We the People–But Who’s “We”?

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Native Lameing Pot is a production of iHeart Radio and
partnership with Reason Choice Media.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
Welcome Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, welcome.

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome home. Y'all. This is episode eighty one, count them
eighty one of Native Lame Pie, where we give you
our breakdown of all things politics and culture. Yo yo
yo yo, yeah, hey hey, hey, hey, hey hey hey.
Somebody in the building, somebody on the field is y'all.
They're making fun of me because I always interrupt. I
get excited when they say, wal come home. I'll be like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:32):
Let us just get through the aral and right. I
get to see it on our face.

Speaker 4 (00:39):
I know.

Speaker 3 (00:40):
Sorry.

Speaker 1 (00:41):
We are your hosts. They've introduced themselves already, Angela Rye,
Tiffany Kraus, and a man. You yell them what's going on?

Speaker 5 (00:50):
Ladies?

Speaker 3 (00:50):
Hi guys, where.

Speaker 1 (00:52):
Y'all at what you're doing?

Speaker 3 (00:53):
I'm in New York?

Speaker 5 (00:54):
There.

Speaker 3 (00:55):
My handle isn't her wall of flowers?

Speaker 1 (00:56):
And yep, she is on the wall looking good girl. No,
I mean you're off the wall. You're off the wallflower. Yes,
you cut that, you cut that, Pick that up, Pick
that up. Before we get into things, y'all, because we
crazy it's a good day. We want to remind you
that if you like this show. In fact, if you
love this show or like it, we asked that you please,

(01:20):
please please please go leave a comment, great review and
tell your best friends and your friends friends. I'm sure
I did that wrong, Angela, you got a correction for me.

Speaker 6 (01:35):
I listen. I don't know what you do it, but
let's keep great.

Speaker 3 (01:38):
I know we're basically just telling people spread the love.

Speaker 7 (01:40):
If you like to subscribe, like, tell a friend, tell
your mom and them, tell your cousin and them.

Speaker 1 (01:47):
There it is, there, it is there it is. And
tell me what's on your mind today.

Speaker 3 (01:52):
Okay, I got something on my mind.

Speaker 1 (01:54):
Please.

Speaker 7 (01:55):
I really appreciate that our viewers are very vested in
this show and have strong opinions, and so we got
some great viewer feedback. I saw one of the questions
as I was traveling in So I'm eager to continue
the conversation about what we're doing right now, what solutions
are should we be out, you know, in advocacy and

(02:19):
solidarity with other communities of color. People had a lot
of strong opinions about it, and so yeah, I'm eager
to get to some of the thoughts that folks had.

Speaker 1 (02:27):
And because you're so eager, friend, we actually going to
start with the question I.

Speaker 3 (02:31):
Think, well, Angela might have had something.

Speaker 1 (02:34):
We're not there now, I said, We're going to start,
okay with the question I think got you excited this morning? Yeah, Angela,
what do you have today?

Speaker 6 (02:43):
Well?

Speaker 8 (02:44):
Uh, you know, there's a lot to be said about democracy,
So I want to talk about that. We've been doing
this tour, stay to the people Power tour. Jane Nelson
said on a panel recently that I moderated in uh Selma.
She talked about democracy being people power and so as
we watch people power crumble, what is our reasonable service?

Speaker 6 (03:06):
And what the hell happened? Why is it crumbling?

Speaker 4 (03:08):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (03:09):
Yeah, did we ever have it? A good question? All
of that to be litigated in today's show, Not quite litigated,
but definitely debated. In today's litigated and debated, no hesitated.
We're going to talk about the fall of democracy, if
we ever had that thing? And if you agree that
democracy has fallen at least what we were promised of democracy,

(03:33):
what do you think the contributing factors are what helped
to get us to this point? And then we can
get beyond this point, hopefully after we start to name
what the factors are that have gotten us so deeply
in this thing. So let's get it started, all let's
get it started, all right? If I could have this wrong,

(03:54):
but I think this might be the question that we
were referring to just a few moments ago.

Speaker 4 (04:00):
Oh so what I'm neighboring is two thirty am and mimbistendency,
fin the grade to go to work, and a still plant.
And I'm telling y'all, y'all missing a lot of perspective
for when Tiffany do not run to no rural South.
I don't know what you're on, but it's nothing down here.

(04:20):
I don't know what type of utopia you're thinking of building,
but most people down here are working seventy to eighty
hours a week to barely straight by and feed themselves.

Speaker 5 (04:30):
So there is no utopia.

Speaker 4 (04:32):
Y'all gotta bothal up and start advising black people to
care about themselves and their finances. The only thing that
will get us through this recession that's probably gonna turn
into a depression and the devaluation of this American dollar
is work.

Speaker 5 (04:43):
Gotta go to work, and it's not in the streets.
It's not protesting.

Speaker 4 (04:47):
That's any type of job that you can hold, any
type of hours that you can get, any type of
finances you can bring in for yourself, your family.

Speaker 5 (04:53):
That's what you focus on.

Speaker 4 (04:54):
All this other stuff immigrants, immigration, foreign politics.

Speaker 5 (04:58):
It don't matter for black people. I don't know what, y'all.
I'll steal stuff on that, but I was going to work.

Speaker 4 (05:03):
I just hope y'all get out of the community and
see that black people.

Speaker 5 (05:07):
There's a reason your conference look the way they do.
Right now.

Speaker 4 (05:09):
Yeah, I had it right after the relation forget all
this youth folks and our money in our capital.

Speaker 5 (05:14):
Let's it peace, m all right.

Speaker 3 (05:17):
So I have to yes, I actually love the question.
He said.

Speaker 6 (05:22):
I'm welcome home for real.

Speaker 1 (05:23):
He said in the morning, y'all.

Speaker 7 (05:25):
Yeah, we're gonna say, like, honestly, shout out to him,
because you know, working that third shift at at two
thirty in the morning is a lot. But I one,
I just want to thank everybody for weighing in with
their thoughts and comments across YouTube, Instagram, and I can
definitely a special shout out to the people who actually
watched the show and not just the clips and you

(05:48):
know had a full comprehensive understanding of what we were saying,
and still disagreed, still passionately disagreed with my perspective. And
I think it is a very small person who cannot
engage in intellectual debate, who will become so offended by
another take that you can't take it. So I actually
enjoyed reading the comments. I responded to a few, As

(06:09):
you all saw, I asked questions of people, especially people
were like, I'm done, you know, and I was curious, like, well,
what is being done look like to you? So I
just wanted to clarify and and a few mistakes that
I made. One a lot of people were saying, please
cite your sources from where are you getting these numbers,
which is very fair and normally I always try to
do that, and my apologies for not doing that, But

(06:32):
just so you all know, I am never doing a
thirty second Google search while we're on the air and
presenting that to you as facts. These are things that
I have read about research, crosstabs, talk to people, talk
to experts. Really dug into it out of respect for
having this platform and out of respect for the people
who tune in every week. And so I went to

(06:54):
the community pages AAPI vote, the Arab League of Voters,
I may have that wrong, the Latino vote Undo, us
AP vote cast, talk to social scientists, and just something
I want to caution people on those numbers is exit

(07:14):
polling is notoriously unreliable. And so that's why you have
to have multiple sources when you're looking at who voted
and how they voted, because that often changes. And so
when this data was coming out among a lot of
the curious folks, we were all looking at it and
side chatting and talking about it. So thank you guys
for asking for being curious enough to know.

Speaker 3 (07:35):
Well, where did you get these numbers?

Speaker 7 (07:38):
The utopia that he's referencing, I want to let him
know I'm not talking about my imagination. I'm talking about
what I've seen, what I've experienced, what I've gone to
bear witness to, and out of respect for those communities
because of our bloody, violent history with whiteness in this country.
I don't want to name them or say exactly where
there are where they are, but there are numerous communities

(08:01):
across the Bible Belt of the South that are building
community that exists. They work, you know, and they're black
towns with black mayors, black city council, black gowned grocery stores.

