Target Autopsy–Who Gets to Speak for the People?

Native lamd Pod is a production of iHeartRadio in partnership with Reason's Joye. Okay, so I'm gonna do that again, and the first time I'm gonna hear from you is after I welcome everybody.

Two one, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome, Welcome home.

Y'all.

This is episode seventy six of Native Lamp Pod where we give it to you straight, no chaser, and we talk about pretty much everything.

I am here with my co host Andrew Gilla.

Everybody. Welcome home, Welcome home, Welcome to my home.

I know.

Florida, you guys.

Angela, I will tell you in transparency, is on her way.

She is juggling a thousand.

Things and so to the ground.

Yes, she got stuck in traffic and so she is joining us shortly.

So you're aware. The ladies are here to attend a conference.

We're attending a conference for women for black women. I'm Keim Blackwell hosts the conference. We were here last year, all three of us. Yes, and Andrew was quite the hit on.

Stage, hit and more importantly, the audience was the head They were That was one.

Of my favorite shows. So you guys remember that because we did a live show that day. Also, there will be a special guest joining us which you will see later at the very end, So tune in for all of our viewers. You will see this our listeners, we will describe to you.

The guest is yes, yes, Andrew.

You know, we never get to all the questions that we have on viewer questions send us in, so we have a viewer question. I think they sent it in like a week or so ago, but I think it's a great question to get the discussion started. So the producer Nick, let's roll that clip.

Welcome, What's up to me? Andrew?

And Andrew myna is coach or Flum with Katucky born and raised West End.

I have a cool question.

Why do you think a lot of Black Americans aren't really considering moving The majority Black Americans aren't really considering moving to an African country to like start businesses and.

All of that stuff goes so much further. She takes the tams that you have and just move.

But I mean, I feel you. I feel something y'all's politics and stuff like that. I feel you.

For sure.

It took me because I might tell you what people today's face and when they don't. One point is why do y'all think that is that a lot of black Americans aren't because I know we built America, but.

We've never ran in America.

I love that question. And right on cue.

The question.

I want you to know I have eight thousand degrees. It is hot, and look at Angela.

She bought seattle with her got it's hot. It's all get out.

I'm hot, I'm sweating. I probably got y'all.

We warned in the opening that Angela is like running it at both ends.

She's burning the let me hear you.

Let me hear you burning burning the candle from both ends.

And the first time I wanted to hear how he was going by saying, right, so said burning the candle at both ends of the stick.

Oh that is not that is what it really does mean, burning it at both ends.

But you know it works fine.

We're here speaking of I thought we were talking about sayings because I bought my book of We should get to that.

That's the way we have one.

But before we get into that, I just wanted to let you all know that Angela is joining us. And we just heard a great viewer question about why don't more black people move to Africa.

I have a lot of thoughts.

You've You've been quite a future to the continent and and to many countries. Most of my trips to Africa have been North Africa in the Islamic part yeah. Uh, Egypt, Cairo, Uh.

I've been to.

Morocco, yes.

But but but I think what he's talking about probably some of West Africa.

Yes.

So, Angela and I went to Ghana for It's gonna make me laugh.

You so tired?

Oh no, you're gonna say no, you ate some something.

No, No, I will address those comments in a moment. But Angela and I went to Ghana for New Year's in twenty twenty two and just had a most amazing time. But let me say this about moving to Africa, because I love the question and I love the concepts. You know, you've talked a lot about expanding our imagination. I honestly think that's a question of privilege. You know, there are a select few of us who have the means to do that, who have the family ties to do that.

You know, I was going to ask you, based on your experience, what your experience has been with folks from African countries that are populated, you know, overwhelmingly by black folk, how they feel about that, because when I hear it, I feel a little bit like maybe how folks felt with carpetbaggers, you know, the folks who sort of come in from outside, and now you're going to come here and you think you're the You're the one we've been waiting on to open a business, right the start, a

But if your experiences have been here in America, you're.

Not likely to uproot everything and take a chance that you can move to another country, start a business and be balling you know, you know, left and right overnight.

That's just not going to be the story.

But for those who do, and to the extent that it is done in the right way with respect for the community.

I say, you know, go for it. Yeah, Angelia, you had thoughts on the move, the shift, the great migration, the greater migration.

What is very present for me right now?

Even when Tip was talking about her mom, like I can't go to the continent.

I don't know, like we have one of my mom.

Is being treated at the second best cancer hospitals in one of the seconds the second best cancer hospital in the country.

I don't know.

I'm not saying that there aren't remedies and aren't solutions for cancer treatment. On the continent, But I just the unknown of that is more than I can bear.

My dad is not.

Even Seattle, okay. And I think what is also in my heart is like I know that also there are pharmaceutical drugs and other things, herbal remedies, naturopathic remedies on the continent that regardless of what kind of treatment they are, they are more affordable than here. So I see the

While you're young, Yeah, I think that's real.

But I think the most important thing to me that you said is about the healthcare system there. You know, we just don't know what is health insurance.

Like.

It's obviously they have qualified doctors and treatment. But can we as people who are expats, who are not citizens, can we go and get that health care? What we have to have private insurance?

I'm going to ask them that there are good questions.

Yeah, well it's different and obviously in each country.

There's different questions.

Yeah, because Ghana is if I were going to move, it would be the one hundred percent to Ghana.

The fact that we started this, the consideration around access, affordability healthcare, I think is a bigger indication.

