Time For a Third Political Party?

In this episode, Tamika D. Mallory and Mysonne the General discuss a range of topics centered around activism, community engagement, and the importance of intersectionality in social justice movements. They emphasizing grassroots organizing and the need for a multiracial movement to address the challenges faced by working-class individuals. The discussion highlights the significance of political engagement and the role of third parties in American politics, ultimately calling for a collective effort to create meaningful change. In this conversation, Maurice Mitchell discusses the influence of billionaires on politics, the importance of fusion voting, and pose the question if we are in need of a third party?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I'm Tamika d. Mallory and the.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
Ship Boy my Son in general.

Speaker 1 (00:03):
We are your host of t M I.

Speaker 3 (00:05):
Tamika and my Son's Information, Truth, Motivation and inspiration.

Speaker 1 (00:10):
Name New Energy.

Speaker 4 (00:11):
But my son Lennon, what's going on today?

Speaker 2 (00:17):
Listen? Man, I'm here. You know, I woke up, I
got a little breath.

Speaker 4 (00:20):
In my lungs. You said you was good.

Speaker 1 (00:24):
Well today you know, the world is still switching.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Listen, turning, It's still turning, still.

Speaker 4 (00:29):
Still moving, still moving.

Speaker 1 (00:33):
Uh. I guess from my perspective, how I feel right
now is like there's just days left before people go
read my whole life. And I'm just.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
Listen, Ain't nothing, ain't nothing to fear with fear I got.

Speaker 1 (00:48):
I have a really powerful review that was released. I
don't know, I don't even know if they released it yet,
so I'm gonna be careful and not say who gave
me this review. But it's a really important one in
the industry. And in the review they talk about my
book and they say, well, you know, they say it's

(01:09):
it's a busy story. It's got a lot going on,
and they say, but it's powerful, and it's very vulnerable
and authentic and they say that, you know that pretty much.
It like in other words, it tugs at the heartstrings
of people, like you can feel this black activist go

(01:34):
from being all over the place to getting her life
together and growing through the ranks. And so it was
like a it's like they read the book. They read
the book. They read the book.

Speaker 2 (01:45):
So was that Give me a couple of days. I'm
gonna sit down.

Speaker 4 (01:48):
It's two weeks.

Speaker 1 (01:48):
It's in a week that it comes out, and you
haven't read it.

Speaker 2 (01:52):
So but you know, but I got the book.

Speaker 3 (01:54):
I just need to sit down. We just haven't had
a chance to just sit down.

Speaker 4 (01:57):
You said last week, I was gonna read it tonight.

Speaker 2 (01:59):
But I've read a little bit of it and it
started off good.

Speaker 4 (02:02):
Yeah, but.

Speaker 1 (02:05):
Anyway, I live to tell. The story is out in
days February eleventh, tomorrow. If you are in Louisville, Kentucky,
need you to be at the Norton Healthcare Sports and
Learning Center that's at three thousand West Market Street. You
can go to Tamika D Mallory dot com and purchase

(02:27):
a ticket. It's forty dollars. That gets you a book, ants, food,
and drinks. So and I just want to thank everybody.
My family attorney Lania Baker, Sadiqua Rentals, Tamika Palmer, Brionna
Taylor's mother, west Side Jen is a partner for this event.
We've got Aka's links, Deltas, all types of folks that's

(02:48):
going to be in the building.

Speaker 4 (02:50):
Freeway is going to be in the building.

Speaker 2 (02:51):
Bree ways.

Speaker 1 (02:52):
So please tomorrow, Louisville, Kentucky, if you're listening to this,
come out and be with us at my first official,
first official book event, which is in advance, so you'll
have a copy before the rest of the country. You'll
have a copy of my got to pull up.

Speaker 4 (03:11):
Oh my god. Anyway, So that's what I got going on.

Speaker 3 (03:15):
Well, you know me, man, I'm I'm gonna be there,
definitely gonna be a little I see my feeling in Louisville,
and we're gonna make sure that we turn this thing out.

Speaker 2 (03:23):
We're gonna turn it out, man, turn this mother out.

Speaker 1 (03:29):
Anyway. Let me get to tell you what my thought
of the day is. I do I do because you
know what I just have been. I've been having the.

Speaker 4 (03:40):
Most calls of my life.

Speaker 1 (03:42):
I always say that everything that happens, people call, and
they call and we talk, and we talk, and I
just want to say this to some of the black
preachers across this country and some of the black men
and women, because we have a friend who are several
friends at least, but one that I had a really
deep conversation with who said to me, I don't care

(04:06):
about transgender people because if your child is transgender, they
have a mental health problem, and so that means that
they are that's not that's something you need to deal
with with a therapist. And I've heard that a few times.
And so then I have people saying, well, I don't

(04:29):
care about immigrants because you should have came the right way. Did.
I have people that say Palestinians, I ain't really see
them with us. I don't know that they with us.
That's all the way across the water. I don't got
nothing to do with that. It feels bad, but I
don't care. And some of these people, not all of them,
as particularly the friends of ours, they didn't either they
didn't vote at all, or they definitely did not vote

(04:50):
for Donald Trump. But this is just how they feel.
So they took a posture of being like, I don't know,
I'm gonna do what I'm gonna do, but I ain't
gonna really fight like hell. Then there were black pastors
that refused to be engaged in the election because they said, I,
you know, I just can't morally the abortion piece or

(05:15):
the you know, lgbtqia or whatever these issues is just
not for me.

Speaker 4 (05:19):
So I'm just staying out of it. Then you add
people who.

Speaker 1 (05:24):
Black men and some black women, but particularly black men,
who said they're taking all our opportunities away from us,
and I and I you know, we can't. That's why
we can't build wealth because it's we always doing multiculturals,
too many people whatever. And now many of them are
saying this is crazy, like you gonna you are coming

(05:48):
out the gate trying to rescind civil rights that don't
just help black folks, by the way, but just civil
rights that are important. Now they may not be able
to get these things done. They may not be able
to get them done, but nonetheless they're trying to do it.

Speaker 4 (06:04):
They have a.

Speaker 1 (06:05):
Posture an attitude of second class citizenship for black folks
and others. And my whole thing that I want to
tell say to people is that first they came for them,
and then they come for you. There is no such
thing as isolating oppression, isolating hate. It doesn't work that way.

(06:33):
These people, Donald Trump, Elon Musk and them, It could
go on and on and on and on. They believe
in white nationalism, they believe in Europeans being.

Speaker 4 (06:48):
The dominant race.

Speaker 1 (06:51):
That's what they believe in, right, And so what they
are attempting to do is figure out how to move
some people out and break the backs of black people
and change our conditions in terms of our rights to
where we have no choice but to go fill in

(07:12):
the positions of those people who they've been able to eliminate.
They don't care about law and order. If he cared
about law and order, he would never have freed people
who beat the shit out of cops, including a woman
whose head was bashed in a police officer who now
has a permanent mental health issue. Right, they don't care
about that. He doesn't care about law and order. He's

(07:34):
total opposite of that, the total opposite. So that's not
what it's about. It is very simply about the fact
that there are people here who were doing certain types
of jobs in the you know, on the land. They
were saying that some of the farmers, the workers on
the farms weren't showing up to work because they're afraid

(07:56):
of being deported. So there are fruits and vegetables spoiling.
All this stuff is going to get worse. But what
they want to make sure is that you don't have
the opportunities that you think you're gonna have. So this
is why they're closing down DEI offices. They're doing all
of these things to ensure that there is not enough

(08:20):
wealth moving. Right, and if we don't change our habits,
because there's a way we can deal with it, which
is to spend with ourselves and build our economy up.
That is us building with us, right, us building with us.
But what they want to do is reduce the opportunities
so that this way you feel pressured and feel the

(08:42):
need to go fill in what they have deemed. I'm
not saying I deem it that way, but what they
have deemed the lower class positions. That's all. It's a shuffling.
They're shuffling people, and they got to do a lot
of things in order to get there. So what I'm
saying is that whether you want to admit it or not,

(09:04):
all people who are oppressed and vulnerable are in the
situation together, every single one of us.

Speaker 4 (09:11):
We're all in it together.

