Stacy Abrams Discusses DEI, Right-Wing Violence, Gerrymandering, and Action Steps for Your Community
October 4, 2025 • 50 mins
Stacey Abrams joins us this week to discuss strategies for reclaiming political representation, diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, and our first amendment protections. Find more at BINNews.com!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Broadcasting from the Hip Hop Weekly Studios. I'd like to
welcome you to another episode of Civic Cipher, where our
mission is to foster allyship, empathy and understanding. I'm your host,
ramses Ja. He is ramses Jah, I am q Ward.
You are tuned into Civic Cipher. Man. We've been all
around the world together, man and ah yah yah.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Another trip down and some game perspective together. But he
goes by the name ramses Jah Indeed, and we need
you to stick around. We got a special show in
store for you today. A little later on, we are
going to be hearing from the great Stacy Abrams. I'm
very excited to talk to her and get some leadership
(00:43):
from her.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
I think it is important to mention that we're just
coming back from a long week in Washington, d C.
On the ground at the Congressional Black Caucus, where we
were able to speak with a lot of leaders in
this country, a lot of congress people, a lot of senators,
a lot of elected officials, state representatives, et cetera, and
(01:07):
a lot of you know, big names, including Stacy Abrams
and many others that you'll hear from, you know, as
we continue to roll out content on this program and
it was a necessary a pilgrimage for us. This is
something that we do every year, and I think that
(01:29):
anytime we end up, you know, in one of these places,
these conventions or you know, speaking engagements where we get
to fellowship with people that are doing kind of similar
work that we're doing, there's something to be said about
how it energizes us and reinvigorates us. You know, I'll
(01:49):
speak for myself you how about you? Any highlights that
you care to share from our week out there.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
Yeah, I think we have kind of different perspectives on
this because I had ex dictations when we got on
our flights that we would gain a lot in the
way of insight, in the way of strategy, in the
way of tangible hope, and I didn't get any of
that this time.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Oh yeah, yeah, I know, And that's something that obviously
we're going to talk about. I know that I'm kind
of spearing this conversation with her, but no, I appreciate
that because I think that your feelings represent and reflect
a lot of you know, hopelessness that that people are
feeling around the country. You know, me as as always,
(02:38):
I think the things that I took from it is
I expected things to be worse than they were. Everyone
still showed up. I mean, with the exception of like
a Corey Booker, I think pretty much everyone we would
have expected to be there was there. And I still
I recognize that this is you know, uncharted water and
(03:00):
the strategies still coming together. But you know, I think
to your point, there are people like you know, Stacy Abrams.
There are people like Justin Pearson. You know, we had
a conversation with him on the ground. Out there, people
that do represent you know, hope, people that do have
some ideas and they I think what we can do
(03:22):
is platform them and help share share their ideas that
feel reasonable and logical and based into shared reality. So
where I was expecting to find a void, I found
people still showing up, and that, unfortunately, I have to
say it this way, that's not nothing. And so without
(03:44):
you know, spending too much time teasing it, let's just
get into our conversation with Stacy Abrams and let's hear
her thoughts on this and so much more. Racy Abrams
is a New York Times best selling author, entrepreneur, producer,
(04:04):
and political leader. She served eleven years in the Georgia
House of Representatives seven as minority leader and was the
first black woman to become the gubernatorial nominee for a
major party in United States history. And she is our
guest today. All right, Stacey Abrams, welcome to the show.
We've been very much looking forward to talking to you.
(04:26):
How you doing today. I'm wonderful.
Speaker 4 (04:27):
I appreciate the invitation, and I thank you for the
work that you do that you and your co host do.
Q really sharing information with the community.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
Absolutely, and I want to get into that a little
bit later, but I want to make sure that I
honor you and I let people know indeed who it
is that we have on the show. Sad of course
everyone knows, but for those that might, you know, just
now politics is just now starting to affect them adversely,
(04:59):
and they're starting the rap heads around the new state
of the country. I want to get into the weeds
a little bit, so, you know, even before founding Fair
Fight Action, as someone who's well known for fighting voter suppression,
give us your thoughts on the redistrict thing that we've
(05:20):
seen in red states across the country and the response
from blue states. I want to start here because obviously
we're all looking forward to kind of taking back power
in the midterms, some power or taking away some power,
whatever it is that we can do. Those of us
believe in a more progressive society, and this is one
(05:41):
thing that has concerned a lot of people. So talk
to us a little bit about what's going on with
the redistricting and just kind of share your thoughts.
Speaker 4 (05:49):
Sure, So I'm going to link.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Two things.
Speaker 4 (05:53):
So, when I launched fair Fight in twenty eighteen, it
was after the twenty eighteen election here in Georgia, where
voter suppression was very much in full force. But I
came into leadership in the Georgia General Assembly at the
end of twenty ten. So my very first year as
(06:14):
minority leader was during a redistricting year. I was the
minority leader in the Georgia House of Representatives, and I
watched them redraw the lines. In a state where they'd
won fifty seven percent of the population, they gave themselves
almost seventy percent of the votes. And that disproportion was
achieved by packing Black communities wherever they could, cracking Latino
(06:38):
and Api communities, meaning scattering them so that they couldn't
build coalitions. And then they went after white legislators who
represented black or brown communities and essentially drew them into competition.
The intention was not simply to win more seats. It
was to create long term divisions that would disallow the
(07:00):
aggregation of power for communities that were rising in population
and rising in influence. And so what we're watching happening
right now is that same device, but on steroids, because
typically you know it's coming, but it comes once a decade,
it comes after the census, and it precedes the next
(07:21):
midterm election that follows the midterm election that follows. And
the reason this is so important to understand is that
it's not just about what we did with Fair Fight.
I also created an organization called fair Count because in
twenty ten, what I realized was the reason they could
diminish our voting power so much was that we did
(07:42):
not participate in the census. And if you don't get
counted in the census when they're drawing those lines, they
are ignoring your needs. And so what we're watching happen
in these red states is that they can count and
they know that in terms of the sheer volume of people,
that the rising power of communities of color is so
(08:03):
great that in seventeen years this nation is a majority
minority nation. If you don't want that to come to truition,
you've got to start now, breaking their ability to coalition,
breaking their ability to elect representation, breaking their ability to
direct the future of this country. And so the red
states that are redistricting in the middle of the decade
(08:24):
are doing so based on old information and trying to
game the next system. Because if you can change who
is in Congress in twenty twenty six, you control the
census in twenty thirty. The blue states that are interceding
then are by some measure, are being considered Oh well,
they're just doing the same thing that the Republicans are doing. No,
(08:46):
they're nullifying an attempt to gain the system. They are
nullifying an attempt to rig the system. It is not
that these are states that are going out saying we
want extra power. They're saying we won't let you steal
power from those who fought to get it by participating
in the twenty twenty census. Because the work that Fair
count did, the work that countless organizations did in twenty
(09:08):
twenty in the middle of not just the pandemic, but
under a Trump administration that was trying to weaponize the
census was to assure that we had as many people
of color as possible who participated in the census, so
they could get those seats. That are the seats being
attacked in Texas, the seats being attacked in Missouri. They
(09:28):
are trying to take the seats that we gained because
we did the work. And so it's critical for us
to understand that this isn't just about winning an election.
This is about reorganizing a system so communities that you
do not value are denied power on a permanent basis.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
If I may, I would like to add to that,
and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I
want to make sure that this lives and it's fully
pronounced in the minds of our listeners. So when you
were talking about the Blue states nullifying the power that
these red states are trying to grab ahead of the census,
and of course the strategy makes sense. I appreciate you
(10:05):
laying that out of why they want to get ahead
of the shifting population, the blue states nullifying that power
as opposed to grabbing power themselves. I think there's a
little bit more life that we can breathe into that,
because my understanding is that historically Red states have gone
(10:27):
to great lengths to disenfranchise voters. It's particularly so across
the South, where there are a statistically significant amount of
black people that want to vote. And because they've already been,
as you mentioned, cracking and packing, they don't have as
(10:48):
much room to continue in that same way as Blue
states do. And so you know, these blue states conceivably
could gain more power by doing cracking and packing, but
what they're doing is trying to simply nullify what's happening there.
And the other thing I do want to add and
(11:08):
then get your response, if indeed you have one, is
that when you mentioned the census two and I actually
did work with the census, the last census, and we
went out and we sort of campaigned to get folks
to participate. And you're absolutely right, the census affects so
many parts of people's lives. You know, what schools are needed?
(11:30):
Do you need a fire department otherwise? You know, if
something happens the fire, the closest fire department is too
far away. You know, fiscal resources, parks, libraries, et cetera,
bus lines, all these sorts of things are drawn from
participation in the census, and so this was a message
that we certainly had to get out to people who
(11:53):
I believe that once upon a time the showing for
black people in the census was less than three fifths,
and so they compared it to the three fifths Compromise,
saying that, hey, by not participating in the census, we've
actually done a disservice to our own community on par
(12:14):
with or worse than the three fifths compromise of yester year.
And so I just wanted to make those live a
little bit more. Any thoughts you have to add, well.
Speaker 4 (12:22):
I appreciate you framing it that way, because the two
things to understand. In twenty ten we were dramatically underrepresented
in the census, and so yes, by twenty twenty, for me,
that was an incredibly important issue, and I always lift up.
