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Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, welcome, Welcome, Hey, everybody, welcome home.
I am your host of Native lampod this solo pod. Anyway, Angela Rai and today I sound happy, But I ain't that dog unhappy because let me tell y'all this right here is the Trump administration's executive order called Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History. Now, what I want to talk about today is the fact that this actually is not a new approach. What the Trump administration is doing is what white folks in this country have been doing a long time. Y'all. There's nothing new under the sun.
The Bible says that, and so does our history. If we are allowed to continue to see that history.
What's happening in.
This administration right now is mass erasure.
And here's the thing. Some people say, Oh, I didn't know what was going to happen. Why would they do that? What's the harmon knowing our history?
I'm so glad you asked those questions. Here's the thing. There's a little thing that we've talked about on this podcast multiple times called Project twenty twenty five. It is all there, and if you can't find it in Project twenty twenty five, I dare you to google Project twenty twenty five and the Smithsonian. I dare you to google Project twenty twenty five and the National Park Service. You might be wondering, what the hell does the National Park Service have to do with this? Again, I'm so glad
you asked. We're gonna get into all that today and more. First, I want to just address this fact. Does the Project twenty twenty five address the Smithsonian in and of itself?
No, but the.
Heritage Foundation, which is the holder of Project twenty twenty five, the convener of Project twenty twenty five. How the authors of each section came together for Project twenty twenty five. Well, they have on their website in an article reference and Seeing sixteen nineteen and other things that what is going to destroy the fabric of this country is something called woke indoctrination.
What the hell is that? Do y'all know? Neither do I.
I have a feeling it has something to do with this teaching people black history, just something to do with the books they think should be banned, books like the sixteen nineteen project, which the Heritage Foundation talks about in an article on their website. You should google that two Heritage Foundation sixteen nineteen project. Why am I telling you all to go and look at what the enemy is doing? Some of y'all might be saying, why are you call
them the enemy? Because anybody that's trying to erase you still kill and destroy who you are the legacy of your people in this country. I'm pretty damn sure their enemies. So why am I telling you to go look at what the enemy's doing? How are you going to prepare for the fight ahead if you don't know what's coming? Right, there's only one way to prepare for the fight ahead. These folks put their playbook, they put their strategy on
their website for all this. They typed up nine hundred something pages about the direction that they think the country should go in in Project.
Twenty twenty five, So we should utilize it now.
I want to bring this up because just last year or over I'll say last two years, you all saw elected officials from both sides of the isle, and we didn't have time to pull these clips. But maybe we'll do it on the back end from both sides of the Isle who cannot say that America is a racist country?
Do you remember that?
And it was really frustrating to a lot of us because we're like, well, what country are you living in? Because clearly this country has racist history, It's rooted in racist history. You built your whole economy on the backs of enslaved people.
Clearly there's racist history. And clearly when you look at.
George Zimmerman who killed George Floyd, I'm sorry that was a Freudian slip, George Zimmerman who killed Trayvon Martin, George Floyd who was killed by Derek Shavin.
The many other ways in.
Which vigilantes and the process by which vigilantes operated under the slave trade.
Still exists to this day.
Right when you look at that, you know that racism is still alive and well in this country. When you look at the disparities in pay between black and white income earners.
You know that racism is still alive in this country.
When you look at the number of contractors, whether on the local, state or federal level, and how much black and brown participation of people of other ethnic backgrounds, the lack that exists there, the lack of access the lack of process and the lack of fairness and equity, equitable outcomes. In those spaces, you know that racism is still alive in this country. When you look at the publications, newspapers, media outlets, you know that racism is still alive in
this country. It may be uncomfortable, it may be something that you want to look away from because it is painful for you to see the obvious. But we're not going to that you turn away, not on this podcast. So what I want to get into today is the fact that they actually put us in harm's way by not being able to say that America is a racist country. Because what's happened as a result is Donald Trump's administration has been able to wrap.
Certain words woke.
