Glorifying Cruelty

over and over again. And this is one of those weeks where even after posting two specifically posting on Twitter four black people and saying two black people, you know what, you don't need to follow these trials. You don't need to follow the McDaniels trial of the three men that murdered Ahmad Aubrey. You don't need to follow the Rittenhouse trial knowing that Judge Schrober has clearly showed his hand from the very beginning and that this motherfucker is going

to get off right. And you have Representative Matt Gates who is being investigated for pedophilia for his relationships with underage girls and possibly with sex traffickers saying announcing and the Washington Post covering that he would offer Kyle Rittenhouse

a very coveted internship on Capitol Hill. How is it that the Republican Party, in just four short years has turned into a party that praises insurrectionists, applaud sexual predators, honors white supremacists, and welcomes all of these horrendous people into their party. This week, you saw Speaker Pelosi, with no support from Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, censor vote to censure Paul Gosser, Right, And why was Paul Gosser censored

and lost his power on his committee seats? Why did that happen because him and his staff thought that it was a great idea to create a video that showed the murder of one of his Democratic colleagues. That this is the climate that we are living in now, folks, where it is totally acceptable or Republicans believe that it is acceptable for them to glorify cruelty and murder of

people who ideologically opposed them. And let's be clear, I actually have no idea what the fuck outside of white supremacy, the ideology is of the Republican Party because, frankly, as I've stated time and time again, they offer nothing, right, They offer no policies. Right, they wanted to allow Democrats to go back and forth over the price tag of the infrastructure bill, but it's not as if they were countering the infrastructure bill with a bill of their own.

As a matter of fact, the entire time that I can think about the Trump administration, right in all of the things that McConnell was allowing to happen, I think to myself, what policies do you actually remember from the Trump administration other than you know, the bands on certain Muslim nations from coming into the country, other than the child separation policy where they couldn't even bother to create a fucking Excel spreadsheet so that we knew how to

put these families back together again. Right, when you think about four years under Donald Trump and the four years under Republican leadership, what do you remember that they did for the American people? Nothing? And so as I'm watching this week, just this week is just a such a snapshot into who America has devolved into. And I say devolved because folks, it wasn't too long ago, right, It

feels like a distant, fading dream the Obama administration. It wasn't so long ago, right, And I think about it now, and I think about the lightness that I felt the joy of listening to Barack Obama eloquently speak about unity, eloquently speak about who we wanted to be as a nation and who we believed ourselves to be because overcoming centuries of ingrained white supremacy and racism, we turned around and voted for a brilliant black man, not once, but twice,

voted to have a black first family in the White House, a house that was built by slaves, in a city that was built by enslaved Africans. And so we thought to ourselves, now, these many moons ago, that we had arrived at what Rachel Maddow would famously call our post

racial moment. You remember Chris Matthews talking about the tingle coming up his leg, because we all wanted right, and particularly white Americans wanted to be able to pat themselves on the back for how far they have come from the judgery of Jim Crow and pre reconstruction, that they could pat themselves on the back and say, see, we're

not racist. Because Obama and the Obama family was our black best friend, right, But we knew, as people of color, people from marginalized communities, people with awareness about the patterns in this country, that for every bit of progress that we have ever made, there has always been a consistent

and a dominant white lash that follows reconstruction. Following the Civil War, where this country was torn apart right because of a desire to end a cruel and inhumane practice, right, the practice the economic builder of slavery, and because of that, the South rose up with God with guns, armed to the nine's, armed to the ten's, armed to the skies to take their country. Sound familiar to you that as soon as enslaved Africans were given their freedom, that then

we would end reconstruction. After twelve years, we would assuage the South with giving them the ability to create Jim Crow laws that then would turn around, would turn around right, and last for another hundred years. So you came off of hundreds of years of slavery to then have this moment of reconstruction where more black people were elected to government than ever before, to have this brief period only to follow another hundred years of white supremacy and domestic terrorism.

