90 Million Problems… | MiniPod

interests or not. And we were talking about this in the context of d NC party, the DNC, the RNC, who each party represents in all of the people who are falling somewhere in between are just falling through the cracks, period. So, given the compassion and people that we are and in some ways the ways that we completely align with the folks who don't feel seen by either or anything in between, we just wanted to have a conversation about that. So

she asked, what do you believe in? And I think this is a really good question for those of you who watch the show, listen to the show, and for those of you who don't I'm really intrigued, y'all, honestly about the people who we don't hear from regularly, who don't feel seen, who don't even want to participate in politics because they're like, it's not for me. I don't get it when I do try, Andrew talked about on the show too, When I do try, the folks who

I want to win don't win. So where we go from here, y'all?

how are they learning. You're responsible for what businesses can operate in this store, You're responsible for zoning what houses can look like, and you give people a sense of their own agency about how they can construct democracy. I think we have to start there, and I think this is what the listener question was asking before about, like civics lessons about even understanding how government works, to believe

in it. And I just think before we, you know, ask people to do another inf and thing, if we just take a step back and start there, that might be a better way. Angela is something you said. I wrote it down when you said it because I thought it was so good. You said, there's always space for our work and not space for our needs, and I think that is kind of where I am right now.

I'm not really interested in upholding the White Man's democracy as much anymore, but I am interested in protecting my people. The challenging part is those two things go hand in hand. Should this democracy fall, my people will fall first and suffer the most. Should something bad happen.

happening everywhere. I'm just like, who gives a shit whatever? I need a break in January. I'll be back. But I too am searching for what it is I believe it, so I can't even tell y'all what to believe in. I'm searching for what I believe in, and I'm asking the viewers who are watching this, tell me what you

believe in, because I need to hear. I need community right now to tell me, like Timdy, you don't have a right to build this way, is what I believe in, because there were people who had even less than you that believed in something and kept going. So I would kick the question to the audience. I would love to hear from you all, what is keeping you going? What do you believe in?

large self motivated, that self interested in self motivated. And what I mean by that is is I think I used to carry more judgment about the fact that people are going to do just what they want to do, nothing more. And that's not necessarily a bad thing if we understand the place that people are coming from. In fact, I think all of us can respect it, because we're actually doing the same damn things in our own lives. It just looks more altruistic because more people appear to

be served by that. But in truth, the reason why Tiffany, what you said is true is so true that when black people do well, the country does well is because we and this is where the exhaustion comes in. We oftentimes have to fight the hardest and the longest for what it is that we get, and when we do get it, everybody else in the pecking order has already

gotten it first. We're just and should we be in the fight for an expansion of rights, for an expansion of opportunity that very rarely, if ever, are you going to see that expansion be limited just to our munity. In fact, I don't know a policymaker out there who's going to say that the expansion is limited to just that group. When we fight for it, and it's one, it is a win that everyone gets to benefit in

the largest of take affirmative action, for instance. We may have been on the front lines of that battle, absolutely on the front lines of that battle. We however, were not the greatest beneficiaries of it. In fact, the greatest beneficiaries. I ain't never seen a town hall meet and talking about defending it. I ain't never seen at the congressional hearing talking about how much wealth was built from that opportunity. Never,

So it is in fact true. The reason why this tide lifts all boats is because we're at the damn crest of it, and so it dives down. They're at the apex, they're at the peak of it. We're the thing that dives in first. And so I understand the

exhaustion and the reason why people want to withdraw. And what I would ask people in return is just examine, for a moment, as you go throughout your day, how many other people, how many other bodies, decision making bodies, how many entities outside of yourself are really dictating your actions.

