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Okay, welcome to the Mini Pod. Today we got a great viewer question asking us about supporting black elected who might not support us. But I don't want to butcher his words. He can say it much better than I can take a Listen, Hey.
Native Lampod, this is Councilman Efao luclaytor of Shaker Heights, Ohio. Welcome Bakari to the Native Welcome home, Baccary to the
Native lamp Pod. I wanted to ask you all. We're in the season, a lot of us are trying to root for everybody black, but when it comes to voting and recognizing that there are black electives who maybe haven't supported policies that support black communities and black Democrats even that maybe our supporting policies aren't beneficial black communities, particularly doing things completely opposite of what our activists, brothers and
sisters might be wanting us to do. I'm curious about how you thread that need on how you hold black colletin's accountable and they're running for higher office, and especially when they've done when they support some policies that ultimately will be harmful towards black communities.
Thank you, Thank you Counselman for that question and for taking the time to weigh in. Who wants to jump at that one?
I think.
No, no, I just I double down agree that that. First of all, I do want to champion everything black, but not at the cost of things that are black and that are good for communities and good for good you know, good for us, good for communities. And I'm I'm frankly looking at something similar in my own city where where some of the black council persons are not, in my opinion, acting in the best intelligence or interest or with an acknowledgment of the history that's just easily
available to us in their decision making. And it's and it is a far gone conclusion as far as I'm concerned, that some of that decision making is going to result and bad impacts for our community, not just for black folks, but for our community writ large. And so, you know, Mkara, be interested in your perspective on this, because I know we have both had to balance these things as elected officials. But I think I think, in the spirit of the
last comment that was made. We have to interrogate everything, and that all skin folks and kinfolk are Everybody who stands up black and says that they'refore us is in there necessarily acting in our interests. I think people largely acting their interest and their interests are not always our interests. You hope that as an elected official their interest is in advancing their communities. But who knows what's gotten in
the mix. Who knows what's in that equation, Which is why it's incumbent upon all of us to interrogate everything, ask the tough questions, ask the why, and deal with the fallout from it later. But if you're interested in protecting your home, your community, your family, you damn well but asked the questions and the right ones, or you may find yourself on the wrong side of the impact.
Yeah.
No, I think that's important because accountability is a two way street. And I think that it goes to a comment that I made on a previous episode about the stagnant nature of our black leadership and our black institutions and our black foundations. I mean, the best example is even black elected officials really don't even show up in our communities. This is a harsh over generalization until after
Labor Day and they do the same old thing. Let's have a fish fry, let's go to the football game, let's come to church, and then we expect people to come out. I think that we have to have an age old mantra, but a new way of doing it, which is the meet voters where they are. And I think that I find my greatest disappointment maybe because of my level of expectation to be with black elected officials
not white ones. And the reason being is because I don't necessarily have that same level of hope or expectation that you're going to care for our community as I
would for black elected officials. And maybe that's a maybe that's a downfall on my part, but I also think it's incumbent upon our black ministers, our black small business owners, our leadership in our communities to ensure that they are holding these people accountable, Like we have to show up at school board meetings, Andrew, we have to show up at city council meetings. Like I would challenge our viewers and listeners right now, like when was the last school
board meeting you went to? When was the last city council meeting you went to, and not just you know, tuning in to Fox or MSNBC or CNN to watch what's happening at sixteen hundred Pennsylvania. Truly understanding what's happening in our local communities is so important. So I think that is a two way street. One they owe us. They being our elected officials, owe us the discernment of
putting our interests first. Second, we owe them showing up and showing out, listening and be a part of the democracy, because democracy is participatory. And the best example I could give you is when I was serving Andrew, the group of people I paid the most attention to was AARP. Why because they they vote and they showed up every time every issue. AARP was right there in my doorstep. Now a lot of them were black, a lot of
them were older black folks. But I'm with you one hundred and fifty percent.
Can I just say here, and I just told you if I didn't want all of us to say something on every question, but I just want to say on this one part. ARP is a model to look at, and the reason for that is ARP does not expect the elected officials to carry their agenda without telling them, requiring out of them, demanding them to do so. And for whatever reason, we think that when someone in office looks like us, that they're automatically going to be carrying our water.
And I think it is a big mistake.
