Fourth of Their Lie

the week for my solo episode, but I will tell you as we kick off this week that I, like many Americans, like many Americans that are people of color, that are queer, that are from marginalized communities, have a complicated feeling when it comes to celebrating the fourth of

July or acknowledging the fourth of July. I think that in a lot of ways, America likes to have it both ways right where we want to celebrate our founding fathers and breaking away from the oppression of British rule and not wanting to pay taxes and wanting to be religious zealous and coming to this new land and creating a never before seen democratic government at the same time, right at the same time, the founders of this nation

came to occupied land, murdered, raped, and tortured the indigenous population that welcomed them, try to enslave them, but they knew too much about the land, so they would later develop the Transatlantic slave trade to bring in enslaved people

in shackles who would then build their dream. And so when I think about the truth, right, which is what we've been denied throughout our K through twelve education system, and only if you went to a liberal arts college would you then maybe have gotten some glimmers of the truth right for your credit that you needed to graduate. You might have taken a more in depth history of

the United States. But other than that, you're pretty much walking around with your head filled of fairy tales and whitewashing of who the founding fathers were, how this nation came to be, and on whose backs that happened. And I would love to say, well, it doesn't really matter

how it all started, It matters how it ends. You know that old adage, Well that's not actually the truth, because we continue in this country to elect politicians that create policies that have steeped in the vestitudes of slavery and Jim Crow, of racism and discrimination that we have never actually dealt with. So when we get to this day, this week of celebration for millions of Americans in this country, the questions that we need to ask I pose to

my guests this week. They are important questions that are worth unpacking, and not just this week during America's quote unquote independence, but really every day as we forge a path in an increasingly authoritarian, fascist environment where we are fighting to hold on to the idea of democracy. But if we're really honest with ourselves, democracy has only been

experienced by the white few. So coming up next, I'm very excited to welcome back to wok F Daily my friend the Reverend markin Thompson, who is the host of Make It Plain, to get into a conversation about how he thinks about this holiday as somebody that has spent their career fighting for civil rights and justice and has been shoulder to shoulder with some of the many greats that you know. I hope that you enjoyed this conversation

between Mark and I, Folks. I am excited to welcome back to wok F daily after a very long time, too long in my humble opinion, the Reverend Mark Thompson, host of Make It Plain, Mark, it is fourth of July week, the week that America, or better yet, I should say, white Americans celebrate the independence of America from British rule. And I don't know about you, but I have had a very complicated relationship with the fourth of July.

And you know, while on this show, we had a really in depth conversation around the Juneteenth holiday, which I also have issue with the federal government of the United States making June tenth the holiday, but yet banning curriculum that would talk about said holiday. So I just want to open up with how are you feeling and how do you feel about the fourth of July as a whole?

them for two hours. Feel free off of that to friends and family like no, why.

I think it's important. What's interesting is people are always learning, and as often as I've done it, people are still surprised by what they hear, and it's like a renewal. So just as much as holidays and annual events are for celebrations, they're also reminders, really benchmarks for what we're dealing with and what's going on. Not a soul marched in twenty twenty for a Juneteenth holiday, not one single soul. Yep. Somewhere along the way, a deal was cut to I

guess play. I guess they thought they would play everyone by offering this holiday. But I don't think that's the fact. I mean, it's nice, we'll take it, but that ain't what we want. We still do not have freedom, liberty and justice in this country, and and right now it's is if we're up against another group of people who happen to be white nationalists who feel the same way, which is absurd. It's absurd, and that's problematic because what that says is that their demands somehow have weight or

significance enough to overshadow ours, and they shouldn't. They do have free they Donald Trump was president, nobody that did not not happen. But have we seen as African Americans? Is June teenth really our freedom day? No? Because we're even There's a story came out the other day. I got to find this into I might find before we hang up, because I want to quote it. Do people know that even after June nineteenth in Dalveston, Texas, even beyond that, there were folks still enslaved in up here

on the east coast in New Jersey, Okay. So the announcement, the belated announcement, did not change the conditions of what we're dealing with, and they still haven't changed, because the vestiges of enslavement still exist, particularly with police violence. We just celebrated the one year anniversary of Jalen Walker's ascension, shot forty six times by the Akron police. Ninety bullets they shot six point seven seconds. Not a single officer charged or disciplined. We just asked the DOJ to get

involved in that case. We saw our sister down in Florida who was shot by a neighbor, ye under that so called castle doctrine, and we are still subject to lynchings. We still have mass incarceration, We still have issues with employment, I mean unemployments. Employment's gotten better, but it's not where it ought to be. Where is the access to capital

for our own businesses? Where is the access to resources for us to have owned homes in a middle class country that where wealth is built upon property ownership, We still don't have that. We still are not free, and firmative action under threat, voting rights still under threat, So no, we ain't free. What to us is the fourth of their lives.

