Native Lamb Pod is a production of iHeartRadio in partnership with Reisent Choice Media.
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome.
Welcome, Welcome home, everybody. This is another mini pod. Andrew's gotta beat going. I can't here, but that's all right cause I am still real clear. Hey anyway, I ain't gonna give you all my clothes, you know, to be trying to throw me out.
I love it, I love it, But today.
Is it is a special episode because we're going to do a little NLP town hall. We got some questions that y'all have asked and we want to make sure that we get to answer them, so we gotta kick it off with this.
Lego high Native Lamb Pod. Thank you so much for all that you do, Andrew, Tiffany, and Angela. I've been following you since day one, and you've just done an excellent job and you continue to do so. I so appreciate you. I have two questions and also two resources, but I've got to make the ninety second deadline, so I'm gonna go with my questions first. I'm concerned about this.
You won't have to vote again. Comment that was made to a group by the current president elect, and I want to know how we can fight that and if it's even legal, But he gets out of stuff that's legal anyway. That's number one. Number two, the privatization of the weather, which with climate change and extreme weather events, is concerning, particularly because it would mean that people could not protect themselves by knowing what's going on and what they need to do. Those are my two action things.
Okay, first of all, did y'all feel the weight of her having to say president?
Yes.
I'll be honest, I don't think there is anything we can do about the like not voting again right now. I just to remind people they don't officially take power until after inauguration January twenty. They have people call me over, thanks, my damn mess with you. Yet I'm like, you know, they're not in the White House yet, so that happens after inauguration. So we have to see what policies they put forth. But they've been eroding our democratic core principles
for a long time. I mean we've already seen this with restrictive voting laws that took place across the country post Shelby be Holder, which was of course the Supreme Court decision that rolled back voting rights. So I don't know how to attack an attack that we have not seen from this administration yet. I think we have to brace ourselves, wait for them to take power, and be ready to fight when it's time. But for the month of December, we're on strike, black women, you have a right to rest.
I would also add Tiffany, we should also take them at their words. Yeah, So the good nurse is that they've pretty much told us what they want to do, who they want to go after, how they want to dismantle, and who they want to do the dismantling. And I just think we've got institutions. Yes, we have organizations out there. Yes, there'll be some folks who will buck the system. I think obviously the fact that the final I think Congression seat has been decided it went to the Democrat, it
lessens the divibe in the House. I think they're now at five maybe three three three to five vote margin. So so so I think more than anything, y'all, we're gonna have to be ready mentally, mentally ready, But then also our individuals, organizations, institutions, community organizations, and groups, we're gonna have to be prepared to activate when it comes to fighting for our selves. Now, if beyond that you've
got energy, fight for everybody else. But I also believe by fighting for ourselves, we will undoubtedly ensure to everybody else's safety as we always have. They benefit off of our labor. And the other thing I would simply say is to please, please please take care of our mental because we can't do this every day, three sixty five times foe, it's gonna be too much.
And then just real quick, the House majority is two or three. They're still not player, so it's a two or three seat majority for this. I'm going to say that I think a lot of that hangs in the balance with the courts and the Supreme Court, which is also still very scary. We've watched them piecemeal destroy the Voting Rights Act of nineteen sixty five, something that used to be supported and reauthorized every year on a bipartisan level.
So I'm not sure the privatization of whether we might get to at another time, because we want to stay on this broader theme about democracy hanging in the balance, and with that will go to our next question.
Good evening, Angela, Tiffany and my man Andrew. This is Mante from Maryland, and I had a question for you. Just like you, I've mourned, I've asked numerous questions, I've avoided watching the news, and you know, now I'm at the point of acceptance and now I'm wondering, based on something that you mentioned in your mini pod about how we as Democrats failed at the ground roots level of reaching out to everybody and organizing at that place, what
should we do right now? We got four years of BS that we know we're going to have to deal with, But what should we be doing right now to prepare for those midterm elections and especially for that presidential election in four years. Yeah, we don't have a rough road to hole, but it is what it is now. But what can we be doing right now? What do we do at the groundroops level? How do we organize at this point? What can someone like me who does not live in a swing state do to affect the overall
for the country. I just want us to have a goal and something in mind and motivate us for these next few years as we deal with what we're going to deal with. But any ideas you guys have will be most appreciated. Thank you for all you do and welcome home.
