Whiteness Undefeated?

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Native lamp Pod is the production of iHeart Radio in
partnership with Recent Choice Media.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
Well Come, we come, We Come, We Come, We come.

Speaker 3 (00:07):
Welcome Okay, welcome home, y'all. This is episode eighty two
of Native Lampod, where we give you our breakdown of
all things politics and culture. We are your hosts. I'm
Angela Raie. There's Tiffany Cross and Andrew Gillim. What's happening, everybody?
What's going on? What are we talking about today?

Speaker 4 (00:25):
So much?

Speaker 3 (00:27):
I don't know what that.

Speaker 5 (00:32):
Not making a comment? It was like you heard I was.

Speaker 4 (00:35):
I was looking at the script.

Speaker 3 (00:36):
What are you saying?

Speaker 6 (00:37):
I don't know.

Speaker 5 (00:37):
It was like you like we made it through?

Speaker 4 (00:41):
Yeah, well we were like.

Speaker 1 (00:45):
He was waiting, like if people on the lease ready
to say something. We are talking about a lot of
talking about though.

Speaker 4 (00:54):
Yes, we're talking about a lot of good stuff.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
And if you like what we're talking about, please be
sure to tell you people to tune in, share this
podcast with a friend because you don't want to miss this.
We have on today the Mario Solomon Simmons. Yeah, from firm,
the Mario Simon Simmons, who went to law school with you, Angela.
I believe. So you guys have known each other for
a long time.

Speaker 3 (01:14):
Yes, not exactly National Black Glaston's Association.

Speaker 1 (01:17):
Forgive me, that's where you guys met, but back when
you were in law school. And he is a Tulsa
descendant himself of the Tulsa Mascer, but he's also the
attorney for the survivors of the Tulsa Masker. So yes,
there are survivors. Two survivors who are I think one
hundred eleven and one hundred and twelve. He'll tell us

(01:37):
when he gets on. So I'm really excited to talk
about that.

Speaker 3 (01:41):
I want to shout out because and I'll bring this
up when de Mario's on. But when the Mario was
in law school on then the boss of board, he
was our reparations chair at that time. Working with yeah,
working with Professor Charles Ogletree. Yeah, for sure, we're working
with Professor Charles Ogletree. This has been a life passion
of his and reparations on every side. Right, we know

(02:03):
that there's our reparations that our communities owe from mass
incarceration to things that cities municipalities did to us, redlining,
and of course mass there's just like the one in Tulsa,
and then on that Andrew. We know these things, of course, enflament.

Speaker 5 (02:19):
Yes, yeah, of course they do. They cost money, which
is why we want you to tune into our mini
pot on Friday, because we're gonna be having a conversation
about the implications of this disastrous quote unquote big beautiful
mess that Trump and the Republicans in Washington want to
push down our throats. We want to talk about who's impacted,

(02:41):
what are the stories we're not hearing on the news,
and why it ought to matter to all of us,
whether we are working class, we're working poor, middle class,
upper middle or if you're in the top one percent.
You're listening their implications to.

Speaker 3 (02:54):
Everybody, and that's just it. So one thing that you know,
we all love is when we get to hear from
our community. Tiffy in those comments, child, I love us
for doing it. She gives us the comments update. But
we also love when y'all send in videos all over
the country, even doing the State of the People power
to it, and we have heard over and over again
how much y'all love the show. I almost thought I

(03:16):
was gonna lose my life in Jackson because Tip's flight
got canceled. The people were hot. Andrew. You ran out
of there and they were like, no, where is Andrew.

Speaker 5 (03:25):
Listen, this one sister met me in the airport. She
gave me to the airport. She was gonna have to
fly out later, but she knew I was going at me. Yeah,
she left to go.

Speaker 3 (03:35):
So what I want to tell y'all one, from the
bottom of our hearts, thank you so much for loving
on us. And every time we say welcome home, you
guys welcome us home three hundred times over. We are
so so grateful. And because we're grateful, we're gonna make
sure that we do what Tiffany always tells us to do,
and that is to get in these listener comments. So
let's start with the first one.

Speaker 7 (03:58):
Hey n check it out. So you talk about democracy,
and for one, the quote should be placed on the people,
the American people, who aren't fault for the situation that
we're in because between ninety million people did not even

(04:21):
take it upon themselves to go to the ballot.

Speaker 2 (04:23):
Box last year.

Speaker 7 (04:26):
On top of that, you had another seventy five million
vote for an authoritarian So if you want to put
the blame on the media, you want to put the
blame on the legislature at Allso no, you've put the
blame on the people. The people get the the government
they deserve.

Speaker 6 (04:44):
If you don't vote and you vote the wrong way.

Speaker 5 (04:46):
You get what you deserve.

Speaker 7 (04:48):
So you guys need to put more responsibility on the voters.
And I know that Angela's doing her tour and try
to get people involved in all something. That's what you
have to do. But you got to be honest the
people of the hobble. There's too many people sitting around saying, oh,
this doesn't work. It works if you vote the write
people in office, it works. And whatever dream you guys

(05:11):
are concocting about some other form, it's come on, stop
being ridiculous. It's democracy. But it's democracy that people are
part of.

Speaker 3 (05:23):
Okay, friend, just start out. I appreciate you sitting in
the video. Did you say video the video? Friend, But
let me just say this. First of all, you had
you real comfortable. I am so glad you are welcome.
All you were so comfortable you walked down the street

(05:44):
with Autumn Damn's horn hunting us so we could even
hear part of the question. But I did hear the
very stern rebuke, and I would invite you in to
the same process that we have gone down, which is
to listen. We have really taken this sea, and I
think all of us really really have in different ways.
We're listening to different groups, having different kinds of conversations,

(06:06):
but we are all I think listening now in ways
that we didn't before the election, with more curiosity, wonder
maybe bewilderment.

Speaker 4 (06:17):
Yeah, literally too right.

Speaker 3 (06:20):
And so.

Speaker 4 (06:22):
I just don't know.

Speaker 3 (06:24):
That ninety million people decide to sit out something where
they feel empowered. I just don't know that that's true.
I don't know that people who have taken on the approach,
even though this isn't necessarily mine all the time the
lesser of two evils, and they make a calculated decision.
We talk a lot about on this podcast of us

(06:48):
having to regularly, us having to regularly tap into a
harm reduction strategy rather than like the abundant choice of
what we know will represent our best interests even when
we do the work of issuing demands or having an agenda.
And so I just would challenge us on like telling
people that this is what they deserve, you know, when

(07:11):
they never gotten what we really deserve, like we ain't
even ask to be here, you know, like this is
where we are now. We're making the best of things
and our people have been making. I shouldn't even say
the best thing. We're making the good of things or
the all right of things, just to get by. And
so I just I appreciate the perspective. It definitely is
not mine. But I'm gonna yield to my co host. Well,

(07:33):
so I don't lecture back.

Speaker 1 (07:34):
I I hear him and I this ninety million figure.
I wonder like where that comes from. Maybe ninety million
people didn't vote. You know that that's probably with you.
That sounds about accurate. I can give you the exact figures,
but they're percentages. In twenty twenty four, in the presidential election,

(07:56):
seventy three, just over seventy three percent of the voting
age population registered to vote. Just over sixty five percent
actually voted. So when we say ninety million, which could
be accurate, that's not too far off from where we
always are. So you have to be like, I know
that might sound like a stark number, but in twenty twenty,

(08:19):
sixty seven percent of eligible voters cast ballots. That was
a sizeable number. Particularly given that it was COVID in
the twenty eighteen, twenty twenty, and twenty twenty two elections.
These are midterm years. These were some of the biggest
election numbers. We saw about a third of registered voters

(08:39):
did not vote.

Speaker 4 (08:40):
So that ninety million number wouldn't seem so start.

Speaker 1 (08:44):
We've had way more people set out elections.

Speaker 4 (08:48):
In twenty sixteen, one hundred million people did not vote.

Speaker 1 (08:52):
This is a big year when you had no more
Obama on the ballot, but you had Hillary Clinton. And
let me just say, I'm getting this information from the
Census Census dot gov, and you know, I cross referenced
them with Pew and Brookings and just make sure that
the numbers align. So twenty sixteen, one hundred million people

(09:15):
did not vote. In twenty twelve, you had turnout declined
from one hundred and thirty one million voters in two
thousand and eight to one hundred and twenty six million
voters and twenty twelve, ninety three million people did not
vote in twenty twelve. Here's where it gets interesting. In
two thousand and eight, when you had Obama on the ballot,

(09:37):
black voters, as we always do, consistently across the board
showed up in impressive numbers. We over indexed at the
ballot box. However, in two thousand and eight, you had
the fewest number of white voters. The white voters did
not participate. In twenty twenty four, you had the most

(09:58):
number of white vot voters participate. If every single black
person voted, we would not be able to outvote white America.
So I got a real challenge with suggesting that the
black people who voted, who didn't vote, who didn't even
have an option to vote, deserve what we've gotten. And

(10:22):
I want to just honor you, brother, for one taking
the time. You're clearly busy because you had to record it,
like Angela said, walking down the streets. So just for
taking the time to tune into us and taking the
time to express your opinion because a lot of people
feel like you. I hear that from a lot of people,
and so I honored that.

Speaker 4 (10:37):
I really do.

Speaker 1 (10:38):
But I think once we dig into the data and
just look at this landscape, it's hard to outdo white folks.
They remain undefeated. And I think that is and when
I say white folks, it is the idea of whiteness.
The idea of this ruling class, and so I you know,

(10:58):
Angeline talked about us being in a space of curiosity,
and the one thing that I can walk away with
even outside of what's happened here in America, I just
this week alone, lately, but definitely this week, I just
haven't been feeling so smart, you know, I haven't felt
so informed. I have felt like you could take all
that I know and fit it in a thimble. I

(11:19):
am just consumed by all the things I don't know.
And I'm not talking about like exploring why not, Like yeah,
I know about what happens here in America, Like I
know about that, but I mean just the exploration of
ideas and ideology and history and societies and you know,
how this how we came to function in this world.

(11:40):
And the more I read about things that happen, you know,
twenty five thousand years ago, it gives insight into where
things might be going. And I just I hope I
invite everybody, we as a collective, invite everybody into that
space of curiosity, because even that perspective of we got
to blame the people, I get that that's a righteous

(12:01):
anger because you are probably impacted and you're looking at
somebody else like you didn't vote, and because of you,
this is what happened. I just want to keep in
mind who the enemy of all this is, who invited this?
They're literally is and this is my challenge, and I'm
my co host. I looked at them every week to
give me some hope. You know, like we try, we

(12:22):
out here try and just like yo, But when I
look to what's happening, I don't know how we outdo whiteness,
especially when a lot of y'all are saying f everybody
else and we just going in alone, just with the
black people.

