Host Erik Fleming speaks with Judge Steve Teske on juvenile justice reform and the school-to-prison pipeline, Dr. Jessica Kriegel on leadership and creating belief-shifting experiences, and Dr. Terri Givens on radical empathy, racial reckoning, and the political backlash following recent court decisions.
The episode explores detention reform, the harms of charging youths as adults, strategies to shift public beliefs through storytelling and culture, and the impact of legal and political moves on representation and voting rights.
00:00:00 --> 00:00:06 Welcome. I'm Erik Fleming, host of A Moment with Erik Fleming, the podcast of our time.
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00:01:15 --> 00:01:20 The following program is hosted by the NBG Podcast Network.
00:02:00 --> 00:02:06 Hello, and welcome to another moment with Erik Fleming. I am your host, Erik Fleming.
00:02:07 --> 00:02:14 And so I have three guests on this episode that I think that you will find very, very fascinating.
00:02:15 --> 00:02:19 One has been a guest before. The other two are new,
00:02:19 --> 00:02:25 but one is a former judge who has dealt with juvenile justice system,
00:02:25 --> 00:02:30 and that was something that I was heavily involved in when I was in the State
00:02:30 --> 00:02:31 Legislature in Mississippi.
00:02:32 --> 00:02:38 And then we had another guest, a young lady who spends a lot of time trying
00:02:38 --> 00:02:47 to get corporate leaders to be better and sensitive to the culture of the workplace.
00:02:48 --> 00:02:55 And so my challenge with her was to incorporate those ideas into the political realm.
00:02:56 --> 00:02:59 And we had a real good discussion that I hope you'll enjoy too.
00:03:00 --> 00:03:06 And the guest that is returning is another political scientist.
00:03:07 --> 00:03:19 Who has developed her own theories about radical empathy and trying to get black
00:03:19 --> 00:03:22 people and white people to understand each other better.
00:03:23 --> 00:03:29 And so, of course, I wanted to pick her brain about what's been going on after the Calais decision.
00:03:30 --> 00:03:39 So I hope that you'll enjoy those interviews and I hope that you have been enjoying this podcast.
00:03:39 --> 00:03:44 In times like these, podcasts like mine are very, very important.
00:03:44 --> 00:03:48 And, you know, all of us are asking for your support.
00:03:48 --> 00:03:52 And we know that times are tough economically, but whatever you can do,
00:03:52 --> 00:03:57 we greatly appreciate it. If you go to my website, momenterik.com,
00:03:57 --> 00:04:00 you can support the podcast a number of ways.
00:04:02 --> 00:04:09 And, you know, we just, we need to have these voices out here.
00:04:09 --> 00:04:12 And it's just,
00:04:12 --> 00:04:22 it's becoming more and more apparent every day that in order to stop this arrogance
00:04:22 --> 00:04:27 of ignorance and this backlash that's going on,
00:04:28 --> 00:04:35 that we have to resist and resist boldly and loudly as a previous guest had said.
00:04:35 --> 00:04:41 So if you would do that, I would greatly appreciate whatever support you can give this podcast.
00:04:41 --> 00:04:50 And I will continue to do what needs to be done to get the word out and to get
00:04:50 --> 00:04:53 people on that, you know,
00:04:53 --> 00:04:58 can explain different nuances of what we're dealing with in America.
00:04:59 --> 00:05:04 All right. So without any further ado, let's go ahead and kick this program off.
00:05:04 --> 00:05:09 And as always, we kick it off with a moment of news with Grace G.
00:05:15 --> 00:05:18 Thanks, Erik. The U.S.
00:05:18 --> 00:05:23 Supreme Court has permitted Alabama Republicans to use a congressional map that
00:05:23 --> 00:05:26 a lower court previously deemed racially discriminatory.
00:05:27 --> 00:05:32 South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster called a special session after an effort
00:05:32 --> 00:05:35 to redistrict failed in the state Senate.
00:05:35 --> 00:05:40 Governor Brian Kemp has ordered a special session to redraw Georgia's political
00:05:40 --> 00:05:43 maps for the 2028 election cycle.
00:05:43 --> 00:05:48 The Missouri Supreme Court upheld a Republican-backed redistricting map that
00:05:48 --> 00:05:52 eliminates a Democratic seat and divides the Kansas City area.
00:05:53 --> 00:05:58 Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves canceled a special legislative session intended
00:05:58 --> 00:06:04 to redraw state Supreme Court districts following a favorable appellate court ruling.
00:06:05 --> 00:06:09 Tennessee's House Speaker stripped Democratic lawmakers of their committee assignments
00:06:09 --> 00:06:15 as a punishment for protesting the dismantling of a black-majority congressional district in Memphis.
00:06:16 --> 00:06:21 Louisiana officials reached a $4.8 million settlement with the family of Ronald
00:06:21 --> 00:06:25 Green, an unarmed black man killed by police in 2019.
00:06:26 --> 00:06:31 The Senate confirmed Kevin Warsh to a 14-year term at the Federal Reserve,
00:06:31 --> 00:06:35 positioning him to succeed Jerome Powell as chair.
00:06:35 --> 00:06:41 FDA official Marty McCary resigned following internal conflicts and political pressure.
00:06:42 --> 00:06:47 Cole Allen pleaded not guilty to charges of attempting to assassinate President
00:06:47 --> 00:06:52 Trump at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. Prime Minister Netanyahu aims
00:06:52 --> 00:06:55 to eliminate Israel's reliance on U.S.
00:06:55 --> 00:06:59 Military financial support within 10 years Authorities in Laredo,
00:07:00 --> 00:07:03 Texas are investigating the deaths of six people whose
00:07:03 --> 00:07:06 bodies were discovered inside a train boxcar near
00:07:06 --> 00:07:09 the Mexican border Florida will shut
00:07:09 --> 00:07:12 down the Alligator Alcatraz Migrant Detention
00:07:12 --> 00:07:17 Center by June following reports of poor conditions and legal access issues
00:07:17 --> 00:07:23 at the facility And two of the 17 Americans repatriated from a cruise ship affected
00:07:23 --> 00:07:31 by Hantavirus were symptomatic With one testing positive for the Andes strain I am Grace G.,
00:07:31 --> 00:07:33 and this has been a Moment of News.
00:07:40 --> 00:07:45 All right. Thank you, Grace, for that moment of news. Now it's time for our
00:07:45 --> 00:07:48 guest, Judge Steve Teske.
00:07:49 --> 00:07:54 Judge Steven C. Teske was the chief judge of the Juvenile Court of Clayton County, Georgia.
00:07:55 --> 00:08:01 He was appointed juvenile court judge in 1999 and additionally served as a superior
00:08:01 --> 00:08:06 court judge by designation presiding over civil and criminal matters.
00:08:07 --> 00:08:12 Prior to taking the bench, he was a partner in the firm of Boswell and Teske LLP,
00:08:12 --> 00:08:18 and served as a special assistant attorney general prosecuting child abuse and
00:08:18 --> 00:08:23 neglect matters in juvenile court, as well as defending state employees and
00:08:23 --> 00:08:25 agencies in federal and state courts.
00:08:26 --> 00:08:31 Upon retirement from the bench, Teske relocated to his birthplace of Tucson,
00:08:31 --> 00:08:39 Arizona, as a legal counsel for the Department of Social services for the Pasquayaki Pueblo tribe.
00:08:39 --> 00:08:45 He is also a consultant to juvenile courts and justice systems on systemic transformation
00:08:45 --> 00:08:51 to reduce racial and ethnic disparities and improve outcomes for youth.
00:08:51 --> 00:08:57 Teske has testified before Congress on four occasions in several state legislatures
00:08:57 --> 00:09:01 on detention reform, zero tolerance policies in schools,
00:09:01 --> 00:09:05 juvenile justice reform, Juvenile Justice Grant Accountability,
00:09:05 --> 00:09:11 Child Welfare Reform, and the Juvenile Justice Delinquency Prevention Act Reauthorization.
00:09:12 --> 00:09:14 Teske served as a litigate.
00:09:15 --> 00:09:18 A litigative expert for the U.S.
00:09:18 --> 00:09:24 Department of Justice in the school-to-prison pipeline case United States of America v.
00:09:24 --> 00:09:29 Meridian, resulting in a consent decree mandating sweeping reforms of school
00:09:29 --> 00:09:32 disciplinary practices that were harmful to kids of color.
00:09:33 --> 00:09:37 Three Georgia governors have appointed him to several statewide boards over
00:09:37 --> 00:09:40 the years, including the Children and Youth Coordinating Council,
00:09:41 --> 00:09:46 Governor's Office for Children and Families, DJJ Judicial Advisory Council,
00:09:47 --> 00:09:50 JDAI Statewide Steering Committee,
00:09:51 --> 00:09:55 Georgia Commission on Family Violence, Georgia Council on Child Welfare Reform,
00:09:55 --> 00:09:58 and the Georgia Commission on Criminal Justice Reform.
00:09:58 --> 00:10:03 He served two years on the Federal Advisory Committee for Juvenile Justice and
00:10:03 --> 00:10:07 is a past national chair of the Coalition for Juvenile Justice.
00:10:07 --> 00:10:12 He is a member of the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges and
00:10:12 --> 00:10:14 has served on the Board of Directors.
00:10:14 --> 00:10:18 He is past president of the Georgia Council of Juvenile Court Judges and the
00:10:18 --> 00:10:20 Clayton County Bar Association.
00:10:20 --> 00:10:25 He has written several articles on juvenile justice and child welfare reform,
00:10:25 --> 00:10:32 published in the Juvenile Family Law Journal, Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Nursing.
00:10:33 --> 00:10:37 Juvenile Justice and Family Today, Family Court Review, Georgia Law Review,
00:10:38 --> 00:10:39 and the Georgia Bar Journal.
00:10:39 --> 00:10:45 His book, Reform Juvenile Justice Now, is a collection of essays on juvenile justice issues.
00:10:46 --> 00:10:52 Judge Teske is the 2018 recipient of the Juvenile Law Center Leadership Prize Award.
00:10:52 --> 00:10:58 He has received numerous awards and recognitions, including Romay T.
00:10:58 --> 00:11:02 Powell Award from the Juvenile Court Association of Georgia,
00:11:02 --> 00:11:08 Clayton County NAACP Community Service Award, Howard K.
00:11:08 --> 00:11:12 Abel's Award from the Georgia Juvenile Services Association.
00:11:13 --> 00:11:16 2013 Alumni Award of the College of
00:11:16 --> 00:11:21 Arts and Sciences at Georgia State University Distinguished Alumni Award at
00:11:21 --> 00:11:25 Clayton State University and the Outstanding Leadership Award from the Georgia
00:11:25 --> 00:11:31 Association of Homes and Services for Children He is a Toll Fellow of the Council
00:11:31 --> 00:11:34 of State Government and received his JD,
00:11:34 --> 00:11:38 MA, and BIS degrees from Georgia State University in Atlanta, Georgia,
00:11:39 --> 00:11:44 Judge Teske taught as an adjunct professor at John Marshall Law School in Atlanta, Georgia.
00:11:44 --> 00:11:49 He is currently an adjunct professor at Pima Community College in Tucson,
00:11:49 --> 00:11:54 Arizona, teaching criminal justice studies and business law and authored the
00:11:54 --> 00:11:58 course and curriculum on race, crime, and justice.
00:11:58 --> 00:12:03 Ladies and gentlemen, it is my distinct honor and privilege to have as a guest
00:12:03 --> 00:12:08 on this podcast, Judge Steve Teske.
00:12:19 --> 00:12:24 All right. Judge Steve Teske. Did I say that last name right, Teske?
00:12:25 --> 00:12:27 You did. All right, sir. How you doing?
00:12:28 --> 00:12:32 I'm doing wonderful. I hope you are. I'm doing lovely, sir.
00:12:32 --> 00:12:37 I'm really, really honored to have you on, to have somebody with your expertise.
00:12:37 --> 00:12:42 I've been trying to get somebody, and then we connected on LinkedIn,
00:12:42 --> 00:12:45 and I said, okay, this is the guy.
00:12:45 --> 00:12:54 Because I did nine years on the Mississippi House of Representatives Juvenile Justice Committee.
00:12:55 --> 00:12:59 And so I feel your pain is what I'm going to tell you.
00:12:59 --> 00:13:05 And so I wanted to have somebody, we can call it a therapy session,
00:13:05 --> 00:13:06 a skull session, whatever it is.
00:13:06 --> 00:13:10 But I think this is an issue that needs constant attention.
00:13:11 --> 00:13:15 And we'll get into that deep into the discussion. but I'm really,
00:13:16 --> 00:13:18 really glad and honored to have you come on.
00:13:18 --> 00:13:26 All right. So how I normally start my interviews is I do a couple of icebreaker things, right?
00:13:26 --> 00:13:31 So the first one is a quote that I want you to respond to.
00:13:31 --> 00:13:36 And that quote is, toleration is good for all or it is good for none.
00:13:37 --> 00:13:43 Toleration is either good for all or for none. You know.
00:13:44 --> 00:13:51 It depends on what perspective, but toleration should be good for all.
00:13:51 --> 00:13:55 It should be a beginning point. It should be an ending point.
00:13:56 --> 00:14:03 If it's toleration is not good for none, that's unfortunate.
00:14:04 --> 00:14:06 It should be good for all.
00:14:07 --> 00:14:17 I just don't, I don't. If we're talking about kids, okay, and how kids develop
00:14:17 --> 00:14:21 and where they are as kids, toleration is essential.
00:14:22 --> 00:14:23 Toleration is a must.
00:14:24 --> 00:14:31 Regardless, whether you're a parent, whether you work with kids in whatever
00:14:31 --> 00:14:39 respect, behavioral health, as a probation officer, as a social worker, and as a judge.
00:14:40 --> 00:14:46 Toleration is the key to success. Yes, sir. I agree with that wholeheartedly.
00:14:46 --> 00:14:50 All right. So now the next icebreaker is what we call 20 questions.
00:14:50 --> 00:14:54 So I need you to give me a number between one and 20.
00:14:55 --> 00:15:00 All right. Let's go in the middle, 10. All right. What one fact do you wish
00:15:00 --> 00:15:05 people who voted differently than you in the last election knew,
00:15:05 --> 00:15:10 either about how you vote, about the current state of the world, Anything.
00:15:12 --> 00:15:21 I wish that fact would be that people would read more and people would study
00:15:21 --> 00:15:24 more about best practices,
00:15:24 --> 00:15:27 about what the evidence says,
00:15:28 --> 00:15:34 instead of embracing the narratives that are created by politicians for the
00:15:34 --> 00:15:35 sake of getting people to vote.
00:15:37 --> 00:15:40 Otherwise, we look like fools. Gotcha.
00:15:42 --> 00:15:47 Did you envision yourself going to law school to become a national expert on juvenile justice?
00:15:48 --> 00:15:52 I did not. I fell into this. Okay.
00:15:53 --> 00:16:02 I was a partner in a law firm and our law firm was contracted by the attorney
00:16:02 --> 00:16:04 general's office in Georgia.
00:16:04 --> 00:16:11 And they needed help. You know, attorney general's offices are the largest law firms in any state.
00:16:11 --> 00:16:17 But they still don't have the number of lawyers they need to respond to all
00:16:17 --> 00:16:23 the complaints that are being served upon them against their state employees or the agencies.
00:16:24 --> 00:16:29 So they have to get folks, private attorneys out there and get them appointed
00:16:29 --> 00:16:32 by letter as special assistant attorney generals.
00:16:33 --> 00:16:36 I became one of those. So I started off representing the state,
00:16:37 --> 00:16:42 mostly get this, ironically, in defending the state and state employees in civil
00:16:42 --> 00:16:47 rights actions filed against them, Section 1983, okay?
00:16:48 --> 00:16:53 But other things, state tort claims, personal injuries, wrongful deaths, things of that nature.
00:16:53 --> 00:16:58 But through that process, apparently they liked the work that I was doing,
00:16:58 --> 00:17:02 that down in my county, Clayton County, where the world's busiest airport is
00:17:02 --> 00:17:04 located in Atlanta, right?
00:17:04 --> 00:17:11 They needed some help with their social services in dealing with child abuse and neglect cases.
00:17:12 --> 00:17:16 And they knew I lived down there, and so they asked me if I would also take
00:17:16 --> 00:17:20 that work on, which I did, and that was the first time it brought me in the juvenile court.
00:17:21 --> 00:17:25 And that opened the world to me. It opened up my eyes, Eric,
00:17:25 --> 00:17:31 okay, seeing the things that I saw, the needs that were there, the vulnerable kids.
00:17:31 --> 00:17:37 I mean, and then what happened, the chief judge took a liking to me,
00:17:37 --> 00:17:42 I guess, and she took me to lunch and confided in me if she was retired.
00:17:42 --> 00:17:44 And wanted me to take her place.
00:17:44 --> 00:17:49 And so, you know, I thought about it and I said, you know,
00:17:50 --> 00:17:55 with everything I've seen in the heart and head that I have,
00:17:55 --> 00:18:00 I thought, you know, I think this is where the good Lord is saying something
00:18:00 --> 00:18:02 to me. And I did. And that was 1999.
00:18:03 --> 00:18:06 And you know the rest of the story. Yeah, yeah.
00:18:07 --> 00:18:11 Before we get any further, let's define two terms.
00:18:11 --> 00:18:21 Very first one is juvenile justice. And then the other term is the school to prison pipeline. Okay.
00:18:22 --> 00:18:29 Juvenile justice. Justice is the operative word because unfortunately too many
00:18:29 --> 00:18:33 systems still to this day operate a juvenile injustice system.
00:18:34 --> 00:18:40 And that they haven't figured out how is justice done.
00:18:41 --> 00:18:46 Should be applied? How should it be applied when it comes to kids?
00:18:46 --> 00:18:54 Juveniles, typically those who are under 18 years of age, but we're looking at teenagers, okay?
00:18:54 --> 00:18:58 You know, we shouldn't be walking up six and seven and eight-year-olds.
00:18:58 --> 00:19:01 So let's, and that's another issue too.
00:19:01 --> 00:19:05 There are some, we've heard stories about 10-year-olds being handcuffed and
00:19:05 --> 00:19:10 eight-year-olds being and handcuffed and arrested and put it into detention. Shame on those people.
00:19:11 --> 00:19:16 But be that as it may, juvenile justice, as it should be,
00:19:16 --> 00:19:26 is about treating kids who have committed a crime we call a delinquent act,
00:19:26 --> 00:19:31 that if it's truly a delinquent act,
00:19:31 --> 00:19:40 that we treat them with the purpose of helping to guide and direct them so that
00:19:40 --> 00:19:45 they choose better paths and they don't do it again.
00:19:46 --> 00:19:50 And there's so much loaded in that because you see, you know,
00:19:50 --> 00:19:57 there's so many things that in today's world, we've allowed kids,
00:19:57 --> 00:20:03 we are looking at kids that they do things that are normal in their adolescence,
00:20:03 --> 00:20:06 and we still call it a crime, okay?
00:20:06 --> 00:20:09 And it wasn't that way.
00:20:10 --> 00:20:16 You know, in my era, in my generation, I mean, I did something to cause the
00:20:16 --> 00:20:18 police and the fire department to come out to my school at age 13.
00:20:19 --> 00:20:24 And if it weren't for a principal, okay, I would have been sent to juvenile
00:20:24 --> 00:20:31 hall detention, okay, but stood up for me, which is what principals should do, right?
00:20:31 --> 00:20:34 You know, don't ruin this kid's life. And I wonder, I look back at that and
00:20:34 --> 00:20:38 I ask myself, would I have ended up becoming a juvenile court judge and wearing
00:20:38 --> 00:20:44 a robe, had that principal not stepped in to say, hey, he's just a kid, for God's sakes.
00:20:44 --> 00:20:47 Yeah, he did something stupid, okay?
00:20:47 --> 00:20:50 But it's not like he was looking to hurt anybody.
00:20:51 --> 00:20:53 So let's treat him as a kid.
00:20:53 --> 00:20:57 That's where we've gone wrong. That's when it becomes a juvenile injustice,
00:20:57 --> 00:21:00 when we are treating kids like adults.
00:21:00 --> 00:21:05 Now, the other one was school justice partnerships, okay, the school-to-prison.
00:21:06 --> 00:21:10 The school-to-justice partnership is a model, as you know, I developed to address
00:21:10 --> 00:21:15 the school-to-prison phenomena, which is when in schools...
00:21:16 --> 00:21:22 Using exclusionary disciplinary policies that results in suspensions and expulsions,
00:21:23 --> 00:21:29 okay, they will lead these kids on a path toward prison.
00:21:29 --> 00:21:37 What I mean by that is that when we are looking to exclude kids from going to school,
00:21:37 --> 00:21:46 and we know that education is one of the most successful factors in, you know,
00:21:47 --> 00:21:57 avoiding prison, then it's like counterproductive that we would easily remove
00:21:57 --> 00:22:00 kids from a setting that they need to be in that's going to keep them out of prison.
00:22:01 --> 00:22:04 So if you're going to do that, you might as well just send them to prison.
00:22:04 --> 00:22:07 I mean, that's the bottom line there, and that's the problem.
00:22:07 --> 00:22:12 And so that's one of the things I found as a juvenile court judge in my 22 years,
00:22:12 --> 00:22:16 that if we wanted to reduce crime, juvenile crime in our community,
00:22:16 --> 00:22:19 we had to partner with the school system.
00:22:19 --> 00:22:23 It was the major ingredient because one-third of our delinquent filings were
00:22:23 --> 00:22:29 coming from the schools, and 90% of them were misdemeanor, non-public safety
00:22:29 --> 00:22:33 stuff, typical adolescent behavior, but all of them were being handcuffed.
00:22:33 --> 00:22:37 All one-third of them were being handcuffed, put in the back of a patrol car.
00:22:38 --> 00:22:43 And that is putting them on a path to prison, hence school-to-prison pipeline.
00:22:44 --> 00:22:52 Yeah. Yeah. I wanted that, those two, because, you know, some people will hear
00:22:52 --> 00:22:56 those terms a lot. I know when I worked with the ACLU, we used that term,
00:22:56 --> 00:22:58 that school-to-prison pipeline a lot.
00:22:58 --> 00:23:03 And, you know, and some people were trying to, like, how does that even work?
00:23:03 --> 00:23:09 And so, you know, we would have to get in and show what would happen if you
00:23:09 --> 00:23:13 denied, like you said, denied children the opportunity to get an education.
00:23:13 --> 00:23:15 That's the path you're leading them toward.
00:23:16 --> 00:23:19 And, you know, the zero tolerance policies, all that stuff. Yeah.
00:23:20 --> 00:23:23 I'm glad you explained it the way that you did.
00:23:24 --> 00:23:28 If I can add on to that, Erik, too, you said, you know, zero tolerance.
00:23:29 --> 00:23:35 You know, I've been quoted often that zero tolerance policies is zero intelligence. Okay.
00:23:36 --> 00:23:41 And in 2006, a research professor out of Arizona State University,
00:23:41 --> 00:23:45 Gary Sweden, did an extensive study on arrest in high school.
00:23:45 --> 00:23:53 And in that research discovered that when we arrest kids on campus,
00:23:53 --> 00:23:57 they are twice as likely to drop out of school, okay?
00:23:57 --> 00:24:01 And if they appear in court, it quadruples.
00:24:01 --> 00:24:04 They're four times as likely to drop out of school, all right?
00:24:04 --> 00:24:08 Now, keep in mind, one qualifier there is we're talking about non-delinquent
00:24:08 --> 00:24:14 youth because most of the kids who get caught up in these arrests on campus are really not,
00:24:14 --> 00:24:17 and it goes back to what I opened up with in defining juvenile justice,
00:24:18 --> 00:24:19 were really not delinquent kids.
00:24:20 --> 00:24:23 They were doing adolescent things that technically you could charge them with
00:24:23 --> 00:24:25 delinquency, but we shouldn't be doing that.
00:24:25 --> 00:24:32 But they were being charged as delinquent acts. OK, so I just wanted to point
00:24:32 --> 00:24:37 that out right there that the research is there, OK, that that substantiates
00:24:37 --> 00:24:40 the phrase school to prison pipeline. Yeah.
00:24:40 --> 00:24:45 Is it fair to say with the ending of the Department of Education at the federal
00:24:45 --> 00:24:51 level and a different focal point from the Department of Justice that there
00:24:51 --> 00:24:54 is not any federal focus on juvenile justice?
