Latest / 2 Men In Black and White: An Honest Conversation / Reverend Jackson's Fightin Spirit Matters Now More Than Ever...
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- MARK HAYES (00:01.906) All right, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another exciting edition of Two Men in Black and White. And today we continue to follow the shit show that is Washington, D.C. and the Trump regime as we head, as we steamroll, as a matter of fact, toward authoritarian rule. Donald Trump and his ilk, the clown car cabinet, are at it again. But also today we mourn the loss of one of America's foremost Civil Rights Champions. The Reverend Jesse Jackson passed away at the age of 84. Had a chance to meet and interview the Reverend on several occasions and we can get into this discussion right now. Brock and Ellis joins us now from the upper Hudson River Valley right outside New York City. The beautiful confines there. The spring leaves and the foliage should be coming soon so that's good news. Hopefully things are a little bit cooler up your way or a little bit warmer up your way. I'm freezing down here and it's like 55 degrees. I don't know what to do with myself. just can't. BROCK GANELES (01:08.43) It's warmer. I still have a foot of snow on the ground. So I'm not thinking about the foliage. I did not realize that you had interviewed Jesse Jackson. I will say that's impressive to me that you said you've done that on multiple occasions. Clearly was a major political figure in our lifetimes. And, you know, ran for president a couple of times, I believe. And was, you know, was in the mix, you know, was getting eight, 10 double digits, you know, polling at MARK HAYES (01:11.185) Bye. MARK HAYES (01:15.783) Yes. MARK HAYES (01:20.487) Yeah. MARK HAYES (01:24.85) No doubt. MARK HAYES (01:31.206) Mm-hmm. BROCK GANELES (01:38.38) certain times along the way. But I just kind of feel like there needs to be Jesse Jackson paves the way for a Barack Obama, right? It just, somebody has to be out there when it seems impossible, but you know, making noise, being a presence, showing that you deserve to be on the stage and can carry the day, can deliver the message, can be out front and then. it makes it seem not so unusual when that next, you know, that next candidate comes around and we talked about yesterday, Barack Obama happened to be like this unique, fantastic political talent, but without a Jesse Jackson, maybe wouldn't have been as it accepted, right? Maybe it doesn't even get that invite to speak at the convention that triggers his career. You know, you don't even know which part of it, you know, MARK HAYES (02:13.362) Yeah. MARK HAYES (02:22.575) Right. MARK HAYES (02:27.122) All right. MARK HAYES (02:31.794) Imagine. BROCK GANELES (02:36.502) which part of the road was paved by someone like Jesse Jackson, but you gotta believe there have to be trailblazers for there to be, you know, that next person who steps above them. MARK HAYES (02:43.889) Yeah. Speaking of trailblazing, the Reverend Jesse Jackson sure did that. I was introduced to Jesse Jackson at a very early age because he was on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel when Dr. King was assassinated. And there's a famous photo of Reverend Jackson and some other civil rights leaders, I believe Andrew Young and... wow, can't remember who was the other person on the balcony with Dr. King when he was shot, but they were all pointing in the same direction as to where the shot came from. It's one of those historic photos that you will see probably many times before the reverend is eulogized and interned. And, you know, I... I see that picture boldly and clearly because at that point I was, know, my parents were explaining to me why they kept a photo album and a newspaper clipping album of the civil rights movement. And this was one of the pages in there, a lot of articles about Dr. King and the movement itself. you know, it stood out to me because You know, I had to know why was Dr. King killed? What did he want? You know, that somebody had to kill him. What was he doing? Right? I thought he must have been doing something wrong if somebody shot him. Right? You know, as a six, seven year old kid, Dr. King was assassinated in 68 when I was three years old. But at the same time, by the time my parents had begun talking to me in earnest, MARK HAYES (04:40.1) about the differences that I was dealing with in a predominantly white school system in the Lakeland School District. was white America had a problem with Dr. King's message. And I was like, but he had a message of unity. wanted us all to get along, didn't he? And my parents really didn't have good answers for that as to why we didn't want to get along. Now we have much more clarity because there's so much money involved in everything and racism. Some say it's good for business, some say it ain't. The prison industrial complex would argue that it is. Citibank would argue that it ain't. So at that point though, Jesse Jackson stepped up and carried the mantra and carried the torch in the civil rights struggle. And I would imagine it's not a torch many would have been reaching for. So I take my hat off to him. He came from North Carolina. He was a member of the Omega Psi Phi Fraternity Incorporated. So he saw the lunch counter protests in the 50s, up front, face to face, and understood what it was