Making Race & Rearranging Power Featuring Dr. Laura Chavez-Moreno and Jacquetta Van Zandt

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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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I want to personally thank you for listening to the podcast.

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If you like what you're hearing, then I need you to do a few things.

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First, I need subscribers. I'm on Patreon at patreon.com slash amomentwitherikfleming.

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Your subscription allows an independent podcaster like me the freedom to speak

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truth to power, and to expand and improve the show.

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Second, leave a five-star review for the podcast on the streaming service you

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listen to it. That will help the podcast tremendously.

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Third, go to the website, momenterik.com. There you can subscribe to the podcast,

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leave reviews and comments, listen to past episodes, and even learn a little bit about your host.

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Tell someone else about the podcast. Encourage others to listen to the podcast

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and share the podcast on your social media platforms, because it is time to

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make this moment a movement.

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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 a couple of guests on, a couple of ladies who are doing some

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things, kind of shaking things up in their own unique ways.

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One is a professor at UCLA who has written a book that looks into how students,

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especially Latino students,

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are educated and some of the issues that they deal with, especially when it

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comes to race and being bilingual.

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And it's very fascinating. The book is very intense.

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And the conversation only really scratches the surface, but I think you'll get

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the gist of it. And then the other young lady is a political dynamo in the Boston area.

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And so there's some local politics we want to talk about,

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as well as her perspective on the national, because she's had some experience

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working on Capitol Hill and just kind of profile her a little bit.

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She's a fellow podcaster, and so we'll get into all of the good stuff.

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It was really, really an engaging conversation.

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So I hope that y'all will enjoy those guests.

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We're still looking for subscribers, as always. You can go to patreon.com slash a moment with Erik Fleming.

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Go ahead and commit to that dollar a month subscription.

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And if you want to know more about the podcast, you can go to momenteric.com and do the same thing.

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You can subscribe from there, but you can also catch up on some episodes,

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find out a little more about me, find out a little more about the show and just

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hope that you continue to listen,

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and that you extend your support in subscriptions or just spreading the word.

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It's been a very interesting holiday season.

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Had a chance to meet some good people, you know, during this holiday season

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is Christmas party season, right?

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And so, you know, just spreading the word about the podcast that way and networking a little bit.

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And, you know, so I'm grateful for always those opportunities to talk with people

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about face-to-face about what's going on.

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And I do have a website, and I haven't really pushed that yet.

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It's ericrfleming.net, I believe. I try to buy as many of the domain names as I can.

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That's just an old political habit. When you run for office,

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especially in this day and age, people, you know, you'll set up your campaign

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domain, and then somebody will buy a name similar.

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They can't get what you got, but they'll get something similar.

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So like if you get .com, then they'll get .net.

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And folks will think, oh, wow, you know.

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And they're thinking they're going to your site, and it's not.

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So it's just a habit of mine.

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I bought several, so I would have control over that.

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But if you go to erikrfleming.net, you will love it.

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I believe that's right, .net or .com. I have to go back and look it up.

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Anyway, that's my personal email, I mean, website.

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And if you want me to come speak to your group,

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I can do that, whether it's Black History or Martin Luther King or whatever.

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You know, if you just want me to, I don't know, just show up at your job and

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talk to your folks. You know, I'm available to do that.

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And I haven't really pushed it that much because, you know, I have a full-time

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job and I really have a limited schedule to do those kind of things.

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But, you know, if it's out there, and so if people want me to do that,

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you can reach me that way.

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Yeah, and this might be the only time I mention that. But if you Google my name,

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a lot of those websites will come up.

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It will probably primarily be the podcast website that will come up.

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But my personal website will come up, too. So just throwing that out there,

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since people are trying to get 2026 together, I'm doing the same thing,

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lining up some good guests for you all.

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Right now, I've got guests lined up all the way till June of next year.

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So it's very, very promising.

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And there's some people who have said, yeah, I want to be on the show,

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but we haven't been able to confirm a time yet.

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And I think there's going to be some folks.

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Well, I know there's one in particular that they're interested,

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they're going to have to reschedule and all that kind of stuff.

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But, you know, that's the nature of having guests on podcasts.

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And I do it in a unique way. I really want the guests to set up their time.

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More so to say, I need you to come on this date.

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You know, I'm not that big time where I can demand when people come on.

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So I want my guests to do that. So if you're interested, you can go to a momenteric.com.

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There's a link. If you want to be a guest, there's a link that you can click

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on and, you know, I'll review that.

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And usually I say yes.

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And then it's on you at that point when you want to do it.

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But, you know, it gives me a chance to kind of see if it's in line with,

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because I have had to turn some people down because what they wanted to talk

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about wasn't lined up with what we deal with here on the show.

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And it's not an indictment on them. It's just we're trying to save the nation,

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trying to uplift black folks in the process.

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And some people's agendas are not there.

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Right. Anyway, so I got all that housekeeping out of the way.

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And just so y'all know, there's going to be one more show before the new year.

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And then I'm going to take a week off, enjoy the Christmas, New Year's transition.

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And then so you'll hear one more show during the Christmas holiday,

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but then it'll be a week and then we'll be back at it.

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So maybe it may work out to be a couple of weeks. But anyway,

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I'm going to take a little time off during the holiday season just to refresh

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and re-energize and go from there.

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So, all right. I just wanted to get that out of the way.

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And now we're going to go ahead and start the show.

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

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Thanks, Erik. In a grievance-filled evening address, President Trump defended

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his first-year record and blamed the previous Biden administration for high consumer prices.

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The person in connection with the Brown University shooting that resulted in

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two deaths and nine injuries was found dead in a New Hampshire storage unit.

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Fifteen people were killed and at least 40 people were wounded when gunmen opened

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fire during a Jewish holiday event at Sydney, Australia's Bondi Beach.

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Nick Reiner, the son of filmmaker Rob Reiner and his wife Michelle,

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was charged with first-degree murder in their stabbing deaths.

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A federal judge blocked an attempt to return Kilmar Abrego Garcia to custody

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on a new immigration detention order just one day after his release. The U.S.

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Government seized the oil tanker M.T. Skipper off the coast of Venezuela,

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marking the first seizure of Venezuelan oil cargo under U.S.

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Sanctions. A federal judge issued an injunction ordering the Trump administration

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to extend the deadline for states to implement new immigration-related food

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aid restrictions until April.

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Maryland's General Assembly successfully overrode Governor Wes Moore's veto

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to establish a commission dedicated to studying potential reparations for slavery.

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The U.S. unemployment rate for black workers surged to their highest levels

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in over four years this November, reaching 8.3 percent, according to Labor Department data.

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FBI Director Dan Bongino announced he will step down next month,

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ending a brief and controversial term as the Bureau's second-highest official.

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And South Carolina health officials reported an additional 27 new cases of measles,

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bringing the total number of infected people in the widening outbreak to 138.

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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 is time for my

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guest, Dr. Laura Chavez Moreno.

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Laura C. Chavez Moreno is an award-winning researcher,

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qualitative social scientist, and assistant professor at the University of California,

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Los Angeles in the departments of Chicano and Central American Studies and Education.

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She received her PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Education

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in Curriculum and Instruction.

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Professor Chavez Moreno researches, writes, and teaches about Chicanx, Latinx education.

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She works at the intersection of education, pedagogy, language,

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literacy, and ethnic studies, particularly Chicanx, Latinx studies.

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Her research has been published in top-tier journals such as Review of Educational

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Research, Educational Researcher, American Educational Research Journal,

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Research in the Teaching of English, and the Journal of Teacher Education.

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Dr. Chavez Moreno's research has been recognized with multiple awards,

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including the American Educational Research Association Division G,

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Social Context and Education,

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the AERA Latinx Research Issues Special Interest Group, the AERA Bilingual Education Research, SIG.

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American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education, and the National Association

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of Bilingual Education.

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Notably, she was a fellow of the 2020-2022 cohort of NCTE Research Foundations,

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Cultivating New Voices Among Scholars of Color.

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She was awarded a 2022 National Academy of Education Spencer Foundation Postdoctoral

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Fellowship. Most recently, the National Council for Teachers of English awarded the 2023 Alan C.

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Purvis Award to our article in Research in the Teaching of English,

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the Continuum of Racial Literacies, Teacher Practices Countering White Stream Bilingual Education.

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Professor Chavez Moreno is sought after as a speaker by school districts,

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university organizations, and teacher preparation programs.

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She draws from her research and extensive teaching experience across a variety

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of educational levels, including elementary, secondary, tertiary,

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teacher education, and older adult education.

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She served as a high school teacher of Spanish in the Philadelphia Public School

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District for five years, wrote district curriculum, and served on boards of

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community organizations.

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She is deeply committed to mentorship, emphasizing support for students from

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underrepresented backgrounds and or those dedicated to social justice causes.

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Among her many service activities, she has mentored undergraduate and graduate

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students through several organizations, including Hispanic Scholarship Fund.

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She grew up in Douglas, Texas, and Agua Prieta, Sonora, Mexico.

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The first book, How Schools Make Race, will be the impotence of our interview.

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Ladies and gentlemen, it is my distinct honor and privilege to have as a guest on this podcast. Dr.

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Laura Chavez Moreno.

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All right. Laura Chavez Moreno. How you doing? Is it Moreno or Moreno?

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Moreno. Moreno. Okay. Moreno. Okay.

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My tongue doesn't roll that smooth, so I'm going to do the best I can with it.

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No worries. I go by Laura or Laura. I go by both.

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Okay. Thank you. All right. Well, happy holidays to you.

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Thank you. Likewise. All right. So normally how I start off my interviews is

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that I do a couple of icebreaker things. So the first icebreaker,

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excuse me, it's going to be a quote.

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And the quote is, sometimes just being able to dialogue about certain things

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and to validate people's feelings and fears is a good thing.

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What does that quote mean to you?

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To me, that means how to have good relations with people, both people who you're

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close to, but then also people who you may not know.

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Because validating other people's thoughts, we usually want other people to

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acknowledge and validate our own feelings and ideas.

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So I think that to me, that means that this is a good practice of being human

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and relating with other folks.

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Yeah, it's a good thing to relate to human beings, isn't it?

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I was just watching the news before we started and it was talking about the

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AI And I saw where some woman got married to AI in Japan.

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So I'm old school.

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I like interacting with human beings. So I appreciate your answer.

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Thank you. All right. So now the next one is what we call 20 questions.

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So, Professor, I need you to give me a number between one and 20.

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Four. All right. How should we balance individual freedoms with the common good?

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Can I pick one? I was just kidding.

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Okay. How should we balance individual freedoms with the common good?

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I don't know the answer. I want to say that thinking about education in terms

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of the realm that I teach, there

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are some folks who believe that we shouldn't teach about race at all.

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That would be their own individual idea.

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I think that when we're thinking about the common good But in that type of context,

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I think the common good outweighs that idea,

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that individual idea, because the common good for a society that is very racialized, for example,

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where we live here in the U.S., the common good would be for us to learn about our society,

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learn about how it functions, learn about what race is, what racism is,

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and then how to work towards anti-racism and to dismantling those type of structures.

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So for me, when we're thinking about weighing the common good in that scenario

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versus the individual preference for not teaching about race,

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I would definitely say that for me, the common good weighs way more heavily

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and is way more important. See, you did good on that one.

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That was a great answer. All right. All right.

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So as we get started, I need you to define some terms for the listeners.

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The first term I want you to define is make race,

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Excellent. Thanks. Make race, I mean, that race is not something that is biological.

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It is something that society practices and constructs the idea that it exists.

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And it is something that exists in our society because it manifests in ways

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that, for example, affects people's lives.

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How they live, what opportunities they have, what are the type of schools that

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they have access to, are their teachers good or not, are their textbooks good,

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and updated, things like that.

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So race, we make race by the decisions that we make in society,

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not through just this biological thing that humans have.

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It doesn't exist biologically. It is the decisions that humans make that make race.

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OK, now the second term is racial project.

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Sure. Racial project is something more academic in the sense that it is something

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that has to do with the idea of making race,

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but it has to do with also this tie to,

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for example, the material aspect.

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What are the material conditions of folks?

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So, for example, a racial project would be bilingual education,

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or for example, gifted education, or any other type of those type of interventions

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in schooling in order to provide one group a different type of education.

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Racial projects can be both racist and anti-racist.

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So, for example, gifted education, when it is in order to put a lot of middle-class

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white students into classes segregated from students of color,

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that is a racist project.

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When bilingual education is trying to provide, for example, Latinx students

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an education that is culturally and linguistically relevant,

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that is an anti-racist racial project.

00:20:35.441 --> 00:20:39.641
Okay And then finally Latinidad.

00:20:40.749 --> 00:20:45.329
Okay. So I'll start with the word Latinx. And the word Latinx,

00:20:45.429 --> 00:20:47.889
I use the X for four reasons.

00:20:48.109 --> 00:20:53.129
The first reason is to challenge patriarchy because the word Latino in Spanish

00:20:53.129 --> 00:20:57.129
is pointing to the masculine in terms of men.

00:20:57.229 --> 00:20:59.489
So it's challenging that patriarchy.

00:20:59.669 --> 00:21:04.229
It's also challenging this gender binary that there's only male, female genders.

00:21:04.829 --> 00:21:09.129
Our society has more genders than that. So that's why I choose the X also to

00:21:09.129 --> 00:21:12.849
align with trans folks and also the queer community.

00:21:13.289 --> 00:21:20.289
The third reason I use the X is because it is different from saying Latin American.

00:21:20.549 --> 00:21:23.589
So Latin, the Latin X group in the U.S.

00:21:23.729 --> 00:21:29.109
Is not the same type of idea or the same type of group that is Latin American. It's different.

00:21:29.769 --> 00:21:35.629
And the fourth reason I use the X is to remind us that the term itself, Latinx,

00:21:36.029 --> 00:21:42.289
the Latin, should be problematized because Latin is still a European imposed

00:21:42.289 --> 00:21:48.469
term that European elites imposed on people here in what we call Latin America

00:21:48.469 --> 00:21:49.989
and the U.S., for example,

00:21:50.209 --> 00:21:55.609
Latinos, in order for us to make claim to those groups or to be able to name

00:21:55.609 --> 00:21:58.949
them in a way that points towards European ideas.

00:21:59.169 --> 00:22:03.009
So those are the four reasons. Now, what is Latinidad, which was your question.

00:22:03.449 --> 00:22:07.729
Latinidad is more something that happens in our society.

00:22:07.989 --> 00:22:11.509
It's more of an idea than just an identity.

00:22:11.829 --> 00:22:16.929
It has to do with what is this idea Latinidad doing in our society.

00:22:17.209 --> 00:22:23.289
For example, we would put it in relation with whiteness, blackness,

00:22:23.489 --> 00:22:25.069
indigeneity, Asianness.

00:22:25.329 --> 00:22:27.589
These are not just identities.

00:22:27.929 --> 00:22:34.149
They are concepts that have to do with how we're practicing and engaging in

00:22:34.149 --> 00:22:35.749
our society, if that makes sense.

00:22:36.229 --> 00:22:41.989
Yeah, so the way I was interpreting it was like culture, right?

00:22:42.129 --> 00:22:44.589
So it's like when you say blackness.

00:22:45.493 --> 00:22:49.673
Or somebody like me would say blackness, it's like, it's more than just,

00:22:49.833 --> 00:22:53.333
you know, the, the, the race classification you put on.

00:22:53.453 --> 00:22:57.073
It's like the culture, whether it's rap music, whether it's Kwanzaa,

00:22:57.193 --> 00:22:58.653
whether it's soul food, right.

00:22:59.373 --> 00:23:03.653
That incorporates blackness. So that's when I, when I was trying to interpret

00:23:03.653 --> 00:23:07.853
it myself and reading the book, that's the way I looked at it.

00:23:07.993 --> 00:23:12.573
It was like, when you say Latinidad, it means, you know, the Latin or Latinx

00:23:12.573 --> 00:23:14.613
American, the Latinx culture.

00:23:14.613 --> 00:23:19.973
As far as, you know, different things, contributions that the culture has given

00:23:19.973 --> 00:23:23.833
to society and those things. Am I on the right track with that?

00:23:24.313 --> 00:23:28.273
I think it's a little different from what I'm saying, but I understand why you're saying this.

00:23:28.353 --> 00:23:35.073
And it's because a lot of the times we think of Latinxs as a cultural group.

00:23:35.473 --> 00:23:41.613
And a lot of the times that's something that Latinos are said to be like a cultural group.

00:23:41.893 --> 00:23:44.953
And sometimes they're not mentioned as a racial group.

00:23:45.093 --> 00:23:48.713
And what I'm arguing in the book is that we also should think about them as

00:23:48.713 --> 00:23:55.013
a racial group because they do have shared cultures or shared culture,

00:23:55.253 --> 00:23:56.993
shared languages, et cetera.

00:23:57.293 --> 00:24:00.393
But so do other racial groups in our society, right?

00:24:00.693 --> 00:24:04.313
Like you just mentioned really great examples in terms of African-Americans,

00:24:04.793 --> 00:24:06.493
some cultural practices that they may share.

00:24:06.693 --> 00:24:11.173
So what I'm arguing in the book is that sometimes when we're thinking about

00:24:11.173 --> 00:24:15.933
Latinx as just cultural, like a cultural group and not a racial group,

00:24:15.933 --> 00:24:20.433
we're not thinking about race in a way that is made.

