Oct. 19, 2025

Actors of Democracy Featuring Sahar Aziz and Wala Blegay

Actors of Democracy Featuring Sahar Aziz and Wala Blegay
The player is loading ...
Actors of Democracy Featuring Sahar Aziz and Wala Blegay

In this episode, Sahar Aziz, Distinguished Professor of Law at Rutgers University Law School, talks about the challenges to free speech and of Islamophobia in America, then Wala Blegay, Prince George’s County District 6 Councilwoman, discusses issues that have impacted her county, such as federal layoffs and healthcare.

Host Erik Fleming interviews Professor Sahar Aziz and Councilmember Wala Blegay in a wide-ranging episode about law, activism, and public service.

Aziz examines national security, Islamophobia, campus protests, and the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, while Blegay discusses local governance, the impact of federal layoffs, EV infrastructure, and a Food-as-Medicine initiative to improve community health.

Together they explore how activists and elected officials work to protect civil rights, shape policy, and hold power accountable.

00:06 - Welcome to A Moment with Erik Fleming

01:56 - Actors of Democracy

05:40 - Moment of News

07:54 - Introducing Sahar Aziz

11:32 - Engaging with Sahar Aziz

23:08 - The Ceasefire Discussion

30:18 - Personal Reflections on Conflict

37:13 - Exploring Racial Dynamics

45:51 - Legacy of Black Lives Matter

56:33 - The Beautiful Aspects of Islam

01:11:32 - Understanding True Islam

01:12:31 - Introducing Wala Blegay

01:16:08 - Spotlight on Wala Blegay

01:17:57 - Icebreaker Reflections

01:19:31 - Engaging the Community

01:22:50 - Prince George’s County Dynamics

01:27:10 - Federal Layoffs Impact

01:31:20 - Food as Medicine Initiative

01:35:14 - Electric Vehicle Infrastructure

01:36:34 - Legacy and Impact

01:37:38 - Closing Thoughts on Democracy

01:40:31 - Reflections on Public Service

01:58:26 - Indigenous Rights and Citizenship

02:00:40 - Global Interconnectedness

02:04:12 - Call for Unity and Action

WEBVTT

00:00:00.017 --> 00:00:06.117
Welcome. I'm Erik Fleming, host of A Moment with Erik Fleming, the podcast of our time.

00:00:06.417 --> 00:00:08.977
I want to personally thank you for listening to the podcast.

00:00:09.337 --> 00:00:12.737
If you like what you're hearing, then I need you to do a few things.

00:00:13.257 --> 00:00:19.377
First, I need subscribers. I'm on Patreon at patreon.com slash amomentwitherikfleming.

00:00:19.757 --> 00:00:24.637
Your subscription allows an independent podcaster like me the freedom to speak

00:00:24.637 --> 00:00:27.957
truth to power, and to expand and improve the show.

00:00:28.557 --> 00:00:32.837
Second, leave a five-star review for the podcast on the streaming service you

00:00:32.837 --> 00:00:35.577
listen to it. That will help the podcast tremendously.

00:00:36.457 --> 00:00:41.917
Third, go to the website, momenterik.com. There you can subscribe to the podcast,

00:00:42.297 --> 00:00:47.257
leave reviews and comments, listen to past episodes, and even learn a little bit about your host.

00:00:47.857 --> 00:00:51.877
Lastly, don't keep this a secret like it's your own personal guilty pleasure.

00:00:52.577 --> 00:00:57.097
Tell someone else about the podcast. Encourage others to listen to the podcast

00:00:57.097 --> 00:01:02.417
and share the podcast on your social media platforms, because it is time to

00:01:02.417 --> 00:01:04.177
make this moment a movement.

00:01:04.537 --> 00:01:10.197
Thanks in advance for supporting the podcast of our time. I hope you enjoy this episode as well.

00:01:11.337 --> 00:01:16.377
The following program is hosted by the NBG Podcast Network.

00:01:56.537 --> 00:02:01.277
Hello and welcome to another moment, Erik Fleming. I am your host, Erik Fleming.

00:02:02.057 --> 00:02:09.857
And today I have two guests on, and I was trying to come up with a title for

00:02:09.857 --> 00:02:15.837
this one because these two ladies are very unique, but yet they are very similar, right?

00:02:16.377 --> 00:02:26.037
One is a law professor and one is a practicing attorney who is now an elected official.

00:02:27.517 --> 00:02:33.457
And, you know, and just going over to, you know,

00:02:33.857 --> 00:02:38.857
the conversations with them and all that, the best title I could come up with

00:02:38.857 --> 00:02:42.817
was Actors of Democracy, right?

00:02:43.237 --> 00:02:46.337
Because they represent two different aspects.

00:02:47.397 --> 00:02:54.857
One, as I mentioned, is an elected official. So that young lady is doing her

00:02:54.857 --> 00:02:57.477
part to promote democracy by serving.

00:02:58.117 --> 00:03:09.237
And then the other guest, she is an actor of democracy by her activism and her

00:03:09.237 --> 00:03:13.217
role in educating future activists. Right.

00:03:13.517 --> 00:03:18.617
And so that's something that I think, you know, people need to understand that

00:03:18.617 --> 00:03:21.337
those two things work together.

00:03:21.337 --> 00:03:29.517
We have to have elected officials that understand the importance of public service.

00:03:29.517 --> 00:03:35.057
And then we need to have activists to hold those of us who have had the privilege

00:03:35.057 --> 00:03:37.577
of serving or currently serving accountable.

00:03:38.077 --> 00:03:41.977
Right. And so I think that's,

00:03:42.537 --> 00:03:49.177
you know, I mean, I'm not the best at creating titles, but I think that aptly

00:03:49.177 --> 00:03:56.157
applies to the two women, incredible women that I have on as guests.

00:03:56.157 --> 00:04:00.257
And I hope that you agree with my assessment as you listen to the interviews.

00:04:01.542 --> 00:04:06.262
Still trying to get subscribers, so please go to patreon.com slash a moment

00:04:06.262 --> 00:04:13.602
with Eric Fleming and sign up there, or you can go to momenteric.com and do the same thing.

00:04:13.602 --> 00:04:17.582
Plus, you can learn a little bit about the show and about me,

00:04:17.602 --> 00:04:22.922
and hopefully, you know, that you, if you like what you're hearing,

00:04:23.002 --> 00:04:24.842
you leave a review, all that stuff, right?

00:04:25.702 --> 00:04:34.082
So, you know, just please do that. The value of independent voices at this time is amazing.

00:04:35.102 --> 00:04:40.822
You know, when I sit and look at television news now, I mean,

00:04:40.942 --> 00:04:42.922
you get what you can, right?

00:04:42.922 --> 00:04:48.042
And I have seen some optimistic moments,

00:04:48.562 --> 00:04:55.802
but the real strength right now is those of us who have platforms like this,

00:04:55.842 --> 00:05:01.042
who can talk to whoever they want to talk to, talk to them as long as they,

00:05:01.262 --> 00:05:06.762
as you want to, and, you know, say what you want to say.

00:05:07.502 --> 00:05:12.762
And, and be as truthful as you can be. Right.

00:05:13.882 --> 00:05:17.902
Because there are forces on the other side that are doing the same thing.

00:05:17.902 --> 00:05:21.602
And so we have to continue to be out there.

00:05:21.782 --> 00:05:26.442
So support us, as many of us as you can, right?

00:05:27.542 --> 00:05:31.642
And again, the most important way to support us is to listen.

00:05:31.822 --> 00:05:36.462
So I, again, am grateful for y'all tuning in. All right.

00:05:36.902 --> 00:05:40.142
So without any further ado, let's go ahead and kick this off.

00:05:40.202 --> 00:05:44.042
And as always, we kick it off with a moment of news. with Grace G.

00:05:50.989 --> 00:05:56.129
Thanks, Erik. John Bolton, former National Security Advisor to President Trump,

00:05:56.369 --> 00:06:00.609
has been federally indicted on 18 counts related to the transmission and retention

00:06:00.609 --> 00:06:02.349
of national defense information.

00:06:02.569 --> 00:06:06.809
A federal judge in California ordered the Trump administration to halt mass

00:06:06.809 --> 00:06:10.209
layoffs of federal workers during a partial government shutdown.

00:06:10.629 --> 00:06:14.989
Dozens of journalists from at least 30 news organizations vacated their Pentagon

00:06:14.989 --> 00:06:20.089
offices and lost their credentials after refusing to sign a new access policy

00:06:20.089 --> 00:06:23.789
that they claim threatens their ability to report independently.

00:06:24.109 --> 00:06:29.249
Several Republican activists were fired or demoted after a private leaked Telegram

00:06:29.249 --> 00:06:35.449
chat spanning 2,900 pages exposed racist, anti-Semitic, and violent messages

00:06:35.449 --> 00:06:37.989
exchanged between young Republican leaders.

00:06:38.449 --> 00:06:43.309
Sixteen people are feared dead after a devastating explosion at a munitions

00:06:43.309 --> 00:06:48.289
factory in rural Tennessee. A federal appeals court rejected the Trump administration's

00:06:48.289 --> 00:06:52.049
request to immediately deploy National Guard troops to Illinois.

00:06:52.369 --> 00:06:57.089
A federal judge in Montana dismissed a lawsuit by youth activists trying to

00:06:57.089 --> 00:07:01.029
block President Trump's crow fossil fuel energy policies.

00:07:01.409 --> 00:07:05.089
Michael Randria-Narina, the new military leader of Madagascar,

00:07:05.249 --> 00:07:08.889
announced he would soon be sworn in as the country's president following the

00:07:08.889 --> 00:07:12.689
coup that ousted President Andrei Rajwalina. Former U.S.

00:07:13.089 --> 00:07:16.209
President Joe Biden, who was diagnosed with prostate cancer in May,

00:07:16.509 --> 00:07:21.249
has started undergoing radiation therapy and hormone treatment as part of his care plan.

00:07:21.429 --> 00:07:26.569
The Oklahoma Department of Education is rescinding a 2024 directive requiring

00:07:26.569 --> 00:07:30.989
the Christian Bible in every classroom and its incorporation into lessons.

00:07:31.469 --> 00:07:35.789
And a Michigan mother is facing a felony food stamp fraud charge,

00:07:35.949 --> 00:07:40.309
punishable by up to 10 years in prison for allegedly using her EBT benefits

00:07:40.309 --> 00:07:44.249
to buy ingredients for baked goods she sold to support her family.

00:07:44.529 --> 00:07:48.129
I am Grace G., and this has been a Moment of News.

00:07:54.906 --> 00:08:01.246
All right. Thank you, Grace. And now it is time for my guest, Sahar Aziz.

00:08:01.966 --> 00:08:07.486
Sahar Aziz is a distinguished professor of law, chancellor's social justice

00:08:07.486 --> 00:08:12.146
scholar, and Middle East and legal studies scholar at Rutgers University Law School.

00:08:12.746 --> 00:08:17.726
Professor Aziz's scholarship adopts an interdisciplinary approach to examine

00:08:17.726 --> 00:08:19.646
the intersections of national security,

00:08:20.026 --> 00:08:24.946
race, and civil rights with a focus on the adverse impact of national security

00:08:24.946 --> 00:08:30.306
laws and policies on racial, ethnic, and religious minorities in the U.S.

00:08:30.866 --> 00:08:34.966
Her research also investigates the relationship between authoritarianism,

00:08:35.506 --> 00:08:37.966
terrorism, and rule of law in the Middle East.

00:08:38.286 --> 00:08:43.246
She is the founding director of the interdisciplinary Rutgers Center for Security,

00:08:43.466 --> 00:08:48.906
Race, and Rights and a faculty affiliate of the African American Studies Department

00:08:48.906 --> 00:08:51.346
at Rutgers University, Newark.

00:08:52.109 --> 00:08:57.489
Professor Aziz serves on the Rutgers-Newark Chancellor's Commission on Diversity

00:08:57.489 --> 00:09:01.929
and Transformation, as well as the editorial board of the Arab Law Quarterly

00:09:01.929 --> 00:09:04.509
and the International Journal of Middle East Studies.

00:09:04.909 --> 00:09:10.269
Professor Aziz teaches courses on national security, critical race theory,

00:09:10.629 --> 00:09:14.089
Islamophobia, evidence, torts, and Middle East law.

00:09:14.469 --> 00:09:20.389
Professor Aziz is the recipient of numerous awards, including a Soros Equality

00:09:20.389 --> 00:09:23.389
Fellowship, A New America, Middle Eastern,

00:09:23.649 --> 00:09:29.689
and North African American national security and foreign policy next generation leader.

00:09:29.989 --> 00:09:35.949
The Research Making and Impact Award by the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding.

00:09:36.269 --> 00:09:41.549
The Derrick Bell Award from the American Association of Law Schools Minority Section.

00:09:41.969 --> 00:09:46.149
And an Emerging Scholar by Diverse Issues in Higher Education.

00:09:46.149 --> 00:09:51.389
She serves on the Board of Directors of Rethink Media, the Project on Democracy

00:09:51.389 --> 00:09:55.189
in the Middle East, and Democracy in the Arab World Now.

00:09:55.609 --> 00:10:01.229
Professor Aziz's groundbreaking book, The Racial Muslim, When Racism Quashes

00:10:01.229 --> 00:10:06.429
Religious Freedom, examines how bigotry racializes immigrant Muslims through

00:10:06.429 --> 00:10:08.749
a historical and comparative approach.

00:10:08.949 --> 00:10:13.549
She has published over 30 academic articles and book chapters.

00:10:13.549 --> 00:10:17.689
Her articles are published in the Harvard National Security Journal.

00:10:18.329 --> 00:10:22.709
Washington Elite Law Review, Nebraska Law Review, George Washington International

00:10:22.709 --> 00:10:28.489
Law Review, Penn State Law Review, and the Texas Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Journal.

00:10:29.029 --> 00:10:32.669
Professor Z's commentary has appeared.

00:10:33.708 --> 00:10:38.288
In the New York Times, CNN.com, Carnegie Endowment, Sada Journal,

00:10:39.208 --> 00:10:43.548
Middle East Institute, Fox News.com, World Politics Review,

00:10:44.508 --> 00:10:49.288
Houston Chronicle, Austin Statesman, The Guardian, and Christian Science Monitor.

00:10:49.528 --> 00:10:54.548
She is a frequent speaker and has appeared on CNN, BBC World,

00:10:54.788 --> 00:10:59.428
PBS, C-SPAN, MSNBC, Fox News, and Al Jazeera English.

00:11:00.288 --> 00:11:03.628
She is an editor of the Race and Law Professor's blog.

00:11:03.988 --> 00:11:10.148
She previously served on the board of the ACLU of Texas and as a non-resident

00:11:10.148 --> 00:11:13.108
fellow at the Brookings Institute, Doha.

00:11:13.468 --> 00:11:17.768
Ladies and gentlemen, it is my distinct honor and privilege to have as a guest

00:11:17.768 --> 00:11:21.208
on this podcast, Sahar Aziz.

00:11:32.069 --> 00:11:36.529
All right, Sahar Aziz. How you doing, ma'am? You doing good?

00:11:37.309 --> 00:11:40.349
I'm doing great. Thank you for inviting me onto your podcast.

00:11:40.709 --> 00:11:45.849
Well, I thank you for accepting the invitation. You are one of the more dynamic

00:11:45.849 --> 00:11:51.269
intellectuals in this country, especially dealing with issues with free speech

00:11:51.269 --> 00:11:54.669
and Islamophobia in this nation.

00:11:55.329 --> 00:11:57.769
And I know you kind of got into...

00:11:58.888 --> 00:12:02.288
Some craziness based on that kind of stuff, you know.

00:12:02.508 --> 00:12:06.928
And so I want to, we'll touch on all that kind of stuff, but I'm just really,

00:12:07.068 --> 00:12:09.168
really honored that you came on.

00:12:09.408 --> 00:12:12.488
It means a lot to me and it'll mean a lot to the listeners.

00:12:13.128 --> 00:12:16.668
So let's start this off with a couple of icebreakers like I normally do.

00:12:16.808 --> 00:12:18.948
So the first one is a quote.

00:12:20.228 --> 00:12:24.748
I do not care if you agree with me or not. It's not my job.

00:12:24.748 --> 00:12:31.648
My job is to expose you to a set of ideas, a set of analysis to provide this

00:12:31.648 --> 00:12:37.388
little evidence that I believe supports my conclusions. And then you guys do the research.

00:12:37.588 --> 00:12:41.388
Your job is to think. What does that quote mean to you?

00:12:41.388 --> 00:12:44.608
I think that was what I said to the Boston

00:12:44.608 --> 00:12:47.928
College students a few semesters ago

00:12:47.928 --> 00:12:54.668
when I was giving a presentation about the way in which Palestinian human rights

00:12:54.668 --> 00:13:02.868
was completely erased by the pervasive pro-Israeli Zionist narratives that dominate

00:13:02.868 --> 00:13:06.568
Western media and dominate political rhetoric.

00:13:07.408 --> 00:13:12.168
And I remember when I was giving lecture series at the Center for Security,

00:13:12.288 --> 00:13:14.368
Race and Rights, which I direct at Rutgers Law School.

00:13:14.488 --> 00:13:20.928
And I'll put a pitch into the website, csrr.rutgers.edu and on social media at Rutgers CSRR.

00:13:21.748 --> 00:13:28.128
And I was getting quite a bit of pushback by those who disagreed with the positions

00:13:28.128 --> 00:13:32.728
that I was taking, which I'm sure to always cite facts because I am a lawyer.

00:13:32.728 --> 00:13:37.388
And so that is part of my training is if I'm going to make an argument, I'm going to cite facts.

00:13:38.219 --> 00:13:43.259
And I was being accused of indoctrinating students, which I thought was a laughable proposition.

00:13:43.919 --> 00:13:46.939
First is in college, the students are adults.

00:13:47.519 --> 00:13:53.399
And a lot of people don't seem to want to grant them that recognition.

00:13:53.579 --> 00:13:55.859
These are not children, actually. They are adults.

00:13:56.099 --> 00:14:00.419
And so when parents would be very upset, but why are these students being exposed

00:14:00.419 --> 00:14:05.619
to these professors, which the parents often didn't know much about what actually

00:14:05.619 --> 00:14:08.939
was being taught at university? They would say, oh, these poor students.

00:14:09.179 --> 00:14:12.779
And I thought, well, these are adults that you allowed to leave your home to

00:14:12.779 --> 00:14:15.199
go and learn for themselves and to be critical thinkers.

00:14:15.499 --> 00:14:18.999
And in fact, you're paying quite a bit of money for them to think for themselves

00:14:18.999 --> 00:14:23.279
because you could always have just indoctrinated them at home and just given

00:14:23.279 --> 00:14:26.559
them a bunch of things to read and say, memorize it, believe it,

00:14:26.679 --> 00:14:28.679
and don't debate anything.

