Carmen Rodriguez and The Patient Bill of Rights

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hi everyone. This is Carmen and Christina and this is
a Studias Unknown, a podcast where we talk about Latin
American history, sometimes a horrible and deals with tibetop It's
like racism, corruption and genocide. And today we are continuing
with the Young Lords, the Lincoln Offensive and Carmin Rodriguez
and what led to what we all know today as

(00:29):
a patient bill of rights. You don't need a refresher, right, okay,
fresh in my mind. So in part one we ended
with the Young Lords leaving Lincoln Hospital, and in the
days that followed, the offensive became the center of political
debates in the city. Conservatives called the occupation of the
hospital of vigilante action and denounced it, of course, and

(00:50):
they even called that the mayor for having sent the
chief assistant to negotiate with quote unquote extremists. And in
the meantime, those in charge of the hospit hospital agreed
that the statements made by the Young Lords were valid,
but they disagreed with the actions of the group. And
as all this back and forth was going on, something
that sparked action was about to take place. So on

(01:13):
July seventeenth, nineteen seventy three days after the occupation of
the hospital, thirty two year old Cadvan Rodriguez went into
the hospital's gynecology services for a scheduled abortion. She was
a mother of two living in South Bronx and she
was pregnant with her third child, and she had been
a long time patient at Lincoln and she also happened
to be a member of the Young Lords as well

(01:34):
as the member of the Logos of the What Logos
Logos Yeah and Logos was a community run heroin treatment
center in South Bronx where doctors from Lincoln also volunteered,
and she herself had received treatment at Logos because she
struggled with heroin news herself, and so everyone that knew
her described her as carrying, kind and intelligent. She inspired

(01:57):
everyone around her to treat each other with kindness, and
she was known to always carry around books by Khalil Gibron.
He was a Lebanese American writer, poet and artist. He
was often called the Prophet. That's what he was, just
known as the prophet and a philosopher. And here's one
of his very short pieces of writing, just so you see,

(02:19):
this is what she was carrying around. If you reveal
your secrets, to the wind. You should not blame the
wind for revealing them to the trees. Oh wow, I
liked deep. Yeah, I like it. I like it. And yeah,
she carried one of his many books with her every
single day. And just two weeks before she had been
scheduled for her abortion, the state of New York legalized abortion,

(02:42):
but god Man had been approved for her procedure under
the old law, which was only for life threatening reasons,
because god Man, if she had if she delivered a baby,
it wouldn't dager her life because she had rheumatic heart disease.
And so once she arrived in the clinic for her procedure,
the resident on call performed a sailing based abortion, and

(03:05):
soon after injecting the sailine, Goatmin became short of breath.
The resident assumed got Man had asthma and repeated the action.
He gave her more sailine and a different medicine that
was not good for people with heart disease for asthma yice,
And so she obviously worsened. And this sailine that's used
for abortions is very hard on the heart, and yeah

(03:29):
it was with her condition, it was not good. It
put her into a coma from which she never recovered.
She died three days later, and for some reason, there
was no chart on Godman at the hospital. The resident
didn't ask her for her history. That's wild, right, And
she was by all accounts well spoken and very smart.

(03:51):
And I mean you could tell by you know, the
books she was carrying around. Could they possibly have gotten
rid of the chart or they just never did one.
I don't know, they just didn't have one. Wow, I
don't think they even looked for it. And so he
could have asked her like, well, what's your medical history,
and she would have known to say the important piece
of medical history, which is that she has heart disease, right,
and then they would have known to not administer the

(04:13):
kind of treatment that they did exactly. But the doctor,
the resident didn't explain anything of the procedure. She didn't
know she needed to say. She didn't know what it entailed.
So she didn't say anything either, and nothing was explained
to her, because yeah, if it had been explained to her,
maybe she would have been like, well, hey, if you
know the doctor said this thing where injectine puts a

(04:35):
lot of strain on the heart, maybe it would have
prompted her to say, oh, I have a heart condition
right right, But they didn't explain anything to her. They
just did it, which is insane to think about in
this now in the present. Yeah, So no one did this,
No one explained that, they just did it, and because
of this, she died on July nineteenth, nineteen seventy. The

(04:57):
day that she died, TLC activist which if you don't
remember from part one, but TLC was the group Think
Lincoln Committee that was made up of doctor's residents at
the hospital, local residents of the neighborhood, and young lords.
So TLC activists demanded a meeting with the top top
person of the hospital, doctor Antero Laca La Cote. I

(05:19):
don't know, Lacot Last, I'm just gonna say last, I
don't know. During the meeting, they were told that Catman's
case was extremely complicated, so complicated they wouldn't even understand it.
So they didn't explain it. What. Yeah, They were like,
well you were not going to understand what happened. So
it was just complicated, that's it, that's why it happened. Whatever.

