Leave Us Alone

0:00 Welcome. I'm Erik Fleming, host of A Moment with Erik Fleming, the podcast of our time. I want to personally thank you for listening to the podcast. If you like what you're hearing, then I need you to do a few things. First, I need subscribers. I'm on Patreon at patreon.com slash amomentwitherikfleming. Your subscription allows an independent podcaster like me the freedom to speak truth to power, and to expand and improve the show. Second, leave a five-star review for the podcast on the streaming service you listen to it. That will help the podcast tremendously. Third, go to the website, momenterik.com. There you can subscribe to the podcast, leave reviews and comments, listen to past episodes, and even learn a little bit about your host.

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2:00 Hello. Welcome to Another Bone with Erik Fleming. I am your host, Erik Fleming. So, I don't have any guests this week, so it's not my fault. You know, and that's, I guess that's just something I have to deal with. But, you know, I think we've gotten to a point where, We've forgotten everything about etiquette and rules and consideration. And that's going to lead to my commentary later on. But from a personal aspect, I think that, you know, if people cannot fulfill obligations, then they should be courteous enough to let you know. Some people did.

2:50 Some people do. Some people don't. and then they take umbrage if you reach out to them to try to find out what happened. You know, I don't know. You know, I was just brought up to be considerate of people's time. What you might not think is important is probably greatly important to the person that you're disrespecting. And, you know, it is what it is. I just think, and that's endemic of the political climate that we're in. I think people have just lost respect. But again, I'll get into that, into the commentary. Right now, just want to reach out to folks.

3:36 And for those of you who do listen and those of you who respect this podcast, please show some support. You know, share with your friends on social media. support the podcast through Patreon or directly on www.momenteric.com. And, you know, and not just my podcast, but other people who have taken the time, and who are putting themselves out there to try to counter what we're seeing on a daily basis. Anyway, so please do that. All right, let's go ahead and kick this off.

4:19 And as always, we kick it off with a moment of news for Grace G. Thanks, Erik. The U.S. Supreme Court's conservative majority weakened a key provision of the Voting Rights Act by blocking a second Black majority district in Louisiana. Governor Jeff Landry suspended Louisiana's May 16th congressional primary to allow the Republican-led legislature to redraw voting boundaries after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the state's map illegal. Florida Republicans approved a new congressional map designed by Governor Ron DeSantis to significantly bolster the GOP's chances of keeping control of the U.S. House.

5:07 President Trump signed a funding bill ending an 11-week partial shutdown for non-immigration-related DHS agencies like the TSA and FEMA, though funding for border enforcement remains excluded from the deal. President Trump and the First Lady were evacuated from the White House Correspondents Association dinner after a gunman opened fire on security personnel at a checkpoint, leading to the suspect's arrest and the event's cancellation. King Charles addressed the U.S. Congress to assert that the U.K. and U.S. Remain steadfast allies dedicated to democracy, even amid significant diplomatic friction regarding the conflict with Iran. The U.S.

5:50 Justice Department has filed criminal charges against former FBI Director James Comey, alleging he threatened President Trump through a social media photo of seashells. Federal prosecutors in Chicago have dropped felony conspiracy charges against four immigration protesters, though the defendants still face misdemeanor charges for their actions at a detention facility. The Trump administration has announced plans to introduce firing squads, electrocution, and gas asphyxiation as alternative federal execution methods. Maine Governor Janet Mills ended her campaign for the United States Senate, citing a lack of financial resources.

6:31 And the U.S. Department of Justice is fast-tracking the reclassification of marijuana to a less restrictive drug category. I am Grace G., and this has been a Moment of News. Thank you, Grace, for that moment of news. And now stay tuned for my hot mic on the Supreme Court decision.

7:20 All right. So I'm back. And so, of course, everybody has been talking about this Supreme Court decision, which has basically put the final nail on the coffin with the Voting Rights Act. Now, when we say that, people can say that's hyperbole because the act is still law. The problem is, is that we have a mindset, especially in the court system, that has been building since 1965 when this passed to figure out a way to take the teeth out of it.

