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for the love of home. Hey,

0:34

this

0:36

is DeRay and welcome to Positiv the People. In this

0:38

episode, it's me, Miles and Kaya,

0:40

talking about the news that you don't

0:42

know or didn't hear with regard to

0:44

race justice, inequity, and culture. Here

0:47

we go. Happy March! In

0:49

this week, we continue our conversation on the

0:51

Blackest Book Club reading list. Our question this

0:54

week is which Black author would you like

0:56

to interview on the podcast? And

0:58

join the book club

1:01

if you haven't already.

1:03

Visit recon.today.blackest-book-club. Here we

1:05

go. Happy

1:12

Women's History Month! The Cricut store

1:15

is celebrating with a shop featuring

1:17

favorites from women of color founded

1:19

companies and authors. Cricut Media's She-Commerce

1:21

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1:34

Check out what's in stock at

1:36

cricut.com/store for this month only. Welcome,

1:42

welcome, welcome, friends to Positiv the

1:44

People. We're in for another

1:46

episode and super excited to be with

1:48

you. I'm Kaya Henderson. You can find me

1:50

on Twitter at HendersonKaya. I'm LZ

1:52

Johnson. You can find me on

1:55

Instagram and Twitter and TikTok at

1:57

PharrellRapture. And this is Derae at DIA.

2:00

on Twitter. Welcome, friends.

2:02

We are jumping straight into some

2:04

news that's been going on. I

2:07

wanted to get all y'all opinions. I've

2:09

seen the Wendy Williams doc. It's one

2:11

of those interesting stories where you're observing

2:13

something happening. It's sad, but also, and

2:16

I think Wendy even would tell you

2:18

this, that she would not give anybody

2:20

any grace of privacy during this time.

2:22

She maybe even would hawk in. So

2:25

the Lifetime documentary has gotten,

2:28

like, record views and

2:30

viewership. It's, like, their highest

2:32

rated documentary from the last thing

2:34

that I saw. And it's

2:36

all about them thinking they're

2:38

gonna be taping something about Wendy Williams

2:41

and her comeback and her doing a

2:43

podcast. And they slowly, and pretty immediately,

2:45

I don't know how slowly it was

2:47

actually, but, like, they immediately see that

2:49

something's wrong with Wendy and her faculties

2:52

and the team around her. And the

2:54

documentary takes a whole turn into really

2:57

talking about her alcoholism, the team

2:59

around her, and eventually that she

3:01

has alcohol-induced dementia.

3:05

I wanted to get you all's thoughts on this. What do

3:08

y'all think? Did y'all see it? I hope y'all watched it.

3:10

You know, I was interested, I saw a clip, and

3:13

it made me sad, and I was like, I can't do anymore. But

3:15

it was really interesting to me that Lifetime released

3:18

a statement saying that if they knew that she

3:20

had dementia, they would not have done it. It

3:22

doesn't even remotely sound believable to me. And when

3:24

I saw that, I was like, hmm, she

3:26

looked like she has dementia from the beginning you guys

3:28

started filming. So I just wanted to add

3:30

that. So one, let me see, I

3:32

agree with you, Miles. If this was happening

3:35

to somebody else and Wendy was at her

3:37

peak, she would be all over this reporting

3:39

on it, would not give people grace

3:41

and whatnot. So I understand people's general

3:44

empathy, like we don't want to see

3:46

people this way, but I think it's

3:48

particularly ironic that it's Wendy Williams. Listen,

3:50

on my little friend thread, everybody was like,

3:52

let me tell y'all something, girls, don't have

3:54

me on the TV looking crazy. I

3:58

think it is a good conversation. to

4:00

have with your people about who

4:03

is taking control and who's in charge

4:05

when things go to the left because

4:07

this manager and publicist and whoever else

4:09

who, if you noticed, I don't know

4:11

if you noticed this Miles when you

4:13

watched it, but the manager is actually

4:16

one of the executive producers on the

4:18

documentary. So that dude is making him some

4:20

money off of this. He knew exactly what he was

4:22

doing from Trump. This is Nada. Oh,

4:24

she's coming back. One of the things

4:26

that was really interesting to me if you have never seen

4:28

somebody who has

4:31

alcohol induced dementia, if that's what we're

4:33

calling it or Graves disease or cocaine

4:36

addiction or edema, it

4:38

was we tell people

4:41

don't do drugs. We tell people don't drink. We

4:43

tell people don't do all of

4:45

these things, but the physical manifestations

4:47

were jarring. And I think that

4:49

it actually think it's good for people to see

4:52

like, alcoholism is not some little

4:54

disease that just goes quietly into the

4:56

night. Like this stuff wreaks havoc on

4:58

your body. It wreaks havoc on everything.

5:00

And so I thought that was a

5:02

particularly interesting dimension to see. The other

5:04

thing that I thought was really did

5:06

tug at my heartstrings was right

5:09

her son, who clearly didn't

5:11

sign up for any of this and

5:13

is really just trying to figure out how

5:15

to be, you know, helpful to his mom

5:18

at a moment where the family

5:20

doesn't have control and this thing is happening. And

5:22

I mean, he could have chosen to not even

5:24

come on, but he was like, you know what,

5:27

this is what we're trying to do. We're bringing

5:29

her to Florida. We're trying to add

5:31

my heart goes out to the sun for sure.

5:34

The other thing is that the publicist

5:36

also said that documentary exploited her and

5:39

that she did not intend for this to happen

5:41

this way and that she was not

5:43

a decision maker in the process and that if she had

5:45

known it would be like this, she would

5:47

have tried to stop it. What do you mean if you

5:50

had known you were there, like you were seeing

5:52

the same thing that I'm seeing. You are seeing

5:54

the cameras rolling. You could have been like, you

5:56

know what? No, this is too much. I can't

5:58

handle this. She shouldn't be talking. this way to

6:00

people on camera. Stop, stop, stop. I'm out. Like

6:02

there were 25 ways for you to have stopped

6:05

this, this, but there you were. DeRay, I

6:07

know that it's not an easy thing

6:09

to watch, but I really do implore

6:11

you to watch it because that publicist,

6:13

she's one of the shadiest characters in

6:15

that whole documentary. So don't

6:18

be mad when the exploitation comes back to

6:20

bite because that was your whole prerogative and

6:22

then you end up looking loony tunes and

6:24

now people are underneath your page about something

6:26

that has nothing to do with Winnie Williams

6:28

talking about with hashtag freeWendy and now you're

6:30

like, it wasn't supposed to be this way.

6:32

Well, as a publicist, you shouldn't be able

6:34

to anticipate this. This is supposed to be your bread and

6:36

butter. You know, I like to bring things out a little

6:38

bit. So to y'all's old point about

6:41

this being recorded and even you being like,

6:43

don't have me looking wild on the internet

6:45

and stuff like that, or don't have me

6:48

looking wild on television because so many more

6:50

jobs are public because social media is a

6:52

thing. Do you think it might be like,

6:55

I don't know, I guess we would need the

6:57

DR here too to figure out like what's the

6:59

precedence for this, but do you think it might

7:01

be a thing to say like, no, after this

7:04

point, do not record me and put me on

7:06

social media or don't record me and have me

7:08

do things for media if I'm incapacitated, if I'm

7:10

suffering and stuff like that? Because it seems as

7:13

though when I look at this documentary, when I

7:15

look at things on Zeus, when I look at

7:17

viral content happening and I'm like, oh, this person's

7:19

obviously suffering, having a mental health

7:21

episode and stuff like that. It seems like that

7:23

might be a thing that more and more

7:26

regular folks, people who don't see themselves as

7:28

celebrities might need to think about like, oh

7:30

wow, I do not consent to being put

7:32

on social media or being made into a

7:35

television show if I was incapacitated. What do

7:37

you all feel about that? So

7:39

I think there's two different answers.

7:41

One is television or

7:44

any kind of formal thing, you have

7:46

to provide consent. So that's one thing.

7:48

But I do think that if you

7:50

are having an episode in the Millard

7:52

Street and random people tape it and

7:54

post it, what is your expectation

7:57

of privacy when everybody in the

7:59

world... world has a video camera in

8:01

their hand. Can you sue

8:03

somebody for recording you without

8:06

your permission? Like I wonder,

8:08

like this

8:10

is the thing about technology, right? It opens

8:12

up new questions that like we never had

8:15

to answer before. If something is

8:17

happening to me, even like I think about

8:19

all of those people on WorldStarHipHop who are

8:21

fighting, right? Well, especially if I'm the one

8:23

getting my booty, dude. Like I

8:25

don't want that

8:27

video running around the world, but do

8:29

I have any control of that? It's

8:31

a great question, Miles. And I'm sure

8:34

some smart person is gonna take it

8:36

to the courts and sue somebody. Because

8:38

even when we think about Wendy Williams, even though

8:40

I understand what you're saying about television and the

8:42

consent forms and stuff like that, she did all

8:44

of that when she was of

8:46

sound mind. Totally. So they used

8:48

her signing that consent to then...

8:51

Whoever was responsible, right? Because she's under

8:53

receivership. And so I thought it was

8:55

interesting that the court receiver, the financial

8:58

people, none of the people were supposed

9:00

to be over her, showed

9:02

up. They all refused to comment and not

9:04

be on the thing. But somebody had

9:06

to sign those forms. And it wasn't

9:09

Wendy. Somebody had to sign those forms

9:11

to say, yes, she can do this. Yeah,

9:13

not very guardian like. Moving on, I'm gonna

9:15

need for this, this is news that, you

9:17

know, I have to save my mental health.

