Mass Media and White Ignorance

relaxing vacation. So I have banked a bunch of really good interviews and today I'm really excited to bring back on to woke F my friend and MSNBC host Aimen Mohadeen m I have known Amen for a couple of years now, and I have to tell you that he is one of the host and reporters and journalists that I really appreciate and whose voice I value because, as I complain a lot les, let's let's be clear and rightfully so that our media, the mainstream media, is full

of shit and they are the biggest instruments for white supremacy. What do I mean by that? You know, depending on where you are in your career and what time of day you come on, and I want to give you a little bit of like insight into TV and how TV works, regardless of whether or not you're in entertainment or you're in politics. It kind of works the same way,

which is that ratings run everything. And if there are big stories to cover and that's what everybody's paying attention to, then the powers that be say, this is what you're paying attention to. But I often ask the question, particularly, let's use critical race theory as an example, which Aimon and I will talk about. Critical race theory is a bullshit topic that the right has decided is their motive

entree these days. It's the thing, it's the boogeyman, it's the thing that they're going to get all riled up about. And the reality is what we all know to be true because we believe in facts, is that critical race theory is something that is taught in law school. It is something that is taught at the graduate level. It is not taught in K through twelve education. There is no curriculum for critical race theory. But what white folks have decided is that they don't want their children learning

from black and brown authors. They don't want a critical analysis about this country, right, about our history, our founding, how certain policies are approved and work for the benefit of a small group of people. They don't want to. And as I talked about yesterday. They don't want to interrogate their emotions right around what it means to be white, to have white privilege, to have societies and structures that are made for your benefit at the expense of so

many others. Instead, they want their kids to be as ignorant to reality as they have been, and they think that by doing so that means being race neutral. Well, what has every single icon of the Civil Rights era and beyond ever said is that you cannot be neutral in the face of injustice, right, And what I have said is this simply that if you are from a marginalized community, if you are black in America, and let me just speak from the black perspective, you'll learn from

a very young age about racism. You learn when people will stop looking at you on the street and thinking that you're cute and instead see you as a threat, particularly if you were a boy. Right. That happens a lot younger. We knew it around the time that Tamir Rice was murdered by police officers because he was playing on a playground with a toy gun, as kids do, and he was killed. And I remember all the commentary around that, Well, why was he on the playground, Why

was he playing with the toy gun? Meanwhile, these are the same motherfuckers that give their children aar fifteens to play with, right, that think that that is their right. You didn't hear any buddy coming out and defending the murder of Tamir Rice, right, No, you didn't hear cops

coming out. You didn't hear the NRA. You heard nothing, crickets. So, if black people have to teach their children from basically the time that they start toddling around and talking about race and racism and loving their skin and loving their hair, also they can build up a shield, in an armor in a world that doesn't want to see them, and if they do see them, sees them and despises them, then you need to build up that inner strength and that comes from the moments that that child begins to

take their first steps. That's our reality, that is not hyperbole. You can engage with any black person and ask them how young were you when you learned about racism? How long were how young were your children when you started to talk to them about racism and discrimination? You can ask them those questions and they every single one of us has an answer. The dates may vary, but you

will be shocked at how early right it happens. Because while white people have the privilege to be able to want to protect and to lie to their children, we don't because it will cost our kids their lives if they don't know how to react, if they're pulled over, if they're stopped while they're walking on the street, engage with a racist teacher or principle, right, that could be it for them. And we know that because we know that in America, black and brown people don't get a

second chance, We barely get a fucking first. One. My anger around critical race theory and the boogeyman that they have created is that if in fact, we all did think critically about race and racism and how it plays into every single facet of our lives, then maybe we would all be exhausted, and not just those that experience racism on a regular basis and what it is like to live in a country and live in a world that hates you, right, But instead we would find ways

in common ground and the ability to change it. But you see, the powers that be, those that benefit from vitriol, those that profit from rage and anger and hate, they don't want there to be common ground. They don't want there to be a discussion and an interrogation into how this country was formed and whose back it was on.

