March 27, 2025 • 53 mins
The recent neo-Nazi incident in Evaondale, Ohio, shocked many and has raised critical conversations about the current state of race relations in America. As a group of white supremacists displayed their flags strategically across a bridge leading into a primarily Black neighborhood, the community was left grappling with fear and outrage. This episode of our podcast unpacks the layers of this alarming event, observing the immediate impacts on families, especially the children who saw these symbols of hate.
We dive deep into the discussions surrounding the police response, examining whether their actions equated to a failure of duty when community trust is vital. Our conversation also touches on broader themes such as the concept of white fragility—how defensiveness among white individuals stifles conversations about racism and complicity. By not addressing these issues head-on, we miss opportunities for critical growth, empathy, and necessary advocacy.
Furthermore, we emphasize the significance of collective action. In times of visible hate, communities must rally together, fostering a united front against white supremacy while encouraging allyship and open conversations. This insightful episode challenges listeners to reflect on their roles in advocating for racial justice and supporting marginalized communities. Let’s engage authentically in discussions about race, recognizing the power of allyship and the strength of our voices when united against hate. Be part of the movement for change—subscribe, share, and join us in advocating for a just future.
Thanks for listening. Please check out our website at www.forsauk.com to hear great conversations on topics that need to be talked about. In these times of intense polarization we all need to find time to expand our Frame of Reference.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
and now testing one, two, three testing.
Okay, we're good there.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
And testing one, two, three looks good.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
There we go ready, hit it, let's have it.
Well, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey.
So how's it going there?
People listening.
We have uh folks in australiathat have been welcome to the
community of of uh frame ofreference coming together.
I'm raul brush, that's our rawlike raul, or as my friend
(00:33):
antoine hallman, senior here,calls me, I am the fresh la
brush.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
So all the fresh the brush, I think.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
I think I'm gonna have to just put that on a shirt
or something.
You're in the presence of thefresh.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
LaBresh.
You know what man?
I'm going to get you a T-shirtmade just with Raul the fresh
LaBresh, and it's going to be inB-boy style, like an 80s
breakdancing graffiti man.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
I got you on that.
I can see all the brothersgoing what's with that man Dude?
We got some weird white breadgoing on down there, man, so
okay.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
I got you on that and I'm going to take a picture.
Right by your side with it onman.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
I got you on that.
I love that.
This has just been a great dayso far.
I mean, we're just all of asudden I'm finding out there's
all these blessings coming downfrom heaven, so Antoine how you
doing, man.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Man, all is well, man , I just give God glory for the
day and just life, health andstrength, and I just thank him
for another day.
Man, that's where I'm at Justgiving him glory, man.
That's what it's all about.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Yeah, so those of you that are listening or maybe
even watching the podcast nowthat we're trying to record it,
but we have kind of a we have areal impromptu kind of
relationship, right, it's notlike we've got a production crew
in the background.
We'd like to, but we don't havea production group in the
background that's going.
You know, okay, we're going toresource, we'll do this, blah,
(01:56):
blah, blah, write a bunch ofnotes.
You know, like the John Sturtzof the world, because there's
all these people executiveproducers, producers that are
doing all this legwork.
So all the star has to do isshow up and, you know, be aware
of things and be able to beintelligent enough to grapple
with things.
But a lot of that legwork isdone.
Well, you know, we're a bunchof homeschool kids here and just
(02:17):
trying to make by with what wecan.
So Antoine and I usually justhave a text or two to each other
during the course of the weekand say, hey, what do you?
want to talk about this week.
It's like I don't know aboutpizza, you know, no, we talked
about pizza six months ago, youknow whatever.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Yeah, you know, because it's like I love that
man, it's like so anybody outthere listening, hey, we love
your sponsorship, you know.
And of course, to get thatproduction crew in the
background and just but alsojust again we want to make this
more structured and just make itbetter for you.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Yeah, yeah, well, and so the top, the subject today,
came up as a topic.
That was something like seveno'clock this morning.
I get a text from antron andI'm thinking to myself, what are
we going to talk about as well?
But he sends a note and said,hey brother, can we talk about
evandale, ohio?
So, and uh, and I'm like, yeah,sure, and he said evandale, you
know, and waving white, uh,nazi flags in a in a black
(03:12):
neighborhood, uh, and I'm what?
So I had not heard of the thingat all.
So of course I felt like astupid white guy, not uncommon
for me.
But you know, in in this caseI'm like, why do I not even know
anything about this?
I started to do a research,like Googling it, just on
Evansdale Ohio.
I figured you know it wouldcome up right away.
No, it's like welcome toEvansdale Ohio, home of the
(03:35):
beautiful people.
You know it's all that kind ofnonsense.
But then, if I put Evansdaleand Nazis, then there were
multiple news reports and TVthings that had been done at the
time.
Come to find out this issomething that just happened in
early February, where and if youdon't mind, I'll just give my
quick of.
It is the so apparently a smallgroup of Nazis neo-Nazis as
(03:59):
they're calling themselves, Iguess show up on this bridge and
over a pass in betweenEvansdale and and is it Lincoln
Heights that's?
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Lincoln Heights.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Lincoln Heights.
So Lincoln Heights is ahistorically black neighborhood.
That's been a blackneighborhood since the 20s,
right A suburb of Cincinnati,yep, choosing that bridge.
That's right in betweenAvondale, which is more of a,
you know, a white class, I guess, whatever you want to call it,
kind of a normal, I think, theboth suburbs of Cincinnati, if I
(04:31):
was reading that right.
So here we got this group thatdecides to put up Nazi flags on
the overhash and they showpictures of these guys putting
up their flags and they've gotlike the skull mask thing on
where their eyes are.
You know, normal scheme X, butthen the top of it looks like
you know something out of Venomand Spider-Man kind of deal, so
really obviously wanting tointimidate people, and another
shot of guys like with asemi-automatic rifle, you know.
So these were people that werethere to really send a message
(04:56):
into a black neighborhood.
Right, we are here.
And the thing that struck mereally clearly about it too was
the people from the blackneighborhood that talked about
it said they didn't even knowthat the Nazis were there.
It was their children that cameto them and said you know, mom,
dad, there's Nazis on thebridge.
So of course the parents, asparents are thinking what is
(05:18):
going on and they're outragedbecause the kids are afraid.
Who wouldn't be Right?
Because the kids are afraid,who wouldn't be right?
Who wouldn't be afraid that allof a sudden these guys with
these masks show up that havegot guns and are putting Nazi
flags on the bridge around yourneighborhood?
Who wouldn't be afraid?
So that's kind of just thewhole thing, and I didn't have
time to look at a lot more of it.
There was body cam footage thatwas available to people.
(05:40):
There's some issues going onthere too, because some of the
cops didn't have their body camson, which is not supposed to
happen ever.
And there were some.
Another guy whose Jeep hadgotten the tires slashed on it
and he needed help getting backto his Jeep because his service
dog was in it, and you knowthere was a lot of outrage over.
(06:01):
You know what are you doing?
Helping these guys?
I don't get it, because one ofthe officers helped him to get
back to his car, you know.
So it's just.
It's this whole convoluted mess, because these people that you
know are exercising theirfreedom of speech came in a
completely, completely stupidand senseless and hateful,
(06:24):
hateful way into thisneighborhood to upset people and
just to show that they could doit.
And it's like, you know, trumpand Zelensky or something.
For goodness sakes, they'resitting there, just you know,
shoving their you-know-what inpeople's faces because they can
and you ought to know what a bighe-man I am, because I can do
this to you and you can't stopme.
(06:46):
We gotta we gotta grow up, man.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
We gotta figure out how to get these people back on
track, because this is aclockwork orange in a big way
you know, yeah, man, yeah, andagain it's like, uh, I, this
thing is so bothersome becauseyou know, of course, like, uh,
you know, this is what uh notrelated.
Again, man, it's a whitesupremacy man, it's the wrong
thing.
(07:08):
Out of course, like,historically, you know, like,
say, these neo-Nazi groups, kkk,white supremacist groups, they
cloak themselves in the Firstand Second Amendment, right,
they say, oh, we got the rightto free speech, you know, but
again it's like they're thatthey're just spreading these
racist or supremacist ideologies.
But the thing is, this is whereit becomes a hateful thing,
(07:40):
because it's like.
Then, of course, like with thisincident in mind, of course,
the first part of it was theresponse by the police.
Like you said, a lot of themdidn't have their body cams on,
and then again it was just thisoh, they're just here peacefully
protesting.
But you got to look at thecontext, you got to look at the
bigger picture here.
Why, like?
Because they were trying torelate it to well, when Black
Lives Matter protested.
Look at where they protested.
They went to city and statecapitals and things like that.
(08:00):
These people went to thedoorstep of a black community.
You know, things like that.
These people went to thedoorstep of a black community
Black Lives Matter and thoseother kinds of things.
They were protesting systemicracial issues, racial
socioeconomic injustices andthings like that.
These people went to a doorstepof a black community to protest
them saying that we are againstyou Because they could have did
(08:22):
this anywhere in the city orthe state they chose to go.
It was it's all about it'sprovocation, right, you know?
Again, it's like you have amarginalized community.
You go and provocate, you know,and then, uh, you try to
agitate and then, of course andsome of these guys are they try
to intimidate as well, becausesome of these white supremacists
add guns, but little.
(08:43):
I guess a lot of people mayforget, just like they forgot,
that, oh, a lot of peoplefigured oh, project 2025 doesn't
only relate to certain people.
The Second Amendment, itrelates to black people as well,
and so a lot of black people,like they show the neo-Nazis are
brandishing their guns, a lotof black people show their guns
(09:06):
in the course.
I guess Ohio is an open carrystate or right to carry, or is
one of those states Right, andso it's like it kind of again,
that could have turned reallybad really fast and but again,
it was all about the policeresponse and of course, and it's
kind of questionable.
You know again the wholesituation.
And of course, and it's kind ofquestionable, you know again
(09:27):
the whole situation.
But it's like, why did youchoose to do your protest on a
doorstep of a black community?
And, like you said in youropening, it wouldn't even been
known, except for the children.
Now and again, again this whitesupremacist intimidation type of
thing, look at what itpsychologically does to the
children.
(09:48):
Because again, that's where thehistorical systemic racism it
always you hurt the adult or youminimize the accomplishment of
the adult, or you put the adultin a threatened, you know you
put the adult in a threatening,threatening, threatened state
and watch how the childrenrespond, and so, but again, I
(10:09):
know it's like you don't fightfire with fire, you don't.
You know we don't be overcomeby evil, but we overcome evil
with good.
And of course, even though,let's say, the black residents,
they came out and showed theirguns to, hey, I just figure, hey
, you can have your gun, youjust don't have to show it, you
can speak.
You know we can fight the rightway.
No, but again, the whole, thiswas just a incident to provoke
(10:33):
that community into somethingelse.
You know, again they come withguns, they come waving a flag at
the doorstep of a blackcommunity, predominantly black
community, or it was actually apretty mixed community.
You know when you're talkingabout Lincoln Heights and
Evandale.
But again, that choice oflocation was strictly for
provocational reasons.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
I like how you say that.
You've said that too before.
They, they provocate, they, um,the, the agitate, and then they
incarcerate.
So, yeah, I think that's such a.
I never thought of that before.
You said that that's exactlywhat happens.
They provocate, they, you know,agitate, agitate.
You know people all riled upbecause when you see those
(11:17):
videos you'll hear those peopleare agitated.
You know the police have gottheir police line formed around
people are agitated and bygetting that agitated they're
ending up.
They know exactly what they'redoing.
They get those guys so agitatedthat they end up inciting them
to the point of anger, wherethey do do things that are going
to end up regretting, but theyhave to try to restrain
themselves and that just makesit more difficult and then
(11:39):
ultimately, if they don'trestrain themselves in reaction
to this horrible thing, they getincarcerated, right.
