Lok at Our Radio is a radiophonic novela, which.
Is just a very extra way of saying a podcast.
I'm fiosa fem.
And I am Ma la Munos. We're podcasting through another Trump election year. We've been podcasting through election years, a global pandemic, civic unrest, political controversies, the Me Too movement, the rise of TikTok, and we are still here. We're not done telling stories.
We're still making podcasts. We're older, we're wiser, We're even podcasting through a new decade of our lives.
Since twenty sixteen, we've been making locat our Radio independently until we joined iHeartMedia's Michael Dura Network in twenty twenty two.
From our Lips to your Ears, fall in love with Loka to a radio like you never have before.
Welcome to Season nine. Love that first.
Listen, Olao la Loka Motes. Welcome to Season nine of lok at Dora Radio.
I'm the Osa and I'm Mala.
Lok at Dora Radio is a podcast dedicated to archiving our present and shifting the culture forward. You're tuning in to Capitroro cientos Kinze two fifteen.
Last Time on LOCATORA Radio, we interviewed Linda Garcia, who is running uncontested in the upcoming November election for the office of Texas State rep for District one oh seven.
Could see that I had been doing the work, and so the work means that I had been taking steps to work with our community and shift current circumstances in our community. And so for a lot of people, that is what a public servant does.
That is what she is slated to be sworn in January twenty twenty four. It is a really juicy, informative interview, so make sure you tune in, leave a comment, subscribe, and share with a friend.
So how are you doing, Mala, Oh, I'm doing really well. Why are you doing really well?
For a variety of reasons, life is just to go my way right now. I'm really like my lucky Girl syndrome is at its peak. I think in these moments, school is going well. There are like some fun things happening on the personal front that I will not divulge. You know what's going on. And you know, we have our two weekly shows and now we're like very much underway with Senora sex Ed, which is super exciting, especially because it's been years in the making.
Yeah, we have five episodes out so far, five episodes of a thirty episode season, and we just have been fully in production for a while now, and so it's really fun to be putting out the episodes finally and also to be booking the new guest as well.
And we haven't launched a brand new original show that we are co producing and co hosting since we launched lok at Thought our radio, So this is our first time putting out a whole new project as look at
Thought our productions in collectoration with my podcast network. But it's been really fascinating to me to watch the show, Senora Sex said, go from an idea to even like recording, to then seeing it take on its own identity, its own style, its own vibe, and sort of like letting the show reveal itself to us and each guest really kind of bringing a different lens, a different topic, a different angle that I don't think we can always we can.
We can't always predict, you know, like what a guest is going to bring to the show, and we and like letting that happen and then like following the lead of the guest has been really fun.
Yeah, I agree. I think that that's what makes Senora sex said different from Loka Tora, where we're giving the guests the space to really tell their own story and it's not about a specific project that they're working on
or specific moment a current moment. Really, when we talk about Loka Tora, we're archiving the present and so very much we're talking talking about an artist, a creative and activist and what they're doing right now in this present moment where a Senora sex said, we're really giving the guests the opportunity to reflect on their upbringing, their family,
anything related to sex and sexuality. And I love when they have these moments where they're sharing something for the first time or in real time, you can see them like, oh, I actually never thought about it that way, but now that I'm saying it out loud to you both, I can really see it or I can think about it in this way. And so I think that's what makes the show really unique and different from Look at Thota Radio.
I agree, it's extremely personal, and I think in more recent seasons Locator has gotten less like personal and less putting the private out for the public. But Senora Sexad is that space where our guests can very much do that, and it's been cool to see how our guests, like Aida Rodriguez talked about feeling really safe during the interview to go there and talk about deep issues and difficult memories and maybe traumas that she hasn't talked about out
loud necessarily outside of her book. So it's just been really cool. And our most recent episode, while at the time of this recording, features a mother daughter pair that I am so excited to have on the show, Lily and Lethisia Roldan. If you tune into Senora Sex Said,
you're gonna notice we have a recurring segment. It's a house call from doctor Roldan and she's giving us her obgyn resident physician input on some of the topics that our guests bring up, whether it's perimenopause or masturbation, what have you, or a myth busting around the hymen. The hymen, I forgot the word. We talked about it so much that I forgot the word. But now she has her own episode with her mom where we talk about their own journey on Senora Sex Said, and really her journey
to becoming a gynecologist. So it's a very fun episode, very full, so make sure you go and tune in.