You know, one of the things that I'll say in another interview later this week or early next week, is, you know, with regard to how we have been lied to all of us and that it has cost us so much. Right, we're going through K through twelve learning so very little about the truth. One of the things that I hate the most is when people say, in response to something atrocious or cruel that is happening in America,

this is not who we are. Well, if you actually knew about America's founding and about the things that have been done and justified in your name, you would never utter that sentence. This is not who we are. It's always who we are. It's always who we've been. We've been stealing people's children from them. We've been sterilizing women, We've been beaten black people in the street and hanging them from trees. We've been burning down their churches and

torching their homes. Right like, we've been doing that. But you see, those truths have been kept from white people, right, and now they want to keep it from their children and their children's children. They want to continue the perpetuation of being a bunch of ostriches with their heads in the sand. And then turn around and say, why are those black people so angry? Why can't they just follow the rules, Why can't they just do X, Y and Z, Because you have no idea what the fuck you are

asking us to do. To be frank, you've never met a people with more grace than black people. White people literally went stormed the Capitol building and ship in the halls of our democracy based on a fucking lie. Black people in this country have hung from trees bridges, have had crosses burned on their lawns, their homes, bombed, their churches, firebombed, their businesses, destroyed mass graves filled with black bodies right

and our government sanctioning it all along the way. And somehow, somehow we manage still to get up to go to work, to smile, to dance, to provide food on the table for our families, to continue to pray and have hope

and have smiles on our faces. And I wonder if white Americans had to deal experience a tenth of what we have experienced throughout generations, how they would feel, how soon it would take them to want to burn this fucking country to the ground, which, by the way, they did because Donald Trump wanted them to for him, Right, they wanted to hang the vice president of the United States because they didn't get the president that they wanted elected.

Imagine not having the president that you wanted elected, every single president except one Obama. I say all that to say that the media plays a large part in creating these divides, in adding more fuel to the fire because it's good for ratings, in creating food fights, or uplifting one person's narrative of what it means to be an American, which Amen will talk about. You know, let's be honest.

When we're talking about regular moms or American moms, you're talking about white women because they are all types of moms. There are all types of people that care about what their kids are right, and not just care to sit around and burn books because you're afraid of the fucking truth, but care that their children are learning to love themselves, to love the person next to them, to be stewards

of our environment. You know, we talk about education, anxiety, right, or what the media is doing by talking about education anxiety, and I'm like, where was this kind of outrage over vaccines and over teaching people the truth when your kids are being gunned down in their fucking classrooms. I didn't see people flipping over tables and screaming at school board members around mass shootings that happen in schools on a regular basis, or not having clean air in the classrooms,

or textbooks that tell the truth. No, none of that. They don't have education anxiety. They're just racist, plain and simple. But the media looks for euphemisms for excuses and looks for ways to find empathy for everyone, every white person, at the expense of every other community. So Amen and I will unpack that in our conversation coming up next.

Do tell me in the comments section what you think that the media's responsibility is in whether or not you think that they are tool of white supremacy, and if you don't, I want to understand your perspective as well. Coming up next is my conversation with MSNBC host of the show Amen on Saturdays and Sundays on MSNBC. Folks, I am really excited to welcome back to Woke f my friend and the host of Amen on MSNBC Aimen Mohadeen so excited to have you back, wondering you know,

the media, Aimen, is a tricky, tricky place. I think that mainstream media is responsible for more than it takes accountability for. I want to talk to you about one six. We want to start there, and you know the fact that we are, you know, waiting for subpoenas to actually be enforced. It's been almost three weeks since Steve Bennon was held in content contempt. Nothing has happened from our

