Hey, hey, hey, we're back.
We're extra black, We're round ambition, ambition, ambition. We got some extra chocolate in the stoup today.
Okay, Aaron, are you wrapping the four oh four? What are we today? What are we mean?
At all times? But in the fact, yes, I literally am wrapping the four oh four. I have freshly moved back to my hometown of Atlanta. It feels good, yes, absolutely, even getting a little fall weather in Atlanta and September which confusing. Uh yeah, so yes, back back back in the land of the Georgia Bulldogs and sweet tea.
Glad to be here.
That makes me really like happy. I have no business being happy that you're back in Atlanta, because I am not. I'm so here in the land of New York. But I do want to introduce you properly, y'all. Aaron Haynes. This has been a long time coming. I mean, I can't imagine a time where I wasn't like, oh, I should have erin on the show. But y'all be honest with you, didn't think I was smart enough yet I didn't think I was I know, I know, I know you all.
I'm happy to be here. Longtime listener first time call our people absolutely Now.
You've always been so supportive. Erin and I go way back. Let me do your proper intro and then I'll get I'll get more.
I'll shut up, sister.
Fran all right, So Aaron, if you guys do not know Erin and that's what two rs, put some respect on it. Okay. She is now the editor at large for the Nineteenth and she's the host of the Amendment Podcast. Go right now and follow it. You listen to Brown Ambition. This is like the perfect combination to do. Along with Brown Ambition. We give you the finance, we give you the giggles, little shits and gigs, and then you can go to the Amendment. Because Aaron makes it so approachable,
so understandable. I feel like knowing that you're the person kind of explaining what's happening in politics today to me makes me feel less self conscious about listening. So go tune in. Please also check out the nineteenthnews dot org. We're going to talk about the Nineteenth and how Aaron co founded that. How long is it? How long has it been?
We are in our fourth year, it's our second presidential election, almost five years.
It's crazy.
Wow, Okaylas when you're making history. So they call her a founding mother. I love that. And the Nineteenth of y'all don't know. It's the nation's first nonprofit newsroom and they live at the intersection of gender politics and policy. Their mission is to empower audiences with the information, resources and community that they need to be equal participants in
our democracy. As mentioned, she's on the nineteenth weekly podcast The Amendment, which you are now following because you do what I say, right, and she's also a regular MSNBC contributor. An award winning political journalist, Aaron previously was at the Associated Press. She was their national writer, like the national writer on race and ethnicity, and has also worked at The Washington Post, The Orlando Orlando Sentinel, and The La Times. Aaron Haynes welcome.
Oh my gosh, who do I cash app for this?
Read?
I mean, I'm feeling good.
If you're if you know a black journalist like you are, like you're you're the elite, okay, the elite of the elite, deleade the elite.
I'm feeling good. I'm feeling good.
Today, feeling good as you should.
They don't just.
Follow me around for like the rest of the month, year, whatever, just to like hype you up.
Yes, yes, y'all. Y'all are good hype people. I appreciate you.
I love you. How are you doing in this moment? Because I imagine going into this election year you were. I mean, it's already a stressful time you cover politics, right, but July everything changes, So it's not just that you're how are you doing? How has it been?
I mean real talk. I mean I'm fucking exhausted.
I mean, am I am I able to say that on You're like, yeah, that is that is that is where I'm at. But I mean, but also like what a time to be alive, What a time to be covering politics?
What a time for the nineteenth to exist?
Right?
I mean, like literally, we have all these conversations about electability and you know, the race and gender of it all in our politics, and so to have a woman on the ballot this year, regardless of the outcome, to talk about what that means, to talk about why it matters for our elector, it just feels really really like my highest and best work.
As a journalist in this moment, and just like an.
Incredible privilege that I get paid to think about this every single day for a living.
So yeah, I'm so happy that they do pay you. Even though they're not, they still listen. Also, you can donate nineteen dollars to the Nineteenth to go to the Nineteenth News.
Oh my god. Okay, you're amazing.
You're welcome, Tiffany. How are you feeling election wise? I had to kind of give Tiffany, I feel like a pep talk before July happened, you were on that, and we're going to get into some of the data that the Nineteenth has put out because I feel like Tiffany, like low key, I'm going to put you on blastoms. Well, you're kind of represented by the data as far as the Nineteenth found. I feel like with black women and how we are approaching the election. But go ahead tell us about what.
I I'm not gonna So the last election almost literally broke me mentally. And it wasn't over November sixth or eight or whatever day we voted that all through November, still holding your breath, all through December, still holding your breath. Then January happens and you're like, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god. I don't think I settled down emotionally till March. March, so imagine all the time
prior to like it with the election. Then the election happens and you're like, we won, I think, and then you know you're holding your breath. And finally January I was thinking maybe I can calm down. It was like no, no, no, no insurrection time and it just so I just don't And I remember thinking to myself, this time around, I don't have the capacity to give that much emotional energy.