So if you look just at that moment in America's history, and then look and every other steps that we've taken thereof following, every bit of progress in this country follows white rage. And this is why I said this week on my other show, Democracy Ish, that we need to interrogate the patterns of white rage in this country. And I don't mean in a way to create empathy. Oh, I understand why you're so violent and why you're so cruel,

and why you are a domestic terrorist. No, no, but to understand and dissect it as a way to stop

it from happening. You see, white Americans in this country have been able to get behind this theory that it is black and brown people that are to be feared, That it is black and brown people that are the violent ones, right that need to be caged and need to be put down, as the McDaniels did with Ahmad Aubrey, as George Zimmerman did with Trayvon Martin, as those cops did with tam Or Rice, as Derek Chauvin did with George Floyd, right, and the list goes on and on

and on. Because we have been the story around black and brown people in this country has been a story of aggression, right of animalistic behavior, of thuggery, right of criminality, and so of course the thoughts then about who black people are and who this community is would then design the policies that have created the racial wealth gap, that have created the climate gap, that have created the educational gap right and the moral gap that this country is

facing on a regular basis. There's a reason why many of us who pay attention know where these cases go. Of armed white men who feel their power and their ability to either have a citizens arrest right or whatever bullshit it was that they are using as their defense right now in the McDaniel's case, or whether it is to sling on in a R fifteen and decide to drive outside of your state, cross state lines right with a loaded weapon and insert yourself into what is our

first amendment right to peacefully protests and assemble. Every time that these protests, which rightfully so, become filled with anger, it's oh, let's call the National Guard, because God knows what black people will do. Meanwhile, these motherfuckers burned down, burn down areas of this country where flourishing black businesses were right, burned down homes, put burning crosses, bomb churches. But we're the ones that are the criminals. We're the

ones that are violent. If you even understand a smidgeon of America's dark history, you know that it is a history that is built on violence, on white violence. Because I don't know what groups of black people are, Latins people are, Asian Pacific islanders. I don't know what groups what communities were bombing white churches. I don't know what

communities were burning down white towns. But yet the press, right from Tulsa, Oklahoma till now, we'll create these headlines that talk about a race war, that talk about these moths right when in fact, you have these armed insurrectionists against people who just want to be able to, you know, go to the fucking store at any time of day, and know that their lives aren't going to be threatened, and if they are, they know that justice and the law is going to be on their side. We are

asking for the bare minimum. And I remember the young activists who said white folks are lucky that we're looking for equality and not fucking revenge. And I think about that statement every single goddamn day, particularly this week, as we are watching the culminations of these trials. And as I said, on democracy is it is not these white people that are on trial. It is America that is

on trial. We always want to say to ourselves, this is not who we are, but it is exactly who we are and who this country has always been one that looks to marginalize and oppress people that they don't like. Just this week, let me, let me, let me just bring up this, just say we can understand where these

radical right wing racists are. Senator John Kennedy at the hearing for Saul Amaroba, who is Biden's choice for Controller, I just in the car in her hearing, in the confirmation hearing, this old white racist son of a bitch looked at this Asian American woman and said to her, with cameras rolling, I don't know whether to call you professor or comrade, essentially signaling the fact that because she was born in a communist country, right as if she

had control over her birth, which she would then say, because her response to him has since gone viral, I cannot control where I was born, Senator, she said, but I can tell you that my family suffered under the Stalin regime. I can tell you that my family has suffered and the scars of which we still work through today.

But the fact that Kennedy felt like he was well within his right to usher in this new Vaux McCarthyism right where we created an entire committee in the late nineteen forties and nineteen fifties in the US House of Representatives to investigate those that you believe did not have full allegiance to the United States. And I've said this before that this whole crt, this whole cancel culture is new,

the right's new red scare. And what Kennedy offered in that flippant and just outright fucking racist statement that he made is that we've made no progress that as a matter of fact, this party, this political party, is in full fucking regression, and they're unapologetic about it. You have Paul Gosser, as I mentioned earlier, is now censured, not because Republicans overwhelmingly voted for the fact that you shouldn't be able to threaten murder against your fucking colleague because

you don't like what they say. Right, two Republicans voted to censure Gossar. Can you imagine that? Can you imagine how fucking vile these people have become that they literally

refuse to see right or wrong. That honestly, if they had their way, the Marjorie Taylor Greens, the Lauren Boberts of the world would come in and just mow them all down with their aar fifteens and their nine millimeters, because that's what they think about their democratic colleagues, That they don't deserve to live, that they don't deserve to exist.

