Hunger, Hope & Her Sense Featuring Crystal FitzSimons, Pauline Steinhorn and Dehjah Vaughn

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Welcome. I'm Erik Fleming, host of A Moment with Erik Fleming, the podcast of our time.

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Thanks in advance for supporting the podcast of our time. I hope you enjoy this episode as well.

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The following program is hosted by the NBG Podcast Network.

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Hello, and welcome to another moment with Erik Fleming. I am your host, Erik Fleming.

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So today, I have three guests, three young ladies who have come on.

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One is Crystal FitzSimons.

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She is the president of the Food Research and Action Center, better known as FRAC.

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So we're going to be talking about hunger in America with her.

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Pauline Steinhorn, who has written this incredible book called Dreaming of the

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River, which talks about a mother and a daughter who escaped the Holocaust.

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And then I'm going to have this sister on named Dehjah Vaughn.

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Dehjah is pursuing her PhD in political science.

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She's an educator and she's a podcaster. She's a creative in the Atlanta area

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and probably one of the most dynamic personalities that you haven't met yet, but you will today.

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So I was really glad to get them on.

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So a little bit of housekeeping here.

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You know, last week we had reported, we had what I call our Dewey Defeats Truman moment.

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When we did the podcast and Grace did the news summary, we were under the impression,

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that Karen Bass was going to be running against Spencer Pratt.

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That's not the case. As the votes kept coming in, a member of the city council,

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Nithya Raman, pulled ahead of Mr. Pratt.

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And when when it was all said and done, I think she beat him by like twenty three thousand votes.

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So the runoff will be between Mayor Karen Bass and city council member Nithya

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Raman in November, which was really what people expected.

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But Spencer Pratt ran a better race than a lot of people thought he would,

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considering who he is and what he was saying.

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But the reality kicked in in Los Angeles.

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And once all the votes were counted, it's the two Democrats that'll be running

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against each other because they had that jungle primary in California where

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it's possible that two people from the same party runs.

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New Orleans and Louisiana liked that as well.

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Well, at least they were. I don't know if they've changed or not,

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but I remember when I was real active in politics, they had jungle primaries there too.

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So that race will be very interesting because that'll be the progressives because

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they're kind of touting Raman as a Mamdani-like race.

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Candidate, and Karen Bass as the establishment candidate.

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So we'll see how that works out. But it's going to be two women of color,

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so it's going to be a woman of color that's going to be mayor of Los Angeles,

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whether it's Mayor Bass again or Councilmember Raman.

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So I wanted to get that on the record. And I also want to make my appeal to

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folks to go to momenterik.com, Do what you can to support the podcast.

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We're going to be making some changes.

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And it's early enough to know that the changes are going to happen.

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It's too early to be specific about how the change is going to work because

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we're still trying to maneuver some things. But, you know, life happens.

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Usually when people say that, that's a negative connotation.

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But sometimes it's a positive.

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So life has happened and we're going to be making some adjustments with the

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podcast going forward, exploring some ideas and, you know, just trying to see how it's going to work.

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But for now, we're going to be the same.

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We're quickly approaching season 14.

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So, you know, a lot of those changes will kick in right around then.

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So I just thank you all for listening. I thank you all for the support.

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But if you feel so inclined to either subscribe or just give a one time donation,

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please go to momenterik.com and do that.

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But one of the things that's not going to change, at least in the foreseeable

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future, is Grace G giving the news summary. So let's go ahead and start this

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program. And as always, we kick it off with a moment of news with Grace G.

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Thanks, Erik. Nineteen-year-old Carmelo Anthony was sentenced to 35 years in

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prison after an all-white Texas jury found him guilty of murder for the fatal

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stabbing of Austin Metcalf during a 2025 high school track meet.

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The U.S. Congress passed a bill providing $70 billion in additional immigration

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enforcement funding for the Department of Homeland Security.

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Federal prosecutors have reached a plea deal with Vance Belter,

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the man accused of the politically motivated assassination of Minnesota State

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Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband.

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President Trump issued a full pardon to former U.S. Representative Stephen Byer,

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who was convicted of insider trading in 2023.

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Two African Americans, Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford and South Carolina

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State Representative Dr. Jermaine

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Johnson, won their respective Democratic gubernatorial nominations.

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Graham Plattner won Maine's U.S. Senate Democratic primary by a wide margin,

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despite recent controversies about his past personal behavior.

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In South Carolina's Republican gubernatorial primary, U.S. Representative Nancy

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Mace failed to reach the runoff election after facing opposition from President Trump.

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The Florida Supreme Court has allowed a Republican-drawn congressional map designed

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to flip up to four Democratic seats to remain in place for the upcoming midterm elections.

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A federal judge ruled that the Trump administration unlawfully blocked immigration

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benefits for applicants from 39 countries faced on unauthorized anti-immigrant sentiments.

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The U.S. Supreme Court blocked Alabama's scheduled execution of Jeffrey Lee via nitrogen gas.

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A federal judge struck down the Trump administration's $100,000 fee on new H-1B

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visas, ruling it an unlawful tax that lacked congressional authorization.

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And at least 12 people were injured too critically during a shootout between

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two individuals at the Old West End Festival in Toledo, Ohio.

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I am Grace G., and this has been A Moment of News.

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All right. Thank you, Grace, for that moment of news. Now it's time for my guest, Crystal FitzSimons.

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As president of the Food Research and Action Center, Crystal FitzSimons is recognized

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as the national thought leader on hunger in America and the role federal nutrition

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programs play in solving it.

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In her more than 20 years with the organization, most recently as the Director

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of Child Nutrition Programs and Policy, FitzSimons has made transformative contributions,

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including helping to design and implement,

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the after-school supper, summer EBT,

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and community eligibility programs.

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She has testified before Congress and led national coalitions.

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FitzSimons is a sought-after speaker and is also regularly quoted in major media outlets.

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She holds an MSW degree from Washington University in St. Louis and a BA from Carroll College.

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Ladies and gentlemen, it is my distinct honor and privilege to have as a guest

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on this podcast, Crystal FitzSimons.

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All right. Crystal FitzSimons, Madam President, how are you doing?

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I'm good. How are you today? I'm doing great. I'm doing great.

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So I understand you've been president of your organization for about a year?

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Yeah, and prior to that, I was the interim president, and I've actually been

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with the Food Research and Action Center, FRAC, for over 25 years.

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Before I was the president, I was leading our child nutrition work. Yeah, okay.

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Well, congratulations. It's still in order in that regard.

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So what I like to do to start off my interviews is a couple of icebreaker questions.

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So, or exercises, however you

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want to do it. My first icebreaker is a quote I want you to respond to.

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And the quote is, hunger is not an issue of charity.

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It is an issue of justice.

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Well, I think that is an amazing quote for us to start our conversation with,

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because I don't think that hunger is about food.

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We have plenty of food in the United States to make sure that everybody has access to it.

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The problem is we don't have the political will. We have economic inequality

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where we have people living in poverty who and we should not have people living in poverty.

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Hunger is really a symptom of poverty. Families are too stretched trying to make ends meet.

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And food is the easiest thing to cut. You have to pay your rent.

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You have to pay your utilities. You need to put gas in your car.

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You can actually cut back end food. But it really is, hunger is really about the tension

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that millions of families across the country face in trying to make ends meet

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and struggling under low wages, high child care costs, high housing costs,

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high transportation costs. Yeah.

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All right. So now the next icebreaker is what I call 20 questions.

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Okay. So I need you to give me a number between one and 20. 12.

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What advice do you have for recognizing fake news? Oh, that's a good question. Gosh.

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I think that is a good question well I think you always need to look for the

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source and where it comes from and if it seems credible I think I think.

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You know, there's been so many attacks on the news, and it really is,

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I think, a way to attack credibility, to attack people who may have a more progressive view of what's going on.

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You know, I think journalism actually works really hard to try and tell the

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story and to be as fair as possible.

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I think that we have moved as a country away from agreed upon facts.

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And I think it's an incredible problem when we try to have a conversation.

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So I would just say people really need to understand where,

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the person who's telling the story is coming from and whether or not they have

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a real agenda behind them and whether or not what they're saying,

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you know, is consistent with what they see in what's happening in the world around us right now.

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Yeah. Yeah. And I think I think that's a that's interesting you pick that question,

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because I think that is one a question that really is important in your line

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of work. And we're kind of we're going to address that in the interview.

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You said I've been at FRAC for 27 years and my passion for food justice overlaps

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with my passion for achieving economic and social justice.

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I grew up just outside of Toledo, Ohio, in a household where my mom was passionate about these issues.

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I remember her telling me that at some point I'd have to explain what I'd done with my life.

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The message was strong that I needed to work hard to benefit all people,

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to lift my voice and not give up when times were hard.

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So my question to you is, when did you realize your passion specifically for food justice?

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Yeah, well, you know, it's funny. I could have, in some ways,

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when I look back at the history of my career, I feel like I could have worked on other issues, too.

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I could have worked on housing. That's actually where I started was on housing.

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I could have worked on, you know, minimum wage. I worked collecting signatures

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in St. Louis for a minimum wage ballot initiative.

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So I just see such a huge intersection with food.

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And part of the reason why I've stayed at FRAC for so long is because I am so

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passionate about the mission.

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I do believe that people actually need access to nutritious food to grow and

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be healthy and thrive in our world. And.

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We really do need to make sure that people's basic needs are being met in order

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to ensure that they're able to thrive. And it starts with food.

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But, you know, food is also so much more than just basic needs.

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It's about community. It's about culture.

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You know, we all have our favorite foods that we think of that take us back

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to when, you know, our parent, we were growing up or with our friends.

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And so to me, food is just such a magical thing.

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And we should be making sure that everybody has access to the food that they need to thrive. Yeah.

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So what is FRAC and why have you

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devoted nearly 30 years of your life specifically to that organization?

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Yeah, well, so FRAC, we're the Food Research and Action Center.

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We've been around for over 50 years, and we really do focus on the federal nutrition program.

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So SNAP, which used to be called food stamps, school meals, summer meals,

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after school meals, WIC, all of those programs kind of as the core support to combating hunger.

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We're very committed to making sure that people have access to a healthy diet

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with dignity, and that is a core value at FRAC, and it's very important to me as well.

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But I just am very proud of all the things that we've accomplished at FRAC during

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the time that I've been at FRAC and even before that.

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We have a pretty incredible track record of moving policy forward,

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of having a really positive impact on people's lives around the country.

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And I really see the work that we do as critical and we are willing to take on a fight.

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Like right now, we are in the fight of our lives to save SNAP and make sure

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that the program is available and accessible to everybody who needs it and also

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protecting all the other nutrition programs that are somewhat under attack right now.

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But we do see, you know, when you look at our nation, we do have a series of

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programs that are designed to ensure that people are not going hungry.

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You know, we have SNAP to help people purchase food at home.

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WIC, which is a nutrition prescription to help, you know, pregnant women and

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young children and infants, you know, grow up healthy.

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It is, you know, we've got school meals to make sure that kids have access to

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the nutrition they need at school to focus and concentrate and learn.

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And the same thing with child care meals. And we even have programs to fill

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the gap for kids during the summer with summer food and summer EBT.

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What worries me these days is that it does feel like the federal government

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is advocating that commitment.

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The programs have never been perfect. Like we could definitely invest more resources.

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We could make more people eligible for the program. So there's lots of things

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we could do to improve them.

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But at the base, we have historically had this commitment to making sure that

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people are not going hungry in the United States.

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And it really concerns me, some of the messaging that's coming out of Washington

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right now and moving away from that federal commitment to make sure that people aren't hungry.

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Well, I know FRAC has done a lot and has made a lot of contributions to those

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programs that you mentioned.

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My favorite, however, is the fact that this was the organization that basically

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stopped Ronald Reagan from saying that ketchup and relish were vegetables.

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I greatly appreciated that because I was in school during that time and I did

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not want to have hot dogs every day for school lunch. So I thank FRAC for stepping up and doing that.

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Of the five strategic goals for FRAC, which one is the most challenging?

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Well, I would say the most challenging is the root causes. I mean,

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I think all of them can be challenging in their different ways.

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And I do think at this specific moment in time, we are facing significant challenges in all the areas.

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But, you know, when people talk about ending hunger, they talk about moving food around sometimes.

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But we're actually never going to be able to end hunger in the United States

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unless we end poverty and we address the root causes of hunger.

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So I just think that is such a harder thing for people to understand.

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But I do think at this, we are kind of at a crossroads with the federal nutrition programs.

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I will also say, you know, it's hard to pick one that's the most challenging

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right now. But, you know, the racial hunger gap is huge.

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And, you know, FRAC is continuing to talk about racial equity,

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diversity and inclusion.

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We think it's a really important conversation to be having, particularly when,

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you know, nationally one in seven households are struggling with food insecurity.

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But that number is one in four for black households and it's one in five for

00:20:12.433 --> 00:20:16.693
Latino households. And if we're going to solve hunger, we have to be talking

00:20:16.693 --> 00:20:21.914
about how it disproportionately impacts different communities. Yeah, yeah.

00:20:22.345 --> 00:20:27.223
I mean, all those goals are lofty and just looking at them.

00:20:27.223 --> 00:20:32.466
But, you know, reducing the racial hunger gap probably would.

00:20:33.373 --> 00:20:36.663
If I was in your position, I would think that that would probably be the toughest

00:20:36.663 --> 00:20:40.293
one because there's so many factors outside of that.

00:20:40.293 --> 00:20:44.544
But since you brought it up, what are the root causes for hunger in America?

00:20:45.204 --> 00:20:50.663
Yeah, well, I mean, we seem to be okay as a country with having incredible economic

00:20:50.663 --> 00:20:53.223
inequality, and it's just gotten worse.

00:20:53.223 --> 00:20:57.283
Like, I remember when I was in school back in the 80s, we were,

00:20:57.283 --> 00:21:01.793
you know, a sociology philosophy major. And in sociology, we learned that the

00:21:01.793 --> 00:21:07.820
highest paid employee in a company was making 66 times what the lowest paid employee was making.

00:21:08.168 --> 00:21:13.593
And now, you know, you fast forward 30 years and that number has,

00:21:13.593 --> 00:21:15.673
you know, increased exponentially.

00:21:15.673 --> 00:21:20.743
Like the difference between what people are making, the vast majority of people

00:21:20.743 --> 00:21:24.527
in this country are making versus the top 10% is just...

00:21:25.395 --> 00:21:29.302
Shocking, it's not okay, but it is a big driver.

00:21:29.633 --> 00:21:35.078
And then you have, so you start with wages and people not making enough,

00:21:35.078 --> 00:21:36.928
not having livable wages.

00:21:37.184 --> 00:21:42.437
And then you start, move on to the fact that housing costs have gone up significantly.

00:21:42.809 --> 00:21:45.572
Childcare costs are astronomical.

00:21:46.398 --> 00:21:51.918
And you've got food costs have risen. So there's all this tremendous pressure

00:21:51.918 --> 00:21:55.159
that is being placed on families across the country.

00:21:55.513 --> 00:21:59.838
But it really, you know, people have lots of different conversations about the

00:21:59.838 --> 00:22:04.348
poor and poverty and all of that. And what makes somebody poor is the fact that

00:22:04.348 --> 00:22:05.536
they don't have any money.

00:22:05.895 --> 00:22:10.948
Like that is that is it. And we need to make sure that families have the resources

00:22:10.948 --> 00:22:15.828
that they need to be able to have safe and stable housing, to be able to purchase

00:22:15.828 --> 00:22:17.798
the food that they need, to be,

00:22:18.418 --> 00:22:23.961
able to kind of focus on raising their kids and taking care of their loved ones

00:22:24.233 --> 00:22:28.626
and leaning into their community as opposed to being stressed and stretched

00:22:28.882 --> 00:22:31.076
and struggling to put food on the table.

00:22:31.685 --> 00:22:37.438
Yeah, and, you know, this is not a modern phenomenon. This has basically been

00:22:37.438 --> 00:22:39.940
going on throughout the history of this country.

00:22:40.860 --> 00:22:44.363
I think about two things.

00:22:44.363 --> 00:22:51.993
One, I read once that a reporter asked Andrew Carnegie, why do you give so much

00:22:51.993 --> 00:22:56.494
money in charity, but you don't give a raise to your workers?

00:22:57.847 --> 00:23:03.493
And he said, you know, it's like when I if I control the money,

00:23:03.493 --> 00:23:08.363
so I, you know, I do things to try to help the community and all that.

00:23:08.363 --> 00:23:12.423
But if I just gave it to the workers, all they would do is just buy more meat.

00:23:13.044 --> 00:23:19.233
And I always found that to be a striking thing. And then I watched Theodore

00:23:19.233 --> 00:23:23.113
Roosevelt, the documentary on him that the History Channel did.

00:23:23.113 --> 00:23:24.205
I think it was History Channel.

00:23:24.843 --> 00:23:31.063
And there was a moment during his administration where he reformed food safety, right?

00:23:31.063 --> 00:23:34.623
He was, you know, watching what was going on in places. He sent people out to

00:23:34.623 --> 00:23:40.353
Chicago and other places, stockyards, to see how they were processing meat and

00:23:40.353 --> 00:23:42.069
realize what they were doing.

00:23:42.706 --> 00:23:50.123
And so he invited, like, Mr. Swift and all these other people to the White House

00:23:50.123 --> 00:23:52.633
to have dinner. And he had a steak dinner.

00:23:53.208 --> 00:23:58.375
And, you know, he had somebody give the report while they were eating the steak.

00:23:59.071 --> 00:24:01.579
And all of them just kind of pushed their plates away.

00:24:03.253 --> 00:24:10.373
And, you know, so food, not only is the wages, which I was highlighting with

00:24:10.373 --> 00:24:13.003
Carnegie, but it's also the safety factor, too.

00:24:13.998 --> 00:24:16.894
You know, a lot of people are not getting...

00:24:18.187 --> 00:24:22.958
The right food and all that. And that contributes to hunger,

00:24:22.958 --> 00:24:25.549
too, right? It's like the malnutrition piece of it.

00:24:26.173 --> 00:24:31.468
Yeah. And I do think the core of that is having more resources to purchase food.

00:24:31.468 --> 00:24:36.813
Because when people have more money to purchase food, they tend to purchase healthier food.

00:24:37.208 --> 00:24:41.838
And that is a big driver. I mean, it's not an accident when you look at health

00:24:41.838 --> 00:24:46.778
that more affluent people tend to have better health. And it starts with what

00:24:46.778 --> 00:24:48.953
they're able to purchase in the grocery store.

00:24:49.330 --> 00:24:54.218
And people who are struggling are making, I mean, it's amazing the math and

00:24:54.218 --> 00:24:58.658
mental calculations that are happening in the grocery store when people are

00:24:58.658 --> 00:25:02.598
there making sure that they're purchasing food to feed their families.

00:25:02.598 --> 00:25:07.349
Because prices have gone up so high on so many different things.

00:25:07.651 --> 00:25:13.240
We have this huge affordability crisis that almost everyone is facing in this country.

00:25:13.501 --> 00:25:16.995
And it's making it really difficult for people to purchase healthy food.

00:25:17.344 --> 00:25:21.808
But one of the easiest ways to improve the nutrition quality of what people

00:25:21.808 --> 00:25:25.908
buy in the grocery store is to give them more resources to purchase more fruits

00:25:25.908 --> 00:25:29.768
and vegetables, more lean meats, more whole grains, all of those things that

00:25:29.768 --> 00:25:32.094
come together into a healthy diet.

00:25:32.669 --> 00:25:40.830
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I have to, you know, watch, you know, what I got in the cupboard. I'm just me.

00:25:41.178 --> 00:25:44.808
And you know I have to watch what I got in cupboard it's like I get I drink

00:25:44.808 --> 00:25:48.440
a lot of juices so I got a budget it's like okay.

00:25:49.060 --> 00:25:52.898
It's like if I get these juices that's going to be x amount of dollars and all

00:25:52.898 --> 00:25:56.976
that stuff and I'm not saying that you know.

00:25:57.828 --> 00:26:02.897
We got it there's no desire for everybody to be extravagant what they buy but

00:26:03.321 --> 00:26:07.558
it should not like you said all this mental gymnastics and figure out what I

00:26:07.558 --> 00:26:12.312
need to take care of my family of three, four, five, six people, right?

00:26:13.176 --> 00:26:18.429
America shouldn't be in that situation, but let's get back to Frack for just a second.

00:26:19.154 --> 00:26:23.212
What is FRAC's relationship with the Coalition of Human Needs?

00:26:23.908 --> 00:26:28.441
Oh, we love the Coalition on Human Needs. Actually, our chief government affairs

00:26:28.441 --> 00:26:30.857
officer is the board chair for them.

00:26:31.131 --> 00:26:35.321
They do incredible work, and they work on all the different issues.

00:26:35.321 --> 00:26:38.871
So we're a very active partner of theirs. Yeah.

00:26:39.841 --> 00:26:44.461
You know, one of the cool things about doing this podcast is that you find out stuff.

00:26:45.082 --> 00:26:49.883
And, you know, and I, and I've been privileged to be an elected official and all that.

00:26:50.353 --> 00:26:53.814
And I have never heard of this organization and I'm sitting there going,

00:26:54.308 --> 00:26:58.341
so there's a group where everybody that deals with.

00:26:59.191 --> 00:27:05.351
You know, basic human that needs the Maslow pyramid, there's a coalition where

00:27:05.351 --> 00:27:06.601
they all get together and meet.

