Alycia Pascual-Peña: Hi, guys. Hola, welcome back. Thank you for listening to us again. We’re not fired yet. Surprisingly, though. Hi, I’m Alycia. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: I’m Yasmine Hamady. 

 

Josie Totah: And I’m Josie Totah. 

 

[spoken together] And this is Dare We Say. 

 

Josie Totah: Oh, this is. Dare we say? 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Yes. Great job. 

 

Josie Totah: I have like a six second delay mentally. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Oh. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: No, spiritually, I have a six second delay. [awkward silence] Okay. A swing and a mess. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Got it. How is everyone? [laughter] How are we on this fine morning? 

 

Yasmine Hamady: That was really. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: That was really great, guys. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Um, did anyone see Nicki Minaj’s um. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Yes. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: VMA performance? 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Yes, yes. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: It’s the way she said, barbs, but. And I said, Me? 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: She really came out to play [?]. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Your Honor. That one’s me. She is so incredible. She was singing Bees in the Trap. Starship’s. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: She got the Vanguard Award. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: She she did get the Vanguard Award. Did you see Taylor Swift with all of her crystals, like, this is my song right here, and I’m a swifty. There’s one thing about me is I’m a swifty, I have dyslexia, and I do have a fat ass. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Yay. 

 

Josie Totah: It was one of the best. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: [loud tongue rolling sound] Wait first. Nicki. Yes, we love to see a Black woman win, even though she can be problematic. Bad bunny? 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Oh, bad, bad fucking bunny. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: [speaking excitedly in Spanish] 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Yeah, exactly. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: [speaking in Spanish] 

 

Yasmine Hamady: That’s what she said. 

 

Josie Totah: What’d you just say? 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Exactly what she said. He kissed– 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: He kissed a guy and a girl. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: –both a guy and girl backup dancer. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: It was really cute. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: And honestly, I’m sorry I think that was a big fuck you to everyone who’s saying you’re queer beating you’re queer baiting when he’s like honestly, I don’t owe you shit but look at me doing this I actually I really do believe that. 

 

Josie Totah: I need to see that. But I love bad bunny. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Bad bunny and also Little Nas X– 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: I love you Bad Bunny. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: –during little uh and Nicki Minaj’s performance, he was sitting down crying the entire time like this is it was so it gave me I have goose bumps talking about it. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Oh, last night was a moment and like shout out to Bad Bunny cause– 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Except for Yung Gravy and Sheri Nicole, what the fuck was that? 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Okay, I’m going to be honest, I didn’t know who that was prior to last night. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Addison Rae’s mom and like Yung Gravy, who are dirty dancing, I’m like bro. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: That’s who sings that? 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Damn the your so va–. I’m like. [banter]

 

Josie Totah: Wait he’s dating Addison Rae’s mom? 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Yes. And he took her to the VMA awards. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: You didn’t see all the videos? And they are like kissing in the back. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Josie, Josie you’re going to die. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: I was like, what’s going on? 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Josie you’re gonna die.

 

Josie Totah: Yasmine, you’re crazy. I had no idea. That’s fucking wild. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Not your crazy.

 

Yasmine Hamady: No, Josie, I’m going to send you the TikToks. It’s literally. It was insane how he was like, this is Sheri Nicole. And she’s like, hi, I’m from Louisiana. Poor Addison Rae. I’m sorry. In [?] [banter]. 

 

Josie Totah: She spoke? She was speaking like, what do you mean? There’s videos?

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Yeah! 

 

Yasmine Hamady: There’s, like words came out of her little mouth. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: They were on the red carpet together. Or the pink carpet because it’s MTV. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: And she she’s like. She’s like, yeah, it’s fun. Gravy. Yung gravy. What the fuck is that? [banter]

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: And she was wearing a dress– 

 

Josie Totah: Addison Rae’s mom like she seems like she was made out of a test tube like she does not seem like a real– 

 

Yasmine Hamady: The blue eyes. The blue eyes.

 

Josie Totah: She does not seem like a real human. Someone needs to, like. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: She’s not. 

 

Josie Totah: Take her and bring her back to the suburb– 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: No. 

 

Josie Totah: She came from. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: No. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: I don’t think it was the suburb but. 

 

Josie Totah: Also Addison Rae seems really cool. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: She does. I’m sorry. And also, can I just say I feel really bad Addison because like–

 

Josie Totah: And I feel bad for her.

 

Yasmine Hamady: I feel bad for her because her dad is like a fucking predator, like– 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: What? 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Hitting on younger women at clubs. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Oh I don’t know any of– 

 

Yasmine Hamady: And also like he’s like– 

 

Josie Totah: Allegedly allegedly. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Well the videos. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Yes [?] Thank you. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Yeah she said allegedly but Josie. Monty Lopez. Er I said, Josie, because I don’t feel like you follow the whole thing. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: I don’t know who any of these people are. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: He posted a story that said, I’m glad Yung Gravy took the leftovers. [pause] To the VMAs. 

 

Josie Totah: Was that her dad? 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Oh, my God. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Yeah, that’s Addison’s dad said that. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: That’s awf–

 

Yasmine Hamady: And posted it on his story. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: That’s her dad? I feel so bad. That’s awful. [banter]

 

Josie Totah: Can these people grow the fuck up. I’m sorry. You’re over 40. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Fame hungry. 

 

Josie Totah: If you are over 40, not to be ageist, but like you should be a better parent than that. Like that is–

 

Yasmine Hamady: Also you have two younger kids. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: That makes me really sad. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: And he’s like, I need to foc– and he has like a shirtless photo. I’m like, I saw Monty Lopez at Equinox once and he had his sunglasses on the whole time and he was wearing checkered pants. And I said, Dude, you’ve not done any physical activity at all. 

 

Josie Totah: I don’t understand parents like that. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: You’re just on your phone. 

 

Josie Totah: That’s disgusting. He probably went there to pick on girls. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Oh, Gosh. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: 100%. 100%. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Here’s my thing though. I love the fact that a woman over 40 was, like, feeling her sensuality. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: 100% you should always be– 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: I just think that is so dope. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: I agree. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: She wore a dress que like– 

 

Yasmine Hamady: It was sexy. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Like. Like no tenia panti on that dress. Okay, honey, because– [banter] 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Yeah, You can’t wear anything. It, Josie it was giving you at Alycia’s. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Yes. 

 

Josie Totah: That’s disgusting.

 

Yasmine Hamady: It’s giving you. 

 

Josie Totah: That’s disgusting. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: What the fuck you looked gorgeous. [banter]

 

Josie Totah: Because it was already wrong for me to wear it. But then for her? 

 

Yasmine Hamady: What do you mean? 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: It was not wrong.

 

Yasmine Hamady: It was offensive and– 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: You looked amazing. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: It was against the law for you to wear that. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: What I do have an issue with is the fact that, like their drama is being put out in the public like. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: And their kids are being affected by it. And I’m like. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Because they’re facing the implications of you guys dealing with this in a public way. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: And, I think this goes to a bigger [?] [banter]

 

Josie Totah: [?] digust me. These parents disgust me. The people who profit off their children and literally their children are probably paying their bills and are the reason they even had an ounce of purpose outside of just being an evil white person. And now you’re doing this behind your kid’s back like you’re fucking embarrassing. I’m sorry. That is not okay. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: No, I agree. That’s really embarrassing. Also, Yung Gravy. You’re like, I like older women, blah, blah, blah. That’s not a personality trait babe. 

 

Josie Totah: Well he he has no prob– I have no problem with him. He is, has a Milf with him. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: I don’t know who–

 

Josie Totah: Or whatever. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: most of these people are, I’m just like– 

 

Yasmine Hamady: I don’t know. I just. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: I’m just like, protect your family. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: It’s not a personality trait. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: And. 

 

Josie Totah: It’s not. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Don’t have all your business. [laughter]. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Um so Alycia and I just went to Podcast Movement in Dallas, Texas. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Yeah. 

 

Josie Totah: Oh, my gosh. How was that? I mean, I know how it was because you said it was good, but I want to know because you haven’t told me in depth. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: We missed you so much. It was so weird without you. But I just want to paint a picture of us being in fucking Dallas, Texas. Is when I get to the hotel room, I turn on the TV and the first thing to come up was Fox News, Hannity. And they’re, like, crime in communities. Whoa, whoa. [puke sound] And I was like, Yeah, yeah, we’re not in California anymore. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: No, on the plane. No joke. In my row alone, there were three people watching Fox News and I was like, Alright. 

 

Josie Totah: That is horrifying. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: You guys need this to breathe, to survive. And like, it made me sad because I was kiki-ing with, like, the man next to me at the beginning of the flight. This like very lovely Asian man. And then he watched Fox News for 3 hours straight. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Can I just say, Josie, if you were with me. There. We. So. Ben Shapiro and Candace Owens– 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Yeah her. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: –had a booth there. And so. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Ben Shapiro was at the actual. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: He was at the actual event. And I was like, I need to go walk up to this booth. I need to make a statement. And Alycia and our head of marketing was like, Yasmine, we adore you. Don’t. And I was like, if Josie was here. 