Awesome y'all. I know I answered a part of this through sort of a political lens in one of our main episodes. I wonder if y'all had other ideas outside of the whole preparing, running, training, you know, and paying attention to local offices. Are there other things that may be non electoral you'd recommend, Well.
He lives in Maryland, but that doesn't mean that you can't impact other people. Angela worked on Andrew's campaign. Andrew was in Florida. You can give five dollars a five hundred dollars to candidates. Pay attention to state races. The state houses a lot are Republican controlled, and that's where a lot of this shitty policy comes from. That bubbles up to the federal government. So make sure you pay
attention to that. If you have children, show up at those school board elections, because a lot of people use school boards as a launching pad to launch their careers, and lately it's been a conservative launching pad to be a crusader against these made up cultural wars. There's also GOTV efforts. There are no such thing. There is no
such thing as off election years. Every year there are elections at the state, federal, and local level, so yeah, that's not You can work on a campaign, you can door knock, there are issue campaigns, so a ton of things to do.
As you see it, you know.
I have to tell you guys something that's really that was on my heart while I was hearing him talk, and that is I think that there's way too much attention being placed on GOTV, on getting out the vote for those of you who don't know what that is, way too much attention on how we get ready for the next election. I think the biggest challenge with black political power is that we rev up and ramp up to fall back, and we rev up and ramp up to fall back.
If there is no off.
Season, as Andrew said, he said, black women, you all get to go on strike. There's no days off. What does that mean. It means that our organizing isn't just about protecting our voting rights or exercise exercising our franchise at the ballot box. It is holding people accountable to an agenda that we want to see happen on the policy level, I mean and in policy on every single level of government.
I think the other thing that we have to be.
Mindful of is how we talk about people. There's a lot of conversation about swing states, but not as much about swing voters. There's a lot of conversation about what people needed to hear in this election, and not about what people need to hear period. You cannot forget the humanity of a person and only consider them when there's time for a transaction. I don't like to be engaged by transactional people.
I hate it.
I have a point of privilege because I'm engaged all the time in the electoral system, because I'm a strategist. This is the work that I've been doing all of my adult life. There are many other people who are gravitated to and tossed aside every four years. That is not sustainable. It's not okay. And we got to deal
with the elephant in the room. And the elephant is getting bigger because you know, pun intended, because the GOP is making pro by talking to the forgotten amongst us, because we've decided that their low propensity, or they don't turn out, or they're low information, so they don't deserve a conversation. They don't deserve to be asked what they need to hear or see or feel from their politicians. That's not a good strategy going forward for us as
black people, or frankly for elected officials. You know, we avoid those conversations because we don't want to argue, but those not having those arguments means these people just be like, forget it. I don't think that's a good strategy. That's the one thing I hate about DC the most is the transaction. Imagine when you don't deal with politics at all and they treating you like.
Did you vote? Tip told us that when we were knocking doors.
Andrew, remember, Tipp was like, did we not start the conversation with these people like did you vote?
Tip was like, let me talk to this lady about her dog?
Was they weren't having us talk about the election folks? When that went went by. The other piece that I loved about where you were saying there is that we're also always doing the talking, but not a lot of the listening. And when we sat and listened, everything she disavowed about politics she validated about politics and about herself, her engagement and her interests. All we had to do is listening, listen, and then give it right back to her.
We're like girl, you said you don't like people. You love people, and they love you. It's clear, so I love you, know the listening part and the other piece you said about, you know, avoiding the hard conversations and then them hearing from the other side. The avoidance of the hard conversations have led people to believe we're not talking to them period. Yes, so it has the reverse effect. You don't want to get in the conflict, and they're saying,
you're not coming up my street at all. You want have a thing to say about my lived experience because everything I do hear you talk about and got nothing to do with me, and I don't see myself reflected in it. So true that power has to change for sure.