9:20

So I can't consume every single thing that

9:22

Trump does every single week. I just wait

9:24

for y'all to tell me how

9:27

dark the skies are. So

9:29

Trump, the white replacement theory,

9:31

I'm gathering that he

9:33

is spreading this misinformation

9:36

that there's immigrants coming to

9:38

replace white people. Is that what's going

9:40

on? Yeah, so you probably saw this

9:43

rear-it-head originally, the report that came out

9:45

that said the country is soon gonna

9:47

be majority people of color. If

9:49

you remember that, that was, this was like a

9:51

couple years ago, it was like, at this

9:54

rate of growth and births and da

9:56

da da, that people of color will

9:58

be the majority. And

10:00

that sort of spawned this

10:02

republic, what they are calling the white

10:04

replacement theory that the white supremacists have

10:07

used. And they are stoking, this is

10:09

like the undergirding of the fear of

10:12

the immigrants and the migrants and the

10:14

busing people in New York City and

10:16

Chicago. And Trump is

10:18

just very openly saying it to

10:21

stoke fear amongst white people.

10:23

And this, I think, frankly, is like one of the

10:25

ways that they've gotten people who wouldn't

10:28

identify as racist, but are like, oh,

10:30

I don't wanna lose my power. I

10:32

don't want them to take jobs away

10:34

from my kids or do

10:36

this sort of fear mongering

10:39

and lying about immigration. Cause they knew just

10:42

the basic, like the point everybody would obviously

10:44

come off as racist and this is their

10:46

way to do it. So

10:48

I'm fascinated by just how nakedly bad

10:51

and racist this is but I'm interested

10:53

to see what you have to say,

10:55

Kaya. Did you hear

10:57

my news last week about

10:59

the Nazis openly curating around

11:01

and participating at the CPAC?

11:03

Why is this surprising to you?

11:06

I don't understand. These

11:08

people are making it very plain who

11:10

they are. And this

11:12

is working, right? They

11:14

are stoking fears of white people

11:16

losing their power, privileged position. Welcome

11:19

to Claudine Gay at Harvard and

11:21

Bill Ackman's assault on academia

11:24

because of DEI and

11:27

whatever else. Like this is

11:29

all about maintaining white privilege

11:31

and power. It's

11:33

not like, this ain't news. This ain't

11:35

like, this is the play boo. This

11:38

is the play. It worked in 2016

11:40

and they feel like it's gonna work again. Let's go

11:43

around. And maybe I'm giving this conversation

11:45

too much dignity by thinking of it

11:47

like this or thinking of it as

11:49

like where I'm about to go. But

11:51

also just in the tradition of white

11:54

supremacy in America, it's never been about

11:56

numbers. If that

11:58

was the case, then we would have... acquired

12:00

freedom all the time. It's really

12:02

always been about how, for lack

12:05

of better words, how savage white supremacy is

12:07

willing to be in order to assert itself.

12:09

That's what's always been. It's always been, oh,

12:11

there's a type of white terrorism that will

12:14

always be wielded, that will terrorize your whole

12:16

life. And that has always been it. It's

12:18

never been strictly about numbers or even about

12:20

numbers. Because if that was the case, there

12:23

were some scenarios where enslaved African people could

12:25

have totally taken back the nation. It's never

12:27

just been about that. So it's interesting that

12:30

so many people are allergic to books, that

12:35

they're buying lies that just

12:37

aren't historically true, no matter

12:40

what side you're on. No

12:42

matter, that's never been how

12:44

that works. You're absolutely right,

12:46

Miles. I spent this weekend in

12:48

Tulsa, Oklahoma, and I went to Greenwood

12:51

Rising, which is the museum

12:53

that captures the story

12:55

of the 1921 race massacre

12:57

in Tulsa. I'm

13:01

just going to bring the story back

13:03

because we can't tell it enough. But

13:05

Black Wall Street, or the Greenwood neighborhood

13:07

of Tulsa, which is literally on

13:10

the other side of the train tracks,

13:12

was a thriving Black community with

13:15

Black business people, Black hotels,

13:17

Black barbershops, and beauty salons,

13:19

and homes, and Black people

13:21

minding their business, living on

13:24

the side of town. They

13:26

couldn't spend money in white places,

13:28

so they had their own thriving

13:30

economy. And these people

13:32

had land, they had oil,

13:34

because Oklahoma had oil, and

13:37

these formerly enslaved people did

13:39

the whole entire thing. And

13:42

the white people were angry about

13:44

it. So it's never numbers, right?

13:47

But it also is just about

13:50

racial lust, land

13:52

lust. It's not just about these people

13:54

are coming to get us. We wasn't

13:56

trying to get them, we was minding

13:58

our own business. our neighborhood,

14:00

they came to get us and

14:03

burned it all down, burned it

14:05

down, burned people's houses, burned people's

14:07

businesses, and never rebuilt this part

14:09

of town. Built a baseball stadium

14:12

on top of the people thing

14:14

and all kinds of other things.

14:16

I'm pleased to say that part

14:19

of the Greenwood neighborhood now is

14:22

rebuilt. And there are

14:24

black entrepreneurs. I met a sister who

14:26

is running a coffee and book shop.

14:28

That's the bomb, a sneaker store, all

14:31

kinds of stuff that is happening in

14:33

that neighborhood. But it's all because we could

14:35

talk about replacement. We could talk about whatever.

14:38

This is just pure

14:40

white power, white rage,

14:43

white privilege, white whatever.

14:45

And I think that Mr. Trump has

14:48

done us a service by laying it

14:50

all out so that we don't believe

14:52

this post-racial BS. We are still living

14:54

in a place where at any moment

14:57

an angry white mob can come and burn down

14:59

a black neighborhood and nothing will happen. They

15:02

setting up for it. Y'all better get ready.

15:05

I will just tell you while we're recording,

15:07

the Supreme Court has ruled that Colorado cannot

15:09

ban Trump from the ballot. A

15:12

unanimous decision, unanimous.

15:15

And their rationale is that Congress

15:17

and not the States are

15:20

the enforcement mechanism for

15:22

this provision of the

15:24

constitution. So Trump

15:27

lives to fight another day. And

15:29

sell more gold sneakers. Unanimous?

15:32

I mean, I thought we believed in

15:34

States rights. I thought we believed that

15:36

States have to federalism. This is the

15:39

whole reason why our country is

15:41

the way it is that States get to

15:43

decide what is right for them. What in

15:45

the world. Tell us, talk to us. I

15:47

know that it's kind

15:50

of redundant for me to

15:52

say so many other people who speak publicly

15:54

say it, but when people talk about the

15:56

quote unquote American project, American experiment, and they

15:59

say maybe it's It wasn't a good one.

16:01

It sounds like this where I'm like, you know what? Maybe

16:06

how we're thinking about this is just, it's not

16:08

working. Cause I can't believe it, but I can't

16:11

believe it. And that makes sense that we're

16:13

here. Because the constitution

16:15

makes Congress rather than the States

16:18

responsible for enforcing section three against

16:20

federal office holders and

16:22

candidates, we reverse. Unanimous.

16:25

Wow. Did y'all just see that Trump

16:27

forgot it was Biden was

16:29

president and gives this whole speech against Obama.

16:31

You're like, they up here talking

16:33

about Biden. You're like, come on. Who

16:36

are you surprised by that? This is a dark one,

16:38

but I'm like, whatever has to

16:40

happen to Trump in order for us

16:42

just to get through this part of

16:44

American history, it's fair. Let's

16:46

bury that one up. It

16:49

was dark, but you know, something, yeah.

16:52

But also speaking of dark, dark, dark

16:54

things that are happening in

16:56

the culture, Diddy,

16:59

it started last year. I think it was November because

17:01

we were all together in Philly, right? When

17:03

Cassie came out with the law to do. Oh,

17:06

yes, we were together. That was lovely. It was

17:08

lovely. And I'll never forget it because I was

17:10

having a lovely time with y'all in Philadelphia when

17:12

I love Philadelphia. But also this case came out

17:14

the same day. And I was like, I'll just

17:16

never forget where

17:19

I was when this came

17:21

out. So Diddy has also

17:23

acquired more and more accusations

17:25

against him by a male producer. It's

17:28

a 73-page document. It's

17:30

talking about underage sex. It's talking about

17:32

having firearms illegally. It's talking about a

17:35

lot of different things, of course. The

17:37

thing that is being hooked is that

17:39

Diddy might have very well been involved

17:42

with many of homosexual sexual events. And

17:46

that's what the internet seems to be doing. But

17:48

I'm like, did you hear the thing about the

17:51

underage girls and the guns and all

17:53

these other things? But they're like, no, gay sex. That's

17:56

what we're going to focus on. But

18:00

I'm wondering because, and I'm not gonna hold you when

18:02

I think about Wendy Williams, when I think about Diddy,

18:05

like Gen X is going out.

18:09

Oh, don't do that to us.

18:11

I'm not talking about everybody in

18:13

Gen X, but like the icons

18:15

are going out bad. And then

18:18

just when you think you're done

18:20

with it, then Usher, just moments

18:22

before we started recording this, Usher

18:24

is in Bali with Russell Simmons

18:26

doing yoga, shirtless,

18:28

sweaty, like finding

18:30

your chi with a whole entire rapist. Like

18:34

what is going on? I just feel like

18:36

Gen X is really going out. I should

18:38

say the black and hip hop icons

18:40

of black exceptionalism of Gen

18:43

X are really going out

18:45

bad, one by one. This

18:48

has nothing to do with it, but everything to do with

18:50

it too. Kelly Rowland was just in a Tyler Perry film.