00:24:55 --> 00:24:59 I would agree with that it was when I heard that you know.
00:25:01 --> 00:25:06 That they were going to get rid of the Department of Education,
00:25:06 --> 00:25:10 it struck me immediately the stupidity of that, okay?
00:25:11 --> 00:25:20 I mean, I heard their reasons why, but the problem was that they were saying
00:25:20 --> 00:25:24 things in supporting that that were a false narrative.
00:25:24 --> 00:25:27 They don't understand how much the U.S.
00:25:27 --> 00:25:33 Department of Education did in terms of providing, you know,
00:25:33 --> 00:25:37 indirect services through grant funding and monitoring.
00:25:37 --> 00:25:44 I mean, once we lose that, we lose so much data and information for the future
00:25:44 --> 00:25:52 and being able to have benchmarks and metrics, okay, and having that type of oversight, okay.
00:25:53 --> 00:25:57 Now, I get it that, you know, the administration was saying,
00:25:57 --> 00:26:02 well, the states need to take over, you know, and, you know, they can.
00:26:02 --> 00:26:12 Well, look, I'm sorry, okay, but there still needs to be the oversight, right?
00:26:12 --> 00:26:16 Because, you know, then we have 50 different states doing things,
00:26:16 --> 00:26:21 50 different ways, because there's no one there in providing the type of grant
00:26:21 --> 00:26:25 funding targeting areas that need to be targeted, like the school-to-prison pipeline.
00:26:25 --> 00:26:29 There's been grants on that modeled after my school justice partnership model.
00:26:29 --> 00:26:33 That came from the Department of Justice under the Office of Juvenile Justice
00:26:33 --> 00:26:35 and Delinquency Prevention several years ago.
00:26:35 --> 00:26:38 Without those things, okay, without that oversight,
00:26:39 --> 00:26:44 we're going to have a mismatch of a lot of things and a failure to recognize
00:26:44 --> 00:26:47 things that the states need to recognize,
00:26:47 --> 00:26:56 to target in a position way to address those underlying factors that cause delinquency
00:26:56 --> 00:26:58 that otherwise we could prevent delinquency.
00:26:58 --> 00:27:01 That's the problem. Yeah. Yeah.
00:27:01 --> 00:27:09 Yeah. Should the minimum age for federal prosecution be raised from 11 years old? Yes.
00:27:09 --> 00:27:16 Yes. You know, I instituted a policy at my court,
00:27:16 --> 00:27:25 okay, that any child under 13 years of age that is brought to us either by a
00:27:25 --> 00:27:31 complaint filed or the police bring to intake,
00:27:31 --> 00:27:34 okay, is immediately suspect, okay?
00:27:34 --> 00:27:39 And not only in terms of non-detention, okay?
00:27:40 --> 00:27:46 We don't, I had the general rule is we do not detain kids under 13 years of age, number one, okay?
00:27:46 --> 00:27:54 And even then, you know, they have to undergo a process of a detention assessment instrument, okay?
00:27:55 --> 00:27:58 But no, we're not going to do it. And then the second thing,
00:27:58 --> 00:28:03 because you're under 13, are we even going to allow this complaint to be sent
00:28:03 --> 00:28:05 over to the prosecutor's office?
00:28:05 --> 00:28:10 In Georgia, we were very fortunate, okay? The law allowed the court,
00:28:10 --> 00:28:14 the juvenile court judge, to decide whether the prosecutor even gets the complaint.
00:28:14 --> 00:28:16 It had to go through my court first.
00:28:16 --> 00:28:23 And we had a very elaborate, evidence-based system of assessing every complaint.
00:28:23 --> 00:28:29 And like I said, if you're under 13, okay, no, we're not, because once you get
00:28:29 --> 00:28:32 a kid in the system, it's hard to get them out. Okay.
00:28:33 --> 00:28:39 And so our system, juvenile justice system should be targeting a lot fewer kids
00:28:39 --> 00:28:43 than we do generally across this nation.
00:28:44 --> 00:28:49 Yeah. So the follow-up would be, is that why you're so passionate about ending
00:28:49 --> 00:28:54 the practice of charging juveniles as adults because you said once they get
00:28:54 --> 00:28:56 in the system, they don't ever hardly get out?
00:28:58 --> 00:29:04 Absolutely. You know, I am an absolute opponent of kids being treated as adults,
00:29:04 --> 00:29:09 you know, and I know people out there say, well, what if they commit murder? I said, in that case too.
00:29:10 --> 00:29:14 You know, I'm not saying get rid of the mechanism that we used to have in juvenile
00:29:14 --> 00:29:21 courts, okay, that allowed the juvenile court judge on a case-by-case basis
00:29:21 --> 00:29:23 decide whether to transfer it over to adult court.
00:29:24 --> 00:29:27 But to automatically say that if you're, let's say, in Georgia,
00:29:27 --> 00:29:31 13 years of age or older, and you commit, you know,
00:29:31 --> 00:29:35 one of the deadly sins, as we call it, used to be the seven,
00:29:35 --> 00:29:37 now it's like up to 12 or something like that,
00:29:37 --> 00:29:41 you know, that you automatically have to go to adult court without any independent
00:29:41 --> 00:29:47 individual assessment, okay, as to whether that kid should even be an adult court.
00:29:47 --> 00:29:49 That's ridiculous, okay?
00:29:49 --> 00:29:53 That is stupidity. Based upon adolescent research.
00:29:54 --> 00:29:58 Of the mind, their mind, okay, which their frontal lobe here,
00:29:58 --> 00:30:08 which is about, you know, translating emotion into logic, is not developed for guys till 25.
00:30:08 --> 00:30:10 For women, it's, you know, 23.
00:30:11 --> 00:30:15 So hence why we have terms all our life.
00:30:15 --> 00:30:19 We've heard teenage rebellion and teens being prone to risk-taking behaviors.
00:30:19 --> 00:30:23 That's because of this part of the brain, okay? Hence why the United States
00:30:23 --> 00:30:26 Supreme Court made the decisions in Miller v.
00:30:26 --> 00:30:31 Alabama and Graham saying, no longer can we put kids in prison for life without parole.
00:30:33 --> 00:30:34 It's because of that.
00:30:38 --> 00:30:41 You're right. I'm very passionate about that. I think it's the worst thing we
00:30:41 --> 00:30:45 ever did, is pass those laws in the mid-1990s.
00:30:45 --> 00:30:51 By the way, at a height when it is true, the crime rate among juveniles,
00:30:51 --> 00:30:55 especially the violent crime, went up in peak, but it's been down ever since.
00:30:55 --> 00:30:58 Right after, right when they were passing these things, wouldn't you know,
00:30:58 --> 00:31:02 okay, it started dropping and it's been down ever since.
00:31:03 --> 00:31:07 That's the sad thing about this. We did it on a false narrative.
00:31:07 --> 00:31:10 We passed legislation on a false Samaritan.
00:31:11 --> 00:31:16 Yeah. Cause the guy that was really pushing it, I kind of compare,
00:31:16 --> 00:31:20 I can't remember his name, but he kind of, kind of compare him to like Oppenheimer. Right.
00:31:20 --> 00:31:25 It was like, you know, I made the bump and it was like, please don't use it ever again. Right.
00:31:25 --> 00:31:30 And this guy, he, he was, I think he was the one that actually coined the term super predator.
00:31:31 --> 00:31:35 DeLulio. Yeah. And, and yeah. Professor DeLulio.
00:31:35 --> 00:31:39 Yeah. And he's been like on the national circuit, I guess I don't know if he's
00:31:39 --> 00:31:43 still alive or not but I know ever since he was trying to say when he saw the
00:31:43 --> 00:31:48 data he was like going oh no no no don't pass this law or let's repeal this
00:31:48 --> 00:31:49 or whatever ever since then,
00:31:50 --> 00:31:55 You're absolutely right. And in fact, all the briefs that amicus curiae briefs,
00:31:55 --> 00:32:00 friends of the court briefs that were filed in the Graham case and the Mueller case and so forth,
00:32:00 --> 00:32:07 you will see his name on those briefs in support of the Supreme Court holding
00:32:07 --> 00:32:11 that kids should not be treated, okay, as adults. Yeah.
00:32:12 --> 00:32:15 And then I remember there was a case in Florida.
00:32:16 --> 00:32:21 There were these two kids and they were imitating what they were seeing on WWE.
00:32:22 --> 00:32:28 And one of the kids killed the other kid by doing some kind of move or whatever.
00:32:29 --> 00:32:33 And the child was a big kid physically, but he was 10. man.
00:32:34 --> 00:32:38 And, and they, you know, they convicted him and put him in jail.
00:32:38 --> 00:32:42 He wasn't in jail, he's not in jail for life, but you know, he got,
00:32:42 --> 00:32:45 he got charged, you know, like an adult. And I just thought,
00:32:45 --> 00:32:49 I mean, they were just roughhousing, you know what I'm saying?
00:32:49 --> 00:32:53 Accidents happen, you know, and it's, it's sad, but it's like,
00:32:54 --> 00:32:59 it's even more of a tragedy that now this, during the formative years of this
00:32:59 --> 00:33:01 child's life, he was going to be in prison.
00:33:01 --> 00:33:07 And it just, So I feel that same passion that you have.
00:33:07 --> 00:33:12 I think we got to have some compassion in the system because,
00:33:12 --> 00:33:17 like you said, we're not – and a lot of people don't understand that we're not fully developed.
00:33:17 --> 00:33:20 That could go a whole other track, but I'm going to try. That's right.
00:33:21 --> 00:33:26 Explain the difference of kids who make us mad versus kids who scare us.
00:33:27 --> 00:33:33 Yeah, so that goes to something I mentioned a moment ago about,
00:33:33 --> 00:33:38 you know, what is truly a delinquent act, okay,
00:33:39 --> 00:33:47 versus, you know, what was an act that's grounded more in an adolescent way
00:33:47 --> 00:33:51 due to the fact that their frontal lobe is not fully developed.
00:33:51 --> 00:33:54 Okay I I also call them
00:33:54 --> 00:34:00 POA kids those are the piss off adult kids okay you know is and I would train
00:34:00 --> 00:34:05 my intake staff I would train my probation officers you know I met with them
00:34:05 --> 00:34:10 every month okay and I would say you need to ask yourself is this a piss off
00:34:10 --> 00:34:14 adult kid okay or is this truly a delinquent kid,
00:34:14 --> 00:34:18 okay, who is committing crimes, okay.
00:34:19 --> 00:34:27 You know, not based merely upon his adolescent status, okay,
00:34:27 --> 00:34:30 but there is a propensity for criminal behavior.
00:34:31 --> 00:34:35 And one of the ways to, you know, and to look at that is, you know,
00:34:35 --> 00:34:38 what is the nature of the crime or crimes, okay?
00:34:38 --> 00:34:45 Are they public safety crimes, but the vast majority of kids that we receive
00:34:45 --> 00:34:50 in terms of complaints coming in or brought down to intake, the vast majority
00:34:50 --> 00:34:51 of them are not delinquent kids.
00:34:52 --> 00:35:02 Hence why I built my diversion division, okay, and I called it Restorative Justice Division.
00:35:02 --> 00:35:09 And what they did is that they got really good at developing various types of
00:35:09 --> 00:35:11 programs, educational, restorative.
00:35:12 --> 00:35:19 When we built our new juvenile court building, there was a mediation and restorative
00:35:19 --> 00:35:20 justice center in there.
00:35:20 --> 00:35:25 You know, we would bring people together, victims together with the juvenile
00:35:25 --> 00:35:33 offender and parents and work things out, you know, and we diverted the majority
00:35:33 --> 00:35:35 of the cases that came in.
00:35:35 --> 00:35:37 And guess what? Our crime rate went down.
00:35:38 --> 00:35:40 Our juvenile crime rate went down significantly.
00:35:40 --> 00:35:46 Okay. I mean, there's a lot of factors contributed to that. There's no silver bullet, smoking gun.
00:35:47 --> 00:35:53 Okay. But there is a comprehensive approach targeting, you know,
00:35:54 --> 00:36:02 various areas of need for young people from education and behavioral health and so on. Okay.
00:36:03 --> 00:36:06 So, yeah, you know, there's a lot of things.
00:36:06 --> 00:36:11 And that's one of the biggest mistakes we make in juvenile justice is we do
00:36:11 --> 00:36:15 not do a good job at the front door, at the gate.
00:36:15 --> 00:36:19 And we let too many kids in that don't need to come in, and we actually make
00:36:19 --> 00:36:22 them worse. We make them worse.
00:36:22 --> 00:36:30 And that's where I describe those systems as a juvenile injustice system.
00:36:31 --> 00:36:37 So I think that partially answers my next question. Why are black youth five
00:36:37 --> 00:36:41 times more likely than white youth to be incarcerated? Okay.
00:36:43 --> 00:36:47 I'm going to start with what I call a broken system. Okay.
00:36:47 --> 00:36:54 You know, Erik, I've been, you know, during my tenure, when I wasn't off on
00:36:54 --> 00:36:58 the bench, I was somewhere in the country at the request,
00:36:59 --> 00:37:03 okay, of local jurisdictions, some of them statewide jurisdictions.
00:37:05 --> 00:37:10 Wanting, wanting advice, technical, technical advice,
00:37:10 --> 00:37:16 where I would spend two or three days there working with a, their stakeholders
00:37:16 --> 00:37:23 from all the relevant agencies that touch on young people in their community about how,
00:37:23 --> 00:37:26 how to negotiate an interagency agreement where they're working together,
00:37:26 --> 00:37:31 targeting the area of needs in their community.
00:37:31 --> 00:37:38 And what I have found, Eric, is that in all these travels and meeting so many
00:37:38 --> 00:37:42 people, I've never met one that didn't care about young people. Okay.
00:37:43 --> 00:37:47 So, but it begs the question, these systems had me there because they also knew
00:37:47 --> 00:37:48 that there were racial disparities.
00:37:49 --> 00:37:52 There were, you know, in their outcomes. All right.
00:37:52 --> 00:37:59 And what What it really came down to is that I don't care how many good people
00:37:59 --> 00:38:04 are working in your juvenile justice system with a great heart and a great head.
00:38:04 --> 00:38:08 But if the system is broken, they're still going to make bad decisions.
00:38:09 --> 00:38:13 And so that helped them to focus on doing
00:38:13 --> 00:38:19 a much deeper dive and inspection of their system and helping them to implement
00:38:19 --> 00:38:30 tools to ensure that decisions they're making are not based primarily on subjective thinking, okay?
00:38:30 --> 00:38:36 Subjective judgment, where implicit bias, which is a reality,
00:38:37 --> 00:38:40 okay? can seep in, and you don't even know it.
00:38:40 --> 00:38:46 And people get, you know, they get confused. Implicit bias and racism are two
00:38:46 --> 00:38:47 different things, okay?
00:38:47 --> 00:38:53 All right? We all, regardless of our color skin, have some degree of implicit
00:38:53 --> 00:38:55 bias that operates, and we don't know it, okay?
00:38:56 --> 00:39:01 But if we can implement the right type of evidence-based tools,
00:39:01 --> 00:39:06 like detention assessment instruments or risk and needs assessment at the end
00:39:06 --> 00:39:08 of it, it's sentencing or what we call dispositions here,
00:39:09 --> 00:39:16 detention assessment, beginning assessments on diversions that not even Adolf Hitler, okay.
00:39:17 --> 00:39:19 You know, would be able to detain a Jewish kid.
00:39:20 --> 00:39:24 All right. That's what we need. And that's what systems have failed to implement.
00:39:24 --> 00:39:30 Those systems that have, have done a deeper, have done a very good job in reducing
00:39:30 --> 00:39:35 significantly the number of kids of color being detained.
00:39:36 --> 00:39:40 And it eventually works out on the streets with police because when the police,
00:39:40 --> 00:39:45 when they over time begin to realize this is not a kid that they're going to
00:39:45 --> 00:39:49 detain, this is not a kid that they're going to send over to the prosecutor's office,
00:39:50 --> 00:39:54 then it begins to open up conversation between my court and the police department
00:39:54 --> 00:39:57 where I've gone over there and had these conversations with them as to why.
00:39:57 --> 00:40:00 And then they begin to change their culture on the street.
00:40:02 --> 00:40:08 Yeah. And, you know, my state probably was one of those folks that I think that's
00:40:08 --> 00:40:11 how your name got in my mind.
00:40:11 --> 00:40:15 You know, I'm sure that we reached out to you or somebody in Mississippi reached out to you.
00:40:16 --> 00:40:17 Rush Limbaugh's brother was like,
00:40:19 --> 00:40:24 you know, on the circuit, too, as far as trying to reform juvenile justice and all that.
00:40:24 --> 00:40:28 I know he definitely came to one of our committee hearings. Well,
00:40:28 --> 00:40:31 Meridian, I was involved in Meridian.
00:40:31 --> 00:40:35 I was the expert for the Civil Rights Division, U.S.
00:40:36 --> 00:40:42 Attorney, in the lawsuit that was filed at their Meridian school system and
00:40:42 --> 00:40:45 the State Department of Juvenile Justice.
00:40:45 --> 00:40:52 And so I was certified as a litigative expert.
00:40:53 --> 00:41:01 And so I went to Meridian and I interviewed the juvenile court workers there, okay,
00:41:02 --> 00:41:08 and one of the judges and the prosecutor and the defender.
00:41:08 --> 00:41:17 And I even talked to a gathering of the NAACP and people in the community and
00:41:17 --> 00:41:18 I wrote up my expert report.
00:41:19 --> 00:41:21 Let me tell you the unique thing here.
00:41:21 --> 00:41:27 So I submitted my expert report, identified where the problems are.
00:41:29 --> 00:41:33 Next thing you know, I get a call from the lead attorney in the U.S.
00:41:33 --> 00:41:34 Attorney's Office in D.C.
00:41:35 --> 00:41:40 And says, we have an interesting scenario here.
00:41:40 --> 00:41:47 In fact, if my memory serves around, I think she even spoke to Eric Holder,
00:41:47 --> 00:41:51 the attorney general at the time, about what do we do with this?
00:41:51 --> 00:41:55 And said, well, let's let Judge Teske decide.
00:41:55 --> 00:42:00 Well, what the request was, was that the defendants wanted to know if I would
00:42:00 --> 00:42:05 be willing to provide something in writing like a practice guide on how to resolve
00:42:05 --> 00:42:07 the issues, I mentioned.
00:42:08 --> 00:42:11 And I did. I said, this is great, you know, okay.
00:42:12 --> 00:42:18 And I really believe that that facilitated the settlement agreement and the
00:42:18 --> 00:42:20 federal court judge accepted it.
00:42:21 --> 00:42:27 And practically, almost, my recommendations on how to resolve it was made part
00:42:27 --> 00:42:28 of the settlement agreement.
00:42:28 --> 00:42:31 And we know the rest of the story. There were improvements there,
00:42:31 --> 00:42:33 significant improvements in Meridian.
00:42:33 --> 00:42:37 I mean, you had kids of color, okay.
00:42:38 --> 00:42:43 There were stories of, you know, them being, the police being called to come
00:42:43 --> 00:42:46 to the school because a kid passed gas in the classroom.
00:42:47 --> 00:42:49 How ridiculous is that?
00:42:50 --> 00:42:54 What type of culture is that? Yeah.
00:42:54 --> 00:42:59 Yeah. I don't know how any of these African-American students,
00:42:59 --> 00:43:02 you know, even felt safe going to school.
00:43:02 --> 00:43:08 Yeah. That was a big deal. I mean, you know, kids were being sent.
00:43:08 --> 00:43:11 Our juvenile justice center is called Oakley.
00:43:12 --> 00:43:16 And so we had a kid that he was, he wasn't from Meridian.
00:43:16 --> 00:43:21 He was like from around Brookhaven, Macomb area, if I remember correctly.
00:43:21 --> 00:43:28 He was about 10 years old and the teacher and the law enforcement folks basically
00:43:28 --> 00:43:33 sent him to Oakley because he threw like a, a paper ball at the teacher or something.
00:43:34 --> 00:43:37 And you know was like why we were
00:43:37 --> 00:43:40 hearing stories like that was like why is this kid just
00:43:40 --> 00:43:43 like like given detention or or
00:43:43 --> 00:43:46 you know extra homework why is this kid being sent to
00:43:46 --> 00:43:50 oakley where we would have to provide him with education while he was there
00:43:50 --> 00:43:56 and it was like usually they had to stay there for like 90 days so for three
00:43:56 --> 00:44:01 months this 10 year old is there instead of in their regular the classroom or
00:44:01 --> 00:44:05 their parents dealing with them discipline-wise right so yeah it was a.
00:44:07 --> 00:44:11 You know, that's why it's such a blessing to have people like you that's committed
00:44:11 --> 00:44:13 to trying to fix these things.
00:44:13 --> 00:44:18 Well, I appreciate, Erik, there is a white elephant or brown or pink elephant,
00:44:18 --> 00:44:22 whatever preferable color is in the room.
00:44:22 --> 00:44:27 I would like to say head on, in case there's any listener who's saying,
00:44:27 --> 00:44:32 who gets stuck on the whole color thing and said, well, isn't it just because
00:44:32 --> 00:44:36 black people commit more crimes than white people?
00:44:36 --> 00:44:40 And the fallacy in that is that, well, what you're saying is that people commit
00:44:40 --> 00:44:43 crimes merely because of the color of their skin, okay?
00:44:44 --> 00:44:48 That's a ridiculous notion. I don't know even how to begin a conversation with
00:44:48 --> 00:44:49 somebody who thinks that way.
00:44:49 --> 00:44:53 So, for those who are listening, that's where you're starting.
00:44:53 --> 00:44:58 I don't think you're really doing a lot of good self-reflection in your thoughts, okay?
00:44:58 --> 00:45:02 Because you're just thinking too linearly here, okay?
00:45:03 --> 00:45:09 But, you know, people tend to commit crimes because of their circumstances Okay, all right.
00:45:10 --> 00:45:14 And that elephant in the room is
00:45:14 --> 00:45:21 that we are never really going to eliminate the racial disparities in this country
00:45:21 --> 00:45:28 until we deal with the underlying social structural conditions that continue
00:45:28 --> 00:45:34 to impede people of color from, you know,
00:45:34 --> 00:45:36 moving forward in a positive way.
00:45:36 --> 00:45:43 And a good example of that is just the recent Supreme Court decision on the gerrymandering, okay?
00:45:44 --> 00:45:49 And the whole false narrative of President Trump saying it was the Civil Rights
00:45:49 --> 00:45:54 Act and movement that has hurt white people. That floored me.
00:45:54 --> 00:46:00 That floored me, okay? I don't know, but I don't want to go down a tangent here,
00:46:00 --> 00:46:06 but that's the problem is that what we've done is we flipped civil rights on its head.
00:46:07 --> 00:46:14 Okay. And we've turned it into where now people are being penalized because,
00:46:15 --> 00:46:22 like me, who advocate that, you know, we need to be working to reduce racial disparities.
00:46:23 --> 00:46:26 But when there's a false narrative as if they don't
00:46:26 --> 00:46:32 even exist at all okay and and of course they do so my my thing i would end
00:46:32 --> 00:46:37 up saying here is that we need to start looking at poverty in a different way
00:46:37 --> 00:46:43 okay because you know when you take any you know any group.
00:46:44 --> 00:46:49 And you've enslaved him for 300 plus years. And then once you end slavery,
00:46:49 --> 00:46:51 you think it's over with, but it's not.
00:46:51 --> 00:46:55 It's just another form of institution called Jim Crow laws.
00:46:56 --> 00:47:04 You know, I mean, in my lifetime, I saw, you know, Negro only, okay, white only.
00:47:05 --> 00:47:10 You know, I saw a cross burned in Georgia in my hometown, okay,
00:47:11 --> 00:47:15 you know, where the KKK met. I saw the KKK out on the corner.
00:47:15 --> 00:47:19 Don't tell me that this is old, okay?
00:47:20 --> 00:47:26 You know, it's just been suppressed because it got to a point that it was no
00:47:26 --> 00:47:32 longer beneficial for the racists to be out loud with it.
00:47:32 --> 00:47:36 They just simply suppressed it. And in my opinion, with the rhetoric of this
00:47:36 --> 00:47:43 administration beginning in 2017 has made empowered racists to come out. Okay.
