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SMNTY Classics: Edward Blum v Black Women · Stuff Mom Never Told You

0:05
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha.
0:06
Speaker 2: I'm hoping to stuff I never told you protection Buyheart Radio,
0:18
Speaker 2: And today we are bringing back a classic with our
0:21
Speaker 2: friend bridget Todd about affirmative action, and just with all
0:31
Speaker 2: of the things that are happening with DEI and the
0:35
Speaker 2: tax on it, the rollbacks on it, the abandonment of it,
0:40
Speaker 2: I just think that this conversation we had about the
0:48
Speaker 2: very legal organized effort to roll back affirmative action is
0:56
Speaker 2: relevant and we're seeing it play out.
1:01
Speaker 3: Even now.
1:04
Speaker 1: The fact that the lawsuit that came down in order
1:07
Speaker 1: to contest it has made it worse and harder for
1:11
Speaker 1: Asian Americans to get into these same universities is quite
1:16
Speaker 1: the ironic, comical, painful. I don't know one of those words.
1:22
Speaker 3: Maybe a mixture of all three. Maybe a mixture of
1:25
Speaker 3: all three.
1:27
Speaker 2: Yes, well, please enjoy this classic episode.
1:37
Speaker 1: Hey, this is Annie and Samantha.
1:38
Speaker 2: I'm what good to Steffan never told you a production
1:40
Speaker 2: of iHeartRadio, and today we are so happy to once
1:52
Speaker 2: again it be joined by the marvelous, the fantastic, the
1:56
Speaker 2: wonderful bridget Todd award winning.
2:00
Speaker 4: Award winning and book buying because I just bought your
2:04
Speaker 4: new books stuff I've never told you.
2:05
Speaker 5: Because I'm so excited.
2:06
Speaker 4: We were talking off Mike about how excited I am
2:08
Speaker 4: so add award winning Comma stuff I'm never told you
2:13
Speaker 4: book purchasing to that name of who I Am, Who
2:18
Speaker 4: I Am?
2:19
Speaker 1: Thank you?
2:20
Speaker 2: Yes, it really really reads a lot. Yeah, and we
2:25
Speaker 2: are so excited to have you on. I just I
2:28
Speaker 2: feel like we haven't seen you in forever, even though I.
2:30
Speaker 3: Know it's not true.
2:32
Speaker 1: Time flies.
2:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's great. It's very very great to have
2:36
Speaker 2: you as always. How have you been, bridget what's been
2:38
Speaker 2: going on? I know you do have some awards or
2:41
Speaker 2: potential case trophy case.
2:44
Speaker 1: In this case that sounded really sorry, like.
2:48
Speaker 5: Do you know think about my legal.
2:53
Speaker 4: I am happy to take home the not the winning award,
2:57
Speaker 4: but the second runner up whatever you want to call it.
2:59
Speaker 4: Shorty Award for Best Tech and Science Podcast. Major shout
3:02
Speaker 4: out star team Joey and Tari and Jonathan and Mike. Also,
3:06
Speaker 4: speaking of Joey, I heard Joey on Stuff I've Never
3:09
Speaker 4: Told You doing that episode about Coosa and it was
3:12
Speaker 4: a really good episode. So they did of y'all yeah
3:15
Speaker 4: for that one. Yeah, this summer is winding down Thank God.
3:19
Speaker 4: I'm really looking forward to fall. This summer didn't really
3:23
Speaker 4: take for me. How has the summer been.
3:25
Speaker 1: For y'all, you're asking while we're in the middle of
3:27
Speaker 1: like hurricane season. Yeah, so we've had a lot of rain,
3:32
Speaker 1: and a lot more rain is coming today, especially in
3:34
Speaker 1: this week. So I will say though, as a person
3:38
Speaker 1: who does enjoy like some of the somber parts of
3:41
Speaker 1: the weather, like the like the darkness and the lightning,
3:44
Speaker 1: as long as I'm not near it, because I do
3:46
Speaker 1: have a small fear of that lightning. I am much
3:49
Speaker 1: like my dog. But the heat, I'm good without it.
3:51
Speaker 1: But I do have a fear of winter in that
3:54
Speaker 1: I don't like being cold, so I feel like that's
3:57
Speaker 1: too close to So I'm just an unhappy person.
4:01
Speaker 4: You don't want any of the seasons Like winter, I
4:03
Speaker 4: don't care for it.
4:04
Speaker 1: I love fall and spring, but it's so sure that
4:07
Speaker 1: i'llo get okay, I'm unhappy again.
4:11
Speaker 4: I'm ready for like it's it's been so hot in DC.
4:14
Speaker 4: I'm I'm so ready to like be contemplative with a
4:19
Speaker 4: sweater and like walk around holding a coffee and like,
4:22
Speaker 4: you know, all the little all the things that you
4:24
Speaker 4: associate with fall.
4:25
Speaker 5: I'm ready for it.
4:26
Speaker 1: Well, I am like a my personality is Cardigan. Like
4:29
Speaker 1: that's just the personality that I am. So I am
4:31
Speaker 1: looking forward to that too.
4:32
Speaker 4: Yeah, your personality can really shine, It's true.
4:37
Speaker 1: Cardigan'style poncho, A good poncho and what I mean poncho.
4:43
Speaker 1: I'm talking like you know, the sweater ponchos. I am
4:46
Speaker 1: that girl. Don't worry about me. I'll be in the
4:48
Speaker 1: order with my poncho and Cardigans cozy every day. It
4:53
Speaker 1: sounds great, Annie, now you feel about it.
4:57
Speaker 3: Uh, I'm ready for it to be over.
5:00
Speaker 2: While I was complaining about my AC unit, my window
5:03
Speaker 2: AC unit just now. But I do agree with you, Bridget.
5:06
Speaker 2: It didn't feel like it it took because I'm still
5:11
Speaker 2: I am definitely going out more than I did, but
5:15
Speaker 2: when the pandemic was like enfuls thing, but I'm still like,
5:18
Speaker 2: I don't go out nearly as often, so I don't
5:21
Speaker 2: go outside all the time, and so I'm just getting
5:24
Speaker 2: like the heat with my sad ac unit and not
5:27
Speaker 2: any of that other stuff.
5:29
Speaker 3: So it doesn't.
5:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, it just sort of felt like, oh, falls coming out, Okay,
5:36
Speaker 2: you know, miss it? Yeah, And I follows my favorite
5:41
Speaker 2: month of season, so I'm very very excited for that.
5:47
Speaker 2: But yeah, it is supposed to rain pretty badly today
5:51
Speaker 2: and this there might be thunder. The power might go up.
5:54
Speaker 2: My power goes out all the time, so we'll see.
5:56
Speaker 2: But I feel like it's appropriate for what we're talking.
5:58
Speaker 5: About on the horizon to be aware. That is a
6:03
Speaker 5: masterful segue. You're a real tro Thank you.
6:07
Speaker 2: I have a very specific skill set and it's like
6:10
Speaker 2: bad puns and some interesting segues transitioning perfect.
6:17
Speaker 4: Well, yeah, that's a great transition because we gotta be
6:20
Speaker 4: aware of all the different Supreme Court legal challenges and
6:24
Speaker 4: storms on the horizon, one of which I am talking
6:26
Speaker 4: about today, and that's because the man who brought us
6:29
Speaker 4: the legal challenge that struck down affirmative action earlier this
6:32
Speaker 4: summer is back, and this time he is coming for
6:36
Speaker 4: grants and the fellowships that support marginalized people. So you
6:40
Speaker 4: all probably recall that earlier this summer, back in June,
6:43
Speaker 4: the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action, ruling that race
6:47
Speaker 4: can no longer play a part in college admissions.
6:50
Speaker 5: Notably, the decision just applied to race.
6:52
Speaker 4: It did not apply to gender or things like legacy
6:56
Speaker 4: status or donor status being considered in the college admissions process. Separately,
7:01
Speaker 4: some colleges, like Harvard have signaled that they might start
7:05
Speaker 4: re examining the role that things like legacy status plays
7:08
Speaker 4: in college admissions in light of that Supreme Court ruling.
7:12
Speaker 4: Do you all remember this. I remember when the ruling
7:14
Speaker 4: was struck down, how big it felt, especially being a
7:19
Speaker 4: big Supreme Court ruling about a year after the after
7:23
Speaker 4: row was struck down, it felt like, you know, one
7:27
Speaker 4: big torrent of rain and then another big torrent of
7:30
Speaker 4: rain to continue your metaphor, Annie.
7:33
Speaker 1: Yes, metaphor nicely done.
7:36
Speaker 2: Yes, Yeah, No, it definitely did, because that was at
7:39
Speaker 2: the end of the Supreme Court session and there had
7:42
Speaker 2: just been a lot of I mean, it turned out
7:47
Speaker 2: to be true, but a lot of fear around like
7:49
Speaker 2: what will they do?
7:50
Speaker 4: Right?
7:50
Speaker 5: It just made like all.
