Native Landpod is a production of iHeartRadio in partnership with Reason Choice Media. Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome home, Everybody. This is Angela Rai. I'm your host and a co host of Native Lampod. Today we are doing something a little different. We spent a lot of time talking on the podcast over the last several months about apathy and the place that it has in our community, around voting
in particular, and then turnout on the last election. I think Andrew and I got into a discussion about who won the election last time, and my argument was that since more than ninety million people sat at home of voting age, that they are the ones who in fact won the election. Now, I don't want to just focus our attention on apathy of whether or not somebody voted in the past, whether or not they voted in twenty
twenty four or before. I really want to focus on how apathy is showing up for us now and whether or not there's enough of a wake up call for us to do something different in this moment. So today we have joining us someone who Lolo knows. I believe
his name is Reginald Henderson. He's an entrepreneur, a community advocate and facilitator from Dayton, Ohio, and so in amendment, we will spend some time talking to about his involvement in the community, about ways that he thinks we should be leaning in outside of voting, and really trying to figure out a path forward for all of us, for all people of color, particularly in a system that some of us feel like doesn't frankly serve us enough. So do you engage, do you engage partially? Do you not
engage at all? Those are some of the questions that I want us to talk through as we deal frankly with the fight of our lives. So with that, if we can invite reginald up, I would love to start saversation. Your headphones in.
I do have the actually Vijus one dead, That's why can I grab a different pair of headphones? Is that all right? Yeah?
You can lock him off for just a second, Nick, and let me just keep going. Thank you. So yes, I think that one of the things that we're seeing. We're doing the State of the People Power tour right now. We've been to Atlanta, we have been to Raleigh and to Durham in North Carolina, and we have also been to Birmingham, Alabama, and in this on these different tour stops, we're meeting all kinds of people. I talked about some folks that we met in Atlanta, including a teacher who
I'm desperately trying to find. I found some folks that are able to help her. She was talking about living out of her car. And we met someone named ray Lewis who was formerly incarcerated in Birmingham. He talked about his journey and what he's doing now to ensure that young folks don't meet the same fate. When I tell you all that ray Lewis and his remarks are penetrating the hearts and minds of people all over this country. It wasn't just mine. Dewana Thompson and I were standing
next to each other near the stage sobbing. His words impacted us severely, but they're also impacting many others. When we think about what this tour is really all about, it is not just to meet people in their apathy, because everybody's not apathetic. It's not just to meet people in their exhaustion, because everybody's not exhausted. But it's to meet people across the intersections of life where we all
find ourselves sometimes overlapping, sometimes not overlapping at all. As a part of our coalition right now, there are organizations who have never worked together. There are organizations that are tired of working together. Is organizations that got mad at each other and fell out in nineteen ninety seven. We're doing all of that. I think it's really really important for us to understand why this work matters. And when you hear about stories like Ray Lewis in Alabama, you
understand why. So when he's talking about, you know, gun violence in the community, not really knowing his father, all of these different things that many of us have as our personal experiences, as some others of us, me included,
don't have in our personal experiences. I had a conversation with my friend and brother Wallow earlier, who was talking about the ways in which sometimes we talk past each other, because the folks who are on TV making decisions and policy recommendations about what folks like Ray and Wallow need have never had a conversation with Ray and Wallow. So those are the kinds of barriers that we're trying to
dismantle and ensure that we are pushing through on this tour. Today, I'm happy to report that our black Papers, vertical of the State of the People Power Tour in our Collection at Large has released the first five papers. They're available on State of THEPPL dot com slash black Papers. These are policy ideas on everything from education to entrepreneurship. We want you all to get you to have your voices heard as we get ready for our journey leading up
to Juneteenth in Baltimore. We want to hear from you. What policy areas did we miss, What areas do you feel like we're not really scratching the surface on or we don't have your opinion represented, your recommendations represented. We want to hear from you. We want to hear from you at these various tour stops. We have New Orleans coming up on Thursday and Friday. Jasmine Crockett, a tremendous congresswoman, will join us on the ground in New Orleans. D
One is back. I'm hoping he's gonna he got another rat for us, so too, and we have many others. B Simonas coming Meal Washington and Gary Chambers have worked tirelessly on that tour location. In New Orleans, we have an we have a partnership y'all with Operation Restoration, that is giving ten thousand dollars to folks who have a demonstrated need a cutoff notice provided for utility bills to be paid for. Right, We're going to cover utility bills as long as we have the resources to do that,
and people will be selected based specifically on need. We don't want to run a foul of any rules or laws in Louisiana. So with that, I want to try to see again if Reginald is back to join us and we can continue our conversation. So Reginald, I just wanted to say, first of all, thank you so much for making the time. Our conversation last week on the podcast was about apathy and people who didn't vote in
this last election and why. So I do want to start there, but at some point we got to move past the election figure out where we go from here. But I do want to start there and hopefully we can get through with no echo.
