Unverified

that they earned. You know, however many years ago, removed and verified accounts unverified, which is to help with the push of misinformation disinformation. But I want people to understand something because you know, I had posted and I let people know that I'm going to be using Twitter fairly infrequently.

And it isn't just because of the removal of the blue check, but it's because we have to understand that spaces that were never created for and by the people can always be disrupted, bought and deconstructed at the whim of whatever billionaire, whatever corporation decides that they don't like its use. The function of Twitter was to be a global town hall, was to be a place where you can gather and share thoughts and get information quickly spread.

You know, information start movements, activism organized. It became a real tool of organization, not just the birthplace of Black Lives Matter, but the Arab Spring and you know, the protests in Iran and things that we've learned about before mainstream media had the opportunity or even desire to pick things up. If you recall learning about the killing of Mike Brown in Ferguson in twenty fourteen, that didn't come from cable news. Cable news only started covering it after

there was an eruption from people on social media. And so when you recognize that the status quo does not want the mobilization of the people, it doesn't want a collection of voices, because a collection of voices and community with like minded people creates a movement. Movement then pushes for change and changes what the status quo does not want, right.

They want a just a small few to be able to have all right and for they have not to continue to toil away and scramble and fight with each other for the crumbs and the scraps that are left behind.

They want us to believe that our voice and our vote don't matter, and that we're just screaming into avoid So that builds frustration and anger, and then that turns into malaise and complacency, allowing the powers that be to continue to thwart progress, right, and not even just to thwart it, but like we are seeing reverse, it bring us backwards. And so the point of this is detachment destruction.

It is to create silos and separateness. Think about when the slave trade began, and think about the ways in which people, people, human beings were kidnapped from other tribes that spoke other languages so as not to be able to have connection and community to build a movement, right, for people to organize, there were rules that were put together that you know, black people, right, could not gather

in public spaces lest there be mutiny. Right. So you have to understand, I bring us back to the point of slavery to make a very stark correlation, not to make one that at all minimizes slavery at all, you know, shows us that, like there is some type of direct connection. But you have to understand that power does not want people organizing, Power does not want people gathering. Power does not want connection. It thrives on disconnection and disruption and misinformation,

fear and anxiety. So what Elon Musk is doing is no different than what has always been done. And what people have to understand is that we cannot rest our Laurels in one space and place and think that just because millions of people use it that that means that it's going to be forever. It's not. And our activism and the crises, the layered crises that we are facing, require a nimbleness, require an intellectual agility, require us to think bigger and broader than just popping off tweets and

gathering in spaces that we don't own. So with this latest disruption from an egomania narcissist, white supremacist billionaire, what's next should be the bigger question? How do we organize? How do we continue to mobilize, Where do we gather and how do we gather right outside of the confines of technocrats? Right? And so what does that look like? Does it look like, you know, finding new online spaces because we will always need them because technology is something

now we are dependent on. But does that now bring us also back to more localized community and relationship? You know, during COVID at the height of it, we were saying to one another that when we get out of quarantine, I'm going to gather with people, and I'm going to do these things and I'm going to create community because we were so desperate for connection after being you know, separated from one another. But then what have we done done?

Three years later when we said a mass disruption was going to happen, well, the powers that be decided to tell people they needed to get back to work. They decided to either do massive layoffs in order to recoup whatever bullshit losses that they said that they had, which was they really didn't because their CEOs and their shareholders were still making money hand over fist, right. But we

have gone back to this new abnormal. It's this broken black mirror right where things feel different, but we're being pushed for them to go back to the same old, same old. And what I'm saying is that from Tennessee to Florida, to North Carolina to Missouri to Kansas and

other places, you are seeing local action take place. And local action is what is pushing legislatures, what is pushing and reconnecting people to come together under a common call and banner, which is freedom, right, which is family, which is love, which is our ability to connect, right to progress, to bend the arc. And so I would encourage us that as we're watching things shift, not just to be angry about it. And anger is justified when it is,

you know, put towards action. But anger on its own, you know, can each you from the inside out. But we need to think about what's next. Coming up next my conversation with our in house doctor, doctor Jonathan Metzel. Folks, whenever I have the opportunity, you know, each week to sit down with our in house doctor, doctor Jonathan Metzel, I am always thrilled. However, Jonathan, our conversations have you know, they're just never good. They're never good and filled with hopefulness.

