49 you're going to keep that gap narrow.
01:53:49 --> 01:53:53 So it just, you know, there's nothing new under the sun.
01:53:53 --> 01:53:59 It might be a different avenue of how that behavior is exposed,
01:53:59 --> 01:54:06 but it's just the same to me. So I'm glad that you talked in depth about the
01:54:06 --> 01:54:07 importance of literacy and all that.
01:54:08 --> 01:54:10 All right. So go ahead. You want to say something?
01:54:11 --> 01:54:14 Oh, no, I was just agreeing that it is very important. Yeah.
01:54:15 --> 01:54:18 All right. So I'm going to shift it to a different direction. Okay.
01:54:19 --> 01:54:23 In March 1968, FBI COINTELPRO,
01:54:24 --> 01:54:30 memo stated that the program's goal was to prevent a coalition of militant black
01:54:30 --> 01:54:35 nationalist groups to prevent the rise of a messiah who could unify the militant
01:54:35 --> 01:54:37 black nationalist movement.
01:54:37 --> 01:54:42 To pinpoint potential troublemakers and neutralize them before they exercise
01:54:42 --> 01:54:44 their potential for violence against authorities.
01:54:47 --> 01:54:52 To prevent militant black nationalist groups and leaders from gaining respectability
01:54:52 --> 01:55:01 by discrediting them to both the responsible community and to liberals who have vestiges of sympathy.
01:55:01 --> 01:55:05 And to prevent the long-range growth of militant Black organizations,
01:55:06 --> 01:55:07 especially among youth.
01:55:09 --> 01:55:14 So my question out of all that is, do you think that Black people need a messiah,
01:55:15 --> 01:55:19 especially in these political turbulent times? No.
01:55:20 --> 01:55:25 My immediate answer was no. So I'm going to say no.
01:55:27 --> 01:55:36 I honestly cringed also at the idea of there being, I guess like,
01:55:36 --> 01:55:38 you know when, okay, so there's the Black Panther Party.
01:55:39 --> 01:55:47 So now currently, someone then doing the Black Panther Party again with like
01:55:47 --> 01:55:53 afros and wearing the panther and marching and stuff.
01:55:55 --> 01:56:00 That makes me cringe. Honestly, it makes me cringe because,
01:56:01 --> 01:56:07 I still feel like there's a level of privilege that we currently have as African
01:56:07 --> 01:56:10 Americans that our predecessors did not have.
01:56:11 --> 01:56:15 And people were literally willing to sacrifice their life.
01:56:16 --> 01:56:20 I don't know if people are necessarily willing to die for it.
01:56:21 --> 01:56:24 And I always say that because I'm not necessarily willing to die for it.
01:56:25 --> 01:56:32 I am willing to put out things, literature, and means to people that ignites
01:56:32 --> 01:56:34 and invigorates people to think differently.
01:56:35 --> 01:56:39 But I'm not necessarily willing to go in front and die.
01:56:40 --> 01:56:46 I'm not. And me as an activist, I have to be cognizant of that.
01:56:46 --> 01:56:52 But I do know the repercussions of me spreading knowledge, but I wouldn't go
01:56:52 --> 01:56:59 out with the intent of knowing that my radicalized mind means that I'm going to just die for it.
01:56:59 --> 01:57:10 I'm just, no, that sort of perspective has already been within my lineage.
01:57:10 --> 01:57:14 So I still, of course, have a piece of that fire within me,
01:57:15 --> 01:57:20 but I'm catalyzing it completely different because of what I have seen,
01:57:20 --> 01:57:26 because of what I have felt, because what I have known, that my lineage,
01:57:26 --> 01:57:28 what they have sacrificed.
01:57:28 --> 01:57:33 And knowing that sacrifice from my lineage looks different.
01:57:34 --> 01:57:41 It looks like my mother working three jobs throughout my childhood to be able to provide for me.
01:57:41 --> 01:57:47 That's a Black Messiah. She sacrificed for me as her only child to be able to
01:57:47 --> 01:57:54 put me through school, to be able for me to have all the fruits and vegetables that I desire,
01:57:54 --> 01:58:00 every type of orange, every type of peach, anything that I want, sacrifice.
01:58:02 --> 01:58:05 Her pushing me to get my education because she has her education,
01:58:06 --> 01:58:10 because her parents didn't necessarily have the education that she had because
01:58:10 --> 01:58:11 they didn't go to college.
01:58:12 --> 01:58:16 And then my lineage before that, they didn't go to college. And then my lineage
01:58:16 --> 01:58:19 before that didn't even graduate from high school.
01:58:20 --> 01:58:24 My lineage before that were sharecroppers. My lineage before that was enslaved.
01:58:25 --> 01:58:31 So sacrifice runs through my veins. It runs through my blood. This is what I do.
01:58:31 --> 01:58:35 This is what I am as a Black woman, as a Black person.
01:58:35 --> 01:58:37 We sacrifice on a day-to-day basis.
01:58:38 --> 01:58:45 So with knowing that, I carry the energy of being my own Black Messiah because
01:58:45 --> 01:58:48 of me knowing where I have came from.
01:58:48 --> 01:58:52 So it's super important that we understand the Messiah within us,
01:58:53 --> 01:58:57 and we understand the interconnectedness and the power that we have bestowed
01:58:57 --> 01:59:02 within us, just with our faith and our spiritual connection.
01:59:02 --> 01:59:11 And I would also say that the shackles of bondage may not be for the masses
01:59:11 --> 01:59:15 as physically enchained, but it is,
01:59:16 --> 01:59:18 a mental bondage.
01:59:19 --> 01:59:22 Just like Carter G. Woodson said, if you control a man's actions,
01:59:22 --> 01:59:24 you can control a man's thoughts.
01:59:24 --> 01:59:28 Now we have these devices where we are addicted to, and I'm not going to lie.
01:59:28 --> 01:59:31 You know, I spent quite some time scrolling.
01:59:31 --> 01:59:36 Hey, I'm enslaved now. I've been spent about eight hours just.