So they did not vote last election, as well as the election beforehand. Because I did a lot of studying on black revolutionary politics in the midst of COVID and before that I had been very engaged and just what I had been learning about the systems, about the ways in which it has negatively impacted not just Black people, but people at large. Tried to find different ways in which to be engaged, and in those readings and in that study, I was able to find those different ways.
And while I haven't been as active in those ways, I am familiar now and can move accordingly.
When you talk about black revolutionary engagement, I'm curious to know how you see yourself changing the system. Now. If voting isn't the apparatus, what is the apparatus that you're using to support societal change, particularly for black folk.
So I think that all change really starts at the home or on a very small level. And so the stuff that I'm doing, you know, in the community, as far as being advisors on youth programs or you know, helping business owners build their businesses, or even if it's just giving somebody who's homeless money or whatever on the street. When it comes down to changing the world, I think we have to first look inward and then work outwards.
So I'm not really looking to change society. I don't think society is going to change because it took us over you know, three hundred four hundred years to get here, and so it's going to take us just as much time to get out. So I'm just looking to change my community, one person at a time, if possible.
If it takes that long to change society, three hundred four hundred years, what do you think is that the way? Like, what's the means to the end? When you consider the change? What is what's the means to the end?
For me? I think we have to reevaluate the value system that we have worldwide, and it's capitalist structure that we are living in. It's all about greed, individuality and individualism, not even individuality greed. What can I do to win
for myself regardless of what anybody else is doing? And I think if we reevaluate the values to be more communalistic, to be more about partnership, to be more about a cooperative economics, I think we can find models that already exist, but models that would propel us into a future that is more equable.
I hear what you're saying. I guess my question would be when you when you consider the fact that you work to give money to the homeless, when you work to provide support for youth, programs when you work to provide infrastructure and support for small businesses. I remember being in law school and thinking, Okay, I can change circumstances one client at a time if I go into the courtroom, But if I go into policy making, I can change
circumstances for a community on a macro level. So when you balance your micro level contributions versus macro level policy changes, talk to me about why you wouldn't see the need for that, Like if a kids program like Headstart is cut, which is on the chopping block right now, if homeless programs are being cut, those grants are being stripped away, and people will rely on people like your twenty dollars or your one hundred dollars to buy them meals that
week more so than if they had an opportunity to go and live somewhere, which is a part of a policy idea. How do we create macro level change for these folks if not through policy changes.
Yeah. So, I think that policies are just rules, and rules are made by people with power to control people who don't have power. And I also don't agree that because of policy is put into place that is actually going to be executed and so no matter what policy is in place, if the people who are executing the policy are not following it or are not being punishing when they don't, then any policy that's made is kind
of futile. And so when I think about the macro level changes that could happen, I think we have to look first at the economic system that is funding the policies, the political regimes, the systems and institutions which exists. And you got to look at these corporate corporate businesses who
are fueling a lot of the activity. And so if we could find a way too, and I talked about capitalism earlier, you know, who controls the means of production, who controls controls the means of producing goods, and we can reevaluate at on a large scale, then maybe we can come to something that makes a little bit more sense for the general masses. But just policy I don't think has enough strength to be able to have real and sustainable change long term.