00:14:28.679 --> 00:14:31.459
But i think most parents and

00:14:31.459 --> 00:14:34.879
families who send their kids to college who have

00:14:34.879 --> 00:14:37.839
that privilege and that access to do so do it because they want

00:14:37.839 --> 00:14:40.659
them to be exposed to different ideas and they want them to be the

00:14:40.659 --> 00:14:43.539
skills to be exposed to

00:14:43.539 --> 00:14:46.239
those different needs and to beat them and obviously in a

00:14:46.239 --> 00:14:49.939
way that is civil and professional and respectful uh

00:14:49.939 --> 00:14:53.859
and is not coercive or mean spirited but

00:14:53.859 --> 00:14:58.639
is going to make people uncomfortable because otherwise why bother right why

00:14:58.639 --> 00:15:02.719
bother going and learning about things that you either don't know anything about

00:15:02.719 --> 00:15:08.099
or you didn't you don't agree with initially so i wanted to just remind the

00:15:08.099 --> 00:15:11.579
students i had a big audience of college students at that time that.

00:15:12.148 --> 00:15:14.448
You don't have to agree with me.

00:15:14.588 --> 00:15:18.748
You chose to come to learn about my perspective of what, at that point,

00:15:18.948 --> 00:15:23.888
I was arguing that what Israel was doing in Gaza was a genocide at a time when

00:15:23.888 --> 00:15:29.008
that was not a popular position and when many people were challenging the very facts that proved it.

00:15:29.508 --> 00:15:35.028
And also I was arguing that the reason that the American society and media was

00:15:35.028 --> 00:15:39.728
refusing to recognize the genocide was because of the dehumanization of Palestinians.

00:15:39.728 --> 00:15:45.788
Part of that is the dehumanization of Muslims writ large, and I was providing them with the fact.

00:15:46.188 --> 00:15:50.108
And I also said something that was, I knew, controversial, but again,

00:15:50.288 --> 00:15:53.768
from the positionality of Muslims and Arabs and Palestinians,

00:15:54.168 --> 00:16:01.308
it certainly seemed to be the truth, which is that when it came to the debates on campus.

00:16:02.021 --> 00:16:06.821
When it came to the protests on campus, those who were the ones that were nonviolent,

00:16:07.081 --> 00:16:07.901
the ones that were civil,

00:16:08.521 --> 00:16:12.741
yes, he did contest it, but within the bounds of the law,

00:16:13.181 --> 00:16:18.201
that the universities were privileging the complaints and grievances of Jewish

00:16:18.201 --> 00:16:24.261
students while completely dismissing and violating outright the complaints or

00:16:24.261 --> 00:16:27.501
the rights of Palestinian students and Arab and Muslim students.

00:16:27.641 --> 00:16:30.481
And so I stated I wanted to show them and I showed

00:16:30.481 --> 00:16:33.701
the facts on the screen that this is how privilege works

00:16:33.701 --> 00:16:36.941
it is when two groups of people are similarly

00:16:36.941 --> 00:16:39.981
situated and that they get treated completely different

00:16:39.981 --> 00:16:43.441
one inferior and one superior and that

00:16:43.441 --> 00:16:47.901
you are believed when you complain or when you are claimed that you are hurt

00:16:47.901 --> 00:16:54.081
or offended or believe your rights are violated and you are granted all the

00:16:54.081 --> 00:17:01.161
due process rights you are your demands are accommodated and And that effectively

00:17:01.161 --> 00:17:02.601
you're treated like a human,

00:17:02.781 --> 00:17:05.161
an equal first-class citizen.

00:17:05.481 --> 00:17:08.961
And what we were seeing was that the Jewish students and the Jewish faculty

00:17:08.961 --> 00:17:10.981
were obtaining that status.

00:17:12.021 --> 00:17:15.421
Meanwhile, the Palestinian students, the Muslim students, the Arab students,

00:17:15.621 --> 00:17:17.541
were being treated as if they were criminals.

00:17:17.541 --> 00:17:21.321
They were being treated as if they were presumptively anti-Semitic,

00:17:21.421 --> 00:17:25.181
as if those protests were about hating Jews, when in fact those protests were

00:17:25.181 --> 00:17:29.221
about trying to save Palestinian lives from being killed by a foreign military.

00:17:29.221 --> 00:17:33.901
Military, in the States it was the Israeli military, by wanting to stop the funding of,

00:17:34.825 --> 00:17:39.405
by their money, by the American taxpayer money, the Israeli military that was

00:17:39.405 --> 00:17:43.065
killing Palestinians by the thousands and sometimes by the hundreds,

00:17:43.285 --> 00:17:44.965
sometimes by the tens every day.

00:17:45.345 --> 00:17:51.285
We now have at least 80,000 Palestinians dead and 68,000 have been reported dead.

00:17:51.945 --> 00:17:56.325
There's 12,000 at least under the rubble that they're now discovering and finding

00:17:56.325 --> 00:18:00.825
the skeletons under the rubble and hundreds of thousands that have been injured.

00:18:00.985 --> 00:18:05.325
And so the fact that the Palestinian students were being treated as if they

00:18:05.325 --> 00:18:12.445
had no right to dissent in a country that claims that free speech is a fundamental right.

00:18:12.705 --> 00:18:17.585
It makes us America, it distinguishes us as a country, while Jewish students

00:18:17.585 --> 00:18:21.105
and Zionist students, I shouldn't say Jewish, pro-Israel and Zionist students,

00:18:21.385 --> 00:18:23.665
most of them were Jewish, some of them were also Christian,

00:18:23.965 --> 00:18:28.225
were being believed even when they didn't even have evidence to show that the

00:18:28.225 --> 00:18:31.525
protests, for example, were actually violating the policy.

00:18:31.785 --> 00:18:38.885
So all that This is to say that we have to be able to listen to other perspectives

00:18:38.885 --> 00:18:44.365
and not presume that just because someone disagrees with us that they want to hurt us,

00:18:44.405 --> 00:18:49.245
or just because someone disagrees with us that they have bad intent.

00:18:49.865 --> 00:18:56.545
And that the response is not to assume, to demand that that person then gets

00:18:56.545 --> 00:18:58.065
canceled or gets silenced.

00:18:58.665 --> 00:19:02.925
The response is to either disengage if you don't want to engage in the debate,

00:19:02.965 --> 00:19:06.385
if you don't want to attend the event, if you don't want to listen, that's up to you.

00:19:06.865 --> 00:19:10.705
Or to hold that person accountable and say, well, here are the facts you stated.

00:19:10.845 --> 00:19:15.545
I'd like to offer alternative facts. I would like to show how what you're stating

00:19:15.545 --> 00:19:17.825
is actually false so there's a material omission.

00:19:18.513 --> 00:19:24.193
Or to hold your own event, right? And also not to assume that colleges are there for indoctrination.

00:19:24.353 --> 00:19:29.113
Because if anybody who's gone to college, you know it is not there for indoctrination.

00:19:29.393 --> 00:19:33.353
Unless we give the Trump administration what it wants. And then it surely will be.

00:19:33.973 --> 00:19:39.353
All right. So now I need you to give me a number between 1 and 20.

00:19:40.213 --> 00:19:46.993
All right. Here's your question. Do you think there is such a thing as unbiased news or media and why?

00:19:48.673 --> 00:19:53.013
There's no such thing as unbiased anything. We are humans and we have biases

00:19:53.013 --> 00:19:57.273
and anyone who studies social psychology or reads their literature knows that

00:19:57.273 --> 00:20:01.093
we are not designed, our brains aren't designed to be unbiased.

00:20:01.233 --> 00:20:05.173
We're constantly trying to identify what is dangerous, what is risky,

00:20:05.173 --> 00:20:09.733
what is harmful and avoid it. And oftentimes that leads us to have all sorts

00:20:09.733 --> 00:20:15.353
of explicit biases and implicit biases and in ways that can be very harmful, right?

00:20:15.453 --> 00:20:18.413
I mean, racism is also a form of bias.

00:20:18.773 --> 00:20:22.693
So I think that's where going back to critical thinking is so important.

00:20:22.953 --> 00:20:26.313
We have to always, when we read the news, we have to ask ourselves,

00:20:26.313 --> 00:20:29.793
who's writing it? What are their political meanings?

00:20:30.393 --> 00:20:35.033
What are their financial incentives for covering the story? Why are they covering

00:20:35.033 --> 00:20:38.333
the story the way they are? Who did they interview? Who didn't they interview?

00:20:38.673 --> 00:20:41.853
Who funds this particular outlet? And,

00:20:42.748 --> 00:20:48.508
The ideal scenario is that we can read three or four or five articles about

00:20:48.508 --> 00:20:54.248
a similar topic by sources that have different answers to those questions.

00:20:54.588 --> 00:20:58.908
And triangulating and eventually come to a point where we feel individually

00:20:58.908 --> 00:21:04.528
that there is some sense of truth by putting those different sources together.

00:21:04.908 --> 00:21:10.768
But I think all of us are biased. And bias doesn't necessarily mean we have bad intent.

00:21:11.808 --> 00:21:14.708
Why we're biased the motivation for us

00:21:14.708 --> 00:21:18.848
being biased is not necessarily malicious but

00:21:18.848 --> 00:21:23.768
that can still cause harmful consequences

00:21:23.768 --> 00:21:26.568
to society which we're already seeing in the

00:21:26.568 --> 00:21:33.028
algorithmic silos that social media is creating where we are reading our biases

00:21:33.028 --> 00:21:37.008
are being reinforced over and over again through these algorithms because every

00:21:37.008 --> 00:21:42.808
time you you like something or you share something or you slow down on a scroll,

00:21:43.028 --> 00:21:44.368
the algorithm knows, okay,

00:21:44.668 --> 00:21:49.748
this has caught that person's attention and presumes they want to see more of it.

00:21:49.868 --> 00:21:55.108
And if it's news reading, it can then become what we call validation bias.

00:21:55.188 --> 00:21:59.388
So it's just validating whatever you already believe rather than challenging

00:21:59.388 --> 00:22:02.528
it and making you think a little bit more expansively.

00:22:02.808 --> 00:22:05.988
So that is inevitable in every society. Yeah.

00:22:06.703 --> 00:22:10.763
I think the key, if we're trying to have as little bias as possible,

00:22:10.943 --> 00:22:16.703
or at least competing biases as accessible, is that we strive for independent media.

00:22:16.943 --> 00:22:21.263
I think the more that the media is controlled by the government,

00:22:21.743 --> 00:22:25.203
or controlled by very few people, oftentimes very wealthy,

00:22:25.603 --> 00:22:29.783
or very few people who have homogeneous political leanings,

00:22:29.783 --> 00:22:33.063
then it can get very dangerous

00:22:33.063 --> 00:22:37.023
in terms of creating a society that is

00:22:37.023 --> 00:22:39.883
in fact indoctrinated right has just simply not been

00:22:39.883 --> 00:22:46.143
exposed to other ways of thinking in in key facts that are they're relevant

00:22:46.143 --> 00:22:50.763
to that particular topic right in order to for us to analyze like how do we

00:22:50.763 --> 00:22:54.363
solve this problem how do we even define this problem when we're talking about

00:22:54.363 --> 00:22:57.763
a problem that affects the public, right, the public interest.

00:22:58.463 --> 00:23:08.803
Yeah. All right. So as we record this, the ceasefire has been agreed upon with Israel and Hamas.

00:23:08.983 --> 00:23:13.283
What is your initial reaction to hearing that?

00:23:13.743 --> 00:23:20.423
Well, this ceasefire should have been announced and abided by over a year ago.

00:23:20.423 --> 00:23:25.063
It was something that Israel had refused to.

00:23:25.923 --> 00:23:30.023
Israel just has no interest the current Israeli government

00:23:30.023 --> 00:23:32.883
I should say which is a very right wing government and

00:23:32.883 --> 00:23:38.783
even those the most supportive Israeli groups know that this is the most right

00:23:38.783 --> 00:23:43.863
wing government that this country has had since it established itself in 1948

00:23:43.863 --> 00:23:50.103
through a war through terrorist acts I mean I think we can't rewrite history 1948 48.

00:23:50.895 --> 00:23:56.355
Was when the militia, there were three groups, the Ergun, the Stern Gang, and the Hagina.

00:23:56.975 --> 00:24:00.775
And all of them had been engaged in terrorist acts, especially targeting the

00:24:00.775 --> 00:24:05.435
British before 1948, wanting to get the British out, and also targeting the

00:24:05.435 --> 00:24:07.575
Palestinians, who were the indigenous people.

00:24:07.995 --> 00:24:13.135
And in 1948, when the British had said, they succeeded,

00:24:13.335 --> 00:24:16.235
the British said, we're out, we can't handle this anymore, we can't seem to

00:24:16.235 --> 00:24:18.295
resolve this conflict, gave it to the United Nations,

00:24:18.435 --> 00:24:21.415
the United Nations offered a partition, partition was not

00:24:21.415 --> 00:24:24.335
binding the palestinians said no because why

00:24:24.335 --> 00:24:27.875
would we give half of our land to people who

00:24:27.875 --> 00:24:32.555
came from europe and that was essentially the impetus that oh the justification

00:24:32.555 --> 00:24:37.695
that these three militias and and extremist groups used to say okay we're now

00:24:37.695 --> 00:24:42.795
going to attack and we're going to take this land by force and we're going to

00:24:42.795 --> 00:24:45.555
target civilians and that's terrorism

00:24:45.955 --> 00:24:48.855
is politically motivated violence right and

00:24:48.855 --> 00:24:51.675
motivation was we want to technically cleanse you

00:24:51.675 --> 00:24:56.335
kick you out of this land that is your land and take it for ourselves because

00:24:56.335 --> 00:25:00.715
we've decided it belongs to us whatever the reason whether we believe god gave

00:25:00.715 --> 00:25:04.575
it to us whether we believe right makes right and if we can physically take

00:25:04.575 --> 00:25:08.595
it then it belongs to us you know there's all sorts of justifications but the

00:25:08.595 --> 00:25:10.175
point is that since that time.

00:25:11.078 --> 00:25:14.398
That we now have the most right-wing Israeli government.

00:25:14.578 --> 00:25:19.418
And that government has had every incentive and has stated it very explicitly,

00:25:19.558 --> 00:25:24.778
there's plenty of evidence to show, that what it wants is to get rid of every

00:25:24.778 --> 00:25:27.818
Palestinian in Gaza by multiple means.

00:25:28.038 --> 00:25:35.258
First, kill, bomb, sniper, booby trap, use drones, armed drones.

00:25:35.778 --> 00:25:41.678
The second is injure and let them die from the lack of medical care,

00:25:41.878 --> 00:25:45.938
which is why you have hospitals that were bombed. Almost every hospital has been bombed.

00:25:46.138 --> 00:25:48.138
Half of them have been completely destroyed.

00:25:48.738 --> 00:25:52.678
All the universities have been destroyed. The vast majority of schools have been destroyed.

00:25:52.878 --> 00:25:57.558
I believe 92% of Gaza has been bombed. And if you look at the pictures,

00:25:57.698 --> 00:25:58.598
they speak for themselves.

00:25:59.118 --> 00:26:02.618
And so by destroying the healthcare system,

00:26:02.618 --> 00:26:05.598
what you do is you ensure that those who are injured from the

00:26:05.598 --> 00:26:08.558
bombing don't have the health care that would

00:26:08.558 --> 00:26:11.458
prevent them from dying from the injuries so they will die

00:26:11.458 --> 00:26:15.198
and then there are the sick and the elderly and the disabled again

00:26:15.198 --> 00:26:18.238
when the health care system is completely destroyed

00:26:18.238 --> 00:26:22.998
intentionally those people will die when they otherwise would not have died

00:26:22.998 --> 00:26:29.378
then you start them which we saw we saw in its worst case from may until july

00:26:29.378 --> 00:26:33.498
that there have been multiple to iterations of intentional use of starvation

00:26:33.498 --> 00:26:36.898
as a weapon of war, which is legal in international law.

00:26:37.635 --> 00:26:42.315
And, in fact, you were saying, I think they had 450 that they counted as of

00:26:42.315 --> 00:26:48.915
today or as of a few weeks ago that have been killed that have died of starvation, children and adults.

00:26:49.335 --> 00:26:52.755
And then the rest, you ethnically cleanse. You push them to the south.

00:26:52.755 --> 00:26:55.515
You ask Egypt to take them. Egypt rejects.

00:26:55.835 --> 00:26:59.715
And then you start shopping around, which is when Netanyahu Day moves to various

00:26:59.715 --> 00:27:01.175
countries and said, will you take them?

00:27:01.315 --> 00:27:08.315
We'll pay you. We want to kick them out. So that is effectively what the primary

00:27:08.315 --> 00:27:11.775
incentive has been in the Nanyahu government since.

00:27:12.708 --> 00:27:15.648
At least november of 2023 and one

00:27:15.648 --> 00:27:19.028
could argue even as early as mid-october because

00:27:19.028 --> 00:27:22.048
the the response of israelis quickly

00:27:22.048 --> 00:27:28.768
shifted from self-defense to genocide right yes one week two week but the destruction

00:27:28.768 --> 00:27:34.368
was so massive so pervasive and so protracted and when there were offers of

00:27:34.368 --> 00:27:39.588
ceasefires which in one point it was a ceasefire and then israel started again bombing,

00:27:39.968 --> 00:27:42.888
it was clear that Israel didn't want a ceasefire.

00:27:43.068 --> 00:27:49.308
Yes, it wanted the hostages then, but it didn't want to stop its objective,

00:27:49.608 --> 00:27:55.468
which was, again, to eliminate Alistinians in all or in part in Gaza.

00:27:55.668 --> 00:27:57.968
And there are plenty of statements showing that was the intent.

00:27:58.188 --> 00:27:59.688
This has been litigated in media.

00:27:59.928 --> 00:28:03.688
It's being litigated before the International Criminal Court of Justice.

00:28:03.928 --> 00:28:08.188
So the evidence is very damning two years later.

00:28:08.468 --> 00:28:13.788
So I think that my first reaction is, why didn't this happen over a year ago?

00:28:13.888 --> 00:28:16.748
How many tens of thousands of Palestinians will still be alive?

00:28:17.868 --> 00:28:24.268
And the second thing is, I don't know if it will stick because Israel has shown

00:28:24.268 --> 00:28:25.568
that it is not trustworthy.

00:28:25.888 --> 00:28:31.788
And that's at this point, early on, in what started out as a war between the

00:28:31.788 --> 00:28:34.828
two, and then, as I said, transitioned into genocide,

00:28:35.468 --> 00:28:41.108
Hamas has no, it is an asymmetrical conflict, right?

00:28:41.168 --> 00:28:45.308
There's an asymmetrical war, if you want to call that, between the two of them,

00:28:45.368 --> 00:28:47.828
meaning that Hamas is not an army, it is not a military,

00:28:48.268 --> 00:28:56.708
it's a ragtag militia, its leaders were all killed within a couple months after October 7th, and.

00:28:57.458 --> 00:29:03.378
It was effectively defeated from a military perspective very, very early on.

00:29:03.678 --> 00:29:08.258
And after, within four to six weeks, everything after that was just collective punishment.

00:29:08.618 --> 00:29:12.818
Even if Israel said, oh, this is all about fighting Hamas. But the reality is

00:29:12.818 --> 00:29:15.458
that Hamas was weakened early on.

00:29:15.898 --> 00:29:20.118
And they had said, okay, we'll give you the hostages, but stop bombing.

00:29:20.418 --> 00:29:22.338
Permanent and ceasefire, not temporary.

00:29:22.938 --> 00:29:27.658
And we have to have an help, right? or whatever that may be.

