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July 15, 2025 32 mins

George is joined by Karen "Dr K" Baptiste, director of the documentary "Preschool to Prison."  She explains why our education system is failing students of color, and how our teachers are taught to perpetuate an unjust system that arrests students instead of helping them. 

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Speaker 1 (00:01):
We have kids that have been arrested, thrown out of school,
suspended for being out of uniform using a cell phone,
like the girl I highlight in the film being flipped
over in her chair and dragged because she used her cellphone,
and then the girl who recorded it also got arrested
for recording it.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
That's Karen. Doctor K baptized. Her documentary Preschool to Prison
highlights a tragic pipeline that too many in our community
have witnessed firsthand or gone through themselves. Here's a clip.

Speaker 3 (00:36):
So kids who attend schools in poor communities, whether you're white, Black, LATINX,
or Native American, do not receive adequate resources period. Even
as teachers, you're brought into the system to perpetuate the
school to prison pipeline because they don't teach you this.

Speaker 4 (00:53):
And teach your school teachers.

Speaker 2 (00:56):
Today you'll hear doctor K not only lay out the
haunting facts about our education system, which honestly are not
that surprising, but also offer simple tools for how even
you can contribute to your community and stop the preschool
to prison pipeline. Singing in the heavy handed with the world,

(01:19):
take a super branded and spoken guy. You know what
the plan is o jima Latin. You know one to
understand me. My name is George M. Johnson. I am
the New York Times bestselling author of the book All
Boys Are in Blue, which is the number one most
challenged book in the United States. This is Fighting Words,
a show where we take you to the front lines

(01:40):
of the culture wars with the people who are using
their words to make change and who refuse to be silenced.
Today's guest Karen doctor k Baptiste. Hello, everyone, I want
to welcome you to another episode of Fighting Words. We
are here today with doctor Karen Baptist.

Speaker 1 (02:00):
First of all, I want to say how excited I
am to speak with you.

Speaker 2 (02:04):
As public figures. Sometimes our bios precede us, and people
don't really get to know who we are as people.
So I would like you to introduce yourself and let
everyone know who is doctor Karen Baptiste.

Speaker 4 (02:17):
Woh, that is always such a loaded question, George. So,
I'm from New York City.

Speaker 1 (02:21):
I'm from the Bronx, and my parents migrated here to
the US from Grenada. And really, since i was a
young girl, I've always been interested in humanity and just
how people connected.

Speaker 4 (02:32):
I have a love for us as.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
People, and through my journey of becoming an educator and
just an activist now and filmmaker now. Actually worked in
television before I went into education, so that journalist spirit,
that was actually what I first majored in. So I've
always had that inside of me. And I remember when
I was seven years old watching TV and I would

(02:57):
watch twenty twenty and I remember seeing Volvable on TV,
and I remember when I pointed to the TV and
I was like, that's what I want to do with
my life. And I knew at seven years old I
was going to be an investigative journalist. And that always
propelled me and inspired me to do the work that
I do. And so it's not surprising that my first
film would be on the preschool to prison pipeline.

Speaker 2 (03:20):
Yeah, now you special education teaching. So how did the
career shift happen?

Speaker 1 (03:26):
When you are prepared and then opportunity comes your way, right,
And I think it was open and said that that's
what luck is, right, And I tell people like I
don't consider myself a lucky person. I do consider myself
very blessed, right, and very blessed because I'm prepared for
the pathways that God has put me here for and

(03:47):
I was working at Toys r Us at Times Square.
I graduated school, I come back home to the city
and I'm looking for a job in television, but I
don't know where to start how to find a job
in television. So I get a job at Toys r
Us and they hire me as a supervisor. One day
when if the staff members calls me to the front
and she said to me, I have a customer here

(04:08):
who needs help.

Speaker 4 (04:09):
And I started talking to the lady.

Speaker 1 (04:10):
She was shopping for a toy for her niece, and
I just ended up connecting with the lady. I stayed
with her the entire time until she was done shopping,
and then I checked her out so fast forward.

Speaker 4 (04:19):
I don't know what made her ask me.

Speaker 1 (04:21):
She says, you're pretty young, like what are you doing
with your life? And I was like, oh, well, you know,
I just graduated college with a journalism degree.