That Kennedy would look at a woman who is just as fucking American as he is, but isn't white, isn't mail, and I have the audacity to say to her, should I call you professor or comrade? Well, should I call you the fucking grand Wizard? Or should I call you senator? Would have been my fucking response. This is why I'm not in it anybody's administration or working on anybody's Capitol Hill anymore, because you see what pisces me off the most is that I used to really believe in government.

I can tell you stories right of working on Capitol Hill until the middle of the night, working on legislation because I believe that I was working for the American people, and I was filled with such passion and inspired by walking through the halls of history that I wanted to dedicate my life to it. These people, this insurrectionist party, the election of an outward racist, misogynist pig has reshaped

my image of who and what America is now. I was never under the illusion that America was anybody's greatest nation, that it was anybody's perfect place. But like I said earlier this week, what separated at one time, at one time separated America from other places was that we actively tried to perfect our union, that with each generation that we try and be better. And there are not a lot of countries that you can look at and say

that about. But nowadays it everything that we once thought about this country about it being filled with possibility, Like why do people risk their lives to come here. Why do people like my family leave their homeland of Jamaica travel to a country that they do not know to plant seeds, to become citizens, to build a better life. It's because of the possibility that America offers. That's what made especial, because there are countries where there is no

real possibility. But what we what I'm understanding about this country is our unformal cast system. Right, we don't have a normal cast system like say in India does, or say parts of China does. No. We love the story of the down trodden, you know, rural Southerner who makes something out of nothing, pulls themselves up from their bootstrap

and becomes you know, a gazillionaire. We love that story in America, even though we refuse to discuss the policies right that disallow so many from being able to really

fully access the American dream. There'll be a conversation that I'll have a little later in the show for just a few minutes with the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, who's rejoining US Secretary Marsha Fudge, who talks about why this infrastructure bill is so historic, who talks about marginalized families and communities like ours who have been drinking water from lead pipes, lead pipes that she will talk about and say that you cannot reverse the damage that is

done to children who will develop developmental issues right, who will never be able to have potentially really crippling disabilities and never be able to overcome them, not because they were born that way, but because of the fact that we have allowed them to. We allow people to live in a country live in America and not be able to turn on the fucking faucet and get clean water.

That we allow communities of color and poor people to live near super fun sites where they develop cancer, asthma, and other debilitating health ailments, all because what they're poor or they're people of color. That's the reality of this country. But we love to create this myth of individualism where in reality, no one gets anywhere on their own. That the person that you're talking about, that you you know, look at Donald Trump and look what he has done,

and he's a savvy businessman. The bitch got a million dollars from his daddy, and every single business that fucking failed, daddy bailed him out. Everybody doesn't have that doesn't have a father that's sitting on hundreds of millions of dollars to pour into your bullshit ideas. But those are the people that are creating policies for the rest of us.

Those that were born with silver spoons, those that were able to walk into banks and because of the color of their skin or where their houses were located, we're able to get loans, no questions asked, while the rest of us have to model perfection and hope and pray that we get those same benefits, knowing good God damn well that we won't. There are stories every single day about homes that are evaluated at hundreds of thousands of dollars less because a person that owns the home is

black or Latino. So you know, when you are inundated with these stories on a regular basis, when you have these trials that you are following, it is really easy to become so overwhelmed with grief. And that's how I have felt this week. It has taken me a lot to turn on the news, even just for a few minutes, because I'm like, I just don't I don't want to hear the clips. I didn't want to hear Kennedy saying

should I call you professor or comrade? I didn't want to hear Kevin mc hearthy lying about the fact that the only member of the Republican Party that was ever censured was Liz Cheney, and that was because she refused to go along with the lie that Donald Trump won the election, and that in his response that he wants to bring up things that Maxine Waters has said, what calling you all a bunch of fucking liars? Because you are. I don't remember Maxine Waters ever threatening to murder a Republican.

