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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Wake that hands up in the morning.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
The Breakfast Club.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Morning.
Speaker 3 (00:05):
Everybody's the j Envy just Hilarius Charlamagne the guy. We
are the Breakfast Club. We got some special guests joining
us this morning.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
We got the good brother, doctor Cornell West. Yes, indeed,
and also his running mate, Malina Abdullah. Welcome.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
It's a blessing to be here. My brother said, he
bring me back. He's a man of his word. It's
good to see you, my brother, j Envy, and I'm
so blessed to be with sister Malina. She is one
of the great freedom fighters of her generation. And we
are running together for truth, justice and love. And we
(00:40):
want people to see what it's like to have two
black folk who have no fear, no lies, tell the truth,
seek justice, and love the people.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Sister Molina, Let's let's start with you. When doctor Cornell
West approached you to be his running mate, what was
your thought process behind it all? And even receiving that
message and didn't deciding to do.
Speaker 4 (01:02):
It well before thinking, my soul jumped out of myself
and said absolutely. I told him yesterday that I haven't
felt this kind of spirit soaring since I had my
last child. And that was fourteen years ago. So my
spirit spoke before my mind spoke. But then when I
(01:23):
thought about it, I never planned to run for office,
but it made all the sense in the world. I,
like many people, have been deeply inspired by doctor West,
both as a scholar but also as a freedom fighter
and one who marches and moves on behalf of our people.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
What made you want to choose Molina doctor Cornell.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
You know, brother, I wanted to choose the best. I
believe that excellence in the form of vision, courage, willingness
to put your body on the line. She's a scholar,
she's an intellectual. She's been to jail many, many, many times.
They have attacked her in vicious way. She's ill standing
with a tremendous sense of determination. And in that sense,
(02:04):
it's just a matter of always acknowledging what we always do.
And that's true for everybody around here. We'll come from
a great Black people who have the highest standards of
excellence within our tradition. And I wanted to put a
smile on the face of Fanny Louhammer and Martin Luther
King Jr. Curtis may feel and Nina Simon. That's high
(02:25):
standards because those of folk who are free, as my
brother Clifton always says, I want to see whether you're
on a plantation or not. But it's since they've never
been on nobody's plantation. That's hard to find these days
for black folk. And so to be able to work
with her, work alongside her, learn from her, be instructed
and inspired, it's a beautiful thing.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
And let the direct show Molina has been to jail
for good trouble. Donald Trump has been to jail many
times too, So I just want to put that out there,
good trouble.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
I was going to ask you, what keeps you in
the fight? You know, because it's a lot of money,
it's a lot of time. It's stressful. They attack you,
They attack every part of your life. They dive deep
into your finances, your taxes. And both of you guys,
you know you both have families, so they gonna dive
into your family. So what makes you still want to
put that fight on?
Speaker 1 (03:15):
But I got so much love poured into me from
Irene and Clifton West and Grandma and granddad, from Shiloh
Baptist Church, Reverend Willie Pecook and Deacon Hinton and others
that I would have to live three lifetimes to begin
to pay that back. And then by the time you
connected with the Black Panther Party, connected with those folks
I didn't know, the Malcolms and the Fanny Low Hammers
and others. All that love they poured it, all that courage,
(03:38):
all that integrity. The least thing I could do is
tell the truth and seek justice before I meet my
hand and meet my maker, you know what I mean.
So I get up with a joy, and I got
a joy in the world and give me the world
can't take away. And it's a deep joy tied to
the struggle and try to try to try and to
make the world a better face for oppressed people, poor people,
(03:58):
working people. To deal with all this organized greed and
institutionalized hatred and rutinize indifference to the vuner raubbul. It's
a beautiful thing to be in struggle with. This is
a Molina and the whole host of folk who are
concerned about making the world a better place with a
smile and also with a style too, because we come
out of people that got style and sold Oh, brother.
Speaker 4 (04:20):
Malini, I mean for me, I couldn't say it better
than doctor West. It is what we owe our ancestors.
It is what we owe our guide, it is what
we owe our people. And I'll also offer that I'm
a mother of three children, and my three children, two
of the three of them had police called on them
in schools.
Speaker 5 (04:41):
When they were six years old for the first time.
Speaker 4 (04:44):
And I cannot leave a world as it is for
Tandie way Amara and I'm in. We have to do
the work to make the world better for them. That's
what we owe our ancestors. That's what we owe our people.
That's what we owe our children, and that's what we
owd generations to come. That's what we owe ourselves as well.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
I was going to ask what they shold me. I
was going to ask, you know, you guys are running independently,
and people when they questioned the Democrats, or they questioned Biden,
or they questioned Kamala Harris, they say people are going
against their race and people are going against what they
quote unquote should be doing. What's your thoughts on that,
because in all actuality, people will say that you guys
(05:26):
are questioning them as well.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
That's true, that's true. Fanny lou Hammer said, I'm questioning America.
I'm questioning capitalism, I'm questioning patriarchy, and I'm questioning white supremacy.
The folk who want to defend Biden and can't say
a mumbling word about the general side and ethnic cleansing
and apartheized state of Israel, it means they're turning their backs. Well, no,
(05:49):
we don't come out of a tradition like that. We
committed to jamal Leticia in the hood. We committed to
Wan and juan Nita in the barrio. We committed to
poor white, we committed Palestinians, we committed to any folk.
We committed the Jews when they catch in hell, we
are around. In nineteen thirty we insolidated with the Jews
against Hitler. Now right now, you got genocide taking place
(06:11):
in Gaza. We take a stand not out of self righteousness,
but because we want to be moral and spiritual. That's
who we are as a people. Man at our best,
I'm not talking about our worst, at our best. And
therefore you got Trump, dead up, gangster leading the country
towards Civil War two, Biden war criminal, leading the world
(06:33):
toward World War three. Now you're gonna choose between Civil
War two and World War three. What you're gonna do,
That's the history of black folk. For us, Pharaoh has
always been on the blows, both sides of the bloody
red seas. What you're gonna do, Sing a song, what
you're gonna do, Crack a smile, crack a joke, hug
organize it, mobilized, and then make a way out of
(06:54):
no way. That's the history of black folk. How have
we made a way out of no way? I sit
here and look at your young brothers. I know what's
in you. I know your grandparents. I know what they
been through. They made a way out of no way.
Look at you sitting there with all this dignity. Couldn't
do it by yourself. That's that rich tradition inside of you.
That's all we're trying to do. And that's true for
(07:17):
my dear sister, going back through Louisiana. We both got
Louisiana roots deep Louisiana, even though she come out of
East Oakland, so I mean, you know, she got jumped
started like East Oakland's like Detroit and Chicago and Mississippi's
even deeping them, all of them. We won't get into
that right now. South South Carolina, what was it Month's corner? Yes, sir,
oh lord.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
You know you brought up the civil war thing. And
this happened to me this Friday's happened on like I
think Tuesday ones. I walked downstairs and it was just
a white guy had on some khakis and nice shoes
and sweater glasses, looked like a Wall Street type. And
he was just like, man, you Charlamagne right he goes Man.
He said, I want you to tell people that it's
gonna be a war regardless of who wins. And I
(08:02):
was like, because he didn't even look like the type.
He wasn't a wild conspiracy theorist. He is like, you
tell people that it don't matter if Biden went to
Trump win, there's gonna be a civil war in this country.
And I was like, yikes, so what makes you feel
that way?
