How Many War Crimes Does It Take

the same exact way that I do. The purpose is to spark conversation. The purpose is to have us tilt our heads and open our eyes and say, huh, I never thought about it that way on a variety of issues, right, because it's that kind of thinking of understanding that there is always more to learn, more to know, and to allow ourselves to continue to be students of the world that we're living in, to ask questions, to be critical thinkers. And so I'm struggling right now with how the protests

at the universities and colleges are being characterized. I'm struggling with this current administration and their response to it and their you know, unwavering support for Israel. I'm struggling right now with accusations of anti Semitism, all for the benefit of shutting down conversation that is necessary in order for us to get to a place of real significant change.

I'm struggling with the way in which the oppressors right and those that uphold systems of injustice want to tell other people the right way right to protest systems of injustice. So what I'm going to offer today are a couple of my thoughts, not on different news stories, but on this particular story, because I think, friends, that this story that it's happening on college campuses is the most important story in America right now, and I'm going to tell

you why. From my perspective, Colleges and universities have always been a petri dish, if you will, a place of great experiment and thought, a microcosm of what society is and who it wants to be, a place where you can go to sharpen your skills right and understanding of various industries, various philosophies, to learn how to socialize with so many different groups of people, people from around the United States, from around the world, from different ethnic groups,

from different cultural backgrounds, different sexual orientations and identities. Right, the importance of colleges and universities to me is not just about the lie of what it was of getting a good job, because that's what my generation was told, is that you go to college because you can't get

a quote unquote good job without going there. And now, college, as I continue to say, is a Ponzi scheme, right, it is a setup, particularly for those in middle and low income communities that are roped into ratcheting up six figure plus worth of debt that they're told that they can't exist in the professional workspace without, but are not given the certainty that said debt is going to shove

somehow provide them with a better life and a better future. Right, Because what we are seeing now with the younger generations is that that's not the fucking case, because income has not kept pace with inflation, with corporate greed, right, with the rise in rent and mortgages and interest rates in all of these things. And so when people want to dictate to young people about how to best spend their money, it's not the same fucking pot of money. Yoh, Like,

it's just not. But aside from the economics that are at play, the point of colleges and universities is really to help diversify thought, to help put different perspectives on critical issues and see if we can't look at them from a different lens, from a different vantage point and come up with solutions right like to our most pressing issues and problems. It is also the place where young people begin to formalize their perspectives and their opinions on

a myriad of issues, in justice being one of them. Right, you're taught from such a young age right from wrong, or at least you used to be, and we all had some universal idea of what was right and what was wrong. It was wrong to cause unnecessary harm to people. It was wrong to be mean, it was wrong to steal, to murder, to pillage, all of these things. Like, we

were taught what was right and wrong. But then now, as I look back through my own education, you realize that, like you may have been told on the playground, don't knock down Johnny and take his candy, right, because that's not yours, it doesn't belong to you. But when we see it on a larger political scale and landscape, right, then somehow the ends justify the means. And was it

really Johnny's candy, right or was it mine? And you know, and if there are more people in my corner saying that that candy is actually belongs to me and Johnny really stole it, what then becomes the truth. I do not think that the issues that are playing out on

the college emphasis are that complex. I really don't. I don't think that it is complex at all to bear witness to horrific atrocities on your phone every single day, where you see headlines and videos that show you body parts, headlines of yet another mass grave that was uncovered in Israel, filled with the bodies and parts of Palestinian people. Don't take my word for it, Google it because it was

broadcast on CNN. How many war crimes does it take for folks to recognize that those that say that they are the victims right can also victimize That two things can be true at the same time. That there can indeed be anti Semitism that exists and anti Islamophobia that exists as well, anti you know that exists as well, That those that were oppressed when given unbridled power, can also turn around and become the oppressor. And that is

what young people are seeing. They're asking themselves, why are we funding this? It is one thing to have the right to defend yourself, but you do not have the right to torment, destroy, abuse and torture all others because of your sense right of victimhood, because what does that

then make you? For so long, hundreds of years in fact, enslavers did not want to teach the enslaved Africans how to read because knowledge is power, did not allow enslaved Africans to congregate in mass because then community is built. Because they dictated the rules of slavery through the lens of fear of uprising. Well, the thing is is that

you don't actually have to fear an uprising. If you're not torturing, brutally beating, right and like manipulating, verbally abusing people, then you don't have to worry about what happens when they become free. And yet, through my own lens, when I traveled to Israel and Palestine, I saw oppression that I had only ever read in history books. I saw apartheid with my own eyes. When you have two types of license plates, one for one group of people and