01:59:38 --> 01:59:45 Scrolling through all the reels, having a good time. I am now mentally enslaved to my phone.
01:59:46 --> 01:59:53 Your phone is a portal to a whole nother realm of life that does not necessarily exist.
01:59:54 --> 01:59:58 Because if you put the phone down, the reality that exists in the phone does not exist.
01:59:59 --> 02:00:04 It only becomes an existence when you yourself open it up.
02:00:05 --> 02:00:10 So I would say, especially like the, I would also say in 2021,
02:00:11 --> 02:00:16 well, in 2020 and 2021, if you were a Black person and you had your phone,
02:00:17 --> 02:00:20 you were seeing trauma porn, as I would like to call it.
02:00:21 --> 02:00:26 Just trauma, just people dying on your phone.
02:00:28 --> 02:00:33 Now I'm being radicalized from a whole nother point because it was COVID.
02:00:33 --> 02:00:41 Now I'm just on my phone idly and I'm just seeing black bodies on my phone now
02:00:41 --> 02:00:44 I have to relive the trauma,
02:00:46 --> 02:00:51 of sacrifice of what my lineage has already been through which I've already
02:00:51 --> 02:00:57 been told this this is this is also the historical narrative of what I am being told about myself,
02:00:58 --> 02:01:05 because in history classes, they usually start with slavery and they end with the civil rights.
02:01:06 --> 02:01:12 Well, okay. Well, thanks for letting us know that we were able to uprise,
02:01:12 --> 02:01:15 but where is the upliftment?
02:01:16 --> 02:01:21 The upliftment cannot just be in forms of resistance.
02:01:21 --> 02:01:25 I think that narrative is so bad.
02:01:25 --> 02:01:28 That is so bad and limiting.
02:01:29 --> 02:01:36 I feel chills in my body to know that that is the way that people literally
02:01:36 --> 02:01:42 think that, well, y'all created y'all own to resist.
02:01:42 --> 02:01:45 And that's the happy moment that we're talking about.
02:01:46 --> 02:01:52 Our stories are far more greater than a 20 span of history.
02:01:53 --> 02:01:59 Even a 400 span of history. So I totally forgot the question at this point,
02:01:59 --> 02:02:01 but I hope that answers your question.
02:02:02 --> 02:02:04 Well, no, you answered it.
02:02:04 --> 02:02:11 And so the cool thing about that whole Black Messiah thing,
02:02:12 --> 02:02:15 there was a theologian who wrote a book called The Black Messiah,
02:02:15 --> 02:02:21 And it was in response to, even though COINTELPRO was still a secret,
02:02:22 --> 02:02:26 as far as in the general public, the actual documents and all that,
02:02:27 --> 02:02:30 people that were in tune knew what was happening, right?
02:02:30 --> 02:02:35 And knew and, you know, lived and was, you know, this guy wrote this book two
02:02:35 --> 02:02:41 years after Dr. King died, and literally two years after this report was put out.
02:02:42 --> 02:02:47 But he was a theologian, and his argument was, we already had a black Messiah,
02:02:47 --> 02:02:49 those of us who are Christian, and that was Jesus.
02:02:50 --> 02:02:54 And so we need to get y'all in the mindset to understand that Jesus was black.
02:02:55 --> 02:03:00 So we didn't need a Martin Luther King. We didn't need a Malcolm X to be elevated
02:03:01 --> 02:03:03 because we already had a Messiah.
02:03:04 --> 02:03:09 But it brought up a lot of discussion about how we push people out,
02:03:09 --> 02:03:13 how we feel that we need to have this one voice.
02:03:13 --> 02:03:18 And one of the cool things about the Black Lives Movement was that when reporters
02:03:18 --> 02:03:22 would come up to ask them, well, who's the spokesperson for the group?
02:03:22 --> 02:03:24 Who's who's the leader and all that?
02:03:24 --> 02:03:27 Because reporters will check out who's given the speeches and then they'll say,
02:03:27 --> 02:03:29 OK, well, that's got to be the person.
02:03:29 --> 02:03:33 And they were all collectively said, well, we don't have a spokesperson.
02:03:34 --> 02:03:38 You know, we don't have a leader. And their argument was, you're not going to
02:03:38 --> 02:03:42 single one of us out to take one of us out. Right.
02:03:42 --> 02:03:48 And so it just seemed like your generation and, and, and, and, and I guess, uh.
02:03:49 --> 02:03:54 Gen Z mindset is that we don't want you to single out anybody.
02:03:54 --> 02:03:56 We want you to deal with us as a collective.
02:03:57 --> 02:04:01 We want you to deal with black people, African-American people,
02:04:01 --> 02:04:05 not just one person that's going to speak for all of us.
02:04:06 --> 02:04:11 Because there's really not that magical person. Dr. King took advantage of the
02:04:11 --> 02:04:14 platform he had. Malcolm took advantage of the platform he had.
02:04:14 --> 02:04:18 Rosa Parks took advantage of the platform she had, right? Dorothy Height.
02:04:18 --> 02:04:26 So, I mean, everybody played a part, but, you know, the media created the messianic,
02:04:27 --> 02:04:29 complex, not necessarily the community.
02:04:30 --> 02:04:34 And I was glad you mentioned your mom because, you know.
02:04:36 --> 02:04:41 None of us seek to be martyrs, right? We go out and we say what we need to say.
02:04:41 --> 02:04:43 We fight for what we believe in.
02:04:44 --> 02:04:50 And the unfortunate tragedy might be that some of us might die for what we believe in, right?
02:04:51 --> 02:04:57 But, you know, a mom, when she's having a child, is not thinking about dying.
02:04:57 --> 02:05:01 She's thinking about this new life that she's creating, right?
02:05:02 --> 02:05:10 But a woman is more vulnerable at any other point in her life when she is in
02:05:10 --> 02:05:15 gestation, when she's giving birth. That's that's the weakest a woman is ever
02:05:15 --> 02:05:17 in life. That's that moment.
02:05:18 --> 02:05:21 So I just look at it the same way.
