Latest / The Breakfast Club / INTERVIEW: Michael Harriot On America Through The Black Lens, Tim Scott, Ice Cube, Healthy Debates + More

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INTERVIEW: Michael Harriot On America Through The Black Lens, Tim Scott, Ice Cube, Healthy Debates + More · The Breakfast Club

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Wake that ass up in the morning. Breakfast Club.
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: Morning, everybody, It's j n V. Jesse Larius Charlamage the guy.
• 0:08
  Speaker 2: We are the Breakfast Club. You got a special guest
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: in the building. Yes, indeed, journalist Michael Harriet and author.
• 0:14
  Speaker 3: Welcome brother, Nice to meet you.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Medical commentator, a little bit of everything, Yeah, a little
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: bit of everything on there on his belt. Native of
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: South Carolina, of course. Of course he's got a phenomenal
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: book out man called a Black af History, The Unwhitewashed
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Story of America. I started reading it over the holidays
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: when I was on vacation, and it's one of those
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: books that I've gotten a lot through it, but you
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: keep going back because you're gonna have your highlighter. Yeah,
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying constantly going through it. Tell
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: her first of all, telling them what the book is about.
• 0:43
  Speaker 4: The book is a look at America through black people's eyes.
• 0:46
  Speaker 4: So we've seen books about black people through black people's eyes,
• 0:50
  Speaker 4: and history books about America through white through the white lens.
• 0:53
  Speaker 4: But this is about America through black people's eyes. And
• 0:57
  Speaker 4: it's funny, uh, you know, because I talk to people talk.
• 1:00
  Speaker 4: I wrote the book like how we talk to each other.
• 1:03
  Speaker 4: So you know, we could be at a funeral and
• 1:05
  Speaker 4: we're like, oh God, I can't believe she what that
• 1:06
  Speaker 4: had so and so, you know, it uses humor, it
• 1:09
  Speaker 4: uses the way we talk to each other, and it
• 1:11
  Speaker 4: shows and it pulls no punches and unwhitewashes the mythology
• 1:15
  Speaker 4: that we always been taught to believe since we got
• 1:20
  Speaker 4: into social studies class.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: You know, I've always followed you on social media teen
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: writing on the grill, and of course you're very funny,
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: but when you read the book, you realize, damn you
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: had to go through a lot of trauma to get
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: that sense of humor.
• 1:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah, man, yeah, I mean I think I think that's
• 1:36
  Speaker 4: how we all got our sense of humor, right, Like
• 1:38
  Speaker 4: it's a it's a coping mechanism in a way, man,
• 1:40
  Speaker 4: And that's how a lot of why black people, you know,
• 1:44
  Speaker 4: we relate to each other like that, because we deal
• 1:47
  Speaker 4: with trauma in those ways. And it's always been like that,
• 1:50
  Speaker 4: I mean, since like, you know, that's kind of how
• 1:53
  Speaker 4: we created Charlie Kase was the first stand up comedian
• 1:56
  Speaker 4: and I write about it in the book, and his
• 2:00
  Speaker 4: creating a stand up comedy was an effort to like
• 2:04
  Speaker 4: get close to his father, who.
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: Was an albino man, an albino.
• 2:10
  Speaker 4: Black man, and he was a mixed He was a
• 2:13
  Speaker 4: mixed race, and his mom erase told him that you
• 2:16
  Speaker 4: got to live his white and he his hero was
• 2:19
  Speaker 4: his father. So that was a way to get close
• 2:22
  Speaker 4: to his father because his father was a performer, and
• 2:25
  Speaker 4: he invented stand up comedy to kind of connect himself
• 2:28
  Speaker 4: to his community after he was removed from it.
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: Such an interesting concept, right, because like when you think
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: about black people in America, you know, certain people Jewish
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: people have been able to assimilate by being able to
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: change their last name. To read the story about the
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: albino man who was able to assimilate, I'm like, why
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: that's it's an act of survival, Like why wouldn't you
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: in that day and age?
• 2:48
  Speaker 4: Yeah, man, that's what I talk a lot about that
• 2:50
  Speaker 4: in the book, because we like when we talk about,
• 2:52
  Speaker 4: for instance, slave revoltes, we always like to talk about
• 2:56
  Speaker 4: like how black people grab machetes and burned out plantation.
• 3:01
  Speaker 4: But there were other ways of survival, like I called
• 3:03
  Speaker 4: the chapter is called survival and resistance. So a lot
• 3:06
  Speaker 4: of what we did was just for survival, right, Like like,
• 3:11
  Speaker 4: for instance, slowing down your work. You might be mad
• 3:13
  Speaker 4: at that slave on it, but you know what's gonna
• 3:15
  Speaker 4: happen if you don't work, So you might just slow down.
• 3:19
  Speaker 4: You might just run away for a few days, knowing
• 3:22
  Speaker 4: you're gonna get caught. But like it was like what
• 3:24
  Speaker 4: we would call it self care now, Like I know
• 3:27
  Speaker 4: I'm going to get caught, but I'm going to die
• 3:29
  Speaker 4: if I stay on this plantation one more date in
• 3:32
  Speaker 4: a row. And so that notion of survival is a
• 3:37
  Speaker 4: lot on how we deal with trauma.
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: Man.
• 3:39
  Speaker 4: Like a lot of times when I see like black
• 3:43
  Speaker 4: people assimilating into like what we call popular culture or
• 3:46
  Speaker 4: like that conservative mindset, I know, like some of some
• 3:50
  Speaker 4: of the time it's a way of survival. Now other
• 3:54
  Speaker 4: times you see people buy all into it.
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: Like I thought Tim.
• 3:58
  Speaker 4: I used to think Tim Scott, it was survival technique
• 4:00
  Speaker 4: for Tim Scott. And then I realized, oh nah, he
• 4:04
  Speaker 4: he's starting to believe in right like he I mean,
• 4:08
  Speaker 4: there was a shift because because I've talked to him before, right,
• 4:11
  Speaker 4: and and it was it was you always got the
• 4:14
  Speaker 4: feeling that he was a conservative, a real conservative who
• 4:20
  Speaker 4: was in the Republican Party, but like lately he just
• 4:23
  Speaker 4: shift to shift it to like maga dude, like maga
• 4:26
  Speaker 4: black dude.
• 4:27
  Speaker 5: You said he was embarrassing himself.
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: He said, if I think you posted a clip on
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: your Twitter said, if I send you a picture of
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: Tim Scott, that means you're embarrassing yourself.
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, right right now, I mean.
• 4:35
  Speaker 4: And then like I'm not one to always like perpetuate
• 4:39
  Speaker 4: like what they call the democratic mindset, So I would
• 4:42
  Speaker 4: always point out that Tim Scott, for instance, was the first,
• 4:46
  Speaker 4: the only person for years pushing for police reform, Like
• 4:49
  Speaker 4: he he tried to get Republicans to pass the Tim
• 4:52
  Speaker 4: Scott UH the Walter Scott Notification Act for years and
• 4:57
  Speaker 4: then something happened and then he like he they were
• 5:00
  Speaker 4: on the doorstep of passing police reform and Tim Scott
• 5:04
  Speaker 4: sabotaged it because of like the most powerful man in
• 5:06
  Speaker 4: South Carolina, the sheriff called Leon Lott and the police
• 5:11
  Speaker 4: reform like one powerful white dude that nobody knows in
• 5:15
  Speaker 4: the police reform and Tim Scott through Tim Scott right,
• 5:18
  Speaker 4: and lately he's just like stopped being that old Tim
• 5:21
  Speaker 4: Scott and become maga dude.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: I wonder about that, right, I agree with everything you
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: just said, but I wonder if that is him trying
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: to survive in a Republican party that is clearly being
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: taken over by Maga.
