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Edward Blum v Black Women · Stuff Mom Never Told You

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