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1:33

Hey,

1:33

this is DeRay, and welcome to Positive to People.

1:35

It's me, Kya, DR, and Myles

1:37

talking about all the news that

1:40

wasn't talked about as much as it should've been in the

1:42

past week, especially with regard to race injustice, and

1:44

I learned some new stuff today that

1:47

I didn't know, so hope you will too.

1:50

Then I sat down and talked to comedian and activist

1:52

Amanda Seals to talk about her new independent

1:54

documentary entitled, In Amanda

1:56

We Trust, and Amanda was amazing.

1:59

So here we go.

1:59

go.

2:03

Family, welcome to another episode

2:06

of Todd Save the People. I am Diara

2:09

Ballinger. You can find me on Instagram

2:11

at Diara Ballinger. I

2:13

am Miles E. Johnson. You can find me

2:15

on Instagram, Twitter, threads,

2:18

TikTok, at Feral

2:20

Rapture.

2:21

I'm Kaya Henderson. You can find me at HendersonKaya

2:24

on Twitter. And

2:25

this is Darae at D-R-A-Y on Twitter.

2:28

Well friends, my news

2:31

this week is coming out of the great

2:33

state of North

2:34

Carolina, where Republican

2:36

legislators who hold a supermajority

2:39

in the state legislature released two

2:41

redistricting proposals this past

2:44

week. Currently, the state's

2:46

congressional delegation is split evenly,

2:48

seven Republicans and seven Democrats, which

2:51

actually reflects the political divide

2:53

of North Carolina voters. Seems

2:56

like that's the way it should be, right? However,

2:59

under the new proposal, three House

3:01

Democrats and maybe a fourth would

3:03

be put in an almost impossible to

3:05

win situation because of the way

3:08

they are gerrymandering these maps. The

3:11

North Carolina Democratic Party condemned

3:14

the proposals, of course, and the

3:16

chair of the party, Anderson Clayton said,

3:19

diluting our voices, specifically

3:21

the voices of people of color, to entrench

3:24

power is a manipulation of our

3:26

democracy. And

3:29

while you might think to yourself, well, the governor

3:31

could just veto the maps.

3:34

The Democratic governor, Roy Cooper, does

3:36

not have veto power over redistricting

3:39

legislation in North Carolina.

3:42

So what would happen if these maps

3:44

are accepted? The

3:46

Republicans could win 11 of the 14

3:49

congressional districts in

3:51

North Carolina.

3:55

And we've been in lots of conversations.

3:57

We had the conversation about the Alabama. redistrict

4:00

in a few weeks ago where the Supreme Court

4:03

threw out their maps. They came back with

4:05

another whack map

4:07

and the court threw it out again.

4:10

Um, and here we are, our friends in North Carolina who have

4:12

not learned the lesson and are

4:15

literally Xing out, you know, mostly

4:18

black people's votes in North Carolina.

4:21

The only thing that might mitigate

4:23

this when it comes to the national

4:25

election is Democrats in New

4:27

York. Democrats in New York, pay attention.

4:29

You could actually save us from this. The

4:32

Dems in New York state have

4:34

the power to do the redistricting

4:37

maps in New York and

4:39

the way they draw their maps might

4:41

cancel out any sort of national

4:44

advantage that the Republicans have based

4:46

on what's happening in North Carolina. Okay.

4:49

So how did this happen? Um, in 2022,

4:53

the midterms provided wins

4:55

for the North Carolina Republican party that first

4:58

of all gave them greater authority over the redistricting

5:00

process and it allowed them to flip

5:02

the North Carolina Supreme Court. People

5:04

think midterms don't matter. Midterms matter

5:07

significantly because when

5:09

they got control of the court, the

5:12

new GOP majority

5:14

in the court threw out a ruling

5:17

by the previous Democratic leading court,

5:19

which was a ruling against partisan

5:21

gerrymandering. So the democratic

5:24

court said, you can't gerrymander. The

5:26

midterms happen Republicans win

5:28

the Republican court says

5:31

out with that, you can gerrymander and

5:33

that ruling created the maps

5:36

that the first ruling created the maps

5:38

that reflect the state's currently

5:41

evenly divided congressional delegation,

5:44

but this new map will give Republicans 11 out

5:46

of 14 seats in Congress. Um,

5:49

and that will tip the majority in,

5:52

um, even more in the Republicans

5:54

favor in this next presidential

5:57

election. Um, and so, or could.

6:00

if New York doesn't do what it's supposed to do. And

6:02

so I brought this to the podcast because

6:04

I feel like there is a lot

6:07

going on in the world. Of

6:10

course, you know, Israel and

6:12

Palestine, of course, and

6:15

all the things that are happening right now. And

6:18

under our noses, hardworking

6:21

Republicans continue to

6:24

encroach upon our democratic

6:27

and ideals by

6:29

disenfranchising voters. And if we don't

6:31

pay attention, we

6:33

wake up and realize that North Carolina,

6:36

which was a pretty purple state, has

6:39

now gone completely and totally red

6:41

because of people's

6:43

voting or not voting in midterm elections. So I

6:45

brought this here because I think

6:48

there are so many things, you know, racism

6:51

seeks to distract. And there

6:53

are so many other things that we are looking

6:56

at that we're not focusing on things

6:58

that are happening now. So to my friends in North Carolina,

7:00

pay attention to what your GOP

7:02

legislators are doing to my friends in New

7:05

York, pay attention to what your Democrats

7:08

are doing with their redistricting maps because

7:10

we might need you to save the republic.

7:12

I am just beyond exhausted

7:15

with us having to save ourselves from our own government.

7:19

It's like there's so many things going on in the world.

7:22

There's so many things going on in

7:24

this nation that are urgent. And

7:27

then every now and again, a.k.a. every 24

7:29

hours, we have to make sure

7:31

that the leak from

7:34

the other Titanic is not coming from the inside.

7:36

Like we're like it's like we have to worry about the icebergs

7:38

that are outside of us. And

7:41

also these just

7:44

selfish, narcissistic, evil people who

7:47

want to drill holes in the boat today. And

7:50

it's inside inside the Titanic. And it's like

7:54

I think the exhaustion of it

7:56

is like hitting me, the intellectual exhaustion

7:58

of it.

7:59

probably the

8:01

goal, right, to feel, make

8:03

people feel exhausted, make them feel like there's

8:06

not, once you cover up one leaky hole,

8:09

there's another one to cover up. And

8:11

I love that you bring this to the podcast because it

8:13

fills me up with some

8:16

type of will to

8:18

continue to fight. But Jesus,

8:22

you all like it's

8:26

always another thing. It's always another thing.

8:28

What this took me to, I've

8:31

been very much in a space

8:34

of being connected to our

8:36

ancestors.

8:37

And so it took me to

8:40

what, what was going on

8:42

in North Carolina in terms of black people and political

8:44

engagement. So

8:47

during reconstruction, so from 1868 to 1900, there

8:50

were 111, come on, I got on the reconstruction. There

8:57

were 111

9:00

black men, albeit

9:02

in the North Carolina legislature.

9:05

The latest I

9:06

can find in terms of numbers as

9:08

of February 2023 was 26

9:10

black folks. Now, from 1900 to 1968, which were our

9:14

Jim Crow

9:19

years, zero black folks. So

9:22

for 68 years in North Carolina's

9:25

history, there was not one black person in that

9:27

legislature.

9:29

And so it brings us to today. And

9:31

I, you know, I think it's

9:36

these,

9:37

I think I've thought of

9:41

what's happening today, and what

9:43

happened years ago, like,

9:45

definitely a through line. But I think in

9:47

just like how I was seeing them,

9:50

it was sort of disconnected.

9:52

But I think

9:53

stepping into the feet of our ancestors,

9:55

it's like, what happened

9:58

between 1900 and

9:59

can happen today in 2023. And

10:03

it looks like that is what's happening.

10:07

So,

10:09

you know, I think that's the fascinating part to

10:12

me is that

10:14

we're, you know, we're

10:17

gonna continue to be in this struggle, but like, how

10:19

are we going to orient ourselves

10:21

in this struggle?

10:23

And how are we going to partner,

10:26

work with our people so

10:32

that we don't get back to zero

10:34

black folks in the North Carolina legislature

10:37

and beyond,

10:39

because they're coming for us. This

10:42

reminds me. They're coming for us.

10:44

D'Arra, I didn't know any of

10:46

those numbers about the Reconstruction era. Taya,

10:49

thank you for bringing this because I hadn't heard about it at all.

10:51

And Miles, I think you're right. You're like, who is

10:53

there fights on every front, it feels like. What

10:56

this reminded me of is that

10:58

they cannot win without cheating. Right.

11:00

Right, come on. You better put on. Come

11:04

on. That is a word. We

11:06

play by the rules, they

11:09

will lose. That's just the game.

11:11

That's what's true. And the question

11:13

for us in the organizing world becomes how do

11:15

we help people realize that they are cheating? Like

11:18

this is not, you know, they are cheating.

11:20

This is, they are cheating, you know, but

11:22

they can't win if you play by the rules.

11:24

And as all of you know, the more people that vote, the more likely

11:27

the Dems are gonna win. Not even because

11:29

people have some deep, what annoys me about this conversation

11:31

is that people think that

11:34

black people or the left

11:36

have some deep affiliation with the party. They

11:38

don't. People hate the Democratic Party on the

11:40

left. We just know that the alternative

11:42

is literally trying to kill us. So

11:45

like when people sit up and make a choice,

11:47

they are like, do I get the people that I'm like

11:49

shaky town about? Or do I get the people

11:51

who are like, you aren't people? And you're like, well, that's not a hard

11:54

choice. That is actually a pretty easy choice. And

11:56

when I think about this situation that

11:59

you described,

11:59

to us in the Carolina, it is a reminder

12:02

again that like,

12:03

they know that people will make that calculus

12:06

when they have to. And they are

12:08

rigging the game. So that even when

12:10

you choose, even when you vote, even

12:12

when you do all the things, it is impossible

12:15

for your vote to matter. And, you

12:18

know, yeah, you know, we gotta, I

12:20

don't even want to say we got to play the game like them, we

12:22

got to make the game fair. That's the goal.

12:25

The game has to be fair. Oh,

12:27

ooh, I needed that

12:29

word this morning, honey. Thank you,

12:31

brother. So mine is about

12:32

Brandon Johnson, the mayor

12:35

of Chicago. And I just wanted to bring this year because there was

12:37

this conversation happening online about his recent

12:39

moves. And it made

12:42

me think about what is our relationship to

12:46

elected officials that we like? What

12:49

is our relationship to elected officials that we

12:51

work really hard to get in office? What

12:53

is our relationship to elected officials that we identify

12:56

with and that speak to our lives and our struggles?