 

Josie Totah: I love hearing that the head of marketing, had to stop you, like you were actually going to do it. This was like a proposal. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Well I wasn’t. [banter]

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: I was like why do you want to interact with him? 

 

Josie Totah: Did they think you were going to assault him? 

 

Yasmine Hamady: No. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: [indistinct] 

 

Yasmine Hamady: I would never do that. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Anyways. 

 

Josie Totah: As she says suspiciously. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: But, No, but it’s the fact that I know you and I would go, I didn’t even say anything. I just wanted to walk there. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: I do understand the wonder– 

 

Yasmine Hamady: And just kind of. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: of wanting to see like the other side and how they’re operating like up close. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Well, I feel like that if you like. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: That I could get. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: I think this is the whole point of like also why we do this podcast is to not live in an echo chamber where like you’re listening to the same ideas and same opinions over and over again. Not saying that– 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: But that’s not sitting at a table with someone who has opposite views. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: 100%. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: That is going into like– 

 

Yasmine Hamady: A place where they’re going to– 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: –the mouth of the beast. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: The mouth of the beast. Ben Shapiro’s mouth is like– [banter] 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Like what is it going to do for you to be in front of Ben Shapiro? Like what, what is that going to do? 

 

Yasmine Hamady: He’s also like, also, can I say, like we said this last time in pretty privilege, how, like, the uglier your heart is, the uglier you are physically. And everyone in that booth was physically hard to look at. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: So other than other than that, Texas was really fun. I think we were surprised by how– 

 

Josie Totah: I know I was going to ask, how would you guys rate Texas on a scale of like um like uh like a like Silver Lake to Sarah Huckabee Sanders, like of your time there. In that range like how would you rate your time there? And also, would you go back? 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Mmm. I’d go back to Austin. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: [laugh] When we fully were not in Austin. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: When we weren’t in Austin. I would still go back to Austin. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: I would, I would go back to Dallas, yeah, I had a good time and also like– 

 

Yasmine Hamady: We had a good time. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: All of the people at the convention were lovely. I lived my little–

 

Josie Totah: And you guys looked so hot, the way that Alycia was sitting in that chair with her legs to the side. In the way that your pinky toe Yasmine. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: No, no, no, no, no. 

 

Josie Totah: Stuck out of your heel. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Can someone please insert a photo. 

 

Josie Totah: It is horrifying. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Of my pinky toe. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Her toe sat during this entire professional panel, just like off of the heel. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: I have flat feet. What am I supposed to do? 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: You still looked cute though. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: They’re going to rate my feet on like wiki feet now and they’re going to give me like a four. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: I have a low rating on wiki feet and that is actually fucked up. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Can everyone rate my feet? [banter]

 

Josie Totah: [indistinct] a high rating. Let me look at mine. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: I won’t, Josie. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: I literally get pictures all the time. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Well how would you rate my feet?

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: It’s always a white and French toe. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: How would you rate my feet? Honest to God. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: I’m not rating your feet. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Why? 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: This is not Facebook in twenty 09. I’m not rating. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Twenty 09? 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Oh, are you coming for my English? 

 

Yasmine Hamady: [grunting sounds]

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Are you coming for my English. That’s crazy. That’s crazy. Xenophobe.

 

Josie Totah: You guys, I have a four out of five. Fuck. Why don’t I have a five out of five? 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Wait, can you check mine? Because last time I checked it was low and I was like, what the hell. Also [?]. They were like have you checked out your wiki feet? I was like–

 

Josie Totah: Babe. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: –no serial killer. 

 

Josie Totah: We have the same. We’re both four out of five.

 

Yasmine Hamady: [gasp] Can I just say, like we’re talking to um guests after, and Alycia is having great conversations and I had a good one and then a man comes up to me, Josie. He starts sobbing. 

 

Josie Totah: What? What do you mean? 

 

Yasmine Hamady: He starts sobbing to me. A grown man. He starts crying to me and I’m like, what the fu–. Okay, all right, we’re here. And he’s like, I have a podcast too. And I was like, Here we go. And he’s like, what uh my podcast, not going to say the name of the podcast, but it’s basically um he was he wanted to be added to the seat of the table and maybe wanted to be in spaces where um. He wasn’t really– 

 

Josie Totah: Wait. You’re not explaining this at all well. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: He was, he was a white man. Wanting. He said after George Floyd died, uh I wanted to be a part of the movement. And I didn’t feel um welcomed and– 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Or accepted. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Or accepted in. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Were his words. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Yeah. And I said. Okay. And he’s like, would love for you and Alycia and Josie to come on my podcast. I was like, okay, this is Jordan. He’s head of marketing. Like, would love for you to chat with him. And then he comes back after. 

 

Josie Totah: That’s horrifiying.

 

Yasmine Hamady: And Alycia looks at me. Alycia grabs my arm and she brings over her mother. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Because my mama was at this with me. Um and I immediately was like, Hi, I’m Alycia. This is my mom, Camelia. And, like, let him know that there were other people in the presence. Um, All that aside, it was. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: It was a really good time. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: It was a little country fantasy. I wore cowboy boots. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: We loved, we loved like serious [?]. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: We talked about the pod. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: And they made us feel so comfortable and welcomed. And, like, we met so many amazing people. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Yeah. And then we also talked about you to, like, unhealthy extent, so that was cool. We missed you. 

 

Josie Totah: Well, I’m so proud of you guys, and I enjoyed you guys being on a closer time zone so that we could communicate um easierly. And ultimately, I’m just glad that you guys represented the show and looked amazing and sounded brilliant. I watched some clips and if there is anything that should be more separated than Yasmine’s pinky toe and her foot, it is church and state. [banter] Okay, should we get into it? 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Let’s get into it. 

 

Josie Totah: Today we are going to be talking about the erosion of church and state and our personal relationship with religion. Also super excited because we’re doing our first edition of Advice to Our Elders, which is a program we are very excited to show you guys. Don’t forget to follow us at @DareWeSay on Instagram and subscribe to our YouTube channel, YouTube.com/DareWeSay. We’ll be right back. [music break]

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Okay, girls. Today, I want to talk about something that’s really been weighing on my heart. You guys know, and I think most people who are familiar with me in any way know that I was raised Christian and I believe in God and I believe in the value of religion and the Lord is the center of my own life. But what’s been really conflicting for me is that for our generation, religion has become a bad word. Right? But very understandably, you know, I am liberal. I’m an abolitionist, but I am Christian and I am proud of my faith. But what I’m not proud of and what I absolutely can’t stand is how our government specifically how the Supreme Court has weaponized religion and specifically Christianity, to push their own conservative backwards agenda. And that’s what I want to talk about today. I want to talk about the blatant government erosion of separation of church and state and the role that religion plays for not just our lives, but our entire generation. So let’s quickly talk about the three major Supreme Court decisions this year that have been made on this topic. First, the court backed a Washington state public high school football coach who was suspended by a local school district for refusing to stop leading Christian prayers with players on the field after games. Two, the court endorsed taxpayer money paying for students to attend religious schools under a main tuition assistance program in rural areas lacking public high schools. And three, the court ruled in favor of a Christian group that sought to fly a flag embellished with a cross at Boston City Hall under a program that aimed at promoting diversity and tolerance among the city’s different communities. So what do you guys make of this? Does it scare you? Does it surprise you? Let’s talk about it. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: I mean, personally, I don’t think religion has a place in our education system. I don’t. I think it’s something that everyone should have the religious freedom to practice no matter what, in your home, with your friends, in your community, in your churches, in your mosques, in your temples. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: You know, I went to school in Dallas, Texas, and I remember us praying by the flag in the morning. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Mmm. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: And I remember us praying in class. After–

 

Josie Totah: Yeah we did that, too. I went to Catholic high school. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: And mind you, I went to public schools. I’ve never gone to a private school. So and I look back and it’s really unfortunate for me because I felt empowered as a young Christian woman. But I obviously didn’t think in this manner as a kid also because most people identified very openly as Christian. But now I look back and I think about, what if I had a classmate that was Jewish? What if I had a classmate that was Muslim? They didn’t get to say at seven or eight or nine years old. I don’t want to pray to your God. I believe in a different God. I believe in a different belief system. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Mm hmm. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: And that really leaves me disheartened because I always felt celebrated and I always felt comfortable in my religion. But now I know peers that may have never even spoken about it didn’t. And that makes me sad. 

 

Josie Totah: Yeah, I think it’s tough. I think there is a it’s a very big conversation about a topic that gets bottled down to like like very molecular ideas. And it’s like a very thin line between like especially like in the first decision that you mentioned about the um football coach, who was suspended by local school district because um he didn’t want to stop like leading Christian prayers with players on the field. Like fine line between separating like religion and then like free speech and him– 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Mm hmm. 

 

Josie Totah: Being able to like, express it himself. Um, but I don’t know personally. You mentioned religion and education. Like growing up. I always took religion classes in my Catholic high school and I actually like enjoyed it because we like learned about religion as a form of history and less as like a part of um like as if we were like being ingrained to doing it, like and it was there was less mass and more of like just learning about different cultures. So it was more like cultural education. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Yeah. 