Speaker 3 (12:33):
Okay, I'm andrewing you right now because you are go
for it. Yes, I just and I don't even want
to cut you off long, just yes to this, because
I don't understand how we think our math mass Like
you don't have the luxury of sitting things out. You
don't have the luxury of saying, forget everybody else. It's
us on our own. Us on our own is a
strong twelve percent booth, maybe thirteen on a good day

(12:56):
if you count some of the migrants.

Speaker 4 (12:58):
So that's the thing that is maddening to me.

Speaker 3 (13:01):
I will say tif that this curiosity point is so important.
We've been doing a lot of rebuken, a lot of
telling people what they ain't doing, and it doesn't make sense.
And I think the bigger point to me from the
earlier part of what you were saying is ninety million people.
When is it one hundred and seventy or one hundred

(13:24):
and fifty million I voted this year? I mean, sorry,
twenty twenty four.

Speaker 1 (13:28):
This year, one hundred and seventy four million people were
one hundred seventy four. One hundred and fifty four million
people voted.

Speaker 3 (13:34):
One p fifty four. It says too many numbers. I
can't keep up, but one hundred and fifty four million
people voted. Ninety million is too high. Ninety four million
in twenty sixteen is too high. In a lot of
places where there's compulsory voting, the turnout is much higher.
We don't have that. We have the choice and the
freedom to do so. It bothers me. I don't care

(13:54):
what election year it is. It bothers me that that
many people sit out, and I want to know what
has to change for them to get in the game.
Just on that piece, And I'm not saying that should
be the fullness of their political experience or their involvement.
But that's the piece, right, I'm just like, what is
making you sit out for something that's so important? And

(14:15):
I think for a lot of people, and this is
part of what I've learned that's hard. It's a cold truth.
For a lot of people, this is nowhere near the
most important thing they're dealing with when they're making decisions
about whether or not they're going to sit with the
at the bedside of a family member that's dying, if
they're you know, making a decision about whether they're going
to go vote or bail their child out of jail,
whether or not they can pay the light bill, if

(14:36):
they make if they take their car down to the
precinct to vote, will they be able to get to work?
So it's like, that's the thing that is the part
of democracy that ain't right.

Speaker 4 (14:47):
It's not on that.

Speaker 1 (14:48):
I think it's a capitalism, a belief like do I
believe in this enough to participate? Andrew, I'm sure you
have your own thoughts, but I just want to kick
off with a question because we've never had that many people,
like even when after the Voting Rights Act passed, like
we were still numbers were still on par with two
thousand and eight, and we haven't disaggregated these numbers by race,

(15:11):
but even in nineteen sixty five, like the amount of
people who participated in the election, and it wasn't every
single black person, you know, so we've never seen that
level of participation. I don't want to give this number
because I didn't have a chance to look into it.
But in India, I think there was billions of people.
They have a greater voting participation.

Speaker 5 (15:30):
They to the original democracy that So this is what
I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (15:35):
The more I read and understand things, I just feel
so ignorant to so much. And I feel like in
two thousand and eight, I don't know how y'all feel,
but from two thousand and eight to twenty sixteen, I
was living in a fantasy world. I was not anticipating
what was going to come. I was too busy enjoying
the moment, even though there were the hardships and challenges

(15:57):
and all that.

Speaker 4 (15:58):
I just relished in this idea.

Speaker 1 (16:02):
That this was going to We had broken the status
quo right that President Obama was now our floor and
we still had a ceiling to get to. I was
not anticipating that white folks were big mad, they were organizing,
they you know, they were playing the long game.

Speaker 5 (16:18):
So I don't know.

Speaker 4 (16:18):
I'm just curious your thoughts on all.

Speaker 5 (16:20):
Well, first on the way you ended, which is at
least how I hear you when you say white folks.
And you may mean something and say something very differently,
but I believe you to me, I hear it. And
I think the majority of white people in this country,
how they decide and how powerful the impact of that

(16:42):
decision is on all of the rest of us. And
put it more simply, white women, by majorities voted for
Donald Trump. White men by significant majorities voted for Donald Trump. Together,
they constitute a ruling majority. And it sucks they have
to use the term ruling because they the ruling is
more associated with aristocracies. But when you have shifts like

(17:07):
we've seen in our democratic process to more of an autocracy,
a klepto class or people get power just to take
money from out of the system and oligarchy, and to
define that, it simply means the wealthiest people aren't just
the richest people in the world, but they're now the
richest people in the world who also get to decide

(17:30):
what government's actions are going to be and what government's
actions are not going to be. So it's a marriage
of not just the wealthiest people, but now the wealthiest
people also quite literally have all the power. There's power
by virtue of money, and now you've got power by
virtue of the lovers of government operating in your interests exclusively.

(17:50):
And that's where we're moving toward. Trump even admits he
has the wealthiest your more billionaires in his cabinet than
have ever served the country. He thinks that is a
good thing. I think that's a horrible thing, because that
that that no way resembles to people who are being governed,
not real quickly to the to the gentleman's point, I
to appreciate it, because I have to say one of

(18:12):
my criticism of the Democratic Party, and I would even
now extend that I guess to us by way of
I think how we see a lot of issues and
how it gets up under us, and for good reason
is that I think we talk a lot about those
who are at the margins of our society, the poorest,
the ones who cannot, you know, get easy access to

(18:33):
healthcare and childcare and all of those things. Not a
lot of talk about what that squeeze is in the middle,
and not a lot of talk about what that squeeze
is for those who were in the upper middle. And
then we spend a lot of time at the top
end of that spectrum, on the wealthiest one one percent
as well. And I think what is true today as

(18:53):
it has really been in the for the last century
in this country, and that is is whether you are
in the working poor or whether you're in that middle,
A paycheck or two can easily throw you between from
one to the other. And I really mean, especially in
that middle group of folks who feel comfortable, live very comfortably.

(19:14):
But God knows, you don't take my income away for
two months, don't take my income away, you know, substantially
for the next three months. Most of us don't have
three months of total expenses saved up in a bank account.

Speaker 8 (19:27):
So this.

Speaker 5 (19:29):
Class status or as you will, is not so comfortable
for a lot of us. And that's why I think
it is important to pay attention to what's happening at
various ends of this spectrum and to relate that to
voting is I think we oftentimes talk about the folks
who have maybe economic barriers standing in their way from
accessing the ballot box. But I know people who I

(19:50):
went to college with, who have more advanced degrees than
I do, who live very comfortably in their lives, who
also make the decision not to participate in the process,
and it is clear that they've prioritized something else above
the impact that their vote is going to have on
their lived condition. And I think the same is true
for those at the bottom end of the spectrum. And

(20:11):
I'm talking economically that when you've done a thing so
many times, or you've seen a thing done so many times,
yet your material conditions, when I say material, meaning the
things you can feel, touch, eat, never change. Well, y'all,
that's the classic definition of insanity. To keep doing the
thing nothing changes, but you keep doing it anyway. Now,

(20:33):
I want to argue with myself simply to say and
I'll quit here is to say I don't buy the
height that nothing changes. I just think change is a
very tenuous circumstance. For instance, four months ago, we all
thought we lived in a democracy. Courts mattered, court's decisions mattered.

(20:55):
You didn't flout that.

Speaker 9 (20:58):
We never thought that a president could just completely disregard
the monuments called the monument's cause where he is taking
a firth clock monuments, taking money taking place for his
I set up the moment I've.

Speaker 5 (21:11):
Given the monument's clause that was my two weeks ago.
But the monuments, But but essentially the law that says
that the president policymakers cannot take gifts from folks, from
foreign individuals or domestic and keep them into themselves. That's
a profit to themselves for their position. Right, the president
cannot accept a four and ad million dollar plane, a

(21:31):
mansion in the sky and then give it to the
government right now and then ultimately give it to his
presidential library, but then take full use of it when
he's out of office to enrich himself.

Speaker 7 (21:43):
Right.

Speaker 5 (21:43):
And there are other gamuts that are that are that
that that these folks are are participating in that don't
make sense. So from that standpoint, I understand that I
think we have to broaden who we see as being
disenfranchised from the process. Those who self opt into it
because they've they've prioritized something over it, or those who
by their very conditions and materially not changing and therefore

(22:04):
they're not believing and acting in support of a system
that isn't in service to them. And I get both sides,
but I do think we have to give more thought,
more conversation to the fact that there are people who
are well healed in our society by comparison, still making
the choice not to participate in this process. And the
last thing I'm going to say here is that no way, ever, ever,

(22:24):
ever have the majority of people, I mean of everyone
in this country ever participated in the democratic process. There's
never been a movement in this country where everyone who's
impacted by it has participated in that process. In fact,
the opposite is mostly true. And consider that this democracy
that we have today, what's left of it, was never

(22:45):
ever designed for the engagement of the majority. The ruling
class don't believe in majority rule. They believe that the
majority can lead to chaos, can lead to protests and
the destruction of the rule in class, which is why
the first people who could vote were basically white men
who owned property, not all white men. Y'all keep it

(23:06):
with us on the other side of his break, We're
gonna continue the conversation.

Speaker 4 (23:23):
I don't know that.

Speaker 1 (23:24):
We've I agree with everything he said, Andrew, save for
the part about democracy. I don't know that I've ever
really believed this was a democracy. You know, when I
have my show this well, I can't remember this bitch
name because she offended me. And I mean to say, yes, sure,
I'm gonna tell you why she I think I want

(23:44):
to say maybe she wrote for The Atlantic. I don't remember,
but I had her. I was feeling in for Joy.
I didn't have my show yet. I was feeling in
for Joy on her weekend show when she was moving
a primetime I had this woman on and I was
making the point that we are a young demidocracy, yes,
and she was really nasty about it and was kind

(24:04):
of like talking to me like I'm an idiot, you know,
And she's like, we're not a young democracy, We're the
oldest democracy.

Speaker 4 (24:10):
And we had to go my producer in my ear,
like we got to go to a break, like we
got a ramp.

Speaker 1 (24:14):
And there are so many people who actually believe America
is one of the oldest democracies. And I would ask, well,
what do you consider a democracy? You consider it that
because you were able to participate in it. But this
was a white woman, so I'm like, it's you weren't
even in a democracy that you weren't even denying participation
in this democracy. But you're so busy trying to be

(24:36):
nasty to me to tell me that it was a
young democracy. But if you google American oldest democracy, you
will see papers, articles, think pieces on how America is
one of the oldest democracy.