Speaker 1 (09:15):
We can say we're not gonna do as much for
this group or that group, or we're angry or whatever.
People went out and voted. You know, you got Muslims
that voted for these people because they came and met
with you and put up a billboard and told you
they were gonna do this and that and the third.
And meanwhile you knew good and damn well that these

(09:35):
people were the same, if not worse than the folks
who were already in there. So I just that's my
thought of the day. My thought of the day today
is that Donald Trump and his homies are shuffling folks around,

(09:55):
moving some out, and trying to shuffle black folks into
positions that will help to keep them as number one
and everybody else number two in below.

Speaker 4 (10:09):
That's what they're doing. They're shuffling.

Speaker 1 (10:11):
And similar to how there were some of us who
were told when enslavement became a thing on the shores
of Africa, they were moving our people, and there were
black folks whipping, snitching and organizing with them against the masses.

(10:39):
That happened because they brought the Europeans brought nice things,
they bought shiny things. Some of them were forced in
various ways. But there are others who they gave them
shiny things, they bought, they gave them weapons, They gave
them a drinks liquor with liquor was a big thing. However,
they made look at that time, they gave them silver.

(11:02):
They had all different types of trinkets that they dangled
and said, you'll be a part of us if if
you help us do this thing that we're doing, this experiment,
this plan that we have, and now we have the
same mentality that some of us voted for. Others of

(11:23):
us didn't do anything to stop it, didn't use our platforms,
didn't say one word, didn't say one word. You got
you have people out here who are saying, don't stop
supporting my brand. But they never did anything to help
us when we were out there trying to stop this

(11:44):
from happening. There being for the.

Speaker 3 (11:48):
Actually to get these these policies that got you inside.

Speaker 1 (11:52):
Exactly, they never.

Speaker 2 (11:54):
Did nothing to support anything, never said anything, no.

Speaker 1 (11:57):
No, no, In fact that that manager you have, that
business partner you have, or that rep that you have
that is at these big companies that told you you
can't do politics.

Speaker 2 (12:10):
Got.

Speaker 1 (12:11):
You gotta keep yourself out of that because you're a
business person and everybody comes from different You got people
might be Republican that support you. You got people that might
be so and so to support you. You gotta be careful.

Speaker 5 (12:22):
You can't do that.

Speaker 1 (12:24):
Guess what those people they talked you into being a
part of your demise, because be clear, unless we support
one another directly, depending on a big box store or
any of that, it's not gonna work. They eventually they're
going to you will book it will be fewer and

(12:46):
fewer of you. So I think that the lesson we
now learn is everything is political. I said that last week.
I'm gonna say it again. Everything is political. And if
you are a person in business or in anything else
who wants to see the morality, the dignity, the sovereignty
of our communities be upheld in any way, you gotta

(13:09):
get political. You gotta get in the mud. Got because
we in the mud.

Speaker 3 (13:13):
Listen, if you do not have a seat at the table,
then you're on the menia and that's the bottom.

Speaker 1 (13:18):
But they'll say that their seat at the table is
that they are doing business I mean.

Speaker 3 (13:23):
No, but but I don't trying to tell the sea
that the table means that if you at the table,
then nobody's going to tell you that they're going to
exclude diversity, equity and inclusion when they understand that that's
the how you got here.

Speaker 1 (13:35):
Well, I heard I heard somebody say today that that's
not how they got their contract and what they have
nothing to do.

Speaker 4 (13:41):
We we're real confused. We seem to think that.

Speaker 1 (13:45):
Diversity, equity and inclusion is something that started in twenty twenty.

Speaker 4 (13:51):
That's that's that's not a fact.

Speaker 2 (13:53):
That's not a fact.

Speaker 1 (13:54):
This has been going on for years. Reverend Jesse Jackson
was one of those pine in years that forced companies
to bring more black suppliers in, to bring more black
board members and others in. So when folks try to
say that they you know, oh, but I don't think

(14:14):
that my thing. I don't know that I had anything
to do with DEI or the summer of twenty twenty.
The summer of twenty twenty was a renewal, but it
was not the beginning. In fact, if you want to
go back even further than that, we all have been
part of that in many different places because they wasn't

(14:34):
hiring us at all. So there was no merit system
that allowed you to be in to be in place
because they could know that you were. In fact, they
got black people and black women know what I'm talking
about that had all the merit. We at the top
of the scale, most educated, We got all the things

(14:55):
we are. We are brilliant, we're creative, we're organized, we
are all those things. We know how to go into
spaces and temper our emotional standing. Meanwhile, white women be
crying all day at the office. We can't even cry.
Not all white women, but some of them. We can't
even cry. So we've been able to do all of that.
And what they will do is let you present something,

(15:18):
they will steal from you your intellectual property and go
sell it elsewhere. That's how much, that's how high we
are in a merit based system. If it was merit based,
they wouldn't have shit. They wouldn't have shit. So the
idea that you don't know if DEI had anything to
do with how you got your contract or diversity equity inclusion,

(15:41):
know that that did not begin. This is my This
makes me so scared for us that we lack understanding
of our history so much that we don't even know
that this did not start in twenty twenty or even
let's see even lets let me go back to another time.

(16:04):
I started twenty was George Floyd Trayvon Martin was in
twenty twelve. Right even before that. I'm talking about the eighties,
even before that, before that, the seventies, even in the sixties.
This is work that has been done with people toiled.

(16:28):
They worked hard to get us to where we are now.
So anyway, I gotta keep I gotta be quiet. We
have a guest coming that is gonna speak. We're gonna
be talking for a long time. So for today, I
don't have anything else to say. I was gonna give
y'all team I about this young lady that went on
the internet and said, oh, don't be coming back with

(16:51):
no Milano clothes. That's that, that ain't it. You need
to you need to be in a Montclair or she
might have said moose knuckle. And it's like it was
a young black girl who's telling people that Milana who
is passe and busted and this and that, but the

(17:13):
white man stuff, this is the problem. That's why y'all
been talking about boycott. Let me know when y'all ready.

Speaker 2 (17:20):
They're trying to girlcott.

Speaker 4 (17:22):
Let me let me know when y'all ready I've read,
I'm out.

Speaker 1 (17:25):
Let's get our guests. Yes, sir, when friends come through.
We've got a friend today, long time knowing one another,
but becoming brother and sister as of lately, just coming together.
You know, tragedy and we deal with so much of it,
and trauma can tabonds. And while we may have been

(17:50):
in many spaces together, I can say that we never
really had any like meaningful conversation until we was like,
what we're gonna do with this damn country? And so
I'm so excited today to have someone who I am
glad to be able to call friend and brother and

(18:11):
comrade to join us.

Speaker 4 (18:13):
And you guys don't really know.

Speaker 1 (18:14):
Each other yet. But but you know, y'all ain't become
friends yet. Oh that's that's some straight bullshit, because you
know what I mean, might be like I don't like them.

Speaker 3 (18:29):
But your friends though, don't. We're not gonna you just
don't realizing your friends.

Speaker 2 (18:36):
But don't worry about you anywhere.

Speaker 1 (18:42):
But Maurice Mitchell, nationally recognized social movement strategist national director
of the Working Families Party and also one of the
brilliant minds behind the Movement for Black Lives. And I
would say one of the foremost voices on on social
justice in.

Speaker 4 (19:01):
The nation is joining us in.

Speaker 1 (19:03):
Y'all. People don't be knowing people. We don't y'all don't
be knowing our people. That they put folks with two
ten million followers online and make them leaders. And then
I keep hearing people say we don't have any leaders,
and yet there are so many leaders, and Maurice is
absolutely one of them. Born and raised in New York.

(19:26):
That's correct to Caribbean working parents correct, which means Working
Families Party. It all is ALIVEE.

Speaker 4 (19:34):
Comes from home. Thank you so much for being with us.

Speaker 3 (19:37):
So good to be truly, so explain to us, like,
what is the Working Family Party?

Speaker 5 (19:43):
Okay, So I'm sure both of y'all have heard. Okay,
I get it. The Republican Party. That's that's the party
of Trump, that's the party of the white nationalists. Cool.
But as a black person or as a working person,
I think the Democratic Party is playing in my face.
I think the Democratic Party is owned by the corporations

(20:05):
or they're taking my vote for granted, and we need
something else. I hear that all the time.

