Good morning, peeps, and welcome to wok F Daily with Meet your Girl Danielle Moody, Recording from the Home Bunker. The folks, I'm excited about on today's conversation, which is uh will be coming up shortly with Justin Lofton, who was recently elected to local office in Mississippi. And you know, I'm going to tell you you're going to want to listen to this interview because what is surprising about Justin is one, he is young, he is black, and he
is also openly bisexual. Those are not the things that we think about when we necessarily think about Mississippi and a new elected official. So his story is coming up on how he made what many would thing to be the impossible possible. But before we get into that conversation, I just want to talk about a couple of things.
Which is first George Santos, like, what a fucking disaster of a human being. Twenty three charges I think that he has against him now finds himself on cameo, which is a site that you can go to to get celebrities from A to apparently Z record messages for you for fee. And George Santos clearly hasn't grifted enough because he's recently joined that platform, which I'm like, who the
fuck is gonna pay? But maybe people will and it'll be like a funny joke, but the joke will be on you, because what you're doing is just continuing to
fund somebody like this. The other piece about George Santos is that you know he now that he's gone, makes the Republicans very very very paper thin majority even slimmer, and I think that we would all do ourselves a good service by looking at his expulsion as an opportunity to regain the House from the least functional House of Representative session since the Great Depression.
I'm not saying it. That's what's coming out of news reports, which should be embarrassing, but apparently it takes an outward grifter like George Santos to make the Republicans move from their Orange Jesus worshiping into recognizing that maybe this guy is not the vibe that we want for our party.
It's amazing to me that they can expel Santos, who basically would not have existed if not for Donald Trump being the blueprint on how to fucking grift off of your constituents, right like Donald Trump, president former twice impeached, multiply indicted former president of the United States used his hotel that was in walking distance to the White House as a way to use his political influence to gain
monetarily right for both himself and his kids. But like, oh, you want to talk about George Santos's ethics violations, and I'm like, Donald Trump has a bevy of them, but we don't pay attention to that. It's just like, I don't know. I want to say that it's hypocrisy at its best, but I mean, that's what the Republican Party does. Nonetheless,
George Santos is out. Maybe you'll see him or get a cameo video for the Happy Holidays or Hanukkah where he'll say something to the effect of happy Jewish Holiday. What a piece of trash, but so perfectly associated with the Republican Party, and you know who they are, who they are and what they embrace. Sadly, Matt Gates is so upset that Republicans wouldn't let this play out because winning is more important than having any type of integrity
or values. But you know, does this shock anyone coming from Matt Gates props not so coming up next, Dear friends, my interview with Justin Loft it. I hope that you enjoy it. Let me know your thoughts in the comments, Folks. I am very excited to welcome to OKF Daily for the first time, a newly elected Justin Locksim, who will start your tenure as the next Pike County District one supervisor in January of twenty twenty four and it'll be
a four year term. And what is amazing aside from I mean, as I was going through the bio, I said in Mississippi.
Got elective, we sure first out black bisexual man who unseated, by the way, a twenty four year incumbent, Is that correct, a twenty four year incumbent in McComb, Mississippi.
Talk to me first of all about McComb, Mississippi, and then why you decided to run and think you winning was possible.
Yeah, thank you for that, and first thank you for having me on.
I want to say that I truly appreciate this forum to share space. So McCombe is located in Pike County and Pikee County is a proximate about thirteen thousand people, and so with this particular seat, it actually is not only the city of Macombe, but also the town of Summit as well. Everything that kind of lies, what I would say, in the more.
Eastern part of the county and so that little region.
And what really inspired me to run for office was when I drove around my community. It's a simple fact that it did not look like the way it used to be. And I started to question whether we were electing the person or whether we were electing.
The purpose in our community.
And I think as I continued to dig and do research and really try to figure out, like, Okay, here are these factors that could be against me if I decided to run, But what are the opposition details that I could utilize to figure out like where my opponent is weak and maybe why our community looks the way it looks. And as I Doug, I began to uncover his lack of responsibility or accountability. We're completing road inventory reports and if you drive on our roads, they're dilapidating
right beneath us. Potholes everywhere in a mostly black community, and we expect our black leaders to show up.
For us when we elect them you look at the businesses.
That are in the middle of our community that we're black owned. At one point they no longer really exist, with the exception of two of them. And of course, in our part of our community, we have our own little community ecosystem, our economic system as well. Where that business drives employment, it drives opportunities for families in their areas, access to nutrition and gas and important resources and necessities.
