February 24, 2025 • 32 mins
Andrew Gillum goes LIVE with resources and tips for how to get plugged into The Fight. We all have a roll to play and we all MUST play a role to push back against Trump, Elon, and this wannabe-authoritarian administration.
Get involved with the opposition to Trump! Check out this spreadsheet of organizations to join, volunteer, or donate to: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/13Qxu32zcQNhVRNkhSy2oy0IDLY4VVLhuZC9N-2FXLTQ/edit?usp=sharing
To start the show, we acknowledge a loss to MSNBC and journalism at large that occurred over the weekend. Joy Reid’s show The ReidOut which ran for five years was cancelled by the network.
Call MSNBC and let them know #WeNeedJoy:
(212) - 664 - 4444 | When prompted press 1 then press 2
Want to ask Andrew a question? Subscribe to our YouTube channel to participate in the chat.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Native Land Pod is a production of iHeartRadio in partnership
with Reason Choice Media. Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome.
What's up?
Speaker 2 (00:11):
It was up?
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Up? Was up?
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Was up?
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Hello, Hello, and welcome everybody. This is Andrew Gillum coming
to you with one of our how do you say
we call these side pieces? We call these many many
mini pods, I guess, and we also call them solo pods.
And it's where you'll get to hear from your hosts
(00:33):
at Native Lamb Pod on days in which we're not
in our regular schedule. And I just want to say
welcome and also thank you for tuning in. I just
want to quickly outline that these are really going to
be very brief, if you will, by comparison to the show,
maybe twenty minute long opportunities where you get to come
(00:55):
in and hear from the various hosts about issues that
we might consider to be important. And for me, I
really wanted to kick these off with a little bit
of a reminder and maybe some training support on what
it means to get back to the basis of organizing y'all.
(01:16):
The moment that we find ourselves in right now, I
think is requiring us to really, really really get serious
about what it means to see our neighbors, hear our neighbors,
protect our clan, our family, the people who we love
and support, make sure they remain harmless through this very,
very difficult and trying time. And some of that is
(01:40):
going to require that we get back in touch with
foundational organizing principles that have carried our community from back
there to where we are right now. And I know
right now the challenges feel like one. They feel humongous,
they feel exhausting, they feel tiring. I would even add
(02:00):
to that heartbreaking, and I add heartbreaking because while I
wanted to spend most of my time in these first
twenty or so minutes with y'all talking about organizing and
the organizing series that I'd like to I'd like to
engage you all in Yesterday we learned about the cancelation
(02:21):
of our dear Sister Joy and Reads show the Readout
on MSNBC. Now, some of us may have quit MSNBC
back when they tried the same thing with Tiffany Cross,
my dear colleague and fellow co host on Native Lampod
and many of us even if we made the decision
(02:41):
to step away from the network at that time because
of the treatment that she received. A lot of us
stayed around and said, hey, look that's where Joy is,
and Joy is from my standpoint, she's not just a newswoman,
She's not just an anchor. She's not there doing this
for anybody the entertainment value or for sport. Joy read
(03:05):
the Joy read that I know, and the Joy read
that we have all come to know and love over
the years on the various platforms that she's been Joy
quite simply is the bringer of truth and it doesn't
matter how inconvenient that truth may be. She's going to
bring it to you anyway. And today's day and age,
(03:28):
where you have a very thin skinned political leadership apparatus,
and I would even argue maybe a thinner or equally
as thin skin in the corporate media, who are prepared
to wilter and bend to the will of the White House,
in the party that's in control right now, it's going
(03:50):
to cost us something, and in this case, it's costing
us one of the best truth tellers that we have
out there. Joy represents, and my opinion, the best of
who we are. She is fact based, her opinion is
always supported by laundry lists of receipts. She is someone who,
(04:12):
regardless of what the popular wins may be, has always
deepened into what our true lived experiences are and we're
in our community, and she broadcast broadcasts those experiences to
the world. Y'all. She is going to be deeply, deeply,
deeply missed by her viewers on MSNBC. But I got
(04:37):
to tell you, you know, joy from from from my lips
to your ears. I hope. Uh, this is a setup
for really God calling you into greater service, to higher purpose.
While you have served an incredible purpose up to this point,
you're being called into higher service. And sometimes in the
(04:57):
process of moving into higher service, you have to be sifted.
Remember those that old equipment that our grandparents, my grandmama
used to use when she was doing her pancakes, a
corn bread and the flour would go into the sifter
and it would sift all the way through. But what
would come out as a finer grain of things and
it made everything taste just that much better. Well, there
(05:21):
is a finer grain of you that is through this
process and on the other side, and so many of
us just can't wait to see whether that takes you,
and more importantly, where it takes us collectively. But before
we get to what Joy Read's next steps are, I
think we have to send a very very important signal
(05:42):
to the corporate folks who are making these decisions, are
silencing our voices, are supplanting our voices with you know,
minstrel shows and dictates of how they think we are
supposed to show up on their platforms. We need to
send them a signal that this is not a game,
(06:02):
This is not a toy, This is not a transaction
that you trade in and trade out. This is our
lives and we deserve and need voices who are going
to speak truth and power to the powerful about what we're,
what our lived experiences are, and what we need and
what we demand of the system. And Joy has unapologetically
done that on behalf of all of us standing in
(06:25):
the gap. We've got to send a signal, And so
I want to join the bandwagon of folks who today
are encouraging folks to watch Joy's last sign off show
tonight on MSNBC during her normal regular seven pm Eastern
Standard time, and wherever you live you can you can
(06:47):
you can obviously look up the show times, but be
with her, stand with her, hold her spiritually during this
time where she has to make it through this show
on the network that summarily decided that her voice was
no longer a value to them. At this moment, we
want to say that her voice is valuable to us,
(07:09):
that it means something to us, that we are powering
her forward. Even if they can't see it, we're gonna
help to make sure that they feel it. So at
the end of the conclusion of her show tonight and
Joy will sign off by telling her telling the rest
of us where it is that we can go and
find her voice beyond this current platform. And after that, y'all,
(07:32):
we're gonna turn the TV off. We're gonna shut it down.