Speaker 2 (20:10):
We need some difference. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (20:11):
Sometimes you know, before I even tell people what I'm about,
when I say that I'm involved in politics or organizing,
I'll hear like, we need something else. We need another party.
The Working Families Party is building. That's something else from
the grassroots. And WFP started in New York at a
time when grassroots organizers and folks in labor unions felt

(20:36):
that the Democratic Party had gone astray and was listening
way too much to the interest of Wall Street and
not to the interest of Main Street or the interests
of the streets that we grew up in. And so
it started in New York and we've spread and we
now are in twenty plus states, and we're organizing on

(20:57):
the ground, and we're focused on governing. So we're not
just focused on getting people elected, because we want people
to have the experience of registering, voting, getting people elected,
and then recognizing that things change when they recruit people
from the grassroots to get elected. And I like to
bring up you know, you just mentioned that you're going

(21:19):
to do an event with Jumani Williams. A lot of
people don't know.

Speaker 1 (21:23):
York City, Yep, shout it out at the New York
Public Library.

Speaker 5 (21:27):
Listen. I'm would be at one of them because there's something.
There's something happening, even the eleven listen.

Speaker 2 (21:35):
Listen.

Speaker 5 (21:35):
This is your platform, so shout out your your book.

Speaker 2 (21:38):
Listen.

Speaker 5 (21:40):
So Jiubani, he was a grassroots organizer, an advocate for renters' rights,
and he decided to run for office. And the establishment,
the establishing even today doesn't doesn't appreciate that brother the
way they need to. But the establishment at that time

(22:00):
did not want him to run for office, the Democratic
Party establishment and certainly certainly the Republicans establishment. He ran
as a Working Families Party only candidate in Brooklyn for
city council. Anyone.

Speaker 2 (22:14):
I didn't really know what it.

Speaker 5 (22:15):
Yeah, so Jumandi got his start as an independent Working
Families Party candidate. Tis James is another person. She started
in the same way in Brooklyn, a lawyer for the
people that the establishment couldn't figure out. And because she
was so independent and because she was so righteous, the
establishment in general, including the Democratic Party establishment, didn't know

(22:38):
what to do it and the Working Families Party recruited
her to run independently against the Democrats and Republicans. So
that's an example of what we do every single day.
We recruit everyday people. Sometimes they're they're educators like Jamal Bowman.
Sometimes they're people's lawyers like Tis James. Sometimes their organizers

(23:01):
like Jimani Williams. Working people, working people, right, because we
believe that working people understand the solutions to the issues
that they're under way better than the who tends to
get into office. Like most congress people are millionaires that
are former lawyers, right, former corporate lawyers, right. And so

(23:24):
they tell you this lie that you need some sort
of expertise that you only get from.

Speaker 1 (23:29):
You got to hire people to do that that know
some of those things, right.

Speaker 5 (23:32):
But the expertise of knowing how to make ends me
understanding how the policies that are coming from you know,
coming from Congress or coming from state legislatures, how they
actually affect your lives. Like dealing with affordability meant imagine
a Democratic party that understood that people were really wrestling

(23:52):
with affordability and they were actually able to in a
compassionate way talk about how to help people get out
of the affordability crisis that people are.

Speaker 1 (24:03):
Interrupted in this previous election, right, it probably would have
helped them tremendously.

Speaker 5 (24:08):
Absolutely, But in order to do that, you need actual
working people who have that experience, right, and so so
again we've been around for a while and as a result,
those people get into office, and then they don't just
sit in office not making a difference. I'll just give
an example that just happened over the past in New York.

(24:29):
So chay Osa, that is another person who is a
young elected official in Brooklyn, working families elected official, and
he passed this legislation with his colleagues in city council
that for people who are renting, they know whether or
not you go through a broker, you pay for a
broker fee. It's totally unfair. But now in New York,

(24:52):
because Chaos was able to pass that law, that's not
the case anymore.

Speaker 4 (24:56):
So you can go directly, yes, and do your business.

Speaker 5 (24:59):
And you don't have to pay that right now, Why
was that unfair policy on the books because the lobby,
because the real estate lobby benefited from me, right, right,
And so what you have is way too many people
on the local level, including a lot of Democrats, who
are listening to these lobbyists, right, because they're making deals

(25:20):
with these lobbyists, and they're kind of governing with the lobbyists.
They're governing with the corporations instead of governing with the people.
The Working Families Party is designed as a third party
movement where we govern with the people.

Speaker 4 (25:33):
Well, okay, the interviews over.

Speaker 1 (25:36):
In fact, in the presidential election, I ran in that
door so ready to vote, Like, first couple of days
of early voting, started going down Democrat, just giving voting
from my people. And when I got to the judges,
I got a little stuck because I needed to understand them.
And then I started thinking, I'm voting on the wrong line.

(25:57):
I don't want to be on this line. So I
quick was like, excuse me, what do you do if
you messed up on you? And they were like, oh,
we have to void it and go through a process.
I say, yeah, I need a void. I have to
so that I could vote Work is Family Party.

Speaker 5 (26:11):
Yes, And so people who are listening who live in
New York or Connecticut, right, they are able to vote
on the Working Families line and take advantage of something
we call fusion. And it was the law on the
books in every state. You know, way back when, and
the reason why it was outlawed in so many states
is because fusion was one of the things that allowed

(26:35):
everyday people to organize against the status quo hugean voting,
so you had parties outside of the Democratic Party and
the Republican Party able to bring together coalitions of people
on the grassroots level and vote as a block. Right now,
it's hard for us as black people to show that
we're voting as a block. We get lost in the
sauce because most of us ninety two percent of black

(26:57):
women voted for Democrats. Right 'st majority of black men
voted for Democrats for a lot of very smart and
strategic reasons, especially in this last election, but it's hard
to tell how much of us voted for Democrats. So
sometimes we get lost in the sauce. In New York
and in Connecticut, we know the exact number of Working
Families Party voters because we have our own ballot line.

(27:20):
So then we're able to immediately after the election go
to these elected officials from the local level all the
way up and we could say, these are the amount
of voters that voted for you, but they didn't vote
for you. On the Democratic Party line, they voted for
you as on the Working Families different values, and so
I could say, so our argument was vote for Kamala Harris,

(27:42):
but vote for around the Working Families Party because to
show because we know you're not voting for Kamala Harris
just because she's the Democrat, right, that you're voting for
the values of the work.

Speaker 1 (27:56):
It should be for the working for the values that
the Working Families Party holds.

Speaker 5 (28:03):
Yes, Okay, and then and then we could go and
have that conversation. And listen, I know as a matter
of fact that the conversations I'm able to have with
politicians in Connecticut and in New York because we could
count those votes when it comes time to governing. That's
a different conversation.

Speaker 1 (28:21):
That's how long did it take you to get to
this point? Because we have a world full of internet experts? Yeah, yes,
and they know they know everything.

Speaker 5 (28:32):
God bless them.

Speaker 1 (28:32):
They know how to start a political party. They know
they're gonna do it all.

Speaker 5 (28:37):
God bless you will be fixed.

Speaker 1 (28:40):
Just because you know that's it. Yeah, well, how long
did it take to get to this point? And do
you guys run white candidates? Also?

Speaker 5 (28:48):
Yeah, listen, we're a multi Racial Party. And so listen,
all skin folk and kimfo right, and so are the
candidates that we run represent the multiracial working.

Speaker 1 (28:59):
CLUI give us some white folks or other people so
people will know because they they already turning you off.

Speaker 4 (29:05):
This interview has just ended.

Speaker 1 (29:07):
They are now saying this is what I'm talking multicultural,
multi racial.

Speaker 4 (29:11):
We don't want that anymore. We want black.

Speaker 1 (29:14):
So talk about some of those other candidates that you
guys have.

Speaker 5 (29:20):
Absolutely. Let me take for example, Recasar, who's a who's
a Latino candidate in Texas. Recorzar, who's also currently the
chair of the Progressive Caucus in Congress. He stands on business.
That's why we've endorsed him. So in Texas, not only
did we support Jasmine Crockett, who I'm sure a lot

(29:40):
of people know, we also supported Records are right. Not
only are we supporting UH candidates like I said, like Jimani,
we're we're support we support aoc R. We ran Cynthia
Nixon against Governor CuMo. Right. Basic, basic, what we've learned,

(30:01):
right is that there is a politic that is about
the grassroots, about working people, about making sure that there's
more money in the pockets of everyday working people, especially
every day working black folks, and more power. And that politics,
to me is the lens that we look at when
we endorse our candidates, and so those candidates are going

(30:23):
to come from different backgrounds, and I would just argue
that it's not a zero sum game to talk about
a multi multi racial power and also to talk about
independent black power, right, because what happens is black people
unfortunately get lost in the sauce. So Black people get
lost in the sauce unfortunately sometimes in some of these coalitions,

(30:46):
which is why it's important before we join a coalition
as black people, we're clear about what our black agenda is.
So when we join that coalition, we're joining with the
clear black agenda that we're bringing into the picture, and
clear it's a black power. Is when we join coalitions
and we're unclear about what our agenda is, then we
often find ourselves getting lost in the sauce, which has

(31:08):
historically been our experience. Unfortunately, in a lot of democratic
party politics, they are hungry for black votes, but oftentimes
when it comes to a black agenda, they are looking elsewhere, right.
But that's to me on us how sharpers are organizing and.