00:47:43 --> 00:47:47 And this is what we're seeing right now. And it's going to take some time to
00:47:47 --> 00:47:50 undo all this ridiculous false narrative.
00:47:51 --> 00:47:55 Anyway, I'm sorry. I get it. Well, no, but, but, you know, that was,
00:47:55 --> 00:47:59 that was kind of the, the question I was going to get, you know,
00:48:00 --> 00:48:03 away from the juvenile justice conversation because you, you,
00:48:03 --> 00:48:08 on your substat, you've been focusing on the issue of neutrality and DEI.
00:48:08 --> 00:48:15 So in light of the recent Callais decision, does that fall into the category of
00:48:15 --> 00:48:18 colorblindness becoming context blindness?
00:48:20 --> 00:48:26 Absolutely. Absolutely. When I hear the word, you know, colorblindness,
00:48:26 --> 00:48:32 while it's trying to be narrated as something good, okay,
00:48:33 --> 00:48:37 in fact, it's not good because,
00:48:38 --> 00:48:45 No, to be the risk of saying you're color blinded assumes that there is no issue
00:48:45 --> 00:48:52 of racial disparities, that there are disparities for bad and poor reasons. It assumes that.
00:48:53 --> 00:48:56 It's okay to be color blinded if we didn't have those issues,
00:48:56 --> 00:49:03 that those forms of still decisions being made in employment and hiring and
00:49:03 --> 00:49:09 so forth that are really based on implicit bias in color or.
00:49:11 --> 00:49:16 In fact, because they really are racist. We just don't know it because they're not saying it out loud.
00:49:17 --> 00:49:21 It's what I used to call it, before the phrase implicit bias came in,
00:49:21 --> 00:49:23 I used to call it subtle discrimination.
00:49:24 --> 00:49:29 But I picked up the implicit bias, it's a lot better in its description.
00:49:30 --> 00:49:38 But the word color blinded, to be color blinded, where there are systems in which
00:49:38 --> 00:49:43 there is still discrimination is hurtful because now you're going to be blinded to that stuff.
00:49:44 --> 00:49:48 You will have no reason to look for it because I'm color blinded.
00:49:49 --> 00:49:54 I'm color blinded. I don't see color. Okay. Well, wait a minute.
00:49:55 --> 00:50:00 I'm assuming that is true for you. Other people do, and they're making decisions
00:50:00 --> 00:50:03 based upon the color of one's skin, okay?
00:50:04 --> 00:50:11 And that's what's scary about the assumption that, I mean, think about it for a moment, okay?
00:50:11 --> 00:50:16 The Voting Rights Act, Section 2, that targeted the Southern states because
00:50:16 --> 00:50:21 of the history of Jim Crow in the Southern states, where, you know,
00:50:22 --> 00:50:25 the Department of Justice had to approve,
00:50:25 --> 00:50:33 okay, when a congressional district was gerrymandered to ensure that it wasn't,
00:50:33 --> 00:50:36 there was no racially motivated, okay?
00:50:36 --> 00:50:41 Well, we know, not in this recent one, but the one before the Supreme Court got rid of that.
00:50:42 --> 00:50:47 Now, with this whole thing about, you know, changing the whole thing,
00:50:47 --> 00:50:52 that it's actually discriminatory to have your majority-minority type of districts.
00:50:52 --> 00:50:59 Well, think about that. What's the first thing we've had three or four southern states do already?
00:51:00 --> 00:51:05 They do they're white they're wiping out the african
00:51:05 --> 00:51:08 majority ones they're they're doing exactly what
00:51:08 --> 00:51:11 we all knew they were going to do which is why we had the
00:51:11 --> 00:51:17 section two in the first place they're proving the supreme court wrong by their
00:51:17 --> 00:51:23 actions well now not only the section two but section five because see section
00:51:23 --> 00:51:28 five was kind of like the buff it was like you you you got this crazy idea that
00:51:28 --> 00:51:30 you want to split up Memphis three ways,
00:51:30 --> 00:51:33 well, you got to send it to us and let us assess it.
00:51:34 --> 00:51:37 And, you know, if we think that doesn't cut mustard, you know, try again.
00:51:37 --> 00:51:43 So once the robber's court in 2013 with Shelby got rid of, you know,
00:51:43 --> 00:51:47 the preclearance part, then it was already Katie Bartador anyway.
00:51:48 --> 00:51:51 And it was just a matter of time. It took them 13 years, but it was It was a
00:51:51 --> 00:51:55 matter of time before they decided, okay, now we're going to,
00:51:56 --> 00:51:59 you know, just end section two altogether, too.
00:51:59 --> 00:52:02 So, yeah, it was like, no, you weren't going down a rabbit hole.
00:52:03 --> 00:52:06 You were actually coming to where I wanted to come. You got a little sooner
00:52:06 --> 00:52:10 because I got one more question to ask you concerning juvenile justice.
00:52:10 --> 00:52:13 And it's really two questions, but I'm combining it into one.
00:52:14 --> 00:52:19 In 2012, you said, let's face it, the practice of juvenile justice has not worked
00:52:19 --> 00:52:24 for the most part. You cited that there were a lack of services available for youth.
00:52:24 --> 00:52:30 Judges were incentivized to overcommit and youth were with mental health disorders
00:52:30 --> 00:52:32 were dumped into the juvenile justice system.
00:52:33 --> 00:52:41 So, one, 14 years later, what progress have you seen made and what will it take
00:52:41 --> 00:52:44 to drastically achieve true juvenile justice reform?
00:52:46 --> 00:52:54 That's a good question. I am a proud member, now a lifetime member,
00:52:54 --> 00:53:00 of the National Council of Juvenile Family Court Judges, having served on their board of directors.
00:53:01 --> 00:53:05 And that council and its leadership...
00:53:07 --> 00:53:14 Has embraced evidence-based practices and has embraced the fact that, you know,
00:53:14 --> 00:53:19 juvenile justice systems need help, okay, that there are too many kids of color
00:53:19 --> 00:53:26 that are being just escorted right into the juvenile justice system and detention
00:53:26 --> 00:53:29 and being treated, you know, as adults.
00:53:29 --> 00:53:35 The irony here is that it was in way back after the Juvenile Justice Delinquency
00:53:35 --> 00:53:38 Prevention Act was passing has four core protections.
00:53:38 --> 00:53:43 And one of those protections, you know, is, you know, is, is to,
00:53:43 --> 00:53:47 you know, forbid the criminalization of status offenders.
00:53:47 --> 00:53:50 And for your listeners, those are the ones who, those are the kids,
00:53:50 --> 00:53:53 you know, they didn't commit a delinquent act, but they're the,
00:53:53 --> 00:53:57 one of the POA kids I described earlier. Okay. The piss off adult kids.
00:53:58 --> 00:54:03 And so the, the rule was that if they could be detained, it was,
00:54:03 --> 00:54:07 you know, no more than 24 hours they had to be released.
00:54:08 --> 00:54:12 Well, it was the National Council of Journalism and Family Court judges that
00:54:12 --> 00:54:16 lobbied Congress to create a bootstrap where,
00:54:16 --> 00:54:18 okay, if they're put on an order of supervision they violated,
00:54:19 --> 00:54:24 then they can be treated like a delinquent kid and now can be held longer. Okay.
00:54:25 --> 00:54:29 That caused a lot of problems. That made matters worse. We then started criminalizing
00:54:29 --> 00:54:34 what otherwise are status kids who just simply need to grow up a little bit
00:54:34 --> 00:54:39 more, mature a little bit more, and never would have gone on to commit any delinquent acts, okay?
00:54:40 --> 00:54:45 This National Council, though, several years ago, all right, passed a resolution.
00:54:47 --> 00:54:55 Was asked to write an article called the dichotomy of judicial leadership.
00:54:56 --> 00:55:01 And I talked to the judges and I said, what type of judge do you want to be?
00:55:02 --> 00:55:08 Do you want to be the judge who, okay, isn't going to lock up these status offenders
00:55:08 --> 00:55:11 and work with them? And sure, they may run away still.
00:55:11 --> 00:55:14 And they may end up running away and get hurt. I get that.
00:55:14 --> 00:55:19 Or do you want to be the judge who locks them up, teaches them to be criminal,
00:55:19 --> 00:55:22 who then goes on to victimize innocent people?
00:55:23 --> 00:55:26 Which judge do you want to be? Okay.
00:55:27 --> 00:55:32 That was written for the purpose of a council meeting to vote on this resolution.
00:55:33 --> 00:55:37 A copy was provided. I'm not saying that that's influenced them to do that.
00:55:37 --> 00:55:38 That's not what I'm Okay.
00:55:39 --> 00:55:42 But I am offering that. That's how important this resolution was.
00:55:43 --> 00:55:46 And what people behind the scenes, like Coalition for Juvenile Justice,
00:55:46 --> 00:55:48 asked me to write this article, get it published.
00:55:49 --> 00:55:52 They did vote to change it. And they lobbied Congress.
00:55:53 --> 00:55:59 And in the reauthorization of Juvenile Justice Delinquency Prevention Act, they got it removed.
00:55:59 --> 00:56:02 I share that story because
00:56:02 --> 00:56:09 it's that type of leadership in this country that we are seeing more juvenile
00:56:09 --> 00:56:17 justice systems at the local level that are implementing the types of evidence-based
00:56:17 --> 00:56:21 practices to reduce racial disparities,
00:56:21 --> 00:56:24 to ensure that kids are treated,
00:56:25 --> 00:56:29 are assessed appropriately to determine what are the underlying criminogenic
00:56:29 --> 00:56:33 factors, the reasons why this child is doing what this child is doing.
00:56:33 --> 00:56:36 Now, let's take what we know about.
00:56:37 --> 00:56:43 This kid's underlying criminogenic factors, what programs do we have out there
00:56:43 --> 00:56:48 that have been studied, they are evidence-based, and target that kid with those
00:56:48 --> 00:56:52 programs that change things around in this kid's life.
00:56:52 --> 00:56:57 And we also know that it involves the family in particular, that we need the
00:56:57 --> 00:56:58 parents involved in this.
00:56:58 --> 00:57:04 Hence why we have, you know, MST, multisystemic therapy, family functional therapy,
00:57:04 --> 00:57:08 things that I brought into my court. What a difference it made, Eric.
00:57:08 --> 00:57:14 I mean, it made a big difference. We were able to reduce commitments to the state significantly.
00:57:14 --> 00:57:17 Did our crime rates go up? No, they went down.
00:57:18 --> 00:57:25 Okay. That's why so many people ask me and my team to travel the country because I'm in Clayton County.
00:57:25 --> 00:57:29 Clayton County is like the poorest county in all Metro Atlanta. Okay.
00:57:29 --> 00:57:33 All right. You know, we're the ones who are supposed to have the higher juvenile
00:57:33 --> 00:57:35 crime rates, but ours was going down.
00:57:36 --> 00:57:41 And they wanted to know why. And researchers came in, I'm looking over here,
00:57:41 --> 00:57:46 there's a book called A Handbook for Evidence-Based Juvenile Justice Systems, okay?
00:57:46 --> 00:57:52 Clayton County's right in it, okay? So, to sum up, you know,
00:57:52 --> 00:57:56 we got to get out of the traditional thinking, the linear thinking,
00:57:57 --> 00:58:01 okay, that some people make, whether it's like I said earlier.
00:58:01 --> 00:58:04 Those who say, well, maybe black people commit crimes because,
00:58:04 --> 00:58:08 you know, of the color of their skin and how ridiculous that is. No, no.
00:58:08 --> 00:58:14 Come on, folks, okay? We got to look at every kid on a case-by-case basis.
00:58:14 --> 00:58:17 We have to assess every kid. We need to do what's inconvenient.
00:58:18 --> 00:58:21 We need to create juvenile justice systems that are inconvenient,
00:58:21 --> 00:58:26 not for the kids, but for the people who work the juvenile justice system, okay?
00:58:26 --> 00:58:28 Because my mama told me if she was right.
00:58:30 --> 00:58:35 When I come home from school, my mom would say, why are you doing it this way?
00:58:35 --> 00:58:36 And I would say it's the easy way.
00:58:37 --> 00:58:43 Oh, son, son, do you know the convenient, the easy way is usually not the right way?
00:58:43 --> 00:58:48 And that's the work of juvenile justice. That's the work of any type of criminal
00:58:48 --> 00:58:51 justice or juvenile justice reform to make things work.
00:58:51 --> 00:58:55 If we really want the outcomes that's going to improve public safety,
00:58:55 --> 00:59:00 if we really care, We're going to do the things that are the most inconvenient.
00:59:01 --> 00:59:06 Oh, yeah. All right. So I'm doing this with my guest to close out.
00:59:06 --> 00:59:09 Finish this sentence. I have hope because.
00:59:09 --> 00:59:18 I have hope because I have seen,
00:59:18 --> 00:59:23 as I mentioned a moment ago, with my
00:59:23 --> 00:59:27 involvement in the National Council of Jewel Family Court Judges and the leadership
00:59:27 --> 00:59:34 of the National Council and the training they're providing to judges across
00:59:34 --> 00:59:39 this country who are now exercising their judicial leadership.
00:59:39 --> 00:59:43 Because the emphasis is by the council has been on judicial leadership.
00:59:43 --> 00:59:47 You know, I've often said and have written about it that, you know,
00:59:48 --> 00:59:52 the due process that I must give on the bench,
00:59:52 --> 00:59:58 okay, is the quality of is dependent on the work I do off the bench.
00:59:59 --> 01:00:03 If I'm going to fashion an order to put a kid on probation and say,
01:00:03 --> 01:00:08 I want him to go to this particular program, well, I'd better know about that program.
01:00:09 --> 01:00:13 I shouldn't be put anything in that order unless I know that's a successful
01:00:13 --> 01:00:18 program That I am, I'm increasing the odds that this kid is going to do better because of that program.
01:00:19 --> 01:00:23 If I have to put a kid in detention, have I been down to the detention center?
01:00:24 --> 01:00:25 Have I seen what it's like?
01:00:26 --> 01:00:30 Have I talked to the kids there? Do I know that they're treating them well?
01:00:30 --> 01:00:34 Because if I haven't done that, then shame on me That's negligence as a judge.
01:00:36 --> 01:00:39 Because the buck stops with me, like Truman said. My name's on that order.
01:00:40 --> 01:00:42 I'm ultimately responsible. I can't blame detention.
01:00:42 --> 01:00:47 I can't blame probation. I can't blame the Department of Juvenile Justice if I commit a kid there.
01:00:47 --> 01:00:53 I need to know whether what I'm doing is going to be safe for that kid and better for that kid.
01:00:53 --> 01:01:00 But there are more and more judges that we see because of folks like the world's
01:01:00 --> 01:01:05 largest judges council in the world out of Reno is building that type of leadership.
01:01:06 --> 01:01:10 And more judges are stepping out and not afraid to step out.
01:01:11 --> 01:01:20 That is the hope that I have based upon what I see and hear from my colleagues.
01:01:20 --> 01:01:27 That's a growing number who it's no longer where it used to be. Like I felt lonely.
01:01:27 --> 01:01:30 Erik, I don't feel so lonely anymore.
01:01:31 --> 01:01:35 Amen. Judge Teske, how can people get in touch with you? How can they follow
01:01:35 --> 01:01:39 you? Go ahead and just let people know.
01:01:40 --> 01:01:44 Yeah, sure. So, you know, I'm an open book, okay?
01:01:44 --> 01:01:53 If it's an email, it's S-C-T-E-S-K-E-Law at Outlook.com. That's simple.
01:01:54 --> 01:01:58 You know, I have no problem with you. Bess, if you text me, though,
01:01:59 --> 01:02:03 my number is 404-754-9071.
01:02:03 --> 01:02:08 If you have a question, because if you call me, if I'm not familiar with the
01:02:08 --> 01:02:11 number, I got to be careful, right? Okay, but it's best if you text me.
01:02:12 --> 01:02:15 And that's what I do with my college students that I teach.
01:02:15 --> 01:02:19 Now, you mentioned Substack, so it would be Steven with a V as in Victor,
01:02:20 --> 01:02:25 Teske, all one word, StevenTeske.Substack.com.
01:02:25 --> 01:02:31 Okay, you'll get both podcast as well as podcast versions of my written essays. Okay.
01:02:31 --> 01:02:35 Right now I'm doing a series on in defense of DEI. Okay.
01:02:36 --> 01:02:39 Also have another podcast a little different angles called the
01:02:39 --> 01:02:42 Teske brief it's a youtube channel okay so
01:02:42 --> 01:02:47 if you just go ahead and google the Teske brief it'll it'll it'll it'll it'll
01:02:47 --> 01:02:53 take you there and and you can just subscribe it's like any video bottom right
01:02:53 --> 01:02:58 hand corner hit that subscribe button and just as you can with my substact and
01:02:58 --> 01:03:02 then as i publish them they'll be dropped into your email or on your phone if it's the YouTube.
01:03:03 --> 01:03:06 So that's pretty much it, Erik.
01:03:07 --> 01:03:10 Well, Judge Steve Teske, let me just say thank you.
01:03:11 --> 01:03:17 One, for coming on the podcast and two, for dedicating your life to the work
01:03:17 --> 01:03:22 that you've done with juvenile justice and also in other aspects of the law.
01:03:24 --> 01:03:29 One of the cool things about this podcast is that I get to highlight people.
01:03:29 --> 01:03:32 Some have already been highlighted on the national level and all that,
01:03:32 --> 01:03:37 but it's my personal privilege to highlight folks to my listeners that are really,
01:03:37 --> 01:03:41 really trying to make things better for all of us, and especially somebody that's
01:03:41 --> 01:03:47 trying to make it better for our children, even when they might go a little astray.
01:03:47 --> 01:03:52 So I just personally thank you for the work that you've done and that you continue to do.
01:03:52 --> 01:03:56 And again, thank you for coming on the show. I appreciate that, Erik.
01:03:56 --> 01:04:02 And I appreciate your show and the way that you do highlight the good work of
01:04:02 --> 01:04:05 people. And it's been an honor to have this conversation with you.
01:04:06 --> 01:04:07 All right, guys. And we're going to catch y'all.
01:04:27 --> 01:04:34 All right, and we are back. And so now it is time for my next guest, Dr. Jessica Kriegel.
01:04:34 --> 01:04:40 Jessica Kriegel is a workplace culture expert, keynote speaker, and researcher.
01:04:40 --> 01:04:46 As chief strategy officer of Culture Partners, she leads research that challenges
01:04:46 --> 01:04:52 outdated ideas about control, power, and performance, offering bold new frameworks
01:04:52 --> 01:04:54 that drive real business results.
01:04:54 --> 01:05:00 She's the host of the CEO Daily Brief and Culture Leaders podcast and a frequent
01:05:00 --> 01:05:04 guest on CNN, Fox Business, CNBC, and Bloomberg.
01:05:05 --> 01:05:10 Jessica holds an MBA and a doctorate in leadership with a specialization in
01:05:10 --> 01:05:11 human resources development.
01:05:12 --> 01:05:17 She is currently pursuing a Master of Divinity and is also a trained deaf doula,
01:05:17 --> 01:05:20 a role that deepens her presence and perspective as a leader.
01:05:20 --> 01:05:26 Her first book, Unfairly Labeled, breaks down generational myths in the workplace.
01:05:26 --> 01:05:34 Her current book, Surrender to Lead, was launched in January of 2026.
01:05:34 --> 01:05:38 When she's not doing all that, she's cruising around Sacramento,
01:05:38 --> 01:05:42 California, on a motorcycle sidecar with her eight-year-old daughter.
01:05:42 --> 01:05:47 Ladies and gentlemen, it is my distinct honor and privilege to have as a guest
01:05:47 --> 01:05:50 on this podcast, Dr. Jessica Kriegel.
01:06:01 --> 01:06:06 All right. Dr. Jessica Kriegel. How are you doing, ma'am? You doing good?
01:06:07 --> 01:06:11 I'm doing good. How are you? I'm doing lovely. I'm really, really honored that
01:06:11 --> 01:06:13 you accepted my invitation to come on.
01:06:14 --> 01:06:20 I know that you're one of those people, especially in the business community, that's in high demand.
01:06:21 --> 01:06:27 And I guess the challenge, if it is a challenge for somebody as smart as you,
01:06:27 --> 01:06:32 is we're going to have this discussion about some of the things that you teach
01:06:32 --> 01:06:36 and write about, but kind of put it in a political context.
01:06:37 --> 01:06:42 Okay. Yeah. And so, because this is supposedly a political show,
01:06:42 --> 01:06:46 sometimes I think it's more of a doom and gloom show where things are going
01:06:46 --> 01:06:49 here in America, but we're hanging in there.
01:06:51 --> 01:06:56 Yeah, I know, right? So normally what I do is I do a couple of icebreaker things
01:06:56 --> 01:06:58 to kind of get the conversation going.
01:06:59 --> 01:07:02 And the first is I want you to respond to this quote.
01:07:03 --> 01:07:08 The more I've experienced with life, I'm like, I don't know crap.
01:07:10 --> 01:07:15 Yeah. Amen. That is how I feel. And I'm grateful for that experience.
01:07:16 --> 01:07:23 The more I feel like I don't know, the more humble I am being and the more on track to truth I feel.
01:07:23 --> 01:07:28 Because I remember being young and knowing everything.
01:07:28 --> 01:07:33 And I look back on that with 2020 vision now, 2020 in quotes,
01:07:33 --> 01:07:38 I'm being funny, and realizing how ignorant I was.
01:07:38 --> 01:07:43 And so, I mean, that also goes not to make it religious or spiritual in nature,
01:07:43 --> 01:07:45 but that also goes for my belief in God.
01:07:45 --> 01:07:49 The less I understand it, the more I feel like I am close to it.
01:07:50 --> 01:07:55 Because if I can put it in a box, label it and say it's exactly this and nothing
01:07:55 --> 01:07:57 else, well, then it's not a higher power.
01:07:57 --> 01:07:59 I've put it in a little box. It's a lower power, you know?
01:07:59 --> 01:08:07 So, amen. Yeah, I relate to that because, you know, when I was elected,
01:08:07 --> 01:08:10 I was fairly young. I was in my 30s when I was elected.
01:08:11 --> 01:08:17 And now I look back at my life and I'm like going, God, I was really kind of
01:08:17 --> 01:08:19 winging it a little bit. I thought I knew a lot.
01:08:19 --> 01:08:25 You know, I had studied all my life is what I went to school for and, you know, my passion.
01:08:25 --> 01:08:29 And then I look back now, you know, years later, I'm like going,
01:08:29 --> 01:08:32 you know, I could have done this. I shouldn't have done that.
01:08:33 --> 01:08:36 So, you know, I think all of us go through that.
01:08:37 --> 01:08:42 Yeah. And I will say I'm a keynote speaker. I've been keynoting for 12 years now.
01:08:42 --> 01:08:48 And if I look back at the keynotes I gave just last year, I'm embarrassed by them.
01:08:48 --> 01:08:52 And last year, if I looked at the year before that, I was embarrassed by those.
01:08:52 --> 01:08:57 But every time I've given a keynote, I've been really proud of myself for how good I'm doing.
01:08:57 --> 01:09:01 And so, yeah, next year I'm going to be embarrassed by what I'm doing right
01:09:01 --> 01:09:03 now, even though right now I come off the stage and I think I'm nailing it.
01:09:04 --> 01:09:09 Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think all of us that have had that experience in public
01:09:09 --> 01:09:14 speaking, it's like when you're making that speech, you've done your notes and
01:09:14 --> 01:09:17 it's like, and you feel like the audience got it.
01:09:18 --> 01:09:21 Yeah. And then when you look back, it's like, did I really have to talk that
01:09:21 --> 01:09:26 long? Why did I put out, you know? Yeah. So I definitely. Exactly.
01:09:26 --> 01:09:29 All right. So now the next icebreaker is what we call 20 questions.
01:09:30 --> 01:09:33 So I need you to give me a number between one and 20.
01:09:34 --> 01:09:35 18. All right.
01:09:37 --> 01:09:41 What is one thing we might all agree is important no matter our differences?
01:09:42 --> 01:09:47 Oof. I have wondered this. I remember first thinking this in third grade.
01:09:47 --> 01:09:50 I was in elementary school thinking, is there one thing we can all agree on?