8:03 And one person in particular is the Chief Justice, John Roberts, who it's been his lifelong crusade. It's almost like his whole legal journey has been to be put in a place where he could defang the Voting Rights Act. And he started it in 2013, his first opportunity, and he's been on the court long enough now, the chief justice long enough now, to, as we say, put the final nail on the coffin. What the court did was it basically said that majority-minority congressional districts created with the intent of ensuring minority voters could elect candidates of their choice was unconstitutional.

8:56 It violated the spirit of the 14th and the 15th Amendment. So those were the amendments that gave Black people citizenship and the right to vote, right? And this district that they were talking about was a district that was created because a judge, a federal judge in Louisiana, felt that Black people were not being fairly represented in Congress. Her argument over the basis of her ruling was that one-third of the state's population in Louisiana is black, and they have six congressional districts, and there was only one black congressional district.

9:46 So her instruction was, whatever map that you present from this point forward, because I'm throwing this one out. Whatever map you present has to have the opportunity for two African-Americans to be elected in the state of Louisiana. And so Louisiana did that. They came up with a map which created two black districts. And the 6th District, which is the one that's in question, is almost like a straight line right in the cutting diagonal across the state of Louisiana, right?

10:28 And that created enough of a Black voting age population to elect a Black person to serve in Congress, and that person is serving right now. So the Supreme Court has, over these last few years, figured out a way to, under the guise of constitutional law, figured out a way to carry out an insidious plan that started in a memo in 1972, right? If you don't understand what I'm talking about, look up Powell Memo 1972.

11:13 That's where all this stuff, and by the way, Powell ended up serving on the Supreme Court, this guy. So from that moment, about a year after he wrote the memo, he got appointed to the Supreme Court. So from that moment, that's been the playbook as far as policy, judicial appointments, right? The voting strategy started in 68 after George Wallace secured a lot of Southern whites who were disenfranchised by the Democratic Party because of Lyndon Bain Johnson and the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act.

11:54 And those Democrats switched and became Republicans in the South. And you already had a division between Northern and Southern Democrats anyway. Well, now that division was gone because the Southern Democrats, the Dixiecrats, the state's rights folks, they signed up with the Republican Party. And by 1980, their plan was complete when Toronto Reagan won. The president's, right? And in 1984, he had this incredible 49-stake landslide, right?

12:34 So, but the policy part and the legal packing of the courts and all that stuff started in 72. So all this was under Richard Nixon, right? Nixon won in spite of votes being siphoned away that he thought he could get. But since a lot of those votes had traditionally voted Democrat, Hubert Humphrey probably thought those votes were being siphoned away from him. Nonetheless. So what we are seeing now in 2026 is a culmination of all that stuff. So it's been years and years of planning and strategizing and map drawing and legislative creating, all that, you know, crafting legislation, however you want to put it, all this stuff, right?

13:32 And there's only one root for all of this, and that is white folks wanting to maintain control, especially in the South. Not frowned upon in the North and not frowned upon in the West, but it's definitely because if there wasn't a crusade to protect white power, then more black people would be elected to office than they are now. The majority of the black population lives in the South, right? You take away the urban centers like Chicago, New York, L.A.

14:14 You take away those cities, this is where black people are concentrated. And that's the way it was enslavement. That's why the compromise in the Constitution was the three-fifths clause. So for those arrogant white folks that want to spout to their constitutional lawyers or historians and all that, and then, like, try to ignore the history and the constitutionality of this bullshit that they've been doing, then they can miss me with that. And they can miss all of us with that. Doesn't matter if you're black, white, Asian, Latino. You know, there's some folks out here that are saying that this court ruling and everything else that's led up to it is legitimate.

15:05 They're just feeding you bullshit, wrapped up in white privilege intellect. That's all it is. For... You know, I'm not a lawyer. I don't pretend to be a lawyer. But having the privilege of, for nine years, being in a position to actually make laws, you kind of get someone, and being involved in lawsuits, you kind of get a working man's understanding. And the thing that kills me about this Louisiana case that challenged the new map, because that's how we got this case. After that judge forced the legislature to do that, then they had the elections in 24.