00:27:06.601 --> 00:27:10.111
I was like, Oh God, I wish I had known that a couple, you know,

00:27:10.111 --> 00:27:12.734
about 20 years ago when I was elected.

00:27:13.070 --> 00:27:15.421
I could have tapped into them for a lot of stuff.

00:27:15.921 --> 00:27:21.201
And probably a lot of the work that they do, I probably was getting,

00:27:21.201 --> 00:27:23.051
but I was getting it from another source.

00:27:23.051 --> 00:27:27.471
So when I found that out, I was like, that's really fascinating,

00:27:28.082 --> 00:27:32.923
this group. And I think they're getting new leadership too, as far as executive director and all that.

00:27:33.411 --> 00:27:37.213
But I just thought that was kind of cool that there is actually a group of people,

00:27:37.817 --> 00:27:45.067
who meet that's trying to address the issues that humans basically need. I think that's great.

00:27:45.735 --> 00:27:51.411
Yeah, no, we're huge fans, and they convene all the different groups every week,

00:27:51.731 --> 00:27:54.686
have lots of conversations, share information.

00:27:54.965 --> 00:27:59.061
But yeah, they're fantastic. And yeah, Debbie, their executive director,

00:27:59.061 --> 00:28:03.073
who's been there for a long time, I don't know exactly the number,

00:28:03.415 --> 00:28:05.491
is just an icon in our community.

00:28:05.491 --> 00:28:10.221
They're going to be celebrating her at their Heroes Award in July.

00:28:10.221 --> 00:28:14.947
So I'm looking forward to being there and celebrating all her great work. Yeah, that's cool.

00:28:15.307 --> 00:28:19.741
It's also kind of cool that one of your co-workers is the chairman of the board.

00:28:19.741 --> 00:28:21.861
I think that that helps out a lot too.

00:28:23.031 --> 00:28:28.435
How has ending the Household Food Security Report impacted your work?

00:28:29.294 --> 00:28:32.733
Well, so it hasn't actually impacted our work yet because they did,

00:28:32.733 --> 00:28:35.263
there are always a year delay in the data.

00:28:35.263 --> 00:28:41.023
So they actually released the data just before the new year for the last round.

00:28:41.023 --> 00:28:43.828
So that was delayed a couple months, but they've announced that they aren't

00:28:44.211 --> 00:28:45.743
going to put out data moving forward.

00:28:45.743 --> 00:28:51.483
Normally we would get it in the fall, but it is an absolute disaster to end this measure.

00:28:51.483 --> 00:28:56.383
It is the gold standard for understanding what people are facing as far as getting

00:28:56.383 --> 00:29:01.483
food on the table, who's impacted the impact of the federal nutrition programs.

00:29:01.483 --> 00:29:07.711
It really does help drive kind of policy thinking and really just understand what's going on.

00:29:08.060 --> 00:29:13.683
You know, last summer, Congress and the president signed it.

00:29:13.683 --> 00:29:19.043
They passed this bill called H.R. 1 that just made a tremendous amount of cuts

00:29:19.344 --> 00:29:21.904
to the SNAP program, to Medicaid.

00:29:22.490 --> 00:29:26.490
And it is going to have a huge impact on people's health and well-being.

00:29:26.920 --> 00:29:31.862
And the food security measure, I think, is a really important measure to understand

00:29:31.862 --> 00:29:35.924
how that's playing out so that we can respond to it.

00:29:36.278 --> 00:29:40.584
And canceling it just hides the impact.

00:29:40.951 --> 00:29:46.022
And, you know, we need to be focused on making sure that everybody has enough to eat.

00:29:46.022 --> 00:29:51.882
And if we don't have a measure to truly understand it and to truly understand

00:29:51.882 --> 00:29:56.812
the struggle that so many households face, like I said, it's one in seven across

00:29:56.812 --> 00:30:00.562
the country, it's really hard to figure out how to respond.

00:30:00.562 --> 00:30:05.822
And frack, so back in the 80s, we did do the ketchup as a vegetable piece and

00:30:05.822 --> 00:30:10.316
were able to successfully have that not counted as a vegetable.

00:30:10.630 --> 00:30:14.402
But one of the other things that we worked on before I got to frack was kind

00:30:14.402 --> 00:30:16.274
of the food security measure.

00:30:16.645 --> 00:30:21.225
Reagan said there was no hunger. His administration was saying that there was no hunger.

00:30:21.800 --> 00:30:27.102
And we were like, yes, there is. And people were standing in line for food.

00:30:27.102 --> 00:30:33.382
And so we actually developed the Community Childhood Hunger Identification Project, where we went out,

00:30:33.782 --> 00:30:38.492
worked with community groups to go out, developed a measure of questions to

00:30:38.492 --> 00:30:42.772
figure out food security and how much people were struggling.

00:30:42.772 --> 00:30:47.338
And that, you know, was one of the precursors to the food security measure.

00:30:47.627 --> 00:30:54.452
So we understand how important it is to know and track what how people are struggling

00:30:54.452 --> 00:30:59.452
to put food on the table. And we are continuing to call on Congress to reverse

00:30:59.452 --> 00:31:01.740
that. We are trying to get.

00:31:02.406 --> 00:31:09.687
Congress to include funding and tell USDA that they need to reinstate the food

00:31:09.687 --> 00:31:12.623
security measure so that we can really track this.

00:31:12.907 --> 00:31:15.557
And it's not expensive. I think it's less than $2 million.

00:31:16.177 --> 00:31:20.177
So when you think of all the funding that goes into anti-hunger programs and

00:31:20.177 --> 00:31:24.487
anti-poverty programs and all the decisions that get made at the federal level

00:31:24.487 --> 00:31:30.955
to be operating blind without really understanding food security and the struggle that peoples face,

00:31:31.425 --> 00:31:33.648
it does not make any sense at all.

00:31:34.200 --> 00:31:40.307
Yeah. So is that part of the Restoring Food Security for American Families and

00:31:40.307 --> 00:31:42.675
Farmers Act, which you're talking about?

00:31:43.338 --> 00:31:49.347
No, actually, the Restoring Food Security for a Family, and I'm probably butchering

00:31:49.347 --> 00:31:55.157
the name, that is to reverse all of the cuts that they made to SNAP in the budget

00:31:55.157 --> 00:31:57.820
reconciliation law that they passed last summer.

00:31:58.110 --> 00:32:04.699
And so last summer, they cut SNAP by $186 billion over 10 years.

00:32:05.007 --> 00:32:09.907
And they did it through a number of different ways. But that bill would reverse

00:32:09.907 --> 00:32:15.377
those cuts, which have already led to millions of people losing their SNAP benefits.

00:32:15.377 --> 00:32:21.996
And we expect that number to continue to grow as the cuts continue to roll out across the country.

00:32:22.257 --> 00:32:29.717
Yeah, I think Senator Lujan from New Mexico, I think he was one of the sponsors

00:32:29.717 --> 00:32:33.567
of that. So in New Mexico, y'all hear that? Y'all need to reelect that guy because

00:32:33.567 --> 00:32:34.522
he's trying to feed folks.

00:32:35.744 --> 00:32:40.407
What is the progress of that act, the healthy school meals for all legislation

00:32:40.407 --> 00:32:44.477
and efforts to maintain funding for SNAP and WIC programs?

00:32:45.017 --> 00:32:49.393
You've kind of touched on it in different answers, but overall.

00:32:51.085 --> 00:32:55.965
What is Ms. Ellen going through and trying to lobby Congress?

00:32:58.185 --> 00:33:01.855
Yeah, no, it's a lot of work right now. And there's, but you know,

00:33:01.855 --> 00:33:04.755
the thing that I think is really interesting, because I've been at FRAC for

00:33:04.755 --> 00:33:10.645
a long time, is that I think most people share the vision that they want people

00:33:10.645 --> 00:33:12.709
in this country to have what they need to thrive.

00:33:13.063 --> 00:33:16.186
And I do think we need to figure out a way to.

00:33:17.181 --> 00:33:21.320
To move people back to that vision that we do share.

00:33:21.320 --> 00:33:26.330
I mean, people want the best for kids. They want the best for seniors.

00:33:26.330 --> 00:33:30.330
They, you know, they want, they don't want people to be going hungry in this

00:33:30.330 --> 00:33:32.362
country. And I think we need to move back to that.

00:33:32.767 --> 00:33:36.590
But for the HR1 piece, I mean, that was such a huge cut. I mean,

00:33:36.590 --> 00:33:39.995
it was unprecedented, the attack on SNAP.

00:33:40.349 --> 00:33:46.797
And it really changes kind of the structure in some ways. It could lead some states to drop out.

00:33:47.139 --> 00:33:53.900
So what's happening in Congress right now is that they have a farm bill that

00:33:53.900 --> 00:33:58.910
passed out of the House that, and just for people who don't track anti-hunger

00:33:58.910 --> 00:34:00.450
policy, the SNAP program,

00:34:00.910 --> 00:34:02.530
is actually part of the farm bill.

00:34:02.530 --> 00:34:07.284
So that passed out of the House. They didn't reverse any of the cuts that we were calling for.

00:34:07.685 --> 00:34:12.152
The Senate, it looks like it could be different. The Senate Agriculture Committee,

00:34:12.448 --> 00:34:16.140
Chairman Bozeman is getting ready to release his bill actually in the next few

00:34:16.140 --> 00:34:20.170
days, I think, or it could slip till next week. Things do slip sometimes in D.C.

00:34:20.930 --> 00:34:25.880
But the Democrats on the committee have drawn a line in the sand and said that

00:34:25.880 --> 00:34:30.260
they're not going to support a bill unless it does something to address the snap cut.

00:34:30.260 --> 00:34:35.200
So there is conversation around reversing kind of these cost shifts that make

00:34:35.200 --> 00:34:40.304
it harder for states to run the program and would be a huge financial burden on states.

00:34:40.683 --> 00:34:46.281
We've been lifting up time limits to try and reverse that or give some support there.

00:34:46.588 --> 00:34:50.350
But those are kind of the two things that we've really been focused on and seen

00:34:50.350 --> 00:34:52.039
maybe an opportunity on.

00:34:52.651 --> 00:34:56.418
The food insecurity piece is part of the appropriations process.

00:34:56.906 --> 00:34:59.899
And then the other piece that you talked about, the healthy school meals for

00:34:59.899 --> 00:35:03.119
all, which is actually what I think about when I want to have a little bit of

00:35:03.119 --> 00:35:05.166
hope right now, because it feels like,

00:35:05.613 --> 00:35:10.349
everywhere you look, there is a challenge coming at you and people are not being

00:35:10.349 --> 00:35:12.133
treated the way they should be treated.

00:35:12.561 --> 00:35:16.057
Healthy school meals for all is kind of like that shining light.

00:35:16.347 --> 00:35:21.949
I've been working on that for more than a decade, and we have slowly increased

00:35:21.949 --> 00:35:25.382
the number of schools that offer free meals to all students,

00:35:25.672 --> 00:35:29.410
and we have nine states that do that for all their schools.

00:35:29.793 --> 00:35:33.729
Over half the schools across the country are offering free meals to all the

00:35:33.729 --> 00:35:37.066
students, and it's an incredible way to

00:35:37.507 --> 00:35:41.759
reduce the stigma of participating in school meals because we see kids who are

00:35:41.759 --> 00:35:45.639
eligible for free or reduced price meals drop out of the program as they get

00:35:45.639 --> 00:35:49.709
older as they start to see it as more of a program for poor kids.

00:35:49.709 --> 00:35:53.079
So making sure that everybody is, it's accessible to everybody,

00:35:53.079 --> 00:35:54.689
I think is a really important piece.

00:35:55.026 --> 00:36:01.019
It releases, it's kind of like a release valve for household food budgets because

00:36:01.019 --> 00:36:06.119
parents can count on breakfast and lunch for their kids 180 days out of the

00:36:06.119 --> 00:36:09.369
year, which dramatically reduces their food costs.

00:36:09.816 --> 00:36:13.799
It's easier for administrators. They don't have as much paperwork.

00:36:13.799 --> 00:36:19.329
And then you also have We have teachers and superintendents who really love

00:36:19.329 --> 00:36:24.304
it because they know that kids are coming to the class well nourished and ready to learn.

00:36:24.646 --> 00:36:29.229
So we're continuing to work on that. We think more states will take it up and

00:36:29.229 --> 00:36:33.839
we are calling on the federal government to move in that direction for school

00:36:33.839 --> 00:36:36.173
meals. But when I feel...

00:36:36.725 --> 00:36:41.253
I'm looking for a little hope in this world. I think about healthy school meals for all.

00:36:41.520 --> 00:36:46.385
And I also think about all the positive polling, because it is a very simple

00:36:46.385 --> 00:36:50.196
thing to understand, and most people do support it.

00:36:50.845 --> 00:36:56.635
We've seen polls as high as 80% of voters that support it, and even in some

00:36:56.635 --> 00:37:03.405
red states. So I think it's really something that we should be rallying around and celebrating.

00:37:03.927 --> 00:37:08.153
Yeah I you know I I grew up in Chicago and,

00:37:08.804 --> 00:37:13.715
you know it was like they offered breakfast and lunch and I wasn't one of the

00:37:13.715 --> 00:37:18.824
free lunch kids I had to pay I think it was like 40 cents for like lunch,

00:37:19.451 --> 00:37:22.925
and you know you used to get into fights people tried to take your lunch money

00:37:22.925 --> 00:37:28.025
it's like really right um you know but you know it was you know,

00:37:29.065 --> 00:37:33.605
when I look back of my childhood it was just kind of like understood it was

00:37:33.605 --> 00:37:35.738
like you got there in time for breakfast,

00:37:36.307 --> 00:37:39.655
because a lot of parents even if they could afford it was like it was a matter

00:37:39.655 --> 00:37:43.245
of time because both of them had to work so it was kind of like all right and

00:37:43.245 --> 00:37:47.524
we didn't have school buses in chicago so elementary school you have to walk to school,

00:37:47.988 --> 00:37:50.995
so it's like hey you got to get out especially when it's cold because i got

00:37:50.995 --> 00:37:52.156
to put all these layers on you,

00:37:52.795 --> 00:37:56.235
get to the school so you can get you something to eat you know i'm saying some

00:37:56.235 --> 00:38:02.698
morning so it was just there for us and then of course you know lunch was always the standard, but.

00:38:04.039 --> 00:38:08.928
It never dawned on me until I got into adulthood and got into politics.

00:38:09.288 --> 00:38:14.529
That was like, so not every child in America is getting breakfast and lunch at school?

00:38:14.529 --> 00:38:19.339
That's crazy, you know? So it's just amazing when you grow up.

00:38:19.339 --> 00:38:23.809
I told one of my professors, I was like, I should be mad at y'all because y'all

00:38:23.809 --> 00:38:25.843
didn't tell us adulthood was like this.

00:38:26.091 --> 00:38:29.386
That was the only thing you didn't tell us about the world.

00:38:29.918 --> 00:38:34.869
Well, speaking of which, why do you think that some lawmakers lack the understanding

00:38:34.869 --> 00:38:37.505
and compassion to address hunger in America?

00:38:38.073 --> 00:38:40.204
And what can be done to fix that?

00:38:41.611 --> 00:38:43.062
Well, I think...

00:38:45.213 --> 00:38:50.963
Yeah, I mean, sometimes I actually really do not understand why people don't

00:38:50.963 --> 00:38:57.970
support it. You know, it's one of the things with the Healthy School Meals for All before.

00:38:58.202 --> 00:39:02.338
So that's been a long journey for schools and for FRAC.

00:39:02.743 --> 00:39:07.143
And before the pandemic hit because when the pandemic hit schools across the

00:39:07.143 --> 00:39:12.240
country all were able to offer free meals to all their students before the pandemic hit,

00:39:12.710 --> 00:39:19.353
we i would get a call probably like every month there was some child in school

00:39:19.353 --> 00:39:22.923
who had their lunch taken away and thrown in to the trash

00:39:23.283 --> 00:39:28.061
because they had unpaid school meal debt and it's just horrible situation.

00:39:28.508 --> 00:39:33.297
That absolutely should not happen to any child. You know, I have got two kids

00:39:33.709 --> 00:39:39.624
and my, you know, they just, that is like the worst message you could send to a child.

00:39:39.909 --> 00:39:43.578
We'd rather put the food in the trash than let you eat it. I mean, seriously.

00:39:43.997 --> 00:39:48.283
And then you've got school nutrition folks who really don't want to be doing that.

00:39:48.283 --> 00:39:52.603
And you've got school boards who, you know, are really struggling with this

00:39:52.603 --> 00:39:56.943
unpaid school meal debt and trying to figure out how to solve it.

00:39:56.943 --> 00:39:59.675
So it's not a great situation.

00:40:00.183 --> 00:40:05.761
And people were absolutely outraged, as they should be, when that happened.

00:40:06.449 --> 00:40:09.763
And, you know, I could tell lots of stories of other things that happened to

00:40:09.763 --> 00:40:11.953
kids who had unpaid school meal debt.

00:40:12.463 --> 00:40:16.618
But people really seemed to understand how problematic that was.

00:40:17.334 --> 00:40:23.094
And I've never understood, which is true, and it's outrageous and problematic.

00:40:23.094 --> 00:40:28.284
And I've, you know, worked very hard to reverse that and to make sure that schools

00:40:28.284 --> 00:40:34.029
are focusing any efforts to collect school meal fees to the parents, not the kids.

00:40:34.488 --> 00:40:39.278
But at the same time, the same people who are outraged by that are totally fine,

00:40:39.840 --> 00:40:44.184
you know, with 14 million kids growing up in households where they don't have

00:40:44.184 --> 00:40:45.581
the money to purchase food.

00:40:45.952 --> 00:40:50.297
So that disconnect, I really don't understand.

00:40:50.732 --> 00:40:55.214
I do think that there are plenty of politicians and policymakers who do care,

00:40:55.214 --> 00:41:01.754
but they don't think that we should be spending the money on it and they worry about that.

00:41:01.754 --> 00:41:07.294
But I actually think those dollars are best invested in making sure that people

00:41:07.294 --> 00:41:12.514
have access to healthy food and have access to health care and the things they

00:41:12.514 --> 00:41:14.763
need to be able to thrive.

00:41:15.606 --> 00:41:18.885
Yeah, that could be a whole other podcast. My thoughts on that.

00:41:18.885 --> 00:41:24.525
I just, you know, I never understood colleagues that would be like,

00:41:25.007 --> 00:41:26.365
well, we can't afford that.

00:41:27.715 --> 00:41:31.403
And my argument has always been, no, you don't want to prioritize that.

00:41:32.156 --> 00:41:36.632
You know, it's like whatever money, and I was an elected official in Mississippi,

00:41:37.247 --> 00:41:39.598
the quote unquote poorest state in the nation.

00:41:40.220 --> 00:41:44.010
And, you know, but even a poor state of the nation, we had a $10 billion budget.

00:41:44.492 --> 00:41:48.655
You know what I'm saying? So for 3 million people, it seems like needs could

00:41:48.655 --> 00:41:51.023
be met if you prioritize them.

00:41:51.586 --> 00:41:58.302
So, you know, that to me has always been the thing. It's not so much affordability

00:41:58.587 --> 00:42:01.199
on the government end. It's about prioritization.

00:42:01.736 --> 00:42:08.705
And, you know, until we can get a mindset as far as like basic needs should

00:42:08.705 --> 00:42:12.596
be a priority, regardless of what level of government you're in, it's,

00:42:13.241 --> 00:42:17.142
it's it to me is always going to be a struggle, which leads me to this.

00:42:17.902 --> 00:42:22.146
Albert Einstein once said an empty stomach is not a good political advisor.

00:42:22.604 --> 00:42:23.852
Do you agree with that statement?

00:42:24.787 --> 00:42:28.695
Oh, I would absolutely agree with that statement. I mean, you know,

00:42:28.695 --> 00:42:34.383
when people have an empty stomach, they can't focus, they can't concentrate, they can't learn.

00:42:34.913 --> 00:42:39.605
You know, it is just so basic. You know, parents, I think one of the best things

00:42:39.605 --> 00:42:42.732
you can do for kids is make sure parents aren't parenting hungry.

00:42:43.655 --> 00:42:47.781
The workforce is much more productive if everybody has food in their belly.

00:42:48.263 --> 00:42:51.694
We know that kids can't learn if they're hungry.

00:42:52.451 --> 00:42:57.222
It doesn't make any sense to let people walk around needing food.

00:42:57.465 --> 00:42:59.475
Yeah. Yeah. Amen to that.

00:43:00.061 --> 00:43:04.495
All right, Crystal, finish this sentence. I have hope because...

00:43:05.987 --> 00:43:13.821
I have hope because I've seen how committed people are to making sure that others

00:43:13.821 --> 00:43:18.011
have what they need. I have hope because I think we ultimately are going to

00:43:18.011 --> 00:43:20.864
win this fight, even though it's taking way too long.

00:43:21.468 --> 00:43:30.270
And I have hope because there's no reason why we can't win. We all just need to be all in on it. Yeah.

00:43:31.159 --> 00:43:35.378
Well, Crystal FitzSimons, I'm Christian by faith.

00:43:35.889 --> 00:43:40.071
But and so in the black church, we always have this saying that,

00:43:40.071 --> 00:43:43.961
you know, when people are doing what needs to be done in the community,

00:43:43.961 --> 00:43:45.541
we say you're doing the Lord's work.

00:43:45.777 --> 00:43:53.367
In the Jewish faith, there's a belief that there are 36 spirits that come up in every generation.