like to be discriminated against. And we don't. We don't find a lot of people who were willing to fight back at that time because it was perilous at that point in history. BROCK GANELES (06:18.734) So as you're speaking, Mark, I'm thinking a few things from the white guy point of view. Number one, maybe I knew it at some point in my life, but I didn't realize that Jesse Jackson was on the balcony when Dr. King was shot or that Andrew Young was there. That's who was in the photo. Number two, I'm thinking, okay, what was the message that was starting to really rile people up is right. He was really talking about the economic message, right? Of going on strike, right? He'd really moved towards. MARK HAYES (06:44.487) Yeah? BROCK GANELES (06:47.306) inflicting economic pain and the fact that there needed to be more economic equality for the to truly be civil rights. It wasn't just about voting, right? It was much bigger, a bigger story. And then the third thing I thought is you're asking that question of your parents of like, why, why don't people just go and get along and the like, and, and now MAGA answers all those questions, right? They just telling us flat out Elon Musk's out to tweet, you know, two days ago saying, well, you know, this is an English MARK HAYES (06:57.264) Mm-hmm. BROCK GANELES (07:15.626) Scottish Irish, you know, white America. And that's what, you know, everyone knows it to be. And that's what it has to go back to being right. Like these white supremacists are telling you exactly why they have no interest in getting along with any people of color because they think this shit is all theirs. And we got to sweep out all of the others. And as you were talking about the economics of the prison industrial complex coming to thinking, wow. MARK HAYES (07:29.202) Exactly. BROCK GANELES (07:42.594) We got even bigger economics coming down the road with the warehousing of immigrants industrial complex system because the government is taking our tax money and just buying up fucking abandoned warehouses everywhere they can and the game plan is to fill them. It's funny. Someone was asking me yesterday about, you know, what are we doing or what's really going on with all that? Because they don't follow as closely as us is like, well, MARK HAYES (07:57.678) everywhere. BROCK GANELES (08:11.998) We're doing what we don't know what germany did We just haven't We haven't Jumped over we haven't decided we're going to gas everybody, but we're doing the concentration camp thing So we're all the way up to final solution, right? We're just going to quote deport them all Germany killed all the jews. We're just going to warehouse them and then figure out where To drop kick that into another country maybe or MARK HAYES (08:22.514) Right. Absolutely. MARK HAYES (08:37.988) I mean, we're killing some of them. BROCK GANELES (08:41.39) or we're just going to create this incredible economy for a few owners of warehouses, people warehouses. It'd like chicken coops. It'd be like chicken coops, right? We're going to have people, everyone just like, game this. MARK HAYES (08:49.21) Yeah, right. it somehow... MARK HAYES (08:57.712) Yeah, those 83 billionaires, of course, will have products to sell to those warehouse owners. You think Amazon won't be selling jailhouse uniforms to the owners of these warehouses. You think they won't be selling those trays that they need to eat on the silverware and all the institutional equipment that they need to house the others. And that's what it's all about. It's about, you know, this green machine and creating the green machine at the expense of, you know, human bodies and human dignity. And that's the sad part. You know, Reverend Jackson understood the fact that economic justice and civil rights are inseparable. Like you can't have one without the other. Right? And, you know, to today, we're still pushing. We haven't made any progress in that area in terms of economic justice. The African-American family in Metro Boston is worth $8. You know? And you... BROCK GANELES (10:15.63) Look, this is where the Democratic Party is falling down and this is where the criticism is valid of the Democratic Party because the Democratic Party has done when they're in power has done nothing to help the economic equality in America, right? That's where the corporates Democrats running the show. It's kind of been when it comes to economic policy, it's been pretty much same old, same old. and no one, you know, that final speech Dr. King gave, right? No one's heeded that call and acted on it. And, you know, I understand that contributes to why Black America is not out on the streets, right? Also now protesting because I mean, like, you know, we haven't seen, you know, we really haven't seen much change or difference, no matter, no matter who's been in charge. MARK HAYES (11:02.514) Great. Yeah. And, and you know, remember it's not just, you know, equal pay for, for equal work. It's about being able to get access to capital, access to the financial resources that, everyone else in our society seems to have. I mean, you, you, you don't come over here and, and, and write a check and start a brand new restaurant. BROCK GANELES (11:17.094) You get the AOCs and the Bernies, they're trying to deliver a message that really actually brings economic justice. I always argued maybe Bernie doesn't bring enough of the racial