Yeah, I love all of the episodes so far, but I especially feel really connected and really like tenderhearted about the mother daughter conversations because again, you can see in real time mother daughters processing their relationship, their understanding of sex and sexuality, not only about themselves, but also of their mothers or their counterparts, depending who it is, and
so that has also been really beautiful to see. And you know, we're not necessarily defining Senora sext as an archive, but when I think about like oral tradition and a mother daughter story, I'm like, we've just archived this for them and they can listen to it for as long as the feed exists. And to me, that's something so special because as we know, like as our parents' age,
there's all these stories you want to capture. And I really feel like for the mother daughter episodes, it really is that time capsule because it's not just present day how we're processing, but it's looking back on their childhoods, looking into the future if they want to become mothers themselves, and having those dialogues with their mother. And so I think that that's something really special about the show.
It's super special. And when have we seen these types of mother daughter conversations in one place.
In a Latino Latina LATINX context. Yeah, talking about sex and sexuality. And we'll have guests that are like, I want to do it, but my mom isn't down. And of course we're not going to force the sangnona. You know, we're not going to even our own moms. Like when we were starting the show, like they had said yes and they were down, and then as like it came down to interviewing, there was a little more hesitancy, and
so we haven't actually booked them yet. I'm still hoping that my mom will listen to one of the mother daughter episodes and understand the vibe and the goal of the show and not feel too shy about it. But yeah, we're not going to force anyone, but I do hope that I can get her on eventually.
Yeah, we the jury still out on our moms, but we are grateful to our guests and their moms for being so open and vulnerable. And we took it a step further. We went with Victory House to the Santa Fe Spring Swap Meat and Live and in person and on camera. We just approached random women, mothers and daughters, and we asked them if we could give them like a brief interview about how they learned about sex and sexuality.
And we interviewed some really great women who were funny, who were really they just wanted to talk about it. They were down, and you know, it's not every day that someone approaches you at the swap meet to ask, you know, how did you learn about sex? But totally and some were not down. Some were like absolutely not, no, thank you. And some who were there with like boyfriends or male partners. I think we're shy, which is fine, but go to our instagram and check out that clip
from the Santa Fe Springs swap meat. It was really fun.
Yeah, and I think they're I don't know if this is a generalization, but I think so far what we've seen, it's either your super down to talk about sex and sexuality and sex ed or you're not.
Yeah.
I don't know if we've found that in between, because I think to be in that in between, you're gonna you're still gonna you're gonna go to one side or the other. You're gonna go more towards no or more towards yes. So it's it has been really fun to talk to the women, the signos especially that are like yes, I want to talk about this because no one's ever talked to me about it before. It's fun subscribe leave a review for that.
Show as well.
It's a brand new feed, so we're growing the audience. We have one review so far and it's a very sweet review. So if you want to contribute, we would love that so so much.
On Apple podcasts and on Spotify.
Yes, all streaming platforms, but especially the Apple pod and the Spotify. If you can leave five stars, if you can leave a review, that would be greatly appreciated. Don't go anywhere, Lokamotives.
We'll be right back and we're back with more of our episode.
So today, aside from our general check in and talking about our new show, Total Mood Shift, it's election season.
Yes, it is again again. It's always election season. It feels like.
Every well, every presidential election. Obviously we've covered it because we've been in existence for eight years, nine seasons, but local elections we cover two. But we're seeing like it's not even Trump two point zero. It's like Trump three point oh, because this is his third time running wild, which like, I'm an abolitionist until it comes to these shitty men.
Yeah under the jail, Yeah, I'm like please.
Today we're talking about the presidential election, but more specifically the recent live debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump that took place on September tenth.
So if you guys tuned in, then you probably saw that, among other things, donald Trump started talking about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, quote eating dogs, eating cats, eating the pets of the people that live there in Springfield. So, of course, when something like this happens, donald Trump gives us a inflamed, ridiculous racist SoundBite, the internet goes wild, right, it gets
picked up and it's spread like wildfire. And we see a quote like that not only covered in the news and not only dissected by commentators, but we see what we're calling the memification of a statement like that, right, people making tiktoks. It's becoming a sound it's becoming its own meme. We want to sort of talk about all the implications of that and analyze that that process.
