Good morning, peeps, and welcome to wok F Daily with Me your Girl. Daniel Moody recording from the Home Bunker. Pre recording. Dear friends, as I am away for a couple of days, I would love to say that I'm taking some rests, but you know that I'm away from the pod but on social media, so as always follow me there, and you know that if there is breaking news, I will surely have a microphone and a laptop. That's what it means to kind of pseudo go on vacation
these days. Nonetheless, I'm really excited to bring to you a pre recorded conversation with a friend of the show, Anna Deshaun, who is the founder of E three Radio and The Cube and is the host of Queer News podcast and Second Sunday. We get into a really good conversation Anna and I about you know, obviously the state of politics, but also about faith and what it means to hold faith in this moment, and also what this political moment means for people that live at the intersections
of multiple identities. This conversation was recorded prior to the announcement that Joe Biden would be stepping down from reelection and the announcement of Vice President Kamala Harris as our new Democratic nominee. This is a good conversation, however, because look, folks, as we make our way into this election, we know exactly what is at stake and what I can say right now, just days, you know, removed from this seismic shift in our body politic, is that people are energized
in a way that I have not seen. I am hopeful in a way that I have not been hopeful probably since two thousand and eight. There is just this palpable energy and excitement that I am just so grateful that I was wrong. As everybody knows, I was very staunchly against Joe Biden stepping aside, only because I thought that the Democrats were going to fall into absolute disarray and it was going to be inevitable that Donald Trump would be elected because of it. But now seeing the
way that people are hitting the ground running. You had forty four thousand black women show up for a call that raised over a million dollars. Then the following day you had over fifty thousand black men show up for a call that raised over a million dollars. Now you're having aapi, folks, do a call. White women are being organized to do a call. Different communities are taking on the responsibility of what it means to activate in this moment with three and a half months to go to
the election. The stakes are still the same, right, but the players are different, and I think that that matters. And you know where we are right now. I continue to share on social media ways in which people can get activated. If you have the ability to give money, give money, if you have the ability to organize it, get out the vote in your town, in your city,
do that right. If you have the opportunity to organize and host salons and discussions in your home to talk to people about what is at stake in this election with friends, family, colleagues, neighbors, do that. We all have a role to play in this moment, and we have
three and a half months. So every single person needs to roll up their sleeves and needs to get to work and needs to do what they can where they can, so that we can get Vice President Kamala Harris and our democracy over the fucking finish line and finish Donald Trump off once and for all. So that's where I am. I am energized. I'm taking a few days away, but I'm never really too far away, and leaving you with
some really great interviews in the meantime. Coming up next, my conversation with Anna Deshon, Folks, I am very happy to welcome back to the show. Anna Deshon, who is a founder of E three Radio and The Cube and is the host of Queer News, a podcast covering all that queer news. Anna, it has been what did you say before, A wild time?
It's wild and complicated.
Wild, wild and complicated. I think that if there was a word or two words to describe twenty twenty four, that is what we would use. I would use the same as well. Let's just start with this for you as you cover the news of the community, about the community. What is happening to and in and around the LGBTQ plus community. What has made it the most wild and complex time in your opinion?
Where do we start? Danielle, Oh, my God, and so family. Always always great to be on WOKF with you, So thanks for having me back. You know, as black quear women, every day our identity is in the news. So that's just let's just start there. So wild and complicated times when it comes to abortion rights, when it comes to DEI, affirmative action, everything that is being rolled back at time, and then we get to queer and I just feel like history is continuing to repeat itself, and I feel
like we haven't learned a single lesson. So I've been sitting in this reflective moment of what does it mean to be in this time while history is in fact repeating itself where we are looking ahead thirty years to be able to repeal all the stuff that's happened over the last eight and what does that mean for us?
I have another posse a Sunday, we had Bishop flunder On and she talked about believing that we come from eternity into time and then back into eternity and had me thinking, like what are we doing with this time? Like how do we how will the future talk about us right now? And y'all it's complicated and and why What I mean by that is I report one week about how some of Desantus' anti trans policies have been rolled back, clarified, cleared up, moved to socide, okay right.
