Native Land Pod is a production of iHeartRadio in partnership with Reasoned Choice Media.
Well come, welcome, Welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome.
So y'all you know we're continuing this conversation that we began uh on the original pod and we just y'all know, we keep.
Talking, we keep uh, we keep it moving, keep it going.
And the topic of conversation was really being about how it is what will it take for us to feel the impact of what's happening in our country and our communities. What will it take for us to get up and respond and not just respond when it's all the way in our house, but respond as a.
Way to prevent the problem coming and hitting us directly. And Angela, you you were, you were, you were offering some perspectives, Tiffany, obviously you you as well. Angela.
The thing I was going to say in response to where your comment had left off, when you were giving examples of sort of the beloved community, the building of the beloved community, growing your own food, living amongst each other, Tiffany refers to it as you know, the building of our wakanda. And the truth is is I believe and I don't think that this is in disagreement with y'all, but I just wanted to call out that some of these.
Ideas will feel luxurious.
To some of the folks who are on the listening end of it, Like I can't wait to get to the point where I can, you know, invest, buy some property in the south and move. I want to get out of my rental situation right now and start to own a home.
Really is my next step. But I'm not in position to do that right now.
And the only point I was going to make around the various ideas of how we yes keep ourselves safe and stay safe and build safety for our community is that the battle is happening on all sides. It is coming down on us left, right, front, back. The stuff we haven't even gotten to yet, but we see it coming down the pipeline, so much so that the dizzying feeling that I think many people feel that causes us to just pull back and check out is exactly the intent.
That's the purpose of the speed at which the enemy is moving. It is intended to disorient us. It's intended to throw us off our game and to even in some way absence us from the problems that we know we gotta face right now today on the belief that maybe this is a bad nightmare, and tomorrow when we
wake up, it's going to be different. I only throw this out to say I'm in full awareness that my fight about fam you may feel very passionate and personal to me, even if I feel like that fight is impacting all of us, because that's what I've got, that's where my energy lies right now. But that's not to say that if you're not fighting that fight, that you're not fighting. You're fighting, but you're fighting your own different set.
And I don't want anyone to walk away thinking that we're attempting to judge your level of involvement engagement because you're not on my fight. You may not be on mind, but I assure you you might be. You're probably on your own. And I was feeling in our conversation that the approach felt more like judgment, even if that judgment comes out of a place of love.
I have a little bit rather than I had a little bit of judgment for people who are like well, that they voted for and who cares, and that ain't my problem.
Like I do have a little bit of judgment. It may not be a good thing and.
Should reminded you that that was what you both were saying as well as a different points.
It's also just not true.
It's just it's I think I think it was what you were saying.
I'm irritated because it's not true.
And I am what's not true.
It's not true that that's what they voted for, Like I think, I oh at that point, I think that what we have to.
Come to terms with is that we are all going to reap the collective consequences, whether we voted for it or not, or whether we voted at all or not. And I think that is the frustration, that is the point of irritation for.
Me, and on you always telling us that you can't disqualify person's feelings. These are my.
Feeling these are my feelings. I'm telling you my feelings right now.
I'm irritated by it, and I'm also saying I really do feel concerned for all of us.
I do.
I think that my biggest feeling right now is fear for all of us, because I'm seeing a lot of people, some who, because of their consistent like no reprieve from suffering, don't see this moment as any different so that's concerning. Am I fear for the people who are checked out because they some of them are remarkably talented and resourced and strategic, and we can utilize.
Them right now.
And I feel.
Afraid for like our elders and the youngers who are kind of helpless and not like they can't think or anything like that, but they they're relying on the strong ones to kind of pull through. So I think I'm I'm feeling the convergence of all those emotions.
Your own safety, which we'll talk about next week.
Yeah, but I still feel like even above my own safety, like to me, La Monica is more in direct harms way than I am by far, you know.
So I just I'm just like that.
I mean, there's she's been charged by the Department.
Of Justice, right, but I just I don't know if that's true. I don't want to get into because I don't want to say anything I'm not supposed to say.
I'm telling you for a fact that's true based on what I.
Don't I don't know, that's all I'm saying. Well, I'm telling unless you know I'm worried about y'all equally, Okay, Well, if you know about a warrant for my arrest, then tell me on air, but I don't know one, And I say, but I'm based based on what I know from legal and everything else. I am not in harm's way like that, So I just am saying it's it's a it's disheartening because where we are is we've created created.