15:50 Now, they tried, this group of folks tried to stop the election in 24. And Supreme Court said, well, no, we're not going to deal with it now because it's too close to the election. So they wanted to revisit it, and they had two sets of oral arguments for this in 2025. Normally, it's just one day set aside for the oral arguments, get that documented, and then the lawyers and the law clerks and the justices make their decisions, do their research, allegedly, whatever. Yeah. And the issue about standing because they said it was a group of non-African-American voters in Louisiana.

16:40 So let's narrow that down. If it was a group of Asian and Latino voters that said that there shouldn't be a second black congressional district, that'd be an interesting. And it'd be an interesting to understand that they feel that they should have it or creating a new black district, but deny them the opportunity to even run. I don't know. But anybody white that was a party to the lawsuit didn't have standing. See, at least the Asians and Latinos would have standing because they are actually a minority that covers and falls under the protection of the Voting Rights Act.

17:22 But any white person in Louisiana that filed a lawsuit, they don't have standing because the provision was designed for protection of minorities. And as of right now, the majority of the population in the state of Louisiana is white. So if black people were fighting and saying we don't need this black district, they had standing. If Latinos or Asians said they don't want this district, they have standing. But white folks do not because they're not a minority in any state, not even Hawaii, not anymore. Right? They might be still a minority in Hawaii. But in the mainland United States, every state, white people are the majority.

18:11 Like you said, in the South, high percentages. Mississippi has the highest percentage. It's basically at 40%. Louisiana is a third. Alabama is 30%. Georgia is in the 30s. Right? South Carolina. If they're not in the 30s, they're in the high 20s. Southern states, the descendants of slaves, whether the kids moved north and the grandkids came back, pretty much the epicenter of black culture in America comes from the south. So if, based on the political climate, the New York Times projected that if southern leadership, which is primarily Republican in the Southern states as far as the governatorial, the governorship and the majorities in the legislature, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, Arkansas, Louisiana, all them in Florida, they're all majority Republican and have a Republican governor, all of them.

19:25 And so Georgia's the only state that's purple. It used to be Florida, now it's Georgia, right? Because they have some statewide people or have had within the last decade statewide Democrats. Georgia has two U.S. senators. They got seven white men in the state constitution offices, but they have two U.S. Senators, somebody of Jewish descent, and somebody black. So the senators are not impacted by the U.S. Senators because they have to run statewide. So there's no district defining them.

20:06 I remember when I ran for the U.S. Senate, people could have asked me, are you running for the northern half or the southern half? I had to break it down. No, no, it's statewide. All the counties vote. Congressional district votes for the U.S. senator. So, gerrymandering doesn't impact U.S. Senators, but gerrymandering impacts are the House of Representatives and the state legislatures, right? Some states get around it at the state level by saying they just draw Senate districts and then you pick so many representatives out of that Senate district to comprise the House.

20:46 But then the gerrymandering falls into the Senate, right? Nebraska, they only have their unicameral. They only have one chamber, and that's the Senate. So it is what it is there. But everybody else is what we call bicameral. They have a House and a Senate. And so most of those states draw the lines for the House districts and the Senate districts. And then they draw the lines for the judicial districts, whether it's state courts or the state Supreme Court or the appellate court. In Mississippi, the appellate and, well, it used to be the appellate and Supreme Court had different districts because the appellate court still drew their lines based on when Mississippi had five congressional districts.

21:41 Supreme Court devised the state up north, south, central. And then it's always kind of the game, which counties are determined southern and which counties are determined northern and that the rest of the counties fall into central. Right. Because of those maps, we've managed to get, because Mississippi is the only state that has a transportation commission. So now there's a black person on the transportation commission. There are black people on the appellate court. There are black people on the Supreme Court. And we have a black person on the public service commission. All of those folks come from the central district, which is the blackest district of the three.

22:26 But now they can play with that based on this Supreme Court ruling. And what I was getting ready to say when I went down this rabbit hole was that the New York Times came up with a map. It said, but based on this ruling, 13 districts that have Democratic representation can be wiped out by the state legislators in the South. 13. Mississippi would not have one. Alabama would not have one. Georgia would have maybe two African-American districts. And I think it's either North Carolina or South Carolina would have one.