I am so grateful for the attention that fair Fight
gets because protecting the infrastructure of democracy against voter suppression
(12:45):
is vital. But we have to remember that they are
paying attention not just to the output, but the input,
and the census is the input you laid out, I
think an important set of metrics if you live in
a food desert. Grocery stores decide where they're going to
to go based on the census from a decade before Ppe.
When COVID hit communities that got fewer resources, it was
(13:08):
because they were undercounted. We now live in a moment
where if we do not understand the power of our numbers,
we are doomed. Because they can count, we should count too.
And the last thing I'll say is this, fifty six
percent of Black people live in the South. The majority
(13:28):
of the Latino population lives in the South and the West.
We know that these are populations that can determine the
outcome of nearly every major decision made, which is why
they are so assiduous about attacking our voting rights. And
so as we think about the attacks on DEI on diversity, equity,
and inclusion, they're not talking about a boring seminar that
(13:51):
you have to do in HR. They're talking about the
Voting Rights Act. They're talking about the thirteen, fourteenth, and
fifteenth Amendments. Because it was DEI that made elections accessible
to black and brown communities. It was DEI that said
that African Americans, to your point about three fifths our
very citizenship is DEI. When they talk about eliminating birthright citizenship,
(14:14):
they're talking about us. And so I think it's so
critical that we link together all of these component pieces
because their goal is for us to see them as
separate and disparate. They are all of a piece. If
we don't count, if we don't get counted, we don't count.
If we don't get counted, we can't vote. If we
don't get counted and we can't participate, then our value
(14:35):
as a citizen is diminished not by our actions, but
by their intention. And so for me, it is so
incredibly important that we see this as a holistic, multi
layered attack and not as a one off or something
that's an inconvenience.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
The reality of the situation that I think, you know,
Q and I we learned over this past weekend. We
were at CBC out there in DC, and you know,
there are a lot of people that really are pushing
back against the idea that these things are based on
racism and that somehow everyone else is playing the game fair.
(15:20):
And you know, black people need to come to terms
with that, and you know, shed this sort of victim
mentality and it shows kind of a stunning disconnect from
the reality of the situation which I think you laid out,
which is the fact that, as you mentioned in the South,
you know, fifty six percent of the black people in
this country are located in the South and or Latinos,
(15:42):
that's the South and the Southwest, and those people tend
to vote in such a way that it challenges the
pathways I suppose to a white supremacist nation, and so
to disenfranchise that group in particular, it's so sort of
(16:06):
a step removed from the racism that people wish they
could see so they could clearly market. I identify it
as racism, like these aren't people calling you the inWORD.
These are people just removing your power at the ballot
box so that they're still in position to shape outcomes
for themselves and for your community. So I appreciate you
saying that, just because again we've had some recent conversations
(16:28):
on the ground, which I think will circle back to.
This is why I was saying initially, it's such a
breath of fresh air to talk to somebody who is
intelligent and who's reasonable, and someone who is when you're
in a studio, you kind of feel like you're in
the four walls, and that's really it. So to get
with somebody to remind you that you're not crazy is
(16:50):
kind of a special feeling. So all right, let's move
on one of the things that has dominated headlines recently
and I think has affected changed politics for the foreseeable future.
It might not last forever, because I think some of
(17:12):
us subscribe to a reality that is shared in some
of us subscribe to technically a shared reality, but very
much a detached reality that doesn't account for all of
the facets of it. But the fact is that Charlie
Kirk's assassination, I can call it, that has shifted conversations
(17:35):
and shifted the optics around politics and shifted I think
the culture in this country. And I don't want to
talk about him. I'm sure that you've been talking about
him quite a bit, and everyone kind of knows what
the what is and feels how they feel. But I
think you're in a pretty good position to explain how
(17:58):
his assassination makes politics less safe for black women in particular.
Speaker 4 (18:10):
I recently launched a campaign known as the Ten Steps Campaign,
and it is our attempt to push back against the
rise of authoritarianism and autocracy for me, this isn't an
abstract intention, because authoritarianism is about taking my humanity away.
Authoritarianism is about diminishing my capacity to live and operate
(18:35):
and navigate in this country. And one of the key
ten steps to autocracy is step seven, which is you
scapegoat marginalized in vulnerable communities. You attack DEI, You accuse
people of being less than because you do not like
their identities, not because you're opposed to identities, because you'll
(18:56):
use identities to describe the people you like. You just
don't like certain identity these namely identities where race and
other immutable characteristics are the proxy for your harm. So
step seven in the ten steps to autocracy, Step seven
is attacking DEI, attacking people of color, attacking immigrants, attacking
the disabled, any marginalized and dispossessed community. But step nine
(19:20):
is normalizing violence. It is using violent means, whether it's
having militarized occupation of our cities, whether it is having
secret masked police known as ice roaming the streets. Those
moments where we normalize violence and make it acceptable as
a means of power and control is very dangerous. The
(19:43):
reason this is so critical and the reason I'm glad
you rasied this question. Is that I launched ten steps
a week ahead of time because I wanted to get
in front of the changing narrative that was about to
say that you could not talk about violence without venerating
ideas that said that violence against your community was permissible.
We cannot permit ourselves to become the targets of authoritarian
(20:09):
normalization of violence while at the same time being silenced
and told it is inappropriate to talk about these issues.
I very fundamentally understand that when you look at where
ice is swarming, if you look at the cities that
have been targeted by this administration, by Republicans and those
who support authoritarianism and intocracy, they are unilaterally attacking and
(20:34):
targeting black and brown communities. Every single community they've gone
to until Portland has been led by a black woman,
or if you get to Memphis a black man, if
they've gone to Chicago a black man. So we can't
divorce the identities we hold from the harm that will
be visited upon us by a regime that believes that
(20:56):
normalizing violence is permissible. And as a black woman, we
are the most susceptible in every way to the worst
harms that get visited upon communities. We cannot allow the
normalization of violence, the normalization of military occupation, to take hold,
(21:17):
because that is an intent to not just diminish our
freedom and power, it's an attempt to dehumanize us. Because
when we are not worthy of defense, when we are
not permitted to talk about the need for our own defense,
then that silence becomes another weapon wielded against us. But
it's not enough to just be angry about it. We've
(21:38):
got to be intentional about our response. Violence is not
the answer. I believe in non violence, civil engagement, and
civil resistance, not only because I don't think violence is
the answer, but it's also less effective than nonviolence. When
communities have overthrown oppression, nonviolence has actually been the far
(21:58):
and away superior strategy. But you cannot fight it by
not talking about it. We cannot thwart it by hoping
that people just know what we mean. And so we've
got to call out what it means to send the
National Guard into our cities, to call up the military,
(22:18):
and have the President of the United States saying he's
declaring war on a city. Those are issues that we
cannot divorce ourselves from because when we do, autocracy takes
hold and the reality is their singular target are the
communities that they dislike that encounter to their political ends,
and that means DEI communities. And therefore it is incumbent
(22:40):
upon us to talk about both things at the exact
same time. And that's why I founded American Pride Rises Network,
is why I found that the Ten Steps campaign. It's
why I'm here today because I need us to hear
all of these things at once, but to know that
we can do something about it.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
So speaking of doing something about it, and you know,
getting back to your point about calling it out, I
want to float this sort of action step for you know,
our listeners, because a lot of folks, and we heard
this a lot, you know in DC, they're asking what
can I do? So you mentioned calling out, let's let's
(23:18):
let's make that live. What does that actually mean calling
it out? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (23:22):
So if there are ten steps to autocracy and authoritarianism,
and I've walked through those in a number of forums,
so I encourage people to look it up because we
need to. We need to recognize it, we need to
know what it looks like. The reason they dismantled the
Department of Education was because of authoritarianism, because if you
can dismantle half of that department, you are no longer
protecting students from violations of their civil rights. So let's
(23:45):
be clear, pretty much all the things they're doing are
in pursuit of authoritarianism. So we need to know how
to recognize it. The reason they're going after Lisa Cook
and trying to take her off of the Fed Reserve Board,
that's because of the ten steps to autocracy. But there
are then ten steps to freedom and power. One is committing.
We got to talk about what's happening. We got to
understand it, we got to share it. We have to
(24:08):
do the work of telling our neighbors, our friends, our pastors.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
We got to talk about it.
Speaker 4 (24:13):
Because one of the ways authoritarianism wins you can become
convinced it's an individualized experience. I'm just unhappy. My life
is just hard. If you don't see yourself as part
of the community under attack, you won't see yourself as
part of the community that can win. And so we
got to understand that this is a shared experience. We
have to do the work of organizing, and organizing doesn't
(24:35):
mean everybody. It means three or four people, ten or
fifteen people, but bringing people together and saying we think
together that we can do something about this thing, and
then mobilizing actually doing something. It's litigating. It's why those
lawsuits are so important. Even if we lose, we got
to fight anyway. But it's also making sure that we
are being disruptive. We've got to know your rights. We've
(24:56):
got to film when they show up and are doing
something they shouldn't. We've got a film. We've got to
share those films and share those that on meet social media.
But we also tell our stories. We got to not
just hope that people heard about it. We got to
repeat it, because they'll tell a lie a thousand times
until it sounds like the truth. We tell the truth
one time, and when people don't like it, we stop talking.