Before we go into our own analysi of what it means when someone like Trump becomes a meme. Also want to just set the stage as to what has been going on the past week. So during the during the debate, it was moderated by two journalists, Lindsay Davis and David Muir, and they were fact checking in real time, which I really appreciated because a lot of people won't go back
and check and fact check afterwards. There are fact checking, there is fact checking that happens by certain outlets after the fact, but I think it being live was super important and really critical. And as they were fact checking this claim that Trump made about quote Haitian immigrants eating pets, David Muir fact checked in real time and said, there
are actually no reports. The city commissioner has said there are no reports of immigrants or anyone eating pets, eating cats, eating dogs, and really challenged that narrative that he was stating, and so essentially it was baseless, right, But of course he ran with it, and the Republican Party ran with it, or members of the Republican Party ran with it, And since then there have been real life implications as to the statements that he made.
And of course, you know, Donald Trump comes from a reality TV background, I think a big part of his staying power at this point has been his sort of ability to capture a public media moment and give his folks a SoundBite and something that can be clipped and quoted and shared and memified, and in essence he launches into this well, and we're talking about this episode as the memification of evil, right, and where he takes something super diabolical and the general public turns it into content
on the Internet that can be recreated and shared. We don't always know the intent of that person, but we can guaranty that there's a lot of them who want to propagate that stereotypical racist statement, who want it to spread and want it to be believed. So probably folks will act on it, whether that's in the way that they vote or in the way that they're interacting with the community that's being targeted, which in this case is the Haitian community.
Yeah, and I think because we have been online for so long, right, depending on your age, but also so much of how we consume news now, so much of how we consume anything is online, whether that be through a digital publication or a legacy outlet. That everybody is online at this point, and so I think that memes have become or have felt, very innocent in some way,
like it's a joke, it's not that serious. There's some hilarious memes out there about tons of different things, right, And I think what we're more so thinking about is how we sanitize what someone says, when we turn it into a meme, how we make it less threatening when it becomes a joke. And I think there's that fine line of like, this is so ridiculous, How can anyone believe this? This is so ridiculous? How is this not funny?
But there's real implications, as we've seen in the past eight years of what it means when someone like Donald Trump is platformed, even in a way where it's quote a joke, it's supposed to be funny, or we're poking fun at what he said, there's actual real life implications.
Absolutely, there's real life implications. I mean, number one, it's
not just him alone making the statement anymore. At the debate now it's like all these individuals with their own feeds and their own audiences and their own platforms of varying sizes, spreading and giving new life to the statements and making sure they get out there, and so we're going to talk about just kind of like different instances where things like this have happened in the past, whether we're talking about about cartoonists and racist propaganda against Jewish
people in Nazi Germany, right, Like, the arts can be implicated in the spread of propaganda, you know, and things like memes and cartoons and jokes and sketches and TV shows can be used for things that are beyond like a laugh or a he he haha. They can be used to propagate evil. And so that's sort of what we want to talk about today as we analyze this most recent occurrence.
I think what Trump one of the things that Trump is really quote good at, is creating this like racist dog whistling and picking a certain community to attack.
Right.
He did that back in twenty sixteen with Mexican immigrant communities. He's done that with Api folks, He's done that with Muslims. Now he's doing that with Haitians. And so it's really easy for him to pick a group and just makeup shit about them and people and his bass runs with it, and he knows that. And so I think there's a part of us that maybe wants there's a part of us that can discern like, this is not real, this
is baseless, this is a lie, this is wrong. But then I think you might have said this Mala already, or maybe you just said it to me earlier. But it's like, don't he doesn't really need to spread anything beyond that one statement, because it's not just his party running with it. It's even us like liberals, progressives, Democrats, however you may identify turning it into a joke itself, like we're doing the legwork for him, and it's staying
in the ether. It's staying in the zeitgeist because it's still two weeks later practically, and people are still talking about it, and it's and it's still a quote joke. Right.
There are TikTok.
Dances, there are songs created. My mom was showing me a TikTok video of a creator that made this song using the SoundBite from Trump, and for all of the money he made from streams or views, he was donating it to like an animal organization. So I'm like, okay, a little bit of like some altruism, but the cats and dogs aren't actually being affected. Who's being affected? Are the Haitian immigrants and the Haitian community in Springfield, Ohio.
