Eight Godawful Months

and are outdone. Over the weekend, I did MSNBC with Aimon Mohadeen and I shared the link on Facebook's woka F Nation and on Twitter, and one of the questions that I was asked was, didil do you think that Democrats are going to work on expanding the court? And I, you know, I wanted to laugh, not because I thought that the question was bad, but because do I think that Democrats are going to do anything? Full stop? Should just be the question, and my answer is no, They're

not what we've seen over the past. I don't know. Eight god awful months, right, It's been eight months, folks since the Biden administration came into office. And I got to tell you, I know that I asked this question, you know, earlier in the week, But I really do

not feel better off. And what does that say for a person like myself, whose job is politics, whose job is media, and to be in the no, what does it say that for so many years I have spent countless hours right working on advancing you know, anti discrimination policies, lobbying on the hill, being on radio, being on TV. Because I believe that America can be better than it is.

I believe in the responsibility of each generation to do more to move the boulder of equality up the fucking mountain, right.

But I gotta tell you that the images, the images that we are seeing, whether it is you know, half the state of California under on fire or underwater, whether it's you know, the hurricanes that have gone through Louisiana, Mississippi, whether it is the flooding that happened in Philadelphia and New York and New Jersey, you know, whether it's now what is troubling me so much this goddamn week is the fact that we're not going to get a three

point five billion dollar infrastructure bill. And you know why we're not going to get that three point five billion dollar Structure Bill because Kirsten Cinema and Joe Mansion, the two bullshit Democrats in the Senate, think that the you know, the price tag is too big, right, They didn't seem to think that there was anything wrong with the price tag to give to the Pentagon. They don't seem to think that there's anything wrong with the seven hundred and

twenty billion dollars budget that the Pentagon has. Right. But whenever we're asking, whenever we are demanding that our tax dollars be used to strengthen our social safety nets, to strengthen our own communities, we always receive pushback. I don't know how many more storms and fires, crumbling bridges, subway stations turning into full geysers that we need to see on the news on repeat for us to recognize that

something needs to be done. I don't you know. I read an article over the weekend about childcare workers and how childcare workers who make minimum wage, and depending on what state you are in, that minimum wage could be as high and I use that in air quotes as high as fifteen dollars an hour or as low as seven dollars and twenty five cents an hour and childcare workers are quitting in mass There is a deficit of one hundred and twenty six thousand childcare workers. So what

does that mean for working families, working parents. It means that you are going to struggle to be able to find childcare for your children, which is going to prevent who from having to leave the workforce in order to be able to rear your children at home. Women. Everything always falls back on the backs and the shoulders of women. And what economists are saying about this shortage of childcare workers is that let this be a first of red flags and sirens about how unstable our economy is about

to be. Because again, if people don't have childcare work right, they don't have childcare workers. That means that families will have to leave the workforce, which means that then they are not contributing to our economy in the ways that need to be contributed to. These people childcare workers are leaving in mass Why because the pay sucks and they're going to get jobs as bank tellers or assistants or anywhere frankly that's going to pay them a living goddamn wage.

Staying on this tip, listen to this, I guess the happiest place on Earth. Actually isn't the happiest fucking place on earth looking at you, Disneyland. So evidently twenty five thousand Disneyland employees are suing right in a class action lawsuit because they don't have living wages. Listen to this report that was done by Occidental and let me tell you something I gotta tell you, but done by Occidental College. So this is a survey of five thousand what Disneyland

refers to their workers as cast members. I guess that makes you feel great that you can't afford to pay any of your bills if you are called the cast members opposed to a worker or a staff or whatever the fuck. But listen to this. So in this report, in this study called Working for the Mouse, a study by Occidental College and the Economic Roundtable published back in February twenty eighteen, found that eleven percent of Disneyland employees

reported experiencing homelessness. Can you imagine working for a multi billion dollar company? I want you to understand what the fuck Disney owns? Like everything? Right, They own networks, they

own amusement parks, they own media platforms. You have Disney plus, you have all of these things that Disney owns, and eleven percent of the people that are working at Disneyland, according to this Occidental College report from twenty eighteen, and mind you, twenty twenty fucked us all right, So numbers did not look better in twenty twenty. They actually looked worse. So eleven percent of employees. This means people that are

working were homeless. Okay, sixty eight percent of the five thousand people that were studied were food insecure, meaning that they did not know where their next meals were coming from, and seventy three percent said that they do not earn

enough for basic living expenses. Folks, how can we justify multibillion dollar corporations who who have made their riches on the backs of their lowest paid workers, and justify the fact that you are working forty hours a week and that is not enough to put food on the table for three meals a day. It is not enough to