18:52

I count that as an L. I

18:57

don't know. You

19:00

can't take it to court, but it's still an L. What

19:05

is going on? I

19:08

don't even know where to start except to stand

19:10

up for my Gen X people and say,

19:12

we ain't all crazy. Okay,

19:16

so let me see. The

19:19

Diddy stuff, here's all I can

19:21

say, not all I can say.

19:23

I mean, here's what I will

19:25

say. The latest accusation by the

19:27

young producer man is not

19:30

completely and totally compelling to me. Maybe

19:33

some stuff happened, but it feels

19:35

kind of funky and you let

19:37

the dude group your stuff for

19:39

a whole year. And I

19:41

don't know. I think my big

19:43

takeaway is some things happened. Things

19:45

have happened. We can't

19:47

say what did and what didn't because none of us

19:49

were there. My hope is that

19:52

all of these people get some

19:55

kind of recompense and justice

19:57

or whatever happened to them. But...

20:00

because, you know, I mean,

20:02

you've heard the quote, absolute

20:04

power corrupts absolutely. And I

20:08

think, you know, the more money people have,

20:10

the more power people have, the more control

20:12

over people's careers, you know, the

20:14

thirst culture of, I just wanna be a

20:16

star, I'm willing to do anything, all of

20:18

these things make for a very

20:21

dangerous situation. I think we're seeing

20:23

that play out. This is not

20:25

new, you know, people

20:27

in power have been doing this for years and will

20:30

continue to do this and I'm not

20:32

minimizing it. I hope that all of

20:34

these people get justice for whatever happened to them. Now

20:37

this Usher thing, hmm, I am

20:40

really sorely disappointed. You know, I went

20:42

to see Usher in Vegas. It really was one

20:44

of the best concerts I've ever seen in my

20:47

whole entire life, both show. I

20:49

thoroughly enjoyed the Super

20:51

Bowl halftime show. I

20:54

was happy that he got married. I'm

20:56

happy that he's having his moment. Usher,

21:01

in the midst of all of this, at the

21:03

pinnacle of your whatever, you think

21:05

going to spend some time with Russell Simmons

21:07

in Bali is a good look? I

21:11

don't think so, but we gonna see

21:13

how this plays out in his little

21:15

ticket sales for his world

21:18

tour that has lots and lots of dates,

21:20

none of which are sold out just yet,

21:22

but we'll see. We didn't need

21:24

that little tidbit, Auntie Kaya, stop being Sadie.

21:26

She definitely just had to stick it to

21:28

him. I'm like, geez. I

21:32

like Usher, I'm a fan. And

21:34

I have not bought ticket check because the ticket

21:36

prices are a little outrageous. And so I'm just

21:38

gonna wait till closer to this. I'm going, let

21:40

me be very clear. I'm going, I'm gonna

21:43

support the brother unless some craziness comes

21:45

out in the meantime. But my plan

21:47

is to be there, singing my boo and

21:51

you know, daddy's home and all of the

21:53

things. But really, why would you

21:56

at this particular moment? While he's sticking

21:58

to the script, the script. is

22:00

in his generation, right? And I say

22:02

this seriously, is that it has never

22:04

harmed you to align yourself with patriarchal

22:06

power and hip hop and in the

22:08

industry. So that's how come R. Kelly

22:10

was getting away with Russell Simmons was

22:12

able to do what he was doing

22:14

and everybody else. So in Usher's head,

22:16

he has not necessarily caught up to

22:19

the Gen Z millennial waltz

22:21

vacation of the world. So him

22:23

aligning himself with Russell Simmons would

22:26

have never harmed his brand

22:28

in a parallel universe that he's existed in.

22:30

In a parallel universe, but have you read the

22:32

paper? Why is your boy in Bali? Because he

22:34

can't come back to the United States. Well,

22:36

people ain't reading. I'm glad

22:38

we're coming back to this

22:41

literacy. Honey. I

22:44

was floored to see him in Bali. I'm

22:46

like, I know you

22:48

got a good PR person. I don't

22:51

know what is happening. And then Russell Simmons

22:53

is leaning into it being like, I woke

22:55

up and who is next to my bed?

22:58

Usher. Like just weird.

23:01

What sounds nuts.

23:04

And I am a queer trans

23:06

nonbinary person. So for me to

23:08

say something that sounds a little

23:10

sweet, it must be diabetic. So

23:14

I'm like,

23:16

what? That

23:18

sounds absolutely

23:20

wild. But again, it makes me think,

23:23

again, I don't want to go into like

23:25

just totally just assuming

23:27

things about Usher in his life. Because

23:29

I don't know. But it seems like

23:32

he's really used to using his power

23:34

and his popularity to save grown men

23:36

or to be used by grown

23:38

men. And like the whole ideas

23:40

around Usher being 13, when he was

23:43

founded by Diddy and being groomed, all these

23:45

other things, it almost seems like this was

23:48

such a automatic response to,

23:50

oh, I'm acquiring power. I'm

23:52

acquiring privilege. I'm popular. Let

23:54

me use this to help

23:56

this adult man. Like that seems that's

23:58

something that is like learned. In

24:00

my experience, like you kind of, they just feel

24:03

like an odd response to having such a great

24:05

moment that Usher is having. It was to like,

24:07

oh, we're the most toxic man in the

24:10

world. Let me go. Let me

24:12

go try to do some yoga with him and post it like

24:14

that. That it seems wild to me. Hey,

24:17

you're listening to Potsy the People. Stay

24:19

tuned. There's more to come.

24:21

In the decades before the Civil War,

24:23

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and so visit $5.99.99. Ashley,

27:02

for the love of home. I

27:12

wanted to bring this to the pod for

27:14

multiple reasons. When I get into it, you'll

27:16

understand why. But one of the most important

27:19

reasons is I think, and I've said this

27:21

many times, when we think about and romanticize

27:23

trips back home to Africa and to Ghana,

27:26

we don't think about queer

27:28

identities. I think

27:30

that the absence of thinking about those queer

27:33

identities birthed a type of conflict because it's

27:35

like, you don't see us. You're trying to

27:37

go back here and we're telling you this

27:39

here is dangerous. So do you not see

27:41

us in your black future? Do you not

27:44

see us in your collective acquiring of freedom

27:46

from this nation state we call America? And

27:48

it's really necessary. And this news

27:51

really highlights what me and so

27:53

many other queer black folks have

27:55

been saying. So the news is

27:57

Ghana's parliament has passed a tough

27:59

new bill. that imposes a

28:01

prison sentence of up to three

28:03

years for anyone convicted of identifying

28:05

as LGBTQ+. It also

28:08

imposes a maximum five-year jail term

28:10

for forming or funding LGBTQ plus

28:12

groups. Lawmakers huckle down attempts to

28:14

replace prison sentences with community service

28:17

and counseling. It is the latest

28:19

sign of growing opposition to LGBTQ

28:21

plus rights in the conservative West

28:24

African nation. I remember, I

28:26

don't know what year that was because

28:28

I didn't have no money to go. So

28:30

everybody was returning back home the

28:33

year of the return. And I was like, well,

28:35

we need to do the year of the return

28:38

when I get my tax return because I don't

28:40

got, I don't got, I don't have the money

28:42

to go to that. But I do remember thinking

28:44

to myself that it's really

28:46

easy for cis heterosexual

28:48

black people and

28:51

cis heterosexual assumed

28:54

queer people, gay people,

28:56

lesbian people to romanticize

28:58

this mass exodus or

29:00

this trip to Ghana. And

29:02

I knew that there are

29:05

places that are so anti-trans,

29:08

anti-LGBT and anti-gay. And there was just

29:10

this refusal. I remember bringing it up

29:12

to my now ex mentor and I

29:14

remember bringing it up and there was

29:17

just a refusal to talk about

29:20

the complicated nature of this. It just

29:22

wasn't a thing that anybody wanted to

29:24

think about. And

29:27

the anti-trans and gay stuff when it comes

29:29

to it happening to people in Africa or

29:31

coming from people who are in Africa and

29:33

West Africa, it really just creates

29:35

like this kind of social and political loneliness.

29:38

I think that's what I wanna

29:40

say because I think that when

29:42

things like this happen, we see

29:44

that there's really no place for

29:46

black trans people, black, visibly queer

29:48

people to go. And

29:51

it also feels like

29:53

if black, cis, heterosexual people have

29:55

a place to go, that

29:57

those black, queer and trans people will be left.

30:00

And when that truth is underlying

30:02

any type of movement work or

30:05

ideas or thinking or imagining

30:08

about futures, it's really hard

30:10

to create actual collective family,

30:12

familial, communal spaces and

30:15

ideas. If somebody in the back

30:17

of their head knows that, oh,

30:19

I'll dip and leave you in

30:21

this nation state that's toxic, or

30:24

I will definitely sacrifice

30:26

your wellbeing or put your wellbeing

30:29

in jeopardy in order

30:31

to get this fantasy of

30:33

the return acquired. I

30:35

think it's so necessary for us

30:37

to talk about trans

30:39

things as black people. I

30:41

feel like I'm stretching a lot of different things

30:44

and connecting a lot of different things that may

30:46

don't seem super similar, but they are to me.