(05:39):
The TC was like, nah, no, we're not Yeah. So
they held rallies. They occupied buildings of the hospital, nothing
at the scale of the Lincoln Offensive, but they did.
They wouldn't leave certain buildings in protest, and the group
called for a compensation for cadimnd Rodrias's family, for the
removal of doctor JJ Smith, who was the head of

(06:00):
the abortion clinic, or if they wouldn't call for his removal,
if he reinstated this black obgyn who had been fired
for sending up to them. That was their other demand.
They also called for the establishment of a community worker
committee to oversee the abortion clinic, and they also demanded
for the clinic to be renamed after Catman. And during

(06:21):
these protests, someone leaked her record, her medical record to them,
to the group, and it was probably a doctor who
was like, yeah, this was fucked up on their side,
or yeah, this is where they learned that she had
died from medical negligence, and this only obviously increased the protests. Yeah,
that's why I feel like they got rid of her

(06:42):
chart or whatever because they didn't want to like and
obviously this is speculation because there's no evidence of this,
but there was medical records for her, Like, doesn't that
mean there should have also been a chart. I don't
know ran right. Even at this point, non TLC members,
even the doctors at the clinic who were not sympathetic
to the Young Lords or the TLC, had to realize

(07:04):
that they had failed garment, Like this was literal medical negligence,
things that they had already been calling to fix. The
Young Lords they were saying, like, patients are always seen
and these are common complaints that they got in their
medical complaint table, you know the table they set up
at the er where people came in, the grievances table,
that's what they called it. But yeah, patients were always
seeing a different doctor. Oftentimes there was an inexperienced student,

(07:27):
and there was never a follow up from visit to visit.
And so if there's no follow ups and there's always
different doctors, nobody knows what's going on with these people.
There's no real continuity of care right as there should be. Yeah, yeah,
mm hmm. Because of all the demand for meetings from
the Young Lords and the TLC, hospital administrators agreed to

(07:49):
hold what they called a clinical pathological conference, and what
this was was a public hearing or hospital administrators presented
Gotman's case, her diagnosis, her treatment and the complications that
led to her death. Like they put it all in
this public forum, like young Lords were in the audience.
Anyone from the public that wanted to attend, including her family,

(08:09):
were in the audience. They were free to ask questions.
There was even doctors from other hospitals who were like
in the audience, cross examining the doctors at Lincoln Hospital,
saying like what you should have done this, You should
have done this, like this should have been different, which
is like this was like the first kind of meeting
like that, Yeah, m hmm. And it was considered a
good thing, even though the audience was full of angry

(08:31):
people calling out the doctors. You know, even the doctors
that Lincoln recognized that this was important and that they
viewed it as them being held accountable to the community.
But as historic as this meeting was, it only escalated
the situation. The Young Lords put out, you know, in
Palante in their newspaper they charged the hospital with genocide.

(08:53):
That's the words they used, and they published the following
in the July thirty first Pallante issue. And I'm just
going to read what they wrote. Our people are being
killed every day. The facts are cold, and real drug addiction.
Inadequate housing, and inferior medical services all contribute to the
slow killing off of our people. Another very specific way

(09:13):
genocide is committed is through the limiting of our population.
When drug companies came out with a million dollar birth
control pill, they tested it in Puerto Rico. As a
result of years of experiments in quack operations, tying of tubes,
cutting of tubes, one out of every three sisters of
child bearing age on the island is sterilized. Those sisters

(09:33):
that they have not been able to sterilize, or on pills,
loop and all sort of jive methods to keep us
from bearing warriors that will join the fight for our liberation.
Just recently, on July first, nineteen seventy, a new plan
for the limitation of our population was passed, the abortion Law.
Under this new method, we are now supposed to be
able to go to any city butcher shop the municipal