I was so I mean every day, I was watching every podcast, every this, every it just it was honestly, if I got ulcers, I would have one, and I just said, I can't do that. So I have been kind of like dipping my baby toe in here. Y'all good, y'all, don't anybody in no water, anybody, y'all good. And then I heasel back to my cat videos and keV on stage, comedy sketches and house decor. And then I peeked back in again and because I just can't take the full
ride emotionally, and I'm not gonna lie, you know. I mean, I wasn't feeling so great about Oh Joe, but I mean, you know, about him being able to wait, and I so then, but then I was like, well, I guess I mean, we're gonna do our best. And then you know, when he stepped aside. My first reaction was, of course I'm gonna vote, but besides the black girls, who's gonna vote?
I just wasn't that.
I remember distinctly.
I was out with my friend Brandon's and I said, oh my god, did you just see We had just come from a walk. Brandis is a sister, and I said, I don't know how I feel about this because beyond us, who's going to vote. It's like why I didn't want to be on the cover of my book, Beyond the black girls, who's going to buy a black girl book with money? I just didn't feel so confident. Brenda said, no, we're not going to do that. She said, Tiffany, we're
not going to do that. That you know that all things are possible.
I was like, okay, it was.
And then my friend Joecaida I would say him being around when she did the first you know black girl like zoom and blew it out the water?
Were you on that call? Were were you all on there?
Yes?
I was on that call, and I know jare was like the show.
Of hers that she had. I was stuck in the technical pregatory. But I was on last I have been on call since I was on last night's call because.
She's amazing and so like I'd known her because she had done a show like own, had a show about black women in finance. And I met her years ago and then I just see her every once in a while around and about. And so I saw her at Martha's vin here. I saw you guys had an article about the Martha's Vineyard Black Women Cohort, and so I was there. So I saw her there and I was singing this Michael Jacksons song. I have a video of us.
I was like, so you want to be stun in. Some got to be stun in something. Because I told her, I was like, look what you started.
She was like, now, humble, no, it's a lot of us. I was like, girl, I'll stop it, like, look at this avalanche that you started. And so since then I had I'm more hopeful than not. So I'll just say that that the space I'm in now still nervous just because anything can happen. I was so hopeful about Pillary, you know.
And I was like, what the entire hell?
And so so that's where I am now, where I'm feeling very very very hopeful. It's feeling good, but I'm also like, you know, saving a little piece of myself just in case, and I saving a lot of my mental energy to not look at every single thing because I just don't I don't have the stomach for it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean I think that's definitely where so many of the black women that I talked to about the selection, that's where they are like going from feeling very worried even though they were going to show up anyway, to now feeling hopeful, excited, but also anxious, but not so worried anymore. And yeah, so I think that that's kind of where people are headed into the
ballot box now. But a lot of that has to do with, Yeah, that change at the top of the ticket that really just kind of changed everything, right, But I mean this is all, yes, going into this year, it was already an unprecedented situation, right, and it has only become more unprecedented, and I feel like we'll only become more unprecedent over the next seven weeks. So yeah, and you know, with everything that we know, I mean, Donald Trump has been in our orbit for you know,
the better part of the past decade. There's so much more that we know about him than we did in twenty sixteen and even in twenty twenty, and yet we know this is still going to.
Be like a super close election.
So I'm just I'm fascinated about out what this year continues to say about where we are as a country, where we are as a democracy. But I know that, you know, whatever happens, that women are going to be the deciders of the selection, and and just the emerging democratic majority of this country is very fired up, very fired up.
Going into November. You got Taylor Swift posting listen, I.
Mean from Taylor Taylor Swift on one end, Dick Cheney on the other, Like that is what the what what the coalition for her?
Look, did you see Ronald.
Reagan like his like seventeen staff members, I said, not Ronald Reagan, the Republican.
Yeah, I thought you were gonna say his ghost. Did he come back?
He came back?
Was like keep a name.
Actually listen, But Jimmy Carter's like, I'm ready to vote. Jimmy Carter one hundred years old. Out here and it's like I'm passing a ballot.
I'm holding on.
Yeah, I'm just gonna do one one lass, one less election.
State firm agents are small business owners too, so they know how to help you choose personalized policies that fit your needs, like a good neighbor state farm is there? Talk to your local agent today. Well, Aaron, you mentioned that this is especially to be a woman at in this election, and that women are going to decide the election. There's so much. I don't want to say pressure. I don't feel pressure as a black woman, but I do feel the exhaustion and like the Okay, let's go, let's
get it together. Let's get information to save another election. One of the things. So the Nineteenth puts out this survey. This is a second year, y'all have done it like your own survey of kind of like the mentality and what I love about the mentality of voters. But what I love about y'all survey is because you go there, you will break it down by you will break it down by gender, by identity, by race, and all that.