I won't I don't even want to say we some of us, some of our folks, have created an unnecessary, hierarchical us versus them. And I think some of it is our own blindness and our own ignorance over time, and how we've approached our folks, like the most important thing they could do is vote, when you trying to pay feed your kids is not a good strategy. So I just think and it's and it's it doesn't.
It's not feel with compassion either, So I just I really hope that we can pivot in this moment.
And I think, you know, it's interesting the outlook about that. Well, I'll ask you about your situation. We'll talk more about that next week, because I feel like we're having an inside conversation and I viewers don't know what's going on. But we'll talk more about that next week, So be sure you guys tune in next week. And while we're at it, please be sure you're liking and subscribing and listening to this content and telling friends about it. But I think you know a part one. I want to say,
see you, Andrew. I hear you in the sense that people like, oh, maybe I can invest it by a house in the South, but that's luxurious.
I got to tell you. I've been touring neighborhoods all across the South.
The past January.
I haven't been back to Florida, but there are actually, and I don't want to say where, there are actually black towns that exist like this, where they are growing their own food.
I've seen I don't sync with my eyes and talk to them with my ears or talking to them my ears talked to them.
That's good, talking on the.
Ears, exactly.
Right.
I was going to say, it's a message in that. But those towns exist, and I remember saying, like, gosh, I want to profile you guys. I want to talk about this now. I want to talk about the things y'all do. Y'all got black owned grocery stores that like the whole town, and they've been saying no you shouldn't like, why do they want to be on the radar like that? And so it's angel I think we talked about this
early on, about moving in silence. You know, you don't have to tell everybody your plan, yes, and so I'm not getting too detailed in my plan, but I've been doing serious research, writing and looking into what it would look like. And Charles Blow wrote a great book about it about reshaping political power, which is, to be honest, is not where my.
Mind is right now. My mind is on safety. I don't know exactly.
Right now, that's right.
In my first book, I wrote about the fact that people look at black folks as commodities, you know, like we're just voters, and even they are saying like if you don't vote, you don't count.
You know, the double is a line like I count because I'm a human being. I count.
If I don't contribute anything to this world, I count. And so it's hard for me to fingerwag at people who feel frozen in this. But I share your frustration and irritation, Angela, because one, I've just never been able to check out. But even being so checked in like that, being pummeled with information every day, and what's happening every day, It's like what the fuck? Like, I don't even know what to do, And so the only thing I could think to do is like, I'm gonna go out and
look for safety. Where can we build? Where can we create? What does that look like?
So I don't know, y'all. Can I tell you? Who were asking? I don't? The answer is, I don't know.
Can I tell you this?
Andrew?
I want and I want to hear from you.
It's just I want to just point out the fact that us talking about creating safety and insulation for black folks is not new. Black folks have been doing this since the beginning of time. And even when we did that that was threatening to white folks, they tore it down, they burned it down, they put highways through it. We've been talking about that on the tour or killed it, been saying that every single week. She is we rebuked that spear of death. But yes, I'm telling you, like,
this is not new. And we have so many communities. We were in one in Durham, Black Wall Street in Durham, we were in where were we just the other day in Richmond where that was another Maggielina Walker look her up. Like black folks were starting banks and when we were thriving, they ran a highway through the thing. So we've always been doing this, but we have to figure out a way when we do it this time that it doesn't
get destroyed by a white accusation. Right, gentrification, transportation infrastructure that doesn't serve us, imminent domain, adverse possession airs, property.
Law, like all of the things.
Yeah, yeah, but I'm saying like we have to be mindful of the fact, like we're not talking about doing nothing new and innovative.
Oh oh, my friend, that's not a lesson for me.
I was saying it for you. I was just saying, like, for every.
Want to communicate a thing. I visit those hamlets and venues.
