0:03

Welcome to Why I'm Voting, a production

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of I Heart Radio. Listen.

0:09

You already know this, but it's an election year.

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You might already be tired of hearing about it.

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But here's the thing. Democracy

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doesn't work without you. I'm

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Holly Frying, and I'm sitting down with

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many of my fellow podcasters, from Will

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Ferrell to Stephanie Rule as well as

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other luminaries to find out about

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their relationships with the ballot box and

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ultimately just to find out why they

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vote. I hope you're

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exercising your right to vote, and if

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you're not, I hope that their stories inspire

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you. So

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today on Why I

0:45

Am Voting, I am joined by

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Jason Petty, also known as Propaganda.

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He is an artist, rapper, and

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a poet, and he and his wife

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Dr Alma Zaragoza. Petty also

0:57

host a podcast called The Red Couch Podcast.

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So this is a man doing a lot of creative

1:02

work. But today, what I want to ask

1:04

you about first, just to get started, is

1:06

if you recall the time

1:08

in your life when you realized

1:11

that you were going to be a participant in

1:13

the democratic process, and the voting was

1:15

a responsibility that you would

1:17

have in your future. Yeah, what's

1:19

up? You know, Yeah, I totally

1:21

remember the exact moment. My father was a black

1:23

panther, so both my parents we're

1:26

heavily involved in justice work, but very specifically

1:29

my father, So knowing you

1:31

know the history of our family, the things we've

1:33

done together, you know, when

1:35

coming up on twenty one was

1:37

like something that was like, Okay,

1:40

here we go. You know what I'm saying, your turn,

1:42

you know what I mean, You're carrying the torch.

1:45

So I remember as a team being

1:47

like, let's do this. You know what I'm saying,

1:49

it's coming, it's coming, Let's do this. Yeah.

1:51

Yeah. So did you register right away when

1:54

you turned eighteen and it was legal? Yeah? Immediately

1:56

Yeah eighteen asset, I'm sorry, yeah, eighteen.

1:58

Other important things happened at Yeah, it was

2:00

like part of our birthday celebration was

2:02

like, all right, here we go, you officially

2:05

can do it. You know, I love that as a family

2:07

tradition. That's amazing. Yeah, and obviously

2:10

you grew up in a very politically aware family, so it's

2:12

not surprising. Do you remember

2:14

your first election that you participated in? You

2:16

know what, My first one was a local election. Yeah,

2:18

it was a local election, and I

2:21

remember being like dumbfounded

2:23

in the sense that like I was like, man, I don't know who any

2:25

of these people are. Like I just I was like, oh crap,

2:28

I don't know what any of this is. And at

2:30

the time I was like, Okay, just fine,

2:33

so bad, but just like, what where

2:35

are the like ethnic last

2:38

names? You know I'm saying. So I'm like, Okay,

2:40

who's this sounds Asian, this sounds Latino.

2:42

I'm gonna vote for this, you know what I'm saying. Just like the

2:45

thought didn't cross my mind that I was like, yo,

2:47

I don't know any of these people,

2:49

you know, So that was that was my first thought.

2:52

I was like, oh crap, Like I better, And then I

2:54

tried to tell myself like, I doesn't matter, you know,

2:56

it's I mean, who cares to that, like local

2:58

district assemblyment is you know. It's

3:00

such an eighteen year old answer, and

3:03

now I get it, But at the time, I was like, Yeah,

3:05

as you get older, you realize that that you

3:07

know, your local county commissioner then has

3:10

input on things that are directly involved

3:12

in your community directly. Yes,

3:15

I presume that you probably still

3:17

now that you are older and

3:19

wiser participate in those, those

3:21

more local elections, not just the big four year

3:24

events. Oh my gosh, absolutely almost

3:26

put more emphasis on those than I

3:28

do on the bigger ones. What is your research

3:30

process like, because you kind of point out the big

3:32

problem, right, the big elections

3:35

have tons of advertising and they're

3:37

covered by the press really really robustly,

3:40

but local elections don't get that much attention,

3:42

and it's harder to figure people out. What do

3:44

you do to do it? It's a lot of work man

3:46

like. Now, luckily with California,

3:48

they have like there's a few websites

3:51

that are super like user

3:53

friendly, like some of the point counterpoints

3:55

or some of our propositions and stuff like that.