02:05:21 --> 02:05:24 It's like when we put ourselves out there, when we become vulnerable,
02:05:25 --> 02:05:31 we're out there and we're not necessarily trying to be messiahs or martyrs,
02:05:31 --> 02:05:34 but we have to put ourselves out there.
02:05:34 --> 02:05:39 So, yeah, I appreciate that. I figured you'd give me a good response on that one.
02:05:41 --> 02:05:47 What is your vision of reparations for Black people? Oh, great question. Yes.
02:05:47 --> 02:05:51 Oh, I actually had a discussion about this.
02:05:51 --> 02:06:00 It's quite annoyed at the response. But nonetheless, I feel like reparations should be afforded to,
02:06:00 --> 02:06:07 those individuals that were a part of shadow slavery, or better yet,
02:06:07 --> 02:06:12 were former sharecroppers and their lineage from the individuals that were sharecroppers.
02:06:12 --> 02:06:15 I feel like it's important to start there.
02:06:16 --> 02:06:22 And I feel like it should be individuals that were in the United States of America.
02:06:23 --> 02:06:27 As much as I understand the aspect of,
02:06:28 --> 02:06:30 focusing on our brothers and sisters
02:06:30 --> 02:06:36 across the diaspora, I feel like it's definitely important to afford,
02:06:37 --> 02:06:45 the lineage that were the literal byproducts of shadow slavery and their economic residuals.
02:06:46 --> 02:06:50 Because they were never afforded to them to begin with. And there has been various
02:06:50 --> 02:06:57 groups that have received reparations outside of African-American descendants
02:06:57 --> 02:06:59 that have received reparations,
02:07:00 --> 02:07:04 and have not been individuals of the country.
02:07:05 --> 02:07:09 They may have fled to the country and still were able to receive reparations.
02:07:09 --> 02:07:19 So I definitely will place everything on African Americans receiving reparations.
02:07:19 --> 02:07:23 They are doing a reparation project.
02:07:23 --> 02:07:26 I know of in San Francisco, they're doing one.
02:07:27 --> 02:07:31 And it's based upon if you lived in San Francisco,
02:07:32 --> 02:07:36 I believe, like, I can't remember if it was the 1960s or 1964,
02:07:37 --> 02:07:44 but you had to have lived and been a resident for X amount of years and things like that. which is.
02:07:46 --> 02:07:52 I appreciate the gesture, but also at the same time, it's probably not going far back enough.
02:07:53 --> 02:07:59 Rather, it's stopping at a midpoint of, again, the civil rights era when those
02:07:59 --> 02:08:04 aren't, they're byproducts of enslavement, but not necessarily to the far back,
02:08:04 --> 02:08:06 point of sharecropping.
02:08:07 --> 02:08:09 But also at the same time,
02:08:10 --> 02:08:12 I think even.
02:08:14 --> 02:08:22 I guess, making the reparations state-based,
02:08:23 --> 02:08:29 I don't feel like we've talked about that enough in terms of making reparations state-based.
02:08:31 --> 02:08:38 Because people migrate. Like what if I moved from San Francisco in 1961,
02:08:39 --> 02:08:44 but my lineage is from there because there was a thing called the Great Migration
02:08:44 --> 02:08:46 and the Second Great Migration.
02:08:46 --> 02:08:51 So people were not staying in their designated areas.
02:08:51 --> 02:08:59 So how do you even like designate a specific year if people were fleeing?
02:09:00 --> 02:09:05 So that is just like various questions, but I think the consensus should definitely
02:09:05 --> 02:09:07 be African-Americans focused.
02:09:08 --> 02:09:15 Yeah. You know, that's interesting. You know, I follow, you know,
02:09:15 --> 02:09:17 on Twitter X, whatever you want to call it.
02:09:18 --> 02:09:23 You know, there's a lot of debate about who should get reparations and all that.
02:09:24 --> 02:09:25 And then somebody did a study and
02:09:25 --> 02:09:30 just said basically nine out of every 10 African-Americans were qualified.
02:09:31 --> 02:09:37 For reparations. So my argument is, why are we upset about 10%?
02:09:37 --> 02:09:39 Why would we even care? You know what I'm saying?
02:09:41 --> 02:09:45 If it's that many people that qualify, then let's get off of that issue.
02:09:45 --> 02:09:48 Let's focus in on what it should be.
02:09:48 --> 02:09:52 And in California, I remember when they first started talking about in San Francisco,
02:09:52 --> 02:09:56 the NAACP president, because they talked about giving a check,
02:09:56 --> 02:09:58 I think for like five million dollars or something like that,
02:09:59 --> 02:10:06 and and the president of NAACP said I don't want a check I want better education
02:10:06 --> 02:10:11 I want better housing opportunities I want this he went through a whole litany of things,
02:10:12 --> 02:10:15 and so that's why I ask people when we get into discussion what,
02:10:16 --> 02:10:21 what is your vision of reparations right I anytime I get into discussion I always
02:10:21 --> 02:10:23 think about the Dave Chappelle skit, right?
02:10:23 --> 02:10:28 And I just, you know, I laugh and chuckle because we all know that's the extreme.
02:10:28 --> 02:10:32 That's not going to happen, but it just, you know.
02:10:35 --> 02:10:42 I really like figuring out how I have an idea of what I think reparations should look like.
02:10:43 --> 02:10:46 I always want to reach out to other people when we get into the discussion,
02:10:47 --> 02:10:57 you know what how they envision reparations and and all that stuff yeah yeah i just go ahead,
02:10:57 --> 02:11:02 sorry i definitely think it should be economic base and whatever somebody wants
02:11:02 --> 02:11:05 to do with their money they can go do with their money,
02:11:05 --> 02:11:09 but i feel like it's going to prolong the process saying we need it for this
02:11:09 --> 02:11:13 we need it for that i don't think everybody else did that for their reparations.
02:11:13 --> 02:11:18 They just took their reparations and why do we have to specify what we're going
02:11:18 --> 02:11:21 to do with our money? Like, that's funny.
02:11:22 --> 02:11:28 That's kind of funny. That's hilarious. I'm sorry, but that's funny.
