August 6, 2025 • 23 mins
Part 1 of today's program focuses on Google's decision to cut funding to 58 DEI Non profits.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Broadcasting from these Civics cipher studios. Welcome to the QR Code,
where we share perspective, seek understanding, and shape outcomes the
man you're about to hear from, the man always wearing
a beanie and a pair of glasses, looking as studious
and as refined as possible.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
He is the Q in the QR Code. He goes
by the name of q Ward.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
The voice you just heard is the golden voice of
ramses Yoah, my brother and my teammate. And important to
point out, I didn't wear my beanie the other day
and I was cleaning my glasses and a dozen people
back to back to back to back, had no idea
who I was.
Speaker 4 (00:36):
It was a terrible experience.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Well, we need to stick around. We have another interesting
show in store for you today. Later on the show,
we're going to be talking about NFL football great Lawrence Taylor,
and he has joined Donald Trump as his new token
(01:01):
black guy for all intents and purposes. He's joining some group,
coalition something like that. And the funny part about this
is that Lawrence Taylor himself doesn't even seem to know
what he has joined to help Donald Trump. So we're
going to get into the weeds there because it seems
like Donald Trump tends to use black people when it's
(01:23):
convenient for him or his brand image, and we're going
to talk about that. We're also going to be talking
about how the Supreme Court is set to weaken voting
rights protections in the United States of America. We keep
talking about scary stuff, but I don't think that we'd
be doing right by.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
You if we didn't tell you the truth. And so
that's something we have to be mindful of.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
And we're also going to be talking about how Google
quietly cut funding to fifty eight DEI nonprofits that again
is marking a drastic change in this country. But we're
going to start off with some good new or we
try to share a good news here with our feel
good features. So today's feel good feature comes from the
(02:06):
Black Information Network, and the Smithsonian is set to reinstate
Trump's impeachment exhibit following the backlash that we covered on
the show. So I'll share from the ViOn article. The
Smithsonian's National Museum of American History says it's restoring the
inclusion of President Donald Trump's two impeachments and its presidential
(02:27):
exhibit following backlash.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Over its quiet removal.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
The move comes after The Washington Post reported that the
museum removed a placard referencing Trump's impeachments from its exhibit,
The American Presidency A Glorious Burden. Removal sparked questions over
whether the museum had succumb to political pressure from the
White House. On Saturday, August second, the Smithsonian denied any
political influence, saying Trump's impeachment placard was removed due to
(02:52):
presentation issues.
Speaker 4 (02:53):
Quote.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
The placard did not meet the museum's standard in appearance, location, timeline,
and overall presentation. It was not consistent with other sections
and moreover block the view of the objects inside its case.
The placard was initially added to the exhibit in twenty
twenty one as a temporary measure, and was removed in
July twenty twenty five. The museum said it would now
(03:14):
be formally updating its impeachment section in the coming weeks
to reflect all US impeachment proceedings. Amid the controversy, the
Smithsonian said it's committed to providing a greater and shared
understanding through its exhibitions.
Speaker 4 (03:28):
So.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
You know, there's a lot of feel good stories out there.
I don't want to be all doom in gloom, but
this one felt like maybe not closure, but you know,
it's rare that we get to follow up on a
story and get the conclusion that should have been true
the entire time, And so I felt like, you know,
(03:51):
we should let the folks know that everybody making a
big deal out of that it actually counted for something
because the museum is actually putting it back.
Speaker 4 (03:59):
So I believe it when I see it.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
And I appreciate your skepticism, sir, because I think that
my heart bleeds a little too much. But anyway, all right,
so what's going on in the culture? Okay, So we've
discussed the rollbacks of diversity equity and inclusion initiatives. We've
discussed the attacks on diversity equity and inclusion initiatives. We've
(04:27):
discussed how that term has been weaponized and used to
provide cover for people making mistakes. They simply blame DEI
and find anyone closest to them in the corporate hierarchy
and pass the blame to that individual who they feel
(04:50):
quote unquote qualifies as a DEI higher. We've talked about
how the rollbacks of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives have
created the greatest job loss for Black women in United
States history, in modern history, and so forth and so on,
(05:10):
And this obviously is something that ninety two percent of
Black women voted against. This country turned its back on
black women, and Black women are having.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
To pay the price for that.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
That's like the saddest thing I think I've ever said
on any show that I've ever done.