00:24:20.433 --> 00:24:24.833
We're thinking about race in terms of it actually being like a more biological group.

00:24:25.473 --> 00:24:30.093
Got you. Okay. So all these terms, ladies and gentlemen, comes from this book

00:24:30.093 --> 00:24:36.933
called How Schools Make Race, in which Professor Chavez Moreno has written.

00:24:37.573 --> 00:24:42.413
And so the question I have for you, Professor, is what led you to write this book?

00:24:43.612 --> 00:24:47.632
Oh, thank you. What led me to write it is the conversations that I was hearing

00:24:47.632 --> 00:24:51.532
both at the national scale and then also in the schools that I was observing.

00:24:51.732 --> 00:24:57.172
So I heard a lot of talk nationally about whether Latinxs were race or not.

00:24:57.332 --> 00:25:01.032
And then it was interesting that I was then in the classrooms observing this

00:25:01.032 --> 00:25:02.312
bilingual education program.

00:25:02.432 --> 00:25:08.032
And then the students were grappling with questions about what is race and the

00:25:08.032 --> 00:25:10.792
idea that the Latinx group was an ethnicity.

00:25:10.792 --> 00:25:13.792
But then were they racial were their

00:25:13.792 --> 00:25:16.792
race etc so there were these things these tensions going on

00:25:16.792 --> 00:25:19.572
in the classroom and they were also tensions that like I

00:25:19.572 --> 00:25:22.592
said were apparent in the national discourse and they

00:25:22.592 --> 00:25:25.752
were also tensions that then made me question my

00:25:25.752 --> 00:25:28.552
own idea of what is race and my own idea of

00:25:28.552 --> 00:25:31.412
whether latinx was a race or not because I grew up

00:25:31.412 --> 00:25:35.112
in a bilingual bicultural border area

00:25:35.112 --> 00:25:38.372
in Douglas Arizona and Agua Prieta Sonora Mexico

00:25:38.372 --> 00:25:41.332
I'm originally from Mexico and growing up

00:25:41.332 --> 00:25:44.052
in that border area I had when I moved

00:25:44.052 --> 00:25:47.212
out etc I had imagined the Latinx group as

00:25:47.212 --> 00:25:50.052
a race it was kind of just by default but then

00:25:50.052 --> 00:25:52.812
you know years later when I was in the classrooms and hearing

00:25:52.812 --> 00:25:55.652
these discourses and hearing these questions I

00:25:55.652 --> 00:25:58.712
really had to question whether what I was

00:25:58.712 --> 00:26:04.172
assuming was a race was was in fact correct and then that led me to to then

00:26:04.172 --> 00:26:09.372
ask well then what is a race and then that question led me to trying to figure

00:26:09.372 --> 00:26:14.392
out well what is the process of making race so what the book is showing is for

00:26:14.392 --> 00:26:16.912
for listeners who are interested in.

00:26:17.752 --> 00:26:21.172
Exploring like when they think about some of the questions or tensions that

00:26:21.172 --> 00:26:26.112
they hear in terms of like is this race or is this not a race or whatever the

00:26:26.112 --> 00:26:29.772
book tries to show in actual contemporary times right now,

00:26:30.112 --> 00:26:34.652
how our society continues to make race and racialized groups,

00:26:34.692 --> 00:26:36.892
and then this idea that they exist.

00:26:37.052 --> 00:26:41.632
Because they definitely exist in terms of how they manifest in what opportunities

00:26:41.632 --> 00:26:47.552
people have and the experiences that they have to contend with in our society. Okay.

00:26:48.555 --> 00:26:54.695
Why do you think that your book is the first to use the framework of relational

00:26:54.695 --> 00:26:58.215
racialization in education?

00:26:58.915 --> 00:27:02.915
I'm not sure if it's the first one in education, but I definitely know that

00:27:02.915 --> 00:27:07.055
it's not as used in the field of education than, for example,

00:27:07.215 --> 00:27:09.695
in fields of ethnic studies or history.

00:27:10.115 --> 00:27:14.975
I know that in those fields, they use that framework way more.

00:27:14.975 --> 00:27:20.675
In education, a lot of the times, scholars focus on identity questions,

00:27:20.895 --> 00:27:24.455
like how people are forming their racial identities in schools.

00:27:24.675 --> 00:27:29.075
So that's more of a question that a lot of education scholars have been grappling with.

00:27:29.255 --> 00:27:33.615
They also grapple a lot about racism and how racism manifests in classrooms

00:27:33.615 --> 00:27:36.315
and in teaching and textbooks and stuff like that.

00:27:36.595 --> 00:27:41.775
What my book is trying to do is not look at individual identity development of students.

00:27:41.775 --> 00:27:49.655
What I'm trying to show is more how the group is formed and the boundaries that the group has to,

00:27:49.895 --> 00:27:54.355
or how the school program, this bilingual education program,

00:27:54.495 --> 00:27:57.435
is forming the boundaries of this Latinx idea.

00:27:57.995 --> 00:28:05.415
So instead of it being individualized, it's more systematic is what you're trying to probe.

00:28:05.835 --> 00:28:09.815
Yeah, I think that that's correct. I think that I would just add the little

00:28:09.815 --> 00:28:14.055
minor focus that instead of being like looking at students,

00:28:14.215 --> 00:28:19.435
individual racial like awareness, I'm looking more in terms of how the program

00:28:19.435 --> 00:28:24.335
constructs the group or what the idea is of this group. Yeah. Thank you.

00:28:24.735 --> 00:28:29.895
All right. So why were the names of the school, city and state given fictional names?

00:28:30.830 --> 00:28:36.150
Yes. Thank you. So in the type of research that I do, and then in the type of

00:28:36.150 --> 00:28:40.470
permission that I was granted by the people that I was working with,

00:28:40.690 --> 00:28:43.230
I didn't have permission to share their real names.

00:28:43.510 --> 00:28:49.270
And that's done so that I can protect them from being identified.

00:28:49.550 --> 00:28:53.390
And also because in a way it doesn't really matter.

00:28:54.330 --> 00:29:00.830
Like saying a specific place makes us think that perhaps that place is particular

00:29:00.830 --> 00:29:02.870
or singular or this could only happen there.

00:29:03.030 --> 00:29:07.790
But what I'm trying to show is that there's lots of ways that the things that

00:29:07.790 --> 00:29:12.930
manifest in the book or what I'm showing in the book also can occur in other places.

00:29:13.070 --> 00:29:17.210
Maybe the details are a little bit different, but some of the things that are

00:29:17.210 --> 00:29:22.710
happening in our society in this context that I documented also happen in other places.

00:29:23.010 --> 00:29:26.950
Yeah, I was doing my detective work. I was trying, you know,

00:29:27.030 --> 00:29:30.430
because it's like, Like, I don't know if you're familiar with comic books or

00:29:30.430 --> 00:29:36.210
whatever, but like DC Comics, you know, it'll talk about Metropolis or Gotham City.

00:29:36.210 --> 00:29:40.090
And you're trying to figure out, OK, well, which one is New York City,

00:29:40.350 --> 00:29:42.310
which one is Chicago, you know, that kind of thing.

00:29:42.430 --> 00:29:46.950
So when you like saying Red Rock, I was like, what state would be Red Rock, you know?

00:29:47.410 --> 00:29:50.150
But I thought that was pretty, pretty interesting.

00:29:50.910 --> 00:29:54.810
Thank you. And thanks for reading it so closely. Yes, ma'am.

00:29:54.810 --> 00:29:59.030
How did the graduation ceremony affect your observations?

00:30:00.672 --> 00:30:03.772
So that was in the, although I put that in the beginning of the book,

00:30:03.872 --> 00:30:08.272
the graduation ceremony was something that I observed towards the end of my study.

00:30:08.672 --> 00:30:14.752
And it's interesting because I was really expecting for the school to really

00:30:14.752 --> 00:30:20.372
play up the success of this bilingual education program because it really was a success.

00:30:20.652 --> 00:30:27.112
The community had been advocating for this type of bilingual program.

00:30:27.252 --> 00:30:30.772
And the students started that program. They were the first cohort to start it

00:30:30.772 --> 00:30:35.132
in elementary school and then take it all the way and graduate,

00:30:35.132 --> 00:30:39.672
you know, from high school and go all those 12 years in this bilingual program.

00:30:39.672 --> 00:30:43.092
So it was really a big achievement, especially because there's not that many

00:30:43.092 --> 00:30:48.532
bilingual education programs or cities that offer that type of continuity in

00:30:48.532 --> 00:30:50.692
terms of a bilingual education program.

00:30:50.692 --> 00:30:56.572
So I was very surprised that it was not something that the school was really,

00:30:56.572 --> 00:31:01.732
like, highlighting in the graduation ceremony. So that was something that was

00:31:01.732 --> 00:31:03.372
very disappointing to me.

00:31:03.912 --> 00:31:09.832
Yeah, as you say, it was like one student, I think, near the end of the speeches,

00:31:10.192 --> 00:31:15.512
acknowledged that the program exists as opposed to, and nobody, Latinx,

00:31:15.972 --> 00:31:19.752
none of Latinx students were allowed to, or given the opportunity to speak.

00:31:19.892 --> 00:31:23.312
I don't know if they weren't allowed, but they weren't given the opportunity to speak.

00:31:23.432 --> 00:31:28.412
So I can understand why you would feel some kind of way about that.

00:31:28.412 --> 00:31:35.012
Going back to your definition, how is the public education system in America a racial project?

00:31:36.330 --> 00:31:41.630
Ah, definitely. So the book shows kind of like a little program,

00:31:41.890 --> 00:31:45.390
like the bilingual education program, making this idea about what is Latinx.

00:31:45.630 --> 00:31:50.810
But the big public education system, and also private, private also contributes to this.

00:31:51.070 --> 00:31:58.090
The public education system contributes to making race by distributing resources inequitably.

00:31:58.090 --> 00:32:01.270
So whenever society distributes resources

00:32:01.270 --> 00:32:04.370
to one group and then not another group

00:32:04.370 --> 00:32:07.110
and then it does that over and over again and then

00:32:07.110 --> 00:32:09.870
the people kind of start noticing like okay why am I not getting

00:32:09.870 --> 00:32:13.170
this and why is that other group getting this type of treatment that's always

00:32:13.170 --> 00:32:17.030
creating and reinforcing the idea that this group exists and is better than

00:32:17.030 --> 00:32:22.490
this other group right so public education we can we can say a bunch of examples

00:32:22.490 --> 00:32:25.750
and I'm sure your listeners and you could say a lot of different ways that public

00:32:25.750 --> 00:32:27.330
education does that all the time,

00:32:27.450 --> 00:32:32.150
where it gives this one group a better schooling experience than other groups.

00:32:32.190 --> 00:32:35.870
We can talk about, for example, school discipline, bilingual education,

00:32:36.110 --> 00:32:42.230
gifted education that I mentioned earlier, access to college preparatory courses, better school lunches.

00:32:42.390 --> 00:32:46.970
We can keep going and going and going. So as long as public education is providing

00:32:46.970 --> 00:32:51.630
different types of resources that are better to one group, for example,

00:32:51.630 --> 00:32:56.330
than another group, it is participating in constructing race in our society.

00:32:56.650 --> 00:33:03.770
Yeah, and you saw some other examples like our prison system and other things,

00:33:03.770 --> 00:33:08.310
how each institution, religion, whatever.

00:33:09.250 --> 00:33:15.110
Can, you know, makes its own contribution or is its own racial project and how

00:33:15.110 --> 00:33:18.150
it shapes the dynamics in this country.

00:33:18.150 --> 00:33:24.070
Overall, how are Latinx students racialized different than other students?

00:33:25.195 --> 00:33:29.875
So this is interesting because one of the things that I say in the book is that

00:33:29.875 --> 00:33:34.655
the way that the bilingual education program was kind of setting up this boundary

00:33:34.655 --> 00:33:36.955
about what is the group Latinx.

00:33:37.175 --> 00:33:41.195
It was kind of promoting this, even if it wasn't explicitly,

00:33:41.515 --> 00:33:46.335
but it was kind of like advancing the idea that the Latinx group is bound by

00:33:46.335 --> 00:33:50.975
them knowing or should knowing kind of in a way, if that makes sense,

00:33:51.095 --> 00:33:52.995
like that they ought to know Spanish.

00:33:54.055 --> 00:33:57.395
So Spanish was kind of what would define them.

00:33:57.535 --> 00:34:01.535
So if someone used Spanish and then they were seen as Latinx,

00:34:01.815 --> 00:34:05.455
they said that they were Latinx and then used Spanish, that kind of gave them

00:34:05.455 --> 00:34:08.395
legitimacy to kind of being in the group or not in a way.

00:34:08.715 --> 00:34:13.515
So the bilingual education program reinforced that as the boundary for the group,

00:34:13.695 --> 00:34:16.855
even though the bilingual education program was racially diverse.

00:34:16.995 --> 00:34:21.035
So there were students who were in the program who identified as white or black.

00:34:21.035 --> 00:34:25.775
Some of them also identified as Afro-Latinx, although those were very few of them.

00:34:26.977 --> 00:34:31.937
So even though the program was racially diverse, it was still kind of advancing

00:34:31.937 --> 00:34:40.517
this idea that the boundary of the Latinx group was this imaginary Spanish that they should know.

00:34:40.897 --> 00:34:46.277
Yeah, that reminds me, when I was first getting into college,

00:34:46.277 --> 00:34:50.837
I was recruited by a lady named Louisa Maria Alvarez Harvey.

00:34:51.217 --> 00:34:56.577
And she recruited us. She ran the Honors College at Jackson State.

00:34:57.337 --> 00:35:02.897
University. And in her background, it said that she got her bachelor's degree

00:35:02.897 --> 00:35:07.617
in Spanish. And I was kind of like, well, that's like me getting my bachelor's

00:35:07.617 --> 00:35:08.697
degree in English, right?

00:35:08.757 --> 00:35:13.097
That would seem like that would be relatively easy, but it's more nuanced than that, is it not?

00:35:14.077 --> 00:35:18.237
Oh, yeah. Because usually when people have a bachelor's in Spanish,

00:35:18.537 --> 00:35:22.497
for example, my bachelor's degree is in education and also in Spanish.

00:35:22.617 --> 00:35:26.017
We take courses, for example, about like a

00:35:26.017 --> 00:35:29.397
literature so we read literature we read texts that

00:35:29.397 --> 00:35:32.617
have to do like with historical events for

00:35:32.617 --> 00:35:35.797
example but in Spanish so it's not like it's not

00:35:35.797 --> 00:35:38.877
just like learning like how do you say like can't go

00:35:38.877 --> 00:35:41.717
the restroom you know I mean like it is definitely way more advanced in

00:35:41.717 --> 00:35:47.597
terms of like people learning about the language but then also about like the

00:35:47.597 --> 00:35:51.057
the speakers of the language and then the culture and the literature and history

00:35:51.057 --> 00:35:56.317
and stuff like that yeah yeah all right as a black man I'm somewhat proud that

00:35:56.317 --> 00:35:59.817
the Black students in the book were labeled as the cream of the crop.

00:36:00.177 --> 00:36:03.957
However, what problems did that cause for the Latinx students?

00:36:05.084 --> 00:36:09.424
So it's interesting because one of the things that I mentioned in the book,

00:36:09.464 --> 00:36:12.344
you're right that they were labeled as the cream of the crop.

00:36:12.524 --> 00:36:14.764
But let me share a little asterisk.

00:36:15.084 --> 00:36:20.124
It was the students who were immigrants of African families.

00:36:20.484 --> 00:36:23.424
So those were the cream of the crop.

00:36:23.944 --> 00:36:27.804
They were compared to, for example, African-Americans who were from the U.S.,

00:36:27.804 --> 00:36:29.264
so like generations here in the U.S.

00:36:29.344 --> 00:36:34.184
And those were not the cream of the crop. So they, even within the African-American

00:36:34.184 --> 00:36:38.704
population of the students, the teachers were making those type of distinctions

00:36:38.704 --> 00:36:40.884
in terms of like how they were different.

00:36:41.104 --> 00:36:45.444
So it's interesting to think of your question in terms of how that affected

00:36:45.444 --> 00:36:50.704
the Latinx students, because within the bilingual education program, it's very like layered.

00:36:51.224 --> 00:36:55.004
Because, for example, like I just mentioned, the cream of the crop were the

00:36:55.004 --> 00:36:59.624
African, the African immigrant, the black students who were from African immigrant families.

00:37:00.324 --> 00:37:03.984
And then there were, for example, other students, but the Latinx students were

00:37:03.984 --> 00:37:10.924
seen as also desirable students because their parents were very respectful towards

00:37:10.924 --> 00:37:15.064
teachers, never questioned them, never said anything against them and et cetera.

00:37:15.224 --> 00:37:19.124
So they saw that it was also nice to have Latinx students.

00:37:19.704 --> 00:37:22.984
What I'm trying to show in the book is that people were always kind of putting,

00:37:23.724 --> 00:37:26.384
like making comparisons between the two groups, whether...