02:11:28 --> 02:11:33 It's like an oversteer. Like, hey, you know, I'm going to use 5 of it.
02:11:35 --> 02:11:39 For this. I feel you. I feel you.
02:11:39 --> 02:11:43 All right, let's close this out. Let's talk about your podcast,
02:11:43 --> 02:11:45 In Her Sense, and any other projects you've got going on.
02:11:46 --> 02:11:52 Yes. So I have not done any podcasting in quite some time. I've really been
02:11:52 --> 02:11:58 delving deep in creative directing and creating a documentary.
02:11:58 --> 02:12:00 So that's really my focus has been on.
02:12:01 --> 02:12:06 I had the opportunity of having a fellowship last year in New Orleans,
02:12:06 --> 02:12:11 so I was able to interview a lot of individuals and discuss the educational,
02:12:12 --> 02:12:17 histories and legacies of New Orleans and how it has completely shifted the
02:12:17 --> 02:12:21 K-12 system to 100% public charter school city,
02:12:22 --> 02:12:28 and how that has impacted nonprofit organizations, former teachers that were a part of.
02:12:29 --> 02:12:39 Orleans School Parish, and also someone, well, Dr. Leona Tate from New Orleans as well.
02:12:40 --> 02:12:46 And then I'm also using Oakland's transition to public charter schools as a
02:12:46 --> 02:12:51 comparative analysis of both things. So that's really what I've been working
02:12:51 --> 02:12:53 on in terms of creatively.
02:12:54 --> 02:12:57 So I'm super excited to produce that.
02:12:58 --> 02:13:04 And I'm also working on some research that pertains to the Black Panther Party's
02:13:04 --> 02:13:07 mobilization on contemporary education,
02:13:07 --> 02:13:12 and how their free breakfast program,
02:13:12 --> 02:13:21 is comparatively similar to the National School Lunch Act that was then produced
02:13:21 --> 02:13:25 a few years after and then also ratified in 1972.
02:13:26 --> 02:13:32 So yeah, there's a lot of interconnectedness with my home in Oakland,
02:13:32 --> 02:13:37 but also how we are preserving educational legacies and how we are looking at. Okay.
02:13:38 --> 02:13:41 All right. So finish this sentence. I have hope because...
02:13:44 --> 02:13:50 I have hope because the sun greets me every morning. Okay. All right.
02:13:50 --> 02:13:52 Turn to the point. I got you.
02:13:54 --> 02:14:00 So if people want to reach out to you, if people want to talk with you about,
02:14:00 --> 02:14:04 some things, get you to speak, whatever, how can people reach out to you?
02:14:05 --> 02:14:10 They can reach out to me on Instagram, my personal profile, Authentically Deja,
02:14:10 --> 02:14:14 or on my podcast profile, In Her Sense.
02:14:15 --> 02:14:21 Okay. Well, Dehjah, Vaughn, I knew this was going to be a great interview.
02:14:21 --> 02:14:24 Thank you, Sir. And so I thank you for that.
02:14:25 --> 02:14:31 I always try to get people that are smarter than me, which is not really that hard to do. Oh, please.
02:14:33 --> 02:14:38 But I thank you for coming on. And since you mentioned this documentary project,
02:14:39 --> 02:14:42 I have to mention the rule that now that you've been a guest,
02:14:42 --> 02:14:44 you have an open invitation to come back.
02:14:44 --> 02:14:48 So you don't even have to wait for me to reach out to you if you want to,
02:14:48 --> 02:14:52 you know, when the documentary is finished, for example, and you want to promote
02:14:52 --> 02:14:59 it or whatever, just reach out and we'll get you on. But it's been really, really cool to talk to.
02:14:59 --> 02:15:02 And again, thank you for coming on the podcast.
02:15:02 --> 02:15:06 Thank you very much. All right, guys. And we're going to catch you all on the other side.
02:15:18 --> 02:15:24 All right. We are back. And so I want to thank Crystal FitzSimons,
02:15:25 --> 02:15:30 Pauline Steinhorn, and Dehjah Vaughn for coming on to the podcast.
02:15:30 --> 02:15:33 I hope that you learned a lot from each one of them.
02:15:34 --> 02:15:40 With Crystal, I greatly appreciate the work that she's doing to make sure that,
02:15:41 --> 02:15:43 you know, hunger in America is addressed.
02:15:44 --> 02:15:49 Again, we're sitting here acknowledging the fact that there is a human being
02:15:49 --> 02:15:51 on the planet that is worth a trillion dollars.
02:15:52 --> 02:15:59 And yet there are people in that same country in America that are trying to
02:15:59 --> 02:16:00 figure out what they're going to eat.
02:16:01 --> 02:16:06 So I'm glad that there are people like Crystal FitzSimons out there that it's
02:16:06 --> 02:16:10 working to make sure that hunger in America is eventually eradicated.
02:16:11 --> 02:16:12 And then Pauline Steinhorn.
02:16:13 --> 02:16:18 Beautiful person who wrote a beautiful book about her mom and her grandmother
02:16:19 --> 02:16:23 and how they survived the Holocaust is really, really a good book.
02:16:23 --> 02:16:26 It's really well written.
02:16:27 --> 02:16:32 And even though Pauline basically says she was more of an editor than a writer
02:16:32 --> 02:16:36 with this, the way that she composed it and put it together,
02:16:37 --> 02:16:42 you feel like you were there and you could feel the emotions and the pain that
02:16:42 --> 02:16:46 her mom and her grandma went through. So I encourage everybody to do that.
02:16:47 --> 02:16:53 And Dehjah Vaughn, beautiful spirit, beautiful sister that, as you could tell
02:16:53 --> 02:16:59 from the interview, very thoughtful, very creative, and down for the cause.
02:16:59 --> 02:17:05 And that is the name that I believe you will hear, not just in the Atlanta area,
02:17:05 --> 02:17:08 but nationwide down the road.
02:17:09 --> 02:17:17 You know, she is an embodiment of black millennials as far as how they process
02:17:17 --> 02:17:22 the history that we've been through and as far as,
02:17:23 --> 02:17:28 you know, the mindset of what direction this country should go. Right.
