August 9, 2023 • 37 mins
The Supreme Court has mastered the art of minding its own business and telling you to stay out of theirs. The Supreme Court has always moved in silence and let the trends do what they want. Let's talk about it.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
There are a handful of things that black people have
mastered that probably have some sort of deeper long socio
cultural or geopolitical reason for or an origin story that
might have either came from I don't know, Africa, or
slave ships, general oppression, and have become tools of survival
(00:25):
that we have turned into an art form, like a mastery.
We've mastered being cool. We've mastered cuss words, like, you know,
nobody cussed like an old black man, old black woman,
Like nobody cuss like us. Like we make cuss words
sound like people say, e forty curs raps in cursive,
you know what I'm saying. Like we make some old
(00:47):
heads they cuss and sound like it's cursive. Bill Burr
has this joke he did a while back about like
black men and cussing that they've mastered the motherfucker because
and you don't even notice that they do it, and
the way that white people cuss it just sounds racist.
And he's like, it's where you put the fuck. He
was like, you're an old black man, tall, you like,
(01:09):
hey man, how's at the start? Right?
Speaker 2 (01:10):
You know?
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Earlier and this age motherfucker told me, hey, age motherfucker
was talking to this like talking to this Mexican motherfucker.
It was just saying like, you know, blah blah blah
blah blah. Right, it's just a descriptor. He goes, a
white guy goes in there. I go, hey, I walk
in there, and this fucking Asian guy says, He's like,
it just sounds so much more racist the way I
said it, And it's really just because I put the
fuck before rather than after. He's like, I just said
(01:34):
exactly what that guy said. I've just why am I? Anyway,
it's an art form we've mastered that we have a
mastery in sort of protecting you by our sense of humor.
Like that's one of the ways that we sort of
protect each other and build community is through our sense
of humor. You know, if you're on the outs of
our community, Like what I told you before is when
(01:56):
you don't make our radar at all, Like if we
dragging you part of partially because we love you and
we know you could be better. So that's part of
just this is something we've mastered. You know, we've mastered
how to make something fashion. I don't care how hard
people try. We know how to make things cool. It's
just by our very presence. But what I want to
zero in on today is our mastery of and how
(02:22):
high of a value we place on mining your own business. Listen,
if something is not your business, I cannot tell you
how many phrases we have that are just really about
just mine your own business and I take care of mine.
I take care of my This is my business. That's
(02:43):
your business. You don't stay out of my business. I'm
gonna stay out of yours. I remember, listen all the
way back to the early eighties. Listen, my name is Bennett.
Black folks, finish it, Thank you very much. Ask your neighbor.
My name is we. That's that's a little more deep cut.
I ain't in this mess. You Listen. If I'm telling
(03:06):
you right now, you got co workers at your office,
black co workers, I'm pretty sure you don't know anything
about them, because that's their business. They know. Listen. They
not asking you about your children. It depends you know
how long you gotta work with somebody like that, work
with somebody like from our from our community, from our code.
How long you got to work with them before you
know anything about them outside of this job. We show up,
(03:29):
we do our job. No, I ain't going to get
drinks with you after No, I ain't hitting no happy hour. No,
I look, I'm y'all not my friends. I got friends. Well, listen,
do you know what the phrase no new friends? Listen?
That's about many your business like people that are in
my business. They in my business. This is my squad,
this is us. We done been through the trenches together.
(03:51):
I don't trust nobody else coming that's not your business. Something. Yeah,
now I think about somebody may be coming out of
like trust and you know in the FEDS bustle whatever.
Either way, my yeah, that's not your business. Let me
tell you something that your mama, your aunties. Every black
child has heard from some older black woman. Ay, that
is not your business. Stay out of grown folks business.
(04:11):
You listen, you take care of you, You worry about you, mama.
Where you going you will see. My daddy used to
say something like now, granted this might be a whole
different situation because he was doing outside activities, but I
would say, pop, where you going see a man about
a dog. But that basically meant, don't ask me. Don't
ask me, there's none of your business. I used to
(04:33):
ask my grandma. Grandma, Uh, what you're gonna do today?
She say, I'm gonna mind my business. So you just
you listen, Auntie, what are you doing right now? Mine
in my business? Same thing you should be doing somebody you,
you and the you in the office in the break room. Hey,
what you're doing after work? Mine in my business. I'm
(04:57):
that's not your business. Don't worry about it that Listen.
If you ain't signing my check or marinate no chicken,
I'm not worried about your business. You need to not
be worried about mine. Let's talk about the Supreme Court today. Politics. Y'all. Hey,
(05:31):
welcome to another episode HUD Politics. Hopefully you hearing this
with all know ads because you're on the cooler zone media,
because trust me, I could use the financial support from
you dudes doing this anyway. Supreme Court's been in the
news a lot, and I think it's important for y'all
(05:57):
to understand, which is why I felt like I should
do this episode that like the amount of attention they're
getting in the past ten fifteen years is really not
the way the Supreme Court was designed. Like this ain't
this has become normal, but it is not supposed to
be This ain't supposed to be normal, whether we were
talking about even the confirmation hearings, all the way back
(06:22):
to Clarence Thomas, who were going to talk about a
lot later, but all the way up to him, to
the Amy Cone Barretts, to the Brett Kavanaugh, and then
these absolutely bizarre reports about you know, Clarence Thomas, like
hanging with his billionaire friend Justice Alito out there partying,
(06:43):
you know, like this is so new. The only time
the Supreme Court was supposed to make the news was
really just their writings, their opinions, their rulings. That's the
only time you suposted to know anything about them. And
I'm going to get into that design when things flipped
(07:03):
and kind of what we're talking about now, because a
lot of it really speaks to the way just American
politics and culture has shifted, almost in the same way
that the mob shifted when John Gotti became a thing,
(07:25):
because remembered them G's moved in silence. You wasn't supposed
to know who. Remember the rule about the mafia was,
there is no mafia. What are you talking about? You
move in silence, You ain't supposed to know anything. We're doing.
That's our business. You keep your business to yourself, but
(07:46):
you see the effects. But since the public don't sign
my check, y'all not marinated my chicken. I don't care
what you think. Your opinion don't matter to me. Let's
get here too. Y'all don't sign.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Y'all, don't sign should y'all don't sign shad shot, y'all,
don't sign sad y'all don't sign.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
So some civics history here, which I think I may
have covered before. You know, you got the three branches
of government, the judicial, the legislative, and the executive, and
you're supposed to have these checks and balances, balances of
power to make sure that we don't become some sort
of monarchy that we ran from very reaction formation. Out
this mug just our country's foundation. Its origin story is
(08:51):
really a case study in Freudian defense mechanisms. But we
could talk about that later. Uh. The thing is, though,
the Supreme Court, if once you start getting into it,
you'd be surprised how little direction the Constitution gives us
about that. All the Constitution says is you should have one.
(09:15):
It don't say how many of them. It don't say
where they office should be. It don't really even say
they role. It just says you're supposed to have one.
That's really surprising to people because listen, let me tell
you why. You know what the Supreme Court function off
maya business. They ain't even had no office and it's origin.