00:43:54.168 --> 00:44:01.697
And those 36 people, you won't know them until you see their deeds and their actions.

00:44:02.360 --> 00:44:06.348
I tend to believe there's more than 36. I don't know why in the Jewish faith,

00:44:07.341 --> 00:44:14.111
they've limited to 36, but I would say that you and the people that you work

00:44:14.111 --> 00:44:17.121
fall into that category because, you know.

00:44:18.201 --> 00:44:23.026
It's mind-boggling to me that in the richest nation in the world,

00:44:23.902 --> 00:44:25.888
people go to sleep hungry.

00:44:26.531 --> 00:44:32.871
And just the fact that there are warriors like you out here to hold us accountable

00:44:32.871 --> 00:44:37.201
to that, I greatly appreciate that So I wanted to say that to you,

00:44:37.881 --> 00:44:40.885
but more importantly, I wanted to,

00:44:41.797 --> 00:44:46.821
you know, just thank you for being committed to what your mom had said about

00:44:46.821 --> 00:44:48.755
being involved in social justice.

00:44:49.566 --> 00:44:54.203
If people want more information about FRAC or people want to reach out to you, how can they do that?

00:44:54.860 --> 00:45:01.954
Yeah, so we do have a website, FRAC.org, F-R-A-C.org, and we have most of our resources on it.

00:45:02.305 --> 00:45:08.210
The one thing I would say, Erik, is if people are committed to ending hunger

00:45:08.210 --> 00:45:12.330
in the United States, we actually have lots of resources at FRAC to weigh in

00:45:12.330 --> 00:45:15.490
with policymakers and communicate your thoughts.

00:45:15.490 --> 00:45:20.177
And you can easily find that on our Action Center, on our website.

00:45:20.577 --> 00:45:23.350
You know, definitely all of our information is on the website.

00:45:23.350 --> 00:45:27.090
I always have to connect with people and to also make sure that people get to

00:45:27.090 --> 00:45:33.312
the right person at FRAC if they want to talk about school meals or child nutrition or WIC or SNAP.

00:45:33.568 --> 00:45:36.702
Always can make sure that we make those connections for people.

00:45:37.056 --> 00:45:39.130
You know, and you can always donate to FRAC.

00:45:39.730 --> 00:45:42.460
My comms director would actually kill me if I didn't say that.

00:45:42.460 --> 00:45:44.218
And our development director as well.

00:45:44.543 --> 00:45:49.250
But because it is a little harder to raise funding for advocacy work,

00:45:49.250 --> 00:45:53.230
but it is so important because, just to give you an example,

00:45:53.550 --> 00:45:59.001
you know, for every one meal that's provided by a food bank, SNAP provides nine.

00:45:59.280 --> 00:46:04.280
So, you know, we need to be fighting the good fight, making sure that we have

00:46:04.280 --> 00:46:07.395
a public commitment to ending hunger in the United States.

00:46:07.656 --> 00:46:10.065
And that really is the core work of FRAC.

00:46:10.541 --> 00:46:16.170
Yeah, and it was some other stat that I saw where it's like for every dollar

00:46:16.170 --> 00:46:21.590
that's invested in food, that's an extra dollar and eight cents that goes out

00:46:21.590 --> 00:46:24.320
to the community for economic development and all that.

00:46:24.320 --> 00:46:28.096
So, yeah, it just makes sense.

00:46:28.374 --> 00:46:32.280
But look, I could talk about this forever. You're a busy woman and all that.

00:46:32.280 --> 00:46:36.565
So, again, I want to thank you for your time and thank you for coming on the podcast.

00:46:37.088 --> 00:46:42.030
Yeah. Crystal FitzSimons, again, I mean it when I say that you're doing great

00:46:42.030 --> 00:46:47.250
work and I appreciate the fact that you have dedicated most of your adult life

00:46:47.250 --> 00:46:48.882
to doing this kind of work.

00:46:49.800 --> 00:46:53.730
Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for having me on. I really enjoyed our conversation.

00:46:54.131 --> 00:46:57.166
Yes, ma'am. All right, guys, and we're going to catch y'all on the other side.

00:47:17.364 --> 00:47:21.934
And so now it is time for my next guest, Pauline Steinhorn.

00:47:22.565 --> 00:47:25.932
Pauline Steinhorn enjoys telling other people's stories.

00:47:26.634 --> 00:47:30.297
Throughout her career as an award-winning filmmaker and writer,

00:47:30.680 --> 00:47:35.475
she has written and directed documentaries for PBS, Maryland Public Television,

00:47:35.667 --> 00:47:38.914
Sesame Street, Discovery Channel, the U.S.

00:47:38.914 --> 00:47:43.933
Holocaust Memorial Museum, the Smithsonian, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

00:47:44.461 --> 00:47:49.674
Her articles and essays have appeared in the Wall Street Journal and Moment magazine.

00:47:50.273 --> 00:47:54.044
She is the author of the book, Dreaming of the River, a mother and daughter's

00:47:54.044 --> 00:47:56.507
fight for survival during the Holocaust.

00:47:57.001 --> 00:48:00.444
And we're going to talk about that book during the interview.

00:48:00.444 --> 00:48:04.454
So, ladies and gentlemen, it is my distinct honor and privilege to have as a

00:48:04.454 --> 00:48:08.647
guest on this podcast, Pauline Steinhorn.

00:48:21.046 --> 00:48:23.918
Pauline Steinhorn. How are you doing, ma'am? You doing good?

00:48:24.452 --> 00:48:29.006
I'm doing great. How are you today? I'm doing lovely, and I'm really glad to

00:48:29.006 --> 00:48:32.921
have you on. We're going to talk about your book, Dreaming of the River.

00:48:33.656 --> 00:48:37.076
And it sounds like this great romance novel and all this stuff,

00:48:37.076 --> 00:48:42.921
but it's a little deeper than that, but we'll get into that as we have the discussion.

00:48:43.636 --> 00:48:48.976
I'll do a couple of icebreakers first. The first icebreaker is a quote I want you to respond to.

00:48:49.551 --> 00:48:54.672
And the quote is, the lessons of the Holocaust are not Jewish, but universal.

00:48:55.229 --> 00:48:58.427
And unfortunately, the lessons remain relevant today.

00:48:59.277 --> 00:49:05.239
I agree. And that's one of the reasons it was important to me to publish this book right now.

00:49:07.186 --> 00:49:11.966
One of the big lessons of the Holocaust, and one that I was told from a very

00:49:11.966 --> 00:49:18.578
young age, was this concept of turning a group into the other.

00:49:19.285 --> 00:49:24.306
You know, we're all the same. Whatever we, my mother would sit me down at the

00:49:24.306 --> 00:49:26.256
table at the beginning of every school year.

00:49:26.256 --> 00:49:32.136
And she said, is there anyone in your class who's looks different,

00:49:32.136 --> 00:49:36.966
sounds different, and who doesn't have anyone to sit with in the cafeteria or

00:49:36.966 --> 00:49:39.127
play with in the playground?

00:49:39.660 --> 00:49:44.287
We're all the same. You know how to be a friend and a good neighbor.

00:49:44.571 --> 00:49:46.052
Go make friends with them.

00:49:46.435 --> 00:49:50.562
And I wish that that was the motto of the world,

00:49:51.307 --> 00:49:57.977
because right now we're blaming problems on the wrong places, on people and groups,

00:49:58.389 --> 00:50:04.426
when the problems have nothing to do with immigrants or with other people who

00:50:04.426 --> 00:50:08.066
are coming to this country or who have been here their whole lives.

00:50:08.815 --> 00:50:14.776
And that's one of the lessons that I think we need to take from the Holocaust. And the other is...

00:50:16.093 --> 00:50:19.971
That it's very easy for authoritarian leaders.

00:50:22.369 --> 00:50:28.911
To blame our problems on these other groups. And I see that happening all over the world.

00:50:30.018 --> 00:50:30.922
Yeah, yeah.

00:50:32.556 --> 00:50:35.262
It's a problem of accountability, I think.

00:50:37.252 --> 00:50:41.844
The older I get, the more I realize it's not just a simple, I hate you,

00:50:42.047 --> 00:50:44.833
right? Or I'm not comfortable with you.

00:50:45.426 --> 00:50:53.392
It's like I can't accept the fact that I am not worthy of doing or I'm not I

00:50:53.392 --> 00:50:57.422
don't have the ability to do something so I've got to find,

00:50:58.240 --> 00:51:04.852
a reason why I can't do that and so I scapegoat and and that's really where

00:51:04.852 --> 00:51:11.615
the power of otherism is and we can go off on a whole tangent of that but let's.

00:51:13.362 --> 00:51:17.666
So let's get back with my next icebreaker, which is 20 questions.

00:51:18.212 --> 00:51:20.035
Give me a number between 1 and 20.

00:51:20.978 --> 00:51:24.761
1 and 20. Okay. 17. Okay.

00:51:25.482 --> 00:51:31.479
What's something about people who see the world differently than you that you've come to appreciate?

00:51:32.504 --> 00:51:37.792
I appreciate the fact that by engaging in a conversation with that person or

00:51:37.792 --> 00:51:46.330
those people, that I can expand my understanding of the world and my understanding of other people.

00:51:46.859 --> 00:51:51.842
I don't want to judge people by their political opinions. It's very easy to

00:51:51.842 --> 00:51:54.260
do that, but I want to stay open-minded.

00:51:55.547 --> 00:52:01.977
Yeah, my daddy had, you know, he had a few sayings and one of the things he

00:52:01.977 --> 00:52:05.889
used to say was a broken clock tells the time right twice a day.

00:52:07.117 --> 00:52:13.407
And the lesson was that somebody that you may not agree with,

00:52:13.407 --> 00:52:20.166
somebody that you think you have nothing in common every now and then it's like, eh, that makes sense.

00:52:20.880 --> 00:52:25.408
But we automatically tune them out because they're different, right?

00:52:26.047 --> 00:52:29.059
So, yeah, I appreciate that.

00:52:30.059 --> 00:52:38.003
So, Dreaming of the River is a story of Bronia. Am I saying that right?

00:52:38.777 --> 00:52:42.492
Yes. Bronia Feldman and her daughter, Hajuta.

00:52:43.269 --> 00:52:49.126
Hajuta. The Polish. Yes, right. Okay. Bronia Feldman and her daughter Hajuta.

00:52:49.641 --> 00:52:52.062
How did you come across their story?

00:52:52.936 --> 00:52:56.152
I had heard my mother's stories my whole life.

00:52:57.212 --> 00:53:01.060
When I was very young, a woman came to the house who I didn't know,

00:53:01.060 --> 00:53:05.641
dressed in a business suit, and that was very rare. I don't think that ever happened.

00:53:06.425 --> 00:53:11.910
And she came and sat down at the kitchen table, and my mother sent the children,

00:53:11.910 --> 00:53:15.910
there were three of us, downstairs to our playroom, and said,

00:53:15.910 --> 00:53:17.670
Don't come up until I tell you to.

00:53:18.030 --> 00:53:21.431
And she closed the door, and she never closed the door on us.

00:53:21.797 --> 00:53:23.701
She also never told us not to come up.

00:53:24.206 --> 00:53:28.211
So curious me at about maybe, I don't know, six, seven years old,

00:53:28.472 --> 00:53:31.775
I climbed to the top of the stairs and I sat and listened.

00:53:32.338 --> 00:53:36.704
And what I heard were adventure stories, you know, to my young mind.

00:53:37.328 --> 00:53:43.240
I didn't hear about the violence. I only heard about my grandmother escaping

00:53:43.240 --> 00:53:50.237
from her slave labor camp and my mother being hidden under trash by someone when she was sick.

00:53:51.990 --> 00:53:57.378
And this young girl, Lita, my mother's sister, escaping from the ghetto to bring her food.

00:53:57.923 --> 00:54:00.942
And I thought, wow, what an adventurous time.

00:54:01.523 --> 00:54:06.240
And I read everything I could find about the Holocaust. I would go to the library

00:54:06.240 --> 00:54:12.715
and sit on the floor and read Myla 16, which I wasn't allowed to take out of the library.

00:54:13.328 --> 00:54:17.580
And fortunately, I didn't understand much of what was said, but it just sounded

00:54:17.580 --> 00:54:19.289
like a great adventure to me.

00:54:19.829 --> 00:54:24.900
My mother became a Holocaust educator. She got her degree in education with

00:54:24.900 --> 00:54:26.743
a focus on the Holocaust.

00:54:27.213 --> 00:54:30.667
And she started going into classrooms and talking about it.

00:54:31.062 --> 00:54:35.961
And as a teenager and a young adult, when I heard her stories,

00:54:36.577 --> 00:54:40.632
I finally understood the gravity of what had happened.

00:54:42.131 --> 00:54:47.532
My mother had been working on a memoir based on the journal she wrote in 1945,

00:54:48.325 --> 00:54:50.001
right after she was liberated.

00:54:50.001 --> 00:54:54.931
And at the end of her life, she told me her only regret was not completing her

00:54:54.931 --> 00:54:58.264
memoir, and I promised to finish it for her.

00:54:58.972 --> 00:55:04.771
And so for the last six months of her life, we talked about these stories.

00:55:04.771 --> 00:55:06.791
I read them all. I knew most of them.

00:55:08.015 --> 00:55:13.239
And I asked questions. And I took notes. and she kept writing.

00:55:14.099 --> 00:55:21.099
And when she passed away, my youngest brother and I packed up 12 boxes of papers—research,

00:55:21.413 --> 00:55:28.164
writings, poems, plays that she had written that were published—and I started right in.

00:55:28.663 --> 00:55:34.393
At a certain point, I realized I can't do this part-time, and so I left my job.

00:55:36.542 --> 00:55:41.061
And started writing. And a year later, I went through, every few months,

00:55:41.061 --> 00:55:43.891
I'd go through the boxes and see what I could find. Initially,

00:55:43.891 --> 00:55:48.133
I just grabbed the most recent, you know, typed memoir with a date.

00:55:48.897 --> 00:55:53.135
And a year later, I found my grandmother's journals that she had translated

00:55:53.309 --> 00:55:55.480
from Polish into English.

00:55:56.666 --> 00:56:02.630
And boy, what a story I heard. This was no longer the young teen,

00:56:02.630 --> 00:56:08.856
age 13 to 16, in the camps being saved by other people and cheering up her friends,

00:56:09.602 --> 00:56:16.499
but a young woman who committed sabotage and had three children,

00:56:17.277 --> 00:56:21.216
one of whom was a mile away in another labor camp,

00:56:22.000 --> 00:56:25.930
and she enlisted the help of her Polish Christian friends.

00:56:26.685 --> 00:56:34.410
To smuggle medicine into the labor camp because she was a nurse and she could

00:56:34.410 --> 00:56:36.001
help the other prisoners.

00:56:36.903 --> 00:56:41.770
And I'm still blown away by some of the stories that are in this book.

00:56:43.956 --> 00:56:48.879
And it's also interesting what other people, what stands out for other people,

00:56:49.510 --> 00:56:53.777
about these stories that I've written, or that I've,

00:56:55.055 --> 00:57:00.010
I should say I've added notes, I edited their language, and put them together,

00:57:00.770 --> 00:57:02.798
in what I believe is an original way.

00:57:03.659 --> 00:57:10.140
Well, somebody, I think the person that wrote one of the forwards compared what

00:57:10.140 --> 00:57:17.017
you did to, like, Beethoven, I guess, the Ghost Trio, or wherever it is.

00:57:18.310 --> 00:57:22.230
I was more of a Bach guy than a Beethoven guy. But, you know,

00:57:22.950 --> 00:57:26.585
just the way you composed that and intertwined them was so...

00:57:28.147 --> 00:57:33.861
Unique and powerful in the sense because it was it was it was like a timeline

00:57:33.861 --> 00:57:38.021
kind of deal but it was it was and it was synchronized and all that it's really

00:57:38.021 --> 00:57:42.663
powerful and for the listeners how you say say your mom's name again,

00:57:43.407 --> 00:57:49.731
Hajuta and Bronia my grandmother yeah so Hajuta was was the mom that that,

00:57:50.591 --> 00:57:52.671
was my mom the teenager yeah yeah,

00:57:53.691 --> 00:57:58.018
teenager and Bronia was the grandmama and and and,

00:57:59.280 --> 00:58:06.687
And they changed their names when they got over here, so your grandma became Brenda? That's right.

00:58:07.871 --> 00:58:11.349
And your mom became Harriet? Yes. Okay.

00:58:11.871 --> 00:58:17.774
Yeah, but we're going by their native Polish names in the book.

00:58:18.225 --> 00:58:21.348
What was the significance of the book's title to you?

00:58:22.200 --> 00:58:28.051
I think that the river, which was right outside their back door when my mom

00:58:28.051 --> 00:58:34.498
was growing up, became a symbol for both of them of the life they hoped to return to.

00:58:36.182 --> 00:58:41.181
They dreamed of being with their family again and swimming in the river and

00:58:41.181 --> 00:58:47.861
having big picnic dinners along the river to celebrate birthdays and holidays

00:58:47.861 --> 00:58:49.621
and everyone would bring their instruments.

00:58:49.621 --> 00:58:53.306
And it was a really lovely time for the family.

00:58:53.897 --> 00:58:58.605
For my mother, it was also one of the reasons that she survived.

00:58:59.214 --> 00:59:05.201
She was living in the ghetto for two years. She wanted to go back to the river,

00:59:05.201 --> 00:59:06.970
but she wasn't allowed to.

00:59:07.672 --> 00:59:13.982
She hated being in the ghetto and confined in this small space that was very crowded.

00:59:14.841 --> 00:59:19.871
And so she begged my grandmother, who at that time was working as a day laborer

00:59:19.871 --> 00:59:23.292
in a munitions factory, she was working in the gardens.

00:59:24.505 --> 00:59:29.892
My mother begged her to go in her place. My mother thought, working in the gardens

00:59:30.165 --> 00:59:35.679
sounds easy compared to being stuck here in the ghetto, and I would get to walk along the river.

00:59:36.068 --> 00:59:40.323
I would get to walk a kilometer past my old house, and I would love that.

00:59:40.944 --> 00:59:47.512
And one day, Hajuta's youngest sister came home in tears, inconsolable,

00:59:47.791 --> 00:59:51.779
because some boys said they're going to kill all the children under 10.

00:59:52.531 --> 00:59:57.644
And my grandmother, Bronia, realized she had to stay home with her the next

00:59:57.644 --> 01:00:00.838
day just to reassure her that life would be fine.

01:00:01.465 --> 01:00:05.337
And she allowed my mother to go in her place and take her ID badge.

01:00:06.188 --> 01:00:11.424
Months later, when the ghetto was liquidated, everyone was sent to Treblinka,

01:00:11.424 --> 01:00:13.369
who was left in the ghetto.

01:00:14.211 --> 01:00:20.682
My mother was in a labor camp. My grandmother was in another labor camp. She had been arrested.

01:00:21.582 --> 01:00:24.774
If they had been in the ghetto, they would have gone to Treblinka,

01:00:24.774 --> 01:00:27.979
and very few people survived Treblinka.

01:00:29.094 --> 01:00:32.225
So it's the reason my mother survived. Yeah.

01:00:33.725 --> 01:00:41.665
And it really, your mom's recollections of the river, just the initial entries

01:00:41.665 --> 01:00:44.851
that she made in her journal, set the tone.

01:00:45.445 --> 01:00:49.015
And it was like, it was one of the fascinating things about the book,

01:00:49.015 --> 01:00:53.177
Their Perspectives, because here you had this grown woman, she was a mother,

01:00:53.781 --> 01:00:55.095
talking about your grandmother.

01:00:55.709 --> 01:01:01.205
And, you know, and trying to convince her husband, shouldn't we be paying attention

01:01:01.205 --> 01:01:03.495
to what's going on and, you know, and all this stuff?

01:01:03.495 --> 01:01:08.255
And then you've got the child who's like, I like sitting out and looking at the river.

01:01:08.255 --> 01:01:12.215
I like going on the beach. I remember swinging on a rope and falling into,

01:01:12.215 --> 01:01:18.035
you know, just the child's mindset about playing and not even connecting the

01:01:18.035 --> 01:01:21.049
dots until, bam, it, you know, it hits home.

01:01:21.795 --> 01:01:26.405
So what were your thoughts as you were lining those stories up,

01:01:26.405 --> 01:01:27.684
those journals together?

01:01:28.617 --> 01:01:32.662
My mother did write her journals at 16 with a childlike wonder.

01:01:33.218 --> 01:01:37.427
And that childlike wonder continued throughout her book, too.

01:01:37.717 --> 01:01:40.248
She had a boyfriend in a labor camp.

01:01:40.716 --> 01:01:44.705
She wrote about boys. You know, she has this boyfriend. And then there's another

01:01:44.705 --> 01:01:47.803
boy who's much more handsome than my boyfriend.

01:01:48.030 --> 01:01:52.055
And he wants to walk with me on Sundays, our day off, and maybe I should walk

01:01:52.055 --> 01:01:54.798
with him, but what will my boyfriend think?

01:01:56.471 --> 01:02:00.436
And I thought, goodness, that could be my high school diary.

01:02:01.041 --> 01:02:05.342
And so she's still living a life and being a human being.

01:02:05.731 --> 01:02:12.048
And she and the other young women in the barracks swapped recipes and mimed

01:02:12.048 --> 01:02:15.482
how they made certain foods, even though they were starving.

01:02:15.935 --> 01:02:22.338
And there was a boy who read poetry on Sundays and had memorized Midsummer Night's

01:02:22.338 --> 01:02:25.600
Dream and spoke, you know, recited some of that.

