System Breaking Moment

If you haven't seen the viral video of the mother from Nashville, Tennessee, who stood before cameras that were down in Tennessee, you know, once again at the latest school shooting, and she said, are you tired of this? Aren't you exhausted by this? And just went off on you know, the fact that this nation is addicted to guns, doesn't want gun to reform, the fact that she is a survivor of a mass shooting. And you know, I have been in tears multiple times since Monday, because I, like you,

I'm just fucking exhausted. I listen to Republicans say things like, oh, there's nothing we can do, and I'm just like, fix your fucking language, because what you should say is that you don't want to do anything right. Oh, thoughts and prayers. Oh, let's blame it on this. Let's blame it on that we're their doors. Every single school shootings has been at the hands of an AR fifteen. The school shooter in Tennessee bought seven fucking guns. Seven legally, the fuck you

need with seven guns? Four that's not a red flag, no, because Tennessee doesn't have red flags anymore, because Governor Lee said, ah, fuck it, you don't need a permit, You don't need to do anything right. You can walk into any place and get a gun in the way that you walk into seven eleven and get a fucking slurpee or a pack of gum. They want to remove books from the shelves because books and learning, education and critical thinking, that's

what's really dangerous. Imagination and dress up, that's the thing that is going to threaten your child. But the AR fifteen that they are staring down the fucking barrel of no that they can't do anything about. In Utah, they just pass legislation to regulate social media of those under the age of eight team between ten thirty pm and six thirty am, because in Utah it's fucking China. So

you can regulate social media. You can are bipartisan conversations about getting rid of TikTok and banning at nationwide, But banning in AAR fifteen that's fucking mowing kids down in their classrooms out that you can't do anything about. You have members of Congress that pose in front of a Christmas tree with their children in AAR fifteen that doesn't get child protective services called on you. No, But getting gender affirming care for your child, that's what we need

to be paying attention to. But indoctrinating them into fucking gun culture. No, that's okay. Do you see how sick this fucking country is? And I just you know, there are days, folks, there are days when I struggle. I struggle to get out of bed, I struggled to turn on the mic, I struggle to push through. And I think that we are doing too much pushing through. And like I called for yesterday on Mary Trump Show, we

need a national boycott. Everyone needs to refuse to work, to shut down and grind this country to a fucking halt. Every single teacher and every single school district across this country needs to refuse to go to work. Every single bus driver, every single principle crossing guard school, nurse guidance counselor, every single sanitation work, a nurse doctor, every single clerical person, all of the bank workers, every single person at a

grocery store, a big box store. We need to grind our country to a fucking halt until Republican politicians decide to take their fucking nose out of the NRA's ass and do what their constituents voted for them to do, which is supposedly to protect their fucking kids. They want a jerrymander and voter suppressed so that they stay in office, so that they can keep getting bankrolled by the gun lobby. They don't give a fuck about you. They don't give a fuck about your kids. They are not a pro

life party. They are pro death and anti child. Because there's no way that you have a member of Congress look reporters in the face and say there's nothing we can do. Things are gonna happen. Oh, we can't stop a person with the gun. You can take away the

fucking gun, that's what you can do. I just, you know, I get to the place where it's like the tears are both from sadness and grief, but they're also just from rage, like I just I want body bags, the thousands of body bags delivered to every Republican members house, right. I want massive boycotts and protests. I want to shut

this country down because they're not listening. And the more that we take and just go back to fucking normal and walk around and go to work, and go back to school and just go about our days, and there are children that are dead, not from cancer, not from a car accident, but from preventable fucking gun violence. This shouldn't be an every week occurrence. There have been more mass shootings this year than days on the fucking calendar, and every year gets worse. The only time that we

didn't have school shootings was during COVID, during quarantine. What the fuck does that tell you? I don't know. I don't know. Coming up next is a conversation that I pre recorded with my friend, the executive director of LGBTQ Task Force, Kara Johnson, and this conversation is about out the targets that the Republicans are placing on the backs of our community and the threats that we face and what we can do about it. That conversation with Kia

Johnson is coming up next. Folks. I am very happy to welcome back to Woke Fi Daily my friend the executive director of the LGBTQ Task Force, Kiara Johnson, who you have no doubt seen heard on the steps of the Supreme Court on channels like MSNBC talking about the onslaught of attacks and the targeting of the LGBTQ community that we are seeing. Kiara, before we even jump in, you know, I want to ask you, person to person, black queer woman to black queer woman, how are you feeling?