Speaker 4 (31:26):
Talk about how long it took.

Speaker 5 (31:28):
So, yes, so Working Families Party, Like I said before,
twenty six years, it took twenty six years for the
Working Families Party to build to this level. I've been
the national director of the Working Families Party for nearly
seven years, right, and.

Speaker 1 (31:42):
So you started in seven years ago. Sorry, I don't
I'm not trying to cut you off, but I know
what we got to hit.

Speaker 4 (31:49):
So people can understand when.

Speaker 1 (31:51):
You started seven years ago, what would you say are
the successes or is the success It would be more
than one thing. I'm assuming from there into now, like
how much has the move moved?

Speaker 5 (32:02):
Sure, so in the seven years since I've been the
national director, the Working Families Party has grown exponentially, Right,
We've we have new chapters. We're in California where we
could count one hundred elected officials just in the state
of California on the local and state level that are
proudly Working Families Party. I just came from the Bay

(32:25):
Area where they met and they were fired up. I
was with Barbara Lee with one of our candidates she
ran for Senate. Absolutely, yes, listen, and so that that chapter,
as well as some other chapters that we built recently
are the byproduct of heart organizing, right organizing. So I'm
talking hours and hours of conversations, of humble conversations, of back,

(32:49):
back and forth struggles about how are we going to
build this, How are we going to make sure that
our candidates are accountable? How are we going to make
sure that we actually have the resources to run. So
we're not just making a point, We're delivering for our
people real struggles, right.

Speaker 2 (33:04):
You know.

Speaker 5 (33:05):
The other thing I would say is like over the
past years, look at the city of Philadelphia. So when
I started in the city of Philadelphia, the city of
Philadelphia was a two party city Democrats and Republicans. Today,
because of the hard organizing in the Working Families Party,
it is still a two party city with Democrats and

(33:25):
Working Families Party. So we the Working Families Party kicked
the two Republicans in city Council in Philadelphia off of
the city council and replaced them with Working Families Party
only city councilors. So Kendra Brooks is the minority leader
and Nicholas or Work is the Minority Whip of Philadelphia.
They both are independent voices that both are are black,

(33:48):
rest root voices. Kendra comes from nice Town. She is
a working class Black mom, and she governs. She governs
in the city of Philadelphia for the people that didn't
come through overnight. You know, that started through a long process.
You know, when we started, a lot of people didn't think,

(34:08):
especially the establishment, didn't think that we would be able
to remove the Republicans and replace them of working families
party people. There were a lot of doubters, and there
continues to be a lot of doubters. But you know,
like I just you know, for anybody who's doubting, look
at the results. You know, I asked people to look
at our receipts, so one concrete result, not just getting

(34:29):
them elected, but in terms of how it actually affects.

Speaker 1 (34:32):
People's lives, right right, right.

Speaker 5 (34:34):
So, like I said before, we have this affordability crisis, right,
we have. We have a crisis where so many we
were just talking about it, so many working class Black people,
in particular in cities everywhere are finding it harder and
harder to stay in their homes because of gentrifications, were
being pushed out of our communities. Historical black communities were

(34:55):
being pushed out of and so in Philly during the pandemic.
There was a problem because a lot of people were
facing evictions, right, and a lot of people couldn't draw
a salary right because people are sheltering in place. And
so Kendra Brooks, the Independent Working Families Party candidate, she

(35:15):
passed a temporary law protecting renters, and so renters couldn't
just get pushed out. They had to negotiate with their landlords. Right.
That kept a lot of working class people in their home,
and then recently we made it permanent. And so if
you look at the trend lines of there's a lot

(35:36):
of trend lines for evictions that are going in this direction,
but in Philadelphia, the trend line is moving like this
because of that policy. So it's important for people to
understand these aren't just we're not just making noise, We're
not just making a point. We're actually getting people in
positions where they could govern. And then when they're in
those positions, they are remembering where they came from. And

(35:59):
it's actually been a fitting everyday people. The thing is like,
I've heard a lot of people say we need a
third party in this country. I couldn't agree more. But
I think it's important to look at the history of
third parties, you know, so that we can learn from
different each now, right, and I don't even I don't

(36:21):
even need to go too far, right, so we could
go further, but let's just look at what ross Perot did.
That's exactly what we want to get into, right, Yeah,
because you know, I'm actually I'm really pleased that so
many people were talking about third parties, especially last cycle,
and you know a lot of people had our name
in their mouths, and I'm happy for that because it

(36:42):
allows me to cut to platforms like this and share
more because people are curious. So nineteen ninety two, Ross
Paro billionaire, right, he spent all the money in the world,
and he started his own party, the Reform Party, and
he couldn't break twenty percent, right, So to me, and
the lesson that I learned from that is that if

(37:03):
your approach is all right, let's find a charismatic person
who could run a campaign and run a top down
campaign every four years and that will somehow break the
duopoly and break the back of the Democratic and Republican Party.
If ross Pero, with all of his money, he was
able to just buy blocks of time during during primetime, right,

(37:28):
he was able to he couldn't break twenty percent. To me,
that strategy isn't viable, especially if you don't have billions of.

Speaker 1 (37:37):
Dollars, right and people that they invest that yes, and
we're okay, right.

Speaker 3 (37:42):
So and I think so that's what that's what I think.
Right when I think about third party, I think that
the third party serves as an addition to whatever candidate.

Speaker 2 (37:53):
Right.

Speaker 3 (37:53):
So if we already have a two we already have
a two party system, the third party is going to
give leverage to the other party.

Speaker 1 (38:03):
Right.

Speaker 3 (38:04):
And it's like, because we, like you say, the Democrats,
we understand pretty much that the Democratic Party has failed
us in a lot of ways. But there are a
lot of candidates and people from our communities that are
in it that need the support of the working family
party that you can run them as working family. But
they fall under the guys pretty much of them.

Speaker 1 (38:24):
Yeah, what happens to them when they if Jimiani was
he not a Democrat.

Speaker 5 (38:28):
Then initially he wasn't a Democrat. Once he got elected,
the Democratic Party embrace embrace them.

Speaker 2 (38:35):
So it gives you that power, do you see?

Speaker 3 (38:36):
Is a balance is a voting block and there's a
voice that says, this is what the working parties, the
people in our community want, this is who we want,
and then the Democratic Party has no choice because what
happens is you drowned out their candidate pretty much, and
when they win, they have no choice but embrace yous.
So what you start doing is you start and that's

(38:57):
what I tell people. You have to retrain in the values.
You don't throw the baby away with the bath word
right there. I just think when when I look at
the Democratic Party, we have hundreds of black people and
a lot of them are good. When we look at
Jasmine Crockett and all these people who are under the
guise of Democrats, we can't just throw all these people away.

Speaker 2 (39:16):
What we have to do is reform.

Speaker 3 (39:17):
There's definitely issues, there are definitely people that take advantage
of our votes and all that, but we have to say, okay,
this is our issue.

Speaker 2 (39:25):
This is our party now.

Speaker 3 (39:27):
Like when when the working when you come and you say, look,
we have we have the power, right, we know what
the people want in our community and we know that
this two party system won't allow us to do anything outside.
But you know that you can't really ruin without us.
Because when he talks about ross Paro. That's the problem.
Ross Road just said, I'm just gonna run ato the
third party, and you don't have no backing from anything else.

(39:47):
So what happens is we have to use that as
our leverage.

Speaker 2 (39:51):
We have to use it.

Speaker 3 (39:51):
And what happens is now when we start to take
the values of the Working Families Party and we put
it into the demo that who were supposed.

Speaker 1 (40:00):
To be is in the Democratic Party.