Speaker 3 (08:14):
So these things do exist.

Speaker 7 (08:16):
I do take his point about, you know, people are
working seventy eighty hours a week, and so that's some
of the things that I've been talking about, Well, how
do we construct something like that? And I don't have
all the answers, but I do have some. I do
have some ideas that I'm exploring. And I would just
say this about being in south because he was like,

(08:36):
y'all talk about you know, he said foreign politics. I
think he meant foreign policy and the immigration issue. And
I just want to clarify that it is not my
ministry ever to work with people who.

Speaker 3 (08:51):
Are anti black.

Speaker 7 (08:53):
There may be somebody out there to do that, and
is work for you if you got it to give.
So I was not saying for all the people who
voted for Trump and thesee communities, let's gather them and
try to convince them. That's not what I do. I
don't enjoy convincing, but I'm saying for the people who
did not.

Speaker 3 (09:11):
I thought, first, it's just important that we.

Speaker 7 (09:13):
Know actual facts, well researched, documented facts matter even in
some of the comments, I saw a lot of misinformation
that I would try to correct. And so it was
important because the media narrative and some people were dropping
links like no, this is wrong because look at this article.
And I actually would so thank you guys for actually,
you know, doing research and saying but look at this article.

(09:35):
When you do that, I would advise articles often take
on a narrative. So for example, if I'm looking at polling,
I'm not going to just look at the article that
qualifies the polling. I'm going to look at what they hyperlinked.
Where did they get this information from. So if they
say something like, well, I'm just making this up, this
is not a real number. If they say something like

(09:55):
nine out of ten people in aero community voted for
that's not a real number. I'm making that up. But
I'm gonna look at this with some intellectual curiosity. What
are you basing this on? If this is an exit poll,
who are you considering in the Arab community? Who are
these people? Was it specific to a region or when
you say this, did your polling Because not all poles

(10:17):
are created equal. When you say this, are you including
people under eighteen? Undocumented migrants who can't vote, and sometimes
you will find that the data does include that. I'm
not a social scientist, so I often have to lean
on people who are. I talk for hours to the
Phernana Mandhi, Terrence from Hit Strategies, who Angela knows, Cornell Belcher,

(10:39):
Slinda Lake, you know people who can understand these things better.
So just combing through that data is really important. White
run newsrooms will say something and then when you look
into it, often there's a nuance that they miss. My
only ask of people is that we care. I'm not
even saying go out and do anything right now, because

(10:59):
I don't know what that is. Andrew, I would love
for you to address what he said about protesting is
to be honest, I don't I don't know that I'm
in a protest state of mind. I don't know that
I'm in a state of mind of I don't think
that my position has changed since the election. I think
I still feel the same way. I think I'm still
feeling like is this a democracy that we even want

(11:20):
to uphold?

Speaker 3 (11:21):
I'm choking. Sorry, I'm getting choked up. I don't even
know if.

Speaker 6 (11:28):
We can come back to you, So you commute it and.

Speaker 7 (11:31):
Sorry, guys, Well, she don't like coughing if you're near her.
She's a germophobe, and I feel the same way. But
I I just wanted I'll I'll wrap this up because
I do probably need a cough but I would just
say the only thing I'm suggesting is to ally with
the people who are our allies, who are people. Yes,

(11:54):
I've gone into these communities and talked about anti black work.
I'm not a policy person though, thank you to my
co host who tell me I I am. But I've
never worked on policy. But I have gone into communities
and done anti black work in the era of community,
in the API community, in the Latino community. I've helped
with research, I've set on panels. I'm not a researcher,
but I've been interviewed. I offer some black perspective to

(12:15):
these communities and organizing work that I've done across all
communities of color, including the indigenous communities. Phil I just
want you all to understand when I bring something to you,
it is thought out. You don't have to agree, and
I definitely appreciate people's perspectives, but at fourteen percent of
the population, I just don't know that this is a
war that we can go at alone. I think we

(12:38):
do have to have soldiers. And if you know, forty
eight percent of Latino men voted for Trump. Of course
that number is too high. Of course there's anti black sentiment,
but that could also mean that there's fifty two percent
of people that we may be able to reach and
lock arms with. Even if you disagree with that, I
think when it comes to having a man yanked out

(12:58):
of his home and sent to an offshore torture camp,
I think we have to dig in our humanity a
little bit just to care, because if we don't think
we're in the same path of destruction, we're misguided. So anyway,
I want to hear what you guys have to say,
because I think what his point also was, like all
that protests and and f all this kind of gets

(13:19):
to what Angela was saying that she wants to talk about.
And I don't know that I disagree with that, Like
I don't know that I feel differently from f all this.
I can say f all this and still have the
heart to care about fellow human beings.

Speaker 2 (13:35):
Hear.

Speaker 8 (13:38):
You know, one I want to shout out is do
rag I really do? I just think that it's dope
that he felt that at home to come on just well,
I love it. You know. The other thing that I
really that's present for me is, and I feel like
I say this all the time, the number of black
folks who have changed how we see the world, who

(14:01):
impacted our access to civil rights, who impacted how incredible
we see ourselves. So many of them were either children
of immigrants or immigrants themselves. Marcus Garvey comes to mind,
a child of an immigrant, Malcolm X comes to mind.
And I think the other thing that is bothering me,
as you know we do this tour is one of

(14:21):
our partners is the Black Alliance for Just Immigration, and
they released the paper recently, right after Trump's one hundred
first one hundred days, and they are talking about the
number of black migrants who are being impacted by what's
going on.

Speaker 6 (14:36):
And I think that's another thing.

Speaker 8 (14:38):
For whatever reason, in our minds, and I'm saying, our collective,
our minds, we see immigration as a brown problem and
that just couldn't be further from the truth. So with
the for example, the cut to temporary protected status, which
was set to expire on August third, twenty twenty five,

(14:58):
is set to expire on August third, twenty five hundred
thousand Haitian people will be impacted by that. There are
five hundred and fifty two nine hundred and fifty seven
black immigrants who are eligible for TPS from six other
countries who will be impacted by that. There is a
whole research paper about that. I'll make sure that Nick

(15:20):
on our production team gets a link to that so
you can see that. I implore you, even if you
just read the executive summary, to look at how many
black people are impacted by this. So the very bottom
line the TIF just reference around us being twelve, some
people argue thirteen fourteen percent of the population that includes
black migrants fam so your numbers get real low after that.

Speaker 6 (15:42):
I live in Seattle.

Speaker 8 (15:43):
Our Black Port Commissioner, who I hope we have on
this show soon, is a Somali woman who is so
down for the cause and fighting for folks who are
both migrants and folks who are from here for multiple generations.
So I just think that we really have to thread
this needle a little better. And I'm not saying that
my sentiment has changed much from the election either, But

(16:05):
what I'm not about to do is let the error
of somebody else's ways hang all of us out to dry.
So I am going to fight to protect whatever protections
we have left.

Speaker 1 (16:15):
Yeah, you know, y'all, I sort of thought that when
we had this conversation, we weren't asking people to abandon
their care for us, for our community, for black folks.
I kind of had the conversation. I assume we were
having the conversation and the light of if this is
happening to those adjacent right next to us, could be

(16:39):
you know, cousins down the road right probably are in
some in some shape or form. If we were to
really trace back right that if this happening there, can
you imagine what it's going to look like when it
hits us. That almost as a cautionary note that these
folks aren't playing and they're not discriminating. They won't all

(16:59):
to like and brown folks wrangled up and shipped out
and off to some place. I would, obviously, I'd love
to appeal to the humanity of all of us to
care about one another. In fact, I was my my
my twins graduated from fifth grade last week, now going

(17:23):
into middle school. Got to help us all.