3:57

They set it up to look like a texting thread,

4:00

so it's like it's a super coup forget the name

4:02

of the website. But we started, like me and my wife

4:05

doing that together. And then after a while,

4:07

some of the like the younger people that were just kind of in our

4:09

life, we started inviting them over,

4:12

having a glass of wine, you know, or a couple

4:14

of bottles of wine and just going through proposition

4:17

by proposition and then like

4:19

from our phones, like mirroring it on our TV and

4:22

then like pulling up each person's

4:24

website. Like it took a couple of hours. But

4:26

we're you know, we're eating like you know, chips,

4:28

AND's house side. You know, we're having like you

4:30

know, cocktails. It's like a party,

4:32

but we're going through and discussing

4:36

everybody's stuff. You know. I hope everybody

4:38

takes this as a tip to have like political

4:40

study group forever. It turned

4:42

out. When we first did it, we were like, this

4:44

is so fun. And

4:47

it was only like it was like three or four of us, you

4:49

know, me and my wife, a couple of of our friends. And

4:53

one of the young ladies was like, I

4:55

have never done this. I never even

4:57

knew this stuff exists. We need to do this every

5:00

time. And she was just like, I learned so much

5:02

today. I love this idea so much.

5:05

I wonder how you feel about elections

5:07

where the outcome is kind of a foregone

5:09

conclusion. Like if somebody feels like, oh,

5:11

this election is a lock, what

5:13

are your thoughts on on the importance of still

5:15

going out and voting just the same, Well,

5:18

it's not a lot, you know what I'm saying, Like, that's

5:20

how democracy fails, you know, that's

5:22

how a system fails is

5:25

everyone assuming somebody else, you

5:27

know. So like in my mind, it's

5:29

like even if it is, this

5:32

is your right, this is your privilege, and

5:35

you never know, you know, you

5:37

think about like middle school or ninth grade,

5:39

this kid that you just liked so much,

5:42

but you're like they're so beautiful, like somebody's

5:45

dating them already, you know what I'm saying. It's just like, don't

5:47

even ask, just it's not even worth

5:49

it. Like there's some kid

5:51

with a freakish amount of confidence,

5:54

you know, and that may not even be self

5:56

aware that just walked up to like the prettiest

5:58

person they know, was just like, hey, you want

6:00

to go out? And no one ever asked. So they're

6:02

like, yeah, you say, you're just

6:05

like see you never know. Presumptive

6:07

outcomes are not real outcomes. Yes,

6:09

they're not real outcomes. And that's and if you know, like

6:12

I know you do, because just now it clicked,

6:14

I just recognized your voice, Like

6:16

I was like, wait a minute, this is one of my

6:18

favorite podcasts. Oh my god.

6:21

You know history, Well

6:23

I'm not telling you know news, but like history

6:26

rarely spends on

6:29

one factor or even

6:32

on an assumption of

6:35

an outcome. It never is

6:37

it like that, you know, No, they're always

6:40

so many moving parts. Voting

6:42

is clearly such an important part of

6:44

your life, and the democratic process is something

6:46

you are so tuned into that I

6:48

wonder if you and maybe you and your

6:50

wife together since you both participate in

6:53

it sounds like, uh, you know, kind of a

6:55

communal experience in terms of this. Do

6:57

you have any rituals around voting day?

6:59

Just over rituals around it? Because I toured

7:02

I well before this, you know,

7:04

I toured so much, so most

7:06

of my votes were like absentee ballots

7:09

are like mailed in, So voting

7:11

day is all is usually like something where

7:13

we could kind of look at each other and kind of like hash

7:16

it out. You know, what did you vote for? What did you vote

7:18

for? Like we finally tell each other what we voted

7:20

for. It, well, maybe there is that on election

7:22

day, like that's one will actually like tell each

7:24

other. Now on the big ones, we definitely

7:26

have, like the twenty four hour news

7:28

cycle like on the television, you know, I mean,

7:31

so we're just like, oh my god, I can't believe

7:33

it. Oh this, Hey did you know about this? Dude?

7:35

I'm telling you that not that dude

7:37

racist. You know what I'm saying. It just like we're just going back

7:39

it forth, you know, over each other's

7:41

notes and stuff. But like generally

7:44

on the election day, we've already voted.