Justice department. But you know, what are your thoughts as somebody that is a part of media that is covering these stories, how do you think? How how would you critique your your colleagues, yourself in terms of how we are relating the fact that I believe that we're still in a slow moving coup. I don't think that what transpired on one six was one and done. I think that, as Bill Maher said many many weeks ago, this is

a slow moving coup. It's still unfolding. We have members of Congress just today the post threatening images against Alexandrioccio Cortez, like death porn, like he's excited about the potential of getting to kill her, Right, How were you feeling about how this is being covered in the urgency of the moment that we're in with our democracy. Yeah, so I think that the way I would approach it is, there's

definitely a few different layers to this story. Right There is what I would call like the general consensus around January the six and then there's like the specifics of following the developments around the investigation of January the six And I would say the general consensus right now in this country around January the sixth has been I think pretty inadequate given the severity of the moment, which means you look at it, and I remember on January the

six tweeting out that what we were seeing play out in the United States wasn't attempted coup. It was the executive branch of government inciting an insurrection against the legislative branch of government to serve or maintain power to disrupt the legislative branch of government's ability to carry out its

duties of governance. And so as a result, any measure you want to look it may not have been the traditional sense of like, oh, we're carrying out a coup by using the military to oppress the opposition or to do whatever. But when you look at how in the past people have described the word, you know, overtaking of a government. You know, the president in some countries would suspend parliament or dissolve parliament, or stop the legislator from doing what it can and then use his base of

power to expand his power. I think you can make an argument that's what we saw in January of the sixth there was an attempt to stop the legislative branch of government from governance, and as a result, the president, the executive would stay in power. So at the time, that's how I saw it, and I still believe that

it was an attempted coup. Now when you look at what has happened since then, the attempt by members of the right wing media and some Republicans to whitewash that, to call the people that were there either tourists, to say that the people there were simply protesters who were aggrieved, to not acknowledge that it posed the threat and a risk to the members of Congress and more importantly, to

our democracy, is just completely mind blowing. So the question that I go default back to is what is the general consensus or what is the attitude of the country towards January the sixth, And then when we talk about the specifics, as you were mentioning Steve Banning the investigation in January the sixth Commission, those things take time, and there has to be a constant spotlight on it, which

I think parts of the media do particularly well. I think print news and certainly some aspects of broadcast news have the ability to stay on top of that story and keep that story on the forefront of Americans minds. But that is driven by the investigation, and you can't precede the investigation. But as the investigation unfolds, we have the responsibility to constantly come back to it and say, hey, this was an attempted coup. Here's what we're finding out

about it, here's what we're learning about it. Here's who are the people who are defying government, defying Congress and not wanting to participate in the investigation. And that for me is absolutely mind boggling. So I wouldn't necessarily I wouldn't just you know, lumps of all the media together and say everyone's doing a bad job. But I would say some parts of the media, certainly right wing media,

is trying to whitewash and cover up January six. Others are become a little bit more, you know, complacent about it, and there are some who are still determined to make sure that that day is not lost in American history and forgotten for what it is, no matter how many times people try to rewrite it. You know, what I found really troubling is that a couple of weeks ago, Condoleeza Rice, who many would have thought is a fairly

reasonable Republican. Remember those you know there there are very few of them, Like you know, they're they're pretty much dinosaurs. Very reasonable Republican was on the view and her comments blew me away. We need to just move on, We

need to turn the page. And I'm like, is this the hymnal that was given out to all Republicans, regardless of whether or not they were in government in the eighties and the nineties, versus the new Trumpers, the new insurrectionists that are in How is it that they're all even the ones that we thought were normal, are saying turn the page, and keep in mind, this is a woman who advocated for the United States to invade other countries to promote democracy, and yet the very essence of

our democracy was attacked on January the sixth, and she's now saying it's time to move on. It hasn't even been a year. This is the same woman who wanted, literally and advocated for the overthrowing of a sovereign government under the false pretense that it had weapons of mass destruction with the intent of promoting democracy, but will not stand up and defend democracy here in our own country to the degree that we have all of the answers. I'm not saying to you make up your mind one

way or the other. I get it you want to be a Republican, But you can be a Republican and say I want to know what happened to the last second, to every single second of the decision making process that led up to January six. I want to know who the president was speaking to. I want to know who in his office and members of his team were coordinating, if at all, with those who participated in January six. How do people on January six show up with riot gear,