(09:36):
Matter of fact, it was important for them to not
have an office because they used to ride by a
horse buggy to all the different colin needs to make
sure that everybody was following, and they would ride into
your city. They would listen to the thing, listen to
your stories, listen to the court cases they would judge,
and then they would go back you wasn't supposed to centralize.
It wasn't until Marlbury versus Madison that there was non
Supreme Court justices and that they got the power that
(09:59):
we understand them as as we know it now. I
think I said I covered this before Marlborough versus Madison.
Y'all go ahead and google that, right. I'm teacher prop
putting my putting my hat, putting my hat on right
form the Supreme Court into the shape that we kind
of see it as today. But still it didn't. What
hasn't reached its final form. The form that it is
that it's in now until a case in Memphis, Tennessee,
(10:22):
which I'm gonna get into in a second. But before
I get into that case, I need to stress I
need you to understand why I'm talking about. You understand
the Supreme Court if you understand what it means to
my own business. When you learned about the Supreme Court,
if you learned about the Supreme Court in school, what
(10:43):
did you learn exactly? You just learned that we have
one and that when there are cases that other courts
can't solve, you, it goes all the way up to them.
So you know the big stuff, you know the desegregation,
you know abortion, you know the big cases. You don't
(11:06):
know all the cases they've been adjudicating on. You know why,
because it's supposed to be boring. They were you know,
the Marvel series that went straight to Disney plus, like
the B and C characters in the comic book universe
that you got to really be into comic books to
know that that's what the Supreme Court was supposed to be.
(11:26):
This is supposed to be so boring, and they're supposed
to be so far removed from the public because they're
the one part of our government that you don't vote for.
They're chosen because they're supposed to be far from the
democratic process, because they're supposed to be unswayable by public opinion.
And I think in some ways the Supreme Court still
(11:49):
kind of takes that very serious. If you look at
these cases that we're going to get into a little later,
that you know, they voted on one end to make
sure that, like if you were adopting a Native American child,
that that tribe or a similar tribe had first adoption
rights to that Native child, which is like, damn, that's big,
And then at the same time told the Navajo they
(12:11):
can't have a water like you were, like, who do
you work for? Here? You got a man like David Suters,
who I'll probably brush on a little bit a little later,
but like one of the most like quiet, reclusive. He's
like the Kendrick Lamar of of Supreme Court justices. He's like, look, man,
I don't want y'all write no books on me. Kendrick
(12:32):
don't pop out, Like not in the sense that he's
the greatest of all time, but in the sense that
like Kendrick don't pop out, kenjo an't got on social media.
He got a little burner account where he cracks jokes
on but he don't be popping out. Don't like. I
don't want like. I don't want those spotlights. I don't
need to like. My work will speak for itself. And
even though he was appointed by Republicans, he rarely votes
(12:56):
along their party lines, or he rarely did because y'all
don't sign my check. Y'all ain't marinate my chicken. That
but that was the design. I'm not supposed to worry
about what the public think because y'all ain't put you
don't sign my check, y'all don't marinate my chicken. Don't
ask questions. I don't ask questions of you, yo, jih lick.
(13:19):
We come do our job. You spost come up here
and ask us what we think. We tell you what
we think, we interpreted law. We tell you what it is.
Stay on my business. That's why they're supposed to move.
And then you start. But then when you start saying,
I wonder what the rules are about Supreme Court, which
is how we got to the Justice of Leader in
the clar Thomas situation, where it's like, yo, can they
accept money, can y'all go on these like expensive trips.
(13:39):
What's the rules about them? Except like, can y'all just
accept brides? When does it become a bride?
Speaker 2 (13:45):
Like?
Speaker 1 (13:45):
When is there a conflict of interest? Are you allowed
to talk to lobbyists? How does any of this? Like?
How do what do you?
Speaker 2 (13:52):
What do you like?
Speaker 1 (13:52):
What's the rules around friends? You clearly have power and
authority over stuff, but you don't, but you don't have
to worry about being elected, so you kind of can
do what you want. What are the rule Who was
about that? Here's what you learned. They ain't none. I'm
gonna say it again, there's only norms. There's no rules.
I mean, if you can find them, tell me. There's
only Like it would suck if you it's a bad
(14:17):
look when you We prefer that you know, if you're
getting if you're getting gifts over a certain amount of
money and say, you know, we prefer that you tell us,
like just just be cool about it and disclose it.
Like nobody saying you can't have it. We're just saying, like,
just let us know, because it looks bad if you don't.
Nigga them ain't rules them? Is that's just a code.
(14:39):
They don't have rules, They just have a code. How
come you don't know that? Because that's not your business.
You don't sign a check. They ain't worried about what
you think. Listen. If you're a parent and you got
middle schoolers or high schoolers, this, please let them hear
this part. This is coming from a form a teacher.
(15:00):
I taught high school. I started off in the juvenile
correctional facilities in East Lake. I started off teaching there.
Then I taught in alternative education, and then finally I
taught at a charter high school for the arts. But
I did my student teaching at just straight up public schools, right,
But all of these schools were they were alternative, but
there were all public schools. Like I've never taught at
a private institution anyway. I used to tell my students,
(15:23):
who now are adults, so like it's a different story now.
But yet, if your child listen, if you listening right now,
little hommie, look it, leve Homie's a gender neutral so
accept it, right, So love hommy. If you're not doing
well in a class, you haven't behavioral issues, or you
just your grades aren't where they should look or where
(15:44):
they could look like you know you could do better
in this class, like don't look it. Don't look at
your mom, and don't look at your daddy, don't look
at your aunty, don't look I'm talking to you, like,
if you know you could do better than this and
nobody everybody know, nobody know but you, you know if
you really like if you half fass an it, like
I'm sorry if you don't cuss at your kids right now,
but I guarantee your kids cuss right so you know
(16:06):
you phoned it in. You know you not. You're not
giving them your egg game, you giving them your Sea game?
You know it. And your reason is the teacher don't
like me. The mean that woo don't like me. I
want you to think about this for a second. This
is coming from a teacher. Okay. I used to tell
my students it's not that I don't like you. I
(16:29):
don't think about you at all. I'm a grown man.
Look it. If class let out at three at three
oh two, I done forgot everything you said, everything that's
so important to you. I don't You can't even go
get a drink with me? Are you? We're not friends? Fam?
(16:50):
What you mean? Like you and why do you care
if I like you or not? You got your own friends?
What are you gonna call me to play Call of duty?
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Like?
Speaker 1 (16:59):
What are we gonna fortnitey? We're little mall like you
want me to go to six Flags with you? We're
not What do you care? What do you care? What
I think? And and you so mad at me for
how I feel about you? Knowing listen, in June we
never have to see each other again. What the hell
you care? I think we don't ever see each other
(17:20):
again in June. And to punish me for how you
think I feel about you, you gonna give yourself summer
school because if you so, because because you don't like
me and I don't like you, you gonna fail my
class and have to repeat it in summer school. And
guess what if I want to make a little extra money,
(17:41):
I might teach summer school. You have to see me again,
do you? It's ridiculous. Listen, I don't sign your check.
You don't sign my check. I feel show ain't marinating
your chicken, you ain't marinating mine. Don't listen. Don't fail
no class because you think the teacher don't like you.