7:51
Speaker 3: Of these decisions in one day.
7:54
Speaker 1: One day. Yeah, you know, it's odd because I was
7:57
Speaker 1: absolutely alive, and I think, like talking about trying to
8:01
Speaker 1: get into school and having this whole conversation when I'm
8:04
Speaker 1: a firmative action was coming into debate to begin with,
8:06
Speaker 1: and to see it like this, I'm not gonna lie,
8:08
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be very transparent here as growing up in
8:11
Speaker 1: a white household who are very conservative, not around any
8:15
Speaker 1: marginalized groups outside of me, who they rescued and put
8:18
Speaker 1: that in air quotes out of like a marginalized a
8:21
Speaker 1: bad situation, seeing what they were saying was feded into
8:24
Speaker 1: me and being like, yeah, I absolutely agree that I
8:27
Speaker 1: should not get I don't want to be given a
8:29
Speaker 1: special spot because of my race. I want to earn it.
8:31
Speaker 1: Like I said that out loud to my family before
8:34
Speaker 1: I started college, in any of that, not understanding what
8:37
Speaker 1: it really was, and I truly believe my parents believe that.
8:40
Speaker 1: I don't think my siblings believe that because they're they
8:42
Speaker 1: are educated and they'd understand, but I truly believe that
8:45
Speaker 1: because that was what was fed into me. So I
8:47
Speaker 1: have this real, like ugh ick feeling about this whole
8:51
Speaker 1: action because the face of the suit was an Asian
8:55
Speaker 1: man who was bitter, bitter little baby that I feel
8:59
Speaker 1: like so many ways about it, and then coming into
9:01
Speaker 1: college on my own and then understanding what it truly
9:05
Speaker 1: was and realizing, oh yeah, that stuff that I spewed
9:09
Speaker 1: out as a kid was actual white supremacy coming out
9:11
Speaker 1: of my mouth because I was trying to impress my
9:14
Speaker 1: white family and being fed a bunch of lies. So
9:18
Speaker 1: it was it felt like so gross to know that
9:21
Speaker 1: I was manipulated like that at my young age, at
9:25
Speaker 1: my young age. Also that I think, I don't know
9:26
Speaker 1: how old the students. I guess he was trying to
9:28
Speaker 1: get into college, so I guess maybe around the same time,
9:31
Speaker 1: and then coming into this now that I'm like, oh
9:33
Speaker 1: my god, what have we done? Essentially like with allowing
9:37
Speaker 1: these types of lies to perpetuate and not looking at
9:40
Speaker 1: the true statistics behind these actual numbers and why affirmative
9:45
Speaker 1: action was and is necessary. But again, because of that
9:48
Speaker 1: rhetoric being around, it wasn't surprising that it was undone
9:51
Speaker 1: because it was truly hanging on by a thread because
9:54
Speaker 1: of those types of lies. But yeah, I have like
9:57
Speaker 1: this ache and like mourning in guilt, guilt by association
10:02
Speaker 1: and guilt by like past actions that I'm like, oh
10:05
Speaker 1: my god, what is this Like? Part of what I
10:09
Speaker 1: was spewing is part of the reason this is undone.
10:11
Speaker 1: Of course, the bigger picture is again white supremacists and
10:15
Speaker 1: their power that they wanted to play and the overall
10:18
Speaker 1: arcing like who was doing the main grab and trying
10:21
Speaker 1: to make sure that what marginalized people stay down and
10:25
Speaker 1: stay unable to get to any of these places because
10:29
Speaker 1: they do not have the connections essentially just all connections,
10:31
Speaker 1: not even money anymore so connections, and it's just disgusting. So, yeah,
10:36
Speaker 1: I have very strong feelings.
10:38
Speaker 4: Yeah, I first of all, thank you for sharing that,
10:40
Speaker 4: and I can kind of identify, I know how you feel.
10:45
Speaker 4: I don't think that you need to have guilt for
10:47
Speaker 4: having felt that way, because, first of all, we live
10:50
Speaker 4: in a society where it's so easy to pit marginalize
10:55
Speaker 4: people against each other in service as upholding white supremacy.
10:59
Speaker 4: Like that is a and true method that bad actors
11:03
Speaker 4: and people interested in upholding white supremacy have engaged for
11:06
Speaker 4: a very long time. And so the reason they do
11:08
Speaker 4: it is because it's effective, and so it's not surprising
11:10
Speaker 4: that it will be effective on you, a young person. Also,
11:13
Speaker 4: the way that we talk about it, I think just
11:16
Speaker 4: does not set people up to have a full understanding
11:21
Speaker 4: of the conversation. Right, So we talk so much about
11:24
Speaker 4: affirmative action, and when we talk about affirmative action, usually
11:28
Speaker 4: the face of affirmative action is a black person, right,
11:30
Speaker 4: And so we're talking about like, oh, well, do you
11:33
Speaker 4: think that black people should get a leg up in
11:35
Speaker 4: admissions processes? Of course people are not gonna agree with that.
11:38
Speaker 4: But the reality is is that that is a myth
11:41
Speaker 4: because the Department of Labor shows that the primary beneficiaries
11:45
Speaker 4: of affirmative action are actually white women. That is not
11:48
Speaker 4: what the way that are, the way that we talk
11:50
Speaker 4: about it would lead you to believe, right. And so
11:53
Speaker 4: another idea is that when we talk about admissions.
11:56
Speaker 5: So I would say, this is just my opinion, but
11:59
Speaker 5: I would say that.
12:00
Speaker 4: There is an outsized space given to conversations about affirmative action, which,
12:08
Speaker 4: as I said, are sort of translated through like oh
12:10
Speaker 4: black people that go the face of it, and so
12:13
Speaker 4: much less space given to things like legacy.
12:16
Speaker 5: Status, which I think I had a stat earlier.
12:19
Speaker 4: But it's some astronomical amount of kids in college get
12:23
Speaker 4: there because they are their parents went to that college,
12:26
Speaker 4: or their parents are donors to that college, or some
12:29
Speaker 4: sort of a leg up. And essentially what that is
12:33
Speaker 4: is like affirmative action for rich people. Yeah, we don't
12:36
Speaker 4: even it's not even part of the conversation. And certainly
12:39
Speaker 4: has not been part of the conversation the way that
12:41
Speaker 4: affirmative action has been. So I would argue that, like,
12:44
Speaker 4: you were not given a clear picture of the issue
12:49
Speaker 4: in order to be able to like thoughtfully come up
12:51
Speaker 4: with a critique or an opinion about it, right, And
12:54
Speaker 4: I think that that has to be by design.
12:56
Speaker 1: Right absolutely. I think in the understanding, as you are saying,
12:59
Speaker 1: is the rhetoric I was given was all anti black.
13:03
Speaker 1: Like we're going to be very very specific in calling
13:05
Speaker 1: it what it was. It wasn't about anything else. It
13:08
Speaker 1: wasn't about me being a minority or like being Asian
13:11
Speaker 1: and a marginalized woman. Is literally they were trying to
13:15
Speaker 1: be anti black. They were staying the quiet part out
13:17
Speaker 1: loud because that's all they see. That's the big enemy
13:21
Speaker 1: that is built up against white people, which is so
13:25
Speaker 1: disgusting and it's very prevalent. Like that's the real understanding.
13:29
Speaker 1: You need to have that whole fact and hold that
13:32
Speaker 1: conversation is this is an anti black movement, and in
13:36
Speaker 1: that it had, it did not It did not actually
13:40
Speaker 1: help to the black community that much at all. It
13:42
Speaker 1: really did not bring in, as you said, statistically, black
13:45
Speaker 1: people into colleges. It was again more white women, all
13:48
Speaker 1: white women essentially, and then again the legacy people that
13:52
Speaker 1: those are the people who are still remaining and going
13:54
Speaker 1: to colleges and still getting scholarships to get into these colleges,
13:57
Speaker 1: and still getting like loans at a reason interest rate
14:01
Speaker 1: all of those things. But for some reason, they built
14:04
Speaker 1: this boogieman, not some reason, we know why, but they
14:06
Speaker 1: built a boogieman in order to make sure that they
14:10
Speaker 1: put down a specific group of people because they're like, hey,
14:13
Speaker 1: this is about all we can win. We've always won
14:15
Speaker 1: with this exactly, let's do this.
14:17
Speaker 4: Anti blackness is always that is a train that's always
14:20
Speaker 4: on time.
14:21
Speaker 5: So what's interesting.
14:22
Speaker 4: About what you just said is that white women, despite
14:25
Speaker 4: being the biggest beneficiaries of affirmative action, are also the
14:28
Speaker 4: most likely to be against it. So, according to a
14:31
Speaker 4: twenty fourteen Cooperative Congressional Election study, nearly seventy percent of
14:34
Speaker 4: the twenty thousand, six hundred and ninety four self identified
14:37
Speaker 4: non Hispanic white women surveyed either somewhat or strongly opposed
14:41
Speaker 4: affirmative action. Again, I think it's like one of those
14:45
Speaker 4: situations where because the way that it is framed is
14:48
Speaker 4: like this is a program that helps black people, and
14:51
Speaker 4: if you don't think black people should be getting a
14:53
Speaker 4: leg up over you, you should not be into it.