And so it's unfortunate that we live in a country where we cannot go a day without there being a shooting, whether it is a mass shooting, whether now we've had a series of I don't even know what you call it. So I'll turn it over to you, but I want to start today with the case of Ralph y'arl as. Folks know this, this case, Jonathan has really sent me this week emotionally, it has just really hurt my soul

in so many different ways. So I want to start with that case of the fact that a sixteen year old black boy can't accidentally ring the wrong doorbell without being potentially killed.

Was he racist or whatever? And in polite ways which I will not be as polite in our conversation because we speak very honestly here. My answer is I don't care, and we shouldn't.

what does that mean? That means you feel like somebody's going to rob you or mug you. So what do you think is going to happen when you give people a lot of guns and then you pass all these laws that make it okay for people to shoot when

they feel threatened. Well, what happens is that people act on implicit bias, and explicit bias, they act on stereotype, They act on the perception of that split second where they see somebody's skin color and they associate blackness with threat and hostility and robbing, and then they shoot, and more often than not, they have the protection of the law.

In fact, in this case, I really don't think this case would have gotten anywhere near the attention it did if it wasn't for the media and then national politicians picking up this story. But initially I think there was a pretty good chance that in a case like this, the guy could have just said I felt threatened and

that would have been the end of it. And even in this case, the gun did say that, yeah, what I was saying, I don't think he would have been charged with anything, because I think that the law is so broad that the perception of violence is what you're covered. Basically, you're covered and you're okay, and people know that. The

other issue, of course, with STANYR. Brown laws is not just the racial politics of this kind of issue of who gets shot, but it's also data repeatedly shows that when white Americans claim stand their ground privileges, they're exponentially more likely to be coded as justified killings, whereas when Black Americans say I felt threatened, they're coded as criminals, and so black people often are much more likely to get charged, convicted, go to jail, have their guns taken away,

stuff like that, and so, top to bottom, stand your Ground law are a disaster for our society, which is what we're seeing this week. But they're also just openly racist in their intent, in their execution literally and then in their aftermath.

convention as a preteen being indoctrinated with gun culture. And then I think about the life of Ralph y'all and the fact that miraculously he's out of the hospital and is recovering. Thank God, right, because that was not the intent of the shooter, Andrew Lester when he pulled that trigger. And so I think about this dichotomy of America, right, how what black people are a threat by virtue of living inside of black skin, white kids holding a weapon

is seen as patriotic. Do you see in any way where there is at least some type of awakening that white America has happened that is having. And I'm not talking about the seventy five million that voted for Donald Trump. I'm not talking about the Maga hat wearing folks. I'm talking about some semblance of normal fencitting white people who are looking at this and saying, yeah, this can't be normal.

It can't be normal to shoot through glass because somebody rang your doorbell and you weren't expecting them.

common sense gun laws. So the question is not about it's not about popular attitude, it's not about popular perception.

This truly is an example we talk about minority rule as if it's just about governance, but this is industry control over politicians and politicians not having to answer for what's happening because of germandering, because of because of all these other factors, and so I just I think that, I just think that I just think that there there's a massive issue here with with with it's not popular opinion. I mean, and I know people in Missouri. I know people in Missouri are horrified also, so.

the wrong address. That you know. Moving forward through the week, another shooting that has been gaining attention is of Caitlin Ellis, who was in Upstate New York in a rural part of upstate New York, hit a car with her friends. She's a white woman in a car with a couple of her friends pull into the wrong driveway of a home that they're looking for. And I can tell you, friends, if you've ever been in upstate New York, that happens a lot, because the homes are far and few in between,

and they're down dirt roads and what have you. And another man comes out and shoots into the car, killing Kaylen Ellis, a twenty year old white woman. And I mean Jonathan, when you saw that case now, and this man apparently has absolutely no remorse. I don't think it would matter if he did, because again, these people are pulling the trigger. They're not in fear for their life.