bulletproof vests, kevlar helmets. How do these people just decide to do that That's not I've gone to protests before, I've covered protest. I dont'ta see people just rocking up to protests with that kind of gear without having someone telling them here's what we're anticipating doing, so come prepared for that. So all I'm saying is why are Republicans like Kondeliza Rice and others so afraid to get to

the bottom of what happened that day? Once the investigation is over, If you say, you know what, it's not that big of a deal. I realized maybe it was just a bunch of people that were angry that day. Fine, But how do you make that kind of determination way before you get to the bottom of it. And again, I mean there's Tucker Carlson has in his like, you know, false flag operation reference there. That was something that was like, can you just imagine I made this point on the air.

I was like, can you imagine if a Muslim anchor had gone on an American cable network channel and said a nine to eleven and imply that nine to eleven might have been a false flag operation or said something that remotely diminished the investigation into nine to eleven and getting to the bottom of it. Can you imagine after a couple of ten months, after nine to eleven, saying you know what I think, guys, let's move on from this. We figured out that it was a bunch of bad

guys from Saudi Arabia. Let's not figure out who financed them, who funded them, who trained them, how did they get into this country? You know what I mean. It's just it's just like I said, it's absolutely mind boggling, you know,

it really is. And when I think about it, and I'm so glad that you brought up Tucker Carlston that I'm glad that Tucker Carlton exists, but I'm glad that you brought him up because I think about you often, and I think about the many anchors of color that I that I know and hosts of color that I know, and particularly you, because you know everything. I look through the lens and I say, well, if they were black, if they were Muslim, like this wouldn't even be a conversation.

And I have a lot of anger and rage right like at injustices that I see in this country on a regular basis. Tucker Carlson is the embodiment of mediocrity in so many different ways. But he is the poster child for white male rage. Like, how do you feel as as a as a as an anchor, as a as a host of color, knowing that you see injustices against Muslim people, against people of color all the time, but you have to I mean, how do you hold in?

How do you contain your level of frustration? And how do you feel at the fact that you have to contain it, because if you were to act in the same way that Tucker Carlson did, you would be out of a job. Yeah, I mean, listen, I think what you're hitting on is what every black and brown person in this country deals with day in and day out when they're going about their daily lives. There are so many examples, and we've seen the videos of you know,

white people being pulled over by the police. They get to yell back at them, they get to talk back at them. The police go out of their way to accommodate them, to calm things down, to try to de escalate the situation, to assure them that they're okay. But when we see the reverse happened with whether it's somebody who is black or brown, we know how tragically those encounters end. So I think it's part of the sad

to say it. It's part of the equation that's baked into the system that over the years, somebody like Tucker Carlson, who has this white privilege, who can go on there and say something as just bombastic and ludicrous as saying that January the six, even if he doesn't say just giving that idea a platform and letting others express it and imply it in a way that kind of is you know, hey, I'm not endorsing it, but it's it's an idea that's out there, so I'm just gonna go

with it. It's it's the epitome of privilege. And you're right, you know, we hold ourselves not only just as individuals, but also as an organization. We hold ourselves to a higher standard. But also we have to always be mindful that what we're saying is double checked and triple checked, and we're making sure that what we want to say does not cross that line of offending somebody or is

not hyperbolic. And it's it's the reality of where we are as a country that we're not on equal you know, we're not on an equal playing field yet, and it's something that we all strive. I guess we strive to achieve one day. I mean, I certainly do. I certainly hope that we're at a place where there is uniformity and how we discuss these issues. And it's not just about Tucker Carlson. It's about the argument of free speech

right and what is offensive to others. And we see that not play out with the topic of critical race theory and education in a place like Virginia. Who gets to define what is the appropriate education in America to be taught? And I think a lot of people have been making this point out. We've been seeing a lot of angry white parents at school boards in Virginia. I don't see any black parents on these school boards being

interviewed by major cable and printing made outlets. I'm not hearing their voices on the same level that I am hearing of the angry white parents. So I think that is also a valid criticism on the media, which is, are you capturing the discourse proportionately to what it really is?