• 5:36
  Speaker 4: But here's the thing that would make sense if Tim
• 5:39
  Speaker 4: Scott was somewhere, Like Tim Scott is a Senator from
• 5:42
  Speaker 4: South Carolina.
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: There is no way he's at the country now.
• 5:45
  Speaker 4: Yeah, he's, but he's never going to lose if he
• 5:49
  Speaker 4: keeps running like ninety eight percent of one thing, people
• 5:51
  Speaker 4: don't really like eight percent of all senators when they
• 5:55
  Speaker 4: leave the Senate, they retire. Like, it's almost impossible for
• 5:59
  Speaker 4: a sitting, sitting senator to lose. And Tim Scott is
• 6:02
  Speaker 4: in a Republican stronghold, He's never going to be child.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: If he got future aspirations though, if he has a
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: future political aspiration, yeah.
• 6:08
  Speaker 4: But are there is there a political future after Donald Trump?
• 6:12
  Speaker 4: Like none of it makes sense, right, because he could
• 6:14
  Speaker 4: be Tim Scott the same Tim Scott he was before
• 6:16
  Speaker 4: Donald Trump and still have political aspirations, right, Like, he
• 6:20
  Speaker 4: might even be more popular with his party if he
• 6:25
  Speaker 4: wasn't that Maga dude. Right, he bought into a specific
• 6:29
  Speaker 4: kind of anti black conservative ideology. When he didn't have to,
• 6:34
  Speaker 4: and that like, and you can see the shift right,
• 6:37
  Speaker 4: he's not even making sense anymore. He was a quiet
• 6:41
  Speaker 4: conservative dude, and now he is a Donald Trump magamuffin,
• 6:46
  Speaker 4: an acolyte of that anti black wing of the Republican Party.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: I agree with you, It just it just feels like
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: if you're a traditional conservative like he was, the Maga
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: people make you look almost like you're leaning left. So
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: I don't he wants to look like he's leaning left
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: in any way, shape or form.
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but I don't.
• 7:04
  Speaker 4: I don't think that's necessarily true because we you know,
• 7:07
  Speaker 4: we hear that thing about like the traditional Republicans versus
• 7:11
  Speaker 4: the Maga Republicans. The traditional Republicans and the Maga Republicans,
• 7:15
  Speaker 4: there's no really no difference in policy, right, Like all
• 7:18
  Speaker 4: the Republicans are right wing ideologues in truth right right,
• 7:25
  Speaker 4: But but that Maga thing, like it's just a little
• 7:29
  Speaker 4: bit more anti black, a little bit more vocally xenophobic.
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: But it's no policy difference.
• 7:35
  Speaker 4: And Tim Scott didn't have to buy into all of
• 7:38
  Speaker 4: that to like Tim Scott through his granddaddy.
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: My grandfather was an illiterate, poor tim daddy and he wasn't.
• 7:45
  Speaker 4: It was a lie, right, and he did that to
• 7:50
  Speaker 4: buy into that Republican not just the Republican ideology, but
• 7:54
  Speaker 4: that Maga anti black version of black people that is
• 7:57
  Speaker 4: necessary to perpetuate the myth of the Maga wing of
• 8:02
  Speaker 4: the party.
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: I want to go back for a lot of people
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: that don't now. I'm always curious to how people got
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: their start, right, So what piqued your interest when it
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: came to journalism and politics. What was the first thing
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: that says, this is something that's interesting that I want
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: to do well? That was even your journey.
• 8:17
  Speaker 4: So I'm actually an economist by training, so I was
• 8:23
  Speaker 4: teaching macroeconomics and working for corporations, and this is when
• 8:28
  Speaker 4: Newsweek was owned by the Washington Post. I used to
• 8:32
  Speaker 4: just write these large policy things that like, say your
• 8:35
  Speaker 4: company was building something overseas, I'd write, like what the
• 8:38
  Speaker 4: economic impact it would have on that country? And Newsweek
• 8:43
  Speaker 4: asked me to write these articles about First it was
• 8:46
  Speaker 4: why everybody was buying gold? And I wrote it and
• 8:50
  Speaker 4: it was like everybody was like, oh, you can really write.
• 8:52
  Speaker 4: I was like, yeah, that's what I kind of do
• 8:54
  Speaker 4: for a living. And from there what happened is you know,
• 8:57
  Speaker 4: if you're the only black person in the space, come
• 9:00
  Speaker 4: the expert on everything black.
• 9:01
  Speaker 3: So when black stuff.
• 9:02
  Speaker 4: Started happening, even though I was an economist now, I
• 9:05
  Speaker 4: taught a college course called Race as an Economic Constructs,
• 9:09
  Speaker 4: so that might be why, But I just became the
• 9:12
  Speaker 4: default expert they come.
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: To to ask to write about black stuff.
• 9:17
  Speaker 5: Gotcha.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: You know what I love about you know, black af
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: You break down the history of America at a high level, right,
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: but you also do it in a very entertaining way.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: And it made me think of a great movie that's
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: all right now called American Fiction.
• 9:30
  Speaker 5: Right.
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: And the one problem I had with that movie was
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: the whole that they left about the book Fuck. Have
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: you seen the movie? Yeah? I wanted to know why
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: people liked the book Fuck, because I felt like he
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: was such a high level thinker that maybe he just
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: wrote something that was more easily digestible for people. And
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: it really made me feel like that when him and
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: Eric Alexander had that back and forth in the kitchen
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: and she liked the book and she used to like
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: all his original stuff. So I wish they would have
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: explained it in that moment why people liked the book
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: but I think your book, you know, it shows you
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: can put medicine and candy in something and be successful
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: because you debut that what number five on the New
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: York best Sellers or something like that.
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think you can do it right.
• 10:08
  Speaker 4: But I think the difference, like you know, the book
• 10:12
  Speaker 4: Fuck and American Fiction is a lot of times to
• 10:15
  Speaker 4: make it in what used to like especially five years ago,
• 10:19
  Speaker 4: even in the publishing industry, is you had to dumb
• 10:22
  Speaker 4: it down for the sake of white people and all
• 10:25
  Speaker 4: kind of pretend that you were kind of stupid, which
• 10:30
  Speaker 4: is something that black people have always had to do
• 10:34
  Speaker 4: in throughout history, right Like you couldn't let that white
• 10:38
  Speaker 4: man know you could read or you could die, right Like,
• 10:40
  Speaker 4: you couldn't let the people at your.
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: Job know you were smarter because you would be a
• 10:47
  Speaker 3: threat to them. That's where the.
• 10:48
  Speaker 4: Phrase the spook who sat by the door comes from,
• 10:52
  Speaker 4: because like affirmative action, they would take really smart people
• 10:56
  Speaker 4: and make them secretaries, but they would have to sit
• 10:59
  Speaker 4: by the door because people in the back office were
• 11:01
  Speaker 4: scared that they would absorb that knowledge and take their position.
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: So that's something that we always had to do, and
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: that's why to me.
• 11:09
  Speaker 4: American fiction was so interesting because it showed like there's
• 11:14
  Speaker 4: this we were in this moment in publishing and then
• 11:18
  Speaker 4: we're still in it in America in general, where white
• 11:22
  Speaker 4: people were pretending to be interested in black things. It
• 11:25
  Speaker 4: wasn't real, right, like we take that, you know, twenty
• 11:28
  Speaker 4: twenty racial reckoning they call it, right, like, nothing really happened.