Of where we are in life in our ages right now. You know the Sandwich generation, you're raising young ones. I know this well. In fact, literally left my house this morning.

My mama was upstairs and the kids were, you know, getting them ready for school and whatnot. But but a lot of folks have parents that they're caring for or increasingly beginning to take on more responsibility, and you got little ones that you're trying, you know, trying to raise. I think the questions will likely be different depending upon where you are in life right now. Young folks who are unattached might look for a little bit of adventure

Yes, a reliance on it, probably not.

Like we would going to see a doctor, you know, on regular checkups and whatnot, So different stages. And then folks who have already established successful businesses here or have had ideas or have been in industries that they feel like, oh god, okay, looks like either the supply chain or maybe the demand for this thing is going to be greater on the.

Other on the other side of the on the other side of the world.

So there are a lot of considerations. I'm all for you know, all for going. I just hope we don't get over there and act like Americans.

Yeah, where you can become the gentrifiers.

That and that, you know, just like our standard and our expectation is this and therefore that.

Yeah, like you you move like waite folks exactly.

We talked about this, can white folks be can black folks also be oppressors?

Yeah?

You picked the question, and I think I don't know what the comments were saying, but I think universally we could all probably point to an example, an example of that kind of abusive trait of the you know, this hegemonist you know, you know, toxic sort of situation.

Emerging.

And I just I hated every international trip I took as an elected official as part of those sort of groups. I was on many occasions very embarrassed, and almost every time at the end of the night, the countries who were visiting, which were largely brown places, if you will, you know, would ask me like, how do you do this?

Yeah?

Or do you ever want to leave there? You know those kinds of things.

Yeah, they were trying to flash with the.

Yeah, yeah, I give you yeah, yeah.

Well we met a lot of expats in Ghana. Just because we're talking about this. I didn't know we were going to be talking about this today, But just this week, Ghana has outlawed foreigners mining their goal there, which I'm like about time, you know, because they have pillaged and plundered that continent in the price if you'll watching the markets, you know, gold is a commodity, right exactly, So I would like to see and I know a lot of people who are building property there, and you know, there's

I want to give property there.

Do you really in Ghana or just yeah? I think that would be amazing.

I think hopefully.

I think Hawaii should have done this as part of its negotiated agreement to become part of America. There are a lot of European countries that are already do it. Where you cannot own the majority share of a business, yeah,

Otherwise the government has to buy into it and make that decision. Yes, because what happens is is folks come up right from up under you.

I think across many countries in Africa, the most prestigious right on land is not to the owner who owns the land on top. It's to the folks who have resource licenses, resource access to what happens underneath their requirements, Their demands take precedence even over the folks who own the land, These mineral rights that exist, the same thing Trump was trying to negotiate with in Ukraine. And so you have, yes, you have folks who own property, but

Of where these folks lives.

So I hope, I hope they are as protectionists as they need to be to ensure that you know, again those suppressive and white supremacist tactics and antics don't re infiltrate the way that countries, these countries are led.

Yeah, well, Hawaii does have some programs where the local API community, like if you're Hawaiian born, you get a discount on things. So that is one territory that has been gentrified. They have brought up all the property. So I mean the same things that we're seeing in our inner cities across America, like that is happening in Hawaii. As well, and they are taking active steps to stop that.

So I don't know. All right, we got to take a quick break, but we'll see you on the other side.

Donald Trump is trying to have it all his way.

But one of the one of the slap backs or clapbacks that I appreciated in these last couple of days, slap backs.

Clatbacks is not a thing, not at all, but clapbacks, Okay, clap backs.

You know me, I make up saying.

Yes all the time for a long time, both ends.

And yeah, that's true too.

But but one of the knockdowns that I appreciated was Harvard basically say no, no, and hell no to all of the administration's demands with regard to, you know, their ability to have say in admissions, teaching credentials, degree programs, what type of targeted research and institution does. Basically they were going to be demanding. What they did obviously of Columbia similarly, is a bending of the knee of the institution and the ending of any any, any version of

Their political views outside of it, or even in class.

They can write off eds, both of them, so on and so forth. And this administration wants to we already know it squelched all opposition.

Yeah, any any.

Contrarian view in the opposite saying. And Harvard, so far as I can tell, along with a number of of law firms that have taken.

A stand, thank god.

Yeah, not that many numbers, but but not.

But the truth is is that more it's probably the only we can call out in higher education right now, so far, so far, And.

Again we can't ignore the privilege obviously that our Harvard has to be able to make this decision, these kinds of decisions.

The endowment.

I think they've got an endowment that's a multidowment.

You and I we both not at the same time, but we taught there for a semester.

And I heard this idiot saying that he taught there and he was treated like a pariah because he's a conservative. And it's so ridiculous that they don't recognis Harvard is not this liberal institution of leftist extremist thought. You know, like there are a lot of challenges at the school that students are confronting. And what concerns me about Donald Trump even going after these institutions of higher education. It

Yeah, because they don't want you thinking right right to the exactly they want you thinking. They want you thinking what they are teaching you to think.

Yeah, the Oban that's what I say.

In Hungary or bon in Hungary has also, i think, attempted to privatize universities.

It's classic because if you can tell the people what to think, yes, you know, then you start to tell them how to you know, and all the actions that flow from it. You'll recognize that it's largely going to be in submission to government, right to the oligarchical rule, to whoever is in charge. They're going to teach us at the reason why we don't have. What we think we ought to have and what we think we are to own is that by divine birthright.