Uh, what's let me tell you what a Western foundations? What else do they have in here? We're going to go into this things around oppression. Any of those words are harmful to them, so they try to to to use something different. They would rather frame it as woke indoctrination, so they are offended. For example, this is the executive order called Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.
Right, they have.
On their uh in this executive word on page TEO of this exact executive order. For example, the Smithsonian American Art Museum today features the Shape of Power, Stories of Race and American Sculpture and exhibit representing that societies, including the United States, have used race to establish and maintain systems of power, privilege, and disenfranchisement.
Right this exhibit says.
The exhibit further claims that sculpture has been a powerful tool in promoting scientific racism and promotes the view that race is not a biological reality but a social contract construct, stating race is a human invention.
Now, they would have you believe that these quotes are not true.
They would have you believe that centering race is a divisive tactic, which is what they say right above that they would have you believe that in order to foster unity in this country and a deeper understanding of our shared past, that means that we have to get rid of what causes people shame, or what causes people guilt, or what causes people humiliation.
But we have to come to terms with the fact that.
Slavery was an awful institution, and it is the reason that many of us are here in this country today because our ancestors were forced here right in the belly of slave ships in the Transatlantic slave trade in America was one of the places. The United States of America is one of the places where enslaved people were brought. But that's not the only place. The Caribbean, Brazil, the.
UK, etc. Etc.
Now, what I think is important for us to kind of dissect here is why is it that what does not feel good to white folks generally, particularly in this administration, is.
Worth rewriting. Right.
We know that if they can destroy our history, they can destroy the legacy of our people, the remembrance and the memory of our ancestors. That is how you destroy things. And here's what I really think is beneath this there's a bill that has been introduced in the United States House of Representatives every year since I'm gonna tell you the year. But that bill is a reparations bill.
Congressman Conyers.
Congressman John Conyers began introducing the bill, I believe in the late nineteen eighties.
I was trying to pull.
This yes in the late nineteen eighties, and nineteen eighty eighty nine is the first year the Congressman Knyer's entroduce HR forty. This bill was merely designed to establish a commission and to study the DISASTERIX disaster disastrous impacts of the Transatlantic slave trade and the institutional slavery in the United States.
Here's what I believe is happening. I don't believe that.
This executive order that Donald Trump signed at the end of March on March twenty seventh, I don't believe that they're only doing this to absolve themselves of white guilt. I don't believe that they want to get rid of artifacts in certain language in the Smithsonian and all of its properties because it makes them feel bad.
I think that it's far more sick in its intention.
I believe that if they can reframe slavery, if they can reframe the impact of institutional racism and systemic racism in this systemic oppression in this country, that there is that's a way for them to destroy any argument that has worked on the local, state or federal level for reparations. I believe it is that that it's that sick. They don't support reparations because the only people they support receiving
handouts are rich, rich billionaires. Right, That's what we're seeing consistently across the board from this administration that nobody that has given anything to this country and was not paid for it should be taken care of.
And to that, I do want to say this too.
A lot of people think that this executive order is just about what we call the Black Sonia, the National Museum of African American History and Culture.
It's not this.
This is about all Smithsonian properties. That's twenty one museums and it is the world's largest institution of museum education, research, science. It is the world's largest. They want to destroy all of that. So they're using race as one of the inroads. But that's not the only in road. And this isn't new.
I want to go to this clip because I think it's important for you all to understand where are some of this now we're originated, but the fact that it didn't just pop up with the Trump administration.
Let's roll this clip.
As we mentioned talking points memo, Michelle Obama referenced slaves building the White House and referring to the evolution of America in a positive way. It was a positive comment. The history behind a remark is fascinating. George Washington selected the site in seventeen ninety one, and as present, laid the cornerstone in seventeen ninety two. Washington was then running the country out of Philadelphia. Slaves did participate in the
construction of the White House. Record show about four hundred payments made to slave masters between seven ninety five and eighteen oh one. In addition, free blacks, whites, and immigrants also worked on the massive building. There were no illegal immigrants at that time. If you could make it here, you could stay here. In eighteen hundred, President John Adams took up residence in what was then called the Executive Mansion.