(09:57):
hospitals and receive an abortion. These are the same hospit
that have been killing our people for years already. The
first abortion death has occurred at Lincoln Hospital butcher Shop
of South Bronx godvent RODRIEZ thirty one went to Lincoln
seeking an abortion. She suffered from many of the diseases
that afflict all oppressed people. She was at one time
addicted to drugs. She suffered from asthma, anemia, a severe

(10:19):
heart condition. With all these health problems, she was sent
to the operating room without her medical history chart even
being checked. She was injected with medication for asthma. However,
that type of medication use is the worst possible for
a patient with a heart condition. But how are they know.
They never bothered to check her chart. The punk that
was treating her was a student. Lincoln is affiliated with

(10:40):
Einstein Medical School, which assigns inexperienced students to learn medicine
by practicing on our people. He continued to give her
this medication until finally her heart stopped. Then they proceeded
to open her chest up, but by then it was
too late. Her brain had been damaged. Gotama's brain stopped
functioning on July seventeenth. Although she was dead, the hospital
tried covering it up until July twentieth, when her heart

(11:02):
muscles stopped beating. Doctors have recently decided that death occurs
when the brain stops. This death was no accident. God
Man died because America is killing our people. Got Man
was forced to go for an abortion because under this
capitalist system which that which is our right, food, clothing,
and shelter is kept from us. Instead, we become the

(11:23):
drug addicts, the prostitutes, the ill, and the hungry. What
choice does a sister have when she is pregnant thinking
of providing for her child? Will he or she grow
up to be a junkie or maybe die in the
wars created by American greed and madness. We know there
is but one choice. Armed self defense and armed struggle
are the only means to liberation. We will continue to
five for our liberation. We will continue to serve and

(11:46):
protect our people in the hospitals, on the streets everywhere.
We know that the realities of oppression will continue to
force our sisters to seek these abortions, and so we
will continue to educate that this genocide will only stop
when we rise up against our oppressors. I mean, they're
not wrong, and it's super interesting. I don't remember what
I was listening to or watching. They talk about reproductive

(12:09):
rights and how in the United States, black, indigenous, and
women of color have had to fight for their right
to have children while and of course it's like very
throughout like history or whatever. And then how white women
have had to fight for their right to not have children,

(12:30):
but how it all falls under the umbrella of reproductive rights.
But how often we don't think about the right to
have children as a reproductive right. And you know, here
they're talking about abortion, but they're talking about like women
are not able to have like children on their terms,
not only because of health issues, but because of capitalism. Yes,

(12:51):
And is this not the same thing that came up
also during the sterilizations in California episode, because it was
the same argument while white feminists were protesting in these hospitals,
arguing with the women who were protesting against the serilizations,
It's like, it's the same argument. And if they only

(13:13):
expanded this definition of what they are seeing as abortion rights,
they would see that. But because they were so busy
trying to keep their right to not have children, they
were encroaching on the rights of these Mexican women in
California who wanted to have their children and weren't able
to and who had that taken away. And there's a

(13:34):
long history of this happening to non white women in
the US and Puerto Rico, which they specifically mentioned in
the Panante issue, the sterilization of Puerto Rican women. I
mean one third of all women in Puerto Rico. It's
a lot, yeah, and it's right and correct to call
it a genocide, because stopping a population from reproducing that

(13:57):
is genocide. The Young Lords and the continued to protest
and demand meetings, and on the twenty fifth of August
of nineteen seventy, they met with the head of obgyn,
doctor JJ Smith, and they repeated their demand that he
stepped down, he leave, and that the only black doctor
who had been fired for sending up to them be reinstated.