13:00

And somebody said it better

13:02

than me, but this idea that you don't have

13:04

to consider them your adversary, but

13:06

they are definitely your opponent. And

13:09

I think that is true. So when you think about Brandon

13:11

Johnson, Brandon, when

13:14

he campaigned, he said that he was going to get rid

13:16

of shot spotter, which is the technology that purports

13:18

to detect gunshots. And

13:22

he didn't. So the first news that came out of our

13:24

shot spotter is when the contract got renewed

13:27

in Chicago, again, he said this as a declarative

13:29

statement when he ran. So all

13:32

of a sudden, the contract gets paid. And

13:35

then his response is it

13:37

essentially was on auto pay from

13:39

the last administration. And the city of Chicago

13:41

just automatically paid the new contract

13:45

for shot spotter. And everybody was like, well, that feels really,

13:47

you know, like auto pay feels like a weird way

13:49

to justify that one. But okay, boom. And

13:52

then he appoints this guy to

13:55

like run public safety. This guy will

13:57

not say he's against shot spotter, mind you.

14:00

ran, this is one of the claims that he made when

14:02

he ran. He just approved

14:04

a police union contract that gave essentially

14:07

more money to the police than even Lori Lightfoot

14:10

did and he increased

14:12

the police department budget. These

14:15

are all essentially things that he said he was

14:17

not going to do when he ran. Now

14:19

the question becomes what do we do again

14:22

when our friends, when people we like,

14:24

people who identify run. And my reminder

14:27

in this is that these people even

14:30

when we like them have a job to do

14:33

and that we really do ourselves a disservice

14:36

when we like if we the way I think about it is

14:38

like if we can't tell the truth to our friends

14:40

then we are really down bad. And if

14:42

we can't hold our friends accountable then we are the

14:44

we are down super bad.

14:47

And I've seen people struggle to be critical

14:49

of Brandon's decisions, Mayor Johnson's decisions

14:52

because he was a teacher and the

14:54

teachers union and da da da da da da da da da and it's like

14:57

buddy you making

14:59

some bad decisions and we got to call them out and that doesn't

15:01

mean that the alternative guy was better. He

15:03

was crazy.

15:05

But Mayor Johnson

15:06

you got to step it up but I think about this with Biden I think

15:09

about there are a host of people who

15:11

like we like them. They

15:14

do good things and they make decisions

15:16

that don't make sense and we have to name them

15:18

every time as well.

15:20

This is curious to me because

15:23

if I remember the Chicago election

15:26

between Johnson

15:29

and Paul Vallis was the opponent.

15:31

Vallis was heavy on the like

15:34

more money for police tough on crime

15:36

da da da da and Johnson you

15:39

know positioned himself as the opposite of

15:41

that right of being

15:43

reasonable. He spoke out against shot

15:45

spotter, racist, blah blah blah

15:47

whatnot and he gave

15:49

more than ten million dollars more

15:52

to shot spotter

15:54

than the previous administration like

15:56

his signature it was not auto pay the

15:59

article that I read

15:59

I'll put it in the thing says that his

16:02

signature approved given ten million

16:04

dollars more to shots butter and

16:08

So there's a question of

16:11

are you not paying attention to what's happening?

16:13

Do you not

16:15

do you not believe what you used

16:17

to believe like what is going it? You

16:19

know, I think there is also a question around

16:23

Sort of what Union? loyalties

16:27

You know how they play into this because

16:31

as we know labor, you know often

16:33

supports other labor organizations

16:36

and so It really is

16:38

I mean I appreciate you to raise sort

16:40

of saying all our all our people might

16:42

not be our people all the time Basically

16:45

is what you're saying and I appreciate

16:47

you providing some nuance and saying we're

16:49

not saying You know anti

16:52

Brandon Johnson, but we are saying

16:54

we have to call out You know

16:56

frag a rag a nonsense when we see frag

16:59

a rag a nonsense and this

17:01

is incoherent. This is misaligned

17:04

and Mostly, this is harmful

17:07

to the black community that

17:09

Brandon Johnson, you know Represents

17:15

or at least claims to represent so this

17:18

is interesting and it'll be in this

17:20

is gonna make me pay more attention to The

17:23

sort of policy decisions coming out of the Johnson

17:25

administration in Chicago to see

17:27

if he's walking the talk or if he perpetrated

17:29

a fraud

17:30

I'm just going back into the articles

17:32

just Durea about this the shot

17:34

spotter payment because that is I think

17:37

that's a curious thing for me to where

17:40

Like we mistaken we unwittingly signed

17:42

something that the previous mayor da

17:45

da da da da and I'm just like In

17:48

in addition to being held accountable by activists

17:50

beyond need some help with some interns or

17:53

something

17:54

in there just also higher

17:59

check auto pay? Do we need to have DR

18:02

on assignment? My compassion comes in because these are

18:04

huge cities with huge bureaucracies. And

18:12

it is sort of an impossible

18:15

task to make sure that you are on top of every

18:17

single thing at every single moment. But it's also

18:20

democracy. So it is if you do misstep,

18:23

that's when folks are like, remember you said

18:25

you're going to do X, Y, and Z. So

18:27

I think to me it is

18:29

a reflection of things working. And I think,

18:32

Dre, when you bring up the Biden administration,

18:37

they are acting for

18:41

the communities they hear from most. And I

18:43

think that's most elected officials. And

18:45

so I think we have to do an even

18:48

greater job of

18:51

bringing the alarm and being as vocal as possible. Because

18:53

if we just think if we had

18:56

not been watching this, it

18:58

would have gone on and no one would have

19:00

been the wiser. So this

19:02

one was really, really interesting. And now I'm more curious

19:05

about Brandon Johnson. I hadn't really been

19:07

paying attention to Brandon

19:10

Johnson in Chicago at all,

19:12

given that I live in New York with Mayor

19:14

Adams. It's hard to pay attention to all

19:16

these other mayors when we got what we got going on here. I

19:19

am in Houston at the moment,

19:21

and I can't wait to see these faces on the screen

19:24

when I

19:25

remind everyone that Sheila Jackson Lee is running

19:27

for mayor of Houston. I'm

19:30

going to leave that there.

19:32

Say what now? And the party just endorsed

19:35

her. Jacqueline just came out and supported

19:37

her. Yeah.

19:41

I think I have

19:43

like a more general thing to say.

19:46

It's been cooking in my

19:48

brain and it's still a little gooey. So if

19:50

it's not coming out quite right, you know, blame

19:53

it, blame it on my mind, not my heart. But

19:57

it just, I think we've

19:59

expired. at the

20:01

time of pretending

20:04

that these officials

20:06

are doing things perfectly is expired. I feel

20:08

like there was this weird time

20:11

that when Trump left and

20:13

even now because everything's happening and Republicans

20:15

are doing, you know, just evil

20:17

villain type of stuff. I think that sometimes

20:20

it impairs our ability to critique and it impairs

20:22

our ability to hold these officials

20:26

accountable. And what I'm seeing is this

20:28

frustration with we can't really

20:31

say what we want to say about Biden or really

20:33

can't really critique what we want to say about these officials

20:36

because we're afraid that that's

20:38

all we have. But at the end of the day,

20:41

the whole system is not

20:45

awe inspiring. There's

20:47

things that are wrong. There are things happening that are

20:49

wrong. There's incompetence

20:52

that needs to be called out. We can't be afraid

20:55

of

20:56

expecting excellence. And that's what sometimes

20:58

it feels like that we can't expect

21:00

excellence because then we're going to

21:03

end up with horrendous. And

21:05

I just feel the

21:07

frustration with that inside of me and I

21:09

know I'm feeling it. Other people are feeling

21:12

it too. And we are going to 2024. It

21:15

is going to be an election year. I am so

21:17

excited and horrified. And

21:20

I think that is going to be the thing, like

21:23

just taking it to,

21:25

I guess, the national sector.

21:27

Like we have

21:30

like we Biden is not it's not just going

21:32

to be you're not the right opponent,

21:35

you know? And then in.

21:37

Yeah, again, a gooey thought. And it's not

21:39

necessarily cooked all the way.

21:42

But I'm just feeling that frustration around

21:44

having to be silent or having to

21:46

edit yourself

21:48

to make sure things keep going along

21:50

and getting along. Thank you all for riding that ride

21:52

with me. Hey,

21:55

you're listening to Potsy the People. Stay tuned.

21:58

There's more

21:59

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For many, the last few years have been the hardest.

22:33

The global repercussions of the war

22:35

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22:38

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22:40

and fuel, combined with the climate

22:42

crisis and COVID-19, formed

22:44

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22:46

of their compassionate donors, UNHCR

22:49

sends

22:49

relief supplies and deploys

22:51

its highly trained staff anywhere in the

22:53

world at any given time. UNHCR

22:56

is able to deploy within 72 hours of

22:58

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23:01

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23:04

Help deliver urgent aid. Your support

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23:08

for a better future. Donate to USA

23:11

for UNHCR by visiting unrefugees.org

23:15

slash donation. I think

23:16

the people is brought to you by the body electric

23:19

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23:20

Now I

23:22

love technology and I love fitness.

23:25

I love the health things. I want to measure my

23:27

heart rate. I want to make sure I track the calories,

23:30

all the devices. I want to figure out all the

23:32

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23:34

need to learn more about it. Every day we're in a solid

23:36

battle with our devices, devices

23:38

that are slowly and stealthily sometimes

23:41

draining us. Our biology is changing to

23:43

meet the demands of the information age, but why?

23:45

And what can we do about it? If you're interested

23:48

in finding the answers to these questions and more,

23:50

you have to listen to the body electric podcast

23:53

on NPR. Body electric is

23:55

an interactive six part series that investigates

23:57

how our relationship with technology is impacting our

23:59

health. health. From nearsightedness

24:01

and mass psychogenic illnesses to type 2 diabetes

24:04

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24:06

Electric is partnered with Columbia Medical School to find

24:09

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24:11

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24:13

debunking popular beliefs, and provides a feel-good

24:15

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24:17

the mounting pressures of today's society, Body Electric

24:20

strives to help lighten your load mentally and

24:22

physically. Now, in this work, I'm

24:24

on devices all day long. It's one thing

24:26

to feel the effects in real time, but it was surreal

24:28

to hear so many experts be able to name

24:31

what I'm experiencing. I didn't even think about this as

24:33

like a site of

24:34

inquiry and I'm like, whew, y'all

24:36

need to listen. Listen now to Body

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25:21

So

25:21

first of all, I want to just say

25:23

that yes, I am coming

25:26

out on this podcast as beautiful

25:28

and beautiful

25:31

topics are interesting to me. And

25:34

when it comes to last week's Body

25:36

Image and this week anti-aging because that's

25:38

what beautiful people think about. And this

25:43

conversation I really want to bring to the

25:45

podcast because I love throwing

25:47

things in all these brilliant people's minds

25:50

to hear their opinions. But the reason

25:51

why it was interesting to me is because it feels

25:53

like there is a little bit of a guilt piece

25:56

that's missing from the article. So let

25:58

me tell you what the article is about.

26:00

Dave's magazine released this interview

26:02

with this multimillionaire named Brian

26:05

Johnson. Brian Johnson is

26:07

describing today's article as a

26:10

vampire millionaire. That

26:12

means he's doing all types of weird stuff

26:14

with his son's blood to make

26:17

him seem alive and

26:22

all types of details about DNA, except

26:25

in technology that basically makes

26:27

your lifespan longer.

26:31

The reason I'm always kind of reading articles

26:33

about how just what's going on culturally

26:36

and what people are doing and the gaps are

26:38

so wide that it's fascinating that all this stuff

26:40

is happening. Some people are living science fiction

26:42

novels while other people are like living these 16th

26:45

century, you know, horrors

26:47

and we're on the same planet in

26:49

the same timeline. That's always fascinating to me.