I think that we really have to make sure that we're clear, Yes, we can celebrate your ascension, but we are also going to demand and require that you meet our needs the same way with anybody else. It is our seat, it is not just yours, and that means that you have to ensure that you're representing our best interests the last thing I'll say, and I think that this is something across the board that we need to
deal with. There's a purity test that we expect people to pass, whether they are in leadership somewhere at work, in office, wherever, that we would not be able to pass ourselves. It hurt my heart to see how people who look like us cannibalize Jasmine right after her announcement last week, cannibalized, you know, there are all these things that they don't think she's gonna be able to do, that she can't do, that she's not on the right
side of the issue. For I think it's fine to say, I would like to see you pivot here or in this way, but damn, you don't think.
She's gonna be better than John Cordon.
I mean, like, I'm sorry, so I wanted to be able to hold both.
I didn't. I didn't hear that I didn't. I'm fortunate to get to observe the keble.
Give us some examples.
I'm happy to so, and I'm happy to also send you guys clips if that's helpful.
Jason's going to join us next week.
I dropped the chat. I dropped the whole article in the group chat that we have about the elected officials. Now, by the way, they would democrats to collected officials, and they ain't put their name on it, but there was a whole political article about those individuals who were mad at Jasmine, who were in the House caucus for running.
Yeah, that's true too, but because they think that she is not going to win, and that means that she would not hold her seat. Because so when she announces for Senate, she automatically has to not she won't be in the House, and to be fair, she could lose the House seat too because of how they we've redrawn the districts in Texas, right. I don't think that's the case, but that could be the case. So she announces for Senate people think there are a lot of our elders
that think you should wait your turn. So there's that thing happening. And then there's also a lot of folks who felt like she was wrong on the Israel Gaza piece. And so the things that have been said have almost been like she's not said that she stands with Palestinian people that she like they've they've just taken, they've taken.
I mean, I think that's part of the accountability piece that we're all arguing for.
Its wowow should it be effective?
Well, let me just say this. I think, first of all, Democrats are the worst at negotiating against themselves before the other side throws their terms out. We have already whittled down the options of where we can go by just debating amongst ourselves of what's possible and what is impossible. And as far as I'm concerned, every person who has ever broken any record over the history of time has heard that this isn't your time, that you're not the right one, that your profile isn't the right one to
get us to where it is that we're going. Well, let me tell you if it worked for Beto, a Congress member who quite frankly, at the time of his running for the US and it had an undistinguishable record as a member of Congress from a legislative standpoint, if we were able to rally there and get a ninth hour endorsement from beyonce An, a rallying cry from Democrats across the country, by God, you surely can hang in there for a woman who has gone out on the ledge,
put her reputation and service on the line, and service to the best of us. So don't get me started about the negotiating against ourselves. She is as right for this moment as any other name that you might throw out there, as far as I'm concerned, And let her go through the contested process of determining whether or not she ought to be the nominee, and from that go forward.
But the truth is that the Democrats, they're going to be the first one's bed wedding, and the first one is talking about what's not possible, what we can't do, what records you absolutely have to have in order you're going to compete in a state like Texas. And by the way, everybody else who is never built in a record has heard that same thing before they broke the record.
That's right.
Let me chime in SIMPLI and also say that it's a really healthy primary in Texas. I mean a really healthy primary. I know we're uplifting Jasmine as we should often, but the Tarorleco fella ain't bad himself, and I think the Jasmine. Look, whoever wins that primary is going to be better for it. And I think that watching both of them run this race is going to be something
that Democrats need more of. I mean, you know, instead of crowning it or on the flip side with Andrew's talking about saying who ain't qualified when they announce it's because of X y Z. This is what people want to see, a very very healthy primary. Let them get out.
Hold people to the same standard.
That's what I was about to say, Like, we also need to put the Terry lecos his record of helping black folk or not helping black folk up in the light because I don't know, but you know, a state house record don't have that many wards. But can me and Andrew can put it up in the light and see where it stands. But we need to go through that process with him, just as we're like the same.
That's what I'm That's what I'm trying to articulate. Not well, the same robust standard that black folks and Democrats are putting Jasmine through the ringer, they need to put Tera Leco through that same ringer. Because I think both of them are good, and I think this process is healthy for both of them.
I think a contesting process is always the best period. I was neverdvocating for any of my opponents to be put out of the race. I don't think any of them should be simarily dismissed simply because we had a difference of opinion. I thought we ought to go through the process. And as we're saying here, if you're going to hold me to a standard, just hold them to
the same standard. The cheapness by which we are willing to give away our vote in our community simply because a person of a different skin color showed up at the barbecue. They didn't promise that this to anything. They hadn't gotten us anything in the legislative record product to this point, but the showing a face was enough for them to be qualified. I show my face, but it's expected I'm gonna show mine, right, But if they do, you know, the damn star has been hung.