00:29:27.778 --> 00:29:31.478
And there are different ceasefire options. At one point, there's reports that

00:29:31.478 --> 00:29:35.818
Hamas even agreed that the third or fourth round of ceasefire attempts that

00:29:35.818 --> 00:29:39.038
they said, fine, we won't have any role in the government in Gaza.

00:29:39.338 --> 00:29:45.238
But again, the Israelis rejected them. So I'm not optimistic that once all the

00:29:45.238 --> 00:29:49.958
hostages are released, Israeli hostages are released, that Israel will not just go back to bombing Gaza.

00:29:50.318 --> 00:29:53.858
The only person that can stop Israel is Trump.

00:29:54.812 --> 00:30:01.452
There's no other leverage over Netanyahu and his maniacal right-wing extremist government.

00:30:01.612 --> 00:30:05.072
Because once those hostages are released, and I think they should be released,

00:30:05.152 --> 00:30:08.532
I think they should have been released a long time ago, as part of a comprehensive

00:30:08.532 --> 00:30:14.772
ceasefire and a comprehensive peace deal, then what is to stop Netanyahu from bombing again?

00:30:15.092 --> 00:30:17.592
There's nothing stopping. Yeah.

00:30:18.332 --> 00:30:22.032
So how has this conflict affected you personally?

00:30:22.032 --> 00:30:25.152
And has it given you

00:30:25.152 --> 00:30:28.692
more concern about things or

00:30:28.692 --> 00:30:31.952
has it strengthened your resolve to keep

00:30:31.952 --> 00:30:35.072
fighting the genocide in gaza again

00:30:35.072 --> 00:30:37.692
committed by the israeli government funded by the

00:30:37.692 --> 00:30:42.812
american government has validated to

00:30:42.812 --> 00:30:47.272
many palestinians and arabs and muslims in america and in the world that our

00:30:47.272 --> 00:30:53.712
lives have no meaning to the western world that a government and a military

00:30:53.712 --> 00:30:59.772
that has the full throttle support of europe and the u.s in political support

00:30:59.772 --> 00:31:01.772
and economic and military support.

00:31:02.617 --> 00:31:06.837
Can do things to our people, to people that look like us, or the people that

00:31:06.837 --> 00:31:10.077
are, in fact, our direct family, depending if you're Palestinian or not,

00:31:10.437 --> 00:31:13.817
to people who have the same religion, predominantly Muslim.

00:31:13.817 --> 00:31:18.437
In Gaza, I think there's only 5% Christians, although with Palestinians,

00:31:18.757 --> 00:31:21.917
it's between 15% to 20% worldwide that are Christian.

00:31:22.437 --> 00:31:28.257
But the vast majority in Gaza are Muslim. And that if any Arab country had done

00:31:28.257 --> 00:31:32.517
to Europeans or to Jews or to Christians and what the Israelis have done to

00:31:32.517 --> 00:31:36.297
the Palestinians and the Muslims, there would have been an immediate outcry.

00:31:36.497 --> 00:31:38.937
There would have been immediate military intervention. There would have been

00:31:38.937 --> 00:31:44.137
immediate leverage of international law to hold those criminals fallible.

00:31:44.697 --> 00:31:49.797
And instead, people just made excuses. They looked away. They were silent.

00:31:50.737 --> 00:31:55.977
Or they outright supported it. And so that is very, very disheartening.

00:31:56.117 --> 00:32:00.817
And I think what it shows is that we have a disease in the U.S. at least.

00:32:01.197 --> 00:32:07.057
Of hatred towards Palestinians and towards Muslims. And I think we have a lot

00:32:07.057 --> 00:32:08.517
we need to learn about Germany.

00:32:08.997 --> 00:32:13.297
We need to understand, you know, there's an entire industry that was created,

00:32:13.557 --> 00:32:17.177
a discipline that was created, called Holocaust and Genocide Studies.

00:32:17.437 --> 00:32:24.097
It was spearheaded by Jews, rightfully so, because they thought, how did this happen?

00:32:24.237 --> 00:32:27.817
How did we get to this point where six million Jews were slaughtered.

00:32:28.077 --> 00:32:32.577
How do we get to the point where we have an entire society and societies who

00:32:32.577 --> 00:32:35.217
either outright supported it, did nothing, or were silent?

00:32:35.737 --> 00:32:40.137
And this doesn't happen overnight. And so for Palestinians, when your population

00:32:40.137 --> 00:32:46.657
is 2 million, and 80,000, and that's the conservative estimate, we're going to find out.

00:32:46.737 --> 00:32:50.077
There are some people who believe it's a quarter of a million that have been

00:32:50.077 --> 00:32:53.977
killed over the last two years, or that have died and should not have died, right?

00:32:54.117 --> 00:33:00.677
Had there been, you know, food and the publishing medical system and medicine. That is...

00:33:01.357 --> 00:33:06.677
20% of your population. This is not a small number from a percentage perspective,

00:33:07.217 --> 00:33:09.217
right? And in a very short amount of time.

00:33:09.637 --> 00:33:15.657
So I think that it just reminded us how much damage the war on terror had done,

00:33:16.057 --> 00:33:17.497
at least in the immediate term.

00:33:17.617 --> 00:33:20.157
I mean, before 9-11, and I wrote a book called The Racial Muslim,

00:33:20.197 --> 00:33:24.737
which talks about the pre-9-11 and the post-9-11 era and this racialization

00:33:24.737 --> 00:33:27.757
of Muslims and extrinsically also Arabs.

00:33:27.757 --> 00:33:35.077
But Poles and I never really laid that strong foundation that just dehumanized

00:33:35.077 --> 00:33:40.557
people who are associated with Islam and now even more explicit with Palestinian identity.

00:33:41.534 --> 00:33:46.794
Now, what I think is equally harmful, at least in a U.S.

00:33:46.874 --> 00:33:50.754
Context, is the fact that those of us who, like everything that I just said,

00:33:51.114 --> 00:33:53.234
will then invite hate against me.

00:33:53.754 --> 00:33:59.494
It will invite death threats, it will invite assaults, threats of physical assault.

00:34:00.854 --> 00:34:06.194
Doxing, harassment, intimidation, and the people who do it are not held accountable.

00:34:06.194 --> 00:34:13.414
So not only are you supposed to support or at least look away when Israel commits

00:34:13.414 --> 00:34:17.054
a genocide of Palestinians, but you can't even dissent against that.

00:34:17.234 --> 00:34:22.554
Because if you do, suddenly you're accused of hating Jews, when the entire reason

00:34:22.554 --> 00:34:25.274
why you're dissenting is because you're trying to get an Israeli government,

00:34:25.454 --> 00:34:30.694
a foreign government of Israel, to stop killing and starving and maiming Palestinians.

00:34:31.134 --> 00:34:35.574
That has nothing to do with hating Jews, right? That is about a stake.

00:34:36.194 --> 00:34:40.694
One of the most powerful states in the Middle East, with one of the most powerful

00:34:40.694 --> 00:34:46.394
militaries in the region that has attacked five Arab countries in the last two

00:34:46.394 --> 00:34:48.294
years. They have bombed Lebanon.

00:34:48.494 --> 00:34:50.674
They have bombed Syria. They have bombed Iran.

00:34:51.094 --> 00:34:53.914
They have bombed Yemen. They have bombed Gaza.

00:34:54.474 --> 00:35:00.874
This is not a weak state. This is a very, very strong state that is completely

00:35:00.874 --> 00:35:05.134
dismissing and refusing to follow international law.

00:35:05.134 --> 00:35:10.914
So I think it has caused, you know, different responses within our diverse communities,

00:35:10.914 --> 00:35:18.414
but it has also shown that international law is only relevant when Western countries, white people,

00:35:18.854 --> 00:35:21.894
white people in North America and white people in Europe,

00:35:22.514 --> 00:35:26.954
want to use it to prosecute black and brown people. Yeah.

00:35:28.247 --> 00:35:32.647
Countries that are not in Europe and North America. And that has really called

00:35:32.647 --> 00:35:35.347
that entire legal system into question.

00:35:36.027 --> 00:35:41.027
And the most perverse aspect of it is that that international legal system was

00:35:41.027 --> 00:35:42.987
created post-Holocaust.

00:35:43.207 --> 00:35:46.467
It was created so that there wouldn't be another World War II,

00:35:47.227 --> 00:35:48.547
so there wouldn't be a World War III.

00:35:48.667 --> 00:35:50.807
And it was created so that there wouldn't be another Holocaust.

00:35:50.807 --> 00:35:53.347
And it would be created that there wouldn't be other genocide,

00:35:53.347 --> 00:35:58.167
even if they didn't reach the same degree or severity as the Holocaust.

00:35:58.247 --> 00:36:02.487
Because what makes something a genocide is you don't have to have 6 million

00:36:02.487 --> 00:36:04.647
people slaughtered is what happened against Jews.

00:36:04.947 --> 00:36:09.707
It's not about the numbers, right? It's about the intent. It's about the methodology.

00:36:09.767 --> 00:36:15.727
It's about what ultimately, how many people and how they're being annihilated

00:36:15.727 --> 00:36:19.707
with the objective of annihilation in part or in part.

00:36:20.907 --> 00:36:23.787
So because i'm gonna i'm gonna combine a couple

00:36:23.787 --> 00:36:29.827
of questions i had written down into one do you and it's based off of what you're

00:36:29.827 --> 00:36:38.247
talking about with the dehumanization do you think that it is proximity to whiteness

00:36:38.247 --> 00:36:42.667
that determines the humanity or do you think that,

00:36:43.497 --> 00:36:48.277
Islam is treated more like a political ideology than a religion,

00:36:48.277 --> 00:36:50.477
or do you think it's a combination of both?

00:36:51.257 --> 00:36:53.017
Well, now you're getting into my book, the racial Muslim.

00:36:55.017 --> 00:36:59.337
And I am a critical race there, which also invites other forms of attacks,

00:37:00.357 --> 00:37:05.577
which effectively, you know, it argues that at least in the U S context,

00:37:05.577 --> 00:37:08.497
and I would say you could use it also in the European context,

00:37:08.737 --> 00:37:12.657
but TRT is very much based in U S history and U S politics.

00:37:13.497 --> 00:37:18.617
Is that there is a racial hierarchy. And those who are at the top of that racial

00:37:18.617 --> 00:37:20.077
hierarchy are the most privileged,

00:37:20.137 --> 00:37:23.377
those who are at the bottom are the least privileged, and then in between there

00:37:23.377 --> 00:37:30.177
is different levels of privilege, and that tends to shift around based on different points in time.

00:37:30.497 --> 00:37:36.457
And that racial hierarchy at the top are people whose race is socially constructed

00:37:36.457 --> 00:37:42.177
as white, and those at the bottom are those whose race is socially constructed as black.

00:37:42.177 --> 00:37:47.917
And I say social construction because it really, it isn't a biological fact,

00:37:48.057 --> 00:37:49.197
it isn't an objective fact.

00:37:49.557 --> 00:37:55.557
There are people who 100 years ago were Jewish and Eastern European and they

00:37:55.557 --> 00:38:00.297
weren't fully white in the social construction of race and whiteness.

00:38:00.437 --> 00:38:04.997
Similarly, Irish Catholics, similarly Italian Catholics.

00:38:05.857 --> 00:38:10.397
And there are now people who, for example, Arabs.

00:38:12.657 --> 00:38:15.357
Who phenotypically, in other words, how they physically look like,

00:38:15.737 --> 00:38:21.097
you may think, oh, that person is white in how we are socialized to see whiteness.

00:38:21.377 --> 00:38:25.317
But in fact, their name is Mohammed, or the woman wears a headscarf.

00:38:25.777 --> 00:38:30.217
And so now they're at the bottom or near the bottom of that hierarchy.

00:38:30.217 --> 00:38:36.137
And so they are not Black, but they have become close to Blackness, right?

00:38:36.317 --> 00:38:43.677
And they can shift up and down based on, again, multiple factors that change. Now...

00:38:44.379 --> 00:38:48.639
The reason why CRT can be controversial is because it rejects colorblindness.

00:38:48.939 --> 00:38:52.539
And it doesn't reject colorblindness because it doesn't want colorblindness.

00:38:52.559 --> 00:39:01.059
It's because it's not possible, given the realities that American society has undergone.

00:39:01.299 --> 00:39:07.319
When you have chattel slavery and genocide of indigenous people as the foundation of the system.

00:39:07.879 --> 00:39:11.919
Until that can somehow be remedied at a systemic level,

00:39:11.919 --> 00:39:14.679
and you have all then then you're going to continue to

00:39:14.679 --> 00:39:17.819
have these racial hierarchies because then you have the reconstruction

00:39:17.819 --> 00:39:20.879
and then the the regression against the

00:39:20.879 --> 00:39:24.399
anti-reconstruction and then you had jim crow right and

00:39:24.399 --> 00:39:27.459
then you have the chinese explosion and you can

00:39:27.459 --> 00:39:30.159
go all throughout american history and you will

00:39:30.159 --> 00:39:34.259
see this constant tension that

00:39:34.259 --> 00:39:37.839
repeats this racial hierarchy

00:39:37.839 --> 00:39:40.759
that reinforces the degree changes the

00:39:40.759 --> 00:39:44.139
severity changes the consequences change so thankfully being

00:39:44.139 --> 00:39:46.879
at the bottom of the racial hierarchy does not mean you are

00:39:46.879 --> 00:39:52.279
enslaved it does not mean that you are legally segregated but it does mean that

00:39:52.279 --> 00:40:00.099
you as a collective the probability of your chances and access to wealth gain

00:40:00.099 --> 00:40:05.739
for employment freedom physical liberty high quality education is quite love,

00:40:06.059 --> 00:40:12.539
because systemic racism has produced over-representation of Black people in

00:40:12.539 --> 00:40:17.719
prison, over-representation of Black people in very low-quality schools that

00:40:17.719 --> 00:40:19.919
are in high-poverty areas.

00:40:20.079 --> 00:40:22.959
That is not because there is something wrong with these people.

00:40:23.779 --> 00:40:27.359
It is the system. And so, until we can.

00:40:28.193 --> 00:40:33.793
Acknowledge that as a citizen, and really try to fix it meaningfully. We're not colorblind.

00:40:33.953 --> 00:40:38.073
So once you acknowledge that, then you have to say, okay, what do we do about it?

00:40:38.153 --> 00:40:42.953
And how do we understand society and how do we develop our policies?

00:40:43.233 --> 00:40:47.053
And so what I was arguing in the racial Muslim is, it's not just what you look

00:40:47.053 --> 00:40:49.473
like that racializes you, it's also your religion.

00:40:49.733 --> 00:40:54.333
And if you ask Jews about anti-Semitism in the early 1900s, that is exactly

00:40:54.333 --> 00:40:56.633
what happened to them, similarly to Italian Catholics.

00:40:56.633 --> 00:41:01.253
They were european they looked european they went the right kind of european

00:41:01.253 --> 00:41:04.753
and it was because they were jewish well it was because they were catholic but

00:41:04.753 --> 00:41:06.533
if you fast forward a hundred years later.

00:41:07.213 --> 00:41:12.233
Now they are whiteness has been reconstruction reconstructed socially it has

00:41:12.233 --> 00:41:19.853
expanded to include that so i think that we have to just recognize that at least

00:41:19.853 --> 00:41:22.233
at a macro level and at a systems level,

00:41:22.493 --> 00:41:25.873
there is still an enormous amount of inequality.

00:41:26.153 --> 00:41:29.513
And we were making some progress, and I think this is where the Black Lives

00:41:29.513 --> 00:41:37.173
Matter movement was really instrumental and quite revolutionary in terms of

00:41:37.173 --> 00:41:40.353
mobilizing a generation of people,

00:41:40.713 --> 00:41:44.293
especially young people, of various races.

00:41:44.873 --> 00:41:48.813
Yes, it was led by Black people, but if you looked at the protests,

00:41:48.973 --> 00:41:52.393
there were white folks, and there were Arab folks and there were Latino folks

00:41:52.393 --> 00:41:55.873
and there were, you know, various, and there were Jewish people and there were Muslim people.

00:41:56.053 --> 00:41:59.213
And it was quite a diverse movement

00:41:59.213 --> 00:42:03.853
that had recognized we have a serious problem with systemic racism.

00:42:04.133 --> 00:42:09.853
And while Blacks are the, again, my position based on my reading of history

00:42:09.853 --> 00:42:15.933
and my research, my position is the group that suffers the most from systemic

00:42:15.933 --> 00:42:17.533
racism are Black people.

00:42:18.192 --> 00:42:22.372
And then you start, but they are not the only people that suffer from racism.

00:42:23.092 --> 00:42:25.572
As systemic racism, and they suffer in different ways.

00:42:26.052 --> 00:42:29.712
So ICE is not going around picking up Black folks.

00:42:29.832 --> 00:42:34.132
It's going, picking up, and raiding, and ruining the entire safety and security

00:42:34.132 --> 00:42:38.572
of Latinos, and Afro-Latinos who are also social.

00:42:38.872 --> 00:42:40.652
I mean, they're Latin and Black.

00:42:41.252 --> 00:42:45.432
But they're not, right? And similarly, with national security,

00:42:45.732 --> 00:42:48.672
it was really focused on Muslim and Arab communities.

00:42:48.872 --> 00:42:52.132
So there are different ways that systemic racism functions.

00:42:53.032 --> 00:42:58.632
And so ultimately, I think we need to just understand those intersections of

00:42:58.632 --> 00:43:01.692
identity and understand how systemic racism operates.

00:43:01.692 --> 00:43:05.612
And the reason why Trump, with Steve Miller at the helm,

00:43:06.272 --> 00:43:12.172
is so obsessed with exporting, or excuse me, deported a million immigrants,

00:43:12.692 --> 00:43:18.932
a million human beings every year, is because, and the criminalizing DEI,

00:43:19.192 --> 00:43:24.832
criminalizing any talk about race, any talk about equity, any talk about.

00:43:25.538 --> 00:43:31.938
Racism is because they have seen how the Black Lives Matter movement and kind

00:43:31.938 --> 00:43:38.398
of the consequences of it have started to change how people think and have started to say, yeah,

00:43:38.538 --> 00:43:43.758
we do need to be more conscientious about how privilege is distributed,

00:43:43.998 --> 00:43:48.978
right, along race and how race and class intersect.

00:43:49.338 --> 00:43:54.858
And we need to start changing how we hire, how we promote, how we teach,

00:43:54.858 --> 00:44:00.258
how we live, how we set housing policy, how we set criminal justice policies,

00:44:00.758 --> 00:44:09.198
everything, and to try to finally break through this systemic racism that's gripped our nation.

00:44:09.478 --> 00:44:14.458
And what that's done is a white nationalist's worst nightmare.

00:44:14.998 --> 00:44:20.238
It has produced all of this diversity in powerful positions.

00:44:20.238 --> 00:44:23.538
Right they don't care about diversity among the

00:44:23.538 --> 00:44:26.698
lowest classes of society they

00:44:26.698 --> 00:44:29.618
don't care if there's diversity among those who are barely making a

00:44:29.618 --> 00:44:34.118
living wage they care about diversity in wealth

00:44:34.118 --> 00:44:39.138
positions of power positions of wealth in elected office in university presidencies

00:44:39.138 --> 00:44:44.378
administrations in ceo positions and so on and so forth because then you're

00:44:44.378 --> 00:44:49.298
going to have decisions that will not exclusively serve one particular or two

00:44:49.298 --> 00:44:52.118
particular groups it will because there'll be different.

