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Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome Home. Everybody. This is Tiffany Cross, Angela Raie and is me Andrew Gillom. Tiffany' you are tuned into this week's mini pod, And to be fully transparent with you, we were actually going to go in a different direction, but I think our nerves have really been pricked by you know, the news of
the day, and yes, the Trump conviction. But really I think what we want to delve into a little bit is how our language, and more than our language, how Trump is experiencing the system, the exceptions that have been made, the curves that have been cut, if it's plausible to apply it to him, is it possible that some of those same things one may be never needed to exist in the first place and should be wholesale applied to
the rest of us. We're talking about everything from the beginning of the process of an investigation, charges, a grand jury and arraignment when you have to go and submit yourself a trial and selection of a jury, to how a verdict is received by the public. Is it legit is it illegitimate, illegitimate? What makes it illegitimate? And who gets to decide that? And so today I'm hoping we'll spend just a few minutes on this subject and invite
you all into the conversation as well. Tiffany Angel, I'd love to just sort of sort of kick it off with each of you reflecting on beyond just the guilty verdict itself and the Trump trial, and the way in which this has been talked about, largely in cable news, but also in print and otherwise on social media, how folks have weaponized I think certain terms, and therefore, how have y'all either been conflicted or pricked or reminded of
something that you're like, you know this, it doesn't feel right. Something about this isn't isn't working for me.
I think there are a lot of things that don't feel quite right, and I think we actually may have been last week we went into like what we thought was wrong with the trial in itself. But I think for me, there is this celebration of his mugshot or remember when they used to be at Trump rally saying lock her up. I don't have a desire to say lock him up. Back, like you know, him going to jail, like maybe just so that we were no longer like
threatened by his presence. Fine, but, like I gotta be honest with you, my natural disposition is not to thrive in people being locked up. I'm not quite abolitionist all the way, but I'm pretty dag gone close. And so I think that this case is making me look very hard at where my hypocrisy lives and where my blind spots are. I think what is frustrating and maddening to me about Donald Trump is the way that he's using our language to make it seem like he's having that
same experience, when in fact, he's having like the concierge version. Yes, yeah, it's it's ridiculous, but if we are now saying or not, we are. But there are folks among us whose politics were more aligned with are saying, call him a felon, call him for what it is, all of these things.
I just don't really delight in that. Like I I would much rather figure out how to use his concierge version to democratize access for that version of the justice system than to have him reversal and going back to what we know has not served us and has been overly burdensome and harsh to us. Even thinking about the man we just talked about who didn't couldn't pay child supports, so his license was suspended. So I'm just thinking about these terms felon. Should we be calling someone a felon?
We already say returning citizens? So why am I gonna say felling about Donald Trump? If we are saying, you know, we want him. You do the crime, you do the time, Well, what does that time really look like? We talked about some of that again on the last pod, But I want to make sure that one of these key pieces that's been driving me nuts around was should he be able to run? Sure, he should be able to run.
And every one of the people in our communities who has committed an act that they regret and they have paid their time, and they have there's been restitution, and they served a sentence, they should be able to vote. And So I would much rather democratize access to this alleged democracy than to be trying to find other ways to shut it down, because what we know ultimately is if we shut it down for Trump, there will be an ironclad wall for us. That's the way the PEMM swing swings violently.
Yeah, and I you know this, This is making me think of other things of our ass as a community, our ass ass and our to cover our asses in the community with our ask And so with Donald Trump, for example, let's say he does get locked up, Okay, I don't really care. I don't know if that's gonna impact how that impacts me personally. I think it impacts the idea of America on a global stage for sure. But I'm not getting a Donald Trump was locked up,
here's your prize. If Donald Trump is able to vote in Florida, that is not impacting my community in a big way. It's one vote, one person. It's making me think of when Tucker Carlson was fired from Fox News and everyone was saying, let's call this Tiffany cross Day or let's everybody like celebrate Tiffany today, And I'm like, I don't give a shit to Tucker Carlson. What is that doing for? Did to put money in my pocket? Did it offer me any restitution for things I've gone through?
Not really? So what do I care if this man gets fired or not? Also, when Colin Kaepernick was unfairly and unjustly dismissed from his job, and we were demanding, but write black bag, we demand you let Colin Kaepernick play. Okay, so we get this one man to play football. Our ass that little you know, like we need to do intel this point. Disrupt a system and you have to participate in it, even if your participation is solely to
disrupt it and rebuild what actually services us. So I definitely take your point about the individual action with Donald Trump around the language, I would say, they are just not a creative people. Like the everything we do they take, and we are a bottomless bucket of creativity, of dopeness, of slagger, innovation, all of that, and so they can't even their insults are typically things that have derived from us.