You don't get the people who never get polled.
Yes, exactly like you should have seen me. I was at the Congressional Black Caucus at ALC this week and I was at this like this huge data center is like the Bloomberg New Data Collective or whatever, and I was like, so, do you have data on black women because that's what I focus on? And this man black man was like, no, I don't think no, and I'm like, ah, so anyway, it's another reason why it's so great the
Nineteenth exists. But the way that I was diving into this report because I wanted to see, like specifically what kind of questions y'all asked of? And these are thousands of respondents. The one that really struck me though, was just the simple are you going to vote? Do you plan on voting? In twenty twenty four? And when I looked at the white women's responses compared to women of color, eighty two percent of white women said just plain O, yes, yes, we will be voting. Only I mean for me it's
an only, but maybe it's a lot. But only two thirds of black women said the same. Sixty seven percent said yes I will be voting. We had almost twenty percent, like seventeen percent of black women said maybe there's that hesitation there and that just kind of freaked me out. I'm like, it's the seventeen percent. We have to get to the seventeen percent.
No, it's you know what that is, Mandy.
I mean, look at tell me, having covered elections for a long time, like this is not you know, me extrapolating off of the poll. This is you know, just just my expertise as political journalists, having covered black women for so much in my career, Like I would say that, uh, the closer we get to election, that number goes up for black women, right. You know, I feel like Big Mama has not gotten to some of those black women yet.
Okay, we know that that younger voters.
We got to get them on board, uh, to get
them to participate. And that's just you know, regardless of party like that, like like somebody in their family or somebody in their friend group is usually like if you know, especially because this is such a consequential election, uh, like there may be a conversation, right, Like I feel like that is something that happens, especially as registration deadlines, people start to become aware of those and then and so then your mom, your aunt, your sister, your girlfriend is like,
oh are you registered? And if they say, no, well, what are you going to do? You know, you need to go ahead and get on board here, get with the program. So I think it will start seeing more
of that. But I mean, yes, what's interesting about this year though for me and I think this is this kind of happened like between twenty sixteen and twenty twenty, Like you had black women who I mean, we know are the most loyal and consistent, you know, based the Democratic Party really feeling like yeah, like that they're being looked to to save democracy, you know, and if they don't come out in certain numbers, it's their fault, you know,
if the Democratic candidate doesn't win. That's not where Black women are anymore. Though, like that they are rejecting kind.
Of that.
Burden, I guess is for lack of a better word, and this is really about their power. Like that is how they are seeing this election, especially in the wake of the Dobb's decision that ended federal protections for abortion, like, you know, with a loss of rights, with folks feeling so many women feeling like they have fewer rights in their mothers and grandmothers, Like they are saying, no, like we this is not just about us saving democracy. This
is about us saving ourselves and asserting our power. And I think that is why you are also seeing this multi racial, multi generational coalition of women too, because I mean, look forty four thousand black women getting on a call, but I mean look at the white women for Harris Zoom. That happens, you know right behind that. You know they
are thinking about twenty sixteen. They literally are in a position now where they are feeling like they have skin, literal skin in the game, which is the thing that makes a difference so often, right, So I'm.
It is.
Like I said when I say women are the deciders of the election, I think that you are seeing women coming together in a way that is really interesting and doesn't always happen.
Like I've written about how.
When women have to choose between their race and their gender, I mean they choose race. But when black women do that, it usually helps more people, and when white women do that it usually does not.
And to see them have such a huge I mean, I'm biracial, my mom is white, and twenty twenty was twenty sixteen rather twenty sixteen, and through twenty twenty was just like it was just this. I am like a fault line in our family. I feel like it really
just like fractured so much. And my mom was one of the and I've been vocal about this, and she is reformed and she is Michelle Obama's biggest fan now as a but she was one of those never Hillary, you know, vote for Trump in twenty sixteen, and she wasn't alone and like the at least from what I've read. In what I've listened, I get the impression that like, white women were a huge reason why he was successful in twenty sixteen. That's exactly right, yeah, and could have
been in twenty twenty. So I think that the shift now is that I feel it from my mom too. She's like, oh, this is she is being in the driver's seat of like pushing her own like doing her own work to get the word out and being involved and like being like understanding her responsibility and her privilege as a white woman in her role. And I think that to me is a lot more heartening, very heartening, and makes me feel like, Okay, this can be different.
It's not no one's looking to us and being like y'all fix it, you know entirely anymore.
Yeah, that's so interesting.
Because you know, as people have really just tried to ascribe what we're seeing right now with Vice President Harris to you know, vibes, you know joy. I literally wrote this in a recent column, like it is not joy actually is a strategy because it is translating into action.
Your mom not just saying.