So and I guess what I'm here todo and what I think this whole
podcast is about is, there'sanother part of that we have to
be advocates.
You know there's a dire, direneed for people in the center
(12:00):
and left to be advocates for nomore of this.
We got to stop this Because youhave a right to speech.
You have a right for no more ofthis.
We got to stop this.
Because you have a right tospeech, you have a right, a
freedom of speech.
You do not have a freedom tolie.
People cannot accept thatfreedom of speech means the
freedom to lie.
People can't accept that.
Because if you accept that myfreedom of speech enables me to
(12:24):
lie with freedom as well, thenwhat are courts for?
Right?
Because courts are all about.
If you lie in court you're abig, serious trouble.
You know that's called contempt.
That can put you in jail fasterthan the crime that you
committed that you're there intrial for is to lie when you're
in court.
So why do we think that ourfreedom of speech should include
(12:46):
freedom to lie?
And the other part of theequation is we have hate speech
laws, right.
We have rules that we haveestablished that say you cannot
incite violence among people bydoing things that are going to
make one group of people hatemore vehemently another group of
(13:07):
people, for an agenda that isusually politically in purpose
or some sort of game is involvedin making that hate speech.
That's not supposed to happen.
So we have hate speech laws onthere, but they're not enforced.
So what are you going to do ina country where the rule of law
is both being completely ignoredand it's also being stretched,
(13:29):
because I think, at the end ofthe day, there's money to be
made.
There is money to be made inallowing this stuff to foment.
There's money to be made ineverything from the people that
provide the food services forprisons.
I mean, that's a huge.
You want to talk about somethingthat's high opening?
Look at how much money isgenerated for companies that do
(13:51):
nothing but provide the foodservices for prisons Big, big
money, okay.
Or is it the money that's madefrom, you know, advertising on
all these shows that love tomake a big deal out?
Because I can guarantee youNewsmax who's you know Antoine's
talking about would be coveringthese stories completely
differently than CNN or MSNBC.
(14:12):
But even oh man, msnbc.
I can't even think about themwithout thinking about the
hiring and firings that they'vebeen doing lately.
You know, two of the peoplethat were people of color, that
had shows on MSNBC, were let goall of a sudden, and now Rachel
(14:32):
Maddow, who spoke out against it, ended up losing a bunch of her
staff.
So MSNBC that has thisreputation of being so liberal,
they fired Joy.
Reid.
Yeah, joy Reid, joy Reid.
Thank you, I couldn't think ofher and there was another one
that hired because joy reed.
I remembered her seeing her podor her uh newscast, especially
during, like the elections,because she was the only one
(14:53):
really talking about a lot ofthe issues going on underneath
the surface.
Um, but there's another.
Is it another woman that wasalso let go that had a?
A?
Speaker 2 (15:04):
as well.
Well, people that openly,really overly I wouldn't even
say overly, but just outwardlycriticized Trump that he got
fired or let go by, msnbc JoyReid.
Prior to Joy Reid, there wasTiffany Cross, and then there
was another black woman that wasfired even before her.
(15:25):
But also in this current purgeof it at MSNBC, katie Fang, who
is, you know, I would say, asiandescent, a woman of color.
She was let go as well, youknow.
But again, the other peoplestill stand and you know you
made a great point, you know,just talking about, you know
it's going to take advocacy andallyship to really overcome,
(15:49):
because, again, what happened inOhio it's, you know, again,
it's a stance on white supremacyand of course, we know the
history of it simply is just hey, you know the ideology that
white people are superior to allother races, basically, and of
course, and that's where we haveto really come and make a
(16:09):
stance, and then, of course,like you're, you're talking up
off camera how you're rereadingwhite fragility, and I think
that's a great thing, man, youknow.
Because again, it's like wehave to know as a, as a country,
have to know as a, as a country, we are, we don't want to get
(16:30):
we.
We have to learn to be, getcomfortable, being uncomfortable
, and that's where we don't wantwe.
And again, that inward lookthat, look at ourselves.
What can I do more?
Uh, what can I say?
And it's like uh, and againit's like we got to get over
fear.
You know, of course, uh, likepeople, like, again, all these
things stem from fear, man.
You know, of course, these arewhite supremacists and these are
people that are in highergovernment, they all what is
(16:53):
that thing?
The way they feel like they'relosing the country, well, they
feel like the whiteness of thecountry is going away.
I can't remember the termexactly.
Oh, my goodness.
It'll come back to me yeah yeah,yeah, but anyway, it's just
like they feel like they'relosing the country.
They feel like, oh, and so nowwe see these things being openly
(17:16):
done in this current government.
You know, of course, you know,you see it, you know and it's
plain as day.
But you know, when we'retalking about advocacy, right,
you know it's going to have tobe a multifaceted approach.
You know it's going to have tocome through education policy
reforms.
It's going to have to comethrough community engagement.
You know we talk about theeducational parts or the
initiative on that.
You know we have to dismantlethese stereotypes, promote more
(17:39):
cultural understanding andhighlight the contributions of
marginalized people.
That way, people again, becausethey're whitewashed.
That's how you basically erase,you minimize the
accomplishments of the peopleand say, oh, they don't matter.
The policy reforms we have toreally, like you said, there's
hate crime laws and things likethat on the books.
The anti-discriminatory laws,they have to be enforced.
(18:01):
We have to promote equitableaccess to resources, which we
see are being cut off.
And then we have to just ensurethe right representation of
marginalized groups Blackcommunities, asian, hispanic,
again, because again, with thegerrymandering you take out the
representation.
Yeah, and then the communityengagement we have to learn to
(18:24):
coalesce man.
It's going to take all of us tobring in the solidarity and we
have to just amplify the effortsto counteract hate and bigotry.
Man, you know, we have to havea more.
We got to fight for theinclusion.
We got to have more dialogue.
We got to dismantle thestructures that sustain white
supremacy.
We have to break them downagain, starting with that
(18:47):
education piece.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
Right.
So I'm going to make twodifferent points here, and this
can go wherever it wants to.
But you alluded to a couple ofbooks that I just started
reading.
Again, I'm notorious.
I've got like I don't know, ahundred and some books in my
Kindle that you know.
I just I keep getting them.
I used to collect physicalbooks, but you know I had to
(19:10):
worry about where I was going toget a second house to be able
to store my books in, so Istarted doing the Kindle thing
right, and two of them that havebeen on the top of my list for
a while now are one by RobinDiAngelo called White Fragility,
and the other one is by Ishould look this up quick.
So I don't Paul Moore, I believe, is the man's name, or no, it's
(19:31):
Paul Mason.
Paul Mason called how to StopFascism.
So Robin DiAngelo.
I'll just say briefly, theWhite Fragility book was spawned
from her.
Having been someone that did alot of diversity training
classes, I believe she's aprofessor too at like UW Madison
.
I may be remembering thatincorrectly, but anyway, I think
(19:53):
there's a Wisconsin connectionsomewhere to her, but I thought
she was.
It was really interestingbecause she said she went
through years, literally oftrying to do these diversity
training sessions and the whitepeople in the audience were just
like, either like reallyuncomfortable and like not
wanting you know to look, orthey were like one.
A couple instances talked aboutpeople that you know would get
(20:14):
really angry and they'll throwtheir you know stuff, their
notebook down the table whenthey came in and one guy, you
know, as she's starting to talkpounds his fist on the table,
which is the problem is whitepeople can't get a job, you know
.
And she she's starting to talkpounds his fist on the table and
says the problem is whitepeople can't get a job, you know
, and she was really intimidatedby that sort of anger that
would come into the groups.
But, you know, over time shebegan to realize that there's
(20:34):
this issue of white fragilityand one of the basic premises of
it is and I'd have to agreethat white people are just
uncomfortable talking aboutracism.
We see it as a binary thing Ifyou're racist, you're bad.
I'm not a bad person, so racismmust be something that has to
(20:55):
do with other people than me.
So there's kind of thisfundamental understanding there
with white people where theminute you start talking about
racism and you have toacknowledge the fact that.
Am I a racist?
I'm not a racist.
I would never do the thingsthat racists do.
But let's look at the number ofthings that are systemically in
(21:18):
our culture, in our education,in our systems that are racist,
that have racist roots to themand have never been identified
as that.
And if you don't want tobelieve that that's true, why
did school board meetingsliterally lose their shit?
Because people were so uptightabout this whole critical race
(21:38):
theory thing, right, whichanyone that knows anything about
critical race theory will tellyou that it's not being taught
in schools.
There is no critical racetheory subject line in a
textbook anywhere in a publicschool that I am aware of.
If you can find one, please letme know.
Texas is listening.
Maybe I don't know Florida youmight be aware of.
If you can find one, please letme know.
Texas is listening.
Maybe I don't know Florida, youmight be aware of something
(22:00):
that you had to ban.
So, anyways, the point I'mmaking with that is critical
race theory is taught at thegraduate level.
It's a methodology, it's aphilosophy, it's just a course
of study that asks a questionabout our culture, our education
, our systems, and are thereroots of racism still in there
(22:21):
that are being cultivated,nurtured, you know.
Furthered, because thosesystems haven't been addressed
and reprogrammed, re-evaluated,realigned, right.
So that's all part of theproblem, that we've got to
recognize the fact that we'reall racists, we're in a racist
soup.
To say that we are not racistin America is absolute hogwash,
(22:46):
bullshit, porous manuras,because there's just no way to
not be.
And if you don't want toembrace that and understand how
you are, because that's theother thing, she notices that
there are so many moderate whitepeople and I, I'd say myself
included, right, where we're sointerested in proving to people
(23:06):
that we're not racist.
And you know, see, I have blackfriends, I, I do a black, I do
a podcast with a black guy, I'ma good right.
All this nonsense takes awayenergy from things like Avondale
right, takes away from joiningup with the black leadership of
Lincoln Heights and saying let'sgo to the sheriff's meeting
(23:28):
that they're having to do withthe press and let's ask some
really specific questions aboutwhat's being done to get that
camera footage.
What's being done to thoseofficers that turned off their
body cameras?
How are we going to make surethat that doesn't keep happening
?
Because when these thingshappen, there's conversations,
and you know things going onthere that we as a public need
to be aware of, so we can besure that our law enforcement
(23:50):
hasn't been infiltrated bypeople that really are serious
racists at heart, like maybe theguy that killed George Floyd,
maybe, anyways.
So then the other point is PaulPaul I forgot his name already
Mason Paul Mason's book.
He talks about fascism and hemade an incredible statement
(24:12):
that I think ties to all of this.
He said there's a demand for adefinitive statement about what
fascism is, and he defines it asfascism is the fear of freedom,
triggered by a glimpse offreedom and think about that for
a second.
It's the violent, violentmobilization of people who do
(24:34):
not want to be free around theproject of destroying freedom.
It is as the Italiananti-fascist Enzo Traverso wrote
it is a revolution against therevolution.
And there's so much packed intothat.
When you think about what ishappening in America right now.
(24:55):
Why is the fascist movement?
Why is a fascist man in theoffice of the presidency right
now?
Because there was a fear of thefreedom that we were starting to
recognize, that we were juststarting to get a glimpse of in
a country of America where wehave a statue, a freaking statue
, when you come in to Americathat says give me your tired,
(25:19):
your poor, your wretched, refuse, yearning to be free.
We had just a little bit oftime there around COVID where we
got the sense that that's kindof a good thing to.
We should do that.
You know, we ought to be that,we really, and we could be that.
(25:40):
Why don't we do that?
You know, we we ought to bethat, we really, and we could be
that guldren, why don't we dothat?
And it got disrupted by covid.
And then it got disrupted bythe people that were afraid of
it.
They are they are just shittingin their pants afraid of it
because it's going to mean thatthey're gonna have to drop a
whole bunch of nonsense.
They've been taught for a longtime and I I am.
I'm struggling with the answerto it, folks.