the Republican cult, who follow Magadam and Donald Trump. This is what he has them believe they are the aggrieved. Their lie, it's woe is me. And so when we are back in this space where it's like they scream white power and then they're like these fragile snowflakes that can't walk past let's say, a rainbow display and target without destroying it. They are these people that are screaming about their power. But then like, can't you know, can't

imagine Juneteenth as a national holiday. So I'm like, how do we rectify their lie? As you're saying, because I mean, you've been doing this work a long time, and I got to say, Mark, I feel like we are on a backslide of all backslides. It's not just our democracy that's backsliding. It's the acceptance, it's the appreciation, it is all of the incremental gains that I feel like the black community has had, that queer community has had are all being clawed back. And so I'm like, how do

we rectify this lie? Do we just continue combating it or is there something else that we are missing?

don't even know how. So you're going to take that back, edited out the thing, y'all check it out, take that out that whole long time. STI let's be clear too, it is not that complicated. The reason white women you described and other people make these statements, Danielle is because social media allows it and encourages it. As we talked about before, the algorithm promotes conflict and foolishness. But think back before you had that, people didn't make those caps.

So this she goes viral and everybody's talking about it. We had one president out of forty five forty six presidents, all right, and several of those presidents raped enslaved black women and had children by them. One such president may unconfirmed, even being an ancestor of mine. We're trying to find that out. So my family name, my grandmother's family name is is Poke. For some reason, all right. So the point is that people can say all that stuff, but

it's not real. And yes, we are getting pushed back in every way when it comes to anything we think we have gained, yes, and it's so bad. What's left from the first black president? What do we have to show for it? Other than the Affordable Healthcare Act? But other than that, again, affirmative action has been under threat. You know, we have to brace ourselves every time something goes to the Supreme Court. Women's bodily autonomy, that's not

a white woman's issue. The roots of women's loss of bodily autonomy was during the period of enslavement, and that's where it was codified and ratified. Some African Americans legal scholars have even said the thirteenth Amendment is the argument to have women's bodily autonomy restored. There is nothing that has happened here in this country. There has been no

benefit that white America has gained. There has been no success that white America has achieved and enjoyed that was not upon the backs of our enslaved ancestors and beyond, because even after you get out of the period of enslavement, and I just want to I got this thing. I found this article. Apparently New Jersey. It was December eighteen

sixty five where they were still enslave. And it wasn't until January twenty third, eighteen sixty six that the Governor of New Jersey signed the constitutional amendment to enslaver in the state of New Jersey. So let's be clear by this. So we need another holiday January twenty third, That's what I'm saying. The holidays alone, don't get it. They're symbolic,

But Juneteenth wasn't the end, all right. Having said that, knowing what we know and knowing how often our rights are subject to review or as Chief Justice robbers would it started when they first goutted the Voting Rights Act sunset, there's still much more to be done, and we can't stop, y'all. We this Fourth of July holiday must be used as a way to organize and galvanize really every day of the year. We have a sacred obligation to do segregation.

Jim Crow White folks benefited from that. Our inability to even be in the process that built the middle class, homesteading gi Bill, all of those things, Our inability to be there to reap those benefits from those programs is what lifted the white middle class up. Now, what Bishop Barber would say is that in rebuilding Doctor King's Poor People's Campaign, which is very important, we have to deal with poverty and the majority of white of people in

America who are in poverty are white. The middle class is no longer real middle class. It is a working class, a working poor. Most of us live in paycheck to paycheck. So what's up with that? America is a mess because not only are the provisions that built the original middle class, not only are they obsolete now and need to be reinvented or renewed or resurrected. We as African Americans never were in that mix, so we were never caught up. Right.