Speaker 4 (05:31):
But it's the truth.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
So here we are today and we're going to share
it from webpronews dot com. And I know you sent
this OVERQ, so I'm going to just paint the picture
and let you go first.
Speaker 4 (05:45):
Here.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
So, Google's recent decision to remove more than fifty diversity
equity and inclusion or DEI organizations from its list of
funded nonprofits marks a significant shift in the text detect
giants approach to social initiatives, aligning with broader industry trends
and political pressures under the current administration. The move, uncovered
by the Tech Transparency Project, involves dropping groups whose missions
(06:09):
emphasized terms like diversity, equity, inclusion, race, activism, and women,
resulting in the exclusion of fifty eight entities from Google's
previous top funded list. This comes amid reports that the
company is prioritizing artificial intelligence investments over DEI efforts, as
detailed in a recent CNBC article. Insiders familiar with Google's
(06:31):
operations suggest this pruning as part of a larger cost
cutting strategy, but it also reflects the influence of President
Trump's anti DEI stance, which has encouraged corporations to reassess
such programs. For instance, the US Department of Agriculture's termination
of over one hundred and forty five DEI focused awards
earlier this year, saving up to one hundred and forty
eight point six million dollars, set a precedent that tech
(06:53):
firms appear to be following. According to a USDA press release,
the cuts at Google echo a pattern scene across Silicon
Valley where commitments made in the wake of the twenty
twenty George Floyd protests are being rolled back Back then.
George Sorry, Back then. Google pledged sweeping DII advancements, including
a thirty percent increase in leadership representation for underrepresented groups
(07:14):
by twenty twenty five ago. The company has now quietly abandoned,
as reported by MSNBC in February. This retreat is not isolated.
Meta and other tech giants slash DII budgets by up
to ninety percent twenty twenty three, per AC NBC analysis
from that year. Industry and industry analysts argue that such
decisions could hinder innovation by narrowing talent pools, contradicting research
(07:39):
from firms like McKenzie that links diverse teams to better performance. Yet,
with economic pressures mounting, Google report its lower growth in
AD revenue last quarter, the company may see DEI as expendable,
a sentiment echoed in Forbes from a piece from late
twenty twenty three. Okay, so q, I just want to
(08:00):
get your initial reflections here, and then I'll step in
if there's anything left. But this is yours, so take
all the time you need here.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
There's an interesting thing that keeps happening with capitalist pre
compliance bending the knee to this administration. And there's a
couple of reasons why that always catches me off guard. One,
it's weird watching somebody that you know isn't strong be
(08:30):
a bully. But when somebody that isn't strong, it's being
a bully to people that are obviously weak. You understand
why they don't even challenge, right, They don't know that
they have the strength to win in that flight, in
this case or in a lot of the cases that
we've seen with again, this pre compliance not even being
(08:54):
forced to bend the knee.
Speaker 4 (08:56):
Right.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
When I say not being forced, I mean it's not
it's not illegal to support DEI it's just unfavorable to
this guy that's the bully. When you see people that
are clearly stronger and more powerful ben the knee, the
only thing that you can think of is, Okay, it's
not illegal, but I guess it is in their financial
(09:20):
best interest to just go along with this guy. Yeah,
it's a really strange thing, especially in the case of
a company like.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Google.
Speaker 4 (09:35):
Google is worth. It's very important to say this out loud.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
I think it's like in the trillions.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
Two point three five seven trillion dollars now people say
money figures outside I mean, out loud all the time now,
to a point where people think a million dollars isn't
a lot of money, Like I heard him might say
that the other day.
Speaker 4 (09:59):
I'm like, what what are you talking about?
Speaker 3 (10:01):
Like people see like rappers and like professional athletes, like
net worth and salaries and all that stuff. And we've
gotten so accustomed to hearing these numbers that we've somehow
made them insignificant in our heads. While never even getting
one hundred thousand dollars ourselves. We tell everybody out loud
them maybe not an't really that much money, no more,
(10:22):
sure it isn't give me a round as a million.
We'd be good for life, and so would our kids
and their kids. Just be clear, I need to say this, though.
