Keep Fighting

and then you wipe out. All started at a six when I came to hate this makeshift matrix talking about fake ship, interested in words, and I started to play with took it from the journal and not to the pavement bill it proof, you know, hurting the get by myself because Mariah maternity leave and I turned it hot, make it to a certain degree, eat wrappings like I'm eating up a burger with cheese. Dope. He was going on, this is dope, Knife, and you are listening to waiting

on reparations. Man, it feels weird. I was like, I wanted to stop for a second and let Mariah say and lingua franca, and then we would say that you know how it goes. But today I am by myself. At least for this beginning of the episode, Mariah is on her leave. The baby hasn't come yet, but we're waiting but she's officially on her brake, so it is just going to be me rapping on this one and

opening it up for you. Got another banger of the episode coming up is gonna be an interview that Mariah did with Robin Wesley Wiliba, who is a Democratic socialist that's running for Minneapolis City Council. They're gonna be talking about their journey to get into this point of running for office. Police brutality, right, control. A bunch of cool ship coming up. Um, But let's see what do I wanna? What I want to talk about with you guys today before we get there. Oh New York rapperk that's k A.

If you guys haven't heard of him from Brownsville. I've been a huge fan of his for at least eight years now, and he put out a couple of albums that I really dug. But he just put out a new joint called The Martyrs Reward that, oh my, totally critical. Many in invest coutive test either put a belt or a bullet. That's how I was taught things. So on every summer of wonder why I won the old s friends.

I mean, we don't usually you know, outright like recommend stuff on this show more or less just say what we think is dope, you know, pertaining on the topic

that we're talking about music. But this album I have to I gotta give it up, and I gotta use my little bit of a platform to pick up this album, The Martyrs Reward by k If you are in the mood for some like lyrical, thoughtful hip hop, you know, I mean to be honest with you, This Ship is like it's like the hip hop equivalent of reading a novel, is how I would describe cos music in this album in particular, It's like the way he uses pros and

stuff is just it's nuts, but highly recommended. That's what I'm listening to. I've had that Ship on repeat, so you need to check that. Shut up? What else is interesting? Oh? Um? Candy Candice Owens, the right wing conservative pundit. Apparently she's being sued by a fellow black right winger for twenty million dollars for saying that there's strip club madam. So that's that story. Um. You know what, let's not even

waste any more time. We're gonna be right back with that interview for you right after the this week, I have the distinct honor of being joined by Robin Wants and Wallaba, a Democratic Socialist running to be minneapolis first Black Socialist councilperson to represent word two. She is a Chicago native, a community activists, a labor organizer, and from Wakata and all around with the person. Robin, thank you

so much for joining us today. How are you? What's good? Yes, say so much for having me, Mariah, Like, I'm so glad to be able to also support like powerful black fans who are doing great things like yourself, so like Queen's Unite. I'm so excited to be here. Just talk about this, I would say, like history making campaign that we're running over here in Minneapolis. Yeah. So you you know, I've looked at your platform ex sensively. There's a lot

of exciting stuff on it. But for you what uh actually, don't let me take it. Let me take a step back. I'm so excited talking about six and you calls yes, let's go. But let's learn about who you are as a person, because I'm sure your experiences working to uh radically transform our you know, the presidential complex, working with the education, because these backgrounds very much informed the policies that we're gonna talk about it a little bit. So tell us a little bit how you got here, so

you can from Chicago, you're in Minneapolis. Now, what led you to, uh, this moment of running for Minneapolisity Council. Yeah, I would definitely say, you know, coming from Chicago and actually coming to Minneapolis thinking like this is gonna be you know, my liberal refuge from my life is alright over in Chicago. So I was like, I'm pretty sure I'm gonna give me a good job because that's how Minneapolis this market. You know, my housing is gonna be

for the low. We're just gonna live our best lives. And then literally within a year of being here, um, Jamark Clark was murdered by Minneapolis police um. Um. And for me it was like whoa, okay, so the same stuff that is happening in my hometown and literally everywhere else that's that happens here. Um. And what really moved me to like start joining joining like some of the frontline struggles was really our own BLM chapter that really like came into fruition um in the midst of um

that high profile murder of Jamaar Um. I mean, these folks we're talking about black working class folks literally holding space,

occupying the fourth pre seat police station. UM, you know, literally seeing the things that it's become norm now, like with withstanding like tear gas and Robert bullets, like just all out attacks from not only the police themselves, were just simply saying, you can't kill us, UM, and nor will you continue to just act violence on us and just you know, continue to live your lives while we carry on the suffer and the trauma from those experiences.