 

Josie Totah: And I actually really appreciated that because we would once a month we would change religion. I remember Mr. Hermenas my junior year, or maybe it was my senior year religion teacher like we would um like one month we did like Christianity and then Islam um and Judaism and like all these different types of religions. And I found that like to be very helpful. I think my issue is it’s when like you’re, you’re being forced to think a certain way or when– 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Yup. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Yeah. 

 

Josie Totah: Um, Religion is like being used as a vehicle to like take the rights away from other people or to um like shove people into a box. Like that’s when it’s a problem for me because obviously separation of church and state has been a part of our country. It’s the fabric of our of our country and our democracy. And it’s like since the very beginning, it’s been clear that that there needs to be a separation and that those two– 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Yeah, absolutely. 

 

Josie Totah: –Shouldn’t collide. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: My specific experience, kind of similar to what you were saying, Josie. I felt empowered. I enjoyed having religion kind of have a place in my education system, but I know as an adult it shouldn’t because I know that there are people from different walks of life. But it also gets really nuanced and complicated because it’s like, I know, for example, my cheer team prayed in high school. So it’s like if we all felt comfortable and identify with that religion, it could be something that brings us together in camaraderie. But at the same time, as a person who’s proud to love the Lord, I also think one of the most dangerous ideologies in this country is radical Christianity. I think the most domestic terrorism that happens within this country is a result of radical Christianity. 

 

Josie Totah: And I think we’re starting to see that come back. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Yeah. 

 

Josie Totah: Especially with like the far, far, far right and the extremities within that. And just to be clear, we have the receipts, we have Mr. President– 

 

Yasmine Hamady: We have receipts. 

 

Josie Totah: –Thomas Jefferson, little Tommy Jeff Daddy, um who said in an 1802 letter that the establishment um clause should represent a, quote, “wall of separation” end quote between like church and state. So like it’s been since 1802 and I’m very confused by people like Mis-Representative Bill Barr are like deciding to diminish this and are like creating legislation like with, with religion in mind to like persecute people. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Yeah. So I feel like when you have nine people on the Supreme Court, ruling decisions on what the law of the land is, and um most of them are all Christians, I already think that’s a problem in of itself. I mean, the first clause in the literal Bill of Rights says Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion. That’s the first clause of the Bill of frickin Rights. 

 

Josie Totah: Yeah. And that is the fabric of our democracy, is the fact that, like, we’re we were supposed to be this country that says, like we we respect independent belief and that we don’t want to force people to, like, be a part of of an organized um of an organized religion or rule with that in mind. But this took me back. This triggered me into my poly sci class that I– 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Go on. 

 

Josie Totah: –Took uh my last semester of college. And I was researching all these people like Edmund Burke and Haig and Schlesinger and um of course, daddy Marx. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: [?] Marx. 

 

Josie Totah: And um like was realizing that like obviously the reason why our country was created was to like avoid um the way that religion was like being involved in the structure of like um of their government and how people can like weaponize religion and especially how conservatives and like right winged um people, they, they’ve been using religion um to establish like the morality of society, right? 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Yup. 

 

Josie Totah: With like, Roe v Wade and– 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Yeah. 

 

Josie Totah: Um, obviously trying to ban gay marriage or make sure that that wasn’t legalized for so long. And– 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Yeah. 

 

Josie Totah: That speaks to like Edmund Burke’s philosophy, which was like, we uh the higher government, we need to have um, we need to have big government when it comes to like morality because we are the only people that know how these people can have like good lives and like everyone’s ignorant and dumb. So we must like use God’s, God’s will to like lead the people. And so although they’re like using religion to establish morality um of the society or what they think is morality. They’re at the same time limiting the freedom of others um and not using it to support the welfare of people. So it’s like– 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Mm. 

 

Josie Totah: God is important when you know a woman can’t– 

 

Yasmine Hamady: When it makes sense for you. 

 

Josie Totah: –have a choice. Yeah, but God isn’t important when it comes to education or mental health. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Yes. 

 

Josie Totah: And resources for like low income people. And that’s when I find it very interesting. And our one of our favorite words here, we should put it on a goddamn T-shirt um is that it’s hypocrisy. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Yup. 

 

Josie Totah: So even though Jefferson literally, like, alluded to a wall of separation, both him and Madison rightfully would be accused by mixing religion and government um in the past as well. So, like, hypocrisy exists. No surprise. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Yup. 

 

Josie Totah: Madison. He issued proclamations of religious fasting and Thanksgivings and Jefferson signed treaties that sent religious ministers, ministers to the Native Americans. Like since its inception. Like there has always been a blur. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Yeah. And it’s super like, it’s super nuanced and complicated. And mind you, like, as a religious person, I think family members of mine would not be happy that I support this quote. But James Madison says religion and government will both exist in greater purity the less that they are mixed together. And I agree. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Say that again. I think you should say that again. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: I’ll say it again for the people in the back. Religion and government will both exist in greater purity, the less that they are mixed together, together. And as much as I want to have the prerogative to make religion such a large part of my life, I know that it doesn’t allow us to progress as as a country um to have it have it a part of our government. And also it’s like, what religion are we talking about? Like–

 

Yasmine Hamady: Exactly. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: –let’s be honest. We prioritize Christianity, which is wrong. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: 100% Yup. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: And then we demonize other religions like. Why don’t we talk about, I think in most schools, especially me living in Texas for a bunch of years, we were never talking about Allah. Like. 

 

Josie Totah: Because it’s rooted in white supremacy. I mean, everything is. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Exactly. 

 

Josie Totah: Rooted in white supremacy. [banter]

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Everything’s rooted in white supremacy. Thank you Josie. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: But do you know what’s interesting. Yup. Allahu Akbar. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Allahu akbar. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: People are like, why’d you say that? Well, it means God is greater. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Yeah. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: God is greater than God is good. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Yeah. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: You say that in a fucking, excuse my language. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: It’s okay. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: You say that at an airport. You say that in a convenient store. You say that anywhere where predominantly people are white, they’re like, you’re going to bomb the place. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Yeah. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: But you say that in English. 

 

Josie Totah: And it’s not just because you had a really bad burrito from LAX. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: And it’s not really. Exactly. It’s it’s rooted in white supremacy. 

 

Josie Totah: It’s racism. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Josie. 

 

Josie Totah: It is. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Josie thank you so much for bringing that up. Can I just. Can I tell you both a personal story about um you don’t know this, actually, but I went to a Christian um school in second grade. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: I didn’t know that. 

 

Josie Totah: I didn’t know that either. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: I, exactly. Cause I don’t tell people about that. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: I understand why. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Yeah. And it was be– and I’m not a Christian woman. I do believe in a higher power. I do believe in a God. But I’m more spiritual than I am religious. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Mm hmm. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Um and my parents sent me there because it was a good school sys–. We didn’t have great schools in the area, so I had to go to this school. I’m very privileged to have obviously gone– 

 

Josie Totah: There wasn’t good schools in Palo Alto. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: I wasn’t in Palo Alto then. 

 

Josie Totah: Oh, okay sorry. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: I was in Fremont. 

 

Josie Totah: Not me coming for you. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Yeah not you coming for me. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Literally I was like wait actually.

 

Josie Totah: You were like there wasn’t really good enough. So the tuition wasn’t expensive enough. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: In Silicon Valley. There’s no good schools in Silicon Valley, no I’m joking. But basically I went there and they would teach us math. They would teach us reading. They would teach us. We had 2 hours a day for the Bible, for Bible study. We didn’t learn any science. None whatsoever. That’s fine. No, it’s not. And so I started going to bed. I was eight years old and I started saying prayer. My parents were like we don’t pray. Really? Why is she praying before bed. And I would say, forgive me, Lord, I’m a sinner. At eight years old, every night before I went to bed. I’m a sinner. I’m a sinner. Imagine. I’m sorry. I know. It’s like, that’s funny looking back at little Yasmine saying I’m a sinner. But actually how sad is it, how sad it is. A little eight year old whose done nothing wrong. 