She's going to cast a ballot for Kamala Harris, but saying I'm willing to do some work to help her get elected like that because she's excited, right because she is. She is she is hopeful, she is feeling joyful about this election, and she wants to do something as Michelle Obama told her to do. Apparently now that she's a
she's a stand, she's ready to do something. And so there there are and there are people like that, not just people who maybe couldn't support Hillary or or voted for Trump before, but but even people who maybe, uh, you know, we're Democrats and we're gonna vote already, but like they are also willing to do other things. They're willing to I ain't never got so many text messages
y'all from from uh the Democratic Party. I'm like, y'all texted me more than my man and my Mama, Like, why am I hearing from you so much?
It's a lot. But that's just how many volunteers they have working.
Right, people came to our neighborhood and were door knocking, like I haven't I can't remember the last time somebody came and knocked on my door with literature for a can for any candidate, right, so like, but but these people have signed up for shifts and they are they are they are doing what they feel that they can do to help her win. And so I think that that matters. There's so many more young people that I've
seen before. They remind you of like kind of like the upswelling for for President Obama, you know, the general sense of excitement. Before it was kind of like I'm gonna do my duty, and now there's this sense of excitement which she brilliantly you know, her vice president choice. I'm like, girl, you have the main life, Jesus. I mean, you just he popped out, didn't he?
He?
He really popped out pow on those podcasts, and he popped out on cable news and suddenly got on the radar, and and I mean, who saw him.
I certainly did not see him coming We'll be honest, did not see him coming.
Absolutely, but now that man was, they have.
They seem to have a genuine chemistry. People are responding to him and and people and certainly he Democrats seem much more excited about their vice presidential nominee than Republicans right now, uh, which which is really really interesting, Like I cannot wait for that debate.
That is coming going to be one there.
There's supposed to be a vice presidential debate on October first, I believe.
So let's yeah and get set. Yeah, get get ready, folks.
Because I would really I'm just really interested to see I mean, it's two very contrasting versions of masculinity and so to see them on stage and to see the gender of it all, which we saw the gender of it all in the presidential debate between Harrison Trump, but to see that between these two men in terms of how that also influences their vision for America, I think that will be super interesting.
Yeah, that level of engagement, the record number of people who tuned into the presidential debate, that makes me, yes, really excited, I mean, and.
Also immediately clipping the stuff for TikTok. I mean, they are trying to reach these young people.
I mean, yes, whoever's doing a social media is social media.
Okay.
I was actually at a dinner party this weekend and one of the people there she was like, this day's at the table. Meanwhile, and here you are, here, you are You're like sure, this is the way. I can't fear Listen, I didn't sign an NBA anyway, no names given, but anyway, and she I'm sure she's one of the many strategists who are like advising the campaign and all
of that. But she was just talking a little bit about how like how they are creating the clips and feeding them to the you know, accounts to post them and all of that, and just like they're so tuned in and they get it, like they get where the audience is at, especially the young people.
Meeting them where they are right and meeting all kinds of people where they're up here. Maybe you maybe you came for Shannon Sharp, but the next thing you know, you're watching some election content.
Look it up.
If you don't know what I'm talking about, people, I can't get into it. We can't get into it right now.
I don't know much it.
We're not getting to get into it.
Let's not get into it now. Well, in this time, you're as a journalist, Like, how are you? I mean, this is just like at the nineteenth, I imagine It's just like when I think about what y'all's office must look like. I'm sure you all work remote because you know you are a workforce of the future, as you should be. But the idea of so many brilliant, talented women covering this election is really crucial to me. What is y'all's approach? I mean, I love as a journalist,
like old school journalism. I studied print when I think I was the last generation to be allowed to focus on prend Yeah, like legally you can't do that anymore, But at the time, it was all about being objective and like you weren't really talk you weren't really expected
to bring your identity to the table. What I love about the nineteenth is that, well I don't know, but so much about y'all bringing your identity, but just acknowledging which audience you are representing and whose voices you want to be sure amplified. But can you talk about your approach to the nineteenth and the vision for it? And four or five years later, how are y'all doing on that front and has it been a challenge or are people getting it?
Yeah? And thank you for asking.
I mean, look at the Nineteenth What we believe is that our lived experience is absolutely an asset to our storytelling, Like it is the lens that helps us to see the stories that other people are missing in our political journalism.