Recently a couple weeks ago, I reported about how that judge Judge Hinkel Right put a permanent ban on that whole trans healthcare business in Florida. So folks who identify as trans can now have health care there because he said, it doesn't matter what you think, you can't stop somebody from getting health care for themselves. Right. That is a big win. That is a major moment because Desantus's legislation laid the groundwork for all these other states to use
as a blueprint for all this anti trans legislation. Right, So now we sort of have a blueprint and now a precedent that could also be used in other states to roll back all this anti translationlation. Right. But then I you know, another day rolls by, and I'm also reporting about how Utah there's colleges in Utah who are closing pride centers because of di regulations, right.
And not just Pride centers, the Black Center, the Indigenous Center, all of these different centers for historically marginalized communities that were place of community right and connection are being closed down.
Yep, that's right, and now being a rolled all up into one place as if everybody's needs are the same and as everybody you know, resources ought to look the same. It makes no sense, right, And then I've got a celebrating on the White House lawn. It's great pride celebration that didn't happen, you know, four years ago. These are things we ought to appreciate. At the same time we in amidst these wars that we're funding genocide that's happening. What are we doing here? Where is our humanity? Is
also complicated? And then we have probably the on record, the worst presidential candidate coming up here in November. But all the same time, day y'all was in here, Like it feels like history's repeating itself. I'm sitting here like
this feels like the Bull O'Connor of our time. Like I feel like this is like the Inneded Bryant of our time, right, like Marjorie Taylor Green's like, for example, come to mind, And I just find myself one to tap back in to all of our ancestors, the Ella Bakers and the Fannie Lou Hammers, and the people who had taught us how to get through those times, because I feel like I feel like we are in it.
I think that similarly, I have found myself really looking back right, looking in history to provide some solace, to provide some hopefulness, and faith because what we are up against, while daunting, is nothing like what our ancestors were up against.
I'm reading a book by a friend, Jen M. Jackson, doctor Jackson, called Black Women Taught Us, and going through each chapter is about, you know, a different black feminist from a different time who was dealing with being you know, Ida b Wells, being run out of her state with death threats, all because she was covering in great detail the lynchings that were happening right that mainstream white media wasn't covering, talking about enslaved you know, women hiding out
in attics addicts that weren't even high enough to be able to stand up in or really long enough to be able to lay down in. But what freedom looked like to her was like the freedom of space and body.
So that's where she hid on the plantation. So it's just one reminding ourselves that inside of I think our DNA lies like a great resili and a blueprint of how to move forward, because I think that what we were lulled into believing is that the bull Connors were gone, is that we had toppled them, you know, and that it was now our time to move forward. And there were never going to be people who were going to stand in our way because we had pushed them to
the margins. And I think that that's where we got caught up.
Oh we did. We got complacent. We got so complacent, and I think, especially with queer folks, I think about marriage equality being the start of that complacency, thinking that that was the ultimate right, that was like the silver ullan, that was it, you know, from here all other things are solved. But even during that time, if you talk to anybody whose identities were marginalized, that was not their
number one issue. They trying to find housing, employment. And so when we don't tackle the most basic fundamental rights of those who are the most I like what Arlen Hamilton says, like the most underestimated of us, you know, then we really aren't solving the real problems. And I think that's what we have found in all the efforts of all of our ancestors. It's like we've solved this one piece, but we haven't really solved the real problem
in this country. I mean, let's be real, I don't know what is possible in all of its shapes and forms, given how this place started. I tell people our time in conversation like this was a great experiment. Okay, there's no other country in the world made up like the United States of America. It's still a great experiment. And it's not been going that great Okay, Okay, there's some things that are like really shining bright lights, but Chile, Chile, to be in this body has not been the greatest
of times, right, It's been pretty awful. So I think we find ourselves in this place, in this experiment and not knowing how to actually solve it, actually solve it.
Yeah, as a black queer woman, we are facing down. So much is at stake in this election, and for you, you know, and the folks that you talk to on your shows, Like, as we get closer to the election, what are you hearing from other black queer people, queer people of color in terms of the threat and the fear.