Speaker 4 (24:47):
The devil is a lie. It ain't no oldest democrac It's.

Speaker 5 (24:49):
Never been, not in the truth form that you're talking about.
I think, yeah, people can factually say that we're one
of the longest running. There have been societies that have
changed forms of government and gone back and forth between
this form and that form. But be clear that India
is the world's oldest democracy, and quite frankly, in the
life of society and in the life of Homo sapiens.

(25:13):
The United States as an idea is extremely young. In fact,
we have institutions colleges, Harvard being one of them, that
pre existed the existence of the United States. And I
don't mean the land, I mean the formation of this
as a country. So we are relatively you know, we
are relatively young, however, pretty enduring given the life of

(25:35):
that the country has had. But I think the most
important thing about that, Tiffany. You are bringing it up,
and I think the point you wanted to make, which
is in its fullest form, when we think about democracy
and democratic participation, this country still falls woefully short of
its ideals. And that's why we have to stay in
the game, put our shoulders to the wheel, stiff in

(25:56):
our spine. It's because it's then our job to you
to move this thing closer to its ideals.

Speaker 3 (26:03):
That's the part though that's hard for me too, because
it's like, how did and we can't probably can't solve
to say, this is another mini pod, but how did
we get roped into helping you fulfill some ideals that
you didn't even think enough of us to include? How
did we get roped into helping you fulfill ideals when
you owe us every damn thing? Like I'm gonna tell y'all,

(26:25):
I'm gonna just tell y'all something this probably.

Speaker 10 (26:26):
Don't say said anyway, I think that what has happened
on this tour I might have been radicalized.

Speaker 5 (26:33):
I am girl, please, you are definition radical, but I.

Speaker 3 (26:37):
Think more so now Andrew, because I'm like, I just
know in my core we just deserve so much better. Sure,
and I am very much so doubting that the people
who we need to do better by us have the
capacity or interest to do so let me give you
an example. Let me just give you an example. I

(26:59):
know Tip is like, this is one question. We got
one moment, but it's my last quart. I want to
hit an example, like I got time today. So listen
you guys, and blessed you, and I want to honor
my elders. But God damn it. We had a white woman,
an elder white woman, come to Louisville. The first day

(27:19):
she had us. She was sitting there with her American
flag shirt on, button up, and when I got in
the room, I was telling them how this was a
black focused, Black centered movement to oprahvide relief, opportunity and
policy solutions for our people. I ain't had the mic

(27:40):
down for fifteen seconds before sister girl pulled me to
the side and said, this is not just for black people.

Speaker 7 (27:52):
I saw you.

Speaker 3 (27:56):
How you gonna tell me?

Speaker 10 (27:58):
How are you gonna tell me that this is not
just for black it is for black people? How do
I know because I'm one of the visionaries, ma'am. I
don't even know your name. Alicia Keys, like.

Speaker 5 (28:11):
What are you talking about?

Speaker 3 (28:12):
How are you going to tell me that this is
not for black people? So I said, ma'am, that's what
was going on the inside. Y'all would have been proud.
That's not my response. I said, ma'am, this is for
black people. I said, we orchestrated it that way. And
she said, well, no, because I'm here. And I said,
and I'm so glad you're here. And she was like,
but you have to go. You have to go get

(28:34):
more people like me so that Andrew's face, so that
you can be effective. And I said, ma'am, that is
not my calling. That's your calling, Susie and Larry and Bethanem.
I'm not going to get them.

Speaker 4 (28:55):
That's not what I feel called to do.

Speaker 5 (28:57):
And I was so like a f Did I think
this weekend? No? I think I was on different levels. No, No, No,
I think I was speaking on different levels. She heard
this is a black exclusion exclusive space. That's what you said,
because that's.

Speaker 3 (29:13):
How they moved.

Speaker 5 (29:14):
No, I'm not saying no, no, no, I'm not.

Speaker 2 (29:19):
I'm not.

Speaker 5 (29:20):
I'm talking about the difference and the way it is processed.
And first of all, let's just see white people move
differently in society because the first thing she could do
in this whole event was sent to herself. She can't
talk about she done it.

Speaker 3 (29:36):
Wait and I didn't even get to this part because
I forgot andrew no good. That's what she did the
second day too, to the point where I don't want
to call everybody. I'm gonna call hert Holly Holliday, who
was moderating this conversation for black it's the Black Women's
Leadership Collective Panel. Everybody's listening since came back the next day.

(29:56):
Since you know, Holly's asking if there's any questions. The
woman again and does the same thing, and Holly was like,
now you know you're not on the panel, right right.

Speaker 10 (30:07):
She had to be like, you school, you got a question,
but you can't just be up here with no microphone,
like what are we doing?

Speaker 3 (30:12):
And I think that that is part of the problem.
You have an ego centric leadership and political structure.

Speaker 4 (30:21):
You have an egocentric way of existing.

Speaker 3 (30:24):
That even when people have to create space for themselves
to be seen and heard, you still find a way
to center yourself. Everything about this place has been built
for y'all. If y'all don't let me have this moment
as Simmons College with black people in Louisville, we.

Speaker 1 (30:39):
Gonna have a problem, man, Like, I think that's the
part of the challenge, quite frankly, because and this is
kind of my point, whiteness remains undefeated. So even you know,
that was my point about if every black person voted,
whiteness remains undefeated. So then you go to well, because
I have an issue with all the people like shitting
on the Arab community, the Latino community, Api community, because

(31:02):
y'all leap frogging over all these white folks going after
people in the country.

Speaker 4 (31:06):
Wasn't kind to them either.

Speaker 1 (31:08):
Yes, acknowledging that, there of course is anti black sentiment
in communities, But I'm like, if eighty percent of a
group voted, but twenty percent is trying to ally, I
want to talk to that twenty percent. And so what
is not my ministry is to try to appeal to
the hearts and minds of this idea of whiteness. It's
not my ministry to try to change perspective. It's not

(31:30):
my ministry to seek humanity where I have seen none.
Throughout history, I've seen no evidence of any such thing.
And so I don't know what we do in this space.
So many of you guys, thank you for tuning in.
I'm really so. I'm very receptive. When people come up
to me and you listen to NLP, I'm very receptive.

(31:51):
I'm very receptive to conversation, and I really anticipate disagreement. Sadly,
I have not had a lot of disagreement. People come
up to me and I'm already anticipating the say you
know you're wrong about this, and they're like, sifnany you
keep talking about you feel hopeless. Then I'm bracing myself.
I'm like, yes, give me some hope. You about to
tell me how wrong I am feeling hopeless And they're like, girl,
me too, Like I feel the same way. And it

(32:14):
makes me sad because I'm like, I don't want to
be spreading darkness. I don't want to be spreading hopelessness.
But I am a bit like if that's who they are,
if this woman had the semerity to stand in this
space and center herself and say no, no, no, no,
this is not just a black space, I don't have

(32:34):
anything to say, Like, I don't know that I would
even have the you gave her your time. I don't
even I would have just said, okay, you know, because
how can I convince you you cannot fill a cup
that is already full. If that's how you feel, then
go about your day. And Angel, I'm gonna tell you.
I'm listening to this and I'm like, she wanted a confrontation,
she wanted a viral moment.

Speaker 4 (32:55):
Is she an op?

Speaker 8 (32:56):
You know?

Speaker 3 (32:59):
Up here? She might not be right, but she is
also an official part of the Louisville Democratic Party structure,
which I.

Speaker 4 (33:10):
Think that's just it.

Speaker 3 (33:11):
There's this thing that happens and we all saw it
on steroids after George Flood was murdered, right, all of
our white friends were calling saying, you know, I just
want you to know I read the autobiography of Malcolm X,
and I am Malcolm X. You know it happened so
many times there are but yet there are some other

(33:31):
white folks will be like, I don't know what you're
going through. I just want to hold space. I'm good
with it. I'm gonna be here. Ashanti, who runs a merge,
did a workshop on how to run for office, and
there was a white sister who was with her who
didn't do none of that who didn't do none of
that was just like, I'm happy to be here. What
y'all are doing is dope, happy to support. That's the energy, y'all,

(33:52):
that's the energy.

Speaker 5 (33:53):
Like if we're not, yeah, I think you're giving a
lesson right now, because I actually don't I hear where
Tiff is because lord knows, I've been around a number
of ops. I can't even count them, right, don't even
know them. Yeah, but if I receive it in our
most generous spirit, it would be the woman probably wants

(34:16):
to be an allyship, Yeah, doesn't really know where to
begin and completely has no sense of her space because
she decided to take a space that wasn't hers and
attempt to bend the whole damn thing right her way
and then charge you with the mission of going out
to get more of hers. That's all way, every way
round wrong. So I would just say, if you are

(34:39):
seeking to be an allyship, and you go into a
space like this convening, which has no mix ups in
its messaging about who it is and what is for that,
if you want to be an ally you go and
you listen, especially on day one comment number one, welcome
number one, the first thing you do is stand up

(34:59):
and put your uself in the middle of the conversation,
so that then you're the sun and were just going
around around. You know that doesn't that doesn't work, And
it takes a little bit of self awareness to know that, yes,
in every day of your life you move a particular.

Speaker 3 (35:17):
Way where you got to desire that all you have
to know that.

Speaker 5 (35:24):
You need it. And if you have all your life
and a station of privilege, even if you don't think
you've been in privilege, yes, but that you have the
right to come up and confront me on that. I
don't know many black people who go into foreign spaces
and the first thing they want to do after the
welcome is to tell you all the things you are
not and need to be, and how this isn't of

(35:46):
service to them. Most of us will sit in curiosity,
let this thing go on a little bit, to see
what the shape of it is before we do a thing.
And we've learned that because in most spaces we aren't welcomed,
and when we are, we're little boy patted, little girl
patty and not treated like a hue, you know, like
a like a like a full person and into a

(36:08):
lot of white liberals, my friends, a lot of them.
I know, many of them volunteer in my campaign, and
I believe they wanted us to win, and they worked
like they wanted us to win. But many of them
are in complete unawareness of the privilege in which they
walk in and then the way that they move. Yeah,
and that's because they've never been confronted with a society
where that isn't true. And the only time they have

(36:28):
it felt it is when they've been at an event
with me and realized that they were the only white person.

Speaker 1 (36:32):
Yeah, it's like a birthmark with this incentive to shrink.
It's like a birthmark to us. And as black Americans
where you are, you know, don't embarrass me in front
of these white folks coming here, act like you got
some sense, or you here you become bilingual because you.