(14:20):
Those were their demands other demands this meeting that they
had had been going on for two hours, more than
two hours at this point, and the Young Lords were like, no,
we're over this. They decided to act like they're not
going anywhere, and so they declared that they were firing
doctor Smith themselves, and they forcibly escorted him to his
own car by pushing them and telling them, no, don't

(14:40):
ever come back. Wait, I love this, Yeah, get out
of here, don't come back the fuck out here. The
Young Lords, justifying their actions by saying, if doctor JJ
Smith had conceded to even some of our demands, and
if the administration hadn't tried to cover up what we
knew was all to common now Lincoln, the daily disregard

(15:02):
for the lives of people of color, we wouldn't have
had to take the actions that we took. M hm.
And yeah, I agree. I'm sorry call me an apologist
for the Young Lords, but I agree, yeah, me too.
They were forced to do that. You know. Other doctors,
those who did not align with the Young Lord's views,
demanded to know why the Young Lords were even allowed

(15:23):
to just wander at the hospital. They're like, why are
they even here? Like they don't even go here is
how they viewed it. Yeah, they don't go here. But
the top top administrator, doctor Lassett la Cote, I don't know.
I still do not have his name. Anyway, he maintained
that even though he did not agree with their tactics,
they raised valid concerns they did. Yeah, yeah, And he

(15:45):
let them keep their complaint table in the er. He
let them keep the daycare they had established during the
Lincoln offensive that was still running. He was like, those
they're staying and doctor JJ Smith and did her resigning.
I should emphasize that the doctors who were on board
with the Lincoln offensive and with the Young Lords were
er doctors. This is all happening in the obgyn department,

(16:07):
so different doctors. When doctor J. J. Smith resigned, twenty
seven residents and interns in the obgyn all went on
a ten day strike. They only returned because the city
threatened to end the millions dollar contract that they had
with the Einstein Medical College, like if these residents and
students don't return, were ending this contract, and it was

(16:28):
like twenty eight million dollars or something like that that
the hospital received from the college to train residents there.
But the doctors still only agreed to go back if
the hospital finally kicked out all the activists. And so
the hospital did file a restraining order against the Young
Lords and the TLC and the hr UM all the

(16:48):
activists they could, They filed this restraining order. But even then,
the doctor Lanco Lunkot Lanson, he told the New York
Times that the Young Lords helped moved the hospital toward
change and that he would let them keep the daycare
and the complaint table. Still, but by now city officials
and courts and mainstream media were all working together against

(17:10):
the Young Lords. The New York Times published an editorial
talking match shit about the Young Lords, Like the New
York Times, right right, the source that I now, yes,
truly the source that I use for this. And when
they wrote about this, they said it was scathing, not
SKay skating. Yeah. In this editorial, they portrayed the striking

(17:31):
residents and insurans as heroes and the Young Lords as villains.
The editorial very strategically left out that the Young Lords
were already running a ton of programs through the hospital,
like the Pediatric Collective, like they're led offensive with the
X ray truck and all the TV door to door testing,
and so they left all that out and instead they

(17:52):
called them the Puerto Rican imitation of the Black Panthers.
And then they said they created a rude right, like
what the fuck? They created a climate of fear and conflict,
and they harassed doctors and nurses, and they even used
words like they invaded the hospital, which I'm like, some
could say, you know, if you want to use that terminology,

(18:14):
you want to be all typical about it. If you're
going to be all weird about it, and all writing
about it. To me, they were taking it back, they
were occupying right, these are yeah, And so then republic
conservatives like senators in the city started saying things like
the superintendent of the hospital was held hostage by extremists,

(18:36):
m it was a meeting, and then they cocked out.
Really yeah, if he was truly held hostage, they wouldn't
have let him go, right, right, And so all these
kinds of reports were being made about the Young Lords,
and so even then, though even though the media was
portraying them in this way, the Young Lords continued out
of acating for the community. And even before got Rodriguez's death,

(19:01):
they had written a version of demands that they then
added to after she died, which would become the Patient
Bill of Rights. And so these demands that they wrote
are ten and it's the following. One. To be treated
with dignity and respect. Two to have all treatment explained
and to refuse any treatment you feel is not in

(19:22):
your best interest. Three to know what medicine is being
prescribed and what it's for and what the side effects
will cause. Four to have access to your own medical chart.
Five to have door to door preventive medicine programs. Six
to choose the doctor you want to have and to
have the same doctor treat you all the time. Seven

(19:43):
to call your doctor to your home. Eight to receive
free meals while waiting for outpatient service. Nine to have
free daycare centers in all hospital facilities, and ten to
have free healthcare. Okay, I mean I am for all
of those things right, right, And Lincoln Hospital did adopt
most of these, with the exception of like the lass