23:10 That's it. Because as the old saying goes, Katie barred a door because it's open. And that's what they wanted. This is what they've always wanted. They wanted to be able, just like they did after Reconstruction, to wipe out black political power. Us having any say-so in any political affairs. None. I don't care if they tell you they got black friends. I don't care if they try to flip it around and say, well, you know, black folks didn't support black Republicans that ran, which I responded to one guy when he said that.

23:52 I said, you know, black folks fought for the British in the American Revolution. And there were some black folks that fought for the Confederacy and the Civil War. So you can miss me with that historical gaslighting. Nobody cares about that. Because if you're a Black person that supports what Donald Trump wants, that's not in the interest of Black people. It doesn't matter if you are my neighbor. If you support the policies of Donald Trump, no diversity, equity, or inclusion, no safeguards for voter protection, no representation in Congress or in the state legislature. You support that. I don't care what color you are. I'm not on your side.

24:35 No, I'm not going to support you. Now, what you as the listening audience do or what other people do, that's on you. But I'm not going to do that because my generation was like all skin folks ain't kin folks. Thank you. That. We took pride when people got elected to office. We understand that our grandparents voted Republican, so a lot of our pioneering Black elected officials were Republican. We get that. But that was history, and this is now. And in the political climate we're in now, if you're Black and you're Republican, then I am not the spokesperson for Black people.

25:18 I can only speak for myself and what I believe is the best interest for black people and you're not it. When you're one of four black Republicans and by the way they're all leaving because two of them at least two of them ran for higher office one has a chance to win the other one did not win in the primary, and the other two just said enough of this I'm out. As a matter of fact The one in California might have been drawn out when they voted to redo the lines there, which I'll get to in a second. So the four black Republicans are going to be gone next session.

26:01 Now, if somebody black Republican gets elected in the 26th election, which is kind of looking like a long shot at this point based on the dynamics. But if nobody gets elected, then there will be no black Republicans in the next session of Congress. So the black Republican that ran for U.S. Senate in Texas, Mr. Hunt, was asked about this decision. And somebody brought up the fact that, well, there's not going to be any black Republicans next time around. His exact words were, I don't care.

26:42 This is a black man. You don't care. A black Republican? I can understand if you don't care about Democrats because you don't agree with what we say. But you don't care if there's not another person like you carrying the torch? See, that's why I say those folks missed the assignment, right? Because Maka Evers' brother, who was a big supporter of Robert F. Kennedy Sr. When he ran for president in 68, basically became a Republican later on in life. But his mantra always was, I'm a black man first, then I'm a Republican.

27:26 And his mission was, if you want black votes in Mississippi, you got to address some needs. And when we would come on his show, he would ask us as Democrats, what are you doing to help black folks? Period. and he would support some of us, right? Primarily the ones that were invited to come on the show. You know, he liked us. He didn't agree with us all the time, but he knew where our heart was. And that's the mission. The reason why we're in the Democratic Party is because for some reason, especially since 1965, seems like we get more of a response from the Democratic Party than we do the Republican Party.

28:14 Now, an ideal situation would be that we would be able to walk in any Oval Office, Democrat, Republican, Green, it don't matter, and say, this is what Black folks need right now. This is what we need long-term. To walk up to any member of Congress and say, this is what we need. We need you to vote for that bill, or we need you to kill that bill, right? Any state legislature, black folks ought to be able to walk in their Capitol building in their respective states and say, hey, look, this is what we need. But when you got one party that's not making any effort to even acknowledge, let alone listen, it kind of narrows the options.

28:58 But even with that dynamic, we had four. And one of them said, I don't care if there's ever another one. You missed the assignment, brother. You missed the assignment. You should always care about a black presence. As a matter of fact, you should want the majority of the black caucus to be like you. I get the argument, oh, it's all about merit. It's not about the color of the skin. It's the content of the character. It's also about life experience and culture and history. When you look at the dynamics of what has been happening in America since the 1660s, when they came up with this concept of race, right?