Or have you been made aware of like the drinking water crisis in Flint and Jackson, those are policy based issues. When you look at Alabama and the rule that was just rolled back around or when they had federally that is a policy based issue. When we look at you have friends that have student loan debt, those student loan debt. Now the federal government has just been allowed to go after all of these student loan borrowers who are currently
in default. That's a policy based issue. Do you support reparations? No, not in a.
Way it is traditionally talked about, and just to comment on what you were talking about. While those are policy made by policy, they're also backed by I think the real change happens in the people. The real change happens in the system. The real change happens in the institutions that exist, not in the policies. Because we see it's a legal you see every day that you know, black men specifically or black people are getting killed by police
every day. Yet the punishment or whatever is happened, the repercussion of that does not look the same across the board. So even if there was a policy made, or if whatever policy existed, like I keep saying, like I said before, the execution is not consistent then or it is working for a certain entity or certain group, then it's going to be skewed every time.
So how does the execution change? What do you think that like, if you're going to say, like, oh, well, this is not across the board the same. The reason why it's not across the board the same is because some folks, especially of police officers, who are killing at the municipal or state level, those policies dictate the outcome
of their punishment. Just like federally, when there was this law enforcement database that now this administration has overturned and completely gotten rid of, So there's no federal place to hold law law enforcement accountable and to see where they have run a foul of the rules, been abusive, or killed in another jurisdiction. That database is gone a policy. So when you're saying, well, the execution is flawed, I agree with you. The execution is flawed. How do we change the execution.
By changing the values and the culture of the people, Like we have a fear based economy, a that's like our fear losing my life, or our fear not being able to pay rent, or our fear not being able to have food or send my kids to a decent school.
Like we live in a fear based system where I'm scared of the next person because everybody now is allowed to have a gun or this person over here has all the clothes and I don't have any like it's so and jealousy comes in play too, But fear, I think has to be eliminated by creating real conversations amongst everyday people. That's why I said it all has to start at home, which you're teaching your kids, what you're teaching the people that are around you in your community.
Because if we can't have a value system that's based on trust, that is based on you know, mutual respect, that is based on cooperation, then you get into situations where a policy may come into place and nobody is really abiding by that policy or even paying the tipst.
When you talk about a value system that's put into place, how would you see that value systems being spread beyond your home?
That's a good question right now. I would say it would have to be dominated in the media. If we wanted to be mass massly spread. It can't be co opted, so it would have to I don't know, it would have to be coming from some pretty serious people with a lot of funds back and once again, corporations run
the media. But if you want to reach the masses in any way, I think social media, digital media, radio, whatever those are to those places will have to be especially the influencers will have to be pushing that agenda, pushing that narrative. And if not that way, then the organizing amongst the masses will have to happen in a major way that we haven't really seen since the sixties.
So what's interesting, Reginald is you said that it would need to be spread through the media, and you would need a lot of support. And how would you quantify that support?
Quantify as far as like whether dollars or time or.
You know, the number of people who you would want to support this policy, this value system. How would you shore up support, How would you ensure that people have bought into your value system?
Yeah, you would have to quantify. It would be about the numbers. This is we're playing a numbers game for real, Like you mentioned that ninety million people who do not who did not vote, like this is this is a masses game, a lot versus the many, I mean the few versus the mini. And so in order to spread that there ask the question one more time.
I'm sorry, So this this is what I'm going to answer it for you. What you have backed into, Reginald is you need buy in from the masses for a value system. The way that you would determine if you had buy in is people signing on to a pledge agreeing that they would take that value system into their home or their community. Oh you want to fight that because you know where this is going, go ahead.