00:44:52.806 --> 00:44:56.446
People in different perspectives and different lived experiences at the decision-making

00:44:56.446 --> 00:44:59.006
table, the decisions will be more inclusive.

00:44:59.306 --> 00:45:03.546
They will be more nuanced. They will be more sensitive to the way that something

00:45:03.546 --> 00:45:07.246
that's facially neutral may actually be very racist in practice.

00:45:07.686 --> 00:45:14.786
But step one is you got to get everybody at the table that has a state in the policies.

00:45:15.126 --> 00:45:20.506
So I'm not surprised at all about this white nativist, white Judeo.

00:45:20.506 --> 00:45:25.726
It's a Judeo-Christian nativist backlash because Jews and Christians who are

00:45:25.726 --> 00:45:31.106
white, who are of European origin, are groups that claim to represent them.

00:45:31.186 --> 00:45:34.726
They obviously do not represent all of those demographics, but they claim to

00:45:34.726 --> 00:45:41.806
represent them, are trying to reverse the diversity of the population.

00:45:41.806 --> 00:45:46.886
They are trying really hard to stop 2050 from being the year when people of

00:45:46.886 --> 00:45:50.866
European origin and Judeo-Christian faith are not the majority.

00:45:51.706 --> 00:45:58.666
Yeah. So you stated that, kind of touching on some of that answer,

00:45:59.166 --> 00:46:03.986
you stated that the Palestinian human rights student movement was a direct but

00:46:03.986 --> 00:46:07.126
underappreciated legacy of the Black Lives Matter movement.

00:46:07.526 --> 00:46:11.826
Where is the underappreciation coming from and why do you think that is? Thank you.

00:46:12.737 --> 00:46:21.597
Black Lives Matter was the movement for the generation of Americans that are

00:46:21.597 --> 00:46:26.877
between the ages of 20 and 35.

00:46:28.017 --> 00:46:31.077
Similar, comparable to the anti-Vietnam movement.

00:46:31.257 --> 00:46:36.717
If you meet people who were in college or in high school during the anti-Vietnam

00:46:36.717 --> 00:46:41.977
movement, It really shaped how they understood American society,

00:46:42.277 --> 00:46:45.577
how they understood politics and power and war.

00:46:46.017 --> 00:46:57.377
And I attribute their experiences to the subsequent decades of reforms to our legal system,

00:46:57.657 --> 00:47:03.997
reforms to our surveillance laws to make it more protective of privacy and not

00:47:03.997 --> 00:47:08.057
allow the government to just violate civil liberties as it please.

00:47:08.077 --> 00:47:16.737
Is they were much more sensitive to going to war abroad without believing wholesale

00:47:16.737 --> 00:47:23.117
that the wars were intended to keep America safe as opposed to expand its empire.

00:47:23.997 --> 00:47:28.377
And so these types of social movements, they shape an entire generation.

00:47:29.317 --> 00:47:34.597
And if you see the students who were in the Palestinian Solidarity Movement

00:47:34.597 --> 00:47:37.917
in college, and also those who were out in the streets,

00:47:38.077 --> 00:47:41.037
not just in college campuses many of

00:47:41.037 --> 00:47:44.537
them were in high school during the black lives matter movement so they

00:47:44.537 --> 00:47:47.737
may have been at the protest or they may have been watching what

00:47:47.737 --> 00:47:51.177
was happening on social media and they

00:47:51.177 --> 00:47:57.077
were also learning and being exposed to what is systemic racism what is anti-black

00:47:57.077 --> 00:48:03.617
systemic racism they were seeing live black men being shot they were hearing

00:48:03.617 --> 00:48:08.077
for themselves from Black communities saying, we've been living this nightmare for decades.

00:48:09.136 --> 00:48:13.556
We have the police are constantly engaging in excessive force against us.

00:48:13.736 --> 00:48:15.636
They're constantly racially profiling us.

00:48:15.956 --> 00:48:20.836
We have so many of our brothers who are in jail that we don't believe they should be in jail.

00:48:21.276 --> 00:48:24.796
There is, you know, innocence projects have been expanding.

00:48:25.116 --> 00:48:31.336
And now that DNA is being used, it has exonerated large numbers,

00:48:31.556 --> 00:48:33.076
sizable numbers of black men.

00:48:33.076 --> 00:48:35.936
And i think as they learn that

00:48:35.936 --> 00:48:38.936
so whether they learned it on social media whether they learned

00:48:38.936 --> 00:48:42.896
it by going out and joining the movement themselves they

00:48:42.896 --> 00:48:46.156
realize that the this is

00:48:46.156 --> 00:48:49.616
what you are told is not always the truth and

00:48:49.616 --> 00:48:53.216
that you don't know what is

00:48:53.216 --> 00:48:56.096
happening at if unless you

00:48:56.096 --> 00:49:03.136
listen to those who it's harmed the most and i think that mentality of empathy

00:49:03.136 --> 00:49:08.936
for those who are not the powerful in a particular dispute and also the ability

00:49:08.936 --> 00:49:14.776
to see for themselves i think they they are very sensitive to wanting to see not just be told.

00:49:15.753 --> 00:49:20.333
What's actually happening on the ground, allowed them to realize,

00:49:20.933 --> 00:49:25.553
okay, what's happening in Palestine, what we've been told about Israel is not true.

00:49:26.093 --> 00:49:29.573
They've been told that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East,

00:49:29.573 --> 00:49:35.333
but then they learn about the way that Israel has militarily occupied the West Bank since 1967,

00:49:35.873 --> 00:49:39.853
and has similarly engaged until 2007, and then after that,

00:49:40.113 --> 00:49:45.373
it essentially imposed a blockade that was severe at some points,

00:49:45.373 --> 00:49:48.233
you know very severe less severe it learned

00:49:48.233 --> 00:49:51.353
that many of the palestinians in israel that's

00:49:51.353 --> 00:49:54.313
citizen share are second-class citizens and experience

00:49:54.313 --> 00:49:59.153
similar form of discrimination as african-americans it learned that in 1948

00:49:59.153 --> 00:50:06.593
it was not this war between two nations but in fact and it wasn't that the palestinians

00:50:06.593 --> 00:50:14.153
were trying to kill the jews but in fact that it was the jews would come from Europe seeking refuge,

00:50:14.273 --> 00:50:22.333
yes, but seeking refuge in a way that then had to kill or eliminate or occupy the indigenous people.

00:50:22.993 --> 00:50:27.273
And the American youth knew about the story of the American Indians.

00:50:27.493 --> 00:50:32.913
They were much more educated about what happened to the Native Americans in

00:50:32.913 --> 00:50:38.833
terms of the settler colonial experience and the genocide that their own country

00:50:38.833 --> 00:50:41.213
is a product of. So I think all of that.

00:50:42.031 --> 00:50:45.311
Caused them, and the Black Lives Matter also offered a model,

00:50:45.591 --> 00:50:49.431
movement of collective action, non-violent collective action,

00:50:50.091 --> 00:50:54.591
an agency, and a sense of distrust and saying, no, we're not just going to believe

00:50:54.591 --> 00:50:56.911
what the adults say or what those in power say.

00:50:57.091 --> 00:51:03.251
And we see, our eyes see for ourselves on the cameras of the citizen journalists

00:51:03.251 --> 00:51:04.331
and the Palestinian journalists.

00:51:04.391 --> 00:51:08.711
So by the way, every time a Palestinian journalist was successfully showing

00:51:08.711 --> 00:51:11.571
the amount of violence and murder,

00:51:12.191 --> 00:51:17.051
children being sniped, children who were orphaned, entire families being wiped

00:51:17.051 --> 00:51:21.111
out by the Israeli military, those journalists would get killed.

00:51:21.471 --> 00:51:25.191
They would get assassinated intentionally because Israel has a very,

00:51:25.291 --> 00:51:30.531
very sophisticated drone technology, very sophisticated surveillance technology.

00:51:30.691 --> 00:51:35.551
You can use your phone, your own iPhone as a way to surveil you and to track you.

00:51:35.811 --> 00:51:39.591
And they were realizing, wait a minute, every time a Palestinian journalist

00:51:39.591 --> 00:51:44.431
was reporting on what was happening, they would get killed.

00:51:44.871 --> 00:51:48.771
They would get assassinated by the Israelis. And of course, the Israelis say, oh, they're Hamas.

00:51:48.971 --> 00:51:54.251
And at some point, people realize this is just a cover. Everybody is not Hamas.

00:51:54.851 --> 00:51:58.931
Many of these people are just normal civilians who are trying to stay alive.

00:51:59.171 --> 00:52:01.911
And that just caused the students to be even more skeptical.

00:52:02.731 --> 00:52:06.891
But yeah, so I do think that the Black Lives Matter, and that's why Trump hates

00:52:06.891 --> 00:52:10.671
the Black Lives Matter. The white nationalist movement hates the Black Lives

00:52:10.671 --> 00:52:14.091
Matter movement, and they hate the Palestinian solidarity movement.

00:52:14.331 --> 00:52:20.911
They hate the labor union. Anything that is going to collective action, mobilizing people.

00:52:21.695 --> 00:52:26.415
To challenge those who have the disproportionate amount of wealth and power

00:52:26.415 --> 00:52:28.915
are going to be repressed.

00:52:29.335 --> 00:52:35.175
And that's kind of the myth of American democracy, is we're not that democratic.

00:52:35.595 --> 00:52:40.535
We're democratic alike. We're getting less and less democratic now with Trump.

00:52:41.135 --> 00:52:45.775
And then finally, I think the students who lived through the Palestine Solidarity

00:52:45.775 --> 00:52:49.195
Movement, which again is a generation right after Black Lives Matter,

00:52:49.475 --> 00:52:51.435
have learned a really hard lesson.

00:52:51.695 --> 00:52:55.335
That non-violent protest is essentially

00:52:55.335 --> 00:52:58.655
criminalized in this country that if

00:52:58.655 --> 00:53:02.155
you do if you do anything beyond just superficial

00:53:02.155 --> 00:53:06.135
performative protests anything

00:53:06.135 --> 00:53:09.275
that where you're actually going to change something you will get disciplined you

00:53:09.275 --> 00:53:14.715
will get expelled and that these universities that market and recruit based

00:53:14.715 --> 00:53:18.155
on the mantra of free thinking and critical thinking and the right to the scent

00:53:18.155 --> 00:53:20.455
and really trying to teach them

00:53:20.455 --> 00:53:27.535
how to be model citizens that think for themselves and act based on that,

00:53:27.675 --> 00:53:32.635
again, ways that are nonviolent, that they are selling them a false bill of goods.

00:53:33.575 --> 00:53:40.235
Yeah. So, and that kind of goes with something you had said before about racial justice.

00:53:40.415 --> 00:53:43.695
The United States has always been a cycle of violent repression followed by

00:53:43.695 --> 00:53:47.635
nonviolent in progress, prompting retrenchment by white elites.

00:53:48.895 --> 00:53:52.335
The only way I would, the only, well.

00:53:53.968 --> 00:53:58.008
The only thing I would argue with that is that there was one period in American

00:53:58.008 --> 00:54:00.808
history where there was violence. That was the Civil War.

00:54:00.968 --> 00:54:03.848
And that led to the 13th, 14th, 15th Amendments.

00:54:04.008 --> 00:54:12.368
But ever since then, it's been back to more traditional democratic strategies

00:54:12.368 --> 00:54:16.608
like going to court or protesting or those kind of things.

00:54:18.268 --> 00:54:23.308
So you know i i think i i think you're absolutely well i know you're absolutely

00:54:23.308 --> 00:54:29.708
right about that i just well i just want to i want to highlight that the my

00:54:29.708 --> 00:54:32.028
analysis in the u.s is highly raced,

00:54:32.608 --> 00:54:38.528
because america is a highly racialized society you can take that analysis and

00:54:38.528 --> 00:54:42.268
apply it to other countries and just identify who are the elites sometimes it's

00:54:42.268 --> 00:54:44.028
a particular tribe or group of tribes.

00:54:44.428 --> 00:54:49.468
Sometimes it's an hierarchy. Sometimes it is people of a particular linguistic

00:54:49.468 --> 00:54:52.888
tradition or people that are from the North versus the South.

00:54:53.288 --> 00:54:57.708
So the hierarchies exist, the hierarchies of power exist in every society.

00:54:57.908 --> 00:55:04.148
But in our society, in the U.S., race continues to be a master category.

00:55:04.668 --> 00:55:10.888
In other words, the race that you have been ascribed, that's socially constructed to you,

00:55:11.748 --> 00:55:16.948
contributes significantly to your life, opportunities, your access,

00:55:17.248 --> 00:55:22.348
your relationship or interaction with a state, with the police,

00:55:22.508 --> 00:55:25.128
with wealth, job opportunities.

00:55:25.128 --> 00:55:27.948
That is not something that any of us want.

00:55:28.308 --> 00:55:32.528
We identify because we want to stop it. We don't identify because we support it.

00:55:32.668 --> 00:55:37.768
But you can't stop it unless you identify it and study it and say,

00:55:37.888 --> 00:55:44.188
okay, what's happening here because the days of intentional discrimination have.

00:55:45.326 --> 00:55:50.306
Those are relatively long gone. Yes, we still do have people intentionally insufferating.

00:55:50.786 --> 00:55:55.426
But most of the discrimination happened at a systemic level,

00:55:55.706 --> 00:55:56.866
right? At a structural level.

00:55:57.186 --> 00:56:02.286
At what we call disparate impact. Where you have policies, you have laws that

00:56:02.286 --> 00:56:07.746
are facially neutral, but they are usually enforced in a way,

00:56:07.986 --> 00:56:13.306
either selectively or even non-selectively, but enforced such that one group

00:56:13.306 --> 00:56:16.266
of people, it's designed to disadvantage you.

00:56:16.566 --> 00:56:22.066
So if you make college expensive, and there's no scholarships,

00:56:22.406 --> 00:56:27.126
and there's no government-held grants to those who are low-income,

00:56:27.926 --> 00:56:32.666
you have designed college to be inaccessible to people who are low-income.

00:56:33.006 --> 00:56:37.846
And if you have a high concentration of a certain racial group who are low-income

00:56:37.846 --> 00:56:44.886
or multiple groups, then you have essentially shut the door to college education to those people,

00:56:45.086 --> 00:56:51.326
even if they may be have the intelligence, have the ability to succeed in college.

00:56:52.046 --> 00:56:58.346
Yeah. And, you know, you you're addressing hypocrisy, hypocrisy in that.

00:56:59.505 --> 00:57:08.005
Folks say, well, you know, we don't want and so many people getting accessing

00:57:08.005 --> 00:57:09.725
higher education, all that.

00:57:09.865 --> 00:57:14.685
But yet they still follow through tradition that was set by Eisenhower that

00:57:14.685 --> 00:57:18.065
college education is a national security interest.

00:57:18.325 --> 00:57:22.225
Right. So you've got to have people educated in the United States.

00:57:22.225 --> 00:57:27.045
So the next time we fight somebody like Germany that was technologically advanced

00:57:27.045 --> 00:57:29.625
for its time, we got to have smart people.

00:57:30.365 --> 00:57:33.805
But we're trying to pick and choose who the smart people are.

00:57:33.985 --> 00:57:37.445
And then it becomes a numbers game. So if you don't have the numbers.

00:57:37.905 --> 00:57:42.945
Anyway, that's a whole nother show, Doc. We'll get to that later.

00:57:43.185 --> 00:57:44.985
I want to close out with this.

00:57:45.665 --> 00:57:51.365
And it's kind of personal for me. And I think a lot of people like me that are

00:57:51.365 --> 00:57:52.785
black. So I grew up in Chicago.

00:57:53.265 --> 00:57:59.445
So my first exposure to Islam was the nation Islam, Elijah Muhammad,

00:57:59.785 --> 00:58:05.425
Malcolm X, Louis Farrakhan, even Wallace Dean, you know, Muhammad Ali.

00:58:05.785 --> 00:58:09.905
All those people lived in Chicago at one point. And, you know,

00:58:09.985 --> 00:58:14.885
you see the brothers with the bow ties and all that. So that was kind of a young

00:58:14.885 --> 00:58:17.505
black person's introduction into Islam.

00:58:18.025 --> 00:58:22.345
But as you get older, you realize, well, that's not the traditional Islam.

00:58:22.585 --> 00:58:27.725
And so when Wallace Dean broke from the nation and then you read into Malcolm

00:58:27.725 --> 00:58:32.185
X and how he made his pilgrimage to Mecca and how it changed their life,

00:58:32.285 --> 00:58:35.265
it's like, oh, well, so Islam is a lot more deeper than.

00:58:35.265 --> 00:58:40.025
And also, those are the people that I see coming out of these nice,

00:58:40.285 --> 00:58:47.245
fancy buildings, and they're dressed a certain way and all that kind of stuff. And so we were—.

00:58:49.896 --> 00:58:53.496
But all those images were positive to us.

00:58:54.076 --> 00:59:03.156
And my generation came of age to really how negative people perceived Islam at 9-11.

00:59:04.356 --> 00:59:08.636
So, you know, I've had guests on and we've, you know, people that have,

00:59:08.816 --> 00:59:12.816
you know, especially during this time, you know, and it's talking about the

00:59:12.816 --> 00:59:17.976
challenges that people that practice the Islamic faith deal with.

00:59:17.976 --> 00:59:24.436
But I want you to talk to me and talk to the audience about what is the most

00:59:24.436 --> 00:59:28.936
beautiful or satisfying aspect of the religion of Islam?

00:59:29.236 --> 00:59:35.136
Because I think, you know, to me, for one narrative, there always has to be a counter.

00:59:35.436 --> 00:59:39.076
So what if you, well, I don't want to say an elevator pitch,

00:59:39.416 --> 00:59:43.796
but what is an attractive thing about that faith?

00:59:44.516 --> 00:59:51.376
So, I'll start by recommending a book for non-Muslims called The Vision of Islam

00:59:51.376 --> 00:59:54.276
by Sachiko Murado and William Chittick,

00:59:54.396 --> 01:00:03.076
which I find to be a relatively concise description of the foundations of Islam,

01:00:03.156 --> 01:00:04.556
especially spiritually.

01:00:05.516 --> 01:00:09.336
Islam is a world religion. There are 1.8 billion Muslims.

01:00:10.488 --> 01:00:16.868
And as a result, this has been able to survive and adapt and evolve over more

01:00:16.868 --> 01:00:22.508
than 1,500 years in every single country in the world, different cultures,

01:00:22.788 --> 01:00:24.408
different languages, different times.

01:00:24.788 --> 01:00:31.868
So it is a tolerant faith, and it is a flexible faith, because otherwise it

01:00:31.868 --> 01:00:33.808
wouldn't have survived this long.

01:00:33.808 --> 01:00:36.768
It is grounded in the belief

01:00:36.768 --> 01:00:39.828
in the oneness of god and that to be a muslim is

01:00:39.828 --> 01:00:43.108
to worship god and to effectively

01:00:43.108 --> 01:00:46.428
live one's life worshiping god now

01:00:46.428 --> 01:00:49.888
worship doesn't necessarily mean just praying

01:00:49.888 --> 01:00:53.208
and fasting and doing rituals worshiping is

01:00:53.208 --> 01:00:56.728
how you live your life how you treat people right how

01:00:56.728 --> 01:00:59.688
you use your wealth how your your relationship with

01:00:59.688 --> 01:01:02.788
knowledge so some emphasizes knowledge as.