Speaker 3 (17:25):
Congratulations.

Speaker 1 (17:27):
One of the thank you one of the one of
the songs that they sang at their graduation was we
Are the World. And I remember looking at the Netflix
documentary of Like the Greatest Night, which was the recording
of that, and of course that song was about ending
the tremendous hunger deficit that had hit various parts of Africa,

(17:54):
but in South Africa, and then those those entertainers traveled
the world to bring attention funding food. These were black
folks in America doing what they could for folks on
the continent, largely black folks on the continent, but people
on the continent who wouldn't necessarily relate to us as
African Americans, right, but rather as descendants of various parts

(18:15):
of the continent that we have to be bigger, we
have to. In fact, it'd be a pretty damn depressed
place to live if all we ever did was concentrate
on the me me, me, me, me of it all,
largely because we are likely then going to miss the
next attack, the next you know, onslaught that's coming our way,

(18:39):
because we're so bareled in. So you know, I don't
think this is lecture season. I just think I just want,
you know, to join you all and clarifying I wasn't
necessarily really appealing to the greater humanity, but rather cautionary note.
All over the place, we're seeing it happen everywhere and
when it hits your block. And I still maintain people

(19:01):
plug in when you're not just on their street, but
you got to be up to drive, and damn they're
coming in the house before we recognize the severity of
the threat. Otherwise it's kind of just it's kind of
white noise in the space.

Speaker 4 (19:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (19:16):
The other the only other thing I would say, y'all,
and i'd love to get y'all's feedback. Here is this
idea of you know, you described Tiffany a utopia, and
I feel you, and I felt you while you were
describing that, even without the real lived examples of where
it's happening. But it brings me back to our conversation

(19:36):
in your house, on your couch and on your floor
a couple of years ago, where we were talking about imagination,
Like if we had a whiteboard and we were in
control of the pen and we could we could we
could write this thing however we wanted it. What we
would look like, how our families would look, what marriage
is for us would look like, Uh, what a success

(19:58):
redefine this time by us look like. But it really
does reemphasize it's a luxury, y'all to dream. It's a
luxury to pull back and say, man, if we could
do it all over again. And by the way, this
doesn't mean you can't be you can't be poor and

(20:20):
not have imagination. You can be any strike. But it
just does require us lifting above our circumstances to say, man,
if I had my dreathers, this is what it would
look like out of anybody's box. There are no boxes,
there are no walls, there's no ceiling, there's no floor.
It's just whatever I think and I wish for our people.

(20:44):
And I mean it's from the bottom of my heart
that we could really collectively, individually dream cast and then
start to take the steps that might help us actual
lives what those dreams might be.

Speaker 7 (20:58):
That's a good exercise, I think for the audience. Just
as we get into this conversation about democracy, if you
were its agent, if you were and I almost don't
want to use the word democracy. I want to use
the word constructing of society because we're so entrenched in
what colonialism placed in our heads about what democracy even is.

(21:23):
So throw out that word and just you have a
blank slate. What does the construction of a society that's
equitable look like? You know, at least that's tapping into
the imagination. You know, I have to tell you Andrew
that conversation we had. As you know, I'm Andrew is
kind enough to let me read to him some of
the things that I've been writing, and so he knows

(21:46):
that I've written about that. And as you were saying that,
there are so many conversations I'm having lately that I
carry with me and I want to offer this to
the audience. I'll get more to it in my CTA.
But I've been having breakfast and coffee or just sitting
with the thinkers, the intellectual what I would call intellectuals,

(22:11):
the elders, the seers, some and one person who has
been so kind to oblige me with his time. I
have to beg him for weeks and then all the
blue he'll say, okay, I can meet for you know,
breakfast now. But every time it was like five hours.
And that's doctor Greg Carr, who is just a visionary.
And I get to just worship and sit from his

(22:35):
fountain as he talks me through things. Sometimes it's not
a name you would know, you know. Sometimes it's just
miss Pauline, who's eighty six years old living in one
of these communities, black communities, who lets me sit on
her porch with her for hours.

Speaker 3 (22:48):
You know.

Speaker 7 (22:50):
Sometimes it's the uber driver and it's not just talking
to me about what's happening in America. But you know,
I read a book on the Armenian genocide, you know,
something we never even knew about, and it just feels
for me like a time of listening. Like sometimes and
you have to believe this, but sometimes I just want
to say, shut the fuck up, like stop talking and listen,

(23:11):
close your mouth and stop trying to debate and learn,
be quiet in your stillness. And even in some of
the comments that were a bit more combative, it is like, yeah,
you want to debate with me all day and I'm
not even thinking about you, Like I'm like, thin, debate
with yourself. And I don't even say that in an
ugly way. I mean debate with yourself in terms of
challenging your own notions, have some curiosity for yourself about

(23:35):
what does this all mean? And I think when we
think about like conversations like this, and when I get
to just sit and listen to people and I can
ask my questions because I'm not asking questions in debate.
I'm asking questions from a place of thirst for knowledge.
You know from your wise decades spent in these years
that nothing but days on this earth can afford you,

(23:56):
Like what have you witnessed?

Speaker 3 (23:57):
What have you learned?

Speaker 7 (23:59):
And in the silk linings of your hands, can you
pass some of that on to me? And I will
tell you I really feel resigned to I don't know
that we survived this as a species, and listening and
talking to the elders and trying to think about that
so in it does feel to me very much like
the beginning of the end of times. It may not
be in our lifetime, but it does feel like that.

(24:20):
I don't know how we go this far and go back.
So as we think about democracy and moving to that conversation,
I would just invite us to think about not just
what happened here, but what's happened here one hundred times
before this moment happened. Because these moments have happened, it's time.
It is a flat circle on repeat repeatedly, again and again.

(24:43):
One hundred years ago, this happened, five hundred years ago,
this happened a thousand years ago, has happened. And that's
what reading affords you, That's what listening and learning with
curiosity affords you, a.

Speaker 3 (24:54):
Knowledge base of what has happened.

Speaker 7 (24:55):
We are not new here, you know, we're not so
arrogant to think we're the first people to face this.

Speaker 3 (25:01):
So I don't know.

Speaker 7 (25:01):
I'm struggling with a lot of this, particlarly, what about
the protest piece. I'm not protesting. I do kind of
still feel like all this, But how can we protect
those of us who have a desire to live comfortably
and safely while we're remaining here.

Speaker 3 (25:15):
I know that sounds morbid. No, No, I mean you're taking.

Speaker 1 (25:18):
Me back to my Kojak upbringing, when my every Sunday
is we living in our last days. I swear to God,
I was gonna die before we made it home for church.
I mean, I was terrified, But in all seriousness, my
agree up was my grandmother who would say, and I
said this to y'all after we had cut last week,
there ain't nothing new under the sun, right. I would

(25:40):
come home thinking I had the greatest new revelation, and
you know, just in her sober sold Southern country specialized way,
like there ain't nothing new under the sun. We've seen
this before, and I actually think that that's part of
the superpower of our people. A lot of times those

(26:04):
voices are the sobering ones when we think the train
is over the cliff, and it sometimes takes those folks
who have been here a little while seen able something
to just remind us, like we've survived this, We're going
to survive it. You know. Again, we will have to
dig into your fatalist view of you know, the things.

(26:25):
But Angela, what you got on this before we transition
to your topic.

Speaker 3 (26:29):
I feel like we transition in.

Speaker 1 (26:31):
Well then there it is.

Speaker 6 (26:33):
No I'm saying.

Speaker 7 (26:34):
Everything we've been saying, I think is talking about like
what has gone wrong, which is so.