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Well, we certainly headed that way. That's what civil wars
are about. When you get organized greed and institutionalized hatred
running amuck, especially at the top, manipulating every day people
feeling frustrated, impotent, powerless, and then you escape, go to
the most vulnerable rather than confront the most powerful, and
what sits at the center of it white's supremacy. Now
it's undergirded by capitalism and all the greed that that
(08:38):
generates profit and so forth. But does that make sense,
my dear sister, It does.
Speaker 4 (08:43):
Make sense, and it makes sense when we talk about
why we have to get involved and why we have
to do something different, why we can't just go along
to get along. So the question about why we're not
just saying, you know, let's let's dust Trump, let's make
sure Trump doesn't get in. Of course Trump is the
embodiment of evil. Of course Trump is the He's a
(09:06):
devil incarnate, absolutely right. But we also have to remember that,
you know, my children and all their friends recognize Joe
Biden as genocidah Joe.
Speaker 5 (09:17):
And so we can't just go along to get along.
Speaker 4 (09:20):
We can't just say, let's take the lesser of two evils.
The lesser of two evils is still evil. And so
how do we pull ourselves into our highest selves? How
do we say, you know, it's always been true that
white supremacist patriarchal capitalism will try to get us to
celebrate the individual advancement of a few at the expense
(09:44):
of the many, And so we refuse to do that
we say we all must be free. If we're not
all free, nobody's free.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
I got a question for both of y'all when you
talk about this civil war. I don't think the civil
war is going to be between Republicans and Democrats. I
think it's going to between the haves and the have not.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
What do you think I think? I think that's that's
that's the serious formulation. But it's hard to know exactly
what formula because race and white supremacy cuts so deep
in the country that even well to do black folk
could be viciously attacked by some of the poor wife folk.
(10:21):
So that race is gonna be crucial, But the class
dimension that you talk about will be crucial too, There's
no doubt about it. And we know how ugly the
gender question is. But you got what thirty percent now
black brothers saying they're gonna vote for gangster Trump. Hey,
where's that coming from? Well, that's a complicated situation. That's
just at the moment. We don't know what it's gonna
(10:42):
be like in November. But once the vicious conflict sets in,
we don't know what response would be. We just have
to make sure that we have a moral and spiritual witness.
We're gonna be a witness. We're gonna bead witness to
the best of the traditions of our people that has
preserved our dignity and our sanity, regardless of what the
(11:04):
circumstances is. Because you got to keep in mind, there's
been a war against indigenous peoples for about six hundred years.
There's been a war against black folk for four hundred years.
We at war right now. So we're just talking about
the hot war versus the cold. You go to mass
incarceration and the jails and so forth, and on sloop
by the Muomea because he got his birthday coming up
seven ozer, but he been in a war. So the
(11:26):
war's always ongoing. But the question what form it will take?
And we have to decide personally and collectively, are we
gonna hold on to some sense of morality and spirituality
giving all this barbarity?
Speaker 2 (11:39):
What do you think believe? Who do you think the
war will be between?
Speaker 4 (11:42):
Yeah, I think you're right on about the halves and
the have nots, And it's those who also identify with
the haves and the havelf nights, right, So you have
plenty of poor people plenty of poor white people, especially
who identify with the halves, even though they themselves are
the have nuts. And so it's really important that we
(12:04):
awaken people to what their real interests are. Right, that
we awaken poor people, working class people, regardless of race,
to what their interests are.
Speaker 5 (12:13):
And so as we awaken folks, we.
Speaker 4 (12:17):
Can lock arms and engage in whatever struggle needs to
take place for the liberation of beginning with black people
and extending to all oppressed people.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
How do we get people to get out of the
mind frame where I only can vote for Democrat or Republican? Right,
I say it all the time. A lot of people
are from years and years and years of grandparents voting Democrat,
and great grandparents and the parents and then yourselves. How
do we get him out to think outside of the box, right,
Because automatically, when somebody sees somebody running as an independent,
(12:50):
they think, well he is or there's no way that
they can possibly win. They're just somebody in there to
start trouble and to mess up the Democrats. How do
we get people to change that view?
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Yeah? I think part of it is, you know, Curtis
Mayfield got this song no Thing on Me I'm so
glad I got my own, so glad that I can
see my life is a natural high. The man can't
put no thing on me. It depends on what you see.
When we see, we have to see a system. You
can't just look at two parties. You got to see
how both of them are tied to Wall Street, a Pentagon,
(13:25):
both of them tied to war, both of them tied
to greed, and so you have to have an understanding
of how the system operates and then say, ah, I
want to be critical of the system. I'm not just
critical of Trump's gangsterism. I can see how Trump's gangsterism
is inseparable from Biden's genocidal policies, facilitating genocide and Gaza.
(13:49):
So you begin to see how the system operates and connects.
What's happening with the Palestinians in Gaza, but what's happening
in Black Folk and Harlem, what's happened with poul Whites
in Kentucky, what's happening with poor Latinos in East And
that is a different way of seeing the world. That's
why our artists, at their height, none needed Simons and others.
They help us to see things. We didn't see. Then
(14:10):
the question becomes how do you implement? How do you execute?
Usually when you see and you raise your voice, you
get incarcerated or assassinated. That's what the system does to
free black people. So you have to be willing to
pay that cost. And that's exactly what the cost we're
willing to pay. How come because we love the people
and the only thing that breaks the back of fear
(14:33):
is love. And if you don't love the people, then
get out of the way and go on and sell out,
going and sell your soul for mesapology and tell people lies,
tell them how great Biden is. Tell them Biden has
always been concerned with portfolio. He's an architect of mass incarceration.
That's a crime against humanity. I've taught in prisons for
forty one years. I've seen it go from two hundred
(14:54):
thousand to two point three million right before my very eyes.
That's a crime against humanity. That's my brothers and sisters
in there. Don't lie, don't don't want to be lying
on Biden in that sense. So is that kind of
truth telling that we need, and that's kind of and
is rooted in love.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Why do they act like you know as a black
person you can't speak that kind of truth but still
know what's in your best interest to do come November.
Why do they act like why do they act like
those two things can't happen at the same time, Belina, I.
Speaker 5 (15:24):
Think that there.
Speaker 4 (15:25):
You know, when we talk about this duopoly of Democrats
and Republicans, they want to lock us into these very
narrow choices. Black people are the most critical people, the
most discerning people, the most creative people on this planet, right,
and they want to block us from that creativity because
that kind of creativity gives birth to new ideas but
(15:46):
also new worlds, Right.
Speaker 5 (15:48):
So I want to.
Speaker 4 (15:50):
Lock in and be clear about what this campaign is about.
That we're advancing alternative visions. As Harriet Tubman abolitionists, we
absolutely want to topple systems of harm.
Speaker 5 (16:02):
We want to topple.
Speaker 4 (16:04):
Systems of prisons that descend from plantations and policing that
descend from slave catchers. And as Harriet Tubman abolitionists, we
also know that as we tear down systems of harm,
we want to build new systems of care that we
can have if we make different choices. Imagine what would
(16:26):
happen if we had the one hundred and something billion
dollars that Joe Biden just sent to fuel genocide and gaza.
Speaker 5 (16:35):
What if we had that for housing.
Speaker 4 (16:37):
What if we had those resources that are poured into
police in major cities. It's about half of the unrestricted
funds that go to policing, even though police don't make
us more safe. What if we had those dollars instead
for healthcare? What if we had those dollars instead or education?