01:02:26.477 --> 01:02:29.878
My grandmother didn't write about any of this. And at that point,

01:02:29.878 --> 01:02:31.701
they were together in the same camp.

01:02:32.907 --> 01:02:40.195
So there was a difference between the brutality and the realization that my

01:02:40.334 --> 01:02:46.487
grandmother, Bronia, had that she may have lost all of her loved ones except her daughter.

01:02:47.289 --> 01:02:52.345
And my mother's reality that I'll just make it through today.

01:02:52.998 --> 01:02:57.099
My friends will be here. We'll help each other. and we'll get through this.

01:02:59.715 --> 01:03:03.449
It was fascinating to see those points of view side by side.

01:03:04.465 --> 01:03:09.315
So one of the things, one of the characters, even though these were real people,

01:03:09.315 --> 01:03:13.357
it was like, you know, in a story form, they're characters.

01:03:13.816 --> 01:03:16.631
And your grandfather was a very interesting character.

01:03:17.154 --> 01:03:23.742
Why do you think he remained optimistic even as he saw the terror being afflicted upon them daily?

01:03:26.587 --> 01:03:31.045
He was a Marxist and belonged to the Marxist Labor Party.

01:03:31.730 --> 01:03:37.725
And he really believed that the Allies would come to their aid and they would

01:03:37.725 --> 01:03:41.765
get through this, and that he and his comrades in.

01:03:43.635 --> 01:03:48.366
These freedom fighter groups throughout Poland that were aligned,

01:03:48.499 --> 01:03:53.185
specifically that were aligned with this Marxist party, They believed that they

01:03:53.185 --> 01:03:56.135
could rebuild Poland and rebuild it,

01:03:57.132 --> 01:03:59.417
that would get closer to a socialist state.

01:03:59.824 --> 01:04:02.436
And they wanted to be there to rebuild Poland.

01:04:03.058 --> 01:04:06.820
And many of the relatives and friends left in time.

01:04:07.312 --> 01:04:11.915
But he was such an optimist, and he wanted to stay.

01:04:11.915 --> 01:04:17.745
And my grandmother, she was a housewife. And at that time period,

01:04:17.745 --> 01:04:23.038
in the 30s, you let your husband make the final decisions.

01:04:23.694 --> 01:04:30.515
And so what I saw also in her life throughout this time period is a transformation

01:04:30.515 --> 01:04:35.535
for her in becoming her own agent. And I think that's what I saw.

01:04:36.531 --> 01:04:44.262
And operating the way she wanted to and becoming a healer in the camps and fighting to save people.

01:04:45.134 --> 01:04:48.937
And she still, throughout her life, she talked about her husband.

01:04:49.593 --> 01:04:57.874
Even though she remarried, she still spoke very kindly about Pincus and his idealism.

01:04:58.938 --> 01:05:04.233
Yeah. I think it was one point, I guess, maybe close to the end.

01:05:04.703 --> 01:05:08.410
It may have been in the middle somewhere, but it was it was one point where

01:05:08.410 --> 01:05:14.280
she she said, well, Pinkcus would have said something to try to get something

01:05:14.280 --> 01:05:15.396
done. So let me say something.

01:05:15.576 --> 01:05:17.811
Right. I mean, let me use my voice.

01:05:18.319 --> 01:05:22.160
So I thought that was that was that was interesting. Like you said,

01:05:22.160 --> 01:05:28.425
it was just you could see the transformations as as they were dealing with the stuff every day.

01:05:29.054 --> 01:05:32.751
So as you were reading, translating, and editing these journals,

01:05:33.198 --> 01:05:40.123
what was more emotional for you, their depictions of Nazi cruelty or their resilience and ingenuity?

01:05:41.248 --> 01:05:42.433
I think what was...

01:05:43.960 --> 01:05:52.647
Most emotional to me was how much people maintained their humanity and helped each other survive.

01:05:53.646 --> 01:05:58.543
I think that the people who survived had two things going for them.

01:05:58.543 --> 01:06:04.886
One was a great deal of luck, and another thing was keeping their humanity.

01:06:05.107 --> 01:06:09.783
Viktor Frankl wrote a book about Man's Search for Meaning, and he was a psychiatrist

01:06:09.783 --> 01:06:12.566
before the war. He was in Auschwitz.

01:06:13.212 --> 01:06:17.493
And when he was in Auschwitz, he noticed that some people died and others didn't.

01:06:17.493 --> 01:06:23.858
And the people who died could have been stronger, they could have been healthier, but they had given up.

01:06:24.449 --> 01:06:29.663
So he started talking to the prisoners and asking them every night,

01:06:30.202 --> 01:06:32.573
someone who seemed like they were on the verge of giving up,

01:06:32.573 --> 01:06:37.215
he'd say to that person, what do you have to look forward to when the war is over?

01:06:38.353 --> 01:06:42.843
What purpose do you have in life that you want to continue? What work do you

01:06:42.843 --> 01:06:45.010
want to finish when you leave here?

01:06:45.666 --> 01:06:50.647
And I believe that he really had something. And.

01:06:53.080 --> 01:06:59.798
That means so much to me that they had—my grandmother had a purpose in life

01:06:59.949 --> 01:07:05.382
to save other people, and my mother's purpose was to be together with her family.

01:07:06.077 --> 01:07:09.583
And every time they talked about that, and then they wrestled with God,

01:07:10.425 --> 01:07:12.317
that was a surprise to me, too.

01:07:12.874 --> 01:07:19.793
That meant a lot to me and was very emotional for me to read about people who

01:07:19.793 --> 01:07:21.913
risked their lives to save others.

01:07:23.152 --> 01:07:28.963
Yeah. So what is it like to be the child of a Holocaust survivor,

01:07:28.963 --> 01:07:33.068
especially in this current American political climate?

01:07:35.253 --> 01:07:39.380
For many years, I didn't want to think about the Holocaust because it was too

01:07:39.380 --> 01:07:43.520
painful to think about. Whenever my mom would talk about it,

01:07:43.520 --> 01:07:46.654
her face would change, and so that was painful to see.

01:07:50.019 --> 01:07:54.370
It's very hard in this political environment. First of all, it's hard to be

01:07:54.370 --> 01:08:01.712
Jewish and to be proud of being Jewish right now because of all the rising anti-Semitism.

01:08:02.711 --> 01:08:12.220
And it's also hard to see this administration and the lack of humanity I see

01:08:12.560 --> 01:08:14.323
in how they approach problems.

01:08:14.929 --> 01:08:17.501
I mean, we talked about that a little bit earlier.

01:08:18.856 --> 01:08:23.946
But I also have taken on my mother's legacy of sharing these stories,

01:08:23.946 --> 01:08:25.776
and I never thought I would do that.

01:08:26.217 --> 01:08:30.291
And I might not have done that if it wasn't for this particular time.

01:08:31.225 --> 01:08:35.906
I especially enjoy speaking to middle school and high school students and telling

01:08:35.906 --> 01:08:44.736
my mother's story, because I believe that they're the future of this country and college students.

01:08:44.736 --> 01:08:55.216
And if I can encourage them to stop this otherism and to see each other as equal,

01:08:55.785 --> 01:08:59.401
then I believe we can change the world. Yeah.

01:09:00.058 --> 01:09:06.165
So your mother was 16 when she and your grandmother were liberated from Bergen-Belsen.

01:09:06.835 --> 01:09:11.036
Yes. And you stated that your mom would go on to be a Holocaust educator,

01:09:11.036 --> 01:09:13.278
giving public talks at schools and synagogues.

01:09:13.864 --> 01:09:17.852
But your grandmother never spoke of her experiences, not even privately.

01:09:18.530 --> 01:09:23.429
Why do you think there was a difference there? Why do you think your mom was,

01:09:24.091 --> 01:09:27.956
more of an activist and your grandma was kind of like, yeah,

01:09:27.956 --> 01:09:30.115
that's just a part of my life I don't talk about?

01:09:30.988 --> 01:09:35.626
I think that it was, I think there are two reasons. I've heard many Holocaust

01:09:35.626 --> 01:09:40.766
survivors say, I don't want you to know what I went through and what your family went through.

01:09:40.766 --> 01:09:47.550
It's too painful for you to think about, and then it's too painful for me to think about.

01:09:48.713 --> 01:09:56.385
My mother became a very religious Jew, and she had an interesting meaning of God.

01:09:56.803 --> 01:10:02.856
My grandmother didn't believe in God because God took so many of her people,

01:10:02.856 --> 01:10:06.381
even though in the book she thanks God for saving her daughter.

01:10:09.129 --> 01:10:14.074
You know, I think it was very hard for my grandmother. My grandmother continued nursing.

01:10:15.336 --> 01:10:20.257
She worked at the Hebrew Home, which was a part of Sinai Hospital in Baltimore.

01:10:21.034 --> 01:10:25.174
And she especially liked working with immigrants and refugees.

01:10:25.749 --> 01:10:28.001
And she felt like that was her calling.

01:10:28.690 --> 01:10:32.826
But you're right, she didn't want to talk about it. I discovered later that

01:10:32.826 --> 01:10:37.396
I have a cousin who's eight years older than I am, who she did talk about it.

01:10:37.396 --> 01:10:43.256
And it may have been in talking to my aunt and uncle, they spoke in Yiddish,

01:10:43.256 --> 01:10:47.551
and I never learned Yiddish, so that may be how my cousin knew some of these stories.

01:10:48.531 --> 01:10:52.290
But I think my grandmother was trying to protect us.

01:10:53.055 --> 01:10:58.237
Yeah, yeah. And that sounds like, you know, the generational kind of thing,

01:10:58.237 --> 01:11:04.415
because it wasn't until I got older that my dad would share some of his experiences.

01:11:05.280 --> 01:11:09.831
He was two when he left Mississippi, but he said they used to go back,

01:11:10.568 --> 01:11:12.229
like, in the summers and work.

01:11:12.919 --> 01:11:18.567
And, you know, it was like growing up in Chicago, I didn't relate to any of

01:11:18.567 --> 01:11:21.304
that. And he didn't feel any need to really talk about it.

01:11:21.893 --> 01:11:28.740
And then, you know, as I got older, then he would tell me these stories or we see some on TV.

01:11:29.222 --> 01:11:32.117
And he would say, yeah, I remember when they stopped us at the border.

01:11:32.117 --> 01:11:34.087
I was like, what? You know what I'm saying?

01:11:34.907 --> 01:11:39.397
And so it's like, it was just kind of like had to pry it out of him.

01:11:39.397 --> 01:11:42.287
And then, of course, when I got into politics in Mississippi,

01:11:42.287 --> 01:11:47.949
it was like, oh, it's obviously different now if you if you if you can run for office down there.

01:11:48.522 --> 01:11:53.347
So, you know, and then my mom, you know, who always seemed like she was happy

01:11:53.347 --> 01:11:58.000
with everybody. Then she started sharing some stuff. And I was like, really?

01:11:58.465 --> 01:12:00.925
It is. You know, it's just amazing.

01:12:01.587 --> 01:12:04.455
All of these stories that are in all of our families.

01:12:05.447 --> 01:12:10.127
And to be honest, Ms. Pauline, I'm a little jealous of you because you were

01:12:10.127 --> 01:12:14.566
able to get that and be able to put it out in the book and all that stuff.

01:12:15.042 --> 01:12:19.107
There are so many relatives that I wish I had that foresight and just got a

01:12:19.107 --> 01:12:20.423
recorder and went to work.

01:12:21.967 --> 01:12:29.929
But I'm really, really, really honored that you did that because that story always needs to be told.

01:12:30.845 --> 01:12:34.957
And I hope that you will tell the stories that you do have to your children

01:12:34.957 --> 01:12:38.920
and to other people. It's important for all of us to hear those stories.

01:12:39.537 --> 01:12:47.029
Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's like my child and my child grew up in Mississippi and now they're in Chicago.

01:12:47.238 --> 01:12:53.857
And yeah, so, you know, a lot of the stories I told was about growing up in Chicago.

01:12:54.071 --> 01:12:57.677
So, of course, there were questions like, is it safe if I'm in this neighborhood?

01:12:57.677 --> 01:12:59.224
Oh, yeah, you're fine. You're good.

01:13:00.527 --> 01:13:06.437
That kind of stuff. Yeah. Your mom said, my fear and that of other Holocaust

01:13:06.437 --> 01:13:11.803
survivors is that the world has not learned from the genocide of six million Jews.

01:13:12.378 --> 01:13:16.717
We must do everything we can to encourage tolerance and respect towards those

01:13:16.717 --> 01:13:17.928
who are different from us.

01:13:18.376 --> 01:13:22.850
I have been privileged to share my family's story about the dangers of fascism,

01:13:23.239 --> 01:13:28.157
anti-Semitism, and genocide in the hope that learning this history will prevent

01:13:28.157 --> 01:13:29.945
others from repeating it.

01:13:31.269 --> 01:13:38.223
Was that a motivating factor to make sure that Bronia's and Hajuta's story was told?

01:13:38.993 --> 01:13:45.529
Yes. Although genocides never stopped. You know, they've been happening all over the world.

01:13:46.434 --> 01:13:52.217
And I wish there was more that I could do to stop it. But I hope that in my

01:13:52.217 --> 01:13:54.022
small way I'm contributing.

01:13:54.622 --> 01:13:58.023
Yeah, yeah. So finish this sentence for me.

01:13:58.835 --> 01:14:00.748
I have hope because...

01:14:02.376 --> 01:14:08.763
I have hope because of the response that I've gotten from my book and the amazing

01:14:08.763 --> 01:14:15.838
response and letters I've received from young people who I speak to in high schools.

01:14:16.500 --> 01:14:25.126
I've received letters talking about intolerance and wanting to be more tolerant

01:14:25.253 --> 01:14:27.395
and more involved in social justice.

01:14:28.028 --> 01:14:34.903
A friend whose daughter graduated from high school wrote a letter to me thanking

01:14:34.903 --> 01:14:40.259
me for telling my story, and she also, she and the other students from her class,

01:14:41.323 --> 01:14:47.323
one of them shared not the story about me, but their hope for the future of

01:14:47.323 --> 01:14:55.682
living in a world where there's no prejudice, more tolerance, no racism, no otherism.

01:14:56.738 --> 01:15:04.003
And I hope that I'm contributing to that. Yeah, well, Pauline Steinhorn, you definitely are.

01:15:04.343 --> 01:15:11.769
And I think that, you know, when I first was approached to having you on.

01:15:13.488 --> 01:15:18.247
I remember going to Washington, D.C. and going to the Holocaust Museum.

01:15:19.033 --> 01:15:30.753
And if I forget, as I get older stuff, I will never forget the exhibit of the shoes, right?

01:15:31.328 --> 01:15:37.008
And there's a moment in a book where, you know, the shoes of your grandmother

01:15:37.008 --> 01:15:38.241
was very, very important.

01:15:39.368 --> 01:15:41.558
I want people to read the books. I ain't going to tell the story.

01:15:41.558 --> 01:15:48.598
But I just remember seeing all of those shoes lined up and that,

01:15:48.598 --> 01:15:52.868
that will leave a lasting impression on me.

01:15:53.572 --> 01:16:00.188
And then the other thing is at the museum, you get a little passport and you,

01:16:00.188 --> 01:16:04.938
you, you, you have this person and you go through the whole museum.

01:16:04.938 --> 01:16:09.831
And then at the end, you'll see if you survived or not. Right. Right.

01:16:10.568 --> 01:16:17.368
And, you know, like you said, those stories need to be told because just like

01:16:17.708 --> 01:16:20.234
there's people that don't believe it actually happened.

01:16:20.898 --> 01:16:25.679
And I can't conceive how people think like that.

01:16:26.324 --> 01:16:32.628
But as long as there's a Pauline Steinhorn out there doing the kind of work,

01:16:33.208 --> 01:16:37.988
and telling the stories, then we will continue to have the hope.

01:16:37.988 --> 01:16:41.300
And like you said, those young people that gravitated to the book.

01:16:42.157 --> 01:16:46.847
And so speaking about that, how can people get the book? How can people reach out to you?

01:16:47.236 --> 01:16:52.101
I have a website, paulinesteinhorn.net, and there's an email.

01:16:52.101 --> 01:16:53.818
My email address is on there.

01:16:54.236 --> 01:16:59.773
And you can purchase the book on Amazon and Barnes & Noble and through your local bookstore.

01:17:00.284 --> 01:17:05.511
Many of the local bookstores in my area are carrying it. I live outside of Washington, D.C.

01:17:06.519 --> 01:17:12.609
And I hope that if you go to your independent bookstore, they'll order it for you. Yeah.

01:17:13.551 --> 01:17:19.551
And I encourage people, if you've never read anything other than maybe a Wikipedia

01:17:19.551 --> 01:17:26.192
page or something you remember from your high school history or college history class.

01:17:27.671 --> 01:17:29.148
I need you to read this book.

01:17:29.617 --> 01:17:32.781
Because when you have a real life

01:17:32.781 --> 01:17:36.778
account, when you have somebody that documented what they went through,

01:17:37.354 --> 01:17:43.551
you can appreciate it better and understand the magnitude of,

01:17:43.551 --> 01:17:48.623
in this case, a tragedy that turned triumphant because they survived, right? Right.

01:17:49.683 --> 01:18:00.329
But, you know, just to me, it's always going to be hard to believe that people can be that cruel.

01:18:00.834 --> 01:18:06.762
And so you have to be reminded of that in order to make sure that we do better,

01:18:07.335 --> 01:18:09.748
generation after generation after generation.

01:18:09.748 --> 01:18:14.268
So Pauline Steinhorn, thank you so much for writing the book.

01:18:14.268 --> 01:18:20.888
Thank you so much for being obedient to your heart to put that thing together.

01:18:21.358 --> 01:18:25.468
And I thank you for coming on the podcast and sharing.

01:18:26.028 --> 01:18:32.358
I hate that we've got a limit in time because you can only scratch the surface,

01:18:32.358 --> 01:18:35.517
but then I want people to read the books. I can't tell everything anyway.

01:18:35.946 --> 01:18:38.883
But I really thank you for taking the time to talk about the book today.

01:18:39.563 --> 01:18:43.438
Thank you very much. It was a pleasure speaking with you. All right,

01:18:43.438 --> 01:18:45.536
guys, and we're going to catch y'all on the other side.

01:19:06.322 --> 01:19:10.924
So it is time for my next guest, Dehjah Vaughn.

01:19:11.926 --> 01:19:18.939
Dehjah Vaughn is an educator, podcaster, PhD candidate, thought-provoking speaker, and creative writer.

01:19:19.484 --> 01:19:23.473
Her work is centered around promoting Black consciousness and entrepreneurship,

01:19:24.061 --> 01:19:28.165
with the motive to shift the narrative through highlighting exceptional achievements

01:19:28.544 --> 01:19:31.098
of our brothers and sisters across the diaspora.

01:19:31.718 --> 01:19:37.373
Her ambition is to reveal facets of Black liberation by employing research analytics,

01:19:37.988 --> 01:19:43.381
both qualitative and quantitative data analysis, and through written expression.

01:19:43.908 --> 01:19:47.164
She contends that it is crucial,

01:19:47.745 --> 01:19:52.064
to recognize the influence of political psychology on Black individuals,

01:19:52.563 --> 01:19:58.052
asserting that such an understanding will furnish essential tools for comprehensive

01:19:58.052 --> 01:20:00.638
mental and emotional upliftment.

01:20:01.149 --> 01:20:05.349
Ladies and gentlemen, it is my distinct honor and privilege to have as a guest

01:20:05.588 --> 01:20:08.259
on this podcast, Dehjah Vaughn.

01:20:20.727 --> 01:20:28.653
Dehjah Vaughn, how are you doing? I'm doing well. I can't complain. The sun is out Saturday.

01:20:29.129 --> 01:20:33.297
It feels good. Well, it's an honor to have you on.

01:20:33.946 --> 01:20:37.875
You had reached out to me, I guess, a couple years ago.

01:20:38.435 --> 01:20:42.296
And, you know, I think you were, might have been longer than that,

01:20:42.296 --> 01:20:46.346
though, now that I think about it, because you were trying to get your podcast started.

01:20:46.346 --> 01:20:51.886
And you were excited to network with somebody. And I felt really flattered about

01:20:51.886 --> 01:20:56.114
that, that you thought I was somebody that you could get some wisdom from.

01:20:56.664 --> 01:21:01.426
So when I was really excited when you accepted my invitation to be a guest,

01:21:01.426 --> 01:21:09.160
because I've listened to your podcast and since and just kind of followed you

01:21:09.455 --> 01:21:11.057
because we're on LinkedIn together.

01:21:11.683 --> 01:21:16.179
And I think we're about to have a really good discussion. So if you're ready,

01:21:16.795 --> 01:21:18.706
we'll go ahead and get that discussion going.

01:21:20.016 --> 01:21:25.075
Let's get it going. All right. So normally how I start off the interviews is

01:21:25.075 --> 01:21:28.138
that I have, I do a couple of icebreakers.

01:21:28.829 --> 01:21:32.359
And the first icebreaker I want to respond to is a quote.

01:21:33.633 --> 01:21:39.107
And the quote is, I define success as the motivation to get up in the morning.

01:21:39.675 --> 01:21:44.401
I can describe it as what is your why.

01:21:44.975 --> 01:21:50.105
I feel like once I identified what my why was, I felt more inclined to wake

01:21:50.105 --> 01:21:55.331
up on time or get up early in the morning because I was driven by success.