30:48

I think that even when I see like a

30:50

T.S. Madison arguing with

30:52

a Jess Hilarious and there

30:56

being so much hatred

30:58

and vitriol, not just to T.S. Madison,

31:00

who was a who was a pundit

31:02

and it was a comedian and, you

31:04

know, puts herself in a certain situation

31:06

to be criticized or to be or

31:09

to be engaged with a certain way.

31:11

But it is vitriol to the trans

31:13

community. There's hatred there. There's hatred towards

31:15

queer people. There

31:17

is a dismissiveness of our blackness in

31:20

a lot of those spaces. I remember

31:22

when I first initially met Darae, I

31:25

had no idea Darae was a gay, queer, any of

31:29

those different things. And I don't think that was

31:31

by the fault of Darae, but I also think

31:33

that was the fault of the system surrounding Darae,

31:35

that if you're in a leadership role, that we're

31:37

going to project heterosexuality onto you. And

31:40

I think that's strange to me. And

31:42

I don't know, like, how do

31:44

we imagine black futures? How

31:46

do we imagine black power? How do we

31:48

imagine any of these different things if

31:51

we're not willing to seriously

31:53

sit down and say, this is a

31:55

problem? There are people who hate this

31:57

identity. There are people who are. creating,

32:00

um, Cat Williams. That was what I

32:02

was thinking about. Sorry, y'all. But, um,

32:04

Cat Williams has just came out and

32:06

basically theorized, if we want to call

32:08

it that, that trans people

32:11

worship the devil and that

32:13

they're demons. And Cat Williams,

32:15

as we know, is a

32:17

super powerful,

32:20

influential figure. We can't lie about those

32:22

numbers. We can't lie about what happened

32:24

when he went on Shannon Sharpen, how

32:26

many people viewed him and how many

32:28

people see him as his beacon of,

32:31

of unfiltered straight talk. You know what I

32:33

mean? And then they'll tell it like it

32:35

is talking. Then we have to talk about

32:37

Dave Chappelle and what Dave Chappelle has been

32:39

saying in every single Netflix special as well.

32:42

This is a problem. And this type of rhetoric and

32:44

this type of speech creates brutality

32:46

and murders, you know? So those

32:49

are a lot of different fragmented thoughts that

32:51

I had on this that I wasn't able to

32:54

create like a whole quote of wisdom with it.

32:56

But I wanted to give out those different things

32:58

where this is a big deal, you know?

33:01

This, to me, this is one of

33:03

the things to focus on for our

33:05

generation when it comes to, um, black

33:08

liberation and black power and

33:10

black advancement is queer inclusiveness,

33:12

trans inclusiveness and the knowledge

33:14

of African queerness and

33:16

ancient African queerness. Um,

33:18

to me, that's, is this paramount for us to

33:20

really soak that in and for this kind

33:23

of ignorance not to be passed down to another

33:25

generation. Cause we really can't afford it to. I'll

33:30

just provide a brief update and then

33:32

I want to respond to the issue

33:34

that you're raising, but 45 minutes

33:37

or so ago, another article came

33:39

out where Ghana's finance

33:41

ministry has urged the president

33:44

not to sign the anti

33:46

LGBTQ bill passed by

33:48

parliament last week because they

33:50

about to get hit in the

33:52

pocketbook, baby. He says, and this

33:55

is unprecedented. The finance ministry

33:57

does not intervene publicly and stuff.

34:00

This is unprecedented, but the

34:02

finance minister has said that

34:05

Ghana could lose $3.8 billion

34:07

in World Bank funding over the next

34:09

five to six years because

34:12

of this bill. Ghana is

34:14

currently suffering a major economic crisis,

34:17

and last year it got a bailout

34:19

from the International Monetary Fund, but

34:23

because these values do not

34:25

align with the IMF and

34:27

the World Bank, and

34:29

their priorities around diversity

34:32

and whatnot, they

34:34

have the right to withhold money. In

34:36

fact, last year the World Bank frees

34:38

new loans to Uganda because of its

34:40

anti-LGBT legislation, which is even worse than what

34:42

was passed in Ghana. This year a loan

34:45

in Ghana could lose about $850 million in

34:47

support, which

34:50

will negatively impact their already

34:52

struggling economy. And so it

34:55

is interesting to watch who has

34:58

influence in these things, but

35:00

they're about to get hit in

35:03

the pocketbook, which might change everything.

35:05

What this raised from your provocation

35:07

around, you know, everybody going to

35:09

Ghana, the year to return, we're

35:11

reclaiming our heritage and whatnot, but

35:13

we're not taking everybody with us,

35:15

reminded me of Fannie Lou Hamer's

35:18

quote from a speech that she delivered in 1971, where

35:22

she said, nobody's free until everybody's free.

35:25

And so we have to

35:27

reject the notion of rugged individualism that

35:29

America teaches us. As long as I

35:31

got mine, I'm good. As long as

35:33

I can afford to go to Ghana

35:35

and I can connect with the ancestors

35:37

and I can reclaim this, you know,

35:39

heritage, then we're good. No, no, if

35:41

our brothers and sisters can't go, then

35:43

we ain't free. And

35:46

I think I

35:48

talk a lot about how

35:50

America has desensitized us to

35:52

our collective nature. African

35:55

communities are collective. Black communities

35:57

in America are collective. our

36:01

liberation is bound up in one another.

36:03

And I think being here so long and listening

36:05

to these other folks have taught us that that's

36:08

not the case, but it is the case. And

36:10

so we have a responsibility

36:12

to everybody in our community to

36:14

make sure that we are, you

36:16

know, pulling back our money. If,

36:19

I mean, this to me, for all of

36:21

the black Americans who are talking about, I'm

36:23

moving to Ghana, right? This is

36:25

a moment to stop and say, what am

36:27

I supporting? What am I really moving to?

36:30

I'm moving away from America because of its laws and

36:32

the way it treats black people, but I'm gonna move

36:35

to a country that treats black

36:37

people this way. Like, nah,

36:39

we gotta square some circles here, friends. Same

36:43

thing with all my people moving to Portugal.

36:45

And like, we gotta interrogate the

36:48

decisions that we're making because it is

36:51

absolutely true that we

36:53

gotta stand together if we all gonna get free. I

36:55

went to Ghana during the first year of the return. It

36:58

was great and so many people have continued

37:00

to go. And I was frankly

37:02

shocked by this because I really thought that

37:04

Ghana was more progressive.

37:06

And so I was saddened

37:08

by it. I was heartened to see the black

37:11

Americans who organized the year of the

37:13

return post a letter

37:16

in solidarity being like, we

37:18

have not forgotten about our LGBTQ brothers

37:20

and sisters here or in Ghana. And

37:23

when they called on the president to

37:25

not do this. So Bose posted the

37:27

letter, but it was a lot of

37:29

people. I thought because Bose posted it

37:32

and she has like an appointment from the president

37:34

of Ghana to help bridge the gap and all

37:36

this stuff. And I was like, thank

37:38

you for using your platform to

37:40

fight against this and not only back channel,

37:42

I'm sure Bose has been working behind the

37:44

scenes, but it was important to me that

37:46

there was a public statement that

37:48

all these black people who signed it, who

37:50

like showed, guy actually didn't see

37:52

this message from the finance

37:55

minister until you just said it. So

37:57

shout out to him. Cause you know,

37:59

I just, such a wild thing

38:01

to do. It's also so unnecessary.

38:03

Like you're like, of all the

38:05

things gotta gotta fix. It's

38:08

a lot going on in Ghana. Gay

38:10

people really are not the top 2000 issues, not

38:12

the top 20,000

38:15

issues at all going on in Ghana.

38:18

So just wow.

38:21

My news is actually about San Francisco. So

38:25

you probably remember that in San Francisco,

38:27

there was a progressive DA. His name

38:29

was Tressa Boudin. He got

38:31

elected. He was like, you know,

38:33

we not sending everybody to prison in jail. He

38:36

was great on rehabilitation.

38:39

He was like, just a good guy,

38:41

like still a prosecutor. So part of

38:43

that job is to lock

38:45

people up. But he was like, we've been

38:47

doing it wrong. He wasn't a tough on

38:49

crime person. And he really, to his

38:52

credit, pushed back on the mayor of

38:54

San Francisco and the

38:56

tech crowd who was literally like lock

38:59

everybody up. So when they said

39:01

that, you know, one of the reasons why Rite Aid

39:03

and whatever had to move out of San Francisco was

39:05

because of organized retail

39:07

theft. He was one of the first people that was

39:09

like, I think we

39:11

might be fear mongering. Like if you remember when, you

39:14

know, there was a tech guy who got killed, like

39:16

there's all this stuff where he was sort of pushing

39:18

the like, let's wait and let's figure out and, you

39:20

know, there were a lot of things that came out

39:22

and he was right. Right. Like, you

39:25

know, I even think about recently, I don't even know if he

39:27

was the prosecutor then, but do you

39:29

remember when the tech guy who helped start cash app

39:31

got killed and it was this

39:33

whole community that is holding about the

39:36

assumption was like a black person had again, it was like,

39:38

no, it was a drug deal. This was

39:40

not crazy community who killed somebody. I

39:42

say all that to say that he got removed and recall

39:45

and they put in a black woman who

39:48

has been a nightmare and

39:50

the mayor is also a black woman. She has

39:52

been a nightmare and they are tough

39:54

on crime. They won't prosecute the police.

