The Cost of Ignorance

been experiencing triple digit temperatures four weeks. And you know, I did an interview that you all will here on here next week with Danielle Kampomore who helped connect the dots to how reproductive health is going to be impacted by climate change. Because I think that too often when we're having these conversations about climate change, or when they find their way into the press, it is again a

string of quote unquote isolated and historic incidents. Right, We're going to talk about the heat wave, and then there'll be a story about somebody or a few people dying because of said heat wave, or we'll talk about wildfires, which is what is creating the heat dome that we are experiencing across the country, where there are places in Minneapolis and Detroit that have are on the top ten list in the world of cities right now with the worst air quality. Like, these are not things to shrug off,

you know. I was in a conversation with my mother earlier this week that it's just like this summer's weather is so crazy. She's like, it's so weird, and I'm like, it's not really weird. It's our new normal. And these are things that people need to understand, like these things

are not going away. They're actually going to get worse with each and every passing summer and each and every passing year because those that are in power are choosing to absolutely ignore this problem that is screaming in our face.

Right there is no way to look at the temperatures that are happening in places that are normally areas that can go without air condition right, that have gone without air conditioning for oh, I don't know, centuries until now, and people are just like, oh, well, folks need to you know, run air conditioner. I told you guys this the other day on the show I got to notice

from con ed here in New York. That's that I think it was two weeks ago that I was running my air conditioner, running the electricity thirty three percent higher that I had in the prior weeks. So what does that amount into? More electricity? More fucking money? Right, the higher cost it is going to be in order to live in changing temperatures. So again, folks are just like, oh, well, people just need to get air conditioners, or oh we

just need to stay indoors. All of that is going to cost money that no one else is going to be paying for other than you. And I'm telling you, this fucking ignorance that the Republican Party perpetuates is expensive, right, Ignorance is not cheap actually, And so you have in these places where we are going to again we're talking about the human toll with people, you know, passing out,

with people dying right from heat strokes. You talk about the fact that when temperatures exceed right ninety something degrees, pregnant people go into labor sooner, which means that they're going to be giving birth earlier, which means that there are going to be more children that wind up in the NICKU that need more attention and care as their lives right develop, which is going to put pressure on

what are already broken down healthcare system. Like, folks, it just behooves us to connect the goddamn dots here and see that our elected officials choosing to be ostriches is not only going to cost us our lives because I don't know whose body temperature can exist. As we start to see temperatures around the world, Like I reported on this the other week, and I fucking tweeted it out. I think it was in Iran in the Middle East, somewhere where the temperature was one hundred and twenty five

fucking degrees. Our bodies cannot sustain. Human bodies cannot sustain in that temperature. So you're looking at areas in Las Vegas, You're looking at parts of Texas. You're looking at you know, areas like Denver, Colorado is in triple digits right now, folks, Buffalo, New York is in triple digits right now. All of this is going to put a weight and a burden on our healthcare system, on our agricultural system, on our

work system. Because you know what ends up also happening in extreme temperatures which we saw last summer, and I reported on on WOKF the fucking tarmac at Heathrow was melting because the temperature was so high in London. So you talk about air travel which will become increasingly dangerous. Why because of turbulence? Why because of the rising heat index right creating air conditions that are not normal, creating more storms that are a lot more aggressive than your

average Just you know summer storm that is passing. You're talking about extreme flooding, extreme wind, Everything including the human cost and actual currency cost will be more extreme. I just I don't. I don't get it. I don't. I honestly, I don't get how we don't haul a massive summit and meeting of world leaders right now. Right before I came on to record, MSMBE was reporting that there are major evacuations that are happening in Greece because of what

wildfires that have spun out of control. Temperatures have exceeded into the triple digits, The air quality is quite shit and people are being forced to leave everything behind and evacuate because the air has shifted. The wind has shifted, endangering people's homes and property like folks. It I mean, I tell you that if it doesn't feel like the fucking end of days. Let all I'm doing is sitting

around waiting on the locusts, do you know? And we have these fucking moths here that are not indigenous to New York that are apparently eating everything and also endangering agriculture here. I'm seeing signs up everywhere. And so you're talking about the fact that we have created this person made crisis on this planet, the only one that we have, and we have done so much damage that scientists don't

think that it is reversible. So I'm just wondering, like how long even the uber wealthy think that they're going to be able to live under these conditions, you know. And it's like incredibly wild because I find myself these days doing something that I hadn't done before the sky turned yellow here in June because of the wildfires in Canada, which is checking the air indexes. Is it safe for me to go out walking today? Right? Is it safe for me to just to take public transit today? Again?