 

Josie Totah: Why did you think you were a sinner? 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Because they would say we’re all sinners in this world, we are all sinners, and you should always be repenting for your sins, every day. So my mom and dad went and talked to the priest at the school and were like, why are you telling my little kid that she’s a sinner? And this guy looks at my mom and goes, well, because she is, you’re a sinner. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Terrifying. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Your little son and daughter, who are four years old, are sinners. And my parents, were like, they took me out so fucking fast because it puts this mentality in your head. And I think this is the part I think religion is. This is people are going to come for me for saying this. Religion is one of the most beautiful, one of the most harmonious things on this planet, but is equally one of the most destructive and dangerous things. Because people are extreme and people don’t know. And I think people also dismiss accountability with religion. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Absolutely. I couldn’t agree more. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: What do you think of that? 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: No, I think mind you, I usually don’t have the opportunity to go this in-depth about my religious views. But I think I would be naive to not acknowledge the fact I’m fully a Black woman in America and people had slaves and murdered Black and Indigenous people in the name of the Lord. So like. I think to be a spiritual, a religious person, I do also have to acknowledge our dark past. Um and also that is one of the main reasons that I know Christianity and any religion can be taken way too far and awful atrocities can be done in the name of quote unquote, “a religion”. And that is one of the reasons that it needs to be kept out of the government. Like we have seen people use the name of the Lord, which don’t even get me started because I will bring out scriptures that say that if you really believe in certain religious or spiritual ideals, it talks about equity and supporting people living in their truth and love. And that’s why religion has been an important and empowering factor in my own life. But we’ve already seen it, and it feels like we’re currently watching the digression of our um generation in regards to the government trying to implement religion and specifically Christianity, more into the government. We’ve seen it already. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Yeah. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: We’ve seen uh them go against, um you know, that we’ve seen the Supreme Court support anti LGBTQI+  bills and people trying to push their own conservative– 

 

Yasmine Hamady: –Agenda. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Agenda. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Not even because they believe in God, but because it’s greed and control. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: It’s about, it’s about oppression. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Yes. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: It’s about oppression and it’s about political clout. It’s about a radical group in this country that wants to preserve their own ideas and oppress other people. In the name of that. And I’m sorry, honey. 

 

Josie Totah: Religion is literally a vehicle for oppression sometimes. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Yes. 

 

Josie Totah: And I think– 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: It is. 

 

Josie Totah: It’s important to say that. And also, we’re supposed to be America. We’re supposed to be like, I mean, I remember–  

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: The land of the free lol. 

 

Josie Totah: Just. Yeah, I remember just like reading um the um like scripture in the Bible, like about sodomy and like how um Saudi Arabia like has like persecuted gay people for gay and trans people for so long. And I’m just like. We are supposed to be the people that like, allow people to, like, live their lives and not to enforce like religious ideology on to other people. And like, you know, hearing things like a literal representative in the house of repre– Boebert. Baby bitch Boebert. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Baby bitch Boebert. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Baby bitch Bo– like ugh. 

 

Josie Totah: Saying, saying. I’m tire– this is the quote that she said. She said, I’m tired of this separation of church and state junk. That is what she said. That’s not even like blurring the line. That’s like taking the line. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: You just said it yeah. 

 

Josie Totah: And fucking bom– shitting on it. Using a squatty potty and [laughter] and then throwing it in the trash like this is so it is so, so scary. And I also just want to say very quickly to all the people. That are like. The sentence, like separation, there should be a separation of church and state doesn’t exist verbatim word for word in the Constitution. Well, to all those people, so many accepted constitutional principles did not exist verbatim in the way that like we saw the Constitution then. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Yeah. 

 

Josie Totah: As we– 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Talk your shit Josie. 

 

Josie Totah: As we see life now, like such a separation of powers, judicial review, executive privilege and the or the right to marry. And even like parental rights and. Yeah. I’m sorry. I’m just very sick of people fucking using that as ugh I almost peed. Um so yeah, [laughing] I’m sick of people using that as an excuse, as an excuse– 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: No. 

 

Josie Totah: To like not acknowledge it or to be like we didn’t. That wasn’t in the Constitution. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Like, of, of all the things they got wrong. Like, this is one thing that I’m like. Aren’t you guys so dead set on preserving this fucking fundamental list? Like. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Yeah. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: But then. But then. But then. But then. When it doesn’t serve you, you’re like, nah, I don’t want to hear it. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: To pick and choose when you want to be–

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Church and state, wait, what? They’re one, they’re one. But mind you, like, you guys can’t let go of your guns. Like also–. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Because God said to keep the guns. No they. No. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: The way that I could probably like talk about it for eons. So I won’t even open the door, but I’m like 

 

Josie Totah: No, open the door.

 

Yasmine Hamady: Open the door. 

 

Josie Totah: I mean this is a podcast.

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Are you guys happy with our presence? Like say, as a country, like you guys are so– 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Honey. No. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: You guys are so adamant about preserving this thing that was written when, like, women weren’t people and Black people didn’t have any rights, and, like. Like, it just ugh. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: It boils my blood that so much of like, for example, Roe versus Wade. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Yeah. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: The Supreme Court overruling. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Yeah. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Religion is the number one reason why it was overruled, in my opinion, because it is a life under God, under a religion. [pause] No, it’s not. And you get to pick and choose when you want to be a Christian or when you want to be religious and when you want to belie– be a good person because you already know all these extremists– 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Thank you. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Are like cheating on their partners. You know that they’re– 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Oh, honey. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Eating shellfish. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Honey! 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Because I know the Bible says don’t eat shellfish. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Honey! 

 

Yasmine Hamady: You’re there, have been divorced. They’re fucking the secretary, you know, they’re doing all of these things. Shut up. You know, you’re like, you’re a racist. You know, you’re homophobic. Even though God says love, love thy neighbor, right? [laugh] Shut up. Literally shut up. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Yas is like what um? 

 

Yasmine Hamady: I’m so disgusted. And people are like, that’s a life. But telling a person whether or not you want to carry a fetus, a fucking zygote, it’s not even a thing yet. 

 

Josie Totah: Yas. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: All the way to term, because you have to. Shame on you. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: The way– 

 

Yasmine Hamady: I’m not kidding you. I’m disgusted by you. I’m disgust– like I actually. It makes my fucking blood boil. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: I have to say, like. With the Roe v Wade decision, seeing Christians cheer and cry of joy. Was actually one of the most ashamed I’ve ever been to be a Christian and one of the hills in which I will die on. And man, does it irk Christians um is when you write out the ideals that are, quote unquote, “liberal”. Right? So let’s talk about universal health care, education for all. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Liberal. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Serving, serving the unhoused. Let’s just put it on a piece of paper. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Yeah. Yeah. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: And you put scriptures down. But you didn’t have the fact that these laws are conservative or these laws are liberal scriptures aligned with liberal ideals. Honey, what did quote unquote “Jesus” do when he was on this earth? He spent time with people that were um deemed undesirable. He washed the feet of prostitutes. He provided for those that the people in power were not and I literally quote scripture. Do everything in love, Corinthians 16:14. Isaiah 58:10, if you give some of your own food to those who are hungry and to satisfy the needs of those who are humble. Deuteronomy 10:17, God is mighty and awesome and shows no partiality and doesn’t accept any bribes. It’s a literally a scripture about equity. No masters greater than any servant. ROMANS 2:11 For God does not show favoritism. Matthew 22:38 The first great commandment is to love thy neighbor. None of that talks about you making decisions about other people’s bodies or whom they choose to love. The hypocrisy is disgusting, and honestly, I’m so embarrassed sometimes to be a Christian. Obviously, I’m proud of my religion, but when I see law supported like this, I’m like, y’all aren’t reading the same Bible, honey. You are wanting to oppress people. And you guys are greedy politicians that are trying to preserve ideology and rhetoric that has nothing to do with our religion. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Yes. 

 

Josie Totah: Well, because they’re, they’re weaponizing religion at the end of the day. I mean, I don’t want to bore everyone’s ears by saying white supremacy a thousand times, but it all boils down to that. I mean, if religion was Pam, capitalism is Tommy. [laughter] And what I mean by that is how the government has weaponized religion in efforts to maintain capitalism and maintain the upper class. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Yes, Josie. 

 

Josie Totah: In order for class systems to to exist, they need to continue oppressing people, as we know. And when it comes to something like Roe v Wade. These people are not dumb. They know that. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: They know exactly what they are doing. 

 

Josie Totah: You know, banning abortion is going to directly. This is not a new idea. This is a to everyone knows this. This isn’t profound, but that it is going to directly affect like the lower class because people like us who, you know, have money to live and to provide for ourselves can get an abortion. And the people that can’t, you know, they can’t fly somewhere new. And they’re forced they’re forced to have a child that, like, either has like a disability or some sort of like mutation or like either they have to die while having it or the child does grow up and they can’t take care of it because they don’t have the money to. And then that child becomes its mother’s legacy, which is like maintaining the lower class. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Yeah. 

 

Josie Totah: And that is what their goal is to do is to– 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Yeah. 

 

Josie Totah: Continue to make people, you know, poorer and more oppressed in order to, like, keep. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Get richer. And have more power.

 

Josie Totah: Yeah in order to keep the people richer and the, you know. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Yeah. 

 

Josie Totah: It’s just disgusting. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Exactly. It’s about. Institutional oppression. It’s about bureaucracy. Like, it’s disgusting. Like if people were quote unquote “really pro-life”, you would be doing more to preserve the life when it was right here on this planet. You would care about climate crisis. You would care about the unhoused epidemic, you would care about supporting people. And you don’t, you don’t care about black and brown people. Y’all, y’all are the same people that are saying that you’re pro-life but couldn’t say Black Lives Matter when we were getting murdered in the street. 

 

Josie Totah: Right. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Like, like they’re saying that politicians specifically are just wanting to keep people riled up. Like, you know, this is a quote. They have interest in keeping the same base riled up about one thing or another. And when one issue fades, as with same sex relationships and same sex marriage, they’ve got to find something else, Balmer said. It’s almost frantic in regards to coming after, unfortunately, um the trans community who already has a target on their back. It’s disgusting that we really have a Supreme Court that is oppressing people and supporting legislation that is going to end up in people dying because of voting. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: It’s violence. It’s violence.