A trillion dollars is one million million dollars one million,
(10:42):
not one hundred million, not five hundred million, one million.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
Million, or one thousand billion or ten to the twelfth power.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
Last time you heard somebody say some power right back
to sixth grade and six ninety seven Isshu. Only five
companies in the history of Earth have ever been worth
a trillion dollars. Google is worth two point three five
(11:20):
seven trillion, And capitalism creates such a hunger for more
that companies would turn their back on everyone to maybe
secure a little bit more money, a little bit more
(11:43):
than everything they already have. At two point three five
seven trillion dollars, you have everything, you have all of it,
You have all that there is to have one of
five companies Everythink how many companies there are? Think how
many successful companies there are. To give you even more
(12:05):
clear picture, Nike isn't worth that much money. McDonald's isn't
worth that much money. Starbucks, like all these companies that
you know are massively successful are not worth that much money.
This company's worth more than double the companies that I
just said, And even they are like, okay, mister president,
(12:30):
we will not continue to support anybody that doesn't already
have every advantage possible. And we are so caught in
this system I was trying to figure out the other day,
because we're not gonna go to Target anymore, We're not
gonna order on Amazon anymore, and we're not going to
do all this to support all these companies that have
(12:51):
turned their backs. Well, when everybody turns their back, you
don't have a choice. You're not going to use Google
no more. It's crazy, how yeah, you know what you mean.
You're not gonna eat food no more, You're not gonna
search information no more. Ever, because all the places that
you used to be able to afford, you know, a
combo meal or a happy meal for your kid, they
(13:12):
don't support d I know more either. So you can't
conveniently go buy goods for yourself, you can't look for information,
you can't watch TV, you can't order products because everybody's
turning their back on us. So forgive me if I'm
almost never hopeful long here anymore, because even those with
(13:34):
nothing to gain by turning their backs on.
Speaker 4 (13:37):
Us are doing it anyway. This is after.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
Trillions of dollars in spending power went away from companies
like Target. They saw that a loss. They still don't care.
It's in vogue to just toss us off the boat now,
and seemingly everybody is doing it.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
This wouldn't be the first time they've tossed us off
the boat, all right, Well, moving on, So the Supreme
Court is set to weaken vote and rights protections. Huh.
One of the things about the Supreme Court is that
once Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed, I remember that feeling of like,
(14:29):
oh God, she couldn't have died at a worse time,
And everybody around me was like, yo, she should have
stepped down a long time ago when people were asking
her to step down.
Speaker 4 (14:41):
And yeah, that.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Set us up for what we're looking at now. So
well before you move on though.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
The politeness, the political correctness Democrats.
Speaker 4 (15:02):
Also played a part in this.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
Absolutely absolutely.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
My president is black, decided in the name of political
correctness and politeness to not.
Speaker 4 (15:16):
Use his authority to appoint another justice.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
And Trump was not on that.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
Nobody's nobody's on that. That's what I'm saying. Somebody the
whole others they're not on that. Ever, we're still trying
to both sides of defense this thing. We're still trying
to you know, let's make sure we're all one on this.
Why why are we still doing this?
Speaker 4 (15:38):
Well?
Speaker 2 (15:39):
The result of all of that.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
Comes this this from Ruyters, the US Supreme Court signaled
on Friday that will assess the legality of a key
component of a landmark federal voting rights law, potentially giving
its conservative majority a chance to gut a provision and
acted sixty years ago that was intended to prevent racial
discrimination in voting. The brief order issued by the Court
(16:03):
raises the stakes in a case already pending before the
Justices involving a legal challenge to an electoral map passed
by Louisiana's Republican led legislature that raise the number of
black majority US congressional districts in the state from one
to two. The justice is said they will consider whether
it violates the US Constitution for states to create additional
(16:23):
voting districts with populations that are majority Black, Hispanic, or
another minority as a way to remedy a judicial finding
that a state's voting map likely violates the nineteen sixty
five Voting Rights Act. The case, due to be heard
by the Justices in their next term that begins in October,
sets the stage for a major ruling expected by the
end of June twenty twenty six, that could affect the
(16:45):
composition of the electoral districts around the United States. The
Court has a six to three conservative majority. The dispute
strikes that the tensions between the Voting Rights Act, passed
by Congress during the US Civil Rights era to bar
racial discrimination in voting and adhering to the constitutional principle
of equal protection, which limits the application of race. When
(17:05):
the borders of electoral districts are redrawn, boundaries of legislative
legislative districts sorry across the country are reconfigured to reflect
population changes every decade in a process called redistricting.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
Okay, so.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
One of the things that we've had to talk about
a few times over the years is gerrymandering. And when
this redistricting takes place, it's often poor black communities that.