We've got to flood the zone. We also have to
(25:19):
deny them the authority to take our language. That's why
I use DEI all the time. I talk about DEI,
because they want to demonize our language. The reason people
don't understand the systemic harm we faced is because they
demonized critical race theory. The only purpose of critical race
theory was to lay out how the laws in this
country disproportionately and intentionally harmed black existence and our ability
(25:43):
to build wealth, build power, and have economic security and
personal security. But we've got to talk about these things.
We can't let them ban our books or our stories.
We then have to engage, show up and talk to
your elected officials, and if they don't do what you want,
bring laws with you, write a petition, do a valid initiative,
Tell them I expect you to pass this law or
(26:03):
at least introduce it, and if they don't do it,
keep showing up. Elections matter. Yes, I am concerned about
the twenty twenty six mid terms, but I'm also concerned
about judicial elections that are happening in November. I'm concerned
about whether we have a public service commission in Georgia
that can jack up our rates or protect our communities.
I'm concerned about communities across this country being led by
(26:23):
people who don't like the people they represent. So we've
got to elect the right people at every level of government.
And then ultimately we have to demand not just what
we had before this authoritarian regime came to power. We've
got to demand what we should have had in the
first place, our democracy was too fragile. If what we
were they were able to accomplish in nine months is
(26:45):
the decimation of so many of our communities and the
military occupation of our cities. So we need to demand
the democracy we have deserved for two hundred and fifty years.
And if you want to look at all of those
go to ten Steps campaign dot org. I lay them
all out, give your resources, and tell you how we
can get it done.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Love that keep on riding with us as we continue
to broadcast the balance and defend the discourse from these
hip hop weekly studios. Welcome back to the show. I
am still your host, Ramsey's ja. He is Rams' jah,
I am q Ward. You are tuned in a civic
cipher and we are in the middle of a fantastic
conversation with the one and only Stacey Abrams discussing more
(27:23):
or less the state of the world, but actually getting
some marching orders and some strategy ahead of the midterms.
So without further ado, let's get back into the conversation
with Stacy Abrams. I want to circle back real quick,
just because I think it's important to share. You know,
we're talking about you know, Charlie Kirk and his assassination
(27:44):
making the world less safe for black women. And I
recognize that in the immediate aftermath, there were a lot
of threats called into HBCUs and a lot of people
have made a big deal out of that because the
HBCUs that these are black folks and Charlie Kirk was
killed by a white man. These are you know, these
(28:06):
black people. I have nothing to do with what's going
on in Utah, right, And a lot of people have
made that point, but it shows kind of the focal
point of a lot of the anger that is deeply
embedded on the right. Joy Reid wrote a piece recently
talking about how angry the right is and she shared
it with us and we shared it on the show
for listeners that want to go back and check that out.
(28:30):
And you know that means that, you know, obviously black
people are a vulnerable population under this regime, especially, but
black women are especially vulnerable. Indeed, we covered a story
tracking the job job losses of black women, and I
know that for black people it's at lower levels than
(28:52):
it was during the pandemic. So this Trump administration has
hit black wealth and income very very hard. But for
black women in particular, I believe the job loss job
losses amount somewhere between three hundred and three hundred and
fifty thousand dollars or one hundred and fifty thousand jobs
lost since Trump's inauguration. And so the reality of the world,
(29:17):
like on paper in terms of data has made the
world less safe but even more so. And again I
wanted to make sure I show this story. There's some
instructors I know that work at a major university that
provide a lot of data for this show. And some
of these instructors have been on that list since that
(29:41):
there's like a you know what I'm talking about, right,
So there's that list on Turning Point USA, which is
Charlie Kirk's foundation or whatever, and he kind of delineates
certain instructors, there's certain categories of instructors and then names
them so that people can watch out for their radical
(30:02):
left teachings. But the truth is it puts a target
on their back. So in the aftermath of his assassination,
the institutions of higher learning are being attacked, not just
the classrooms, you know, you mentioned the Department of Education
being dismantled, but you know, higher learning and the actual
individual professors too. With the job losses for black women,
(30:25):
the capacity diminished for black women to teach and share
their own stories with a population that wants to receive
it and then echo those sentiments out in the broader nation,
national conversations, etc. Again, it's just kind of an interesting
moment to live through. But on this show, at least
(30:45):
we affirm that black women are as close to God
as we can be on this planet, and so our
lives are dedicated to making sure that black women's stories
are centered as often as we can. And so I
wanted to share that. If you have a response, you
can of course offer that, But I got plenty more
for you here.
Speaker 4 (31:04):
Well, I'll do it very quickly. The reason I have
focused so intensely on DEI before I launched the ten
Steps campaign, which is really to invite anyone in this country,
anyone who believes that democracy should work for all of us,
you were all invited in. But before I launched ten Steps,
I launched the American Pride Rises Network aprnetwork dot org
(31:26):
to defend DEI because while on the left and some
in the center were sort of dismissing it or apologizing
from it for it, the right has always understood that diversity, equity,
and inclusion are foundational values. They're not angry about the letters,
they're mad about the success. They are angry that there
(31:47):
were three hundred thousand black women who held positions of
power and influence in an economy that was not designed
for their success. And so one of the first initiatives
undertaken by this administration was to fire and to terminate
not just those jobs, but the latters to those jobs.
The Department of the Department of Education not only includes
(32:09):
K through twelve, it also includes protecting access to higher education.
And it was because we no longer have a civil
rights division that is operational, that there are grants for
black women in the sciences that no longer exist, that
there are opportunities that are evaporating, and so we've got
to again just keep coming back to the intention is
(32:31):
to demonize our language, so they can dismantle our infrastructure
and they can deny us our opportunities. We have to
defend DEI to defend black women, because if we defend
black women, we're now defending the entire infrastructure and aperture
access of democracy itself. Equity cannot exist if we do
(32:52):
not have democracy because this is a ethno national estate
that does not see us as valuable. And so one
of the reasons I was so excited to join your
show is that we have to reject the fear that
comes with the narratives they try to feed us that
we are not worthy of defense. We got to show
up and participate and not be afraid of them saying
(33:13):
something about us. I am proud of DEI. I am
absolutely certain that it is a good thing that I
am allowed full participation in this economy and in my
education and in elections. And I want to know why you
don't think that's right. And we've got to mobilize our coalitions,
especially by black women, but we've got to recognize that
(33:34):
we need everybody in this with us, because black women
may be the examples, but we're not the only recipients.
In fact, we're not even the most recipient. We aren't
the highest recipients whom we need DEI because if you
are disabled, if you are a veteran, if you are
a white woman. White men were the first DEI recipients
in America because in the Revolutionary War, they were fighting
(33:57):
to be able to have a voice if they didn't
own land. That's one of the reasons DEI existed because
they decided that their diversity wasn't being respected, their equity
wasn't being acknowledged, and their inclusion was being denied. And
if they could start it, we can finish it. And
that's the work we have to do.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
I love listening to Utah go ahead, go ahead. So
I want to say this. One of the things that
Q says, you know, he's listening in right now, But
one of the things that he says, and he reminds
me quite often, and you just did it yourself, is
to make sure that we say diversity, equity, and inclusion
when as often as we say DEI, right, because the
(34:35):
words themselves, it's harder for people to attack those words
than the acronym. It's the same with CRT and you know,
critical race theory for people that don't know it, I mean,
I guess that's a pretty vulnerable thing. But the idea
of woke, you know, like, when you think about it,
the opposite of woke is sleep right, and making that
(34:58):
point to people that that have a full frontal assault
on the language helps kind of break down their their strategy,
their their path to trying to dismantle, you know, the language,
as you mentioned, and so I appreciate that that is
just a fantastic way of stating what it is we
(35:22):
need to do.
Speaker 4 (35:23):
Thank you. I point on it though, Yeah, please, we
should use both. We need to use the acronym and
the word because if you remember, people hate Obamacare but
love the ACA people. We have to meet people where
they are. We want to bring them where they need
to be, so we want to use the full phrase.
We want to make sure that they have to understand
the values. But we should not abandon the acronyms because
(35:45):
we give them power. Our opponents are not going to
stop using it. They're going to keep weaponizing it. So
we've got to fight on both fronts, and we're capable
of it. We're smart, we are protein in our ability
to navigate spaces and make them what they need to be,
which is why they come after our language first. Our
language gives life to imagination and intention, and so we
(36:07):
can't let them steal it from us.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Thank you for that. So I want to switch gears
because there's another thing that happened. I kind of alluded
to this a little earlier, but we were in at
the Congressional Black Caucus, and there was a booth set
up there and there was a group of black women
from Chicago and the group was I think their group
(36:32):
was called Flip Chicago Red. Okay, all black women from Chicago,
and they had their talking points. And I'm sure you
know full well those people that are very very loud
and very wrong at the same time, And how frustrating
(36:53):
it could be to interact with those people while you're
actively debunking what it is they're saying on social media
and then they just pivot to another talking point. But
the fact is that, you know, for some folks, the
the stripping away of the language and and you know,
misappropriating the language, it has been effective on some black folks.
