Episode 4: The Group Chat Decodes Your Week’s News
Please note: This transcript has been automatically generated.
Brittany:
*sigh* oh, hey ya’ll. I, I don’t know. I think, you know I think the only way to start this week’s show is to quote one Joy Ann Reid, my good sis, your good sis, a bishop and a phrophetess when she said “A smooth lie is still a lie.”
I watched her say this on television the other night after we all watched that VP Debate between Tim Walz and JD Vance and ya’ll know I was giving her every single amen I had from my couch when she said it.
Stylistically, and I exclusively mean stylistically, JD gave us way more command and calm than he has this entire time. Cause ya’ll do realize that JD has been consistently polling as the least liked of all four of the candidates on the presidential campaign trail. Like he polls worse than his bloviating boss. And dou know how annoying you gotta be to poll worse than Donald John??? But it’s true. JD has been getting boo’d at his own rallies. I mean you really gotta be some kinda special for the MAGA crew to boo you–cause they cheer damn near anything red it doesn’t if it makes sense.
But last night, we didn’t see that guy. We didn’t see see that guy who gets shut out of restaurants and gets couch jokes made about him. Nah, we saw the guy who went to Yale and was a venture capitalist and author before he running for Senate. We saw the smoothest of liars. And with no live-fact checking–a massive mistake, in my opinion, the lies just piled up and then they were papered over by the slickets of smiles and bi-partisan compliments courtesy James David.
Cause after years of watching Trump yell his lies like the entitled frat boy that he is, last night was a terrifying reminder that some people are actually good at lying. And to be clear– JD lied his ass off. He lied about everything from foreign funds to the border to his OWN belief in a national abortion ban. Yes, we all saw the screenshots before you tried to wipe them from the internet James David. He was so busy lying that he just breezed right past the clear apology he owes his OWN constituents in Springfield, OH for lying to and about THEM, and ya’ll couldn’t even fix his lips to form the words “Yes–Donald Trump lost the 2020 election.” Tim Walz asked him directly, looked that man in the eye and he couldn’t even bring himself to tell the truth.
My mother always taught me never ever ever ever to trust a liar. Because if you lie, she’d say, then you’d cheat. And if you’ll cheat– you’ll steal. And we know they’ve already tried to steal one election–and are clear aiming for another.
A smooth lie is still a lie. We got just over 30 days until the end of this election season. And there’s nothing I can’t stand more than a liar.
[THEME MUSIC FADES OUT]
[NEWS MUSIC COMES IN]
Brittany:
So on today’s show, we are doing something a little different y’all. Now, you know, I’m not processing everything going on in the world alone. No, I’m not. Just some independent solo maverick genius. I know a lot of geniuses and they make me much smarter. Lord knows how quickly my sanity would absolutely disappear if I tried to do this by myself. So just like y’all, I go to my friends, I hit the group chat to break it down and to help me make sense of it all. So this season, I’m taking the group chat out of iMessage. We don’t do green bubbles and bringing it to the pod <laugh>. We’ve got my dear friend, Dr. David J. Johns, the CEO and executive director of the National Black Justice Coalition. Hey, David.
David:
Hey sibily.
Brittany:
Hi boo. And I’m also so excited to be joined once again by the other half of BC squared, Dr. Brittany Cooper, professor of Women Gender and Sexuality studies and Africana studies at Rutgers University. What’s up, girl?
Brittney Cooper:
Hey, B, how are you?
Brittany:
I’m fantastic. And I don’t know what possessed me to, you know, ask two people who have both a d and an R in front of their names. I’m not as smart as y’all, but we all gonna get smarter together.
[NEWS MUSIC FADES OUT]
David Johns:
You a lie. Because you called it at ed <laugh>
Brittney Cooper:
Exactly
Brittany:
You know Black girls. Mm-Hmm. That’s too much.
Brittney Cooper:
She in denial about it. She knows she need to go get that doctorate
Brittany:
Now wait minute. No. I got a PhD in protest. I got a PhD.
David Johns:
We got that too.
Brittany:
in two year Olds at this point, because I, Mm-mm. Y’all always wanna send a black girl back for a degree. Let’s relax. Please. Okay.
David Johns:
No, that is not what this is about. This is about making sure that you get the credentials that you have already earned.