pay all of your bills. At the same time, it is not enough for you to have a roof over your head, and you So here's the myth that Republicans always like to push, right, is that, like, we don't need to raise the minimum wage because it's just kids that have these jobs. No, the fuck, it's not right. It is actually adults, adults with families, right, who cannot afford to live. They can't afford to live. How do

you tell people to work forty hours a week? And the assumption that Republicans make is that, oh, those that are on minimum wage are lazy? Are you fucking kidding me? These people are busting their asses in jobs and in places that those members of Congress would never even step fucking foot in. Right. I remember back in the day that Senator Corey Booker had set up a challenge, and I think that he might have been the only member of the Senate that took it up, but he decided

for a month to try and live on minimum wage. Right. So Corey Booker took up this challenge so that he could understand exactly what he was fighting for and why these policy changes needed to be made so that people

could have a living wage. Right? What does it mean to have a living wage that you can pay rent, pay for groceries, pay your utilities, right, and still maybe just maybe have a little bit left over so that I don't know, you could see a movie, you could do something because you see, Republicans also believe right that you are undeserving. So we don't want to give you welfare, We don't want to give you any help or assistance whatsoever,

because you know that discourages work. So when Corey Booker did this experiment, right, and he offered it up to other members, but of course they didn't take him up on that, with their six figures that they make out a taxpayer dollars, not to mention the millions that they make with their fucking insider trading and all of the other hot shit that they do on a regular basis that they mind. You don't get caught for, right, like

nobody says anything about it. They get tips and they decide what they're going to invest in and what they're not and what they're going to pull their money out of. But that's all considered okay and above fucking board, because

those are white collar crimes for white people. Nonetheless, when I'm looking at this horrible situation in Disneyland where workers have been there for some fifteen years, right making Hennis and in one circumstance, this gentleman who I this is a story from the San Francisco dot Com But this man. I have to tell you, I was reading this story and I always have to stop myself because oftentimes I have to check my own privilege, which I think is

really important to do. Because the person that is interviewed in here has been working for Disneyland for fifteen years, and according to the article let Me read Saraceno has worked at Disneyland Hotel for fifteen years as a valet, parking cars and assisting guests with their luggage. For all of those fifteen years, he's earned minimum wage from Disney and supplemented his income with tips, but a recent decision from leadership that prevents valets from handling luggage has cut

substantially into his earnings. He's now one of the twenty five thousand cast members as Disneyland calls its employees who are participating in a class action lawsuit against Disneyland that alleges the company is legally obligated to pay a living wage. He says this, I couldn't make it on minimum wage, which is how much they pay me. If they are going to make changes where I have less opportunity for tips,

then that's half my income is gone. I hope to some day buy a house that extra money, I should be able to invest in my community and my children have an edge. He considers himself fortunate that his wife and two children are getting by in affordable housing, but not every cast member at Disneyland can claim the same. So here's where I have to check my privilege, because when I initially read the article, I said, how could

anybody work anywhere for fifteen years for minimum wage? How do you not go after getting a certificate or a degree or something that is going to move you out of this kind of cyclical poverty? And then I was checked and it was just like, well, how can you even entertain other ideas of how to move up, of how to expand when your basic needs are not met,

when you are living paycheck to paycheck? You see, dreaming right and innovating and creating and having the time in the bandwidth to do so is in fact a privilege. It's a privilege for middle income folks like myself. It's a privilege for those that are clearly upper middle class and upper class right to have that kind of luxury dream time, right to be able to think to yourself,

what is next, what their opportunities? Can I go after right, but that those are things that you can do when your basic needs are met, when you know where your next meal is coming from, when you have clothing right that doesn't have holes in it. Right that you have like a transportation or the access to transportation to get to work, right, that your rent is paid, that your utilities are paid, right, that your kids are taken care of,

that you have healthcare. You see, when you start to check all of those boxes, that then provides you with a certain level of privilege. And regardless of whether or not you look at me and you say, well, I'm black, and I'm queer, and I'm a woman. So there are a lot of things that are against me. Sure, But economically, I have never known what it's like to have to

juggle between paying one bill and not paying another. I've never had to wonder about where I was going to sleep or if I was going to be able to pay rent, right, I have never had that challenge. And so when thinking about this gentleman and him having been in this company for fifteen years making seven dollars in twenty five cents an hour, where they have raised the minimum wage right in parts of Californy, in California to

fourteen dollars. What you think about that? Folks think about how much right because of COVID, how much the cost of things has increased. Right? The other day, I was home on Long Island with my family, and because I don't have a car, I don't ever pay attention to gas prices, and I'm driving around in my mother's car, and I'm like passing gas stations and I look up and I'm like, holy shit, gas is three nineteen. That

seems really fucking expensive. Right, But again, these are things that I don't have to think about, And so I offer that tidbit to say that when you read or you see news reports about people who are low income and about the struggles that they have, I really want us, right, those of us who live not paycheck to paycheck, Those of us who have some means, even if it's not a lot, but have more right than folks that are making minimum wage, think about what it's like to live

in their shoes. Think about what it's like to wonder and pray that no one in your family falls ill because you don't have any fucking healthcare, and that could very well send you literally into the poorhouse. Disneyland, and the company Disney makes so much fucking money that it is disgraceful the twenty five thousand of their employees have to put together a class action lawsuit just to get a living god damn wage. What is wrong with this country? Right?