01:21:55.947 --> 01:22:00.887
I loved the way it felt to get things accomplished, the things that made me feel good.

01:22:01.357 --> 01:22:06.297
Whether if the feeling was how something makes me feel or how something makes someone else feel.

01:22:06.761 --> 01:22:15.125
In those moments, I feel aligned to my purpose and I would consider my purpose as success. Hmm.

01:22:17.565 --> 01:22:20.645
That's a deep one. It makes me think of so many different people.

01:22:20.645 --> 01:22:24.745
And I think the person that quoted that is on the tip of my tongue,

01:22:24.745 --> 01:22:26.745
but I don't really recall.

01:22:26.745 --> 01:22:32.315
But I do remember the impact of the quote and the intentionality of what it

01:22:32.315 --> 01:22:37.675
means to wake up every morning and know what you are doing and who you are doing it for.

01:22:38.293 --> 01:22:45.040
Um yeah that's how i would categorize that quote but who is the individual that,

01:22:45.788 --> 01:22:49.800
that wrote that i'll give you a hint it's somebody that you see every morning.

01:22:54.308 --> 01:22:59.270
Wow i'm like that's me that's you you said that,

01:23:01.354 --> 01:23:06.847
Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty, it's pretty heavy when you hear your own words back to you, isn't it?

01:23:07.809 --> 01:23:13.084
Yes. Very much so. Yeah. Yeah. Very much so. See, but that just proves my point,

01:23:13.084 --> 01:23:14.415
how profound you are, right?

01:23:14.754 --> 01:23:19.532
All right. So now the next icebreaker is what I call 20 questions.

01:23:19.856 --> 01:23:22.817
So I need you to give me a number between one and 20.

01:23:23.838 --> 01:23:30.678
11. All right. Where do you go to check a fact that you see, hear, or read?

01:23:31.812 --> 01:23:32.954
Where do I go? Mm.

01:23:35.751 --> 01:23:47.953
Wow. The first way that it's coming up for me is I usually type in Google the theme of the fact,

01:23:48.744 --> 01:23:53.430
and I look through reputable sources,

01:23:54.096 --> 01:24:00.371
whether it's an org or DACA will be my preferred method, especially if this

01:24:00.671 --> 01:24:05.041
research is pertaining to something that is within academia,

01:24:05.041 --> 01:24:06.971
but not just in academia either.

01:24:07.351 --> 01:24:12.381
And in the literature that I am writing on my own, it's important that even

01:24:12.381 --> 01:24:14.951
if I'm reading something from a Dr.

01:24:14.951 --> 01:24:19.746
Claude Anderson or reading something from a Dr.

01:24:19.746 --> 01:24:27.889
Francis Cress I'm still taking that and expounding on that because a lot of times.

01:24:28.695 --> 01:24:38.891
People can create a discussion around statistics, but it is not the actual logistics

01:24:38.891 --> 01:24:42.272
or the foundational pieces of why something is.

01:24:43.041 --> 01:24:47.911
Basically creating their own understanding of what they have understood about

01:24:47.911 --> 01:24:56.321
numerical data or qualitative research or quantitative research, whatever that is.

01:24:56.321 --> 01:25:01.521
So I usually look at that, but I also, too, look at other scholarly works to

01:25:01.521 --> 01:25:06.131
see their opinions on sites like a JSTOR or.

01:25:07.187 --> 01:25:13.637
Those type of databases that have journal articles of other researchers that

01:25:13.637 --> 01:25:17.747
may have a different opinion upon what is being presented to them as well.

01:25:18.473 --> 01:25:24.951
And then for a larger notion, I take it internally and I ask myself, do I believe in this?

01:25:25.574 --> 01:25:32.367
Because I also too believe that sometimes the questions that we have are already

01:25:32.367 --> 01:25:36.267
within us, but have we taken enough time to be able to figure that out?

01:25:36.267 --> 01:25:42.273
Have we been able to ask ourselves questions out loud and answer back out loud?

01:25:43.347 --> 01:25:48.593
I think it's very important, at least to my own personal matriculation in life.

01:25:49.011 --> 01:25:56.360
I have realized that it is so important for my own balance to be able to ask myself questions too.

01:25:57.474 --> 01:26:05.013
Okay. So talk to the listeners about the path that led you to pursue a doctorate in political science.

01:26:05.686 --> 01:26:13.716
Wow. Yes. So it was, I just had completed my master's at University of Pacific.

01:26:14.441 --> 01:26:19.544
And I was like, there's something, there's a next step that I want to take.

01:26:20.021 --> 01:26:22.886
We were just coming off of the ends of COVID.

01:26:23.589 --> 01:26:27.810
And I felt pretty much radicalized from that experience in COVID,

01:26:28.091 --> 01:26:29.857
especially politically about.

01:26:30.876 --> 01:26:37.644
What I wanted to see in terms of change or just better yet comprehension of

01:26:37.644 --> 01:26:39.382
the political system in general.

01:26:39.742 --> 01:26:42.636
So the institution that I sought was Clark Atlanta.

01:26:43.363 --> 01:26:48.930
And I was so intentional about getting to Clark Atlanta.

01:26:49.348 --> 01:26:52.883
You know, I saved X amount of dollars.

01:26:53.634 --> 01:27:01.154
I had a tutor for me, for my writing, for my personalized statement,

01:27:01.154 --> 01:27:04.326
for my resume, for my writing sample.

01:27:04.865 --> 01:27:12.624
I was super intentional because I felt like I deserved to put that energy into

01:27:12.624 --> 01:27:14.086
something that I wanted to see.

01:27:15.074 --> 01:27:20.724
I wanted to foresee for myself. So once I got to Atlanta, mind you,

01:27:20.724 --> 01:27:22.714
I had never been to Atlanta before.

01:27:23.014 --> 01:27:26.914
I think the one time that I was in Atlanta, I was traveling with my grandfather

01:27:26.914 --> 01:27:29.853
from Virginia to drop off my car.

01:27:31.250 --> 01:27:36.200
Uncle in Atlanta, but I don't really recall vividly what that experience was

01:27:36.200 --> 01:27:40.180
like besides just driving through, going here and going there.

01:27:40.180 --> 01:27:47.100
But I was called to come to Atlanta just because of the political dynamic for

01:27:47.100 --> 01:27:53.563
African Americans in the city, the dominance that they have been able to have.

01:27:54.249 --> 01:27:57.810
I'll say that in quotes, you know, the dominance that they have been able to

01:27:57.810 --> 01:28:04.660
have politically, the Black mayors and the legacy behind that.

01:28:04.660 --> 01:28:09.800
I was drawn to that. I'm like, yes, this is where we can uprise and politically

01:28:09.800 --> 01:28:16.270
mobilize ourselves because there's a commonality between ethnic groups and racial structure.

01:28:16.910 --> 01:28:24.370
But I'm also coming from a California lens where the radicalized Blacks kind

01:28:24.370 --> 01:28:26.754
of stem from the legacies of Black Panther Party.

01:28:27.435 --> 01:28:36.560
So my individual perspective of the political type of urgency and uprising came from that kind of lens.

01:28:37.268 --> 01:28:43.758
And that can kind of be at a detriment that you are perceiving that the Black,

01:28:44.435 --> 01:28:47.690
political systems will mirror cities.

01:28:47.690 --> 01:28:52.300
I think the outcomes may mirror the same, but the way that they go about liberation

01:28:52.300 --> 01:28:58.514
may look completely different just because of economics and different things like that.

01:28:59.094 --> 01:29:11.123
But nonetheless, I've been enjoying understanding the why to Black political systems in Atlanta.

01:29:11.326 --> 01:29:17.920
And I feel like Clark has done an excellent job with allowing me to navigate

01:29:17.920 --> 01:29:25.387
that experience and has pushed me beyond what I believed my limits were. As a writer.

01:29:26.444 --> 01:29:31.935
As a thinker, as a political scientist, mainly as a political scientist,

01:29:31.935 --> 01:29:35.024
because my background comes from education and history.

01:29:36.035 --> 01:29:42.375
My first few years, I had no, I had maybe the, I wouldn't even discredit myself

01:29:42.375 --> 01:29:44.533
and say it was basic information.

01:29:44.870 --> 01:29:49.647
But I would say the thinking, again, became.

01:29:50.669 --> 01:29:58.765
Significantly radicalized when I had to take a gap between my doctoral studies

01:29:58.765 --> 01:30:02.170
because I was primarily teaching full-time in Bankhead.

01:30:03.042 --> 01:30:10.945
And that experience required so much of my intellectual energy until I came

01:30:10.945 --> 01:30:13.959
back about maybe two years ago.

01:30:14.540 --> 01:30:20.165
And I have been able to really understand the purpose of why my educators and

01:30:20.165 --> 01:30:25.785
my professors have pushed me, why I have had educators like Dr.

01:30:25.785 --> 01:30:29.495
Joseph Jones pushing me to become a better writer and a better thinker and a

01:30:29.495 --> 01:30:34.706
better reader and reading to comprehend the text,

01:30:35.349 --> 01:30:41.165
reading to discuss the text, reading to understand the construction of why political

01:30:41.165 --> 01:30:46.185
regimes are the way that they are, also understanding the political theory behind

01:30:46.185 --> 01:30:48.901
it, the political sociology behind it,

01:30:49.508 --> 01:30:55.545
why man thinks how man thinks, understanding the political philosophy behind it.

01:30:55.545 --> 01:31:01.905
So I've been really intrigued now and settling in into the experience here in

01:31:01.905 --> 01:31:04.565
Atlanta, excuse me, through that.

01:31:05.456 --> 01:31:08.614
Yeah. So when you say California, you're from the Bay Area?

01:31:09.201 --> 01:31:18.703
Yes okay yeah okay who is a person in history that you admire the most wow.

01:31:22.060 --> 01:31:22.548
Wow,

01:31:24.017 --> 01:31:27.380
Uh, this is actually a really good question.

01:31:29.387 --> 01:31:37.177
And I am contemplating several individuals, but I believe the person that changed

01:31:37.177 --> 01:31:40.853
my experience was Dr. Frances Presswelson.

01:31:42.167 --> 01:31:47.891
I read her book probably at least five to six times now.

01:31:48.071 --> 01:31:56.013
But when I first read her book, I I was in complete shock of the information.

01:31:57.226 --> 01:32:00.849
That she was presenting.

01:32:01.062 --> 01:32:09.707
I really enjoyed the fact that she used symbols to propose an understanding

01:32:09.707 --> 01:32:14.347
of why symbols are constructed in a certain way.

01:32:14.347 --> 01:32:17.122
Why are things a certain color?

01:32:17.825 --> 01:32:21.516
And that kind of leans into her background in psychiatry.

01:32:22.224 --> 01:32:31.817
So it makes sense on why she was looking at it from a sort of mental or standpoint of that matter.

01:32:31.817 --> 01:32:38.515
I liked how she was talking about where the 21st century will be in terms of

01:32:38.666 --> 01:32:43.969
the deconstruction of the Black home and the way,

01:32:45.077 --> 01:32:47.644
that Black men engage themselves,

01:32:48.722 --> 01:32:52.627
the way Black men engage themselves, or the way that Black women engage themselves,

01:32:52.627 --> 01:32:55.819
the way that Black children engage themselves.

01:32:56.207 --> 01:33:02.308
But also on the flip hand, her work was completely radical and some may argue,

01:33:03.167 --> 01:33:06.357
anti-Semitic because of her,

01:33:07.313 --> 01:33:16.577
ability to critique the structure of the United States and the way that from

01:33:16.577 --> 01:33:21.726
a sociological standpoint, the Black family has been under that sort of regime.

01:33:22.915 --> 01:33:28.875
So her work was super impressionable to me in undergrad at Virginia State University

01:33:28.875 --> 01:33:34.115
because it was the first time that I was really reading a text that I would

01:33:34.115 --> 01:33:35.595
say went against the grain.

01:33:36.627 --> 01:33:42.937
It was totally different. It was exciting because I didn't know what the next page will lead to.

01:33:43.995 --> 01:33:50.525
I didn't know what type of research that she was going to present and how she

01:33:50.525 --> 01:33:51.956
was going to construct it.

01:33:52.477 --> 01:33:57.934
And that kind of goes to my first point and the question that you had initially, which was,

01:33:58.789 --> 01:34:04.955
when you're reading something, how do you take that and then essentially operationalize

01:34:04.955 --> 01:34:07.515
it into your own better understanding?

01:34:07.915 --> 01:34:10.815
How do you say that this person is really speaking truth?

01:34:11.732 --> 01:34:16.315
So it is also important for me as a reader. That's why I've read it six times,

01:34:17.184 --> 01:34:23.845
five to six times, because I'm like, okay, but let's see if this actually mirrors.

01:34:23.845 --> 01:34:27.577
And some of the things do, but also some of the things cannot too. Yeah.

01:34:29.469 --> 01:34:34.165
Are you a content creator or an activist that utilizes social media?

01:34:35.232 --> 01:34:38.239
Activist that utilizes social media. Why do you say that?

01:34:39.767 --> 01:34:47.027
Because I'm very intentional about what I produce. I'm not necessarily a content creator.

01:34:47.027 --> 01:34:52.207
When I think of content creating, I'm thinking phone out, talking,

01:34:52.207 --> 01:34:57.986
TikToks, posting like maybe three times a week, you're posting on your story.

01:34:58.387 --> 01:35:01.754
You know, you have reels, you're talking behind the reels.

01:35:02.697 --> 01:35:05.597
You know, not saying that I don't have the capacity to do that,

01:35:05.597 --> 01:35:10.093
but does that feel aligned to my mission and who I am? No.

01:35:10.792 --> 01:35:13.746
And quite honestly, it's a little overstimulating for me too.

01:35:14.487 --> 01:35:18.287
I don't know if I want to be doing that.

01:35:19.047 --> 01:35:24.217
Sometimes I actually want to ground myself in the experience and then reflect

01:35:24.217 --> 01:35:27.909
at a later date rather than reflecting in the moment about the experience.

01:35:28.203 --> 01:35:34.447
You know, there are individuals that content create activism work. Kudos!

01:35:35.214 --> 01:35:39.202
Congratulations to you to be able to have the capacity.

01:35:39.841 --> 01:35:46.194
Bless you, because I personally, I'm a little bit more intentional about my

01:35:46.386 --> 01:35:48.013
creative endeavors more.

01:35:49.031 --> 01:35:53.921
Yeah. Yeah. That's, I, I, I thought about you and it was really,

01:35:53.921 --> 01:35:58.061
it's, it's really interesting to hear you say overstimulate.

01:35:58.061 --> 01:36:00.661
Cause you know, I thought that was just for us old folks. You know what I'm

01:36:00.661 --> 01:36:04.561
saying? It's like, what is all this going on? But it's, it's really refreshing

01:36:04.561 --> 01:36:07.571
to hear that even younger people are like, yeah, this might be a little bit

01:36:07.571 --> 01:36:08.947
too much for me to deal with.

01:36:09.728 --> 01:36:16.141
But that that means a lot when when people take advantage of the tools that

01:36:16.141 --> 01:36:21.191
are out there one of the things i when i used to talk to young people and explain

01:36:21.191 --> 01:36:23.511
to them that you you really,

01:36:24.350 --> 01:36:29.313
have a weapon when you have that phone we use it for our entertainment purposes,

01:36:29.994 --> 01:36:33.191
you know for the most part but you know,

01:36:33.991 --> 01:36:40.120
when you have the capacity to reach somebody in Singapore or reach somebody in Ukraine.

01:36:42.031 --> 01:36:47.351
On your phone, that's a tool that can be used to build coalitions,

01:36:47.931 --> 01:36:49.796
to learn and all that kind of stuff.

01:36:50.421 --> 01:36:54.661
And I would just encourage people to take advantage of that and look at it that

01:36:54.661 --> 01:37:00.491
way, as opposed to just, you know, something to laugh or, you know,

01:37:00.491 --> 01:37:03.611
catch the latest Nextflix movie or wherever the case may be.

01:37:03.951 --> 01:37:08.341
So it, you know, I kind of had a feeling that you were going to go with the

01:37:08.341 --> 01:37:14.748
activist part of the question, but I had to ask it because I don't know if anybody,

01:37:15.460 --> 01:37:21.040
even the people that do the activism and they are kind of, they don't,

01:37:21.151 --> 01:37:26.241
I don't know if they're that intentional the way that you described it. Right.

01:37:27.005 --> 01:37:30.341
So anyway, I just thought that would be an intriguing question to ask somebody

01:37:30.341 --> 01:37:32.989
that utilizes social media the way that you do.

01:37:33.599 --> 01:37:36.252
Yes, I ask that question too. Yeah.

01:37:36.864 --> 01:37:42.831
Audre Lorde said, when I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service

01:37:42.831 --> 01:37:47.326
of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I'm afraid.

01:37:48.111 --> 01:37:51.577
When you speak up on issues, do you feel any fear or trepidation? No.

01:37:52.623 --> 01:37:56.195
No, not really. Not really.

01:37:56.352 --> 01:38:01.181
But I also had to work through having the fear initially.

01:38:02.283 --> 01:38:07.581
I would be lying to myself and others if I said, yeah, I was able to do it easily.

01:38:08.028 --> 01:38:12.913
So that's just not a realistic experience, especially when you live in the United

01:38:12.913 --> 01:38:17.257
States of America and you've seen people get murdered, killed,

01:38:18.134 --> 01:38:22.343
completely dismantled organizations.

01:38:23.432 --> 01:38:30.823
At the end of the day, if your work is truth-based or integrity-driven,

01:38:30.823 --> 01:38:32.573
you're going to think about,

01:38:33.206 --> 01:38:41.277
well, if I say this, this may ruffle some feathers, but also at the same time, I had to realize that.

01:38:42.433 --> 01:38:51.403
A lot of the things that I have read or seen or watched or heard has also been

01:38:51.403 --> 01:38:53.562
watched by people that control it.

01:38:54.436 --> 01:39:01.904
So I'm quite certain that they also, too, have an understanding of what is actually taking place.

01:39:02.247 --> 01:39:08.543
I don't think those specific individuals are aloof to it, which is why there

01:39:08.543 --> 01:39:11.864
has been restrictions in terms of what is being said.

01:39:12.561 --> 01:39:18.288
Which is even more reason why to continue to say things.

01:39:19.007 --> 01:39:23.633
Because also, it's also like, but the masses aren't necessarily saying those

01:39:23.633 --> 01:39:31.106
concrete things, which kind of goes back to my first initial point to it being dismantled.

01:39:31.868 --> 01:39:40.153
Yeah. I, you know, I think, I think society, American society doesn't understand

01:39:40.153 --> 01:39:41.991
when we try to tell them that,

01:39:42.662 --> 01:39:50.143
Black people feel a dichotomy in that we grow up here in the United States.

01:39:50.143 --> 01:39:55.863
So we're socialized, you know, from basically from kindergarten,

01:39:55.863 --> 01:40:02.602
maybe even younger to adulthood to be proud about being an American. Right.

01:40:03.292 --> 01:40:07.217
But then we have our lived experience, whether. Right.

01:40:08.323 --> 01:40:13.077
You know, whether it's in-your-face kind of racism or subtle stuff,

01:40:13.633 --> 01:40:20.923
you know, how we have to process it and figure out a way to communicate the ouch, right?

01:40:21.504 --> 01:40:27.673
Because, you know, when you get hurt, if you bump into a table or somebody hits

01:40:27.673 --> 01:40:32.184
you on a football field, you're going to say ouch in one way or the other.

01:40:32.828 --> 01:40:39.353
And we've always had to be, I don't know, creative, I guess would be the best

01:40:39.353 --> 01:40:42.208
word to make sure that people understood that.

01:40:42.981 --> 01:40:48.973
And, you know, one of the examples I think of, it was like there was a debate

01:40:48.973 --> 01:40:55.444
going on in the oversight committee and Jasmine Crockett was reading somebody.

01:40:56.943 --> 01:41:04.463
It was really getting into him and a latina woman uh anna paula luma or whatever

01:41:04.463 --> 01:41:07.034
lima wherever her name is from florida,

01:41:07.837 --> 01:41:13.608
she said something like calm down don't get angry just calm down right,

01:41:15.094 --> 01:41:22.514
and jasmine escalated at that point so most people that are not black looked at that and said,

01:41:23.121 --> 01:41:25.263
Jasmine's losing control.

01:41:26.120 --> 01:41:30.463
Black folks was like, how are you going to tell me to calm down?

01:41:30.922 --> 01:41:34.601
Who are you to give me to say that?

01:41:35.241 --> 01:41:38.601
You can act a fool all you want to, but I have to calm down.

01:41:39.580 --> 01:41:44.400
And people don't understand that. Calm down. When I used to go out and speak

01:41:44.400 --> 01:41:48.673
in public and white folks would come up to me and say that I was well-spoken,

01:41:49.184 --> 01:41:52.023
right? It's like, what did you expect?

01:41:52.731 --> 01:41:55.494
You know what I'm saying? You invited me to come to speak to you.

01:41:56.418 --> 01:41:59.727
So I assumed you thought that I knew what I was I could talk,

01:42:00.660 --> 01:42:04.260
you know I'm saying I could give a speech it's just those little things like

01:42:04.260 --> 01:42:09.820
that that I think puts a little trepidation if not necessarily fear but just

01:42:09.820 --> 01:42:12.050
a little hesitancy when we,

01:42:12.766 --> 01:42:15.743
decided we want to speak out on something,

01:42:16.880 --> 01:42:17.960
and I.