I don't remember her ever using a Republican's face on her website with the crosshairs on it, like too many fucking members of Congress on the Republican side do, and with no goddamn consequence. So what's no wonder why we're in this place with the McDaniels and the written houses of the world and the mcclusky's, one of which is running for fucking Congress after a Senate excuse me, after

brandishing a weapon against peaceful protesters. Then they got a prime plum spot at the RNC to spread their lies about how black people are invading the suburbs and crime is coming. I'm still waiting on the fucking caravan that they told us was coming like five years ago. Has it reached yet. It's all so disheartening and overwhelming. It's hard to continue to believe in a country that just

shows its ass every single fucking day. We can't even agree right on some of the most atrocious acts in this country, slavery and how the slave trade, the brutalization, the humanization of enslaved Africans, built this entire country and built Europe. Right, we can't even agree on that with the advent of the sixteen nineteen project. They want to

disparage that, they want to ban it. They're looking to ban books all over this country again, because you know, what the reality is is that education is power, and the more educated people become about the truth, the ways in which we develop our critical thinking skills and start asking the right questions and recognizing, like what is at the core of all of this greed and power? We are supposedly functioning in a democracy, right and yet one of the parties, one of the two parties, is trying

to overthrow the government. Steve benn and let's just talk about our injustice system right now. Steve Bennon didn't even have to show up for court for his second court day. He phoned it in. What black person did you know that is indicted? Right, that is arrested? He's fucking being like, yeah, so I'm not going to show up today, as if

they have a choice. You know, somebody had tweeted talking about Kyle Rittenhouse seventeen years old, being hailed as some type of fucking hero by the radical right murder for murder right, and these same people turned an unarmed black boy who was in fact murdered into the assailant, into the criminal, into the thug in tray Von Martin, this is who the fuck America is. And so when you take all of these things, when you weigh them in your hands, you're like, you just want to throw it

all out. I honestly don't know if there is any real repair to be made here. How do you repair something that's irrevocably broken. How do you repair something when you're being gas lit every day and being told that you're the one that's the problem for raising the issue of their being a problem that we should all just walk around with our heads down right and our mouth shut and pretend that this is the greatest nation in

the world. It is not. And you see, the reality is is that once you understand that to be true, then you can actually do the hard work of figuring out what would make it good, what would make it better for those that are at their breaking point, at their wits end. I tell you this all the time. Some days, I don't know how people of color do it. I don't know how we don't run out of our homes just fucking screaming every single day that we don't

just pop off on every fucking personally. See, but you see, that kind of anger is a luxury and a privilege that we don't have. We can't even express our sadness and our grief, right, we can't even express our rage. But these motherfuckers are allowed to essentially try and burn down the Capitol building and then they're seen as patriots. But us in the streets marching so that black people aren't killed like fucking dogs. But where the problem? You

want to protect property. This is what Kyle Writtenhouse said. I was going to do what other people weren't. Bitch you away in a policeman. You hadn't have a fucking badge. We're in such a dark place, and you know, I can remember at the beginning of the Trump administration just knowing and feeling in the gut of my stomach and the pit of my stomach that everything was just starting or rather ending, right, Donald Trump was not the beginning

of the resurgence of white supremacy. It was a solidification of that. It began a long time ago. Because as soon as word got out that America was in the midst of a demographic shift that white people were no longer going to be the majority. That is when this ship began, right, Because while we were on the left saying, oh thank God, they were on the right saying, oh dear God. But see, I was always so confused with why white people were getting up in arms about a

demographic shift. If they believe that white privilege and racism doesn't exist, what were they so afraid of happening? Right? If they've never done anything wrong, right, if they've never violated anyone's humanity, then why are they so concerned with no longer being in the majority. If there's no such thing as white privilege and the currency of whiteness, then why are you so concerned with what this shift would