Speaker 5 (40:03):
Let me let me, let me, let me, let me
break let me, let me break that down from my perspective,
because because listen, you're speaking facts, right. One of the
ways that I talk about the difference between the Republican
Party and the Democratic Party, right is that, Okay, in
the Republican Party, one hundred percent of their elected officials

(40:23):
do not believe in the basic rights or the human
rights of Palestinians. One hundred percent of their elected officials
do not believe in the basic rights of black people.
One hundred percent of their elected officials either believe in
the billionaire agenda or are too fearful to do anything

(40:44):
about fighting the billionaire agenda. And that was evident when
you saw the number one, number two, or number three billionaire.

Speaker 1 (40:51):
Right cabinet member.

Speaker 5 (40:53):
Inside the Democratic Party, you have a debate, right, So
the Democratic Party, there's a lot of people who I
disagree with vehemently. There's a lot of people in the
Democratic Party that align with corporate interests. And the Democratic
Party is also the party of Summerly and Latifa Simon
right and Jamal Bowman right, and Corey Bush right and

(41:16):
Rashida Talib right, Williams and Jimani Williams right. So the
Working Families Party wants to represent the interest and support
and provide blocking and tackling for them so that they
could do the people's business. And long term, we're doing
the things to change the structures so that there could

(41:37):
actually be a viable multi party democracy. And so we're
doing both. We're engaged in politics today with many of
the Democrats who agree with us and many of the
people who agree with us, and we're building the independent
infrastructure for the third party multi party democracy of the future.

(42:00):
And like I said, fusion voting exists in Connecticut and
New York, but we want fusion voting to exist in
many more states. And we're suing, you know, and we're
engaging in conversations. So fusion voting is the thing that
we talked about, where in the ballot you could actually
see Democratic Party is one line, Republican is another line,

(42:22):
and the Working Families Party is another line, and you
could vote on the Working Families Party line and it
doesn't dilute your vote because you could choose. I could
either vote for Kamala Harris on the Democratic Party line
or the Working Family Party line, and either vote counts
the same thing.

Speaker 3 (42:37):
But it just shows the value that the working Family
already brings, because it shows that people are voting for
the values of the working families.

Speaker 5 (42:45):
That's right. Hundreds of thousands of people just in the
state of New York voted on the Working Families Party line,
and in many of those cases, the margin of the
margin of victory was so slim that if those voters
are not voted on the Working Families Party line, that
candidate wouldn't have won. So it really does have a
significant impact.

Speaker 1 (43:06):
Absolutely, Okay, So okay, So I didn't want to spend
a lot of time so much time talking about work
is Family Party, Working Families Party because you are that,
but you got other school. Yeah, absolutely, But I do
have to ask you, how does that how do y'all
play in the sand box with the Democrats? Like, what
does the what does it look like? Because one of

(43:29):
the biggest issues that I face when I tell people
you vote on the Working Family I told my girlfriend
and she she works at a bank and whatever, and
she was like, I need my vote account and I'm
scared that you're telling me to do something that's going
to mess me up.

Speaker 5 (43:44):
Blah blah blah.

Speaker 1 (43:45):
So how do y'all play in the sand box together?
And I know you said fusion, but maybe I didn't
get it.

Speaker 5 (43:50):
So let me just let me just break it down.
We cook what we have in the kitchen. Some places
like New York and Connecticut, we use fusion voting, and
that allows for you to be able to vote on
the Working Families party line without spoiling, without wasting your vote.
It actually empowers you. Right, But we don't have fusion
voting everywhere, and so where we don't have fusion voting,
and also in New York, we like to get busy

(44:12):
in primaries. We like to find those people that have
a d nex to their name for Democrat, but we
have decided that they are not accountable in any way.
Right when it comes, you know, like they're not accountable.
They got to this place either they came in listening
to the corporations, or they have gotten to this place

(44:33):
where they believe that they're entitled to their to their role,
that they're entitled to their seat, and they're not listening
to the people. They're not being responsive to the people.
And we primary those those Democrats, we kick them out
of office. The reason Jamal Bowman was in office was
because somebody who had been there for years needed to go.

Speaker 2 (44:51):
Right.

Speaker 5 (44:52):
He was he wasn't even living in his district. Right,
This is how entitled they get. They don't even live
in their district after a while, right, and so and
then a lot of them for them, this isn't about service,
this is this is a this is a business, you know,
And so they got to go right, and so the
Working Families Party, we build coalitions from the grassroots with

(45:15):
unions like you know, like the unions that that that
my parents came out of, right and grassroots organizations, and
we build that coalition on the ground. We find candidates
who we who we believe are actually accountable. We run them,
and we often are able to primary and win. People
have been there for years people have the backing of
all these corporations, because when real advocates run, you could

(45:39):
see that difference and see, like the the the reason
why somebody like Summerly, why Apak and the corporations have
to send millions and millions and millions and millions of
dollars against her, she still wins. Shows that that that
formula works as well as it does when you have
somebody who can't be bossed around, won't be bought, is

(46:02):
a true advocate people in the community know where to
be stand up. You add that with the resources and
support of grassroots organizations and then also the support of
Working Families Party that's been around for twenty six years
and other organizations, and then that grassroots coalition wins every time.
And that's why we believe that over time we could

(46:25):
shift our politics closer to the people. But it requires
the people to believe that it's possible, which is why
being on this platform and having this conversation so important,
because people say, like, we need it's happening.

Speaker 4 (46:39):
It's happening, It's happening in.

Speaker 2 (46:41):
This It's a process.

Speaker 3 (46:42):
And I tell people this all the time and they're like, oh,
we just the frustration that I have with our people
is we don't see and it's designed for us not
to see the strategy. Like when we talk about what
happened in black wall streets and how the burnt down
and how they constantly disenfranchises right in this moment, that's

(47:05):
the strategy that's happening right now. We don't We're not
realizing it because we were just saying.

Speaker 2 (47:10):
Oh, the Democrats, is they just term where everything's gone?
We need to get No.

Speaker 3 (47:14):
What happened is they've watched black people a man so
much power with the wealth within this party. Like when
I went to the Democratic National Convention, it looked like
it was just a black reunion.

Speaker 1 (47:26):
Right.

Speaker 3 (47:26):
So when you start to see that, they say, Okay,
we have to disenfranchise. We have to make it see
dismantle it. We have to completely make it seem like
woke is the worst thing in the world. You say,
black lives matters, everything that we fought for. They have
to they have stained it, right because they've seen us
gaining the power.

Speaker 5 (47:45):
Yeah, and I want to I want to drill down
here the reason why when one of the reasons why
we endorse Kamala Harris is our focus on governing right,
And I want to explain if we were able to
in this last selection at a democratic president, get a
Democratic Congress with a Democratic House, why is that so

(48:07):
important to us? So that summerly, Jasmine Crockett, you know,
many of the people we talked about, Latifa Simon could
be in a position to govern right right. So if
it's just about personalities, it's hard to really understand the
value and it's like, oh, I don't like Kamala or
I heard this, or it's about putting our people in

(48:29):
a position to govern for our people. And in the
Democratic Party, we've been able to organize a cadre of
independent black voices that stand on business and best believe
the corporations. The lobbyists were aware of that, and when
they were trying to shut us down and they were
trying to drown us with misinformation and disinformation, unfortunately recruit

(48:54):
some folks in our community, right, it was about that.
That's what it was about. They understood what was at
risk for their corporate agenda if we put people like
Latifa Simon in a position to govern in the House,
right like they actually understood that, which is why it

(49:15):
was so important to confuse some people. Luckily most people
in our community didn't get it twisted. But the thing
that I'm always thinking about when it comes to that
misinformation and disinformation is not, oh, that's going to lead
to millions of black folks voting for Trump. If they
confuse enough of us, it might mean enough of us

(49:38):
are unclear how to vote, and therefore enough of us
are not going to vote right. And to me, that's
my greatest fear. And I think when you look, you know,
we're still we're still breaking down what happened in that election.
But millions of people who we know agree with our
values didn't turn up right. And I have to imagine
being confused by all that misinformation led to some percentage

(50:01):
of our folks.

Speaker 2 (50:02):
Uncle. Definitely. Yeah, I've had conversations with people that I
had to just.

Speaker 3 (50:08):
Unwind just the misinformation and say, well, where did you
get this information? Well they said who? They said, like,
here's the facts, and oh, well I didn't know that.
And it's like they were constantly being fed just lies
and lies and just missing and it's like today somebody
just came on my page told my commas not black
and all this.