29:46 All this time, laws have been formulated based off of that concept. And if the less pigmentation you had, better off you were going to be, the more privilege you were going to have. That's where we get this term white privilege from. It's based off of the dynamics that started after Bacon's rebellion in the 1660s. Look that up, right? I was in Virginia. Before we were, before the British and the French, the French Indian War, before that happened, race was on the books in what we now call America.

30:28 And everything stems from that, the justification for chattel slavery. All that derives from creating this false superiority argument. And everything, every ruling that this conservative court makes. Terms of voting, you know, as a matter of fact, this is how crazy they are. They made a ruling that Alabama should have two congressional districts, right? And now based on this ruling, that might overturn that one that they just made a year earlier.

31:11 They said, based on the population Alabama should have two, they agreed with the court, the lower court on that. And Alabama, their legislature has been openly trying to defy the Supreme Court ever since they said, no, they should have to. But when Louisiana said it, I know, no. That's going too far. Now, Clarence Thomas, a black man, has been consistent because he dissented, against the ruling for Alabama. he co-authored the majority opinion. In this last case the official name of it is Louisiana versus Calais it's the official name of this decision that just happened, you know he was down with Shelby versus Holder, he didn't even want to have the second oral argument for Louisiana versus Calais, They voted on whether they should do it, and he was the lone dissenting vote on having a second day of oral argument.

32:22 That's how made up his mind was. So, and Ann Clarence just took me off of a track just thinking of that, right? But that's another guy who doesn't understand the assignment. You know, and they all say, well, what about people like Thomas Sewell and... They get the assignment. None of us said that there's not a conservative argument for black liberation. None of us said that. They try to make it. Whether we agree with that, that's a philosophical difference. But they always got the assignment. They knew that black folks have to do better in this nation, period.

33:11 And they felt that a conservative argument was the way to go. There's us that believe a liberal argument, just like Booker T. Washington believed that there was a need for us to be segregated so we could thrive in peace. And W.B. Du Bois was like, I know if I want to go to Harvard, I should go. If I want to go to Woolworths and eat at the counter, I should. But I also have the choice if I just want to support black businesses, I can. man. And Booker D was like, nah, brother, just stay at home. Don't even worry about them white folk. We can do it. Whatever we need, we can make happen. And they're both right.

33:54 Tuskegee Institute is still open. Fiske University is still open. They're both right. Clark Atlanta, still open. They were both right. We can do our own thing, but we have the right to choose whatever path we want to go, which is why it's okay for Black people to be Republican. That's a choice. You have the freedom to do that. My challenge to anybody that wants to identify with any political party is that keep the main thing the main thing. How is this going to help Black folks? How is it going to help my Black family?

34:37 Period. because when I was saying that the Republican Party... You can make the case that the Democratic Party takes us for granted because we're going to give them 80 to 90% of the vote every election. But that's not given willy-nilly. Again, if I reach out to a Democratic elected official and say, hey, I need you to look at that, it's going to be looked at. They might try to tweak it, might try to curry some favor and compromise with their Republican friends to get some semblance of what we want done. But at least we'll get the audience.

35:21 Gotten so bad that if you're not Republican, period, doesn't matter if you're black, white, purple, or green, they're not going to give you the time of day. They literally now have it set up where lobbyists only talk to Republicans in Republican majority states. They don't want 100% vote. They just want something passed. When I was in the legislature, they talked to all of us, each and every one of us. Now, there's strategies. You've got to get the chairman to bring it up and blah, blah, all that. But it's kind of embarrassing. You bring something to get the chair to bring it out in committee and you ain't talk to none of the Democrats.

36:05 And they all saying horrible things about the bill. And most of those committee meetings are public. So now the press and citizens are going to hear that, wait a minute, this thing is not what they said it was going to be, and that raises doubt. But if you're a good lobbyist, you try to convince folks on both sides, it's really a good idea. Not going to get everybody, but you might if you make an effort. But that's not the political climate we're in, which is even more reason why this judicial decision, no matter how my so-called white intellectual conservative friends want to spin it, is dumb as hell.