I'm as much as I hated themovie, hated and loved the movie
(26:02):
clockwork orange and if you'veever seen it, don't watch it
with your kids anywhere near.
It's a horrible, horrible movie.
But the message of it is clear.
Violence is not the answer andtheir technique for getting rid
of violence ends up being moreviolent, and it's just so.
It's the never ending cycle ofhuman violence against humans
and you know where does it everend.
That's the big problem I havewith the film, but you know,
(26:26):
because Hollywood always has toturn things into something they
never should be or could be.
Anyways, so all that's tiedtogether, right?
Why are there?
Where are the things going onthat that wasn't shown to the
rest together, right?
Why are there?
Where are these things going onthat that wasn't shown to the
rest of the country?
Why did they keep thatbroadcast in Evansdale?
Cause they're, they're afraidthey don't want that stuff
getting out to the larger masses.
They don't want people inWisconsin finding out and, you
(26:48):
know, being able to actuallyoperate on the stupidity that
was going on there.
Um, you know, and it's thehorrible thing is I saw in those
videos there were policeofficers trying to do the right
thing.
They were trying to diffuse thesituation.
They, you know they, I think Iwant to believe they were trying
to do what they could to keeppeople safe.
But, you know, then there wereothers that turned their cameras
(27:10):
off.
So how do we know what theywere doing?
And will we ever know untilit's too late?
Because if they were actuallyfomenting, if they were figuring
out a way to help those guysand saying, yeah, you know what
you probably should call thisoff for today.
But let's look at how aboutMarch 18th?
Does that work for coming backwith a bigger group?
That'll be harder to disperse,you know, because you, I believe
(27:33):
this whole thing is areconnaissance party more than
anything.
I agree.
I strongly agree, you know thatare going to just let's troll
the waters and see where thefish are, and if we can't, you
know to your point, make anexcellent point.
This was not done at a capital.
This was not, you know, somegroup trying to say we're, we've
(27:57):
got a valid point here and wewant to make sure people hear it
.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
This was people coming to the doorstep and
saying we're here and and we gotto look at, and that man,
that's awesome man, and justlook at, they're getting their
example from the head of state,right?
You know, of course, all these,all these you know executive
orders, just to push the limits,to see what I can get away with
(28:23):
, to see what I can be done, toeven, like you say, test the
waters, that reconnaissance,right, okay, if this is how they
will respond if I do this,because again, you know this
whole thing, man, it goes backto the beginning.
You know, at its core is allabout.
You know these people, they dothese things, they cloak
themselves in the first andsecond amendment and it's all
about preserving their uh, youknow social, political, economic
structures, that you knowprivilege, no, to exercise their
(28:47):
, you know their privilege.
And again, it's like going back.
You know, would you saysomething previously?
You know it's.
You know, remember how we talkabout in previous uh
conversations a bit.
You know, when you saidsomething previously, you know
it's.
You know, remember how we talkabout in previous conversations
a bit.
You know, when we talk aboutBlack history, we talk about
things of Blackness.
You know it's not about makingwhite people feel guilty.
It's not about making childrenfeel guilty or anything.
(29:09):
But you know of course that.
You know, right, fragilitypiece.
You know, of course it's likebecause, look at it this way,
there are certain groups ofpeople that want to do this
thing Again, there's just groupsof people that want to feel
like, hey, white people shoulddominate society.
That's their belief.
You know, everybody else isinferior.
But however, like, say, peoplethat don't have that kind of
hate in their heart, that don'thave that thought or even
(29:33):
thought process, the guilt comesin.
It's like, wow, I've enjoyedthis whiteness, I've enjoyed
this.
And it's like I don't want to.
I can't speak for any whiteperson.
But it's like whitesupremacists make other white
people feel guilty of enjoyingtheir whiteness.
But that's not my point of view.
But now it's like, okay, hey, Imost white people.
(29:56):
You say, hey, okay, I don'tagree with this.
Now to your point.
It's like what do we do next?
You know what do we do next.
We know the history, we knowthe definition, we know the
ideology, we know, uh, thealmost.
We know the tactics.
So now, what do we do?
Speaker 1 (30:14):
Right, Well, I know Paul Mason makes mason makes a a
really conclusive pointregularly and I I'll know more I
promise I will read more by thetime we talk about this again.
But one of the things he saysthat has to happen where the
only time we're successful infighting fascism is when the
center of a political spectrumand a group of people unites
(30:35):
with the left, the politicalspectrum and a group of people
unites with the left, that the,the far right and the far left.
They're just not going to beable to have the wherewithal or
the whatever I don't know, ifthe brain just gets too wired up
on, you know, dopamine orwhatever, to be able to do thing
, or cortisone, I guess, wouldbe in that case, um, or, or, you
know, don't worry about thatget the people that are in
(30:57):
centralized and the people thatare on the left side of the
equation, that have that liberal, progressive thinking, and then
the people that are on thecenter.
They're like whoa, whoa, whoa,wait a minute, let's think about
this a little bit more.
Okay, and stresses the factthat you're not, everybody's not
going to get what they want.
Exactly right, there's going tohave to be some compromises,
but the big topics, the bigthings of you know.
(31:23):
Is this right for one group ofpeople to do this?
Is it right to have a socialmedia platform where people can
lie blatantly about things youknow and cause the kind of
foment and turmoil that thatcauses?
Because they have the right tofree speech but they have no
responsibility for using thatfree speech in a truthful way.
I think that's where you drawthe line to free speech.
(31:46):
You want to say things.
Either back them up withreality or be willing to defend
why you're saying what you'resaying, because otherwise it's
just irresponsible and there'sno place for that anymore.
You have too many ways tocounter it.
And the other thing I thinkthat's really important he talks
about not only having thatcentralization of things like
(32:22):
parades and how we we allowpeople to be in parades in
uniforms that are, uh, designedto strike power or strike fear
in people because of thecoalition that they have.
And I thought of that withthese guys that were on the
bridge because they were all inblack.
They were, you know, so black.
They basically look likecommandos, you know, with their
vests on and then having thosemasks on.
That was a uniform right, andit was a uniform that was picked
out by those guys because theywanted to instill fear.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
They wanted to basically say don't mess with us
right, and that's a great point, because if you look at that
swastika, it wasn't in white, itwas in red.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
That's one thing I know, you know, you have to
point out, you know it's likethat thing was in red, meaning
there's bloodshed to come, orthat's the threatening of.
You know, Right, and of course.
But again, it's like thosewhole things, man, they try to
normalize these extremist views,you know, and basically just
tears down the values of equityand justice, you know, and of
(33:17):
course, the resurgence of whitesupremacy groups and that whole
ideology thing, like that isjust, they're trying to make
their influence known by sayingit loud, saying it often, and
which could make it true.
And of course, these things areinfluencing a lot of young
Americans.
Either they're trying toinstill fear into people of
color or they're actually tryingto train up and raise up young
(33:39):
white people.
And the sad part is, you know,again, they criticize those that
say, hey, I want to know moreabout black history.
And so they call them woke orwhatever you want to call them
Again, just simply because theywant to know the history, they
want to know the history, theywant to, they want to say, hey,
before we completely shut thedoor, before we go off repeating
a matter, let's learn more, andthey get criticized for it.
(34:13):
And that's where it's like thethreatening and like these
marches to show strength incertain environments and
situations is just to intimidate.
And that's where you know,again, with the advocacy part,
the allyship is so importantthese days, man, because again
this thing is everythinghappening in the country is
getting.
Now the marching orders arecoming from the top.
They're basically just thecutting off of all resources
(34:36):
that would benefit minorities.
You know the immigration,voting rights, affirmative
action.
You know it's just perpetuatingthese, they just continuously
perpetuating these whitesupremacist ideologies.
No, and again it's like we haveto have the education, the
policy reform and the communityengagement.
And we just know, and this isjust not just white people but
(34:59):
all people, we just cannot befearful.
You know, of course, you knowthese people.
You know like they shout loud,they threaten, they critic, like
see, this is the thing.
You know people hate what theycan't control and what they
can't control.
And what they can't control,they criticize.
When the criticism doesn't work, they start to threaten.
(35:20):
And when the threatening partdoesn't work, they want to turn
a simple disagreement into someform of disrespect.
And then, when they get to thatpoint, that's when they can
kind of justify the action thatthey take, because what their
original thought is that I'mbetter than you.
And that's where we have tojust really just say, okay, we
can no longer.
We have to come together andand really create, uh, safe
(35:44):
spaces, uh, for, you know, somevery uh, some hard candor and uh
, some actions uh to take place.
No, to just uh go against these, uh, uh, these discords that
are trying to be perpetuated,these narratives that are trying
to be created.
You know, and it's like, when wetake a stance on these things
(36:08):
the right way, taking a stanceon them the right way, is the
key.
I preached on this in my lovemessage last Sunday.
You know, love that overcomeshate, you know, and it's just
simply we have to learn to fightwith the right heart's posture.
Yes, we can, we can gather, wecan do these things, but again,
the enemy's whole trick andtactic is to take your heart out
(36:31):
of the right posture with God.
So you're fighting evil withevil, and that's what we're not
called to do.
And the scary part is, you know, we we continue to do this and
so, but again, the threateningpart comes out.
And this is where, again, is wehave to coalesce, and we have
to coalesce quickly and do itthe right way.
I don't know if you are aware,but you know, in black
(36:53):
communities you know yesterdaywas Friday you know we had a it
was called a blackout whereblack people in the United
States said we're not spending asingle dollar.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
We did it too.
We did it too.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
Yay, we were out to our part of economic blackout,
cool.
And there's more things likethat.
Every place that has beenrecognized as supporting this
administration we are goingagainst, like the canceling of
Amazon Prime.
And of course people are like,oh, because again, there's like
(37:25):
maybe seven or eight companiesthat are the parent company to
everything else in the UnitedStates.
You know what I mean.
And so it's like in thosethings there are so many layers
you don't know who owns what,but you have to do the research,
you know.
So, like again, you know, whenthese things come to light, we
just say, hey, we're not goingto give you our money so you can
support a person that wants tominimize our accomplishments,
(37:47):
that wants to, you know, reallyhurt us.
And so that's where you know,we again the, the education
piece, you know, the policyreform piece, the community
engagement piece, and then againjust what we can get to that
space.
Create some spaces for somedialogue and some action.
Create some spaces for somedialogue and some action.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
Amen.
Yeah, you know I keep thinkingthis phrase.
Fascism is the fear of freedomtriggered by the glimpse of
freedom.
You know, you think about howmany things are going on right
now.
You know the attacks ontransgender folks.
I've had arguments with friendsof mine that are you know
Christians, you know pastors orwhatnot?
(38:28):
And my question with all thatis I get that.
Are you know Christians, youknow pastors or whatnot?
And my question with all thatis I get that you, you know,
have a moral stance on that.
All right, that's beensocialized into, trained into
through studies.
But really, seriously, why can'twe just love each other?
What's wrong with you know?
Okay, so this person's alreadystruggling with their gender
identity?
Okay, something we didn't evenyou know.
(38:49):
Okay, so this person's alreadystruggling with their gender
identity.
Okay, something we didn't evenyou know.
Talk about gender identity.
Well, you're a guy, you're agirl, that's it.
You know it's not.
It's much more nuanced thanthat when you start talking
about gender Right.
So why can't we allow for that?
So, you know, we had a glimpseof the freedom of what happens
when people have the freedom toexplore that glimpse of the
(39:10):
freedom of what happens whenpeople have the freedom to
explore that we have.
I've had the glimpse of freedom, of what I could be like
without being a racist and whatwhat racism really looks like
the freedom to understand that aglimpse of what that looks like
and it's.
It's terrifying, you know, whenyou start to realize, oh my god
, you all these things I thoughtI did.
That showed I wasn't a racist,yeah, but I didn't show I was
(39:31):
anti-racist.
It didn't show that, you know,I was willing to confront my own
racism as it existed today andwork alongside people that were
thinking the same thing.