01:42:19.120 --> 01:42:22.180
Not to belabor the point because I want to I got a couple more questions for

01:42:22.180 --> 01:42:27.536
you but we had a debate when I was in the legislature about voter ID.

01:42:28.302 --> 01:42:33.060
And you can kind of predict who was on most issues, who was going to get up

01:42:33.060 --> 01:42:37.903
and speak like me, for example, you know, and who wasn't going to say anything.

01:42:38.556 --> 01:42:41.220
Now we get to Black Caucus meeting, everybody's got something to say.

01:42:41.220 --> 01:42:45.862
But on the floor, there was only a few of us that actually got to the well and spoke.

01:42:46.641 --> 01:42:51.589
But on this issue with voter ID, every member of the Black Caucus spoke.

01:42:52.273 --> 01:42:56.460
And it was riveting because people knew that they don't normally go up there.

01:42:56.460 --> 01:43:00.980
So when you had certain representatives, especially some of the female representatives,

01:43:00.980 --> 01:43:05.165
talking about the history of voting in Mississippi.

01:43:05.936 --> 01:43:11.720
And you had one of the chairmen who rarely speaks, you know, on issues.

01:43:12.200 --> 01:43:15.630
We used to when he was younger, but as he got to be an older statesman,

01:43:15.630 --> 01:43:18.100
he kind of played the game a little bit.

01:43:19.440 --> 01:43:24.287
He hit the podium so hard that crack is still in the podium to this day.

01:43:26.672 --> 01:43:30.570
It changed the dynamic. It basically killed the bill at that particular point.

01:43:30.889 --> 01:43:34.642
Now, they eventually passed it and all that stuff years later.

01:43:34.642 --> 01:43:44.762
But that day it was over because they never saw firsthand how we rally,

01:43:44.762 --> 01:43:48.491
how we feel about certain things. They never really got a sense.

01:43:49.161 --> 01:43:51.482
And it kind of puts them in the back of their mind is like, oh,

01:43:51.482 --> 01:43:55.992
it's not just Erik Fleming or such and such and so-and-so that's speaking out.

01:43:56.412 --> 01:43:57.660
All these folks feel this way.

01:43:58.732 --> 01:44:06.212
And I think it's important for us to, to whatever hesitancy we have that we

01:44:06.212 --> 01:44:11.272
speak out. And so that's, you know, when you're young, you're not supposed to

01:44:11.272 --> 01:44:13.619
have any fear. You're supposed to be bold.

01:44:14.404 --> 01:44:23.622
But I just, you know, because you are of this generation, I wanted to explore

01:44:23.622 --> 01:44:24.642
that a little bit with you.

01:44:25.382 --> 01:44:30.572
Yeah, I appreciate that. Yeah. What is the most pressing issue for your generation

01:44:30.572 --> 01:44:32.998
that you would like elected leaders to address?

01:44:35.277 --> 01:44:38.959
Oh, probably student loans, student loans.

01:44:43.395 --> 01:44:49.689
Yeah, that's pretty, that's probably the one issue, but at least for the individuals

01:44:49.689 --> 01:44:56.307
that I am friends with outside of my immediate circle, they are teachers.

01:44:57.194 --> 01:45:01.825
And the teachers that I have as friends are, especially on a,

01:45:02.012 --> 01:45:07.818
specifically from a K-12 level, is the issue of literacy.

01:45:08.758 --> 01:45:14.719
That is a collective issue that we are collectively having as a community of

01:45:14.719 --> 01:45:18.599
teachers, at least in my friend or associate group.

01:45:18.599 --> 01:45:28.671
Is the fact that the kids that we are teaching are not reading at the level of where they need to be.

01:45:30.139 --> 01:45:31.639
And this is not just in the city

01:45:31.639 --> 01:45:36.857
of Atlanta, but also in the city of San Francisco and the city of Oakland.

01:45:38.122 --> 01:45:44.049
So this issue is, it's frightening for me, you know, to know that as an educator

01:45:44.049 --> 01:45:50.954
that when I was teaching, I had kids that, We're not reading on grade level in sixth grade.

01:45:51.887 --> 01:45:57.719
And at that point, I'm not going to say it's too late, but to how I would categorize

01:45:57.719 --> 01:46:03.590
it is moving a group of far below basic to a coefficient in one year,

01:46:04.558 --> 01:46:07.439
may not necessarily be achievable.

01:46:07.439 --> 01:46:11.617
However, moving a far below basic to a basic that is achievable.

01:46:12.807 --> 01:46:19.467
But that far below basic may be 18 students, five may already be at basic,

01:46:19.467 --> 01:46:23.976
and three may be at proficient, and one may be at advanced.

01:46:24.851 --> 01:46:31.300
So how do you then construct your classroom when you are then supposed to meet state demands?

01:46:32.098 --> 01:46:35.557
You're still meeting state testing standards.

01:46:36.681 --> 01:46:42.821
Multiple testing throughout the year. And the literacy focus is not only in

01:46:42.821 --> 01:46:47.369
English, but it's also in science and social study. And it's also in math.

01:46:48.408 --> 01:46:55.974
So I believe programs like, you know, iReady and iExcel, great programs to have online.

01:46:56.919 --> 01:47:03.042
But also at the same time, kids still need to be able to put their finger on a paper and read.

01:47:03.854 --> 01:47:09.761
I feel like reading is totally different on your laptop versus you having a

01:47:09.761 --> 01:47:14.773
pen and paper and being able to annotate it, circle, feel the page.

01:47:16.729 --> 01:47:20.543
Touch the paper, touch the letters versus you just clicking.

01:47:21.369 --> 01:47:27.098
I don't know how much brain usage is being used with just clicking.

01:47:27.895 --> 01:47:33.026
And I say this as a person that has designated time for kids to do iReady and,

01:47:33.687 --> 01:47:35.870
iExcel and all these things.

01:47:36.216 --> 01:47:41.035
But I think there has to be an intentionality that still requires a physical presence.

01:47:41.713 --> 01:47:45.910
I say that to say that education should not be moved to just being online,

01:47:46.505 --> 01:47:48.721
which we may come to that.

01:47:48.721 --> 01:47:59.985
We may come to a thing where AI is completely prevalent and now teachers are having to teach online,

01:48:00.612 --> 01:48:04.327
I think that will totally expedite,

01:48:05.089 --> 01:48:13.061
the achievement gap to a larger discussion about socioeconomics and accessibility

01:48:13.061 --> 01:48:17.541
to resources and accessibility to Wi-Fi within the home.

01:48:18.122 --> 01:48:21.634
What if this child comes from a low-income home and they ain't got no Wi-Fi?

01:48:23.120 --> 01:48:26.614
They ain't got no Wi-Fi in there. They're using the Chromebook.

01:48:26.934 --> 01:48:30.538
So then that means that schools and school districts will have to designate,

01:48:31.359 --> 01:48:35.427
a Wi-Fi router to each home. That's like...

01:48:36.555 --> 01:48:41.214
Totally shifting the socioeconomics within education,

01:48:41.870 --> 01:48:49.165
which, again, I appreciate the online platforms, but I can see how maybe within

01:48:49.165 --> 01:48:52.381
the next three to five or 10 years,

01:48:53.065 --> 01:48:54.863
education completely shifting.

01:48:55.560 --> 01:49:05.281
So yeah the literacy is a concern being able to do math is a concern basic arithmetic without using,

01:49:06.266 --> 01:49:11.455
online like a chat gpt kids are already knowing how to use chat gpt.

01:49:12.798 --> 01:49:18.763
It's sad and then like also the if you're in a public charter school institution,

01:49:19.770 --> 01:49:26.283
the way they categorize gpa and the grading scale is completely skewed.

01:49:27.616 --> 01:49:35.411
And I feel in my hardest of hearts that it's almost enabling.

01:49:36.426 --> 01:49:43.303
And I mean, like overall, not just from the rating scale, but just overall,

01:49:44.001 --> 01:49:51.493
I feel in my own educational experience as a millennial, it was totally different.

01:49:52.244 --> 01:49:53.776
It was totally different. And we

01:49:53.776 --> 01:50:02.465
were the first kind of generation to be introduced to the Apple laptops.

01:50:02.690 --> 01:50:10.304
Well, not even laptops, the hardback, ginormous laptops. I remember those in elementary school.

01:50:10.974 --> 01:50:17.125
And then I also remember the technology continuously advancing,

01:50:18.098 --> 01:50:23.516
and also gets to the point where how far will technology advance to before it

01:50:23.516 --> 01:50:32.626
just blows up or just totally just shuts off because we have overused it.

01:50:32.626 --> 01:50:39.786
And then it's like, we're using so much water to then use ChatGPT.

01:50:39.786 --> 01:50:41.611
We're draining the world.

01:50:42.187 --> 01:50:52.996
You know, are we sucking up all the natural resources to like have some electric gravity field water.

01:50:54.015 --> 01:50:57.297
Driven by electricity now?

01:50:57.755 --> 01:51:01.378
So it's a two-fold situation.

01:51:01.862 --> 01:51:08.576
A lot of different variables and things that I have been in discussion with my peers.

01:51:09.198 --> 01:51:14.335
But those are some of the main talking points that we usually talk about. And student loans.

01:51:15.036 --> 01:51:18.747
I want to keep throwing in student loans because, yes.

01:51:19.952 --> 01:51:20.712
Yeah, well...

01:51:22.938 --> 01:51:29.879
Excuse me, it doesn't surprise me about either one of those coming from your background,

01:51:30.820 --> 01:51:37.901
because you touch on financial stability, and then you're talking about basic

01:51:37.901 --> 01:51:40.434
human stability when you're talking about education.

01:51:41.121 --> 01:51:45.109
You know, it's just fascinating to me that all these intellectual people.

01:51:46.187 --> 01:51:50.571
You know, can figure out, okay, well, these computers have to network with each

01:51:50.571 --> 01:51:54.101
other, right? That was the basic concept of the internet, that be able to get

01:51:54.101 --> 01:51:56.073
all these computers to communicate.

01:51:56.653 --> 01:51:59.829
But you forget the fact that you got that model from human beings.

01:52:00.206 --> 01:52:04.271
Human beings have to be able to network and communicate and interact with each

01:52:04.271 --> 01:52:07.381
other in order for society to function.

01:52:08.174 --> 01:52:14.101
And I just think, you know, I think back to when the Roman Catholic Church was

01:52:14.101 --> 01:52:15.967
the political power in the world,

01:52:16.734 --> 01:52:23.467
and there was this era they call scholasticism prior to the Renaissance, right,

01:52:24.416 --> 01:52:31.601
where only the monks and the priests were educated, right?

01:52:31.601 --> 01:52:37.451
And only they could write the scriptures, you know, rewrite the scriptures.

01:52:37.871 --> 01:52:42.537
Only they could write theology and all that. And when Martin Luther said,

01:52:43.176 --> 01:52:46.509
if some of us were supposed to speak German, we'd like to be able to do that too.

01:52:47.060 --> 01:52:53.011
You know, that was radical because they wanted to contain information.

01:52:53.011 --> 01:52:55.583
I look at all these people now in technology.

01:52:56.184 --> 01:53:00.515
I mean, Elon Musk just became the first trillionaire over the week.

01:53:01.323 --> 01:53:05.387
But it's like all these people in technology are just...

01:53:06.551 --> 01:53:09.994
You know, narrowing, the group is small.

01:53:10.642 --> 01:53:14.781
You know what I'm saying? You've got those folks at Apple, those folks at Google

01:53:14.781 --> 01:53:21.461
and all that, but it's not, not everybody in America even has broadband,

01:53:21.461 --> 01:53:23.911
let alone knows how to code, right?

01:53:24.825 --> 01:53:29.551
So it just seems like it's that same era again where only a small group of people

01:53:29.551 --> 01:53:35.980
have the knowledge to advance technology and not everybody else has access to it.

01:53:36.467 --> 01:53:42.891
And when you have children that can't read at a level and, you know,

01:53:42.891 --> 01:53:46.916
you have people that are struggling to pay for their education,

01:53:47.603 --> 01:53:49.411
you're going to keep that gap narrow.

01:53:49.411 --> 01:53:53.404
So it just, you know, there's nothing new under the sun.

01:53:53.903 --> 01:53:59.031
It might be a different avenue of how that behavior is exposed,

01:53:59.031 --> 01:54:06.091
but it's just the same to me. So I'm glad that you talked in depth about the

01:54:06.091 --> 01:54:07.803
importance of literacy and all that.

01:54:08.387 --> 01:54:10.871
All right. So go ahead. You want to say something?

01:54:11.608 --> 01:54:14.823
Oh, no, I was just agreeing that it is very important. Yeah.

01:54:15.382 --> 01:54:18.266
All right. So I'm going to shift it to a different direction. Okay.

01:54:19.071 --> 01:54:23.807
In March 1968, FBI COINTELPRO,

01:54:24.451 --> 01:54:30.311
memo stated that the program's goal was to prevent a coalition of militant black

01:54:30.311 --> 01:54:35.821
nationalist groups to prevent the rise of a messiah who could unify the militant

01:54:35.821 --> 01:54:37.138
black nationalist movement.

01:54:37.834 --> 01:54:42.141
To pinpoint potential troublemakers and neutralize them before they exercise

01:54:42.141 --> 01:54:44.713
their potential for violence against authorities.

01:54:47.209 --> 01:54:52.161
To prevent militant black nationalist groups and leaders from gaining respectability

01:54:52.161 --> 01:55:01.082
by discrediting them to both the responsible community and to liberals who have vestiges of sympathy.

01:55:01.716 --> 01:55:05.895
And to prevent the long-range growth of militant Black organizations,

01:55:06.475 --> 01:55:07.845
especially among youth.

01:55:09.188 --> 01:55:14.961
So my question out of all that is, do you think that Black people need a messiah,

01:55:15.327 --> 01:55:19.424
especially in these political turbulent times? No.

01:55:20.808 --> 01:55:25.122
My immediate answer was no. So I'm going to say no.

01:55:27.146 --> 01:55:36.018
I honestly cringed also at the idea of there being, I guess like,

01:55:36.018 --> 01:55:38.757
you know when, okay, so there's the Black Panther Party.

01:55:39.825 --> 01:55:47.698
So now currently, someone then doing the Black Panther Party again with like

01:55:47.698 --> 01:55:53.628
afros and wearing the panther and marching and stuff.

01:55:55.246 --> 01:56:00.872
That makes me cringe. Honestly, it makes me cringe because,

01:56:01.534 --> 01:56:07.898
I still feel like there's a level of privilege that we currently have as African

01:56:07.898 --> 01:56:10.892
Americans that our predecessors did not have.

01:56:11.720 --> 01:56:15.132
And people were literally willing to sacrifice their life.

01:56:16.499 --> 01:56:20.644
I don't know if people are necessarily willing to die for it.

01:56:21.289 --> 01:56:24.957
And I always say that because I'm not necessarily willing to die for it.

01:56:25.573 --> 01:56:32.639
I am willing to put out things, literature, and means to people that ignites

01:56:32.639 --> 01:56:34.890
and invigorates people to think differently.

01:56:35.561 --> 01:56:39.831
But I'm not necessarily willing to go in front and die.

01:56:40.679 --> 01:56:46.559
I'm not. And me as an activist, I have to be cognizant of that.

01:56:46.902 --> 01:56:52.099
But I do know the repercussions of me spreading knowledge, but I wouldn't go

01:56:52.539 --> 01:56:59.110
out with the intent of knowing that my radicalized mind means that I'm going to just die for it.

01:56:59.452 --> 01:57:10.680
I'm just, no, that sort of perspective has already been within my lineage.

01:57:10.947 --> 01:57:14.685
So I still, of course, have a piece of that fire within me,

01:57:15.318 --> 01:57:20.529
but I'm catalyzing it completely different because of what I have seen,

01:57:20.529 --> 01:57:26.389
because of what I have felt, because what I have known, that my lineage,

01:57:26.389 --> 01:57:28.149
what they have sacrificed.

01:57:28.830 --> 01:57:33.395
And knowing that sacrifice from my lineage looks different.

01:57:34.339 --> 01:57:41.464
It looks like my mother working three jobs throughout my childhood to be able to provide for me.

01:57:41.911 --> 01:57:47.259
That's a Black Messiah. She sacrificed for me as her only child to be able to

01:57:47.259 --> 01:57:54.059
put me through school, to be able for me to have all the fruits and vegetables that I desire,

01:57:54.640 --> 01:58:00.875
every type of orange, every type of peach, anything that I want, sacrifice.

01:58:02.428 --> 01:58:05.994
Her pushing me to get my education because she has her education,

01:58:06.633 --> 01:58:10.538
because her parents didn't necessarily have the education that she had because

01:58:10.538 --> 01:58:11.770
they didn't go to college.

01:58:12.124 --> 01:58:16.048
And then my lineage before that, they didn't go to college. And then my lineage

01:58:16.048 --> 01:58:19.793
before that didn't even graduate from high school.

01:58:20.060 --> 01:58:24.815
My lineage before that were sharecroppers. My lineage before that was enslaved.

01:58:25.326 --> 01:58:31.420
So sacrifice runs through my veins. It runs through my blood. This is what I do.

01:58:31.681 --> 01:58:35.152
This is what I am as a Black woman, as a Black person.

01:58:35.599 --> 01:58:37.776
We sacrifice on a day-to-day basis.

01:58:38.512 --> 01:58:45.048
So with knowing that, I carry the energy of being my own Black Messiah because

01:58:45.048 --> 01:58:48.278
of me knowing where I have came from.

01:58:48.452 --> 01:58:52.649
So it's super important that we understand the Messiah within us,

01:58:53.383 --> 01:58:57.168
and we understand the interconnectedness and the power that we have bestowed

01:58:57.168 --> 01:59:02.032
within us, just with our faith and our spiritual connection.

01:59:02.707 --> 01:59:11.908
And I would also say that the shackles of bondage may not be for the masses

01:59:11.908 --> 01:59:15.672
as physically enchained, but it is,

01:59:16.382 --> 01:59:18.791
a mental bondage.

01:59:19.308 --> 01:59:22.098
Just like Carter G. Woodson said, if you control a man's actions,

01:59:22.098 --> 01:59:24.066
you can control a man's thoughts.

01:59:24.788 --> 01:59:28.988
Now we have these devices where we are addicted to, and I'm not going to lie.

01:59:28.988 --> 01:59:31.316
You know, I spent quite some time scrolling.

01:59:31.717 --> 01:59:36.622
Hey, I'm enslaved now. I've been spent about eight hours just.

01:59:38.781 --> 01:59:45.917
Scrolling through all the reels, having a good time. I am now mentally enslaved to my phone.

01:59:46.143 --> 01:59:53.515
Your phone is a portal to a whole nother realm of life that does not necessarily exist.

01:59:54.247 --> 01:59:58.496
Because if you put the phone down, the reality that exists in the phone does not exist.

01:59:59.292 --> 02:00:04.110
It only becomes an existence when you yourself open it up.

02:00:05.211 --> 02:00:10.791
So I would say, especially like the, I would also say in 2021,

02:00:11.591 --> 02:00:16.884
well, in 2020 and 2021, if you were a Black person and you had your phone,

02:00:17.446 --> 02:00:20.592
you were seeing trauma porn, as I would like to call it.

02:00:21.144 --> 02:00:26.963
Just trauma, just people dying on your phone.

02:00:28.022 --> 02:00:33.391
Now I'm being radicalized from a whole nother point because it was COVID.

02:00:33.954 --> 02:00:41.421
Now I'm just on my phone idly and I'm just seeing black bodies on my phone now

02:00:41.421 --> 02:00:44.937
I have to relive the trauma,

02:00:46.026 --> 02:00:51.181
of sacrifice of what my lineage has already been through which I've already

02:00:51.181 --> 02:00:57.599
been told this this is this is also the historical narrative of what I am being told about myself,

02:00:58.371 --> 02:01:05.598
because in history classes, they usually start with slavery and they end with the civil rights.

02:01:06.928 --> 02:01:12.221
Well, okay. Well, thanks for letting us know that we were able to uprise,

02:01:12.221 --> 02:01:15.391
but where is the upliftment?

02:01:16.105 --> 02:01:21.260
The upliftment cannot just be in forms of resistance.

02:01:21.881 --> 02:01:25.111
I think that narrative is so bad.

02:01:25.997 --> 02:01:28.539
That is so bad and limiting.

02:01:29.871 --> 02:01:36.482
I feel chills in my body to know that that is the way that people literally

02:01:36.627 --> 02:01:42.073
think that, well, y'all created y'all own to resist.

02:01:42.439 --> 02:01:45.643
And that's the happy moment that we're talking about.

02:01:46.538 --> 02:01:52.048
Our stories are far more greater than a 20 span of history.

02:01:53.327 --> 02:01:59.178
Even a 400 span of history. So I totally forgot the question at this point,

02:01:59.434 --> 02:02:01.849
but I hope that answers your question.

02:02:02.085 --> 02:02:04.169
Well, no, you answered it.

02:02:04.436 --> 02:02:11.648
And so the cool thing about that whole Black Messiah thing,

02:02:12.411 --> 02:02:15.500
there was a theologian who wrote a book called The Black Messiah,

02:02:15.738 --> 02:02:21.919
And it was in response to, even though COINTELPRO was still a secret,

02:02:22.703 --> 02:02:26.331
as far as in the general public, the actual documents and all that,

02:02:27.069 --> 02:02:30.997
people that were in tune knew what was happening, right?

02:02:30.997 --> 02:02:35.927
And knew and, you know, lived and was, you know, this guy wrote this book two

02:02:35.927 --> 02:02:41.460
years after Dr. King died, and literally two years after this report was put out.