These are simple and easy choices, and so that doopoly
(16:59):
that's owned by corporations wants to lock us out so
that they can keep the vision and the possibilities narrow.
Speaker 5 (17:08):
We're saying no more of that.
Speaker 4 (17:10):
Our possibilities are expansive and beautiful and creative, and we
have to shake off this world that really sucks the
life out of our people and puts targets on the
backs of our children.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
You know, Molina, you founded, you were the co founder
of the LA chapter of the Black Lives Matter movement,
and in twenty twenty two you got police took you
out of a Marrow debate. Well, I'm not gonna say
took you out, that'd be kindie. They dragged you out.
You know what, was the reasoning behind that.
Speaker 4 (17:39):
They carried me out by all fours, so that means
on each limb I had a different cop pulling me
from each limb on the last day Ramadan with my
legs sprawled open. It was not only brutal, it was humiliating.
It was dehumanizing. There is no just defiable reason for
(18:01):
them doing that. I don't know the reason that they
did that. I can surmise that they thought I was
there to do something that I wasn't there to do.
I was simply there to watch a mayoral debate. By training,
I'm at my PhDs in political science, and we had
the first viable black woman for mayor who's now our mayor,
(18:24):
Karen Bass. My research is on black women's leadership, so
of course I wanted to be on my own campus.
I wanted to be on my own campus watching that debate,
and so I think that that's absolutely despicable. Still haven't
gotten a real apology or any remedy from the school.
(18:44):
The school still continues to harass me, sending police into
my office, searching my office and telling me they'll be
back for me.
Speaker 5 (18:52):
And this is the reason why.
Speaker 4 (18:53):
We want to advance policies like removing police from our campuses.
Our campuses don't have enough care councilors, they don't have
enough scholars, they don't have enough staff to clean up,
but we have police that were spending millions and millions
of dollars on.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
I'm sorry you had to go through all of that
is the true that you sued BLM.
Speaker 4 (19:16):
I sued, and I should be very clear. Black Lives
Matter grass Roots, which is the side of Black Lives
Matter that I represent where the boots on the ground.
We're thirty three chapters around the country. Black Lives Matter
grass Roots is the real BLM. When you think of
Black Lives Matter being in the streets, organizing alongside families, that's.
Speaker 5 (19:38):
Who we are. In twenty twenty two.
Speaker 4 (19:42):
Our resources and platforms were stolen by a group of
highly paid consultants, and we know we have a right
to those things back, and so we sued them after
trying to convince them to do the right thing, and
that wasn't going to happen. They refused to listen to
the voices of the people. We did file a lawsuit
(20:03):
in September of twenty twenty two.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
Okay, well, let me just add this though. You see
when they attacked our dear sistant, and they do it
over and over again, And that's true for so many
of us go to jail and so on. That we're threats,
you see, that's a compliment. That means that we're true
to our calling. And you can have a calling as
a secular person. You can have a calling as a
religious person. You see, I'm a Jesus loving free black
(20:30):
man who wants to be true to the call. So
if I'm not constituting a threat, then how am I
following with Jesus who went into the temple and ran
out the money changes they put him on the cross. No,
my dear sister's Muslim. She's a law loving free black woman,
mercy justice Koran, and you constitute a threat. So when
(20:51):
she's willing to pay that kind of cost, that's the
sign of courage, integrity, and it's connected to a calling.
You got to have some call. If all you got
is your career, then you on somebody's plantation and any
any carriage that they dangle in front of you, you're
gonna opt for. But when you have a calling and
a professor, distinguished scholar and so forth, that that my
(21:13):
dear sister. Is she's true to something bigger than her
in her career. What is it? Well, it's the people,
but it's also her God. Now, people get upset sometimes
we talk about God in politics. I said, no, we're
not saying anybody got to follow us, but we got
to be true to where were coming from. We got
to be true to what teaches us. Going preserves our
(21:33):
sanity and our dignity, and it's just not God. We
talk about Curtis Mayfield. You talking about Curtis may Film,
John Coltrane all the time. I'm talking about folk who
keep me sane now, and I'm and therefore that I
won't be stopped from that. But I won't allow others
to feel as if I'm imposing God on them, or
(21:54):
Christianity on them, or Islam on them, or Buddhism. With
bell hooks and others were being candid about what's inside
of us, and we're being open in terms of people
being canned, what's inside of him?
Speaker 3 (22:06):
What policies would you implement that you feel that biding
is not doing for black people?
Speaker 1 (22:12):
Biden, Trump and Trump, Well, first things, reparations. Second thing
is abolition of poverty. Abolition of on housements, supporting militant
wing of the trade union movement that's fighting for wages
for workers across the board. And what my dear sister
was talking about disinvestment for military eight hundred military units
(22:32):
around the world, special operations in one hundred and thirty countries.
That's an empire. We're anti im peerless. America don't need
to be an empire. We got to be a nation
among other nations. We don't need to dominate every nook
and cranny of the world. So all of those resources,
the traders of dollars going into military, sixty two cent
for every one dollar in the discretion and every budget
(22:54):
that's going to housing, we can stop this gentrification taking places,
power grab and land grab, which you're out poor and
working people, pushing up the prices, the greed of Wall Street,
degree of corporations and oligopolies and monopolies, and dealing with
the ecological crisis with the fossil fuel companies. So that
that is a way of going back to Kurz Mayfield.
(23:16):
What we see the lens through which you view the world,
and we view the world through the lens of those
friends were known call the wretched of the earth. I
don't view the world through stock market. I don't view
the world through how many black faces are in high
places when their cousins getting crushed. It's a different way
of engaging politics. It's what my brother calls a paradigm shift.
(23:37):
We are not politicians. She been running for justice all
of her adult life. I've been running for justice all
of my adult life. We need people to get in
politics who already been running for justice, running for truth
and into politics. Don't into politics and think all of
a sudden you're gonna be a truth teller. That ain't
gonna happen.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
Are y'all getting Are you getting black belt doctor Corne West?
From media? From the MSNBC's seeing and are they having
you on?
Speaker 1 (24:03):
Well, I've never been, you know, on MSNBC that much
because they retired to Obama and we got a history
that But seeing n it's been kind. We were on
h just the abbey last night.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
Right, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. Biden Trump, uh, you
know the the rematches is coming in November. What do
you think the Democrats have done? Well, we know, we
know who the Republicans are, But what do you think
the Democrats have done well.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
If anything, the one thing they did was cut child
poverty in half, okay, because we put a lot of
pressure on and what happened, It expired and it's doubled again,
you see. So they did something well for a little
bit and then fell back, and of course we got
a long thing at what they're not doing well. But
(24:51):
my dear sister, you jump right there, right.
Speaker 4 (24:53):
I mean, I think that there are individual Democrats who
are doing really beautiful things, who are stepping forward and
courage So Corey Bush is an inspiration to me.
Speaker 5 (25:05):
Jamaal Bawman is doing phenomenal work.
Speaker 4 (25:09):
Ayana Presley is carrying a bill for US right now
called the Ending Qualified Immunity Act. And so I think
that there are some courageous Democrats. Unfortunately they are too
few and far between. So overall is a political party.
They are cowering to corporate interests. They are abiding by
(25:30):
what corporations want, what the few want, as you put it,
what the haves.
Speaker 5 (25:34):
Want, rather than representing what the working class people want.
Speaker 4 (25:38):
They're not supporting people like one of the people I'm
most inspired by is down the street from you, Chris Malls,
and the Amazon Labors.