Speaker 2 (50:27):
It's just like how do how do we keep having
these comments?

Speaker 1 (50:30):
And that's the same thing, in my judgment, that's the
same problem we have whenever we talk about boycotts.

Speaker 3 (50:36):
Right.

Speaker 1 (50:38):
I was saying to you off air that one of
the problems that I see today is there's so many
different people talking. Everybody has a voice, everybody is an expert,
as I said, and that is in and of itself misinformation,
not even because what they're saying is not true, but

(50:59):
it's that some of these folks who are talking about
what to do do not know what it takes to
actually do it. And so you might not be able
to say, well, we don't need we don't need Kroger.
But when Kroger is the only place that people have
to go eat, you can't just be like, we don't

(51:21):
need Kroger. Especially some of us who are sitting in
very privileged places. We have to be able to say
we don't need Kroger because on Wednesdays we're going to
be delivering boxes of food, which is what we did
in Kentucky. Right for months, we were feeding people so
that they didn't have to because Kroger was criminalizing them,

(51:44):
assuming that anybody. First of all, they closed for a while.
As you know, it was protest going on til Kroger
was closed and it was the only supermarket in the
West end of Louisville, Kentucky. And so we said, okay,
well we're going to bring food boxes out with you know,
roots and vegetables and things. Now, of course, there was
some people was like, what I'm gonna do with that

(52:04):
egg plant? I don't eat egg plant. But we weren't
just feeding black people. It's other people who live in
that area. So we might be able to do college greens,
but then what about you know, other families that needed
other things.

Speaker 4 (52:18):
So that's just a little antidote.

Speaker 1 (52:20):
But nonetheless, we tried to say, okay, so Kroger's closed,
we don't want that to be the focus. So let's
figure out how we bring people what they need so
they're not dependent on or feeling like, get this protest
shit out of here because y'all over here protesting, and meanwhile.

Speaker 4 (52:39):
They won't open our supermarket. So's there there is.

Speaker 1 (52:43):
So there's so many needs of our people, and when
they're online and everybody is saying and doing and this
and that, it makes people feel like I just can't
I can't do it. I don't know. I don't even
want to vote. Y'all telling us when we go down there,
they might beat us up, telling us that we might
not have our names on the Liz, you're telling us

(53:04):
don't vote on Democratic tickets. You're telling us I vote
don't count. Like it's so many messages coming at once.
I don't even know what we're supposed to do.

Speaker 5 (53:13):
Don't worry about it, and on whose platform? Sucker birth right?

Speaker 1 (53:17):
I'm all right, right, right, right, but yeah, but they
got hoteps in your family too, now that know a
lot of things, and they be smart. I'm not. You know,
I'm not against it because sometimes brothers be checking me
a little bit on things, and I be like, okay,
I see you, bro. But sometimes, you know, I listen
to some of the things that they say, and I'm like,

(53:38):
I've been.

Speaker 4 (53:39):
Doing this for thirty years.

Speaker 1 (53:42):
And I know what some of the challenges are. Because
those of us who are willing to make the sacrifice
the shifts to the working family. Yes, and we have
to grow the base.

Speaker 5 (53:51):
That's correct.

Speaker 1 (53:52):
That's first before we can say forget this party or
that thing or this set spoken like a true organizer, right,
got to grow the base and.

Speaker 5 (54:00):
There's ways that if you aren't listening to the base,
even if what you're saying is factually correct, even if
the policies are correct, even if you're right, because you
didn't listen to the base, you now have a wedge
between you and the base, absolutely right. So your people
are looking at you like what do you because you

(54:22):
weren't humble enough and you weren't rigorous enough in that
organizing to always listen to the base to hear like
all right, well listen like, yes, yes, a boycott would
be great as a tactic, but in order for us
to earn the ability to boycott, we need to make
sure that our people are fed, that our people feel

(54:44):
a connection to the like when people people you know,
go back in history, people talk about the Montgomery bus boycott,
right that they organize the Planta to get there. It
wasn't a snap decision because they needed to sustain the boycott.
That caused a significant amount of duress on the people
because now you got to walk to work, right now,

(55:06):
you gotta you know, yeah, and you know, they have
to organize all types of different arrangements to make sure
that people got to where they need to go to right.
That is a logistical and organizing sort of commitment to
your people. So you have to consider those things before
you say let's do this, let's do that, and so

(55:27):
you earn the right to be able to do attack.

Speaker 2 (55:30):
Right.

Speaker 1 (55:31):
You know, we got to earn also every day we
I mean Coreta Scott King said that that freedom is
not given. It's not a given. Every generation has to
earn it. And in order to earn it, you have
to show the people that you're trustworthy and stable enough
for them to follow what you are offering them.

Speaker 4 (55:53):
I got to ask you this question.

Speaker 1 (55:54):
Because you gotta go. Okay, elections is coming up.

Speaker 4 (55:58):
Are you optimistic?

Speaker 1 (56:00):
What do we need to do?

Speaker 5 (56:02):
Okay, listen, So I considering this is just the second
week of the Trump administration, right, I actually have a
lot of optimism, and I'll explain why. I don't know
if folks followed the Maga civil war that took place
even before they got into office, where Elon Musk and
some of the tech Maga people were arguing with the

(56:24):
traditional Maga people. And then the other thing I noted
is that Trump was talking a lot about groceries, and
a lot about affordability, a lot about eggs and eggs.

Speaker 2 (56:37):
Right.

Speaker 5 (56:38):
If you notice he has abruptly pivoted. He's not talking
about that anymore. Right, And the eggs, oh yeah, oh yeah,
absolutely yeah, the price of eggs are going up. Right,
he has pivoted already. Right, And to me, and we
were saying this, we were we were saying this in
real time. We've been saying this, right, that this is

(56:59):
a grift, that he is a billionaire that is in
league with other billionaires. He is not a true populace.
He's not concerned about the price of eggs or making
things affordable for your family.

Speaker 2 (57:09):
Right.

Speaker 5 (57:10):
Not everybody got that message. Some people voted for Trump,
not because they're maga. Some people voted even some people
of color, some black folks voted for Trump based on
quote unquote the economy.

Speaker 2 (57:22):
Right.

Speaker 5 (57:23):
But this is a mask off moment. So people saw
him next to the richest people on the planet. And
he has some tax cuts he has to pay for.
He has a bunch of policies he has to pay for.
Where's he going to pay for those things. He's going
to be looking at Medicaid, He's going to be looking
at SNAP, He's going to be looking at programs that

(57:44):
allow everyday people to survive. Elon Musk even said that.
He said it's going to be painful, it's going to
be harder.

Speaker 1 (57:52):
He said he might have to put everybody on welfare
or something like that.

Speaker 5 (57:56):
Yeah, so Elon is saying the quiet part out loud because.

Speaker 2 (58:00):
You don't care.

Speaker 3 (58:01):
This is emboldened white privilege. This is a billionaire white
privilege that I can say what I want. And it's
just when you watch that, it confuses me how people
see something else.

Speaker 5 (58:13):
It's like it's a part time South Africa white privilege.
What's that? And so here's the.

Speaker 1 (58:21):
For him, this is his natural habitats coming home, yes,
coming yes, Yes. And the thing is sorry, Mama made
it like we did it in America. Yes, when I
told you I was leaving here to go to America,
I promised you that one day we would see what
they stopped us kind.

Speaker 4 (58:43):
Of from doing over here. Begin again.

Speaker 5 (58:46):
That's right over there, that's right, that's right, that's right,
it's the prodigal son, right and so and so here's
something deep. It's deep. You think about the psychology of
these people. And the point I'm making is what gives
me hope is number one people have eyes and ears.
Our people aren't stupid. People are not stupid. And many

(59:10):
of the people, I mean, I'm even seeing it in
the discourse online, including many of our folks who might
have thought, well, we're voting for the anti establishment. You
can get more establishment than all the billionaires in the
world lining up.

Speaker 2 (59:23):
With you know.

Speaker 5 (59:24):
So it's clear. And so I have a lot of
hope for the organizing that we could do over the
next two years to flip because they have a very
very slim majority.

Speaker 1 (59:34):
In the House, super slim the day.