They not only got attacked from that, but they also got attacked from the different practic establishment. Like every progressive of all the colors, UM came out was like, no need to stop doing this. This is not the way in which we get changed, which is completely false. And I think for me it was like a wake up call in that moment. I immediately like joined the front lines with black working class people and trying to get justice for the Mark Clark and that segue to me

joining our workers right struggle. UM that was also happening at the same time, which was leading a fifteen minimum wage fight, and I already know like coming from South Side Chicago, heavily police communities are also historically digested communities, and those are the areas where we do not have, you know, investments and quality jobs or livable wage shops.

So for me, it's like it's a no brainer, Like we need to make sure working class people have more money in their pockets than any effort that is trying to transfer you know, power, I mean not power, but wealth from the hands of like the minority one percent and back into the pockets of working class people like

I'm down for UM. So immediately joining those efforts and then seeing the democratic establishment once again go every like, go through every tactic in blockage that they could throw at us to make sure that not only your communities remain over police, but we are also not going to provide you with the solutions like more wages, um to make your life better in this city. We want you

to continue to suffer. And I think the seeds were planted for me at that time where we gotta start building our own independent political power in the city or folks are going to continuously get killed. And unfortunately Jamark Clark was not the last UM. And unfortunately Jamark I mean even George Floyd after last year, he was not the last. We've continued to have these and people are still struggling. Joblessness rates are still going up. We have

growing ten encampments across the city. We have a serious or PR crisis that's also interwoven into all these other crisis is that we're experiencing. And it's very clear we need new leadership, and not only new leadership, but people will understand that the system we're up again is racial capitalism that once working class people to struggle, that wants black people to just be bearers of state violence and not say nothing and go to work and be happy

that you've got a job that pays you pennies. And it's just like, no, we're done with that. We've done with that. Yeah. So you've touched on so many different issues and the way to the intersect from police brutality to homelessness, the opioid crisis, economic justice. So what would you say is the number one priority for you when you get in office? What is your election? First of all? November second? Okay, yeah, we don't have much time, we

know we don't. So when you get in there, you get to you with the election November, you get sworn in what like January and something like that. Ye so yeah, So Robinson there January first, what's going down on the city council. First thing first, the biggest thing is public safety. UM. That is the fight of this race, and it's a fight on both sides of We have candidates and the mayor UM and corporate driven lobbying forces that are literally UM launching a forceful campaign that says we need to

support the police more than ever. We need to be making sure that we're fully funding the departments. Are literally retaliating against the demands of last year's you know historic global uprising UM that took place in the wake of George Floyd's murder. And we have candidates like myself who are running on you know, continuing that movement that we experience where it's like, no, we need to not continue in continuing, you know, this investment into institutions that kill us,

that does not abide in our collective well being. We need to start investing and in housing because housing its public safety. We need to be investing into public schools because public schools and education is public safety. We need to make sure we're UM really bringing about a green New deal because clean air, clean water, that is public safety, and those are all the things that working class people need, and that's the things that we want to emphasize when

we're elected. Like public safety is not isolated to policing. We need to be making mass social investments through attacks on the rich to fund the actual solutions to prevent preventives, you know, solutions that makes our community safe, that allows working class people to have a quality of life. And one of the ways in which we're gonna do that is one of the big things that's happening in Minneapolis in this election where working class people will likely have

a vote on. It's passing Yes for Many Apolis, which is one of the campaigns that came out of you know, last year's movement to really digest from the police and move those resources towards others, you know, UM departments and

services that keeps our community safe. UM. So that will be voted on on the November two and if that passes, then I, alone with my colleagues will have the very serious tasks of fighting for ordinance that makes sure that department does not just propagate the status quo policing that we know does not work and that continues to harm black people and brown people, import folks and if folks want to check out what our vision is for public safety, we have a lot more thoughts of that, like make

sure we're fully funding three on one, we're expanding an unarmed workforce. We were demilitarizing this department so people can't shoot people with tear gas. That why why, you know, like like why it's not that serious re um and making sure that we're also having a democratic oversight structure