They turn woke into a pejorative. You know, they didn't they couldn't come up with something to support law enforcement. So they took black Lives matter and said blue lives I ain't never met somebody with blue skin. I don't know what that means, but they like blue lives matter. You can't even come up with your own slogans, you know, like they it's thievery, non stop thievery, because that's what
they do. That's what they know how to do. So when their jargon becomes dangerous, to your point about felons and how we speak about that, I do wonder how
that language will start to impact policy. And even if you know, on a wing and a prayer, if if Biden is able to hold the White House, if Democrats are able to hold the Senate, if they flip the House, what does this mean for people who have adopted some of that conservative language, you know, you know, like, we'll show you that we're the true party of law and order. Who typically gets impacted by that is us. So it is I hadn't thought about it, honestly, Antil before you
raised that point. I'm like, oh, that is something to consider. I don't know what the solution is. How do we get ahead of this?
I think, how do we how do we co opt them versus them co opting us? In this criminal justice you know, pie, well one, why not we why not call them to the carpet on their legislation? Y'all have backbenched this large wholesale criminal justice reform piece of legislation. Kim Scott was a part of, Corey Booker was a part of We Got Bits and pieces of it, but buying large wholesale the system the first step back, yeah, I mean, but but the first step of a of
a tiny step, right, that's why. Yeah, and then real gigantic lead.
And it's at a federal level. It's a lot of those police policies were federal police that did very little for.
A little decisely. So if we took at the state level, for example, Rondo Santis, you want to you know, shortcut the system for restitute for returning of rights to uh A, former felons or folks who identify as felons, then make your work for everybody. Do it for everybody. If you if you were in Congress and you're saying the system doesn't work, that it is stacked against certain people, then
let's unstack it for everybody. If you're sincere and you're genuine about that, you want to interrogate whether or not the grand jury process was right and deciding to go after him in the first place, and you think that they will indict a ham sand which you feel that's real, then take the teeth out of it. God damn grand jury. Why should it be used as a cudgel of prosecutors to go after who it is that they choose and want to go after. If you believe that sincerely, then
it can't be true just in his case. It's got to be true. It's got to be true in other cases. And I would argue probably the over warman majority, and I would reject their definition of that being his experience and his experience alone. Right, So, as I looked at these folks on the Sunday shows, and I listened to well regarded senators and folks with real position and with real power taking I mean a machete to the criminal justice system as it sits in this country, except they
only limited to their comments about Donald Trump. If you think it's wrong, if you think it's inherently bad, if you think it needs to be leveled, if you think prosecutors decide political enemies and then they go after them, then figure out a way to defang it.
Well, Look, we could talk about the Hunter Biden case. Yeah, all of a sudden, y'all so concerned about gun control here, But that's what's the art.
One of them, not one of them, cited Hunter Biden's trial, which began this week, as an example of a little known statue being a never before applied statue being applied to the son of the president. Right, they chose the line of that. Republicans are now at the centerfold. They're the example, they're the target of prosecutors. Well, no, Maryland mostly is not a Republican.
I'm not a Republican, Joos, the prosecutor now attached to the Hunter Biden case. That was the one who went after Maryland people.
Again, a conservative who's really in the shop and the you know, he's in the tank for you know, their size. So the truth is is it wouldn't feel so goddamn disingenuine and so dishonest and so wrong if they weren't so selective about their usage. And it's already clear they don't really have fidelity to fact or the truth. They just need whatever the narrative is to fit their scenario. And right now it happens to be Trump.
All right, y'all, we're gonna take a quick break and we'll be right down. So just to take this a step further, we're talking about the ways in which Donald Trump's justice system should be everybody's justice system. We are not trying to take him into the oppression of ours. I know he thinks he's oppressed, but you don't know oppression yet.
Let's press the work.
Yeah, let's roll this clip.
If Donald Trump can be a felon and be president, then we absolutely, without a doubt in this country need to make sure felon is removed off of all job applications, felon is removed off of rental applications, felon is removed off of professional certifications things like dentists, massage therapists, realtors, mortgage loan officers. Those are professional certifications, anything like that
that felon needs to be removed off of it. Because the highest position in the land should be the most sacred and should be the example for everybody in this country. This is not a political post. This is an equal opportunity post, and this is a post that is about not holding down the everyday average American citizen.
That's right.
I love this because I think that it demonstrates for people who have been privileged not to have had any entanglement with the criminal justice system. You don't know how many areas it gimpax. Absolutely, do you know that if you have a felony on your record, you can't even get pre checked TSA pre checked for a certain amount of time, you cannot get global entry for a certain amount of time.
