The Unvarnished Truth

Show in the founder of Futuro Studios and Media. We've recorded this conversation while I was traveling in Washington, DC, and Julio and Maria and I get into a conversation about the large, just growing demographic in the United States, which is the Latin X population, and we talk about one the way in which white Republican straight men and I use that in quotations are using migrants as a political pawn, are using human beings to score points with

their rapid racist, white supremacist base. And we get into this conversation about cruelty and about the way in which the media, rather than talking about what DeSantis and Abbot are doing with migrants in the United States. Rather than referring to it as what it is, which is a human rights violation, which is human trafficking, the media is talking about it as if it's like a high school prank that Rhonda Santis and Abbot are playing on Vice President Harris or on the State of New York, or

on Martha's vineyard. It's not right. It isn't funny. It isn't a both sides issue. If we saw this happening in other countries, the way that this media would be talking and lambasting right these people and calling them human traffickers. But you see the problem once again is that we are relying on white people to police other white people, white people in power to police other white people in power. That's not how society was set up. It's not howard

fucking works. They don't do it. So the newsrooms are filled with people who look like Ronda Santis and Greg Abbott, right, And because of this, they don't see themselves as villains, they don't see themselves as the problem, and so they don't speak about it in that way. Words matter, right, The way that we talk about these situations and how they are unfolding matters because it gives and it provides

more gravity and context to the situation. That's what we try and do here on woke f all the time is take what the mainstream media isn't talking about, or examine how they are talking about it in the wrong way, and bring to you, dear audience, the truth, the unvarnished truth. Sure, I drop a lot of F bombs because the current fuckery that we are living in requires it, because I want people to be outraged, but I also want us to recognize our power in getting people like the Sentis

and Abbot out of fucking office. I don't want to just shrug my shoulders and say, oh, they're red States and that's just the way it's gonna be. No, because guess what. Abolitionists didn't just shrug their soulders and say, well, you know, slavery's been around for one hundred of year, so that's just the way it's gonna be. We gotta

think bigger and we gotta do more right. And what that requires is for us to get pissed off, is for us to utilize the language that is necessary to call out the cruelty and the dehumanization that is happening. To call the Maga Republican Party the white supremacist nationalist Party, the new white fucking Citizens Council Party, because that's who

the fuck they are. They got all up in arms about being called semi fascist, but the word that they were actually upset about was being called semi because when you are hailing the win of a Georgia Maloney in Italy who is an actual fucking fascist, oppose Mussolini as the greatest leader that Italy had ever seen. Meanwhile, they hung his ass upside down after he was killed in the town fucking square in Milan to sit to the

people how dangerous fascism is. But now memory short. Here she comes riding in and Republicans are all ready for the embrace. If you don't call these people out for who the fuck they are, then folks won't recognize that there isn't an option in the upcoming election. There isn't a real choice, because it's either you are embracing fascism, cruelty, human trafficking, sex abusers right, or you're fighting for democracy.

It really is that fucking stark of a difference. So coming up next, Dear friends, I get into it with my Latin next cousins from in the Thick Show, Maria Hinojosa and Julio Ricardo Volaia. I hope that you enjoy our conversation. Let me know in the comments, in the tweets, and in the streets what you all are thinking. Indisputable with Doctor Rashid Ricci is one of the latest shows on the TYT network and also the fastest growing news

show in America. On his show, Doctor Ricci plays no games regarding policy, delivering a heavy dose of fact based truth and penetrating analysis on all the top news stories focusing on racism, criminal and social justice, politics, police brutality, Karens, and much more. Listeners can also expect interviews with fascinating guests, political leaders, commentators, and even fiery debates with conservatives on