14:55
Speaker 5: You should be against it.
14:57
Speaker 4: That rhetoric actually ends up hurting all marginalized people, whether
15:01
Speaker 4: you're a white woman, because you know, like it's one
15:03
Speaker 4: of those dynamics where the anti blackness becomes a way.
15:08
Speaker 5: To get people on board.
15:10
Speaker 4: But then that is not an accurate reflection of who
15:14
Speaker 4: the beneficiaries of programs like affirmative action actually end up being. Right, So, Annie,
15:20
Speaker 4: you were saying how Asian Americans were kind of made
15:23
Speaker 4: the face of the sort of victims of affirmative action,
15:27
Speaker 4: and that is very much by design because of this
15:30
Speaker 4: guy who is a conservative litigant named Edward Blum.
15:33
Speaker 5: I call him a.
15:34
Speaker 4: Litigant because that's like kind of what he is, like
15:36
Speaker 4: a professional lawsuit bringer. He is not a lawyer himself,
15:40
Speaker 4: but he basically connects potential plaintiffs with attorneys who are
15:44
Speaker 4: willing to represent them in test cases, which he then
15:47
Speaker 4: uses to try to set legal presidents. He is the
15:50
Speaker 4: founder and sole member of an organization called Project on
15:54
Speaker 4: Fair Representation, which he found that in two thousand and five,
15:56
Speaker 4: which focuses on voting, education, contracting, employment, racial quotas, and
16:00
Speaker 4: racial reparations. Basically, his whole thing is bringing legal challenges
16:05
Speaker 4: to strike down laws that I would argue protect non white,
16:09
Speaker 4: non straight, non men. More on this later. However, if
16:13
Speaker 4: you were to ask him, he would probably say that
16:15
Speaker 4: it's not that he wants to elevate like one race
16:18
Speaker 4: over anybody else, but that he wants all laws and
16:22
Speaker 4: all like public considerations to be race or identity neutral.
16:26
Speaker 4: He has described his ethos like this quote, our history
16:30
Speaker 4: has been tainted tragically by the use of race in
16:33
Speaker 4: various public and private arenas. Race discrimination is odious, something
16:37
Speaker 4: the founding principles of the Civil Rights movement were designed
16:39
Speaker 4: to eliminate. Personally, I would say that I don't know
16:44
Speaker 4: if I buy what he is saying. It seems like
16:46
Speaker 4: an awfully convenient way to justify the fact that he
16:49
Speaker 4: keeps gutting laws that protect marginalized people. But there you
16:53
Speaker 4: have it. That is what he says. His motivation is.
16:56
Speaker 4: He just thinks that everything should be race neutral.
16:58
Speaker 1: Right.
16:59
Speaker 4: The Guardians ripes him as quote a human wrecking ball
17:03
Speaker 4: on a mission to destroy the landmark achievements of the
17:05
Speaker 4: Civil Rights era and send the country back to a
17:08
Speaker 4: dark age of discrimination and harassment of minorities in the
17:10
Speaker 4: workplace and higher education and at the ballot box.
17:14
Speaker 1: H Well, I mean this is the very basis of
17:17
Speaker 1: hitting that level of if everything was fair from the beginning,
17:22
Speaker 1: great great, if everything was equal and everybody had same equity,
17:26
Speaker 1: that would be a beautiful utopia. But as we know,
17:29
Speaker 1: this land, this country, most countries that have been colonized,
17:35
Speaker 1: is not based on that level, and that it has
17:38
Speaker 1: never been about equity, has always been about who has
17:41
Speaker 1: power and those who have power. Really was like, but
17:44
Speaker 1: I love that time. That was a great time, But
17:47
Speaker 1: can't we have that again? Which is like, hmm, you know,
17:50
Speaker 1: we know what you're really saying exactly.
18:03
Speaker 4: The affirmative action ruling was not Flump's first rodeo. A
18:06
Speaker 4: legal challenge that he brought was what led to the
18:08
Speaker 4: gutting of the Voting Rights Act. That was the Shelby
18:11
Speaker 4: County Versus Holder case that he sponsored in twenty thirteen,
18:14
Speaker 4: and it led to the Supreme Court overturning a key
18:17
Speaker 4: provision in the nineteen sixty five Voting Rights Act. That
18:20
Speaker 4: legal challenge is when we saw the introduction of things
18:23
Speaker 4: like voter ID requirements, cutting back on early voting, eliminating
18:26
Speaker 4: same day voter registration.
18:28
Speaker 5: All of that was because of him. So thank you Edward.
18:31
Speaker 4: Blum for ushering that into our landscape.
18:35
Speaker 1: He's really the villain, yea.
18:37
Speaker 4: In all the story on my podcast, there are no
18:40
Speaker 4: girls on the Internet. We've referred to him a lot
18:42
Speaker 4: as just like a professional hater, Like he's just someone
18:44
Speaker 4: who like just like hate hate haty hate hate, like go,
18:46
Speaker 4: I don't like that hate hate hate like professional hater.
18:50
Speaker 1: Is he does?
18:51
Speaker 5: He is?
18:51
Speaker 1: He very rich.
18:52
Speaker 5: I think he's wealthy, like I think I think.
18:54
Speaker 4: That he I've actually looked into him because I'm he's
18:57
Speaker 4: one of those figures that.
18:58
Speaker 5: I find so cure.
19:01
Speaker 4: He did not come from wealth, but I think that
19:04
Speaker 4: he has wealth now and he's just interested in using
19:07
Speaker 4: that wealth and influencing those connections into creating these different
19:12
Speaker 4: legal precedents that I would say harm us.
19:15
Speaker 1: All right, he is that evil genius because we've seen
19:18
Speaker 1: that in a lot of conservative think tanks as well
19:21
Speaker 1: as essentially right wing groups that have been building up
19:26
Speaker 1: the legal system to only help them, putting in uh
19:30
Speaker 1: those in law school that they know that they can
19:32
Speaker 1: pull back out, educating them and funding them to the
19:34
Speaker 1: full in order to come back out and do these
19:36
Speaker 1: types of cases, knowing that if they can do this,
19:40
Speaker 1: this is going to be the basis of how they
19:41
Speaker 1: win essential.
19:42
Speaker 4: Oh yes, did you guys, did you all see that
19:46
Speaker 4: docuseries on the Duggers on Hulu?
19:49
Speaker 1: No, I couldn't get to their yet.
19:51
Speaker 5: So that's the whole thing. It's a real like Jeze
19:56
Speaker 5: as you might imagine.
19:57
Speaker 1: Sure.
19:58
Speaker 4: One of the things they make very clear is that
20:01
Speaker 4: it's not just about like this one problematic super religious
20:05
Speaker 4: family on TV.
20:06
Speaker 5: It is about this vast network.
20:08
Speaker 4: Of young people who are being trained and educated and
20:13
Speaker 4: oursol are very well connected to reach the highest levels
20:16
Speaker 4: of government and influence to make laws for all of us.
20:19
Speaker 4: So it's not enough that like their kids are homeschooled,
20:24
Speaker 4: or that their kids live a certain way. They are
20:27
Speaker 4: training the next generation of political operatives and lawmakers to
20:31
Speaker 4: make sure that all of us and all of our
20:33
Speaker 4: kids live the way that they think that they should
20:36
Speaker 4: be living. So it's pretty, I guess some diabolical.
20:41
Speaker 5: It's the word I would use.
20:43
Speaker 4: You mentioned earlier, how when you were having conversations about college,
20:47
Speaker 4: you remember watching the first wave of the affirmative action
20:50
Speaker 4: legal challenge go down, and even if folks weren't following
20:54
Speaker 4: affirmative action very closely, they might remember Blum's earlier attempt
20:57
Speaker 4: to challenge it. So Blum had been working to challenge
21:01
Speaker 4: affirmative action since twenty thirteen, when he worked with this woman,
21:04
Speaker 4: Abigail Fisher, who was the daughter of a good friend
21:06
Speaker 4: of his who was a white woman.
21:09
Speaker 5: She you might umber shid red hair.
21:11
Speaker 4: She did not get into University of Texas because her
21:13
Speaker 4: GPA was frankly mid. She sued the University of Texas
21:17
Speaker 4: at Austin in two thousand and eight after it denied
21:19
Speaker 4: her admission. She had a three point five to nine
21:22
Speaker 4: GPA as a senior, which put her just below the
21:26
Speaker 4: cutoff for a state law requiring UT to accept any
21:29
Speaker 4: graduate in the top ten percent of their high school class.
21:32
Speaker 4: So like mathematically speaking, she was not in the top
21:35
Speaker 4: ten percent of her.