Speaker 5 (59:37):
And the other thing to note is that they aren't
very disciplined. They tend not to be disciplined when it
comes time to govern, right, So whether or not they're
going to be able to make those slim majorities actually
matter is a different question because they have so many Look,
they have the ultra ultra ultra Maga wing inside inside
Congress right, and they're blowing things up left and right right,

(01:00:00):
and so whether or not they're going to be able
to make peace with them in order to govern as
a different story. But the thing is whether whether or
not that's true. The people are going to learn quickly quickly,
they're going to learn quickly that they are governing by
for and with billionaires. It's a true mask off moment.
And now it's the job for organizers and also the

(01:00:21):
job for people who have platforms, and thank god we
have this platform right to tell the truth about it, right,
So over the next two years, the people could get information.
So I have a lot of confidence that we'll be
able to flip Congress in these two years. The other
thing I want to say is that there are so
many opportunities. So people who are watching and they might

(01:00:43):
want to know, well, what can I do about it?
I've seen what's transpired. I'm concerned about these anti DEI
policies and I know the words diversity, equity and inclusion
policies right, because that's what it is, right, and I
understand how my impact, my family or my impact. The

(01:01:04):
thing that we need to do is again is to
organize on the local level, right, And there's opportunity. Presidents
aren't kings, at least today, they aren't right, right, And
as long as they're not kings, and as long as
power exists on multiple levels in this country, what's going
on in your school board, right, what's going on in
your city? And this is why I say that I

(01:01:27):
want to go back to the Ross Pero strategy. Every
four years, Let's let's find somebody to run for president.
Then you're not focused on school board, right, You're not
focused on city council. You're not focused on what's happening
in your county district attorney. That's where so much of
the governing happens. In fact, most of the things that
we're concerned with, like well, the quality of education for

(01:01:51):
my children, or whether or not it is still affordable
in the city that's zoning, zoning is city council, right,
All of those things happen on the local level. And
so many of those things they know that you know,
I'm sure people are watching, are.

Speaker 4 (01:02:09):
Busy, are hustling and tired of.

Speaker 5 (01:02:12):
It and tired right, and and aren't close political observers,
and are are locked in like the people here, right,
which is why we have organizations. Right. Organizations exist so
that with the time that you do have, we can
make sure that that time is the most effective. And
there's organizations like the Working Families Party that are on

(01:02:33):
the local level. And we're recruiting people for school board,
for city council, for county, so that they could run
and win. And so this year they say it's an
off year, but so many of those elections are happening
this year, and then next year the entire House of
Representatives is up for reelections.

Speaker 1 (01:02:51):
So we're gonna we're gonna work together. Absolutely, we're gonna
be together.

Speaker 3 (01:02:57):
Where do you get the motivation? Like, what would your
childhood to do this work? Where are you from?

Speaker 5 (01:03:01):
Okay, So I'm from not too far from here, from
a working class suburb of New York called Long Beach.
I grew up in Long Beach, I was born. I
was born in the late seventies, nineteen seventy nine, and
my parents are working class people who came from the Caribbean.
My grandmother came here as a domestic worker and she worked.

(01:03:21):
She left like ten children in Trinidad and worked in
the houses of other people Monday through Friday on Long
Island and during the weekend, she didn't have a home.
And the reason we actually got our bearings in that community.
That's an example of black solidarity. Actually, I actually spoke

(01:03:44):
in Long Beach at the m OK event in Long
Beach this past at this past MKDA and I brought
up this story my grandmother. Again, she's an immigrant from
this country, knew this country, working Monday through Friday in
the homes of white folks, taking care of their children,
taking care of their families, away from all of her

(01:04:04):
children during the weekend. Sometimes she would just sit in
the park in Long Beach. Right, there's a park in
Long Beach in the center of town. And a woman
who is a church elder, a black woman, noticed her.
Could have passed her by, but noticed her, and she's like,
what are you doing sitting there? And my grandmother explained, well,

(01:04:26):
I work in these people's home Monday through Friday. During
the weekend. This is often where I'll sit and you
catch a break and she's like, you know, people, you
don't have any places to stay. And that day she
was like, you staying with me, right, you staying with me.
And because of that, that led to a whole chain
of events that led to me being here. Wow, you know,

(01:04:46):
And so what I took from that and my experience
of growing up with my family, we had a very
big family, a lot of aunties and uncles, a lot
of cousins. You know, you're hip hop artist, so you know,
I grew my cousin God rest his whole MF doom

(01:05:08):
you know, yeah, shout out. We all grew up together
in this community, and we supported one another, and if
there were people who had a need, just like that
church elder looked out for my grandmother, we made sure
that they had a place to stay. If there were
people who needed work, oftentimes my grandmother would be like,

(01:05:29):
stay here, I'll find work for you, right. And so
I grew up with the family that you know, they
didn't know they were organizers, but they were organizers, right,
And so it was normal and it is normal for
me to understand that family is not just the people
whose blood you might share. It is the family that
you creates here and now. And that's how Black people,

(01:05:52):
in whatever condition we've ever been in, whenever we've been
able to persevere, it's been because of the community that
we build. And so when I do this work, it's
in honor of my grandmother, and it's in honor of
the people that chose to lean in and build community
so I could be where I'm at. And I try
to apply that in politics. So I don't look at

(01:06:14):
politics as a dirty word, right, because when I think
about politics, I think about democracy. Democracy is just the
things we do together, right, And so how can we
flip it?

Speaker 2 (01:06:25):
Right?

Speaker 5 (01:06:26):
They want you to think democracy is dirty, so they
could have all this boils, right, But democracy is just
what we do together and how we share. In the
richest country in the history of countries, how can we
share all of this so that we could be more whole?
And when I see them try to do the divide
and conquer, then I know what it is. It's like,

(01:06:46):
look immigration, right, they want black folks to fight for
crumbs to decide who's going to be the permanent underclass.

Speaker 1 (01:06:57):
That's it.

Speaker 5 (01:06:58):
Is it going to be black folks or is it
going to be immigrants. Well, let's stop finding for crumbs
and let's come together as black folks and have the
entire pie. Right. Or what if we came together and
started an alliance, black and brown alliance and we start
we have the entire bakery. Right. So, in the richest
country in the history of countries, how can I sit

(01:07:20):
here and fix my face in protest of another working
person that maybe they don't share my heritage, but they're
just trying to struggle like me, A mother, a mother
who's a migrant from from Venezuela. Right, who's trying to
make ends meet?

Speaker 2 (01:07:39):
Right?

Speaker 5 (01:07:39):
How do I fix my face having a problem with
her when my problem is with the billionaires and the corporation.

Speaker 1 (01:07:46):
Yeah, you more mad at miss Mary, then you are
mister Elon and mister so and so and mister whoever.

Speaker 5 (01:07:54):
Come on and just pick another divide And that's just
one thing. They want us to be more mad at
the fact that transgender people are trying to live their
lives where they're trying to live their lives, Like why
am I Why am I here out here mad at
transgender people? How is me being mad at transgender people
or my discomfort with their lives? How does that make
my life better?

Speaker 1 (01:08:14):
We just talked about this conversation we have to You're
gonna kill us because I was about to say what
you cannot answer? How would birthright citizenship have a ending?
Or not having birthright citizenship? How would that have impacted
your family? You know so? But anyway you can't answer.

Speaker 5 (01:08:35):
It's part to part.

Speaker 1 (01:08:41):
Director of the working families.

Speaker 5 (01:08:45):
Oh yeah, we could go and you could.

Speaker 2 (01:08:51):
They divided.

Speaker 3 (01:08:51):
They divide us against the teelers, they call them.

Speaker 1 (01:08:57):
But then I guess they get turn it all.

Speaker 2 (01:09:04):
To separate us. There's so many different.

Speaker 5 (01:09:08):
God bless Malcolm X. And you know his mom, his
mom from Grenada. That's so god bless Malcolm. I'm so
happy that his mom immigrated from Grenada so that we
can have a Malcolm X exact but we can have
that conversation.

Speaker 1 (01:09:22):
Thank you for being here. Thank you so much.

Speaker 3 (01:09:24):
By shout out to Maurice mitchell Man.

Speaker 2 (01:09:29):
That was an excellent interview.

Speaker 4 (01:09:31):
So much more to discuss, yes, so much more to.

Speaker 2 (01:09:34):
Unpack that we could. We could have been here for
a whole nother hour.

Speaker 1 (01:09:37):
For sure. There's a lot of things that because I
wanted to ask him about this whole you know, Senator
entering a bill that would allow Trump to have a
third term.

