October 19, 2022 • 37 mins
While campaigning to become the first Black woman governor in United States history, Stacey Abrams linked up with Questlove Supreme in Atlanta, Georgia, for a live QLS taping. Stacey tells Team Supreme what is at stake with this crucial election and why voting early is imperative. Stacey recalls her early days of activism and bringing light to important issues. She also discusses her favorite TV shows and music and how she has overcome challenges with public speaking.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Question Love. Suprema is a production of I Heart Radio
Suprema s Fremo, Road to a Prima su Primo roll
call sub Prima su prima Role called Suprema su Prima Role.
(00:23):
There's new de Land. Yeah, hear what I'm saying. Yeah, Abrams, Yeah,
and I'm not playing roll call president Frema su Prima
role call su Prima so suprima role call. My name
is Fante. Yeah, and I'm showing love, yeah, Stacy Abrams. Yeah,
(00:45):
Verse black woman go ro call Suprema Subramo, road crist
down s Frema su Frema road car s Supreme Yeah
and where the freshest Yeah, I'm Sugar Steve. Yeah, and
I approved this message sum so Primo roll call Prima
(01:08):
so so prima role called Yeah with Stacy A Yeah,
and we're all about to listen to what she got
to say. Roll call Soma so Fremo, roll call so
Prima su Primo roll call. The name is Stacy. Yeah.
(01:29):
I tried to win. Yeah, it didn't happen the first time. Yeah,
so I'm doing it again. Suprema roll called Prima So
I need a primo roll call so Prema roll call
Suprema so Fremo roll call, Yo, you made a better
(01:53):
guest verse than some musicians. That was Yeah, that was
That was definitely top five in the sixth year history.
Everyone's like, oh, money, I don't know. Oh yes, I
am Michael Jackson. Okay, So, ladies and gentlemen, we are
being given the honor of having a sit down with
(02:16):
the human being that I credit for literally holding our
democracy in place. You know, I'm trying not to be
hyperbolic or that extra pressure, but you know, I'm speaking
facts right now, and much like my beloved state of Pennsylvania,
Georgia is going to be a fight to the finish,
(02:38):
and you know, for the two percent of you that
have your head in the sand, November eight is a
crucial date for not only Georgia, but for this country
and for history. I feel like it's our due diligence
to offer our platform. And yes, like normally this is
a platform for musicians and artists like or whatever, but
(03:00):
I think it's our due diligence to give our guests
today the platform because I often feel like people who
listen to us, often like people who are creatives, there's
sometimes you know, very indifferent right here, like well, you know,
I'm beginning the political stuff or whatever, or they just
simply feel like maybe the trickle down effect won't affect
(03:23):
them that much than it already has. And I can't
stress to you find folk enough that. Yeah, I know
there's uh fatigue and you know, but we have to
fight this good fight. And I'd rather us be fatigued
than to be lying on our backs and then wondering
what happened months after the fact. Uh. And I believe
(03:45):
in our guest today because she is about that action.
And you know, it's like the wild West out here,
and it's time to get serious. And I want, yeah,
I want you people to take time out to really
get yourselves familiar if you aren't already with the person. Yes,
and I said in my verse, I I do believe that,
(04:05):
you know, first of all, I believe in her affirmation.
And yeah, she is going to win. But you know,
I believe that President. I'm talking to the future president
right now, not to put pressure on you, but us Georgia. First,
let's work on this job. Yes, yeah, one step of
the time. So you know, our guest today running for
governor and I just found out will successfully be the
(04:29):
first African American governor. Ever, we're still dealing with first yes,
first female black governor in the United States and future podist.
Let's have it, Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Stacy Abrams.
Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, you know
(04:53):
it's weird because you know, I know that you know,
living a life in which you're trying to correct history
and right wrongs and whatnot. And you know, I often
feels the like introductions like that do nothing but add
more pressure to the person than it already is. But
just in general, I want to know for you, not
(05:15):
how exhausting is it, but just on the every day
of of knowing that pretty much most of us are
looking at you specifically to you know, at least hold
this country in place as the adhesive that we want
it to be, because if it doesn't happen, then a
lot is going to change. But I mean, just for
(05:36):
you in general, like I'll offer you the platform to
answer this question, like why do you feel that you're
qualified to be the person to save us? There is
an urgency that I feel every day in part because
of what I know about what the world can be
and what I know about what it is. I grew
(05:58):
up with five brothers and sisters. My parents were working poor,
but they took us out to volunteer because my my
dad's succinct way of saying it was having nothing is
not an excuse for doing nothing. But what that grounded
in me and what my mother, who would say, you know,
no matter how little we have, there's someone with less.
Your job is to serve that person, is that It's
(06:18):
not just about material. It is about it's about advocacy,
it's about efficacy, it's about access. And when you've seen
people who should have had but were denied, if there
is any degree of empathy in you, you feel compelled
to do something well for me. It's a systemic issue.
I grew up in Mississippi. I came of age in Georgia.
(06:40):
I've lived in Texas. I went to the North, but
it was cold. I came back um. But so I
was born in Wisconsin. I barely remember that. Oh yeah,
I remember cheese, kurds and cold. And then I went
to law school in Connecticut. So I went to Yale
and in both places their challenges everywhere, but in the
South we've been gaslighted into believing these are permanent issues.
(07:04):
And I know it's not. So. I know that the
South not only has something to say, but we can
demonstrate a capacity that we have been fooled into believing
isn't our right. And as someone who's gotten people to
listen sometimes, I'm really good at asking people to do things.
I'm pretty good at organizing stuff. My responsibility is to
(07:27):
keep pushing until I can't push any further. And so yeah,
I appreciate the PLoud It's I see myself more as
an avatar for all the other people who are trying
to do this work but don't get the access I've gotten.
I'm louder than a lot of people, and I'm more
relentless than many because I don't know how not to
do this. I don't know how you sit still when
(07:49):
you see the issues before us. And I know that
democracy is how I mean, you use the right word.
It's the adhesive, but it's also the tool kit. And
so for me, this heart has to be done. And
if not me, then you know who. Okay, So I'm
one of those people who's definitely guilty of you know,
I'll watch MSNBC or something, shake my head like somebody
(08:12):
I do something like if anything I think in the
last three years, I was the king of Man. I
was somebody with da da da da da, and then
I find that I'm the person that's called to do that.
For you, what was the pivotal moment, like back when
you were at Yale and I'm right before that, Yeah, right, okay, Well,
(08:33):
I mean back when you were in college where what
were your lofty goals in life? Like are you imagining
that some fifteen sixteen years later that you'll be in
the position that you are now or were you just like, Okay,
I'm gonna be a lawyer or da dada or I
had like twenty seven majors in college. I was physics
(08:54):
and philosophy, with a minor in theater. It finds out
I liked star Trek, but not differential account calculus, and
when you can't stay awaken epistemology, it's probably not the
thing to do when there are only four people in
the classroom. I like acting, but not enough to make
it my life's work, and so I flitted through a
bunch of other things. But what was the through line
(09:14):
for me was activism. The pivotal moment for me when
I realized that it wasn't just an inherited property from
my parents. It was part of my DNA. When the
Rodney King decision came down in I was a freshman
at Spellman, I organized students to protest. They locked down
our campus. I was at the a U C. And
if you if you know Atlanta, they locked down I
(09:35):
twenty so you could not get off of the interstate
and come to our unit, to the University Center, says Spellman, Morehouse,
Clark Atlanta, Morris Brown, I T C. And More School
of Medicine. And then they tear gassed us. They tear
gas the entire area. And this is under a black mayor,
and this is but the schools were juxtaposed next to
(09:56):
some of the oldest housing developments in the nation. And
so the issue was we weren't, you know, elite students
and poor communities. We were all black, and we were
all basically accused of the same anger. And the problem
was the protests were real, because the pain was real,
and so I helped organize students. Actually got into an
argument with then Mayor Maynard Jackson. He won the argument,
(10:19):
but because you couldn't argue, and I was like my
cleanest teachers and my nicest jeans, but he still won.