You know, I feel like I have so many emotions in any given day. Um. You know, on one hand, I get so much I get I have so much hope about what's possible right when I when I see um more LGBTQ folks organizations working, you know, across movements right with you know, immigrant rights organizations and and women's rights organizations, poverty organizations. UM. More young people coming out, and they're coming out in larger numbers and and at younger ages. UM. And then I can't help but have

a pit in my stomach. You know, it's hard to believe that in twenty twenty three we are seeing the onslaught of attack and and and and in so many different ways, um across the country, on every facet of our community. It makes me nauseous. It makes me nervous, but it also has really lit a fire under me too. You know, I will tell you that nothing has really prepared me right for this backslide in acceptance in just equity. Right.

I was one of the people who, like you, have been on the front lines for LGBTQ equality of use their platform for a variety of things. And I was lulled, like many after we watched the White House Go Rainbow in twenty fifteen, into complacency that like we were on an up swing. We were on you know, we were this we were going to be visited upon all the successes that our predecessors had fought so valiantly to get

us too. And now I feel in many ways we have had the wind literally figuratively kicked out of us right and pulled from underneath our wings and in our sales. And so while you say you feel like you have a fire ignited in you, there are many people who you know, reach out to me on social media and they're like, Danielle, I just don't have the energy. I don't have the strength. I feel worn out, I feel hopeless, and so to that, what do you say, I feel that,

I hear I hear that too. And the reality is is that you know, we are not powerful only as individuals. We're powerful as a collective, right, We're powerful as a community. We are powerful being aligned, right. That Also, that's the way we stay resilient too. It's not that everybody has to do everything all the time, forever and always right. We have to figure out for ourselves and within the context of community, what's our piece of the fight right now.

And remember that we're connected to elders in this movement who are in their sixties, seventies, eighties, right who who who are ready to jump back into this fight in various ways. We are connected to teens and twenty somethings in thirty some things who are also fired up and looking to take part in this battle, in these fights.

And so I think the I think the most dangerous thing our opposition can do, and it is what they are trying to do, is to make us feel isolated, make us feel alone, make us feel like we don't have power, make us feel like we are undeserving of the rights that we're demanding of the love that should just be ours by virtue of being humanum and if we can, if we can remind ourselves that we are not alone and in fact, this onslaught of attacks is in reaction to us winning, in reaction to our progress.

I think I think we can we can really pull this out. Yeah, I feel that, and I feel the you know, I think that anger is a really powerful emotion, right, as many people who listen to woke a come here for which is the level of rage that I project on a daily basis. But I do I think it's powerful. I think it. I think if utilized as a tool, right, it can force levers and mechanisms and break systems wide open. Right.

And I feel, Kiera, that we are in a system breaking moment, right, And we're in a system breaking moment because they were never meant to hold us, right LGBTQ people, people of color, people from marginalized communities in this breaking open though? Do you feel like there needs to be a full on sledgehammer destruction in order for a new to grow out of that? Right? Like? Is there a way that we mend this or is it in need a full breaking? I think what you're talking about is

so it's so critical. I mean, I think we do have to get angry. I also think being angry and being hopeful or not mutually exclusive. Right, those things live together, right, they work in tandem. Right. It's it's how we decide what we're gonna do with the anger. Right. We can we can use our anger to destroy and be done right, or we can use our anger to destroy and also right have that hope in our back pocket that's going

to help us build right and generate and evolved. And so I do think so many of our systems have to be to use your word sledge hammered. Right. Um, so many of the systems right that are in play right now are not working for us, right. I mean the foster care system is a really great example of that. Um, Black and brown and Indigenous kids are falling through the cracks. Um, they're all of these homes, you know, willing, loving homes waiting for kids that never see children enter their enter

their homes. Our education system. All we have to do is look at Florida and know that the education system is a joke. It's a joke. We've got to start over and put people at the center of these systems and institutions again, and I do think there's an outside and an inside strategy. I think there are short term

and long term strategies. I don't think we have to throw the baby out with the bathwater, because there are too many of us are four mothers, four parents who have had great ideas and have seen real success, right, that we can capitalize on. And now's the time to remember and learn our histories, right, because there's a lot