I wouldn't say so. It's more about that action. Like you can put anything you want on paper, you can put it on somebody refrigerator, you can make them sign a contract. But that don't mean I want to pay this bill. That don't mean I want to stick with this company. That don't mean anything really if it's on paper, it's about that action. And so if going back to metrics, how do you quantify it? That's where that's where you
were acting. It would have to be I can't. I don't have all the answers, So I'm not going to sit here and say I do. But it would have to be actual engagement and ways outside of voting, and ways outside of the traditional system. And we will have to identify what those ways are so that people can know what exactly to be doing to help move the needle forward. Because I feel like voting is like the
last thing like the last resort. Really, it's so many more ways on what you completely be completely politically engaged, and so we have to name those and then like have a system on which people can you know, say, baby are actively participating.
I couldn't agree with you more. I think voting is the most That is the minimum threshold, that should be the baseline thing, and after that we have to engage far beyond that. So right now we're rolling out these black papers that are ideas and recommendations for how black people can be sustaining ourselves moving as a collective. And yes, it encourages policy changes because whether we like it or not,
policy impacts our day to day all the time. Whether we engage and we call it an elected official, whether we told them to vote a certain way or not, these things impact us every single day. So when you talked it about a value system, I loved it because even the Black Panther Party had a ten point plan, their buy in was secured by the number of people who read it, supported it, and moved in accordance with
that plan. Whether we proactively vote in a system that we don't like or not, everything is governed by politics and policy. Every there's no way we can get away from it. So in my mind, I would say, we can still be building towards the ideal, But how do we boycott the thing that is? When we boycott the thing that is, we're in harm's way. You said it best earlier. You're like, well, all of these things can just be thrown out it like with the stroke of
a pen. Basically, that's what's happening right now. We are down to defending the fourteenth Amendment, which is birthright citizenship. It is the very thing that dread Scott died trying to ensure that he would have access to that enslaved man from Missouri. So when you talk about that, like whether or not we're seen as human beings is a political and policy based decision, I be damn if I
let a white person decide that for me. Ever again, right, I'm a fight tooth and nail to make sure you see my personhood, to make sure you see the person that the people in my family, and make sure you see the person of the people in the culture. That is the least I can do. That is my most reasonable service.
If I could just say, I think one of the problems that we have in the society is that the measuring stick in which we are measuring ourselves is through the lens of whiteness, because we live in a white supremacy, and so I think as a part of that value system, we have to learn to have so much confidence in ourselves that we don't really need.
And this is where it's gonna get real sticky, because like you're, you're, you have to literally create people who are not create people. You have to commit class suicide, political suicide. You would have to like get rid of all the things that you know and love because they are have been like given to us essentially, they have been given to us by the people who are empowered, to people who have access, to people who have access.
And until we learn to get until we learned to measure ourselves from our own from our own stick, we always want to be looking at the white rule, the white whatever as the way in which we should be going.
But I personally don't agree with that. And then also the goal is liberation, and I don't think that the powers that be on either side have when I say either side democratic or republic, has given a convincing enough argument to people who don't vote or people who are disengaged with the traditional voting system to say, to make
them feel the urgent call to act. It's so many things that people are dealing with in a material world that all of the stuff that they're talking about, the political mumbo jumbo that they're talking about, doesn't even hit home because it doesn't resonate with what I got to deal with today. And I hear you saying that it influences us every day, but to a regular person who is not connected, we don't really see it. We're just getting through because that's what we got to do.
You know.
Today we got to pay our suit the loans. That's just what it is. To rock with it and not saying we shouldn't do something about it. But even before we had the right to vote, we were doing stuff, you know, and that action I think we have lost before it again, like we had before we got the right to vote, we were politically active, and so how can we get back to that. I think people would be more resonate, would more resonate.
With I appreciate what you're saying. I think that some ancestors will be rolling over in their graves at the idea of we are trying to get something that was given to us. These people died, fought like ensured that we had not just the right to vote, but the right to work, the right to be seen is fully human, the right to our freedom. It's always been about abolition and liberation in this country. It's sorry you came off you. You need to say something middle my thought.