Speaker 5 (25:48):
Yeah, Chris is my.
Speaker 4 (25:49):
Folks, and you know that's the kind of labor union
we want. And we're not seeing the kind of support
for real labor, for radical labor unions like we need,
like we should be expecting from the Democratic Party, although
there are some individual courageous Democrats.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
What do you think about the student loan forgiveness?
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Oh shoot, that should have been in place a long
time ago, Oh my god, across the board. And not
only that, but well to have free education, free healthcare,
and we ought to have a right to housing. It
was just a reclaimed movement there on the East Side
Cafe in Los Angeles, and he got all these homes
empty and got hundreds and hundreds of folk nowhere to go.
And of course we know Pastor Q in skid Row
(26:31):
right the church with our wall Q.
Speaker 4 (26:35):
We know Los Angeles Community Action Network again, our policies,
and if you look at our platform at Cornell West
twenty twenty four, I was before I was invited onto
this ticket. I was inspired by the platform. I was
inspired by doctor West. I was inspired by a visionary
plan to build what we can have when we make
(26:58):
different choices, when we were used to again fuel genocide
at a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars.
Speaker 5 (27:06):
Right, we can't have housing for all.
Speaker 4 (27:08):
When you ask about student debt, you know there is
a cancelation of a limited amount of student debt, but
there shouldn't be student debt in the first place because
education should be free from birth through doctorate. Education should
be free. And so these are the kinds of choices
that we make. We know that budgets are some of
the most serious moral and ethical documents, and they are
(27:32):
zero sum games. So if you're spending on a military
industrial complex, you're not housing your folks. And we want
to make the choice to house our folks, to feed
our folks, to provide quality healthcare for all. Those are
the things that you'll get, and those are the things
that we're proposing to the world to make different choices
(27:54):
with this campaign.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
How would you handle the di situation if you're president,
doctor Corneway.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
We never use the language THEI. What is diversity? No,
we're talking about truth and justice. We got a visious
legacy white supremaceriesclude black folk for over one hundred some years.
And then you're gonna say, well, we got a diversity
program for y'all. Now, no, we want truth, we want justice.
It's reparations. And therefore the language was wrong. The language
(28:21):
was a deodorized, sanitized language that concealed the funk. But
we come out of a funk master oriented people. We
want to get beneath this deodorized language. We want to
ensure that black folk gang accests to whatever opportunities they
can give them the fact they've been excluded. So diversity
(28:42):
and equity and inclusion became this strategy for those who
had power and resources to think that somehow we were
getting something that we hardly deserved. So already he got
the wrong lens which your viewing things. But we had to.
We had to go with it because you fighting. My
sister says that you put it so well, uh, yesterday, right.
(29:05):
You fight for the crumbs, fight for the crumbs, but
you know they're still crumbs, and you know that in
the end, we've got to make sure that those who
benefit are not just the black middle class, the black bourgeoise.
We support them in becoming inclusive. Usually when they get
(29:25):
in there, they sell out, but not always, not always,
but usually they do. You know, that's a human thing.
Black folk an't don't them on doing that. But we
got to always view the litmus tests. And here I
get Biblical twenty fifth chapter, Matthew, what you doing to
the least of these? You do unto me? The prisoners,
the poor, the widow, the orphan, the fatherless, the motherless.
(29:46):
What's happening with pressous, Jamal and Leticia on the block?
That's the litmus test. No matter how much success we are,
and it's a beautiful thing, if we lose sight of them,
we have already violated are calling. And of course part
of it is all of us, just generations back sometimes
(30:06):
a few years back, we were right there. That's that's
who we are, you see. And so for me, the
DEI issue is one of which it never it never
should have been dee I should have been truth, justice.
But now DEI you support it, and you know it's
a vicious attack on black folk. You see it at Harvard.
It's a sad thing. Sister Claudine becomes a poster child
(30:28):
for anti Semitism. I ain't got an anti Semitic bone
and a Haitian body. That's sick. That's ridiculous.
Speaker 4 (30:38):
And I'm just add you know it was already said brilliantly.
But I've been thinking also about it overnight. The eye
the inclusion part.
Speaker 5 (30:49):
I actually don't want.
Speaker 4 (30:50):
To be included in a fundamentally oppressive system, right, So
the inclusion, the I is reminding us that they're not
willing to transform an oppressive system into a liberatory one.
They're only willing to say a few of y'all can
come in the door.
Speaker 5 (31:08):
And what we want.
Speaker 4 (31:10):
Is the transformation of these systems so that we can
all use them for our liberation and freedom.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
Right.
Speaker 4 (31:17):
We do want quality education, We do want accessible education.
We do want liberatory models of education, where ethnic studies,
where Pan African studies, which is what I teach, is
part it's foundational because it's as important for you to
take a class for me as it is to take
a math class. I don't know a bit of algebra, right,
(31:40):
I don't know a bit of algebra anymore. But I
do not need to know my history, my background, my
power house systems work, And so we want liberatory models
of education, not just an inclusion into a system that's
fundamentally oppressive.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
Doctor Cornyerweather, did you see Avion Crockett's impression to you
in the movie at Hip hop story. No, Yeah, he
did his thing.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
Is that right?
Speaker 2 (32:08):
You gotta check it out.
Speaker 1 (32:08):
I got to check that you mentioned that stuff.
Speaker 4 (32:12):
You know.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
I mean, it wasn't a disrespectful impersonation at all.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
He had his fro and everything everything. He's probably so
much more handsome than I am. But that's all right,
that's all right. I work with it. I work with
how can.
Speaker 3 (32:23):
People donate and make sure they support and follow the cause?
Speaker 1 (32:27):
Yeah, this is what their sister said. It's corner West
two o two for dot Com, Corner West two o
two for dot Com. We are turning the corner. And
the fact that Malina Abdul said yes takes us to
a different level because we got new vision, new intellect,
new energy, new courage coming together. And when brother Tabis
(32:51):
Smiley formulated that, and we always wanted to start with tablets,
we'd like to support black folk in media and so forth,
we with Tim Black and so on that when he
said historic ticket of two black folk, and you say, well,
it's not just two black folks, it's too visionary, courageous
people loving black folk. You see, to mean, Tammy Trell
(33:15):
is very and Marvin Gay is very different than just
any duet. That's what Barry Gordy understood. So yes, it's
about skin pigmentation. But the deeper level is it's people
who love the people, sacrifice, serve the people. Know you
could be wrong, listen to the people reveling the people's
(33:36):
humanity and creativity and music and culture, but then love
them enough to correct them, respect them, protect them, correct them,
and be corrected to. That's right, and that's what we
have with this twosome and we on the move, as
Mumi mal would say, on the move.
Speaker 3 (33:57):
All right, well, we appreciate you guys for joining us.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
And that's all they tell you about the Cornell West.
Don't be a stranger, bro.
Speaker 3 (34:02):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
Were you so kind you said that.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
I would?
Speaker 3 (34:07):
It's right, doctor Cornell West.
Speaker 2 (34:10):
Molina Abdullah, thank.
Speaker 3 (34:11):
You for joining us. It's the Breakfast Club. Good morning.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
Wake that ass up in the morning.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
Breakfast Club.
Wake that hands up in the morning.
Speaker 2 (00:02):
The Breakfast Club.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
Morning.
Speaker 3 (00:05):
Everybody's the j Envy just Hilarius Charlamagne the guy. We
are the Breakfast Club. We got some special guests joining
us this morning.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
That's right.