Yeah, it's was that creator, like a white creator doing like an ironic, like indie pop cover of the hate speech something like that, Yes, and that sort of And it's like the intention behind the creator is one thing, and the irony that you sort of gloss on top of the hate speech is sort of like, Uh, I don't think it's enough. It's not enough to separate what you've made from the original statement, from the original moment of hate speech and the intention behind why those words
were shared during the debate, you know. And I think, like with with a situation like that, it's so you're right, for whose benefit? Why did you make this? Like who's benefiting from this?
Right?
Who's benefiting from this? It's the dogs and the cats, right like, and that creator probably because that song probably got that person like lots of views and traction and engagement. Yeah, And so ultimately it's like this community is being put at the center of this nasty firestorm, but at least you got to make like a little ironic indie pop song about it and get a million views or whatever.
It's Eh, it's like the ethics of the creator economy in that way where like not everything needs to be content and not everything should be content, and it's not to target that specific person, it's just in general, right, like some things shouldn't be turned into content. And I think what we haven't learned earned thus far and we as a culture, is that bad people need to be ignored, like when they say outrageous things, like we have to
ignore them instead of platforming them. And because someone like Trump is so quote good for business, like he's going to be all over the news outlets and that's what he wants, and he the memes are going to be made and that's what he wants. And so someone like that, Like if we could go back in time and we ignored this person as opposed to giving them the platform
that they needed. Of course it's not that simple, but what would it have looked like if the major news outlets back in twenty fifteen twenty sixteen, we're not giving him this news time or the screen time that he got. And what if we were actually talking about like, oh, this person is not qualified and they're a bad person and they're saying bad things, so we're going to ignore them instead. Because I think what we did was we
made it like something to look at. It was a spectacle because it was so outrageous, and at that time, post Obama, like nobody was speaking that way publicly anymore. And so it became like, oh, Trump is making it okay to talk like that again. So we're gonna bring it back. Stick around for more.
We'll be right back. We're back with more. We hope you didn't go anywhere. I think his voter base and his supporters are already primed to accept statements like this as fact. It's not like these are folks who have never bought into this type of propaganda before. From NPR, there's this article about the stereotype of immigrants eating dogs
and cats as being a storied one. I remember being young in California and seeing like weird stories on the news about Chinese restaurants and like dogs and cats, you know, being served Chinese restaurants. And so it's this ongoing racist stereotype that immigrant groups in particular eat pets and eat dogs and cats, and it's this sort of way to a make immigrant communities look scary, look threatening. They're going
to come after your beloved pets, your animals. And also this way of making immigrant communities look non human and like bottom feeders. Right, yeah, and so what's happening here is this is a group of people who probably believed the Chinese people eating animals stuff when that came out. So we're just switching out one immigrant group for another. But that general idea is sort of already embedded in the minds of like a racist American audience. Absolutely, you know,
it's just like plug and play. And I think that he knows that, or his team knows that, or maybe I'm giving him too much credit. But it's just so easy to ignite that, you know. It just takes the one statement and they're running with it.
This NPR article that you mentioned, but written by Jasmine Garst, she references a writer, Jean rachel Bach, who was a Korean American, and describes growing up and racist comments being made about the food that she was bringing. She says, quote, despite my persistent attempts to explain that dog eating was not at all a common practice among Asians, not to mention Asian Americans, I started to beg my mom to
stop packing me Korean dishes. It's like, I love this title of it being storied because This has been a statement that has been wielded against many immigrant communities for many years. I even see it now, not to deflect, not to deflect, but I even see it now as I think Peruvian food has become super global, super mainstream, and when people find out that in certain regions Peruvians equoy, which is guinea pig, I see the common and I'm like,
oh no, we're not going to do that. We're not eating your guinea pig in your fucking cage.
You know.
These are guinea pigs that are raised in the same way that you would raise pigs, like it's literally the same, and it's in certain regions, and there's different historical there's different history there, right, And so I can see it already with like with different groups, even within the Latin American community.
And gooya is delicious. When we went to Peru, I hadkoy, I had guinea pig, and it was bomb just saying yeah, yumy.
But I mean back to back to the comments that Trump made, you know, and as you were saying, like, the base doesn't need a lot to run with. And so according to various different news outlets that we're citing here, like ABC, News, AP News, and The Washington Post. After the debate, the city of Springfield, Ohio started receiving bomb threats less than two days afterwards, and on Thursday, September twelveth six buildings were targeted and had to be closed.