You know those glimpses offreedom, of what happened when,
you know, the black communitystarted to raise up and said no
more George Floyd's Black LivesMatter.
Here in our little Sauk Prairiewe had a couple of people that
(39:51):
had the audacity to put up aBlack Lives Matter flag.
One guy in particular that livedon Water Street, one of the
main drags in town, had a bigBlack Lives Matter flag put up
and he took all kinds of shitfrom people for putting that up,
for putting up Black LivesMatter.
So you tell me there isn'tracism in the world, in our
(40:12):
community here up in Wisconsin.
What in the world is wrong withthat?
I mean a guy's putting up athing that's saying you know, or
we've still got signs inpeople's yards that say kneel at
the cross and stand for theflag, and it's like what?
What does that have to do withanything beyond some stupid
rhetoric that somebody came upwith to try to keep you agitated
(40:35):
?
Right, because when blackplayers were kneeling at games,
that wasn't about disrespectingthe flag, that was actually a
cry for being a better america,you know and again it's like
when you protest or when youdisagree with a thing, again
they try to make disagreementinto disrespect.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
That was a perfect example.
And again, and it's like whenyou try to do that, you get away
from the primary focus of thething.
That's what that is.
It's called deflection, right,yeah, you deflect from the, from
the main topic of.
Hey, I'm protesting, we want abetter governmental system,
education, we want socialjustice, we want equal rights,
we want all these differentthings, but yet, when we take a
(41:18):
stance, again it's turned intodisrespect.
And then, of course, when aperson feels disrespected,
there's two ways they can comeabout it.
They can say, hey, this is howthat made me feel.
Or you can actually, again, youcan just invoke the initial
response that you want to takebecause of your basic ideology.
You know, it's like hey, Ibelieve that I'm superior than
you, so I'm going to do thisBecause, like what we're seeing
(41:40):
in this country, it's funny howpeople you know when with I mean
, of course, as a pastor I'vebeen trying to stay out of the
political realm.
You know, of course, no, we knowwhat the Bible says about race
and all these different things,However, but lately it just you
have to.
I have had to call things outspecifically.
(42:03):
You know, like when we talkabout Donald Trump, we know
historically he's a populistpopulist, he's a racist, he's
exercised all these thingsthroughout his lifetime.
This young, this person, he hasnot exhibited one fruit of the
spirit.
But how can all these pastorssupport him?
(42:23):
And again it goes back to theprimary focus.
You know they feel the certaingroups of people feel that white
people are superior thaneveryone else, because there is
just no way a person of soundmind can agree with the policies
of this person thoughts.
(42:49):
We know his underlying hiswhole modus operandi, right.
We know what he wants to do.
He wants to keep division and Ijust want to be straight up
honest with this.
I believe that and I hate usingthis word, but America is being
raped and pillaged from within.
And I say that because, again,it's like how can you allow a
(43:11):
person and I'm talking aboutElon Musk, how can you allow a
person access to some of themost important data of how we
pay things and who we pay?
Basically, he got the scroll ofeverybody making everything,
and how can you put this in thehands of a person that has
direct conversation withvladimir putin.
(43:32):
How can you put and see, andelon musk is the go-between
between trump and putin, and Ibelieve that this is my personal
ideology, my personal thought.
I, just over the course oflistening to this man, even
before, before he got elected,the Barack the Obama
administration warned him that,hey, there's a Russian collusion
(43:52):
within your organization.
But again, they fought it.
But now we see in real time, hevoted with, he voted against,
he voted with Russia at theUnited Nations.
And then we saw what happenedin the White House the other day
.
They ambushed that poor man inthat.
But again, it's like peoplethat have supported him, they
(44:18):
know who he is.
And then, of course, they'llsay, oh, I'm all about economy
and I'm all about immigration.
That is just the facade ofsaying that you most, you'd like
how, you want things to be acertain way, but you can't.
And that's my personal belief.
You know, of course, and I feellike you know, Trump is
deliberately trying to kill thiscountry and everybody that
(44:41):
voted with him is an accessoryto murder.
Yeah that's my I think there isa different country that he is
hoping to become um, and it itwill be based on principles of
fear and greed and they'retrying to, and you, they're
trying to do this before nextfourth of july, at the 250th
(45:03):
year of uh, you know, the unitedstates birthday, so to speak.
They're trying to implement alot of horrible things prior to
that, and so this is where we'veseen, in the first two months
of his presidency, what hashappened, and we are in for a
fight.
We just have to fight with theright hearts, posture.
(45:23):
We have to create spaces fordialogue and action.
That way us in society canactually come working together
towards dismantling thesestructures that are in place,
you know, and we have to cometogether.
The gauntlet has been throwndown.
Speaker 1 (45:37):
And you know, look for things.
I mean, it's as simple, I think, as you know, going to your
town board meetings, going toyour school board meetings, you
know, just get informed aboutwhat's going on.
You know, there areorganizations we're so blessed
in this area and we have anorganization that does nothing
but like try to meet the needsof the poor folks in our area.
(45:59):
They have a circles ministryand the organization is called
6-8.
And it basically has alldifferent arms.
They, you know, work out of thesame building as the food
pantry.
They have a circles ministrywhere they're basically trying
to take the lowest 10% ofpopulations.
I believe that's.
Speaker 2 (46:17):
John and Sarah.
Speaker 1 (46:18):
Yeah, John and Sarah Ramtham.
Call out to John and SarahRamtham, two of the finest
people you'll ever meet.
And just trying to do thoselittle things.
Well, you know there's allthose little things.
Well, you know, there's allkinds of things you can
volunteer to do to help with 6-8projects.
So there are places where youcan get involved and just start
finding out.
There's a wonderfulorganization out of Madison with
(46:43):
Fountain of Life.
I believe is the church thatPastor Alex G runs.
Uh, fountain of life I believeis the church that, uh, pastor
alex g runs.
Um, you know, there there's aorganization.
He does a thing called umjustified anger and it's uh,
basically teaching black historyto white allies.
So it's a white ally buildingprogram and, um, my daughter had
(47:03):
got through it said, dad, youneed to take it.
I took it, ended up being afacilitator for one session.
She's been a facilitator likefour or five times now and it's
just, it's so cool to see likewhite people kind of having the
veil taken off and justrealizing that man, man, what is
going on.
(47:24):
And recognizing that, you know,here in Wisconsin we think we've
got this great thing going.
And recognizing that, you know,here in Wisconsin we think
we've got this great thing going, we have the largest
incarceration rate for blackpeople in the entire country in
Wisconsin.
So here we, you know, talkabout having that veil pulled
from your eyes.
One of the things you have torealize is okay, well, so now
let's bring the critical racetheory, experts, doctors, such
and such.
(47:44):
Can you help us understand thesystematic things that are going
on here in Wisconsin, that,even though we're a progressive
state, this is happening?
We're a progressive state thatjust did a majority for Trump
too.
So obviously there's somethinggoing on here when we want to
bring in, you know, brad Kimmeror whatever his name is, shimmer
, for you know a judge that ison Trump's payroll.
(48:06):
He's been funded by Elon Musk,so he's all up all over the
place, right Farms and whatnot.
So there are ways we can getinvolved right away by just
getting the veil pulled off.
Speaker 2 (48:18):
So yep, that's a let's be hands and feet, like
you said, get involved inorganizations.
What can you know?
First, get the education piece,you know, and then again it's
like we talk about communityengagement, and then again that
leads to these reforms, thesepolitical reforms, because we
see all these laws that arebeing put in place, because you
know what we've seen in thecountry at the top, you know a
(48:39):
lot of this current president.
He's put people in charge ofthe FBI, the CIA and actually
the United States military to dohis will.
So you know there's apreparation for something bad.
You know, of course, becauseremember, in his first
administration he wanted todeploy the United States
government, united Statesmilitary against American
(49:02):
citizens and he was like no, thegenerals at the time was like
no, you can't do that.
However, he's put in place thepeople that will not say no to
him the next time.
And this is where we againgetting involved, because again,
the the setup is, you knowagain, remember how we were
talking previous weeks.
Oh, look at my right, look atmy one hand doing this while the
(49:25):
other hand is doing this.
Look at my one hand doing thiswhile the other hand is doing
this, and we have to be like Isaid get the veil off our eyes,
look at the.
You know we have to reallyeducate ourselves on the
systemic and systematic racismissues that have plagued this
country for all these years, inall the institutions, and again,
(49:46):
just all these theories andnarratives that dehumanize
people of color.
You know we have to educateourselves in them and just break
down these practices.
Speaker 1 (49:57):
You know and that's the name of that.
Tone.
Huh, right, so that's aadvocate.
Okay, let's start's start afourth tongue here, a fourth
rung of the wheel Advocate,advocate, advocate.
Wake up because it's.
I know you can't use this kindof language because it's your
(50:19):
pastor, but I get away with itperiodically because I'm a
theater guy.
But we are fucked people.
We need to do some seriousunfucking, okay, so let's get to
the unfucking.
We need to do some seriousunfucking, okay, so let's get to
the unfucking.
Um and uh, I'm going tostreetwise it cause.
It's just that's what it is,man, um, so I'm not sure.
(50:40):
At least my brother isn't going.
Dude, you can't use languagelike that.
So it's just like cause a lotof my first christian friends
are going.
Oh, you said the f word.
It's like yeah it's a word, okay, it's a word, and sometimes
it's the word for what you'retrying to say.
So anyways, dude, always apleasure.
Speaker 2 (50:59):
So so good to talk with you, man, I you know always
yeah, and and likewise, man, Ijust look forward to our next
conversation and, again, we'rejust hoping to get more people
involved with this podcast andlet's just start moving the
needle on some things.
Yeah, tell your friends.
Speaker 1 (51:14):
Tell your family right, so get the word out, and
if nothing else you want todisagree, go right ahead and
disagree.
Man, that's how we're all goingto learn, you know Just?
Please don't be mean about it.
There's no reason for meanness.
Be mean about it.
There's no reason for meanness.
We got enough meanness allaround us.
Speaker 2 (51:31):
Let's be civil and have some discourse.
Okay, let me just leave withone scripture, man.
This is Galatians 3.28.
There is neither Jew nor Greek,there is neither slave nor free
, there is no male or female,for you are all one in Christ
Jesus.
That's the scripture.
To kill racism right there.
Speaker 1 (51:46):
You want to talk about recognizing your own
fascism.
Get a glimpse of what you looklike in Jesus.
Speaker 2 (51:52):
That'll show you just how much of a fascist you are,
and yeah, you know, we calledout yeah, man, let's see, I want
to go back into my sermon.
But you know, of course youknow, when we talk about 1 John,
4, 20 and 21, that I wastalking about how we uh, you
can't say you love God and hatepeople.
You know, and of course, uh, inthat sermon, uh, last week, uh,
you know, I say go back andwatch it.
(52:13):
Faithworks Ministries, uh,click on, uh, uh, the the love
will win series and you'll hearabout.
You know where I discussed thatparticular sermon or that
particular scripture and justtalk about how we can't separate
our love for God from the loveof people.
If you say you love God, yougot to love people also.
But also that particularscripture, it exposes the false
prophet.
Yeah, because you can't say youlove God and hate people and
(52:35):
you can't preach Trump and sayyou love God, you just can't.
Speaker 1 (52:41):
Love God to love people.
Speaker 2 (52:44):
You can't even say you love God unless you're
influenced by his own love.
Amen, amen.
I'm Raul Rush.
You can't even say you love Godunless you're influenced by his
own love.
Speaker 1 (52:49):
Amen, amen.
All right, I'm Raul Rush andyou, sir, are Antoine Hallman Sr
, and we are coming togetherhere on Frame of Reference.
So take care, everybody Hope tosee you, hear you be around you
next time, next place.
Or, as we used to say when Iwas a kid same bad time, same
bad channel.
So all right.
Take kid same bat time, samebat channel.