Let me tell you something. If your teacher is thinking
(18:03):
about you when they get home, they need therapy. Now
I'm saying that to help you understand that, Like you
need to go in there take care of business for yourself.
This like, don't worry about me, mind your own business,
(18:25):
this your own future. What difference does it make what
any of your instructors think of you? You do you
there for you? Now? Of course I deeply cared about
my students, you know, so of course I thought about
them when I went home, you know what I mean,
And if anybody got under my skin. Here's what's crazy,
is like now that we're adults, Like it's because I
(18:46):
was such a young teacher at the time, Like we're
all friends, Like I adore you. I've had. One of
the biggest headaches in my class was this kid named
Jamal who's actually a rapper. Now. I don't know if
you heard of Xavier Wolf, but his partner is doing
Eddie Baker. Like Eddie Baker was one of my students.
He was He's on Rolling Loud, right, he was on
the Rolling Loud Festival. I'm so proud of him. And
(19:09):
it's not that I didn't like I actually liked him
a lot. You know, he just he was just fourteen
and now like no, we talk all the time like
he's such a he's a great young man, you know
what I'm saying, Like it all works out and he's
even k I remember I ran into him at a
Black Lives Matter protest and he came to me. He
was like, man, I'm sorry I was being such a
(19:29):
knuckleet at school. I was like, bro, you were me Like,
you didn't get under my skin. Bro, I just I didn't. Obviously,
I just knew you. I knew you was vibrating lowered
than your potential. I just knew that, you know what
I'm saying. And that's what was frustrating to me, is
like you vibrating lowered in your potential. You have a
higher vibration in this and he stepped into it. And
(19:49):
I'm very proud of him, you know. But I mean
I've seen his nigas billboard, Like I'm so proud of
this fool. But he was he was one of the
was that thought he was hurting my feelings, you know
what I'm saying, Like what time we even like when
he was a freshman, I battled him like, you know,
because I was rapping at the time too. I served
this little dude, and I served him because I knew
(20:11):
he was talented. You know what I'm saying, I'm like, listen,
man like you, you're more than this, you know anyway,
This how any healthy teacher would function is that we
have our own lives, we have our own friends, and
of course sometimes work and be hard. But I ain't.
I'm not losing sleep over no fifteen year old, over
no twelve year old. That's not my child. That means
(20:34):
that that child ain't my business. That's I'm gonna do
my job. I'm gonna do it well, and then I'm
gonna go home. Doesn't mean I don't care about your future.
Doesn't mean I won't want to do my job well,
you know, because again, a good teacher is obviously invested
in their students' future. But listen, man like y'all, whether
(20:57):
you behave or not, my check every two weeks, okay, don't,
you're not punishing me. You guys got it. So the
Supreme Court, y'all write whatever thing pieces you want. You
could talk about, y'all say whatever y'all want about. Listen.
(21:19):
Politicians being like, oh, this is a activist Court. Oh
this guy, you cavin I ain't thinking about y'all. Amy, Connie,
she ain't. She ain't thinking about you at all, which
is why this season is so interesting. Let's keep going.
(22:09):
So I want to take y'all back now to this
case in Memphis that I wanted to bring up in
the sixties. It's where we get to term the political thicket.
This is the moment when, depending on who you asked,
the Supreme Court stopped minding its own business. This is big. Now,
(22:33):
it's absurd to say that the courts have never been
in the political ticket, because even though they're not elected
or voted on, they're chosen and appointed by elected officials.
So it's by nature a political process that gets you
on the courts. However, this moment I'm about to teach
(22:53):
y'all about almost makes the quiet thing come out loud
and again, pinning who you ask got the court stuck
in the in the muck and the mire that they
in now, and that case is the Baker versus Car case. Now, look,
it's nineteen sixty one. On the surface, it just seems
like a voter district, you know, run of the mill case. Right,
(23:17):
here's the situation Tennessee. In the city of Memphis, you know,
had never re drawn their districts. Now granted between nineteen
oho last on A Jude district was nineteen oh one.
Now it's nineteen sixty one, which means that obviously Democrats
have had changed. The cities are ginormous, right, there's way
(23:39):
more people. And as you know, districting works, you get
the amount of congressmen based on your population. You have
more population, you have more congress people.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Right.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
You remember every state has two senators, but you have
but your congressmen are based on your your district's population. Right.
Jerry Mandering's a whole different thing. That's how you draw
the district lines. But what it's saying is like, yo,
we need to we need to redraw these districts because
we're not ruled no more. Like it's just the state's change.
Tennessee is like, I ain't redrawing shit right in the
(24:12):
City of Memphis is like, well, nigga, you have to.
Here's how it breaks down. Think of it like a
twenty three to one ratio. So think of it like this.
If a rural area has one person, and for every
one person, there's twenty three people in the city, right,
that one person has all the power for voting that
it would take twenty three people in the city to
(24:32):
equal that one person's power. Think of that. So that
means that same power for that one vote is split
among twenty three people in the urban area because they
have the same amount of representatives despite having twenty three
more people. So it's like, if you live in a city,
you have one twenty third the power of a person
in the rural areas that but there's more of us, Like,
(24:55):
don't you think because there's more of us, we should
have more representation. And they was like, na, We're not
finna do that. Obviously, what's going on here? Black people
are in the city, Like so it's the Memphis is urban.
The rural districts are generally white. They're not trying to
lose their power. This, I mean is obvious. What's going on.
(25:16):
They trying to hold on today power. And that is
another way of like sort of disenfranchising African American votes. Right,
Poverty is not the issue right now because everybody poor,
you know what I'm saying, it's this disenfranchising African American votes. Right.
So that's that's the case that's in front of the
Supreme Court. The hard part about the Supreme Court is
state legislative districting is generally none of their business. They've
(25:41):
never had to decide on how the districts are set
up or not set up. That's never That's that's what's
hard about being on a Supreme Court. If you're on
Supreme Court, you're supposed to be looking at the cases
and judging what the law would stay about the cases.
But the problem is once it's at the Supreme Court,
that means that there is no law. We don't know
(26:02):
what the law is. That's how I made it all
the way up here. We can't decide what the actual
law is, which is why sometimes you kind of have
to have an idea lague. You have to have a
philosophical position, which is why, even though it's not political,
it's very political. You have to see the world in
a certain way. So if you see the world from
a conservative lens, right, you're gonna have a way to
(26:23):
interpret a law that may not be there and what
law might should be, or the other way around. You
see the world in the liberal, liberal lens, you know,
progressive lens, you're gonna say, okay, well this might be
and say, well, what about the constitution? This are you
listening to me? The Constitution? Don't say nothing about it.
That's why I's in the court. Do you understand what
I mean? So this is the situation that they face.
And now there's two Supreme Court justices that I want
(26:44):
you to meet right now. It's Justice Frank Footer. That's
that man's name. It's Justice Frankfooter, right wing, brilliant asshole.
Like there's even stories to where like if you was
a clerk and you was bringing him papers, he would
let you come in there, drop the paper on the ground,
make you pick it up and hand it to him.