The mayor came out, Rob Rue and said that the threats, the threats that they received used hateful language towards immigrants and Haitians in our community. Additionally, on September twenty third, there were more bomb threats sent via email and targeted
three schools and other city official buildings. And on Sunday, September fifteenth, a university in Springfield faced a school shooting threat and a bomb threat, and the threats were also sent via email and targeted members of the local Haitian community. According to Wittenberg University, it's.
Very scary, and it's also like, okay, so this statement is enough for people to make bomb threats and you're threatening to destroy infrastructure to take lives, and I think that it's just very telling. It's very wild, you know, and it's very scary. And we know that unfortunately, we know that the American our citizenry is willing and capable, like willing to and capable of like carrying out threats like that. We've had so many bombings in this country
and shootings that have been perpetrated by American citizens. You know, it's like it's it's kind of we're kind of known for it.
Yeah, we are.
We're nobly that globally. And it's very terrifying because you can't look at something like this and say, oh, they're just oh it's not you know that, because something could happen.
Yeah, Like in this case, like these claims are actually not baseless because there's precedent, Like we know that this could actually happen because it has. It happened several weeks ago, So the threats are taken seriously. And I think that that is another example as to why, like we can't control what someone like Trump or someone in general, right a bad politician or is someone in a position of power.
We can't control what they say, but I think we can control how we then receive it and process it and distribute that information. And in this case, we're doing it via memes. And it's like, Okay, let's reflect on this, Like what is the point of sharing this meme right now? Like is it for shits and gigs, like is it funny? And who is it harming? Like who is the laughter actually harming? Because it's not harming Trump, it's like harming
the real community that's at the butt of the joke. Well, Trump didn't say it as a joke, but.
We're then turning.
It into a joke and it's still the same person, the same community that's being harmed at the butt of the joke.
Absolutely absolutely, And going back to the topic of the food of it all right, and targeting like immigrant communities and allegedly what immigrant communities are eating. It reminds me of a class that I took as an undergrad at times called Race in America with Professor gen Wu, who
has since passed away. Rest in peace, gene Wu. But gene Wu was an Asian American professor who taught this course and this is all about the construction of race and ethnicity in the United States, something that's socially and
legally constructed. And I remember there was one lecture in particular where she talked about like instances on campus where students of color like received backlash or were targeted with hate speech around their food and the foods that they were eating or warming up in their dorms what have you. And she was talking about how it's not just it's not just like rude or hateful, but when you think about what a person eats, this is the thing that keeps them alive, you know, this is the thing that
sustains their cells and keeps us going and healthy. And for a lot of folks, your food is something that's passed down generationally. Your mom taught you how to make it, or your dad or your grandparents, and you have all these memories surrounding food and holidays, and it's the symbol of tenderness and care. And so when you're targeting someone's food and their food choices and their food culture, how it's just so much bigger than the meal that they're eating.
And I think it's it's horrible, but it is interesting how over and over again, like the racist stereotypes do tend to fall on the food choices and the food culture. And so what is really being said, you know, how about the people at the core? We don't want you to eat, We don't even want you to nourish yourself, much less be here and participate in America.
Yeah, absolutely, there's like these different signals or yeah, dog whistles for certain ethnic groups, right, like for Mexicans coming during the Bassetto program, it was like the lazy Mexican, the dirty Mexican, the smelly Mexican.
If you will.
And I think that the food and hygiene part of it is so interconnected, and we see that, I think with all ethnicities that kind of being wielded against us, where it's like you eat your food is quote nasty, it's gross. You also smell bad, right.
Like dang damn, okay, okay, thanks a lot.
Yeah, I'm like, oh, actually, like Europeans didn't bathe So actually, who's the one that smells bad?
Right? Right? Right?
Because when I see a Latino walk by, she smells so good, like it just waves like all the body spray.
I can smell the cologne from a block away. Literally, I know what Latino is around the corner. I can smell him before I can see him.
In a good way, but in a good way and a good way yes yeah yeah. And so it just is really like we don't have to perpetuate any of this rhetoric, even if it's a joke. We don't have to be agents of that so we can choose not to be. And it's not to shame anyone that's like shared a meme or made a meme, you know, But it's more so getting us to think about, like, is that the best thing we should be doing when things like this happen?