(53:14):
So all right, take care.
God bless, god bless what areyour thoughts?
I'm gonna stop here.
I gotta figure out what theheck I'm doing.
Let me do stop where?
Why can't I stop?
Oh, wait, no, is that it no?
Oh, I think I'm gonna just Wait.
No, is that it no?
Oh, I think I'm going to justend that there.
Okay, good, I thought I mean,how do you feel?
Speaker 2 (53:33):
Yeah, I thought it was good, you know.
Just, we'll keep pushing.
We're at a good time, you know.
and now testing one, two, three testing.
Okay, we're good there.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
And testing one, two, three looks good.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
There we go ready, hit it, let's have it.
Well, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey.
So how's it going there?
People listening.
We have uh folks in australiathat have been welcome to the
community of of uh frame ofreference coming together.
I'm raul brush, that's our rawlike raul, or as my friend
(00:33):
antoine hallman, senior here,calls me, I am the fresh la
brush.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
So all the fresh the brush, I think.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
I think I'm gonna have to just put that on a shirt
or something.
You're in the presence of thefresh.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
LaBresh.
You know what man?
I'm going to get you a T-shirtmade just with Raul the fresh
LaBresh, and it's going to be inB-boy style, like an 80s
breakdancing graffiti man.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
I got you on that.
I can see all the brothersgoing what's with that man Dude?
We got some weird white breadgoing on down there, man, so
okay.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
I got you on that and I'm going to take a picture.
Right by your side with it onman.
Speaker 1 (01:13):
I got you on that.
I love that.
This has just been a great dayso far.
I mean, we're just all of asudden I'm finding out there's
all these blessings coming downfrom heaven, so Antoine how you
doing, man.
Speaker 2 (01:24):
Man, all is well, man , I just give God glory for the
day and just life, health andstrength, and I just thank him
for another day.
Man, that's where I'm at Justgiving him glory, man.
That's what it's all about.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
Yeah, so those of you that are listening or maybe
even watching the podcast nowthat we're trying to record it,
but we have kind of a we have areal impromptu kind of
relationship, right, it's notlike we've got a production crew
in the background.
We'd like to, but we don't havea production group in the
background that's going.
You know, okay, we're going toresource, we'll do this, blah,
(01:56):
blah, blah, write a bunch ofnotes.
You know, like the John Sturtzof the world, because there's
all these people executiveproducers, producers that are
doing all this legwork.
So all the star has to do isshow up and, you know, be aware
of things and be able to beintelligent enough to grapple
with things.
But a lot of that legwork isdone.
Well, you know, we're a bunchof homeschool kids here and just
(02:17):
trying to make by with what wecan.
So Antoine and I usually justhave a text or two to each other
during the course of the weekand say, hey, what do you?
want to talk about this week.
It's like I don't know aboutpizza, you know, no, we talked
about pizza six months ago, youknow whatever.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Yeah, you know, because it's like I love that
man, it's like so anybody outthere listening, hey, we love
your sponsorship, you know.
And of course, to get thatproduction crew in the
background and just but alsojust again we want to make this
more structured and just make itbetter for you.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Yeah, yeah, well, and so the top, the subject today,
came up as a topic.
That was something like seveno'clock this morning.
I get a text from antron andI'm thinking to myself, what are
we going to talk about as well?
But he sends a note and said,hey brother, can we talk about
evandale, ohio?
So, and uh, and I'm like, yeah,sure, and he said evandale, you
know, and waving white, uh,nazi flags in a in a black
(03:12):
neighborhood, uh, and I'm what?
So I had not heard of the thingat all.
So of course I felt like astupid white guy, not uncommon
for me.
But you know, in in this caseI'm like, why do I not even know
anything about this?
I started to do a research,like Googling it, just on
Evansdale Ohio.
I figured you know it wouldcome up right away.
No, it's like welcome toEvansdale Ohio, home of the
(03:35):
beautiful people.
You know it's all that kind ofnonsense.
But then, if I put Evansdaleand Nazis, then there were
multiple news reports and TVthings that had been done at the
time.
Come to find out this issomething that just happened in
early February, where and if youdon't mind, I'll just give my
quick of.
It is the so apparently a smallgroup of Nazis neo-Nazis as
(03:59):
they're calling themselves, Iguess show up on this bridge and
over a pass in betweenEvansdale and and is it Lincoln
Heights that's?
Speaker 2 (04:06):
Lincoln Heights.
Speaker 1 (04:07):
Lincoln Heights.
So Lincoln Heights is ahistorically black neighborhood.
That's been a blackneighborhood since the 20s,
right A suburb of Cincinnati,yep, choosing that bridge.
That's right in betweenAvondale, which is more of a,
you know, a white class, I guess, whatever you want to call it,
kind of a normal, I think, theboth suburbs of Cincinnati, if I
(04:31):
was reading that right.
So here we got this group thatdecides to put up Nazi flags on
the overhash and they showpictures of these guys putting
up their flags and they've gotlike the skull mask thing on
where their eyes are.
You know, normal scheme X, butthen the top of it looks like
you know something out of Venomand Spider-Man kind of deal, so
really obviously wanting tointimidate people, and another
shot of guys like with asemi-automatic rifle, you know.
So these were people that werethere to really send a message
(04:56):
into a black neighborhood.
Right, we are here.
And the thing that struck mereally clearly about it too was
the people from the blackneighborhood that talked about
it said they didn't even knowthat the Nazis were there.
It was their children that cameto them and said you know, mom,
dad, there's Nazis on thebridge.
So of course the parents, asparents are thinking what is
(05:18):
going on and they're outragedbecause the kids are afraid.
Who wouldn't be Right?
Because the kids are afraid,who wouldn't be right?
Who wouldn't be afraid that allof a sudden these guys with
these masks show up that havegot guns and are putting Nazi
flags on the bridge around yourneighborhood?
Who wouldn't be afraid?
So that's kind of just thewhole thing, and I didn't have
time to look at a lot more of it.
There was body cam footage thatwas available to people.
(05:40):
There's some issues going onthere too, because some of the
cops didn't have their body camson, which is not supposed to
happen ever.
And there were some.
Another guy whose Jeep hadgotten the tires slashed on it
and he needed help getting backto his Jeep because his service
dog was in it, and you knowthere was a lot of outrage over.
(06:01):
You know what are you doing?
Helping these guys?
I don't get it, because one ofthe officers helped him to get
back to his car, you know.
So it's just.
It's this whole convoluted mess, because these people that you
know are exercising theirfreedom of speech came in a
completely, completely stupidand senseless and hateful,
(06:24):
hateful way into thisneighborhood to upset people and
just to show that they could doit.
And it's like, you know, trumpand Zelensky or something.
For goodness sakes, they'resitting there, just you know,
shoving their you-know-what inpeople's faces because they can
and you ought to know what a bighe-man I am, because I can do
this to you and you can't stopme.
(06:46):
We gotta we gotta grow up, man.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
We gotta figure out how to get these people back on
track, because this is aclockwork orange in a big way
you know, yeah, man, yeah, andagain it's like, uh, I, this
thing is so bothersome becauseyou know, of course, like, uh,
you know, this is what uh notrelated.
Again, man, it's a whitesupremacy man, it's the wrong
thing.
(07:08):
Out of course, like,historically, you know, like,
say, these neo-Nazi groups, kkk,white supremacist groups, they
cloak themselves in the Firstand Second Amendment, right,
they say, oh, we got the rightto free speech, you know, but
again it's like they're thatthey're just spreading these
racist or supremacist ideologies.
But the thing is, this is whereit becomes a hateful thing,
(07:40):
because it's like.
Then, of course, like with thisincident in mind, of course,
the first part of it was theresponse by the police.
Like you said, a lot of themdidn't have their body cams on,
and then again it was just thisoh, they're just here peacefully
protesting.
But you got to look at thecontext, you got to look at the
bigger picture here.
Why, like?
Because they were trying torelate it to well, when Black
Lives Matter protested.
Look at where they protested.
They went to city and statecapitals and things like that.
(08:00):
These people went to thedoorstep of a black community.
You know, things like that.
These people went to thedoorstep of a black community
Black Lives Matter and thoseother kinds of things.
They were protesting systemicracial issues, racial
socioeconomic injustices andthings like that.
These people went to a doorstepof a black community to protest
them saying that we are againstyou Because they could have did
(08:22):
this anywhere in the city orthe state they chose to go.
It was it's all about it'sprovocation, right, you know?
Again, it's like you have amarginalized community.
You go and provocate, you know,and then, uh, you try to
agitate and then, of course andsome of these guys are they try
to intimidate as well, becausesome of these white supremacists
add guns, but little.
(08:43):
I guess a lot of people mayforget, just like they forgot,
that, oh, a lot of peoplefigured oh, project 2025 doesn't
only relate to certain people.
The Second Amendment, itrelates to black people as well,
and so a lot of black people,like they show the neo-Nazis are
brandishing their guns, a lotof black people show their guns
(09:06):
in the course.
I guess Ohio is an open carrystate or right to carry, or is
one of those states Right, andso it's like it kind of again,
that could have turned reallybad really fast and but again,
it was all about the policeresponse and of course, and it's
kind of questionable.
You know again the wholesituation.
And of course, and it's kind ofquestionable, you know again
(09:27):
the whole situation.
But it's like, why did youchoose to do your protest on a
doorstep of a black community?
And, like you said in youropening, it wouldn't even been
known, except for the children.
Now and again, again this whitesupremacist intimidation type of
thing, look at what itpsychologically does to the
children.
(09:48):
Because again, that's where thehistorical systemic racism it
always you hurt the adult or youminimize the accomplishment of
the adult, or you put the adultin a threatened, you know you
put the adult in a threatening,threatening, threatened state
and watch how the childrenrespond, and so, but again, I
(10:09):
know it's like you don't fightfire with fire, you don't.
You know we don't be overcomeby evil, but we overcome evil
with good.
And of course, even though,let's say, the black residents,
they came out and showed theirguns to, hey, I just figure, hey
, you can have your gun, youjust don't have to show it, you
can speak.
You know we can fight the rightway.
No, but again, the whole, thiswas just a incident to provoke
(10:33):
that community into somethingelse.
You know, again they come withguns, they come waving a flag at
the doorstep of a blackcommunity, predominantly black
community, or it was actually apretty mixed community.
You know when you're talkingabout Lincoln Heights and
Evandale.
But again, that choice oflocation was strictly for
provocational reasons.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
I like how you say that.
You've said that too before.
They, they provocate, they, um,the, the agitate, and then they
incarcerate.
So, yeah, I think that's such a.
I never thought of that before.
You said that that's exactlywhat happens.
They provocate, they, you know,agitate, agitate.
You know people all riled upbecause when you see those
(11:17):
videos you'll hear those peopleare agitated.
You know the police have gottheir police line formed around
people are agitated and bygetting that agitated they're
ending up.
They know exactly what they'redoing.
They get those guys so agitatedthat they end up inciting them
to the point of anger, wherethey do do things that are going
to end up regretting, but theyhave to try to restrain
themselves and that just makesit more difficult and then
(11:39):
ultimately, if they don'trestrain themselves in reaction
to this horrible thing, they getincarcerated, right.
So and I guess what I'm here todo and what I think this whole
podcast is about is, there'sanother part of that we have to
be advocates.
You know there's a dire, direneed for people in the center
(12:00):
and left to be advocates for nomore of this.
We got to stop this Because youhave a right to speech.
You have a right for no more ofthis.
We got to stop this.
Because you have a right tospeech, you have a right, a
freedom of speech.
You do not have a freedom tolie.
People cannot accept thatfreedom of speech means the
freedom to lie.
People can't accept that.
Because if you accept that myfreedom of speech enables me to
(12:24):
lie with freedom as well, thenwhat are courts for?
Right?
Because courts are all about.
If you lie in court you're abig, serious trouble.
You know that's called contempt.