It's the whole reason that we exist, right, It's because we felt like political journalism as it existed before we existed, was not telling the most honest and accurate story about who we are as a country, who we are as a democracy, and so that is something that we really
have leaned into. But that is also something that has evolved to your point, right, I mean, like I said, we're four years old, we'll be five in January, and we you know started obviously we're named for the nineteenth Amendment for people who don't realize that, but you know, we were really focused on women and politics and so but we also realized that there are other people that are marginalized because of their gender, and to think about
the relationship between gender more broadly in politics, like that felt like the conversation that we really needed to be having and driving. And so you know, what does it mean to be you know, an LGBTQ person participating in this democracy, whether that's as a voter, whether that is as a candidate, whether that is as an elected official, whether that is as an organizer. Right, Like that representation
also matters. And also, I mean, obviously you cannot talk about you can't talk about marginalization and gender without also unpacking race. But I mean there's just so many race and gender intersect with everything in our in our society, and all of we believe that everything is political and that all politics is gendered. So like there's just there's there's no shortage of things that we can look at and say, Okay, there's a nineteenth angle to telling this story,
and that just happens over and over again. So fast forward to you know, the events of July twenty first, and it's like, whoa, Okay, this is our Like we we already felt like we wanted to do work that was meeting the moment after the fall of Rope. But with I mean, if you would have told me when we started, because by the way, like part of our reason for existing was like our frustration with how women running for president were being covered.
If you could have.
Told me four years later that we would have a woman on the ballot, again, yeah, I didn't. I did not have that on my being a card at all for this selection.
Basually interviewing Hillary Clinton about.
That part, Wow, it's like, let's reflect and she's just like, yeah,
we got to get this done. And I'm like, wow, because you really don't even have to be here, and yet here you are saying, let's get this across the finish line, even though I mean whatever, she's not over it, like she's she's clear about that, but like, also she sees she sees this opportunity, and I think that's what so many of the women that I hear from say, like, yes, this is unconventional, Yes this came together and it's just a very bizarre and unpresidented way, but it's here now.
It's here now, and so let's get it done right and be you know, join the rest of so much of the world and having potentially a woman leading this democracy. But anyway, I mean, like now that, like I said, there is a woman on the ticket, you have so many folks who are at the nineteenth now who are ready to meet that moment who are thinking about what does that mean for our economy? What does that mean for the issue of gun violence? What does that mean
for education? What does that mean for so many caregiving? Right? Like, that is something that has been a priority of this vice president, So like to be able to think about those things in terms of what it might mean for presidency is really fascinating. And also what it means if we do not get the woman candidate, Like, what is her opponent's stance on those issues, and what does that mean to our audiences who are going to be directly impacted by the policies that they are prioritizing.
What are some of the things I know I hear people say all the time, Okay, she's a black woman. I don't want to just vote for her because she's a black woman. I don't know any of her policies. I'm like, are you hustlering? What would be some of the core things that you would say to a listener who might be like, I'm not really clear on some of her her core policies that would affect me. What could you see some of those things that people should be like, Oh, I had no idea, Well.
I mean, yeah, and look that is not something that she's really been emphasizing on the campaign trail on her website, I think the issues have recently been posted on there, so like, you know, for people who are wanting to kind of read more about that that I think is
now available. But you know, she definitely talks about the issue of affordability a lot, and like what is going to happen for the middle class if she is president, So talking about price gouging in grocery stores or you know, medical debt, is you know, not being on somebody's credit report, as you know, how is she going to address the gender wealth gap, racial wealth gap.
She's talked about.
Some of those things, but like I said, in terms of specifics, we haven't really gotten into the nuts and
bolts of that kind of stuff. She's talked about housing affordability and how there are just too many young people, too many people in general in this country that just really do not have access to affordable housing and the choices that they have to make as a result of that, and so thinking about those people and also talking about that from her own personal experience as somebody who grew up with a mom who was renting until she became a homeowner when the Vice president was in high.
School, you know what I mean.
So like that that is something that you know, she has been pretty open about on the campaign trail. You know, I think a couple of other things that I would just say on that. I think both candidates have been pretty scant on policy. So it's not just that she has not, you know, told people what she's going to do. I don't think we have a very clear sense of what either of them could do. It's that part if
they were president. And then the other thing is, you know, and and I think that this is something that the vice president surrogates have really been pretty vocal about and and and her too to an extent, like because she's not really getting into the race and gender of it all in terms of the historic nature of this campaign. But what the framing is is that she is the most she is qualified, Like, like, she is the most
qualified person to be president. Like that's the argument. So like, don't vote for her just because she's the black woman. Vote for her if you believe that she is the most qualified person to be president in the United States, and she's trying to make the case for that, not for I think I think in twenty sixteen, it felt much more like, oh, you guys, we can we can make history together if you know, if if we vote for Hillary, Like that was the pitch to so many people.
But this, this is not that. I mean, it's it's certainly there. You know, every time she she's on stage, you are very aware that you have a black woman running for president and if she won, what that would mean. But also yes, like there's a person who has the credentials, you know, to even be competing for this position, and so that is what she is choosing to focus on.