02:17:29 --> 02:17:35 So I I've been communicating with the sister for a number of years and to finally
02:17:35 --> 02:17:37 get on a podcast is really, really a treat.
02:17:38 --> 02:17:41 So I thank all three of those young ladies for coming on.
02:17:42 --> 02:17:47 I want to read something to you because it's relevant to what's been happening
02:17:47 --> 02:17:53 the last couple of weeks in the judicial system, dealing with young black men.
02:17:53 --> 02:17:57 And it was written by this woman named Karen Fleshman.
02:17:58 --> 02:18:06 She's an attorney and we're connected on LinkedIn, but she wrote a commentary about,
02:18:07 --> 02:18:12 been able to get on a podcast yet, but we'll see how that works out.
02:18:12 --> 02:18:16 But she wrote something that caught my attention, and I wanted to share it with you all.
02:18:17 --> 02:18:21 She said, 11 years ago this month, I published White People.
02:18:22 --> 02:18:25 If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.
02:18:25 --> 02:18:30 In response to a white man's massacre of nine beloved community members of Mother
02:18:30 --> 02:18:34 Emanuel, of Black Church in Charleston, South Carolina.
02:18:34 --> 02:18:38 It grieves me to this day that in their final moments on this earth,
02:18:39 --> 02:18:42 they welcomed him into their Bible study.
02:18:43 --> 02:18:48 I thought then that this horrific hate crime would cause white people in mosques
02:18:48 --> 02:18:52 to look ourselves in the mirror and change.
02:18:52 --> 02:18:57 I thought in particular, white parents would endeavor to raise better children.
02:18:57 --> 02:19:04 11 years later, even after the mass uprising of 2020 and anti-racism books read, here we are.
02:19:05 --> 02:19:10 Last week, a jury acquitted Rick Chow of murder in the death of Cyrus Carmack
02:19:10 --> 02:19:15 Belton, 14-year-old black boy who was running away from Chow's store,
02:19:15 --> 02:19:19 shot in the back over a bottle of water he did not take.
02:19:19 --> 02:19:24 Yesterday, a jury in Frisco, Texas, sentenced Carmelo Anthony,
02:19:24 --> 02:19:30 19 years old and black, to 35 years for the death of a white teenager after
02:19:30 --> 02:19:32 a fight at a high school track meet.
02:19:33 --> 02:19:38 The prosecution struck every black juror who could have sat in judgment of him.
02:19:38 --> 02:19:41 The jury that remained needed less than three hours.
02:19:42 --> 02:19:47 After all the book clubs and black squares and promises, a Collin County courtroom
02:19:47 --> 02:19:52 still could not seat a single Black person to weigh the life of a Black child.
02:19:53 --> 02:19:56 This is what I meant when I said part of the problem.
02:19:57 --> 02:20:01 Not only the men who kill, the ordinary white people who build the rooms,
02:20:01 --> 02:20:05 fill the juries, raise the children, and call neutral.
02:20:06 --> 02:20:09 And Medcalf's family lost a son, and I will not diminish their grief,
02:20:10 --> 02:20:15 but a system that can't imagine a Black teenager as anything other than a threat is not justice.
02:20:16 --> 02:20:20 It is the same fear that has been killing Black people for 400 plus years,
02:20:21 --> 02:20:23 wearing a robe and calling itself the law.
02:20:24 --> 02:20:26 And the only way that fear ends
02:20:26 --> 02:20:30 is if we white people recognize that it is wrong and not feel it anymore.
02:20:31 --> 02:20:38 Stop teaching our kids to feel it too. 2026 will be half over in a few days.
02:20:39 --> 02:20:44 By June 30, you can take tangible steps toward becoming less racist.
02:20:44 --> 02:20:49 Not someday, not after the next verdict that breaks your heart. Now.
02:20:50 --> 02:20:54 Again, that was Karen Fleshman who wrote that.
02:20:54 --> 02:21:03 And, you know, like I said, when I saw that and read that, I was like, perfect.
02:21:03 --> 02:21:06 That's how it's supposed to go, right?
02:21:08 --> 02:21:15 But, Ms. Karen, I just want you to know that as much as I agree with what you're
02:21:15 --> 02:21:21 saying and as much as I hope that your hope comes true,
02:21:22 --> 02:21:29 I know that it's really, really a reach, especially in the South.
02:21:30 --> 02:21:36 Develop that kind of mindset, that progressive mindset that's needed to do what needs to be done.
02:21:37 --> 02:21:44 I say that because, you know, I don't know why I even still follow this person, but, you know,
02:21:45 --> 02:21:51 he's not the only one, but it's just, you know, this mindset that tries to continue
02:21:51 --> 02:21:58 to justify the unjustifiable, that continues to defend the indefensible.
02:21:59 --> 02:22:06 And, you know, people want to say, well, there's no such thing as white privilege,
02:22:07 --> 02:22:10 but it happens each and every day.
02:22:10 --> 02:22:13 The news reports it each and every day.
02:22:13 --> 02:22:18 And whether you want to acknowledge it or not, that's based on the bubble that
02:22:18 --> 02:22:25 you live in, the ecosystem that you listen to and live in, dwell in.
02:22:25 --> 02:22:29 But that denial is not the reality that's here.
02:22:30 --> 02:22:34 And then some would even try to flip it and say, well, black people have privilege.
02:22:34 --> 02:22:39 And it's like, I don't think you understand the definition of privilege. Right.
02:22:41 --> 02:22:46 So in the case, you know, where people miss out, they're like saying,
02:22:46 --> 02:22:51 well, you know, he did stab the kid and why did he bring a knife to attract
02:22:51 --> 02:22:53 meat and yada, yada, and this, that.
02:22:53 --> 02:23:02 And the issue is, is that a system allows in this day and age, in the 21st century,
02:23:03 --> 02:23:11 allows a jury to be sat and not one of those people are from the community where
02:23:11 --> 02:23:13 the defendant lives, right?