We're going to log off of whatever platforms in which
you are watching or hearing MSNBC, and we're gonna send
them a very important message that our voices matter. And
guess what. My voice right now is being interrupted by
my cell phones. And this has always been my theory
about these lives. I'm telling you, y'all, I am technology
(07:54):
of tooth and if it happens again, just charge it
to my head, not to my heart. I'm gonnaigure this
out by the time we get into the next one,
but we want to make sure that they hear and feel,
more importantly, feel the effect of when we choose to
take our time and attention, a very precious and non
renewable resource, our time and attention, when we choose to
(08:16):
put that elsewhere. Joy, We're going to follow you wherever
you go, and tonight we want to make a very
very strong, important show of support that we're going to
have your back because you have had our backs in
our fronts and sides and other blind spots when we
didn't even know it. The last confession I'll make on
this one with regard to Joy is that when I
(08:37):
ran for governor of the state of Florida back in
twenty eighteen, and it was looking like we might that
we could potentially pull off a win in that race,
I reached out to Joy and asked her if she
could do her show live from Florida, and that I
would grant her if I were to win that race.
(09:01):
The first interview after the race was concluded, possibly later
that that election night or maybe the next morning, and
Joy did what she had to do, and she showed up.
I didn't get to see her that night. It was
a it was of course, it worked out a different way,
and it was a bit heartbreaking on one end, but
(09:21):
she did what was necessary within whatever the corporate confines were,
to try to bring to the American people the experience
that we had here in Florida. And I'll never forget that.
And she's been her friend and the gap on so many,
so many more occasions. Don't believe the hype that they're
(09:41):
trying to sell us about unqualified, whatever stories they want
to put out, ratings, all this craziness. You see the
enemy tries to use. They do a little jiu jitsu.
They take their weakest and most vulnerable place, and they
then project that vulnerability onto other communities, other people, so
(10:02):
that they can then insulate themselves from attack. What am
I talking about, Well, I'm talking very specifically about not
just Joy's incidents, and which is an example of the
corporate side, but this picture, it can be drawn a
lot bigger. It's not just the corporate We want you
to obviously watch her show this evening, throw our support
(10:24):
behind her, but following that, we want to make sure
that we follow Joy and read on every platform in
what she is listed. So if you in Snapchat, Instagram,
blue Sky, whatever the platforms are that you get information
and share information, please please please go ahead and put
(10:45):
in the search engine right now Joy and read. If
you don't already do it now follow her and then
contact MSNBC. Let our voices be heard and let them
know that we disagree with the step that they've taken
and that they want our business. They best do better
to bring us to voices who best represent our community.
All skin folk and kim folk and all folks who
(11:07):
may reflect what we look like who are on television
are not necessarily speaking our truth and telling our stories.
The number at MSNBC, and we'll hopefully get this in
show notes is two one two six six four four
four four four. Let's light up that board and make
sure that they know that we're watching. When prompted, press one,
(11:29):
then press two. Leave a message stating that you believe
that their actions are unacceptable and that we need brave
and honest journalists like Joy and Reid to come to
us on their platforms as well. We want you to
watch obviously tonight, but we want you to disconnect immediately
following from the platform. That will bring us her show
(11:51):
tonight MSNBC at seven pm Eastern Standard time, and look
for your local networks for your showtimes. And then, last,
and certainly not at least, we want you to spread
the word. If you post about watching the show tonight
or anything related to it you're discussed around the decision,
please use the hashtag. We need joy. We need joy
(12:11):
in so many forms, joy in our spirit, but also
joy the person. And we thank you for bringing us
both of those joy. Thank you for your friendship. We
will follow you wherever because you are a true and
an honest voice who has earned our trust. And know
Johnny Come Lately or Surprise or pop up figure is
(12:34):
going to have our trust. You have to earn it,
you have to work for it. You put in the work,
and that's why we want to put in some work
for you. What I was getting to on second topic,
just changing the page, and then finally I'll talk to
you about what we hope to do with these on
a regular basis when we come to you in these
solo pods. When I talked about the enemy weaponizing their
(13:02):
weakness to insulate themselves from attack, I'm talking about this
DEI stuff right which I have translated to the N
word is how I experience it when they use it,
it seems like the sessing out of us wherever they
can find it. Well, this weekend, something else happened in
addition to the news and the corporate world regarding Joy Reid,
(13:25):
the general who led the Joint Chiefs of Staff, which
is the which is the collection of all of the
military chiefs and leaders across the various branches, including the
National Guard. This is the group that assembles as advisory
to the President of the United States, Defense Secretary of
(13:51):
the United States, and the intelligent chiefs of our country.
They are the official advisory group Joint Chiefs that chairmen
of the Joint Chiefs serves both and Democratic and Republican administrations.
Why because their oath and their fealty is to the
Constitution of the United States and to the people and
(14:12):
the nation of the United States. Well, the current Joint
the previous I guess I should say, before he was
fired Chairman of the Joint chief of Staff was General C. Q. Brown,
who spent forty years as a pilot in the Air Force,
met all of the criteria. There were no lessening of criteria,
(14:35):
no quotas having to be met. It simply required that
those making this decision looked across the entire board of
qualified individuals underscore qualified, and choose from amongst them a
person who would lead the Joint Chiefs. While President Trump
decided to dismiss CQ. Brown this weekend and removing him
(15:00):
from his position in addition to a couple of other
top brass within the United States Armed Services, and replaced
him not with somebody equally qualified or really not with
somebody who is just qualified for the position of Chairman
of the Joint Chiefs, which does require special experiences in
(15:24):
qualifications to be named. He decided to name a gentleman
named Dan Caine, who I don't know personally, but yes,
says served this country and we thank him for it.