01:01:02.788 --> 01:01:05.868
A priority in every muslim's life you should always be learning

01:01:05.868 --> 01:01:09.768
and studying and it essentially

01:01:09.768 --> 01:01:13.068
teaches muslims that when you treat people

01:01:13.068 --> 01:01:16.208
with humanity with even a humaneness

01:01:16.208 --> 01:01:19.208
and charity and kindness that is a form of worship of god

01:01:19.208 --> 01:01:22.008
when you are generous with people and

01:01:22.008 --> 01:01:25.108
forgiving of people that is a form of worship

01:01:25.108 --> 01:01:28.488
right when you are forgiving

01:01:28.488 --> 01:01:31.748
and or striving to help people

01:01:31.748 --> 01:01:35.308
with your education with your skills or

01:01:35.308 --> 01:01:38.128
contributing to society and whether you're a

01:01:38.128 --> 01:01:41.868
lawyer or a doctor but serving the public interest again it doesn't have to

01:01:41.868 --> 01:01:46.968
be for free it's okay to earn money but you're you're striving for the common

01:01:46.968 --> 01:01:54.028
good in whatever way you do that is a form of worship of god so it is a highly

01:01:54.028 --> 01:01:57.648
spiritual religion but also a very inclusive one and in In fact,

01:01:57.708 --> 01:02:02.668
it teaches us that God intentionally made us of different races and different

01:02:02.668 --> 01:02:05.488
languages and different cultures so that we would get to know each other,

01:02:05.668 --> 01:02:08.988
so that we would learn from each other, not so we would fight each other.

01:02:09.921 --> 01:02:13.881
Not so that we would destroy each other. And that is also, I believe,

01:02:14.001 --> 01:02:19.421
one of the reasons why it was so inviting and attractive to many African-Americans

01:02:19.421 --> 01:02:20.981
in the early 20th century.

01:02:21.201 --> 01:02:24.541
And many of them identify as reverts, not humbers.

01:02:24.581 --> 01:02:29.941
Because if you study the history, there's a whole disappointment that's now

01:02:29.941 --> 01:02:33.701
risen about the first Muslims in America who were black, who were African,

01:02:33.901 --> 01:02:35.041
who were enslaved Africans.

01:02:35.041 --> 01:02:39.141
And they were, as you know, forcibly brought here as part of chattel slavery

01:02:39.141 --> 01:02:46.701
from West Africa, which at that time, Islam had existed for centuries and had evolved.

01:02:47.121 --> 01:02:51.741
And not all of the enslaved Africans were Muslims, but a large number of them were.

01:02:51.901 --> 01:02:59.401
But as part of the brutality of slavery, anyone who was not a Christian was a heathen.

01:02:59.401 --> 01:03:04.281
And part of Southern colonialism is it was a, quote-unquote,

01:03:04.481 --> 01:03:09.361
a civilizing project that was theologically grounded.

01:03:09.761 --> 01:03:15.001
And many of the, I'm saying that Africans, not all of them, whatever faith they

01:03:15.001 --> 01:03:16.981
had was literally beaten out of them.

01:03:17.101 --> 01:03:20.161
They had to hide it. And they couldn't pass it on to their children.

01:03:20.161 --> 01:03:25.721
And so at some point in time, Islam, as it was practiced in West Africa.

01:03:26.201 --> 01:03:33.481
Was no longer, at least in that same form, existed among African-Americans or enslaved Africans.

01:03:33.821 --> 01:03:38.461
And so many of the, they saw themselves as black Muslims.

01:03:38.601 --> 01:03:43.081
They saw themselves as rebirths. We're going back to this faith that used to be ours.

01:03:43.861 --> 01:03:48.321
And I think one reason it was so attractive is because it was so inclusive and

01:03:48.321 --> 01:03:57.501
it was so tolerant. and it really frowns upon or actually prohibits racism and that you are.

01:03:58.542 --> 01:04:03.022
You know, when you identify who are the better people, right,

01:04:03.162 --> 01:04:07.902
who is someone to look up to, who is someone to admire, who is someone to respect,

01:04:08.202 --> 01:04:09.882
it is about their actions.

01:04:10.182 --> 01:04:15.342
It is about their deeds. It is about how they treat people and how they live

01:04:15.342 --> 01:04:21.702
their life and follow the moral principles of the religion. It is not based on what they look like.

01:04:22.002 --> 01:04:26.202
It is not based on what language they speak or how much wealth they have or

01:04:26.202 --> 01:04:30.882
how much power they have. And in fact, when you see the rituals of Islam,

01:04:31.122 --> 01:04:33.942
it is quite egalitarian that we all pray together.

01:04:34.002 --> 01:04:38.622
It doesn't matter whether you're a king or not, whether you're a wealthy businessman

01:04:38.622 --> 01:04:42.742
or the person who's earning the lowest wage in the company.

01:04:42.882 --> 01:04:45.702
When it's time for prayer, everybody prays together.

01:04:46.002 --> 01:04:50.902
In the same room, in the same line, there is no hierarchy before that.

01:04:50.902 --> 01:04:59.082
And that is, I think that kind of signals what that tolerance and that egalitarianism.

01:04:59.202 --> 01:05:02.542
And also there is a strong emphasis on charity.

01:05:03.022 --> 01:05:07.462
Muslims are supposed to, according to their religion, get 2.5% of their wealth

01:05:07.462 --> 01:05:13.362
every year to orphans, to widows, to people who are not able to pay their medical

01:05:13.362 --> 01:05:17.282
expenses, to people who are permanently in debt and can't get out of debt.

01:05:17.822 --> 01:05:24.022
To people who are poor and are trying to help someone get educated,

01:05:24.442 --> 01:05:30.282
all of that counts as good deeds or blessings that are a form of worship.

01:05:30.942 --> 01:05:33.802
So that is the real Islam.

01:05:33.962 --> 01:05:37.522
That is the Islam that you learn when you go to mosque, when you go to your

01:05:37.522 --> 01:05:42.782
Islamic studies class, when you are studying the Quran. And it is the 99.9%

01:05:42.782 --> 01:05:45.822
of Islam that every Muslim is exposed to.

01:05:46.442 --> 01:05:53.422
Unfortunately, for malicious reasons and then politically motivated reasons that are, in fact...

01:05:53.916 --> 01:05:57.216
Are connected to empire. The only thing that

01:05:57.216 --> 01:06:01.956
Americans and Westerners tend to be exposed to when it comes to Islam are these

01:06:01.956 --> 01:06:10.076
extremist militia groups who are a direct product of wars and conflict and dictatorship

01:06:10.076 --> 01:06:16.716
and oppression in their physical locales and who have claimed,

01:06:16.796 --> 01:06:19.616
they have self-proclaimed that they represent Muslims.

01:06:19.756 --> 01:06:22.476
But if you actually look at how many people follow them and how

01:06:22.476 --> 01:06:25.276
many people they've been able to recruit out of

01:06:25.276 --> 01:06:28.916
1.8 billion people it's really small and those

01:06:28.916 --> 01:06:32.076
who they haven't been able to recruit are not

01:06:32.076 --> 01:06:36.836
your typical muslim and many of them and again all this has been studied and

01:06:36.836 --> 01:06:43.136
that many of them are not even trained formally in islam they don't have degrees

01:06:43.136 --> 01:06:48.596
in islamic law or islamic history just because you memorize the Quran doesn't

01:06:48.596 --> 01:06:50.036
mean you actually understand it.

01:06:50.176 --> 01:06:53.396
It's a very, very complicated book.

01:06:53.556 --> 01:06:59.236
It's considered the revelation of God, and it takes an entire lifetime to understand

01:06:59.236 --> 01:07:03.236
it, and many still don't understand everything about it. It's all kind of discipline.

01:07:03.616 --> 01:07:08.636
And so if you look to see, well, who are these people in Al-Qaeda or in ISIS

01:07:08.636 --> 01:07:13.596
or in Boko Haram, these terrorist groups, these militia groups, who are they?

01:07:13.856 --> 01:07:17.776
They are not schooled in the religion. And they don't have a deep expertise.

01:07:18.924 --> 01:07:24.344
They are gangs, and they said that, hey, we represent Muslims.

01:07:24.504 --> 01:07:26.884
The vast majority of Muslims look at them and go, no, you don't.

01:07:27.044 --> 01:07:31.804
The only people that recognize them as representing Muslims are Western governments.

01:07:32.464 --> 01:07:39.384
Because it's soon set to be able to say, oh, look, that's why we need to go to war in Afghanistan.

01:07:39.584 --> 01:07:41.504
That's why we need to go to war in Iraq.

01:07:41.884 --> 01:07:46.524
That's why we need to not support the Palestinians. That's why we need to support

01:07:46.524 --> 01:07:49.844
the dictatorships in a small majority of countries, right?

01:07:50.084 --> 01:07:56.204
Because we, God forbid, we would have those people that would otherwise rule, which is not the case.

01:07:56.404 --> 01:08:00.004
And I'll just kind of point as evidence the Arab Spring.

01:08:00.004 --> 01:08:03.284
The air spring was one of the most historic monumental

01:08:03.284 --> 01:08:06.844
events of that region in

01:08:06.844 --> 01:08:09.944
multiple generations and it was non-violent

01:08:09.944 --> 01:08:12.924
it was the people rising up and saying we

01:08:12.924 --> 01:08:16.444
don't want to be ruled by dictators we want self-governance

01:08:16.444 --> 01:08:19.524
we want our version of democracy we don't

01:08:19.524 --> 01:08:22.704
and these dictators are all propped up by the u.s

01:08:22.704 --> 01:08:25.824
and europeans and they are they

01:08:25.824 --> 01:08:28.804
had a chokehold on on our lives and

01:08:28.804 --> 01:08:31.864
on our futures and they all failed and

01:08:31.864 --> 01:08:34.684
if you go and as you study and i've written a lot about the airspace and

01:08:34.684 --> 01:08:37.644
some others it was a direct result

01:08:37.644 --> 01:08:44.524
of foreign intervention ensuring that there would not be democracy in these

01:08:44.524 --> 01:08:50.904
countries because that would most likely result in those countries not being

01:08:50.904 --> 01:08:57.484
the puppets of the west it would compromise and threaten especially the U.S.

01:08:57.764 --> 01:09:02.564
Hegemony in the region which would impact its hegemony on oil production and

01:09:02.564 --> 01:09:09.604
its military bases in the region and all of its global geopolitical interests. So.

01:09:12.338 --> 01:09:16.538
When Muslims did rise up, they didn't even rise up violently,

01:09:16.558 --> 01:09:18.678
but the repression was quite violent.

01:09:18.898 --> 01:09:22.818
And that's why, unfortunately, the reputation of the United States and many

01:09:22.818 --> 01:09:28.438
Muslim-majority countries is very low, because they live the brunt of the empire.

01:09:28.438 --> 01:09:36.958
They live the consequences of our military engagements, or in the case of Gaza, lack of engagement,

01:09:37.358 --> 01:09:45.738
that then causes havoc on their lives and oftentimes death and violence.

01:09:46.318 --> 01:09:51.938
But that is not the Islam that people are taught and people desire.

01:09:52.258 --> 01:09:56.898
And I'll just end by saying, you know, there is various sayings of the prophet,

01:09:57.098 --> 01:09:58.898
which are considered secondary sources.

01:09:59.378 --> 01:10:05.238
And there are multiple ones where it's clear that when there is the option between

01:10:05.238 --> 01:10:12.418
the most aesthetic versus the most luxurious or the middle, the middle is always chosen.

01:10:13.098 --> 01:10:15.318
Right? So it's like, do you want water?

01:10:15.738 --> 01:10:20.858
Do you want wine or do you want milk? And it was, in this particular kind of

01:10:20.858 --> 01:10:23.598
analogy, it was milk because that was the middle road.

01:10:23.918 --> 01:10:28.938
So that's the irony. Muslims are taught to always take the middle road to being moderate.

01:10:29.338 --> 01:10:33.178
And yet we're represented as exclusively extremists.

01:10:33.318 --> 01:10:40.578
And I think that those who believe that, what I think is a very racist and bad

01:10:40.578 --> 01:10:44.538
faith narrative, I would encourage you to read for yourself.

01:10:45.400 --> 01:10:49.760
And let your own critical thinking, and it's difficult to read for yourself,

01:10:49.820 --> 01:10:55.300
it's tedious, it takes a lot of time, but if you're truly interested in understanding

01:10:55.300 --> 01:10:57.840
your world, then you have to take that time.

01:10:57.840 --> 01:11:01.440
And I think, again, the vision of Islamism is a place to start.

01:11:01.600 --> 01:11:05.300
And I also would encourage people, if you want to learn more about Islamophobia

01:11:05.300 --> 01:11:08.980
and about Muslims in America, to go to the YouTube channel of the Center for

01:11:08.980 --> 01:11:11.140
Security, Race, and Rights and subscribe.

01:11:11.460 --> 01:11:17.940
We have numerous experts who write on the lecture series every year,

01:11:18.320 --> 01:11:21.340
multiple experts who come and talk about Muslims, South Asians,

01:11:21.640 --> 01:11:23.480
Arabs, or Muslim-majority countries.

01:11:23.920 --> 01:11:27.000
And we also, I'm also the host of the Race and Race podcast,

01:11:27.260 --> 01:11:31.760
which I'll put a little plug in if people want to expand their podcast reach.

01:11:32.020 --> 01:11:35.580
But I do think that, you know, the first word in the Quran is ikraq,

01:11:35.740 --> 01:11:38.320
which is read. So I would just encourage people to read.

01:11:38.960 --> 01:11:44.600
So if people want to reach out personally to you besides, you know,

01:11:44.680 --> 01:11:50.300
the other sites and so forth, or even, you know, get your book, how can they do that?

01:11:50.840 --> 01:11:56.160
I have a website, saharazizlaw.com, and so there is a way to contact me there,

01:11:56.180 --> 01:12:01.040
and I will try my best to respond.

01:12:01.720 --> 01:12:07.200
And also, you can also reach me at csr.redbears.edu, again, the Center for Security,

01:12:07.280 --> 01:12:09.880
Race, and Rights, which is the center that I direct.

01:12:09.980 --> 01:12:16.160
And I'm also on social media at saharazizlaw, and that's my tag on all the social media accounts.

01:12:16.840 --> 01:12:21.620
Well, Zahara sees, again, I knew this was going to be special,

01:12:21.620 --> 01:12:28.300
and I graciously appreciated the time and one of the advantages of having your

01:12:28.300 --> 01:12:30.540
own thing and you're not caught up with things.

01:12:31.140 --> 01:12:33.740
Headlines or all this stuff we could carry on this conversation.

01:12:33.900 --> 01:12:36.360
However, we cannot carry on this conversation forever.

01:12:36.760 --> 01:12:40.200
So we're going to have to end it here. But again, I just thank you for coming

01:12:40.200 --> 01:12:42.140
on the podcast. I greatly appreciate it.

01:12:42.760 --> 01:12:46.820
Thank you for hosting me. All right, guys, we're going to catch y'all on the other side.

01:13:06.736 --> 01:13:12.916
All right, and we are back. And so now it's time for my next guest, Wala Blegay.

01:13:13.736 --> 01:13:19.296
Wala Blegay was elected to serve her first four-year term on the Prince George's County Council.

01:13:19.596 --> 01:13:24.076
In the November 2022 general election, it represents Council District 6.

01:13:24.536 --> 01:13:28.756
She was elected as vice chair by our peers during her first term on the council.

01:13:29.176 --> 01:13:33.036
During her first term, she spearheaded an aggressive people-driven agenda,

01:13:33.036 --> 01:13:36.956
authoring legislation to encourage quality development in the county,

01:13:37.336 --> 01:13:40.956
limiting tobacco stores and marijuana shops in residential communities,

01:13:41.616 --> 01:13:46.456
incentivizing healthy restaurants, providing tax credits for public safety employees.

01:13:47.296 --> 01:13:52.456
Creating a task force to address emergency room wait times, requiring security

01:13:52.456 --> 01:13:57.356
cameras in high-capacity apartment buildings, rent stabilization, and more.

01:13:58.156 --> 01:14:04.476
As chair of the council, sitting as the Board of Health, She led the efforts

01:14:04.476 --> 01:14:09.976
of the council addressing nurse-patient ratios, long emergency room wait times, and mental health.

01:14:10.496 --> 01:14:16.416
She is passionate about civil rights, women's rights, and workers' rights,

01:14:16.436 --> 01:14:21.996
and the creator and host of the Chat with a Lawyer television talk show,

01:14:22.216 --> 01:14:24.796
a free legal resource for county residents.

01:14:25.116 --> 01:14:28.856
A grassroots organizer, she has committed her office to the engagement,

01:14:29.096 --> 01:14:33.916
education, and empowerment of all stakeholders. An adjunct professor at the

01:14:33.916 --> 01:14:39.196
American University Washington College of Law and former staff attorney for the D.C.

01:14:39.316 --> 01:14:45.836
Nurses Association, advocating to improve the working environment for nurses and working families.

01:14:46.859 --> 01:14:51.439
Councilmember Blegay has been noted as the working people's voice.

01:14:52.279 --> 01:14:56.359
She has previously served on the Maryland Governor's Task Force for the Study

01:14:56.359 --> 01:15:01.339
of Economic Development and Apprenticeship Programs, ACLU of Maryland,

01:15:01.959 --> 01:15:06.899
Maryland Legislative Agenda for Women, Board of Directors for the Training Source,

01:15:07.699 --> 01:15:13.139
Prince George's County Human Relations Commission, Prince George's County NAACP,

01:15:13.139 --> 01:15:17.339
Emerge Maryland, and the Maryland Coalition of Consumer Rights.

01:15:17.559 --> 01:15:21.099
She has published numerous articles related to civil rights,

01:15:21.299 --> 01:15:27.979
health care, and education, and is the recipient of the 40 Under 40 In Prince George's County Award,

01:15:28.479 --> 01:15:33.119
the National Black Caucus of Local Elected Officials Presidential Service Award,

01:15:33.319 --> 01:15:36.299
and the Daily Records Leading Women Award.

01:15:36.779 --> 01:15:41.859
Councilmember Blegay is a first-generation Liberian and Nigerian-American,

01:15:42.619 --> 01:15:46.179
graduate of the University of Maryland College Park with a BA in government

01:15:46.179 --> 01:15:51.419
and politics, and she earned a JD from the American University Washington College of Law.

01:15:51.619 --> 01:15:55.519
She is a proud member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Incorporated,

01:15:55.919 --> 01:15:58.959
a Prince George's County resident for more than 20 years.

01:15:59.679 --> 01:16:03.999
Councilmember Blegay resides in Kettering. Ladies and gentlemen,

01:16:04.319 --> 01:16:08.559
it is my distinct honor and privilege to have as a guest on this podcast.

01:16:08.779 --> 01:16:10.439
Wala. Blegay.

01:16:21.500 --> 01:16:27.900
All right. The Honorable Wala Blegay Esquire.

01:16:28.000 --> 01:16:31.360
How are you doing, ma'am? You doing good? I'm doing well. Thank you.

01:16:31.720 --> 01:16:37.980
So, look, I wanted to get you on because you, well, you know,

01:16:38.100 --> 01:16:42.880
from what I can see, you're one of the up and coming political people.