Speaker 4 (01:09:50):
It just with so many.

Speaker 3 (01:09:51):
Things I don't get it today is I am so
confused at the ignorance of people, right because we had
an election.

Speaker 2 (01:10:02):
You know, people voted for Trump, people voted.

Speaker 3 (01:10:05):
For Kamala, and the election is over, and there are
people who actually are mad because now that the election
is over. Those of us who understand the political process,
understand civics and engagement, understand how laws are made, to
understand how advocating for things work, are still talking about

(01:10:28):
what's going on in America. We're talking about the president
who was elected president of America. We're talking about policies
that he's putting into activation, and they're saying, why don't
you just go away now because the election is over.
You lost, just shut up, And that's the dumbest shit
I've ever heard. We voted because we wanted America to
look a certain way, So all right, we didn't get

(01:10:50):
the candidate that we wanted. But this president is the
president of the United States and he's actively signed executive
orders that is affecting our life within seven days.

Speaker 2 (01:11:01):
So we're supposed to just go sleep.

Speaker 3 (01:11:03):
See, this is why I don't understand half these people
that I know that they don't get it. This shit
ain't no basketball game where you're a Nick fan and
I'm a Lebron fan and after the game we shake hand,
we just go and we're just supposed to just be
a sore loser or just shut up. No, this is
real life. This is real life shit that's happening. Well,
these people affecting our lives. So you thinking that now

(01:11:24):
that Trump is elected president because I voted for comment.

Speaker 2 (01:11:27):
And she didn't win, that now I'm supposed to shut up.

Speaker 3 (01:11:29):
I'm gonna get even louder because I know he's activating
policies that's gonna affect my life trying to every day.
So I'm going to get louder. I'm gonna be on
the front line. I'm you gonna see me way more.
I'm gonna do so much shit now because I know
that he's trying to disenfranchise my people and and do
got people scared to death. You got people on the

(01:11:50):
internet crying. You got migrants and immigrants. You got people
who are not even they just are from you know,
Hispanic descent and seeing their people getting sh Latino.

Speaker 4 (01:12:02):
I've been being educated.

Speaker 3 (01:12:04):
So you got people from Latino descent that are just
being crying online. You got black people. That's a black
lady he was saying that they shipped her family off.
That was from the Caribbean, and that was from different
parts of Haitia whatever that were being shipped out. It's
not just affecting them. So this shit is really going on.
And y'all think that we're supposed to be quiet now

(01:12:25):
because he won an election. Hell no, when he won
the first election, I wasn't quiet, and I was telling
you that he was a threat to democracy, that he
was a threat to black people. And now that y'all
see it, it's real crazy to me, right, because it
was so many blacks for Trump that was very loud
that I haven't seen lately.

Speaker 2 (01:12:43):
Right in the last week, I haven't heard them say anything.

Speaker 3 (01:12:46):
The most thing they're gonna talk about is, oh, yeah,
he said it's only two genders. That's what I'm talking about.
That's all I'm worried about. So you sold out of democracy.
You saw a lot of people down the line because
you needed him to tell you that it was only
two genders. And you think because Trump says only two genders,
that the people that identify as another agenda don't identify
no more. So they just they just disappear off the planet.

Speaker 1 (01:13:08):
They don't want them, as we were saying early, they
don't want these people to get to have resources.

Speaker 3 (01:13:14):
Yeah, but the bottom line is you're not gonna stop
nobody from being who they is because you don't want
them to be you.

Speaker 2 (01:13:19):
So you you.

Speaker 3 (01:13:21):
Internalize that shit so much that you you said, fuck it,
they can have civil rights, they can have all the
shit that our incestors died and for we we'll just
start from the beginning. As long as they ain't saying
that it's a transgender we don't want we just don't
want to hear. But and that ain't even affecting your
life every day. So you thought that was enough to say,

(01:13:41):
fuck all the shit that black people fought for for years,
and then you think it's enough for me to be quiet,
that I'm gonna just be quiet because Trump is the
president now and common laws, so now we're just supposed
to go go just hide under the stairs and just
say nothing. This this is what these people say. Oh man,
you're gonna cry. You're gonna keep knowing. I'm not crying.
I'm mistake truth to power. Every day I'm gonna call

(01:14:03):
out bullshit. But I'm not crying though, because I don't
know already to crying. Shit is over at this point.
You got to roll up your sleeves. You gotta put
your heart boots on, you gotta put your hard hat on.

Speaker 2 (01:14:14):
You gotta get on this front line because this ship
is real.

Speaker 3 (01:14:17):
And the same people that want me to shut up
is gonna be the same people that say, yeah, man,
tell him, tell him again, tell the truth, because y'all
gonna y'all gonna fuck y'all done fucked around, and y'all
about to find out. But it's cool because we was
already prepared for this. We we was mentally prepared. It
took me a minute because I understood, but this man
did the ship that I thought he was gonna take

(01:14:38):
in a couple of months in seven days.

Speaker 2 (01:14:40):
So we were in for some.

Speaker 1 (01:14:41):
Shit, but he didn't do that. Okay, I just want
to make sure because it's I don't want to diminish it,
because what you're saying is powerful and true that he
is doing things and the culture is shifting. So because
he's getting rid of DEI you see corporations and others,

(01:15:01):
excuse me, because he's getting rid of diversity, equity and
inclusion in federal spaces, which is the only thing he
can control. But the culture will shift in his direction.
So I don't want to diministrate, but I will say
that things like birthright, citizenship and other areas that he's
working on, there are in fact levels to how it

(01:15:26):
has to happen. Now because he has control of the
Supreme Court, the Senate, and Congress, will some of those
things happen, absolutely, But we already saw a federal judge
block birthright citizenship, so or trying to end birthright citizenship,
you know that's been blocked by a federal judge. So

(01:15:48):
he is attempting to do And I just think that's
very important because I don't want people to think that
in seven days he was able to do everything. But
they definitely.

Speaker 5 (01:15:59):
Diffor any people.

Speaker 1 (01:16:00):
They deported the wrong person or the wrong two people
the other day. And you see what happened in Newark,
New Jersey. So there's a lot of terrible things happening.
And there are people who are gonna say, I'm not
paying attention because I ain't you know, the immigrants. I
ain't gonna I'm not gonna get myself all upset about
that because what they didn't vote, and this didn't happen,
and excuse me, and this didn't happen and whatever, And

(01:16:25):
we could try to do that for as long as
we want. But I think that my point from earlier,
I just I'm just circling back to it that white supremacist,
white nationalists, whatever one you want to call them, they
don't just dislike one group of people. They might not
be as loud about their disdain for a particular group

(01:16:50):
of people, but they don't like us all and they
are watching and saying, Okay, we don't got to worry
about it too much because they still arguing.

Speaker 3 (01:17:02):
Over The thing for me is not that you don't
like me because you don't have to like them.

Speaker 1 (01:17:06):
Well, I'm just saying that's where but that's where their
motivation comes from.

Speaker 2 (01:17:10):
No, it's not even.

Speaker 3 (01:17:11):
Their motivation comes from the fact that they want to
impose their will right, they want control. They don't like
they don't like anyone that's not them. So the reality
is when you're able to utilize your power in the
fact that you don't like me to negatively impact me, Well,
I don't care if they like me.

Speaker 2 (01:17:28):
Bottom line is I don't I could care less.

Speaker 1 (01:17:30):
I understand that. But I'm saying when I say don't
like me, that's very like.

Speaker 2 (01:17:34):
No, I get what you said.

Speaker 1 (01:17:35):
I'm saying that we all in the same boat with them.
So it's not about like, like, you're my friend. It
means we're they target all of us. They are looking
at all of us with a level of disdain that
allows them to try to do the things that they're
trying to make sense, So that's that for.

Speaker 3 (01:17:52):
That, that's that on That brings us to the end
of another episode of TMI. Shout out to our brother
Maurice Mitchell who came and have some gems on us.
We definitely got to have more Rechack on the show
because he knows a lot.

Speaker 4 (01:18:05):
Absolutely, he's very very knowledgeable, very very knowledgeable.

Speaker 3 (01:18:09):
I'm not gonna always be right, tamik It. The Maveri's
and I canna always be wrong, but we will both
always and I mean always be authentic PA.

Speaker 2 (01:18:17):
That's how we own it.