Latest / The Breakfast Club / INTERVIEW: Alencia Johnson On 'Flip the Tables,' Political Disruption, Reciprocity, Quitting Therapy +More

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INTERVIEW: Alencia Johnson On 'Flip the Tables,' Political Disruption, Reciprocity, Quitting Therapy +More · The Breakfast Club

0:00
Speaker 1: Wake that ass up in the morning.
0:02
Speaker 2: The Breakfast Club Morning everybody. It's theej envyes hilarious, Charlamagne
0:08
Speaker 2: the God. We are the Breakfast Club. Law La Ross
0:11
Speaker 2: here as well. And we got a special guest in
0:12
Speaker 2: the building. Yes, indeed, her new book, Flip the Tables,
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Speaker 2: is out right now we have Alynsia Johnson.
0:18
Speaker 1: Welcome, Thank you. I'm glad to be here.
0:19
Speaker 2: How you feeling.
0:20
Speaker 1: I feel good.
0:22
Speaker 3: Interesting to say that in the midst of everything going on,
0:24
Speaker 3: but I feel good.
0:25
Speaker 1: Taking care of myself and getting this message out.
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Speaker 4: We find enjoy what we can right right, we have
0:30
Speaker 4: to you got to the Way to survivor.
0:31
Speaker 1: Absolutely. I love the title of.
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Speaker 4: Your book because I think that, you know, people don't
0:35
Speaker 4: ever expound on that part of Jesus enough.
0:38
Speaker 1: You know what I mean, Crunk Jesus.
0:40
Speaker 4: Yes, flip the tables that everyday disrupt this guide to
0:43
Speaker 4: finding courage and making change break that title death.
0:46
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I'm glad you mentioned that reference. I'm
0:49
Speaker 3: a pastor's daughter. I love that story of Jesus. And
0:52
Speaker 3: in all of my work, I've worked on a lot
0:53
Speaker 3: of presidential campaigns, I've worked for a Planned Parenthood, people
0:57
Speaker 3: constantly ask me, Oh, my goodness, how can I make change?
1:00
Speaker 3: They think it has to be at this massive scale.
1:02
Speaker 3: But what I realized is that when we find the
1:05
Speaker 3: courage to really be ourselves and to live in our
1:08
Speaker 3: truth and to speak up in rooms and do these
1:10
Speaker 3: small acts of disruption every single day, it doesn't actually
1:14
Speaker 3: require folks to quit their jobs and run for office.
1:17
Speaker 1: So I don't think a lot of people should do that.
1:18
Speaker 3: It doesn't require us to be like doctor King or
1:21
Speaker 3: you know, having these massive platforms which are really important.
1:25
Speaker 3: But there are things that folks can do every single day.
1:27
Speaker 3: And I found that getting connected to your individual purpose
1:31
Speaker 3: and having the courage to be who you are is
1:33
Speaker 3: directly connected to being an everyday disruptor that propels our
1:37
Speaker 3: communities forward. And I think it's kind of divine that
1:39
Speaker 3: it's such a time as this that it came out
1:41
Speaker 3: when I started writing this book five years ago, and
1:43
Speaker 3: who knew that it would come out three months after
1:45
Speaker 3: a few months after Donald Trump was elected again.
1:47
Speaker 4: You worked on the VP's campaign, right, and did you
1:51
Speaker 4: work with You worked with?
1:54
Speaker 3: Yeah, I worked on I worked by Obama's campaign, j
1:57
Speaker 3: and Biden's campaign was with Born's campaign and Vice President
1:59
Speaker 3: Harris Cane.
2:00
Speaker 4: What bothers me is, I know people like you exist
2:03
Speaker 4: in people like you work for these individuals. Why aren't
2:07
Speaker 4: they disruptive enough? Why don't they flip tables? Why do
2:09
Speaker 4: they keep Why do they don't?
2:11
Speaker 1: Why don't why.
2:11
Speaker 4: Don't they have the courage to disrupt the status?
2:13
Speaker 2: Quote you all all of them?
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Speaker 3: Well, you know it's interesting because I don't. I don't
2:19
Speaker 3: want to say I look at well, I don't think
2:21
Speaker 3: I look at all of them.
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Speaker 1: In essence the same.
2:25
Speaker 3: In democratic politics and politics in general, elected officials, I
2:30
Speaker 3: think tend to follow a certain path, right, and sometimes
2:35
Speaker 3: it seems as though making sure that the status quo remains.
2:40
Speaker 3: I do think if we step back a little bit,
2:42
Speaker 3: Barack Obama was a bit of a.
2:43
Speaker 1: Disruptor because of him, because there's.
2:45
Speaker 3: Identity, his identity, but and because he you know, folks
2:49
Speaker 3: told him he shouldn't have ran, and he.
2:51
Speaker 1: And he did.
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Speaker 3: Right now, there's a whole system at play that folks.
2:56
Speaker 3: You know, when you become the president of the United
2:58
Speaker 3: States or nominee for the President of the United States,
3:01
Speaker 3: you know you uphold this party platform. But the reality is,
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Speaker 3: I don't look at them to disrupt what our country
3:07
Speaker 3: needs politically, I actually look at us as the people
3:11
Speaker 3: in the ground swell, which is why it's just as important. Yes,
3:14
Speaker 3: I work for a lot of presidential campaigns, but it's
3:17
Speaker 3: just as important to work for these local races, to
3:20
Speaker 3: work for these primary races, to work for these governors races,
3:23
Speaker 3: all these people who are actually trying to challenge the
3:26
Speaker 3: system and get more reflective folks in position to actually
3:30
Speaker 3: push forward the policies who care about, like universal health
3:32
Speaker 3: care and you know, racial justice and access to abortion
3:36
Speaker 3: and all those things. And so, you know, it takes
3:38
Speaker 3: a lot of courage to shake the table, and it
3:40
Speaker 3: takes a lot of courage to concede that if you're
3:42
Speaker 3: going to shake the table, you actually might lose in
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Speaker 3: the short term, but you're going to create a path
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Speaker 3: for other people to you know, push forward that change,
3:53
Speaker 3: and it will be a little bit easier because you
3:55
Speaker 3: were there and you started something.
3:57
Speaker 2: How did you get into politics? What got you into
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Speaker 2: politics in that part of the game, I think it.
4:01
Speaker 3: Was always in me. I talk about my late grandmother
4:03
Speaker 3: in the book often.
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Speaker 1: I actually dedicate the book to.
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Speaker 3: Her, Miss Ozella Bennett, and she was one of those
4:09
Speaker 3: people who, much like a lot of our ancestors, their
4:12
Speaker 3: names aren't in history books, but they were foot soldiers.
4:15
Speaker 3: My grandmother was in the church. I'm the daughter pastor,
4:17
Speaker 3: so I grew up in the Black Church, and there's
4:18
Speaker 3: a lot of politics there right, a lot of social
4:21
Speaker 3: justice there, and just this understanding that were much as given,
4:25
Speaker 3: much as required, that my gifts are not my own,
4:27
Speaker 3: and that they are actually on loan, and that I
4:30
Speaker 3: actually have to get those out and help.
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Speaker 1: The world around me.