(37:17):
This this push from the right for some black folks,
they have you know, wandered over into trump Ism and magatism,
if you will. And you know these indeed, these same
women were uh trying to memorialize Charlie Kirk, which is
interesting because of Charlie Kirk's thoughts on you know, how
(37:42):
he would feel if a black woman was doing X,
Y and Z, and how certain black women he mentioned
didn't have the cognitive capacity to function in the in
the roles that they had been duly elected to. And
so for these people, I recognize that on the ground
there's going to be people that interact with folks who
(38:03):
are black, but also folks on the other side or
other races, and also on the other side. How do
you deal with this? How do you deal with the frustration,
How do you deal with the misinformation or the mischaracterization
of information. How do you retain your resolve? Because this,
(38:23):
for Q especially, was very disheartening interaction. And you know,
in a world where you can look at the news
and see who your oppressor is, you wouldn't expect to
walk up to a table and see a black woman,
you know, as one of his sort of generals. So
some advice for folks, you know, from a great warrior,
(38:44):
how do you how do you navigate those waters?
Speaker 4 (38:47):
So my parents are retired United Methodist ministers. Their job
was conversion. Their job was to make certain that your
soul was fit for heaven, and that meant navigating all
of the pathologies and mistakes and intentions and actions. That
is important and blessed work. That is not what I do.
(39:11):
I can't convert you. My job is not to convert you.
My job is to convince you through my actions that
the path that I am on is the path you
want to take. But conversion means you've got to dig
so deep into someone else's psyche that you can understand
what has made them who they are and try to
change their mind. And changing a mind is incredibly hard work.
(39:34):
My parents won't know if they were right until Kingdom comes.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (39:38):
But what I can do instead is focus not on
those who have espoused a belief system not just antithetical
to my own, but antithetical to my fundamental beliefs as
a human, And I can focus on those who no
one talks to it all. We have spent so much
time in debate about the seventy seven million who voted
(39:58):
for Trump versus the seventy five million who voted for Harris.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
I want to talk.
Speaker 4 (40:02):
About the ninety million who did not believe their voices
could be heard, the thirty seven point eight million low
income people who think that democracy isn't worth it, that
none of this matters because they've never seen success. I
want to focus on those for whom there is no conversation.
They don't know DEI or diversity equity and inclusion because
no one's ever taken the time to engage them on it.
(40:24):
We can try to change the minds of those who
are clearly performatively trying to bait us, or we can
focus on their targets who simply want someone to talk
to them. And our work is best achieved not when
we are trying to change the mind of the oppressor,
but when we are trying to lift up the needs
of the oppressed, when we are trying to activate those
(40:46):
who have never been called into community. Because often if
you talk to that thirty seven million, they don't get
mail during election time, but they also don't get door
knocks during hard times. People don't show up and say
how can I help. Our work is not to change
the minds of those who want to flip Chicago red.
We need to change the lives of those who want
Chicago to work. That's the work that we can do
(41:09):
because democracy works. Di works when it proves that it
can deliver. People don't care about your politics. They care
about their lives, and so our job is not to
change someone else's mind, but to change their outcomes so
they believe what we believe and are willing to fight
for what we're willing to fight for.
Speaker 1 (41:27):
I love that. So let's shift gears a bit because
we're living in a state of mass murder. It seems
like every other day there's another mass shooting, and these
(41:50):
shootings themselves are being mischaracterized as leftist, left wing attacks
on the right, or Christianity, or their attacks from the
trans community, or or and you know, this government has
(42:11):
removed information from websites that tell the reality of the story,
which is that most mass shootings come from you know,
right wing radicals, and you can see them scrubbing certain
information and kind of interjecting mischaracterizations into the national dialogue.
(42:34):
That is a very woeful reality to be subjected to
when you know, again we mentioned how HBCUs came under
fire because of a shooting that took place in Utah
from a white man to a white man. Talk to
us a little bit about this mischaracterization and what how
(43:01):
harmful that is and what people can do, if anything,
to push back against that.
Speaker 4 (43:09):
Sure, So there's an organization called Onyx Impact. It's run
by ahsosa Osa, who is one of our nation's leading
experts on black disinformation and misinformation. She worked with me
on my campaigns for governor. She worked at Fair Fight
and has since spun off this extraordinary organization. And what
(43:30):
she trained me to understand when I was running for
office is that you cannot correct disinformation or misinformation by
repeating it, because part of its salience is that it
focuses us. It focuses our attention and our actions on
their lies. And when you are spending your time trying
to debunk a lie, you are repeating it and giving
(43:53):
it even more force. And so instead our focus should
be on telling the truth, never repeating the life, never
engaging the lie, but telling the truth. And so the
truths that we need to lift up one the violence
that's being visited in our country on people. It's being
fomented by the fact that we refuse to address gun violence,
(44:15):
and because we have an authoritarian regime that is normalizing
violence as a way to respond to ideological difference. We
have to talk about that. I don't want to argue
with you about the numbers, because you don't intend to
use the numbers in good faith, so I'm not giving
you that. Instead, I'm going to talk about the real
effects of what are happening to communities and to people
(44:37):
around me. But they want to draw us into this
tit for tat debate which we cannot win because they
control the airwaves right now, but they do not control
our communications with one another. They do not control the
streets completely, and so we need to be telling the
truth to each other and not allowing them to set
the terms of debate. They are scrubbing the data because
(44:58):
they know the data tells a different story. So let's
talk about why they're scrubbing the data, and let's not
talk about what the data says. Let's talk about why
they have to erase the truth. If you have to
erase the truth, then clearly you're about to lie to me.
So let's make sure we are lifting up the fact
that we are dealing with liars, not necessarily whether it's
two points or seven points, but that you believe that
(45:20):
you have to erase the truth to win the argument.
Let's talk about the violence that's being visited and who
is actually harmed, not disconnecting it from the lived reality,
but refusing to let them set the terms of debate.
We spend so much of our time fighting their fight
instead of setting up our own intention. And that's why
(45:42):
the ten steps are so important to me. I don't
care about what they've done. I need to recognize it
so I understand it. But I'm not trying to convince
you that you don't mean my harm. You do you
intend me harm, and I take you at your word.
My job is to make sure that I make it
as difficult for you as possible, but more importantly, that
I use it as a galvanizing moment to convince those
(46:04):
who never understood how valuable their humanity is to me
and to those like me, that I'm going to do
what I can to lift you up.
Speaker 1 (46:12):
And protect you.
Speaker 4 (46:14):
We win when we stop fighting their fights and we
start fighting our own. That's the way I approach this work,
because I could get pulled into the morass of their hatred,
or I can be focused on the beauty of our victory.
And that's the work that I think we should be
focused on.
Speaker 1 (46:30):
Okay, and I know we're short on time here, so
I want to make sure that I mentioned last last question.
Brief answer, what are your thoughts on, you know, the
future of Democrats ahead of the midterms and ahead of
the next presidential election, you know, with respect to you know,
(46:52):
kammona Justice and Gavin Newsom, and you know everything going
on in New York and around the country, how do
you feel about Democrats.
Speaker 4 (47:03):
We win when we prove that democracy can deliver. Democracy
as a construct is meaningless. Democracy has to deliver because
when you've lived your life with democracy as a failure,
because you're an intergenerational poverty, because you live under the
specter of state capture in southern states, where your humanity
is always under question, democracy has to prove that it
(47:25):
can deliver. Democrats have to prove that we believe not
just in the notion of democracy, but in its real, actualized,
lived experience. If we can do that, if we are
willing to take risks and fight back and be strong,
we can win. But I don't really care about who
wins unless the intention is for the people to win,
(47:47):
and Democrats, when we are for the people, that is
when we're the most successful, and that is when we
can change the world.
Speaker 1 (47:54):
I appreciate you taking the time today. One of the
things that I knew I was going to get it
from you, because I've obviously watched you for a long time.
I'm just one of the millions in the sea that
you know worships at your throne. If you will, and
I knew that you would come on and you would
(48:15):
share some positivity. You know, we we have conversations with
people that share the reality of our situation. You know,
John Hope Bryant comes to mind, you know where He
just kind of tells us, Hey, here's here's where you are.
But I've realized that there needs to be some optimism
and uh, there also needs to be some strategy. And
(48:38):
I think that you've delivered on both fronts. Not to
say that John doesn't. John, he absolutely does. But John,
that's my guy. But uh, but I knew that you
would deliver that today. And so I, you know, I
actually interact with with our listeners. I talk to the people.
I kind of thank you for being. You know it,
(48:59):
if if if I get to the end of my
life and I'm in heaven and I don't see you there,
then I must be in the wrong place. So thank
you Stacy Abrams. Before you go, obviously, i'd love for
you to plug your books, your social media, is, your websites,
anything like that. Let's let the people get all the
connective tissue they need to stay in your orbit.
Speaker 4 (49:18):
Well, Ramses, thank you first of all for having me.
Thank you to you and Q for the invitation. You
can always find me at Stacy Abrams on all the platforms.
I have a podcast Assembly required with Stacy Abrams on
every platform you like. I have a substack assembly Notes.
I'm trying to meet people wherever they are and then
encourage people to visit aprnetwork dot org to learn more
(49:41):
about how you can defend the EI and the Ten
Steps campaign dot org so that we can defend democracy
because together we can get this work done and we
can win.
Speaker 1 (49:50):
Find us and follow us on all social media at
Civic Sipher. You can find me at Rams's.
Speaker 3 (49:53):
Ja I am qword on all social media as well.