39:56

Like they're really intense. And you

39:58

know, what happened is that crime. increased. Crime

40:01

did not go down. They put all these

40:03

crazy policies in. So that's the old news. The new

40:05

news is that a group

40:07

of police officer adjacent people

40:09

have started a court watching group and

40:11

they're like, you know, we are actually

40:13

targeting the judges now. So

40:16

they are working to get a set of judges

40:18

who they think are too lenient and will not

40:20

lock everybody up. They're trying to get them removed

40:22

from the bench and they are gunning

40:24

for these judges. They are trying to gun for

40:26

the judges that released people in their own recognizance.

40:28

So remember when you get arrested, they can either

40:31

detain you because they think you're like a direct

40:33

to society, or they can say, you know, go

40:35

home and just come back for a court case,

40:37

come back for your court case. They

40:39

want to stop that. These, this group,

40:41

this like nonprofit that is calling themselves

40:43

like court watchers and da da da.

40:46

They are now in this is like the first

40:48

organized version of this I've seen on the right.

40:51

They're trying to remove judges who

40:54

show any leniency, who show any idea

40:56

of compassion. And let me tell you,

40:58

you know, I've got a lot of

41:00

experience with the criminal justice system. Even

41:03

the most progressive judges are like, I

41:05

mean, only but so for like, there's

41:07

a limit to anybody's progressiveness inside the judicial

41:09

system. So when they're choosing not to like

41:12

send you to jail for a hundred years,

41:14

it really is because they think they're like,

41:16

okay, that's a little while. So

41:18

the idea that they want to unelect

41:20

these judges and put in judges

41:23

who will just be tough

41:25

on people is so infuriating, not only

41:27

because tougher sentences don't deter people, but

41:31

also because San Francisco

41:33

is the latest, there is no

41:35

better case study for wealth inequality

41:38

than San Francisco. You

41:40

have some of the richest people who

41:42

have ever been alive in

41:44

the tech community in San Francisco who

41:46

will buy the house next to them, who

41:48

will buy whole neighborhoods because they just can

41:50

afford it. And then you

41:52

have some of the poorest people literally

41:54

anywhere up next to them.

41:57

I'm not confused by crime. I'm not

41:59

confused by life. Like what happens when

42:01

you have obscene wealth in people who

42:03

make $7,000 a year, $10,000

42:05

a year, fighting

42:09

for resources? That doesn't

42:11

confuse me at all. And more prison

42:13

is not the thing that's gonna fix that. So

42:16

I wanted to bring it here because I just had not, it

42:18

was surprising to me to see this right

42:20

on crime approach that

42:22

was arguing against

42:25

judges discretion, which used to be sort of

42:27

one of their arguments and let's be clear,

42:30

white people benefit far more than black people

42:32

with judges discretion. I think everything

42:35

that you said was right, Deray. And then the only

42:37

thing I wanna add cause I feel like it's

42:39

just important to highlight is the

42:42

limits of representational politics. You

42:45

know, I think highlighting that,

42:47

you know, these are black women.

42:49

I think it's always important to remind people

42:52

that anybody could be the face of

42:55

conservative far right domination. It doesn't have to

42:57

look like how we think it's supposed to

42:59

look like. And I think specifically

43:02

in this case, we see how people

43:05

are utilized in order to make people

43:07

feel more comfortable with a

43:09

conservative plan or with a plan

43:12

that is going to essentially criminalize

43:14

poverty in black folks and people

43:17

who are experiencing all types of

43:19

injustice because of the poverty discretion

43:21

that's happening in San Francisco. Thanks

43:25

for bringing this to the podcast,

43:27

Deray. Two thoughts from

43:29

me. One is just

43:31

about how money works in

43:33

this country. And

43:38

at some point money was working to

43:42

fund progressive criminal justice

43:45

efforts. And,

43:47

you know, I guess

43:49

because in response to crime rates or

43:51

whatever, money is now

43:53

working to support conservative

43:57

criminal justice perspective.

44:00

And I do think that it is

44:02

pretty reprehensible that

44:05

some of the richest people in America are

44:07

funding the recall

44:10

efforts of public servants

44:12

who are charged to do the

44:14

most objective job possible in

44:17

enforcing the laws of our country

44:20

in a way that makes sense for

44:22

people. So it gave

44:25

me a weird feeling that

44:27

these Bay Area billionaires

44:29

are bankrolling this thing.

44:32

That ain't right. The

44:34

second thing that it made me think about is,

44:36

I mean, of course, so first, let me just

44:39

say, I agree with you absolutely on just

44:42

how wrong this is. But the second thing that

44:44

it made me think about is the

44:46

rights ability to like, this

44:48

is just a strategic observation.

44:51

The rights ability to take

44:54

a strategy, even a strategy of their

44:56

opponents, and turn

44:59

it around for themselves and

45:01

scale like scale. This is

45:03

not just happening in San Francisco. Here

45:06

in Washington, D.C., the city

45:08

council member who chairs the, I don't

45:11

know, Judiciary Committee, Charles Allen,

45:13

who is widely seen as

45:16

bringing in very progressive criminal

45:19

justice laws and legislation,

45:22

is now being attacked

45:24

and potentially recalled by a bunch

45:26

of Republicans. So this thing is

45:29

happening not just in San Francisco or

45:31

in D.C. This is the playbook. They

45:33

figure out a strategy and then they

45:35

spread it across the

45:37

country pretty quickly. And, you

45:40

know, in a don't hate the player,

45:42

hate the game, I wonder what

45:44

would it take for

45:47

progressive criminal reformists to

45:49

replicate the, to

45:53

not replicate the strategy. I understand the strategy

45:55

started as a progressive strategy. But

45:58

how do we get our scaling? potential

46:02

up, our scaling capacity up, because they

46:05

are beating us on this. And

46:07

so what do we do? You

46:09

know, I think about some

46:11

of the work that you are doing

46:13

here in DeRay on on criminal justice

46:15

in Washington, DC. And instead of people

46:17

coming together, people are fighting over who

46:19

is the one that is leading the

46:21

charge and blah, blah, blah, when somehow

46:23

I know that a right get their

46:25

self in line and start marching in

46:27

the same direction and see success in

46:29

their strategies. And so I just

46:32

wonder, one, like when we

46:34

see stuff like this, how come we can't

46:36

get ourselves together and scale

46:38

and appropriately respond or even

46:41

be on the offensive against

46:43

some of these things? It

46:47

is interesting to you, you're right about the about the

46:49

money is that the

46:51

left trickles out the money, the right

46:54

pours it. And

46:56

in one moment, the right will, it'll be

46:59

like $30 million to the day. What? Whereas

47:01

on the left, it's like $20,000 to fight

47:03

the day. You're like,

47:05

okay, we make 20,000 work. But

47:07

the right is like, from day one

47:10

is on TV and radio and you're like,

47:12

and that is just hard to even

47:15

the best organizing that is hard to fight. You

47:17

know what I mean? I even think about what

47:19

we're doing up against in DC. And

47:21

it's the Democrats, but like Mayor Bowser is straight up

47:23

line of people. Like she just is being dishonest. And

47:26

it is even hard to like, it's hard

47:28

to go up against the state because she's

47:31

rolling out this official memo from the mayor

47:33

and you're like, that is just not true.

47:35

It is like she is saying things that

47:37

are untrue and it is hard to fight.

47:39

It is hard to fight back, but the

47:41

right definitely pours money and the left trickles

47:43

it. It's hard. Don't

47:45

go anywhere. More positive people. History

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48:23

there, I'm Aram Addison III, television

48:25

writer, alleged author. My book does

48:28

come out in 2025. And

48:30

proud advocate of wearing sunglasses indoors.

48:33

And I'm Louis Bertel, TV writer, her

48:35

bayer of spicy pop culture commentary. This

48:37

year we're excited to bring you new

48:40

episodes of Cupid covering the holy trinity

48:42

of awards season, Emmys, Grammys and the

48:44

granddaddy of them all, the Oscars. It's

48:46

like the Super Bowl for Hollywood but

48:49

with more sequins and fewer concussions thus

48:51

far. And we don't do it alone.

48:53

We are continually blessed by iconic guests

48:56

like Michelle Yeoh, Tori Kelly, Andy Cohen

48:58

and Jinx Maso. New episodes of Keep

49:00

It Drop every Wednesday wherever you get

49:02

your podcasts or subscribe to Keep It

49:05

on YouTube for access to full

49:07

episodes and other exclusive content. Speaking

49:20

about people pouring money, my

49:22

news takes us to Trump world. It even,

49:25

it offends me that I spend

49:28

this much time thinking about this

49:30

man. But there

49:32

was an article in the Washington

49:34

Post, an analysis actually by

49:37

the Washington Post fact checker that I just

49:39

thought was interesting. And I thought it was

49:41

worth the reminder because I think sometimes we

49:44

forget. So

49:46

Mr. Trump was at a

49:50

black conservative federation gala

49:52

in Columbia, South Carolina

49:54

on February 23rd. I'd

49:57

like to be in that room and see who's in there. And

50:00

here's what he said to the conservative blacks

50:02

in South Carolina. He says,

50:04

unlike racist Joe Biden, I have

50:07

spent my entire life working hand

50:09

in hand with black Americans to

50:11

create jobs, to build buildings, to

50:14

invest in our communities, our communities,

50:17

and expand opportunities and freedom for citizens of

50:19

every race, religion, and color. I built a

50:21

lot of buildings. I want to tell you,

50:23

a black worker is a great worker. You've

50:26

done an incredible job. That's

50:28

what Mr. Trump said to the blacks.