So I begin to look at that and the economic development factors, and I said, well, I have nothing to lose. It's never been my passion to run for office. But at the same time, I can't expect change to happen if I'm not willing to step up myself and be the change.
I love this.
I love the fact that, first of all, you grew up in this area, right, so you have your own perspective and insight on how things were and what they look like. Now, give us some idea of you mentioned a mostly black so give us some idea of the demographics. And you know, as you're beginning to think about your opponent, how your being a part of the LGBTQ community could be seen as a death set right, as a blockade to you being able to win this seat.
Yeah, thank you for that question. So my district, which is District one, is comprised of about.
Sixty eight to seventy percent Black people.
Majority of those folks are Democrats.
The district has since expanded to create opportunities for more educated and more diverse groups of people to be a part of our district, but still heavily Democratic. Most of the folks that live in our district, not all of them, but a good number of them are more distressed. So you'll see a lot of apartment communities that are some
ways shape or form dilapidating things of that nature. You'll see a lot of families in our community that may be benefiting from much needed social insurance programs that are helping them to stay above while they pulled themselves up
by the bootstrap. And so, given the context of the environment that I live in and where I come from, it's very hard for anyone from the LGBTQ community to run, and especially when but I decided that when I ran, I was going to run very hard, and I was gonna put every resource I had into it, including moving savings out of my account to make it happen. So I was fifteen thousand dollars campaign altogether, which is big
for my type of race. But that being said, some of the challenges that I felt like I faced was that my opponent would certainly use my sexuality against me as political ammunition to say why I'm not.
The right ca for the job.
That he would utilize the fact that my job was one of those jobs that really had me travel some contractually to do work, and that oh, I'm not from here, I don't pay taxes here, and lo and behold, that's.
Exactly what happened.
In fact, there is this one instance where my opponent actually.
Was around my dad.
My dad walked up to him and just wanted to have a general conversation about you know, hey, I don't appreciate you, you know, really coming at my son the way that you're doing it.
You know, can we tone.
Down that type of rhetoric, the narrative that you're presenting and just run on our platforms. He gets upset with my dad and it becomes this really aggressive.
Thing and he reaches for a gun and tells me a punk ass bagget in the process. No, and so here I am.
I'm like, okay, here's this twenty four year incumbent who is supposed to be representative of all the people, who is also seventy four years old at the time, got in when he was fifty one, and he lacks the very basic principle of respect and equality and equity for the mere existence of a person of my lifestyle where I come from, and so I knew those are going to be barriers, but I didn't let those things stop me. I actually utilized that as motivation to work twice as hard.
If you're going to come at me, I'm the type of gonna be jazz and that's just how I see things, And so it didn't deter me. Of course, my feelings were hurt because I really looked up to him throughout the years as a pillar in our community.
So to have you say those things, it was super hurtful.
But also he put his hand on his gun and said those things like that's that's an attempted hate crime, right, like that's not so just I mean and aside, but not really did you press any charges or did.
You just well, he didn't do it to me. He did it dad, reaching your dad.
Okay, this you weren't there, Yeah.
This is regurgitated information to me from the people who were around the scene.
At the got it.
I mean that is but that that type of vehement hate, right that, like your father is saying, can't you run on? Like you twenty four years you would think that you have a platform to run on, right, but most likely haven't been challenged in all that time in any considerable way. That's the thing that gets me so angry, is that what I realize is you know, and you're saying this
is a largely democratic place, that this is not. It wasn't about oh, this republican said X, Y and Z, right, like this is somebody that supposedly has the same political affiliation as you do, but was using your sexual orientation as a way to demean and potentially threaten you. Yeah, so when you were deciding to double down, right, to knock on more doors and to create a platform, you know,
what were some of your constituents' pauses? And then what were who the people obviously event you know, did have your back because you're you know, newly elected and will begin your term. But talk to us about some of you know, what would you come face to face with when you were door knocking.
Honestly, to my surprise, I was actually a welcome face. Now, I think more of the pushback came from, here's this young person, and we've had another young person to run for office. I think he got elected at age of twenty one and he was elected as to city council, and he, in my opinion, lacked a level of mature to show up in the space, which caused some friction and it turned some of the voters away from you
letting young people. And so a lot of the question was, well, how are you going to be different than this young person? What makes you qualified? And in our community, yes, it's who.
Your mom and them. Well you're going to church it you.
Know, that's the southern thing. And so it was being able to name drop, Oh my dad is so, and so, my family is this, and that allowed the welcome conversation.
But I didn't see.