00:37:28.688 --> 00:37:33.888
They were correct or not in terms of their observations, the mere making these

00:37:33.888 --> 00:37:36.708
comparisons and like, these are these groups, these are these groups,

00:37:36.848 --> 00:37:41.568
et cetera, and then placing them in a hierarchy, it shows how people thought

00:37:41.568 --> 00:37:46.488
about them as separate groups and thought about them as also in a hierarchy.

00:37:46.668 --> 00:37:52.568
And that's important because some of the people who I've been hoping or some

00:37:52.568 --> 00:37:59.408
of the Some folks have been saying that the Latinx group is not in the same

00:37:59.408 --> 00:38:00.828
type of racial hierarchy in a way.

00:38:00.928 --> 00:38:04.828
So I'm trying to show that that's actually still happening in schools. Got you.

00:38:05.188 --> 00:38:10.248
You said that the discussion of race is already happening in schools,

00:38:10.248 --> 00:38:11.828
whether people like it or not.

00:38:11.828 --> 00:38:16.888
So we should make sure that it's being done in a productive way and in a way

00:38:16.888 --> 00:38:24.088
that advances students' understanding about a concept that is something so central to our society.

00:38:24.288 --> 00:38:30.948
In this era of Trumpism, how can schools navigate towards a path of promoting

00:38:30.948 --> 00:38:35.168
anti-racist ideas and the ambivalence about race?

00:38:36.268 --> 00:38:41.688
Thank you. That's a very deep question. So one of the ways that I'm thinking

00:38:41.688 --> 00:38:46.688
about this is that you're, I'm so glad you mentioned that one of the main points

00:38:46.688 --> 00:38:50.048
of the book is also to share that right now there's this,

00:38:50.228 --> 00:38:53.668
or right now, and then like for years already, there's been this debate about

00:38:53.668 --> 00:38:55.828
whether schools should teach about race or not.

00:38:56.208 --> 00:38:59.728
And what I say is that's the wrong debate to be had. That's actually not the

00:38:59.728 --> 00:39:02.168
debate that is productive because schools,

00:39:02.368 --> 00:39:05.448
whether they want to or not teachers whether they want to or not are always teaching

00:39:05.448 --> 00:39:09.488
about race in implicit ways for example and

00:39:09.488 --> 00:39:12.368
one of the things that I show is how that's actually done in

00:39:12.368 --> 00:39:15.188
schools so if readers wouldn't agree

00:39:15.188 --> 00:39:17.968
with me like hey I don't think that's true or like if teachers will

00:39:17.968 --> 00:39:20.708
say like well I could be race neutral etc I would say

00:39:20.708 --> 00:39:23.528
pick up the book and read it so that you could see some

00:39:23.528 --> 00:39:27.028
of the examples and and I I can show explicitly

00:39:27.028 --> 00:39:29.788
like how race is still being taught even if it's

00:39:29.788 --> 00:39:32.588
not implicit explicit excuse me so one

00:39:32.588 --> 00:39:36.248
of the ways to teach about race productively

00:39:36.248 --> 00:39:39.168
which is what your question is is first admit

00:39:39.168 --> 00:39:43.808
that this is going on that whether you want to or not you were teaching our

00:39:43.808 --> 00:39:50.288
children our students racial ideas so once we take that first step in acknowledging

00:39:50.288 --> 00:39:54.448
that then we should decide in my opinion we should decide that then then that

00:39:54.448 --> 00:39:57.808
means that we have to teach about race in an anti-racist way right.

00:39:58.441 --> 00:40:02.461
And we have to teach about race that is not biological, but it is in terms of

00:40:02.461 --> 00:40:07.141
the decisions that humans are, that we're as a society, we keep making that

00:40:07.141 --> 00:40:08.881
reinforce this hierarchy.

00:40:09.501 --> 00:40:13.481
And that some racial groups are better than others, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

00:40:13.861 --> 00:40:18.121
So when we decide then that we have to do that, then we also have to,

00:40:18.381 --> 00:40:22.041
especially now because of the attacks on teachers and teaching our race,

00:40:22.181 --> 00:40:26.981
we have to make sure to join with others who also have that mission and who

00:40:26.981 --> 00:40:28.241
also are committed to that.

00:40:28.441 --> 00:40:32.321
In order for us to have support in a community, because we can't do that work

00:40:32.321 --> 00:40:35.541
alone. It's too fraught.

00:40:35.781 --> 00:40:39.401
We have to make sure to be in community with others, whether that's in community

00:40:39.401 --> 00:40:44.181
and that one in the school that one's practicing or in your district or even online.

00:40:44.741 --> 00:40:47.181
And depending on the context, it's going to look different.

00:40:47.781 --> 00:40:54.981
Yeah. So the important thing is solidarity as opposed to everybody,

00:40:54.981 --> 00:40:57.881
because everybody's going to do their own thing.

00:40:57.881 --> 00:41:07.021
But if there is some solidarity in the goal and and the basic foundation and

00:41:07.021 --> 00:41:09.621
standard of what what we're trying to accomplish,

00:41:10.021 --> 00:41:18.561
then we'll generations from now will have better coexistence amongst people

00:41:18.561 --> 00:41:19.821
here in the United States.

00:41:20.021 --> 00:41:24.061
And maybe that's too Pollyannaish, but that's why I got out of that answer.

00:41:24.661 --> 00:41:27.081
All right. So final question.

00:41:27.881 --> 00:41:33.581
What do you want the readers to take away from this book? I'd like readers to

00:41:33.581 --> 00:41:35.221
take away from the book that...

00:41:36.304 --> 00:41:40.304
Race, we have race in our society because of decisions that we've made,

00:41:40.444 --> 00:41:44.664
that our society has made, and that we continue to make, and that we can choose

00:41:44.664 --> 00:41:47.244
different ways of being in our society.

00:41:47.444 --> 00:41:52.744
So there are teachers, for example, who are being very brave and who are teaching

00:41:52.744 --> 00:41:55.084
about race, and we need to support them.

00:41:55.264 --> 00:41:59.404
So I think that that would be the number one that I would say. Okay.

00:41:59.884 --> 00:42:02.324
All right. So how can people get the book?

00:42:02.964 --> 00:42:07.184
Well, thank you. So the book is available in all major booksellers,

00:42:07.324 --> 00:42:11.244
including Barnes & Noble, Bookshop, and also the Harvard Ed Press.

00:42:11.424 --> 00:42:15.964
And I'd also ask listeners to please ask your public library and your local

00:42:15.964 --> 00:42:17.544
bookstore to carry the book.

00:42:18.004 --> 00:42:22.284
And it would make a great holiday gift, would it not? It would. Thank you.

00:42:23.864 --> 00:42:27.564
So, Professor, if people want to get in touch with you, how can they do that?

00:42:28.164 --> 00:42:34.664
Sure. Please visit my website. It is laurachavismoreno.com. And my information

00:42:34.664 --> 00:42:38.824
is there about how to contact me and then also some of my other work.

00:42:39.204 --> 00:42:44.884
All right. Well, Professor Laura Chavez Moreno, I greatly appreciate you taking the time.

00:42:45.104 --> 00:42:49.184
I know we had to try to juggle some things because you're a woman on demand

00:42:49.184 --> 00:42:51.884
and trying to close out the school year and all that.

00:42:52.004 --> 00:42:55.204
But I greatly appreciate you coming on and doing that.

00:42:55.964 --> 00:42:59.104
Thank you so much. I know you're also very busy. Yeah. And much success on the

00:42:59.104 --> 00:43:01.024
book, too, by the way. I really mean that.

00:43:01.504 --> 00:43:06.044
Thank you so much. And I enjoyed speaking with you and your questions and the

00:43:06.044 --> 00:43:07.464
conversation. So thank you so much.

00:43:07.724 --> 00:43:09.984
All right, guys. And we're going to catch y'all on the other side.

00:43:28.968 --> 00:43:35.248
All right, and we are back. And so now it is time for my next guest, Jacquetta Van Zandt.

00:43:35.848 --> 00:43:41.608
Jacquetta Van Zandt serves as the Vice President of Engagement and Mobilization at Partnership, Inc.

00:43:42.108 --> 00:43:46.948
She is tasked with developing, coordinating, and sustaining strategic relationships

00:43:46.948 --> 00:43:49.688
throughout the civic, political, and business arenas.

00:43:49.848 --> 00:43:55.248
In this capacity, the Vice President oversees long-term strategic planning related

00:43:55.248 --> 00:44:00.168
to the partnership's connections, aiming to establish systemic and sustainable

00:44:00.168 --> 00:44:03.168
influence to advance the organization's mission.

00:44:03.508 --> 00:44:08.068
Before her tenure at Partnership, Inc., Van Zandt cultivated her political expertise

00:44:08.068 --> 00:44:14.448
on Capitol Hill and Washington, D.C., as well as through various state and federal campaigns.

00:44:15.248 --> 00:44:19.708
She has established herself as a respected advocate, contributing to critical

00:44:19.708 --> 00:44:21.988
decisions that affect communities of color.

00:44:21.988 --> 00:44:26.988
A highly sought-after political strategist specializing in public policy and

00:44:26.988 --> 00:44:32.128
diversity initiatives, she has returned to Massachusetts, driven by her passion

00:44:32.128 --> 00:44:35.188
for creating equal opportunities for women of color.

00:44:35.188 --> 00:44:39.948
Her commitment to making a difference in her community and highlighting critical

00:44:39.948 --> 00:44:43.508
issues such as wage inequality, financial literacy,

00:44:44.208 --> 00:44:49.228
socioeconomic development, women's empowerment, and diversifying the legislature

00:44:49.228 --> 00:44:51.988
lies at the core of today's most pressing challenges.

00:44:52.828 --> 00:44:57.168
She played a crucial role in numerous campaigns, notably the successful election

00:44:57.168 --> 00:44:59.428
of Framingham's first mayor,

00:44:59.748 --> 00:45:04.888
I guess first black mayor, who was also the only woman of color to be popular

00:45:04.888 --> 00:45:09.748
elected to that position and in the history of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

00:45:11.008 --> 00:45:17.068
Van Zandt initiated a thriving and well-loved podcast named Politics and Prosecco,

00:45:18.030 --> 00:45:22.250
Featured on Spark FM, Politics and Prosecco is a one-hour program where hosts

00:45:22.250 --> 00:45:27.130
and guests delve into discussions about current events and their effects on daily life.

00:45:27.570 --> 00:45:32.850
Born and raised in Boston, Massachusetts, Van Zandt earned her B.S. in criminal justice.

00:45:33.230 --> 00:45:38.470
She currently lives in Roxbury, Massachusetts. As a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha

00:45:38.470 --> 00:45:42.830
Sorority Incorporated and the Lynx Incorporated, she also serves in the boards

00:45:42.830 --> 00:45:46.470
of Common Cause, the Massachusetts Women's Political Caucus,

00:45:46.790 --> 00:45:51.910
the Urban League of Eastern Massachusetts, and the Environmental League of Massachusetts.

00:45:52.250 --> 00:45:56.450
Ladies and gentlemen, it is my distinct honor and privilege to have as a guest

00:45:56.450 --> 00:46:01.050
on this podcast, Jacquetta Van Zandt.

00:46:11.603 --> 00:46:16.243
All right. Jacquetta Van Zandt. How you doing, sister? You doing good?

00:46:16.863 --> 00:46:23.123
I'm well. I am actively watching the news every day, so I'm trying to temper

00:46:23.123 --> 00:46:28.063
myself and not get too emotionally involved in what's happening. But all in all, I'm good.

00:46:28.543 --> 00:46:32.563
Yeah, that's all of us that pay attention to politics right now.

00:46:32.923 --> 00:46:38.243
Just seems like a never-ending saga, episode, drama. Hit parade,

00:46:38.443 --> 00:46:40.463
I think was the term I was going to use, but same thing.

00:46:41.223 --> 00:46:44.883
Yeah. Same thing. Happy holidays to you, by the way. Thank you.

00:46:45.043 --> 00:46:47.163
Happy holidays. Happy Kwanzaa, all of it.

00:46:48.003 --> 00:46:52.583
All right. So how I normally do this is that I do a couple of icebreakers to

00:46:52.583 --> 00:46:53.823
kind of kick everything off.

00:46:53.963 --> 00:46:57.443
And so the first is a quote I want you to respond to.

00:46:58.083 --> 00:47:04.003
And the quote is, no matter if they look like us, no matter if they are the

00:47:04.003 --> 00:47:09.823
same party, everybody is subject to accountability when you ask somebody for your vote.

00:47:10.972 --> 00:47:14.372
My first reaction is I agree, you know, all skin folk and kin folk,

00:47:14.612 --> 00:47:16.132
especially when they get a little bit of power.

00:47:16.412 --> 00:47:22.732
So I certainly, although, you know, and I want to be very clear about this,

00:47:22.832 --> 00:47:28.572
I consider myself a community builder, but I'm also responsible to my community

00:47:28.572 --> 00:47:31.472
and I hold my community responsible to me.

00:47:31.912 --> 00:47:37.532
So, you know, I don't necessarily, even though I do consider myself a feminist.

00:47:37.712 --> 00:47:43.552
I consider myself a Black power positioner. I do not agree that everybody who

00:47:43.552 --> 00:47:48.612
looks like us and gets up there, even if they're on the Democratic side, belongs there.

00:47:49.252 --> 00:47:54.412
So repeat that, because that's one of those things where one of my guests got

00:47:54.412 --> 00:47:58.612
us started in that, and I try to highlight those things where it's like,

00:47:58.772 --> 00:48:01.232
yeah, say that again so the people in the back here.

00:48:01.532 --> 00:48:06.772
Say that again about you're responsible for your community. Say that again.

00:48:07.032 --> 00:48:13.972
Yes. I feel like I am responsible for my community, but my community is also responsible to me.

00:48:15.645 --> 00:48:19.225
Of, you know, some onus on behalf of the community and stakeholders.

00:48:19.345 --> 00:48:23.985
And I certainly believe that, you know, people get into this mode of I've done the work.

00:48:24.025 --> 00:48:28.205
And so, you know, you have to listen to me and I begrudge no one,

00:48:28.305 --> 00:48:32.085
you know, I would never say John Lewis didn't go to the mat for us,

00:48:32.165 --> 00:48:35.825
but do I agree with some of the ways that he voted when he was in Congress? No.

00:48:36.005 --> 00:48:38.565
And I hold him responsible for those. Yeah.

00:48:39.505 --> 00:48:42.645
All right. So now the next one is called 20 questions.

00:48:43.565 --> 00:48:47.065
So I need you to Give me a number between 1 and 20.

00:48:47.585 --> 00:48:54.305
13. All right. Do you think there's such a thing as unbiased news or media and why?

00:48:55.225 --> 00:48:59.485
No, there's bias in news, and that is intentional.

00:49:00.225 --> 00:49:05.905
And look, I feel like integrity in journalism has left the building,

00:49:05.905 --> 00:49:08.525
and it becomes really salacious.

00:49:08.725 --> 00:49:13.405
And that's how Trump rose. And, you know, I had this conversation on a panel

00:49:13.405 --> 00:49:18.365
during CBC Week when I said CNN is responsible for Trump.

00:49:18.985 --> 00:49:23.965
When they got into this whole, you know, him being a circus and a clown show

00:49:23.965 --> 00:49:26.845
because that was ratings and people were like, oh, my God, what is he saying?

00:49:27.205 --> 00:49:31.125
Instead of keeping him off the airwaves, they did it.

00:49:31.285 --> 00:49:35.365
They brought more attention to him. So I hold them responsible for that.

00:49:35.365 --> 00:49:37.665
I mean, Fox News has always been Fox News, right?

00:49:37.825 --> 00:49:41.205
They are never gone to the days where Martin and Liv and Single were on the

00:49:41.205 --> 00:49:48.545
Fox Network when they were pro-Black, pro-youth, pro-progressive values to where they are now.

00:49:49.165 --> 00:49:53.425
That's not a shock. And don't forget, CNN used to be very conservative.

00:49:54.364 --> 00:49:58.024
Yeah very much so yeah um and I I see

00:49:58.024 --> 00:50:01.304
but I my my my gripe with CNN goes

00:50:01.304 --> 00:50:04.184
all the way back to that show was it

00:50:04.184 --> 00:50:10.364
called crossfire when they had Paul Bagala on and then pat began or whoever

00:50:10.364 --> 00:50:14.564
oh I don't remember if it was called crossfire it was called something and then

00:50:14.564 --> 00:50:19.124
them jokers would you know and it was just like and then him between that show

00:50:19.124 --> 00:50:23.944
and then I know tucker Carlson ended up being on that show at some point.

00:50:24.184 --> 00:50:29.504
And then with Bill O'Reilly, I always used to say Bill O'Reilly was the guy

00:50:29.504 --> 00:50:33.464
at the end of the bar that was drunk and just exposing his opinions.

00:50:33.824 --> 00:50:37.424
And they decided, why don't we put a camera on that guy? Right.

00:50:37.824 --> 00:50:42.884
And it was like, from that moment on, political discourse to me just started

00:50:42.884 --> 00:50:44.284
going straight to the toilet.

00:50:44.504 --> 00:50:47.984
Which I don't disagree with. I believe there's room for debate.

00:50:48.164 --> 00:50:52.284
I don't agree with everything that, you know, my family or my friends say,

00:50:52.504 --> 00:50:53.824
I think there's room for debate.