Okay, yeah, I mean for me, I just feel like she's I mean, every time she skips off that plane is at air Force two? What is she at air Force one? Yet when she skips off that plane in those pantsuits but the Converse sneakers, I'm just like that's my Like, there's signals, you know, she doesn't have to be like I mean, if she's proud she's black, she's female, she's proud to be black and an Indian American and all that. The intersectionality of her identity means so much
to me and so many voters. So I don't really have a lot of patience for like people thinking is she this enough or that enough or whatnot? But for me, it's like it's a reminder and it's I'm constantly trying to remind anyone who will let me talk to them about it about how the president is not the end all be all for legislation. Look how much damage has been done with a democratic president in the White House.
Look at the courts, you know. And this dinner that I mentioned being at had several black female judges at different levels federal and at the what's below the federal but like state level whatever local courts, and a couple of them have been appointed under Biden. And I'm like, that's the work that really matters. It's like who who were we electing in Congress and being more involved in the mid term elections and wanting people to understand that
policy is important. Of course it is, and Kamala's views and her like her her stances on different issues, it absolutely does matter. But for me, it's about like what will this who will this person then support when they are on Capitol Hill and what kind of instruction will they give to the elect like our local elected officials to put forward like they're the ones writing these pieces of legislation and getting them across the House, and you know,
executive orders can only go so far. Like, it really matters to me that people stop looking at the as if the president is like the end all be all and can somehow thwart all the you know, the damage that can be done to our democracy in the shadows, in the small city council rooms, in the in the in the boards of education, you know, where they're breaking down our education for our young people. All of that matters too. Do you get that sense aarin from like
your readership. Are they are they tuned into that level? Are we focused on that level? Are we paying enough attention or do you guys feel like there's still work to be done to bring more of a spotlight to the small ways that people are chipping away at democracy, not just from the White House, but like at the local, local level.
Yeah, I mean, look, we have focused a lot on what is happening in the States because that is where so much policy that is impacting people's daily lives also happening. Right, We just had an excellent series on the war on trans Americans in this country.
Because state legislatures are absolutely have like.
Legislating people's humanity like that is, that is the thing that is happening in our country right now, and we felt like it was important to highlight that because we know that gender this is part of what we mean. We say that gender is on the ballot, right, not just at the top of the ticket, up and down the ticket, wherever you live, and so reminding people of
that felt very important. But also yeah, I mean, and look, the campaign certainly says it's not just the top of the ticket that's going to matter, right, I mean, I think that was.
The lesson for those of us who were old enough.
To remember the Obama presidency, right, I mean, this man could you know, he could only do so much. She certainly wasn't just the president for Black America, uh, but also had a Congress that was held bent on obstructing him at every turn.
Ever.
You know, so.
What does that mean for an agenda that you want to get passed if you do not have kind of the levers of power to necessarily do that. I think you saw some of that as well with the Biden Harris administration. They were passing executive orders, so they said that they could when uh, you know, they had a Congress that was not cooperative because they didn't they didn't necessarily have a legislative governed like a legislative majority UH in Congress to do some of the things that they
wanted to do. But I'm thinking about particularly reproductive rights, voting rights, criminal justice reform, just to name a few, immigration uh.
Loans like that part. Yeah, still annoyed that she didn't come out and be like, excuse me, like how much how many billions of dollars did they forgive or cancel? You know, the Biden administry billions of largest student loan debt that they don't get I don't know, credit for whatever people think anyway, keep going.
No, you know, the student loan debt. One.
I also found that interesting because you think about we were just talking about kind of the the social media of it all in this election, Like you would have thought for as many people who had their loans who woke up one day and their student loans were forging.
If that had been me, I would have been I would have been hitting TikTok so fast and so wow, like this has happened, and like I really was expecting kind of a flood of those types of videos and I'm not saying that just organically right, like not even that the campaign would have been asking people to share their stories of but but like organically I would have I would have thought that that would have happened, and
that was that was not a thing that happened. And I also don't like there was more focus on kind of the legality or just kind of what the number was without the story behind those numbers, because I mean, that is literally life changing, changing, life changing for people.
And y'all know, I mean.
There are people our age, especially Black women our age, who are just now paying off student loans or are still paying off student Yeah.
Well the numbers speak for themselves.
I was able to go to the to the White House for a congressional briefing of student loans, and I was shocked that, like it was like after twenty years after leaving whatever institution that you were, there was like four percent of white folks would still owe the majority of their student loans, you know, only four percent, so most people would have paid them that after twenty years, ninety six percent of black folks who still own the vast majority of their student loans.
Which is st it's stunning, I mean, and this is what we mean. We talk about the wealth gap, right, and also why equal pay matters. But like you think about and even if you had now ever gone to that meeting, like you see, I see it in my Facebook at least once a week somebody in my Facebook feed, to the extent that I'm still going on Facebook and checking it to keep up with what my friends are doing.
Hi, I see you all thriving.
But at least once a week somebody is saying it's posting about their last student loan pays and they are my age, yes, and I look young but I ain't. So it is like, really, I'm struck by that. I'm struck by and almost always black women, I'm struck by just how many of us we're putting so many things on hold because this was just hanging over us for our entire adulthood. Like that's crazy, it's crazy.