4:33
Speaker 3: And my grandmother, no matter how much she had or
4:35
Speaker 3: what she didn't have, she always felt like she had
4:37
Speaker 3: to stand in the gap. And voting for me is
4:42
Speaker 3: just all I mean. I would go to with my
4:43
Speaker 3: parents who the voting blue that had that little sticker,
4:46
Speaker 3: But that was just like one part of it. I
4:47
Speaker 3: had to be an active participant in the world that
4:50
Speaker 3: I wanted to create, and so for me, it was
4:53
Speaker 3: just kind of natural that it would be a part
4:54
Speaker 3: of my life. Now I got to my position I
4:57
Speaker 3: talk about in the book. I didn't know anybody in
5:00
Speaker 3: democratic politics when I moved to DC.
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Speaker 1: I was working a corporate job. I just had a dream.
5:04
Speaker 1: I was like, Oh, this black man is president.
5:05
Speaker 3: I think I kind of want to work for his
5:06
Speaker 3: reelection campaign and figured out how to network with folks
5:10
Speaker 3: and ended up taking a job that I wasn't even
5:12
Speaker 3: qualified for, but they took a chance on me, and
5:15
Speaker 3: I figured it out from there. And I can't just
5:17
Speaker 3: sit on the sidelines and critique something and not be
5:20
Speaker 3: a part of it. And I also understand how engaging.
5:23
Speaker 3: If so many more of us engaged in the process,
5:28
Speaker 3: the outcomes will look different, our communities will look different.
5:31
Speaker 3: But for whatever reason, there are so many barriers for
5:34
Speaker 3: us to engage. And that's another reason why I wanted
5:37
Speaker 3: to be part of this, because I felt like, well,
5:39
Speaker 3: if I can do this and people can identify with me,
5:42
Speaker 3: maybe it won't feel as hard right for me to
5:44
Speaker 3: engage in politics. Maybe, you know, I won't feel a
5:47
Speaker 3: shame that I don't know every single term that they're
5:49
Speaker 3: using or every single way that the policy is developed.
5:51
Speaker 1: I'll be honest with you.
5:53
Speaker 3: Sometimes when I have to go and see it MSNBC
5:55
Speaker 3: and talk about something, I got a research what I'm
5:57
Speaker 3: talking about. Because government class was in high school. I'm
5:59
Speaker 3: thirty seven years I don't remember everything, and so if
6:02
Speaker 3: I can't remember all these things right, if I have
6:04
Speaker 3: to continue to inform myself, imagine all the other people
6:08
Speaker 3: who are just scared to participate because they don't know.
6:10
Speaker 3: It's not that they don't want to. And so I
6:12
Speaker 3: know that I have to be a representative of that.
6:14
Speaker 3: But I also again this calling where much as given,
6:17
Speaker 3: much as required, and I'm required to make my communities better.
6:21
Speaker 5: I think right now with politics and like how we're
6:23
Speaker 5: seeing people get messages out through like TikTok and stuff
6:25
Speaker 5: like that, things are changing. And I saw an interview
6:28
Speaker 5: that you did where you talked about you weren't the
6:30
Speaker 5: most qualified, but you were the most recommended when it
6:32
Speaker 5: came to working for the Obamas. And then I saw
6:34
Speaker 5: another interview where you talked about your red Flag is
6:36
Speaker 5: You chapter in your book, brol And putting both of
6:39
Speaker 5: those together, I think that there's like a renaissance of
6:42
Speaker 5: like new political leaders, but they're afraid that they don't
6:45
Speaker 5: know enough for it, that they can't challenge the Trumps
6:47
Speaker 5: of the world, you know what I mean? So how
6:48
Speaker 5: do you speak to those leaders that are coming up
6:50
Speaker 5: in this book? Because they're there, they just need to
6:53
Speaker 5: figure out how to do what you did.
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Speaker 3: No, they literally are there, which is why I start
6:56
Speaker 3: the book with the disruption of self. Right, we actually
6:58
Speaker 3: have to look in the mirror, and that's the hardest
7:01
Speaker 3: thing to do.
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Speaker 1: One thing that I've realized in.
7:03
Speaker 3: Working in advocacy spaces and political space.
7:06
Speaker 1: I might controult for saying this.
7:07
Speaker 3: But we're telling the world to treat us well and
7:11
Speaker 3: to vote for us, to enact these policies that see
7:14
Speaker 3: us as worthy for humanity and all of these things
7:17
Speaker 3: and fighting for justice, and yet we're not treating each
7:19
Speaker 3: other well right, And a lot of that is because
7:22
Speaker 3: we are not healthy. We're not dealing with the things
7:25
Speaker 3: that are holding us back from being who we are.
7:27
Speaker 3: We're not dealing with this trauma, and we're doing this
7:30
Speaker 3: interpersonal harm that is actually not allowing us to do
7:33
Speaker 3: the work that needs to be done for communities. And
7:36
Speaker 3: so I put that chapter the red Flag as You
7:38
Speaker 3: and the Disruption of Self section of the book because
7:44
Speaker 3: so many times we are like we are the ones
7:47
Speaker 3: that are getting in our own way of our own destiny,
7:50
Speaker 3: whether it is that professional pursuit, whether it's that personal pursuit.
7:53
Speaker 3: I write, I tell a lot of business in my book,
7:54
Speaker 3: and a lot of a lot of this was inspired
7:57
Speaker 3: by a lot of relationships that were going the wrong way,
7:59
Speaker 3: and I was like dating the same person, but none
8:01
Speaker 3: of them know each other. Like, what's happening here. I'm
8:06
Speaker 3: holding myself back from career opportunities. I'm holding myself back.
8:09
Speaker 3: But yet I knew I had this big vision. And
8:12
Speaker 3: so if we remove those barriers within our own selves
8:15
Speaker 3: that are holding ourselves back, we would be so surprised
8:18
Speaker 3: the change that we could have in the world around us. Right,
8:21
Speaker 3: we would be so surprised at the doors that would
8:24
Speaker 3: not just open, but the spaces that we create that
8:27
Speaker 3: somebody else was waiting for us to create. So many
8:29
Speaker 3: times people just sit on the sidelines to critique, but
8:32
Speaker 3: they don't have the courage to actually try and put
8:34
Speaker 3: themselves out there. And that's why, you know, the only
8:38
Speaker 3: things stopping us. Sometimes, yes, there's the system, right, like,
8:40
Speaker 3: there's all of that, and yet at the same time,
8:43
Speaker 3: sometimes it's us getting in our own way.
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Speaker 1: I think it's us majority of the time, it is.
8:48
Speaker 1: I really feel that way.
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Speaker 4: I feel like, you know, yes, we do know the
8:51
Speaker 4: systems are there, but even just having that mentality right like, oh,
8:54
Speaker 4: the system's going to stop me. The system's going to
8:56
Speaker 4: stop me. You're already telling.
8:57
Speaker 3: Yourself no, that's right, where you're already limiting yourself, right,
9:00
Speaker 3: and multiple things can be true at the same time.
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Speaker 1: I say it all the time.
9:03
Speaker 3: I have a friend who eights that I say that,
9:04
Speaker 3: but I'm like, yes, the system's there, but like it's you,
9:06
Speaker 3: you sitting over here. And I talk about this as well.
9:09
Speaker 3: I talk about mental health health in the book. I
9:11
Speaker 3: was diagnosed with OCD when I was fifteen, so I've
9:13
Speaker 3: been in and out of therapy my whole life, and
9:15
Speaker 3: at one point, actually in the process of writing this book,
9:18
Speaker 3: which was really hard, i quit therapy because I was like,
9:21
Speaker 3: I'm sitting here having the same conversation every Monday at
9:25
Speaker 3: five pm, and I'm not doing the work because I'm
9:28
Speaker 3: scared of facing myself. I'm not having that difficult conversation.