Brittany:
Let’s, Okay, now that’s fair. I will take that. Um, y’all know there was a lot swirling around in the news this week. It was, uh, not boring to say the least. Let’s get into all of it. Um, hurricane Helene,
NEWS CLIP:
This is really historic flooding. I don’t know that anybody could be fully prepared for the amount of flooding and landslides that they are experiencing right now.
Brittany:
You just heard the voice of Deanne Chriswell, the FEMA administrator on CBS’s Face The Nation talking about the impact of Hurricane Helene on North Carolina. Now, this clip probably sounds familiar. You’ve heard it a million times. Unprecedented record breaking never before seen. Each new disaster seems to set up a brand new precedent, uh, a brand new way to be overwhelmed. I would really like to just be whelmed right now, because frankly, we’re all a little bit numb to it. But I gotta get your attention with this one first. Every single community matters, but what is so terrifying about Hurricane Helene is that it’s not just impacting coastal communities. The flooding that devastated Asheville North Carolina, which is 300 miles inland in the Carolinas, is absolutely devastating. I mean, it’s terrifying. It’s also a critical reminder that climate change is coming for all of us and none of us are exempt. Brittany, what struck you about this story?
Brittney Cooper:
Two things. One is, I, I always hoped that the election we’re facing would be the climate change election. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. I thought that this would be the generation to really double down on climate change, you know? And so I think that the thread of that has gotten lost here. That we’ve got to have a government that actually has a plan on climate change and is willing to do something about it because it is coming for our asses. The second thing is, you know, I live in New Jersey and, uh, three years ago, uh, with Hurricane Ida, my place got flooded. When I bought this place several years ago it was not in a flood plain. And I’m from Louisiana, but I’m from inland Louisiana, not from the coast. Right. Um, and so hurricanes have become effective life for certain folks in certain parts of the country. But what we really need to recognize, as you said, is that climate change is coming for us all and that climate change affects black communities. Climate change affects poor communities. People with disabilities cannot evacuate. People who don’t have money cannot evacuate. Um, and so we can’t continue to put this off as though it is going to be a problem for the next generation. It is here, it is happening. It is still too hot. And it is September and I’m ready to go apple picking.
Brittany:
Okay. Where the pumpkins at?
Brittney Cooper:
But we don’t even have seasons anymore because of climate change. Right. And so we’ve gotta do something about it.
Brittany:
I couldn’t agree with you more. And I think what’s so critical to understand is that there are people who have rolled up their sleeves, gotten on the ground in North Carolina, in Appalachia, in so many places to make sure that they’re offering direct help and not but, but, and we need to recognize that we are all on the front lines now, right? This is all of our fight. It’s all of our battle. I don’t care where you live. I don’t care if they told you, like you said, uh, coop, that you know, it’s not a floodplain. You’re not in a disaster area. There’s no risk to you. There is risk to all of us and none of us know the day or the hour, um, or exactly how it will come at us. But right now, we can make sure that we stand on the front lines and support those who are, um, on the ground.
Brittany:
You can check out North Carolina Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster for a full list of vetted disaster relief organizations. And we’ll make sure to put that link in the show notes. I wanna move forward, um, because school is, of course, back in session. I know both of y’all know that as our friend David John says, teach the babies all the time. Um, but we are already seeing administrative backlash to pro-Palestine student protests. Momodou Taal is a 30-year-old PhD student at Cornell University. Along with three other students, Taal is facing suspension for his participation in a protest on September 18th. The administration says students pushed past a police officer and caused, quote, medical complaints of hearing loss for, I want you to listen, banging pots and pans. My 2-year-old does that all the time. I really don’t know what we’re talking about. But Taal says he feels singled out by the administration, not only because he identifies as both black and Muslim, but also because he is a resident of the uk. So his suspension means that he will likely face deportation.
Momodou Taal:
The narrative is that I’m somehow a danger to campus. The narrative is that somehow I engage in a violent protest. But when we look at what my students have said, they said the types of environment I create in classrooms have been one of open dialogue. Discourse. I welcome challenges against my position, I challenge their positions. So that, for me is what Cornell should be about.