That can put you in jail fasterthan the crime that you
committed that you're there intrial for is to lie when you're
in court.
So why do we think that ourfreedom of speech should include
(12:46):
freedom to lie?
And the other part of theequation is we have hate speech
laws, right.
We have rules that we haveestablished that say you cannot
incite violence among people bydoing things that are going to
make one group of people hatemore vehemently another group of
(13:07):
people, for an agenda that isusually politically in purpose
or some sort of game is involvedin making that hate speech.
That's not supposed to happen.
So we have hate speech laws onthere, but they're not enforced.
So what are you going to do ina country where the rule of law
is both being completely ignoredand it's also being stretched,
(13:29):
because I think, at the end ofthe day, there's money to be
made.
There is money to be made inallowing this stuff to foment.
There's money to be made ineverything from the people that
provide the food services forprisons.
I mean, that's a huge.
You want to talk about somethingthat's high opening?
Look at how much money isgenerated for companies that do
(13:51):
nothing but provide the foodservices for prisons Big, big
money, okay.
Or is it the money that's madefrom, you know, advertising on
all these shows that love tomake a big deal out?
Because I can guarantee youNewsmax who's you know Antoine's
talking about would be coveringthese stories completely
differently than CNN or MSNBC.
(14:12):
But even oh man, msnbc.
I can't even think about themwithout thinking about the
hiring and firings that they'vebeen doing lately.
You know, two of the peoplethat were people of color, that
had shows on MSNBC, were let goall of a sudden, and now Rachel
(14:32):
Maddow, who spoke out against it, ended up losing a bunch of her
staff.
So MSNBC that has thisreputation of being so liberal,
they fired Joy.
Reid.
Yeah, joy Reid, joy Reid.
Thank you, I couldn't think ofher and there was another one
that hired because joy reed.
I remembered her seeing her podor her uh newscast, especially
during, like the elections,because she was the only one
(14:53):
really talking about a lot ofthe issues going on underneath
the surface.
Um, but there's another.
Is it another woman that wasalso let go that had a?
A?
Speaker 2 (15:04):
as well.
Well, people that openly,really overly I wouldn't even
say overly, but just outwardlycriticized Trump that he got
fired or let go by, msnbc JoyReid.
Prior to Joy Reid, there wasTiffany Cross, and then there
was another black woman that wasfired even before her.
(15:25):
But also in this current purgeof it at MSNBC, katie Fang, who
is, you know, I would say, asiandescent, a woman of color.
She was let go as well, youknow.
But again, the other peoplestill stand and you know you
made a great point, you know,just talking about, you know
it's going to take advocacy andallyship to really overcome,
(15:49):
because, again, what happened inOhio it's, you know, again,
it's a stance on white supremacyand of course, we know the
history of it simply is just hey, you know the ideology that
white people are superior to allother races, basically, and of
course, and that's where we haveto really come and make a
(16:09):
stance, and then, of course,like you're, you're talking up
off camera how you're rereadingwhite fragility, and I think
that's a great thing, man, youknow.
Because again, it's like wehave to know as a, as a country,
have to know as a, as a country, we are, we don't want to get
(16:30):
we.
We have to learn to be, getcomfortable, being uncomfortable
, and that's where we don't wantwe.
And again, that inward lookthat, look at ourselves.
What can I do more?
Uh, what can I say?
And it's like uh, and againit's like we got to get over
fear.
You know, of course, uh, likepeople, like, again, all these
things stem from fear, man.
You know, of course, these arewhite supremacists and these are
people that are in highergovernment, they all what is
(16:53):
that thing?
The way they feel like they'relosing the country, well, they
feel like the whiteness of thecountry is going away.
I can't remember the termexactly.
Oh, my goodness.
It'll come back to me yeah yeah,yeah, but anyway, it's just
like they feel like they'relosing the country.
They feel like, oh, and so nowwe see these things being openly
(17:16):
done in this current government.
You know, of course, you know,you see it, you know and it's
plain as day.
But you know, when we'retalking about advocacy, right,
you know it's going to have tobe a multifaceted approach.
You know it's going to have tocome through education policy
reforms.
It's going to have to comethrough community engagement.
You know we talk about theeducational parts or the
initiative on that.
You know we have to dismantlethese stereotypes, promote more
(17:39):
cultural understanding andhighlight the contributions of
marginalized people.
That way, people again, becausethey're whitewashed.
That's how you basically erase,you minimize the
accomplishments of the peopleand say, oh, they don't matter.
The policy reforms we have toreally, like you said, there's
hate crime laws and things likethat on the books.
The anti-discriminatory laws,they have to be enforced.
(18:01):
We have to promote equitableaccess to resources, which we
see are being cut off.
And then we have to just ensurethe right representation of
marginalized groups Blackcommunities, asian, hispanic,
again, because again, with thegerrymandering you take out the
representation.
Yeah, and then the communityengagement we have to learn to
(18:24):
coalesce man.
It's going to take all of us tobring in the solidarity and we
have to just amplify the effortsto counteract hate and bigotry.
Man, you know, we have to havea more.
We got to fight for theinclusion.
We got to have more dialogue.
We got to dismantle thestructures that sustain white
supremacy.
We have to break them downagain, starting with that
(18:47):
education piece.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
Right.
So I'm going to make twodifferent points here, and this
can go wherever it wants to.
But you alluded to a couple ofbooks that I just started
reading.
Again, I'm notorious.
I've got like I don't know, ahundred and some books in my
Kindle that you know.
I just I keep getting them.
I used to collect physicalbooks, but you know I had to
(19:10):
worry about where I was going toget a second house to be able
to store my books in, so Istarted doing the Kindle thing
right, and two of them that havebeen on the top of my list for
a while now are one by RobinDiAngelo called White Fragility,
and the other one is by Ishould look this up quick.
So I don't Paul Moore, I believe, is the man's name, or no, it's
(19:31):
Paul Mason.
Paul Mason called how to StopFascism.
So Robin DiAngelo.
I'll just say briefly, theWhite Fragility book was spawned
from her.
Having been someone that did alot of diversity training
classes, I believe she's aprofessor too at like UW Madison
.
I may be remembering thatincorrectly, but anyway, I think
(19:53):
there's a Wisconsin connectionsomewhere to her, but I thought
she was.
It was really interestingbecause she said she went
through years, literally oftrying to do these diversity
training sessions and the whitepeople in the audience were just
like, either like reallyuncomfortable and like not
wanting you know to look, orthey were like one.
A couple instances talked aboutpeople that you know would get
(20:14):
really angry and they'll throwtheir you know stuff, their
notebook down the table whenthey came in and one guy, you
know, as she's starting to talkpounds his fist on the table,
which is the problem is whitepeople can't get a job, you know
.
And she she's starting to talkpounds his fist on the table and
says the problem is whitepeople can't get a job, you know
, and she was really intimidatedby that sort of anger that
would come into the groups.
But, you know, over time shebegan to realize that there's
(20:34):
this issue of white fragilityand one of the basic premises of
it is and I'd have to agreethat white people are just
uncomfortable talking aboutracism.
We see it as a binary thing Ifyou're racist, you're bad.
I'm not a bad person, so racismmust be something that has to
(20:55):
do with other people than me.
So there's kind of thisfundamental understanding there
with white people where theminute you start talking about
racism and you have toacknowledge the fact that.
Am I a racist?
I'm not a racist.
I would never do the thingsthat racists do.
But let's look at the number ofthings that are systemically in
(21:18):
our culture, in our education,in our systems that are racist,
that have racist roots to themand have never been identified
as that.
And if you don't want tobelieve that that's true, why
did school board meetingsliterally lose their shit?
Because people were so uptightabout this whole critical race
(21:38):
theory thing, right, whichanyone that knows anything about
critical race theory will tellyou that it's not being taught
in schools.
There is no critical racetheory subject line in a
textbook anywhere in a publicschool that I am aware of.
If you can find one, please letme know.
Texas is listening.
Maybe I don't know Florida youmight be aware of.
If you can find one, please letme know.
Texas is listening.
Maybe I don't know Florida, youmight be aware of something
(22:00):
that you had to ban.
So, anyways, the point I'mmaking with that is critical
race theory is taught at thegraduate level.
It's a methodology, it's aphilosophy, it's just a course
of study that asks a questionabout our culture, our education
, our systems, and are thereroots of racism still in there
(22:21):
that are being cultivated,nurtured, you know.
Furthered, because thosesystems haven't been addressed
and reprogrammed, re-evaluated,realigned, right.
So that's all part of theproblem, that we've got to
recognize the fact that we'reall racists, we're in a racist
soup.
To say that we are not racistin America is absolute hogwash,
(22:46):
bullshit, porous manuras,because there's just no way to
not be.
And if you don't want toembrace that and understand how
you are, because that's theother thing, she notices that
there are so many moderate whitepeople and I, I'd say myself
included, right, where we're sointerested in proving to people
(23:06):
that we're not racist.
And you know, see, I have blackfriends, I, I do a black, I do
a podcast with a black guy, I'ma good right.
All this nonsense takes awayenergy from things like Avondale
right, takes away from joiningup with the black leadership of
Lincoln Heights and saying let'sgo to the sheriff's meeting
(23:28):
that they're having to do withthe press and let's ask some
really specific questions aboutwhat's being done to get that
camera footage.
What's being done to thoseofficers that turned off their
body cameras?
How are we going to make surethat that doesn't keep happening
?
Because when these thingshappen, there's conversations,
and you know things going onthere that we as a public need
to be aware of, so we can besure that our law enforcement
(23:50):
hasn't been infiltrated bypeople that really are serious
racists at heart, like maybe theguy that killed George Floyd,
maybe, anyways.
So then the other point is PaulPaul I forgot his name already
Mason Paul Mason's book.
He talks about fascism and hemade an incredible statement
(24:12):
that I think ties to all of this.
He said there's a demand for adefinitive statement about what
fascism is, and he defines it asfascism is the fear of freedom,
triggered by a glimpse offreedom and think about that for
a second.
It's the violent, violentmobilization of people who do
(24:34):
not want to be free around theproject of destroying freedom.
It is as the Italiananti-fascist Enzo Traverso wrote
it is a revolution against therevolution.
And there's so much packed intothat.
When you think about what ishappening in America right now.
(24:55):
Why is the fascist movement?
Why is a fascist man in theoffice of the presidency right
now?
Because there was a fear of thefreedom that we were starting to
recognize, that we were juststarting to get a glimpse of in
a country of America where wehave a statue, a freaking statue
, when you come in to Americathat says give me your tired,
(25:19):
your poor, your wretched, refuse, yearning to be free.
We had just a little bit oftime there around COVID where we
got the sense that that's kindof a good thing to.
We should do that.
You know, we ought to be that,we really, and we could be that.
(25:40):
Why don't we do that?
You know, we we ought to bethat, we really, and we could be
that guldren, why don't we dothat?
And it got disrupted by covid.
And then it got disrupted bythe people that were afraid of
it.
They are they are just shittingin their pants afraid of it
because it's going to mean thatthey're gonna have to drop a
whole bunch of nonsense.
They've been taught for a longtime and I I am.
I'm struggling with the answerto it, folks.
I'm as much as I hated themovie, hated and loved the movie
(26:02):
clockwork orange and if you'veever seen it, don't watch it
with your kids anywhere near.
It's a horrible, horrible movie.
But the message of it is clear.
Violence is not the answer andtheir technique for getting rid
of violence ends up being moreviolent, and it's just so.
It's the never ending cycle ofhuman violence against humans
and you know where does it everend.
That's the big problem I havewith the film, but you know,
(26:26):
because Hollywood always has toturn things into something they
never should be or could be.
Anyways, so all that's tiedtogether, right?
Why are there?
Where are the things going onthat that wasn't shown to the
rest together, right?
Why are there?
Where are these things going onthat that wasn't shown to the
rest of the country?
Why did they keep thatbroadcast in Evansdale?