21:36
Speaker 5: High school class.
21:37
Speaker 4: She felt that she should have still gotten admission because
21:41
Speaker 4: of her extracurricular activities combined with her GPA, and that
21:45
Speaker 4: she would have gotten into UT if the university had
21:48
Speaker 4: not used race as a factor in selecting its freshman class,
21:52
Speaker 4: which she argued was a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment's
21:55
Speaker 4: Equal Protection clause.
21:56
Speaker 5: Do you all remember this? Like she was like a
21:58
Speaker 5: very like memorable figure, Like.
22:01
Speaker 4: I feel like when I when I hear about this,
22:03
Speaker 4: I can see this one image of her standing at
22:06
Speaker 4: a podium outside of the Supreme Court, which is like
22:08
Speaker 4: burned in my mind.
22:09
Speaker 1: I do remember this because I remember thinking, this is
22:13
Speaker 1: the dumbest argument I've ever seen, because I'm like, girl,
22:17
Speaker 1: you didn't make it, Like even without a firmative action,
22:20
Speaker 1: you wouldn't have you wouldn't have made it. Do you
22:22
Speaker 1: not understand how many people are struggling to get into
22:25
Speaker 1: college today because a little more access has happened, not
22:28
Speaker 1: just because of a firmative action, but like the lottery
22:30
Speaker 1: and all of those things when we had more scholarships.
22:33
Speaker 1: I was just like, why are people listening to her?
22:35
Speaker 1: I think that was the biggest question in my head.
22:37
Speaker 1: I was like, why are we paying attention to this?
22:39
Speaker 1: Like she has no case, I think I thought.
22:42
Speaker 3: I remember thinking though, like is this an onion headbline?
22:45
Speaker 5: Like she did.
22:48
Speaker 3: The grades are bad and now she's.
22:51
Speaker 1: I think that was the beginning of like, oh, this
22:53
Speaker 1: is a Becky Sorry Becky's in the world, that's really
22:57
Speaker 1: just whining because she couldn't get her away like that.
22:58
Speaker 1: I remember like that was the beginning of that of like, oh,
23:01
Speaker 1: sorority girl was again no no, no, no hate to
23:04
Speaker 1: sorority people. I'm so sorry, but you know that level
23:06
Speaker 1: like stereotype in that my daddy said that I could
23:09
Speaker 1: get in and now I'm not in.
23:10
Speaker 4: Why so the way that y'all are reacting is exactly
23:14
Speaker 4: how I'm this is validating because I remember her being
23:18
Speaker 4: treated like kind of a joke, like her GP was
23:21
Speaker 4: like fine, but certainly at three point a lot higher
23:24
Speaker 4: than my GPA was when I was in high school,
23:25
Speaker 4: so like I'll.
23:26
Speaker 5: Own that, but like you know.
23:28
Speaker 4: It's not three point five nine is not an automatic
23:31
Speaker 4: entrance to wherever you want to go to college.
23:32
Speaker 5: It's like a fine GPA, And so I remember people calling.
23:35
Speaker 4: Her Becky with the bad grades, and the vibe around
23:39
Speaker 4: her was like she was just salty that she didn't
23:42
Speaker 4: get in, and so she was like blaming black people.
23:45
Speaker 4: And so obviously she was not a very I guess,
23:48
Speaker 4: sympathetic legal challenge to affirmative action.
23:52
Speaker 5: So obviously Abigail's legal challenge did not work.
23:55
Speaker 4: So bum regrouped and made the strategic choice to make
23:58
Speaker 4: the face of affirmative action, or the people being harmed
24:01
Speaker 4: by affirmative action, according to him, Asian Americans. According to
24:04
Speaker 4: an NPR article he told a gathering of the Houston
24:07
Speaker 4: Chinese Alliance in twenty fifteen, quote, I needed plaintiffs.
24:10
Speaker 5: I needed Asian plaintiffs.
24:13
Speaker 4: NPR spoke to Hannay Lopez, a race and constitutional law
24:16
Speaker 4: scholar at Berkeley, who described this as a deliberate switch
24:19
Speaker 4: in strategy, and that the argument was no longer centered
24:23
Speaker 4: on how affirmative action impacts white people. Instead quote, there's
24:27
Speaker 4: this move to strengthen the surface argument that this is
24:30
Speaker 4: racism against minorities.
24:31
Speaker 5: I think it's part of the appeal.
24:32
Speaker 4: And so I've read like Asian American activists and advocates
24:36
Speaker 4: saying that, like what he was doing was this intentional
24:40
Speaker 4: shift to make Asian Americans like a proxy stand.
24:44
Speaker 5: In for white people to be like, oh no, like this.
24:48
Speaker 4: Can't be about racial animis because I am trying to
24:52
Speaker 4: advocate for Asian Americans. And again, I think it's a
24:55
Speaker 4: really great example of how effective a strategy it is
24:59
Speaker 4: to pit marginalized groups against one another in service of
25:02
Speaker 4: white supremacy, because in the end, it's not like I think,
25:07
Speaker 4: since affirmative action has been struck down, we've already seen
25:12
Speaker 4: data trickle in that wasn't that long ago, but already
25:14
Speaker 4: we've seen data trickle in that suggests that like, yeah,
25:17
Speaker 4: it's it's white.
25:19
Speaker 5: People with connections.
25:20
Speaker 4: It's white legacy students who are continuing to get more
25:25
Speaker 4: slots in admissions. It's not you know, it's certainly not
25:28
Speaker 4: helping the Asian Americans who were who brought this challenge.
25:32
Speaker 5: It's actually just opening.
25:33
Speaker 4: Up more slots for more rich white people, because that's
25:36
Speaker 4: how college works in the United States, right.
25:39
Speaker 1: And of course this play is being used by other
25:44
Speaker 1: places such as Florida do doing the Asian American history
25:48
Speaker 1: instead but blacklisting African American history. And we know what
25:52
Speaker 1: that play is that that's the same type of narrative.
25:54
Speaker 1: They're like, oh, this is working, let's try this, let's
25:57
Speaker 1: keep this going exactly.
25:59
Speaker 4: So, I really want to talk about so, after on
26:02
Speaker 4: the heels of successfully getting the Supreme Court to strike
26:05
Speaker 4: down affirmative action, what is Blum's next move?
26:08
Speaker 5: Well, he is.
26:09
Speaker 4: Back after gutting affirmative action, his next move is going
26:12
Speaker 4: after fellowships and grant programs that support marginalized people. He
26:16
Speaker 4: is suing two corporate law firms on the grounds that
26:19
Speaker 4: they're fellowship programs that are aimed at students of color,
26:22
Speaker 4: those who identify as LGBTQ plus, and students with disabilities,
26:25
Speaker 4: exclude applicants based on race, and he is demanding that
26:29
Speaker 4: those programs be shut down. He is also suing a
26:33
Speaker 4: black venture capital firm called the Fearless Fund. So this
26:37
Speaker 4: is kind of the meat of why I wanted to
26:39
Speaker 4: bring this conversation to the table today, because he is
26:42
Speaker 4: alleging that the Fearless Fund is practicing unlawful racial discrimination.
26:47
Speaker 4: Blum claims the Fearless Fund is engaged in explicit racial
26:50
Speaker 4: exclusion by operating a grant program quote only open to
26:54
Speaker 4: black females. According to The Washington Post, the lawsuit is
26:58
Speaker 4: asked to prevent the Fund from selecting its next round
27:00
Speaker 4: of grant winners. The claim states that the firm is
27:02
Speaker 4: quote violating Section nineteen eighty one of the Civil Rights
27:05
Speaker 4: Act of eighteen sixty six, a US law barring racial
27:08
Speaker 4: bias in private contracts, by making only black women eligible
27:12
Speaker 4: in the grant competition.
27:14
Speaker 5: So yeah, he's just like coming after anything that he
27:19
Speaker 5: sees as supporting non white people.
27:23
Speaker 4: The Fearless fun was launched in twenty nineteen by three
27:26
Speaker 4: prominent black women, Keisha Knight Pullman who you might remember
27:29
Speaker 4: as Rudy Huxtable on The Cosby Show, entrepreneur arian Simone,
27:34
Speaker 4: and corporate executive Ayana Parsons. They have a strong and
27:38
Speaker 4: impressive list of investors like Bank of America, Costco, General Mills, MasterCard,
27:42
Speaker 4: JP Morgan. They've invested in over forty businesses in the
27:45
Speaker 4: past four years, including Atlanta favorite The Slutty Vegan.
27:48
Speaker 5: Have y'all eaten there?
27:49
Speaker 1: Oh? Yeah, it was near my house that I lived.
27:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, Samantha was smart and went during the Super Bowl,
27:56
Speaker 2: so there was no one there.
27:59
Speaker 1: They are open till two am, and so when the
28:03
Speaker 1: Super Bowl because it's always packed out, and what we
28:06
Speaker 1: went at it still took forever. They made good food.