You know, our divine right did not entitle us to it. Yeah, and if you teach your people that over time, you could.

I mean, there's there, there's a whole generational folks who exist right now, y'all who don't know their privacy rights because they've made everything so public public post public pictures how you're feeling in a moment, They wouldn't and they wouldn't know right now how to fight back around a First Amendment challenge like do I not have the right to say speak.

What I believe?

Or even confronted in real time with with representatives of the state, like how do you inter interact with them? I was trying to on this quote which I just found, but I also wanted to point out and I am going to embarrass myself because Andrew, you will tell me how to pronounce his name Pino Che, Yes, Pinochet, not Pino che.

What's that?

Well, he was a Pinocchio. Pinochet in Chile was also a person who took over universities and.

Ran as a outsider, bringing in the voice of the regular people, which.

Is generally it is all the same.

And when you see this, when you see the similar patterns, it is frightening. But the quote that I was trying to look up while you were talking, it's from our own Carter G. Woodson, who of course is one of the or the founder of Black History Month. But he says, if you can control a man's thinking, you do not have to worry about his action.

Yes, set him there, yes there. If there is no back door, he will create one for its special.

Purpose and our own American history. I mean, this is not the first time that we have banned books. But also even the idea of banning books that is straight out of Nazi Germany. So the idea that we're actually there have been ceremonies where they're burning books. I mean, it's just a weird thing. But also it's dumb because I'm looking at these white folks, I'm like, why you want your kids to be dumbered in ours? They don't like, don't you want your children to know the real history

Don't you want the victors?

Never want history? What the oppressed have done? They don't.

The worst thing the Bible could have done was given us a day of think David and Goliath story.

Yeah, no one wants it reported that the poor guy from nowhere, of no name, of no background, of.

No privilege or wealth or title can be the biggest, tallest, baddest, richest, wealthiest, most connected thing in the room, because that could inspire an uprising of the proletariat.

Which I predict might happen across as we see the rise of populism, because it's a global issue. And so I want to encourage you all again out there, if you pay attention to what's happening across the globe, you see there is nothing new happening here in America. Other continents have been dealing with this for quite a while, and you've been trying to get in.

I was just going to say, we're having a conversation about because I think it's not just about Harvard or education. It's anybody that has the audacity to think differently than this administration will be targeted. So particularly those who have the audacity also to protect like our civil rights and civil liberty. So we've been having some conversations about what they have the ability to do. And I won't say who, but a lawyer among us who is brilliant, you list know I wouldn't do that.

I might, I might be a little cocky, but not black cocky.

But she provided a list of things that nonprofits can do to survive in this moment, and I got to be honest with you. One of the first things was that the president does not have the ability to unilaterally revoke any organization's tax exempt status by law. That's the key word, her key phrase, the presidents the president is prohibited from directly or indirectly influencing tax related decisions of the Internal Revenue Service.

Meanwhile, this man is doing this every day. So I think that the.

I'm concerned that we keep trying to prepare a response that would work in a time where someone was actually obeying the law and not deliberately trying to break it and break systems. Someone who will be like the Supreme Court rules and he's like, oh, yeah, we're gonna follow it, but they're doing something completely different. So I just wonder what protection really does look like in this era for our schools, for our institutions, for our organizations, for human beings, for.

Us individualis yet for human beings.

Right, So I'm saying, if it's not business as usual, and I keep saying this to myself, we have to stop responding with a business as usual response.

Yes, but to me, well, does that leave us with war?

Yes? I think so.

Yes, the Civil War did not begin with the firing of the you know, first musket or banet or whatever.

Like we are in the Civil war now. I mean, I don't think it's not that, but don't you feel that? Don't you?

I feel that way?

I mean, I yes, I feel that, but I keep wanting not to feel that. Do you understand what I'm saying? Like I A'm helt for war? Like I what do you want me to do?

Like I disagree, I think we are. I think I don't want to go you cannot want it. But I think I really believe we are built for war, right, But I don't want.

To Yeah, yeah, like that is gonna be. Like our people have suffered enough. I'm tired of suffering.

And it's not even me.

I'm tired of watching the suffering of our people, like even right now. And this is tangential, but it is important because this is my response to the battle. My response to the battle has been to join a coalition with every organization he would probably target, all of the people he would probably target to do this state is a people thing.

First the marathon, now the power Tour.

I am doing everything I can, and I'm working alongside people who are doing everything they can because we don't want what he's offering. It is our way to summarily reject it and to provide an alternative. And it still feels like that might not be enough.

Yeah, and like the in this I think now.

I'm gonna sound like Tiff where she's been discouraged. It's like, if we're here to prepare you, if we're here to show you, like if Twitter goes down or Instagram because all of these holes were at the inauguration in his face, If.

You don't have any of those tools, what are you going to do? How are you going to mobilize? We are implementing those things so you're connected. If you don't sign up, if you won't join in because you don't like who's leading, if you mad because you didn't get to teach a workshop, like what are we doing?

I think that goes to the whole conversation about the movement and leadership, you know, because in every movement it's been that kind of strife.

That's you know, that's true.

I mean, you look at How, but I don't know that it's always ego because I look at Stokely how Stokely was kind of coming for MLK a few times, and I don't think it was Stokely's ego.