9:31
Speaker 3: I'm sitting here theorizing it. Wie Brown just said that literally.
9:35
Speaker 4: I mean that's something she's always told me, but literally,
9:36
Speaker 4: she was just sitting there and said the exact same thing.
9:38
Speaker 4: People are go to therapy for years for years, be
9:40
Speaker 4: afraid to actually do the hard work on themselves.
9:43
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's like, how do we as a society
9:45
Speaker 3: get to a place that we are scared to sit
9:47
Speaker 3: with ourselves. Part of how I got to this book
9:50
Speaker 3: was a very successful career. I'm extremely blessed. I'm sitting
9:54
Speaker 3: in this beautiful corner apartment. I got all the things
9:57
Speaker 3: I bought, all the things I can travel, going on
9:59
Speaker 3: all these places. I was sitting there and I was
10:02
Speaker 3: crying because I was not happy. And I looked in
10:05
Speaker 3: the mirror and I was like, what are you covering up?
10:08
Speaker 3: And what are you running from? And what really hit
10:11
Speaker 3: me was when I realized you're running from yourself, and like,
10:14
Speaker 3: how sad is that that we run from ourselves? Like
10:17
Speaker 3: we are something to be fearful of. And so I
10:20
Speaker 3: had to change the relationship with myself. I had to
10:23
Speaker 3: change the relationship with what success looked like, with what
10:26
Speaker 3: relationships look like, and that you know, tension and confrontation
10:30
Speaker 3: and disagreement and relationship doesn't mean the end of a relationship, right.
10:33
Speaker 3: And that shifted my friendships, it shifted my professional relationships,
10:36
Speaker 3: and it got me to this bold place of you
10:39
Speaker 3: know what, I know what my purpose is. I know
10:42
Speaker 3: that this is a means to an end, and if
10:44
Speaker 3: this doesn't go, my way at least I've tried. Didn't
10:48
Speaker 3: you like that? You saw? Like?
10:49
Speaker 2: What were you running from?
10:50
Speaker 3: Particularly and myself, one of the things is how hard
10:56
Speaker 3: I am on myself. I'm a virgo in four houses
10:59
Speaker 3: and clearly high achieving person, and I was just so
11:02
Speaker 3: hard on birthday September third, very close to be on birthday,
11:08
Speaker 3: did okay?
11:08
Speaker 1: So you feel me?
11:10
Speaker 3: And I got to a place where I was judging
11:13
Speaker 3: myself so hard, judging myself for I don't even want
11:18
Speaker 3: to say mistakes but learning opportunities, judging myself for outcomes
11:22
Speaker 3: that did or did not happen. And I had someone
11:25
Speaker 3: say to me. They said, if people around you that
11:28
Speaker 3: you love heard how hard you are on yourself, how
11:33
Speaker 3: are they going to feel you're going to be with them?
11:35
Speaker 1: I was like, oh.
11:36
Speaker 3: Wow, and like to to really kind of beat myself
11:40
Speaker 3: down with you should have done this right, You could
11:43
Speaker 3: have done X, Y and Z. Now I'm working to
11:45
Speaker 3: take should out of my vocabulary and embracing things as
11:48
Speaker 3: you know, a learning opportunity.
11:49
Speaker 1: And I also as a person.
11:51
Speaker 3: Of deep faith, I talk about grace, and we talk
11:54
Speaker 3: about God's grace, and we talk about giving other people grace.
11:56
Speaker 3: But I had to learn to give myself that that
11:58
Speaker 3: grace as well, and like let go of that pressure
12:02
Speaker 3: to feel or strive for perfection, because what really is perfection?
12:07
Speaker 1: Right?
12:07
Speaker 3: And what is actually the goal? Because there is like
12:11
Speaker 3: the goalpost will move every single time, and how do
12:13
Speaker 3: you just become content with just being? I also realize
12:17
Speaker 3: that I didn't again in therapy, knowing all the language,
12:20
Speaker 3: I didn't like to sit with my feelings. Oh no,
12:23
Speaker 3: I'm angry. I don't want to sit with that uncomfortable feeling.
12:25
Speaker 3: I'm going to go move on to something else. And
12:26
Speaker 3: then something that black women tend to do is instead
12:29
Speaker 3: of sitting with our feelings or whatever it may be,
12:33
Speaker 3: we go get another degree, we go get another professional pursuit.
12:36
Speaker 5: We was just talking with that in my group, probably
12:38
Speaker 5: like a week ago, about how like now, at this age,
12:40
Speaker 5: we begin to realize that the overachieving isn't like us
12:43
Speaker 5: a need to achieve. It's kind of like an escapism
12:46
Speaker 5: type of thing or gramma response yeah, or even you
12:48
Speaker 5: just instantly were even like a breakup, a breakup, aspire
12:50
Speaker 5: as a new business or like a you know something
12:52
Speaker 5: like that.
12:52
Speaker 3: It does and you know those things are beautiful, right,
12:56
Speaker 3: you know what is birth out of pain can be
12:58
Speaker 3: very beautiful. I talk about that too, But I also
13:01
Speaker 3: talk about when I was in therapy, this conversation black
13:04
Speaker 3: woman therapist and I had and she wanted me to
13:06
Speaker 3: answer the question of who are you? And she asked
13:08
Speaker 3: me that question and I said, oh, okay, I'm about
13:10
Speaker 3: to like rattle off my resume. She said, no, who
13:12
Speaker 3: are you? Unattached to your professional accolades?
13:16
Speaker 1: And you started crying? I sure did.
13:18
Speaker 5: I was like, that's a hard question to answered, girl, And.
13:21
Speaker 3: We still like forty five minutes left, so I couldn't
13:22
Speaker 3: really hang up those twohundred dollars.
13:24
Speaker 1: Like I'm said there looking at her, she's looking at me.
13:28
Speaker 1: We both look at each.
13:29
Speaker 3: Other like She's like, sys, how are you gonna answer
13:31
Speaker 3: that question? And what I found is that the answer
13:34
Speaker 3: is ever evolving. And it was that search for myself right,
13:37
Speaker 3: and I wanted to drag everybody else with us, So
13:40
Speaker 3: I tweeted that question and it went viral and that
13:42
Speaker 3: was the whole chapter in the book. But you know,
13:44
Speaker 3: I go back to that question of who am I?
13:47
Speaker 3: Like when I'm anxious, when I'm feeling like, oh, I
13:48
Speaker 3: got to strive for something else.
13:49
Speaker 1: No, I've done enough. But who am I? I'm curious.
13:53
Speaker 3: I'm a lover, I fight for people. I love people, right,
13:57
Speaker 3: I'm actually not this person who's teflon don who doesn't
14:00
Speaker 3: need intimate relationship in all forms?
14:03
Speaker 1: Right? Like, who am I? And let me sit in
14:06
Speaker 1: all of that? And that is enough.
14:07
Speaker 5: You're not in therapy anywhere, you said when you were.
14:10
Speaker 3: So, And I'm not discouraging people from therapy at all.
14:14
Speaker 3: I think for me right now, in this period of life,
14:16
Speaker 3: I'm just taking a break, and I think mental health
14:19
Speaker 3: care is extremely important. Again, I mentioned I was diagnosed
14:23
Speaker 3: with OCD when I was fifteen years old. So I've
14:24
Speaker 3: been in and out over half of my majority of
14:27
Speaker 3: my life at this point. And there are times when
14:29
Speaker 3: I need extra support. There are times when I need
14:31
Speaker 3: an antidepressant. There are times when I actually do need
14:33
Speaker 3: to sit on that couch every single week, and then
14:35
Speaker 3: there are times when okay, I'm going through the same
14:38
Speaker 3: motions again. Now when am I going to do the work?