Speaker 4 (17:44):
Have their.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
Voting power weakened, diluted, right.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
And you know, the brief explanation of gerrymandering for folks
that may not know, is.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
If you take.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
A say, a couple of districts. One district is, you know,
seventy percent black, thirty percent white. The other district is
thirty percent white, seventy percent black, and you draw the
lines in such a way you could end up with
two districts that both have a white majority and a
(18:21):
black minority. And so you don't have a you don't
have a majority black district, right. You can just circle
these zip codes into this zip code because they already
have a majority white, and then you leave a handful
of black folks with the remaining white folks, and then
they end up being a majority.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
White district themselves.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
And so it's just basically data manipulation, and it's something
that has plagued black communities, especially since.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
The Voting Rights Act was passed.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
It the time, every single time was done by the
conservatives to weaken the black vote, and they always have
some excuse for it. But the fact is is that
after WoT it, say, sixty years, we know that it's
(19:19):
it's racism, you know, and it's a power grab. And
this often happens in red states where the elected officials
are conservative and are not keen on sharing power with
black folks, certainly not with black folks who don't view
(19:42):
the world or politics the way that they do. And so,
you know, there's been this constant battle pushback against us,
and now we're seeing the implications of having a super
majority of Conservatives on the Supreme Court elect by a
president who.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Is not a decent person.
Speaker 4 (20:08):
You know.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
I don't want to say that it's because he's a Republican,
because I don't believe that to be true. You know,
where I grew up in Arizona, we had a conservative
named John McCain. And I was no fan of John McCain.
Not gonna pretend like I was. I was no fan
of his politics. I was about to interrupt you because
(20:29):
I was there with you. Yeah, and you were not
a fan.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
Of John ka that's comments not a fan of John politics.
Speaker 4 (20:36):
So thank you for fixing that he was.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
He was a good man, he was a decent man.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
So I was a fan of the man, not his politics,
so he wouldn't have gotten my vote, but I acknowledged
that he moved through time and space like a decent
human being, and he did intend to work with people
and make sure that he listened to people and so forth,
and we all saw that. And for folks that don't know,
google uh, John McCain's debate with Barack Obama, and you
(21:03):
don't even need to see the full highlight reel because
the main highlight will tell you everything you need to
know about him. So you don't have to be an
awful person and be Republican. There's plenty of Republican people
who are decent folks. They just happen to be on
the side of the aisle with all the not decent
(21:26):
folks like the Nazis, in the in the white supremacist and.
Speaker 4 (21:30):
I don't know, I don't know. There's plenty anymore.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
Well, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
If you're still there now that there's the choice that
you made and that you continue to make, Yeah, you, Doug,
you cannot call that decency.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
That's fair, all right?
Speaker 1 (21:43):
Well, I want you to weigh in here too, because
I don't want to pontificate too much. This is a
heartbreaking thing to ponder.
Speaker 3 (21:51):
Pontificate, Bro, it's better than what I'm going to say.
I don't have anything I mean like it's it's disgusting,
it's we use words like skin. But it's so far
beyond that that once upon a time when legislators did
things like this, they hid them with some agenda that
seemed positive, and this underlying racism was underlying. It's not
(22:19):
underlying anymore. They're not even pretending that there's a good thing,
but this just so happens to be tucked in there. Noe,
We're just going to do the illegal, racist, non constitutional
thing in front of you now because we don't care
no more, because can anybody hold us accountable, because can
anybody tell us nothing? Because we can do whatever we want.
We can take your rights, strip your right to vote,
(22:39):
strip your right to autonomy, SIP, strip your right to
self determination, strip your right to doing anything that benefits
you and your family and people that you care about,
just because we see you as inferior to us. All
of you, and by all of you, I mean almost
everybody even the people that support us. You're less than us,
(23:00):
You're worth less than us, You deserve less than us.
Let's access less capital, less resources, less access to healthcare,
let's access to education, let's access to clean drinking water,
let's access to housing, let's access to everything. So that
we can have everything, and so that you can have nothing,
(23:22):
but keep voting for us, right, Because even though you
have nothing, so do the black people. So do all
the pre marginalized communities that were already born in the
circumstances that made life more difficult for them and everybody
in their family tree.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
At least they still have nothing.
Speaker 4 (23:44):
Right.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
This is the most disgusting moment in our lifetime, and
it gets worse every day.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
You're not wrong.
Broadcasting from these Civics cipher studios. Welcome to the QR Code,
where we share perspective, seek understanding, and shape outcomes the
man you're about to hear from, the man always wearing
a beanie and a pair of glasses, looking as studious
and as refined as possible.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
He is the Q in the QR Code. He goes
by the name of q Ward.