But in appointing mister Caine, the President actually had to
waive the criteria necessary for him to have been automatically
(15:47):
qualified for the President to make that appointment. The President
has the ability to waive that criteria if he chooses,
if it is in the best interests of the nation. Well,
he determined it was in the best interest of the
name to appoint someone who was not qualified technically for
the position, so he takes out a qualified individual who
(16:09):
met all of the standards, no quotas simply qualified ready
to serve, and replace them with someone who, while they
have served this nation and we are grateful, was not
qualified on paper to be named the Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff. I think we would all agree
that Secretary Hexseth, who is now the Secretary of Defense,
who pales can't even be mentioned in the same sentence
(16:33):
as his predecessor, quite frankly, but is unqualified for the
position that he holds. And that, frankly is true across
the board with almost all of Trump's appointments to the
National Cabinet. So what do they do. They go on
a rampage against Dei, which they say didn't earn it,
(16:53):
and truth all their folks didn't earn it. Yet they're
in these positions, and they are placing men and women
and folks of color and other marginalized people who fought
to be just considered off their merit. They're being pushed out,
while people with no merit at all are being pushed in.
(17:15):
I say this, y'all because I think we have to
begin to forward our truthful narrative around this We shouldn't
be pushed back on our back heel in this fight
around DEI when it simply means take the qualified individual
and guess what. Look beyond your circle of friends, Look
to the people who are qualified but may not share
your same lived experience, are committed to the constitution, but
(17:39):
may not be loyal to you the individual, because their
oath is to the constitutional and to the country. We
have no shame, we ought to have no shame around
the term diversity, equity, and inclusion. We are not carry
the load that they want to put on our backs
of dishonesty. Like we didn't earn where we are. We
(18:00):
earned it. We worked hard, in fact, in many cases,
harder than most that surround us to get those positions.
We're not going to tolerate that they want to apply
that across the corporate sector and across now the public sector.
And it's simply a lot, and we have to reject it. Finally, y'all,
I just want to say, when we come to you,
(18:21):
at least when I'm doing many pots, I'm going to
try my very very best to ensure that they're bringing
information and education and hopefully that you'll leave our conversations
having felt more informed and more equip than when you
joined us. And so in that spirit and in the
(18:41):
spirit of where I sort of started describing these many
pods to you, at least from my perspective, is that
in the coming weeks, I'm going to take time, with
the support and help of Lolo, one of our producers,
who's going to pop in here in a moment to
let me know if there are any questions, We're gonna
walk our listening audience through some of the basics and
(19:04):
fundamentals around organizing. How do we get our communities ratcheted up,
how do we move them not just through this moment,
but to a place where I think as a community
we begin to live our truest, fullest sells and have
the policies and institutions that are around us being built
(19:25):
to support that growth, that freedom, that independence, that ability
to live truly free and unencumbered, in order to get
closer to that beloved community that I think all of
us want and admire. It doesn't have to be a
pipe dream, but it does require something of us and
from us, and quite frankly, it's the same thing that
(19:46):
democracy requires of us and from us, and that is
that we be in the movement in action in whatever
way that suits us and whatever way that deepens into
our skill set. But you can't maintain societies that see
us and respect us unless we're prepared to put in
the work. We shouldn't always have to, but given the
(20:08):
challenges we face, the foes we face, our ancestors didn't
let their knee break their necks, and we're not going
to let it happen to us. But it is going
to require the work. So today, what we're going to
make sure you have in the show notes as my
time comes to an end, is a list of organizations
and groups that you can research, determine whether or not
(20:28):
they fit in your skill set and interest area, and
then hopefully you make the move to deepen into how
you can better support the work of those entities and organizations.
And in the coming weeks, we want to talk to
you about how you then build that beloved community right
where you are, either online or in person, hopefully a
mix of both, but better equip each and every one
(20:52):
of us with the knowledge, the skills, and the tools
that are necessary to bend that arc more deeply, and
more admittedly, and more permanently. In the direction of justice
for all of us. With that, I want to avite, Lolo,
if there are any questions, I want our listeners to know,
(21:15):
I'm not going to be just talking about organizing by
what by virtual of what I read. I'm going to
be talking about organizing from my own lived experience. For
many years, was an organizer, mostly on college campuses and
then in greater community. And then my organizing work led
to organizing elected officials who were our age and younger
(21:38):
and diverse cohorts so that they can be more effective
at bringing the benefits back to our community. And now
we got to organize for all of us. And so
I'm not going to be talking to you about what
I've read. I'm going to be talking with you and
engaging and exchanging with you about what I know, and
hopefully you'll bring some of your experience to the table
and we'll just have a great exchange of how to
(22:00):
do this and do it the best and most effective way.
With that, Lolo, are there any questions, anything I missed,
anything I need to reiterate, let me know.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
Hey, y'all. All right, so we haven't gotten a lot
of questions, but there was one in particular I thought
was really cool. And so this person said, how do
we assert and not only respond We need to assert
because they're already expecting a response.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
Well, let him expect the response, but we got to
give the response as well. That's number one. There is
a group right now working on a database that will
be able to direct us to either black owned or
black lead black hosted platforms where we can have a
(23:02):
exchange of information. We can get our source of information
and facts from people who we know and who we
trust that we don't always have to rely on the
corporate media quite frankly to do that for us. And
so in my thought around how it is we get
in front of just the reaction, just the response. And
(23:23):
by the way, I don't take for granted that people
are gonna automatically respond. I gotta be honest about that, lol.
I don't know if you have thoughts on it, but
I don't take for granted that people automatically have a
knee jerk reaction that when someone does something that they
don't like, that they have a choice to make. They
can continue to support the thing that is doing the
thing that they don't like, or they can make another decision.
(23:45):
It can't be well, that's the network I've always gone to.
D there are other options, so we have a choice
to make. I don't think any of us should take
for granted that people are automatically going to do a
thing and reaction to being offended or heard, or let
down or quite frankly, pushed to the side. The reason
I mentioned this resource of other places that you can
(24:08):
go is because we don't want to leave you empty.