• 11:31
  Speaker 4: They blacked out some Instagram on some means on Instagram
• 11:35
  Speaker 4: and declared that black lives matter, but like the results
• 11:39
  Speaker 4: of that was nothing, Like the corporations didn't donate the
• 11:42
  Speaker 4: money that they plied. There was no reform, there were
• 11:45
  Speaker 4: no bills that came out of it. But because of
• 11:50
  Speaker 4: that thing we talked about early survival, the people who
• 11:53
  Speaker 4: have been maligned and taken a sideline in publishing and
• 11:59
  Speaker 4: in TV, they had an opportunity to take advantage of
• 12:03
  Speaker 4: that brief moment of interest and write some books. And
• 12:06
  Speaker 4: then so you can see, like we have a moment
• 12:08
  Speaker 4: in publishing where a lot of black people are getting
• 12:10
  Speaker 4: to speak truth without doing what fuck did and kind
• 12:15
  Speaker 4: of dumb it down for white people.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: But that's what I said with you. You created a
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: book that's super smart, but it's also highly entertaining. I
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: don't think it's dumbed down at all. So I always wonder, like,
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: when somebody is so smart, how come they can't figure
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: out a way to make it digestible for everybody.
• 12:32
  Speaker 4: I think a lot of that stuff is ego, man,
• 12:33
  Speaker 4: because a lot of smart people want to be seen
• 12:37
  Speaker 4: as smart people and not related information that they use.
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: That's why they use like these.
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: Big old words terrible communicators, right.
• 12:44
  Speaker 4: Right, And so they make they want to either communicate
• 12:48
  Speaker 4: to other smart people or to be seen by people
• 12:52
  Speaker 4: who aren't as smart as them as smarter than them, right,
• 12:56
  Speaker 4: And that's part part ego. But I think there is
• 12:59
  Speaker 4: a way, because first of all, there's a lot of
• 13:02
  Speaker 4: smart black.
• 13:03
  Speaker 3: People who you can communicate with who.
• 13:06
  Speaker 4: Also know like regular people like me and you, who
• 13:12
  Speaker 4: know how to relate information like I could talk to
• 13:14
  Speaker 4: you like I'm at the barbershop, and I could talk
• 13:17
  Speaker 4: to you like I'm in an academic setting, right, And
• 13:21
  Speaker 4: I don't have to choose between the two, because if
• 13:24
  Speaker 4: you're smart, then part of being smart is knowing how
• 13:27
  Speaker 4: to convey information so that it's digestible to anybody.
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: Most attorneys do that, right, And if I use big
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: words and use words that come from a thesaurus because
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: they feel like they're going to talk over somebody.
• 13:38
  Speaker 5: And a lot of times they say shit, yeah.
• 13:40
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and academics and scholars and you know, and a
• 13:46
  Speaker 4: lot of times it's because the people we're talking about
• 13:50
  Speaker 4: were picked by the white establishment as somebody.
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: Who is smart.
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: Breakdown down because you know, just we.
• 14:01
  Speaker 4: Know how media works, we know how like corporations work,
• 14:04
  Speaker 4: Like journalism is what like at best six percent black, right,
• 14:09
  Speaker 4: So when you're talking about the people at the top,
• 14:11
  Speaker 4: for instance of journalism.
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: Those people were picked by.
• 14:18
  Speaker 4: A white establishment and kind of endowed with the credentials
• 14:24
  Speaker 4: to speak a lot of times for black people.
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: But does it matter if the person that's speaking cannot
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: galvanize an audience, Like if you're not able to, if
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: you get put in that position and you're not able
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: to you know, energize people and make people gravitate towards you,
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: it does it even matter?
• 14:41
  Speaker 4: But that assumes that you're there to energize and get
• 14:46
  Speaker 4: black people to listen and not validate things for white people.
• 14:49
  Speaker 4: I'll give you an example, right, So, a couple of
• 14:51
  Speaker 4: weeks ago, there was a black reporter who went down
• 14:55
  Speaker 4: to near where I live in Georgia and interviewed black
• 14:59
  Speaker 4: people about.
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: Like why Biden might lose in rural Georgia article.
• 15:05
  Speaker 4: Yeah, but the interesting thing about that article was, like
• 15:11
  Speaker 4: I lived literally five.
• 15:13
  Speaker 3: Minutes from the place.
• 15:14
  Speaker 4: She wasn't interviewing like regular black people, right, because first
• 15:19
  Speaker 4: of all, that has that specific time where she has
• 15:22
  Speaker 4: as one of the highest voter registration and participation rates,
• 15:25
  Speaker 4: and she was talking about first of all, she was
• 15:26
  Speaker 4: talking to college students who weren't going to be able
• 15:30
  Speaker 4: to Like she was asking people what why they wouldn't
• 15:34
  Speaker 4: vote for Biden and they were saying, well, Biden cut
• 15:37
  Speaker 4: off my food stamps and I'm a college student. But
• 15:41
  Speaker 4: out of that whole subset, why would you talk to
• 15:44
  Speaker 4: somebody who didn't have the right information, right when it's
• 15:47
  Speaker 4: so many people, because you there to perpetuate the narrative, right,
• 15:53
  Speaker 4: and so a lot of times you're not there to
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: get a black audience, there to validate the same opinions
• 16:02
  Speaker 4: that white people have already held about black people. That's
• 16:05
  Speaker 4: why we see this thing about you know, why is
• 16:08
  Speaker 4: the Republican Party going to be attractive to black people? Look,
• 16:13
  Speaker 4: I can tell you never in the history of America
• 16:15
  Speaker 4: since black people have been able to vote. Have black
• 16:17
  Speaker 4: people voted for the Conservative party, whether it was the
• 16:21
  Speaker 4: Democrats or the Republicans at the time.
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: It's not going to happen. It's never going to happen.
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: Every year happen.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: At the number they're saying, I think right now they
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: say it's twenty two percent, They'll never get twenty two
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: percent of the black people. I don't think.
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: So, Yeah, it'll never it's not going to.
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: Happen, and it will go up though, I think it'll
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: be a bump.
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: But here's what you have to ask yourself.
• 16:40
  Speaker 4: Right, So black people make up twelve percent of the
• 16:44
  Speaker 4: voting electric right, so if it goes up by five points,
• 16:49
  Speaker 4: that's less like that's less than a half of a
• 16:52
  Speaker 4: percentage of the total electorate, right, like five points with
• 16:56
  Speaker 4: black people, especially if you're talking about black men, it's less.
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: Than half a percent. So why would you even write an.
• 17:04
  Speaker 4: Article or perpetuate this narrative and have it in multiple newspapers,
• 17:08
  Speaker 4: Like it's not just like the New York Times just
• 17:10
  Speaker 4: talking about this, it's just the Watchington Post. Is the
• 17:11
  Speaker 4: Wall Street journalist the La time talking about the same
• 17:14
  Speaker 4: thing When it's such a small it cannot decide an
• 17:18
  Speaker 4: election when the man turning conservative cannot cannot decide an election.
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: As close as the elections have been lately, and this one,
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: I think what I've been saying this year is that
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: you know, you're gonna have to It's gonna be the
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: Republicans who are the criminals, you know, the Democrats who
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: are the couch because they don't fight enough, and the
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: couch which is voter apathy. And I think that a
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: lot of Democrats are focusing too much on what Republicans
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: are doing when they need to focus the energy on
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: the people on the couch. Right, Right, So if the
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: Republicans were able to get i don't know, two three
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: percent of black voters to increase as close as the
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: election might be, you don't.