Speaker 3 (00:20):
The voice you just heard is the golden voice of
ramses Yoah, my brother and my teammate. And important to
point out, I didn't wear my beanie the other day
and I was cleaning my glasses and a dozen people
back to back to back to back, had no idea
who I was.
Speaker 4 (00:36):
It was a terrible experience.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
Well, we need to stick around. We have another interesting
show in store for you today. Later on the show,
we're going to be talking about NFL football great Lawrence Taylor,
and he has joined Donald Trump as his new token
(01:01):
black guy for all intents and purposes. He's joining some group,
coalition something like that. And the funny part about this
is that Lawrence Taylor himself doesn't even seem to know
what he has joined to help Donald Trump. So we're
going to get into the weeds there because it seems
like Donald Trump tends to use black people when it's
(01:23):
convenient for him or his brand image, and we're going
to talk about that. We're also going to be talking
about how the Supreme Court is set to weaken voting
rights protections in the United States of America. We keep
talking about scary stuff, but I don't think that we'd
be doing right by.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
You if we didn't tell you the truth. And so
that's something we have to be mindful of.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
And we're also going to be talking about how Google
quietly cut funding to fifty eight DEI nonprofits that again
is marking a drastic change in this country. But we're
going to start off with some good new or we
try to share a good news here with our feel
good features. So today's feel good feature comes from the
(02:06):
Black Information Network, and the Smithsonian is set to reinstate
Trump's impeachment exhibit following the backlash that we covered on
the show. So I'll share from the ViOn article. The
Smithsonian's National Museum of American History says it's restoring the
inclusion of President Donald Trump's two impeachments and its presidential
(02:27):
exhibit following backlash.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
Over its quiet removal.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
The move comes after The Washington Post reported that the
museum removed a placard referencing Trump's impeachments from its exhibit,
The American Presidency A Glorious Burden. Removal sparked questions over
whether the museum had succumb to political pressure from the
White House. On Saturday, August second, the Smithsonian denied any
political influence, saying Trump's impeachment placard was removed due to
(02:52):
presentation issues.
Speaker 4 (02:53):
Quote.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
The placard did not meet the museum's standard in appearance, location, timeline,
and overall presentation. It was not consistent with other sections
and moreover block the view of the objects inside its case.
The placard was initially added to the exhibit in twenty
twenty one as a temporary measure, and was removed in
July twenty twenty five. The museum said it would now
(03:14):
be formally updating its impeachment section in the coming weeks
to reflect all US impeachment proceedings. Amid the controversy, the
Smithsonian said it's committed to providing a greater and shared
understanding through its exhibitions.
Speaker 4 (03:28):
So.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
You know, there's a lot of feel good stories out there.
I don't want to be all doom in gloom, but
this one felt like maybe not closure, but you know,
it's rare that we get to follow up on a
story and get the conclusion that should have been true
the entire time, And so I felt like, you know,
(03:51):
we should let the folks know that everybody making a
big deal out of that it actually counted for something
because the museum is actually putting it back.
Speaker 4 (03:59):
So I believe it when I see it.
Speaker 1 (04:05):
And I appreciate your skepticism, sir, because I think that
my heart bleeds a little too much. But anyway, all right,
so what's going on in the culture? Okay, So we've
discussed the rollbacks of diversity equity and inclusion initiatives. We've
discussed the attacks on diversity equity and inclusion initiatives. We've
(04:27):
discussed how that term has been weaponized and used to
provide cover for people making mistakes. They simply blame DEI
and find anyone closest to them in the corporate hierarchy
and pass the blame to that individual who they feel
(04:50):
quote unquote qualifies as a DEI higher. We've talked about
how the rollbacks of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives have
created the greatest job loss for Black women in United
States history, in modern history, and so forth and so on,
(05:10):
And this obviously is something that ninety two percent of
Black women voted against. This country turned its back on
black women, and Black women are having.
Speaker 2 (05:24):
To pay the price for that.
Speaker 1 (05:27):
That's like the saddest thing I think I've ever said
on any show that I've ever done.
Speaker 4 (05:31):
But it's the truth.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
So here we are today and we're going to share
it from webpronews dot com. And I know you sent
this OVERQ, so I'm going to just paint the picture
and let you go first.