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Because it’s violence. It’s utter violence. And I. I just. I don’t understand how people are sitting here, in DC and really cheering this on and thinking that they’re making our country and thinking that they’re making our society better by continuously trying to do more because they’re coming after queer people. They’re coming after people within lower socioeconomic status, but in the name–. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: They’re coming after every other religion other than Christianity. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Yeah. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: That’s that. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: So the right and conservative fixation on social issues like abortion, religious based education, LGBTQI rights has served them two purposes. It keeps evangelicals a cohesive voting unit, but has also formed an ideological bedrock for religious right. But ironically, our generation, more than any generation before us, identify as agnostic or non-religious. And how do we feel about that? 

 

Josie Totah: Hmm, I think that shows and I think it’s going to show um and be reflected into, you know, how the government is ran when we’re the people running it, in that the generations now, like um the boomers and then the people that are already in the ground. Um [laughter] have used religion because it’s a part of their life. I don’t think religion is going to go anywhere just because we now have like 18% of of the like of Gen Z um who are who either identify as either atheist or agnostic because people are still going to continue to be radical, like the far right wing group isn’t going anywhere and I think it’s only going to be galvanized more and more. Um.

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Yeah. 

 

Josie Totah: But I still think that it’s going to create room for people who are going to legislate with more of an open mind and with less of a like religious imposing um lens. Then what is what we’re seeing now. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Yeah, I have a lot of friends who are agnostic. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: One I agree with Josie, like I think it is going to greatly influence the way that decisions are made politically. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Completely. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: The fact that we aren’t as religious as the generation before us. But it makes me laugh because the irony of how Christians are so hellbent on, you know, imposing their beliefs on other people, it’s now making our generation have such a distaste for religion that we are the like least religious that the country’s ever been. It’s funny because conservatives and people from the right are like pushing religion and pushing scripture down our throats so much to the fact that our generation kind of detests religion, like personally, as a spiritual person, as a person who says that I love the Lord and I do identify as Christian, even though I critique it a lot. Um, I have so much compassion for when people are like, I don’t do church and I don’t do religion. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Mmm. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: And I’m like, Yeah, I understand why. I, as a Christian will like honestly say some of the worst, most judgmental people I’ve ever met have been in the church because I think that they care less about the relationship they have with the Lord and being loving, compassionate, empathetic people. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Yeah. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: And more about opposing, you know, what they think, quote unquote, “is wrong”. 

 

Josie Totah: Yeah. And I’ve actually even talked about you being Christian. And people have been like, oh, my God, your friend’s Christian? Like are you scared of her? And I’m like, No, she’s amazing. And I think that just goes to show that like, obviously, like, no group is a monolith. We talk about that all the time when it comes to like race, culture, class, ethnicity, like not all group thinks alike. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Yup. 

 

Josie Totah: And not every organization um and not every people part of an organization stands for for what that religion or organization is. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Yeah. 

 

Josie Totah: And I think that something that I’m really happy about seeing, like on TikTok is how much like spirituality has become like a big thing. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Mmmmm. 

 

Josie Totah: And less like religion. And I like would be really excited to see like how that allows people to like dictate decisions um and just by like following your just, you know, your natural spirit and by what you want and less about like what someone wrote in a book like hundreds of years ago. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Yeah. 

 

Josie Totah: I think ultimately that like what we found is that religion can be a beautiful thing, but it also can be dangerous. And like incorporating religion and government is, is, can be a weapon and can be weaponized and is has been used to oppress people. That’s just fact. And I think all that we can do is just, you know, people like you yourself, Alycia, like spreading the actual good word of God and uh allowing to just be yourself unapologetically. I don’t think we should just, like, make it not cool to be Christian anymore. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Yeah. 

 

Josie Totah: I think we should just like, you know, keep promoting the fact that, like, good, good Christians exist and at the end of the day, that like be Christian, period the house down, boots slay. 

 

[spoken together] Boots slay her. 

 

Josie Totah: Oh my god I sounded like a white ally. [banter]

 

Yasmine Hamady: Josie’s a white ally.

 

Josie Totah: Be Christian like the house down like boots, but like, don’t do it on the House floor. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Yeah. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Yeah. 

 

Josie Totah: Don’t do it in our legislation. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Boots the house down, but not on the house floor.

 

Josie Totah: Because that’s when it becomes toxic. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Keep it in like. Please pray to whatever God you believe in. Please be proud of your religion as well, because I think that’s a dangerous fear as well. Like we can’t make people feel awful for for, like for like their spirituality and their religion, but like we can’t impose our ideas on other people like and also like PSA to people of walk of–, any walk of faith or any religion. Like you’re doing yourself a disservice if you’re not learning and considering the people outside of yourself. Like there’s so much beauty in all religions. I know. Even though like I identify as Christian, like I have had such fruitful experiences um with people of different religions, you know, like I think, you know, fasting for Ramadan is beautiful. And I’ve stood in solidarity with my brothers and sisters and siblings in other religions and in their practices. You know, um I so I think that as a society, I hope that we are more open minded, but understand that it can’t have a place in our government, it can’t have a place um. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Yup. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: In our state because it inevitably leads to the erosion of human rights and oppressing people. So I hope that people can live in their truth and decide what empowers them, because that looks different for each person and find beauty in all religions, um but understand that it radically having a place in our government can’t be a thing. And if you’re a person trying to implement your own religion onto other people, I think that you need to be introspective and ask yourself if you’re really um celebrating your religion because you’re proud to be a part of that community or because you want to control other people. 

 

Josie Totah: I just want to say it to all of these people and to anyone out there and not not just people who are religious, but anyone that subscribes to any belief anywhere is to just be more open and to just love more and to move about life with more love and more empathy. Because we don’t have any room for exclusion anymore. We don’t have any room for intolerance and unacceptance anymore. And I think that in a world right now where people are rapidly losing their rights left and right, like we just have to move forward and act with our heart and not with what something we read in a book uh when we were younger or scripture that you believe, you know, gives you the right to impose on other people. And I just think the more that, I mean, not to sound all woo hoo, eat, pray, love, but like just the more like genuine compassion that that we have and the less convoluted we get when it comes to talking about like religion and involving that in our politics, I think the better we will be as people. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Yes. 

 

Josie Totah: And I think we are just losing a lot of empathy, which is literally the opposite of what God intended. And I know that because he is my dad. [music break]. 

 

[AD BREAK] 

 

Yasmine Hamady: So basically you all know us for being the gen-z ers, the Young and the Restless, the pretty ones, the iconic ones, the hot ones. Your favorite ones. Parent’s favorites, but. There’s something about my relationship with my grandparents and my relationship with people who are older. Some might call me an old soul. And so but there’s this disconnect and I just can’t quite put my finger on it. So we have a cute, little quirky segment called Advice to an Elder. And what we do is we or actually our producers reach out to the elder community [laughter] and [?] was that ageist? Cancel me. And so what they do is they–

 

Josie Totah: Reach out to really old people. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: They reach out to really old people and ask them questions or ask them what questions they have for their favorite Gen-Z trio. 

 

Josie Totah: Our first one is like 28, right? [pause] [laugh]

 

Yasmine Hamady: Apparently our first one is– 

 

Josie Totah: 30 hours later, because they’re so old they didn’t get the joke.

 

Yasmine Hamady: And so we, I just want to say we love. We respect and worship our elders. They walked so we could scroll. And for that, we just want to pay tribute and give back to society’s cutest and tragically overlooked group of people with a segment we’re calling Advice To An Elder. [laugh]

 

Josie Totah: Sounds like a sex phone hotline.

 

Yasmine Hamady: Well, it’s not. So we solicited questions from the boomers plus generations and gave them free rein to ask us whatever they wanted. So let’s get into it. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Woo! I’m excited for viejos. 

 

Producer: Okay. This is Rita. She’s 52. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Hi Rita! 

 

Producer: From San Francisco. She says hi. I’m a woman in my fifties, and I have been single since moving to a new city. Between a pandemic and a new life. I haven’t made dating a priority, but I’m thinking of doing that. What are words of encouragement or advice you have for me, and how would you feel about dating someone younger, like a decade younger? 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Rita, I’m so grateful that you asked this question. First of all, thank you for being vulnerable with us to talk about your dating life and that you haven’t been dating. That’s like important to acknowledge that you’ve been out of the game for a little. And so for that I would recommend, first and foremost, get take some cute photos of yourself, get dolled up however you feel most confident, comfortable, sexy, gorgeous. Take some photos and dare we say get on the apps. 

 

Josie Totah: Yeah, I would say honestly. So I have a mom in her fifties. [laughter]

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: You have a mom? [banter]. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: End of story.

 

Josie Totah: Yeah. I have a– Well, some people don’t. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: It’s [laughing]. 