26:52

But this was really interesting because A,

26:55

there are other things to worry about and then B,

26:59

the piece around wanting to live

27:01

forever feels like we're not necessarily getting

27:04

to the fact that I really feel

27:06

like these people are

27:08

afraid to die, but not in the regular existential,

27:11

in my agnostic, atheistic, do I

27:13

believe in life after death? Not in that way, but

27:16

in the way that

27:19

they're afraid of consequence. They're

27:22

afraid of, they're afraid of

27:25

less of there being oblivion in death, but

27:27

more they're afraid of there actually being responsibility

27:30

for what you did in death. And so sometimes I

27:32

see these articles, sometimes I see

27:34

these articles and I see this huge

27:36

industry around that anxiety and

27:41

all of these practices that they're doing sound

27:43

just as absurd as

27:47

the evil that they're letting happen, the

27:49

getting so much money and not thinking to share

27:55

and getting so much money and not thinking

27:57

to how am I going to let humanity,

27:59

many. happening is no, it's how do I live 250 years

28:02

and not live the last 50 years in bed.

28:06

I'm going to read a little piece from the article that

28:08

I found absolutely fascinating.

28:11

And

28:12

again, it's a kind of a long interview.

28:14

So definitely go,

28:17

go read it. It's on days. Then

28:19

there's Brian Johnson. You might know him as a multimillionaire

28:22

who drained blood from his teenage son

28:24

in a bid to extend his own life. Since

28:27

launching his experimental blueprint project

28:30

a couple of years ago, Johnson has evangelized

28:32

more ballistic approach to anti-aging

28:35

at every opportunity. His output,

28:37

which is which showcases the expensive

28:39

treatments he tests exclusively on

28:41

himself ranges from magazine interviews

28:43

to glossy YouTube vlogs to dank memes.

28:47

If we

28:47

need help defining dank memes,

28:49

I got y'all. Then this is a quote from him.

28:51

Blueprint was a contemplation of what it will

28:53

mean to be human in the coming decades

28:55

and centuries. Johnson says looking back on projects,

28:58

not so humble beginnings. He points out that

29:00

we spend a lot of time talking about how to build better

29:02

technologies, computers, smartphones,

29:05

virtual reality or AI and worrying

29:07

about the risk. We spend disappointingly less

29:09

time thinking about the future of us. That

29:11

said, his vision for the future of humanity often

29:13

means integrating with these emerging technologies.

29:16

For example, he's developed a specialized

29:18

algorithm to process all of the

29:20

data he collects about himself, match it

29:22

up with relevant science and turn it into

29:25

actual anti-Asian treatments. In

29:27

a nutshell, an algorithm runs me, he says,

29:29

initially, when people hear the idea, they think it

29:31

sounds dystopian. The majority of my time

29:33

is spent explaining the nuances. So

29:36

again,

29:38

I think that what this does

29:40

do is put me

29:42

in the mind of some of these people. And

29:45

of course, I don't

29:48

want to make it seem like millionaires or billionaires

29:51

are a race group,

29:53

but I do think there's this commonality

29:55

in how they're thinking. So it's putting me in

29:58

the minds of what is.

29:59

is causing anxiety in these groups of people

30:02

and what they're concentrated on.

30:05

And to me, this is connected to like the moon conversations,

30:08

the submarine, all these different

30:10

things that they're doing to almost escape the reality.

30:13

And I think

30:16

in times like this, specifically with

30:19

everything happening nationally and globally,

30:22

I wonder why are we, what's

30:24

the motivation to be here if

30:27

you're not putting your money towards having clean

30:29

air? What's the motivation for you to be

30:31

here if you're not putting money towards

30:34

it being a safe place that isn't overrun

30:36

with terrorists and

30:38

isn't overrun with crime? Like what

30:41

is your purpose to be here? I saw Fran Leblet

30:44

in King's Theater a couple of days ago on Saturday.

30:47

And she had this comment that really

30:50

rang in my ear. She says millionaires

30:53

and billionaires

30:54

often think that because they live in

30:56

different worlds and they're in Aspen,

30:58

that there is different air, but there's not different air.

31:01

So everybody should be concerned about environmentalism.

31:03

Everybody should be concerned about these other, these

31:08

kind of global pursuits that the left is offering.

31:11

And it's

31:12

articles like this and stories

31:14

like this that remind me that there is

31:17

an intellectual logic gap that

31:19

I don't know how to fill. Like I don't know

31:21

how somebody can look at the doomsday

31:23

clock and hear environmentalist and

31:26

then think, yeah,

31:29

I want to put 150 years on my life,

31:33

but the planet is telling you that

31:36

y'all gotta go. We're getting eviction notices

31:38

in the forms of natural disasters all the time.

31:41

So, eviction

31:44

notices, tell it. So

31:47

I'm just super confused. So yeah, I

31:49

don't have an

31:50

assessment of it, but

31:53

I wanted to bring that thought to you all.

31:55

What do you all think is that gap? I

31:59

wanted to hear.

31:59

where Auntie Kaya's creepy,

32:03

you know, the creepier the better with Auntie Kaya. I love

32:05

seeing her reaction to it. So I wanted to hear

32:07

her thoughts about it, but also just kind of dig

32:10

into what is happening that's making

32:13

people be so narcissistic,

32:15

to be so scared, to be so obsessed

32:18

with their own individual life, but

32:20

not think, but where, if

32:23

there's not an earth for this life to be on, if

32:25

this, if the other people who I'm inhabiting

32:27

this long life with hate me,

32:29

what in your mind is going to happen?

32:31

Are you just going to like figure out the cure to life

32:34

and then move to the moon? Like

32:36

is that the plan? Yeah. What's

32:39

going on? A

32:41

millionaire, a cop friend. You

32:46

know what this makes me want to ask though? It's

32:48

like, who are your people? Like

32:53

where you come from?

32:56

Well, that's what I'm saying, but no

32:58

mention I've been looked at all kinds of

33:00

articles about this man. It doesn't talk

33:02

about who his parents

33:04

are, what values he got from his parents,

33:07

who his community truly is beyond

33:09

the Amazon man and the Tesla

33:12

guy. I think, you

33:15

know, and y'all know I'm just coming off my dad passing

33:17

on September 29th. And one thing that has

33:19

comforted me about my dad's

33:21

passing is that my dad

33:24

lived with purpose.

33:25

Okay.

33:26

Every single

33:28

day

33:29

purpose.

33:30

And I think that's what's missing

33:32

for these folks. Miles is that

33:34

their purpose is so self centered

33:37

and so inward that

33:39

yeah, they want to extend their

33:41

lives because they, they're like, we ain't done nothing

33:43

to help nobody while we here.

33:45

So what is our karmic future in the afterlife?

33:48

No, I

33:49

don't know. That's what this takes me to. I'm just like,

33:51

they just seem like they are lost, lost,

33:53

lost out here. So disconnected from

33:55

whoever their ancestors are so disconnected

33:58

from whom

33:59

the community

33:59

is and its extension of that mother earth.

34:02

Like, I just, in

34:04

all the pictures of this man online, I'm

34:07

gonna have nightmares. I keep

34:09

listen.

34:13

That's all I got to say.

34:15

We don't have television right

34:17

now. Auntie Kaya has her thumb in

34:21

her finger on her chin, looking

34:24

occupied and in confused

34:26

in a very buttery tan way. So

34:30

first of all, oh

34:33

my gosh. So first of all, like I just,

34:36

I mean, I read this and I'm like, say what

34:38

now? So let me just read

34:40

this one thing through various treatments

34:43

involving lasers and light therapy,

34:46

gene therapies,

34:47

countless skincare products,

34:49

a prohibitively

34:49

precise diet

34:52

plan, intense workouts, and

34:54

a regimen of more than 100 pills per day. He's trying

34:58

to rejuvenate his skin alongside

35:00

the rest of his body. Yes, all of it.

35:03

All of it y'all to

35:05

the quality of an 18

35:06

year old. He also

35:08

colors his hair though he's actively

35:10

looking for alternatives

35:12

to rejuvenate the pigment

35:14

like he's 46. He wants

35:17

to be 18 and he

35:19

feels like the future is going to be exciting.

35:22

And so he wants to stick around to be

35:25

here for it. I mean, the

35:27

short answer is child by but

35:30

you want to engage and so I will

35:32

engage at you know, I'm the

35:35

old lady of the group, right? I just turned 53. And

35:38

I am embracing, you know,

35:40

lady, I'm not I'm clear and I'm

35:43

not well, I'm in embracing middle age.

35:45

I'm embracing growing older gracefully.

35:48

And

35:48

like as I look out at I

35:50

mean, it's interesting,

35:51

Miles and D'Arra that you sort of asked

35:54

who are his people?

35:55

Who is his community? Who is he surrounded

35:57

by? Because I do think

35:59

that

36:00

community matters a lot in

36:02

terms of what our outlook is

36:04

about aging and the end

36:07

of life. I just

36:09

think about my grandmother who was 89

36:11

and lived one of the most joyful lives that

36:16

I've ever known, especially as she

36:19

got older. I have lots of elderly

36:21

men and women in

36:25

my life who maybe became

36:27

their most beautiful when they got old,

36:30

right? And who were not spending

36:32

all their time trying to hack

36:34

life, right? Who were embracing

36:37

life the way it was intended to be. I

36:39

think about the black community

36:42

that surrounds me and how people

36:45

are prioritizing, you

36:47

know, farming. I think about

36:49

my indigenous friends who are bringing indigenous

36:52

earth practices back to the forefront. I'm

36:54

thinking about how we are, how cooking

36:57

is changing for us, right? And at

36:59

a time where some set of people

37:01

is trying to out-tech

37:04

themselves into the future,

37:06

I think many of us are

37:09

going back to the practices

37:12

that have withstood the

37:14

test of time over centuries and generations.

37:17

And so I do think that ultimately this boils

37:20

down to who are your people? Because my

37:22

people tell me that growing old is beautiful.

37:24

My people tell me that there is wisdom

37:27

in age. My people tell me that gray

37:29

hair is beautiful. One of my best friends has

37:31

a full head of gray hair and honey, you

37:34

can't go nowhere without men knocking themselves

37:36

down. They get at her. And

37:38

so I do just think that we fundamentally

37:41

have different ideas

37:44

about the end of life and aging

37:47

based on who our people are. And this dude

37:49

need to get him some new people. I will also

37:51

say that somebody needs to check this

37:53

man's basements because this is also

37:55

giving me some get out stuff.

37:57

And what

37:58

is he not telling?

37:59

telling us because I'm sure he is. I'm sure

38:01

he looked at black people and been like, what

38:03

now? Why do you, Kaya look like

38:06

that at 53?

38:07

So he might honestly go lock your door. Kaya

38:10

right now, please.

38:11

I also

38:13

want to know, I also want to know who,

38:15

what mother is letting her 18 year old son give

38:18

his blood to his daddy so that he could

38:20

live forever. But

38:22

This makes me think not to be that guy who's

38:24

like capitalism is destroying everything, right?

