Vigilante Injustice

with a sense of impending doom. I thought that this was going to be erased when we elected Joe Biden in the most historic election that frankly, you would think as a democratic nation that we would have sell librated the immense and historic turnout that we had in twenty twenty. But no, what we have seen since then is a punishing of voters. How dare you show up to the polls? How dare you black, brown, young BIPOC folks think that you have a voice in this democracy. You do not.

Your voice is not valued. You are not wanted here, right. That is what the over three hundred pieces of legislation that have been rolled out across this country. Are telling each and every American that is not white, that is not straight, that is not male, that is not ciss right in this country. This week we have seen Texas become the breeding ground for the Handmaid's Tale. Texas now is in a time vortex. What do I mean by that? They have effectively rolled back the clock, rolled back time

to the nineteen fifties. Why do I use the nineteen fifties as a marker because it was one of the many egregious markers of violence and threats of violence, of domestic terrorism that we had ever seen. What happened leading up to the nineteen fifties begat the Civil Rights movement? And what did the Civil rights movement create the Voting Rights Act? And why was the Voting Rights Act necessary? Because people were being Black people. Let me say that again.

Black people were being brutalized at the polls. Their homes were being torched, they were being lynched, they were being jailed just for the offense of wanting to have a voice in our democracy. Effective this week, Texas has done two of the most outrageous, despicable anti American things that we have seen in decades and folks, you know the kind of shit that we have been living in. And so when I say that this is the most despicable and disgusting shit that we have seen in decades, I

mean it. What has Texas done? Will let me tell you effectively? The Supreme Court's in action on Wednesday Tuesday night actually to intervene in Texas' desire to have a six week abortion ban, meaning that once a fetal heartbeat is detected, a woman can no longer have an abortion or a person with a uterus can no longer have an abortion. Six weeks, folks, is when most people don't even know that they are pregnant. Six weeks you may

not have missed a period, depending on your cycle. Also, in this law, and this is what I want folks to wrap your minds around, they have literally set up vigilante justice in Texas. What does that look like? It looks like your ability to sue your neighbor in civil court for up to ten thousand dollars if you think that they've had an abortion. You do not have to be a member of that person's family. You do not

have to be the person that got them pregnant. You do not even get this, have to even fucking know the person, But you, as a Texan have the right to sue them for having an abortion. Do you know who else you get to sue in Texas now that the Supreme Court has not intervened. You'll get to sue the uber driver that potentially took said pregnant person to go and get an abortion. You can sue their potential family members for having assisted them, either monetarily or with

rides or with support. Do you know what the woman or person with a uterus can't do? They can't defy this law by saying that they are pregnant due to rape. There is no footnote for that. They can't defy this law in saying that this child, this fetus is a product of incest. Nope, there is no footnote for that either. There is only a footnote for quote unquote medical emergencies. And I'm wondering who gets to decide what a medical

emergency is. Is it going to be the doctor or is it going to be the judge or the politician who gets to decide whether or not your body is in distress and that this fetus needs to be aborted. Texas is now the first state to officially overturn Roe v. Wade to essentially set up back alleys where women and people with uteruses are going to have to go in

order to effectively take charge of their own bodies. Because in the state of Texas, right your liberty extends to your ability not to wear a mask, but not to have control over what grows inside of you. You cannot wear a mask, which, in doing so, will affect an entire community of people and potentially kill them. Right, but that person has more rights than a woman or a person with a uterus deciding they do not want to start a family. This is what we are living in

right now in America. And I want to say this. Do not shrug this off and think to yourself, well, I don't live in Texas, so I don't give a fuck, or those people in Texas should just move. That is a very privileged and ignorant thing to say. And I will call myself out. I have often lambasted the people of Texas. I've often lambasted the people of Florida. Mostly I'm talking about the right white wing of white evangelicals. I'm talking about those folks. I'm not talking about every

single Texan but I'm talking about the Bible thumpers. I'm talking about the people that have never read the content of the Bible but want to beat you over the head with it. But here's the thing. You cannot blame all of the people of Texas. You know why, because effectively, over the years, they have been eroding the right to vote.