Maybe there's a sense of like if we talk about it out loud, someone might give it back, like they might take it away, like give it back to us.
That maybe that's it, right.
There's like a mistrust of did this really just.
Have I can't tell nobody about this.
Yeah, I don't want that are some Facebook group of about five hundred thousand women, mostly black women, and people do post when you're right, not as much as you would think, no, because we.
Know we know the numbers, like we know how many millions of people.
Yeah, this has happened for and yet we don't hear those stories nearly as much as I would have expected.
Well, you're hearing it here, Brown Ambition fan.
There we are there. We shall take a should we're correcting the record.
I almost did, like the NPR thing. If you're just tuning in. Our guest is Aaron Names from the nineteenth Oh god, we'll be right back when more Brown Ambition All right, ba fam, We are back with Aaron Haynes, editor at Large of the Nineteenth again the nineteenth News dot org. And you should donate because they're nonprofit and they're doing the Lord's work. Okay, yes, the Lord's work.
Appreciate that.
Man. What should we talk about now? We talked so much about the election, Like, Aaron, what's it like to be I don't know, a badass journalist have been doing this for like thirty years and killing it like wow, And.
I wouldn't say that it ain't been quite quite that I don't know, it hadn't.
Been quite like really easy and super fun, right, like yeah, and you're like really rich.
Yeah, oh my god, no, none of the above fake news.
No, But look this, I mean honestly, like I I really have.
I've had an extraordinary career and I've gotten to cover so many things that I and just been in so many places that I just never would have expected because of the job that I have and so but also just getting to tell the truth about who we are as a country, like I and to do that on behalf of people who can't go to the places that I get to go to, like that has really.
Been the honor of my professional life. It really has.
And yeah, for as fraud as it has been at some points, to be a woman in this kind, to be a person of color in this country, for folks, to be queer people in this country, like it is an extraordinary time to be covering those things on behalf of those folks in a way that we just were not seeing happening anywhere else in just the four years that we have been doing this work at the nineteenth.
So so yeah, I mean I like people people think about, you know, kind of what they would have done at different points in our history, like where would you have been or.
What would you have you know, what air do you wish you had lived in?
Or what?
No, like this one, this one.
Because there it is just extraordinary the time that we are living in and the people that come along behind us and read the first draft of history that we leave, I mean, they won't be leave what we live through, and so I try to think about that and be present in that even as I'm just kind of going from column to column or podcast to podcast. It's like, no, like this actually is an extraordinary privilege for me to be able to tell part of this story and leave this record behind.
I was here, Well, how do you with all the It's almost like asking like a therapist, you know, how do you unwind? Like what is your mental health? Kind of like what do you do so that way it doesn't eat you up in the inside, because you know, right now is very so really it can be a scary time. You know, the last election felt crazy. This is you know, so close, and so what do you do for your own self personally?
Yeah?
Well, I mean, first of all, shout out to my therapist. Okay, I couldn't make it without you, love you. We've been riding. We're gonna ride this thing to will fall off. But definitely have I talked to her about the election? One thousand percent? Do I continue to do that every single Like that is I don't, I don't. I don't miss a hair appointment, and I don't miss therapy. Okay, Like these are priorities for me. Also, I mean my emotional support. Uh, Pino Grigio, sure,
I mean, let's be honest, it's happening. Uh love me, Love me a good glass bottle of wine. You know, watch it, watch a lot of Peppa Pig, y'all. For anybody who's followed my Twitter feeds, you know that I have a love hate relationship with Pepa.
On purpose, like by yourself as your dog.
Help childless dog lady, ginger dog lady right here is definitely watching Pepa Pig without You need.
To watch Blue if you're gonna watch it by yourself.
You know you keep saying Blue might be my next, might be my next because Pepa just makes me mostly angry. Is Blue gonna enrage me?
Or no? Blue is going to chip way at your soul and make you believe in humanity? And like and it's so much better than I mean, I was a Peppistan as well, but I wouldn't watch them by myself. Bluey, I'll just turn on for a nice little just infusion of hope and love and optimism. I highly recommend. I think Ginger will love it. It's all about.
Dogs, Ginger.
I mean, god, it's you know, trying not to pet the hair off a Ginger as I, you know, sit on the couch and not.
Pet the hair.
She's like, girl like.
Ginger's like, look, I know I said I was an emotional support dog, but you're doing too much.
Bro.
I'm still holding it down on Twitter though, Man, I had I left Twitter, but threads is weird. I did this Twitter.