Roberts don't ring doorbells, right like people accidentally pull into driveways all the time and have to make a U turn. The urge to grab a gun and then pointed inside of a car, killing people who were not charging you in any type of way, I don't understand. So what do you make of this case?

get help or something like that. But as guns became more and more and more uh prevalent and acceptable in all these factors, I would just say that, you know, accept what was called justifiable homicide broadened and broadened and broadened, and so people now feel like shooting first and asking questions later is what their protection is. And we're seeing this case in Texas where the cheerleader got into the based on upstate New York. And again, if the if

the criteria is feel threatened. I felt threatened. If that's the criteria, then then you know people more often than not are going to get away with it.

for accidents right there. There are no there's no room for accidents in a society like that, because with one that where everyone has a gun on their hip, then it's immediately going to be like, oh, I go for the trigger. How does that? Like I just don't understand, Jonathan, how many of these headlines and depths on top of mass shootings, because now we're seeing what happens with all of these standard ground laws and castle doctrine and all of these things on top of the crazy, on top

of like the mass shooting crisis that we have. How does this continue?

out of office for it. And so the way that this germandering has worked, people who support strong gun laws have no accountability whatsoever, zero accountability, and they're never going to get voted out of office. And so still until that calculus changes, there's just there's no downside except for dead people. For politicians to basically embrace the NRA as much as they want, and a lot of their constituents

support them. But also because of the nature of germandering, the fact that eighty five percent people might support red flag laws, for example, is totally irrelevant because that doesn't mean that eighty five percent of voters in a particular district are going to vote for politicians who don't support law. So there's no accountability electorally for what I think people want individion, and so I just think that that is

the calculus that has to change. And then the other issue, in line with another massive and potentially catastrophic political story right now, is that it's also about having judges who do not continually uphold and just blind Second Amendment constitutionality as they define it. And that's important because the Democrats are at a deficit for these kind of judges, and the committee that appoints the judges that might level the playing field is now being held hostage by Shingles and

Diane Feinstein and all that stuff. And so it's just, you know, I just think that we have popular opinion on our side, but we don't have politics on our sides.

degree murder because she did die. Do you think then that within the criminal system, the arrest, prosecution, and hopefully guilty charges for these individuals that are trigger happy would then unintended trigger new laws on the books, or at least create a deterrent for people to shoot first and ask questions later. Is what responsibility, then, does the judiciary have in holding people accountable for literally killing their neighbors.

it's just beyond absurd honestly right now. So Jonathan, let me just say, Daniel, I'm not trying to talk around in circles. You can hear the exhaustion of my voice.

be a permit process in Missouri. So I mean, it's it's not that long ago that we knew the right answer to this. I mean, if you had a gun in Missouri, you had to register with the sheriff and get a background check and do all this stuff. But again, it's it's not a question of popular opinion, it's a question of voting blocks and judges. That's where the that's where the attention should be.

insane to me. The you know, accidental doorbell ringing that has obvious racist implications, the accidental getting into the wrong car now ends a cheerleader in Texas you know, critically injured and is in ICU fighting for her life, and kaylen Ellis is dead. All of this has happened just in the last couple of weeks, like I think maybe two or three, on top of the mass shooting at the bank in Kentucky, the mass shooting in Tennessee. Like I just I don't know how we're supposed to continue

to live like this. And what I see, and this is the last question for you, what I see with Generation Z. Again with the walkout at Ralph Yarl's School. You know, a couple thousand kids walked out in protest, you know, chanting signs and you know, sending their love to him, but like, you know, stop with the guns. And so what do you think the effects from Tennessee

to Missouri with Generation Z? What is the difference if any, that you were seeing with this generation and others, because again this is the first generation that has grown up with mass shooting, school shootings, and this just proliferation of guns.

But I would say that they you know, again, they're going to face the same hurdle, which is if they think it's just protest and popular opinion, they're going to they're going to be disappointed, right because the the just the same issues of the judiciary, power, things like that. So we I'm encouraged because the new generation of activists are much more politically savvy than kind of we were where we thought just protesting and changing people's hearts and

minds was enough. So I'm optimistic about the future. But again, I just think right now, like we just have to think much more strategicly, Like if they if we're going to push Clarence Thomas out of the Supreme Court, let's make sure he's not replaced by somebody who's twenty years old and supports the NRA. You know, I mean, we have to we have to kind of think long term.