And so in a twofer that the state of Texas has done as the Republican's new Petrie Dish, not only have they overturned Row, but they have effectively made it damn near impossible for people to vote in the state of Texas. Texas already had some of the most ridiculous

and unnecessary voting restrictions in the country. Well, now everything that was instituted in twenty twenty in order for people to vote in a pandemic such as twenty four hour voting, such as drive through polls, such as more drop boxes for it to be convenient for you to be able to drop off your ballot. You will no longer be able to send out absentee ballots without there being a specific request. You will also be able to criminally and civilly sue posters. Let me say that again. You will

be able to criminally and civilly sue polsters. People who are volunteering and doing a public service to make sure that we have free and fair elections are now going to be under a microscope and potentially sued for the way that they are counting the ballots or the way that people perceive them to be counting the ballots or not. Texas is the beginning, not the end. Texas is going to be the norm, not the outlier. And so when we shrug things off and we say, well, this doesn't

affect me, we are not fully paying attention. It's the same way that back in twenty twenty when we saw the beginnings of things happening in China and we're like, oh, well that sucks because stars never came here. So we were like, oh, we're good. That's not the world that we live in. More, what is effectively happening in Wuhan is effectively going to happen in the United States. What

is happening in Texas will happen everywhere. What is transpiring in India will get to your front door, whether we like it or not. We are interconnected as a globe, and we are so disconnected as a country. Republicans have been waging a war on America for decades, but Democrats have been paying attention to all of the wrong things. You see, for decades, Republicans have looked at the courts for what The courts are the last bastion for where

people get their rights. You see, we may create policies that then turn into laws. But if you effectively look at all recent and I mean over the past fifty plus years of how progress has been made of how marginalized communities have been able to ascend to first class citizenship, it hasn't been through legislation. It has been through the courts. Brown versus the Board of Education, plus e versus Ferguson windsor right. You're talking about everything from segregation, abortion to

same sex marriage. All of those rights came through the courts. What is it that Mitch McConnell had his eye on since before Barack Obama stepped foot into the White House the courts. It is why he obstructed his ability to seat a Supreme Court justice. It is why he held up and why Barack Obama left office with hundreds, folks,

hundreds of open federal justice seats. You see, all Republicans ever talk about to their constituents are the courts, And they have the audacity to tell us that the folks that we are trying to seat right are the radical justices right. Who was more radical than an Amy Covid Barrett? Yes, I call that bitch, Amy Covid Barrett. Who was more radical than that? Who was more radical than a Oh, I don't know, mister, I had a beer, Kavanaugh. You have predators that are on the bench that want to

dictate rules to the rest of us. You have evangelical Christians on the bench that want to essentially set up some type of religiosity in America that we all have to abide by, because when they talk about religious freedom, they are not talking about their Muslim neighbor down the street. They could give a fuck about them. When we talk about religious freedom, it is the freedom for evangelical Christians to be able to oppress us with their distorted values

and their misinterpretation of their Bible. Their Bible has been used to justify so much hideousness, domestic violence, slavery, discrimination, the beating of children because you believe that you can beat the gay out of them. All of these things, these people have twisted the words in the Bible to justify their cruelty and their evil. But you know, I say this, this country was founded on religiosity and fundamentalism.

It was those pilgrims that boarded ships to come here to get rid of the indigenous population, right to kill them off, whether it be through disease, right torture, murder, trying to enslave them. But then that didn't work. Also that they could pursue their religiosity. That's why they fled. It wasn't about the freedom for the rest of us to be able to worship or not worship in the way that we want. No, that's not what that means.

If you think that, oh, we have this separation between church and state, then you never pay attention to any closing or any beginning of any political speech. When we're talking about God blessing the troops. You've never exchanged currency. We're on every bill it says in God we trust. We have no separation between church and state in this country. We never have. It's an illusion, just like our democracy.

You see. The thing about illusions, though, is that if you don't recognize what you were looking at, If you don't know, then you continue to be bamboozled and fooled, just like we are being bamboozled and fooled into believing that we are living in a two party system when we are not. I say it every fucking day because I want it to be beaten into our minds, because if you do not know what you are dealing with, then you don't understand how to create the fight against them.

We are still using twentieth century tools to wage a twenty first century war. That's it for today's Woke AF Daily podcast. To hear more from me, including five full hour long shows every single week, exclusive guest interviews, and more, support me on Patreon at patreon dot com slash Woke AF Power to the people and to all the people power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.