Speaker 1 (49:56):
And until next week, y'all peace,
Broadcasting from the Hip Hop Weekly Studios. I'd like to
welcome you to another episode of Civic Cipher, where our
mission is to foster allyship, empathy and understanding. I'm your host,
ramses Ja. He is ramses Jah, I am q Ward.
You are tuned into Civic Cipher. Man. We've been all
around the world together, man and ah yah yah.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Another trip down and some game perspective together. But he
goes by the name ramses Jah Indeed, and we need
you to stick around. We got a special show in
store for you today. A little later on, we are
going to be hearing from the great Stacy Abrams. I'm
very excited to talk to her and get some leadership
(00:43):
from her.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
I think it is important to mention that we're just
coming back from a long week in Washington, d C.
On the ground at the Congressional Black Caucus, where we
were able to speak with a lot of leaders in
this country, a lot of congress people, a lot of senators,
a lot of elected officials, state representatives, et cetera, and
(01:07):
a lot of you know, big names, including Stacy Abrams
and many others that you'll hear from, you know, as
we continue to roll out content on this program and
it was a necessary a pilgrimage for us. This is
something that we do every year, and I think that
(01:29):
anytime we end up, you know, in one of these places,
these conventions or you know, speaking engagements where we get
to fellowship with people that are doing kind of similar
work that we're doing, there's something to be said about
how it energizes us and reinvigorates us. You know, I'll
(01:49):
speak for myself you how about you? Any highlights that
you care to share from our week out there.
Speaker 3 (01:54):
Yeah, I think we have kind of different perspectives on
this because I had ex dictations when we got on
our flights that we would gain a lot in the
way of insight, in the way of strategy, in the
way of tangible hope, and I didn't get any of
that this time.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Oh yeah, yeah, I know, And that's something that obviously
we're going to talk about. I know that I'm kind
of spearing this conversation with her, but no, I appreciate
that because I think that your feelings represent and reflect
a lot of you know, hopelessness that that people are
feeling around the country. You know, me as as always,
(02:38):
I think the things that I took from it is
I expected things to be worse than they were. Everyone
still showed up. I mean, with the exception of like
a Corey Booker, I think pretty much everyone we would
have expected to be there was there. And I still
I recognize that this is you know, uncharted water and
(03:00):
the strategies still coming together. But you know, I think
to your point, there are people like you know, Stacy Abrams.
There are people like Justin Pearson. You know, we had
a conversation with him on the ground. Out there, people
that do represent you know, hope, people that do have
some ideas and they I think what we can do
(03:22):
is platform them and help share share their ideas that
feel reasonable and logical and based into shared reality. So
where I was expecting to find a void, I found
people still showing up, and that, unfortunately, I have to
say it this way, that's not nothing. And so without
(03:44):
you know, spending too much time teasing it, let's just
get into our conversation with Stacy Abrams and let's hear
her thoughts on this and so much more. Racy Abrams
is a New York Times best selling author, entrepreneur, producer,
(04:04):
and political leader. She served eleven years in the Georgia
House of Representatives seven as minority leader and was the
first black woman to become the gubernatorial nominee for a
major party in United States history. And she is our
guest today. All right, Stacey Abrams, welcome to the show.
We've been very much looking forward to talking to you.
(04:26):
How you doing today. I'm wonderful.
Speaker 4 (04:27):
I appreciate the invitation, and I thank you for the
work that you do that you and your co host do.
Q really sharing information with the community.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
Absolutely, and I want to get into that a little
bit later, but I want to make sure that I
honor you and I let people know indeed who it
is that we have on the show. Sad of course
everyone knows, but for those that might, you know, just
now politics is just now starting to affect them adversely,
(04:59):
and they're starting the rap heads around the new state
of the country. I want to get into the weeds
a little bit, so, you know, even before founding Fair
Fight Action, as someone who's well known for fighting voter suppression,
give us your thoughts on the redistrict thing that we've
(05:20):
seen in red states across the country and the response
from blue states. I want to start here because obviously
we're all looking forward to kind of taking back power
in the midterms, some power or taking away some power,
whatever it is that we can do. Those of us
believe in a more progressive society, and this is one
(05:41):
thing that has concerned a lot of people. So talk
to us a little bit about what's going on with
the redistricting and just kind of share your thoughts.
Speaker 4 (05:49):
Sure, So I'm going to link.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
Two things.
Speaker 4 (05:53):
So, when I launched fair Fight in twenty eighteen, it
was after the twenty eighteen election here in Georgia, where
voter suppression was very much in full force. But I
came into leadership in the Georgia General Assembly at the
end of twenty ten. So my very first year as
(06:14):
minority leader was during a redistricting year. I was the
minority leader in the Georgia House of Representatives, and I
watched them redraw the lines. In a state where they'd
won fifty seven percent of the population, they gave themselves
almost seventy percent of the votes. And that disproportion was
achieved by packing Black communities wherever they could, cracking Latino
(06:38):
and Api communities, meaning scattering them so that they couldn't
build coalitions. And then they went after white legislators who
represented black or brown communities and essentially drew them into competition.
The intention was not simply to win more seats. It
was to create long term divisions that would disallow the
(07:00):
aggregation of power for communities that were rising in population
and rising in influence. And so what we're watching happening
right now is that same device, but on steroids, because
typically you know it's coming, but it comes once a decade,
it comes after the census, and it precedes the next
(07:21):
midterm election that follows the midterm election that follows. And
the reason this is so important to understand is that
it's not just about what we did with Fair Fight.
I also created an organization called fair Count because in
twenty ten, what I realized was the reason they could
diminish our voting power so much was that we did
(07:42):
not participate in the census. And if you don't get
counted in the census when they're drawing those lines, they
are ignoring your needs. And so what we're watching happen
in these red states is that they can count and
they know that in terms of the sheer volume of people,
that the rising power of communities of color is so
(08:03):
great that in seventeen years this nation is a majority
minority nation. If you don't want that to come to truition,
you've got to start now, breaking their ability to coalition,
breaking their ability to elect representation, breaking their ability to
direct the future of this country. And so the red
states that are redistricting in the middle of the decade
(08:24):
are doing so based on old information and trying to
game the next system. Because if you can change who
is in Congress in twenty twenty six, you control the
census in twenty thirty. The blue states that are interceding
then are by some measure, are being considered Oh well,
they're just doing the same thing that the Republicans are doing. No,
(08:46):
they're nullifying an attempt to gain the system. They are
nullifying an attempt to rig the system. It is not
that these are states that are going out saying we
want extra power. They're saying we won't let you steal
power from those who fought to get it by participating
in the twenty twenty census. Because the work that Fair
count did, the work that countless organizations did in twenty
(09:08):
twenty in the middle of not just the pandemic, but
under a Trump administration that was trying to weaponize the
census was to assure that we had as many people
of color as possible who participated in the census, so
they could get those seats. That are the seats being
attacked in Texas, the seats being attacked in Missouri. They
(09:28):
are trying to take the seats that we gained because
we did the work. And so it's critical for us
to understand that this isn't just about winning an election.
This is about reorganizing a system so communities that you
do not value are denied power on a permanent basis.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
If I may, I would like to add to that,
and you can correct me if I'm wrong, but I
want to make sure that this lives and it's fully
pronounced in the minds of our listeners. So when you
were talking about the Blue states nullifying the power that
these red states are trying to grab ahead of the census,
and of course the strategy makes sense. I appreciate you
(10:05):
laying that out of why they want to get ahead
of the shifting population, the blue states nullifying that power
as opposed to grabbing power themselves. I think there's a
little bit more life that we can breathe into that,
because my understanding is that historically Red states have gone
(10:27):
to great lengths to disenfranchise voters. It's particularly so across
the South, where there are a statistically significant amount of
black people that want to vote. And because they've already been,
as you mentioned, cracking and packing, they don't have as
(10:48):
much room to continue in that same way as Blue
states do. And so you know, these blue states conceivably
could gain more power by doing cracking and packing, but
what they're doing is trying to simply nullify what's happening there.
And the other thing I do want to add and
(11:08):
then get your response, if indeed you have one, is
that when you mentioned the census two and I actually
did work with the census, the last census, and we
went out and we sort of campaigned to get folks
to participate. And you're absolutely right, the census affects so
many parts of people's lives. You know, what schools are needed?
(11:30):
Do you need a fire department otherwise? You know, if
something happens the fire, the closest fire department is too
far away. You know, fiscal resources, parks, libraries, et cetera,
bus lines, all these sorts of things are drawn from
participation in the census, and so this was a message
that we certainly had to get out to people who
(11:53):
I believe that once upon a time the showing for
black people in the census was less than three fifths,
and so they compared it to the three fifths Compromise,
saying that, hey, by not participating in the census, we've
actually done a disservice to our own community on par
(12:14):
with or worse than the three fifths compromise of yester year.
And so I just wanted to make those live a
little bit more. Any thoughts you have to add, well.
Speaker 4 (12:22):
I appreciate you framing it that way, because the two
things to understand. In twenty ten we were dramatically underrepresented
in the census, and so yes, by twenty twenty, for me,
that was an incredibly important issue, and I always lift up.
I am so grateful for the attention that fair Fight
gets because protecting the infrastructure of democracy against voter suppression
(12:45):
is vital. But we have to remember that they are
paying attention not just to the output, but the input,
and the census is the input you laid out, I
think an important set of metrics if you live in
a food desert. Grocery stores decide where they're going to
to go based on the census from a decade before Ppe.