(20:05):
three really the females, the free daycare, and the free healthcare.
And soon hospitals across the US started adopting the same
list of rights okay, and they all use the same name.
The young Lords use the Patient Bill of Right. And again,
except for the last three, nobody did that. Nobody gave
us free health care. And these practices did improve medicine

(20:30):
in a lot of different hospitals, which makes sense. I mean,
if you're being told what is going to be done
to you, you then have the right to say first
at least you know, but second you have the right
to refuse whatever. Also, being treated by the same doctor
every visit, if it's like your primary care doctor, they
know what's going on with you, they know your history. Yeah,

(20:50):
like all these stuff really do make sense. Yeah. And
so in March nineteen ninety seven, President Clinton appointed the
Advisory Commission on Consumer Protection and Quality in the Healthcare Industry,
and their purpose was to advise the President on changes
in healthcare and he tasked them with recommending measures that
promote and assure quality healthcare to protect patients and workers.

(21:14):
And the Commission was tasked to develop what they were
calling a consumer Bill of Rights and Healthcare, which would
be enforced in all levels federal, local, state. And this
list they made was official in nineteen ninety nine to
be implemented by all places, like including offices that are
currently being defunded, like the Office of Personnel Management, the

(21:36):
Department of Labor, the Deprimand of Health and Human Services,
the Department of Veterans Affairs, yep, everything literally everything, Yes,
and that is the bill of rights we know today.
That's so wild to think something we see and sign
probably like when we're getting established, I don't know, let's
say with our primary every single different clinic you go

(21:57):
to or any time we go. Yeah yeah, yeah, it'll
be everywhere. It is everywhere, and you sign that you
understand it? Yeah, right, And it came from our people,
from the Puerto Ricans, from the Young Lords, the Puerto Ricans. Yeah,
the one that we see and signed today has eight
principal areas of rights and responsibilities like information disclosure, which

(22:19):
is really number one on the list. That the Young
Lords had, choice of providers and plans, access to emergency services,
participation in treatment decisions, respect and non discrimination, confidentiality of
health information. All these things are included in the current
Bill of Rights that we all follow today. Even before

(22:40):
it was officially implemented, it was already being adopted by
hospitals like everywhere. And it's wild to know that, like
you said, this came from the death of Godman Rodriguez
and the Young Lords and their activism. They did so
much in health activism, it's insane, like think about really,
the Young Lords continue the activism in the hospital. They

(23:01):
even opened the South Bronx, the talk center on the
sixth floor. So even though the hospital tried and tried
to keep them out, BI couldn't. You can't keep the
people down until I mean we I think I spoke
too soon. No, I think you and I both know
what you know came next. Yes, see activism of the

(23:22):
Young Lords unfortunately continued into the late nineteen seventies, but
with many movements of this time, they were targets of
the FBI's cointeil pro program, in which the FBI used
cover and often illegal tactics to disrupt and neutralized organizations
that they deemed threats to national security. And these, of
course included civil rights groups, leftist organizations, and bipoc activists. Yeah, like,

(23:45):
so many groups were repressed through this way, and the
right like they just dwindled down in activity because of
all the arrest and you know, interference from the FBI.
And yeah, that is part two. Wow wowow gonna anything
else there? No, okay, okay, just wow wow wow wow wow.

(24:06):
I mean we kind of already said our thoughts throughout.
It's truly fascinating. That is where the patient Bill of
Rights comes from, and we don't even learn it. I
would have never known, never thought. Yeah, And it just
goes to show the thing that you were always repeating
that we wouldn't have our rights if you didn't fight
for them. We had to fight for our rights. Nobody
in power has ever given us our rights. So when

(24:27):
some dumb fuck from Middle America tell from anywhere. They
could be anywhere. Yeah, I don't know. I said that.
But tries to tell you we give your rights, because
they will. They say this shit all the time. It's like, no, bitch,
we fought hard for our rights. Yeah, nobody gave us anything. No,
because if it was up to them, we wouldn't have nothing.
We wouldn't have any of the rights that we have. Nothing.