Speaker 4 (04:29):
And she said you have a journalism degree. I said yes.

Speaker 1 (04:33):
She took her business card out, put it down on
the counter, and she said to me, I am the
executive director of Channel five.

Speaker 3 (04:41):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (04:42):
And she says, I've been meeting an assistant in studio.
If you want you have the job. You start Monday
morning at seven am for Good Day New York. This
was on a Saturday, and I started on a Monday.
And that's how I got my first job in television.

Speaker 2 (04:56):
Wow. Like you said, it's like an opportunity, you just
never know when and you just.

Speaker 1 (05:01):
Never stayed there for about a year and a half,
and then I was supposed to be transitioning to another
station and it didn't happen that way, and so Dan,
I didn't have a job. So then fast forward, somebody
says to me, Hey, you want to come work at
a group home and help I said, why would I
want to work in a group home?

Speaker 4 (05:19):
I didn't even know what a group home was, right.
I was like, I don't want to work with kids.
I'm working it, David, what are you talking about?

Speaker 1 (05:24):
And he's like, well, you don't have a job, And
I said, all right, I'll come help you out Temporarily.
I got there and I started learning all these stories.

Speaker 4 (05:32):
I started sobbing, and I'm like, why people doing this
to these kids?

Speaker 2 (05:35):
What's going with them?

Speaker 4 (05:37):
And that's how it all started.

Speaker 1 (05:38):
Okay, George, I was over twenty two years.

Speaker 2 (05:41):
Ago and still in public education and doing the.

Speaker 1 (05:45):
Thing in a different way, right, But I'm still contributing
and I will always consider myself a lifelong educator. But
I'm also a journalist, and I'm also an activist, and
I'm also a champion enough change in humanity, So it's
not just this one thing.

Speaker 4 (06:00):
I'm a multi hyphen it.

Speaker 2 (06:13):
You now are documentarian, correct, and your documentary is on
the preschool to prison. I feel like I've covered this
Even when I was a journalist many years ago, it
was a lot more widely talked about this pipeline that
was like from preschool to prison, specifically around black kids
and zero tolerance policies that were being inacted at a

(06:34):
lot of schools, and how black kids were already having
criminal records by the time they were seven and eight
and nine years old because of these zero tolerance policies
that weren't affecting white kids in the same way. Am
I on track with that?

Speaker 1 (06:47):
And they say history repeats itself, Well, in this case,
it just never went away, right, So there was nothing
to repeat.

Speaker 4 (06:52):
It's just still ongoing.

Speaker 1 (06:53):
And now we've expanded this where it's not just our
black babies anymore. When we allow injustice to happen into
one group of people, we are silently given consent for
it to happen to all groups of people. Yes, and
so now we have our brown babies and we also
have our white babies that are going from school to prison. Particularly,
students with disabilities, irrespective of race, are disproportionately impacted when

(07:18):
it comes down to being referred to law enforcement, being
handcuffed in school, and for different reasons, lack of training,
not understanding that when you see every behavior that is undesirable,
that it's not always because the child is being disrespectful
and defying. Sometimes it is a manifestation of their disability.
Because that lack of awareness exists not just for the

(07:41):
educators but also for parents. People see what they see
and name it what they want to name it.

Speaker 2 (07:47):
So when we talk about disability in like the education setting,
what does that really mean?

Speaker 1 (07:53):
Great question, right, Because when we went to school special education,
we had kids riding what we call the short buzz.
They would put them in a basement and kind of
lock them away and very much put them in right
and so, but now it's more integrated. So to break
it down, special education could be a bit complex because
what people don't get at the basic foundational level is
that special education is a set of services.

Speaker 4 (08:16):
It's not a place.

Speaker 1 (08:17):
However, we have used it as a place in this country.
While it's not supposed to be a life and we
say a life sentence right in education, it has become
that that once they're in, it's harder to get out.
This is also why you see parents being resistant to

(08:38):
signing off the paperwork and consenting to that. And let's
be honest, both parents wouldn't want to say their child
has special needs and need special education. People want to
be able to brag and boast that my baby's in
a G ANDT program, my baby's in a private school,
my baby's getting all of these ap courses, right, So
I get why a parent wouldn't want to.