Cause they're, they're afraidthey don't want that stuff
getting out to the larger masses.
They don't want people inWisconsin finding out and, you
(26:48):
know, being able to actuallyoperate on the stupidity that
was going on there.
Um, you know, and it's thehorrible thing is I saw in those
videos there were policeofficers trying to do the right
thing.
They were trying to diffuse thesituation.
They, you know they, I think Iwant to believe they were trying
to do what they could to keeppeople safe.
But, you know, then there wereothers that turned their cameras
(27:10):
off.
So how do we know what theywere doing?
And will we ever know untilit's too late?
Because if they were actuallyfomenting, if they were figuring
out a way to help those guysand saying, yeah, you know what
you probably should call thisoff for today.
But let's look at how aboutMarch 18th?
Does that work for coming backwith a bigger group?
That'll be harder to disperse,you know, because you, I believe
(27:33):
this whole thing is areconnaissance party more than
anything.
I agree.
I strongly agree, you know thatare going to just let's troll
the waters and see where thefish are, and if we can't, you
know to your point, make anexcellent point.
This was not done at a capital.
This was not, you know, somegroup trying to say we're, we've
(27:57):
got a valid point here and wewant to make sure people hear it
.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
This was people coming to the doorstep and
saying we're here and and we gotto look at, and that man,
that's awesome man, and justlook at, they're getting their
example from the head of state,right?
You know, of course, all these,all these you know executive
orders, just to push the limits,to see what I can get away with
(28:23):
, to see what I can be done, toeven, like you say, test the
waters, that reconnaissance,right, okay, if this is how they
will respond if I do this,because again, you know this
whole thing, man, it goes backto the beginning.
You know, at its core is allabout.
You know these people, they dothese things, they cloak
themselves in the first andsecond amendment and it's all
about preserving their uh, youknow social, political, economic
structures, that you knowprivilege, no, to exercise their
(28:47):
, you know their privilege.
And again, it's like going back.
You know, would you saysomething previously?
You know it's.
You know, remember how we talkabout in previous uh
conversations a bit.
You know, when you saidsomething previously, you know
it's.
You know, remember how we talkabout in previous conversations
a bit.
You know, when we talk aboutBlack history, we talk about
things of Blackness.
You know it's not about makingwhite people feel guilty.
It's not about making childrenfeel guilty or anything.
(29:09):
But you know of course that.
You know, right, fragilitypiece.
You know, of course it's likebecause, look at it this way,
there are certain groups ofpeople that want to do this
thing Again, there's just groupsof people that want to feel
like, hey, white people shoulddominate society.
That's their belief.
You know, everybody else isinferior.
But however, like, say, peoplethat don't have that kind of
hate in their heart, that don'thave that thought or even
(29:33):
thought process, the guilt comesin.
It's like, wow, I've enjoyedthis whiteness, I've enjoyed
this.
And it's like I don't want to.
I can't speak for any whiteperson.
But it's like whitesupremacists make other white
people feel guilty of enjoyingtheir whiteness.
But that's not my point of view.
But now it's like, okay, hey, Imost white people.
(29:56):
You say, hey, okay, I don'tagree with this.
Now to your point.
It's like what do we do next?
You know what do we do next.
We know the history, we knowthe definition, we know the
ideology, we know, uh, thealmost.
We know the tactics.
So now, what do we do?
Speaker 1 (30:14):
Right, Well, I know Paul Mason makes mason makes a a
really conclusive pointregularly and I I'll know more I
promise I will read more by thetime we talk about this again.
But one of the things he saysthat has to happen where the
only time we're successful infighting fascism is when the
center of a political spectrumand a group of people unites
(30:35):
with the left, the politicalspectrum and a group of people
unites with the left, that the,the far right and the far left.
They're just not going to beable to have the wherewithal or
the whatever I don't know, ifthe brain just gets too wired up
on, you know, dopamine orwhatever, to be able to do thing
, or cortisone, I guess, wouldbe in that case, um, or, or, you
know, don't worry about thatget the people that are in
(30:57):
centralized and the people thatare on the left side of the
equation, that have that liberal, progressive thinking, and then
the people that are on thecenter.
They're like whoa, whoa, whoa,wait a minute, let's think about
this a little bit more.
Okay, and stresses the factthat you're not, everybody's not
going to get what they want.
Exactly right, there's going tohave to be some compromises,
but the big topics, the bigthings of you know.
(31:23):
Is this right for one group ofpeople to do this?
Is it right to have a socialmedia platform where people can
lie blatantly about things youknow and cause the kind of
foment and turmoil that thatcauses?
Because they have the right tofree speech but they have no
responsibility for using thatfree speech in a truthful way.
I think that's where you drawthe line to free speech.
(31:46):
You want to say things.
Either back them up withreality or be willing to defend
why you're saying what you'resaying, because otherwise it's
just irresponsible and there'sno place for that anymore.
You have too many ways tocounter it.
And the other thing I thinkthat's really important he talks
about not only having thatcentralization of things like
(32:22):
parades and how we we allowpeople to be in parades in
uniforms that are, uh, designedto strike power or strike fear
in people because of thecoalition that they have.
And I thought of that withthese guys that were on the
bridge because they were all inblack.
They were, you know, so black.
They basically look likecommandos, you know, with their
vests on and then having thosemasks on.
That was a uniform right, andit was a uniform that was picked
out by those guys because theywanted to instill fear.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
They wanted to basically say don't mess with us
right, and that's a great point, because if you look at that
swastika, it wasn't in white, itwas in red.
Speaker 1 (32:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (32:55):
That's one thing I know, you know, you have to
point out, you know it's likethat thing was in red, meaning
there's bloodshed to come, orthat's the threatening of.
You know, Right, and of course.
But again, it's like thosewhole things, man, they try to
normalize these extremist views,you know, and basically just
tears down the values of equityand justice, you know, and of
(33:17):
course, the resurgence of whitesupremacy groups and that whole
ideology thing, like that isjust, they're trying to make
their influence known by sayingit loud, saying it often, and
which could make it true.
And of course, these things areinfluencing a lot of young
Americans.
Either they're trying toinstill fear into people of
color or they're actually tryingto train up and raise up young
(33:39):
white people.
And the sad part is, you know,again, they criticize those that
say, hey, I want to know moreabout black history.
And so they call them woke orwhatever you want to call them
Again, just simply because theywant to know the history, they
want to know the history, theywant to, they want to say, hey,
before we completely shut thedoor, before we go off repeating
a matter, let's learn more, andthey get criticized for it.
(34:13):
And that's where it's like thethreatening and like these
marches to show strength incertain environments and
situations is just to intimidate.
And that's where you know,again, with the advocacy part,
the allyship is so importantthese days, man, because again
this thing is everythinghappening in the country is
getting.
Now the marching orders arecoming from the top.
They're basically just thecutting off of all resources
(34:36):
that would benefit minorities.
You know the immigration,voting rights, affirmative
action.
You know it's just perpetuatingthese, they just continuously
perpetuating these whitesupremacist ideologies.
No, and again it's like we haveto have the education, the
policy reform and the communityengagement.
And we just know, and this isjust not just white people but
(34:59):
all people, we just cannot befearful.
You know, of course, you knowthese people.
You know like they shout loud,they threaten, they critic, like
see, this is the thing.
You know people hate what theycan't control and what they
can't control.
And what they can't control,they criticize.
When the criticism doesn't work, they start to threaten.
(35:20):
And when the threatening partdoesn't work, they want to turn
a simple disagreement into someform of disrespect.
And then, when they get to thatpoint, that's when they can
kind of justify the action thatthey take, because what their
original thought is that I'mbetter than you.
And that's where we have tojust really just say, okay, we
can no longer.
We have to come together andand really create, uh, safe
(35:44):
spaces, uh, for, you know, somevery uh, some hard candor and uh
, some actions uh to take place.
No, to just uh go against these, uh, uh, these discords that
are trying to be perpetuated,these narratives that are trying
to be created.
You know, and it's like, when wetake a stance on these things
(36:08):
the right way, taking a stanceon them the right way, is the
key.
I preached on this in my lovemessage last Sunday.
You know, love that overcomeshate, you know, and it's just
simply we have to learn to fightwith the right heart's posture.
Yes, we can, we can gather, wecan do these things, but again,
the enemy's whole trick andtactic is to take your heart out
(36:31):
of the right posture with God.
So you're fighting evil withevil, and that's what we're not
called to do.
And the scary part is, you know, we we continue to do this and
so, but again, the threateningpart comes out.
And this is where, again, is wehave to coalesce, and we have
to coalesce quickly and do itthe right way.
I don't know if you are aware,but you know, in black
(36:53):
communities you know yesterdaywas Friday you know we had a it
was called a blackout whereblack people in the United
States said we're not spending asingle dollar.
Speaker 1 (37:02):
We did it too.
We did it too.
Speaker 2 (37:04):
Yay, we were out to our part of economic blackout,
cool.
And there's more things likethat.
Every place that has beenrecognized as supporting this
administration we are goingagainst, like the canceling of
Amazon Prime.
And of course people are like,oh, because again, there's like
(37:25):
maybe seven or eight companiesthat are the parent company to
everything else in the UnitedStates.
You know what I mean.
And so it's like in thosethings there are so many layers
you don't know who owns what,but you have to do the research,
you know.
So, like again, you know, whenthese things come to light, we
just say, hey, we're not goingto give you our money so you can
support a person that wants tominimize our accomplishments,
(37:47):
that wants to, you know, reallyhurt us.
And so that's where you know,we again the, the education
piece, you know, the policyreform piece, the community
engagement piece, and then againjust what we can get to that
space.
Create some spaces for somedialogue and some action.
Create some spaces for somedialogue and some action.
Speaker 1 (38:07):
Amen.
Yeah, you know I keep thinkingthis phrase.
Fascism is the fear of freedomtriggered by the glimpse of
freedom.
You know, you think about howmany things are going on right
now.
You know the attacks ontransgender folks.
I've had arguments with friendsof mine that are you know
Christians, you know pastors orwhatnot?
(38:28):
And my question with all thatis I get that.
Are you know Christians, youknow pastors or whatnot?
And my question with all thatis I get that you, you know,
have a moral stance on that.
All right, that's beensocialized into, trained into
through studies.
But really, seriously, why can'twe just love each other?
What's wrong with you know?
Okay, so this person's alreadystruggling with their gender
identity?
Okay, something we didn't evenyou know.
(38:49):
Okay, so this person's alreadystruggling with their gender
identity.
Okay, something we didn't evenyou know.
Talk about gender identity.
Well, you're a guy, you're agirl, that's it.
You know it's not.
It's much more nuanced thanthat when you start talking
about gender Right.
So why can't we allow for that?
So, you know, we had a glimpseof the freedom of what happens
when people have the freedom toexplore that glimpse of the
(39:10):
freedom of what happens whenpeople have the freedom to
explore that we have.
I've had the glimpse of freedom, of what I could be like
without being a racist and whatwhat racism really looks like
the freedom to understand that aglimpse of what that looks like
and it's.
It's terrifying, you know, whenyou start to realize, oh my god
, you all these things I thoughtI did.
That showed I wasn't a racist,yeah, but I didn't show I was
(39:31):
anti-racist.
It didn't show that, you know,I was willing to confront my own
racism as it existed today andwork alongside people that were
thinking the same thing.
You know those glimpses offreedom, of what happened when,
you know, the black communitystarted to raise up and said no
more George Floyd's Black LivesMatter.
Here in our little Sauk Prairiewe had a couple of people that
(39:51):
had the audacity to put up aBlack Lives Matter flag.
One guy in particular that livedon Water Street, one of the
main drags in town, had a bigBlack Lives Matter flag put up
and he took all kinds of shitfrom people for putting that up,
for putting up Black LivesMatter.
So you tell me there isn'tracism in the world, in our
(40:12):
community here up in Wisconsin.