I wish that I can't develop a new habit right now. I don't have the bandwidth for a new habit. Yeah, so that's my problem. Yeah, those people that were baking bread in the pandemic, I'm like, who are you? Like, It's not going to happen for me, So I can't. I can't do it. So I didn't move on in the world. It's all I can do. I'm just texting means to my that's all. So a big part of my life, Tiffany so and all means that you find amusing, it's my my My dms are open because they are
d ms and vibes are getting me through. Uh and yeah, and can't say enough about Pino Grecia.
So I need to send you this rep from schan Tell Brown. She's a representative. Were you on the call last night?
The Black women did not make the call last night?
But I look, that's the thing, right, like four years of these calls, like I've been on many of these before, you know, the historic one, and it's.
Just like us didn't get our invite until the historic one.
Well they still they still happen in folks, I mean, you know, are we.
Still have black women? We'll put the link in the in the show notes for y'all Women with Black Women? Oprah Oprah Winfrey, she's hosting a why did I say her full name? Like y'all don't know? Wh Wow, she's a zoom Copamala. You know Lady Gayl's best friend, you know, Gail from CBS.
I've heard something about it.
It's like her friend and color Purple Women with Black Women.
But she's about to do a call with Vice President Harris.
She is, Ye, I believe that I did see that these are happening every Sunday. You can register for all the calls to come through the end of like through mid November. So I'll put a link to the to that in the show notes for y'all. Aarin, I feel like my last question I want to ask you career wise, how are you feeling and what's next for you? Because you know I'm the career girly. Is the next like what's.
Your big That is a good question.
I mean, obviously continuing to cover the presidency no matter what happens, but you know that trying to get through this election is in my is in the close up. But but yeah, beyond that, like we cover politics and policy, right, so like continuing to think about the policies that are shaping.
The laves of the people.
That are are counting on us to to report on these things for them. So yeah, after the election, we're going to have to think about that based on who was elected up and down the ticket, Like what is that going to mean at the federal level, at the state level, at the local level, for women, for LGBTQ plus people, for people of color, for people with disabilities
for all of the audiences that we have. But it just like I said, it is an exciting time to be doing the work that we are doing at the nineteenth because it feels very urgent for the people that we are writing for and about.
This election is existential for a lot of those folks.
The policies that the people who are elected, those policies are existential for a lot of people and literally determine their ability and to the extent to which that they are participating in. Our democracy is full citizens, right, So yeah, that is kind of where we are. Also, maybe we'll get a massage and or a vacation and after this yeah, I mean there was no break after November twenty twenty, like we have had no break, so that would.
Be nice to also do that.
But yeah, we can all we can all take a little self care moment before inauguration.
That is what That is my wish for all of you. That is that is my wish for all.
Holding my breath, it does feel Yeah, I don't want to. I can keep going, but I'm like it feels a little stressful. Assassination attempts January sixth, that come on.
And who knows what is going to happen over the next seven weeks. We just we don't know.
We don't know.
Last question, last thoughts.
We just thank you for coming on honestly, because I just, I mean, I am getting more and more hopeful every day, and it's just amazing to hear someone who's in the thick of it, you know, come out and swim with us a little bit here at Bran Ambition and just we thank you for your work because it's a lot.
Take on a lot, so that way we can be more informed. Well that's the thing.
We're all in this together, folks, Like we're gonna get through this election together like you are not alone. So yes, thank y'all for letting me hang out with you. I got as much out of this as both of you did. Trust me, trust me, trust me.
Thank you.
Definitely have to have you back so we could talk more like. Yes, that means yes.
We've had Tiffany Cross on. I know you guys are paler. What ell should we have on? I want like nothing but black girl magic being the voice of this election.
Yes, Oh my gosh, there's too many people to name. I mean, Brittany Pacnick Cunningham is super fun. Uh and and she also has a fun new podcast that's going to be coming out Jamel Hill. Who I mean, listen, don't limit her to sports. She can talk about all of it.
So that love that podcast, Yes, love.
That for for for all of us.
Uh yeah, I mean I mean, look Tiffany and or a good time on Native Land. But Angelus is also she has many thoughts on on on all things politics, so like you could definitely have her to come hang out.
Yeah, and there are.
So many, but I mean, there's no shortage of brilliant black women who y'all could hang out with over the next seven weeks and beyond as we just continue to unpack what is happening in this democracy and what it means, particularly for us.
Thank you Aaron Haynes of the nineties. Everybody go check out her podcast The Amendment. But you already followed it earlier, but I told you too.
Listen to Mary. She knows everything.
I'm really smart. Thank you, Aaron. Best of luck, take care of yourself, Hang in there, squeeze your puppy, Go watch Blue Blueye. I'm telling you Chef's kiss You'll.
Be don't forget to send my means.
Yeah, I will be some means not kidding, all right, take care.
If you love this episode, and you know you do, I had to share it on with your grandma, your mama, your sister, your cousin. Leave us a review and we'll love you even more. It'll you're an extra special friend, all right, y'all. Bye,