Speaker 4 (08:56):
It is then our obligation.

Speaker 1 (09:00):
To explain to the parent what does this actually mean
for your child if they have been given this diagnosis,
and what do these services mean. The goal is to
place the child in the least restrictive environment, meaning maybe
the child only needs to receive special education services for part.

Speaker 4 (09:19):
Of the day, not the entire day.

Speaker 1 (09:22):
Are they getting pulled out and they're going to a
more advanced class When it comes to math, because they're
really great at math, so it shouldn't be that they're
just kept in this one contained setting. So there are
thirteen disability classifications, right, that people get diagnosed with, and
so within those thirteen classifications, there are different needs that

(09:44):
have to be met, and it's based on how the
team writes up that child's individualized education plan known as
an IEP, which also should involve the parents, right, It's
supposed to be a team effort, not somebody's single hand,
and at least saying that this child should get that.

Speaker 2 (10:02):
I recently just was talking to some family members about
this one episode of The Cosby Show when they find
out that THEO had dyslexia and the interesting challenges throughout
his character's development on the show, and like how easily
overlooked it was, and how it was just such an

(10:22):
easy assumption that he was being lazy. You know, still
that assumption, right, And I always look at that, like
when they finally found out, Wow, Like for seasons we
have always watched THEO struggle in high school, but he
seemed like he was studying and he was doing it right.
It was like you felt like he was doing it
d but you know, and then and then there were

(10:44):
moments where he was getting a decent grade here and there,
you know, and then you find out this whole time
he had a learning disability. Is that still something that
is widely undiagnosed properly throughout the education system.

Speaker 4 (10:59):
Yeah, so you do.

Speaker 1 (11:00):
You have an overrepresentation where children are misdiagnosed, underdiagnosed over time.
All these things happening, right, overrepresentation, underrepresentation, It happens all
the time. And in some children they never get diagnosed
for different reasons.

Speaker 4 (11:16):
Right. It could be denial of a parent, It could.

Speaker 1 (11:18):
Be overlooked by maybe their primary care physician, or maybe
an educator is just saying like that child is lazy,
and so they don't even try to.

Speaker 4 (11:26):
Say, well, you know what, I wonder it?

Speaker 1 (11:28):
Right? And then also you don't want to be that educated.
As soon as you do see something you immediately be like, oh,
special education, right, because then that could also signal a
bias as well. This is why it's important that you
have a team of people working together where the school
works with the families. The families are working with the
schools and the professionals to say what are the patterns

(11:49):
of behavior and then what are the supports that we
can get for this child so that they are successful,
and not us giving our opinion and making these comments
that a child is lazy when a child very well
may have a disability.

Speaker 2 (12:06):
When we come back, some data about the school to
prison pipeline that will shock you.

Speaker 5 (12:37):
Students are placed into special education because they'll be told
they have behavioral issues, not cognitive issues, no learning disabilities.
But because that child doesn't listen, maybe that child is
re enacting a traumatic event. Maybe that child is hungry,
maybe that child is tired. Maybe that child has had

(13:00):
something adverse happened in their life where they don't need
to be in special education, they need to be in
special services.

Speaker 2 (13:08):
That was a clip from Preschool to Prison. Now back
to our conversation with the film's director, doctor k And
now how does this connect school in prison? Oh?

Speaker 1 (13:21):
So many layers here, which is why we started with
the short documentary because people are like, can we get more?
Can we I'm like, your brain cannot process more. And
this this is why we started with a first piece
and made it equivalent to a sitcom because we have
kids that have been arrested, thrown out of school, suspended
for being out a uniform using a cell phone, like

(13:43):
the girl I highlight in the film being flipped over
in her chair and dragged because she used her cellphone.

Speaker 4 (13:49):
And then the girl.

Speaker 1 (13:50):
Who recorded it also got arrested for recording.

Speaker 2 (13:53):
Right the case in Texas with the young man with
the young.

Speaker 1 (13:56):
Man with lox, right, Like, it's just people don't realize, like, oh, oh,
my gosh. And this is why I say in the film,
as educators, we have been brought into the system to
perpetuate the school to prison pipeline. Because when I went
to school, they didn't teach you about this. I didn't
even know what it was until I started teaching, and

(14:16):
I started realizing, why is this kid here and why
is this?