We want to make sure that our buying power can
continues to show its strength except we get to show
its strength and places that see us, know us, hear us,
respect us, and then respond lolo. I may have gotten
off on the on the question, but I think I
(24:28):
understood the question uh uh, and then reframed it to
basically say, one, don't assume we know what to do
when we're when we're pushed to the side. And then two,
let's do the work of finding the platforms that are
in service to us that we then support so that
folks are then incentivized to do more of the things
(24:50):
that are in service to us and not less.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
Listen, so we have so I know, on a normal day,
this is just the first solo pie we would have
way more time to get through a lot of these questions.
There was one in particular, because we're on this topic,
I wanted to ask you, and then I wanted to
close off with something that is just in general. So
this person asks, why are we still talking about DEI
(25:16):
if white women and white gays benefit the most.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
Well, first, I don't know that. I don't have any
empirical data. If we're talking about affirmative action, that may
be one thing. I don't have any empirical data to
suggest that back at what level we are benefiting from diversity,
equity and inclusion, in part because, like there are a
lot of approaches to DEI. It can be if you
were a grosser or retailer. It could be in the
(25:44):
fact that you are including brands that are from communities
or constituencies that are not your normal, normal vendors, that
you're uplifting creative voices of black folks that have women
and so on and so forth. It could be if
you are in a workplace that there are deliberate steps
that are taken to showcase the talents of all people
(26:05):
and not just my homegirl or my homeboy who I
hang with. I know them. We share a lot in common,
and that's why they're always the ones that are selected
and tapped to give the presentation before the board or
before they're coworkers, right, So it takes a number of forms.
In my opinion, sometimes when we're climbing, we're bringing other
(26:27):
people who may not look like us or share all
of our identities along with us because they too have
been marginalized. I'm never gonna make the fight between marginal
communities and other marginal communities. That isn't the fight that
we want. That's the fight they want to give us.
I don't have a beef with women, I don't have
a beef with LGBTQ, I don't have a beef with
(26:47):
black folks in general. I'm saying, if all of us
are being oppressed, then we better figure out where we
have common cause and start that process of rising. But
they want us to gobble and fight between the folks
who they're marginalizing. They want us to fight about whether
or not this minority group or this minority group is
(27:08):
getting more time and attention and resource. And my suggestion
is there's plenty enough to go around, plenty enough, and
we're not gonna fight over the crumbs. We want to
be at the table and we're gonna fight over the meal, period.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
I love that, and that was such a great response
because I'm like so many people say, but white women
are the main ones who benefited from the I I'm.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Like, they're oppressed too and are largely hated by the
power structure. But that's not our fight. That's on our fight.
We all have more women, morey LGBTQ, more black folk,
more of the marginalized communities, and there is enough to
go around. You see. They got us activating in this
mentality of deficit. We're always operating from a deficit mentality. Well,
(27:53):
I don't want to operate from a deficit. We need
to operate from positions of strength and a power of
access resource. And what that means is you don't negotiate
against yourself before you get to the negotiating table. You
bring all of yourself to that table, and you negotiate
over the entire pie, not the crumbs.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
All right, So to close the South, because I know
we gotta go, but to close this out this series,
I know you talked about it, but now we have
a lot more people on Live right now. So the
series that you are doing over the next few weeks
about how to get active. Can you just close let
us know what it is?
Speaker 1 (28:30):
Absolutely, so we're going to spend the next the coming
weeks of my mini pie helping folks get reconnected to
what it means to organizing community and whether that is virtual,
whether that is in person, whether that is building campaigns
that put pressure on power systems and structures. Right, the
(28:55):
saying is tried and true, but it is more true
than anything, and that is power yields nothing without a demand.
So if we're expecting the system to see us and
to give to us because we're there, not going to happen.
We have to state our demands. I remember going in
and trying to negotiate from my first salary increase, and
(29:16):
I think I started by saying, you know, I hadn't
gotten an increase in three years, and my boss responded, well,
you hadn't asked in the past three years, And I'm like,
you see my work, you know my effort, you know
what we're doing all that to say, y'all, yeah, people
can see that and they'll take it for what is worth,
but it does not automatically trigger for them that they
(29:37):
ought to be paying for the services that were rendering.
And so we've got to get back to the basics
of organizing, how to do it, What do we start,
what does the middle of that look like? And then
what is the north star that we're aiming toward. And
I want to bring in some voices organizational leaders, people
(29:59):
who have had the experience of doing this, not just
in a professional capacity, but just as individuals in their
communities and their neighborhoods on their block, organizing to move
us towards the more beloved community economically, politically, socially and otherwise.
I think we've forgotten a lot about that in the
(30:20):
privilege that a lot of us have now come up in.
And while it ain't everybody, it doesn't reflect everybody's privilege.
Right there folks who are much more privileged than we are.
But we've also ascended to some levels of privilege. And
then so doing have I think forgotten some of the fundamentals,
and we need to deepen back into those fundamentals, get
back into those basics, understanding civics, understanding the pressure points,
(30:44):
recognizing that the federal government is one thing, but guess what,
we're a federation of fifty states, in a number of
territories and what pressure points can we impact and input
at our level to get the kind of outcomes that
we want. We know that pressure breaks pipes. We saw
it just this past week with members of the Republican
(31:05):
Party who host the town hall meetings that were explosive.
The people showed up and they're let their voices be
heard and by so doing, they're going to moderate the
actions of those elected representatives. I'm willing to bet on it,
but that's just one example. I think we can see
greater examples and greater successes when we organize. We know
that they're coming for us. They've already started. They're not
(31:26):
going to stop now. What we got to do is
get shake off the shock and get information with the knowledge,
skills and the tools that we need to fight back,
but not fight back for fighting sake, but to win.
That's what I'm committed to do, seeing us win, regardless
of what party is in power. We ought to be
winning at the end of the day, y'all, I appreciate
(31:47):
you taking time, Lolo, thank you for the help on that.