00:50:54.044 --> 00:50:57.884
Where a debate becomes a problem is when you're not even willing to listen to

00:50:57.884 --> 00:51:01.044
the other person's views. And I think that's where we're at right now.

00:51:01.164 --> 00:51:04.964
It's just, I was talking to a friend, we were talking about D'Angelo and Angie Stone.

00:51:05.504 --> 00:51:10.064
And she was of the idea that Angie Stone had groomed D'Angelo,

00:51:10.184 --> 00:51:14.844
even though D'Angelo had said on camera that he pursued Angie Stone.

00:51:15.224 --> 00:51:19.524
And I showed her the video And she just would not change her mind because people

00:51:19.524 --> 00:51:20.704
believe what they want to believe.

00:51:20.944 --> 00:51:25.084
And I think that's a dangerous place to be. You have to have an open mind.

00:51:25.084 --> 00:51:30.164
I don't necessarily agree with everything that my peers or my friends say.

00:51:30.404 --> 00:51:34.624
Sometimes my friends say the most outrageous or ridiculous things.

00:51:35.204 --> 00:51:39.884
And I just say, well, I don't agree with that. Here's why. And we move forward or we don't.

00:51:40.124 --> 00:51:46.944
But there's room for debate. Yeah, yeah, and I agree with that Why politics and Prosecco?

00:51:48.387 --> 00:51:51.987
Prosecco has always been my drink of choice. When I was able to start drinking,

00:51:52.247 --> 00:51:57.467
I always drank Prosecco because I like fizzy drinks. I like sweet drinks.

00:51:57.787 --> 00:52:04.867
So it became a play on words, but it was my drink of choice.

00:52:04.867 --> 00:52:09.907
I think I had first started saying things like the Prosecco perspective,

00:52:09.907 --> 00:52:13.207
but then I was like, I don't think anybody, they'll just think I'm just talking

00:52:13.207 --> 00:52:14.247
about different drinks.

00:52:14.807 --> 00:52:18.147
And I wanted to talk about politics. So when I started the podcast,

00:52:18.687 --> 00:52:25.147
which was literally born out of me roasting elected officials here in Boston at my kitchen table.

00:52:25.767 --> 00:52:30.087
A lot of them I was friends with. And I would, you know, they'd come over.

00:52:30.467 --> 00:52:35.607
This is when I had an apartment in Quincy and I would just roast them and they would roast me.

00:52:35.847 --> 00:52:38.507
And that's how the podcast was born.

00:52:38.967 --> 00:52:41.447
Because a lot of them were like, you know, people like take your show on the

00:52:41.447 --> 00:52:44.187
road. It was just kind of like, you should talk about these things.

00:52:44.307 --> 00:52:46.187
I'm sure you're not the only person with this opinion.

00:52:46.387 --> 00:52:49.887
And it grew from there. And I didn't even know the media was watching.

00:52:50.247 --> 00:52:53.867
I just, this was, it was the pandemic. Everybody was at home.

00:52:54.307 --> 00:52:58.667
George Floyd had just been murdered. And so everybody was starting to tune in.

00:52:58.847 --> 00:53:05.027
My thoughts about politics were formed well before I started a podcast.

00:53:05.187 --> 00:53:09.767
I was always sort of opinionated and I make no bones about that.

00:53:09.767 --> 00:53:15.107
That I, you know, I tell this story all is I'm the youngest of five girls.

00:53:15.327 --> 00:53:19.247
So, you know, when you have that many different personalities,

00:53:19.247 --> 00:53:24.467
you have to navigate, you have to form an opinion and form your own identity,

00:53:24.467 --> 00:53:26.447
because you can get lost in the shuffle.

00:53:26.807 --> 00:53:31.787
So I, you know, I'd always been a debater, I had always thought about politics.

00:53:32.067 --> 00:53:36.367
In my parents' homes, there were always black books, Black art, Black perspectives.

00:53:37.007 --> 00:53:40.107
So it wasn't like, you know, someone had to teach me this.

00:53:40.327 --> 00:53:45.447
I grew up around a lot of this. And my parents were never people who said,

00:53:45.567 --> 00:53:48.387
I don't want to hear your opinion. It was like, tell me why you don't agree.

00:53:48.627 --> 00:53:52.407
And I think to their detriment, I became mouthy. So...

00:53:53.158 --> 00:53:56.518
So that's where we stand. Be careful what you ask for.

00:53:56.818 --> 00:54:01.218
Right. And my parents are very concerned. And they're not progressive Democrats.

00:54:01.218 --> 00:54:03.658
They're liberals, but they're not progressive liberals.

00:54:04.258 --> 00:54:09.178
They both grew up during the civil rights time. And my mom in segregated Memphis,

00:54:09.558 --> 00:54:11.638
my dad in the segregated Midwest.

00:54:12.298 --> 00:54:19.698
So their ideas about politics and Black influence was very different from mine.

00:54:19.878 --> 00:54:21.158
I didn't have those struggles.

00:54:22.118 --> 00:54:30.458
So their radical ways or their idea of radical advocacy differed from mine. I didn't have to march.

00:54:30.758 --> 00:54:32.658
You know, we had it a little bit

00:54:32.658 --> 00:54:36.318
differently. So I had to find a different tool to use to be an advocate.

00:54:37.058 --> 00:54:44.518
Yeah. Yeah, I guess if I had gone with your kind of theme and renaming my podcast,

00:54:44.518 --> 00:54:47.758
it would have been politics and bourbon. I think that would have been.

00:54:48.098 --> 00:54:50.898
We like a little bourbon liquor every now and then. Yeah.

00:54:51.158 --> 00:54:54.998
Yeah, I think I would have done that. And I just listen to you because my friends,

00:54:55.218 --> 00:55:02.038
when Donald Trump first got elected, he would say something crazy on Twitter or whatever.

00:55:02.398 --> 00:55:06.438
And I was hoovering at the time and I'd pull over to the side and I'd start

00:55:06.438 --> 00:55:08.458
venting and recording my vents.

00:55:08.698 --> 00:55:12.698
And my roommate was a mass communications major. He said, you know,

00:55:12.758 --> 00:55:13.918
you can do a podcast, right?

00:55:14.438 --> 00:55:17.718
And you can just put that out there in the air. And he said,

00:55:17.898 --> 00:55:21.138
people, because you were elected, people would listen to you.

00:55:21.238 --> 00:55:24.318
And I said, no. So here I am.

00:55:25.287 --> 00:55:28.427
Podcasting has become the new way people get their information.

00:55:28.707 --> 00:55:33.207
If you look at what Kamala is doing now, she's actually not going on a lot of big news shows.

00:55:33.387 --> 00:55:38.367
She's going around to different podcasts and doing interviews because what I

00:55:38.367 --> 00:55:43.367
think she realized was the DNC does not, they didn't get it right when it came to communications.

00:55:43.587 --> 00:55:46.667
They didn't get it right when it came to messaging. She wasn't able to talk

00:55:46.667 --> 00:55:48.767
to the people that she needed to talk to.

00:55:49.007 --> 00:55:54.407
She didn't need to convince me to vote for her. I was already a well-informed, well-engaged voter.

00:55:54.847 --> 00:55:58.327
She didn't need to talk to me about her issues. I was going to vote for her

00:55:58.327 --> 00:56:02.647
because I knew what she had done. I knew where she wanted to go and I was going to vote.

00:56:03.067 --> 00:56:08.187
Her audience were really these sort of kids who don't pay attention or aren't

00:56:08.187 --> 00:56:11.627
doing their due diligence in research. That's her audience.

00:56:12.047 --> 00:56:16.907
I say this to Ayanna Pressley a lot. I'm not your audience when it comes to

00:56:16.907 --> 00:56:22.647
student loans and, you know, this idea of debt.

00:56:23.067 --> 00:56:28.467
I have a different perspective. I don't have student loans. I don't have a lot of debt.

00:56:28.667 --> 00:56:31.827
So I'm not your audience. Don't talk to me about it. But let me get you 10 to

00:56:31.827 --> 00:56:37.507
20 women in the room who are struggling with student loans and who are struggling with debt.

00:56:37.727 --> 00:56:42.107
And so I think when you see people like you and people like me,

00:56:42.347 --> 00:56:45.227
we are becoming the new voice being able to be.

00:56:46.244 --> 00:56:51.484
Not unbiased, but it's certainly a refreshing way that people can get their

00:56:51.484 --> 00:56:55.884
message out to the masses and the people that they normally would not talk to.

00:56:56.084 --> 00:56:57.364
We're not going to the View.

00:56:57.824 --> 00:56:59.884
Would love to, but we're not going there.

00:57:00.364 --> 00:57:03.624
You never know. You might get there when you go. You never know. You never know.

00:57:04.064 --> 00:57:08.624
I only want to go if Whoopi invites me personally. I'm not going if anybody else doesn't invite me.

00:57:11.044 --> 00:57:14.064
You hear that, Karen Johnson? You have to invite me. Oh.

00:57:15.584 --> 00:57:21.884
In your self-description of your political work, you said, I don't just walk in the room.

00:57:22.024 --> 00:57:24.184
I rearranged the power structure.

00:57:25.064 --> 00:57:29.604
You kind of got into it a little bit earlier, but talk about your journey of

00:57:29.604 --> 00:57:32.704
how you became a power structure interior decorator.

00:57:33.579 --> 00:57:39.479
So I sort of fell into politics in high school. I went to John O'Brien School

00:57:39.479 --> 00:57:40.759
of Math and Science here in Boston.

00:57:41.139 --> 00:57:46.379
It was the first place where I understood what diversity really looked like.

00:57:46.699 --> 00:57:50.459
And I had an African-American history teacher by the name of Mr.

00:57:50.579 --> 00:57:56.059
Hall who was just, it was constant beating us in the head with,

00:57:56.239 --> 00:57:59.759
you're important, you're Black, you're powerful. world.

00:58:00.339 --> 00:58:04.519
And this was when Clinton was running for re-election. And I got into trouble

00:58:04.519 --> 00:58:11.239
and my punishment was detention, but the detention was at this phone banking

00:58:11.239 --> 00:58:13.499
with him for Clinton voters.

00:58:13.999 --> 00:58:18.179
And once I realized I could persuade people, because these were undecided voters,

00:58:18.219 --> 00:58:20.919
I didn't know that at the time, I didn't understand what an undecided voter was.

00:58:21.399 --> 00:58:26.679
Once I realized that I can change somebody's mind just by knowing the facts, I did.

00:58:26.879 --> 00:58:30.679
And it grew from there. In college, I got an internship with Barney Frank,

00:58:30.759 --> 00:58:32.799
and I would go down there for the summer.

00:58:33.039 --> 00:58:39.079
He would never pay me. And he said to me, I pay you for the rest of your life in network.

00:58:39.319 --> 00:58:44.519
So you build a network, you will always get paid. And boy, is he just, that is the truth.

00:58:44.839 --> 00:58:47.999
My network has gotten me job after job after job.

00:58:47.999 --> 00:58:53.659
And that's how I met so many people who were for then-Senator Obama So when

00:58:53.659 --> 00:58:56.119
he ran for the first time,

00:58:56.339 --> 00:59:01.379
I got a phone call and said, come to Iowa I had a white Kia Sephia and a dog

00:59:01.379 --> 00:59:07.159
named JD who was a puppy And we drove from Boston to Iowa And when I tell you,

00:59:07.199 --> 00:59:09.579
Erik, it literally exploded from there.

00:59:10.587 --> 00:59:13.207
Rolled into a job at the White House, then rolled into the re-election,

00:59:13.467 --> 00:59:16.707
rolled into a job with Terry McAuliffe, rolled into a job with Steve Grossman,

00:59:16.807 --> 00:59:18.447
rolled into a job with Trevor Goldberg.

00:59:18.587 --> 00:59:23.027
And from there, with every, and I learned every aspect of campaigning,

00:59:23.227 --> 00:59:27.767
strategy, comms, scheduling, because what I knew was there weren't people who

00:59:27.767 --> 00:59:29.607
looked like me in campaigns.

00:59:29.767 --> 00:59:33.007
There weren't people who looked like me that were at the top of the campaigns.

00:59:33.367 --> 00:59:38.267
And I knew if I wanted to be able to change strategy and change power structures.

00:59:38.267 --> 00:59:43.307
I needed to understand every part of how campaigns and political offices are run.

00:59:43.567 --> 00:59:48.967
So then when I did walk into those rooms, I could speak with authority because

00:59:48.967 --> 00:59:50.487
the white boys weren't letting us in.

00:59:50.927 --> 00:59:56.547
And many of them didn't have the same skills or experience that I had.

00:59:56.847 --> 00:59:59.667
Their daddies were donors who got them jobs.

01:00:00.087 --> 01:00:01.867
My daddy didn't donate big money.

01:00:02.707 --> 01:00:09.667
He was putting us through college. So that was sort of how I approached what

01:00:09.667 --> 01:00:11.187
I wanted to do in politics.

01:00:11.467 --> 01:00:17.907
And then as my skills got more sharper, I became more vocal about what my values

01:00:17.907 --> 01:00:20.327
were. I believed in pay equity for women.

01:00:20.547 --> 01:00:25.067
I believed in diversity, equity, and inclusion before it was a buzzword.

01:00:25.267 --> 01:00:31.767
I understood how money moved movements. I honed all of these skills and turn

01:00:31.767 --> 01:00:35.987
them into sharp tools so that I could rearrange power structures.

01:00:36.787 --> 01:00:43.027
Yeah. When you were talking about the donors and all that, I tell people I fooled

01:00:43.027 --> 01:00:44.707
a lot of folks when I was young.

01:00:45.047 --> 01:00:49.827
When I first got out of college, I would go to all these political fundraisers.

01:00:50.527 --> 01:00:54.547
So some of the white folks were pretty much like, who is this guy?

01:00:54.687 --> 01:00:58.967
He's always at this fundraiser, like a trust fund. Who is this?

01:00:59.747 --> 01:01:04.127
Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm just a little kid that just was trying to get into

01:01:04.127 --> 01:01:06.587
politics. That's how I was, especially in Mississippi.

01:01:07.447 --> 01:01:11.787
And then I really appreciate the fact that you talked about being a scheduler.

01:01:13.009 --> 01:01:19.749
Because that was, yeah, it was like, you know, I was the scheduler for a guy

01:01:19.749 --> 01:01:20.969
that got elected to Congress.

01:01:21.769 --> 01:01:27.089
And so it was like, you know, it was kind of funny in my situation.

01:01:27.089 --> 01:01:29.409
It was like I was doing the schedule.

01:01:30.437 --> 01:01:34.297
And because I was initially supposed to be the black face for the campaign. Right.

01:01:35.017 --> 01:01:38.957
It was like they said, well, we need somebody. He needs to have his day.

01:01:39.097 --> 01:01:41.897
So I started doing that and I kind of developed a system.

01:01:42.337 --> 01:01:47.777
And so when he got to the general election, they were bringing in some more

01:01:47.777 --> 01:01:51.857
people. And so they put this white boy on and his wife called and said,

01:01:51.857 --> 01:01:54.577
who's doing the schedule now? He's a little Bubba.

01:01:54.757 --> 01:01:59.037
Literally, the dude's name was Bubba. He said, Bubba's doing the schedule.

01:01:59.037 --> 01:02:00.797
And it was like, no, no, where's Erik?

01:02:00.957 --> 01:02:03.337
What's he doing? And she said, we got him doing it.

01:02:03.597 --> 01:02:07.337
Put Erik back on the schedule because I don't know what this man is trying to do with me.

01:02:08.357 --> 01:02:11.977
Put Erik back on. So I ended up being the scheduler for the rest of the campaign.

01:02:13.717 --> 01:02:17.157
And scheduling is how I got to learn who the stakeholders were,

01:02:17.177 --> 01:02:22.397
who the people in the room were, was through scheduling. And I learned their

01:02:22.397 --> 01:02:23.597
name. They learned my name.

01:02:23.737 --> 01:02:27.537
I would keep, I call it mapping now, but I would keep an Excel spreadsheet. cheat.

01:02:27.837 --> 01:02:32.477
Eric is married to Keisha. Keisha has a cat named Dawn. Dawn had surgery.

01:02:32.757 --> 01:02:38.197
So when they called, I would have that information. I called it a cheat sheet.

01:02:38.777 --> 01:02:43.697
And also, the candidates would get used to me whispering in their ear,

01:02:44.017 --> 01:02:45.737
oh, by the way, here comes Erik Fleming.

01:02:45.957 --> 01:02:49.637
You met his wife last week. Remember, she just broke her arm.

01:02:49.737 --> 01:02:50.857
You might want to mention that.

01:02:51.297 --> 01:02:58.057
It's something I do now with just my friends. And it's how I keep myself relevant in spaces.

01:02:58.237 --> 01:03:00.757
Because sometimes, you know, people think you're an extrovert.

01:03:00.877 --> 01:03:02.237
I'm not really an extrovert.

01:03:02.437 --> 01:03:06.257
I just, I don't mind being around people. But sometimes when my battery's a

01:03:06.257 --> 01:03:09.297
little low, I rely on that skill. Get in, get out.

01:03:10.537 --> 01:03:15.097
Yeah. Yeah. They actually have come up with a new term to that called the otrovert or whatever.