Speaker 4 (14:20):
You don't need things? Okay, you need to be here,
but you don't and you don't.

Speaker 1 (14:23):
And I started finding myself saying, you don't need to
be here more than I should have. And at the
time when I was teaching, they called it mental retardation,
and then they changed it to intellectual disability, right, And
I said, that's a retardation, and so it just didn't
make sense. And when I started looking it up, I
was just so mortified by that. Right, And so these

(14:44):
are the different layers through the policies. Like you and
I talk about the zero tolerance policies that are put
in place, things like that with the locks, you can't
wear your hair passing a certain way, or telling girls
that they need to wear their hair in a straight way.
We have kinky, beautiful, gorgeous, thick, curly hair. Now you
said keep yourself together, like make sure that you're clean
and dress whatever that is. I understand those things. But

(15:06):
we do have our children who are homeless. We do
have our children who can't afford to come in with
clean clothes. They should not be mistreated. They should not
be removed because I can't afford to come in looking
the way you want me to fit into your standards.

Speaker 4 (15:21):
Most of the children.

Speaker 1 (15:22):
Being arrested, the data show that only seven percent were
for crimes.

Speaker 2 (15:29):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (15:30):
One study showed that across eighty school districts they were
suspending students for lateness. Let's think about that. If I'm late, yes,
I've already missed instruction. So what is suspending me going
to do?

Speaker 2 (15:46):
Right?

Speaker 1 (15:46):
It just perpetuates, right, And so I'm saying, well, if
a child.

Speaker 4 (15:50):
Especially in elementary, I don't.

Speaker 1 (15:52):
Get myself to school right at elementary age. So how
are we working with the families. I'm in communities where
they don't have it enough.

Speaker 4 (16:00):
Busses to pick kids up.

Speaker 2 (16:02):
Absolutely.

Speaker 1 (16:02):
I worked through the community recently that I will leave unnamed,
where they said to me, doctor K, we have to
do school every other day because we don't have enough buses.

Speaker 2 (16:12):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (16:13):
So when you see all the judgment online, it's so
misinformed and so misguided about what the truth is. We
have over sixty five percent of inmates that cannot read
above a fourth grade level. Seventy percent have not graduated
high school, were incarcerated.

Speaker 2 (16:32):
Yeah, I went to college with people who struggled with reading.
Like it's like how the system is just so damaged, right,
because it's like you got people at college level who
struggle with reading, and then you also have pipeline to
where if they can't make it out of high school,
they're shipping them to for profit prisons. Because there's also

(16:56):
like a in my opinions, probably a quota that needs
to be hit for the for profit prisons.

Speaker 4 (17:05):
And systems shareholders shareholders.

Speaker 2 (17:07):
To get paid. It speaks to like what you're saying,
it's just so big and complex. And then now we
have this new administration which is trying to dismantle the
Department of Education, which I'm still not fully understanding.

Speaker 4 (17:21):
And I'll tell you this.

Speaker 1 (17:22):
I hear people are outraged, and I ask them, well,
why are you outraged about the Department of Education being dismantled?

Speaker 4 (17:32):
And they're like, well, because we need one.

Speaker 1 (17:33):
And I said, well, I know what the purpose is
of the Department of Education. But if the Department of
Education's job is to protect the civil rights and liberties
of our children, why are their rights still being violated
at such high rates?

Speaker 4 (17:50):
So maybe it.

Speaker 1 (17:51):
Does need to be dismantled. I'm not anti dismantling. What
I'm nervous about is what are you doing in its place?

Speaker 2 (17:59):
Exactly?

Speaker 1 (17:59):
How are we addressing the problems that currently exist because
the current structure isn't working, especially for our black babies,
it's not working right. Then you start adding immigrant, then
you start adding our LGBTQ plus community, you start adding.

Speaker 4 (18:16):
All of these other things to it. It's like it
just never ends, right.

Speaker 1 (18:20):
And so now we start creating categories for our children
and coming up with reasons and justifying it. So we
have all of these lawsuits that have not been addressed
because the civil rights have been violated in more ways
than one. There are many school districts that has paid
out millions and millions of dollars to families because they

(18:44):
have not provided the services to their children. And then
those families take that money and they go to private Yeah.
So when people get out rid, I'm like, look, I'm
not outraged.