I think, so, No, you don't think any of it had to do with like I'm telling you all his tactics are off, My tactics are right.

Is that ego?

It is?

Okay, your way, that's right, that's right, that's right.

It presupposes that I feel I have opinions about people's ways, and I don't know that it doesn't feel y'all tell me if I'm wrong.

It doesn't feel like also doesn't have to be a pejorative every time. Okay, if we were to look at ego not neutrally that a person has ego, Beyonce has ego and right, yeah, you know, such a fear that.

Yeah, but then but that's right, so.

An alter ego, but which we recognize and we appreciate when that alter ego shows up. But for some reason, in leadership and an ambition and then who's in front of the room. Ambition then takes on a negative turn, and I think the real and and be and more importantly ego. What has to be checked about it is it's that What has to be checked about it is when you're walking into a certain place to be world aware enough to know that you may not be the

The room as young people.

And then my response partnering was no, I mean with the universal theme, our response is when you get in there, though, you got to show some deference to the folks who have been there.

For twenty years.

Can you say it again? Can you say it again?

Well?

Yeah, I mean I default in so many ways in those spaces to a staffer. You didn't think I've ever run for anything in my life or that I want I want you to have your coffee and your water, that you are as comfortable as you can be because you were in this fight, in this struggle when it wasn't popular. There was no hashtag to it, there was no currency, you know, public currency for being involved.

In fact, it came. It came riff with all the risks and consequences that are negative, but you did it. You stood. Then Who am I to suppose, with.

All the rights you didn't have, that I can walk into this space and then disrupt it and tell you that you've been doing it wrong.

And that's the thing that that it frustrates me because we do assume, like we've been studying Gary Indiana a lot. In nineteen seventy two, there's a documentary. Do I say all about this documentary called Nation Time that really examines everything they did for the National Black Political Convention. And I think that a lot of us have gone through a season at some point in our lives where we're like, I know what it is, they just didn't have this right.

That's not always what it is. That's not always what it is.

And Gary Coleman Young, who later becomes the mayor of Detroit, walked his whole delegation out because they disagreed on a labor issue and approach. So I'm just saying, right now, this is not the era where we can disagree on approach and the thing falls apart and the thing crumbles. Our ability to thrive in this moment, our ability to survive really at this moment, has to move tactics aside. We have to try multiple tactics and still be together.

Target.

So last week, I don't know when y'all gonna watch this, Tiff is mad at me just recently yes.

Week.

Okay, I just said that, but it really was last week. So we're gonna be like say, last month. But recently, I'll sharp to him met with the Target CEO. He put up a post with him in the picture with the charge CEO, Franklin Richardson, who's his board chair and one of his advisors, and people were relentless. They went off on him, how dare you do this? Blah blah blah blah blah. Jamal Brian later shared that he was in that meeting actually, but people including me were upset

So that you know what I've done. That is a tactic.

There are civil rights leaders, including Reverend Jackson, who embraced that tactic. There are others who think that if you advertise what you've done, it's an endorsement or it says that now, don't worry y'all, I got it. We're good, and that's that's an approach, right, and there's broad disagreement on which way is right or wrong.

Either one could be right around.

I was going to ask that you have an opinion on which one is right around.

I think the thing that I would, and I feel bad because I have not talked to him about this. I would invite him into considering everything not needing to be in the press, especially when the deal is not struck. I don't know that my approach is right. I think that there are people who see that and they get energized by him posting like, oh, look, we want to battle, so now maybe we could win the war. Like I get that, but I also think that our tactics have

Yes, Okay, I have something to say on all of this, but to keep us on target, wink wink, see what I did there. We're gonna take a quick commercial break and I'll weigh in on the other side. Well, I had a challenge, I'll say, because it looked like a win for Target, Like you got this picture, you got to go promote it.

I will say this about Rev.

He invited me to join him on his radio show weekly where we would talk politics and help me build a following during my time at MSNBC. I think he tried to be helpful while I was there and extended himself to me. So I appreciate that from Rev and Sharp, and I just want to be very transparent about that. I also want to be very transparent about the fact that there is this perception that Revern Sharpton is a leader in Black America.

He is.

A leader.

Yes, there's a very tiny there's a very tiny sect of Black America who follows the steps of Reverend Sharpton. I do not believe, or I don't I won't believe. I know that he does not lead the masses as he once did. Well, yes, though, that's my point, are not we are a leaderless movement. To your point, we're a leaderless movement at this point, there is no you know, back in the day pre Twitter and you know Instagram, we have five, you know, five to ten leaders, and

Brand.

And so I think by posting a picture like that that people took that like what did you specifically get out of this meeting? Did they write you or National Action Network of check and even.

If they did, you know, like whatever.

I don't know what deal with s truck, But those were questions and comments that people were asking, and I think to avoid that, to really be of the people, it does take employing some different tactics.

I don't think this is moving with ego.

Y'all are telling me, you know, if you have an issue with someone's tactics, that might be ego. I humbly say, I don't mean it. In ego, but I'm open to you all corrected me that if I'm wrong, you know, no tip here is I feel like Angelo is not crying by the way, I just have no voice.

I'm sorry. I should talk quieter and it'll be more soothing.

Sexy and waspy.

This is my Andrew.

Quiet store.

Hey, everybody, I just want you to And I was gonna say, you know, I think that.