justice into the picture, but he is kind of talking about the economic justice piece of the puzzle. And we certainly don't get that from centrist Democrats at all. So Jesse Jackson's made an imprint. MARK HAYES (11:35.15) right? It takes money, lots and lots of money, especially for a restaurant, you know, to be successful. And we have so many restaurants in African American communities that are not owned by us. You know, this is the kind of economic justice that we've been talking about. We've been talking about why can't we get access to loans, you know, not just to start businesses, but to start, you know, accumulating, acquiring BROCK GANELES (11:46.314) an impact on the Democratic Party, 50 years later, 40 years later since he ran, we haven't gotten definitive policies that have made any kind of dramatic or meaningful change. with that, we kind of get ourselves stuck to where we are. MARK HAYES (12:03.32) and passing down generational wealth. And that is most often done in white communities and other communities through the ownership of property. Your home is your biggest investment of your lifetime, right? And that is why, you you see so many affluent white families because they've had two or three homes to pass on. BROCK GANELES (12:13.262) still not delivering enough of an aggressive message even to this point in time right now to really inspire multiracial, multicultural, true uprising amongst the people who just have these smatterings of frustrations throughout all our different silos and groups and have not put it together quite yet. So there's many, we're kind of MARK HAYES (12:31.612) to this generation or the next generation. And it will always be difficult for Black America to move forward without being in a position to acquire the loans needed to start businesses, to purchase homes, to purchase second homes. And so there are so many things that are happening. BROCK GANELES (12:42.786) kicking and screaming, but we haven't organized together and therefore MAGA continues to roll along and continues to in essence, you know, maintain all the power and we may win some skirmishes here and there, but every day we have to wake up and fight another one against another, you know, idiotic, you know, or nefarious policy proposal that Trump and his project 2025 white supremacy. MARK HAYES (13:00.722) and that need to happen right now with the Trump administration when we're done with them, to reverse all the policies that he has undertaken to make sure that African-Americans are left at the bottom of the barrel. And again, this is something that Reverend Jesse Jackson has been talking about for many, many... BROCK GANELES (13:12.012) MAGA team have thrown out there. MARK HAYES (13:28.774) decades, since the 70s. So, you know, this is nothing new, you know, to the Black community. But apparently, you know, it is new to many of our white brothers and sisters. And of course, you know, it's the racism stupid, right? And again, BROCK GANELES (13:41.774) like daily atrocity, daily whitening of America, and an attempt to devalue the contributions of America of anyone except, as Elon Musk defined, the South African Elon Musk defines for us, except anything that's truly coming out of the English, Scottish, Irish heritage. And I think that's been pretty much, know, pretty much, you know. MARK HAYES (13:52.09) Reverend Jackson has been speaking to the same issues over and over and over again for decades. For example, I interviewed Reverend Jackson when I was working in Denver, Colorado. And the University of Colorado football team had just had an African-American win the Heisman Trophy, Rashan Salam. And Rashan Salam was one of the top running backs in America that year, was expected to go on and have an amazing pro career. BROCK GANELES (14:10.574) the direction that the oligarchy here in America, the Peter Thiels of the world, the Russell Votes who has a lot of power, certainly the Stephen Millers of the world have been dramatically trying to shift American society. And part of that shift is trying to change and continue to whitewash history. MARK HAYES (14:21.722) did not pan out that way, but he certainly put the University of Colorado on the map in the early 90s when they were playing for national championships and one of the premier football programs in America. Rick Neuhuisel was moving on to Greener Pastors as the head coach of Colorado, had left the program in great shape. I'm sorry, Coach McCartney was moving on. And there was an African-American BROCK GANELES (14:37.582) For those of who may be new to watching the show, Mark and I have saying for years that we already got a propagandized version of American history when we were growing up. 1970s, 80s, public school education mentioned maybe two, three black people in the entire year of American history. was like Harriet Tubman, think George Washington Carver, and maybe a mention of Martin Luther King towards at the end of American history. MARK HAYES (14:52.05) coordinator. I believe he was the offensive coordinator and may have been defensive coordinator since going back to 94-95. And, you know, there was a huge push for African-American coaches at the Division I football coaching level. Well, at that time, there were maybe one, two or three. I mean, you could count them on one hand. We might have six or seven now. But Reverend Jackson had come in BROCK GANELES (15:07.118) 3. MARK HAYES (15:21.842) with Operation Push and had his organization coming in to talk with folks at the university to talk about hiring a black candidate. Not only hiring a black candidate, but making sure there were interviews being done of black candidates. And that was one of the things that at that point you could not guarantee that was even going to happen. BROCK GANELES (15:36.418) viewed as a heroic effort by America until you get to Vietnam and it's the one conflict where maybe there would be an acknowledgement that not all of American society was in lockstep with going to war. But since the Trump 1.0 kind of played with this a little bit. MARK HAYES (15:51.32) So it was one of those issues that has persisted. Again, we've not seen very much, if any, progress in that area. And it really is very difficult to understand why a sport that is so dominated by African-Americans BROCK GANELES (16:02.254) And Trump 2.0 has just come in and said, you know, we're going to take mentions of slavery, you know, out of the Smithsonian. We're going to crack down on the Black History Museum. Really everywhere you look, they're looking to kind of readjust our view of what's going on in American society and American history. And, you know, once you sort of erase a people and devalue a people, MARK HAYES (16:20.882) cannot be coached by African Americans. And one of the names from the University of Colorado who has had an amazing career in the NFL coaching is a guy named Eric Bienneme. And Eric Bienneme is a University of Colorado graduate, was on some of those teams competing for the national championship. BROCK GANELES (16:31.03) it makes it easier to get the rest of society to swallow the fact that you are willing to deport people. But when we take this type of mentality to its worst case scenario, can see how Nazi Germany got to their final solution. Because they just somehow had a madman that convinced their populace or didn't tell their populace that they were going to kill all the Jews. MARK HAYES (16:48.914) And Eric Biennemy has not been able to land a coaching job. He's been coaching with the Kansas City Chiefs when they were on their great run with Patrick Mahomes and, you know, Travis Kelsey and these guys and that amazing defense that won them a couple of Super Bowls. And he has the offensive coordinator has not been able to go on and be able to get a head coaching job in the NFL. BROCK GANELES (17:00.782) tell everyone that's what they're going to do. But if we're going to sit here in America and create concentration camps where we're warehousing millions, maybe tens of millions, if we hit kind of that Stephen Miller quotas, then we're walking down that same path because we're dehumanizing, we're breaking up families, and we're we meaning the MARK HAYES (17:18.668) And we all know why. And then the NFL is our favorite, you know, ridiculously racist organization that owns a day of the week. So we understand patently who we're dealing with. Even Reverend Jackson, you know, dealt with the ownership issue in the NFL and pro sports was able to make some inroads with his Operation Push, which is People United to Save Humanity. BROCK GANELES (17:28.078) Trump administration and the government is trying to tell its people that they shouldn't care about, certainly non-citizens that are living in this country and in some case even not care about a certain slice of the citizens that they don't have the same full rights, don't have the same full freedoms, they don't have the right to be here and therefore MARK HAYES (17:48.498) But again, it's been a very, very minuscule presence when you talk about people of color in professional sports ownership. Now, a couple of the other issues, obviously, there was human rights and international human rights that Jesse Jackson was involved in, the Good Reverend, and it's... BROCK GANELES (17:57.304) They're trying to get the rest of society to swallow the fact as we do the prison system that all these people could be warehoused in these deportation camps. They're trying to call them, but I don't see what the difference is between concentration camps and deportation camps. They're just kind of buildings and areas that are going to have a huge numbers of people in them in subhuman conditions. MARK HAYES (18:18.318) It's one of those things where people have tried to understand America's position. America has been racist for a long time now, but yet we've run around the world trying to tell other people how to govern their nations. And that's been an incredibly frustrating part of our existence. BROCK GANELES (18:26.848) And if we're doing it on a for-profit basis, we know that the services that are going to go to these people are going to be horrendous and the conditions that they live in are going to be horrendous. And they're just trying to ask the rest of us not to notice and not to care. And as much as we have finally risen up against mass iced Gestapo on our streets because they're violating the rights of us and our neighbors. MARK HAYES (18:47.814) You know, and so Reverend Jackson has been on the front lines there as well. Interesting note, Voto Latino has praised Reverend Jackson for ensuring that all voices are represented in our society. And that has been a tireless effort on his behalf. know, Brock and I talk about it a lot here on the broadcast is that fair and