 

Josie Totah: Sorry. Anyway, I have a mom in her fifties, and something that I always tell my mom, is like, you need to, like, feel hot. Like, I feel like you need to take yourself on a date first. And like if you’re having trouble dating people, I feel like you need to, like, wife yourself up, like start doing self-care things like, you know, like lighting some candles and like playing some R&B and like, you know, being alone with yourself and journaling and like taking yourself to dinner and like, really finding, like, your sexiness in yourself and like, reinvigorating that part of yourself because I think that can be lost, especially if you’re just coming out of a relationship or moving to a new place, like go to a bar and like sit there alone. Like go to a like an expensive, like the like where should she go? Like the Ritz-Carlton. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: No, no. Go go to the wharf, go to the marina, go get a drink after work. 

 

Josie Totah: Oh interesting. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: No, I’m sorry. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: She’s in San Francisco. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: You’re in you’re, Josie and I are from the Bay Area. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Yeah. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: So, like, go out go to these coll– um don’t go to these college bars. What am I saying. But like. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Girl. 

 

Josie Totah: Go to Westwood and the Marina. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Well, here’s my thing. You’re 52, you’re still young, you know? Get out there. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Thank you yeah. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Go out there. You’re sexy, you’re beautiful as long as you feel it. I also would say get therapy because I feel like you should be talking to someone through this because this is like a very transitional point of your time since you have been single for a while. And. And dating is scary. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Yeah. I was–

 

Yasmine Hamady: Um and I’m not saying that in like a disrespectful way we’re all in therapy or at least should be in therapy. 

 

Josie Totah: No that’s not. You’re the only one of us that’s in therapy. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Well, y’all both should be in therapy. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Therapy is amazing. I think everyone should be.

 

Josie Totah: And we want to. No, we want to be in therapy. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: So anyways. 

 

Josie Totah: I mean that as in, like we suck. Like we’re, we want to start. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Let’s talk. 

 

Josie Totah: No. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Yas-y we’re proud of you. But I will say going off of what Yas said. The reality of it is, no matter what age you are, I think dating is scary. Like–. 

 

Josie Totah: Yeah. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: I just turned 23 and it is difficult for me. I feel like I don’t understand what’s going on. Like I feel um as if, um you know, kind of disoriented by dating sometimes. So I will say, like, give yourself grace, mama, and thank you for even asking. And the fact that you’re even at a place to discuss it and like, ask these crazy, kooky girls on this random podcast um. 

 

Josie Totah: Babe, she has no idea who we are. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Yeah, nobody know who. 

 

Josie Totah: No. [banter]

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Before we even pose the question I think um is special. So like I would go off of what Yas and Josie said and like take care of your heart and like your space and energy first and do things that make you feel beautiful and that will allow you in the space to meet new people and like, put yourself out there, have fun. Like what is there to lose? 

 

Yasmine Hamady: I would recommend Bumble for you specifically. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: I would say– 

 

Yasmine Hamady: If I was a doctor and I was giving my doctor’s order for prescription, I’m going to recommend Bumble to start out because you get to swipe. Yeah first. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: So like join the apps if you feel comfortable doing so, but also go to coffee shops like put yourself in maybe new spaces um and be willing to meet people and stuff. But I think that that’s amazing that you’re in a new place and willing to date. And also to answer your question, do we think it’s cool or what’s our opinion about dating someone a decade younger? Baby, go for it. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Well, we can’t. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: What? 

 

Yasmine Hamady: We’re 23. That would be 13 years old. So.

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Not us I’m talking about Rita. Yo what the hell. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Second funniest thing I did today, Josie. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Um. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: She is not high fiving me back. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Oh, hell nah. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Okay, okay. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: I’m talking, [saying stop in Spanish]

 

Josie Totah: Okay. But I understand what you’re saying. We could date someone ten years older than us. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Um. Hello? No, she asked the specific question. I’m not talking about ourselves because I’m not trying to go to jail and eew that’s nasty. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Yeah, we know. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Rita said.

 

Yasmine Hamady: That’s why I’m saying we can’t. 

 

Josie Totah: I’m not commenting.

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: How do you feel about–

 

Josie Totah: Zoe Kravitz is crying right now.

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: How. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Why is she crying? 

 

Josie Totah: Because of her thing–

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Ai Ai Ai. 

 

Josie Totah: With Jaden Smith.

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Ai Ai Ai. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: [gasp] 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Anyways. 

 

Josie Totah: Yeah. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Guys. Okay, Rita specifically, Rita [rolling the R] asked if how do you feel about dating someone– 

 

Josie Totah: She’s Latina now. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Younger. Um like a decade younger. 

 

Josie Totah: Yes. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: So I’m saying for her that it’s beautiful. 

 

Josie Totah: [?] she should. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: If you feel like you have a genuine, sincere connection with this person and you want to explore connection, baby girl, do that. We don’t do social standards here. 

 

Josie Totah: Yes. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Do what feels natural and legal since y’all wanting to take it there. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Yeah, but also over 30, I would say is a nice benchmark. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Oh, my god.

 

Producer: Okay, next question. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Yes, next question. 

 

Producer: This is Maria, 64. She lives in Mill Valley. 

 

Josie Totah: Okay. 

 

Producer: My daughters are in their thirties and 95% financially independent, but they still have access to my credit cards, which I allow in case of emergency. I want to be there for them and help them when they need it. But oh my god, it drives me crazy seeing charges that aren’t mine. How do I get my daughters off my credit cards? 

 

Josie Totah: Maria. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Yo. 

 

Josie Totah: It’s time to step up and literally cut those daughters off. I swear, rip those cards in half. Throw them in a shredder, send them to a sewer. Your daughters are grown. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Yeah. 

 

Josie Totah: They are in their thirties. They should not even know how to find your money or your cash. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Yeah, it’s. How are they getting that? 

 

Josie Totah: You are 64 years old. You worked your entire life for someone who’s half your age to spend money. I don’t know, like Bloomingdales and on Uber eats um Postmates like you’re pushing like almost 70 like spend that money on yourself. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: I can’t. 

 

Josie Totah: Buy yourself some lingerie, buy yourself a vacation like. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Yeah no absol–

 

Josie Totah: They, your daughters should not be spending your money. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Yeah also and–

 

Josie Totah: That’s insane. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: They should be consulting and asking your permission before. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Yeah. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: [?] thinking about doing that. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Because I was going to say, hey, socioeconomically people are in different places in life, but. Just like frivolous shit that they’re spending your money on, that is absolutely not– 

 

Josie Totah: And they’re in their thirties, unless you’re like a billionaire then, I guess pop off. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Yeah, if like–

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: But see not even because I think it’s like it’s a conversation about principle. 

 

Josie Totah: And respect. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: And like, but like if your dad is like Jeff Bezos, first of all you shouldn’t be having a billion dollars [puking sound] but, like, I’ll take that money if it– 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: But you know what I’m saying? Like, so, mama Maria, we love you. And I think it’s beautiful that you wanted to help support your daughters for so long, but we got to cut the cord. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Yeah. Unacceptable.

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Because also, even if you have it, it’s the principle. 

 

Josie Totah: I agree. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Your money is your money. And they should be at a place and financially responsible enough. Like I am literally almost ten years younger and out of principle you know what I mean? I don’t want my mother to help because she’s made all these sacrifices for me to be at a place where I’m financially stable and making choices for myself. So mama Maria, like Josie said, cut them cards up. Absolutely not.

 

Josie Totah: Cut them cards up. And by the way, that’s coming from, I am a reformed child spender, I’m a surviving child spender. [laugh] I personally, I think one time when I was like 13 years old, I got an Uber to take my middle school friends and I to Vegas. So yeah, um. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Um. 

 

Josie Totah: All that goes is, is that my parents I did, when I started paying for everything my life got, my relationship with them got better. But it also made me starting appreciating stuff a lot more. Like, I didn’t, I was, I was more grateful and I was more excited to actually like own stuff. But.

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Yeah. 

 

Josie Totah: I mean. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: It’s like also teaching them like a lesson. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: That you have to work for your stuff. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: You should be responsible and you shouldn’t be relying on your mother simply out of comfort. That is not fair. So mama Maria, frankly, sit them down and transparently tell them this is not okay. I shouldn’t see random expenses, especially because you’re not articulating what’s going on to me um and don’t feel bad about cutting the cord. Take that agency back and you supported them long enough that that’s not happening anymore.

 

Josie Totah: And send them the bill, honestly. Send them the bill.

 

Yasmine Hamady: Be like hey, do you mind? 

 

Josie Totah: I also I hope you have, like, a plane’s worth of frequent flier miles. If there’s money that’s on your credit card, I’m like, are you do you have it on automatic payment? How are you making your bill? 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Please.

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: It’s not happening no more. 

 

Josie Totah: Is this affecting your credit? 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Yeah. It’s not happening.

 

Producer: Okay. Next question comes from Paul, who’s 60, and he’s in Saint Louis. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Hi, Paul. 

 

Producer: Should geezers ever dance? 

 

Josie Totah: I don’t know what the fuck [indistinct]. 

 

Producer: If so, to what? And when? 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Geezers. 

 

Josie Totah: Oh, that means like old people. 