50:31

So racist. Oh

50:33

my God. And

50:37

so, you know, he claims all

50:39

along that he's done more for

50:41

black Americans than any other president.

50:44

He often points to the

50:46

low black unemployment rate during

50:48

his administration. Just

50:51

as a fact check, the black

50:53

unemployment rate is actually lower under President

50:55

Biden than it was under Trump. He

50:58

talks about increased funding for HBCUs

51:00

under his administration, except he didn't

51:03

do that. That was

51:05

a congressional initiative, but I stand in the way

51:07

when taking credit is free. And

51:10

then he talks about the passage of Opportunity Zone

51:12

programs. And so the Washington Post was

51:14

like, well, let's take a look down

51:16

memory lane and figure out has

51:19

Mr. Trump been a champion for

51:21

black people? And the

51:23

answer, at least in three cases

51:25

that they cite are no, no,

51:27

no, no, no, no, no. And

51:30

it starts in 1973 with a 27

51:33

year old Donald Trump working at

51:35

the Trump organization when the justice

51:37

department, the United States Justice Department

51:39

sued the Trumps in federal court

51:42

for violating the 1968 Fair Housing

51:44

Act in their management of 39 buildings.

51:48

The Human Rights Commission sent black

51:50

people and white people into

51:53

the Trump buildings to rent apartments.

51:56

White people could easily rent. Black people

51:58

were told there was nothing available. and

52:00

their applications were marked C for colored.

52:03

In 1973, we weren't even using the

52:05

word colored anymore, but you know. And

52:08

so during the case, Donald Trump was the

52:10

representative for the Trump organization. And

52:12

he told another lawyer, you know, you

52:14

don't want to live with them either. This

52:16

is what he told the Justice Department lawyer. So not

52:19

even the lawyer on his own team, the opposition lawyer.

52:21

The suit was settled out of court in 1975. The

52:24

Trump company was required to share all

52:26

apartment vacancies with the New York Urban

52:28

League and to advertise any Amsterdam

52:31

news. And they still weren't

52:33

renting to black people. So again, in 1978, the

52:35

Justice Department charged the Trump organization

52:37

with being in breach of the

52:39

agreement by continuing to discriminate against

52:41

black people. Case spreads on until

52:43

1982. And

52:45

when Mr. Trump became president in 2016, guess

52:48

what he did? His administration scaled

52:50

back fair housing laws, including the

52:52

1968 Fair Housing Act. That

52:56

is what I call working hand in hand with

52:58

black people, right? Wrong.

53:02

1989, most people know this, the

53:05

Central Park Five. After five

53:07

black and Latino teenagers were accused in

53:09

a brutal attack of a white woman in

53:12

Central Park, Mr. Trump, private

53:14

citizen, none of your business,

53:17

took out full page newspaper

53:19

ads calling for the death

53:21

penalty for criminals of every

53:24

age. Despite the

53:26

fact that the Central

53:28

Park Five were exonerated

53:31

and they thankfully got a

53:33

$41 million wrongful

53:35

conviction settlement, not

53:37

only did Mr. Trump not apologize, but

53:39

he called their settlement

53:41

a disgrace. And

53:43

then there is how he talks about his

53:46

black workers, right, he says black workers are

53:48

good workers. Well, according to former employees, Trump

53:51

has said that laziness is a

53:53

trait in blacks. On

53:56

black accountants, he says, black guys counting my

53:58

money, I hate it. The only

54:00

kind of people I want counting my

54:02

money are little short guys who wear

54:04

yarmulkes. Well, apparently we're not the only

54:06

people who he has issues with. So

54:09

I just say all of that to say, you know,

54:11

for all of y'all. That

54:14

anti-Semitic remark really took me out. I'm

54:16

sorry. Surprised, are we? I'm

54:19

not surprised, but that was just so,

54:21

uh... Couple of y'all, last week they let

54:23

the Nazis to the party. What do you

54:25

think this is? So I brought this to

54:27

the podcast because it was...

54:29

I wanted to remind people that

54:31

this man has been who he

54:34

is from jump. He

54:36

gonna be who he is. And I

54:39

crammed to understand why all of these

54:41

black people are somehow finding community with

54:43

him when he clearly don't want nothing

54:46

to do with us. He does not

54:48

want us to rent his apartments. He

54:50

does not care when we are

54:52

wrongfully convicted. He

54:54

has all kinds of things to say about black workers

54:57

and he, contrary to his own

54:59

belief, has not been the best

55:02

president for black people in

55:04

history. So I thought I'd just leave that

55:06

here and see what you all thought. I

55:09

think my first thing is,

55:12

and maybe I'm thinking about this prematurely because

55:14

we, you know, we're in the election

55:16

year. But the first thing that comes

55:18

to my mind is if

55:20

black conservative folks are able

55:23

to rally around or find

55:26

harmony with Trump, that

55:29

means anybody a little bit

55:31

saner is a-shooing. That's

55:34

what Nikki Haley is counting on. You

55:36

know, like if you're able to just

55:38

transcend all the Trump's BS, that means

55:40

somebody else with half

55:42

of the trouble that Trump has made, which is

55:44

not hard to do, you could just stand still

55:47

and not get into the trouble that Trump has

55:49

gotten into. He's gone out of his way to

55:51

be a white supremacist throughout his career and throughout

55:53

his own public reputation. So that means that a

55:55

lot of people who are conservative are going to

55:58

have a really easy time with black conservatives. Trump

56:00

is making advancement. So that's what

56:02

is the scariest thing to me.

56:05

Also, I think there's something to black

56:07

conservatism, what happened in Ghana, what's happening

56:09

in Ghana, and these

56:11

like kind of cultural wars around

56:14

gender, these cultural wars around sexuality,

56:17

this kind of this weaponization turning woke

56:19

into a pejorative and turning into anything

56:22

that is about progressive politics. I think

56:24

there's something to people

56:26

finding political alignment

56:28

based off of a hatred

56:30

of trans folks, a hatred

56:33

of LGBT folks. I have a

56:35

feeling that that's really powerful when

56:37

we think about black folks and

56:39

conservatism today, is that a

56:41

lot of this stuff is really around

56:44

like anti-LGBT things. And last

56:46

thing I'll say too, from what DeRay

56:48

was saying around these black women prosecutors,

56:50

and even when I think about when

56:52

Hillary Clinton was getting under fire about

56:54

her super predator remarks, I

56:56

mean, you turn around and look and see that a

56:58

lot of the people who were wanting

57:02

certain types of laws and reinstated or

57:04

black folks, there's something happening. And I'm

57:06

less scared about this election cycle. I'm

57:09

more scared about the next one. I'm

57:11

more concerned about what somebody who is

57:14

more of sound mind, more of a

57:16

cleaner reputation will be able to do

57:18

with the black conservative community, if Trump

57:21

is able to make all this headway.

57:23

It's not just black conservatives, right? This

57:26

is also why he made y'all some sneakers.

57:28

This is also why he is

57:31

talking about how the black community

57:33

can relate to him because he's

57:35

being indicted and all of this

57:37

shares like, this is a full

57:39

frontal attack friends and black men

57:42

are the target. Well, to your

57:44

point, Antique, what I'm trying to say,

57:46

what I've always tried to say

57:48

is that black people aren't as progressive as we

57:50

like to think. So when I'm

57:53

saying black conservative, I'm not just saying

57:55

people who will go to what what

57:57

you just named and then you go

57:59

to a rally or go to a

58:01

convention, whatever. they're calling it and go

58:03

to this convention. I think that there

58:06

are lots of Black conservatives that have

58:08

up until today voted Democrat. And

58:11

I think that there is space to

58:13

motivate them and shift them to voting

58:15

conservative, specifically if we make the center

58:17

of the arguments around rugged individualism, anti-LGBT,

58:20

anti-trans and anti-gay things. That I think

58:22

that there's a lot of people who

58:24

are conservatives who have just been forced

58:27

to vote Democratic. So that's a piece

58:29

too. And we see even with, I

58:31

don't wanna use Kanye, but like the

58:33

culture around Kanye, we see that there's

58:36

something there that's not progressive. We're

58:38

fighting the crime bill in DC. And

58:41

what's been interesting about it is the difference

58:43

between what people say about it and what

58:45

it says itself. And

58:47

I'm like really interested now, cause I'm thinking like

58:49

what can turn the tide on Trump with people?

58:51

And one of the things that Trump does really

58:54

well is that the storytelling is what people buy

58:56

into. And the storytelling that doesn't match

58:58

the facts, but the left has not figured out how

59:00

to tell the facts in a way that don't seem

59:02

boring. And I'm interested, so

59:04

even when you talk about Kanye, like

59:06

when you read the quote about him

59:08

being like, I don't want Black

59:10

people touching my money, do that. Like that immediately made me

59:12

think of like, not just showing people

59:15

the quotes, but I'd love to like take the, this

59:17

is what I think about him out of the narrative for

59:19

people. Because it really does, you know, I've heard people be

59:21

like, at least he tell them the truth. You're

59:24

like, y'all, this is nuts, you

59:26

know? We need to get an AI voice

59:29

that sounds like Trump and have them repeat

59:31

them quotes. So in people's heads, they hear

59:33

it. You know what they,

59:35

I can't remember, I saw it online

59:38

this weekend, but some comedian that does

59:40

like on the street stuff was

59:43

pranking Trump supporters,

59:46

right? And so they'd be like, hey,

59:48

you know, it just came out

59:50

that President Biden had an

59:53

affair with this woman, you know, she

59:55

was a sex worker. And

59:58

he, ended up paying her

1:00:00

$30,000 to keep it hush, right? Like,

1:00:03

what do you think about that? And then people are like, I knew

1:00:05

it. You know, we know Biden is trash,

1:00:08

blah, blah, blah. And then they're like, oh, no, wait, I

1:00:10

said Biden. I meant Trump. Like, there's a Trump. And they're

1:00:12

like, oh, you mean Stormy Daniels? Well,

1:00:14

I mean, that happens. Like, my father had affairs.