01:03:15.597 --> 01:03:19.977
Because I consider myself an introvert and my dad was always amazed.

01:03:19.977 --> 01:03:25.617
How how did you even get into politics you don't you don't you know you're not that kind of a person and,

01:03:26.485 --> 01:03:29.565
you're allergic to bullshit so I don't know how you got into politics and I

01:03:29.565 --> 01:03:33.725
said yeah you know you develop a skill set I mean that's just how it goes right

01:03:33.725 --> 01:03:39.245
so that's into politics yeah yeah yeah it is and when I'm listening to your

01:03:39.245 --> 01:03:41.985
story I'm like god I'm so glad I'm not alone in this,

01:03:43.125 --> 01:03:50.365
so outside of my American history lessons and schools I didn't know a lot about Boston Okay.

01:03:50.825 --> 01:03:54.965
But sometime during the 70s, and I did some research, I think it was 76,

01:03:55.505 --> 01:03:59.685
I remember an image of a black man in a three-piece suit being hit by a white

01:03:59.685 --> 01:04:01.345
dude with an American flagpole.

01:04:01.605 --> 01:04:06.605
Yes. So that stuck with me, and I have always been amazed of how black folks

01:04:06.605 --> 01:04:11.325
have navigated in that city, leading to an African-American woman being mayor for a moment.

01:04:11.945 --> 01:04:16.585
Well, she was an acting mayor. Right, but she was in the position.

01:04:17.885 --> 01:04:21.105
She wasn't elected. We can talk about that. Sure.

01:04:21.465 --> 01:04:28.145
But so as someone who grew up in Boston, how has black political power evolved there?

01:04:29.213 --> 01:04:34.653
No, it hasn't much. I actually just did a three spread op-ed in the Bay State

01:04:34.653 --> 01:04:37.813
Banner about why we lack Black political leadership.

01:04:38.013 --> 01:04:42.233
And the problem is, Boston is a very transient town.

01:04:42.613 --> 01:04:48.793
So there are very few Bostonians. I'm a Bostonian. I was born and raised here. My parents are not.

01:04:49.293 --> 01:04:53.093
Like many people, people come here for school.

01:04:53.433 --> 01:04:58.013
People come here for the medical field. We own the country and those things.

01:04:58.013 --> 01:05:01.293
So a lot of people aren't from Boston.

01:05:01.533 --> 01:05:06.373
They're not proper Bostonians. And so when they come here and to build Black

01:05:06.373 --> 01:05:11.213
political leadership or just Black leadership in general, they're navigating,

01:05:11.633 --> 01:05:15.633
one, being put into the right circles, using a quote on that.

01:05:16.113 --> 01:05:22.293
And the right circles are usually governed by people who are from Boston.

01:05:22.473 --> 01:05:26.253
They gatekeep those. and then what it is that you do.

01:05:26.573 --> 01:05:30.793
Like if you, we have a lot of pastors that come from the South and come here

01:05:30.793 --> 01:05:34.733
to, you know, they can become pretty popular.

01:05:34.913 --> 01:05:39.853
And not that they lack talent. What they lack is the ability to understand that

01:05:39.853 --> 01:05:45.273
in order to build Black political power, you need to be united in your thoughts

01:05:45.273 --> 01:05:48.953
and in your values and align them with other Black people.

01:05:48.993 --> 01:05:51.913
But when you come from a different region of the country, and I'm sure you know

01:05:51.913 --> 01:05:57.293
this, The Southern Blacks have a different perspective and outlook with white

01:05:57.293 --> 01:06:02.253
folks as Northern Blacks do, especially those of us who were born in the North.

01:06:02.593 --> 01:06:08.793
We don't necessarily acquiesce as quickly as Southern Blacks do to fit in.

01:06:09.013 --> 01:06:12.093
That's not saying that we're better, we just do it a different way.

01:06:13.216 --> 01:06:18.596
I find it hard to build Black political leadership in a space like Boston,

01:06:18.596 --> 01:06:22.516
knowing that we don't have power money circles here.

01:06:22.796 --> 01:06:26.316
So we, yes, we have the Black elite and the Black bourgeoisie,

01:06:26.416 --> 01:06:28.796
but they're not moving heavy, heavy money.

01:06:29.216 --> 01:06:35.996
Like Atlanta, you go to Atlanta, they have a power structure on money in some spaces.

01:06:36.276 --> 01:06:40.196
And that's because they have always had a Black community.

01:06:40.576 --> 01:06:44.176
Boston had to build a Black community. We were not always here.

01:06:44.416 --> 01:06:48.956
Boston is very patriarchal. It's a very Irish town or was.

01:06:49.416 --> 01:06:55.256
So the Black and Brown and AAPI community that came here, a lot of these folks were transients.

01:06:55.496 --> 01:06:58.656
So they made Boston their home eventually.

01:06:58.676 --> 01:07:02.596
But we don't have that power because many of them aren't rooted here.

01:07:02.596 --> 01:07:07.436
So they come here, they get their education or, you know, they become brilliant

01:07:07.436 --> 01:07:09.696
scientists and doctors and all these other things.

01:07:09.956 --> 01:07:14.856
And they're looking to move into higher spaces, whether that's political office

01:07:14.856 --> 01:07:16.256
or to become a stakeholder.

01:07:16.556 --> 01:07:21.136
But none of them are actually thinking about what is it that Black Boston needs?

01:07:21.956 --> 01:07:27.436
We have a Organization here called Boston while black Fabulous organization

01:07:27.436 --> 01:07:30.716
run by a girl named Sheena collier who's not from Boston.

01:07:31.676 --> 01:07:38.296
And She has been able to tap into Making the space comfortable for people who

01:07:38.296 --> 01:07:42.856
come here The reason why boston while black doesn't work for me is because I

01:07:42.856 --> 01:07:45.896
live in Boston Proper I live in Roxbury.

01:07:46.156 --> 01:07:52.356
I bought a home in Roxbury. I'm not a renter. I'm an owner I went to high school in Roxbury.

01:07:52.636 --> 01:07:58.596
My offices for my day job are in the seaport. I live, work, eat, and play in Boston.

01:07:58.816 --> 01:08:03.496
My dollar circulates in Roxbury three times before it leaves to go anywhere else.

01:08:03.656 --> 01:08:08.436
I am Boston while Black, and I am able to do that because I'm a true Bostonian.

01:08:09.229 --> 01:08:12.549
There are spaces that many people don't have that advantage.

01:08:12.949 --> 01:08:17.529
And so the reason why we don't have that Black political power is because everyone's

01:08:17.529 --> 01:08:22.449
coming with their own agenda about what their definition or barometer for Black is.

01:08:22.889 --> 01:08:26.989
You can talk, I mean, this is something culturally as well. You got hood rich

01:08:26.989 --> 01:08:29.889
Black folks, and then you got sustainable wealth Black folks.

01:08:30.109 --> 01:08:35.169
Hood rich is, I want a BMW, and I live in this apartment building.

01:08:35.189 --> 01:08:38.869
And the image is, I look like I have it together, but that's not the truth.

01:08:39.449 --> 01:08:42.889
Meanwhile, the rest of us look boring to the rest of the world because we're

01:08:42.889 --> 01:08:47.689
not out doing bottle service or traveling to these exotic places only to come

01:08:47.689 --> 01:08:50.449
back and pay rent at somebody else's home.

01:08:50.809 --> 01:08:54.809
It's the same thing you find in Black political power. If I look like I have

01:08:54.809 --> 01:09:00.629
power and people think I have power, then I don't really have to buck up against the status quo.

01:09:01.049 --> 01:09:04.089
Meanwhile, the rest of us are like, I don't need to look like I have power.

01:09:04.089 --> 01:09:07.509
I'm building power and I'm coming in the room and I got something to say.

01:09:07.609 --> 01:09:09.969
And anybody who doesn't like it, that's too bad.

01:09:10.149 --> 01:09:12.349
And so that's why I'm able to be vocal.

01:09:12.629 --> 01:09:15.449
I went after the mayor very hard this year.

01:09:15.869 --> 01:09:22.389
This summer, I just, I was relentless in calling her out for her lack of diversity,

01:09:22.389 --> 01:09:26.429
her inability to really promote Black American women.

01:09:26.429 --> 01:09:31.289
And I'm intentional about that when I say Black American women.

01:09:31.609 --> 01:09:37.669
And so I, when we talk about moving power structures, I don't have any,

01:09:38.229 --> 01:09:41.329
I don't owe any debts to anybody in elected office here.

01:09:41.349 --> 01:09:45.309
So I can go in there and rename the power structure.

01:09:45.449 --> 01:09:49.689
I can rebuild it based on what I believe is Black political power.

01:09:49.909 --> 01:09:54.689
Many people who come here don't have that ability. They're still trying to belong,

01:09:55.581 --> 01:10:02.201
Yeah, I feel you on that. I think I'm glad you have this positive view of Atlanta.

01:10:02.521 --> 01:10:06.901
I don't in the short, because it's a different level.

01:10:08.321 --> 01:10:14.901
Yeah, there's more money because Maynard Jackson tapped into a leverage point

01:10:14.901 --> 01:10:19.761
and was able to get a higher level of a black middle class.

01:10:20.081 --> 01:10:24.821
Yeah. But Atlanta has the largest wealth gap of any city in the United States.

01:10:26.301 --> 01:10:30.421
And the political power. Yeah, there's some folks that got some money,

01:10:30.501 --> 01:10:33.541
but you ain't from the Cascades. I have a hard time getting elected.

01:10:34.453 --> 01:10:40.273
And this is one of the top 10 cities as far as wealth in the United States.

01:10:40.693 --> 01:10:45.973
So there might be some black folks that got more money than say black folks in Boston.

01:10:46.693 --> 01:10:52.473
But as compared to these white Atlanta folks, they're in the same boat.

01:10:53.173 --> 01:10:56.653
It's like in the city proper of Atlanta, you can have that.

01:10:57.433 --> 01:11:00.613
When you start venturing out into the perimeter, that's our domain.

01:11:01.193 --> 01:11:05.373
And we just really went through that. But again, this is not about me.

01:11:05.573 --> 01:11:09.373
It's about you. So let me just let me out myself a little bit,

01:11:09.393 --> 01:11:13.893
because even though I go after the black bourgeoisie, there are those who look

01:11:13.893 --> 01:11:17.313
at me and know that I am also a part of it. Grew up in Jack and Jill.

01:11:17.493 --> 01:11:19.953
I'm a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha. I'm a member of the Lynx.

01:11:20.333 --> 01:11:24.653
Like I but those are spaces that, yes, I was born into a few of them.

01:11:24.833 --> 01:11:28.053
However, I had to work hard. The Lynx just don't let you in.

01:11:28.273 --> 01:11:33.693
You got to prove yourself. So you got to prove that you're worthy and that you're doing the work.

01:11:33.933 --> 01:11:36.673
So, you know, I say all this with the authority to say, yes,

01:11:36.753 --> 01:11:40.333
I belong to what is considered the black bourgeoisie.

01:11:40.553 --> 01:11:44.333
However, I'm in those spaces doing the same thing I'm doing in these streets.

01:11:44.973 --> 01:11:48.893
Yeah. Yeah. And that's where we want the voices to come from.

01:11:49.133 --> 01:11:51.793
Again, let me not get in the soapbox. Let's get back.

01:11:52.273 --> 01:11:56.273
So you mentioned the fact that you were jumping on the mayor pretty hard this

01:11:56.273 --> 01:11:59.333
summer. You were working for one of her opponents.

01:12:00.153 --> 01:12:06.893
So kind of give an autopsy. What happened? How come your candidate wasn't able to get her out?

01:12:08.313 --> 01:12:13.233
So I have a three-pronged approach to this. So let me start by saying I didn't

01:12:13.233 --> 01:12:15.273
support Mayor Wu the first time she ran.

01:12:15.693 --> 01:12:18.733
So I was not a supporter. I was not somebody who jumped ship.

01:12:19.851 --> 01:12:24.871
My relationship with the mayor goes back to when we were both staffers in different

01:12:24.871 --> 01:12:27.131
campaigns and in different camps.

01:12:27.631 --> 01:12:33.751
And she has said things to me over the years that have bucked up against my identity.

01:12:34.631 --> 01:12:40.351
Speaking of the Black middle class and her idea that it doesn't exactly exist.

01:12:40.851 --> 01:12:49.191
And my beef with her, how she has wronged Ayanna Pressley and how she wronged Andrea Campbell.

01:12:49.191 --> 01:12:54.111
So when I say Black American women, I want people to understand there are white

01:12:54.111 --> 01:12:58.691
adjacent ethnicities that have a problem with Black American women.

01:12:58.891 --> 01:13:03.371
They don't necessarily have those problems with Black immigrant women because

01:13:03.371 --> 01:13:08.931
we are not a monolith and we think of race and diversity in very different ways.

01:13:09.071 --> 01:13:15.531
And that's okay. But when you have someone utilizing that as a way to divide

01:13:15.531 --> 01:13:17.391
and conquer, I got a problem with that.

01:13:17.691 --> 01:13:21.391
So I was not a supporter of Mayor Wu the last time or this time.

01:13:22.319 --> 01:13:25.259
Minnie Mouse had run, I would have been in Minnie Mouse's camp.

01:13:25.439 --> 01:13:28.099
It wouldn't have mattered. It just happened to be Josh Kraft.

01:13:28.439 --> 01:13:32.519
It wouldn't have mattered. I was going to work to get her out of office.

01:13:33.099 --> 01:13:36.939
The mayor has the power of incumbency. And here in Massachusetts,

01:13:36.939 --> 01:13:44.819
we have voters who are not exactly open to people running against incumbents.

01:13:45.059 --> 01:13:51.099
So she had the power of incumbency. She also had the advantage of making Trump

01:13:51.099 --> 01:13:56.339
the problem and attaching him to Josh Kraft, who is the son of a billionaire.

01:13:56.599 --> 01:13:59.699
He is not a billionaire. He is the son of a billionaire.

01:13:59.899 --> 01:14:05.559
And she utilized that. She capitalized it. And what folks want to know right

01:14:05.559 --> 01:14:13.279
now is how angry they can be at rich white men as opposed to her actually talking about the issues.

01:14:13.559 --> 01:14:20.919
So my candidate did not want to attack her the way he could have because she's

01:14:20.919 --> 01:14:25.739
a minority, she's a woman, and he just didn't want to do that.

01:14:25.739 --> 01:14:31.719
And I said to him, I think that that's the wrong move because you need to be

01:14:31.719 --> 01:14:35.239
able to say why she is not capable of being mayor.

01:14:35.499 --> 01:14:40.879
You need to take all of that out. And when you consult on races, I'm sure you know this.

01:14:41.339 --> 01:14:44.599
Sometimes you have a lone voice in the room because everybody wants the candidate

01:14:44.599 --> 01:14:51.479
to like them and to think that they are the trusted voice so they often tell

01:14:51.479 --> 01:14:53.279
him or her what they want to hear.

01:14:53.279 --> 01:14:57.159
I am not the consultant in the room to do that and I make it very clear before

01:14:57.159 --> 01:14:59.399
I sign any contract I'm gonna be honest with you.

01:14:59.559 --> 01:15:03.879
I'm gonna be straight with you direct and sometimes abrasive But everything

01:15:03.879 --> 01:15:05.899
that I'm saying it's rooted in truth.

01:15:06.119 --> 01:15:14.919
I've done this too many times so That was that was the issue with it, but I still kept my.

01:15:16.593 --> 01:15:21.093
Vigor at going after her on issues that were important to me,

01:15:21.213 --> 01:15:26.453
like the real estate hike that she did, the fact that she had put these bike

01:15:26.453 --> 01:15:30.533
lanes in, and I'm not sure, have you been to Boston? I have not.

01:15:31.093 --> 01:15:36.353
So Boston has very narrow streets. We still have- From what I've seen on TV, I understand. Yeah.

01:15:36.753 --> 01:15:39.653
It's still very horse and buggy here. If you go to Beacon Hill,

01:15:39.753 --> 01:15:43.473
you can't even park because the cobblestone streets, it's just very horse and buggy.

01:15:43.473 --> 01:15:50.293
And she was throwing up bike lanes, mostly in the neighborhoods of color,

01:15:50.533 --> 01:15:55.313
which was narrowing the street, making more traffic for people who don't ride

01:15:55.313 --> 01:15:56.673
bikes on a regular basis.

01:15:57.253 --> 01:16:01.913
And so I just had issue after issue, and I was vocal about it.

01:16:02.393 --> 01:16:09.313
You know, she never countered me because she knew that she couldn't. She knew our history.

01:16:09.613 --> 01:16:13.013
And so that's how you know sometimes when you're on the right track.

01:16:13.673 --> 01:16:17.553
Sounds like the wrong person ran for office, but we'll get into that a little later.

01:16:19.897 --> 01:16:25.437
I recently interviewed former counselor Tania Anderson before she started her prison sentence.

01:16:25.857 --> 01:16:29.177
I knew that you helped her when she first ran for office.

01:16:29.577 --> 01:16:35.957
So strategy. How did her recent challenges impact you politically and personally?

01:16:36.477 --> 01:16:39.977
So politically, it didn't really take a hit.

01:16:40.397 --> 01:16:45.037
Personally, it broke my heart. So Tanya and I go all the way back to high school.