there for us to utilize and to capitalize on. And isn't that the reason why we are seeing the onslaught of legislation that is attacking this community, that is attacking education, that is attacking curriculum, Because now is the time for us to understand our history. Understand that while there is a newness to this moment moment, right, because we are dealing with layered and extensive and fraught crises, that the

struggle is not new, right. What we are struggling against, and it's connection, right, climate change, economic crisis, racial injustice, transphobia and homophobia, anti semitism, all of those things are not new things. It's just the fact that we are in this literal perfect storm. And so you know, is that why we're seeing these attacks Because I'll tell you, Kiera that I wrote something the other day and I said,

the problem is we got too free. That's the problem is that we now have generations of young people that are questioning the lies in the systems that they have been born into. They are questioning the gender binary, they are questioning name capitalism, they are questioning right patriarchy, they are questioning the calls around the lack of bodily autonomy. They are questioning these things. And dare I say, becoming woke to these things, and that's why we are seeing

this vicious evil. Yes, immorl pushback. I think that's absolutely right. I mean, I will never forget my I'm gonna take it all the way to birthing um My Dula, who was a badass black woman, said to me, when you feel the worst pain, that's when you are making the most progress. That's that's how you know, right, you are almost there. And and that feels so real for us

in a movement context right now. I think that our opposition is coming so hard for exactly the reason you said, we are making too much progress, that the light is shining too bright at the end of that tunnel. And so the only thing they can do is to create narratives that strip us of our humanity, make people afraid. You got to make people fear us to try to gain any traction. And you know there have been casualties, right, that's undeniable, and there will be more casualties. We're seeing

it across the country and we're already winning. We're gonna win. This is exactly the reason we have to push harder. We have to make deeper connections, we have to invest even more in our communities, engage our elders and young people in this fight in an authentic way, because because it is they're feeling the pressure, they're feeling the winds and the power and that we're exhibiting. And that's my thing, is that I want to remind people of this. Right,

And I love what your do list said. I love I love that because I can envision it in this moment of we are in pain. So I want to acknowledge the fact that yes, right, like our community, right, these layered and intersected communities that we are a part of,

are feeling the most pain. Right, we are being forced to the brink of like our trauma, right of feeling and living in fear, living looking behind our you know, looking over our shoulders, wondering whether or not we're going to lose our jobs, wondering whether or not we're going to lose our homes. Right, what else is this Santa's gonna throw out every time my fucking phone dings. It's some other piece of legislation that they're attacking, you know,

just right before it's now periods. So not only right, not only are people with uteruses you losing, yep, the ability to decide when, how, and if they want to have a child. But now we have legislation in the state of Florida that is about to muscle young girls in school, muscle their teachers, muscle the administration from even being able to talk about menstruation. Like what right in the entirety? What in the back to the future? I

just you know what I'm saying. So when you see that, because here are you come out of the abortion movement, you come out of the reproductive movement as well, and you see these things are so intertwined. What does coordinated fight back look like? You know, our allies and friends at the state and local level have been saying this. For a long time, the need to think locally right and at globally has been ever present, and it's even

more important now. I think in addition to thinking about how we're coordinating across movements or across issues or across constituencies, we've also got to think about how we're coordinating cross borders. Right. We've got to be thinking about how does what we do at the local level help give us an edge up in the in the change we're trying to make at the state level, and you know, the change we're trying to make at the state level federal level, and

then vice versa, right in the other direction. These these things are ever connected, and I mean that's another way we have to think differently, right, Like, we don't have the luxury of only thinking about federal policy. We don't have the luxury of only thinking about the state legislature. We've got to be thinking about city policies, right, We've got to be thinking about school board And again, we each one of us can't do all of those things.

But how are we connecting through various tables right so that we can be on a more coordinated front. And we're in and if we can't align in an entire right strategic way. How can we work together not to do harm right along the way. I don't even know what doing no harm really looks like, because you see, what I feel like the right has always been better at is their coordinated attack, because you see they have

a similar endgame. It is the destruction of equity, of justice, of freedom, right like, that's their goal, is a white crystal fascist country, Disneyland Right Florida is their petrie dish for that. And we're seeing what that looks like. It looks like criminalizing people who transport undocumented people, whether that be a family member or a colleague. It looks like no bodily autonomy. It looks like no conversation around bodily autonomy.