1:00:16

I'm still going to vote for him, blah, blah,

1:00:18

blah, whatever, whatever. And they just kept

1:00:21

playing out these narratives

1:00:23

that were Trump narratives, but they

1:00:25

put Biden's name in. And these

1:00:27

people went hard on Biden. And

1:00:29

then literally in the same breath

1:00:31

10 seconds later would be like,

1:00:33

oh, but I mean, he

1:00:36

didn't really mean that. And da,

1:00:38

da, da. And so I think

1:00:40

even when you have the narratives,

1:00:42

like, you're thinking about appealing to

1:00:44

people's heads, DeRay, and logic and

1:00:46

reason. And I think what

1:00:48

we've learned about this is this

1:00:50

is an unreasonable situation. People are

1:00:52

not thinking with their heads because

1:00:55

there's no way that you could

1:00:57

condemn something in one second. And

1:00:59

then once you find out it's a different person,

1:01:01

you just flip. Like, that's not a head. That's

1:01:03

hard. That's crazy. I don't know what it is.

1:01:06

But I think the narrative is really important.

1:01:08

But I don't think that it's enough. I

1:01:11

think that people are

1:01:13

not responding to logic

1:01:16

and reason. And

1:01:18

that is why it's hard for the

1:01:20

left because the left is a logical,

1:01:23

reasonable data. I

1:01:25

mean, nobody is completely. But

1:01:28

the left prides itself on

1:01:30

being logical, reasonable, data-driven, whatever,

1:01:32

whatever. And that ain't

1:01:34

what the fight is right now. It's

1:01:36

cultural. It's nebulous. It's whatever is motivating

1:01:38

and making people feel good. Even if

1:01:40

you don't, there's something that's making people

1:01:42

feel good when they hear a good

1:01:45

Dave Chappelle or a bad

1:01:47

Dave Chappelle trans joke. They feel good

1:01:49

about it. And when people hear Roseanne

1:01:51

Barr say certain things and they go,

1:01:53

woof, woof, woof, woof, that same thing,

1:01:55

Trump is able to galvanize in people.

1:01:57

And that's, dare I say it, that's like. spiritual.

1:02:01

That's emotional. That's psychological.

1:02:04

Well, friends, as we shared last week,

1:02:06

just because February is over, does

1:02:08

not mean that we are going to stop

1:02:10

reading Black books. We are still in the

1:02:12

Blackest book clubs, because as Miles shared

1:02:15

earlier, reading is fundamental, friends.

1:02:17

And we are excited to lift

1:02:20

up authors that you

1:02:22

might not know, books that you might

1:02:24

not know, topics that you might not

1:02:26

know. And this week, I'm

1:02:29

asking my colleagues to think

1:02:31

about an author that you

1:02:34

would love to interview on the podcast.

1:02:36

And which of their books would you like

1:02:38

to discuss and why? And if you

1:02:41

have not already seen, you can head

1:02:43

to the website. All

1:02:45

of our book choices are there. We

1:02:47

also have recommendations for books

1:02:50

for children and young adults ages

1:02:53

kindergarten to teenagers

1:02:56

and we want everybody reading. And

1:02:59

February is the kickoff for Black History

1:03:01

year, as far as I'm concerned. So

1:03:03

come on and keep reading with us.

1:03:06

You all have had a little bit of time to think.

1:03:08

So Miles, I'm going to ask you to get started. Which

1:03:10

Black author would you love to interview and

1:03:12

which of their books would you like to discuss?

1:03:15

I think the Black author I

1:03:17

would most love to interview would

1:03:20

be Lamar Jarrell Bruce. I

1:03:22

would love to discuss How to Go

1:03:24

Mad without losing your mind. The

1:03:27

reason behind that is because, and

1:03:30

I've been thinking about this a lot, I think

1:03:33

for a really long time, I mean, since

1:03:35

the 70s, but since I've

1:03:38

been born, there's been this kind

1:03:40

of like promotion of like black

1:03:42

insert positive adjective. So black is

1:03:45

beautiful, black excellence, black pride, black

1:03:48

girl joy, black boy, all these different things.

1:03:51

And what I'm interested about

1:03:53

what Lamar Jarrell Bruce was able to

1:03:55

accomplish was take something like madness, take

1:03:57

something that's ugly, take something that is.

1:04:00

not necessarily the warmest thing and

1:04:02

really assert that this is also

1:04:04

a part of Black

1:04:07

genius and this is also a

1:04:09

part of what has helped Black

1:04:11

people move

1:04:13

through these extremely

1:04:15

complicated and layered

1:04:18

political realities that we've experienced and

1:04:21

it made me think about what

1:04:24

kind of Black is valuable.

1:04:26

I think that there's something to when

1:04:28

anytime you have to see a Black

1:04:30

person, you have to like

1:04:33

how they sound or like how they look.

1:04:35

I think there's something to what he was

1:04:37

saying around like Nina Simone, what he was

1:04:39

saying about Sunara. So like when I think

1:04:41

about Nina Simone's anger when she was on

1:04:44

the stage of the Summer of Soul and

1:04:46

how she says are you ready for Black

1:04:48

to break white things and how she was

1:04:50

firing and she was scary. And then when

1:04:52

I think about Sunara and some songs being

1:04:55

borderline for a lot of people,

1:04:57

this free jazz music being like

1:04:59

a listen to some people. That

1:05:01

is totally subversive to the angelic

1:05:04

voices of Gladys Knight and Aretha

1:05:06

Franklin and the melodies

1:05:08

of that we came to be accustomed to

1:05:10

some of our jazz greats. Namely, I think

1:05:12

about like even like Charlie Parker and stuff

1:05:14

of being like, oh no, my Black sound

1:05:17

is not here to make you feel okay

1:05:19

and bring harmony. It's not this lullaby that

1:05:21

Summertime was and it's not Porgy and Bess.

1:05:23

It's mad. It's going wild and I'm gonna

1:05:25

get it out of my head so we

1:05:28

can go into A the world

1:05:30

and get outside of me. And I just think

1:05:32

that was so interesting. Even last

1:05:34

night I tweeted out, you

1:05:37

know, we all can't be our ancestors wildest dreams.

1:05:39

Some of us have to be living our ancestors

1:05:41

wildest nightmares. Some of some of what I'm seeing

1:05:43

has to be something that would put fear in

1:05:46

our hearts if we if we told our ancestors

1:05:48

100, 200, 300, 400 thousands of years later, this

1:05:53

is the reality that your great great great

1:05:55

great great grandchildren would be living with and

1:05:57

I think that to not think

1:05:59

about stuff like that is doing us a

1:06:01

disservice as Black folks to always think in the

1:06:03

sun. I think sometimes we have to think lunar

1:06:06

and we have to think in the moon and

1:06:08

we have to think in the darkness. And I

1:06:10

think that we have the capacity to do it

1:06:12

because we've been giving so much terror and darkness

1:06:14

that we actually have the muscle to go there.

1:06:17

And I think, man, this book goes there. Like,

1:06:19

I would just love to wax poetic and

1:06:22

just listen and talk to him about everything.

1:06:26

That is a very interesting perspective.

1:06:28

Like, it ain't all light. There

1:06:31

is dark. And how do

1:06:33

we make room for the dark and examine the

1:06:35

dark and harness the

1:06:37

energy. People

1:06:40

have harnessed the energy to create art

1:06:43

and resistance and whatnot.

1:06:45

And I've

1:06:48

never heard of this book. Love the

1:06:50

title. Thank you for bringing

1:06:52

it to the podcast and helping

1:06:55

us to think about, I mean, the cover

1:06:57

of the book is amazing. Madness

1:07:00

and Black radical creativity.

1:07:03

Come on, I'm here for it. DeRay, what

1:07:05

author would you like to interview? You

1:07:08

know, this is sort of cheating because I've been so lucky

1:07:10

that I've been able to interview almost all of them. But

1:07:14

The Children of Blood and Bone,

1:07:16

the series I thought was incredible,

1:07:18

written by Tommy Adeyemi. There's

1:07:20

a new book coming out. And I actually want to talk to

1:07:22

her about the new book. I've not read the new book. But

1:07:25

because I think it's the final

1:07:27

book in the trilogy, I want

1:07:29

to talk to her about what it was like building

1:07:32

a black world. That's what I want to talk to

1:07:34

her about. I want to read the

1:07:36

new book. And she's like on my list to see

1:07:38

if we can get because I'm just like, what did

1:07:40

you think about? What did you not include? What

1:07:42

did you borrow from? What about our ancestors

1:07:45

are in the book and the world you

1:07:47

created? Less about the books, actually, and

1:07:49

more about the world. Less about the moments in the book

1:07:51

and more about like, how did you create this world? What

1:07:53

did that look like? So yeah,

1:07:55

I'm excited. Can you say a little bit more

1:07:58

about what a black world might look like? people

1:08:00

who haven't read. Yeah, so it's like, it's

1:08:02

sort of like a hero, hero trilogy.