Speaker 2 (36:50):
You know, your mom is like I.

Speaker 1 (36:51):
Told you to sit your black ass down, or you
betty get.

Speaker 4 (36:54):
As in this house.

Speaker 1 (36:55):
Yes, every part of our being has been to your point,
Andrew about tapping into our imagination, every part of our
being has been shaped around them, and so they have
no concept. You can let your kids come into a
restaurant and jump all over and throw food and ship
and act the room.

Speaker 4 (37:13):
Freedom.

Speaker 1 (37:14):
They have the freedom to be well because I when
I see black kids doing that, I get an attitude and.

Speaker 4 (37:19):
Then I think, you know, these are black children. Let
them have their joy, like, let them live.

Speaker 1 (37:23):
But I immediately think somebody should tell them kids to
sit down, you know, at restaurants, if you're next to me,
please you.

Speaker 4 (37:28):
Know, but like you guys, kids, you know that's fight
dogs tipped on like I do.

Speaker 2 (37:40):
The people who know your current.

Speaker 1 (37:43):
Yes, but I love dogs if it's dogs that I
love dogs. I'm a grown woman. So no, I'm definitely
not a babyfitter. And you want me to keep your kids,
you just find a babysitter, but usually at a party, airlines, noet.
Just to clarify, like, I have very close relationships with

(38:05):
kids because I always want kids to feel safe. But
I'm I think we should allow space for children to
experience black joy.

Speaker 5 (38:15):
For sure.

Speaker 4 (38:16):
Yeah, but there's no part of.

Speaker 1 (38:17):
Me that dislikes children. Like I think there's a strange
sensation to have.

Speaker 3 (38:21):
But wouldn't I didn't mean like that. I just meant
you would rather watch somebody dog get in the baby.

Speaker 5 (38:25):
That's what I believe probably.

Speaker 1 (38:26):
But I wouldn't do either just because the time capacity.
But we are we are like into this conversation and
we still have another viewer comments.

Speaker 5 (38:34):
I want to make sure your conversation. But I also
just wanted to say before we moved on, before we
went off, you know, the exit ramp is to simply say, also,
black folks have this ability and skill and observation to
be an awareness of a space from a higher level
of sophistication too. It's it's it is knowing your perceived enemy,

(38:55):
or certainly knowing your environment outside of what is your environment,
so that you know how to move to get from
it what you need, what you want, what is in
service to you. And again I think the same is
still true that there are a lot of other cultures,
a lot of other folks, and principally those who are
white in this country who never have to take surveillance,
never have to be aware. When you're the highest thing flying,

(39:18):
you don't look above, right, could you survey what's beneath?
And so in so many ways they are the highest
thing flying, and so an observation of the entirety three
sixty is not a requirement. And for many of us
we got to know the ends, the outs, the exits,
the exit we're gonna create if it becomes necessary. There's
a different level of situational awareness. But I'm with you.

(39:40):
I'd love to hear this next question if we enroll it.

Speaker 8 (39:43):
Hey, native Blamee family. This is Jordan Foster in DC
by way of Newport News, Virginia. I wanted to come
and respond to the question of how do you reshape
the country? I think there are two things that I
would want to see. One, I want to see the
Democratic primaries start this year. That's within this system. I

(40:05):
wanted to see it start this year because I feel
like Trump has gutted so much of the system that
you're whoever is the next Democratic leader. If we get one,
they're gonna have to rebuild everything, and the thing's gonna
take three years for us to really like learn their vision.
And Then two, I think that in whatever new system
we get, I want something where we don't have terms

(40:29):
in the sense that if you get thrown out, someone
just finishes your term. I want to be able to
do a vote of no confidence and we just start
over again.

Speaker 5 (40:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 8 (40:40):
I also want to validate what Tiffany said a few
weeks ago. You guys should definitely be talking more, be
invited to speak more than the guys from Podsave, and
more than like Ezra Klin and people like that, because
you actually understand the stakes as they are, and you're
not just trying to go back to doing like business
as usual, and you have a point of you and
you actually are selling something that is interesting, validating that

(41:05):
so much that I had already been saying it for
like months before you said it. Tiffany, all right, have
a go one.

Speaker 3 (41:13):
Jordan is our New Shade correspondent.

Speaker 4 (41:16):
Thank you, Jordan, Thank you Jordan. I appreciate that.

Speaker 5 (41:19):
I appreciate you.

Speaker 3 (41:21):
I gotta take nobody down to lift your hype your
bestie up though. You gotta do that.

Speaker 4 (41:26):
You know, we hype your best But I would say
this Angela about his point.

Speaker 1 (41:36):
I'm not even gonna get into my criticism of the media,
but it is it's like, I think we're at a
moment in time where we see in every space how
we center white comfort, and so Pod Save America to me, is.

Speaker 4 (41:54):
A a poster of white comfort.

Speaker 1 (41:56):
They're never going to say anything that's gonna make white
folks uncomfort, and so as a result, there will be,
and they're they're not the only ones. But I mean,
like across the board, reporters that the New York Times
have to tailor they're recording for white comfort. Correspondence across
media have to tailor facts for white comfort. We see

(42:18):
all the time. You know, today, I'm just making this
number up. But today or this month, fourteen thousand Palestinian
children or children in Gaza were killed. We don't hear
today the Israeli government killed fourteen thousand children in the
West Bank. We just don't hear things like that. We hear,

(42:41):
you know, over you know, one hundred thousand enslaved were killed.
We don't hear white people killed one hundred thousand black
folks during this time period. And so I think because
we all speak our own, unapologetic, unfiltered truth in our
own way, and you know, here we get to have

(43:02):
nuanced disagreement, we get to deep dive into discussion, we
get to but on a cable news panel, or on
any panel, they would put us all on under the
guise of we all feel the same, like we're all
there representing one position, when the three of us rarely
feel the same about anything. We feel the same about
basic humanity, We feel the same about decency, we feel

(43:23):
the same about equality.

Speaker 4 (43:25):
But that's base.

Speaker 1 (43:26):
Why is that a political point? You know, when you
get rid of that part. We have very different approaches
to liberation. We have very different opinions on what's happening
in democracy right now in the ways to fix it.
So I just I got an issue with that, And
just real quick, this is another thing I got an
issue with too, because these are about the things and
in the video, but these a lot of comments of

(43:48):
people constantly saying that we are not in community and
we don't know about community. One Angela is doing the
State of the People tour. That is an invitation to
all of community. So please go to State of PPL
dot org, dot com, dot com dot com and you
can see will be in LA this week so you

(44:09):
can find us there. But community, I think it was
Tavis Smiley and he said that the Ivy League in
crack cocaine were two of the worst things that.

Speaker 4 (44:19):
Happened to black people.

Speaker 1 (44:21):
And I never understood it until I got older and
I worked with a bunch of black people at a
black network.

Speaker 4 (44:26):
That's the over remain nameless, but all the leadership.

Speaker 1 (44:28):
They were Ivy League graduates, and they thought that appealing
to community meant you were gonna have to appeal to
the lowest common denominator, so to speak, the most ignorant
of the bunch. That meant you were talking to black folks.
And I'm here to tell y'all, the most ignorant of
the bunch is my community. The working class is my community.

(44:48):
The middle class is my community. The uppercross folks in
my community. The way Angela, you grew up with your parents,
they some of the blackest people I know. They're my community.
Y'all didn't have to struggle to prove your black mant.
That's my community. Andrew, the where you live now, that's
my community. Like we are all a community. So this
whole idea, like y'all ain't in community. You have no
idea My Wayian's out there. I promise you. I ain't

(45:12):
never left community. Ain't nobody in my immediate family left
for you have no idea. So I would just I
want to throw out that because that happens a lot.

Speaker 5 (45:21):
Well, see this is why you are our translator on
what's being said in the streets. If you will. But
I appreciate that. But more than anything, we've lived the
way we have lived, and our products and continuing to
produce as an extension of that lived experience. So you
can you can't ever take from me Richmond Heights, South

(45:41):
Miami Heights. You can't goules in Miami. You can't take
from me Gainesville, you can't take from me south side
of Tallahassee all the way to where we are now
and what God has for what the future of that is.
And you know, God blessed the person who is able
to forget that past and make a new. But but

(46:01):
but I am community, just as whoever the mentioner of
that is community. And I think to your point, Tiffany,
about like the nuance and the disagreement and the perspectives
that are so fine in their differences that someone unaware,
someone only looking very servicefully wouldn't pick it up because

(46:22):
they see three brown faces doing or saying a particular thing.
And I've always I've felt this for a long time
about many of the white folks that I have been
in contact with. And my definition or the impact of
community is actually beginning to expand this idea that there
was just some people who can't fit a whole black

(46:42):
person in their mind, like, not just me as a politician,
not me as an activist, not me as a dad
and a father. I'm indivisible. I'm all of those things.
And so when we comment, when we come into a place,
when we bring a perspective, unless we try to delineate
by saying I'm going to separate myself from this, is
that in the third which is which is bull anyway,

(47:03):
because you are a person, You're human, We're an indivisible person.
I cannot be divided between myself. As much as I
might try, or even as much as I might predicate
before I make a statement. I'm me all the way
through and through the worst parts, the best parts, and
everything in between. And my perspective is shaded by that

(47:26):
entire lived experience. And so when you throw me an
ad and you think that that's going to appeal to me,
because to Tif's point, whatever the lowest common denominat is,
you might miss me with that, because that's not where
I show up on this spectrum, on this gradient. I'm
a whole person, though, and I want you to consider
me when you're talking about real America. I'm real America.

(47:47):
Regardless of the population of the place I live or
whether I'm what geographical region of the country. I'm a
real American, and I just I think I thought that
that was a disease held mostly almost exclusively by white folks.
But it is in true form a disease, which means
it spreads. And now it is a concept that we

(48:08):
are incubators of where we can't we can't see the
fullness of an individual in that perspective, but we use,
frankly the majority ruling class shorthand of you not in
the community, or you're not this, and I'm not going
after anybody. I don't read those I don't know about
it the conversation we have, but in general we know

(48:29):
how this works. And I would just say to the
earlier point, to the one that was just made by
this listener question, we can't. It is not some theoretical
exercise and futility for us to think again about the
society we want to live in the rules that control it.
Just as I exampled four months ago, this country and

(48:52):
what we thought its extens were were different than how
we might envision them today. I didn't know you could
close entire departments by one person that you could you
could ameliorate the checks and balance the system by one action.
But all that stuff is happening today on steroids, so
we can, to the other point, imagine something different.