14:41
Speaker 3: And so I think people need to look at it
14:45
Speaker 3: as a support system. It's like working out in a gym.
14:48
Speaker 3: Sometimes I feel like I need a trainer, even though
14:50
Speaker 3: I've been athletic my whole life. Sometimes I need a trainer,
14:52
Speaker 3: sometimes I can do it on my own, and vice versa.
14:54
Speaker 3: And so it's a matter of tapping into your power
14:57
Speaker 3: and your needs at the city at the time that
15:00
Speaker 3: makes sense for you.
15:01
Speaker 4: So glad that you and dev were doing a conversation
15:04
Speaker 4: this week conversation books.
15:06
Speaker 3: We're going to do it at some point. It's not public,
15:09
Speaker 3: but I'm.
15:09
Speaker 4: Sorry because literally she was just here and a lot
15:12
Speaker 4: of her new book, Living and Wisdom.
15:16
Speaker 1: Yeah.
15:16
Speaker 3: Well, and you know, here's the thing I shared with
15:18
Speaker 3: her too. I'm based in the DC area, and I
15:21
Speaker 3: moved back to the DC area not for politics, but
15:23
Speaker 3: to be close to my family. And it's so interesting
15:26
Speaker 3: because friends and politics are like you not at this event.
15:28
Speaker 3: It's like, nah, I'm hanging out my family and my
15:30
Speaker 3: friends and my loved ones. But I said to Debbie
15:33
Speaker 3: one time that that area needs so much healing so
15:38
Speaker 3: that folks get off of this hamster wheel of chasing
15:42
Speaker 3: what's next, of what's what is deemed you know, important
15:45
Speaker 3: to society, and really getting into ourselves. And you know,
15:49
Speaker 3: I'm actually excited for her book too. I feel like
15:51
Speaker 3: all these books are like now all these black women's
15:53
Speaker 3: stories are coming out to like build upon one another.
15:56
Speaker 4: Well, you need them now more than ever, especially being
15:58
Speaker 4: that you know they're trying to take anything Black history literally.
16:03
Speaker 1: Literally.
16:03
Speaker 3: There's a chapter in the book and so it's in
16:05
Speaker 3: three parts. Disruption of self that's the hard part, disruption
16:10
Speaker 3: of vision and you know, especially for like black folks
16:13
Speaker 3: and black women. The first chapter in Disruption of Vision,
16:16
Speaker 3: Goodbye to the Boss Them. That's a good one because
16:21
Speaker 3: it talks about rest. It talks about disrupting this notion
16:24
Speaker 3: that we are only supposed to labor and give birth
16:26
Speaker 3: to labor, like there is so much more to us
16:29
Speaker 3: as Black women, and how we deserve the rest and
16:31
Speaker 3: all those things.
16:32
Speaker 1: And then disruption of.
16:33
Speaker 3: Community and right now we need to radically change how
16:38
Speaker 3: we think about community and build community. But it really
16:41
Speaker 3: starts with that imperative healing. And in Disruption of Community,
16:46
Speaker 3: there's a chapter of storytelling. And I think folks look
16:49
Speaker 3: at storytelling they think of Ava Duverne and Ryan Cookler
16:53
Speaker 3: who are doing amazing work and preserving our history through
16:56
Speaker 3: artistic expression. But individual storyteller is extremely powerful and I've
17:02
Speaker 3: seen it even in my own life. But I've seen
17:04
Speaker 3: how individual storytelling shifts families and friendships, and then that
17:09
Speaker 3: expands your capacity for understanding of one another. And then
17:13
Speaker 3: so one person becomes ten people and then all of
17:15
Speaker 3: a sudden, you're understanding a complicated issue in a way
17:18
Speaker 3: that's very personal to you. Right, And so storytelling is.
17:22
Speaker 3: If it wasn't so powerful, there wouldn't be all these
17:25
Speaker 3: attacks on our institutions and our history. And I actually
17:28
Speaker 3: think everybody, whether or not you're putting a book out
17:30
Speaker 3: there or not, figure out a way to preserve your story.
17:33
Speaker 1: I was a mobile Alabama. I went to the.
17:37
Speaker 3: I believe the Heritage Museum where the Cltilda is and
17:41
Speaker 3: or the remnants of that slave ship, and just going
17:45
Speaker 3: through the It's a very small museum, but just going
17:47
Speaker 3: through it, and they're talking about how zor Neil Heerson
17:49
Speaker 3: had captured some oral history, and I'm just thinking about, Wow,
17:53
Speaker 3: so powerful for her to capture that in the nineteen
17:55
Speaker 3: twenties for us to be reading about it right now.
17:58
Speaker 3: And if we think about so much history as passed
18:00
Speaker 3: down through these oral traditions, what would happen if we
18:03
Speaker 3: can literally preserve them in a written way, digital way
18:07
Speaker 3: like we have so many opportunities to preserve our history,
18:09
Speaker 3: to pass down to the next generations.
18:11
Speaker 2: I was going to ask you talked about when you
18:13
Speaker 2: came in. You talk about relationships and you talk about
18:16
Speaker 2: friends and how you have to see things in yourself.
18:18
Speaker 2: Was it the fact that you expected too much of people?
18:22
Speaker 1: And how did you get over that?
18:23
Speaker 2: Like, you know, because you talk about you wanted somebody
18:26
Speaker 2: to do things the way that you did it or
18:27
Speaker 2: quote unquote as close to perfect as possible, how did
18:30
Speaker 2: you get over that with relationships and with coworkers.
18:34
Speaker 3: Well, again, facing the mirror of myself, I was like, girl,
18:37
Speaker 3: you don't like yourself every day, and you also disappoint
18:41
Speaker 3: yourself every day, and so how are you, you know,
18:45
Speaker 3: holding yourself to this impossible standard, but also holding all
18:49
Speaker 3: these other people to that, you know, those unpossible standards
18:51
Speaker 3: as well. And so I got to this place of
18:54
Speaker 3: separating standards and expectations of people and myself. I have
18:58
Speaker 3: high standards, but I've lowered my expectations of people in essence,
19:02
Speaker 3: and that like we will disappoint one another, we will
19:06
Speaker 3: get in partnership whatever it may be, and we're not
19:09
Speaker 3: going to to your point, do things the same way
19:13
Speaker 3: that I would do them. I thought about this when
19:15
Speaker 3: I started, so I'm an entrepreneur and hiring people, I'm like, okay, let'sia.
19:18
Speaker 3: Does the thing need to get done the same way
19:20
Speaker 3: you would do it or they just need to get
19:22
Speaker 3: done And sometimes it just needs to get done.
19:25
Speaker 1: And then I think.
19:26
Speaker 3: About as I've been really on this journey of looking
19:28
Speaker 3: at again all relationships in my life and friendships especially.
19:32
Speaker 3: You know, we talk about love languages with intimate relationships,
19:36
Speaker 3: but sometimes we don't think about that and how that
19:39
Speaker 3: you know what that means for our our friendships. We
19:44
Speaker 3: are always talking about, you know, how people how our partner,
19:46
Speaker 3: intimate partners should love us or show up for us
19:48
Speaker 3: and teaching them our love language. But the same with
19:51
Speaker 3: our friendships, right, because a friend can be supporting you
19:54
Speaker 3: and the way that they feel is like big supporting.
