Choose Consciousness

filled with a lot of trauma. Our bodies are holding traumatic tissue, right And I saw a post the other day that said that ourselves actually are hold like nine generations of trauma, which seems absolutely insane. But then at

the same time you're like, oh, this makes sense. So when people say things like, oh, you know, these are just a couple of bad people or a couple of bad cops, and it's not all cops and baul blah, and I'm saying, it's an entire fucking system that my ancestors have been fighting for and against for hundreds of years.

Like that's the reason why I can't watch these videos that I can't watch for entertainment films like twelve years a slave or you know biopics that are steeped in this country's violent history, because I feel it physically manifest in my body, and in order for me to continue to do the work that I do, I need to have some boundaries in my self care and self preservation because you see, they are trying to kill us, and

they are succeeding. Whether it is through heart disease, heart attack, whether it is through drug overdose suicide, whether it is through shootings, mass shootings, or police shootings or police beatings or suffocations. They are trying to kill us. White supremacy

is working over time. And what I find, folks, is that if we don't set some type of boundaries, if we don't find a way to delve into what our purpose and path is in creating some type of change, in feeling like our time spent here is about doing more than what is for our own fucking comfort. I have white folks that listen to this show that DM me often send me tweets messages showing their outrage and

disgust and saying, what can I do? I want to do something and we all I can tell every single white person that listens to me on a regular basis is you need to talk to your white family members, your white friends, your white colleagues, because they don't listen to us. It is like sending out a fucking dog whistle and if falling on non listening ears, they don't listen to us, but they may listen to you. And what I am looking for is not white people that want to be patted on the back for doing the

right fucking thing. I want white people who have black mindsets, mindsets that are steeped in justice and equity, right and challenging a system that you know was made for your comfort. But you are choosing choosing to use that privilege in that voice to wake up your fucking neighbors, your friends, your family because you see, what I have real lies is that it is going to take a majority of white Americans to choose consciousness, to choose discomfort, to choose

the knowing rather than the ignorance. And right now we are at a slippery motherfucking slope where you have the descentenses of the world, and the McCarthy's of the world, and the mcconnells of the world, and the Abbots of the world, and the Trumps of the world, and the Bannons of the world and the Giuliani's of the world that are working fucking overtime to keep you disinformed and

full of fucking white rage. And what I am begging for is that white people don't fall for the rope of dope that we are not going to get through this life right this authoritarianism, this fascism that is raining down supreme one state after the other, fucking North Dakota. It's threatening to jail librarians, google it. Where the fuck do you think that this is headed. Queer people, black people, and people of color are low hanging fruit for fascism.

You're next. Because if you don't look like them, if you don't think like them, if you don't pray like them, if you don't love like them, if you don't talk and walk like them, if you don't hate like them, they are coming for you. So if we don't spend our time in whatever time this God and this universe is providing for us right now, to figure out how to activate those around us, then we are wasting time and we are wasting breath, and frankly, we don't have

time to waste. Coming up next is my conversation with Christina Sinsoon Ramirez, who is the president of next Gen, the nation's largest youth voting organization that got a lot of young people to the polls, which is why our midterm elections, on top of black people sharing up in

mass why Kevin McCarthy's majority is so fucking slim. So we get into a conversation about the youth vote, about what is turning the youth on, what are they connecting to and disconnecting from, and how to keep these folks engaged because there are some of the last hopes that we have. So coming up next my conversation with Christina Sinson Ramirez, folks, I am very excited to welcome to

Woke f Daily for the first time. Christina Sinson Ramirez, who is the president and executive director of next Gen America, one of the nation's largest youth voter mobilization efforts and organizations. Christina, you know we are in the beginning of twenty twenty three and twenty twenty two. The twenty twenty two I talk about it as if it is its own title, because it caused so much issues in friction and anxiety because of the midterm elections. The midterm elections boasted the

highest youth voter turnout that we've ever seen. Right, it was historic in a lot of ways. And there's a lot of speculation that folks have had as to why I believe that youth are always attacked prior to any election, that they're never going to turn out, that they're not reliable. It's a lot of negativity. And so I want to before we dive into where we are right now, I want to give you an opportunity to reflect on where

we have come from from the twenty twenty two midterm elections. Well, you know, you just had so many important things right there about like the myths about young people that this election busted through, and also the last two elections. So we've had historic high turnout in twenty eighteen, twenty twenty, the highest youth voter turnout in American history twenty twenty two, and everyone said Democrats were going to lose, and they were going to lose terribly, and then they held the Senate.