equitable. BROCK GANELES (18:57.09) American, the resistance movement is going to have to rise up and push back hard against the fact that our tax dollars are being used to buy these facilities. I mean, that's not really where most of us want our money to go. That we don't think that, we don't even think this is something our country should be doing. But certainly we don't, we think that the conditions are horrendous. We think that rights are being violated. MARK HAYES (19:16.503) society and you know, Reverend Jackson had that vision for many, many decades. And he embodied what it means to be a true public servant, says the grassroots organization Vata Latino. So, you know, Jesse Jackson was a champion for those who have been marginalized, those who were ignored and unheard. And, you know, that was his lane. BROCK GANELES (19:26.634) And in general, like this is not a part of what most of us view in line with our value systems. But if we don't rise up and confront the actions of the Trump administration, this is just going to roll downhill and it's just going to happen. And these warehouse is going to be bought. They're going to be built out. MARK HAYES (19:46.17) And he was willing to speak up when others wouldn't, when a lot of others wouldn't. And, you know, at a time when, as we saw with Dr. King, it could cost you your life. And he has still been fighting until the very last breath, I'm sure. And again, he is one of those people that you, he's a big man too, about six foot four, six foot five, a large man in stature. BROCK GANELES (19:49.432) They are to be staffed and they are going to be filled with bodies. Because we know ICE is still out on the street snatching bodies and they need a place to put them. So this mechanism is already in place. It is already happening around us. It is accelerating and the budget for DHS is huge. Because the big ugly bill put a lot of money there. They have the money to do this. So it is going to take MARK HAYES (20:15.466) And he has a presence about him. So you understand why he was a phenomenal reverend and pastor and leader of parishioners. And it's one of those things that kind of strikes you about him when you first meet him. When I first met him, I had no idea he was such a large man. BROCK GANELES (20:18.83) people MARK HAYES (20:44.658) with great big old hands and you know, we gave each other the fraternity signal and he came right over to me and my microphone and jumped on the interview with me. So I was extremely grateful for the friendship there. And I've never forgotten it and I've always been a big fan even prior to meeting him personally and also interviewed him a couple of times here in Atlanta, of course, you know, the cradle of the civil rights movement. He was in and out of Atlanta quite regularly. So. BROCK GANELES (20:48.43) And for the most part, unless you have a special election around you, most of us aren't going to get a chance to really pull that lever until November. So there's two other mechanisms for action. One is to get out on the streets, which we have to do in mass, which we haven't done in an aggressive enough fashion. And we certainly haven't done in a multicultural, multiracial fashion because white America has not delivered a message that has inspired others to join them on the streets. MARK HAYES (21:14.29) It is a sad day when we talk about his passing. But we're gonna take a quick break right now. I'm gonna go and bring Brock back into the conversation and we will be right back with more of Two Men in Black and White, an honest conversation. BROCK GANELES (21:17.996) and we've been way too polite in the way that we have protested so far and we're gonna need to throw sand in the gears and we're gonna have to have disruptive protests. And the second is much easier and that's economic protests. I mean, if you just look what went on just yesterday with CBS, nice to see that Anderson Cooper finally resigned from 60 minutes, did quietly though, not with a statement, but the fact that CBS censored and didn't allow Stephen Colbert to show an interview he did with James Tallarico for his late night show because CBS was worried about getting the wrong side of the FCC or worried about staying in favor of Donald Trump just shows you that that has become a media property that is now a part of the propaganda network. And if you're part of the resistance, you need to boycott CBS flat out. You just don't even turn on the station. You need to starve them of your eyeballs in the same way that you have to stop ordering from Amazon. Cancel prime. So many Americans that are addicted to it. Cancel prime. Stop sending them whatever it is now 16, $20 a month. Stop being in love with that convenience. You know what? Take an extra minute out of your fucking day and maybe search somewhere else on the internet and stop. feeding the beast. Bezos has already destroyed the Washington Post. He's a part of the propaganda propaganda network. You have to make him feel the economic pain. Do the same with Facebook. Zuckerberg's part of the same game. You can get off of Facebook or Instagram. You can actually divorce yourself from some of these platforms. X if you're still on X, I don't even know what to say to you anymore. I mean, it's a Nazi platform. It's a Nazi platform. If you're still there. MARK HAYES (23:12.598) Thank Yes. BROCK GANELES (23:17.068) Yeah, I mean, please