19:57
Speaker 3: You're thinking, oh no, I wanted you to like roll
19:59
Speaker 3: out the red carpet over here, and they're like, why
20:01
Speaker 3: cook you a meal? And we're missing each other, right,
20:04
Speaker 3: And so I had to really, what do you mean?
20:07
Speaker 4: Because because like, don't tell me how to show up
20:09
Speaker 4: for you. If I did me like, you know what
20:11
Speaker 4: I mean and if they say this the thought that
20:14
Speaker 4: counts right, but.
20:14
Speaker 1: Then it's not right.
20:16
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, but I think it also requires communication.
20:20
Speaker 1: Right.
20:20
Speaker 3: One of the things that I realized was a red
20:22
Speaker 3: flag of me is running from difficult conversation and when
20:25
Speaker 3: it comes to interpersonal relationships. But if you have that
20:29
Speaker 3: conversation with one another, if you can quiet out the
20:31
Speaker 3: noise and actually be present in the relationship, you'll realize, oh,
20:35
Speaker 3: your love language is different than my love language. But
20:38
Speaker 3: that doesn't mean we don't love each other. That doesn't
20:40
Speaker 3: mean we don't care for each other. And also, you
20:43
Speaker 3: may not have the capacity to show up for me
20:44
Speaker 3: in this moment, and it has nothing to do with
20:46
Speaker 3: you not wanting to be there. You got all these
20:49
Speaker 3: other things going on. The amount of calls I've had
20:52
Speaker 3: to make. Now the book has come out and it's
20:53
Speaker 3: been out, and we went through the book tour and
20:54
Speaker 3: I'm like, oh, yeah, my bad friend of really not
20:56
Speaker 3: being there for like six seven months, But thank you
20:58
Speaker 3: for being my friend and showing up in the ways
21:01
Speaker 3: that you could and understanding. But I didn't have the capacity.
21:03
Speaker 3: But it takes intentional communication, and it takes something.
21:07
Speaker 1: That I don't know.
21:08
Speaker 3: If you struggle with this, But as a virgal, I
21:10
Speaker 3: struggle with this, being really, really, really vulnerable about what
21:13
Speaker 3: you need.
21:14
Speaker 2: And I used to struggle. I don't struggle with it anymore.
21:16
Speaker 2: I'm vulnerable so much I don't even it doesn't even
21:18
Speaker 2: bother me. The big problem I had was is people
21:21
Speaker 2: showing up for you. That was my thing, and in
21:23
Speaker 2: what Charlamage said, I would show up for everybody. But
21:26
Speaker 2: then when it was time for people to show up
21:27
Speaker 2: for me, a lot of times they didn't, and it
21:29
Speaker 2: would bother the shit out of me. And then I
21:31
Speaker 2: had to realize that everybody's not the same. That's just
21:35
Speaker 2: because you do see's something a certain way, that doesn't
21:38
Speaker 2: mean necessarily Charlomagne is gonna do it, Lauren's gonna do
21:40
Speaker 2: it the same way. And once I let that go,
21:43
Speaker 2: I really don't. It just doesn't affect me the same anymore.
21:45
Speaker 3: And that's beautiful, and it reminds me of I'm a delta,
21:49
Speaker 3: a pledge on college, and my line name is reciprocity
21:53
Speaker 3: and my are.
21:54
Speaker 1: You supposed to say that? Probably you can say.
21:58
Speaker 3: So.
21:58
Speaker 1: I'm disclosed, but everything else we are we are. Trust me.
22:06
Speaker 3: We trained to know what secret was that. But so
22:08
Speaker 3: my line name's reciprocity. And my big sister who gave
22:11
Speaker 3: me that line name, she knew. I was like, reciprocity,
22:14
Speaker 3: like the word out of that Lauren Hill song, right, Like,
22:17
Speaker 3: what are you talking about? And she's like, no, you
22:19
Speaker 3: give give, gives so much, and you expect for people
22:22
Speaker 3: to show up the same way that you do. And
22:24
Speaker 3: she's like, that is a struggle of yours and it's
22:26
Speaker 3: going to continue to be a struggle of yours. And
22:29
Speaker 3: she was right, it's this thing that we're talking about.
22:31
Speaker 3: And again, it wasn't until later in life, this point
22:34
Speaker 3: in life that I'm in right now, to like remove
22:37
Speaker 3: kind of those expectations of people and just like let
22:40
Speaker 3: us exist and love one another, because I've even found too.
22:44
Speaker 3: There's a chapter in here called the trailblazer conundrum and
22:47
Speaker 3: talks about not isolating yourself even though you're blazing trails.
22:51
Speaker 3: There are so many people in our lives who want
22:53
Speaker 3: to show up for us, who don't even know how to.
22:56
Speaker 3: They may not have the I don't know, the business
22:59
Speaker 3: acumen to help us with something, the money, the resources,
23:02
Speaker 3: but in their small ways it's actually really important, and
23:05
Speaker 3: so giving people the opportunity to show up for you
23:07
Speaker 3: in the way that makes sense for them is very
23:10
Speaker 3: powerful too.
23:11
Speaker 4: You know, I want to talk to you about the
23:12
Speaker 4: urgency in now chapter and the disruption of community, because
23:15
Speaker 4: that is what people always get mad about when it
23:17
Speaker 4: comes to Democrats, their lack of urgency. They don't have
23:21
Speaker 4: a sense of urgency. I would I would go so
23:24
Speaker 4: far as to say, their lack of urgency is what has.
23:26
Speaker 1: Us in this situation right now. I would agree with that.
23:31
Speaker 1: I would agree with that.
23:34
Speaker 3: Well, I would agree with that and the decision makers
23:37
Speaker 3: and the power because I don't want to embrase some
23:39
Speaker 3: people that I talked about in the book and who
23:42
Speaker 3: wrote a beautiful endorsement for the book, Congressoman Ayana Presley
23:45
Speaker 3: Love someone who was like, I'm bucking the system and
23:48
Speaker 3: I'm going to challenge this and comvent.
23:50
Speaker 1: And there are a lot of those.
23:51
Speaker 3: I mean, you've you've seen AOC you see, there's so
23:53
Speaker 3: many folks. There are state representatives who do that as well.
23:58
Speaker 3: This whole no of decorum and order it has it
24:02
Speaker 3: is the reason we are where we are, and this
24:06
Speaker 3: is the time to be honest for the new wave
24:10
Speaker 3: and the new thought that is coming in the party
24:13
Speaker 3: that and some of which is in the party to
24:16
Speaker 3: challenge the status quo.
24:17
Speaker 4: How do we know it's not too late? Wow, they're
24:20
Speaker 4: already talking about doing a third term. I know, once
24:23
Speaker 4: we get to that part of the conversation and it
24:25
Speaker 4: is normalized, maybe too late.
24:28
Speaker 3: So if it's but if it's if we have that
24:29
Speaker 3: mentality that's too late, then people are going to be
24:31
Speaker 3: sitting there not doing anything at all.
24:33
Speaker 5: Is it too right, it's too late, or is it
24:35
Speaker 5: just not loud enough because all the people you named
24:37
Speaker 5: is like you can point to those people, but like
24:39
Speaker 5: there is like that's a handful of people.