But he later hired me to work in the newly
created Office of Youth Services. Okay, let me ask something, um,
because you know, I did not go to college, like
immediately got a record deal and had a career. I
always wanted to know when we protest on a college campus,
(10:42):
like what's the goal, especially when like the issue is
three thousand miles away in Los Angeles? Like how has
that trickle too? So two things. One, what Rodney King's
with the verdict was evocative of was the lack of
justice from police. And that was happening in Atlanta, that
was happening in Georgia. And part of it was where
poverty exists, where racism exists, you were going to find
(11:04):
police misconduct. And there was also the larger issue of
simply the evidence of our eyes being denied. Those things. Well,
Rodney King was emblematic of it. He was, but he
was only one example. He was the first example that
got caught on tape. But people had those experiences everywhere,
and that's why it was so inflammatory. The protest I organized.
(11:28):
We started this moment, we watched we marched from the
a U C all the way to city Hall. So
to your point, I I didn't go to a college
where protesting at the college made a less sense because
we all pretty much agreed the most effective protests leave
the safe spaces and go into the public spaces. So
we made sure that march went past the housing projects,
went past the liquor stores, all the way down to
(11:48):
city Hall. That's how I ended up getting into the
tete a tete with the mayor. But the but to
your point, there are some campuses where protests on campus
is it's effective because if you're at Harvard, you're talking
about billions of dollars and economic influence. If you're in
a you see that the numeric the monetary effect is smaller,
(12:10):
but the salutary effect is bigger because you have people
who may have been conditioned to think that they were
the exceptions to the rule, who have to remind themselves
that they are part of the same fabric that People
don't ask you, They don't investigate did you go to Spellman?
Why are you in the AUC why are you in
Southwest Atlanta. They just see someone who looks like something
they've been taught to be afraid of or taught to disregard.
(12:33):
And this is true for a lot of different communities
of color. It's true based on your economic situation and
where protests comes in, as protests moves beyond the space
that you inhabit, and it tells the rest of the
world you've got to pay attention. It's a bullhorn exactly.
So do you consider that moment your first footprint in
(12:54):
political action? It was my parents, will tell you, because
my mom and dad were in grad school here in
uh In Georgia, then moved back to Mississippi at and
I gave out my phone number to tell people during
the protest, like if you're if you want to join us.
I didn't think through the fact that was giving my
parents home number out. Yeah know, and and they pointed
(13:19):
that out to me later on as the phone started
to ring. But for me, it was it was it
was both in a moment of empowerment but a moment
of ownership that I I wanted to be a voice
for people who didn't know they deserved to be in
that march, They didn't know that they deserved to have
better and who had been lulled into thinking that because
(13:41):
you had leadership that looked like you, that they shared
all of the same issues that you shared, and that's
just never true, that that notion of monolithic power is
just not real. And so even within spaces, the Maynard
tax is extraordinary mayor. But in this issue, when it
came to youth poverty, he had not done what I
thought needed to be done. So job was to push that,
(14:02):
and so for me it was it was a moment
of reckoning, Like did I actually believe the things I
was saying when I was safely on campus? And it
turns out yes, I did so at the time where
you like student body president or like, I don't know
what the president system is for college. I used to
be president of my ninth grade class, But I mean,
like for you, so I wasn't then I eventually did.
(14:23):
I was at that point, I was just an annoying
freshman in college. You and you were a freshman. That
was my freshman year, So how did you, like, isn't
it hard for a freshman to get the respect in
the I was relentless and we're people like afraid of
being suspended or kicked off campus or yes, so one
thing that happened part of a kind of short shortcut
of the story but it was a few phases when
they were tear gassing the campus. This is before social media,
(14:46):
this is before cell phones, and this is when you
only had the television stations, the broadcast stations. So I
organized students in my dorm to call all the broadcast stations.
They were lying saying that we were running amok and like, no,
we are angry in protest uesting both on the campus
and out in the community, but this isn't a riot,
and they were missed communicating what was happening. So I
(15:07):
had a bunch of friends call all the stations and
flood the stations, and the stations got wise to us
and said, well, who's calling, And so I said just
tell them you're me to like seventy five Stacy Abrams
is calling, and that that amplified my voice. Again, didn't
think through the consequences when they sent the police to
come and get me to take me to this event.
They I wasn't being arrested, but I was invited to
the simulcast because all of the stick the television stations
(15:29):
in Atlanta came together because this was a crisis, and
so the mayor was there and I was invited as
one of the students to be there, and so that's
sort of that lifted my platform a bit more than
I expected. As I'm so curious, just one as a
student as we're in this Spellman moment, I'm curious, did
you what we are full of experience? Wasn't college? Was
it all work and no play and activism? Or but
(15:51):
at a pivotal time in Atlanta period like a limp
post Olympics maybe, So I was right before the Olympics,
right before Okay, so right before the Olympics. So can
you talk about like what kind of student you were
in that way, like did you have fun social? Because
I was a nerd and I'm I'm an introvert. So
I heard this. That's why I was surprised the first
mean year you went all out and started Well, I
(16:12):
was that wasps? You mentioned star Treks, So that was that. Well,
next generation was out. So your PA card Girl, the
card j like I I do. The whole universe is
everything like Luca John Luca every day this person I'm
(16:39):
for the thirty plus years good even though she's still good.
So I this is probably the best example. When I
became student body president, part of your job is to
make sure that their social activities. I got two of
my best friends. I created a position called the Social
Activity Coordinator, so I wouldn't have to go to parties.
So you wouldn't have to go. Yeah, so I would
(17:00):
set up the parties. They would I would come at
the beginning to say hi, and I would come at
the end to make sure know I stole anything. Otherwise
I was back in my dorm. You would go to
everybody was trying to get to go out, and you
were like, I have meaningful things to do. I never
went on spring break. What well, why would you pay
money to go sit in somebody else's hotel. I mean,
like I was, I had a dorm, I could read anywhere.
(17:23):
Like Okay, So you said something, and I think you know.
I try to pull as much personal inspiration information from
our guests that come on this show. But I'll ask
you because I feel like the one small task that
I'm holding myself back from actually crossing the line to
(17:44):
where you are, despite the fact that I'm hosting my
own podcasts and do other things. How do you get
over the fear of speaking, because I've seen you speak
before it, you know, for an introvert you project. Well,
I guess it's the acting help. But so, yeah, I
(18:04):
grew up in the church, so we had to do
the Easter programs, manspation, proclamature programs. Never liked any of it.
I'm not afraid. You had to read sister and sister, Yes,
all of the stuff, you name it, we did it.
My fear isn't public speaking. I'm reticent about being around
(18:25):
lots of people. So when I was in high school,
I joined the debate team. I had a psychosomatic case
of laryngitis because it occurred to me that I couldn't
be I wouldn't be debating by myself, that other people
would see me do it. And suddenly my voice didn't work.