Yeah, it's tough. It's hard because are we looking to save what was a like white center democracy? Is that what we're really looking to say, We're looking to create a new democracy? What does that look like? And what I hear is the goal is to fight fascism? Balid valid okay, And is the democracy we've been in the one that's been working. Has that been working for you? Has that been working for me? Has that been working
for my cousins, all the black men I know? Has that been working for all the black women I know? For all the queer folks I know? I don't think so. So I'm hearing I'm gonna do what I gotta do when it's time to go vote, you know, because I know voting people. They're gonna go and they're gonna vote against fascism, but they are not happy or pleased with the other options. I mean, it just feels like we're
constantly sucking this rock in a hard place. And I catch myself saying, oh, this is like the most crucial election, because I feel like every time there is something crucial happening to black and brown bodies period. Every presidential election is important to as a matter of fact, every local election is even more important to us. And so I catch myself and I catch other people saying, like, don't
say like this is the child. Every election is yep, important to our bodies, but this is just what we have to deal with in this particular election, in this particular time. So I find people just being just terribly conflicted.
How are you finding hope? We've been saying on wookf And I say, you know all the time, Pride is three hundred and sixty five days a year, and there is something about my feeling where I become conflicted because I'm just like, even going to attend the White House Pride event was a deep conflict for me.
You know.
I woke up that day and I was just like, hmm, well, you know, still sending weapons and bombs and murdering tens of thousands of Palestinians every single day, and there is no sign of stopping.
And so.
How do I not be complicit? So talk to me about like the conflict if any you were feeling.
Yeah, it is. It is what I'm facing here in Chicago as well. Right, We've got a black man as mayor of this city right now, right, this is a historical moment for us. We haven't had one since Harold Washington. Right. He's also a liberal mayor, doing very positive things, guaranteed minimum income type of stuff like stuff that's like, okay, that's like fighting capitalism type stuff, you know. And we also have the shortest parade on record happening this year
for the Chicago Pride Parade. We also have a shorter route this year. Now it's the Pride Parade, something that I have shown up at every single year. No, I'm at an age child, I've been to the parade, so okay, I have done the rainbow thing. Okay, I don't need the rainbow thing. And in fact, I'm queer every day, okay. And I felt it was incredibly important to fight for the Pride Parade because I remember being the baby gay who had never seen anything like that before and just
knowing how incredibly important it is. Yeah, that these types of spaces exists. Despite the capitalism that comes along with the corporate you know whatever that they put on, it is still important to so many people who don't have the opportunities to come out, who don't have the privilege and who have never celebrated before, and that is worth fighting for. And so I feel the same way about the White House. It is important to show up because there might be another time, but we are not allowed
where literally he does everything. If he's elected again, he will erase us from every single document moment that exists in every legal period. His goal is to erase our existence, and that is exactly what he will do quickly and swiftly with some type of executive order and break some other type of protocol that nobody ever thought of president would ever break. Like, I think that is his goal
and mission in life. And so I don't think it's this or that, it's but and and I think that we just have to stay committed to what we know is important, which is centering the most marginalized of us, because we if we actually sent to the most marginalized, everybody wins. And when you ask me, like how, I get hope. I do my best to tell balanced stories and have a balanced pod because what bleeds is not what leads on this podcast, because that doesn't serve us.
It just makes us sad and depressed. Yeah, but you know this past week Shakirie richardson freaking is a bright light. Okay, she let the storytelling on my pod, all right, as a queer black woman out here running as fast as flow. Joe, Oh, that is good news. When I tell a story. This man he came out in his obituary at the age of eighty five.
Oh my god, see the story. Yeah, it broke oh god, Anna, it broke my heart. Yeah, to think that you would carry that secret until your death to say that you had lost the love of your life decades prior, you know, and the fear had like it really it broke That story broke my heart.