I hear you, I hear y'all saying the same thing, but about two different groups. And I'm interested in this, Angela, because we were just talking about this a couple of months ago. So one is the infrastructure of the Democratic Party, like undercutting each other trash.
Right.
Then there's the other point in Angela, you found yourself in the crosshairs with some people over this, over like holding our elected officials accountable. Like it doesn't mean that you're saying, like we don't want this person, but declaring that we have a right to demand that they live in service to us, Like we elected them. Our salaries pay or our tax dollars pay their salaries. You know what I'm talking about. I'm talking about Gavin. Gavin. Yeah,
So I don't know. I'm trying to figure out like telling voters like, yes, you can hold them accountable, Yes you can demand of them what you want.
There do you have enough gang signs with kay, I'm a gang member on the weekends. But there's also a third. There's also a third thing, which is that we we I touched on a little bit, but I see in my professional career as a lawyer, but we also do it in elected politics, which is what Andrews talking about, which is black folks, we have this theory that their ice is coded than ours. And that's some of y'all niggas,
they exactly like I mean, whether or not, it's the collective. Yeah, I mean, I'm just quote somebody had come in my office with a with a criminal case. I'll quote him twenty five thousand dollars, right, and they'll go right down the street to the white person with twenty five thousand dollars and pay it because his ice is coded in ours.
And as Andrew was saying, just because James is at the barbecue now, I do want to give him a chance to interrogate his record, but like we just can't say that all of a sudden, he's.
Sposed to me a selfie lit the black people.
That he like down for the car. It's so annoying, and I think that is it too. It's just like what like I hate that mentality and I hate to go back into Gavin.
But just like that he's only he the only one we got. He's fighting. He the best he gets trumped, right, wet.
Is that you don't you don't You say these are the last thing enduring elements of racism and white supremacy. I mean this is else well, no, but these are the remnants, the last These are the gifts that just keep on giving that white is right, and that if it's not right white, then it deserves all these other layers of conditions that we would never expect it say, I couldn't be more tired because I lived as I
lived every week, every day. It seems as an elected official of having to overprove and you know, on every level, because I wasn't white, and I'm running in a community that has never been majority black, in a state that is less than twelve percent of the electric is black.
And there's this.
But my service has never just been to that by the way it's been to that, and by effect of helping all of us, and you just happen to help those who often find themselves at the bottom of every checklist. And by helping that you lift the boat. I mean truly, you get to lift the condition for everybody else. But that argument was never good enough.
Ourselves first, you know, I think that is like healing.
That's the period. The foundation tip is.
It's so right because at the end of the day, what we keep doing is succumbing to the nature of the abusive, toxic relationship dynamic, and that is what it is.
It's like, we don't think we deserve better.
If you just acknowledge us, if you just take this picture with us, if you could just wrap that lyric, if you could just do them where my fans at dance, if you could like then all of that is.
Like, Oh, he did owt for the cause. Tho what does his policy say?
You know?
And I think what is interesting Tubacari's point is there was all of this criticism, you know of the folks who critique Gavin, but with Wes Moore, there was a ton of criticism for him saying, no, we've already done the studies.
Now it's time for us to do the work.
Well, you all know that just this week the state legislature and Maryland over has overridden that veto and now they're going to do a study. And I just would urge the folks in Maryland to consider what you all going to do after the study's back, because that's what I.
Want to get to. I'm not mad at the study, though, but how many more studies do we need? And that was Wes's point. It's like we've studied this five times in Maryland.
What leads us to studies oftentimes is the fact that our white liberal colleagues, and certainly the white folks on the Republican side, demand that we must have an accounting for every cent, line dollar whatever of the conditions before we can then move to solutions. So we then chase that rabbit, We then get that rabbit, and then a new condition gets set into motion. And I don't envy really any side of this, because the truth is is that the cheese just keeps moving, and it's going to
move again after this survey is done. There'll be another condition that must be in place before we can then get to the action, and then there'll be another thing that is imposed on that before we can then again get to the action. This is a cyclical motion that they already know in advance. The delay tactic will always be the demand for the next thing that keeps you from getting to the thing. That's always going to be the condition.
I think this is a conversation that Native Land will be revisiting many times, so we're gonna leave it right there. Thank you guys so much for tuning into these mini pods. Remember these drop every Friday, and don't forget to keep sending us here, videos, questions, comments. You never know you may be the subject of our next mini pod. Happy holidays, guys, We'll see you next time.
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