Brittany:
You just heard Taal in an interview with student newspaper, the Cornell Daily Sun. Taal teaches a first year writing class called What is Blackness Race and Processes of Racialization. David, there is so much going on here. I mean what are your thoughts on this? Where are you sitting with this? Because I know, I know you’re pissed off to the highest levels of piss- ification
David Johns:
And m. Um, and I will try and, uh, put my thoughts in three buckets. Uh, one is the rage around the white supremacy of it all. If this ain’t no mafia shit, I don’t know what is. Um, to use policies, um, to target and terrorize a single individual to do so, to flog him publicly in such a way to send a signal to anybody else that they dare not engage in, uh, similar otherwise protected rights. Uh, those are tactics that the mafia uses. Um, but this is what white people do. And so my heart goes out to this brother and to all of the students who in this moment feel suffocated and stifled and unable to do what it is that we are all supposed to do, especially when we have the privilege of elevating our thoughts on college campuses. My hope is that, uh, one of our institutions, an HBCU will identify this as an opportunity to show up and love, uh, for this brother and provide him a safer space, um, to do the work that he has purposed, um, to do.
David Johns:
And the second thing is that I thought about is that this feels way too personal. Uh, folks who know me know that I spent my senior year 2004 engaged in righteous struggle with Lee Bollinger, who was the president of Columbia University, who had been previously been sued for Grutter, Gratz, and Bollinger and who was defending white racial actors who were leveraging policies to commit terroristic acts on fellow students. And what I know is that institutions like Columbia and so many others engage in this hypocrisy, well, they will threaten to and or otherwise carry out threats to expel students and then bring them back to celebrate them and give them awards when it’s sexy.
Brittany:
My God.
David Johns:
Uh, and so I hope that as we continue to, um, engage in what bell hooks reminds us is our birthright, which is defending democracy with each generation. And education is the way that we do that. My hope is that people, uh, remain, uh, uh, bridal and committed to asking the questions that need to be asked, making the demands that need to be made, and to challenging institutions such that they shift and bend.
Brittany:
I think this is so right. I just finished out the last semester from behind the scenes trying to support students and faculty at my alma mater back in St. Louis, which had, in my opinion, one of the most dastardly responses to nonviolent student protest.
David Johns:
Columbia’s up there too, uh,
Brittney Cooper:
And Rutgers. And Rutgers, where I work
Brittany:
And listen, I was like, I was like, I don’t know that any of us have pieces of paper with, uh, collegiate names on them that don’t share a level of guilt here. Um, but what was so fascinating was I did a teach in with faculty, um, after this night of just intense police, repression, police violence. There were arrests, there were students who were kicked off of campus, which means that they lost their housing, they lost their food, they lost their security, all of these other kinds of things. Um, and I did a faculty teach in. And the the biggest point that I had to make was that this is not even in line with the tradition of this institution when it comes to responding to protest of any kind.
David Johns:
That’s right.
Brittany:
WashU is a place where anti-police violence protests in the 1960s and anti-war protests against the war in Vietnam actually were occurring at the same time. The protest against police violence that was put on by black students actually birthed WashUs black studies program. Fast forward to when I was in college, I was a part of an, uh, an organizing collective called the Student Workers Alliance that was protesting for labor rights on campus. And we followed their lead and took back over the administration building. And our chancellor at the time wasn’t threatening us with arrest. He was coming in seven over backpack shaking people’s hands and listening to the, the students’ concerns because we were willing to spend our privilege knowing that the workers on campus couldn’t take that same risk. Right. Um, and ended up winning a wage increase collectively, um, for workers on campus following their lead and their vision. Brittney , I know that you have encountered this very personally, um, that folks have tried to come for your job on many a day because you have, like David, the audacity to speak truth out loud and in public. What does support look like right now for faculty members, for students who are putting it all on the line very simply to, to ring the alarm of truth?
Brittney Cooper:
So there are a few things. The first thing to say is that I am deeply angry at the way that these universities are capitulating to the fascist, right? They are supposed to be the last bastion of free speech and the free flow of ideas in a democracy. And rather than them fighting for the right to do that and and fighting for the right to be a space for this, they are instead weaponizing their power. They are capitulating with government, um, in, in order basically to just go ahead and concede ground to the fascist. And that’s incredibly dangerous. The second thing is a point that you raised, which is that if these protest rules that were in effect that are now in effect had been in effect in the sixties, the disciplines that I’ve built my career in, women’s and gender studies, black studies, American studies, none of these disciplines would exist.