Those things as really like a barrier to connect with people, because my approach wasn't about all these identities that I bring to the table. My approach was coming to folks, not trying to sell myself, but to listen, after listen to the interviews, how my name is justin Lawton. If you have a I want to know what you care about in our community and some ideas that you may
have to fix it. And people will let you sit on their porch and on their couch and they talk to you about it, and that's when you introduce, Well, I'm running for this office and I love to have your support, and this is the plan that I've come up with.
Now.
Of course I have my general kind of platform and plan, but in these conversations I'm able to really gather additional ideas or solutions from the people. That way, it's for them and buy them and they can see me putting their ideas and pin to paper in the process of it as well to expand those platform ideas. So not too many barriers in that sense of the voters. And I'll be honest with you, not a lot of them ask me about my sexuality.
So let me ask you this.
You know, the south right has been very much and offices outside of national offices. I think Democrats in general have not paid attention to right. When we're talking about school boards and city councils and superintendents and these things, Democrats have allowed those spaces, in my humble opinion, to just go by the wayside, let us concentrate on who's
in Congress and who's in the White House. What message do you give to folks you know that they need to pay attention to these offices and not let them go. And why it is important for folks who continually look, you know, what can I do? How can I be of service? What should I do? Why it's important for them to run for offices like yours.
Yeah, And I think it goes back to a basic ended lesson for me is that what happens locally is then what also impacts us nationally. And I say that for those who might be interested in running, because oftentimes people look at DC or what's happening at the state level as like the major things. They don't recognize that the infrastructure money that's disseminated down from DC to the state is then disseminated down to the counties for disbursement for their everyday resources for them to have.
Safe and reliable roads and bridges to drive on.
They don't think about how the federal dollars come down for Tana for our assistance benefits for people in our community, and how our state legislature is. Yes, they're disseminating money down, but it's also the role of the county and the city government to create an equitable quality of life. Sometimes streamlining those funds are creating access to those services and
funds as well. And so I think if any pop body is going to run, they have to be able to paint the road map about how all these things kind of really meld together and how each whether it's the down ballot races at the local level, the legislative races are even at.
The federal level those elections, that they all work together for the greater good of the community.
And you can't have one and not emphasize it without having the others.
What advice do you give to justin to young queer people right who are now being faced with a climate that is incredibly hostile, which you know you experienced by virtue of telling the story about your dad and what he had to face, what advice do you give to them, first as just people right, as just young people living in environments towns you know that can be dangerous for them to be out in.
Never settle.
For delineating parts of yourself to satisfy anybody. People will either have to accept.
All of you or none of you.
Because one of the things that I've had to learn, and I will give this to any other queer candidates running, is that I wasn't willing to curate some inauthentic version of me to be elected. And the main reason is that when it comes to my sexuality, maybe clothes are
for closets, not people, not our identities. We are who we are and at the end of the day, recognizing that it's not who you sleep with, who you love, who you share space with, but it's about what you do when you get into that boardroom, when you get into that legislative seat, when you.
Get into Congress that matters. It's the impact.
Because if sexuality defines success, well, heterosexual people have owned the public office for a long time and we send a lot of failures.
So it might be the right time.
In the right place for queer people to start running and winning because we may be able to change things that haven't been had to.
Be changed in a long time.
Justin last question for you, what are you most excited about come January twenty twenty four when you start your four year term.
Good question. I'm excited about impact. I know that's very broad to say. But even before getting into office, I've already written a grant to the Office of Juvenile Prevention to help with juvenile diversion programs to reduce the burden on our jails and save taxpayers money. I've already began working with economic development, where there's a group of folks who are looking at spaces in my district to.
Bring jobs, hundreds of jobs to the area.
So being a part of those conversations, so I want to see those things flourish and come to life. What I'm more excited about is proving that young people and queer people are the leaders that our society has been waiting on, and that when you've been given the chance to show up and deliver, that we can do the job.
And so I want to prove to everybody in my community, to every voter who may be hesitantly voted for me, that you made the right choice and that the results is driven by the impact that I've helped to make in our community.
So that's what I'm looking forward to.
Well, justin I wish you all of the success. I'm so excited by the fact that you ran, that you had the courage to run, and that you won, but I think that you're going to You've already made impact because you've already shown that the you know, what some
would have said was impossible is possible. And so being that possibility model, being able to show young black men, young queer people, everyone who lives at the intersection of multiple identities that they can, particularly in this really dark time, is incredible.
So thank you, Thank you.
I appreciate the opportunity to share.
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.
Yah.