And went to see the nurse and she's like, there's
nothing wrong with you. Yeah, And that's when I also
(18:48):
learned what psychosomatic because what psychomedia looked like. Artists often
do that, and that's often an issue on this show,
like when people self sabotaged their progress or whatever. Well,
I had to get over it because I was going
to fail the class if I didn't. Actually you have
to have to speak. But the way I get past
it is that it's not about me. It's about what
they need to hear. It's about what people need to know.
(19:09):
I can get past the you can't sublimate it, but
you can work around it. And I think you do that.
You do that, you find yourself in public spaces speaking,
You give yourself a script, you give yourself a an objective.
And for me, the objective has changed. It's getting people
the things they need. And if my discomfort gets them
(19:30):
to what they need, then I'm willing to do it.
It is never fun, I have never I don't enjoy it,
but I'm good at it. And the consequences of inaction
to me are worse than the consequences of action. And
so for me, the cost benefit analysis. You know, Stacy
stopped having a laryngitis and go into your job. Okay,
(19:52):
speaking of inaction, and let's cut to the chase here.
November coming up, and you know, I know, uh, specifically
my specific demographic, which is black men and year nineteen.
First of all, I'm very shocked at the statistics that
(20:15):
we I mean, I'm not I'm shocked, and I'm not
shocked because I know that we're the first to complain
about something and really the last you know, to really
wanna do do the groundwork if you will. So you know,
I'm finding out that black men vote the least, or
probably feel the least, probably represented or you know, and
(20:37):
I know I got many uncles and cousins and friends
ain't not going to happen and they ain't run for us,
or they the FEDS or they ops or whatever. So
for you what you're facing in Georgia, and that will
subsequently affect because you know, if Kemp does remain in power,
then I know that laws are going to be implemented.
I'm already pissed about this whole, Like we can't give
(21:01):
water to people or aid to people. So just in general, like,
use this platform to explain to us what is at stake?
So you said, how does that happen? And what's at stake?
We have a governor who ran his first campaign on
rounding people up and pointing weapons at people and saying
that he was a politically incorrect conservative, he was a
(21:23):
Trump Conservative, and then people because he didn't commit treason
once in he didn't commit treason by he did what
every other governor in American history has done, and he
certified the election. He's been given praise and lionized. See
and that's part of the challenge. The memory is short
(21:46):
and we are and so he gets credit. Now what
people aren't aren't paying attention to. And this goes to
the issue with so black men have let's be clear,
they vote, but it's the vote share, So vote shares
the proportion you have in the population versus the proportion
you haven't turned out. Black women have the highest vote share.
(22:07):
We vote our numbers. The next group is white women,
then the group after that as white men, then black men.
So the issue is not that black men don't vote,
it's that their power in their vote is under so
they fight below their weight class. And so the goal
that I have is not to say that black men
no one, and no one should suggest that black men
(22:27):
don't vote. It's that they don't. They fight below their
weight class. And if black men fought their full power,
it changes things. But they are legitimate reasons that doesn't happen,
especially in Georgia. Georgia had at one point the fourth
highest incarceration rate in the nation, and it was predominantly
black men. And Georgia, like Florida, nearly permanently dis franchises
black men, and those who aren't permanently disenfranchise are you know,
(22:50):
flooded with so much misinformation they don't know they have
the right to vote. Then you have communities that when
you have generational poverty, generational stereotypes, and generational investment, no
government doesn't work. You've seen people who look like you
get elected and do nothing. But the reason that often
is true is that we tend to elect In Georgia
and in the South, we elect black people at the
(23:11):
local level. And we you know, we finally started to
make some progress at the federal level. But state government
is the intervener that stops many good things from happening.
Governors matter, especially now. Standard Ground was signed by a governor.
That's why Trayvon's murder went unavenged. The treatment of black
(23:32):
women as parasites through the social safety Net that happened
under a governor in Wisconsin. Mass incarceration did not start
with the ninety four crime billets started with three strikesure out,
which was signed by Governor Pete Wilson and California Jim
Crow never had a single federal law. It was all
state governors in nine Southern states, and so we we legitimately,
(23:53):
especially black men, legitimately protest the lack of delivery. But
we don't understand that the delivery system is the state,
not the local government. In the State of Georgia, the
governor decides how much money gets spent. The governor sets
the budget, the governor signs the laws. In the city
of Atlanta, in two thousand and three, I helped write
(24:15):
the first living wage law for the state of Georgia.
The Mayor of Atlanta signed that law. By the following January,
that law was illegal in the entire state. They made
it illegal for a local government to pass a law
for living wages. On call scheduling hurts a lot of
black men who want to be a part of their family.
Hours a lot of people. But you're on on call scheduling.
(24:36):
You want to be able to plan your day. The
Secretary of State, the person currently as Secretary of State,
as a state legislator, passed the law that says that
no one can know local government can require that on
call scheduling actually respect the humanity of a person working.
The Governor, Brian Kemp, in the midst of COVID, passed
(24:56):
the law saying that you couldn't sue your employer for
not pretend sting you from COVID didn't do a thing
to demand that you could access to PPE, but he
did make it impossible for you to file a lawsuit
against the when he reopened the state. When they forced
you back to work, they could make you come to work,
but he didn't have to protect you when you got there.
That's this governor. That's why I'm confused in state because
(25:17):
most people don't understand they all they know is that,
well he reopened the state. Yeah, thirty eight thousand people
are dead. Yeah, we were. I was literally having this
conversation with because I was like, I want to have
a conversation with some young folks that actually live here.
And I was talking to to the young folks behind
the camera and we were talking about Georgia is a
little is different in the sense, and they're from Chicago
and Detroit respectively, and now their residents. But speaking to it,
(25:39):
I supposed to we go Wade yesterday and I said,
I don't understand why the polls say that things are closed.
When y'all was here, y'all saw not even I mean COVID,
that's nice, but we saw what the injustice that happened
to Stacy and he said to me, he said, yeah,
but politicians always cheat, And I was like, well yeah,
(26:00):
but that was what we the whole world watched, and
it was just a matter of fact, like Georgia kind
of felt like, Okay, you know what this is. This
is some Georgia excuse my language, ship in a way,
some South ship where things go a little differently in
the Northeast. Yeah, it couldn't be so blatant. And we
would never have let a man like that only be
governor again and re going again, think he has a
(26:21):
chance again. The law he passed that is voter suppression
two point oh this law and not only says you
can't have water or food, he's outsourced voters voter purging.
Sixty four thousand people have had their voter registrations challenged
because he and Brad Rathsenberger put in place a law
that says that you can any person can walk into
(26:43):
a county board of elections and say I don't think
that Amir has the right to vote, and you have
to prove that you have the right to vote. They
don't have to have any evidence. And it used to
be that if it looks fishy. The Board of Elections
can say this is this is crazy. We're not gonna
do because they now have to process every single challenge
and in Gwinnette County alone, thirty seven thousand voter registrations
(27:07):
were changing. It's no, but this has happened across the state.
But this is the same state where, because of Brian
Kemp's law s P Two two four different boards of elections,
the people who control where the polling is, if you
get your if your names there. They kicked all of
the black people off of the board and it is
legal in Georgia for them to do so. Brian Kemp
(27:28):
did that. But the reality is, and this goes just
to the larger issue not only black men, but of
the urgency of this election. If this is what they're
willing to do, now, imagine when he is a lame
duck governor who can't run for office again, when he
has five has nothing to lose. He's got his billion dollars.