• 17:51
  Speaker 4: Think that could no, because see what you're talking about,
• 17:54
  Speaker 4: first of all, leaves out the fact that there's this
• 17:56
  Speaker 4: thing called the elector.
• 17:58
  Speaker 3: Right, So so where the Democrats when states is in.
• 18:04
  Speaker 4: Large black enclaves, in large city states with large cities,
• 18:08
  Speaker 4: well a two or three percent swing in even in
• 18:12
  Speaker 4: those cities, it's not gonna do anything. Man Like we
• 18:17
  Speaker 4: keep talking about the you know about politics in such
• 18:23
  Speaker 4: broad terms, especially when you talk about the black vote,
• 18:26
  Speaker 4: when we never focus on this fact, right, like most
• 18:31
  Speaker 4: white people in America are going to vote for a
• 18:35
  Speaker 4: man with twenty one criminal charges, and we're talking about
• 18:39
  Speaker 4: what ninety one criminal charges, and we're talking about what
• 18:43
  Speaker 4: black people do, not what we know white people are
• 18:46
  Speaker 4: going to do. Right, White, we know white people are
• 18:48
  Speaker 4: going to vote for the racist, xenophobic, criminal scam artists,
• 18:54
  Speaker 4: ignorant dude, And we're talking about what zero point five
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: percent of the elector is going to do. It's gotta
• 19:02
  Speaker 4: be a narrative, and they get back Black people back
• 19:06
  Speaker 4: to what you ask black journalists to rubber stampet by
• 19:09
  Speaker 4: talking about that dumb, stupid narrative, to verify.
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: That it's a thing.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: Why do you think that is right? Because, like you know,
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: when I get on these platforms, I've been saying the
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: same thing, Like the whole electorate is dissatisfied, right like
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: you got you know, last yesterday I saw a poet
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: said Biden would lose by I think forty points in
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: a general election to Trump. And the polls are down
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: for him with younger voters and independence and Latinos and
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: Asians and black people. Why do you think it's just
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: focused on.
• 19:36
  Speaker 4: Because you can't talk about like it turns white people
• 19:40
  Speaker 4: off to even say the words white people.
• 19:42
  Speaker 3: You can't talk about what white people are gonna do
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: and like. And then again you have to.
• 19:47
  Speaker 4: Realize this goes back to the original premise of the
• 19:50
  Speaker 4: argument is that the nose newsrooms are ninety two to
• 19:54
  Speaker 4: ninety four percent white. Those white people don't that's not
• 19:57
  Speaker 4: a narrative. They don't even see things through that lens.
• 20:00
  Speaker 4: Just like, for instance, the New York Times doing that
• 20:03
  Speaker 4: thing on Travis Kelsey's haircut. Right now, we as absurd
• 20:09
  Speaker 4: in all the jokes were right, What it really was
• 20:12
  Speaker 4: about is that entire chain of command was given was
• 20:17
  Speaker 4: was filtered through a white lens. Like there couldn't have
• 20:20
  Speaker 4: been any black person as an editor in that newsroom
• 20:24
  Speaker 4: who said, what do you mean popular? Like like this
• 20:26
  Speaker 4: harecut has been popular for a while. You now that
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: lens is it's popular now for white people.
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: I can just tell from that that, like we said
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: this oneer, that they don't see us right, like, they
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: don't open their eyes to see that.
• 20:39
  Speaker 5: We've had phades for Yeah.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: But Mike, you make all skinful game canfolk right everything
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: you don't know about that.
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: Fade, But yeah, they doing.
• 20:49
  Speaker 4: But what I'm saying is, I don't even care about
• 20:51
  Speaker 4: what the white people in the new black people in
• 20:53
  Speaker 4: the newsroom did, Right. It is a white lens to
• 20:57
  Speaker 4: think that something is popular now because white people see
• 21:01
  Speaker 4: it and start doing it. Like they talk about critical
• 21:04
  Speaker 4: race theory in the reverse sense that like, why do
• 21:07
  Speaker 4: we have to look at it from a black perspective
• 21:09
  Speaker 4: because they don't realize that they've been seeing things all
• 21:12
  Speaker 4: of this time from a white perspective.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, I want to ask you something you was talking about.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: You know, when do you talk about Tim Scott? Do
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: you think black people period right when it comes to
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: Democrats are Republicans? Is there ever any reason for us
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: to be acting the way he acts over politicians because
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: black democrats. I'll be seeing the way these black Democrats
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: act over the Democratic Party too, and it all look
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: the same. It's all the same energy of the I
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: love you, Like, do you think there's any reason for
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: black people to be acting like that over any politician
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: regardless of party?
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: Nah? No, there isn't.
• 21:47
  Speaker 4: Because but I think, like what Tim that little dance
• 21:51
  Speaker 4: that Scott first of all I've seen black people do
• 21:54
  Speaker 4: that over a Democratic politicis, like, I want to be clear,
• 21:59
  Speaker 4: but the thing about black or I mean about black
• 22:03
  Speaker 4: people in politics in general, man, is a lot of
• 22:07
  Speaker 4: times we don't realize like black people have been through
• 22:09
  Speaker 4: what like twenty elections in the history of black Like
• 22:13
  Speaker 4: we were just able to vote like twenty presidential elections ago, right,
• 22:17
  Speaker 4: Like got.
• 22:18
  Speaker 3: We did this twenty times in the history of black people.
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 22:22
  Speaker 4: And the other thing is, though that a lot of
• 22:26
  Speaker 4: that criticism is premised on the fact that the black
• 22:29
  Speaker 4: people in the Democratic Party are cool with how the
• 22:32
  Speaker 4: Democratic Party has worked, Like we criticize it internally and
• 22:36
  Speaker 4: amongst each other, Like we know that the white Democrats
• 22:39
  Speaker 4: in the Democratic Party are racist too, Like they ain't
• 22:41
  Speaker 4: less racist than the white people in the Republican Party, right,
• 22:45
  Speaker 4: Like we know that and we have the same criticisms. Right,
• 22:49
  Speaker 4: But I don't think you have to shuck and jive.
• 22:54
  Speaker 4: What Tim Scott is doing is shocking and jobing for Tim.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: Scott, I agree with you, but I feel like so
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: many black people have done and that too. I'll give
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: you some examples. Bill Clinton, the first black president, Uncle
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: Joe Biden, God Damn, What have these men done for
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: you that you call him uncle Joe and said that
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: he's the first black president.
• 23:11
  Speaker 4: Well, first of all, I think there's a difference, right,
• 23:14
  Speaker 4: I don't I do in this sense, right, even though
• 23:18
  Speaker 4: I kind of agree with you, but calling Bill Clinton
• 23:22
  Speaker 4: the first black president don't do nothing right.
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: But think about why they.
• 23:26
  Speaker 5: Used to call him that, because he played the saxophone.
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: And because he used to he was he was used
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: to smoke weeds, to smoke weed, like he was good
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: with women. It wasn't even nothing positive.
• 23:35
  Speaker 4: Well yeah, but I think a part of that was too,
• 23:37
  Speaker 4: like he was a southern poor dude from the from
• 23:40
  Speaker 4: Arkansas too. But I agree with you, like I know,
• 23:43
  Speaker 4: I don't think it was good to call him the
• 23:46
  Speaker 4: first black president, but Tim, But Bill Clinton didn't win
• 23:50
  Speaker 4: because black people were calling him the first black president.
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: Bill Clinton.
• 23:54
  Speaker 4: Joe Biden didn't win because people's calling him uncle Joe.
• 23:57
  Speaker 4: Tim Scott is trying to help a xenophobic, racist, anti
• 24:02
  Speaker 4: black man win by dancing.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: Right, He's not gonna win because Tim Scott was dancing, But.