They flipped a Senate seat and Republicans won by a time emergin the House and you can see the ship show that it is now because they don't have the full numbers to actually govern even even with holding the majority, because their party is a mess. And so young people in large parts saved American democracy. And you know, the myth about young people is twofold. One is that young people are apathetic, that they don't care. Well, this is

actually the most politically engaged generation in American history. And the second thing is that as people get older, they're just going to get more progressive. And what we're seeing with older millennials as they're aging out of like the younger voter population, which I'm an older millennial, is that we are actually staying progressive. And there's still a lot

of research needs to be done on why. But you know, and I think it's a huge part, is that we are also the most young people represent the most diverse generation in American history. And if you look at who the Republican Party is today, it doesn't look like most of America and it doesn't represent the needs and especially

young people. They're either people of color or queer themselves, or they have friends that are, and they look around them they say, I don't want to be aligned with a party that doesn't even give us space to fully exist as full equal human beings in this country, and so I think that that's also a huge part of

why you're seeing young people stay progressive. And the last part just being that this is the first generation in American history to be worse off than their parents economically, and so young people also are trying to not just make change around the margins, They're really trying to make a bold, progressive policy change. And that's why you see so many young people turning out, is they understand that

they have power to make a real difference. You know, I want to dig into a couple of things that you said, but most notably the fact that this generation is going to be far worse off economically than their parents generation. I would also argue emotionally and spiritually because of the number of traumas that they are up against, right, global health pandemic, you know, of impending recession, climate change crises.

But I want to talk to you about, you know, what are some of the things that you hear from young people with regard to not having had their parents generations and before them set them up for success. What is the what is what is the feeling and the response to what we know is a fairly new statistic.

You know, I think that that's part of the reason you have young people so wanting deep changes and deep structural change also in an economy and how the economy works is this is a generation also that grew up into in the wake of the two thousand and eight financial crisis that saw occupy Wall Street. You had Bernie Sanders run for president and aptly name greed by the ultra ultra wealthy in this country as causing a growing gulf of inequality and tax policy, labor policy, wage disparities

all helping grow that divide. And so you know, you have a huge flow of information for young people on social media where they don't have to look at a traditional outlets about how to develop their own ideas and understanding of the world. This is a generation that is most likely to live with their parents since the Great Depression, Yeah,

you know, least likely to own a home. And you have, Yes, a lot of young people are our young families, but you also have a lot of young people that are saying I don't feel like I can ever have kids because of the amount of debt I have, or because I'm afraid of the future of the climate crisis and just the amount of economic and you know climate instability that I feel in this moment, and so it's a huge burden you said mentally, emotionally, and but I do

think you know at next and we are an explicitly progressive organization, but we don't put our hope in any single one politician or party to solve these problems. We put our hope in America's young people, because if we look at any time, our country has made a great leap forward on an issue that people said was impossible to solve or was just going to take longer. It took the courage, imagination, and impatience of young people pushing to make that change. You know, I just I oftentimes

say that I feel really bad for today's youth. I feel like the prior generation and generations have failed them. And it is largely Bernie Sanders was completely right. It is largely due to greed. It is largely due to this idea that we are not We're an abundant nation for some right and then for everyone else. You're left to fight for the scraps that are left behind. And that is what we've left our young people when we've given them, We've told them all you need to go

to college. Right, if you want to make it in America, you need to go to college and be competitive and then put yourself in six figures worth of debt. So then when you get out of college, you have to take the first job that comes your way. That may not even be a good one because you've got to start paying back those student laws. Because the likelihood that you're going to pay them back, you know, before you turn fifty is real slim, right, um, and again depending

on what kind of feel that you go into. So I want to switch gears to what it was And I know we've touched upon this, but what it was that you think really got young people to the polls in twenty twenty two, because you know, we know that

mid term elections are historically low voter turnout. It is really the I would say that the fifty to sixty five year olds that are more likely to turn out, and that is the generation that is still quite conservative in their thinking and you know, our heart are more likely to attach themselves to the Oh, America was once great, So we we're with the make America great again trumpism crowd. What compelled these this this crop of young people to

recognize the importance of this midterm. You know, we saw we were expecting high youth voter turnout and then I think what really solidified for a lot of young people who had turned out again and historic numbers in twenty eighteen and twenty twenty, but they caught Republicans and I think everyone by surprise. This election was just the historic numbers by which young people out and young people turned out,