When COVID hit communities that got fewer resources, it was
(13:08):
because they were undercounted. We now live in a moment
where if we do not understand the power of our numbers,
we are doomed. Because they can count, we should count too.
And the last thing I'll say is this, fifty six
percent of Black people live in the South. The majority
(13:28):
of the Latino population lives in the South and the West.
We know that these are populations that can determine the
outcome of nearly every major decision made, which is why
they are so assiduous about attacking our voting rights. And
so as we think about the attacks on DEI on diversity, equity,
and inclusion, they're not talking about a boring seminar that
(13:51):
you have to do in HR. They're talking about the
Voting Rights Act. They're talking about the thirteen, fourteenth, and
fifteenth Amendments. Because it was DEI that made elections accessible
to black and brown communities. It was DEI that said
that African Americans, to your point about three fifths our
very citizenship is DEI. When they talk about eliminating birthright citizenship,
(14:14):
they're talking about us. And so I think it's so
critical that we link together all of these component pieces
because their goal is for us to see them as
separate and disparate. They are all of a piece. If
we don't count, if we don't get counted, we don't count.
If we don't get counted, we can't vote. If we
don't get counted and we can't participate, then our value
(14:35):
as a citizen is diminished not by our actions, but
by their intention. And so for me, it is so
incredibly important that we see this as a holistic, multi
layered attack and not as a one off or something
that's an inconvenience.
Speaker 1 (14:52):
The reality of the situation that I think, you know,
Q and I we learned over this past weekend. We
were at CBC out there in DC, and you know,
there are a lot of people that really are pushing
back against the idea that these things are based on
racism and that somehow everyone else is playing the game fair.
(15:20):
And you know, black people need to come to terms
with that, and you know, shed this sort of victim
mentality and it shows kind of a stunning disconnect from
the reality of the situation which I think you laid out,
which is the fact that, as you mentioned in the South,
you know, fifty six percent of the black people in
this country are located in the South and or Latinos,
(15:42):
that's the South and the Southwest, and those people tend
to vote in such a way that it challenges the
pathways I suppose to a white supremacist nation, and so
to disenfranchise that group in particular, it's so sort of
(16:06):
a step removed from the racism that people wish they
could see so they could clearly market. I identify it
as racism, like these aren't people calling you the inWORD.
These are people just removing your power at the ballot
box so that they're still in position to shape outcomes
for themselves and for your community. So I appreciate you
saying that, just because again we've had some recent conversations
(16:28):
on the ground, which I think will circle back to.
This is why I was saying initially, it's such a
breath of fresh air to talk to somebody who is
intelligent and who's reasonable, and someone who is when you're
in a studio, you kind of feel like you're in
the four walls, and that's really it. So to get
with somebody to remind you that you're not crazy is
(16:50):
kind of a special feeling. So all right, let's move
on one of the things that has dominated headlines recently
and I think has affected changed politics for the foreseeable future.
It might not last forever, because I think some of
(17:12):
us subscribe to a reality that is shared in some
of us subscribe to technically a shared reality, but very
much a detached reality that doesn't account for all of
the facets of it. But the fact is that Charlie
Kirk's assassination, I can call it, that has shifted conversations
(17:35):
and shifted the optics around politics and shifted I think
the culture in this country. And I don't want to
talk about him. I'm sure that you've been talking about
him quite a bit, and everyone kind of knows what
the what is and feels how they feel. But I
think you're in a pretty good position to explain how
(17:58):
his assassination makes politics less safe for black women in particular.
Speaker 4 (18:10):
I recently launched a campaign known as the Ten Steps Campaign,
and it is our attempt to push back against the
rise of authoritarianism and autocracy for me, this isn't an
abstract intention, because authoritarianism is about taking my humanity away.
Authoritarianism is about diminishing my capacity to live and operate
(18:35):
and navigate in this country. And one of the key
ten steps to autocracy is step seven, which is you
scapegoat marginalized in vulnerable communities. You attack DEI, You accuse
people of being less than because you do not like
their identities, not because you're opposed to identities, because you'll
(18:56):
use identities to describe the people you like. You just
don't like certain identity these namely identities where race and
other immutable characteristics are the proxy for your harm. So
step seven in the ten steps to autocracy, Step seven
is attacking DEI, attacking people of color, attacking immigrants, attacking
the disabled, any marginalized and dispossessed community. But step nine
(19:20):
is normalizing violence. It is using violent means, whether it's
having militarized occupation of our cities, whether it is having
secret masked police known as ice roaming the streets. Those
moments where we normalize violence and make it acceptable as
a means of power and control is very dangerous. The
(19:43):
reason this is so critical and the reason I'm glad
you rasied this question. Is that I launched ten steps
a week ahead of time because I wanted to get
in front of the changing narrative that was about to
say that you could not talk about violence without venerating
ideas that said that violence against your community was permissible.
We cannot permit ourselves to become the targets of authoritarian
(20:09):
normalization of violence while at the same time being silenced
and told it is inappropriate to talk about these issues.
I very fundamentally understand that when you look at where
ice is swarming, if you look at the cities that
have been targeted by this administration, by Republicans and those
who support authoritarianism and intocracy, they are unilaterally attacking and
(20:34):
targeting black and brown communities. Every single community they've gone
to until Portland has been led by a black woman,
or if you get to Memphis a black man, if
they've gone to Chicago a black man. So we can't
divorce the identities we hold from the harm that will
be visited upon us by a regime that believes that
(20:56):
normalizing violence is permissible. And as a black woman, we
are the most susceptible in every way to the worst
harms that get visited upon communities. We cannot allow the
normalization of violence, the normalization of military occupation, to take hold,
(21:17):
because that is an intent to not just diminish our
freedom and power, it's an attempt to dehumanize us. Because
when we are not worthy of defense, when we are
not permitted to talk about the need for our own defense,
then that silence becomes another weapon wielded against us. But
it's not enough to just be angry about it. We've
(21:38):
got to be intentional about our response. Violence is not
the answer. I believe in non violence, civil engagement, and
civil resistance, not only because I don't think violence is
the answer, but it's also less effective than nonviolence. When
communities have overthrown oppression, nonviolence has actually been the far
(21:58):
and away superior strategy. But you cannot fight it by
not talking about it. We cannot thwart it by hoping
that people just know what we mean. And so we've
got to call out what it means to send the
National Guard into our cities, to call up the military,
(22:18):
and have the President of the United States saying he's
declaring war on a city. Those are issues that we
cannot divorce ourselves from because when we do, autocracy takes
hold and the reality is their singular target are the
communities that they dislike that encounter to their political ends,
and that means DEI communities. And therefore it is incumbent
(22:40):
upon us to talk about both things at the exact
same time. And that's why I founded American Pride Rises Network,
is why I found that the Ten Steps campaign. It's
why I'm here today because I need us to hear
all of these things at once, but to know that
we can do something about it.
Speaker 1 (22:55):
So speaking of doing something about it, and you know,
getting back to your point about calling it out, I
want to float this sort of action step for you know,
our listeners, because a lot of folks, and we heard
this a lot, you know in DC, they're asking what
can I do? So you mentioned calling out, let's let's
(23:18):
let's make that live. What does that actually mean calling
it out? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (23:22):
So if there are ten steps to autocracy and authoritarianism,
and I've walked through those in a number of forums,
so I encourage people to look it up because we
need to. We need to recognize it, we need to
know what it looks like. The reason they dismantled the
Department of Education was because of authoritarianism, because if you
can dismantle half of that department, you are no longer
protecting students from violations of their civil rights. So let's
(23:45):
be clear, pretty much all the things they're doing are
in pursuit of authoritarianism. So we need to know how
to recognize it. The reason they're going after Lisa Cook
and trying to take her off of the Fed Reserve Board,
that's because of the ten steps to autocracy. But there
are then ten steps to freedom and power. One is committing.
We got to talk about what's happening. We got to
understand it, we got to share it. We have to
(24:08):
do the work of telling our neighbors, our friends, our pastors.
Speaker 1 (24:12):
We got to talk about it.
Speaker 4 (24:13):
Because one of the ways authoritarianism wins you can become
convinced it's an individualized experience. I'm just unhappy. My life
is just hard. If you don't see yourself as part
of the community under attack, you won't see yourself as
part of the community that can win. And so we
got to understand that this is a shared experience. We
have to do the work of organizing, and organizing doesn't
(24:35):
mean everybody. It means three or four people, ten or
fifteen people, but bringing people together and saying we think
together that we can do something about this thing, and
then mobilizing actually doing something. It's litigating. It's why those
lawsuits are so important. Even if we lose, we got
to fight anyway. But it's also making sure that we
are being disruptive. We've got to know your rights. We've
(24:56):
got to film when they show up and are doing
something they shouldn't. We've got a film. We've got to
share those films and share those that on meet social media.
But we also tell our stories. We got to not
just hope that people heard about it. We got to
repeat it, because they'll tell a lie a thousand times
until it sounds like the truth. We tell the truth
one time, and when people don't like it, we stop talking.