Speaker 1 (26:40):
We I think we have all individually challenged this notion
of whether or not we actually live in a democracy,
if it ever truly was, And of course, the founders
of this country, when establishing its its foundational documents, you know,
very clearly described this as a republicmocratic republic, which is,

(27:02):
you know, in the way that they shaped and formed
this thing that we would basically send a certain class
a person to act in our best interest and on
our behalf. Basically this notion of a trustee over us
rather than a delegate, and these were people who would

(27:23):
then take in information and decide based off their worldview
what should be what. I don't know that that is
the truest reflection of what we might understand a democracy
to be, but it's certainly what the founders pass on
to us. So before we get too deep into the
question of whether or not this thing has been lost
and what led to it being lost, I'd love to

(27:46):
hear y'alls thoughts on whether or not you how would you,
in your own description describe democracy, if that's the thing
that you want us to strive toward. What would be
your definition of what democracy is? Doesn't have to do websters,
but just what's you? You know, what's out of the heart?

Speaker 6 (28:05):
I can tell you what it's not.

Speaker 8 (28:07):
But before I get into my definition, and maybe we
take a quick break, and then when we get on
the other side of the break, we can hear from
Scott Pelley from sixty Minutes Get It.

Speaker 6 (28:28):
Last Role This clip from Scott Pelly, but.

Speaker 9 (28:33):
In this moment, this moment, this morning, our sacred rule
of law is underattack. Journalism is underattack, universities are underattack.
Freedom of speech is underattack. And insidious fear is reaching

(29:00):
through our schools, our businesses, our homes, and into our
private thoughts the fear to speak.

Speaker 1 (29:13):
In America.

Speaker 9 (29:17):
Power can rewrite history with grotesque, false narratives. They can
make criminals heroes and heroes criminals. Power can change the
definition of the words we use to describe reality. Diversity

(29:41):
is now described as illegal, Equity is to be shunned.
Inclusion is a dirty word. This is an old playbook,
my friends.

Speaker 1 (29:57):
There's nothing new in this as.

Speaker 6 (30:02):
Yep, last than evil days for four hundred years. So
I think there are a couple things. The first thing
that comes to mind is.

Speaker 8 (30:13):
A chicken's coming home to roost moment where I'm feeling like,
welcome to the America that many of our people have
always seen. They've never seen the other America that these
folks regularly described, They've never seen it. There are people
in our communities that have never seen the promise, the dream,
or the hope of America. We're hearing that in more

(30:36):
stops than that, and the other thing that I'm feeling
is we're really about to all die. It is it
is like the convergence. Yeah, it's the convergence of both,
like it is. I feel frustrated that it took all
of this for people to understand how on the brink

(30:58):
we've been for many year years. Some people would argue
that the brink was Citizens United. Some people would argue
that the brink was Mitch McConnell not confirming Barack Obama's
pick for the Supreme Court.

Speaker 6 (31:14):
Some people would argue that it came, you.

Speaker 8 (31:16):
Know, the moment that the Supreme Court said, you know,
in the Shelby versus Holder case, that we're going to
actually gut the Voting Rights Act. Some would argue that
it became the moment that the Voting Rights Act became
a partisan measure. Some would argue it came as soon
as this black man say yes we can. Some would
argue that it became an issue in sixteen nineteen. And
I think regardless of when you make the argument, the

(31:39):
fact remains that there are people who have cautioned us,
like John the Baptist in the Bible, for many years
that this has been problematic, and we have not taken
heed to any of the caution We didn't take heed
when the person by the side of the road said
I'm hungry and there's no refuge for me. We didn't
take it as a cautionary measure. When kids couldn't work

(32:03):
in the summer. We didn't take it as a cautionary
measure when people couldn't afford healthcare.

Speaker 6 (32:07):
And at some point, the way that you treat the poorest,
the most vulnerable among you becomes the truth for all
of us. And that is where we are right now.

Speaker 8 (32:17):
So now we're all crying out help, relief is needed, sos, sos,
But now it's too late. Arguably it's too late, Like
there has to be quite the shift in order for
it to be different. I don't know that a midterm
election could save us, particularly where everybody's votes won't count,
because everybody's votes haven't counted for over a decade forever,

(32:38):
right yeah, well, I'm saying in modern history, for over
a decade, right like we have we I don't know.

Speaker 7 (32:48):
I saw that guy, Well, I can I just give
the audience a little bit of contact from the Scott
Pelly speech, because the reason why that speech was such
a big deal, so many people talked about it. It went
viral is because it was a spiece that he gave
at Wake Forest. And as you all know, Scott Pelly
is one of the longest correspondents with sixty minutes. This
is why it matters, and we'll see if he returns

(33:11):
because everything he said in that speech was truth. However,
sixty minutes is of course on CBS, which is under Paramount.
Paramount is trying to Shehrry Redstone, who is the majority
shareholder of Paramount. Some of the Redstone's daughter is trying

(33:31):
to sell Paramount to sky Dance. Now, when you're trying
to sell something that big, you've got a right which
involves the FTC and the DLJ. Now, because the Trump
administration is they made a big deal and essentially lied
because they've they've been attacking media. I won't get into

(33:55):
the all the minutia, but they've been attacking media, and
so sixty minutes have come under fire because they said
that they're claimed falsely and incorrectly that they were partial
to Kamala Harris during the election. And so as a result,
the executives at Paramount say to sixty minutes, they start
trying to filter some of their stories, and they say

(34:16):
to them, we want to see everything you're doing for
the rest of the season that has anything to do
with Trump. Sixty minutes has always been the gold standard
in journalism. So for them to say something like that,
your news division always operates independent of any business dealings.
For them to say that to the gold standard to
sixty minutes, it was so jarring that the executive producer quit,

(34:38):
Don Hewett quit, and so then you had Scott Pelley
come out and close the show and kind of say
at the end, it is a sad day for this broadcast,
like I cannot believe that they're asking us to do this.
And he gave this, you know, very glowing farewell to
the executive producer who left. So for him to come
out at wake Forest University and say declared, this is

(35:01):
a problem in our society, I just wonder how that's
going to play within the halls of paramount, particularly at CBS.

Speaker 3 (35:09):
So just kudos to him.

Speaker 7 (35:10):
And I think this is a prime example of what
you have to do to hold the line, because not
too many people have been holding the line in any
part of this democracy, at least of all the media.
And I would argue Congress, I would all all the
branches of government, all of our our core principles around
what holds the society. No one has been holding the line.
So I love Scott Pelly for that. I'm happy he

(35:32):
said something I've you know, had some criticisms of CBS
over the years, but they have done solid reporting, solid journalism.
So I'm happy that he said that, and it punctuated
all the points that I, Angela made.

Speaker 1 (35:43):
I love it. If what what what does democracy look
like to each of you? If we can recognize that
it doesn't, that what we have right now doesn't resemble
what we think democras's supposed to be. Angela, you mentioned

(36:03):
in your comments that you on this tour are interfacing
with folks who have never been on the beneficiary side
of the American dream. They've only known the horror to
the story, only lived the horrors of the story, and
in fact that many instances have had the institutions weaponized
and turned against them for as long as memory serves.

(36:28):
So we know what it isn't, But what is it?