We'll see you when we see you, and when we do,
we're coming with our first deep training twenty minutes giving
you some skills that I think are going to help
transform our communities and our country as a result of
Thank You Everybody by Native Land. Pod is a production
(32:19):
of iHeartRadio in partnership with Resent Choice Media. For more
podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Native Land Pod is a production of iHeartRadio in partnership
with Reason Choice Media. Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome.
What's up?
Speaker 2 (00:11):
It was up?
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Up? Was up?
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Was up?
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Hello, Hello, and welcome everybody. This is Andrew Gillum coming
to you with one of our how do you say
we call these side pieces? We call these many many
mini pods, I guess, and we also call them solo pods.
And it's where you'll get to hear from your hosts
(00:33):
at Native Lamb Pod on days in which we're not
in our regular schedule. And I just want to say
welcome and also thank you for tuning in. I just
want to quickly outline that these are really going to
be very brief, if you will, by comparison to the show,
maybe twenty minute long opportunities where you get to come
(00:55):
in and hear from the various hosts about issues that
we might consider to be important. And for me, I
really wanted to kick these off with a little bit
of a reminder and maybe some training support on what
it means to get back to the basis of organizing y'all.
(01:16):
The moment that we find ourselves in right now, I
think is requiring us to really, really really get serious
about what it means to see our neighbors, hear our neighbors,
protect our clan, our family, the people who we love
and support, make sure they remain harmless through this very,
very difficult and trying time. And some of that is
(01:40):
going to require that we get back in touch with
foundational organizing principles that have carried our community from back
there to where we are right now. And I know
right now the challenges feel like one. They feel humongous,
they feel exhausting, they feel tiring. I would even add
(02:00):
to that heartbreaking, and I add heartbreaking because while I
wanted to spend most of my time in these first
twenty or so minutes with y'all talking about organizing and
the organizing series that I'd like to I'd like to
engage you all in Yesterday we learned about the cancelation
(02:21):
of our dear Sister Joy and Reads show the Readout
on MSNBC. Now, some of us may have quit MSNBC
back when they tried the same thing with Tiffany Cross,
my dear colleague and fellow co host on Native Lampod
and many of us even if we made the decision
(02:41):
to step away from the network at that time because
of the treatment that she received. A lot of us
stayed around and said, hey, look that's where Joy is,
and Joy is from my standpoint, she's not just a newswoman,
She's not just an anchor. She's not there doing this
for anybody the entertainment value or for sport. Joy read
(03:05):
the Joy read that I know, and the Joy read
that we have all come to know and love over
the years on the various platforms that she's been Joy
quite simply is the bringer of truth and it doesn't
matter how inconvenient that truth may be. She's going to
bring it to you anyway. And today's day and age,
(03:28):
where you have a very thin skinned political leadership apparatus,
and I would even argue maybe a thinner or equally
as thin skin in the corporate media, who are prepared
to wilter and bend to the will of the White House,
in the party that's in control right now, it's going
(03:50):
to cost us something, and in this case, it's costing
us one of the best truth tellers that we have
out there. Joy represents, and my opinion, the best of
who we are. She is fact based, her opinion is
always supported by laundry lists of receipts. She is someone who,
(04:12):
regardless of what the popular wins may be, has always
deepened into what our true lived experiences are and we're
in our community, and she broadcast broadcasts those experiences to
the world. Y'all. She is going to be deeply, deeply,
deeply missed by her viewers on MSNBC. But I got
(04:37):
to tell you, you know, joy from from from my lips
to your ears. I hope. Uh, this is a setup
for really God calling you into greater service, to higher purpose.
While you have served an incredible purpose up to this point,
you're being called into higher service. And sometimes in the
(04:57):
process of moving into higher service, you have to be sifted.
Remember those that old equipment that our grandparents, my grandmama
used to use when she was doing her pancakes, a
corn bread and the flour would go into the sifter
and it would sift all the way through. But what
would come out as a finer grain of things and
it made everything taste just that much better. Well, there
(05:21):
is a finer grain of you that is through this
process and on the other side, and so many of
us just can't wait to see whether that takes you,
and more importantly, where it takes us collectively. But before
we get to what Joy Read's next steps are, I
think we have to send a very very important signal
(05:42):
to the corporate folks who are making these decisions, are
silencing our voices, are supplanting our voices with you know,
minstrel shows and dictates of how they think we are
supposed to show up on their platforms. We need to
send them a signal that this is not a game,
(06:02):
This is not a toy, This is not a transaction
that you trade in and trade out. This is our
lives and we deserve and need voices who are going
to speak truth and power to the powerful about what we're,
what our lived experiences are, and what we need and
what we demand of the system. And Joy has unapologetically
done that on behalf of all of us standing in
(06:25):
the gap. We've got to send a signal, And so
I want to join the bandwagon of folks who today
are encouraging folks to watch Joy's last sign off show
tonight on MSNBC during her normal regular seven pm Eastern
Standard time, and wherever you live you can you can
(06:47):
you can obviously look up the show times, but be
with her, stand with her, hold her spiritually during this
time where she has to make it through this show
on the network that summarily decided that her voice was
no longer a value to them. At this moment, we
want to say that her voice is valuable to us,
(07:09):
that it means something to us, that we are powering
her forward. Even if they can't see it, we're gonna
help to make sure that they feel it. So at
the end of the conclusion of her show tonight and
Joy will sign off by telling her telling the rest
of us where it is that we can go and
find her voice beyond this current platform. And after that, y'all,
(07:32):
we're gonna turn the TV off. We're gonna shut it down.