It was only later on they named it the White House, but Adams was in there with Abigail, and they were still hammer and nails. The construction was still going on. Slaves that worked there were well fed and had decent lodgings provided by the government, which stopped hiring slave labor in eighteen oh two. However, the FEDS did not forbid
subcontractors from using slave labor. So Michelle Obama is essentially correct in citing slaves as builders of the White House, But there were others working as well.
Chow.
What like the fact that we're talking about it, and this was a big thing when it came up. Originally, it was a big thing because he said, well, you know, they were well fed, well fed, and there was decent lodging for enslaved people.
Right, that's insane. We're talking about people who were brought to this country back force.
He also said, if you know there were no illegal immigrants, if you could make it here, you could stay here. And I'm gonna give him the benefit of the doubt that what he's saying is at that point there was no immigration policy, and certainly there was no repercussion for those who chained people into the belly of a slave ship, slave ship to force them to come here and force them to work for free for centuries, for centuries. Right, we don't need to talk about reframing this as hired
slave labor. There was no such thing. Slave enslaved people's masters were the ones receiving the benefit. He's talking about subcontractors, there's no subcontractor if you're not paid. I mean, well, actually, if you look at how some of these federal prime contractors work now and their subcontractors, yes, some of them don't see payment. And if you look at Donald Trump's history, certainly some of his subcontractors, even some of his overall
contractors didn't receive payment. So maybe that's just also a vestage of slavery. But I think the one thing that we do have to acknowledge here is that there is a rewriting of history that's been taking place for a long time to compensate for the guilt that white folks feel when you talk about the slave trade and when
you talk about the institution of slavery. Now, the thing that I want us to recognize as we wrestle with what happens with the Smithsonian next, is there's a black man, the first black man in history, who's running that museum or that museum property. Again, we talk about Smithsonian as twenty one museums plus plus all of the other things that they occupy as the world's largest entity of its hid Lonnie Bunch is not safe from my vantage point, and I'm saying that because you know, we're in a
situation where they are attacking people. They've fired people from the EEOC that had terms that extended beyond that firing. Sure folks can be taken to court to address the issues in those firings. The fact that they're illegal. But this administration, as we all know, doesn't care about doing things.
In a legal way.
Right.
This is not about mining minding the law. We're the only ones that have to mind the law. The administration does not have to follow the law, and we need to be holding them accountable to that.
But I think we need to also be clear about that.
Now that said, I want to turn our attention briefly to because I don't know what the outcome will be
with the Smithsonian properties. I'm hoping that Lonnie Bunch will be safe, but I'm very clear about the fact that a very qualified black person in any role to this administration threatens their argument about DEI, and they are attacking things like science, like access to education, like employment, like the cost of goods, and certainly black labor, when black people have demonstrated that they actually are extremely excellent, deserve to be in those roles and probably should have been
promoted long before they actually were. They are replacing qualification and quality with nonsense, with the type of tiplel say nonsense, the type of people that put military strike plans in a dog gone signal threat.
That is what we're dealing with right now.
So let me just turn briefly to a place where there was an attack and folks won on this attack. It's the National Park Service. So you I think you all know. But every day I wear this chain. This is Harriet Tubman on my necklace. Harriet Tubman to so many of us.
I dared not just say just black folks.
But when you talk about the undergrown, under underground railroad and what.
She means to our community, to this country.
You know, the type of person that that John Brown could confide in around military plans and battle plans, the type of person that would go nineteen times to get three hundred people, three hundred black folks. The type of person who would say, you know, there are a lot of folks where you.
Know they're running, they run, they might be running.