7:46

We're just watching the outcomes. So last

7:48

question, if there is someone out there who

7:51

is not using their right to vote,

7:54

and you can only tell them one thing to get

7:56

their butt to the poll

7:59

or get them to may win that ballot, what would

8:01

you tell them? Yeah, it's it's hard,

8:03

I um, because I understand the disillusionment,

8:06

understand the feeling that it's not doing anything. I

8:08

think if I could go into an

8:10

anecdote, maybe so Like I

8:13

was in college and the college

8:15

I was in, and the school I was in was

8:19

far from the county

8:22

that I registered to vote in. You

8:24

know, so I was I was staying with my dad at

8:27

the time my parents were split. I was

8:29

staying. I was over my dad's house to study

8:31

for some tests or whatever. Right, and my

8:34

father goes, Yo, election day, you're gonna go vote?

8:36

And my response was, it's

8:39

like an hour drive to get out there. Test

8:43

tomorrow. Like, I don't know, man,

8:45

it's gonna be like a two hour trip, dude. And I'm

8:47

like, I don't know if I got to gas, like just

8:49

all these like all these good college

8:52

kid reasons, right, and

8:54

the disappointment in his face just

8:57

looking at me, like I can't believe you

8:59

just said that. He didn't yell at me, he

9:01

didn't scold me. It's

9:04

just the disappointment in being like,

9:06

boy, do you know what we went through? You

9:09

know, and like it's it's almost like it's a

9:11

movie because like over his shoulder, I saw

9:13

the frame picture of my grandmother,

9:15

of his mom, you know what I'm saying, and

9:18

and her siblings, and I'm just like,

9:22

oh, yeah, there's there's my

9:24

grandma. There's my dad, you know, with

9:27

fire, hydrants and wild dogs released

9:29

on him. And I'm telling him I can't

9:31

sit in traffic, all right, yes,

9:34

I'll go, you know. And it's just that

9:36

like just that emotional tie of

9:38

being like taking for granted things

9:41

that were so and I'm sitting here

9:43

as like an Afro you know, uh, intercultural

9:46

studies major where I'm like looking

9:49

at the history of oppression and you

9:51

know in my textbook, I'm it's

9:53

a it's a history class I'm like about

9:55

to take a test for and I have

9:57

a chance, and my own father

10:00

is like, yeah, okay,

10:02

yeah, you gotta sit in traffic, all right. It just

10:04

kind of walks away from me and I'm like, yeah, I

10:06

better go, I better go do it. So, like

10:08

I guess, at the end of the day, my answer would be like,

10:11

you don't know what you have till it's gone, man, and

10:14

like, don't think it can't be gone.

10:17

You know, so appreciate what you

10:19

have, even if it in your mind it

10:21

doesn't do anything. The fact that you're participating

10:23

is a statement. You know. I love it. Jason,

10:26

you are an absolute delight. Oh my gosh,

10:29

don't tell me that because I'm fanning already.

10:33

Thank you so much for sharing your incredible

10:36

passion and your insight. I have one hundred

10:38

percent stealing that whole study group idea.

10:41

Do it, and hopefully all

10:43

of this amazing passion that you have shared

10:46

with us will get somebody off their butt in their

10:48

car into traffic to go do their

10:50

civic duty. Please, please go do

10:52

it. Please? Where can people find

10:54

you if they want to hunt down your cool music?

10:57

Alright? Alright, everything is prop

10:59

hip hop for me. So that's the website,

11:01

the Instagram, just prop hip hop dot

11:03

com, that's my app mentions.

11:06

Uh, there's a ton of coffee there

11:08

too, because I adore coffee.

11:11

Don't think I didn't watch that poor over video,

11:13

Like I know what's up? She

11:16

goes, that's awesome.

11:18

Yeah, so yeah, there's everything is at prop

11:20

hip hop dot com. Fabulous. Thank you so much.

11:23

Thank you. Hey.

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Are you not registered to vote yet but you

11:29

think it's something you want to do? You may

11:32

still have time. Voter registration

11:34

deadlines vary by state, so to find

11:36

out the scoop for where you are, check out

11:38

a nonpartisan registration voting

11:40

site like head count dot org or fair

11:43

vote dot org. Why I'm Voting

11:45

is an I Heart Radio production. For more

11:47

podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit

11:49

the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

11:52

or wherever it is you listen to your favorite shows.