Go ahead, I'm sorry. I just want to say, seen as human by whom that's what really matters. If we were seeing it. If we're not seeing as human by ourselves, then we got a real problem. But if we're looking through somebody else's eyes like I was saying, then then that's why we get to the situation. Man. And I'm sorry to cut you off.
We were brought here by force, right, so it is incumbent that the same people who brought us here by force, violently stripping us away from our families, see our humanity because they didn't see it when they took those actions. That is required. So long as we stay here now, if we decide we want to go someplace else and
build something else, that's fine too. There are a lot of black folks that have gone that have done that, got dual citizenship and all the rest But if we have to coexist with folks regardless of that they're indigenous, Asian folks, brown folks, white folks, we have to all commit to seeing each other's humanity otherwisewise, Reginie, just let me finish. Otherwise, the humanity does not work, The coalition does not work. Nobody is safe in an environment where
people cannot appreciate the other person's humanity. That's one. Two. When I was talking about our folks like trying to conform, to fit, to do whatever with white folks, that's not it at all. It is that we have built systems
that we've never been properly credited for. From the United States Capitol Building to the White House to everywhere else, we have built these systems, and the systems still haven't properly served us, and they won't so long as our folks continue to say we are better off outside of these systems, all the while not having the resources, human capital,
whatever else to build those systems. So, while we are building a separate agenda or an agenda in addition to that will properly serve, properly serve and meet our needs, we still have to understand what we're up against Now you're saying, well, if we got to pay our student loans, so be it. A lot of our folks can't afford to do that. There are black women who are graduating in larger numbers than black men right now from college who took out an exorbitant amount of student loans and
now cannot pay them back. Some of them are sitting members of Congress. Summarally was just in an oversighting government reform met talking about that. So for me, I don't see it as to me, it's a privilege. I don't have to not engage politically, to not support the people who think like me, support me, and sound like me on policy on the hill. I don't want these random people speaking for me and doing for me. I want people who understand my experience and whose experience I can understand,
speaking and working on my behalf. I don't have the opportunity or the luxury to sit out that process, but I am going to keep building something else that I think better serves us.
Yeah, I agree, I think both happen simultaneously. I just don't think that in large scale, the outside agenda is being created and so it's everybody. A lot the people who are actively engaging in a traditional way. Are like trying to get all these people to get active in this way. But it's got to be working. You gotta
work both sides, dual citizenship on both sides. I think that society, like I think that we are too, We are into deep Like, how can we expect somebody who enslaved does see talking specifically about black people here, How can we expect somebody who enslaved us, who pillaged our village,
who raped and murdered and killed us. How can we expect that same person to then look at us as human even if it's hundreds of years later, Like the system that created the idea to take over those lives, to ruin those lives, to even call those lives not even not even three fifths like all of that stuff. Who Why would we expect anybody who has that mindset, or a system that has that at its core, to ever then turn around and say, hey, we respect you though,
we want you to be a part of us. And even if they did say that, you got I think what we haven't done enough is create the agenda to offset the manipulation that happens doing part of the systems that created the situation that we are already a part of. So like, where's the counter for us, where's the countermeasure? Where's the old gotcha? You know, we don't have in the black community or even empowers communities or you know,
the low income community. We don't have that gotcha to be able to push back against the powers.