02:23:14 --> 02:23:23 Or is a part of to think that it's okay to try to charge a young man with murder,
02:23:24 --> 02:23:28 and not have one black person, not one, sit on the jury.
02:23:30 --> 02:23:34 You know, we talked about this last week about the prosecution going for the
02:23:34 --> 02:23:38 home run on Chow in South Carolina.
02:23:38 --> 02:23:43 Well, this prosecutor did the same thing in Texas, but he made sure that he
02:23:43 --> 02:23:46 had a jury that would do what he wanted to do.
02:23:47 --> 02:23:51 And the scary thing is that it was the other way around. It was this young man,
02:23:51 --> 02:23:53 Metcalf, who killed Mr. Anthony.
02:23:54 --> 02:24:01 It would still be an all-white jury, and Mr. Metcalf probably would have the same result as Mr. Chow.
02:24:02 --> 02:24:06 That's what black people are upset about. You know, we're not encouraging our
02:24:06 --> 02:24:08 kids to carry knives around white people.
02:24:09 --> 02:24:12 We're not encouraging our kids to get into fights. If anything,
02:24:12 --> 02:24:16 we're trying to discourage them from engaging in such a way that they could
02:24:16 --> 02:24:21 get in trouble with the law because we understand how things work, right?
02:24:22 --> 02:24:27 And it doesn't matter if the town is majority black or whatever the case may be.
02:24:28 --> 02:24:33 You don't want your children getting caught up in a situation where law enforcement
02:24:33 --> 02:24:35 is involved one way or the other.
02:24:36 --> 02:24:40 Right. We don't want them being arrested and we sure don't want them to be a victim.
02:24:41 --> 02:24:47 And that's a fight that we as black parents had to fight all the time.
02:24:48 --> 02:24:52 Doesn't matter if the parents don't like each other. It doesn't matter if the
02:24:52 --> 02:24:54 parents are in the same house or not.
02:24:55 --> 02:24:59 If you have a black child, you have that fear, right?
02:25:00 --> 02:25:09 You have that concern because you don't want anything harmful to happen to someone that you love. And.
02:25:11 --> 02:25:20 As a black parent and having black parents, I understand that totally.
02:25:21 --> 02:25:23 But other folks don't get it.
02:25:25 --> 02:25:32 And I think that in order to get it, you've got to get out of this bubble.
02:25:32 --> 02:25:36 And, you know, when I'm sitting here and, you know, I've been paying attention
02:25:36 --> 02:25:45 to a lot of historical documentaries and just watching the dynamics of the politics taking place this year.
02:25:45 --> 02:25:52 There seems to be a correlation with the South and prejudice.
02:25:53 --> 02:26:00 Now, you don't have to be a political scientist You don't have to be a real scientist,
02:26:01 --> 02:26:05 I say real, but you know what I'm saying Somebody that's into biology or chemistry
02:26:05 --> 02:26:11 or mathematics even To see this pattern that has happened in the United States.
02:26:13 --> 02:26:19 Where even when we were forming the country And putting together the Constitution,
02:26:20 --> 02:26:24 We were trying to appease the southern states.
02:26:25 --> 02:26:31 That's where the three-fifths compromise comes from, because the South didn't
02:26:31 --> 02:26:35 want to pay property taxes because black folks were property, right?
02:26:36 --> 02:26:41 They want to pay higher property taxes because they had all these slaves.
02:26:41 --> 02:26:46 But at the same time, they wanted to be rewarded for having this population,
02:26:47 --> 02:26:49 so they could have political power.
02:26:49 --> 02:26:55 And so they came up with the idea, well, we're going to consider slaves three-fifths of human.
02:26:56 --> 02:27:01 That way, they're not treated as citizens, right?
02:27:02 --> 02:27:10 But they're human enough where the property taxes for these Southern planters,
02:27:10 --> 02:27:15 these rich plantation owners, would increase that much.
02:27:16 --> 02:27:21 And that was the buy-off to get the Southern states to sign off on the Constitution. Right?
02:27:24 --> 02:27:31 Ever since the beginning of this nation, we have had to capitulate to Southern
02:27:31 --> 02:27:35 white men, especially powerful Southern white men.
02:27:36 --> 02:27:44 And that led all the way through to the 1850s. It was coming to a head and all
02:27:44 --> 02:27:49 these new states were coming in. We had to create this Mason-Dixon line, right?
02:27:50 --> 02:27:52 The Missouri Compromise line.
02:27:53 --> 02:27:58 So any state north that was admitted to the union of that line was a free state
02:27:58 --> 02:28:01 and anything south was a slave state.
02:28:01 --> 02:28:08 And of course, as we went further west, that line wasn't as straight, right?
02:28:08 --> 02:28:15 Because folks were making money and they didn't want to give up that money and that power, right?
02:28:16 --> 02:28:25 And then even after a civil war where the North, the Union, beat the Confederates in the South, right,
02:28:26 --> 02:28:31 you still had a movement in the South that was powerful enough to influence,
02:28:31 --> 02:28:33 political thought in the North.
02:28:34 --> 02:28:39 The birth of the nation movie, the United Daughters of the Confederacy putting
02:28:39 --> 02:28:43 statues everywhere and memorials for Confederates.
02:28:44 --> 02:28:50 Like anywhere else on the planet where there was a civil war,
02:28:51 --> 02:28:54 the losers were not memorialized.
02:28:54 --> 02:28:59 Even if it wasn't a civil war, even if it was a takeover, once that dictator,
02:28:59 --> 02:29:05 once that authoritarian regime was removed, so was any symbolism of that.
02:29:06 --> 02:29:13 Right? We've got people still alive when the Nazis were running Germany.
02:29:14 --> 02:29:21 And if you go to Germany now, there's no Hitler memorials or Goebbels or anybody else.
02:29:22 --> 02:29:31 There's no swastika statues in certain parts of the country because they wanted
02:29:31 --> 02:29:36 to get rid of that symbol and that vestige.
02:29:36 --> 02:29:39 They know it's a part of their history. You can't erase that.
02:29:39 --> 02:29:41 There's film. There's books. Everything.