Speaker 1 (49:12):
That's Angela. You wanted to get in you. I saw
you trying to get in when I was saying something.
I want to hear what you have to say.

Speaker 5 (49:17):
Praise the Lord, everybody.

Speaker 3 (49:20):
I don't have anything because we have a guest coming
to join us, and I want to know. I want
you all to know that tiff and Andrews speak for
me even when we disagree, so that I don't think
I disagreed with anything. I want to shout out this brother.
I'm seriously we need him on to be the Shape correspondent.
There's something because he was great and I really liked

(49:41):
how he talked about a strategy that could work for us,
and I think that it is important when we think
about strategies that can work for us, that we have
on people who have toiled, wrestled, fought, were deemed as
crazy or too on matters for many years that we

(50:03):
know are rightfully ours. For over one hundred years, Black
Wall Street has been wrestling with the federal government, the
state government, and the local government to get what they deserve.
And our good brother and friend to Mario. Solomon Simmons
is the primary attorney in lead for the Tulsa Race
massacre survivors and their descendants, and he joins us today

(50:27):
to Mario.

Speaker 2 (50:28):
Welcome home, Welcome, welcome, so do Mario.

Speaker 3 (50:41):
We are so happy to have you. And it is
on such an important occasion, on the eve of an
important occasion, on the other side of an important occasion.
But just recently the mayor of Tulsa had this to
say finally about justice for Greenwood.

Speaker 5 (51:00):
In the work the.

Speaker 11 (51:01):
Offside early department on the establishment and a degrea with dress,
a private.

Speaker 5 (51:06):
Care of dress that raised and still cause they.

Speaker 11 (51:09):
Can investment of one hundred five million dollars of a
private cousin.

Speaker 2 (51:12):
On the rot of repair.

Speaker 11 (51:13):
What's American, but with the sentence is realular nigs at

(51:36):
the center. They have revised the struction of investing the
former mising and home ownership, are raising the twenty four
recide and an investment that has aligned.

Speaker 12 (51:46):
Your euth persons, cause you already out the aligning with
around the apology commission are ready days.

Speaker 8 (51:57):
We wall show do you watch.

Speaker 11 (52:00):
That's the puls of storm cultural storm repgangilation. By investing
sixty million dollars for the bird areeligatory the place to
the scargifts.

Speaker 12 (52:09):
Including our lessons.

Speaker 6 (52:11):
I get this from the.

Speaker 12 (52:12):
Master and the other cultural lamars.

Speaker 11 (52:21):
To touch all f weve all have off develment and
education by attas the twenty one million dollar down for
education scholarships, small business series.

Speaker 12 (52:31):
No clothes and continuating the working closure to the families
of the victims through our recommendment to.

Speaker 11 (52:42):
The Mastery investigation, U wehase investments.

Speaker 12 (52:52):
To restore a degree in magation pulsed overall to the community.

Speaker 4 (52:57):
We should have been.

Speaker 3 (53:01):
So De Mario, I want to come to you because
I know firsthand how hard you have been working on
this announcement with the Mayor, and I just want to
ask you first. I know you got feelings, but I
got to ask you first about Mother Randall and Mother
Fletcher and how they feel about what was done, especially

(53:22):
when you compare what you all asked for and have
demanded for quite some time versus what you've actually gotten
promises for at this point, how are they feeling? What
are they saying?

Speaker 7 (53:33):
Yeah?

Speaker 13 (53:33):
Well, first of all, I was just excited to be
on to talk about this is We're feeling very good
down here. This has been a lot of work, if
you stated, and to have our mayor and gift shots
out to Mayor Monroe Nichols was stepping up to the plate,
being bold and courageous, and that's what we need in
a moment that we're living in today. The survivors are
excited for the community. This is something that they've wanted

(53:53):
to hear. They were both their mother Fletcher at one eleven,
mother Randa at one ten to hear.

Speaker 6 (53:59):
An actual city officials say yes, this was wrong and
we want to do things to fix this.

Speaker 13 (54:04):
And we're still working with our mayor to talk about
exactly what that's going to mean for them as individuals.
And I'm happy to report that the mayor is we're
engaging those discussions as we move forward. And one thing
he stated, I don't know if you have it on
the clip, this is just a beginning. The one hundred
and five million dollars is just the beginning that we
want to have in place by next year.

Speaker 6 (54:24):
It's one hundred and fifth anniversary.

Speaker 13 (54:26):
And obviously our clients are one hundred or those two
clients are one hundred and ten hundred and eleven, so
we're not trying to make them wait a whole year,
so we're still working through but overall they were excited
and happy that this day they got to see this
day and hear with their own ears.

Speaker 1 (54:40):
Jamorirow, I just want to first and foremost say thank you,
thank you for your tireless work, because you know, again,
there are so many heroes at this time that when
you tell the story of America, they should be included,
and I count you among them, my brother.

Speaker 4 (54:56):
You have been so dedicated to this movement. That's how
we met.

Speaker 1 (55:01):
You and Angela have known each other for decades, but
you and I met in twenty twenty one. I believe
in Tulsa, and I was so fortunate to meet the
survivors and rest in power to Uncle Red who was
also one of the survivors, the brother of Mother Fletcher,
who who unfortunately did not live to see this this day.

(55:21):
He passed away. And you're a descendant yourself, So I
just am in awe of you. And this is just
one case that you're working on. You have a lot
of cases. You are on the front lines of a
lot of civil rights battles. But what I love about
you is you are a revolutionary. You're radical, and you
love black folks like you love yourself, and we just

(55:43):
need more people like that. And he's an NLP listener
because he will text me and Angela like, hey on
this episode, here are my thoughts. So it's just an
honor to have you here. My quick question is, and
you kind of answered a little bit, but I'm just
curious how long before were mother Fletcher and Mother Randall
see dollars hit their accounts? And I asked this because

(56:05):
they're one hundred and ten and one hundred eleven. As
you said, when they travel, they have an entire team
of people who travel with them. They have an entire
team of people who take care of them. You know,
my mother Fletcher is she's still very astute, but she
has her grandson and you know, caretakers and those things
cost money.

Speaker 2 (56:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 13 (56:25):
Well thanks a lot, Tiffany for that. And yes, I
just want to one clarification. I'm not actual a descendant,
Mia Is, my wife is a descendant. I'm a Black
Creek descendant. That's a whole Yeah, that's a whole other case.
You know, we're hoping it happens really quickly. Here's the thing,
and this is why I'm so excited to come on
this show outside of me just loving you guys and

(56:46):
loving the show, is the faster we can get money
into the trust, the faster money can be dispersed out.
And so right now, anybody that's listening can help contribute
to this trust. That's why it was brilliant the way
that was set up, and it's something that we wanted
to put forward with the mayor to open this up
not just to the city doing what's right, but inviting
people from all around the nation. So as soon as

(57:08):
we can get money into that trust, money can be dispersed.
And that's what we're working on right now because we
definitely want them to get what they're just do as
soon as possible.

Speaker 5 (57:17):
Yeah, you know, we don't know each other, a lot
of a lot of people in common. My best friend
Chris Chestnut growing up. After I saw you make your
arguments in the State Supreme Court, which I thought you
did a brilliant job. I watched from beginning to end,
really hanging on y'all's words and on the words of

(57:37):
those on the opposite table of you to just hear
what the logic was and what defense would exist for
such a really remarkable and I use that word not
with any sal positive salutation, but remarkable devastation to a community.
And I appreciated the mayor saying could have been right,

(58:01):
because that's the part that got interrupted. We don't know
how many descendant millionaires there could have been coming out
of Tulsa that got truncated. We don't know what those descendants,
descendants could have gone on to do and become in
this country, in the world, because all of that got truncated.
And that's the real to me harm of what has

(58:22):
happened here, is the fact that so much opportunity, future opportunity,
unknown opportunity was extinguished, and that horrible tragedy as well.
I wanted to hear from you, just having listened to
those arguments made by the government, the Chamber of Commerce,
all those other folks, what it meant to you personally
to hear the mayor, the first black mayor of Tulsa,

(58:46):
if I'm not mistaken, to get up and with the
voice not just an individual but the power of the
government behind him make the comments that he made.

Speaker 2 (58:59):
Was there feeling of.

Speaker 5 (59:03):
Deeper level appreciation that we might not be getting on
the surface that it might mean to you and to
the survivors and the other descendants of the survivors to
have the government bring this thing full circle in some ways.

Speaker 13 (59:17):
Yes, we've been worklock working towards that for such a
long time, and this is the first time that we're
not being actually fighting the government, and so that meant
a lot. I must admit, you know, I'm twenty five
plus years into this, and hearing those words, I felt
like a big boulder has just been removed from my shoulders.
Not I mean, I still understanding there's a lot of

(59:37):
work to do moving forward, but to know that we
have at least a willing partner at the City of Tulsa,
and again, we're gonna have to go through a lot.
We got to get this thing set up, make sure
the right advisors, make sure it happens the way it
needs to happen. But man, I just feel like the
vindication for all of the survivors and descendants who started
first of all, you know, just for people who don't
know they're over eleven thousand people that suffer the massacre,

(01:00:00):
those over three thousand people that would disappear, never to
be seen from again, and people started fighting and trying
to get justice. Days even doing the Masacre. We were
fighting so it not to happen. And so it like
vindicates all those people, all those.

Speaker 6 (01:00:12):
People I've worked with, the doctor, Professor Charles ogle Street,
doctor John Hope Franklin, Attorney B. C.

Speaker 13 (01:00:17):
Franklin represented Maxine don Ross Still of the Maxine Hornet,
so many people that have gotten to get to this point.

Speaker 6 (01:00:24):
I mean, I was really holding working hard to hold
back my tears because it was just such a such
validation that this work mattered.

Speaker 13 (01:00:33):
One of my cousins, who is a descendant and also
been in this work for a long time, he said,
now I just feel like someone.

Speaker 6 (01:00:39):
Gave my life back over the last twenty five years.
It wasn't all in vain. And I think that's how
we all feel.

Speaker 13 (01:00:45):
And this is a victory, and particularly for it to
happen in this time period that we're living in MAGA
two point zero, where anything black is criminalized and they're
coming at us very very aggressively.

Speaker 6 (01:00:55):
To see a black mayor stand up and say.

Speaker 13 (01:00:56):
I'm gonna do what's right, I would encourage anyone to
go and look at Mayor nichols actual speech. I think
it's one of the best best speeches I ever heard,
And one of his lines is why should we do this?
One hundred and four years later, he says, simply because
it's the right and decent thing to do. And that's
such a powerful, powerful statement in this time period where
we're living and seeing so many things that are that

(01:01:18):
are not decent and it's unrighteous, that if we can
just stand on the side of righteousness and decency, I
think we can make it out this terrible, terrible time.