He already took our bodies away from us and the
right to He's got six billion dollars at his disposal.
(27:52):
We have a surplus. Once you pay every bill. We've
got six billion dollars sitting there. He has told us
his intention is to give this money to the wealthy,
and so part of the goal of today, and I
appreciate this conversation, is that most people are so legitimately
consumed with their lives and with their fears and with
(28:13):
their realities that politics feels like an extra burden. I
like to say politics. You may not be into politics,
but politics is into you, and it is a stalker.
And we have to understand that stalking usually turns into
something grave and terrible that you will one day see
on lifetime movies. And so we've got to push back.
(28:35):
And my my job, my interest, my intensity is because
I know what the consequences are if we don't do it,
but I also know what the possibilities are if we do.
We can invest in people, we can restore bodily autonomy.
We can make certain that black men and black people
a large but black men in particular, get re enfranchised
and actually have an active role to play in their futures.
(28:58):
Instead of a governor who thinks that restoring mass incarceration
is an okay thing to do. For cats like me
on the sideline, that we want to do something now,
last year, you know, I raise money, went out on
the streets, I mean even handed out what like I
would go to polling places and all those things. What
can we do and not celebrity civilians because we all
(29:23):
want to people. What can we do to help alleviate
the situation that I know is going to be problematic?
So number one, feel free to give me money. But
here's what No, but here's why I am running the
So our campaign has the single largest voter engagement apparatus
in the state. That means going into the places that
(29:45):
most people don't go to get to the voters. Most
people ignore. That's what that's what we do. But it
takes money because I actually pay every canvas or we don't.
We pay a living wage to our campuses. Yes, in
a college, but but when you to go to a
small place, when you've got to go to col Quick County,
or go up to Dade County, or you're in Clayton
(30:05):
County and you've got to knock on all these doors
and these apartment buildings, this is a job and people
need to take So we need volunteers. But before we
get volunteers, I need people who I know can show
up to work every single day, so your investment is
in that work. Number two, I need volunteers. I need
folks to reach out to their communities. But I also
need people to talk about this on social media. The
(30:25):
other side is spending a lot of time pretending this
doesn't matter. Every negative narrative you here, they amplify it.
They will tell a lie a thousand times until it
sounds like the truth. We tell the truth one time,
and we shut up when no one says a men.
I need us to talk about what is at stake
and who is who these people are, who my opponent is,
(30:46):
and who I am. And we may not agree on everything,
but if you look at the totality of my work,
I show my work, and so think about if you've
got a guess who's going to do a better job,
the guy who's told you he doesn't care about you,
or the woman has shown care. But I need folks
to be talking about this. In eighteen there was a
national conversation. This time it's been a more a bit
(31:07):
more muted because we've been dealing with so many things.
I was gonna say, yea, how do you think the
pandemic COVID? How you think that is a pandemic, COVID inflation,
racial violence. People are tired and you you, you laid
it out very well in here. People are exhausted. But
pain doesn't care about your exhaustion. Politics doesn't care about
your exhaustion. Our responsibility is to show up anyway, because
(31:31):
the consequences are going to visit us, whether we invite
them or not. Okay, so let me ask you this
as your sister. And it's funny. I do another podcast
with two sisters, Jill's gotten in Asia from Kincher's Family Soul,
and we're always talking about self care. I need to know,
Stacy Abrams, what is your self care ritual? Do you
do have something daily? What do you do for self
(31:52):
so that you can go out and give all this
energy to all these people because it cost I watched
an inordinate amount of television and I eight books. When
I say I watched a lot of TV, it is
a bit absurd. Right now, I'm watching Eureka because I
didn't watch Eureka when that came out before. I love it.
So I'm on season five and it's really good. I'm
(32:13):
waiting for The Equalizer to come back because I love
Queen Latifa. I watched all of the FBI s. I
think they're twenty seven of them now, um, yeah, I
watch you on Order. You got to decide? Well, well
know I'm on Lawn Order. Yeah season. Well yes, so
I know they did all three of them on the
twenty second, but I haven't haven't had a chance to watch.
But yes, do you watch the first Law and Order?
(32:33):
Because I watched that. No, he was on s v
S VU was the tight. I watched all of the
law I've watched Law and Order UK. When I say
I watched TV, I okay, there's a Lawn Order UK? Yes,
and is the sting to have an accent? Yeah? You
(32:54):
know what. I'm putting it out there? Have you organized
an outcast from Union? They will come? Well, I think
i'm talking to the person who can make it happen.
He's talking to you. I'm talking to h you know
what someone should get out? Oh boy actually lives five
(33:17):
minutes away from me. I'm just saying, don't have boy
in his name? Yeah, the one that doesn't have He
goes fishing in Long Island like four days a week.
So yeah, I'll call it. But what are you listening to? Stacy?
I'm curious, my my, So, I have a sixteen year
old niece who now lives with me. All right, you know,
(33:40):
so I don't want to tell you what I listened
to because everything I say out loud she cringes at So. Yeah,
most of our musical tastes are frozen from when we
were basically between the ages of ten and twenty five.
I have expanded my universe since then, but when it
comes back to just the core narrative. But I'm curious,
who who do I listen to right now? I just
(34:01):
had to do some I just did a photo shoot,
which that sounds so bougie, But anyway, so they play
music because well it's awkward to do this stuff, and
so they play music to relax you. So it was
tribe called quest Uh, it was Whitney. Um, there was
new addition, of course. I also loved Van Halen and
(34:23):
Stone Temple Pilots. There was some Fiona Apple. Yes, I
listened to a broad range. There was and I'm not
just pandering. There was some roots. So was the last
time you had to go to a show? Like? Was
the last time you had time to go to a showy? Well,
last night I was at Alicia Keys concert for fourteen
seconds so she could say hi and thank you that
(34:45):
yeah oh yeah. So once you step anything by Missy Elliott,
you just get me hip up. And I have a deep,
end abiding commitment to all of the fun songs done
by Ludicrous he Day. Look, this is fun one because
it feels like this is a ten minute episode of
course of Supreme, even though I know that we've it
(35:07):
was longer than Michelle out. Can you come back after
you win? I can? You know? I really appreciate it,
and you know you're you're an inspiration for it for
a lot of us on the sideline that like someone
should do something, and can I give people one more
thing to do? I need people to vote early starting
(35:29):
October seventeen, vote early, so Georgia has three weeks of
early voting and the reasoning people to vote as early
as they can early voting because we know suppression is
on its way. We know they're making it hard to
get absentee ballots. They're making it hard to know you're
polling places. They've changed the rules. And if you go
to the wrong polling place and you're in line for
four hours and you get to the end and it's
the wrong polling place. They will not accept your ballot. Yes,
(35:51):
it's called provisional ballot. So the way to the way
to overcome voter suppression is not to let it win
by staying home. It is by overwhelming the poll with
our presence. But we need to show up early. We
get there the first week, we get all of the
we know all the problems. We can get as many
things out of the way, and so we're really just
dealing with the biggest issues, but with fewer and fewer
people as we get close to election day, show up early.
(36:14):
If we show out on the week of October, there's
no stop in us. There, he goes, it's happening the
big day back. I don't even live here. I'm taking
a cueue from I'm Finished Business and EP. Yes, this
is the big payback for our guest today, Stacy Abrams.
Thank you very much, future protus on behalf of no.