28:09
Speaker 1: It takes a while, but yeah, we would. I think
28:12
Speaker 1: the only been once though, it's I don't stand in lines.
28:16
Speaker 3: It was a long line. I've never been.
28:18
Speaker 1: But and she has expanded that business everywhere, especially in
28:23
Speaker 1: Atlanta and then Georgia. So good on her and owns
28:26
Speaker 1: a lot of property.
28:27
Speaker 4: That wouldn't be possible without the Fearless Fund. And so
28:31
Speaker 4: the lawsuit that Blum is bringing centers on the Fearless
28:34
Speaker 4: Funds Fearless Strivers Grant contest, which awards black women who
28:37
Speaker 4: own small businesses twenty thousand dollars in grants and digital
28:40
Speaker 4: tools to help them grow their businesses and mentorship opportunities.
28:45
Speaker 4: So interestingly enough, Blama did not seek out the Fearless
28:49
Speaker 4: Fund to sue, but rather, he says that a non
28:52
Speaker 4: black woman who runs a business reached out to him
28:54
Speaker 4: via email and flagged like, did you know that these
28:58
Speaker 4: black women are running a grant program that I can't
29:01
Speaker 4: be part of? And so the Washington Post reports, but
29:04
Speaker 4: the lawsuit sites three female business owners, one from New
29:07
Speaker 4: York and two from Virginia who argued that they could
29:10
Speaker 4: have benefited from the Fearless Funds grant program, but they
29:13
Speaker 4: were ineligible because they are not black. So yeah, these
29:17
Speaker 4: non black women basically just felt like they should be
29:23
Speaker 4: entitled to this grant program that black women established for
29:27
Speaker 4: themselves to support black women.
29:29
Speaker 5: They were like, we should have a piece of that.
29:32
Speaker 1: That's such an interesting take because I'm like, well, you
29:34
Speaker 1: also didn't get it from every other business grant ever,
29:40
Speaker 1: so why are you choosing this like you want? Did
29:43
Speaker 1: you try for it? This just seems like a lazy
29:46
Speaker 1: part of like I want this one thing, I couldn't
29:48
Speaker 1: get it. I quit.
29:49
Speaker 4: They're biased, Like yeah, I mean, this is just my opinion,
29:54
Speaker 4: and but like it's so hard to not see this
29:58
Speaker 4: as like just hater vibe. It's like everything has to
30:01
Speaker 4: be for you, and if it's not for you, you
30:03
Speaker 4: have to shut it down. I think it goes back
30:06
Speaker 4: to what we were saying earlier about the women who
30:10
Speaker 4: benefit from affirmative action are also the ones who are
30:13
Speaker 4: the most likely to.
30:14
Speaker 5: Be against it.
30:16
Speaker 4: I firmly believe that there is enough out there for
30:20
Speaker 4: all of us. And I'm an entrepreneur, right so I
30:23
Speaker 4: know how hard the funding spaces for women, all women,
30:29
Speaker 4: but I know how hard it is for black women,
30:31
Speaker 4: in particular as a black woman. We'll get into some
30:33
Speaker 4: of the stats in just a moment, but I believe
30:36
Speaker 4: that despite that, there is enough for everyone. Everyone will
30:40
Speaker 4: find their lane, everyone will find their people, everyone will
30:42
Speaker 4: find what they need to make what they want happen.
30:45
Speaker 4: I believe that as like a meditation that keeps me
30:49
Speaker 4: in this work and keeps me being an entrepreneur.
30:53
Speaker 5: But I feel like the dynamic.
30:55
Speaker 4: That says that women need to be pit against each other,
30:59
Speaker 4: that if you're a white woman you need to be
31:02
Speaker 4: trying to shut down a grant that.
31:04
Speaker 5: Is for black women.
31:05
Speaker 4: That's not a dynamic that helps anybody, right, And so
31:08
Speaker 4: I think that we all have our place, we all
31:10
Speaker 4: have our niche es enough for all of us. But
31:12
Speaker 4: that dynamic that we are enemies only serve that does
31:16
Speaker 4: not serve anybody. It doesn't serve me, It doesn't serve
31:18
Speaker 4: it. It ultimately won't serve them as either. It just keeps
31:20
Speaker 4: us pit against each other as opposed to these larger
31:24
Speaker 4: systems that are actually holding us all down.
31:26
Speaker 1: It's such a mind play that they have to people
31:28
Speaker 1: have to go through to be like, Okay, I can't
31:30
Speaker 1: get this one thing because they say I can't have it,
31:33
Speaker 1: So that means no one should have it, because I'm
31:35
Speaker 1: gonna be miserable, and so are you. Misery Lifts Company.
31:37
Speaker 1: We're going to keep this mentality going and then also
31:40
Speaker 1: not look at the like here's the small thing versus
31:43
Speaker 1: the giant amount of stuff that you also can't get
31:46
Speaker 1: because you're not a rich white man, But you don't
31:49
Speaker 1: care about that thing, Like that's the one thing that's
31:51
Speaker 1: a little bit more accessible to tear someone down who
31:54
Speaker 1: other people will help you tear down with, instead of
31:56
Speaker 1: this big giant amount of cash that's just sitting here
31:59
Speaker 1: for the white man. Like it's just I said, for
32:01
Speaker 1: the white man, like I'm a native but like, but
32:04
Speaker 1: you know, that's just like mind level, like how much
32:07
Speaker 1: you're willing to ignore to be like, Okay, I'm at
32:10
Speaker 1: the bottom. Who can I make lesser than me? Who
32:13
Speaker 1: can I push down further than me? So at the
32:15
Speaker 1: very least I'm not at the very bottom. Oh my god,
32:17
Speaker 1: that's such a mind trick.
32:19
Speaker 4: This reminds me of when I was a little kid
32:20
Speaker 4: and my brother had this like free coupon for an
32:24
Speaker 4: ice cream from McDonald's that he got from school. So
32:26
Speaker 4: he went to McDonald's together and he got one ice cream,
32:29
Speaker 4: and I didn't have any money because we were little kids,
32:31
Speaker 4: and so they gave him his ice cream, and I
32:33
Speaker 4: got very jealous, and so I smacked it out of
32:35
Speaker 4: his hand on to the ground, and he was like, I.
32:37
Speaker 5: Was gonna give you a bite. That's like because I.
32:40
Speaker 4: Was like, I don't want him to get something that
32:42
Speaker 4: I can't have it because I got a flattering story.
32:44
Speaker 4: But I was like seven years old, right, because it's
32:48
Speaker 4: like he was going to give me a bite. So
32:49
Speaker 4: I missed out on getting my bite because I could
32:51
Speaker 4: not just let him have something that I wanted and
32:54
Speaker 4: felt entitled.
32:55
Speaker 1: To you immediately and probably earned an accelerated reader.
33:03
Speaker 4: What it was like, it was like a if you
33:05
Speaker 4: read X amount of books, you get an ice an
33:07
Speaker 4: ice cream coupon or something.
33:09
Speaker 1: I weren't for this, but yeah, I think this is
33:13
Speaker 1: so interesting. And the fact that he, of course Blum
33:15
Speaker 1: had to pounce on this, I'm sure it was like
33:18
Speaker 1: a gift for him. Yeah, I must take this.
33:21
Speaker 4: He was like, ooh, I was looking for a way
33:23
Speaker 4: to spread my hater vibes and yeah, I'm sure that
33:25
Speaker 4: Supreme Court ruling and now this lands this gift lands
33:28
Speaker 4: on my inbo.
33:28
Speaker 1: And also makes me stronger, stronger than the woman who's complaining.
33:31
Speaker 4: Exactly, So, Blum is using what he has called quote
33:45
Speaker 4: the shoe on the other foot test. The rhetorical strategy
33:48
Speaker 4: that he asked himself is if a grant program funded
33:52
Speaker 4: white male business owners wouldn't be considered fair. But that test,
33:56
Speaker 4: like you were saying, Sam, really assumes that we're all
33:59
Speaker 4: equal will and all have equal access, which the data
34:03
Speaker 4: could not paint a clearer picture about the fact that that.
34:06
Speaker 5: Is not happening.
34:08
Speaker 4: Black women are the fastest rising group of entrepreneurs in
34:11
Speaker 4: the country. According to the Harvard Business Review in the US,
34:14
Speaker 4: an astounding seventeen percent of Black women are in the
34:16
Speaker 4: process of starting or running a new business. That's compared
34:19
Speaker 4: to just ten percent of white women and fifteen percent
34:21
Speaker 4: of white men. Yet, despite this lead, only three percent
34:24
Speaker 4: of women are running mature businesses.
34:27
Speaker 5: Why well, One big reason is access to capital.