Brittney Cooper:
And so when black folks are wondering why we have to be on the front lines of thinking about Palestinian struggle, for instance, it is because anytime you stand with an oppressed group, they come for absolutely everybody. Um, and what we have to do, there are two things. One is to support students to raise. If you are a parent of a kid that is in college, you should be raising your own voice to that college and saying that you want to protect the right of free speech. You wanna protect the right of protests because a lot of these folks who have connections to Zionists, a lot of these folks who have connections to conservatives and to the right wing, they are incredibly vocal and they’re vocal with the boards of trustees. They are vocal with boards of governors. Right. And so you wanna raise your voice and say that you want your kid to be learning in an environment that protect free speech. The other place that we actually need to put some pressure is on candidate Kamala Harris and also on the Biden administration because they unfortunately, particularly Biden has weaponized his Department of Education to empower these universities to go after professors and go after students who do work around pro-Palestinian issues because they understand it to be antisemitic, and that they then see that as a violation of Jewish students civil rights. It is a really poor understanding of what antisemitism is. It harms our ability to do our work on campuses. Um, and it is one of the places where I am disappointed in the Biden administration for not being a more fierce protector of free speech and civil rights.
Brittany:
Amen to that.
David Johns:
Can I add one more thing to that? Yeah. Which is to, to uh, level this out, acknowledging that, uh, I know you’re not doing this sister, but often when we name things that this administration could and should be doing, um, there is not an acknowledgement that the, um, opposite right, Donald John Trump is in a very different place. And so I just wanna remind folks that while we are in the 30, uh, day window, um, that voting is also important. I wanna remind folks that Donald John Trump endorses these tactics that we’re seeing these institutions use to weaponize white supremacy. He specifically talks about deporting what he calls pro Hamas radicals. So I just wanna underscore the importance of holding the Democratic administration accountable for doing more and being clear, uh, about what’s at stake when we go to vote.
Brittany:
Yeah.
Brittney Cooper:
I wanna be unequivocal in saying that Donald Trump is a more harmful actor to the university project and to the project of free speech. And also say that we still deserve better from liberal administrations because when they don’t do better, it muddies the waters. For those of us who are clear about the harm, it makes it harder for us to make the case to our students that things will get better when they vote in the right direction.
Brittany:
And this is why I called you all right? Because this is what we try so intentionally to do at Undistracted, is to live in the both end, is to recognize that with my right hand, I need to hold the very highest standard for anybody who’s in charge, including people on the side of the aisle that I occupy, including people that I may have personal relationships with and like very much right and agree with, um, on more things than I don’t politically right. That with my right hand, I have to hold the highest standard for whomever is in charge, whomever sits in the seat and has the power to pick up that red phone. And with my left hand, I also have to make sure that I am protecting us against the worst harms that we know are coming fast and furious. That when we understand the threat of, I like, I like what you did there, David.
Brittany:
We gonna use the whole, the full government. Okay. When we understand the threat of Donald John Trump, Trumpism, which is the new label for an old white supremacist patriarchy that grounds itself in stoking fear and seeing the three of us and those that we are in alliance with as a threat, um, that holding back that harm is a very real task and function that I have to occupy both at the same time. And when we demonize people for failing to recognize <laugh> that both are necessary, then we don’t do the work of inviting people in to use both those hands at the same time, right? To use both sides of our brain. A whole lot of things are true at the same time. And we need to protect ourselves from the worst of it while holding ourselves and our leaders to the very highest standards so that we can get to the best of it.
Brittany:
That is always the point. I wanna transition as though in that spirit to this conversation about voting, because let’s keep it a buck. There are a whole lot of people out here on the, uh, Donald John Trump side who were like, we don’t really need to campaign. We can continue to be completely unserious. My VP candidate can continue to talk about childless cat ladies. And I can get up there and just spew off at the mouth about whatever I want. And mispronounce whomever’s name I want. Because at the end of the day, we planning on stealing the election anyway, <laugh>, so like, let’s get into it, right? Um, we are heading back into November. Uh, we already know that there’s plenty of, I’m gonna curse, fuckery afoot. And that trickery is definitely playing out when it comes to voter suppression across the country. This week, North Carolina announced that it removed 750,000. That’s three extra zeros, 750,000 voters from its registration rolls.