That be, Reginald, and with that, I would thank you for your time. I'm going to say this in response to you, and I'm going to encourage you to look these things up, because that's not true. Black people have been organizing around a liberation agenda since we got here. They did it every single year. They started in the Ami Church for the most part, meeting to talk about
our freedom agenda every year until the emancipation. Right around the emancipation, there's a reason why they gave us Special Filled Order number fifteen, and it was after the organizing of nineteen ministers led by Garrison Fraser in eighteen sixty five that would have ensured that we had forty eight and a mule that Special Filled Onder number fifteen. That
was an agenda item that was very very clear. Frederick Douglas, Harriet Tubman, all of these people worked around an agenda for our freedom the Black Panther Party Ten Point Plan Gary, Indiana in nineteen seventy two. The National Black Political Convention agenda is one that was pushed nineteen seventy one. The Congressional Black Caucus met with Richard Nixon with sixty one recommendations for how black people could could better live and
be liberated in this country. Tavis Smiley had the Covenant with Black America. Every single year the National Urban League published is the State of Black America. We are right now. As I said at the top of this program, introducing it for all black folks to pay attention to, to engage with, and hopefully share black papers. It will be twenty eight black papers on agenda items that we need to better survive, to thrive in this country and to move forward. So I got to disagree on we don't
do it, we do it. Oh, and I forgot Black Futures Lab that every year or every four years, they do the Black Census where they collect data from black people. This past one a little almost two hundred and fifty thousand Black people engaged around that census, and then their sister organization of which I'm a proud board member Black to the Future Action Fund submitted an agenda called this Black Economic Agenda twenty twenty four. So we do these things.
We need y'all to read up on these things. Sign on, let us know what we may have missed. Lolo, send me a couple of questions I want to get to. I do want to thank Reginald so much for his time in conversation a day. It is through those conversations, y'all that we figure out where our gaps are and
we get on the same page. If yoll losin, can you highlight elections on the ballot this year and what's at stake more locally, We're going to do that on another podcast, if you would, If y'all losin that in as a video so that my colleagues can also engage. I'm not quite at the ballot. I'm still at our power before we get to the ballot box. That is
where I agree with Reggie right now. I am not discouraging people from voting, especially in your upcoming elections, but I am highly encouraging you that in addition to voting, you are leaning into your collective power and building around a collective agenda. Dad said, how can we have confidence. If we don't have basic rights to see, how can we have faith in a system that constantly is preached it's broken, it is broken, but that you are the bomb.
You got a band aid, you got you got some stitches. You gotta be the one that sold the thing back together again like we've always done. Asked failing and bluhmer a little bit about that, Aya said, I hear you, Angela.
I do.
I think he is asking why should we fight for a system that does not value us? Again, my sister, we agree with that. We do need to come together, and I agree with Reggie. I'll look forward to continuing to build with Reggie the system that we do, in fact deserve. I just don't believe we can throw out everything.
What y'all going to do to serve veterans, What y'all going to do to ensure these kids are being educated with the same standards, What you're going to do to ensure that the justice system is serving us more than it is harming us. Those are the things that I don't want to throw out because we have to make sure that they are fixed. We have to make sure that we're starting from something. What social Security plan y'all
got right. So if we had to start everything from scratch, understand that that means that a lot, a lot, a lot is at stake and we would have to build everything from the ground up. I don't know if y'all are thinking that through all the way. Health and Human Services making sure that vaccines are consistent across the board. Education the thing they're trying to dismantle right now. How you gonna make sure HBCUs and land grant colleges and
your kids hand start all get funded? Are you thinking through all of those things when you want to throw out the system. Where as your system begin? What departments are you going to have? Commerce? Are you going to have veterans affairs? Are you gonna have Homeland Security? How you go tell me what we're doing? Right? We got to think through this. I'm not arguing for the broken system. I'm arguing that it's easier to mend what is broken than to start from scratch. Anyway, we're over time. We
appreciate you, y'all. Thank you so much again to Reginald. Shout out to Reginald for coming on being so brave telling the truth about his story. We hope that you all will continue to do the same. Please make sure you send us your videos at Native lamppod on Instagram, that you follow and subscribe us here on YouTube, and that you also make sure that you subscribe to our podcast channel. We're available wherever you get your podcasts. We thank you so much. Tomorrow will tell you how many
days left until the next election. Until then, welcome home, y'all. Native Lampod is a production of iHeartRadio in partnership with Reason Choice Media. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.