and how many voted for Democrats. And you can really look at it as this was an election in a referendum on protecting the rights of abortion and an entire generation of young people that had grown up with the right to decide what happened with their own bodies and their own futures, their own health and that was taken away. So our polling showed that two thirds of young voters said they felt like abortion was on the ballot and

it was motivating them to vote. You had historic numbers of young women in particular registering to vote on their own in key states. In some states like Pennsylvania, you saw women registering by a ten point margin difference of but then men after the decision to overturn Row and eighty one percent or sorry, seventy one percent of young women that turned out to vote this election voted for Democrats and fifty three percent of young men, so we

saw a huge gender gap. Still, the majority of young people, overwhelmingly by a twenty eight point margin, voted for Democrats this election. That's exit. Pulling from circle are good friends at Touch University, but taking away a fundamental right of an entire generation helped young people get motivated and also understand that again fascism was on the ballot. Yeah, yeah, you know, and it's and it's hard I think for

you know, I don't know, Actually I don't know. Why do you think that it's harder, seemingly harder for older people to wrap their minds around fascism, and yet the younger generation seems to have gotten it, like oh no, no, And is it because they're fresh out of schooling so they understand like the current issues and comparative government in a way that older people are so far departed from

understanding comparative government in that way. I mean, I think there are a lot of older folks that are also concerned about the growth and fascism and authoritarianism. But when we look at voting patterns and where people are voting. It's true that the oldest generations are still voting for candidates and a party that it has really veered towards fascism and authoritarianism and QAnon conspiracy theories and you name it.

You know, you see that younger people are the targets of what where authoritarian rule and fascist rule gets to determine who gets to be fully American, whose rights get to protect and be protected, well, immigrants, people of color, queer folks, trans folks, they become the target. And so a lot of those folks are younger and or identify

in that way that are younger. And so that's I think a huge reason why you see young people saying no to a fascist's gime that has no place for communities of color, for indigenous folks, for queer folks, and it was even willing to go to the extreme of rolling back reproductive rights and healthcare on you know, any childbearing age woman in this country. You know, it's just it, it's so absolutely wild to think about how much America

has regressed. I mean, for the first time, I think it was in twenty twenty one, was the first time that America was labeled as a backsliding democracy right in the history of this country, and that that in it of itself didn't set off more alarms, right and I and I mean that in the way that if you're announcing that one of the stalwarts of democracy in the world is now backsliding and trending in in the negative direction, you would think that that would be on everybody's headline paper,

right like it would it would be headline news. And yet it's not so fast forward. You know, we have midterm elections. Thank god, young people showed out, Thank god people of color showed out. Thank god Black people came out and recognized that every election is the most consequential election, given the lengths that the Republican Party is willing to go to steal an election, to deny a free and

fair election. And so now we have arrived at a place where Kevin McCarthy is the Fisher Price Speaker of the House basically justin name only, because he's given away every bit of credibility and every bit of power to the far Speaker of the House. And you have Democrats still have the Senate and the White House. What do young people what are as they are seeing this shit show unfold in the House of Representatives and this implosion of the Republican Party, or should I say the revealing

of who the Republican Party is? What do young people think? Because in my mind I would say, well, god damn, you know, if this is who we have in charge, maybe I should just opt all the way out. Or is it working in the reverse where people young people are like, this is the ship show that we have. I gotta opt all the way in. You know. I think one, young people are overwhelmingly progressive, right, but they

are many don't identify as Democrats. They care about progressive policy, right, And I think that we have quickly become a one party that clearly believes in democracy and one that doesn't. And so you have one choice really at this point. But I also think, you know, even in a moment like this where there is a lot of cynicism, what I see is also a lot of hope from young people.

And also you and I are like on the older side, right, like enough to remember the Democratic Party of the nineties that was willing to sell out black women, that was willing to sell out immigrants, that was willing to sell out the queer community, that was pretty similar on the Republican Party, on foreign pacy, on this similar place on the social safety net, and we've come a very long way.