do some self-reflection. You got to get off of X. So I said the mark mark is rejoined us again is that Target can't be the only company that we punish for doing the wrong thing. And we've self congratulated ourselves for six months about the Target boycott, but we've let so many other companies get away with behavior that arguably is worse than what Target did, right? I mean, what Jeff Bezos has done to the Washington Post, what the Ellison family has done to CBS is just egregious. MARK HAYES (23:48.298) Yeah, I mean you're right. BROCK GANELES (24:00.442) and it's really just shifting our thank you. Wack piece 264 is cancelled prime. Thank you. You know, not that hard to do. We get it. Everybody's busy. It's a great service. We can look the other way on that one. But if we don't make these billionaires who are on their way to becoming trillionaires feel the pain, they're just going to continue to feel like they can dominate the American political system with their contributions, which in then is going to allow them to dominate how our society works. Mark, welcome back. My last point on the boycotts is I saw something today which feels right to me. I haven't done my own homework on it. That Mackenzie Bezos in 2025 donated more money in that one year than Jeff Bezos has donated. MARK HAYES (24:48.662) Mm-hmm. BROCK GANELES (24:58.742) in his entire life. MARK HAYES (24:59.626) Hey, I believe it. Yeah. Yeah, I did see that as well. You know, she's given to a lot of HBC use a lot of a two HBC medical schools. She's been a champion in the philanthropy sector. 2025 she put her name on the map and BROCK GANELES (25:16.078) Well, while you're detecting the difficulties, I ran, I ran with, uh, the, concentration camps we're building and how our tax dollars are going to building another for-profit concentration camp system, which is basically everything, but the gas chambers is what we're basically green lighting here. We're not killing people or just to, we, we've decided we're going to deport them. At least that's the current plan. And then I got into economic boycotts as a way just sitting on our ass. MARK HAYES (25:33.663) Right. MARK HAYES (25:39.476) You BROCK GANELES (25:45.644) we can hopefully make a statement with our dollars and collective action there could make a statement. I don't know you have anything to add on those two topics. You want to take us somewhere else. MARK HAYES (25:49.952) Right. MARK HAYES (25:57.32) No, I'm right with you. Target is not the only offender. So why are we making these other companies pay as well? Walmart's just as bad. We're seeing so many of these big businesses that just threw their DEI initiatives out the window, didn't care about them. Go ahead and don't trust us. Google it. Use the Google machine. Look and see how many Fortune 500 CEOs are women or people of color. Right? And if that's not good enough, go look at their senior leadership. They've got them posted. They've got them posted. You know, but for some reason, you know, the best companies in the world are relying on diversity. And, you know, diversity, you're only as strong as your weakest link. And the diversity piece and component is something that, again, When we have that reckoning on race, it's got to be right up there at the top of the list. Economic justice has got to prevail at some point. We need a more fair, more just society as a whole, as a nation. And I mean, that includes everybody, women, Native Americans, Black folk. brown folk, our Asian American brothers and sisters. It includes everybody because there's enough for everybody. Stop telling me there's not enough. There's enough for everybody to live a good quality of life and a better quality of life if you wanna go ahead and do something special. I don't bemoan Bezos for creating something, but how much do you need, bro? And you can't give back and then you want tax breaks on top of it like come on with the greed man The colossal greed is just it's it's disgusting I mean it really is when we got people in the richest country on the planet You know our veterans are living on the street Right, we got people literally living on the streets BROCK GANELES (28:15.97) But basis a great exit. Basis and Amazon's a great story of like entrepreneurship, amazing idea, great execution, early winner in the internet saw saw what could happen. Look, started with just being a book sales online, right? Would you think maybe is a small business? I get all that built a behemoth, great American capitalism success story, but then fighting it. But then once he gets there, fighting against unionization, right? Trying to keep the workers pay low, fighting against any changes in minimum wage laws, right? Fighting against regulation in those fucking warehouses so people are getting injured and steamrolled because they're trying to move so fast with so many boxes, right? So it's like, it goes from being a great story that you root for and a great American success story till once they get there, MARK HAYES (29:02.742) All right? BROCK GANELES (29:12.908) The greed just can't stop. So then it becomes all about squeezing the workers and enriching oneself at the detriment of kind of basically 90 % of the people that work there. Maybe not the executives, but 90 % of the people that work there and setting a horrendous example for the way American business should operate and should