01:09:51 --> 01:09:57 And I think where I've landed is nothing because there's always going to be that oddball.
01:09:57 --> 01:10:02 There's always going to be that sociopath or that complete insane person who
01:10:02 --> 01:10:05 will not get on board with what feels very logical.
01:10:05 --> 01:10:10 I think politically, since this is a political show, I think right now the left
01:10:10 --> 01:10:12 and the right are a lot closer than they seem.
01:10:13 --> 01:10:18 And I believe that a new sort of third party is emerging that is more focused
01:10:18 --> 01:10:22 on the American people, on the economic situation and maybe foreign policy.
01:10:22 --> 01:10:28 So I do believe that we are more united than they would want you to believe
01:10:28 --> 01:10:33 at this time, to make a counter argument to my first response.
01:10:33 --> 01:10:38 Well, I just had a guest on last week, and he would be glad to hear you say
01:10:38 --> 01:10:43 that, because that's one of his missions is trying to build the momentum for
01:10:43 --> 01:10:46 a third party here in the United States. I think...
01:10:47 --> 01:10:53 I think it's due, but it's so hard to do that. But yeah, I think you're right.
01:10:53 --> 01:10:57 I think people have more in common than what they believe in.
01:10:57 --> 01:11:01 And one of the things I used to tell folks about my experience in the legislature
01:11:01 --> 01:11:08 was that what makes the news, what we disagree on, might only be like 5% of
01:11:08 --> 01:11:09 the agenda we deal with that session.
01:11:10 --> 01:11:14 Because the majority of the time, we're just pushing that yes button. Yeah, yeah.
01:11:14 --> 01:11:18 You know, once somebody makes the case, we're like, Yeah, that makes sense.
01:11:18 --> 01:11:24 And we vote for it. It's the stuff that we don't agree on that everybody pays
01:11:24 --> 01:11:29 attention to. Yeah, it's the cultural stuff and the identity politics.
01:11:29 --> 01:11:32 And that feels so personal.
01:11:32 --> 01:11:38 And so the animosity around that and the vitriol around that is much more escalated.
01:11:38 --> 01:11:39 And so it gets more clicks.
01:11:39 --> 01:11:44 And so therefore, it feels like it's the most important thing for everyone because
01:11:44 --> 01:11:46 it's talked about the most.
01:11:46 --> 01:11:53 And in reality, I think there's a lot that is important and that we agree upon
01:11:53 --> 01:11:55 that just doesn't get clicks. Yeah.
01:11:56 --> 01:11:59 All right. For starters, I'm going to do I'm going to flip something that you
01:11:59 --> 01:12:04 do on the podcast. So I'm going to flip it and ask you, what is your why?
01:12:05 --> 01:12:11 Thank you. That is the first question I ask on my podcast. And my why is to serve God and others.
01:12:12 --> 01:12:15 I like to keep it simple. If I'm serving God and I'm serving others,
01:12:15 --> 01:12:19 then I'm doing something that's aligned with what I see is fulfilling my purpose.
01:12:20 --> 01:12:23 Simple to the point because that that if you if you're serving
01:12:23 --> 01:12:26 god and i also happen to be a
01:12:26 --> 01:12:29 christian as well i i you know i think
01:12:29 --> 01:12:32 that that really does encompass everything if
01:12:32 --> 01:12:36 if that's your that's your north star that's your focus you
01:12:36 --> 01:12:43 know but as we know god can take us down some very interesting trails that we
01:12:43 --> 01:12:48 didn't think we would be navigating yeah you once said that i I learned the
01:12:48 --> 01:12:53 hard way that control has a ceiling, but surrender has no limits.
01:12:54 --> 01:13:02 You can't force extraordinary outcomes, but you can create the conditions where they happen naturally.
01:13:02 --> 01:13:06 So what is this concept about surrendering to lead?
01:13:08 --> 01:13:12 So we wake up every morning,
01:13:12 --> 01:13:16 you know, the high, when I say we, the high achievers, the people pursuing the
01:13:16 --> 01:13:22 American dream, the executives, the politicians, the folks who are moving the
01:13:22 --> 01:13:24 world forward, they wake up every morning and they're wondering,
01:13:24 --> 01:13:25 what can I achieve today?
01:13:25 --> 01:13:28 What is it that I'm going to progress the ball forward on?
01:13:29 --> 01:13:33 And we want to get a result. We have a dream. We have some outcome.
01:13:33 --> 01:13:40 And we know that all results come from you taking action or the team taking
01:13:40 --> 01:13:42 action. Action leads to results.
01:13:43 --> 01:13:46 And that is where a lot of people stop their thinking.
01:13:46 --> 01:13:49 They know that results come from actions. And so then they focus on actions.
01:13:50 --> 01:13:52 What do I got to do to get the result? What do I got to do to get the result?
01:13:52 --> 01:13:55 And when you're a leader, that looks like, what do you have to do to get the
01:13:55 --> 01:13:57 result? Here's what you have to do to get the result.
01:13:57 --> 01:14:00 Are you doing the thing in order to get the result? And that is the control
01:14:00 --> 01:14:03 dynamic. It's the command and control leadership style.
01:14:03 --> 01:14:06 And it is incredibly limiting. It does work to some extent.
01:14:07 --> 01:14:10 That's why it's seductive. You see progress being made when you focus on what
01:14:10 --> 01:14:12 actions need to be taken to get the result.
01:14:13 --> 01:14:15 But it does limit you. That's what I mean by control has a ceiling,
01:14:15 --> 01:14:21 because when you control what other people are doing, you remove their creative
01:14:21 --> 01:14:23 input from the equation.
01:14:23 --> 01:14:28 They follow instructions. You've you've limited their best thinking to your thinking.
01:14:28 --> 01:14:33 So going back to the very first quote you shared with me is the less you don't
01:14:33 --> 01:14:38 know everything and the collective intelligence of the team might be more powerful. Yeah.
01:14:39 --> 01:14:44 That's one way of thinking it. But really, where this unlocks for people and
01:14:44 --> 01:14:49 where they realize the power of surrender is when you understand that people
01:14:49 --> 01:14:52 will take action based on the beliefs that they hold,
01:14:52 --> 01:14:54 not based on what you've told them to do.
01:14:55 --> 01:14:57 I mean, you as a politician will understand this more than anyone.
01:14:58 --> 01:15:00 You can't just tell people what to do and they're going to magically do it.
01:15:00 --> 01:15:03 They will act in alignment with what they believe.
01:15:03 --> 01:15:06 And so if you want them to take action so that you can get a result,
01:15:06 --> 01:15:11 the best use of your time and energy is on understanding what their beliefs
01:15:11 --> 01:15:16 are and how you can impact shifting those beliefs.
01:15:16 --> 01:15:21 And people's beliefs shift based on the experiences that they've had.
01:15:21 --> 01:15:23 All of our beliefs come from experiences.
01:15:24 --> 01:15:27 And so if you want people to believe something different, you've got to create
01:15:27 --> 01:15:31 a new experience for them that will shift that belief.
01:15:31 --> 01:15:34 And that is what you as a leader can do is instead of focusing on what do I
01:15:34 --> 01:15:38 need and what can I get people to do, which is a very inward focused mentality,
01:15:39 --> 01:15:44 it's how can I show up and what experience can I create for those around me
01:15:44 --> 01:15:48 that may impact the beliefs they hold, which may lead them to take new action,
01:15:48 --> 01:15:51 which will help us get the result that I'm working towards.
01:15:51 --> 01:15:57 It's a different way of approaching driving results, and it unlocks the potential.
01:15:57 --> 01:15:59 We did research with this with Stanford Graduate Business School.
01:16:00 --> 01:16:05 The companies that use the surrendered approach, they grew four times in their
01:16:05 --> 01:16:08 revenue growth over the course of three years than the companies that were in
01:16:08 --> 01:16:09 the command and control approach.
01:16:10 --> 01:16:17 So this works, but it requires letting go. And in leadership and corporate organizations
01:16:17 --> 01:16:21 especially, letting go feels like the opposite of what you've got to do to drive
01:16:21 --> 01:16:23 results. And so it is counterintuitive.
01:16:24 --> 01:16:31 So your answer kind of – well, there were a couple of questions and your answer kind of –.
01:16:33 --> 01:16:37 Makes me want to do i i'm trying to think do i want to ask these questions now
01:16:37 --> 01:16:42 or do i want to save them but you you touched on a couple of things i want to
01:16:42 --> 01:16:49 ask you about in detail dealing with creating the experiences so let me go ahead
01:16:49 --> 01:16:51 and ask you how does a political leader,
01:16:52 --> 01:16:57 create the right conditions and experiences that change how people think and act specifically.
01:16:58 --> 01:17:02 Question. So there are lots of different experiences that you can create.
01:17:03 --> 01:17:05 A very simple one is storytelling.
01:17:05 --> 01:17:11 The narrative that you create by telling stories is a very, very powerful experience.
01:17:11 --> 01:17:14 It's why Hollywood makes so much money. We love hearing stories.
01:17:14 --> 01:17:19 Stories change our beliefs. And so the stories that a politician tells will
01:17:19 --> 01:17:24 shift beliefs, and that will lead people to take action, and that will get you a result.
01:17:24 --> 01:17:28 But storytelling isn't the only tool. I mean, there's also this element,
01:17:28 --> 01:17:34 you have to understand, of people interpreting what they hear through the lens
01:17:34 --> 01:17:36 of how authentic they believe it is.
01:17:36 --> 01:17:41 So when we hear a story, but then we see action from that leader that doesn't
01:17:41 --> 01:17:44 match that story, we have a spidey sense that goes off.
01:17:44 --> 01:17:48 And so the behavior and the leader interactions,
01:17:48 --> 01:17:52 whether they be one-on-one with someone in a room or whether they be recorded
01:17:52 --> 01:17:57 on TV and then posted on the news, people are watching how you behave,
01:17:57 --> 01:18:00 and they are drawing beliefs from that behavior.
01:18:00 --> 01:18:04 So whether you are smiling when you walk in the room or not smiling,
01:18:04 --> 01:18:08 whether you're asking questions on a call or whether you just didn't even show
01:18:08 --> 01:18:10 up to the call at all, these are all experiences that you're creating.
01:18:11 --> 01:18:17 So being intentional about how you show up is one way that I think everyone
01:18:17 --> 01:18:24 is trying to do that to some extent because they know that they've got the magnifying glass on them.
01:18:24 --> 01:18:30 But being intentional about the stories that you tell is one untapped resource
01:18:30 --> 01:18:32 that I think could be leveraged much more.
01:18:32 --> 01:18:37 And just those two things alone, that will change a campaign.
01:18:37 --> 01:18:43 Well, that's a gospel this podcast has been preaching as far as storytelling.
01:18:45 --> 01:18:50 You know, that's been one of the criticisms from my end of the spectrum. I'm a Democrat.
01:18:52 --> 01:18:58 And one of the things that, you know, I accuse fellow Democrats and,
01:18:58 --> 01:19:03 you know, people in general is that we don't we're not effective storytellers.
01:19:04 --> 01:19:10 Like, yeah, you were telling the story about your daughter when y'all were sightseeing
01:19:10 --> 01:19:15 in D.C. and you found out that she thought Thomas Jefferson was black, right?
01:19:15 --> 01:19:21 Yeah. And out of that, you were talking about because of her experiences,
01:19:22 --> 01:19:25 you know, that's her socialization.
01:19:25 --> 01:19:29 That's how she figured out, well, she was kind of shocked. It's like,
01:19:29 --> 01:19:31 how did a black man own slave? You know what I'm saying?
01:19:31 --> 01:19:37 Right. So it was like, but in that you were talking about how important it is
01:19:37 --> 01:19:42 for storytelling because storytelling is what molded her. Because she saw Hamilton.
01:19:43 --> 01:19:47 And storytelling was based, she just internalized that, right?
01:19:48 --> 01:19:54 And that's something that we as Democrats will throw out all these facts.
01:19:54 --> 01:19:58 Because you said leaders make the assumption on facts.
01:19:58 --> 01:20:03 Yeah. That everybody should know these basic things. But it's like...
01:20:04 --> 01:20:10 But you've got to be able to relate to the people that you're trying to get to vote for you.
01:20:10 --> 01:20:15 So am I on track with what you were trying to convey in that story?
01:20:15 --> 01:20:19 Yeah, absolutely. I mean, she's obsessed with the Broadway show Hamilton,
01:20:19 --> 01:20:21 and Jefferson is played by a black man.
01:20:21 --> 01:20:24 And the narrative grabbed her.
01:20:24 --> 01:20:31 And then sneakily, invisibly, a belief formed that Thomas Jefferson was black.
01:20:31 --> 01:20:34 And she thought all of our founding fathers were black because they're all played
01:20:34 --> 01:20:36 by people of color in the show that she loves so much.
01:20:36 --> 01:20:41 So you don't even know what people believe and they don't even know the beliefs
01:20:41 --> 01:20:45 that they hold this is the bias story what is the bias that we have that gets
01:20:45 --> 01:20:49 our in the way of us thinking some you know realizing something or what our
01:20:49 --> 01:20:53 blind spots are but facts don't change people's behavior.
01:20:54 --> 01:21:01 If facts changed behavior we would all be supermodels right i mean we would
01:21:01 --> 01:21:06 we all know that you got to calories in, calories out. You got to work out. You got to eat right.
01:21:07 --> 01:21:13 I mean, it's not like it's a mystery how to get in shape, but we all struggle with it.
01:21:13 --> 01:21:16 I mean, I just had a bunch of Reese's Pieces right before this.
01:21:16 --> 01:21:21 Is it because I forgot the facts that's going to go to my stomach?
01:21:21 --> 01:21:25 Or is it just like, you know, I've had an experience which I'm really stressed
01:21:25 --> 01:21:28 out and the belief I hold is I deserve this Reese's Pieces.
01:21:28 --> 01:21:32 You know, We act in alignment with our beliefs and the facts aren't going to
01:21:32 --> 01:21:33 change those beliefs. Yeah.
01:21:34 --> 01:21:40 Going further down this trail, you said culture isn't what you say in a town hall.
01:21:40 --> 01:21:46 It's what people experience every day. So my question based on that is why do you think.
01:21:47 --> 01:21:50 Politicians have a hard time grasping that concept.
01:21:51 --> 01:21:56 It's not just politicians. I think as leaders, we think in any capacity,
01:21:56 --> 01:22:02 if you are a leader, we believe that the job of a leader is to tell people what to do.
01:22:03 --> 01:22:07 You all hired me or you all elected me or you all, you know,
01:22:07 --> 01:22:11 created, donated to my campaign in order to hear what I have to say.
01:22:11 --> 01:22:15 And I have to prove myself as being smart and knowledgeable and having all the
01:22:15 --> 01:22:19 answers. And so we're telling people what to do and we're telling people what to think.
01:22:20 --> 01:22:25 And the reality is great leaders are much more listeners than they are tellers.
01:22:25 --> 01:22:29 And, you know, a corporate CEO that goes into a town hall that says everyone,
01:22:29 --> 01:22:33 hey, we're going to be risk takers now. I mean, that doesn't do anything to
01:22:33 --> 01:22:35 the hearts and minds of the people in the audience.
01:22:35 --> 01:22:39 And the same way with politicians, when you go up to the podium and you tell
01:22:39 --> 01:22:44 everyone what they have to do, it doesn't change the hearts and minds of the voter.
01:22:44 --> 01:22:51 So we have to understand that people, you know, you're in your movie and I'm in my movie.
01:22:51 --> 01:22:57 Everyone's in their own movie. You can't expect them to walk into your movie
01:22:57 --> 01:23:01 just because you've got the bigger paycheck.
01:23:01 --> 01:23:05 You have whatever it is. That's hubris.
01:23:06 --> 01:23:07 Okay. Okay.
01:23:07 --> 01:23:11 So Proverbs 25, 28 says, a man
01:23:11 --> 01:23:15 without self-control is like a city broken into and left without walls.
01:23:16 --> 01:23:23 So in developing the skill set of surrendering to lead, one must improve self-control
01:23:23 --> 01:23:27 and cast aside the urge of subjugation, correct?
01:23:27 --> 01:23:37 Yeah, absolutely. I mean, mastery, self-mastery is ultimately the ultimate act of surrender.
01:23:38 --> 01:23:42 Because, for example, the Navy SEALs have a saying, which is control the controllables.
01:23:43 --> 01:23:46 The corollary, the hidden corollary
01:23:46 --> 01:23:50 in that message is, and stop trying to control the uncontrollables.
01:23:50 --> 01:23:54 The only thing that you can control is yourself.
01:23:54 --> 01:23:59 And everything outside of you, the team, the context, the circumstances,
01:24:00 --> 01:24:02 all of that is outside of your control.
01:24:02 --> 01:24:05 And yet we spend so much of our energy wishing it was different.
01:24:05 --> 01:24:10 Thinking other people should act differently or show up differently.
01:24:10 --> 01:24:16 And that's focusing on this delusion that you have control that you don't have.
01:24:16 --> 01:24:21 So self-control and self-mastery is the ultimate way to surrender because you
01:24:21 --> 01:24:24 are giving up all the things that are outside of your control that you never
01:24:24 --> 01:24:29 had control of in the first place and focusing on you and what experiences you create.
01:24:30 --> 01:24:36 Yeah. I use a lot of sports analogies and when you were talking about the Navy
01:24:36 --> 01:24:41 SEAL thing, I think about a running back in football, right?
01:24:41 --> 01:24:45 So a running back in football, their job is to get the ball and advance the
01:24:45 --> 01:24:47 ball as far as they can on a handoff.
01:24:48 --> 01:24:50 And, you know, sometimes that
01:24:50 --> 01:24:56 running back finds a gap and takes off about 15, 20 yards at the minimum.
01:24:57 --> 01:24:59 Sometimes, you know, they run
01:24:59 --> 01:25:02 that same play and it's like they can't get past the line of scrimmage.
01:25:03 --> 01:25:08 And so, you know, they asked the guy, a running back one time,
01:25:08 --> 01:25:11 it was like, because he was having a slow start to the season.
01:25:13 --> 01:25:17 And, you know, they said, well, what do you think the problem is?
01:25:17 --> 01:25:21 Because you were running all over the league the season before.
01:25:21 --> 01:25:25 And he said, I'm just trying to do what I can do.
01:25:26 --> 01:25:32 When the quarterback gives me the ball, I know where I'm supposed to go, and I go there.
01:25:32 --> 01:25:36 And it just
01:25:36 --> 01:25:38 seems like this season i can't get to where
01:25:38 --> 01:25:41 i want to go for stuff that i
01:25:41 --> 01:25:46 don't understand right and and basically what he was you know basically what
01:25:46 --> 01:25:52 he was saying in a polite way was that last season those guys were moving the
01:25:52 --> 01:25:56 pile so he could get to where he needed to be this year they're not doing their
01:25:56 --> 01:26:01 job well he can't control what the line does all he can do is control.
01:26:01 --> 01:26:04 Well, I got the ball. I know which direction I want to go.
01:26:05 --> 01:26:08 Maybe I can do a little move to kind of make something happen.
01:26:08 --> 01:26:13 But really, if the play is broken down, it's broken down. He can't do anything.
01:26:13 --> 01:26:17 And I think that's to me, that's the essence of what you're saying is that.
01:26:18 --> 01:26:23 Just do what you can do. Be the best self you can be.
01:26:24 --> 01:26:31 And then if everything goes right, it'll radiate to greater things happening.
01:26:32 --> 01:26:36 Did I oversimplify that or is that? No, that's beautiful.
01:26:36 --> 01:26:40 That's exactly right. We spend a lot of time playing the blame game. Whose fault is this?
01:26:40 --> 01:26:43 Well, that's not my job. I didn't even know. Ignore,
01:26:43 --> 01:26:47 deny, cover your tail there's all these excuses that
01:26:47 --> 01:26:51 we like to use to shirk accountability
01:26:51 --> 01:26:54 and accountability is a bad
01:26:54 --> 01:26:58 rap because we only hold people accountable when something goes wrong and so
01:26:58 --> 01:27:03 a new way of thinking about accountability is it is the personal choice to focus
01:27:03 --> 01:27:08 on what you can control to drive the results forward and if you are making that
01:27:08 --> 01:27:12 personal choice to focus on what you can control every day, then you are taking
01:27:12 --> 01:27:13 ultimate accountability.
01:27:13 --> 01:27:19 And you waste a lot less time talking about all of the people,
01:27:19 --> 01:27:23 circumstances, and environments that are making your life harder,
01:27:23 --> 01:27:25 which is really a waste of effort. Yeah.
01:27:26 --> 01:27:34 All right. Excuse me. So there's a couple of things I want you to explain before we get through.
01:27:34 --> 01:27:38 So I've got about two or three more questions.
01:27:38 --> 01:27:41 Break down the results equation.
01:27:42 --> 01:27:50 Happily. So the results equation is purpose, strategy, and culture all aligned to drive results.
01:27:50 --> 01:27:57 And these are the three core elements of any effort to drive results.
01:27:57 --> 01:28:02 You need to understand your purpose, which is your why, your strategy,
01:28:02 --> 01:28:06 which is your how, and your culture, which is the way you're going to go about doing these things.
01:28:07 --> 01:28:11 And the results equation is something that we studied with Stanford Graduate
01:28:11 --> 01:28:12 Business School as well.
01:28:12 --> 01:28:16 And we found that when organizations have those three things aligned,
01:28:16 --> 01:28:21 which is more often than not, not the case, they drive three times revenue than
01:28:21 --> 01:28:24 organizations with misalignment across those things.
01:28:25 --> 01:28:28 And the reason they're most often aligned, you know, I come from the business world.
01:28:28 --> 01:28:31 I don't know as much about political campaigns, but maybe you can tell me.
01:28:31 --> 01:28:40 In the business world, your purpose is usually created by the founders of the
01:28:40 --> 01:28:45 company, or they get rewritten by the new CEO when they show up.
01:28:46 --> 01:28:49 You know, the purpose is created in a vacuum over here. The strategy is created
01:28:49 --> 01:28:54 at the executive offsite every year in Napa, and then the culture is delegated to HR.
01:28:54 --> 01:28:59 Or it's not thought about whatsoever, and it's accidentally created.
01:28:59 --> 01:29:02 That's usually how it looks, which means it's not aligned.
01:29:02 --> 01:29:05 The organizations who put all those things together and think about what is
01:29:05 --> 01:29:08 our purpose, what's our strategy to get that purpose, what's our culture to
01:29:08 --> 01:29:12 drive that strategy to achieve that purpose, and do it in a way,
01:29:12 --> 01:29:16 this is the important part, that scales, because maybe the CEO gets it.
01:29:16 --> 01:29:20 But does your frontline worker, the person who's showing up at the 6 a.m.
01:29:20 --> 01:29:24 Shift, 12-hour shift, or the night shift, that works in the factory,
01:29:25 --> 01:29:29 that's doing the minimum wage job, do they understand the purpose,
01:29:29 --> 01:29:31 strategy, and culture and how they align differently?
01:29:32 --> 01:29:37 Almost never. And that's the work of of the transparency and communication to
01:29:37 --> 01:29:42 drive real alignment. You can get clarity at the top level, but you need to
01:29:42 --> 01:29:45 have clarity at the bottom level because those are the people actually bringing it to life.
01:29:45 --> 01:29:48 That's how you drive alignment and ultimately accountability.
01:29:49 --> 01:29:56 Yeah. So in the political sense, the purpose comes from primarily the candidate
01:29:56 --> 01:30:03 or either the political apparatus, whether it's a party or, you know, whatever.
01:30:03 --> 01:30:08 And then the strategy that comes from the campaign managers, right?
01:30:08 --> 01:30:12 You know, it's like, okay, well, this is how we're going to win this election.
01:30:13 --> 01:30:18 And, you know, we need these we need these precincts to vote and we we need
01:30:18 --> 01:30:24 to just do well, hang hang in there and other precincts. That's minutiae stuff.
01:30:24 --> 01:30:27 And then I guess the last part would be.
01:30:28 --> 01:30:35 Culture, how people think and act. Yeah, so that's more like the PR team, right?
01:30:36 --> 01:30:42 The digital person, the media strategist, the speechwriters,
01:30:42 --> 01:30:46 those are the folks that help make that, create that narrative.
01:30:46 --> 01:30:50 And then you're hoping for the result that you get elected.
