Native Lad Pod is a production of iHeart Radio in partnership with Reason Choice Media. Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome home, everybody. This is this week's mini pod.
I know y'all are dying to hear what.
Were talking about, uh before we actually get into the topic for this week, If it's okay with my co host again, I'm Andrew Gillum. I'm joined here by some other people.
I think that is that.
I don't know who that dude is, but his title on my computer says that's Bacari Sellers.
Welcome Bakari to this episode. I'm messing with y'all.
Y'all. We wanted to get into some questions. One in particular, actually, and that is around does the talk still work? And when we say the talk, we're talking about what probably all of us can reflect on from our childhood, at least certainly people of color and and and black boys in particular, when your parents or someone meetingful in your life sat you down and said this is what you do, this is what you don't do, particularly as it relates to law enforcement.
Our talk was broader a little bit broader than just.
The police it was also adults period.
It was also about people who touch you.
It was also about how you scream out for help, what was appropriate, what was right, what wasn't. So we want to we want to delve into that. But before we do, we've got a really important update from a topic that you know. Frankly, depending on where you each your news, some of us have heard from, others have not, but we all need to know.
Take a listen.
Hello, Nady Bland. My name is Gloria al So. Tanzania was in the news a lot towards the end of last year. There were questions surrounding the election, which kept sama has sign in power, and reports of protests being met with heavy state response. Human rights groups and independent observers documented loss of life. Two weeks later, President Hassan announced the creation of a Commission of Inquiry to investigate those who lost their lives, which does confirm that people
in fact lost their lives. Now some have questioned this commission, wondering if Samya should have been involved in selecting those who will be investigating. And we're still waiting on the results of that inquiry.
By the way.
Then, on Tanzania's Independence Day, which was December ninth, the streets were quiet, public gatherings were limited. Even social media accounts of some activists rallying people to protests were taken down. However, the government and its supporters have said that reports of repression are exaggerated and driven by foreign influence. And only a few days ago President Hassan apologized for the internet shutdown that happened after the election, saying it was a
necessary step to protect national order. But what makes this moment so significance is not just what happened, but how Tanzanians are responding. On one side, citizens are defending the state. On the other side are those who do want to speak, but they feel unsafe doing so, and because the people are divided, they cannot collectively demand good governance. It is
what happens anywhere when power is no longer a question. Well, thank you so much Native Land for having me and for creating space for Africa in this conversation.
Love that, you know, I just angela, Yeah, I just wanted to shout out really quickly. We started following what was going on in Tanzania around the elections, you know, before the end of the year in twenty twenty five, and I learned a lot. Was just completely immersed in what was happening. Had some experts come on, including a woman who is a Kenyan observer. I went over to Tanzania to watch what happened in the elections and nearly lost her life. I wanted to shout out Gloria for
giving us that update. I think it's so important for us. We say native lampod and welcome home, y'all. We want to create a virtual space for all of us of African descent throughout the diaspora to share what's happening, to keep us informed and absolutely to let us know if there are things that we can do differently to uplift and support the work that you all are doing. So thank you, Gloria.
Well done, well done, well done, We'll done.
That was educational to me. I mean I got to go back and do my research on Tanzania. Sometimes I get the news of the day that's right here. I mean we got here at home, measles out and breaking South Carolina like it's hard. Sometimes you get blinded and realize that as a part of the dia ask where, if nothing else, you should read some shit so you're at least knowledgeable about the pain that others are suffering and going through.
So thank you for that. That's fair. That's fair.
Well, y'all, we'll move just real quickly into this into this other question about the talk.
I said a little bit about what.
The talk was for me and our household and our family. Bakari Angela. I know, Angela to you, but also you you got an older your your baby sister to an older brother and so and a dad and mom activists, so we could be more broadened in y'all's household too. Butkar what was it like for you?
What was the talk?
Well, it's not just the talk, I mean, it's it's also just others, like we don't like I don't buy my kids toy guns. They don't have they don't have the NERF guns or anything like that. My parents didn't buy it for me. It was always this feeling that, no, we didn't want any miss interpretations. We don't want any accidents happening to black children because we don't get the benefit of our youth. You know, Donald Trump Junior and what's the other one, Donald Trump Eric?
They are they are.
Something other than eminently punishable.
Well, I said that one time he got sued by kids. I can't say that no more, but they are. I said a kid had a punchable face, and they sued me. But let's let's actually let's actually roll roll a question so people can see where this came from.