• 24:09
  Speaker 4: The attempts is and the fact that he is positioning
• 24:13
  Speaker 4: himself because Tim Scott really is positioning himself.
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: To be the black to be the VP pick I
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: think had a hood that get.
• 24:22
  Speaker 4: But regardless of what it is, right like to be
• 24:26
  Speaker 4: a bigger part of that anti black machine. Right like
• 24:30
  Speaker 4: the person who said to Bill Clinton is the first
• 24:33
  Speaker 4: black president wasn't part of it. Didn't get a lollipop
• 24:38
  Speaker 4: from the Democratic Party for it. They didn't get become
• 24:40
  Speaker 4: part of the machine. Same thing with Joe Biden. It
• 24:42
  Speaker 4: was just some dumb stuff that people were saying, you know,
• 24:45
  Speaker 4: amongst each other in barbershops and everything.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: But it was Congress people who said this to it people.
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I mean, and I again I agree with
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: the premise.
• 24:55
  Speaker 4: But Tim Scott is a single person, right, It's not
• 25:00
  Speaker 4: not talking about like an ethos. Tim Scott is a
• 25:02
  Speaker 4: single person who is trying to use his blackness as
• 25:06
  Speaker 4: a culture against black people by verifying and validating the
• 25:12
  Speaker 4: most racist political machine in the country.
• 25:16
  Speaker 2: Do you think people, do you think black people are
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: politically fatigued, tired of this shit, tired of the conversations
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: and the talk over and over again, tired of the
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: selling the dreams, tired of the car salespeople feel do
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: you think that's going to stop? A lot of people
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: from going out.
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: I think it might. Like one of the things that
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: might is that at some point there's going to have
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: to be a.
• 25:40
  Speaker 4: Reckoning with the Democratic Party and saying you have to
• 25:44
  Speaker 4: start giving us, stop giving us lip service, and start
• 25:47
  Speaker 4: doing the stuff that you say. But one of the
• 25:51
  Speaker 4: things that people said, well, we can't do it this
• 25:52
  Speaker 4: year because what if Trump wins?
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: They do They do that every election. That's tell us. Now.
• 25:59
  Speaker 4: The second part of that sentence is that the difference
• 26:03
  Speaker 4: in this time is a lot of black felks are
• 26:05
  Speaker 4: gonna say, I ain't scared.
• 26:07
  Speaker 3: He's already been president. Yeah, I lived through him once.
• 26:10
  Speaker 4: Right, that's what might attract people to the college because
• 26:15
  Speaker 4: we live through a Trump presidency. I agree that we're
• 26:18
  Speaker 4: going to have to have a reckoning with the Democratic
• 26:20
  Speaker 4: Party too, right, because it ain't nothing we can do.
• 26:22
  Speaker 4: But I think it's wrong to equate the racism of
• 26:27
  Speaker 4: inside the Democratic Party with the points of the Republican Party.
• 26:32
  Speaker 4: Is white supremacy, right, Like, that's that's the goal is
• 26:37
  Speaker 4: to keep power among white people, and they weaponize it
• 26:41
  Speaker 4: with their policies and who they attract to their coalition.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: I agree with you. I think that's democratic fault though,
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: because you know, they have demonized, they demonized every single
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: Republican candidate every time it's an election. And now that
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: there's an actual, real threat to Democrat, a real demon,
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: we're like, ah, please, you didn't heard that story before.
• 27:02
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 27:02
  Speaker 4: And then the other side of that, though, is they
• 27:08
  Speaker 4: might can they might be able to fight that better
• 27:13
  Speaker 4: if they said, hey, you know that demon, we got
• 27:16
  Speaker 4: the answer to kill that demon.
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: Right, But.
• 27:21
  Speaker 4: The policies that we put forth, because it's not like
• 27:24
  Speaker 4: black people have a new agenda. We've been pushing the
• 27:27
  Speaker 4: same agenda for since, like the nineteen seventy nine Indiana Summit, Right,
• 27:32
  Speaker 4: we were pushing the same agenda. Like that's why we
• 27:35
  Speaker 4: kind of dismissed ice Cube, right, because we knew that
• 27:38
  Speaker 4: what he was saying was nothing. Why we want a
• 27:40
  Speaker 4: rapper going to plead our case in the White House, Like,
• 27:43
  Speaker 4: we don't even want to vote for nobody who would
• 27:45
  Speaker 4: even talk to a rapper versus somebody who would know
• 27:49
  Speaker 4: our agenda policy wise.
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: But you wouldn't want vote for somebody who spoke to
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: a rapper.
• 27:53
  Speaker 4: No, what I'm saying is, if you are going to
• 27:57
  Speaker 4: make time to address black people's knees, and you're going
• 28:02
  Speaker 4: to invite someone to speak to you and see what
• 28:05
  Speaker 4: you might be missing.
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: If you invite ice.
• 28:09
  Speaker 4: Cube and say, like, that's the one who I need
• 28:13
  Speaker 4: to talk to about what black people want, then you
• 28:15
  Speaker 4: probably just a performative person who just trying to get
• 28:20
  Speaker 4: votes and pander the black people.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: That's why ice Cube got to bring the right people
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: with them. I mean, I feel like that's where the
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: entertainment in the experts go hand in hand, right, Like,
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: if I get that invite, take somebody with you who
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: knows what they're talking about.
• 28:31
  Speaker 4: Well, but here's the thing, right, if you are an
• 28:36
  Speaker 4: expert who could really talk to ice Cube, wouldn't you
• 28:40
  Speaker 4: have told him that, Hey, this agenda already exists, Like
• 28:43
  Speaker 4: they know about this stuff like it was in the
• 28:46
  Speaker 4: Tavis Smiley wrote about it, it was in the nineteen
• 28:49
  Speaker 4: seventy nine political Black Slimmit. It's the same like literally
• 28:52
  Speaker 4: the same stuff, like the same bullet points, the same.
• 28:55
  Speaker 3: Policy goals, everything.
• 28:58
  Speaker 4: And if he had the right people around him, he
• 29:01
  Speaker 4: would have been he would have known like, Oh, what
• 29:04
  Speaker 4: I'll do is I'll get behind the experts who have
• 29:07
  Speaker 4: already been pushing this agenda than trying to make it
• 29:10
  Speaker 4: about not just about himself but being mad when we
• 29:14
  Speaker 4: didn't recognize the absolute unique genius of ice Cube.
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: Right, I think we're saying the same thing though. It's
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: just like, yes, these agendas have already been out there,
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: but I think we gotta we gotta keep them in
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: these people's faces because these people have every reason to ignore.
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: Us, right, Right.
• 29:32
  Speaker 4: But that's what ice why ice Cube should be saying,
• 29:36
  Speaker 4: I am going to get behind these smart black people, right.
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: Because instead of saying this is my agenda that I wrote.
• 29:44
  Speaker 4: Or not even just saying that it is mine, right, Like,
• 29:48
  Speaker 4: just like ice Cube has a lot of capital in
• 29:52
  Speaker 4: Black America, right, he could be uplifting some of the
• 29:56
  Speaker 4: people who have been who are scholars, who are the
• 29:59
  Speaker 4: people who have been doing the work for years and years.
• 30:02
  Speaker 4: But ice Cube said, I want to be in that
• 30:06
  Speaker 4: room and you need to talk to me, ice c Right.