one for another. And I'm not talking about the difference in license plates of those that live in Texas versus those that live in Louisiana. I'm talking about a license plate that says that you are less than human and

that you do not belong on this road. Similarly to the sunset laws that are still on the books in many states inside of these United States, that dictated that any black person, regardless of their status, found inside of any said town after sunset, could be lynched, could be beaten, could be raped, could be maimed, could be tortured because that person, that black body, was not welcomed. I understand what it is like to feel unsafe. I understand it

through the lens of being black. I understand it through the lens of being a woman, understand it through the lens of being queer. I understand it in a way that my ancestors didn't have the ability as some groups

who came to these United States willingly. First of all, so there's already we're starting off in a different fucking place, but willingly come here and then change their name so that they could assimilate and the generations after them could assimilate into this country, because when you're black, you don't just get to change your skin. It doesn't work that way.

So much so that they created an entire rule and system called the one drop rule, meaning that if you had even one drop of African blood in you, you were black. Because for white America, it was always about a numbers game, and they had to continue to suppress the number of black people right so that they could continue with their oppression and their power. It is not hard now to look back in time and say, oh, that was repulsive, But do you know how I grew up, Well,

that was the times. That's what my teacher said, Oh you know, that's what they did then, not that it was cruel and inhumane and horrific. And my god, let us look at this and how we decide to oppress an entire group of people and criminalize them for nothing other than existing in the same space as you, and you feeling threatened just by virtue of having to share space with other people that may not look like you,

that may not pray like you. If we actually embraced real civil behavior in modern civilization, then we wouldn't have to worry. But when it's decided that the only way that you can stay safe and in power is to press your foot on somebody else's neck and tell them that they are the problem. What do you think that

the long term result is going to be? So when young people now are looking around understanding how much money they are paying into these institutions that are paying into systems that they do not want their money to go towards. Much in the same way that the United States is paying billions of dollars a year, three to four billion in fact, to provide welfare for Israel, and you put no contingency on that money, like to build an actual democracy, even one that is as imperfect as the United States.

But my God, when I was in Israel, I said, this is what the United States would have looked like had the Civil rights movement not happened, or had it been queuched, had the justices that were on the Supreme Court be the very justices that are sitting there now, I'm sure as fuck wouldn't have a podcast, let alone be living in the building that I'm living in and the part of town that I'm living in. Having had an education that I had, there is no civilized way

to protest against in civility. Martin Luther King was the biggest proponent an example of non violent resistance, and do you know what they did to him? They shot him dead, widowed his wife, and left his children fatherless. The late Congressman John Lewis marched peacefully across Edmund's Bridge and was beaten and bloodied by a legal system that told him

that he did not have the right to exist. Black panthers that organized in this country for black liberation, that created food programs and literacy programs in after school programs were bombed, jailed, and assassinated by this government. What were they doing? They were bearing arms the way that the constitution told them that they could. They didn't see the fine print that had said only white men were allowed to do that, and that in so exercising the fullness

of your citizen injury would cost you your life. There are still political prisoners in these United States that were black liberationists. They only are let out of jail when they are on depth's door. That's the modern day political way of leaving the body hanging from the news or leaving Mike Brown's body rotting in the street after police officers killed him. For four hours in the hot sun as a reminder to stay in your place. There is no right way to react to the obscenity of what

is considered the rule of law. So when you see young people setting up camps, barricading themselves in buildings, and trying to figure out how to have their voice is heard. When they try to be civil but are met with incivility, you tell me what is the right way. If I can't critique a system of government because of the religion of the people who are running that government, how are we to form conversation and get to a point of change and clarity. There are bigger issues at play here

that are about power and control, subjugation and silence. It isn't just about what's happening on the college campuses, my friend. It is about what is happening all around us. And the questions that I want to be asked and not necessarily answered on this show every single day is what are we going to do about it? How are we going to create this more perfect union? How are we going to talk openly and honestly about injustice and our

responsibility to bring light to darkness. That is the underlying question of what it means to be woke. What kind of world do we want to live in and how do we want to create it together? Because it's sure as fuck is not about lying about what we are seeing with our own eyes and pretending it doesn't ega exist, or staying silent because we don't want to hurt other people's feelings. It is about telling the truth. It is about integrity, It is about compassion and empathy. That's how

we build community. It starts with us. It starts with hard conversations about who we are and who we want to be. That is it for me today, Dear friends on Woke a f as always, Power to the people and to all the people. Power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.