It broke my heart. And at the same time, I was like, he had the courage enough to write that, and if somebody on the other end had the courage enough to follow the directives, because clearly there was something, you know, where he felt like he couldn't but somebody said, this is what he wanted, and he's gonna be buried next to the person that he loved his entire life. You know, when I report about young people fighting back,
like I got the chance. We have Senator Mike Simmons here in the state of Illinois, our first out elected state senator, black man with locks. Okay, I am a fan of Senator Centimons, and this year for his Pride press conference, he actually was like, ain't none of y'all
talking this year? I want to center queer youth. And he had a queer youth panel that gave me so much hope, Danielle listening to these young people sixteen, seventeen, eighteen years old talk about their queer identities, their experiences in school, their experiences with their families, them having the courage to sit up here and be recorded and be broadcasted out everywhere about how they are fighting for their
humanity because if they don't like, who will? And the I'm stepping up and saying that's what I'm doing because I love us so much. That gives me hope, you know. And that's the tough type of stuff I like to report on. And that's why I end every podcast with Anna's word, because we're more than just these terrible moments, and I don't believe we're going to stop fighting. And I think that that ought to give all of us a little bit of hope.
I think that it's just like one young people listening to young people. I mean, the college campus uprisings gave me so much hope because it was a stark reminder that it is and has always been young people that move this kind treeforward, that hold up a mirror and
show us all who we are. So whether it was Ryan White during you know, the beginning of the AIDS crisis, being a child going on the news to talk about having had contracted AIDS, whether it is these young people queer kids saying like you can strip off the safe space stickers from the classroom, but like I'm still going to be gay right, Like you know, So it is.
I think that it's so important because those of us who are older, I think, can get calcified in our frustration and our apathy, and so I think that it is really important to have those reminders.
Often we're so easily jaded. That's what, Yeah, we are.
But it's not to say that there isn't a lot that has jaded us the jaded nate.
It is valid.
Yeah, what is it that you hope that folks get from your POD's Sunday Sermon and Queer News? Like, what is it that you hope that you are able to contribute to the media landscape?
So with queer News, my hope is that I contribute to this canon, that is this news cycle, no matter what's happening on the social media networks with their shadow banning or whatever is happening on this particular day or moment, but that people can hear news that they are not getting anywhere else period. That centers us first, and for me, that is what I hear from people, and that is where people center their gratitude around this piece of work,
and that encourages me. I was actually recently at in DC for Capital Pride and what a great time I had. I'm looking forward to World Pride. And a sister came up to the table and talked about how my reporting on Britney Griner before anybody else even cared about what was happening with her, meant so much to her. And that's why I do it, and that's why I think it's important, because a Britney Grinder story is important every day, not just on the day that someone sent a press release.
Important to us every day, and so that's what I hope people get from Queer News. And then with Second Sunday, it is an opportunity for us to talk about stories that we don't get to talk about out loud. It's literally about black queer people finding keeping in sometimes losing faith. And there's a lot of us who grew up in church, in the Christian Church in particular, and it caused us
a whole heck of a lot of harm. And we have found some type of spiritual grounding or not in other ways and shapes and forms, and we talk about it, but nobody else hears about it, and I wanted the world to hear about how the Christian Church has not only harmed us, but we are still okay, and for other people to know that they can be okay too, because there's so many other people who have felt ostracized from the church or cast aside in the church who
can relate to the stories that we're telling. And I feel like that is really resonating with a lot of people. I love it. I love it.
You're giving me a run for my money with your multiple pods. Now I gotta go pick out like a fourth thing, fourth and fifth one to stay in the race. Tell people where they can find your shows, Listen to your shows, share your shows.
One hundred percent so you all can totally listen wherever you get your podcasts. I would also love for you to go visit the qube t a t qu b E. It's our currated platform of the best black and brown pods out here. You can go there and listen, you know, and wherever you get your pods. I know how y'all are y'all particular, So go wherever you go to follow, listener, subscribe, You can find career news, you can find second Sunday and you can find an other podcast as well.
Thank you for making the time for wok app daily. Thank you for all of the work that you do, all of the stories that you lift up each and every day. And you know, happy pride today and every day to you.
Yes, indeed, happy pride, my Briger.
That is it for me today. Dear friends on wok app. As always, power to the people and to all the people. Power work, get woke and stay woke as fuck.