mean for you? But once again, you know, as as is said that to those that are the oppressor, that equity looks and feels like right loss. I'm just so tired these days of explaining reality to people that refuse to see it. And frankly, if Paul Gosser and Donald Trump and Matt Gates are what leaders look like in America, then we're just fucked like as a nation. And this is why I continue to say it's just like where

do we go from here? And my feeling is that we need to root ourselves right because this storm, we think that it's here, and I'm telling you this is just like the build up. So if we're not rooting ourselves enjoy, if we're not understanding what we need to do to care for our emotional, physical, and spiritual wellbeing in this moment, if we're not looking for positive and healthy outlets for what this country is placing on our shoulders day in and day out, then I don't know

what we're doing. And I say this, you know, as somebody that is made a living off of rage, is that rage alone is not sustainable because they are looking for the burnout. They are looking for us to be complacent and feel like there is nothing that we can do. But you see, there is always something to be done. You may not like it, and they sure as fuck may not like the outcome, but there's only so much

pressure that you can place on people. There's only so far that you can beat them down before folks turn around and start fighting that they want a war. But I've been saying that we've been living in a cold civil war. You think that the Gosser video isn't going to escalate to an actual real life scare. Like, let me tell you something, I worry every day about the squad. The members of the squad, the most visual, you know, visual members right of the squad, who are women of color.

I worry about them, and I wonder do they have security because they sure it's fuck needed. Because you see, what Gosser was doing is signaling much in the same way that Donald Trump did on that stage where he told the Proud Boys to stand back and stand by when he told them that January sixth was going to be wild. This motherfucker was doing the same. He says, Oh, it's just a video. It's just you know, it's not

a big deal. It's not like I did anything. But it's with the hopes that one of your followers will And then what are you going to do? Then we will once again hear about the lone wolf and how this is not we can't politicize this issue. But how many what are we waiting for? You think are we waiting for another Gabby Gifford's except a member of Congress that doesn't survive, that is gunned down, that is kidnapped, that is beaten like, remember what they tried to do

to the governor in Michigan. They wanted to kidnap her, they wanted to kill her. They were going to hold a trial in the woods. What else do you think that they were going to do. This is where we are headed, and it's only a matter of time before someone is successful. And because there have been no consequences to this point, and because white murderers get off every single fucking day, they'll just feel like they're doing their patriotic duty and they'll leave with this slap on the wrist,

if anything at all. I watch now as they refer to Rittenhouse in the press as a teenager, right, I don't remember them referring to Trayvon Martin as a teenager. I remember them referring to him as a man. And yet he wasn't able to take the stand right because he was dead a child. I'm so tired of having to bring up the parallels right to the Jim Crow

South and where we are right now. But I realized that, you know, if we had an education system that actually educated people, then maybe folks would understand this pattern of white rage and violence, and maybe it would be preventable. But who am I kidding? Folks, As we head into the weekend, as we await the verdicts and these trials, take good care of yourselves, take good care of each other.

Know that it doesn't mean that you don't care. If you're not following every single second, every single tweet, It means that you care about your mental health. It means that you've had enough and that there's only so much that you can take in. So don't allow guilt to force you to see more and do more than you should. Do your part, Take deep breaths, and then let it go, because the mess will be here when you get back.

Coming up next is my conversation with Secretary Harry Marsha Fudge about Biden's Historic Infrastructure Bill and what it means to Americans. I am very happy to welcome back to woke FFI Daily Secretary Marsha Fudge of the Housing and Urban Development Agency. Secretary, I wanted to ask you, now that we have this historic infrastructure bill that has finally been passed, what is it that people can expect and how is it going to affect HUD Well, thank you

for having me. It's going to affect HUD in a number of plays. When we talk about infrastructure, I think it is important for us to understand that infrastructure includes many things. One of the biggest issues, at least for me, is the part where we deal with climate. I think people do not understand that black and brown people are affected more by climate change than almost anyone else. If you look at Storm Ida, let's just take that as an example, most of the people who were hurts significantly

or lost their homes for black and brown people. If you look at the numbers of people children in our schools that has asthma, it's because we live near industrial sites and dump sites, and so it is really significant that we address it. Children who are affected by lead, especially when they have high blood elevations that show lead. These children are something will probably never ever be normal.