02:29:42 --> 02:29:48 But as far as day-to-day life and moving forward, they went past that, but not America.
02:29:49 --> 02:29:56 Somehow we romanticized that, this Confederacy and the South will rise again.
02:29:56 --> 02:30:01 I mean, I was growing up, Dukes has it, right? The rebel flag on the car,
02:30:01 --> 02:30:03 the car was called the General Lee.
02:30:04 --> 02:30:08 It's been a part of our culture, and we've tried to embrace it.
02:30:08 --> 02:30:14 I mean, you know, college football, we talked about the most dominant conference
02:30:14 --> 02:30:17 as the SEC, the Southeastern Athletic Conference.
02:30:18 --> 02:30:23 It's all inbred in America. If you want to win a national championship,
02:30:23 --> 02:30:26 you're probably going to have to beat a team in the SEC to get there.
02:30:27 --> 02:30:30 It's looking like now in baseball, that's what's happening.
02:30:30 --> 02:30:36 Every now and then in basketball, that's what's happening. These are teams in the South, right?
02:30:36 --> 02:30:42 So when the NAACP or anybody else says these folks want.
02:30:44 --> 02:30:51 White men to be elected officials, then maybe you really should have all white men playing football.
02:30:52 --> 02:30:57 They used to be that way down there until a few of them coaches saw some of
02:30:57 --> 02:31:04 those black athletes playing against them, said we might need a few of them on the team, right?
02:31:04 --> 02:31:11 So, you know, it's just always been, I mean, you know, Hee Haw was like the
02:31:11 --> 02:31:13 most popular show, right?
02:31:13 --> 02:31:17 Grand Ole Opry. That's in the South. That's in Nashville, right?
02:31:17 --> 02:31:21 And that's all that was. Hee Haw was basically the Grand Ole Opry on national
02:31:21 --> 02:31:24 television every week. Same thing.
02:31:25 --> 02:31:33 So the South has always had this incredible romantic hold on the United States.
02:31:34 --> 02:31:41 But the dangerous part is the politics. It's one thing to embrace country music,
02:31:42 --> 02:31:44 or even the blues, for that matter.
02:31:44 --> 02:31:48 It's one thing to embrace barbecue and all that stuff.
02:31:49 --> 02:31:54 But it's a whole other thing to embrace the racism, right? If there's one part
02:31:54 --> 02:32:01 of Southern culture that needs to be eradicated, needs to be ignored, it's the racism.
02:32:01 --> 02:32:05 That's got to end. This country is going to move forward.
02:32:05 --> 02:32:10 And there's a little correlation with that. It's like how many Southern,
02:32:11 --> 02:32:16 in modern times since the Civil War, how many Southern presidents have we had, right?
02:32:17 --> 02:32:20 People say, well, you know, Virginia's in the South, whatever.
02:32:21 --> 02:32:26 In my lifetime, it's only been two. Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.
02:32:27 --> 02:32:32 You've had Southerners run. Lindsey Graham ran for president, right?
02:32:32 --> 02:32:35 Ron DeSantis ran for president. right?
02:32:36 --> 02:32:42 George Wallace ran for president. Strom Thurmond, but not only one.
02:32:44 --> 02:32:50 Didn't win. Now, George Bush beat them, so you had two Confederate states,
02:32:51 --> 02:32:52 you know, having candidates.
02:32:53 --> 02:32:58 And, you know, outside, well, Texas, if you count Texas, then you got Bush,
02:32:58 --> 02:33:00 the Bushes, Lyndon Johnson.
02:33:01 --> 02:33:08 So, you know, outside of Texas, you don't get that many, if any.
02:33:09 --> 02:33:13 So that's kind of a backhanded way, and especially as Democrats, right?
02:33:14 --> 02:33:20 So that's kind of a backhanded way society has said, well, it's all right for
02:33:20 --> 02:33:26 y'all to do this and to influence us on that and how you deal with black folks, all this stuff.
02:33:27 --> 02:33:28 We don't necessarily want you to be president.
02:33:29 --> 02:33:35 But then you get a president like Ronald Reagan or a president like Donald Trump
02:33:35 --> 02:33:44 that does everything they can to cater to whatever that Southern white political thought is. Right.
02:33:45 --> 02:33:51 And I know that's a generalization. Living in Mississippi, living in Georgia,
02:33:52 --> 02:33:56 I know there's good white people in the South. I know that.
02:33:57 --> 02:34:01 But they tend to run as Democrats and they tend to get their brains beat out.
02:34:01 --> 02:34:05 Georgia is changing because of Atlanta, period.
02:34:06 --> 02:34:14 You know, outside of that, there's no other equivalent to Atlanta in any other Southern state.
02:34:14 --> 02:34:19 The only thing that can happen is what's happening this election year and that
02:34:19 --> 02:34:21 people are just frustrated.
02:34:21 --> 02:34:25 And, you know, when they get tired and they just say, well, look,
02:34:25 --> 02:34:28 man, I got to vote my wallet this election.
02:34:28 --> 02:34:34 I think I read a quote from Einstein to Mr. Simons, you know,
02:34:34 --> 02:34:40 an empty stomach is not a good way to dictate politics, but that happens.
02:34:41 --> 02:34:48 And we're going to see a shift in the House and in the Senate after this midterm.
02:34:49 --> 02:34:52 But will we see change?
02:34:53 --> 02:35:01 There's a difference. You see the parties switching and one minute the Democrats
02:35:01 --> 02:35:04 are in charge and the next minute the Republicans are in charge.
02:35:04 --> 02:35:06 But where's the change coming from?
02:35:07 --> 02:35:13 And that goes back to this whole concept of the South.
02:35:14 --> 02:35:17 I like sweet tea. I like fried chicken.
02:35:17 --> 02:35:23 All those are Southern tradition, right? What I don't like, the one Southern
02:35:23 --> 02:35:27 tradition that we need to stop practicing is racism.
02:35:28 --> 02:35:34 And once we get that out of our system, once we get that drug out of our system,
02:35:35 --> 02:35:36 America will be so much better.