Additional cost because if I'm trying to keep myself safe, either I'm staying indoors the entire time or I'm taking an uber so that I don't have to walk to said place right or wearing a mask. But it's triple digits, so it's fucking hot. Yeah. I got to tell you that the conditions with regard to climate change in our environment, I mean, I just see things getting worse and worse

and worse. The one thing that I can say is that, at least in New York, and I know that this is not true for other places, that we have actually had more rain. But there has been a lot more flooding that has also taken place. But at least I don't know of every week or so, there's like a torrential downpour here because the humidity has been so fucking wild, like you could chew the air. But at least the plants, I guess, can get some type of relief, and the trees.

But I mean the fact that we are seeing what scientists and climatologists told us would happen, and it's happening, and we're living in it, and the conditions don't look like we can actually change them. But the thing is what we learned during COVID right by virtue of everyone except for those that were quote unquote essential that we were only cared about. During that time, everyone was indoors.

There were less cars on the road, there were less boats in the water, and guess what, the planets started to heal itself. So we know that if we took really radical measures to actually make significant changes today, we know that the planet could have the opportunity to heal

itself from the damage that we've caused. But because of greed and an extractive mentality that says, let us just take take, take, take, take, destroy, destroy, destroy, destroy, and just pass on the responsibility to the next generation, because well, my life is halfway done, so fuck it, I don't want to change. It is the selfishness, the greed, and the drive for capitalistic wealth that has us in this space,

and I don't see that changing anytime soon. Again, we can't even get world leaders to meet as their fucking countries are on fire with no sign of stop it. Y'all. Yeah, So that is on top of mind, as you know, by the end of the week here in New York it is going to reach triple digits. And you know, we're just acting like this shit is normal. Then it's totally not. I want to talk about the recognition, the honor that was given to Emmett Till and Mammy Till,

his mother. I want folks to think about something real quick, which is that if Emmett Till hadn't have been tortured, brutalized, and killed, he would be eighty two years old right now, just three years older than Joe Biden, and the President of the United States is at this current moment. When black and white pictures are shown of Emmett Hill, the infamous picture that goes around on media and social media and traditional media, it gives you the air to believe

that this was so long ago. America has learned so much since then. This was generations upon generations ago, you know, back in the olden days. It wasn't It was within Joe Biden and many Americans' lifetimes that Emmett Hill was murdered.

It was in the mid nineteen fifties. To think that this young boy, this child was brutalized and robbed of his life, of a life that his mother had to put aside her own grieving to show the world what white domestic terrorism and racism did to her son and as done in American culture at a time when we are just casually allowing states like Florida and Texas to rewrite history to not include the important stories like that

of Emme Attil. You see, the fact is is that you cannot celebrate America write and celebrate you know only parts of your history when you don't know the whole fucking truth. Part of President Biden's speech about this memorial that is going to be built in multiple places for Emmitt Till and his mother was about shining a light on all aspects of our country and our history, and that we don't turn away. A great nations should not

and do not turn away from their darkest parts. They shine a light on it, one so that we do not repeat it right and two so that we can honor those whose lives were stolen as we try and perfect our union. But that is not the desire of

this Republican Party or frankly any Republican party. And I talked about this before, but the Daughters of the Confederacy were created to feminize the faith of the Confederate ideology that after the war was lost, after they lost the Civil War, which was fought in order to be able to keep black people as their property, so that they could continue to increase their wealth at the expense of

other people's humanity. That the daughters of the Confederacy came in to rewrite that history and to create statues of the Confederacy, to turn what we know was an issue and a war fought over slavery into one that was about states' rights and honoring states rights. And these were the rebels, the heroes that fought again governmental oppression. So they are fine with weaponizing and erasing history so that

you don't actually know the truth. These motherfuckers or rated on the benefits of slavery, and now you have right now their fucking descendants talking about how slavery was good for black people, how it benefited them, gave them skills. Are you fucking dumb? Do you think that these white

slave masters had any fucking skills. They went specifically to parts of the continent of Africa where there were metal workers, farmers to build up their fucking country that they stole from an indigenous pop that knew the lay of the land, and so they could not enslave them because they had a common fucking language right the understanding of the land.