(24:48):
What are they doing right now? They're dismantling Yeah, things
that people have worked so hard on. Yeah. Yeah, and
it's infuriating. Yeah, but yeah, to say the least to least.
So yeah, that was the history of the Young Lord's
Lincoln Defensive got medals and how her death led to

(25:08):
the Patient Bill of Rights. You can find all of
our sources in the show notes. But I did want
to point out there's two documentaries. One is one that
was done a while ago by the New York Times
has this. They put out some good stuff they do,
but in the past years, I mean they have been
a little there's a lot of issues with them. But
they have this on YouTube, this series of documentaries that

(25:31):
are very short, usually no more than thirty minutes. And
there is one about the Young Lord's takeover of the
Lincoln Hospital. I mentioned it in the first episode, how
we occupied a hospital and changed public healthcare. That's the
twenty thirty minute video. But there's also a documentary called Takeover,

(25:52):
which is a little bit longer. It was made in
partnership with Democracy Now, and those are both fascinating. There's
also a book called the History of the Young Lords.
I want to say, but those are all very fascinating.
I mean, the Young Lords, this is not even everything
they did. This is the tip of the iceberg. Yeah,

(26:13):
they were and I this will be again. I added
it to our topic list. But they had involvement in
the Attica Prison uprising, so they did so much. And
I just again, then we don't learn this kind of
stuff in school because they don't want us to know
that it's been done before, Like they don't want us
to know our power. Yeah, and it's like we say

(26:34):
so many times, if you don't know your history, you
don't know your story. You don't It's like there's a
saying in Spanish, it's in the stadium in Chile historian
something like that. That's not the word for word, aliquain.
I'm as amano very close to that. It's the same thing.
When they talk about collective memory, it's usually I mean,
I've heard it in when it comes to Latin American,

(26:56):
Central American Salvadorian Civil War. Did they forget their collective memory? Boy?
Was that on purpose? Because people who know history recognize patterns,
and it's something that is even topical here now in
this day and age in the United States. And I
know that a lot of people are bringing Nazi Germany

(27:19):
into this conversation, but it's true because that's like the biggest,
I guess, the main fascist government that we actually learned
about in the United States. But even then, we learned
about it so broadly and started to cut off your
trin at thought because I am going to go on
a little tangent or did you want to add anything before? No,
I don't think so, I've already forgotten. Okay, my bad.
Well it's not really a tangent. And just I started

(27:41):
listening to this podcast called in Bed with the Right
and I found them through a bit fruity another podcast
that I watched by Matt Bernstein. Wait is in Better
with the Writing is out on YouTube on new or
is that also on No? I listened I've been listening
to that one on Spotify. Okay, And they just started
the series called Project nineteen thirty three where they're detailing

(28:04):
the first six what the first six weeks of the
Nazi regime look like? Wow? And because we learned about
it broadly, right, but there's so many things that happened
day to day. And they talk about like what the
artists and the elites and the authors and the professors
that kind of were the first to see the red

(28:25):
flags and write about them and leave the country, which
is something that's being talked about now as well. Yeah,
because the guy that wrote that book about tyranny or
something left in the country. Yeah. So there And the
first episode they talk about I think like the first
week or so, and then the next episode in the
series they talk about the next like so they're grouping

(28:47):
it month by month wow or I don't know if
it's a month or like they're doing like two or
two weeks at a time. It's fascinating and scary. Okay,
I will have to listen to that. Wow. Yeah, and
this is more very and I guess until the episode Territory.
But just really quick, did you watch the interview with
Trump or they asked him about upholding the Constitution because

(29:10):
he took an oath as president, as all presidents have
to do so, and he's like, I don't know, I
don't know if to do that, and fucking Christ, yeah,
y'all if that is not the biggest these are glaring sirens.
Now they're not even like red flags anymore. These are like, no, yeah,
alarms so alarmed. Yeah, yeah, that's scary. Like we see

(29:30):
their actions in the day, but now they don't even
care about vocalizing and they haven't really because this whole time,
I feel like they're towing the line about what they
can get away with and what people will put up
a fight to and whatnot. And it's another thing that
brings me back to Marie Essan's book, and she's like,
you need to hold the line, hold the line, and
we're not doing that. Yeah, And it's all part of

(29:51):
their plan and system, because how can you when they've
made it so that you don't even have time to
go out in protest, when they disbanded communities their spaces
and you don't have spaces, you don't have a place
to talk about these things to make a plan, right, right,
It's all it's all part of the plan. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
it's by design. Yeah, really quick. Also, I'm so sorry.