Because he was just an asshole. He was known for
(27:06):
like when it was tign for him to talk, he
would talk. They was, I mean talk ninety minutes to
two hours, three hours straight, just pontificating on the courts
because he was trying to prove his point because he
believed everybody's stupid. Justice Frankfurter. Then there's Justice William Douglas,
his equalent opposite, left wing. I mean we're talking liberal
(27:27):
mountain climber hunter, super forward thinker, absolute prick, just just
as arrogant and just these are two of some of
the most brilliant minds in the country at the time,
and their dickheads okay, like just absolute dickhead okay, but
they see the world differently, and apparently they had like
(27:48):
a lot of respect for each other because they knew
each other was brilliant. They just disagreed fundamentally at a
philosophical level. You know why you never heard of this
because it's not your business, That's what I'm trying to
tell you. So then there's this third guy, right, Justice Whittaker.
Now Justice Whittaker is so interesting to me. He never
went to college. That nigga is self taught at that
(28:11):
great like Justice Whittaker was self taught. Fam he just outworked, out,
hustled just obviously you smart as a whip. But because
he didn't go to no formal university, he really ain't
had no like political ideology. He was like, yo, I mean,
I read the books. I just want to hear like,
I don't have no I don't have no leaning either way.
(28:32):
I just I just think law is interesting. And so
if that's the case, if he's that dude, then guess
who everybody gunning for. Because he became what's called the
swing vote. Right, That's why our supreme courts have odd numbers. Right,
somebody need to be convinced to something else. He was
the one everybody convinced because, as we know, if you
(28:53):
already conservative, you're supposed to just vote an serve you
righty liberally supposed to vote liberal. Now sometimes things change, right,
but for the most point, he's the most valuable vote.
Now in this case, it was even known to say, like, like,
he's the type of dude that like, if he would
sit down and talk to you for thirty minutes, he
would listen to your case and be like, damn dude,
your argument were you're like, damn man, that fool got
a point. Then you go to the next office and
(29:14):
here the opposite side and be like, damn man, that
fool got a point. Like he was just so open
to hear what everybody say, because again he had come
from th like traditional sort of like route into the
Supreme Court anyway, So like, in a perfect world, that's
what you want from your judges, right, you want them
to be open minded, to at least understand the law
(29:34):
so well and be willing to despite whatever their positions.
You would hope that they would have no position right
that they would just honestly take the case by its merit. Clearly,
that don't exist, not in our world, because again, you
have to have a lens for a grid for which
you put the world through. I remember I suggested a
book called What is Justice? By Malcolm Sandow or Michael Sandow.
(29:58):
This is a good time to refer back to that
book because you have to what do you mean when
you say just right? That's the question that comes up,
especially when you're trying to interpret a law that ain't
even there. Your whole job is about gray areas, and
you would hope people would be fair and honest. But
(30:23):
we have somehow convinced ourselves that fair and honest means
a political and that's not the planet we exist on.
This case, it's groundbreaking because it actually like it killed
Justice Whitaker, do you hear me? Literally it killed him.
(30:45):
He had to take a leave of absence. He developed
like also because he just could not make a decision
in this case. It just it broke him. Now, why
couldn't he make this decision? Because scroll back a little
bit and hear the merit of the case, right, this
(31:07):
is clearly unjust. It is obviously a way to perpetuate racism.
You are disenfranchising voters, and you know it. You are
undermining constitutional rights, which was Justice William Douglas's position, like,
I don't understand what the problem is. This is clearly unfair,
(31:28):
this out of district's work. If there's more people, they
give more representatives. I don't understand what we talk about
here Tennessee. You trip it. You clearly need to fix this.
Justice Frankfurter was like, be that as it may. I
don't know if it's our place to correct that. What
(31:50):
it's like, dude, if we get into the political process,
and what's scary is fast forward to Bush v. Gore
to Trump. If we get in the middle of this shit,
the courts are gonna be asked to adjudicate things that
(32:11):
were supposed to be democratically voted on. We don't want
this smoke, even if we think it's wrong, the courts
are gonna be stuck. And by stuck, he uses that
word picture I said earlier, the political thicket. If you
know what the thicket is, it's almost like mangrols. It's
(32:33):
just winding, twisty plant roots and branches that you just
get stuck in and it's such an image. Dude, He's listen,
these people ain't marinate, not chicken. Like you don't want
to smoke. I don't want to be in this. Like
my name is Bennett, Niggat, stay out their business. This
(32:56):
shit gonna come get us. Stay out the tea. Don't
sip this tea, y'all deciding votes forever. We can't listen.
We don't want this smoke, y'all. I'm telling you principally,
if we do this, nigga, we gonna be doing this forever.
And they gonna blame elections on us. These politicians, these people,
(33:18):
they gonna come look for us when they don't like
the results. They gonna come make us beat a referee
on some shit that we not equipped to nor is
that our role, Like we're not even supposed to be
in this. This is not our business. That was his position.
(33:42):
And the other position, like I said, was like, we
have a moral obligation. You see this is wrong, And
how you gonna fast forward into the future to know
what the hell is gonna happen? How do you know
we are judging the case that's in front of us,
and the case in front one of us is clearly unjust.
(34:03):
Justice Whitaker was getting people at his house all the time,
walking in with the Pappy van Winkel and the dope cigars,
trying to convince this man what he needs to do
on this because the courts were split. And listen, he
never actually voted on it because he died before he could.
(34:25):
It literally broke his brain. He agonized over this, and
I think you guys know what happened if you live
in current times. The Supreme Court decided this was unjust,
and the courts have been in the political thicket ever since.
(34:47):
Ain't that crazy? That moment? It changed everything?
Speaker 2 (34:56):
Yo?
Speaker 1 (34:57):
Ain't that crazy? Doug?
Speaker 2 (35:00):
Y'all don't sign by check should y'all don't sign by
shoot y'all, don't.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
Sign by shad?
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Shoot y'all, don't sign y'all don't.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
Sign So all this prep make me realize I should
probably turn this into a part too, because I need
to talk about Clarence Thomas, his backstory and Justine Salita
and yeah, there's some specific characters before I can even
get to what the what the courts just actually decided,
got dog man, But listen, so we're gonna do a
(35:33):
mind yo, goddamn business Part two, uh next week, But
until then, listen. If they ain't signing your check or
marinating your chicken, none of your business. The politics, y'all.
(36:00):
You know, I don't know why I ain't thought of
this before, but you know you could use promo code
hood for fifteen percent off on terraform coolbrew dot com.
Like I forgot I own that company and this is
my pod, y'all, go ahead and punch it. Promo cold Hood.
(36:20):
If you in the cold Brew, get you some cold Brew,
gonna get you some coffee. Yeah, Like, I can't believe
I ain't think of it. This still right now, yo, y'all.
(36:41):
This thing right here was recorded by Me Propaganda and
East Lows, boil Heights, Los Angeles, California. This thing was mixed, edited, mastered,
and scored by the one and the only Matt Awsowski.
Y'all check out this fool's music. I mean it's incredible.
Executive produced by Sophie Lichterman for Cool Media. Man, and
(37:02):
thank you for everybody who continue to tap in with us.
Make sure you leaving reviews and five star ratings and
sharing it with the homies so we could get this
thing pushed up in the algorithm and listen. I just
want to remind you these people is not smarter than you.