01:30:50 --> 01:30:57 And going back to my self-criticism of my own party as a competitor to the Republican
01:30:57 --> 01:30:59 Party, especially with our current president,
01:31:00 --> 01:31:07 even though it's for nefarious reasons, they are getting the results they want.
01:31:08 --> 01:31:13 They have a lot of alignment between purpose, strategy, and culture is my impression.
01:31:13 --> 01:31:18 From the outside looking in, it is very aligned. You can agree with it or not,
01:31:18 --> 01:31:20 but the alignment is there and it's proven out to be true.
01:31:20 --> 01:31:27 Yeah, yeah. And so, you know, my challenge and everybody else's, how do we combat that?
01:31:27 --> 01:31:32 And basically, we just have to be as disciplined as they are.
01:31:32 --> 01:31:37 You know, and it's hard to look at something chaotic and say,
01:31:37 --> 01:31:42 there's some discipline in that, you know, but that's our politics right now.
01:31:43 --> 01:31:46 Yeah, absolutely. What is the action trap?
01:31:47 --> 01:31:51 The action trap is the endless cycle of activity that feels like progress,
01:31:51 --> 01:31:56 but does not actually move the needle on results. It's the thing that leads to burnout.
01:31:57 --> 01:32:00 It's the constantly striving to figure out what else do I have to do right now.
01:32:01 --> 01:32:05 Everyone gets stuck in the action trap various parts of their lives for a period
01:32:05 --> 01:32:10 of time, or you live in the action trap. I mean, some people just live in the action trap.
01:32:10 --> 01:32:16 And to zoom out of the action trap is to understand that people will act in
01:32:16 --> 01:32:17 alignment with their beliefs.
01:32:17 --> 01:32:23 And so if you want people to take different action, don't just tell them what action you want to see.
01:32:24 --> 01:32:27 Identify their beliefs and shape those beliefs with experiences.
01:32:27 --> 01:32:31 The action trap is where you go if you don't surrender to lead.
01:32:31 --> 01:32:36 And that's so the political example within the Democratic Party right now.
01:32:37 --> 01:32:43 One of the running jokes we have is that when when President Trump does something
01:32:43 --> 01:32:46 that we don't like or the Republicans in Congress, that's something we don't like.
01:32:47 --> 01:32:52 Our leaders write these letters, right? And they put them out in the media.
01:32:52 --> 01:32:56 It is like, you know, Schumer, Senator Schumer actually said,
01:32:57 --> 01:33:01 you know, I wrote him a strongly, a stern letter or something like that.
01:33:01 --> 01:33:04 And we were like going, yeah, that should move the needle. You know what I'm saying?
01:33:05 --> 01:33:09 Yeah. Yeah. Stern letter. I think that, yeah, you're right on it, sir.
01:33:09 --> 01:33:14 I mean, you know, like we're at a time where it's like, I think we need to change
01:33:14 --> 01:33:18 the game plan a little bit. And that's why I wanted you to find that because
01:33:18 --> 01:33:21 that's, to me, that's exactly where we are.
01:33:21 --> 01:33:26 We're in this action trap where it's like, we're still trying to do things that were cool.
01:33:26 --> 01:33:29 Yeah. Like they were cool, like 10, 15 years ago.
01:33:30 --> 01:33:34 And it's like, that's not, these folks are not responding to that.
01:33:34 --> 01:33:40 So that, you know, there's always a method to my madness when I try to select guests and stuff.
01:33:40 --> 01:33:44 And so I, I, I'm really, again, I'm really glad that you came on.
01:33:44 --> 01:33:48 I'm glad that you invited me yeah so last question.
01:33:50 --> 01:33:54 As far as the interview part, you did a TED talk, which got my attention.
01:33:55 --> 01:34:01 That's how you got on my radar. You gave a TED talk, which you asked the question,
01:34:01 --> 01:34:05 how do you get people to give a shit? Right? Yes, I did.
01:34:07 --> 01:34:12 The challenge I want for this to kind of close out the interview was like,
01:34:12 --> 01:34:17 how do you apply that principle or strategy to politics? Right.
01:34:17 --> 01:34:23 Well, the answer, the headline answer on how to get people to give a shit is
01:34:23 --> 01:34:29 through belief shifting, which happens when you create new experiences.
01:34:29 --> 01:34:34 And I mean, think about the experiences that Trump created in his campaign.
01:34:34 --> 01:34:41 I mean, my daughter and I listened to this song in the morning to get ourselves
01:34:41 --> 01:34:44 pumped up for school by The Kiffness,
01:34:44 --> 01:34:48 which is a remix of the they're eating the dogs, they're eating the cats,
01:34:48 --> 01:34:54 they're eating the pets of the people that live there thing that happened. And that was insanity.
01:34:54 --> 01:34:57 And it became a meme and it became this remix.
01:34:58 --> 01:35:01 And we like the song because the beats are good. But also the insanity of that
01:35:01 --> 01:35:09 moment in our cultural history was a president saying, these immigrants are eating your dogs.
01:35:10 --> 01:35:14 That was experience management. That was an experience that everyone suddenly
01:35:14 --> 01:35:18 had because there are so many cat lovers and there are so many dog lovers in
01:35:18 --> 01:35:20 this world that the belief was, oh no,
01:35:21 --> 01:35:26 the things that I care deeply about are at risk because of these immigrants.
01:35:27 --> 01:35:32 That was totally intentional, right? And that belief led people to take action,
01:35:32 --> 01:35:36 which is the outrage. And it got talked about because it was an outrageous story.
01:35:36 --> 01:35:40 That is experience creation. That's a perfect example of it.
01:35:40 --> 01:35:43 It is aligned. You may not agree with it, but it is aligned.
01:35:43 --> 01:35:47 And so in order to shift something from a political standpoint,
01:35:47 --> 01:35:50 you have to focus on the experiences you're creating.
01:35:50 --> 01:35:57 That is how you're going to move the needle here. And it is it requires some thoughtfulness.
01:35:58 --> 01:36:04 It requires thinking about what moves people and it can be used for good or it can be used for evil.
01:36:05 --> 01:36:11 You know, that's exactly right. Right. And so we have to try to get it where people can.
01:36:12 --> 01:36:18 You know, I want to be in a society where, you know, both parties or even a
01:36:18 --> 01:36:25 third party, you know, is being forthright and honest with people.
01:36:25 --> 01:36:32 And in politics, honesty has limits because it's like if people actually paid
01:36:32 --> 01:36:36 attention to like, so how exactly did you get that bill passed?
01:36:36 --> 01:36:37 Oh, let me tell you this story.
01:36:37 --> 01:36:42 Right. You know, it's we compared the sausage making. We like the end product,
01:36:42 --> 01:36:45 but we don't really like to see how that totally.
01:36:45 --> 01:36:53 And so but but to get to a political discourse, where it's like people are given
01:36:53 --> 01:36:58 these experiences from two or three different perspectives and then they can
01:36:58 --> 01:37:00 make an intelligent choice.
01:37:00 --> 01:37:09 But it's really hard now because people are given a choice and we know most
01:37:09 --> 01:37:11 people know that it's not logical or whatever,
01:37:11 --> 01:37:16 but it seems like it gets them just enough votes to win an election.
01:37:16 --> 01:37:21 And so that's that's really a challenge that those of us that that really want
01:37:21 --> 01:37:23 to see some progress here have to face.
01:37:23 --> 01:37:31 So on that note, my challenge this year for my guests is to finish this sentence.
01:37:32 --> 01:37:34 I have hope because.
01:37:34 --> 01:37:39 I have hope because of my faith. And my faith...
01:37:40 --> 01:37:46 Allows me to lean into letting go. So even when I don't get my way,
01:37:46 --> 01:37:50 I believe that if I just let go, things are going to work out the way that they
01:37:50 --> 01:37:55 need to work out, even if it's not the way that I had hoped it would work out.
01:37:55 --> 01:37:58 So even when I lose hope, I have hope because I have faith.
01:37:59 --> 01:38:04 All right. Well, Dr. Jessica Kriegel, I've really enjoyed this conversation.
01:38:04 --> 01:38:09 If people want to have that experience, how can people get the book,
01:38:10 --> 01:38:12 Surrender to Lead? How can people reach out to you?
01:38:12 --> 01:38:15 You know, the podcast, the whole thing.
01:38:16 --> 01:38:20 Surrender to Lead is available everywhere you buy books. You can go to surrendertolead.com
01:38:20 --> 01:38:24 to get some resources that we'll give you for free to help you implement what
01:38:24 --> 01:38:25 we wrote about in the book.
01:38:25 --> 01:38:29 My website, if you want to book me for a keynote, is JessicaKriegel.com.
01:38:29 --> 01:38:35 And I have a daily podcast called The CEO Daily Brief. It is a five-minute podcast
01:38:35 --> 01:38:39 every weekday talking about something that you need to know as a leader and
01:38:39 --> 01:38:41 looking at it through the lens that we have.
01:38:42 --> 01:38:47 Well, again, thank you for accepting the invitation and coming on.
01:38:47 --> 01:38:50 Greatly respect the work that you're doing.
01:38:50 --> 01:38:56 And like I tell people, you know, all the guests that I have on are smarter than I am.
01:38:56 --> 01:39:01 And, you know, so it's just really, really an honor to be in your presence and
01:39:01 --> 01:39:02 to have this conversation.
01:39:03 --> 01:39:08 I do have a rule that once you've been invited, you have an open invitation to come back.
01:39:08 --> 01:39:12 So you don't even have to wait for me. You can just say, look,
01:39:12 --> 01:39:14 Erik, I need to I need your platform.
01:39:14 --> 01:39:19 I need to talk about something and we'll make that happen. So I hope that you
01:39:19 --> 01:39:22 accept that invitation and do come back because.
01:39:23 --> 01:39:28 You are offering a valuable service. And I know your primary function is in
01:39:28 --> 01:39:33 the business community, but it's some wisdom as we've tried to prove here in
01:39:33 --> 01:39:37 this interview that can be shared in other fields as well. So thank you again for coming on.
01:39:38 --> 01:39:42 Thank you, Erik. You're a fabulous interviewer and I really enjoyed our conversation.
01:39:42 --> 01:39:44 Thank you so much. All right, guys, we're going.
01:40:05 --> 01:40:10 All right, and we are back. And so now it is time for my next guest, Dr. Terri Givens.
01:40:11 --> 01:40:16 Terri Givens is a professor of political science at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.
01:40:17 --> 01:40:23 She was a provost advisor on the strategy to address anti-black racism at McGill
01:40:23 --> 01:40:26 University from 2021 to 2024,
01:40:26 --> 01:40:31 where she supported the provost's office work to increase the hiring of and
01:40:31 --> 01:40:34 support for Black faculty, staff, and students.
01:40:34 --> 01:40:40 She is formerly the CEO of the Center for Higher Education Leadership and has
01:40:40 --> 01:40:45 worked with a variety of colleges, universities, and ed tech companies on issues
01:40:45 --> 01:40:48 related to innovation and excellence in higher education.
01:40:49 --> 01:40:53 As the author of the book Radical Empathy, Finding a Path to Bridging Racial
01:40:53 --> 01:41:00 Divides, She is a sought-after consultant and speaker on issues related to leadership and inclusion.
01:41:00 --> 01:41:03 She has more than 30 years of experience in higher education,
01:41:04 --> 01:41:06 politics, international affairs, and nonprofits.
01:41:07 --> 01:41:11 She is an accomplished speaker and uses her platform to develop leaders with
01:41:11 --> 01:41:16 an understanding of the importance of diversity and inclusion while encouraging
01:41:16 --> 01:41:18 personal growth through empathy.
01:41:19 --> 01:41:23 Terri has held leadership positions as vice provost at the University of Texas
01:41:23 --> 01:41:25 at Austin and provost of Menlo College.
01:41:26 --> 01:41:31 As well as professorships at the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Washington.
01:41:31 --> 01:41:36 She was the founding director at the Center for European Studies at the University
01:41:36 --> 01:41:41 of Texas and led the university's efforts in Mexico and Latin America as vice
01:41:41 --> 01:41:45 provost for international activities, as well as curriculum development.
01:41:45 --> 01:41:49 She has worked with a variety of organizations at the international level,
01:41:49 --> 01:41:55 including the German Marshall Fund, attending the annual Brussels Forum, the U.S.
01:41:55 --> 01:41:59 State Department, Transatlantic Inclusion Leaders, and the Helsinki Commission.
01:42:00 --> 01:42:05 Terri is the author, editor of books and articles on immigration policy,
01:42:06 --> 01:42:08 European politics, and right-wing politics.
01:42:08 --> 01:42:14 Her most recent published books are Radical Empathy, Finding a Path to Bridging
01:42:14 --> 01:42:20 Racial Divides, and The Roots of Racism, The Politics of White Supremacy in the U.S. and Europe.
01:42:21 --> 01:42:30 Her latest book, Reckoning, Creating Positive Change Through Radical Empathy, was published in 2025.
01:42:31 --> 01:42:36 And ladies and gentlemen, this is her second appearance on the podcast.
01:42:36 --> 01:42:40 So it is my distinct honor and privilege to have as a guest,
01:42:40 --> 01:42:44 again on this podcast, Dr. Terri Givens.
01:42:55 --> 01:43:00 All right. Dr. Terri Givens. How are you doing, sister? You doing good?
01:43:01 --> 01:43:07 I am doing good. Well, I'm glad to see you and I'm glad to talk to you in a time like this.
01:43:08 --> 01:43:14 I've been trying to reach out to folks and, you know, I tell people all the
01:43:14 --> 01:43:16 time that this podcast is therapy for me.
01:43:16 --> 01:43:21 And part of therapy is I get to talk to people that's like, arrogance,
01:43:21 --> 01:43:26 we're going to work our way through it. So I'm hoping that you'll continue that tradition.
01:43:27 --> 01:43:31 You know, I kind of do icebreakers, so I'm doing something a little different.
01:43:31 --> 01:43:36 I'm just going to have you respond to a quote, and then we'll go ahead and get started.
01:43:37 --> 01:43:41 The quote is, to refuse to participate in the shaping of our future is to give up.
01:43:42 --> 01:43:47 Do not be misled into passivity, either by false security, they don't mean me,
01:43:47 --> 01:43:54 or by despair, there's nothing we can do. Each of us must find our work and do it.
01:43:55 --> 01:43:58 Yes. And that is all what I'm all about.
01:43:59 --> 01:44:04 You know, I'm all about action. I'm all about, you know, we look,
01:44:05 --> 01:44:09 you know, one of the reasons I am hopeful in this moment is,
01:44:09 --> 01:44:12 and people ask me this all the time, Terri, how do you stay hopeful?
01:44:13 --> 01:44:19 And I say, my parents lived through something much worse than what I am living through right now.
01:44:19 --> 01:44:22 I am, you know, their wildest dream.
01:44:23 --> 01:44:27 I got sharecroppers on both sides of my family.
01:44:28 --> 01:44:31 And, you know, we have risen up from that.
01:44:31 --> 01:44:39 I have a Ph.D., you know, and my grandparents couldn't have imagined that.
01:44:39 --> 01:44:46 They didn't even know what it was. And so the struggle has been going on for hundreds of years.
01:44:46 --> 01:44:51 Right. And my research, you know, that I'm working on even this summer is going
01:44:51 --> 01:44:56 back and helping us understand, you know, this has been an ongoing thing.
01:44:56 --> 01:45:02 And, you know, the divisiveness that we're seeing now comes out of all those
01:45:02 --> 01:45:08 hundreds of years of putting down black people and the ways that white supremacy
01:45:08 --> 01:45:16 has just infiltrated our culture to the point where people don't even understand it's there. Yeah.
01:45:17 --> 01:45:27 So you you are known for your your your I guess theory would I don't know if
01:45:27 --> 01:45:28 that's an accurate word,
01:45:28 --> 01:45:33 but your mission about racial empathy, radical empathy.
01:45:33 --> 01:45:37 Yes. And and you you were working on a book.
01:45:38 --> 01:45:42 I don't know if it was about to be released or whatever last time we talked. Yeah, Reckoning. Yeah.
01:45:43 --> 01:45:45 And so I guess...
01:45:46 --> 01:45:50 Forward a context of this conversation, define what is a reckoning?
01:45:51 --> 01:45:57 Mm-hmm. Yeah. So a reckoning is a coming to terms with what we are dealing with in the moment.
01:45:58 --> 01:46:03 Because part of the problem, I think, that we are having in moving forward,
01:46:04 --> 01:46:09 and I see this on, you know, forget, I'm not even going to talk about the GOP
01:46:09 --> 01:46:11 because they are long gone. It's MAGA.
01:46:12 --> 01:46:18 But even amongst Democrats who think they are helping, they haven't reckoned
01:46:18 --> 01:46:25 with the reality of how deeply entrenched so many of these issues are. Right.
01:46:25 --> 01:46:31 And so it's really important for us to understand that this is not just a new thing.
01:46:32 --> 01:46:36 It's something that has been going on. It is deeply entrenched.
01:46:36 --> 01:46:41 And if we don't reckon with that and reckon with our own responsibility for
01:46:41 --> 01:46:44 changing it, then we're not going to see the change we want.
01:46:45 --> 01:46:52 Yeah. So part of a racial reckoning period seems to be always attached to a backlash.
01:46:53 --> 01:46:58 Mm hmm. That's right. Would you consider the Louisiana versus Callais decision
01:46:58 --> 01:47:04 part of that backlash and what can be done to repel the backlash this time?
01:47:04 --> 01:47:07 Yeah, it's totally part of the backlash. So what we've seen,
01:47:07 --> 01:47:12 but it's I think we have to keep in mind that this has been the game plan for a while. Right.
01:47:13 --> 01:47:18 So it's not just that they, you know, the reason why these states are popping
01:47:18 --> 01:47:21 up with these new maps is because they've been waiting for this.
01:47:21 --> 01:47:24 You know, I was thinking about this in the content, even in California.
01:47:24 --> 01:47:29 Back in the 90s, we had the anti-affirmative action backlash.
01:47:29 --> 01:47:34 Right. California and Washington state had to give up affirmative action because
01:47:34 --> 01:47:36 of referendums and lawsuits.
01:47:37 --> 01:47:42 And so this stuff has been in the mix for a while. And so these strategies,
01:47:42 --> 01:47:45 they've just been waiting for the, you know, they waited for the Supreme Court
01:47:45 --> 01:47:48 to change so that they could could get this going.
01:47:48 --> 01:47:53 So, yes, it's a part of the backlash, but it's it's part of an ongoing strategy
01:47:53 --> 01:47:58 that has existed for a long time. I mean, you know, you think about Project
01:47:58 --> 01:48:00 2025, right? This is all part of that.
01:48:00 --> 01:48:06 And so this is, you know, the Heritage Foundation has been thinking about this for a very long time.
01:48:06 --> 01:48:11 And so they were ready to jump on it. And the problem is on the left and even
01:48:11 --> 01:48:13 in the center, we haven't been prepared.
01:48:13 --> 01:48:17 You know, we haven't been able to come together and say, we need to fight this.
01:48:18 --> 01:48:25 Yeah, and I, you know, I kind of wonder about that a little bit, because...
01:48:26 --> 01:48:30 Like you said, the Heritage Foundation, most of these organizations came up
01:48:30 --> 01:48:35 after the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act was passed.
01:48:35 --> 01:48:39 And really after the Johnson administration, because during his time,
01:48:39 --> 01:48:43 we had the fair housing legislation and all this stuff.
01:48:43 --> 01:48:46 So, you know, they've been figuring out.
01:48:46 --> 01:48:50 And then the Southern Strategy, all that stuff happened. And I mentioned in
01:48:50 --> 01:48:55 one of my podcasts, talked about the Powell memo, which, you know,
01:48:56 --> 01:49:01 I and several others think that that was the catalyst for all that stuff.
01:49:01 --> 01:49:05 And he got rewarded with a Supreme Court appointment, you know, afterwards.
01:49:05 --> 01:49:12 But, you know, it's just it just seems as though and I don't know why that is about us.
01:49:13 --> 01:49:18 That we tend to react rather than plan.
01:49:19 --> 01:49:23 So I guess that leads into my next question. How do you advise us to navigate
01:49:23 --> 01:49:28 the overwhelming hate and become the revolution and the change that we are seeking?
01:49:29 --> 01:49:34 So, you know, it's funny because people ask me all the time,
01:49:34 --> 01:49:35 you know, how do you keep going?
01:49:35 --> 01:49:38 But also it's like, why do we have to do the work?
01:49:38 --> 01:49:41 And it's like, you know, I have come to terms with that, right?
01:49:41 --> 01:49:46 Like, you know, I'm I've always been a trailblazer in higher education,
01:49:46 --> 01:49:47 you know, everything that I do.
01:49:47 --> 01:49:50 Right. I'm the first woman or I'm the first black person or I'm the first black woman.
01:49:50 --> 01:49:56 And so, sorry, you know, this is the roll of the dice that fate has given me.
01:49:56 --> 01:49:59 I have to be willing to step up and do this work. Right.
01:50:00 --> 01:50:05 And so, you know, the issue is and I understand people are tired.
01:50:06 --> 01:50:08 You know, you got all the thing. We need rest.
01:50:09 --> 01:50:12 Yes, you take care of yourself, but you also make sure that we are,
01:50:12 --> 01:50:17 you know, whether it's financially or volunteering, whatever it is.
01:50:17 --> 01:50:24 But, you know, the underlying issue is that we have to really try to work together.
01:50:25 --> 01:50:29 I mean, I'm watching, even in the, you know, the campaign for governor in California, right?
01:50:29 --> 01:50:34 I'm watching these Dems tear each other apart, and I'm just like, no, you guys, you know.
01:50:35 --> 01:50:39 Republicans wouldn't do that to each other, you know, not the way that we do.
01:50:39 --> 01:50:43 And so we really need to have a change of mentality.
01:50:44 --> 01:50:47 And it's starting to happen. So this is, I guess this is, you know,
01:50:47 --> 01:50:52 the good news, right, is that we are seeing leaders in the Democratic Party
01:50:52 --> 01:50:56 and outside of the Democratic Party saying, sorry, we have to work together.
01:50:56 --> 01:50:58 I mean, Hungary is our example, right?
01:50:58 --> 01:51:03 You had people on the left and the right, you know, center saying,
01:51:03 --> 01:51:09 okay, we have to come together to elect a center-right politician in order to kick out Orban.
01:51:09 --> 01:51:13 And I'm not saying we need to go center. Well, you know, to be somebody who
01:51:13 --> 01:51:18 studies Europe, I can say that our democratic party is basically to the right
01:51:18 --> 01:51:22 of most leftist parties in Europe, right? So we're already centrist.
01:51:23 --> 01:51:29 But what we need to do is say, we have to get through this moment, right?
01:51:29 --> 01:51:34 We have to move things forward so that we can get to the point where we can,
01:51:34 --> 01:51:40 you know, elect more Mamdani's who are going to do the kind of work we want to see going forward.
01:51:40 --> 01:51:46 But we can't get there unless we are willing to say, yes, we have to compromise.
01:51:46 --> 01:51:49 We have to, you know, we can't have these purity tests.
01:51:49 --> 01:51:53 And I'm not saying we shouldn't, you know, vote for people we want,
01:51:53 --> 01:51:55 but, you know, that's what the primary system is for.
01:51:56 --> 01:52:00 And then once that's done, you know, we have to move forward and say,
01:52:00 --> 01:52:02 we have to focus on getting people elected.
01:52:03 --> 01:52:08 And that means getting all of those people who didn't vote, especially people
01:52:08 --> 01:52:11 from the black and brown community, to get out there and vote.
01:52:11 --> 01:52:14 And that's what I'm going to be focused on for the next, you know,
01:52:14 --> 01:52:18 not just for the midterms coming up, but for the next three years.
01:52:19 --> 01:52:25 Yeah, you brought up a couple of points. So when you, there's a discussion right now.
01:52:25 --> 01:52:28 I don't know if you follow sports really well, but there's a discussion.
01:52:29 --> 01:52:31 The New York Knicks.
01:52:33 --> 01:52:37 And Oklahoma City Thunder basically took care of their opponents,
01:52:37 --> 01:52:41 and they're just sitting and waiting for who they're going to play in the next round.
01:52:41 --> 01:52:47 And so there's been a debate on all these sports talk shows about, is rest a good thing?