Like so I like to remind ourselves that we are at a place where the Democratic Party has centered canceling student debt, has centered tackling the climate crisis, has been willing to have hard conversations about race and policing in this country there is a clear distinction, and also supports gay marriage. Like young people organizing and communities of color

organizing have shifted the Democratic Party. So while we're in a moment where there's fascist and authoritarian threats that are very real, there's also something happening in the Democratic Party where the voices that were often pushed to the margins are being centered. And I think that that's an exciting moment that young people also recognize as happening. And also,

you have very exciting, young, dynamic candidates running. Even while the House isn't it feels like some peall, you have young candidates that are an elected office that are helping frame for young people what's possible and make them feel like their voices are now being heard in the halls of Washington. Christina talks to us to about how the ever apparent climate crisis is shaping up the youth vote as well. In the past few years, every fire season,

every hurricane season, every tornado season has been quote unquote historic. Right. We had people over the holiday season frozen to death in their cars because the temperatures dropped in such an abrupt way in Buffalo, New York and it was more like a snow hurricane than a snowstorm that hit that area. We have seen billions of animals die in Australia due to fire. How does climate change play with the young people?

And as we look at that and guns and abortion, police violence, how would you kind of rate you know, these levels of importance for them? You know. So our organization was started ten years ago with the intention of being able to build a political force that would be would be able to push candidates to tackle the climate

crisis to the scale needed. And we originally started organizing all people, but then we quickly realized like within the first year, oh, most people that care about climate change are the people that are going to have to face

its greatest consequences, young people. We need to focus on organizing young people and building up their political power and I'll tell you that ten years ago when we started and I wasn't here, the other people will tell you it's like everyone said it was a waste of money, that it was a waste of time, young people would never turn out. And it's ten years later and we've

had the highest youth voter turnout. We passed the Inflation Reduction Act, which is the largest single climate bill that any country's class passed in the world to tackle the climate crisis. And if all of it gets implemented, we'll be able to cut carbon emissions by forty percent in a very short time period. And so young people the crisis as in their top three issues, and most young people I talked to, you know, we're feeling. People are

feeling the real consequences of the climate crisis. You know, I live in Texas where we had the historic Texas freeze and our Texas singers past out blamed his five year old daughters, you know, his little daughters on that trip, and seven hundred people were estimated to have died died. And you know, if you total up the number of people that are dying from these catastrophes in a year or two years, it's more people than died in nine

to eleven. Right, so these are hand made tagities where thousands of Americans and we're just not I'm talking about the globe, but there's thousands of Americans are paying with their lives. And so you know, there is also the urgency and that's I think why you see young people voting, Like there is a sense of urgency that maybe we could come out of authoritarian rule, but you layer on a climate catastrophe and if we don't take the action necessary,

we have to face the long term actions. It's always bewildering to me on the climate crisis. And this is when we talk about greed in American politics and like who people really work for that it is so clear. I'm like they care so much about power and money

that they don't even care about their legacy. Like we will look back at this end action on the climate crisis in the same way we do on the positions that policy and politicians made in their immorality on slavery, Like there is no position where this is okay to do this to an entire generation of future generations, Like do they not even give a damn about their grandchildren? Yeah?

You know, as we wrap up. Last question for you, Christina, is this, what do you think the biggest myth is about this generation of voters and what do people need to truly know about them. I think what we talked about at the beginning is that people think young people

are apathetic. This really is not just the most politically engaged generation of people voting, but this is a generation that is marching in the streets, that is volunteering, that is really trying to care about big, broad social justice issues and take action on them, whether it's the climate crisis, abortion rights, or criminal justice reform. You see young people taking action at unprecedented levels and a very rapid sharing of ideas across social media about ways we can transform society.

So it's while it's a hard time, it's also a time of rapid experimentation and exchange of ideas that I think is really exciting, and so I feel like that gives me a lot of hope, is to see so many young people engaged and this is not just like a side project to care about social justices, very much about how people see themselves and understand their place in the world. Christina, it has been an absolute pleasure chatting with you today, tell the listeners how they can get

involved and find out more about next GYM. You can go to next gen America dot org. One thing I would say is, you know we run the largest YOUTHO operation in the country. We were on two hundred and forty five college campuses last election in eight states. Our twenty eight thousand volunteers helped us send twenty five million

texts and phone calls to young people. We also even organize our volunteers organized on dating apps because you can see it to buy age, political persuasion, geography, and we say there's nothing sex here than sliding into people's dms and talking about the big deep moody. So I don't do it because it's creepy, because enough over forty, but like everyone, I should do it and join in. And you can volunteer with us from anywhere you are. Let's

build a political force to transform our country together. Amazing. Christina sen Soon Ramirez, thank you so much for making the time to join wokee F appreciate you. Thanks so much. That is it for me today. Dear friends on woke F as always power to the people and to all the people. Power, get woke and stay woke as fun,