If you understand city living, you understand politics, We'll see
you next week.
There are a handful of things that black people have
mastered that probably have some sort of deeper long socio
cultural or geopolitical reason for or an origin story that
might have either came from I don't know, Africa, or
slave ships, general oppression, and have become tools of survival
(00:25):
that we have turned into an art form, like a mastery.
We've mastered being cool. We've mastered cuss words, like, you know,
nobody cussed like an old black man, old black woman,
Like nobody cuss like us. Like we make cuss words
sound like people say, e forty curs raps in cursive,
you know what I'm saying. Like we make some old
(00:47):
heads they cuss and sound like it's cursive. Bill Burr
has this joke he did a while back about like
black men and cussing that they've mastered the motherfucker because
and you don't even notice that they do it, and
the way that white people cuss it just sounds racist.
And he's like, it's where you put the fuck. He
was like, you're an old black man, tall, you like,
(01:09):
hey man, how's at the start? Right?
Speaker 2 (01:10):
You know?
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Earlier and this age motherfucker told me, hey, age motherfucker
was talking to this like talking to this Mexican motherfucker.
It was just saying like, you know, blah blah blah
blah blah. Right, it's just a descriptor. He goes, a
white guy goes in there. I go, hey, I walk
in there, and this fucking Asian guy says, He's like,
it just sounds so much more racist the way I
said it, And it's really just because I put the
fuck before rather than after. He's like, I just said
(01:34):
exactly what that guy said. I've just why am I? Anyway,
it's an art form we've mastered that we have a
mastery in sort of protecting you by our sense of humor.
Like that's one of the ways that we sort of
protect each other and build community is through our sense
of humor. You know, if you're on the outs of
our community, Like what I told you before is when
(01:56):
you don't make our radar at all, Like if we
dragging you part of partially because we love you and
we know you could be better. So that's part of
just this is something we've mastered. You know, we've mastered
how to make something fashion. I don't care how hard
people try. We know how to make things cool. It's
just by our very presence. But what I want to
zero in on today is our mastery of and how
(02:22):
high of a value we place on mining your own business. Listen,
if something is not your business, I cannot tell you
how many phrases we have that are just really about
just mine your own business and I take care of mine.
I take care of my This is my business. That's
(02:43):
your business. You don't stay out of my business. I'm
gonna stay out of yours. I remember, listen all the
way back to the early eighties. Listen, my name is Bennett.
Black folks, finish it, Thank you very much. Ask your neighbor.
My name is we. That's that's a little more deep cut.
I ain't in this mess. You Listen. If I'm telling
(03:06):
you right now, you got co workers at your office,
black co workers, I'm pretty sure you don't know anything
about them, because that's their business. They know. Listen. They
not asking you about your children. It depends you know
how long you gotta work with somebody like that, work
with somebody like from our from our community, from our code.
How long you got to work with them before you
know anything about them outside of this job. We show up,
(03:29):
we do our job. No, I ain't going to get
drinks with you after No, I ain't hitting no happy hour. No,
I look, I'm y'all not my friends. I got friends. Well, listen,
do you know what the phrase no new friends? Listen?
That's about many your business like people that are in
my business. They in my business. This is my squad,
this is us. We done been through the trenches together.
(03:51):
I don't trust nobody else coming that's not your business. Something. Yeah,
now I think about somebody may be coming out of
like trust and you know in the FEDS bustle whatever.
Either way, my yeah, that's not your business. Let me
tell you something that your mama, your aunties. Every black
child has heard from some older black woman. Ay, that
is not your business. Stay out of grown folks business.
(04:11):
You listen, you take care of you, You worry about you, mama.
Where you going you will see. My daddy used to
say something like now, granted this might be a whole
different situation because he was doing outside activities, but I
would say, pop, where you going see a man about
a dog. But that basically meant, don't ask me. Don't
ask me, there's none of your business. I used to
(04:33):
ask my grandma. Grandma, Uh, what you're gonna do today?
She say, I'm gonna mind my business. So you just
you listen, Auntie, what are you doing right now? Mine
in my business? Same thing you should be doing somebody you,
you and the you in the office in the break room. Hey,
what you're doing after work? Mine in my business. I'm
(04:57):
that's not your business. Don't worry about it that Listen.
If you ain't signing my check or marinate no chicken,
I'm not worried about your business. You need to not
be worried about mine. Let's talk about the Supreme Court today. Politics. Y'all. Hey,
(05:31):
welcome to another episode HUD Politics. Hopefully you hearing this
with all know ads because you're on the cooler zone media,
because trust me, I could use the financial support from
you dudes doing this anyway. Supreme Court's been in the
news a lot, and I think it's important for y'all
(05:57):
to understand, which is why I felt like I should
do this episode that like the amount of attention they're
getting in the past ten fifteen years is really not
the way the Supreme Court was designed. Like this ain't
this has become normal, but it is not supposed to
be This ain't supposed to be normal, whether we were
talking about even the confirmation hearings, all the way back
(06:22):
to Clarence Thomas, who were going to talk about a
lot later, but all the way up to him, to
the Amy Cone Barretts, to the Brett Kavanaugh, and then
these absolutely bizarre reports about you know, Clarence Thomas, like
hanging with his billionaire friend Justice Alito out there partying,
(06:43):
you know, like this is so new. The only time
the Supreme Court was supposed to make the news was
really just their writings, their opinions, their rulings. That's the
only time you suposted to know anything about them. And
I'm going to get into that design when things flipped
(07:03):
and kind of what we're talking about now, because a
lot of it really speaks to the way just American
politics and culture has shifted, almost in the same way
that the mob shifted when John Gotti became a thing,
(07:25):
because remembered them G's moved in silence. You wasn't supposed
to know who. Remember the rule about the mafia was,
there is no mafia. What are you talking about? You
move in silence, You ain't supposed to know anything. We're doing.
That's our business. You keep your business to yourself, but
(07:46):
you see the effects. But since the public don't sign
my check, y'all not marinated my chicken. I don't care
what you think. Your opinion don't matter to me. Let's
get here too. Y'all don't sign.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Y'all, don't sign should y'all don't sign shad shot, y'all,
don't sign sad y'all don't sign.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
So some civics history here, which I think I may
have covered before. You know, you got the three branches
of government, the judicial, the legislative, and the executive, and
you're supposed to have these checks and balances, balances of
power to make sure that we don't become some sort
of monarchy that we ran from very reaction formation. Out
this mug just our country's foundation. Its origin story is
(08:51):
really a case study in Freudian defense mechanisms. But we
could talk about that later. Uh. The thing is, though,
the Supreme Court, if once you start getting into it,
you'd be surprised how little direction the Constitution gives us
about that. All the Constitution says is you should have one.
(09:15):
It don't say how many of them. It don't say
where they office should be. It don't really even say
they role. It just says you're supposed to have one.
That's really surprising to people because listen, let me tell
you why. You know what the Supreme Court function off
maya business. They ain't even had no office and it's origin.
(09:36):
Matter of fact, it was important for them to not
have an office because they used to ride by a
horse buggy to all the different colin needs to make
sure that everybody was following, and they would ride into
your city. They would listen to the thing, listen to
your stories, listen to the court cases they would judge,
and then they would go back you wasn't supposed to centralize.