01:16:43.420 --> 01:16:49.240
Oh, wow. Thank you for saying that. And you are a very active in what you do.

01:16:50.100 --> 01:16:53.020
And so a go-getter from what I've seen.

01:16:53.200 --> 01:17:00.120
And so there's been some issues on a national plane that have affected you.

01:17:00.260 --> 01:17:06.020
So I wanted to get into that and kind of introduce people to you in the time that I have you.

01:17:06.400 --> 01:17:11.760
I appreciate that. So before we get started on the interview part,

01:17:11.780 --> 01:17:14.420
I do a couple of things called icebreakers.

01:17:14.860 --> 01:17:18.460
And so the first icebreaker is a quote. And I want you to respond to this quote.

01:17:19.040 --> 01:17:23.120
The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in service of others.

01:17:23.380 --> 01:17:24.620
What does that quote mean to you?

01:17:25.200 --> 01:17:29.100
Well, it means that really you find your purpose when you serve.

01:17:29.340 --> 01:17:32.960
And that's what you learn, your purpose. You learn what you care about.

01:17:33.160 --> 01:17:37.060
You learn what drives you. You learn what frustrates you.

01:17:37.560 --> 01:17:43.360
Service is not an easy job. And service oftentimes gets you do feel sometimes

01:17:43.360 --> 01:17:49.160
alone or frustrated. But you can find your, you can find out that you,

01:17:49.300 --> 01:17:52.300
you can find your true purpose and what you're supposed to do.

01:17:52.380 --> 01:17:54.920
I think service is one of the best things, but it's the heart.

01:17:55.060 --> 01:17:56.800
It's one of the hardest things to grasp.

01:17:57.660 --> 01:18:01.540
Yeah. And yeah, I totally agree with that. Service.

01:18:03.632 --> 01:18:09.652
It's hard for people to give of themselves. And, you know, your natural instinct

01:18:09.652 --> 01:18:12.432
is to take care of yourself first.

01:18:12.872 --> 01:18:17.692
And you have to have a special heart to want to do that for other people,

01:18:17.812 --> 01:18:21.792
especially in the realm of politics. So I definitely agree with what you're saying.

01:18:22.312 --> 01:18:24.872
The next icebreaker is what we call 20 questions.

01:18:25.492 --> 01:18:30.432
So I need you to give me a number between 1 and 20. Seven.

01:18:31.032 --> 01:18:34.912
What do you consider the best way to stay informed about politics,

01:18:35.192 --> 01:18:36.772
current events, et cetera?

01:18:37.332 --> 01:18:41.432
Well, we have learned that that's one of the biggest issues with the county

01:18:41.432 --> 01:18:47.192
is that the lack of information that people feel they're not receiving.

01:18:47.532 --> 01:18:52.932
So one of the things we did is, first of all, we have a very active listserv that people can join.

01:18:52.972 --> 01:18:58.892
They can reach out to my office at Council District 6 at co.pg.md.us.

01:18:58.892 --> 01:19:01.092
We're also really active on social media.

01:19:01.292 --> 01:19:04.812
So if you're on the gram, you can follow me at WallaKB.

01:19:05.492 --> 01:19:10.092
And we make sure that we keep people very informed of everything that we're

01:19:10.092 --> 01:19:12.372
doing so that people can feel engaged.

01:19:12.452 --> 01:19:15.712
Because that's the biggest issue is that I found, and I tell people,

01:19:15.812 --> 01:19:20.532
I found out so much once I became a council member, which shouldn't be the case.

01:19:20.532 --> 01:19:22.852
But it's the case is that now I'm a council member.

01:19:23.132 --> 01:19:26.352
All these resources that we have, now I know.

01:19:26.812 --> 01:19:30.712
Now I know that they're available. Now I know how to promote them to the community.

01:19:31.152 --> 01:19:37.892
So I really actually have learned from that, that we need to do better getting,

01:19:38.152 --> 01:19:39.272
keeping people engaged.

01:19:39.812 --> 01:19:44.972
Okay. When did you decide that you wanted to be in the arena of law and politics?

01:19:46.184 --> 01:19:51.124
Very early on, actually. When I was in college, I started off as,

01:19:51.344 --> 01:19:54.264
first of all, I would say that some of the things that I've always told people

01:19:54.264 --> 01:19:55.804
to bring your kids in the room,

01:19:56.004 --> 01:19:59.524
and there's a reason why I've said that, because I've learned that a lot of

01:19:59.524 --> 01:20:04.144
my work started, my parents were really active, and especially the African community

01:20:04.144 --> 01:20:09.484
when I was young, because we had a lot of Liberians coming here through TPS,

01:20:09.744 --> 01:20:15.844
through the TPS program as refugees, and we would advocate for them to get.

01:20:15.984 --> 01:20:19.484
Even though we didn't come to the United States through that program,

01:20:19.484 --> 01:20:23.984
we were advocating for the large number of Liberians that were coming in at

01:20:23.984 --> 01:20:27.184
the time of the 90s when the war started.

01:20:27.324 --> 01:20:29.684
So we would meet with the council members in D.C.

01:20:29.944 --> 01:20:34.024
We even came to Prince George's County to meet with, at the time,

01:20:34.104 --> 01:20:36.044
the county executive was Paris Glenn Denning.

01:20:36.244 --> 01:20:40.184
So we did all of those when I was young. And I know that that never left me.

01:20:40.304 --> 01:20:45.064
And once I got to college, I started off with pre-med, but I took a government

01:20:45.064 --> 01:20:48.424
politics class and I realized that, you know, that was really at the center

01:20:48.424 --> 01:20:51.984
of my heart was that the community aspect. I wanted to do back,

01:20:52.184 --> 01:20:53.844
go back to what we did when I was young.

01:20:54.024 --> 01:20:57.704
You just don't quite understand what your path is taking you on.

01:20:57.984 --> 01:21:02.744
And I ended up interning in Annapolis for a delegate who was all about young people.

01:21:02.924 --> 01:21:06.284
So that was like the best storm to actually start off with someone that was

01:21:06.284 --> 01:21:10.964
like, I want young people to get involved. And that was like what he believed.

01:21:10.964 --> 01:21:13.464
He was so about young people getting involved.

01:21:13.644 --> 01:21:16.984
And that actually had such an impact on me.

01:21:17.144 --> 01:21:21.184
And after that, I became sold in getting involved with politics.

01:21:21.184 --> 01:21:23.004
And I worked in Annapolis.

01:21:23.384 --> 01:21:27.984
After that, I did organizing with the unions. I worked on campaigns.

01:21:27.984 --> 01:21:31.284
I was all in. And then later on, I decided to run myself.

01:21:31.544 --> 01:21:33.944
So you never know, like I said, bring your kids in the room,

01:21:33.964 --> 01:21:38.364
because I do believe this all started when I was basically...

01:21:39.540 --> 01:21:43.100
Going with my parents to all of those meetings as a kid. And I was like four

01:21:43.100 --> 01:21:47.680
or five years old. So it was not like I started off like as a grownup.

01:21:47.780 --> 01:21:51.320
It was really a baby and still engaged. Yeah.

01:21:52.820 --> 01:21:56.800
So I first found out about Prince George's County, Maryland,

01:21:57.040 --> 01:22:01.600
when it was recognized as the most populous and the most affluent African-American

01:22:01.600 --> 01:22:04.420
county in America. Is that still the case?

01:22:05.140 --> 01:22:09.260
Well, I would say they're arguing that we're competing now with Charles County.

01:22:09.260 --> 01:22:13.040
But what I will say is that Prince George's County has the most unique story.

01:22:13.260 --> 01:22:19.440
This went for a rural white town to a majority African-American affluent community,

01:22:19.600 --> 01:22:25.740
regardless of the fact that we're dealing with poverty in certain areas as we

01:22:25.740 --> 01:22:27.900
have an influx of people moving in from D.C.

01:22:27.900 --> 01:22:33.940
I mean, we went from, you know, a small county of two, three hundred thousand

01:22:33.940 --> 01:22:35.740
to almost a million people.

01:22:36.440 --> 01:22:42.960
And in the midst of that, we do have we have always had pockets of poverty within our community.

01:22:43.600 --> 01:22:47.740
And I think that some people have said, you know, oh, is there wealth if you

01:22:47.740 --> 01:22:50.860
have schools that are troubled and all of those things?

01:22:50.860 --> 01:22:56.740
What people don't realize is that the poverty in our community is seen in our,

01:22:56.800 --> 01:22:59.400
it's not seen in the big houses, it's seen in the school system.

01:22:59.640 --> 01:23:03.700
That's where people have to come to get education because they can't afford

01:23:03.700 --> 01:23:05.220
to put their kids in private schools.

01:23:05.420 --> 01:23:09.340
And that's where we see a lot of the poverty issues in the county.

01:23:09.540 --> 01:23:12.260
You see it right in the school system.

01:23:13.137 --> 01:23:18.637
So it is one of those things where while we have the wealth, we do have the wealth.

01:23:18.857 --> 01:23:22.317
There are things that impact our community that are unique to other groups.

01:23:22.697 --> 01:23:27.237
First of all, we do have, we're going to have pockets of poverty because with

01:23:27.237 --> 01:23:30.457
people of color, they're trying to climb up the ladder, they're trying to get where they are.

01:23:30.617 --> 01:23:33.977
We have pockets of poverty in our county that we are trying to address.

01:23:34.297 --> 01:23:37.717
And a lot of those things are going to see themselves in the school system.

01:23:37.717 --> 01:23:42.897
However, because of we have a lot of houses, but we have a very difficult time

01:23:42.897 --> 01:23:45.257
getting the quality economic development. Why?

01:23:45.557 --> 01:23:51.197
Because the big powers that be in the economic world don't value a majority

01:23:51.197 --> 01:23:56.657
African-American community. We have to do a lot to even attract them to consider our community.

01:23:56.857 --> 01:24:00.217
So some people are just sitting up there saying, well, why don't we why can't

01:24:00.217 --> 01:24:03.457
we get a Whole Foods and all that? Because we have so much to do.

01:24:03.617 --> 01:24:06.537
When we go and tell them, they'll tell us, oh, we're looking at it.

01:24:06.537 --> 01:24:08.797
This is not a good fit for us, all of this stuff.

01:24:08.877 --> 01:24:10.957
No one's going to say it's because you have Black people there.

01:24:11.017 --> 01:24:16.077
But we can sense where they're going and why they won't come.

01:24:16.297 --> 01:24:22.257
So because of that, we have our money, our revenues are smaller than surrounding

01:24:22.257 --> 01:24:25.297
jurisdictions like Montgomery County, even D.C. because D.C.

01:24:25.417 --> 01:24:29.457
Has a large, it's a city, so it has a large number of commercial development.

01:24:29.997 --> 01:24:34.917
So while D.C. has a $20 billion budget, Montgomery County has an $8 billion

01:24:34.917 --> 01:24:40.577
budget, we're out here struggling with a $5 billion budget, trying to take care of a million people.

01:24:40.797 --> 01:24:45.997
I mean, D.C. has only 700,000 people, and Montgomery County has the same amount

01:24:45.997 --> 01:24:50.197
of people and $3 billion more to play with, not to mention they don't have as

01:24:50.197 --> 01:24:54.297
much of the population of need that we have.

01:24:55.106 --> 01:25:00.146
So we have to, and then we also have to deal with the media and how they portray

01:25:00.146 --> 01:25:04.926
the county because of our cult, you know, because of our race.

01:25:04.926 --> 01:25:08.606
And let's just face it, I get more calls from the media when there's a fight

01:25:08.606 --> 01:25:10.986
at a school or a fight here and there. There's fights everywhere,

01:25:10.986 --> 01:25:12.366
but they're going to cover that.

01:25:12.466 --> 01:25:15.206
But then when we have good things in the county, we have a very difficult time

01:25:15.206 --> 01:25:16.266
getting them to cover that.

01:25:16.506 --> 01:25:20.586
So we have to learn to tell our own story. So while we have the wealth, we have the challenges.

01:25:21.186 --> 01:25:26.906
Yeah, that's enlightening to know. So and then your your county government is

01:25:26.906 --> 01:25:30.446
structured differently than a lot of county governments I've experienced.

01:25:30.786 --> 01:25:34.486
And that's one of the cool things about this country is that each state,

01:25:34.486 --> 01:25:40.286
you know, kind of operates and charters counties and cities in their own way.

01:25:40.546 --> 01:25:46.626
So you actually have a county executive branch and a county legislative branch,

01:25:46.806 --> 01:25:51.426
whereas like I'm here in Georgia and I lived a lot and lived in Mississippi

01:25:51.426 --> 01:25:53.726
and in Illinois and Chicago. primarily.

01:25:54.426 --> 01:26:00.326
And so the county officers, whether they call commissioners or supervisors,

01:26:00.446 --> 01:26:07.746
they have kind of a hybrid executive legislative function, but y'all actually have a separation.

01:26:09.150 --> 01:26:14.430
Yeah, I think that the charter, so smaller counties have county commissioners

01:26:14.430 --> 01:26:18.370
and county commissioners usually kind of run the government.

01:26:18.570 --> 01:26:22.530
They're one in the same there. They have a function of executive and legislative.

01:26:23.010 --> 01:26:27.650
But once you get a county executive charter, so that they changed the charter

01:26:27.650 --> 01:26:32.390
30 years ago for the county, creating, moving it from commissioners to county executive.

01:26:32.970 --> 01:26:37.030
And then that was for Montgomery County. So the bigger counties have what Prince

01:26:37.030 --> 01:26:40.310
George's County has. The smaller counties are still on county commission.

01:26:40.430 --> 01:26:43.250
In fact, you will see in Charles County, that's becoming a big,

01:26:43.390 --> 01:26:47.530
that's a big hot topic there because they're moving up in numbers.

01:26:47.670 --> 01:26:51.110
I think they're at 300,000 now. So they're ready to change.

01:26:51.250 --> 01:26:53.870
Some of the people are ready to change over the county executive,

01:26:53.870 --> 01:26:57.870
but there is a large group that doesn't want it because it's a big change and

01:26:57.870 --> 01:27:02.410
it gives an executive one person the power to make a lot of decisions regardless

01:27:02.410 --> 01:27:03.930
of a legislative branch.

01:27:03.930 --> 01:27:09.390
And so there is a debt is definitely a very controversial issue in Charles County right now.

01:27:10.490 --> 01:27:15.630
So I want to talk about, you know, a couple of issues before you have to go.

01:27:16.090 --> 01:27:21.770
One is talk about how the federal layoffs by Doge and then the current federal

01:27:21.770 --> 01:27:26.450
shutdown has impacted the citizens of Prince George's County.

01:27:26.630 --> 01:27:31.550
And what steps has the county done to navigate these situations? Yeah.

01:27:32.042 --> 01:27:36.222
Well, we've been put in a pretty bad situation. We do know and we feel very

01:27:36.222 --> 01:27:39.982
strongly that this attack has been on us.

01:27:40.162 --> 01:27:43.162
Like this is an attack on Prince George's County.

01:27:43.562 --> 01:27:49.382
And so we do get that and we understand that. And it is because we're a majority

01:27:49.382 --> 01:27:50.602
African-American county.

01:27:50.782 --> 01:27:54.762
We have seen record layoffs. If you see the numbers, they even show that the

01:27:54.762 --> 01:27:59.142
biggest number of individuals who have been impacted by all of these layoffs

01:27:59.142 --> 01:28:03.022
has been Black women, which is where we fall.

01:28:03.302 --> 01:28:08.662
Because we have a lot of leadership, a lot of women have gotten degrees, gotten into these jobs.

01:28:08.822 --> 01:28:12.322
So we do feel like this is an attack on us. We've had a number of attacks.

01:28:12.462 --> 01:28:15.022
Number one, we have over 73,000 federal workers.

01:28:15.342 --> 01:28:18.282
We've seen record numbers of layoffs. We're still trying to get the numbers

01:28:18.282 --> 01:28:21.982
of how many are just in the county because a lot of our federal workers might

01:28:21.982 --> 01:28:25.762
live here, but they work in D.C., Montgomery, Virginia, all over.

01:28:25.762 --> 01:28:27.782
So we're trying to still get the numbers of those.

01:28:27.922 --> 01:28:31.862
And the next other place is Montgomery County. So we've had record number of layoffs.

01:28:32.002 --> 01:28:36.902
We have been downgraded in credit rating because of the attack on our area.

01:28:37.102 --> 01:28:39.542
They're moving, trying to move federal rules.

01:28:40.432 --> 01:28:41.832
Agencies out of the county, I

01:28:41.832 --> 01:28:46.272
know you saw the recent talk is about the Bellsville Agricultural Center.

01:28:46.472 --> 01:28:50.472
They're trying to close it down and move the residents, move the workers out,

01:28:50.612 --> 01:28:55.892
which means that a lot of people are living in the county simply to be because

01:28:55.892 --> 01:28:57.272
they work for the federal government.

01:28:57.512 --> 01:29:02.072
So by sort of moving agencies outside of this region or outside of the county,

01:29:02.232 --> 01:29:08.312
we're going to lose residents. In addition, we're dealing with the FBI was supposed

01:29:08.312 --> 01:29:10.852
to be a game changer when it comes to economic development.

01:29:11.152 --> 01:29:14.312
We pretty much won the bid for that during Biden.

01:29:14.572 --> 01:29:20.752
But now Trump has ended that and started to move the FBI all over the country outside of the region.

01:29:21.312 --> 01:29:23.272
So now, for now, we're going to

01:29:23.272 --> 01:29:26.832
still fight. We're filing lawsuits and everything to still keep the FBI.

01:29:27.012 --> 01:29:30.112
But that was supposed to be really sealed the deal. You know,

01:29:30.192 --> 01:29:33.592
we have NASA at Greenbelt. Then we were going to add the FBI.

01:29:34.072 --> 01:29:38.212
We already have Fort Meade, not that far away. So this was going to be part

01:29:38.212 --> 01:29:43.152
of our economic package to the powers that be in economic development to bring

01:29:43.152 --> 01:29:46.372
quality to Prince George's County. That's impacting that.

01:29:46.512 --> 01:29:50.452
So we are getting hit all the way on the side. At the time that we're trying

01:29:50.452 --> 01:29:56.852
to transition ourselves from suburban to even urban areas, we're getting hit by the layoffs.

01:29:57.052 --> 01:30:00.992
If these layoffs get to the point that it impacts giving foreclosures,

01:30:01.112 --> 01:30:05.032
then we're in real trouble because that's going to impact our overall budget.

01:30:05.212 --> 01:30:07.612
We're already getting impact with our overall budget.

01:30:08.112 --> 01:30:13.592
The state has let us know that the Trump administration has refused to pay reimbursements

01:30:13.592 --> 01:30:16.472
for things like free and reduced lunches, things like that.

01:30:16.472 --> 01:30:20.112
So that's going to come back to us and we're going to have to look for ways

01:30:20.112 --> 01:30:23.152
to fill in the gaps of federal funding that we're going to lose.

01:30:23.652 --> 01:30:27.132
So I know that y'all were trying to create some kind of.

01:30:28.262 --> 01:30:32.762
Temporary stipend for the federal workers that were laid off.

01:30:32.842 --> 01:30:34.902
I think it was like a thousand.