02:35:37 --> 02:35:45 Because when you go to places where activism and progressivism is more powerful
02:35:45 --> 02:35:50 than racism, you see productive activity.
02:35:51 --> 02:35:53 You see growth, right?
02:35:53 --> 02:35:58 That's why Atlanta is an anomaly. Charlotte, right?
02:35:59 --> 02:36:02 But people are trying to take it. They're trying to claw it back.
02:36:02 --> 02:36:03 They're trying to get us...
02:36:05 --> 02:36:10 Say to the good old boys and just say, you know, that just ain't right.
02:36:11 --> 02:36:17 What ain't right is thinking that a belief system that enslaved people,
02:36:17 --> 02:36:23 that segregated people, that dehumanized people should be romanticized, glorified,
02:36:24 --> 02:36:27 and continued, right?
02:36:27 --> 02:36:33 Because, you know, people say, well, we need to make America great again.
02:36:34 --> 02:36:37 And the black community said, we just need to make America great.
02:36:38 --> 02:36:44 Because if you have a mindset that the only way America can be the best is that
02:36:44 --> 02:36:50 white people are in charge, that's not a winning strategy.
02:36:51 --> 02:36:57 We are losing our standing in the world because of that mindset. it.
02:36:58 --> 02:37:02 For those people who don't believe in the Bible and all that stuff, I get it.
02:37:03 --> 02:37:08 But those of us who do think Jesus is going to show up any minute now because
02:37:08 --> 02:37:10 all the stuff in Revelation is happening.
02:37:11 --> 02:37:15 War and pestilence and plagues and all this stuff.
02:37:16 --> 02:37:22 That's a curse. That's not a concept. That's not a culture. That's a curse.
02:37:23 --> 02:37:30 And until we break that cycle, we're never going to be what we should be.
02:37:31 --> 02:37:35 Every child in America should be valued. Everyone.
02:37:36 --> 02:37:41 No matter their economic status, no matter their ethnicity, upbringing, whatever.
02:37:43 --> 02:37:48 Our future, that's our investment as human beings for the next generation to
02:37:48 --> 02:37:51 be better than what we were, right?
02:37:51 --> 02:38:00 But because we're caught up in this culture of privilege and isms,
02:38:01 --> 02:38:05 we are literally seeing back-to-back generations that are not doing better than us.
02:38:06 --> 02:38:11 They're struggling. You heard Deja talking about what's the most pressing issue?
02:38:11 --> 02:38:13 These student loans, right?
02:38:14 --> 02:38:18 Then you got some, well, I didn't get a student loan. You didn't go to college.
02:38:19 --> 02:38:24 So why are you even in that discussion? Well, I got to pay it back. How?
02:38:25 --> 02:38:31 We've had this discussion before. If I say the debt no longer exists,
02:38:31 --> 02:38:36 then the debt no longer exists. It's not a burden on you or me. It's over with.
02:38:37 --> 02:38:41 Well, that's money that we lost. No, that's an investment. Dwight D.
02:38:41 --> 02:38:46 Eisenhower said that student loans is part of national security.
02:38:46 --> 02:38:48 That's how he created the program.
02:38:48 --> 02:38:51 You've heard me say that. That's a fact.
02:38:52 --> 02:39:00 He wanted student loans for people to be in STEM because in his wartime military
02:39:00 --> 02:39:05 experience, he saw technology up close him personal.
02:39:05 --> 02:39:11 He dealt with those Germans who had built the Autobahn and were building rockets
02:39:11 --> 02:39:17 and the latest in air warfare and tank warfare.
02:39:17 --> 02:39:19 That's what we were up against.
02:39:19 --> 02:39:23 We just beat them because we mass produced what we could.
02:39:24 --> 02:39:30 We had the manpower and the willpower and the buy-in, but we weren't technologically advanced.
02:39:31 --> 02:39:34 That didn't happen until we made the investment in NASA.
02:39:36 --> 02:39:41 He said, we're going to the moon. And now Elon Musk is a trillionaire because
02:39:41 --> 02:39:46 we advocated that to private industry. All I know is this.
02:39:47 --> 02:39:53 We've got to be real about who we are. We've got to look in the mirror like Ms. Fleshman did.
02:39:54 --> 02:39:59 And we've got to change our ways.
02:40:00 --> 02:40:05 We've got to change our mindset. it. And when we do that, I promise you,
02:40:05 --> 02:40:12 when we do that, America will be amazing. It'll be beyond great. It'll be amazing.
02:40:13 --> 02:40:18 But we got to get people to buy into that. We got to get people to believe in that.
02:40:19 --> 02:40:23 We got to instill that in our children. Don't teach them fear.
02:40:24 --> 02:40:26 Teach them hope. Teach them promise.
02:40:27 --> 02:40:32 You don't have to give them participation trophies, but you do have to instill
02:40:32 --> 02:40:38 in them that there's good in the world, and we need to embrace that and not
02:40:38 --> 02:40:42 clutch to the pearls of fear and prejudice.
02:40:44 --> 02:40:50 We need to do better so we won't have outcomes like Mother Emanuel or Topps
02:40:50 --> 02:40:57 Grocery Store, right, or Carmilla Anthony or Cyrus Cormac Belton.
02:40:57 --> 02:41:05 We don't Emmett Till, George Floyd. We don't Sandra Bland. We don't need those anymore.
02:41:06 --> 02:41:11 This election should be the foundation for us to truly move forward.
02:41:13 --> 02:41:17 People that are not perfect, which is basically everybody running,
02:41:18 --> 02:41:21 people not perfect get elected? Okay.
02:41:22 --> 02:41:29 But if they buy into the vision of what America should be, we'll be on the right track.
02:41:29 --> 02:41:35 Again, Thomas Jefferson was a slaveholder, but his words are what freed them.
02:41:36 --> 02:41:41 We can do better. We have shown it. We've got a 250-year track record of how
02:41:41 --> 02:41:44 we've steadily made incremental progress.
02:41:45 --> 02:41:49 Now is the time for the next 250 years to take it to the next level.
02:41:51 --> 02:41:54 All right, that's all I got. Thank y'all for listening. Until next time.