01:52:48 --> 01:52:53 And, and, you know, and you've had athletes on either side, you know,
01:52:54 --> 01:52:58 saying, well, yeah, you know, we went through it and it was kind of like we were rusty.
01:52:59 --> 01:53:02 And then other folks were saying, you know, it doesn't matter.
01:53:02 --> 01:53:06 It's like, if we know we're going to play this kind of team, then we need to rest.
01:53:07 --> 01:53:10 And to me, it just was like, it's all about focus. Right.
01:53:11 --> 01:53:16 And, you know, it's like, yeah, we're always, it seems like black folks are
01:53:16 --> 01:53:21 always the ones fighting the battle, but we have been given the role of being
01:53:21 --> 01:53:23 the conscience of the nation.
01:53:24 --> 01:53:28 100%. Yeah. So we, it's like we have to take care of ourselves.
01:53:28 --> 01:53:31 There's no doubt about that. We have to get our rest.
01:53:31 --> 01:53:33 We have to be healthy and all that.
01:53:34 --> 01:53:39 But, but I think the, the, the key about rest is that we have to be focused.
01:53:39 --> 01:53:43 It's like, you know, it's one thing to say, okay, I'm going to step away from it.
01:53:44 --> 01:53:50 But it's like, you know, when we step back in, we need to have a plan. We need to be focused.
01:53:50 --> 01:53:55 I sat in on the When Were Black Women, their big one.
01:53:55 --> 01:53:59 They had like about thousands of women on there.
01:54:00 --> 01:54:06 And it was after the Callais decision. And you could tell that each one of the
01:54:06 --> 01:54:09 women that spoke was working something anyway.
01:54:10 --> 01:54:13 And now it's like, okay, guys, now it's time for us to get together.
01:54:14 --> 01:54:17 I think that's where we have to get to.
01:54:17 --> 01:54:24 We have to get to a point where we're focused on what we want to do and not
01:54:24 --> 01:54:29 be scared to implement the plan and not be scared to call people out for who they are.
01:54:30 --> 01:54:33 That doesn't sound too empathetic, but what do you think?
01:54:34 --> 01:54:41 No, I mean, so I talk about strategic empathy. And so what I mean by that is,
01:54:41 --> 01:54:45 first of all, empathy is not absolution at all, right?
01:54:45 --> 01:54:48 We're not saying, oh, we're going to let these people do whatever they want
01:54:48 --> 01:54:49 because we have empathy.
01:54:49 --> 01:54:53 No, we want to understand, and this is the researcher in me,
01:54:53 --> 01:54:56 right? I want to understand why people are acting the way they are so that I
01:54:56 --> 01:54:59 can figure out the best strategy to address it.
01:54:59 --> 01:55:03 And that's what empathy is all about for me. It's not, oh, I'm going to,
01:55:03 --> 01:55:05 you know, just feel for this person.
01:55:05 --> 01:55:10 No, I want to understand, okay, what is the thing that's going to get my apathetic
01:55:10 --> 01:55:14 neighbor off their butt to get out and vote?
01:55:15 --> 01:55:19 And oftentimes it's that personal relationship. And that's why I say we all
01:55:19 --> 01:55:23 have to be involved and engaged because it may be me going out and talking to
01:55:23 --> 01:55:26 my neighbors and making sure five of those neighbors who didn't vote actually vote.
01:55:27 --> 01:55:31 You know, maybe it's explaining to, you know, my brother who,
01:55:32 --> 01:55:34 you know, voted for or didn't, you know,
01:55:35 --> 01:55:38 maybe voted for a different candidate, not Trump, but, you know,
01:55:38 --> 01:55:42 but to say, hey, this, these are the reasons you need to vote for this candidate.
01:55:42 --> 01:55:48 And it's and we have to have that sense of urgency. I mean, that's why the civil
01:55:48 --> 01:55:53 rights movement was successful in the 60s is because we had this sense of urgency,
01:55:53 --> 01:55:55 right? It's like we can't wait.
01:55:55 --> 01:56:01 And now we're being, as things are being rolled backwards, we're in that same situation, right?
01:56:01 --> 01:56:06 This is a time when we cannot sit here and wait for somebody else to,
01:56:07 --> 01:56:08 you know, it's the man in the mirror moment.
01:56:09 --> 01:56:14 It's you know and i talk about this in both my books you know it's it's it's
01:56:14 --> 01:56:19 not about that person over there doing it every single one of us have to take
01:56:19 --> 01:56:24 responsibility and imagine if we all said tomorrow i'm going to go out and i'm
01:56:24 --> 01:56:25 going to take somebody to the polls with me,
01:56:26 --> 01:56:30 that could change an election even one of these gerrymandered elections,
01:56:31 --> 01:56:36 Yeah, I had a Republican colleague, he was running against a lady.
01:56:36 --> 01:56:40 I had coached her son, she was a black lady, and I had coached her son in football.
01:56:40 --> 01:56:44 And she decided that she was going to run against him in the Republican primary.
01:56:45 --> 01:56:49 And he kind of took it for granted for a minute.
01:56:49 --> 01:56:54 And then when it looked like that she was winning, him and his wife got together
01:56:54 --> 01:56:59 and they wrote like 10 letters to friends.
01:57:00 --> 01:57:06 And their appeal was each one of you that gets this letter, you write 10 letters.
01:57:09 --> 01:57:14 And obviously it worked because he got reelected. And, you know,
01:57:14 --> 01:57:20 so it's, people look at that as like a euphemism or whatever.
01:57:20 --> 01:57:22 It's like, you know, yeah, and bring a friend and all that. It's like,
01:57:23 --> 01:57:24 yeah, right. Okay, whatever.
01:57:24 --> 01:57:28 You're just lucky to get me to vote. But it's really, really important for us
01:57:28 --> 01:57:34 to evangelize and get other people engaged.
01:57:34 --> 01:57:38 Like I said, you and I are political junkies. Yes.
01:57:39 --> 01:57:42 And so we don't want people to be like that, like us.
01:57:43 --> 01:57:46 But we do want them because they're citizens to be engaged.
01:57:46 --> 01:57:52 And I think it's really, really important to stress that people need to reach
01:57:52 --> 01:57:58 out to their friends and their neighbors and, you know, and get them to participate in the process.
01:57:59 --> 01:58:04 Yeah, absolutely. Because, you know, it's funny, I have longstanding friends
01:58:04 --> 01:58:08 who, you know, will tell me, well, you know, I didn't vote or I'm like,
01:58:08 --> 01:58:12 and, you know, those are sometimes the people who are harder to convince.
01:58:13 --> 01:58:18 And so, you know, sometimes we have to, so I guess where the balance comes in
01:58:18 --> 01:58:21 for me is, you know, some people aren't going to, they just aren't going to
01:58:21 --> 01:58:28 change. So what we have to be able to do is say, OK, well, I did my due diligence with this person.
01:58:28 --> 01:58:31 You know, I can try the next person.
01:58:31 --> 01:58:35 And that's why, you know, in order to get another five people to vote,
01:58:35 --> 01:58:37 you're going to have to probably talk to 15 or 20 people.
01:58:38 --> 01:58:43 You know, it's not just, oh, I got I talked to these five people. I'm done. No, it's.
01:58:44 --> 01:58:48 And, you know, I belong to groups where we do postcards and,
01:58:48 --> 01:58:49 you know, and that's why, you know,
01:58:50 --> 01:58:53 you think about the fact that campaign, you know, this they invest so much time
01:58:53 --> 01:58:56 and energy getting people to get on phone banks and write postcards because
01:58:56 --> 01:59:00 we know that that personal touch is often what gets somebody off their butt
01:59:00 --> 01:59:02 and out to the to the polls.
01:59:02 --> 01:59:05 And, you know, it's really interesting because obviously, you know,
01:59:06 --> 01:59:09 the GOP is targeting the souls to the polls and things like that with the churches.
01:59:09 --> 01:59:13 And we don't have that as strong a connection to the churches anymore.
01:59:13 --> 01:59:16 Right. Because we've got these mega churches and things like that.
01:59:16 --> 01:59:20 And so, you know, it used to be much more localized and people would go to their
01:59:20 --> 01:59:24 local church and we don't have those strong connections anymore.
01:59:24 --> 01:59:30 And and so we have to look beyond, you know, because during the 60s,
01:59:30 --> 01:59:32 you know, you just focus on the churches. That was great.
01:59:32 --> 01:59:36 But now we have to go beyond that. And we also have to reach,
01:59:36 --> 01:59:38 you know, the men, especially the young men.
01:59:39 --> 01:59:43 And, you know, I'm very proud of my boys. They've always vote.
01:59:44 --> 01:59:50 And I make sure of that. But, you know, we need to make sure our boys are being
01:59:50 --> 01:59:54 educated properly, that they aren't getting lost in the disinformation.
01:59:54 --> 01:59:57 Actually, not just our boys, but everybody's not getting lost in the disinformation.
01:59:57 --> 01:59:59 Because I see this with people.
01:59:59 --> 02:00:03 Members of my family often get caught up in it. And so, you know,
02:00:03 --> 02:00:07 I use my Facebook page, I use my broader social media to educate,
02:00:08 --> 02:00:11 to help people understand what the stakes are, because like you said,
02:00:12 --> 02:00:16 not everybody is, you know, deeply ensconced in politics as we are.
02:00:16 --> 02:00:19 And so we cannot, and even for those who just pay attention,
02:00:20 --> 02:00:22 we cannot assume that everybody's getting the same information.
02:00:23 --> 02:00:27 And we have to provide that information. That sounds so much better,
02:00:28 --> 02:00:30 deeply ensconced as opposed to junkie.
02:00:30 --> 02:00:36 But yeah, you were impressed with the turnout of black voters in last year's election cycle.
02:00:36 --> 02:00:42 Do you think that we will match this energy, surpass this energy, or fall short?
02:00:42 --> 02:00:48 Surpass. I am not worried about that one bit because I hate to say it because
02:00:48 --> 02:00:51 it's not what you want to hear as a political junkie.
02:00:52 --> 02:00:56 But gas, the price of gas is going to get us out.
02:00:57 --> 02:01:01 And inflation, you know, they just got the latest inflation numbers.
02:01:01 --> 02:01:04 People are losing jobs. People, you know, it's funny because,
02:01:05 --> 02:01:09 you know, they tried to time the loss of health care benefits so that it was
02:01:09 --> 02:01:12 after the midterms, it's, you know, it's happening now.
02:01:12 --> 02:01:16 I know so many. And then the fact that people are having to pay more for,
02:01:16 --> 02:01:21 you know, for the health plans and that they're getting less for that.
02:01:22 --> 02:01:27 I mean, look, I'm looking at just, you know, kind of my informal polling of
02:01:27 --> 02:01:31 friends and watching what's happening to them with their health care and gas and everything.
02:01:31 --> 02:01:35 You know, it's going to, you know, that's why the Republicans are trying so
02:01:35 --> 02:01:41 hard to change the districts because they know it's going to be a huge outpouring
02:01:41 --> 02:01:44 of people who are frustrated with what's going on with the economy when they
02:01:44 --> 02:01:48 were—that's the thing that they were promised would be fixed. Yeah.
02:01:49 --> 02:01:52 Somebody had put up like a meme—.
02:01:53 --> 02:01:58 Had listed all the things that the president said he was going to do when he got in there.
02:01:58 --> 02:02:01 And they were like, and then at the end of it, they just said,
02:02:02 --> 02:02:06 has he done any of that that we asked him to do or that we believed he was going
02:02:06 --> 02:02:08 to do? And the answer was no.
02:02:08 --> 02:02:13 And so I think, but I still think that people were still kind of,
02:02:14 --> 02:02:16 until this Callais decision happened,
02:02:16 --> 02:02:20 because what I think really got people motivated was the New York Times.
02:02:20 --> 02:02:26 And I don't know if you saw it, but they put out a map of based on their reporting,
02:02:27 --> 02:02:31 right, what they were hearing and the sources and all that, because some of
02:02:31 --> 02:02:33 these decisions hadn't even been made yet.
02:02:33 --> 02:02:39 But they based they showed a map of black representation in the South currently.
02:02:39 --> 02:02:44 And then they did a map that showed what it would look like after the decision.
02:02:45 --> 02:02:50 And it was just like red all the way across the South. So you got to Georgia
02:02:50 --> 02:02:56 and then you had two little blue dots where Atlanta is and then it was red basically everywhere else.
02:02:56 --> 02:02:59 And then all of a sudden it was like, oh, we got to do this.
02:02:59 --> 02:03:05 And all the, you know, people, people I think got motivated on that. I really think that.
02:03:06 --> 02:03:11 I don't know, you know, I think people, if it wasn't for that decision,
02:03:11 --> 02:03:16 I don't know if black folks would have been as motivated.
02:03:16 --> 02:03:20 I think, you know, like you said about the gas prices, you know,
02:03:20 --> 02:03:25 a place like California and for people to understand California's prices are
02:03:25 --> 02:03:27 higher because for whatever reason,
02:03:28 --> 02:03:34 and Chicago's the same way, they put a lot of taxes that they want on the gasoline.
02:03:35 --> 02:03:42 So if gas is $4.50 in Georgia, it's like $6 in California or $5.50 in Chicago,
02:03:42 --> 02:03:44 right? I feel that pain. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
02:03:46 --> 02:03:51 Yeah, you know it very well. But even at that, it would seem like that was just
02:03:51 --> 02:03:56 kind of like, well, you know, and people were, they were not happy.
02:03:56 --> 02:04:03 But it seemed like this Callais decision is what really has kind of gotten Black folks like.
02:04:04 --> 02:04:08 Getting ready to turn back the clock. All the activists are coming out and all that stuff.
02:04:08 --> 02:04:14 And I don't know. Do you think that that was a fair assessment on my part,
02:04:14 --> 02:04:19 that the Callais decision has upped it more? Yes. Yeah. Okay.
02:04:20 --> 02:04:26 I agree with you 100%. But I would say it's this kind of, we are seeing a confluence of things.
02:04:26 --> 02:04:30 And it's not just Callais. It's not just gas prices and inflation.
02:04:30 --> 02:04:36 It's also the war, the cause of the inflation, and it's the tariffs.
02:04:36 --> 02:04:42 So I think the way that a typical voter is seeing is like, you know,
02:04:42 --> 02:04:45 their salary has not gone up.
02:04:46 --> 02:04:49 They're coming home and, you know, like they can't buy, you know,
02:04:49 --> 02:04:52 people can't buy beef, right?
02:04:52 --> 02:04:57 I mean, even I, in the last year, you know, watching the price of beef go up, I'm just like, okay,
02:04:58 --> 02:05:01 you know, luckily we don't already eat a lot of it and I'm not going to be,
02:05:01 --> 02:05:05 you know, there was a story on NPR I was listening to, you know,
02:05:05 --> 02:05:09 and they're finally talking to people who are being impacted by this stuff, but.
02:05:10 --> 02:05:13 You know, she's like, you know, I can't. And it's partly, you know,
02:05:13 --> 02:05:15 the health care issue. She's got a health issue.
02:05:15 --> 02:05:20 So, you know, she can barely afford to buy chicken, let alone beef or anything else.
02:05:20 --> 02:05:24 And so those are the kinds of it's, you know, it's as you know,
02:05:24 --> 02:05:27 I hate to quote Bill Clinton, but it's the economy. Right.
02:05:28 --> 02:05:36 Stupid. And between the economy and, you know,
02:05:36 --> 02:05:41 just people's sense that things are out of control with Trump's crazy,
02:05:41 --> 02:05:45 I mean, and they aren't even reporting on half the crazy stuff he's saying.
02:05:45 --> 02:05:49 Right. And nobody's paying attention to Trump being in China, except for us.
02:05:50 --> 02:05:56 Right. So even if Trump were somehow able to get a win, both out of China and
02:05:56 --> 02:06:04 Iran, the situation is so bad, it's not going to recover before the midterms.
02:06:04 --> 02:06:12 And so it's a situation that has long, is going to have long legs, right?
02:06:12 --> 02:06:17 It's not going to, nothing's going to change immediately. And so this is why
02:06:17 --> 02:06:21 you're seeing so many Republican, even before all this, we saw a lot of Republican
02:06:21 --> 02:06:23 candidates who just decided to retire.
02:06:24 --> 02:06:29 Yeah. So that leads me to my next question. Will we have a blue tsunami,
02:06:29 --> 02:06:32 a blue wave, or a blue high tide?
02:06:32 --> 02:06:36 So based on some of the answers I've gotten from people before,
02:06:36 --> 02:06:39 let me explain. The high tide is we just win the House.
02:06:40 --> 02:06:48 The blue wave would be we win the House and then we like get 51 out of the 100 senators.
02:06:49 --> 02:06:54 Blue tsunami would be like 2006 where we just mollywhopped them and took over
02:06:54 --> 02:06:56 both houses with significant numbers.
02:06:57 --> 02:06:59 So which one do you think it's going to be?
02:06:59 --> 02:07:03 With the information I have today, I think it's blue wave. Yeah.
02:07:03 --> 02:07:05 I don't see the tsunami. me.
02:07:06 --> 02:07:09 Yeah. You know, I think, I think.
02:07:10 --> 02:07:17 I tend to think tsunami because I just, when the Republicans overplay their
02:07:17 --> 02:07:23 hand, you know, I just think about 2006 and that whole Terry Schiavo thing.
02:07:24 --> 02:07:31 I think that was the key because people were like, y'all would go this far to
02:07:31 --> 02:07:34 get into a situation where it was just a family.
02:07:34 --> 02:07:39 You literally had legislation in Congress about one family, one house,
02:07:39 --> 02:07:44 and you're willing to do all this stuff. People are like, y'all are crazy.
02:07:44 --> 02:07:47 And then they just basically got rid of as many of them as they could.
02:07:48 --> 02:07:53 And the fact that, you know, I'm looking at races in Nebraska.
02:07:53 --> 02:07:55 I'm looking at races in Idaho.
02:07:56 --> 02:08:00 You know, we got a guy who basically is a lobster farmer. Looks like he's going to be a U.S.
02:08:00 --> 02:08:05 Senator. That's why I'm thinking that, you know, everybody, everything is in play now.
02:08:05 --> 02:08:09 You know, I wouldn't be surprised if that young man Pearson.
02:08:10 --> 02:08:14 Wherever they say the ninth district is, and it looks like he's already got
02:08:14 --> 02:08:18 a plan based on the interview I saw. It's like,
02:08:19 --> 02:08:22 wouldn't be surprised if he won even if they gerrymandered
02:08:22 --> 02:08:25 the district right and so i just
02:08:25 --> 02:08:28 i just think people i think
02:08:28 --> 02:08:33 people overall have their own reasons like you said this confluence and it's
02:08:33 --> 02:08:38 just going to come up and when it's all said and done on november 3rd i mean
02:08:38 --> 02:08:41 we still got people in minnesota mad because folks were getting shot and killed
02:08:41 --> 02:08:46 that's right so i can't see i can't see a pathway,
02:08:46 --> 02:08:49 if a Republican wins, they're barely going to win.
02:08:49 --> 02:08:58 Like in Tennessee, it was a special election and the guy was celebrating like, yeah, we won.
02:08:58 --> 02:09:00 Bro, you won by five points.
02:09:01 --> 02:09:05 Donald Trump won that district by 20. Yeah. And that's been the trend, right?
02:09:05 --> 02:09:10 Every single special election, et cetera, it's been, you know,
02:09:11 --> 02:09:13 either compressed or the Republican lost.
02:09:13 --> 02:09:17 So I I agree with you on that front. Why I don't see a blue tsunami yet,
02:09:17 --> 02:09:22 because I'm hedging and being cautious, is that...
02:09:23 --> 02:09:29 There's still that kind of rump of Trump voters who it doesn't matter what.
02:09:29 --> 02:09:32 And and so it's not even it doesn't matter what they do.
02:09:32 --> 02:09:35 It's like, you know, you're talking about Terry Schivo. I mean,
02:09:35 --> 02:09:38 they've done things way, way, way worse than that. Right.
02:09:39 --> 02:09:44 And and yet they these this rump of Trump voters can't be budged.
02:09:45 --> 02:09:50 So that's what I find disturbing is you've still got this 30 percent that no
02:09:50 --> 02:09:54 matter what he does. you know, they were complaining about Biden and,
02:09:54 --> 02:09:59 you know, and this guy can't even hardly put together a sentence.
02:10:00 --> 02:10:06 And they still can't seem to figure out that he's got dementia and even just
02:10:06 --> 02:10:09 things like walking down the street or the side down the stairs.
02:10:10 --> 02:10:16 You know, I saw a meme comparing Trump going down the stairs for this China meeting versus Obama.
02:10:17 --> 02:10:22 And, you know, it's just really interesting, you know, he, like Obama did,
02:10:22 --> 02:10:25 was able to do it in four times faster than Trump.
02:10:25 --> 02:10:30 And so the fact that they aren't paying any attention to any of this makes me
02:10:30 --> 02:10:35 think there's just a certain, and unfortunately they are clustered in these
02:10:35 --> 02:10:39 districts where unfortunately they're probably going to help the GOP win.
02:10:40 --> 02:10:44 Well, I think that's the silo of information, Right.
02:10:45 --> 02:10:49 There's a there's a couple. There's a brother and sister.
02:10:49 --> 02:10:53 They do a podcast and their parents are Trumpers.
02:10:54 --> 02:10:59 So every week it's like, y'all still supporting Trump after he did this.
02:10:59 --> 02:11:00 I mean, they have this conversation.
02:11:01 --> 02:11:08 And so recently I think the dad got sick. And so it's just the mom on the show right now.
02:11:08 --> 02:11:16 And so for some reason, she hasn't been able to see, watch Newsmax or Fox News.
02:11:17 --> 02:11:22 And so they've been asking her questions like, well, if the president did this,
02:11:22 --> 02:11:24 how would you feel? And she was like, well, no, I don't feel that way.
02:11:24 --> 02:11:31 So, finally, I said, so do you think you would still have this thought,
02:11:31 --> 02:11:35 this independent thought, if you were still watching Newsmax?
02:11:35 --> 02:11:40 And she said, maybe not, you know, because I have to, you know,
02:11:40 --> 02:11:43 it's like this is information I haven't been getting.
02:11:43 --> 02:11:49 And I think that's the challenge that we have to break through that silo.
02:11:49 --> 02:11:53 And, you know, because that silo is just as comfortable.
02:11:53 --> 02:11:58 Jesse Waters the other day was like saying he was talking about black people
02:11:58 --> 02:12:02 and he was saying that black if black people want to have more representation,
02:12:02 --> 02:12:05 they got to have more babies. Right. Right.
02:12:05 --> 02:12:08 You know, so these people are getting this information every day.
02:12:09 --> 02:12:16 And it's like we got to figure out a way to break through that some kind of way.
02:12:16 --> 02:12:22 And I don't know. You know, I guess I'm doing my part with this podcast. Yeah.
02:12:22 --> 02:12:28 Well, we are. But, you know, what it takes is it's got to filter down.
02:12:28 --> 02:12:32 So, you know, we're talking to a particular group of people.
02:12:32 --> 02:12:38 And then but we also have to be talking to our siblings and our aunts and uncles
02:12:38 --> 02:12:41 and, you know, and our friends.
02:12:41 --> 02:12:46 Right. I mean, you know, I wrote my books not because I thought the black community needed them.
02:12:46 --> 02:12:49 I wrote my books because I thought the white community needed them.
02:12:49 --> 02:12:54 And so, you know, go buy a copy of my book and give it to one of your white friends. Right.
02:12:54 --> 02:13:00 You know, because right now, our biggest problem is not the black community.
02:13:00 --> 02:13:02 It's not the brown community. It's white apathy.
02:13:03 --> 02:13:07 It's our friends who say they support us, who say, hey, you know,
02:13:07 --> 02:13:10 I believe in equality and they out there fighting.
02:13:10 --> 02:13:12 I have lots of friends who are
02:13:12 --> 02:13:16 white, but I know lots of white people who are just like, oh, I'm fine.
02:13:16 --> 02:13:21 You know, I don't need to do anything. And that's where, you know...
02:13:23 --> 02:13:27 And all these people who say, oh, I don't like to talk politics. I don't understand.
02:13:28 --> 02:13:32 Politics is every day. Politics is when you wake up in the morning to when you go.