NEWS CLIP:
Most of these numbers that were removed from the voter roll calls are actually from people who moved within the state in North Carolina, but never actually registered for their new address. And another major cause is people who have not voted in the past to federal elections, they’ve been deemed inactive.
Brittany:
That’s according to the Hill. And let’s be clear, North Carolina is a swing state. There’s so much on that ballot at the very top end down ballot that matters to that state and to the entire country. And y’all, you know, it’s not just North Cackalack. We’re seeing this tactic happening all over the country. The DOJ actually just filed a lawsuit against Alabama, which it said was illegally removing voters from the rolls before the election. And we are what, just a little bit over a month out, um, from an incredibly close election. Let’s be clear, people have already started voting.
Brittany:
The election is already in full swing. We’re in election season. The election ends in just over 30 days, and every single vote is gonna count. Some states are playing games with that registration and the rights of citizens. Now, I firmly believe that we should be making it easier for people to vote, right? That this actually should be the quickest, easiest, simplest thing that we’re able to do, is we occupy the office of citizen because it’s hard enough as it is. And so I I really wanna talk about this because it is absolutely giving fascism, which we know they love to dibble and dabble in. What is voter suppression precisely Brittney, of Like, why are especially Republican politicians at the state and local level, why are they making it so much harder for voters to turn out?
Brittney Cooper:
Voter suppression is the oldest tactic in the book. They literally have been trying to suppress the vote since 1870 when black men were given the right to vote for the first time. Because what Republicans understand, they have not won the popular vote in any presidential election. Save one in the 21st century. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> the only presidential election they won the popular vote, which means the most, the majority of votes in the country was 2004. So the way that they win the vote is that they suppress the vote in purple states like Georgia, like North Carolina, where you actually have large majorities of black people. They make it hard for older people to vote. They make it hard for folks with disabilities to vote. They make it hard for black folks to vote because they know that if we truly had a more representative democracy in this country, they would lose resoundingly.
Brittney Cooper:
Yeah. And they would lose every time. And so what has happened is that they have also been buttressed by the Supreme Court, which in 2013, under the Roberts Court, took away the pre-clearance protections of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which pre-clearance meant that any of those old Jim Crow states that before they changed voter laws, they had to go through federal clearance in order to do that. They had to be reviewed to make sure that they were not suppressing the vote. When the Roberts Court struck that provision down, what it meant is that you have like a rogue election board in Georgia that is literally demanding hand counts of the entire Georgia electorate, right? You have these voter purges that cannot be cleared through the courts. And so all of it is designed to make democracy less representative, to make folks have to be hypervigilant, uh, and to make them work harder. And the thing that I need our folks to understand is that when we are worried that this system is not working for us, the thing we have to remember is they wouldn’t be fighting so hard to keep us out of voting booths if our vote did not matter and make a difference.
Brittany:
And there it is. And there it is. I understand the seduction of looking at a system that was never built to include you, that was never built to represent you, that is constantly being weaponized against you and saying, well then why in God’s green earth would I sign up to participate in it? And guess what? That is all by design. It costs far less money to convince you that your vote doesn’t matter so you can just stay home and choose the couch than it costs to actually go through all of these lawsuits and change these laws and do the lobbying and get the people elected who will do your bidding for you.
Brittney Cooper:
That’s right.
Brittany:
David. Now, uh, you know, we have this conversation a lot, and I know you and I are both prone to, um, telling people where to go and what to do when they get there. <laugh> back in my Twitter days before I, you know, before I locked that joint up, um, I got into it with a certain, let’s say election data celebrity back in 2020. Hi, Nate Silver. Um, I know you’re not gonna listen to this, but, um,
David Johns:
Somebody send it to him and tell him I said hey <laugh>
Brittany:
I know he’s not gonna listen to it because he didn’t even respond to me. Then meanwhile, that whole thread went viral because he was basically saying everybody who said Trump was gonna steal the 2020 election, um, you know, the, the coup didn’t work. Like you all were catastrophizing, right? That you were making a mountain out of a molehill and the thread went viral because A, he was wrong as two left shoes. And b, people were like, here are all of the receipts she listed out for you. All the ways the coup is happening through voter suppression and disenfranchisement all over the country on election day through January 6th and far beyond here you are acting like, oh, <laugh> ain’t nothing really wrong, Joe Biden won. Why is everybody freaking out? But clearly I was right.
