Not Justifying the Unjustifiable

news cycle. Let me start off by just sharing some personal news which has really colored my perspective as of late. A really good friend of mine, a very dear friend who if you have been listening to my show throughout the years, Rissy kat Iabo Okaday, passed away from cancer. And she was young and an amazing and beautiful friend that I was very fortunate to have in my life for over a decade and I am still very much

reeling from the grief of that loss. Why do I bring that up for all of you, because what I have experienced personally and what we are seeing just on such a hat eclysmic stage, is that life is really fucking fleeting, right, whether it is lost through disease, through accident, through war, We're not promised time. And I think that what reorients us during death, whether it is individual or in mass like we are experiencing in Gaza, is a sense of real instability, real shake up, but also like

a reorienting around what is exactly what exactly is important? Right? And what I can tell you all is that I am in a place of struggle, and I'm gonna be very honest about that. I am in a place of struggle in terms of reconciling the absolute fucking bullshit that I'm seeing with you know, Republicans, let me impeach this person and force this person to resign. And you know how very wealthy white conservatives are so fucking aggrieved that they can't have open conversation or people of color in

any positions of power. So they will force them out right. They will do away with diversity, equity and inclusion. They will come out as the Lulaman founder did and say, you know, we don't want certain people in our stores, and just this depravity, right, this fucking greed, this gross sense of entitlement, and the purposeful miseducation under education of people, and the celebration of ignorance, of violence and of lives.

And when I lost my friend who spent her life in so many different facets as an African American studies professor, as an English professor, as a cultural architect, managing many different artists and DJs and just musicians and brilliant Black creatives that she was, and just putting out beauty and creating community, right, particularly for black people, because we know that anytime that Black people have found themselves throughout history

trying to create community, advocate, build, you know, white supremacy destroys it.

out for publishing. So we're fucking serious here. It's like every time that people from marginalized communities learn the game, win at the game, they fucking changed the rules. And what I have found is that I'm just exhausted, right Like I'm exhausted by it all. I'm just emotionally spent, right like I am tired of trying to find ways to wake up people's consciousness, to wake people up to their power, right to want to find ways in your

lives to resist against oppressive forces. I'm tired, right And when I look around and I see that my friend is now gone at the age of fifty one, I think to myself, how do I want to spend my

time and my days. It's sure as fuck is not banging my head against the wall, stuck inside of a system that I've entered into twenty some odd years ago because I wanted to be a change maker, because I wanted to help government, this antiquated system of government that was never built for people like me, like many of

you listening. I wanted to help expand opportunities, expand the table, create room in this multiracial democracy, and I got to tell you that, you know, I was naive because I believe that everything was just about moving forward, that we would never in a million years find ourselves just hanging on for dear life.

about women. They don't even care about their own white women. Right. This is what I tell white women all the time who are linked up with their white conservative husbands and boyfriends and fathers, right, is what the fuck up? Your proximity to their perceived power is not going to save you. As a matter of fact, they are put you on the butcher block. They're having you weight out in parking lots.

They see you as nothing more right than being an incubator for their MAGA movement because you see it when white, straight, cisc Christian fascist men here that demographics are shifting, what comes up for them is that we need.

power and wealth at the top. So, when you've created the economic conditions for a scarcity mindset, and then you think that what people, women in particular, are gonna just have a bunch of babies. No, you have to find a way to force them to do so. So you overturn Roe v.