02:13:33 --> 02:13:36 Politics is the fact that you only have to work 40 hours a week,
02:13:36 --> 02:13:38 hopefully. A lot of people are working more now.
02:13:39 --> 02:13:44 Politics is, you know, the way that you're being treated by your boss.
02:13:45 --> 02:13:50 Politics is in the fact whether or not you can, you know, claim something if
02:13:50 --> 02:13:54 you get injured on the job. all these things, that's all politics, right?
02:13:54 --> 02:13:58 And people don't, and even the price of food is politics.
02:13:58 --> 02:14:06 I mean, what Mamdani has been able to show is that if we were to actually tax
02:14:06 --> 02:14:07 the wealthy, we can do a lot.
02:14:08 --> 02:14:12 And I'm really pissed off at Gavin Newsom for not pushing through a wealth tax
02:14:12 --> 02:14:15 in California because we desperately need it.
02:14:15 --> 02:14:18 We got billion, and we got so many billionaires in
02:14:18 --> 02:14:21 california and and they need to be paying their taxes and
02:14:21 --> 02:14:24 they need you know and he's against it because he
02:14:24 --> 02:14:27 knows he needs those people to to support him if he's going
02:14:27 --> 02:14:33 to run in in 2028 but it's like gavin you know seriously dude we need this and
02:14:33 --> 02:14:40 and actually i think it would garner him more support if he did it well at the
02:14:40 --> 02:14:44 bare minimum because mom donnie worked out a deal with Hochul because Hochul
02:14:44 --> 02:14:46 was reluctant to that too.
02:14:46 --> 02:14:49 But my mommy said, well, look, we got all these folks in New York.
02:14:50 --> 02:14:54 Who don't live here. Yeah, they got all these mansions, and they don't live here.
02:14:54 --> 02:14:59 This is just their vacation home or whatever. Why don't we just tax that?
02:14:59 --> 02:15:04 And she said, I think we can get that through. And they got it through in the state assembly.
02:15:04 --> 02:15:09 And so California can do the same thing because a lot of people use their California
02:15:09 --> 02:15:13 homes as vacation homes, and they don't live there.
02:15:13 --> 02:15:19 And I think if a lot of states did that, that would generate a whole lot of revenue.
02:15:19 --> 02:15:23 Montana could probably make millions of dollars.
02:15:24 --> 02:15:28 The city of Coeur d'Alene, which is close to where I grew up, Spokane, Washington.
02:15:28 --> 02:15:31 Oh my God, if Coeur d'Alene, Idaho started taxing people who have vacation homes
02:15:31 --> 02:15:34 there, oh my gosh, they would be rolling in the dough.
02:15:34 --> 02:15:41 Yeah, yeah. So, I mean, like you said, we have to be innovative in some of the things that we do.
02:15:42 --> 02:15:46 All right, so last question I want to ask you. In the midst of this latest backlash,
02:15:47 --> 02:15:51 what are some signs that you see Radical empathy breaking through.
02:15:52 --> 02:15:57 The fact that I see so many more people understanding that this is not just,
02:15:58 --> 02:16:02 that racism is not an individual thing, right? That it's systemic.
02:16:02 --> 02:16:05 And I love the fact, I have to give a shout out to my girl, Kimberly Crenshaw,
02:16:06 --> 02:16:10 with her new book, because she's the one who helped to develop critical race
02:16:10 --> 02:16:14 theory and intersectionality that talks about this, the systemic nature of all of this.
02:16:15 --> 02:16:17 And I love that she's getting her flowers now.
02:16:17 --> 02:16:23 But also, I see so many of, you know, in the classroom where I'm teaching it,
02:16:23 --> 02:16:28 where in the broader, you know, people who are in the activist community finally
02:16:28 --> 02:16:31 understanding the systemic nature of all this.
02:16:31 --> 02:16:35 And, you know, and it goes back to things like the 1619 Project, right?
02:16:35 --> 02:16:38 So I want to give a shout out to all those folks who have been doing this work
02:16:38 --> 02:16:40 in the trenches to educate.
02:16:40 --> 02:16:43 And that's why you're seeing this backlash. That's why you're saying,
02:16:43 --> 02:16:46 oh, this is just woke and, you know, and going after universities.
02:16:46 --> 02:16:49 They want people to understand the systemic nature of all of this.
02:16:49 --> 02:16:54 And so if we can get more of our white colleagues, allies, whatever,
02:16:55 --> 02:16:59 to understand that this is systemic and we're only going to change it by really
02:16:59 --> 02:17:03 shifting, you know, the needle has to readjust, right?
02:17:04 --> 02:17:08 And just because some of us have been successful does not mean that that will
02:17:08 --> 02:17:11 continue because I really worry about what's this future holds.
02:17:11 --> 02:17:14 Look, I have my son and, you know,
02:17:14 --> 02:17:20 others close to me who are experiencing discrimination as we speak, right?
02:17:21 --> 02:17:28 And, you know, it's heartbreaking. But that's what this environment has allowed to happen.
02:17:29 --> 02:17:33 And so we need to get on top of it because it's impacting our kids.
02:17:33 --> 02:17:37 It's impacting the future of the country and it's impacting the globe.
02:17:38 --> 02:17:42 The world isn't being impacted by what is happening in Louisiana. Yeah.
02:17:43 --> 02:17:50 And so, you know, one of the blessings I have is that there are so many of.
02:17:51 --> 02:17:55 All that are really on the front line. And when I say you all,
02:17:55 --> 02:17:58 I'm talking about the black academic community.
02:17:58 --> 02:18:02 I think, I think, you know, you talked about Ms.
02:18:02 --> 02:18:07 Crenshaw and, and, uh, Nicole Hannah Jones, yourself and others that,
02:18:08 --> 02:18:12 you know, really that's where the battle is.
02:18:12 --> 02:18:19 And, you know, early on, they, it's in project 25, 2025 to try to curb what y'all do. Right.
02:18:19 --> 02:18:25 So it's really, really an honor and a blessing to, to, to engage with you and
02:18:25 --> 02:18:28 others, because I think that's really where.
02:18:29 --> 02:18:36 We can turn the tide is through black academia and, and to teach people,
02:18:36 --> 02:18:43 not just our, our kids, but all, all American children, that there's a better way to do this.
02:18:44 --> 02:18:46 And so I just want to Thank you for that.
02:18:46 --> 02:18:52 Now, what I have been doing this year was closing out by asking people to finish
02:18:52 --> 02:18:57 this sentence, I have hope because, but you, you kind of addressed that in the beginning.
02:18:58 --> 02:19:04 And I just, you know, do you want to elaborate more on, on why you're hopeful
02:19:04 --> 02:19:12 other than the acknowledgement that you are a symbol of progress yourself? Mm-hmm.
02:19:13 --> 02:19:17 What else do you see that gives you hope? Well, the fact that we stand on the
02:19:17 --> 02:19:24 shoulders of so many great, amazing people who not only fought for civil rights,
02:19:24 --> 02:19:26 but gave their lives for it.
02:19:26 --> 02:19:30 And I get choked up a little bit when I say that because, you know,
02:19:30 --> 02:19:36 I cannot I would not be where I am today without so many people who suffered.
02:19:37 --> 02:19:42 Died, you know, gave so much of themselves.
02:19:43 --> 02:19:47 And so that is what just energizes me.
02:19:48 --> 02:19:55 And, you know, if I can just do a small little bit in this world that might
02:19:55 --> 02:19:58 help continue and push forward change,
02:19:58 --> 02:20:02 then that is enough to, you know, I have a fire inside of me,
02:20:02 --> 02:20:04 you know, because of those people.
02:20:04 --> 02:20:07 And, you know, my people were in Louisiana.
02:20:08 --> 02:20:13 My mother comes from Opelousas. They lived in New Orleans. You know,
02:20:13 --> 02:20:15 so I have ties to that part of the world still.
02:20:16 --> 02:20:20 And, you know, you may have heard of the Opelousas Massacre.
02:20:20 --> 02:20:24 So I think of all these different things and what my people there survived.
02:20:24 --> 02:20:30 And I cannot, you know, even begin to understand that the way that they did.
02:20:30 --> 02:20:34 And so I'm going to do everything I can to make sure we don't lose all of that.
02:20:34 --> 02:20:39 So if people want to get with you, Dr. Givens, and, you know,
02:20:39 --> 02:20:42 get your books and reach out to you, how can they do that?
02:20:43 --> 02:20:50 Go to terrygivens.com. That's T-E-R-R-I-G-I-V-E-N-S.com. And I'm on all the social media.
02:20:50 --> 02:20:53 You know, come and connect with me on LinkedIn. I'm happy to do that.
02:20:54 --> 02:20:57 And if you want to be a part of this fight, let's get together.
02:20:57 --> 02:21:02 Well, Dr. Terri Givens, I'm with you on the fight. And you already know the
02:21:02 --> 02:21:05 rule because this is your second time being on the podcast.
02:21:06 --> 02:21:10 Anytime you want to come back on, just let me know and we'll make that happen.
02:21:10 --> 02:21:16 But again, I just want to thank you for what you're doing and thank you for
02:21:16 --> 02:21:21 giving me some hope and some encouragement during this time.
02:21:22 --> 02:21:24 You're very welcome. Thanks so much for having me and I look forward to the
02:21:24 --> 02:21:28 next time. Yes, ma'am. All right, guys, we're going to catch y'all on the other side.
02:21:40 --> 02:21:46 All right. And we are back. And so I want to thank Judge Steve Teske, Dr.
02:21:46 --> 02:21:48 Jessica Kriegel, and Dr.
02:21:49 --> 02:21:56 Terri Givens for coming on the program. And as you could tell with my conversation
02:21:56 --> 02:22:02 with Judge Teske, this is something that we have both been very passionate about.
02:22:03 --> 02:22:10 As stated, he devoted 22 years of his life working, and he's still doing some
02:22:10 --> 02:22:12 consulting on the side, but as a
02:22:12 --> 02:22:17 judge, 22 years dealing with the juvenile justice system here in Georgia.
02:22:17 --> 02:22:22 You know, I did nine years on the Juvenile Justice Committee in the Mississippi
02:22:22 --> 02:22:23 House of Representatives.
02:22:24 --> 02:22:31 And, you know, that's an issue that gets another issue that kind of gets swept
02:22:31 --> 02:22:36 under the rug with all this craziness that's going on that still is happening.
02:22:36 --> 02:22:44 We still have to pay attention to our children, and even when they go wayward,
02:22:44 --> 02:22:50 find ways to bring them back without permanently institutionalizing them.
02:22:50 --> 02:22:55 You know, as he stated and I've acknowledged before,
02:22:55 --> 02:23:02 we've all done stuff as young people, as teenagers, that if it wasn't somebody
02:23:02 --> 02:23:06 looking out for us, we could have gone in a whole different direction.
02:23:06 --> 02:23:12 And, you know, so part of our obligation and our respective roles was to make
02:23:12 --> 02:23:18 sure that all children have that alternative path that may do something wrong.
02:23:18 --> 02:23:25 We don't want to continue to create a pipeline to jails for our young people.
02:23:27 --> 02:23:31 I was really, really excited when he accepted the invitation to come on.
02:23:32 --> 02:23:41 Dr. Kriegel, Jessica Kriegel, is an incredibly brilliant woman who is really,
02:23:41 --> 02:23:47 really focused in on helping us be better leaders, whether that's in politics,
02:23:47 --> 02:23:51 whether that's in the corporate setting, small business, whatever.
02:23:52 --> 02:23:58 And just to understand that it's a Christian concept about surrendering.
02:23:58 --> 02:24:02 You know, we were always taught that in order to be a better leader,
02:24:03 --> 02:24:04 you have to be a great follower.
02:24:04 --> 02:24:11 One of the classic examples in the Bible was Jesus wiping the feet of the poor people.
02:24:12 --> 02:24:17 And, you know, there's actually a denomination of Christianity in America that
02:24:17 --> 02:24:20 that's part of their worship service.
02:24:21 --> 02:24:24 That the pastor would actually wash the feet of the parishioners, right?
02:24:25 --> 02:24:30 And so, you know, even though that's quote-unquote symbolic.
02:24:33 --> 02:24:39 It's a very important point for us, especially in the political world,
02:24:39 --> 02:24:45 to not, and especially with the current leadership we have, that it's not about you.
02:24:46 --> 02:24:48 It's about the people.
02:24:49 --> 02:24:55 The preamble doesn't start off me, the person. It starts off we, the people, right?
02:24:56 --> 02:25:03 And in this democratic republic, we elect people to handle the day-to-day business
02:25:03 --> 02:25:07 of government, but they still work for us. We still have the say-so.
02:25:08 --> 02:25:13 And when things are going sideways, we need to let them know about it.
02:25:13 --> 02:25:18 And no matter how they try to intimidate us, no matter how they try to silence
02:25:18 --> 02:25:21 us, that's really our job.
02:25:21 --> 02:25:23 And it's our constitutional right to do so.
02:25:24 --> 02:25:28 And, you know, we have a right to redress.
02:25:29 --> 02:25:33 We have a right to assemble, to address the redress, right?
02:25:34 --> 02:25:38 And so, you know, what we see happening in Tennessee,
02:25:39 --> 02:25:48 you know, punishing the Democrats, you know, that guy actually should be in jail, too,
02:25:48 --> 02:25:51 the Speaker of the House, because he was involved in some kind of corruption
02:25:51 --> 02:25:56 thing going on in Tennessee, and that just kind of got swept under the rug, right? Right.
02:25:57 --> 02:26:00 Just look at the leadership that we have in this country. It's like a lot of
02:26:00 --> 02:26:07 people that should be in jail are not. And now they're in leadership positions.
02:26:08 --> 02:26:10 It's kind of crazy. Anyway, I
02:26:10 --> 02:26:13 want to thank Dr. Kriegel for coming on the show. And then, of course, Dr.
02:26:13 --> 02:26:19 Terri Givens, her coming back onto the show, and especially at a time like this,
02:26:19 --> 02:26:25 is really, really encouraging to listen to her and understand the work that
02:26:25 --> 02:26:29 she's doing to try to get us through, right?
02:26:30 --> 02:26:33 And I said it in the interview, and I'll say it again.
02:26:33 --> 02:26:40 The Black folks in academia right now, and there's a historical trend to that,
02:26:40 --> 02:26:46 but even more so now, the Black folks in academia are really on the front lines.
02:26:47 --> 02:26:51 These are our thought leaders. You know, we have some think tanks, right?
02:26:51 --> 02:26:57 You know, we had, you know, people on that, you know, are part of think tanks,
02:26:57 --> 02:27:04 but, you know, the lab that's happening at our university, especially at our HBCUs, right?
02:27:06 --> 02:27:10 We need to really, really uplift them, you know, whatever work they're doing.
02:27:10 --> 02:27:13 That's why, you know, with Universal Right Publications, Dr.
02:27:14 --> 02:27:20 Sekai, you know, we got to uplift all of our people in the academic world that
02:27:20 --> 02:27:23 are doing the work to educate us,
02:27:23 --> 02:27:29 educate our children hands on about what's going on in this world and come up
02:27:29 --> 02:27:34 with some solutions of how to navigate and defeat this. Right.
02:27:36 --> 02:27:40 And then kind of bring me down off the ledge with some of the radical ideas
02:27:40 --> 02:27:43 I have, or even encourage it.
02:27:43 --> 02:27:48 You know, it all depends on what I say, but I'm really glad to have people like
02:27:48 --> 02:27:50 Dr. Givens come on the show.
02:27:50 --> 02:27:56 Now, there has been an issue that I have not really addressed on this show,
02:27:56 --> 02:28:03 and I should have been from day one, but I want to devote time to this now.
02:28:03 --> 02:28:08 And that's dealing with this situation in New Orleans. And I'm not talking about the redistricting.
02:28:09 --> 02:28:14 I'm talking about the situation with this brother named Calvin Duncan.
02:28:14 --> 02:28:23 For those who do not know, Calvin Duncan spent 28 years wrongfully imprisoned
02:28:23 --> 02:28:33 for a 1981 murder before being freed in 2011 and then being exonerated 10 years later in 2021.
02:28:34 --> 02:28:40 And he learned, he got his law degree after he got out.
02:28:40 --> 02:28:45 But during the time he was incarcerated, he was, because he was trying to figure
02:28:45 --> 02:28:49 out how he could prove his innocence, he became a jailhouse lawyer.
02:28:51 --> 02:28:59 And he decided this election year to run for the clerk for the Criminal District
02:28:59 --> 02:29:01 Court of Orleans Parish.
02:29:02 --> 02:29:09 And he ran on a on a platform to make the office more transparent and transparent.
02:29:12 --> 02:29:16 Update to record keeping and all that stuff, the stuff that clerks do.
02:29:16 --> 02:29:20 He said he could do a better job than the guy who was in there, right?
02:29:21 --> 02:29:28 And 68% of the people, right? He ran in November of last year.
02:29:29 --> 02:29:34 68% of the people last year in the election voted for Mr. Duncan.
02:29:35 --> 02:29:39 So now it's like this great story. Here's this guy who was formerly incarcerated,
02:29:39 --> 02:29:42 and he's reformed his life.
02:29:43 --> 02:29:48 You know, he was proven innocent, and now he wants to give back to the community,
02:29:48 --> 02:29:52 and the community overwhelmingly supported him.
02:29:53 --> 02:29:58 But there were some people that weren't happy about it, especially this lady named Liz Morrell.
02:29:58 --> 02:30:01 Now, Liz Morrell is the attorney general for the state of Louisiana.
02:30:03 --> 02:30:09 And her big thing is that her and Mr. Duncan got into it because Mr.
02:30:09 --> 02:30:15 Duncan was trying to get, you know, reparations for his time in jail.
02:30:16 --> 02:30:22 Like I said, he almost spent 30 years in jail and he was wrongfully convicted.
02:30:22 --> 02:30:30 And so in most states, if not all, there's a way for wrongly convicted people
02:30:30 --> 02:30:33 to be compensated for that time.
02:30:34 --> 02:30:37 And Ms. Morrell and Mr.
02:30:37 --> 02:30:42 Duncan have been at odds about what the settlement should be.
02:30:43 --> 02:30:49 To the point where Mr. Duncan just said, you know what, I'm not really worried about that.
02:30:49 --> 02:30:53 You know, I just know that that's supposed to be part of the deal.
02:30:55 --> 02:31:00 And I'm going to move on with my life. And so that's why he ran for the criminal
02:31:00 --> 02:31:03 district court clerk in Orleans Parish.
02:31:04 --> 02:31:07 And, you know, because I guess, you know, if he's going to use the money,
02:31:07 --> 02:31:13 he's going to use it money to start a nonprofit and go about reform that way.
02:31:13 --> 02:31:15 But he decided, well, I'll just run for office.
02:31:16 --> 02:31:23 So after he won, the attorney general got with the governor of the state and
02:31:23 --> 02:31:28 the governor found some dude in some senator from Moreau, Louisiana.
02:31:28 --> 02:31:29 I think his name is Morris.
02:31:30 --> 02:31:36 And he decided to do something really, really crazy. they wanted to pass a law.
02:31:38 --> 02:31:41 To abolish the office that Mr.
02:31:41 --> 02:31:46 Duncan won in time so that he wouldn't be sworn in.
02:31:47 --> 02:31:54 So they were trying to push this legislation through. It was Senate Bill 2056.
02:31:55 --> 02:32:00 And because Louisiana is majority Republican, all these people that are against Mr.
02:32:00 --> 02:32:04 Duncan, Mr. Duncan is a Democrat, and all these people are Republicans,
02:32:04 --> 02:32:06 Landry, Morrell, and this guy Morris. us.
02:32:07 --> 02:32:12 And since Louisiana's majority Republican legislature, they got it through.
02:32:13 --> 02:32:16 And so now it is actually a law called Act 15.
02:32:17 --> 02:32:23 And the governor signed it before Duncan was to be sworn in.
02:32:24 --> 02:32:29 What then happened is that a judge stepped in, federal judge stepped in,
02:32:29 --> 02:32:35 and ruled that the act was unconstitutional, which allowed Mr.
02:32:35 --> 02:32:37 Duncan to be sworn in, right?
02:32:38 --> 02:32:43 However, he only got to sit in that chair for a few hours because the Fifth
02:32:43 --> 02:32:45 Circuit, which is based in New Orleans,
02:32:46 --> 02:32:50 immediately took up the case and granted an emergency administrative stay,
02:32:50 --> 02:32:59 which basically meant that they overruled that judge and restored that law.
02:33:00 --> 02:33:06 So now, Mr. Duncan has been elected to a position that no longer exists.
02:33:08 --> 02:33:13 So, of course, Orly's Parish is part of New Orleans.
02:33:13 --> 02:33:18 So the folks at New Orleans were already upset. The delegation was upset.
02:33:19 --> 02:33:27 And the city decided, along with the district attorney, they decided that they
02:33:27 --> 02:33:32 were going to approach the city council and push a resolution through that resolution.
02:33:34 --> 02:33:39 Would create one, well, it was two resolutions. One, it would set a special
02:33:39 --> 02:33:42 election for November the 3rd, 2026.
02:33:44 --> 02:33:51 To elect a new, because what they did was they took the criminal clerk's position
02:33:51 --> 02:33:55 and merged it with the civil clerk's position, right?
02:33:55 --> 02:33:59 So now it's one office of the clerk of the court in Orleans Parish.
02:34:00 --> 02:34:05 And so the New Orleans City Council said, well, we're going to have a special
02:34:05 --> 02:34:10 election for this new office that's been created because you basically have
02:34:10 --> 02:34:13 combined the two offices.
02:34:13 --> 02:34:20 And since there was a separate election for the civil clerk and the criminal
02:34:20 --> 02:34:26 clerk, that it's only fair that we have an election for the combined office.
02:34:26 --> 02:34:30 And they wanted to set it for November the 3rd.
02:34:30 --> 02:34:40 And they wanted to appoint a retired judge to serve as the clerk until the election happened.
02:34:41 --> 02:34:46 So basically, they were kicking this woman off named Chelsea Napoleon,
02:34:46 --> 02:34:51 who was elected as the civil district clerk, right?
02:34:52 --> 02:34:58 Ms. Napoleon is also black. Ms. Napoleon was not too happy about that.
02:34:58 --> 02:35:07 She had been quiet the whole time that what eventually became Act 15 was going
02:35:07 --> 02:35:08 through the legislative process.
02:35:08 --> 02:35:11 But after the New Orleans City Council...
02:35:13 --> 02:35:17 Actually said what they were going to do. But then she got very vocal and she
02:35:17 --> 02:35:19 spoke before the council.
02:35:20 --> 02:35:24 And of course, some of the council members were like looking at her like,
02:35:25 --> 02:35:30 okay, you know, so you don't get it.
02:35:30 --> 02:35:36 These folks have taken away a position for somebody and, you know,
02:35:37 --> 02:35:40 we don't think that it's fair that you should benefit from that.
02:35:40 --> 02:35:44 And we should let the voters decide because the voters voted for you,
02:35:44 --> 02:35:46 but they also voted for Mr. Duncan.
02:35:47 --> 02:35:53 So to make it fair, we're going to relieve you of your duty for this new office
02:35:53 --> 02:35:55 that's been created, right?
02:35:55 --> 02:35:59 We're going to put somebody in and then have an election. Now,
02:35:59 --> 02:36:01 if you want to run in that election, you can't.
02:36:02 --> 02:36:08 But, you know, this is what we're going to do. Well, she filed a lawsuit in reaction to that.
02:36:09 --> 02:36:14 And so now that's being decided by the court.
02:36:14 --> 02:36:20 As a matter of fact, the Supreme Court of Louisiana said that Mr.
02:36:20 --> 02:36:24 Johnson can't sit in that seat, right?
02:36:24 --> 02:36:28 That Ms. Napoleon should be in that seat.
02:36:28 --> 02:36:33 For the time being, they didn't they didn't strike down the resolution for the election.
02:36:34 --> 02:36:40 Keep in mind that they didn't strike that a resolution for the election to be held November 3rd.
02:36:41 --> 02:36:47 But they did say that the judge can't be the interim clerk, that Miss Napoleon
02:36:47 --> 02:36:52 would be the clerk until said time.
02:36:52 --> 02:36:58 So what it looks like is going to happen is that Miss Napoleon is going to run against Mr.
02:36:58 --> 02:37:01 Duncan for this unified seat in November.