38:27

Lord knows people don't need excess wealth. You're

38:29

like, you know,

38:30

this is what happens when you just got all that

38:32

money, just sitting around and nothing to

38:34

help nobody. And

38:37

can't even, you're not even enjoying it out

38:39

in the world. When I first read this, I was like,

38:41

Oh, he's 80. He's not even 80. This

38:44

man 40 something you're like, buddy.

38:47

And also there's another article that I didn't put in the

38:49

chat, but there's another

38:51

billionaire who the guy who started Lulu lemon

38:54

actually has a rare

38:56

disease. And

38:58

he is single handedly funding

39:02

the pharmaceutical industry

39:04

to create medicine to attack

39:07

the disease because the pharmaceutical industry is like not

39:09

enough people get this for there to be medicine. And

39:11

he is pouring his wealth into funding

39:13

it. And it

39:15

just is a reminder that like money

39:17

is making a lot of decisions that,

39:20

you know, other things should be making is one. The

39:23

second is like, and I didn't even think

39:25

about like, where are your people as a response

39:27

to this, but that is true. Like, you

39:30

aren't even like enjoy, like part of the beauty

39:32

of life is that it is finite that you like,

39:34

no, you know, it's coming, you know. And

39:36

the question becomes, how do you make it matter

39:38

in the in the in between?

39:41

And

39:42

if if capitalism is your goal, and

39:44

you have amassed as much money as can be

39:47

gotten, I get how that would create

39:49

an anxiety like that is if that is your

39:51

animating feature in the world. I get

39:53

how when you reach that point, you're like, I just want to be a

39:56

forever because you there is no purpose.

39:58

There is no meaning like that was the one

40:00

thing and you did it. And that just

40:03

isn't what a full life looks like.

40:07

Well,

40:09

speaking of fascinating white men, my

40:13

news today is about

40:15

Hannah Crafts, who is,

40:18

was an enslaved woman

40:20

who wrote a novel

40:22

that was years, I think in 2000,

40:24

discovered by Henry Louis Gates.

40:26

And then maybe it

40:28

was even prior to 2000. And

40:31

then he, he, he then

40:35

went out Henry Louis Gates and published this manuscript.

40:38

But evidently in the literary community, there's

40:41

always been pushback like, is

40:43

this true? Could a slave,

40:46

enslaved woman really written this?

40:50

So part of this took me back to remember when we talked

40:52

about the portrait of Belazar, so

40:55

the enslaved young boy that was

40:57

in the portrait that was covered up. Right.

40:59

And part of that was like, Oh, yes,

41:02

you know, black people in nice clothes didn't exist

41:05

in the late 1800s. I mean,

41:07

it just, it blows my mind. Just like

41:09

the thought of the thought around that

41:12

black folks wouldn't have a skill set or proclivity

41:15

to, you

41:16

know, write a beautiful novel. Um,

41:19

but anyway, so this New

41:20

York Times article, which when

41:22

I saw the headline, I was like, Oh, fascinating.

41:24

And, and I actually, I need

41:26

to go by Hannah Crafts

41:28

by Henry Louis Gates is

41:31

the, the, the published novel that

41:33

he put out for Hannah Crafts. Cause I wasn't quite, I

41:35

wasn't that familiar with her. I don't know what I was doing

41:37

in 2002. I think it was in law school when

41:39

I really wasn't reading any novels. Um,

41:42

but anyway, this, this,

41:45

so

41:46

the manuscript, the, the, the, the

41:49

novel gets published.

41:51

There's all this pushback around. Can this

41:53

be true? Is this truly resource?

41:55

Yada, yada, yada.

41:57

So this

41:58

guy, Greg.

42:00

I'm going to butcher his last name,

42:03

Hesse Movich. Gray

42:05

goes on this campaign to

42:08

really prove, to prove, because

42:11

we've got to prove that this black woman

42:13

has written this

42:14

manuscript.

42:15

So he's done all these

42:17

years of research and now

42:20

has put together kind of this biography of

42:22

Hannah Crafts, who she was, but not only

42:24

that, like who her descendants are. What

42:27

you really don't get from this article is who Hannah Crafts

42:29

is, but what you get from the article

42:32

is how

42:35

grateful we're supposed to be

42:37

to Greg and his

42:39

efforts

42:42

to

42:44

legitimize this black woman.

42:48

And when you Google Hannah Crafts now,

42:50

guess whose photo pops up

42:53

with Greg's?

42:57

So I guess

42:59

my struggle in this is,

43:02

my struggle

43:04

in this is, well listen,

43:07

the article, to me I'm like, you know what, you

43:09

know, it's

43:10

for the right audience is doing what it's supposed

43:12

to be doing,

43:12

because now I'm like, I got to figure

43:15

out who Hannah Crafts is,

43:16

so that I can have my own experience

43:18

with Hannah Crafts in a way that is not seen

43:20

through the prism of this white man. And you

43:23

know, crap in my hands

43:25

that he went out and did this research,

43:27

but it's still the way, and I

43:29

remember this with the Balazar portrait,

43:32

it's the way that the information

43:34

is presented to us.

43:36

Right? It's like, we're

43:39

going to cover this story because this story

43:41

has been legitimized by a white lens,

43:44

and so therefore it is

43:46

good enough for us to bring

43:48

it to you. And

43:49

when you go into this article and you

43:51

kind of click on the articles back to 2002

43:53

when Henry Louis Gates came out,

43:56

put this, the bondswoman narrative out in the

43:58

world, All the language

44:01

around it is still slave woman this and slave

44:03

woman that so at least the New York Times Has

44:06

evolved so that now we're at least saying because

44:08

the headline of this actually just

44:10

says America's first black woman novelist

44:13

and to me

44:16

That is that is that is progress

44:19

and that it's not

44:20

you know

44:22

First novel by a slave woman

44:24

is found and da da da da So

44:26

all that to say I had lots of feels about this article

44:28

you all should read it.

44:30

I'm now

44:32

Going to spend my next couple weeks

44:34

getting into Hannah craft so I can figure out for

44:36

myself

44:39

Who this woman is and I'm

44:41

sure I will have a deep

44:43

appreciation and gratitude

44:45

for her

44:47

it will be a

44:49

Beautiful day when other people

44:53

specifically source the

44:55

white people

44:58

Actually engaged with The

45:01

black mind and imagination experience

45:03

as a tool

45:04

You know to know that like oh actually

45:06

the work is not done until the black person

45:08

has engaged with it Until

45:10

there's been other people doing it and it's an innocent

45:13

tool. It's not just What looks

45:15

good? It's not a vanity idea. It's also

45:17

a tool that Needs to

45:19

be centered because if

45:22

not this these are the kind of storytelling

45:25

things that happen and this is the kind of erasure that

45:28

that can take place but Besides

45:31

that thank you for bringing this person

45:33

to my I just I

45:35

had no idea you educated me onto

45:38

the

45:40

I will say yara.

45:42

That's not exactly how I thought this conversation

45:44

was gonna go First

45:49

of all I had never heard of Hannah

45:53

crafts, I feel like I've heard of the

45:55

bonds woman's narrative, which

45:57

is the book that she wrote

45:59

but I hadn't read it and now

46:02

I'm really, really intrigued and am

46:04

going

46:05

to pick it up. But

46:07

this story, I mean, one

46:11

thing that I will, I'll

46:13

just say in my reading of the thing

46:15

is it wasn't like

46:18

Hasamovich set out

46:20

to legitimize it. And the fact, he

46:22

thought she couldn't have written the book and

46:24

he set out to prove that she was

46:26

not the author of the book, right? Henry

46:29

Louis Gates found a manuscript

46:31

and he was like, oh yeah, this black lady wrote this novel,

46:33

I'm gonna publish it. And

46:35

the people were like, not a black lady couldn't have

46:37

written this novel. And so

46:39

they asked for the papers of her enslaver

46:42

at Mr. Professor Hasamovich's

46:45

university and he jumped in and was gonna

46:47

prove that she didn't write it. And

46:49

his research then unearthed that

46:51

in fact she did write it. And

46:55

what was interesting to me about

46:57

this

46:57

is it tells a very different

46:59

story. I mean, the book, I

47:01

wanna read the book because

47:03

apparently it really tells a first person's

47:06

account of slavery in ways that we don't usually

47:08

get to hear. Much of it very,

47:10

very gruesome in ways that somebody

47:13

described like even reasonable people

47:15

think is too much or something like that. But

47:20

this Hannah Crafts master

47:23

or the family that owned her

47:25

apparently prized literacy

47:28

amongst their slaves and taught their slaves

47:30

how to, their enslaved people how to

47:32

read and write. And that is not

47:35

a narrative that we usually get out

47:37

of slavery times. We get that

47:39

it was dangerous, that it was, you know, punishable

47:43

by death to be able to learn and read, learn

47:45

to read and write. And somehow or another, this particular

47:47

family thinks that enough

47:49

of their enslaved people to actually

47:52

educate them. In fact, one

47:54

of the criticisms as to why it

47:57

could not have been written by an enslaved person is because

48:00

it actually pulled on themes from Victorian

48:03

novels like Dickens. And

48:05

in Mr. Hesimovich's

48:08

research, he finds out that next

48:10

door to the

48:13

enslavers'

48:15

home is some kind of a

48:17

women's college or something. And they have

48:20

Bleak House, the Dickens book, in the library.

48:23

And so, and it seems like from

48:25

her writing, she could have gotten access

48:27

to the lessons from the students

48:30

and the thing. And so, for me,

48:32

it's also interesting because it provides

48:35

an alternative to the regular

48:37

narrative about

48:40

slavery and literacy,

48:43

right? And you know, I'm super interested in

48:45

education. And I mean, this

48:47

is a 304 or 305 page novel.

48:51

So

48:53

this woman had time

48:56

on her hands to write. She had

48:58

resources to write. And

49:01

he says at some point, I wonder why she didn't publish it. Well,

49:03

I don't know a whole lot of publishers at that

49:05

point who were publishing Black

49:08

people. Anything. But

49:10

I do feel like the historical

49:13

universe

49:15

gave us a little carrot

49:17

and allows us to jump into this. And

49:19

also, like, it just surfaced

49:22

some new things for me. She lived,

49:24

she escaped, panographed. And she was in North

49:26

Carolina, by the way. So this is like a really

49:29

interesting through line through our early conversation.

49:33

And she moves to Timbuktu,

49:34

an all Black settlement.

49:36

And I didn't know about Timbuktu, so I got to

49:38

do a little research on that. So I just found

49:40

this chock full of interesting information

49:43

that makes me want to learn more. And

49:46

it just shows that Black women have been killing a game since

49:48

the beginning.

49:50

D'Arra had never heard of her. This

49:52

story, your read on this, top

49:54

tier, tonight at Ten Down Notes. The only thing

49:56

I'll add is I had no clue that

49:59

this is...

49:59

only one of two

50:02

known novels by enslaved or

50:04

formerly enslaved Americans. One

50:07

of two is wild. I

50:11

mean, that's wild. So

50:13

that's nuts.