care as a corporate citizen. Remember we used to use that word corporate citizen. MARK HAYES (29:41.226) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. BROCK GANELES (29:41.422) when it used to matter how companies interacted and how they contributed to society around them. And that's where I get the frustration with Bezos. Not that he didn't have a great idea and do something great. He deserves to be a billionaire. do we need him being a trillionaire at the expense of you know, not wanting to pay fucking $16 an hour for people who are lifting his fucking boxes all day and going home like MARK HAYES (29:48.915) I'd know more. MARK HAYES (29:56.979) Right. BROCK GANELES (30:11.384) breaking down their bodies. So there's this element of fear in us that has to come into play somewhere. MARK HAYES (30:13.086) Right. Well, we'll be up. The only place these cost of living increases don't exist is in the minds and heads of these 83 billionaires. They don't think anybody needs any kind of increase in anything, anywhere. They don't even think we need a decent quality of air to breathe. I mean, they think the climate hoax is a joke. Look at Greenland. You can't even run your dog sleds across Greenland anymore because the polar ice caps are melting. used to be able to ride from one side to the other. But I think it was a thousand miles. I read the write-up on Associated Press earlier today. It's all melting away, right? Because it's warming. That's the second half of global warming, right? The ice caps are melting, the glaciers are melting. These are natural habitats. These Iditarod folks used to be able to run their sleds. out onto the ice caps on the ocean, on the sea. Not anymore. Not anymore. We've been shitty stewards of the planet and the leaders of that shitty stewardship are these corporate non-citizens. BROCK GANELES (31:32.588) We've tolerated way too much bullshit in our lifetimes. And it's coming home to roost now came up the roost with the MAGA movement, right? Tolerating and tolerating be it racism, sexism, shitty corporate stewardship, idiots who are, you know, climate change deniers for decade after decade, pretend, you know, oil companies, know, paying MARK HAYES (31:38.485) Yes. BROCK GANELES (31:59.896) politicians to pretend like they didn't believe in it. You know, like two years ago everyone was like, it's real, but it might not be, you know, manmade. You know, we might not have an impact on it, but we just tolerated it all. And now that we're in Trump two. we need a collective agreement that we're going to stop tolerating the shit and we're actually going to do something. And it, it, it's not just voting differently. Like, MARK HAYES (32:20.971) Well, it's team. Yep. BROCK GANELES (32:29.686) Yes, that's a given. Of course we have to vote differently. First of all, we have to show up and vote, you know, step parts. So we can't have like turnout rates like in the forties fifties at best, you know, so we have to turn out to vote, not be defeatist and say nothing ever changes. And we have to stop feeding these beasts that are chewing us up and spitting us out and not caring. MARK HAYES (32:29.75) Right. MARK HAYES (32:35.454) That part. BROCK GANELES (32:58.476) The story that got me today is supposedly Facebook is taking its billions in cash flow riches that we've all floated to them by our eyeballs on their fucking platform and they're going to create the technology so after somebody dies that person can with AI can live on in their virtual world and still chat and stay in the conversation and I don't even know who knows because because they're going to use the AI to figure out how that person would have reacted. So therefore they don't have to lose any users because even when you die, they're just going to roll on and the machine is going to act as if it's you. I don't know if that's true, it's fucking, believe it. believe anything Zuckerberg would do. I believe anything Musk would do. They don't care about any humane element. MARK HAYES (33:31.958) my god. MARK HAYES (33:43.696) Ew. That's disgusting. MARK HAYES (33:52.608) Right. BROCK GANELES (33:56.728) to their businesses. Right? It's just maybe another way to make a little bit more money because maybe now you're going to want to see what grandpa would have said about your t-ball game, right? Even though he died eight years ago. MARK HAYES (34:07.913) Right. All right. gosh, that's just it's disgusting to me. I just you know, I didn't like Zuckerberg from the movie Social Network and I still don't like him. I still I still think he has the second most punchable face in America next to Ted Cruz. But, you know, who am I to judge? All right. Quick hit for me. BROCK GANELES (34:15.118) I guess that's my quick hit of the day. MARK HAYES (34:38.111) Elena Myers Taylor, you got me watching the Olympics. I got stuck on the monobob. I didn't even know they called it the monobob. But wow, a 41-year-old mother of two kids with Down syndrome, most decorated woman in Olympics history. BROCK GANELES (34:53.992) One Down Syndrome, they're both deaf. MARK HAYES (34:57.238) Both that, unbelievable. And she's been such a champion for the community that she said it is the letters and the support from people who have never met her, but just wrote to her because they found out about her story and inspired and uplifted her. And she won that gold medal, her