• 30:09
  Speaker 4: And I think there's there's a bit of ego in
• 30:12
  Speaker 4: that that it's to the detriment of black people. Because
• 30:18
  Speaker 4: let's say they did invite ice Cube there and ice
• 30:21
  Speaker 4: Q said all the right things like don't just perpetuate
• 30:24
  Speaker 4: the same myth that these stupid rappers and these stupid entertainers,
• 30:28
  Speaker 4: and many of them who haven't done the work, but
• 30:30
  Speaker 4: they have good intentions, are the representatives for black people.
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: But what if?
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: What if Cube actually gets it done, like Kim Kardashian
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: gets things that people say she gets things done when I.
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: Just saw something come out right, People have said that.
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: People have said Donald Trump listened to Kim Kardashian.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: Before he listened to But there's women behind Kim that
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: have actually done the work. But black women behind Kim
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: I can't remember since his name, we had.
• 31:03
  Speaker 4: Two black females, Yeah, lawyer, And that is the point, right, Like,
• 31:08
  Speaker 4: if ice Cube can get you into the room, I
• 31:12
  Speaker 4: ain't got no problem with that, right.
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: But and I ain't even got no problem with ice
• 31:16
  Speaker 3: Cube asking to be in the room. Right. But when
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: ice Cube was told, hey, you can't be in the room,
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: he switched up and say, well, I can go talk
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: to Donald Trump.
• 31:28
  Speaker 4: And then he elevated the purveyor of the white genocide,
• 31:33
  Speaker 4: the white replacement theory, Tucker Castle, went on his show.
• 31:38
  Speaker 4: When Tucker Castle didn't even have a toe holding media,
• 31:40
  Speaker 4: ice Cube helped him get that, help him gain that audience,
• 31:44
  Speaker 4: validated his belief by saying he can't be racist because
• 31:46
  Speaker 4: he's sitting here talking to this dude who is pushing an.
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: Agenda for black people.
• 31:50
  Speaker 4: Right, Like, that is why you don't want the people
• 31:55
  Speaker 4: who are driven by ego in the room, because if
• 31:57
  Speaker 4: they don't get in the room, right, he switched to
• 32:04
  Speaker 4: the enemy side, BHILLI So.
• 32:05
  Speaker 5: Let me ask you a question, right, So the Breakfast
• 32:07
  Speaker 5: Club here has had.
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: Hold on I got to say their names, Brittany kboard
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: Net and me Angel Cody.
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: Yes, yes, So the Breakfast Club has had politicians up
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: here that necessarily weren't on outside, right, Republicans here.
• 32:22
  Speaker 5: So what's your thought on that?
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: Because a lot of people have said, why do you
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: give those Republicans the platform?
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: As if they don't already have a huge platform.
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: Why do you allow them up there and have it MSNBC,
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: Fox A, Why I'm up here and have them spew
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: things that are not necessarily best for our community.
• 32:38
  Speaker 4: So it's two sides of that, right, Like, I think
• 32:40
  Speaker 4: if you're going to have those people on, you have
• 32:42
  Speaker 4: to be equipped to counter the narrative that you know
• 32:44
  Speaker 4: they're going to push. Right, Like a lot of times
• 32:47
  Speaker 4: again because the ego we think that I'm equipped, I'm
• 32:49
  Speaker 4: smart enough to and it ends up being that person
• 32:54
  Speaker 4: promoting the ideology. You're giving a person a platform to
• 32:58
  Speaker 4: promote anti black ideology, anti black narrative. The other thing
• 33:03
  Speaker 4: is that just like you said, they got enough platforms, right, Like,
• 33:08
  Speaker 4: I don't necessarily disagree with the intellectual curiosity or the
• 33:13
  Speaker 4: ability to say, look, I am probably what a lot
• 33:18
  Speaker 4: of people will call progressive, pro black or whatever, and
• 33:22
  Speaker 4: my viewpoint can stand up in the face of somebody
• 33:27
  Speaker 4: like Nikki Haley or Republican, and I'm gonna show you
• 33:30
  Speaker 4: that it can because I'm gonna have them in this space.
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 33:32
  Speaker 4: I don't think there's anything wrong with that, But I
• 33:35
  Speaker 4: think a lot of times when some people do it right,
• 33:38
  Speaker 4: it ends up being counter to what we content to
• 33:44
  Speaker 4: the point that they brought them into right like ice
• 33:47
  Speaker 4: Cube going on Tucker Castle Tuck a crust and wiped
• 33:50
  Speaker 4: the Explore with ice Cube. He bent ice Cube into
• 33:54
  Speaker 4: a pretzel.
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: I watched it.
• 33:56
  Speaker 4: Watch if they weren't debating, right, Tucker Cuson is experienced
• 34:00
  Speaker 4: media person, so he knew how to get ice Cube
• 34:04
  Speaker 4: to say what he wants. Like ice Cube has criticisms
• 34:07
  Speaker 4: of people like Oprah and the people at the top
• 34:09
  Speaker 4: of the power structure. Right, But if that's the only
• 34:12
  Speaker 4: thing you say and tuck a cost of managers to
• 34:15
  Speaker 4: manipulate you and to say and just bad stuff about
• 34:16
  Speaker 4: black people, you weren't equipped to do that. And now
• 34:20
  Speaker 4: we're supposed to still believe that that ice cube is
• 34:22
  Speaker 4: equipped to go into those rooms and represent us when
• 34:25
  Speaker 4: we see what these white folks one on one can
• 34:28
  Speaker 4: can twist you in the presso and make you sound
• 34:31
  Speaker 4: like and make you look like right, And that's the thing, right, Like,
• 34:35
  Speaker 4: there is kind of a divining line where you can
• 34:40
  Speaker 4: have that robust intellectual debate with people from the other
• 34:44
  Speaker 4: side if you are equipped, whether if you're not equipped
• 34:49
  Speaker 4: to do it. You also have to invite people who
• 34:52
  Speaker 4: are equipped to do it into the room when you
• 34:54
  Speaker 4: have them on your platform, those people like you know, Republicans,
• 34:59
  Speaker 4: conserv which I'm not afraid I'm not afraid to do.
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: I think in this era, people like confrontation over conversation,
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: because what's the point of platform with democrats Because when
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: we have democrats up here, it's the same thing, just
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: from a whole other side. It's people that say all
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: they did was lie about this. All they did was
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: lie about that. You didn't challenge them enough on this.
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: You didn't challenge them enough on that. So it's literally
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: the same thing. If you have Democrats on, you have
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: some people that are mad. You have Republicans on, you
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: will have people that are mad. There's not one politician
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: I've ever seen come on, maybe like maybe one or
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: two that actually made people be like h what they
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: said was was actually.
• 35:34
  Speaker 4: That's kind of how you know you on the right
• 35:36
  Speaker 4: path if you in media right, like, if you if
• 35:38
  Speaker 4: both sides are upset by something you did, then you
• 35:42
  Speaker 4: probably kind of were fear right. Like I call it,
• 35:46
  Speaker 4: like by doctor Umar, thing like doctor Umar don't like
• 35:49
  Speaker 4: me because I've been critical.
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: Of him, your white wife, huh No, I'm sorry, But.
• 36:00
  Speaker 4: Doctor Umar was because was mad at me because I
• 36:03
  Speaker 4: was critical of him of how he raised money and
• 36:06
  Speaker 4: some of the stuff he said about gay people. And
• 36:10
  Speaker 4: the reason people know that doctor Umar is doctor Umar
• 36:15
  Speaker 4: is because I did the journalism and actually validated his PhD.
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: So and people got mad at you for that, and people.