24:41
Speaker 3: It is a handful of people, but they're also so
24:43
Speaker 3: I mean, here's the thing. You all are media. You know,
24:45
Speaker 3: I'm on cable news. I will be on a show
24:48
Speaker 3: and for an hour, all we're doing is talking about
24:50
Speaker 3: Donald Trump. And I'm like, there's over four hundred members
24:52
Speaker 3: in the House of Representatives, there's one hundred senators, there's
24:55
Speaker 3: fifty governors. There's so many other people that we can
24:58
Speaker 3: talk about, which is.
24:58
Speaker 1: They don't bring them numbers.
25:00
Speaker 3: They don't bring those numbers, and they don't bring those ratings.
25:03
Speaker 3: And that is the self accountability on us to be
25:06
Speaker 3: paying attention to a lot of those people. The other
25:08
Speaker 3: thing that I'm so much more focused on, and some
25:12
Speaker 3: of my journalists friends and I get into this disagreement.
25:15
Speaker 3: I don't really talk to people who voted for Donald Trump,
25:17
Speaker 3: like that's not I don't need to talk to them,
25:20
Speaker 3: because if we look at the last election, ninety million
25:23
Speaker 3: eligible voters did not vote. That's a whole lot of
25:26
Speaker 3: people that we can reach to understand that they actually
25:29
Speaker 3: have power to change the system. In the book, I
25:32
Speaker 3: talk about the labor movement and how unions are incredibly
25:36
Speaker 3: empower incredibly powerful. That is a way that we can
25:39
Speaker 3: overthrow these companies that are run by these billionaires who
25:42
Speaker 3: are out of touch the people power. And that's the
25:45
Speaker 3: thing that I'm focused on right now. It's the people power.
25:47
Speaker 3: And we've conceded our power to these people that we've
25:50
Speaker 3: elected and not realizing that I pay taxes, so that
25:53
Speaker 3: means I pay your salary and you work for me.
25:56
Speaker 3: If people power wasn't so imperative, why did all these
25:59
Speaker 3: elective officials shut down those town halls because they didn't
26:02
Speaker 3: want to hear from their constituents, Because those loud voices
26:05
Speaker 3: are disruptive and so look, the Democrats got a lot
26:08
Speaker 3: to reckon with. It's the reason why I work for
26:12
Speaker 3: myself so I can actually challenge them from the outside.
26:15
Speaker 1: Because I think it is.
26:20
Speaker 3: It is extremely It's not just that it's too late,
26:23
Speaker 3: but it is harmful to communities who are dying because
26:27
Speaker 3: of what is happening. It's harmful to communities who have
26:30
Speaker 3: been fighting against these systems. And yet at the same time,
26:35
Speaker 3: they are the ones that folks constantly look to to
26:38
Speaker 3: create the solutions. And so until the Democratic Party, just
26:43
Speaker 3: as much as we understand that you know, Republicans subscribe
26:47
Speaker 3: to white supremacy, in the Democratic Party, there are folks
26:50
Speaker 3: that need to understand that their positions are privileged, that
26:52
Speaker 3: they need to get up out of their seats. A
26:55
Speaker 3: real leader understands when they are in the way of progress.
26:59
Speaker 3: And I think until we really reckon with that, we're
27:02
Speaker 3: going to continue to see this fighting and we will
27:04
Speaker 3: continue to lose in ways that quite frankly, are killing
27:07
Speaker 3: so many of our communities.
27:08
Speaker 4: And I think you should talk to people who voted
27:10
Speaker 4: for Trump. And the reason I think you should is
27:12
Speaker 4: because then you'll understand the why and I think that's
27:16
Speaker 4: where Democrats just simply fail. Yes, they didn't know, they
27:19
Speaker 4: couldn't understand the why.
27:20
Speaker 1: It's like, oh you, how could you vote?
27:22
Speaker 4: Did you actually have a conversation with them to see
27:24
Speaker 4: how because a lot of it does just have to
27:26
Speaker 4: do with a lot of policies.
27:28
Speaker 1: That that's true.
27:29
Speaker 3: And let me let me clarify that there's a there
27:32
Speaker 3: are a lot of people with privilege and understanding exactly
27:37
Speaker 3: why they voted for Donald Trump, which is centered around
27:39
Speaker 3: race that I do not like to engage with. But
27:42
Speaker 3: to your point, but I think about where I grew up.
27:44
Speaker 3: If I think about people who I may not talk
27:47
Speaker 3: to anymore, but high school, college, whatever it may be, be,
27:50
Speaker 3: they probably did vote for Donald Trump for whatever reason
27:52
Speaker 3: it may be. And so what is the conversation? Is
27:54
Speaker 3: that the economy? But then continue to ask all those questions,
27:57
Speaker 3: is it because you believe this trope that other people
28:00
Speaker 3: or taking your jobs? But the reality is it's these
28:02
Speaker 3: billionaires not paying you a fair wage?
28:05
Speaker 1: Like what is it?
28:06
Speaker 3: I think it is important, but my frustration is what
28:11
Speaker 3: happens every cycle of Well, we need to moderate democratcsy
28:14
Speaker 3: to moderate our positions and playcate to these phantom swing
28:17
Speaker 3: voters that are going to vote for a black woman
28:20
Speaker 3: when that's actually again back to my ninety million. We're
28:22
Speaker 3: over here trying to get these few hundred thousand, but
28:25
Speaker 3: there's all of these people left untouched right the table
28:32
Speaker 3: over my book over So yes, yes, and thank you
28:35
Speaker 3: for clarifying that so I could expound upon that, because
28:37
Speaker 3: I don't want to go viral, and it'side, she don't
28:38
Speaker 3: talk to the people, and she don't know.
28:42
Speaker 5: What about your because I know you did a lot
28:44
Speaker 5: of work with playing parenthood and now a lot of
28:46
Speaker 5: what you were doing is they ain't supporting that. So
28:50
Speaker 5: when you do all this work, you stop taking the
28:52
Speaker 5: rest to fight to make it, to break this ground,
28:55
Speaker 5: and then you see this new administration come in who's
28:57
Speaker 5: completely against it, and it's stripping all of that. You
29:00
Speaker 5: feel defeated or like what happens now because you're not
29:03
Speaker 5: there anymore?
29:03
Speaker 3: No, I mean, and then they have the audacity to
29:06
Speaker 3: talk about they want to put policies in place for
29:09
Speaker 3: people to have more babies and give people five thousand dollars.
29:13
Speaker 3: I'm like, but y'all voted against the child tax credit,
29:15
Speaker 3: So what's interesting about working at Planned Parenthood. I worked
29:17
Speaker 3: there for six years at the National Office, and talk
29:19
Speaker 3: about disruptive. Being the daughter of a pastor, a lover
29:22
Speaker 3: of Jesus and advocating for abortion rights. People are like,
29:25
Speaker 3: how do you reconcile that. I was like, I just exist, literally,
29:28
Speaker 3: I just exist, And the teachings of Jesus, the Red
29:31
Speaker 3: Text in the Bible, tells me a lot of ways
29:33
Speaker 3: in which I should show up in the world. When
29:35
Speaker 3: I look at when I was working at Plan Parenthood,
29:37
Speaker 3: President Obama was still in office, and I was like, oh,
29:40
Speaker 3: we're good.
29:41
Speaker 1: You know, he believes and reproductive freedom. This is great.
29:43
Speaker 1: And they're like, oh no, let's look at.