34:30
Speaker 4: Harvard Business Reviews research found that sixty one percent of
34:33
Speaker 4: Black women self fund their total startup capital. This is
34:36
Speaker 4: in spite of the fact that, in their finding, only
34:38
Speaker 4: twenty nine percent of Black women entrepreneurs live in households
34:41
Speaker 4: with incomes over seventy five thousand dollars, compared to fifty
34:44
Speaker 4: two percent of white men. This data is also combined
34:47
Speaker 4: with data suggesting that Black women are less likely to
34:50
Speaker 4: own our own homes, pick on a higher level of
34:53
Speaker 4: debt to do things like go to college and are
34:55
Speaker 4: often like saddled with debt to go to college, right,
34:58
Speaker 4: and so ultimately that leaves us saddled with more debt
35:02
Speaker 4: and having fewer personal resources and low collateral. Black entrepreneurs
35:08
Speaker 4: typically receive less than two percent of all venture capital
35:11
Speaker 4: dollars each year, while companies led by black women receive
35:15
Speaker 4: less than one percent of all funding.
35:17
Speaker 5: This is according to Crunchbase.
35:19
Speaker 4: So yeah, the funding landscape is not great for black women.
35:24
Speaker 4: Less than one percent of funding goes to us, and
35:28
Speaker 4: so the fact that we already don't get that much,
35:30
Speaker 4: that there are grants and investment funds specifically aimed at
35:36
Speaker 4: shifting those numbers just a tiny bit, like the Fearless Fund,
35:40
Speaker 4: and that people are saying, no, we need to go
35:42
Speaker 4: for that too, that less than one percent.
35:44
Speaker 5: That goes to y'all that needs to go to us. Now.
35:47
Speaker 4: In twenty twenty, Pew found that just three percent of
35:50
Speaker 4: US businesses were black owned, while eighty six percent were
35:53
Speaker 4: white owned. And so, yeah, as I said, like, as
35:57
Speaker 4: an entrepreneur, this these kind of dismal numbers completely aligned
36:02
Speaker 4: with my own experiences trying to raise money for projects
36:06
Speaker 4: that I want to do. There's just not a lot
36:08
Speaker 4: out there, and you really have to stay focused and
36:13
Speaker 4: stay positive and not really let that sort of numbers
36:17
Speaker 4: around how dismal things can be kind of get in
36:19
Speaker 4: your head. But then on top of it, when you
36:21
Speaker 4: have people like Blum and these women that he's representing
36:24
Speaker 4: in this case, to challenge these funds, to challenge what
36:27
Speaker 4: little is out there for black entrepreneurs who are women,
36:30
Speaker 4: it's hard to internalize that as anything other than they
36:33
Speaker 4: don't want us here.
36:34
Speaker 5: They don't want us to have anything, you know.
36:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, And it's so frustrating too, because a lot
36:43
Speaker 2: of companies like to act like they are supporting marginalized people,
36:50
Speaker 2: they are supporting black people, and they make these like
36:54
Speaker 2: outward promises and then just don't really follow through with them.
37:00
Speaker 4: Yeah, y'all might remember or be thinking like I thought
37:03
Speaker 4: in twenty twenty, like after all the racial justice uprisings,
37:07
Speaker 4: I'm the wake of the murder of George Floyd, I
37:08
Speaker 4: thought that all these businesses and funds and grants were
37:11
Speaker 4: like going to start funding more diverse people and like
37:16
Speaker 4: having a more inclusive portfolio. While I remember all those
37:19
Speaker 4: promises too, businesses committed three hundred and forty billion dollars
37:24
Speaker 4: between May twenty twenty and October twenty twenty two, according
37:27
Speaker 4: to McKenzie, and the Post also reports that investments swelled
37:31
Speaker 4: in the startup world. A record five point one billion
37:34
Speaker 4: dollars in funding was allocated to black founded startups in
37:36
Speaker 4: twenty twenty one.
37:38
Speaker 5: That sounds like a lot.
37:39
Speaker 4: However, all of that interest and excitement and commitment pretty
37:44
Speaker 4: much eroded very quickly, with funding for black founded startups
37:48
Speaker 4: plunging fifty percent in twenty twenty two. So remember this
37:52
Speaker 4: is all happening against the pendulum kind of swinging back
37:55
Speaker 4: the other way where all of these corporate diversity efforts
37:58
Speaker 4: became a political lightning rod, and these employers just sort
38:02
Speaker 4: of backpedaled, right, And so I think that that's where
38:04
Speaker 4: we're at now, where in twenty twenty people talked a
38:07
Speaker 4: lot of big games about money they were gonna give
38:10
Speaker 4: and funds.
38:10
Speaker 5: They were gonna give, and how they were gonna you know,
38:12
Speaker 5: support inclusive people.
38:15
Speaker 4: And startups and YadA, YadA, YadA, and all of those
38:17
Speaker 4: promises just fizzled out, right, And I think that we're
38:20
Speaker 4: sort of seeing, I would argue, like a backlash to
38:23
Speaker 4: that now where diversity and inclusion staffers are being let go.
38:28
Speaker 4: I think like recently, Chick fil A just like happened
38:32
Speaker 4: to have a diversity and inclusion person on their staff,
38:36
Speaker 4: and like there was a flurry of like online protests
38:39
Speaker 4: because of that. Like just having somebody thinking about that
38:42
Speaker 4: on staff is now a lightning rod. And so obviously,
38:46
Speaker 4: in that kind of climate, these organizations are not going
38:49
Speaker 4: to be funding black women, even though they committed to it,
38:53
Speaker 4: even though it seemed like that was there was a
38:54
Speaker 4: lot of excitement around that, Like, yeah, I just think
38:56
Speaker 4: that we're in a.
38:57
Speaker 5: Completely different landscape than me we were.
38:58
Speaker 1: In twenty twenty. This is definitely that whole level of
39:02
Speaker 1: they want good publicity, but they're not going to follow through.
39:05
Speaker 1: It's the black square. Let me pretend like I care,
39:09
Speaker 1: and at the very least I'll be like, hey, let's
39:12
Speaker 1: tell the black people in the story. Like that's That's
39:14
Speaker 1: as far as their their actual actions went was putting
39:18
Speaker 1: something on Instagram that they obviously deleted soon after because
39:21
Speaker 1: they wanted to look okay for one group of people.
39:24
Speaker 1: And I found that interesting that people are mad at
39:26
Speaker 1: Chick fil A because it's like they're anti LGBTQ plus
39:29
Speaker 1: so that's not enough for you. They need to be
39:31
Speaker 1: racist and all of these things be in lune enough
39:34
Speaker 1: for us to support you. You better be super super
39:36
Speaker 1: racist and super super homophobic in order for the conservatives.
39:41
Speaker 1: You can hate everyone except for white sis people. If not,
39:45
Speaker 1: we're not gonna support you, even if your chicken is okay.
39:47
Speaker 4: So it and like this is a little like unrelated,
39:50
Speaker 4: but like I think that with a lot of these people.
39:53
Speaker 4: The Chick fil A example that you just gave is
39:55
Speaker 4: a great example. A lot of these people like just
39:58
Speaker 4: they'll find anything to be aggrieved about. Like you know,
40:02
Speaker 4: I saw like Cracker Barrel was adding plant based sausage
40:07
Speaker 4: to their menu and people were like plant based sausage.
40:10
Speaker 4: I'm not gonna shop at Cracker Barrel and I'm never
40:12
Speaker 4: gonna go to Cracker Barrel again. And it's like they're
40:14
Speaker 4: not taking regular sausage off the menu.
40:16
Speaker 5: You don't have to order it.
40:18
Speaker 4: Just because they're putting food on the menu that like
40:20
Speaker 4: someone else might like, that's not you.
40:22
Speaker 5: That's cause for upset. And so another thing I wanted.
40:26
Speaker 4: To say about your point, Sam, is that there's a
40:28
Speaker 4: makeup company Tart they got in hot Water earlier this
40:32
Speaker 4: year because they were doing these brand trips that looked
40:36
Speaker 4: as if they were.
40:37
Speaker 5: Not being inclusive of black influencers.
40:40
Speaker 4: That they were asking black influencers like after the fact
40:42
Speaker 4: to come and like giving them substandard accommodations and all
40:45
Speaker 4: of that. And somebody found that in twenty twenty, you know,
40:49
Speaker 4: they when they posted their black Square, this company was like,
40:52
Speaker 4: we pledged that we're going to be more inclusive and
40:55
Speaker 4: give more, do more partnerships with black and brown models,
40:58
Speaker 4: and blah blah blah, and then they quietly removed that
41:02
Speaker 4: from their website, but somebody found it on the wayback machine.
41:05
Speaker 4: It was like, oh, let's get to update on all
41:08
Speaker 4: of these like very specific commitments that you made. And
41:11
Speaker 4: it turns out that they basically just like didn't do
41:13
Speaker 4: any of that stuff. But the thing is, nobody put
41:17
Speaker 4: a gun to your head and forced you to make
41:20
Speaker 4: these commitments. You made these commitments and just to quietly
41:24
Speaker 4: be like mm just kidding, like that doesn't sit right
41:27
Speaker 4: with me, Like nobody told you to do this. Nobody
41:29
Speaker 4: told you to post a black square. You did it,
41:31
Speaker 4: you volunteered to do it. So when people expect a
41:35
Speaker 4: little follow through, that should be that should be a given.
41:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I I think about this a lot too.
41:44
Speaker 2: We talked about this with a lot of the like
41:47
Speaker 2: what happened with blood Light, what happened with Target, And
41:49
Speaker 2: you know, then they just backtrack and make everyone angry.
41:51
Speaker 2: But is I feel like there's a fundamental misunderstanding of
41:57
Speaker 2: in this case, what it's like to be a transperson,
41:59
Speaker 2: and then when they get like a little taste of
42:01
Speaker 2: that the company, it's like, oh my god, oh never mind,
42:06
Speaker 2: Like they can't even just for that one second, like
42:10
Speaker 2: if they get this online hate that the cause, the person,
42:15
Speaker 2: the community they're saying they support, gets, they get it,
42:19
Speaker 2: and then they're like, never mind, Actually.
42:21
Speaker 3: Can they have that privilege, that right.
42:24
Speaker 2: That ability to step out and be like, Okay, I
42:28
Speaker 2: don't want to deal with this anymore, which I think
42:31
Speaker 2: is just very telling of ignorance and just like a oh, sure,
42:37
Speaker 2: let's do this, and then they get that hate and
42:39
Speaker 2: they're like, oh, oh never mind.
42:41
Speaker 3: Yeah, backtracking.
42:43
Speaker 4: That Dylan mulvaney thing that you just mentioned, the thing
42:46
Speaker 4: that I will never be over is that Dylan mulvany
42:50
Speaker 4: when she left social media at the height of all
42:54
Speaker 4: of this and came back and made that video, said
42:58
Speaker 4: that nobody at bud Light even called her to be like, hey,
43:02
Speaker 4: are you all right, Like I'm seeing what's going on.
43:05
Speaker 4: I that is something that will stick with me forever.
43:08
Speaker 4: That this brand, because she said, happened to say yes
43:13
Speaker 4: when asked to do a brand collaboration with bud Light,
43:16
Speaker 4: she was had to go dark, had to probably go
43:19
Speaker 4: into hiding, like was the target of very severe attacks,
43:24
Speaker 4: and that bud Light, the company who came to her
43:28
Speaker 4: to bring her into this, couldn't even follow up with
43:30
Speaker 4: an email when they saw all of this happening.
43:33
Speaker 5: How quickly they abandoned her.
43:35
Speaker 4: And I feel like if you are a brand or
43:37
Speaker 4: an institution who is working with marginalized people, if you're
43:41
Speaker 4: not going to stand by them when this stuff kind
43:44
Speaker 4: of stuff happens and when they get into situations that
43:48
Speaker 4: really like you have put them in. But by offering
43:50
Speaker 4: them this, you know, these partnerships, that's just not how
43:53
Speaker 4: you engage people like that. Like, at a certain point,
43:56
Speaker 4: it's like, I understand that bud Light is a corporation,
43:59
Speaker 4: and I don't expect corporations to like care about any
44:02
Speaker 4: of us, certainly not marginalized people, but the people who
44:07
Speaker 4: run bud Lights marketing or influencer partnerships should really be
44:12
Speaker 4: taking a good, hard look in the mirror, because that's
44:14
Speaker 4: just like a failure of like how to be a
44:17
Speaker 4: human to each other.
44:18
Speaker 5: Like, I like that just sticks with me.
44:20
Speaker 4: I could not believe that she said that that nobody
44:23
Speaker 4: even ever reached out to her after they just like
44:24
Speaker 4: dropped her and never ever followed up again.
44:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that's going back to your point.
44:33
Speaker 2: You know, companies are not big companies, especially you're not
44:36
Speaker 2: you're not allies, and we shouldn't think of them that way.
44:39
Speaker 1: But they.
44:41
Speaker 2: If they posted the black Square, if they take these stands,
44:45
Speaker 2: if they say they're going to do something, then yeah,
44:48
Speaker 2: they should absolutely be held accountable. That's just backing away
44:53
Speaker 2: and causing real harm. We were telling you a.
44:55
Speaker 3: Story before we started this out of nowhere.
44:59
Speaker 2: Some will bought that up and like making these things
45:04
Speaker 2: so politicized that just to have a diversity inclusion person
45:09
Speaker 2: at your company becomes oh well, then hate, like all
45:14
Speaker 2: of this hate, like you keep saying, it's irresponsible and
45:19
Speaker 2: it's not taking into account like the reality of working
45:22
Speaker 2: with these groups.
45:23
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think that's ultimately what these people want.
45:27
Speaker 4: I think that they want just working with a trans
45:30
Speaker 4: woman to be a lightning rod.
45:33
Speaker 5: She's not saying anything untoward, she's not.
45:35
Speaker 4: Doing anything untoward, she just is because her existence is
45:39
Speaker 4: a lightning rod.
45:40
Speaker 5: Her existence is politicized.
45:41
Speaker 4: I think just having a DEI person, just providing a
45:45
Speaker 4: grant for black women, they want that to be toxic.
45:49
Speaker 4: They want people to know that if you do that,
45:51
Speaker 4: you might be in court, you might you know, be
45:55
Speaker 4: targeted for a hate campaign, and so to just make
45:58
Speaker 4: it not and that anybody would want to risk. And
46:01
Speaker 4: these companies are so spineless that they're going along with it.
46:06
Speaker 4: It's that they're being held hostage, and they're just like, okay, well,
46:08
Speaker 4: they don't want us to.
46:12
Speaker 5: Have the chicken sausage.
46:13
Speaker 4: They don't want anybody who doesn't eat sausage to be
46:15
Speaker 4: bad at our restaurants.
46:16
Speaker 5: So okay, we'll drop.
46:17
Speaker 4: Actually, Cracker Barrel did stand by their sausage choices, I
46:20
Speaker 4: will say that.
46:20
Speaker 5: But yeah, I.
46:23
Speaker 4: Have been surprised by how these big, huge corporations just
46:27
Speaker 4: cowtow to people who are not serious, people who are
46:30
Speaker 4: just interested in flexing their power, their political power for
46:34
Speaker 4: no real reason.
46:35
Speaker 1: I mean absolutely, we see all of these things. Actually
46:39
Speaker 1: hurting people. They don't even want to be the face
46:43
Speaker 1: of anything. They just want to exist. Funds like Fearless
46:47
Speaker 1: fund is to exist and to help and lift up
46:50
Speaker 1: people that they know need lifting up. The same thing
46:53
Speaker 1: with Target when they had the small businesses with the
46:56
Speaker 1: LGBTQ queer content and then taking them off the like,
47:00
Speaker 1: we we were just existing and feeling like we wanted
47:03
Speaker 1: to be the representation that no one else is willing
47:06
Speaker 1: to look at or see or stand behind. And you
47:09
Speaker 1: literally came after them, taking away their money, taking away
47:12
Speaker 1: their existence, causing harm because again the mulvany thing, she
47:17
Speaker 1: was just holding a beer. Yeah, she said, I like
47:20
Speaker 1: bud Light. Simple, why can't she choose to do that?
47:23
Speaker 1: And that ended up being a thing of like, well,
47:25
Speaker 1: she is hurting the beer industry and she is doing
47:28
Speaker 1: these things. No, she's just existing with a product that
47:33
Speaker 1: they sent her. They're not like giving her fifty percent
47:36
Speaker 1: of the shares of bud Light. Like that's what is happening.
47:39
Speaker 1: Like this whole level of like what people are having
47:42
Speaker 1: to do and they're having to come back and being
47:44
Speaker 1: like instead of existing, we have to fight for our
47:46
Speaker 1: place to exist. And that's such an absurd ideal, like
47:51
Speaker 1: the fact that this has to be done.
48:03
Speaker 4: So this is what Tony Morrison says about racism, and
48:06
Speaker 4: I think it fits to all of what you're saying.
48:08
Speaker 4: The function, the very serious function of racism is distraction.
48:11
Speaker 4: It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you
48:13
Speaker 4: explaining over and over again your reason for being. Somebody
48:17
Speaker 4: says you have no language, and you spend twenty years
48:19
Speaker 4: trying to prove that you do. Somebody says your head
48:21
Speaker 4: isn't shaped properly, so you have scientists working on the
48:23
Speaker 4: fact that it is. Somebody says you have no art,
48:25
Speaker 4: so you dredge that up. Somebody says you have no kingdom,
48:28
Speaker 4: so you dredge that up. None of this is necessary.
48:30
Speaker 4: There will always be one more thing. So like that
48:33
Speaker 4: quote really speaks to what I think is happening.
48:37
Speaker 5: You know, the Fearless Fund.
48:38
Speaker 4: The stats that I just read about black women entrepreneurs
48:41
Speaker 4: and how little of.
48:42
Speaker 5: The funding we get.
48:44
Speaker 4: It shows that the women who are running the Fearless Fund,
48:47
Speaker 4: they have work to do.