Speaker 4 (05:45):
Here.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
So, Google's recent decision to remove more than fifty diversity
equity and inclusion or DEI organizations from its list of
funded nonprofits marks a significant shift in the text detect
giants approach to social initiatives, aligning with broader industry trends
and political pressures under the current administration. The move, uncovered
by the Tech Transparency Project, involves dropping groups whose missions
(06:09):
emphasized terms like diversity, equity, inclusion, race, activism, and women,
resulting in the exclusion of fifty eight entities from Google's
previous top funded list. This comes amid reports that the
company is prioritizing artificial intelligence investments over DEI efforts, as
detailed in a recent CNBC article. Insiders familiar with Google's
(06:31):
operations suggest this pruning as part of a larger cost
cutting strategy, but it also reflects the influence of President
Trump's anti DEI stance, which has encouraged corporations to reassess
such programs. For instance, the US Department of Agriculture's termination
of over one hundred and forty five DEI focused awards
earlier this year, saving up to one hundred and forty
eight point six million dollars, set a precedent that tech
(06:53):
firms appear to be following. According to a USDA press release,
the cuts at Google echo a pattern scene across Silicon
Valley where commitments made in the wake of the twenty
twenty George Floyd protests are being rolled back Back then.
George Sorry, Back then. Google pledged sweeping DII advancements, including
a thirty percent increase in leadership representation for underrepresented groups
(07:14):
by twenty twenty five ago. The company has now quietly abandoned,
as reported by MSNBC in February. This retreat is not isolated.
Meta and other tech giants slash DII budgets by up
to ninety percent twenty twenty three, per AC NBC analysis
from that year. Industry and industry analysts argue that such
decisions could hinder innovation by narrowing talent pools, contradicting research
(07:39):
from firms like McKenzie that links diverse teams to better performance. Yet,
with economic pressures mounting, Google report its lower growth in
AD revenue last quarter, the company may see DEI as expendable,
a sentiment echoed in Forbes from a piece from late
twenty twenty three. Okay, so q, I just want to
(08:00):
get your initial reflections here, and then I'll step in
if there's anything left. But this is yours, so take
all the time you need here.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
There's an interesting thing that keeps happening with capitalist pre
compliance bending the knee to this administration. And there's a
couple of reasons why that always catches me off guard. One,
it's weird watching somebody that you know isn't strong be
(08:30):
a bully. But when somebody that isn't strong, it's being
a bully to people that are obviously weak. You understand
why they don't even challenge, right, They don't know that
they have the strength to win in that flight, in
this case or in a lot of the cases that
we've seen with again, this pre compliance not even being
(08:54):
forced to bend the knee.
Speaker 4 (08:56):
Right.
Speaker 3 (08:57):
When I say not being forced, I mean it's not
it's not illegal to support DEI it's just unfavorable to
this guy that's the bully. When you see people that
are clearly stronger and more powerful ben the knee, the
only thing that you can think of is, Okay, it's
not illegal, but I guess it is in their financial
(09:20):
best interest to just go along with this guy. Yeah,
it's a really strange thing, especially in the case of
a company like.
Speaker 2 (09:32):
Google.
Speaker 4 (09:35):
Google is worth. It's very important to say this out loud.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
I think it's like in the trillions.
Speaker 3 (09:43):
Two point three five seven trillion dollars now people say
money figures outside I mean, out loud all the time now,
to a point where people think a million dollars isn't
a lot of money, Like I heard him might say
that the other day.
Speaker 4 (09:59):
I'm like, what what are you talking about?
Speaker 3 (10:01):
Like people see like rappers and like professional athletes, like
net worth and salaries and all that stuff. And we've
gotten so accustomed to hearing these numbers that we've somehow
made them insignificant in our heads. While never even getting
one hundred thousand dollars ourselves. We tell everybody out loud
them maybe not an't really that much money, no more,
(10:22):
sure it isn't give me a round as a million.
We'd be good for life, and so would our kids
and their kids. Just be clear, I need to say this, though.
A trillion dollars is one million million dollars one million,
(10:42):
not one hundred million, not five hundred million, one million.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
Million, or one thousand billion or ten to the twelfth power.
Speaker 3 (10:58):
Last time you heard somebody say some power right back
to sixth grade and six ninety seven Isshu. Only five
companies in the history of Earth have ever been worth
a trillion dollars. Google is worth two point three five
(11:20):
seven trillion, And capitalism creates such a hunger for more
that companies would turn their back on everyone to maybe
secure a little bit more money, a little bit more
(11:43):
than everything they already have. At two point three five
seven trillion dollars, you have everything, you have all of it,
You have all that there is to have one of
five companies Everythink how many companies there are? Think how
many successful companies there are. To give you even more
(12:05):
clear picture, Nike isn't worth that much money. McDonald's isn't
worth that much money. Starbucks, like all these companies that
you know are massively successful are not worth that much money.