What in the world is wrong withthat?
I mean a guy's putting up athing that's saying you know, or
we've still got signs inpeople's yards that say kneel at
the cross and stand for theflag, and it's like what?
What does that have to do withanything beyond some stupid
rhetoric that somebody came upwith to try to keep you agitated
(40:35):
?
Right, because when blackplayers were kneeling at games,
that wasn't about disrespectingthe flag, that was actually a
cry for being a better america,you know and again it's like
when you protest or when youdisagree with a thing, again
they try to make disagreementinto disrespect.
Speaker 2 (40:55):
That was a perfect example.
And again, and it's like whenyou try to do that, you get away
from the primary focus of thething.
That's what that is.
It's called deflection, right,yeah, you deflect from the, from
the main topic of.
Hey, I'm protesting, we want abetter governmental system,
education, we want socialjustice, we want equal rights,
we want all these differentthings, but yet, when we take a
(41:18):
stance, again it's turned intodisrespect.
And then, of course, when aperson feels disrespected,
there's two ways they can comeabout it.
They can say, hey, this is howthat made me feel.
Or you can actually, again, youcan just invoke the initial
response that you want to takebecause of your basic ideology.
You know, it's like hey, Ibelieve that I'm superior than
you, so I'm going to do thisBecause, like what we're seeing
(41:40):
in this country, it's funny howpeople you know when with I mean
, of course, as a pastor I'vebeen trying to stay out of the
political realm.
You know, of course, no, we knowwhat the Bible says about race
and all these different things,However, but lately it just you
have to.
I have had to call things outspecifically.
(42:03):
You know, like when we talkabout Donald Trump, we know
historically he's a populistpopulist, he's a racist, he's
exercised all these thingsthroughout his lifetime.
This young, this person, he hasnot exhibited one fruit of the
spirit.
But how can all these pastorssupport him?
(42:23):
And again it goes back to theprimary focus.
You know they feel the certaingroups of people feel that white
people are superior thaneveryone else, because there is
just no way a person of soundmind can agree with the policies
of this person thoughts.
(42:49):
We know his underlying hiswhole modus operandi, right.
We know what he wants to do.
He wants to keep division and Ijust want to be straight up
honest with this.
I believe that and I hate usingthis word, but America is being
raped and pillaged from within.
And I say that because, again,it's like how can you allow a
(43:11):
person and I'm talking aboutElon Musk, how can you allow a
person access to some of themost important data of how we
pay things and who we pay?
Basically, he got the scroll ofeverybody making everything,
and how can you put this in thehands of a person that has
direct conversation withvladimir putin.
(43:32):
How can you put and see, andelon musk is the go-between
between trump and putin, and Ibelieve that this is my personal
ideology, my personal thought.
I, just over the course oflistening to this man, even
before, before he got elected,the Barack the Obama
administration warned him that,hey, there's a Russian collusion
(43:52):
within your organization.
But again, they fought it.
But now we see in real time, hevoted with, he voted against,
he voted with Russia at theUnited Nations.
And then we saw what happenedin the White House the other day
.
They ambushed that poor man inthat.
But again, it's like peoplethat have supported him, they
(44:18):
know who he is.
And then, of course, they'llsay, oh, I'm all about economy
and I'm all about immigration.
That is just the facade ofsaying that you most, you'd like
how, you want things to be acertain way, but you can't.
And that's my personal belief.
You know, of course, and I feellike you know, Trump is
deliberately trying to kill thiscountry and everybody that
(44:41):
voted with him is an accessoryto murder.
Yeah that's my I think there isa different country that he is
hoping to become um, and it itwill be based on principles of
fear and greed and they'retrying to, and you, they're
trying to do this before nextfourth of july, at the 250th
(45:03):
year of uh, you know, the unitedstates birthday, so to speak.
They're trying to implement alot of horrible things prior to
that, and so this is where we'veseen, in the first two months
of his presidency, what hashappened, and we are in for a
fight.
We just have to fight with theright hearts, posture.
(45:23):
We have to create spaces fordialogue and action.
That way us in society canactually come working together
towards dismantling thesestructures that are in place,
you know, and we have to cometogether.
The gauntlet has been throwndown.
Speaker 1 (45:37):
And you know, look for things.
I mean, it's as simple, I think, as you know, going to your
town board meetings, going toyour school board meetings, you
know, just get informed aboutwhat's going on.
You know, there areorganizations we're so blessed
in this area and we have anorganization that does nothing
but like try to meet the needsof the poor folks in our area.
(45:59):
They have a circles ministryand the organization is called
6-8.
And it basically has alldifferent arms.
They, you know, work out of thesame building as the food
pantry.
They have a circles ministrywhere they're basically trying
to take the lowest 10% ofpopulations.
I believe that's.
Speaker 2 (46:17):
John and Sarah.
Speaker 1 (46:18):
Yeah, John and Sarah Ramtham.
Call out to John and SarahRamtham, two of the finest
people you'll ever meet.
And just trying to do thoselittle things.
Well, you know there's allthose little things.
Well, you know, there's allkinds of things you can
volunteer to do to help with 6-8projects.
So there are places where youcan get involved and just start
finding out.
There's a wonderfulorganization out of Madison with
(46:43):
Fountain of Life.
I believe is the church thatPastor Alex G runs.
Uh, fountain of life I believeis the church that, uh, pastor
alex g runs.
Um, you know, there there's aorganization.
He does a thing called umjustified anger and it's uh,
basically teaching black historyto white allies.
So it's a white ally buildingprogram and, um, my daughter had
(47:03):
got through it said, dad, youneed to take it.
I took it, ended up being afacilitator for one session.
She's been a facilitator likefour or five times now and it's
just, it's so cool to see likewhite people kind of having the
veil taken off and justrealizing that man, man, what is
going on.
(47:24):
And recognizing that, you know,here in Wisconsin we think we've
got this great thing going.
And recognizing that, you know,here in Wisconsin we think
we've got this great thing going, we have the largest
incarceration rate for blackpeople in the entire country in
Wisconsin.
So here we, you know, talkabout having that veil pulled
from your eyes.
One of the things you have torealize is okay, well, so now
let's bring the critical racetheory, experts, doctors, such
and such.
(47:44):
Can you help us understand thesystematic things that are going
on here in Wisconsin, that,even though we're a progressive
state, this is happening?
We're a progressive state thatjust did a majority for Trump
too.
So obviously there's somethinggoing on here when we want to
bring in, you know, brad Kimmeror whatever his name is, shimmer
, for you know a judge that ison Trump's payroll.
(48:06):
He's been funded by Elon Musk,so he's all up all over the
place, right Farms and whatnot.
So there are ways we can getinvolved right away by just
getting the veil pulled off.
Speaker 2 (48:18):
So yep, that's a let's be hands and feet, like
you said, get involved inorganizations.
What can you know?
First, get the education piece,you know, and then again it's
like we talk about communityengagement, and then again that
leads to these reforms, thesepolitical reforms, because we
see all these laws that arebeing put in place, because you
know what we've seen in thecountry at the top, you know a
(48:39):
lot of this current president.
He's put people in charge ofthe FBI, the CIA and actually
the United States military to dohis will.
So you know there's apreparation for something bad.
You know, of course, becauseremember, in his first
administration he wanted todeploy the United States
government, united Statesmilitary against American
(49:02):
citizens and he was like no, thegenerals at the time was like
no, you can't do that.
However, he's put in place thepeople that will not say no to
him the next time.
And this is where we againgetting involved, because again,
the the setup is, you knowagain, remember how we were
talking previous weeks.
Oh, look at my right, look atmy one hand doing this while the
(49:25):
other hand is doing this.
Look at my one hand doing thiswhile the other hand is doing
this, and we have to be like Isaid get the veil off our eyes,
look at the.
You know we have to reallyeducate ourselves on the
systemic and systematic racismissues that have plagued this
country for all these years, inall the institutions, and again,
(49:46):
just all these theories andnarratives that dehumanize
people of color.
You know we have to educateourselves in them and just break
down these practices.
Speaker 1 (49:57):
You know and that's the name of that.
Tone.
Huh, right, so that's aadvocate.
Okay, let's start's start afourth tongue here, a fourth
rung of the wheel Advocate,advocate, advocate.
Wake up because it's.
I know you can't use this kindof language because it's your
(50:19):
pastor, but I get away with itperiodically because I'm a
theater guy.
But we are fucked people.
We need to do some seriousunfucking, okay, so let's get to
the unfucking.
We need to do some seriousunfucking, okay, so let's get to
the unfucking.
Um and uh, I'm going tostreetwise it cause.
It's just that's what it is,man, um, so I'm not sure.
(50:40):
At least my brother isn't going.
Dude, you can't use languagelike that.
So it's just like cause a lotof my first christian friends
are going.
Oh, you said the f word.
It's like yeah it's a word, okay, it's a word, and sometimes
it's the word for what you'retrying to say.
So anyways, dude, always apleasure.
Speaker 2 (50:59):
So so good to talk with you, man, I you know always
yeah, and and likewise, man, Ijust look forward to our next
conversation and, again, we'rejust hoping to get more people
involved with this podcast andlet's just start moving the
needle on some things.
Yeah, tell your friends.
Speaker 1 (51:14):
Tell your family right, so get the word out, and
if nothing else you want todisagree, go right ahead and
disagree.
Man, that's how we're all goingto learn, you know Just?
Please don't be mean about it.
There's no reason for meanness.
Be mean about it.
There's no reason for meanness.
We got enough meanness allaround us.
Speaker 2 (51:31):
Let's be civil and have some discourse.
Okay, let me just leave withone scripture, man.
This is Galatians 3.28.
There is neither Jew nor Greek,there is neither slave nor free
, there is no male or female,for you are all one in Christ
Jesus.
That's the scripture.
To kill racism right there.
Speaker 1 (51:46):
You want to talk about recognizing your own
fascism.
Get a glimpse of what you looklike in Jesus.
Speaker 2 (51:52):
That'll show you just how much of a fascist you are,
and yeah, you know, we calledout yeah, man, let's see, I want
to go back into my sermon.
But you know, of course youknow, when we talk about 1 John,
4, 20 and 21, that I wastalking about how we uh, you
can't say you love God and hatepeople.
You know, and of course, uh, inthat sermon, uh, last week, uh,
you know, I say go back andwatch it.
(52:13):
Faithworks Ministries, uh,click on, uh, uh, the the love
will win series and you'll hearabout.
You know where I discussed thatparticular sermon or that
particular scripture and justtalk about how we can't separate
our love for God from the loveof people.
If you say you love God, yougot to love people also.
But also that particularscripture, it exposes the false
prophet.
Yeah, because you can't say youlove God and hate people and
(52:35):
you can't preach Trump and sayyou love God, you just can't.
Speaker 1 (52:41):
Love God to love people.
Speaker 2 (52:44):
You can't even say you love God unless you're
influenced by his own love.
Amen, amen.
I'm Raul Rush.
You can't even say you love Godunless you're influenced by his
own love.
Speaker 1 (52:49):
Amen, amen.
All right, I'm Raul Rush andyou, sir, are Antoine Hallman Sr
, and we are coming togetherhere on Frame of Reference.
So take care, everybody Hope tosee you, hear you be around you
next time, next place.
Or, as we used to say when Iwas a kid same bad time, same
bad channel.
So all right.
Take kid same bat time, samebat channel.
(53:14):
So all right, take care.
God bless, god bless what areyour thoughts?
I'm gonna stop here.
I gotta figure out what theheck I'm doing.
Let me do stop where?
Why can't I stop?
Oh, wait, no, is that it no?
Oh, I think I'm gonna just Wait.
No, is that it no?
Oh, I think I'm going to justend that there.
Okay, good, I thought I mean,how do you feel?
Speaker 2 (53:33):
Yeah, I thought it was good, you know.
Just, we'll keep pushing.
We're at a good time, you know.
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