first one. BROCK GANELES (34:58.754) both deaf, one has Down syndrome. MARK HAYES (35:23.338) by what, four one hundredths of a second, something insane like that. You know, it's like a, you know, not even a, it's less than a finger snap. And man, the competition was fierce with her, the German competitor, and then her teammate also, yeah, was in the running too. So man, that was some exciting stuff. You were right. It is awesome to watch. BROCK GANELES (35:42.446) Yeah, it was pretty nice. BROCK GANELES (35:52.206) We only have six gold medals. has one of them. She became the most, she tied Bonnie Blair, who was a speed skater 20 years ago, for the most medals for an American woman in the Winter Olympics at six, but she had never won gold. Mark, I'd never heard of her until three days ago, so I missed her first five medals. Then I started hearing the story about her. yeah, I was at the edge of my seat watching that mono-bob. MARK HAYES (36:01.674) Yeah, locked. MARK HAYES (36:07.434) Yeah. MARK HAYES (36:19.434) The Monobob. Wow. You know, next thing you know, we're gonna have the Jamaican Monobob team. I can't wait to see them perform. But man, you know, some great stuff. I did watch the pairs figure skating last night. The Japanese team won their first medal ever and it was a goal. Their routine was phenomenal. BROCK GANELES (36:40.898) You watch it, right? And the guy was bawling his eyes out, right? Woman was stone-faced. She expected it. The guy was like falling to pieces. MARK HAYES (36:44.448) Alright, like a baby. MARK HAYES (36:52.086) Yes, it was awesome. It was awesome. The Americans struggling in figure skating, but nonetheless, some great stories emerging. And you know, and that's what it's all about, You know, being able to cheer for someone for something amazing that they've accomplished and not caring where they, who cares that they were, who cares where people come from? I'm interested in their stories. right? And what makes them who they are. And that's why I was a television reporter. And I got out of it when we stopped being able to tell honest stories like Stephen Colbert, unable to interview James Talarico, right? Because CBS is scared about Brendan Carr. You know, it's ridiculous. But that's what makes the Olympics great is the stories behind the athlete. BROCK GANELES (37:47.234) So we have three women in the figure skating singles, right? It's the last event for figure skating, right? It's kind of the marquee event, the women's figure skating. Three, Alyssa Liu, Asian American. I forget her name, Amber something, and I may get this slightly wrong. Her mother's Italian from Milan speaks Italian, I think like a first, know, an immigrant, an Italian immigrant. MARK HAYES (38:16.853) huh. BROCK GANELES (38:17.213) and God, who's the third, right. And the, and the third one, right. So, that's the melting pot of just this one team of three athletes. And that's the American team, right. The American team from all over the world is the American team. MARK HAYES (38:22.485) Thank you. MARK HAYES (38:32.17) Right? Right? Well, what? MARK HAYES (38:39.867) Absolutely. Remember Carla DiClemente, a classmate of ours at Walter Panis High School, her nephew is on the men's speed skating team. yeah, and it was on the Italian American Facebook page. And I shared it and posted it on my page. But you know, we are a melting pot. And that's what makes this place so great. And that's partly why we have the problems that we have. BROCK GANELES (38:49.249) didn't realize it. MARK HAYES (39:09.204) right, because everyone doesn't want it to be a melting pot. There are so many people that think it's still theirs. And you know what, in the meantime, we'll enjoy these two weeks of Olympics. At your urging, I went ahead and recorded all the remaining hockey games right up to the gold medal match. So I wore my main hockey. BROCK GANELES (39:33.654) It's coming! Menger and the Silly! MARK HAYES (39:36.712) I wore my main hockey jersey to represent Jeremy Swain, Swainman, Edward Trall Marks on the Latvian team, Jeremy Swainman on the US team. So yeah, we'll represent the Black Bears, you know, well, well represented in Milan. Cortina. BROCK GANELES (39:51.672) I'm glad I got you hooked. There's like, I think five or six days left. So it's almost all like it's all metal activity right now. And I find it funny. My last comment of the day is one of the commercials I saw, I can't remember what company was for, but like literally their tagline was like for two weeks, for two weeks, we're all on the same team, which was literally their marketing to America that like for two weeks we can remember that we're all Americans and root for our athletes. in back of their head probably knowing that as soon as the Olympics ends, that's not really where we are right now. But it was a good marketing hook by some ad agent. MARK HAYES (40:22.41) Brilliant. Right. We go back to stabbing each other. Yeah. MARK HAYES (40:34.486) All It wasn't a diaper commercial, was it? All right, folks, that's it for us. We'll be back tomorrow with another exciting edition of Two Men in Black and White, an Honest Conversation. All right, B. BROCK GANELES (40:37.238) I don't think so. BROCK GANELES (40:45.91) All right. Thanks for hanging with it through the technical difficulties. Mark, always a pleasure. Talk to you tomorrow. MARK HAYES (40:51.05) Yes, Peace.