Even though there were all of these different tribes they tried, so they have to go and get another batch of black people to bring in to torture, to rape, to destroy their families. And then they want to turn around and tell us teach kids in Florida that it was all for a benefit, because if not for the domestication by the white slaveholders, that what black people would have been Like wild horses, are you fucking kidding me? Folks?

This is what I say when I tell you that it's like I reach these points of the week, of the month, of the fucking year, of the decade where I just get to the point of exhaustion where I'm like, Okay, it's time to turn this shit off for beat because I just do not have it. And this is where you know, white folks ask me all the time, like

what can I do? You can learn? You can make education and the education about the truth of this country by reading text, by listening to podcasts, by organizing write your own book clubs, by organizing your own activation in these fucking states, building your community. Maybe it only starts with one, maybe it starts with two, but then it

builds from there on. Because I'm telling you that the exhaustion that I feel is fucking generational, and it is bone fucking deep to continue to do the work to educate white people who are purposefully walking through life as ostriches want to run into Old Navy to go get a flag shirt, but don't know fucking dick about nobody's flag. You know it is wild. And so what do I ask of white people that want to be activated allies and not just passive allies, is to do the work.

Is that when it gets hard and you're exhausted, think about generations, hundreds and hundreds of years of that kind of exhaustion before you decide to tap the fuck out. Everybody, particularly white people, should be asking themselves every day, what did I do today to disrupt white supremacy in this country. It is reading, it is educating, it is activating. It is pushing back every single day on your own beliefs as well, because having black friends or having black people

in your family does not make you not racist. It is embedded. So it is an consistent unlearning and relearning that has to happen. And the forces at play right now are making it almost damn near impossible for future generations to be better. So stop tricking yourselves into believing that all we do is need for the races to die out. Because Ammetil should have been eighty fucking two years old, he should have been able to die of

old age. He should have been able to have gotten married and had grandchildren and great grandchildren, but he didn't. And there are more Emmitt Tills than this country cares to even fucking reckon with. We just had a judge deny one of the last survivors of the Tulsa massacre reparations, living to be one hundred and something years old and

still being denied what was stolen from you. You think about that, Think about the lengths that this country goes through and is going through to ensure that white supremacy lives on. It's fucking deep. And so the work that is being done by woke and conscious white people who actually believe in freedom and liberation is also deep and needs to be consistent. I'm not telling you to consistently spin yourself into misery, but I'm telling you to ask yourself every day,

what am I doing? How am I advancing the cause? And it could be something so small as dedicating and creating your own fucking syllabus of people that You need to be reading, creating your own book clubs with you, your own people, having conversations, advancing those conversations, and then going into your schools and saying what's in the library here, what is part of the curriculum, whether you have a kid in school or not. Because what they know or

don't know is going to effect all of us. This is why I say that education is so important, and this is what they know. They know education is so important. It's why it's always been the battleground for liberation and those that believe in oppression. This shit ain't new, unfortunately, but we are just getting around to honoring the life and the sacrifice of Emma Till, a man, a boy who could have grown to be a man of eighty

two years old. You all have eighty something year old people in your family right now that should have been Emmettil. We're just getting around to honoring his murder. Being one of the many sparks of the civil rights movement that they are working to a race from curriculum, not only in Florida, but in red states around this country. It's a fucking disgrace. And lastly, folks, I want to talk very briefly about the strikes that are taking place across industries.

This is far time that people are paid their fucking worth. And the fact that we live in a society that celebrates billionaires and makes them into these deities and then at the same time looks down at the poor and says that they're poor because they've made poor choices is the lie of capitalism, is the lie of greed. And I think that it's important as we're watching people strike, because what they're asking for is the ability to live.

They're not striking so that they can ride around in fucking you know, one hundred thousand dollars cars or live in two and three and four different homes. No, they just want the ability to be able to live and work with dignity and provide for themselves and if they want their families. No one chooses to be poor, no one chooses to struggle. But there are systems that are created to make it so only a few breakout of

that invisible cast that we have in America. Everybody scrambles to go and you know, pay money in to go win the lottery, when in fact, all we actually need is you know, wealth, registribution, give back, to the communities you extracted from. Pay people a living wage for their labor so that they don't have to work multiple jobs. It's not rocket science, and yet they make us believe that it's impossible. It's not. Capitalism is a made up construct.

We can reimagine it. That is it for me today, Dear friends on wokef as always, or to the people and to all the people power, get woke and stay woke as fuck. M