48:48
Speaker 5: They have serious work to do to.
48:51
Speaker 4: Right the wrong and to bake a little more equity
48:54
Speaker 4: into the funding landscape. So they don't really have time
48:57
Speaker 4: to play around with these legal challenges. But yet here
49:01
Speaker 4: they are having to spend their money, money that could
49:04
Speaker 4: go to the funding landscape, staffing up a legal team,
49:08
Speaker 4: holding press conferences.
49:09
Speaker 5: All of this.
49:10
Speaker 4: It is such a distraction at a time when marginalized
49:13
Speaker 4: people have real work to be doing. Fearless fun is
49:17
Speaker 4: fighting back.
49:18
Speaker 5: They have a.
49:18
Speaker 4: Beefy legal team including the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Gibson Dunn, Crutcher,
49:24
Speaker 4: and Ben Crump, the attorney who represented families of George
49:27
Speaker 4: Floyd and Tyree Nichols in their civil suits over the
49:30
Speaker 4: men's killing out the hands of the police. And I
49:33
Speaker 4: feel confident like these women are like.
49:35
Speaker 5: Bad as women. They are not going down without a fight.
49:38
Speaker 4: But also they shouldn't have to, right Like they should
49:41
Speaker 4: be able to just do their work and focus on
49:44
Speaker 4: that work, and they should not have to be spending
49:47
Speaker 4: their money on these bogus legal challenges just because they
49:51
Speaker 4: want to exist, just because they want to support other
49:53
Speaker 4: black women.
49:54
Speaker 1: And I find that again we're in this situation that
49:58
Speaker 1: black women are the ones that have to be the
49:59
Speaker 1: one to fight like they don't want to. They're tired,
50:02
Speaker 1: they've been doing this and now we're back again, because
50:04
Speaker 1: we know there's a lot and I know there's a
50:06
Speaker 1: lot of fun specifically to women, like point blank women,
50:10
Speaker 1: and they surely didn't have to go enough after them.
50:12
Speaker 1: And I bet they were denied some of those and
50:14
Speaker 1: they're probably better at that. But yet if they didn't,
50:18
Speaker 1: that seems silly and that seems very targeted. Yeah, so
50:20
Speaker 1: that's very telling. Uh, But like it again, it has
50:23
Speaker 1: to be the black women that has to put up
50:25
Speaker 1: this fight in order to get anything done.
50:28
Speaker 4: I mean, tail as old as time, right, and I
50:30
Speaker 4: think right. I'm worried about this for a couple of reasons.
50:33
Speaker 4: One is that I think that if these grants and
50:36
Speaker 4: funds that specifically are meant to boost black women entrepreneurs
50:39
Speaker 4: are deemed unconstitutional, I really don't know what the landscape
50:43
Speaker 4: is going to look like because, as I said, like already,
50:46
Speaker 4: so little of that funding goes to us in the
50:48
Speaker 4: first place.
50:49
Speaker 5: But further, one of the reasons I wanted to talk
50:51
Speaker 5: about it on the show today is.
50:53
Speaker 4: That I don't think it's getting near the same amount
50:56
Speaker 4: of traction and attention that Blums affirmative action Chot just did.
51:01
Speaker 4: And I really think that we need to see white
51:05
Speaker 4: male and white women and really everybody in the startup space.
51:10
Speaker 4: We need to see vcs and entrepreneurs speaking up about this,
51:13
Speaker 4: because Blum is essentially arguing that the startup space should
51:17
Speaker 4: basically just.
51:18
Speaker 5: Be for white people. And I think it's up.
51:21
Speaker 4: To everybody in the space to push back and say, like,
51:24
Speaker 4: that is not the kind of funding space that we want,
51:26
Speaker 4: That is not the kind of startup space that we want,
51:28
Speaker 4: and to really make that really clear, like what kind
51:31
Speaker 4: of a space do we want to have for the
51:33
Speaker 4: next generation of entrepreneurs. We want to tell them that
51:36
Speaker 4: the tiny little bit that they that might go to
51:38
Speaker 4: them isn't even for them anymore. I don't I don't
51:40
Speaker 4: think that's the space that we want.
51:42
Speaker 1: Right and absolutely in the same space again, this is
51:46
Speaker 1: gonna hurt white women as well and the like if
51:50
Speaker 1: we're saying that all of this is too specific and
51:54
Speaker 1: it leads out other people of race, it's gonna hurt
51:57
Speaker 1: gender as well. So this is not even just for
51:59
Speaker 1: white people. It's be for white men. We're gonna have
52:01
Speaker 1: more elon musks running running programs into the ground, That's
52:04
Speaker 1: what we're gonna ten.
52:05
Speaker 4: Thousand percent, And I mean kind of like what you
52:08
Speaker 4: were alluding to before time and time again in tech,
52:12
Speaker 4: particularly when black women challenge things or do things or
52:17
Speaker 4: start things, they uplift all women. And so even if
52:21
Speaker 4: that specific program is for black women owned businesses, you're
52:27
Speaker 4: gonna tell me that a black woman who is financially
52:29
Speaker 4: supported is not going to go on to do something
52:31
Speaker 4: that's going to lift up all women and all marginalized people.
52:33
Speaker 4: Time and time again we see that that's how it
52:35
Speaker 4: goes with black women. And so yeah, I just think
52:37
Speaker 4: that this is just this is me smacking that ice
52:39
Speaker 4: cream out of my brother's hand when I could have
52:41
Speaker 4: gotten a bit instead.
52:43
Speaker 1: I mean, we already know that people like to still
52:46
Speaker 1: white women's products because it's that good, So why not
52:49
Speaker 1: let us have it? Like, yeah, we're gonna get the
52:52
Speaker 1: good stop this.
52:53
Speaker 4: So I hope this is something that we I'm gonna
52:57
Speaker 4: be following it. I'll give folks updates as they can,
53:00
Speaker 4: but I really want to see more folks in the
53:03
Speaker 4: space speaking up about this, because what the Fearless Fund
53:06
Speaker 4: has done has been really great, and it's they're really
53:10
Speaker 4: like a good force in the space, and I think
53:14
Speaker 4: the day we need them, frankly we need them.
53:17
Speaker 1: We do, and it's it's a drop in the bucket.
53:19
Speaker 1: Let's just be real honest, like it's it's nothing in
53:22
Speaker 1: comparison to what other people get. Essentially, it is like, wow,
53:26
Speaker 1: you really are going after the little groups for nothing,
53:29
Speaker 1: just just to make a point, and obviously to keep
53:31
Speaker 1: that little bit, as you are saying, in your pocket
53:34
Speaker 1: instead of seeing what this is actually could do for
53:37
Speaker 1: entire humanity. Humanity is lost.
53:41
Speaker 2: I'm sorry what Yeah, yeah, And I mean this is
53:45
Speaker 2: very important too because obviously professional litigant blom here like
53:51
Speaker 2: it's going to keep trying and if this succeeds, then
53:55
Speaker 2: it's gonna make things worse for everyone except for a
53:59
Speaker 2: certain people and then easier for him to win the
54:03
Speaker 2: next thing and the next thing. So yes, this is
54:05
Speaker 2: really really important, and thank you as always Bridget for
54:09
Speaker 2: bringing it to us.
54:10
Speaker 4: Oh thank you for having me. Everyone who is listening
54:13
Speaker 4: should go out and buy stuff. I've never told you
54:15
Speaker 4: the book.
54:16
Speaker 5: I'd just bought it. Let's read it together.
54:19
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, we're hoping to do a little crossover. We'll
54:23
Speaker 2: get to go on your show. Yes, Oh I'm so excited.
54:28
Speaker 2: But in the meantime, Bridget, where can the good listeners
54:31
Speaker 2: find you.
54:32
Speaker 5: You can listen to my podcast. There are no girls
54:34
Speaker 5: on the Internet.
54:35
Speaker 4: You can find me on Instagram at bridget Marie and
54:37
Speaker 4: DC or on Twitter at Bridget Marie and you can
54:39
Speaker 4: find me on TikTok at Bridget makes podcasts.
54:42
Speaker 3: Yes, and we really do. You appreciate your support with
54:46
Speaker 3: the book. We love it so much. Thank you, Thank
54:48
Speaker 3: you having you on as always.
54:51
Speaker 2: Feeling is so mutual, so listeners, if you would like
54:55
Speaker 2: to contact us, you can our emails Stephanie Moomstuff at
54:58
Speaker 2: iHeartMedia dot com. You can find us on at mom
55:00
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55:02
Speaker 3: I never told you.
55:03
Speaker 2: We have a tea public store and we yeah, we
55:05
Speaker 2: have a book forget it stuff.
55:07
Speaker 3: We should read books dot com.
55:09
Speaker 2: Thanks as always to our super producer Christina, our executive
55:12
Speaker 2: producer Maya, and our contributor Joey. Thank you and thanks
55:15
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55:17
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