What's up, Native Lampard. My name is Harriet and I'm calling in from the great state of Georgia. First, please stop hanging your heads down low. I'm proud of you all. You all had an amazing run and you did an invaluable service to our people. You survived what I consider to be public lynchings, and you upset the system by providing a voice for the voiceless at a time when we lost a lot of our political commentators like Trevor Noah. You all stepped in and filled a gap that was
so necessary. So thank you all for what you've done, and thank you for not abandoning us. And I would love to see you all pivot. You know, I would love to see more of an offensive posture, not so much commentary on what the Trump administration is doing, but
what is the resistance moving doing? And to that end, I want to call it to light a call to action from the Working Families Party because I recently had a Come to Jesus movement attending a mass call in which everyday Americans have been invited to meet in small groups three to seven people, large group no more than fifty.
You can assemble in libraries and community spaces and homes and restaurants with the intention of holding space for one another, taking a look at where we've come from, where we are, and where we're going.
Nice.
I love it.
Tiff, you were quiet on the last one. Why don't what you think about the small groups idea getting together?
Yeah?
I mean I think that is And you know, I want to clarify something because when we say grassroots, I sometimes think people don't fully grasp the concept of what that means. Grass roots is your community.
You know, even if you're.
Upper crust, wealthy white woman, you know you can get they're in your community. In fact, I would encourage all to gather in your communities and have some necessary conversations about rights and sharing in the responsibility of preserving democracy. So yeah, any any place that people gather to do work, somebody. People always have to tell me, don't try to eat the elephant, you know, chew off a little piece and do what you can do. And if everybody does a little,
nobody has to do a lot. So I like that. I gotta say, though I'm about to be I think y'all won't get on you'all nerves the last half of this podcast. I don't know how I feel about taking emojis. I'm gonna tell you what my challenge, That's what I wasn't there a real name and it was an emoji. And I just think with the rapidly advancing generative AI, the point of our videos is we want to make sure you are a real authentic person. I believe she's
a real authentic So this ain't none against you. Tell me, Harry, we believe you, says that we know, yes, but I do. I'm like, I want to see people's actual faces to know because every time you see people on Twitter or you know, any of these social media well mainly Twitter, and it's like, you don't think we know y'all pretending to be black, like we know how black people talk. Sometimes they posted, but also she was like a victim or something. I get all that it wasn't about her.
I want to be really clear, I'm not saying anything negative about her. I believe her to, you know, to be real off.
In the text messages he get talking about he agree with you, Okay, yeah, I.
Think you know, when it comes to to AI and authenticity and you know, hearing from our viewers, I just.
Podcast.
I just I think there has to be some clear guidelines on who we're platforming and how we're platforming people, because we don't want to be caught out there with some Project Veritas video coming in here. So anyway, well, just to add credibility to her video, to her emoji video, our producer Lauren said she was on the same call, so at least we can validate that.
I know Tip likes us.
To again, I just want to be clear. I wasn't talking about her. I'm saying in general, when it comes to people.
Submitting emoji videos.
Emoji videos, yeah, for many reasons.
Can they do like black screen.
Then it's not a video. I don't think she's gonna want that profile look saying how I feel it's a democracy If y'all don't, don't mind it.
But I think fair and I think it's something we're gonna have to be increasingly concerned about giving the direction of this administration, this next administration to technology.
So I just I'm gonna be ai in the next podcast. Well we know you so, but you don't.
You ain't gonna know, like I'm never gonna know my eyebrows stay over here.
I want to know your gestures.
I want to get this last time because I know this last video. I think I disagree with this too. But let's roll it.
Not you not you tipping off that way? Welcome home?
Once all told me, but let.
Me hear it.
Okay, let's see maybe you did.
You'll agree.
H Hey Native lampod, my name is Rica. I am from Seattle. Hey, Angela. So I believe that we lost this election on education and when you're not educated about how this country is run and civics, you will vote, vote against your best interests.
So here's what I propose.
Trump is going to elect fifteen people to his cabinet, maybe sixteen with Elon Musk, and then there's the president and vice president. What does the attorney general do? What does the Vice president do? What does the Secretary of State do? What is Vivek and Elon Musk going to be doing?