50:14

The second thing is Kaya, both of everybody

50:16

pointed out that like, you know, as

50:20

interesting as the book about Hannah

50:22

might be,

50:23

his intention was to discredit her and

50:25

we should never, ever lose sight of that. The

50:29

third thing is that when I read the piece about

50:31

Dickens, I'm like, well, maybe she taught this. You know,

50:33

like the book came out and that's, I'm like, maybe

50:36

he's up here like striking similarities.

50:39

I'm like, I'm sure he took all

50:41

them riddles from black people. I'm sure the

50:43

storytelling with the stuff that the

50:45

black woman who raised him probably

50:47

told stories in a way and he wrote it down.

50:50

That was my assumption from jump. It

50:52

was not that she borrowed,

50:53

it was that he borrowed

50:56

and he got,

50:57

and by borrowed I mean stole, he

51:00

stole a storytelling technique. And what

51:02

makes me, I was watching a very cute

51:04

video actually of this country star the

51:06

other day on TikTok. And

51:08

I was reminded that black people made that too.

51:11

I'm like, all this stuff

51:13

is black people's

51:14

who made the American project a

51:16

project. And I was

51:19

like annoyed in

51:21

my bones. Don't

51:23

go anywhere, more

51:26

positive people's coming.

51:32

To

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purchase quality. Access and review service. Welcome

52:29

back to our studio where we

52:31

have a special guest with us today, Toucan

52:33

Sam from Fruit Loops. Toucan Sam,

52:36

welcome. It's my pleasure to be here.

52:39

Oh and it's Fruit

52:41

Loops. Just so you know. Fruit.

52:44

Fruit. Yeah. Fruit.

52:47

No. It's Fruit Loops. The

52:50

same way you say studio. That's

52:54

not how we say it.

52:55

Fruit Loops by

52:57

the movie side.

53:10

This week we welcome comedian, activist

53:12

and creative visionary Amanda Seales on the pond

53:14

to talk about her new political comedy documentary

53:17

and Amanda we trust. The doc follows

53:19

Amanda in Washington DC on a journey

53:21

of curiosity to find out if she could or

53:23

should run for political office. We

53:25

also got a chance to discuss a host

53:27

of other things. Amanda is amazing

53:30

and I, it was such a good conversation. I

53:32

learned some stuff about her. I hope

53:34

we can do some cool things together because

53:37

she's dope. And

53:39

she knows a lot about black history,

53:42

about the world, about America,

53:44

has lots of politics. You'll love her.

53:47

I did. I do. Here

53:49

we go.

53:50

The one and only Amanda Seales. Thank you

53:52

so much for joining us today on Party of the People.

53:54

Thank you for having me. Well, I

53:57

love the documentary. I have a lot of questions about

53:59

some.

53:59

parts of it. But before we start there, can

54:02

you tell us like your journey, not only

54:04

to comedy but to using your voice

54:06

to talk about these societal issues,

54:09

which is not what a lot of your peers are doing.

54:11

And you have done it consistently, whether

54:13

it is the documentary, whether it's Instagram, I

54:16

actually just met somebody the other day and

54:18

he

54:18

said to me, he was like, do you know, she

54:21

has the show that's live. He's

54:23

like, I made it feel do you know her and I was like,

54:25

I've been talking to her too. So yeah, what talk

54:28

to me about that

54:31

process.

54:32

That's always been who I am. It wasn't

54:34

even a process. Like honestly, like

54:36

that's always been just

54:38

the way that

54:40

I kind of processed my art.

54:42

I think

54:45

I grew up in a Grenadian household

54:48

where literally today as we're recording, this

54:50

is the I don't like the word anniversary for

54:53

these types of things. But this was the day

54:54

that Maurice Bishop was put in front of a

54:56

firing squad and murdered in Grenada,

54:58

who was a revolutionary in Grenada, whether you

55:01

agree with what he was doing or not, he was a revolutionary. So

55:03

like I come from a revolutionary people is my point.

55:05

And I grew

55:08

up, you

55:08

know, just listening to a lot about Marley.

55:11

And I just feel like, you know, you hear redemption

55:13

song enough times, you hear Buffalo Soldier

55:16

enough times, you hear get up, stand up enough times,

55:18

like it becomes a

55:19

part of your

55:20

molecular DNA.

55:23

And so

55:24

I've just always been

55:26

somebody who was

55:28

consciously aware of

55:30

just injustice. Like I remember when I was like,

55:32

in

55:33

preschool, when I was three, the teacher told

55:35

us we were stupid. And

55:37

I came home and told my mom like, this

55:39

is an outrage. This lady told us we

55:41

were stupid, you know, and my mom

55:44

like came up in that school and was like, don't you have to call these

55:46

children stupid again.

55:47

So like, that's always been

55:49

my, my MO. And as I gained

55:54

more

55:57

knowledge and more confidence, right

55:59

and more support in my life,

56:02

it just became a lot less

56:04

of a thing that I just naturally did and like

56:06

a thing that I felt like purposeful in

56:09

doing. And I purposely

56:11

went to Columbia. I went to, I mean, I went

56:13

to grad school for African American Studies with

56:15

the very clear intention that I'm coming

56:18

here because I want to speak

56:21

for and on behalf of and

56:23

in, you know, in the empowering of my

56:25

people. And I feel like I need to have

56:28

like this academic background

56:30

to go along with what I have because I

56:32

know this country and what it's not.

56:36

And so that's always been it, you know, to be honest,

56:38

Ray, like, I don't think I

56:40

like, of course, there's been projects that I've been a part of that like

56:43

weren't

56:43

necessarily about that, you know, like, I don't feel like insecure

56:46

was like, I mean, insecure by its

56:48

nature was definitely

56:50

like a game changer, but like, it wasn't like we was

56:52

on there

56:53

talking about Palestine.

56:55

Right, right, right, right. Your

56:58

next year will be the 10 years since Ferguson. And

57:01

it has made me really think about

57:03

how much we all have learned

57:06

and grown since the August

57:08

of 2014. I'm interested in

57:10

what has that been like for you, you know, you think

57:12

about your grad school experience and learning

57:14

in the classroom and just it feels like the conversation

57:17

has just shifted so much in 10 years

57:19

in some ways and then some ways I'm like, whoo,

57:21

we are still. So what is

57:23

your journey look like and I in terms of what

57:25

you've learned I even think about the first time I

57:27

got challenged for using crazy I used to be like, that's

57:30

so crazy people like the Ray you can't keep

57:32

calling things crazy like that and I was like, oh,

57:34

I didn't even, you know, so like, ablest

57:37

language I didn't know about I think about like the conversation

57:39

about trans I've learned so much in

57:41

ways that I didn't even know I didn't know. So

57:43

I'd love to know what that has been like for you.

57:48

Sometimes I'm with it sometimes I'm like, come

57:49

on y'all. But

57:54

hey, come on.

57:56

Just because like there is I am a comedian

57:58

right so there is something to be. said for like,

58:01

everything doesn't have to be everything.

58:03

Like everything doesn't have to be couched

58:05

in.

58:06

Like when we talk about like

58:08

the PC of it all,

58:10

when people first started saying that, I was like, I don't

58:12

understand like how that's difficult for y'all

58:15

because I took it more so like, well, I'm not

58:17

out here being transphobic in my comedy and I'm

58:19

not out here being racist or

58:21

misogynist in my comedy. So like, why would that be difficult

58:23

for y'all? But then it got into,

58:25

you know, just like specific words. Like

58:27

you can't say lame because that means that

58:30

you can't say someone is tone deaf because that, et cetera,

58:32

et cetera. And so I think there's something to be said though,

58:34

for this like, there's

58:37

like a literalness that, that

58:40

I don't think necessarily serves us in the

58:42

best

58:42

way all the time. Um,

58:44

I think that there's a, there's, there's

58:47

a, there's ways in which

58:49

language can be used

58:51

that have multiple meanings. And,

58:54

um, I think that there's some things that we find

58:57

out like are derived

58:59

from

59:00

very disingenuous, very like

59:02

negative places. And then there are some things that

59:04

are simply just descriptive.

59:06

Um,

59:08

for instance, like I learned recently that like the term

59:10

tone deaf, people were like,

59:12

that's ableist. Um,

59:15

I think though there's something to be said for the

59:17

fact that like, to my understanding,

59:19

the term tone deaf did not come from

59:21

being derogatory to individuals

59:23

who are hard of hearing.

59:25

It, it came from combining

59:29

one word that means one thing and one word that means one

59:31

thing and bringing them together to mean a new thing.

59:33

And so I think there's a difference. And

59:35

I think that sometimes when we don't acknowledge that

59:38

difference, we get caught up in things that

59:40

aren't

59:42

necessarily bringing us forward. I mean, of course, somebody

59:44

who's deaf might be like, well, you know, fuck you, Amanda, how

59:46

dare you? Right? Like that, that, that

59:48

is bringing us backwards, but you asked

59:50

me. So I'm answering. I

59:53

appreciate the push. Okay. Let's talk about the documentary.

59:55

You know, I feel like I'm pretty aware

59:58

and I know people's stories and then I.

59:59

watched your conversation with Bowman

1:00:02

and I was like

1:00:03

didn't know this part of the story. I like just straight

1:00:05

up didn't I like I knew he was a teacher. I didn't

1:00:08

know the part about the

1:00:10

students, the kids who were self-harm, like didn't know

1:00:12

I like listen and I was like, oh, okay,

1:00:15

like Amanda teach me. Can you talk

1:00:17

about what led you to do the documentary?

1:00:19

You've obviously done it and you've

1:00:22

been telling the truth and telling stories and a host

1:00:24

of formats already. Why the documentary?

1:00:28

I gotta tell you I was led

1:00:31

like it like most things it's like Amanda

1:00:33

is on a mission. I'm gonna do this thing

1:00:36

and then I do it. It

1:00:39

wasn't that way with this. You know, I really set

1:00:41

out DeRay to do

1:00:44

I really set

1:00:45

out to do a stand-up special. That was the

1:00:47

plan. I was gonna do a stand-up special and

1:00:51

when that didn't

1:00:53

end up happening because I realized

1:00:56

like I didn't have the money to like do the special

1:00:58

at the level I wanted to do it. I

1:01:01

said, okay, I'm gonna take a different route and

1:01:03

I'll just use old footage but then

1:01:05

I'll do like some segments that I can put in between

1:01:08

the old footage that will like sprite spruce

1:01:10

it up. And when we went to shoot the segments,

1:01:13

we just got such an abundance of dope

1:01:15

footage that we were like,

1:01:17

huh.

1:01:18

And I kept saying, man, we got such good footage man.

1:01:21

We may not even need to stand up. You know what I'm saying? And

1:01:23

I, you know, careful what you say. Right?

1:01:26

Because then we hit a wall

1:01:28

where we realized that the previous footage that we

1:01:30

had was not the same quality in

1:01:33

terms of like the technical aspect of it. And it

1:01:35

would have looked like two different films

1:01:38

like and not in like the not in a good way,

1:01:40

not in like an artsy way. You know what I mean?

1:01:43

And so then I had to, I had to just make

1:01:45

a decision and I spoke to my director. This

1:01:48

is also the beauty of doing something independent. Like

1:01:51

I had to make a decision. You know

1:01:53

what I'm saying? Like, I didn't have to think about

1:01:55

it and then think about it. Now, how am I going to ask

1:01:58

NASA for, you know,

1:03:59

I'm happy you said that though, in terms

1:04:02

of especially the current

1:04:03

crisis that's happening around

1:04:06

watching genocide in real time.