02:02:42.185 --> 02:02:47.433
But he was a theologian, and his argument was, we already had a black Messiah,

02:02:47.694 --> 02:02:49.854
those of us who are Christian, and that was Jesus.

02:02:50.387 --> 02:02:54.347
And so we need to get y'all in the mindset to understand that Jesus was black.

02:02:55.307 --> 02:03:00.875
So we didn't need a Martin Luther King. We didn't need a Malcolm X to be elevated

02:03:01.159 --> 02:03:03.754
because we already had a Messiah.

02:03:04.482 --> 02:03:09.937
But it brought up a lot of discussion about how we push people out,

02:03:09.937 --> 02:03:13.319
how we feel that we need to have this one voice.

02:03:13.909 --> 02:03:18.477
And one of the cool things about the Black Lives Movement was that when reporters

02:03:18.477 --> 02:03:22.187
would come up to ask them, well, who's the spokesperson for the group?

02:03:22.187 --> 02:03:24.202
Who's who's the leader and all that?

02:03:24.488 --> 02:03:27.697
Because reporters will check out who's given the speeches and then they'll say,

02:03:27.697 --> 02:03:29.387
OK, well, that's got to be the person.

02:03:29.974 --> 02:03:33.347
And they were all collectively said, well, we don't have a spokesperson.

02:03:34.033 --> 02:03:38.527
You know, we don't have a leader. And their argument was, you're not going to

02:03:38.527 --> 02:03:42.017
single one of us out to take one of us out. Right.

02:03:42.843 --> 02:03:48.143
And so it just seemed like your generation and, and, and, and, and I guess, uh.

02:03:49.277 --> 02:03:54.437
Gen Z mindset is that we don't want you to single out anybody.

02:03:54.437 --> 02:03:56.799
We want you to deal with us as a collective.

02:03:57.291 --> 02:04:01.077
We want you to deal with black people, African-American people,

02:04:01.077 --> 02:04:05.731
not just one person that's going to speak for all of us.

02:04:06.350 --> 02:04:11.257
Because there's really not that magical person. Dr. King took advantage of the

02:04:11.257 --> 02:04:14.280
platform he had. Malcolm took advantage of the platform he had.

02:04:14.610 --> 02:04:18.177
Rosa Parks took advantage of the platform she had, right? Dorothy Height.

02:04:18.485 --> 02:04:26.767
So, I mean, everybody played a part, but, you know, the media created the messianic,

02:04:27.423 --> 02:04:29.856
complex, not necessarily the community.

02:04:30.977 --> 02:04:34.855
And I was glad you mentioned your mom because, you know.

02:04:36.907 --> 02:04:41.867
None of us seek to be martyrs, right? We go out and we say what we need to say.

02:04:41.867 --> 02:04:43.635
We fight for what we believe in.

02:04:44.830 --> 02:04:50.704
And the unfortunate tragedy might be that some of us might die for what we believe in, right?

02:04:51.300 --> 02:04:57.670
But, you know, a mom, when she's having a child, is not thinking about dying.

02:04:57.670 --> 02:05:01.243
She's thinking about this new life that she's creating, right?

02:05:02.288 --> 02:05:10.220
But a woman is more vulnerable at any other point in her life when she is in

02:05:10.220 --> 02:05:15.090
gestation, when she's giving birth. That's that's the weakest a woman is ever

02:05:15.090 --> 02:05:17.116
in life. That's that moment.

02:05:18.001 --> 02:05:21.080
So I just look at it the same way.

02:05:21.080 --> 02:05:24.486
It's like when we put ourselves out there, when we become vulnerable,

02:05:25.730 --> 02:05:31.190
we're out there and we're not necessarily trying to be messiahs or martyrs,

02:05:31.190 --> 02:05:34.160
but we have to put ourselves out there.

02:05:34.160 --> 02:05:39.848
So, yeah, I appreciate that. I figured you'd give me a good response on that one.

02:05:41.442 --> 02:05:47.446
What is your vision of reparations for Black people? Oh, great question. Yes.

02:05:47.632 --> 02:05:51.105
Oh, I actually had a discussion about this.

02:05:51.685 --> 02:06:00.044
It's quite annoyed at the response. But nonetheless, I feel like reparations should be afforded to,

02:06:00.793 --> 02:06:07.320
those individuals that were a part of shadow slavery, or better yet,

02:06:07.320 --> 02:06:12.490
were former sharecroppers and their lineage from the individuals that were sharecroppers.

02:06:12.841 --> 02:06:15.023
I feel like it's important to start there.

02:06:16.780 --> 02:06:22.971
And I feel like it should be individuals that were in the United States of America.

02:06:23.312 --> 02:06:27.460
As much as I understand the aspect of,

02:06:28.357 --> 02:06:30.840
focusing on our brothers and sisters

02:06:30.840 --> 02:06:36.355
across the diaspora, I feel like it's definitely important to afford,

02:06:37.063 --> 02:06:45.843
the lineage that were the literal byproducts of shadow slavery and their economic residuals.

02:06:46.488 --> 02:06:50.850
Because they were never afforded to them to begin with. And there has been various

02:06:50.850 --> 02:06:57.510
groups that have received reparations outside of African-American descendants

02:06:57.672 --> 02:06:59.808
that have received reparations,

02:07:00.292 --> 02:07:04.196
and have not been individuals of the country.

02:07:05.200 --> 02:07:09.332
They may have fled to the country and still were able to receive reparations.

02:07:09.977 --> 02:07:19.643
So I definitely will place everything on African Americans receiving reparations.

02:07:19.997 --> 02:07:23.340
They are doing a reparation project.

02:07:23.800 --> 02:07:26.766
I know of in San Francisco, they're doing one.

02:07:27.236 --> 02:07:31.260
And it's based upon if you lived in San Francisco,

02:07:32.040 --> 02:07:36.729
I believe, like, I can't remember if it was the 1960s or 1964,

02:07:37.229 --> 02:07:44.657
but you had to have lived and been a resident for X amount of years and things like that. which is.

02:07:46.904 --> 02:07:52.870
I appreciate the gesture, but also at the same time, it's probably not going far back enough.

02:07:53.318 --> 02:07:59.120
Rather, it's stopping at a midpoint of, again, the civil rights era when those

02:07:59.120 --> 02:08:04.256
aren't, they're byproducts of enslavement, but not necessarily to the far back,

02:08:04.724 --> 02:08:06.548
point of sharecropping.

02:08:07.515 --> 02:08:09.008
But also at the same time,

02:08:10.306 --> 02:08:12.426
I think even.

02:08:14.666 --> 02:08:22.033
I guess, making the reparations state-based,

02:08:23.120 --> 02:08:29.696
I don't feel like we've talked about that enough in terms of making reparations state-based.

02:08:31.166 --> 02:08:38.568
Because people migrate. Like what if I moved from San Francisco in 1961,

02:08:39.551 --> 02:08:44.466
but my lineage is from there because there was a thing called the Great Migration

02:08:44.466 --> 02:08:46.686
and the Second Great Migration.

02:08:46.686 --> 02:08:51.353
So people were not staying in their designated areas.

02:08:51.972 --> 02:08:59.573
So how do you even like designate a specific year if people were fleeing?

02:09:00.283 --> 02:09:05.466
So that is just like various questions, but I think the consensus should definitely

02:09:05.466 --> 02:09:07.664
be African-Americans focused.

02:09:08.450 --> 02:09:15.106
Yeah. You know, that's interesting. You know, I follow, you know,

02:09:15.446 --> 02:09:17.824
on Twitter X, whatever you want to call it.

02:09:18.358 --> 02:09:23.890
You know, there's a lot of debate about who should get reparations and all that.

02:09:24.546 --> 02:09:25.976
And then somebody did a study and

02:09:25.976 --> 02:09:30.531
just said basically nine out of every 10 African-Americans were qualified.

02:09:31.822 --> 02:09:37.232
For reparations. So my argument is, why are we upset about 10%?

02:09:37.232 --> 02:09:39.918
Why would we even care? You know what I'm saying?

02:09:41.702 --> 02:09:45.252
If it's that many people that qualify, then let's get off of that issue.

02:09:45.252 --> 02:09:48.333
Let's focus in on what it should be.

02:09:48.954 --> 02:09:52.832
And in California, I remember when they first started talking about in San Francisco,

02:09:52.832 --> 02:09:56.182
the NAACP president, because they talked about giving a check,

02:09:56.182 --> 02:09:58.246
I think for like five million dollars or something like that,

02:09:59.018 --> 02:10:06.892
and and the president of NAACP said I don't want a check I want better education

02:10:06.892 --> 02:10:11.774
I want better housing opportunities I want this he went through a whole litany of things,

02:10:12.337 --> 02:10:15.820
and so that's why I ask people when we get into discussion what,

02:10:16.762 --> 02:10:21.572
what is your vision of reparations right I anytime I get into discussion I always

02:10:21.572 --> 02:10:23.652
think about the Dave Chappelle skit, right?

02:10:23.652 --> 02:10:28.852
And I just, you know, I laugh and chuckle because we all know that's the extreme.

02:10:28.852 --> 02:10:32.682
That's not going to happen, but it just, you know.

02:10:35.742 --> 02:10:42.612
I really like figuring out how I have an idea of what I think reparations should look like.

02:10:43.214 --> 02:10:46.946
I always want to reach out to other people when we get into the discussion,

02:10:47.661 --> 02:10:57.232
you know what how they envision reparations and and all that stuff yeah yeah i just go ahead,

02:10:57.894 --> 02:11:02.032
sorry i definitely think it should be economic base and whatever somebody wants

02:11:02.032 --> 02:11:05.057
to do with their money they can go do with their money,

02:11:05.733 --> 02:11:09.422
but i feel like it's going to prolong the process saying we need it for this

02:11:09.422 --> 02:11:13.682
we need it for that i don't think everybody else did that for their reparations.

02:11:13.682 --> 02:11:18.682
They just took their reparations and why do we have to specify what we're going

02:11:18.682 --> 02:11:21.335
to do with our money? Like, that's funny.

02:11:22.550 --> 02:11:28.190
That's kind of funny. That's hilarious. I'm sorry, but that's funny.

02:11:28.190 --> 02:11:33.370
It's like an oversteer. Like, hey, you know, I'm going to use 5,000 of it.

02:11:35.814 --> 02:11:39.455
For this. I feel you. I feel you.

02:11:39.948 --> 02:11:43.090
All right, let's close this out. Let's talk about your podcast,

02:11:43.090 --> 02:11:45.516
In Her Sense, and any other projects you've got going on.

02:11:46.131 --> 02:11:52.760
Yes. So I have not done any podcasting in quite some time. I've really been

02:11:52.760 --> 02:11:58.039
delving deep in creative directing and creating a documentary.

02:11:58.318 --> 02:12:00.722
So that's really my focus has been on.

02:12:01.179 --> 02:12:06.171
I had the opportunity of having a fellowship last year in New Orleans,

02:12:06.681 --> 02:12:11.760
so I was able to interview a lot of individuals and discuss the educational,

02:12:12.618 --> 02:12:17.200
histories and legacies of New Orleans and how it has completely shifted the

02:12:17.200 --> 02:12:21.477
K-12 system to 100% public charter school city,

02:12:22.282 --> 02:12:28.425
and how that has impacted nonprofit organizations, former teachers that were a part of.

02:12:29.789 --> 02:12:39.729
Orleans School Parish, and also someone, well, Dr. Leona Tate from New Orleans as well.

02:12:40.390 --> 02:12:46.969
And then I'm also using Oakland's transition to public charter schools as a

02:12:46.969 --> 02:12:51.419
comparative analysis of both things. So that's really what I've been working

02:12:51.419 --> 02:12:53.629
on in terms of creatively.

02:12:54.029 --> 02:12:57.160
So I'm super excited to produce that.

02:12:58.318 --> 02:13:04.799
And I'm also working on some research that pertains to the Black Panther Party's

02:13:04.799 --> 02:13:07.224
mobilization on contemporary education,

02:13:07.851 --> 02:13:12.024
and how their free breakfast program,

02:13:12.617 --> 02:13:21.799
is comparatively similar to the National School Lunch Act that was then produced

02:13:21.799 --> 02:13:25.844
a few years after and then also ratified in 1972.

02:13:26.471 --> 02:13:32.049
So yeah, there's a lot of interconnectedness with my home in Oakland,

02:13:32.049 --> 02:13:37.506
but also how we are preserving educational legacies and how we are looking at. Okay.

02:13:38.137 --> 02:13:41.789
All right. So finish this sentence. I have hope because...

02:13:44.246 --> 02:13:50.900
I have hope because the sun greets me every morning. Okay. All right.

02:13:50.900 --> 02:13:52.244
Turn to the point. I got you.

02:13:54.678 --> 02:14:00.193
So if people want to reach out to you, if people want to talk with you about,

02:14:00.640 --> 02:14:04.694
some things, get you to speak, whatever, how can people reach out to you?

02:14:05.061 --> 02:14:10.464
They can reach out to me on Instagram, my personal profile, Authentically Deja,

02:14:10.899 --> 02:14:14.701
or on my podcast profile, In Her Sense.

02:14:15.405 --> 02:14:21.151
Okay. Well, Dehjah, Vaughn, I knew this was going to be a great interview.

02:14:21.883 --> 02:14:24.254
Thank you, Sir. And so I thank you for that.

02:14:25.560 --> 02:14:31.781
I always try to get people that are smarter than me, which is not really that hard to do. Oh, please.

02:14:33.640 --> 02:14:38.874
But I thank you for coming on. And since you mentioned this documentary project,

02:14:39.026 --> 02:14:42.810
I have to mention the rule that now that you've been a guest,

02:14:42.810 --> 02:14:44.500
you have an open invitation to come back.

02:14:44.500 --> 02:14:48.256
So you don't even have to wait for me to reach out to you if you want to,

02:14:48.886 --> 02:14:52.380
you know, when the documentary is finished, for example, and you want to promote

02:14:52.380 --> 02:14:59.160
it or whatever, just reach out and we'll get you on. But it's been really, really cool to talk to.

02:14:59.660 --> 02:15:02.039
And again, thank you for coming on the podcast.

02:15:02.818 --> 02:15:06.329
Thank you very much. All right, guys. And we're going to catch you all on the other side.

02:15:18.625 --> 02:15:24.442
All right. We are back. And so I want to thank Crystal FitzSimons,

02:15:25.160 --> 02:15:30.019
Pauline Steinhorn, and Dehjah Vaughn for coming on to the podcast.

02:15:30.664 --> 02:15:33.484
I hope that you learned a lot from each one of them.

02:15:34.284 --> 02:15:40.473
With Crystal, I greatly appreciate the work that she's doing to make sure that,

02:15:41.272 --> 02:15:43.669
you know, hunger in America is addressed.

02:15:44.413 --> 02:15:49.235
Again, we're sitting here acknowledging the fact that there is a human being

02:15:49.235 --> 02:15:51.682
on the planet that is worth a trillion dollars.

02:15:52.408 --> 02:15:59.645
And yet there are people in that same country in America that are trying to

02:15:59.645 --> 02:16:00.596
figure out what they're going to eat.

02:16:01.317 --> 02:16:06.165
So I'm glad that there are people like Crystal FitzSimons out there that it's

02:16:06.165 --> 02:16:10.992
working to make sure that hunger in America is eventually eradicated.

02:16:11.299 --> 02:16:12.884
And then Pauline Steinhorn.

02:16:13.971 --> 02:16:18.827
Beautiful person who wrote a beautiful book about her mom and her grandmother

02:16:19.089 --> 02:16:23.691
and how they survived the Holocaust is really, really a good book.

02:16:23.691 --> 02:16:26.678
It's really well written.

02:16:27.382 --> 02:16:32.521
And even though Pauline basically says she was more of an editor than a writer

02:16:32.521 --> 02:16:36.618
with this, the way that she composed it and put it together,

02:16:37.330 --> 02:16:42.731
you feel like you were there and you could feel the emotions and the pain that

02:16:42.731 --> 02:16:46.615
her mom and her grandma went through. So I encourage everybody to do that.

02:16:47.224 --> 02:16:53.961
And Dehjah Vaughn, beautiful spirit, beautiful sister that, as you could tell

02:16:53.961 --> 02:16:59.350
from the interview, very thoughtful, very creative, and down for the cause.

02:16:59.554 --> 02:17:05.491
And that is the name that I believe you will hear, not just in the Atlanta area,

02:17:05.491 --> 02:17:08.411
but nationwide down the road.

02:17:09.158 --> 02:17:17.741
You know, she is an embodiment of black millennials as far as how they process

02:17:17.741 --> 02:17:22.577
the history that we've been through and as far as,

02:17:23.243 --> 02:17:28.808
you know, the mindset of what direction this country should go. Right.

02:17:29.720 --> 02:17:35.731
So I I've been communicating with the sister for a number of years and to finally

02:17:35.731 --> 02:17:37.991
get on a podcast is really, really a treat.

02:17:38.670 --> 02:17:41.253
So I thank all three of those young ladies for coming on.

02:17:42.314 --> 02:17:47.601
I want to read something to you because it's relevant to what's been happening

02:17:47.601 --> 02:17:53.102
the last couple of weeks in the judicial system, dealing with young black men.

02:17:53.735 --> 02:17:57.478
And it was written by this woman named Karen Fleshman.

02:17:58.122 --> 02:18:06.011
She's an attorney and we're connected on LinkedIn, but she wrote a commentary about,

02:18:07.382 --> 02:18:12.372
been able to get on a podcast yet, but we'll see how that works out.

02:18:12.372 --> 02:18:16.758
But she wrote something that caught my attention, and I wanted to share it with you all.

02:18:17.481 --> 02:18:21.567
She said, 11 years ago this month, I published White People.

02:18:22.350 --> 02:18:25.009
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.

02:18:25.570 --> 02:18:30.622
In response to a white man's massacre of nine beloved community members of Mother

02:18:30.622 --> 02:18:34.109
Emanuel, of Black Church in Charleston, South Carolina.

02:18:34.693 --> 02:18:38.652
It grieves me to this day that in their final moments on this earth,

02:18:39.266 --> 02:18:42.052
they welcomed him into their Bible study.

02:18:43.054 --> 02:18:48.982
I thought then that this horrific hate crime would cause white people in mosques

02:18:48.982 --> 02:18:52.278
to look ourselves in the mirror and change.

02:18:52.916 --> 02:18:57.089
I thought in particular, white parents would endeavor to raise better children.

02:18:57.709 --> 02:19:04.612
11 years later, even after the mass uprising of 2020 and anti-racism books read, here we are.

02:19:05.145 --> 02:19:10.922
Last week, a jury acquitted Rick Chow of murder in the death of Cyrus Carmack

02:19:10.922 --> 02:19:15.165
Belton, 14-year-old black boy who was running away from Chow's store,

02:19:15.670 --> 02:19:19.199
shot in the back over a bottle of water he did not take.

02:19:19.990 --> 02:19:24.541
Yesterday, a jury in Frisco, Texas, sentenced Carmelo Anthony,

02:19:24.756 --> 02:19:30.682
19 years old and black, to 35 years for the death of a white teenager after

02:19:30.682 --> 02:19:32.324
a fight at a high school track meet.

02:19:33.110 --> 02:19:38.095
The prosecution struck every black juror who could have sat in judgment of him.

02:19:38.538 --> 02:19:41.441
The jury that remained needed less than three hours.

02:19:42.194 --> 02:19:47.587
After all the book clubs and black squares and promises, a Collin County courtroom

02:19:47.964 --> 02:19:52.597
still could not seat a single Black person to weigh the life of a Black child.

02:19:53.154 --> 02:19:56.609
This is what I meant when I said part of the problem.

02:19:57.134 --> 02:20:01.722
Not only the men who kill, the ordinary white people who build the rooms,

02:20:01.722 --> 02:20:05.186
fill the juries, raise the children, and call neutral.

02:20:06.337 --> 02:20:09.956
And Medcalf's family lost a son, and I will not diminish their grief,

02:20:10.657 --> 02:20:15.940
but a system that can't imagine a Black teenager as anything other than a threat is not justice.

02:20:16.587 --> 02:20:20.598
It is the same fear that has been killing Black people for 400 plus years,

02:20:21.102 --> 02:20:23.418
wearing a robe and calling itself the law.

02:20:24.022 --> 02:20:26.054
And the only way that fear ends

02:20:26.257 --> 02:20:30.965
is if we white people recognize that it is wrong and not feel it anymore.

02:20:31.673 --> 02:20:38.657
Stop teaching our kids to feel it too. 2026 will be half over in a few days.

02:20:39.382 --> 02:20:44.250
By June 30, you can take tangible steps toward becoming less racist.

02:20:44.709 --> 02:20:49.992
Not someday, not after the next verdict that breaks your heart. Now.

02:20:50.952 --> 02:20:54.644
Again, that was Karen Fleshman who wrote that.

02:20:54.863 --> 02:21:03.176
And, you know, like I said, when I saw that and read that, I was like, perfect.

02:21:03.432 --> 02:21:06.856
That's how it's supposed to go, right?

02:21:08.044 --> 02:21:15.757
But, Ms. Karen, I just want you to know that as much as I agree with what you're

02:21:15.757 --> 02:21:21.184
saying and as much as I hope that your hope comes true,

02:21:22.236 --> 02:21:29.046
I know that it's really, really a reach, especially in the South.

02:21:30.684 --> 02:21:36.988
Develop that kind of mindset, that progressive mindset that's needed to do what needs to be done.