And what I keep saying is that, you know, capitalism is really some fuck shit. And I say that because I recognize that a lot of our problems, right if we just follow the money or follow who has the money, we realize that capitalism causes more problems than itselves. Right that when you know we were in if you can remember back to the Democratic primary, and you had folks talking about a basic you know, basic income, right, universal

basic income which many countries have, which provides your basic needs. Again, I've said this before. What would happen if your basic needs were met? If every America we're receiving right that had a certain you know, I'm not talking about the

bezos and you know those that are in the one percent. No, I'm talking about what if every American who needed, right, middle class and down, received twenty five hundred dollars a month, right just to cover basic things, right, your utilities, groceries, whatever,

you could spend it. However, right we're looking at what you know, close to thirty thousand dollars a year, and that would be what the federal government would pay, so that at the bare minimum, people are not housing insecure, they're not food insecure, and maybe they can pursue degrees and certificates that will allow them to make more money, but we also know that that's a lie as well.

How many fucking people right now are saddled with six figure student loan debt, many of which didn't even complete their degrees and are in debt because they had to drop out because they couldn't fucking afford the school. That is a lot of black and brown people right who midway through are like, yo, I can't afford this, and I can't afford the payback, and then you get looped into low paying jobs just so that you can pay

the minimum of your student loan debt back. This cycle is so vicious and it's so strategic because it is purposeful. For capitalism to work, you have got to have people that are consistently on the bottom, so there's no incentive

to change anything. And it's the greed of the one percent that is driving all of this with court from both fucking parties, Because the only difference I see when we talk about capitalism, when we talk about investment, frankly, between the Republicans and Democrats, is the slogans that they use. Democrats want to say, oh, let's tax the rich and

let's offer this, that and the other thing. Knowing good, goddamn well, they don't have the numbers to even be able to bring up something like that for a vote because too many of them are receiving funds from the fucking rich. So are you gonna cut off your nose to spite your face? Are you going to bite the hand that feeds you? No, you're not. But you see, we set this up, and by we I mean the

United States Supreme Court set this up. You see, when they allowed for companies and corporations to act as people and give as much money and flood as much money into election, they turn politicians into two bit hookers, right, doing a trick for whoever is going to put money into their pockets. So if that means, oh, I'm going to talk out of both sides of my mouth, oh yeah, tax the rich, but the riches, what is affording me

my lifestyle? As a senator or as a member of Congress, then I'm gonna go easy on them, because God forbid, these fucking people pay their fair share. And that's again another line of rhetoric that we hear, oh, folks need to pay their fair share? Really do they? Clearly they don't because they never have and they never will because that's how the system is set up. If you can afford the lawyers and the tax people to maneuver around

all of these loopholes, then you are golden. But for the rest of us, you're pretty much fucked because you don't even know the rules of the game that you're being forced to play that shift depending on the year, depending on who's in office. You have no idea because once you start to get a hold of things, they come in flip the fucking table over like Tiffany Guidise

in The Real Housewives, and you're over. You're done. Starting back from zero, I gotta tell you you know this story, among so many other stories about how our economy is

essentially collapsing. A couple of weeks ago, I reported on the fact that eleven and a half million people have left the workforce, right that finally we are setting up in a way where you have some companies like the Amazons of the world, which we talk about, who have mass production quotas that they need to set up so much so that people aren't allowed to go to the bathroom. They are now having to compete for workers because people are quitting in mass because why the fuck am I

doing this? So hopefully we are moving towards a place where workers right get to be the ones that are in charge and get to dictate the terms of how they work. But to me, that's like a pipe dream because it's always those that can write the checks that are going to be the ones that are in power, and it makes me fucking sick. I will leave you

with this, folks. Times are getting tougher. The days are going to start to get shorter because we're headed into the fall and winter months, and I think that depression and anxiety are going to continue to be at an all time high. You must make your mental health, your emotional well being, your physical wellbeing a priority because as things get darker and harder, you're going to need to dig deeper in order to keep yourself buoyed above the toxicity,

above the fray. So please do stay well, and be well. That's it for today's Woke AF Daily Podcast. To hear more from me, including five full hour long shows every single week, exclusive guest interviews, and more, support me on Patreon at patreon dot com slash woke AF. Power to the people and to all the people power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.