David Johns:
And were
Brittany:
Alongside a whole bunch of other people raising the alarm on the things that we saw happening then that are now being accelerated across the entire country. We’ve seen them get worse and worse and worse every single election. How do we get people on the right boat of like being wary and taking action now instead of constantly sitting and waiting for things to fall apart before they, before we step up?
David Johns:
Yeah. I appreciate the question. I think the first thing we do is to, uh, acknowledge the reality of systems working as design, um, and provide space for people to name the frustration and rage and how fucked up it is, um, that we are forced to contend with a system that continues to mutate, um, and, and innovate in protecting white supremacy. And then to add a little bit more color on the canvas, um, we then name a thing, a thing to bring, uh, Iyanla into this beloved and acknowledge how all of this is working. So according to the US Election Assistance Commission, nearly 20 million voters were removed from the rolls between 2020 and 2022. That’s an increase of 21% compared to the 2014 2016 cycle, which was already an increase of 33% from the number of voters removed from 2006 through 2008. Mm. All of this matters in an electoral system where an electoral college makes a decision. Uh, to my sister professor’s point about, uh, if the math was always mathin, they they shouldn’t win shit. They big fascists.
Brittany:
I mean, and I wanna be really clear. That’s not like conjecture, that’s not just us in our feelings. The study show Yeah. When you maximize the number of voters Yeah. The more Americans actually show up at the polls. Yeah. Republicans lose every single time. Yeah. But keep going.
David Johns:
And they know that, which is why they continue to engage in voter suppression tactics and keep us away from having conversations is where you started BPC with talking about automatic voter registration and digital voting opportunities that would very much play to the, the Gen Z population that are one fifth of the voters that Brittney Cooper referenced earlier. And so I want people to appreciate that not only is this shit not new, that they are finding innovative ways to keep us from exercising a right that we continue to fight for. Um, NBJC recently partnered with the Real Housewives of Politics and working family parties to produce a drag brunch, um, in Washington DC in the DMV. And the cost of admissions was that you had to show that you were registered to vote because we know that this is a challenge. And would you believe that nearly a third of the attendees were surprised to learn that they had been purged from the voter rolls. This in the DMV, a space that, that, that most pollsters don’t even consider when thinking about the politics of the electoral college I worked on.
Brittany:
because this whole population is supposed to be politically inclined.
David Johns:
That’s exactly right. In a, in a district that it was not until 1961 that earned three votes in this electoral system because there’s not equity built into the electoral process by design. In 2012, I worked for, uh, still my president, Barack Hussein Obama’s fabulous wife, Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama, Sasha, Malia, Sonny, Bow, grandma Robinson, rest in power.
Brittany:
Rest in power
David Johns:
And in Nevada. In Nevada. I learned that if you move more than twice, the state of Nevada automatically dropped you from the voter rose. And this is one of the states with the highest levels of mobility, in part because of the uncertainty in the economic employment and housing markets. All of this is by design. And this is on top of the fact that people are reducing the number of polling places this on top of voter ID law restrictions that are designed in particular to prevent those of us who have multiple marginalized identities or who might be members of sexual minority communities or trans or gender expansive from being able to have the documents that you’re now required Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> to have your Freedom Papers to exercise your rights. And this is not isolated. 29 states have passed 94 restrictive voting laws in the last four years alone.
David Johns:
And so this is important for us to ensure that we have, uh, plans to vote safely if you are ready or not. Vote ready, please go to n bjc.org and download our vote ready toolkit. And we have to engage beyond voting, right? So much of what we talk about in politics is affecting us before we ever show up at the voting booth. And so while we’re focused on November 5th, let’s also be mindful of these systems that are working as designed so we can dismantle and shift them too.