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my play cousins. UM from the same aisle. I was going to say, across the aisle, but that is not the case. Uh. The co host of In the Thick and the Pulitzer Prize winning UH journalist Maria Hinojosa and Julio Riccardo Valeria UM, also founder and president of fut Media. Hello, friends, Welcome, what's up? Cousins? So what's up? I? You know? Let

me tell you guys. So I want to start with everyone's favorite, UM horrendous governor, right uh, Ron Death, who I refer to as Ron Death stand because he don't give not one fuck about the people in his state and their lives. But let's talk about the stunts, the dehumanization, the cruelty that is being volleyed back and forth between him in Florida and Governor Abbott in Texas with migrants and basically you know. So the latest was the flight

to Martha's Vineyard, which everybody in on wok F knows about. Right, we know that run de Santis as far as we understand now, created brochures, had people go and lie to these workers and tell them that if they get on this flight on the other side, they're going to be met with housing and food and jobs and you know whatever else. The Wizard of Oz told them that they were going to get and they arrived their draw off

on a tarmac as if they are trash. And thank goodness that the people of Marcus Vineyard are not as vile as Rond de Santas and Greg Abbott. But I just want to get each of your reactions when you heard that news, when you saw the breaking news, what you thought. So Maria, I'll start with you and then Julio. First of all, it's great to be here with you, Patma, and with my other Pama. Julio. Look, I'm here in mind. I'm in mind. That's true. You're my own mind. Old,

that's true. We're brothers and sisters. That's true, true, true. So it's not it's not a surprise, it's shocking. Nothing about this shocks me anymore, because this is the natural place where you end up when you take an entire people and you make them illegal simply but you dehumanize them to the extent where it does not matter what what happens to them period. So this is just like the most horrific manifestation of that. I think that there's

a lot, there are multiple levels. One of the things that I'm trying to do is also reframe, because you know, they have the images of the people, by the way, who have been to hell and back, and so even though you put them there in these horrible circumstances and you have lied to them, they have been put in horrible circumstances and they have been lied to for their entire lives, which is why they left where they were

from to come here. So this does not it horrifies them, right because they're like, damn, we thought better of the United States. But they're not going to be like oh boo hoo, like no we get No, They're gonna they're gonna fight like they're suing now. They're standing up for their rights and they will make a life for themselves

in this country because that is who they are. So this whole, yes, they are victims, but I'm also like, yo, Martha's vineyard, and by the way, many of these these folks have places to go, They have family waiting for them. So maybe they were close to Martha's vineyard, maybe not, maybe their families back in LA which is why this is so horrible. And by the way, this is human trafficking. Yep, this is human trafficking. And I'll end up by just saying,

is they how we understand human trafficking. There are a few things that you need to do in order to be a human trafficker. You have to have people not have their documents right, you take away their documents, You don't tell them where they're going, who is taking them, and they are told not to speak to anyone. All of those things except for when they literally dumped them on the tarmac and then they were speaking. So yeah,

let me. I'm gonna let my head mind chime in because the horror of this and the fact that this is not and there there will be some i don't know, reckoning because this is like the children in cages. It's too much and then it backfires because this is an international human rights violation. Yeah, you know, it's interesting. The other show I host, Latino Rebels Radio, which is part of FU Media. I a previous episode that I just did, I had a local reporter from San Antonio. Maria, you'll

love this. You know, I haven't even told you this yet. Nonprofit local journalists from San Antonio who covers the migration, you know, the individuals that have been in San Antonio who were part of the ones that went on the plane. It's interesting, I asked her, So, how what's the mood, you know, because there's this they were duped, right, there

were people that were duped. There was this person called Bella who would be showing up at these you know, these migrants were saying that they would perils around and you know, no one knows who per Lie is, but supposedly she's the one that told a lot of these individuals, mostly all from Venezuela, which is another complicated mess about all this that we could get into, but that you know, they were going to be promised this and this and this and they and they're like great, like this is

what America is all about. So they got dudes. Right, nobody knows where per Lie is and what her connections and all this. But what's interesting that the reporter told me after told me that now in the migrant center, to follow up on the human trafficking labeling of this, there are signs in these places in San Antonio that are saying like be careful. You know how they say, like be careful when you take a ride from something. They're now signs of like be careful by these people

who are promising you this. So if you if you see something, say something, yeah, exactly like and they say human trafficking. So you know that that framing is getting lost. You know. I'm in the Boston area, so I know a lot about Martha's Vineyard. I know, you know, it's not it's also the thing about Martha's Vineyard the people who know it's not just the playground of the rich.