This company's worth more than double the companies that I
just said, And even they are like, okay, mister president,
(12:30):
we will not continue to support anybody that doesn't already
have every advantage possible. And we are so caught in
this system I was trying to figure out the other day,
because we're not gonna go to Target anymore, We're not
gonna order on Amazon anymore, and we're not going to
do all this to support all these companies that have
(12:51):
turned their backs. Well, when everybody turns their back, you
don't have a choice. You're not going to use Google
no more. It's crazy, how yeah, you know what you mean.
You're not gonna eat food no more, You're not gonna
search information no more. Ever, because all the places that
you used to be able to afford, you know, a
combo meal or a happy meal for your kid, they
(13:12):
don't support d I know more either. So you can't
conveniently go buy goods for yourself, you can't look for information,
you can't watch TV, you can't order products because everybody's
turning their back on us. So forgive me if I'm
almost never hopeful long here anymore, because even those with
(13:34):
nothing to gain by turning their backs on.
Speaker 4 (13:37):
Us are doing it anyway. This is after.
Speaker 3 (13:43):
Trillions of dollars in spending power went away from companies
like Target. They saw that a loss. They still don't care.
It's in vogue to just toss us off the boat now,
and seemingly everybody is doing it.
Speaker 1 (14:03):
This wouldn't be the first time they've tossed us off
the boat, all right, Well, moving on, So the Supreme
Court is set to weaken vote and rights protections. Huh.
One of the things about the Supreme Court is that
once Ruth Bader Ginsburg passed, I remember that feeling of like,
(14:29):
oh God, she couldn't have died at a worse time,
And everybody around me was like, yo, she should have
stepped down a long time ago when people were asking
her to step down.
Speaker 4 (14:41):
And yeah, that.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Set us up for what we're looking at now. So
well before you move on though.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
The politeness, the political correctness Democrats.
Speaker 4 (15:02):
Also played a part in this.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
Absolutely absolutely.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
My president is black, decided in the name of political
correctness and politeness to not.
Speaker 4 (15:16):
Use his authority to appoint another justice.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
And Trump was not on that.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
Nobody's nobody's on that. That's what I'm saying. Somebody the
whole others they're not on that. Ever, we're still trying
to both sides of defense this thing. We're still trying
to you know, let's make sure we're all one on this.
Why why are we still doing this?
Speaker 4 (15:38):
Well?
Speaker 2 (15:39):
The result of all of that.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
Comes this this from Ruyters, the US Supreme Court signaled
on Friday that will assess the legality of a key
component of a landmark federal voting rights law, potentially giving
its conservative majority a chance to gut a provision and
acted sixty years ago that was intended to prevent racial
discrimination in voting. The brief order issued by the Court
(16:03):
raises the stakes in a case already pending before the
Justices involving a legal challenge to an electoral map passed
by Louisiana's Republican led legislature that raise the number of
black majority US congressional districts in the state from one
to two. The justice is said they will consider whether
it violates the US Constitution for states to create additional
(16:23):
voting districts with populations that are majority Black, Hispanic, or
another minority as a way to remedy a judicial finding
that a state's voting map likely violates the nineteen sixty
five Voting Rights Act. The case, due to be heard
by the Justices in their next term that begins in October,
sets the stage for a major ruling expected by the
end of June twenty twenty six, that could affect the
(16:45):
composition of the electoral districts around the United States. The
Court has a six to three conservative majority. The dispute
strikes that the tensions between the Voting Rights Act, passed
by Congress during the US Civil Rights era to bar
racial discrimination in voting and adhering to the constitutional principle
of equal protection, which limits the application of race. When
(17:05):
the borders of electoral districts are redrawn, boundaries of legislative
legislative districts sorry across the country are reconfigured to reflect
population changes every decade in a process called redistricting.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
Okay, so.
Speaker 1 (17:23):
One of the things that we've had to talk about
a few times over the years is gerrymandering. And when
this redistricting takes place, it's often poor black communities that.