1:04:10

What has it been, what have you learned or what has it

1:04:12

been like to teach people? What

1:04:14

have you learned about the way people do

1:04:17

think about the government or is there a

1:04:19

question that people have that you're like, oh, I thought,

1:04:22

I didn't think this is what we're going to have to spend a lot of time on, but

1:04:24

this is the thing? Are

1:04:26

people too busy to help you?

1:04:30

The number one thing that I've noticed is that people,

1:04:33

and I want to also say, none of

1:04:36

this is coming from an elitist place. I am

1:04:38

learning as I'm teaching. I

1:04:41

am somebody who had disassociated

1:04:43

myself from politics because I was so down with Trump

1:04:46

and then realized, yeah,

1:04:48

you don't get to do that, especially as a black person

1:04:50

in America. You simply just don't get to do that. The

1:04:53

more you disassociate, trust

1:04:55

me, you associate it. I've

1:05:00

had to immerse myself and learn. I

1:05:03

think the thing that

1:05:05

was very revelatory for me that seemed

1:05:07

oddly obvious but that I was missing and

1:05:09

that I think a lot of us are missing is that

1:05:13

these are not simply politicians.

1:05:17

These are lawmakers.

1:05:21

When we think politician at this point,

1:05:23

I think a lot of us just think

1:05:26

people who act like Hollywood

1:05:29

in DC.

1:05:30

Interesting.

1:05:32

I mean, we had a reality

1:05:34

star as a president. That to me is where

1:05:36

I think a lot of people look

1:05:39

at it. Even if it's not in DC or

1:05:41

it's local, it's almost as if people

1:05:43

look at it just like a job

1:05:46

description

1:05:47

versus there being an

1:05:49

actual action behind

1:05:51

it that directly affects you. I know

1:05:53

that we've said this, we've said this, we've said

1:05:55

this, but I think that the fact that we

1:05:57

refer to people as politicians

1:07:59

in mass as national policy. And

1:08:02

they were like, I

1:08:03

didn't learn that. And they're like, did we? And I'm

1:08:05

like, yes, we did that. You did.

1:08:07

And you know what, we did learn it, but

1:08:09

it was contextualized as benevolence. And

1:08:12

it was not contextualized that at

1:08:15

the same time we were doing that, we were denying

1:08:17

black people home. We were denying

1:08:19

former slaves homes. So that's how we

1:08:21

end up getting this disingenuous schooling

1:08:24

is that things are not taught within

1:08:26

the comprehensive point of view. They're just taught like

1:08:28

individual things, we're taught, oh, Lois

1:08:31

and Clark, men of his destiny. They

1:08:33

went across America. It's like, yeah, but you left out the part

1:08:35

where they were also

1:08:38

leading the way for there to be massacres of

1:08:41

indigenous people in America. Like you left that

1:08:43

part.

1:08:44

Absolutely.

1:08:45

And. Or reconstruction. I didn't even

1:08:47

know reconstruction was a thing across an adult. Don't get me started. Don't

1:08:50

get me started. Zero, I had never heard it. Had you heard about it in high

1:08:52

school? I didn't even know reconstruction was a

1:08:54

period of time. I did.

1:08:56

DeRay. two months

1:08:58

ago on a Delta flight. Don't get me started.

1:09:01

Shut up. Really? Sir,

1:09:03

sir.

1:09:05

I have a master's in African-American

1:09:08

studies and I did not understand

1:09:10

the, like reconstruction was a word

1:09:12

that

1:09:13

I heard applied to

1:09:17

there was this civil war and now the civil war was over

1:09:19

and they had to reconstruct.

1:09:21

I mean.

1:09:24

They had, that's essentially, it wasn't

1:09:26

until I was on this

1:09:28

Delta flight and I started watching these, these

1:09:31

videos, a part of this masterclass series

1:09:33

called, I think it's called like black history,

1:09:35

freedom and love. And they

1:09:37

did this in 2020, but they have it like, it's still a masterclass

1:09:40

and it's still on Delta. And it has like these

1:09:42

like 10

1:09:43

to 15 minute videos about various

1:09:45

topics. They did three seasons. They have people delivering

1:09:47

these videos like Nicole Hannah Jones,

1:09:49

professor, Kimberly Crenshaw, Cheryl and Eiffel,

1:09:52

Cornel West. I mean,

1:09:54

Angela Davis, like, I mean, they have

1:09:56

like an elite group here, right? So I

1:09:59

was just like, let me get some.

1:09:59

Let me get some knowledge real quick on this slide. Let me get some

1:10:02

knowledge real quick. Cause none of these movies, I've seen all these movies.

1:10:05

So I just was like, oh, let me see this video

1:10:06

on reconstruction.

1:10:09

What? Like

1:10:11

I sat there in shock

1:10:13

and in awe

1:10:18

that what I was witnessing was the

1:10:21

true, like the

1:10:23

holes of my scholarship, like these

1:10:25

gaping wide chasms of my scholarship.

1:10:28

To the point where then I went and started

1:10:31

reading

1:10:32

this book by Eric Foner about

1:10:34

the reconstruction. Who is the scholar, he is the

1:10:37

reconstruction guy. Still alive. I

1:10:39

was like, if you go do it, like do it.

1:10:42

So I started reading

1:10:43

the second founding by

1:10:45

Eric Foner and you just start to truly

1:10:47

understand something. And let me tell you the

1:10:49

key thing that I grasped from this. There's a couple of key

1:10:52

things, if you don't mind me.

1:10:53

Come on, teach us.

1:10:55

One, it

1:10:56

has been the Supreme

1:10:59

court every time

1:11:02

that has prevented this country from

1:11:04

moving towards a democracy it claims

1:11:06

within its constitution to be

1:11:09

in pursuance of.

1:11:10

So when I say that is that the constitution

1:11:13

was written at the time for landowning white men, but

1:11:15

it was written in a way that had

1:11:17

like,

1:11:19

it had like looser language

1:11:21

that

1:11:21

was like. Like breathing room.

1:11:24

So then when after the civil war, when they were

1:11:26

like, okay, here's the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments, here

1:11:28

you all get to be citizens, here you all get to vote.

1:11:31

And now here you all, you get

1:11:33

to just live in America.

1:11:35

There was language, the language was

1:11:37

very loose in those too. And

1:11:40

the Supreme court, the Congress, there

1:11:42

were people in Congress who were like, this language is too

1:11:44

loose.

1:11:45

Like if we're really gonna move towards equity,

1:11:47

we need to like protect black people very

1:11:50

deliberately in this language. The Supreme court

1:11:52

was like, nah, we're not gonna do that. Y'all can't do that.

1:11:55

And the Supreme court was like you as Congress, you

1:11:57

don't have the power

1:11:58

to protect black people.

1:12:01

But they gave that same Congress the power

1:12:04

to support slave owners with the Dred Scott case

1:12:06

and say that slave owners could come to free states

1:12:08

and take people and bring them back if they think that their slaves

1:12:10

were escaped. So when we look at

1:12:13

what's going on with our Supreme Court now, we

1:12:15

have to understand that this is not necessarily

1:12:17

just an American problem. This is an

1:12:20

actual hierarchical problem where we

1:12:22

have what's taught as checks and balances, except

1:12:24

for them.

1:12:26

Except for them. And they have been the problem

1:12:28

every time. And we have been tricked into thinking that

1:12:30

it's been the president that's a problem, or it's been

1:12:32

the Congress that's a problem. And I'm not saying they haven't been problematic,

1:12:35

but they have only been able to get away with it by

1:12:38

nature of the Supreme Court saying,

1:12:41

go ahead. Actually, you know what, let's just give it to the states. Let's

1:12:43

just give it to the states. Let's just give it to the states. So that was

1:12:45

one.

1:12:46

Two, I didn't think that I

1:12:49

just feel like I thought that there was like the Civil

1:12:51

War and then we just went straight into Jim Crow. And that's simply

1:12:53

just not the case. Like literally

1:12:56

not the case at all. Not the case.

1:12:57

Again, those 13, 14, the

1:13:00

15th Amendment allowed for rights, but what

1:13:03

it did do, it

1:13:05

forced black people though, and this happened again

1:13:07

with the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Act and the Housing Rights

1:13:09

Act, it forced black people to hold America

1:13:11

accountable. So they had these laws

1:13:14

in place, but because they didn't create something

1:13:16

that said that we as America

1:13:19

have to hold these laws in place, it said that if

1:13:21

you want to challenge this, if someone

1:13:23

does some sideways shit, you're the one

1:13:25

who's going to have to bring it to the Supreme Court, which

1:13:27

honestly, it's like, okay, so y'all wouldn't

1:13:30

let us read and now we got to be lawyers.

1:13:32

Like how

1:13:32

that works.

1:13:35

But the reason why this is so really

1:13:37

important though is because

1:13:40

they took our rights back

1:13:44

and not enough people understand

1:13:46

how easily that was done and how quickly.

1:13:49

Like there was 20 years of like, okay, like

1:13:51

we are here. And black people were on the up. On

1:13:54

the up. They're a part of government. We're

1:13:56

seeing the worrying 20s. Like, you know, okay, okay, we're moving, we're moving. And

1:13:58

then they were like, ah.

1:13:59

Y'all getting too hyped. Let's

1:14:02

tone it down. And that's when we see

1:14:04

the Fugitive Slave Law. I mean, sorry, that's when we see,

1:14:06

you know, Green Book pop up because you have

1:14:09

Jim Crow, which is really simply just apartheid

1:14:11

and we keep calling it Jim Crow, but it really is apartheid. And

1:14:13

so like those two things

1:14:16

were very just illuminating for

1:14:18

me because I

1:14:21

feel like those are huge themes

1:14:23

that we've seen consistently and that are like

1:14:26

rearing their ugly heads. And if

1:14:28

we learn from history, then we can prevent

1:14:30

it. But if we don't know it, we can't. Yep.

1:14:33

It's interesting. One of the things that stuck

1:14:35

with me about Reconstruction was the amount

1:14:37

of black wealth. And as you just said,

1:14:40

people had it and it was taken away.

1:14:43

Like money did not protect black people.

1:14:45

No rich black people got screwed

1:14:47

like everybody else. They got laid in. Yes.

1:14:50

And I'm looking at this moment, like there are black people who really

1:14:53

think that they're little millions. It's protection.

1:14:55

And I'm like, we actually have, I didn't know this before,

1:14:58

but I'm like, we did this. We, we've been here

1:15:00

before. We were mayors.

1:15:03

We ran cities. We ran

1:15:05

towns. Yes.

1:15:07

Yeah. Snatched away. Snatched

1:15:09

and snatched

1:15:11

because the white people became

1:15:13

more and more belligerent in

1:15:15

their feeling that we didn't deserve it. There,

1:15:18

there

1:15:19

are you looking around? Because that's what I'm seeing. Absolutely.

1:15:21

We've been here before.