So we have to address these issues. And this is giving us the opportunity, especially in our communities, to address things that people don't even think about that affect us to the degree they do, you know, for too long.

During this kind of back and forth over the last several months, it seems as if the media had been concentrating on the price tag as opposed to the content of the legislation and So when we are thinking about regular Americans right who are not following this day to day, what are some of the things that you want them to know specifically about this piece of legislation and why frankly, it's historic and we we should be applauding the fact

that this historic measure got passed in this very contentious political climate. It's historic for a number of reasons. First, I would say that for as you suggest, for this conus to come together and pass something that is so historic, and let me tell you why it is. For generations, we have neglected to do things like upgrade our electric grid. We have not provided the kind of resources that young

people need to actually do well in school. They don't have Broadbent or Internet, they don't have the devices even sometimes. And so over this last year or so, Danielle, our children have been set back almost a year millions of because of a lack of an infrastructure. This kind of an infrastructure clean water. We live in the greatest nation in the world. There is no reason that people cannot

termine their tap and drink the water. So it is not only something that we all need, but it is historic its size that we can do so much now It's not going to happen overnight, because things like infrastructure do take time. But it is a beginning, and it is a bigger beginning than any of us ever thought we would see from a government that cares about the people. That's why this new the next piece of this it's so huge, you know, this human infrastructure field is so

huge because you've put the two together. And what we have said is that this administration sees and here's what is going on in this country, and it's going to try to address the needs of all people, not some people, all people in this country, you know, for the department, can you speak to what were some of the issues that were illuminated over the last you know, and we're coming up on two years living in a global health pandemic.

What are some of the issues that were illuminated for you in you know, in HUD that we should be tackling, that we need to be paying attention to, but that was exacerbated during this time. And so that people can understand the urgency, I'm glad you use the word illuminated because it was there the problem. So you use the exact perfect words what we saw and I'll give you the top things. Homelessness has become such a crisis in this country that on any given night, five hundred and

eighty thousand people sleep on the streets. Of those people are people of color. The fastest growing groups of people who sleep on the street are families with children and senior citizens. So it started to shine that light. It also gave us the opportunity to look at how people are living in public house and we know that that's been a problem for a long time. But as well, it showed us that people of color especially have been left out of the housing market in a way that

nobody thought about. Today. There's a thirty point gap between black and white homeownership, thirty points. It is as big today as it was in the sixties. Why because we have determined that certain neighborhoods are not worthy of us investing in, so red mining still exists. We've also determined as certain people am not worthy of being invested in,

so we rig I shouldn't user work. The system is designed to not help people in need, so poor and modern income people have more difficulty getting access to credit. We are the people who carry say, the highest student debt.

We're the people who live in communities that they don't want to invest in, and so the system has really made it more and more difficult for us to be a part of this American and so we're a dressing and I would have to say, I'm so very pleased, but I do work for a president who knows it and allows us to do our work to try to

address it. Last question for you, how confident are you that we are going to get the human infrastructure piece of this major legislation passed after the building infrastructure part was so fraught. I am very confident. I'm very confident we're going to pass it. And I'm confident because at some point all of us have to understand what it is we do. I know my job here at hunt

members of Congress need to know theirs. Having been a form of member, I know that every single member over there at some point understands I represent people who need this, and so I'm really really hopeful that it's going to be done sooner than later. I don't know, but I do feel very confident that the lessons have been learned

and that they're going to move forward. Secretary Fudge, I thank you so much for continuing to uplift the marginalized that have been overlooked, that whose part has not been helped. You know who see government as a problem, because I know that with you at the helm, that these people, our people families will get the help and assistance that governments should have been providing them all along. Thank you so much, thank you, appreciate you. That is it for

me today. Dear friends on woke app as always, power to the people and to all the people. Power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.