36:49 Because it goes against the very premise of their argument. They want to say that America has evolved in such a way, John Roberts actually said that, that America has evolved such a way in race that we don't need these protections anymore. You don't need that. You, the same court, had to make a decision to, a president. Now, I want them to understand, I know they were doing it for Donald Trump, but the way it's worded, it's a president, because they couldn't word it any other way. So, if a Democratic president comes in after Donald Trump and does exactly the same thing that he does, they can't say anything. They'll try.

37:36 People will file lawsuits and all that stuff, but you gave them immunity. So if you gave somebody immunity to do whatever they want, and then you weakened the laws to protect the people that probably be the targets of his illegal acts, has the climate changed? No. And if it had changed, you just set it backwards. But anyway, like I was saying, these folks that filed a suit didn't even have standing to bring it. but it was entertained. And once the court entertains it, then the argument is standing, doesn't matter. We literally had the Supreme Court, the Supreme Court, make a decision on a lawsuit filed based on a hypothetical situation.

38:26 No tort was committed. There was no harm at all. What if such and such happened and the Supreme Court made a ruling on that. That's how crazy the times that we're in. They always used to say when, even with the Warren Court, they would say, oh, you know, these are activist judges and we got to get away from them and da-da-da-da. The initial GOP stands for. Games of Projection. Because what they say that they're against, the truth of the matter is, is that they actually afford, they're just mad that they're not the ones doing it.

39:13 If you hear Republicans say, oh, I'm tired of these activist judges, what they're really saying is, I really wish one of our people was in there to do exactly the same thing for our folks. That's it. Anytime the president says something, accuses somebody of something, he's done it. He's upset because a grown man, for whatever reason, assembled seashells on the seashore and spelled out the numbers 8, 6, 4, 7. He took that as a threat. Why? Because he has said 86 somebody. That's what he, when he says it, he means do harm to him.

39:58 That's not what the connotation means. It's a restaurant term that's gotten into the lexicon. But he said that's what gangsters say. No, no, that's what you say. That's your interpretation of it. So when somebody throws it back at you, you get offended. Now you're saying he's trying to kill me. That's crazy talk, man. And we got folks, people that some of us used to respect, saying, that's right, Mr. President, you go get them. That's insanity, bro. That's where we are. Behavior that wouldn't have been tolerated when I was elected.

40:40 Frowned upon. You couldn't even make it out of the primary. You probably wouldn't even be allowed to qualify. Now it's like, oh, God. Do what you want. And this is the environment where the Supreme Court is making an argument and saying, yeah, well, we don't need any protections at all. Everything's fine. They're just like the dog sitting at the table when the house is on fire. Everything's fine. We're good. Craziness, you know? But I just, I just wish that, well, let me say this. I shouldn't say wish. I pray that people are paying attention and they will act accordingly, right?

41:30 When the season first came out, I posted a couple of Bible verses, one from 2 Corinthians, not 2 Corinthians, Mr. President, 2 Corinthians, and from Galatians. The one from 2 Corinthians, people are familiar with, the battle is not yours, it's the Lord. And from Galatians, it was the verse that says, basically says, if we don't get weary, we'll win. And so Galatians 6.9 is more relevant, even to those who are not spiritual, because what this group of people that have spawned out of the 68 Southern Strategy and the 72 Power Memo have evolved into is a group of folks that want us to get tired of fighting and just submit, just say we can't win and we'll just do whatever you want, man, just so I can watch my ESPN and go to work, drive my.

42:43 Take my kid to a ball game, whatever. Get to eat a Nobu once a year or something, you know, or the varsity, whatever your pleasure is, right? That's what they want us to do. They want us to just say, oh, well, I guess that's that. Keep our head down and keep moving. But Galatians 6.9 basically reminds us that as long as you keep fighting, as long as you don't get tired, as long as you don't get weary, The reward is coming. You're going to win. Victory is on the way. So, you know, I'm a believer, so that's what keeps me going.