It wasn't until Marlbury versus Madison that there was non
Supreme Court justices and that they got the power that
(09:59):
we understand them as as we know it now. I
think I said I covered this before Marlborough versus Madison.
Y'all go ahead and google that, right. I'm teacher prop
putting my putting my hat, putting my hat on right
form the Supreme Court into the shape that we kind
of see it as today. But still it didn't. What
hasn't reached its final form. The form that it is
that it's in now until a case in Memphis, Tennessee,
(10:22):
which I'm gonna get into in a second. But before
I get into that case, I need to stress I
need you to understand why I'm talking about. You understand
the Supreme Court if you understand what it means to
my own business. When you learned about the Supreme Court,
if you learned about the Supreme Court in school, what
(10:43):
did you learn exactly? You just learned that we have
one and that when there are cases that other courts
can't solve, you, it goes all the way up to them.
So you know the big stuff, you know the desegregation,
you know abortion, you know the big cases. You don't
(11:06):
know all the cases they've been adjudicating on. You know why,
because it's supposed to be boring. They were you know,
the Marvel series that went straight to Disney plus, like
the B and C characters in the comic book universe
that you got to really be into comic books to
know that that's what the Supreme Court was supposed to be.
(11:26):
This is supposed to be so boring, and they're supposed
to be so far removed from the public because they're
the one part of our government that you don't vote for.
They're chosen because they're supposed to be far from the
democratic process, because they're supposed to be unswayable by public opinion.
And I think in some ways the Supreme Court still
(11:49):
kind of takes that very serious. If you look at
these cases that we're going to get into a little later,
that you know, they voted on one end to make
sure that, like if you were adopting a Native American child,
that that tribe or a similar tribe had first adoption
rights to that Native child, which is like, damn, that's big,
And then at the same time told the Navajo they
(12:11):
can't have a water like you were, like, who do
you work for? Here? You got a man like David Suters,
who I'll probably brush on a little bit a little later,
but like one of the most like quiet, reclusive. He's
like the Kendrick Lamar of of Supreme Court justices. He's like, look, man,
I don't want y'all write no books on me. Kendrick
(12:32):
don't pop out, Like not in the sense that he's
the greatest of all time, but in the sense that
like Kendrick don't pop out, kenjo an't got on social media.
He got a little burner account where he cracks jokes
on but he don't be popping out. Don't like. I
don't want like. I don't want those spotlights. I don't
need to like. My work will speak for itself. And
even though he was appointed by Republicans, he rarely votes
(12:56):
along their party lines, or he rarely did because y'all
don't sign my check. Y'all ain't marinate my chicken. That
but that was the design. I'm not supposed to worry
about what the public think because y'all ain't put you
don't sign my check, y'all don't marinate my chicken. Don't
ask questions. I don't ask questions of you, yo, jih lick.
(13:19):
We come do our job. You spost come up here
and ask us what we think. We tell you what
we think, we interpreted law. We tell you what it is.
Stay on my business. That's why they're supposed to move.
And then you start. But then when you start saying,
I wonder what the rules are about Supreme Court, which
is how we got to the Justice of Leader in
the clar Thomas situation, where it's like, yo, can they
accept money, can y'all go on these like expensive trips.
(13:39):
What's the rules about them? Except like, can y'all just
accept brides? When does it become a bride?
Speaker 2 (13:45):
Like?
Speaker 1 (13:45):
When is there a conflict of interest? Are you allowed
to talk to lobbyists? How does any of this? Like?
How do what do you?
Speaker 2 (13:52):
What do you like?
Speaker 1 (13:52):
What's the rules around friends? You clearly have power and
authority over stuff, but you don't, but you don't have
to worry about being elected, so you kind of can
do what you want. What are the rule Who was
about that? Here's what you learned. They ain't none. I'm
gonna say it again, there's only norms. There's no rules.
I mean, if you can find them, tell me. There's
only Like it would suck if you it's a bad
(14:17):
look when you We prefer that you know, if you're
getting if you're getting gifts over a certain amount of
money and say, you know, we prefer that you tell us,
like just just be cool about it and disclose it.
Like nobody saying you can't have it. We're just saying, like,
just let us know, because it looks bad if you don't.
Nigga them ain't rules them? Is that's just a code.
(14:39):
They don't have rules, They just have a code. How
come you don't know that? Because that's not your business.
You don't sign a check. They ain't worried about what
you think. Listen. If you're a parent and you got
middle schoolers or high schoolers, this, please let them hear
this part. This is coming from a form a teacher.
(15:00):
I taught high school. I started off in the juvenile
correctional facilities in East Lake. I started off teaching there.
Then I taught in alternative education, and then finally I
taught at a charter high school for the arts. But
I did my student teaching at just straight up public schools, right,
But all of these schools were they were alternative, but
there were all public schools. Like I've never taught at
a private institution anyway. I used to tell my students,
(15:23):
who now are adults, so like it's a different story now.
But yet, if your child listen, if you listening right now,
little hommie, look it, leve Homie's a gender neutral so
accept it, right, So love hommy. If you're not doing
well in a class, you haven't behavioral issues, or you
just your grades aren't where they should look or where
(15:44):
they could look like you know you could do better
in this class, like don't look it. Don't look at
your mom, and don't look at your daddy, don't look
at your aunty, don't look I'm talking to you, like,
if you know you could do better than this and
nobody everybody know, nobody know but you, you know if
you really like if you half fass an it, like
I'm sorry if you don't cuss at your kids right now,
but I guarantee your kids cuss right so you know
(16:06):
you phoned it in. You know you not. You're not
giving them your egg game, you giving them your Sea game?
You know it. And your reason is the teacher don't
like me. The mean that woo don't like me. I
want you to think about this for a second. This
is coming from a teacher. Okay. I used to tell
my students it's not that I don't like you. I
(16:29):
don't think about you at all. I'm a grown man.
Look it. If class let out at three at three
oh two, I done forgot everything you said, everything that's
so important to you. I don't You can't even go
get a drink with me? Are you? We're not friends? Fam?
(16:50):
What you mean? Like you and why do you care
if I like you or not? You got your own friends?
What are you gonna call me to play Call of duty?
Speaker 2 (16:58):
Like?
Speaker 1 (16:59):
What are we gonna fortnitey? We're little mall like you
want me to go to six Flags with you? We're
not What do you care? What do you care? What
I think? And and you so mad at me for
how I feel about you? Knowing listen, in June we
never have to see each other again. What the hell
you care? I think we don't ever see each other
(17:20):
again in June. And to punish me for how you
think I feel about you, you gonna give yourself summer
school because if you so, because because you don't like
me and I don't like you, you gonna fail my
class and have to repeat it in summer school. And
guess what if I want to make a little extra money,
(17:41):
I might teach summer school. You have to see me again,
do you? It's ridiculous. Listen, I don't sign your check.
You don't sign my check. I feel show ain't marinating
your chicken, you ain't marinating mine. Don't listen. Don't fail
no class because you think the teacher don't like you.
Let me tell you something. If your teacher is thinking
(18:03):
about you when they get home, they need therapy. Now
I'm saying that to help you understand that, Like you
need to go in there take care of business for yourself.