1:15:24

So it's very, it's when you start

1:15:26

studying, it's

1:15:29

like tragic and empowering at the same time,

1:15:32

because I do feel certain level of empowerment

1:15:34

and like,

1:15:36

okay,

1:15:37

I feel like I'm seeing play. You know what it feels

1:15:39

like? It feels like I'm like on a field, not

1:15:42

that kind of field. And I'm learning like

1:15:45

the playbook. And so now like I have like a

1:15:47

lot more ways in which to defeat this opponent, because

1:15:49

now I have more plays in my

1:15:51

coffer, like to pull from. But nonetheless,

1:15:54

you know, we're, we're constantly

1:15:56

working just against ignorance. Like that's what we're really,

1:15:58

really up against. I mean, even like you

1:15:59

said like just the fact that so many people

1:16:02

feel like

1:16:03

well if I have money we're good they

1:16:06

don't want you you have never been wanted

1:16:08

here

1:16:09

you have never been wanted here

1:16:11

they have only wanted you for for they have

1:16:14

only wanted you for labor you

1:16:18

know what you don't need any more work to do you have a full

1:16:20

play and you know

1:16:22

amazing damn it but let me tell you that if you

1:16:26

wanted to I think you

1:16:28

would be a phenomenal and camping zero

1:16:31

would do this with you like not

1:16:33

book clubs but like reading clubs

1:16:35

reading groups like I think

1:16:38

there are some essays out there that people just

1:16:40

need you know like right

1:16:42

now if you were trying to read an essay

1:16:44

where would you go like who would you you need people to

1:16:46

talk about it with right and I think a lot of

1:16:48

people don't have a they don't have a home

1:16:51

group to do that do you know what I mean and

1:16:53

I think that you are a

1:16:54

clear storyteller who

1:16:58

who people trust

1:17:00

who could bring in a set

1:17:02

of people who otherwise wouldn't feel like they

1:17:04

can pretend it's one of the issues we have on you know we do

1:17:06

all this technical work on the police and people

1:17:08

just don't feel like they can talk about police unions they're like I don't

1:17:11

know about unions I don't know about labor so we have to create

1:17:13

entrances for them and I think you're just

1:17:15

a really good entrance maker so that is my

1:17:17

that is my

1:17:19

not even a plug that's

1:17:21

just a sight but I actually want

1:17:22

to connect you to somebody who

1:17:26

is trying to do this

1:17:28

already and somebody and they are the

1:17:31

most reputable actually um

1:17:33

and I just don't want to put them out there right

1:17:35

now but they're trying to do this and

1:17:38

I would love to be in partnership with them in doing this

1:17:40

um

1:17:41

but the reality is you're you're so right

1:17:43

like there are a lot of people who do

1:17:45

want to know and like be be

1:17:49

we need like salons you know

1:17:51

what I mean like remember they have salons

1:17:53

and they would have these salons so that we could

1:17:55

like talk about things and like

1:17:58

you know ideate and

1:17:59

And, and,

1:18:02

and philosophize, you don't know, cause that's

1:18:04

the other thing too. It's like,

1:18:06

because of this internet

1:18:08

and it's immediacy, people expect everybody

1:18:10

to show up with thoughts fully formed and,

1:18:12

you know, just

1:18:14

no level of real like

1:18:16

exploration. So I try, you

1:18:18

know, to let people know, like,

1:18:20

you might hear some thoughts from me that are in process,

1:18:24

you know, and, and I think it's important

1:18:27

to do that. And we don't have safe spaces to do that,

1:18:29

right? Like this week is actually a great

1:18:31

example of people who started the week one way.

1:18:33

Absolutely. And you need good facilitators

1:18:35

too, who can like hold the space and push and

1:18:38

acknowledge and say, okay, man, I see

1:18:40

what you're doing. Let me connect that, you know, like, so

1:18:42

I think that's, I think that is real. I

1:18:45

want to know too, talking about this week, you

1:18:48

know, there

1:18:50

are moments where people, the public conversation

1:18:53

is very intense. There's some things

1:18:55

where the public conversation is

1:18:57

full, but not intense. This is one where like,

1:19:00

there seems to be a real line around the Israel

1:19:02

palace. I've never been able to make it over this. Okay.

1:19:05

Really? Yeah. So

1:19:09

how do you wade

1:19:11

through these moments where people

1:19:14

feel very, very strongly

1:19:17

on both sides?

1:19:19

How has that been for you? You can feel strongly,

1:19:21

but you got to know what you know.

1:19:25

And so that's what I've been telling, because, you know, people

1:19:26

be calling me DeRay. I'm

1:19:28

going to be calling me.

1:19:30

Amanda. I

1:19:32

mean, I know you're funny, you're a comedian,

1:19:34

but. Baby,

1:19:37

they be calling me. Girl, what

1:19:39

is all of this?

1:19:42

You know, cause I saw,

1:19:43

et cetera, and now

1:19:45

I'm understanding

1:19:46

X, Y, Z.

1:19:48

And I'm like, I know, I know.

1:19:51

They're like, can you send me some videos?

1:19:53

I'm like, let me send you some links.

1:19:55

And I love

1:19:59

seeing people have a.

1:19:59

oratiousness for information, at the

1:20:02

very least so that they don't

1:20:05

get canceled for no reason. But

1:20:10

I think, you know, listen, there is a lot

1:20:12

of feelings, but one thing that you get afforded

1:20:15

if it's not necessarily like directly related

1:20:17

to you is the opportunity to have objectivism,

1:20:20

okay? And objectivity at the

1:20:22

end of the day is going to be informed by

1:20:24

facts. I mean, that's just where it lives.

1:20:27

That's the whole point of it.

1:20:28

So once you start studying facts,

1:20:31

you know, there's really

1:20:32

just a very clear

1:20:35

understanding that's here because

1:20:38

it's not new.

1:20:38

This

1:20:41

is not new. It

1:20:43

looked different,

1:20:44

but it's still the same formula. You

1:20:46

know, it's like

1:20:48

in the Wu Tang, it's like on the purple tape

1:20:50

when Ghostface is like, I got a whole new way to do clocks.

1:20:53

I got a whole new way. What we're going to do is we're

1:20:55

going to do this side

1:20:57

blue, but wait for it, wait for it.

1:20:59

On this side, we're going to do cream. So it's

1:21:01

going to be like

1:21:03

blue and cream, which is

1:21:05

oddly fascinating how that actually lines

1:21:07

up with this because that was not even intentional.

1:21:13

But it still clarks. You understand what I'm saying? Like

1:21:15

it's still the thing. It looks different,

1:21:17

but it's still the thing. And that's what we're looking at right now.

1:21:20

Like it's still colonialism. It just looks

1:21:22

different. And we know that that's the way things

1:21:24

go in the world, right? Like things evolve.

1:21:28

Things evolve, but they're still attached to like a

1:21:30

certain level of principles and behaviors that

1:21:32

identify them as such. And when

1:21:35

you've studied enough or you've lived enough and you've seen

1:21:38

it enough, it doesn't take much to be able to identify

1:21:40

it in something else. And so that's

1:21:42

really where I've been trying to encourage people to go is

1:21:44

just go to the facts.

1:21:47

Before I ask you this question about

1:21:49

Isabella, are you a Wu Tang scholar?

1:21:52

I mean, I like to think so.

1:21:53

Because you asked Bowman that question. You

1:21:56

asked Bowman a... Oh, I did ask him about

1:21:58

the Wu. You know, because the Wu is...

1:21:59

a very grounding,

1:22:02

like starting point for someone's true

1:22:04

hip hopness. I tried to date somebody

1:22:07

who told me they were a hip hop head and then I asked them,

1:22:09

I like asked them like, no,

1:22:11

they said they were hip hop head and then they, and then they

1:22:14

said, but I don't really know about like Wu Tang or anything.

1:22:16

And I was just like, get out of my house.

1:22:18

What are we, what

1:22:20

are we even talking about? So like, I was like, that was

1:22:22

a, when he answered it right, I was like, thank you, Boma,

1:22:24

because this is an awkward start to the

1:22:26

interview.

1:22:27

You know what though, let me tell

1:22:29

you that interview, those interviews really

1:22:32

showed me that I like really grown as an interviewer

1:22:34

and I've been doing my small doses podcast now for like

1:22:36

five years since 2018.

1:22:39

And I was really proud of myself

1:22:42

because I really love that you said like,

1:22:44

you didn't know that about Jibon Boman. You didn't know

1:22:46

about his, his, his, his

1:22:48

journey to being a representative.

1:22:51

And I feel like that was able to come out because a safe

1:22:53

space was created. Right. And like,

1:22:55

that's hard as an interviewer, like sometimes

1:22:58

because especially like people like that, like

1:23:00

they always be interviewed, you know what I'm saying? They're kind

1:23:02

of always coming with like, I'm here to do lifts. I'm going

1:23:04

to say these things. I'm going to do these things. And

1:23:06

I was like, we're not going to do that.

1:23:08

And I don't want to give away. Y'all need to watch the documentary,

1:23:11

but the moment where you ask him, what was the moment

1:23:14

and you don't let him off. And I was like,

1:23:16

I was like, I can see, I can

1:23:18

see you in this place with your wife and them kids.

1:23:21

So the reason why

1:23:22

I like to ask folks that, cause I asked

1:23:24

Mary Ann Williamson that she refused to answer it.

1:23:26

Like flat out. Interesting. She refused

1:23:29

to answer it and she was offended by the question.

1:23:31

Wait, I didn't, I didn't miss that in the documentary. Did I?

1:23:33

No, that's on my podcast.

1:23:35

Okay. I was like, I did watch. Okay.

1:23:37

I was like, I thought

1:23:39

I wanted to answer

1:23:42

it. She refused to answer it. She

1:23:44

wouldn't answer it. I asked her three different times in three

1:23:46

different ways. She wouldn't answer it because she was like,

1:23:49

I didn't just come up with this just on a random day.

1:23:51

And it's like, well,

1:23:52

everyone does though.

1:23:54

It arrives, like it arrives, right?

1:23:56

Like I, and the example I gave her was that Corey Bush

1:23:58

told me that like, you know, three different

1:23:59

people had approached her about running and

1:24:02

she was like, nah.

1:24:03

And then the last time she was like,

1:24:05

well, let's talk,

1:24:07

right? Like you make a you make a decision That

1:24:11

is a fact Mary Ann Williamson But

1:24:13

there's a humanity in that right and

1:24:16

there's there's a human there's a groundedness

1:24:18

in like where that decision came from

1:24:20

and why that decision happened and we are at

1:24:22

a very critical time where people are starting

1:24:24

to Really realize

1:24:27

like what we need to elect

1:24:29

people but there's like this morality that

1:24:31

people want and Like

1:24:34

how do we reconcile the two because

1:24:36

the space itself is immoral?

1:24:38

and so like it's a

1:24:40

question that I feel like in a very quick way helps

1:24:43

to

1:24:44

illuminate someone's like

1:24:46

Just humanity as it relates

1:24:49

to their public servitude because

1:24:51

he wasn't you know He was literally watching his kids

1:24:53

playing in the water Like I mean, you know, I mean like it wasn't

1:24:55

like it away not me. Okay. I was trying

1:24:57

not to say you're right my bad

1:25:00

Yeah, but like the way it unfolds is

1:25:02

beautiful so go to an Amanda we trust

1:25:04

I'm assuming people disagree with

1:25:07

your

1:25:07

position about Israel and Palestine

1:25:09

in this moment and How

1:25:12

has how have you managed that disagreement? Oh

1:25:17

I'm just resolute.