Speaker 8 (36:32):
I think it's the antithesis of everything we see crumbling
right like I think that in order for us to
construct something different. I think Tiff has been saying on
the show almost weekly that she doesn't think that this
is salvageable. And I think in order for us to determine,
you know what, where the where the trouble lies? Where

(36:56):
are all of the issues, we have to talk about
what is broken, So from the legislature, to the judiciary,
to the media, the responsible of the media. You talked
earlier on this call about campaign finance issues, the access
to the voting booth. You know, we're in a society

(37:17):
where as he just talked about in the excerpt of
the speech we played, where diversity and difference is called illegal, right, Like,
I don't know what else you can't which you can
say about that? And then the construct of a two
party system where you have to figure out a way
to force yourself into a space that may or may

(37:39):
not really represent your interests. There are a bunch of issues,
and I think that it would do our podcast good,
on our community good to even engage around this about
what are all the broken pieces. There are focus groups
that were done over the last several weeks and then
this Catalyst report that came out. But in these focus groups,

(38:01):
they go and they talk to black folks who've traditionally
been Democratic voters about all the issues they see with
the party. Well, the issues that they see with the
party are also the things being reflected back in society
right The party, the Democratic Party, is seeing itself as
the thing that should be the protector of a system

(38:22):
that in so many ways isn't affront to us, has
been disrespectful to us, has not seen us, has not
valued us, and has treated many of us as a transaction.
I'm not suggesting that we go to the other party.
I'm suggesting that we find ourselves homeless, you know. And
I think that that is another real issue. So we
are wrestling with a crisis that we saw play out

(38:47):
in an election in this past fall. We are seeing
one that played out in election in twenty sixteen, on
the other side of a pandemic in twenty twenty where
people can.

Speaker 6 (38:58):
Question damn cience, you know.

Speaker 8 (39:01):
I mean that I think is their erosion of democracy too,
Like climate change is a thing, and they are arguing
that it's not a thing, and then going to double
down in the things that cause the greatest harm, against
clean drinking water, against access to anyway.

Speaker 1 (39:15):
I'll camp out here because I think you yet there
are a lot. I would just say two things. One
when when we got to the point and I would
I would make the argument that Fox News is the
is probably the largest, if not singletary, contributed to this,
except that they are regulated through the FCC and then

(39:39):
within the the broadcast and the news and journalism community,
it's supposed to be another check on it, which I
would argue has completely failed. But when Fox News got
in the position where they could disconnect facts from basically
that there would be o true arbiter of what is

(40:04):
real and what isn't. So they eroded the lines, They
confused the facts and came up with alternative facts, and
then made alternative facts a thing, right, when really an
alternative fact is a lie and an alternative fact is false.
But they were able to blur the lines between what

(40:26):
is somebody's opinion and then what is a fact. Everybody's
entitled to their own opinions, but you're not entitled to
your own fact. The facts are what they are, and
you can derive from them whatever opinion you may wish.
But there are some agreed upon foundational things that if
we're both looking at this goddamn paper and we see

(40:46):
twelve and twelve is the only number on there. You
can't say thirty two. And unfortunately they got away with that.
And there's that genie has not been put back in
a bottle at all. In fact, it's running rampant all
throughout the society. And our failure at the regulatory place

(41:07):
to enforce some some dictums, some some regulatory consequence for
that erosion is the fault of a democracy, is the
fault of the institution's failing largely due to cowardice, I
would submit. The other thing I would say is democracy

(41:30):
to me doesn't and shouldn't equal a two party system.
In fact, I think I think I would like to
imagine a place where parties different than what they do today,
where they have statutory significance and presence. There are that
there are lines and laws that describe how Democrats and

(41:53):
Republicans are to then extract power or assume their power.
Our democracy, and it gives no regard to other minor parties,
none of any significance. So what if everybody at the
age of eighteen or sixteen were able to vote without registering.
What if, by right of the fact that you were

(42:15):
a US citizen that you can go in any ballot
box wherever it is that you call yourself home and
vote on any election. And why is it that if
you are a Democrat or a Republican, you're the only
ones who participate in a primary and everybody else has
to wait to the very end before people even know

(42:37):
that there's a race to be considered. An election has happened,
and they haven't even been able to consume the information
because they're not a part of the Democratic or the
Republican party. In fact, in many states, no party affiliate
and independent is the majority registration. So if we were
to abolish the fact that you didn't have to be
a Democrat or a Republican and that the systems and

(42:57):
laws were not constructed to to value you above everybody else,
what if in a democratic society we had branches of
government that were actually accountable to the people that put
them there, meaning the voters, rather than the moneyed interests

(43:18):
that runs roughshod over everything, regulatory, governance, you name it,
they got it. I think in a democracy, your history
as a former felon should be of no consequence once
you've repaid your debt to society. Meaning you served your time,
and if you don't have a felony and you're incarcerated,

(43:41):
you should be gift wrapped your ballot box because you
still have the right to vote. Yet many of people
who are sitting in jail yet waiting a trial are
never ever reminded of the fact that they still have
their constitutional and legal rights to vote. So, from top
to bottom, the system is designed for the powerful to

(44:02):
keep power, and that's Democrat or Republican, for those in
power to keep power, and everybody else to hell with you.
They could care less. And then we wonder why people
complain about never having their streets paved. No libraries, no
fresh food markets, no no recreation that includes trees and

(44:22):
paved parking, bike lanes and so on and so forth.
They've already told us that we don't matter. And then
we try to do this exercise of get out to vote,
get out the vote, get out to vote, and folks
are like, vote for fucking what.

Speaker 6 (44:35):
I just want to say, bike lanes are for terrorist activity,
They stress me.

Speaker 1 (44:41):
You sound like my mama bound roundabouts anyway. But that's
the point, right The needs, the basic needs and stuff
that's so essential is a is a dream to people,
because that's how bad the system fails us. I'm done

(45:01):
on it.

Speaker 7 (45:03):
I feel like I am in a different state of
mind than you and Angela, maybe because what you guys
are talking about all makes sense. You know, I don't
disagree with anything you said. That is how you can
fix this broken system that exists.

Speaker 3 (45:18):
Now.

Speaker 7 (45:19):
I think my perspective is still which is still developing,
you know, So y'all give me some grace to the
audience as I'm.

Speaker 3 (45:26):
Figuring out what.

Speaker 7 (45:28):
What makes sense? Right, I just want to make it
clearer to the audience. Like I'm like, y'all, I'm trying
to figure this shit out myself. I don't know that
this is a system like even what you all are
talking about. If we tap into our imagination, it talks
about the system itself, and even an idea of voting,
the idea of even having prisons.

Speaker 3 (45:48):
You know, these are.

Speaker 7 (45:49):
Things that I don't know that I connect with anymore.
As soon as I realize that this is all just
a set of uns folk in guidelines that are not
truly enforceable, then it just became well, then what are
we even doing here? Enough people just decided, well, this

(46:09):
constitution like what a monument's clause. We don't care about that.
You know, who cares about this fourteenth Amendment? Who cares?
If they can tap into their imagine on that level,
then we can go a lot further. So I don't
even know, like when we talk about the party, I
gotta be honest, I don't really care about the Democratic
Party right now. That's not you know, I don't feel
a line now that is not to say that we

(46:31):
should not vote and we should not hold them accountable.
You know, like we gave them power. And I mean
that specifically we gave them power. We are the voting base,
but I mean if we look at the macro and
not the micro. I just even this idea of capitalism,
you know that that was born out of the plantation

(46:55):
and slavery.

Speaker 3 (46:56):
Even this idea of how far.

Speaker 7 (46:57):
We've come, well, you know, in reading it will show
you if we start with slavery, then everything we done
look like progress. But if you go before that, we
still in debt, we are still having those problems. So
I just when we ask the question, what does democracy
look like to us? So I say, I kind of
got to strike the term democracy. I talked about this
before the book The Poison with Bible, where they you know,

(47:20):
historical fiction where they talk about the reign of La
Mumba and the you know, local savages as the white
people looked at them, talked about how the American democracy
makes no sense. You telling me this eighteen year old
boy got as much power as me, and I'm a chief,
and his opinion counts the same as mine. You telling
me because forty nine percent of your people can be
unhappy just because fifty one percent of your people like it,

(47:42):
that makes sense to y'all in America?

Speaker 3 (47:44):
Then this is my point.