(36:40):
You know, I believe in affirmation and and putting it
out there won't be happisode to Steve like I'm p
Bill you missed another classic and this is a quest
love and thank you agatting Stacey having this. We'll see
you next time. Thank you. What's Love Supreme is a
production of my heart Radio. For more podcasts from my
(37:05):
heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Question Love. Suprema is a production of I Heart Radio
Suprema s Fremo, Road to a Prima su Primo roll
call sub Prima su prima Role called Suprema su Prima Role.
(00:23):
There's new de Land. Yeah, hear what I'm saying. Yeah, Abrams, Yeah,
and I'm not playing roll call president Frema su Prima
role call su Prima so suprima role call. My name
is Fante. Yeah, and I'm showing love, yeah, Stacy Abrams. Yeah,
(00:45):
Verse black woman go ro call Suprema Subramo, road crist
down s Frema su Frema road car s Supreme Yeah
and where the freshest Yeah, I'm Sugar Steve. Yeah, and
I approved this message sum so Primo roll call Prima
(01:08):
so so prima role called Yeah with Stacy A Yeah,
and we're all about to listen to what she got
to say. Roll call Soma so Fremo, roll call so
Prima su Primo roll call. The name is Stacy. Yeah.
(01:29):
I tried to win. Yeah, it didn't happen the first time. Yeah,
so I'm doing it again. Suprema roll called Prima So
I need a primo roll call so Prema roll call
Suprema so Fremo roll call, Yo, you made a better
(01:53):
guest verse than some musicians. That was Yeah, that was
That was definitely top five in the sixth year history.
Everyone's like, oh, money, I don't know. Oh yes, I
am Michael Jackson. Okay, So, ladies and gentlemen, we are
being given the honor of having a sit down with
(02:16):
the human being that I credit for literally holding our
democracy in place. You know, I'm trying not to be
hyperbolic or that extra pressure, but you know, I'm speaking
facts right now, and much like my beloved state of Pennsylvania,
Georgia is going to be a fight to the finish,
(02:38):
and you know, for the two percent of you that
have your head in the sand, November eight is a
crucial date for not only Georgia, but for this country
and for history. I feel like it's our due diligence
to offer our platform. And yes, like normally this is
a platform for musicians and artists like or whatever, but
(03:00):
I think it's our due diligence to give our guests
today the platform because I often feel like people who
listen to us, often like people who are creatives, there's
sometimes you know, very indifferent right here, like well, you know,
I'm beginning the political stuff or whatever, or they just
simply feel like maybe the trickle down effect won't affect
(03:23):
them that much than it already has. And I can't
stress to you find folk enough that. Yeah, I know
there's uh fatigue and you know, but we have to
fight this good fight. And I'd rather us be fatigued
than to be lying on our backs and then wondering
what happened months after the fact. Uh. And I believe
(03:45):
in our guest today because she is about that action.
And you know, it's like the wild West out here,
and it's time to get serious. And I want, yeah,
I want you people to take time out to really
get yourselves familiar if you aren't already with the person. Yes,
and I said in my verse, I I do believe that,
(04:05):
you know, first of all, I believe in her affirmation.
And yeah, she is going to win. But you know,
I believe that President. I'm talking to the future president
right now, not to put pressure on you, but us Georgia. First,
let's work on this job. Yes, yeah, one step of
the time. So you know, our guest today running for
governor and I just found out will successfully be the
(04:29):
first African American governor. Ever, we're still dealing with first yes,
first female black governor in the United States and future podist.
Let's have it, Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Stacy Abrams.
Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, you know
(04:53):
it's weird because you know, I know that you know,
living a life in which you're trying to correct history
and right wrongs and whatnot. And you know, I often
feels the like introductions like that do nothing but add
more pressure to the person than it already is. But
just in general, I want to know for you, not
(05:15):
how exhausting is it, but just on the every day
of of knowing that pretty much most of us are
looking at you specifically to you know, at least hold
this country in place as the adhesive that we want
it to be, because if it doesn't happen, then a
lot is going to change. But I mean, just for
(05:36):
you in general, like I'll offer you the platform to
answer this question, like why do you feel that you're
qualified to be the person to save us? There is
an urgency that I feel every day in part because
of what I know about what the world can be
and what I know about what it is. I grew
(05:58):
up with five brothers and sisters. My parents were working poor,
but they took us out to volunteer because my my
dad's succinct way of saying it was having nothing is
not an excuse for doing nothing. But what that grounded
in me and what my mother, who would say, you know,
no matter how little we have, there's someone with less.
Your job is to serve that person, is that It's
(06:18):
not just about material. It is about it's about advocacy,
it's about efficacy, it's about access. And when you've seen
people who should have had but were denied, if there
is any degree of empathy in you, you feel compelled
to do something well for me. It's a systemic issue.
I grew up in Mississippi. I came of age in Georgia.
(06:40):
I've lived in Texas. I went to the North, but
it was cold. I came back um. But so I
was born in Wisconsin. I barely remember that. Oh yeah,
I remember cheese, kurds and cold. And then I went
to law school in Connecticut. So I went to Yale
and in both places their challenges everywhere, but in the
South we've been gaslighted into believing these are permanent issues.
(07:04):
And I know it's not. So. I know that the
South not only has something to say, but we can
demonstrate a capacity that we have been fooled into believing
isn't our right. And as someone who's gotten people to
listen sometimes, I'm really good at asking people to do things.
I'm pretty good at organizing stuff. My responsibility is to
(07:27):
keep pushing until I can't push any further. And so yeah,
I appreciate the PLoud It's I see myself more as
an avatar for all the other people who are trying
to do this work but don't get the access I've gotten.
I'm louder than a lot of people, and I'm more
relentless than many because I don't know how not to
do this. I don't know how you sit still when
(07:49):
you see the issues before us. And I know that
democracy is how I mean, you use the right word.
It's the adhesive, but it's also the tool kit. And
so for me, this heart has to be done. And
if not me, then you know who. Okay, So I'm
one of those people who's definitely guilty of you know,
I'll watch MSNBC or something, shake my head like somebody
(08:12):
I do something like if anything I think in the
last three years, I was the king of Man. I
was somebody with da da da da da, and then
I find that I'm the person that's called to do that.
For you, what was the pivotal moment, like back when
you were at Yale and I'm right before that, Yeah, right, okay, Well,
(08:33):
I mean back when you were in college where what
were your lofty goals in life? Like are you imagining
that some fifteen sixteen years later that you'll be in
the position that you are now or were you just like, Okay,
I'm gonna be a lawyer or da dada or I
had like twenty seven majors in college. I was physics
(08:54):
and philosophy, with a minor in theater. It finds out
I liked star Trek, but not differential account calculus, and
when you can't stay awaken epistemology, it's probably not the
thing to do when there are only four people in
the classroom. I like acting, but not enough to make
it my life's work, and so I flitted through a
bunch of other things. But what was the through line
(09:14):
for me was activism. The pivotal moment for me when
I realized that it wasn't just an inherited property from
my parents. It was part of my DNA. When the
Rodney King decision came down in I was a freshman
at Spellman, I organized students to protest. They locked down
our campus. I was at the a U C. And
if you if you know Atlanta, they locked down I
(09:35):
twenty so you could not get off of the interstate
and come to our unit, to the University Center, says Spellman, Morehouse,
Clark Atlanta, Morris Brown, I T C. And More School
of Medicine. And then they tear gassed us. They tear
gas the entire area. And this is under a black mayor,
and this is but the schools were juxtaposed next to
(09:56):
some of the oldest housing developments in the nation. And
so the issue was we weren't, you know, elite students
and poor communities. We were all black, and we were
all basically accused of the same anger. And the problem
was the protests were real, because the pain was real,
and so I helped organize students. Actually got into an
argument with then Mayor Maynard Jackson. He won the argument,
(10:19):
but because you couldn't argue, and I was like my
cleanest teachers and my nicest jeans, but he still won.