1:08:04

And the people are black. And I

1:08:06

don't want to give too much away

1:08:09

because you should read it. But the

1:08:11

first two books are out loved them.

1:08:13

They did extremely well. And

1:08:15

there was a cliffhanger in the second book, as you

1:08:17

can imagine. And I'm just like, I'm, I'm curious about

1:08:20

what happens in the world. But I'm super curious about

1:08:22

the choices she made. And what made me think about

1:08:24

her is, you know, I don't know if

1:08:27

there's another author who I thought was

1:08:29

as intentional as Toni Morrison was about

1:08:31

creating a black world in her books.

1:08:33

Like it was just so it wasn't

1:08:35

just black, it was intentionally black. And

1:08:38

she understood it as

1:08:40

part of her work to like name that intention and

1:08:42

her essays and da da da. So

1:08:44

there's just not a lot of black

1:08:47

fantasy writers, or,

1:08:49

you know, like there are some fiction writers

1:08:51

who do really good work. But this isn't

1:08:53

really science fiction. This is more fantasy to

1:08:56

me. And they're just not really best seller

1:08:58

black fantasy novels like this. I mean,

1:09:00

this book really did take off. And

1:09:03

that to me science fiction to me is like

1:09:05

how do you how do you create a future,

1:09:07

which is also interesting. But this is fantasy. And

1:09:10

like, what was it like to create that black

1:09:12

fantastical world I want to know more about? I

1:09:14

read The Children of Blood and Bone. And

1:09:16

like, if you like

1:09:18

it is it is mythology,

1:09:21

it is magic, it is

1:09:23

teenagers, it is power, it

1:09:25

is like all of

1:09:28

and it is ancestral and historical

1:09:30

and all of those things. And

1:09:33

it really reminds me of like, a

1:09:36

black and elevated version of like a

1:09:38

Harry Potter esque kind of thing, right?

1:09:40

Like JK Rowling imagined a magical world

1:09:42

that no and like people are in

1:09:44

love with it because this is a

1:09:46

world that you know, we never

1:09:48

even thought about. This is that

1:09:51

one steroids boo like this

1:09:53

is black magic. This is,

1:09:56

you know, saving the world. This

1:09:58

is, you know, young

1:10:00

people who have agency and

1:10:04

Like I mean, this is all of the

1:10:06

things and so it is Like

1:10:09

you would have to think like JK

1:10:11

How did you imagine this totally like

1:10:13

world like this world with different food

1:10:15

different everything that's? Tommy

1:10:17

like you went above and beyond talk to

1:10:19

us about like where this came from in

1:10:22

your head and girl What do you eat

1:10:24

for breakfast because we need something And

1:10:28

I think it's one of those things to where people I love

1:10:32

when fantasy and things based

1:10:34

in like fantasy also get you in

1:10:36

curious about Realities and I

1:10:38

think that is like something that is Oftentimes

1:10:41

you need to like black writers is

1:10:43

that they often like put our own

1:10:45

history our own Mythologies our

1:10:47

own folklore inside of it speaking of Toni

1:10:49

Morrison That's something that she was good at

1:10:51

it gets you more curious about where you

1:10:54

come from So it's not just strictly fantasy

1:10:56

and abracadabra. It's like oh, no this your

1:10:58

great-grandmother might actually have Been

1:11:00

doing some of these roots that are in this book. So

1:11:03

the other I would like to interview

1:11:07

and the book that I would like to

1:11:09

discuss is hunger by Roxanne gay and I

1:11:13

chose this book because I

1:11:17

am a big girl and That

1:11:19

is as much of my Identity

1:11:22

as being black or as being a

1:11:24

woman and it impacts me every single

1:11:26

day and I see the world very

1:11:28

differently than

1:11:30

people who are not big and Hunger

1:11:34

is really the first time that

1:11:36

I've seen anybody speak really anybody

1:11:38

like who looks like me and

1:11:41

and Whatnot speak

1:11:43

really candidly about obesity about

1:11:47

self-image about About

1:11:50

desire about relationships

1:11:53

and I

1:11:56

think we need to be having this conversation more out

1:11:58

in the open. I know that

1:12:02

there are conversations that are being had amongst

1:12:05

friendship circles or in book clubs or

1:12:07

amongst one-on-one amongst friends. And then there

1:12:10

are lots of conversations that are not

1:12:12

happening. And Roxanne just put it out

1:12:14

there. She's like, look, I've

1:12:16

been fat my whole life. Here's the

1:12:18

reasons why I've used food to self-medicate.

1:12:21

These things have happened to me. Here's how

1:12:23

I've felt about myself. We just don't have

1:12:26

that candid conversation.

1:12:28

I think the closest that we've

1:12:30

come to it, and I think

1:12:32

it's interesting that we're talking

1:12:34

about this at this particular time, because I

1:12:37

think the closest we've come to it is

1:12:39

the conversation about Oprah and her weight,

1:12:41

right? And if you saw last week,

1:12:43

Oprah stepped down from the Weight Watchers

1:12:45

board because she's on the weight loss

1:12:47

drugs now and feels like she can't

1:12:50

authentically or whatever. They broke up because

1:12:52

she's on the weight loss drugs, right? And

1:12:55

I think there's a whole

1:12:57

conversation about

1:13:00

weight and what we think about

1:13:02

fat shaming and willpower that these

1:13:05

new drugs are saying is actually

1:13:07

not true. And the way

1:13:10

we're having the conversation publicly, I

1:13:13

was watching the Today Show last week where

1:13:16

this slim white woman was just talking

1:13:18

about Oprah stepping down and how it

1:13:20

was inauthentic for her to be

1:13:23

on the weight loss drugs. And I was like, everybody

1:13:26

in Hollywood is on the weight loss drugs.

1:13:28

And everybody in Hollywood has gotten their teeth

1:13:30

fixed and everybody in Hollywood has gotten their

1:13:32

faces lifted and whatnot. And we act like

1:13:35

these people are just beautiful and

1:13:37

wonderful and doing their things. When

1:13:40

in fact, there's a whole lot of body

1:13:43

image stuff going on that we're not talking about.

1:13:45

We're not talking about little girls

1:13:47

who are obsessed with

1:13:50

skincare stuff that is actually

1:13:52

not good for them because,

1:13:55

but the way we do beauty

1:13:57

and the way Roxane Gay has

1:13:59

unapparable. sort of

1:14:01

owned her situation

1:14:03

and her narrative and brought this

1:14:06

conversation into the

1:14:08

public space, makes

1:14:11

me wanna ask her how

1:14:14

she got that courage because this is

1:14:16

not something that people really wanna talk

1:14:18

about. And if they do, they

1:14:20

wanna talk about it in a particular way

1:14:23

and she doesn't talk about it in hunger

1:14:25

the way people wanna talk about it. So

1:14:27

I wanna meet Roxane Gay

1:14:31

and I wanna ask her some questions on the podcast.

1:14:35

I need to read that, I've only heard good

1:14:37

things about it but I've never read it. Yeah,

1:14:39

it reminds me of Kasey Lehman's Heavy which

1:14:42

kind of goes through similar things.

1:14:46

And yeah, I think there's so much room

1:14:48

to, I would love for y'all

1:14:50

to talk about it too because also I think

1:14:52

it's interesting too because I was born in Long

1:14:54

Island but I grew up most of my life

1:14:56

in Georgia, right? So

1:14:58

weight has been such a weird thing because I'm

1:15:00

a thick Georgia,

1:15:03

I'm a fat New York. And I think

1:15:05

that it wasn't until my mid 20s that

1:15:11

I kind of figured out like, okay, this is a

1:15:13

thin thing. There's

1:15:16

just something to black folks

1:15:19

in our experience of weight in the

1:15:21

medical industry and aesthetics that just has

1:15:23

not always aligned with the white mainstream.

1:15:25

And I'm just, I would just

1:15:28

be so curious about hearing you and Roxane Gay

1:15:30

talk about those things. Can I set

1:15:32

it up? Okay. Can we set it up? I

1:15:34

love the sense of possibility, DeRay. Yes, let

1:15:36

us set it up. Call your people.

1:15:39

Let's call Roxane. Call

1:15:41

your people. DM Roxane and see if

1:15:43

she'll come talk to us. That would

1:15:45

be fantastic. And this my friends is

1:15:48

the power of the Blackest Foot Club

1:15:50

where we get to learn together, we

1:15:52

get to dream together and we get

1:15:54

to make it happen all because of

1:15:56

black authors and black books.

1:15:59

And so. join us next

1:16:01

time when we discuss

1:16:03

another set of books that we love and

1:16:05

are interested in and that we've learned from

1:16:07

On the Blackest Book Club. Well

1:16:14

that's it thanks so much for tuning in

1:16:16

to Positive People this week. Don't forget to

1:16:18

follow us at Cricut Media on Instagram, Twitter,

1:16:20

and TikTok. And if you enjoyed this episode

1:16:22

of Positive People consider dropping us a review

1:16:24

on your favorite podcast app. And we'll see

1:16:27

you next week. Positive People is a production

1:16:29

of Cricut Media. It's produced by AJ Moultrie

1:16:31

and mixed-bag Vassilis Fatap Addic

1:16:53

Hey everybody! I'm

1:17:10

Ashley, Eng Washington. and I like to

1:17:12

practice a neighbourhood ritual.