Speaker 7 (47:46):
When you look at the founders, when you look this
is why I say reading right now is the time
for reading, listening and learning. I wonder when Abraham Lincoln said,
you know what, when he called the black folks and said,
I don't want to live with y'all because y'all ain't
never gonna let us for your slavery, and we don't
want to be reminded of that shit. Y'all gonna always be
mad at us, We're gonna be mad at y'all. I

(48:07):
think y'all should just get the fuck out. I'm wondering now,
like you know what, he might have had a point,
because if we are still fighting these same battles, and
it's true, we have never confronted that history, so if
we're still fighting that, I just don't know that trying
to save, repair, or build a system within this construct

(48:28):
of whiteness and white power and a ruling class that
has been overwhelmingly white makes sense for us. So I
just again, I don't know that we can serve. Even
if I thought it was salvageable, I don't know that
it's possible to save it. When looking at a multi racial,
multi ethnic society where everyone arrives to participate on equal footing,

(48:51):
I think they will worship their true God, and that
is power, and they will destroy everything in its path
before they allow that to happen.

Speaker 1 (48:58):
I actually think in the I don't think there's a
race to power right now. We can associate a race
to power right because it's been the same ones in
charge for a long time. But I think we're all
black people in charge. We would still have a problem
with the corrosive effects of power. We gave the example

(49:24):
of es Well. I think power inevitably leads to abuse.
I don't know that there is a model of a
ruling class of a powerful class that doesn't act to
protect itself, y'all. I know we are hitting this topic

(49:46):
at a lot of different levels, but stick with us
on the other side of this break.

Speaker 8 (50:00):
I think a ruling class is exactly the point. Like,
if you are constructing a society based on there being
a ruling class, the folks at the bottom will always
strive to get to the top, and the folks at
the top will always strive to protect their status. But
if you construct a different type of society, which is
where I was going to go to, I don't think

(50:20):
that any of my remarks are about fixing the system.
I think I was trying to bring us into a
conversation that deepens us into where the problems are, but
not to rebuild it as is. I think it's about
trying to ensure that we don't rebuild the same broken system.
And I also I don't support having a ruling class,

(50:42):
like I think that there has to be something that
feels a little more democratic, something that feels a little
more power or for all people. I'm sure when the
Fox News types and all of their supporters and they're

(51:03):
they're the people that boost their content. The Republican talking
heads get hold of this. We're gonna sound like socialist
socialist Marxists, I'm sure. But I do think that the
reality of it is is when you have some a few,
the top one percent, which by the way, economically we're
in the one percent in this country, when you try

(51:26):
to protect the one percent or the point one percent,
you're always going to have a challenge, You're always going
to have a problem. I don't think that that's the
right structure for us to develop or for us to
be a part of. There are societies, especially on the
Content and in other places that exist that are not.

Speaker 6 (51:46):
This combative and this troubled and this oppressive.

Speaker 1 (51:50):
Most of them are autocratic. It's it's you know, looking
to a singular person and or a person in their
fans the derivatives thereof as the leaders. There is a
reason why that style of governance has lasted so long

(52:11):
and so many places across these continents.

Speaker 3 (52:14):
But can you say what you said again, Andrew about power.
You were saying it lives to protect.

Speaker 1 (52:18):
Itself, for sure. You name a powerful person, powerful person
or powerful institution that is prepared to walk away from
that power, decentralize it down for others. That's cannibalism. Nobody
is or suicide. I mean to put it differently, Okay,

(52:43):
think of a doctor and when the doctor explains to you, well,
the reason why your wrists swole up the way that
it did is because your body perceived an invasion and
it believed that that invasion was intended to destroy you,
to kill you. So the body sends all of this

(53:03):
resources to that space of penetration to make sure that
we don't die. The body, I don't care how you
put it. If you try to drown yourself, your body
reflexively is going to want to survive. It is going
to want to live. I compare that the same way
as I would to a ruling class. Regardless of what

(53:24):
your better higher angels are, your body means to remain
in control your status of People mean to have it
their way. They can look as gratuitous as they want to.
They can talk as graciously and gratuitously as they want to,
including the billionaires who want to give away half their

(53:45):
wealth or more than half their wealth. Give away half
your wealth, your children's children's children's children's children plus plus
plus will still be filthy wealthy. So they're not they're
not nihilistic about it, right, They're not saying I don't
want nothing to go to my children's children and childrens children, No, no, no,
no no. They weren't their children's children's children to enjoy

(54:08):
the same privilege that they do walk in this earth today.
So then they just don't mean they just don't mean
to be inglorious about it. That's a version of capitalism,
but it's also capitalism as a as a route to power.

Speaker 7 (54:19):
Right right, So that's I think that's what Angel was describing.
Like in the ruling class, you'll have the top trying
to protect itself. You'll have the bottom trying, you know,
being astrational. Right, that is the system of capitalism. So
every to me, everything you all are saying is like,
you know it challenges with this take away.

Speaker 3 (54:36):
The money system.

Speaker 1 (54:37):
Take away the money. Take away the money then and
then just deal with the people in charge who gets
to make the decisions. Everybody still wants to be the decider.
Everybody can't be the decider, and the deciders of today
want to stay the deciders. And if they're not the ones,
they want their parrogeny to be the deciders because they

(55:00):
I never want their kids disadvantage.

Speaker 7 (55:02):
But I so this I think gets to the other
point we were making, Like the power, as we know,
concedes nothing. And if you're saying power, you know feeds itself,
which is true, Like it is a cannibalistic entity that
people desire, people chase it. I think we saw some
of that and some of the voting trends that we

(55:22):
have seen over the past few decades.

Speaker 1 (55:24):
We see in some of the attitudes around immigrants from immigrants.

Speaker 7 (55:28):
You jumped and took my point, but you're sorry, no, no, no,
I'm happy you did. You were in my mind because
that's where I was going. Even we on some level
have some power, we don't have, you know what the
ruling class as we have some power, and our attitude
has been hands off, you know, forget them, not ours collectively,
but a few people in community have been in isolation

(55:51):
like no, this is that's what's gonna happen there. And
I just wonder in that society where you have that
kind of attitude, how do we win? And I and
I guess that's why I'm trying. My thoughts are just
I don't want to say elevated as in higher, but
elevated as in I'm looking down at what's happening, trying

(56:11):
to understand it all, and trying to under look backwards
what happened a million years ago, what happened a thousand
years ago, what's happening right now, and what's coming? And
with that, I have to say, all empires fall. There
has not been one in history that hasn't. So this definitely,
very much feels like this is the fall of this empire,
and then what does that mean for humanity writ large?

(56:34):
When you look at the populist movements across the globe,
when you look at the genocides that we've only heard
about a few, but there have been many, many, many,
and there are still many happening. I'm reading this book,
sky Full of Elephants. It happens to be fiction. I'm
reading two books, but this is my fiction that I'm reading,
and Sky Full of Elephants is a work of fiction,
but it definitely taps into the mind. And the premise is,

(56:54):
one day, every white person walks into the ocean. They
just are in the trans and they walk into the
ocean and they're gone. And then you have a society
that's left, and what does that society look like? You
have Biracials kids whose moms are white who are devastated
they grew up in a white world. You know, they're sad.

(57:14):
You have you know, black people trying to figure out
how to maneuver. And there's a rumor like, don't go
to the South, to stay out the South. It's awful,
but that's where all the black people are. And you
get down there and it is peace. It is an oasis,
you know. But they've been telling everybody don't go down
there because it is something to protect and know.

Speaker 3 (57:32):
It's a work of fiction.

Speaker 7 (57:33):
It pulls on It has a lot of history in
it and pulls on a lot of things that happen,
like their original Madi Garad I think was in Mobile,
which I never knew. So it gives a lot of history.
But it has been tappening into my imagination about, yeah,
what does that look like? You know, because we're not
going to have that society, but by twenty forty four
we will be a society where there is no racial majority.
So in that sense, what might that look like? And

(57:55):
is that leading us further into this civil war that
exists right now? And in that case, they outarm us,
they outnumber us, We got a lot of people on
our size say nope, we know that, and we still
not trying to ally.