But he later hired me to work in the newly
created Office of Youth Services. Okay, let me ask something, um,
because you know, I did not go to college, like
immediately got a record deal and had a career. I
always wanted to know when we protest on a college campus,
(10:42):
like what's the goal, especially when like the issue is
three thousand miles away in Los Angeles? Like how has
that trickle too? So two things. One, what Rodney King's
with the verdict was evocative of was the lack of
justice from police. And that was happening in Atlanta, that
was happening in Georgia. And part of it was where
poverty exists, where racism exists, you were going to find
(11:04):
police misconduct. And there was also the larger issue of
simply the evidence of our eyes being denied. Those things. Well,
Rodney King was emblematic of it. He was, but he
was only one example. He was the first example that
got caught on tape. But people had those experiences everywhere,
and that's why it was so inflammatory. The protest I organized.
(11:28):
We started this moment, we watched we marched from the
a U C all the way to city Hall. So
to your point, I I didn't go to a college
where protesting at the college made a less sense because
we all pretty much agreed the most effective protests leave
the safe spaces and go into the public spaces. So
we made sure that march went past the housing projects,
went past the liquor stores, all the way down to
(11:48):
city Hall. That's how I ended up getting into the
tete a tete with the mayor. But the but to
your point, there are some campuses where protests on campus
is it's effective because if you're at Harvard, you're talking
about billions of dollars and economic influence. If you're in
a you see that the numeric the monetary effect is smaller,
(12:10):
but the salutary effect is bigger because you have people
who may have been conditioned to think that they were
the exceptions to the rule, who have to remind themselves
that they are part of the same fabric that People
don't ask you, They don't investigate did you go to Spellman?
Why are you in the AUC why are you in
Southwest Atlanta. They just see someone who looks like something
they've been taught to be afraid of or taught to disregard.
(12:33):
And this is true for a lot of different communities
of color. It's true based on your economic situation and
where protests comes in, as protests moves beyond the space
that you inhabit, and it tells the rest of the
world you've got to pay attention. It's a bullhorn exactly.
So do you consider that moment your first footprint in
(12:54):
political action? It was my parents, will tell you, because
my mom and dad were in grad school here in
uh In Georgia, then moved back to Mississippi at and
I gave out my phone number to tell people during
the protest, like if you're if you want to join us.
I didn't think through the fact that was giving my
parents home number out. Yeah know, and and they pointed
(13:19):
that out to me later on as the phone started
to ring. But for me, it was it was it
was both in a moment of empowerment but a moment
of ownership that I I wanted to be a voice
for people who didn't know they deserved to be in
that march, They didn't know that they deserved to have
better and who had been lulled into thinking that because
(13:41):
you had leadership that looked like you, that they shared
all of the same issues that you shared, and that's
just never true, that that notion of monolithic power is
just not real. And so even within spaces, the Maynard
tax is extraordinary mayor. But in this issue, when it
came to youth poverty, he had not done what I
thought needed to be done. So job was to push that,
(14:02):
and so for me it was it was a moment
of reckoning, Like did I actually believe the things I
was saying when I was safely on campus? And it
turns out yes, I did so at the time where
you like student body president or like, I don't know
what the president system is for college. I used to
be president of my ninth grade class, But I mean,
like for you, so I wasn't then I eventually did.
(14:23):
I was at that point, I was just an annoying
freshman in college. You and you were a freshman. That
was my freshman year, So how did you, like, isn't
it hard for a freshman to get the respect in
the I was relentless and we're people like afraid of
being suspended or kicked off campus or yes, so one
thing that happened part of a kind of short shortcut
of the story but it was a few phases when
they were tear gassing the campus. This is before social media,
(14:46):
this is before cell phones, and this is when you
only had the television stations, the broadcast stations. So I
organized students in my dorm to call all the broadcast stations.
They were lying saying that we were running amok and like, no,
we are angry in protest uesting both on the campus
and out in the community, but this isn't a riot,
and they were missed communicating what was happening. So I
(15:07):
had a bunch of friends call all the stations and
flood the stations, and the stations got wise to us
and said, well, who's calling, And so I said just
tell them you're me to like seventy five Stacy Abrams
is calling, and that that amplified my voice. Again, didn't
think through the consequences when they sent the police to
come and get me to take me to this event.
They I wasn't being arrested, but I was invited to
the simulcast because all of the stick the television stations
(15:29):
in Atlanta came together because this was a crisis, and
so the mayor was there and I was invited as
one of the students to be there, and so that's
sort of that lifted my platform a bit more than
I expected. As I'm so curious, just one as a
student as we're in this Spellman moment, I'm curious, did
you what we are full of experience? Wasn't college? Was
it all work and no play and activism? Or but
(15:51):
at a pivotal time in Atlanta period like a limp
post Olympics maybe, So I was right before the Olympics,
right before Okay, so right before the Olympics. So can
you talk about like what kind of student you were
in that way, like did you have fun social? Because
I was a nerd and I'm I'm an introvert. So
I heard this. That's why I was surprised the first
mean year you went all out and started Well, I
(16:12):
was that wasps? You mentioned star Treks, So that was that. Well,
next generation was out. So your PA card Girl, the
card j like I I do. The whole universe is
everything like Luca John Luca every day this person I'm
(16:39):
for the thirty plus years good even though she's still good.
So I this is probably the best example. When I
became student body president, part of your job is to
make sure that their social activities. I got two of
my best friends. I created a position called the Social
Activity Coordinator, so I wouldn't have to go to parties.
So you wouldn't have to go. Yeah, so I would
(17:00):
set up the parties. They would I would come at
the beginning to say hi, and I would come at
the end to make sure know I stole anything. Otherwise
I was back in my dorm. You would go to
everybody was trying to get to go out, and you
were like, I have meaningful things to do. I never
went on spring break. What well, why would you pay
money to go sit in somebody else's hotel. I mean,
like I was, I had a dorm, I could read anywhere.
(17:23):
Like Okay, So you said something, and I think you know.
I try to pull as much personal inspiration information from
our guests that come on this show. But I'll ask
you because I feel like the one small task that
I'm holding myself back from actually crossing the line to
(17:44):
where you are, despite the fact that I'm hosting my
own podcasts and do other things. How do you get
over the fear of speaking, because I've seen you speak
before it, you know, for an introvert you project. Well,
I guess it's the acting help. But so, yeah, I
(18:04):
grew up in the church, so we had to do
the Easter programs, manspation, proclamature programs. Never liked any of it.
I'm not afraid. You had to read sister and sister, Yes,
all of the stuff, you name it, we did it.
My fear isn't public speaking. I'm reticent about being around
(18:25):
lots of people. So when I was in high school,
I joined the debate team. I had a psychosomatic case
of laryngitis because it occurred to me that I couldn't
be I wouldn't be debating by myself, that other people
would see me do it. And suddenly my voice didn't work.
And went to see the nurse and she's like, there's
nothing wrong with you. Yeah, And that's when I also
(18:48):
learned what psychosomatic because what psychomedia looked like. Artists often
do that, and that's often an issue on this show,
like when people self sabotaged their progress or whatever. Well,
I had to get over it because I was going
to fail the class if I didn't. Actually you have
to have to speak. But the way I get past
it is that it's not about me. It's about what
they need to hear. It's about what people need to know.