1:25:19

I'm just like what are you disagreeing with?

1:25:23

Because if you're trying to tell me I'm anti-Semitic that it's completely

1:25:25

wholeheartedly and 100% untrue and I will

1:25:27

simply just not accept false assertions It

1:25:32

anti-Semitism

1:25:33

would mean that I do not believe

1:25:35

in

1:25:36

The rights of Jewish

1:25:38

people to exist in this world It

1:25:41

would believe that I don't see their humanity. It would believe

1:25:43

that I don't see their access

1:25:45

to joy as something deserving and I

1:25:49

can believe that how things deserve all those things and

1:25:51

that Jewish people deserve all those things and

1:25:54

at the same time identify the

1:25:56

Israeli government impeding upon

1:25:59

how Palestinians doing those things

1:26:01

as a problem. I can do all of those things at the same

1:26:03

time and I can chew gum

1:26:05

and then there's also just like the the

1:26:07

reality that a lot of people

1:26:09

are not

1:26:11

connected to their humanity anymore and

1:26:15

You're not going to try and convince me

1:26:17

to

1:26:18

disconnect from mine

1:26:24

You're not also gonna convince me to disconnect

1:26:26

from just

1:26:28

history and

1:26:29

balls and

1:26:31

I I already know the

1:26:33

world that we're in we are in a white supremacist

1:26:36

world. That is the world we're in We are

1:26:38

in a white supremacist colonial capitalist

1:26:40

world. So that's a context that

1:26:43

we're in and you cannot just just

1:26:46

You can't just like Take

1:26:48

something like obfuscate obfuscate that

1:26:50

like the fact is what it is what it is

1:26:53

And so you have to look at everything within that lens

1:26:56

and when you said earlier like everything is about race

1:27:00

It is

1:27:02

It is this is where we are, you know, like

1:27:04

I mean we're we're

1:27:06

So that's so that's my response I

1:27:08

mean I I will tell

1:27:10

you that I have been very

1:27:11

very very very fortunate that I haven't had

1:27:14

any of my like professional I

1:27:18

haven't had any of my professional spaces Marred

1:27:21

or questioned in my defense of

1:27:23

What's going on?

1:27:25

I I also believe I've

1:27:27

built a life where I am expected

1:27:29

to speak in in these truths

1:27:33

And I stand on that and I feel very guided

1:27:35

by a higher power to do that and very protected

1:27:38

I also feel protected by the people, you know,

1:27:40

I see Davis said never stick

1:27:41

your neck out deeper than your feet are rooted in The people

1:27:44

he told me that's in my face at purchase.

1:27:46

Come on. Come on. Come on Let

1:27:50

him know let him I didn't read that I didn't read that I

1:27:52

heard it I heard it Okay,

1:27:55

I was told it. I got a complete pearly pearly

1:27:57

victorious on Broadway, by the way his play

1:27:59

Oh, do you mean pearly

1:28:01

that I started at Dr. Phillips High School in 1999? That

1:28:03

was a

1:28:04

No, production. Why do

1:28:06

you feel everybody? Missy

1:28:08

Judson walking up

1:28:11

like that. What we're talking about? Are we talking about?

1:28:14

Are we talking about that pearly victorious that we actually

1:28:15

had to bring back at the end of the year because it was

1:28:17

so successful in the beginning of the school year

1:28:19

that we had to bring it back and it is a literal

1:28:22

like legacy production. Are we talking about pearly

1:28:24

victorious that starred Michael James Scott, who is currently

1:28:26

playing the role of the genie in Aladdin on Broadway?

1:28:28

Are we talking about that really? Maybe we're

1:28:31

maybe we're talking about the pearly that we then took to

1:28:33

the state competition and blew everyone away. Or

1:28:35

I think I actually think you're talking about

1:28:37

the pearly that I will be attending. And

1:28:39

that at the end of the show, we'll be sitting

1:28:41

on a panel with Kimberly

1:28:44

Crenshaw who invited me there

1:28:46

to have a talk back with Leslie

1:28:48

Odom Jr.

1:28:49

I think that

1:28:51

is that might be I think

1:28:53

it might be that one. Down

1:28:55

home.

1:28:56

Look at God. I love it.

1:28:59

Very serious. It is a small

1:29:01

good black world. It is. There

1:29:03

are two questions we ask everybody. The

1:29:05

first is what do you say to people Amanda

1:29:08

who who's hope is challenging

1:29:10

these moments who are like I came to your

1:29:12

live show. I listened to your podcast. I watched

1:29:14

the videos. I share the videos. I read

1:29:16

the book. I went to the talk

1:29:19

and still I'm like the world ain't changed.

1:29:21

I want to do what do you say to those people?

1:29:27

Um, I've been

1:29:29

working on that.

1:29:30

I've been working on what to say because

1:29:37

this is a time where I feel like many people

1:29:39

are expecting

1:29:39

to see the change that they

1:29:41

wish to be.

1:29:45

But you really just have to be the change that

1:29:47

you hope the future sees.

1:29:49

And that has to be enough.

1:29:52

And the only way for that to be enough is

1:29:54

for you to tap into your spirit and soul

1:29:57

and because it requires selflessness.

1:30:00

And we have been trained to be selfish, which

1:30:02

is why this world is descending

1:30:04

into madness Which is why our climate

1:30:07

is?

1:30:08

You know changing because of our pressure

1:30:12

because of our

1:30:14

greed wrote we

1:30:17

lost we have lost sight of the

1:30:21

idea of the reality

1:30:22

that we're all connected and

1:30:25

I

1:30:26

like to think that the ancient people

1:30:29

even if they didn't know that there were other

1:30:31

people they knew that they themselves

1:30:33

were connected and so they

1:30:36

Had to operate a certain way And of course like we

1:30:38

study these we study these ancient

1:30:40

civilizations and we find things

1:30:42

that are abhorrent etc Because humans themselves

1:30:44

are just really ridiculous

1:30:45

beings,

1:30:47

but I think we're at a time where the world is

1:30:50

drastically trying to shift and

1:30:53

It's going to require

1:30:57

It's just going to require us to say I

1:31:01

Want to feel good that my

1:31:03

spirit that's going to live

1:31:04

after me

1:31:06

Feels good about what I did here and

1:31:08

that really is what I can offer people

1:31:10

that we are not going to see

1:31:13

The change to the extent that we want to see it. I

1:31:15

do not believe that I'm not going to mislead people You

1:31:18

know when I tell people about voting. I'm like you're

1:31:20

not voting for a person you're voting for a path

1:31:23

That's what we're voting for That's the

1:31:26

next t-shirt y'all That's

1:31:28

the next t-shirt. I've now worked

1:31:31

for Amanda Seals everybody The

1:31:34

unpaid consultant

1:31:37

Listen like

1:31:38

People want to vote for Jesus and

1:31:41

he's not running for office Great,

1:31:43

you

1:31:44

know like this has never been a moral high ground.

1:31:46

So it's weird to apply It's

1:31:49

not weird. I understand why people are applying morality

1:31:51

because they're like, well, I want someone who's going to

1:31:56

Honor the things that they said they were running on

1:31:59

and in order for me to feel confident

1:32:01

about, you know, trusting that they're going to do that,

1:32:03

I'll have to

1:32:03

trust that they're a moral person. I get

1:32:05

that not. The

1:32:08

problem though is that

1:32:10

there would have to be an entire deconstructing of

1:32:12

our political system for us

1:32:14

to, you know, be able to fully trust

1:32:16

that. So I guess what I really want to just come back to

1:32:19

is that we got to lean into

1:32:22

love. That sounds corny, but that's really,

1:32:25

you got to lean into love and that

1:32:28

is really the best thing

1:32:30

that you can do for you and for

1:32:32

the future. And if you want to be selfish,

1:32:34

then I can also inform you that you probably

1:32:37

going to have to come back to this bitch. So the best thing

1:32:39

you can do is set it

1:32:39

up for a return. And

1:32:43

then my favorite question is what's

1:32:45

a piece of advice that you've gotten over the years that stuck

1:32:47

with you?

1:32:48

Well, that Aussie quote is definitely one. This

1:32:50

is going to be really, really, really, really, really corny, but

1:32:53

be yourself. Be

1:32:57

yourself. And it is

1:32:59

so difficult

1:33:01

for so many of us to be ourselves.

1:33:03

First of all, a lot of us don't even know who we are.

1:33:06

So be yourself is really actually

1:33:08

a very deep statement. I

1:33:12

heard something else recently that I thought

1:33:14

was really just like obvious

1:33:18

but impactful. And it was the love of

1:33:20

your life

1:33:21

is the love of your life.

1:33:25

The love of your life

1:33:27

is the love

1:33:28

of your life. Okay, okay,

1:33:31

okay, okay. Come on. Preach, preach,

1:33:33

preach.

1:33:35

And

1:33:37

you know, I recently got out of a long relationship

1:33:40

and I think that one of the main things

1:33:42

that

1:33:43

caused our relationship to eventually dissolve

1:33:45

was that I really love my life and

1:33:48

I really love

1:33:50

myself. And that wasn't always the

1:33:52

case, but I did the work to

1:33:54

get there

1:33:55

and I will

1:33:57

not abandon myself.

1:33:59

and he wasn't there.

1:34:04

And so it's like, we can't

1:34:06

exist. We can't coexist in

1:34:08

that space, right? But

1:34:11

that phrase, the love of your life is the love of

1:34:13

your life, was so impactful to me because it really

1:34:15

said to me,

1:34:19

it's about you loving your life.

1:34:22

And so many of us feel like we're spending

1:34:24

our whole life looking for someone to love us.

1:34:26

Yes.

1:34:29

You can love you.

1:34:31

On that note, preach, preacher, preach. Everybody,

1:34:33

this is the one and only Amanda Seals. Please

1:34:36

go watch InamandaWeTrust.

1:34:38

Go to inamandabetrust.com and

1:34:40

get it.

1:34:42

And we consider you a friend

1:34:44

of the pod and can't wait to have you back.

1:34:46

Thank you, and I'm not sure when this is gonna air, but

1:34:48

I'll be doing a

1:34:48

screening of InamandaWeTrust in Los Angeles on

1:34:50

November 19th at the Hollywood

1:34:53

Improv.

1:34:54

And when I do the screenings, we give away

1:34:56

free stuff.

1:34:57

We do political trivia. I do

1:34:59

a Q&A. It's always a really good intellectual

1:35:02

black ass time. Well,

1:35:05

that's

1:35:05

it. Thanks so much for tuning in to Positive People this week.

1:35:07

Tell your friends to check it out and make sure you

1:35:09

rate it wherever you get your podcasts, whether it's Apple

1:35:11

Podcasts or somewhere else. And we'll

1:35:14

see you next week. Positive People is a production

1:35:16

of Quicken Media. It's produced by AJ Moultrie

1:35:19

and mixed by Evan Titt. Executive produced

1:35:21

by me. Special thanks to our weekly contributors,

1:35:24

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