Laboring For Love

the things. And this holiday weekend, I decided to stay home and I got a labor of love completed, which I was really excited about, and got to catch up with old friends that I hadn't seen in a while, spent a lot of time outside, and just feel rejuvenated. As we're starting off this first week in September, and it's ninety something degrees here, so just know that just because it is back to school does not mean that the temperature is going to be cool. You know, it

is summer technically until September twenty first. Nonetheless, folks, I'm looking at these fucking headlines and I'm like, oh, what am I going to talk about on this woke Wednesday? And you know, here's what I will say. I did a little TV over the weekend, and if you follow me on social then you saw the clips that went out. I did Yasmin the Sugian Show. Yasmin is a friend of mine and I always just enjoy our conversations on

her show. And you know, she asked me what the Biden administration should do to deal with these you know, Republicans and their push for impeachment and their bullshit increase and blah blah, And I said something very just easy, you know, I said, the Biden administration, just like all of the supposed journalists that cover the White House on a regular basis, do you know what they should do?

Maybe just ask the Republicans what they're offering the American people, simple and then follow up, right, Because what you're concentrating on right is banning books, banning abortion, gutting school curriculum, criminalizing the LGBTQ community, erasing the experiences and exceptionalism of black people, denying climate change, and you know, just basically doing everything that you can to stick up for Donald Trump. So what is it that you are actually doing for

the American people. How are you sticking up for them? And what does that look like? And just wait, those are real questions that the American people want to know, right, should have answers to by one of the two supposed political parties in this country. But like I continue to say and all of you know who listen to WOGAF is that the Republican Party is not a political party. They are a cult and a movement for Christo nationalism

in this country. That's it. There's a reason why in twenty twenty, when Donald Trump was running and lost handedly, there was a reason why the Republican Party didn't bother coming up with an agenda. You see, every four years, the political parties in this country come up with their agenda so that the American voters know what it is

that they are voting for or against. And in twenty twenty, the Republican Party was like, we don't need to do that, right, We'll just roll with what we did in twenty sixteen, the world had vastly shifted in the four years that Donald Trump was the president of this country. We had banned individuals from entering this country who were black, and Brown,

we put children in cages and rip them from their parents. Right, we had had a and were in the midst of a global health pandemic where we recognized that we did not have important communication methods and just centralized public health information. And that's just like the tip of the iceberg. But during one of the most important consequential times in our country and in the world, there Republican said, We'll just do a rewind a redo and give the American people

the same thing that we gave them in twenty sixteen. Folks, that should have been a huge red flag for anybody that was paying attention, particularly those people who vote for Republicans, because then they were telling you what they were going to offer you, which was a big bag of fucking nothing. Sharing the same grievances and disliking the same people is

not a recipe to enhance your life. This is a thing that I'm realizing about the Republican Party and just the way that this cult is moving is that it isn't about offering a fucking thing. It's about saying, oh, you hate that person down the street, I hate them too, Okay, so now we hate the same person. How is your life better. Are they giving you more money? Do you have better health insurance? Do your kids go to a better school? Because you guys have decided to hate the

same people. You want to control what the fuck it is your kids learn. Here's an idea, fucking homeschool them. Right, you want to control what your kids learn, but I don't want you controlling what my kids learn. That's what it means to be at a public school. It's open to the public. If you want a private or religious education, then go to a private or religious school. But a public education is about teaching people all aspects of what

it means to operate and function inside of a society. Right, not protect you from the truth. And I realized that there is just this desire for infantilism with the Republican Party. The way that they treat their base, the way that they treat Donald Trump. It's surely not like a man. And some would say, oh, well, it's because they want to turn him into a god. No, he's pretty much like a baby that they just pat on the head, right, they burp, they clean up his spit, up all of

those things, and they tend to his every need. That's not a god. That's a child. So when asked these questions about you know, are we going to avert a shutdown? Because you know that the next three weeks of the political news cycle is going to be about whether or not the Biden administration is going to cave to the McCarthy House of Representatives and whether or not they're going to impeach him and open up an peachment inquiry and

do all. It's bullshit, it's bullshit. I've literally turned off the news as soon as they started talking about, oh, impeachment, I was like, no, actually, we're not going to both sides this. Actually, I'm not gonna have this energy inside of my household because we know what it is, And if reporters actually wanted to do reporting, then they would say, there's absolutely no basis for this, and we're not going

to cover it, right. But what we will cover are the four indictments that Donald Trump is under and the ninety one charges that are against him and his ilk because that's actual news, and whether or not the rule of law right is applied equally, which we know the

fuck that it's not right. We know that there are people sitting inside of rikers, sitting inside of Fulton county jails, sitting inside of jails and institutions all across this country that have done something as little as selid bed of weed, something as little as shoplift, something as little, you know, as things like that, and they're serving out these ridiculously harsh sentences. Why because the justice system was set up

to be another arm of slavery. That's it, so that you can then incarcerate these people black and brown people, particularly men, say that they are criminals, which you believe, whether or not they're behind bars or free, force them into labor at two cents right on the dollar to earn their freedom back to when they turn around and

then get free. You don't give them back their voting rights, and you don't allow them to reintegrate into society, fulfilling the recidivism back into prison so that they can continue to push out goods. We don't believe in sweatshops in this country, but we don't actually talk about the forced labor camps inside of our own prison system and who the fuck is doing the work? Give me a break,

you know. That's what I've been reflecting on over this Labor Day weekend, is like the lies around labor and work, capitalism and patriarchy right, and the affair between them. You know, I'm reading this book because all I do these days. If you were to see, if I were to just like turn the camera around and show you how many books I have everywhere, like I'm running out of space, I have a problem. But then also people send me books so that I can interview authors. Nonetheless, I am

reading this book for pleasure. And it's like a coffee table book. And it's called Hua, which is the French word for joy, and it is this beautiful book about living in France written by a black woman named Agerie. And I will tell you, folks, it is just a little piece of heaven every time that I open it.