Speaker 4 (18:55):
I'm questioning. I'm curious. I'm curious to know what's going
to happen me.

Speaker 6 (19:01):
There ain't no no better hear me. You can call
me for his weather brand now with the brand new
leather to now I make place. So they all are jealous.
Oh my god, now they all are jealous.

Speaker 2 (19:12):
Brand no drift.

Speaker 6 (19:13):
Hope they all got umbrellas, don't call them moss and noebrellas.

Speaker 2 (19:16):
And I heard your lesson, dog.

Speaker 4 (19:18):
You can do better.

Speaker 1 (19:19):
Guys, when you think about teacher preparation programs, leadership preparation,
do you know less than twenty five percent of educators
graduate college knowing how to teach kids how to read?

Speaker 2 (19:30):
I could believe it.

Speaker 1 (19:33):
I was never taught my kids learned to read because
my paraprofessional had a degree in literacy.

Speaker 4 (19:39):
And I'm like, how insane?

Speaker 2 (19:40):
Is this.

Speaker 1 (19:42):
To this day, I still do not know how to
teach kids. I mean, I learned from her, right, but
I don't have a certification. I don't have a license.
And I think there's a misunderstanding that teachers get this.

Speaker 2 (19:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (19:52):
No, then we'll bash parents for that, right I know.

Speaker 2 (19:55):
En Richmond, I went to school at Virginia Union University
has a very strong teacher program. While you were still
in college, you used to have to get a certain
amount of credits at a school. You actually had to
work at the school, and that was That's always been
part of Virginia.

Speaker 4 (20:11):
Unions, regardless of what feels you and you all.

Speaker 2 (20:14):
Because my all of my friends who were like social
workers and everything, they all had to get a certain
amount of credits on the job in the field training
in order to graduate from Union and get your certifications
and everything. I always thought that was like such a
brilliant program because I couldn't imagine just graduating college and
then becoming a teacher with no real experience in our classrooms.

(20:35):
But if you really think about it, most people who
were most teachers no apprenticeship, yeah, are really learning on
the job as a And I guess you know until
you just said it like that, it's like, oh, yeah,
I guess that that number would make a lot of sense,
because when would they ever learn between getting their degree

(20:55):
and starting their first job as a teacher if you
don't have it as a part of the curriculum of
your college to actually do that type of work with kids.
And I could see, like why so many teachers are
frustrated year one in year two because they're still figuring
out how do I teach you how to read?

Speaker 1 (21:14):
They're thinking you're coming in knowing how to read, and
I could just get to teach yeah, right, I could
get to all the fun stuff. And then you have
kids said, I may not even know how to spell
their name. I'm teaching at a fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh,
eighth grade level and you still don't know how to
spell your name.

Speaker 4 (21:31):
How did you get this far?

Speaker 2 (21:33):
Yeah? I remember this was probably maybe a decade ago.
I was writing a note to my little cousin, like
just like stuff to get from the store, and she
was like, Matt, Matt, I can't read cursive. And that
was the first time I had learned that they had
stopped teaching cursive, and people across the country like, they
don't teach cursive anymore. No, And I was like, I

(21:56):
did not know that we stopped doing that. But then
I remember when it move the phonics program, and I remember,
so that's when it started to click to me, like, oh,
there's like a anti intellectualism movement.

Speaker 1 (22:07):
Yes, and it's getting about now we're burning the book
because my book is the most banned book in the country.

Speaker 2 (22:15):
It's not just the dismantling of the Department Education. It's
not just banning books. It's lowering the criteria. It's it's
all speaking to each other now, putting more bodies in prisons,
which then denies people long term from making money, from
sustaining a life with a record from It's a very
complex system at work, and it's very scary when you

(22:37):
realize it's starting at preschool exactly.

Speaker 1 (22:40):
So the human brain develops the fastest between zero to three, right,
And so this is why I focus on preschool because
when I said school to prison people, I've actually say
to me, well, some of those kids.

Speaker 4 (22:51):
Need to be ensure.