One conundrum that I do feel and where I felt for rev in that moment, is there are a whole conversations that are had and people make a decision off of what they see in the picture and develop a narrative because all they have is what you said and the image. They don't have a readout from the meeting, and sometimes you can't really do that because you got.

To keep things moving. So I feel for them a little bit because there was a whole narrative that was shared based on that.

Now, the part that I didn't feel for was if you didn't put it out because there were several other civil rights orgs that had met with Target before and none of us knew. So as the story began to unfurl, it was like, oh, like that's fine, you know, I don't see anything wrong with that, but the masses don't

I don't know all of it. Yeah you don't.

You you're saying keep all of it to ourselves.

At levels of engage movement shifting.

So the call was put out to the people, and the people have responded for the tenth consecutive week, put traffic down by over nine percent, and Target stores across the country that has been since the start of the announced boycott, and they're backtracking on DEI.

We know that there is an impact being had because there would not have been.

A call to a Reverend Sharpton or anybody else to come step foot at Target headquarters were this not.

Landing in some way or.

At nan which either or doesn't matter, because if the currency is we all know this. A picture is worth a thousand words. Nobody knows it better than Rev. Sharpton himself.

Here comes this new inflection. Why did it happen? It starts to chatter it. You know, the company can use it any way they want.

Quite frankly, they can image that however they choose to use to for the photo. And now it can be used to suggest some things that may not have been right. But who read the fine line to determine.

That that wasn't right?

So just say, what if you released it? I'm not saying this is true, but what if you released it before they did? Maybe they should have said no pictures allowed?

That's what?

Is there a reason why jamal Brian is not in a photo? Or is you a photo.

Released photo?

There is a reason my pastor Bishop as I call him, Jamal Brian is not in a published photo because his understanding of the assignment was we can see where we are, we should keep in touch around how you all are moving back toward this commitment in these benchmarks, and so we've got to be in communication, open discussion about that. But there will not be an announcement around us sitting down until there's an agreement to be signed.

Yeah, and there's no agreement.

There's none of that. There's nothing there, but there is a photo. So what I'm saying is is I have to believe, given Rev's life experience, is no how through this this thing.

I mean, I've watched these things being played in real time with certain speakers can come up on the stage, but you must have done such and such and such to be one of them.

You know a lot about this behind the scenes work that you're not saying, which you're not saying what I can appreciate because.

Because there are things that happen behind the sides, and by the way, the masses shouldn't be charged with following a hook line sinker every step here. The call has gone out to us and we're doing our part while that's happening. I have to assume that organizers on the inside are doing their part, and they're not acting recklessly and doing so because they're.

Carrying on their shoulder. They're carrying our purse.

The reason why you're in the room is because they believe you're negotiating on behalf of our purse.

And I don't know that the people felt like the masses may not have felt like Revernd sharp and was negotiating on their behalf. And we don't know because I wasn't at the meeting.

I don't know what.

Because I think the masses probably absorbed what we absorb is that a picture is worth a thousand words, and you don't give a.

Picture without But they got more out of it. It looks like on the surface, they got more a target, got more out of that photo.

Than the people did. They haven't changed anything, they haven't met any demands.

There was a reason why I did not go and have breakfast with my opponent after the race, despite an invitation, because I knew, based off the race that we ran, that we had diametrically opposed views and positions.

About the direction of the state.

What I'm not going to do is heal over or bridge over anyone who is in support of me by imaging myself next to you as if I'm and.

Or that it's okay.

I think that was the right decision to me.

Let me just ask this, though, why do we expect their people who use as a tactic the bully pulpit or a bullhorn. Our friend and brother, Ben Crump is that way. He tries cases first in the court of public opinion. So just like all of us, our flat

So when there's an.

Issue with our community and a company calls him to do the thing, I'm trying to forget why we would expect that he would do something different.

I think I think people largely feel that his fidelity is fealty is always going to be us first. I mean, I think that's what folks believe, and really to avoid the trappings of sort of.

Going down by the rat hole around any one individual, just just a little to make sure that we're talking about styles of going about doing exactly tacticles of going about doing things.

And you know there are going to be tactics, and sometimes they're just tools that we're picking up.

Along the way and are utilizing. But there are no giveaways.

And movement and and organizing everything must be hard. For one, the corporation moves as if they are not moving at all. They move, you know, as the hermits in the space. They're not They aren't making dramatic steps because they don't want you to believe or that it is possible for your dramatic demands to ever be met, So they move

I need to step out of the conversation when.

The reality is no, it's as plain as they as you know it to be. Yeah, and have workers who deserve to be played a ways that they can live on, pay their bills and maybe take a vacation every once in a while, And you are single handedly stopping that from happening because you're worried or more concerned about a stock price and a stock split for your shareholders than you are about the customers who are powering you.

Well, this is my challenge though, with what the scenario you laid out. I've spent a very brief amount of time. It's like a fish out of water on the funding side of things, and there is often the ROI for these meetings is very small, and so I think there is danger both the people and sometimes the organization. You know, I was on behalf of a labor organization, so I'm dealing with like teachers hate their income. So sometimes the

They call him because he has evidence that I'm not.

Saying that's what happened.

I'm going off the example that you gave specifically said everyone right, but you said a corporation will call, So I'm not saying that's what To be clear, I'm not saying that is what happened in specific. Since with Rev I'm saying there is a challenge. When a company feels like I got a problem with black folks, let me call Reverend Sharpton.

I think because.