Speaker 3 (00:13):
We got the good brother, doctor Cornell West. Yes, indeed,
and also his running mate, Malina Abdullah. Welcome.
Speaker 1 (00:20):
It's a blessing to be here. My brother said, he
bring me back. He's a man of his word. It's
good to see you, my brother, j Envy, and I'm
so blessed to be with sister Malina. She is one
of the great freedom fighters of her generation. And we
are running together for truth, justice and love. And we
(00:40):
want people to see what it's like to have two
black folk who have no fear, no lies, tell the truth,
seek justice, and love the people.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Sister Molina, Let's let's start with you. When doctor Cornell
West approached you to be his running mate, what was
your thought process behind it all? And even receiving that
message and didn't deciding to do.
Speaker 4 (01:02):
It well before thinking, my soul jumped out of myself
and said absolutely. I told him yesterday that I haven't
felt this kind of spirit soaring since I had my
last child. And that was fourteen years ago. So my
spirit spoke before my mind spoke. But then when I
(01:23):
thought about it, I never planned to run for office,
but it made all the sense in the world. I,
like many people, have been deeply inspired by doctor West,
both as a scholar but also as a freedom fighter
and one who marches and moves on behalf of our people.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
What made you want to choose Molina doctor Cornell.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
You know, brother, I wanted to choose the best. I
believe that excellence in the form of vision, courage, willingness
to put your body on the line. She's a scholar,
she's an intellectual. She's been to jail many, many, many times.
They have attacked her in vicious way. She's ill standing
with a tremendous sense of determination. And in that sense,
(02:04):
it's just a matter of always acknowledging what we always do.
And that's true for everybody around here. We'll come from
a great Black people who have the highest standards of
excellence within our tradition. And I wanted to put a
smile on the face of Fanny Louhammer and Martin Luther
King Jr. Curtis may feel and Nina Simon. That's high
(02:25):
standards because those of folk who are free, as my
brother Clifton always says, I want to see whether you're
on a plantation or not. But it's since they've never
been on nobody's plantation. That's hard to find these days
for black folk. And so to be able to work
with her, work alongside her, learn from her, be instructed
and inspired, it's a beautiful thing.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
And let the direct show Molina has been to jail
for good trouble. Donald Trump has been to jail many
times too, So I just want to put that out there,
good trouble.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
I was going to ask you, what keeps you in
the fight? You know, because it's a lot of money,
it's a lot of time. It's stressful. They attack you,
They attack every part of your life. They dive deep
into your finances, your taxes. And both of you guys,
you know you both have families, so they gonna dive
into your family. So what makes you still want to
put that fight on?
Speaker 1 (03:15):
But I got so much love poured into me from
Irene and Clifton West and Grandma and granddad, from Shiloh
Baptist Church, Reverend Willie Pecook and Deacon Hinton and others
that I would have to live three lifetimes to begin
to pay that back. And then by the time you
connected with the Black Panther Party, connected with those folks
I didn't know, the Malcolms and the Fanny Low Hammers
and others. All that love they poured it, all that courage,
(03:38):
all that integrity. The least thing I could do is
tell the truth and seek justice before I meet my
hand and meet my maker, you know what I mean.
So I get up with a joy, and I got
a joy in the world and give me the world
can't take away. And it's a deep joy tied to
the struggle and try to try to try and to
make the world a better face for oppressed people, poor people,
(03:58):
working people. To deal with all this organized greed and
institutionalized hatred and rutinize indifference to the vuner raubbul. It's
a beautiful thing to be in struggle with. This is
a Molina and the whole host of folk who are
concerned about making the world a better place with a
smile and also with a style too, because we come
out of people that got style and sold Oh, brother.
Speaker 4 (04:20):
Malini, I mean for me, I couldn't say it better
than doctor West. It is what we owe our ancestors.
It is what we owe our guide, it is what
we owe our people. And I'll also offer that I'm
a mother of three children, and my three children, two
of the three of them had police called on them
in schools.
Speaker 5 (04:41):
When they were six years old for the first time.
Speaker 4 (04:44):
And I cannot leave a world as it is for
Tandie way Amara and I'm in. We have to do
the work to make the world better for them. That's
what we owe our ancestors. That's what we owe our people.
That's what we owe our children, and that's what we
owd generations to come. That's what we owe ourselves as well.
Speaker 3 (05:04):
I was going to ask what they shold me. I
was going to ask, you know, you guys are running independently,
and people when they questioned the Democrats, or they questioned Biden,
or they questioned Kamala Harris, they say people are going
against their race and people are going against what they
quote unquote should be doing. What's your thoughts on that,
because in all actuality, people will say that you guys
(05:26):
are questioning them as well.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
That's true, that's true. Fanny lou Hammer said, I'm questioning America.
I'm questioning capitalism, I'm questioning patriarchy, and I'm questioning white supremacy.
The folk who want to defend Biden and can't say
a mumbling word about the general side and ethnic cleansing
and apartheized state of Israel, it means they're turning their backs. Well, no,
(05:49):
we don't come out of a tradition like that. We
committed to jamal Leticia in the hood. We committed to
Wan and juan Nita in the barrio. We committed to
poor white, we committed Palestinians, we committed to any folk.
We committed the Jews when they catch in hell, we
are around. In nineteen thirty we insolidated with the Jews
against Hitler. Now right now, you got genocide taking place
(06:11):
in Gaza. We take a stand not out of self righteousness,
but because we want to be moral and spiritual. That's
who we are as a people. Man at our best,
I'm not talking about our worst, at our best. And
therefore you got Trump, dead up, gangster leading the country
towards Civil War two, Biden war criminal, leading the world
(06:33):
toward World War three. Now you're gonna choose between Civil
War two and World War three. What you're gonna do,
That's the history of black folk. For us, Pharaoh has
always been on the blows, both sides of the bloody
red seas. What you're gonna do, Sing a song, what
you're gonna do, Crack a smile, crack a joke, hug
organize it, mobilized, and then make a way out of
(06:54):
no way. That's the history of black folk. How have
we made a way out of no way? I sit
here and look at your young brothers. I know what's
in you. I know your grandparents. I know what they
been through. They made a way out of no way.
Look at you sitting there with all this dignity. Couldn't
do it by yourself. That's that rich tradition inside of you.
That's all we're trying to do. And that's true for
(07:17):
my dear sister, going back through Louisiana. We both got
Louisiana roots deep Louisiana, even though she come out of
East Oakland, so I mean, you know, she got jumped
started like East Oakland's like Detroit and Chicago and Mississippi's
even deeping them, all of them. We won't get into
that right now. South South Carolina, what was it Month's corner? Yes, sir,
oh lord.
Speaker 2 (07:40):
You know you brought up the civil war thing. And
this happened to me this Friday's happened on like I
think Tuesday ones. I walked downstairs and it was just
a white guy had on some khakis and nice shoes
and sweater glasses, looked like a Wall Street type. And
he was just like, man, you Charlamagne right he goes Man.
He said, I want you to tell people that it's
gonna be a war regardless of who wins. And I
(08:02):
was like, because he didn't even look like the type.
He wasn't a wild conspiracy theorist. He is like, you
tell people that it don't matter if Biden went to
Trump win, there's gonna be a civil war in this country.
And I was like, yikes, so what makes you feel
that way?