When you're working, you're working to pay a bill to somebody when you're at the when you're exhausted by the fact that there's not a grocery store local and so you're spending more gas to travel across the town just to get to a decent grosser Consider all the people who are making decisions about the things that you and

I do every single day outside of us. And then the reason why Tiffany I say, don't rush back into the news in the day of and what's happening right now is because our focus and emphasis on the what's happening from moment to moment extracts us from the place where we really need to be, which is in a place of thought and maybe in a place of imagination and a place of curiosity, because we're only dealing with

the brass tacks. And the way that we I think, re engage people is by allowing us together, first individually and then collectively to dream and more dreams then beget more beliefs, then beget more tactical things to do, then begets more actions. And so I right now the posture has to be I think, listening, and then I think it has to be walking away with a much clearer understanding of where people are and from their build an agenda and a plan of action that gets us to free.

interested and self motivated. Because I was raised with the understanding, well the belief that we are all inextricably linked, and I was thinking about this conversation we had in Tunica, Mississippi.

The CBC Institute convence there every year, and during the policy conference, we did a showing of Parchment, the Parchment documentary, and the mayor in that area I'm sorry, he was a state legislator in that area did a panel with us, and afterwards what we talked about was industry going into the Mississippi Delta so that people wouldn't have to work

at Parchment Prison And why were we having that conversation. Well, this elected official was saying to us that he cannot support the closing of this prison where you know, folks' rights have been violated day after day, there's been death after death, deplorable, horrible, awful, inhumane conditions. But he can't support the closing of that because the delta is already poor and there was nowhere for people to go. And so you understand that, but it's like at what cost.

Like we're talking about jobs versus life or death, and he's talking about if they're not working, then hunger then whatever. It could also lead to death. And so there's this hierarchy that we often are moving through through and we flatten these conversations so much so that they're black or white and there's no gray, and there always is gray. But andrew to the point of imagination. There was no imagination. It was like parchment or bust. It was like that is the only pathway.

a documentary is happening, Thank you is happening. I encourage you to watch that documentary because when you have somebody in your own community who looks like us, who saying no, I have to keep up this institution, a black oppression and enslavement, living in the worst possible conditions, because the overseers will lose their job and that will lead to more. I mean that showed you how truly.

what Maslow's hierarchy of needs is all about. Right, food, shelter, safety, security, You will do those things before I can ever step outside to care for you. You will do that for yourself first. It's so it is not only a privilege to sort of imagine, but it is also a privilege to be able to think outside of yourself, to have considerations outside of yourself, and then next to yourself, your house and home.

is no other way out our freedom. I was talking to my book editor yesterday, but our freedom is literally the way that we view freedom as black people. When I say we am talking about black folks, we see it within the context of oppression. We don't see freedom outside of I just want to live. I just want

to survive. I just want to be left alone. You know, even in the moments where our freedom has just been leaving us alone, that has been in the context of the trauma that is resulting from slavery and oppression of being a stolen people. So it's hard to talk about imagination when our existence has been shaped through the lens of trauma.

might not exist. That my healthcare be tied to a job that I have, that my retirement and pension is tied to a place where I work, versus my existence on this earth entitles me to a certain set of things, and then a structure gets built to then support that. So you're so right about the hostage, but also the imprisonment of our minds that exists and without even our knowing,

without us being conscious to the imprisonment. It was Cartagie Woodson who says, you know, if you tell a man to go to the back door, and if he goes to the back door and there is no back door, he will cut one out for its special purpose. Why, because it's education makes it necessary. This was him framing the black man. Right, we know to go to the back door, and if there is no back door, we

will cut one out create that back door there. Because our education, the way we have been taught through life, through generation, through the ancestor, is this is our this is our proper place. And if we have the ability, the freedom to extricate ourselves from that and to imagine not in juxtaposition to the conditions that we have lived in, but in relationship to nothing except our highest hopes and

dreams for ourselves, and let it go from there. And there's still there's still extrication that will have to be done, even at that point, because the bonds, the blood is so deep, the soil is it is, it's wet from the blood of our ancestors. Even still, so it's deep, you know, the like we talk about generational trauma. We can't even name the thing that happened, but we're still reeling from it, right, it's wild. Well, we so listening, I think, is where we are, y'all.