01:16:45.177 --> 01:16:48.937
We went to high school together, as did her husband, Tanzarius.

01:16:48.937 --> 01:16:56.997
And when she called, because he asked her, he being Tanzerius,

01:16:57.257 --> 01:16:58.797
said, you should call Jacquetta.

01:16:58.977 --> 01:17:05.637
She knows what she's doing. I did that as a favor to friends from high school. I wrote a strategy out.

01:17:05.917 --> 01:17:13.097
I tried my best to impart how to best be in a space where you're representing

01:17:13.097 --> 01:17:20.477
a predominantly black district in a predominantly white city council and how to do that.

01:17:22.217 --> 01:17:27.837
Tanya was very adamant that she didn't want to be told what to do.

01:17:28.537 --> 01:17:34.217
So, you know, one of the things that I find disheartening is we can teach people

01:17:34.217 --> 01:17:38.437
and pipeline people to run for office, but they have to be willing to learn

01:17:38.437 --> 01:17:41.637
how to govern as well because it's two separate things.

01:17:42.277 --> 01:17:46.077
And I was so disappointed because she had been warned.

01:17:46.577 --> 01:17:52.817
We had warned her before she got up there to temper yourself your first year,

01:17:53.057 --> 01:17:57.937
get some grounding, understand how things work up there, and then we can come

01:17:57.937 --> 01:18:00.957
up with a plan of attack to take some of these people out.

01:18:01.677 --> 01:18:05.177
One, she had hired her son and she got reprimanded for that.

01:18:06.286 --> 01:18:10.866
She still didn't listen. After a while, she and I grew apart.

01:18:10.926 --> 01:18:14.626
And I just said, look, you can only help people so much.

01:18:14.826 --> 01:18:20.346
You can't always keep cleaning up the mess.

01:18:20.626 --> 01:18:25.986
And so once I realized that she didn't want anything to do with my team,

01:18:26.366 --> 01:18:31.106
my consultant team, and she thought she had it under control, this is the result.

01:18:31.406 --> 01:18:37.586
This is what happens when your ego gets in the way. And Tanya's ego got in the way.

01:18:38.626 --> 01:18:42.526
Yeah. And that falls in the category for a lot of people.

01:18:42.646 --> 01:18:47.926
I was just thinking about when you were saying that you're the consultant in

01:18:47.926 --> 01:18:52.106
the room that's not, you know, going to kiss ass, basically.

01:18:52.446 --> 01:18:57.646
Yeah. And I remember a conversation I had with the incumbent mayor in Jackson,

01:18:57.646 --> 01:19:00.746
and he had asked me to run his campaign.

01:19:00.906 --> 01:19:04.546
And he said, Erik, who do you think my biggest because the opponent is.

01:19:04.666 --> 01:19:06.506
And I said, the man you see in the mirror every day.

01:19:07.486 --> 01:19:10.406
Right. I said, because of some of the things that he had done.

01:19:10.566 --> 01:19:15.066
Right. And so, you know, I get that. And, you know, having had a chance to talk

01:19:15.066 --> 01:19:21.426
to her directly, and it was by if people judged it, it would be more of a softball interview,

01:19:21.706 --> 01:19:26.766
you know, but I wanted people to kind of get to know her.

01:19:27.106 --> 01:19:32.846
And I was very, very surprised that she even accepted my invitation to come on.

01:19:33.878 --> 01:19:38.578
So, you know, I've contacted her since she's gotten out and she says she's doing

01:19:38.578 --> 01:19:44.798
okay. And she'll probably come back on when she's ready to kind of really get

01:19:44.798 --> 01:19:47.778
into the meat of what happened from her side of the point.

01:19:48.098 --> 01:19:50.418
But I get what you're saying.

01:19:51.038 --> 01:19:53.338
She's a smart, smart woman.

01:19:53.978 --> 01:20:00.238
The problem is you can't be smart and think you're the smartest person in the

01:20:00.238 --> 01:20:02.478
room. If that's the case, then you're in the wrong room.

01:20:03.218 --> 01:20:09.218
And she just, I think for her, there was an insecurity of having me there because

01:20:09.218 --> 01:20:12.418
it's like, well, I'm the elected official. I should know these things.

01:20:12.598 --> 01:20:16.618
And my position is like, sometimes you don't know everything.

01:20:17.078 --> 01:20:21.758
And I had had a long history in politics. And I'm telling her,

01:20:22.098 --> 01:20:23.178
don't trust this person.

01:20:23.378 --> 01:20:25.618
You don't need to go to have a meeting with them.

01:20:25.858 --> 01:20:31.178
This person is just going to backfire on you. And if somebody is telling me

01:20:31.178 --> 01:20:36.378
that's been in this business for a long time, who I should and shouldn't interact

01:20:36.378 --> 01:20:37.818
with, I'll probably listen.

01:20:38.358 --> 01:20:43.118
But no, it was just, it's one of those things. You know, the best piece of advice

01:20:43.118 --> 01:20:46.798
I got, it was a guy, he's an elected official. Matter of fact,

01:20:46.798 --> 01:20:48.478
he's a state representative now.

01:20:48.678 --> 01:20:51.998
But I think he was on the city council then, but he was an insurance salesman.

01:20:53.098 --> 01:20:57.598
And he came up to me one meeting. He said, Erik, you need some insurance.

01:20:58.358 --> 01:21:02.118
And I was like, really, bro, you would, I mean, you're trying to,

01:21:02.358 --> 01:21:03.918
you know, so he said, no, hear me out.

01:21:04.278 --> 01:21:09.238
He said, you are out there. I mean, you raise hell, you do this.

01:21:09.698 --> 01:21:11.218
You done pissed some people off.

01:21:12.298 --> 01:21:13.498
You have a family.

01:21:14.550 --> 01:21:20.490
He said, if you want to continue to have that, you need to have something to

01:21:20.490 --> 01:21:24.450
know that if something does happen to you, your family's not going to suffer for it.

01:21:24.650 --> 01:21:27.910
And I said, I see why you're one of the best insurance salesmen in the city.

01:21:28.030 --> 01:21:34.110
I get it, you know, but it made sense because it's like a lot of times in politics,

01:21:34.110 --> 01:21:38.490
you got to have foundations so you can continue to have your freedom,

01:21:38.650 --> 01:21:40.290
whether it's financial or in

01:21:40.290 --> 01:21:44.430
the case of having an advisor who's going to challenge you and say, look.

01:21:44.910 --> 01:21:50.110
Maybe you shouldn't go down this road. So I, and, and, and, and understand that,

01:21:50.610 --> 01:21:54.310
yeah, you don't want to do that, but if you want to be effective,

01:21:54.810 --> 01:21:59.010
you might have to swallow that pride just a little bit to get in there.

01:21:59.110 --> 01:22:02.110
And I, we can go on and on about that, but. And it's tough.

01:22:02.390 --> 01:22:05.710
I mean, there's been moments where I've had to swallow my pride or I've been

01:22:05.710 --> 01:22:08.530
stubborn and it's bitten me in the behind.

01:22:09.050 --> 01:22:13.470
We all have those moments. I think when you are in a city like Boston where

01:22:13.470 --> 01:22:15.970
we don't have enough Black political power,

01:22:16.350 --> 01:22:22.650
these are the times where you really need to have one clear message and trajectory

01:22:22.650 --> 01:22:25.070
and don't waver from that.

01:22:25.250 --> 01:22:28.950
I don't know. I mean, and then when I saw when the news started coming out and

01:22:28.950 --> 01:22:34.450
it was like for very little money, I'm like, come on.

01:22:34.690 --> 01:22:37.670
Like, it just, it's so unnecessary. So unnecessary.

01:22:38.110 --> 01:22:42.450
Yeah. Well, they always get us for the small stuff. That's right.

01:22:42.690 --> 01:22:47.510
That's right. You know, it's like I tell people, I'm not encouraging you to

01:22:47.510 --> 01:22:51.890
do bad behavior, but I would like to see a black person be a Bernie Madoff.

01:22:51.990 --> 01:22:54.430
If you're going to go out, go out like that.

01:22:54.670 --> 01:22:59.070
Don't, you know, the nickel. I mean, we had a guy lose his job and his right

01:22:59.070 --> 01:23:02.470
to vote, go to jail, over a $500 carburetor.

01:23:02.670 --> 01:23:06.970
I mean, crazy stuff. Crazy. Anyway. Anyway.

01:23:07.880 --> 01:23:10.880
In a recent speech, you said that they are not targeting the powerful.

01:23:11.220 --> 01:23:14.760
They are targeting the vulnerable. They are targeting the emerging.

01:23:15.020 --> 01:23:17.120
And quite frankly, they are targeting the Black.

01:23:17.500 --> 01:23:23.400
Who is they, in your opinion? And how can Black folks overcome that targeting politically?

01:23:24.020 --> 01:23:28.100
So they, for, so they, it's a few theys.

01:23:28.240 --> 01:23:34.060
On the national level, they are the people who are behind the desk making the decisions.

01:23:34.280 --> 01:23:37.220
So they're the decision makers in government.

01:23:38.100 --> 01:23:43.600
And that could look like the Republicans, that can look like MAGA people who

01:23:43.600 --> 01:23:46.880
are in positions and agencies, it can look like all of that.

01:23:47.160 --> 01:23:52.240
On the local level, the days are the people who are in community,

01:23:52.240 --> 01:23:55.520
who talk the game, but don't move anything.

01:23:56.040 --> 01:23:58.400
If you're playing chess and you're the only one making moves,

01:23:58.640 --> 01:24:01.900
you're not having a game here. So the they's are very different.

01:24:02.220 --> 01:24:07.060
In that speech in particular, I was talking about the they's in federal government.

01:24:07.320 --> 01:24:13.380
And the they's also can be Black people in positions of power that are not doing anything.

01:24:13.600 --> 01:24:18.460
And I think Hakeem Jeffries is a very good example of a they when he made that vote.

01:24:18.880 --> 01:24:22.840
You know, the go-along to get along just doesn't work anymore.

01:24:24.240 --> 01:24:28.340
And, you know, I understand how politics work. They don't have the power in

01:24:28.340 --> 01:24:32.020
Congress right now. But the entire Congress is a clown car.

01:24:32.320 --> 01:24:37.640
It is not a group of people who have put their integrity before politics.

01:24:38.974 --> 01:24:44.494
I'm watching a documentary now. I don't know if you're a documentary fan. I am. I love Ken Burns.

01:24:44.954 --> 01:24:49.114
And Ken Burns is doing, he just released his American Revolutionary.

01:24:49.774 --> 01:24:52.294
And so I'm like, I think I'm on episode three.

01:24:52.994 --> 01:24:57.174
But say, you know, we can have a whole conversation on the founding fathers

01:24:57.174 --> 01:24:59.194
being slaveholders and all these other things.

01:24:59.334 --> 01:25:04.594
But I think what I'm taking away from it the most is this idea that they no

01:25:04.594 --> 01:25:06.734
longer wanted to be under tyranny.

01:25:07.314 --> 01:25:13.054
And their decision to form this new country was based on their own personal,

01:25:13.374 --> 01:25:17.554
I don't want to suffer like this, and I don't want to be a part of a structure

01:25:17.554 --> 01:25:20.974
that makes other people suffer under this kind of tyranny.

01:25:21.294 --> 01:25:23.814
We don't have those kinds of people anymore.

01:25:24.214 --> 01:25:28.694
Congress is a part-time job run by people making it a full-time job and getting

01:25:28.694 --> 01:25:34.694
kickbacks from speeches and panel discussions, and many of them make more money

01:25:34.694 --> 01:25:36.574
than the people who live in their districts.

01:25:37.014 --> 01:25:41.734
So you get to talk to me about being poor and staying poor while you're getting rich?

01:25:42.274 --> 01:25:45.874
Make that make sense. And I'm not saying that nobody should elevate,

01:25:46.034 --> 01:25:48.294
right? I wanted to eat steak, so I went to college.

01:25:48.554 --> 01:25:53.634
I was looking to make sure I can have a salary so that if I decide I want to

01:25:53.634 --> 01:25:57.874
fly Delta One instead of in the back of Delta. I can do that.

01:25:58.514 --> 01:26:07.294
But we are now in a space where the days are, their rhetoric is so harmful and so distracting.

01:26:08.094 --> 01:26:13.414
And they utilize that to continue to perpetuate this idea that they're helping

01:26:13.414 --> 01:26:15.074
you when they're really just harming you.

01:26:15.454 --> 01:26:19.074
You know, women have been paying for this since we got the vote.

01:26:19.314 --> 01:26:22.294
When, you know, voting against our own best interests.

01:26:22.574 --> 01:26:27.214
How do you vote against family values and you are a matriarch in your,

01:26:27.214 --> 01:26:29.754
in your house. How do you do that? So,

01:26:30.962 --> 01:26:35.982
just, I'm loving this documentary. Well, I've, I've seen the whole thing and

01:26:35.982 --> 01:26:38.602
I'm not going to tell you the conclusion.

01:26:38.602 --> 01:26:42.422
I think we kind of know how it ended, but I, you know, it was,

01:26:42.542 --> 01:26:47.422
I, I, I got a lot of the same takeaways from what you were talking about.

01:26:47.662 --> 01:26:50.522
All right. So last question. Oh, bummer.

01:26:52.362 --> 01:26:56.522
So you, you have been engaged in local and national politics for a while now.

01:26:56.522 --> 01:27:04.562
What do you think needs to be done for Democrats to gain control of both houses of Congress in 2026?

01:27:05.222 --> 01:27:08.262
Wipe them all out and bring in a whole new class.

01:27:08.902 --> 01:27:14.002
No, I know we can't do that. I think the issue is I think Democrats need to

01:27:14.002 --> 01:27:19.542
get back to the basics of the Democratic Party of the 1980s. Right.

01:27:19.682 --> 01:27:23.462
Because let's not forget Democrats in the 40s, 50s, that was Klan.

01:27:24.202 --> 01:27:30.622
But the idea that equity looks different for different people and that it's

01:27:30.622 --> 01:27:33.202
not one big umbrella that we should be under.

01:27:33.422 --> 01:27:37.522
This other idea that they always need to be on the right side of history is

01:27:37.522 --> 01:27:45.062
annoying to me because they're so focused on being in history books that they forget to govern.

01:27:45.442 --> 01:27:49.562
They forget to, you know, I don't know if you've ever seen Lean on Me,

01:27:49.642 --> 01:27:50.942
but there's a great line. And Ms.

01:27:51.062 --> 01:27:54.602
Levias says to Jill Clark, well, she goes, you're so busy talking discipline

01:27:54.602 --> 01:27:55.762
that you forget to educate.

01:27:56.282 --> 01:28:00.622
And I feel that same way in government. Like you're so busy trying to say we're

01:28:00.622 --> 01:28:04.262
on the right side of history in this and we're making, I'm the first and the

01:28:04.262 --> 01:28:08.182
only that you actually forget to govern because all you're doing is creating

01:28:08.182 --> 01:28:10.062
your own blurb in a history book.

01:28:10.941 --> 01:28:15.041
Sexy about being the first or the only. There's nothing sexy about it.

01:28:15.461 --> 01:28:19.981
There's nothing sexy about you ascending to a space and then closing the door behind you.

01:28:20.381 --> 01:28:24.581
Democrats have now all tried to recreate what we saw in 2008.

01:28:24.761 --> 01:28:25.941
That was lightning in a bottle.

01:28:26.361 --> 01:28:31.041
That was a perfect time for a perfect man. Many of us who were paying attention

01:28:31.041 --> 01:28:36.781
understood he was coming because we had Deval Patrick in 2004,

01:28:36.781 --> 01:28:39.621
who was the prototype for Barack Obama.

01:28:40.301 --> 01:28:46.161
And so for me, ever since then, it has been, well, we had a Black man in it,

01:28:46.181 --> 01:28:47.241
and now we got to get a woman in it.

01:28:47.341 --> 01:28:50.321
Oh, now we got a woman, now we got to get a Latinx person in it.

01:28:50.321 --> 01:28:52.941
Oh, now we got a Latinx person, now we need a gay person.

01:28:53.441 --> 01:28:57.181
You don't have to recreate history, or you don't have to make history,

01:28:57.301 --> 01:29:00.361
just do what's right, and everything will fall into place.

01:29:00.641 --> 01:29:03.341
Politics is not complicated. It's common sense.

01:29:04.021 --> 01:29:08.481
I'm sick. You go to the hospital, period. I need health care.

01:29:09.021 --> 01:29:12.681
Congress has the best health care in the country. Why do you get to dictate

01:29:12.681 --> 01:29:16.821
to me what good health insurance is when you live off the best health insurance

01:29:16.821 --> 01:29:18.241
that I've already paid for?

01:29:18.701 --> 01:29:22.621
So I think that a lot of it is they have got to get their head out of their

01:29:22.621 --> 01:29:26.561
ass and start thinking, oh, this is a children's show, isn't it? Sorry.

01:29:26.801 --> 01:29:30.421
No, no. It's not a children's show. No, no. No, but not by any means.

01:29:31.926 --> 01:29:37.766
They need to get out of this idea that their importance and their celebrity

01:29:37.766 --> 01:29:40.006
is what is keeping them in office.

01:29:40.266 --> 01:29:45.586
Because this generation, this Gen Z, they don't care about your celebrity.