Very often with family, both in Alabama and in Georgia and even in parts of Florida. Rosewood, don't forget that was also Florida. So I don't just qualify that. I think that is exactly where we ought to be thinking and planning. But I also think we've got to be
thinking and planning everywhere right now. If your fight is how we build the beloved community, and mine is how do we make sure we keep institutions of higher learning open since they have been the largest singularly the largest shifter and wealth amongst Black people over the arc of history of our people. It's how we've moved into middle classes and beyond, and by our example is how our cousins and them have moved right behind us in those
same directions. So everything feel urgent and if there and I don't think we're out of solutions of what we can tell people specifically what you can do. You may not like what that specific thing may be, but there are a lot of specific things that you can do. I mentioned protests. Maybe that wasn't sexy enough, but guess what it is getting results? Lawsuits? Again, maybe not sexy,
but it's yielding lawsuits. When you think about the number of executive orders that Trump has has signed himself, and how many of them he can probably count on one hand how many haven't been struck down or not in some legal limbo right now, right he can count on one hand, probably how many are not every other one of them is caught up in these in the in the coils of the wheels. So so it isn't true
that we're not winning. In fact, when we have pushed back in regardless of the venue we have one or are in are in the process of winning and are on the winning count right now. Your silence certainly doesn't help. But you standing on the corner repeatedly or calling you a member and letting them know that you expect more of them and you expect them to be your representative and not the presidents. You do that repeatedly, and then
your neighbors do the same thing is having impacts. So it may not be the sexiest thing, and it may not be the thing you want to do. Everybody's not going to be the Internet sensation. Everybody not going to become the celebrity activists. That ain't your ministry right now. But everybody has something they can do. Should they choose to do it, should life lend itself to them being able to do it, that's it. I don't have a complaint.
I wouldn't even prioritize which is most urgent and most important, because that's not for me to decide for anybody. You know what issues you are facing are that are most urgent and important?
Who am I? But we all have urgent and important going on right now.
I think Angela's frustration, which I may share is do something, you know, like this idea like I'm resting. One is the idea of I'm resting, and two it's the idea of fuck everybody else because they didn't vote how they should have.
Well, I want to I want to welcome both you and Angela to Andrew's philosophy since before and then after the election. And all I'm simply saying is that we have to make room for welcoming others onto that ship because a lot of people were there.
But there's also which I'll talk about this at some point this summer, but there's about what I'm writing about.
But there's a lot of heartbreak that happened that election.
You know.
It's just why I'm not in judgment, right, No, I know you and I don't think any of us are incomplete judgment.
I got a little judgment.
I'm just hoping to call you up. I call you out. And I was.
So it wasn't like one or two, it was one after the next, like f them, that's the voting for who cares? I know the well you know, and you say any of them were bot farms, it was too many.
It was tiff Tip Wing check the page and see if they.
Chill on no public siment through TIFFs. So she's my vent.
People Sometimes on Instagram you can tell their bots and you can go to their page and sy but the YouTube, these are consistent listeners because and I know that, because they will say, Tiffany, You're getting all my nerves with your doom and gloom.
So I'm like, oh, you're.
Judgingly a long time, right completely, And these these people been listening a long time. And to be honest, I'm still not out of my doom and gloom. I mean, a part of men is like we're about to go through some ship like this is we are back to like reconstruction days. This is back to Jim Crow days. And I'm worried about bracing myself. I'm worried about my immediate family. I'm worried about my friends, like all of
those things. And so for me, I do not do well when it's and I'm running around and flapping my arms in the circle. That is not how I approach. I just can't function that way. Like, if it's chaos around me, I'm gonna remove myself from it. I'm gonna sit in quiet. Then I gotta think through ship myself. Other people can act in haste. I always scold it
again for saying this person's name. I'm gonna say it again. Albert, Like Albert is one of those people like if things happen on the hill, but he's juggling, he can quiet the noise in real time and act and hate. I think angela maybe is something a skill you learn in law school. Survival maybe, But it just seems like a lot of people who are jaded have that skill, you know, where it's like, give me the bullet points and then I'm gonna figure something out.
In some cases, they if it were quiet and calm, they might create the tornado.
And be like and be like, now, what's going on here?
Somebody the tornado.
I can't take it. If it's a tornado, I'm going the other ways.
Even I think their personal I do think that's a person. I think their personality. Some people thrive well. And by the way, thank god, because some of us I just said, shut completely down. It's like the world has got to happen.
Let's go.
About I give away if I think about with MSNBC, you know, or Andrews like stuff with the campaign, like what I'm not gonna do.
If I'm watching y'all stand there, I'm like, come on, hell, like I'm gonna turn you.
That is because I'm worried. That's such a good example after MSNBC.
Space that we can't feel for ourselves, can't.
You're in the middle of the forest. All you can see is the branches in front of you.