Yeah, and not to mention stuff like this happens, and nobody ever talks about what about the kids? Should the kids be hearing this? Should the kids be seeing this? Protect the kids? Protect the kids. You know, this is the type of thing that children would repeat, right, and do share and do talk about and joke around about at school and on the playground. And they're online too, and they're sending dms to each other and they're in
the comment section and they're posting. It's always what about the kids when it comes to like the alleged you know, trans issue, correct, then it's all about the kids. It's all about the kids. But something like this happens, and I don't see that same. We're not jumping to protect the kids from being agents of evil and perpetuating hate speech.
Right, Yeah, that's a good point, because kids will repeat what they hear. And I love that you brought that up because Roxane Gay wrote an article in The New Yorker recently really because of the comments that were made and then how it became so viral. She wrote this
essay titled The Haitian Question. She writes about what it was like growing up as a first gen Haitian American in Nebraska and the comments she would receive from her peers, even being in elementary school where they didn't really understand why her parents had accents and why they were light skinned, but they kind of looked ethnic in her words, and so in this article, you know, she writes about how her mother went to the elementary school and well asked
the principle, like can I go and do a little mini presentation? Literally took a globe, spun it and was like this where Haitius, this is where we're from. Brought them all like fried plantains to eat, and she said, we didn't have problems after that because they understood. The kids finally got it. But of course kids get older, schools change, and she continued to have more problems and
more issues with the racism that she was facing. And so she details all of this in The New Yorker, and one of the things that she writes is the implications of what it means when we turn everything into a joke, and so I want to read quote what she said, Roxange writes, and then we joke about red hats and making America great again and fake news, antiki torches and seasoning pets. There's an endless parade of memes. Further capitulation letting Republicans know that you're fine with allowing
them to dictate reality. You're letting them know that you too believe Haitians are acceptable targets for mockery. You're welcome to play by their rules. Anything can be fodder for humor.
Absolutely, absolutely, And I think over the years there's been a lot more focus on like come and what comedians get away with and what we should be pushing back on.
When it comes to comics, there's this idea that, well, I say it in the form of a joke with a setup and a punchline, then it's a joke now, which makes it something different and makes it sort of like free from our whatever expectations we have for regular everyday speech, Like if it's a joke, then it can't be hate speech, when that can't be farther from the truth, right, And so I appreciate her bringing that in because I think that's always the well, it's just the retort. It's
just a joke. It's just a joke. A joke is any is just like any other form of speaking. It's it's human communication. It's the style. It has its own style, but it's still human communication for an audience, for the masses.
I think it's also really important that it's so. I think, and even to this day, there's going to be large parts of the American population who have never met a Haitian person, who don't know where Haiti is, and so this statement could be their very first introduction to the Haitian community and what it means to be a person from Haiti. And you know, I didn't meet anyone from
Haiti until I went to college. Until I was an undergraduate, and I was in Boston, Massachusetts, and so there was a much larger Caribbean community there that is just not
present in la at least not at the time. Right I went to undergrad in twenty ten, I went to Tufts, and so I met a lot of people that I would not have met otherwise unless I had traveled to places where these communities are in larger numbers, and so it's very possible in this country to just like have very limited exposure to different types of people depending on
where you live. So it would be awful if, like your kid, the first thing that they know about this community is a piece of racist propaganda that they saw in a meme on TikTok, Because then what do they do with that? Right, They have no context, they don't know what's going on.
Yeah, that's a really valid point because it's not just the memes. It's like the TikTok platform lends itself to like the music, the dances. I know, it's moved away from being a dancing platform, if you will, But even with this, there were there have been dances made, you know, to the song. There's been a remix, a song made. It's not even a song, but songs and remixes have
been made to Trump's SoundBite. And so the way that the SoundBite has then traveled and transformed into memes and in a way pop culture because we're replicating it and we're passing it along and we're laughing at it, and it's going to be in the zeitgeist forever.
Yeah, honestly, if it's not already on SNL, it will be. I don't know if they've done a sketch yet, but it's probably coming up.
Right, right. Yeah. So I think all this to say, I don't know, I don't know what to say. All this to say, don't.
Spreadshit, don't spread rassropaganda. The devil doesn't need an advocate.
Yes, that's one of my favorite things. The devil does not need an advocate.
And here you are volunteering, yeah, to do it for free, and nobody even asked you, right.