Right?
So that's what like fifteen eighteen twenty people that we should be watching. What if we divvied up gave homework to fifteen twenty people in the Native Lampod universe. So for example, say Matt Gates, say he's appointed, Say I rica am assigned to follow all things Matt Gates and what he is doing as the Attorney general and what the Attorney General of the United States does and can do has.
Done in the past.
What if we divvied all of that up, somebody else had secretary of State and so on and so forth, and then we report it back to the Native Lampod to let each other know what is happening, right, because we're all so busy, there's so much going on, We're just trying to survive. That all of us don't have time to do all of that homework. So what if we collectively did the homework together and educated each other on civics in this country.
That's what I propose. So yeah, I love this question.
I do want to clarify to my homegirl in Seattle that we don't know how many people Trump is gonna make cabinet level. It is gonna be more than twelve. So I just want to make sure that we're twenty six disappointments that need Senate confirmation, yes, but they're not all cabinet level even when they're sinning confirmed. But I do know they're greater than twelve. So I just want to make sure that we that we that we doubled
down on that really quick. And then Tiff, I know, had a thought about being reporters, and then I have a thought about that too.
And I have a question.
We don't have time to get into it on this Okay, okay, we don't have time to get into it on this podcast. But I have a question about if, like what then what is the cabinet, because like the US Trade Rep is part of the cabinet that Senate confirmed. And I remember this because I had an argument in the newsroom like fifteen years ago, and I was like, yeah, but that's not cabinet level, and they're like, no, Trade Rep
is cabinet. So anyway, at a later time we can talk about what constitutes a member of the cabinet.
But on tip this is a good point. I just let me just tell you just one thing. A president also has discretion on who they decide its cabinet level beyond those departments as well. The Trade Rep is generally cabinet level, but I think that that is no, no, no, it is cabinet level regardless. But there are other appointments that the president can make and decide that they're going to be cabinet level.
The president can also decide what agencies are housed in DC. So Donald Trump, through executive action can say, oh, I you know, I now I want the Department of Defense house that out of mar A Lago or next door to mar Lago. Like of course he went over eighty five percent of federal government workers don't work in DC, but the agencies or house here. So anyway, speaking the civics, you can see that even even we need a check in on civics sometimes, so to be continued the conversation
on what constitutes the cabinet. But yeah, this is my challenge with this, you guys. Honestly, I think citizen journalism is amazing, and I've seen people do amazing things there. But to armed people who aren't vetted, who we don't know and say yes, go back and report one. To even get access to information, sometimes it is behind it's not behind a paywall, but what I would call a journalism wall, you know, like everything is not on Google,
you know. And I think that's part of my challenge with people who go on air and they ask them assistant to pull pull me the top five facts about this five minutes before they go on air, and it's like care enough to become a subject matter expert, go down that rabbit hole. Read when I go after things, when I study things. But I wanted to talk about prisons. I didn't do that five minutes before the show. I spent three days, you know, looking looking at prisons, pulling up old segments.
I did.
And that that does requ require a commitment, It does acquire a skill set. It does require having access a press pass, a phone call, knowing how to navigate these systems. To get information to make sure. So if we're arming people to do that, it's still going to require a level of fact checking. Misinformation and disinformation is a huge deal. And even in our comments in videos we've seen, I've seen so many people get things wrong, quote something, misstate something.
So I think people come here to make sure that they're getting vetted information as factual at least that's what I take that very very seriously, as you guys know, and I try my best to do that here. So I just wonder logistically how that will work. If we're saying, yeah,
go out there and cover it. I like the commitment of saying yeah, we want to be a part of it too, But on the back end, having the fact check that and vet that, I think is probably some staffing issues that we couldn't support, to be honest, But I love the idea since that I'm not putting like I love that you said it, and my co host
probably love the idea. But I'm just thinking from a journalistic standard, a newsroom standard, of how to make sure they were always saying factual things that we took actual time, that we didn't google in five minutes, because that is a journalists will tell you that is not research, and that's not how you get there.