You can't figure that hell of a tornado. I just I was frozen, you know, I was literally frozen. Angela was like, Okay, let's go. We're gonna talk to this person issuing a statement. We're doing this, this, and this. Like if it were up to me, I would have just laid on my couch probably for a week, you know, like I can't even it was too much incoming. My world had been devastated, My finances have been devastated. So that is a great example of I don't thrive in chaos,
even when it's my own chaos. If I can't, I need people who thrive in chaos at that moment.
But here's the only thing I'm gonna tell y'all because I think and I think this is true for both of y'all too. Like I have actually seen y'all see somebody else's chaos and you bust the damn move.
So that's not true.
That's true.
But I was gonna say, like with Tiff, I can understand why Tiff is very regimented and structured. Andrew is in that unless he's losing his phone, but he's like that in most ways. He's right, he's ambidextrious, he's right. But Tif, the thing that is remarkable about you is I think in chaos you'll still be like, Okay, now here's the structure. I can understand in this instant instance, because it is chaos on every side, Like everything that we could lean up against for safety is now in upheaval.
I can understand why you're like, well, the structure that I will put in place is even disoriented and disorienting for me. So I can't build where there's no foundation. So I didn't understand how that.
Yeah, we're that. But I would say this, I would challenge you in your research, in your writing, when you're going to the South for safety, to make sure that you look at and I'm sure you probably already are the things that we built historically, why did they crumble?
Right? And that's one of the things that's helping me right now with the tour stuff, and then going to our Baltimore National convenient what worked about Gary? Y'all watch the Nation Time documentary at home if you haven't already, And what didn't Why did they give up or did they give up after this that last meeting we met, We met the youngest delegate in Gary Larry Ham in Newark, Right, what are the things that we can do to learn?
That is why we cannot discard our elders, because they hold the keys and the blind spots that we would have if we don't take the time to listen to what happened these young people, the bravery they have, the gust of like let's just go, We're just gonna go figure it out. Yes, y'all start running, but let me also go back over here and check with this elder about what might have went wrong and what we could
avoid going forward. So I would say, even while we're building and talking about the migration and talking about farming and talking about cooperative economics, we still got to figure out where the loopholes and the challenges that have been in the past. I suspect one of the big ones is the people who were economically strong in those different eras thought that they were invincible, and we're starting to see some of that for the folks who felt like
they were invincible politically. The folks who thought they were invincible invisible economically, and they're getting hit too. So now they want the poor folks who've been experiencing the struggle to carry the weight of what they're now experiencing too. And these meds like we've been told y'all mother, like, where y'all being? Yeah, you know, so we got to figure out the balance. I think that some of that
may just be an apology for the blind spot. And now we do have to build together because we ain't got no choice. That is the position we're in. And you could choose to sit at home and not do anything, and you could choose to keep building with your rich friends, or you could choose to keep building just with the hood. But I will submit to you that is not sufficient in the air we're in because we're all on equal footing.
If there was ever a democracy where we're all on the same footingever, it is right now, real.
Quick, because we gotta go nigga our producer niggas like we gotta got in the bay. But what Angels said is so good because the Cole Post is something like this. But it's like, it's only so much we gonna learn from social media. Now is the time for reading and when you say what went wrong when we're trying to figure out it was next one, if you read about what happened, then you can anticipate what's about to You can anticipate what's happening and what's about to happen, and
two learning those infrastructures and what went wrong. And I have to just give a really quick shout out to our friendship circle on this podcast and beyond, because in some of this reading, Cleveland Seller's name comes up a lot, and I think about our brother Bakari, Michael Harriet's family who's distantly related to Jim Clyburn and his family worked
with the Seller's family. And Van Newkirk, who is an amazing writer at The Atlantic, whose dad is an AHBC president, who Angela knows and works with, and the fact that our elders produce these children, and we are all friends now and Bakari is on the front. He doesn't talk about it a lot, but Bakari is on the front lines with so many fights. So I love that brother for the work that he's doing. Michael Harriet is still
like he's another like thinker and researcher. Like it's time for the thinkers, the doers, the writers, the ideas people like all of that is happening, and I feel so blessed to be in community because that right now is the only thing I can't I don't want to fix this government right now. I can't trust of government right now. The only thing I can trust is us, and so to be enveloped by us, I just love y'all and thank y'all for that, and it encourage you to read.
That's my CTA read.
I think that's a good time to say welcome home, y'all because this will always be a safe space and we were gonna keep building. We're gonna figure it out because you know, what we don't have is any other choice.
How about that? Welcome home now.
Native Lampard 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.