This like, don't worry about me, mind your own business,
(18:25):
this your own future. What difference does it make what
any of your instructors think of you? You do you
there for you? Now? Of course I deeply cared about
my students, you know, so of course I thought about
them when I went home, you know what I mean,
And if anybody got under my skin. Here's what's crazy,
is like now that we're adults, Like it's because I
(18:46):
was such a young teacher at the time, Like we're
all friends, Like I adore you. I've had. One of
the biggest headaches in my class was this kid named
Jamal who's actually a rapper. Now. I don't know if
you heard of Xavier Wolf, but his partner is doing
Eddie Baker. Like Eddie Baker was one of my students.
He was He's on Rolling Loud, right, he was on
the Rolling Loud Festival. I'm so proud of him. And
(19:09):
it's not that I didn't like I actually liked him
a lot. You know, he just he was just fourteen
and now like no, we talk all the time like
he's such a he's a great young man, you know
what I'm saying, Like it all works out and he's
even k I remember I ran into him at a
Black Lives Matter protest and he came to me. He
was like, man, I'm sorry I was being such a
(19:29):
knuckleet at school. I was like, bro, you were me Like,
you didn't get under my skin. Bro, I just I didn't. Obviously,
I just knew you. I knew you was vibrating lowered
than your potential. I just knew that, you know what
I'm saying. And that's what was frustrating to me, is
like you vibrating lowered in your potential. You have a
higher vibration in this and he stepped into it. And
(19:49):
I'm very proud of him, you know. But I mean
I've seen his nigas billboard, Like I'm so proud of
this fool. But he was he was one of the
was that thought he was hurting my feelings, you know
what I'm saying, Like what time we even like when
he was a freshman, I battled him like, you know,
because I was rapping at the time too. I served
this little dude, and I served him because I knew
(20:11):
he was talented. You know what I'm saying, I'm like, listen,
man like you, you're more than this, you know anyway,
This how any healthy teacher would function is that we
have our own lives, we have our own friends, and
of course sometimes work and be hard. But I ain't.
I'm not losing sleep over no fifteen year old, over
no twelve year old. That's not my child. That means
(20:34):
that that child ain't my business. That's I'm gonna do
my job. I'm gonna do it well, and then I'm
gonna go home. Doesn't mean I don't care about your future.
Doesn't mean I won't want to do my job well,
you know, because again, a good teacher is obviously invested
in their students' future. But listen, man like y'all, whether
(20:57):
you behave or not, my check every two weeks, okay, don't,
you're not punishing me. You guys got it. So the
Supreme Court, y'all write whatever thing pieces you want. You
could talk about, y'all say whatever y'all want about. Listen.
(21:19):
Politicians being like, oh, this is a activist Court. Oh
this guy, you cavin I ain't thinking about y'all. Amy, Connie,
she ain't. She ain't thinking about you at all, which
is why this season is so interesting. Let's keep going.
(22:09):
So I want to take y'all back now to this
case in Memphis that I wanted to bring up in
the sixties. It's where we get to term the political thicket.
This is the moment when, depending on who you asked,
the Supreme Court stopped minding its own business. This is big. Now,
(22:33):
it's absurd to say that the courts have never been
in the political ticket, because even though they're not elected
or voted on, they're chosen and appointed by elected officials.
So it's by nature a political process that gets you
on the courts. However, this moment I'm about to teach
(22:53):
y'all about almost makes the quiet thing come out loud
and again, pinning who you ask got the court stuck
in the in the muck and the mire that they
in now, and that case is the Baker versus Car case. Now, look,
it's nineteen sixty one. On the surface, it just seems
like a voter district, you know, run of the mill case. Right,
(23:17):
here's the situation Tennessee. In the city of Memphis, you know,
had never re drawn their districts. Now granted between nineteen
oho last on A Jude district was nineteen oh one.
Now it's nineteen sixty one, which means that obviously Democrats
have had changed. The cities are ginormous, right, there's way
(23:39):
more people. And as you know, districting works, you get
the amount of congressmen based on your population. You have
more population, you have more congress people.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Right.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
You remember every state has two senators, but you have
but your congressmen are based on your your district's population. Right.
Jerry Mandering's a whole different thing. That's how you draw
the district lines. But what it's saying is like, yo,
we need to we need to redraw these districts because
we're not ruled no more. Like it's just the state's change.
Tennessee is like, I ain't redrawing shit right in the
(24:12):
City of Memphis is like, well, nigga, you have to.
Here's how it breaks down. Think of it like a
twenty three to one ratio. So think of it like this.
If a rural area has one person, and for every
one person, there's twenty three people in the city, right,
that one person has all the power for voting that
it would take twenty three people in the city to
(24:32):
equal that one person's power. Think of that. So that
means that same power for that one vote is split
among twenty three people in the urban area because they
have the same amount of representatives despite having twenty three
more people. So it's like, if you live in a city,
you have one twenty third the power of a person
in the rural areas that but there's more of us, Like,
(24:55):
don't you think because there's more of us, we should
have more representation. And they was like, na, We're not
finna do that. Obviously, what's going on here? Black people
are in the city, Like so it's the Memphis is urban.
The rural districts are generally white. They're not trying to
lose their power. This, I mean is obvious. What's going on.
(25:16):
They trying to hold on today power. And that is
another way of like sort of disenfranchising African American votes. Right,
Poverty is not the issue right now because everybody poor,
you know what I'm saying, it's this disenfranchising African American votes. Right.
So that's that's the case that's in front of the
Supreme Court. The hard part about the Supreme Court is
state legislative districting is generally none of their business. They've
(25:41):
never had to decide on how the districts are set
up or not set up. That's never That's that's what's
hard about being on a Supreme Court. If you're on
Supreme Court, you're supposed to be looking at the cases
and judging what the law would stay about the cases.
But the problem is once it's at the Supreme Court,
that means that there is no law. We don't know
(26:02):
what the law is. That's how I made it all
the way up here. We can't decide what the actual
law is, which is why sometimes you kind of have
to have an idea lague. You have to have a
philosophical position, which is why, even though it's not political,
it's very political. You have to see the world in
a certain way. So if you see the world from
a conservative lens, right, you're gonna have a way to
(26:23):
interpret a law that may not be there and what
law might should be, or the other way around. You
see the world in the liberal, liberal lens, you know,
progressive lens, you're gonna say, okay, well this might be
and say, well, what about the constitution? This are you
listening to me? The Constitution? Don't say nothing about it.
That's why I's in the court. Do you understand what
I mean? So this is the situation that they face.
And now there's two Supreme Court justices that I want
(26:44):
you to meet right now. It's Justice Frank Footer. That's
that man's name. It's Justice Frankfooter, right wing, brilliant asshole.
Like there's even stories to where like if you was
a clerk and you was bringing him papers, he would
let you come in there, drop the paper on the ground,
make you pick it up and hand it to him.