• 36:22
  Speaker 4: Was mad at me doctor Umar. Haters was mad at
• 36:25
  Speaker 4: me because you validating him. And what I'm what I'm
• 36:28
  Speaker 4: trying to do is be fair, right, And so if
• 36:31
  Speaker 4: both sides are kind of mad at you, you probably
• 36:34
  Speaker 4: know you were doing the right thing and you were
• 36:36
  Speaker 4: at least fair.
• 36:37
  Speaker 5: But when did you get to a point where you
• 36:38
  Speaker 5: can have a real conversation? Right? I remember Floyd Mayweather.
• 36:42
  Speaker 2: Back in the day where you know, ten years ago
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: he was I like Donald Trump, right, and people were
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: canceling him and this, that and the other. But when
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: do we have a point where we can have a
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: conversation and be like, all right, Floyd, this is your opinion.
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: Why and then have a conversation because he might not
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: know some of the things that Floyd say, or there
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: might be something that you say that somebody might not know.
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: But you never get to that point if we can't
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: have a conversation. And the first thing is like he said,
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: it's confrontation.
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: Well, I think we can have that conversation. Like I
• 37:07
  Speaker 3: do it all the time.
• 37:08
  Speaker 4: Like when I hear stuff that people who I disagree
• 37:12
  Speaker 4: with say, the first thing I do is try to
• 37:14
  Speaker 4: get in contact women see why, or try to research
• 37:17
  Speaker 4: and see why we can have that conversation. Now, the
• 37:20
  Speaker 4: thing is a lot of times because of social media,
• 37:23
  Speaker 4: because of the way the world works, right, Like, the
• 37:25
  Speaker 4: nuances of that conversation are never going to be talked
• 37:28
  Speaker 4: about or seen because it can't fit into a two
• 37:31
  Speaker 4: minute and twenty second clip. But we can have the conversation,
• 37:35
  Speaker 4: and I think that's on us to do because if
• 37:39
  Speaker 4: you have a platform like the Breakfast Club, you can
• 37:43
  Speaker 4: have those conversations in long form and explore those things,
• 37:47
  Speaker 4: and you don't have to have a hot take all
• 37:49
  Speaker 4: of the time because it's always going to be a
• 37:51
  Speaker 4: hot take, right, right, and you always go to Like
• 37:55
  Speaker 4: the pushback is kind of a reflection of how popular
• 38:00
  Speaker 4: and how impactful you are, because like, if I did it,
• 38:04
  Speaker 4: I'd have way less pushback sometimes, and what you guys
• 38:07
  Speaker 4: do because you got a bigger platform.
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: What them hip hop dudes talking to them politicians.
• 38:11
  Speaker 3: But the other thing is, right, here's the thing.
• 38:13
  Speaker 4: If you do something and with a platform that gets
• 38:17
  Speaker 4: big as yours or mine, right, and eighty percent of
• 38:21
  Speaker 4: the people like it, well eighty I'll just go say yeah,
• 38:26
  Speaker 4: I like that and just go on. Those twenty percent
• 38:28
  Speaker 4: that don't like it are going to scream at you
• 38:30
  Speaker 4: on social media. So the people who like it don't
• 38:32
  Speaker 4: ever say anything. They just like like it and move
• 38:34
  Speaker 4: on like So the people who are, for lack of
• 38:38
  Speaker 4: a better word, anti U, are haters are always going
• 38:41
  Speaker 4: to be the loudest.
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: The reason I like reading not just you know, your
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: book Black af but your articles is because of what
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: you're You look at things from a objective lens. I
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: remember an article you wrote one time, and it was
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: about Tim Scott's police reform bill. I want to say
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: it was a George Floyd police Yeah, I think it
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: was Walter Scott bill and Joe fluc If I'm not mistaking,
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: you said Tim Scott's bill was better.
• 39:03
  Speaker 4: Yeah, Tim, So, Tim Scott's Walter Scott Notification Act would
• 39:08
  Speaker 4: have required every police department in America to notify not
• 39:12
  Speaker 4: just when they when, because first of all, most people
• 39:15
  Speaker 4: don't know that like, no one in America, the whole
• 39:18
  Speaker 4: world knows how many black people police killed every year
• 39:21
  Speaker 4: because there's no mechanism to report police killings.
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 39:26
  Speaker 4: So Tim Scott's bill would have not just notified of
• 39:31
  Speaker 4: the federal government every time a police officer kills someone,
• 39:34
  Speaker 4: but every time a police officer fired their gun, it
• 39:38
  Speaker 4: would have the name, age, race of the person they
• 39:40
  Speaker 4: were firing at all of that, right, And so that
• 39:43
  Speaker 4: part of Tim Scott's.
• 39:45
  Speaker 3: Bill that's wild that that that's not recorded.
• 39:48
  Speaker 5: I didn't know that.
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I thought every time a police officer shoots his
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: fire on that just had to be documented, and it
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: had to.
• 39:55
  Speaker 4: In some police departments it does, right, But then it
• 39:58
  Speaker 4: stays in that police department, They're gonna.
• 39:59
  Speaker 3: Have to go to state agency or federal agency. So
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: we don't know, right.
• 40:04
  Speaker 4: Like the things that you see about the numbers of
• 40:08
  Speaker 4: how many people are killed by police, those are from
• 40:10
  Speaker 4: media reports on duty police officers who kill someone only
• 40:14
  Speaker 4: with their gun.
• 40:16
  Speaker 3: Right, Like like like when you see.
• 40:19
  Speaker 4: Like George Floyd isn't in the police killing database, is
• 40:23
  Speaker 4: not in the police killing database, right, So it's only
• 40:26
  Speaker 4: people who are shot and killed by on duty police officers, right.
• 40:30
  Speaker 4: So Tim Scott's bill was better, right, But then Tim
• 40:34
  Speaker 4: Scott sabotaged it because qualified Community, Nah, because of the
• 40:41
  Speaker 4: National Sheriffs Association had LEO headed by Leon Lott, who
• 40:46
  Speaker 4: is the most powerful man in South Carolina, and they
• 40:51
  Speaker 4: didn't want to give up that power to the federal
• 40:55
  Speaker 4: federal government because of this white supremacist ideology. And y'all
• 40:59
  Speaker 4: can look it up in google the constitutional sheriff's idea
• 41:04
  Speaker 4: that sheriffs are above the constitution, Like they don't. They
• 41:09
  Speaker 4: are the enforces of the constitution that are kind of
• 41:13
  Speaker 4: above the constitution. And it's a white supremacist movement that
• 41:17
  Speaker 4: nobody writes or talks about.
• 41:19
  Speaker 3: And that's who sabotage police reform.
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: So I thought, I thought people didn't like Tim Scott's
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: bill because he didn't he didn't want to qualify, he
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: didn't want to scribe qualified immunity.
• 41:29
  Speaker 4: Well, that was one of the that was one of
• 41:31
  Speaker 4: the things the differences between like the Democrats bill and
• 41:34
  Speaker 4: Tim Scott's, But that that's not what sabotaged because really
• 41:38
  Speaker 4: qualified immunity isn't like, isn't it really deal breaking?
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: And to tell you the truth, right, that the Federal
• 41:46
  Speaker 3: Police Reform Bill can only do so much.
• 41:48
  Speaker 4: Right, that's the importance of knowing about politics, right, because
• 41:51
  Speaker 4: because the federal the federal government doesn't control police officers
• 41:56
  Speaker 4: and they don't control what the laws that govern police officers,
• 41:59
  Speaker 4: what the Federal Police Reform Bill would have been was
• 42:02
  Speaker 4: a mechanism to control the federal funds that police departments get. Right,
• 42:07
  Speaker 4: Because they can't govern police departments. That is a state
• 42:10
  Speaker 4: level bill, So we should be trying to make this
• 42:12
  Speaker 4: movement a state level movement. And that's why knowledge of
• 42:16
  Speaker 4: politics is important, because the federal government really can't do
• 42:20
  Speaker 4: anything but say, hey, if y'all your police department doesn't
• 42:23
  Speaker 4: use body cams, then you don't qualify for these federal
• 42:29
  Speaker 4: funds that we give police.