We're going to log off of whatever platforms in which
you are watching or hearing MSNBC, and we're gonna send
them a very important message that our voices matter. And
guess what. My voice right now is being interrupted by
my cell phones. And this has always been my theory
about these lives. I'm telling you, y'all, I am technology
(07:54):
of tooth and if it happens again, just charge it
to my head, not to my heart. I'm gonnaigure this
out by the time we get into the next one,
but we want to make sure that they hear and feel,
more importantly, feel the effect of when we choose to
take our time and attention, a very precious and non
renewable resource, our time and attention, when we choose to
(08:16):
put that elsewhere. Joy, We're going to follow you wherever
you go, and tonight we want to make a very
very strong, important show of support that we're going to
have your back because you have had our backs in
our fronts and sides and other blind spots when we
didn't even know it. The last confession I'll make on
this one with regard to Joy is that when I
(08:37):
ran for governor of the state of Florida back in
twenty eighteen, and it was looking like we might that
we could potentially pull off a win in that race,
I reached out to Joy and asked her if she
could do her show live from Florida, and that I
would grant her if I were to win that race.
(09:01):
The first interview after the race was concluded, possibly later
that that election night or maybe the next morning, and
Joy did what she had to do, and she showed up.
I didn't get to see her that night. It was
a it was of course, it worked out a different way,
and it was a bit heartbreaking on one end, but
(09:21):
she did what was necessary within whatever the corporate confines were,
to try to bring to the American people the experience
that we had here in Florida. And I'll never forget that.
And she's been her friend and the gap on so many,
so many more occasions. Don't believe the hype that they're
(09:41):
trying to sell us about unqualified, whatever stories they want
to put out, ratings, all this craziness. You see the
enemy tries to use. They do a little jiu jitsu.
They take their weakest and most vulnerable place, and they
then project that vulnerability onto other communities, other people, so
(10:02):
that they can then insulate themselves from attack. What am
I talking about, Well, I'm talking very specifically about not
just Joy's incidents, and which is an example of the
corporate side, but this picture, it can be drawn a
lot bigger. It's not just the corporate We want you
to obviously watch her show this evening, throw our support
(10:24):
behind her, but following that, we want to make sure
that we follow Joy and read on every platform in
what she is listed. So if you in Snapchat, Instagram,
blue Sky, whatever the platforms are that you get information
and share information, please please please go ahead and put
(10:45):
in the search engine right now Joy and read. If
you don't already do it now follow her and then
contact MSNBC. Let our voices be heard and let them
know that we disagree with the step that they've taken
and that they want our business. They best do better
to bring us to voices who best represent our community.
All skin folk and kim folk and all folks who
(11:07):
may reflect what we look like who are on television
are not necessarily speaking our truth and telling our stories.
The number at MSNBC, and we'll hopefully get this in
show notes is two one two six six four four
four four four. Let's light up that board and make
sure that they know that we're watching. When prompted, press one,
(11:29):
then press two. Leave a message stating that you believe
that their actions are unacceptable and that we need brave
and honest journalists like Joy and Reid to come to
us on their platforms as well. We want you to
watch obviously tonight, but we want you to disconnect immediately
following from the platform. That will bring us her show
(11:51):
tonight MSNBC at seven pm Eastern Standard time, and look
for your local networks for your showtimes. And then, last,
and certainly not at least, we want you to spread
the word. If you post about watching the show tonight
or anything related to it you're discussed around the decision,
please use the hashtag. We need joy. We need joy
(12:11):
in so many forms, joy in our spirit, but also
joy the person. And we thank you for bringing us
both of those joy. Thank you for your friendship. We
will follow you wherever because you are a true and
an honest voice who has earned our trust. And know
Johnny Come Lately or Surprise or pop up figure is
(12:34):
going to have our trust. You have to earn it,
you have to work for it. You put in the work,
and that's why we want to put in some work
for you. What I was getting to on second topic,
just changing the page, and then finally I'll talk to
you about what we hope to do with these on
a regular basis when we come to you in these
solo pods. When I talked about the enemy weaponizing their
(13:02):
weakness to insulate themselves from attack, I'm talking about this
DEI stuff right which I have translated to the N
word is how I experience it when they use it,
it seems like the sessing out of us wherever they
can find it. Well, this weekend, something else happened in
addition to the news and the corporate world regarding Joy Reid,
(13:25):
the general who led the Joint Chiefs of Staff, which
is the which is the collection of all of the
military chiefs and leaders across the various branches, including the
National Guard. This is the group that assembles as advisory
to the President of the United States, Defense Secretary of
(13:51):
the United States, and the intelligent chiefs of our country.
They are the official advisory group Joint Chiefs that chairmen
of the Joint Chiefs serves both and Democratic and Republican administrations.
Why because their oath and their fealty is to the
Constitution of the United States and to the people and
(14:12):
the nation of the United States. Well, the current Joint
the previous I guess I should say, before he was
fired Chairman of the Joint chief of Staff was General C. Q. Brown,
who spent forty years as a pilot in the Air Force,
met all of the criteria. There were no lessening of criteria,
(14:35):
no quotas having to be met. It simply required that
those making this decision looked across the entire board of
qualified individuals underscore qualified, and choose from amongst them a
person who would lead the Joint Chiefs. While President Trump
decided to dismiss CQ. Brown this weekend and removing him
(15:00):
from his position in addition to a couple of other
top brass within the United States Armed Services, and replaced
him not with somebody equally qualified or really not with
somebody who is just qualified for the position of Chairman
of the Joint Chiefs, which does require special experiences in
(15:24):
qualifications to be named. He decided to name a gentleman
named Dan Caine, who I don't know personally, but yes,
says served this country and we thank him for it.