29:45
Speaker 3: These state policies and these states that are overturning the
29:48
Speaker 3: right to access to abortion, and not only access to abortion,
29:53
Speaker 3: but sex education, contraception, all of these things, and just
29:57
Speaker 3: gutting health care systems and health centers that are helping
30:01
Speaker 3: people who have nowhere else to go. When I look
30:04
Speaker 3: at what's happening now at the federal level, and you know,
30:09
Speaker 3: the Trump administration is literally going after organizations like Planned Parenthood,
30:14
Speaker 3: it reminds me that these people do not care about
30:18
Speaker 3: people at the margins. They do not care about low
30:19
Speaker 3: income folks who have nowhere else to go. And if
30:21
Speaker 3: you actually wanted people to have more children in this country,
30:25
Speaker 3: you would you would actually support and bolster the healthcare
30:28
Speaker 3: system instead of gutting it. Last week was Black Maternal
30:32
Speaker 3: Health Week, and Black maternal mortality is on the rise.
30:36
Speaker 3: Maternal mortality across the country, across the demographics is on
30:39
Speaker 3: the rise. And the wealthiest nation and so it's challenging,
30:43
Speaker 3: it's frustrating. There's this Alice Walker quote I put at
30:46
Speaker 3: the beginning of the book, and I'm paraphrasing it. You
30:48
Speaker 3: have to keep a healthy soul on the face of
30:50
Speaker 3: constant oppression, which reminds you that at the end of
30:54
Speaker 3: the day, there's going to continuously be something that you're
30:56
Speaker 3: fighting for. So how do you maintain your spirit in
30:59
Speaker 3: order to keep going? And that is through the joy
31:01
Speaker 3: and the rest, and all of those things can coexist
31:04
Speaker 3: together while you're also still fighting for the ability to
31:08
Speaker 3: have agency over my body. The one thing I will
31:10
Speaker 3: say of everything being burned down, from abortion, access to
31:15
Speaker 3: everything that's happening in our country, it gives us the
31:17
Speaker 3: opportunity to build something better and something new. I don't
31:20
Speaker 3: want to rebuild the old because the old was clearly
31:23
Speaker 3: it was able to be dismantled. I actually now want
31:26
Speaker 3: to be able to imagine something even better that's actually
31:29
Speaker 3: going to work, and how do we build that?
31:33
Speaker 1: And that's actually what gets me up at night.
31:35
Speaker 3: I'm like, I'm not fighting these people to rebuild what
31:38
Speaker 3: didn't work. I have this vision that excites me to
31:42
Speaker 3: build something even better, even on the days that are hard.
31:45
Speaker 1: I agree with that.
31:46
Speaker 4: But then when I hear you saying that, you know
31:48
Speaker 4: you Barack Obama was in the White House and you
31:50
Speaker 4: big on playing parenthood. He had the opportunity to call
31:53
Speaker 4: he did. He had the White House to send it
31:57
Speaker 4: the House of Representatives for two years.
31:58
Speaker 1: He could have passed it in the federal any campaign
32:01
Speaker 1: that he would.
32:02
Speaker 4: So it's just like, it's like I see stuff like that,
32:05
Speaker 4: and I'm like, why do we believe these people?
32:06
Speaker 1: Again?
32:07
Speaker 3: Well, so I hear that, which is also why I
32:11
Speaker 3: think the work to shift culture is so imperative. If
32:14
Speaker 3: we think about President Biden, he actually is very i
32:20
Speaker 3: would say moderate in his position around reproductive freedom, and
32:24
Speaker 3: yet he had to champion issues that quite frankly if
32:27
Speaker 3: culturally in society and as us as a collective, we're
32:31
Speaker 3: not pushing and challenging people to actually do something about
32:34
Speaker 3: these he wouldn't have, right, And so that's where culture
32:36
Speaker 3: work is so important. That's where shifting you know, how
32:39
Speaker 3: we think, as how we understand things as a society
32:42
Speaker 3: is so important. But it's also how we show up
32:45
Speaker 3: and tell people if you're not going to hold true
32:47
Speaker 3: to your campaign promise, we are not going to support
32:51
Speaker 3: you again. And so I love President Obama. Listen, if
32:55
Speaker 3: Donald Trump runs for a third time, Obama's run for
32:57
Speaker 3: a third time.
32:58
Speaker 4: But you know, you know that if Trump runs for
33:01
Speaker 4: a third term, it'll be just like in Russia, it's
33:03
Speaker 4: all for show. He will win.
33:05
Speaker 3: Sure, right, I'm saying this and that Listen, I love
33:09
Speaker 3: President Obama, and yet I have critique, and that is
33:11
Speaker 3: one of my critiques, right, And when we had the
33:14
Speaker 3: super majority and could have codified a lot of these issues,
33:17
Speaker 3: we should have done it. But that doesn't make me
33:21
Speaker 3: not participate, right, And that doesn't make me sit out
33:24
Speaker 3: and say I'm never going to work for a presidential
33:26
Speaker 3: candidate ever again, even if I disagree with them, because
33:28
Speaker 3: there's a lot of I don't agree with one hundred
33:31
Speaker 3: percent of the things that any of the people that
33:32
Speaker 3: I work with are, but there's some fundamental things that
33:34
Speaker 3: for me that are non negotiable. And if I'm not
33:38
Speaker 3: at the table, if our friend Stephanie's at the table,
33:40
Speaker 3: if you've had Ashley Allison here, if we're not at
33:42
Speaker 3: the table, we can't push these these candidates further along
33:47
Speaker 3: and these elected officials further along.
33:50
Speaker 4: I guess it's just heartbreaking for me because it's like,
33:52
Speaker 4: you know, yes, when they overturn Roe v Wade, it
33:54
Speaker 4: was like Dan, they overturn Rovy Wade. But then when
33:55
Speaker 4: you see people like President Obama speak out against that,
33:58
Speaker 4: I'm like, but you have the ability, the godifire rob Way,
34:03
Speaker 4: you could have made an actual federal legislation.
34:05
Speaker 1: Yeah.
34:05
Speaker 3: I mean, the hard part about the abortion conversation is
34:10
Speaker 3: how the right has actually used religion, has made it
34:14
Speaker 3: a religious argument, when like that's actually not in the text.
34:18
Speaker 3: And the reality is the right and conservatives we're losing
34:22
Speaker 3: on they lost on segregation, and so they said, oh
34:25
Speaker 3: we need some Well, we can't continue this race thing.
34:28
Speaker 3: Now we're gonna have to go over here to this
34:30
Speaker 3: woman thing, and let's actually make abortion a political lightning
34:33
Speaker 3: rod And so when people fundamentally understand that they can
34:37
Speaker 3: take away their personal beliefs and actually realize, oh, people's
34:41
Speaker 3: right to make decisions for their bodies is their own
34:44
Speaker 3: and that has nothing to do with me. If a
34:46
Speaker 3: lot of people stay out each other's business, I think
34:47
Speaker 3: our politics will be a lot better. Absolutely, And it's
34:50
Speaker 3: too simple even I'm going back to the urgency.
34:53
Speaker 4: And now when people ask us now, like they'll tell
34:56
Speaker 4: us all of these different things that Trump is doing
34:57
Speaker 4: every single.
34:58
Speaker 1: Day, and they're like, yo, what ire, what do you
35:00
Speaker 1: think of that?
35:01
Speaker 4: And I'm like, I don't know what to think because
35:03
Speaker 4: I'm like, what am I even supposed to do? Because
35:05
Speaker 4: it always seems like the urgency is put on we
35:08
Speaker 4: the people, right, But then when these elected officials that
35:10
Speaker 4: we voted for from twenty twenty to twenty twenty four,
35:12
Speaker 4: when they were in the White House, they didn't govern
35:14
Speaker 4: with a sense of urgency. That's what always gets me
35:17
Speaker 4: about Democrats. Whenever it's election time, it's a sense of urgency.