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Well, we certainly headed that way. That's what civil wars
are about. When you get organized greed and institutionalized hatred
running amuck, especially at the top, manipulating every day people
feeling frustrated, impotent, powerless, and then you escape, go to
the most vulnerable rather than confront the most powerful, and
what sits at the center of it white's supremacy. Now
it's undergirded by capitalism and all the greed that that
(08:38):
generates profit and so forth. But does that make sense,
my dear sister, It does.
Speaker 4 (08:43):
Make sense, and it makes sense when we talk about
why we have to get involved and why we have
to do something different, why we can't just go along
to get along. So the question about why we're not
just saying, you know, let's let's dust Trump, let's make
sure Trump doesn't get in. Of course Trump is the
embodiment of evil. Of course Trump is the He's a
(09:06):
devil incarnate, absolutely right. But we also have to remember that,
you know, my children and all their friends recognize Joe
Biden as genocidah Joe.
Speaker 5 (09:17):
And so we can't just go along to get along.
Speaker 4 (09:20):
We can't just say, let's take the lesser of two evils.
The lesser of two evils is still evil. And so
how do we pull ourselves into our highest selves? How
do we say, you know, it's always been true that
white supremacist patriarchal capitalism will try to get us to
celebrate the individual advancement of a few at the expense
(09:44):
of the many, And so we refuse to do that
we say we all must be free. If we're not
all free, nobody's free.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
I got a question for both of y'all when you
talk about this civil war. I don't think the civil
war is going to be between Republicans and Democrats. I
think it's going to between the haves and the have not.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
What do you think I think? I think that's that's
that's the serious formulation. But it's hard to know exactly
what formula because race and white supremacy cuts so deep
in the country that even well to do black folk
could be viciously attacked by some of the poor wife folk.
(10:21):
So that race is gonna be crucial, But the class
dimension that you talk about will be crucial too, There's
no doubt about it. And we know how ugly the
gender question is. But you got what thirty percent now
black brothers saying they're gonna vote for gangster Trump. Hey,
where's that coming from? Well, that's a complicated situation. That's
just at the moment. We don't know what it's gonna
(10:42):
be like in November. But once the vicious conflict sets in,
we don't know what response would be. We just have
to make sure that we have a moral and spiritual witness.
We're gonna be a witness. We're gonna bead witness to
the best of the traditions of our people that has
preserved our dignity and our sanity, regardless of what the
(11:04):
circumstances is. Because you got to keep in mind, there's
been a war against indigenous peoples for about six hundred years.
There's been a war against black folk for four hundred years.
We at war right now. So we're just talking about
the hot war versus the cold. You go to mass
incarceration and the jails and so forth, and on sloop
by the Muomea because he got his birthday coming up
seven ozer, but he been in a war. So the
(11:26):
war's always ongoing. But the question what form it will take?
And we have to decide personally and collectively, are we
gonna hold on to some sense of morality and spirituality
giving all this barbarity?
Speaker 2 (11:39):
What do you think believe? Who do you think the
war will be between?
Speaker 4 (11:42):
Yeah, I think you're right on about the halves and
the have nots, And it's those who also identify with
the haves and the havelf nights, right, So you have
plenty of poor people plenty of poor white people, especially
who identify with the halves, even though they themselves are
the have nuts. And so it's really important that we
(12:04):
awaken people to what their real interests are. Right, that
we awaken poor people, working class people, regardless of race,
to what their interests are.
Speaker 5 (12:13):
And so as we awaken folks, we.
Speaker 4 (12:17):
Can lock arms and engage in whatever struggle needs to
take place for the liberation of beginning with black people
and extending to all oppressed people.
Speaker 3 (12:29):
How do we get people to get out of the
mind frame where I only can vote for Democrat or Republican? Right,
I say it all the time. A lot of people
are from years and years and years of grandparents voting Democrat,
and great grandparents and the parents and then yourselves. How
do we get him out to think outside of the box, right,
Because automatically, when somebody sees somebody running as an independent,
(12:50):
they think, well he is or there's no way that
they can possibly win. They're just somebody in there to
start trouble and to mess up the Democrats. How do
we get people to change that view?
Speaker 1 (13:02):
Yeah? I think part of it is, you know, Curtis
Mayfield got this song no Thing on Me I'm so
glad I got my own, so glad that I can
see my life is a natural high. The man can't
put no thing on me. It depends on what you see.
When we see, we have to see a system. You
can't just look at two parties. You got to see
how both of them are tied to Wall Street, a Pentagon,
(13:25):
both of them tied to war, both of them tied
to greed, and so you have to have an understanding
of how the system operates and then say, ah, I
want to be critical of the system. I'm not just
critical of Trump's gangsterism. I can see how Trump's gangsterism
is inseparable from Biden's genocidal policies, facilitating genocide and Gaza.
(13:49):
So you begin to see how the system operates and connects.
What's happening with the Palestinians in Gaza, but what's happening
in Black Folk and Harlem, what's happened with poul Whites
in Kentucky, what's happening with poor Latinos in East And
that is a different way of seeing the world. That's
why our artists, at their height, none needed Simons and others.
They help us to see things. We didn't see. Then
(14:10):
the question becomes how do you implement? How do you execute?
Usually when you see and you raise your voice, you
get incarcerated or assassinated. That's what the system does to
free black people. So you have to be willing to
pay that cost. And that's exactly what the cost we're
willing to pay. How come because we love the people
and the only thing that breaks the back of fear
(14:33):
is love. And if you don't love the people, then
get out of the way and go on and sell out,
going and sell your soul for mesapology and tell people lies,
tell them how great Biden is. Tell them Biden has
always been concerned with portfolio. He's an architect of mass incarceration.
That's a crime against humanity. I've taught in prisons for
forty one years. I've seen it go from two hundred
(14:54):
thousand to two point three million right before my very eyes.
That's a crime against humanity. That's my brothers and sisters
in there. Don't lie, don't don't want to be lying
on Biden in that sense. So is that kind of
truth telling that we need, and that's kind of and
is rooted in love.
Speaker 2 (15:08):
Why do they act like you know as a black
person you can't speak that kind of truth but still
know what's in your best interest to do come November.
Why do they act like why do they act like
those two things can't happen at the same time, Belina, I.
Speaker 5 (15:24):
Think that there.
Speaker 4 (15:25):
You know, when we talk about this duopoly of Democrats
and Republicans, they want to lock us into these very
narrow choices. Black people are the most critical people, the
most discerning people, the most creative people on this planet, right,
and they want to block us from that creativity because
that kind of creativity gives birth to new ideas but
(15:46):
also new worlds, Right.
Speaker 5 (15:48):
So I want to.
Speaker 4 (15:50):
Lock in and be clear about what this campaign is about.
That we're advancing alternative visions. As Harriet Tubman abolitionists, we
absolutely want to topple systems of harm.
Speaker 5 (16:02):
We want to topple.
Speaker 4 (16:04):
Systems of prisons that descend from plantations and policing that
descend from slave catchers. And as Harriet Tubman abolitionists, we
also know that as we tear down systems of harm,
we want to build new systems of care that we
can have if we make different choices. Imagine what would
(16:26):
happen if we had the one hundred and something billion
dollars that Joe Biden just sent to fuel genocide and gaza.
Speaker 5 (16:35):
What if we had that for housing.
Speaker 4 (16:37):
What if we had those resources that are poured into
police in major cities. It's about half of the unrestricted
funds that go to policing, even though police don't make
us more safe. What if we had those dollars instead
for healthcare? What if we had those dollars instead or education?