Speaker 1 (22:53):
You're just such a sick individual because you're not even
thinking about the impact on you, an impact on everybody.
If we don't all step up and say, how do
we come together and ensure that we are providing the
best care and education for all of our children. It's
not solely left on the school. It's not solely left

(23:13):
on parents. Zero to three. That's your doctors. Are you
getting the best health care? Zero to three? Do you
have access to put your child in school? Some head
starts charge, some don't, so if you can't even afford
in some states like New Jersey charges for pre school.

Speaker 4 (23:30):
And so I had a friend who I was like, well.

Speaker 1 (23:33):
Why isn't your grandbaby and she said, well, the mom
couldn't afford it. I said, well you have to beg
So he's home waiting until he turns five. So that's
two years that he's losing out. They're not qualified to
teach him the things that an educated can tech.

Speaker 4 (23:50):
And don't get me wrong, an educated.

Speaker 1 (23:51):
Doesn't have all of the certification and credential, but they
have much more qualifications than parents.

Speaker 2 (23:56):
Yea, So when we come back, doctor K will share
what you can do to help and spoiler alert, it's
very simple. And now back to my conversation with Karen,

(24:35):
doctor k Baptiste.

Speaker 1 (24:38):
All of us have a responsibility, and I say that
to people, your responsibility, George, looks different from mine because
my purpose on this earth is different from yours. So
therefore my responsibility is different from your responsibility. Everybody has
a responsibility in dismantling the preschool dif persent pipeline. You
just need to know what your responsibility is. I had
a very diverse group of people. They wanted to see

(25:01):
the film, and then I did a workshop with them
on dismantling the pipeline.

Speaker 4 (25:05):
I had teenagers in the workshop.

Speaker 1 (25:09):
I had a man who retired, who was an educated
for fifty years.

Speaker 4 (25:13):
People showed up with other people, right.

Speaker 1 (25:17):
I had the probation court officer in my session, and
he said, because my job is to make sure these
kids go home, he says, I want to make sure
that they go back with resources. That's what it looks
like when we come together as a community, when you
start talking about dismantling the pipeline. Not one person sat
in that room and said, well, it's parents for, Oh, it's.

Speaker 4 (25:39):
The schools for. Everybody said well, what's my role within
my role? Right? A couple of them have been incarcerated
and they were like, I don't want that life. This
you got me thinking different now.

Speaker 1 (25:49):
It was so beautiful because the adults in the room
got a chance to hear from the youth of how
they perceived those language, the things that they say about them,
and they're like, our generation is not lazy, we.

Speaker 4 (26:00):
Don't not care.

Speaker 1 (26:01):
We want you to invest in us, show us how
to do things instead of judging us. And I'm just like, what,
this is so beautiful. That's what I mean when I
talk about everybody having a role.

Speaker 2 (26:12):
In the larger scheme of things. With your documentary, how
are you hoping that it activates people?

Speaker 1 (26:17):
People first need to know that there's a problem. We
do awareness, we do healing, we do action because our
communities are not healed. George, you and I may have
done the work, but then we're going back into spaces
where people are not here, they haven't done the work.
That can easily kind of pull you back over because
you're like, oooh, I'm spending a lot of time trying
to get people to even see that there's a problem.
So the first thing we do is awareness. Let's get

(26:38):
together as a community. For example, the organization that brought
us out to.

Speaker 4 (26:42):
Ohio, this man is a community angel.

Speaker 1 (26:45):
He's out there championing and bringing so much to the
line of community.

Speaker 4 (26:49):
But you need other people doing this with you. You
will burn out.

Speaker 1 (26:52):
So we want to spark awareness and community. People have
to come together and say what do we want our
work community to look, sound and feel like. You know
when people say, oh, well, you didn't give us a
solution in a documentary, and I say so, you want
me to give you a solution for your community that
doesn't work for another community, right, I can't give you

(27:15):
the solution. You have to give you the solution. I
come in and help you think differently.

Speaker 4 (27:23):
That's what I can do.

Speaker 1 (27:24):
But I can't come into your community and give you
a solution for your community. The people closest to the
problem are the people closest to the solution. Many hands
make light work, George. We got to get the right
hands together. We overthink what our role is. People could
go volunteer in a school one hour a week. If

(27:44):
you work from home, you don't have one hour in
your week, go to your local school, whether you have
children or not, and just say, you know, I'd like
to volunteer.