I have a challenge with that too. I'm let me tell you why.

Experience of moving people, you can move people.

Can I tell you why though I have a problem?

Please?

My challenge is the people are not always with Rev. The people were not always with Rev.

And Jackson.

They're not always with Reverend Sharpton. I've never been somewhere with a bunch of black folks and they're like, oh it at six o'clock, y'all, we gotta get oar nub ACP meeting. I think these things can be regional in Jackson, Mississippi. The NAACP has a huge presence in Miami, in in Washington, d C.

They do not.

In Cleveland, Ohio, they do not. In Los Angeles they do not. They do know in l ale As.

So when I talk to folks who are impacted by the fires recently, well so maybe I should say alsda.

But even black folks in LA but these are they could be different people.

Last was on the ground regularly during the fire.

There was no connection with people. You know these folks too.

But also the people I talked to in LA are also more on the entertainment side, so it could be a disconnect there, precisely.

Wood Bureau, So that's Hollywood rights.

That's my point.

Sometimes the people who are you know, they're not they're not a part of an organization. You know, they're not divine nine. They don't summer on the vineyard like. They don't feel a connection to these organizations all the time. And so when corporations feel like I'm gonna pluck this one negro from the brunt from the bunch and get a picture with him, give some money to his or her organization, check the box, and then I'm done, problem solved.

But it is this way, go this way, and because okay, he.

Does that every week, germs.

Anyway, My point is I didn't forgot my dang point.

But you were saying, what time is it?

We gotta go with some danger and.

Feeling like one we had time.

It's some danger in it's some danger in in in having one person. And then and when you find the black person that makes you comfortable, sometimes you need to find a black person that makes you uncomfortable.

If you're the business, and this is my point, and.

These businesses are not ever really going to fund or create something that is in our favor. They are not going to fund something that services are liberation.

They would be.

Funding their demise. They would be funding their demise either way if it wasn't it. I mean, you look at George Floyd, like all those businesses, it was billions of dollars. Around ninety million went to actual justice organizations. The bulk of that money went to up right. But even the money that was right, it was like JP Morgan, Chase gave a lot of JP Morgan gave a lot of money, and they most of it went to things that would service their company, that would profit them.

So even when you when you look into the money.

That did exchange hands, it did not service the people so I fully understand when the people out there look at that pig cure or look at any of this and they see this person who especially if you we remember Rev from in them tracksuits, honey and going uptown downtown ready to get buck like we remember that Rev. They may only know suited and booted Rev with a show on MSNBC. Rev who got invited to the Obama White House?

Rev?

But Rev used to be about about it.

I think he is about it. I think there's the reason why he is in the room. One the ability to mobilize.

But two, there are certain he does have the ability to mobile.

Many times in my own city.

Yeah, he's.

We've been separate from him all around the country.

There's a reason he gets called in to eulogize nearly every high profile murdered death and people there are a.

Lot of people in our community that think that think that he just swoops in those families call him.

So I know.

Nobody if you.

When it comes to like shootings and death and all.

That, But that creates and it creates an energy and it suggests to people that that's a guy who we could go to if our problems.

Black people, there's a list of five we could talk to and this is what they can do.

Also tapped into REV to talk about black maternal mortality and it's like the.

Life and so you know what it means to fight against that that strain of journalism that says there's only one who can talk about this, that will do it and be received by the people on.

The outer end. What REV does, and not just REV, but when our leaders show up again in these images and and and how they.

Navigate the world when we're in protests, creates a permission structure for a group of people to do likewise, So the image of a REV then makes it okay if Ken Chinault and following.

Him former CEO of American Express, right.

I'm sorry, yes, or Kathy Hughes or Tyler Perry, you know, should they choose to then say, you know that the reason why you saw me and that TMZ clip going coming out of target is because I thought the whole thing was all resolved. I mean, went in met with them such and such and such. That's the shorthand that's without ever explaining anything. The reason why power has.

To be coveted the way that it does.

What we do have when we're talking about our negotiating strength at the table, the reason why why a picture can't go out unless there is a higher demand that has been met that we might not be privy to. But you need to bring us to speed right now because this looks like a betrayal.

I get some disconnect there, And so the challenge is like, there are people I think especially are like some of our elders, that see that and think that that's a good that was a good negotiating tactic.

There are others that think, in regardless of age, that think, now, why did he do that? He just want to be in the front.

And then there are others who haven't interrogated one way or another. But because it's Rev, he must be up there for us whatever it is he and guess what is his life's work that has gotten him the benefit.

I'm going to say, and I welcome the pushback. I'm going to say, there may be even disconnect with you all and some of the people because I'm talking to like regular ass people in LA who do not feel connected to the NUA A c P.

But when have we the masses, We've never felt connected, So then maybe so we need them.

So then say it again, but who is leading?

But so there is not if it's a leaderless movement, I'm saying there are community validators, don't some of these inner cities, like some of the hoods that are not you know, student great, So those people are leaders to them.

Sure, But I think that the danger that we have right now is saying that we're a leaderless movement. I don't think that's true. I think that we we I think that there are pockets of us who have varying leaders there that's true.

I mean there's no singular leader.

I agreed.

Of course, there are black people who see nineteen Keys is their guy. There are black people w see Earn Your Leisure their guy. Killer Mike is their guy. Joy is their gal? You is there like what to Mika Mallory Beyonce calls out in a song. So there are a bunch of different people that we can go to

She's different to them. So I just think that the country, but the but the But the thing that I'm just raising is me.