So white folks are behind financially economically, we're two or three times behind them. And that's why America cannot get past the place that it's in these cultural, ideological exclusivity and racist debates. All right now. Our America's industry's greatest commodity. I was talking to somebody that I've guess what, y'all, I'm doing some international stuff. You know, I got to expand it's not the UN talking to people people said me,

how come we have high speed trains? And y'all know, I said, ignorant and trifling because this country is not trying to do that. What would that do for the folks need jobs? White folks need jobs?

of that is a myth. This is about holding on, in James Baldwin's words, to the last white country the world will ever see.

what our excella first class looks like. But that's just like their baseline for their high speed trains that go

all over the country. Right. And I'm sitting here and I said, howly is it that these people, these countries even look at the United States and say that we're quote unquote power and a force, Because all you have to do is take a plane, ride over here, walk around, go into our subway stations, take a bus, take a bridge, and you're like, we're hanging on to nineteenth century beginning of the twentieth century infrastructure, right, but saying that we

are a world power. And I'm just like, I purposefully believe Mark that the reason why we don't move forward with real aggressive buildout is because what why Americans want in this country is a permanent underclass, right, Because that's how capitalism, that's how white supremacy will continue to move is if there is a permanent underclass, people that are under educated or not educated at all, people that are

desperate and going on paycheck to paycheck. Right, you can't imagine and be living in and thinking about futurism if you can barely like afford what is in front of you.

people confused and subjugated. We invite people. Also another important speech for people to listen to you, not just Frederick Douglas, but what doctor King said at the end to the march from some of Montgomery and the need for this underclass and the need to keep the black and white underclass fighting yep with each other, yep. And that is what is still going on. And America is even more of a mess now because look, you got a president

with over thirty counts, thirty felon accounts, yep, for committing espionage. Now, nowhere in the history world has anyone ever been acquitted when they've been charge of espionage. And nowhere in the history world has someone not gone to jail. Correct I liken this too. See we're still in America under the

throes of racism and white supremacy. So what happened during segregation, well, no, we can go back before that y'all saw django, right, and Samuel Jackson, who should have won an Oscar for playing the quintessential Uncle Tom playing Clarence Thomas and movie What did he say when when jang on them showed up and they go, well, where's he gonna sleep? Sleep in bed? Who's gonna burn the sheets? Right? That's what

he asked on the porch. That really happened. Lena Horne used to tell stories when she would perform at venues and stay at fancy hotels, they had to burn the sheets after she left. So when people talk about the first black president, y'all got us back for that. You didn't burn the sheets in the White House. Maybe you did, but you're burning down the country. Come on, the country is soiled. The country is a metaphor for the sheets they used to burn during segregation when we slept in

the sheets. So you're gonna burn down the whole country. We now know that that Trump didn't just boycott the inauguration, the traditional ride alongside the incoming president with the outgoing president. He laid back in the cut at the White House to pack boxes yep, to take tomorrow lago with him. Now, what do you do with classified documents? Anybody else, any one of us eat white folks. LL y'all, let's take some with us. What we're gonna take. Just take some china,

some silverware, or some paintings. I mean, that's nice. We put that in the house, or sell it hot whatever. Nobody takes classified documents. I can't find a white person who takes classified doctcause what do you do with them? What do you do with classified documents? Nobody will see that, Hey, Danne, what you're doing for the fourth House? Of these classified documents? No, you can't sell them unless you are in the professional espionage industry. You don't know anybody. I don't know anybody.

Just ask anybody listening, do you want does anybody know anybody who would know who to sell classified documents? To know all the people in that industry. Know you have other countries that potentially have had our allies, your US allies, not our allies. But because ain't mine us allies who potentially have had operatives lives in danger or taken out yep, because of what Trump stole. YEP. The grand the jury on this case is going to probably have to go

into a skiff. That's how deep this is yep. That has not happened with another president before them, another president's hanky panky, like Richard Nixon. He stopped the Vietnam Peace Accords, all right to hurt Lynd Johnson because he thought it was gonna run against him in sixty eight. But that's burning the country down, that is destroying it. Trump is willing to destroy the country over this debate, and this

could be the first time. They say it might even have to result in Biden pardoning Trump because you just can't have a president go to prison over the espionageac well, why not. But if you allow that to happen, if you allow him to be excused, then you're burning the country down. So this is really where we are, yep. And it's a very very dangerous place us to be. And don't think for one minute other countries aren't looking around the world saying what is happening. People worried about a coup.

and people need to wake up. The hope for America lies once again, the salvation of America lies in continuing what doctor King was doing. When they took him out. They took him out for doing it. But we need to get back to that.

change it, and that is the absolute truth. My friend. Thank you so much for making the time for WOKF. I always appreciate you.