(19:09):
I can get past the you can't sublimate it, but
you can work around it. And I think you do that.
You do that, you find yourself in public spaces speaking,
You give yourself a script, you give yourself a an objective.
And for me, the objective has changed. It's getting people
the things they need. And if my discomfort gets them
(19:30):
to what they need, then I'm willing to do it.
It is never fun, I have never I don't enjoy it,
but I'm good at it. And the consequences of inaction
to me are worse than the consequences of action. And
so for me, the cost benefit analysis. You know, Stacy
stopped having a laryngitis and go into your job. Okay,
(19:52):
speaking of inaction, and let's cut to the chase here.
November coming up, and you know, I know, uh, specifically
my specific demographic, which is black men and year nineteen.
First of all, I'm very shocked at the statistics that
(20:15):
we I mean, I'm not I'm shocked, and I'm not
shocked because I know that we're the first to complain
about something and really the last you know, to really
wanna do do the groundwork if you will. So you know,
I'm finding out that black men vote the least, or
probably feel the least, probably represented or you know, and
(20:37):
I know I got many uncles and cousins and friends
ain't not going to happen and they ain't run for us,
or they the FEDS or they ops or whatever. So
for you what you're facing in Georgia, and that will
subsequently affect because you know, if Kemp does remain in power,
then I know that laws are going to be implemented.
I'm already pissed about this whole, Like we can't give
(21:01):
water to people or aid to people. So just in general, like,
use this platform to explain to us what is at stake?
So you said, how does that happen? And what's at stake?
We have a governor who ran his first campaign on
rounding people up and pointing weapons at people and saying
that he was a politically incorrect conservative, he was a
(21:23):
Trump Conservative, and then people because he didn't commit treason
once in he didn't commit treason by he did what
every other governor in American history has done, and he
certified the election. He's been given praise and lionized. See
and that's part of the challenge. The memory is short
(21:46):
and we are and so he gets credit. Now what
people aren't aren't paying attention to. And this goes to
the issue with so black men have let's be clear,
they vote, but it's the vote share, So vote shares
the proportion you have in the population versus the proportion
you haven't turned out. Black women have the highest vote share.
(22:07):
We vote our numbers. The next group is white women,
then the group after that as white men, then black men.
So the issue is not that black men don't vote,
it's that their power in their vote is under so
they fight below their weight class. And so the goal
that I have is not to say that black men
no one, and no one should suggest that black men
(22:27):
don't vote. It's that they don't. They fight below their
weight class. And if black men fought their full power,
it changes things. But they are legitimate reasons that doesn't happen,
especially in Georgia. Georgia had at one point the fourth
highest incarceration rate in the nation, and it was predominantly
black men. And Georgia, like Florida, nearly permanently dis franchises
black men, and those who aren't permanently disenfranchise are you know,
(22:50):
flooded with so much misinformation they don't know they have
the right to vote. Then you have communities that when
you have generational poverty, generational stereotypes, and generational investment, no
government doesn't work. You've seen people who look like you
get elected and do nothing. But the reason that often
is true is that we tend to elect In Georgia
and in the South, we elect black people at the
(23:11):
local level. And we you know, we finally started to
make some progress at the federal level. But state government
is the intervener that stops many good things from happening.
Governors matter, especially now. Standard Ground was signed by a governor.
That's why Trayvon's murder went unavenged. The treatment of black
(23:32):
women as parasites through the social safety Net that happened
under a governor in Wisconsin. Mass incarceration did not start
with the ninety four crime billets started with three strikesure out,
which was signed by Governor Pete Wilson and California Jim
Crow never had a single federal law. It was all
state governors in nine Southern states, and so we we legitimately,
(23:53):
especially black men, legitimately protest the lack of delivery. But
we don't understand that the delivery system is the state,
not the local government. In the State of Georgia, the
governor decides how much money gets spent. The governor sets
the budget, the governor signs the laws. In the city
of Atlanta, in two thousand and three, I helped write
(24:15):
the first living wage law for the state of Georgia.
The Mayor of Atlanta signed that law. By the following January,
that law was illegal in the entire state. They made
it illegal for a local government to pass a law
for living wages. On call scheduling hurts a lot of
black men who want to be a part of their family.
Hours a lot of people. But you're on on call scheduling.
(24:36):
You want to be able to plan your day. The
Secretary of State, the person currently as Secretary of State,
as a state legislator, passed the law that says that
no one can know local government can require that on
call scheduling actually respect the humanity of a person working.
The Governor, Brian Kemp, in the midst of COVID, passed
(24:56):
the law saying that you couldn't sue your employer for
not pretend sting you from COVID didn't do a thing
to demand that you could access to PPE, but he
did make it impossible for you to file a lawsuit
against the when he reopened the state. When they forced
you back to work, they could make you come to work,
but he didn't have to protect you when you got there.
That's this governor. That's why I'm confused in state because
(25:17):
most people don't understand they all they know is that,
well he reopened the state. Yeah, thirty eight thousand people
are dead. Yeah, we were. I was literally having this
conversation with because I was like, I want to have
a conversation with some young folks that actually live here.
And I was talking to to the young folks behind
the camera and we were talking about Georgia is a
little is different in the sense, and they're from Chicago
and Detroit respectively, and now their residents. But speaking to it,
(25:39):
I supposed to we go Wade yesterday and I said,
I don't understand why the polls say that things are closed.
When y'all was here, y'all saw not even I mean COVID,
that's nice, but we saw what the injustice that happened
to Stacy and he said to me, he said, yeah,
but politicians always cheat, And I was like, well yeah,
(26:00):
but that was what we the whole world watched, and
it was just a matter of fact, like Georgia kind
of felt like, Okay, you know what this is. This
is some Georgia excuse my language, ship in a way,
some South ship where things go a little differently in
the Northeast. Yeah, it couldn't be so blatant. And we
would never have let a man like that only be
governor again and re going again, think he has a
(26:21):
chance again. The law he passed that is voter suppression
two point oh this law and not only says you
can't have water or food, he's outsourced voters voter purging.
Sixty four thousand people have had their voter registrations challenged
because he and Brad Rathsenberger put in place a law
that says that you can any person can walk into
(26:43):
a county board of elections and say I don't think
that Amir has the right to vote, and you have
to prove that you have the right to vote. They
don't have to have any evidence. And it used to
be that if it looks fishy. The Board of Elections
can say this is this is crazy. We're not gonna
do because they now have to process every single challenge
and in Gwinnette County alone, thirty seven thousand voter registrations
(27:07):
were changing. It's no, but this has happened across the state.
But this is the same state where, because of Brian
Kemp's law s P Two two four different boards of elections,
the people who control where the polling is, if you
get your if your names there. They kicked all of
the black people off of the board and it is
legal in Georgia for them to do so. Brian Kemp
(27:28):
did that. But the reality is, and this goes just
to the larger issue not only black men, but of
the urgency of this election. If this is what they're
willing to do, now, imagine when he is a lame
duck governor who can't run for office again, when he
has five has nothing to lose. He's got his billion dollars.
He already took our bodies away from us and the
right to He's got six billion dollars at his disposal.