01:29:45.726 --> 01:29:49.846
Just like millennials didn't care where you went to school or what you had in

01:29:49.846 --> 01:29:52.886
your war chest, which is what many people were trying to tell Hillary Clinton.

01:29:53.046 --> 01:29:54.486
Nobody cares you went here.

01:29:54.706 --> 01:29:58.346
Nobody cares that you have this much money. Millennials did not care.

01:29:58.346 --> 01:30:02.946
Millennials put Barack Obama in office, not boomers, not Gen X.

01:30:03.546 --> 01:30:09.006
Gen Z is going to change the political landscape of the Democratic Party,

01:30:09.126 --> 01:30:15.306
just like their Gen Z voters now have changed what MAGA looks like.

01:30:15.566 --> 01:30:18.746
They are radical. They are...

01:30:20.115 --> 01:30:27.095
Tyrannical. And many of them are more angry at just being angry and they have

01:30:27.095 --> 01:30:28.735
nothing else to fall back on.

01:30:29.155 --> 01:30:33.415
So, you know, you see Charlie, the Charlie Kirk and, you know,

01:30:33.555 --> 01:30:37.455
all he did was spew rhetoric and people would get upset about it.

01:30:37.595 --> 01:30:40.975
I thought the things he said was vile and disgusting, but I could also see a

01:30:40.975 --> 01:30:47.215
man who, if all of that went away, he'd just be another, he'd be taught at the club, right?

01:30:47.415 --> 01:30:49.675
Like there's, there's just no getting around that.

01:30:49.895 --> 01:30:57.095
And so he held on to his celebrity and he just became more, cause Charlie Kirk

01:30:57.095 --> 01:30:58.815
did not start out to be that radical.

01:30:58.975 --> 01:31:02.635
I don't think people know that. Neither did Candace Owens. I remember when Candace was a Democrat.

01:31:04.275 --> 01:31:09.155
So that's what I think. Yeah. Yeah. So who, who do you think Gen Z is going

01:31:09.155 --> 01:31:11.855
to elevate as far as running for president?

01:31:12.295 --> 01:31:18.055
I think they really do like Jasmine. I think they like her spunk I think they

01:31:18.055 --> 01:31:22.575
like the fact that she Appears to be unafraid We don't know yet because she

01:31:22.575 --> 01:31:27.295
hasn't really been Into any sticky situations And I think that And I'm rooting

01:31:27.295 --> 01:31:29.995
for her running for Senate I feel unfortunate,

01:31:30.695 --> 01:31:37.715
That she's being forced to do that Because they eliminated her seat But Essentially.

01:31:38.755 --> 01:31:43.495
I think that Gen Z is going to Elevate more Jasmine And also,

01:31:43.655 --> 01:31:47.415
if you notice, they are focused on the local races.

01:31:47.815 --> 01:31:52.035
What happened in 2009 when the Republicans did their autopsy and started turning

01:31:52.035 --> 01:31:54.955
their base red, liberal Gen Zs are doing that.

01:31:55.095 --> 01:31:57.295
They're running for office. They're running for school committee.

01:31:57.475 --> 01:32:01.295
They're running for city council, state, town council.

01:32:01.515 --> 01:32:05.655
They are not playing. And what's going to happen is you're going to start to

01:32:05.655 --> 01:32:11.135
see sort of a washout of a lot of these people in Congress. Right.

01:32:11.761 --> 01:32:15.761
You won't see Charlie Rangel. You won't see these people who are in Congress right now.

01:32:15.861 --> 01:32:20.561
They will not be in Congress until they're 85 years old. It just is not going to happen.

01:32:20.901 --> 01:32:24.741
And I know many of them are depending on this. They're depending on this being

01:32:24.741 --> 01:32:26.561
their job for the rest of their life.

01:32:26.681 --> 01:32:31.601
Like Ed Markey here in Massachusetts, he has never held a real job a day in his life.

01:32:32.001 --> 01:32:36.621
He has been an elected official since he got out of college and walked off his mama's porch.

01:32:37.161 --> 01:32:40.761
He doesn't own a home in Massachusetts. He's never owned a home in Massachusetts.

01:32:41.281 --> 01:32:44.161
The home he has here, he inherited from his mother.

01:32:44.761 --> 01:32:51.921
And so, and he has been in office. He's going to be 623 years old and he's running for re-election.

01:32:52.361 --> 01:32:55.161
Like that just doesn't make sense. And you know, some people will say,

01:32:55.281 --> 01:32:57.061
I'm not an ageist. I'm an ageist.

01:32:57.401 --> 01:33:02.121
You're no longer good at your job after 20 years. You're no longer good at your job after 10.

01:33:02.521 --> 01:33:07.541
You don't bring anything fresh and new. You have to keep things fresh and new.

01:33:07.541 --> 01:33:12.121
The only thing you're good at long-term might be marriage or relationships because

01:33:12.121 --> 01:33:14.121
you're in it to win it. I hear you.

01:33:15.101 --> 01:33:18.921
Well, I was in elected office longer than I was married, but that's a whole

01:33:18.921 --> 01:33:20.401
other conversation for another day.

01:33:20.901 --> 01:33:27.981
Look, Jacquetta Van Zandt, I hate to cut it off, but I am so glad that you came on.

01:33:28.601 --> 01:33:33.421
I hope you have me back. Oh, well, see, that's the rule. So it's like once once

01:33:33.421 --> 01:33:38.001
you've accepted an invitation, you've come on, you have an open invitation to come back.

01:33:38.201 --> 01:33:42.781
So, you know, whether I reach out to you or you reach out to me,

01:33:42.981 --> 01:33:45.661
we can make that happen. So you're definitely coming back.

01:33:46.301 --> 01:33:52.261
Excellent. Well, thank you so much. And I can I tell people where to find me? Oh, yes. Yes. Go ahead.

01:33:52.841 --> 01:33:57.581
You can find me on Instagram politics underscore and underscore Prosecco.

01:33:57.581 --> 01:34:01.881
That is where you can find my my episodes of politics for cycle,

01:34:01.981 --> 01:34:05.001
but also I do videos throughout the week I need to get back on that.

01:34:05.061 --> 01:34:09.681
It's been it's been a crazy couple of months To talk about local politics and and national.

01:34:10.744 --> 01:34:14.824
All right. Well, again, thank you for doing that. Enjoy this holiday season.

01:34:15.224 --> 01:34:17.724
Yes, you too. And keep fighting the good fight, sister.

01:34:18.224 --> 01:34:21.744
Thank you so much. All right, guys, and we're going to catch y'all on the other side.

01:34:33.406 --> 01:34:37.626
All right. And we are back. So I want to thank Dr.

01:34:37.786 --> 01:34:43.126
Laura Chavez Moreno and Jacquetta Van Zandt for coming on the program.

01:34:43.346 --> 01:34:49.426
As you can tell, I enjoy talking to both of those ladies. How Schools Make Race

01:34:49.426 --> 01:34:52.466
is a very, very, and I said this at the beginning of the show,

01:34:52.586 --> 01:34:53.886
it's a very, very intense book.

01:34:55.306 --> 01:35:04.606
Not intense that emotionally, but as far as the detail in how Dr.

01:35:04.666 --> 01:35:11.506
Silvis Moreno breaks down what was happening in this particular school district

01:35:11.506 --> 01:35:16.866
that she was doing research on and the overall impacts.

01:35:17.546 --> 01:35:23.986
That race plays in education. And of course, her focus is in the Latinx community.

01:35:26.026 --> 01:35:31.726
But it was really, it was just really enlightening, you know,

01:35:31.866 --> 01:35:37.986
how even those of us with the best intention still kind of fall into the same traps.

01:35:38.466 --> 01:35:43.566
But it's not a judgmental thing, it's just, observing the facts and according

01:35:43.566 --> 01:35:51.446
to her it really is a success story if you can fine tune it and make it so that people don't,

01:35:52.515 --> 01:35:58.075
That go through these programs and address these issues, you know,

01:35:58.155 --> 01:36:04.455
do it and build some self-esteem about it rather than, you know,

01:36:04.675 --> 01:36:06.275
feeling isolated or whatever.

01:36:06.995 --> 01:36:09.895
So, yeah, it's a good book to read.

01:36:10.195 --> 01:36:14.615
If you want to get it for you, you want to get it for somebody that you think

01:36:14.615 --> 01:36:21.395
is into that stuff for Christmas, still got time to go ahead and do that.

01:36:22.515 --> 01:36:28.215
And then Jacquetta Van Zandt, another sister warrior I have found and have connected

01:36:28.215 --> 01:36:32.355
with, along with some of the others I have had the privilege of having on this program.

01:36:32.455 --> 01:36:41.455
And I think she is going to be a frequent guest when her time allows.

01:36:41.795 --> 01:36:49.735
But, you know, her insights and her her candor are much needed.

01:36:49.735 --> 01:36:55.295
It's those are the type of people if you run for office or if you even get elected office,

01:36:55.555 --> 01:37:00.215
those are the type of people you need to have in your ear because they're going

01:37:00.215 --> 01:37:04.995
to make sure that you're on the right path, that you're going to do what needs

01:37:04.995 --> 01:37:09.215
to be done and and keep your ego in check.

01:37:09.915 --> 01:37:14.735
Because that's really the most dangerous thing. And I'll get into that a little more.

01:37:15.215 --> 01:37:19.695
But that's really kind of the most dangerous thing you can fall into as a candidate,

01:37:20.235 --> 01:37:23.695
or even as an elected official, especially as an elected official.

01:37:24.375 --> 01:37:29.635
So you want to have people like Jacquetta in your corner who's looking out for

01:37:29.635 --> 01:37:35.115
you, but is going to tell you the truth instead of just being a yes man or a yes woman, right?

01:37:36.395 --> 01:37:40.255
So it was really, really cool to talk to her. And she is somebody,

01:37:40.615 --> 01:37:47.395
if you could tell by the interview, that we could talk forever and we had to constrain the time.

01:37:48.215 --> 01:37:52.895
But I hope you got the sense of that and I hope you appreciated what she had to say.

01:37:55.639 --> 01:38:04.499
I'm not going to be long this time because I'm outside of these cool interviews I've had.

01:38:04.839 --> 01:38:08.459
This week has been really, really bad.

01:38:09.419 --> 01:38:17.199
Not for me personally. I mean, I've had some good interactions this week personally.

01:38:18.059 --> 01:38:26.739
But watching the news and watching the events that have unfolded,

01:38:27.319 --> 01:38:33.339
you know, whether it was the shooting at the Hanukkah celebration in Australia

01:38:33.339 --> 01:38:37.759
or students studying for final exams at Brown.

01:38:37.759 --> 01:38:42.939
And now we've, you know, somebody else, I think, was killed in a hole in Boston,

01:38:43.299 --> 01:38:48.839
I believe, by the same dude who has killed himself.

01:38:49.459 --> 01:38:56.899
You know, that and then the president getting up there for 20 minutes saying virtually nothing.

01:38:57.219 --> 01:38:58.959
Well, screaming virtually nothing.

01:39:00.479 --> 01:39:08.059
You know, it was probably the most unpresidential presidential address I've ever seen.

01:39:09.700 --> 01:39:14.140
Yeah. And then, you know, the Vanity Fair article,

01:39:14.800 --> 01:39:21.480
then our district attorney here in Atlanta, Fannie Willis, having to go before

01:39:21.480 --> 01:39:25.080
the Georgia State Senate, you know,

01:39:26.060 --> 01:39:31.500
after the case has been dropped, you know, now they're still trying to rake

01:39:31.500 --> 01:39:34.240
her over the coals and she wasn't having it,

01:39:35.600 --> 01:39:40.840
You know, and she just kind of reminded them that I'm going to do my job.

01:39:41.420 --> 01:39:48.340
Hopefully, eventually you'll do yours. You know, so for people that look at

01:39:48.340 --> 01:39:53.920
the pulse of American politics, this was not a great week to brag about who we are.

01:39:55.620 --> 01:40:01.720
Now, you know, Susan Wiles, of course, you know, after the article comes out

01:40:01.720 --> 01:40:05.300
in Vanity Fair, she's saying, well, you know, they took things out of context.

01:40:05.960 --> 01:40:12.660
You talked to this reporter for 11 days. He had 11 separate interviews with this person.

01:40:14.040 --> 01:40:20.640
And he recorded everything. So I think, you know, you're trying to save face

01:40:20.640 --> 01:40:26.260
and maybe you've got a little Stockholm syndrome, I don't know.

01:40:28.720 --> 01:40:33.280
But, or maybe it was a cry for help. I don't know. But what you said, you meant that.

01:40:35.360 --> 01:40:40.880
And the scary thing was it wasn't really newsworthy. It just reaffirmed that

01:40:40.880 --> 01:40:47.040
people that, even if they're not very political, but a good observer of people,

01:40:47.480 --> 01:40:49.860
you erased all their doubts.

01:40:52.620 --> 01:40:58.780
You reaffirmed that they're a good judge of character in how they've been viewing

01:40:58.780 --> 01:41:00.940
the president and his administration.

01:41:02.886 --> 01:41:06.706
Know, and that's where I was talking about like the ego, right?

01:41:07.626 --> 01:41:12.766
You can't surround yourself with people that will let you do whatever.

01:41:13.266 --> 01:41:17.006
I just, you know, it's a disaster.

01:41:17.686 --> 01:41:21.166
And you got to have people to hold you in check.

01:41:21.426 --> 01:41:27.046
Even if your intentions are good, you still have to have people hold you in check, right?

01:41:28.026 --> 01:41:35.326
So, you know, because you can't just do whatever you want, especially as a president

01:41:35.326 --> 01:41:40.046
of the United States, with that power that you can wield, right?

01:41:40.626 --> 01:41:48.586
Because I was taught a long time ago that the show of power is not what you

01:41:48.586 --> 01:41:51.166
exert, but what you restrain yourself from.

01:41:51.666 --> 01:41:56.826
That's the real sign of power, that you have all this before you and you exercise

01:41:56.826 --> 01:41:59.886
restraint, that's a powerful person.

01:42:00.006 --> 01:42:05.806
The person that just does whatever because they can, it'll be perceived as power,

01:42:05.806 --> 01:42:08.366
but it's really weakness, right?

01:42:09.006 --> 01:42:12.806
Because you don't have any self-control. You don't have any self-restraint.

01:42:13.706 --> 01:42:18.466
And if you don't have anybody in your ear telling you, no, you can't do that,

01:42:18.486 --> 01:42:20.266
or no, you shouldn't do that.

01:42:21.493 --> 01:42:27.373
Is going to be a disaster, right? And, you know, I'm from the old school.

01:42:27.753 --> 01:42:32.013
You know, we run for office. People get elected.

01:42:32.653 --> 01:42:39.253
And even if it's the person that you didn't vote for, you want them to do a

01:42:39.253 --> 01:42:44.753
good enough job to keep everything smooth and flowing until the next election, right?

01:42:45.833 --> 01:42:51.113
And then we go through the process again. You don't want them to fail.

01:42:51.613 --> 01:42:56.633
You don't want them to suck at the job, right?

01:42:56.793 --> 01:43:01.073
Even if you run against them and you don't, I'm sure y'all don't want them.

01:43:01.453 --> 01:43:07.313
If they vote for that candidate anyway, you know, then your job as a citizen

01:43:07.313 --> 01:43:11.273
at that point, because you're no longer a candidate, is like you don't want

01:43:11.273 --> 01:43:14.073
that person to screw everything up.

01:43:14.073 --> 01:43:24.193
And unfortunately, at this particular point, we don't have that luxury now because

01:43:24.193 --> 01:43:27.753
everything that we were afraid of,

01:43:28.173 --> 01:43:32.713
the worst possible scenarios are happening on a daily basis.

01:43:34.113 --> 01:43:41.013
And, you know, I don't know if people are finally getting it or it's all about

01:43:41.013 --> 01:43:42.393
self-preservation that they

01:43:42.393 --> 01:43:46.373
don't want to be anchored down so they can get reelected. I don't know.

01:43:49.893 --> 01:43:53.153
But this is not good where we are.

01:43:53.693 --> 01:44:00.633
And there's no way that we can really work toward anything progressive when it's this bad.

01:44:01.333 --> 01:44:07.013
And so Jaquetta was joking when she said, well, everybody's got to go,

01:44:07.033 --> 01:44:13.753
but maybe the voters will not be joking come the first Tuesday in November of 2026.

01:44:15.417 --> 01:44:20.557
In some of the primaries that will be going on from March till August,

01:44:21.537 --> 01:44:25.337
there'll be some house cleaning going through, I think.

01:44:26.757 --> 01:44:31.577
And, you know, and then there's going to be some backfire, right?

01:44:32.097 --> 01:44:38.157
Because, you know, people are criticizing Jasmine Crockett for running for the U.S.

01:44:38.217 --> 01:44:44.497
Senate in Texas because Texas hasn't elected a Democrat in a long time statewide.

01:44:44.497 --> 01:44:47.377
Wide and, you know, it's tough.

01:44:47.657 --> 01:44:52.897
But in this time, if she makes it out of the primary, because she's got a tough

01:44:52.897 --> 01:44:58.717
opponent in the primary in James Tallarico, she makes it out of the primary, she might win it.