Are you hearing from parents on both sides of the divide, regardless of even talking about critical race there and how you're covering it, But all the are the voices that you're representing and taking out to the public, are they also being treated equally? And I would dare to say no. Let me ask you this, you know, for your own show. You know, how do you decide what is going to get covered and what is not right, like what you have time for versus what you don't and what perspect

like what perspective you want to offer? Because I think too, you know, one of the reasons why I love having journalists like yourself on the show is because I want people to understand how stories become stories, right, like why you hear about one thing repeatedly or not at all.

And I think that you do a very good job because of you know, your global perspective, because you were on the ground in so many different parts of the world, particularly you know, in the Middle East, like that you have a very perspective that we don't get right, don't cover you know, cover you cover stories that I feel like other people don't. So how do you go about determining what is what is important or what you feel that the audience needs to know? I mean, first of all,

thank you so much for that. I really appreciate you noticing that and highlighting that. I mean, look, first of all, journalism and even a broadcast show like mine, it's a collaborative effort. It's a team sport. You require the team that you're working with to bring ideas and stories of things that are either not getting enough attention or that are sometimes getting a lot of attention but not getting

a specific perspective. And so one of the things that I have in you know, in having this new platform, in this new show, which gives me more freedom to express that perspective, is that I've been trying to take a step back at sometimes and say how would this look for somebody outside of the United States? And is there a double standard in how we apply coverage on these stories, whether it's happening here or abroad? And more importantly, how do we apply the same standards to both parties,

both the Democratic and Republican Party. Look, I made the point that last week, you know, some of the things that members of the Republican Party set, whether it's Josh Holly or Matt Gates saying that he wanted to blow up metal detectors at the Capitol, or like again, implying the use of violence in the most sacred institution of

our government. You had Lauren Baubert and others, and Ron DeSantis, the era apparent to the Maga Kingdom, you know, using the derogatory phrase let's go Brandon and touting it and doing so publicly. Any one of these things on any given day would have been enough of an outrage if it were being done by a Democrat. This all happened in a week among Republicans. Nobody even batted an island. Nobody has gone to every Republican official and said, hey,

do you condemn this? Do you stand by this? You had the president, former President of United States, Donald Trump say one of the most anti submitted things I've ever heard, which is say Israel controlled the American Congress for ten years. Now. Imagine if ilhand Omar's said that when she said something that was controversial, everybody in the Democratic Party from all the way up all the way down had to comment and condemn and put out letters and put out statements. No,

the President just made another anti Semitic remark. Nobody in the Republican Party has asked about it. It goes to, you know, like nobody is asked to condemn it, and yet they want to talk about the squad and they want to talk about you know, members of Congress that are trying to put the spotlight on human rights abuses overseas and saying, oh, if you're not supporting a billion dollar missile defense system, you are anti Semitic because you're

risking Israel security. So for me, it's like, you know, I look at it from the perspective of, like, hey, how does this play out around the world when people hear these kinds of statements from the former president others, what does that say about the way our democracy functions? We are the first to be We're the first country in the world they want to lecture other countries about their democracy. What we want, what we think is a

legitimate democracy. What we don't think is a legitimate democracy,

what we think is legitimate behavior in democracy. And yet when you look at some of the things that are happening at our own country, you're like, wait, hold up, look at this from the perspective of somebody outside of the United States watching our democracy, listening to our politicians, hearing the kind of comments, You're in no place to be lecturing the world about democracy at this point, given what has happened since January the sixth and every day

since then. Yeah, you know, and I've said that, and I thank you so much for articulating that, because I find it offensive. If I were a foreign country at this point and America wants to come in and lecture me, I'm saying to them, go clean up your own house before you have the audenty. And I say that with regard to women's rights, we always want to go to the Middle East and tell them about how they are treating women and not educating women. And I'm saying, you