We've got to flood the zone. We also have to
(25:19):
deny them the authority to take our language. That's why
I use DEI all the time. I talk about DEI,
because they want to demonize our language. The reason people
don't understand the systemic harm we faced is because they
demonized critical race theory. The only purpose of critical race
theory was to lay out how the laws in this
country disproportionately and intentionally harmed black existence and our ability
(25:43):
to build wealth, build power, and have economic security and
personal security. But we've got to talk about these things.
We can't let them ban our books or our stories.
We then have to engage, show up and talk to
your elected officials, and if they don't do what you want,
bring laws with you, write a petition, do a valid initiative,
Tell them I expect you to pass this law or
(26:03):
at least introduce it, and if they don't do it,
keep showing up. Elections matter. Yes, I am concerned about
the twenty twenty six mid terms, but I'm also concerned
about judicial elections that are happening in November. I'm concerned
about whether we have a public service commission in Georgia
that can jack up our rates or protect our communities.
I'm concerned about communities across this country being led by
(26:23):
people who don't like the people they represent. So we've
got to elect the right people at every level of government.
And then ultimately we have to demand not just what
we had before this authoritarian regime came to power. We've
got to demand what we should have had in the
first place, our democracy was too fragile. If what we
were they were able to accomplish in nine months is
(26:45):
the decimation of so many of our communities and the
military occupation of our cities. So we need to demand
the democracy we have deserved for two hundred and fifty years.
And if you want to look at all of those
go to ten Steps campaign dot org. I lay them
all out, give your resources, and tell you how we
can get it done.
Speaker 1 (27:00):
Love that keep on riding with us as we continue
to broadcast the balance and defend the discourse from these
hip hop weekly studios. Welcome back to the show. I
am still your host, Ramsey's ja. He is Rams' jah,
I am q Ward. You are tuned in a civic
cipher and we are in the middle of a fantastic
conversation with the one and only Stacey Abrams discussing more
(27:23):
or less the state of the world, but actually getting
some marching orders and some strategy ahead of the midterms.
So without further ado, let's get back into the conversation
with Stacy Abrams. I want to circle back real quick,
just because I think it's important to share. You know,
we're talking about you know, Charlie Kirk and his assassination
(27:44):
making the world less safe for black women. And I
recognize that in the immediate aftermath, there were a lot
of threats called into HBCUs and a lot of people
have made a big deal out of that because the
HBCUs that these are black folks and Charlie Kirk was
killed by a white man. These are you know, these
(28:06):
black people. I have nothing to do with what's going
on in Utah, right, And a lot of people have
made that point, but it shows kind of the focal
point of a lot of the anger that is deeply
embedded on the right. Joy Reid wrote a piece recently
talking about how angry the right is and she shared
it with us and we shared it on the show
for listeners that want to go back and check that out.
(28:30):
And you know that means that, you know, obviously black
people are a vulnerable population under this regime, especially, but
black women are especially vulnerable. Indeed, we covered a story
tracking the job job losses of black women, and I
know that for black people it's at lower levels than
(28:52):
it was during the pandemic. So this Trump administration has
hit black wealth and income very very hard. But for
black women in particular, I believe the job loss job
losses amount somewhere between three hundred and three hundred and
fifty thousand dollars or one hundred and fifty thousand jobs
lost since Trump's inauguration. And so the reality of the world,
(29:17):
like on paper in terms of data has made the
world less safe but even more so. And again I
wanted to make sure I show this story. There's some
instructors I know that work at a major university that
provide a lot of data for this show. And some
of these instructors have been on that list since that
(29:41):
there's like a you know what I'm talking about, right,
So there's that list on Turning Point USA, which is
Charlie Kirk's foundation or whatever, and he kind of delineates
certain instructors, there's certain categories of instructors and then names
them so that people can watch out for their radical
(30:02):
left teachings. But the truth is it puts a target
on their back. So in the aftermath of his assassination,
the institutions of higher learning are being attacked, not just
the classrooms, you know, you mentioned the Department of Education
being dismantled, but you know, higher learning and the actual
individual professors too. With the job losses for black women,
(30:25):
the capacity diminished for black women to teach and share
their own stories with a population that wants to receive
it and then echo those sentiments out in the broader nation,
national conversations, etc. Again, it's just kind of an interesting
moment to live through. But on this show, at least
(30:45):
we affirm that black women are as close to God
as we can be on this planet, and so our
lives are dedicated to making sure that black women's stories
are centered as often as we can. And so I
wanted to share that. If you have a response, you
can of course offer that, But I got plenty more
for you here.
Speaker 4 (31:04):
Well, I'll do it very quickly. The reason I have
focused so intensely on DEI before I launched the ten
Steps campaign, which is really to invite anyone in this country,
anyone who believes that democracy should work for all of us,
you were all invited in. But before I launched ten Steps,
I launched the American Pride Rises Network aprnetwork dot org
(31:26):
to defend DEI because while on the left and some
in the center were sort of dismissing it or apologizing
from it for it, the right has always understood that diversity, equity,
and inclusion are foundational values. They're not angry about the letters,
they're mad about the success. They are angry that there
(31:47):
were three hundred thousand black women who held positions of
power and influence in an economy that was not designed
for their success. And so one of the first initiatives
undertaken by this administration was to fire and to terminate
not just those jobs, but the latters to those jobs.
The Department of the Department of Education not only includes
(32:09):
K through twelve, it also includes protecting access to higher education.
And it was because we no longer have a civil
rights division that is operational, that there are grants for
black women in the sciences that no longer exist, that
there are opportunities that are evaporating, and so we've got
to again just keep coming back to the intention is
(32:31):
to demonize our language, so they can dismantle our infrastructure
and they can deny us our opportunities. We have to
defend DEI to defend black women, because if we defend
black women, we're now defending the entire infrastructure and aperture
access of democracy itself. Equity cannot exist if we do
(32:52):
not have democracy because this is a ethno national estate
that does not see us as valuable. And so one
of the reasons I was so excited to join your
show is that we have to reject the fear that
comes with the narratives they try to feed us that
we are not worthy of defense. We got to show
up and participate and not be afraid of them saying
(33:13):
something about us. I am proud of DEI. I am
absolutely certain that it is a good thing that I
am allowed full participation in this economy and in my
education and in elections. And I want to know why you
don't think that's right. And we've got to mobilize our coalitions,
especially by black women, but we've got to recognize that
(33:34):
we need everybody in this with us, because black women
may be the examples, but we're not the only recipients.
In fact, we're not even the most recipient. We aren't
the highest recipients whom we need DEI because if you
are disabled, if you are a veteran, if you are
a white woman. White men were the first DEI recipients
in America because in the Revolutionary War, they were fighting
(33:57):
to be able to have a voice if they didn't
own land. That's one of the reasons DEI existed because
they decided that their diversity wasn't being respected, their equity
wasn't being acknowledged, and their inclusion was being denied. And
if they could start it, we can finish it. And
that's the work we have to do.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
I love listening to Utah go ahead, go ahead. So
I want to say this. One of the things that
Q says, you know, he's listening in right now, But
one of the things that he says, and he reminds
me quite often, and you just did it yourself, is
to make sure that we say diversity, equity, and inclusion
when as often as we say DEI, right, because the
(34:35):
words themselves, it's harder for people to attack those words
than the acronym. It's the same with CRT and you know,
critical race theory for people that don't know it, I mean,
I guess that's a pretty vulnerable thing. But the idea
of woke, you know, like, when you think about it,
the opposite of woke is sleep right, and making that
(34:58):
point to people that that have a full frontal assault
on the language helps kind of break down their their strategy,
their their path to trying to dismantle, you know, the language,
as you mentioned, and so I appreciate that that is
just a fantastic way of stating what it is we
(35:22):
need to do.
Speaker 4 (35:23):
Thank you. I point on it though, Yeah, please, we
should use both. We need to use the acronym and
the word because if you remember, people hate Obamacare but
love the ACA people. We have to meet people where
they are. We want to bring them where they need
to be, so we want to use the full phrase.
We want to make sure that they have to understand
the values. But we should not abandon the acronyms because
(35:45):
we give them power. Our opponents are not going to
stop using it. They're going to keep weaponizing it. So
we've got to fight on both fronts, and we're capable
of it. We're smart, we are protein in our ability
to navigate spaces and make them what they need to be,
which is why they come after our language first. Our
language gives life to imagination and intention, and so we
(36:07):
can't let them steal it from us.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
Thank you for that. So I want to switch gears
because there's another thing that happened. I kind of alluded
to this a little earlier, but we were in at
the Congressional Black Caucus, and there was a booth set
up there and there was a group of black women
from Chicago and the group was I think their group
(36:32):
was called Flip Chicago Red. Okay, all black women from Chicago,
and they had their talking points. And I'm sure you
know full well those people that are very very loud
and very wrong at the same time, And how frustrating
(36:53):
it could be to interact with those people while you're
actively debunking what it is they're saying on social media
and then they just pivot to another talking point. But
the fact is that, you know, for some folks, the
the stripping away of the language and and you know,
misappropriating the language, it has been effective on some black folks.