Brittany:
Here’s the thing. ’cause everything that you’re saying is a thousand percent right. And every two years, every four years, we go through exactly this cycle. We see the fuckery <laugh>, we know it’s happening, and we deploy all of our resources knowing full well that those of us on the margins have fewer resources to deploy. So often those resources are not financial. They’re our time and our talent. Right? So we are exhausting ourselves and so often we’re fighting this after the things have already happened, right? So sometimes we’re behind the eight ball and constantly playing defense and not ever having the chance to play offense. So we do all of that. We exhaust our time, we exhaust our talent, we exhaust the limited treasures that we have. Election day comes. Lately we’ve been eking it out thankfully because all of all of these black folks and indigenous folks and Asian folks and minoritized folks have been making it happen.
Brittany:
And then come November 5th at, you know, 11:59 PM we are exhausted and we all collapse, and then all of the shenanigans are still going. So now we find ourselves at the next stage of the cycle where we are exhausted, have nothing left to give. And the GOP is just moving right along with the plan to suppress more right. I think that once we get through this election season, we are going to have to get extra serious about making sure that this is not an episodic journey for us, but that we nip it in the bud once and for all.
Brittney Cooper:
I think we are doing better than we think we’re doing. And I think that that’s why we’ve seen the uptick in resistance, right?
Brittany:
Yeah, I think that’s right.
Brittney Cooper:
I think that, I think that we’re winning the culture war, particularly around narrative change. Mm. I also think that this is the reason why what young people want from us is for people to stop bullshitting them. Right. They have lived. They live in a world where they are overwhelmed with information and they don’t know who to trust. And so I think that one of the ways that we actually win the culture war is by threading the both and that you talked about at the beginning, which is that we keep on saying, Hey, here are all the ways that we could be more and do more and have more. Here’s all the ways you have been failed.
Brittney Cooper:
Yeah. Here are all the ways things have been fucked up, but here are the places that we are winning. Here are the places we are, right. Here are the places where when you show up and you participate, you actually make a difference in what is possible. That’s right. And so our ability to continue to thread that narrative and to not let them defeat our, you know, our narrative change is really, you know, I think is actually a winning strategy. I think we also heard it when Dr. David said, look, we threw a drag brunch and we invited the Working Families party and we invited, you know Right. We invited mainstream politics, we’re putting people in the rooms, we’re building coalitions, we’re figuring out where we have shared issues and shared solidarities. Yeah. We are doing all the right things and now we’ve just gotta wait for the harvest to spring up. And I think the, the last thing we’ve gotta do is realize that I don’t ever use the language about how the right has long game and strategy because I’m unimpressed with them <laugh>
Brittney Cooper:
And I, and I am really committed as a way of life to being un like, violence is not impressive. It’s fucking brute.It’s not creative.
Brittany:
Right. It’s not smart.
Brittney Cooper:
Right. It’s like, Yeah. Stealing, killing and destroying. If I could keep it biblical if the work of the devil, it’s not, there is nothing, you know, impressive about that. And so there’s,
Brittany:
It’s not demure, it’s not mindful, it’s not cutesy.
Brittney Cooper:
Its not, it’s none of that. Right. They’re just showing us that when we actually start to beat them, that what they will do is just use violence. Right. That’s not impressive. That’s not long game. And in fact, it actually works to the opposite of what their long game is. Long game requires strategy, violence just requires you to pull out guns. And that’s all they’re doing at this point. And the more we can be unimpressed with them, the more we can outthink them. And if I can outthink you, I can beat you every time.
David Johns:
Period. Period.
Brittany:
I love that. I love that. I do think though, that like, to your point, we need to be unimpressed with them, but we also need to be impressed enough with ourselves to know that we have the capacity. And when I say we, I mean we, when I was saying we need to not be behind the eight ball, I’m not talking about Latasha Brown <laugh>, I’m not talking about Cliff Albright, I’m not talking about the people who’ve been doing this day in, day out who do it in the off season when it’s not sexy. I’m not talking about Maurice Mitchell, I’m not talking about Ruwa Romman. I’m not talking about any of those folks. I’m talking about those of us who think that this fight is a fight that we have every four years. Like it’s time for the Olympics or the Paralympics <laugh>, right? Yeah. Like, um, I’m talking about those of us who will get serious right now and even maybe get serious during the midterms, but still have this inkling feeling in the back of our head, this fleeting thought that it is ultimately up to black women to save us or black people to save us.