43:26 You know, I think, you know, people disappoint us. Yeah. Because familiarity breeds contempt among people. But you cannot let it stop you from doing what you're doing. If they don't buy in the vision, that's their loss. They don't want to get on the train, they've missed it. So that's something I have to always remember, and I hope that's something that you take to heart. But when it comes to fighting for our freedoms and our rights, and it's pretty obvious that people that you're around don't respect those freedoms and your rights, you have the right to kick them to the curb.

44:10 You have the right to tell them to step off. You have the right to tell them don't cross that line. It's time now. And I think it's up to individuals whether they want to forgive them afterwards or not. I'm not. I'm too old. I don't need a whole lot of friends at this particular point. I don't know if I'm going to outlive people to come to my funeral or if anybody ever is going to show up. It's not going to matter because I'm going to be gone and I won't know. But too old to worry about friendships and alliances and being popular with the next guy, being the cool kid. I'm too old for that.

44:55 But since I'm still alive, I still want to have freedom. I still want to be able to make choices, whether that's in my lifestyle or at the voting booth. I want to be able, or what I eat. I want to have choices. I want to have the freedom to do that. I don't want the government. I don't want any obscure white person. I don't want anybody telling me what I can or cannot do. You can advise me like you probably don't want to go skyjumping, Eric. Okay, I'll take that advice. with. I can't do it. And there's no restriction other than you saying I can't.

45:38 If I want to sit at this counter and eat, I'm going to sit there. Now, unless the Department of Health has shut it down, I'm going to eat there. Right? If I want to vote by mail, I'm going to do that. You can't tell me I can't. If I want to celebrate Kwanzaa and Hanukkah and Christmas at my house, I'm going to do that. You can't tell me I can't. And when these people finally get it in their thick skulls, they can't tell people what to do. They can't subjugate people. They can't bully folks anymore. America will be way better off. We really will be the shining city on the hill.

46:23 But the hill that these people want to die on has many labels. Some people call it fascism. Some people call it authoritarianism. Some people call it Christian nationalism. Some people call it white supremacy. They're all interchangeable for me. It's all the same thing. Other people can compartmentalize that. That's fine. It's all the same for me. If you want to deny me my opportunity to either be a representative elected official, or to vote for somebody that looks like me to be one, we're not good, and never will be. And folks say, well, that sounds like an emotional argument.

47:04 Yeah, it is, because I've had relatives fight for the right for me to be in the position that I was in. Yeah, it's emotional because, and I've told this story before, that when my great-aunt passed, and. I presented a proclamation at the funeral. People applauded because most of them had left Mississippi under the cloud of Jim Crow and to see somebody in their family as an elected official that looked like them present a resolution from the state that they fled from to honor this relative who had passed on. Yeah, it's emotional.

47:52 There's a tie to this. And we can get in the weeds about legality and legislation and all that stuff. It's great. I'll go toe-to-toe with anybody. I don't have to go to law school to understand bullshit when I see it. But, yeah, it's emotional, too. People died for this, man. We had a man in the United States Congress that still has a scar on his head, fighting for the right to vote. And now the very state where he was from and the very state that he represented. We got people saying, we got opportunity to take away their vote again. That's craziness, man. That's a sickness.

48:35 You can couch it however you want. You can puff up your chest. You can be mad. You can be hostile. You can, whatever. You can call me everything and anything. You the one in the mirror that's looking at the silly person. I'm not. And these other black folks are not. Some folks are going to keep it close to the vest. Some of us are going to have a podcast. Some of us are elected officials and are having press conferences and Zoom calls. But you're going to know that we're tired of this mess. We are tired of it. My generation is supposed to be the first ones to benefit, and we did. Imagine, a black mayor in Chicago. My generation participated in the first black man being president of the United States.

49:27 My generation participated in the first black person, black woman being vice president of the United States. My generation did that. My generation has put two U.S. senators, female senators in at the same time. Black women, all six of them have been in my lifetime. All the members of the Black Caucus was in my lifetime. The Black Caucus was formed in my lifetime. So yeah, it's emotional, and we're not giving it up without a fight. No matter how you skew it, no matter how you try to divide us, you can stick all the faces that look like us out there on Fox News and Newsmax and OAN.