But on one hand, they get to criminalize black and brown women and throw them in jail, which they just did in Ohio, right, and then on the other hand they get to kill a bunch of women and then the other ones they force into motherhood. Folks, when you look at everything as I have to on a daily basis,

I got to tell you, I'm like, fuck it. You know, it isn't about taking a vacation to be honest, right, because there is no amount of vacation that is going to provide me with the energy and the clarity that is necessary to move forward over the next ten months. Like, we are in a bad place and I can't lie to you and say like, oh, things will get better.

that's not what I'm going to do. Right, I'm not going to justify what I know in my heart and all of you that listen to me know is absolutely and fundamentally wrong. The only thing that I can say in this moment in time is that as bad as things are, I want you to understand that they can always get fucking worse. Right, we're looking at the overturning not only of affirmative action check Roe v. Wade, Check right? What about Brown versus the Board of Education? Because they

completely want to defund education anyway. So what will be left behind will be the wealthy whites that can afford to put their kids in private school and get private tutors, so you don't have to worry about their education. You just have to worry about the ninety percent that they want to force. Right, into an economic cast system that they'll never be able to move out of because education

has always been the way that people do that. So if we go a head, right and we say that, well, Brown versus the Board of Education was really going against parents' rights, you think that this sixty three court isn't going to overturn it.

way they look, because you're uncomfortable. Right, again, these are all things that prior to a number of court cases over the last sixty years, have fundamentally changed our society and created more access and more opportunity to black people, to people of color, to women, to queer people, right

to people of different religious affiliations. We're looking at sixty years right where rapid progress took place, and in oh, I don't know, in eight they have rolled back a number of them that will completely and totally change the direction of this country. So I can't tell you, folks that Biden is your guy or to be enthusiastic and jump up and down. What I can say is that as bad as things are, they can absolutely get worse, with absolutely no hope whatsoever of being able to turn

it around. Not in your lifetime and not in your child's lifetime. That's what I can say. And for those people that will tell me to stop fearmongering, and why don't I go do this? And why do I go do that? Go with God. I don't give a fuck. If your mind is already made up, I'm not trying to convince you. But if you, like me, are lacking the energy and the enthusiasm it takes right now to want to fight for this country that you are seeing go down the tubes, just know you are not alone.

I came back from break. I turned on the news for thirty minutes on my first day back, and I wanted to throw my remote control through the fucking screen. I wanted to pack my bags, circle a fucking country on the globe and pack and get the fuck out of here, because what's in front of us honestly seems insurmountable.

the one that Donald Trump wins. That if, by the grace of fucking God, we are able to hold on to democracy, then we can talk about what is next. But also know that by the time that we get to November, there may be a million fucking people in Gaza that are dead. I don't know what to say. I don't know what to say about that. It makes me sick to my fucking stomach.

I've been meditating and praying. I will do whatever it takes to get myself and my family out of this country. This country will not be safe, and nor is any worse safe. Right people say safety is an illusion, blah blahlah blah, But I can tell you that the illusion has worked for many of us for quite some time.

Why because we're still here. Do I know that every time that there is a hashtag a person that has turned into a hashtag because they had a phone that the cop thought was a gun, or they were eleven in playing but the cop thought there were twenty one and killed them, or you know any of those things. Do I know how fucking dangerous this country is for black people, for queer people, for anybody that is not white,

siss straight and Christian fascists? Yes, I do absolutely fucking know that, and I also know that it will get one hundred and fifty thousand times worse. And I'm not going to be willing to stay here on the front lines.

on merchandise. I know it's a long time overdue. T shirts, toats, you know, all of that type of stuff. Let me know what you guys would like to see. If you're on Patreon and watching this video, let me know in the comment section. Otherwise, hit me up on threads on Instagram. But that will be coming out because folks, you know, community matters, taking care of each other matters, and I just don't want to be the consistent bearer of bad news.

I also want to offer you food for thought. I also want to offer you moments of joy and reflection. I don't want to just be the rage machine. It's not good for me and it's not good for you. So you know we will get through these months together, and it will not be easy, right, and so I'm going to find ways to also make it joyful. I am also finishing a book proposal this month, and you know, God willing, this time next year, you will be cracking open a book with my name on it. So I'm

excited about that. Hold fast to your joy, create moments of ease, love each other right because the time that you have very short, very very short. That is it for me today, dear friends, on woke a f as always Power to the people and to all the people.