It's you know, it is very immigranty. It is you know, not only it's like you have like you know that's you know, it has its history with like you know, the black community. But there's people that live on Martha's Vineyard who who are serving you know, the rich people in Martha's Vineyard. So I've played soccer Martha's Vineyard, and I was hanging out with like you know, immigrants and and and so I was not surprised by the welcome

from Martha's Vineyard. But I will tell you what I was And maybe I wasn't surprised because you know, Boston's not a progressive town. The whole media framing of this has been fucking ridiculous, Yeah, because they literally justify DeSantis as human trafficking, as if it's like, oh, he just put them on. You know, DeSantis is playing this to a t. What I said in the Think with Mighty a couple of weeks ago. You know, Biden, you can

say what you want. Biden is like trending up again. Whatever, we can get into that, whether that's but you know, all of a sudden, they're like, you know, Biden's got a couple of winds, So how are we going to distract the Biden winds like the immigration, like the Inflation Reduction Act, and oh oh I know, but yeah, Republican, let's well, we'll do it. We'll use immigrants because we'll

just throw them under the bus. Because if we throw immigrants and refugees under the bus as Republicans, we also know that Democrats have thrown immigrants and refugees under the bus, and that I think is the more the painful lesson. You know, people say, Julio has heard me say this often. Oh, Maria, you're so obsessed with immigrants and refugees. You're so Mexican, you know, You're just such an immigrant, you know, And it's like, oh, really, you think that's why. I Oh interesting,

I am an American citizen. So I became an American citizen. So I'm demanding of this country that it live up to what it's say. But what I'm obsessed with is the capacity of this country and it's people to be inhuman towards people who simply were not born in this country.

That's the litmus test here, the life of George Floyd, where we will kill a black man like that in front of a crowd, right, and we will, and we will take you, take you away from your children, separate you, put you in a cage, lie to you, fly you all across the country. You have no you have no humanity. Yeah, yeah, gohead God. I was just gonna say, and I'm sure you've said this, Danielle, but like DeSantis is a much more dangerous Trump, He's a smarter Trump. He is come,

he's more quote unquote palatable. Right, Um, I have family in Florida. I've you know, they moved from Puerto Rico nineteen eighty nine. So I go to Florida a lot um. He is someone to be reckoned with because he is going he's doubling down on this Republican policy that is winning him report. People think, oh, well, it's Venezuelans and

he spoke about the Venezuelan community. That's like, there's Venezuelans in Miami, Dad, who are like, yeah, no, it's I get, I get, you know, I know what he did, and I still agree with And then they're spinning this around because they're saying it's like, well, a lot of these individuals actually welcomed the trip, right, so the spin has happened. Oh did you not see the Washington The Washington Post, Yes,

did it? Did it? Art did an article a couple of weeks, like right after this, and it was an interview that they did with one of the migrants that said, I am so grateful to Rondo Santis for sending me to Marcus Vineyard because now I have all of this opportunity in blah blah. I said, what the fuck? And I like, I want to talk about you know what you brought up, Julio, which is the media and the fact that the media here right, they weren't calling this

human track trafficking. We on Twitter, we're calling it human trafficking. They weren't talking about it as cruelty. They were explaining it as if it was some type of fucking high school prank, right, like oh look at look at Ronda Santis and Abbott one up being. It wasn't about people. There was no people with regard to this. They were

political footballs. And so I want to talk for a moment as you two, you know, have you you Mardia have created a media empire that is centered around it is it is an empire that's centered around black But that's what you guys have done. And why is that? Because because the mainstream media, that's the kind of ship that they do. They look at black and brown people then they say, oh ha hahaha, here's another sad story. Here's another this, that and the other thing. But they're

not calling a thing of things. So I want to talk about the use of language here, the use of trafficking the use of cruelty, and why the media would run a story like the Washington Post did with regard to Look, these people are happy, right, They're happy to be used as political pawns. They're happy to be be humanized, right, to essentially soften the blow so that white people don't look at their reflection and say to themselves, goddamn, we're cruel. Hey,