 

Producer: Oh, my God, you guys. Yes old people. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: When you said geezer I like thought you were like talking like this. Like a geezer. Back in London like. [speaking in a bad British accent]

 

Josie Totah: No, well you said Saint Louis and I just didn’t know that was like a farmers reference. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: I’m a keep it a buck I didn’t know geezer was like a word that was used that way. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: I thought it was like, literally from the United Kingdom. Okay. [spoke in a bad British accent]

 

Josie Totah: Wait, so should they dance, I mean, I guess so. I don’t know.

 

Yasmine Hamady: Yes, you should be dancing to your last fucking breath, you guys. [spitting laughter] Dancing literally makes you happy. It creates endorphins in your body. Dance the night away Paul. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: That was so beautiful. 

 

Josie Totah: Yeah. [banter]

 

Yasmine Hamady: All I have to say is dance the night away .

 

Josie Totah: That’s the short answer. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Paul, Paul. Dance. Like, you should be twerking, you should be bachata-ing, you should be doing everything. Everything under the sun. [banter]

 

Producer: What songs should he be dancing to?

 

Josie Totah: Did you guys see the old guy that went on the Jimmy Fallon and danced with Dua Lipa? 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: I was just about to say Elton John and Dua Lipa. That’s what you should be dancing to. 

 

Josie Totah: No I wasn’t talking about Elton John. I was talking about a random old man who danced to Dua Lipa anyway, but that’s all. Just dance. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Just dance. And songs. Um. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: We can make a playlist for the elders. What we, [?] is, we can do that. [banter]

 

Josie Totah: Anything by the city girls. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Period. We should, we should make a playlist for the elders. But also, like I want to implore you, Paul, to explore music that maybe you didn’t listen to in your youthful years. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Lana Del Ray. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: So like. [pause] Get out. No, I’m just kidding. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: I’m an apologist. I don’t care. 

 

[sung] Get out. Right now. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Listen to JoJo. 

 

Josie Totah: Yeah. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: JoJo is amazing. 

 

Josie Totah: We love JoJo. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: And she’s also engaged to our brother, so listen to JoJo. 

 

Josie Totah: Yeah. 

 

Producer: Okay. So, Ben, 65 from Indiana is asking, why do Gen Z workers change jobs, careers so often and why do Gen Z workers feel so entitled? 

 

Yasmine Hamady: I feel like I can answer this one because I’ve changed jobs. So– 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: But wait, can I acknowledge the shade in his question? 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Yeah. First and foremost, Ben, you’re from Indiana. Also, that’s it. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Wait, Noo. 

 

Josie Totah: Yeah literally like if you’re living in Indiana. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Mike Pence is from Indiana, sorry. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Stop don’t do [?]. 

 

Josie Totah: So is [?]

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: We love all our– 

 

Josie Totah: Oh no that’s– 

 

[spoken together] She’s from Louisiana. 

 

Josie Totah: I think they’re same thing. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Ay dios mio. We love all our elders. But I just, I had to give a subtle nod to the shade in that question. He said, y’all don’t know what y’all want, but Yas-y, what’s your opinion? 

 

Yasmine Hamady: I— 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Because I have a strong opinion on this as well. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: So I want to just say I’ve changed jobs so often. The reason why I feel like Gen Zers changed so often is because we actually do care about our mental health more than. I feel like um other generations– 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: –generations were allowed too. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: I feel like it’s because we’re allowed to think more and it’s more. We’re allowed to. We put our happiness first. More than just working a 9 to 5 in a cubicle, I think that’s so much like my parents say that to me all the time. They’re like your generation. You guys feel so entitled. You guys get to just roam around and do what you want, pick up a job, then go to a next one. But that’s because usually when you’re at a job, you I feel like you just sell your soul to it. A lot of these corporate jobs. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: But at least like that’s what we’re conditioned to like– 

 

Yasmine Hamady: –To think and to believe. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: You know, like under the capitalistic structure, we are told, you know, your job has to come first and you shouldn’t be happy and that you should be okay. I was raised to think that, you know what I mean? Like, we all come from immigrant households and I’m like first gen, like Papi’s off the boat and I’m very proud of it. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Yeah. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: But something that I’m always talking about. So to answer this question in regards to like, why do we switch so much, I think it’s because like we are striving not only to make money and to achieve our goals, but to be happy, like Yas is saying. And I say this all the time, like my parents weren’t able to do so much because they were burdened with survival. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Yes. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Whereas I now have the space to explore self-fulfillment. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Right, Alycia. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: And that was something that my parents and family members have never gotten. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Because they didn’t have the opportunity to do so. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Yes, exactly. So that comes with me wanting to change jobs and explore new things and be this multi-faceted– 

 

Yasmine Hamady: And that’s a privilege to be able to do it. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: And to be this multi-hyphenate, you know, that wants to be an actress and voice her opinions as an activist and dance and do all of these things. That’s something that like generations before, were told that they couldn’t. So now we live in this new space and world um that tells us, go for what you want and we are allowed the privilege to do so. I think that’s why people in our generation are changing jobs so much, because we want to break the mold and we want– 

 

Yasmine Hamady: We’ll also never be satisfied. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: They will never be satisfied. [sung]

 

Josie Totah: Does that answer your question, Paul? 

 

Yasmine Hamady: From Indiana. 

 

Producer: On behalf of Paul. Yes. Um. Okay. Next question comes from Pam, 61 in Missouri. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Pam. 

 

Producer: How could the Democrats/Biden improve their tactics and messaging? And very importantly, are wide legged cropped pants acceptable for the over 60 crowd? 

 

Josie Totah: Oh, Jesus Christ. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Wait, can you repeat that? 

 

Josie Totah: She just flew, like, 40,000 miles. 

 

Producer: So she’s asking how Democrats and Biden can improve their tactics and messaging, I assume, to younger people. And also, equally as importantly, are wide legged cropped pants acceptable over 60? 

 

Yasmine Hamady: I just want to say that’s so. Hi, Pam. I just want to say that is so interesting that that was brought up towards Biden in messaging when for the last four years we had Trump and his messaging wasn’t– 

 

Josie Totah: Well, I think– 

 

Yasmine Hamady: too great. 

 

Josie Totah: –something that would be helpful for our generation is that we are missing, like what we feel like a backbone in our like in our leaders. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Yeah. 

 

Josie Totah: And like in our president and our um people that are that are. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: In charge. 

 

Josie Totah: In charge in Congress and legislation like people that say things but then do not back it up with action. And I think something that Republicans and conservatives do really well is they say crazy shit, but then they also do crazy shit. And that’s promising for people who believe in crazy shit. And I think that when you are trying, I think that the Democratic Party in the past three years, just uh from my perspective, it seems like they’re they’ve been with Biden trying to lead into more of like the middle of the road crowd. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Mm hmm. 

 

Josie Totah: To like appeal to more people. And I think they’re realizing that doesn’t work. But then also something like the Green New Deal and like working on legislation that is the complete opposite, you know, realm of things that is like lib all the way doesn’t really work either. And I think that just has to do with the lack of authenticity and like in our in our office. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Yeah. 

 

Josie Totah: And like, I think it’s frustrating. I think we don’t care if you’re saying trans people are like accepted if you’re not going to like actively work– 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Mm hmm. 

 

Josie Totah: To, you know, include include those beliefs in legislation. And we don’t care if you’re saying, you know, whatever, like it’s incredible and amazing and such a wonderful thing that we have someone like um KBJ on our Supreme Court like that is so amazing. But that’s just one step. Like, that’s one big step, but that is one step. And that doesn’t evade Joe Biden of all the stuff that he hasn’t done for Black women and Black people. And so I just think, yeah, having more of a backbone. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Absolutely. Josie may I say that was put so beautifully. Like that was what I was going to say. I was like. I am so like viscerally frustrated with like the Democratic Party because I just feel like it lacks sincerity. That’s the easiest way to put it. Like, it’s so disingenuous. Like, stop giving us these, like, like superficial, aesthetically pleasing diversity moments. But not actually–. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: You don’t fucking mean it. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: But not sitting on the floor and saying what you’re supposed to like and letting shit like the Build Back Better plan– not that it was perfect, just like fall through the cracks. And like, I think that that’s where that large disconnect between generations are, is like we are so passionate and so frustrated with the world in which we are in. And then we feel like we’re just simply being like pandered to and it’s like, oh, it’s, you know well we’re doing this, we’re doing that. And it’s yes. At the same time, there can be duality. We can acknowledge. KBJ that is so beautiful. That is a step in the right direction. But like we’re not doing enough. Like we can. I can acknowledge and we all three of us can acknowledge, like we are standing on like the amazing activists and ancestors and politicians that were doing the right things right? But like. I feel like the Democratic Party, in my opinion, is so comfortable with being lukewarm. And okay with like pacifying issues rather than doing like creating tangible change. And that is my frustration. So I feel like to answer the specific question of how do the Democratic Party or how does the Democratic Party um properly like market towards Gen Z’ers. Just be more sincere. Be more real. And actually give us plans that seem more tangible rather than pacifying, rather than saying, well, we’ve done enough. You know what I mean? It’s that it’s that whole idea of like, oh, well, Obama was was like, so problematic, like, oh, Obama was in office. Like, you’re Black. Be happy that you’re Black in America. Bitch. What the fuck.