You know, uh automotive service, you know the train and her train. She said her train never went off the tracks and she never lost a passenger figuratively speaking of course, for those of you whose history has already been so arrased, you don't know, the underground railroad isn't actually the train tracks. And so the thing that I think is important now is, you know, the National Park Service removed references to Harriet
Tubman from the Underground Railroad page. And there is a victory on the other side of this, But I want to tell you it says that the new page did not mention until slavery until the third paragraph, and that there was there were references to the Fugitive Slave Act of eighteen fifty that were removed completely from the pages, that that Harriet Tubman is not a central figure in the Underground Railroad and a quote from her and her picture being taken down is remarkably it is. It is
the textbook definition of a rasure right. And so what I want to say is the victory around this is the National Park Service put it back.
And why am I bringing that up to you all right now?
I think it is so important for us for us to understand as we get hit on every side. We get hit in our history, we're getting hit in our present day experience, and we're getting hit on what is accessible, attainable and viable for future generations.
We're literally getting hit on every side.
As we consider that, I want us to think about how important it is to wage a fight back. It may be y'all that some people have to fight there may have you know, Black people love a committee, especially Black church folks, especially Black church Baptist Church folks, and so, and that is not shade in this moment is actually a compliment because this may be a moment where we need to divide up into committees to take on the labor. Somebody needs to be focusing on the attacks on future generations.
Some folks need to be focused on what the attacks are in the present and how we stave off.
Any additional harm.
And some people will need to focus on what has to happen to main sure maintain our security and our history from a safety and security standpoint. Who can take on the fight for our history, who can ensure it's not just the Black Sonian under attack, it is all of the Smithsonian property. So this should be a rainbow coalition fight, Like, like, at what point are you going to stop saying we're gonna wait for the fight to take us on. Personally, it has women are seniors. If
you buy any products, it's on you. If you work for the federal government, it's on you. If you work for a quasi governmental agency that means kind of a public private split, it's upon you. If you are a student, it is upon you. If you are a researcher, Let's say you're in a PhD program where you need access
to federal websites for data collection, it's on you. And if you're an art curator, collector donor, it's on you, right And there are so many other spaces, veterans, folks who rely on any type of what they call entitlement program but snap benefits or Medicare or medicaid, any type of need, access to healthcare that you need, it's upon you.
And so now is the time for us to be gathering, coming together out figuring out what our next steps and our response must be in this environment, because it is so treacherous and so dangerous, and it is only going to become more so the less we challenge them. And so I invite you into the fight. I will tell you a little bit of breaking news on here. It is not public yet, but we are announcing our State of the People Tour, and the State of the People
Tour is going to begin in ten cities. We're starting off in Atlanta, Georgia on April twenty six, and we are saying we've got to come together, We've got to fight together, we got to be in coalition together, national partners across the board, from NAACP to NCNW to National Urban League, Africanamerican Mayors Association, across the board, Advancement Project. There's so many at the table so that we can get this right, the D nine right. We're doing this
all together, the faith community, our young folks. We're working all together to ensure that our basic needs can be met and that we know how to fight in this environment, fight to preserve ourselves, to survive, and to get to the point of thriving. As we go on this tour, we're releasing black papers every week that will become our Black Agenda, or our Freedom Agenda, or our Project twenty twenty five.
We need all hands on deck.
So I want you all to reach out to us at STATEOFTHEPPL dot com, Stateadthepeople dot com, State of the People, State OFTHEPPL dot com. Though remember that I keep messing that up, because that is where you can sign up to participate, to volunteer, to host a workshop, all the things. We want to see you involved, and we definitely want to see you in a city near you. So this is our love letter to y'all State of the People.
There are local organizers doing the Doggone thing in each city, and we're so excited to work with groups on the ground who've been doing this work. And we're also thrilled about the opportunity to come together, do something all together and make our work that much more impactful.
We are better together.
One fist can strike a mighty blow, y'all. So with that, all power to the people. I'll see y'all soon. I'm not going to answer no questions because I didn't went long out and got hot about this stuff, y'all.
We should.
We don't need to end with bill O'Reilly, But just remember they're trying to make history say that slaves were well fled, well fed, and they had decent lodging, and we're going to tell them at every step of the way the devil is a lie. We're going to make sure you know our history, even if if paining you to learn it. So thanks, y'all, We'll see you next time.
Welcome Home.
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