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new episodes every Thursday. Yeah. No, I'm sure that the reporter, I'm sure that the reporter who spoke to that person. First of all, there's a lot there, right, How did they know that it was Ronda santistis so? But let's just say that that reporter was just like, oh my god, I hit I hit a gold mine here. I've never heard anybody say this. This is just so not expected.

The thing is is that that is so again dehumanizing, because you have no context in which to understand somebody who's in that in this position, they have been again duped lie to Suddenly somebody's with a camera and says, hey, Ronda Santists is the person who brought you here? What do you want want to say to them? And they're like,

who brought you Ronda Santis? I just want to say thank you to Ronda Santist because you got me out of that ice hell detention fucking concentration camp and I'm here and I'm breathing free, and I'm gonna make it here because again, the people who are treated like less than are actually so they embody the most most incredible

parts of our humanity, Danielle. That is what makes me sad, right, that is why I'm like, these are people who I have met on multiple different trips, on occasions at the borders, sleeping on the floor in the sidewalk, in a caravan, in a jungle, goes many that. Man, they're humanity. You know. All you hear is like, you know, human traffickers, and they're like, you know, they take advantage and they steal it.

It's not safe. I'm not painting it like that. But the reason why my travel in a caravan is because that way, they can take care of each other and the caravan could be me, you and Julio Indian. This we make up the people. We look like the people who are on that caravan, and we are taking care

of each other. That's why when I was on the caravan, I was like, so, you have this whole community of Haitians who are moving along in the caravan, and they are being protected by a lot of brown people who are around them, who are making sure that they're not attacked because they're black. Yeah, so we don't hear that. We don't hear that level of complexity. We see that.

So it breaks my heart. And I'm going to tell you something that somebody said to me because I was in Chicago right around when a lot of this was kind of hitting the front pages. I was in Chicago, my hometown, and I had a black cab driver and we were going to a hair and it was like the end of the cab drive because I was trying not to talk politics, but I did just ask him,

so what do you think about this? And he said, well, I think it's I think it's I mean, I don't know why they're flying them around because we have veterans who need to be taken care of, and why are they getting this special treatment? And they shouldn't be flowing around that's treating them like really special. And I was just like, whoa what? And I said, sir, with all due respect, and I usually don't but I had not identified myself because I was with my family, so I

was more just like curiosity. Other times when I'm talking to people in a cab, I identify myself and then I don't offer an opinion, right I'm interviewing them. In this case, he didn't know who I was, and I just said, so, I need to talk to you a little bit about that, and I explained to him deconstructing a situation. He was just like, oh, okay, I see.

But it was very interesting that in the black community, somewhere along the line someone had been saying, oh, here they are getting that treatment, that they're getting all that, and it's like no. And the fact that I mean, I didn't see many of the pictures because I really was not trying to be part of the circus. But there migration, migrants and refugees are increasingly black, right, So this is saying a black person to another black person. No, no, you can't have that. What So we have to we

have to deconstruct this all. And and that's why I took the moment. I was like, let me just try and talk like a fellow Chicagoan. And he was very receptive, by the way, very very well. That's the way you are. I mean once I've seen you in action in cabs. But but that But you're absolutely right, Daniel, Like I think what we're seeing is just how poorly we have covered this issue for years, and we've just allowed it as American like as an American journalist, like industry. It's

just what it is, right. So you know, I've I wouldn't say I'm kind of done calling out the ship because you know, I've written and Maria has written in the book and written has said no, no human beings illegal based on Ellie by Cell and and I've written. You know, I had the ap like I was like, why do you continue to use like wave of migrant like I got them on record, right, But what's interesting, what's interesting, and this is what we've allowed to happen.