(27:52):
We have a surplus. Once you pay every bill. We've
got six billion dollars sitting there. He has told us
his intention is to give this money to the wealthy,
and so part of the goal of today, and I
appreciate this conversation, is that most people are so legitimately
consumed with their lives and with their fears and with
(28:13):
their realities that politics feels like an extra burden. I
like to say politics. You may not be into politics,
but politics is into you, and it is a stalker.
And we have to understand that stalking usually turns into
something grave and terrible that you will one day see
on lifetime movies. And so we've got to push back.
(28:35):
And my my job, my interest, my intensity is because
I know what the consequences are if we don't do it,
but I also know what the possibilities are if we do.
We can invest in people, we can restore bodily autonomy.
We can make certain that black men and black people
a large but black men in particular, get re enfranchised
and actually have an active role to play in their futures.
(28:58):
Instead of a governor who thinks that restoring mass incarceration
is an okay thing to do. For cats like me
on the sideline, that we want to do something now,
last year, you know, I raise money, went out on
the streets, I mean even handed out what like I
would go to polling places and all those things. What
can we do and not celebrity civilians because we all
(29:23):
want to people. What can we do to help alleviate
the situation that I know is going to be problematic?
So number one, feel free to give me money. But
here's what No, but here's why I am running the
So our campaign has the single largest voter engagement apparatus
in the state. That means going into the places that
(29:45):
most people don't go to get to the voters. Most
people ignore. That's what that's what we do. But it
takes money because I actually pay every canvas or we don't.
We pay a living wage to our campuses. Yes, in
a college, but but when you to go to a
small place, when you've got to go to col Quick County,
or go up to Dade County, or you're in Clayton
(30:05):
County and you've got to knock on all these doors
and these apartment buildings, this is a job and people
need to take So we need volunteers. But before we
get volunteers, I need people who I know can show
up to work every single day, so your investment is
in that work. Number two, I need volunteers. I need
folks to reach out to their communities. But I also
need people to talk about this on social media. The
(30:25):
other side is spending a lot of time pretending this
doesn't matter. Every negative narrative you here, they amplify it.
They will tell a lie a thousand times until it
sounds like the truth. We tell the truth one time,
and we shut up when no one says a men.
I need us to talk about what is at stake
and who is who these people are, who my opponent is,
(30:46):
and who I am. And we may not agree on everything,
but if you look at the totality of my work,
I show my work, and so think about if you've
got a guess who's going to do a better job,
the guy who's told you he doesn't care about you,
or the woman has shown care. But I need folks
to be talking about this. In eighteen there was a
national conversation. This time it's been a more a bit
(31:07):
more muted because we've been dealing with so many things.
I was gonna say, yea, how do you think the
pandemic COVID? How you think that is a pandemic, COVID inflation,
racial violence. People are tired and you you, you laid
it out very well in here. People are exhausted. But
pain doesn't care about your exhaustion. Politics doesn't care about
your exhaustion. Our responsibility is to show up anyway, because
(31:31):
the consequences are going to visit us, whether we invite
them or not. Okay, so let me ask you this
as your sister. And it's funny. I do another podcast
with two sisters, Jill's gotten in Asia from Kincher's Family Soul,
and we're always talking about self care. I need to know,
Stacy Abrams, what is your self care ritual? Do you
do have something daily? What do you do for self
(31:52):
so that you can go out and give all this
energy to all these people because it cost I watched
an inordinate amount of television and I eight books. When
I say I watched a lot of TV, it is
a bit absurd. Right now, I'm watching Eureka because I
didn't watch Eureka when that came out before. I love it.
So I'm on season five and it's really good. I'm
(32:13):
waiting for The Equalizer to come back because I love
Queen Latifa. I watched all of the FBI s. I
think they're twenty seven of them now, um, yeah, I
watch you on Order. You got to decide? Well, well
know I'm on Lawn Order. Yeah season. Well yes, so
I know they did all three of them on the
twenty second, but I haven't haven't had a chance to watch.
But yes, do you watch the first Law and Order?
(32:33):
Because I watched that. No, he was on s v
S VU was the tight. I watched all of the
law I've watched Law and Order UK. When I say
I watched TV, I okay, there's a Lawn Order UK? Yes,
and is the sting to have an accent? Yeah? You
(32:54):
know what. I'm putting it out there? Have you organized
an outcast from Union? They will come? Well, I think
i'm talking to the person who can make it happen.
He's talking to you. I'm talking to h you know
what someone should get out? Oh boy actually lives five
(33:17):
minutes away from me. I'm just saying, don't have boy
in his name? Yeah, the one that doesn't have He
goes fishing in Long Island like four days a week.
So yeah, I'll call it. But what are you listening to? Stacy?
I'm curious, my my, So, I have a sixteen year
old niece who now lives with me. All right, you know,
(33:40):
so I don't want to tell you what I listened
to because everything I say out loud she cringes at So. Yeah,
most of our musical tastes are frozen from when we
were basically between the ages of ten and twenty five.
I have expanded my universe since then, but when it
comes back to just the core narrative. But I'm curious,
who who do I listen to right now? I just
(34:01):
had to do some I just did a photo shoot,
which that sounds so bougie, But anyway, so they play
music because well it's awkward to do this stuff, and
so they play music to relax you. So it was
tribe called quest Uh, it was Whitney. Um, there was
new addition, of course. I also loved Van Halen and
(34:23):
Stone Temple Pilots. There was some Fiona Apple. Yes, I
listened to a broad range. There was and I'm not
just pandering. There was some roots. So was the last
time you had to go to a show? Like? Was
the last time you had time to go to a showy? Well,
last night I was at Alicia Keys concert for fourteen
seconds so she could say hi and thank you that
(34:45):
yeah oh yeah. So once you step anything by Missy Elliott,
you just get me hip up. And I have a deep,
end abiding commitment to all of the fun songs done
by Ludicrous he Day. Look, this is fun one because
it feels like this is a ten minute episode of
course of Supreme, even though I know that we've it
(35:07):
was longer than Michelle out. Can you come back after
you win? I can? You know? I really appreciate it,
and you know you're you're an inspiration for it for
a lot of us on the sideline that like someone
should do something, and can I give people one more
thing to do? I need people to vote early starting
(35:29):
October seventeen, vote early, so Georgia has three weeks of
early voting and the reasoning people to vote as early
as they can early voting because we know suppression is
on its way. We know they're making it hard to
get absentee ballots. They're making it hard to know you're
polling places. They've changed the rules. And if you go
to the wrong polling place and you're in line for
four hours and you get to the end and it's
the wrong polling place. They will not accept your ballot. Yes,
(35:51):
it's called provisional ballot. So the way to the way
to overcome voter suppression is not to let it win
by staying home. It is by overwhelming the poll with
our presence. But we need to show up early. We
get there the first week, we get all of the
we know all the problems. We can get as many
things out of the way, and so we're really just
dealing with the biggest issues, but with fewer and fewer
people as we get close to election day, show up early.
(36:14):
If we show out on the week of October, there's
no stop in us. There, he goes, it's happening the
big day back. I don't even live here. I'm taking
a cueue from I'm Finished Business and EP. Yes, this
is the big payback for our guest today, Stacy Abrams.
Thank you very much, future protus on behalf of no.
(36:40):
You know, I believe in affirmation and and putting it
out there won't be happisode to Steve like I'm p
Bill you missed another classic and this is a quest
love and thank you agatting Stacey having this. We'll see
you next time. Thank you. What's Love Supreme is a
production of my heart Radio. For more podcasts from my
(37:05):
heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hosts And Creators
Laiya St. Clair
Questlove
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