over this new department. So we just released our own comprehensive public safety plan that we plan to fight for regardless of what happens with Yes for Minneapolis UM when we're elected, like that first hundred days of like this is how we make sure we have a public safety system that doesn't you know, support apartheid structure of our city where black people get policed and killed and rich people get safety and and and wellness calls when Rome

people look like they're they're in their neighborhood, Like no, we're ending that. I feel that. Yeah, I mean, like public safety encompasses so much it can be hard to like pull the threads out with regards to a concrete starting point because you have to have you have to deal with it comprehensively. And so to say, oh, we're just gonna like focus on the housing. Oh, we're just gonna focus on the on the environmental health and well being of our communities, etcetera. It's like no, it's like

it is everything together. Yeah, so yeah, I feel that. I feel that. Um I I'd love to hear more about this, uh, this wealth tax that you're interested in implementing.

So tell us a little bit about how that would work and what you and what you want to accomplish with it, like what you wanna get done when when that comes to fruition, Yes, I mean when it comes to public safety, like when we're talking about like making me soul, like mass social investments, we know it's going to take revenue, and of course, like the revenue is there. What we're heard or told time and time again is that, no, we can't prioritize high housing, we can't prioritize public housing.

We can't prioritize like actually hiring unarmed public safety workers because we ain't got the money. No, you got the money. You just want to use that to direct more subsidies to corporate developers who are displacing working class residents and renters from their communities. You want to continue to give TIFFs to target which is out here still in uh their workers wages every single day. Like, no, we got the money. You just rather like subsidize corporate in in

profit driven um businesses in our cities. That's where you want to direct that money towards. And we're like, no, you need to run those coins back. And the way that we know that's got to happen is through either taxation, which we know there is some state pre preemptions on it, but yes, but fees. And this is the thing with like being a public servant, you need to be creative. Like I mean even right now brick control, which is also going to be voted on too, and which we're supporting.

They told us four four years ago you can't do breck control. The state preempt that. And it's like, guess what we could do a charter amendment. That's how we also got the fifteen minimum wage that we um successfully fall for in twenty seventeen. We are the same arguments, you can't do this, the state prevents this big big business of this is illegal. It's like the price, the price. Let's search through our toolkit of things to do to make change happen, like and we could get this done.

So one of the things that we can do to start to UM, you know, fight back against our extract of economy. It's a leverished fees on these corporate interests. We're talking about passing airbnb tax. Like where I mentioned earlier, we have ten encampments that are growing by the day. It absolutely makes no sense why we have luxury like apartments in our communities that are sitting vacant because the

landlords wants to lease it out as an airbnb. No, no, you need to be you need to be penalized for that, like somebody needs to be in the apartment. And if you're not gonna make that happen, trust me, you're not about to make no profit off of basically support and a housing crisis in our city. UM. We can leverage

fees on businesses like what Seattle did. M Seattle got creative and said, let's do um a head tax for all the employees of Amazon because that's the big you know business over there, and we can use that revenue to create city owned social housing. And that was gonna bring in two hundred forty million dollars every year, we can look at doing the same thing. Target is one of the largest and most respected, you know corporations UM in our city, and as I also mentioned, are often

one of the biggest corporates of wage thefts. Let's start leveraging taxes on them, like they don't often pay property taxes. We need to say no, you need to start doing that. So there's a number of tools that we can use. Mansion taxes, why are we selling mansions at a housing crisis? Like, no, you need to run run that money back and and then we can use that revenue to actually support like

funding our collective needs, our social infrastructures. So there's a number of ways in which we can look at just through fees um or levies of how we can start to um reverse the effects of trickle down economics. Because none of that money trickles down to our communities. We need to start actually taking hold of that wealth and redirecting them back into the pockets of working class people. We will be back with Robbin right after the jump.