These are simple and easy choices, and so that doopoly
(16:59):
that's owned by corporations wants to lock us out so
that they can keep the vision and the possibilities narrow.
Speaker 5 (17:08):
We're saying no more of that.
Speaker 4 (17:10):
Our possibilities are expansive and beautiful and creative, and we
have to shake off this world that really sucks the
life out of our people and puts targets on the
backs of our children.
Speaker 2 (17:22):
You know, Molina, you founded, you were the co founder
of the LA chapter of the Black Lives Matter movement,
and in twenty twenty two you got police took you
out of a Marrow debate. Well, I'm not gonna say
took you out, that'd be kindie. They dragged you out.
You know what, was the reasoning behind that.
Speaker 4 (17:39):
They carried me out by all fours, so that means
on each limb I had a different cop pulling me
from each limb on the last day Ramadan with my
legs sprawled open. It was not only brutal, it was humiliating.
It was dehumanizing. There is no just defiable reason for
(18:01):
them doing that. I don't know the reason that they
did that. I can surmise that they thought I was
there to do something that I wasn't there to do.
I was simply there to watch a mayoral debate. By training,
I'm at my PhDs in political science, and we had
the first viable black woman for mayor who's now our mayor,
(18:24):
Karen Bass. My research is on black women's leadership, so
of course I wanted to be on my own campus.
I wanted to be on my own campus watching that debate,
and so I think that that's absolutely despicable. Still haven't
gotten a real apology or any remedy from the school.
(18:44):
The school still continues to harass me, sending police into
my office, searching my office and telling me they'll be
back for me.
Speaker 5 (18:52):
And this is the reason why.
Speaker 4 (18:53):
We want to advance policies like removing police from our campuses.
Our campuses don't have enough care councilors, they don't have
enough scholars, they don't have enough staff to clean up,
but we have police that were spending millions and millions
of dollars on.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
I'm sorry you had to go through all of that
is the true that you sued BLM.
Speaker 4 (19:16):
I sued, and I should be very clear. Black Lives
Matter grass Roots, which is the side of Black Lives
Matter that I represent where the boots on the ground.
We're thirty three chapters around the country. Black Lives Matter
grass Roots is the real BLM. When you think of
Black Lives Matter being in the streets, organizing alongside families, that's.
Speaker 5 (19:38):
Who we are. In twenty twenty two.
Speaker 4 (19:42):
Our resources and platforms were stolen by a group of
highly paid consultants, and we know we have a right
to those things back, and so we sued them after
trying to convince them to do the right thing, and
that wasn't going to happen. They refused to listen to
the voices of the people. We did file a lawsuit
(20:03):
in September of twenty twenty two.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
Okay, well, let me just add this though. You see
when they attacked our dear sistant, and they do it
over and over again, And that's true for so many
of us go to jail and so on. That we're threats,
you see, that's a compliment. That means that we're true
to our calling. And you can have a calling as
a secular person. You can have a calling as a
religious person. You see, I'm a Jesus loving free black
(20:30):
man who wants to be true to the call. So
if I'm not constituting a threat, then how am I
following with Jesus who went into the temple and ran
out the money changes they put him on the cross. No,
my dear sister's Muslim. She's a law loving free black woman,
mercy justice Koran, and you constitute a threat. So when
(20:51):
she's willing to pay that kind of cost, that's the
sign of courage, integrity, and it's connected to a calling.
You got to have some call. If all you got
is your career, then you on somebody's plantation and any
any carriage that they dangle in front of you, you're
gonna opt for. But when you have a calling and
a professor, distinguished scholar and so forth, that that my
(21:13):
dear sister. Is she's true to something bigger than her
in her career. What is it? Well, it's the people,
but it's also her God. Now, people get upset sometimes
we talk about God in politics. I said, no, we're
not saying anybody got to follow us, but we got
to be true to where were coming from. We got
to be true to what teaches us. Going preserves our
(21:33):
sanity and our dignity, and it's just not God. We
talk about Curtis Mayfield. You talking about Curtis may Film,
John Coltrane all the time. I'm talking about folk who
keep me sane now, and I'm and therefore that I
won't be stopped from that. But I won't allow others
to feel as if I'm imposing God on them, or
(21:54):
Christianity on them, or Islam on them, or Buddhism. With
bell hooks and others were being candid about what's inside
of us, and we're being open in terms of people
being canned, what's inside of him?
Speaker 3 (22:06):
What policies would you implement that you feel that biding
is not doing for black people?
Speaker 1 (22:12):
Biden, Trump and Trump, Well, first things, reparations. Second thing
is abolition of poverty. Abolition of on housements, supporting militant
wing of the trade union movement that's fighting for wages
for workers across the board. And what my dear sister
was talking about disinvestment for military eight hundred military units
(22:32):
around the world, special operations in one hundred and thirty countries.
That's an empire. We're anti im peerless. America don't need
to be an empire. We got to be a nation
among other nations. We don't need to dominate every nook
and cranny of the world. So all of those resources,
the traders of dollars going into military, sixty two cent
for every one dollar in the discretion and every budget
(22:54):
that's going to housing, we can stop this gentrification taking places,
power grab and land grab, which you're out poor and
working people, pushing up the prices, the greed of Wall Street,
degree of corporations and oligopolies and monopolies, and dealing with
the ecological crisis with the fossil fuel companies. So that
that is a way of going back to Kurz Mayfield.
(23:16):
What we see the lens through which you view the world,
and we view the world through the lens of those
friends were known call the wretched of the earth. I
don't view the world through stock market. I don't view
the world through how many black faces are in high
places when their cousins getting crushed. It's a different way
of engaging politics. It's what my brother calls a paradigm shift.
(23:37):
We are not politicians. She been running for justice all
of her adult life. I've been running for justice all
of my adult life. We need people to get in
politics who already been running for justice, running for truth
and into politics. Don't into politics and think all of
a sudden you're gonna be a truth teller. That ain't
gonna happen.
Speaker 2 (23:54):
Are y'all getting Are you getting black belt doctor Corne West?
From media? From the MSNBC's seeing and are they having
you on?
Speaker 1 (24:03):
Well, I've never been, you know, on MSNBC that much
because they retired to Obama and we got a history
that But seeing n it's been kind. We were on
h just the abbey last night.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
Right, okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. Biden Trump, uh, you
know the the rematches is coming in November. What do
you think the Democrats have done? Well, we know, we
know who the Republicans are, But what do you think
the Democrats have done well.
Speaker 1 (24:30):
If anything, the one thing they did was cut child
poverty in half, okay, because we put a lot of
pressure on and what happened, It expired and it's doubled again,
you see. So they did something well for a little
bit and then fell back, and of course we got
a long thing at what they're not doing well. But
(24:51):
my dear sister, you jump right there, right.
Speaker 4 (24:53):
I mean, I think that there are individual Democrats who
are doing really beautiful things, who are stepping forward and
courage So Corey Bush is an inspiration to me.
Speaker 5 (25:05):
Jamaal Bawman is doing phenomenal work.
Speaker 4 (25:09):
Ayana Presley is carrying a bill for US right now
called the Ending Qualified Immunity Act. And so I think
that there are some courageous Democrats. Unfortunately they are too
few and far between. So overall is a political party.
They are cowering to corporate interests. They are abiding by
(25:30):
what corporations want, what the few want, as you put it,
what the haves.
Speaker 5 (25:34):
Want, rather than representing what the working class people want.