You cannot live in the housing authority with your family.
If a housing authority really may not.
Live in federal housing as a felon. Wow, with that label.
The scarlet letter. That makes life harder for you, more expensive for you, more inconvenient for you. And I know that people would argue that that is the price you pay for being convicted. But what if you were wrongfully convicted? What if you were convicted as a child but you were tried as an adult. What if you made a mistake? And what is the point if we keep saying you were rehabilitated. We say that the system is supposed to be about rehabilitation, but is it? Yeah?
Is it?
Ever? It only feels like punishment to our folks.
And if you're convicted, like if you had a like a public defender who was encouraging you get a plea deal, because it just goes to trial.
It'd be worse.
So just tak it.
But you're innocent and you're the only person with no law degree here and everybody's telling you just plead your case out. I do want to point out, though, I love that clip that you played ban the box legislation. I forgive me for being overpaired because I don't know where it stands federally, but locally, this was a huge piece of legislation.
Across the country.
Did you so, can you talk about it a bit? I want people to know ban the box legislation is when that is removed.
That's right. We don't ask about any previous criminal offenses period in the application process, and only after the job has been offered do we check your criminal background history to see if the if the event has anything to do, is that a financial crime? And we just hired you as the bookkeeper? And then there is a conversation, not even a withdrawal of the offer, a conversation so that we can get into the nuance of what happened and
decide that that's still a movie you want to make. Right, And so it measures people from their merit, not off of the mistake you made, but it measures you on your Are you qualified for the position? Do you have the upper pos previous experience that will add to the to the role. And if you meet that off of the content of your person and the qualifications you present, you get offered the job. And unfortunately, and I know that there are various versions of this that exists around
the country. But where's the wholesale, you know, movement of that. Where is the movement? The brother went through any number of different feels at which this question is asking becomes an immediate disqualifier for the position, an immediately disqualifier in his jury. Well, the same thing about jury. If you have a felony, that should.
Be the main person because you know what it is like on the inside. And if you're deciding somebody's liberty, you all.
Know what it's like on the inside. But you also know what it's like to have a system gained against you. Everywhere nowhere in the country.
You can serve on a jeury.
You may not.
I had no idea.
And if you and and in most places you certainly can't vote, You certainly don't get to vote automatically. But but that's what I'm saying. This is a moment, the brother said. This is this brother said, this is not a political statement. Is an equal opportunity, And this is right because I think that's what we want to achieve, even in this mini pod, which is if it is
good for the goosen, it's good for the gander. If there are, if there are pieces of this that we truly are critical love that you think do not serve us, the people or the system, then this man to let then then then then let's take this thing to the carpet. Let's take it all the way through. Let's let's let's
think about it through its logical conclusion. What are the many ways listed out in which the system does not serve us, and rather it acts against us, and it's not to the betterment of society, but rather simply to be punitive or to get back at somebody. Okay, you believe that, then let's go through and let's figure out
those pieces that we have to remove. And I think if we can find common calls there, because their version of common cause is simply saying, ah, he's a felony and now he can relate to black and brown people. That's in bold right, that then begin to get on. It's disrespectful, it's disingenuous, it's not true, it's it's it's it's malarchy.
Tell me you don't know black people. What I was saying, you don't know black people, and it's real, and that ridiculously.
Ra.
I just think we got to use the moment if we could as a co opt and I also think it requires us to really interrogate the language that we use.
Well.
We refer to people what, regardless of their qualifications and what they bring society, is simply a felon.
And one thing I want to just point out, Lolo put in our research that as of now, thirty seven states in over one hundred and fifty cities and counties have implemented some form of being in the box legislation. You know, I really appreciate you all leaning into this topic. I think the person that's coming to mind and it
has just has been very heavy on my spirit. In addition to Marilyn Moseby and what we're seeing her go through on the other side of a conviction is Crystal Mason, who of course is the black woman in Texas who was convicted of a felony, was trying to get re engaged in society, goes to vote and then faced five years. Her conviction was overturned and then they went right back at her. So we'll see what happens with Our prayers and thoughts are certainly with Crystal and we hope for
the balancing scales of justice. This has been remarkable to watch all the contortions that people will make for one man. Hopefully they can figure out how to do it for all of us.
Yeah, level it up. If it's good for him or bad for him, then then then consider whether it's good or bad for the rest of us.
I'm glad we did this.
This was a good podcast and thank you for listening. Everyone. Please make sure that you are sending in your comments and your thoughts not just on this this issue, but so many more. Remember to rate, review, subscribe, and tune it into our regular episode on Thursday. Welcome Home, y'all. Native Lampard is a production of iHeart Radio in partnership
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