Speaker 3 (01:01:27):
You know, I want to I want to come to
you about this because I think it's important too. Sometimes
we go in to demand things. Also shamed to Tip
for trying to make us sound like we AARP card
carry She said, y'all have known each other for a decade.

Speaker 6 (01:01:43):
I was like, whoa, I'm forty nine next week, so
I'm just embracing it career.

Speaker 3 (01:01:54):
But I want us to say this here. I think
that it's important for people to understand that even you
have a list of demands and those demands haven't changed. Again,
you didn't get everything that you wanted talk about some
of the things that you're still pushing the local, state
and the federal government to do. There was a DJ

(01:02:14):
report that came out before the Biden administration's tenure ended.
You know that was okay, but wasn't as helpful as
was needed. Talk about some of what you are still
requiring of the federal government, what you need from the
state government, and which you are also going to continue
to push Mayor Nichols to do.

Speaker 13 (01:02:34):
Man, great question, Angela, as you know because you've been
involved in this very step of the way. When we
presented Project Greenwood to the mayor back in December, we
have thirteen points that included victims, conversation, payment of all
out standing claims, assortment of other things. Out of that,
we've gotten about seven of those things, including a citywide holiday,

(01:02:54):
which is something we have been pushing for for a
very long time. And June first, when he made his announcements,
when he.

Speaker 6 (01:02:59):
Made on the actual city holiday. So we got seven
out of the thirteen things, so over half, and so
you know, we got to be excited. We got to
take the victories.

Speaker 13 (01:03:08):
I mean, we're going we go on one hundred and
four years of no one hundred and four years of
not just no, hell no, obstacles oppositions. So we take
the victories, but we're still looking for, you know, making
sure that the survivors get conversation into their pocket. We
still want the outstanding claims that are still outstanding that
were denied by the city to county, the chamber, and
the insurance companies that deny it claims, and the hundreds

(01:03:30):
of millions of dollars that are still outstanding today according
to the Brookings Institute.

Speaker 6 (01:03:33):
We want those to be paid.

Speaker 13 (01:03:35):
We want a hospital built in Greenwood because there was
a hospital at.

Speaker 6 (01:03:39):
The time of the mascot that was destroyed. We still
want those things.

Speaker 13 (01:03:42):
We still want an actual criminal investigation to hold those responsible.
So those are things that we're going to still be
working towards. On the local level, we still think that
there should be tax abatement. We think that those descendants
who have been paying taxes to the city and the
county and the state for one hundred and four years,
when they're actually old money, there should be a taxabamy
immunity for the same amount of time period that they've

(01:04:04):
been paying in These are things we're going to continue
to be pushing for.

Speaker 6 (01:04:08):
At the local level. One of the things that I
don't know if it's been clear.

Speaker 13 (01:04:12):
We've been fighting in litigation for over forty five thousand
records related to the massacre and the continuing arm that
also was released on June first, and as we get
into those records, we're going to figure out what else
is going on that's at the local and the state level.

Speaker 6 (01:04:26):
At the federal level, I mean, we've been working.

Speaker 13 (01:04:28):
Very very closely with many of our supporters there, obviously
starting first with Representative Anti Maxine Waters, who's been on
this with us for.

Speaker 6 (01:04:36):
Over twenty five plus years.

Speaker 13 (01:04:38):
And then we worked real closely with Representative the late
great Representative Shila Jackson.

Speaker 6 (01:04:43):
Lee before she passed. Her son was.

Speaker 13 (01:04:46):
Actually in town on the first we gave her an award.
But now we're working really closely with our dear brother,
Representive Our Green, who most of us now know as
the man who stood up and defiantly said, hey, you
can I cut this medicaid from these poor people. Well,
Al Green has been someone that's been working with us
behind the scenes, and I'm happy to report that we're

(01:05:08):
working on some federal legislation specifically to benefit the actual survivors, and.

Speaker 6 (01:05:13):
That will be coming to the forefront very very soon.

Speaker 13 (01:05:15):
So this issue is not over with. It's just that
we have great momentum. We have great partners and the
speak of the partners. We couldn't have got here without
so many community, community groups and national partners.

Speaker 6 (01:05:27):
Tifficanally said, we mad twenty twenty one.

Speaker 13 (01:05:30):
When we were everyone wanted to interview the survivors, and
we were very protective of them.

Speaker 6 (01:05:36):
Right it's COVID.

Speaker 13 (01:05:37):
We didn't want We didn't know who needs to talk
to them. I told NBC, I said, I only an
interview with two people. Joy reed of Tiffany.

Speaker 6 (01:05:45):
Cross, and I think that's important that that's how we
need to do.

Speaker 13 (01:05:49):
We need to leverage our power when this opportunity and
from that she was everything that we thought she would
be in much more. From that, this relationship and this
free ship has blossomed, and we continue to just get
more and more. So, Andrew, I'm gonna consider you a
part of just agreeing with family now. Tiffany and Angel
let you know in your episode when you talked about

(01:06:10):
early on what you went through, Man, it touched me
so much. It was one of the most powerful things
I heard. How vulnerable you were and how real you were,
so I appreciate you, brother, I don't always appreciate it all.

Speaker 6 (01:06:20):
I don't always agree with all your positions.

Speaker 5 (01:06:22):
I appreciate you so good with Tiffany and Angel in
your text.

Speaker 13 (01:06:28):
And one day you know, I've still suffer. I had
speech impediment growing up, and I still suffer with my words.
I want to be as clear of my diction as
you are all the time.

Speaker 6 (01:06:36):
I'm very impressed with.

Speaker 5 (01:06:39):
Really beautifully.

Speaker 3 (01:06:45):
But so he might mispronounce it, but you it was
definitely articulated clear. I said.

Speaker 6 (01:06:52):
I wish I could talk.

Speaker 8 (01:06:53):
Like that too.

Speaker 1 (01:06:55):
I just I want to ask you because we're at
a time I'm feeling a bit hopeless, which I've talked about.
And before you joined us, we were talking about that
whiteness remains undefeated, you know, and I was making the
point in this last election, if every black person voted,
it wouldn't have been enough to outdo whiteness. And because
you have said, you say that you you know, want
to be like Andrew and how he speaks. But I

(01:07:17):
think the things that you say. And we've become friends.
I'm friends with Mia, your lovely wife, who's a newswoman.
So please give me and mia our love. But I'm
just curious your thoughts right now. I love listening to
your positions on things. And so yeah, just as you
look at what's happening, we got this one win, which
makes it that does give us some hope and gratitude.

(01:07:41):
But as you look out on the country, I don't know,
what do you think? You how do you feel these days?

Speaker 13 (01:07:47):
Well, I would say this, If whiteness is undefeated, blackness
is too because we're still there, demit.

Speaker 6 (01:07:53):
You know, in nineteen twenty one they stated goal was
to run the Negro out of Tulsa, and we're still here.
The state of goal.

Speaker 13 (01:07:59):
Since we've been here in this country is to extract
all our labor and get rid of us. Yet we're
still here. This is a difficult, terrible time. It's a
dangerous time. It's a time that's pretty unprecedent, even for
black folks. We have a federal government in our lifetimes
that is not only just attacking us, but.

Speaker 6 (01:08:15):
Just openly corrupt.

Speaker 13 (01:08:17):
And so while we have despair, and hey man, I
have had many nights of despair and depression and figuring
out where I need to move to, But we have
to stay in the fight, stand in the fight, stay focused,
continue to have community.

Speaker 6 (01:08:27):
That's why I'm so proud to be a part of
the State of the Tour. Stay of the People tour
that you are in.

Speaker 13 (01:08:33):
Angela's leading, just getting people galvanized and organized.

Speaker 6 (01:08:36):
But understand that we're going to This is a long road.
But listen, man, we've been through a lot as a people.

Speaker 13 (01:08:42):
We've been through enslavement, We've been through Jim Crow, We've
been through red lining. The Tulsa massacre was just one
of hundreds. The only thing that makes it unique is
the side, scope and scale of it. So we have
to be very clear headed and understand. And what I'd
like to say is, like the people, we look at Greenwood,
we look at the massacre, but let's talk about what
created Greenwood, and I call it to think Greenwood principles,

(01:09:04):
and if we practice them as a community, I think
we can overcome. And first of all, it's community love.
That was the first principal of Greenwood. The second one
was self determination. The third was ownership and not just
ownership of things and land, but ownership of ourselves, ownership
of our community, ownership of our own mentality.

Speaker 6 (01:09:22):
And then fourth was education and wealth.

Speaker 13 (01:09:24):
Concentration, not the fact because a lot of people like
to talk about Greenwood because of the economics and Black
Wall Street. I'm not talking about that. When I say
education and wealth concentration, I'm talking about cooperative economics. I'm
talking about working together and saying we're gonna build for
ourselves so we can all prosper.

Speaker 6 (01:09:40):
We don't have to all be millionaires. We don't all
need to be millionaires.

Speaker 13 (01:09:44):
And fifth, and I think to really go to your
question right now, Tiffany, the fifth principle.

Speaker 6 (01:09:48):
Of think Greenwood, it's willful resilience.

Speaker 13 (01:09:51):
Wilful resilience doesn't mean we're not gonna get tired, doesn't
mean we're gonna feel despair, doesn't mean we're not gonna
have defeats. But we're gonna have wilful resilience. And to
have that willful resilience, we've got to keep our eye
on the prize, on what we're trying to accomplish, and
also take care of ourselves. Make sure we're getting proper resk.
How many times I'm sending you to Angela, are you
getting some resk? Are you drinking your water? Are you

(01:10:12):
are you deconnecting? Because I'm preaching that you to myself
because I struggle with that too, because I feel that grind.
But if I'm not well and healthy, then my family
won't be well and healthy, my neighborhood, my community, and
so forth.

Speaker 3 (01:10:25):
And so on. A word every time, every time I
was going to ask you to d You know, we're
living in this era now where banned books is the norm.
On the tour, we've given away so many banned books,
and we were at the same time folks are fighting
about history being accurately reflected in textbooks and classrooms, but

(01:10:48):
also on the National Park Services site for the federal government,
before they were proactively banning books, they were still at
least banning history. Read the Tulsa history in some of
your own textbooks. Can you please tell our audience do
when you first learned about the Tulsa Race massacre, how

(01:11:08):
old you were, where you were, and how that is
a similar experience for so many, too many students in Tulsa, no.

Speaker 6 (01:11:14):
Question about it.