01:30:35.122 --> 01:30:38.382
Yeah, that didn't go through because we don't have the funding.

01:30:38.622 --> 01:30:42.542
I couldn't get my colleagues to vote on that. What we passed was a priority

01:30:42.542 --> 01:30:47.702
hiring bill that would give priority hiring to those who are federal workers.

01:30:48.122 --> 01:30:53.082
And then also we were going to create a food bank database that will help people

01:30:53.082 --> 01:30:54.902
who need food to get food quickly.

01:30:55.382 --> 01:31:00.262
And so we're trying to do that. And then, of course, we're going to work with

01:31:00.262 --> 01:31:05.062
our workforce development arm and Poy Prince George's to make sure that they

01:31:05.062 --> 01:31:09.222
provide funding and support for training for our workers.

01:31:09.402 --> 01:31:15.942
But, yeah, we do have the state now has been able to put things in place,

01:31:15.942 --> 01:31:17.242
and the state has been really helpful.

01:31:17.502 --> 01:31:20.282
And that's been helpful for us.

01:31:20.742 --> 01:31:24.382
Got you. All right. The other thing that caught my attention,

01:31:24.662 --> 01:31:29.662
explain to the listeners about your legislation called the Food as Medicine

01:31:29.662 --> 01:31:31.842
Health Program Act of 2025.

01:31:32.742 --> 01:31:37.802
Yeah, I mean, that's really exciting. So we have a county, like I said,

01:31:37.882 --> 01:31:38.962
there's wealth in the county.

01:31:39.182 --> 01:31:43.202
We have a lot of big houses, but a lot of people are looking to actually get

01:31:43.202 --> 01:31:51.482
healthy. And then we are living in food swans where we have just communities of fast food.

01:31:51.742 --> 01:31:55.582
So we're trying to change that. We have a lot of farms in the county.

01:31:55.742 --> 01:32:01.182
So food is medicine. It's supposed to be a way to bring farm to table in communities

01:32:01.182 --> 01:32:04.562
to help us help deal with chronic illness and things like that.

01:32:04.802 --> 01:32:09.342
Our highest death rate is not gun violence. It is heart disease.

01:32:09.702 --> 01:32:13.402
So this is what we're trying to do to address this issue.

01:32:14.255 --> 01:32:17.415
And that's why we're working. We're trying to work on that,

01:32:17.835 --> 01:32:20.915
on the Food is Medicine is supposed to create a program under the Department

01:32:20.915 --> 01:32:28.375
of Health that will facilitate relationships when it comes to farmers, bringing food,

01:32:28.675 --> 01:32:33.555
connecting them with our health care systems to allow them to give almost a

01:32:33.555 --> 01:32:38.995
food pharmacy to residents that they will get healthy foods that will improve

01:32:38.995 --> 01:32:41.675
their blood pressure and blood sugar and such.

01:32:41.675 --> 01:32:47.795
I learned about bitter melon that's being sold right now at a farm in my district.

01:32:48.615 --> 01:32:52.055
Asawana Farms, and that is supposed to help bring down blood pressure.

01:32:52.235 --> 01:32:55.175
I mean, but blood sugar, if you eat it and know how to cook it.

01:32:55.375 --> 01:32:59.035
So they even have ways to teach you how to cook it and they have ways to tell

01:32:59.035 --> 01:33:01.275
you how to eat it so it can help your blood sugar.

01:33:01.535 --> 01:33:05.115
So I've been doing that. It has worked. So it's been really great.

01:33:05.315 --> 01:33:10.435
So I definitely think at this point that we are, this is a step in the right

01:33:10.435 --> 01:33:14.915
direction. We had a healthy restaurant spill last two years ago that I put forth

01:33:14.915 --> 01:33:19.495
that would give incentives to healthy businesses so that they could come to the county.

01:33:19.995 --> 01:33:25.715
And that was a way to kind of fill our shopping centers with healthier options versus food swamps.

01:33:25.915 --> 01:33:32.515
I mean, everywhere we turn, we've got a Chick-fil-A and McDonald's and Wendy's and Burger King.

01:33:32.815 --> 01:33:35.835
And, you know, so we're just trying to change that for our community,

01:33:36.055 --> 01:33:38.595
especially because we have a lot of people who want to be healthy and sometimes

01:33:38.595 --> 01:33:44.075
they have busy jobs. So, you know, they might not be able to go home and cook and everything.

01:33:44.315 --> 01:33:48.855
So what are our retail should support healthier options?

01:33:49.515 --> 01:33:57.895
Yeah. And so and just to break it down, the real concept is when you go to a doctor,

01:33:58.235 --> 01:34:01.995
the doctor can not only prescribe pills, but they could say,

01:34:01.995 --> 01:34:06.795
I need you to eat X amount of cabbage or, as you say, bitter melon.

01:34:06.955 --> 01:34:12.975
They can actually make a prescription for you to be able to get those those those food products.

01:34:14.156 --> 01:34:17.876
Okay. Yeah, no, that's exactly what it is. They have a program at University

01:34:17.876 --> 01:34:21.476
of Maryland, National Capital Region, right in my district that has that.

01:34:21.596 --> 01:34:25.576
So what they would do is that technically this is something that we need to address.

01:34:26.096 --> 01:34:30.456
Our hospitals are saying there's nothing that gives them the authority to really

01:34:30.456 --> 01:34:36.276
tell you here's ways to bring down your blood pressure, but through pills, there's no coding.

01:34:36.656 --> 01:34:40.676
But what they can do is just refer you to the food pharmacy.

01:34:40.676 --> 01:34:45.256
And when you get there, they have a food pharmacy that's run by the Capital Area Food Bank.

01:34:45.376 --> 01:34:50.636
And that one has a lot of, it talks about what the foods have,

01:34:50.756 --> 01:34:53.456
you know, and basically what their health benefits are.

01:34:53.916 --> 01:34:56.856
Yeah. So I know I'm pressed for time.

01:34:57.176 --> 01:35:02.696
I didn't really, I wanted to get into one of the other things because you and

01:35:02.696 --> 01:35:08.496
I had some experience being on, dealing with transportation and talk about the

01:35:08.496 --> 01:35:10.596
EV charging stations and all that.

01:35:10.676 --> 01:35:14.136
But I know that's something that you're pushing very strongly.

01:35:14.256 --> 01:35:17.096
Yeah, and we passed that bill last year.

01:35:17.256 --> 01:35:22.836
And basically, this bill is supposed to allow electric charging stations for new developments.

01:35:23.156 --> 01:35:27.156
And this will allow it because what we found is that a lot of people want to

01:35:27.156 --> 01:35:31.256
buy electric vehicles, but they don't have any.

01:35:31.416 --> 01:35:34.236
The infrastructure for electric vehicles is very low in the county.

01:35:34.376 --> 01:35:35.756
There's not many charging stations.

01:35:36.036 --> 01:35:38.876
There's not many charging. And if somebody has that difficulty,

01:35:38.896 --> 01:35:41.176
I was one of those people that had an interest.

01:35:41.176 --> 01:35:45.196
If you look around and there's no charging station around, then you're not going

01:35:45.196 --> 01:35:48.536
to get an electric vehicle. You're going to keep with their gas powered vehicle

01:35:48.536 --> 01:35:51.176
because of the infrastructure is there. So.

01:35:51.966 --> 01:35:55.346
So we do, I mean, the most aggressive one has been the District of Columbia,

01:35:55.346 --> 01:35:59.966
and we're trying to follow along and making sure they require for new development,

01:36:00.066 --> 01:36:03.866
and they've had a lot of new development, that there'd be a pretty high percentage

01:36:03.866 --> 01:36:07.506
of electric charging stations.

01:36:07.986 --> 01:36:12.026
And now we do understand developers have been clear that it is costly for them,

01:36:12.266 --> 01:36:17.386
especially now dealing with the current administration, which doesn't provide

01:36:17.386 --> 01:36:20.426
the tax credits that were provided before. Right.

01:36:20.926 --> 01:36:25.286
All right. So let's close this out with this question. When your time on the

01:36:25.286 --> 01:36:29.686
city, on the county council is over, how do you want to be remembered and what

01:36:29.686 --> 01:36:34.126
impact do you want to have? I mean, my work is driven by one thing, people first.

01:36:34.286 --> 01:36:38.066
And I want people to understand that as I'm really running to representing,

01:36:38.306 --> 01:36:43.526
to represent them, that I'm thinking about their concerns with everything that I do.

01:36:43.606 --> 01:36:45.886
And I want that to be with people.

01:36:45.986 --> 01:36:49.266
I don't want to hear that, oh, she's in the bag with all these,

01:36:49.286 --> 01:36:52.306
you know, corporate interests against her own people.

01:36:52.486 --> 01:36:57.566
No. So then that's what I want people to know, that I am definitely focused

01:36:57.566 --> 01:37:01.986
on making sure that their voices are heard at every table.

01:37:02.366 --> 01:37:07.846
All right. Well, Wala Blegay, I really appreciate you taking the time.

01:37:08.126 --> 01:37:12.666
You've already kind of told people how to get in touch with you and all that. So I appreciate that.

01:37:12.906 --> 01:37:20.626
And I look forward to seeing more of you and hearing more about the good work that you're doing.

01:37:21.266 --> 01:37:25.246
And one of the rules I want to state before you have to go is that now that

01:37:25.246 --> 01:37:28.006
you've been on the show, you have an open invitation to come back.

01:37:28.286 --> 01:37:32.966
If there's anything that you want to say, hey, look, Erik, we need to talk about this.

01:37:33.306 --> 01:37:36.166
Just feel free to reach out before I have to reach out to you.

01:37:36.266 --> 01:37:37.606
That sound like a good deal?

01:37:38.666 --> 01:37:43.506
Yes. Thank you. All right. All right, guys. And we'll catch y'all on the other side.

01:37:54.009 --> 01:37:56.949
All right, and we are back.

01:37:57.169 --> 01:38:06.289
So I want to thank Sahara Aziz and Wala Blegay for coming on to the podcast.

01:38:06.529 --> 01:38:15.429
Professor Aziz is an incredible intellectual, and I'm glad that she is on the

01:38:15.429 --> 01:38:18.809
side of democracy and justice.

01:38:20.389 --> 01:38:27.069
And, you know, I know some people won't agree with everything that she says

01:38:27.069 --> 01:38:33.449
or does, but she brings receipts and, you know,

01:38:33.709 --> 01:38:37.409
and is very passionate about what she does.

01:38:38.509 --> 01:38:48.389
I stand with her on a lot of issues, but I know that not everybody does, and that's fine.

01:38:48.809 --> 01:38:56.849
You know, but, you know, her battle is to make sure that all of us have a voice in the process. Right.

01:38:57.789 --> 01:39:04.109
And the more intellectual debate, the better, because we're not debating just

01:39:04.109 --> 01:39:07.349
to argue with each other or score points over each other.

01:39:07.689 --> 01:39:14.729
The whole point of debate, the whole point of free speech was is to come up with solutions. Right.

01:39:15.729 --> 01:39:20.209
That's why it was the First Amendment. It wasn't about just saying what you wanted to say.

01:39:20.689 --> 01:39:26.549
There has to be a tangible point behind that. You say what you want to say because

01:39:26.549 --> 01:39:28.109
you want to affect change.

01:39:28.649 --> 01:39:30.449
Right. You want to make a difference.

01:39:31.089 --> 01:39:34.189
So you voice your opinion. You have the right to assemble.

01:39:34.689 --> 01:39:38.469
Right. And you have the right to exercise whatever faith you want.

01:39:38.569 --> 01:39:39.889
That's the very First Amendment.

01:39:40.409 --> 01:39:45.149
And so I am glad that there are people out there like Professor Aziz that.

01:39:46.079 --> 01:39:52.679
Passionately defend that amendment. And I look forward to future visits with

01:39:52.679 --> 01:39:58.179
her and the work that she is doing, right?

01:39:58.579 --> 01:40:02.199
And then the same can be said for Councilwoman Blegay.

01:40:02.719 --> 01:40:08.799
You know, she didn't really have a whole lot of time. She carved out some time to come on.

01:40:09.059 --> 01:40:14.959
But I wanted her to understand that it's more than just the people in Prince

01:40:14.959 --> 01:40:18.299
George's County that's watching what she's doing, right?

01:40:18.579 --> 01:40:24.119
You know, you want to lift up public servants who are doing the right thing.

01:40:24.919 --> 01:40:31.139
Who understands the commitment that you have to have to be in the public service.

01:40:31.139 --> 01:40:39.999
And, you know, how she is constantly pressing for the betterment of her district

01:40:39.999 --> 01:40:42.459
and the county as a whole, right?

01:40:42.659 --> 01:40:48.459
You know, I think that's an incredible idea to set it up where,

01:40:48.459 --> 01:40:53.859
you know, you go to the doctor and you need some help,

01:40:54.496 --> 01:40:57.596
help dealing with diabetes or dealing with high blood pressure,

01:40:57.816 --> 01:41:01.816
heart disease, whatever, and instead of just giving you drugs,

01:41:02.116 --> 01:41:03.856
they can prescribe food.

01:41:04.436 --> 01:41:11.036
That's a classic example of innovation, of American leadership at work, right?

01:41:11.816 --> 01:41:14.756
And, you know, and then I wanted

01:41:14.756 --> 01:41:20.136
to give a realistic picture of what's happening in those counties that have

01:41:20.136 --> 01:41:26.416
a lot of federal workers and that she's been on the forefront of trying to find

01:41:26.416 --> 01:41:33.776
some ways to help and then try to mitigate the economic impacts of those layoffs or firings, right?

01:41:33.996 --> 01:41:39.156
So I hope that you got that out of that. And it's a shame that we couldn't talk

01:41:39.156 --> 01:41:45.516
longer, but I think you got the gist of what she and others like her are dealing with.

01:41:46.416 --> 01:41:49.676
And so I definitely wanted her on to talk about those things.

01:41:49.676 --> 01:41:54.156
And I was glad we was able to get in some discussion about the EV charges as

01:41:54.156 --> 01:41:56.856
well, because those are a lot of her ideas.

01:41:56.996 --> 01:42:03.316
And there's a whole other issue where they're trying to continue to build up.

01:42:03.316 --> 01:42:06.636
That, you know, she talks about the FBI's building situation.

01:42:07.516 --> 01:42:12.876
So the FBI was supposed to move into Prince George's County.

01:42:13.996 --> 01:42:19.096
And now, you know, and then Kash Patel got in there and said,

01:42:19.236 --> 01:42:23.556
well, we're going to tear down the Hoover building or make it a museum or whatever, right?

01:42:24.016 --> 01:42:28.956
And then now all of a sudden, we're not going to move the FBI,

01:42:29.216 --> 01:42:35.116
at least not move the building. Now they're talking about, they don't want to have.

01:42:36.347 --> 01:42:42.607
They don't want to have a central main office. They just want FBI agents scattered

01:42:42.607 --> 01:42:43.547
throughout the country.

01:42:43.847 --> 01:42:48.267
And I guess the only central person you need to talk to is Kash Patel.

01:42:48.407 --> 01:42:53.647
So I guess the FBI can have a room in the White House. I don't know. Right.

01:42:54.267 --> 01:42:59.927
But I'm going to get into that a little more. But I just wanted to thank Councilwoman Blegay.

01:43:00.247 --> 01:43:05.207
And I hope that in the future we're able to get her back on and kind of monitor

01:43:05.207 --> 01:43:11.807
everything. She'll be up for re-election in 2026, along with all the congressional races.

01:43:12.647 --> 01:43:18.347
And so I wish her well in that. And maybe she can come on before that. I don't know.

01:43:18.707 --> 01:43:23.367
But those are the type of elected officials I want to, if I can get them on,

01:43:24.287 --> 01:43:28.427
is to constantly remind people that there are folks out there that take the

01:43:28.427 --> 01:43:34.147
OFA office to serve and understand the assignment, right? it.

01:43:34.767 --> 01:43:39.447
You know, I felt that I was that kind of a person. There are some people that

01:43:39.447 --> 01:43:41.467
disagree with that, and that's fine.

01:43:42.187 --> 01:43:44.087
That's why I'm not still in that position.

01:43:45.987 --> 01:43:51.687
But I felt that during the time that I did serve, I understood the assignment,

01:43:51.687 --> 01:43:58.827
and I did the best I could to help the people in my district and in my state do better.

01:43:59.507 --> 01:44:01.327
And I know that,

01:44:02.508 --> 01:44:06.208
I had a positive impact on what was happening.

01:44:07.028 --> 01:44:11.388
So, you know, that's all you can do is your best, right?

01:44:12.688 --> 01:44:19.008
Unlike the folks that are in office now, I think there's a number of people

01:44:19.008 --> 01:44:22.688
who don't understand the assignment.

01:44:23.148 --> 01:44:27.848
You know, they're in it for the wrong reasons. They're in it for publicity.

01:44:28.488 --> 01:44:31.428
They're in it for ego and ambition.

01:44:32.508 --> 01:44:35.888
And then there's just something that's in it, you know, just to say that,

01:44:36.168 --> 01:44:40.108
yeah, I did that. And they have no clue about what they're doing. Right.

01:44:41.348 --> 01:44:50.828
And, you know, their conviction is based on whoever the polls say is winning or whoever's in charge.

01:44:52.488 --> 01:44:57.268
And you can't do that. I'll never forget one of the disheartening things that

01:44:57.268 --> 01:45:01.508
ever happened to me when I was in the legislature was we were in a budget fight.

01:45:02.548 --> 01:45:06.988
And there were some of us that were kind of concerned about the way the appropriations was going.

01:45:07.908 --> 01:45:11.028
And it wasn't exactly in line with what the speaker wanted.

01:45:11.608 --> 01:45:15.968
So I'm in the lounge and it was I was talking to a member had been there for a while.

01:45:17.108 --> 01:45:19.748
And, you know, we got to talking about it and he just said, well,

01:45:19.748 --> 01:45:22.568
I'm just going to do what the speaker says. Right.

01:45:23.208 --> 01:45:29.808
And I said, say that again. He said, I'm just going to do what the speaker says do, you know.

01:45:30.408 --> 01:45:35.068
And then I asked them, I said, did the people in your district elect the Speaker

01:45:35.068 --> 01:45:37.228
or did they elect you? Right?

01:45:38.008 --> 01:45:42.868
Because now if everything that the Speaker is pushing for jibes with what?

01:45:44.009 --> 01:45:51.649
You know, is good for your district, okay, I get that, but I don't know.

01:45:52.029 --> 01:45:57.369
You know, they were talking about some cuts in education, some cuts in the Department

01:45:57.369 --> 01:46:01.149
of Transportation and different places, and it was kind of like,

01:46:01.369 --> 01:46:04.389
it seems like those were things we're fighting for, right?

01:46:05.469 --> 01:46:12.869
And, you know, I mean, again, people elect their representatives.

01:46:12.869 --> 01:46:17.829
They don't elect the leadership of the body once we all get there. We do that.

01:46:18.409 --> 01:46:20.829
We decide who the leadership is going to be.

01:46:21.949 --> 01:46:26.289
But, you know, even if we voted for these particular people,

01:46:26.489 --> 01:46:31.149
that doesn't mean that they get a pass on everything that comes out of their

01:46:31.149 --> 01:46:34.749
mouth or every idea that hits their brain. Right.