Brittany:
Or in creative indigenous women to save us. Um, instead of us saving ourselves. Right? Like, let’s be impressed enough with ourselves to recognize the skill, the talent, the time, the commitment that we can dedicate to Yes. Volunteer at the polls to Yes. Go and be a canvasser to Yes. Go and be a fundraiser to Yes. Use your platform and whatever brand deals you have to encourage people to vote, but also to do what Desmond Meade does in the off season to make sure that formerly incarcerated people are not losing their franchise. So that when the election comes, we’re already good. David, what, what quote are you giving us? ’cause I know that you always got a book for that. My mama always got a scripture for that. And you always got a book for it.
David Johns:
I went to the bookshelves to invite into this conversation our sister bell hooks lower case B, lower case H. ’cause she wanted you to focus on the work period, because period. I want you to hear my heart when I say this. Um, you, my sister don’t need to do a single thing else, <laugh>
David Johns:
Period. To contribute to this work. That’s this is, this is me leveraging my privilege as a black cis, uh, capital Q queer man. I hope you hear my heart when I say black women don’t have to do shit else with regard to defending democracy. And I, I, I want bell hooks to help us appreciate that. bell hooks talks to us and says, in teaching critical thinking, there’s little public discourse amongst people. Nowadays most simply assume that living in a democratic society is their birthright. They do not believe that they must work to maintain democracy. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, they do not read John Dewey. They do not know his powerful declaration that quote, democracy has to be born anew in each generation. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> and education is its midwife. You are educating literally and figurative. This is why we talk about getting this credential just to punctuate that point. What we need to do, brothers, active allies and advocates is trust black women, elect black people and progressive candidates, comma, who love black people. That the comma’s important because all my skin folk aint my kinfolk. And we also need to make it
Brittany:
Mark Robinson. I’m sorry, keep going.
Brittney Cooper:
Aye come on.
David Johns:
We can list them. Candace Owens. Yeah. The congressman from Florida. We need to make it impossible for black Grifters to thrive.
Brittany:
Ooh.
David Johns:
Training on our ability to be alive again. The, the, the politics are affecting us in intimate ways often that we don’t consent to well before we show up at the voting booth. That is just one part of this process. We have to work woke. Cue the last scene with Lawrence Fishburn in School Days and be clear about how these systems work. Listen to the cues that black feminists provide us to understand the mission of domination, the science systems and symbols that allow white supremacy to be omnipresent, yet hyper invisible and continue to chip away at that shit.
Brittany:
Well see listen, you just, uh, <laugh>, You just gave us the altar call, the preached word and the benediction.
Brittney Cooper:
Yes, indeed.
Brittany:
I am, I’m over here thanking the Lord that I know a pastor David Johns and a Bishop Brittany Cooper, um, <laugh>. And I’m so glad
Brittney Cooper:
you gonna pay for,I’m gonna get you back for that.
Brittany:
And I’m so glad, um, that I, um, and our incredible little mighty podcast team here could make sure that these are the kind of conversations we got to have today and that we’ll be having all season long. I know we didn’t even get to everything on the docket. I’m gonna make sure that we bring these things back up in later, uh, conversations because we absolutely have to talk about the new anti-trans laws that have been contributing to a spike in suicide attempts. We gotta talk about how we are seeing misogynoir fully at work, uh, in these sports. We gotta continue to talk about this election, um, not just before it, but we gotta continue to talk about our democracy well after it. Uh, but I’m grateful to you all. I’m so glad that we’ve assembled this mighty podcast crew, um, and that we’ll be able to hear from you all and I’ll be able to keep learning from you all, all season long. I hope we passed the collection plate because Church <laugh> has officially been dismissed. I’ll see y’all out in the narthex. Uh, I’ll see y’all out in the vestibule afterwards ’cause the doors of the church are definitely open. I love y’all.
Brittney Cooper:
Love you.
David Johns:
Thanks for the soul food.
Brittany:
Ya’ll I’m so glad we’ve got a crew as UNDISTRACTED as us to ride with us all season long. I mean cheers to me for being smart enough to have some smart friends. Cheers to the group chat for opening up coming alive. And cheers to you–we got a ways to go, but we’re gonna ride it out together…that’s it for today, but never ever for tomorrow.