Speaker 4 (25:38):
They're not supporting people like one of the people I'm
most inspired by is down the street from you, Chris Malls,
and the Amazon Labors.
Speaker 5 (25:48):
Yeah, Chris is my.
Speaker 4 (25:49):
Folks, and you know that's the kind of labor union
we want. And we're not seeing the kind of support
for real labor, for radical labor unions like we need,
like we should be expecting from the Democratic Party, although
there are some individual courageous Democrats.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
What do you think about the student loan forgiveness?
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Oh shoot, that should have been in place a long
time ago, Oh my god, across the board. And not
only that, but well to have free education, free healthcare,
and we ought to have a right to housing. It
was just a reclaimed movement there on the East Side
Cafe in Los Angeles, and he got all these homes
empty and got hundreds and hundreds of folk nowhere to go.
And of course we know Pastor Q in skid Row
(26:31):
right the church with our wall Q.
Speaker 4 (26:35):
We know Los Angeles Community Action Network again, our policies,
and if you look at our platform at Cornell West
twenty twenty four, I was before I was invited onto
this ticket. I was inspired by the platform. I was
inspired by doctor West. I was inspired by a visionary
plan to build what we can have when we make
(26:58):
different choices, when we were used to again fuel genocide
at a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars.
Speaker 5 (27:06):
Right, we can't have housing for all.
Speaker 4 (27:08):
When you ask about student debt, you know there is
a cancelation of a limited amount of student debt, but
there shouldn't be student debt in the first place because
education should be free from birth through doctorate. Education should
be free. And so these are the kinds of choices
that we make. We know that budgets are some of
the most serious moral and ethical documents, and they are
(27:32):
zero sum games. So if you're spending on a military
industrial complex, you're not housing your folks. And we want
to make the choice to house our folks, to feed
our folks, to provide quality healthcare for all. Those are
the things that you'll get, and those are the things
that we're proposing to the world to make different choices
(27:54):
with this campaign.
Speaker 2 (27:56):
How would you handle the di situation if you're president,
doctor Corneway.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
We never use the language THEI. What is diversity? No,
we're talking about truth and justice. We got a visious
legacy white supremaceriesclude black folk for over one hundred some years.
And then you're gonna say, well, we got a diversity
program for y'all. Now, no, we want truth, we want justice.
It's reparations. And therefore the language was wrong. The language
(28:21):
was a deodorized, sanitized language that concealed the funk. But
we come out of a funk master oriented people. We
want to get beneath this deodorized language. We want to
ensure that black folk gang accests to whatever opportunities they
can give them the fact they've been excluded. So diversity
(28:42):
and equity and inclusion became this strategy for those who
had power and resources to think that somehow we were
getting something that we hardly deserved. So already he got
the wrong lens which your viewing things. But we had to.
We had to go with it because you fighting. My
sister says that you put it so well, uh, yesterday, right.
(29:05):
You fight for the crumbs, fight for the crumbs, but
you know they're still crumbs, and you know that in
the end, we've got to make sure that those who
benefit are not just the black middle class, the black bourgeoise.
We support them in becoming inclusive. Usually when they get
(29:25):
in there, they sell out, but not always, not always,
but usually they do. You know, that's a human thing.
Black folk an't don't them on doing that. But we
got to always view the litmus tests. And here I
get Biblical twenty fifth chapter, Matthew, what you doing to
the least of these? You do unto me? The prisoners,
the poor, the widow, the orphan, the fatherless, the motherless.
(29:46):
What's happening with pressous, Jamal and Leticia on the block?
That's the litmus test. No matter how much success we are,
and it's a beautiful thing, if we lose sight of them,
we have already violated are calling. And of course part
of it is all of us, just generations back sometimes
(30:06):
a few years back, we were right there. That's that's
who we are, you see. And so for me, the
DEI issue is one of which it never it never
should have been dee I should have been truth, justice.
But now DEI you support it, and you know it's
a vicious attack on black folk. You see it at Harvard.
It's a sad thing. Sister Claudine becomes a poster child
(30:28):
for anti Semitism. I ain't got an anti Semitic bone
and a Haitian body. That's sick. That's ridiculous.
Speaker 4 (30:38):
And I'm just add you know it was already said brilliantly.
But I've been thinking also about it overnight. The eye
the inclusion part.
Speaker 5 (30:49):
I actually don't want.
Speaker 4 (30:50):
To be included in a fundamentally oppressive system, right, So
the inclusion, the I is reminding us that they're not
willing to transform an oppressive system into a liberatory one.
They're only willing to say a few of y'all can
come in the door.
Speaker 5 (31:08):
And what we want.
Speaker 4 (31:10):
Is the transformation of these systems so that we can
all use them for our liberation and freedom.
Speaker 2 (31:17):
Right.
Speaker 4 (31:17):
We do want quality education, We do want accessible education.
We do want liberatory models of education, where ethnic studies,
where Pan African studies, which is what I teach, is
part it's foundational because it's as important for you to
take a class for me as it is to take
a math class. I don't know a bit of algebra, right,
(31:40):
I don't know a bit of algebra anymore. But I
do not need to know my history, my background, my
power house systems work, And so we want liberatory models
of education, not just an inclusion into a system that's
fundamentally oppressive.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
Doctor Cornyerweather, did you see Avion Crockett's impression to you
in the movie at Hip hop story. No, Yeah, he
did his thing.
Speaker 1 (32:07):
Is that right?
Speaker 2 (32:08):
You gotta check it out.
Speaker 1 (32:08):
I got to check that you mentioned that stuff.
Speaker 4 (32:12):
You know.
Speaker 2 (32:13):
I mean, it wasn't a disrespectful impersonation at all.
Speaker 1 (32:16):
He had his fro and everything everything. He's probably so
much more handsome than I am. But that's all right,
that's all right. I work with it. I work with
how can.
Speaker 3 (32:23):
People donate and make sure they support and follow the cause?
Speaker 1 (32:27):
Yeah, this is what their sister said. It's corner West
two o two for dot Com, Corner West two o
two for dot Com. We are turning the corner. And
the fact that Malina Abdul said yes takes us to
a different level because we got new vision, new intellect,
new energy, new courage coming together. And when brother Tabis
(32:51):
Smiley formulated that, and we always wanted to start with tablets,
we'd like to support black folk in media and so forth,
we with Tim Black and so on that when he
said historic ticket of two black folk, and you say, well,
it's not just two black folks, it's too visionary, courageous
people loving black folk. You see, to mean, Tammy Trell
(33:15):
is very and Marvin Gay is very different than just
any duet. That's what Barry Gordy understood. So yes, it's
about skin pigmentation. But the deeper level is it's people
who love the people, sacrifice, serve the people. Know you
could be wrong, listen to the people reveling the people's
(33:36):
humanity and creativity and music and culture, but then love
them enough to correct them, respect them, protect them, correct them,
and be corrected to. That's right, and that's what we
have with this twosome and we on the move, as
Mumi mal would say, on the move.
Speaker 3 (33:57):
All right, well, we appreciate you guys for joining us.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
And that's all they tell you about the Cornell West.
Don't be a stranger, bro.
Speaker 3 (34:02):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
Were you so kind you said that.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
I would?
Speaker 3 (34:07):
It's right, doctor Cornell West.
Speaker 2 (34:10):
Molina Abdullah, thank.
Speaker 3 (34:11):
You for joining us. It's the Breakfast Club. Good morning.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
Wake that ass up in the morning.
Speaker 2 (34:16):
Breakfast Club.
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