Speaker 13 (01:11:15):
You know, I went to school in middle school, Cover
middle School right on Greenwood Avenue, went to a great
booker to Washington High School, which is a pride of
Greenwood and North Tulsa. And I didn't learn anything about
the massacre too. I was sitting in intro to African
American Studies class and I was a football play at Universal, Oklahoma.
I'm just in the class trying to chill, and the
professor started talking about Tulsa and the massacre. They called
it riot at the time, and I was like, Nah,

(01:11:38):
that's not accurate. I raised my hands in man, I'm
from North Tulsa. That's not true. And obviously I was wrong.
That was nineteen ninety seven. I was twenty two, twenty one.

Speaker 6 (01:11:46):
Twenty two years old before I heard about it, and
it changed my life. It changed my life. I was
so embarrassed. I couldn't believe I had a degree my
socials degrees in history.

Speaker 13 (01:11:55):
I have a social degree in history and now I'm
not at a four year school playing ball, and I
didn't know my own history, of my own backyard, and that.

Speaker 6 (01:12:02):
Changed my life.

Speaker 13 (01:12:03):
Ever since that day, I've been passionate and pretty much
some people stay obsessed who and making sure that we
educate about not just the massacre though, but Greenwood as
a whole, and then also advocate for justice and reparations.

Speaker 3 (01:12:17):
I think it's so powerful for people to hear that,
because one, I don't want them to be ashamed that
professor d altered the trajectory of your life's purpose and mission.
And even though it was late, it wasn't too late.
It was actually right on time. And I think it's
important for our folks to know whether you get the
experience of learning our history as it should be told

(01:12:40):
in the history book, or you learn it at home,
which is what I had. That is the privilege I have.
Often think about privilege as a spectrum. I have black
art on the walls and black books on the shelves
because my parents didn't play about that. But that's not
everybody's truth. Everybody can't even afford that. So what else
are you all doing, especially about ensuring that this generation
of you Tulson's folks that are at least tangentially associated

(01:13:04):
with Greenwood never forget because they won't have to.

Speaker 6 (01:13:07):
Well, first of all, that's why the holiday was so important.

Speaker 13 (01:13:09):
I don't believe holidays and up themselves is enough preparatory justice,
but it was important to make sure that.

Speaker 6 (01:13:15):
This history was never erased. For eighty years, the city
of Tulsa denied that the masks even happened.

Speaker 13 (01:13:20):
Now we have an actual official city holiday that's going
to be celebrated every year. So that's one thing we're doing.
And then Justice for Greenwoo for all those who want
to connect with our work. At Justicefgreenwood dot org. We
have a whole genealogy department. We have five outstanding genealogists,
and today we have a descended community, the largest in
the nation, of almost a thousand people. We've done the
genealogy for almost three hundred of those individuals where we

(01:13:42):
concertify what we call chronicle.

Speaker 6 (01:13:44):
That they are who they say they are.

Speaker 13 (01:13:46):
We've done oil histories of over seventy of these individuals
and we're going to be having an archive and putting
forth those ore histories so they're there and that's an
ongoing process. And every time someone does an or history
with us, we give them a five hundred dollars honor
for their time and for them participating in their own liberation.

Speaker 6 (01:14:03):
And so those are some of the things that we're
doing and we're just looking forward to continue to connect.

Speaker 13 (01:14:08):
If you think you may be a Tulsa, a Greenwood descendant,
just give us a call, go to Justice Free God
or our genealogist is completely free. We also work very
closely with our Black Indians who helped build Greenwood, particularly
the Black Creek Indians, which I am one who helped
build Greenwood, to do that genealogy and just bringing this
history to the forefront, because without the Black Indians, there

(01:14:29):
is no Greenwood. And if you don't have justice for
the Black Indians, there is no justice for Black green
for Greenwood. And I will say we do have a
Supreme Court hearing in the Moscoia Creek Nation coming up
on June tenth.

Speaker 6 (01:14:40):
We beat them back two years ago and they're ap.

Speaker 13 (01:14:42):
Pilling this and if we are successful, over one hundred
thousand black people who are Creek ancestry, we'll have citizenship
rights within the Creek Nation.

Speaker 6 (01:14:51):
Not on ely would they regain their heritage and their
birth right who they are.

Speaker 13 (01:14:55):
But they have access to life alter and life saving
resources like healthcare, educations, allarships, housing, childcare, et cetera. So
you guys be praying for us on June tenth as
we bring that justice for Black Creeks. As a part
about justice for Greenwood work, we.

Speaker 1 (01:15:09):
Have to have you back because that the case that
you have with the Black Creeks is fascinating, and that
was a history I didn't know. I obviously knew there
were black Indians, but I didn't know the specifics around
what happened with the black creeks in Oklahoma.

Speaker 4 (01:15:24):
I would love to have you back talk about that.

Speaker 3 (01:15:26):
I'd love to do it, Mario. I know you gotta go,
But before you go, unless Andrew has something.

Speaker 5 (01:15:31):
No, because I'm watching the clock, and.

Speaker 3 (01:15:36):
Very quick, because you've made me lay to a meeting
before too. Of course, I just this is my brother, y'all.
I just got to ask you this really quick. Mayor
Nichols stood ten toes down in his courage. And there
are other elected officials who find themselves now or they

(01:15:56):
may soon, in similarly situated positions. What advice do you
have for them around, you know, making a community hall
after race massacre, making a community hall after you know, slavery,
making a committee a community hall around redlining. Whatever the
local impact or the state base or the national impact

(01:16:17):
has been, what advice do you have for them?

Speaker 13 (01:16:19):
Act act at Bowld leads back courageously do and I
would go back to Mayor Nichols.

Speaker 6 (01:16:25):
Do the right and decent thing, listen.

Speaker 13 (01:16:27):
I know, brother reus Morgan at a lot of flak
because he's you know, he vetold a study.

Speaker 6 (01:16:33):
I'm on the I'm in the in the in the
camp of we don't need very many more studies. Act,
bring legislation. Do what Mayor Nichols did.

Speaker 13 (01:16:41):
He acted upon actual recommendations that came from the people
on the ground.

Speaker 6 (01:16:45):
So go, if you elected an official, deal with the people.

Speaker 13 (01:16:49):
On the ground that the actual experts, bring them in,
let them know what you can do, and then do
what you can. Like you said, Angela, we had thirteen
points we wanted to see happened.

Speaker 6 (01:16:57):
We didn't get all thirteen. There were some things that
at the mayor at this point just maybe he can
get done. Okay, fine, that's work.

Speaker 3 (01:17:03):
What we can do.

Speaker 13 (01:17:04):
So do what you can if you elected official, do
what you can. One thing that we see with the
Trump administration and Republicans in general that you.

Speaker 6 (01:17:11):
Have to respect. They exercise the power when they get it.

Speaker 13 (01:17:16):
They take care of their people. They don't say, well, hey,
I don't know how this is going to work out.

Speaker 4 (01:17:21):
They do it.

Speaker 6 (01:17:22):
And that's what we need.

Speaker 13 (01:17:22):
The people on our side, be it the people on
the progressive side or it's the so quote unquote left
or black elected of leaders, because as the one sister
said in the commisment speaks, black faces and high spaces
won't save us, especially if they're not actually using their power.

Speaker 6 (01:17:37):
So my deal is just act, be courageous, and do
the good and decent thing.

Speaker 5 (01:17:42):
I love that. Man. Thank you your gift, your gift
not to just the folks in Oklahoma, your gift to
all of us.

Speaker 9 (01:17:49):
Man.

Speaker 6 (01:17:49):
Oh, I appreciate you.

Speaker 3 (01:17:50):
And Tippy does have dogs? Where your dogs at?

Speaker 7 (01:17:53):
Oh?

Speaker 4 (01:17:53):
I know all about the dogs.

Speaker 3 (01:17:54):
You already know.

Speaker 13 (01:17:55):
I know me A's babies, and yeah, I'll put them
over because I didn't want to get in trouble with
the pot folks.

Speaker 6 (01:18:01):
They started barking and whatnot.

Speaker 5 (01:18:02):
No to the show conducted with them.

Speaker 3 (01:18:08):
We had a big gretch on here. Gretchen Whitmer, she
had dogs. She made Tip made a lifted that five
hundred pounds. You have to see the dog. So I
just was gonna see if you have show she loved
to make.

Speaker 13 (01:18:18):
But she gets all type of pictures all the time
like her and me and talk all the time. So yeah,
well listen, I'm looking forward to seeing you all in
Baltimore and connecting with you guys.

Speaker 6 (01:18:28):
Because I'll be done with a lot of this litigation
my birthday, Like I said, June fifteenth, forty.

Speaker 2 (01:18:32):
Nine, Happy birthday, Baltimore.

Speaker 6 (01:18:34):
I appreciate that I'd be there.

Speaker 3 (01:18:36):
Listen, Yeah, you gotta do a panic. I told you
you got to reach out to may Or Nicolas. See
can he come. I'll certainly do this as the elected
officials need to hear from him on what it took
and what his next because this ain't the in this
is the beginning, as he said, and as you said, Yeah.

Speaker 13 (01:18:49):
Angela, you were at one of those meetings, and you
know we talked to him about, hey, he could really
be a trend set of here.

Speaker 6 (01:18:55):
And I think this is a model you know Greenwood,
And I know I got a jump.

Speaker 3 (01:18:57):
But Greenwood was a this on you.

Speaker 6 (01:19:00):
Greenwood was a national model for Black America, for black people.

Speaker 13 (01:19:05):
What we're doing now Greenwood would be the national model
for cities around this country or how to repair the harm.
We have a particular formula that I'm looking forward to
share it with those when we come to Baltimore. How
you organize, mobilized, educate, and galvanize the community towards action.
This didn't happen another vacuum, and it took the time.
This was a marathon out of spread. Many times I
get upset about the marathon. But this can happen in

(01:19:27):
other cities, particularly with city Tulsa is only eighteen percent black.
You got cities out here twenty five, thirty, forty percent.

Speaker 6 (01:19:34):
Come on.

Speaker 13 (01:19:34):
But there's a formula to make this happen, and we
know what that formula is. And then with Mayor and Nichols,
he can talk it from the elected leader side.

Speaker 3 (01:19:42):
I love it, thank you, I Looktimore.

Speaker 4 (01:19:50):
That was excellent. I just I loved love me. I
love his dogs.

Speaker 5 (01:19:56):
All right, Before we close it out today, we got
to take it into that breakpace. Some bills we'll see
on that side.