What's up, Native Land? Welcome home? This is Craig and Brooklyn. I guess my question has to do with, you know, the talk that you always have fathers and sons, specifically black fathers and sons always have to have about what to do when they encounter law enforcement. Well, the stakes have gone significant, are significantly uh higher. Now I can't make Hesit tells what's going on and so many things coming at us from day to day. So specifically, put the guys on the panel.
What would you suggest.
How we modify that discussion that we have. I mean, I have a fifteen year old myself, so yeah, I would love.
Some suggestions on what's gotta tell you?
Man?
Thanks now, good to see you, Craig. Greg got off the stoop. I think the last time we saw him he was sitting on the steps.
Craig, let me say something that is somewhat the antithesis to this podcast, the antithesis to our upbringing and the antithesis to what we echo a lot of times in our rabble rousing Matthew chair flipping over shaking, the kind of orbit that we live in, and my conversations with my children, as I would advise anybody to have, are very very selfish when dealing with law enforcement.
Your number one priorities should be to come home. Period.
I am overly focused on my children and having interactions with law enforcement number one that allows them safety to come home, and number two transparency. I know a lot of times when people interact with law enforcement, the first they didn't want to say is fuck you. I'm an American, this is wrong, this is unconstitutional. You know you're already agitating the situation, you're escalating. Ain't nothing about this de escalation. Don't get your hands on me. I'm an American. Blah
blah blah blah blah. And I know that people find some level of disappointment in these remarks because what we're seeing in our streets right now is anything but saying, is anything but sanctified, is anything but constitutional. But I'm very selfish when it comes to my children, and I tell them all the time my number one priority is them For them to come home. The best advice my dad ever gave me was when the police get behind you. This is a very South Carolina thing. It's not necessarily
applies in big cities, but it may. We have a lot of dark roads, you know. I was driving a Chrysler three hundred, and you know, every time you get on a dark road, police get behind you. My dad said, call nine one one immediately. So I would call nine one one. I would let them know that I'm driving, you have an officer behind me, and I'm going to a welled area, and I would pull up at a gas station or something like that. One, so they knew
I wasn't fleeing. Two, so they knew I wasn't a problem in three, so that I could do the number one goal, a priority that my parents taught me, which was to come home. I think there's a place for protests. I think there's a place for coming home.
You know that piece, that last piece you mentioned on the on the dark roads. My parents said the same thing, and it was except they said slow down to a slow that is still moving and turn your hazard lights on so that they know you're not trying to flee, that you're not trying to escape you and go somewhere. And but Kari, I don't think you are out of the normal. When you say your expectation is selfish, Craig,
asking this question is asking for selfish reasons. Anything that I say in offering would be from a selfish perspective. In fact, I was going to say, first off, Craig, he has kid, you know, has a son who he ought to be teaching us the lessons of what he said. You know, when he said fifteen year old, I almost shuddered because I'm thinking, godly, I got an eleven year old boy and girl, and I don't want them to be fifteen yet, you know, And I'm looking down the
pipe and knowing that that's coming. And for me, all of these talks, this one and then the range of others are always being balanced around not trying to rob them of their kid ears, their youth, the stuff that white kids get without question, right, they can play with toy guns and water guns and all those kind of things. But I'm like you, we don't have them in our house. And if you bring one, you you know something, just like you don't bring white barbies to my daughter forgets.
Oh please, God, so.
I get most frustrated by the world we live in when I think about all of the innocence that get stripped from our babies, from our kids. I take my kids to the park on the weekends a lot. We just was there this weekend at the park and again on MLK Day, and I'm remembering distinctly this one neighborhood park. It's a great part, very wonderfully tried, and that's something you look for when you outside in the summer time
in Florida. But it's also populated by a lot of white families and older white folks who walk in the area. And I remember showing up. We were clearly not of
the neighborhood. We had come into the neighborhood driven and kids get out of the car, and as we're walking up to the park, you know, people start to pause and they turn and for different reasons, they're looking at us, obviously, and these two white women who were walking, they come to a stop and they lean down and they are asking my kids their names and where do they want to do when they grow up, and obviously these cute and oh she's just adorable, and all this kind of thing,
and all I could think during that interaction was they're a durable now, and I'm just curious in your mind, when do they become a threat?
When do you cross the street? Which or purse?
When do you lock your door when you see them on approach?
And I got it angry.
I sort of had into indignantness, and I think it probably showed in my interaction then with the two women afterwards, says all I kept thinking about was when do my beautiful boys become.