02:21:37.701 --> 02:21:44.104
I say that because, you know, I don't know why I even still follow this person, but, you know,

02:21:45.024 --> 02:21:51.564
he's not the only one, but it's just, you know, this mindset that tries to continue

02:21:51.564 --> 02:21:58.734
to justify the unjustifiable, that continues to defend the indefensible.

02:21:59.610 --> 02:22:06.791
And, you know, people want to say, well, there's no such thing as white privilege,

02:22:07.792 --> 02:22:10.028
but it happens each and every day.

02:22:10.678 --> 02:22:13.047
The news reports it each and every day.

02:22:13.819 --> 02:22:18.694
And whether you want to acknowledge it or not, that's based on the bubble that

02:22:18.694 --> 02:22:25.072
you live in, the ecosystem that you listen to and live in, dwell in.

02:22:25.766 --> 02:22:29.342
But that denial is not the reality that's here.

02:22:30.103 --> 02:22:34.364
And then some would even try to flip it and say, well, black people have privilege.

02:22:34.364 --> 02:22:39.800
And it's like, I don't think you understand the definition of privilege. Right.

02:22:41.704 --> 02:22:46.536
So in the case, you know, where people miss out, they're like saying,

02:22:46.932 --> 02:22:51.914
well, you know, he did stab the kid and why did he bring a knife to attract

02:22:51.914 --> 02:22:53.954
meat and yada, yada, and this, that.

02:22:53.954 --> 02:23:02.476
And the issue is, is that a system allows in this day and age, in the 21st century,

02:23:03.255 --> 02:23:11.014
allows a jury to be sat and not one of those people are from the community where

02:23:11.014 --> 02:23:13.652
the defendant lives, right?

02:23:14.283 --> 02:23:23.169
Or is a part of to think that it's okay to try to charge a young man with murder,

02:23:24.010 --> 02:23:28.815
and not have one black person, not one, sit on the jury.

02:23:30.185 --> 02:23:34.735
You know, we talked about this last week about the prosecution going for the

02:23:34.735 --> 02:23:38.024
home run on Chow in South Carolina.

02:23:38.628 --> 02:23:43.675
Well, this prosecutor did the same thing in Texas, but he made sure that he

02:23:43.675 --> 02:23:46.677
had a jury that would do what he wanted to do.

02:23:47.539 --> 02:23:51.365
And the scary thing is that it was the other way around. It was this young man,

02:23:51.365 --> 02:23:53.547
Metcalf, who killed Mr. Anthony.

02:23:54.532 --> 02:24:01.560
It would still be an all-white jury, and Mr. Metcalf probably would have the same result as Mr. Chow.

02:24:02.381 --> 02:24:06.905
That's what black people are upset about. You know, we're not encouraging our

02:24:06.905 --> 02:24:08.800
kids to carry knives around white people.

02:24:09.305 --> 02:24:12.365
We're not encouraging our kids to get into fights. If anything,

02:24:12.365 --> 02:24:16.725
we're trying to discourage them from engaging in such a way that they could

02:24:16.725 --> 02:24:21.837
get in trouble with the law because we understand how things work, right?

02:24:22.495 --> 02:24:27.494
And it doesn't matter if the town is majority black or whatever the case may be.

02:24:28.114 --> 02:24:33.275
You don't want your children getting caught up in a situation where law enforcement

02:24:33.275 --> 02:24:35.629
is involved one way or the other.

02:24:36.272 --> 02:24:40.411
Right. We don't want them being arrested and we sure don't want them to be a victim.

02:24:41.495 --> 02:24:47.843
And that's a fight that we as black parents had to fight all the time.

02:24:48.542 --> 02:24:52.175
Doesn't matter if the parents don't like each other. It doesn't matter if the

02:24:52.175 --> 02:24:54.953
parents are in the same house or not.

02:24:55.411 --> 02:24:59.921
If you have a black child, you have that fear, right?

02:25:00.310 --> 02:25:09.613
You have that concern because you don't want anything harmful to happen to someone that you love. And.

02:25:11.765 --> 02:25:20.189
As a black parent and having black parents, I understand that totally.

02:25:21.107 --> 02:25:23.695
But other folks don't get it.

02:25:25.307 --> 02:25:32.011
And I think that in order to get it, you've got to get out of this bubble.

02:25:32.914 --> 02:25:36.497
And, you know, when I'm sitting here and, you know, I've been paying attention

02:25:36.497 --> 02:25:45.193
to a lot of historical documentaries and just watching the dynamics of the politics taking place this year.

02:25:45.987 --> 02:25:52.453
There seems to be a correlation with the South and prejudice.

02:25:53.192 --> 02:26:00.674
Now, you don't have to be a political scientist You don't have to be a real scientist,

02:26:01.580 --> 02:26:05.777
I say real, but you know what I'm saying Somebody that's into biology or chemistry

02:26:05.777 --> 02:26:11.969
or mathematics even To see this pattern that has happened in the United States.

02:26:13.080 --> 02:26:19.431
Where even when we were forming the country And putting together the Constitution,

02:26:20.399 --> 02:26:24.957
We were trying to appease the southern states.

02:26:25.769 --> 02:26:31.387
That's where the three-fifths compromise comes from, because the South didn't

02:26:31.387 --> 02:26:35.545
want to pay property taxes because black folks were property, right?

02:26:36.149 --> 02:26:41.169
They want to pay higher property taxes because they had all these slaves.

02:26:41.829 --> 02:26:46.647
But at the same time, they wanted to be rewarded for having this population,

02:26:47.589 --> 02:26:49.185
so they could have political power.

02:26:49.861 --> 02:26:55.374
And so they came up with the idea, well, we're going to consider slaves three-fifths of human.

02:26:56.275 --> 02:27:01.889
That way, they're not treated as citizens, right?

02:27:02.600 --> 02:27:10.327
But they're human enough where the property taxes for these Southern planters,

02:27:10.327 --> 02:27:15.574
these rich plantation owners, would increase that much.

02:27:16.270 --> 02:27:21.422
And that was the buy-off to get the Southern states to sign off on the Constitution. Right?

02:27:24.199 --> 02:27:31.419
Ever since the beginning of this nation, we have had to capitulate to Southern

02:27:31.419 --> 02:27:35.661
white men, especially powerful Southern white men.

02:27:36.759 --> 02:27:44.979
And that led all the way through to the 1850s. It was coming to a head and all

02:27:44.979 --> 02:27:49.825
these new states were coming in. We had to create this Mason-Dixon line, right?

02:27:50.411 --> 02:27:52.247
The Missouri Compromise line.

02:27:53.035 --> 02:27:58.749
So any state north that was admitted to the union of that line was a free state

02:27:58.749 --> 02:28:01.029
and anything south was a slave state.

02:28:01.029 --> 02:28:08.130
And of course, as we went further west, that line wasn't as straight, right?

02:28:08.790 --> 02:28:15.392
Because folks were making money and they didn't want to give up that money and that power, right?

02:28:16.233 --> 02:28:25.527
And then even after a civil war where the North, the Union, beat the Confederates in the South, right,

02:28:26.545 --> 02:28:31.003
you still had a movement in the South that was powerful enough to influence,

02:28:31.868 --> 02:28:33.425
political thought in the North.

02:28:34.524 --> 02:28:39.429
The birth of the nation movie, the United Daughters of the Confederacy putting

02:28:39.429 --> 02:28:43.363
statues everywhere and memorials for Confederates.

02:28:44.977 --> 02:28:50.422
Like anywhere else on the planet where there was a civil war,

02:28:51.214 --> 02:28:54.076
the losers were not memorialized.

02:28:54.998 --> 02:28:59.867
Even if it wasn't a civil war, even if it was a takeover, once that dictator,

02:28:59.867 --> 02:29:05.637
once that authoritarian regime was removed, so was any symbolism of that.

02:29:06.415 --> 02:29:13.473
Right? We've got people still alive when the Nazis were running Germany.

02:29:14.340 --> 02:29:21.804
And if you go to Germany now, there's no Hitler memorials or Goebbels or anybody else.

02:29:22.292 --> 02:29:31.157
There's no swastika statues in certain parts of the country because they wanted

02:29:31.157 --> 02:29:36.009
to get rid of that symbol and that vestige.

02:29:36.665 --> 02:29:39.607
They know it's a part of their history. You can't erase that.

02:29:39.607 --> 02:29:41.971
There's film. There's books. Everything.

02:29:42.919 --> 02:29:48.415
But as far as day-to-day life and moving forward, they went past that, but not America.

02:29:49.248 --> 02:29:56.397
Somehow we romanticized that, this Confederacy and the South will rise again.

02:29:56.397 --> 02:30:01.487
I mean, I was growing up, Dukes has it, right? The rebel flag on the car,

02:30:01.487 --> 02:30:03.549
the car was called the General Lee.

02:30:04.590 --> 02:30:08.797
It's been a part of our culture, and we've tried to embrace it.

02:30:08.797 --> 02:30:14.310
I mean, you know, college football, we talked about the most dominant conference

02:30:14.583 --> 02:30:17.433
as the SEC, the Southeastern Athletic Conference.

02:30:18.917 --> 02:30:23.517
It's all inbred in America. If you want to win a national championship,

02:30:23.517 --> 02:30:26.287
you're probably going to have to beat a team in the SEC to get there.

02:30:27.123 --> 02:30:30.358
It's looking like now in baseball, that's what's happening.

02:30:30.957 --> 02:30:36.014
Every now and then in basketball, that's what's happening. These are teams in the South, right?

02:30:36.945 --> 02:30:42.155
So when the NAACP or anybody else says these folks want.

02:30:44.637 --> 02:30:51.589
White men to be elected officials, then maybe you really should have all white men playing football.

02:30:52.565 --> 02:30:57.793
They used to be that way down there until a few of them coaches saw some of

02:30:57.793 --> 02:31:04.066
those black athletes playing against them, said we might need a few of them on the team, right?

02:31:04.834 --> 02:31:11.043
So, you know, it's just always been, I mean, you know, Hee Haw was like the

02:31:11.043 --> 02:31:13.217
most popular show, right?

02:31:13.645 --> 02:31:17.383
Grand Ole Opry. That's in the South. That's in Nashville, right?

02:31:17.383 --> 02:31:21.813
And that's all that was. Hee Haw was basically the Grand Ole Opry on national

02:31:21.813 --> 02:31:24.849
television every week. Same thing.

02:31:25.603 --> 02:31:33.208
So the South has always had this incredible romantic hold on the United States.

02:31:34.214 --> 02:31:41.873
But the dangerous part is the politics. It's one thing to embrace country music,

02:31:42.403 --> 02:31:44.173
or even the blues, for that matter.

02:31:44.553 --> 02:31:48.958
It's one thing to embrace barbecue and all that stuff.

02:31:49.382 --> 02:31:54.383
But it's a whole other thing to embrace the racism, right? If there's one part

02:31:54.383 --> 02:32:01.034
of Southern culture that needs to be eradicated, needs to be ignored, it's the racism.

02:32:01.964 --> 02:32:05.539
That's got to end. This country is going to move forward.

02:32:05.695 --> 02:32:10.586
And there's a little correlation with that. It's like how many Southern,

02:32:11.381 --> 02:32:16.877
in modern times since the Civil War, how many Southern presidents have we had, right?

02:32:17.493 --> 02:32:20.395
People say, well, you know, Virginia's in the South, whatever.

02:32:21.852 --> 02:32:26.562
In my lifetime, it's only been two. Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton.

02:32:27.493 --> 02:32:32.027
You've had Southerners run. Lindsey Graham ran for president, right?

02:32:32.888 --> 02:32:35.759
Ron DeSantis ran for president. right?

02:32:36.819 --> 02:32:42.086
George Wallace ran for president. Strom Thurmond, but not only one.

02:32:44.782 --> 02:32:50.313
Didn't win. Now, George Bush beat them, so you had two Confederate states,

02:32:51.015 --> 02:32:52.820
you know, having candidates.

02:32:53.602 --> 02:32:58.165
And, you know, outside, well, Texas, if you count Texas, then you got Bush,

02:32:58.420 --> 02:33:00.638
the Bushes, Lyndon Johnson.

02:33:01.681 --> 02:33:08.554
So, you know, outside of Texas, you don't get that many, if any.

02:33:09.481 --> 02:33:13.312
So that's kind of a backhanded way, and especially as Democrats, right?

02:33:14.129 --> 02:33:20.461
So that's kind of a backhanded way society has said, well, it's all right for

02:33:20.461 --> 02:33:26.336
y'all to do this and to influence us on that and how you deal with black folks, all this stuff.

02:33:27.118 --> 02:33:28.778
We don't necessarily want you to be president.

02:33:29.961 --> 02:33:35.769
But then you get a president like Ronald Reagan or a president like Donald Trump

02:33:35.937 --> 02:33:44.428
that does everything they can to cater to whatever that Southern white political thought is. Right.

02:33:45.438 --> 02:33:51.527
And I know that's a generalization. Living in Mississippi, living in Georgia,

02:33:52.181 --> 02:33:56.390
I know there's good white people in the South. I know that.

02:33:57.341 --> 02:34:01.051
But they tend to run as Democrats and they tend to get their brains beat out.

02:34:01.894 --> 02:34:05.788
Georgia is changing because of Atlanta, period.

02:34:06.347 --> 02:34:14.000
You know, outside of that, there's no other equivalent to Atlanta in any other Southern state.

02:34:14.725 --> 02:34:19.701
The only thing that can happen is what's happening this election year and that

02:34:19.701 --> 02:34:21.215
people are just frustrated.

02:34:21.660 --> 02:34:25.141
And, you know, when they get tired and they just say, well, look,

02:34:25.141 --> 02:34:28.003
man, I got to vote my wallet this election.

02:34:28.772 --> 02:34:34.214
I think I read a quote from Einstein to Mr. Simons, you know,

02:34:34.509 --> 02:34:40.187
an empty stomach is not a good way to dictate politics, but that happens.

02:34:41.799 --> 02:34:48.769
And we're going to see a shift in the House and in the Senate after this midterm.

02:34:49.798 --> 02:34:52.714
But will we see change?

02:34:53.887 --> 02:35:01.309
There's a difference. You see the parties switching and one minute the Democrats

02:35:01.309 --> 02:35:04.059
are in charge and the next minute the Republicans are in charge.

02:35:04.059 --> 02:35:06.764
But where's the change coming from?

02:35:07.683 --> 02:35:13.055
And that goes back to this whole concept of the South.

02:35:14.102 --> 02:35:17.168
I like sweet tea. I like fried chicken.

02:35:17.868 --> 02:35:23.719
All those are Southern tradition, right? What I don't like, the one Southern

02:35:23.719 --> 02:35:27.410
tradition that we need to stop practicing is racism.

02:35:28.284 --> 02:35:34.292
And once we get that out of our system, once we get that drug out of our system,

02:35:35.157 --> 02:35:36.917
America will be so much better.

02:35:37.652 --> 02:35:45.459
Because when you go to places where activism and progressivism is more powerful

02:35:45.459 --> 02:35:50.440
than racism, you see productive activity.

02:35:51.002 --> 02:35:53.055
You see growth, right?

02:35:53.898 --> 02:35:58.433
That's why Atlanta is an anomaly. Charlotte, right?

02:35:59.388 --> 02:36:02.399
But people are trying to take it. They're trying to claw it back.

02:36:02.399 --> 02:36:03.700
They're trying to get us...

02:36:05.673 --> 02:36:10.500
Say to the good old boys and just say, you know, that just ain't right.

02:36:11.456 --> 02:36:17.473
What ain't right is thinking that a belief system that enslaved people,

02:36:17.473 --> 02:36:23.904
that segregated people, that dehumanized people should be romanticized, glorified,

02:36:24.693 --> 02:36:27.296
and continued, right?

02:36:27.905 --> 02:36:33.914
Because, you know, people say, well, we need to make America great again.

02:36:34.704 --> 02:36:37.479
And the black community said, we just need to make America great.

02:36:38.510 --> 02:36:44.622
Because if you have a mindset that the only way America can be the best is that

02:36:44.727 --> 02:36:50.238
white people are in charge, that's not a winning strategy.

02:36:51.134 --> 02:36:57.448
We are losing our standing in the world because of that mindset. it.

02:36:58.353 --> 02:37:02.535
For those people who don't believe in the Bible and all that stuff, I get it.

02:37:03.317 --> 02:37:08.083
But those of us who do think Jesus is going to show up any minute now because

02:37:08.083 --> 02:37:10.254
all the stuff in Revelation is happening.

02:37:11.073 --> 02:37:15.010
War and pestilence and plagues and all this stuff.

02:37:16.066 --> 02:37:22.966
That's a curse. That's not a concept. That's not a culture. That's a curse.

02:37:23.774 --> 02:37:30.560
And until we break that cycle, we're never going to be what we should be.

02:37:31.522 --> 02:37:35.557
Every child in America should be valued. Everyone.

02:37:36.434 --> 02:37:41.685
No matter their economic status, no matter their ethnicity, upbringing, whatever.

02:37:43.411 --> 02:37:48.361
Our future, that's our investment as human beings for the next generation to

02:37:48.361 --> 02:37:51.119
be better than what we were, right?

02:37:51.841 --> 02:38:00.390
But because we're caught up in this culture of privilege and isms,

02:38:01.338 --> 02:38:05.901
we are literally seeing back-to-back generations that are not doing better than us.

02:38:06.762 --> 02:38:11.531
They're struggling. You heard Deja talking about what's the most pressing issue?

02:38:11.531 --> 02:38:13.619
These student loans, right?

02:38:14.282 --> 02:38:18.508
Then you got some, well, I didn't get a student loan. You didn't go to college.

02:38:19.544 --> 02:38:24.734
So why are you even in that discussion? Well, I got to pay it back. How?

02:38:25.754 --> 02:38:31.066
We've had this discussion before. If I say the debt no longer exists,

02:38:31.985 --> 02:38:36.531
then the debt no longer exists. It's not a burden on you or me. It's over with.

02:38:37.517 --> 02:38:41.661
Well, that's money that we lost. No, that's an investment. Dwight D.

02:38:41.661 --> 02:38:46.361
Eisenhower said that student loans is part of national security.

02:38:46.361 --> 02:38:48.357
That's how he created the program.

02:38:48.997 --> 02:38:51.559
You've heard me say that. That's a fact.

02:38:52.638 --> 02:39:00.231
He wanted student loans for people to be in STEM because in his wartime military

02:39:00.231 --> 02:39:05.621
experience, he saw technology up close him personal.

02:39:05.621 --> 02:39:11.731
He dealt with those Germans who had built the Autobahn and were building rockets

02:39:11.731 --> 02:39:17.234
and the latest in air warfare and tank warfare.

02:39:17.752 --> 02:39:19.180
That's what we were up against.

02:39:19.929 --> 02:39:23.475
We just beat them because we mass produced what we could.

02:39:24.337 --> 02:39:30.874
We had the manpower and the willpower and the buy-in, but we weren't technologically advanced.

02:39:31.508 --> 02:39:34.625
That didn't happen until we made the investment in NASA.

02:39:36.425 --> 02:39:41.815
He said, we're going to the moon. And now Elon Musk is a trillionaire because

02:39:41.815 --> 02:39:46.435
we advocated that to private industry. All I know is this.

02:39:47.479 --> 02:39:53.863
We've got to be real about who we are. We've got to look in the mirror like Ms. Fleshman did.

02:39:54.858 --> 02:39:59.789
And we've got to change our ways.

02:40:00.601 --> 02:40:05.435
We've got to change our mindset. it. And when we do that, I promise you,

02:40:05.574 --> 02:40:12.571
when we do that, America will be amazing. It'll be beyond great. It'll be amazing.

02:40:13.601 --> 02:40:18.600
But we got to get people to buy into that. We got to get people to believe in that.

02:40:19.381 --> 02:40:23.400
We got to instill that in our children. Don't teach them fear.

02:40:24.053 --> 02:40:26.834
Teach them hope. Teach them promise.

02:40:27.861 --> 02:40:32.165
You don't have to give them participation trophies, but you do have to instill

02:40:32.165 --> 02:40:38.275
in them that there's good in the world, and we need to embrace that and not

02:40:38.275 --> 02:40:42.058
clutch to the pearls of fear and prejudice.

02:40:44.214 --> 02:40:50.385
We need to do better so we won't have outcomes like Mother Emanuel or Topps

02:40:50.385 --> 02:40:57.000
Grocery Store, right, or Carmilla Anthony or Cyrus Cormac Belton.

02:40:57.925 --> 02:41:05.739
We don't Emmett Till, George Floyd. We don't Sandra Bland. We don't need those anymore.

02:41:06.750 --> 02:41:11.634
This election should be the foundation for us to truly move forward.

02:41:13.506 --> 02:41:17.551
People that are not perfect, which is basically everybody running,

02:41:18.263 --> 02:41:21.106
people not perfect get elected? Okay.

02:41:22.152 --> 02:41:29.321
But if they buy into the vision of what America should be, we'll be on the right track.

02:41:29.990 --> 02:41:35.149
Again, Thomas Jefferson was a slaveholder, but his words are what freed them.

02:41:36.114 --> 02:41:41.336
We can do better. We have shown it. We've got a 250-year track record of how

02:41:41.336 --> 02:41:44.402
we've steadily made incremental progress.

02:41:45.279 --> 02:41:49.924
Now is the time for the next 250 years to take it to the next level.

02:41:51.256 --> 02:41:54.875
All right, that's all I got. Thank y'all for listening. Until next time.