Because he was just an asshole. He was known for
(27:06):
like when it was tign for him to talk, he
would talk. They was, I mean talk ninety minutes to
two hours, three hours straight, just pontificating on the courts
because he was trying to prove his point because he
believed everybody's stupid. Justice Frankfurter. Then there's Justice William Douglas,
his equalent opposite, left wing. I mean we're talking liberal
(27:27):
mountain climber hunter, super forward thinker, absolute prick, just just
as arrogant and just these are two of some of
the most brilliant minds in the country at the time,
and their dickheads okay, like just absolute dickhead okay, but
they see the world differently, and apparently they had like
(27:48):
a lot of respect for each other because they knew
each other was brilliant. They just disagreed fundamentally at a
philosophical level. You know why you never heard of this
because it's not your business, That's what I'm trying to
tell you. So then there's this third guy, right, Justice Whittaker.
Now Justice Whittaker is so interesting to me. He never
went to college. That nigga is self taught at that
(28:11):
great like Justice Whittaker was self taught. Fam he just outworked, out,
hustled just obviously you smart as a whip. But because
he didn't go to no formal university, he really ain't
had no like political ideology. He was like, yo, I mean,
I read the books. I just want to hear like,
I don't have no I don't have no leaning either way.
(28:32):
I just I just think law is interesting. And so
if that's the case, if he's that dude, then guess
who everybody gunning for. Because he became what's called the
swing vote. Right, That's why our supreme courts have odd numbers. Right,
somebody need to be convinced to something else. He was
the one everybody convinced because, as we know, if you
(28:53):
already conservative, you're supposed to just vote an serve you
righty liberally supposed to vote liberal. Now sometimes things change, right,
but for the most point, he's the most valuable vote.
Now in this case, it was even known to say, like, like,
he's the type of dude that like, if he would
sit down and talk to you for thirty minutes, he
would listen to your case and be like, damn dude,
your argument were you're like, damn man, that fool got
a point. Then you go to the next office and
(29:14):
here the opposite side and be like, damn man, that
fool got a point. Like he was just so open
to hear what everybody say, because again he had come
from th like traditional sort of like route into the
Supreme Court anyway, So like, in a perfect world, that's
what you want from your judges, right, you want them
to be open minded, to at least understand the law
(29:34):
so well and be willing to despite whatever their positions.
You would hope that they would have no position right
that they would just honestly take the case by its merit. Clearly,
that don't exist, not in our world, because again, you
have to have a lens for a grid for which
you put the world through. I remember I suggested a
book called What is Justice? By Malcolm Sandow or Michael Sandow.
(29:58):
This is a good time to refer back to that
book because you have to what do you mean when
you say just right? That's the question that comes up,
especially when you're trying to interpret a law that ain't
even there. Your whole job is about gray areas, and
you would hope people would be fair and honest. But
(30:23):
we have somehow convinced ourselves that fair and honest means
a political and that's not the planet we exist on.
This case, it's groundbreaking because it actually like it killed
Justice Whitaker, do you hear me? Literally it killed him.
(30:45):
He had to take a leave of absence. He developed
like also because he just could not make a decision
in this case. It just it broke him. Now, why
couldn't he make this decision? Because scroll back a little
bit and hear the merit of the case, right, this
(31:07):
is clearly unjust. It is obviously a way to perpetuate racism.
You are disenfranchising voters, and you know it. You are
undermining constitutional rights, which was Justice William Douglas's position, like,
I don't understand what the problem is. This is clearly unfair,
(31:28):
this out of district's work. If there's more people, they
give more representatives. I don't understand what we talk about
here Tennessee. You trip it. You clearly need to fix this.
Justice Frankfurter was like, be that as it may. I
don't know if it's our place to correct that. What
(31:50):
it's like, dude, if we get into the political process,
and what's scary is fast forward to Bush v. Gore
to Trump. If we get in the middle of this shit,
the courts are gonna be asked to adjudicate things that
(32:11):
were supposed to be democratically voted on. We don't want
this smoke, even if we think it's wrong, the courts
are gonna be stuck. And by stuck, he uses that
word picture I said earlier, the political thicket. If you
know what the thicket is, it's almost like mangrols. It's
(32:33):
just winding, twisty plant roots and branches that you just
get stuck in and it's such an image. Dude, He's listen,
these people ain't marinate, not chicken. Like you don't want
to smoke. I don't want to be in this. Like
my name is Bennett, Niggat, stay out their business. This
(32:56):
shit gonna come get us. Stay out the tea. Don't
sip this tea, y'all deciding votes forever. We can't listen.
We don't want this smoke, y'all. I'm telling you principally,
if we do this, nigga, we gonna be doing this forever.
And they gonna blame elections on us. These politicians, these people,
(33:18):
they gonna come look for us when they don't like
the results. They gonna come make us beat a referee
on some shit that we not equipped to nor is
that our role, Like we're not even supposed to be
in this. This is not our business. That was his position.
(33:42):
And the other position, like I said, was like, we
have a moral obligation. You see this is wrong, And
how you gonna fast forward into the future to know
what the hell is gonna happen? How do you know
we are judging the case that's in front of us,
and the case in front one of us is clearly unjust.
(34:03):
Justice Whitaker was getting people at his house all the time,
walking in with the Pappy van Winkel and the dope cigars,
trying to convince this man what he needs to do
on this because the courts were split. And listen, he
never actually voted on it because he died before he could.
(34:25):
It literally broke his brain. He agonized over this, and
I think you guys know what happened if you live
in current times. The Supreme Court decided this was unjust,
and the courts have been in the political thicket ever since.
(34:47):
Ain't that crazy? That moment? It changed everything?
Speaker 2 (34:56):
Yo?
Speaker 1 (34:57):
Ain't that crazy? Doug?
Speaker 2 (35:00):
Y'all don't sign by check should y'all don't sign by
shoot y'all, don't.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
Sign by shad?
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Shoot y'all, don't sign y'all don't.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
Sign So all this prep make me realize I should
probably turn this into a part too, because I need
to talk about Clarence Thomas, his backstory and Justine Salita
and yeah, there's some specific characters before I can even
get to what the what the courts just actually decided,
got dog man, But listen, so we're gonna do a
(35:33):
mind yo, goddamn business Part two, uh next week, But
until then, listen. If they ain't signing your check or
marinating your chicken, none of your business. The politics, y'all.
(36:00):
You know, I don't know why I ain't thought of
this before, but you know you could use promo code
hood for fifteen percent off on terraform coolbrew dot com.
Like I forgot I own that company and this is
my pod, y'all, go ahead and punch it. Promo cold Hood.
(36:20):
If you in the cold Brew, get you some cold Brew,
gonna get you some coffee. Yeah, Like, I can't believe
I ain't think of it. This still right now, yo, y'all.
(36:41):
This thing right here was recorded by Me Propaganda and
East Lows, boil Heights, Los Angeles, California. This thing was mixed, edited, mastered,
and scored by the one and the only Matt Awsowski.
Y'all check out this fool's music. I mean it's incredible.
Executive produced by Sophie Lichterman for Cool Media. Man, and
(37:02):
thank you for everybody who continue to tap in with us.
Make sure you leaving reviews and five star ratings and
sharing it with the homies so we could get this
thing pushed up in the algorithm and listen. I just
want to remind you these people is not smarter than you.
If you understand city living, you understand politics, We'll see
you next week.
Host
Prop
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