But one of the sections talked about the month of August in France, and the joke in the United States is always like all the French don't work and they're always on break, and it's you know, how does anything ever get done? And what I learned in the book, believe it or not, around some politics, was that the French have a mandatory five week vacation. Everyone does five weeks off. They have a law that makes it illegal to eat at your desk, to be forced to eat

at your desk. Everyone is given an hour at minimum to go and eat lunch, somewhere, to sit, to be, to exist like a human being, not a machine that is just pushing out product and is measured in their productivity. We in America used to scoff and laugh at the French for their what healthcare system that provides for parents to be home when they have a newborn for a year? Right? Oh,

our country would fall apart? No, the fuck it wouldn't. Actually, just like we thought that if you didn't grind yourself away inside of a cubicle from nine to five, then somehow companies and businesses wouldn't make any money. Shock and surprise, they made more. Because the happier that people are, the more ability that they have to actually function during their working hours as a full fledged human being makes them

a bit more productive. Surprise that all of the reports and all of the information that is pointed in that direction only happened because of a global health pandemic when people were forced to shelter in place. So when I think about labor and the ways that you know, because I've been thinking a lot about traveling and the fact

that I want to travel more. That next year, I am planning several trips and one of them will be to take off for a considerable amount of time in August, and folks will be like, oh my god, like, how are you going to do that? You have these shows and blah blah blah. Just like everyone else, I too, am tired, and I am tired of following a news cycle that doesn't produce any new information, just new outrage.

So to take a break, right, And I think about traveling, and I'm just like, there's so many places in the world that I want to go to. And the fact is is that two weeks really is not enough, particularly if you're flying somewhere that it takes an entire day to get to and you need the time and the ability to adjust to a new time zone, give your body ability to acclimate, and then you begin your exploration. Well, if you were to do that properly, it would take

three weeks. And so why is that so unheard of to be able to do? Why is that rest something that we only give in the United States to the fucking rich when there are actual countries who are quote unquote developed like America that do this on a regular fucking basis that they have put it in their constitutions. We just accept the fucking bare minimum because that's all

that we've ever been given. That's what I'm realizing. Being in a relationship, and I've said this on this show before with America is like being with an abusive partner. Every once in a while, they show you some kindness, or they show you that you matter. But on the grand scheme of things, if you are a person, if you are black, if you are brown, if you are a woman, if you are LGBTQ plus, if you are an immigrant, if you are not Christian, this country treats

you like fucking trash. And yet we still do everything that we possibly can to be loved. Right, And what does that love we think look like? Right? Look, I'll grind myself into the ground for you so long as I have you know, healthcare. I'll grind myself into the ground for you, so long that I can afford to pay half of my income to rent. Folks, there is a deep evaluation that I'm doing these days. You know.

It comes from finishing up over the summer Bell Hook's book All about Love, which, for if you have not read it, I highly recommend it. It comes from finishing Young Pueblo's lighter. It comes from just really thinking about a better way to live and a better way to exist. And it cannot be the consistent outrage and grinding ourselves into the ground because it's not working. Do you know what I'm saying. The only thing that it's doing is

welcoming in an early grave, is welcoming in disease. And I, for one, am tired of it, like I really am. There was a deep reflection that I have been in and been doing for a while now, journaling and meditating and praying and coming to a different kind of wokeness, a different kind of consciousness, a different kind of tapping in and really wanting to connect with what actually nourishes

your soul, your spirit. Right, I feel like we are just giving our energy and our vibration and our power to these evil forces that keep us in this juggernaut of rage and anger. And I'm just like, for what, Marjorie Taylor Green is going to be an asshole whether you tap into the news today or not. She ain't changing. Kevin McCarthy's going to be a spineless piece of trash. Whether you follow every single headline of how he's being used and abused by the very evil ass people that

he gave authority over the publican party. Right, the polls are gonna waver and go up and down and up and down, because this mainstream media is going to cover this election cycle like it's normal, right, like it's the twentieth century and it's a horse race and someone's up and someone's down, as opposed to saying that really it is about our ability to function in side of a democracy or whether or not America's empire is finally crumpling and we're too scared to really recognize it because we

have never thought about what is on the other side after it's done. Everything has its cycle, everything has its time, and that's the thing that is always true. Change change. As Octavia Butler said Impowable, the Powable series, God has changed. Right, everything you touch you change, and everything that you change changes you. And so the question that we all need to be asking ourselves these days is how do we

want to change? Because change is inevitable. Do we want to pickle inside of ourselves or do we want to nourish ourselves? And what does that nourishment look like? Right? Because eating a donut and eating a salad, you're eating one is nourishing you. The other is right just quick, fast food that doesn't add anything except sugar to your bloodstream, that gives you a momentary high and then it fades.

These are the things that I'm contemplating these days, as we're ending this year, the couple of months left to go and enter into what I believe is going to be one of the most vicious electoral cycles of our life and potentially the last. And so the question that I want all of you listening to ponder on this Wednesdays what does consciousness really mean for you? What does it mean to be woke for you in this day and age? Tell me if you're a patron underneath this video.

For those that are not patrons, every Wednesday and Friday is a video show, So tell me what you think underneath this video. And for my other wonderful listeners, get at me on the socials, because I think that we are living inside of a really significant moment of deciding not only who we are going to be as a collective, but who we want to be individually, right, and are we ignoring those alarms that are going off That is it for me today. Dear friends on Woke af AS always,

power to the people and to all the people. Power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.