35:20
Speaker 4: It's on y'all. It's just threat to democracy, and you
35:22
Speaker 4: know you're gonna lose all your rights and everything else,
35:25
Speaker 4: but you don't govern like that when you get in
35:26
Speaker 4: an office.
35:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, it is frustrating.
35:29
Speaker 3: I will say, I don't pay attention to what that
35:34
Speaker 3: man is doing all day every day, because then I'll
35:36
Speaker 3: just sit in this place where I'm immobile, right, But
35:39
Speaker 3: I do look for small pockets of hope, and to
35:43
Speaker 3: your point, it does end up being us that have
35:46
Speaker 3: to save our own communities. But like, I think that's
35:49
Speaker 3: in general nature of who we are as a people,
35:51
Speaker 3: and that is community.
35:52
Speaker 1: I mean, look at you.
35:53
Speaker 3: Know, our friends who started staying the people which I
35:56
Speaker 3: was a part of, you all broadcasted and now it's going.
35:58
Speaker 3: Now there's a whole tour shout out to Angela Raie
36:01
Speaker 3: and Joy Read and so many folks who are just
36:04
Speaker 3: building something beautiful, reminding us of our power as community.
36:09
Speaker 3: And I think out of that birth's people who will
36:15
Speaker 3: govern with urgency of now. So I write about Aana
36:18
Speaker 3: Presley in the book, but I also write about Shirley Chisholm,
36:20
Speaker 3: who was just fed up and was like, oh, I'm
36:23
Speaker 3: going to actually be the one that changes, you know.
36:27
Speaker 3: David Hogg, who was the vice chair of the DNC
36:30
Speaker 3: but was a survivor of Parkland shooting, it's done all
36:35
Speaker 3: of this activism and now he's challenging.
36:38
Speaker 1: He's getting a lot of heat. He's getting a lot
36:41
Speaker 1: of heat.
36:42
Speaker 4: I have said that. I said that two months ago.
36:44
Speaker 4: Anybody who's not willing to fight in the Democratic Party
36:48
Speaker 4: should be primary, came Jeffery's Chuck Schuma, y'all should resign
36:52
Speaker 4: if y'all not the people that.
36:53
Speaker 1: Can meet this moment.
36:54
Speaker 4: I really feel that way, and anybody else in the
36:56
Speaker 4: Democratic Party who's not willing to fight should be primary.
36:59
Speaker 4: I'm all full with David Hall.
37:00
Speaker 3: I said that months ago, and listen, you know there
37:03
Speaker 3: are some people who disagree with that, but he said,
37:06
Speaker 3: looks and change has. We can't just keep talking about change.
37:09
Speaker 3: You gotta actually go after it. And whether or not
37:10
Speaker 3: you believe and what he's doing, whether or not you
37:14
Speaker 3: believe that there needs to be new leadership, whatever it
37:16
Speaker 3: is like, changes don't just happen if we sit around
37:19
Speaker 3: and wish for it.
37:20
Speaker 1: We actually have to do something about it.
37:21
Speaker 3: And sometimes in order to get these folks to operate
37:24
Speaker 3: with some urgency, you gotta put some pressure and some
37:26
Speaker 3: heat under them.
37:28
Speaker 4: That's why everybody in the party should have had a
37:30
Speaker 4: copy of this book flip flip the table a lot.
37:33
Speaker 5: I don't know if they're going to do it though.
37:36
Speaker 1: They have no choice now, they never, We never don't
37:38
Speaker 1: have When do we ever have a choice.
37:40
Speaker 4: No, there's really no choice now.
37:42
Speaker 5: I feel like it's always the fight or fight, like,
37:45
Speaker 5: do what you gotta do to get out of situation?
37:47
Speaker 3: Right? Different?
37:49
Speaker 1: But I feel like it is different.
37:51
Speaker 5: But I don't feel like anything has changed about the
37:52
Speaker 5: way that people are handling it. I don't really feel
37:55
Speaker 5: the sense of urgency. There was an interview that you
37:58
Speaker 5: talked about DEDI. You're like, these companies are folding. It
38:00
Speaker 5: was a Glamour magazine and you said, these companies are foting.
38:03
Speaker 5: They don't understand that the proximity to the president isn't power.
38:06
Speaker 5: Power is showing him that he needs you. People are
38:08
Speaker 5: not going to do that. Everything that we're talking about.
38:10
Speaker 5: People just don't do it, you know.
38:12
Speaker 3: But I think what I hear you and I do
38:15
Speaker 3: have to remind us all that this man has only
38:18
Speaker 3: he hasn't even been in office.
38:19
Speaker 1: A hundred days. But because we are in such an information.
38:22
Speaker 3: Overload forever, it does like you open Instagram and I'm
38:25
Speaker 3: saying restaurants, I want to go to and then I'm
38:28
Speaker 3: seeing what this man is doing in the White House, right,
38:30
Speaker 3: so like we're in this information overload and yeah, and
38:33
Speaker 3: at the same time, I think about at the State
38:35
Speaker 3: of the Union, shout out to Congressman Green and y'all
38:38
Speaker 3: had him up here, and I was like, oh my gosh,
38:41
Speaker 3: every single Democrat should have gotten up right after him
38:45
Speaker 3: and disrupted the entire speech. Right And then when you
38:49
Speaker 3: know Senator Booker did his filibuster, people were saying, yes,
38:54
Speaker 3: this is what we need more of. But now you're
38:56
Speaker 3: seeing more people in the streets, and I think people
38:58
Speaker 3: are are some of our elected officials are understanding that
39:02
Speaker 3: there's more that they can do now, and then there
39:05
Speaker 3: are still going to be some who don't. And we
39:07
Speaker 3: have midterm elections and special elections, and I am all
39:10
Speaker 3: about getting people in office who are going to be
39:14
Speaker 3: effective and also us participating in that. If you, whether
39:19
Speaker 3: you agree with them or disagree with them, if they
39:21
Speaker 3: represent you, you have the power and the right to
39:24
Speaker 3: show up and tell them what is working and what
39:26
Speaker 3: isn't working. And I want more of us to do.
39:28
Speaker 3: I want our elected officials to be scared. I want
39:30
Speaker 3: our elect officials to be like my constituents aren't going
39:33
Speaker 3: for this, or my constituents told me I have to
39:35
Speaker 3: do this, and that's why I'm doing.
39:36
Speaker 1: It absolutely well.
39:39
Speaker 4: Flip the Tables is out right now and Sea Johnson
39:42
Speaker 4: the everyday Disruptor's guide to finding courage and making change.
39:45
Speaker 4: And this isn't a book, you know, just with.
39:47
Speaker 1: People who are in the politics now, just in life.
39:49
Speaker 4: If you want to learn how to codamn tables like.
39:52
Speaker 3: Jesus did, Yes, more of that, Like, can you imagine
39:56
Speaker 3: like Jesus flipping over tables?
39:58
Speaker 1: I was angry. Yes, I think you should. I think
40:00
Speaker 1: you should find a table to flip. Listen. Okay, that's
40:03
Speaker 1: a whole other conversation for us to have.
40:04
Speaker 2: That's just why Lindia Johnson is the breakfast club. Good morning,
40:13
Speaker 2: wake that ass up in the morning.
40:16
Speaker 1: The breakfast Club