02:37:03 --> 02:37:06 In the meantime, our friend, Ms. Murrell, the Attorney General,
02:37:07 --> 02:37:12 is literally threatening every elected official in New Orleans.
02:37:15 --> 02:37:21 She said that the council's actions were illegal and that she wanted to she
02:37:21 --> 02:37:25 was going to use usurper statutes, something in Louisiana law,
02:37:26 --> 02:37:33 to remove the council members that voted for the resolution and the mayor from office.
02:37:33 --> 02:37:39 And the mayor, Helen Moreno, who is now the first Latino to be elected mayor
02:37:39 --> 02:37:42 in New Orleans, and she was a former member of the council.
02:37:42 --> 02:37:46 So she basically said, bring it on.
02:37:46 --> 02:37:49 But what I think is going to happen to Ms.
02:37:49 --> 02:37:54 Morell is what's happening to Governor Landry. Now, Governor Landry,
02:37:54 --> 02:37:59 who was down with this removal of Mr.
02:37:59 --> 02:38:06 Duncan, of course, has stopped the congressional elections because of the Calais
02:38:06 --> 02:38:09 decision, which originated out of Louisiana.
02:38:10 --> 02:38:14 And so, and by the way, that guy Calais, if you haven't heard,
02:38:14 --> 02:38:17 he was one of the January 6th people.
02:38:19 --> 02:38:27 Oh, yeah. And so, anyway, now there's a recall petition because in Louisiana,
02:38:27 --> 02:38:29 you can recall elected officials.
02:38:29 --> 02:38:37 So there's a recall petition out and it has to get, I want to say.
02:38:38 --> 02:38:40 A half a million signatures. I don't know.
02:38:41 --> 02:38:44 It's quite a bit that they have to get. It may not be that much.
02:38:45 --> 02:38:50 Somebody from Louisiana can correct me on it. But they have to get so many signatures
02:38:50 --> 02:38:53 for a recall election to be declared.
02:38:54 --> 02:39:00 And I don't know Louisiana law that well, but I assume that it's the recall
02:39:00 --> 02:39:04 election is you vote whether you want,
02:39:04 --> 02:39:09 because what he did in California was, and I think they did the same thing in Wisconsin.
02:39:09 --> 02:39:14 It was like you vote whether you want to keep the person or not,
02:39:14 --> 02:39:17 and then you have to vote who do you want to replace that person.
02:39:18 --> 02:39:23 Now, in California, you had to do it at the same time. I think in Wisconsin,
02:39:24 --> 02:39:25 they had the recall first,
02:39:25 --> 02:39:30 and then they had the election about who would replace the governor when he
02:39:30 --> 02:39:34 was recalled, if he was to be recalled, right?
02:39:34 --> 02:39:38 Because I think if I remember that was Scott Walker, I think he survived it.
02:39:39 --> 02:39:44 But in California, governor didn't. That's how Schwarzenegger got elected governor, right?
02:39:45 --> 02:39:52 So you had to vote to remove the person from the position and then vote for
02:39:52 --> 02:39:54 who you wanted to replace that person.
02:39:55 --> 02:40:01 And I'm thinking that there's efforts to do the same thing for Ms. Morrell.
02:40:02 --> 02:40:06 And what I think is going to happen is if there is a recall election,
02:40:06 --> 02:40:09 And this is just me guessing.
02:40:10 --> 02:40:17 But if they if they get a petition against Morrell, I think that one's going to get the signatures.
02:40:18 --> 02:40:22 We might get enough signatures, too, but I think Morrell's going to get enough signatures.
02:40:23 --> 02:40:27 I think just the people in New Orleans alone would, because I don't think you
02:40:27 --> 02:40:33 have to break it down by, I think it just has to be a certain percentage of the voting population.
02:40:33 --> 02:40:37 I don't think it's divided up by congressional districts and all that stuff.
02:40:38 --> 02:40:42 Because in Mississippi, like, if you want a ballot on the referendum,
02:40:42 --> 02:40:47 a referendum on a ballot, I should say, you have to get so many signatures from
02:40:47 --> 02:40:50 each congressional district. And there's only four in the state.
02:40:50 --> 02:40:56 So I think you have to get somewhere around 100, 150 signatures to get something on the ballot.
02:40:56 --> 02:41:03 But they've tinkered with that a lot because of the pro-marijuana folks.
02:41:03 --> 02:41:09 So, and then they put some restrictions on what you couldn't ask a referendum
02:41:09 --> 02:41:13 for, like ending the right to work laws. Right?
02:41:15 --> 02:41:19 So, anyway, in Louisiana, they got to get it.
02:41:19 --> 02:41:23 But I think that if they have a petition drive, I think Morell,
02:41:23 --> 02:41:29 the signatures would get to Morell, and then they would vote her out.
02:41:30 --> 02:41:35 Now, you know, outside of the major cities, which is Baton Rouge,
02:41:37 --> 02:41:38 New Orleans, and Shreveport,
02:41:39 --> 02:41:42 She might be okay in Alexandria. She might be okay in Monroe.
02:41:43 --> 02:41:44 You know what I'm saying?
02:41:44 --> 02:41:48 But if people turn out for a recall vote on her,
02:41:50 --> 02:41:56 especially when she is literally threatening to fire people for doing something
02:41:56 --> 02:42:02 within the process, then I think that people are going to vote her out.
02:42:03 --> 02:42:07 Because she can make the argument she's following the process and Landry can
02:42:07 --> 02:42:13 vote all that stuff. And so it's like, okay, but you're talking about removing,
02:42:13 --> 02:42:17 you illegally removed this position for Mr. Duncan.
02:42:18 --> 02:42:28 And then you turn around and now you want to remove the council people who benefit from Mr.
02:42:28 --> 02:42:32 Duncan's position because Orleans Parish, New Orleans is the largest city.
02:42:32 --> 02:42:39 So if you're trying to streamline the caseload, they decided in their wisdom
02:42:39 --> 02:42:44 that we would have a civil clerk to handle lawsuits and property matters, all that.
02:42:44 --> 02:42:47 And then you have a criminal clerk to handle criminal cases.
02:42:47 --> 02:42:50 And in a major city, that makes sense.
02:42:51 --> 02:43:01 Right? Right. You know, and outside of whatever hair up their butt that they didn't like Mr.
02:43:01 --> 02:43:04 Duncan being elected by the people because he beat a Democrat.
02:43:05 --> 02:43:09 It wasn't like he he beat a Republican that was in a position.
02:43:10 --> 02:43:11 He beat a Democrat that was in that position.
02:43:12 --> 02:43:17 So you would think, why would the Republicans care about this black man getting
02:43:17 --> 02:43:20 elected in New Orleans to be the criminal clerk?
02:43:20 --> 02:43:22 But it's all about pettiness.
02:43:24 --> 02:43:28 And, you know, so Mr. Duncan's doing his thing.
02:43:28 --> 02:43:38 So I want y'all to pay attention to that, because that situation in New Orleans is just symptomatic.
02:43:40 --> 02:43:46 All of the stuff that's happening nationwide, especially in the South, right?
02:43:47 --> 02:43:53 Because now, you know, it's like, well, at first Georgia said,
02:43:54 --> 02:43:55 well, we're not going to do anything.
02:43:55 --> 02:43:58 And then they said, well, we'll do it for the 2028 elections,
02:43:58 --> 02:44:04 which would mean that this would be the third time in a 10-year span that Georgia
02:44:04 --> 02:44:07 is voting to redo their maps.
02:44:08 --> 02:44:12 That's insane. You're only supposed to do it once. And that's after you get a census.
02:44:13 --> 02:44:17 And it's determined how many congressional seats you will have based on your population.
02:44:18 --> 02:44:24 And you divide the state up based on how many districts you have. You've been allotted.
02:44:24 --> 02:44:27 And you do that usually the year after the census.
02:44:28 --> 02:44:33 And then for the next 10 years, that's how I arrived, right?
02:44:34 --> 02:44:40 Georgia, if this goes through, this special session that's supposed to happen
02:44:40 --> 02:44:44 next month, this will be the third time that Georgia would have redrawn the
02:44:44 --> 02:44:46 maps for congressional districts.
02:44:47 --> 02:44:53 And God knows what, there's one Congresswoman, Lucy McBath, who has had to run
02:44:53 --> 02:44:58 in three different locations during the time she's been an author.
02:44:59 --> 02:45:02 She defeated a Republican and then,
02:45:03 --> 02:45:08 they redrew the map she won that election then they redrew the map again she
02:45:08 --> 02:45:10 had to beat a Democratic incumbent,
02:45:11 --> 02:45:16 because they combined the two and then she beat the Republican again she actually
02:45:16 --> 02:45:21 did not want to run for real life she wanted to run for governor but circumstances dictated otherwise,
02:45:22 --> 02:45:26 so she's now have to sit and see what she's going to be running in 2028.
02:45:28 --> 02:45:34 And Alabama, in the middle of a thunderstorm, a severe thunderstorm,
02:45:34 --> 02:45:38 where tornadoes and the Capitol actually was flooding.
02:45:39 --> 02:45:44 Those folks got rid of one district. I don't think they got rid of Miss Sewell.
02:45:44 --> 02:45:47 They got rid of Brother Figures District.
02:45:47 --> 02:45:52 And then in Louisiana and Tennessee, they're trying to eliminate.
02:45:52 --> 02:45:56 Well, in Tennessee, they eliminated the black, the one black district there.
02:45:57 --> 02:46:03 He's got that fanning out, but I think Brother Pearson has a plan and a strategy
02:46:03 --> 02:46:08 to still run for that seat and still win.
02:46:08 --> 02:46:15 Now, the crazy thing that could happen in Tennessee is that now that Cohen and
02:46:15 --> 02:46:19 Pearson are not running against each other, what you have done is create an
02:46:19 --> 02:46:22 opportunity for Cohen and Pearson to both go to Congress.
02:46:24 --> 02:46:29 Because Cohen has been Cone of Corrin. I always miss his name.
02:46:30 --> 02:46:34 But the gentleman that currently represents Memphis now in the U.S.
02:46:34 --> 02:46:39 Congress, and he's been there for almost 20 years, he was going to have to run
02:46:39 --> 02:46:43 against Representative Pearson in the Democratic primary.
02:46:44 --> 02:46:49 But now what you've done is that you've allowed the current congressman to run
02:46:49 --> 02:46:56 in whatever district you've drawn for him, that part of Memphis that he's in.
02:46:58 --> 02:47:02 And you've created a district for Representative Pearson to run.
02:47:03 --> 02:47:07 And based on what's going on nationally, well, Dr.
02:47:07 --> 02:47:11 Givens and I was talking about, based on all the confluence of angst and anger
02:47:11 --> 02:47:17 that people are having, you might end up having two Democrats coming out of
02:47:17 --> 02:47:19 Tennessee on November the 3rd.
02:47:19 --> 02:47:25 That's one. And then in New Orleans, in Louisiana, looks like they can't really
02:47:25 --> 02:47:29 do anything with Congressman Carter's district, but they're basically going
02:47:29 --> 02:47:32 to wipe out representative fields.
02:47:32 --> 02:47:36 And so he was saying, well, he doesn't think he's going to win,
02:47:36 --> 02:47:39 but it's like, I don't know, brother, I think you should run.
02:47:39 --> 02:47:45 But, you know, you've been, this is like your second stint in Congress,
02:47:45 --> 02:47:47 representing the state of Louisiana.
02:47:48 --> 02:47:54 And he basically, you know, every time that he's been put out in Congress,
02:47:54 --> 02:47:57 it's been because they redrew the line so he couldn't run.
02:47:59 --> 02:48:03 And so, but this year might be different, right?
02:48:04 --> 02:48:10 We got some stuff going on in Nebraska where there's this young man who's running.
02:48:11 --> 02:48:17 He ran for the U.S. Senate two years ago and barely lost to the incumbent, that fisherwoman.
02:48:17 --> 02:48:24 You remember when Kamala Vice President Harris was swearing in the new senators
02:48:24 --> 02:48:29 and there was this woman and, you know,
02:48:29 --> 02:48:33 the woman shook Vice President's hand, but the husband would not.
02:48:33 --> 02:48:39 Damn, that's that's that's who this guy lost to that woman. Right.
02:48:39 --> 02:48:45 And so now the other guy, Ricketts, he's up.
02:48:45 --> 02:48:48 And so Mr. Osborne is going to run against him.
02:48:50 --> 02:48:53 He's run as independent. He hasn't run as a Democrat. He's run as independent.
02:48:54 --> 02:49:00 And so there was a lady who ran in the Democratic primary, and she said,
02:49:00 --> 02:49:05 if you vote for me, I will drop out, and we all get behind Mr. Osborne.
02:49:06 --> 02:49:09 So basically, she was saying a vote for me is a vote for Osborne,
02:49:09 --> 02:49:14 and 89% of the people did that. They voted for her.
02:49:15 --> 02:49:19 So she's dropping out, and so it'll just be Mr.
02:49:19 --> 02:49:23 Ricketts and Mr. Osborne. Mr. Ricketts is very interesting because his wife
02:49:23 --> 02:49:28 is running for some position in Nebraska, and she's running in the Democratic primary.
02:49:29 --> 02:49:33 Anyway, and then there was this other scenario because Nebraska is the only
02:49:33 --> 02:49:36 unicameral legislature.
02:49:37 --> 02:49:44 And so in Nebraska, because there's a Republican governor, there was a young
02:49:44 --> 02:49:49 man that was running for Congress, and he's a state senator.
02:49:50 --> 02:49:55 And so there was a young lady who's been a party activist who ran against him,
02:49:55 --> 02:50:00 and she was saying, don't vote for him, vote for me, because if you vote for him,
02:50:00 --> 02:50:05 then the governor will replace that Senate seat,
02:50:05 --> 02:50:07 right, with a Republican.
02:50:08 --> 02:50:12 And we don't want a Republican in that Senate seat. We want to keep the senator
02:50:12 --> 02:50:15 where he is. So don't vote for the senator to go to Congress. Vote for me.
02:50:16 --> 02:50:20 And apparently it worked because she won. just barely what she wants.
02:50:22 --> 02:50:28 So that's, those are the dynamics, just as an example, the dynamics that are happening.
02:50:29 --> 02:50:30 And what's really crazy, like
02:50:30 --> 02:50:34 Mississippi's decided, well, Mississippi's already had their primaries.
02:50:35 --> 02:50:39 So the governor's basically said, well, I want to get rid of Benny Thompson.
02:50:40 --> 02:50:42 He said that out of his mouth. He wants to get rid of Benny Thompson,
02:50:42 --> 02:50:48 who's the only black Democratic representative in the state of Mississippi.
02:50:49 --> 02:50:53 All right. He's the highest ranking black elected official in the site.
02:50:53 --> 02:50:58 And so the governor said that he wants to get rid of Benny Thompson's seat,
02:50:59 --> 02:51:03 but we're not going to, he's, you know, the primaries already happened.
02:51:03 --> 02:51:06 So we're going to redraw the maps in 2027.
02:51:07 --> 02:51:09 And so in the 2028 election.
02:51:11 --> 02:51:18 So he was going to call a special session to take away some of the black votes
02:51:18 --> 02:51:22 that had been added to the Supreme Court districts.
02:51:23 --> 02:51:28 And there was and there was the reason why that was added was because a Republican
02:51:28 --> 02:51:35 won in the central district. That's not unusual, even for a district that was,
02:51:35 --> 02:51:37 you know, basically majority black.
02:51:38 --> 02:51:42 It's not unusual because we had a Republican Transportation Commissioner for
02:51:42 --> 02:51:46 a long time because the Transportation Commission and the Public Service Commission
02:51:46 --> 02:51:50 uses the same lines as Supreme Court districts in Mississippi.
02:51:50 --> 02:51:56 And so now we've got a black Transportation Commissioner and a black public
02:51:56 --> 02:52:00 service commissioner running on those same lines. But the guy who had,
02:52:00 --> 02:52:02 but he had been there for a long time.
02:52:02 --> 02:52:05 He'd been there since at least 06 or 08.
02:52:05 --> 02:52:11 I can't remember which Senate race I was running in that he was running simultaneously with me.
02:52:12 --> 02:52:17 And, but he's, he's been there at the very minimum since 08, right?
02:52:18 --> 02:52:21 So this lady who had served in the state legislature beat him.
02:52:23 --> 02:52:29 And so black folks said, obviously, there's not enough black folks in the district,
02:52:29 --> 02:52:33 so we got to change that map. And so they did.
02:52:34 --> 02:52:40 Now, Governor Reeves wants to take those black folks away. And so he was going
02:52:40 --> 02:52:41 to call a special session to do that.
02:52:42 --> 02:52:45 But then the Fifth Circuit.
02:52:47 --> 02:52:54 In and said, well, yeah, let's go back to the old map.
02:52:57 --> 02:53:02 And it doesn't affect the Transportation Commissioner or the Public Service
02:53:02 --> 02:53:07 Commissioner because they basically ran on the old map and won.
02:53:07 --> 02:53:12 So, you know, all this is just pettiness personified.
02:53:13 --> 02:53:19 And that comes from the top down. When you elect petty people in leaderships
02:53:19 --> 02:53:20 like President of the United States
02:53:20 --> 02:53:27 and you build this cadre of petty sycophants, you can call it a cult,
02:53:27 --> 02:53:30 you can call it blind allegiance, whatever.
02:53:32 --> 02:53:37 What you get. And again, it's all based on white supremacy.
02:53:38 --> 02:53:41 Point blank, no discussion.
02:53:41 --> 02:53:47 And you can twist and turn and contort your way around that,
02:53:47 --> 02:53:51 but it's a reality. It is what it is.
02:53:52 --> 02:53:57 And for people who got caught up in voting for false promises and all that stuff,
02:53:57 --> 02:54:00 well, now you realize you made a mistake.
02:54:00 --> 02:54:04 Whether you openly admit it or not, you made a mistake.
02:54:04 --> 02:54:10 And so now November 3rd is your first chance to start correcting the problem.
02:54:12 --> 02:54:17 Because no matter how districts are drawn, people still have to vote for the
02:54:17 --> 02:54:19 candidates that present themselves for office.
02:54:19 --> 02:54:27 And if people look at the current legislators that are in these respective districts,
02:54:27 --> 02:54:32 or if you're creating new districts, whoever the Republicans are out there,
02:54:33 --> 02:54:36 whoever the Democrats are out there, nine times out of 10,
02:54:37 --> 02:54:43 based on the crop that's the farm teams that's developing these folks,
02:54:43 --> 02:54:47 the Democratic candidates are going to be more qualified, and they're going
02:54:47 --> 02:54:49 to give a damn about you, right?
02:54:50 --> 02:54:54 So what I see happening is that.
02:54:57 --> 02:55:00 People are going to, there's going to be a lot of people with their feelings
02:55:00 --> 02:55:02 hurt and it's not going to be the Democrats.
02:55:03 --> 02:55:08 The Republicans that do survive are going to barely hang on.
02:55:09 --> 02:55:14 It's not going to be a blowout. It's not going to be, if you win, it will not be a mandate.
02:55:15 --> 02:55:17 I promise you that. Promise you that.
02:55:18 --> 02:55:22 If you win, it'll be by the skin of your teeth because people are angry.
02:55:23 --> 02:55:27 They are more upset now than they were with Biden.
02:55:29 --> 02:55:33 Because you said, Mr. President, that you were going to fix things,
02:55:33 --> 02:55:35 and you've made them absolutely worse.
02:55:36 --> 02:55:39 And then you keep talking about you want to build a ballroom,
02:55:39 --> 02:55:41 and you want to build this ark,
02:55:41 --> 02:55:48 and you want to fix the reflecting pool, repaint it, and now you want to have
02:55:48 --> 02:55:52 some kind of national garden. Look, man.
02:55:54 --> 02:55:58 Washington, D.C. is not your palace. It's the people's house.
02:55:58 --> 02:56:00 It's the people's capital.
02:56:01 --> 02:56:04 Your job is to be a steward for four years.
02:56:05 --> 02:56:08 And if the people like you, you get reelected. But since you've been elected
02:56:08 --> 02:56:11 once before, this is it for you.
02:56:11 --> 02:56:16 And for those people who are looking for federal judicial positions,
02:56:16 --> 02:56:23 I don't care if Donald Trump personally handpicked you to do that. If a U.S.
02:56:23 --> 02:56:27 Senator asks you a question about the 22nd Amendment, you better answer that
02:56:27 --> 02:56:32 like constitutional law was your was your major in law school.
02:56:32 --> 02:56:37 Because the president cannot get another term. And if you're too afraid to say
02:56:37 --> 02:56:40 that, then you should be disqualified from being a judge.
02:56:41 --> 02:56:43 Period. So anyway.
02:56:44 --> 02:56:51 All this stuff. Is based on confusion. And for those of us of the Christian
02:56:51 --> 02:56:55 faith, we know who the origin of confusion is.
02:56:55 --> 02:57:05 So when somebody said, you know, why would you compare Donald Trump with all these evil people?
02:57:05 --> 02:57:11 It's like because he's evil in the natural and the supernatural sense, period.
02:57:12 --> 02:57:23 And, you know, we know that those folks will be dealt with because vengeance is mine, saith the Lord.
02:57:25 --> 02:57:32 For those of us who want to be instruments of God, then we have to vote these people out.
02:57:33 --> 02:57:36 There's no other option. They got to go.
02:57:37 --> 02:57:42 Not unless they repent of their wicked ways, right? They got to go.
02:57:43 --> 02:57:47 And I believe that a lot of y'all will make sure that they're gone.
02:57:48 --> 02:57:54 I think people are going to show up in record numbers because they already are
02:57:54 --> 02:57:57 here in Georgia. I can't attest from anywhere else.
02:57:58 --> 02:58:01 And they're going to vote these people out.
02:58:01 --> 02:58:05 We got people that are running that are tone deaf to what's happening because
02:58:05 --> 02:58:10 they're so caught up in their ideological beliefs.
02:58:10 --> 02:58:15 We got this guy running for governor and he's comparing himself to Trump.
02:58:15 --> 02:58:19 And then his opponent is saying, well, Trump actually endorsed me.
02:58:20 --> 02:58:23 Well, y'all beat each other up in the Republican primary and whoever comes out,
02:58:24 --> 02:58:28 whether you say that you're like Trump or whether you say you were endorsed
02:58:28 --> 02:58:32 by Trump, the people are going to say, if you're tired with Trump in any kind
02:58:32 --> 02:58:35 of way, we ain't voting for you. You're going to lose.
02:58:36 --> 02:58:40 It's your money. You can spend it however you want to, but you're going to lose
02:58:40 --> 02:58:42 because people are tired.
02:58:43 --> 02:58:48 All I'm asking is that You encourage, those of you listening,
02:58:48 --> 02:58:53 you encourage people to take a stand just like the people in Hungary took the stand, right?
02:58:53 --> 02:58:56 We talked about that in Dr. Gibbons' interview.
02:58:56 --> 02:59:02 You know, after 16 years of that foolishness that Trump and those folks want
02:59:02 --> 02:59:05 to emulate, they said enough's enough, and they voted him out.
02:59:06 --> 02:59:13 And he did everything he could to try to rig the system, but the people overwhelmed
02:59:13 --> 02:59:16 and won. and that's what we have to do here.
02:59:16 --> 02:59:21 We don't have to wait 16 years. We can do this right now on November the 3rd.
02:59:23 --> 02:59:32 Overwhelm the rig districts. We could overwhelm the unconstitutional legislation.
02:59:33 --> 02:59:36 We could overwhelm judicial decisions
02:59:36 --> 02:59:44 because the preamble starts off with three words, we, the people.
02:59:44 --> 02:59:46 And because of those three words,
02:59:47 --> 02:59:51 I believe Mr. Duncan is going to get his rightful place in public office.
02:59:51 --> 02:59:58 I believe the folks in Tennessee will have a Democratic congressman if not to.
02:59:59 --> 03:00:03 I believe the folks in Alabama will have a Democratic congressman if not to.
03:00:04 --> 03:00:10 Hell, if the people of Mississippi do their thing, not only will we have a black
03:00:10 --> 03:00:11 congressman, we will have a black senator.
03:00:12 --> 03:00:17 Folks in Louisiana will get to. Say the Georgia may have a black governor.
03:00:18 --> 03:00:28 If people you, the listening audience, we, the people, we show up, we'll win. All right.