(30:15):
I'm just talking a lot today. I was going on
and on for his Peaky tells. Okay, but this is
the last thing I'm gonna say. Okay, ever, just kidding.
I came across a TikTok and I send it to you,
but you haven't opened it because you've been busy. I
haven't busy. It's fine, it's fine. I reposted it too,
because I where's my reposts? Okay. So it was this

(30:36):
video of this girl that talks about an essay by
Tony Morrison. And so in the video she's just talking
about it, but it's an essay called fascism, and I
forgot the other part of it, but I sent you
the actual because then she posts the actual essay it
comes from Tony Morrison's book called The Source of Self Regard. Oh,

(30:58):
and then the actual essays called Racism and Fascism, And
she has a list here that she writes about basically
what fascists looks what fascism looks like. And I'm not
going to read at all, but it's like some of
these things, you know, just reading this will all recognize them.
Like one of the things palisade all art forms monitor, discredit,
or expel those that challenge or destabilize processes of demonization

(31:22):
and deification. So like another one enlists and create sources
and distributions of information who are willing to reinforce the
demonizing process because it's profitable, because it grants power, and
because it works. And what are they doing now? They're
trying to kick out actual journalists that will question Carolyn
spelled with three K's Levitts press conferences. They're kicking those

(31:44):
journalists out, and they're trying to only bring up people
that will not question anything and will just you know,
drink the kool aid, as they say, pathologize the enemy,
and scholarly and popular mediums recycle, for example, scientific racism
and the myths of racial superiority in order to naturalize
the pathology. What is RFK Junior doing now with his

(32:04):
stupid bullshit which is fababase. Yeah, yeah, so yeah, there's
just it's a then this it goes on. But I
definitely want to check out this book. And I don't know,
I just I can't get fascism out of my mind,
and neither should you or anyone, right, because we are
basically in it. I mean they're outright. Trump outright said

(32:26):
that he does not have to uphold or that he
doesn't know, he's not sure if he's going to uphold
the Constitution even though he's wore nos. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
he doesn't know. I'm like, what kind of shit is that?
If that doesn't scare you, it should, And I'm like,
every I know what this is like, nothing new to
our listeners, but if you have anyone who is a
political in your life or who's busy and feels like

(32:48):
they don't have the time to care about these things,
this is gonna This affects everyday life, our jobs. If
you're in a union. This is the most anti union
administration ever. Yeah yeah, I mean they want to bring
back company talents right, Like that's not a good thing,
the antithesis of union workers rights. Yeah, and human rights
everything everything. Okay, but yeah, I'll go on or not

(33:11):
if I don't stop now, So true, true, you will?
So yeah, that was this episode so relevant to learn
about these histories of ours because if no, no, I'm not,
people who know history can recognize these patterns. Yes, that
was a whole point. That was the whole point of that,
And just a reminder that over on Patreon we yap
more about this kind of stuff. Here at the end

(33:31):
that Carmen was going on and on about and she
had to stop physically or she would keep going. Now
I'm chugging water because they talk so much's dugging water
to stop? No, I'm just kidding. We also are hoping
to do our book club discussion on defectors at the
end of no, like after this weekend, so next weekend. Yeah, yeah,

(33:51):
at the time this comes out next weekend, and obviously
we'll post it on Patreon, we'll post it on Instagram
where we're going to be doing another discussion and we're
very excited for it. So even if it's just me
and Carmen, we're gonna yap about it anyway. And if
no one sholse up, will just post the episode so
for free on Patreon. So right, yeah, yeah, all right.
We hope that this was one less Ustordia Unknown for you.

(34:11):
Bye bye. Astoria as Unknown is produced by Carmen and Christina,
researched by Carmen and Christina, edited by Christina. You can
find sources for every episode at Astoria unknown dot com
and in our show notes. Creating the podcast has a
lot of work, so if you want to help us
out financially, you can do so by supporting us on
Patreon at patreon dot com. Slash you studied as an

(34:34):
own podcast

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