Speaker 3 (58:07):
We'll go it alone.

Speaker 7 (58:08):
Got the twelve percent and has got me questioning even
our population. Angela, you said, you know, twelve percent, thirteen
some maybe fourteen percent. There are some people who surmise
that the census is a hypothesis. It's a guest because
you know, they do overhead, they do skilling, they do
right and so you know, which got me thinking when

(58:29):
you look at places like Jackson, Mississippi, where we'll be this.

Speaker 3 (58:32):
Week, I hope to see y'all there. Yeah, in Mississippi?

Speaker 7 (58:36):
Are are we thirty nine percent of the population or
might we be half?

Speaker 3 (58:40):
Or might we be sixty percent?

Speaker 7 (58:42):
Like there might be some interest in saying that we
are a minority in that space.

Speaker 3 (58:47):
And if that's the case, I got a question everything.

Speaker 8 (58:50):
We also don't all voluntarily participate in the census. Folks
have said for years like that we need to encourage
greater census participation. There are a lot of folks that,
because of the system that you're talking about challenging right now,
don't trust the.

Speaker 6 (59:03):
Government, don't want them to know where they live, don't want.

Speaker 8 (59:06):
To, like, even if they have a whole mortgage, then's searchable. Yes,
but this far right here, I don't want to do
So there's that too. The other thing is now, since
the census data, the way that the federal government is
collecting research information.

Speaker 6 (59:22):
On race is changing.

Speaker 8 (59:24):
Yes, that is so people are about to be collapsed
in one category or the other.

Speaker 6 (59:28):
Yes.

Speaker 7 (59:29):
With the indigenous community specifically, like the twenty twenty cents,
you might think, oh, the Indigenous population just explodeed, but
that's not true. It was people claiming an Indigenous heritage
that were not necessarily acknowledged by tribal communities. And so
now if you look at that, how does that inform resources?

(59:50):
And then will that be a battle you know, over
who tribal communities determined?

Speaker 1 (59:55):
Always been a tool, yeah, powerful, I mean it's always
been a tool, right, And they they've always projected, they've
never had actual lie like person to person count.

Speaker 6 (01:00:05):
I can't remember today count people who are incarcerated.

Speaker 1 (01:00:07):
Yes, yes they do. For aggregation of congressional districts where
a bunch of Republicans are representing you know, fifty thousand
people outside of jail and the other two hundred thousand
are incarcerated in their districts. Yes, they count them, they
just don't appropriate for them fully, but they do count
them in those districts to create congression diship. But and

(01:00:30):
I mean, Tiff, you made a point that I just
want to because you and I have privately talked about this.
A lot of folks celebrate the browning of America, and
I'm not one who doesn't celebrate it. I just don't
believe that it it it leads to a specific political outcome.
I don't think that it means that all black and

(01:00:52):
brown people then get together, harmonized and are like, we're
the majority now. I don't think that's what happens.

Speaker 3 (01:00:58):
Global majority now, and it's not happening.

Speaker 1 (01:01:01):
So get back to my original hypotheses around power, is
that these alliances are going to come together around how
you piece together enough people to make the ruling class.

Speaker 7 (01:01:13):
Yeah, and then it will act just as the pavious
ruling class.

Speaker 1 (01:01:20):
It will act to protect itself, and it will not
only act to protect itself, it will act to ensure
that you're never going to threaten it. So then the
tools of the weapons of government, governance and everything that
is that that that descends from it will be weaponized

(01:01:41):
for their purposes to keep them in charge. And yes,
all empires fall, very few of those empires that have
fallen have predicted their fall.

Speaker 3 (01:01:51):
Right it.

Speaker 1 (01:01:52):
And my guess is, and I hate to think this way,
but I believe it to be true that when this
empower fall, the empires that will rise will be helmed
by autocratic leaders. I think it is the simplest form
of government. It is the most understood form of government,
is the longest lasting form of government. Remember, democracy and

(01:02:15):
the way we do it here in the US is
an experiment, right, a minority amongst the community of the
American It's an experiment. And there are people high and
low in every hemisphere, on every continent that are championing
the failure of this experiment because it threatens the longest
standing tradition of governance, which is of autocratic leaders monarchies

(01:02:41):
or autocrats who take power and they helmet for themselves.
When we think radically about what democracy looks like, or
really what power looks like, because I want to get
outside of the construct there, I think differently than I think.
How most people think of power is to be hoarded,
to be kept. You know to be held sacred amongst

(01:03:02):
a few selected people. I believe power is the gift
that keeps giving. That the more you empower, frankly, the
more power that is inured to you. You are then
magnanimous by extending power to your neighbor, and then your
neighbor to their neighbor and their neighbor, and so on

(01:03:22):
and so forth. But most people don't think about power
that way. That the more you spread it, the more
you actually get it, the more respect, the more deference
comes your way. If that's what you're in pursuit of
the hoarders of it? Which is the which is? I
think a very Eurocentric model of of of of defining

(01:03:46):
power says that it must be tightly held between a
small selective group of people or institutions, not to be
shared democratically. And I think that that is what's going
to help lead to our collapse, not just as a nation,
I think as a people period. I don't mean to

(01:04:06):
be going to ending days and ended times, but I
think that that's our collapse. We're we're I'm off, I'm
probably going down a rabbit hole here.

Speaker 8 (01:04:16):
It's just right in prison numbers. I started looking it
up This is fascinating. If you if you if you're
waiting a trial, you don't count, You're supposed to be
counted in your residence, Like I didn't even really anyway, fascinating, unbelievable.

Speaker 7 (01:04:30):
I think the whole notion of power feeding off itself
is like such a philosophical point that I have to
sit with, like, I don't even I hadn't thought about that,
you know, uh, until you said that, which again feeds
into this question, what does a construction of society? Because
note I'm not using the term democracy, what does a construction.

Speaker 3 (01:04:47):
Of society look like?

Speaker 1 (01:04:49):
Yeah? And that.

Speaker 3 (01:04:52):
I don't know.

Speaker 7 (01:04:52):
And I can picture the audience saying, well, y'all are
saying all this, but what are we supposed to do?

Speaker 3 (01:04:57):
People are looking to be led and people.

Speaker 1 (01:05:00):
Should right everybody.

Speaker 7 (01:05:04):
And people were asking that in the comments, like okay, Tiffany,
what would you have us to do? And I was
trying to be really clear, All I'm asking is that
you care. I'm just saying that you care that the
government is disappearing people and sending them the offshore torture
camps because we are in that same path of destruction.
I don't know what to do, Andree you were the
one to you know, suggest protests. I don't know if

(01:05:25):
that's the answer, you know, I think I think it takes.

Speaker 1 (01:05:27):
A lot of forms. I hope didn't immediately think that
to just me and go stand on the street corner
with a sign that we're protesting right now on target.
I'm just keeping my money, yeah, or spending it directly
with black and brown vendors or whatever. But but I
actually don't think that the three of us are in

(01:05:50):
any way delusion enough to think that we can produce
the answer right here. I think that if we're truly
talking about spreading decision making and power amongst people, a
diverse range of people, then let's be in the practice
of it. In fact, as we move to CTA's I'm sorry,
I'll start first. I'm sorry, lady, right, but I want

(01:06:13):
to invite our listeners to offer up what their radical views,
and only radical by virtue of the fact that either
hasn't been thought of, or maybe it was thought of
the once practice and then abandoned, or you know what,
you just sitting on another cloud like Tiffany and I'll
be doing sometimes when they take walks, you know, philosophizing. Yeah, yeah,

(01:06:35):
making it worse here, but I want it. That's my invitation.
I want to be clear about it. I want to
invite our listeners to offer up. If you think the
system we have right now is broken, tell me, you know,
tell us how would you redesign this thing? Maybe you
scraped the whole thing, and maybe you just offer up
your notion of what what does a beloved community for

(01:06:58):
you look like? Maybe it is top down with a
singular leader. Maybe it is democracy size, where we come
to consensus as a group. I don't know, but I'd
love to hear your thoughts on it.