(37:17):
This this push from the right for some black folks,
they have you know, wandered over into trump Ism and magatism,
if you will. And you know these indeed, these same
women were uh trying to memorialize Charlie Kirk, which is
interesting because of Charlie Kirk's thoughts on you know, how
(37:42):
he would feel if a black woman was doing X,
Y and Z, and how certain black women he mentioned
didn't have the cognitive capacity to function in the in
the roles that they had been duly elected to. And
so for these people, I recognize that on the ground
there's going to be people that interact with folks who
(38:03):
are black, but also folks on the other side or
other races, and also on the other side. How do
you deal with this? How do you deal with the frustration,
How do you deal with the misinformation or the mischaracterization
of information. How do you retain your resolve? Because this,
(38:23):
for Q especially, was very disheartening interaction. And you know,
in a world where you can look at the news
and see who your oppressor is, you wouldn't expect to
walk up to a table and see a black woman,
you know, as one of his sort of generals. So
some advice for folks, you know, from a great warrior,
(38:44):
how do you how do you navigate those waters?
Speaker 4 (38:47):
So my parents are retired United Methodist ministers. Their job
was conversion. Their job was to make certain that your
soul was fit for heaven, and that meant navigating all
of the pathologies and mistakes and intentions and actions. That
is important and blessed work. That is not what I do.
(39:11):
I can't convert you. My job is not to convert you.
My job is to convince you through my actions that
the path that I am on is the path you
want to take. But conversion means you've got to dig
so deep into someone else's psyche that you can understand
what has made them who they are and try to
change their mind. And changing a mind is incredibly hard work.
(39:34):
My parents won't know if they were right until Kingdom comes.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (39:38):
But what I can do instead is focus not on
those who have espoused a belief system not just antithetical
to my own, but antithetical to my fundamental beliefs as
a human, And I can focus on those who no
one talks to it all. We have spent so much
time in debate about the seventy seven million who voted
(39:58):
for Trump versus the seventy five million who voted for Harris.
Speaker 1 (40:01):
I want to talk.
Speaker 4 (40:02):
About the ninety million who did not believe their voices
could be heard, the thirty seven point eight million low
income people who think that democracy isn't worth it, that
none of this matters because they've never seen success. I
want to focus on those for whom there is no conversation.
They don't know DEI or diversity equity and inclusion because
no one's ever taken the time to engage them on it.
(40:24):
We can try to change the minds of those who
are clearly performatively trying to bait us, or we can
focus on their targets who simply want someone to talk
to them. And our work is best achieved not when
we are trying to change the mind of the oppressor,
but when we are trying to lift up the needs
of the oppressed, when we are trying to activate those
(40:46):
who have never been called into community. Because often if
you talk to that thirty seven million, they don't get
mail during election time, but they also don't get door
knocks during hard times. People don't show up and say
how can I help. Our work is not to change
the minds of those who want to flip Chicago red.
We need to change the lives of those who want
Chicago to work. That's the work that we can do
(41:09):
because democracy works. Di works when it proves that it
can deliver. People don't care about your politics. They care
about their lives, and so our job is not to
change someone else's mind, but to change their outcomes so
they believe what we believe and are willing to fight
for what we're willing to fight for.
Speaker 1 (41:27):
I love that. So let's shift gears a bit because
we're living in a state of mass murder. It seems
like every other day there's another mass shooting, and these
(41:50):
shootings themselves are being mischaracterized as leftist, left wing attacks
on the right, or Christianity, or their attacks from the
trans community, or or and you know, this government has
(42:11):
removed information from websites that tell the reality of the story,
which is that most mass shootings come from you know,
right wing radicals, and you can see them scrubbing certain
information and kind of interjecting mischaracterizations into the national dialogue.
(42:34):
That is a very woeful reality to be subjected to
when you know, again we mentioned how HBCUs came under
fire because of a shooting that took place in Utah
from a white man to a white man. Talk to
us a little bit about this mischaracterization and what how
(43:01):
harmful that is and what people can do, if anything,
to push back against that.
Speaker 4 (43:09):
Sure, So there's an organization called Onyx Impact. It's run
by ahsosa Osa, who is one of our nation's leading
experts on black disinformation and misinformation. She worked with me
on my campaigns for governor. She worked at Fair Fight
and has since spun off this extraordinary organization. And what
(43:30):
she trained me to understand when I was running for
office is that you cannot correct disinformation or misinformation by
repeating it, because part of its salience is that it
focuses us. It focuses our attention and our actions on
their lies. And when you are spending your time trying
to debunk a lie, you are repeating it and giving
(43:53):
it even more force. And so instead our focus should
be on telling the truth, never repeating the life, never
engaging the lie, but telling the truth. And so the
truths that we need to lift up one the violence
that's being visited in our country on people. It's being
fomented by the fact that we refuse to address gun violence,
(44:15):
and because we have an authoritarian regime that is normalizing
violence as a way to respond to ideological difference. We
have to talk about that. I don't want to argue
with you about the numbers, because you don't intend to
use the numbers in good faith, so I'm not giving
you that. Instead, I'm going to talk about the real
effects of what are happening to communities and to people
(44:37):
around me. But they want to draw us into this
tit for tat debate which we cannot win because they
control the airwaves right now, but they do not control
our communications with one another. They do not control the
streets completely, and so we need to be telling the
truth to each other and not allowing them to set
the terms of debate. They are scrubbing the data because
(44:58):
they know the data tells a different story. So let's
talk about why they're scrubbing the data, and let's not
talk about what the data says. Let's talk about why
they have to erase the truth. If you have to
erase the truth, then clearly you're about to lie to me.
So let's make sure we are lifting up the fact
that we are dealing with liars, not necessarily whether it's
two points or seven points, but that you believe that
(45:20):
you have to erase the truth to win the argument.
Let's talk about the violence that's being visited and who
is actually harmed, not disconnecting it from the lived reality,
but refusing to let them set the terms of debate.
We spend so much of our time fighting their fight
instead of setting up our own intention. And that's why
(45:42):
the ten steps are so important to me. I don't
care about what they've done. I need to recognize it
so I understand it. But I'm not trying to convince
you that you don't mean my harm. You do you
intend me harm, and I take you at your word.
My job is to make sure that I make it
as difficult for you as possible, but more importantly, that
I use it as a galvanizing moment to convince those
(46:04):
who never understood how valuable their humanity is to me
and to those like me, that I'm going to do
what I can to lift you up.
Speaker 1 (46:12):
And protect you.
Speaker 4 (46:14):
We win when we stop fighting their fights and we
start fighting our own. That's the way I approach this work,
because I could get pulled into the morass of their hatred,
or I can be focused on the beauty of our victory.
And that's the work that I think we should be
focused on.
Speaker 1 (46:30):
Okay, and I know we're short on time here, so
I want to make sure that I mentioned last last question.
Brief answer, what are your thoughts on, you know, the
future of Democrats ahead of the midterms and ahead of
the next presidential election, you know, with respect to you know,
(46:52):
kammona Justice and Gavin Newsom, and you know everything going
on in New York and around the country, how do
you feel about Democrats.
Speaker 4 (47:03):
We win when we prove that democracy can deliver. Democracy
as a construct is meaningless. Democracy has to deliver because
when you've lived your life with democracy as a failure,
because you're an intergenerational poverty, because you live under the
specter of state capture in southern states, where your humanity
is always under question, democracy has to prove that it
(47:25):
can deliver. Democrats have to prove that we believe not
just in the notion of democracy, but in its real, actualized,
lived experience. If we can do that, if we are
willing to take risks and fight back and be strong,
we can win. But I don't really care about who
wins unless the intention is for the people to win,
(47:47):
and Democrats, when we are for the people, that is
when we're the most successful, and that is when we
can change the world.
Speaker 1 (47:54):
I appreciate you taking the time today. One of the
things that I knew I was going to get it
from you, because I've obviously watched you for a long time.
I'm just one of the millions in the sea that
you know worships at your throne. If you will, and
I knew that you would come on and you would
(48:15):
share some positivity. You know, we we have conversations with
people that share the reality of our situation. You know,
John Hope Bryant comes to mind, you know where He
just kind of tells us, Hey, here's here's where you are.
But I've realized that there needs to be some optimism
and uh, there also needs to be some strategy. And
(48:38):
I think that you've delivered on both fronts. Not to
say that John doesn't. John, he absolutely does. But John,
that's my guy. But uh, but I knew that you
would deliver that today. And so I, you know, I
actually interact with with our listeners. I talk to the people.
I kind of thank you for being. You know it,
(48:59):
if if if I get to the end of my
life and I'm in heaven and I don't see you there,
then I must be in the wrong place. So thank
you Stacy Abrams. Before you go, obviously, i'd love for
you to plug your books, your social media, is, your websites,
anything like that. Let's let the people get all the
connective tissue they need to stay in your orbit.
Speaker 4 (49:18):
Well, Ramses, thank you first of all for having me.
Thank you to you and Q for the invitation. You
can always find me at Stacy Abrams on all the platforms.
I have a podcast Assembly required with Stacy Abrams on
every platform you like. I have a substack assembly Notes.
I'm trying to meet people wherever they are and then
encourage people to visit aprnetwork dot org to learn more
(49:41):
about how you can defend the EI and the Ten
Steps campaign dot org so that we can defend democracy
because together we can get this work done and we
can win.
Speaker 1 (49:50):
Find us and follow us on all social media at
Civic Sipher. You can find me at Rams's.
Speaker 3 (49:53):
Ja I am qword on all social media as well.
Speaker 1 (49:56):
And until next week, y'all peace,
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