A threat to you?
When do you call the police on them because they're in the wrong place, in the wrong neighborhood. They don't live here and they're loitering. When do they stop being the kids who are just here for play and now they are a dangerous element to society at least through
your life ends? And I cried so hard in the car, you know, they started playing ball and I kind of went back and I can still see them, but I was really angry by it because and this was stuff was going on in the country as well, and I think that further animated me around, like, right, they're beautiful boys, and they're going to be beautiful boys when they're eleven and when they're fifteen, and when they're on their way
into adulthood and so on and so forth. But I also know that society is going to at some point determine that their lives aren't worth what yours are, that they are, by their very presence, a danger, and it terrifies me. I know where we live, I know the neighborhood we live in, I know what I say to my kids about beating dark home. In fact, they don't even live our street to play with nobody and those
kinds of protective things. They're not yet at the age where I've gotten to have a real, real uh sit down on some on a couple of issue areas around law enforcement and racism, really racism, the structure of it and how it shows up, because I've been battling with preserving a certain set of innocence that for just a little longer, and I hope and I don't think it's in a debilitating way, but it is in a way that is like, yeah, I do have to make sure
my kid comes home and that they say that they're safe, and my wife and I do those things to try to curate that for them.
But I also want my.
Kids to still believe that their interactions with in certain ways and in places. Is is as innocent is? I think it is at the moment, but that I also know will change.
When we were doing State of the People, met the mother of a slain black man at the hands of police. Her name is Paulina Bryan, and Paulina started to idate around creating an app when her son continued to be pulled over by law enforcement or some system, and in twenty sixteen her son was killed by law enforcement, and she continued to develop what is now called Life Lawyer app.
Meeting her at State of the People was a game changer for me because you realize just how often black folks have to turn tragedy into some type of prevention mechanism for others, for our other folks. And I think now what I'm wrestling with, honestly, y'all, is as an attorney watching constitutional right after constitutional right being violated and trampled on by ice. You know, we talk about does the talk still work? Yes, you should still have to talk.
We have to also brace our family members for me, my godsends, for you, all your children, and my god daughter. We have to brace them for the fact that you can say all the right things have the right tone, you know, approach correctly, and still have issue. You can use technology to your benefit in your favor to record the thing. You can be an off duty police officer and they slap your phone out of your hand as
we as we heard in our main episode. But we also have to not just take law and the law into our own hands, but we also have to rely on our elected representatives to have our backs. Corey Booker recently introduced two measures, and I want to roll this clip because this may be the only thing that keeps us alive in interactions with ICs.
We must do more. The tragic death of Renee Good has brought into clear spotlights so many of the things that Trump administration is doing to make our communities less safe. But one of the most alarming crises are issues of training and accountability standards for ice officers. The Trump administration has cut the training down from five months to about a month and a half. They have eliminated age requirements and are hiring recruits as young as eighteen years old.
They're putting people into training before their background checks are even complete, and so when you see people cut corners, people die. I'm continuing to lead new legislation that will bring further high professional standards and accountability to ice officials. We must also set minimum training standards. We must ban the hiring of anyone affiliated with hate groups. We must
hold agency leaders accountable. We must require every federal officer to wear a body worn camera during public facing enforcement actions, and require that footage be preserved so that the truth can't be hidden or destroyed. What Donald Trump is doing is undercutting the stre of our law enforcement. He is diminishing and diluting standards. He is taking actions that are wholly unacceptable to the safety of our nation.
So this might be one of the only things that we have to rely upon. We have to hope that both of these bills, the FLESH Act Federal Law Enforcement Standards and Accountability Act and Focus Federal Officer Camera Usage for Safety Act, can get to the center.
Face stuff is in there too, the masks.
And yeah well, and as we know, Jasmine Crockett introduced the Clear Act for that. But we have to hope that the Senate will take up these measures, and then the House will take up these measures, and then that the President finds it in his heart to sign these measures since he is now acknowledging that ICE has made mistakes, but the question remains what parts of the talk are enforceable?
Right We have always had rogue officers completely disregard when we are asserting our rights, relying on you know, goods legal doctrine in these interactions. But there are people all the time who abuse their power, and so we have to figure out what is our way around that, And I don't know the answer. I think we can raise legal funds till we're blowing the face, but these we still have to rely on people operating from goodwill and
in integrity to do the right thing. And that is a tall order right now, given their limited training, given the the you know, the visceral response that people who look different than them, who are other than them, the fact that the Proud Boys founder could be affiliated with Owl's ICE, the fact that some January six ers are part of our part of ICE, and the fact that border patrol anywhere near the border in Minnesota. Like I just, I don't know.