Speaker 1 (01:20:11):
I'm would just tell you I will say the thing
that my co host may be a little uncomfortable with.
But I do have to say that if we can't
even act on a study with respect to Governor Wes Moore,
because people ask like, are you all gonna talk about this?
You're gonnaddress this? I mean, these are the things that
we have to lead with conviction. And this is also

(01:20:33):
the space where we center other folks comfort. We're censuring
white comfort in that, and it is disheartening when we
expect someone who looks like us, someone who knows firsthand,
to act on our behalf, and then they do not.
So I'd be curious if he ever wants to come
on the podcast. He has an open invitation, because I

(01:20:56):
would love to hear his rationale and his thoughts about
why he vetoed uh this study for reparations, just as background,
Governor Wes Moore, who is the first black governor of Maryland,
vetoed a reparation just a bill to study what reparations
would look like. And I've seen your comments asking us

(01:21:16):
to talk about it, So here we are talking about it.

Speaker 4 (01:21:20):
You know, we'll we'll address it.

Speaker 1 (01:21:21):
We have a relationship with the governor and I'm I
don't know for certain, but I'm I would imagine that
he or somebody on his team may have heard from Angela.

Speaker 4 (01:21:29):
I don't know. This is me speculating.

Speaker 1 (01:21:31):
I don't know, but I'm sure when that announcement came out,
but he heard from a lot of people about it.

Speaker 4 (01:21:37):
So that's out of my name.

Speaker 3 (01:21:39):
But hold on, angree, because you know when they do
that in the debate, when your name is thrown.

Speaker 5 (01:21:44):
Research, I promise.

Speaker 4 (01:21:46):
So let me just say this first.

Speaker 3 (01:21:51):
I think that it is right that many of us
and I'm including myself in this, are so tired of
a study like we don't have to study this. You
can see the societal impact even what you brought up
earlier about we have been trained to shrink in spaces.
That was for safety and it is a generational trauma

(01:22:12):
that we carry. That is an example of what slavery
has done to our people. We don't need no more studies.
In Maryland itself, they have studied the impact and the
harms of slavery over and over again. They have those results.
My advice to the governor and to his brilliant wife,
Don who is also a tremendous advisor, and to so

(01:22:36):
many others is to act just like de Mario said,
it is to implement. If we know the conclusions of
those studies, let us publish, publicize those studies. Let's tell
people where they are and what can be done given
the climate that we're in. I think if we know
that the President of the United States is probably very

(01:22:58):
threatened by Governor Wes Moore, you going to be hit anyway,
you know, so let's be clear about the fact that
you can't shrink from that and so live in and
embody the same courage that it took to get you there.
He has so much support in Maryland, and I think
that if I would have advised anything, it would have
been for them to be clear with the Black Caucus

(01:23:18):
on the front end. You know, Maryland writ large is
a really tremendous example of what black political power can
and should look like, especially when you represent so many
black folks in the state. So I just want to
see them on the same page. And I don't think
that they're that far apart. I think that the legislature
did what we knew what they know that we know

(01:23:39):
what they know to do based on even once it's
been done in HR forty every Congress, and that can't
even get out the Judiciary Committee. It dies in the
Judiciary Committee, even when Democrats are in charge. So they
did the easier thing because they thought this was the
least the most reasonable service. But in an era where
we're being attacked on DEI and equity and Affirmative Act

(01:24:00):
SIN and still incarcerated for stuff for no reason, we
should be able to do more than look at the harms.
We should be able to implement solutions for the harms
that exist.

Speaker 1 (01:24:08):
Well, let me just conversation. Tell your friends the please
to the show. We are tight on time, Handrew, And I.

Speaker 5 (01:24:16):
Know anyway you want to talk about the budget, I'm
going to say this part and maybe this will become
the many part.

Speaker 4 (01:24:25):
You want your call to action?

Speaker 5 (01:24:27):
Did you want to talk about it this part too?

Speaker 2 (01:24:29):
It'll be this part, Tiff.

Speaker 3 (01:24:30):
He said, it's the mini part.

Speaker 5 (01:24:32):
Yes, clearly, all of those. It's all those things. I
have too many thoughts on the on the Maryland situation. Uh,
but I prefer to lift up brother Nichols, the mayor
of Tulsa, the first black mayor of Tulsa. I followed,
you know, from the outside a bit of his race,

(01:24:54):
and I saw interviews that were being done mostly of
white citizens and Tulsa who prior to the election, we're
expressing views of he can help, heal the wounds. He
can you know, he's just like my son. He's a
regular guy who just wants to do good things. I
remember those comments. They're familiar to me and the races

(01:25:17):
I've run. I've never been elected to a seat that's
been majority black, and not even close to in most
races I've ever run. And in this case, the courage
that this brother had to summon. When people put you
in a place because they think you're going to when
they say heal the wounds, they really do move past it, right,

(01:25:40):
and by virtue of us putting you at the helm
of this government, let this be noticed that we're moving
past it. Brother Nicholas took that as a different admission.
He thought you were not only putting him there to
do the right thing by everybody, but he really does
mean everybody, including the historic everybody that were impacted by

(01:26:02):
the history in that city as relates to the Greener
community and the Tulsa Race massacre. But I still can't
let the moment pass without giving the brother his due,
because he's in a place where you could see him
tiptoeing around it, if touching it at all, or finding
it much more convenient to maybe commission a study. We're

(01:26:26):
not talking about a man who's in a place where
they're thirty five percent of the population are black, where
you're surrounded in your church and your grocery store, and
in your neighborhoods wealthy or poor by people who look
like you, Maryland. We're talking about a place where it's
in some way, it's probably still uncomfortable to be in
the skin he's in. Yet he chose to take the

(01:26:46):
position that he was in, take the whole of the government,
and acknowledge a wrong doing, a harm that was done.
Which is why I wanted to hear Tomorrio's thoughts on that,
because I imagined, as he expressed, that you would be
in a place of almost disbelief and maybe a sigh
of relief, that you would breathe the deepest breath you

(01:27:07):
breathed in a long time when you get to hear
the government, because he's not just a black man. Just
as when I talked about people protesting me, I wasn't
just the ally it's sitting in on a floor. I
was representing the government. And when you do that, it matters.
So for the cowards out there, may you learn. But

(01:27:29):
I hope that this man will be an example of
the things that are possible when preparation and opportunity meet
and you happen to be in position to make the play.
And I thought that given the horrors of what occurred,
and frankly, the disappointment after disappointment after disappointment that have

(01:27:50):
been felt that that was a powerful thing to do.
And we hear a lot of time from listeners and
others and commenters of how government doesn't work. It don't
do nothing for us, It hadn't changed anything for me.
We owe it to them to lift it up when
it actually does work, and it does the courageous and
the right thing, and there are people who can lift
to benefit from it and tell about it, and now

(01:28:12):
we can go on to all the other great things.

Speaker 4 (01:28:14):
Well, the question I was.

Speaker 1 (01:28:15):
Trying to ask you is did you want to do
the budget or do y'all want to keep this one care?
We can keep this conversation going to make it a
two parter.

Speaker 4 (01:28:23):
If we can.

Speaker 3 (01:28:25):
I would love for us to talk about the budget,
because I like what you suggested, Tiff about the idea
of inviting wes On to be able to speak for
himself unless you're wanting to back it out of Maryland
and have a broader conversation on what's required of elected.

Speaker 1 (01:28:47):
Okay, Well, let's do CTA's real quick and then let's
go right into the budget.

Speaker 3 (01:28:52):
Okay, I'd be really really fast. My call to action
for this week y'all know I've been heavy on this
State of the People Power tour, and the tour concludes
Andrew wisniff right in the middle of my stuff. But
when the tour concludes this week in Los Angeles, we
are going to be gearing up for our Juneteenth celebration

(01:29:14):
and convening our National Assembly in Baltimore, Maryland. We start
on Juneteenth, which for those of you who don't know,
is June nineteenth, and we go through the twenty first.
It will be so amazing. I am going to ask
in this for a call to action to be that
Andrew and Tiff will help to moderate one of those
conversations that are going to be amazing around our black papers.

(01:29:36):
And I think that we should be there, you know,
as much as we can, even if we do some
mini pods to wrap ups or you know, just to
kick things off on each day. I think that would
be dope. There's some ideas, but please make sure you
register at STATEOFTHEPPL dot com slash Baltimore. You all, I
can't tell you how spiritual I feel like it's going
to be. Already We're going to be an empowerment simple

(01:29:57):
AAMI church. You cannot just pop up up, can that
pop out and show? As Kidrick could say, you got
to actually make sure you register. We don't really want
to do registration on site because we want to know
how much food to feed y'all. And guess what, y'all
is great? You got to get your reparations somewhere. It's
from your people. So come on Baltimore, Maryland, and I'm

(01:30:17):
gona yield to Tip and Andrew.

Speaker 1 (01:30:19):
All right, I will yield my time to Andrew's call
to action because I echo all of his thoughts there in.

Speaker 4 (01:30:25):
Essence of time.

Speaker 1 (01:30:26):
We want to say, you know, we've gone on a
while on this podcast. Thank you guys for tuning in.
If you enjoyed the episode, please share with your friends,
tell somebody like subscribe, do all the things. You can
check out other shows on Reason Choice Media. Our girl
Jamel has politics and there are gonna be some new
shows dropping, so stay tuned here to pick that up.
Be sure to tune into this week's mini pod. We're

(01:30:47):
gonna get into the budget. I don't know how many
days there are to midterm elections, because I don't know
that midterm elections matter anymore.

Speaker 4 (01:30:54):
So that's my hopeless.

Speaker 12 (01:30:56):
Say this.

Speaker 3 (01:30:57):
I'm gonna say that, Jim, let me screw it out.

Speaker 1 (01:30:59):
Five hundred, I'm many, sixteen days. All right, Thank y'all,
Welcome home morning.

Speaker 3 (01:31:05):
Thank you for joining the Natives.

Speaker 14 (01:31:07):
Attention to what the info and all of the latest
rock gulum and cross connected to the statements that.

Speaker 5 (01:31:12):
You leave on our socials.

Speaker 3 (01:31:14):
Thank you sincerely for the patients.

Speaker 14 (01:31:16):
Reason for your choice is clear, so grateful it took
the execute role for serve, defend, and protect the truth,
even if paint we welcome home to all of.

Speaker 2 (01:31:25):
The Natives wait.

Speaker 12 (01:31:26):
Thank you.

Speaker 3 (01:31:39):
Native Lampard is a production of iHeart Radio in partnership
with Reason Choice Media. For more podcast from iHeartRadio, visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.

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Tiffany Cross

Andrew Gillum

Angela Rye

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