50:13 You can get arrogant people like Scott Jennings and others to smirk their way through an argument, but it is not going to get us to end our fight. We will not lose our resolve. Y'all done overplayed your hand. I told a guy, you've played your hand. Now it's time for us to play ours. And if you hurt once we play it, If you've been taken down a notch, once we play our hand, so be it. See, Malcolm X gave you an option. He gave you an option. And it seems like you want to choose the latter, right?

50:56 Remember the option, the ballot or the bullet? Y'all remember that? He gave you the option. Now, Like, you accepted the ballot option. But then, that black man got elected president. Y'all tolerated us being in Congress. You tolerated us being in state legislatures. You tolerated us getting a few governorships. You definitely tolerated us being mayors. But that black man got to be president. And then, that black woman came, got to be vice president. And y'all lost y'all shit. And y'all are willing to tear this whole thing. On the 250th anniversary of American independence, y'all ready to tear it all down, destroy it, because the descendants of slaves and African immigrants ascended to positions of power. That's trifling, man.

51:53 So when people say the American dream is a lie, why do y'all get upset? Y'all are the ones that make it a lot. If you leave us alone, and I've made this appeal ever since I've had this podcast, if you just leave us alone, let us live our lives, let us pursue what we're going to pursue, whether we want to be a star in the National Basketball League or an astronaut. Leave us alone and let us do our thing. If we can make it, we'll make it. If we can't, we can't. If we get accepted to Harvard, cool. If all I want to do is go to Heinz Community College, great. Just leave us alone. If I could just sum up all of this stuff, whether it's dealing with taking away historical landmarks or changing the rules about voting or taking away hiring practices or just arresting us while we're driving.

52:57 Or mistakenly using a counterfeit bill instead of a regular bill, regular dollar bill, right? Would just stop messing with us, if he would just leave us alone. See, because Booker T wanted us to just go on and just do our thing. But what he didn't realize was that they were still going to mess with us, right? Because when he spoke at the Cotton Exposition here in Atlanta, he was saying, And if you let black folks do their thing, we can get along. And 30 years later, a black business district in Tulsa, Oklahoma, is burnt to the ground.

53:40 We're doing our own thing. But you wouldn't leave us alone. Around that time, Marcus Garvey was like, well, look, you know, we've seen Liberia happen. We've seen Sierra Leone happen. How about we just gather all the black folks up and we just leave. We go back to that continent called Africa. That'll be our message. We just go on and leave. Let y'all have America. You put the brother in jail. Said he was defrauding on stocks. Kind of like what they're saying about the SPLC, right? That they're defrauding donors. And that's the same kind of argument.

54:21 And you put the brother in jail in Atlanta. Because you won't leave us alone. If you let Marcus Garvey do his thing, I'd be doing my podcast probably somewhere in Ghana, Liberia, I don't know, somewhere. I wouldn't be here. But you wouldn't leave us alone. If you want power, ask for it. Don't take it. Ask. We might vote for it. But we got to get something in return. Every black person I know wants to live in a crime free neighborhood. They want their kids to go to good schools. They want to be able to afford to eat and pay rent and go to the dock?

55:07 I don't know black folks that don't want that. Why is that hard to do? Because some of your rich folks says, let them eat cake. Got more important things to do, like build a ballroom, right? You want to listen to those people instead of listening to us. Again, man, when the Supreme Court makes decisions like this, when Congress passes laws and then says stupid stuff like we're the grown-ups in the room, I guess because you're punishing us, I guess that's why you make us grown-ups, make ourselves grown-ups. Just understand.

55:49 And I'm, who was that? Who said that? I can't remember. Was it Wesley Snipes? Said always bet on black? Yeah. You can put that on Cal Shee, you can put on prize picks or whatever. Bet on black. We're going to win. I don't know how long the fight's going to be. It's been ongoing. We've won some battles, some major battles. Now, y'all trying to negate those, force us to retreat, force us to shrink, but we won't. We're not going to get tired. We're going to keep coming. And the sooner that you understand that, the sooner that you embrace the concept that it's best to leave these folks alone, I promise you, America will be a much better place. So like I.