It looks like targeting the press, targeting trans people. You know, it looks like a police state. Right. But when we look at these separate movements, do you think that we talk enough about what freedom looks like to all of us? Do you think that we have a conversation about freedom, about love, about you know, our collective and shared purpose, or we two divergent in our thinking about what I

got to do over here? For Repo writes what I got to do over here for trans writes, what I got to do over here for black liberation, etc. Etc. You know, we just had our Creating Change conference a couple of weeks ago, and somebody said, one of the participants, you know, it's critical for us to be in our constituent specific right groups and right and configurations. But what's missing that we used to do better is come back together to share and learn and debate and like and

and create together. And I think that's that's the piece. I think we've got to carve out that space again to be right in community. However, right folks want to you know, mobilize right within their constituency groups. But then, like you were saying, how do we come back together so that all of the generative ideas, all of the strategies, all of the new found solutions right, there's a place for all of that to come back for us to chew on right together. I think I think that's critical.

But but I also would say, you know, I've heard folks say, you know, we need to take up a piece out of you know, take a page out of the opposition's handbook, And I would I argue that it's always been our handbook, right, Like, when you look at the tactics they're using, they're hours like investing in young people's leadership, right like having a strategy to reach college students, community building right at the local and state level, engaging

in organizing faith communities. That's not theirs, that's ours. And so it's also like, how do we do less of getting sucked into what they're doing. Not that I'm saying we don't, we shouldn't be aware, right, We've got to be right now. I get that, yes, But also how do we invest in the strategies and tactics that have worked for us over the centuries, whether it was right

to vote, desegregation, owning land. You know, there are so many powerful transformational wins that progressive people have made along the way that I think it's dangerous for us to forget right. That perspective is critical, especially in these times.

I can remember learning about the civil rights movement when I was in high school, and I remember because it is pretty much what triggered my love of politics and public service and wanting to be a part of the group of people that believed in the possibility of perfecting this union and I remember thinking to myself, and all throughout my career have thought to myself, who would I have been right in the nineteen fifties, nineteen sixties, nineteen seventies.

Would I have been doing right? Because we all love to say that we would be you know, we would have been this and that and like bump bap up. But there were people. There were black folks that were just trying to live, just trying to survive, right, that didn't want to put their body, their life there anything on the line. And so here we are fast forward. I'm not saying that it's the same, but I'm saying that there is a fight. We are at war, right.

We didn't declare it, but it is happening and unfolding. Yeah, and I find myself recognizing that, oh what would I have been doing? I would have been a voice. I would have used whatever platform I had, whether I was writing in the you know, the black newspaper, getting on you know, black radio, or doing whatever like that. Is what I would have been doing. Is what I'm doing now. How do you answer that question? Do you feel like you are doing now what you would have done? Then?

Oh my god, I love this question. Um, dang okay. So I don't know what immediately came to mind, to be honest, was I see myself helping run the underground. So you know, every movement right has had an underground right, whether moving underground information or moving people to seek the healthcare right, the abortions they need, or getting people from you know, slaveholders to freeland right, like I housing people, tracking,

getting people to places. There's something about that that just feels that subversive, like like pulling the things up by the roots, like you have no idea where I'm at, but it's but that's but that that's the I don't know. It makes me really excited, and now it's making me question what else I need to be doing that I'm not doing right now? You know, less out front, But there are other things I could be doing behind the scenes that maybe fewer people know about. I mean fair,

you know I think that. And I pose this question to you all that are listening right now. Are you doing what it is that you believe that you would have been doing right? Because this is our time, This is our generations from generation Z on up. This is our time, and this is our moment. And Kiera, as I close out I say this to you every time that you know I have the great pleasure of speaking

with you and having you on the show. It gives me great comfort at a time when there is not a lot that is comforting to know that you are at the helm of one of the LGBTQ plus organizations that are fighting for policy that is just, that is fighting for a world, for a country that is more just, where we are able as queer people to live fully

in our skin. And so I just appreciate you and the work that you continue to do, the fight that you continue to have and wage, and just know that Woke a f and our audience is here for you whenever you call on us. Ah, I adore you, I love you. I'm so grateful for your voice. We need you now more than ever. And I'm so so excited for you and all the things that you're doing. But I'm excited for us in a movement that has your

voice on the air. Wow. That is it for me today, dear friends on Woke f as always, Power to the people and to all the people. Power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.