Speaker 3 (01:07:11):
I love that. I'm looking forward to reading those comments.

Speaker 7 (01:07:13):
And if we get videos and still want to remind people,
please send in your videos if you want to give
us sixty seconds worth of thought. And as you're doing that,
don't forget to click like and subscribe and tell a
friend if you like this conversation. And again, this is
a conversation between us, but it's a conversation between.

Speaker 3 (01:07:30):
All of us, not just the three of us.

Speaker 7 (01:07:32):
And as you see, we definitely look read engage with
you all because we say welcome home intentionally. All right,
we got to pay some bills, but don't go anywhere.
We'll be right back on the other side of the break.
My cta I'll be quick is in my time, I'm

(01:07:57):
in a space of study and observation. I'm reading, writing, listening.

Speaker 3 (01:08:03):
That's all.

Speaker 7 (01:08:03):
Anything that's taken me away from that is an inconvenience,
Like from seven to seven. That is what I'm doing
in a space of learning. And I've always been in
that way, but this is even more radical. I'm not
watching a lot of TV these days, you know, like
I am in these books, in all my computer writing
and listening to people, and it has really elevated my

(01:08:25):
way of thinking, elevated the way I interact harness my
energy in a way. And one thing I thought about
is as we are all getting older, we're losing a
lot of our history. And so my CTA for people
is for those of you who are still blessed to
have your grandmother, your great grandmother, the elders in your life.

Speaker 3 (01:08:44):
Capture that oral history.

Speaker 7 (01:08:46):
Fit with them, listen to them, talk to them, get
them on video, because as they're erasing our history, I
think it's important for us to capture ours and know
it and be shamans to the next generation. Tell them
what happened during Jim, Tell them what happened in enslavement.
Tell them in the Pan Africanism way, what we brought
with us on the boat, what life existed like us

(01:09:07):
before then. And I hope that people take advantage of
that time to listen and learn, because even if you're
in the if you if you don't have those people
when you're in Uber like instead of being on your
phone like talk to I spend so many time asking
Uber drivers, Oh, you're from India, what do the people
there feel about Modi? Like, tell me what? Because I

(01:09:28):
can read in the paper all day, but you live there.
Tell me what are your thoughts about Modi? What is
your family's thoughts about Modi? People who live in Pakistan,
I'm like, oh, what is your thoughts about India? You know,
you guys are kind of in a war right now,
and I get so much information from people, So I
just would encourage other folks be in a space of quiet,
listening and learning. I don't enjoy jumping out there giving

(01:09:51):
my thoughts and opinions on everything. Every five seconds, CNN
will ask me to come on and do stuff, and.

Speaker 3 (01:09:56):
I just want to be quiet and listen.

Speaker 7 (01:09:58):
Sometimes I don't need to jump and give a SoundBite
on everything.

Speaker 3 (01:10:02):
So that's my CTA.

Speaker 7 (01:10:04):
And if you do capture some of that oral history
and you got sixty seconds of some good stuff from
your grandma, we'll play that too.

Speaker 3 (01:10:09):
We want to hear it.

Speaker 1 (01:10:11):
That's your sound bus is so good. It's just so Angela.

Speaker 8 (01:10:16):
Speaking of soundbites, I am really tired of us talking
to each other, So I want y'all to send in
your guest recommendations. We want to hear from other voices
to me. In our recent history, some of our favorite
shows have been with guests on air because it gives
us an opportunity to engage in different ways, with different voices,

(01:10:37):
different perspectives. We also are going to continue I think
this series at least as a segment around democracy being
broken in the different pieces that are fragmented. So we
definitely want to hear from y'all on that as well,
whether you're seeing it on the local level, the state
level in your communities, or on the federal level or
even internationally. We want to hear that from y'all too.

(01:10:59):
And last tip already shouted out, but we will be
in Jackson this weekend, and we hope to see y'all
live at Tugalu College at one pm and of course
supports State of the People Friday there as well as
on Saturday, and we want to have guests on in
Jackson as well. I'm sad won't be there, but hopefully
we'll be able to see some of our other friends

(01:11:20):
and have them on with us.

Speaker 6 (01:11:22):
So we'll see y'all there. We look forward to catching
up with our.

Speaker 1 (01:11:28):
He's next visit.

Speaker 6 (01:11:29):
I don't know why you want to go to the
rural south. Diff what utopia? Ukre said, I got one already,
she said, that's name.

Speaker 7 (01:11:40):
Well, I appreciate his thoughts and Mayor of Jackson, and
I didn't know that he wasn't going to be there,
so I'm sorry to miss him because he's doing some
great work there.

Speaker 1 (01:11:49):
And there's your favorite food spots.

Speaker 7 (01:11:51):
Yes we like to eat, Yes, definitely for sure looking
forward to and.

Speaker 1 (01:11:56):
Jackson did o dido diddo. And we want to thank
you again for just bearing with us. I think today
was we haven't done this in a long time, but
the just the thinking out loud, the recognizing that we
don't have the monopoly on right answers, actually rarely do we,
but but in good company with good intention, I think
we can explore all kinds of things, certainly in a

(01:12:18):
space of trust, and we want to invite you in there,
so don't forget to send your ideas. We'll be doing
a live show, as it has already been mentioned. State
of the People tour in Jackson said hey, this Saturday,
May thirty. First, y'all be there. If you're in Jackson,
visit State of Thepeople dot com to get a ticket.

(01:12:39):
I'm so sorry State.

Speaker 8 (01:12:41):
The State of THEPPL dot com and you don't get tickets,
you just register.

Speaker 6 (01:12:47):
I don't want people to think I was.

Speaker 1 (01:12:49):
Just reading my note. My bad, but listen to her.
She is in charge. It's no no, no fee. You
just come as reparations. That's it. We'll be live streaming
on YouTube, by the way, on Saturday, so if you
can't be there with us in person, check us out
on YouTube and you'll be able to join in the conversation.

(01:13:11):
Will also be of course uploading the feed in case
you can't catch us live, so you'll get to see
it too. Angela Tiffany, I'm looking forward to being a
good company and good trouble with you all this weekend.
As always, we want to remind everyone to leave a review,
subscribe to Native lanmdpod, and also tell a friend. We're
available on all platforms and of course YouTube. New episodes

(01:13:35):
drop Thursday and Friday, with solo pods Monday and Tuesday.
If you want more, check Outpolitics and Off the Cups
see upp the other shows that are on Reason Choice Media.
I don't have the ppe that was just cup and
don't forget to follow us on social media and subscribe

(01:13:55):
to our text or email lists on our website Native
landpod dot com. We are are That's a rye, that's
ta Cross and a man yelling welcome home y'all. There
are five hundred and twenty three days until midterm elections.
We outran.

Speaker 2 (01:14:12):
Thank you for joining the Natives intention of what the
info and all of the latest Roy Gilim and Cross
connected to the statements that you leave on our socials.
Thank you, sincerely for the faces. Reason for your choice
is clear, so grateful it took to execute roads. Thank
you for serve, defend and protect the truth.

Speaker 3 (01:14:29):
You've been in past.

Speaker 2 (01:14:30):
Walkome home to all of the natives.

Speaker 1 (01:14:32):
Wait.

Speaker 3 (01:14:32):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:14:45):
Native Lampard is a production of iHeartRadio in partnership with
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Tiffany Cross

Andrew Gillum

Angela Rye

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