01:44:59.097 --> 01:45:01.797
Because people are tired of the same old stuff.

01:45:02.397 --> 01:45:07.057
They're tired of the reality show that's happening in Washington.

01:45:07.337 --> 01:45:10.817
They want some semblance of normalcy.

01:45:12.597 --> 01:45:18.417
And no matter how you feel about her style or her demeanor, it's pretty obvious

01:45:18.417 --> 01:45:21.897
that her character and her heart are in the right place.

01:45:22.837 --> 01:45:26.937
And if they hadn't played the games in Texas to redraw the district,

01:45:27.157 --> 01:45:31.517
she probably would have just ran for reelection and let James carry the water for the Senate.

01:45:32.137 --> 01:45:35.977
But since you did her dirty, she's coming.

01:45:36.557 --> 01:45:40.677
And it's not going to be anything against James if she beats him in the primary.

01:45:40.817 --> 01:45:42.977
Because he's not the enemy.

01:45:45.637 --> 01:45:54.657
She's coming for Cronin and Abbott and Paxton and Hunt and all the rest of that

01:45:54.657 --> 01:46:03.297
bunch that basically took her district away because they were trying to play games.

01:46:04.717 --> 01:46:08.617
So that might bite you back.

01:46:10.106 --> 01:46:13.386
You wanted to get her out of Congress. Okay, you got her out of the House,

01:46:13.466 --> 01:46:15.266
and now she's your U.S. Senator.

01:46:15.626 --> 01:46:18.426
I mean, that would be poetic, right?

01:46:18.886 --> 01:46:25.226
And Jasmine is one of six or seven black women that's running for the United States Senate.

01:46:25.366 --> 01:46:32.826
I know there's one in Mississippi, Emmett Till's cousin, and got two in Illinois,

01:46:33.526 --> 01:46:38.546
a former congresswoman and former chair of the party, Robin Kelly.

01:46:38.546 --> 01:46:43.706
And then the current Lieutenant Governor, Juliana Stratton, they're going to

01:46:43.706 --> 01:46:46.306
be running. So only one of them can win.

01:46:46.706 --> 01:46:52.626
And then I think Lindsey Graham's going to have a sister running against him.

01:46:53.366 --> 01:46:57.046
I don't know if she's got a primary opponent or not, but we know there's a black

01:46:57.046 --> 01:46:58.306
woman running for that spot.

01:46:58.466 --> 01:47:03.686
So we got a sister running for Mitch McConnell's seat in Kentucky.

01:47:03.686 --> 01:47:08.066
So we got some folks out there.

01:47:09.626 --> 01:47:14.806
That, you know, not only they're trying to make history, they're trying to make a difference, really.

01:47:16.266 --> 01:47:22.946
And it just all depends on how the voters gravitate to them.

01:47:24.726 --> 01:47:28.406
If they're talking about the issues that need to be discussed,

01:47:29.006 --> 01:47:33.166
if they really sincerely have a platform that's going to help their particular

01:47:33.166 --> 01:47:39.926
states and the nation move toward a stabilization on prices,

01:47:40.646 --> 01:47:46.126
making things more affordable, more progressive agenda toward health care and

01:47:46.126 --> 01:47:48.986
education, then, you know,

01:47:49.766 --> 01:47:51.606
then they're going to get the support.

01:47:52.066 --> 01:47:57.746
I mean, mayoral like Mamdani kind of showed the path of where we're going now.

01:47:57.926 --> 01:48:00.966
It's like you've got to talk to people about what's impacting them.

01:48:01.806 --> 01:48:06.206
If they want to have more grocery stores, you know, in New York City,

01:48:06.346 --> 01:48:07.386
then he said, I'm for that.

01:48:07.566 --> 01:48:10.806
If you want to have free public transportation, he said, I'm for that.

01:48:11.666 --> 01:48:15.886
And not only that, but I actually have a plan to make that happen.

01:48:16.766 --> 01:48:19.846
Now, whether he's able to execute the plan once he gets sworn in,

01:48:19.966 --> 01:48:22.046
that's a whole different conversation, right?

01:48:22.926 --> 01:48:27.606
But the people said, we like what he's proposing, so we're going to put him

01:48:27.606 --> 01:48:29.606
in. That's normally how that works.

01:48:30.186 --> 01:48:35.106
And the challenge of governing is being able to say, okay, this is what I said in the campaign.

01:48:35.306 --> 01:48:40.186
How am I going to make that happen, right? And, you know, and then you have

01:48:40.186 --> 01:48:48.186
to remind people, whether you won by one vote or you won by 12,000, 30,000, right?

01:48:48.626 --> 01:48:54.566
You got to convince that legislative body, whether it's a city council or a

01:48:54.566 --> 01:48:56.346
state legislature or the Congress,

01:48:56.886 --> 01:49:03.946
hey, I ran on this and I need y'all to pass some legislation to make that happen.

01:49:05.362 --> 01:49:13.982
At least let's have a discussion, right? And so, you know, and then the game is afoot, right?

01:49:14.662 --> 01:49:19.022
But that's how the process works, supposedly, you know?

01:49:19.802 --> 01:49:24.162
And my biggest disappointment out of all of these people, right,

01:49:24.222 --> 01:49:26.122
because there's some people I'm not disappointed.

01:49:26.602 --> 01:49:32.022
I knew that they are who they said they were, in the immortal words of Dennis Green, right?

01:49:32.602 --> 01:49:39.662
They are who they thought we were. They are who we thought they were, right?

01:49:42.102 --> 01:49:49.122
But the biggest disappointment to me is the Speaker of the House and the U.S.

01:49:49.182 --> 01:49:50.822
House of Representatives, Spike Johnson.

01:49:51.902 --> 01:49:57.742
And I want you to understand, I'm not, I mean, we would never agree on anything.

01:49:57.742 --> 01:50:03.662
I don't think we would agree on what checkers we're going to choose,

01:50:03.682 --> 01:50:06.062
you know, or chess pieces or whatever.

01:50:06.202 --> 01:50:09.062
I just, you know, that's a bishop.

01:50:09.182 --> 01:50:14.102
No, that's a knight. I mean, we just, I just think that if I was a colleague

01:50:14.102 --> 01:50:16.662
of his, we would never see eye to eye on anything.

01:50:17.962 --> 01:50:23.162
However, he has been given the incredible job of being Speaker of the House

01:50:23.162 --> 01:50:25.382
of the United States House of Representatives.

01:50:25.982 --> 01:50:31.642
That position is so important that if something happens to the president or

01:50:31.642 --> 01:50:35.882
the vice president of the United States, the Speaker of the House has to step

01:50:35.882 --> 01:50:38.062
in to become the president.

01:50:39.688 --> 01:50:43.648
Fulfill and finish the term. There's no special election.

01:50:44.148 --> 01:50:47.328
It's like if something happens to the president and the vice president where

01:50:47.328 --> 01:50:51.848
they can no longer serve in those positions, because the natural succession

01:50:51.848 --> 01:50:54.708
is the vice president will step in if something happened to the president.

01:50:55.208 --> 01:51:00.088
But if something happens to the vice president too, then the next person in

01:51:00.088 --> 01:51:06.848
line is the speaker of the House, which means that as that person,

01:51:07.488 --> 01:51:15.308
you have autonomy politically, even though you might be lined up with the person

01:51:15.308 --> 01:51:17.668
that's in the White House, right?

01:51:18.228 --> 01:51:20.228
Y'all ran on the same party ticket.

01:51:21.188 --> 01:51:27.508
You have the constitutional authority, obligation, however you want to look

01:51:27.508 --> 01:51:30.428
at it, to tell the president, no, I'm not doing that.

01:51:31.128 --> 01:51:34.648
And that'll be okay because you're the Speaker of the House.

01:51:35.008 --> 01:51:39.008
If there's anybody in Washington, D.C. that can look the President in the eye

01:51:39.008 --> 01:51:43.688
and say, that's not happening, it's the Speaker of the House.

01:51:44.168 --> 01:51:49.608
By virtue of the power of succession, by virtue of the power of that job,

01:51:49.608 --> 01:51:53.688
because he or she, as Nancy Pelosi has proved,

01:51:54.328 --> 01:52:00.608
is over a body of 434 other individuals.

01:52:01.708 --> 01:52:06.948
Whereas in the Senate, which is why the president pro tem of the Senate is behind

01:52:06.948 --> 01:52:09.008
the Speaker of the House, right?

01:52:09.788 --> 01:52:14.448
Because in the Senate, that position is more ceremonial than anything else.

01:52:14.608 --> 01:52:22.168
It's like, you know, but you have to elect one because if it's a tie on the

01:52:22.168 --> 01:52:25.428
vote, the Vice President of the United States has to step in, right?

01:52:25.968 --> 01:52:30.528
But amongst the colleagues, usually the senior member in the Senate gets to

01:52:30.528 --> 01:52:31.648
be the president pro tem.

01:52:33.027 --> 01:52:38.167
Likely of the same party that has the majority, but is the most senior member usually.

01:52:39.887 --> 01:52:45.987
And, you know, but it's the majority and the minority leaders that run the agenda

01:52:45.987 --> 01:52:48.067
on the Senate side, right?

01:52:48.747 --> 01:52:56.427
So the president and pro tem of the Senate is not as powerful as the Speaker of the House.

01:52:57.087 --> 01:53:03.987
So, therefore, Mike Johnson has totally abdicated his role by just, you know,

01:53:04.427 --> 01:53:11.347
and it's getting tired when something happens and he say, Speaker,

01:53:11.607 --> 01:53:12.827
what's your opinion on that?

01:53:13.187 --> 01:53:17.867
I didn't see that. I didn't know. I mean, what are you doing?

01:53:18.827 --> 01:53:20.787
You couldn't get Tip O'Neill to say that.

01:53:22.107 --> 01:53:24.867
You know, any speaker, Nancy Pelosi, any of them.

01:53:25.707 --> 01:53:30.567
Rayburn, any of these people, if they said, hey, what do you think about the president doing this?

01:53:30.767 --> 01:53:34.127
Well, I don't know. We're feeling that way in the House.

01:53:35.467 --> 01:53:38.787
That's especially if it's controversial. That's normally how that goes.

01:53:39.027 --> 01:53:43.667
Now, if you agree with it, then you say, well, I'm with the president 100 percent.

01:53:44.347 --> 01:53:50.627
But you don't say, I don't know. I didn't see that. I wasn't paying attention.

01:53:52.256 --> 01:53:56.556
How did you get through law school if you don't know when you didn't pay attention, right?

01:53:57.056 --> 01:54:01.736
How did you get elected if you don't know it? How did you get married and you

01:54:01.736 --> 01:54:04.256
don't know and you didn't pay attention, right?

01:54:05.176 --> 01:54:08.396
How did you get to be speaker and you don't know and you didn't pay attention?

01:54:09.316 --> 01:54:11.076
See, the American people are not stupid.

01:54:12.296 --> 01:54:19.496
They're not. You know, there might be degrees of intellect, but they're stupid collectively.

01:54:20.216 --> 01:54:23.936
And so, you know, when you constantly, that's your go-to.

01:54:24.176 --> 01:54:27.716
Anytime something controversial happens, people kind of figure out,

01:54:27.976 --> 01:54:29.396
well, you ain't about shit.

01:54:29.536 --> 01:54:34.216
You don't, you, if you're really not paying attention, why are you even in that job?

01:54:34.936 --> 01:54:38.616
When are you going to pay attention? Maybe if you paid attention,

01:54:38.836 --> 01:54:41.476
maybe some things will get done, right?

01:54:42.516 --> 01:54:49.436
That's the huge disappointment to me. You know, if there's anybody in the magosphere

01:54:49.436 --> 01:54:54.796
that has a license to tell the president, yeah, now that's not going to happen,

01:54:55.216 --> 01:54:56.756
it's the Speaker of the House.

01:54:57.276 --> 01:54:59.976
And he's from a southern state. He's from Louisiana.

01:55:00.656 --> 01:55:04.996
And if you've ever been to any of these southern states and watch how the Speakers

01:55:04.996 --> 01:55:09.436
of the House and those respective state legislatures roll, bruh,

01:55:09.876 --> 01:55:14.996
ask any governor, is the Speaker of the House your friend? on some days.

01:55:17.777 --> 01:55:22.777
Because they understand the power that they wield in that legislative body.

01:55:23.417 --> 01:55:28.877
And Mike Johnson has that same power, even more so because it's a national body.

01:55:29.057 --> 01:55:32.177
It's the National Congress. It's the National House of Representatives.

01:55:33.117 --> 01:55:37.517
And he was the compromise candidate when all the chaos broke out,

01:55:37.517 --> 01:55:39.617
you know, with McCarthy.

01:55:40.217 --> 01:55:45.157
He was the one after 13, 14 ballots, whatever. He's the one that said,

01:55:45.257 --> 01:55:47.417
okay, we can all agree on this guy.

01:55:48.317 --> 01:55:54.257
And you don't think that you have the ability to tell the president no in public or in private?

01:55:55.277 --> 01:55:57.917
I don't know if he's from the school where it's like, well, I just,

01:55:57.957 --> 01:56:00.257
I don't want to say anything negative about the president.

01:56:00.477 --> 01:56:04.077
I don't want them coming after me and all this stuff. Bro, you were the Speaker of the House.

01:56:05.177 --> 01:56:08.717
All the PACs that give money to all these different congressional,

01:56:08.877 --> 01:56:12.697
they all got to come through you. I mean, that's how the game is played.

01:56:14.041 --> 01:56:20.281
You are the biggest fundraiser for the members in your own party to get reelected.

01:56:20.721 --> 01:56:26.521
You. If you don't understand that, talk to Ms. Pelosi. She's still there till January.

01:56:27.141 --> 01:56:32.321
You know, well, I guess she's going to finish out the term. So she'll be there.

01:56:33.181 --> 01:56:37.101
2026. You can pull her aside and say, how did you do that? Right.

01:56:37.801 --> 01:56:39.961
How did you tell President Biden

01:56:39.961 --> 01:56:44.721
or President Obama? No. How did you do that? if you don't have a clue.

01:56:45.381 --> 01:56:49.741
But at some point, if you want people to respect you, you want to go down in

01:56:49.741 --> 01:56:53.321
history as a decent Speaker of the House,

01:56:54.141 --> 01:56:57.941
I'm going to need you to expand your vocabulary beyond, I don't know,

01:56:58.221 --> 01:57:01.181
I didn't see that, I wasn't paying attention.

01:57:02.421 --> 01:57:09.461
That's got to change. You know, that would be an incredible gift for the nation

01:57:09.461 --> 01:57:11.821
since we're in the spirit of giving.

01:57:13.681 --> 01:57:17.781
Just bow up and just tell the president, no, I don't think that's how we should

01:57:17.781 --> 01:57:20.441
do that. Because you have the position.

01:57:21.261 --> 01:57:27.021
He may have given the blessing and said, okay, yeah, I'm with Johnson. I think he's a good guy.

01:57:27.621 --> 01:57:31.221
All right, great. But now you got the gavel. You got the position.

01:57:32.101 --> 01:57:37.861
Even the justices on the Supreme Court, every now and then tell the president, yeah, no.

01:57:38.541 --> 01:57:42.861
Yeah, we can't. We can't. The law of the Constitution doesn't allow us to go

01:57:42.861 --> 01:57:45.881
with that. Right? They understand.

01:57:47.674 --> 01:57:52.434
May agree with them 80% of the time, but there's 20% they're going to say,

01:57:52.554 --> 01:57:59.074
no, you are the Speaker of the House and you are going 100% with what the President is saying?

01:57:59.714 --> 01:58:03.854
That's abnormal. That's not what that job does.

01:58:04.734 --> 01:58:09.654
You are a circuit breaker, not a power line. You're a circuit breaker.

01:58:10.114 --> 01:58:12.194
If it's too much, you shut it down.

01:58:13.134 --> 01:58:18.934
That's what your job is. And if you don't understand that, then either you can

01:58:18.934 --> 01:58:22.054
voluntarily give it to somebody else that does.

01:58:23.094 --> 01:58:27.274
Or you can ride it out till the first Tuesday, November, 2026,

01:58:28.034 --> 01:58:32.654
and realize that you won't have that job. Let's go around.

01:58:33.554 --> 01:58:37.914
But if you want to give your people a chance to stay in the majority.

01:58:38.734 --> 01:58:41.994
You're going to have to learn how to say no to the president.

01:58:42.754 --> 01:58:46.314
You ain't got to take my advice because I'm a Democrat and all that stuff. That's fine.

01:58:46.934 --> 01:58:51.854
I'm just telling you, somebody that's taking an open office to serve,

01:58:52.054 --> 01:59:00.554
if you want to save the Republican majority in 2026, you need to expand your vocabulary to say no.

01:59:01.014 --> 01:59:04.374
All right, guys, that's all I got. Merry Christmas, everybody.

01:59:04.974 --> 01:59:12.394
And, you know, I hope that you have or continue to have a festive holiday season.

01:59:12.394 --> 01:59:17.574
And then we'll be getting into Kwanzaa and then we'll be into 2026.

01:59:18.194 --> 01:59:25.274
So y'all stay safe, have fun, be respectful, enjoy each other's company.

01:59:25.874 --> 01:59:29.514
And I thank y'all for listening. Until next time.