Speaker 4 (17:44):
Have their.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
Voting power weakened, diluted, right.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
And you know, the brief explanation of gerrymandering for folks
that may not know, is.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
If you take.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
A say, a couple of districts. One district is, you know,
seventy percent black, thirty percent white. The other district is
thirty percent white, seventy percent black, and you draw the
lines in such a way you could end up with
two districts that both have a white majority and a
(18:21):
black minority. And so you don't have a you don't
have a majority black district, right. You can just circle
these zip codes into this zip code because they already
have a majority white, and then you leave a handful
of black folks with the remaining white folks, and then
they end up being a majority.
Speaker 2 (18:42):
White district themselves.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
And so it's just basically data manipulation, and it's something
that has plagued black communities, especially since.
Speaker 2 (18:55):
The Voting Rights Act was passed.
Speaker 1 (18:58):
It the time, every single time was done by the
conservatives to weaken the black vote, and they always have
some excuse for it. But the fact is is that
after WoT it, say, sixty years, we know that it's
(19:19):
it's racism, you know, and it's a power grab. And
this often happens in red states where the elected officials
are conservative and are not keen on sharing power with
black folks, certainly not with black folks who don't view
(19:42):
the world or politics the way that they do. And so,
you know, there's been this constant battle pushback against us,
and now we're seeing the implications of having a super
majority of Conservatives on the Supreme Court elect by a
president who.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Is not a decent person.
Speaker 4 (20:08):
You know.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
I don't want to say that it's because he's a Republican,
because I don't believe that to be true. You know,
where I grew up in Arizona, we had a conservative
named John McCain. And I was no fan of John McCain.
Not gonna pretend like I was. I was no fan
of his politics. I was about to interrupt you because
(20:29):
I was there with you. Yeah, and you were not
a fan.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
Of John ka that's comments not a fan of John politics.
Speaker 4 (20:36):
So thank you for fixing that he was.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
He was a good man, he was a decent man.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
So I was a fan of the man, not his politics,
so he wouldn't have gotten my vote, but I acknowledged
that he moved through time and space like a decent
human being, and he did intend to work with people
and make sure that he listened to people and so forth,
and we all saw that. And for folks that don't know,
google uh, John McCain's debate with Barack Obama, and you
(21:03):
don't even need to see the full highlight reel because
the main highlight will tell you everything you need to
know about him. So you don't have to be an
awful person and be Republican. There's plenty of Republican people
who are decent folks. They just happen to be on
the side of the aisle with all the not decent
(21:26):
folks like the Nazis, in the in the white supremacist and.
Speaker 4 (21:30):
I don't know, I don't know. There's plenty anymore.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
Well, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3 (21:34):
If you're still there now that there's the choice that
you made and that you continue to make, Yeah, you, Doug,
you cannot call that decency.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
That's fair, all right?
Speaker 1 (21:43):
Well, I want you to weigh in here too, because
I don't want to pontificate too much. This is a
heartbreaking thing to ponder.
Speaker 3 (21:51):
Pontificate, Bro, it's better than what I'm going to say.
I don't have anything I mean like it's it's disgusting,
it's we use words like skin. But it's so far
beyond that that once upon a time when legislators did
things like this, they hid them with some agenda that
seemed positive, and this underlying racism was underlying. It's not
(22:19):
underlying anymore. They're not even pretending that there's a good thing,
but this just so happens to be tucked in there. Noe,
We're just going to do the illegal, racist, non constitutional
thing in front of you now because we don't care
no more, because can anybody hold us accountable, because can
anybody tell us nothing? Because we can do whatever we want.
We can take your rights, strip your right to vote,
(22:39):
strip your right to autonomy, SIP, strip your right to
self determination, strip your right to doing anything that benefits
you and your family and people that you care about,
just because we see you as inferior to us. All
of you, and by all of you, I mean almost
everybody even the people that support us. You're less than us,
(23:00):
You're worth less than us, You deserve less than us.
Let's access less capital, less resources, less access to healthcare,
let's access to education, let's access to clean drinking water,
let's access to housing, let's access to everything. So that
we can have everything, and so that you can have nothing,
(23:22):
but keep voting for us, right, Because even though you
have nothing, so do the black people. So do all
the pre marginalized communities that were already born in the
circumstances that made life more difficult for them and everybody
in their family tree.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
At least they still have nothing.
Speaker 4 (23:44):
Right.
Speaker 3 (23:48):
This is the most disgusting moment in our lifetime, and
it gets worse every day.
Speaker 2 (23:56):
You're not wrong.
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