01:46:35.269 --> 01:46:38.249
That's what we're there for. We're supposed to debate these issues.

01:46:38.249 --> 01:46:43.049
We're supposed to come up with a solution that is beneficial to everybody in the state.

01:46:44.149 --> 01:46:50.009
Meanwhile, keeping an eye on what's best for the constituents that put us in that position.

01:46:50.529 --> 01:46:55.989
Right. And for black folks, sometimes the interests of black folks are not in

01:46:55.989 --> 01:47:01.649
the interest of the state or vice versa, however you want to phrase it.

01:47:02.289 --> 01:47:05.309
So, you know, we have to look out for that. And then,

01:47:05.589 --> 01:47:08.209
you know, I had a district where I had a lot of Republicans,

01:47:08.209 --> 01:47:13.549
so I had to weigh out, you know, what's in the best interest of black folks,

01:47:13.649 --> 01:47:18.489
what's in the best interest of some of these rich white folks I represented, and just try to,

01:47:18.649 --> 01:47:22.049
you know, come up with a balance that's fair for everybody, right?

01:47:22.949 --> 01:47:27.949
Because, you know, in economics, you've got a head start, but you wanted to

01:47:27.949 --> 01:47:32.069
keep the playing field as even as possible, and that's the challenge, right?

01:47:32.769 --> 01:47:36.509
But the lazy thing is to just say, well, I'm going to do what I want to do.

01:47:37.914 --> 01:47:41.414
And I'm not going to care as long as I get the benefit out of it,

01:47:41.534 --> 01:47:46.554
as long as I can make money, as long as I can get my name in the newspaper or

01:47:46.554 --> 01:47:52.154
on social media or on TV, radio, whatever. Right.

01:47:52.854 --> 01:47:58.374
You know, as long as, you know, everybody bows down to me, I'm good.

01:47:58.934 --> 01:48:03.394
That's not how this works. You know, I'm sitting up here and,

01:48:03.534 --> 01:48:09.534
you know, a lot of news agencies didn't cover it, but I saw where now the president

01:48:09.534 --> 01:48:14.714
is already in the middle of building this grand ballroom, which, by the way.

01:48:15.494 --> 01:48:19.594
During the federal shutdown, the construction of that ballroom is still going.

01:48:20.334 --> 01:48:26.294
But now he wants to talk about building something similar to the Arc de Triomphe, right?

01:48:26.434 --> 01:48:31.054
Or the arc that's in, I guess that's Washington Square in New York.

01:48:31.774 --> 01:48:38.734
You know, he wants to build an arc, like right in front of the Arlington National

01:48:38.734 --> 01:48:40.594
Cemetery or whatever, or nearby,

01:48:41.054 --> 01:48:47.874
in time for the 250th birthday of the United States, right?

01:48:48.614 --> 01:48:54.354
And so in the middle of a government shutdown, you decide to reveal this plan,

01:48:54.414 --> 01:49:00.934
which to me sends a message that you really don't give a damn about any of us at all.

01:49:01.054 --> 01:49:07.734
It's all about you and all about what you want to do and, again,

01:49:07.934 --> 01:49:10.314
how much money you're going to make and all this stuff.

01:49:10.314 --> 01:49:16.654
I just, you know, and I saw this sister come on TikTok and she's talking about

01:49:16.654 --> 01:49:23.154
she's apologizing for voting for Trump because what she's seeing now is not

01:49:23.154 --> 01:49:26.534
what she voted for and all that, that buyer's remorse kind of thing.

01:49:27.877 --> 01:49:37.717
But we, you know, I get that, but it's not like this guy wasn't president before, right?

01:49:38.537 --> 01:49:44.057
You know, he had four years and the people voted him out.

01:49:45.137 --> 01:49:51.297
And, you know, it's just kind of suspect that all of a sudden people thought

01:49:51.297 --> 01:49:52.697
within those four years.

01:49:52.817 --> 01:49:55.257
Now, mind you, during those four years, he wasn't president.

01:49:55.257 --> 01:49:57.437
He got indicted and convicted.

01:49:58.117 --> 01:50:06.097
He was found guilty of fraud. He was found guilty of sexual harassment or assault, right?

01:50:07.357 --> 01:50:13.257
Well, the sexual assault was a civil penalty, but nonetheless, he's guilty, right?

01:50:13.737 --> 01:50:18.917
Same way that people saw OJ was guilty, even though in the criminal case,

01:50:18.917 --> 01:50:22.157
he was acquitted. In the civil case, he was not.

01:50:22.377 --> 01:50:26.417
He was hit with a wrongful death. settlement.

01:50:27.357 --> 01:50:33.357
So, you know, Trump was guilty of everything that he went to court for,

01:50:33.597 --> 01:50:37.117
and he would have been found guilty in Georgia, right?

01:50:37.937 --> 01:50:44.997
So, because people pled guilty that were part of the plan, right?

01:50:46.357 --> 01:50:48.057
So, you know.

01:50:49.447 --> 01:50:57.007
Why millions of Americans felt okay after seeing all that, and then him being

01:50:57.007 --> 01:51:04.347
in denial that he lost the election and doing everything to create chaos in the middle of all that.

01:51:05.007 --> 01:51:11.667
It just, you know, I just don't understand why people thought that it was okay

01:51:11.667 --> 01:51:14.387
for him to come back. But nonetheless, he's there.

01:51:14.927 --> 01:51:18.747
And now people are seeing that, yeah, nothing changed.

01:51:18.747 --> 01:51:24.167
It's actually gotten worse because now all the stuff that he couldn't do the

01:51:24.167 --> 01:51:30.167
first time, you know, he's going whole hog on it.

01:51:30.267 --> 01:51:34.327
He's redesigning the White House to look like, I don't know,

01:51:35.447 --> 01:51:38.147
I mean, just, you know, gold everywhere.

01:51:39.907 --> 01:51:45.287
And I mean, it's just, you know, and then, you know, trying to indict everybody

01:51:45.287 --> 01:51:47.627
that he doesn't like, right?

01:51:48.827 --> 01:51:56.007
I just don't get it. I don't know what people saw.

01:51:56.247 --> 01:52:07.687
I don't know, but I guess the parallel in my mind is when Moses went to the

01:52:07.687 --> 01:52:11.607
mountain to go get the Ten Commandments, by the time he came back,

01:52:12.007 --> 01:52:18.027
the people were worshiping a golden calf instead of the God that delivered them

01:52:18.027 --> 01:52:20.087
from the dead. Bondage, right?

01:52:20.667 --> 01:52:24.867
Even though they know that golden calf had nothing to do with it, they created that calf.

01:52:25.487 --> 01:52:32.147
You know, but in the end of 40 years that they were wandering around and they

01:52:32.147 --> 01:52:37.007
didn't have to worry about food, their clothes didn't wear out, you know.

01:52:38.266 --> 01:52:41.146
They wanted to worship a calf. I mean,

01:52:41.246 --> 01:52:48.886
it's just a reminder of the human existence and how we can easily get fooled,

01:52:48.886 --> 01:52:56.006
how we easily can fall into a trap of what's before us instead of what the big

01:52:56.006 --> 01:52:57.866
picture is, right? Right.

01:52:58.806 --> 01:53:06.646
And, you know, and now we got people, you know, instead of and there's a lot

01:53:06.646 --> 01:53:08.446
of people protesting this. Right.

01:53:08.886 --> 01:53:13.286
You know, the no kings protests, all that stuff. So we know that people are out there.

01:53:13.966 --> 01:53:20.486
But, you know, the people that are going after the former vice president on

01:53:20.486 --> 01:53:24.266
a book tour and that she was a war criminal, all this stuff.

01:53:24.266 --> 01:53:29.066
And I'm like, one, that's a stretch, you know.

01:53:29.246 --> 01:53:32.726
I mean, it's a guilt by association thing, and that's what you want to do.

01:53:34.006 --> 01:53:39.346
But then, two, you know, she's not in a position to do anything.

01:53:39.486 --> 01:53:46.466
If she had won the election, it's like then the ceasefire, you know,

01:53:46.606 --> 01:53:50.586
between Israel and Moss would have been on her watch, right? Right.

01:53:51.481 --> 01:53:57.001
Possible end of the Ukraine-Russia war would be on her watch.

01:53:57.561 --> 01:54:03.841
You know, the war in the Congo and other conflicts in Africa, right?

01:54:03.981 --> 01:54:08.041
She would be dealing with the Madagascar coup, right?

01:54:08.381 --> 01:54:12.361
I mean, all these things would have been under her purview at that point,

01:54:12.361 --> 01:54:15.301
and then she would have had people in place to deal with that.

01:54:15.441 --> 01:54:18.341
But she's on a book tour because she did not win.

01:54:19.401 --> 01:54:23.021
So protesting her It's not the best strategy.

01:54:23.261 --> 01:54:28.541
And considering that the people who are organizing the protests against her

01:54:28.541 --> 01:54:34.201
are not from her community, that doesn't help at all. Right?

01:54:35.061 --> 01:54:39.461
So, you know, again, you have the right to do that.

01:54:40.490 --> 01:54:45.830
But you saw her response and she had the right to respond that way. Right.

01:54:46.390 --> 01:54:49.510
I just think that focus.

01:54:51.010 --> 01:54:56.110
Don't go for the low hanging fruit. Focus on what needs to be done.

01:54:56.450 --> 01:55:00.390
Let's really get in and do the work. I know it's going to be hard.

01:55:00.830 --> 01:55:05.610
It's going to be hard to fix the damage that's being done.

01:55:05.990 --> 01:55:11.750
Right. Because we're just talking about we haven't even finished the first year of the second term.

01:55:13.350 --> 01:55:19.730
So by the time this four-year term is over, it's going to be a lot of damage that has to be undone.

01:55:20.150 --> 01:55:27.870
And maybe a Congress that says no to the president for the last two years might

01:55:27.870 --> 01:55:33.030
ameliorate some of those damages or slow them down.

01:55:33.030 --> 01:55:35.490
But it's going to be a lot of work.

01:55:36.530 --> 01:55:42.390
But again, it's an opportunity. It's an opportunity for new leadership to emerge

01:55:42.390 --> 01:55:50.210
and take this country in another direction, hopefully in a more positive one,

01:55:50.390 --> 01:55:55.710
and drive out the voices of discontent, right?

01:55:55.710 --> 01:56:04.390
And when I say discontent, I mean, not the people who are disagree with a particular

01:56:04.390 --> 01:56:06.610
issue that we can debate.

01:56:07.848 --> 01:56:14.308
In the spirit of moving forward. But this, well, maybe discontent,

01:56:14.368 --> 01:56:21.548
maybe malcontent, I don't know, where you just don't like change because it's change.

01:56:22.028 --> 01:56:28.768
You can't get over the fact that the country is not a majority white country

01:56:28.768 --> 01:56:32.108
anymore or that, you know,

01:56:32.288 --> 01:56:38.428
people that work for a living want to get paid a wage where they can live their life,

01:56:38.708 --> 01:56:45.868
and, you know, that means that you might not make as much profit personally

01:56:45.868 --> 01:56:51.348
as you used to because you've got to pay people what they deserve, right?

01:56:51.848 --> 01:56:56.828
I mean, nobody is asking people to bankrupt folks deliberately,

01:56:56.828 --> 01:57:03.588
but if you can afford eight houses, Because you're probably running a corporation

01:57:03.588 --> 01:57:08.788
that you can pay people more than a living wage. I'm just saying.

01:57:10.148 --> 01:57:16.028
So, you know, I mean, that's what we got to get past.

01:57:16.388 --> 01:57:19.688
You know, this, I'm angry for what?

01:57:20.228 --> 01:57:22.228
Well, it just seems like, no, no.

01:57:24.488 --> 01:57:31.668
Substantively, why are you angry? Right? Now, if there's any people that can

01:57:31.668 --> 01:57:34.848
say they're angry, Black folks can say they're angry all the time.

01:57:35.228 --> 01:57:42.828
But then you'll say, well, we're being professional victims when there's evidence

01:57:42.828 --> 01:57:47.968
to show that a lot of stuff that you did to Black folks has had a generational impact.

01:57:49.700 --> 01:57:54.460
Native Americans, indigenous people. We just celebrated indigenous people today, right?

01:57:54.900 --> 01:58:00.740
They got a reason to be angry because you basically came and took their land, right?

01:58:01.340 --> 01:58:08.480
Which reminds me, before I sign off, you know, in the United States,

01:58:08.760 --> 01:58:12.080
indigenous people have dual citizenship, right?

01:58:13.240 --> 01:58:19.000
They're citizens of the United States. They can vote in presidential and congressional elections.

01:58:19.700 --> 01:58:25.060
And they have citizenship on their tribal land.

01:58:26.420 --> 01:58:33.120
And even though, you know, I appreciate Brother Echo Hawk's opinion about my thoughts,

01:58:33.280 --> 01:58:38.620
I still think there should be a division, even if you want to keep a division

01:58:38.620 --> 01:58:39.820
in the Department of Interior,

01:58:39.960 --> 01:58:45.480
I still think there needs to be a division in the Department of State to focus

01:58:45.480 --> 01:58:56.760
in on the political relationship between Native American nations and the federal government. Right.

01:58:58.020 --> 01:59:02.300
But they have dual citizenship. So as I'm looking at the situation in Israel,

01:59:03.140 --> 01:59:08.840
you know, these hardliners are saying, well, we don't want we don't want a Palestinian

01:59:08.840 --> 01:59:10.840
state. We don't support a two state solution.

01:59:11.500 --> 01:59:16.000
All right. Well, give the people that are there, every person that's currently

01:59:16.000 --> 01:59:20.680
in Israel right this minute, give them citizenship in the state of Israel.

01:59:21.480 --> 01:59:26.480
Stop running Israel as a theocracy. Run it as a true democracy.

01:59:26.940 --> 01:59:31.340
That way, it doesn't matter if you're Palestinian or Israeli,

01:59:32.200 --> 01:59:37.480
you know, Jewish, you're a citizen of the state of Israel.

01:59:38.140 --> 01:59:44.520
And, you know, even if the Palestinians say, well, we want a rebuilt Gaza or

01:59:44.520 --> 01:59:46.500
we want total control of the West Bank.

01:59:46.500 --> 01:59:53.000
Like, okay, but they still should have citizenship. They still should be able

01:59:53.000 --> 01:59:55.500
to travel throughout the country freely.

01:59:56.000 --> 02:00:02.080
They shouldn't have an area that's cordoned off from trade or,

02:00:02.300 --> 02:00:07.520
you know, and if you do provide a section for them to live,

02:00:07.760 --> 02:00:13.220
that you don't turn around and violate that agreement and build condos there all the time.

02:00:13.720 --> 02:00:15.860
Kibbutz, you know.

02:00:16.500 --> 02:00:19.440
Just, just give them citizenship.

02:00:21.153 --> 02:00:25.393
And give them the ability, so if you give them citizenship, then they can run

02:00:25.393 --> 02:00:29.473
for office, right? They can serve in the Knesset.

02:00:30.921 --> 02:00:36.181
Just saying, you know, at some point in time, this extremist,

02:00:36.481 --> 02:00:39.861
racist mindset has to end.

02:00:40.441 --> 02:00:47.721
We are all here on this planet to coexist. We are not here to isolate ourselves from the world.

02:00:48.541 --> 02:00:56.601
It's like, why do we have these computers in our hand if we can't interact with the rest of the plan.

02:00:57.321 --> 02:01:00.701
Everything that we get, that's why this tariff thing is a big deal,

02:01:00.701 --> 02:01:03.161
because the economy is global.

02:01:03.521 --> 02:01:06.581
It's not just American-made stuff anymore.

02:01:07.461 --> 02:01:13.621
Now, I would like to see more stuff made in America, so we have more products

02:01:13.621 --> 02:01:19.021
that compete around the world, but it's a global economy now.

02:01:19.521 --> 02:01:27.541
So that means we have to interact with people that are not Americans, right?

02:01:28.241 --> 02:01:33.401
And I know that's hard for some people to grasp, but that's the reality that we're in.

02:01:33.481 --> 02:01:37.901
And the sooner that you come to grips with that reality, the more peaceful our

02:01:37.901 --> 02:01:39.561
existence will be in this country.

02:01:39.861 --> 02:01:45.921
And I promise if we have a peaceful existence, it'll be infectious.

02:01:46.641 --> 02:01:52.401
I had a guest on one time that said that racism was an infectious disease, right?

02:01:53.041 --> 02:02:00.321
Infectious mental disease. And I agree with that. And I say the counter to that is peace.

02:02:00.921 --> 02:02:06.001
I think peace is more infectious and it's definitely healthier.

02:02:06.621 --> 02:02:09.801
And we need to start looking that way.

02:02:10.401 --> 02:02:13.941
You know, individually, you're going to have your struggles, right?

02:02:14.321 --> 02:02:17.941
But from a political perspective, from a government perspective,

02:02:18.381 --> 02:02:23.341
our job is to alleviate as many of those struggles as possible,

02:02:23.501 --> 02:02:27.181
to try to keep people from having to go through as many hardships.

02:02:27.941 --> 02:02:30.101
Individual choices are what they are.

02:02:31.524 --> 02:02:37.864
But if we really want to be Christ-like or we really want to adhere to the principles

02:02:37.864 --> 02:02:42.484
of God, as many, quote unquote, politicians say they do,

02:02:43.024 --> 02:02:49.224
then we have to have that kind of a mindset that we're here to provide you with opportunities.

02:02:50.344 --> 02:02:54.184
And people say, well, you know, people got opportunities now. Not enough.

02:02:54.984 --> 02:03:01.944
And just because we're on the same track, if you've got a 10-yard head start, that's not equal.

02:03:02.384 --> 02:03:07.284
Yeah, we're both on the track, but it's not equal, right?

02:03:08.004 --> 02:03:12.804
Or should I say it's not equitable, right? Because you can make the argument

02:03:12.804 --> 02:03:14.444
we're equally on the track.

02:03:15.044 --> 02:03:19.064
But if you've got a 10-yard head start over me, then it's not equitable.

02:03:20.524 --> 02:03:26.804
So we just got to get into a mindset of doing right with each other.

02:03:27.984 --> 02:03:31.484
And we got to elect people that understand that concept.

02:03:31.964 --> 02:03:36.904
You know, we understand that we're not electing saints. We're not canonizing

02:03:36.904 --> 02:03:39.264
people. We're just electing people to do a job.

02:03:40.124 --> 02:03:46.484
And, you know, when people fall short, they will either fall into the judicial

02:03:46.484 --> 02:03:51.204
system or they'll fall into a electoral system and be unelected.

02:03:51.844 --> 02:03:57.584
But we have that power to make that so. We can fix that mistake.

02:03:59.053 --> 02:04:04.153
So let's focus in on doing better. Let's focus in on treating each other better.

02:04:04.293 --> 02:04:11.493
And let's support those actors of democracy that are out there doing the right thing.

02:04:12.113 --> 02:04:17.093
Even if you don't agree with everything that they're doing from a political,

02:04:17.353 --> 02:04:18.973
ideological standpoint,

02:04:19.473 --> 02:04:25.073
if their heart's in the right place, we can have some peace and come up with

02:04:25.073 --> 02:04:27.313
a solution that benefits everyone. it.

02:04:28.933 --> 02:04:33.513
All right. That's all I got time for. Thank y'all for listening. Until next time.