I think um I mean a lot of what a lot of the funds that could be generated through levies and visa as you're describing could be put into you know, like social housing and things like that. But one of the interests interested me about your platform is in the discussion of housing, and touched on the cities and the airbnbas and stuff. Um, what seemed to me to be like an inclusionary zoning policy of like new developments and

a certain amount of affordable housing. And then I wondered if you talk to us a little bit more about your vision, if any, for working with private developers to ensure that with regards to housing in particular, you know, we're actually getting housing for the people, So I think

we're sure. The first step is we need to pass a strong rent control policy, like the fact right now Minneapolis passed plan that authorized the creation of hundreds let me not saying hundreds thousands of new um um housing units under multi like apartment complexes that again are largely cost burden housing, meaning whoever moved in there, likely orty of your annual income is going to go towards rent

alone in that unit. UM. So we need to be um placed in a cap on those rents right now to make sure, you know, folks are not having to choose between I don't know cooking, buying groceries, or rent so we're supporting rent control UM. One of the other measures that we're talking about is the city has the ability to buy back some of those units and put those in a land us, put those in our public housing portfolio UM, like start getting those back off of

the private markets UM. And also another big thing that we're talking about doing is UM. Right now, the rent of our housing UM or the market right housing is determined through an average median income, and that average median income right now is based off of like eight of the average income for the metro residents, like metro wide. It's not looking at Minneapolis specific, and that's largely why they will say a one bedroom apartment UM at you know,

fift hundred dollars. That's totally reasonable. It's not we need to be reducing that. It's it's the acronym is a m I. We're talking about reducing that to thirty percent or at minimum fifty percent of Minneapolis average income I mean media and income, because then we can see those rents gonna back down to like, okay, eleven hundred for

one bad room, nine hundred for one bamp room. Like it's not giving this uh why threshold, which is largely profits for the corporate developers who are building this housing and overseeing it. UM. So we're talking about reigning back in the A m I. But again you got a couple that with UM uh rent control. We also again need to be buying back units, getting those units that are now being used for air and b and bs.

We need to be putting those into city on land trust UM, adding those to our public housing portfolio because we've privatized so much of it so far, and then using that revenue again through taxing UM some of these corporate developers in the Ridge to actually start constructing our own city owned housing UM. Where again that basis we could say a m I like if we want to charge five hundred dollars for a studio or eight hundred dollars for a one bath room, we can do that

because the city owned mm hmm. That's the future that I'm invested in because clearly the private the private market will never meet that needs. It's clearly it's not doing it now. People are literally living in tents year round. And I don't know if you've ever been to Minneapolis or your listeners, I have ye show I put a show somewhere in the Minneapolis many years ago. Was it during the winter. I'm from the South, baby, No, it's gold.

It's going to him, y'all keep that it's cold. People are literally living outside in the tundra in a tent and we literally have units just sitting empty. That's a problem. We need to need to be like running that back into city owned and democratically owned, um croopertives their land trust. Like no, it cannot. We cannot keep relying on to private housing market because it's spelling us. Yeah. Period, period.

So by the time we got lot, like what is your coalition, your government coalition look like ideally because you know you have I saw this, I got in I got in the thousand nighteen. I was the only person of color and twenty years younger than everybody else only only socialist, abolitionist an average, and like it was like, oh, I gotta good ship done now or try to with these like oh that's white people that like are like

do will not even make eye contact with me. And so I've always very curious when I interview candidates or talking to candidas, you know, de several different municipalities, like what you for what you what your ideal government coalition looks like, what it's looking to probably shake out like, and how that's going to impact the way you move within the space of of of city council. Yeah, we're super excited about this because we are team was just

talking about this. We're about to release our community our community Commitment Plan. But how we're going to do that A built um a co governance structure with working class people you know, driving it. And one of the biggest things that we're saying, like to hold the core of it, we need to create a community office right in our ward.

Right now, all of the offices are out in city Hall in downtown Minneapolis where the lobby is and um US Bank can get to your elected leader and basically tell them, yo, I need I need you to sell out working class people in this way. We know if you're gonna ask us to sell out working class people, we need you to come to where the people are. So we're gonna have a community office and city Council

gets paid pretty well. So all of my staff has agreed to or will agree to um using a portion of our money, our salaries and not only fund this office, but to also fund UM staff to do the coordinating work of building our grass recoalition, which will definitely include you know, unions. UM. My Ward is also home to the largest student community in the city because we have two large universities, so we need to make sure we're

having a student UM you know representation UM. And we're actually gonna put together a student UM group on campus UM so that we're making sure we're meeting with them continuously. UM. But that coalition is also going to include renters because again my words, majority renters as well as that's that's the demographic of the city. UM. We're gonna also have