And this is years and years and years, and Maria can can attest to this, you know, during the days of lue Dabs and CNN, and there's always two sides of everything of migration, and even when they were the big massive May Day protests of demonstrations of all these like Latinos and Latinas and immigrants and their allies, and you know, in the aughts, like it's always been scaring other two thousand and six, it's scary. It's the brown people are here, right. We've allowed that as a society

to be like, oh, there's another side to this. So like the lu dabs, hate speech has led to you know, there's nothing different from a Tucker Carlson now. And the difference now than I would say, is that we have allowed a right wing media machine to just own this

narrative and basically just you know it. You know the fact that Fox News got tipped on the desantist thing right as an exclusive like Fox News and and but what's happened now is like it's so obvious, like once that goes into the to the newsphere, you literally have created two cams. And the problem is it, like I view migration as like racism, right, there's no other side in a lot of ways, but we've allowed that. We've allowed that because of the fear of the other, because

the American tradition of xenophobia has driven this forever. And because that, and because of the fact that the mainstream media is overwhelmingly owned the bucks. The buck stops with me, editors in chief, all the way down. And for them, they have been raised, right, white men, white sis, men of privilege who present heterosexual and some of them are my best friends, right, I love them, But they have been raised consuming media that has this legacy of what

Julio is talking about. For decades, the narrative has been immigrants are a problem. Immigrants and refugees are a problem. I mean, basically it. In nineteen eighty six is when Ronald Reagan, right, I mean like people a horrible, horrible, a warmonger with so much blood on his hands, but that he would be the one that would do a massive legalization right of three million people. Beyond that, in the nineteen nineties, we know that at Bill Clinton actually

ran on an anti immigrant platform. He ran on tow the line. You know, it wasn't like build the wall, but it was like it needs to stop illegal immigrants, need to stop coming, this whole thing and so um so they these men who are running all the media, they've they've never heard anything else because they don't watch this.

But we don't give a fuck because we're doing our thing, because we are doing our thing because we are descendants of Frederick Douglas who understand what our responsibility is to be journalists of conscience and to be talking about this on whatever platform however we can in order to save what Frederick Douglas loved the most, which was his democracy. Right, yeah, democracy? Yeah, you know we can go on and on, Daniel, No, I know, and with and with a couple of minutes,

you know that I that I have with you. You know, how do you think that this is going to play with mid terms? We only have but a handful of weeks until the most I mean, I know that we say this in every guy an election, that it's the most consequential election, but this really is. Let me give you one of the most. Yeah. But let me give you like a specific example that we ran at Latino rubbles Um last week. Idaho state reps are dressing up as like stereotypical Mexicans to be like I'm you know,

they're running force office. They're like, oh, I'm gonna get dressed to go to Martha's vineyard like it's done, Like the Santis has gotten his like like they they have played the card. Oh my god, Hollywood, I mean, Halloween is going to be terrible. You know, they have played the card anyone that brings us up is woke. And and you know, like just in the you know, bias and all that, this is what they're they're doubling down and sadly, sadly because this issue, this issue has not

been framed correctly for years. Sadly, there's gonna be plenty of people who are going to be voting in the mid terms because all these like quote unquote illegals right are taking over this country, you know I'm talking about I mean, I have people in Massachusetts who are messaging me they know what I do for a living, like and people in my you know, my town to be like this can't happen, right, this is this is the

end of America. They've won that message. This is the the problem is the only way you're making me so depressed right now. The only way you out message that message is that you look at places like you have to believe that there's more people in this right tree Kansas who need to be civically engaged to cancel that

shit out. And that's in Kansas too. I mean, like take Kansas for you when you take about what happened with women's rights to choose, and no one thought Kansas, we're gonna and people are like, oh, hell no, this is a constitutional right. Yeah, what are your thoughts? I mean, I don't want to like but as we fail, I don't want to make you hopeless here. You know what I I I am very worried, you know, um, as