But in appointing mister Caine, the President actually had to
waive the criteria necessary for him to have been automatically
(15:47):
qualified for the President to make that appointment. The President
has the ability to waive that criteria if he chooses,
if it is in the best interests of the nation. Well,
he determined it was in the best interest of the
name to appoint someone who was not qualified technically for
the position, so he takes out a qualified individual who
(16:09):
met all of the standards, no quotas simply qualified ready
to serve, and replace them with someone who, while they
have served this nation and we are grateful, was not
qualified on paper to be named the Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff. I think we would all agree
that Secretary Hexseth, who is now the Secretary of Defense,
who pales can't even be mentioned in the same sentence
(16:33):
as his predecessor, quite frankly, but is unqualified for the
position that he holds. And that, frankly is true across
the board with almost all of Trump's appointments to the
National Cabinet. So what do they do. They go on
a rampage against Dei, which they say didn't earn it,
(16:53):
and truth all their folks didn't earn it. Yet they're
in these positions, and they are placing men and women
and folks of color and other marginalized people who fought
to be just considered off their merit. They're being pushed out,
while people with no merit at all are being pushed in.
(17:15):
I say this, y'all because I think we have to
begin to forward our truthful narrative around this We shouldn't
be pushed back on our back heel in this fight
around DEI when it simply means take the qualified individual
and guess what. Look beyond your circle of friends, Look
to the people who are qualified but may not share
your same lived experience, are committed to the constitution, but
(17:39):
may not be loyal to you the individual, because their
oath is to the constitutional and to the country. We
have no shame, we ought to have no shame around
the term diversity, equity, and inclusion. We are not carry
the load that they want to put on our backs
of dishonesty. Like we didn't earn where we are. We
(18:00):
earned it. We worked hard, in fact, in many cases,
harder than most that surround us to get those positions.
We're not going to tolerate that they want to apply
that across the corporate sector and across now the public sector.
And it's simply a lot, and we have to reject it. Finally, y'all,
I just want to say, when we come to you,
(18:21):
at least when I'm doing many pots, I'm going to
try my very very best to ensure that they're bringing
information and education and hopefully that you'll leave our conversations
having felt more informed and more equip than when you
joined us. And so in that spirit and in the
(18:41):
spirit of where I sort of started describing these many
pods to you, at least from my perspective, is that
in the coming weeks, I'm going to take time, with
the support and help of Lolo, one of our producers,
who's going to pop in here in a moment to
let me know if there are any questions, We're gonna
walk our listening audience through some of the basics and
(19:04):
fundamentals around organizing. How do we get our communities ratcheted up,
how do we move them not just through this moment,
but to a place where I think as a community
we begin to live our truest, fullest sells and have
the policies and institutions that are around us being built
(19:25):
to support that growth, that freedom, that independence, that ability
to live truly free and unencumbered, in order to get
closer to that beloved community that I think all of
us want and admire. It doesn't have to be a
pipe dream, but it does require something of us and
from us, and quite frankly, it's the same thing that
(19:46):
democracy requires of us and from us, and that is
that we be in the movement in action in whatever
way that suits us and whatever way that deepens into
our skill set. But you can't maintain societies that see
us and respect us unless we're prepared to put in
the work. We shouldn't always have to, but given the
(20:08):
challenges we face, the foes we face, our ancestors didn't
let their knee break their necks, and we're not going
to let it happen to us. But it is going
to require the work. So today, what we're going to
make sure you have in the show notes as my
time comes to an end, is a list of organizations
and groups that you can research, determine whether or not
(20:28):
they fit in your skill set and interest area, and
then hopefully you make the move to deepen into how
you can better support the work of those entities and organizations.
And in the coming weeks, we want to talk to
you about how you then build that beloved community right
where you are, either online or in person, hopefully a
mix of both, but better equip each and every one
(20:52):
of us with the knowledge, the skills, and the tools
that are necessary to bend that arc more deeply, and
more admittedly, and more permanently. In the direction of justice
for all of us. With that, I want to avite, Lolo,
if there are any questions, I want our listeners to know,
(21:15):
I'm not going to be just talking about organizing by
what by virtual of what I read. I'm going to
be talking about organizing from my own lived experience. For
many years, was an organizer, mostly on college campuses and
then in greater community. And then my organizing work led
to organizing elected officials who were our age and younger
(21:38):
and diverse cohorts so that they can be more effective
at bringing the benefits back to our community. And now
we got to organize for all of us. And so
I'm not going to be talking to you about what
I've read. I'm going to be talking with you and
engaging and exchanging with you about what I know, and
hopefully you'll bring some of your experience to the table
and we'll just have a great exchange of how to
(22:00):
do this and do it the best and most effective way.
With that, Lolo, are there any questions, anything I missed,
anything I need to reiterate, let me know.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
Hey, y'all. All right, so we haven't gotten a lot
of questions, but there was one in particular I thought
was really cool. And so this person said, how do
we assert and not only respond We need to assert
because they're already expecting a response.
Speaker 1 (22:39):
Well, let him expect the response, but we got to
give the response as well. That's number one. There is
a group right now working on a database that will
be able to direct us to either black owned or
black lead black hosted platforms where we can have a
(23:02):
exchange of information. We can get our source of information
and facts from people who we know and who we
trust that we don't always have to rely on the
corporate media quite frankly to do that for us. And
so in my thought around how it is we get
in front of just the reaction, just the response. And
(23:23):
by the way, I don't take for granted that people
are gonna automatically respond. I gotta be honest about that, lol.
I don't know if you have thoughts on it, but
I don't take for granted that people automatically have a
knee jerk reaction that when someone does something that they
don't like, that they have a choice to make. They
can continue to support the thing that is doing the
thing that they don't like, or they can make another decision.
(23:45):
It can't be well, that's the network I've always gone to.
D there are other options, so we have a choice
to make. I don't think any of us should take
for granted that people are automatically going to do a
thing and reaction to being offended or heard, or let
down or quite frankly, pushed to the side. The reason
I mentioned this resource of other places that you can
(24:08):
go is because we don't want to leave you empty.
We want to make sure that our buying power can
continues to show its strength except we get to show
its strength and places that see us, know us, hear us,
respect us, and then respond lolo. I may have gotten
off on the on the question, but I think I
(24:28):
understood the question uh uh, and then reframed it to
basically say, one, don't assume we know what to do
when we're when we're pushed to the side. And then two,
let's do the work of finding the platforms that are
in service to us that we then support so that
folks are then incentivized to do more of the things
(24:50):
that are in service to us and not less.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
Listen, so we have so I know, on a normal day,
this is just the first solo pie we would have
way more time to get through a lot of these questions.