I'm not saying that, uh that the n double A or the Urban League or nan or National Bar Association or whatever else is making major strides with every aspect of our community. I I'm saying they have their pockets, and in some of those pockets, they have strongholds, and I think it would be ignorant of us to say that that doesn't exist.

Now.

The thing that I can say, again another shameless plug for the power Tour, is almost all of these organizations.

That is the point.

Remember the guy in Atlanta who stood up. I felt like he was a great example. And let me just be clear, because I think Angely make a good point and a solid correction. It is incorrect to say we are a leaderless movement or that we are leaderless right now there. It's just that it's not a singular leader and there are multiple people in positions of leadership who have come together for this work. I also don't I want to push back a little on this whole idea

And Angela lost.

Her voice because she's she is not resting, even as discouraged as I am.

I'm not resting.

I got a huge time deficit, right exactly. So if you hear somebody say that, they probably just not really connected with the people or the movement. And I want y'all to feel incouraged about that. But I think to your point about you know, it's pockets of leadership. The guy in Atlanta, we did our live show there and he stood up and he was like, I got Mawaiians doing this. He seemed like somebody who was a bit disconnected from these like big organizations, but he said, I

Black Voters matter.

They're not coming in there saying we need a twenty page ro O I filled out and lawyers to look like, tell about your program and we're gonna get you some money to help fund it. And I think she has a good connection with those folks. And on the State of the People Tour, which kicks off Sunday in Atlanta, Saturday in Atlanta, like I said, Saturday, April twenty sixth, in Atlanta, Angela will be there, Joy Joy will be there, Tamika will be there to make a Valori will be there.

Joy read to me, it's going to be a folks arian all the people.

It's gonna be a lot of people there at these different stops, and they can go to the State of the People Tour die date.

Of Date of the People just google State of the p p L though the main State of the p PL dot in the written notes.

Yes, yeah, but I do feel like this tour is pulling in all the people. And you have said like you believe in organizing. By addition, so all the people who you may agree with me disagree with me. You may agree with Angela Andrew. No matter how you feel, all of these people are at the same table right now, almost almost, yes, almost almost.

Bringing their talents, bringing their talents.

And their resources, their time, talent and treasure.

It's a beautiful thing.

It's a hard thing, yeah, but it's good.

But even we I think we probably all have different approaches and different understanding. You lived in la and you're like, no, NAACP is a huge presence. I'm only talking to other people who live there who didn't feel the presence I would have said in Florida. I don't know how big, but you're saying no. Here they are, you know, have a big presence.

So what I say about a lot of those legacy groups is, if we had to if we had to do a popularity like name recognition across the board, these are folks who would.

Have brand name I D within our community, and they're almost all ways always.

The default place people want to go when they don't feel like they're getting what they need from the right, if they're being you know, wrecked over, you know, ord not seen, can't get a complaint call returned the first I mean, it's it's clockwork, because it's it's muscle memory folks are like, well, what is na a CP doing. That's when I hear the most criticism about and the most praise, as in somebody's moment of personal crisis, because it's it's it is the nine to one one.

Yeah, and so for a lot of people, whether there it's.

Regional or even when it's not a crisis. And Jackson, na a c P is a.

Historic reason. Yeah, to be be loud and proud. You know, in the country they have legacy.

And hold our history in the young man he kind of came for them last with you don't remember that.

He was like, we say NAACP. Like he was basically saying that young people don't feel connected to them one because of the name they have young. But no one's saying it's no young people.

And a lot of young people.

It's relative when you consider all the young people. If it's a thousand young people in there, that's that's a very small amount.

The markers shouldn't be that versus how we show up in other spaces as well.

Agree, So by.

Percentage we've you know, they're they're punching outside their weight. There's no doubt about it.

Their legacy has afforded them the ability to bump to box up basically.

I mean they take on administration, they take on presidents, they take on you know, courts, they.

Take on systems.

And there's a difference I think in between NAACP and na a c P OLDF, like the way the stuff that the LDF is doing their very outfront and NAACP is out front.

Ona ACP pieces where the people at the lawyers are.

And by the way, this is not an economy we need too.

I think that's what point where we need all hands on decks. And don't be honest about my own disconnectre I feel disconnected. You talked about some of like who are leaders or something people when you said nineteen Keys, I have never heard of nineteen Keys in my life until about two weeks ago it was some controversy around him.

So I feel.

Incredibly disconnected from some of the more pop culture leaders, from some of these like Instagram philosophizers. You know, it's like I don't really know who they are. I have never and I still have nineteen Keys walking here right now.

I wouldn't know it was him in.

Nineteen Keys probably has thousands, hundreds of thousands, tens of thousands of followers.

Maybe, oh he's like a celebrity. I suppose.

I can't tell you what it's like, mostly black empowerment on our economics.

If there are millions of us out there that are willing to dial in because somebody's talking about our future economic health as a community and that moves them, I say, there are credit to what we all be doing right now.

That's right.

So again, I don't know a lot of these folks. I mean, you got to explain most SETI set anyway.

I just I literally decided to dive in. Yeah, because for me, I want to know, like, it does.

Not behoove me in service to our people to think that my way is the only way. It's just it's ridiculous. I want to be able to reach the people you reach and hear what you're saying to reach them, and I want to figure out how we can work in tandem to do that.