Right, And I think, you know, with someone like Kamala, who's team has very much embraced like online culture, her campaign, at least her campaign has embraced online culture and meme culture. I'm not sure if they've created any memes about this, right, But it's like, we don't have to repost everything. We don't have to do it just because other people are
doing it, you know. It's like really right now or how I'm feeling and I'm thinking is like one, it's okay to one, it's okay to be different, you know, like we don't have to do it just because like it's content and everything should be content. Like we don't actually have to make everything into content. And two, not everything should be a joke, like not everything can be a joke, should be a joke, and not everything is funny and really thinking about who's at the heart of the joke.
Yeah, and you might be participating in like generations of racism without even realizing it. Yeah, you know, this thing is not an original thing. It's not an original thought. And I don't know. I think it's important to like what legacy are we situating ourselves in, you know, this idea of like are you on the right side of history with this? And do you want it in your
digital footprint? And then when the aliens are like, you know, analyzing what we've left, do you want them to think that you were spreading propaganda?
Yeah, and I'll be honest to be fully transparent. Right
the night after the election, someone made a meme. It was like something pulled from Twitter that then was posted on Instagram that then I cross posted because somebody shared it, and it was about, you know, Trump said something that was like they're doing operations, sex change operations on illegal aliens, right, And so then there was a meme of like an alien like in drag Lord, and I did share it and then afterwards I was like, no, like we're because
to me, I'm like, yeah, that to me in that moment, I also thought it was funny, but I'm like, no, we're. After I did some reflecting, I thought like, we're back to using the term illegal aliens like it's normal. We're normalizing it again, even in a joke. And so I did some reflection on that, and then that got me thinking about all of this because I was seeing all the memes. I was seeing the two sets of memes, the quote illegal aliens getting sex change operations and then
the dogs and cats memes. So I was seeing both and one I interacted with one I didn't, and then I really got me thinking about all of this and like, yeah, it can be funny, but now we're normalizing, even in a joke, saying illegal aliens again. And we've made a lot of progress, Yes, that's true, by like news outlets, by our own government, by elected officials like not saying illegal aliens, so we say undocumented people, undocumented communities. But
we're reverting in that way. To your point, Mala, like, on what side of history do you want to be on? And what is in your digital footprint? Because all of it is in our digital footprint.
Yeah. And if you consider yourself liberal and the memes you're making or sharing look exactly like the Republican conservative memes, we have a big problem. Yes, even if your intention in tone you think are different, Like what's the final product, what's the outcome of it all?
Absolutely? Yeah, absolutely, So I think this is just as Lokatoa has transformed. I think that you know, when we started the show, it was like chronically online, and we still are, but it's like, how can we be smarter online? You know, how can we do things differently online? How can we maybe do think about ethics in a way we did it We weren't about an early twenties, but now as like full fledged adults thinking about how are we as a culture and society using social media for good or for bad?
It's unfortunate that these topics, you know, there's always new examples, and so we come back to these issues because they persist and they're ongoing. So let's talk about it. And we know that we have some listeners who have been listening since episode one, but we have new listeners and listeners who maybe are a little bit younger, and so we like to come back to these examples and like, this stuff is current, this is ongoing, and there's always room to question and to challenge and to reflect.
Absolutely and then spread it, like spread that information and knowledge with your friends and family, because yeah, I think at look at Tora. We don't want to shame anyone. And that's why I wanted to give that example of like I did it too, like with the other meme, right, And then that led me to solve, reflect and think about like, no, this should not be funny, you know, and memes have a way of because they're visual being funny, Like they can be funny regardless of what the meme is.
But it goes back to like not everything should be content and not everything should be memified. Right, we're memifying evil in real time.
Yeah, the memification of evil. It's pretty dire and it sneaks up on you. Thanks for listening, y'all. This was a more cerebral episode than we've well we always do. We're very cepri very.
We're always if you could see our text threat, oh.
Lord, oh lord. We're always thinking. We're thinking of brilliant thoughts all day, every day, just so we can come on here and share with you our loving, adoring audience that we appreciate so much.
Yes, thank you for listening to another capitolo of Look At a Radio. Let us know what you think, leave a review, leave a comment on socials. We want to know what you think of this episode and we'll catch you next times. Loka to a Radio is executive produced by Viosa Fem and Mala Munios.
Stephanie Franco is our producer.
Story editing by Me Viosa.
Creative direction by me Mala.
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