There was one in particular, because we're on this topic,
I wanted to ask you, and then I wanted to
close off with something that is just in general. So
this person asks, why are we still talking about DEI
(25:16):
if white women and white gays benefit the most.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
Well, first, I don't know that. I don't have any
empirical data. If we're talking about affirmative action, that may
be one thing. I don't have any empirical data to
suggest that back at what level we are benefiting from diversity,
equity and inclusion, in part because, like there are a
lot of approaches to DEI. It can be if you
were a grosser or retailer. It could be in the
(25:44):
fact that you are including brands that are from communities
or constituencies that are not your normal, normal vendors, that
you're uplifting creative voices of black folks that have women
and so on and so forth. It could be if
you are in a workplace that there are deliberate steps
that are taken to showcase the talents of all people
(26:05):
and not just my homegirl or my homeboy who I
hang with. I know them. We share a lot in common,
and that's why they're always the ones that are selected
and tapped to give the presentation before the board or
before they're coworkers, right, So it takes a number of forms.
In my opinion, sometimes when we're climbing, we're bringing other
(26:27):
people who may not look like us or share all
of our identities along with us because they too have
been marginalized. I'm never gonna make the fight between marginal
communities and other marginal communities. That isn't the fight that
we want. That's the fight they want to give us.
I don't have a beef with women, I don't have
a beef with LGBTQ, I don't have a beef with
(26:47):
black folks in general. I'm saying, if all of us
are being oppressed, then we better figure out where we
have common cause and start that process of rising. But
they want us to gobble and fight between the folks
who they're marginalizing. They want us to fight about whether
or not this minority group or this minority group is
(27:08):
getting more time and attention and resource. And my suggestion
is there's plenty enough to go around, plenty enough, and
we're not gonna fight over the crumbs. We want to
be at the table and we're gonna fight over the meal, period.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
I love that, and that was such a great response
because I'm like so many people say, but white women
are the main ones who benefited from the I I'm.
Speaker 1 (27:31):
Like, they're oppressed too and are largely hated by the
power structure. But that's not our fight. That's on our fight.
We all have more women, morey LGBTQ, more black folk,
more of the marginalized communities, and there is enough to
go around. You see. They got us activating in this
mentality of deficit. We're always operating from a deficit mentality. Well,
(27:53):
I don't want to operate from a deficit. We need
to operate from positions of strength and a power of
access resource. And what that means is you don't negotiate
against yourself before you get to the negotiating table. You
bring all of yourself to that table, and you negotiate
over the entire pie, not the crumbs.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
All right, So to close the South, because I know
we gotta go, but to close this out this series,
I know you talked about it, but now we have
a lot more people on Live right now. So the
series that you are doing over the next few weeks
about how to get active. Can you just close let
us know what it is?
Speaker 1 (28:30):
Absolutely, so we're going to spend the next the coming
weeks of my mini pie helping folks get reconnected to
what it means to organizing community and whether that is virtual,
whether that is in person, whether that is building campaigns
that put pressure on power systems and structures. Right, the
(28:55):
saying is tried and true, but it is more true
than anything, and that is power yields nothing without a demand.
So if we're expecting the system to see us and
to give to us because we're there, not going to happen.
We have to state our demands. I remember going in
and trying to negotiate from my first salary increase, and
(29:16):
I think I started by saying, you know, I hadn't
gotten an increase in three years, and my boss responded, well,
you hadn't asked in the past three years, And I'm like,
you see my work, you know my effort, you know
what we're doing all that to say, y'all, yeah, people
can see that and they'll take it for what is worth,
but it does not automatically trigger for them that they
(29:37):
ought to be paying for the services that were rendering.
And so we've got to get back to the basics
of organizing, how to do it, What do we start,
what does the middle of that look like? And then
what is the north star that we're aiming toward. And
I want to bring in some voices organizational leaders, people
(29:59):
who have had the experience of doing this, not just
in a professional capacity, but just as individuals in their
communities and their neighborhoods on their block, organizing to move
us towards the more beloved community economically, politically, socially and otherwise.
I think we've forgotten a lot about that in the
(30:20):
privilege that a lot of us have now come up in.
And while it ain't everybody, it doesn't reflect everybody's privilege.
Right there folks who are much more privileged than we are.
But we've also ascended to some levels of privilege. And
then so doing have I think forgotten some of the fundamentals,
and we need to deepen back into those fundamentals, get
back into those basics, understanding civics, understanding the pressure points,
(30:44):
recognizing that the federal government is one thing, but guess what,
we're a federation of fifty states, in a number of
territories and what pressure points can we impact and input
at our level to get the kind of outcomes that
we want. We know that pressure breaks pipes. We saw
it just this past week with members of the Republican
(31:05):
Party who host the town hall meetings that were explosive.
The people showed up and they're let their voices be
heard and by so doing, they're going to moderate the
actions of those elected representatives. I'm willing to bet on it,
but that's just one example. I think we can see
greater examples and greater successes when we organize. We know
that they're coming for us. They've already started. They're not
(31:26):
going to stop now. What we got to do is
get shake off the shock and get information with the knowledge,
skills and the tools that we need to fight back,
but not fight back for fighting sake, but to win.
That's what I'm committed to do, seeing us win, regardless
of what party is in power. We ought to be
winning at the end of the day, y'all, I appreciate
(31:47):
you taking time, Lolo, thank you for the help on that.
We'll see you when we see you, and when we do,
we're coming with our first deep training twenty minutes giving
you some skills that I think are going to help
transform our communities and our country as a result of
Thank You Everybody by Native Land. Pod is a production
(32:19):
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Hosts And Creators
Tiffany Cross
Andrew Gillum
Angela Rye
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