Let me, we're gonna We're gonna rap soon. But I have a question for you, because I think this this gets into when there's real disagreement. So what are somebody here as you say that, and they say, but Angela Byron Donalds, for example, he.

Has a white district, A white.

Okay, somebody who is a supporter of Byron Donalds and MAGA, and they're saying, but you're saying, you don't have an ego, And I think there is the right way.

I think MAGA is doing some things, and I think this is I think there is strategy there in getting behind MAGA and being on the inside and trying to help our people becoming a part of this I call it a cult.

How would you feel sure?

Maybe there's a strategy and he can keep that strategy the hell away from me, because he going to strategize us right into the belly of a slave ship. So if they want to follow that, they are welcome. He is not welcome anywhere where I am. I'm happy to have a conversation, and I would have.

I would have. I mean, he's an elected office.

He's running for governor, you know, like I'm happy to have the conversation, but I want to have a conversation rooted in facts, and if he can't do that.

I don't want to talk.

A big difference to me is that.

I wanted to have Tims caught on because there's this peace out about did Tim Scott squander his minority business agenda attaching to Mega.

That's a conversation I want to have because right historically at.

Least there were some pieces around his economic agenda that I think we could agree on, same thing, probably with Byron Donald's. But like, what tell me what happens when you don't think about your Jamaican grandparents as all this stuff is going down, right, Like, I just have some fundamental questions.

Sott will never come on this show, but Senator Scott, we would love.

To have you.

You're welcome home here. We'd love to hear from you, Senator Scott.

Anyway, I just wanted to ask that because sometimes the tactics and strategies are so far over here that I can't get with it, and I wanted to be transparent about my own disconnect and just things I don't know, you know, like the people I talk to don't represent everybody, But I just know some people who don't feel.

What they may but when they hear you, they may feel themselves heard, seen and represented.

I don't.

I mean, I think it is important to be curious about what we don't know and what we haven't experience, and from the way I exercise it is by trying to take away the value judgment on whatever it is and just deal with the thing I do or don't know, or want to find out and want to know better, because it stops a lot of us from engaging in certain ideas and accepting certain truths when we can't get past the we have of of the source by which is coming through and if that becomes the order of

I read you know.

It's like we're turning people off right there.

And I would just dare people to choose to be more curious and less judging about what's.

Different we have we have.

I just yes, I just forgot what we're doing here. Yes, I was about to say something and my thought was interrupted. One can our producer off camera go get our guests. I would like to invite the guests on please thank you anyway?

Can I surprise the audience y'all? I heard you say you could have just been quiet and let the audience.

If you offer a random guest on, it's going to be a dog.

Let me bet that dog.

I want to put that.

Joining us. Okay, so don't go anywhere. We'll be right back with our guests and c t a s.

Oh my goodness, we have watched.

Watch God.

This is our sweet little little bit dog.

Let me bet that down. Why is why is the dog shaking diff.

Because he was just she was just carried in here, he said, about to look at the earlier, but she didn't.

Okay, she looked.

Camera in the sweet little baby, sweet little baby, she's so spoiled.

If you're not constantly petting her, she's petting you anyway. My c is because I love to be kind of animals. They are furry friends. And look at I like pitbulls, y'all know they're it is like just just a needy dog.

She literally.

I want to pit bull. You're my baby's but she's so cute.

I just want to her to exposed tips breastfeed.

Give me your takeaway, what's your all to action?

I'm just astonished. Did y'all hear TIFF's doggy voice?

Do it?

That is nuts. Anyway, my call to action.

Is there's gonna be people. Baby. If you're in the A t L, don't talk about it, be about it.

We're saying we and saying we're doing ten cities, but it's technically twelve because we split up rally Durham and Birmingham and Montgomery.

Is that eleven or twelve? Anyway? We are.

Going to be starting in Atlanta with community service. We are helping to pack boxes for seniors and kids on Saturday morning at nine. We will also be.

Giving books with those boxes, some banded books, gonna pat that doll book and so. But we want you to register.

We want you to register right away at stateofthepp L dot com. From there we go to we have a rally Sunday, and then we go to Durham and then to Raleigh.

We're gonna rally and Raleigh Leigh.

I'm just fascinated by this dog situation.

I want to pay that gypoil.

Tell us how many election days when you get a rest, hopefully soon.

I'm gonna tell you guys, honestly, I think she.

Don't like you.

She wants pets from everybody. My hands is up.

It's okay if people can see you. This is her dad, you guys, he's gonna he's gonna get her.

Look, she's like, I'm getting pets anyway. Sorry, you guys who are who don't have the privilege of seeing this beautiful dog if you're just listening. But she's so cute, she's sweet. She's not a schizophrenic, you know. Yeah, she's so spoiled. You can tell she's spoiled because she needs pets all the time. But that's that's Angela's call the action. Yeah, we did ours, Angela.

Who else can you tell them? How many days andrew.

We have?

We don't have midterms, is the question.

We will.

Five and fifty eight days until the midterm election.

That's when they come.

Welcome home, y'all, Welcome home everybody.

Thank you for joining the natives. Attention to what the info and all of the latest rock gulum and cross connected to the statements.

That you leave on our socihos.

Thank you sincerely for the patients reason for your choice is clear. So grateful too to execute roads. Thank you for serve, defend and protect the truth.

Even in case.

We'll welcome home to all of the natives. Wait, thank you.

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