 

Josie Totah: And the second part of your question. Absolutely not. If you’re short, don’t fucking wear them. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Wait, no I was going to say, yes. 

 

Josie Totah: No, if you’re short, don’t do it. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Okay. 

 

Josie Totah: It’s going to make you look shorter and weirder. And if you’re tall, I guess pop off whatever. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: I love a wide moment.

 

Yasmine Hamady: Coming from like the shortest person here. Wear whatever the hell you want. 

 

Josie Totah: Um also I mean I’m just trying to help her. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Damn. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Okay Josie. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: This became fashion police. 

 

Josie Totah: You don’t wear wide length pants. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: No. 

 

Josie Totah: You wear wide legged leggings. And they actually are cute. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Yeah, because my ass looks great in them. So I’m saying Pam’s ass might look great in them. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Pam wear wide pants. [indistinct]

 

Yasmine Hamady: But also I’m going to just end this little question with the great Lin-Manuel Miranda’s writing again of, If you stand for nothing, what will you fall for? And I think the Democrats need to take a hard listen to that. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: I love that we will incorporate Hamilton into everything. Like it’s, [laughter] it’s a problem but I’m proud. 

 

Josie Totah: Like, no, Republicans saw Hamilton. [indistinct] [banter]

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: They did. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Mike Pence did. 

 

Josie Totah: Oh yeah. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: And everyone was like [booing]. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: They did and they were like– 

 

Josie Totah: [indistinct] great. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Oh my god, Black and Brown people are so talented. Yay, history. Bye bitches let me oppress you. That’s what they did.

 

Producer: Fun fact. Lin-Manuel also wrote the Bring It On musical. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Period. I’m obsessed with that man. He is my dad.

 

Josie Totah: We love him. [banter]

 

Producer: Okay. So last question. 

 

Josie Totah: [indistinct] on this episode. 

 

Producer: Um, Janet, who’s 64 in L.A., is asking the really pressing question. I was wondering just today how young people attach those giant eyelashes on to their eyes every day. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Um. 

 

Josie Totah: So today was difficult for me. That’s so funny that you literally asked that question because Alycia and I talk about this almost– 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Every day. 

 

Josie Totah: Every time we hang out, which is every day. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Every day. Um. Hi, Janet Miss Jackson. If you nasty. I’m going to let you know how we do it. Some of us don’t. I do not know how to put on lashes. I wish I would, if I could pay a fee and it would allow me to know how to put on lashes. I would pay that fee, but I fully um am incompetent when it comes to putting on lashes. So I don’t. So I am in just as wonder as you are, [laugh] I’m such like, I say to Josie every day and I’m like, how? Like.

 

Josie Totah: No mine are bad today. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: No, she’s not. 

 

Josie Totah: But usually they’re good and you know what’s so funny. My housekeeper and I are going to a party Saturday night together. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Rosa! 

 

Josie Totah: And. [banter]

 

Yasmine Hamady: We love her. 

 

Josie Totah: And I was talking to Rosa, and she asked me. She’s like in her sixties. She asked me if I could Facetime her before when we’re getting ready. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Yes! 

 

Josie Totah: And teach her how to put them on. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Aww. 

 

Josie Totah: And I gave her a pair of her first fake lashes. So Rosa and I are going to get lit. She’s going to have her lashes did. And I’m very excited about that. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Um I I think that’s incredible, um for the people who don’t wear lashes. I see you. I’m here for you and I’m with you. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: And it’s okay. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: And I don’t because I was blessed. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: [gasp] 

 

Josie Totah: Um, blessed?

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Did she just use this as a flex? 

 

Josie Totah: Also blessed with a $75 um like budget to buy a lash serum, which means your lashes grow. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Girl. You do the same damn thing. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Fight. Fight. Fight. Fight.

 

Josie Totah: No I don’t, ask Alycia, do I use lash serum?

 

Yasmine Hamady: Yes. You use liaison. 

 

Josie Totah: No. Ask Alycia, do I use lash serum? 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: The girls are fighting. 

 

Josie Totah: Alycia, before bed. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: [saying wait in Spanish] wait.

 

Josie Totah: Before bed, do I use lash serum? Have you ever seen me? 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Yo, yo I’m not doing this with y’all. 

 

Josie Totah: Alycia have you ever seen me. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Yeah I’m not finna put me in a middle a no funny shit. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Yes she does. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Anyways, back to Janet. [banter] Yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo, yo. 

 

Josie Totah: I don’t [indistinct] 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Save it for later. [laugh] Back to Janet. If you don’t know how to put on lashes, that’s okay. But we can learn together because I’m learning right now as the girls are fighting. 

 

Josie Totah: Anyway, so live laugh love Janet. Peace love and joy.

 

Yasmine Hamady: Um, okay. 

 

Josie Totah: Jesus Christ. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Yeah. Anyway, so first of all, thank you to all the elders who went out of their way to ask– 

 

Josie Totah: Thank you for being old, honestly. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Yeah. Thank you for your service to this podcast. Um, We’re grateful for these questions. You, like, blew us away with them. I’m like balls to the wall. So happy. Um. No, but thank you for asking these questions. Um, this is one of my favorite segments because we kind of have that connect of the young and the old. 

 

Josie Totah: [?] 

 

Yasmine Hamady: [?] [music break]

 

Josie Totah: Okay guys, well, can I just say today was really insightful and honestly very helpful for me. Also made me realize how sort of scared I am to speak about these types of topics publicly just because I don’t want to mess up. 

 

[spoken together] Mmm. 

 

Josie Totah: And I’m talking about church and state, obviously not Addison Rae and her mom. Um, and so I think I was like I found myself being a lot more discernful and intentional than I normally am when I’m speaking. And I think that’s important. And I also think I learned a lot from the two of you. So I just want to say I’m really happy about the conversation we had. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Thank you. I agree. Josie, it was a very insightful conversation and I think all three of us, like had a lot of care with it and were worried. And I think that’s how most people feel like when we talk about these things and also like when we talk about it candidly in regards to like the digression of like our rights and like where we’re going as a society. Because I personally do feel like that’s what we’re experiencing in real time. 

 

Josie Totah: Yeah. And also to say that we’re not experts and I know we said that. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Absolutely. 

 

Josie Totah: Earlier, but. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: We’re just trying to figure this shit out together. 

 

Josie Totah: We’re just trying to figure this out and like, thank you guys for listening and like being on this ride with us and just constantly evolving to to like be more educated and to learn. And if this is telling you anything, you should all just go to your nearest church. And and take off all your clothes and come out as gay. And don’t let the law tell you otherwise. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: And don’t put your opinions on other people. Honey, you can love God without being an awful person. And in the words of Beyoncé, drop it church girl. Much love. We love you. That’s our show, guys. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: I just want to give a quick shout out from everyone here at Dare We Say, but especially from Josie, Alycia and I to our favorite intern at Crooked, Ella Price. Ella. Thank you so much for being a ride or die for our podcast and being such an important person here. I can’t wait to see what you do on BeReal. 

 

Josie Totah: Ella, you’re a goddamn legend. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Yes. We appreciate you so much. Thank you for being here. And thank you for putting up with all our shit and sitting through our meetings. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Yeah Jesus. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Like, we could not do this without our amazing team, but specifically Ella, who we’ve had for the last few months. So shout out to you sis. 

 

Josie Totah: Ella. We love you. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Yay. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: We love you, Ella. Have fun at school party for me. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Ella, go [?] Go blue. 

 

Josie Totah: Guys. Thank you for listening. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Thank you so much, guys. 

 

Josie Totah: Thank you.

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: We honestly appreciate it. 

 

Josie Totah: No, no. Genuinely thank you. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Please. Yeah, also stay along for the ride, guys. We’re going to keep talking. 

 

Josie Totah: Don’t forget to subscribe. Rate and review the show. Us. Tell us um you think we’re amazing. And stay engaged and stay hot and stay intelligent and drink lots of water and uh goodbye. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: Love yourself and love other people. Bye, y’all. 

 

Josie Totah: And abuse a vibrator. [music break] Dare We Say is a Crooked Media production. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: Caroline Reston is our showrunner, producer and mommy. And Ari Schwartz is our producer and show daddy. Fiona Pestana is our associate producer and Sandy Girard is the almighty executive producer. 

 

Josie Totah: It’s hosted and produced by me, Josie Totah. 

 

Yasmine Hamady: And me, Yasmine Hamady. 

 

Alycia Pascual-Peña: And me, Alycia Pascual-Peña. Vasilis Fotopoulos and Charlotte Landes, they are both our engineers. Brian Vasquez is our editor and theme music composer. Our video producers are Matt DeGroot, Narineh Melkonian, and Delon Villanueva and Mia Kellman.

 

Josie Totah: Lastly, thank you to Jordan Silver, Gabriela Leverette, Jesse McLean, Caroline Heywood, Shaina Hortsmann, Deisi Cruz, Danielle Jensen and Ewa Okulate for marketing the show and making us look so damn good.