I agree with all of that, And I appreciate Corey for talking about the legislative action that must be taken. He's right about that, but I mean, people are being drug out of their houses right now. People are being
brutalized right now. And as you eloquently pointed out, kind of the conjunction junction of this what's your function Angela, like you talked about the legislative process of this happening, we're talking about we're talking about that level of accountability coming in maybe two years if at all, like Donald
Trump's gonna sign it. I think that one of the things that Corey Booker is also highlighting though, which I take from that is the import of one local elected officials, Mary Mariotti, who is the district attorney out there, employing her local police to arrest these individuals who they seek doing wrong, committing crimes. And two elections in November matter more than these may be the most I mean, we
say it all the time, Andrew. What do people hate when we say when we talk about elections, this is the most important.
It is what The states keep getting higher, The states keep getting higher, and you know what Ice is about you with their budgetary expansion through Trump's and the Republic looks big, beautiful bill become the largest law enforcement agency
in domestic territory in the United States collectively. We already know right now in Minnesota, they are three times the size of all of the municipal law enforcement agencies that cover these areas combined three times, and unfortunately that three times is not an expansion on the law enforcement presence of that area. They now have become the problem to local law enforcement. Law enforcement having to respond to scenes of havoc that have been created by other law enforcement.
I'm not a.
Big abolished person, and I won't use that language here, but as we know it ICE agents and the agency right now that has been developed under the Homeland security model, the Homeland Secretary after nine to eleven does not work. This is one of those examples of where the wheel has to be broken. I am not saying that there should not be immigration enforcement in the country, but it has to be reimagined because what has happened in this case, this is not an exception. That's seven out of ten
of their interactions and then they're taken into custody. Are people who are legally here, who are not criminals. If seven out of ten is a fail, then yo, goddamn whole thing is a fail. You don't pass the class with a thirty percent, you don't. So if it which tells me that this then is not the exception.
This is the rule for that department, this.
Institution, and so the institution is a failure and it must be leveled. We can be inventive about what immigration enforcement within our borders looks like. We can be hash standards and be tough on all those things and follow the process and have a great old bill that gets to that. But this agency does not work for the American people. Seven eras out of ten attempts is problematic, and that is systematic. That is not an exception. That no longer is the exception. The exception for ICE agents
and their record. The exception is getting it right. If they get it right, that is the exception. And that's that's too big a problem.
Yeah.
No, I agree with you, and I know, I know we about to get out of here in a minute. But I would just say I'm glad you couch it the way you did, because all three of us are four, you know, making sure that we have some sembilance of order within our borders and not having open borders and all of those things and having immigration enforcement. I do want to hear somebody say that one of money has said it. I think it was, Uh, what's what's my
friend's name with the black name from Illinois? The congressman, what she got the black name?
Is she black? She white? Oh? From Chicago?
Anyway, what I what I what I'm saying is that we should, uh, we should make sure that we impeach Christie. Now That's all I wanted to say on the way out.
Yeah, yeah, I think impeachment of NOME is symbolically a thing. But I just I want to admonish our Congress and the Democrats who I hope will be in charge very soon. That first of all, if if that Hefa is still around, then it's already been way.
Too long, all right. So this is this is a this is a this is.
A in your dreams while you sleeping and on your break thing.
To do get rid of her.
But the problem is getting rid of her does not abolish the problem.
That does not get rid of the problem.
The problem, as has been exposed for everybody to see, is that the agency as it is now established and is operating does not work for the American people's interests.
And it must be leveled.
And we will go anew and think of create a new around an agency that is in service to our interests to protect our borders, to enforce our immigration laws, and to serve the interests of the American people. But as it is established right now, it does not work. It has to go. Anything less than that is not a capitulation. It is a complete and total surrender on law and order in America.
Has to go.
So what I'm saying now, we gotta go. Yeah. So thanks for hanging in there with us, Craig, Thanks again for the question. You see, you set us up for other things, and so apologies in advance that we tear it along and tear it off.
But thank you.
It's a meaningful one and I hope people are thinking meaningfully about it in their own homes and families and can share your experiences share them with us. We'd love to play your videos back around what you're doing, what the talk looks like, and whether or not you think.
It still works in today's day and age. Welcome out, y'all.
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