• 42:30
  Speaker 3: Departments every year. Right, And that's all the federal government
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: can do.
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: So why do we let these negroes get away with
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: saying the Biden administration they did ban the use of
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: choke holds and no knock warrants when we know that's
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: on a federal level.
• 42:46
  Speaker 4: Right, because of a lack of knowledge about politics, Because again,
• 42:52
  Speaker 4: we don't have these conversations, these long form, deeper conversations,
• 42:56
  Speaker 4: because people believe what they read on social media and
• 43:00
  Speaker 4: stead of investigating it for themselves. Because like the FBI
• 43:06
  Speaker 4: and the Secret Service are the only one the only
• 43:09
  Speaker 4: entities or agencies that can be banned from using no
• 43:12
  Speaker 4: knock warrants and choke holds. Now, what we can say is,
• 43:16
  Speaker 4: if you're the police department, don't ban no knock warrants
• 43:19
  Speaker 4: and choke holds, then you won't get the federal.
• 43:23
  Speaker 3: Funds to buy body cams or to buy police armor
• 43:29
  Speaker 3: or stuff like that.
• 43:30
  Speaker 4: Now you can withhold funds, but you can't really tell
• 43:33
  Speaker 4: police departments. And y'all can knock on somebody door go
• 43:36
  Speaker 4: in without a no knock warrant.
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: We're talking to Michael Harriet, the author of Black af
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: History and The Unwhitewatch Story of America. Another thing I
• 43:43
  Speaker 1: love about the book is it shows how when it
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: comes to America, nearly everything started in South Caroline. Yeah,
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: that's everything.
• 43:49
  Speaker 4: That's always been one of my premises for like years,
• 43:52
  Speaker 4: even before I begin writing the book, is that the
• 43:56
  Speaker 4: thing is the capital of Black America. If there is
• 43:58
  Speaker 4: such a thing as Black America, then its capital is
• 44:01
  Speaker 4: in South Carolina. Forty percent of all the people who
• 44:04
  Speaker 4: were enslaved in America came through South Carolina. And if
• 44:07
  Speaker 4: you talk about just spending time in South Carolina, Carolina
• 44:11
  Speaker 4: and a port or something like that, it goes up
• 44:12
  Speaker 4: to ninety percent. Right, So Black America, like all of
• 44:17
  Speaker 4: the laws, like the law that stopped cities from being
• 44:24
  Speaker 4: able to segregate buses, didn't come from the Montgomery bus boycott, right,
• 44:28
  Speaker 4: that came from a South Carolina bus protest years before
• 44:32
  Speaker 4: the Montgomery bus boycott. As a matter of fact, when
• 44:35
  Speaker 4: Montgomery went to federal court and took their case to
• 44:37
  Speaker 4: the Supreme Court, the reason is not a Supreme Court
• 44:40
  Speaker 4: case is because it's the Supreme Court said, oh yo,
• 44:42
  Speaker 4: we already decided this in South Carolina. Right, So everything
• 44:46
  Speaker 4: starts in South Carolina. All of the laws that governed
• 44:48
  Speaker 4: the enslaved are because of a slave revote in seventeen
• 44:52
  Speaker 4: thirty nine in South Carolina.
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: I think most people, if they do their family history,
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: they'll see a relative that came from South Carolina.
• 44:58
  Speaker 5: Their mom is from South Carolina. All this is from.
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: If they're black, Caribbean is different. But if they're black,
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: like my mom just showed me a picture. It was
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: her baby picture and she's from South Carolina and she
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: showed me. She was like, look, we was broken pre
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: in South Carolina. Look at the back, but you understand.
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: But that's where the initi thing came from.
• 45:14
  Speaker 4: And the other thing that I talk about in the
• 45:16
  Speaker 4: book and we don't know is that the Caribbean connection,
• 45:19
  Speaker 4: because most of the enslaved people from South Carolina.
• 45:22
  Speaker 3: Was shipped them from the Caribbean.
• 45:24
  Speaker 4: Right, Like South Carolina was was basically first created by
• 45:30
  Speaker 4: a group of white people who lived who had plantations
• 45:33
  Speaker 4: in Barbados, right, So they bought enslaved people from the
• 45:36
  Speaker 4: Caribbean and then started going to back to Africa, to
• 45:40
  Speaker 4: the rice coast of Africa when they realized, hey, these
• 45:43
  Speaker 4: people know how to grow rice. And it's a whole
• 45:46
  Speaker 4: chapter in the book on like how rice built America
• 45:49
  Speaker 4: and like before South Carolina and black people in South
• 45:54
  Speaker 4: Carolina started growing rice, most people don't know.
• 45:56
  Speaker 3: For instance, like it was slaves were eighty percent black.
• 46:00
  Speaker 4: That's they weren't creating other slaves because they were just
• 46:04
  Speaker 4: importing black men. But black women were the one who
• 46:09
  Speaker 4: knew how to grow rice and knew the agricultural technology.
• 46:12
  Speaker 4: So that's when they started trans enslaving more black women
• 46:17
  Speaker 4: and that's how it became about about one to one
• 46:19
  Speaker 4: in America.
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: Have you been through the International African American Museum.
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah that I was there on opening weekend.
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, absolutely, yeah, yeah, man, I loved this book.
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: All this stuff that you're talking about and stuff that
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: we we got taught a little bit growing up in Charleston,
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: not the way we should have, like.
• 46:34
  Speaker 4: But Charceton people in Charleston know a lot more than
• 46:38
  Speaker 4: people everywhere else, just because like it's something that you
• 46:41
  Speaker 4: can't ignore in charst.
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: Rebellion, then invest like you're gonna learn about it.
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: It feels like it's in the dirt there. We're here
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: in New York growing up. They tell you you learned
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: about Frederick Douglas, you learn about Rosa Parks, you learned
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: about Matin Luther King, you learned about Malcolm Bax, You
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: learned about those people.
• 46:57
  Speaker 5: That's it, right, And a.
• 46:58
  Speaker 4: Lot of it is because like those people, the black
• 47:01
  Speaker 4: people in Charleston, it was passed down not in schools,
• 47:05
  Speaker 4: but by the people who were involved in it.
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: That's right. I encourage anybody if you go to Charleston,
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: just go on a tour. Just get one of the
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: brothers and sisters to take you on a tour of
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: downtown Charleston, and you get all of that and go
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: see to go to the International African American Museum and
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: by Black af History, the unwhitewashed story of America from
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: South Carolina's own Michael Harriet tell we appreciate it.
• 47:25
  Speaker 3: I'm on all social media as m I C h
• 47:28
  Speaker 3: A E l h A R. R I O T.
• 47:31
  Speaker 4: I write weekly, well three times a week for the
• 47:34
  Speaker 4: Grillo and have the Greeo Daily Podcast where I talk
• 47:38
  Speaker 4: about the same stuff we're talking about here, not with guests,
• 47:41
  Speaker 4: it's just me explaining stuff. So the Greo Daily Podcast
• 47:45
  Speaker 4: you can find me on social media under.
• 47:47
  Speaker 3: My name on all platforms.
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: Michael Harriet and gentlemen, It's the Breakfast Club. Good morning,
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: wake that ass up in the morning.
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: Breakfast Club