Yeah, I first of all completely respect for your position here and you as a journalist. I wouldn't expect anything else from U, Tiffany, And certainly if you heard the word reporting, I think what I heard was her saying, and report back to the native land, you know, sort of community, what you are following, looking at so on and so forth. And quite frankly, some of the same concerns you raised there may still you know, it may still occur. I do love the idea of diving up
the work. And what I heard from that is like we all share in this commitment to hold this government accountable. Let's hold the cabinet members accountable, which, by the way, the cabinet of course existed. The cabinet is an advisory group to the president. But what makes you a cabinet member Through the Constitution of the United States those fifteen and to add a cabinet member it must be approved
by the Congress. Of course, are those who fall in the line of secession, those who can become president should the president be incapacitated going down the line of secession from the Vice president, Speaker or the House President of the Senate pro Tem. It then goes to the members of the Cabinet, the fifteen members of the Cabinet, which the order of who would then come next is based off of the age in which that department was created,
so starting with Secretary of State onward and forward. But nonetheless that help the whole idea of the civics lesson. I think it's really powerful, more than what's happening with one agency over another from time to time. Somebody who is finding these really nuanced questions about the government that may seem insignificant but actually show up more often in our lives than we know, and educating, schooling us on those kinds of things. I think that is something that
would be good for the show. And either through our own research and knowledge of a certain area or through research system, we can of course do the fact checking piece, but love the idea of citizen reporting on basically what makes a democracy and what are the civics components of this government that we all have an obligation I think to have access.
To just really quick. I like what you just said to ag Tip. I agree with you on the fact check and piece. I think that that's too much for us to carry. But if we use our website, which is native lampod dot com, as a place for people to kind of do a group assignment, I'll tell you all, I'm a collaborative learner. I loved group assignments growing up. Even when we do our pre production calls in the morning, I so love those because I'm like, oh, I didn't
think about this this way or whatever. So I like the idea of one folks feeling not isolated in this administration that is coming up. Two, yeah, do a cabinet watch. We can even call it NLP Cabinet Watch or NLPFAM Cabinet Watch. And people are just like, hey, did you hear this thing?
Is this true? Is this real?
And they can even be kind of a fact check source for each other, and maybe each week we can look in there and see if there's something that we want to share with the broader community outside of that which in some ways this would function like a Reddit, but specifically you know, on our site. If we have that functionality that could be built in LOLO, that would
be great. But I really like the idea of a group of signment where people do not feel isolated in this upcoming administration, and Lolo said that she will have details on how we could do something like that next week.
Today said that Tiff also.
Agrees that this might be a group of assignment that's worth continuing and considering.
So can I love over time, But I want to say something really quickly. Group assignments maybe does another minipod I like group of signments. But I'm gonna tell you I'm not a collaborative learner when I say group of assignment.
Like if the three of us don't do a group assignment, it's like, Okay, I'm gonna go off and do my thing, Andrew, you go do your part, Angel will do your part, and then let's come back together, right and see if these I don't like being in a room because spitball and I'm like, no, no, no, I have a clear like other people are a distraction sometimes when I'm like clear minded and focused. So I don't know, I think that's a work style. I'd be curious how maybe yeah, and maybe.
I like you could always end up with the work.
I agree with that too. There's definitely times where that happens. But I do think that there's a space for brainstorming there's a space to go back and do your work and come back. And I think, no matter what, it's gonna be some of that. Because we're talking about a virtual group of sign We're not telling people get on Zoom. We're just saying you can share what you're learning on kind of like a Reddit type of a board or
something on our site, which we don't have yet. And Lolo is telling me to wait to talk about that any further next week. But our great ideas, I love it, I love these questions, answer it.
We just want y'all involve.
Like our highest hope for this podcast is not that you listen to us every week. It's that you feel inspired to go and do some of this work yourself, whether it's running for office, whether it's volunteering in your community or overseas like Lolo did, or it is donating to campaigns or keeping us all in check about what's really going on and accountable.
So yes, exactly.
Well anyway, welcome home, y'all, listen and talk.
We can talk to y'all next time.
We wait over time, Bye bye, Welcome.
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