don't allow women to have autonomy over their bodies. You don't. We won't support equal pay and pass legislation in Congress to make sure that women are paid equally across this country, regardless of industry. We don't do that. So how do you go into places like Iran and Side Arabia and tell them what they should and should not be doing with their with their female population, right, like totally And

to your point, I mean, I get it. Like there It's not to say that American and Saudi Arabia are on the same level with women's rights, but it's the principle of relative to where you are in your own development, you're saying, like, oh, Saudi Arabia doesn't let women drive. That's true, that's Saudi Arabia's problem and they're trying to deal with it. But at the same time, as you said,

women here are not getting paid equal to men. They don't have family leave, women don't have complete subegnty over their body. There's discrimination and healthcare the way that it's provided. And I'm not even going to get into things about human rights abuse of black people in this country, things like getanam obey mass surveillance of Muslims. So I get it.

You're you're you want to say that you're better than other countries, but the truth is your own human rights record, on top of which your own domestic policies are in They don't give you the platform to stand up there and say to the world, hey, we're going to lecture you about democracy and human rights and women rights when in our own country many of those uh basic rights are under constant threat. Yeah, it's it's very it's very

very frustrating. And you know, even even now, we continue to uphold Israel and Israel's you know, roll out of the vaccine and look how it's working. Blah blah, And I'm just like, is anybody talking about what is happening to the Palestinians in terms of like their vaccination status? Right, Is anybody talking about like what is happening in Gotham what they continue to do? Like I'm so confused about how you can hold up this place and say, oh, well, we need to model after it. And I'm like, are

you looking at a kaleidoscope? Like I'm just I feel crazy. And again, it's it's the ability to cherry pick the parts of the narrative that you want. And this has been a consistent problem with how as a country we look at other countries and say this is what we want to emulate and this is what we want to reject, and not in that reality of what is happening on

the ground is what makes it so hard. I mean, people point out human rights abuses in China, people point out human rights abuses in other countries, and countries that the United States has relationships with seals weapons to people are not naive to understanding that foreign relations are complex, But at the same time, don't try and whitewash and hide away from the realities on the ground. Take them head on. I mean, you talked about what's happening in

Israel pastine. There is definitely discrimination in the way the COVID vaccine has been rolled out in terms of the population. And it's not because people are going to say, well, look at the Arab population inside Israel, they're getting vaccinated. The truth of the matter is Israel controls all of

the territory of the West Bank and Israel. There may be different types of categories of how much it has a physical presence and control over the lives of Palestinians in the West Bank, but at the end of the day, it's not like the Palestinian authority can just call up Fiser and have vaccines delivered to the West Bank without Israel's approval and not have money that it's sending and transferred going through banking mechanisms and international banking mechanisms that

are part of agreements. They don't have the sovereignty to do that, so they just don't have the ability to go out there and try to execute their own public health policy, so to speak. That's in addition to all the other things that have been coming out in recent days about mass surveillance. According to the Washington Post the masterveillance program. You know that the Israeli military was engaging in terms of how they tracked Palestinians and taking their

pictures and putting them in a database. You know, look, we talk about it in our country here and how much we value our freedoms despite the fact that they have come under a lot of stress in the last twenty years because of the War on Terror. But we complain all the time when we feel the government is

overreaching with the way it is surveiling its citizens. And here is this article in the Washington Post revealing this allegation that Israel has been mass surveiling Palestinians, and nobody's like, you're not hearing any member of Congress saying this is outrageous. We have to investigate this, we have to stop this. We have to make sure our tax year dollars are

not going to the violation of human rights abuses. They're not helping the technology of a country that's using it in human rights abuses, as we're now seen with this spyware that the US government is saying, hey, you know what this NSL spyware. I think it's crossing the line when the spyware is being used to target human rights

defenders in journalists. You know, we have crossed a major line, and we have to ask ourselves to what extent we're complicit in that by just simply turning a blind eye and not speaking up against it, even if it is a country that we perceive to be a very close