Speaker 4 (27:53):
Where can I help out? Give one hour a week.

Speaker 1 (27:56):
You'll be surprised, I say, they'll snatch you up so
fast every time. Thing doesn't require money. I say, start
with the things that are free. Love is free. You
show up to support and to hew these things are free.
So if we can start with that, we can really
start to dismantle the preschool to prison pipeline.

Speaker 2 (28:14):
That's beautiful. One of the things I always think about
from my grandmother is always that she just couldn't understand
how the church God has loved and how we turning
away people because they're LGBT. Used to really get upset
with people who would condemn people like me. It's just
the one thing, like God is love is the first
thing we learned. So she's like, I don't know how
everything else after that becomes violent.

Speaker 1 (28:36):
But we will accept fornication and we will accept the
decons sleeping with the right. Listen back, which sinse are
we counting today? You're absolutely right? If God is loved
and what to show up with love and show up
and volunteer and support. All of us have a role.
You can mentor youth. So there's so many layers in
this George of how to dismantle this pipeline and what

(28:59):
happens after, what happens before incarceration. What happens during incarceration?
How do we support our youth or's re entry during incarceration.
We shouldn't be incarcerating our youth with adults. Know your
local elected.

Speaker 2 (29:14):
That I know voting, but it's like you got to
vote locally at a minimum. There is your older people,
your your governorunsel like that. Those those are actually who
make the decisions that affect your days.

Speaker 4 (29:31):
Exactly. Show up to a school board meeting, it's open
to the puble even if you're just listening to.

Speaker 1 (29:37):
What they're talking about, just so that you're aware of
what's happening in your community. Because guess what, if we
keep taking resources from people, they will take it back.
And when they take it back, they're not coming for
it nicely.

Speaker 2 (29:49):
That's what I tell At the portion of life right now,
we always like to close the show. I used to
have a column called George's Tired, where I would weekly
talk about the things I was tired of going on
in the country this week. I just think it's absolutely

(30:11):
absurd that every day we have to wake up and
talk about the one big, beautiful bill. Even as a sentence,
it makes zero sense. It's not crafted well, but to
think that we're passing acts in this country called one
big Beautiful Bill Act grammatically, it makes no sense. It
just doesn't even make sense, right, And like for y'all
to keep calling it that. Yeah, we really do have

(30:34):
an education crisis. Is there anything that you were tired
of this week?

Speaker 1 (30:39):
I get exhausted from the foolishness, but then I have
a good tired of.

Speaker 4 (30:44):
I'm out in communities.

Speaker 1 (30:46):
Even though I'm tired, I'm re energized from that community
and realizing people do want change, sometimes they don't know
where to start. And so I'm tired in a good
way and I'll continue to spread love.

Speaker 4 (30:58):
I'm exhausted from.

Speaker 1 (30:59):
The nonsense, the foolery. My work is not for those
with limited thinking, and I am okay with that. When
I go in, whoever hearts I touch, I touch, But
my work is not for those with limited thinking.

Speaker 2 (31:15):
Wow, I was gonna ask you what was like a
thing or in something that you were living by by
twenty twenty five? But I think that's it. That's beautiful. Yes, yes,
so expand your minds everyone. I want to thank you
for coming on the show today, Yes, thank yes, thank
you for visiting Fighting Words and continue to fight.

Speaker 4 (31:31):
Everyone, continue to fight. Thank you.

Speaker 2 (31:52):
Fighting Words is a production of iHeart Podcasts in partnership
with Beth's Case Studios. I'm Georgia Johnson. This episode was
produced by Charlotte Morley. Executive producers are myself and Twiggy
Puchi Guar Song with Adam Pinks and Brick Cats for
Best Case Studios. The theme song was written and composed
by kole Vas, Bambianna and myself. Original music by cole Vas.

(32:16):
This episode was edited and scored by Max Michael Miller.
Our Heart team is Ali Perry and Carl Ketel. Following Rape,
Fighting Words, Wherever you get your Podcast
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Host

George M. Johnson

George M. Johnson

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