I am before every election in this country. Um. And I'm worried because you know, increasingly every election in this country is um an opportunity for some camps to lessen our experience with democracy. Right, So you know, January twentieth was not a surprise to the three of us here. We were like, this ship can happen, Oh, calm down. January January sixth, January Ye did I say, did I say January twenty six? Yes? One six one six yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we we knew. So I am. I'm worried, and at

the same time there are pockets of hope. I'm I guess the thing that I'm most worried about is that is, people are are trying to figure out how to stay alive, you know, in this weird are we in a pandemic or not situation, trying to make sure that their jobs are hunger down. You know, everybody's probably holding down at least one, if you're lucky, two maybe three jobs, you know, piecing shit together in the sense that the urgency of

our democracy is in a very fragile state. I don't know if it's kind of landing on people who are just overwhelmed with it all, who should, in fact and would probably vote correctly in terms of their interests, but just are like, you know what, like I'm just done with the whole right, and this was also and this was part of the plan. Right, nothing, nothing works, nothing functions, It's all rigged. No government function. No. So therefore the total deconstruction of Like, so why do I give a shit?

Which is where you know, the worst interest in terms of kind of making the United States into irrelevancy. The world's greatest democracy is then reduced to a place where less than half of the population votes. So um, So I'm worried, but you know, I try to stay upbeat by looking for birds in the wild. No, no, there is there is a relationship. Because I'm like, I'm like, look, it's not like I love Let me explain this. It's not like I love eagles. Okay, because I've really trying

to understand this. Right, I have become an eagle whisperer. I am an eagle follower in my place in Connecticut, right which is a tiny cottage. But here's the thing. It's not that it's the patriotic symbol of the United States of America, and that's what it is. When I was a little girl, eagles were almost extinct. We would see commercials on television with people crying because the eagle was extinct, and it was like, how did we let

this happen? And Thune says for me to see eagles that I can see with my binoculars and without my binoculars, because she's like, Hi, what's up. We're friends now we talk, you know. But the fact that I can see more than one eagle and that they are the eagles spotted right here in New York City, in Harlem. Maybe not right now, but this is to me a sign of well, shit, there's some hope, right you know, which is really what Frederick Douglas and Harriet Tubman taught us, right, liberation dreams.

You just keep on doing those liberation dreams. Everybody's going to call you crazy the way they have called the three of us, and we're just like fine, yeah whatever. You know, I just will tell the both of you, UM, what gives me, what continues to give me the mustard seat of hope that that I hold onto with all dear life is you know, the work that you all do, the and I don't joke, the empire that you have

built and continue to build. The you know, uh Maria, the books, the book that you have that is that is coming out you know once I was you UM to encourage young people, um to recognize their voice and

their power. Like that's all we can do. And so I just you know, so I say that, like I don't know if the freedom that we're fighting for we will fully see, but i'd sure as how no, that it's it's worth of continuing on the path because of what of what the two of you, UM continue to give voice, to give light to and give representation to. So you know, my my friends, UM, you know, if folks, if you don't listen to in the thick, I don't

know what you're doing, but you should. Uh. If you don't listen, if you don't listen to Latino rebels, I don't know what you're doing, because you should. Um and go and pre order Maria's new book once I was you finding my voice and pass right right on this Pulleit surprised winning journalists. Um, but let's let's keep talking, friends so that we don't we don't lose. This one's

for kids here, I'm men, wait before we leave. I know this is gonna make um Danielle happy because we always try to so first Latino and Latina and latin X and Latina, all of us. We like to get it on. So here's the thing. The median age of Latinos and Latinos in the United States is now eleven, the age that this book was written for. Wow, that's all you need to know. That's all you need to know about the future of democracy, the future of everything

is that. And those kids are black, Afro Latino. Yeah, they are indigenous Latino and they are mixture of all. So that is our future. But Danielle, thank you so much for all your love we love you. Next next time, next time I play data, you come to us. I love cousin play dates. It's the best. Thank you guys, appreciate you, Love you. 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.