UM healthcare workers UM, because that's a particular need right now. UM. Of we're literally closing down hospitals and we know we're entering into another peak of like the delta variant, it makes no sense, UM. But that coalition will also include small business owners. And I'm literally talking about small businesses, the micro businesses, not uh the two hundred thousand employees that like to pretend that they are and actually helped

close down small businesses. UM. So we're literally talking about what that structure looks like right now. We're really excited of like, how do we help people's assemblies, like you know, organizing committees using a precinct captain strategy that we're using now for our field operations. So that's actually working class people who are continuously having conversations around our platform and

how we're advancing it together right on their blocks. Um, because it's gonna have to take that local, hyper localized like organizing the tribe, this forward um and another big piece of our community kind of engagement strategy. It's also participatory budgeting because city council here has oversight over the budget and it they hardly fight from mass investments into anything.

So this is an opportunity where we can actually work with the coalitions of of stakeholder hers I described to actually build a robust budget that against shift the wealth that we generate for big business back into our hands and back into our needs. UM. So we're really excited to use as a tool. But yes, we're gonna be releasing that because that's what we dream of, like that's what we're practicing now, like how to have working class

people really drive like building their own political independence. Amazing. We'll tell us where we can keep in touch with you, where we can donate, where we can learn more about your work. Um, I love the coins. Yes, you can uh follow us on all social media channels at robbin for mini Apolis. Either it's gonna be robin fo r m p l S or robbing number four mp ls. But we are gonna we are on all the social

media channels. Actually we got a TikTok so even comes I know, I love it that we're trying to be real millennial status UM. But we're on Facebook, social media, UM, Instagram, Twitter, and then we have our website robbin f O r MPLS. That's where you also can find our podcast because we're connecting with community leaders in Minneapolis to show how movements are very active in strong UM around a number of issues.

So we have our podcasts there. That's how you can find out how to support door knocks, phone banks where and this is from wherever you're at, Like you can come down and visit us, or we can find a way to get you somebody's uh phone bank bank sheet, but we're gonna make space for you. Um. And you can also find our donation link up on our website. We appreciate all the coins. Ain't so far we've been able to raise our sixty thou dollars just um on

just brass roots like or working class people. Yeah, our average domenship thirty dollars and it's just like yes, yeah, so we appreciate every dollar, UM, and it's going towards

really building a political revolution here in Minneapolis. UM. But yeah, please share our social media, share our poles, share the articles we've been in a number I think of powerful articles that lays out political analysis of what we're dealing with here in Minneapolis and how it connects to the nationwide fight for justice and a new mandate on public safety. So you can find all that on our website to UM.

But yeah, left folks know you know, the political revolution, the movement is not dead here in Minneapolis, and our campaign is running on it. We are the extension of it, UM and we plan to win come November and continue to bring those demands that was inspired by George Floyd inter fruition and fight unapologetically alongside working class people to make every one of those demands happen because we deserve

it and we ain't got no choice. It's a beautiful thing. Well, thank you so much for your time, UM, and hopefully we'll have you back when you're in office. Wait. Yes, and that is our episode for this week. I want to give a massive shout out to Robin for taking the time to talk with Mariah. That was some dope shit, and we are wishing them well in their quest to take office. Um. I don't really have too much to add to it except for you know what I do.

I'm a rapping astute. Hey Joe, can you kick that beat? Please? Oh Joe? We wait nah, we wait nah, we wait, no reparations. Yeah, alright, let's kick it yeo yo. I am dirty and grit nerty ship read hiddd scrolls fine words that can flip it's decadence, even put a burden. Spit and tell me that my Rom's book is like the word of the brick. Drink drugs on a golden chalice. Give me hugs because they know my talent. Treat me like slow because I know my balance. Pot head with

some bud and a soda gallon. Life's band calls. Only know if you throw a challenge rappers baking and acting like it's the truth. I'm gonna go and show you who illist up in the booth acting like a menace I'm tennists that take it to knocking out the park. I'm a bigger babe in the roof. Oh, dope, dope, dope dope. Alright, alright, my name is Dope Knife and you are listening to Waiting on Reparations. See you all next week. Waitning on Reparations is the production of iHeart Radio.

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