ally of ours. Yeah, and I would. I would say if you haven't seen Coded Bias, the documentary on Netflix which talks it, which is it's centering all black and brown exceptional algorithm theorists and and folks who discovered all of the flaws, the deep and flaws and racism and discrimination in our algorithms. But talking about mass surveillance, it's a it's a fantastic and scared the hell out of me. I want to throw my smart TV out of the window as well as my phone. I'm like, we're all

being tracked. Um, finally, am And I want to ask you this because I follow you on Instagram, Um, how do you continue to follow the news in such detail to report on these things that are really soul depleting, um, that are really soul crushing in a lot of ways? And how do you how do you find an outlet. What are your outlets right to be able to analyze the news, deliver it to all of us, but then

not internalize the tragedy. That will, you know, for a lot of people on the front lines, turns into depression, turns into anxiety, turns into a lot of other things. I say, I follow your Instagram because one, I'm waiting on my invitation to brunch, because apparently you're an amazing chef, um and you have you know, beautiful kids and and and wife. But but how but how do you maintain your your your sense of joy um and and like and passion when this is the work that you do

and a lot of it is about tragedy and despair. Yeah, you know, it's a really good question. I mean, I think, first of all, I think it is so important for everyone, regardless of what they do in life, to be able

to have a good support system. And a support system starts with good friends, good family, a good network of people that you can kind of like shoot the ship with and just kind of get your mind off of things, and people who you can call and say, man, i'm really down, I'm frustrated, I'm annoyed, I'm bothered by things that are happening personally, professionally, even in the news. So

having that outlet is very important. If you try to constantly bottle things in and just kind of take more and more of the pressure on you, I think it could be destructive. And I'm not gonna lie. I feel a tremendous amount of pressure all the time because you just ask me a really important question, how do you decide what goes into your show every Saturday and Sunday?

And I feel like I'm trying to watch and consume everything like everyone else to the degree that I want to say, I want to be able to make sure

I cover all the biggest stories of the week. And I think it's really it's definitely really hard for sure to consume everything and to think about all the things that you wanted to read, all the articles, and there's always a little bit of guilt and remorse that like, oh, I didn't get a chance to read this whole article, or I haven't read this whole entire book before my interview over the weekend, and that's definitely stressful. So I think you have to take a step back. You have to,

you know, work within a team. I mean, I have an amazing team and I trust them, and it makes it makes my job a lot easier knowing that I'm not just one person looking at one story, but in fact, we're like ten or fifteen people looking at different stories. That's one. And to have a good support system that you can kind of unplug when you come home. As you said, I like, I love to cook. It's something that I've gotten into over the last couple of years.

So it gives me a little bit more purpose and intent when I'm not in the studio and I'm not reading that I can kind of apply myself to and it gives me a little bit of escape, and it makes me feel like I've achieved something, even if the food tastes bad. I'm like, you know, I just made an amazing pumpkin pie. Or this pie tasted horrible, but at least I spent like three or four hours learning how to make pie crust, you know, So I love I love it. Well, I'm waiting for the Aimen Eats podcast.

I'm waiting for the Amen Eats cooking show Aimen and Friends. I'm waiting for I'm waiting for that iteration of your I want, I want that iteration of your of your media career because I love to see it. It looks amazing. Um. Amen, thank you so much for for making the time to join Woke f and thank you for all of the work that you are doing on your new show on Saturday joining us. I know, asking you to come on the show on the weekends, it's always, uh, it's a

tough order. You know, you want to have some time where you're like, you know what, I just need to unplug from all this madness. So we appreciate when you come on and you well, I very rarely say no to you, so so you ask, you ask, and you're one of the few people I'm like, oh, it's a weekend, but it's amen, Okay, I'll do it. Thank you all right, friend, appreciate you. Guys. Everyone check out Aim and show on Saturdays and Sundays and on Peacock on on Fridays. You

know him, you love him. It's tremendous viewing. And they're not a lot of people who I support and have passion for these days on TV, but you're still one of them. So I appreciate that. That is it, dear friends for me today on Woke, A f as always power to the people and to all the people. Power. Get woke and stay woke as fuck.